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‘Giants of All Sizes’ was recorded at Hamburg’s Clouds Hill Studio, The Dairy in Brixton, 604 Studios in Vancouver and Blueprint Studios in Salford with additional recording taking place at various band member’s home studios spread across Manchester. As with their previous four studio albums, ‘Giants’ was produced and mixed by Craig Potter. Guests across the album include Jesca Hoop, The Plumedores and South London newcomer Chilli Chilton.

Given such bleak, if ultimately redeemed, subject matter, it is also, perversely, the most relaxed record which elbow have made in some time. On ‘Giants of All Sizes’, each band member extended their usual process of working on demos alone and followed their vision to its conclusion rather than, as Craig Potter puts it, ‘taking the edges off things to find compromise’. In tandem with this, they returned to playing live in the studio, encouraged to experiment with the banks of analogue equipment at Clouds Hill in Northern Germany, giving songs a looser, more live feel. The result is the most starkly dynamic record from the band in recent times, “Sonically unabashed”, as Guy would have it. Whilst album closer ‘Weightless’ has the gossamer melodies and communal harmonies for which the band have latterly been known, this album echoes earlier elbow work at times whilst also breaking new ground.

‘White Noise White Heat’ is motorik, metal machine soul driven by a vocal that is rage incarnate, ‘Doldrums’ mixes John Carpenter with The Plastic Ono Band to brilliantly disturbing effect and ‘On Deronda Road’ hitches stark bass beats and glitches to an ad-hoc choir. ‘Empires’ delivers dark resignation via an insidious melody and ‘Seven Veils’ continues the subversion by inverting the perception of elbow as a band for lovers into a band for haters, a double-barrelled fuck-you song par excellence. ‘The Delayed 3:15’ marries mariarchi guitars to jazz dynamics, Morricone via Buddy Rich, and ‘My Trouble’ is a clockwork, analogue shuffle housing a delicate melody that builds over the course of the song into a fragile monolith to the power of love.

Lead track, ‘Dexter & Sinister’, released on 10” ahead of the album, encapsulates the whole. A seven-minute musical journey that blends deep bass grooves, sudden keyboard stabs, dislocated piano and guitar runs and soul stylings then abruptly shifts gear, parts the storm clouds and takes wing, flying towards the heat of the sun. It is the soundtrack for these ‘hope free, faith free, charity free days’, a denial of the divine and a reconciliation, two songs in one song, two emotions for one emotion, human, fragile and brilliant like the album which it opens.

"Don't Turn Me From Your Door" - John Lee Hooker (g, voc), Earl Hooker, Eddie Kirkland (g), a.o

John Lee Hooker is not only a mystery but also an interesting man to study. Some, like the author Jacques Demêtre called the musician from Mississippi »the most raw and African of all blues players from a musical point of view«, while the critic Net Hentoff was awestruck by Hooker’s unfiltered power of expression that could scare the pants off a listener taken unawares. The numbers on this LP bear witness to the fact that Hooker’s musical language could stir one’s emotions deeply, even without the meaty 'boom boom'. Each title is like a raw diamond, which is intentionally uncut and is to be perceived with directness. With a stutter and a slur in his speech, the singer declaims his song over a twangy guitar, which is driven along by the rhythmic meter. A final farewell is taken sluggishly and sullenly in the forthright text of "You Lost A Good Man", and even a song without words ("Misbelieving Baby") ponders a question in a purely instrumental monologue. Apart from a dash of boogie ("Pouring Down Rain") Hooker avoids all manner of sweet sounds and harmonies. He remains austerely raw, mercilessly honest, occasionally unforgiving and denies all thoughts of any kind regarding going 'back to the roots'. This sound IS the root of it all.

This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head. More information under pure-analogue.

All royalties and mechanical rights have been paid.

Recording: 1953 in Cincinnati (OH) and July 1961 in Miami (FL)

Production: Henry Stone

Deep Hard Techno, Acid and psychedelic.
A side brings 2 mental tribe bangers, minimal and kind of classic in the style... Acid shouting under pressure !
The flip opens with a massive crossover Hardcore/tribe and Trance tune from Paradox, quiet an unusual sound !
Folowwed by another tune in the same vein from Pablo SHK.

Repress

Itis hot, it is lit, it is abartik! Only one copy per customer. Outstanding deep and grooving new Abartik. Merci Laurent.

South London-based band Soothsayers are set to release their ninth studio album 'We Are Many'. Held together by heavy basslines, solid grooves, and socially and politically charged lyrics; the album takes the listener into different sonic spaces with elements of dub, Afrobeat, improvisational jazz and electronica.

The initial steps in recording 'We Are Many' came in January 2019 when the band's founders - saxophonist Idris Rahman and trumpeter Robin Hopcraft - set out on a journey to Brazil. With executive production in the Sao Paulo studio by renowned music journalist and author David Katz, they hooked up with bass player and producer Victor Rice who they'd met sharing the bill at Freedom Sounds festival in Cologne, Germany a year earlier. Victor organised a session in Studio Traquitana, home of acclaimed Brazilian band Bixiga 70, and invited a selection of local musicians. Percussionist and singer Ligia Kamara contributed lyrics and melodies written in the studio, and drummer Bruno Buarque, guitarist Joao Erbetta and bassist Victor provided some solid, personality-driven input. Fresh and vital, what came out was a fascinating blend of Soothsayers' dub and Afrobeat mixed with distinctly Brazilian inflections.

After arriving back in the UK, Idris and Robin set about creating the remainder of the album in a different, yet complimentary way, and called on the services of Wu-Lu and Kwake at their The Room studio in South London. Things started to take shape very quickly, Wu-Lu and Kwake combining Soothsayers' music with electronic elements, while also referencing elements of the current UK jazz scene.

When lockdown hit in March 2020, there was still a lot of work to do in order to complete a full album and Robin and Idris set about working on tracks with their musicians remotely. Having time to consider the album as a whole, they found strong connections between the music recorded in Brazil and the tracks recorded in London and they set about fusing and combining these elements further into a satisfying whole.

UK based Sengalese singer Modou Toure was enlisted to guest on one track while percussionists Satin Singh and Maurizio Ravalico were engaged to help affirm a sound-world where Brazilian flavours, such as the low-end Surdo drum, were combined with sounds more readily associated with reggae and Afrobeat.

Soothsayers' three part vocal harmony is a defining factor in this album. With strong references to the vocal styles of reggae legends such as The Gladiators, Mighty Diamonds, Heptones, and Abyssinnians; it has benefited from the long-standing friendship between Robin, Idris and Julia Biel. Lyrics, melodies and harmonies were presented, discussed, explored and recorded at Idris' and Julia's home studio in Streatham in a relaxed and positive way, with concepts from social and political commentary turned into powerful songs.

Themes cover political observations of Trump and beyond alongside Brazil's president Bolsanaro (Rat Race), speaking out against increasing levels of violence from the Brazilian government towards its native and indigenous people (Love And Unity) and keeping hopeful despite the impending horrors of a no-deal Brexit (We Won't Lose Hope).

Elsewhere they discuss striving to create space for meditation and reflection against the background noise of 24/7 news and social media (Move In Silence), the daily grind (No Sacrifice) and workers' rights (Slave), while highlighting those that fall through the cracks in society and end up without a permanent address, what led to this and how close we all are from this happening (One Step Away).

'We Are Many' represents a positive and uplifting statement in the face of challenging times - the overriding force, power and positivity of the music to continue forward, pushing the boundaries of musical concepts into the future.

"Whilst heavy questions of life and death and the future of our species surround us all, music is a guide that can help us perceive the challenges in a different way - a guide that can help us towards a deep inner peace. If we listen, music can help light the way. We hope you will listen, and we hope you will experience the joy, meditative power and beauty in the connection of different musical cultures that was experienced in the creation of this album."

- Idris Rahman and Robin Hopcraft

What hides in the fog that keeps people apart, and what does it take to cut through it? These questions hang heavily over
Sarah Beth Tomberlin's music, whose hushed and intimate tones orbit answers as much as they savor the unanswerable.
To be in relation to another human being is to engage with a deep mystery: We are all fundamentally alone, siloed into
confusing bodies, and yet occasionally we ¬nd someone who lets us feel as if we weren't. Tomberlin, the Louisville native
who recently relocated to Los Angeles, delights in articulating and amplifying that mystery, picking out its details and
marveling at its scale. In singing her aloneness she soothes it, and extends a hand to others reckoning with their own
solitude--a paradox that warms her spectral songs.

Tomberlin's new Projections EP continues the arc of her critically acclaimed 2018 debut At Weddings, weaving new collaborators and new techniques into her signature dusky milieu. Since the LP's release, Tomberlin has toured with Pedro the
Lion, Andy Shauf, American Football, and Alex G, played a Tiny Desk concert for NPR, and given a riveting performance on
Jimmy Kimmel Live! The ¬ve-song EP, capped with a cover of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone's stunning "Natural Light,"
re ects this period of intensive growth and self-discovery. "I wrote these songs while getting to know myself outside of
people's perceived notions of who I was," says Tomberlin. "I just started being like, What am I interested in? What do I want
out of relationships and friendships? What am I looking for that I don't have in myself already?"

Gerd Janson, Lexx, Bell Towers, Belia Winnewisser, DJ Kaos and Never4ever remixed Ethimm’s By Night EP.

We all know Nights are nicer when you are with your friends, so Ethimm asked some of his old friends and favorite acts to remix his recent EP ‘By Night’. Quite a few hopped on the bandwagon: Germany’s most prolific remixer and DJs DJ Gerd Janson turned Ethimm’s ‘Lies’ into a relentlessly deep and driving house cut with drums reminiscent of New Order. Balearic boss Lexx stripped the track down to its bare vocal and rebuilt it with a 90ies New York vibe. Bell Towers added his prototypical leftfield approach to ‘Don’t Go Away’, while Berlin’s legendary DJ Kaos remade it into a classic acid stomper. The remix EP is completed by newcomer Never4Ever’s breakbeat treatment of the same track and swiss experimental queen Belia Winnewisser’s treatment of ‘Island Jam’.

‘Del Rio’ is the third album from the Austin triumvirate of guitarist Craig Clouse (Shit and Shine), bassist Nate Cross (Marriage, Expensive Shit) and drummer King Coffey (Butthole Surfers) and the band’s first release to feature vocals from Colby Brinkman (Taverner). While their two prior albums (2017’s ‘Laredo’ and 2019’s ‘Matamoros’) were somewhere on the periphery of rock music , ‘Del Rio’ is a step or several beyond and a real testament to human imagination (maybe you’re impressed by Tesla Powerwall batteries but that’s because you’ve not heard “Soft Taco”, yet)

Coming off a pair of records their respective labels could barely keep in stock and critical assessments that put reviewers’ own chops to the test (see below), USA/Mexico have delivered their most fully realized statement to date.

Prior praise for ‘Matamoros’ :

“Laredo was a bent-out sunstroke of processed vocals and noise-laden riffs, and its follow up Matamoros is slower, freakier, and somehow louder…too defiantly weird and alien for pigeonholing, that’s how they fit inside Austin’s storied noise rock and experimental music scenes: by refusing to fit exactly in anywhere.” Andy O’Connor, Pitchfork

“Monolithic without being monotone: dirty sounds and gritty textures sliding over each other like sandpaper wiped across a chalkboard.” Marc Masters, Bandcamp

“The amplifiers sound broken, the vocals suggest someone's got their leg caught in a mantrap while deep in the woods trying to poach fat brown hares, and the mixing desk squeals as if it is undergoing physical tort

Summer 2011, we discovered Triptides’ music through a music blog aggregator and immediately fell in love with it. Just after that, we decided to interview the band for our own blog and to release a single, their first-ever vinyl record, through our beginning sister label Croque Macadam. The single contained two songs Going Under & Outlaw, both coming from and self-released tape named Psychic Summer. One year later, Triptides released a CD album Sun Pavilion and we were releasing again another 7” record with the main single Bright Sky and an exclusive b-side (Darling). Both albums never were released as vinyl. 10 years later we are now releasing a beautifully remastered version of these two lovely albums. Since then, Triptides became one of the most endearing contemporary psych band alongside the dynamic Californian scene with which they share or shared members (Mystic Braves, Levitation Room, Frankie And The Witch Fingers…).
The Band then formed by the duo Glenn Brigman & Josh Menashe used to make their song from their Bloomington student home studio on an old Tascam 8 track tape recorder, already showing a deep interest for the sixties influenced music. If their first EP were showing some touching errors, despite the years passing, both Psychic Summer & Sun Pavilion are still offering a very nice musical experience for the listener. Their songwriting remains flawless and the DIY lo-fi production makes it sound as spontaneous and charming as it was back then. Our favorite songs such as Going Under, Who Knows, Satin Skies, Bright Sky, English Rain or Sun/Shine shows a great kraft for beautiful and catchy songs anchored in both a sixties tradition and the then-burgeoning modern indie-pop sound through very interesting surf influences and uses of a drum machine.
The reissue is a great opportunity to rediscover Triptides in their beginnings. The objects had been carefully made, Psychic Summer for example had a brand new artwork by psychedelic collage master Andrew McGranahan, both have color vinyl version and standard black. Far from being rough drafts, these two albums are still showing a beautiful angle on Triptides’ music and their always strong discography.

