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Repress on white vinyl!


In the 4 years after The Clipse dropped their sophomore classic Lord Willin’ the duo
was able to build a legacy that had fans hungry for new material. After the smoke
cleared and they hit the studio the Virginia brothers recorded the confidently mature
sophomore effort, Hell Hath No Fury. Best known for their unconventional radio
smash “Grindin’,” Clipse are no strangers to taking risks with the boundary-pushing
Neptunes, who return as trusted co-pilots for Hell Hath No Fury. As always the duo
is right at home over The Neptunes crafted beats which perfectly embrace Pusha’s
inventive drug-game metaphors and Malice’s soul-baring confessionals.
From the bouncy lead single “Mr. Me Too” and the Slim Thug assisted “Wamp
Wamp” to the oddly haunting "Keys Open Doors" to "Momma I'm Sorry", Hell Hath
No Fury represents some of the duo’s best work. On the hypnotic “Keys Open
Doors,” over the eerie mix of screwed-up angelic voices, chimes and congas, the
brothers run circles around the competition, while the spine-tingling boom-bap of
“Ride Around Shining” sets the stage for Pusha’s hilarious boasts. Whether rhyming
over distorted, lo-fi guitar plucks (“Dirty Money”) or overblown 808s (“Trill”), the
brothers come with colorful references and inventive word play that easily places
them in a lyrical class of their own. Get On Down now proudly issues this Neptunes
produced favorite on LP for the first time ever with the first run on white vinyl.

Der Soundtrack zum packenden Dokumentarfilm ”Billie” (Kinostart 24.12) , der mit seltenem Archivmaterial und Interviews das dramatische Leben von Billie Holiday nacherzählt.
”Billie” entstand unter der Regie von James Erskine, auf dessen Konto unter anderem die Emmy-nominierte BBC-Dokumentation ”The Human Face” geht. ”Billie” erkundet Leben und die Karriere der legendären Sängerin auf der Basis von rarem Filmmaterial (zum Teil erstmals koloriert) und Interviews mit Künstlerkollegen wie Charles Mingus, Tony Bennett und Count Basie, sowie mit Holiday’s Stiefeltern, Lebenspartnern, Schulfreunden, Gefängniskameraden, Anwälten und sogar den FBI-Agenten, die sie einmal verhaftet haben.
”Billie” kommt in Deutschland am 24. Dezember ins Kino, bereits am 13. November erscheint das Soundtrack-Album, das die wichtigsten und schönsten Songs aus dem Werk Billie Holidays versammelt.

Waxwork Records is proud to present the Us Original Motion Picture Soundtrack featuring a score by composer Michael Abels. Us, released in March 2019, is an original nightmare written, directed and produced by Academy Awardr-winning visionary Jordan Peele (Get Out). Set in present day Santa Cruz on the iconic Northern California coastline, the film, starring Oscarr winner Lupita Nyong'o and Black Panther's Winston Duke, pits an ordinary American family against a terrifying and uncanny opponent: doppelgängers of themselves. A blockbuster that earned raves from critics and audiences alike, Us earned more than $250 million at the worldwide box office to become one the highest grossing R-rated horror films of all time, buoyed by an unexpected and innovative soundtrack and by a groundbreaking, terrifying original score by Abels. Us marks the second collaboration between composer Abels and Peele, who first worked together on Peele's 2017 Oscar-winning horror film, Get Out. For the Us score, Abels explored themes of duality and discord. "Sonically, what defines 'scary' is the unfamiliar," Abels says. "It is the things that we can't place, and that we don't expect, that take us to that place of fear. We wanted to really strike terror into the audience." Central to the score was the opening track, an anthem for the doppelgängers, known in the film as The Tethered. Abels hit on the idea of using choral elements. "Jordan really loves the sounds of voices, and the human voice is an incredibly expressive instrument that anyone can relate to," Abels says. "The anthem sounds a little like a march of people preparing for battle, like an uprising maybe, but the sounds are not in a recognizable language. In other parts of the film there are vocal effects, just these strange sounds. They're designed to really freak people out." Abels featured a 30 person choir, a third of them children, in the "Anthem," and implemented Eastern European instruments, violins, percussion and a virtual instrument called a Propanium drum. "It makes this trashy metal sound, but you can also play melodies on it," Abels said. "The Propanium drum has a sound that's both otherworldly but not electronic or like science fiction. It's a sound you can't quite put your finger on, which is why it works well in this film." Also included on the soundtrack is the 1995 hip-hop hit "I Got 5 On It" by Luniz and the stand-out track "I Like That" by Janelle Monáe. Abels also helped with a new arrangement of the Luniz hit, which is featured on the soundtrack as the 'Tethered Mix from Us'.



































[xi] 35 I GOT 5 ON IT (FEAT. MICHAEL MARSHALL) [TETHERED MIX FROM US] - LUNIZ

Behold! Yes, Blue Butterfly, one of the absolute stunners on the revered Selected Sound, is finally available for all the beat-heads. Heavyweight library funk with a psychedelic touch, the super in-demand Blue Butterfly from *deep breath* Hardy's Jet Band, Orchestra Klaus Wuesthoff, Jan Troysen Band and Orchestra Gary Pacific - was originally released in 1971. Incredibly ahead of its time, it's been rare and sought-after for decades.

For many aficionados, this is the best Selected Sound release. Loaded with fuzzy wah-wah guitar, deep flute-lines atop soulful psych-rock breakbeats and huge organ action, its uncompromising funk will blow you away. Sampled for many hip hop beats and dropped by well known rare groove DJs around the world, one jewel in particular from this glorious German vault needs little introduction. The intro to Orchestra Gary Pacific's mesmeric "Soft Wind" rides the illest, crispest drum break you've perhaps never heard - like, the drum break to end them all - alongside a smooth, deep bass line from the heavens. It featured notoriously on the beloved Dusty Fingers comps of the 90s and was brilliantly sampled by Pacewon for his eternal "Sunroof Top". Just listen and be dazzled.

Beyond this mini-masterpiece, the other killer tracks offer brilliance in abundance. Hardy's Jet Band take control of the full A side, and it's full of dynamic psych-funk bombs. Hard, "big city" industrial groovers. In particular, the initial one-two of "Sorry, Doc!" and "Wind It Up" provide thrilling funky-blues rock instrumentals showcasing relentless guitars, flutes, sax and organ, the latter containing gorgeous, hypnotic breakdowns; these tracks just slay. The title track, "Blue Butterfly" is a real deep strut of a track with fantastic soloing from guitar and flute over crisp drums whilst the highway banger "What You Call To Be Free" certainly sounds a lot like unbridled, rhythmical liberty.

On the flip, the ghost-riding "Lady In Space" is a string-drenched acid-western foxtrot. Yep. “Pop Happening” by Jan Troysen Band is a heavy, druggy psych-fuzz organ groover whilst their slow beat-organ-flute gem "A Blue Message" is a gorgeous psych floater conjuring deeply strange frontier lands. Preceding their monster "Soft Wind", the soulful, uptempo groover “Ghetto Gap” by Orchestra Gary Pacific contains solo piano and flute whilst closing out the set is the free-and-easy samba beat of "So Far".

Founded in the late 60s by German composer and musician Klaus Netzle (who recorded under the alias Claude Larson for Sonoton) Selected Sound began as a production music company specialising in jazz, orchestral and electronic recordings. You can’t miss those early LPs in their iconic glossy metallic copper sleeves with minimal German typography. Serious, classy stuff.

The audio for Blue Butterfly has been remastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis whilst Richard Robinson has handled reproducing the glossy metallic (iconic) original Selected Sound sleeve. Essential.

Perth-based artistic hub 823, led by producer / creator-extraordinaire Taku, joins forces with producers Idealism & Lucid Green for “Undone,” a genre-melting LP that bridges sonic comfort, textured tones and lush timbres into one serene, 10 track experience. LP arriving February 3rd, 2023 via 823 x Jakarta Records.

