Search:dub tape

Siren Selector launches its mixtape series with a companion release to Remy Solar’s - ‘Heavy Terrain’ cassette.

“Jamaican music grows in rings like an old tree. From a core of early riddims, the genius of Studio One, versions of original basslines and melodies evolve over time New releases of the same tune follow each other through the 70s, 80s, 90s, into this millennium. Generations of the same family. And then there’s the unreleased versions, the frontier dubs built strictly for sound systems, held close by those who got them and only gradually circulated into the wider audience of selectors and collectors. These are the ones where the bass is heavier, the echoes more mind- bending, the effects wilder and the drums harder. Older sound followers tell stories of how these dubs defined dances, flattened opponents in clashes, inspired a dozen rewinds. Younger followers remember these tales and pass them down. These dubs are folklore.

Who knows how many such versions there are in the vast worldwide archives of Jamaican music? Not me. But as a little taster of a lifetime’s musical journey you can open your ears right now to a few moments: Lacksley’s Castell’s “Unkind”, transported from the sprightly riddim which underpinned it on his Princess Lady album and reengineered into a thunderous version of Ras Michael’s None A Jah Jah Children; “Deceivers” by the Heptones, stripped back into something simultaneously ethereal and bathyspheric; Keith Hudson’s “I’m No Fool” emerging from a pressure cooker of bass and drum; Jah Lloyd’s “Black Moses”, busting down walls with its epic echo and siren opening.

I started collecting these dubs in the late 90s. We were going to Shaka at the Rocket, Aba Shanti in the Arches, then Imperial Gardens. Entebbe somewhere off Mare Street. Iration Steppas in Kingsland Road, Jah Tubby’s in the Rec. We were doing our own parties at the time in east London, Bohemia Place, then Trenz, Dungeons, the old social services office by London Fields. Building up a sound, taking it on the road, crew sitting on the speaker boxes in the back of a Mercedes 508. Under the stars or in warehouses with sweat dripping from the ceiling, lugging crates and amps across fields or up flights of stairs, stringing up boxes under bridges, in car parks or on roundabouts. Waiting for the moment to drop the dubs.

This tape is dedicated to my crew and all the music providers and anyone who also knew or wants to know these moments.“

Fifty Physical Copies - 60 mins - No digital

WRWTFWW Records unleashes the first ever release of legendary post-disco, funk, soul and electronic UK trio Imagination's cult album Night Dubbing in (well deserved) double LP format. The limited edition full-length comes with pristine audiophile treatment and luxurious packaging : a 45rpm and Half Speed Mastered DLP housed in heavyweight silver cardboard sleeve.
Imagination's singular 1983 album Night Dubbing is a refined deconstruction of black British soul and club pop, filtered through the deep studio and mixing techniques of dub music. Elegant, restrained, and, in its very own subtle way, radical, the record reshapes choice selections from the group's stellar catalogue into an immersive and out-of-this-world listening experience.

The special mixes on Night Dubbing are built on time and space. Basslines elongate and dissolve. Vocals appear, vanish, and reappear like ghosts. Drums fall away into vast silences, while echoes, tape edits, and precise engineering manoeuvres smoothly slide across the stereo field, revealing themselves like magic over repeated listens. Far from simple extensions or 12" versions, Night Dubbing treats the studio itself as an instrument, opening new dimensions of sound.

Often cited as a foundational record in the genesis of the house genre, the album also features the historic Larry Levan remix of "Changes", a Paradise Garage anthem that helped shape the direction of club music for decades to come.

More than 40 years on, Night Dubbing remains a seminal work. Its influence continues to echo through contemporary dance music, offering a blueprint for how pop could be transformed into something darker, stranger, more physical - a timeless sound that drifts effortlessly from the dancefloor into space.

Important note : it sounds amazing played on 33rpm too !

2026 Repress!

Lush housey vibes with infused Dub Techno elements, made on analog gear and recorded on tape

Dx2ov arrives on Blank Mind with Tonegues, his second vinyl LP following on from Interzona on Gost Zvuk in 2024. The LP title is a wordplay on the idea of speaking in tongues and sonic tonalities, echoing the process and dialogue that went into creating the record. Taken from a vast archive of material from 2019-2025, these ideas were arranged with the collaboration of label owner Sam Purcell and then completed with the long-distance assistance of Toupaz.

Tonegues is best seen through the lens of a beat-tape, with the playful flow and variety that the format provides, bursting with oddball ideas and punctuated with intangible vocal samples. Much like the LP’s beguiling, hand-drawn artwork by Wolfgang Matuschek, it is a glimpse into an inner world, a portal to somewhere uncanny and strange borne through imagination.

Light dub flourishes mix with footwork/IDM hybrids and understated, melancholic synthesis on ‘2018’, whilst the loose, rhythmic march of ‘Fon32’ evokes the dusty beatdown styles of early 2000s Detroit downtempo records. Whilst on one of the LP highlights ‘Trout’ he lays down a gleefully strange bed for the surrealist storytelling of Jacob Dwyer about interactions with dogs, dripping old houses and a perennial wish for the phone to ring with a heavy dub poetry slant. Dx2ov swiftly moves through more footwork adjacent, almost bedroom hyper-pop territories with a penchant for gabber kicks on ‘No Strings (feat DJ Paprika)’ and the maximalism of album closer 'Demetch' which continues in the tradition of wonky, mid-2010s UK bass music flips. The outcome is a confounding, unorthodox piece of work, zigzagging between forms, textures and moods.

Edition of 200

‘MASH DOWN BIRMINGHAM: THE EARLY RECORDINGS OF MUSICAL YOUTH’ NEWLY UNEARTHED EARLY RECORDINGS BY THE FIRST LINE-UP OF MUSICAL YOUTH Mastered from the original tapes by Guy Davie at Electric Needle Mythology, the label founded by music writer, author and broadcaster Pete Paphides, is thrilled to announce ‘MASH DOWN BIRMINGHAM: THE EARLY RECORDINGS OF MUSICAL YOUTH’ – an album of rare and unheard early recordings by Musical Youth, the Birmingham reggae group propelled to worldwide fame with the release of their chart-topping single PASS THE DUTCHIE. ‘MASH DOWN BIRMINGHAM: THE EARLY RECORDINGS OF MUSICAL YOUTH’ combines songs from Musical Youth’s first John Peel session, recorded in 1981 with newly unearthed recordings taken from quarter-inch reels stored for over 40 years by the group’s mentor and producer Toney Owens. The project was seeded as early as 2020, when Paphides sent a speculative message to Owens, after he saw his producer credit on the group’s independently released 1981 single Generals/Political. Paphides wanted to know if Owens had made more recordings of the group in a similar heavier roots reggae vein to those on their debut single. Happening upon the message by chance three years later, Owens allowed Needle Mythology access to his archive of quarter-inch tapes, dating back as far as 1978. The recordings gathered together on ‘MASH DOWN BIRMINGHAM: THE EARLY RECORDINGS OF MUSICAL YOUTH’ shine a light on the exceptional musicianship inculcated into the group by their first frontman Frederick Waite, formerly singer with revered Jamaican rocksteady group The Techniques. Backing Frederick Waite in the early lineup of Musical Youth (originally billed by Toney as Cultural Musical Workshop Youths, were two pairs of brothers) Patrick and Junior Waite, and Kelvin and Michael Grant.