Summer 2011, we discovered Triptides’ music through a music blog aggregator and immediately fell in love with it. Just after that, we decided to interview the band for our own blog and to release a single, their first-ever vinyl record, through our beginning sister label Croque Macadam. The single contained two songs Going Under & Outlaw, both coming from and self-released tape named Psychic Summer. One year later, Triptides released a CD album Sun Pavilion and we were releasing again another 7” record with the main single Bright Sky and an exclusive b-side (Darling). Both albums never were released as vinyl. 10 years later we are now releasing a beautifully remastered version of these two lovely albums. Since then, Triptides became one of the most endearing contemporary psych band alongside the dynamic Californian scene with which they share or shared members (Mystic Braves, Levitation Room, Frankie And The Witch Fingers…).
The Band then formed by the duo Glenn Brigman & Josh Menashe used to make their song from their Bloomington student home studio on an old Tascam 8 track tape recorder, already showing a deep interest for the sixties influenced music. If their first EP were showing some touching errors, despite the years passing, both Psychic Summer & Sun Pavilion are still offering a very nice musical experience for the listener. Their songwriting remains flawless and the DIY lo-fi production makes it sound as spontaneous and charming as it was back then. Our favorite songs such as Going Under, Who Knows, Satin Skies, Bright Sky, English Rain or Sun/Shine shows a great kraft for beautiful and catchy songs anchored in both a sixties tradition and the then-burgeoning modern indie-pop sound through very interesting surf influences and uses of a drum machine.
The reissue is a great opportunity to rediscover Triptides in their beginnings. The objects had been carefully made, Psychic Summer for example had a brand new artwork by psychedelic collage master Andrew McGranahan, both have color vinyl version and standard black. Far from being rough drafts, these two albums are still showing a beautiful angle on Triptides’ music and their always strong discography.

‘Instant Opaque Evening’ is an epic offering from The Underflow, the new trio of Mats Gustafsson, David Grubbs and Rob Mazurek. It makes vast strides on the heels of their self-titled 2019 debut (Corbett vs. Dempsey/Underflow Records) with nearly 90 minutes of intensely focused live performances from January 2020 shows in France, Belgium, Italy and Poland. That tour was a revelation for all three members, experienced as they are, with this still-new group’s freedom to walk onstage each night determined to surprise one another, moving from long instrumental improvisations into and out of songs and covering a terrific amount of ground at each of these concerts.
‘Instant Opaque Evening’ conveys this broad sweep, from the full-tilt electronics of ‘Self-Portrait As Interference Pattern’ and the climax of the seventeen-minute ‘Instant Opaque Evening’ to the inspired, alternate universe chamber music of ‘Planks’ and ‘A Thin Eternity’ and the group’s spontaneous arrangements of three previously recorded songs by Grubbs, ‘Gethsemani Night’, ‘An Optimist Declines’ and ‘Cooler Side Of The Pillow’.
The short version of the long tale of intersecting paths bringing together these three musicians begins in Chicago in the 1990s, with all three active participants in numerous convergences among jazz, free improvisation, experimental rock and more. Both Gustafsson and Mazurek appear as guests on Gastr del Sol albums (‘Upgrade & Afterlife’ and ‘Camoufleur’ respectively; that’s Rob’s cornet taking ‘The Seasons Reverse’ to new heights) and shortly thereafter Grubbs and Gustafsson recorded two duo albums, including the deep minimalism of ‘Apertura’, a talismanic favourite of both musicians.
David Grubbs has played in Gastr del Sol, the Red Krayola and Squirrel Bait and performed with Tony Conrad, Susan Howe, Pauline Oliveros, Will Oldham and many others. He’s the author of the books The Voice in the Headphones, Now that the audience is assembled and Records Ruin the Landscape.
Saxophone player, improviser and composer Mats Gustafsson is known as a solo artist and for international tours and projects with, among many others, Sonic Youth, Merzbow, Jim O’Rourke, Barry Guy, Otomo Yoshihide, Yoshimi, Peter Brötzmann, Neneh Cherry, Christian Marclay, Albert Oehlen, Ken Vandermark and the working groups FIRE!, THE END, LUFT, ANGUISH and Gush, as well as collaborations with contemporary dance, theatre, art, poetry and projects with noise.
Rob Mazurek is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on electro-acoustic composition, improvisation, performance, painting, sculpture, video, film and installation, who spent much of his creative life in Chicago and then Brazil. He currently lives and works in Marfa, Texas. He leads/co-leads many ensembles of various sizes and shapes including his flagship large ensemble Exploding Star Orchestra, Chicago Underground and São Paulo Underground. He has
collaborated with Bill Dixon, Pharoah Sanders, Roscoe Mitchell, Jeff Parker, Nicole Mitchell, Chad Taylor, Jim O’Rourke, Naná Vasconcelos and many others.

Grey Vinyl

Serum is a series where we invite talented electronic music producers for a temporary creative collaboration. For the fourth edition we are glad to share three timeless pieces of deep dubbed out techno by Mohlao (aka Multicast Dynamics, VC-118A). The record is then completed by an atmospheric tribal interpretation by Dorisburg.

By uniting these newfound friends of ours, we welcome the new solar cycle and wish everyone a healthy and prosperous venture toward summer.

City Slang is thrilled to announce the debut album of London based singer-songwriter Anna B Savage! Her 2015 EP was deeply intriguing and quickly drew the attention of Father John Misty and later Jenny Hval, both of whom brought Savage out on European tours.

City Slang is thrilled to announce the debut album of London based singer-songwriter Anna B Savage! Her 2015 EP was deeply intriguing and quickly drew the attention of Father John Misty and later Jenny Hval, both of whom brought Savage out on European tours.

Beyond the striking photography of the cover artwork, a cursory glance at this LP may appear misleading. One could be forgiven in thinking that what they had discovered was of a more obvious British provenance, but on closer inspection the truth is revealed… London in fact refers to London, Canada, an artistic hotbed that famously spawned the highly influential insurgent noise ensemble, 'The Nihilist Spam Band'. Less celebrated yet equally remarkable was the improvisational powerhouse 'The London Experimental Jazz Quartet', a short lived group led by the forward thinking saxophonist Eric Stach.

Their debut album, Invisible Roots is an overlooked jewel from the Canadian jazz scene. Inspired by the revolutionary artists from the New York free-jazz movement, (namely Ornette Coleman, Archie Sheep and Cecil Taylor), and fuelled by the exciting possibilities afforded by a completely free approach to music, Invisible Roots is an album of potent spontaneous composition, exhibiting both fiery unharnessed blowing alongside lyrical streams of consciousness. In recent years, the album has achieved notoriety in certain record collecting circles mainly due to the track Destroy The Nihilist Picnic, an infectious piece of vamping avant-funk. Despite the commanding presence of this track, it would be misguided to judge the merits of the album on this piece alone, for Invisible Roots is a much deeper and more complex musical statement. This is confirmed by the Iberian-jazz sketch, Spain Is For Old Ladies, the spiritual introspection of Jazz Widows Waltz or the ferocious yet soulful Eric's Madness, a track which wouldn't be out of place on an ESP-Disk or BYG Actuel album. Behold, a rare piece of fire music from the Canadian Free-Jazz underground.

First LP reissue of rare 1974 Canadian Free Jazz album.
Featuring the Avant-Funk classic 'Destroy The Nihilist Picnic'
Includes liner notes and rare photos.
Tip-on sleeve

In his essay ‘The Meaning of My Avant-Garde Hillbilly and Blues Music’, Henry Flynt talks about how his music should be analysed as an intellectual tribute to the music of the autochtone, setting aside plain folk references, but adopting academic insights to mold the music one makes as a folk creature. Much of Flynt’s discourse applies to the music of Glen Steenkiste’s Hellvete. Over the past twenty years he has been thoroughly investigating both the ethnic musical language of various regions as well as the contemporary pioneers that preceded him as a drone musician, internalizing concepts such as e.g. deep listening or just intonation. Casting off any redundant ideas or sounds, and stripping down the focus to develop singular concepts, his working method lead to pieces such as ‘Droomharmonium’, in which he shapes the endless variations on a theme, emphasizing detail and nuance rather than multitude. The Indian harmonium here serves as the main device to worship ancient ghosts and masters, and to preserve a continuum in a tradition that touches both folk and avant-garde culture. The materialisations are sustained tone compositions which become a means of appreciation of the people and cultures that paved the way for forms of mutual escapism. This might well be the core of what Hellvete’s music is about. As much as it is a form of self-entertainment – like folk music in the old days – it also invites the listener to a shared experience of sonic reverie, it is a casual gift to the community.

This is certainly true for the pieces presented on this album. They were first presented in a smoke filled and darkened art space in Ghent, Steenkiste surrounded by only a couple of candles and just enough stage light to see him erratically moving to the rhythm of the piece, occasionally twiddling the knobs of a Doepfer synth that processed the prerecorded harmonium tracks. Unlike most of his other performances this piece embraced the audience in a trance that was similar to that of an old-school rave club. Flynt writes: ‘The music should be intellectually fascinating because the listener can perceive and participate in its rhythmic and melodic intricacies, audacity of organization, etc. At the same time, the music should be kinesthetic, that is, it should encourage dancing.’ ‘Voor Harmonium’ does exactly that; it builds on the artistic ideas that have long been established in Hellvete’s oeuvre, but the ecstatic nature of these pieces merges the usual spiritual transcendence with one of determined physical bliss. It encourages both mind and body to step into the sound, to be enraptured, to celebrate.

Nahawa Doumbia's new album Kanawa concisely captures this current moment in Malian history. The singer, whose storied career spans more than four decades, reflects on the immigration crisis from the Malian perspective in the title of her new album Kanawa. Across eight songs recorded in Bamako with a band including traditional and modern instruments, Doumbia merges her early work that relied on a spare expression of her trademark didadi rhythm with the bombastic range of contemporary Malian pop. The beautifully complex musical accompaniment that results is courtesy of the large ensemble she pulled together with producer and arranger (and day one collaborator) N'gou Bagayoko. The band features two highly expressive Malian string instruments, the ngoni and the slightly smaller kamalé ngoni, as well as a variety of percussion, drum programming, karignan (a metal scraper) and acoustic and electric guitars. Doumbia's daughter, a celebrated singer with her own group and busy concert schedule, Doussou Bagayoko sings on "Adjorobena," a song about patience, tolerance and living in peace. Doumbia weaves together a roadmap of her psyche when it comes to the good and bad life has to offer. She talks about marriage and women leaving home to join another through the metaphor of a tree in the garden; she includes gunshot samples in the song "Foliwilen" to honor the bravery of hunters, soldiers and other courageous people; she uses a bird in "Djougoh" to talk about lazy people; and, in "Ndiagneko" she advises people to ignore critics, just do you. Mali has gone through an intense period of regional strife and terrorist incidents over the last ten years and Doumbia roots the album in tragic local concerns with deep global implications. "The meaning of Kanawa is so simple. We see our children trying to cross the ocean all the time. I said that many of our children die in the ocean and some of them die while crossing the Sahara. But I ask them why do they leave their country? They said that they leave because of the family situation or problems like poverty and unemployment. I ask them to stay and work in their country. I call on the UN and African leaders so that we can coordinate our efforts to find a solution, to create jobs for them so that young people stop leaving. That's why I chose it as the title of my album so that everybody can learn from it and also so that there is a reduction in the number of people emigrating. So that some will hear the message and stay home and grow the land. Leaving is not the only solution. My message is to help the youth find jobs."

Having established himself as a core Apollo artist with three fantastic EPs since 2016, Sieren now steps up with a first full length for the label. 'Timelapse' is a majestic 13 track trip into this unique artist's very emotional fusion of post-bass bliss. Sieren aka Matthias Frick is a master of intricate electronics and bittersweet emotions, of deep atmospherics and compelling rhythms. He has been building a dedicated following for some years now, putting out his debut album on Christian Loffler's Ki Records in 2016. Inspired by a rich history of bass-driven UK sounds, he pairs that with a love of field recording and experimental soundscaping, and now shows he is an ever evolving master of his art on this stunning new record.

House Disco deep funky baby !!!