Finnish-born producer and pianist Idealism (1.5mil Spotify Monthly Listeners - SML) and French transplant Lucid Green (568k SML) are no strangers to each other’s subtle, yet potent productions. Having worked together on a number of past releases, their upcoming, fully collaborative LP “Undone” is a natural journey into the beautiful ambient, downtempo, lo-fi worlds they’ve each created. Through visits to Lucid’s flat in Paris and ideas being exchanged remotely, the duo experimented with different sounds, instruments and aural environments, in the process crafting a natural partnership that sits in a comfortable, melancholic pocket. With lulling guitar and poignant piano progressions that provide a pillow to rest your ears, and downtempo percussions that keeps you ebbing and flowing along on a subtle current, unsure where one wave ends and the next begins, only the albums progressions dictate the head-nod. Featuring the likes of Yutaka Hirasaka (220k SML) and Charlie Kurata (aka Charlie – 200k SML; Duumu – 109k SML), the album soars, reminiscent of life’s simple, yet wholly memorable moments that bring you a nostalgic pause.
As with all 823 releases, the project is a visual one as much as it is a musical project. The first singles visualizers are a fusion of Hopes & Dreams Club & 823’s design aesthetics with personal super8 footage captured by Idealism & Lucid Green, beautifully expressed from Hopes & Dreams Club member Mindi Ossi. Each visualizer and single art will easily stand on its own, transporting you to worlds familiar, yet undeniably groovy and sonically comfortable.
823 is a multifaceted Perth-based record label, fashion brand, and artistic community, founded by Australian producer and all-around creative, Ta-ku (852k SML). With an astute attention to detail and an ethos that appreciates the everyday things in life, 823 doesn’t stick to any particular genre. Past 823 releases include “So Far To Go” EP via Cabu (753k SML), Ta-ku and matt mcwaters’s duo project “Black and White,” featuring Masego collaboration “Flight 99” (17mil streams on Spotify), the “All Things Considered” compilations, a curated, collaborative series featuring both budding and wellestablished artists around the world and have included Idealism, Wun Two, pastels, L.Dre, Flobama, SwuM, Jinsang, Tenderlonious, among a host of others, as well as multiple sold out clothing capsules.

We are excited to welcome French avant-garde metal duo WuW to our ever-expanding roster of for- ward-thinking artists. Inspired by classical music, free jazz and drone the two classically trained brothers Benjamin and Guillaume Colin have been creating lo-f experimental post-doom epics in the vein of Year of No Light, Dirge and Omega Massif since 2016. "WuW is the sound wind makes when it blows on a hot night," explains the band, "It's a low-end murmur that grabs you by the guts, a blast of air rushing through the mountains and the oceans." Their upcoming third album Orchaostre is an anthem to a restless journey, a fve-part doom symphony that creates a shroud of oppressive atmospheres with only a pinch of light. With their third studio album, WuW deliver a veritable post-metal odyssey, one that takes you on a journey through rhythm and texture and that lets your soul wallow in a soft shell of desolation. The marching rhythm of «Orchaostre 1» and the swaying rhythm with the slow chugging patterns of «Orchaostre 2» take you along on this intric- ate journey, slowly numbing the senses in the throes of repetition. Nevertheless, for those who manage to keep their eyes peeled on this descend into forgetfulness, there is a world of beauty and a spark of hope to be found. The atmosphere is thick, the mood is heavy, and across the slow rifs and funerary drumbeats, the wailing e-bow guitars and myriad of synthesisers evoke kafkaesque at- mospheres as well as strange poignant textures that inspire desolation. Evoking the work of early electronic music innovators, notably during the climactic fnale of «Orchaostre 1» but also halfway through «Orchaostre 3» WuW breed a sense of pristine beauty, like unadulterated nature. In fact, the beauty of Orchaostre feels so un- spoilt, so devoid of any human infuence, it becomes alien, resulting in a harrowing ex- perience of the exquisite in the eye of a hot and hazy storm. FOR FANS OF Russian Circles, Year of No Light, Dirge, Omega Massif, Neurosis, Telepathy, Celeste, Tangled Thoughts of Leaving Limited (100 copies ww) Single Colour Orchaostre 4 (Pink Vinyl) Edition!

Hailed by The Guardian as “the hopeful new voice of her super-sad generation” Arlo Parks released her second track in January 2019. At the time of release Arlo told Clash Magazine: "When I look at my generation I see a kaleidoscope of dejection, passion and anxiety – there’s this strange mix of sadness and intimacy that saturates Generation Z. 'Super Sad Generation' was inspired by the time my friends and I sat on the green at sunset, half wine drunk and ugly crying for no reason in particular."

Lifted from the Super Sad Generation EP ‘Paperbacks’ took its inspiration from Space Song by Beach House and Changeling by DJ Shadow.

"The British songwriter captures the specifics of being young and messed up like no-one else" - Noisey

As one of the three co-founders of Washington D.C. production and DJ trio Black Rave Culture, James Bangura is no stranger to situating electronic music within its most purposeful and potent contexts. With this new duo of tracks, however, Bangura taps into a deep, personal internality, metabolising visceral experiences and personal transitions into unexplored phases of his musical life.

The bass-forward “Harrar” is a complex organism which operates on two planes: a sweat-drenched 150pm symphony of synth pulses, fidgety percussion, shimmies and distorted vocals, that falls into lockstep with a
meditative, dubby bass tone that calmly swells and recedes. Emerging out of Bangura’s high intensity hardware jam sessions with friends and collaborators, both the depth and energetic fizz of “Harrar”’ are signified by its name, borrowed from Harrar Coffee & Roastery--a beloved Ethiopian coffee house and community meeting place in Washington D.C. that radiates warmth and familiarity.

“Witness Dub” occupies less of the senses, exploring a state of liminality through a contemplative deep house signature. Having emerged from an extended period of active duty in the military, Bangura had to navigate civilian life for the first time, causing him to process multiple culture shocks that stretched across culture, language, communication and identity. “Witness Dub” finds Bangura at this crossroad, juxtaposing the steady propulsion of kicks and drums with pensive minor key chords, as he begins to explore the other side of the self, letting the energy guide the music.

The last album of Dead Cat In a Bag on vinyl! 180g + downloadcode.

"Do you know it? Ennio Morricone, Nick Cave, Mark Lanegan, Tom Waits and Zach Condon walk into the bar, and there are all the seats occupied by the Dead Cat In A Bag musicians. Really." - this is how Jarek Szubrycht started the review of the last album of the Italian group Dead Cat In Bag in Gazeta Wyborcza. And he was right. Really.
Yes! Dead Cat In A Bag is back! They are back with a new album "We've Been Through".

After exploring several so called Neo-Folk regions, flirting with Folk Noir, mostly with Traditional Folk in a modern perspective, for example Americana to Tex-Mex and Balkan Music to Alternative Country, on this third record the ensemble drifts to a cinematic landscape, focusing on the theme of overcoming.

We've Been Through puts together World Music elements incorporating an almost soundtrack experience for a journey into both Day and Night, Hope and Disillusionment and telling stories of broken romances and shipwrecks.

Utilizing banjo and theatrical vocal delivery, together with with classic and odd instruments, the band remap the original charts but still set sail the desired destinations. And if, about the previous records, critics were prone to recall the prowess of Waits, Cave, Lanegan, Cash and Tindersticks, this time it will be harder to name the grandfathers.
Now there is a Morricone (or was it Badalamenti?) guiding spirit and a dreamlike universe full of memories, from the dry electric blues of a stream of consciousness duet in Duet For Nothing to the unexpected crooning vocals provided by Liam McKahey (CousetauX) in Lost Friends (a banjo droven dirge dealing with electronics and a bassoon, with steal percussions and a music saw for a frame), from the rendition of the traditional Wayfaring Stranger, balancing between electric guitars and Bluegrass, to the intimate cover of Leonard Cohen's Hunter's Lullaby, from the rock-(swamp)blues of The Cat Is Dead (enriched by Italian bass hero Gianni Maroccolo, from Litfiba and C.S.I.) to the soft meloncholy of the string quartet in Between Day And Night, from the dark cabaret of Fiddler, The Ship Is Sinking to the soft porch song, between Willard Grant Conspiracy and Kris Kristofferson, of the final title track.
You can hear a shrawn and a blues harp, whispers and choirs, love and dudgeon as the record goes. This is the sound of an orchestra playing on a sinking ship: what else could a fiddler do? And what can we do, in the end?

