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Siren Selector presents the first voyage of Remy Solar, as the producer takes a break from composing sound system exclusive dubs to expand his horizons with this by-turns lush, textured, menacing and plaintive album.

‘Heavy Terrain’ emerges from the depths of a lifetime inside the dub fraternity: reared on a potent diet of Lee Scratch Perry and Augustus Pablo, The Disciples and Digital Mystikz, it’s an album which stuck its head in a bass bin in an abandoned bingo hall in north London before striking out on a musical road-trip to imbibe sounds and rhythms from further afield.

The album opens with the militant drums and ethereal pads of 'Sound in the East' before being bookended by two mixes of 'Star Trail', where unformed musical space and time cross uncharted distances to coalesce into the beginning of direction and rhythm. The lush deep house chords and drilling synths of 'Lila #3' summon ghostly presences, while in its counterpart 'Lila #7' layers of melody rise and hang like mist before dissipating in percussive heat. 'Dakhla's’ swelling and retreating drones fade into swirls of drums. In the eponymous 'Heavy Terrain', off-beat keyboard chops respond to each other from uncertain depths while electronic horns pulse across miles of open space. 'Empty City 'sees walls of sound coalesce and fragment, falling into bursts of white noise.

Remy Solar explores a deliberately constrained hardware set-up to create the primordial conditions of trance, locking down a rhythmic foundation while semi-improvised excursions form and reform above it. It’s an album that takes the listener on a journey between order and chaos, past and future, all the while underlaid by a counterpoint of cavernous bass lines and echoing percussion, yang and yin, shade and light.

Written during a period of geographic and artistic transition, Country Music traces Severin Black’s movement from London to Berlin, unfolding through cycles of isolation and adaptation. Composed on the city’s periphery, the album’s material was continually dismantled and reassembled, reflecting a process of both artistic and personal reconstruction. The album marks a shift in production methodology, moving away from the immediacy of summed live takes toward a more deliberate, stratified multitrack approach. Sparse yet hypnotic, the record distills layers of sound formed by constant relocation, recurrent solitude, and a recalibration of instinct. In many ways, it echoes the experience of exile, not in a political sense but in the quieter, more insidious form of displacement that alters one’s perception of time and self. The music drifts between structure and dissolution, a reflection of existing at the threshold of different spaces—both physically and sonically.

The shedding of the previously used Nape moniker signaled a decisive sonic transformation, informed by extended time spent in the Pyrenees and a renewed engagement with folkloric material. Severin began playing the clarinet while making this record, and though its presence is minimal, it reveals itself as an interest in acoustic simulation, particularly the digital approximations of classical instruments that emerged within 1990s synthesizer technology. This interrogation of authenticity and mediation parallels the album’s thematic engagement with memory, where recollection functions not as a retrieval of fixed experience but as an iterative process of distortion and reconstruction. The relocation to Berlin reignited an affinity for grime music, evident in the syncopated brass of Pilgrim Wine and the fractured vocal layers of March, while memories of childhood in rural Wales permeate the record’s atmospheric spaces. The album includes contributions from longtime collaborator Vanessa Bedoret and Berlin-based artist Pavel Milyakov (Buttechno).

Country Music situates itself within an unresolved dialogue—between past and speculative futures, between folk lineage and digital fragmentation, between place and its embodied and sonic traces. What emerges is not a fixed statement but a process, an ongoing negotiation between what is left behind and what is brought forward. Words by Chantal Michelle

Mastered by Owen Pratt / Design by Severin Black / Center label image by Nicky Kidd / Back cover text by Alya Kanıbelli

C.L.A.W.S. comes to Dark Entries with a new ripping LP, Splat City II. C.L.A.W.S. is the solo project of musical luminary Brian Hock, who has been a key figure in the Bay Area underground for over two decades via his involvement in projects like Bronze and The Vanishing, as well as helming the record labels Squirrels on Film and Immortal Sin. With C.L.A.W.S., Hock takes on the dancefloor, picking up cues from the Hague’s Giallo-dipped electro, the skewed minimalism of Chicago acid, and the mind-rending forays of San Francisco post-punk icons like Chrome and Tuxedomoon. Following 2019’s inaugural Splat City EP, Splat City II continues to map the psychogeography of a metropolis both alien and immediately recognizable, one where life is cheap, but so are the thrills. Previously released on Squirrels on Film in digital-only format, this expanded vinyl edition of Splat City II features two new cuts. Things kick off with “Route 505” and “One Tear,” a duo of rompers that vibe like Tom Ellard and Chip E locked in a room with a vial of liquid. Next up, Bay Area deckmaster Tyrel lends his editing chops to “Vigilant Slimy Monsters,” sculpting a moody space disco beast. Squirrels on Film co-founder Solar teams up with Hock for “Black Magic Carpet Ride III,” a cavernous downtempo banger. The slow-mo pace continues with “Wild Slugs United,” which features the no wave-esque clarinet work of Paul Costuros. Closer “Don’t Flip the Crystal Ship” pays homage to Bayview venue Bay Area 51 with melancholic strings and a quartz-solid electrofunk bassline. Splat City II comes in a sleeve with artwork by Bert Bergen, which features a vampiric cat and sci-fi cityscapes.

Uno Loop presents the first-ever licensed reissue of Phil Yost's Bent City (1967), a rare Takoma Records title and a landmark of jazz-folk-psych experimentation. Long out of print and previously unavailable digitally, Bent City has gained strong early support with airplay on BBC Radio, Worldwide FM, KCRW, and WFMU, alongside praise from Bandcamp Daily and Aquarium Drunkard. Yost's cult following - particularly within spiritual jazz, American Primitive, and experimental ambient and folk communities -positions this reissue as a high-interest archival title with strong cross-genre appeal.

This edition is fully authorized by the Phil Yost Estate and Concord Records and pressed in a limited run, packaged with an 8-page archival booklet featuring previously unseen photographs, biographical notes, and original research on the enigmatic Bay Area musician. Bent City is the first release in a broader, multi-title restoration of Yost's catalog, with three additional albums to follow (at minimum), including Fog-Hat Ramble (1968), Touchwood's Dream (1970) and Yost's unreleased Sunflower Sojourn - creating a sustained narrative for continued retail engagement. With growing press attention, renewed visibility among collectors, and its unique place in Takoma and outsider jazz-adjacent history, Bent City is a standout catalog builder for stores specializing in jazz, experimental, ambient, and private-press reissues.

The story of how we heard about D.J. City.
Once upon a time P.P. D.J.ed in Stockholm. Picked up by legend Sling from the airport, with what I recall was a very nice old Jeep, that had a tape deck.
That Tape deck was playing a cassette that quickly caught our attention. We found out, on it was „1- 800 Techno“, a project by another local legend D.J. City. Somehow we received the tape and digital files and have been playing them ever since.
Years later we met D.J. City at a gig for Cocktail D’Amore, it was a brief and pleasant introduction as he was handing over the decks to us.
It took some more time until we really got in touch and started a work relation that quickly turned into friendship. Circa 10 years later, we have the opportunity to properly shine light on this project that started it all.
You can listen to the full release digitally and on Vinyl for the first time. „1-800 Techno“ that is Karl Lihagen & Johan Norling (aka D.J. City) with „For Several Eternals Before There Were Years“. This I guess is what you call a „full circle moment“. Enjoy!

A chance meeting in Mexico City set Points of Inaccessibility into motion. When Ibero-American composer Rafael Anton Irisarri crossed paths with Dutch media artist Jaco Schilp at MUTEK in 2024, a conversation about how technology shapes perception revealed an unexpected common ground. Schilp invited Irisarri to a spring 2025 residency at Uncloud, the Utrecht-based collective he co-founded, where Irisarri's sound began to take form amid an environment shaped by Schilp’s visual research.

The Uncloud studio was located inside the former Pieter Baan Centre, a forensic psychiatric prison where suspects of violent crimes were once confined. Its long history of silence and containment shaped the atmosphere in which the project developed. Within this setting, Irisarri coaxed long bowed-guitar tones through a network of pedals and looping systems. The raw gestures thickened into a vaporous and architectural field of sound. Schilp processed the material through a custom point-cloud software patch that produced images in continuous flux. The visuals flickered, dissolved and reformed like memories that resist coherence, functioning as a digital Rorschach that reflected the observer’s own perception.

Amid these spectral echoes, the project evolved into an examination of how the past persists within present signals. Memory endures as residue and interference, continually shaping perception even when its source has faded.

