Cerca:do nothing

Transparent Cloudy Clear "This Water" Vinyl. Idas viertes Album wurde finanziert von Capitol, in 14 Studios aufgenommen, vom New Yorker Label Tiger Style veröffentlicht und ging im Jahr-2000-Trubel unter. Die 14 Songs von "Will You Find Me" sind ein unermüdliches Kompendium und Ode an Schlaf, Sex, nächtliche Gespräche und andere bettlägerige Aktivitäten. Diese erweiterte Deluxe Edition zum 25-jährigen Jubiläum kommt in der Vinylausgabe mit 34 Outtakes, alternativen Abmischungen, 4-Spur-Demos und Covers aus dem umfangreichen Fundus der Band, die sich thematisch über vier LPs verteilt. Das begleitende 24-seitige Booklet dokumentiert Ida's Major Label Album, das es nie gab, mit atemberaubenden Fotos und einem ausführlichen Essay von Douglas Wolk.

Totality! It can only be good news. The second convergence of Natural Information Society and Bitchin Bajas, years removed from the first, misses no steps and posits low-key revolutions in gravity for everyone instead. LPs divide inevitably into two halves; here, the first side could be typed "space" and the second side "time". With loads of totally principled playing in the communal feel, both sides blur the edges warmly.

Totality! It can only be good news. The second convergence of Natural Information Society and Bitchin Bajas, years removed from the first, misses no steps and posits low-key revolutions in gravity for everyone instead. LPs divide inevitably into two halves; here, the first side could be typed "space" and the second side "time". With loads of totally principled playing in the communal feel, both sides blur the edges warmly.

Purple Vinyl

House music, nightlife entertainment and DJ/Producer virtuoso Louie Vega has proven over and over again that he's a master chemist in the studio. His latest release is an uptempo and speaker-knocking remix of Funkadelic's 'Ain't That Funkin' Kind of Hard on You' (produced by George Clinton and & G Koop) from the album 'First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate'.
The original version is nothing short of a classic, but it's as if the song had never been invited to a Louie Vega post-midnight global extravaganza. Was the song not aware that spellbound dancing and high BPMs were the standard for House Music Normally, such a blaring disregard for nightlife decorum would relegate a song to the pits of sonic hell, but we're talking about George Clinton here!The original opens up with a G-funk groove that screams Westside and lowriders. The listener is then blessed with Clinton as he adds his sage, soulful and pimpadelic vocals, complemented by Funkadelic singers asking him about the pains of the funk. The semblance of a beat that could drive the dancefloor into the morning hours is there, but in no way has it blossomed into its full glory. Enter Louie Vega.
His remix immediately greets listeners with a decadent spread of instrumentation and chutzpah. The original song's DNA populates the first thirty seconds of the remix but then an explosion takes place and the song assumes a new identity. The transcendent experience is akin to taking the elevator to a rooftop party and once the doors open- boom! The remix begs you to dance, the G-funk groove is now in your face instead of being laidback and percussion takes a front seat to take you away. The song is alive, there's no other way to describe it.
Be sure to buy your vinyl at an outlet near you! the Louie Vega remix of Funkadelic's 'Ain't That Funkin' Kind of Hard on You' on Vega Records!

The Ibex Band, with Giovanni Rico and Selam Woldemariam at the creative helm, provided the musical backbone for legends like Aster Aweke, Girma Beyene, Tilahun Gessesse, Mulatu Astatke, and Mahmoud Ahmed, including the iconic album Ere Mela Mela, shaping modern Ethiopian music as we know it today. This 1976 album (Ge’ez Year 1968) played a pivotal role in that legacy and has now resurfaced to set the record straight.

There’s a tendency to talk about the seventies as a golden age of Ethiopian music. There are good reasons for that, and just as good reasons against it. However, the notion of a golden past privileges the role of Western explorers and suggests that the pinnacle of Ethiopia’s musical culture is something only a foreigner can appreciate and unearth. It downplays the complexities of Ethiopia’s culture and history, creating an artificial divide between then and now. And it underestimates the constantly evolving sound that has followed.

The legendary musical outfit The Ibex Band, later metamorphosed into The Roha Band, has played a central role in defining the sound of many of the greatest stars on the music scene of Ethiopia from the mid-seventies onwards–but their golden output has never really waned. The story of the origins of the band that provided the musical backbone for greats such as Aster Aweke, Girma Beyene, Tilahun Gessesse, backing the solo career of group member Mahmoud Ahmed as well as backing Mulatu Astatke and many others has yet to be properly told.

Two misconceptions plague the image of Ethiopian music, one is that the music is pure because it is, by some notion, unexploited, the other is that it is all traditional. To begin with, a combination of political changes between the late sixties and the mid-nineties created an environment where only the most dedicated and skilled musicians struggled on and pursued a musical career against fierce odds. The whole Ibex Band, with Giovanni Rico and Selam “Selamino” Seyoum Woldermarian at the creative helm, are arguably the origo of the vibrant scene in the mid-seventies, and the said pair are foremost responsible for not only navigating the band through troubled times, but also modernizing the 6/8 chickchicka rhythm to a contemporary form. Giovanni laid the rhythmic foundation with heavy looped basslines that reinvented traditional melodies as dance music, and with Selamino’s innovative guitar work they influenced scores of musicians from Abegaz Kibrework Shiota to Henock Temesgen. Even Giovanni’s Fender bass and Selamino’s Gibson guitar inspired younger musicians in their choice of instruments. Not only in choice of instruments but also in sound–even as the digital revolution hit Ethiopian music, a lot of popular music still took its cue from the masters from Ibex and Roha.

Ibex emerged out of the ashes of the sixties group the Soul Echos band, adding Giovanni and Selamino to their ranks and taking their cues from a slew of influences, such as Motown and The Beatles, fused with traditional music. A tighter-knit unit than most bands at the time – Ibex has remained six to seven members throughout their whole career, compared to many bands that were as large as fifteen or sixteen men strong when Ibex set out. Their playing has been viciously focused, economical yet heavy. Just a year before the recording sessions of the album in your hands, Giovanni and Selamino made a contribution to the popular musical lexicon of Ethiopia that was simply defining the popular sound: their arrangement and recording of bandmate Mahmoud Ahmed’s solo effort and real commercial breakthrough tune and eponymous album, Ere Mela Mela, from 1975.

Selamino has never limited himself to being an adroit lead guitarist, but has always been a scholar of history, and as such he has probably contributed as much to modern Ethiopian music with his guitar playing and compositions as with a deepened understanding of modern or contemporary – Zemenawi – Ethiopian music. Selamino’s contributions serve as a metaphor for those of the whole band, at one and the same time creating and defining a new, danceable and updated sound anchored in Giovanni’s bass, whilst also elevating the broader scene through their support for others on the scene and on top of that, increasing the understanding of the music.

There is an understandable desire to romanticize the musical heyday Ibex and Roha were at the forefront of, because so much of the output is sorrowfully hard to come by. Ibex creativity was nothing short of ridiculously fierce compared to many of their Western contemporaries. Based on their sheer recorded output alone they could have usurped the title “hardest working in show business” from James Brown, recording more than 250 albums or 2500 songs in the seventies and eighties. Some only surface as cassettes today, others were never given full LP release, and some are simply impossible to find today. In the light of that, it’s nothing short of a miracle that the recording Stereo Instrumental Music from 1976 (Ge’ez Year 1968) has resurfaced. Unearthed in perfect condition on a chrome cassette, this is musical history comes alive–to set the future straight. Stereo Instrumental Music was recorded in collaboration with Karl-Gustav Lundgren, a Swedish national working for the Radio Voice of the Gospel. It took two sessions at the Ras Hotel ballroom in Addis Ababa. The Ibex Band was the first band in Ethiopia to employ a four-track recorder for their recording (the first available in the country, lent by Karl-Gustav). Later the same week, Giovanni and Selamino realized that, lengthwise, the recorded material fell short of what they wished for, so they recorded four more tracks in one more session on a single-track recorder. The Ras Hotel and Ghion Hotel, where the Ibex Band held musical residencies were to Ethiopia in general and Addis Ababa in particular what Motown was to the USA and Detroit a few years earlier – a hotbed of musical creativity and showmanship.

The most astonishing thing about Ethiopian music of the last half century is how tradition and modernity are intertwined. Because of this feature, it’s kind of hard to tell when there ever was or when we are in a “golden age”. So much of music from the past has been criminally neglected, but because of the hardships in the past, it would be an oversimplification to say that said past was a golden age. Probably, the golden age is what we are approaching, because for the first time both the past and future are accessible, and the monumental contributions from before can lay a firm foundation for a thriving music scene today. The Ibex Band stands firmly in the past, present and the future. That, if anything, is golden.

The detailed history of Stereo Instrumental Music is in many ways unique. To begin with, it couldn’t have been recorded earlier (there were no four-track recorders available) and it really couldn’t have been recorded afterwards either, at least not in the years directly following, because of the toll the musical scene took from the unfavorable political climate that followed when the nascent Derg regime and rival groups tried to assert themselves, the musical equipment lent from The Voice of Gospel Radio simply disappeared from Ethiopia when the radio station folded in 1977. Karl-Gustav Lundgren,
the Swedish foreign national who assisted during the recording, worked with the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus at the time, recalls how they only had about fifteen minutes to get the microphones in place for the recording as to not alert neither the management at Ras Hotel nor the authorities and most importantly, to complete the recording before the curfew came into effect at midnight. In leaping to the opportunity to use previously unavailable equipment to push their sound forward and improvising to meet the logistical challenges, the Ibex Band displayed the very avant-gardism and adaptability that explains their longevity as a band through the years. The recording of Stereo Instrumental Music is from a given time in history, but it sounds as beyond time.
Much of the energy that burst out of the scene that Stereo Instrumental Music came out of dissipated or got sidetracked during the societal changes Ethiopia went through in the 1970s and 80s. Whilst leaders might have professed to be revolutionary, the work ethic of the Ibex Band can truly be described as that. They never called it quits, but adapted, toured extensively abroad in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, and found ways to work even in the face of the curfew that curtailed a lot of musical life. They even played major arenas in the nineteen eighties, despite said curfew and restrictions. The whole extent of their legacy has never been told, but their music speaks louder than words, so therefore… tune in to the Ibex Band’s Stereo Instrumental Music.

4XLP. Hardcover slipcase box. Liner notes from Soichi Terada, Colour: translucent red, clear, blue, and yellow vinyl

It has been 25 years since the release of Saru Get You (サルゲッチュ), known stateside and in the UK as Ape Escape. Ape Escape marked a significant milestone for the PlayStation, as it was the first game to require use of the PlayStation's DualShock (analog) controller. In Ape Escape, the use of the analogue sticks goes beyond camera rotation and acts as an extension of Kakeru's (Spike's) own character, controlling his many gadgets like the stun club, time net, and sky flyer. It's a unique form of control that, really, didn't become popularized until the release of the Nintendo Wii. It feels like a distinctly Japanese design, the sort of off-the-wall design that is either embraced or rejected on a global scale. In Ape Escape's case, the mechanic caught on.

Ape Escape is fast, frantic, and—at times—downright frustrating. Pipo monkeys dash, taunt, and swim away from your advances. They ride water monsters, fly UFOs, and even shoot uzis! Whether it's Kakeru, his friends, or the monkeys themselves, the characters are always running across the levels. This mad dash is enhanced by the game's soundtrack, composed by legendary composer Soichi Terada. As he recalls, the director of the production said, "Spike and his friends always have the image of running." In response, Terada happily produced fast songs with an average speed of over 170bpm. The resulting gameplay and audio is a match made in heaven.

Ape Escape is the first game soundtrack Mr. Terada ever created. The producers of the game heard one of his singles, "Sumo Jungle," and thought his frenetic drum-and-bass (Jungle) would be perfect for the game. The marriage of Ape Escape's charming overworld and Soichi's upbeat compositions is nothing short
of sublime. Especially now, it is difficult to separate the mischievous Pipos and fast-paced action from Soichi Terada's silky smooth synthesizer and heart-pounding bass. Earlier this year (2024), Soichi Terada's Ape Escape work was celebrated by the six-track EP Apes in the Net, which includes music from Ape Escape 1 and 3 (Terada did not compose the series' second installment). The label, Rush Hour Music, has prestigiously championed almost all of Soichi Terada's music, especially his (specifically non-VGM) house, jungle, and drum and bass releases (Sounds from the Far East, Asakusa Light, and more).
Before Apes in the Net, Terada's Ape Escape music was only available on CD, released in Japan around 2010. This release featured reconstructed tracks created by Mr. Terada himself, identical to the music arrangements featured in the game. The biggest difference, of course, was that they were of higher fidelity than was originally available on the PS1 disk format. Completing all of the aforementioned releases is this box set, released by Far East Recording in partnership with Cartridge Thunder and officially licensed by Sony Computer Entertainment. This box set release includes four LPs, housed individually by a hardcover slipcase. This box set includes every song from Ape Escape 1, except those available on Apes in the Net. This box set release also includes one bonus song, previously unreleased anywhere else (including the game itself!).

The music on this box set was meticulously mastered by Justin Perkins of Mystery Room Mastering. Using Mr. Terada's premastered source files, the music was completely and specifically mastered for vinyl. Rounding out the audio is absolutely stunning artwork created by Gobo3D. CT worked with Gobo to recreate some of Ape Escape's most iconic characters, referencing the original Japanese guidebook and other promotional materials. The result is visually delicious 300dpi artwork that takes you straight back to 1999. As uber-fans of the original PlayStation game, Cartridge Thunder and Far East Recording are proud to celebrate Soichi Terada's music and pay our respects to such a legendary PlayStation franchise—on the original hardware's 30th anniversary no less! It's with a happy heart, then, that Far East Recording and CT present to you Soichi Terada's Ape Escape Originape Soundtracks in a Box.

Please note: due to licensing exclusivity, this release does not include tracks previously released on Apes in the Net

As they celebrate the 10 year anniversary of debut album 'MISERY', DISENTOMB have smashed through Australian tours with Sanguissugabog in March, Europe in August with STILLBIRTH as well as annihilating the European Festival circuit, before finally unleashing new EP 'NOTHING ABOVE', in OCTOBER 2024 with a run of headline shows across Australia, as well as a headlining appearance at Souther Death Festival. The release of NOTHING ABOVE coincides with Disentomb marking 10 years since the release of their 2014 sophomore album Misery which has become a classic in the genre of Brutal Death Metal. Fresh from laying waste to some of the biggest summer festivals in Europe, Disentomb will be bringing out slam pioneers Internal Bleeding for three exclusive shows in October in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, which will see the band performing Misery in full for the first time. Grab tickets to DISENTOMB, INTERNAL BLEEDING (US), HONEST CROOKS and DELIQUESCE The NOTHING ABOVE EP marks the first Disentomb release following their third album The Decaying Light and delving further into the sound of dissonant and bleakened Brutal Death with the writing from the band's bassist Adrian Cappelletti. NOTHING ABOVE is four tracks of the band experimenting with their sound while maintaining the guttural brutality that originally made Disentomb's mark when they exploded onto the worldwide scene in 2008. Vocalist Jord said the EP was an opportunity for fans to hear a more experimental side of Disentomb. "While we're hard at work writing Album IV, we wanted to put out some songs in between albums that show a more evolved sound that we have developed over the years. With the writing done by our bassist Adrian, you can hear the mix of brutality while also some more experimental elements."

Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom is the Delines most realized and strongest album to date, a record of romantic misfits and grifters who live out of suitcases and cars, who can"t seem to settle down, who hope that in the next town or city will be the score that saves them. Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom features the stalwart Delines line up: Amy Boone on vocals, Cory Gray on horns and keyboards, Sean Oldham on drums, Freddy Trujillo on bass, and Willy Vlautin on guitar. The record features Amy Boone"s lush, world worn voice, the cinematic production skills of Askew, and the horn and string arrangement of Delines keyboardist and trumpeter, Cory Gray. This is wide screen, CinemaScope, Delines at their best.