1000 black vinyl LPs. London-based ‘indie-supergroup’ SUEP announce their long-awaited debut mini-album Shop, a collection of 6 oddball, car-boot-sale pop songs with a sprinkling of theatrical storytelling. Led by Georgie Stott (of Porridge Radio, Garden Centre) and Josh Harvey, SUEP was born out of a near-decade of playing in sheds and barns with like minded personnel, holding a mutual love for Paul McCartney, Jona Lewie, the B-52s, Devo and other performative freaks enjoying themselves. Following a move to London from Brighton, the pair added George Nicholls (The GN Band, Joanna Gruesome, The Tubs), Will William Deacon (PC World, Garden Centre), and Ollie Chapman (Boil King) to the line-up. The 5 piece take turns writing songs and taking the lead vocal duties in a wonderfully playful but coherent collaboration, with their debut being a kaleidoscopic off kilter pop ride, taking the listener through haunted castles, deprived encounters, days lost to the imagination in bed, and through the integral friendships that give SUEP the energy to keep dancing to their own beat. The album was arranged and recorded in the Red Lion Boys Club, an ex-youth centre in which Georgie and Josh both lived. Using equipment collected by Josh in his travels as a bootsale and market trader, the sports hall was transformed into a makeshift studio for a few days, with sessions conducted by producer Matthew Green (Sniffany & The Nits, The Tubs, etc.) Mark Riley (BBC 6 Music) described SUEP’s debut single and album opener, ‘Domesticated Dream’ (2021) as “perfect pop music.” The joyfully kitsch track brims with a 70s Yamaha disco beat, deep bass, nostalgic drum machines, and hooky melodies. Possibly the most psychedelic and infectious track born out of lockdown, it tackles homelife, drinking too much, and making big plans that never come to fruition, but with a big technicoloured positivity for the future of the human-race, with the chorus’ refrain, “the psychedelic 4000s,” predicting the return of the psychedelic Age of Aquarius in a couple of millennia time. The following single ‘Misery’ (2021) is pure cosmic swing-pop wizardry in part inspired by spy music and The Supremes. Ollie, The track’s baritone vocalist, describes it as “A love song disguised as a song about loss. It's about cherishing the things that matter but it’s also about having the courage to say goodbye,” with each line of the song a small story about a different character. Whilst latest Shop taster ‘In Good Health’ is darkly euphoric like a pleasantly strange meeting of Siouxsie Sioux and Jona Lewie. It’s a playfully discombobulating mix of 80s jangly guitar, chirpy keyboard and moody post-punk tackling mental health, drug addiction, and the power of friendship, written after the song’s vocalist Georgie came out of hospital following a mental health crisis. “I wanted to write a song that encapsulated how important my relationships with my friends and boyfriend were at that time” she explains “…and one that also felt dark like I did at the time. I couldn’t go outside due to anxiety surrounding my health so I stayed inside for weeks. People would visit and watch films with me or let me tattoo them or make music with me. My community helped me recover.” Elsewhere on Shop is ‘Just The Job’ fronted by Harvey and described by him as “About the relief of accepting a menial existence, and allowing life to be boring - but (within that) how the small things are the important ones, how pulling a sicky or extra long lunch break are important things to do for yourself. It’s an anthem for working people who’ve had enough - and a crowd favourite at SUEP gigs. The darker undertones and post-punk angles of the Georgie-fronted ‘Onions’ is inspired by the crapness of cliques, with the band calling the song “A cry of welcome to all;” and finally the hooky ‘Friend of Mine,’ described as “A love letter to all the people that come and go throughout your life no matter how long you know them”. SUEP have received coverage in Independent & Clash, (among many others), with big support from Mark Riley and Steve Lamacq (BBC 6 Music) for early singles.

• Bunny Lee was the first to actually use reggae in the title of a record with ‘It’s Reggae Time’ Striker’s propensity for creating hit records during this period was unmatched and he was awarded the prestigious “title of Jamaican Producer Of The Year in 1969, 1970, 1971 & 1972” the years covered by this new Boss Reggae focused compilation.
• Striker’s complete mastery of the new reggae rhythms and “versioning them over” are showcased on this release with the emphasis placed on the outstanding contribution of the cream of Kingston’s session musicians

Red Vinyl

Breaking from the strange monotony and abnormal norms that took hold during two years of pandemic life, Hammock returns with Love in the Void , an album that looks to the future, seizes the present, and unabashedly relishes the experiences and bonds that bring meaning to our days. Known for crafting orchestral works of stirring cinematic ambience, on Love in the Void the Nashville-based duo of Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson bring guitar-forward, heart-pounding urgency to songs that shout through and shatter the static of complacency. Since forming as Hammock in 2003, Byrd and Thompson have released 14 critically-acclaimed albums, and are renowned for their unique talent for bringing inexpressible emotion to life. The Covid-19 pandemic followed closely after one of Hammock's career-defining works, the Mysterium, Universalis, and Silencia trilogy that chronicled the incomprehensible loss of Byrd's 20-year- old nephew. At their homes and apart, Byrd and Thompson then recorded Elsewhere, an album of shimmering ambience that channeled alienated longing and displacement into avenues that gave way to worlds and possibilities yet realized. Shaken awake and needing to break free of frustrations and longings, Love in the Void pulses with an unbridled spirit for action and experience and a burning desire for connection Across songs that hammer home the keenly felt emotions of life's highs and lows, Byrd and Thompson crest soaring crescendos awash in reverb and delve to keenly felt moments of quiet introspection, with unflinching lyrics on tracks like "Undoing" and "Denial of Endings'' that weigh choices made and circumstances that can't be changed. Lush and dramatic string orchestration from Matt Kidd (Slow Meadow) and emphatic drumming from Jake Finch heighten the stakes in play, and Christine Byrd's (Lumenette) ethereal vocals leave mysteries lingering in the haze. Love in the Void is Hammock's loudest album to date, embracing daring and vulnerability with palpable vitality at its core, and moving into an unknown future without fear.

The Florence, SC-based multi-instrumentalist Alex Melton, known for his renditions of Punk Songs as country influenced songs on YouTube, has announced his new album 'Southern Charm'. The record, which is out 23rd January 2023, is Alex's debut album on label Pure Noise Records. Southern Charm is made up of two halves, amped-up versions of country classics and Alex's trademark alternative spin on punk and metal tracks. The album synthesizes all of Melton’s influences, from the country staples played on a loop in his childhood home through scene icons like blink-182, The Starting Line, A Day to Remember and Four Year Strong. In the first half of Southern Charm it includes covers of Tim McGraw’s nostalgic “Something Like That” (ft. Ryan Scott Graham) and Garth Brooks’ “Friends In Low Places'' the second half offerings come from The Story So Far, The Amity Affliction and Stick To Your Guns. Proficient on drums, guitar, bass, keyboards, and trumpet, Melton typically produces all of his YouTube covers at his home studio, a testament to his insatiable desire for knowledge and self-improvement – and a snapshot of how far he’s come as an artist and recording engineer throughout the years. “All of the technology has changed so much since I first started,” he says, noting his first video was a pop-punk cover of Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” “I started with a Home Recording for Dummies book and an original GoPro, which at the time was the cheapest way to get HD footage on YouTube.” Now armed with vastly more knowledge and resources, Southern Charm finds him working with outside producers for the first time, bringing in Tom Denney (A Day to Remember, who helmed the rock-based country covers) and Alan Day (Four Year Strong, who produced the country-based rock songs) to offer new perspective and add a level of vision and cohesion to the project.

BABILBON is the fusion between Babylon and Bilbo. A collective of musicians with experience in other bands from Bilbao with the idea of bringing a modern twist to the old Jamaican rhythms, fusing them with dancehall and hip-hop rhythms without any pretension of sounding purist, and also lending the microphone to 10 artists from Bilbo and "surroundings": Bite Akatz, Suprah, Mad Muasel, Xatiro, Belardi Rockers, Gatom, Ras Reguilón & Daka, Fundación de Raperos Atípicos de Cádiz, Inés Pardo and Priteo. Their eponymous debut album (called 10 Beats and Riddims Basque Label) was recorded at Mamba Beltza studios in the Iturralde neighborhood of Bilbao, with the aim of thundering in all the sound-systems of the great Babylon. For the purpose, the band gives the microphone to 10 vocalists from Bilbo and "surroundings" to the delight of locals and strangers. The selection is of bells and whistles, but behind the rhythmic recitation of rhymes, puns, breaks and Jamaican riddims, there is a solid and versatile band that, adapting to the guests, builds a homogeneous sound around the Babylonian assortment of languages, dialects, accents, textures, styles, personalities, moods, cultures and subcultures.

