quête:delivery

First Word Records is proud to bring you 'The Essance' - the classic debut album by Essa (formerly known as Yungun), originally released in 2004, now released on vinyl & digital for the first time, 20 years on!

A lyricist, lawyer and a Londoner, legendary MC Essa has earned praise over the years from artists such as Nas and Mark Ronson, as well as performing and recording with legends like De La Soul, Wu-Tang Clan, Guru, Slum Village and Pharoahe Monch.

This 15-track album is considered one of the greats to emerge during UK Hip Hop's "golden era"; a vibrant time for the genre when artists such as Ty, Jehst, Roots Manuva, Klashnekoff, Skinnyman, Task Force, Doc Brown and Foreign Beggars were garnering huge fanbases, and an eco-system of shops like Deal Real, club nights like Kung Fu, labels like Lowlife, and stations like Itch FM were prevalent, while BBC 1Xtra was a mere infant.

'The Essance' includes production and features from luminaries such as Harry Love, Mr Thing, Lewis Parker, Kyza, Devise & Ben Grymm, to name a few.

Esteemed author Musa Okwonga says on the reissue liner notes "the most startling thing about 'The Essance' was its range. Yungun (Essa) was one of the few MCs who could perfectly walk the paths of hope and melancholy with equal ease, whose artist name belied the wisdom of his lyrics. Beyond that, his delivery was supremely self-assured, filled with a swagger he could always justify.

Yungun's gifts also extended to the stage, where he was one of the best young actors that many of his contemporaries had seen, and to languages, which saw him writing and rhyming in Spanish with a notable flourish. He was also someone who constantly walked between two worlds, excelling in one of the country's most competitive academic environments during the day and then delivering a soaring radio set by night. Raised in a vibrant vein of North London, endlessly curious about the world around him, Yungun's fine ear for music and passion for the variety of life made him someone who could reach all audiences.

'The Essance' is a beautifully-woven meditation on the human condition, one which takes you from the dancefloor to the summer afternoon barbecue to the bathroom mirror; yet it is also the opening statement of a unique career."

In the words of Essa himself "my key goal for this album was to span so many moods and styles that I couldn't be categorised, leaving me free to then go in whatever direction I chose. I was almost too successful with this – I would later struggle to pin down my own identity, both on and off the mic, as a rapper slash lawyer, of mixed-heritage, blessed to be able to enter many circles but feeling truly at home in none. As I write this, twenty years (plus a marriage and several children) on, I finally feel more at peace with being undefinable, and am getting better at bringing my full, authentic self into as many aspects of life as I can. I am grateful to be able to look both back and forward, with equal passion."

'The Essance' was followed with a collaborative album with DJ Mr Thing ('Grown Man Business'), then some years later on First Word with 'The Misadventures of a Middle Man' in 2014. There's also a forthcoming project in the works, due for release Summer 2024 with all-new material produced by Pitch 92. Both these releases also coincide with the 20th anniversary of the First Word label (named "label of the year" at the 2019 Worldwide Awards).

A timeless piece of work, 'The Essance' is true-skool boom bap through and through that stands up two full decades later, from the ethereal anthem 'Liquid Love', to the uptempo bounce of 'Dancing Shoes', to the grit of 'The Big Idea', to the thought provoking 'What Eye See Pt.2', to bangers like 'Push' or 'Spit Fire', this is an essential addition to the collection of any discerning hip hop head.

'The Essance' is due to be released on vinyl & digital worldwide on February 23rd 2024.

With his Disco Deception album, Prince Fatty (who links up with Shniece for the occasion) delivers a captivating blend of disco-infused reggae and soulful grooves. Each track resonates with his signature low-end energy, and is fuelled by Fatty's impeccable production and Shniece's soul-stirring vocals. From funky basslines to shimmering horns, the album captures the essence of classic dub and ska while infusing it with modern flair and plenty of hooky horns and melodies. Shniece's dynamic range and emotive delivery elevate each song to really create a magnetic atmosphere that keeps listeners engaged from start to finish, all with character to spare.