Without bottle opener

The eighth chapter of the Apparel Wax saga brings with it, as always, a multitude of sounds and suggestions. The masked producer always manages to renew himself, bringing something new and special to each record but always remaining faithful to his musical line. APLWAX008 will be released in January and consists of four tracks: the first is a track with a very marked dynamics and is characterized by a solid rhythm section, a bass line that recalls the UK garage, vocal samples and a beautiful harmonic evolution produced by evolving chords. The second track, A2, winks at Jazz and Soul with a production rich in rhythmic virtuosity, keyboard solos and an almost hypnotic vocal loop while the second side starts with B1, which takes us back to an imaginary dancefloor with a powerful beat and airy disco chords. The EP closes with B2 that softens the tones giving a more intimate, classy and deep end, with references to Funk and R&B. In short, an EP that touches many genres while remaining compact as a whole. Another small masterpiece of production and music selection by Apparel Wax.

Fabrizio Lapiana continues to offer up deep musical escape from these troubling times with another expertly crafted techno EP, Cantamen, on his own Attic Music label. It features four of his own original cuts and builds on the success of his latest release, Collective Chaos, back in March.

For more than a decade, this Italian artist has been at the forefront of a techno scene that deals in deep and rolling drums, well sculpted synths and cavernous grooves that are rich in ambient detail. His Attic Music label has been at the centre of that thanks to careful A&R and always innovative releases, while he has also released on cult imprints such as M_Rec Ltd, ARTS, Figure Jams and Out-Er and many other collaborations.

Sleek opener 'Demons' is a mind melting and widescreen deep techno groove. Groaning synths creep across the face of the track as all manner of earthy and organic motifs drift by, as if you're racing through an underground network of caves. It's music for the mind as well as the body, and the hugely atmospheric 'Cantamen' is just the same - fizzing synth details and alien life forms fill the airwave with tension as the smooth and supple kick drums pound away down below.

The hypnotic masterclass continues on 'Kura' with rattling snares and harder hitting drums making you move your body before coarse claps and a majestic arpeggiated synth hook repeats up top and takes you to another level of rapture. Last of all is the fantastic 'Back Home', which has a skeletal electro groove run through with late night sci-fi pads. Its vast sense of cosmic infinity leaves you feeling floating adrift amongst the stars.

These are four evocative and cinematic techno tracks that take you into another dimension.

NEP was a loose multimedia collective formed in 1982 Zagreb, ex-Yugoslavia. The founder Dejan Krsic collaborated with various artists in a quest of re-thinking the stale concepts of art history, position of the author and the barriers between pop and elitist high culture. Heavily influenced by Walter Benjamin and Andy Warhol in theory and Brian Eno and Kraftwerk in music, Krsic created NEP as an umbrella term (meaning Nova Evropa or New Europe) of diverse rule-breaking activities, covering graphic design, music, photography, video, news-media and theoretical work. Musically NEP focused on experiments in ambient and tape-music, self-released and hard to find compilation tapes like "The Cassette Played Poptones" (1988). Deeply immersed in pop-culture, politics and art theory Krsic's search for perfect pop music with cutting critical edge peaked in 1989, the year 'Decadance' track was conceived in studio. Fox & His Friends published the single in 2017 with Snuffo Remix on B-side. It received rave reviews in music press like MixMag and DJ Mag and it is still played on dance-floors around the world. But the story around the NEP is musically (as well as artistically) much wider: for the first time Fox & His Friends team compiles best cuts from unreleased and rare NEP tapes, covering the period from 1985 to 1989 on POP NOT POP abum. Dejan Krsic is now famous graphic designer and art historian in Croatia. Other collaborators include Laibach and Borghesia photographer Jane Stravs, artist and TV director Gordana Brzovic, Jovan Culibrk, now Bishop at The Serbian Orthodox Church and Anja Rupel, singer of cult Yugoslavian synth-pop group Videosex as well as the other members of Videosex, Iztok Turk and Janez Krizaj who produced some of the tracks. Other collaborators were talented producers Robert Logozar and Davor Daga Devcic, singers Linda Cooper, Natalija, Alexx Kovacs... The list of collaborations is long. Some of the memorable moments on POP NOT POP album are early demo version of Decadance 'How Do I Dance To This Music?' with blue movies samples and drum machine experiments like early Cabaret Voltaire, then Krsic's reinterpretation of legendary Kraftwerk's Trans Europe Express anthem as 'Transcendance', or 'Radical Chic', where Dejan himself and Anja Rupel from Videosex make lovely couple of dandy-esque fashionistas, singing chart-friendly radio synthpop tune that contrasts the A-side (The 'NOT POP' side) - full of experiments, dark wave and industrial nods to Test Department and Cabs. B-side is 'THE POP' side that will surprise most of the NEP followers from their early experimental cassette days. Sunny, danceable, joyfull pop that reveals the many faces of NEP. As Kraftwerk today is more of a concept than a band, NEP does the same by re-writing its products (musical, graphical, theoretical, activist) and constantly puts them in permanent state of change or re-mix. In the future, only NEP logo will be enough to consider something an art piece, and NEP will be everybody who wants to, as their Art Manifest claims. Until that day comes, 'POP NOT POP' is a document of how the vivid and creative were art-scenes in socialist Yugoslavia. Some of the graphic work, cut-ups from theory and Manifesto are also included on this LP, designed by Dejan Krsic aka NEP himself. This release is made from the original master tapes and published for the first time on vinyl.

The Tipping Scale is a gorgeously sung cycle of songs that mix deeply personal lyrics with universal themes; Kinlaw is a smart, conceptual writer, one not afraid to explore deep emotions like loss, regret, and confusion, alongside strength, identity, and change. She explains that The Tipping Scale is an ideal metaphor for the record, the idea of an ever-present slipping in and out of change, and an acceptance of this kind of change. On it, she unravels intimate memories and tries to learn from them. As you listen to her songs and decode her words, you realize she's not just building songs, she's also creating a home_where painful thoughts of the past can exist within the present_as well as an entirely new, unflinching universe. This universe she created is not metaphorical_it's, in fact, very real. Kinlaw, who often works with gesture and movement as a writing tool, found The Tipping Scale unifying her multidisciplinary practice. She found it by building a real world. As she wrote, with the goal of finding human entry points for storytelling that felt authentic and honest to her practice, she often saw the music relating to motion. "I would start with a gesture and let it build into something until a memory attached itself to it," She explains. "The memory would become a story and the story would reveal itself as something important that needed to be expressed in this album." This works, too, for the lyrical process, where harder and less smooth gestures would represent consonants, and smooth, flowing movements would become vowels. She found the same thing happening with melodic lines and key changes. This is a record that jolts between the corporeal and the psychological, drawn from a flailing body, anchored by inconvenient truths. RIYL: Choir Boy, Jenny Hval, Kate Bush, Boy Harsher, Caroline Polachek, Black marble, Julia Holter, Grouper

Limited edition cloudy clear vinyl. Combining processed recordings of wind and water with analog synthesizers and chamber orchestra, Elori Kramer's The Blue of Distance is an audio dissertation on the role technology plays in our relationships to geography and nature, unspooling into an examination of memory and longing across seven sections that layer filmic minimalism over churning electronic soundbeds. Half of the suite was written in the Adirondack mountains during summer amid lakes, rivers, and moss-laden forest floors, while the other half was conceived on a frozen Lake Superior island in deep winter, creating a subtextual dialogue between the two extreme settings. Kramer, who was born in 1990 and grew up alongside the internet, uses her music to explore nature in the actual and the virtual world, through direct experience and facsimile alike, focussing and blurring the line between the two. "Looking back at my videos of that summer-- which is where the processed audio came from-- I tried to remember what it had felt like to be there," she recalls, "thinking about questions of reality versus imagination; physical versus digital; and the ways in which memory shifts through our minds and technology." The title The Blue of Distance was derived from Rebecca Solnit's book A Field Guide to Getting Lost, referring to the phenomenon of faraway mountains appearing blue due to light particles getting lost over distance. "If we were to go up to the mountains that appear blue from far away, we would see that they weren't actually that color." she says. "This beauty is made possible because of their distance," much in the same way that the splendor of a lush season is only fully realized in the throes of a bleak one, and the joy of an event can only be felt when it has long since been consigned to remembrance. R.I.Y.L Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Josiah Steinbrick, Emily Sprague

“Instead of landscape sketches I wanted to go into more personal areas of my reality,” says Jim Ghedi of his third album In The Furrows Of Common Place. “To hold up certain aspects of society that were laying bare in front of me.”

Whilst Ghedi’s previous idiosyncratic take on folk has often been instrumental, exploring the natural world and his relationship to it through his music as seen on 2018's A Hymn For Ancient Land. His new album In The Furrow Of Common Place is a deeper plunge inside himself to offer up more of his voice to accompany his profoundly unique and moving compositions. “There were things I was seeing around me and being affected by in my daily life,” he says. “Socially and politically I saw defiance but also hopelessness. I wanted to be honest with the frustration and turmoil I was experiencing.”

The decision to include more of Ghedi’s vocals was a conscious one and driven by a need to say something. However, this isn’t a brash raging political polemic. As is now customary with Ghedi’s work, it is rich in nuance, history, poetry and allegory. Musically, the album is equally locked into this ongoing sense of evolution. Ghedi’s intricate yet deft guitar playing still twists and flows its way through the core, weaving in and out of gliding double bass, sweeping violin, gentle percussion and vocals that shift from tender solos to overlapping harmonies.

As with much of Ghedi’s work, there’s a rich connection between the past and the current. Musically, he continues to sit in a singular position of sounding distinctly contemporary yet also with a touch of traditional flair. This expands itself into the lyrical terrain here too. “I've been exploring contemporary issues and in that process discovering sources that correlate with similar issues in the past,” he says. “Which proves that these issues throughout history - environmental destruction, working class poverty etc - are ongoing.”

For all the socio-political and historical backdrop to the record it is not one that feels overwhelmed by it. Much like Ghedi’s work when it was largely instrumental - and some of it still is here - it flows and unfurls thoughtfully, with space still being utilised masterfully, creating room to pause and reflect. It’s another inimitable record from an artist that truly sounds like nobody else right now.

Four albums in, the convenient and generalized catchphrase for Here Lies Man’s erudite sound — if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat — might seem a little played out. But Ritual Divination is perhaps the best rendering of the idea so far. Particularly on the Sabbath side of the equation: The guitars are heavier and more blues based than before, but the ancient rhythmic formula of the clave remains a constant.
“Musically it’s an opening up more to traditional rock elements,” says vocalist/guitarist/ cofounder Marcos Garcia, who also plays guitar in Antibalas. “It’s always been our intention to explore. And, as we travelled deeper into this musical landscape, new features revealed themselves.”

The L.A. based band comprised of Antibalas members have toured relentlessly following their breakout 2017 self-titled debut. Their second album, You Will Know Nothing and an EP, Animal Noises, both followed in 2018. Third album No Ground To Walk Upon emerged in August 2019. All of them were crafted by Garcia and cofounder/drummer Geoff Mann (former Antibalas drummer and son of jazz musician Herbie Mann) in their L.A. studio between tours. Ritual Divination is their first album recorded as the full 4-piece band, including bassist JP Maramba and keyboardist Doug Organ.
Ritual Divination continues with an ongoing concept of HLM playing the soundtrack to an imaginary movie, with each song being a scene. “It’s an inward psychedelic journey, the album is the trip,” Garcia says. “The intention and purpose of the music is to create a sonic ritual to lift the veil of inner space and divine the true nature of reality.”

Likewise, musically and sonically, the album is self-reflexive. “On this album the feel changes within a song,” Garcia says. “Whereas before each song was meant to induce a trancelike state, now more of the songs have their own arc built in.” Similarly, the guitar sounds themselves herein eschew the fuzz pedals of previous recordings, going for the directness of pure amp overdrive and distortion using an interconnected rig of 4 amplifiers. And, here, the well-versed live band is able to record as a unit, giving it much more of a live and dynamic feel.

Rough Trade named the band’s self-titled debut in their prestigious Top 10 Albums of 2017. BBC 6 & Classic Rock Magazine deemed it among the year’s best, as well as countless other press outlets singing its praises. Each subsequent album furthered the band’s reputation for genre-smashing rhythmic experimentation, topping many year-end lists as well as earning features from countless metal and indie rock outlets, plus cover stories in weekly papers.
“We’re very conscious of how the rhythms service the riffs,” Garcia explains. “Tony Iommi’s (Black Sabbath) innovation was to make the riff the organizing principle of a song. We are taking that same approach but employing a different organizing principle: For Iommi it was the blues, for us it comes directly from Africa.”
Ritual Divination will be available on LP, CD and download on January 22nd, 2021 via RidingEasy Records.