Wild ecstatic vocals, distorted electric guitars, rocket bass, and the amphetamine beat! // Unlike anything else, this is THE high life music you've always wanted // Ceremonial music played with abandon and extreme intent, honoring the living and dead alike // Recorded on location in SW Madagascar by Maxime Bobo // “Tsapiky music from Southwest Madagascar features wild ecstatic vocals, distorted electric guitars, rocket bass, and the amphetamine beat! Unlike anything else, this is THE high life music you've always wanted - ceremonial music played with abandon and extreme intent, honoring the living and dead alike. In Toliara and its surrounding region, funerals, weddings, circumcisions and other rites of passage have been celebrated for decades in ceremonies called mandriampototse. During these celebrations – which last between three and seven days – cigarettes, beer and toaky gasy (artisanal rum) are passed around while electric orchestras play on the same dirt floor as the dancing crowds and zebus. The music, tsapiky, defies any classification. This compilation showcases the diversity of contemporary tsapiky music. Locally and even nationally renowned bands played their own songs on makeshift instruments, blaring through patched-up amps and horn speakers hung in tamarind trees, projecting the music kilometers away. Lead guitarists and female lead singers are the central figures of tsapiky. Driven as much by their creative impulses as by the need to stand out in a competitive market, the artists distinguish themselves stylistically through their lyrics, rhythms or guitar riffs. They must also master a wide repertoire of current tsapiky hits, which the families that attend inevitably request before parading in front of the orchestra with their offerings. This work, a constant push and pull between distinction and imitation, is nourished by fertile exchanges between various groups: acoustic and electric, rural and urban, coastal or inland. What results during these ceremonies is a music of astonishing intensity and creativity, played by artists carving out their own path, indifferent to the standards of any other music industry: Malagasy, African or global. Recorded live on location by Maxime Bobo, this vinyl LP includes a 4-page full-color insert with detailed liner notes plus photos of the musicians and surroundings.”

Jess Sah Bi is well-known as half of the legendary duo Jess Sah Bi & Peter One who brought homegrown Country-Americana to the West African masses with their smash debut Our Garden Needs Its Flowers in the mid-1980s. Touring stadiums and reaching listeners worldwide, their music has racked up millions of spins on YouTube and remains imprinted in the hearts of Ivorians of a certain age. ATFA reissued their album in 2018, garnering critical acclaim from publications including Pitchfork and Rolling Stone and reaching a new generation of listeners outside Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire). Sometime in the early 90s, Die Sahbi - or Jesse, as he known to friends-became gravely ill with an unknown ailment and almost died. He visited various doctors and all kinds of religious healers and nothing helped. One day he went down to an Evangelical Christian revival in his neighborhood. They prayed over him and he was delivered. He says, "Their prayers helped chase out whatever demons and unhealthy spirits were inside me. After that my illness went away. When I went to the United States a few months later on an exchange program I wanted to make music to thank God because I was saved." He recorded an album of music praising God in order to honor a promise he made to himself at the depths of his desperation in the hospital. The album Jesus-Christ Ne Deçoit Pas Jesus Christ Does Not Let Us Down came out in 1991 and sold around 3000 cassettes in Ivory Coast. The master tape was lost along the way so the recording has never been on digital platforms until now. Jesse didn't have much time to record while visiting South Carolina, hence the relatively short album, 6 songs including two reprises for filler. A local pastor connected him with a studio and some American musicians (Robert Fortner and Gary Davis) to help. They added acoustic guitar, percussion and keyboard accompaniment to Jesse's soaring French and Gouro vocals, harmonica and finger-picked acoustic. The resulting recording is deeply soothing and contemplative music that perfectly compliments the songs already embraced by millions. But he had to find the rest of the studio expenses-$600 total-which he secured drawing cartoons for UNICEF. Jesse is Ivory Coast's first political cartoonist, a vocation for which he was widely celebrated at the time. It also made him a few enemies which lead to him leaving the country permanently a few years later. Jesus-Christ Ne Deçoit Pas is Jess Sah Bi's first and only gospel album. Fortunately, fans responded with enthusiasm: widespread radio airplay and concerts followed, along with a growing solo profile in the country. The first big gospel artists in Ivory Coast were the duo Mathieu et Constance, who emerged in 1989. There was a bigger gospel music movement in English-speaking counties like Ghana and Nigeria (Christians make up roughly 40% of the population in Ivory Coast, slightly less than Muslims). Jesse didn't have any intention of working in Christian music but he realized, "You don't make music to make money-you want to send a message." In the years since Jesus-Christ's release, gospel music in Ivory Coast has grown to become a key part of music culture in the country. Spiritual music appears in community actives across the public and private spectrum from religious gatherings and parties to television broadcasts and music festivals. And, as it has evolved and indigenized locally, gospel music has picked up elements of traditional Ivorian music, reggae and soul. The album ultimately precipitated the demise of the duo, who were soon separated geographically as Peter One relocated to Nashville. He went on to become a nurse and release a successful solo album on Verve following the ATFA collaboration. Nowadays Jesse lives in the Bay Area and continues to record and perform music wherever and whenever he has the chance. He is publishing a new book of humorous cartoons in 2025 and his most recent album Never Give Up came out in 2020

Variophon is Philophon's newly established sub-label. As the name suggests, Variophon is designed to release variations, or more commonly expressed, remixes of songs taken from the Philophon catalog. The beginning on Variophon makes the all around the world beloved Jimi Tenor by remixing himself.

Jimi has chosen one title each from his two albums released on Philohon. From his first, "Order of Nothingness", it is the gently dancing "Myteria" and from his recently released "Aulos" the driving "Vocalize My Luv" (featuring Florence Adooni and Lizzy Amaliyenga). He electrified both pieces in his own very personal, subtle way in order to achieve what he does best: make people happily dancing!


b B1: Vocalize My Luv (Electric Remix) feat. Florence Adooni & Lizzy Amaliyenga

Dickey Betts & Great Southern is the second studio album, originally released in 1977, by Dickey Betts, who is better known as bandmember of The Allman Brothers Band. Amongst others, it features the tracks "Bougainvillea", "Sweet Virginia" and "Nothing You Can Do". Dan Toler, who was also part of The Allman Brothers Band, performs on this album too. The album can be described as an attempt to combine the easy feel of his first album Highway Call with the more blues-driven sound of the Allmans. Dickey Betts & Great Southern is available as a limited edition of 750 numbered copies on blue coloured vinyl and includes an insert.

Bryan Beller's (Joe Satriani, Aristocrats, Dethklok) epic progressive double concept 2019 album feat. 26 all-star musicians now on Blue Swirl 2LP in gatefold jacket available! Bassist/composer Bryan Beller (The Aristocrats, Joe Satriani, Dethklok, Steve Vai) presents a sweeping, epic-scale modern progressive double concept album that asks the question: When the storm comes for us, the big one after which things will not be the same, who are we and what do we become in those defining moments? What do we keep, and what do we let go? "Scenes From The Flood" employs an all-star cast of 26 musicians to explore themes of ambition and loss, intentionality and reality, hope and disillusionment. It uses every second of its 18-song, 88-minute running order to tell an emotionally consuming and unforgettable musical story. Produced and composed by Bryan Beller (except "Angles & Exits," composed by Janet Feder), mixed and mastered by Forrester Savell. "Scenes From The Flood" is performed by: Christopher Allis, Bryan Beller, Nili Brosh, Paul Cartwright, Darran Charles, Julian Coryell, Mike Dawes, Janet Feder, Guthrie Govan, Ray Hearne, Gene Hoglan, Mike Keneally, Jamie Kime, Fred Kron, Teddy Kumpel, Jake Howsam Lowe, Evan Mazunik, Nate Morton, Rick Musallam, Mike Olekshy, Griff Peters, John Petrucci, Matt Rohde, Joe Satriani, Rishabh Seen, Joe Travers, Leah Zeger.

Obsession is THE DRIVER ERA’s explosive follow-up to 2022’s Summer Mixtape & sees the band’s artistry evolving in a dynamic, distinctive direction that solidifies themselves as a driving force in the alt-pop space. Clever, relatable lyricism backed by moody undertones and infectious grooves showcases the band’s pivot into more confessional songwriting and finding their sonic step.

Across the album’s 11 tracks, Obsession explores themes of love, longing, and loss through a uniquely captivating sonic profile rife with electric riffs, robust synths, and strong drums to create the most impressive release from THE DRIVER ERA to date.

The band, which consists of brothers Ross and Rocky Lynch, released their debut single ‘Preacher Man’ in 2018 and since then have amassed hundreds of millions of streams and a huge following with their signature sound and larger-than-life sold-out shows.

Obsession is THE DRIVER ERA’s explosive follow-up to 2022’s Summer Mixtape & sees the band’s artistry evolving in a dynamic, distinctive direction that solidifies themselves as a driving force in the alt-pop space. Clever, relatable lyricism backed by moody undertones and infectious grooves showcases the band’s pivot into more confessional songwriting and finding their sonic step.

Across the album’s 11 tracks, Obsession explores themes of love, longing, and loss through a uniquely captivating sonic profile rife with electric riffs, robust synths, and strong drums to create the most impressive release from THE DRIVER ERA to date.

The band, which consists of brothers Ross and Rocky Lynch, released their debut single ‘Preacher Man’ in 2018 and since then have amassed hundreds of millions of streams and a huge following with their signature sound and larger-than-life sold-out shows.

Leng Records’ first album of the year release comes courtesy of two contrasting legends of Italian dance music, Afro-Cosmic pioneer Danielle Baldelli and sometime FPI Project member Marco Fratty (real name Marco Frattini).

Both producers have a wealth of experience. Baldelli first to rose to fame as resident DJ at the near mythical Cosmic Club in the early 1980's, before moving into music production two decades ago. Since then, he’s collaborated with heaps of producers – most notably DJ Rocca, Marco Dionigi and Dario Piana – but “Oil Painting” marks his first collaboration with Frattini, an experienced producer whose bustling discography stretches right back to the Italian house explosion of the late 1980's and early ’90s.

The pair’s debut collaborative release is bold, bubbly, vibrant and funky, with the storied Italian veterans making extensive use of live instrumentation, vintage synthesizers and chugging, floor-friendly grooves. As you’d expect from a Baldelli-related project, the influences are obvious – think funk, dub-disco, cosmic rock, Italo-disco and nu-disco – but the resulting colourful cuts refuse to settle on one specific style.

Firmly focused on the dancefloor, “Oil Painting” is a gleeful, celebratory and excitable as anything either producer has released to date. For proof, check the surging arpeggio style synth-bass, kaleidoscopic synthesizer lines and eyes-closed rock guitar solos of “Automatic Amplitude”, the flute-laden dub disco shuffle of “Jasmine Flavour”, the organ-laden cosmic funk chug of “Oil Painting” and the lolloping disco-funk exuberance of “Steam Engine”, where crunchy guitar licks and Meters style organ stabs wrap themselves around a vintage disco bassline and head-nodding, toe-tapping drums.

The highlights don’t step there, either. Check the percussion and delay-laden Afro-Cosmic funk fusion of “Slinky Funk”, a veritably tropical excursion that repurposes the bassline and incessant cowbells from Cymande classic “Bra”, and the Clavinet-heavy stomp of “Positive Flow”, whose snaking, constantly-changing saxophone solo and flash-fried guitar riffs help create a thrillingly excitable mood.

From start to finish, “Oil Painting” is an album full to bursting with musical joy and umpteen giddy calls towards the dancefloor. From producers of Baledlli and Frattini’s experience, we’d expect nothing less.

The work of each of these powerfully creative & exceptionally perceptive individuals - poet and scholar Fred Moten and jazz bassist Brandon Lopez - concerns itself with how one might navigate the ascending reign of longinstitutionalised madness while simultaneously keeping humanity and sanity intact The synergistic mesh of these two voices in Duo is here presented on record for the frst time, following two acclaimed works on the Reading Group label in trio with Gerald Cleaver. Inimitable poet, cultural theorist, author, 2020 MacArthur Fellow, Fred Moten creates new conceptual spaces that accommodate emergent forms of Black cultural production, aesthetics, and social life. Moten is a professor of performance studies and comparative literature at New York University concerned with social movement, aesthetic experiment, and Black study. He is also a United States Artists Rockefeller Fellow and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Puerto Rican- American bassist Brandon Lopez is the son of a gravedigger who himself put time in doing the same, developing muscles that serve him well in his thorough command of the upright bass. On moving to NYC, Lopez made himself indispensable within numerous realms of creative music. As the Cleveland Review of Books noted, "This is virtuosity as vocabulary, a total command of texture, subtlety, and a depth that can be reached into."

On their previous work in trio with Gerald Cleaver:

"Best Jazz Albums of 2022: Moten is after nothing less than a full interrogation of the ways Black systems of knowledge have been strip-mined and cast aside, and yet have regrown." - New York Times

"8.0 - A conceptually rich, politically weighty album that asks timeless questions without over-explaining...breathlessly complex" - Pitchfork

Fred Moten: texts, voice
Brandon Lopez: bass

Posthumous record releases are always charged with emotion but when the release comes from a 17 year-old artist that was just getting started it is heartbreaking Anxious is a mesmerizing selection of songs that explore the highs, lows and uncertainty of teenage life through the eyes of Nell and is the follow-up to Where The Viaduct Looms, her debut collaboration with The Flaming Lips that explored the works of Nick Cave.

Guided by the talented Jack and Lily Wolter of Penelope Isles, who helped shape Nell's songs, some of which had been in the works since she was twelve years old, the result is an album brimming with emotion, playful melodies and a depth that hints at what Nell's future may have held. Nell's record includes three songs which were written in partnership with Canadian folk band Shred Kelly with whom she spent winter evenings writing in her hometown of Fernie, British Columbia, huddled round the fre in 2022. Jack and Lily Wolter subsequently completed these songs and the rest of the works in Brighton in 2023.

Nell's frst and only studio recording session at Bella Union's studio in Brighton at the tender age of 15 was an intense mix of long days with Jack and Lily expertly teasing out what was really going on in Smith's mind with the help of Doritos, Fizzy sweets, Coca Cola and inspiration gained by sneaking her into venues to see local bands play.

A lot of Nell's creative drive was rooted in raw teenage emotions; apprehension; love; travel; gratefulness; ambition; and grief. These moods are visited throughout the tracks on the album with an instrumental approach that brings joy into even the darkest of songs.

Repress!