With One Day, Fucked Up have delivered one of the most energizing and intricate albums of their career, a massive-sounding record that arrives in deceptively small confines. The Canadian hardcore legends have been known for their epic scale in the past, so it might be a surprise that Fucked Up’s sixth studio album is their shortest to date, written and recorded in the confines of one literal day (hence the title). Don’t mistake size for substance, though: The band’s sound has only gotten bigger, more hard-charging, with even denser thickets of melody. “I wanted to see what I could record in literally one day.” That singular idea came to mind for guitarist Mike Haliechuk in the closing months of 2019. Haliechuk got himself into a studio and proceeded to write and record the record’s ten tracks over three eight-hour sessions, reconnecting with the core the band’s songwriting essence in the process. Initially, Fucked Up vocalist Damian Abraham was also set to complete his vocals in similar fashion—that is, before the lockdowns of 2020 took place. As it turns out, the isolation yielded creative dividends, as Abraham returned to contributing lyrics as well for the first time since 2014’s Glass Boys. “It almost felt like it might be the last time I’d ever get to record vocals for anything,” Abraham says of the stakes he felt while putting his part to tape, before reflecting on how he approached the lyrical process: “What do I want to say to friends who aren’t here anymore? What do I want to say to myself?” Over swarms of tuneful noise that evoke Sonic Youth circa Daydream Nation, Abraham lets loose on gentrification in “Lords of Kensington,” which was inspired by an “incredible” Toronto neighborhood that was regularly subject to life-ruining police surveillance and structural violence. “The police chief during that era he just opened a cannabis store,” Abraham explains. “It’s so cynical and gross, what society has come to but by being in a band, we’re culpable in changing the neighborhood, too, since the punk spaces and cool happenings that pop up are part of gentrification. Are you building a culture? Or are you ruining something that’s already been there?” Then there’s the dusky burn of “Cicada,” a sonic cousin to Dose Your Dreams’ excellent standout “The One I Want Will Come for Me” that features Haliechuk taking lead-vocal duty. The song is dedicated to lost friends, and in his words, it’s about “what life is like after you lose people, and our responsibility to carry them forward into the future, using the things they taught us as a light. I like to imagine the sound of cicadas as a metaphor for our strange life in the subculture we all just live these weird little hidden lives under the dirt, and then once in a generation, one of us gets to bust out of the dirt and intone their song so loud that it can be heard all over.” One Day is an undeniable work of confidence from a band that continues to operate at the top of their game, making music that’s guaranteed to last a lifetime and beyond.

One of our all-time favourite artists and extended Circus Company member The Mole returns to the label for a proper presentation of his album The River Widens. Originally a limited, cassette-only release via fellow Canadian Eddie C’s Red Motorbike, we are proud to offer this album in its full glory for the first time on all formats.
Never one to shy away from synth deep dives, or raw sample flip collaging, this collection of 21 works checks all the boxes. Ambient trippers to straight up neck-snapping instrumental beats. Not forgetting tastes of the more uptempo, highly-assured and hypnotic dance floor feels the world has come to love The Mole for. Moments of casual chillin are interspersed with effortless, emotive angles, some evoking the charm of his Little Sunshine release for us in 2017.

X-pert Profat opens the set with sly statements that give way to relaxed and subtle keys over gentle, midtempo rhythms. Things switch up nicely into easy, Northwest Coast boogie-meets-beatdown feels inBreak For Ma, followed by a solid array of almost Jaylib-schooled boom bap twists, like the aptly-titled Drums 2002 and Jo Barker. Ambient cuts like AR Dayand New Family offer a refreshing tap of the brakes, setting the scene for the gorgeous, Jarre-esque Weak Stranger. We also get treated to Repepepater’s nod to Detroit house, urban-mode Balearic feels on They Work For Mr. O, and sneak
attack lo-fi future funk in the form of UFOs Over Egypt, with Montreal co-pilot Cristobal on a wild shisha-lit vox narrative, earlier versions of which have blessed many of our label comrades’ DJ sets, from Dave Aju to Vincent Lemieux.
The River Widens expands beautifully on the breadth of unique musical directions The Mole is capable of taking us in, now spread across fresh 2x12” vinyl and available digitally for the first time, along with another limited edition cassette run - we hope you enjoy the ride as much as we do!

The increasingly vital Jorkes makes a big step up to the acclaimed Live at Robert Johnson label with her standout Sweet Dreams EP. As with all Jorkes EPs, the artwork features photography shot by Daniel Rajcsanyi.

Jorkes has been making big and bold moves recently. She is the co-founder of the unique Freeride Millenium label which is a hotbed for queer dance music. German-born but Austria based, she has an influential residency at Radio 80000 alongside ParisBöhm and is a resident at Stuttgart's Romantica where she plays a thrilling mix of disco, house, techno and everything in between. She is someone who always serves to highlight the importance of the dance floor as a place of sexual and cultural liberation and this new EP is another innovative statement that comes as she rides a wave of high profile radio, DJ and media support for recent outings on her own label.

Opener 'You Will be Mine' is a song about obsessing after an unattainable stranger on the dance floor who disappears into the night. It's a silky disco house sound with chords that sing and a floating bassline that lifts you off your feet. The melodic motifs bring charm and cosmic energy and the whole track has a lush, musical feel. The equally excellent 'Robot Lover' muses on human detachment in this technological era of internet porn, dating apps and screen obsessions and how a robotic lover might be a better fit than a real life partner. It is another elastic and disco-tinged rhythm, with elegant chords and dancing keys over a suspensory bassline. Intimate vocal whispers bring tenderness to this timeless track.

On the flip side, 'Sweet Dreams' layers up infectious claps and tinny percussion over an irresistible deep house groove. It's a widescreen, symphonic sound that brings very real but subtle joy and closer 'CDEvaLo' is the name of a crossdressing male-to-female and sex-worker friend of Jorkes. She sings the introduction lyrics in Greek and they translate as "It was a very beautiful day, while we were sitting at the park we thought of going out for a coffee and realized we have no money and are absolutely broke. So we discussed about who is gonna put the wig on to "go and make a visit“ Greek slang for sex work so we'll have money again." It is a comment on the number of young people who arrived in Athens over the years to do cross-dressing sex work after being kicked out by their Orthodox Christian homes. The track flips the script with a more playful disco sound, characterful vocoder vocals and glossy synths over a jacked house beat.

This is an expansive EP that shows off the different sides to Jorkes's unique sound.

ATROCITY sind mit aller Macht zurück: "OKKULT III" markiert das furiose Finale der "OKKULT" Album-Trilogie und ist gespickt mit brutalen Death Metal-Granaten! Sich ins Hirn schneidende Metal-Riffs, brutale Drumattacken und bitterböse Death Metal Vocals ergeben eine Vollbedienung in Sachen deutscher Metal Todeskunst! Freut euch auf ein Album mit gnadenlosen Nackenbrechern und grandiosen Death Metal Krachern!

Schon der Chart-Breaker "OKKULT II" begeisterte die ATROCITY Fangemeinde und die Metal-Presse gleichermaßen mit packenden Death Metal Songs, die unter die Haut gehen.
Mit "OKKULT III" werden ATROCITY ihre Fanschar endgültig zur Ekstase bringen: Sich ins Hirn schneidende Metal-Riffs, brutale Drumattacken und bitterböse Death Metal Vocals ergeben eine Vollbedienung in Sachen deutscher Metal Todeskunst!
Als Gastsänger sind Elina Siirala (Leaves' Eyes), Zoë Marie Federoff (Catalyst Crime, Cradle Of Filth) und Robse Dahn (Equilibrium) auf dem Album vertreten.
"OKKULT III" ist der krönende Abschluss der "OKKULT"-Trilogie und ein Meisterwerk deutschen Todesmetalls!

- Produziert, gemischt und gemastert von Alexander Krull im Mastersound Studio (Leaves' Eyes, Doro, End Of Green, Belphegor etc.)
- Coverartwork von Stefan Heilemann / HEILEMANIA.
- Soundeffekte von der mit dem Emmy Award ausgezeichneten Sounddesignerin Katie Halliday ("SAW", "Stranger Things", "The Strain", "Star Trek: Discovery" etc.)

ATROCITY sind mit aller Macht zurück: "OKKULT III" markiert das furiose Finale der "OKKULT" Album-Trilogie und ist gespickt mit brutalen Death Metal-Granaten! Sich ins Hirn schneidende Metal-Riffs, brutale Drumattacken und bitterböse Death Metal Vocals ergeben eine Vollbedienung in Sachen deutscher Metal Todeskunst! Freut euch auf ein Album mit gnadenlosen Nackenbrechern und grandiosen Death Metal Krachern!

