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Mit „Bullet For My Valentine – Deluxe“ knüpfen Bullet For My Valentine an den Erfolg ihres letzten Albums „Bullet For My Valentine“ an, mit dem die Metal-Veteranen ihren Platz in den Top 10 Album Charts sicherten. Ein Album voller kreischender Soli und monströser Riffs, das neue und alte Fans gleichermaßen begeistert. Schon beim ersten Hören erkennen die Fans, dass Bullet sich in der Form ihres Lebens befinden.

Der bösartige Opener „Parasite“ und die furiose erste Single des Albums, „Knives“, sind pures metallisches Adrenalin: galoppierende Drums, brodelnder Gesang und rasende Soli, die einen dunklen Sound erzeugen, der die schwierige Zeit widerspiegelt, in der das Album aufgenommen wurde. Jetzt dreht die Band weiter
auf. Das selbstbetitelte Deluxe-Album enthält 4 neue Tracks und „Stitches“, der bisher nur als japanischer Deluxe-Track erhältlich war. Die Deluxe Version erscheint als CD und in limitierter Vinylfarben.

…If I Die, I Die was released only weeks before the Heresie box set. The two albums show very different faces of the Virgin Prunes – one that explored mythical worlds and another that showed their surrealistic interest in the creative power of insanity. They also highlight the ways in which the band enjoyed experimenting with different genres, sound forms and recording techniques. As Friday has commented recently, ‘The Virgin Prunes contained four different bands at the same time.’

The album was recorded at the Windmill Studios in Dublin in the summer of 1982 and produced by Wire’s Colin Newman. Rather than adopt an A/B format, the sides of the 1982 vinyl and album cover, which was designed by Steve Averill, were given brown and blue colours, signalling earth and sky respectively. The art work on each side of the sleeve was also inverted so that either side could be read as the front cover. Ursula Steiger’s photography captured, on the brown side, the band running through a forest like a nomadic tribe. On the blue side we then find them in different costumes, performing with fire and mannequins within a derelict building.

This 40th Anniversary Edition of the album sees a full remaster housed in a Limited Edition Special Finish Gatefold Sleeve on Transparent Vinyl. This Deluxe LP also comes with a 16 page booklet featuring sleeve notes by Dr. Jonathan Wood exploring the writing, recording and production of the record. Plus an exclusive 12x12 Art Print. The album is also available as 2CD Mediabook & Digital Deluxe.

Wer hat hier schlechte Laune, fragt Max Raabe mit seinem neuen Album und singt von der Liebe, von ihrem zarten Erblühen und Verwehen, von Gefühlen und ihrer Verwirrung. Es geht um die Verquickung von Glück und Zweifel, von Euphorie und Unsicherheit, von der Freude am anderen und dem Hadern mit sich selbst.

Mit Wer hat hier schlechte Laune schließt Max Raabe an seine letzten Produktionen an und geht noch einen Schritt weiter. Er wahrt die lieb gewonnene Ästhetik der Weimarer Republik, aber stärker denn je
übersetzt er seine künstlerischen Prägungen in moderne musikalische Formen. Zum ersten Mal ruhen einige der neuen Lieder auf einem Fundament aus elektronischen Rhythmen. Alle Freundschaften aus der »Raabe-Pop«-Phase sind wieder dabei: Annette Humpe, Christoph Israel, Peter Plate, Ulf Leo Sommer, Joshua Lange und Achim Hagemann. In der popmusikalischen Landschaft der Gegenwart ist Max Raabe ziemlich einzigartig – beseelt vom Witz
vergangener Zeiten, aber auch vom Wissen über den Wandel der Welt.

The 6th release in the 'Foundations' series of classic House curated by DJ Spinna and Kai Alce, Sandee's 1988 masterpiece Notice Me joins seminal tunes from Ralph Rosario, Dreamer G, Cajmere, Chip E & K-Joy and Tyree Cooper to complement this amazing selection of hugely significant and killer heritage tracks. Written by Robert Clivilles and co-produced with David Cole (C+C Music Factory), the pedigree of Notice Me is seriously enhanced by the vocals of Latina singer and original member of the vocal group Exposè, Sandeé (Sandra Casañas) and the sound editing of long time Clivilles & Coles collaborator, the producer and percussionist Luis Rivera. Bass heavy and featuring a drum break that inspired so many great House cuts Notice Me was picked up by DJs of the calibre of Frankie Knuckles and Roman Ricardo on release in 1988. Notice Me became a dancefloor favourite at legendary clubs such as Tunnel and Palladium in New York City and the Riviera in Chicago , subsequently reaching number 9 in the Billboard Dance Charts in 1989. Tragically both Sandeé and David Cole died at far too early ages (46 and 32 respectively) but their places in the pantheon of House music history are assured as the vocalist and the co-producer of Notice Me. Indeed it is an era defining track and definitely a must have in your vinyl collection. A word about the Foundation Series from its curators: Kai:“Well my interest in 7”s is new. I have been a collector of 12”s all my life, House & Disco. Being inspired by JRocc after playing one of Discogs’ Crate Diggers events, my initial focus was on finding House 7”s which proved to be harder than I thought… Most were not available in 7” format & the popular ones that existed were quite rare. So now me and Spinna are trying to fill some of those empty spaces.” Spinna:“45 DJing has become a new excitement among vinyl DJs, but although endlessly repressed on other formats, a few classic house titles have simply never been pressed on 7” vinyl. We ran our ’45 wish list past BBE and the rest is history. When creating the edits we tried to imagine we worked for the original record label and were cutting the ‘radio edit’. The aim: to keep the heart of the track intact while reducing the length to fit the format.”