Almost two years to the date of the release of their breakthrough album, Citizen return with their highly anticipated follow-up full-length, Everybody is Going to Heaven. Haunting these ten songs is a foreboding, dark atmosphere masterfully crafted by producer Will Yip, and an immediate, intense energy is palpable from even the first grimy seconds of the opener, "Cement." As with every one of Citizen's releases, Mat Kerekes' signature vocal delivery here is a trademark feature, demonstrating the emotional tension that boils over on this release. As cathartic as ever, he duels between a soft croon and a haunting scream, confronting his demons on tracks like "My Favorite Color" echoing the tormented refrain, "my heart still beats for nothing". And while most of the record is an intense and noisy onslaught, songs like "Heaviside" and "Yellow Love" act as armistices, each aching in reverb-drenched consonance. Everybody is Going to Heaven is a turning point for Citizen: once regarded as newcomers with undeniable potential, the band shows here that they have matured both abruptly and uniquely, with no end to their upward trajectory in sight.

DOG BEACH is Merryn Jeann’s first full length album, produced by Rob Ellis, comparing her directely with his previous collaborators.

Rob Ellis is a record producer, composer, arranger and musician who has been acting for about 40 years and during which he's had the honor to work with such notable artists as PJ Harvey, Marianne Faithfull, Scott Walker, Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Brian Eno, Thom Yorke, Anna Calvi, ...

About working with Merryn : "In every instrumental phrase that she arrived at and each line of her vocal delivery Merryn's enthusiasm and very individual creativity comes across brilliantly I think... whilst still managing to retain an expression of deeply felt heart and soul... a rare combination in my experience, and a match for any of my aforementionel, much admired collaborators."

"The days in the studio were endlessly creative and playful... and subsequently very exhilarating... by the end it felt like we had really gone through something extremely special, and I believe the resulting LP strongly reflects that." Rob Ellis

Album was recorded over 5 weeks in England, including musicians such as Jim Barr (Portishead), Ben Christophers (Bat For Lashes) or Patrick J. Pearson (Daughter, LYR) but also Christelle Canot aka Confuse, half of IN CASE OF FIRE recently signed to Steve Budd’s prestigious record producer agency.

Merryn Jeann is a Naarm/Melbourne and Bundjalung Country/Byron Bay Shire based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She has crafted a genre-bending, dreamy world of soundscapes that bear an enticing musical wisdom.

Sitting somewhere between Caroline Polachek, Cat Power, Weyes Blood, Feist, and Kelsey Lu, Merryn Jeann’s sound is fueled by authenticity. Her raw and honest self packaged into intricate and reflective morsels, many of which are yet to be revealed.

She played Glastonburry at the beginning of her career with the band TORA.

UK and international promo by Whiteboard PR.

A second LP will be recorded in 2025 again with Rob Ellis at the production.

Side projects : OSOO with Kyson & Chris Hill, IN CASE OF FIRE

Consisting of 12 stunning tracks, A Wasteland Companion was made with 18 musicians and recorded in eight different studios in Portland, Omaha, New York City, Los Angeles, Austin and Bristol (UK). Ward's honey-soaked vocals, deft finger-picking, innate sense of melody and beguiling lyrics have already cemented his reputation as one of America's true musical treasures and A Wasteland Companion features some of the finest songwriting and most striking delivery of his career. With each and every recording Ward finds new ways to make the colors of his songwriting palate sparkle and his dexterous skills as producer, arranger, guitarist and singer seem to burst into even brighter bloom on each release.

Danielle Boutet’s P »Pièces« is a mysterious artifact of Quebecois marginalia, self-released in 1985. Moving from languid ennui to high drama, »Pièces« is a dreamy gestalt, an album that borders Chanson, spoken-word, jazz noir, and minimalism, conjured from the chasm between acoustic and electronic realms. »Pièces« allows us a window into the highly intimate songcraft and compositional skill of an artist who longed to linger not in the public eye, but in relation with others and the world around her.

Born in Quebec City, Boutet studied music at the University of Montreal, where she focused on composition and percussion, before becoming involved in Montreal’s feminist and lesbian art scene. Primarily written, performed, and recorded by Boutet, with voice, guitar work, and technical assistance by Sylvie Gagnon, Pièces was created during a paradigm shift in home recording. Originally composed for the piano, Boutet and Gagnon utilized a consumer-friendly Tascam 4-track Portastudio and versatile Yamaha DX-7, alongside guitar, bass, marimba, and the human voice, to expand and contemporize the original composition’s scope.

