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Diving into the archives of Alter Ego - the experimental ensemble of Manuel Zurria, Paolo Ravaglia, Aldo Campagnari, Francesco Dillon, Oscar Pizzo, Fulvia Ricevuto, and Eugenio Vatta - Die Schachtel is thrilled to present Pranam - A(Round) Giacinto Scelsi, a never before released body of recordings interpreting the works of the legendary Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi, made with Matmos (Martin Schmidt and Drew Daniel) in 2005. Resting at the outer reaches of avant-garde chamber and electronic music - moving at a glacial pace of tightly wound energy - Pranam’s two sides radically rethink the terms electroacoustic music in ways that still feel radically ahead of their time, more than 15 years after they were first laid to tape.

A modular chamber ensemble with a pointedly anti-academic approach to music, over the course of its activities - running roughly between 1990 and 2010 - Alter Ego developed a devoted following among some of the most forward thinking voices in experimental music, all the while collaborating widely with artists spanning a vast range of practices and disciplines, including Robin Rimbaud, Philip Jeck, Pan Sonic, Matmos, Gavin Bryars, Andrew Hooker, William Basinski, David Moss, Alvin Curran, Terry Riley, and near countless number of others.

Alter Ego’s diverse activities can be understood as interventions with the disposition toward formality within contemporary chamber music, often pairing themselves with artists working well beyond their own context as a means to develop highly original interpretations of a specific composer’s work. In 2005, this process led them to invite Matmos, the American duo of Drew Daniel, Martin Schmidt - acclaimed for a body of visionary albums at the vanguard of electronic process and sampling - to collaborate on a series of interpretations of works by the legendary Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi.

Realized in collaboration with The Fondazione Isabella Scelsi, which holds Giacinto Scelsi’s archives, and performed at the Festival Roma Europa and the Festival Aeterforum during May of 2005, the album’s four works - Estratti dal Quartetto per archi n.3 (1963), Ko-Lho (1966), Riti: I Funerali di Carlo Magno A.D. 814 (1976), Aitsi (1974) - shift the boundaries of 20th Century chamber music toward markedly new and contemporary terms, incorporating everything from the sounds of the Revox tape machine that Scelsi used to record his own improvisations and processed electronics, to the plastic trumpets used by fans during football matches.

From intertwining, shifting lone-tones that render startling resonances and dissonances, to passages guided by a vast pallet of electronics and flurries of acoustic sounds, joined as a single ensemble, across the two sides of Pranam, Alter Ego and Matmos infuse these four works by Scelsi with humor and playfulness, while retaining all the urgency and rigour with which they were initially composed.

Delicate and meditative, while tightly wound and brooding, Pranam brings the works of Giacinto Scelsi to life in ways that almost no group ever has. Riveting and immersive from start to finish, Die Schachtel is thrilled to present these never before heard recordings from the archives of Alter Ego. Pranam is available on black vinyl, in a limited edition of 350 copies.

THULCANDRA worship the golden age of Swedish death metal with A Dying Wish! Swedish death metal veterans THULCANDRA are back! Since its foundation in 2003 by Steffen Kummerer (mastermind of Obscura), THULCANDRA has established themselves in the European extreme metal scene. Now, the black death metal outfit is about to release their fourth studio album after six years of silence. A Dying Wish was produced, mixed and mastered at Unisound Studio by the renowned Dan Swanö (Dissection, Opeth, Bloodbath, Katatonia and more) and will be released on October 29, 2021 via Napalm Records. It’s again a journey back in time to the origins of the genre, as it was musically and visually shaped by bands like Dissection, Entombed, Sacramentum and Unanimated. On their new album, A Dying Wish, the four-piece around Steffen Kummerer once again draws the listener into dark and cold soundscapes.

Blue light. No heat. A glacial wall of denser-than-dense sound. Dallas Texas’ FROZEN SOUL lives up to their name as the sound of death metal at its most cold and classic. Riff after slow, grinding riff, there’s no mistaking the themes of isolation and suffering that permeate the quintet’s massive sonic missives. “The feeling I’m getting from playing in FROZEN SOUL is powerful in a way I wasn’t getting from other bands I’ve played in before”, says frontman Chad Green. “The sound. The lyrics. Even the logo itself has a harshness to it that just feels powerful and cold. Add to that the depression of dealing with real life and the venomous people that can inhabit it and the vibe of the band just makes sense.”
FROZEN SOUL’s brand of straightforward, in-your-face death metal is a gasp of fresh air in a genre that’s stretched the very limits of technicality. Fully formed in 2018, the quintet has rapidly made a name for itself and churned the underground with a sound that evokes the old school sound of bands like Obituary, Mortician and Bolt Thrower. That reverence for death metal’s roots was apparent from Frozen Soul’s initial four-song Encased In Ice demo (which includes a cover of Mortician’s “Witch’s Coven”) that was released in early 2019 on California’s cave dwelling, knuckle dragging, Maggot Stomp Records.

‘Colourgrade’ follows on from 2018’s immediate cult
classic album, ‘Devotion’. It forms a subconscious
snapshot from across a year when Tirzah was playing
live regularly for the first time, in the depths of
promoting ‘Devotion’ and recorded soon after the birth
of her first child and shortly before her second child
was born.
The album explores recovery, gratitude and new
beginnings, presenting a singer having discovered the
type of love that is shared between a mother and a
child for the first time, whilst simultaneously working as
an artist.ௗCapturing both the great and the scary, the
exhaustion and the recovery, ‘Colourgrade’ is a listless
amble through the innermost feelings, an intoxicating
presentation of a full-time mother and artist.
As always, a Tirzah record is a family affair, featuring
the extended CURL crew that includes long term
collaborators Mica Levi and Coby Sey, the younger
brother of producer Kwes who mixes onௗ’Colourgrade’.
It’s this natural, collaborative energy that keeps
Tirzah’s music fresh and progressive.