Echospace Detroit is the label launched by Rod Modell (Deepchord) and Soultek's Steven Hitchell, two leading lights of the minimal dub techno scene. And as with anything Deepchord, the entire release has an air of mystery to it. Previously, as a near-mythical vinyl pressing with minimal packaging and restricted pressings, everything about Vantage Isle was geared toward the underground, or 'those who know.' However, there's nothing but love of craft driving these grooves, and now a lot more people will finally be able to hear this absolutely brilliant collection of spacial dub wonder on CD. Vantage Isle Sessions consists of a whopping 13 takes of the title track, reworked by Modell and Hitchell in various guises (cv313, Deepchord, Echospace, Spacecho), as well as a guest spot (and first ever remix) from Gerard Hanson (Convextion). Across their 13 versions, Modell and Hitchell manage to take the Deepchord template (analog synths, deep bass, gently throbbing beats, bursts of static and noise, and deep, deep chords) into a surprising variety of directions, akin to looking at the same giant glacier from a helicopter from every angle possible: some are beatless and undulating, some are pulsing and dynamic, some are looking up from under the ice and some are towering overhead. The aforementioned Convextion version is revelatory. It's built on cascading and echoing pieces of the original that are layered like shifting sands, for a distinctly dark and shimmering journey to the bottom of the frozen ocean and back. It's remarkable enough to get all these takes on one basic template to sound somewhat different, given that the source material is really just a skeletal array of sound sheets. Vantage Isle Sessions is for anyone looking for the logical successors to the Basic Channel throne, or just looking for something mellow for those steamy late summer nights. A stone-cold classic of the genre. Don't miss it." -Todd Hutlock, Stylus Magazine/Beatz by the Pound

"Steeped in mystery, Detroit musicians Rod Modell and Mike Schommer (aka Deepchord) are legendary for their hard to find twelve-inch dub techno releases. Their sound is heavily influenced by Berlin dub techno producers like Maurizio, Basic Channel, Chain Reaction, Rhythm & Sound, Blue Train and Pole. While the German sound often has a futuristic metallic edge, Deepchord are known more for the rust and grease, which is part and parcel of those metal parts. Static, analog sounds, deep bass thumps and, of course, deep chords blend in a timeless minimal manner. However, the real gems on this disc are the drifty ambient cuts devoid of beats. This is an excellent album that is on par with the classics from a decade ago!" -Exclaim


"In terms of ambient dub, if Basic Channel is the Father (the source, remote and inaccessible and very powerful) and Pole is the Son (dazzling but ultimately stranded halfway between man and the divine), than Rod Modell’s Deepchord and his Echospace label he run with Steve Hitchell is definitely the Holy Spirit." -Popmatters


"Deepchord’s dub-techno stealthily peels away melody, leaving a bare chassis of beats to ghost-ride down Woodward Avenue. Vantage Isle Sessions, which collects remixes of a 2002 Detroit Electronic Music Festival performance, finds the duo swerving through empty, neon-smeared streets, and recalls Berlin’s Chain Reaction label, minus the anemic minimalism." -XLR8R

"The album scales a magnificent peak in “Spacecho Dub II - Extended Mix” when smeary chords ricochet over a massively deep, bass-heavy pulse, and Hanson's light-speed missile of vaporous propulsion (“Convextion Remix”) is beautiful too.
Long may they run." -Textura

‘Vantage Isle’ is a tremendous achievement that will most likely be held up as a high water mark of the genre for years to come." -Resident Advisor

"My favorite mix is by Convextion (his first remix for another artist). Reedy, distant synth tones sound like a science fiction soundtrack overheard rooms away. An undercurrent of echoes, many difficult to describe, drift in a sonic syrup." -Gridface

"Modell’s music always seems to be in this suspended animation, adrift and afloat in a majestic emptiness." -Dusted Mag

CREDITS:
Written & Produced by Deepchord. Redesigned and Reshaped by Convextion (Gerard Hanson) cv313 (Stephen Hitchell) echospace / spacecho (Rod Modell + Stephen Hitchell)
Additional Mastering, Mixing and Engineering by Ron Murphy @ NSC Mastering, Detroit, USA. Side E/F Remastering and Lacquer cutting by Dietrich @ Complete, NYC, USA. (2018)

What's that, a new year means a new label from Burnski? We'd expect nothing else. The man has more imprints than a beach has grains of sand, but importantly they all serve a purpose and all kick out killer jams. Mikasa starts with this lush and lithe prog house EP from Abdul Raeva. Stylish opener 'Cream' is a bouncy, feel-good and sleek electronic house sound for peak time fun. 'Helico' is laced with acid and 'Tex Mex' has psyched-out lines rising through the uplifting drums while 'Vanguard' shuts down with a percussive edge and a killer bassline.

Every so often an album of such deceptive genius, of such aesthetic clarity, comes across our desk and transfixes us. Thought Leadership's III Of Pentacles is one such work of art. It's an instant classic and glides into the pantheon of timeless guitar-soul totems. Originally out on cassette only, we present the first ever vinyl issue. It's a hideously limited pressing of 300 for the world, so don't sleep on this.

Thought Leadership has already garnered big support from such tastemakers as Ruf Dug, Jason Boardman, Nathan Gregory Wilkins, J Walk, Evan Woodward, Justin Robertson and Heavenly's Jeff Barrett. The first time we heard III Of Pentacles, we nearly wept at the thought that something so beautiful, so bursting with real hope, could even exist in this brutal world. To quote the Quietus, "imagine if Stockport was situated somewhere along the Pacific Coast Highway rather than the M60, and you’ll have some idea of the coordinates to the post-industrial, sunburnt dream space opened up here."

So, who is Thought Leadership? What do we know about them? They reside in Stockport and are obsessed with ethereal guitar records. That’s about it. That and these X ideas shared with you, the listener.

Captured on a multitrack recorder in a terraced house in Stockport, this is as DIY as it gets. Glaringly obvious is a love for classic Factory and early 4AD. Perhaps it is the proximity to the River Mersey where the ideas arrived, and there being but three miles between where this and the Durutti Column’s classic “LC” was recorded, as the two operate across a familiar aural plain. Be it geographic or otherwise, limited by a true economy of means, namely guitar, pedals and drum machine, the fruit borne from these humble tools has been indelibly shaped by the perma-gloom that hangs low over the Manchester and Stockport environs.

Ushered in on 808 kicks, “I” opens the record as a beautiful Sketch for Stockport; a chiming maj7 chord dripping in chorus and delay sets us on our way. The Vini Reilly comparisons are unavoidable. “II” is all John McGeoch, with its trippy goth-psyche arpeggiated pattern cascading across the stereo image. Do those drums swing? But goths don’t swing?! They do here. We’re treated to a bit of crunch on the lead guitar part and some really lush reverb. We even step forth into shoegaze territory, albeit briefly, for the middle eight. “III”, a firm Be With favourite, continues the dreamy psyche leanings of the previous track, with an even bigger melody this time. We’re hearing The Teardrop Explodes on quaaludes here. A proto-dream pop cut soaked in melancholy. But watch out! The coda finds Johnny Marr has gotten into the ‘ludes and gatecrashed the final bars with some incredibly ignorant B minor pentatonic noodling.

“IV” ditches the drum machine for the first in a suite of three beatless electric guitar duets. The first of these semi-improvised rubato ideas is a striking departure from the earlier playful pieces, coming over emo and moody. Greyscale sulking for Stratocaster. Sign us up. “V” contains some really lyrical phrasing; a gorgeous conversation between two guitars. Real Stopfordian Primitive; meditative, crude, rain-soaked. We cycle through the same feels, then end on an alluring chord that breaks the pattern. Sometimes thoughts are like this. “VI” creeps in all plaintive, then a huge reverberating descending guitar line comes tumbling in like something off those classic Dif Juz 12”s. There’s some Maurice Deebank in there too, for sure, and the coda nods to early Meat Puppets.

“VII” rounds out the A Side, and succinctly presents a summary of all ideas explored thus far on our journey. The drum machine is back, this time with some wispy delay, before both guitars enter together playing interlocking lines. As we start, we end, with the delayed 808 guiding us out.

Opening Side B, “VIII” sees us embark on the other side of our journey as we slow down and space out. The drum machine is here, but the guitars are different now. Think Sensations Fix or Göttsching at his most peeled out. Drones, ambient drifts of broken chords and distorted lead lines all swirl round the mix. Side B is one for headphones for sure. “IX” is almost too exquisite for words. A New Age Mixolydian voyage through the cosmos. If you’re unmoved by the end you’ve probably got no pulse. We were left blunted ineffable by this one, such is the smudged elegance radiating from this idea. All hail the Thought Leader.

“X” is a full circle moment, and a fitting end. If you’ve not already elsewhere across the platter, you will be getting heavy Robin Guthrie vibes from this piece. Like the rest of Side B, this improvised jam sticks within a framework of related chords but the celestial energies channelled might invite us to wander “outside”, especially when the Tubescreamer is engaged.

RIYL Durutti Coulmn, Cocteau Twins, Dif Juz, Sensations Fix, Spike and adjacent guitar musicks – but, ultimately, this is just its own thing; such is the strength of ideas presented. "It’s good music to chill out to." (??)

Be With is honoured to present the first ever vinyl release of III Of Pentacles, carefully remastered by Be With's engineer Simon Francisco to ensure it sounds better than ever after its initial tape release. Cicely Balston's expert skills have made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the records have been pressed to the highest possible standard at Record Industry, in Holland. The original tape cover artwork, so crucial to Thought Leadership's striking visual aesthetic, has been rejigged for vinyl issue here at Be With. Its stark presentation befits the music contained within. They inform us that they shuffled their tarot deck to ask what the album should be called and the card you see on the cover popped out. The III Of Pentacles tarot card represents teamwork, shared vision and the ability to achieve goals through collaboration. We like to think Thought Leadership and Be With have nailed this one.

*180g virgin leaded vinyl in a deluxe textured heavy gatefold cover, with paste-on artwork and special anti-static innersleeve.* Note: The pressing is absolute on point!!!!

Vincent Gallo and Harper Simon with a beautifully recorded suite of songs and instrumentals.

" More than two decades since he blew minds with a suite of brilliant releases on Warp, Vincent Gallo returns to the world of music at long last in Butterfly, his duo with Harper Simon, with the project’s full-length debut, “The Music of Butterfly”. A gesture of gentle, DIY / bedroom left-field pop, falling within the rough territory for which Gallo became renowned during the late '90s and early 2000s, while interweaving fascinating flirtations with minimalism and experimentalism, it’s a truly captivating piece of work that’s hard to get off the turntable after the first needle drop.

In the arts, the lines between genius and madness, as well as fact and fiction, often blur. Such, it seems, has always been the life of the artist, filmmaker, actor, musician, and composer Vincent Gallo. A cult figure and a member of various creative undergrounds for the better part of half a century, Gallo has courted controversy, ruffled feathers, and made some of the most singular statements to flirt at the outer edges of popular culture that can be called to mind. Arguably most well known for his work in film, during the late '90s and early 2000s - notably with his soundtrack for “Buffalo 66” and a suite of releases on Warp - Gallo became something of a sensation in the world of independent music for a visionary, incredibly unique and sensitive approach to sonority. For a time, the world was abuzz, waiting on bated breath for more, and yet time passed. Bar a few fragments, appearing here and there, almost nothing has been heard from Gallo, within the world of music, for more than 20 years. That is, until now, with the release of “The Music of Butterfly”, the debut full-length of Butterfly, his duo with Harper Simon: beautifully produced and issued by Family Friend Records - Gallo’s own label, founded in 1981 - in a deluxe edition that simply left us speechless: 180g vinyl in textured heavy gatefold cover with paste-on artwork and thick anti-static innersleeve. More or less picking up from where we last encountered him, spinning captivating melodies and gentle song-craft within the quieter temperaments of DIY, left-field pop, once again, and at long last, Vincent Gallo, encountered in an incredibly successful collaboration with Harper Simon as Butterfly, reminds us that he’s as much a force within the realm of music as he is within film. Not to be missed. This one isn’t going to sit around for long.

Vincent Gallo’s biography reads like the stuff of blaring beauty: a figure of moderate fame in his own right, who has remained at the centre of cultural ferment as the decades have rolled by. Born in 1961, in Buffalo, New York, as the story goes he ran away to New York City at the age of 16 and fell into the brewing counterculture of the Downtown scene, William Burroughs and John Giorno, in addition to the cream of his own peers, and began making paintings, music, and experimenting with film. In addition to being a member of the now legendary band Gray, with the artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and the filmmaker, Michael Holman, Gallo appeared in the cult 1981 film “Downtown 81”, before slowly beginning a career as an actor and catching the eye of Claire Denis, who brought his talents into the broader cultural gaze. Catapulted into the public by his own subsequent career as a filmmaker with “Buffalo '66” (1998) and “The Brown Bunny” (2003), both of which were marked by controversy and praise, Gallo further captivated the public with a partially brilliant, if not relatively brief, flurry of activity in the realms of music.

While Gallo had already been making music for roughly two decades at the time of his release of the “Brown Bunny” soundtrack, and the four release issued by Warp in rapid succession between 2001 and 2002 - “When”, “Honey Bunny”, “So Sad”, and “Recordings of Music for Film” - the almost fanatical fandom reached a fever pitch at the moment, allowing him, for some, to be regarded as much, if not more, as a musical artist than an actor and filmmaker. Anyway you cut it, in a few short years, he proved himself to be a polymath of rare talent. Somewhere along the way, while both were working as members of Yoko Ono's Plastic One Band, Gallo met the New York based, highly regarded singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer, Harper Simon, who also happens to be the son of Paul Simon. The pair fell into an incredibly fruitful duo collaboration, which came to be called Butterfly, and “The Music of Butterfly” being their debut full-length release.

Written, performed, and recorded by Vincent Gallo and Harper Simon in New York City between the winter of 2018 and the spring of 2019, the ten tracks comprising “The Music of Butterfly” are cumulatively a gesture of gentle, DIY / bedroom left-field pop, falling within the rough territory for which Gallo became renowned during the late '90s and early 2000s, making one feel like barely a moment had passed since we’d encountered his graceful hand at song-craft. Stripped back and raw, while retaining a sense of warmth and intimacy, across the length of “The Music of Butterfly” the duo of Gallo and Simon weave something completely captivating at the juncture of minimalism, experimentalism, and pop: meandering moments of texture and tone, slowly forming toward flirtations of melody that flower into song and back again. Somehow playful and light, while also remarkably emotive and personal, it’s almost as though each of these tracks crystallised out the air, unlabored and exactly as they should be without a note or beat more.

An engrossing immersion into both Gallo and Simon’s remarkably accomplished minds, having followed the path toward one another after radically different experiences and careers, “The Music of Butterfly” is one of those records that’ll be hard to get off the turntable after that first needle drop, and rarely leave the listening pile for some time to come. Issued by Family Friend Records in a beautiful deluxe edition that is unmatched even among the most stunning recent productions we can call to mind - 180g vinyl in textured heavy gatefold cover with paste-on artwork and thick anti-static innersleeve - it’s lovely to have Gallo back in the musical mix after so many years. "

With Leaving It All to Chance, Roomer don't quite leave everything up to fate. The Berlin outfit's debut album hums with guitar-driven heartbreak, pairing mind-splitting noise with seductive melodies. Capturing the gritty yet emotive energy of their live performances, the album welcomes in the occasional ear-candy, staying true to the raw physicality of a hazy club show all while sharpening its edges-crafted in true DIY spirit and released by Munich's Squama Recordings.
Roomer is the meeting point of four distinct creative forces in the European music scene, united through long-standing friendships and years of collaboration across projects ranging from avant-garde free improv to ethereal folk and ambient electronica. Inevitably-if surprisingly late-the question arose: why not start a band? In their hands, the rock band format became a canvas for their many musical worlds to collide.

j.o.y.s. is both the moniker of and the debut self-titled LP by the Los Angeles based artist Ramon Narvaez. j.o.y.s. is an acronym for “jump out of your skin”. While the phrase can conjure moments of shock and surprise, Narvaez, however uses the phrase as a foot lamp illuminating a path towards momentary transcendence through creating beautifully conjured ambient music that recalls work by Daniel Lanois, suss, Dean Hurley and Tim Hecker. While the pedal steel is prominent, j.o.y.s., as a project, is more in conversation with shoegaze and noise than what has recently been deemed ambient country. Heavy brutalist slabs of noise, swirling feedback create the sound bed of these songs. Collaborator Justin Gaynor’s pedal steel on this album operates as important connective tissue as both the road and the traveler between the light and shadow zones. Drones are wrapped in distortion, processed just below the threshold where we’d throw the word “harsh” around. Rather, there is a delicate dance between Gaynor’s top-rope pedal steel lines - always sweet and always just a bit mournful - with Narvaez’s ringing bass notes and noise chatter. j.o.y.s. revels in intransigence. Nothing can last. As Matt Colquhoun puts in the introduction to Mark Fisher’s heartbreaking Ghosts of My Life - our identity and relationship to the past are “portals in perpetual collapse”. Depression, friendship, longing are all briefly satiated while in the peak experience of creating something as a response to them. But even that is impermanent. These sounds - improvised, exploratory, ecstatic - are eventually edited, whittled down and pressed to wax - not tombs but portals to the past.

Now and again, an album project with no home comes along out of the blue, demanding to be licensed and shared with the world.

It was unearthed on one of Paper's digging trips. BOM's album sounded like nothing else out there, only the future. Shrouded in mystery and country-of-origin unknown, Africa runs through its DNA, but sometimes mysteries are best left...

Ase - a Yoruba philosophy signifying the power that makes things happen and produces change; given to Gods, ancestors, spirits, humans, animals, plants, rocks, rivers, songs and prayers.
BOM takes influence from all corners of Africa and its diaspora, blending them with 25 years of Western electronic music into a melange of forward facing, leftfield afro futurism.
The album features one of Africa's brightest rising stars, Luka Productions (from Mali), cosmic poet Sirius Rush (UK) and master drummer & vocalist Felix Ngindu (DRC/Liverpool) for a journey into kaleidoscopic Afro-tech funk. Gqom, Shangaan electro and township funk rub shoulders with hip-hop, bass, deep house and dub for a psychedelic celebration of collaboration and possibility.