Schon der Chart-Breaker "OKKULT II" begeisterte die ATROCITY Fangemeinde und die Metal-Presse gleichermaßen mit packenden Death Metal Songs, die unter die Haut gehen.
Mit "OKKULT III" werden ATROCITY ihre Fanschar endgültig zur Ekstase bringen: Sich ins Hirn schneidende Metal-Riffs, brutale Drumattacken und bitterböse Death Metal Vocals ergeben eine Vollbedienung in Sachen deutscher Metal Todeskunst!
Als Gastsänger sind Elina Siirala (Leaves' Eyes), Zoë Marie Federoff (Catalyst Crime, Cradle Of Filth) und Robse Dahn (Equilibrium) auf dem Album vertreten.
"OKKULT III" ist der krönende Abschluss der "OKKULT"-Trilogie und ein Meisterwerk deutschen Todesmetalls!

- Produziert, gemischt und gemastert von Alexander Krull im Mastersound Studio (Leaves' Eyes, Doro, End Of Green, Belphegor etc.)
- Coverartwork von Stefan Heilemann / HEILEMANIA.
- Soundeffekte von der mit dem Emmy Award ausgezeichneten Sounddesignerin Katie Halliday ("SAW", "Stranger Things", "The Strain", "Star Trek: Discovery" etc.)

ATROCITY sind mit aller Macht zurück: "OKKULT III" markiert das furiose Finale der "OKKULT" Album-Trilogie und ist gespickt mit brutalen Death Metal-Granaten! Sich ins Hirn schneidende Metal-Riffs, brutale Drumattacken und bitterböse Death Metal Vocals ergeben eine Vollbedienung in Sachen deutscher Metal Todeskunst! Freut euch auf ein Album mit gnadenlosen Nackenbrechern und grandiosen Death Metal Krachern!

Schon der Chart-Breaker "OKKULT II" begeisterte die ATROCITY Fangemeinde und die Metal-Presse gleichermaßen mit packenden Death Metal Songs, die unter die Haut gehen.
Mit "OKKULT III" werden ATROCITY ihre Fanschar endgültig zur Ekstase bringen: Sich ins Hirn schneidende Metal-Riffs, brutale Drumattacken und bitterböse Death Metal Vocals ergeben eine Vollbedienung in Sachen deutscher Metal Todeskunst!
Als Gastsänger sind Elina Siirala (Leaves' Eyes), Zoë Marie Federoff (Catalyst Crime, Cradle Of Filth) und Robse Dahn (Equilibrium) auf dem Album vertreten.
"OKKULT III" ist der krönende Abschluss der "OKKULT"-Trilogie und ein Meisterwerk deutschen Todesmetalls!

- Produziert, gemischt und gemastert von Alexander Krull im Mastersound Studio (Leaves' Eyes, Doro, End Of Green, Belphegor etc.)
- Coverartwork von Stefan Heilemann / HEILEMANIA.
- Soundeffekte von der mit dem Emmy Award ausgezeichneten Sounddesignerin Katie Halliday ("SAW", "Stranger Things", "The Strain", "Star Trek: Discovery" etc.)

WRWTFWW Records is deeply honored to announce the release of Chu Ishikawa & Der Eisenrost’s soundtrack for experimental action drama Tokyo Fist, released in 1995 and directed by legendary director/producer/writer Shin’ya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man and its sequels, Bullet Ballet, Hiroki The Goblin, Nightmare Detective). Previously only published on CD in Japan, the cult movie soundtrack is available on vinyl for the first time ever and housed in a heavy 350gsm sleeve.
The Tokyo Fist soundtrack gorgeously blends explosive industrial music, heavy percussion, martial rhythms and noise experimentations with contemplative ambient and emotion-filled synth soundscapes, perfectly encapsulating the nihilistic pain felt by the characters of the movie and the brutally visceral rebirth they go through. Ishikawa and Der Eisenrost’s compositions hit hard, sometimes truly terrorizing, sometimes heart-gripping in gloomy and bewitching ways. This is no holds barred music, a venture into the darkest yet most strangely beautiful corners of the human mind (and heart).
The late great Chu Ishikawa was one of the innovators of the industrial and experimental scene in Japan and has collaborated with Shin’ya Tsukamoto on numerous movies. He also worked extensively with Takashi Miike, another visionary filmmaker from his home country. Ishikawa was the leader of groundbreaking Industrial-Metal-Percussion unit Der Eisenrost whose live performances around Japan left an indelible mark on the genre’s history.
This new project by WRWTFWW Records follows previous Japanese soundtracks from the catalogue: Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor 2, Evil Dead Trap…and more to come.

ONE SIDED BLACK VINYL.
First ever release of the scariest, most inappropriate and possibly most influential kids TV music of ALL TIME.
'A first-ever release to the series' alarmingly experimental soundtrack'
SHINDIG! Five Page Feature.

There is only 17 minutes of music throughout the series, so we have fitted it all onto a one sided LP. Artwork is by Julian House – legendary hauntologist (Belbury Poly etc) and the man behind some of the greatest spooky band artwork of all time- Stereolab, Broadcast, Primal Scream etc etc.
Sleevenotes by Stewart Lee and inner sleeve notes by Alan Gubby of Buried Treasure Records.
It all looks and sounds superb. Of course it does because it’s a Trunk Records release. AND REMEMBER THIS IS NOT A REISSUE!!! SO DON’T SAY IT IS WHEN YOU TRY AND SELL IT.
anyone who watched was scared shitless. The 7 part drama centred around disturbing happenings in a strange pagan village of very weird and unusually happy people, all set in the midst of the stone circle at Avebury – known as Milbury for the show.
The series shown across British TV (and USA TV in 1980) would scar, disturb and influence an entire generation. Without COTS it’s unlikely we’d have hauntology, spooky folk stuff, stone circle clubs, weird walks and a hunger for such pagan oddities everywhere. And COTS really is the key TV series in many of these modern movements, way before The Wicker Man. Even though The Wicker Man was released in 1973 it was an adult film only released to a few cinemas.
Very few people saw it and its influence really started in the late 1990s with the first release of the music. Whereas COTS on the other hand was shown at 5pm, on schooldays, to a whole nation of impressionable kids, who had never seen or heard anything quite like it. The power of COTS runs deep. So much so Stewart Lee made a whole documentary about it. The release of this long-awaited album will be a “Happy Day” for many.
THE MUSIC:
According to rumour the director of the show was listening to Penderecki as he first approached Avebury to scope out locations. Sidney Sager and The Ambrosian Singers produced an avant-garde and often quite oddly terrifying sequence of vocal drones and dramatic peaks based on ancient Icelandic singular word “Hadave”. And yes, it’s still scary.

Welcome to the Parish. Come, gather round dear lambs, as today’s sermon is about to begin. Crypt of the Wizard proudly presents the highly anticipated debut LP from pastoral proto-metal power trio Parish, available to pre-order on vinyl now. The two years since the release of their EP God's Right Hand have proved to be no fallow period for the band, who used the time to write and hone the 10 songs laid out on their self-titled debut. They returned to the majestic Holy Mountain to record the album. Making use of the studio's bumper crop of vintage equipment, Parish were able to unearth a sound that draws on the roots of heavy metal. The band's lyrics continue to revel in notions of the pastoral. Themes concerning the works of witches and the changing of the seasons are explored with economic and elegant storytelling. Songs of villagers besieged by strange travellers and poor wretches locked away in gaol conjure up a feeling of uncanny dread. Elsewhere, other songs suggest a sacerdotal attitude towards the earth and those who walk it. Parish stir up sweet memories of those subtle moments of perfection found deep in the discographies of heavy metal’s historic luminaries. Their sound reaches into places previously ventured by the likes of Wishbone Ash, Pagan Altar and Budgie, as well as folk revivalists Fairport Convention - a less obvious resource for heaviness, but a fine repository for musical depth. With any luck, Parish will in time join the aforementioned bands whose records will be played on repeat, locked in the unchangeable hearts of those unbothered by novelty and changes in musical fashions. Now our sermon has come to a close, peace be with you, and go forth in glory.