Issued by Leo Fegin's visionary record label in 1993, this refreshed and revised reissue collection of Hungarian composer Tibor Szemző's chamber pieces with spoken text – composed at 1980s for the legendary GROUP 180 – is unlike anything else of its kind.

No one has survived life. Everyone has died from it so far. Man must realize that He is responsible for His own life and fate and must insist upon this responsibility beyond all limits. And since Man has dissociated Himself from the sphere of irrationality, He has no way of getting in touch with death, or of establishing control over it. How we achieve the final result is merely of secondary importance. If the vision is clear to everyone, there is no need at all to look back. In a time of complete mental disturbance, only one chance remains to us: crystal-clear thinking. This leads us back to total mental disturbance, which everyone has died from so far. (Pavel Havliček – Miklós Erdély – Tibor Hajas)

Text and Music | Language and Speech | Sound and Music

The common basis of the three works by Tibor Szemző heard on this album is the inalienable relationship to text – as an a priori principle. Text and music: the formal attributes of significance, intentions, and levels of meaning inherent in verbal communication as it is transformed into audible code. Language and speech: the structural level of communication, where it becomes purposeful expression, acoustic statements of variable modality. Vocalization as sublimation. Sound and music: By becoming an auditory signal, communication is deprived of its sense and reduced to musical articulation and abstraction.

Skullbase Fracture: Shards of reality – senseless, disconnected fragments of recorded “living speech” – simultaneously disintegrate and merge to create meaning through the musical process, while it is degraded and stylized to represent a single layer of the ambient noise one would hear in a hospitality setting.

Optimistic Lecture: The theses – like a practical, everyday user’s manual to cognitive tendencies and aims as they apply to the entirety of existence – convey their meaning through simplified rhythmic speech, galvanized into commands. As a counterpoint to recited prayers, they comprise a uniform soundscape.

The Sex Appeal of Death: The head-on simplicity of communication creates such extremely reductive musical interrelations that they cannibalize themselves in a necessary and inevitable fashion. And, in this manner, the text as well

Black Truffle is pleased to announce Uri Katzenstein’s Audio Works, produced in collaboration with Holon’s Centre for Digital Art. Spanning sculptural installation, performance, video art, and many other media, Katzenstein’s absurdist, poetic, and often hilarious work made extensive use of sound and music. This, however, is the first release dedicated to the artist’s audio work, collecting 28 tracks produced between the early 1980s and 2017. Compiled from dozens of hours of recordings left uncatalogued (and in some instances unheard) at the artist’s death in 2018, these four sides are a treasure trove, offering a captivating glimpse into a uniquely uninhibited creative practice. Predominantly recorded alone, with some contributions from regular collaborators such as Ohad Fishof on the later pieces, many of these tracks stem from Katzenstein’s time living in New York in the 1980s. Feeding on the cross-pollination of post-punk energy, radical art practice, and new media possibilities that characterised the New York scene at this time, many of Katzenstein’s recordings squeeze multilayered vocal experimentation into synth-based miniatures with a distinctively pop twist, their forms ruptured with anarchic bursts of free-form electronics, sounds from self-built instruments, and field-recorded snatches of the outside world. Katzenstein’s electronic production calls up touchstones of skewed 80s art pop like Laurie Anderson, Ambitious Lovers, and Scritti Politti, but imbued with DIY directness and economy of means. The arrangements of synths, percussion, and noise elements are invigoratingly raw and, at times, almost austerely minimal. On ‘Intermission’, thick distorted chords accompany a wandering portamento melody, inhabiting the wayward carnival space of Roedelius’ most unhinged efforts. Many of the tracks centre on Katzenstein’s multi-tracked vocal performances, often moving between multiple languages, (most commonly English, German, French, and Hebrew). A bewildering range of vocal approaches are present on these pieces, from sweet wordless harmonies to hammed-up growls and monastic recitations. On ‘Skin O. Daayba – Complex Habits no. 3’, improvised resonance singing against a backdrop of echoing electronics and radio snatches. ‘Half Monk Half Herring’ layers multi-lingual syllabic fragments, crossing sound poetry techniques with melodic invention in a way rarely heard outside of Caetano Veloso’s Araçá Azul. On ‘Attempt to Raise Hell’, Katzenstein’s distorted voice spits out streams of alliterative nonsense (‘the hemlock of Henry, he was a hermit…purple pumpkin pulsates to pops’), while on the hilarious ‘Eric’, Katzenstein appears to instruct a small boy simultaneously in basic French and German conversation. On ‘Chicken’, vocal harmonies accompany the pecking and clucking of the titular fowl. Moving from bent, outsider synth pop to snatches of Jo Jones-esque automated instrumental clang and absurdist linguistic experiments, these are far more than footnotes to an artist’s gallery works. Accompanied by extensive, beautifully written liner notes by Roee Rosen and the little information that exists on the individual tracks, Katzenstein’s Audio Works inhabits an outer fringe of DIY pop and sonic experiment reminiscent of Pascal Comelade or Die Welttraumforscher, where accessible forms convey radical interrogations of song, word, and sound.