As geographical and musical barriers are broken down, BOM's 'Ase' album is leading the charge; London to Lagos, Lisbon to Sao Paulo, Bamako to Berlin, BOM captures the sound of the underground.

Tappa Zukie is not only one of Jamaica’s greatest DJ’s, is also a much respected producer and arranger. Looking back through his master tapes we have found a lost release that due to being a worldwide recording artist and the pressures that this carries, it has stayed on his musical shelf and been passed over... until now.

When rhythm was King way back in the 1970’s, the predominant feature of the final mix down would in most cases be the drums and bass. Bringing drums and bass to the fore, the other instruments that create the tunes mood would take a back seat in the mix. With such fine musicians in the horn sections as Vin Gordon, Deadly ‘Headley’ Bennett and the unstoppable Tommy McCook, it sometimes felt, their services if nothing else were slightly underused.

So one way of rectifying this situation was one that Tappa himself instigated, putting a release together by picking some of his favourite productions that carried classic horn lines alongside those tightly recorded rhythms. Pushing those horn lines up in the mix and so making a feature of some of those touches that although added some colour to the original cut, laid back in the mix to the more Sound System friendly drum and bass cut.

When looking at the music with this approach, some of the other influences that were also in Tappa’s mind can be noticed more. Maybe it’s a Jazzier / Bluesy feel shining through. A strange thing happens that almost takes the song down the avenue of a soundtrack album. An unreleased film score to accompany an unreleased film.

So sit back and enjoy a lost release that time and place did not find time to see the light of day. As the opening track testifies and in the immortal words of Mr Tappa Zukie himself.. “Your Musical Daddy is back... Horns Up !!!!”

Black Fairy is a fairy tale, but not in the traditional sense. When writing this play, i did not want to re-create the types of fantasies which are so common in Childrens theater. There is no kind of magic that can relieve black children from the oppression that retards their development. However, i do feel giving them a better understanding of their heritage can help them achieve their true potential. And those of us who are concerned with their development should try to expose them to knowledge that gives them a positive sense of identity. Although i do feel a chldren's play should be entertaining, I also feel it should be educational. Also, because there are so few children's plays which reflect the black experience, I wanted to write a play that Black children could identify with.

"Black Fairy" is a musical drama about a black fairy who lacks pride in herself and feels she has to offer Black children. But when she meets Black Bird and Queen Mother (Who take her to ancient Egypt, East Afrika, a southern slave plantation and the streets of Harlem) she begins toget a better understanding of her heritage. Her journey through the past enables Black Fairy to meet Aesop, Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, Uncle Remus, Stag-o-lee, Leadbelly and many other characters in Black folklore and Black history. At the end of her journey, Black fairy realizes that "Being Black is nothing to be ashamed of" and is then able to share her knowledge with other Black children. Even though Black Fairy doesn't completely resolve her dilemma, having a knowledge of her heritage does give her more confidence to cope with the future.

During ther summer of 1974 "Black Fairy" was performed for over four thousand children in Chicago. And, in April of 1975, it played to over two thousand children in Detroit at Mercy College.

"Black Fairy" is the only the first of many children's plays we hope to produce at the Better Boys Foundation. There is an Afrikan proverb which says: "Children are the reward of life". We at Better Boys Foundationm are dedicated to this belief, and feel that helping childrren to appreciate their heritage is one means of showing our concern for their development.

Was ist ein "Boogie"? In der Umgangssprache ist es ein Tanz oder eine Gelegenheit zum Tanzen. Da es sich hier um ein Destroyer-Album handelt und nicht um den allgemeinen Sprachgebrauch, sind die Implikationen eines Titels wie "Dan's Boogie" verführerischer und gefährlicher zugleich. "Ein Boogie ist ein Täuschungsmanöver, ein Betrug, der nicht ganz funktioniert, die Bewegungen, die wir machen, wenn wir damit konfrontiert werden", erklärt Dan Bejar. "Ich denke an Spionage, Doppelagenten, die mit einem offenen Auge schlafen und die Ausgänge im Auge behalten. Aber ich denke auch an kleine Siege und Niederlagen auf der Straße und an Improvisation". Um "Dan's Boogie" aufzunehmen, musste Bejar eine Reihe von gewollten und ungewollten Hindernissen überwinden, um die Songs zu schreiben. Die Monate nach der Fertigstellung von "LABYRINTHITIS" wurden zu einem Jahr und dann zu zwei Jahren, in denen Bejar sich selbst den Neujahrsvorsatz gab, jeden Tag eine Stunde lang Klavier zu spielen. Das hat ungefähr vier Tage gedauert, aber die Songs, die Bejar als Ergebnis dieses Vorsatzes bezeichnet - darunter "Cataract Time", "Hydroplaning Off the Edge of the World", "Bologna" und "Dan's Boogie" - sind allesamt Destroyer-Songs aus dem breiten Spektrum, das Bejar und seine Mitstreiter für sich selbst geschaffen haben: Spektakuläre Pop-Epen, persönliche Piano-Balladen und schwelende Stimmungsbilder, die die Grenzen zwischen Song, Roman und Kino verschwimmen lassen, jedes voll von der Dringlichkeit eines Staatsgeheimnisses im Kopf eines gequälten Spions. Die Leadsingle "Bologna" ist der radikalste Rahmen für diese Energie, denn es ist das erste Mal, dass Bejar einen Song schreibt, in dem er sich selbst als Nebenfigur vorstellt. In der Hauptrolle ist Simone Schmidt von Fiver zu hören, deren Stimme - hart und ausdrucksstark, durchdringend durch die Düsternis der Szene - ein Sirenengesang ist, der das ganze Album durchdringt. Die Schwere ihrer Stimme ordnet "Dan's Boogie" um ein Gefühl des drohenden Untergangs herum, so wie das Versprechen einer Fatale auf das Ungewöhnliche und Ekstatische die Hauptfigur eines erotischen Thrillers zum Verhängnis wird. "Hydroplaning Off the Edge of the World" ist ein köstlicher Widerspruch, ein schwungvoller Song, der aus der Verwüstung entstand, die Bejar absichtlich mit sich selbst anrichtete. "We are now entering a new phase", intoniert Bejar und führt Schichten von Gitarren und Synthesizern ein, die die Palette erheblich verdunkeln, während er zwischen Gesang und Sprache wechselt. Der Nebel, der Bejar umgibt, wird durch die Reibung zwischen konkurrierenden Wahrheiten und Geschmäckern erhellt, etwa wenn sein Interesse an jazzigen Balladen auf das Interesse des Produzenten und Bassisten John Collins an Bands wie Led Zeppelin und Scritti Politti trifft. Als Bejar Collins erzählte, dass er an Sammy Davis Jr. dachte, entstand der Titeltrack, in dem Bejar mit fast wahnhafter Freude einen Rat Pack-Swagger vor einer verträumten Klangkulisse aus schwebenden Gitarren, üppigen Bläsern, Jazz-Drumming, spacigen Synthesizern und - vielleicht am ehesten dem Selbstverständnis Bejars entsprechend - einem klimpernden Lounge-Piano annahm. Das Herzstück von "Dan's Boogie" ist vielleicht "Cataract Time", ein achtminütiges Epos, das zu den schwersten Texten gehört, die Bejar je geschrieben hat, und eine der musikalisch komplexesten Kompositionen von Destroyer ist. Getragen von einem lässigen Groove, sind Bejars Texte verklärt, ihre Melancholie schmeckt fast widersinnig nach Hoffnung. Es ist ein intimer Song, der Destroyers übliches urbanes Fabel-Milieu gegen eine erfrischende Innerlichkeit eintauscht, aber sein beschwingter Groove lässt eine Zukunft erahnen, der Bejar und seine Band entgegenfiebern. Wo frühere Destroyer-Alben mit der Welt kämpften, tanzt "Dan's Boogie" mit ihr, und seine neun Träumereien verschmelzen zu einem einzigen langen Treiben. Dan Bejar mag die Ausgänge im Auge haben, aber er wird nicht so bald abreisen.





e 5 BOLOGNA [FEAT. FIVER]

"Daft Punk brought me here, he brought me Daft Punk"

Just knowing that this slice of hyper-rare disco dynamite was crafted by Thomas Bangalter's dad should be enough for you to buy this on sight, if only to understand a little bit more about Thomas and Daft Punk's background. But this is so much more than a Daft Punk family curio.

Born Bangalter in 1947, Daniel Vangarde is a French songwriter and producer. In 1975, Vangarde founded his label, Zagora Records, who we have worked closely with on this lovingly curated reissue. For years, Vangarde wrote and produced songs that remained underground, under several pseudonyms and for various artists. Dubbed "the secret father of French disco" this here groove-fulled firecracker - using his Who’s Who moniker - is for disco-funk, library music and cosmic beat lovers.

The intense, evocative opener "Palace Palace" positively throbs with raw energy and sounds, honestly, like something off Daft Punk's Discovery. The title refers to the fashionable Parisian club Le Palace, essentially the Parisian Studio 54. "I’d been to a nightclub in New York, a big ring where people were roller skating with a whistle. The atmosphere was great. The music was all disco. I made this song when I came back. A vocoder transformed my voice. Back then, it wasn’t used much." The track rides a killer groove and is deceptively complex, with layers of fantastic percussion and ace synth work going on all over it. Listed to on repeat, it's brilliance is simply undeniable.

The louche, slo-mo heater "Hypno Dance" is, in Be With's opinion, *the* deadly dancefloor track. A svelte slice of ace space disco again geared towards the roller skating dance mania of the day. So deep, so disco, so instrumental. An unreal track and, as the title hints at, totally hypnotic. The side closes with the somewhat throwaway "Popeden" - it's a jaunty number that you're probably best skipping, in all honesty. Have we ever steered you wrong?

The B-Side opens with the frankly enormous "Roll Jacky Roll" is another thrilling, high class roller-rink jam with beautiful melodies that's adored the world over. The wonky, abstract "Ad Libitum 80" is a super dope, swirling, staccato electro-funk bounce which sounds light years ahead of its time. This might be the real lowkey sleeper gem on this record. CHECK! This remarkable LP rounds out with the huge "Dancin' Machine". It's got sleek drums that emit an absolutely ace swagger and elements of Italo synth funk feels. A relaxed, slow rhythm throughout ensures you can't help but get your funk on when this crashes soundsystems. We'll leave the final word on this to Daniel: "It amuses me to think that my son Thomas was influenced by "Dancin’ Machine" for "Around The World", he says. Both songs being based on an hypnotic repetitive refrain. Both songs being, of course, timeless pieces of Euro genius.

Who's Who really is a fantastic late-70s-early 80s roller disco-funk essential. The audio has been carefully remastered by Be With regular Simon Francis, ensuring it sounds better than ever. Cicely Balston's expert skills have made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the records have been pressed to the highest possible standard at Record Industry in Holland.

When it came to the sleeve for this we were presented with an unusual problem: we usually have to rely on an original sleeve as the starting point for the restoration, but instead we were able to scan the original 35mm transparency of the front cover photo. The problem is that with a modern scanner the results were far sharper than when they made the original sleeve. We’ve played around with the exposure and the colour grading but we’re sorry to say that our version of the front cover still ended up looking too good! Don’t hate us.

Was ist ein "Boogie"? In der Umgangssprache ist es ein Tanz oder eine Gelegenheit zum Tanzen. Da es sich hier um ein Destroyer-Album handelt und nicht um den allgemeinen Sprachgebrauch, sind die Implikationen eines Titels wie "Dan's Boogie" verführerischer und gefährlicher zugleich. "Ein Boogie ist ein Täuschungsmanöver, ein Betrug, der nicht ganz funktioniert, die Bewegungen, die wir machen, wenn wir damit konfrontiert werden", erklärt Dan Bejar. "Ich denke an Spionage, Doppelagenten, die mit einem offenen Auge schlafen und die Ausgänge im Auge behalten. Aber ich denke auch an kleine Siege und Niederlagen auf der Straße und an Improvisation". Um "Dan's Boogie" aufzunehmen, musste Bejar eine Reihe von gewollten und ungewollten Hindernissen überwinden, um die Songs zu schreiben. Die Monate nach der Fertigstellung von "LABYRINTHITIS" wurden zu einem Jahr und dann zu zwei Jahren, in denen Bejar sich selbst den Neujahrsvorsatz gab, jeden Tag eine Stunde lang Klavier zu spielen. Das hat ungefähr vier Tage gedauert, aber die Songs, die Bejar als Ergebnis dieses Vorsatzes bezeichnet - darunter "Cataract Time", "Hydroplaning Off the Edge of the World", "Bologna" und "Dan's Boogie" - sind allesamt Destroyer-Songs aus dem breiten Spektrum, das Bejar und seine Mitstreiter für sich selbst geschaffen haben: Spektakuläre Pop-Epen, persönliche Piano-Balladen und schwelende Stimmungsbilder, die die Grenzen zwischen Song, Roman und Kino verschwimmen lassen, jedes voll von der Dringlichkeit eines Staatsgeheimnisses im Kopf eines gequälten Spions. Die Leadsingle "Bologna" ist der radikalste Rahmen für diese Energie, denn es ist das erste Mal, dass Bejar einen Song schreibt, in dem er sich selbst als Nebenfigur vorstellt. In der Hauptrolle ist Simone Schmidt von Fiver zu hören, deren Stimme - hart und ausdrucksstark, durchdringend durch die Düsternis der Szene - ein Sirenengesang ist, der das ganze Album durchdringt. Die Schwere ihrer Stimme ordnet "Dan's Boogie" um ein Gefühl des drohenden Untergangs herum, so wie das Versprechen einer Fatale auf das Ungewöhnliche und Ekstatische die Hauptfigur eines erotischen Thrillers zum Verhängnis wird. "Hydroplaning Off the Edge of the World" ist ein köstlicher Widerspruch, ein schwungvoller Song, der aus der Verwüstung entstand, die Bejar absichtlich mit sich selbst anrichtete. "We are now entering a new phase", intoniert Bejar und führt Schichten von Gitarren und Synthesizern ein, die die Palette erheblich verdunkeln, während er zwischen Gesang und Sprache wechselt. Der Nebel, der Bejar umgibt, wird durch die Reibung zwischen konkurrierenden Wahrheiten und Geschmäckern erhellt, etwa wenn sein Interesse an jazzigen Balladen auf das Interesse des Produzenten und Bassisten John Collins an Bands wie Led Zeppelin und Scritti Politti trifft. Als Bejar Collins erzählte, dass er an Sammy Davis Jr. dachte, entstand der Titeltrack, in dem Bejar mit fast wahnhafter Freude einen Rat Pack-Swagger vor einer verträumten Klangkulisse aus schwebenden Gitarren, üppigen Bläsern, Jazz-Drumming, spacigen Synthesizern und - vielleicht am ehesten dem Selbstverständnis Bejars entsprechend - einem klimpernden Lounge-Piano annahm. Das Herzstück von "Dan's Boogie" ist vielleicht "Cataract Time", ein achtminütiges Epos, das zu den schwersten Texten gehört, die Bejar je geschrieben hat, und eine der musikalisch komplexesten Kompositionen von Destroyer ist. Getragen von einem lässigen Groove, sind Bejars Texte verklärt, ihre Melancholie schmeckt fast widersinnig nach Hoffnung. Es ist ein intimer Song, der Destroyers übliches urbanes Fabel-Milieu gegen eine erfrischende Innerlichkeit eintauscht, aber sein beschwingter Groove lässt eine Zukunft erahnen, der Bejar und seine Band entgegenfiebern. Wo frühere Destroyer-Alben mit der Welt kämpften, tanzt "Dan's Boogie" mit ihr, und seine neun Träumereien verschmelzen zu einem einzigen langen Treiben. Dan Bejar mag die Ausgänge im Auge haben, aber er wird nicht so bald abreisen.

Fresh from the triumphant return of a successful domestic and international tour, Smif-N-Wessun's new album is a cumulative reflection of their life experiences. Executive produced by college professor and world-renowned producer 9th Wonder and the Soul Council, 9th explains the thought process with the album. “I wanted to make sure that it didn't sound dated. It sounds like them (Smif-N-Wessun), but it's also new. They are our generation's version of Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Donald Byrd.”

