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Barenaked Ladies return with their first new album in four years, ‘Detour de Force’. The 14-track effort is the result of both pre- and post-lockdown recording sessions. The band spent five weeks at vocalist/guitarists Ed Robertson’s cabin outside Toronto pre pandemic writing and recording in a makeshift studio. During pandemic lockdown, they decided they wanted to polish things up a bit. They returned to a Toronto studio when the lockdown lifted to rework the tracks resulting in ‘Detour de Force’. The Barenaked Ladies are Ed Robertson: Guitar, Vocals Jim Creeggan: Bass, Vocals Kevin Hearn: Keyboards, Guitar, Vocals Tyler Stewart: Drums, Vocals Over the course of their remarkable career, Barenaked Ladies have sold over 15 million albums, written multiple top 20 hits (including radio staples “One Week,” “Pinch Me,” “If I Had $1,000,000”), garnered 2 GRAMMY nominations, won 8 JUNO Awards, had Ben & Jerry’s name an ice cream after them (“If I Had 1,000,000 Flavours”), participated in the first-ever “space-to-earth musical collaboration” with astronaut Chris Hadfield, and garnered an international fan base whose members number in the millions. In 2018, the band were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and Toronto Mayor John Tory declared October 1st “Barenaked Ladies Day.”

An absolute stunner we’re glad to see in print again!!!

Black vinyl LP with two color jacket Pressings: 1976, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2021

It could be argued that this is one of the greatest rock n’ roll records of all time!

Straight from Zambia, we have My Ancestors, a tough rock and roll masterpiece like no other. Overdriven fuzz guitars, pop melodies and even a Black Sabbath- esque song. Must be heard to be believed.
Originally released in 1976, My Ancestors is an essential album from Zambia’s Zamrock scene. Brimming with lo-fi fuzzed-out guitar, the album travels the darker undercurrents of 70s rock and roll, warping and heightening the influences of Jimi, the Stones, the Beatles, Deep Purple, and James Brown. 27 year old Chrissy

“Zebby” Tembo provided drums and vocals while Paul Ngozi of the illustrious Ngozi Family was responsible for the aggressive guitar leads.

Peace of mind after the book release and the long awaited drop of the 5 tunes we were expecting from the pressing plant. While Escai is finalising the cover of Jay Nemor’s album, now it's time for me to go back to work with Yann, the London member of our Funk Investigators little patrol.
Hailin' from Houston TX, Leroy Allen started his career in ‘69 with the group “THE SYMPHONICS “, that later became GOD’S GIFT TO WOMEN, which in 1972 recorded “Let Your Heart Be The Judge“, which still gets air play more than thirty years later. In the early 80’s Leroy started the group ”
The Perfect Timin' Band”, which backed BO WILLIAMS, while touring with Cameo, and Gerald Levert. Perfect Timin' also opened for New Edition, Baby Face, Roger Troutman & Zapp, just to name a few. In 2013, Leroy Allen has started a solo project with the new hit single “I WANT IT “, receiving heavy rotation in the Southern United States and European Markets. Mr. Allen recently formed “Orion The Band” which consists of top musicians from the Houston area, creating the foundation for the “I Want It” Project, of which both songs included in this release are a natural developement. Catchy, extremely soulful, just perfect for this mid summer rainy day!

VISION welcomes bass music producer and two times scratch world champion DJ Ride from Lisbon.

"For the last year I've been working really hard on my favorite project so far. ENRO is beats, hip hop, drum and bass, scratch and everything i want to say right now. A love letter for the dark and sweaty clubs we all miss so much. I produced, mixed and scratched it, and for me it's more than just a record, it's a mixtape, it's a beat tape, it's whatever you want to call it, it's the dopest thing I ever did."

Emboss Star is the new album by Kochi-born, Kyoto-based artist Kazumichi Komatsu, the first to be released under his own name following a prolific run of material as Madegg.
Informed by a range of earlier work including EPs, installation works, video works, as well as live appearances at fashion shows, parties & raves, the material collected on 'Emboss Star' has been prepared and refined over the past four years, its final collation described as like arranging the pieces on a chess board; every piece strategically placed.
In its entirety Emboss Star is intended to emphasize the fundamental aspects of sound, and its relation to the material processes of playback; the grain of a rough recording, the jump and skip of a needle, the backwards gargle of a rewind. Individual parts shift suddenly, mirroring the abrupt transitions of everyday life. In this Komatsu attempts to reconfigure our response to sound, and the associations it often evokes; to reconsider the exchange of information and image, to alter perceptions.
Inviting a state of subconscious reverie – a mood often linked with ambient music but rarely matched as it is here – Komatsu adds an element of resistance to Emboss Star, as if depicting the tranquility of a dream, as well as its inevitable disturbance.
With creativity now compressed into a form of contemporary communication often ruled by vanity, redundant hashtags and tiresome jargon, Komatsu navigates the noise, recognizing technological ennui yet finding beauty, folklore & imaginative possibility.

Emboss Star is a collection of folk songs for lost connections. A vivid form of refuge.
3 vinyl only bonus track included. Mastered by Sean McCann.
The artwork for Emboss Star depicts an object created by Kazumichi Komatsu using 3D printing.












l 12: Umi Ga Kikoeru (Extremely Raw Version) [feat. Dove & Le Makeup]

‘The record is inspired by the idea of humanity’s ever-increasing entanglement with technology and artificial intelligence, balancing fears and moral concerns with the possibilities of evolution’s next phase’

A new Soccer96 album is a chance for Danalogue (Dan Leavers) and Betamax (Maxwell Hallett) to return to something of a spiritual creative home. Between them, the keyboardist and drummer have become synonymous with the thriving London jazz scene and, in their mind-bending incarnation as the astral synths-and-drums pairing, they’ve traversed stylistic worlds. Over nearly a decade, the duo have metamorphosed from a DIY outfit whose rough-edged recordings hit with a punk spirit, to cosmic dreamers that use sound to travel the reaches of the mind.

First single Dopamine features Nuha Ruby Ra on vocals who sings from the perspective of human and machine throughout the track. This concept overlaps with the music seamlessly, forming a meeting point between technological and human exploration.

Dialogues between the band and Nuha crystallised a shared vision of a future where humans and artificial intelligence are entangled in a codependent relationship based on the giving and receiving of pleasure hormones, the robots only source of dopamine is to receive it from humans, and the humans’ ability to unleash the monsters of the worst of human emotion.

Danalogue and Nuha sing together ‘It’s a Long Way down’ .. the feeling of jumping from the cliff of our current state as humans and ‘free-falling’ into the unknown of robot-human intertwining. By the outro they are pleading with each other over their dopamine co-dependency, in terms of both giving and receiving the hit. "Dependency leads to free-falling integration, a moment of freefall into robotic consciousness. Humans and machines are locked in a dance of addiction." explains Betamax.

Soccer96 has always been a vessel for Danalogue and Betamax to find clear water from their multitude of other collaborations, their most notable being as two-thirds of The Comet Is Coming alongside Shabaka Hutchings. Danalogue’s other recent production credits include Snapped Ankles and Calabashed, whilst Betamax has been making music with Champagne Dub and Coma World.

“Through collaborating with various artists and developing our own sonic language, it feels like we have created a sound of our own,” says Danalogue. “Now we think less literally and take more liberties to not necessarily sound like a duo. It’s more like a production team that can be augmented or stripped back depending on what the music calls for.”

Dopamine, though, sees the pair back together once again, incubating their findings of the past two years and moving Soccer96 into new territories. The record is maybe darker in some senses than what they’ve put out before; it’s inspired by the idea of transhumanism and humanity’s ever-increasing entanglement with technology and artificial intelligence It balances fears and moral concerns with the possibilities of evolution’s next phase. “The LP title Dopamine refers to the type of neurotransmitter associated with pleasure, that enables technology to hack into our minds and control us, creating addiction, dependency,” Betamax explains.

Dopamine began life as a sonic reaction to the graphic novels of ‘Moebius’ Jean Giraud. The duo then started swapping reel-to-reel tape ideas through each other’s letterboxes in lockdown, before eventually convening in the studio and displaying one of the revered French artist’s images in the middle of the studio for inspiration.

“All musical decisions would centre around this image,” Betamax says. “It was a depiction of a cosmic traveller gazing across a desert at a sort of crystal city. If the music was resonating with the image then we knew we were on the right path. We are both glad there is a lot of emotional warmth underpinning the whole thing. We are trying to connect with the human essence at all times.”

Kylesa is an American heavy metal band that was formed in Savannah, Georgia. Their music incorporates experimentalism with heavy riffs, drop-tuned guitars and elements of psychedelic rock. The group was established in 2001 by the former members of Damad, with the addition of guitar player Laura Pleasants who is from North Carolina. The band has since undergone line up changes; the remaining original members are Phillip Cope and Laura Pleasants. In 2006, the band added two drummers (Carl McGinley of Unpersons, from Savannah, and Jeff Porter). Eric Hernandez (of Capsule, from Miami) joined in 2008 to replace Porter. The dual drum tracks are often panned strongly to the right and left.

Ever since the release of their acclaimed debut EP P'eau (2018) these Mechelen-based musicians have been honing their craft in songwriting and production, building a new home studio to record future material while also expanding from a three-piece to a five-piece ensemble. By adding singer/percussionist Stefan De Graef (Psychonaut) and guitarist/singer Sander Rom (L'Itch) to their ranks, HIPPOTRAKTOR have become a more versatile outfit able to employ a broader palette of sounds, taking the band's earlier instrumental prog metal sound to new heights. Taking notes from the best moments in contemporary progressive and post metal, HIPPOTRAKTOR capture the awe-inspiring power of nature_from the delicacy of the first falling leaf to the massive cosmic energy of the sun. By combining the big, catchy riffs and the rhythmical prowess of Gojira with the relentless but equally groove-loaded complexity of Meshuggah, Meridian delivers an overwhelming experience of sound, presenting the listener with sentiments that are recognisable, but with an intensity that seems larger-than-life. "Meridian finds its origin in everyday moods, taken out of context and morphed into a stylised version that re- flects the dreamer in me," explains main songwriter and guitarist Chiaran Verheyden. "It tells the story of someone who's lost in a world too massive to comprehend, and seeks answers in places where none can be found. Meridian was written as an attempt to distillate what I felt but couldn't put into words." As the main vocalist in the group, finding these words was the job of Stefan De Graef, who carried over his fascination for philosophy and religion from his other band Psychonaut. "Meridian tells the story of a solitary wanderer on the Earth in the absence of other beings," explains Stefan. "Without anyone to share knowledge and history with, the protagonist is forced to create his own truths and stories about the nature of life, consciousness and the universe. The protagonist begins to personify and deify his surroundings, assigning sentience to the trees, the mountains, the wind, the waters etc. for they are his only companions in this desolate world." Essentially, Meridian is an exploration of the evolutionary theory of naturism, which was put forth by German scholar Max Mu"ller in the 19th century, and which argues that religion finds its origin in the deification of the forces of nature by early human beings. By juxtaposing this sociological theory with seven tracks that unfailingly conjure images of the earth, sea and sky, HIPPOTRAKTOR have created an analogy that enlarges the imaginative quality of their music to (literally) epic proportions. Combining the best of prog, groove and post-metal, Meridian comprises an incredible ride for fans of soaring hooks, technical riffing and earth-shattering breakdowns. Limited bluegreen-grey single colour vinyl edition, gatefold! FOR FANS OF Meshuggah, Periphery, Cloudkicker, Intronaut, Animals As Leaders, Gojira, Skyharbor, Psychonaut