Schilp’s visual process required a continuous stream of sound in real time. Irisarri improvised throughout the residency, generating material that allowed the visuals to develop in parallel. Once back in his New York studio, he began shaping the recordings by carving pathways through the improvisations and mapping selected passages into MIDI. This process allowed him to build outward from the bowed-guitar material with minimal overdubs, adding Prophet 5 textures, Moog bass and strings that expanded the harmonic field while keeping the original performances at the center. To refine the structure, Abul Mogard provided editorial input, working with Irisarri’s stems to guide transitions and strengthen the overall pacing. The material, originally created under conditions of immediacy and constraint, evolved into a fully realized work through careful revision, patience and sustained reworking.

The title engages the geographic concept of the Poles of Inaccessibility, locations defined solely by their distance from all surrounding points. Irisarri adapts this idea to the conditions of digital life, where new forms of inaccessibility arise through the informational enclosures that structure perception. What appears to be a fully connected network often produces a deeper kind of separation, one shaped by the filtering logic of the systems that mediate experience. In this sense, the digital sphere mirrors its geographic counterpart. We inhabit spaces saturated with signals, yet the possibility of genuine contact becomes increasingly remote.

At its core, Points of Inaccessibility considers what can be understood as the new rituals of capitalist realism. Irisarri uses the term digital shamanism to describe the forms of simulated connection that organize contemporary life. These systems promise comfort through algorithms, influencers and AI interlocutors, yet they often reproduce the same conditions that generate loneliness in the first place. What appears as connection becomes the echo of connection, a sequence of gestures that imitate solidarity while withholding it. Like the geographic poles, these rituals are defined by distance. They pull us into environments where everything is illuminated, yet meaningful proximity becomes increasingly rare. In this sense, the work approaches a hauntology of the present, a reflection on futures that have stalled and intimacies that have been thinned by the algorithmic infrastructures that surround us.

This thematic tension unfolds across the album’s four movements. Faded Ghosts of Clouds introduces the work with textures that rise and dissipate in slow cycles, creating an atmosphere that resists clear definition. Breaking the Unison occupies a pivotal position in the sequence and focuses on the moment when the individual and the system fall out of alignment. Its shifting patterns trace the scattering of signals that once suggested connection, revealing the instability at the heart of contemporary perception. Signals from a Distant Afterglow forms the center of the album and features vocals by Karen Vogt, whose presence enters the sound field like a fragile transmission shaped by distance and delay. The closing piece, Memory Strands, follows motifs that appear, recede and briefly intersect before returning to quiet. Across these movements, the album outlines a landscape in which emergence and disappearance continually inform one another.

Listening to Points of Inaccessibility is an encounter with a sound field that is constantly in flux. Elements surface briefly, shift position and recede, creating a sense of motion that resists stable interpretation. The music moves between closeness and vastness, carrying traces of memory while withholding a clear point of resolution.

The album’s visual identity completes the project’s conceptual arc. In Mexico City, where Irisarri and Schilp first met, Daniel Castrejón transformed stills from Schilp’s point-cloud visuals into the cover image. The final artwork captures a single suspended frame of the digital material, a moment extracted from a field that is normally in constant motion. Its surface recalls the texture and abstraction found in the work of Catalan artist Antoni Tàpies, where material presence and erasure coexist within the same plane.

What emerges is a work that examines the tension between technological systems and human presence. Points of Inaccessibility asks whether connection is still possible within environments shaped by mediation and delay, or whether we have become isolated points within the very networks that promise proximity. What possibilities for relation persist within environments organized by algorithms and interruption? And how are we meant to understand presence when so much of it is constructed at a distance?

Points of Inaccessibility will be released on BioVinyl on February 6, 2026, with audiovisual performances planned throughout 2026.

Mastered by Stephan Mathieu
Artwork by Jaco Schilp
Design and layout by Daniel Castrejón
Artist photo by Iulia Alexandra Magheru.

From Johannesburg, via Tsukuba. This is Japanese Amapiano.
The pinnacle of Japanese-made Amapiano albums, which took the club scene by storm, is finally available on vinyl!!
audiot909, one of Japan's foremost amapiano producers and DJs, will release his album “JAPANESE AMAPIANO THE ALBUM” on vinyl three years after
its initial digital-only release in 2023.
Featuring 11 tracks domestically interpreted and woven together without losing respect for the Amapiano genre and the culture and background that shaped it.

Gothenburg trio Dark Horse present their new album "Listen", released by We Jazz Records on 13 November. The band, comprising of John Holmström (piano), Alfred Lorinius (bass) and Mårten Magnefors (drums) recorded their second album in a remote cabin by the ocean in Norway, owned by Holmström's family. The natural sound of the album owes a lot to the relaxed surroundings and the result is some high degree of improvised music turning into collective composition as the music unfolds.

The album recording took place at a very active spot in the trio's calendar, following extensive touring in Europe, Japan and their native country Sweden. The two days of improvising were edited down to highlights that easily fill an album's worth of quality listening and reveal what playing live brought to the three musicians: A natural ability to react to ideas, build on them and form coherent, compositional tracks on the spot. A task much easier said than done.

"We're a non-conceptual basement band all the way", laughs pianist Holmström. "We have been moving from free form music into collective composition and this is our pinnacle recording with that idea thus far. We just set out to play as honestly as possible and this is what followed."

A testament to the power of a fixed band unit developing over time, "Listen" comes across as a work by a group constantly keeping its nose to the wind when it comes to developing their music. The long-form opener "Allas Favorit" is a monumental piece building and releasing tension along its 12+ minute length. First single "Brutet Groove" assumes a fascinating, almost mechanic-sounding swing while assembling and reassembling the pieces of the puzzle, and the closing track "Fjäll-låten" gives us something of an ever-shifting sonic landscape in glorious colors, much akin to its name ("Mountain Song" in Swedish).

"That one Fjäll-låten includes some of the best musical moments of my life so far" confirms bassist Alfred Lorinius. "It's actually an edit of a 20-minute improvised sequence, and it has the real feeling of the band coming together and doing something new and fresh in the moment. I feel it's something you can revisit as many times as you like and there's always something to find in there."

Dark Horse formed in 2012 after Lorinius joined Holmström and drummer Mårten Magnefors to complete the group. Things quickly started taking shape musically from there on, but the group took their time in honing their craft with a method they now refer to as "tryout development". Their self-titled debut album appeared in 2015 and the current We Jazz album "Listen" marks the first internationally distributed release for the trio.The roots of Dark Horse lay firmly in the buzzing creative music scene of Gothenburg, Sweden, where the members have close ties with local establishments such as the legendary venue BrÖtz, and the city's vast scene of highly-regarded musicians.

In brief, "Listen" presents Dark Horse gloriously putting into use their musical philosophy what they describe "improvising as composing together".

"Listen" by Dark Horse is released by Helsinki's We Jazz Records on 13 November 2020 on vinyl and digitally. The vinyl comes in a heavy duty tip-on sleeve and the album design features the painting "Overwhelming Structure" by the Helsinki-based visual artist Maija Lassila.

Marie Davidson Returns with Club-Ready 12” ‘City Of Clowns (MDJ Tools)’ — Featuring Soulwax Dubs on DEEWEE

Utilising their inimitable remixing style, Soulwax pump up and strip back Davidson’s ‘Push Me Fuckhead’ and ‘Sexy Clown’ for maximum dancefloor effect. The release also includes an electrifying contemporary version of 'Sexy Clown,' co-produced in the studio with Pierre Guerineau and tailored for Davidson’s acclaimed 2025 live performances.

This latest release follows Davidson’s 2025 album, a record that saw her expand her artistic language through a fusion of 90s Detroit techno grit, fired-up circuitboard breakbeats and skewed club minimalism. As with much of her work, the album used music as a means to navigate her place in the world — as an artist, as a woman, and as an entertainer. Conceptual yet emotionally raw, Davidson continues to push the boundaries of electronic music, creating work that is both deeply cerebral and disarmingly human.

With both Soulwax and Marie, sharing a commitment to bold, physical sound and restless reinvention, ‘City Of Clowns (MDJ Tools)’ stands as a natural meeting point — a late-night dialogue between two of modern electronic music’s most distinctive voices.

‘City Of Clowns (MDJ Tools)’ will be released digitally on October 31, with vinyl following early December.