After releasing his self-titled debut album in 2017 (On Agitated AGIT044R), Dion Lunadon (The D4, ex-A Place To Bury Strangers) and In The Red Records is proud to release his sophomore album, Beyond Everything. Beyond Everything will be Lunadon’s first release on In The Red (an ideal match for his music), as well as his first full-length since departing A Place To Bury Strangers. Written, performed and recorded by himself, the songs tap into a raw, palpable energy that blur the line between the music and the person. Drums on the record were played by Blaze Bateh (Bambara) and Nick Ferrante (The Black Hollies). Lunadon says; “The record was written and recorded sporadically between 2017 and 2019. I probably wrote about one hundred songs during this period. The first album was pretty relentless which I liked, but I wanted to make something more dynamic for the second record. Something that could be more conducive to repeated listens. I’d get in my studio, come up with a song title, and start working on any ideas that I had. For example, with ‘Elastic Diagnostic,’ the idea was to create a hum that evokes the sound of life coursing through your body. Everything else kind of formed around that idea.” “An arresting, noise-infected dose of psych-garage.” on “It’s The Truth”—Brooklyn Vegan “An amped up garage psych ripper.” on “Living And Dying With You”—Brooklyn Vegan “A ferocious rocker.” on “Living And Dying With You”—Destroy Exist “A gritty and raw glam-like anthem centered around chugging power chords, Lunadon’s howled and desperate delivery, forceful and propulsive drumming paired with an explosive feedbackdriven coda, ‘It’s The Truth’ further cements the Kiwi-born, Brooklyn-based artist’s reputation for crafting anthems meant to be played as loud as humanly possible.” —Joy Of Violent Movement

Laila Sakini's new album 'Paloma' arrives via Modern Love and is her most striking and ambiguous to date - a pointed and timely meditation on hope and hierarchies that riffs on Zbigniew Preisner's magical "The Double Life of Veronique" score and enduring outsider music tome "The Langley Schools Music Project". Subtly transcendent, fathoms-deep music.

When Laila Sakini's debut album ‘Vivienne’ arrived in 2020, it felt like the record we were waiting for to map out our tangled reactions to an uninvited reality. Never self-consciously strange, it revealed itself slowly and cautiously, like a shadow in the corner of the eye, or an alchemical symbol in a bowl of alphabet spaghetti. This time around Sakini has worked her unique world-building to an even finer point, forming six tracks around a theme that's so close to our heart it's almost beating in time. Initially inspired by Krzysztof Kieślowski's 1991 arthouse classic "The Double Life of Veronique", the cult Polish director's enduring modern fairytale that serves as a cosmic rumination on identity and choice. Detailing two identical women - both singers, both in love - the film lets one live as the other dies, forcing us to consider the implications of art and endurance in the face of life's myriad challenges.

Sakini takes Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner's influential score for the film and uses it as a jumping-off point for ‘Paloma’, bending the more grandiose moments into baroque awkwardness on opening track 'Fluer D'Oranger' and evoking the mood of scene-setting cues 'Weronika' and 'Véronique' on the recorder-led 'The Light That Flickers In The Mirror'. And while Preisner's score zeroed in on the musical virtuosity of the film's lead characters, Sakini reinterprets that as a metaphor for self-discovery. Playing piano, violin, glockenspiel, timbale, recorder, and occasionally singing, Sakini captures a mood of innocence that immediately transports the listener back to simpler times. Her music isn't self-consciously simplistic, but forcing herself to interface with instruments impulsively rather than studiously, her sounds are all heart, no filigree.

In spirit, it reminds us of cult Canadian album "The Langley Schools Music Project", a collection of 1970s recordings of school kids singing rudimentary renditions of pop songs in a school gymnasium. That album's genius was in the bottling of hope and innocence: the feeling of joy from hearing and wholesomely interacting with music that's known and loved without a sense of hierarchy or desire for cultural clout. Sakini subtly subverts this by evoking the amateur spirit in the most bewitching way; instead of sourcing her ideas from Bowie, Fleetwood Mac and the Beach Boys, her stock is the established art canon, and by reforming those sounds she makes an insightful comment on intellectualism and access. European classical music is all too often trapped behind the frosted glass of respectability and assumed skill - craft replaces spirit, and technique replaces soul. By approaching these gestures from a different angle, Sakini softens the edges sonically and intellectually, finding music that bubbles with emotion, and most strikingly - hope.

Her choice of instruments and the way she interacts with them allows us to feel as if we're not only listening but contributing. It's a bottom-up way of absorbing art that's traditionally been top-down, and a reminder that we're all part of the experience, whether we're humming along to the remnants of a theme as it dribbles out of an ear in the shower, or dreaming of spotlights in a parallel life that may or may not be real. Sakini's music is nostalgic in a sense, but nowhere near the buttered popcorn and high-fructose candy migraine of the Netflix/Spotify algorithm generation of regurgitated churn. She makes sounds that remind us of what time and experience may have stolen from us, and how we might recover it.

Reissue of the oud / viola virtuoso SIMON SHAHEEN's interpretations of pieces by one of the Middle East's most important 20th Century composers, MOHAMED ABDEL WAHAB. Produced by BILL LASWELL, remastered for vinyl at D&M Berlin.

