Cerca:drum talk

Kerri Chandler’s Kaoz Theory welcomes the return of Dj Steaw in January 2024 with his ‘Get Back To The Fonk’ EP.

Parisian House stalwart Dj Steaw has grown to become a widely respected figure in the field of
raw, underground, classic House over the past decade, racking up releases on many leading
imprints of the genre such as Hot Haus, Meta, Local Talk, Step and Phonogramme as well as his
own Steaward, Rutilance and House Puff. Here though he returns to Kaoz Theory following the
success of his ‘Colour Of Mind’ EP in 2022.

Title-cut ‘Get Back To The Fonk’ opens and sees Dj Steaw lay down a jazzy keys and stab
sequences, a bouncy bass line and heavily swung drums alongside an amalgamation of spoken
word vocals and chants. ‘Don’t Stop’ follows next and shift focus into deeper realms with warm,
fluttering chords, swaying subs and airy strings running atop of a robust rhythm.
‘In My Body’s House’ is up next to open the B-side, embracing a true House feel this time through
the use of organic piano melodies, sax licks and organ lines intertwined with a bumpy bass hook
and dubbed out vocal effects. ‘Grey Matter’ then concludes the original material, focusing on
multilayered dreamy keys, resonant flutters and skippy percussion.

Repress!

A blistering collection of ska tunes from Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd's legendary Studio One Records, Jamaica's foundation label of reggae music. Featuring classic cuts from the originators of Ska - The Skatalites, The Wailers, Lee Perry - alongside a heavy dose of superb rarities from the might vaults of 13 Brentford Road - pure Ska Fever !

Soul Jazz Records new Studio One Ska Fever returns back to the early 1960s when Ska was the soundtrack to Jamaica's Independence and Sir Coxsone ruled the land and The Skatalites and Studio One were creating history on a daily basis with an endless stream of blistering, scorching classic tunes.

This album includes an incredible line-up of only the finest artists in reggae music, including Roland Alphonso, The Gaylads, The Ethiopians, Don Drummond, Jackie Opel and many more. An all-star cast from Studio One, as Chris Blackwell famously noted, the 'University of Reggae'.

The accompanying booklet contains extensive sleeve-notes from Studio One historian Rob Chapman (author of Never Grow Old and Downbeat Special), with information on musicians, tracks, label scans and more. Soul Jazz Records' Studio One Ska Fever is released in
CD- jewel case, 24-page booklet with card slipcase, as well as a heavyweight double-vinyl edition in deluxe strong gatefold sleeve (with full sleeve notes).

In the words of Bill Brewster - DJ History

‘At the turn of the 1990s, there were few more successful New York house producers than Victor Simonelli. Under a dizzying array of aliases – Solution, NY’s Finest, Groove Committee, Critical Rhythm and Cloud 9 being amongst the better-known – the Brooklyn-born DJ/producer delivered a string of underground club hits during the city’s early ’90s house boom.’

BTG presents “Victor Simonelli: The Early Years Vol 1” a collectors edition double Vinyl release - 2 X 12’s in each Vol

Launching the first Behind The Groove collectors edition vinyl series is New York’s finest Victor Simonelli with ‘The Early Years Vol 1 & 2’ double Vinyl releases. Featuring seminal house tracks such as Cloud 9’s ‘Do You Want Me’, Solution’s ‘Feel So Right’, Instant Exposure’s ‘Wanna Be With You’ and rare mixes of Raiana Page and EZ-AL, this collection brings together classic and rare Victor Simonelli cuts that reflect the early raw energy and buzz of the New York House scene. With ‘Vol 2” scheduled to follow shortly after, this is the most comprehensive collection of rare Simonelli cuts that firmly establishes his esteemed role in 90s House Music as well as introducing new fans to his inimitable sound.

Victor Simonelli is one of the early kings of NYC sampling In house music. The real deal - Victor danced at the legendary David Mancuso’s Loft sessions and developed a serious appreciation for good music. He interned for Arthur Baker at his renown Shakedown Studios (where Arthur worked with the iconic Afrika Bambatta on the seminal dance floor ’Planet Rock’ track) and went on to release hugely influential releases on seminal NYC labels 4th Floor and Nu Groove. Victor’s music was championed by the hugely celebrated iconic House Music DJ pioneers, Larry Levan and Tony Humphries at Paradise Garage & Zanzibar/WBLS/Kiss FM respectively.

Revered as a New York house heavyweight and prolific producer since the turn of the 1990s, Victor Simonelli grew up in Brooklyn, NYC, nurtured by a music loving family, with an avid record collecting father who also worked as a local party DJ. He took music lessons in piano, drums, guitar and bass, before discovering his first love, tuning into NY’s Radio Mix Shows on WBLS, WKTU and WRKS,98.7 Kiss FM) where he discovered the art of mixing and in his own words, ’I just simply got lost in the music’.

Graduating from NYC’s Centre For Media Arts, Victor got an internship in the legendary producer, Arthur Baker’s Shakedown Studios. Soon graduating to editing, mixing and then producing he worked for artists David Bowie, Quincy Jones, Debbie Harry, Sinead O’Connor and Talking Heads. Teaming up with fellow NYC producer Lenny Dee to become the Brooklyn Funk Essentials, they released records ‘Critical Rhythm’ and ‘Subliminal Aurra’ on 4th Floor before Victor went solo as Groove Committee releasing the classic ‘I Want You To Know’ on the legendary Nu Groove Records. Paradise Garage legend, Larry Levan broke ‘I Want You To Know’ rocking 2 copies on his last tour of Japan whilst King of NY House Music,Tony Humphries broke Victor’s new ‘Feels So Right’ across New York on his WBLS/Kiss FM Mastermix show and at his legendary Zanzibar club sessions. It was only a matter of time before Victor’s name became synonymous with quality House music ensuring a worldwide platform for his productions.

In the early 90s alongside his own productions, Victor Simonelli worked on high profile projects, including James Brown’s album, “Love Overdue” BeBe and CeCe Winans single featuring Mavis Staples “I’ll Take You There” and Quincy Jones’ “I’ll Be Good To You” featuring Chaka Khan and the legendary Ray Charles. Never straying too far from his clubland roots, Victor worked with Danny Tenaglia on his classic “The Harmonica Track”.

DJ gigs across the world started flooding in and Victor found himself recording for a dizzying array of labels including Tribal America, Sub-Urban, Bassline, King Street Sounds and Vibe, under a wide range of aliases. He also produced, wrote and remixed for artists such Nile Rodgers (Chic), Afrika Baambata, Hall & Oates, Frankie Knuckles, Kerri Chandler, Madonna and Michael Jackson. Famed for his own productions “It’s So Good” by Creative Force, “I Know A Place” as Sound Of One - the first release on Roger Sanchez One Records -, “Dirty Games” as well as the “Street Players Vol 1 EP”, Victor went on to set up Suburban Records with Tommy Musto and Bassline Records with two other partners. Notable releases on this label include “Do You Feel Me”, Connie Harvey’s gospel inspired, “Thank You Lord”, Urban Blues Project’s “Deliver Me”, Colonel Abrams “Not Gonna Let”, and Mone’s “Better Way”. Never ceasing to produce, DJ, run his own label and host radio shows like Groove Lift, Victor has worked with virtually every NYC producer and has nurtured a next generation talents including Angel Moraes, Jazz ‘N’ Groove, Urban Blues Project, Harlem Hustlers, Jay Jay and Julius Papp. Victor’s releases have also been used on M&S’s “Salsoul Nuggett” hit and Eddie Amador’s underground smash ‘House Music’.

In the late 90’s Victor launched his new Westside Productions, notable for the “Latin Impressions 1 & 2” releases, opened up a studio in Italy as he found himself increasingly working in Europe and now divides his time between New York and Italy. Suffice to say his unique sound of uplifting and spiritual music has kept him at the forefront of House Music and he is credited as one of its leading exponents with his string of classic releases and remixes.

Behind the Groove, branches out from its digital platform to embark on a programme of releases from the iconic pioneer producers of House Music. Esteemed for their high quality features and mixes that continue to explore, celebrate and venerate the contributions of highly respected, scene-shaping Labels, Artists, DJs and Special Events, BTG seeks to bring these talents and tales to the attention of the wider community. Unlocking the stories surrounding the pivotal roles they played and continue to play today in shaping the underground music scene we have come to know and love.

BTG presents “Victor Simonelli: The Early Years Vol 1” a collectors edition double Vinyl release, released on May 12th 2023. ‘Vol 2” follows on May 26th 2023 . These releases are the most comprehensive collection of rare Victor Simonelli cuts that firmly establish his esteemed role in 90s House Music and introduces new fans to his carefree sound.

It's fair to say Malta's Sound Synthesis is associated with spacey, acid-flecked electro. But here, on his first album for Gated, a deep vein of old-school influenced breaks comes to the fore.

The infectious acid lines are ever-present - the hands-in-the-air breakdowns, the rolling basslines - but this is a different side to Keith Farrugia's prolific output that brings in influences from ambient to downtempo to bassbin-worrying bangers.