Inspired by prog rock and British poet and musician Anne Clark, »Pièces« translates Boutet’s influence by moving between sunny, wistful fairytale and dark, wintry dirge. Filled with longing marimba, vertiginous, startling synth pads, and folk guitar, each track on Pièces offers a wholly unique proposition. Some are modal and rife with the ethereal psychological tension of a sci-fi soundtrack, while others are more like entering a smoke-laced lounge, the entertainer embodying seduction.

With the sprechgesang of artists like Serge Gainsbourg, there is an intense intimacy to Boutet’s delivery, sometimes as if she is performing for an audience of one. As one lyric goes, translated to English from French: “Like holograms/ Images from a world/ That inhales souls/ And exudes drama.” Another song contains an excerpt from The Tao of Physics: “The eastern sages specify clearly that they do not identify an ordinary void, but rather, a void having an infinite creative potential.”

To English-language audiences, the album’s title, »Pièces«, might seem to simply refer to the eleven different pieces. The title can also, of course, refer to parts of a larger whole, but Boutet is keen to point out that there is also another meaning: In French, a pièce is a room. On the cover of the original cassette, Boutet is seen sitting on a chair, alone in an empty apartment, a cable snaking at her feet. Listening to »Pièces« is like entering eleven different rooms: whether a study encased in shadow, a greenhouse left to wither in an eternal frost, or a divine nave.

Boutet sold a few dozen copies around Montreal, a scene mostly occupied by the new wave explosion de rigueur, but the inclusion of Pièces in the 1987 issue of Ladyslipper—the North Carolina-based mail order catalog that championed women musicians of all calibers and careers—led to more exposure throughout North America. “In the catalog,” Boutet says, “they included it in the New Age section, but I was, and still am, aware that this album is relatively unclassifiable.”

Boutet would release one more album, titled Musiques Urbaines, before getting pulled in the direction of interdisciplinary art and theory. “Although I never stopped making music, I lost all interest in public diffusion or performance,” Boutet says. Despite her departure from performance and publicly releasing music, she left behind a strange and enthralling document of Montreal’s 1980s feminist fringe, an aural document of the historic moment when self-recorded music and its practical potential became a prismatic reality.

Danielle Boutet’s Pièces arrives February 16, 2024 as part of uncommon¢ (“uncommon sense”), an open-ended, serialized endeavor from Freedom to Spend that provides new meaning for rarefied recordings from music’s outermost fringe.

Car Therapy Sessions is an EP of new and re-imagined songs by Faye Webster recorded at Spacebomb Studios with a 24 piece orchestra. The orchestra was headed by Trey Pollard who was responsible for both conducting and arranging, and Drew Vandenburg produced and mixed the EP. Car Therapy Sessions will be available on vinyl in the fall and is available to pre-order on April 13th. "I have a vivid memory of walking around London in 2018 listening to a mix of Jonny, which I had just written. I remember thinking "I want to perform this song with an orchestra". I truly have had my heart set on it since then, always talking about it and figuring out how or when to make it happen," says Webster. On the EP, Webster reimagines three songs from her critically acclaimed 2021 release I Know I'm Funny haha and 2019's Atlanta Millionaires Club. The songs "Kind Of", "Sometimes" and "Cheers" take on a cinematic and glimmering new sheen. In addition to the title track -"Car Therapy" - she also shares a sprawling and emotional work - "Suite: Jonny" - which combines fan-favorites "Jonny" and "Jonny (Reprise)." The two songs originally appeared on the Atlanta Millionaire's Club tracklist, two different views on the same narrative. Here they're presented together. It's remarkable how beautifully Webster's work can take on this orchestral treatment. Like Cole Porter, or Judy Garland - her delicate and emotional delivery packs a gut punch when dramatized by the EP's robust arrangements.

From the rotten bowels of Portland USA crawls out the most hideous death metal unit called Petrification who have cursed mankind with their old school style of filth since 2017. After their Summon Horrendous Void EP (2017) and Hollow of the Void album (2018) Petrification is now ready to release their next full-length opus called Sever Sacred Light via Svart Records. Petrification’s themes may revolve around the cosmic horrors and repugnant themes, but this isn’t your typical nowadays technical progressive metal where the number of notes compensates for the lack of true vision. Sever sacred light delivers eight tracks of crushing doom laden and HEAVY - in the true sense of that word - death metal combining the down tuned caveman mid-tempo riffs of Coffins to Bolt Thrower style grooves spiced with an Autopsy worship. You can also hear the echoes from certain Finnish death metal acts from their most dark past, but (sl)easiest way to describe the Petrification’s blunt to the core delivery is: sick old school death metal for the diehards.