MOHAMED ABDEL WAHAB (1902-1991) was "a giant in the world of Middle Eastern entertainment" (Al Jadid Magazine) - as singer, actor and composer – and is commonly considered "the father of modern Egyptian song". After a visit to Paris, he revolutionized the film industry by introducing the genre "musical film" to the Arabic world, the movie "The White Rose" in which he starred broke all records and to this day is frequently presented in Cairo's cinemas. But in 1950, WAHAB left the film industry to focus on singing and composing – he wrote over 1800 songs (among others for Umm Kalthoum, an iconic artist in the Arabic music in her own right) that were deeply rooted in classical Arabic music but also laid the foundation for a new era of Egyptian music as WAHAB was open to Western elements such as waltz rhythms or even rock'n'roll in Abdel Halim Hafez's song "Ya Albi Ya Khali". He also composed several national anthems (Tunisia, Oman, Libya, United Arabic Emirates) and re-composed the Egyptian national anthem "Belady Belady Belady", based on the original by Sayed Darwish. WAHAB received several decorations of Arabic states, and at his death in 1991, Egypt honored its famous son with a huge military funeral at the Rabia al-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo, the six-horse carriage procession carrying his coffin was actually led by the prime and foreign ministers, followed by the ministers of defense, interior and culture!


SIMON SHAHEEN (born 1955) is the perfect choice for WAHAB's compositions. Born into a family of gifted musicians, he learned playing the oud at the age of 5 and the violin shortly thereafter. He earned degrees in Arabic literature and music performance at the Tel Aviv University, and later pursued further studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and after his emigration to the USA (in 1980) at the Manhattan School of Music and Columbia University. SHAHEEN lives in New York where he founded the Near Eastern Music Ensemble and Qantara, a formation that blends traditional Arabic Music with elements of Jazz and classical music, and he also has been organizing the Annual Arab Festival of Arts called Mahrajan al-Fan since 1994. The same year he received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts at the White House. Solo albums like Saltanah (Water Lily Acoustics), Turath (CMP) or Taqasim (Lyrichord) underline his importance as one of the most significant Arab musicians, performers, and composers of his generation. His work incorporates and reflects a legacy of Arabic music, while it forges ahead to new frontiers, embracing many different styles in the process. SHAHEEN has participated in many cross-cultural musical projects with artists as diverse as Henry Threadgill, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, or the Jewish klezmer ensemble The Klezmatics, contributed to the soundtracks for The Sheltering Sky and Malcolm X and composed the entire score for the United Nations sponsored documentary, For Everyone Everywhere, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Human Rights Charter. SHAHEENS biggest success was the Qantara album Blue Flame (2001) which has been nominated for eleven Grammy Awards.

Besides all his activities as performer, he dedicates a good part of his time to working with schools and universities, including Julliard, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Yale, University of California in San Diego, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and many others.
The Music Of Mohamed Abdel Wahab was originally released in 1990 on Axiom, the record label curated by iconic producer and bass player Bill Laswell, and has been carefully remastered for this vinyl reissue at D&M, Berlin.


Press quotes:
"Master oud player and composer Simon Shaheen finds the perfect mix on this collection of Mohammed Abdel Wahab's pieces … seven wonderful interpretations sparkling with oud and strings interplay." Stephen Cook / AllMusic


"Shaheen's violin soars over a slicing string section and a bed of percolating percussion, while accordion, oud, finger cymbals and a chorus of singers weave in and out. Produced with sparkling clarity by Bill Laswell … this record opens a new world of harmonic and melodic possibilities to ears accustomed to Western pop." Greg Kot / Chicago Tribune


Musicians:
Simon Shaheen: Oud, Violin, Viola
Najib Shaheen: Oud
Sheikh Taha: Accordion
Anton Hajjar: Ney
Paula Bing: Flute
Ramzi Bisharat: Tabla
Hanna Mirhige: Mizhar
Michael Baklouk: Daff
Bobby Farah: Sagat
Ibrahim Salman: Quanoun
Artemis Theodos, Gabriel Palka, Nessim Dakwar, Kamil Shajrawi: Violin
Mike Richmond: Double Bass
Michael Finkel, Vladimir Greenberg: Cello
Laura Shaheen, Louise Salman, Maurice Chedid, Nermine Rawi,
Simon Shaheen, Youssef Kassab: Chorus