Take opener Ambient Talk, which kicks into life with skittish drums, or the woozy vocal-led All Night, which makes sharp use of the Amen break, as does album highlight 90s Chords.

Yes there are classic Sound Synthesis melodies throughout these nine tracks, but there's also a darker side, exemplified by the aptly-named 140BPMadness, which showcases Farrugia at his most ferocious.

Metro is one of the most recognized underground rap producers. He has already collaborated with Guilty Simpson, Wildchild, MED, Oh No, Rakaa, DJ Babu and Percee P to name just a few.

The album "Blunted Fusion" 2LP is his most refined album. This time without guests - only sophisticated samples, cuts and fat beats.

Plus amazing graphics designed by SewerX. This is the most beautifully released album in the 21-year history of JuNouMi Records.

Italian DJ and producer Francis De Simone debuts on Lee Foss and Jamie Jones' label Hot Creations with London Bass. Having built a solid back catalogue in recent years, his first Hot Creations release embodies the dynamic sound of the Palermo-born artist, channelling chunky tech house and disco-flavoured melodies.

De Simone explains his creative thinking behind the EP. "These tracks fully express my devotion to music. I ranged a lot, trying to remember an 80's sound up to a more raw and synthetic groove with Latin vocals to embrace the different ethnic groups." Reflecting his thoughts to a tee, the title track rumbles with a massive bassline and chopped-up vocals that add an instant burst of energy. Things get weird on Saludos A Todos, as thumping kickdrums collide with a trippy melody and even trippier vocals, creating a wavey atmosphere. The ideal club curveball. On Off White, De Simone delivers a pacey number packed with burbling beats and clicky percussion, complemented by dreamy vocals. The hint is in the name on closing track, This Is Undergound. A big room delight, De Simone drops a stripped-back banger, where the lyrics do the talking in tandem with a driving bassline. An excellent addition to the Hot Creations discography.

Based in Palermo, Italy, Francis De Simone stems from a family of musicians. Having played the drums from age two, the versatile artist can make anything from rock, pop and jazz, but these days, De Simone pens electronic music. His father worked as a bouncer for various local discos and exposed De Simone to dance music from a young age, later inspiring him to produce house and techno with an uplifting tint. Releases on Glasgow Underground, LW Recordings and REALM Records have helped shape the profile of this flourishing artist, with plenty more to come further down the line.

For this uniquely personal retrospective spread over twelve vinyl discs, Sven Väth takes us back to the early days of his DJ career. On What I Used To Play we meet great pioneers of electronic music, gifted percussionists, obscure wave bands, and innovative producers of a bygone 'new electronic' era. Rough beats and irresistible grooves from the identification stage of house, techno, and acid remind us not just how far electronic music has evolved over the past four decades, but how great it was to dance to EBM, techno, and house for the very first time.

If there is one protagonist of the electronic music scene who has remained curious, innovative and at the very cutting edge of music for over four decades, it's Sven Väth. His multi-layered artist albums and Sound of the Season mix compilations have been defining the genre for over two decades, and even today, he is constantly on the lookout for the next top tune to add to the highlights of his next set. At least, that's the case when he's not producing them himself as an artist or remixer. "Actually, it's always been part of my DNA to think ahead," and nothing had been further from his mind than looking back at his past, but when in spring of 2020 the international DJ circuit had to be scaled down to virtually zero, the 'restless traveler' suddenly had time. Time to stop and reflect on "how it actually was back then, at the very beginning of my career..."

"It was a great trip and with every track, beautiful memories came flooding back".
In the London apartment, he had just moved into, Sven has set up a "little music room", where he cocooned himself for several days, "to look way back for the first time and review my musical journey through the eighties, so to speak."

The interim result was six thematically oriented playlists with a grand total of 120 tracks from 'early 80s' to 'Balearic late 80s', together with excursions into afrobeat, European new wave, and EBM sounds and a few epochal techno/house tracks from the USA in between. From these 'Best of Sven Väth's favorites', the project What I Used To Play crystallized. Sven remembers how the Cocoon team reacted to his proposal: "They found the idea of making a compilation out of it MEGA from the beginning and everyone said 'Sven, go for it', but then, of course, the work really started, namely, to clear the rights and to get clean sounding masters of the up to 40-year-old tracks. There was also disappointment, of course. We couldn't clear certain titles because the rights holders in the USA had fallen out with each other or simply disappeared from the scene. In short, it wasn't easy, but now I can safely say we got the most important tracks."

Finally, after two years of research, curation, design, and administrative fine-tuning, the "little retrospective" from 1981 to 1990 is available. The exquisitely packaged, and three-kilo heavy box set is not only physically impressive, WIUTP is also the definitive record of Sven Väth's musical development. On each of the twenty-four sides of vinyl, you can trace track by track, what influenced him during which phase, and how he took off as a DJ from his parents' Queen's Pub straight into the spotlight at Dorian Gray. There and at Vogue (later OMEN), Sven became the style-defining player in the DJ booth that he still is today.




1981 - 1990: Future Sounds of Now

In the early eighties, the crowd in clubs like Vogue and Dorian Gray danced to what nowadays we call 'dance classics' - mainly disco, funk, soul, and chart pop. It was up to a new generation of DJs, including Sven Väth, the youngest protagonist in the Rhine-Main area at the time, to create their own club-ready music mix. Good new tracks and potential floor-fillers were rarities that had to be sought out and found, in order to prove oneself worthy.
Without MP3s, internet streaming, or other digital download possibilities, music didn't just gravitate to the DJ, instead, it had to be tracked down. In well-stocked record stores in Frankfurt and Wiesbaden or even in Amsterdam, London, or New York, Sven and friends sourced the material for countless magical nights. On WIUTP we can follow Sven's very personal journey through this wild, innovative era in which synth-pop, funk, hip-hop, and disco were successively replaced as 'club music' by house, techno, acid, and breakbeat. By the end of the decade, it was clear to see that these once exotic 'fringe' phenomena would soon become 'mass' phenomena.



Early 80s

Dirty Talk by the Italian-American duo Klein & M.B.O. represents the most innovative phase of the Italo-disco genre in the early eighties like no other track. Mario Boncaldo (I) and Tony Carrasco relied entirely on the original synthetic drum and percussion sounds of the Roland TR-808, coupled with the raunchy vocals of Rossana Casale and guitar accents of Davide Piatto. Of course, other tracks from this period were also influential in style, most notably Unit by Logic System, which worked as the perfect soundtrack to the laser lighting system at the legendary Dorian Gray club. With stomping beats and robotic rap interludes, Bostich by Yello also belongs on Sven's eternal playlist - after all, it caught the attention of Afrikaa Bambaataa, who invited the Swiss duo to perform at the Roxy in New York in 1983.



EBM Wave - Mid 80s

From today's point of view, the almost ten-minute-long, downtempo track Giant by Matt Johnson's band project The The, would probably not be considered an obvious club classic. However, a closer (re)listen reveals the rhythmic intricacies of the percussion overdubs by JG Thirlwell (aka Foetus) on Johnson's composition, and it becomes clear why this exceptional piece of music is one of Sven's absolute favorites. Other classics from this phase include Kaw-Liga by the mysterious The Residents, the hypnotic-synthetic Our Darkness by Anne Clark (and David Harrow), and last but not least, the somber, monotonous anthem Where Are You? by 16Bit, one of Sven Väth's projects together with Michael Münzing, Luca Anzilotti from 1986.



US House - Late 80s

You certainly can't talk about Chicago house without mentioning Frankie Knuckles. The resident DJ at the Warehouse not only gave the name to an entire genre, but also produced epochal floor fillers on the Trax label like the timeless Your Love, sung (and moaned) by Jamie Principle. Acid house protagonists Phuture also hail from Chicago, and on We Are Phuture (also released on Trax) we hear the chirping acid sounds of the legendary Roland TB-303 in full effect. Another featured classic is No UFO's by Detroit's Model 500 aka Juan Atkins, who is rightly considered the 'Godfather of Techno' even if the genre-defining track from 1985 still breathes with the spirit of hip-hop and electro from the first breakdance era.





Afrobeat

Le Serpent, by Algerian-born Abdelmadjid Guemguem, is a track that sounds completely different from everything else on WIUTP. Made in 1978, it's a monumental, rousing groove created without bass or synths, just with five congas! Even though Guem sadly passed away in 2021, his immortal, acoustic beats are understood all over the world and will continue to enrich many thousands of DJ sets for years to come. Another classic that not only Sven appreciates beyond measure is Hugh Masekela's Don't Go Lose it, Baby. In addition to being one of the most important jazz pioneers, the trumpeter and freedom fighter from Johannesburg was very experimental, integrating electronic sounds into his music in later years, in a similar vein to Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. Dutch jazz pianist Jasper van't Hof's afrobeat project Pili Pili has also aged well. The trance-like, almost sixteen-minute-long track of the same name, manages to fill a whole side on the seventh of twelve vinyl discs in the WIUTP box.