Pressed on 140 Gram Black Vinyl

‘You’ is the debut album from Irish band Meltybrains?. It has been years in the making - an exploration of the journey of five young men, trying to get from one end of their 20s to the other. Much like the making of the album, this journey was trickier than any of them thought it would be.

This record is for you, from you and of you. It’s an absolute beginner’s guide to the microcosm, the macrocosm and everything in between. It’s also a bit of fun and a pretty good record, combining influences from footwork, drone and j-pop with krautrock, psychedelia and prog.

Stella Sommer, das ist diese Frau, die so zwingend nach Stella Sommer klingt Nach vier Alben mit ihrer Band Die Heiterkeit und zwei Soloplatten übertrumpft sie sich mit ihren 24 neuen Songs auf "Silence Wore a Silver Coat" nun selbst. Auch, was das schiere Volumen, die immer dichtere Stimmung ihres sehr eigenen Universums angeht, an dem sie mit diesem Doppelalbum mit vehementer Konsequenz weiterbaut. Wie bei ihren vorherigen Solowerken ist es auch auf ihrem neuen Album ihr glänzender, dunkel changierender Gesang, der vor wildwachsenden Klanglandschaften leuchtet und ihre stimmliche Ausnahmestellung in Deutschland bestätigt. Immer noch gilt: So hoffnungslos schöne und attitüdelos stolze Popmusik schreibt sonst niemand in diesem Land. Wir hören einmal mehr eine große Songschreiberin und Arrangeurin, die ihre Kunst mit leichter Hand beherrscht, und damit ein gänzlich unangestrengtes, kalkülfreies Meisterwerk schafft. Zum ersten Mal hat Sommer ihr Album mit der ihr eigenen beiläufigen Souveränität auch selbst aufgenommen und produziert, denn warum sollte man das nicht tun, wenn man es kann. "Northern Dancer" und "Was Passiert Ist", ihre beiden jüngsten Werke, solo und als Die Heiterkeit, waren in sich geschlossene, durchkomponierte Alben - dramaturgisch fein konstruiert folgten sie beim Hören wie ein kooperatives Wildpferd am hängenden Führstrick ihrer Erschafferin.

The latest edition in the Summer Sampler series offers 12 tracks from an assortment of global artists who are all connected by their chilled-out styles.

(feat Scan 7 mix)

Hungarian-born, Dublin-based Phil Robertson has some pedigree but Arbilla is a new name he's operating under, and indeed there seems to be a slightly more musical, less relentless angle to his once defiantly minimal sound to go with the new moniker too. He provides three of the four tracks here, from the chunky and dramatic 'Stranger Things' and the breezy, spacious 'Fragrance' to the EP's glorious title track, with its Plaid-like syncopation and spiralling melodies. Mysterious techno 'supergroup' from Detroit, Scan 7 remix 'Virtual Reality' and they whip it into thunderclapping Underground Resistance shape. Greatness in evidence whichever way you turn.

A joint release by LA's Hippos In Tanks and Montreal's Arbutus Records, the Darkbloom EP is a thrilling split by d'Eon and Grimes. Harnessing the dark energy of her sophomore album Halfaxa, along with the shimmering dream pop of her debut Geidi Primes, Grimes' side represents a synthesis of her two sonic personalities. Displaying a level of clarity and craftsmanship heretofore unseen in her releases, Boucher presents a stunning new collection of ethereal dreamscapes that expand her creative palette without compromising the spectral presence she is known for. Following the Middle-Eastern-tinged R&B of 2010's Palinopsia, d'Eon broadens his stylistic breadth through reference to a number of electronic genres - for example, he simultaneously incorporates elements of Chicago footwork and new jack swing, but surprises the listener with strange forays into bygone genres such as UK drum and bass and trip hop. Presently available worldwide on CD and Digital formats, Darkbloom will be available on vinyl, for the frst time in many territories, on May 20th, 2016.

In May 2020 Cocoon Recordings released the third album of Harald Björk. With the club scene on Covid-hold , tours canceled and all of our favorite DJ’s locked up at home… not the optimal conditions to release an album on a nr.1 world wide club empire as Cocoon. How ever we decided not to let a virus kill our beloved culture, as Mr. Sven Väth put it „I would like to share with you the album of Harald Björk… which has soothed me and I hope will also give you a soundtrack for these uneasy days“. It felt right to release it.

The release was shrinked from a thought of vinyl box to a digital release with future plans on vinyl. However covid decided to stay and time went. The queue at the vinyl factories didn’t make the process easier… But at one point the dream factory of Kranglan Broadcast decided, enough! , the world has to keep on dreaming. And what is a better way to embrace dreams then to release a vinyl full of of dreamers, groundbreaking in their corners of the electronic umberella. Dreamers doing their thing not even looking at the norm or what’s the recent hype.

Aditional info:
Houndtooth finest Throwing Snow who Harald met in New York 2013 during their term at RBMA brings a bassdriven rollercoaster with the arpeggios from Spektrum bouncing like rubberballs through an impressive broken drum work. The remix came delivered with a text saying „I like my drums slamming“ and so do we.

Ada takes the eteric pads of Waldmeister and place them in a auditive dreamstate, an emotional hybrid of space and vacuum. Large feelings, yet so close. It builds, stretches and builds until we are shown the enlighted truth in the end of the tunnel. Harald is a long time fan and colector of Adas music which he got to know through the lovely label of Areal and has continued to love through the Pampa era. First remix from Ada on Kranglan was the epic remake of Sabor Latino, Sabor de Ada! We are delighted to have her art on the label once again.

The pandemic 2020 took away the most fun of beeing in the club scene, sharing stages with brilliant interesting dreamers showing and exchanging visions performing music. Under these strange conditions Molø and Harald ended up sharing a physical stage at the stream festival United We Stream. One thing led to the other and Harald took a deep dive in to Molø‘s great melodic techno universe. Some times you find gold in your own hometown. Molø’s take on Waldmeister build on the mellow arpeggio from the original track and brings them to a perfect chilled out afterhours. Imagine watching the sunrise to this beauty.

Swedes are a people of high integracy but as loyal citizens we allways attend formal events by the state. Skudge and Harald met at the Swedish National Radio price anouncement, both nominated for „electronic act of the year 2011“. It was an akward event with radio interviews and canapés, not very techno, the signum of Skudge. How ever Skudge won it all leaving both Avicii and Swedish House Mafia empty handed. Landberg, the swing king of Skudge is the kind of person that will tell you why the TR-909 has to be master clock to get the right groove in a techno performance, if you ask… which you do ??! If you’re looking for techno with groove look no further, Skudge is king! In his take on Walking Path he display the power of minimalistic dirty grooves, a 909 and a 303 what else do we need?

The 12“ vinyl comes with a fresh re-master of album single Medan Du Sov and an unreleased bonus track, Drifting, a balearic sundazed love story.

Wie ein Schneesturm unter einer Glaskugel Im Herbst 2003 erschien bei dem amerikanischen Indie-Label File 13 Records Martin Revs mittlerweile sechstes Soloalbum. Nachdem Rev bereits 2002 zusammen mit seinem musikalischen Partner Alan Vega und ihrem gemeinsamen Projekt Suicide mit dem Album "American Supreme" neue Wege beschritten hatte, setze sich diese Neuausrichtung auch in seinen Soloarbeiten fort. Klang das 2000er Werk "Strangeworld" noch wie ein aus der Zeit herausgelöstes, abstraktes Komposite aller musikalischen Einflusswelten Martin Revs, scheinen auf dem drei Jahre später veröffentlichten Album "To Live" auch kontemporäre Einflüsse hörbar zu werden. So kommen hier erstmals Gitarren-Samples zum Einsatz. "Der Sound von "To Live" war eigentlich einer, den ich schon seit ein paar Jahren live auf der Bühne benutzte. Die Inspiration kam nicht aus den 2000er Jahren, sondern wahrscheinlich aus einer viel früheren Zeit, obwohl ich nicht genau sagen könnte, woher. Es hängt auch mit der Rhythmus-Technologie zusammen, die ich verwendet habe." erinnert sich Rev. Die Anmutung dieses Sequence-gesteuerten und für die späten 1990er Jahre so typischen Industrial-Rocks scheint - zumindest für ein Rev-Album - ungewohnt und so fielen die Kritiken beim Erscheinen der Platte 2003 zunächst sehr gemischt aus. Wie bereits Anfang der 1970er Jahre als Suicide für ihren neuartigen Sound gleichermaßen gehasst und gefeiert wurden, polarisierte Rev mit seiner Musik auch 30 Jahre später noch immer. Doch auch wenn jene Tracks auf "To Live" weniger von Synthesizer-Drones und minimalistischen Keyboardfiguren geprägt sind als die vorherigen Platten, so sind dennoch alle Stücke des Albums getrieben von jener eigentümliche Formsprache, die Martin Revs Sound so prägnant und unverkennbar macht. Verhallte, sich überlagernden RhythmusSchleifen durchzogen von Revs sporadisch einsetzendem, zärtlich wie bedrohlichem Sprechgesang wachsen zu einem heftigen Schneesturm unter einer Glaskugel an, in dem verchromtes Glitzer und goldenes Konfetti wie wild durcheinander gewirbelt werden. Besonders beeindruckend ist dies auf dem Track "Gutter Rock" gelungen, das wie ein übersteuertes, hypnotisch betörendes Stück Lounge-Exotika anmutet. Und es ist speziell dieser Sound der Gegenpole zwischen harten Drummachine- und Gitarrensalven und dem Ungreifbaren von Revs Stimme, in dem mitunter auch jene Stimmung und Verunsicherung zu Beginn des neuen Jahrtausends zu hören ist, die insbesondere in eine Stadt wie Revs Heimat New York beherrschte, die erst zwei Jahre zuvor von den Ereignissen des 11. Septembers 2001 erschüttert wurde. So ist "To Live" ein widerspruchsvolles und schwer zu verdauendes Werk, das als vor allem als Kind seiner Zeit und Transition innerhalb Martins Revs Gesamtwerk einen ganz besonderen Platz einnimmt.