Four albums in, the convenient and generalized catchphrase for Here Lies Man’s erudite sound — if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat — might seem a little played out. But Ritual Divination is perhaps the best rendering of the idea so far. Particularly on the Sabbath side of the equation: The guitars are heavier and more blues based than before, but the ancient rhythmic formula of the clave remains a constant.
“Musically it’s an opening up more to traditional rock elements,” says vocalist/guitarist/ cofounder Marcos Garcia, who also plays guitar in Antibalas. “It’s always been our intention to explore. And, as we travelled deeper into this musical landscape, new features revealed themselves.”

The L.A. based band comprised of Antibalas members have toured relentlessly following their breakout 2017 self-titled debut. Their second album, You Will Know Nothing and an EP, Animal Noises, both followed in 2018. Third album No Ground To Walk Upon emerged in August 2019. All of them were crafted by Garcia and cofounder/drummer Geoff Mann (former Antibalas drummer and son of jazz musician Herbie Mann) in their L.A. studio between tours. Ritual Divination is their first album recorded as the full 4-piece band, including bassist JP Maramba and keyboardist Doug Organ.
Ritual Divination continues with an ongoing concept of HLM playing the soundtrack to an imaginary movie, with each song being a scene. “It’s an inward psychedelic journey, the album is the trip,” Garcia says. “The intention and purpose of the music is to create a sonic ritual to lift the veil of inner space and divine the true nature of reality.”

Likewise, musically and sonically, the album is self-reflexive. “On this album the feel changes within a song,” Garcia says. “Whereas before each song was meant to induce a trancelike state, now more of the songs have their own arc built in.” Similarly, the guitar sounds themselves herein eschew the fuzz pedals of previous recordings, going for the directness of pure amp overdrive and distortion using an interconnected rig of 4 amplifiers. And, here, the well-versed live band is able to record as a unit, giving it much more of a live and dynamic feel.

Rough Trade named the band’s self-titled debut in their prestigious Top 10 Albums of 2017. BBC 6 & Classic Rock Magazine deemed it among the year’s best, as well as countless other press outlets singing its praises. Each subsequent album furthered the band’s reputation for genre-smashing rhythmic experimentation, topping many year-end lists as well as earning features from countless metal and indie rock outlets, plus cover stories in weekly papers.
“We’re very conscious of how the rhythms service the riffs,” Garcia explains. “Tony Iommi’s (Black Sabbath) innovation was to make the riff the organizing principle of a song. We are taking that same approach but employing a different organizing principle: For Iommi it was the blues, for us it comes directly from Africa.”
Ritual Divination will be available on LP, CD and download on January 22nd, 2021 via RidingEasy Records.

In a time where everyone from Whitney Houston to Frank Zappa have been re-created in hologram form, where Grimes recently suggested in an interview that “we were at the end of human art”; there could scarcely be a better time for genre-shifting Leeds-based six-piece Team Picture to bring forth the thrillingly expansive synth-pop opus of their debut album The Menace of Mechanical Music.

Inspired by an early 20th century essay under the same name by American marching band leader John Philip Sousa, Team Picture take a look at the automation of creativity on this, their first record with a fully settled line up. Themes centre around the value of creative identity in an automated age, the increasingly disposable nature of art and where that leaves its creators. At twelve songs split into a three-part suite; The Menace of Mechanical Music is emphatically maximalist.

Tracks like the breathy, twinkling Flowerpots, Electric Beds and Handsome Machines’ Icarus-like striving for the sun are an antidote to a music world awash with digital production manipulation and songs written to algorithm. In debating the loosening of the human grip on creativity, Team Picture have poured every last drop of emotion into the recording process.

The group’s now trademark three-way vocal delivery and blurring of textures takes on new structure and purpose. They’ve always had a self-awareness to themselves, too. Initially grouped in with the guitar psych crowd, thanks to their fledgling repeato-rock, they were quick to disassociate themselves from that on 2018's mini-album Recital. With The Menace of Mechanical Music, they expand their sound further still, pirouetting from the likes of Sleeptype Auction – which glimmers like a late 80’s 4AD artefact – through various FX-laden dreamscapes, to the squelchy post-punk of closer Quit Reading. Yet the group were as much influenced by the work of the Early Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch, and his triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, as they were music touchstones ranging from Kate Bush, Cass McCombs and The Cure.

It’s Sousa words that resonate most deeply within the record however: “The fears of Sousa echo the fears of today's musician,” says Lewis of the late band leader’s 1907 text. “The re-appropriation of funds and support that the artist needs to survive, the gradual erosion of musicianship and self-improvement, that art will become disposable, and that our cultural identity will disappear.”

Recorded with producer Matt Peel (W.H Lung, Eagulls), half the group were unemployed during the session and a daily routine would see them undertake universal credit meetings and job interviews in the morning, before heading to the studio to work into the night. “It was an anxious process but an enjoyable one” says the band’s guitarist Josh Lewis. Indeed, beyond the increasingly golden gated idea of ‘making it’ as an artist, this new album is simply about surviving as one.
Sousa’s vision of a society that had deferred to automation, where babies were rocked to sleep by wheels and pulleys, and people no longer played piano with their own hands. Well over 100 years later and on the precipice of a technological shift never seen before, The Menace of Mechanical Music is the most human response that Team Picture could have given.

Terry Gross is an engrossing trio composed of guitarist Phil Manley (Trans Am), bassist Donny Newenhouse, and drummer Phil Becker. The trio are also connected as owners and engineers at Bay Area recording spot El Studio, where they began improvising together as a way to test the boundaries and gear of the studio. Their loose, organic chemistry burgeoned into a deep camaraderie and a sound both expansive and exacting. The three experienced musicians crafted their first fulllength album through the pure joy of playing together with no expectations. With the tapes rolling on their rehearsals, the band captures the exuberance of live performance and elevates those recordings through a deft use of the studio as their collective instrument. On their debut LP Soft Opening, Terry Gross channels their cosmic powers and considerable chops into a gleefully mesmerizing odyssey fit for an arena. Soft Opening took shape over the course of 2016-2019, with Terry Gross writing and refining their songs. "Space Voyage Mission" and "Worm Gear" parallel one another as sinuous jams that pulse with adamantine fervor. Each mountainous epic churns spellbinding repetition and simplicity into dizzying gallops that take hairpin turns into sinewy riffing and elysian vocal melodies. Phil Manley's guitar takes on a constellation of tones across "Space Voyage Mission" with drifting delays soaring over the Newenhouse and Becker's driving rhythm section which all succumb to frothing overdrives that spin the song into entirely new pastures. The hypnotic throb of "Worm Gear" grows all the more enchanting as Newenhouse and Becker add subtle shifts to the single-chord barrage. "Specificity (Or What Have You)" contrasts these two in its more traditionally pop-oriented structure while retaining its predecessors wide-eyed energy and delves further into the album's lightheartedyet-earnest take on sci-fi tropes from space and time travel to the singularity. As Terry Gross, Phil Manley, Donny Newenhouse, and Phil Becker are sonic scientists traversing the borderlands of rock. Soft Opening captures the simple joy of a no-holds-barred trio in stunning detail, transporting the listener into the splendor and freedom of rock.

Ecstatic Meditations’, the follow up to 2016’s acclaimed debut solo outing ‘Interludes’, features six beautifully crafted new tracks leading with an edit of the 20 minute album opener and lead track ‘Journey In Ecstasy’. An adventurous deep listening experience, the new collection was recorded, mixed and mastered by Furse at his electronic studio on the Margate coast.
A sonic tapestry of sound that takes inspiration from the likes of Alice Coltrane, Laraaji, Eno and Steve Reich together with a new found appreciation for Japanese environmental music composers such as Akira Ito and Yasauki Shizimu. The result is an intense yet playfully refreshing take on ambient and electronic music.

In 1976 Rolling Stone called prog-rock pioneers Crack The Sky ‘one of year’s most impressive debuts.’ Today, 40+ years later, the band releases a new studio album entitled Tribes, due out in January 2021.
The title track speaks volumes about modern society’s perpetual cultural divide, wherein each side believes its inalienable right to champion the only opinion that matters.
Side 4 of the album includes bonus tracks from Crack The Sky’s catalog, not available on the digital or CD versions.

Never Give Up is Partner’s second full-length album, following 2017’s In Search of Lost Time.
In the years since their first release, the band has developed their “post classic rock” sound, trading their 90s rock influences, for deep power grooves, bona fide guitar heroics, and big-hearted vocals from singers Jos e Caron and Lucy Niles.
Partner deliver a more anthemic, kinder, queerer boogie, for all who love the perfect riff, the perfect drum fill, for all whom Rock is their rock.

‘A Mind of Your Own’ is the debut release from The Bright Siders, the duo of acclaimed songwriter and musician Kristin Andreassen and NYC child psychiatrist Kari Groff, MD. Brimming with uplifting and empowering songs, the album invites its listeners to think deeply on feelings and emotions that come with growing up, while focusing on resilience and mindset.
Along with a slew of all-star guests including Ed Helms, The War and Treaty, Oh Pep!, The Hokes (a.k.a. Punch Brothers), Gaby Moreno, and more, The Bright Siders bring profound sensitivity and vivacity to songs about friendship, bullying, anger, acceptance of others, and coping with sadness and change.
This music is sure to spark meaningful conversations and bring families closer as they explore the beauty and complexity of their emotional lives together.

Houston’s reputation for developing first-class jazz acts is well-established, as a stream of young players have been distinguishing themselves for decades…among those musicians and mentors who stood tallest, Bubbha Thomas was no exception (and a major key-player) in this long tradition of talent.

Before becoming an artist and educator, Bubbha Thomas (born 1937) was a Fourth Ward kid who grew up in a music-filled household. In High School he divided his time between music & basketball (he excelled at both) and studied with jazz legend Conrad “Prof” Johnson. “Prof” would later bring jazz glory to Texas with the Kashmere Stage Band, the group of teenagers who would win the “Best High School Stage Band In The Nation” prize in Mobile, Alabama in 1972 and who were anthologized in 2006 on Now-Again’s ‘Thunder Soul’ (which led to the 2010 Jamie Foxx documentary of the same name).

After finishing college, Bubbha got drafted in the service (he was a Korean War veteran) and would return to Houston in the early 1960s where he found work as a session drummer for the Duke and Peacock labels. Thomas drummed on recordings by O.V. Wright, Buddy Ace and the Mighty Clouds of Joy. He was playing his own stuff and backing luminaries such as R&B singer Chuck Jackson and homegrown legends like Lightnin’ Hopkins. Bubbha Thomas also teamed up with some of his equally legendary peers (like guitarist Melvin Sparks & organist Leon Spencer) and eventually established his own group, the Jazz Merchants.
Bubbha learned every style that was thrown at him and he played straight-ahead jazz with renowned artists before the political and social upheaval of the late 1960s led him to a path first charted by Coltrane and Sun Ra…the result of these new found influences was the incredible spiritual jazz ensemble ‘The Lightmen’, who released four incredible recordings in the 1970s. Their first album ‘Free As You wanna be’ predates the deep-set, maverick jazz issued by the likes of Tribe and Strata East and is a harbinger of some of the best in the 1970s jazz underground. The Lightmen albums eventually fell out of print until 2017 when the Now-Again record label brought them back into circulation and generated new interest in Bubbha Thomas’ work.
Thomas had a storied career as a drummer and bandleader, but perhaps his most enduring work is that as founder of Houston’s Summer Jazz Workshop, a remarkable program that nurtured upcoming talent for generations...we can’t begin to count the number of young people who benefitted from the exposure to music-arts because of Bubbha Thomas and what he meant to the Houston music community. In his career he earned five Grammy nominations and authored a pair of books. Next to this he was also a writer/editor for several local newspapers, ran one of the first Houston African American Television shows and he hosted a radio program on KYOK. Impressive to say the least!

Bubbha Thomas passed away in March 2020 at the age of 82. It was obvious he was a principled, fiery & wise person…and any anger he felt at America’s (and the world’s) injustices he met with music, intellect, activism and unity!

Next to his work with ‘’The Lightmen’’, Bubbha also released the fantastic (solo) album ‘Life & Times’ in 1985. ‘Life & Times’ (which we are proudly presenting you today) is particularly interesting to boogie-enthusiasts because of its high doses of funky twerks, solid grooves, crazy synth work, soulful vocals and excellent drum-beats courtesy of Mr. Thomas himself. You’ll quickly find yourself shaking hips the moment the needle hits the first track! The whole album is backed by a fantastic cast of all-star players and includes Howard Harris (Ruth Copeland), Dwight Sills (Bobby Lyle - TLC), Jerry McPherson (Donna Summer), Leo Polk (Kashmere Stage Band), John Gordon (Strata East) and Jackie Simley (Queen Latifah - Lionel Richie). All of the above makes this LP an essential purchase for any self-respecting fan and collector.

Tidal Waves Music now proudly presents the FIRST ever vinyl reissue of this fantastic album (originally released in 1985 on Lightin’ Records). This rare record (original copies tend to go for large amounts on the secondary market) is now finally back available as a limited 180g vinyl edition (500 copies) complete with the original artwork.