From the rotten bowels of Portland USA crawls out the most hideous death metal unit called Petrification who have cursed mankind with their old school style of filth since 2017. After their Summon Horrendous Void EP (2017) and Hollow of the Void album (2018) Petrification is now ready to release their next full-length opus called Sever Sacred Light via Svart Records. Petrification’s themes may revolve around the cosmic horrors and repugnant themes, but this isn’t your typical nowadays technical progressive metal where the number of notes compensates for the lack of true vision. Sever sacred light delivers eight tracks of crushing doom laden and HEAVY - in the true sense of that word - death metal combining the down tuned caveman mid-tempo riffs of Coffins to Bolt Thrower style grooves spiced with an Autopsy worship. You can also hear the echoes from certain Finnish death metal acts from their most dark past, but (sl)easiest way to describe the Petrification’s blunt to the core delivery is: sick old school death metal for the diehards.

10 DOUBLE SIDED NORTHERN SOUL GEMS FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER ON 7" VINYL. THERE IS SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE. SUPER LIMITED, AND WHEN THEY ARE GONE THEY ARE GONE JUST LIKE VOLUME 1 AND 2 THAT NOW SELL FOR OVER DOUBLE INDIVIDUALLY.

Cryovac is a family of artists that work as one machine. Individual style bands together and moves, as cogs, this machine forward. A.Garcia maintains and manages production on every level, even the pressing at the world famous Archer Record Press. Cryovac is a collaboration between artists and craftsmen to make a quality product. Each project Cryovac champions is meant as a gift for the true believer.

Cryovac #28 starts out with Jason Garcia's frantic head banger “Trapped in purgatory”. This classic 4/4 rocker builds intensity by layering screaming tones to crescendo in a steady drive. “Ichabod”, Garcia’s second track on the A side, is a spartan groove with a stoic delivery of minimalism; a stripped down rhythm with a serious attitude.

A.Garcia and M.Kretsch begin the B side with a reggae-punk techno experiment that delivers a rowdy funk.“Rock the dance bah” is Clash inspired minimal with a walking bassline, texas style percussion, and a guitar twack on the up beat. Garcia and Kretsch collab again on the B2 with “Stillgar”; a blend of synths working around each other as one storm guiding a rambunctious beating to a mystic reverie. These tracks illustrate the duo's production method and approach to the techno sound.

Our artwork for this release was provided by Nick Retzlaff. He is an artist and stand-up comic living with autism, and expressing his unique view of the world.

Ada Kaleh, the Romanian composer and DJ, follows up on his recent releases for R&S Records and Apollo with a brand new single, ‘Unravelling’.

Featuring the vocals of Fela Kuti at his most potent, ‘Unravelling’ also includes a featured performance from Eric Leeds, the American saxophone player most noted for his work with Prince, both in the studio and as part of the Purple One’s touring band.

Ada Kaleh constructs a hypnotising and minimalistic rhythm, reminiscent of Tony Allen's drumming style, speckled with dubbed out complexions and kaleidoscopic sonics that provide the perfect bed for Fela Kuti’s distinguished vocal delivery and conscientious lyric. The illustrious jazz musician Eric Leeds lends his prowess to the main mix here, as his smoky saxophone tones glide across ‘Unravelling’ with pure professional class!

Finnogun’s Wake is the delightful portmanteau of a band fronted by Shogun (vocalist of Royal Headache, and later Shogun and the Sheets) and newcomer Finn Berzin. Decades apart in age but united in tutelage and outlook, they have mitigated the Joycean tome of What To Do Now, and crafted the four debut songs of the Stay Young EP from the inside out, sharing the spotlight for a riveting, deafening smear of melodic pop and buzzsaw guitars.

Mourning the departure of his best mate to a life overseas, Shogun started hanging out with his friend’s younger brother, Finn. The two of them started spending their free time together, one having seen a fair chunk of the world through music, the other just starting to figure it all out. They went through the essential lessons that could be gleaned from Definitely Maybe and Hüsker Dü, Finn got himself a guitar, and the songs simply fell out of both of them, with this initial batch as the result. Shogun sings on “Blue Skies” and “Strawberry Avalanche,” and Finn takes the lead on “So Nice” and “Lovers All,” and while there’s no mistaking Shogun’s striking delivery and fatalistic lyrics, Finn proves himself as a carousing foil, holding his ground like the natural he’s become.