Das neue Spoon Remix-Album "Lucifer on the Moon" ist das schwerkraftlose Pendant zu "Lucifer on the Sofa". Das zehnte Album der Band aus Austin wurde von Grund auf überarbeitet und von On-U Sound-Gründer und UK-Dub-Ikone Adrian Sherwood neu interpretiert. "Lucifer on the Moon" nahm zunächst in Form von ein paar Remixen für die Singles des aktuellen Spoon-Albums Gestalt an. Frontmann Britt Daniel gab Sherwood zwei Empfehlungen: "Vermeide Dinge, die auf Band nicht möglich wären" und "Füge hinzu, was immer du möchtest, je weniger modern, desto besser." Die Zusammenarbeit sollte nicht überraschen: Die Dub-inspirierte Produktion zieht sich durch Spoons klassische Tracks, von "Finer Feelings" bis "Inside Out". Sherwood ist ein bewährter Kollaborateur, der bereits mit Lebenslauf Partnerschaften mit bedeutenden Künstlern wie The Fall, Jah Wobble und Mark Stewart enthält. Die ersten Ergebnisse gefielen beiden Parteien und Sherwood wurde beauftragt, an weiteren Songs zu arbeiten - und dann an noch ein paar mehr. "Ich fand Gefallen an der Melodie und den Gedanken, die sie in mir auslöste", erklärt der Produzent. "Es hat sich einfach weiterentwickelt und wir hatten schließlich ein ganzes Album." "Lucifer on the Moon" stellt die Rhythmusspuren des Originals auf den Kopf und baut sie oft komplett neu um. Sherwood lieferte eine umfangreiche zusätzliche Instrumentierung über die erweiterte Familie der On-U-Session-Spieler, einschließlich des Bassisten Doug Wimbish und des Schlagzeugers Keith LeBlanc (beide spielten in den frühen 80er Jahren in der Studioband von Sugarhill Records). Er grub sich tief in die Multitracks des Albums ein und förderte vergessene Details und Elemente zutage, die in den endgültigen Album-Mixen nicht enthalten waren. Das Ergebnis hebt Spoons Signature-Sound in ein fremdes Terrain, vollgepackt mit Echos und grollenden Bässen. "Es war nicht nur eine Sache, bei der man dies und jenes auseinandernimmt, auf dem Raster bleibt und ein Delay hinzufügt", erklärt Daniel. "Er fügte den Tracks so viel mehr an Instrumenten hinzu, dass sie zu komplett anderen Versionen der Songs wurden. Nicht nur Remixe, sondern ergänzende Stücke - quasi ein Spin-Off des Albums." "Lucifer on the Sofa" wurde im Februar 2022 veröffentlicht und ist Spoons bisher rockigstes Album.

Traditioneller Old School Black Metal, ohne Schnörkel und Spielereien - geschmiedet in den immer noch brennenden Flammen des Spirits der neunziger Jahre! Mit Mitgliedern von NAGLFAR, ASPHYX und GRÁB

- vollfarbige Hülle, Inside-Out-Druck, innen schwarz geflutet
- extra Schuber
- Polygefütterter Innensleeve
- Plastik-Schutzhülle
- erhältlich als handnummeriertes 180g schwarzes vinyl

TRINITAS ist die unheilige Allianz der Drei, die den alten Geist des Black Metal huldigen. Die Mitglieder sind Vargher (Gitarren, Bass, zusätzliche Vocals), Tormentor (Drums) und Azathoth (Necromantical Screams, Lyrics). Die Idee zu TRINITAS kam im Jahr 2012 auf. Alle drei Mitglieder kannten sich zu diesem Zeitpunkt bereits seit einigen Jahren durch ihre anderen Bandaktivitäten. Von Anfang an war klar, dass TRINITAS eine Hommage an die Black Metal Bewegung der frühen 90er Jahre sein sollte. Daher ist die Musik roh und in gewisser Weise primitiv - ein bewusster Gegenpol zu dem, was man heute als Black Metal bezeichnet. Es gibt nichts Progressives in der Musik von TRINITAS und die Texte handeln nur vom Tod und dem Teufel - so wie es damals sein sollte. Eine Hommage an eine Zeit, in der Black Metal mehr war als nur Musik.

Es dauerte bis 2018, als die ersten drei Songs aufgenommen wurden. Sie wurden auf der selbstbetitelten MCD und MLP über das deutsche Label War Anthem Records im Jahr 2019 veröffentlicht. 2021 kamen Azathoth auf die Idee, ein erstes Full-Length-Album aufzunehmen. Innerhalb von drei Wochen komponierte Vargher neun Songs für das Album. Kurze Zeit später vereinbarte die Band eine Kooperation mit dem deutschen Label Vàn Records, um das Debütalbum zu veröffentlichen, das den Titel Total Heresy tragen wird. Es wurde in mehreren Studios in Schweden, den Niederlanden und Deutschland aufgenommen.
Weitere Formate

Suomi, so der finnische Name der Nation hoch im Norden Europas, ist nicht nur das sogenannte ”Land der
Tausend Seen”, sondern seit Jahrzehnten auch ein steter Quell hochinteressanter Rockmusik. Einer der
erfolgreichsten Acts aus Finnland ist die Mitte der 1990er ins Leben gerufene Symphonic Rock-Formation
Nightwish, die allein in den deutschen Charts mehrere Alben auf Rang 1 platzieren konnte. Sängerin Tarja
Turunen, ausgebildete Sopranistin und zugleich Gründungsmitglied der Gruppe, stieg rund zehn Jahre später
aus und veröffentlichte ab 2006 Musik unter dem eigenen Vornamen. Zunächst in ihrer Heimatsprache
das eher traditionelle Album ”Henkäys Ikuisuudesta” und 2007 ihr Rock-Opus ”My Winter Storm”, das
hierzulande Chartsplatz 3 eroberte, Gold-Status erreichte und als ihr eigentliches Solo-Debüt gilt. Aus
Anlass des 15jährigen Jubiläums wird dieser monumentale Erstling am 04.11.2022 erstmals und exklusiv
als limitierte Doppel-LP auf blauem Vinyl wiederveröffentlicht.
Die jetzt neu aufgelegte Edition auf blauem Vinyl wartet auch mit einigen zusätzlichen Tracks auf, die
auf der allerersten CD-Ausgabe nicht enthalten waren. Zum einem ”The Seer” sowohl im Tarja-eigenen
Original als auch im Duett mit der deutschen Rock-Shouterin Doro Pesch, dazu die fiebrige Metal-Nummer
”Enough” mit dem brasilianischen Gitarristen Kiko Loureiro (Megadeth) und die atmosphärische Ballade
”Wisdom Of Wind”, aufgenommen in China, mit fantastischen Sopran-Kaskaden. Der Wintersturm kann
kommen ...