Marie Knight's legendary 45 from 1964 that made her a name in the Northern Soul scene. Massive spin in Wigan Casino allnighters, officially reissued here for the first time with 'Say It Again' on the flip, as originally released.


DESCRIPTION
Singer and pianist, Marie Knight made her name as a gospel superstar recording for Decca in duet with the legendary Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Her first solo record for Decca arrived in the mid '50s, just a couple of years before her signing to Mercury. She later toured with rhythm and blues acts like the Drifters, Clyde McPhatter and Brook Benton. Three singles followed on Diamond in 1963/64 before she was signed to Musicor Records later in 64.

Her definitive non-religious song 'That's No Way To Treat A Girl', crafted in this period, failed to become a hit at the time but was the recording that would make her name with the Northern Soul fans in the UK many years later, standing as one of the most celebrated spins at the Wigan Casino allnighters.

The slow-paced ballad on the flip-side, 'Say It Again', is a beautiful deep soul song that echoes the gospel singing Knight had mastered over the years. After her deal with Musicor ended, she was unable to land another secular recording contract. "That's No Way To Treat a Girl' is officially reissued here with 'Say It Again' on the flip for the first time, as originally released.

Netflix's acclaimed series Suburra: Blood on Rome (available in over 190 countries) focuses on the deep connections between politics and organised crime in the Italian capital. The soundtrack to the third and final season was written, produced and performed by Roman rapper and songwriter PIOTTA, whose "7 Vizi Capitale" was already the theme song for seasons 1 and 2. His music beautifully complements the gripping plot and the characters' journey, capturing the atmosphere of a side of Rome unknown to many. The vinyl LP contains 10 previously unreleased tracks, including 2 instrumentals and a remix; the CD features 3 bonus tracks.

With 9 albums under his belt, Tommaso Zanello, also known as PIOTTA, is one of the pioneers of Italian hip hop. Active on the Roman rap scene since the mid-90s, he earned national fame with his award-winning single "Supercafone" (1998), which was later used by Sky Japan as a theme song for the Italian football championship. He can boast collaborations with hip hop legend Afrika Bambaataa and English musician Captain Sensible and has toured the United States with the Vans Warped Tour.

Recorded and produced sometime, somewhere between the back streets of Hackney, Margate and Sydney, this release brings together 4 deep and diverse tracks from UK producer Mike Misiu (previously seen on Razor n Tape and Pleasure Unit among others). It also marks the maiden musical voyage of his new label Heads High.

Opening track 'Darkness Falls' floats a dramatic filtered string section over a driving dub-disco-house beat, spacey synth plucks and euphoric swells.

Track 2 'Cascade' builds on a tumbling synth bass and moody chord stabs with jazzy rhodes, strings and filtered vocals to create an infectious shuffling deep House groove.

On the B side 'For Your Love' is a bubbling psychedelic cauldron of hypnotic synths, piano lines and soulful vocal echoes which come together as a driving electro-discoid-funk jam.

Closing out the E.P. is 'Bala' is an uplifting percussive number with a vibe that transports you to an Afro-cosmic dancefloor beyond the stars.

Among the heroes and innovators of 70s spiritual/progressive/funk/jazz, Doug Carn has always flown a little under the radar. He has long plied his trade with patience and dedication, releasing absolutely stunning albums that are cherished by cognoscenti but lesser known even to the jazz mainstream, even as his influence can be detected among his colleagues. Carn"s newest project, his entry in the Jazz Is Dead album series helmed by Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, takes his unique and timeless art and places it within the context of a musical culture that has always taken cues from his "70s classics. There"s no mistaking the musical mind that created legendary albums like Infant Eyes and Adam"s Apple, but the encounter of that with the distinctive jazz-hip hop-funk-noir that is the Younge/Muhammad/JID trademark creates something worthy of comparison to Carn"s past work but which could only have been made right now.

Erell Ranson confidently displays his renowned character of finely textured Electronics with old school aesthetics on Propersound 007.

Electro, Deep Techno, and Downtempo are the styles traversed to you from the machines with emotive class, and ambient pads across 4 lovely tracks.

Limited pressing of 200 copies..

Shame follow up their wildly acclaimed debut with a James Ford-produced peek into the riddled mind of the band's frontman, Charlie Steen. There are moments on Drunk Tank Pink where you almost have to reach for the sleeve to check this is the same band who made 2018's Songs Of Praise. Such is the jump Shame have made from the riotous post-punk of their debut to the sprawling adventurism and twitching anxieties laid out here. The South Londoner's blood and guts spirit, that wink and grin of devious charm, is still present, it's just that it's grown into something bigger, something deeper, more ambitious and unflinchingly honest. The genius of Drunk Tank Pink is how these lyrical themes dovetail with the music. Opener Alphabet dissects the premise of performance over a siren call of nervous, jerking guitars, its chorus thrown out like a beer bottle across a mosh pit. Songs spin off and lurch into unexpected directions throughout here, be it March Day's escalating aural panic attack or the shapeshifting darkness of Snow Day. There's a Berlin era Bowie beauty to the lovelorn Human For A Minute while closer Station Wagon weaves from a downbeat mooch into a souring, soullifting climax in which Steen elevates himself beyond the clouds and into the heavens. Or at least that's what it sounds like. From the womb to the clouds (sort of), Shame are currently very much in the pink.

Shame follow up their wildly acclaimed debut with a James Ford-produced peek into the riddled mind of the band's frontman, Charlie Steen. There are moments on Drunk Tank Pink where you almost have to reach for the sleeve to check this is the same band who made 2018's Songs Of Praise. Such is the jump Shame have made from the riotous post-punk of their debut to the sprawling adventurism and twitching anxieties laid out here. The South Londoner's blood and guts spirit, that wink and grin of devious charm, is still present, it's just that it's grown into something bigger, something deeper, more ambitious and unflinchingly honest. The genius of Drunk Tank Pink is how these lyrical themes dovetail with the music. Opener Alphabet dissects the premise of performance over a siren call of nervous, jerking guitars, its chorus thrown out like a beer bottle across a mosh pit. Songs spin off and lurch into unexpected directions throughout here, be it March Day's escalating aural panic attack or the shapeshifting darkness of Snow Day. There's a Berlin era Bowie beauty to the lovelorn Human For A Minute while closer Station Wagon weaves from a downbeat mooch into a souring, soullifting climax in which Steen elevates himself beyond the clouds and into the heavens. Or at least that's what it sounds like. From the womb to the clouds (sort of), Shame are currently very much in the pink.

Germany Exclusive on Smoke Marble Vinyl, only 1000 copies available. Shame follow up their wildly acclaimed debut with a James Ford-produced peek into the riddled mind of the band's frontman, Charlie Steen. There are moments on Drunk Tank Pink where you almost have to reach for the sleeve to check this is the same band who made 2018's Songs Of Praise. Such is the jump Shame have made from the riotous post-punk of their debut to the sprawling adventurism and twitching anxieties laid out here. The South Londoner's blood and guts spirit, that wink and grin of devious charm, is still present, it's just that it's grown into something bigger, something deeper, more ambitious and unflinchingly honest. The genius of Drunk Tank Pink is how these lyrical themes dovetail with the music. Opener Alphabet dissects the premise of performance over a siren call of nervous, jerking guitars, its chorus thrown out like a beer bottle across a mosh pit. Songs spin off and lurch into unexpected directions throughout here, be it March Day's escalating aural panic attack or the shapeshifting darkness of Snow Day. There's a Berlin era Bowie beauty to the lovelorn Human For A Minute while closer Station Wagon weaves from a downbeat mooch into a souring, soullifting climax in which Steen elevates himself beyond the clouds and into the heavens. Or at least that's what it sounds like. From the womb to the clouds (sort of), Shame are currently very much in the pink.

It seems that every major jazz artist has a one-off sort of record in their discography, be it with strings, voices, spoken word or - as in this case - a foray into the funkier side of jazz. Charlie Rouse (going here as Charles Rouse) gets his chance on Two Is One, a funky soul jazz excursion on Strata-East, the artist-run label where creativity and pushing boundaries was at the forefront. Playing mostly with a group of session musicians, Rouse put together an album that may stray a bit from his hard bop roots, but is nonetheless an enjoyable and at times inventive record. The style of music played here - sophisticated soul jazz with some post bop and spiritual jazz thrown in for good measure - is very much a product of it's time. 1974 saw a whole slew of artists stretching the boundaries of what jazz music could be, combining elements from the past two decades into electric jazz adventures. The piano-less group that Rouse put together is a funky one, with lots of rhythmic playing behind either the searching solos of Rouse on the tenor or some inventive electric guitar work from either George Davis or Paul Metzke who appear together on all but a couple of tracks. Cal Scott gets plenty of time to shine throughout on what sounds like an electrified cello, an unusual instrument for modern jazz to be sure, but one that manages to fit in just fine here.

The first side of the album is all slow burning soul jazz, highlighted by the opening track "Bitchin'" where Rouse shows off that he is more than capable of setting down soulful lines over a funky backbeat. The second side is where the group gets a whole lot more inventive, particularly on the title track where they mix some post bop madness with the soul jazz sound. "Two Is One" features different tempos throughout: in the "first section" the bass plays in 9/8 time, the drums in 6/8 time and the cello and tenor are in 3/4 time. For the "second section" the rhythm section switches to 7/8 time while cello and tenor move to 4/4 time. Stanley Clarke is on bass here and his deep and twisty electric bass line is placed prominently up front.

"Two Is One" is certainly the highlight of the album from a pure jazz standpoint, and it lives up to it's title, which according to Gene Lewis' liner notes is taken from a Thelonious Monk phrase meaning two people so in tune with one another that they become one. The album finishes off with "In His Presence Searching," a spiritually informed jazz number that is reminiscent of the work being done during this period by the likes of Pharoah Sanders and Gary Bartz, (while not being quite as out there as their best work). The tune is all rhythmic glory, with Rouse and Scott playing introspective and penetrating solos throughout. It's a nice album closer, and a good reminder that while Two Is One may be best known for it's funkier excursions, Rouse had a few tricks up his sleeve and the album, when taken as a whole, is a complete statement from a legendary jazz musician.

On to my short review. I have to admit that I'm biased in favour of Charles Tolliver. He plays with a combination of strength and sweetness that goes beyond mere language. The fact that he is self -taught is more miraculous. This particular recording has the best sound quality I've ever heard. The clarity is stunning and all the music is magnificent. The recording is so good, one can hear the sound of a musician's fingertips accidentally brushing across the bass strings, for example. Alvin Queen is always brilliant on the drums. This group has a synergy that just goes so deep, it feels like they're reading each others' minds. But I can't recommend this enough. It's some of the best recorded jazz I've ever experienced.

DJ Trace founded 117 records in 2013 and now drops his first solo release on the imprint with 'Retox' this winter. Deep rolling techstep is the vibe, each track a reflection of moments from the raves of the 90's. Now that the world faces an uncertain and dystopian future, Retox can provide a suitable soundtrack.

Available in 2x12inch clear or black vinyl. Mastered by Simon @ The Exchange.

Clear Vinyl

DJ Trace founded 117 records in 2013 and now drops his first solo release on the imprint with 'Retox' this winter. Deep rolling techstep is the vibe, each track a reflection of moments from the raves of the 90's. Now that the world faces an uncertain and dystopian future, Retox can provide a suitable soundtrack.

Available in 2x12inch clear or black vinyl. Mastered by Simon @ The Exchange.

Shame follow up their wildly acclaimed debut with a James Ford-produced peek into the riddled mind of the band's frontman, Charlie Steen. There are moments on Drunk Tank Pink where you almost have to reach for the sleeve to check this is the same band who made 2018's Songs Of Praise. Such is the jump Shame have made from the riotous post-punk of their debut to the sprawling adventurism and twitching anxieties laid out here. The South Londoner's blood and guts spirit, that wink and grin of devious charm, is still present, it's just that it's grown into something bigger, something deeper, more ambitious and unflinchingly honest. The genius of Drunk Tank Pink is how these lyrical themes dovetail with the music. Opener Alphabet dissects the premise of performance over a siren call of nervous, jerking guitars, its chorus thrown out like a beer bottle across a mosh pit. Songs spin off and lurch into unexpected directions throughout here, be it March Day's escalating aural panic attack or the shapeshifting darkness of Snow Day. There's a Berlin era Bowie beauty to the lovelorn Human For A Minute while closer Station Wagon weaves from a downbeat mooch into a souring, soullifting climax in which Steen elevates himself beyond the clouds and into the heavens. Or at least that's what it sounds like. From the womb to the clouds (sort of), Shame are currently very much in the pink.