Biffy Clyro will release the surprise new project ‘The Myth of the Happily Ever After’ on October 22nd. The record is a homegrown project that represents a reaction to their #1 album ‘A Celebration of Endings’ and a rapid emotional response to the turmoil of the past year. It is the ying to the yang of ‘A Celebration’, the other-side-of-a-coin, a before-and-after comparison: their early optimism of 2020 having been brought back to earth with a resounding thud. It’s the product of a strange and cruel time in our lives, but one that ultimately reinvigorated Biffy Clyro.

“This is a reaction to ‘A Celebration of Endings’,” says vocalist / guitarist Simon Neil. “This album is a real journey, a collision of every thought and emotion we’ve had over the past eighteen months. There was a real fortitude in ‘A Celebration’ but in this record we’re embracing the vulnerabilities of being a band and being a human in this twisted era of our lives. Even the title is the polar opposite. It’s asking, do we create these narratives in our own minds to give us some security when none of us know what’s waiting for us at the end of the day?”

Grounded by lockdown, Biffy Clyro recorded ‘The Myth’ in a completely different way to how they approached ‘A Celebrations’. Rather than spending months in Los Angeles, they traded one West Coast for another by recording for just six weeks in their rehearsal room (converted DIY style into a fully functional studio by rhythm section brothers James and Ben Johnston) in a farmhouse closer to their homes.

The trio went in with the intention of completing some unfinished songs from ‘A Celebration’, but instead ‘The Myth’ took over as it started to take shape late in 2020, with everything written and recorded within a ten-mile radius. Traditionally, 90% of Biffy songs have been written in Scotland before the band head to London or Los Angeles for recording, but this represented the first time they’ve ever recorded in their homeland. As Simon jokes, “It’s our first full-on tartan album!”

‘The Myth’ blends experimental flourishes with flashes of old school Biffy. ‘Existed’ is the moment that shaped the record an elegant expression of self-doubt that redefines the sonics of the band’s catalogue of vulnerable slowburners, while ‘DumDum’ is an even bigger departure, having been constructed primarily around soft synths sampled from Simon’s voice. And ‘Slurpy Slurpy Sleep Sleep’ is just as audacious a closer as ‘Cop Syrup’ from ‘A Celebration’. It also represents one of a selection of “easter eggs” or “turns of phrase” that subtly complement and contrast the two records.

At the other extreme, devoted fans will connect with the feral anger of ‘A Hunger In Your Haunt’, the arena-scaled drama of ‘Errors In The History of God’ and the sheer catchiness of ‘Witch’s Cup’.

‘The Myth’ has been launched alongside the new track ‘Unknown Male 01’. In six adventurous minutes, the band explore every facet they’re renowned for, taking in the unguarded emotion of its introduction, a skewed off-kilter breakdown, and a jagged, spiralling riff that builds towards a cataclysmic crescendo. The song reflects on friends who have taken their own lives.

“When you lose people that you love deeply and have been a big part of your life, it can make you question every single thing about your own life,” he says. “Like a lot of creative people, I struggle with dark thoughts. If you’re that way inclined you realise you’re staring at darkness, but you don't want to succumb. Those moments don’t stop. As the song says, ‘The devil never leaves.’ There’s never a day where you wake up thinking, ‘I feel great, it won’t cross me ever again.’”

A recurring concept of the album is the power of personal convictions, which have taken on an almost religious fervour via the echo chambers of social media and news platforms. But that idea has the nuance to rise above contrasting sides of an argument, arguing that greater unity and open-mindedness is the only way forward. Elsewhere, it spans everything from gaslighting to the ultimate devotion of cults and the beautiful failure of a Japanese racehorse.

‘The Myth of the Happily Ever After’ is now available to pre-order here, with ‘Unknown Male 01’ provided as an instant download. It will be released on CD and digital formats, as well as a limited edition red vinyl which is packaged with a must-have bonus CD for fans: full audio of the acclaimed livestream show that Biffy Clyro performed at Glasgow Barrowland in August 2020 to commemorate the release of ‘A Celebration of Endings’.

After headlining Reading and Leeds in August, Biffy Clyro will also play further large-scale outdoor gigs this summer at Cardiff Bay and Glasgow Green. Plans for 2022 are also taking shape, with April’s long sold-out ‘Fingers Crossed’ intimate tour and a huge Saturday night headline set at Download. Please see the band’s official website for a full list of shows and ticket information.

In four short years of existence, Green Lung have risen from the murk of the UK heavy underground to become a true cult band with a devoted following. Debut album Woodland Rites, released independently in early 2019, quickly garnered attention, resulting in a single being named ‘Track of the Week’ in the Guardian, plays on Daniel P. Carter’s Radio One Rock Show, a tour with fellow UK heavies Puppy and festival appearances across Europe. This brought the band to the attention of the wider music industry, and after multiple offers (including one from a major label) the band decided to stay true to their roots and sign with the Finnish audio wizards at Svart Records, home to several of their doomy inspirations including Reverend Bizarre and Warning. Svart’s deluxe reissue of the album, and the preceding EP Free the Witch,sold out several runs. Two years later, the folk horror-obsessed fivesome have re-emerged from their mulchy catacombs armed with dozens of freshly-whittled riffs. Black Harvest, the sequel to Woodland Rites, is a more colourful, widescreen reimagining of the band’s sound - Dawn of the Dead to its predecessor’s Night of the Living. Recorded at Giant Wafer Studios in rural mid-Wales over the course of two weeks with longtime producer Wayne Adams (Petbrick, Big Lad), it’s a more expansive and textured record than anything the band have done before, boasting a cinematic quality and more attention to detail.