In 2016, a year after the 50th entry in the long-running series, none other but the iconic Detroit artist, DJ and producer Moodymann stepped up to helm the next landmark edition of DJ-Kicks, his first ever multi-artist DJ mix compilation. Following !K7's 40 th anniversary, this classic DJ-Kicks mix is now being repressed on coke bottle clear vinyl.
Born Kenny Dixon Jr., Moodymann is a one-of-a-kind electronic music icon, hailing from, and wholly synonymous with the Motor City. He is an outspoken, impossibly charismatic artist who has been putting a distinctive and soulful stamp on house and techno since the early 90s. Melting together jazz, funk, soul, blues and rock in captivating ways, he is responsible for some of electronic music’s most definitive tracks, EPs and LPs on labels like Planet E, Peacefrog and his own KDJ and Mahogani Music imprints. As able to serve up the sweetest and most sensual sounds as he is the darkest and most depraved grooves, his own unique voice and stream of conscious musings infuse expertly sought-out samples for music that is decisively alive and authentic.

Across 75 minutes and 30 tracks, Moodymann does not disappoint: despite being a notorious vinyl fetishist, Dixon’s aim is to present music of quality, not to one-up fellow collectors. Rather than serving up ridiculously rare or hard- to-find records, he instead focuses on creating a libidinous, blues-drenched mood that takes in heart-breaking soul, gorgeous hip-hop and love-fuelled house.

In addition to cuts from his own creative circle, the mix features 11 exclusive Moodymann edits. Like everything Kenny Dixon Jr. touches, his DJ-Kicks showcases the taste, skill, and soul of a dance music original.

"ghostholding" nennt sich das Debütalbum von venturing, dem gitarrenbasierten Alternative-Bandprojekt der US-Künstlerin Jane Remover, das im Februar 2025 digital erschien und von der Fachpresse wie Pitchfork (7.9 Wertung), The Fader und Stereogum abgefeiert wurde. "Das neue Album der Künstlerin aka Jane Remover ist voller ausufernder, furchteinflössender Schönheit, sowohl kompositorisch straffer als auch strukturell rauer als ihre früheren Ausflüge in den Rock." - Pitchfork. Streng limitierte Auflage auf Baby Pink w/ Black Splatter-Doppelvinyl.

Unit Nine is a The Hague-based musical collective weaving together soulful melancholy, minimalist composition and soft grooves. Their debut album, Disaster Jester, will be released digitally and on 12’’ vinyl on The Hague imprint PIP Records on November 14th, 2025, celebrated with a release show at Paard, Den Haag. The album was recorded under guidance of renowned producer Tijmen van Wageningen, at The Womb Studio.

Disaster Jester revolves around the archetype of the jester, the trickster who embodies both chaos and wisdom, humour and tragedy. Across the album, music video and cover artwork, he appears as a clown in a shadowy crime narrative and as a weary detective who eventually dons the fool’s hat himself. The image becomes a mirror for the artist: observing, stumbling, laughing & fooling. The track ‘Afgesproken Plek’ features rap artists KC and MC Lost, who provided an imaginary crime skit playing on the detective persona central in the story telling of the album.

While their universal and timeless sound could travel anywhere, there’s something distinctly The Hague about Unit Nine; a mix of irony, unpolished charm, and understated design sensibility. Their city’s blend of rough edges and refined aesthetics runs through their work and places the debut album within a historical tapestry of not-so-mainstream culture and art that the sea town is known to embody.

A record label born in Madrid in 2025, with the intention of physically producing electronic music, without pretensions of musical genre or trends. We seek to reveal unpublished talents and release with artists who share our sonic aesthetic. The purpose is to showcase a pure and authentic expression in every work. DEFENESTRE RECORDINGS presents its first release: ALARMA 2ØØØ, produced by RØBØT CITY (alias Salvador Rojo). The album consists of eight tracks, materialized in a 12-inch vinyl record that has been hand-treated and screen-printed on each copy, reflecting the project’s human and sentimental essence. Composed and produced entirely in analog by Salvador Rojo in Lugo (March-June 2025), the record is a journey into the artist’s sound universe: Side A delivers 4 tracks of pure, hard-hitting electro (paranoid, industrial, powerful beat), achieving a harmonious and emotional sound; while Side B presents cuts that take us from more ambient soundscapes to organic, astral, and liberating techno. ALARMA 2ØØØ is the first declaration from DEFENESTRE RECORDINGS, a label committed to hardware sound and pure, unfiltered expression.

Dimelow label boss Bony Fly steps forward with a seven-track cassette + digital release for Equiknoxx Music, marking a heavyweight link-up that’s been years in the making. No stranger to the Equiknoxx universe, Bony Fly has long been part of the extended family—hosting the crew in Geneva and premiering “Rivers Odyssey” on the collective’s NTS show back in April 2020. Since then, plans for a larger project have been quietly taking shape.

Now, in 2025, the vision arrives fully formed: seven Dancehall-meets-Reggaeton scorchers, built for sound systems, clubs, and global dance floors. Bony Fly’s long-time undisputed sparring partner Androo steps in on Dancehall Science to close off the project with style and elegance. A true cross-continental connection—Guatemala City meets Kingston City in fine style, delivered through Bony Fly’s unmistakable global-club energy.

Limited to 500 copies Side A/B is solid red vinyl and side C/D is solid green vinyl. Track listing is different to the CD and digital. ‘Harmonics of the Night’ is the third in what he conceived of as a trilogy of recordings from guitarist Andy Summers. Following on from ‘Metal Dog’ and ‘Triboluminescence’, ‘Harmonics of the Night’ began its life as a guitar improvisation for a museum installation of Andy’s own photos. He did not like the music they had chosen in the gallery so sat down and recorded some guitar improvisations. Summers says that he built this set out from there. These songs and the photos that inspired them have become a staple of his solo guitar shows. Stand out tracks: ‘A Certain Strangeness’, ’Harmonics of the Night’ and ‘City of Crocodiles’. The music for Harmonics of the Night came from a real-life situation, which was the occasion of a retrospective exhibition of my photography at the Pavillon Populaire in Montpellier. I was able to visit the museum in advance of the opening and decided this time (instead of the usual unsuitable music being played by the whatever gallery!) that I must make a music installation to accompany the photography on the wall, a piece that could be looped and thus provide a continual musical counterpoint to the visual. I made a twenty-minute single guitar improvisation, A Certain Strangeness - This piece put a certain approach in my in my head and pointed me in the direction of eleven more tracks. These pieces which vary from minimalist approaches to African influenced dance pieces and are what I consider the sonic parallels to the photography.

Two new tracks from Beak>.
Pressed on black 7” vinyl with digital download
card included.
‘Oh Know’ was originally released as part of NRML
Festival in Mexico City as a music video release by
Echo Panda Films.

First Word Records are very proud to bring you 'Ghouls', the 6th studio album from Bastien Keb.

Through the reflective and introspective multi-mood journey of its 19-tracks, this album spans psychedelic-chamber-funk, warped anti-ballads, cinematic instrumentals, Ethio-jazz & ethereal ambience.

Part soundtrack, part beat-tape, part memoir, this is a dreamlike soundscape sewn together from half-forgotten memories & late night breakdowns.

Entirely sample-free, this album is full to the brim with musical experimentation, with Keb's compulsion to make all the individual pieces of music independently; combining strings, harps, saxophones, theremins, clarinets, flutes and trumpets.

He signals to the fuzzy, nostalgic nebulous of mid '90s skate videos, as well as harking back to the scores & moods of movies like The French Connection, Taxi Driver, The Warriors and La Haine. There are whispers of sounds in the air from jazz clubs, street preachers & Turkish restaurants.

Keb describes the sonic experience of this album simply as this… "You're half awake, and half asleep, but you're warm…"

For this 19-track opus, Keb is joined extensively by Malik Ameer Crumpler; a poet, composer, editor and professor based in Paris, who's been involved in numerous albums while writing for various forms of experimental media.

A multi-instrumentalist originally from the Midlands, Bastien Keb (aka Sebastian Jones) previously released his highly-acclaimed album '22.02.85' on First Word back in 2017; this new album being a very welcome return to the Worldwide Award-winning UK independent label.

His music has been widely supported across BBC Radio in the past by DJs including Gilles Peterson, Huey Morgan, Huw Stephens, Jamie Cullum, Lauren Laverne, Mary Anne Hobbs, Nemone and Tom Ravenscroft. This is in addition to glowing press reviews from the likes of Pitchfork, The Guardian and The Line Of Best Fit.