Mit „Where I'm Meant To Be“ bricht für die britische Jazzfusionband Ezra Collective eine neue Ära an, definiert von musikalischer Reife und einem noch höherem Einsatz.

Das zweite Album des Londoner Quintetts ist vertonte Lebensfreude, eine Weiterentwicklung ihres hybriden Sounds und kollektiven Charakters. Die Songs vereinen kühle Zuversicht mit heller Energie. Das Album, auf dem auch Sampa The Great, Kojey Radical, Emile Sandé, Steve McQueen und Nao zu hören sind, ist das Produkt jahrelanger gemeinsamer Improvisationen auf der Bühne und lebt von Ruf und Antwort, dem Call and Response der Ensemblemitglieder.

Musik, die sich gleichermaßen für die Tanzfläche als auch zur musikalischen Untermalung einer Dinnerparty eignet.

Format:
Deluxe 2LP Col. Ltd. - Deluxe-Vinyl - zwei 140g schwere, limitierte, orange und gelb marmorierte LPs in einer Deluxe-Gatefold-Hülle mit zwei bedruckten Innenhüllen und 14-seitigem Fotobuch.

Mit „Where I'm Meant To Be“ bricht für die britische Jazzfusionband Ezra Collective eine neue Ära an, definiert von musikalischer Reife und einem noch höherem Einsatz.

Das zweite Album des Londoner Quintetts ist vertonte Lebensfreude, eine Weiterentwicklung ihres hybriden Sounds und kollektiven Charakters. Die Songs vereinen kühle Zuversicht mit heller Energie. Das Album, auf dem auch Sampa The Great, Kojey Radical, Emile Sandé, Steve McQueen und Nao zu hören sind, ist das Produkt jahrelanger gemeinsamer Improvisationen auf der Bühne und lebt von Ruf und Antwort, dem Call and Response der Ensemblemitglieder.

Musik, die sich gleichermaßen für die Tanzfläche als auch zur musikalischen Untermalung einer Dinnerparty eignet.

Format:
Deluxe 2LP Col. Ltd. - Deluxe-Vinyl - zwei 140g schwere, limitierte, orange und gelb marmorierte LPs in einer Deluxe-Gatefold-Hülle mit zwei bedruckten Innenhüllen und 14-seitigem Fotobuch.

2013 legte Andreas Gabalier in rasanter Taktung sein viertes, bis dato erfolgreichstes Album „Home Sweet
Home“ vor, welches von einem Amadeus Award in der Kategorie „Volkstümliche Musik“ begleitet wurde.
Beinahe schon traditionell enterte es aus dem Stand in Österreich Platz eins der Charts und stand dem
in Deutschland und der Schweiz nur wenig nach. Weit über hundert Wochen hielt es sich in den Charts,
die dazugehörige Tour führte ihn durch die größten Hallen und fand einen sensationellen, hochemotionalen
Abschluss in Wien. „Home Sweet Home“ wird nun von seinem Label Electrola/Universal neu aufgelegt, in
einem Format, das die Heimat aller Musikformate darstellt: Vinyl. Hier als Doppel-Vinyl in 180g Qualität!
Als essentieller Bestandteil einer Serie seiner kompletten Album-Diskografie darf „Home Sweet Home“
natürlich nicht fehlen.

Formidable psychic warriors, channelers of the mystic and proponents of a spiritual quest that transcends this realm, Goat remain a band shrouded in mystery. Travelling from their inscrutable origins in the Swedish village of Korpilombo across the stages and festivals of the world in the last decade, this band has created their incendiary music entirely according to their own co-ordinates. With all this in mind, the casual observer might have guessed from its title that 'Requiem', their beatific and melancholic album of 2016, was to be their last. Yet the ancestral spirits summoned by their art are always restless. Thus the eternal cycles of rebirth have triumphantly produced 'Oh Death' - a ceremonial conflagration as powerful as any this band has made. Invigorated by forces we can only guess at the origins of, 'Oh Death' is a party to which all are welcome. Blithely waving away easy classification, these heat-hazed serenades are just as comfortable in the headspace of vicious '70s funk as they are in zesty ZE records post-punk. Folk-haunted incantations and free jazz skronk here find common ground, buoyed by relentless forward motion and raucous energy. Yet all of the above is locked into a delirious gnostic groove that threatens to throw the whole shebang spiralling into orbit. 'Oh Death' is driven by a supernatural charge that unifies, invigorates and transcends borders, whether geographical, musical, or between this world and the next. In the hands of these sages and soothsayers, this is just the beginning. Goat Is 'Oh Death', Long Live Goat!

"Switch Records was started by myself alongside Bill Campbell in the early eighties", says Aaron Harry - a library music producer who began using Lansdowne Studios in Holland Park for his productions on the renowned Bruton Music label. The studios had been operating there since the late 1950s, becoming the breeding ground for some key & early UK jazz and pop records (owner Adrian Kerridge teamed up with Joe Meek to lay down the first recordings there in 1958). It was here that Harry and engineer Chris Dibble started to work together as a regular team. After spending some time at the studio observing them in acton, Kerridge and (Burton MD) Robin Phillps "recognised what a good team Chris and I had become. So, it was inevitable that I would also make pop music alongside Production Library Music."