Illustrious MCs featured on the album include Buckshot, Pharoahe Monch, Conway the Machine, legendary artists Sean Price and Prodigy, multi-platinum RnB legend Ralph Tresvant, along with rising stars Sweta and Jalisa. Scheduled for release January 10th, 2025, Infinity cements Smif-N-Wessun's status as creators of nothing but classics. This is their eighth album and the second collaboration with 9th Wonder and the Soul Council. Showcasing buttery beats from Council members, 9th Wonder himself, Khrysis, SND*TRK, Kash, Mu'aath, and Nottz, the album delivers a sonic smash that will satisfy everyone from the rap purist to new school connoisseurs.

"Night Sketches" is the follow-up to French pop duet Papooz's first album "Green Juice". The album spawned single release 'Ann Wants To Dance' (alongside a video directed by French artist & musician SoKo), which has since clocked over 12 million streams online and counting.



After selling out both Moth Club & The Sebright Arms, Papooz headlined Scala in London in December 2018. Produced by Adrien Durand of Bon Voyage Organisation, Night Sketches finds Papooz perfecting their gift for wonky, exotic pop balanced with surreal, character-driven lyricism.



"We had this romantic idea of capturing the essence of night life: its stories, its suspicious characters, its highs & lows and put them into pop songs." Whilst Night Sketches continues to keep Papooz' tongue firmly in cheek, there's real precision at play in Armand Cottin and Ulysse Penicaut's assimilation of soft rock, jazz and Brazilian music, leavened with an unmistakably British sense of humour (those lyrics sung in English are not by chance).

BLACK/RED VINYL

A match made in heaven and hell, since forming in the cradle of Europe Athens, back in 2012, dark synth duo Selofan have paved their own perditious way, reinventing the modern Darkwave scene throughout the continent and worldwide with their prolific creativity and work ethic over the past decade. Through varied experimental synth-scapes conjured with keen ears for sound design, production, and theatrical aesthetics, Selofan rest not on the laurels of just creating highly danceable coldwave infused music, but with together with Joanna Pavlidou's haunting vocals, and Dimitris Pavlidis' throbbing bass guitar, and modular synth compositions, the pair conjure whole other worlds and narratives throughout each album and music video they create. Thus far the Selofan have released 5 studio albums, issued through their own legendary label they curate themselves: Fabrika Records. Through their Fabrika family, Selofan have championed such acts as Lebanon Hanover, and She Past Away, aiding these bands in becoming two of the most popular Darkwave acts worldwide. Drab Majesty even cameoed in a She Past Away video while being hosted by Selofan during one of the band's frequent stays in Athens, and Kaelan Mikla, a handpicked favorite of The Cure, were first championed by Selofan, through the release of the Icelandic Trio's self-titled debut in 2016. In the Spring of 2020, Selofan released the video for the hopelessly plaintive "There Must Be Somebody", the first single from their forthcoming sixth studio album Partners In Hell, the follow-up to 2018's widely popular Vitrioli LP. "There Must be Somebody" is a discordant composition, mimicking the startled song of birds after a disturbance in a wooded enclave on a mountainside, while a magick ritual unfolds. The album itself opens with "Grey Gardens", a menagerie of morose melodies setting a sombre tone for the rest of a bleak record whose sound design and dreamscapes evoke the best sounds of British and German post-punk of the 80s. "Almost Nothing" is a brooding bell-driven track with a dark and pirouetting melody that is the perfect soundtrack to a figurine twirling in a music box. The German language "Nichts" means No, and this song is both sinister and cinematic with sighing keys, shuddering drum machines, and German lyrics sung with sorrowful conviction. "Zusamen", is a word often asked if you are together, or separate, is a dark ballad whose shadowy keys weave a nightmarish delirium, evoking the soundscapes of a lullaby sung in a haunted dollhouse. "4am" is a restless rhythm, whose soft percussive melody tosses and turns alongside subtle bass and string accents overlaid with despondent vocals. "Happy Consumers" sounds like the swirling of a finger drawn upon the edge of crystalline glass, with vocals and drum machines coming emanating from an adjacent room with echoing acoustics, collectively evoking the sound like lingers when the somnambulist wakes from his dream. "Absolutely Absent" hums onward like a phantom train ride that is a one-way ticket to madness, and with the next track "Metalic Isolation" the locomotive beats gather more steam, propelled forward with anachronistic melody. The album closes with "Auf Dein Haut", which translates as on your skin, and the song is both tactile and tenebrous with sensuously dark synth textures amidst howling German vocals that take flight like witches during a sabbat. Partner's In Hell was mixed and produced by Serafim Tsotsonis, and mastered by Doruk Ozturkcan. Genre: Alternative / Post-Punk / Cold Wave

"Tonky" ist Lonnie Holleys fünftes Studioalbum und enthält Gastauftritte von Isaac Brock, Angel Bat Dawid, Billy Woods, Alabaster de Plume, Mary Lattimore und anderen. Bei der Leadsingle "Protest With Love" ist Jacknife Lee, der auch das gefeierte Vorgängeralbum "Oh Me Oh My" produziert hat, als Bassist, Keyboarder, Synthesizer, Schlagzeuger, Programmierer, Flötist, Percussionist und Sänger zu hören. Weitere Mitwirkende sind The Legendary Ingramettes am Gesang, Kelly Pratt an den Bläsern und Flöten, Jordan Katz an den Bläsern und natürlich Holley am Gesang. Holley fordert die Zuhörer auf, "mit Liebe zu protestieren" und "die Liebe zu deiner Waffe zu machen". Es gibt Dichter wie die große Mary Oliver, die vorschlagen, dass die Hauptfunktion des Menschen, wenn er sich durch die Welt bewegt, solange er Leben und die Fähigkeit hat, sich durch die Welt zu bewegen, darin besteht, dem Aufmerksamkeit zu schenken, was andere törichterweise als klein oder alltäglich bezeichnen mögen. Das Gehirn und das Herz sind beides Gefäße, die so viel Platz haben, wie man ihnen zugestehen möchte, und zu leben bedeutet, Sammlungen von gefundenen Zuneigungen zu schaffen. Die Geräusche der geliebten und vertrauten Häuser, die Bewegungen der Bäume und der Menschen unter ihnen, die Art und Weise, wie jemand, den man verehrt, einen ein paar Sekunden lang umarmt, bevor er sich aus der Umarmung löst und in einer überfüllten Fußgängerzone verschwindet. Wenn wir unser Leben, unser Schaffen und unsere Liebe auf diese Weise betrachten, bedeutet das, dass wir, zumindest für einige von uns, durch die Aussicht auf das, was als Nächstes kommt, vorwärts getrieben werden können. Welchen Moment wir festhalten und in unsere überquellenden Taschen stecken können. Die Arbeit von Lonnie Holley ist ein Werk dieser Art von Anhäufung und genauer Aufmerksamkeit. Das Vergnügen, einen Klang zu finden und ihn gegen einen anderen gefundenen Klang und einen weiteren zu pressen, bis der Hörer, bevor er es merkt, von einer Klangsinfonie überflutet wird, die sich anfühlt, als würde sie sich zusammenfügen, während sie über einen hinwegspült. "Tonky" ist ein Album, das seinen Namen von einem Spitznamen aus der Kindheit hat, der Holley anhaftete, als er einen Teil seiner Kindheit in einem Honky Tonk verbrachte. Lonnie Holleys Leben des Überlebens und der Ausdauer erforderte - und erfordert zweifellos immer noch - eine Art Erfindung. Eine Erfindung, die auch in Holleys Liedern reichhaltig und präsent ist, die auf "Tonky" voll und eindringlich sind, einem Album, das mit seinem längsten Lied beginnt, einem neunminütigen, erschöpfenden Marathon eines Stücks namens "Seeds", das mit einem einzigen spärlichen Klang beginnt und sich dann ausdehnt. Gesänge, schwache Tasten, Streicher und als Krönung Holleys Stimme, die nicht singt, sondern klar und deutlich von der Arbeit auf der Erde erzählt, als er jung war, und von der Gewalt, die er dabei ertragen musste, als er blutig und mit Schmerzen von Schlägen ins Bett ging. Der Song weitet sich zu einer Metapher über den Ort aus, über das Versagen des Zuhauses oder eines Ortes, der einen beschützen soll, der nicht das hält, was er zu sein vorgibt, selbst wenn man unermüdlich daran arbeitet, daran arbeitet, daran arbeitet, etwas Sinnvolles daraus zu machen. "Seeds" gibt nicht nur den Ton für ein Album an, das sich um Wiedergeburt, Erneuerung und die Grenzen von Hoffnung und Glaube dreht, sondern unterstreicht auch, was Holleys größte Stärke als Musiker ist, nämlich sein Engagement für Fülle und Großzügigkeit. Er ist ein unglaublich begabter Geschichtenerzähler, der sich der mündlichen Tradition verschrieben hat, so dass viele Hörer völlig zufrieden wären, wenn sie zu Füßen einer Lonnie-Holley-Platte säßen und seinen robusten, ausladenden Erzählungen lauschen könnten. Aber "Tonky" ist ein Album, das sowohl klanglich als auch in Bezug auf die vielen verschiedenen Künstler, die auf dem Album vertreten sind, einen Platz bietet, an dem sie sich zu Hause fühlen können, ganz gleich, wie sie die Zeit verbringen, die sie für einen Song brauchen.

Neue erweiterte Deluxe-Version des Debütalbums "fishmonger" (2021) der gefeierten Hyperpop-Produzentin underscores (aka April Harper Grey) aus San Francisco, das sie bislang nur im Eigenvertrieb auf den Markt brachte. Eine aussergewöhnlich frische, experimentelle Produktion zwischen Electronic, Pop, Dubstep und Pop-Punk, mit den Fanlieblingen "Spoiled Little Brat" und "Second Hand Embarrassment". Die neue "deadAir Legacy Edition" enthält eine zusätzliche LP mit 6 Single/EP-Tracks, 5 Remixen (Lunice, six impala, Virtual Riot, carolesdaughter) und 2 Bonustracks, dazu ein 24-seitiges Songtext-Booklet. Transparent-hellblaues und transparent-kobaltblaues Doppelvinyl.

Born from a childhood friendship, the five members of Ciao Kennedy have crafted their own sound and feeling after exploring a variety of different musical horizons. Following the release of EPs 'Keldercave' (2021) and 'the problem is' (2022), as well as being featured on the compilation Lefto presents Jazz Cats Vol. 3 in the spring of 2024, it was only a matter of time for the Brussels-based band to reappear on the music circuit.

As part of the Magma collective, alongside groups like TUKAN and ECHT!, they started to stand out with their instrumental music merging the playfulness of jazz,the repetitive facets of post-rock, and the overtly grand electronic sound evident in what is nowadays described through the grapevine as the 'Brussels sound'.

With Solarium, their debut album set to be released under the Sdban Ultra label, they have found a course and common denominator in guitars drenched with post-rock effects, steered by hypnotic electronic beats, creating an atmosphere of rare, dense melancholy, peppered with a sound that belongs in a blockbuster sci-fi movie.

Ciao Kennedy and its debut album are a tangy candy bursting in your mouth, the thrill of an afternoon at the fair, modernity meeting up with the nostalgia of childhood. Or standing beneath the shimmering neon lights of a rainy night, like colourful poetry, blending tenderness with electric intensity. Many of these musical descriptions would be completely off the mark, but after a few listens, they don't seem to miss the mark either. There's something for everyone to discover on this album, oscillating between the familiar and the unexpected, melancholy and cheer, and while everyone keeps on talking about something being a 'vibe', we can only conclude that Ciao Kennedy is the only one putting this into action.

To celebrate the release of Solarium, the band will host a release party at the Brussels venue Botanique on April 17, 2025. A must-attend event for everyone who wants to see if the live reputation which precedes Ciao Kennedy is actually true. Whatever happens, make sure to keep that date free.

Release show: 17/04 Botanique, Brussels.

Geniusz, Minor Talent, Generational Talent. Let the old folks fight it out. Sharp Pins are too busy staying up late watching vampire movies. Fathers and Children of the Revolution. Finally cartographed and designed by the actual Youth in Revolt "Nothing Stands in their way, they ARE the face of today". How can you tell you've been in the presence of the Sharp Pins? You see their sticker on yr phone, yr car, yr guitar, yr drums, yr bass, yr clarinet, yr flugelhorn, yr tuba, yr dog - its a MOD MOD WORLD, we're just living in it. 14 tracks 33RPM. Sharp Pins is the super solid lo-fi noise pop project of talented Chicago musician Kai Slater of Lifeguard and Dwaal Troupe."Radio DDR" originally released at home as a Hallogallo tape. "Youth Revolution Now".

Measure Divide makes his full debut EP for Mutual Rytm X with his latest release, 'Everything Is Porridge'.

Karachi-born artist Measure Divide now resides in Toronto, where his FORMAT parties have revived the techno scene over the last decade. In that time, he has eschewed techno by numbers with innovative sounds on Clergy and Mutual Rytm while appearing at iconic clubs like Berghain, K41 and Tresor. Outside of the underground, he has years of experience in sound design and scoring for animations and films, and that is what he channels here into a uniquely playful sound with a vibrant and playful departure from his usual serious tones for his first full EP on SHDW's Mutual Rytm X.

A record for adventurous DJs and listeners craving bold, mischievous and innovative sounds, the EP's title, inspired by an inside joke about calling anything edible "porridge", reflects the chaotic and unpredictable state of the world - a mushy mix of uncertainty. This same unpredictability shines through the tracks, which combine techno, breaks, modular experimentation and plenty more.

The superbly original title cut begins with a restless mix of unusual percussive sounds and fizzing synths over thudding drums. It's tense and twisted and sounds like nothing else. 'Wormy Wonderland' is another brilliantly outthere cut with freaky noises and scuzzy textures over body-popping techno drums, and 'Eeeeeermmmm' then slows down with a menacing synth buzz and caustic broken beats. Digital bonus tracks 'Shrew Cascade' and 'Clumsy Clatter' further challenge techno norms with watery sound effects, twisted synth lines and inventive rhythmical patterns.

NOW Music proudly presents NOW That’s What I Call Gold – The Ultimate Hits – this essential 3-LP set brings together 46 tracks by legendary artists with timeless anthems, celebrating some of the greatest hits of all time, including chart-topping classics and enduring favourites.



LP1 sets the stage with Queen’s electrifying ‘A Kind Of Magic’, followed by Philip Bailey & Phil Collins’ #1 ‘Easy Lover’. The Police feature with their #1 smash ‘Message In A Bottle’, while The Killers follow with their record-breaking anthem ‘Mr. Brightside’. The massive ‘Stick Season’ from Noah Kahan is up next before the first side finishes with Lana Del Rey’s stunning ‘Video Games’. Flip the LP over for contemporary classics from Coldplay and Duran Duran. Sinéad O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ still sounds raw and breath-taking and is followed by classics from the Pretenders, Shirley Bassey, Dusty Springfield, and Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’, one of the best-selling UK singles of the ‘80s, whilst another of those closes out the first LP: Ultravox with their masterpiece, ‘Vienna’.



LP2 delivers a legendary lineup, including Billy Joel with his Grammy-winning ‘Just The Way You Are’ and Céline Dion’s powerful version of ‘All By Myself’. John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ and Paul Simon’s groundbreaking ‘Graceland’ are featured along with the pop genius of Electric Light Orchestra with ‘Last Train To London’. While on the other side timeless ballads from Elton John with ‘Tiny Dancer’ and Lewis Capaldi’s ‘Someone You Loved’ come ahead of Wings, Simply Red and ‘60s gems from Stevie Wonder, The Supremes and the peerless ‘Walk On By’ from Dionne Warwick.