Taking into account the fevered, quick-burning success of Royal Headache, this group is the most likely candidate to do it all again, giving the sense that some people can write bounding guitar leads that stick to you like burrs from the brush, and sing so effortlessly you’re embarrassed and a little mad about how great it all sounds. Backed on these recordings by keyboardist Gabrielle De Giorgio (a longtime collaborator of Shogun’s from back in the Sheets era), bassist Campbell Troy (who was in Shogun’s first hardcore band Nintendo Police back in the mid ‘90s), and DMA’s drummer Liam Hoskins (on some COVID-enforced boredom with no tour-dom), Finn and Shogun stare down a changed world from two very distinct poles, and aim to fill it with glorious songs just like these.

Car Therapy Sessions is an EP of new and re-imagined songs by Faye Webster recorded at Spacebomb Studios with a 24 piece orchestra. The orchestra was headed by Trey Pollard who was responsible for both conducting and arranging, and Drew Vandenburg produced and mixed the EP. Car Therapy Sessions will be available on vinyl in the fall and is available to pre-order on April 13th. "I have a vivid memory of walking around London in 2018 listening to a mix of Jonny, which I had just written. I remember thinking "I want to perform this song with an orchestra". I truly have had my heart set on it since then, always talking about it and figuring out how or when to make it happen," says Webster. On the EP, Webster reimagines three songs from her critically acclaimed 2021 release I Know I'm Funny haha and 2019's Atlanta Millionaires Club. The songs "Kind Of", "Sometimes" and "Cheers" take on a cinematic and glimmering new sheen. In addition to the title track -"Car Therapy" - she also shares a sprawling and emotional work - "Suite: Jonny" - which combines fan-favorites "Jonny" and "Jonny (Reprise)." The two songs originally appeared on the Atlanta Millionaire's Club tracklist, two different views on the same narrative. Here they're presented together. It's remarkable how beautifully Webster's work can take on this orchestral treatment. Like Cole Porter, or Judy Garland - her delicate and emotional delivery packs a gut punch when dramatized by the EP's robust arrangements.

Trailblazing instrumental synth pop experiments created to soundtrack Japan’s booming 1980s cartoon and comic industries. The brightly futuristic instrumentals on this collection reflect the mindset of composers and musicians who believed in a technological future where everything was possible.

In the late 1980s Japan experienced a brief but heady period where societal changes combined with new-found wealth to open up a world of possibilities. A huge influx of cash - artificially created by slashed interest rates after an agreement with the US to weaken the dollar relative to the yen - resulted in the inflation of real estate and stock market at a rapid pace. While the economic bubble it created was unprecedented and impossible to sustain, for a while money was in plentiful supply.

The musical genre City Pop reflected the aspirations of the country’s booming leisure class. Video games flourished with Nintendo's 1983 launch of their Family Computer (or FamiCom). Studio Ghibli was founded 1985 to later became one of the most famous and respected animation studios in the world, and Anime and Manga were established as major forms of entertainment for all generations of the Japanese public.

Music was no mere footnote to the anime and manga boom: the two forms of media often went hand in hand, and not simply through the presence of background melodies. With generous budgets available, even two-dimensional static manga comics could be released with an accompanying soundtrack of original music known as an ‘Image Album’.

Composer and arranger Kazuhiko Izu was one such beneficiary of this open budget approach. Written to accompany artist Katsuhiro Otomo’s manga comic Domu, the composer and arranger took advantage of the world-leading (and wallet-busting) Japanese synthesiser technology available at King Records’ fully equipped studio. Featured on this compilation, A3: Act 2 Scene 26 reflected the story’s sci fi themes with a blazingly futuristic yet warmly funky slice of synth pop that presents a joyful celebration of synthesisers and their seemingly endless possibilities.

Kan Ogasawara was another composer who made early mastery of the litany of synthesisers, drum machines and sequencers that had become available. Two tracks written to accompany the 1985 period manga Yume No Ishibumi are featured here; Honowo’s experimental electronic textures add spice to a jaunty electro pop melody that recalls the Rah band’s 1983 hit Messages From Stars; the jazz-tinged Utage rounds out Ogasawara’s shimmering synth textures with beautifully crafted backing from legendary musicians Yuji Toriyama (guitar), Pecker (percussion) and Jun Fukamachi (piano).