Highly collectable and sort after reissue from Discrete Records currently getting plays from Paula Tape, Make A Dance and Sean OD. Early Progressive House from 1992. Special Yellow vinyl edition.

After Maghreb K7 Club – Synth Raï, Chaoui & Staïfi (1985-1997) and Maghreb K7 Club Disco Singles Volume 1, 2, and 3, Sofa Records and Les Disques Bongo Joe team up again for a new project exploring funky, synth-driven tape music from the Maghreb.

This compilation brings together eight songs —delivering a Saharan pop sound melted with reggae, dub, new-wave and funk — by Yassine (Ahl) Nana, the iconic figure of Mauritanian pop music in the 1980s and 1990s. Yassine and his band recorded songs between Nouakchott, Paris, and Rabat, resulting in only a pair of rare cassette tapes. This music was definitively part of the vibrant wave of African sounds sweeping across the continent at the time, from Abidjan to Oran and Kinshasa.

This compilation features previously unreleased recordings, along with liner notes, interviews, and exclusive iconography.

The second OM album, Conference of the Birds, also features Al Cisneros and Chris Hakius, with production by OM, originally released in 2006 on Holy Mountain. With Billy Anderson (of the Melvins, among others), they deliver an intelligent, hypnotic doom drone album featuring elements of dub and psychedelia, alongside monotonous vocals. Two tracks: minimalist and a logical continuation of Sleep"s sound.

Moondata’s little-known sole single, 1984’s decidedly Balearic, jazz-funk/boogie fusion gem ‘Let The Moonshine In’, is a very important record to the Rotation Sound System crew. It has become a familiar favourite at their annual Rotation Garden Party micro-festival and formed the centrepiece of their first compilation, summer 2025’s superb Everything You’re About To Hear Is True Volume 1. It’s increasingly rare these days for an artist from the 80s to still have their master tapes but even rarer still for them to have the multitrack tapes too. This is something of the holy grail when it comes to licensing old music so when it happens the opportunity to remix and create new versions needs to be grabbed with both hands.

The original record, a genuine rarity beloved of synth-loving crate-diggers, had an unusual gestation. Originally recorded in demo form by musician Jean-Marie Gogniat, it was turned into a finished single by a group of German musicians with a little help from lyricist and vocalist Joe Mwenda, and a crew of backing vocalists whose number included a locally based American singer – a pre-fame Jennifer Rush. Fittingly, the pre-vocal instrumental mix, which has sat unreleased since 1984, is included as a bonus track on the digital edition of this new remix package. The Rotation Sound System crew’s mixes, headed up by long-serving producer Dean Meredith, sprinkle 21st century magic across Gogniat’s one-off masterpiece while retaining core elements of the original and offering nods aplenty to club-focused sounds of the 1980s. They are, in effect, the versions the track deserved – but never got – back in the mid 1980s.

To begin, Meredith reunites with long-time production partner Andrew Meecham for the pair’s first remix as Chicken Lips in three years – a typically sparse and spaced-out ‘Malfunction Dub’ with delay-laden synths, vocals and guitar snippets sit over a sparse post-electro beat and bass guitar. Meredith then joins forces with fellow Rotation Sound System member Ben Shenton for takes under their two bestknown aliases. First, they don the T-Kutt guise for some dubbed out, funky bass guitar-propelled boogie-meets-proto house action that rocks out a killer, Clavinet-expanded groove while spinning in talkbox and backing vocals.

The pair then re-emerge as Mind Fair, famed for their releases on Golf Channel Recordings and their own Rogue Cat Sounds, and deliver a warmer, deeper and more organic-sounding take that’s as languid and tactile as it is warm and saucereyed. To round off the vinyl version of the EP, Rotation Sound System’s other core members – Rob J, Rich Hall and Stuart Robinson – don the now-familiar Wrekin Havoc guise and re-invent the track as a raw, analogue-rich shuffle through 1980s electro – all squelchy synth-bass, stabbing, cut-up vocal samples, chiming synth melodies and echoing beats. The expanded digital download edition of the EP contains a trio of additional bonus rubs. Alongside instrumental versions of the T-Kutt and Mind Fair mixes, we also get a full vocal T-Kutt rework that adds back in Joe Mwenda’s beautifully delivered verses. These additional DJ tools round off a beautifully rendered set of re-imaginations of a genuine cult classic. Gogniat, the man who started it all way back in the summer of 1984, certainly approves.

Filmmaking and music-making share a common element of worldbuilding. Whole cloth, environments are raised in which a perspective can be placed; the viewer, the listener, is taken on a ride into the unknown for a time. Movie, the newest album by DMV-based duo Lifted, is like a film shot with microphones rather than cameras, using the pacing, spatialization, and semiotics of cinematic sound design to lead us through a surreal soundworld that draws as much from Foley artistry as dub, jazz, and electronic music. Musical elements and field recordings shift in and out of focus, collaged in spontaneous improvisation sessions on CDJs by the core duo of Andrew Field-Pickering (Max D, Dolo Percussion, Beautiful Swimmers) and Matt Papich (Co La, Ecstatic Sunshine). We may not see where we are, but our ears give us all the information we need.

We open on a pedal steel, played by More Eaze, but it’s been warped and slowed, gradually pitching upward until it's met by drums and electronics. Imagine the THX logo emerging onscreen. Movie is bookended by two related themes, “The Ice Chewers (Opening Credits), ” and “Midnight Snack (End Credits), ” giving the spatial experiments at the heart of the record form and focus. If there’s a broader narrative to latch onto, it’s in the transition moments, the juxtaposition of various field recordings that indicate movement of characters through space and life happening at its own pace. Tracks are defined by other thematic elements: a wandering piano in "Repossessed, " the drone of Duncan Moore’s bagpipe on “Melts Very Nasty, ” the delicate dance of Dustin Wong’s guitar over Jeremy Hyman’s drums on “Midnight Snack. ” Even with such an expansive ensemble cast, the focus remains squarely on the flow from one scene to the next.

Robert Altman’s use of sonic perspective shifting, as well as Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s intricate construction of environmental ambience and aural representations of the unknown, were both inspirational for Lifted’s focus on sound as a way to establish set and setting in film. We hear Altman especially in the way dialogue emerges and recedes: as Papich puts in a sandwich order, as Field-Pickering browses the grocery store. These techniques have been a part of the duo’s arsenal in Lifted and their own projects for years, but here, without the mandate to make something overtly musical, they are foregrounded and placed in crisp focus. Here is another way to listen to the world, to understand how time, place, and personality are communicated through sound as Lifted closes the gap between artforms. What you can’t see only drives the imagination to more brilliantly invent.

Back in 2023, Bruce was approached by a band of young and ambitious lads, who wanted him to mix their debut album 'Nacre'. Being fans of his music, they hoped to utilise his renowned, club-informed and emotive sound design to add a shade of hypnotism and psychedelia to their singular strand of post-rock. The band of course were Quade, and the union proved to make perfect sense: Bruce excelled in gracefully fulfilling the band's vision, sealing their relationship for projects to come.