UK-US-Euro - Late 80s

Time for a change of scene, in the truest sense of the word, and from a musical perspective, this section is like landing on another planet. First up is Andrew Weatherall's classic remix of Primal Scream's Loaded, featuring the iconic Peter Fonda sample (lifted from the 1966 biker film Wild Angels) that came to personify the mood triggered by the British Second Summer of Love in the late eighties: "We wanna be free to do what we wanna do, and we wanna get loaded...". This period also saw the emergence of M/A/R/R/S whose only single, 1987's Pump Up The Volume, became a club classic with support from DJ legend CJ Mackintosh. In this most eclectic of sections, we also encounter New York house and reggae producer Bobby Konders and his seminal Nervous Acid.



Balearic - Late 80s

Those who know him, know that Sven had already lost his heart to the 'magic island' of Ibiza as a teenager, so with that in mind, the WIUTP project couldn't end without a Balearic chapter. Inspired by Manuel Göttsching's E2-E4, the immortal, eponymously titled Sueño Latino belongs in there without question. Equally popular on the island was, and still is Break 4 Love by Raze, which thinking about it, would also fit perfectly into the house chapter. Last, but not least, there's an overdue reunion with Sven Väth himself, in his role as frontman of the successful Frankfurt trio OFF. Together with Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti (later of Snap!) this 'Organization For Fun' created the off-the-wall club hit Electric Salsa in 1986 which incidentally turned into an international chart smash, putting Sven in the enviable position of having to decide between pop stardom and a DJ career. Well, we all know how that decision turned out and the rest, as they say, is history. A not insignificant part of his story is What I Used To Play. Enjoy!

MUSTA presents an elaborate six track EP project, titled 'Tamburi
Parlanti' which translates to 'Talking Drums' in English. The body of
work marks a turning point in his career to make more than electronic
music, and delves into a plethora of live music and field recordings
recorded for the EP, ranging from polyrhythmic tribal drum-patterns to
Afro-funk bass chords, congas and jazz-keyboard, played by local
musicians as well as himself.

Musta's love for music began during his 11 years spent living in the
Dominican Republic. This encounter of Latin rhythms started the musical
genre contamination that to this day distinguishes his productions. In
this EP, like the rest of his releases, the music is diverse, tribal and
hypnotic. Respectful of the past yet constantly innovative. This love of
the past and future has led him to release edits and originals on staple
labels such as Nervous Records, Samosa Records.

Music aside the EP artwork has significant meaning, the mask shown is
that of the ancient Mamuthone icon of Sardinian folklore which goes back
further than 2000 years, defined as a representation of the collective
soul of Sardinia, the ancient ritual of the Mamuthone creatures is that
of a rhythmic dance where 12 of the creatures dance together,
representing the 12 months of the year. With this theme, Musta aims to
connect the dots of this pastime tradition into the EP, reflecting it
visually as well as through the music itself.

"Tamburi Parlanti EP is a collection of songs that I've made myself
around the world, recording and collaborating with various musicians of
many different nationalities. The music reflects my musical path in
recent years which draws strong inspiration from afro-funk and latin
disco from the 70s and 80s. My intent is to create music that presents a
journey between the hottest Latin sounds, over to more African disco
rhythms.

Three years after he released the incredible New Experience EP (picking up plaudits from Bill Brewster, Tim Sweeney, Laurent Garnier, Horse Meat Disco, Leo Mas & 6Music’s Tom Ravenscroft, among many more), Tokyo’s Kota Motomura returns to Hobbes Music for his debut LP, Pay It Forward. This is the first vinyl release on Hobbes Music since the much-loved ‘Aranath’ EP by Leonidas & Hobbes last Spring. While the label maintains the level of quality control for which it has become recognised, the artist continues to subvert electronic and dance music norms in his iconoclastic way on this extraordinary record.

He’s a mysterious character with an ear for idiosyncratic music that runs the gamut from ambient, exotica and jazz to disco, house and techno via post punk, new wave and funk. It’s highly original and all adds up to a confection perhaps best described as ‘Balearic’.

Album opener Paradise is a certified jazz-funk JAM. Destined for dance floors worldwide, this one’s been dropping well with DJs, Motomura demonstrating his piano chops alongside Mutsumi Takeuchi’s sax. Tropical pushes the boat in a more rhythmic direction, some pretty wild drum programming laced with more sounds of the, um, tropics, before mad vocal yelps suggest something yet more tribal. To Be Free initially resembles early 90s progressive house (pulsing bassline, synth-driven melodies), before the arrival of some new wave guitar licks a la classic Talking Heads/David Byrne and ooh ooh vocal chants take it to another dimension altogether.

B-side opener Emotion features Takeuchi again (on flute this time) and more vocal chants before things take a dramatic turn, threatening to open up into a full fanfare before calming and then bursting into wild life again with the exhortation that “C’mon, everybody dancing!” Rhythm flirts with an energy and pace more akin to a techno record: drums, drums, more drums plus a fair few yelps and chants - the kind of DJ tool that will send a simmering dance floor wild in the right hands. Flower closes things in a more melancholy style, familiar to fans of ‘Aboy’ from the New Experience EP, with plaintive acoustic guitar (performed by Akichi), birdsong and big piano chords.

Support from Bill Brewster, Leo Mas, Al Kent, Red Rack’em, Nick The Record, Phil Mison, Phat Phil Cooper, KZA, Sean Johnston (ALFOS), S/A/M, Dribbler, Joe Muggs, Monolith Cocktail and more…

‘Gonna review in MÜ mag... very fine stuff!’ JOE MUGGS
‘Will be reviewed on the blog’ MONOLITH COCKTAIL 
BILL BREWSTER played Flower on the DJ History podcast #641 (25.3.22)
'I really like this album, Flower and Paradise are my favourite' LEO MAS
‘I like Paradise’ AL KENT
‘Woo this is tasty. DEFO playing on my next radio show. The label’s A&R is defo getting better and better. HM has been putting out some dope stuff and this one seems really good quality’ RED RACK’EM
‘Paradise and Flower sounding good’ NICK THE RECORD
‘Tunes sound great!’ PHIL MISON
‘Going to include Paradise and Flower on my Sunday Ibiza global radio show PHAT PHIL COOPER (Nu Northern Soul)
‘Very nice album with influences from many different genres. I especially like To Be Free with nice synths and guitar cutting, and Flower, which is a chill vibe’ KZA (Mule Musiq, Endless Flight)　
'100% correct about the ALFOS potential of To Be Free!' SEAN JOHNSTON (A Love From Outer Space)
'Stunning, will fit perfectly with the vibe of my radio show’ S/A/M (Music For Dreams, DK; Playa Del Sol, Ibiza)
'Stellar work, i'll make a bet that Flowers is a Balaeric classic this summer' DRIBBLER (Breakfast Club, Ibiza)
‘It's cool in a nice smelling psycho sense, it was a very DEEP sound that I couldn't produce. Congrats!’ ALTZ (Altzmusica)
‘Paradise is my jam, it's deep, sunny and never boring. I'm interested to see how this will work on the dance floor. Overall a great album with solid composition and impressive use of live instruments!’ SOBRIETY (fka Chloé Juliette)
'Very tidy selection' ASTROJAZZ (Kelburn Garden Party, Wee Dub, Samedia Shebeen, Disco Makossa)
‘This is a lovely release. Follows on from New Experience in the best way possible. It's got lots of vibes going on but holds together as a cohesive piece of work. Love it’ JAMIE THOMSON (La Cheetah, Glasgow)
‘To Be Free is a track i could imagine Andy Weatherall playing in one of his sets at A Love From Outer Space’ KIRSTIE PATON aka She-Bang Rave Unit (Threads Radio, Radio Magnetic)

We're here with the 14th vinyl release in our catalogue. And those of you who've been following us since day one can probably tell that it's something both new and quite familiar. How so? Well, because this particular record features a brilliant track released on CD ten years ago (!), as part of our "Mystical Deep Vol. 2" compilation, but the "new" part here is the two completely fresh remixes by two amazing artists. So let's get to the names, shall we? As for the track in question, we're talking about "Leagues Deep" - a forward-thinking half-stepper by two heavyweights known as Loxy & Resound. The track has been making waves for quite a while, and has finally reached the light of day on vinyl. As mentioned before, it is accompanied by two remixes. One is by an up-and-coming talent going by the name of AM94, who turns the original version into a dual narrative, so to speak: the first half is a proper action-packed syncopated roller, the second half - a more modern, deep sub-laden half-tempo interpretation of it. The other remix is brought to you by no one else than Resound himself, who's transformed the original piece into a breakneck-paced drum-focused killer. But do watch out for the bassline too - it takes absolutely no prisoners. You've been warned.

Felipe Gordon dives deep into the Local Talk vault and selected his favourite tracks for a proper rework.

First up we got two stalwarts of the house scene, Kyodai and Fish Go Deep.

Kyodai's 'Breaking' needs little introduction, the track is an anthem and got massive support from Kerri Chandler to Laurent Garnier and is still played to this day in clubs.