Before becoming one of the pioneers of Japanese Kankyo Ongaku (Ambient Music), Takashi Kokubo worked on the proto techno track Kiki (Jungle At Night). It was put together for the 1984 anime film Shonen Keniya (Kenya Boy) using some of the most expensive music technologies available at the time. This Africa-Inspired dance track offers a contemporary parallel to the early techno music that young Detroit based producers were then creating using cheap Japanese Roland drum machines and synthesisers.

This is the first compilation of Japanese anime and manga soundtracks curated by Kay Suzuki and Rintaro Sekizuka from Vinyl Delivery Service (a Tokyo based online record shop which also operates in East London's renowned wine and hifi shop Idle Moments). With a cover by artist Kazuki Takakura and two pages of liner notes, this vinyl only compilation of music never before released outside of Japan, captures a vital aural snapshot of an era whose forward-thinking sounds went hand in hand with cutting edge technology.

Big Crown Records is proud to present the debut full length offering from Les Imprimés, Rêverie. The stirring and ethereal sounds of Les Imprimés have been making fans of anyone who hears them since their first 7” single hit the speakers. Morten Martens is the man behind the band. Born, raised, and working in Kristiansand, Norway, he keeps a low profile while making his heartfelt, highly infectious, and unique music. This album is a long time coming for Martens and it is sure to make him a name to be reckoned with.

The first thing you notice listening to Les Imprimés is the high level of musicianship. Martens plays nearly every instrument on the recordings and handles the production and arranging. He has been making records for decades, winning a Spellemann Award (aka, the Norwegian Grammy) in 2006 for producing a Hip Hop album as well as getting nominations across three other genres. While awards and accolades speak to the level of his talent, this new album really shows who he is as an artist on his own terms.

Moving away from being a hired gun on the touring scene naturally led him to start doing more studio work. Slowly collecting gear and getting more experience behind the boards he built his own studio on the island of Odderøya and was making a living playing with and recording other people's music. As the story goes, after those sessions would end he would work on his own project into the wee hours of the night. From these late night sessions, Les Imprimés was born and Rêverie began to take shape.

However, "it wasn't until COVID, when things locked down, that I was really able to find the time to focus on Les Imprimés" Morten says about creating and leading his own solo project. "It was a scary time. But I knew I had to do something with it." He took the sum of his influences, combined them with his own vibe and got busy writing the music, playing the instruments, and singing the songs. "It's soul music, but I don't exactly have the soul voice," Morten explains humbly. "But I do it my own way, in a way that's mine."

It is his sound, his fingerprint, his sensibility, that makes his music hard to categorize. He has crafted an album of songs with different energies that all fit together to make one gorgeous record. The lead single “Falling Away” starts with a raw drum break and turns into a lushly arranged tune that paints the picture of love when it slips away. On “Still Here” he professes his resilience through life’s twists and turns over a thundering track that puts a new spin on the B side ballad genre. Songs like “You” and “Our Love” mix tones from 60s and 70s Soul with arrangement nods to Doo Wop records while Martens’ lyrics and delivery leave you singing the melodies long after they finish. “Love & Flowers” finds Martens in a moment of clarity with a song that fits the niche sub genre of happy break up tunes, the four on the floor track will move the dancefloor while the message will resonate with anyone who put too much effort into the wrong situation in their lives. However, it is songs like “Muse” and “Chess” that really encapsulate the uniqueness of Les Imprimés as they push the boundaries of genre, one a profession of love for music and the other a cover of an electronic record respectively. Martens’ lyrics, emotion, and delivery truly make the whole thing come together and stand out from any of his peers. There’s an infectiousness and a pop sensibility in the writing that is done with the utmost class and taste giving Les Imprimés the rare quality of immediate attraction that only deepens the more you listen.

he year 2020 saw NNHMN release two stellar EPs, Deception Island I & II. A fascinating vintage exposure with a true minimalist approach. The typical melodic strings, dry snares and icy sequences are reminiscent of the 80s.


Each EP is a solid work of incredible dark electronica teetering between cold-wave, post-punk, minimal-synth and other related genres. The nocturnal, synth-driven production is led by Lee’s captivating and compelling vocals, whose seductive and sardonic delivery is inescapably entrancing.