Shelter Press extend a quietly cine-poetic invitation to visit the Outer Hebrides via immersive sounds - field recordings of psalm singing and local dialect - collected and arranged by interdisciplinary artist Joshua Bonnetta, going hand-in-hand with Shelter Press’ core interests in the fading light of its 10th year in operation. A beautiful artefact - complete with 60 page photobook.

Accompanied by an evocative photo study and access to an accompanying film and essay, Bonetta’s second release for Shelter Press following 2016’s ‘Lago’ imparts a real feel for the archipelago, off the north west coast of Scotland, where he was stationed during an artist’s residency during 2017-2019. Stitched together from observant field recordings and interviews with residents on the islands of Barra, Berneray, Harris, Lewis & North Uist, the work elicits a sense of timelessness in its slow drift between shores, hills, standing stones and the intimacy of its voices, including Gaelic spoken word, folk song and whistling. Save for the appearance of a plane overhead, the sounds of car and boat motors, plus a little bit of electronic disturbance that pull you into the modern era; the results practically imagine what it would have been like to visit the islands with a recording device at any point since the last ice age. 

For Bonetta, who hails from rural Canada, the similarities between his formative landscapes and those of Scotland must have appeared familiar, perhaps a subconscious recall/reminder that the two places shared a landmass, albeit 425 million years ago. His sound sensitive subtlety and cinematic ear in arranging his collected sounds serves to highlight the way the modern world only just infringes on Innse Gall’s ancient landscapes and only relatively modern tongues (if we’re thinking in geologic terms of scale). We hear the sounds of its avian population seamlessly eliding its humans in the whistling of Alick Macauley, and the natural cadence of of its mild oceanic climate mirrored in lilting Gaelic folksong, here performed by Calum McDonald, Joey Morrison, and Maggie Smith, and more generally practiced by only a tiny percentage of Scotland’s population (some 1%) but still surely alive in its meridian isles where time moves much more slowly.

With the nuance and poetry expected of a Shelter Press title, ‘Innes Gall’ reflects on the area’s anglicised name, meaning “islands of the strangers”, with calming, soberly documentarian results as heartwarming and fascinating as a visit to the area, just without the effort of travel, and from the comfort of your own living space. Bonnetta is incapable of ignoring the cinematic frame, and intersperses each shot with enough poetry to keep you entranced.

Bristolian power-improv duo Run Logan Run continue their link-up with Worm Discs and producer Riaan Vosloo on Nature Will Take Care Of You – a monumental slab of contemporary energy music that draws on the heavy soul of David Axelrod and the fiery commitment of Archie Shepp. Working with an expanded line-up that includes singer Annie Gardiner (daughter of the late guitarist Ricky Gardiner, who played and collaborated with Iggy Pop and David Bowie) plus a string quartet and a brass section, saxophonist Andrew Neil Hayes and drummer Matt Brown have once again steered Run Logan Run in a dramatic new direction. Churning, future-forwards and emotionally tuned in, Nature Will Take Care Of You reaches out towards propulsive rock and psychedelic soul, while keeping one foot in the radical jazz-not-jazz of Bristol’s ever fertile improv scene.

The core of Run Logan Run’s sound is the dynamic conjunction of Matt Brown’s agile and powerful drums with Andrew Hayes’ looping, pedal-treated sax motifs. No matter how the duo augment and enhance their music, the kernel of their art has always been the spiralling energies generated by this essential musical relationship. Explorations of repetition, dissolution and dervish-like disorientation remain a central part of their project, with Brown weaving a tight rhythmic armature for Hayes’ unshackled journeys into sound. But though they began within Bristol’s improvised music scene, their vision has been increasingly structured and expansive, and the arrival of producer and bassist Riaan Vosloo (Nostalgia 77) for 2021’s For a Brief Moment We Could Smell The Flowers allowed to them move outwards to explore pulsing, cinematic synth-scapes. Vosloo is behind the boards again on Nature Will Take Care of You – and the duo’s vision has broadened a step further.

70 or so minutes of boogie funk from Germany, recorded live at the band's peak in their hometown Saarbrücken in 1987. Never heard before songs, now remastered. Limited to 100 copies.

During their short but intensive almost four years of existence Citro played about 50 shows and composed 32 songs that got performed live. This cassette holds 14 songs that draw a broader picture and captures their energetic and playful performance on stage. A band in great harmony that had developed its own sound.

This time capsule is the perfect addition to Citro's extended Smile EP reissue on funkscapes a few months ago. Encore!

Originally recorded to cassette at Jugendzentrum Saarbrücken, 30 April 1987.

Bettina Kümmel - lead & backing vocals, keyboard
Volker Schmidt-Hildebrandt - lead & backing vocals, guitar
Willy Walinsky - keyboard, backing vocals
Andy “Lemon“ Meyer (1963-2004) - bass
Kurt Landry - drums
Ralf Schmidt - live engineering

Given the respective outputs of committed ambient explorers and sound designers zake (best known for releasing no less than five fine albums in 2019) and 36 (most recently seen on A Strangely Isolated Place with the superb album "Fade To Grey"), you'd expect this trip into aural deep space to be rather good. It is of course, with the four tracks mixing echoing sonic tones and drifting sound effects with slow-burn electronic melodies and the kind of immersive, sustained chords that were once the preserve of German maestro Pete Namlook. The third track in the suite, appropriately titled 'Stage 3', is little less than stunning, in part because of its grandiose, almost classical intent. No surprise to discover, then, that after a stretch of being out of print it's back via a reissue, this version being a limited clear vinyl edition.

Given the respective outputs of committed ambient explorers and sound designers zake (best known for releasing no less than five fine albums in 2019) and 36 (most recently seen on A Strangely Isolated Place with the superb album "Fade To Grey"), you'd expect this trip into aural deep space to be rather good. It is of course, with the four tracks mixing echoing sonic tones and drifting sound effects with slow-burn electronic melodies and the kind of immersive, sustained chords that were once the preserve of German maestro Pete Namlook. The third track in the suite, appropriately titled 'Stage 3', is little less than stunning, in part because of its grandiose, almost classical intent. No surprise to discover, then, that after a stretch of being out of print it's back via a reissue, this version being a limited clear vinyl edition.

Felix Laband’s The Soft White Hand is the masterwork of an artist who expresses himself through musical and artistic collage acting together to reinterpret his sources and to express significant elements of his own personal story.

Released by Munich-based Compost Records, the 14-track album is Laband’s first full-length offering since the critically acclaimed Deaf Safari in 2015. It is heralded by the single “Derek and Me”, and is being pressed on vinyl for distribution globally.