Felipe puts his spin on the track, a Latin Jazz Rework that is destined to become a classic in its own right.

Fish Go Deep made their debut on Local Talk with 'Off Script' back in 2016, it's a pure goosebumps track, dubby techno-soul at its finest.
Felipe adds his twist with plenty of swing and clever drum programming.

Reissue of Elizio De Buzios's "Tamanquiro". Remastered and pressed on 45 RPM!

Sitting a good 90-minute drive away from Rio de Janeiro’s crowded beaches and packed tourist hot-spots, Campo Grande is not a neighbourhood that attracts travellers from around the World. Traditionally it is home to the city’s lower middle-class, whose aspirations of moving up the social ladder were played out in a suburb that has always been solidly working-class.

Campo Grande is home to Elizio De Buzios, a Brazilian musician who started playing music in the late 1970s and early 1980s. De Buzios began as a drummer, before learning to play guitar and starting to compose and sing his own music. When he turned 18, De Buzios joined a local band formed by some of his friends and other like-minded local musicians: Sol da Terra. The band mostly played samba in neighbourhood bars and small venues around Camp Grande, but De Buzios was interested in more than just samba. While he naturally admired great samba composers such as Cartola and Beth Carvalho, his musical pass went far beyond Brazil’s national music. He also loved MPB and bossa-nova and at home he listed to Joäo Bosco, Milton Nascimento, Luis Melodia, Tom Jobim, and many bossa-nova singers.

In 1980 De Buzios was noticed by a local representative of international major label Polygram, who gave him the opportunity to record two songs. He was excited, so started searching for inspiration for the songs he would eventually lay down. He found that inspiration close to home while passing a neighbourhood shop which made and sold clogs. After noticing a display of then fashionable Portuguese clogs outside the store, De Buzios popped inside to talk to the owner. It turned out that he was a tamanqueiro – as clog-makers are traditionally called in his native Portugal – and was as passionate about music as he was about the footwear he made. Thus inspired, De Buzios returned home to work more on the lyrics and music.

The next day, he headed into the studio to record the song, with Vale Ribeiro, who later went on to produce tracks for Marcos Valle, behind the desk. With Ribeiro’s assistance, De Buzios managed to record two songs in one day: ‘Tamanqueiro’ and ‘Sou Um Louco’, a ballad with English lyrics blended into the mostly Portuguese text. From the start, it was clear that ‘Tamanqueiro’ would be the single’s A-side. Incredibly catchy and funky, with some subtle disco elements, the song remained distinctively Brazilian thanks to the use of the cuíca. Listening back all these years on, De Buzios’ lyrics seem almost spontaneous, carry the track forward, and make it almost impossible not to sing along. Its infectiousness and funkiness made it an instant hit with the first few people to hear it.

When it was released, responses to the song were enthusiastic, even if it never became the Brazil-wide smash it should have been. It resonated well in the local clubs and on the radio, but unfortunately the marketing was handled by an inexperienced Polygram employee who failed to adequately promote the track. As a result, the record sank without trace and De Buzios’ dreams of stardom evaporated. Having just started a family, he realized he could not live off the uncertainty of being a musician. Instead, he got a job at city hall as a civil servant, a role he continued until his retirement a few years ago. ‘Tamanqueiro’ and ‘Sou Um Louco’ remain the only two songs he ever recorded.

In the early 2000s, with the rise of diggers’ culture, ‘Tamanqueiro’ slowly surfaced again. It became a sought after, hard to find seven-inch single, finding its way onto the airwaves once more and into the ears of a new generation of listeners. Some started appreciating the song so much that it was referred to as the “best-Jorge-Ben-song-Jorge-Ben-never-recorded”. And they are right: ‘Tamanqueiro’ does have that Jorge Ben-straight-forwardness. It’s a completely honest song that’s almost impossible not to fall in love with. Thanks to this remastered reissue on Rush Hour, De Buzios may now get the props his sole record so richly deserves.

Now for the good news: De Buzios is still singing in local bars and clubs in and around Campo Grande. He is surprised, but also incredibly proud, that the record he had almost forgotten about is appreciated so much by a group of music lovers he didn’t even know existed. But above all, he is happy that more than 40 years after the recording session, the record lives on – not only on this re-release, but also in his weekend sets in the bars of Campo Grande.

"Do you feel what I feel too?" Brijean Murphy floats the question at the start of Feelings, the full-length Ghostly International debut from Brijean, her collaborative project with Doug Stuart. Guided by a lush mix of charismatic keyboard chords, grooving bass lines, and radiant bongo-driven rhythms, the "Day Dreaming" lyric doubles as an invitation and a statement of intention. Brijean want you to move, physically, mentally, dimensionally; this is dance music for the mind, body, and soul. With Feelings, they've manifested a gentle collective space for respite, for self-reflection, for self-care, for uninhibited imagination and new possibilities. The album cultivates a specific vibe, a softness Murphy has come to call "romancing the psyche." Growing up in a family immersed in jazz, Latin and soul music, Murphy would become an accomplished DJ, session and live player in Oakland's diverse music scene and one of indie's most in-demand percussionists (Poolside, Toro Y Moi, U.S. Girls). In 2018, she began recording songs with multi-instrumentalist and producer Doug Stuart, who shares a background in jazz and pop in bands such as Bells Atlas, Meernaa, and Luke Temple. Following their first sessions, which resulted in the mini-album Walkie Talkie (released in 2019 on Native Cat Recordings), the duo continued freeform hangs in Oakland, inviting friends Chaz Bear, Tony Peppers, and Hamir Atwal. "We improvised on different feels for hours," says Murphy. "Nothing quite developed at first but we had seeds. We re-opened the sessions a couple months later, after returning from tours, and spent a month developing the songs in a little 400 square foot cottage." Aforementioned album opener "Day Dreaming" is a dynamic celebration of newness: the excitement in finding deeper understandings of yourself as you get to know someone, something, or somewhere new. "Wifi Beach" drops a pin in pure psych-pop exotica. With Atwal on drums, Stuart on bass, Peppers on keys, and Bear engineering, the group improvised the track's intro sequence based on the vision of a lavish 1970s pool party. Establishing the scene is a mid-frequency drum kit disco shuffle augmented by tight congas and timbale effect, as Murphy sings in spurts: "I want to be / Deep in love / I want to be / Say you love me too / I want to be / Honey." The stanzas cut between "reflective moments of wants and being overwhelmed by feelings of the present," she explains. "A lot of the `love songs' I write are to my psyche, self-reflections on how to encourage tender perspectives and make more time for the sweet stuff." Though there is a loose, dance-oriented motif throughout, the material gives way to somnolent turns. On "Ocean," Brijean's anodyne lyrics, reminiscent of Astrud Gilberto's airy croon, float atop a brushed drum pattern, sparkling rhodes lines, and pittering and softly funky woodblock bops. The opening line sets up the rest, "In this gentle space we lay" _ among the album's propensity for movement, tracks like "Ocean" stand out by leaning back for momentary sways of blissful introspection. Murphy calls the charming "Hey Boy" a "psychedelic guide _ the exploration of finding what feels good _ through sorrow, anxiety, apathy." This mentality applies to Feelings on the whole: in these nebulous and verdant worlds of hazy melodies, feathery hooks, and percussive details, the songs simply want us to feel alive. They radiate in wonderful abandon and with a sense of devotion to the self. RIYL: Stereolab, Astrud Gilberto, Air, Little Dragon, Broadcast, Khruangbin, Poolside.

Polaroid were an Italian post-punk/new wave band, formed in Turin in 1981. This vinyl re-issue of 'Senza Respiro' contains all 6 original songs with 4 bonus tracks from the band's later period.
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Polaroid made their debut with the cassette 6-track EP 'Senza Respiro', self-released in 1984. Influenced by Bauhaus, Joy Division, The Cure, Pere Ubu as well as Chic and Talking Heads. The music was dark and cold, but also melodic especially with regards to guitars and voices. At the end of 1984 the band added vocalist Michele Cantoblundo while drummer Marco left and was replaced by a Roland TR-909. With Michele began a period of very dark and poetic music, influenced also by bands like Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and The Sisters of Mercy. The band peacefully broke-up in 1987.

All songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. The record is housed in custom jacket designed by Eloise Leigh and includes 4 polaroid sized postcards with photos notes and lyrics.