Kurt Vile’s ‘Speed, Sound, Lonely KV (ep)’ was recorded and mixed in sporadic sessions that spanned four years at The Butcher Shoppe studio in Nashville, TN. It includes five songs - covers of John Prine and “Cowboy” Jack Clement as well as two originals - and was recorded alongside a cast of local heavies like Bobby Wood, Dave Roe and Kenny Malone, with Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys) and Matt Sweeney (Chavez, Superwolf) tossed into the mix as well.

Most importantly, it features what KV has called “Probably the single most special musical moment in my life” - a duet with the late John Prine on the songwriter’s well-loved tune, ‘How Lucky’. “The truth is John was my hero for a long time when he came into The Butcher Shoppe to recut one of his deepest classics with me. And, man, I was floating and flying and I couldn’t hear anything he told me while he was there till after he was gone for the night,” notes Vile in a personal statement that accompanies the record. “A couple nights later we were playing ‘How Lucky’ together again; this time onstage at the Grand Ole Opry on New Year's Eve at the turn of 2020. Nothing like seeing John and his band of musical brothers and family and friends playing into the new decade in front of an adoring audience on that stage in Nashville, TN... and, yup, that’s just how lucky we all got that night."

DAUW present the release of What the Fog, the second album of David Allred & Peter Broderick. The album is a follow-up of their first full-length LP Find the Ways, which was released through Erased Tapes in 2017.

The music itself was originally composed as a soundtrack for an 11-hours slow motion journey in the Louvre museum in Paris. The title, #monalisa, can be interpreted as a new way of perceiving art through technology and social media such as Twitter or Instagram. The movie is directed by Jennifer Anderson and Vernon Lott and tries to make us more aware of the presence of technology in our lives as well as the way we experience an exhibition or art itself. The album is a 42-minutes extraction of the 11-hours journey they went through. Each track is built in a way that makes it possible for the listener to travel from one place to the other, as if you were walking in the museum yourself. In that way, the record can even be perceived as a music documentary.

Being completely instrumental, What the Fog distinguishes itself from their first album in which the voices of both artists held a central place. Nevertheless, in line with an earlier observation from Clash Magazine, the music still combines minimalism and serenity to construct intense pieces of music.

“It presents a moment of calm that uses sparsity to create something quietly intense.” (Clash Magazine on their debut album)

Born in Maine, raised in Oregon, Peter Broderick learned to play several instruments such as piano, banjo and violin. In 2007 he joined the Danish ensemble Efterklang on their tour and had numerous collaborations with artists such as Machinefabriek and Nils Frahm. His most recent release Blackberry was released this August through Erased Tapes. It marked his first vocal album in 5 years and once again showed the variety in his ever growing repertoire.

In a relatively short period of time, Portland-based musician and multi-instrumentalist David Allred showed his songwriting capabilities through several releases on Oscarson and Erased Tapes. Besides his own music, he played as a session musician for several artists and ensembles such as Heather Woods Broderick, Masayoshi Fujita and The Beacon Sound Choir. His most recent album Felt the Transition sees the light late December 2020 through Erased Tapes.

Modern House Quintet present their debut album, an LP featuring their vision of what electronic music has to offer. This record sees the duo explore the various sounds and influences that make them what they are. Presented in two separate LPs, this first is a vibrant mix of inspirations, ideas and sounds. From deeper soulful music, to more upfront and synthetic and all the way through to pieces that incorporate instruments you might not always hear in this kind of music.

-LTD. COL. EDITION-

We are always sitting on a handful of unreleased songs that didn't make their way to albums. Listening back to these gems we decided to launch a new series entitled Big Crown Vaults and the first volume features the music of Lee Fields & the Expressions. These tunes were cut during the Special Night & It Rains Love sessions. Listening to these tracks you can imagine how difficult some of these decisions were in the first place to leave them off the albums. An absolute standout is "Regenerate," a song that finds Lee in the country soul realm, a style that Mr Fields, a North Carolina native, flourishes in. A drum break starts the song and then drops into a chorus where El Michels, Paul & Big Bill Schalda belt out the earworm chorus. Lee sings an encouraging tune about finding your way out of a low point in a relationship while The Expressions lay down an airtight groove. "Thinking About You" takes it back to the dance floors with what will surely be a hit at Soul parties around the globe. An uptempo drum break opens the song and Lee launches into a tale about the unbreakable bond with his significant other and how they keep each strong through moments of hardship and pain. People who have seen Lee perform live in the last decade might have been lucky enough to hear his rendition of Little Carl Carlton's "Two Timer". For those of you who haven't heard it, Big Crown Vaults has got you covered. A faithful version of the song showcases Lee's gorgeous voice and the Expres- sion's unwavering groove. Another treat on here is the fuzzed out funk banger "Do You Know" where Fields uses his platform to address some of our societal woes in a "Make The World" style. A deeper from the vaults number is "Out To Get You", an instrumental that Lee never laid down vocals to. Even as just a rhythm track it stands as a testament to The Expressions musical prowess, the band that created 5 studio albums with Lee Fields which will go down in history as stone classics.

Darker Than Wax's first release of 2021 brings us back to the world of UK dance music with Dampé - the solo project of Joe Munday, a musician, producer and DJ from South London. Joe's foundation in dance music stems from becoming a regular on the floor at influential parties like FWD>> and You're A Melody. Dampé brings together these London sounds with worldwide influences and nuanced, ethereal production to create something entirely his own. With a string of releases on Berlin's Dirt Crew Records, and a monthly show on the venerable Rinse FM, Dampé has carved out a space for his sonic brand of introspective, deep UK dance music. Spurred by a chance meeting with the Darker Than Wax crew in London in 2018, an instant relationship between artist and label flourished through our shared sonic ethos. After numerous setbacks from the chaos of 2020, we are proud to finally share Dampé's label debut with the world - Oil.

INDIE EXCLUSIVE, LTD PURPLE VINYL! Among the heroes and innovators of 70s spiritual/progressive/funk/jazz, Doug Carn has always flown a little under the radar. He has long plied his trade with patience and dedication, releasing absolutely stunning albums that are cherished by cognoscenti but lesser known even to the jazz mainstream, even as his influence can be detected among his colleagues. Carn's newest project, his entry in the Jazz Is Dead album series helmed by Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, takes his unique and timeless art and places it within the context of a musical culture that has always taken cues from his '70s classics. There's no mistaking the musical mind that created legendary albums like Infant Eyes and Adam's Apple, but the encounter of that with the distinctive jazz-hip hop-funk-noir that is the Younge/Muhammad/JID trademark creates something worthy of comparison to Carn's past work but which could only have been made right now.

“The greatest thing about being a musician is experiencing it with other people,” says Ed Riman, the Brighton-based Eurasian singer, songwriter and sound-scapist who records as Hilang Child. “Whether that’s playing with others, creating together, sharing a vision, whatever, I just think in all aspects it’s a totally elevated experience when you’re not alone.” Proof rings out with force and feeling on Hilang Child’s superlative second album, ‘Every Mover’, released on Bella Union.

In 2018, Riman delivered a serene, textured debut album in ‘Years’, rich in sound and feeling. Lauren Laverne, Q, MOJO and others lavished praise but the “isolating process” of making the album left Riman hungry to find alternative ways of working. Meanwhile, the “lonely, pressured” aftermath of ‘Years’ found Riman grappling with “rough selfesteem and anxiety issues,” amplified in part by social media’s “fulfilment narratives.” Duly, he set out to navigate and overcome these mindsets, drawing deeply on his own insecurities and those he recognised in others.

These themes converge emphatically on ‘Every Mover’, an album steeped in everyday emotional states and crafted for cathartic, communal performance. Drawing on a rich spread of collaborators, sounds and themes, Riman uses his frustrations as the impetus to transform the brimming promise of ‘Years’ into upfront and expansive new shapes. “I wanted it to sound a bit gutsier than the first album,” he says, succinctly, “heavier and closer to the kind of stuff that hits me when I go to shows or blast music in the car. I started out in music as a drummer playing for pop or beat-driven artists and grew up listening to louder stuff, but a lot of the music I’ve made as Hilang Child has been more ethereal. I wanted to bring it back to a place that feels more ‘me’ and make more of a thing of having big hypnotic drums, aggressive bass, ripping distorted instruments and a general energy to it.”

‘Good To Be Young’ serves swift notice of this leap, its banked synths and twinkling sound clusters leading to an assertion of fresh force when the main beat lands and a congregation of friends - AK Patterson, Paul Thomas Saunders, Dog in the Snow, Ellen Murphy, members of Penelope Isles - unite for the gang-vocal refrains. “It’s all iridescent colour I’m on,” Riman exults, a claim lived up to on the full-flush folktronica of ‘Shenley’.

A reflection on spiralling insecurity, ‘Seen The Boreal’ ups the ante again with its monkish chorales, looping samples, spectral woodwinds (from multi-instrumentalist John ‘Rittipo’ Moore, of Public Service Broadcasting and Bastille previous) and ecstatic chorus, Riman transforming a meditation on hindsight’s limiting effects into a spur to look forwards. And surge forwards he does with the glittering synths, spacey guitars and Krautrock propulsion of ‘King Quail’, developed in jam sessions with dream-pop wonder Zoe Mead (Wyldest) in her basement studio.

Brought to a sublime close with ‘Steppe’, the resulting album projects its own epiphanic force. Thankfully, most of the main parts were recorded pre-lockdown between East London, Gateshead, Brighton, Wandsworth and elsewhere, before mixing proceeded remotely. Meanwhile, alongside indie-pop trio OUTLYA’s Will Bloomfield (percussion/coproduction on ‘Play ’Til Evening’), visual design collective Tough Honey (accompanying videos) and other collaborators, Riman’s bond with co-producer JMAC (Troye Sivan, Haux, Lucy Rose) proved crucial. “It felt freeing to work collaboratively and have that push-andpull of ideas,” says Riman. “Even the moments where we didn’t see eye-to-eye made it feel like I wasn’t alone, with someone else working just as passionately on the project.”

LP pressed on red transparent vinyl.

This album could easily have turned top-heavy. After all, here’s a record which, in just under 40 minutes, covers anything from Arabic scales to Japanese sounds, from free jazz references to concepts by Finnish pianist Kari Ikonen’s favourite painter Vasiliy Kandinsky.
To realise his vision, Ikonen even personally developed a device allowing him to play micro-intervals on his piano. And yet, things turned out differently: If anything, the results sound dream-like and mesmerising rather than stodgy and severe.
The album’s genesis may serve to explain this paradox. In August of 2019, Ikonen suddenly found himself with a month of free time. Without thinking twice and as if in a premonition of the Covid-lock-down, he recorded ‘Impressions, Improvisations and Compositions’ at his own home. His only companion was his beloved Steinway, captured by a personal selection of high-end microphones. Just a few days after the final session, the pieces landed on the desk of ECM- and Blue-Note-engineer Johannes Lundberg who mixed the album at his Gothenburg Epideminstudios. Clearly then, the music is spontaneous. But it’s also refined and deep. The influence of Kandinsky inspired
Ikonen to write some of his most complex and monumental pieces.

Bristol-based trip hop trio Jabu this week announced details of their second album. ‘Sweet Company’ will be released on November 20th via the group’s own do you have peace? imprint.

Sweet Company is the second album by Jabu. Where their first LP, Sleep Heavy, was an unflinching exploration of grief, dark and disembodied, Sweet Company’s deep, sedative soul feels like more of a lovers’ outing: optimistic, becalmed, looking outwards as well as inwards, and longing for the kind of human connections where ego and self-consciousness might dissolve. It is perhaps also an exhortation to love and accept yourself, to recover a lost innocence and peace – that paradise which has always been lost. Released via their own do you have peace? label, Sweet Company is on the one hand a very intimate and private-sounding work - the sound of life played out in a room, a bubble, a home, a head. The rhythms of everyday domesticity: listening to the plants, cars in the street, voices through the wall…. going to work, not going to work, sleeping heavy or not sleeping at all. Wavering on the brink of a revelation, of something just beyond the material world, while you wait for the kettle to boil. The core Jabu trio of producer Amos Childs and vocalists Jasmine Butt and Alex Rendall is present and correct. Sweet Company has theexhilarating sweep and confidence of a collaboration between people who trust and understand each other implicitly, and, secure in that knowledge, are able to give the absolute best of themselves to us. As before, Jasmine’s voice is a textural, painterly instrument, layered and blurred into abstraction, resisting the limits of language; the songs she sings on are portals into vast internal landscapes where the normal rules of gravity are suspended, every sound is smothered in a cathedral-like resonance, and you're both fearful and hopeful that you might never find your way back out again. Alex takes a more narrative, confessional and no less engaging pop tack: as on the gauzy, decelerated 2-step of ‘Lately’, with his masochistic, self-mocking entreaties to “be cruel to me … I like it when you make a fool of me”. Childs has a true hip-hop fiend's ear for a striking sample, and how to loop it to most hypnotic and rapturous effect, but here takes things to ever more powerfully uncanny and auteurish places, drawing inspiration from the voidal bliss-outs of shoegaze (AR Kane’s amniotic dream-pop epic 69 is one influence cited) and the space-time disturbances of dub, commanding both a raindrops-on-cobwebs delicacy and an immense, oceanic pressure. His productions seem to resist linear progression - instead they move by a kind of unstoppable diffusion, like weeds reclaiming an unkempt garden, or alien flora patterning the sea-floor and coral-caves of the subaquatic level of a computer game which may exist only in your, or his, imagination. Perhaps it's Daniela Dyson, the British-Afro-Colombian artist who contributes her vivid, energising poetic mysticism to two tracks, who best sums up Sweet Company's ambition and effect: “Me quiero perder en los momentos tan puros en su esencia que Las Horas mismas se detienen para ser testigo de nuestro amor” (I want to lose myself in the moments so pure in their essence / that The Hours themselves stop to bear witness to our love…). For a precious half an hour, we're invited to celebrate the smallness of our lives - and the limitless grandeur which that smallness contains. When it ends, we step back from the brink but things aren’t quite the same anymore: we’re haunted by what we briefly almost knew.