IZIPHO SOUL are thrilled to announce the first 7” single taken from Cornell CC Carter’s highly anticipated album, NEXT LIFE.

The man CC, along with his production team have devoted the past two years to write, produce and sing on no less than thirteen songs for your delectation. 70s / 80s soul and funk influences are inextricably intertwined throughout the album, and we have selected DON’T YOU LOVE IT and REAL for the first vinyl offering. We hope you relish these song choices - mid tempo magic, backed with ballad beauty!

DeLaChaud is the home and record label of krewcial.

A young veteran in the game, krewcial released solo albums on PlayItAgainSam and UK’s BBE in the early 2000’s. With longtime friend Lefto, he sampled jazz’s greats for a beatdriven album on the legendary Blue Note label. He's also released records on Nervous, Lumberjacks In Hell, We Play House, Mysterious Works, Midnight Riot and GAMM.

krewcial's DJ-sets reflect his broad musical tastes: centered around disco and house and adding touches of latin, funk, boogie, hiphop classics and afrobeat anthems into the mix. As long as it’s soulful and keeps the dancefloor in motion, there’s a chance he’ll play it. He has shared decks with disco legend John Morales, Marcel Vogel, Mr Mendel, Lefto, DJ Suspect, Mr. Leenknecht and opened for Hiatus Kaiyote, Sergio Mendez, Angie Stone, Cassandra Wilson, Common, Jill Scott, and many many more.

Bygone, a 5 track exhilaration scripted by Chontane, immerses dancefloor devoted tracks in a rhythm driven yet melodic display. While intertwining wide-angle atmospherics and razor-sharp percussion, Chontane is able to make a reflection on today’s multifaceted, ever-evolving techno sound.

For our 4th original release we have a meeting of minds between two of our very close friends, Subb-an and Thoma Bulwer!

Made deep in the green countryside of Devon’s hills, before being adeptly finished off at TB Studios in Hackney Wick, the Devon Hills EP pulls together influences from 90’s tech house and early breaks to bring four driving and groove-laden tracks, functional but with heaps of soul.

The A side comprises two late night Autobahn bangers, rubbery misbehaved basslines and precise chord rhythms made to hypnotise the dance. Devon Hills is the most outspoken of the pair, with a loud chiming hook and an earwigging bleep melody, while DV-07 prefers to remain composed in its rolling bassline and sharp drum programming.

On the flip things go a little deeper with DV8, a padded out and chunky tribal breakbeat track with a deliciously crunchy snare. Closing out the four-track EP, East Wick lightens the mood with a sporadic break and bouncy synth melody, great afters tackle.

Repress


Study the past if you would define the future. The label keeps going beyond thinkable boundaries with another release that will define an Era, at least for us.. most likely there are records that will sign a defining moment because of the music itself, some for the emotions that a record will evoke when is played, this is a record that collects all of those emotions in one place. We are glad to present you (KRTM), an artist that is well respected and known in his world and surely he doesn't need any introduction, but this is his first time with us, and we are more than proud to show you our love for his music and his devotion.

• Long lost 1968 album from visionary South African jazz composer incorporating traditional African music sources and instruments.

• Officially licensed from the Nxumalo family and reissued with inner sleeve containing archival photographs and new liner notes by Francis Gooding.

Gideon Nxumalo’s Gideon Plays might just be the most mythologised and sought-after LP in the whole South African canon. A sophisticated bop excursion with a distinctive African edge, it was only Nxumalo’s second LP as leader, despite his crucial place in South African jazz history. Pianist Nxumalo was a visionary jazz composer who had recorded regularly during the 1950s, and his 1962 Jazz Fantasia album was the first South African jazz recording to incorporate traditional African musical sources and instruments. But he was also the country’s most significant radio presenter and jazz tastemaker – from 1954 onwards, he had worn the nickname ‘Mgibe’ to introduce ‘This Is Bantu Jazz’, South African radio’s premier jazz show.

But in the aftermath of the Sharpeville Massacre in 1961, Nxumalo had been side-lined from radio play, and was eventually sacked for playing records with political meanings. By 1968, he had not been heard on record or airwave for several years. Gideon Plays was a celebrated return to the studio for one of South Africa’s best loved and most forward-thinking jazzmen, and it showcases Nxumalo’s deep understanding of jazz, his brilliant touch as a composer, and his commitment to bringing South Africa’s indigenous sound into the music.

However, it was released on the tiny JAS Pride label owned by production impresario Ray Nkwe, and after one pressing in 1968, Gideon Plays fell into the undeserved silence that has obscured so much of the South African jazz discography. It has since become a legend: hardly more than a rumour, it has been bootlegged by the unscrupulous, changed hands for eye-watering sums, and has scarcely been heard outside the circles of the most committed South African jazz devotees. It goes without saying that it has never been released outside South Africa, and even now only a handful of original copies are known to have survived.

Over the last ten years, Matsuli Music has been proud to present some of the greatest lost and found jazz recordings in South African history – but we have never presented a rarer, lesser known album than the mighty Gideon ‘Mgibe’ Nxumalo’s Gideon Plays.