A couple years on, both Quade and Bruce had really proved the scope of their abilities: the sophomore album 'The Foel Tower' won the hearts of fans and critics across the board, who celebrated its "gorgeous" and "tender" sound to great acclaim. The world they had built clearly stood defined and dignified, though at the same time, Bruce couldn't help but wonder if there was more to be said. Besides, the sheer abundance of emotion and rich textures therein, suggested a great deal of potential for further exploring. So with the band’s blessing, he embarked on versioning the album.

Bruce was off the leash: total freedom leant him the ability to dub in wild style, weaving and wrestling with drum, bass et al, connecting to the arrangements' true feelings and expanding them to full frame. The "doomer sad boy, ambient-dub, folk, experimental post-rock" of the original, was blown into a whole new, hypnotic realm: through rattling analogue distortion and huge spaced out effects, Bruce's efforts stand as an exploding supernova of dub and noise, refracted through the band's themes of grief, beauty and the great British countryside.

To be released on his label Poorly Knit, this remix album once again proves Bruce's deft of touch and skill in reworking material. Maximising the sonic potential of such a promising and talented band he marks his personal contribution towards what will surely continue to be a fulfilling and illustrious musical journey for Quade.

Available digitally and on super limited cassette (50 copies)

Deconstructed techno-dub classical piano, by exploratory composer Richard Pike. A suite of pieces for piano and texture loops, focused on real-time composition & an exploration of cassette sound sources, minimalism, harmony and the ghostly acoustic ephemera that emerges from the loop material. Intimate, granular and dust-covered.

After the passing of the late great Ryuchi Sakamoto during winter in early 2023 Richard Pike gravitated towards the piano as a daily ritual of improvisation, or what he prefers to call ‘real-time composition’.
Pike’s initial approach was an interest in a repeated practice, finding earthly textural tape loops against a daily commune with the piano. Very quickly a suite of pieces formed.

The process of collecting loops and beds in his studio the morning, then moving downstairs to a 1950s Eavestaff Minipiano in the living room, to record melodic and harmonic expressions over the bed of textures, with and against the flow. This process was pure and impulsive, leaving editing and scrutiny until later.

The textures are inspired by the likes of Romeo Poirier, Deepchord, early music concrete and a nostalgia for the ‘clicks and pops’ era that inspired Pike’s early experiments in his Warp Records-affiliated band PVT.

Unearthed from the original DAT at Strange Weather Studios in South London, Get Fucked's Unearthed Stash traces a chronological journey through the legendary group's earliest recording sessions, from the raw chaos of their 1999 debut album to the more refined dub house explorations that led into their second LP.

Sourced from the best surviving master DATs this collection brings together remastered classics, lost versions and previously unreleased edits, offering unfiltered look into one of the UK underground's most fearless creative period.

Each track has been carefully remastered to preserve the saturated punch, tape grit and raw energy of the original sessions, while expanding definition for modern sound systems.

Pressed on 180g heavyweight black vinyl, Unearthed Stash is strictly for collectors and true heads preserving the energy and attitude that made Get Fucked pioneers of the London underground sound. A raw document of a lost era, revived.

Archival Gold. From The Source. Unearthed at Last.

Time To Get On Board A New Black Universal Express.

With each new recording Anthony Joseph presents an imaginative, personal vision of contemporary black culture, and The Ark is yet another compelling album by the award-winning Trinidadian poet and musician. This second part of a sequence of two albums launched with last year’s Rowing Up River To Get Our Names Back, finds Joseph giving full vent to his desire to explore many thought-provoking themes. However, there is a specific thread running through the glorious offering of sounds.

”I was especially interested in the idea of using Afrofuturism as a means of using the future in order to correct the wrongs of the past,” explains Joseph. “And so a lot of lyrics reimage or imagine an alternate black history. At the same time there are elements of autobiography.” The aforesaid cultural phenomenon, a view of the black experience through the prism of science fiction and ancient Egypt and Africa, as mapped out by visionaries from music and literature such as Sun Ra, Parliament-Funkadelic and Octavia E. Butler, has previously inspired Joseph. His 2006 novel The African Origins Of UFOs was a multi-hued work, and the new music shows how Joseph

has, much like all significant artists, gone on to broaden his conceptual palette, creating beguiling new stories and images set to startling rhythms and tones. Tracks such as ‘James’, with its taut, crisp bass and dubbed-up brass, and ‘Transposition Of Space (Glissant)’, a potent evocation of the influential Martiniquan theorist set in a haze of jazz guitar and ambient synthesizers, are marvels of text-sound painting.

As for ‘Baron Samedi’, shaped by a languid, almost wounded guitar line and slow rise of horns that frame Joseph’s journey to the ‘mountain of fire, almost touching the sky’ it is an epic blend of commanding vocal delivery and dramatic sonic tapestry.

Joseph led the Spasm band in the early 2000s and recorded well-received albums such as Bird Head Son and Time, in which songs were largely based on spirituals or chants enhanced by improvisation. But his musical curiosity has naturally led to collaborations, and the new work is produced by Dave Okumu, the prodigiously talented guitarist-vocalist-composer known as the leader of Mercury Music Prize-nominated The Invisible, and who was also a member of the seminal band Jade Fox.

Having first performed together at a show curated by influential saxophonist-flautist Shabaka Hutchings at the storied Total Refreshment Centre In London during lockdown, Joseph and Okumu struck up a rapport that further developed when the former guested on he latter’s album. With the connection made Joseph knew Okumu was the ideal producer for this latest project, which has a freewheeling, almost black psychedelic thing. After sifting through demos and loops the guitarist made on pro-tools the poet started to live with the music. Many months later words began to take shape. Joseph then went into the studio with Okumu’s band and set about creating a magnum opus. Boasting a stellar cast such as vocalist Eska Mtungwazi, trumpeter Byron Wallen and keyboardist Nick Ramm, The Ark is a highly intricate musical mosaic framed by simmering funk grooves, wily jazz improvisation and haunting dub effects. Through the use of many genres the music has simply become its own genre.

The Ark can be perceived as a vessel or means of transport to new worlds, along the lines of Sun Ra’s Ark or Funkadelic’s Mothership, and the material it contains is a unique blend of who Anthony Joseph is and how he sees the world and society in these stimulating, challenging times. “It balances the personal with the universal in a much more vulnerable, accessible way than on previous albums,” Joseph explains.

“It has become less about a personal experience and more about a collective, communal experience in which the artist is conduit, messenger, urban griot.”

CASSETTE VERSION

AFTER DARK is the latest project from French producer Onra, conceived as the soundtrack to an imagined late-night film. Entirely self-produced, the album continues the sophisticated R&B and Modern Soul direction explored since his 2010 classic Long Distance and 2018's accomplished Nobody Has To Know, focusing on late 80's / early 90's inspirations.