He's built up a steady fanbase through his extensive catalogue over the years, with material for labels like Def Pressé, Gearbox, One-Handed Music and most recently for Shabaka Hutchings' Native Rebel Recordings imprint, on a collaborative project with South London's Confucius MC (Speakers Corner Quartet).

Keb concludes "this record is for anyone feeling lost in a world that seems to have lost itself without knowing it. It's for the people who know that the world is missing the beauty of the lights in the distance, whilst being distracted by new shoes and flashy phones..."

'Ghouls' is due to be released on vinyl & digital worldwide, November 14th 2025.

*includes insert

Timely reissue of Only for the Headstrong, the seminal 12” from UK duo Psychotropic, arriving this November. Originally released in 1990 at the height of the Acid House explosion, the track quickly became a defining moment in UK dance music—melding house, breakbeat, and psychedelic pop influences into something utterly timeless. Revered by DJs, collectors, and ravers alike, Headstrong is a euphoric, genre-blurring anthem that retains a raw innocence and hypnotic pull even 35 years on.

Psychotropic was formed by Gavin Mills, a rising DJ with a deep love of house and hip-hop, and Nick Nicely, a seasoned psych-pop experimentalist whose history included cult releases with Arista and EMI. The pair met during the fever pitch of late '80s rave culture—bonding over illegal warehouse parties, makeshift home studios, and a shared impulse to explore new sounds and styles. Crafted using an Akai S900 sampler, a Fostex 8-track, and a Casio CZ-101, Only for the Headstrong emerged from Nicely’s South London home studio in a single inspired session, its unforgettable loops and soaring keys capturing both the chaos and euphoria of the era.

The track, and the Prince-style groove of B-side Out of Your Head, became underground hits, reaching the top of London’s independent record store charts and cementing Psychotropic’s reputation for marrying psychedelic sonic textures with club-ready grooves. Their sound stood out—rooted in DIY experimentation but elevated by emotional depth and melodic flair. Mills and Nicely’s unique chemistry would spawn further club classics like Hypnosis, Psychosis, and Feel Surreal, before diverging into solo paths in the mid-90s. Despite parting ways creatively, the duo has remained close friends, occasionally reuniting for remixes and digital reissues.
Now, in 2025, Only for the Headstrong returns to vinyl in its full analog glory—remastered and recontextualized for a new generation. With freshly penned liner notes by Nic Nicely, this nostalgic reissue captures the raw, open-minded energy of a pivotal moment in UK dance music and reconnects us with the heady, DIY spirit of early rave culture.

After returning from Australia, Brian Baker has wasted no time in making an impact on the NZ scene with much heralded and reviewed singles and film clips, and in particular his solo show which has seen him perform at gigs and Festivals across the country. Now he"s joined two local Whanganui Musicians, Stu Duncan and pro drummer Brad MacMillan, both seasoned performers. The act is called BB and The Bullets and has a focus on the blues, doing tracks by Albert King, BB King, Muddy Waters plus some Stevie Ray Vaughan and other blues classics. They also feature some of Brian"s excellent releases and have a few of their own recorded. These tracks make up their debut LP which will soon be released on vinyl, CD and digital through Nixon Street Recordings, Whanganui"s own international record label. Yes, the guitaring that made Brian"s solo show stand out is heavily on display here, now backed by a tight, live rhythm section. Their shows have been very well received wherever they have performed, getting standing ovations at the recent Bay Of Islands Jazz and Blues Festival where they played six standout shows over three days ! They are drawing crowds wherever they appear, have been invited back to the Capital Blues Inc in Wellington after a knock em dead show there, and were a solid crowd pleaser at Snells Beach this summer for Auckland city council"s Music In Parks series. They are delighting audiences with rock solid, emotive performances of classic blues tracks underlined by undoubtedly one of the finest guitarists New Zealand has produced !

Liquid Stella, an up-and-coming instrumental band with an average age of 24, formed in 2019.
Their jazz-rooted sound and catchy, mellow melodies have been generating buzz, especially through digital releases. A rising star, they're garnering attention
as a rising star on digital music charts, and now they're releasing a 7-inch single with a "sea" theme!

Side A's "twilight" is inspired by the image of a sunset over a beach at dusk. The track evokes the crimson sky and horizon, a pleasant evening breeze, a
groovy medium beat, nostalgic electric piano, and mellow guitar reminiscent of 70s city pop, creating a groovy and mellow sound.

Side B's "Fleeting" is an incredibly refreshing and soothing piece, perfect for a morning beach day. The electric guitar's cutting and lead sounds, groovy 16-beat
rhythm, and the electric piano's mellow melody are the perfect complement to a drive by the sea.

A single cut from the surf music compilation "SALT... meets ISLAND CAFE -Sea of ​​Love-", supervised by the magazine "SALT...", which proposes new values ​​
for beach lifestyle and surf culture.

,Klassenkampf in der Tonart Oi! Zwölf knallharte Tracks über SHARP, Antifaschismus und die Unterstützung gleicher Rechte für alle! Antifaschistisches Oi! aus Down Under, geschrieben für die Arbeiterklasse." ,Class war in the key of Oi!" ist das zweite Album der SHARP-Skins aus Meanjin/ Brisbane. Bislang nur digital auf Bandcamp zu hören, nun dann endlich auch auf Vinyl. Klare Kante, unverblümt, direkt und knallhart. Ihr Sound ist very british und Anleihen von Blitz sind unüberhörbar, rasiermesserscharfe Riffs, die ebenso in die Fresse hauen wie ihre Texte. limitierte Auflage von 300 Stk. 180 gr. rotes Vinyl mit Einleger

Emily A. Sprague's Cloud Time traces an audio-spiritual journey through time and place, recorded across a long-awaited debut tour of Japan in the fall of 2024. Compiled from environmental improvisations captured in and for the moment, material at once welcoming, responsive, and inimitable, the album distills a voyage guided by psychic wayfaring, unbound presence, and activating performance for a reciprocal exchange with space, listener, and each fully engaged instant. The Japanese tour documented on Cloud Time held an almost mythic significance for Sprague, taking on properties of her own sonic white whale. After many near-departures and dropped plans to play in the country, "the empty spaces of cancelled trips and forgotten music turned into strange little misty spirits that I felt followed by," she says. "When I began preparing for the tour, I couldn't shake a sense that the invitation to Japan was more about opening myself up to this new place instead of bringing something into it tightly under my control. Improvisation has always been such a pillar in my music practice, and I really wanted to meet the country, spaces and people through that process." To amplify these intuitive whispers on-stage, Sprague reimagined her time-tested live rig, designed to be as free from error as possible, as a looser, more flexible set up that would allow her to interface with what was essentially a blank sonic canvas every night. Each performance became a collaboration between environment and instinct, Sprague processing the events, energies, and emotions informing the evening through her new sound ecosystem, and projecting an entirely present and unique version of herself to each open-eared and hearted crowd. "It was very much more than just an act of playing for me, but a total experience of time and place," she says. The seven long-form pieces that plot the course of Cloud Time, excerpted from over eight hours of recordings archived on the artist's on-stage recorder and generously shared on the album with no additional mixing and only minimal editing, invite listeners to become still in these deep-rooted moments of presence as the album moves from city to city, venue to venue. Cloud Time chronicles material recorded at each tour stop, Sprague selecting and sequencing the album around mood-based storytelling more so than linear chronology. "I tried to make the whole album flow in the way that any one of the complete live performances did," she explains, "while also keeping the spirit of the whole thing as a journey." The result is equal parts travelog, love letter, and impressionistic collage channeled from the potent ferment of a now encased in the glowing amber of memory. Intrinsically inspired by kankyo ongaku, an environmental music philosophy, known both in and widely outside of Japan that tunes into the similarly expansive ethos as Pauline Oliveros' deep listening practice and posits the listener as composer, Cloud Time is ambient music that seems to be listening right back, grounded in heartfelt synthesized frequencies that abundantly hold and heal. Pieces like "Nagoya," "Tokyo 1," and the ten minute "Matsumoto" in particular hum with the atomic resonance of gently tended landscapes, offering space for tuning way in and dropping far out from perspectives that stifle and bind. Cloud Time is an invitation to embrace each moment as both fleeting and eternal, floating by with nothing to grasp onto and absolutely everything to gain. The exercise in acceptance and letting go that Sprague practiced throughout the tour deeply impacted her understanding of self as both a guest and venerable performer. "The process of loving wherever I am, being present and focusing on a clear channel of communication for mind and emotion, rooted so deeply in respect for the space, those within it, and myself, ended up being profoundly healing," she says. "My vision and hope is that this album can be released as a gift back to anyone who either was or wasn't there. A cloud time of life passing by." Emily A. Sprague's Cloud Time will be released Friday, October 10th in vinyl, Japanese import CD (via Plancha), and digital editions.