“Speight’s music takes the best elements of folk and pop music and puts them together to create a raw and infectious sound.” – The Telegraph“Enchanting debut (album).” – The Times“Gorgeous acoustic flecked hymns, trenchant rockers, off-the-cuff folk pieces, Tom Speight can draw his muse anywhere.” – CLASH“Few artists can make heartbreak feel like both a blast and a wretch.” – Atwood
Tom Speight has made the album that 2021 deserves. A celebration of living life to the max, Everything’s Waiting For You is a timely reminder to approach every day as an adventure, and an invitation to ride alongside the singer/songwriter as he travels the world wide-eyed. Recorded with producer Chris Bond in Devon and featuring contributions from regular collaborators Lydia Clowes and Turin Brakes’ Olly Knights, Everything’s Waiting For You is a bigger, bolder and poppier album, with sunny song titles, boisterous guitars, shimmering electronics and lashings of beautiful backing vocals are among the album’s calling cards.

New York electronic experimentalist Nicky Mao's 4th full-length, Silvercoat the throng, emerged against the backdrop of lockdown, compelled by an intuitive directive: “resist the urge to fill the space.” Compositionally this translated as a simmering, shadowy energy, veiled but variable, traced in a composite of strings, synthetics, rhythm, and voice. The title alludes to a poetic notion of “possibility, rescued from darkness,” which aptly evokes the shape-shifting, devotional feel of these ambitious and elegant sound designs, crafted in defiance of impermanence, driven by the pursuit of becoming “more and more articulated, differentiated.”

Collaborations with travis from ONO, Speaker Music, and Muqata'a further expand the album's lyrical, liminal palette, meshing elements of experimental techno, spoken word, neo-classical, and industrial noise into a fluid, encrypted dialect all its own. Mao speaks of creative strategies of solidification and reification, encounter and transformation, pure being and punctuation – a multitude

of sparks, fuses, and forking paths leading across fresh thresholds and twilit terrain. Taken as a whole, Silvercoat captures Hiro Kone at the peak of their powers, alchemizing disruption and decomposition into regenerative interior worlds: “Within the darkness and absence is an opportunity for discovery.”

Demon’s Souls (Original Soundtrack) is a modern reimagining of the incredible score composed by Shunsuke Kida for the original 2009 PlayStation 3 game, now updated for the 2020 PlayStation 5 remake. This soundtrack features that same amazing score but with dramatic new arrangements, great orchestral soundscapes and dramatic choral songs. Now available as a very limited vinyl set, pressed on a pair of gold LP's housed in a gatefold jacket featuring beautiful artwork by Ken Taylor. This soundtrack was recorded at AIR Studios in London, with a 75 piece orchestra, a 40 person choir and multiple vocal and instrumental soloists. Specialist marketing.

Draconian Steps brings together Jeremy Rodriguez and Ron Morelli for the first of 2 - 12''s under the name ''Circus of Death''. The tracks were recorded at Devon Analogue Studio in the UK.

Wrangled in from a weekend of long studio jams. Bleak over driven analogue business from start to finish. 3 - 909 cuts crunched out and pushed way into the red. Limited edition!

Killer tracks by Draconian Steps. A project by Jeremy Rodriguez and Ron Morelli for the first of 2 - 12''s under the name ''Circus of Death''. The tracks were recorded at Devon Analogue Studio in the UK. Wrangled in from a weekend of long studio jams. Bleak overdriven analogue business from start to finish. 3 - 909 cuts crunched out and pushed way into the red. Limited edition, so don't sleep on these!!

Pioneering electric bluesman Albert King not only influenced
American guitarists like Robert Cray and Stevie Ray Vaughan, with
whom he played in later years, but made an indelible mark in
Britain. Cream-era Eric Clapton, in particular, was an early devotee
before Albert ever set foot on UK soil, while Gary Moore, who
unashamedly took his cues from Clapton, later shared a stage with
King in his ‘Still Got The Blues’ period. Enjoy his earliest
recordings as all his famous fans would have discovered them –
on vinyl!

The UK’s love affair with American soul music blossomed in the
mid 1960s, with the launch of the Tamla-Motown record label in
Britain. But by the end of the decade this passion took on a
distinctly homegrown twist with a new movement that grew out
of the North of England and Midlands’ underground soul and
R&B scene. It was here at dancehalls and clubs such as
Manchester’s Twisted Wheel and the Wigan Casino that
devotees danced the night away to uptempo, joyous US soul
records that always came with a heavy beat. Pretty soon the
movement had a name: Northern Soul. This collection is the
next best thing and it is all on vinyl, exactly how the movement’s
fans originally heard them

Amateur Dramatics is Awkward Corners AKA Chris Menist's second LP in the space of a year. In 2020 – a time when the global pandemic gave artists more time and space to think about their music – Chris took his collaborations and compositions to a different level. Having already collaborated remotely with Sarathy Korwar, as well as Kitty Whitelaw through Karthik from Flamingods' Isolate/Create/Collaborate community, Chris turned his thoughts towards a new project. Amateur Dramatics is influenced by the events of early 2021 and alludes to the general atmosphere of political life in the UK right now where we are chivvied along by people who seem woefully unqualified to be commanding authority. Musically, the LP builds on foundations of the meditative, devotional electronic aspects of previous LP Dislocation Songs but this time frames it more in a jazz context with significant collaborations with Collocutor and Maisha's Tamar Osborn on four tracks.Vocals (from Kitty Whitelaw) feature on an Awkward Corners track for the first time, as well as double bass provided by David Leahy.The result is a thoughtful and deep listening 40 minute listening experience.