Unter der Regie des Produzenten Chris Cohen und mit Gast-Beiträgen unter anderem von Buck Meek und Tenci, weben die organischen und doch akribischen Folk-Klanglandschaften und tief empfundenen Texte auf dem Debütalbum von Le Ren aus Montreal einen reichen musikalischen Wandteppich. Mit der Veröffentlichung ihrer Secretly Canadian EP "Morning & Melancholia" im Jahr 2020 hat sich Le Ren den Vergleich mit der Musikalität und den kargen, eloquenten Texten von John Prine und Neil Young verdient. Auf "Leftovers" zeigt sie uns die lebendige Tiefe ihres klanglichen und thematischen Spektrums und schreibt mit einer kühnen Klarheit, die sie zwischen klassischen Ikonen wie Joni Mitchell, Vashti Bunyan und Karen Dalton sowie einer neuen Klasse von Folk-Ausnahmekönnern wie Adrianne Lenker, Jessica Pratt und Laura Marling beheimatet. "Leftovers" präsentiert zu gleichen Teilen Melancholie, tiefe Liebe und Heiterkeit, um die Trauernden aufzumuntern, während es ein Patchwork aus persönlichen Liedern über verschiedene Beziehungen zusammennäht: die, die wir mit Müttern, Liebhabern und Freunden teilen. Auf "Leftovers" destilliert Le Ren jahrelanges Material zu zehn straff ausgeführten Tracks, die durch das schwelgerische Zupfen ihrer Gitarre und das kristallklare Timbre ihrer Stimme vereint werden. Im April 2021 traf sie sich mit Chris Cohen in einem gemieteten Haus in Portland, Oregon, wo sie warten mussten, bis ein Nachbarsjunge aufhörte, draußen Lärm zu machen, bevor sie aufnehmen konnten. Die musikalischen Gastbeiträge wurden anschließend hinzugefügt: Kori Miyanishi, Cedric Noel, Saltwater Hank (Jeremy Pahl), Eliza Niemi, Kaïa Kater, Aaron Goldstein, Buck Meek und Tenci (Jess Showman) nahmen ihre Parts separat in ganz Nordamerika auf.

Born in Majorca, Marc Melià is a composer/producer, who’s been based in Brussels for over 10 years. First spotted alongside Françoiz Breut, Lonely Drifter Karen or Borja Flames, he released Music for Prophet in 2017. It was issued on Gaspar Claus’s label Les Disques du Festival Permanent, as part of Flavien Berger’s curation.

On that first album, Marc Melià had explored the possibilities of a mythic synth; on Veus, as if sloughing, he applied the process of sound modification to his own voice, until becoming an android. But an android who sings of love and dreams, a sensitive automaton who plays with the tropes of pop music. Through this device, Marc Melià knowingly seeks poetry and beauty within transgenics, in the search of a universe where one can surf though waves of profoundly moving chord patterns, hear voices unconstrained by range limitations, or dance freely, as in zero gravity.

Part of the album has been recorded in Une ferme dans les Vosges, courtesy of Rodolphe Burger. It was recorded with Roméo Poirier, one of the most promising figures of ambient, and the elegant multi-talented Lou Rotzinger. As if progressing in parallel with his own linguistic experience, to add another layer to the sloughing, side A is sung in Catalan, Marc Melià’s mother tongue, and side B in French, his adopted language.

Like an echo to his previous album, Veus opens with an instrumental, “Pulse on a E”, which starts with a sequence created with a single note transposed to its octave, just like “Fata Fou”, the last song on Music for Prophet.

Although the title seems to reference an iconic 80s synth, “DX7” is actually about the seven days of the week. It is a love song, about the temperamental oscillations which make every morning the blank canvas of an unpredictable story. Wednesday, I hate you, Sunday, I love you. With few words and a lot of emotion, a synthetic voice is trying to grow more human each day.

“Dent de Serra” deals with the weight of memory on our relationships, but also with the way we revisit them constantly in order to integrate souvenirs within present relationships. Suddenly, the song stops and enters a new dimension, everything is different, as if what had just happened was now forgotten forever.

Oxytocin (“Oxitocines” in Catalan) is said to be the hormone of love. This song deals in a playful way with the duality between science and faith, between rational and magic, when it comes to sentimental relationships. Love is a universal theme, it is everywhere in the world, and love songs have been written for a very long time. But this particular love song is an ode to an aspect of love that has been less sung about: biology, which makes it possible to feel like you’re floating in space when you fall in love.

“Les étoiles” is a trio with Flavien Berger and Pi Ja Ma. The song is about attraction. What attracts humans to each other, but also the inevitable gravitational attraction. The song is also about accidents, magic moments that take us outside of our daily lives and give us the possibility to imagine a sidereal, infinite love.

“A propos d’une chanson” was born after Marc Melià had dreamed he had written the most beautiful song he’d ever created. When he woke up, he realized that song was actually O Superman by Laurie Anderson.

Aside from these songs, Marc Melià offers a few breaks, instrumental but no less narrative.

“Final d’hivern” conjures these quiet moments between two intense events; sleeping at night between two days; the calm that settles in after a hard winter, right before spring properly starts.

Using a musical language that clearly references Ryuichi Sakamoto, “Romain”, with its theme based on a melancholic chord pattern, could be the soundtrack to a 1970s movie lost in time. Little by little, elements that seem to come from a completely different context find their place, while turning the initial mood into something strange and unexpected.

Finally, “Retorn”, which finishes the album, is a reprise of the theme of “DX7”.

From the chords that make up a song, to the days that make up our lives, existence is but a cycle, and Veus is an exploration of them. Marc Melià keeps on drifting on his personal path, between homage to the past and visions of the future.

Die französische Avant-Rock-Band Aquaserge ließ schon immer Genregrenzen verschwimmen. Für die Ausgabe 46 der "Made To Measure"-Reihe widmet sie sich auf The Possibility Of A New Work For Aquaserge der zeitgenössischen klassischen Musik ab Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts: Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988), György Ligeti (1923-2006), Edgard Varèse (1883-1965) und Morton Feldman (1926-1987). Inspiriert von den unterschiedlichen Ansätzen der vier Komponisten in puncto Dynamik, Klangtextur und Länge der Stücke oder genauer gesagt, Scelsis Forschung über Klangfarbe und Schwingungen, Ligetis Cluster, Varèses melodischer Kubismus und Feldmans graphische Notation, ging die Band das Album intuitiv wie auch methodisch in einem auf neun Musiker*innen erweiterten Line-Up an. Das Album enthält zum einen drei langsame, ausgedehnt-weitläufige Stücke, in denen die Klangfarben der Instrumente miteinander zu einer klanglichen Materie verschmelzen. Diese Materie ist gleichzeitig immobil und mobil, wie in einigen Ligeti- oder Scelsi-Werken. Dagegen enthalten die Hommagen der Band an Varèse und Feldman Momente des Ausbruchs und wilder Improvisation. Diese von Aquaserge geschriebenen Kompositionen, werden mit raren Stücken von Edgard Varèse, eines davon auf Basis eines Gedichts von Verlaine. sowie von Morton Feldman mit einem Rilke-Text komplettiert, und zeigen das Gespür der Band für Melodien.

Der Titel des zweiten Soloalbums der Chastity Belt-Sängerin Julia Shapiro ist eine Zustandsbeschreibung. Wie jeder Mensch mit einem Puls auf dieser Erde fühlte sich das Jahr 2020 für Shapiro mehr als einmal völlig zorked an. Im März 2020 beschloss Shapiro die spätwinterliche Tristesse Seattles gegen den immerwährenden Sonnenschein von Los Angeles einzutauschen. Also packte sie ihre Sachen, nur um dann in der Stadt der scheinbar endlosen Möglichkeiten kurz nach ihrer Ankunft pandemiebedingt nahezu in die totale Isolation gezwungen zu werden. Da sie nirgendwo hin konnte und nichts zu tun hatte, begann sie neue Songs zu schreiben, deren Grundstimmung ihre damalige Gemütslage perfekt einfangen. Auf ihrem zweiten Album beschreibt Shapiro Los Angeles als eine in Zeitlupe dahinschmelzende Einöde. Als einen Ort, an dem sie mit Geistern und seltsamen Gestalten kommuniziert. Oder wie sie es ausdrückt: "It takes you on a wild ride. There's weird shit in it." "Zorked" wurde von Shapiros Mitbewohnerin Melina Duterte (JAY SOM) mitproduziert, die ihr Haus während des Lockdowns in ein praktikables Heimstudio verwandelte. Die durchaus noisigen Aufnahmen verliefen zum Glück unproblematisch, da ihr einziger Nachbar in Hörweite das ganze Jahr 2020 damit verbrachte, über zehn Stunden am Tag Karaoke zu singen. Auf Dutertes Drängen, entschloss sich Shapiro auch die neuen Songs weniger nach ihrem ersten Soloalbum "Perfect Version" oder nach Chastity Belt klingen zu lassen. Stattdessen sprang sie auf dem Höhepunkt ihrer Unsicherheit und ihres Unbehagens auf der Suche nach etwas Neuem ins kalte Wasser - und fand Kraft in schweren Shoegaze-Klängen.

THE CHARLATANS proudly announce their (Covid) delayed release of their 30th Anniversary tour and a career spanning best of entitled “A Head Full of Ideas’ Released on Then Recordings through Republic Of Music. ‘A Head Full of Ideas’ sums up their remarkable progress from 1990 Manchester scene hopefuls to one of the UK’s most enduring and best-loved bands. The accompanying tour begins at Belfast, Limelight 22/11/21 and finishes in Aberdeen on 20/12/21.

The band have notched up 13 Top 40 studio albums - three of them number ones - alongside 22 hit singles, four of them top 10. The rollercoaster highs have been accompanied by some shattering lows, any which one of them could have felled a less resilient band, from nervous breakdowns to near bankruptcy and the deaths of two founder members.

Somehow, they have not just carried on but adapted and transformed. The classic Charlatans sound - driving Hammond organ, Northern Soul and house-influenced rhythms, swaggering guitars and Tim Burgess’s sunny yet somehow yearning vocal - is instantly recognisable. And in spite of everything they have been through their music is now more relevant than ever, The Guardian described their last album, Different Days as “one of their best ever”.

As well as a very limited 6 Vinyl box set, there will also be Limited Coloured Triple vinyl LP version and 2CD deluxe of the box set featuring the hits albums plus a bonus live album ‘Trust is For Believers’, and finally a CD or Double LP Vinyl of just the hits albums.

THE CHARLATANS proudly announce their (Covid) delayed release of their 30th Anniversary tour and a career spanning best of entitled “A Head Full of Ideas’ Released on Then Recordings through Republic Of Music. ‘A Head Full of Ideas’ sums up their remarkable progress from 1990 Manchester scene hopefuls to one of the UK’s most enduring and best-loved bands. The accompanying tour begins at Belfast, Limelight 22/11/21 and finishes in Aberdeen on 20/12/21.

The band have notched up 13 Top 40 studio albums - three of them number ones - alongside 22 hit singles, four of them top 10. The rollercoaster highs have been accompanied by some shattering lows, any which one of them could have felled a less resilient band, from nervous breakdowns to near bankruptcy and the deaths of two founder members.