Structured like a film unfolding between dusk and dawn, After Dark moves through themes of intimacy, urban solitude, distance, and quiet indulgence. Analog synthesizers, tight drum programming, understated basslines, and selective live saxophone textures shape a cohesive body of work that favors mood and narrative over excess. The sequencing reinforces its cinematic intent, opening and closing with intro and outro pieces that frame the record as a cohesive night-time narrative album.

Over 20 years since emerging in the mid-2000s from the beat scene, Onra has steadily evolved from sample-based Hip-Hop production toward polished, song-oriented projects rooted in contemporary R&B and Funk. With After Dark, he delivers one of his most focused and refined statements to date: a mature, immersive album built for late hours, and attentive listening.

Cult reissue label Sticky Buttons returns with ‘Sweet Edits’, their first official foray into dancefloor edits featuring 4 remixes of Nigerian boogie legend Dizzy K by a hand picked set of superstar producers specially designed to get the party moving.

Starting with a bang, the A Side features a double hit of remixes to Dizzy K’s 80’s sleeper hit “Afrikan Jamboree”. First up is Clive From Accounts, frequent contributor to Razor-N-Tape and hot off the heels of his 2025 debut full length LP, Clive’s edit has gifted us a complete foot stomper, filled with popping synths and squelchy baselines the track has already been getting big plays by the likes of Optimo over the past 18 months. On track A2, well known dance floor magician Lipelis takes the reins, creating his Disco Dub version, expertly layering traditional african drums and vocal loops from the original to build a wonky club track laden with energy and soul as come to be expected from the artist.

Over on the B Side, South London based duo Make A Dance (M.A.D) take the formula from their own widely popular house inspired edits imprint to take apart Dizzy K’s “I’ll Never Love Again”, stripping it down into a teetering, chugging acid sprinkled weapon overlaid with a ferocious drum pattern destined to move even the stiffest hips. Last but not least, Japanese producer Mayurashka brings her signature subversive style to Sticky Buttons, flipping Dizzy’s K’s “Konga Mama” into a hypnotic tribal masterpiece, pulsating with a psychedelic techno edge ripe for blending in smokey club venues and dark mainrooms.

Four heaters not to be slept on. Hearing is believing and on this limited edition vinyl release the legend of Dizzy K sings again, finely tuned for 2026 dancefloors but always carrying the raw spirit of the original.

Mastered by Submarea Estudio
Cover Art Illustration by Alex Ram

XKatedral Anthology I is the first in a series of archival releases dedicated to presenting music by XKatedral affiliated composers working within the realm of slowly evolving harmonic and timbral music. This double-vinyl set contains an array of pieces dating from 2010 - 2020. Four of the works included here were originally released on cassette tape early on in the label's history, while the two remaining pieces are presented by the label for the first time.

"The works Ir Himinn, Grooenn by Kristoffer Svensson, Disquiet (Heart) by Marta Forsberg and Lamé by Isak Edberg were first released on the compilation XKatedral Volume II in 2016. Svenssons piece from 2014 combines justly tuned gamelan percussion and prepared piano intricately interwoven in a way that obscures the boundaries between the two instrument groups. Forsberg and Edbergs pieces both use a monolithic form to explore the timbral and harmonic spaces provided by the Düben Baroque organ situated in Tyska Kyrkan in the oldest part of Stockholm. While similar in terms of instrumentation the two works differ formally - Edbergs Lamé composed in 2010 uses the registers of the organ to articulate a seamless spectral transformation while Forsbergs Disquiet (Heart) from 2014 deals in blocks of sound with a varying degree of opacity, saturation and intensity.

Glory for two electric guitars by Caterina Barbieri and Kali Malone was composed and recorded in Tempo Reale in Florence, Italy, and was originally released on the cassette compilation XKatedral Volume III in 2016. This music takes the form of an ever-evolving hypnotic pattern shared by the two instruments articulated through an additive and subtractive canon. Dissolving Ceremony, composed in 2012 by Edberg/Erlandsson/Lisinski, was first presented publicly on the self-released record Stratum. The music contained in that release was formed from a collection of gamelan percussion instruments augmented by two sets of live-electronic instruments tuned to the harmonic framework formed by the partials of the metal percussion. Originally positioned in the center of the record running order between two long monolithic process-based pieces, Dissolving Ceremony now stands on its own as a memory of a time and methodology from the not so distant past.

The newest piece in this set is Shipwrecks by Daniel M Karlsson. While this work is a recent one Karlsson should be considered one of the forerunners of the musical expression contained within this record set. Active within new music for two decades his strongly articulated musical ideas and constantly evolving craftsmanship has resulted in an enormous body of work, and has served as an inspiration for many of his fellow composers. This piece is a celebration of transposition and its immense capacity for timbral transformation using a vast array of instruments performed, recorded and electronically treated by the composer to form a liquid uncanny topography where a deeply personal harmonic language constantly shifts, slides and shivers."

Never Sleep charity tape series lands in the Athens on Spree for an era defying multi genre workout from 2005.

Prototype Reaktor methodologist Errorsmith blows the dub techno expectations away with a mix released on his website and limited CDR that aligns itself as much with early Jackmaster or Diplo sensibilities as much as it does "Ron Hardy - Live at the AKA" purist panache.

Recorded rapid fire Errorsmith sets the trends with liquid gold Dancehall, Jitterbug club, Grime and acidic Ragga.

Challenging any Traxsource ambassadorship, complex concordance for the Soulsee pundit. Covalent bonding tones with granular paced blends, mystical loop rearrangements, combilising genre metamorphosis and "DANCE ON THE KITCHEN TABLE" NRG. Errorsmith switches gears, sets the expectations high and flows like the river Fuldas on a summer's evening

A beautiful nano moment that allowed Berlin to breathe from a different musical atmosphere and dance to a less fixated rhythm.

All proceeds go to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) who provide humanitarian care in crisis situations across the globe.

Lone Ark and The 18th Parallel join forces again! After the critically acclaimed debut ‘Showcase Vol. 1’ (2021), the two spearheads of the European roots reggae scene return with a powerful statement: ‘Man Kill Man’, the first single from the upcoming album ‘Showcase Vol. 2’.

Recorded on 2” tape between Geneva, Switzerland and Cueto, Spain, this new project is another masterpiece of production. It dives deep into the roots sound and playing of the mid 70s reggae with heavyweight drums and bass, razor-sharp rhythm section, and sophisticated flute and vocals arrangements.

Roberto Sánchez, the voice behind Lone Ark, sings about ongoing wars in the world justified by religious beliefs. In today’s climate, where such conflicts persist across the globe, speaking out about this issue is both crucial and deeply relevant. ‘Peace Version’ on the flip is a dub full of message mixed by the man himself, Lone Ark.

2026 Repress

Inner City Sound Archives is the work of a small crew of obsessive DJs, diggers, and archivists. For years, they hunted lost reels — digging through basements, flea markets, forgotten storage rooms — until they uncovered a batch of mysterious acetate tapes. No credits, no labels. Just cryptic handwriting and the hiss of time. What they found were raw, extended disco cuts — played once or twice at underground NYC loft parties in the late '70s, passed hand to hand among a tight circle of selectors, then lost to history. Now, after painstaking transfers and full analog remastering, these tracks are back. Unpolished, hypnotic, physical. Restored with love. Cut loud. Pressed right. For our debut release: six unreleased NYC disco bombs, presented in their original long versions across Sides A & B. Once championed behind closed doors by the likes of Larry Levan, Francis Grasso, Steve D’Acquisto, Walter Gibbons, and Richie Kaczor.