The output of the relatively obscure Switch label is the result of this work, and Freestyle has licensed 3 of the most hard to come by 12"s as part of their series of rare & foundation UK funk & soul records. This one, Steppin' Out on the Groove was written by the late Tony Jackson, "a renowned session singer/musician that I had worked with on numerous occasions" says Harry, and also a key brit-funk figure who formed part of a string of UK groups throughout the 70s and early 80s (Sweet Dreams, Midnight, Ritz & Indigo) and later went on to be successful as lead singer in Rage. He died in 2001. Backed up with a killer instrumental that really lets the solid production shine, this one is an essential in any DJ or collector's bag.

For over two decades Bjørke has cut his own path, as a solo artist and enthusiastic collaborator. Bjørke’s Copenhagen home may be one of Europe’s great cultural hubs, and he’s certainly added a paragraph or two to that story, but his music is distinctly international. Even a cursory listen exposes an impressive, ever-evolving career. However, few expected him to initiate the collaborative ambient / neo-classical project Kasper Bjørke Quartet. In 2018 The Fifty Eleven Project was released on Kompakt Records, a deeply personal record that musically documents Bjørkes encounter with, and triumph over, cancer. The album topped many critics' lists, and was included among The Guardian’s Best Contemporary Albums of the year.

Mother, which will be released on October 28th, represents a quantum leap forward. Literally, when you consider the terrestrial shifts that informed it. Six compositions explore what the evolution of our planet sounds like. While Holst may have gotten there first, Mother singularly focuses on the orb where we reside, from its formation, to its likely conclusion. Other artists have tackled song cycles that parallel a day, a year, or even a lifetime. Mother spans a timeframe from 4.5 billion years ago up to humankind’s impending demise. It hints at how that may be sooner than we think, as well as the earth’s resilience, and the promise of another chapter.

Additional gravity comes courtesy of evocative choir arrangements - - and marimba recorded at the Copenhagen Opera House. “Formation” condenses 20 million years of runaway accretion into 20 minutes. It is sublimely padded by feature artist Sofie Birch’s gentle synths. “Abiogenesis” intimates a different type of emergence: the first life to inhabit our nascent planet. The entire cosmos is condensed into the layered vocals of Philip|Schneider. Birch returns on “Miocene,” which signals the divergence of proto-humans from primates not with foreboding, but rather cascaded notes and swells adumbrating a pure and curious being, revealing nothing of what the Catch-22 of knowledge will bring. That’s addressed in the diptych of “Anthropocene” and “Tipping Points,” respectively marking the dawn and foreshadowing the probable downfall of homosapians, through wondrous advancements and their climate damaging byproducts. It’s tempting to think the album’s finale, “Requiem,” implies only a dark conclusion, owing to its sparkling verrillon’s coronach, and the return of Philip|Schneider’s empyrean vocals, but its juxtaposition with revolving, enigmatic piano chords infers the earth will enter its next act.

Mother is a staggering achievement, encouraging contemplative thought. The album is released October 28th on Kompakt Records, both digitally and on limited edition double vinyl. The atwork is designed by multidisciplinary artist Trevor Jackson.

Seit mehr als zwei Jahrzehnten folgt Kasper Bjørke seinem ganz eigenen Weg, sowohl als Solokünstler als auch als umtriebiger Kollaborateur, während er gleichzeitig das Beste aus Techno, Pop, Elektro, New Wave, House, Ambient, Italo und klassischer Disco aufgreift und in seinen Produktionen zusammenfügt. Bjørke’s Heimat Kopenhagen gilt als eines der großen kulturellen Zentren Europas, und die Stadt hat dieser Geschichte sicherlich den einen oder anderen Absatz hinzugefügt, aber Kasper’s Musik ist eindeutig international. Schon ein flüchtiges Hineinhören gibt den Blick frei auf eine beeindruckende, sich ständig weiterentwickelnde Karriere. Nur wenige hätten jedoch erwartet, dass dieser Werdegang 2018 in der Gründung eines neoklassischen Quartetts gipfeln würde. In diesem Jahr wurde “The Fifty Eleven Project” auf KOMPAKT veröffentlicht. Ein sehr persönliches Album, das musikalisch dokumentierte, wie Bjørke seinen Kampf gegen den Krebs gewonnen hatte. Es wurde unter anderem in die Liste der besten zeitgenössischen Klassik-Alben des Jahres von The Guardian aufgenommen.

“Mother”, das am 28. Oktober erscheint, ist ein Quantensprung für das Kasper Bjørke Quartett. Im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes, wenn man die tektonischen Bewegungen bedenkt, die dem Album zugrunde liegen. Sechs Kompositionen erforschen, wie sich die Evolution unseres Planeten anhört. Gustav Holst (englischer Komponist, dessen bekanntestes Werk die Orchestersuite “Die Planeten” darstellt; Anm. des Übersetzers) war vielleicht zuerst da, aber “Mother” konzentriert sich ausschließlich auf die Erdkugel, auf der wir uns befinden, von ihrer Entstehung bis zu ihrem wahrscheinlichen Ende. Andere Künstler haben sich mit Songzyklen beschäftigt, die einen Tag, ein Jahr oder sogar ein ganzes Leben abdecken. “Mother” umfasst etwa 4,5 Milliarden Jahre, vom Anfang aller Zeit bis zum bevorstehenden Untergang der Menschheit. Das Werk deutet an, dass dies schneller geschehen könnte, als wir alle denken, aber auch die Widerstandsfähigkeit der Erde und das Versprechen auf ein neues Kapitel.