Somehow, they have not just carried on but adapted and transformed. The classic Charlatans sound - driving Hammond organ, Northern Soul and house-influenced rhythms, swaggering guitars and Tim Burgess’s sunny yet somehow yearning vocal - is instantly recognisable. And in spite of everything they have been through their music is now more relevant than ever, The Guardian described their last album, Different Days as “one of their best ever”.

As well as a very limited 6 Vinyl box set, there will also be Limited Coloured Triple vinyl LP version and 2CD deluxe of the box set featuring the hits albums plus a bonus live album ‘Trust is For Believers’, and finally a CD or Double LP Vinyl of just the hits albums.

THE CHARLATANS proudly announce their (Covid) delayed release of their 30th Anniversary tour and a career spanning best of entitled “A Head Full of Ideas’ Released on Then Recordings through Republic Of Music. ‘A Head Full of Ideas’ sums up their remarkable progress from 1990 Manchester scene hopefuls to one of the UK’s most enduring and best-loved bands. The accompanying tour begins at Belfast, Limelight 22/11/21 and finishes in Aberdeen on 20/12/21.

The band have notched up 13 Top 40 studio albums - three of them number ones - alongside 22 hit singles, four of them top 10. The rollercoaster highs have been accompanied by some shattering lows, any which one of them could have felled a less resilient band, from nervous breakdowns to near bankruptcy and the deaths of two founder members.

Somehow, they have not just carried on but adapted and transformed. The classic Charlatans sound - driving Hammond organ, Northern Soul and house-influenced rhythms, swaggering guitars and Tim Burgess’s sunny yet somehow yearning vocal - is instantly recognisable. And in spite of everything they have been through their music is now more relevant than ever, The Guardian described their last album, Different Days as “one of their best ever”.

As well as a very limited 6 Vinyl box set, there will also be Limited Coloured Triple vinyl LP version and 2CD deluxe of the box set featuring the hits albums plus a bonus live album ‘Trust is For Believers’, and finally a CD or Double LP Vinyl of just the hits albums.

There’s a mystique in things that appear in threes. In Greek mythology it represents harmony, wisdom and understanding: for Pythagoras it’s the smallest number needed to create a pattern, the perfect combination of brevity and rhythm, while in literature there’s no story without a beginning, middle and end or past present and future. Summed up in the Latin phrase omne trim perfectum, for Southampton based songwriter Ian Miles (Guitarist/Songwriter with UK band, Creeper) the perfect trio presents itself as Degradation, Death and Decay. Inspired by performance art of the 70s and Halloween — taking cues from the visual legacies of Robert Rauschenberg and Serbian film maker Marina Abramovic while musically drawing on bands such as Conor Oberst, Leonard Cohen, R.E.M and The Cure — this first full-length is more art horror project than album. “I never really seen this as a solo project because I’ve been writing and recording acoustic music since I was about 15. I low key released some very old songs way before Creeper started and even during,” says Miles about choosing to step out on his own. “I don’t want to be the focus of this record, it’s not about me so I have decided to hide me. I want people to solely focus on the art.” Layered with haunting vocals and a myriad of rhythmic textures, Miles sets out to explore one of natures most habitual cycles: our individual journeys though life, that life eventually coming to an end and acceptance, striving to give the listener full control over the art rather than focus on the inherently human force behind the mask.

Reinvigorated and revitalized, REAPING ASMODEIA are back and set to leave their mark on 2021 with their third full length, Darkened Infinity - due for release via Prosthetic Records on October 15. The Minneapolis, Minnesota three-piece present twelve tracks of rhythmically acerbic modern technical death metal and thematically dauntless songwriting, weaving together a conceptual story of transcendence, consciousness and humanity’s ongoing struggle with the psychological self. Darkened Infinity sees REAPING ASMODEIA capitalize on a growing reverence within extreme metal circles for their off-kilter time signature changes and complex songwriting, thanks in no small part to Alexander Kelly (guitars) and Daniel Koppy (drums)’s blistering sonic camaraderie that make the foundations of the band’s assault. Replete with an inhumanly savage vocal performance across Darkened Infinity’s runtime from Steven Lane, the trio shine on apocalyptic album highlights False Awakening, Oneironautic Oblivion and Simulacra. Produced and engineered by the band themselves in Minneapolis before being mixed and mastered by Zack Ohren (Machine Head, All Shall Perish, Carnifex) at Castle Ultimate and Sharkbite Studios, Darkened Infinity’s intricate lead melodies unfurl with a menacing clarity when set against the album’s more abrasive tones.

The monstrous new album from one of the heaviest bands to ever emerge from the shores of the UK - BOUND IN FEAR. Following their brutally stark EP 'Eternal', this new album continues the conceptual theme of Depression, Abuse and Anger. With lyrics that reveal deep insight into the personal upbringing of frontman Ben Mason, this is not for the faint of heart. Essential listening for fans of BODYSNATCHER, DISTANT, PALEFACE AND BLACK TONGUE

Sweden’s Aeon return God Ends Here, and in doing so, up the ante with a record that is bigger, harder and stronger in every way. A darker, even more epic collection, it is everything an Aeon fan could want with a few surprises in store, pushing the genre in new directions and once again asserting that they are one of the most important bands in extreme metal. With dramatic artwork by Italian artist Paolo Girardi the final piece of the puzzle, the finished package extends Aeon’s legacy and gives the genre the push that was intended from the outset. They may have been gone a long time but make no mistake: Aeon are back, and God Ends Here will lay waste to all.

Unter der Regie des Produzenten Chris Cohen und mit Gast-Beiträgen unter anderem von Buck Meek und Tenci, weben die organischen und doch akribischen Folk-Klanglandschaften und tief empfundenen Texte auf dem Debütalbum von Le Ren aus Montreal einen reichen musikalischen Wandteppich. Mit der Veröffentlichung ihrer Secretly Canadian EP "Morning & Melancholia" im Jahr 2020 hat sich Le Ren den Vergleich mit der Musikalität und den kargen, eloquenten Texten von John Prine und Neil Young verdient. Auf "Leftovers" zeigt sie uns die lebendige Tiefe ihres klanglichen und thematischen Spektrums und schreibt mit einer kühnen Klarheit, die sie zwischen klassischen Ikonen wie Joni Mitchell, Vashti Bunyan und Karen Dalton sowie einer neuen Klasse von Folk-Ausnahmekönnern wie Adrianne Lenker, Jessica Pratt und Laura Marling beheimatet. "Leftovers" präsentiert zu gleichen Teilen Melancholie, tiefe Liebe und Heiterkeit, um die Trauernden aufzumuntern, während es ein Patchwork aus persönlichen Liedern über verschiedene Beziehungen zusammennäht: die, die wir mit Müttern, Liebhabern und Freunden teilen. Auf "Leftovers" destilliert Le Ren jahrelanges Material zu zehn straff ausgeführten Tracks, die durch das schwelgerische Zupfen ihrer Gitarre und das kristallklare Timbre ihrer Stimme vereint werden. Im April 2021 traf sie sich mit Chris Cohen in einem gemieteten Haus in Portland, Oregon, wo sie warten mussten, bis ein Nachbarsjunge aufhörte, draußen Lärm zu machen, bevor sie aufnehmen konnten. Die musikalischen Gastbeiträge wurden anschließend hinzugefügt: Kori Miyanishi, Cedric Noel, Saltwater Hank (Jeremy Pahl), Eliza Niemi, Kaïa Kater, Aaron Goldstein, Buck Meek und Tenci (Jess Showman) nahmen ihre Parts separat in ganz Nordamerika auf.

Spiral Grave are comprised of extraordinary
vocalist Screaming Mad Dee, Iron Louis Strachan
(bass), Mot Waldmann on drums and ex-Lord
guitarist Willy Rivera. They were formed in 2018
after the tragic death of their long-time bandmate
Alfred Morris III, founding member of the iconic
Iron Man.
 Setting the mood for classic heavy as hell and in
your face doom metal, US Maryland’s Spiral Grave
quickly carved a place for themselves in North
America’s heavy music scene, playing wellreceived sets at The New England Stoner Doom
Fest and The Maryland Doomfest.
 ‘Legacy Of The Anointed’ is not a sixth album by
Iron Man, as this up-tempo doom metal has more
speed, swagger and groove with a swampy edge.
 For fans of Iron Man, Down, Cathedral, Black
Sabbath, Earthride.
 LP pressed on clear silver vinyl.

Soul Mass Transit System is a familiar name to fans of Shall Not Fade's highly popular garage imprint, Time Is Now. The Leeds duo made up of producers D. Jason and Baby J have been favourites of the series and of the UKG revival in general, recently scoring a release on another trend-setting label of the scene, Dr Banana.

The Dubble Trubble EP traverses the wide range of very British club sounds with ease that only comes with expertise, from frenetic hyper breaks to deep dubstep bass. Opener "Give It 2 U" tempts listeners in with its dramatic rolling minimalism, forward off-kilter drums and a chest-rattler of a sub. Sludgy A2 "My Name Is Down" centres a Niche style bassline, plenty of swing and dubwise sensibility.

On the B-side things ramp up a notch; "Trubble N Strife" tears it open, peak time cybernetic junglist gear with more than a few tricks up its sleeve. "U Got Me Burnin" is a real climax; jubilant, hands-in-the-air rave nonsense that closes out a collection of solid dancefloor toughness with more choppy breaks.

To emerge from a global pandemic with a renewed sense of situational awareness, hard won insight, and a new album is the kind of move we've come to expect from THRICE over the last twenty years. With Horizons/East, Dustin Kensrue and his bandmates address, with candor and courage, the fragile and awkward arrangements that pass for civilization, while inviting us to dwell more knowingly within our own lives. Without surrendering any of the energy and hard edge of their previous albums, they've given us a profoundly meditative work which serves as a musical summons to everyday attentiveness. Since forming THRICE with guitarist Teppei Teranishi, bassist Eddie Breckenridge, and drummer Riley Breckenridge in 1998, Kensrue has never been one to back down from a mental fight. This mood is set by the opening synth-driven number "Color of the Sky," which sounds well-suited to accompany the closing credits of the Stranger Things season finale. Think Flying Lotus giving way to Elbow and setting the listener down in a new dimension. A self-recorded effort, Horizons/East conveys a palpable sense of danger, determination, and possibility.

ANNA LEONE will release her first album, ‘I’VE FELT ALL THESE THINGS’,
produced by Paul Butler (Michael Kiwanuka, Hurray For The Riff Raff).
The debut follows Stockholm native Anna’s widely applauded debut EP ‘Wandered Away’, drawing fans at 6Music including Lauren Laverne & Guy Garvey,
alongside Ones To Watch tips from Spotify and Youtube, and over 18 million
streams online.
‘I’VE FELT ALL THESE THINGS’ is an album that explores how we close ourselves
off to the world, a feeling that has become ever-present in the sad, surreal climate of 2020, in more expansive ways. It’s also an album about how we try and
get beyond those inclinations, and how we make it through

Bad Bad Hats are an indie rock trio from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Known for bringing a joyful, exuberant presence to their live shows, touring
with The Beths, Margaret Glaspy, The Front Bottoms, Hippo Campus, and
Third Eye Blind, the group took specific care to bring their fun-loving spirit
to their third LP, Walkman.
Kerry (guitar/vocals), Chris (bass), and Con (drums) let their collective hair
down on Walkman, bringing raucous and explosive riffs alongside witty lyrics.
Though you might not notice from their indie rock exterior, Bad Bad Hats draws
a heavy influence from classic pop songwriting that shines through in their
hooky choruses and strong melodic sensibilities.
For this release the band set out to push their capabilities as a trio. Subtle
changes in process helped the band achieve this goal, such as shifting Chris
from a wider multi-instrumental role to allow him to prioritize his bass playing, having Kerry record the bulk of the guitars instead. ‘You can hear all of our
musical voices a lot better on this record.’
A carefully crafted studio sound brings the record to life, injecting it with an
energetic voice that is unique to Bad Bad Hats. Walkman is the group’s fourth
time working with producer Brett Bullion, including their previous two LPs, Psychic Reader and Lightning Round, and the Wide Right EP.
Bullion and the band use the studio as an instrument, resulting in their most
polished work to date.