Strut Records proudly presents the official reissue of Hidden Fire Volumes 1 & 2, the final album released by Sun Ra on his El Saturn label in 1988.
Captured live over three nights at the Knitting Factory in New York City, these performances mark the closing chapter of a 33-year odyssey of radical, independent music-making. Originally issued in tiny quantities with minimal packaging and cryptic artwork—often featuring hand-written labels or Ra’s own handmade designs—Hidden Fire was among the most elusive entries in Sun Ra’s vast discography.
Musically, these recordings stand apart from Ra’s other '80s compositions. Here, Hidden Fire plunges into darker, more dissonant territory. Ra performs exclusively on the Yamaha DX7 synthesiser, pushing its digital sound palette into alien dimensions. The Arkestra lineup is uniquely configured, featuring a rare and heavy string section with three violins, including the legendary Billy Bang, and the singular space vocalist Art Jenkins, whose eerie textures and vocalisations had not been heard so prominently since the early 1960s Choreographers Workshop sessions. The music is raw, unsettled, and often overwhelming.
“Retrospect / This World Is Not My Home” opens with a palindromic riff that evokes Ellington before unraveling into a stark sermon from Ra, warning of death’s dominion over Earth-bound minds. “Hidden Fire Improvisation” is a furious explosion of tone science, with Marshall Allen, Billy Bang, and John Gilmore delivering fire-breathing solos over relentless drumming and Ra’s cascading synth clusters. “Hidden Fire Blues” offers a warped, electrified version of Ra’s familiar blues feature, led by Bruce Edwards on guitar and Rollo Radford on electric bass, transformed through the haze of DX7 textures. “My Brothers The Wind And Sun #9” evokes the experimental weight of The Heliocentric Worlds with its crashing percussion, pulsing synth-vocal duets, and string- driven chaos that seems to spiral into oblivion.
Even the quieter moments—such as “Hidden Fire II,” a duet between Ra and Art Jenkins—feel thick with unease and shadowy beauty. These performances represent a Sun Ra less concerned with cosmic joy or outer-space swing, and more focused on conjuring portals to the unknown.
Remastered from original sources and presented with archival photos, new liner notes by Paul Griffiths, and restored artwork inspired by the original Saturn editions, this reissue offers a definitive window into the last creative surge of one of music’s most visionary figures across two Vinyl LP’s.

Tender / Wading zeigt Matthew Sage, alias M. Sage, in den Ausläufern und Weiden Colorados, wo er schreibt, aufnimmt und zu einem Stück seiner Heimat und Identität zurückkehrt, wobei ein Akt der Fürsorge den nächsten nach sich zieht. Das Album, das hauptsächlich auf Klavier und Klarinette aufgebaut ist und dann mit Gitarre, modularem Synthesizer, Percussion und Feldaufnahmen aus der Umgebung seines Zuhauses verziert wurde, ist eine weitreichende, ruhige Vision von Vitalität, radikaler Sanftheit und dem beruhigenden Gefühl, nach Hause zu kommen, auch wenn sich das Zuhause verändert hat. Seit den frühen 2010er Jahren hat Sage ein eigenwilliges Musikrepertoire zusammengestellt, das sich in verschiedene Klangrichtungen erstreckt, sich in Veröffentlichungen auf Geographic North, Orange Milk und Moon Glyph manifestiert und sowohl kritische Aufmerksamkeit als auch eine treue Zuhörerschaft für jede neue Wendung erlangt hat. 2023 debütierte Sage bei RVNG Intl. mit Paradise Crick, das zeitgleich mit seiner laufenden Arbeit im improvisierten Ambient-Jazz-Quartett Fuubutsushi erschien. Nun präsentiert er sein nächstes Soloalbum und seine neue Richtung. Tender / Wading folgt auf Sages Rückkehr nach Colorado nach fast einem Jahrzehnt in Chicago, wo er nun mit seiner jungen Familie dreißig Meilen außerhalb seiner Heimatstadt ein paar Hektar verwildertes Land bewirtschaftet. In einem ganzheitlichen Kontrast zu Cricks synthetischer Klangwelt schafft Sage Kunst aus dem Akt des Pflegens neuen Wachstums, hinterfragt Konstrukte des häuslichen Lebens und versteht die Spuren seines früheren Selbst durch die schmutzverschmierte, schweißvernebelte Linse der Gegenwart. Das Ergebnis ist sein bisher autobiografischstes Material, geprägt von Zeit und Veränderungen in der Wahrnehmung sowie bedeutungsvollen Details aus Sages psychischer Suche. Sage vergleicht das Gefühl, verschiedene Versionen von sich selbst zu sehen, mit der berühmten Hase-Ente-Theorie des Philosophen Ludwig Wittgenstein. ,Es ist dieselbe Zeichnung, aber je nachdem, wer man ist, wo man ist und wann man ist, sehen manche Menschen einen Hasen und manche eine Ente oder beides", erklärt Sage. Hier sind das Subjekt und der Betrachter, zurück in vertrauten Landschaften, als Partner und Elternteil, der Gestrüpp zurückschneidet, gedemütigt von invasiven Pflanzen, Schädlingsbefall und verdichtetem Lehmboden, seine Prioritäten haben sich grundlegend geändert. Und doch ist auch dieses andere Ich da: ein gewiefter Akademiker, der oft in Memes denkt und das Ziehen seines Handys in der Hosentasche spürt. ,In diesem Album geht es darum, diese Wahrnehmungsverschiebungen zu ergründen und ihnen Raum zu geben, beides zu tun: hüpfen und quaken." Es ist ein inneres Kind, das Sages intermediale Praxis in seinem Atelier leitet, einer Scheune, die nach dem großen Umzug im Jahr 2022 im Rahmen einer hausweiten DIY-Renovierung umgebaut wurde. Im Inneren werden Gedichte zu Zeichnungen, zu Skulpturen im Hinterhof und darüber hinaus, und alberne Ausflüge in den Vogelgesang oder die Freude an der Herausforderung, Klarinette zu lernen, weichen ernsthafter Musik. ,Ich glaube, ich habe entdeckt, dass es diese Linien gibt, die alles miteinander verbinden", sagt er. ,Und dieses Album ist voller hartnäckigem Optimismus und Hoffnung, aber auch der Bewusstheit, dass wir uns in einer späten Phase befinden, und dem Versuch, mit der Rhetorik dieser Phase umzugehen." Für Tender / Wading setzt Sage einen unverwechselbaren Sound ein: eine pastorale Art von Folk Kosmiche, kontemplativer elektroakustischer Barn Jazz für die Front Range, voller blasser Puddle Blues und rostigen Oil Drum Reds. Die meisten Songs entstanden auf einem 1910er Hamilton-Klavier, das kurioserweise in Chicago gebaut, von den Vorbesitzern zurückgelassen und von Mäusen bewohnt worden war. Die zufällige Begegnung mit dem Instrument fühlte sich kosmisch an, nicht nur wegen seiner Verbindung zur Windy City, sondern auch wegen Sages sich weiterentwickelnder Herangehensweise an das Songwriting nach Fuubutsushi. Er fühlt sich hinter den Tasten wohler und kehrt zurück zum Schlagzeug (seiner Jugendliebe). In einem passenden Raum für Holzblasinstrumente umarmt er das Elementare und Absichtliche und verleiht der Musik von Anfang an mehr strukturelles Gewicht und Wärme. Tender's M. Sage verbindet die Studioexperimente und Improvisationen seiner Vergangenheit mit einem geschärften Ohr für melodische Phrasierungen und Akkordwechsel und hat seine übliche Fülle an Demos auf neun finale Stücke reduziert. Seine charakteristischen Weltbilder bleiben erhalten, von Holzhauskröten, die in statischer Elektrizität schwimmen, über raschelndes Gras und Regen, der in die Dachrinnen plätschert, bis hin zu walzenden Sternbildern im Mondlicht. Während Cricks Universum aus magischem Realismus und digitaler Fantasie entstanden ist, greift Tender / Wading direkter auf menschliche Erfahrungen zurück. Er weist schnell Vorwürfe zurück, es handele sich um ein hochkonzeptionelles Album: ,Ich mache einfach die Musik, die ich selbst gerne in meinen Kopfhörern hören würde, während ich Unkraut jäte oder so." Es könnte beides sein, wie der Hase und die Ente behaupten würden: zutiefst persönlich und abstrakt, eine faszinierende und natürliche Wendung eines experimentellen Künstlers des 21. Jahrhunderts, dessen Vermächtnis sich in Echtzeit weiterentwickelt und wächst.