Percussionist Jamie Muir was a member of King Crimson during the recording of Larks' Tongues In Aspic, in 1973. Staying less than a year with Robert Fripp, the Scot had already cut his teeth with another master guitarist, Derek Bailey, as part of the Music Improvisation Company, along with Evan Parker, Hugh Davies and Christine Jeffrey, whose eponymous 1970 album was one of the first releases on ECM. Muir and Bailey recorded Dart Drug eleven years later, in 1981.There's no shortage of great percussionists in the brief history of free improvised music but on the strength of Dart Drug alone Jamie Muir deserves a place at High Table. Unlike for example Han Bennink and John Stevens, though, you can't hear echoes of any particular jazz drummer in Muir's playing, even if he has expressed appreciation for Milford Graves (who himself sounded like nobody else who'd come before him).What on earth did Muir's kit consist of Some instruments are clearly identifiable (bells, gongs, chimes, woodblocks); others could be... well, anything. Old suitcases thwacked with rolled up newspapers Tin cans and hubcaps inside a washing machine Who cares It sounds terrific - but if you're the kind of person who faints at the sound of nails scraping a blackboard, you might want to nip out and put the kettle on towards the end of the title track.Dart Drug is consistently thrilling, and often very amusing - but it's certainly not easy listening. In music we talk about playing with other musicians, whereas in sport you play against another opponent (or with your team against another team). Why not play against in music, too That's precisely what happens very often in improvised music, and Bailey was particularly good at it. How can a humble acoustic guitar hope to compete with a Muir in full flight Sometimes Bailey's content to sit on those open strings, teasing out yet another exquisite Webernian constellation of ringing harmonics and wait for the dust to settle in Muir's junkyard, but elsewhere he sets off into uncharted territory himself.'The way to discover the undiscovered in performing terms is to immediately reject all situations as you identify them (the cloud of unknowing) - which is to give music a future.' Bailey evidently concurred with this spoken statement by Muir, including it in his book Improvisation.Derek Bailey is no longer with us, of course, and Muir gave up performing music back in 1989. All the more reason for seeking out this magnificent, wild album.

Barcelona-based Rob Clouth returns to Leisure System with the Deep Field 12', a stomping showcase of his focused sound design and knack for memorable melodies with additional remixes from Kowton and Vessels.
Deep Field is Clouth's Leisure System follow-up to the Clockwork Atom EP, which was named one of the top EPs of 2014 by Bleep and introduced his electronic wizard by to a wider audience following prior releases as Vaetxh and under his own name. Debuted on Max Cooper's Boiler Room and appearing again on his Essential Mix, 'Deep Field' is tactile and threatening, with disorienting glitches weaved into the 4/4 structure. The belching low-end brings to mind a talkative machine that's been muzzled, eager to burst from its restraints.Livity Sound boss Kowton inverts the original into a gelatinous mass, adding jackhammering drums to the cloudy atmosphere and creating a spacious and stuttering lesson in tension and release. Fresh off the release of their LP Dilate, Leeds band Vessels put their own euphoric electronic magic to work with a housier take, drawing out Clouth's propulsive percussion with an added dose of lush melodicism that
should make it a new favorite for house DJs looking for a spirited twist on the typical. Deep Field is the third in Leisure System's new GRIDLOCK series, melding the freaky and functional
for modern dance floors.

“Stankface” finds Funkmaster Ozone deep in his natural habitat: a raw, playful P-Funk workout driven by a heavy bass groove, punchy drums, elastic synth lines and his unmistakable talkbox. Packed with swagger, humor and irresistible head-nodding energy, the track connects classic Parliament-Funkadelic and Zapp influences with polished modern-funk production.

“Bust A Move” takes Funkmaster Ozone straight back to the golden era of Electro-Funk, combining hard-hitting 808 drum-machine rhythms, funky synth bass, futuristic textures and infectious vocoder vocals. Robotic, playful and built for the dancefloor, the track channels classic old-school electro and boogie energy through Ozone’s unmistakable modern production style.

Early in 2018 he unveiled Zoning Out, Volume 1, an album intended for chilling while deep in thought, or for getting into that crucial head-nod zone, like when the DJ drops the dopest beat. With listeners ready for more rhythmic brain-food, Emapea provides with the anticipated next installment: Zoning Out, Volume 2. Developing the theme of Volume 1, Emapea takes his jazzy sensibilities and fresh drum patterns and ups the ante, delivering 18 mandatory cuts that swerve and shimmy while exhibiting pure dopeness. Take "Last Cypher," which is an infectious funk- hip- hop hybrid that flows with more than a few surprise embellishments. There's also the low-rider spy-hop of "Big Small Talks"; "Tantra" with its smooth, old school ride; the sensual boom bap of "Blue Almonds"; and the infectious, latin-lounge-tinged "Rainy Day". These are no- nonsense beat compositions, perfect for thinking, for grooving, for dreaming, for zoning out. Emapea and Cold Busted come correct once again.

The Yummy Fur’s first album of new material in over 25 years is seductive and ambiguous; a fast-paced flip through scenes from art, myth, life and fantasy; a witty whole made from glittering scraps. The band’s original incarnation – fronted by singer, songwriter and guitarist John McKeown from 1992 to 1999 – morphed from making quick-hit cartoon-art songs to Eno and Cale-influenced creepers, populated by characters from McKeown’s life in Glasgow and the films, books and poetry that he lived a parallel life through. Everybody Talks About The Weather delights in using every past iteration of the band as potent collage material: a melee of sounds and ideas existing at once, revealing themselves then dipping back into hiding.
Recorded by the original core trio of McKeown, Brian MacDougall (guitar) and Paul Thomson (drums), Everybody Talks About The Weather comes 17 years after the band reformed for sporadic live shows, and seven years after the release of their sorta-greatest hits compilation Piggy Wings (Rock Action). Ten tracks long with nothing to spare, it is as condensed and vital as their best songs, with a new clarity of sound that allows their ambiguities to come into the light.
The album begins with “Cogs”, a taunting inquisition from within. As McKeown stages a fight between his id and ego, the tension heats up between conversational guitar lines and minimalist repetition; threatening sing-song melody and real, palpable menace. The band members are forced in tandem only to break apart, sustaining a genuine sense of just-hidden danger throughout the whole record – except, arguably, “Headphones”, a looser moment which sees McKeown make an existential something out of nothing while waiting for someone in the car (“I should have brought a book.../My ears are bleeding from the compression on your album”)
The songs are riots of reference: “Unity Over Europe” is a slyly complex two act play about the Mitford sisters – Diana, Unity, and Nancy, in a wink to the YF canon – smashing tragic biographical detail together with allusions to Thomas Pynchon and Francis Bacon. Pynchon is also lifted to serve “Blue Sunshine”, a collision of school shooters, serial killers and fictional fuck-ups (“Fast forward to Compton/Fast forward to Pynchon/Fast forward to Columbine'”) whose buzzy guitar lines are taunting and confrontational like a smarmy teenager. The innocuous title of “My Lasagne” belies a song that exists in several time periods at once: a visit to see Guernica, 50 people with their backs to the portrait of Dora Maar; the time that Picasso painted from; the Reina Sofia and the dirty streets of the Malasaña; myth-making musicians and the myths they’re riffing off overlapping and leering at each other.
All this could be laboured in lesser hands, but cultural verbosity is second nature to The Yummy Fur, who transform all this source material into songs that are weird, sexy, funny and absurd. Meaning is not happily understood or flattened. Susan Sontag's essay Against Interpretation accompanied McKeown as he wrote this album, and she’s paraphrased in “Semolina Ballerina”, the album’s justification of artistic ambiguity. Thomson’s motorik beat leads a gathering of back-and-forth instrumental phrases – including a wiry contribution on saxophone – embodying the futility of trying to parse something definitive from repeated action. “Listen to the very first thing that’s in your head,” Sontag-via-McKeown commands directly, then slinks sideways: “Interpretation is a conversation in an unmade bed”
The album features two more focused portraits, or at least The Yummy Fur’s version of such a thing. “Wanda” merges the life of filmmaker Barbara Loden and the title character of her semi-autobiographical 1970 feature film, with Loden’s then-husband Elia Kazan joining the fray of no-good men in her film. It’s a mix of adaptation and avant-criticism, with McKeown’s wordplay and mannered pronunciation mirroring the way that non-fiction and fiction twist around each other in the song. The title track is a series of vignettes and impressions from the lives of the band’s ‘90s inner circle, positing painter Mac McNaughton as a kind of Falstaffian ringleader. As with Piggy Wings and the recent single “New T-Shirt”, McNaughton painted the cover of Everybody Talks About The Weather – like the album’s music, the image of a coy girl in a white dress is an uncanny amalgamation of styles, suggestions and references just out of reach, as though seen in an art museum in a dream.
The album ends with two reads of the same frustration. “King of Nothing” is the closest The Yummy Fur will ever get to sludge-rock: the band melts together into a dusty, dreary haze as McKeown drowns in a drudgery of personal struggle (“Two jumpers on in Babylon/And only cats to talk to”) and the rhythmic toppling of heroes (Rowlands, Duvall, Munro). The majority of visible dirt is cleaned off for “Say Hello”, an uncharacteristic depiction of throwing the windows open after a dark night of the soul. Here, the situation is still cold and hard (“When the sun burns gold, but the heat never reaches your fingertips”) but it feels surmountable. Everybody Talks About The Weather is an unpredictable album from an unpredictable group, but ending on a moment of almost uncomplicated light is maybe its biggest surprise. - Claire Biddles (2026)