LP3 opens with Neil Diamond’s universally beloved singalong anthem, ‘Sweet Caroline’ and Cliff Richard’s mid-70s classic, ‘Devil Woman’. Disco legends Donna Summer (‘MacArthur Park’) and Gloria Gaynor (‘I Will Survive’), lead into Sophie Ellis Bextor’s ‘Murder On The Dancefloor’ which became a smash for the second time recently. Ed Sheeran and Pharrell Williams had enduringly popular hits with ‘Galway Girl’ and ‘Happy’, and the side closes with the harmonic vocals of All-4-One and their beautiful signature song ‘I Swear’. The final side is packed with anthemic and uplifting classics kicking off with Spandau Ballet’s ‘Gold’, Survivor’s ‘Eye Of The Tiger’, and Take That’s soaring ‘Rule The World’. The remainder of the collection celebrates and showcases some of the ‘70s greatest tracks including Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Lost In France’, Marianne Faithfull’s poignant ‘The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan’ and Blondie’s era-defining and genre-defying #1 ‘Heart Of Glass’.



NOW That’s What I Call Gold is a must-have for all music lovers —packed with legendary artists, timeless hits, and unforgettable moments in pop. Don’t miss out on this golden treasure trove of musical brilliance!

Two new faces on the label with the two-faced eagle! Both artists have been much respected forces on the international club circuit for a while. IDA ENGBERG is best known for her affiliation with Stockholm’s Drumcode and Truesoul labels. For her Speicher debut though, she’s tapping into a quite different sound territory. “Nothing Feels The Same” will go down in history as the first 2 Step track ever released on KOMPAKT EXTRA. It’s as sensual as it’s booming. Definitely one for those late morning hours. With “Pink Monkeys” is an EBM/sawtooth trance amalgamation of the highest order with enough psychedelic headroom for the festival season.

MARCO RESMANN’s deep involvement with the late Berlin club legend Watergate has made him one of the German capital’s beacons of house and techno. He’s one half of Lunar City Express and former member of Pan-Pot which speaks volumes about his stylistical versatility.”“RIMA feat. Laatz” he delivers a frenetic rollercoaster ride of a techno track. It’s radical, it’s menacing and super fun all at once – A truly one of a kind techno track. “Dimensions” is a low-slung electro bulwark full of intricate details to keep head and feet going in unison.
Zwei neue Gesichter auf dem Label mit dem doppelköpfigen Adler! Beide Künstler sind seit einiger Zeit angesehene Größen in der internationalen Clubszene. IDA ENGBERG ist vor allem für ihre Zusammenarbeit mit den Stockholmer Labels Drumcode und Truesoul bekannt. Für ihr Debüt auf Speicher betritt sie jedoch ein ganz anderes Sound-Territorium. „Nothing Feels The Same“ wird als erster 2-Step-Track, der jemals auf KOMPAKT EXTRA veröffentlicht wurde, in die Geschichte eingehen. Es ist ebenso sinnlich wie dröhnend. Definitiv etwas für die späten Morgenstunden. Mit „Pink Monkeys“ ist eine EBM/Sägezahn-Trance-Verschmelzung der höchsten Güteklasse mit genug psychedelischem Headroom für die Festivalsaison entstanden.

MARCO RESMANNs tiefe Verbundenheit mit der jüngst verstorbenen Berliner Clublegende Watergate hat ihn zu einem der Fixpunkte der deutschen Hauptstadt in Sachen House und Techno gemacht und weit darüber hinaus. Er ist eine Hälfte von Lunar City Express und ehemaliges Mitglied von Pan-Pot, was Bände über seine stilistische Vielseitigkeit spricht. Mit „RIMA feat. Laatz“ liefert er eine frenetische Techno-Achterbahnfahrt, die gleichermaßen radikal, bedrohlich ist und ungemein Spaß macht – ein wirklich einzigartiger Track für die Ewigkeit. ‚Dimensions‘ wiederum ist ein tiefgründiges Electro-Bollwerk voller komplexer Details, das Kopf und Füße sicher im Einklang hält.

Repress as neon green vinyl!

Non Phixion drops a re-realse n of the group’s classic debut “The Future Is Now.” Available exclusively through Fat Beats. “Utilizing beats that would do Dr. Octagon-era Dan “The Automator” proud and rhyming schemes that bring to mind early Wu-Tang Clan or mid-’90s Gang Starr, Non Phixion exposes the sound of true underground hip-hop. This is music that reflects the sound and attitude of countless rappers selling their albums out of the back of their cars or in booths on the street, cutting together dirty and disjointed sounds with a confidence and quality that is unique to this particular genre. This would all be for nothing if it wasn’t for the excellent raps from Ill Bill, Goretex, and Sabac Red, a trio of rappers who have a Tribe Called Quest-like chemistry. Their clever lyrics, respectable skills, and rough voices make this an intense and dark landmark in alternative rap.”

Ltd Classic Black Vinyl with bonus 7inch, DL card. Monde UFO, LA-based duo of Ray Monde and Kris Chau, are a monochromatic sunset for the senses. A sonic journey through psychedelia, space rock and jazz. A cosmic space where Spacemen 3 meets Vanishing Twin, by way of Sun Ra. 7171 perfectly embodies the framework of lo and hi-fi sounds which have helped define the band. Included in this expanded package is Four Songs, Monde UFO's radical interpretation of Fugazi's music, housed for the first time on LTD 7" with new artwork. In a downtown Los Angeles warehouse, on 7th Street, Ray Monde began writing songs on an old Yamaha church organ for a project that eventually became Monde UFO. Utilizing the organ as a bass, alongside keyboards and a drum machine, he began making demos on a four-track cassette recorder. Heavily influenced by the musician Sandy Bull, sonically landing in a similar no-man's land of Worldly Jazz and Psych Folk. Monde experimented with the themes mostly of meditation and UFO lore. In time Ray moved in with the artist Kris Chau. With little crossover in musical tastes, they exclusively started listening to jazz, ambient and new age music in the house. Increased interest in sound baths and experimental music led to seeing music in a different light. Envisioning something that would sound like Don Cherry making a record with Yo La Tengo. '7171' is an amalgam of influences, interpretations and otherworldly sounds channeled through genre bending experimentation. This expanded edition of '7171' includes the sought after 'Four Songs' EP, a reimagining Fugazi's early classics, songs that take on a life of their own, lost amongst the haze and sugar sweet psych. Ray Monde explains, "Long Division was one of my favorite tracks off 'Steady Diet of Nothing' the first Fugazi record I ever owned; more than ever, it also feels truly poignant in the times we live in.Version 2 is our interpretation of Version from 'Red Medicine', my favorite Fugazi Record." "A slice of low-key bedroom pop-psychedelia in the vein of Syd Barrett." Aquarium Drunkard "Monde UFO wander through a humid mist of exotic samba shuffles, shamanic whispers, and reverberating laser beam synthesizers." New Commute

Introducing the ultimate Rock and Power Ballads collection - NOW That’s What I Call Rock Anthems – Out 31st May! Get ready to crank up the volume and let the music take you on a journey through 79 epic hits, spread across 4 CDs.and with 45 epic hits on 3-LP’s pressed in stunning Neon Violet Vinyl

Serpentskin is the dancefloor-oriented alias of Alison Lewis aka Zanias, fusing the sounds of trance and darkwave with her signature ethereal vocals and otherworldly textures to invoke a unique aural transcendence for the club environment. In her debut self-titled EP, Serpentskin presents five tracks that explore this new realm with varying degrees of euphoria and longing, from the rapturous 90sinspired ‘Basking in the Light at Heaven’s Gate’ to the melancholic pining of ‘Apparently Nothing’.

Die britische Indie-Pop Band The Lathums kündigt ihr neues drittes Studioalbum 'Matters Does Not Define' für den 7. März 2025 an. Die Band hat bereits zwei aufeinanderfolgende Alben auf Platz 1 der offiziellen britischen Albumcharts vorzuweisen und ein weiteres Jahr mit riesigen Open-Air-Shows hinter sich. 'Matter Does Not Define' wurde von der Band, bestehend aus Sänger Alex Moore, Scott Concepcion (Gitarre, Piano und Gesang), Ryan Durrans (Schlagzeug) und Matty Murphy (Bass und Gesang), in ihrer Heimatstadt Wigan geschrieben, bevor es in den Kempston Street Studios in Liverpool in Begleitung des langjährigen kreativen Mentors John Kettle und des Produzenten Chris Taylor aufgenommen wurde. 'Matters Does Not Define' folgt auf ihr bisher erfolgreiches zweites Album 'From Nothing To A Little Bit More' und ihr Debüt 'How Beautiful Life Can Be' von 2021.

Die britische Indie-Pop Band The Lathums kündigt ihr neues drittes Studioalbum 'Matters Does Not Define' für den 7. März 2025 an. Die Band hat bereits zwei aufeinanderfolgende Alben auf Platz 1 der offiziellen britischen Albumcharts vorzuweisen und ein weiteres Jahr mit riesigen Open-Air-Shows hinter sich. 'Matter Does Not Define' wurde von der Band, bestehend aus Sänger Alex Moore, Scott Concepcion (Gitarre, Piano und Gesang), Ryan Durrans (Schlagzeug) und Matty Murphy (Bass und Gesang), in ihrer Heimatstadt Wigan geschrieben, bevor es in den Kempston Street Studios in Liverpool in Begleitung des langjährigen kreativen Mentors John Kettle und des Produzenten Chris Taylor aufgenommen wurde. 'Matters Does Not Define' folgt auf ihr bisher erfolgreiches zweites Album 'From Nothing To A Little Bit More' und ihr Debüt 'How Beautiful Life Can Be' von 2021.

Limited Red Vinyl

Crafted from solo recordings of 42 top-notch improviser musicians mostly drawn from Berlin’s multi-layered experimental scene, the monumental Phantom Orchestra project by Raed Yassin is finally getting released on Morphine Records. More than 1000 minutes of source material, recorded at the Morphine Raum during the fall of 2021, is distilled into a cogent work marked by a dazzling display of editing and blending, and packed into a double LP containing 7 “movements” of the Phantom Orchestra composition.

Crafted from solo recordings of 42 top-notch improviser musicians mostly drawn from Berlin’s multi-layered experimental scene, the monumental Phantom Orchestra project by Raed Yassin is finally getting released on Morphine Records. More than 1000 minutes of source material, recorded at the Morphine Raum during the fall of 2021, is distilled into a cogent work marked by a dazzling display of editing and blending, and packed into a double LP containing 7 “movements” of the Phantom Orchestra composition.

The Lebanese composer, musician and visual artist Raed Yassin has built a career straddling artistic mediums and communities, his devotion to improvisation, his connection to experimental electronic music, and his interest in the archive distinguishing a progressive impulse rooted in historic exploration. In 2020 Morphine Records released his wildly ambitious Live in Sharjah, made by a kaleidoscopic expansion of Praed, his duo with clarinetist Paed Conca. He resumes his interest in large-scale projects with Phantom Orchestra, conceived during the pandemic when most European improvisers were forced to redirect their energies into solo work,

Each set of the Phantom Orchestra’s solos was cut on a Dubplate, ready to be performed on 12 turntables routed to a six-channel setup, to create a unified and breathtaking composition from the spontaneous material. The resulting material was then edited and prepared to be cut on a Double LP format, marshalling a staggering variety of improvised footage into an air-tight collage that locates abstract consonance, stunning sonic rhymes, and unusual harmonies without shutting out the sort of exhilarating collisions and fraught tensions inherent in collaborative improvisations. With this final stage of the composition, Yassin offers a vibrant testimony to the diversity of Berlin’s community of improvisers, to say nothing of his own refined artistic sensibility in achieving such a remarkable feat of blending so many contrasting voices into a truly unified piece of music. “For me it's about how to learn to be a community again,” he says. “And how to live in a world together again, which is a very difficult question for me.”

“This Album was published with the support of the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture – AFAC”

Repressed LP on Neon Orange Vinyl, includes download card. It feels like someone left the light on in the studio and it all just ran itself, there had been a funky human input earlier in the day but, by a Darwinian machine-led kind of osmosis, the tracks recorded spent the wee small hours self-reducing and simplifying themselves. Marinated in music. “I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil,” said Truman Capote. ”Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,” opined Leonardo da Vinci much earlier in proceedings. Yes, it’s the space around the object, what you leave out that makes what you leave in so important. ESG know this. Sure they can play the game but it’s the swagger of the groove and the minimal topping – like an anti-cup cake – that makes this unique New York sisterhood so appealing on ‘Keep On Moving’. Sampled on TV ads, lauded by critics and swooned over on the dancefloor, ESG’s post-punk took out the grunge and polished the basics. Cut them open and “less is more” is written all the way through. ‘Keep On Moving’ was released over ten years ago to much praise (Q said it was “even better” than 2002’s much loved ‘Step Off’). ESG had been sparring partners for PiL and early hip hop and four years after the ‘Off’, they were onto something new – rhythm as core, reflective storylines about relationship management, sensuality and insanity gather around the bass fix but they’re much blurrier than the incessant beats. Inadvertently they unmask techno and glitch and leave out any kind of superfluous fluff. It’s hard and temple throbbing. Turn it up. And keep moving. “If there's one tune which sums up ESG's enduring lust for life, it's the beautifully-judged Black Flag/early techno crossover of the closing 'Gimme A Blast'.” The Guardian 5/5 // “This album's every percussive aspect has been honed to impart the maximum amount of pleasure.” The Observer // “Despite their influence on younger bands (you can hear LCD Soundsystem's knobbly grooves on ‘Insane’), ESG still sound like nothing else.” The Guardian

Auf Blood On the Silver Screen verbindet die Universalgelehrte ihre am Konservatorium für klassische Musik erworbenen Fähigkeiten als Musikerin, Produzentin und Komponistin mit ihrer unerschrockenen und bombastischen Bühnenpersönlichkeit, um ihre bisher realistischste Musik zu schaffen: das absolute SASAMI-Pop-Album.

Nachdem sich SASAMI mit der ausbalancierten Melancholie ihres selbstbetitelten Debütalbums von 2019 etabliert hatte, setzte sie auf Squeeze (2022) auf Lautstärke und Kontrolle - und tourte mit einer Metal-Band -, doch ihr Ziel für Blood On the Silver Screen war es, ihre Wahrheit mit Überzeugung durch Gesang auszudrücken. In Zusammenarbeit mit den Co-Produzenten Jenn Decilveo und Rostam und mit SASAMI als alleiniger Songwriterin, fängt jeder Track von Blood On the Silver Screen ein anderes Thema von Liebe, Sex, Macht und Verkörperung ein. "Popmusik ist wie Treibstoff", sagt Sasami. "Sie ist einfach belebend." Sasami wendet sich vom aktuellen Pop-Zeitgeist ab und dem Pop der späten Achtziger und der 2010er Jahre zu, wie Britney Spears' Femme Fatale und Lady Gagas Born This Way, aber auch Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry und Sia. Beeinflusst wurde sie vom modernen Country-Storytelling, das Verletzlichkeit mit Humor mischt, aber auch Prince, japanischer City-Pop und die stadiongroße, in Jeans gekleidete Ikonographie von Bruce Springsteen standen auf dem Moodboard








h B2 For The Weekend

Limitiertes 140G rotes Vinyl im Gatefold Sleeve mit bedruckter Innenhülle, Poster (12x24) und Downloadkarte

Auf Blood On the Silver Screen verbindet die Universalgelehrte ihre am Konservatorium für klassische Musik erworbenen Fähigkeiten als Musikerin, Produzentin und Komponistin mit ihrer unerschrockenen und bombastischen Bühnenpersönlichkeit, um ihre bisher realistischste Musik zu schaffen: das absolute SASAMI-Pop-Album.