This 7-inch singles features a previously unreleased cover of Bob Marley's iconic "Sun Is Shining," performed by the prolific Jamaican singer Ronnie Davis of The Itals and The Tennors. The multi-track tape was famously mixed by Prince Jammy into the popular "Jammys A Shine" dub, without any vocals. More recently, Prince Fatty mixed his version "Dub Is Shining" for the acclaimed Prince Fatty Meets The Gorgon album (VP4246) in 2023. The vocal was never mixed or issued, for reasons unknown, but with Prince Fatty's usual magic touch, it finally finds its way to the public after nearly five decades. Ronnie Davis, 1950-2017, was one of Jamaica's beloved voices during his long career. He was better known as a member of the rocksteady group The Tennors, and later with The Itals, but during the 1970s he was on of Bunny Striker Lee's top vocalists.

Primordial Mind forms the mysteries and intensity of inner life into eight mandalic instrumentals where Mas Aya and Khôra, artists who share 15 years of music making, orchestrate an inspired, prismatic palette of percussive and melodic sources. Each composition presented stages a vigorous meshwork of colours and textures, contrasting riveting polyrhythms with towering arrangements for flutes, synths, and processed acoustic instruments. Tendencies which the artists trace in their solo practices are amplified, blended, and refracted sublimely in unison, serving as energetic portals to the collective awareness.

Combining trans-ethnic scaling alongside a heady brew of rhythmic influences and advanced electronic processing, the recordings on this album operate with a tactility that vaults between free jazz, dub, raga, ambient, and ritual music. Assimilated powers of primal drum patterning and psychoactive, ceremonial melodies, invoke fourth world adjacencies with the work of Don Cherry, Jon Hassell, Popol Vuh et al. There is an alchemical, Buddhist/Taoist/Hindu inflection that guides the record’s narrative, formed through dialogue between the artists over lifelong shared interest in spiritual modalities generally and the tantric approaches of the global east in particular. The album title is derived from an unexcelled esoteric work known as the Kalachakra (Wheel of Time)Tantra and its associated commentary the Ornament of Stainless Light which detail forms of inner and outer transubstantiation within its complex cosmology and metaphysiology.

Mas Aya is the moniker of Brandon Miguel Valdivia, acclaimed Nicaraguan-Canadian composer, producer, and musician whose electronic and jazz inspired works creatively interlace Colombian, Cuban, and a wide array of traditional music. Khôra is the name of the occult entity that uses multi-instrumentalist, producer, and writer Matthew Ramolo to pronounce itself. Returning to Marionette following 2024's monumental Gestures of Perception, Primordial Mind reinforces the rigorous and magical approach to creation which defines Khôra’s two decades of sonic output. Brandon and Matthew met back in 2011 and the pair toured around eastern Europe with Toronto band Picastro in 2013, also performing as a duo with Brandon contributing drums to Khôra's opening sets. After a short spate composing and playing in the ensemble Bespoken together, they continued to discover shared inspiration in psych/art rock, jazz, experimental and electronic music, providing a fertile soil for friendship and collaboration resulting in their collaged, lo-fi album Tangled Roots in 2017. Mythic and talismanic, the duo's Marionette debut weaves a luminous tapestry of organic pulses, offering itself as a support for resonant meditation and a motor for lucid action and intuition.

Brandon Miguel Valdivia: Percussion, Flutes, Log Drum, Korg Lambda, Angklung, Tambor Alegre, Udu
Matthew Ramolo: Modular Synth, Archival Samples, Angklung, Guitar, Duduk, Bass, Percussion, Arrangements and Mix

The Yawpers planted their flag at the intersection of the delta, the dive bar, and the mosh pit. We’re proud to drag their most feral albums back to the turntable.

Four years after American Man, the band moved to Chicago’s Electrical Audio to record Human Question live to tape with producer Alex Hall. The result was a record Americana UK called a “shambolic rock and roll” masterpiece, earning a 10/10 for its refusal to polish its own edges. While American Man was a “frantic folk stomp,” Human Question shifted into what Punk Rock Theory dubbed “pedal-punk,” a noisy cocktail of psychobilly and gospel, presented here on sunburst splash vinyl

These records aren’t just artifacts of a specific scene; they are honed to a shiv point, designed to cut through the noise of an oversaturated market. Restored and remastered with original posters dropped in for good measure, these are loud, lean, and necessary.

Morcheeba unveil Remix The Chaos: Volume 1, the first instalment in a three-part remix series drawn from their 11th studio album, Escape The Chaos (2025).

Spanning four tracks per volume, the project brings together an eclectic, global roster of electronic producers, each offering a distinct reimagining of Morcheeba’s unmistakable sound. Multi-genre and far-reaching, the series expands further into the rich sonic world the band have built over the past few decades, pushing their music into bold, contemporary electronic territory. Volume 1 features remixes from Paula Tape, the Chilean superstar producer, recent Mixmag cover star and one of electronic music’s most exciting names heading into 2026; Trance Wax (a.k.a. Ejeca), the prolific Belfast producer specialising in high-energy breakbeat and trance-leaning remixes; Frazer Ray, the London-based underground force known for UK bass, breaks and garage; and Brothers Counsell, a side project from the formidable Joy Anonymous.

Together, the tracks form a journey of dancefloor-ready hard hitters, powered by Morcheeba’s iconic vocals and signature guitar lines. Pressed on limited edition traffic light red vinyl, Remix The Chaos: Volume 1 comes with deep-cut grooves designed to hit just as hard on a club sound system as they do from the comfort of your living room.

Katz Mulk's ''All the mess'' is a collection of songs about playing and play-work, recorded between 2023-25 in Glasgow and Tokyo. Developed from performances across the UK and during a residency at Xevarion Institute in Hong Kong, with dancers, costume design by Mary Hurrell, and mobile speaker design by Chris Ball. Slithering breath, crackling synths, dented gongs, and dub loops pull songs into unexpected, unsettling patterns, like being a kid again but with more electronics.

FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER: THE LONG-LOST RECORDINGS OF BIRMINGHAM ROOTS REGGAE PIONEERS NATRUS Mastered from the original tapes by Guy Davie at Electric Needle Mythology, the label founded by music writer, author and broadcaster Pete Paphides, is thrilled to announce the archival release of newly-discovered recordings by Birmingham reggae band Natrus. Comprising members of the same family – seven in total – Natrus were a ubiquitous presence of the live circuit within and beyond the West Midlands in the late 1970s. Used as an ad hoc “Wrecking Crew” by local producer and promoter Toney Owens, NATRUS frequently provided live accompaniment to visiting Jamaican artists such as Sugar Minott, Johnny Osbourne and Freddie McKay. With an age span ranging from 9 to 25, NATRUS’S live work had to be structured around the educational obligations of their younger members. But when they weren’t playing live, they would frequently hone their own compositions at Owens’ studio in Saltley, Birmingham.