The Yummy Fur’s first album of new material in over 25 years is seductive and ambiguous; a fast-paced flip through scenes from art, myth, life and fantasy; a witty whole made from glittering scraps. The band’s original incarnation – fronted by singer, songwriter and guitarist John McKeown from 1992 to 1999 – morphed from making quick-hit cartoon-art songs to Eno and Cale-influenced creepers, populated by characters from McKeown’s life in Glasgow and the films, books and poetry that he lived a parallel life through. Everybody Talks About The Weather delights in using every past iteration of the band as potent collage material: a melee of sounds and ideas existing at once, revealing themselves then dipping back into hiding.
Recorded by the original core trio of McKeown, Brian MacDougall (guitar) and Paul Thomson (drums), Everybody Talks About The Weather comes 17 years after the band reformed for sporadic live shows, and seven years after the release of their sorta-greatest hits compilation Piggy Wings (Rock Action). Ten tracks long with nothing to spare, it is as condensed and vital as their best songs, with a new clarity of sound that allows their ambiguities to come into the light.
The album begins with “Cogs”, a taunting inquisition from within. As McKeown stages a fight between his id and ego, the tension heats up between conversational guitar lines and minimalist repetition; threatening sing-song melody and real, palpable menace. The band members are forced in tandem only to break apart, sustaining a genuine sense of just-hidden danger throughout the whole record – except, arguably, “Headphones”, a looser moment which sees McKeown make an existential something out of nothing while waiting for someone in the car (“I should have brought a book.../My ears are bleeding from the compression on your album”)
The songs are riots of reference: “Unity Over Europe” is a slyly complex two act play about the Mitford sisters – Diana, Unity, and Nancy, in a wink to the YF canon – smashing tragic biographical detail together with allusions to Thomas Pynchon and Francis Bacon. Pynchon is also lifted to serve “Blue Sunshine”, a collision of school shooters, serial killers and fictional fuck-ups (“Fast forward to Compton/Fast forward to Pynchon/Fast forward to Columbine'”) whose buzzy guitar lines are taunting and confrontational like a smarmy teenager. The innocuous title of “My Lasagne” belies a song that exists in several time periods at once: a visit to see Guernica, 50 people with their backs to the portrait of Dora Maar; the time that Picasso painted from; the Reina Sofia and the dirty streets of the Malasaña; myth-making musicians and the myths they’re riffing off overlapping and leering at each other.
All this could be laboured in lesser hands, but cultural verbosity is second nature to The Yummy Fur, who transform all this source material into songs that are weird, sexy, funny and absurd. Meaning is not happily understood or flattened. Susan Sontag's essay Against Interpretation accompanied McKeown as he wrote this album, and she’s paraphrased in “Semolina Ballerina”, the album’s justification of artistic ambiguity. Thomson’s motorik beat leads a gathering of back-and-forth instrumental phrases – including a wiry contribution on saxophone – embodying the futility of trying to parse something definitive from repeated action. “Listen to the very first thing that’s in your head,” Sontag-via-McKeown commands directly, then slinks sideways: “Interpretation is a conversation in an unmade bed”
The album features two more focused portraits, or at least The Yummy Fur’s version of such a thing. “Wanda” merges the life of filmmaker Barbara Loden and the title character of her semi-autobiographical 1970 feature film, with Loden’s then-husband Elia Kazan joining the fray of no-good men in her film. It’s a mix of adaptation and avant-criticism, with McKeown’s wordplay and mannered pronunciation mirroring the way that non-fiction and fiction twist around each other in the song. The title track is a series of vignettes and impressions from the lives of the band’s ‘90s inner circle, positing painter Mac McNaughton as a kind of Falstaffian ringleader. As with Piggy Wings and the recent single “New T-Shirt”, McNaughton painted the cover of Everybody Talks About The Weather – like the album’s music, the image of a coy girl in a white dress is an uncanny amalgamation of styles, suggestions and references just out of reach, as though seen in an art museum in a dream.
The album ends with two reads of the same frustration. “King of Nothing” is the closest The Yummy Fur will ever get to sludge-rock: the band melts together into a dusty, dreary haze as McKeown drowns in a drudgery of personal struggle (“Two jumpers on in Babylon/And only cats to talk to”) and the rhythmic toppling of heroes (Rowlands, Duvall, Munro). The majority of visible dirt is cleaned off for “Say Hello”, an uncharacteristic depiction of throwing the windows open after a dark night of the soul. Here, the situation is still cold and hard (“When the sun burns gold, but the heat never reaches your fingertips”) but it feels surmountable. Everybody Talks About The Weather is an unpredictable album from an unpredictable group, but ending on a moment of almost uncomplicated light is maybe its biggest surprise. - Claire Biddles (2026)

Gilla Band are happy to announce their brand new album ‘Pugnello’ released on the 25th September 2026 on Rough Trade Records. The album was recorded from 2022 - 2026 across three studios, Hellfire, Yellow Door Music Studio, & Sonic Studios in Dublin, the album was produced by Gilla Band & it was recorded and mixed by Daniel Fox.


Gilla Band never know where they’re going next. For over ten years now, the Dublin quartet (vocalist Dara Kiely, guitarist Alan Duggan Borges, bassist Daniel Fox, and drummer Adam Faulkner) have been redefining what you could loosely call “rock music” in the 21st century, influencing a wide swath of similarly forward-thinking guitar acts along the way. Across 2015’s Holding Hands With Jamie, 2019’s The Talkies, and 2022’s Most Normal, the band perfected a vision that wasn’t quite post-punk, wasn’t quite noise-rock, wasn’t quite anything besides an idiosyncratic, ground-breaking hybrid that could only come from the four of them.


In the four years since Most Normal, each member embarked on other artistic endeavors. Kiely fostered a newfound love of painting, Faulkner played drums for Lankum on the road, Fox became an increasingly in-demand producer guiding ascendant acts like Sprints, Lambrini Girls, and Mandy, Indiana, while Duggan Borges launched his solo project the Null Club with collaborations featuring Mandy, Indiana’s Valentine Caulfield, the Horrors’ Faris Badwan, Miss Grit, and Brooklyn MC Elucid. All their extracurricular activity existed in parallel with the exploratory route towards Pugnello, but also informed the band as they reconvened to crystallize the album’s vision.

Gilla Band are happy to announce their brand new album ‘Pugnello’ released on the 25th September 2026 on Rough Trade Records. The album was recorded from 2022 - 2026 across three studios, Hellfire, Yellow Door Music Studio, & Sonic Studios in Dublin, the album was produced by Gilla Band & it was recorded and mixed by Daniel Fox.


Gilla Band never know where they’re going next. For over ten years now, the Dublin quartet (vocalist Dara Kiely, guitarist Alan Duggan Borges, bassist Daniel Fox, and drummer Adam Faulkner) have been redefining what you could loosely call “rock music” in the 21st century, influencing a wide swath of similarly forward-thinking guitar acts along the way. Across 2015’s Holding Hands With Jamie, 2019’s The Talkies, and 2022’s Most Normal, the band perfected a vision that wasn’t quite post-punk, wasn’t quite noise-rock, wasn’t quite anything besides an idiosyncratic, ground-breaking hybrid that could only come from the four of them.


In the four years since Most Normal, each member embarked on other artistic endeavors. Kiely fostered a newfound love of painting, Faulkner played drums for Lankum on the road, Fox became an increasingly in-demand producer guiding ascendant acts like Sprints, Lambrini Girls, and Mandy, Indiana, while Duggan Borges launched his solo project the Null Club with collaborations featuring Mandy, Indiana’s Valentine Caulfield, the Horrors’ Faris Badwan, Miss Grit, and Brooklyn MC Elucid. All their extracurricular activity existed in parallel with the exploratory route towards Pugnello, but also informed the band as they reconvened to crystallize the album’s vision.

Gilla Band are happy to announce their brand new album ‘Pugnello’ released on the 25th September 2026 on Rough Trade Records. The album was recorded from 2022 - 2026 across three studios, Hellfire, Yellow Door Music Studio, & Sonic Studios in Dublin, the album was produced by Gilla Band & it was recorded and mixed by Daniel Fox.


Gilla Band never know where they’re going next. For over ten years now, the Dublin quartet (vocalist Dara Kiely, guitarist Alan Duggan Borges, bassist Daniel Fox, and drummer Adam Faulkner) have been redefining what you could loosely call “rock music” in the 21st century, influencing a wide swath of similarly forward-thinking guitar acts along the way. Across 2015’s Holding Hands With Jamie, 2019’s The Talkies, and 2022’s Most Normal, the band perfected a vision that wasn’t quite post-punk, wasn’t quite noise-rock, wasn’t quite anything besides an idiosyncratic, ground-breaking hybrid that could only come from the four of them.


In the four years since Most Normal, each member embarked on other artistic endeavors. Kiely fostered a newfound love of painting, Faulkner played drums for Lankum on the road, Fox became an increasingly in-demand producer guiding ascendant acts like Sprints, Lambrini Girls, and Mandy, Indiana, while Duggan Borges launched his solo project the Null Club with collaborations featuring Mandy, Indiana’s Valentine Caulfield, the Horrors’ Faris Badwan, Miss Grit, and Brooklyn MC Elucid. All their extracurricular activity existed in parallel with the exploratory route towards Pugnello, but also informed the band as they reconvened to crystallize the album’s vision.