Nachdem sich SASAMI mit der ausbalancierten Melancholie ihres selbstbetitelten Debütalbums von 2019 etabliert hatte, setzte sie auf Squeeze (2022) auf Lautstärke und Kontrolle - und tourte mit einer Metal-Band -, doch ihr Ziel für Blood On the Silver Screen war es, ihre Wahrheit mit Überzeugung durch Gesang auszudrücken. In Zusammenarbeit mit den Co-Produzenten Jenn Decilveo und Rostam und mit SASAMI als alleiniger Songwriterin, fängt jeder Track von Blood On the Silver Screen ein anderes Thema von Liebe, Sex, Macht und Verkörperung ein. "Popmusik ist wie Treibstoff", sagt Sasami. "Sie ist einfach belebend." Sasami wendet sich vom aktuellen Pop-Zeitgeist ab und dem Pop der späten Achtziger und der 2010er Jahre zu, wie Britney Spears' Femme Fatale und Lady Gagas Born This Way, aber auch Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry und Sia. Beeinflusst wurde sie vom modernen Country-Storytelling, das Verletzlichkeit mit Humor mischt, aber auch Prince, japanischer City-Pop und die stadiongroße, in Jeans gekleidete Ikonographie von Bruce Springsteen standen auf dem Moodboard








h B2 For The Weekend

London based flypaper, the project of singer-songwriter Rory Sear, is back with his first ever vinyl release. The big nada / another orbit 12" collects flypaper's first two EP:s as well as new single"coming back again" on 12" black vinyl limited to 500 copies via PNKSLM Recordings (7ebra, ShitKid,Chemtrails etc.) As flypaper, Sears retain the melodic sensibilities shown in his work as frontman and chief songwriter of Brighton indie combo Beachtape, coupling them with a gentler soundscape which showcases his rising stock as a songwriter while firmly establishing flypaper as one to watch with a debut album due out in 2025. RIYL: Hovvdy, Sun June, Elliott Smith, Sam Evian, No Windows

The Roxies sind eine vierköpfige Punkrock/ Powerpop-Chimäre aus Berlin, die nach ihrem tollen Debüt "Don"t Wanna Dance Because I"m Told To" das 2022 auf Dirt Cult/ Family Spree erschien, jetzt ihre noch viel smartere neue Scheibe vorlegt! 12 Songs, die absolut souverän 60s Pop, Bubblegum-Vibe, RnR und 70s California Beach Punk in sich vereinen. Das hat eine dermaßen mitreißende Frische und die Songs werden so lässig runtergekloppt, dass man einfach nicht still rumstehen kann. Die Tracks fahren mit garagigen Gitarren-Licks auf, liefern poppige Harmonien, knackig groovendes Drumming und absurd coole Basshooks. Dabei werden sie auch immer mal wieder melancholisch und versprühen vor allem eine musikalische Tiefe, die wie eine Kombination aus The Nerves, Clorox Girls und B52s daherkommt. Eine britische Note on top (Kinks und Buzzcocks lassen grüßen) verdanken The Roxies wohl ihrem aus Yorkshire, UK stammenden Sänger Matthew, der regelmäßig von obercoolen Backingvox und gelegentlichen Vocal-Einsätzen von Bass-Dame Imke unterstützt wird. Ingenius stuff!

"There is great power in secrecy. Detached from the world, brewed under a strict code of confidentiality, a new lifeform came into existence. Led by none other than Sonata Arctica frontman Tony Kakko, this new beast of his gained momentum in the massive shadow of his wildly successful power metal superheroes, slowly, steadily, biding its time, waiting for the right moment. This moment is now: With his self-titled debut, Tony Kakko opens the curtains into this strange new world of his just enough to take a first peek – and instantly hunger for more. A master story teller and a wizard of conjuring musical emotions, Himmelkraft stages Kakkos trademark talents in a wholly new, unexpected and thrilling way. To him, the sky truly is the limit, bestowing upon us an album that sounds like nothing else out there – brooding and dark, menacing and eerie, stomping and monumental.




This project sees Tony Kakko enter a fascinating new era. Much like the legendary Elven smiths of old, forging away in solemn silence, Kakko has stopped the wheel of time to reinvent himself and his bold musical vision. Shrouded in mystery, a new being appears in the fog, barely discernible and yet distinct the very moment Tony Kakko starts to sing.

Yet, everything else remains just what it was from the very start – a mystery. Call them songs for a dying world or songs for a world reborn – either way, you will be intrigued how this extraordinary project will develop. And that’s a promise
"

2025 Repress

Another big release on SOUNDS. in the rebound. SO8 - Modal "Lovers" from 1996 will be out in September. Don't miss this re-mastered edition!

First things first - you don’t need me to tell you about the significance of Australia in the history of punk. I mean, what am I, Jon Savage? Google it yourself, FFS. Instead, let’s just agree that the speedy, feral racket thrown together by the likes of The Saints, Radio Birdman and The Scientists in the mid-late ‘70s is AT LEAST as deliriously entertaining as anything concocted by their UK/US counterparts, sowing the seeds for seemingly endless garage-inflected noisemakers in the land down under. No one likes using words like ‘tradition’ or ‘heritage’ here - the punk rock clusterbomb is far too messy for any of that business - but also emerging from Australian rock’s primordial soup is the addictive sneer of Stiff Richards. Like their predecessors, the band are a gleefully wracked mess of full throttle energy and barrelling power chords, with songs like ‘Kids Out On The Grass’ and ‘Point of You’ proving at least the equal of ‘(I’m) Stranded’ or ‘Aloha Steve And Danno’. Nine tracks in less than 30 minutes, all winners and all determined to leave you flipping over couches and smashing your TV set. And let’s face it, you may as well; there’s nothing good on. It all builds towards frantic closer ‘Fill In The Blanks’, which rattles around your speakers like the UK Subs trying to play Ed Kuepper riffs at the centre of an earthquake, before grinding to a halt as a voice says, “That’s the one.” Does it sound self-satisfied? Hey, it’s got good reason to - this is the best no-frills garage rock party since Gino & The Goons’ ‘Do The Get Around’, and the only appropriate response is to declare yourself betrothed to Stiff Richards because you can’t imagine your life without ‘em. Don’t believe me? Sort out your ears and get ‘State Of Mind’ in ‘em. Rock’n’roll as it’s supposed to be played.

With four full length albums and an ep under their belt, CHEMICIDE have become one of the biggest neck breaking thrash metal acts in Latin America selling over 10K+ albums worldwide and have continued to tour around the globe in DIY mode that has helped them grow steadily in the metal community. The band has been on multiple extensive tours around South, Central, North America & Europe, playing with great bands like Toxic Holocaust, Cattle Decapitation, Municipal Waste, Angelus Apatrida, Helloween, Destruction etc… and have been featured in Metal Hammer UK’s top 10 thrash albums of 2022 alongside Megadeth, Kreator & Destruction; it helped the band connect with a bigger audience worldwide and led the band to several European and American festivals, like Pitfest (NL) Into the Grave (NL) In Flammen (DE) and MetalDays (SL), Rock al Parque (CO) and México Metal Fest (MX). CHEMICIDE band leader Frankie comments about their new album 'Violence Prevails' : « Violence Prevails is a reflection of our daily life. America is a beautiful continent but filled with corruption; more specifically Central and South America. I wanted to portray how there's no more dialogue; everything is resolved with violence and unfortunately for us, we see a lot of poverty and class disparities among our people. I also wanted to tell a story that could resonate with more individuals across the planet and see that they are not alone when they see what's happening around them. Violence now is the key to sort out any discrepancies you may have with someone else and we see it on a daily basis with international conflicts around the globe. Production wise We wanted a late 80's-early 90's approach to the sound of this album. Big drums, heavy bass and sharp guitar riffs, all of this mixed with a lot of reverb and a very raw, 'butchery' approach to the sound. Martín Furia (of Bark and Destruction fame who mixed and mastered the album) understood this perfectly and he helped us shape the sound of this album. He took Black Sabbath's "Dehumanizer" as an inspiration for the drum sound and we tried to start from scratch on the guitar, bass and vocal sound.» CHEMICIDE have been perfecting their bombastic frenetic riffwork and drumming savagery during the course of their past four albums, now resulting in their strongest and most punishing new album 'Violence Prevails' .

(Limited edition to 500 copies, remastered audio, pressed and printed in Indonesia) The 13 tracks contained in this compilation “Begadang: Soneta Group Best Songs, 1975-1980” are some the most innovative music that came out of Indonesia’s music scene in the 1970s, tunes that has cemented Rhoma Irama’s status as the king of the genre.



Dangdut is the biggest musical genre in Indonesia. Dangdut, onomatopoetic name from the sound of hand drums used in this type of music, is what reggae to Jamaicans, country to Americans or skiffle to mid 20th century British people. And in this genre of dang dut, the name Rhoma Irama looms large. He is until today the undisputable king of dangdut and his role as pioneer of the music is already in the history book. In fact, there's one book documenting the outsized role of Rhoma in establishing dangdut as the father of this music. The book is aptly titled Dangdut Story, written by Pittsburgh University music professor Andrew N. Weintraub.



Among Indonesian fans of dangdut, there’s this one misconceptions that dangdut music is that it is an indigenous art form from Indonesia and that it constitutes an amalgamation of local, traditional music of this Southeast Asian nation, with Malay music being the most prominent feature in the mix.



Dangdut pioneer Rhoma Irama is among the first to reject this assertion. “Dangdut music may have originated in Deli (in North Sumatra) but then got the influences from the West and India”, he said.



Indeed, most of Rhoma’s well-known compositions may have been influenced by Indian tunes but some of his best quality works owed much to the West.



Rhoma had long found home in Western pop music. In the early 1960s, after honing his guitar playing skill, Rhoma set up his first band Gayhand to play the tunes of The Beatles, Paul Anka and Tom Jones. In 1972, Rhoma won best singer title in a Southeast Asia singing competition in Singapore playing Tom Jones “I Who Have Nothing.”



Yet, nothing changed Rhoma’s fortune in the music industry, to a point where he decided to leave pop and switched to playing Orkes Melayu (Malay Orchestra) music, first with Orkes Melayu Purnama and later with Soneta Group.



His career soon took off with Soneta, especially after he introduced what ethnomusicologist William H. Frederick considered as “theatre”, through which Rhoma borrows many elements from stage performances of British and American rock bands. These elements, kitsch and pomp, he liberally adopted and became an inseparable part of dangdut itself; tight pants, long hair, platform shoes, glitter and glamour which would not be out of place in Elton John and David Bowie stage show.



And this is actually the contradiction of Rhoma’s brand of Malay music. “One might legitimately ask how imaginative, not to say bizarre, costuming and dancing with abandon could be related to some of the objectives of Rhoma has set for himself and soneta group”, Frederick wrote on his seminal work on the singer, Rhoma Irama and the Dangdut Style: Aspects of Contemporary Indonesian Popular Culture, published in 1982.



From technical point of view, Rhoma not only replaced the acoustic elements from Melayu Music with electric instruments but also created new synthetic sounds that has never been attempted before in Indonesia’s music industry.



Detractors like to point out how much he was indebted to Deep Purple, but a closer inspection reveals how he in fact had mined his influences even deeper.



Notice how Rhoma reproduced funk, which is all the rage in early 1970s, in the song “Santai” (Relax), this album’s closer or “Credit Title (Instrumentalia)” which opens this Darah Muda (Young Blood) soundtrack. The rubbery bass lines that open both songs can easily find home in any Sly and the Family Stone’s or Isaac Hayes’ tunes from that era. Other highlights of the song is the funky guitar licks and the droning Hammond a la George Clinton that stabs deep in the record groove. In the guitar solo, you can also hear the bark of George Harrison’s licks from “Taxman”.



The 13 tracks contained in this compilation “Begadang: Soneta Group Best Songs, 1975-1980” are some the most innovative music that came out of Indonesia’s music scene in the 1970s, tunes that has cemented Rhoma Irama’s status as the king of the genre. Only 500 copies were pressed for this compilation.

Yellow & Black Vinyl. "The first three are innocent in a way, because we didn't have an audience when we were making them," Oberst says. "But from Lifted on, I was definitely aware of an audience. Lifted was well-received right away, and then everything happened with Wide Awake and Digital Ash." Those two albums came out simultaneously. And their lead singles - "Take It Easy (Love Nothing)," from the austere, remote Digital Ash, and "Lua," from the warm, folky Wide Awake - debuted in the top two slots on the Billboard Hot 100. "First Day of My Life," also from Wide Awake, would later be voted the Number One love song of all time by NPR Music's reader's poll.Bright Eyes had officially broken through. It was a heady, exciting time, but also fraught and tense, both because of the band's careening new fame, and because of the state of the world. When Bright Eyes made their Tonight Show debut in 2006, they chose to perform none of their shiny new hits, instead delivering a searing, harrowing rendition of their caustic anti-Bush anthem, "When The President Talks To God."These days, Oberst is still amusing himself by messing with the extremes Bright Eyes baked into this era's releases, extremes that reflected the polar, with-us-or-against-us, fractious feel of the times. The reworked Digital Ash tracks, originally so clean and elegant, are, on the companion EP, full of "harmonica and mandolins - folky vibes," Oberst says. While the analogue sweetness of the Wide Awake songs have been put through a detached nihilism filter.

Der Soundtrack von 'KNEECAP', mit Musik von der Band sowie Bicep, Fontaines DC und Orbital, ist als Doppel-LP im Gatefold-Design auf farbigem Vinyl erhältlich. Er enthält auch Filmmusik von Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante MBE und Ausschnitte aus den Dialogen des Films.

- Ltd. Col. 2LP: (LP1 Orange / LP2 Green Vinyl)

Muireann Bradley is a young blues, ragtime, roots and folk guitarist and singer based in Ballybofey in County Donegal Ireland. “This is my first album. Most of these tunes were originally recorded by the great blues men and women who were making records from the 1920s and 1930s right up in some cases to the early 1970s. I have also found inspiration for the renditions recorded here in the playing of some of the musicians who began recording this music in the 1960s and later, and who in some cases learned at the feet of the greats. Many of these guitarists played pivotal roles in the 1960s blues revival and subsequent “rediscovery” of many of the greats of country blues. I grew up steeped in these old blues in the hills overlooking the valley of the River Finn just outside the town of Ballybofey in County Donegal. My father would play this music constantly at home and wherever we went in the car and talk about it endlessly whether anyone was listening or not, telling stories about the lives of these musicians as if they were legend, mythology or the evening news. My father could of course play all this stuff on guitar, I remember watching him when I was very young and thinking “I want to be able to do that”. When I was nine he agreed to teach me and bought me my first little travel guitar. I worked hard to learn how to play but as time wore on I seemed to have less and less time to practice as I became more and more invested in the combat sports I was regularly training and competing in. Then in March 2020 the first Covid lockdowns happened and all contact sports were shut down. I was lost for a while but soon found my way back to the guitar. I was now listening, playing and practicing with a new intensity and focus. In a very serious moment, I wrote out a list of tunes I was going to learn. The first tune on that list was Blind Blake’s “Police Dog Blues”. I’m not sure now how long it took to get that arrangement together but when it was ready we videoed me performing it and posted it on YouTube. It ended up getting a lot of attention, I remember my parents being quite shocked and soon after that Josh Rosenthal got in touch… and here we are! Each individual track on this album was recorded live in the studio and represents one entire take with me singing and backing myself up on guitar simultaneously. Most are either first or second takes. Nothing has been added or taken away, no overdubs or modern recording tricks of any kind have been used at all so at least in some respects this album has been recorded in the same way as those classics of the 1920s and 1930s

„When you gonna stop running?“ fragen The Men in der ersten Zeile von „Pony“, dem ersten Song und der ersten Singleauskopplung aus dem
kommenden Album „Buyer Beware“ des New Yorker Rockquartetts. Machen Sie keinen Fehler - dies ist kein Zeichen einer existenziellen Krise,
sondern eher ein Aufruf zu den Waffen für eine Band, die noch nie lange stillgestanden hat. Nach eigenen Angaben ist „Buyer Beware“ ihr 15. Album
seit ihrem Debüt „We Are The Men“ (2009) und ihr viertes für Fuzz Club.
The Men haben eine Arbeitsmoral, die so altmodisch ist wie ihre Rockwurzeln, doch trotz der Hektik scheinen sie nie in Eile zu sein - ein Widerspruch,
der sich in ihrer Musik auf natürliche Weise auflöst, indem sie die rohe Wut des Punkrock mit der minimalistischen Strenge eines Steve Reich (oder,
außerhalb der Musik, Mark Rothko) in zenartiger Ausgewogenheit in Einklang bringen. "Buyer Beware“ ist die fünfte Zusammenarbeit von The Men
mit dem Tontechniker Travis Harrison (Guided by Voices, Built to Spill), der die Nuancen der Gruppendynamik - Nick Chiericozzi (Gitarre/Gesang),
Kevin Faulkner (Bass), Mark Perro (Gitarre/Gesang) und Rich Samis (Schlagzeug) - sehr gut einfängt. Durch die direkte Aufnahme auf Band fängt
Harrison das rohe, konfrontative Fieber ihrer Bühnenshows ein, ohne dabei ihre introspektiven Untertöne zu opfern. Das Ergebnis ist zweifelsohne ihr
aggressivstes Album seit „Leave Home“ (2011) und ihr psychedelischstes seit „Immaculada“ (2010)

Am 28. Februar 2025 machen Stereolab sieben Studioalben erneut als 2LP-Formate erhältlich. Diese verwenden dieselben Remaster wie die erweiterten Vinylausgaben von 2019, die von Bo Kondren bei Calyx Mastering von den Original-1/2-Zoll-Bändern unter der Aufsicht von Tim Gane (Stereolab) geschnitten wurden, jedoch ohne das Bonusmaterial der 3LP-Versionen (die inzwischen eingestellt wurden). Die Idee dahinter besteht darin, Fans und Läden kostengünstigere Formate dieser begehrten Alben zur Verfügung zu stellen. Jede Platte wird im 5 mm dicken Cover mit bedruckten Innenhüllen und einer schützenden PVC-Aussentasche geliefert.