During their collective lifetime, NATRUS released one very limited edition single Mash It, with a stellar guest vocal from deejay Ranking Glad(Stone). Featured alongside Mash It on this release are a selection of recordings previously thought lost by the group who laid them down. They were only discovered after Toney Owens’ alerted Needle Mythology’s Pete Paphides to the existence of some 60 quarter-inch reels featuring all the music recorded by Owens over a period of ten years or so. When Paphides finally tracked down NATRUS rhythm guitarist Owen Taylor, he was stunned to hear of their existence. After a meeting with Taylor and his siblings, Needle Mythology collaborated with NATRUS on the restoration and remastering of the tracks featured on this, their very belated debut album. As well as Mash It and its original flipside Come From Africa, highlights on ‘NATRUS’ include a superb version of Slim Smith’s The Time Has Come and the deep roots entreaties of Freedom Inna Babylon, both showcasing the soulful vocal of lead singer Fitzdonald “Fitz” English and the almost psychic sense of musical attunement that percolates right down the the formidable rhythm section of Beverley Stewart (bass) and Clinton Gordon (drums).

Lo Recordings is proud to present a brand new compilation by Russian electronic producer/composer OID, spanning 25 years of music that blends in and out of focus, inhabiting styles from dub techno to ambient, vaporwave, space gamelan, electronica and beyond. The album is both a retrospective and a celebration, a journey into a singular world that exists only in OID’s imagination, available digitally and on Ltd cassette from 24th April 2026.

“I first met OID in an illicit ‘Sky High’ bar in Moscow. It was a club for people who liked to jump from high buildings. OID played the piano whilst a tea ceremony took place. It was all like some kind of strange dream. The music he creates sounds like that kind of dream. Some of the tracks are reminiscent of the music released by ALEXANDROID on the ‘False Starts’ album way back in 2003 - a legendary album, in our minds at least. Alex tragically passed away in 2009, leaving only OID.

The music on this album is a testament to the beauty of friendship, the everlasting meaning of music and the light that shines forever.” -
Jon Tye, Lo Recordings

Josiah aka JdB is a key creative at the heart of the New Palm crew. Not only does he DJ and produce, but also he is a resident at Gradient Campout and a member of LA's PrintShop collective. He has a sound rooted in dubby drums and cavernous grooves, both of which are evident here. 'Feels Good' is a heavy warm-up sound with sparse chords slowly ramping things up, while 'Surface Area' is icy minimalism with abstract sines and FX. 'Come Over' pulls back to a more liquid dub roller and 'Dante Is Late' is an ambient soundscape with plenty of tape hiss and curious melodies drawing you in deep. Stefan Bitke of Scape has taken care of the mastering so these sound superb.

Naive Melodies is a bold and visionary tribute to the music of Talking Heads, reinterpreted through the lens of Black musical innovation. Curated by Drew McFadden — the creative mind behind BBE’s acclaimed Modern Love (David Bowie tribute album) — this new collection dives deep into the Afro-diasporic rhythms and experimental soul roots that helped shape Talking Heads’ unmistakable New Wave sound. Inspired by artists like Fela Kuti, Parliament, and Al Green — whose influences loomed large in the band’s rhythmic DNA — Naive Melodies shines a light on the Black music traditions that underpinned their artistry. Far from a conventional tribute, Naive Melodies reframes the band’s catalog through the voices and visions of a new generation of genre-defying artists. These interpretations illuminate the foundational grooves and sonic textures that fueled Talking Heads’ rhythm-forward aesthetic, bringing them full circle with authenticity. “With Naive Melodies, I wanted to spotlight the deep and often overlooked influence of Black music on the sound of Talking Heads, drawing from the rhythmic foundations of Afro-diasporic traditions, soul, gospel, Latin, and spiritual jazz. This project is a chance to reimagine Talking Heads’ legacy through the lens of the very innovations that helped shape it, bringing those influences to the forefront through the voices of today’s most forward-thinking artists.” — Drew McFadden The album features a globally minded lineup, including Liv.e, Bilal, Rogê, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Aja Monet, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Theo Croker, Kenny Dope, Rosie Lowe, Pachyman, W.I.T.C.H., and more — spanning Afrobeat, jazz, soul, funk, gospel, dub, electronica, orchestral, and Latin styles. It reflects not only the boundary-pushing ethos of Talking Heads, but also the influence of Black music as a cultural force that helped shape it. This is not just a tribute album — it’s a recontextualization. A cultural conversation. A rhythmic reawakening.

DeepLabs opens 2026 with an exciting new release, “Förvandling,” from Tarik Hensen—the collaborative project of two exceptional producers, Martinou & Ben Kaczor.
This release completes a full-circle journey: rooted in Detroit techno, traveling through Malmö, and landing in Basel, where these influences converge into a singular, immersive statement.
Longtime admirer of both artists’ solo works, Luke Hess joins the project with his own interpretation of Förvandling, bringing his distinct Detroit-informed perspective to the release.
Förvandling is the Swedish word for “transformation,” describing the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly.
The title reflects the evolution of techno itself—how it shifts and reshapes across cities, communities, and eras while retaining its core spirit.
Varp refers to the vertical warp threads in woven fabric—essential structural lines that hold everything together.
The track mirrors this concept: hypnotic percussion and immersive ambience interlace with melodic tones, unified through Tarik’s live dub mixing approach, creating a rich, fluid tapestry of sound.
Malm translates to raw ore, the unrefined material that, when forged with alloys, becomes durable metal.
True to its name, the track channels a deep, raw warehouse energy—refined into a functional gem through harmonious stabs, textured layers, and driving momentum.
Closing the EP, Luke Hess’s remix of Förvandling draws from elements across the original works while incorporating new audio stems from the DeepLabs studio.
The result is a seamless transformation of Tarik Hensen’s aesthetic into Luke’s unmistakable Detroit sound—an adventurous, atmospheric journey crafted for extended DJ sets and immersive dancefloor moments.
Tarik Hensen and Luke Hess invite you to weave these tracks into your curated selections and allow them to transform the dancefloor in unexpected ways.

Green Sleeve 2026 Repress

The earliest musical memories of young Prince Istari are of his mother beautifying the home with her piano playing. She would repeatedly play the tranquil pieces of Erik Satie. Skipping school and sitting in the sun, young Prince would listen to these catchy, calm compositions.

In the first week of 2024, the older Prince Istari rediscovered himself and found a box containing his mother's old sheet music. He transferred them to his computer and began spinning dub versions from them. It became a tapestry. As his mother used to say: "To weave a net, one must first spin." The form of the pieces dictated the direction each would take. The heavy dub transforms here into a light weightiness until it dissolves into a pure piano piece accompanied by a synthesizer. However, the last piece is much older, from the time when Prince was still known as Istari Lasterfahrer. The ending includes a distorted recording of Huberta, Prince's mother, playing a Gnossienne by Satie. At the end, she turns the sheet music, and the record can be turned back to the beginning.