Riding high off their Movement Detroit b2b set at the Pyramid stage, Rocksteady Disco right-hand man Eddie Logix and head-honcho Peter Croce finally share a split 12" of some of their choicest edits. Eddie takes the A-side, starting the release with the blistering and tropical "Fire Dance". "Good Time" is up next, a midtempo groover full of talking drum and juju guitar dubness. Mr. PC takes the flip, with the disco-meets-folk-meets-almost-gospel "Brothers & Sisters", which he originally made for his first Movement Detroit set. The slomo sleazy groove of "I Wouldn't Want To Be Like You" rounds out the release. Instant cop!

Limited White Vinyl edition of ‘Car Button Cloth’, featuring Lemonheads classics ‘If I Could Talk I’d Tell You’ and ‘The Outdoor Type’. Celebrating the album’s 30th anniversary, this reissue includes the original record + a collection of rarities and unreleased cuts (download only), continuing Fire Records in-depth series of reissues from the legendary band.


‘Car Button Cloth' is an extraordinary affair of musical and emotional extremes, a soundscape spanning “the most beautiful piano-led mourning in the history of the broken heart” that switches into perky jangle-pop for fleeting moments and contains the ultimate self-deprecating classic ‘The Outdoor Type’, penned by Smudge cohort Tom Morgan, as well as a cover of the bluegrass standard ‘Knoxville Girl’ and ‘If I Could Talk I’d Tell You’ co-written with The Vaselines’ Eugene Kelly. All bases are covered.

2026 Repress

December 2012 I showed up totally exhausted in Vancouver BC after touring stupidly and relentlessly for however many straight months and got a job at a call centre raising money for the Red Cross. It was a scent free office but one time this woman cooked a piece of fish in the microwave for 10 minutes on low and hot boxed the whole office - we got sent home early no pay. There was the other woman I named the Call Centre Coltrane because her pitch and routine usually involved improvised flights of fancy that went off in both directions at once somehow landing back down with a credit card number and a donation. I used to sleep under the desk. I was there a few months and at the time I reconnected with John Brennan who I had played with briefly in Montreal at the Mutek Festival. In Montreal John was running an experimental music night at a burrito shop downtown called Garbage Night. While in Vancouver I began connecting with the music scene there and would go hang out with the Shearing Pinx lads who I think lived with Sydney the bass player at the time. I knew Nic and Jer from an AIDS Wolf Tour and was so stoked to get to know them both better. I really fell in love with that era of Vancouver's music scene.
Fast Forward to today. 2024
Actually it was the dying days of 2023 but you get it and John asks if I'll sit in with Earth Ball and I keep thinking about Earth Balance, the vegan butter everyone eats here. I brought my aching bones and my ipads on the beautiful ferry named the Queen of Oak Bay and out to Nanaimo BC, home of the nanaimo bar (a dessert treat - special to this region - that seems to be more popularly found under the weird glass sneeze guards in office building deli's out east in Ontario.... anyhoops ). No one in Nanaimo wants to talk to me about the famous treat. I asked a couple of people. Silence. Nanaimo is like London, Ontario but more fried and by the sea. The town is filled with blown out old sea dawgs with tin coffee pots and loose leaf tobacco, then there's the usual streetfolk you find in this part of the Canadian Pacific Northwest and a bunch of bohemians who I guess have left Vancouver behind - that fine city having become uninhabitable for those not making over 100k a year. And then up the way are all the retirees.
Yup Nanaimo is a strange one. They mined the shit out of this region and Nanaimo is surely haunted by those buried in mining shafts or maimed by the heavy machinery or blown up by accident in the explosives store house. And when Earth Ball fire up the amps in Izzy and Jer's basement you can hear the voices of the ghosts hum through electrical lines and out the speakers, Kellen's hued feedback, Izy's sturdy basslines, Jer's paperbag guitar tone and rumble pack zaps, Liam's (aka the Kid) sheets of sound and Brennen's multidirectional drums.
You wouldn't guess Earth Ball was auto-composing and from what my rat brain can tell - the lyrics are improvised too...Improvising lyrics and singing them is the hardest thing to do in all of music.. Izzy and Jer are pros. And their attitudes are pro too.
The live show is scorched and without naming names they've been known to make headliners nervous. Lucky ones will get to see them live as they tour this beast of a record entitled ‘It’s Yours’ (out May 17th on Upset The Rhythm) and I hope I'm one of them.
But now you, fan of fun but totally fucked up music, have the opportunity to Ball with them thanks to Upset The Rhythm. Enjoy
-Alex Moskos, Montreal QC, Feb 2024

It’s safe to say that Rochester, NY rapper of Italian descent Pounds’ work ethic is unmatched: he’s constantly on the grind, loud in the lab but quiet on the outside, he wastes no time unlike many other big mouthed rappers these days and then, all of a sudden, he drops a bomb on you. To kick off 2018 in the best of ways, he released a 4-tracks collaboration EP with West Coast producer , 1/2 of Gangrene, Oh No entitled “Borgata”. The record opens up with “Last Supper” and with a clear statement of intent: “Run for your life, my cousin brought a drum and a knife, break my hand on your face I need a bucket of ice” just so you understand where this project is headed since the first song. His style is always direct, without any frills, with his trademark voice spitting gritty crime-themed bars that revolve around drug and the street life that raised him. A “borgata” in Italy is a “hood”, and Pounds, being the definition of an artist that talks the talk and walks the walk, couldn’t pick a better title for this project.

Limited edition vinyl release of 500 hand-numbered copies with etched B-side, black vinyl.

Led By Vultures, the new Los Angeles based heavy rock band fronted by Brian Tichy (Ozzy Osbourne, Whitesnake, Foreigner, Billy Idol, Gene Simmons, etc...)
has come together over the past year to record its powerful, uncompromising, undeniable brand of heavy music, and released their highly anticipated first single “Get It Right” in late-March. With that comes 12 songs dominated by loud guitar, massive drums, big riffs, killer grooves, aggressive vocals, and a feeling of flying through a tornado! With a pro home studio, Tichy started the recording
process and instead of trying to find the right players, engineers and producers, he chose to see it through on his own, and aim to make it feel and sound like a band that’s been together for years. Long time buddy/keyboard virtuoso Derek Sherinian (Alice Cooper, Dream Theater) lent a hand on a few tunes, including some co-writing and it was Sherinian who has been one of Tichy’s main friends, supporting him and telling him to stop talking and to get writing and recording!!
Led By Vultures is all about serving the song, the groove and the power it possesses. The recording process began as an organic, exciting, challenge for Tichy but soon became an all-consuming obsession to serve the songs and sounds with all of his being and abilities. This includes a rule of no samples or
auto tune! Led By Vultures; not just a band but a pure musical obsession!

One year earlier, 50 years ago this December, THE HEARTBREAKERS arrived in London to join the Sex Pistols on the "Anarchy" tour. They spent most of 1977 there, recording "L.A.M.F." and cementing their status as elder statesmen of the punk movement. This last date of their 1977 European tour was to be their very last as a band - until the reunions. Drummer Jerry Nolan had already jumped ship; his substitute is The Clash"s Terry Chimes. The gig was filmed for a movie that was never to be - this is the soundtrack recording.

NFY008 lands courtesy of label co-founders Jive Talk, serving up a two-track platter built for dancefloors and delectable dietary choices.

A1: Complimentary Dipping Waffles
A high-energy, bass-heavy peak-time weapon, loaded with shuffling garage hats, live percussion, and infectious vocal chops. Sweet, crispy, and dangerously moreish, it’s hard to believe the waffles haven’t been added to your bill!

B1: Snarah Connor (Dubment Day Mix)
Keeping the syrup flowing, the B-side takes a deeper route, cruising on a smooth, low-slung groove with skippy drums, hypnotic synth work, and a rolling low end. Equal parts heads-down and hands-up, it’s the kind of after-hours ammunition that would have Arnie saying, “I’ll be back” before the record’s even finished.

The 2019-released label debut on Minor by Bristol-based producer Gordon Apps a.k.a. Relapse is another excellent showcase of how the long-standing underground imprint from Leipzig expands its sonic spectrum into dark and dubbed out Halftime Drum'n'Bass without losing its Industrial edge, providing a massive secret peak time weapon with the fluttering low end and seductive vocal snippets of the B-side tune „Multilingual Talk Channel“.
Never officially distributed before this is the first time ever this barely recognized underground gem is available to a wider audience, albeit in highly limited quantities. Limited pressing of 150 single copies on transclucent colour vinyl.

Stray Cats is the first album from Rockabilly band Stray Cats, first released in the UK by Arista in 1981. It was successful in Britain, peaking at No. 6 on the UK Albums Chart, and produced the UK Top 40 hits 'Runaway Boys' (No. 9), 'Stray Cat Strut' (No. 11) and 'Rock This Town' (No. 9). The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame later listed 'Rock This Town' as one of the songs that shaped rock and roll.