Charlie Parr’s album, ‘Last of the Better Days Ahead’, is a collection of
powerful new songs about how one looks back on a life lived, as well as
forward on what’s still to come.
Its spare production foregrounds Parr’s poetic lyricism, his expressive, gritty
voice ringing clear over deft acoustic guitar playing that references folk and
blues motifs in Parr’s own exploratory, idiosyncratic style.
When it comes to what it all means, Parr says it best: “Last of the Better Days
Ahead is a way for me to refer to the times I’m living in. I’m getting on in years,
experiencing a shift in perspective that was once described by my mom as ‘a
time when we turn from gazing into the future to gazing back at the past, as
if we’re adrift in the current, slowly turning around.’ Some songs came from
meditations on the fact that the portion of our brain devoted to memory is also
the portion responsible for imagination, and what that entails for the collected
experiences that we refer to as our lives.
Other songs are cultivated primarily from the imagination, but also contain
memories of what may be a real landscape, or at least one inspired by vivid dreaming. The album represents one full rotation of the boat in which we
are adrift looking ahead for a last look at the better days to come, then being
turned around to see the leading edge of the past as it fades into the foggy
dreamscape of our real and imagined histories.”
“Like John Hartford jamming with St Francis of Assisi, Parr strikes a fine balance between immense generosity toward humanity and barely contained
outrage towards humanity’s tendency towards coldness and conformity.” 8/10
Uncut
“Hypnotic stories of low-key endurance and universal questions, like Raymond
Carver’s fiction set to a louch, crystal-clear soundtrack” **** Mojo

Few artists in the music profession are as unclassifiable as
Nina Simone. During her long career she tackled material from
a variety of styles, garnering an audience that included soul
devotees, folk followers, R&B lovers and even jazz buffs.
Embarking on this project, she joined a host of seriously
talented individuals: the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah
Vaughan, Billy Eckstine and Frank Sinatra, who had recorded,
and would continue to record, items from the Ellington
songbook for many years to come

A double album of sumptuous, expansive downbeat luxury written by Pete Woosh - one half of the celebrated duo Digs & Woosh and Nottingham's DIY collective - with Andy Riley (Toka Project, Inland Knights) during the illness which would eventually claim Pete's life. Given the background of its creation, it's a blissfully peaceful and optimistic sounding collection.

The chilled disco/house hypnotism of 'Keep Yr Shape' and 'For Your Love', all slinky, hazy vocals and headnodding back room hedonism, are obvious highlights, but more reflective moments like 'Piano Fades' make this into a varied and enduring 'proper album' listen rather a mere collection of tracks.

All profits will go to the Spirit Wrestlers foundation, founded in honour of Pete's memory and devoted to good causes in his hometown of Nottingham.

Repress


Nina Kraviz launches her (pronounced 'trip') label with a double-EP compilation entitled 'The Deviant Octopus', featuring a pair of brand new productions from Kraviz alongside material from Terrence Dixon, emerging talent Parrish Smith & Bjarki, and veteran producers Exos & Steve Stoll.

The idea for has been gestating for some time with Nina Kraviz, an avid crate-digger and frequenter of numerous second-hand record stores, who has long wanted to begin a label of her own which would build on some of the principles of her beloved 90s techno labels in terms of attitude and aesthetics, whilst looking for forward-thinking modern productions that reflect her core tastes for idiosyncratic electronic music.

The art and title of 'The Deviant Octopus' comes from a single-sentence scenario dreamt up by Kraviz: 'Without a moment's notice an Octopus appeared and devoured everyone in sight'. Supplied with this scenario, artist Tombo rendered his own unique visualization for the artwork that adorns the release sleeve. It's Kraviz's own nod to the labels that inspire her and grab her attention while digging through second hand records, the best of which were imbued with the unique personality of the people behind them. This extends to the sound Kraviz intends for : dusky, divergent and trippy music to stimulate brains, dreams and fantasies.

In this respect 'The Deviant Octopus' is a perfect introduction: Kraviz herself is represented on the tracklist by two new tracks that take up the mantle of last year's Mr Jones EP by returning to the vocal-flecked hypnotic techno that marked out that release. Complimenting those are two new cuts from a true master of hallucinatory off-kilter techno, Terrence Dixon in his Population One guise.

Joining them will be a pair of names from the techno pantheon who have been huge influences on Kraviz: with a career that's taken in releases on Synewave, Trax, Novamute and Richie Hawtin's early-90s Probe Records, Steve Stoll has been mining his own variant on techno and acid minimalism for over twenty years, heading up the Proper NYC label and releasing under various pseudonyms, such as Cobalt, of which Kraviz has been a long-term fan. His counterintuitively titled 'Pop Song' sits alongside a 13-minute 90s techno excursion from Reykjavik's Exos - the only previously-released cut (originally appearing on Thule Records sub-label Plast Trax in 1998) - together illustrating that will also live up to its name in the geographical sense: showcasing great music from historically vibrant electronic music scenes outside of the usual Detroit-Berlin axis.

With Kraviz looking to build a small repertory of talent around , this first release also makes room for two newer names: Bjarki is an Icelandic talent to keep a firm eye on, who drew Kraviz's attention in a chance meeting after a gig at Copenhagen's Culturebox club, after which he passed her a collection of mind-bendingly odd demos; while Parrish Smith is a talented Netherlands-based producer whose short yet impactful sketch '1.0 / 8.0 Afrika Genocide' brings the second 12' to a bewitching close.

Words can't fully express how honored we are to launch our label with this timeless masterpiece of a tune. And honestly, words will never do this monumental piece justice. Just focus, and the music will effortlessly take you further, and further, and further, into the beyond within. Deep and serious, yet light and uplifting, and so, so powerful. Truly devotional music.

On the B-side we find Deepbass taking the essence of the original into his signature trance-techno hybrid, suitable at any sequence of a DJ-set. We have already seen the track work wonders on dance floors up north.