Frozen Music’ was recorded in New York City 32 years ago and like most of
pianist Andy LaVerne’s releases this album has not lost its original energy
and charm.
Tenor and soprano saxophonist Rick Margitza was then a young rising star under contract with Blue Note. Andy was already a prolific composer who penned
all the tunes of this album. Bassist Marc Johnson who was a member of Bill
Evans’s last trio gave graceful and subtle colouring to LaVerne’s compositions.
“Frozen Music, Andy LaVerne’s third album for SteepleChase, is a solid, modern
blowing session...he makes skilful use of suspensions, pedal points, and ostinatos, which along with the music’s floating harmonies, give the soloists a wealth
of elbow room.” - Mark Stryker, Cadence
Personnel: Andy LaVerne (piano), Rick Margitza (tenor and soprano saxophone), Marc Johnson (bass), Danny Gottlieb (drums)

Dean & Britta’s Quarantine Tapes contains songs recorded at home and released digitally in 2020, covers of Kraftwerk, Bee Gees, Luna, the Clash, the
Cars, Dylan and more, with bonus track “The Carnival is Over” (originally
by the Seekers) not on the streaming release.

In creating Our Beautiful Baby World (May 2021), the pacing of Izzy True’s
songwriting process has slowed down since their prior Don Giovanni
releases -- Sadbad (2018) and Nope (2016).
Arranging with Curtis and Sam, Reidy says they’ve grown as musicians together, and their songs were given space to grow, too. OBBW exhibits eleven rock
songs of melded collaboration, expressing the deepness of acceptance. These
are the band’s most dynamic compositions to date. The result is, Reidy hopes,
to ‘sound like a bad drawing of a rock record.’
The inspiration for the soft-hard dynamics of OBBW may have come from Reidy
listening to Thin Lizzy, along with the bleeding of the band members’ strengths
and histories: Curtis as a courageous experimental musician in the DIY circuit,
Sam’s expertise as a hardcore drummer, one Halloween cover-set of System
of A Down in a Chicago basement from another world, and Reidy’s childhood
growing up listening to old love songs and country music.
OBBW was recorded in Rock Island, IL at Rozz-Tox, a well-loved bar and music
venue in the humble Midwest. Recorded and mixed by Ian Harris on reel-toreel, Izzy True’s tunes returned to tape after Sadbad, which was digitally produced.
The record utilizes the talents of Chicago music friends Jess Shoman (Tenci)
on backup vocals and Andrew Clinkman (Spirits Having Fun) on lead guitar on
‘Four Good Ponies’. OBBW was recorded in the months before the pandemic,
January and February 2020, which can feel obvious (‘I don’t wanna hang out
for a thousand years’) and subtle. The authentic limitations of reel-to-reel tape
recordings give this project the aura of a time when live music was possible.

The 2nd tasty release in our series ‘The Swedish Hard Rock Underground - A
Smorgasbord of Heavy Sounds!’ with the best, but previously unknown and
undocumented jaw dropping Swedish hard rock/heavy psych bands from the
totally stoned 1970s.
Let us introduce you to the tale of this unique heavy band from southern Sweden. The fierce dudes that earned the moniker: ‘Northern Europe’s most violent band!’ from their wild live shows.
The band recorded and released two private press singles in 1975 and 1976 respectively. Both were done in micro pressings of 100 copies each making them
very rare and sought after. We follow the band from their first incarnation as a
killer heavy power trio and then expanding in to a massive 5-piece powerhouse
and until the military draft put an end to their teenage hard rock dreams

Third album from one of the best French garage/shoegaze/dream-pop
bands around. ‘Vacuum Sealed’ has the potential to become one of theguitar classics of the early 20s.
Bryan’s Magic Tears are made up of musicians who also have - or had - a footin the bands Villejuif Underground, Pleasure Principle, Bisous de Saddam and Dame Blanche.
Like all great albums, it opens with a screaming introduction (“Greeting From The Space Boys”, a middle finger raised by the whole band from the stratosphere - or Lauriane Petit on bass and vocals, Raphael Berrichon and Medhi Briand on guitars, Paul Ramon on drums).
The band goes from one breathtaking track to another (“Excuses” sung by Lauriane like a Kim Deal composition, “Sad Toys” or the paroxysm of dancing melancholia, “Pictures Of You” or the best guitar riff ever played with a vibrato).
One could believe that Bryan’s Magic Tears is the gifted son of The Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and Primal Scream. In 1991 the album would have been recorded by a British band and released by Creation. Except that we are thirty years later and it’s made by a band with a Norman soul and published by Born Bad Records.

Hailing from the United States, Haunt began as the work of modern
renaissance man Trevor William Church.
Son of Montrose / Sammy Hagar solo bassist Bill “The Electric” Church, the
California native came to prominence as the vocalist/guitarist of doom-lords
Beastmaker, who’ve released two critically acclaimed albums on Rise Above.
As Haunt, Church went solo and created a bewitching brew of classic, turn-ofthe-’80s heavy metal, drawing deeply from the momentous NWOBHM movement. He proved just how proficient and powerful his vision is with Haunt’s
2017 debut EP, ‘Luminous Eyes’, which was originally self-released but then
picked up for physical release by Shadow Kingdom not long after.
Fans and critics all agreed, and quickly: Haunt is heavy metal heaven, and
Church’s brilliance has only just begun

The brothers Jerry and Jimmy Vivino belong(ed) to sought-after session
musicians and producers in the American blues scene.
Their services have been taken by numerous blues musicians such as Son Seals,
Johnnie Johnson, Hubert Sumlin, Al Kooper, Shemekia Copeland, Aaron Neville,
Lucky Peterson, Dr. John, Buddy Guy and Odetta, among others.
However, the Vivino Brothers rarely recorded albums together. With Chitlins
Parmigiana, however, they recorded something special by fusing urban blues,
jazz funk and soul. Although the album spreads a party atmosphere, the ballad
‘Fools Gold’ is goose bumps pure.
An enjoyable album that illustrates the Vivino siblings’ diversity.
The album by the Vivino Brothers, which is still legendary today, was no longer available in mint condition for over a decade. Now Chitlins Parmigiana is
emerging again - as a Double-LP.

On the fringe of the indie Rust Belt scene since the 1990s,
Moviola has quietly forged a low-key career of high-quality
recorded output over twenty-five years, issuing ten (!) records
and countless 7-inch singles (including splits with Cobra Verde,
Hiss Golden Messenger, Handsome Family and many others).
In this artistic continuum, the band has evolved from everything
from 4-track fuzz to hi-fi country soul. Today, the band steps
forward with Broken Rainbows, its strongest collection of songs
to date, written, recorded, and mixed inside the group’s HQ in
Columbus.
Jake Housh started Moviola in 1993 as a student at “The”
Ohio State University as a noisy, fuzzed out lo-fi noisemakers.
Over the years, the band has morphed into a unique DIY
music and art-making collective with five distinct singers and
songwriters, recalling the creatively democratic lineage of The
Mekons, The Band, Pink Floyd, many others. Moviola is Jake
Housh, Ted Hattemer (Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments),
Scotty Tabachnick, Greg Bonnell, and Jerry Dannemiller.
Broken Rainbows is a milestone release, showcasing a band
newly energized and assured in its artistry, and supportive of its
members’ songcraft. The eleven-song album hovers over a plot
of ground that’s optimistic in its despair. Album topics range
from the personal to the political, showcasing each member’s
unique songwriting within an overall cohesive band aesthetic.
“Moviola was one of those groups I met early on back in the day
that showed me how to do it. Broken Rainbows is a highlight—
pastoral thumpers, fuzzy indie radness, hooks to spare, pretty
much all the good stuff. Feels like a glorious drive from one
disparate end of Ohio to another. I love this band.”
—Eric Johnson (Fruit Bats)

Das japanische Quartett CHAI veröffentlicht mit "Wink" ihr drittes Album und ihr erstes für Sub Pop. Es enthält CHAIs sanfteste und minimalistischste Musik, aber auch ihr mit Abstand bewegendstes und aufregendstes Songwriting. "Wink" ist zudem ein extrem passender Titel: eine subtile, aber kühne Geste. Ein Zwinkern ist ein unbefangener Akt der Überzeugung. CHAI besteht aus den eineiigen Zwillingen Mana (Gesang und Keyboard) und Kana (Gitarre), Schlagzeugerin Yuna und Yuuki. Nach der Veröffentlichung von "Punk" im Jahr 2019 führten CHAIs Abenteuer sie rund um die Welt, sie spielten ihre hochenergetischen und beschwingten Shows auf Musikfestivals wie Primavera Sound und Pitchfork Music Festival und tourten mit Indie-Rock-Größen wie Whitney und Mac Demarco. Wie alle Musiker waren CHAI im Jahr 2020 gezwungen, die Struktur ihrer Arbeit und ihres Lebens zu überdenken. CHAI nahmen dies als Gelegenheit, ihren Arbeits-Prozess durchzuschütteln und ihre Musik an einen aufregend neuen Ort zu bringen. Hatten CHAI zuvor ihre maximalistischen Aufnahmen genutzt, um die Ausgelassenheit ihrer Liveshows einzufangen und die Reaktionen des Publikums im Auge zu behalten, konzentrierten sie sich nun darauf, die etwas subtileren und introspektiveren Arten von Songs zu entwickeln, die sie gerne zu Hause hören - wo sie zum ersten Mal die gesamte Musik aufgenommen haben. Inmitten des globalen Shutdowns arbeiteten CHAI quasi als Garage-Band und tauschten ihre Songideen - für die sie mehr Zeit als je zuvor hatten - über Zoom und Telefonanrufe aus, wobei sie ihre Einschränkungen in eine Stärke verwandelten. Während sich die Band an einen persönlicheren Sound anlehnte, ist "Wink" auch das erste CHAI-Album mit Beiträgen von externen Produzenten (Mndsgn, YMCK) sowie einem Feature des Chicagoer Rappers und Sängers Ric Wilson. CHAI ziehen R&B und HipHop in ihre Mischung aus Dance-Punk und Pop-Rock, während sie unbestreitbar CHAI bleiben. Ob in Bezug auf diesen neu entdeckten Sinn für Offenheit oder ihre Art, zu Hause zu komponieren, das Thema von "Wink" ist, sich selbst herauszufordern.

Exactly one year after "A Mysterious Land Of Happiness." (out on Beast in November 2020) here comes ". And Disasters". Broken Waltz is still martial, stormy and pagan, but darker. The drum'n bass duo rides on the tracks of Nick Cave, Tom Waits and even The Cramps!