Der in Kyoto geborene Multiinstrumentalist, Komponist und rappende Songschreiber Sen Morimoto veröffentlicht sein selbstbetiteltes zweites Album. Zu hören ist darauf nicht nur er, sondern ebenso die Hauptakteure der Indie-Szene seiner aktuellen Heimatstadt Chicago: Lala Lala, Nnamdï, Kaina, Joseph Chilliams, Qari sowie die nationale Youth Poet-Preisträgerin Kara Jackson als auch die japanische Elektro-Musikerin Aaamyyy. Die gesamte Produktion und Instrumentierung des Albums stammt von Morimoto selbst, das mit rhythmischen Verschiebungen, unerwarteten Harmonien, Arpeggios und schnell gleitenden Saxophon-Leads so reichhaltig wie eine Jon Brion-Produktion klingt. Seit der Veröffentlichung seines introspektiven Jazz-Rap-Debüts "Cannonball!" vor zwei Jahren war Morimoto sehr beschäftigt. Er tourte gleichermaßen mit seiner eigenen Musik als auch als Mitglied des hochgelobten Chicagoer Jazz-Kollektivs Reservoir durch die Welt und war außerdem mit Lala Lala und Kaina unterwegs. Zusammen mit ähnlich gesinnten Musikern wie Nnamdï und Glenn Curran betreibt SEN MORIMOTO seit 2016 das Chicagoer Label Sooper Records, das mit Veröffentlichungen wie Kainas Debüt "Next To The Sun" und Nnamdïs "Brat" im letzten Jahr auf sich aufmerksam machte.

*repress*

Justin Cudmore returns to the Phonica White shelves with four new tracks, and his long-awaited first full EP since 2017's "Forget It" for The Bunker New York. With the dancefloor seeming far outside our reach right now, 'Train Dance' transports us back to a simpler time lost in the mix.

Across the disc, Cudmore reflects on the sounds and scenes closest to his heart and record bag, flexing his knack for crafting catchy hooks and the kind of ear-worm melodies that helped cement his status as one of house & techno's fast-rising stars. A1 "Train Dance" is his ode to the urban symphony of train cars whirling past his apartment in Brooklyn, with eight minutes of swingy, jacking house built for a sunny afternoon set across the pond at Panorama Bar.

"Club Fetish" shifts to a more introspective, heads-down vibe crafted instead with a dark and sweaty basement in mind. A touch of psych à la classic John Tejada, Cudmore's subtle, squelchy synths rub shoulders with cerebral drums and floating basslines.

The B-side nods to Cudmore's acclaimed acid sound for two deep slow rollers. "Expectation Game" and its no-nonsense 303s chug through a couple of understated breakdowns, while "Realize" was written with a Detroit outdoor patio in mind, with a sleazy acid bassline and cut up vocal groans sounding like Cudmore riffing on a late-night Moodymann jam.

Recorded during a productive time of new beginnings and positive headspace, ‘Train Dance’ comes out during a strange and unclear present for Cudmore and many of his contemporaries in the scene. However given it all, Justin remains excited to share new music and sounds, and hopes to return to the dance floor with everyone again as soon as safely possible.

Artwork as always is supplied by the talented Pedro Carvalho de Almeida

restock

Following up on a strong launch with Braintalk, Human Sense Technology returns for their 2nd entry; this time from the man of many styles, Eastern Zurich's very own Dan Piu, with Modern Utopia Thought EP. Dedicated to his youth and influenced by future visions of creation, the atmosphere and arrangement on this EP permeates into the imagination with colors of suspense, harmony, and spherical textures showcasing the finer lines of deep frequency. Courageous indeed as this EP embraces the mysterious in an eccentric bliss that charms the listening experience in a way that grooves the body as much as it moves the mind. Welcome to Modern Utopia EP, where there are no constraints on creation or time.

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.

Black Vinyl Repress

47 celebrates 5 years of forward thinking techno with a 12 track various artist compilation entitled 5Y. The triple vinyl release features several early label contributors such as Headless Horseman as well as recent regulars Swarm Intelligence and Scalameriya, plus new additions to the roster, EKORS and NN. The V/A also sees the return of Overlook and Positive Center’s alias, Carrier, as well as a collaboration between Ancient Methods and 47 label head, Tommy Four Seven.

Following 2019’s ‘INSHROUDSS EP’, ‘RESURRECTEDINBLACK’ marks the first Bestial Mouths LP crafted fully under frontwoman Lynette Cerezo’s guiding mind.

Emerging from the shrouds of trauma explored on her debut release as the singular force behind Bestial Mouths, RESURRECTEDINBLACK weaves a world riddled by grief and loss—a world of broken systems, of toxic lands once sacred, of lost saviors and inner voids that may be tented with strong flesh, but remain as raw as the meat surrounding them.

While branching deeper into the searing industrialized electronics and imminently danceable darkwave of the previous EP, RESURRECTEDINBLACK also continues to channel new and experimental paths through the project’s original gothic post-punk roots. Led by Cerezo’s visceral, emotional voice and lyrics, and featuring beautifully brutal production from Brant Showers (AAIMON/SØLVE), Alex DeGroot (Zola Jesus) and Balázs Képli (nullius in verba), it is the journey of a soul shattered—then stapled back together by female rage and self-determination.

First Word Records are extremely proud to welcome aboard Allysha Joy and her first EP

for the label, 'Light It Again'.

Well versed in poetry and performance, Allysha Joy's potent lyricism, unique musicianship and killer vocals have garnered legions of attentive fans the world over. She's an integral member of the Melbourne soul jazz scene, known as part of the acclaimed 30/70 Collective and for her own equally revered solo work.

'Light It Again' is a 4-part expedition across a variety of grooves and deep lyricism that marks a defiant statement of intimacy and hope. Produced and engineered by twice Grammy nominated artist Clever Austin, the EP features accompaniment from an all-star set of Melbourne artists; Horatio Luna, Ziggy Zeitgeist, Danika Smith and Josh Kelly. This EP marks a new sound for the young artist, transmitting her honest and raw expression through the signature crunch and sonic landscape of Clever Austin.

Allysha is already well established across Europe, performing on the live circuit alongside the likes of Sampa the Great, Matthew Halsall, Ezra Collective, Bradley Zero and Children of Zeus, as well as currently hosting two regular radio shows, on Worldwide FM and Reform Radio in Manchester respectively.

Her 2018 debut album 'Acadie : Raw' on Gondwana Records won 'Best Soul Album' at the Music Victoria Awards, was nominated for a Worldwide Award, and featured in many an end-of-year list, including Bandcamp's Top Soul Albums, whilst she's also featured on releases on UK labels such as Rhythm Section, Total Refreshment Centre and now an EP for First Word, 'Light It Again'.

The EP touches on love, shame, mental health, grief & spirituality. 'Watercolours' sets off on a mid-tempo neo-soul jazz tip. Allysha says "I wrote this in the hope that maybe we could all feel the beauty that is present in the every day - in nature, in art, in each one of us mirroring each other so intrinsically. Then maybe we'd all start to live out a message of love."

'Better' follows on an uptempo vibe influenced musically by The Senegambian Jazz Band, who Allysha would watch regularly at Bar Oussou in Melbourne. Lyrically the song explores the external and internal struggles that occur trying to create a more inclusive and compassionate world. "It's about catching myself pointing the finger outwards to challenge social / political systems and certain individuals, then coming to the realisation that I must turn that finger back on myself to ask, "how can I do better, how can I know better?"

Lead track 'Light It Again' begins with Allysha's keys gliding a steppa-like rhythm - head-snap snares and punchy bass accompany ethereal harmonies and delicate vibes on an ever-evolving groove before switching entirely mid-track. This time the subject matter is mental health and "the cycle of addiction and pain, the coping mechanisms that hold us back from reaching our true potential".

The EP closes out with the beautiful 'Mardi'; deep Rhodes, sax and synths build ahead of deliciously slushy percussion and jilted drums. Named for her grandmother, 'Mardi' is a tribute to the spiritual connection they shared before her passing. Allysha writes, "it's about the connective forces of the matriarchal lineage and the drive to step into my own sense of self, in all the beauty and pain which that entails".

Allysha's lyrics weave together a heartfelt mix of love, power, desire, wonder, anger, faith and hope for change. An artist that presents a palette of intricate grace and optimism, whilst unafraid of adding uncomfortable truths. Allysha is an incredibly powerful live performer; her husky vocals sonically synced with her formidable Fender Rhodes playing, whilst her influences are a solid base of jazz, hip hop and R&B; all glazed with the unique special sauce the Melbourne soul scene has become known for globally. A gloriously meditative, raw soul, we are delighted to be able to share her music with you.

'Light It Again' is released on vinyl & digital worldwide, November 20th 2020.

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Denmark's WhoMadeWho have always been hard to pin down. Their music sounding as effortless as it is stylistically and sonically adventurous. Fusing pop and disco memes with punk paraphernalia, the genre-bending trio made up of Jeppe Kjellberg, Tomas Høffding and Tomas Barford honed their skills on stage and in the studio, releasing a series of bestselling records topped off by their 2011 mini album "Knee Deep" on Kompakt.

Dafuniks is a full live band based on a core of samples and Breakbeats plus various vocal appearances. It will blow your mind with references to the cradle of hip-hop and inspiration from the 60’s and 70’s Funk and Soul.

Type “Was Joan of Arc” into Google and the suggested endings for this statement give you an accurate gauge of her place in pop culture: “Catholic” / “a nun” / “canonised” / “a prophet” / “French” / “a witch” and so on. Related questions to “What were Joan of Arc’s last words” on the info-sharing site Quora include “Was Joan of Arc bisexual” and “Was Joan of Arc simply crazy?” Everyone seems to agree this person was burned at the stake in 1431, but beyond that, Joan’s narrative is an enigma. It is this lack of definition that the production duo Pillow Queen harnessed for their second release, Burn Me Up. Inverting the image of the devout Christian girl, the Joan who stands as this record’s heroine was a heretic, a transvestite, most definitely a dyke and a hot femme-top at that.

Opening up the A-side, the title track is a call— a battle cry, but also a summoning. In a time of need one calls upon their patrons and elders from history; a DJ beckons and gathers dancers to the floor; prayer and sweat go hand and hand. A traditional Irish bodhrán drum beats out the first rhythms, joined by a steamy vocal sample that gets caught, chopped, and soon “Burns Me Up” is pumping along with organ chords and distorted keys. Pivoting away from the 4/4 format, “Submission” is a textured, downtempo slow-burner, with close-mic’d vocals from Vani-T and the D. Tiffany’s deft drum programming. When the choral pads come in, there’s an echo of the 1990s German worldbeat project Enigma, with its Gregorian chants and flutes laid on top of lounge beats—here, though, the chorus is stripped of kitsch, only driving the track deeper into a mood.

If Burn Me Up’s sequence of tracks is read as a kind of narrative, they seem to tell the story of Joan’s last moments. “Burn Me Up” is, frankly, heat—aggressive, the high-end crackles and the bass puts a pyre under one’s feet. “Submission” is like an exhale, a giving-in to death’s grip; there is, along with the sensuous tread, a melancholy. It only makes sense that one flips the record to “Resurrection”, which rolls in a tremolo’d wail of pitched vocals for 30 seconds before a kick drum begins the 141-BPM march. The percussion is central here, as the track shifts between polyrhythms like a range of resuscitations, varied heartbeats. “Salvation” closes the record, again dialling back the tempo to the deep nod of dub. To no surprise, the scene of redemption here is not one of sunlit cherubs—the church bell sample tolls one strike every few measures of bass-throb and shadow, while Vani-T intones, “Then he lay down and died”. Death can be salvation to some; living as many selves, living in contradiction, is a saving grace to many more.