Japan’s electronic music scene has always stood out as uniquely distinctive. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a wave of underground projects, bands, and independent labels—primarily based in Tokyo and Osaka—began crafting their own sound. Inspired by the post-punk, new wave, and experimental movements emerging from Europe and North America, these artists embraced a DIY ethic, using whatever technology they had access to in order to forge something entirely their own.

This movement, often referred to as the "Nippon-wave" scene, remained largely hidden from the outside world. Many of its releases—on cassette tapes, flexi-discs, and privately pressed vinyl—were never distributed beyond Japan’s borders, making them rare treasures for the few who managed to discover them. “Nihon No Wave” presents a selection of these long-overlooked recordings, making them accessible to listeners beyond Japan for the first time.

The latest by Andrew Clinco's acid punk alias VR SEX takes its title from an architectural phrase but more importantly refers to the warped, wicked underworld the songs both chronicle and condemn. Donning the moniker Noel Skum - an acerbic anagram of Elon Musk - Clinco vents his scorn for and fascination with the seedy, surreal margins of low-life Los Angeles, doomed to dead ends of vanity, lust, and technology. Although initially launched as an outlet for "heavier sounds" beyond Clinco's duties in new wave fantasists Drab Majesty, the project has ripened into a compelling exercise in world building, weaving themes of gritty city neofuturist sleaze within a framework of driving, distorted guitars and cathode-blasted synths. Echoes of Chrome, Wire, Minimal Man, and Sisters Of Mercy ripple through the collection but ultimately Rough Dimension charts its own twisted vision of "our unforgiving reality." Written and demoed across two weeks alone in a Marseille flat using his prized 1980's Gibson "Invader" and a laptop, Clinco then took the tracks to Strange Weather studios in Brooklyn to record with Ben Greenberg (Uniform, The Men) who helmed 2019's debut, Human Traffic Jam. The results are notably ripping, refined, and riveting. Riffs in alternate tunings chug and churn over mid-tempo drums punctuated by spikes of sci-fi electronics while the vocals swagger and spit venom ("where we walk is also where we shit / but if we bark at our reflections are we hypocrites? / impulses bleed right into our seed / where hate culminates the apple rotted on the tree"). It's a bristling mix of the melodic and the macabre, absurdist observations of fast living and desperate measures, the clock of youth ticking towards midnight as dreams unravel in Babylon. VR SEX's specialty is making these cautionary tales of psychic decay and tainted love a thrill rather than a drag. There's a sunglasses at night glamor to Clinco's choruses and solos, a wit to his black leather judgements ("what is the answer / to cancerous people / walking in my line of sight?"). The music's milieu tends towards parasites and predators but its mood skews refreshingly accelerated and amused, cruising the strip with a cigarette, watching goths and limousines crawl in gridlock beneath digital billboards. The Rough Dimension may be a cesspool, but it's home.

Das neue Album "The Passionate Ones" von dem Singer-Songwriter und Produzent Nourished By Time aus Baltimore erscheint auf XL Recordings. "The Passionate Ones", das zwischen Baltimore, London und New York City entstand, beschreibt auf 12 Tracks auch die kaputten Seiten des American Dreams beschreibt. Nourished By Time entstand Ende 2019 in Los Angeles als eine Art Flucht aus dem Alltag. Marcus Brown drohte an der Monotonie seines Tagesjobs zu zerbrechen und suchte nach einem Ausweg. Browns einzigartige Klangwelt ist geprägt von dem musikalischen Erbe seiner Heimatstadt Baltimore, in der Jazz, Punk, Indie, Hip-Hop, Elektronik und R&B in rauer Harmonie aufeinandertreffen. Auf "The Passionate Ones" beschäftigt sich Brown mit Liebe, Arbeit, Existenzialismus, Träumen, Desillusion und Hoffnung durch die Brille der Metamoderne und dokumentiert die amerikanische Geschichte eines Künstlers, der seinen Leidenschaften und Träumen folgt. "The Passionate Ones" folgt seinem gefeierten Debüt. "Erotic Probiotic 2 (Scenic Route)" erschien 2023 und wurde von US-amerikanischen Plattformen wie Pitchfork zu einem der besten Alben des Jahres erklärt, ebenso stand es auf der Jahresendliste von Gorilla vs. Bear ganz oben und wurde von The Guardian, The FADER, Paste und anderen gelobt. Die EP "Catching Chickens" (XL) von 2024 führte Nourished By Time auch in Europ als Künstler ein: Das CRACK Magazine setzte ihn auf sein Cover und kürte "Hell of a Ride" zum Track des Jahres. Der Song tauchte auf den Listen von NPR, Resident Advisor, CLASH, The FACE, Mixmag, UPROXX und Spotify für die besten Songs des Jahres 2024 auf. "The Passionate Ones" erscheint als LP (Schwarz & Crystal), CD und sowie digital.

Serenda is a London-based DJ and producer of Guyanese and Greek heritage, known for her rich, eclectic sound rooted in house but never confined by it. Her sets fold between soulful depth and experimental edge, always delivered with a bold, contemporary vision.

Her sets are grounded in rhythm and instinct, built less around genre than sensation. She blends percussive house, warped club music, and raw, organic textures; crafting dancefloors that feel immersive and visceral and emotioanlly charged . There’s a physicality to her sound that edges toward the primal. For Serenda, DJing is a form of play - fluid, responsive, and deeply connected.

She deconstructs and distorts house music with intent, letting in pressure, dissonance, and emotional rupture. Her sets draw on the “timeless mindless states” of Mancuso’s The Loft, unfolding as rituals that don’t smooth over the chaos, they work with it.

Following the release of her debut EP The Prophecy on Josh Caffe’s Love Child label, she made her mark with a headline show in Fabric’s Room 2 and a Rinse FM residency. A regular in London’s queer underground, Serenda is also shaped by New York’s experimental club scene, where experimental sound and unfiltered expression mirror her own ethos.

Afro-diasporic and South American ritual in tension with city life, instinctive rhythm against digital overstimulation. Her fascination with world-building and quantum physics runs through everything she creates, fusing sonic design and sensory experience into one evolving landscape

Habibi Funk is more than happy to announce our 31st release which happens to be our 3rd various artists compilation. The album is dedicated to the cassette tape scene in Libya from the late 80s to early 2000s, from disco to reggae to pop. All songs previously unreleased outside of Libya and not available on any DSP platforms.

This compilation isn’t a sweeping history of Libyan music — it’s a personal journey into the sounds we fell in love with while digging through tapes, conversations, and stories across Libya and beyond. Rather than spotlighting the country’s most famous musical exports, the compilation brings forward a mix of overlooked gems and local classics of the cassette era: artists whose work thrived despite political limitations, and scarce international exposure. The music featured here blends reggae rhythms, synthy disco grooves, gritty pop, house, and funk, a vibrant collision of genres that reflects Libya’s unique sonic landscape from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Many of these recordings were recovered from the TK7 cassette factory in Sousse, Tunisia, a now-demolished site that once played a quiet but vital role in distributing and manufacturing Libyan music. Other tracks were digitised in a Cairo hotel room in 2021, where we transferred nearly 100 tapes over the course of three days, on-site using a high-grade cassette deck brought into Egypt with us. From that trove emerged artists like Ahmed Ben Ali, Cheb Bakr, and Najib Alhoush & The Free Music, who have already featured on our earlier releases. Their sounds sit alongside contributions from this release from the likes of Khaled Al Melody, Fathi Aldiyqz & Sons of Africa Band, City Lights Band, Libya Music Band, and Group Hewaya. During this era, Independent artists relied on makeshift home studios or travelled abroad to record in Tunisia and Egypt, gradually building their own infrastructures for creativity. By the 90s and early 2000s, as access to digital equipment increased, a few of the artists began setting up their own studios — a shift that gave rise to a more self-sufficient recording culture across the country. The resulting sounds are anything but homogeneous. They reflect Libya’s geographic and cultural crossroads: North African rhythms meet Arab melodies and deep African roots. Reggae, in particular, took on a local Libyan flavour — not just musically, through the slowed-down cadence of traditional shaabi beats, but socially, as a vehicle for expressing identity and pride. What ties all the artists on this comp together is a boundary- pushing approach to genre and style: recorded in small studios, exchanged by hand, and shaped by a cross-pollination of influences, from Benghazi to Tripoli and beyond. All tracks are licensed from their creators and in the case of the artists being deceased from their estates. All profits are being split 50:50 between us in the licensors and ownership remains with the creators, we only licensed the music.