Listening to the story of Canadian duo cleopatrick is a bit like hearing the plot of the best, most righteously validating coming-of-age film never made. Two friends meet aged four in Hicksville, Nowheretown (real name: Cobourg, Ontario, population 19,000), grow up completely inseparable, form a band and, against numerous obstacles, blossom into a genuine, global underground sensation. There are heroes and villains, highs and lows and, crucially, some of the most poetic plot twists that could seem almost too perfect, were they not completely true. Take the story of 2017 breakthrough track ‘hometown’ for example. “It’s one of the craziest, most ironic things that’s ever happened,” begins vocalist and guitarist Luke Gruntz. “I was going to college because I was too scared to put all my chips in the band pile, and that’s what ‘hometown’ is about: it’s a song about feeling like we’re doing all this stuff and we’re working so hard and we’re just never going to be heard. It’s literally a song about people probably never hearing our songs. And then by some act of the universe, that song ended up unlocking all the doors for us.” Today, cleopatrick has logged 77 million streams and counting - all from an increasingly dedicated fanbase who’ve found the duo, completed by drummer Ian Fraser, their own way: no major label, no big budget, just two best pals knuckling down, cementing a unique sonic alchemy and filling a space of honest, empathetic yet undeniably heavy-hitting rock music that they’d been searching for themselves for years. Between multiple sold out tours in Canada, the US and the UK/EU and appearances at Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits and Reading/Leeds, the pair have been crafting BUMMER: a debut album that sees cleopatrick harness all the magic they’ve been brewing over their two-decade friendship and funnel it into a record that aims to reinvigorate the rock landscape from the ground up. Taking the ethos of their New Rock Mafia collective - a group of friends and fellow bands, united in making a more inclusive, equality-driven space in rock music - and imbuing it with the sonic ambition and ferocity of a record designed to be played hard and loud, it’s an album about two friends, who’ve been with each other since the formative first steps that adorn ‘BUMMER’’s heartwarming cover image and made something that’s a testament to the power of sticking to your guns.

British producer Patrick Tipler spent his formative years immersed in psychedelia as a bassist and guitarist in various bands and groups. The arrival of synthesizers –along with his move to Bristol– radically changed his vision of sound and impacted on his musical direction with the force of an asteroid. This shockwave subsequently saw the birth of Delay Grounds.

After releasing the outstanding 'Onomatopoeia' Pressure Dome, 2020 and 'Upcycling' Tropopause, 2021, Delay Grounds’ output has made it clear for all to see that Tipler’s sound design skills are second to none, and with just two releases to his name he has already transformed himself into an artist to watch very closely.

Today Patrick joins the Lapsus crew to present 'Genus', a five track EP that he says "is my most personal release to date, something I've always carried inside and wanted to produce, but had never managed to articulate before". On 'Genus', Delay Grounds preserves the essence of his sound but takes things a step further, with a form ofmaximalist electronica, sprouting powerful torrents of high-pitched and ruff-as-rock avant-techno, glitches and mutant sound elements, combined with sweet and delicate melodies in the purest IDM style. Polishing is provided by sound engineer Nick Earle, with whom Patrick has recorded and remarkably treated a kit of "deconstructed drums" especially for the occasion.

‘Genus’ is 30 minutes of astral travelling, an experience perhaps analogous to what we would feel if we opened a vault, containing music from a lost civilization.

Yellow Vinyl

The first release on Optimo Music founder JD Twitch’s new compilation-focused label Cease & Desist will be a collection of pioneering turn-of-the-90s British “Bleep & Bass” techno tracks curated by author and music journalist Matt Anniss.

Join The Future: UK Bleep & Bass 1988-91 is a partner product to Anniss’s critically acclaimed book on the foundations of British dance music’s ongoing love affair with sub-bass, Join The Future: Bleep Techno and the Birth of British Bass Music. The book, which was published by Velocity Press in December and features a foreword by JD Twitch, documents in vivid detail the previously untold story of the Yorkshire-pioneered style and the impact it had on the development of UK dance music.

The compilation is the first to focus on Bleep & Bass since the sound’s heyday in the late 1980s and early ’90s. It features a mix of historic cuts, period classics, overlooked gems and unreleased material. It was mastered for release by Warp Records co-founder and Forgemasters member Rob Gordon, a producer, remixer and studio engineer who arguably did more than anyone else to define the sub-heavy sound of the style.

Gordon also contributed a previously unheard version of Alfanso’s “Dub Feels Nice”, a near mythical track he produced in 1991 that has never received a proper commercial release. The cut has been a secret weapon for a handful of Sheffield DJs for almost 30 years, most notably Gordon’s fellow Forgemasters member Winston Hazel. Fittingly, the compilation also includes the original unreleased instrumental version of Tuff Little Unit’s Steel City classic “Join The Future”.

Many of the other tracks on the compilation are rare, hard to find or have not been issued on vinyl or digital since their initial release. It opens with Unique 3 and the Mad Musician’s “Only The Beginning” – the 1988 A-side of the first ever Bleep record – and also includes tracks and remixes from fellow scene pioneers Ital Rockers (an early alias of dub hero Iration Steppas), Nightmares on Wax, Cabaret Voltaire and DJ Martin and DJ Homes, the previously unheralded Chapeltown duo behind the influential Leeds-based studio and record label BASSIC.

Elsewhere on the compilation you’ll find Birmingham producer Demonik’s sought-after debut single “Layrinthe”, a hard-to-find cut from Bedford-based men of mystery Original Clique, two classic cuts from the vaults of influential Midlands label Network Records and a glassy-eyed slab of Bleep/deep house fusion from 100 Hz.

Join The Future: UK Bleep & Bass 1988-91 will be released on double vinyl and digital download. The 10-track vinyl version features an insert with extensive liner notes by Matt Anniss. It also comes with a code to download the 12-track digital download version. The compilation will be released by Cease & Desist on March 25th 2020.

Peter Sagar — also known as HOMESHAKE wrote the majority of his fifth studio album, Under the Weather, in 2019, when he was going through a long, unrelenting period of sadness. “I was in a deep, deep depression,” he recalls of that time period now. Sagar and his partner were living in Montreal, and while everyone was out being social, he was inside listening to ambient music, binging Star Trek, and writing songs. (Sound familiar?) “It was a bit of a dark pit,” he says. “That’s kind of what the whole album is about.”

Under the Weather is hazy and moody, the pace slow as syrup, and from beginning to end, a fog falls over every synth and guitar line. “Oftentimes when you’re in a dark place, you’re supposed to journal and that helps release the pressure,” Sagar says. “For me, it always found its way into the music.”

Capturing the cloudy sound of a depressive funk was no simple feat, especially in the headspace Sagar was in for over a year. For that reason, he decided to enlist his friend, Jerry Paper ’s Lucas Nathan, to help with production on the record. Having Nathan contribute helped Sagar dial back some of the “dry, pristine digital sound” that defined his fourth studio album, Helium , and add back personal analog touches that drew people to the HOMESHAKE project in the first place.

As Sagar readies for the album’s release this September, the record he wrote about feeling isolated, alone, and despondent has begun to seem eerily prescient. “I’ve been writing about feeling isolated my whole life,” he says — but with age, he has come to understand them better. “I had a fairly clear idea what the album was going to be like based on where I was emotionally at the time,” he says about Under the Weather . “I just try to make music that is honest about how I’m feeling.”

A Fantastic Woman (Spanish: Una mujer fantástica) is a 2017 drama film directed by Sebastián Lelio and written by Lelio and Gonzalo Maza. It was selected as the Chilean entry for the Best Foreign Language Film where it won in the 90th Academy Awards. The film is about Marina, a transgender woman who works as a waitress and moonlights as a nightclub singer, is bowled over by the death of her older boyfriend. It premiered at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival in 2017 where it won the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay and the Teddy Award, an award given to films with a LGBT theme.

Matthew Herbert is an award-winning composer, artist, producer and writer. He has had work commissioned by the Royal Opera House, the BBC and has remixed iconic artists such as Quincy Jones, Ennio Morricone and been a longtime collaborator of Bjork’s, but he is best known for working with sound, turning ordinary or so-called found sound in to electronic music.

This is a limited edition contains of 1000 individually numbered copies on transparent pink coloured vinyl. The LP package contains an insert with notes from director Sebastián Lelio.

Freestyle Records will release Dan Berkson's debut LP, Dialogues, on September 17th on LP & digital.

Following a move to London and an immersion in the city's deep house scene, Dan Berkson's subsequent rediscovery of his earliest musical foundations and the drawing of inspiration from London's buzzing contemporary jazz scene would lead to Dialogues - an accomplished and rewarding body of work pulled together during his final days in London before relocation to California.

"It was inevitable that Dan Berkson would make a jazz album like Dialogues: joyful, danceable, entertaining, driven by the pleasure principle, and filled with virtuosity. It represents Berkson's experiences in London, where jazz is a living, breathing, dancing scene. It's his love letter to the city, bristling with British talent such as bassist Andrea di Biase (Heidi Vogell, Maria Chiara Argiro, Bruno Heinen) and drummer Jon Scott (Kairos 4Tet, Sons Of Kemet, Mulatu Astatke) and recorded in his final days in the city before relocating to California. It's also rich with history: the musical journey that brought him to this point covers almost 40 years and 4,000 miles.

Berkson received lessons from Chicago boogie-woogie veteran Erwin Helfer - who in turn had learned alongside foundational legends such as Mahalia Jackson and Glover Compton. In 2001 he came to the UK, throwing himself into the deep house scene of East London, his duo with James What signing to Steve Bug's legendary Poker Flat.

But eventually he felt that he'd achieved what he could in the house format. Rediscovering the piano and discovering that jazz provided him the opportunity to keep learning, he enrolled in Trinity College in South London just as South London's jazz scene was exploding into the public consciousness.

Dialogues is a jazz album, not an electronic one – but all the groove-based influences, from the rootsy blues and ragtime of his youth, through the funk he played at college and the house he imbibed in London can be heard, as can his love of the studio as an instrument and mixdowns that suit a club soundsystem. Detroit dons Theo Parrish and Moodymann are every bit as important to this record as Charlie Haden, Carla Bley, Keith Jarrett, Ornette Coleman, Jimmy Giuffre, and Herbie Hancock. There's 50s and 60s cool modernism (just listen to the elegant ripples of "Sketches"), there's 70s funk fusion ("Unity" kicks things off with a spring in its step), and of course there's the pumping blues heart of "Live Bait". Above all else, though, it's a personal document: a life of music and collaboration crystalised in a magical, transitional moment. Where Dan goes next musically is as uncertain as anything in these times... but this one record tells you everything you need to know about where he's been."

"We don't want to conquer space at all, we want to expand Earth endlessly. We don't want other worlds, we want a mirror" these words uttered by Dr Snaut from the masterpiece of Science Fiction novel "Solaris" couldn't better outline this tripped-out 6 tracks ep. RTR crafted a hypnotic pull, drawing the listener deeper into its enigmatic journey by joining the dots between colorful, moody and very melodic electro all way long. It rolls out as much structures as Solaris planet can carve out on his ocean surface, intertwining acid-tinged bass, crisp techno, break edits, jungle. Fans of electronic music's 90s golden age will find plenty to love about Splash of a drop.