Toffes Varld ends the journey perfectly with his unique eco-friendly style. The sound of an early, misty morning deep into the Varmland forests. where innocence and play still rule the environment. Wynja energy at its purest.

Multinational industrial black metal rising force Decoherence join Sentient Ruin again to bring you "System I", a 12" vinyl, digital and cassette tape full-length album/compilation of all the band's recent digital only singles and EPs, remastered to their final and ultimate form along with a glorious and previously unreleased cover rendition of Killing Joke's classic cut "The Wait". While these tracks were previously already digitally (self)released, don't be fooled or misled to think you're hearing any "b-sides" or otherwise "left over" material, rather, consider "System I" not only the righteous third official full-length album from the band, but also by far Decoherence's most visionary, cohesive, and imposing songs to date. Awe-inducing and ghastly in its enveloping immensity, the tracks on "System I" see the enigmatic multinational black metal band morph into their most defiant and commanding form yet, as they construct an impenetrable mechanized swarm of liquefying industrial hallucinations and swirling dissonance that eradicates the listener from their corporeal and terrestrial self to cast them at the edge of a light-devouring void. Stylistically "System I" sees Decoherence's sound still thrive and evolve within the familiar synthetic black metal deconstructionist framework of progenitors like Blut Aus Nord and Darkspace, but as the Killing Joke cover included unmistakably hints at, these tracks also reveal a marked shift for the band toward a more unintelligible, unpredictable, and ominous immateriality, as elements incorporated from post-punk and experimental industrial assume stronger delineations adding ulterior dimensions and identities to the band's already alien and otherworldly sound.

Maurice De Jong AKA Mories (Gnaw Their Tongues, Cloak of Altering, De Magia Veterum, Dodenbezweerder etc.), and Rene Aquarius (Cryptae, Dead Neanderthals, Imperial Cult, Plague Organ etc.) join forces in Coffin Lurker, a hideous experiment begotten unto a perverse delusion of ushering doom metal beyond extremes of heaviness and horror it has never before seen or fathomed. Overwhelming and abominable in its every aspect, on their hideous debut LP "Foul and Defiled" the dutch terror-doom duo set out on a mission of terrifying extremism to take doom metal to its most harrowing consequences, crossing every threshold of extreme known, to materialize a humongous slow moving nightmare of paralyzing and horrific doom metal horror that will flatten the listener and devour them inside a nauseating void. Emanating with a monstrous and oppressive aura of total death and decay, "Foul and Defiled" is a gargantuan sepulchral abomination of subterranean megaton doom rising from an underworld of ageless and unnameable death and suffering that sonically aims to re-evoke the hideous and death-obsessed immensity of other undreground extreme/experimental doom abominations like Moss and Grave Upheaval, while taking the heinous formula, if possible, even beyond its own already incomprehensible and remote confines of sanity.

Interdimensional Extinction - EP The debut studio EP from this twisted Colorado death metal legion. Mixed and mastered by Damian Herring (Subterranean Watchtower). Eighteen minutes of Sci-Fi death metal for fans of Timeghoul, Demilich and other oddities. Re-released via Century Media Records the EP will be available as Ltd. CD Digipak and 180-gram black LP & poster + etching on side B. Starspawn After releasing the Interdimensional Extinction EP, BLOOD INCANTATION returned with a 30-minute cerebral whirlwind of powerful atmospheric death metal. The intense and otherworldly technical/ambient/funeral death metal of Starspawn leaves the listener feeling transcendentally disembodied at the end of an unknown dimension. Produced entirely in analog, the energy and magnetism of live BLOOD INCANTATION is tangibly melting through the speakers, and the songwriting, production and performance constellations have all fully aligned. Re-released via Century Media Records the album will be available as Ltd. CD Digipak and Gatefold 180-gram black LP & poster.

Music has always played an important role in TV shows. It can create a vibe, tension, a romantic atmosphere or a certain setting in time. With the wide range of shows currently being offered by the growing number of streaming services, their audiences are discovering bands and artists, old and new, more than ever before.

Song Education brings together some of the pivotal songs from these series, with background info on each of these artists for educational purposes. But mostly, for you to enjoy these often re-discovered songs in the most romantic way to experience music: on a beautiful vinyl record.

Song Education is a new compilation that serves to familiarise youth and young adults with popular music from the 60’s through the 90’s. Some of the artists included on this record are Roxy Music, Duran Duran, The Cutting Crew, Elton John, Salt-N-Pepa and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. The album is available on solid red coloured vinyl. The package contains an insert with more information about the featured artists.

This album is released through Vinyl Base, a brand new sublabel by Music On Vinyl that is specifically targeted at youth and young adults.

If your brain has a shortlist of bands that instantly evoke New Wave, Suburban Lawns deserve a slot right next to the likes of Devo, Talking Heads and the B-52's. After putting out two singles on their own Suburban Industrial imprint, the Lawns signed to I.R.S. Records and released their debut LP in 1981. While the band gained cult status thanks in part to a Jonathan Demme-produced music video which aired on Saturday Night Live, their self-titled album would sadly be the five-piece's only full-length statement.

Suburban Lawns' asymmetrical aesthetic is personified by co-vocalist Su Tissue, whose mesmerizing stage persona was at once childlike and terrifying. Her unique style embodies the awkward/arty female singer of the Reagan era, while the group's male vocals – courtesy of Frankie Ennui, Vex Billingsgate and John McBurney – maintain the satirical themes of Southern California's postwar mirage of limitless sprawl.