Das neue Album "The Passionate Ones" von dem Singer-Songwriter und Produzent Nourished By Time aus Baltimore erscheint auf XL Recordings. "The Passionate Ones", das zwischen Baltimore, London und New York City entstand, beschreibt auf 12 Tracks auch die kaputten Seiten des American Dreams beschreibt. Nourished By Time entstand Ende 2019 in Los Angeles als eine Art Flucht aus dem Alltag. Marcus Brown drohte an der Monotonie seines Tagesjobs zu zerbrechen und suchte nach einem Ausweg. Browns einzigartige Klangwelt ist geprägt von dem musikalischen Erbe seiner Heimatstadt Baltimore, in der Jazz, Punk, Indie, Hip-Hop, Elektronik und R&B in rauer Harmonie aufeinandertreffen. Auf "The Passionate Ones" beschäftigt sich Brown mit Liebe, Arbeit, Existenzialismus, Träumen, Desillusion und Hoffnung durch die Brille der Metamoderne und dokumentiert die amerikanische Geschichte eines Künstlers, der seinen Leidenschaften und Träumen folgt. "The Passionate Ones" folgt seinem gefeierten Debüt. "Erotic Probiotic 2 (Scenic Route)" erschien 2023 und wurde von US-amerikanischen Plattformen wie Pitchfork zu einem der besten Alben des Jahres erklärt, ebenso stand es auf der Jahresendliste von Gorilla vs. Bear ganz oben und wurde von The Guardian, The FADER, Paste und anderen gelobt. Die EP "Catching Chickens" (XL) von 2024 führte Nourished By Time auch in Europ als Künstler ein: Das CRACK Magazine setzte ihn auf sein Cover und kürte "Hell of a Ride" zum Track des Jahres. Der Song tauchte auf den Listen von NPR, Resident Advisor, CLASH, The FACE, Mixmag, UPROXX und Spotify für die besten Songs des Jahres 2024 auf. "The Passionate Ones" erscheint als LP (Schwarz & Crystal), CD und sowie digital.

Internet's favourite music critic and Youtube star Anthony Fontana aka Needledrop has gotten a liking to the Grande Mahogany vinyl & digital album 'As Grande As'. The bald funny guy has been raving about the album to his millions Youtube, TikTok and Instagram follower on several occasions, also covering the record in his 'one of the great albums of 2024' round up.

The album is also already making waves in the UK with continuous plays on BBC Radio 1 by Jazz Supernova and BBC Radio 6 by Cerys Matthews as well as the New Music Fix show.

If this is the first time you're hearing about Grande Mahogany, now is the time. Behind the alter ego of Grande Mahogany is Finnish-Ghanaian multi-instrumentalist Jesse Essel, who relocated with his family from Finland to Manchester, England, at the age of 11. It was in Manchester where Essel found his own style, drawing inspiration from the city's diverse music scene.

Grande Mahogany's unique blend of Funk, Rock, Afro-Psychedelia, and R&B has already garnered international interest. Singles from the album, such as "Angle of The Dangle," "Thundercurls," and "SUPER ROCKER," have caught the attention of prominent music critics, for example Anthony Fantano of Needledrop.

"As Grande As" stands as a testament to relentless creativity and perseverance, much of it crafted during tumultuous times. It invites listeners to embrace its raw authenticity, serving as a chronicle of the artist's journey towards unfiltered expression. Mastered by Guy Davie, whose credits include work with Kaytranada, Jon Hopkins, and Mikael Kiwanuka, the album ensures a high-quality sonic experience.

late night drive home have never known a world without Wifi - without access to the endless stream of joy, sorrow, heartbreak, and hope that we all tune in and tune out to on the daily. In many ways, the guys can"t really extricate themselves from that reality - even their band name comes from a random Wikipedia page - but they"re trying to at least grapple with it. "Most of us grew up on the internet with unsupervised access at a very young age," says singer Andre Portillo. "As we started foreseeing all the outcomes - both good and bad - of this kind of access and advancement, we started writing... forming a sound and message that would become our next record." The culmination of that, then, is the buoyant yet ominous as I watch my life online, the band"s debut album. late night drive home was born in El Paso, Texas, and Chaparral, New Mexico, hardworking communities where folks built their houses by hand and collars were mostly blue. Comprising guitarist Juan "Ockz" Vargas, singer Andre Portillo, drummer Brian Dolan, and bassist Freddy Baca, the entirely self-taught quartet released their first digital EP as a full band, 2021"s Am I sinking or Am I swimming?, and blew up with the single "Stress Relief," a blast of early-Aughts indie that racked in tens of millions of streams. After they signed with Epitaph Records in 2023 - and releasing 2024"s grunge-inspired 3 song EP i"ll remember you for the same feeling you gave me as i slept - they found themselves playing stages their indie idols previously shredded: Coachella, Shaky Knees, Austin City Limits, and Kilby Block Party. Since the end of the pandemic, though, the band had been dreaming up as i watch my life online. "I started thinking about the time after the pandemic and how much things were changing," says Vargas. "So the whole album is a critique of social media and the way we use the internet to distance ourselves from each other." The resulting suite of tracks is a series of online vignettes that hammers home the band"s message: the photos on your phone shouldn"t be your identity; your posts aren"t your inner monologue. A bigger life is lived where there"s no service - in your hometown on a late night road with your friends, and on stage, where the band finally found their destination after that long drive.

Balmat 17 marks both a return and a new frontier. It is the second album on the label from Patricia Wolf, whose 2022 album See-Through is one of the most beloved in Balmat’s catalog; it also marks the first time that Wolf has turned her hand to a film soundtrack. The results are every bit as magical as fans of the Portland, Oregon, composer’s music might expect.

Hrafnamynd—Icelandic for “raven film”—is a new feature-length documentary by experimental filmmaker Edward Pack Davee. Shot on a mix of film and digital formats, and incorporating his father’s Ektachrome slides from the 1970s, the autobiographical film works on multiple levels at once: a reminiscence of his childhood in Iceland, an exploration of landscape and folklore, and a documentary study of the island nation’s ravens—including a talking raven named Krummi.

Wolf is the perfect artist to score such an unusual film. Mixing ambient music and field recording—including extensive experience documenting bird song—Wolf brings an unusually empathic perspective to her music. In the context of Hrafnamynd, her airy melodies, pensive atmospheres, and vivid textures intuitively complement the film’s grainy film stock and blown-out colors. Friends for years, the two artists further bonded when Wolf asked Pack to film music videos for her songs “Woodland Encounter” (from See-Through) and “The Culmination Of” (from I'll Look For You In Others). Pack used Wolf’s previously recorded music as placeholders as he began assembling a rough cut of the film, which made her a natural choice to help him complete his idiosyncratic vision with an all-new, bespoke score.

But Wolf’s soundtrack also indisputably stands alone as a full-length album. Largely created using the UDO Super 6 synthesizer, it features a carefully distilled palette of warm, string-like pads and darkly glistening mallets, rounded out with the very occasional introduction of nylon string guitar. Musically and stylistically, the album’s 11 tracks represent both a continuation of the ruminative sound of See-Through and also an extension into new expressive modes. Few musicians, ambient or otherwise, are as skilled at balancing melody with atmosphere, or at finding ways to eke fresh at finding ways to eke fresh, surprising sounds out of an intentionally reduced toolkit. Meditative, immersive, and emotionally generous Wolf’s Hrafnamynd soundtrack evokes a range of ambient classics from decades past while confidently marking out its own verdant patch of ground.