Das kanadische Ensemble BADBADNOTGOOD machte sich einen Namen als sie kurzerhand Jazz und HipHop miteinander verbanden - nun kehren sie mit ihrem Debüt auf XL Recordings zu ihren instrumentellen Anfängen zurück! Mit dem Talk Memory reflektieren sie die Geschichte und die Innovationen der Musiker und Komponisten, die sie auf dem Weg zum eigenen Sound beeinflussten. Die Band formte sich 2010 im Humber College Jazz Kurs in Toronto, das feste Trio-Line-Up mit Alexander Sowinski (Drums), Chester Hansen (Bass) und Leland Whitty (Gitarre und Holzbläser) existiert seit 2015. Für die drei ist ein Song ein lebender und atmender Organismus, der sich natürlich entwickelt und je nach Umgebung anders klingt. "Talk Memory" ist ein Album, das ganz in diesem Sinne entstanden ist und markiert auch einen Wechsel vom Ego hin zum Kollektiv, zur Balance und zur Harmonie. Es enthält musikalische Beiträge von Arthur Verocai, Karriem Riggins, Terrace Martin, Laraaji und der gefeierten Harfenistin Brandee Younger, die bereits mit Moses Sumney und Thundercat gearbeitet hat. Die Visuals entwarf Virgil Abloh mit seiner Designfirma Alaska-Alaska_äó, der auch das Albumcover gestaltet hat. "Talk Memory" ist ein Album, das betont, wie Musik als Konversation unabdingbar kollektiv und improvisiert sein muss. Es erinnert dabei an die typischen Momente einer Live Jazz- oder Soul-Show, in der der Frontmann jedes einzelne Bandmitglied vorstellt, um ihm/ihr den gebührenden Applaus zukommen zu lassen. Und so ist ein Album voller tiefer Zuneigung zur Musik und zur Community entstanden.

Fanatics of '70s Italian giallos take note…

Behold a veritable smorgasbord of sounds that is Ennio Morricone’s score to Dario Argento’s debut film, THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (a.k.a. L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo) from 1970.

Considered one of the genre’s gold standards, Maestro Morricone’s stunning sonic work is a masterful accompaniment to the knife-wielding images on the screen. This colorful (yet dark) score features il Maestro’s trademark scat vocal harmonies, beautiful melodies, and mandatory sinister themes – perfect musica for this wonderfully stylistic giallo masterpiece.

The first of Argento’s “animal trilogy” series, the music on THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE is a lovely mix of string-infused bossa, to tenser and instrumentally sparse passages that Morricone does so well.

Just be sure to handle the piumaggio cristallino with care… we suggest wearing your black gloves.

Composed by Ennio Morricone
Artwork by Luke Insect
Manufactured in Italy

Grains is the debut album by Numinos on Mille Plateaux. The Cologne-based producer, DJ, author and lecturer has been writing the tech-reviews in "Groove" for many years, tests equipment for various specialist magazines and teaches at the Institute for Pop Music (IFPOM) and Institute for Computer Music and Electronic Media (ICEM) of the Folkwang University.In his current creative phase, he conceptually deals with the topic of "granular synthesis".
A "grain" is thus, to a certain extent, a tiny spectral snapshot from a larger musical context - an infinitely expandable, flowing intermediate state. This is also where the connection to the cover motif is found that shows the negative of a photograph of a wild field and has been taken Bernd Adamek-Schyma: The negative as an eternal intermediate state between the motif and the developed image. And despite the fact that "Numinos" has a fully equipped studio with a wide range of instruments, the 20 Euro iPad app "Borderlands Granular" turned out to be the creative catalyst that enabled the trained pianist to implement his sound ideas with direct haptic influence.The app gives the Cologne-based sound artist the opportunity to extract tiny fragments from the sample based on their specific tonality, to recontextualize them and thus work out structures that are not audible at the original tempo.
The results are polyrhythmic sound scenes that appear harsh, artificial and strange in a moment, only to transform into contemplative, warm and familiar frequency stratification minutes later. Numinos deceives the listener in many ways. Above all with the supposed rhythm that does not exist. Because in fact almost all granular clusters within the pieces run in completely asynchronous loops. The addition of a simple kick drum then forces the brain to suddenly hear apparent triplets, quintoles or dotted eighths in these mathematically completely chaotic structures, which are purely fallacy.

The Spessart with its presence of extended woodlands is widely known for its legends, ghost stories and fairytales. Thus, the tale of Snow White may have originated in the Spessart heartlands, with the town of Lohr pushing forward a substantial case for being the home and inspiration for the main characters and elements like the magic mirror. Now let us return to innocence: Spessartraeuber Johannes Albert goes beatless for the first time over this 8 tracker. You may hear the rhythm of nature. Crystal clear bell sounds sit next to warm pads, bird song and even his own voice add to the peaceful piece. Heavenly strings approach guilt free piano sounds while blameless digital choirs whistle along. Music for dreams basically. File under New Age. Are you in?

"Kazakh artist Galya Bisengalieva’s debut album was released by One Little Independent in September 2020 and is a concept record about the shrinking of the Aral Sea, which has been called one of the “20th century’s more jaw-dropping ecological catastrophes, a consequence of the Soviet-era policy of diverting the two tributary rivers to irrigate cotton plants across Central Asia” (NY Times)
Now, roughly a year later, Galya is releasing Aralkum Aralas. In Kazakh aralas means mixed/reworked. Galya has thoughtfully curated a remix album of artists to respond to her work having previously commissioned new work for her label NOMAD Music Productions. Those musicians are; Coby Sey, Jing, Moor Mother, Jlin, CHAINES and Nazira. Galya approached artists whose practise she judged would resonate with her source material and bring new light to the narrative. She was interested in getting responses from artists from diverse backgrounds for their insight into her voice."

The next edition of the Dispatch Blueprints series comes from NC-17 and Kumarachi. Inspired by the original breakbeats / drum sampling production techniques, NC-17 continues the Blueprints ethos with two spectacular tracks that celebrate the old skool drum and bass flavours.

Whilst working on the latest edition of NC-17's ongoing album series "Most Violent Year" we received the two tracks that make up this release and all agreed that they would find the perfect home on the Blueprints imprint.

"Cache" is a drum heavy collaboration with Kumarachi that makes perfect use of rasping bass synths, razor sharp drum edits and well timed vocal samples, channeling the energy of a Blue Note era banger.

"Rules of Hell" is pure NC-17 magic - a dark, broody, cinematic journey through the depths of drum and bass grit. Tuned to make whole dancefloors shake, this one is a real monster. Watch out for that bassline.
Orde

Vivid does a fine line in breakbeat, techno and bass and has killer cuts from Borai and Tomashi in its discography. Now they look to Yosh who has two EPs ready for the label. This one kicks off with the rinsing old school jungle breaks of 'Bless', which is all dark energy and jerking rhythms. 'We Come In Pieces' is just as kinked with devastating drum programming, and 'Too Dread' gets a little more euphoric with its warm pads strewn over the top of the knotted bass and busy drums. Closer 'All Out' is another bit of pure dance floor bliss.

After spending 6 years on a shitty pop-punk train, and releasing tons of records, THE VAPIDS bunkered down and emerged with CHARM SCHOOL DROPOUTS. A giant kick in the ass to everything that was going on at the time. Originally released on CD in 2001, SKR pressed the first (terrible looking) vinyl version in 2008, and now, a proper and sonically ferocious repress in 2020!

Through his dedication to the Los Angeles grassroots projects that gave so much stability and focus to many younger musicians, artists and the community, Horace Tapscott became a neighbourhood hero at a time when the world wanted his presence. He stayed in Los Angeles and focused instead on building a community, rarely giving interviews and instead focusing on passing on the message from his mentors. He shaped a unique sound with his arkestra and community minded musicians. It was a close-knit family that emanated a sound that was deep and unique, flowing with a creative spirit that definitely comes through on this album.

In 1961 he founded the Pan-African Peoples Arkestra, which aimed to preserve, develop and publicise African-American music through the ever-growing family that emanated within many of the deprived areas of Los Angeles. Through his subsequent collaboration with Bruce Albach, a producer and founder of Nimbus West Records, they sought to document the importance of this music alongside many artists who were energetically linked to the ethos and understanding which came from the collective dialogue.

Here the composer leads four extensive arrangements through his 16 piece orchestra, featuring many of the Nimbus West artists including Adele Sebastian, Jesse Sharps and Linda Hill. The music weaves the sound of afro-futuristic music through changing tempos and a relentless dynamic expressive sound that is complex and beguiling with a deep spiritual sound throughout all four tracks.

The ceremonial ‘Peyete Song no. III’ is a great swirling evocative piece from the large collective, with amazing solos from especially Horace Tapscott who seems to find a sound from the piano that is from another dimension. The arrangement airs an important message of a people and their rituals.

Horace Tapscott gives Cal Massey’s composition ‘Nakatini Suite’ a splendid futuristic big band interpretation. The composition had been earlier illuminated by both Lee Morgan on his ‘Lee-Way’ album and John Coltrane on his ‘Believer’ album titled ‘Nakatini Serenade’. Through the more expansive soundscape, the interpretation allows for some great interplay between saxophonist Jesse Sharps and drummer Everett Brown Jr. with the whole orchestra led by Horace Tapscott capturing the essence of Cal Massey’s message.

Vocalist Adele Sebastian opens up the free probing arrangement ‘Quagmire Manor at 5am’ composition with a similar delivery as with her ‘Day Dream’ from the classic ‘Desert Fairy Princess’ album before the music takes off onto the mothership adding a sense of what time and space within the manner was about amongst many great musicians and artists. Their journey and moments encapsulated within the music.

There are certain albums you hear something new every time you revisit the music and this is one of those albums. An important part of Afro-American history; the politics and art which surrounded the album. If you get a chance check out the film ‘Horace Tapscott, Musical Griot’, by filmmaker Barbara McCullough, or buy the book ‘Songs Of The Unsung’: The Musical & Social Journey of Horace Tapscott’. Mark Jones/UK Vibe

Covering various classics is not uncommon in Italo Disco. Hardly a song that has not been pressed through the synth mill and spit out again with its own charm.

This is also the case with the premiere release from the label “Mattoni Pazzi” with the “Monomax Band”: As the song title already reveals, you will find a reference to the Led Zeppelin classic on side A. In full 80’s Italo fashion, this version is peppered with synth riffs, glittering arpeggios, a thundering DX-7 bassline and almost gothic-tinged vocals.

Side B is a remake of the remake and drifts off into the cosmic at a much higher tempo. A hypnotic repetitive bassline is underpinned with loving, oriental-inspired, lead melodies and vibrating soundscapes.

“Friends! I am so pleased to announce ‘A Night At The Little Los
Angeles’ - the 4-track version of ‘Sundowner’. Recorded at
home and in my back shed - aka The Little Los Angeles - in
suburban Kansas during the summer and winter seasons of
2017 and 2018. This is quite simply the sound of me alone in a
room with a four-track to catch my songs as they fell out of my
mouth. When I later went into a proper studio to make
‘Sundowner’ my goal was to capture the essence of these initial
recordings, and here you will now have access to the very
essence I was chasing.

“In many ways, this feels like a proper album to me, as it’s my
initial attempt to capture the Kansas sunset and put it into
sound, whereas ‘Sundowner’ was an attempt of an attempt. I
love and am proud of them both, of course, but am happy to -
for the first time - share this vulnerable side of my songwriting
process with the public. Many of my favorite recordings have
been made inside of an artist’s home without regard of the
outside world, but instead deep in their own world that they’re
creating in real time. And with that - I’d like to invite you into my
own little world here and now and ask you to please... step
inside of... and spend ‘A Night At The Little Los Angeles’!” -
Kevin Morby

Released in 2020 on Dead Oceans, ‘Sundowner’, with Morby’s
distinctively conversational and reflective writing style, was
received with open arms and was beloved by fans and critics
alike. Pitchfork lauded it as “a vision of the Midwest that feels
mythical and enormous.” ‘Sundowner’’s vision was further
fleshed out in comprehensive features in Vanity Fair, New York
Magazine, Stereogum, The FADER, Vice, Aquarium Drunkard,
and more.