Die Alben:
1. Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements (1993)
2. Mars Audiac Quintet (1994)
3. Emperor Tomato Ketchup (1996)
4. Dots And Loops (1997)
5. Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night (1999)
6. Sound-Dust (2001)
7. Margerine Eclipse (2004)

Das zweite gefühlvolle Dark Pop Album des legendären Schlagzeugers Dave Lombardo und der Singer-Songwriterin Paula Lombardo.

Die Beziehung von Dave und Paula Lombardo ist wie geschaffen für eine romantische Komödie. Man stelle sich vor: Der Mann, der die Messlatte für Heavy-Metal-Schlagzeuger höher gelegt hat, hat ein Rendezvous mit einer schönen Frau, deren musikalischer Hintergrund darin besteht, dass sie in Las Vegas als Backgroundsängerin für bekannte Bands gearbeitet hat und in Nashville als Singer/Songwriterin Fuß fassen wollte. Zum Glück für die Welt hat sich ihr musikalischer Bund in Venamoris manifestiert, deren Ipecac-Debüt To Cross Or To Burn (erscheint am 28. Februar) weit davon entfernt ist, vorgefasste Meinungen zu zerstören, während es fesselnde neue Möglichkeiten aufbaut.

Natürlich sind die Qualitäten des unermüdlichen Dave Lombardo als Weltklasse-Schlagzeuger bekannt. Aber während er die Blaupause entwarf, die das Thrash-Metal-Schlagzeugspiel definieren sollte, hat er seine Finesse auch auf Solo-Schlagzeug (Rites Of Percussion von 2023, ebenfalls auf Ipecac), Hip-Hop und klassische Musik angewandt, und er hat grenzüberschreitende Aufnahmen und Auftritte mit jedem gemacht, von John Zorns Ensembles bis zu den Punk-Ikonen Misfits und Mr. Bungle. To Cross... ist ein weiterer Meilenstein in seiner bewegten Karriere, in der er seine klanglichen Fähigkeiten um Gitarre, Bass und bemerkenswerte Produktionstechniken erweitert hat. „Das einzige, was mit den vielen Schlagzeugen, die wir zu Hause haben, mithalten kann, sind die vielen Gitarren, die Dave hat“, sagt Paula lachend. „Also spielt er auf diesem Album ziemlich viel Gitarre.“

Paula ist eine wahrhaft dynamische musikalische Kraft mit beeindruckenden stimmlichen Fähigkeiten, Geschick am Klavier und am Synthesizer und einem ausgeprägten Gespür für verführerische Texte, Melodien und Arrangements. Mit 18 war sie Backgroundsängerin in der Enklave des Entertainers Wayne Newton in Las Vegas, wo sie lernte, mit dem Druck umzugehen, wenn man mehrere Auftritte an einem Abend hat und jeden Tag Perfektion verlangt wird. Sie verließ Vegas und ging nach Nashville, um ihre Musikkarriere fortzusetzen, aber, wie sie selbst sagt, „es war einfach nicht das Richtige“.

Der Name Venamoris leitet sich vom lateinischen vena amoris („Liebesader“, die angeblich vom linken Ringfinger zum Herzen verläuft) ab. Die erste öffentliche Aufnahme von Venamoris war „The Gift“, ein Weihnachtslied, das die Lombardos auf Bandcamp veröffentlichten. Kurz darauf erschien ihr Debütalbum "Drown In Emotion", das sich durch Paulas Singer-Songwriter-Vibe auszeichnet, als wäre es 1975 zwischen den Deep Cuts von Carole Kings "Tapestry" und "Heart's Dog And Butterfly" aus dem FM-Radio gezupft worden.

Unter den Special Guests auf dem Album::
Kontrabass - Trevor Dunn von Mr. Bungle (Stay with Me)
Bass - Ra Diaz von Korn (Stain of Pain)
Gitarre - Alex Skolnick von Testament (Stain of Pain, Burnt Paper)
Gitarre - Gary Holt von Slayer (Animal Magnetism)

Opaque Gold Vinyl. Recorded over four nights at The Music Hall of Williamsburg, this triple LP is a veritable best-of from a band at the height of their performative powers. Featuring scorching renditions of the best-loved songs of the Phosphorescent catalog, from Los Angeles to Song for Zula, Phosphorescent delivers a live album for all-time. Comes with album download.

After a near-total silence of twenty years, Edith Frost is back again, and in full bloom with In Space. Her first new record since 2005"s It"s a Game is just in time - the world needs Edith"s voice back in the conversation. And her ineffable way with a tune . . . It seems Edith needed something, too: from the notebooks of her long hiatus, a line like "I say too much/I wait too long/I wait forever/And notice that it"s gone" speaks volumes about feelings of lack. Overwhelmed by the demands of day-to-day living and the details and anxieties that always come, Edith squirreled herself away for as long as she could - only to find herself isolated, spun even farther into the doldrums. In Space isn"t simply a song-cum-album title so much as a very real exploration of the remote place she"d found herself, with her songs registering this recognition and measuring the vast distances between herself, the life that is and the life that was. It was the only way back in! Over the years away, Edith was immersed in music everyday, and spent lots of time learning - in addition to new lyric perspectives, her reinvention of herself as a keyboard player is one of the waves lifting the album In Space. The keys suggested different places within Edith"s harmonic palette; for us listening, this attenuation seems to create a deep focus on emotional life within the songs and a breathtakingly visceral presence in the performances. Her voice as well, in all its iterations, sounds quite fine and vital. The songs, as ever, are low-key brilliance elevated by the vitality of Edith"s voice. Mark Greenberg, alongside longtime Frost A&R man Rian Murphy, brought fresh arrangement ideas to complement the strange-new-world vibe of Edith"s songs. Recorded at The Loft in Chicago, with invaluable contributions from Jim Becker (Califone, Air Blue Gowns), Sima Cunningham (Finom, formerly OHMME), Bill MacKay and Jeff Ragsdale, In Space feels like the most Edith Frost record yet made, pulled from deep inside with great feeling, awash in harmonized voices and - more often than ever before - featuring her own playing. Alternatively approaching and avowing connection, Edith"s crafty songwriting orbits the human exchange with an increasing sense of possibility. It"s what the world needs the most of today.

The Story So Far have announced their upcoming 5th studio album, I Want To Disappear, out June 21 via Pure Noise Records. Produced by Jon Markson (Drug Church, KOYO), the album features previously-released single “Big Blind” alongside nine brand new The Story So Far tracks. I Want To Disappear comes nearly six years after the band’s previous album Proper Dose, which debuted at #19 on the Billboard 200 chart.

2026 Repress

MOLA's music is the unadorned antithesis to a rosy world. She celebrates herself to death, pulls you into her inner chaos and does without the usual romanticising transfiguration of the merciless disorientation that catches up with you on the way home after the last cigarette.

MOLA knows better than anyone that she is a border commuter - and she has never made a secret of it. Perhaps it was fate that the course of events abandoned her shortly after her birth in Erba, Italy, in Germany's most austere metropolis. In Munich, where flying free and falling free are a little more complicated than in the cesspit of Berlin, where one would naturally place Isabella Streifeneder and her music if one didn't know better.

Temporarily reduced to intimacy, then escalating into iconic 80s "Purpel Rain" pathos, MOLA illustrates the emotional chaos that the inner dialogue of left and right brain triggers in her. Unconventional pop music that bundles the nonchalance of great soul anthems, the grace of the Italo-disco of the eighties and the ingenuousness of lascivious hip-hop bangers instead of trying to sound modern by force.

MOLA celebrates defeat, exposes life lies, criticises adulthood, documents radical mood swings. She balances along the abyss in her ball gown, jokes about things you don't joke about, praises and curses intoxication and love - "Vino Bianco no longer tastes like dolce vita, it only tastes like losing".

You can now see MOLA supporting Fatoni, Roy Bianco & the Abbrunzati Boys, Mayberg and Kaffkiez in a flurry of strobe lights after sold-out "nothing breaks me" shows in Munich, Cologne, Berlin & Hamburg. In addition to a festival season that couldn't have been more beautiful, they finally have a big tour of their own coming up for their next album, which will see the light of day in September.

After more than 40 festivals "Snow in Summer" on well-known stages like Lollapalooza Berlin, Rocken am Brocken, Puls Open Air, but also as support for Udo Lindenberg at the Hermann-Hesse-Festival, "Life is Beautiful", the darned second record, sounds almost cynical, ironic or simply naive? In the end, it doesn't matter, because when you are overcome by this spontaneous feeling that is far removed from any rationality, you don't ask any questions. It tastes like the melancholy of a summer in its last breaths, like the last drink of an uncompromisingly insane night.

There is sweating, pogoing and feeling together. Even where it hurts.
You are not just an onlooker or a silent spectator, but part of this empowering feeling of "we".

After two pandemically conditioned ‘reaction’ albums - Yay! (2023) and Neigh!! (2024) - a few non-album singles and a compilation album, a downsized and sleek Motorpsycho is back where we all know and love them, with an epic, sprawling double album, filled to the brim with inventive, organic and ecstatic rock-based music. Rejoyce Psychonaut! This eponymously titled, 11 song work, has exactly as much variety & diversity, accord and discord, as one expects from a band that has released a few albums before, and that these days must be regarded as an institution in European rock. From concise 3min-something pop-rockers, to 20mins plus progressive epics, via acoustic intimacies and psychedelic wig-outs, this is concentrated Motorpsychosis: commenced Rebis, countdown initiated. Ever closer. Ever sharper... Since the traditional 3 or 4 piece rock band seems to be a dying breed these days, and MP always was a band in flux anyway, a new pragmatic era has begun in the Psychoverse. The band has, in what one might call alchemical terms, been ‘dissolved and purified’, and is by now again reduced to the core two founding members HMR & BS. This is nothing new, it has happened a few times before, but these days they are also the owners and creators of the record company NFGS, which is now the hub of all recorded band activity, and Motorpsycho marks the final severance of existing ties to other labels for the first time in 35 years. If ‘freedom is free of the need to be free’, this is it. Yikes! The minimalist title of the album is then not just easy to remember, it’s also a statement: a new era has begun in the Psychoverse, a state of affairs reflected in execution and details as well as title, if not perhaps, in ambition or size: “Senex psittacus negligit ferulam” *. This is a time of new beginnings for a band that has spent two years consolidating and reseting before charging ahead anew on a new path, trumpets blaring (...and trumpets don’t come much more blaring in the Psychoverse than with this grandiloquent hyperbole. Good fun! ). New day rising indeed. The core band was adroitly helped by a gaggle of greats from all over the Scandinavian musical landscape on these recordings: drummers Ingvald Vassbø and Olaf Olsen, string arranger/violinist Mari Persen, vocalist Thea Grant, and - as usual - honorary psycho, brother Reine Fiske, were all fellow travellers on this musical journey. Motorpsycho was co-produced by the band and Deathprod, and mixed by Andrew Scheps. Motorpsycho are not the best at what they do, they’re the only ones that do what they do. NFGS2025 *: “Senex psittacus negligit ferulam,” or “An old parrot doesn’t mind the stick.”

The new label engorn celebrates its second catalog release, once again featuring gustav krach and taschendrachen. The A side kicks off with two dreamy deep house tracks by taschendrachen. The first track, the meaning, blends lush congas and bongos with smooth pads. dont forget us stands out with its warped bassline, while both tracks feature lovely, haunting vocals. The side is rounded off by a sweeping ambient
breakbeat track from gustav krach, closing it with atmospheric depth.

On the B side, taschendrachen showcases his passion for
chords, creating a drive infused cut with tell me do and crafting a dub influenced soundscape with tides, where the chords form a vast sonic backdrop. The release closes with gustav krachs atmospheric ambient track, offering a fitting, introspective conclusion to the journey.

"This album is a superb collection of Frank and friends from a part of Frank’s career that’s long been underrated. Here, Sinatra scales the jazz summit with Louis Armstrong on “Birth Of The Blues” and does three electrifying collaborations with one of his favorites, Ella Fitzgerald. Ella’s voice is at her best in each. Rival Elvis Presley gets the Chairman’s respect on a wonderfully playful meeting-of-the-icons medley of “Witchcraft”/”Love Me Tender.” The tunes are bright and lively and many benefit from Nelson Riddle’s arranging genius. Frank and Dean are great, improvising and playing off one another as always. But wait until you hear “Together” in which Bing joins Dino and Frank for a happy, hilarious threesome.

Italian composer and saxophonist Laura Agnusdei returns with “Flowers Are Blooming In Antarctica” a career defining record that sees the artist diving into uncharted waters, a profound timeless meditation on our relationship with planet Earth, the eco-conflicts arising and the fascination with non human forms of life, backdropped to a vivid soundtrack of coral exotica, spiritual Jazz, fourth-world minimalism, tropical electronics, tribal futurism and contemporary elegance.

Every step of Laura Agnusdei’s path, from electroacoustic experimentation to her constant research based upon the acoustic dimension of wind instruments and their interaction with polymorphic electronic sounds, seems to have pivoted into a new sense of awareness, as if the mind and intellectual practice has finally caught up with the body, the heart and the soul, resulting in her most organic and transcendent work yet. “Flowers Are Blooming In Antarctica” is loosely inspired around a trifecta of pioneering ideas that explore unconventional reality: James Bridle’s ‘Ways Of Being’ with his radical story that mixes ecology, tech and intelligence; Luigi Serafini’s late-70s fantastical ‘Codex Seraphinianus’, an unparalleled collection of flora, fauna, anatomies metamorphosed into new fragile beings; J.G. Ballard’s climate-fiction foreshadowing sci-fi ruminations. These influences shift Agnusdei’s musical trajectory injecting doses of terrestrial malaise, the earthy sub-saharan ‘Ittiolalia’ with its wah-wah filtered sax and trance inducing groove; the rubbery playfulness of ‘Oasi Bar’; the gentle eco-system of ‘P.P.R.N’ reminiscent of Herbie Hancock’s innovative synthesis of funk, space and synthesizers; the kaleidoscopic northern lights of ‘Emperor Penguin Lullaby’, where south-east Asian echoes reach icy shores; the Jon Hassell hyper-ambience of ‘Cuttlefish REM Phase’; the post-apocalyptic march of ‘The Drowned World, a jazz standard for an artificial civilization on the brink of self-destruction. Nothing feels out of place and it’s no coincidence that one of the most powerful messages on the record is delivered on centerpiece ‘Are We Dinos?’ via an interview conducted with two preschoolers. Radical optimism or sonic liberation?

Laura Agnusdei’s tenor sax cuts deep all across “Flowers Are Blooming In Antarctica”, a laser baton raised up to the clouds, a conductor orchestrating devotional soundscapes for a three-eyed dolphin, guiding us through prismatic pastures and acidic oceans. Her tropicalized realm is pin-pointed with Miles-like sheer clarity, a bristling nakedness on the verge of exploding at any time, creating an album where ascension becomes the unifying code.