Artist’s Statement:
Edward and I have been friends for years, but we really started to get to know one another better after I hired him to make music videos for my songs “Woodland Encounter” and “The Culmination Of.” For those projects we got to spend a lot of time hiking in various locations around the Pacific Northwest with his camera, very nice lenses, and tripod. Keeping quiet, hidden, and vigilant we searched for wildlife, good light on the trees, meadows, lakes, rivers, and skies. Edward was already an appreciator of my music and I was already in awe of his filmmaking talents so it felt like a great fit. Although we work in different areas of art our styles compliment one another. We both tend toward slow and careful pacing, with a focus on emotion and introspective reflections on life and the landscapes around us. For this reason, Iknew that I could trust Edward to create videos for my music. We saw so many beautiful and unexpected things on our filming days, but I was moved to tears once I saw how magnificent and poetic it all was. His video work from the cinematography, to the editing, and color correction helped bring my inner vision to life.

A few months after that, Edward surprised me with an invitation to work on the soundtrack for his new film, Hrafnamynd. I enthusiastically said yes. I had always wanted to work on a film, and I knew that his filmmaking style would be inspiring to write music for. I had recently acquired an UDO Super 6 synthesizer but hadn't used it much. I decided that this would be the synth that I'd use for the film. It has the ability to sound very modern, but can also sound so warm and fuzzy, like a synth from the 1970s. It turned out to be the perfect instrument for this project as the film itself straddles time from the ’70s to today.

When Edward sent me the rough cut of the film, he used placeholder music to help give me an idea of the emotion and energy that he was hoping to achieve for each scene. For many of the scenes, Edward used music from my albums as temporary tracks. This told me that he trusted my work and style and therefore I should just trust my intuition with how to proceed. I wanted to make sure that everything that I made was a direct reflection of what was happening on screen, a mirror of its emotion and energy so people could really lock into the film psychologically. This process took my composing to unexpected places—like being led by a strange cat or a raven that seemed to have something to show me. I found that the approach made the music so much more dynamic than my usual style. I really enjoyed being influenced by the action and dialog on the screen. Thankfully, Edward was very happy with the work. I made sure to handle this project with the utmost care because this is about his life and his family, and an exploration of the experiences that made him an artist and filmmaker. While watching the film many times over, I found myself thinking about my own family and my early memories with them and how the place where I grew up has influenced who I have become. I found that his film invites the viewer to reflect on their own lives in a similar way. I hope that this music and film can guide others to contemplate on the history of their beingness and the people and places that shaped them.

Another aspect to this project is the splendor and wonder of Iceland itself. I had the opportunity to visit Iceland for the first time in 2023. I got to play a show there for the Extreme Chill Festival and met many friendly and brilliant Icelanders. I also got to collect field recordings that I used in the film. It's a fascinating place and culture that easily captures the hearts and imaginations of anyone who visits. Whether you spend your time in the city immersed in its impressive arts scene, or venture out into the wilderness to behold its wondrous landscape, it will leave a lasting impression. The soundtrack is also a love letter to Iceland itself.

Air Texture proudly announces its latest artist-curated compilation, “Hardwired,” assembled by Berlin-based musician JakoJako. This expansive collection celebrates the implicit connection between hardware-focused electronic producers, featuring contributions from Rødhåd, Acid Pauli, The Field, Neon Chambers, and many more.

“Hardwired” draws its conceptual foundation from synthesizer terminology. As JakoJako explains: “A hardwired synth has connections already soldered into the machine—it comes with certain functions without needing to patch cables externally. As a hardware producer, I feel whenever I meet someone who creates music as I do, we have this immediate connection, like a hardwired synthesizer. There’s no need for small talk—we can speak about gear.”

This metaphor of pre-established connections forms the emotional core of the compilation, celebrating the community of hardware enthusiasts who share an intuitive understanding and appreciation for machine-based music creation.

JakoJako has established herself as one of electronic music’s most intriguing voices, exploring the territory between technical precision and emotional expression. Her artistic approach balances rigorous knowledge with unrestrained intuition, creating works that reach beyond genre boundaries.

A Berghain resident with performances at Dekmantel and Fusion, to the Royal Albert Hall and the Barbican, JakoJako has released music on prestigious labels including Tresor, Mute, and Leisure System, and crafted remixes for artists like New Order and Martin Gore. Her deep relationship with analog and modular synthesis, including her ongoing connection to Berlin’s SchneidersLaden, informs her distinctive sound.

Following her recent Mute album “Têt 41,” this curation for Air Texture provides further insight into the musical universe that has shaped JakoJako’s artistic vision.

“Hardwired” showcases 23 tracks for its digital release, with a select 9 tracks pressed to vinyl. The collection spans the spectrum of contemporary electronic music while maintaining cohesive focus on hardware-driven production approaches.

Highlights include collaborative works between JakoJako and fellow producers Mareena and Frank Wiedemann, alongside contributions from established artists like Rødhåd, Acid Pauli, and The Field, plus emerging talents representing the hardware renaissance in electronic music.

Founded by James Parker Healy, Air Texture emerged from New York City’s late ’90s rave scene, carrying forward the fundamental PLUR (Peace, Love, Unity, Respect) ethos with a collaborative and curatorial focus. Air Texture has evolved from its roots in Manhattan’s club era and Brooklyn’s warehouse scene to embrace a global perspective, working with producers across diverse styles and regions worldwide through the label and its PLace: nonprofit series.

Facta and K-LONE’s Wisdom Teeth imprint returns to the V/A format with ‘Pattern Gardening’: a new collaborative project that leans head-first into the label’s love of minimal-, micro- and tech-house, carving out the label’s distinct, contemporary take on the sound - one that swims between warm, bleepy, rolling, dubby, psychedelic and bass-heavy channels across its duration. The vinyl sampler brings together 6 highlights from the wider 22 track digital project. Wisdom Teeth heads Facta and K-LONE appear alongside longtime label associate Lurka and new signees Polygonia, rRoxymore, Sub Basics and Jichael Mackson.

By now, Wisdom Teeth and its founders are well known for their unabashed love of minimal and tech house, which - alongside ambient, UK club music, experimental electronics and a broad palette of other influences - makes up a key cornerstone of their distinctive sound. The duo’s DJ sets often see them mixing ‘00s gems from labels like Perlon, Mosaic, Minibar and a:rpia:r with more contemporary club sounds, creating a hybrid style that sits somewhere between Balearic terraces and dark UK club basements. Likewise, the label has become known as a go-to outlet for artists occupying a similar crossover space, with names like Jorg Kuning, Parris, Steevio, Duckett, Leif and LUXE all known for pushing house and techno into experimental and refreshing new territories.

‘Pattern Gardening’ follows loosely on from the label’s previous V/A releases ‘To Illustrate’ (2021) and ‘Club Moss’ (2023), which explored downtempo (100bpm) and uptempo (150-170bpm) styles respectively. Here, the focus is fixed on lush, groovy, quirky 4x4 jams, joining the dots between a global spread of producers that bring new energy and perspective to these well-explored frameworks.

As is always the case with Wisdom Teeth’s output, the results fit somewhere between the club and a more contemplative, home-listening headspace, with texture, melody and mood afforded as much significance as rhythm and functionality.

The artwork features photography by Hong Kong-based photographer Jimi Chiu, who captures seemingly ordinary corners of city life in glossy, cinematic detail.

Legendary Dutch producer Stefan Robbers returns to De:tuned with his first new Terrace album in almost 15 years entitled 'Branches'. In the early 90s, the well-respected Eevo Lute originator built a firm connection with the first wave of Detroit producers and since then he has put the city of Eindhoven on the worldwide techno map. This new 10-track album represents the trademark Terrace sound, expertly produced throughout extensive hardware studio sessions and completely mesmerizing from start to finish. A classic yet innovative exploration of Motor City techno with a unique Dutch twist.

Al White and Kevin Foakes (Openmind, DJ Food, Ninja Tune) created all the graphic work. Mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis. A separate digital release will also be available at the usual digital shops. Stay tuned!

Legendary Dutch producer Stefan Robbers returns to De:tuned with his first new Terrace album in almost 15 years entitled 'Branches'. In the early 90s, the well-respected Eevo Lute originator built a firm connection with the first wave of Detroit producers and since then he has put the city of Eindhoven on the worldwide techno map. This new 10-track album represents the trademark Terrace sound, expertly produced throughout extensive hardware studio sessions and completely mesmerizing from start to finish. A classic yet innovative exploration of Motor City techno with a unique Dutch twist.

Al White and Kevin Foakes (Openmind, DJ Food, Ninja Tune) created all the graphic work. Mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis. A separate digital release will also be available at the usual digital shops. Stay tuned!