In addition to traditional music publications, Morby appeared on
Adult Swim’s Fishcenter and Office Hours with Tim Heidecker.
Morby also made his network television debut on CBS This
Morning, where he performed the songs ‘Campfire’ and
‘Sundowner’ as part of a special joint performance with his
partner and fellow songwriter Katie Crutchfield, aka
Waxahatchee.

Here’s a definitive compilation of their first period career, Glaxo Babies was one of the most exciting british post-punk band of the era. Raised in Bristol – altogether with such local influential acts like Maximum Joy, The Transmitters and obviously The Pop Group – Glaxo Babies formed in late 1977. The band signed to local label Heartbeat Records (marketed by Cherry Red), with their first release being the This Is Your Life EP in February 1979; in the same year they released the single “Christine Keeler” . This led to them recording their first session for BBC radio’s John Peel the following April, and the track “It’s Irrational”, from this session, opened the seminal 1979 Bristol Compilation album “Avon Calling”. Their aggro mix of in your face lyrics and groovy bassline led to a unique formula, with both their feet in the post-punk scene and the uprising black jazz crossover. The so-called white funk was the plat du jour, even if the band soon achieved a straight and original personality. Fully remastered and licensed, ltd to 500 copies.

In der CLASSIC VINYL SERIE veröffentlicht BLUE NOTE die besten und bekanntesten Alben des Labels
zu vertretbaren Preisen und dauerhaft verfügbar.
- Mastering von Kevin Gray bei COHEARENT AUDIO
- Pressung in 180g-Vinyl bei OPTIMAL
In der neuesten Staffel erscheint nun pünktlich zum Fest das coole Weihnachtsalbum des Jazzpianisten
und Arrangeurs Duke Pearson aus dem Jahre 1969. Merry, swinging Christmas!

Saxophonist Wendell Harrison has lived by a standard philosophy for his 50-plus-year career: One must have complete self-autonomy. Both his music and business dealings reflect this. Besides being a legend on the Detroit jazz scene and mentoring up-and-coming musicians through his non-profit organization Rebirth Inc., he co-founded the Tribe Records label in the 1970s, which produced a magazine and many classic albums.

Harrison is continuing Tribe’s legacy—this time around with a group of rising jazz musicians from the Motor City such as drummer Louis M. Jones III, trumpeter Trunino Lowe, and guitarist Jacob Schwantz—on his new recording Get Up Off Your Knees.

There’s a lot to digest here because the original compositions encompass R&B, soul, spoken word, and “world” music, all seen through the lens of jazz. Harrison tends to weave elements of African music into many of his compositions. On “Siera” and “Samoulén Khalé Yi,” both written by vocalist and bassist Pathe Jassi, he pays tribute to Guinea-Bissau and Senegalese culture. “Educators” also has African nuances in its hardcore drumming and Harrison’s sublime blowing on bass clarinet and clarinet.

Any discriminating jazz listener will be consumed by Get Up Off Your Knees, but it seems Harrison’s primary purpose for making this album is to encourage the current generation to put education first and build social awareness. On the title track, vocalist Miche Braden pushes the self-determination angle, which is again highlighted on “Revolution,” a reimagined take on Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” delivered with an adherence to contemporary events by the poet Rev. Mbiyu Chui. By Veronica Johnson from Jazz Times.

Recording with a sextet at the New York jazz club Sweet Basil in August 1977, McBee’s band included Chico Freeman on reeds, Dennis Moorman on piano, Joe Gardner on trumpet, Steve McCall on drums, and Famoudou Don Moye on percussion. Two complete albums of music were released by Enja Records from this engagement, the ground breaking recordings Music From the Source 1978 and Compassion 1979.

“Few groups today sound as fresh, generate as high an emotional charge, or leave as lasting an impression as McBee’s sextet,” Chris Albertson wrote upon the release of these recordings. “It is as if each member were a unique piece of a puzzle, carefully placed to complete precisely the breath taking picture intended. The music is adventurous enough to satisfy any aural daredevil who has not completely lost his or her sense of beauty, yet all the basic jazz values have been preserved with due reverence.” Chris Albertson

"Pianist Nate Morgan (1964-2013) was a central figure on the Los Angeles jazz undergound. A core member of the circle around the legendary bandleader, pianist and community organiser Horace Tapscott, Morgan had been part of Tapscott’s U.G.M.A.A. (Union Of God’s Musicians and Artists Ascension) since he was just a teenager, and was a key member of the Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra, known as ‘The Ark’. Through the 1980s and 1990s he kept the PAPA flame alive, organising the Ark’s sprawling songbook, running legendary jam sessions, and keeping LA’s deep jazz roots well watered. By the early 2000s he was bringing hard won knowledge to a new generation as part of the Build The Ark collective. He was a musician’s musician, at the beating heart of the radical, community-minded Los Angeles jazz network that Tapscott and his associates had first put together in the early 1960s.

Retribution, Reparation was the second of the two LPs Morgan recorded for Tom Albach’s storied Nimbus West imprint. His first, Journey Into Nigritia had been a declaration of arrival laced with energies drawn from Cecil Taylor and Coltrane. One year later, with nods to Herbie Hancock (‘One Finger Snap’) and Ellington (‘Come Sunday’), Retribution, Reparation was a confident statement of purpose. Politically charged with pan-Africanist and Black nationalist sentiments inspired by Marcus Garvey, and titled with uncompromising directness, the album focusses the sound world of the Ark into a surging, restless masterpiece of spiritualised modal jazz. With Danny Cortez on trumpet and Ark stalwart Jesse Sharps on saxophones the frontline is explosive (this set is also one of the few places the extraordinary Sharps can be heard in a small group setting), while Fritz Wise and Ark regular Joel Ector hold down the rhythm section. Morgan’s forceful, Tyner-like chords and virtuosic solos and bind the music together. From the poised drama of the opening dedication to Tapscott’s U.G.M.A.A. (‘U.G.M.A.A.GER’) to the propulsive militancy of the title track, Retribution, Reparation spreads the word: ‘Advance to Victory, Let Nigritia Be Free!’"

Crepuscule presents a brand new collaborative project by Julie Campbell (aka LoneLady), Stephen Mallinder (Wrangler, Cabaret Voltaire) and Benge (Wrangler, John Foxx). Titled Clinker, the first 800 copies of the 6 track mini album have been pressed in turquoise vinyl.

‘The project began a couple of years ago,’ explains Julie. ‘Benge had these great sketches that were beats and synth patterns, so those were the starting point. I really went to town adding lots of guitar layers and experimenting with different sounds. On some tracks the guitar is deft and rhythmic, as if mimicking sequencer patterns. On others it’s a deconstructed noise-based approach - scratching strings, making fitful, heavy chunks, howls and scrapings of noise and texture.’

Due to competing solo commitments for all 3 members the tracks disappeared into hard drive exile for a couple of years. Julie continues: ‘Last year we revisited the mixes and Stephen added his trademark mysterious and menacing vocals. Now we find ourselves with a finished piece of work. I thought of the name Clinker as I love its meaning: 'stony residue from burnt coal'. This seemed liked an apt description of both industrial and creative processes, and a nice nod to the industrial North of England.’

Stand-out tracks include Camouflage and Condition Collapsing. ‘I’d forgotten how liberating it is to play bass guitar on something,’ enthuses Mal. ‘It compliments Julie’s beautifully angular guitar, and Benge and me ripping up live percussion onto the sound of machines… As a collection of tracks these benefited from a lengthy gestation, as they follow no particular trend and were allowed to twist and turn to develop a life of their own. After successive cycles we suddenly drew it all together so the tracks have a sense of completion and identity.’

‘The real fun for me was during the mixing process when Mal and I looked at each other as the rawness of the tracks hit us on the big studio monitors,’ adds Benge. ‘We knew we had something untameable, and wanted to preserve that feeling of edgy rawness in the mixes.’

The cover image is by Julie Campbell, with overall design by Twilight. The vinyl edition comes with a digital copy (MP3).

Music is a means to purpose. Consuming music, dancing to music or creating music is a form of survivalism, and a purpose to serve. ‘Survivalism’ is the next mini LP offering from Label boss Sepehr as he returns to Shaytoon with a diverse mini LP of music making nods to late 90’s drum n bass, storming and beautiful techno, middle eastern flavors and more. Music to survive to.

Due for release October 8th on Fuzz Club Records, 'Ungrateful Heart' is the fourth album from Milan-based group The Gluts. Whilst their previous releases traded in an explosive psychedelic noise-rock, 'Ungrateful Heart' sees the Italian four-piece hone in a more post-punk-indebted sound. Although no less abrasive and confrontational in its utlising of ear-piercing feedback and hard-hitting riffs, the band say that the songs here primarily take cues from the likes of Fugazi, Gang of Four, the PiL-Pistols canon and the Campana brothers' long adoration of Italian and American hardcore punk. The album arrives off the back of 2019's 'Dengue Fever Hypnotic Trip' LP and tours and festival dates around the UK, Europe and South Africa. Laid down over a tireless week living side by side and working in the studio around the clock, The Gluts - comprised of Claudia Cesana (bass/vocals), Dario Bassi (drums) and Nicolò and Marco Campana (vocals/synths and guitar, respectively) - recorded 'Ungrateful Heart' with Dutch producer and close collaborator Bob de Wit (A Place To Bury Strangers, Gnod, The Sonics). On the sessions, the intensity of which is mirrored in the fierce uncompromising attitude of the music itself, the band said: "Bob's contribution to this album was essential. He pushed us beyond our limits. It was difficult, we can't hide it, but it really was worth it." Although the album is still shot through with moments of lacerating noise-rock ('Mashilla' and 'Eat Acid See God'), songs like 'Love Me Do Again' and 'Bye Bye Boy' deal in a timeless hedonistic punk sound. Elsewhere, the politically charged 'Breath' and 'FYBBD' see The Gluts turn their sonic belligerence towards fascists and systemic racial violence to rallying effect. Standard LP is on Ultra-clear vinyl, standard sleeve

SHY, LOW are true masters of the exquisite craft of stark contrasts and broad dynamics, from delicate crescendos to the grandiose power of the riff_ a craft that lies at the heart of every outstanding instrumental rock record. The Richmond, Virginia based four-piece has made an absolutely incredible and epic album brimming with creativity, groove, heaviness and truly outstanding songwriting- a record that is intricate and mature, yet gloriously anthemic at the same time. The fantastic cinematic and (surprisingly, so) entirely self-produced first music video for the track ,Helioentropy", premiered at Roadburn Redux this year, was only a tastemaker for the 5th studio album and Pelagic debut, Snake Behind The Sun. Recorded, mixed and produced at Vudu Studios in Long Island, NY by Mike Watts (The Dillinger Escape Plan, GlassJaw, Hopesfall, Tides of Man), the album pulls from elements from previous eras of the band, but also pushes into new territory. The result is a slicker, more modern, layered and 3-dimensional sound. The album title is a metaphor for the notion that darkness and negativity can remain hidden even among seemingly positive forces and positive beings in one's life. As a matter of fact, the snake crawled out from behind the sun, while the band was in the studio recording the album: ,By week 3, there were talks of NY state locking down due to the rapid rise in Covid cases; with one day left before the lock down was alleged to go into effect, it became a mad dash to finish tracking the record so we could book it home to Richmond, Virginia", says bass player Drew Storcks. Though entirely instrumental, reducing the band's contemporary sound to the term ,post-rock" wouldn't do this record justice: there is much more to it than lengthy dramatic build-ups and bittersweet melodies played by delay-drenched guitars. Snake Behind the Sun is an astounding and immensely diverse record that will appeal to fans sitting on all ends of the broad spectrum of modern heavy rock music. Limited 2LP red single colour edition! FOR FANS OF PG.LOST, THIS WILL DESTROY YOU, CASPIAN, AND SO I WATCH YOU FROM AFAR, RUSSIAN CIRCLES, THRICE

‘Open Mouth, Open Heart’ is the Hopeless
Records debut from San Francisco-based punk
band Destroy Boys.