In the essence of its material, this record rejects the Loudness War. The originality of the compositions guided the dub within their tracks, thereby imparting to each a form descriptive of its essence.

Longtime friend of the label Eraserhead returns after over a decade away from producing music due to his surreal MS Paint work as 'Jim'll Paint It' becoming an unexpected cultural phenomenon. With his debut full-length, 'Violence', Eraserhead presents a truly eclectic electronic LP featuring collaborations with established producers such as Om Unit, Enduser, and Brain Rays, as well as the vocal talents of Nadia Rose, Beans (of Antipop Consortium), and Cadence Weapon. An album held together by theme and tone rather than style or tempo, 'Violence' is the culmination of a bitter wave of inspiration, initially conceived in the wake of a personal tragedy that quickly grew into a broader polemic about the state of the world.

Originally linking up with Love Love in its breakcore netlabel infancy with his refined, breaks-heavy breakcore/gabba, Eraserhead's flair for tight, intricate productions was evident in his finely tuned tracks of controlled chaos. This time around, his work is a darker, more expansive evolution of his sound, with the scale upsized and the stylistic scope massively broadened, remaining unfaithful to any single genre, but with firm nods to Breakcore, Grime, Drum & Bass, Techno, Rave, Dubstep, and Footwork, all chewed up with a hard industrial edge and cinematically framed by a backdrop of apocalyptic synths.

Opening with the cold tech-noir of 'Shining Brainless Beacon' to set the tone, the album quickly locks in with the blistering spoken-word headrush of 'Hurricane With Teeth' alongside rapper Beans, before Om Unit lends his expertise on the sharp groove and clinical bass blasts of 'Operation Hardtack'. The album shifts and morphs constantly throughout the runtime, moving from the raw and urgent acid techno of 'Crowd Control' to the crunching military march of the Gore Tech collaboration 'No More Worlds' and the tribal sci-fi footwork of the Brain Rays collaboration 'Night Visions'. 'Monolith' provides a final burst of catharsis, channelling Underworld by way of Nine Inch Nails, complete with writhing screams from Amée Chanter of sludge-punk-noise-rock duo Human Leather, before the heart of the album is laid bare with the painfully bleak closing dirge of 'Animal'. In its final moments, 'Violence' leaves the listener suspended between devastation and awe - an unflinching portrait of an uncaring world.

The latest tape from Captured Visions offers up smoky, low-key deepness that is perfectly suited to the imperfections of the format. Arcade, aka Nathan Stephenson, opens up this compact but potent collection with 'Grace 01', a dreamy house sound for calm and reflection with a gentle smattering of toms and smeared chords soothing the soul. 'Grace 02' moves more but remains well below the surface, with liquid pads and cuddly kicks. '03' spins out into electro drum patterns with bleeping digital synths and crunchier hits, and '04' closes with ghostly chords that drift in and out of focus over a cavernous and dubby low end from late 90s Berlin.

Part 2 of our 1980 Taxi showcase, and it's heavier than the first. Here is one of Sly & Robbie's most loved productions, in its initial raw dubplate form. In August 1980, this raw cut of the haunting lovelorn classic first started to make its way out there on dubplate, in this spare, cavernous heavy mix without the synthesizer and syndrum sounds that would eventually adorn the final released mix. As tapes of these type of early mixes made for sound systems more often than not were not saved or archived, we're overjoyed to have located this one and brought it out. Like our previous Viceroys Taxi releases, this is some of the heaviest music of its day, in its pure initial form like you would have heard Shaka or other serious sounds playing thru the end of 1980.

MEMORIALS jump off the waterslides and head above the clouds with their stunning second album proper, 'All Clouds Bring Not Rain'. The duo of Verity Susman and Matthew Simms (formerly of Electrelane and WIRE) locked themselves away in a studio in a barn secluded deep in the woods in southwestern France and re-emerged with a beautiful, unusual record that is both melodic and unconventional. For such an ambitious album it's striking that it was written, performed, recorded and mixed solely by the two of them. Sounding like an unearthed classic, MEMORIALS twist their influences into their own unmistakable sound. Imagine Nico singing with Can produced by David Axelrod and you're somewhere in the right ballpark. The record draws inspiration from a wide range of music including folk, dub, post punk, experimental tape music, 60s soul, garage rock, 70s spiritual jazz and Canterbury prog. Verity's distinctive, unadorned singing is a focal point of the record, moving from tender to wild. Her vocal melodies quickly become earworms, providing the tuneful heart around which the songs' more unorthodox elements are arranged, which is where Matthew's unconventional approach to recording and production comes to the fore. With their adventurous arrangements, classic songwriting skills and innovative production techniques, MEMORIALS have created another mesmerising listen that's accomplished and compelling in its unique approach yet remains dizzyingly immersive - just like their acclaimed live shows. "Exciting and unpredictable" The Guardian "Everything you'd expect from a duo adept in the strange and esoteric, while also in thrall to pop music's melodic bent." The Quietus "Stunning, kaleidoscopic tunes" Electronic Sound "Engagingly eclectic" UNCUT "Divinely tuneful yet confrontational" The Wire "Kaleidoscopic art-pop and adventurous psych-rock with an immersive, experimental aura." KEXP.

DJ Support: Garnier, Opolopo, Worldwide FM, Marcia Carr, Bill Brewster, Timeout Moscow, Craig Smith, Delfonic, Tony Nwachukwu, Marcel Dettmann, DJ Rocca, Shuya Okino, Borrowed Identity, Titonton Duvante, Alex Attias, Rainer Truby, Sol Power All-Stars, Kyri R2, Robert Luis, Severino Panzetta, Lars Behrenroth, Kassian, Alkalino, Getdown Edits, Moodymanc, Gerd, Lea Lisa, Young Pulse, Mark de Clive-Lowe, Mark Grusane, Alex Barck….

International dance music heavyweight, producer and DJ Alexander Lay-Far returns with a powerful new chapter - Lay-Far Dance Orchestra (LFDO) - a fully-fledged live band project that reconnects him with his jazz-funk and fusion DNA while pushing dance music forward with unmistakable groove, musicianship and emotional weight. Formed in early 2024, LFDO is no nostalgia exercise. With Lay-Far at the helm as bassist, bandleader, composer, arranger and sound engineer, the orchestra has already been turning heads with explosive live performances, reinventing classic Lay-Far cuts, and now unveil their first album “Skybreak” with all new and original material written and produced by Lay-Far together with his bandmates and star guests, including Lipelis, Antoha MC and Seven Davis Jr. This work shows the departure from the predominantly electronic sound of Lay-Far's previous solo albums in favour of live instrumentation recorded to analogue tape and effortlessly bridging the gap between Jazz, Library Music, Disco-Funk, House, Broken Beat and Drum’n’Bass. “Skybreak” is dynamic, passionate, spiritual, cinematic, playful, heartfelt, life-affirming, dreamy and deeply romantic. Ultimately, there’s something profoundly romantic in recording and releasing such music in this day and age!