Deception Island as a whole taps into a variety of moods and is of course undeniably dance floor friendly. Physically released by Oraculo Records as two separate vinyl EPs, both vinyl editions again quickly sold out. LONG CUT vinyl by Connor Dalton.

Atomçk are back! Expanded to a quartet, here is more of their uniquely eccentric and offbeat brand of grindcore for thee end-tymes. Another head crusher of cacophonous chaos, all furiously catchy riffs and inhumanly shrill, stuck-ape vocals with pinpoint drums that border on the chaotic. "Newly expanded to a quartet, Towering Failures is undoubtedly the band’s heaviest and most sonically flattening release to date, boasting a gigantic tone that sounds downright apocalyptic on slower numbers. For the most part though, this album races past at lightspeed, but manages to convey a host of different moods and textures in amongst its frantic delivery. Atomçk have been getting better and better with each subsequent album, but this is surely their most powerful and definitive record to date, and one of the most inventive and memorable grindcore records of the year thus far." - The Quietus "Like a budgie with a whistle" – Ninehertz

In the early 21st century on the bustling streets of New York City, Jennifer Vanilla is a container, a portal, a joy delivery system, a self help regimen, a social mirror, a Times Square celebrity, a shark-toothed advertiser, a kicky talk show host and an ebullient mascot. Collaboratively crafted with co-writer/co-producer Brian Abelson , Jennifer Vanilla's debut full length Castle in the Sky is a deft and mercurial "jennifreaky" journey, traversing 90s dance music, no wave, post-punk, art pop, new age and experimental R&B. "Consider this an invitation, I'll be your guide," Vanilla beckons on the album's "Take Me For A Ride," which, like much of the album, is driven by their nimble and virtuosic vocal delivery. Variously steely, theatrical, sensuous and authoritative, Vanilla's vocals harken the sparkling precision of Ann Steel, the growling tenacity of Laurie Anderson and the wispy tenderness of Shelley Duvall in Faerie Tale Theatre. Jennifer Vanilla performances often are exercises in the transformation of reality through fantasy, testing the limits thereof, while the songs of Castle in the Sky are an artifact of that laboratory. Many of these songs took on numerous incarnations over the course of years before arriving at their album form, mutated in direct response to audience reaction. A year after the initial release of Castle in the Sky via Sinderlyn Records, a vinyl edition of the record arrives on December 1, 2023, featuring bonus remixes and reworks from Jerry Paper and musclecars.

-Limited to only 150 copies on black vinyl.
-The last recordings of former Roots member Malik B before he passed away.
-Clever 1 of the popular hardcore rap duo 'Da Buze Bruvaz' is a full member of the group.
-Maylay Sparks FKA Rahsheed founded this group.
-Produced by K Sluggah who has done production for Conway, Westside Gunn, Tha God Fahim etc.
IN LOVING MEMORY OF MALIK B (NOVEMBER 14TH, 1972 – JULY 29TH, 2020)
Frozen Mugs started out back in 2020 as a soon-to-be classic hip-hop collaboration between "Maylay Sparks", Swedish producer “K Sluggah” and “Clever 1” (one half of “Da Buze Bruvaz”). You will experience an uncanny chemistry between these 2 high caliber emcees who are providing you with the traditional sharp, tenacious, aggressive & grimey wordplay over K Sluggah's cinematic, soulful, and psychedelic beats giving the listeners a vivid picture of what goes on in these dangerous times. The hard delivery and complex word patterns are descriptive gestures of loose women, action in the streets, cocktails & cold beer guzzling. Sonically this album is honed to be a masterpiece, with owner of the newly formed label “Blacbird Recs”, and revered studio engineer Joe “The Butcher” Nicolo (Ruffhouse Recs. CEO) behind the mixing board. This is hip-hop with an attitude, authentic, and with no compromises!
In the midst of recording this project, we experienced a severe tragedy as we lost the incomparable Malik B formerly from the Roots. The last days before his passing he recorded the verses for the album and he was supposed to record a few more as there were talks of him becoming a full fledged "Frozen Mugs" member. Sadly the talks of doing an album with Malik B on HHE never came to fruition. This project is dedicated to one of the most legendary emcees Philly ever bred and he will always be remembered as a lyrical giant. R.I.P.
All versions come with hype stickers and an insert that will include a bio on Frozen Mugs and a dedication to Malik B on the reverse side.