Stray Cats debut album came hot on the heels of the two hit singles 'Runaway Boys' and 'Rock This Town,' both energy filled rockabilly songs that hearkened back to the
1950s era of pure rock & roll with an updated, clean '80s sound highlighted by the prominent double bass playing of Lee Rocker and drumming of Slim Jim Phantom.

This album was by far their most successful, hitting number six in the charts and their only entry into the Top 40.

Hand Me My Flowers brings together one of underground hip-hop’s most relentless voices with one of the genre’s most revered producers. The result is a hard-hitting collaboration that bridges generations, uniting Flee Lord’s raw street narratives with Buckwild’s unmistakable golden-era production pedigree.

A cornerstone of the legendary Diggin’ In The Crates (D.I.T.C.) collective, Buckwild has spent decades shaping the sound of East Coast hip-hop, crafting classics for artists such as The Notorious B.I.G., O.C., Big L, Fat Joe, Nas, and countless others. On this project, he delivers a masterclass in gritty, soulful production—dusty samples, hard drums, and cinematic arrangements that provide the perfect backdrop for Flee Lord’s uncompromising lyricism.

Throughout the album, Flee Lord sounds right at home over Buckwild’s expertly crafted soundscapes, weaving vivid tales of survival, loyalty, sacrifice, and perseverance. His commanding delivery and relentless work ethic are matched by production that honors hip-hop’s foundations while remaining timeless and relevant.

More than a producer-and-emcee collaboration, this album represents a meeting of eras. Buckwild’s decades of experience and crate-digging mastery merge seamlessly with Flee Lord’s modern underground sensibilities, creating a project that feels both classic and contemporary. Every track reflects a shared commitment to authenticity, lyricism, and the enduring spirit of New York hip-hop.

For longtime fans of boom-bap and newcomers drawn to today’s thriving underground scene, this collaboration stands as a powerful reminder that real hip-hop never goes out of style.

Donald Byrd, Dominoes. Taken from the 1975 album Places & Spaces, this sought after 45 is one of the defining tracks of the 1970’s jazz-funk sound. Capturing the style Byrd developed with the Mizell brothers, this song marks the transition to a smoother groove driven sound.

Tight drums, in the pocket bass and catchy chorus, sophisticated enough for the jazz listeners while still guaranteed to drive a dancefloor. Sampled by Stetsasonic for their remix of “Talkin’ All that Jazz” among many other sample credits. The Blackbyrds, Mysterious Vibes. Hard to find on 45, this jazz funk classic first appeared on the 1977 album Action. Feel good vibes, unmistakable horn funk heritage, with an instantly recognisable lead synth providing the sample source for hip hop classics by Kurious, Paris and Wiz Khalifa.

Everything I Ever Saw finds THE MENZINGERS entering a new era in what"s already been a storied career. The Philadelphia punk legends" eighth album chronicles moments of significant change-the personal, the political, and the universal-while returning to the core creative principles that first put them on the map with listeners the world over. Twenty years in, the Menzingers have discovered that the wisdom gained with time"s passing is even stronger than the emotional armor they once wore in their youth, and Everything I Ever Saw captures the quartet embracing the here and now while strengthening the bonds that have held them together. THE MENZINGERS have always created as a four-headed unit, with all members (vocalist/ guitarist Greg Barnett, vocalist/guitarist Tom May, bassist Eric Keen, drummer Joe Godino) throwing in their respective talents as part of the craft-but for Everything I Ever Saw, the group worked in creative symbiosis more than ever before. "The way we made this record feels the most like how the band was in the very beginning: Me and Tom coming to the band with the most basic element of a song, and the four of us shaping that," Barnett says. Instrumental in building that excitement was locally centered and nationally renowned production legend Will Yip, who threw in with the Menzingers on 2017"s After the Party and their sonically expansive 2019 record Hello Exile. This time around, Yip once again became an unofficial Menzinger while the band crafted these 11 songs in their South Philly space. "Working with Will was like a homecoming," May beams while talking about Yip"s contributions. "We"ve grown up together over these years, and we"re still incredibly close friends. He"s the best at gassing you up and making sure everybody"s on the right page, but he"s also so good at pointing out stuff that might not fit the vision without being a fucking prick. He"s the hardest working person that we"ve come across in the music industry, and he"s incredibly inspiring."

Everything I Ever Saw finds THE MENZINGERS entering a new era in what"s already been a storied career. The Philadelphia punk legends" eighth album chronicles moments of significant change-the personal, the political, and the universal-while returning to the core creative principles that first put them on the map with listeners the world over. Twenty years in, the Menzingers have discovered that the wisdom gained with time"s passing is even stronger than the emotional armor they once wore in their youth, and Everything I Ever Saw captures the quartet embracing the here and now while strengthening the bonds that have held them together. THE MENZINGERS have always created as a four-headed unit, with all members (vocalist/ guitarist Greg Barnett, vocalist/guitarist Tom May, bassist Eric Keen, drummer Joe Godino) throwing in their respective talents as part of the craft-but for Everything I Ever Saw, the group worked in creative symbiosis more than ever before. "The way we made this record feels the most like how the band was in the very beginning: Me and Tom coming to the band with the most basic element of a song, and the four of us shaping that," Barnett says. Instrumental in building that excitement was locally centered and nationally renowned production legend Will Yip, who threw in with the Menzingers on 2017"s After the Party and their sonically expansive 2019 record Hello Exile. This time around, Yip once again became an unofficial Menzinger while the band crafted these 11 songs in their South Philly space. "Working with Will was like a homecoming," May beams while talking about Yip"s contributions. "We"ve grown up together over these years, and we"re still incredibly close friends. He"s the best at gassing you up and making sure everybody"s on the right page, but he"s also so good at pointing out stuff that might not fit the vision without being a fucking prick. He"s the hardest working person that we"ve come across in the music industry, and he"s incredibly inspiring."

King Tubby and Producer Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee are intertwined in the birth of Dub Music. After discovering a mistake that made a ‘serious joke’ (more of which later...) they went on to release the first pressings of this new musical genre namely ‘Dub Music’. Tubby’s vast knowledge of electronics and Bunny’s vast catalogue of rhythms would lay the foundations of what today is taken as a standard... the Remix / Version cuts to an existing vocal tune.

Osbourne ‘King Tubby’ Ruddock was born in Kingston, Jamaica on 28th January 1941 and grew up in the High Holborn Street area of downtown Kingston. He studied electronics at Kingston’s National Technical College and also on two correspondence courses from the U.S.A... When he had qualified Tubby began repairing radios and other electrical appliances in a shack in the back yard of his mother’s home. His work in the early days included winding transformers and building amplifiers for Kingston’s Sound Systems. Tubby built his first Sound System in 1957 playing jazz and Rhythm & Blues at local weddings and birthday parties. His reputation as a man who knew and understood both electronics and music grew steadily and as the sixties drew to a close. Tubby purchased his own basic two track equipment. He installed this alongside his dub cutting machine, a homemade mixing console and his impressive collection of Jazz albums in the back bedroom of his home at 18 Dromilly Avenue which he christened his music room.

Tubby and Striker were at Treasure Isle Studio’s one day while Ruddy from Spanish Town was working with the engineer Byron Smith....

“Tubby and myself was talking when Ruddy was cutting some dub but Smithy (engineer) made a mistake through we were talking and forgot to put in the voice. It was two track recording in those days. Ruddy said ‘No Man! Make it stay! and so they cut the rhythm. When I went over to Ruddy’s that Saturday night a dance was in progress and when they played the vocal to the tune... then he said we’re going to play ‘Part Two’. They never called it ‘Version’..and then he played the rhythm track. The song was a catchy song and everybody started to sing along and the deejay started to toast so everything went down well. On Monday morning I went up and I said ‘Tubbs the mistake we made was a serious joke. It mash up Spanish Town! The people went wild. So you have to start to do that now ‘cause when the man put on the ‘Part Two’ everyone start singing this song. It played about twenty times. I said you try Tubbs!’...Well the next Saturday night now when Tubby strung up down the farm U Roy said he’s going to play ‘Part Two’ but Tubby did it different now. He started with the voice then dropped it out and let the rhythm run and then he brought in the voice in the middle and from there Tubby started to get really popular.’’
Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee

Dynamic Sounds upgraded to sixteen track recording in 1972 and Tubby purchased, again with the help of a deal brokered by Bunny Lee. The old four track equipment and the MCI console from their Studio B. The four tracks now gave him far wider scope to work with and he began to create a new musical form where the bass and drum parts were brought up while the faders allowed Tubby to ease the vocal and rhythm in and out of the mix. It was only a matter of time before Tubby’s dub plate experiments began to make it on to vinyl and the first ever long-playing King Tubby releases would feature a collection of his mixes to a selection of Strikers rhythms. So please sit back and enjoy this historic set of sounds, mixed by King Tubby and Mr Prince Phillip Smart and another set of scorcher Bunny Lee rhythms.