Suburban Lawns' catchiness can be attributed to their drum-tight performance and taut songwriting. Listen to the vocal trade-offs on "Anything," which could have easily come out on any purely Punk label from LA at the time, while Tissue's deadpan delivery on "Janitor" glides into the best art-warble this side of Lene Lovich, broaching the possibility of nuclear annihilation with a murmured "Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom."

From a West Coast scene dominated by 7-inch singles and EPs, the Suburban Lawns' lone LP remains in a class with precious few. It's not surprising that they found acceptance in the Hollywood punk scene, despite their Long Beach roots, and would influence other bands such as Minutemen. This is not a disc that will get parked in your collection hoping to get pulled once in a while; this is a record you will play.

A rare album of Alice Coltrane's devotional music will be reissued this July. Turiya Sings was originally released as a cassette at Coltrane's Ashram, located at the Vedantic Center in California. Its compositions were first based only on her Sanskrit vocals and a Wurlitzer organ, before being expanded with synthesisers, strings, and sound effects. The album, rediscovered some years ago by Coltrane's son Ravi, was bootlegged in 2015, but is now being officially reissued by Impulse!/UMe, as Kirtan: Turiya Sings. The new release was mixed by Steve Genewick and mastered by Kevin Reeves.
"As her son, growing up and hearing her playing these songs on the very same Wurlitzer you hear on this recording," Ravi Coltrane wrote in a statement, "I recognize this choice maintains the purity and essence of Alice's musical and spiritual vision. In many ways, this new clarity brings these chants to an even higher place."

Spirit Tamer’ is the debut album from Mia Joy available on limited edition
Bright Pink and Classic Black vinyl and compact disc on Fire Talk.
A member of the Chicago Children’s Choir at a young age, the record sees Joy’s
dual backgrounds in music and poetry evolve into a juxtaposition between
soaring emotional synthpop and introspective devotional harmonies.
Past press has referred to Mia’s music as ‘warm, ethereal, endlessly layered,
and beautifully expanding’.
Filled with heady atmospherics and vulnerability that abounds through the
shapeshifting sonic palette, fans of Ana Roxanne or Hand Habits will find much
to love in this painstakingly crafted, endearingly intimate universe.

Composer, multi-instrumentalist, poet, griot, improviser and community
leader William Parker presents a pair of brand new trio albums which
further expound on his limitless vision.
One of the iconic and enduring music leaders to emerge in the world over the
last half century, William Parker continues to raise the bar higher.
‘Painters Winter’ features the trio of Daniel Carter (reeds, trumpet, flute) William Parker (bass, trombonium, shakuhachi) and Hamid Drake (drums). Carter
& Parker have been perpetual space-ways traveling companions since first
meeting & immediately beginning to channel music together in early 1970s
NYC. Here, Carter again brings the full assembly of instruments he has for decades been a master of: trumpet, alto & tenor saxophones, clarinet and flute.
Likewise, Hamid Drake is a musician’s musician; one of the most in-demand
drummers in the world. He is in command of a vast lexicon of drum languages,
learned and absorbed directly. His frequent flyer miles could get him a ticket to Saturn and back. Drake & Parker launched their devoted “two-man big
band” partnership in 2000 and haven’t stopped since. In trio with Daniel Carter,
they’ve created one previous album together, ‘Painters Spring’, released that
same year.
Drake has made mention of his awe that William could pick up any new instrument and make beautiful music with it from jump. The title track of ‘Painters
Winter’ features Parker on trombonium, one of those many instruments that
he plays beautifully on. The track “Painted Scarf” features Parker on shakuhachi, upon which he has clearly become a master.
William Parker: bass, trombonium, shakuhachi
Daniel Carter: trumpet, alto & tenor saxophones, clarinet, flute
Hamid Drake: drums

Having already unearthed three collections of archival ‘70s recordings by Catherine Christer Hennix, Blank Forms continues their annual illumination of the visionary Swedish composer’s music by turning to more recent work with this first-time vinyl edition of Hennix’s “Blues Alif Lam Mim in the Mode of Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis,” a 2014 piece first released as a CD in 2016 (Important Records).

The double album captures the April 22, 2014 premiere of Hennix’s composition by by the Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage, her expanded just intonation ensemble, featuring a brass section of Amir ElSaffar, Paul Schwingenschlögl, Hilary Jeffery, Elena Kakaliagou, and Robin Hayward; live electronics by Stefan Tiedje and Marcus Pal; and voice by Amirtha Kidambi, Imam Ahmet Muhsin Tüzer, and Hennix herself. Intended to reveal the blues’ origins in the eastern musical traditions of raga and makam, “Blues Alif Lam Mim in the Mode of Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis” has its roots in Hennix’s 2013 realization of an “Illuminatory Sound Environment,” a concept developed in 1978 by anti-artist Henry Flynt on the basis of Hennix’s own “The Electric Harpsichord.”

As Hennix explains in Other Matters, Blank Forms’ 2019 collection of her writings:

“Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis presents fragments of ‘raga-like’ frequency constellations following distinct cycles and permuting their order, creating a simultaneity of ‘multi-universes.’ When two such ‘universes’ come in proximity of each other and begin unfolding simultaneously along distinct cycles, there is a kaleidoscopic exfoliation of frequencies as one universe is becoming two, but not separated—the effect of cosmosis is entrained, binding two or more frequency universes into proximity where their modal properties interact and blend, creating in the process entirely new microtonal constellations in an omnidirectional simultaneous cosmic order with phenomenologically ‘transfinite’ Poincaré cycles (cyclic returns to initial conditions).”