Identifying as majority female, non-binary,
LGBTQA+ and POC, Destroy Boys are known as a
band that uses their platform to be outspoken
advocates for myriad social justice issues,
especially when it comes to racial equality,
LGBTQA+ rights and inclusion for all.

The punk trio have been redefining West Coast
punk and have been embraced by TikTok to the
tune of 20 thousand user-made videos and over
3.5 million views.

In addition to having racked up over 60 million
streams, their music can be heard in 2020's Tony
Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 game and upcoming
campaigns for Fender and Starz' Hightown.

The band can currently be seen on Sad Summer
Festival, where they will be sharing the stage with
All Time Low, The Story So Far, The Maine,
Movements and Grayscale.

For fans of FIDLAR, Bikini Kill, Mannequin Pussy.

Summer was conceived as an entry point for Sonae to access and wrestle with difficult themes, to engage with them authentically, artfully, personally. It was also the starting point for a collaborative audio-visual project with video artist Jennifer Trees (the confronting multimedia installation that premiers in September 2021 at Stadtgarten, Cologne).

Summer articulates these ideas using the unique musical and sonic language that Sonae has been developing across previous releases. The expressive textures and tender melodics of 2015’s Far Away is Right Around the Corner; the atmospheric noise and brute unease of 2018’s I Started Wearing Black; the vicious edges of her 2019 remix-tape Music For People Who Shave Their Heads. Summer is haunted by blistered cellos and spectral string drones, the elegant and emotive movement around diatonic harmonies that echo the classicism and bucolic themes of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons (1775). Like Vivaldi, Sonae’s work is programmatic, presenting a progressive, intensifying narrative and suggesting aural phenomena of the natural world - buzzing insects, breaking rocks, waves crashing, dust and heat rising - and characterising the seasonal spirit as capricious, volatile and punishing. In these ways, Summer is related to pastoral traditions of European classicism, evoking the aura of doomed and dust-blown gothic grandiosity. It also has feet firmly planted within the lean, sound worlds of underground techno - pulsating four-on-the-floor beats with deep, vibrational sine-wave sub kicks; elegantly bleak, distorted atmospherics that straddle the uncanny space between corrosion and euphoria. The result is a visceral and poetic listening experience. Original, highly affecting, fully engaging body, mind and soul. (…)

Sonae’s music evokes imagination, provokes emotion, and disrupts and defies expectations. She explores the edges and intensities of experience, creating audible and embodied sensations that suggest the physical, atmospheric, and psychological effects of global warming on a living organism. We feel the fatigue, the slowness, sweatiness, dizziness, the sensations of uncomfortable warmth and burning; the atmospheres are hazy, dark and heavy, articulations are brutish and tactile, crunchy and sharp; there is restlessness and resignation, desolation and awe.

Summer is not a warning. It is not an explanation or an argument. It offers no answers. Summer simply holds up a mirror and asks us to experience and behold both the beauty and the brutality of our present reality. It is a work of protest, grief and hope, and it functions as a space for the listener to reckon with these truths and sensations for themselves. (Leah Kardos, London, June 2021)

Sonae (Sonia Güttler) is a German electronic producer and DJ, based in Cologne. Her acclaimed debut album was released in 2015 with Monika Enterprise (Berlin) followed on the same label with her second album in 2018 : ‘’I Started Wearing Black’’. Her Third album ‘’Music For People Who Shave Their Heads’’ has been released in 2019 with bit-phalanx (London).
Sonae plays live solo and with the label collective Monika Werkstatt at places like Institut Für Zukunft (Leipzig), Meakusma Festival (Eupen), Ausland (Berlin), Pop Kultur Festival (Berlin), Fusion Festival (Germany), Uh-Fest (Budapest), Cafe Oto (London), 23rpm Festival (London) The Cube (Bristol) and more on the same bill with Squarepusher, Plaid, Darkstar, Kyoka, Frank Bretschneider, Tim Exile.

She Drew The Gun are today announcing their return with new album Behave Myself. The follow-up to the critically acclaimed Revolution Of Mind, which was named among BBC 6 Music’s Albums Of The Year, is produced by Ross Orton (Arctic Monkeys, The Fall, The Kills, Working Men’s Club). The first music from the record is confirmed to arrive next month.

Under the moniker She Drew The Gun, songwriter Louisa Roach began by playing solo gigs around Liverpool, she quickly caught the attention of The Coral’s James Skelly who she began working with at Skeleton Key Records, recruiting band members along the way.

At first glance Roach’s fuzzy psych-pop may suggest that the Wirral born songwriter is another ‘Cosmic Scouser’ but then you’re drawn into the spirit of rebellion, songs that rally against injustice and food banks and celebrate outsiderdom.

She Drew The Gun are today announcing their return with new album Behave Myself. The follow-up to the critically acclaimed Revolution Of Mind, which was named among BBC 6 Music’s Albums Of The Year, is produced by Ross Orton (Arctic Monkeys, The Fall, The Kills, Working Men’s Club). The first music from the record is confirmed to arrive next month.

Under the moniker She Drew The Gun, songwriter Louisa Roach began by playing solo gigs around Liverpool, she quickly caught the attention of The Coral’s James Skelly who she began working with at Skeleton Key Records, recruiting band members along the way.

At first glance Roach’s fuzzy psych-pop may suggest that the Wirral born songwriter is another ‘Cosmic Scouser’ but then you’re drawn into the spirit of rebellion, songs that rally against injustice and food banks and celebrate outsiderdom.

The French electro genius returns to New Flesh Records. Author of a remarkable "Moving Corridors" contribution on the mighty "Elektro Diktators Vol.1 - The French Dissidents" compilation (New Flesh 15) back in 2015, dynArec delivers today on Umwelt's imprint four raw and dystopian slaughters calibrated for maximum impact on the dancefloor.

The title track signs a no nonsense aquatic electro/techno tune a la Drexciya, tinted with melancholic strings and heading Speak n' Spell samples. Pure madness! Cyberpunk "Correlation" goes harder, offering a pounding 4/4 song enhanced by appealing vocoder lyrics and deep synth flights while syncopated "Influoncers" coming next focuses on a more robotic, experimental yet unhealthy approach. Final cut "Clean It Up" concludes the EP on a machine funk note characterised by insane female vocals, distorted chords, relentless bassline and futuristic touch throughout.

Magnetic and emotional, forward thinking "Disenchanted EP" alternates in a minute between very melodic moments and epic hard techno sequences. With roots from both Germany and Detroit, this electro masterpiece sees dynArec in full effect, showing his unique sense of the dancefloor thanks to an incredible use of bass, rhythm and pads that makes the tracks effective and advanced at the same!

Maxed out and burning hot nasty, Electric Rag brings together the electric organs, electronics and alto sax of Jean-Luc Guionnet, with the closely amplified drums and percussion of Will Guthrie. After years of playing together in the minimalist pointillist free jazz noise core trio ‘The Ames Room’ (with Clayton Thomas on bass) Electric Rag offers up another point of view on a musical history of nearly 15 years of playing together. The 8 titles of Electric Rag draw on their various experience in electronic music, free improvisation and experimental sound research, however the music is deeply rooted in their love of jazz, in its most potent, aggressive and antisocial form.

Nantais by adoption, the Australian Will Guthrie is a discreet star of the international scene of free, experimental and improvised music; over the past fteen years, he has developed an open and personal approach to drums and percussion, skillfully blurring the lines between his brilliant jazz upbringing, his passion for traditional musics, and his inexhaustible interest in experimental and noise creation, with a pronounced taste for a physical and raw approach to sound. With thousands of performances and some fty albums to his credit, the Australian regularly dispenses his vibratory art solo or alongside the best of improvisation; From Oren Ambarchi to Roscoe Mitchell via Jérôme Noetinger, Anthony Pateras, David Maranha, Ava Mendoza, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Keith Rowe or even Mark Fell. In recent months Guthrie has performed with Tunisian singer Ghassen Chiba, toured as part of “All Around”, a performance with Danish dancer choreographer Mette Ingvarsten and founded the Ensemble Nist-Nah, a gamelan orchestra, in the company of eight other percussionists, out of which Black Truf e published an album, with a second on the way. He also found the time to put in shape a second volume of “People Pleaser”, a discographic act between an autographical assessment, the parenthesis and the musical UFO. A singular exercise in Guthrie's discography, “People Pleaser”, a series initiated in 2017, sees the Australian partially put down his drumsticks and wear a producer cap for a result offering a resolutely singular perspective of / on his work with a very personal dimension. On the rst volume, with a cover signed Stephen O'Malley sets the tone by diverting the chamaré Warhol infulenced visual of the album “Unit Structures” by Cecil Taylor. The portrait of the free jazz pianist has been replaced by passport photos of Guthrie. The result is a diversion into a fairly “Pop” aesthetic whose musical content works in a fairly similar way. Four years later, the cover art's undertones are slightly darker and Guthrie hasn't aged a bit on his new passport photo. The twelve tracks of this second “People Pleaser” combine and arrange eld recordings, heady loops, twists, musical quotes stuck on bedside records, recorded moments captured during travels, ghosty voices from low- lands, a police interview tape and imagined exotic sounds ... Guthrie could walk us for hours on his hard drive like looking at a photo album but he chose to build pieces based on this very personal sound material, much like a mixtape, with special care given to how sounds articulate, overlap and collide. He thus invites his heroes and his friends to join him in skilfully chiseled and nely edited imaginary jams. The rst to take pleasure in this “People Pleaser” is undoubtedly its author as some of his nds are enjoyably playful; we are there embarked in an addictive sound patchwork at high speed where a Balinese Squarepusher is propelled via a defective cathode ray tube in a temple where the happy marriage of the saxophone and the gong is celebrated before this too short respite is interrupted by a sustained hip hop rhythm. The multiplicity and variety of sources give the whole a very pop format and the way in which Guthrie combines sounds, textures, rhythms and vocal elements quickly takes on a narrative dimension and poses this exercise between hip hop and a very personal plunderphonic, evoking as much J Dilla or RZA as the irreverent inventiveness of People Like Us or Wobbly. Will Guthrie has never been in as good company as on a solo album, he also lists on the cover the list of friends, heroes, members of his family and countries who inspired him and to whom he pays homage / collage on this new disc; An aesthetic exercise apart in his discography, both in nitely personal and self-centered and resolutely turned towards what animates him, the aptly named “People Pleaser” reveals the music DNA of the Australian and can be listened to on repeat.