In The Soft White Hand Laband works with source materials that will be familiar to those who know his previous four records – Thin Shoes in June (2001), 4/4 Down the Stairs (2002), Dark Days Exit (2005) and especially Deaf Safari which reached deep into the South Africa scene and its political culture to inspire its vocal and music sampling. However, the disengagement he felt from his homeland during his latest album’s creation – an abiding sense of untethered-ness to place and space, exquisitely rendered in tracks like “Death of a Migrant” – is perceptible in Laband’s desire to illuminate instead aspects of his own life.

“For this album, my source material became almost autobiographical as opposed to African statements I’ve worked with previously,” says the artist. “I have sampled a lot from documentaries from the 80s crack epidemic in impoverished African American communities and believe my work speaks unapologetically for the lost and marginalised, for those who are the forgotten casualties of the war on drugs. In the past, I have had my issues with substance abuse, and I know first-hand about the nightmares and fears, what it feels like to be isolated and abandoned.”

Few artists have managed to air these intimate aspects of their life so luminously as Laband does in tracks like “5 Seconds Ago”, “They Call Me Shorty” and in the strange and meditative “Dreams of Loneliness”. “I’ve been building this weird, autobiographical story using other people talking. It’s kind of humorous but it is also sad and beautiful,” says Laband.

Yet, as in all of Laband’s recorded output, the delineations between emotions are never starkly drawn and The Soft White Hand is also shot through with beauty. Nature appears in recordings made in his garden in the intimate early morning hours, whether as in the calls of the Hadada Ibis and other birdsong in “Prelude” or of the vertical-tail-cocking bird in “Derek and Me”. The last is a wonderful track with Derek Gripper, the South African experimental classical guitarist of international renown, whose 2020 song “Fanta and Felix” imagines a meeting between Fanta Sacko and Laband.

Laband’s eloquence in reinterpreting classical composers such as Beethoven in “We Know Major Tom’s a Junkie” is another thrilling aspect of the new record. “I’ve been properly exploring classical music on this album,” explains Laband, “taking melodies from classical compositions and reinterpreting them”. A fresh quality comes to his work through this sonic adventuring: the tender manipulation of the mundaneness of the computer’s AI voice to reimagine and reinvent iconic lyrics and melodies in strange and unexpected configurations.

The Soft White Hand is Laband’s most cohesive body of work to date. Yet it remains, in its sheer artistic scope, impossible to describe fully. Darkness abuts the gossamer light. A song that summons the sunrise and all the hope of a new day could also be about the final dipping down of the sun that portends a troubled night ahead. Interludes are invitations to expand outwards or shift inwards. Mistakes and “weird fuckups” in the sound are cherished as convincing statements against what Laband calls the “grossness” of perfect sound in modern music.

For this world-leading electronic artist, the boundaries are unfixed. He is inspired by the German Dada artist, Hannah Höch, who memorably declared: “I wish to blur the firm boundaries which we self-certain people tend to delineate around all we can achieve.” His music consequently reflects a primal artistic impulse that is also visible in Laband’s considerable visual art output as seen recently in several solo exhibitions such as that held in the No End Gallery in Johannesburg in 2019 and in the works he produced during his 2018 Nirox Foundation Artists Residency. “My music is always about collage, as is my art,’’ he affirms. “Everything I do is collage. It is a medium I find very interesting because you are taking history and distorting it and changing its meaning and turning it upside down and back to front.” In her book Recollections of My Non-Existence, Rebecca Solnit calls collage “literally a border art”; it is “an art of what happens when two things confront each other or spill onto each other”.

With The Soft White Hand, Laband is confirming his singular ability to achieve this in both art and music, melting the divisions between the two creative disciplines until they become one. He is also affirming his belief that an album of music should be more than a collection of unrelated tracks, but should unfold a fully integrated, cohesive story as in the song cycles of the great classical composers. In doing so, he claims his position as one of the most significant artists working today.

Artist Statement – Felix Laband – August 2022

When the Khmer Rouge took their captives for processing, they identified their class enemies by looking at their hands. If they were sunburned, rough and calloused, they were those of a peasant, a proletarian to be spared. But if they were soft and white, then they were those of a city-dweller, an intellectual or bourgeois, an adversary to be liquidated.

In calling this album The Soft White Hand, I was reflecting on the Cambodian genocide and how it resonates in contemporary South Africa. The apartheid era is over, and gone with it is white political domination. Yet economic and social privilege is still held in soft white hands. But those who grasp it know just how tenuous is their hold, how it singles them out, and my music reflects their subconscious fears, the stress and guilt of clinging on to what others envy and desire.

The soft white hand of the title suggests to me a further image, one that relates to all of postcolonial Africa. In my mind’s eye, I see the soft, duplicitous handshake of the smooth representatives of the superpowers making deals and promising gifts that benefit only them, and not their African dupes.
Yet, soaring above the wailing of sirens sampled from the first day of the invasion of Ukraine, my music is also about love gained and passion lost. It is about the tender caress of a soft white hand that conducts you into a place of dreams to be enfolded by nocturnal melodies.

Berlin electronic duo Donna Regina recorded two songs for the 10th edition of the Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club. In ‘Weihnachten Woanders’ (‘Christmas Somewhere Else’), singer Regina Janssen reflects on how it feels to spend Christmas away from home. Somewhere else, in a strange town where nobody knows your name and no one is waiting for you. You miss the familiar sounds of Christmas, like the child that sings ‘Stille Nacht’ and you dream of being home again. It’s a feeling many people can relate to. Especially this year, a year in which so many people were forced to flee from their homes. Günter Janssen, the other half of Donna Regina and Regina’s husband, lays down a minimalistic tapestry of synths and drum rolls. A loop of street sounds, a sample taken from sound artist Paula Schopf’s 2021 album ‘Especios En Soledad’, forces its way into the song, and in the end overpowers voice and other instruments. ‘Weihnachten Woanders’ very much captures the year 2022 and the worrying times we are living in, in both lyrics and music.

‘Christmas With You’, the B-side of the single, was originally written and recorded by Polish indie band Old Time Radio for their 2009 Christmas album 'Sketches For Another Christmas Songbook'. Donna Regina again goes for a minimalistic electronic sound, but also adds a certain melancholy to the song. Partly due to the synths that in places resemble the sound of an organ, an instrument that appeared on so many Christmas recordings from the 1950s and early 1960s. The love-hate relationship many people have with Christmas is perfectly laid down in the lyrics: “We watch the cartoons / We sing out of tune / Kiss by the fireplace / Listen to those horrible songs / Do we know / It’s Christmas time at all?”.

Regina and Donna Janssen debuted as Donna Regina in 1990 with the single 'Avec Le Temps' and released their debut album 'Lazing Away' in 1992 on Our Choice, a German sublabel of Rough Trade. In 1999, after four albums on Strange Ways Records, they signed to their current label Karaoke Kalk. Since then, they have released eight albums for the label. In 2015, Karaoke Kalk also released 'Dis Cover', a compilation of Donna Regina songs recorded by other artists like Dean & Britta, Bernard Burgalat, Mouse On Mars and many others. Donna Regina’s songs have been featured on compilations of labels like Rough Trade, Sonar Kollektiv, Klant Elektronik, Milan and Rolling Stone. Donna Regina was not Günther’s first band. In the early 1980s he was part of a Neue Deutsche Welle act with a very Christmas-related name: Heilige 3 Köninge ('Holy 3 Kings'). Their sole album, 1982's 'Zum Teufel Met Dem Kamel' has become very collectable. Günther was also featured as songwriter and musician on German singer Romie Singh's 1986 CBS album 'Masters' and later ventured into writing music for television and film. Regina Janssen also recorded as a vocalist with French musician Bertrand Burgalat, and sang several songs on his 2005 album ‘Portrait-Robot”.

Sunking is the experimental sights and sounds of Seattle natives Bobby Granfelt & Antoine Martel, an outlet for the duo whose music is "steeped in funk, fusion, and the dreamier end of the rock spectrum," said Seattle"s The Stranger. The Stranger also went on to say that "this city needs more groups like sunking, who flit among genres such as hip-hop, jazz, and shoegaze rock while messing with the DNAs of each style they address." Both Granfelt and Martel are also members of High Pulp, a jazz collective that draws influences from punk rock, shoegaze, hip-hop, and electronic music. Also signed to ANTI-, their album "Pursuit of Ends" came out in April of this year. "High Pulp blend old-school bebop with contemporary soul and electronica vibes, as though someone convinced the ghost of Duke Ellington to reinterpret a Chemical Brothers album," said the A.V. Club.