As with Hennix’s best work, the organic unfolding of this quivering drone belies a precision that opens onto the infinitesimal. Upon its mesmerizing ebb and flow, the vocalists incant a devotional poem written in Arabic by Hennix and featuring quotations from the Quran. Also reproduced on the album’s gatefold jacket, Hennix’s reduction of the sacred text to its most elegant formulation invites the contemplator to bring their inner knowledge to the composition for use as a prompt for meditation. Yet the piece offers depth to even the most secular listener willing to immerse themselves in music brimming with such serene intensity.

Catherine Christer Hennix (b. 1948) started her creative life playing drums with her older brother Peter, growing up in Sweden where she heard jazz luminaries, such as John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Dexter Gordon, Archie Shepp, and Cecil Taylor perform from 1960 to 1967. Directly after high school, Hennix went to work at Stockholm’s pioneering Elektronmusikstudion (EMS), where she developed early tape music, incorporating computer generated speech done at the Royal Technological University (KTH), where she was an undergraduate student. After traveling to New York In 1968, she met artists Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles who invited her to stay at the Something Else Press Town House where she had the opportunity to meet, among others, composers John Cage, James Tenney, and Phil Corner. During the following years she developed fruitful collaborative relationships with many composers in the burgeoning American avant-garde, including, most significantly, Henry Flynt and La Monte Young. Young introduced Hennix to Hindustani raga master Pandit Pran Nath and she would later study intensively under him as his first European disciple. While Hennix continued to make music performing alongside Arthur Russell, Marc Johnson, Henry Flynt, and Arthur Rhames, she also served as a professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at SUNY New Paltz and as a visiting Professor of Logic (at Marvin Minsky’s invitation) at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. In recent years Hennix has led the just-intonation ensemble the Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage, which has featured musicians Amelia Cuni, Amirtha Kidambi, Chiyoku Szlavnics, Hilary Jeffrey, Amir El-Saffar, Benjamin Duboc and Rozemarie Heggen. She currently resides in Istanbul, Turkey pursuing studies in classical Arabic and Turkish makam.

Lloyd Altamont Thomas Robinson recorded many songs as a singer first for Studio One in 1963 and later for many labels and Jamaican producers including Duke Reid,

Lloyd Daley, Sir JJ and more. Robinson was part of the duo Lloyd and Devon, whom had quite a few good songs under their belt including a hit for Derrick Morgan's Hop label,

"Red Bum Ball.". With Glen Brown, under the name Lloyd & Glen, he wrote and recorded many outstanding Rocksteady & early Reggae tracks, some quite heavily influenced by

Black Soul including the two sublime tracks featured here. He went on to record the big dancehall hit “Cuss Cuss” in 1984 on the Harry J. label.


Glenmore Lloyd Brown, began his career as a vocalist in Sonny Bradshaw’s jazz group before recording duets with Hopeton Lewis, Dave Barker, and Lloyd Robinson.

Later, Brown became the founder and owner of the Reggae/Dub labels Pantomine and South East Music. A sought after producer he worked with many with many

Reggae greats including U Roy, Gregory Isaacs, Big Youth, I-Roy, Prince Jazzbo, Johnny Clarke, Lloyd Parks, and Little Roy.

The heavy rhythms of his Dub productions resulted in his being known as "The rhythm master".



As “Lloyd & Glen”, they composed, sang and recorded together about 15 tracks, ranging from Ska to Rocksteady to Soul on a variety of labels between 1966 and 1968.



Most of these songs are outstanding, many are just sublime with a strong American Soul influence.

Strapping Young Lad was a Canadian extreme metal band formed by Devin Townsend in Vancouver in 1994. The band started as a one-man studio project; Devin Townsend played most of the instruments on the 1995 debut album, Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing. By 1997, he had recruited permanent members; this line-up, which consisted of Townsend on vocals and guitar, Jed Simon on guitar, Byron Stroud on bass, and Gene Hoglan on drums, lasted until the band's dissolution. Strapping Young Lad's music was characterized by the use of polyrhythmic guitar riffing and drumming, blast beats and wall of sound production. band leader Devin Townsend was also noted for his eccentric appearance and on-stage behaviour, which greatly contributed to the band's intense live performances. The band gained critical success and a growing underground fan base from their 1997 album City. After a hiatus between 1999 and 2002, the band released three more albums, reaching their commercial peak with the 2006 effort, The New Black. Townsend disbanded Strapping Young Lad in May 2007, announcing his decision to retreat from public view while continuing to record solo albums. Listenable is now extremely delighted to be releasing All Strapping Young Lad beyond Legendary studio albums on De Luxe Limited Edition Vinyls. A brand new vinyl master has been made for each album. All albums include bonus tracks . Grab them now !.

Nothing can beat the thrill of thrash at its best, and no one is keeping the spirit and sound of the genre alive quite like Berlin’s Space Chaser. Marking their ten-year anniversary with their third full-length, Give Us Life, they are returning in force and once again establishing their importance in the scene. While they predominantly take their lyrics seriously they also have moments of fun, such as on “Army Of Awesomeness”, but the band are primarily drawn to dystopian sci-fi stories with roots in real-life physics and the works of Carl Sagan, and as they point out “it’s still a lot of fun to sing about a dying sun turning into a black hole and becoming a galaxy devouring behemoth.” The title track might possibly contain the most epic theme ever covered, describing the emergence of life and its inevitable death from the smallest to the largest possible scale.

Mondo Music in collaboration with Hollywood Records is proud to present the premiere vinyl pressing of Mark Mothersbaugh's score to Thor: Ragnarok.

Former Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Lego Movie) is the perfect choice for Taika Waititi's radical third chapter in the THOR series. Skillfully weaving the sonic landscape of the high fantasy genre with otherworldly synth, Mothersbaugh has produced one of the best scores of the entire MCU.