Für zusätzliche Erdanziehung sorgen stimmungsvolle Chor Arrangements und eine Marimba-Sektion, die im Kopenhagener Opernhaus aufgenommen wurde. "Formation" verdichtet 20 Millionen Jahre unkontrollierter Akkumulation in 20 Minuten, subtil untermalt von den sanften Klängen der Ambient-Künstlerin Sofie Birch. "Abiogenesis" beschreibt das erste Leben, das entsteht und unseren Planeten besiedelt. Der gesamte Kosmos verdichtet sich hier in den vielschichtigen Vocals von Philip|Schneider. Birch taucht erneut im Track "Miocene" auf, in dem das evolutionäre Streben des Proto-Menschen weg vom Primaten noch keine böse Vorahnung enthält, sondern mit kaskadenartigen Sounds und langsam anschwellenden Klängen musikalisch vom reinen und neugierigen Wesen des Menschen erzählt, in dem noch nichts von der Zwickmühle zum Vorschein kommt, in die ihn sein Wissen bringen wird.

Das wird im Diptychon "Anthropocene" und "Tipping Points" thematisiert, die den Anfang vom Ende, den Beginn des wahrscheinlichen Untergangs des Homo sapiens durch die Folgen des Fortschritts und seiner klimaschädlichen Nebenprodukte vorhersagen. Es ist naheliegend zu denken, dass das Finale des Albums, "Requiem", nur das düstere Ende von allem darstellt. Doch as funkelnde Glockenspiel und Philip|Schneiders eindringlicher Gesang in Gegenüberstellung mit sich windenden und erratischen Klavierakkorden deuten an, dass die Geschichte der Erde ein neues Kapitel aufschlagen wird.

Mother ist eine beeindruckende Performance, die zum Nachdenken anregt.

Presto from San Diego has consistently stayed true to his soul and jazz-inflected formula of ethereal beats over the years. Presto's first record, the self-pressed EP "Breakin' Concrete", came in 2000 and featured the underground cut "Relax Your Mind," which DJ Mark Farina grabbed for his mix CD "Mushroom Jazz 3" (2001). More interest in the record resulted in the launch of his record label, Concrete Grooves and subsequent releases for Bastard Jazz, Miclife Japan and Names You Can Trust.

Presto resurfaced recently from the beat lab with a new unreleased 10-track instrumental album - "Basement Beats". This album was recorded in 2020 while living in New York. He wanted to give listeners a view into his daily commute in pre-pandemic NYC from the early 5am walks to Union Square to his daily E Train commute to Times Square. Two tracks from this album are presented here for Mukatsuku Records in a limited edition pressing of 400 only copies . "Official" stands out as a gritty drum loop which provides a bed for a melodic sample that sings as a soulful synth melody is played on the chorus by his daughter. "Floating" provides a smooth backdrop with programmed drums as Presto plays the wah-infused Rhodes piano along with Avatar on the bass guitar, giving a nod to their previous live fusion group Wayward Saints. The new release brings a dose of the old school as it travels into the future while comfortable in the present….

London 4 piece Crows’ second album, ‘Beware Believers’ conjures a dark and visceral post-punk that’s been hardened by years of notoriously rowdy live shows, Crows have amassed a legion of die-hard fans since they formed back in 2015 and cultivated a singular, much-adored presence in the British alternative music scene. Equal parts ferocious and hedonistic, the incoming ‘Beware Believers’ LP arrived off the back of their critically acclaimed 2019 debut ‘Silver Tongues’, international touring and festival appearances, and shared stages with the likes of IDLES, Wolf Alice, Girl Band, Metz, Slaves and Protomartyr. Following the release of their long-awaited debut album on the IDLES-run Balley Records back in 2019, Crows immediately set to work on its follow-up and by January 2020 they were already back in the studio tracking what would become the ‘Beware Believers’ LP and then Covid hit. “Once we knew Covid was here to stay, we took the first break we’ve taken since we released our first single ‘Pray’ in 2015. Being locked down for three months unable to finish the last bits of the record was very frustrating but it did mean we could come back to the album with fresh ears and make sure it sounded like it should: a true representation of Crows.” Loud, cathartic and abrasive a quintessential Crows record it certainly is. “Beware Believers has felt like a marathon, a real endurance test that’s been a long, winding road filled with highs and lows and plenty of twists and turns”, frontman James Cox says: “The majority of the themes on the album came from what was going on in the world around Summer 2019 when we started writing the album. Covid wasn't in our lives and the biggest impact was Brexit and the madness our government were putting us through. I was reading a lot of J.G. Ballard and Kurt Vonnegut, mad dystopian novels, whilst all this craziness was going on around us and it was a weird headspace to get into.” Tracklist: 1) Closer Still 2) Garden of England 3) Only Time 4) Slowly Separate 5) Moderation 6) Healing 7) Room 156 8) Meanwhile 9) Wild Eyed And Loathsome 10) The Servant 11) Sad Lad