“Take Flight (Part 1)” is opening the album with style. It takes us on a beautifully orchestrated journey, blending the sensuality of Library Music with high-octane Jazz-Funk and raw b-boy breaks, propelled by breathtaking flute and Rhodes solos of Timur Nekrasov and Maxim Glonti. This aural symbiosis of “beauty and the beats” will become more and more prominent as the album unfolds.



It’s time for “Aquarius Love” created with the inimitable artist and vocalist Seven Davis Jr. (Secret Angels, Ninja Tune). In this composition cinematic soul and heavy jazz meet the restless energy of live drum & bass with deep and heartfelt vocals - timeless sound combined with a timeless message about love and life!



Next is “Head In The Clouds” - a theme for an imaginary rom-com, an ode to all the dreamers - sweet, light, naive and heartwarming. Space-Disco-Funk at its best!

“Where You From” is a fiery Soulful House number with heavy Afro-Latin influences recorded in collaboration with Lipelis. It’s full of Sun, joy and passion. Its irresistible rhythm is emphasised by funky octave bass, wah-wah guitar, catchy piano riffs, guitar solo by Lipelis and seemingly light conscious message delivered by Lay-Far and Maryag. Summer is here!

Now the album takes an unexpected twist in the form of “The Harp of Boom” which at first glance appears to be a classic-sounding Boom-Bap banger. Yes, It’s loud, raw, and gritty, yet it gradually evolves into something delicately-touching and deeply-soulful thanks to a memorable flute melody and lush string arrangement. Definitely recorded with tongue in cheek.


Next is “Feel The Moment” a remarkable collaboration with one of the most recognisable and distinctive Russian artists, singer, trumpeter and cultural icon Antoha MC. It’s a feel-good song, hopeful, life-affirming and bittersweet. A stylish excursion into Brit-Funk and Soviet Jazz-Fusion sound, drawing inspiration from the likes of Atmosfear, Light Of The World or Soviet Jazz bands like Allegro and Arsenal, but reimagining the influences through the modern West London broken beat lens.


The spectacular music journey continuous with “Take Flight (Part 2)” - it’s all about the deep infectious jazz-funk groove, heavy beats, rolling percussion and the glory of the soloing instruments - saxophone and flute by Timur Nekrasov, demonstrating the wide range of emotions from thoughtful and lyrical to restless and borderline vicious. One for freestyle dancing!

As the album draws to an end a vibrant musical triptych “Soul Constant” awaits, mixing together the deep and sensual mood of spiritual jazz with heavy syncopated drum’n’bass rhythms by Michail Fotchenkov, lush orchestration, expressive saxophone solos and the ending which can simply be described as “aural bliss”. It’s breath-taking!

A pleasant bonus is the exclusive version of “Where You From” by Lipelis himself, who is taking it into dub territories, further enhancing the rhythm section and enriching the song with his trademark playful synth flourishes and dreamy guitar solos for maximum effect (and appeal).

The album “Skybreak” by Lay-Far Dance Orchestra is the work of real artistry and craftsmanship with timeless sound that’s not only deeply-rooted but also forward-thinking.

Igor Tamerlan is a stranger in his own land. Born in 1954 the Hague and spent most formative years in Paris, Igor suddenly had the urge to relocate to Bali in 1986. “I want to settle in Indonesia and marry a local girl,” he told his sister shortly before flying out.

His next journey would be as audacious as his time in the Fifth Republic. Born from a prominent Indonesian expatriate family in Paris with ties to Indonesia’s first prime minister Sutan Sjahrir, Igor earned a degree in architecture at Ecole nationale supe´rieure d’architecture de Paris-La Villette.

He could have been a brilliant architect or a political scientist (he was accepted to Sciences Po), but his passion for music distracted him from his academic works. He was after all named after Russian composer Igor Stravinsky.

During his brief stint at Sciences Po, Igor spent most of times hanging out at recording studios and rub shoulders with the likes of singer-songwriter Jean-Jacques Goldman and Michel Polnaref. He had a brief encounter with The Rolling Stones at the Cha^teau de Thoiry studio in the early 1970s.

But Igor’s musical education and his occidental eyes appeared to be ill-suited for Indonesia. His first record, titled Langkah Pertama (First Step) on the mainstream label Musica was met with a shrug and was a commercial dud. An experimental record blending the influence of Spanish motifs, Francophile production and a whiff of hip hop and ska was seen by critics as being too alien. His sarcasm-laden lyrics and his biting critique of excessive materialism among the upper tier of Indonesia’s nouveau riche in the album was met with confusion from the audience. He was just too far ahead of his time.

He left the label Musica – or may had been dropped – soon after Langkah Pertama and decided to go independent. He then relocated to Bali and set up a state-of-the-art recording studio in Sanur, across the street from Southeast Asia’s first boutique hotel where luminaries like Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Sting, Yoko Ono and Ringo Starr stayed for their holiday.

From the studio, Igor recording everything from the sounds waterfalls, geckos, minibuses to motorized rickshaw and mix them with hip hop, jazz, electronica, dub and Balinese gamelan. A visionary, Igor was the first musician to use MIDI, which started to be available globally in the early 1980s.

On paper, songs like “Bali Vanilli” should not work, a mish mash of disparate elements mentioned above, sung in three languages, Balinese, English and Bahasa Indonesia while tackling the subject of overtourism. The song was also the first to introduce rap to an unsuspecting audience. But for some strange reason “Bali Vanilli” became a sensation and overnight Igor became household name. And in 1987, long before overtourism was an issue, Igor broached the subject to a national audience in Indonesia on the possible destruction of nature and culture from tourism.

Ever an iconoclast, Igor decided to step out of the limelight following the success of “Bali Vanilli” and in early 1990s he relocated to Indonesia’s cultural capital, Yogyakarta. Here, he worked on some more experimental music while juggling as music video director. He passed away in 2018 at the age of 64.

The 10 songs in this compilation, Bali Vanilli: Experimental Pop from Paradise Island (1987-1991), are some of Igor’s best works, music that would have gone into obscurity had it not been for the diligent work of film director Alfred Pasifico Ginting, who managed to track down some of the master tapes while researching on a documentary on the musician.

These recordings have never before been released outside of Indonesia. Igor would have been proud with this reissue project.

Industrial experimental noise dub movie atmospheric soundtrack - words that define this album by J.K. He found his true calling here in the perfect medium of the Chrome Type 2 tape for an analog sound. Accompanied by the gesture and noises of removing the tape, inserting it into the deck and pressing play, the experience is complete while watching the tape spin. Just 20 copies so very limited stock!

Scopeotaku’s latest is a continuation of themes he explored in System Failure. Mutating into darker dimensions, influenced by recent world events. reality error is steeped in strangled synths, tape hiss and distorted echoes. Featuring crushed low-tech rhythms and recordings inspired by science fiction B-movies. Scopeotaku seizes the means of production with full on DiY approach. Setting out to soundtrack a dystopian society that has lost touch with the soul of humanity. A world where corporate greed and disruptive extremist views amplified by echo chambers soaked in misinformation drown the voices of reason and compassion. Within this murky swamp however lies a glimmer of light and hope for us all to not accept the future but to shape it.

50 DiY tapes with download code included.

Recorded in Glasgow

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

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

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

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