500 COPY LIMITED EDITION ~ INCLUDES 4 INDIVIDUAL FULL SIZE ARTWORK INSERTS. Hyperdub are excited to present our first soundtrack release, Lawrence Lek's score for his debut feature film `AIDOL', which premiered at Sadie Coles HQ in 2019 and has been shown at numerous virtual and physical festivals and exhibitions worldwide. Lawrence Lek is a simulation artist who uses computer-generated animation and video game engines to create films and virtual worlds that play with the language of science fiction, music videos and corporate world building. He has released soundtracks to five of his previous projects, most recently `Temple' OST (Vinyl Factory, 2020). `AIDOL' continues his on-going 'Sinofuturist' cinematic universe, which posits the creative theory that China's technological rise is an emergent form of Artificial Intelligence. `AIDOL' is a CGI fantasy that tells the story of a fading superstar, Diva, who enlists an aspiring AI songwriter to mount a comeback performance at the 2065 eSports Olympic finale. Set in a realm of spectacular architecture, sentient drones and snow-deluged jungles, `AIDOL' revolves around the long and evolving struggle between humanity and Artificial Intelligence; a shifting and seductive virtual reality, punctuated by Diva's songs and the voice of Kode9 as the unforgiving label boss. The soundtrack is a delicate lattice - complex, opaque and entirely synthetic. Diva's yearning vocals - created with a Vocaloid voice synthesiser, sung in English and Mandarin - cast classical melodies over billowing, intricate arrangements. The instrumental tracks, produced with composer Seth Scott, are elegiac and beautiful, hybridising the film score archetype, folding in patterns from game soundtracks, vaporwave, and ambient fourth world music.

“Garrett III is more of a swan project. A final installment, if you will. Garrett is now retreating more deeply, as evident by the album cover by @GangCulture into obscurity. The time has come for a landing via this 3rd installment of his ‘private life’. After surviving a lockdown x worldwide pandemic in 1 piece, without going insane, he has finally decided 2 conclude this phase of his tightrope walk between lush Ambient touched Modern-Funk & the choice of no vocals / strictly instrumental aural experiences, for listeners of all hues, backgrounds & taste. The hope is that it’s enjoyed in whatever way feasible for all human (& alien) kind.”

Azumah was the coming together of a group of talented young dancer-musicians from Soweto (South Africa) with musician and instrument-maker Smiles Mandla Makama of eSwatini (formerly Swaziland). Long Time Ago is the surprising and enticing, resultant album from 1985, recorded in the house of theatre stalwarts Des and Dawn Lindberg in Johannesburg.

Produced by David Marks (3rd Ear Music, Hidden Years Music Archive Project), Des Lindberg and Smiles Makama, this album takes us back to a priceless musical moment in the dark and wild eighties of apartheid South Africa. Smiles Makama is a gifted and visionary music-maker. He was born in South Africa but grew up in eSwatini, the small kingdom enveloped by South Africa and Mozambique on each side. He tells the story of the process leading to the recording of this remarkable album: “I was invited from Swaziland by a Soweto-based group, Azumah. … One of the members knew that there was a wizard in the mountains in Swaziland, building instruments. As I was in the mountains in my hut and then I saw people arrive. They found me. It all started there.”

Instead of simplistic images of a generic ‘Africanness’ or ‘South Africanness’ and pictures of constructed and exotic ethnic identity, a contemporary, fresh listen to this album encourages an appreciation of the composition and musical skill at play in this music. Few people speak about the individual innovation and experimentation involved in the creation of this music (or the music of Amampondo for instance). “Woza Moya” sticks out as a dark and melancholy creation, different tonally to what has come before, evoking the work of Naná Vasconelos or Don Cherry. One thing that remains the same decades later is that encouraging deeper listening to the sounds of the mbira, the nyunga-nyunga, the uhadi or makhoyane bows is still challenging. Discouraging the superficial, short-lived acknowledgement of this ‘unchanging’, ‘African cultural expression’ is the everlasting hurdle. This is made so much easier by albums like Long Time Ago: when artists create music to be loved and entangled with, to be challenged by, derived from the musical roots and structures of these instruments and then expanded upon with creative freedom, risk, humour and funk.

Azumah did this in 1985 and we have this album again today, newly released, to remind us of that moment and the moments since when musicians have urned inward and done similar. As Smiles has it: “Indigenous music doesn’t fade out. It’s just waiting to be discovered, all the time.”

Derek Carr returns with an acid laden three-tracker. Three top notch deep, driving and uplifting house tracks on his own label Trident Recordings. First 200 copies come on yellow vinyl.

Biz returns with another ep of seriously smooth Detroit inspired techno and body poppin electro that take the listener on a cerebral journey while still being laced with those tough elements that work so effectively on the dancefloor. This is the fourteenth release on Biz’s own label cliq which was founded in 2002 and is a reminder that Australian techno is smokin…don’t miss this future classic!!

Support by Laurent Garnier, DJ Deep, Ben Sims, Extrawelt, Deetron, Dave Clarke, Christian Smith, Stephan Brown.

“Biz’s music is amazing….big fan” Laurent Garnier

Für "No Eye Has An Equal", einer "Reflektion darüber, wie Vielfalt einen Sinn für Unendlichkeit kreieren kann", gräbt der italienische Komponist Giulio Aldinucci tief in sein umfangreiches Archiv electroakustischer Kompositionen und präsentiert vier radikale Rekonzeptualisationen seines eigenen Materials. Jede ist für sich ein Blick in tiefe, persönliche Atmosphären, die Aldinucci seit über einer Dekade mit seinen Kompositionen kreiert und perfektioniert. Empfohlen für Fans von Steve Reich, Kara Lis Coverdale, William Basinski, Tim Hecker und Deepchord.

Here comes another bundle of Timmion soul to decorate your record shelf and grace your turntables. It's a fantastic opportunity to sink yourself into Pratt & Moody's second release, the crossover gem "Words Words Words", the equally sublime rolita by Thee Baby Cuffs "My My My Baby" or continue your soulful trip with Willie West's latest deep offering "I Can't Leave You Alone".

In case you didn't yet get your hands on Carlton Jumel Smith's beautiful dancer "This Is What Love Looks Like", it's naturally included in this box of joy, as is jazz funker Ernie Hawk's non-album blaxploitation tinged track "Tracking Down", which can only be found as the b-side of "Cold Turkey Time" single release. Buy now and you'll be unboxing in no time.

Theo Nasa makes his debut on Rekids this December with ‘Worldwide Ravers EP’.

The Alien Sound Trax boss, who has previously appeared on the likes of World Unknown, Suara, and UNCAGE, makes his mark on Radio Slave’s imprint with the hard-hitting and distinct ‘Worldwide Ravers EP’.

Deeply infused with the unmistakable sound of the UK, Nasa draws from his broad range of influences for his EP, distilling elements of Jungle, Rave, and Hardcore into his own brand of meticulously crafted, difficult-to-pigeonhole techno. Opener ‘Dubska’, clocking in at over ten minutes long, is a relentless and fast-paced affair, bubbling along at breakneck speed with the help of classic vocal samples, while ‘World Dance (Rinse Out Mix)’ fuses breakbeats and droning bass to create a high energy track that twists and turns at 140bpm. Field recordings of birds in ‘Summertime Raving In London’ sit alongside classic drum kits and emotive chords while living up to its titular character.

Dark Green Marbled Vinyl

One town, three times of the day, a triarchy of Techno music, rolling into the deep – coming as green marbled vinyl with an exclusively designed festival wristband!
Rico Puestel rears a monument to his growing-up-town „Uslar“ with three different approaches on this second part of the home-loving „Solling“ series that dig deep into a downscaled and natural framework of sound (all recorded and produced right at that place).

The initiation ritual on A1 with Uslar at 6'23 in the morning starts off with an actual electric guitar theme, originally recorded back in 2003, that builds the foundation hub to one crisp and point-blank Techno-Electro ceremony. The clean minimalistic sound will showcase all the details of any structure within while one's certainly getting caught by the overall force of melodic attraction like the sun working its path through the misty valleys.

At 13'35 noon, a rising rhythmical and progressive interpretation of the initial morning sounds makes an appearance on the flipside that doesn't allow much time to leap right into the centre of the da(y)nce, immediately creating the guesswork where side AA is leading all along.
The evening hours at 21'55 then take a flying leap into the mystical peak of the whole process, taking the morning sounds from side A into some uneasy realms and sceneries, prevailed by an almost voodoo-like momentum and a dance into the depths of its surrounding woods that will coherently dignify 90's loop Techno par excellence.

This fourth record on Exhibition is and feels right here and right now, paying tribute to the past and many different streams of Techno while cherishing a future that has yet to be written, celebrating the

Let’s go out! A suggestion that might sound like an absurdity in current times, but feels like the true promise of Bella Boo’s debut EP on Running Back. The Studio Barnhus affiliate refines and elevates her bright, genial and dissenting take on deep house into something greater than its parts.
What was supposed to be an album with features and collaborations was turned into an introspective solo-practice by Covid-19 and subsequently into this rich 8-track-EP. A writer’s block and the pitfalls of the aforementioned deep house genre were overcome with the help of Axel Boman’s knowledge of football philosophy and a 140bpm tempo advice. So, everything fell in its right place.
„Let’s Go Out“ is like the gateway into a wonderful coherent musical universe and an entertaining listening experience. Imaginative and sparkling, tender-hearted as well as bouncing when it needs to be. Bella’s EP is as much of a tribute to the UK scene that inspired her over the years as it’s entirely her own and distinctive thing. Like a perfect mixtape, it ebbs and flows, and once you reached its finish, it makes you want to start again – or to go out.


Short version: Bella Boo’s bright and genial debut EP on Running Back. Eight tender-hearted, imaginative and bouncing tracks that are as much of a tribute to the UK Scene that inspired her over the years, as they are the gateway into a wonderful coherent musical universe that is Bella’s own entirely.

Memento’s label honcho Idriss D is back at the production duties with
a mesmerising super single featuring a shattering remix by the
Norwegian infamous wonder known as Dj Sotofett.
“Lunatic” symbolises Idriss D natural inclination for an incessant
sonic exploration, which on this esoteric cur, has brought him to the
darkest and the most hectic jungle territories; drawing from the early
nineties British tradition but with a long sight into the contemporary
climate, these heavy rattling beats and scattered vocals will simply
leave you speechless.
On the flip side , Dj Sotofett is just condensed cutting edge music
technology wisdom; the straight deep beat and the charming arpeggios transform the original mayhem into a late night anthem.
The splendid picture on the release cover has been taken by Ismail
Zaidy of L4artiste, which is also responsible for the astonishing
video teaser, while the artwork has been as usual an graphic affair of Boogie.

Light Blue Marbled Vinyl
Memento’s label honcho Idriss D is back at the production duties with
a mesmerising super single featuring a shattering remix by the
Norwegian infamous wonder known as Dj Sotofett.
“Lunatic” symbolises Idriss D natural inclination for an incessant
sonic exploration, which on this esoteric cur, has brought him to the
darkest and the most hectic jungle territories; drawing from the early
nineties British tradition but with a long sight into the contemporary
climate, these heavy rattling beats and scattered vocals will simply
leave you speechless.
On the flip side , Dj Sotofett is just condensed cutting edge music
technology wisdom; the straight deep beat and the charming arpeggios transform the original mayhem into a late night anthem.
The splendid picture on the release cover has been taken by Ismail
Zaidy of L4artiste, which is also responsible for the astonishing
video teaser, while the artwork has been as usual an graphic affair of Boogie.

Flippen Disks follows up their much acclaimed label-debut with an intriguing second release by Yuto Takei.

Throughout the Bells From The East EP, Yuto Takei’s first vinyl release, displays a wide array of sounds with a particular interest in rhythmic experiments and the negotiation of sonic space.

The Tokyo-based producer and DJ takes the listener onto a trip through deep spheres, percussive workouts, jammy compositions and electronic psychedelia, leaving the listener at times startled as to whether humans are manipulating machines here, or vice-versa.
Having worked as an electronic music composer for video games such as Gran Turismo, this uncanny valley is known territory for the artist. It is, however, further explored on this four tracker, staying true to Flippen Disks paradigm of releasing club-oriented music, non-functional enough to not only be danced but also listened to.

While the title track Bells From The East is an 8 minute jam, in which the krauty psych attitude pairs up perfectly with the goofy lead melody, Eclectic Matters is an intense percussive workout, refined with a pinch of Digi-Dub.

On the flip, Karma Fuchi feels like a paraglide through a landscape of tree tops, curious winds passing and entrancing synths and percussion stabs leading the way. Mostica closes the EP beautifully and spaciously, allowing for deep dives into its detailed soundscape and waving the listener peacefully goodbye.