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The legendary Brownsville duo of Lil Fame and Billy Danze followed up their first group single "How About Some Hardcore" with their first full-length studio album, To The Death, in the Spring of 1994, and they haven’t let up the pressure since. While some solo offerings came earlier - most notably Fame’s appearance on The Hill That’s Real compilation- the classic aggressive energy the two emcees exhibit while trading rhymes back and forth is what street-rap fans have come to know and love from the group. If you are not into the that smash-ya-face-in style, then simply put, the Mash Out Posse is not for you. The album was produced entirely by DR Period, except for track "Guns N' Roses" (produced by Silver D), and it solidified what has become a successful 30 year career for M.O.P. Fame and Danze haven’t waivered from their grimy, crimey, high-energy boom bap style to this day, and the songs on this album established that fact early on. Tracks like "Rugged Neva Smoove", “Blue Steel”, “Guns N’ Roses”, and the robbery-story driven "Heistmasters" are early indicators of the ruckus they would later bring on anthems like “Stick To Ya Gunz” and “Ante Up”.

Hinter dem Psych-Soul-Duo ABRAXAS stecken die beiden Indie-Musiker Carolina Faruolo (früher LOS BITCHOS) und Danny Lee Blackwell (NIGHT BEATS). Gemeinsam veröffentlichen sie im Oktober ihr Debüt "Monte Carlo" beim US-Label Suicide Squeeze. Beide Musiker waren bereits seit Jahren miteinander befreundet und bewunderten gegenseitig ihre musikalischen Projekte, doch da Faruolo im Vereinigten Königreich und Blackwell in Texas lebt, waren ihre Interaktionen begrenzt. Bis zum Jahr 2020, ab da spielte geografische Nähe keine Rolle mehr. In dieser Zeit der Isolation und Ungewissheit erfanden Faruolo und Blackwell unter dem Projektnamen ABRAXAS ihre eigene private Flucht in die Welt der lateinamerikanischen Rhythmen. Die in Uruguay geborene Faruolo wuchs mit den tropischen Beats des Cumbia und dem psychedelischen Geschmack klassischer Chicha-Künstler auf. Blackwells Arbeit beinhaltet die Verschmelzung von Outlaw-Soul und R&B mit einem einfallsreichen DIY-Geist.

Recital publish an album of lost Derek Bailey sessions recorded with his friend and collaborator Charlie Morrow. In 1982, Bailey and Morrow organized a series of live concerts and studio sessions around New York. This new LP is a boiled-down rendering of the master tapes that lived dormant in Charlie’s archive, until now.

Throughout the album, Bailey and Morrow are joined by a rotating cast of New Wilderness players including frame drum percussionist Glen Velez, sound poet Steve McCaffery, publisher and artist Carol E. Tuynman, composer Patricia Burgess, and multimedia artist Michael Snow. The results are surprising and marvelous.

The energy of the live concert, which makes up the first half of the record is particularly exciting, with Morrow and McCaffery’s visceral sound poetry and Glen’s frame drum echoing off of Derek’s fret stabs, and Carol, Patricia, and Michael’s horns swirling through the air between. A very raw and intense recording.

The second side of New York 1982, is a session recorded at The Record Plant, and is clearly more ‘produced’ with panning and tape echo processing, plus experiments with water whistles and other devices.

Derek Bailey stands out for personal achievements as a guitarist and for his way of bringing together performance meetings ranging from duos to large ensembles. Working across style and genre, his music and musical unions have inspired the breakdown of boundaries, embracing all flavors of musicians as improvisers. Players focusing on the moment, “without memory.”

LP Edition of 400 copies on 175gram black vinyl, including an 8-page booklet with program notes and artwork.

Derek Bailey - Acoustic Guitars
Charlie Morrow - Trumpet, Ocarina, Voice
Glen Velez - Percussion
Patricia Burgess - Saxophone (1,3,6)
Steve McCaffery - Voice, Saxophone (1,3)
Carol E. Tuynman - Trumpet (1,3,6)
Michael Snow - Trumpet (3)

Low Company presents Yuta Matsumura’s Red Ribbon, a sequence of introspective, lavishly melodic dream-songs and amphibian atmospheres recorded in scattered periods over 2018-21. Having played in bands like Low Life, M.O.B. and Orion, and the duo Jay & Yuta (with Jay Cruikshank), Red Ribbon is Matsumura’s first solo outing, and represents a conscious effort to move away from guitar-based songwriting. He composed its nine tracks mostly on piano - layering vocals, bass, keyboards, flute (courtesy of Maeve Parker), violin/cello (Laurence Quinn) and clacking drumbox rhythms into dynamic, dubwise avant-pop structures which are supple and spacious but fizzing with detail and vivid inner life. The laconic 4/4 pulse, heat-warped synth-tones and haunting vaporous melodica of opener ‘Box Garden’ set the tone: its surreal psychedelic patternings barely concealing a deep sting of longing and regret. The cryptic lyrics suggest chance encounters, hidden logic, missed opportunities, fatalism, serendipity. A city submerged: everyone else paused mid-movement, while you’re allowed to swim free and fish-like through the streets, over the rooftops...‘Tangled Orchid’ is a tense night-drive through dry desert heat and into the unknown, running away from your old life, chased down by dust-devils of half-baked schemes and abandoned plans, while ‘Myth Machine’ drops the tempo and something mind-altering, guiding us on a tripped-out dub-disco scuba among alien flora and fauna, a world of impossible shapes and sensations. At which point, the mood of the album decisively shifts, firstly with ‘Sake No Otoh’, sung in Japanese by Haruka Sato: an instant-classic, breathtakingly intimate lover's lament that sounds like it got lost on its way to heaven and is now doomed to orbit the earth forever. The songs that follow continue in this more confessional, imploring mode. As if the travelling's done, the baggage has been cast off, and we’ve arrived at our destination, where the real process of rebirth and repair can begin. The music’s textures become less overtly dubby and electronic, with more of an organic, earthy, chamber-pop/avant-folk feel, at once sad and hopeful-sounding. Three songs in particular bear the influence of Eno’s 70s work (and its mutant bedsit offspring Lifetones, Flaming Tunes, etc): ‘‘E. Potential’, where baroquely chorused vocals - half-agonised, half-beatific - teeter on top of simple oscillating piano loops, and the stately, dawntreading ballads ‘Tabula Rasa’ and ‘No Sleep For Birds’. The bulk of the album was made prior to lockdowns and all of that; its themes of reset, self-examination, the need to f**k it all off and take spiritual stock, are timeless. Though they perhaps have a more bittersweet resonance now the world has returned pretty much to how it was, only worse. Track list: 1. Box Garden 2. Tangled Orchid 3. Myth Machine 4. Red Ribbon 5. Soko No Ato 6. Tabula Rasa 7. E. Potential 8. No Sleep For Birds 9. Zookeeper's Trial

* Dazed and Amazed Duo Color Vinyl * Fully printed inner sleeves * Liner notes by Larry Mizell Jr. // The album is named for the combs used to maintain an Afro hairstyle, and that's significant. The group's Ishmael "Butterfly" Butler said it summed up what they wanted to do with it: "It means the utilization of the natural, a natural style," he has said. Like with 1993's debut _Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space)_, 'utilizing the natural' meant creating hip hop that blended jazz with the formidable rap skills of the aforementioned Butterfly, Craig 'Doodlebug' Irving and Mary Ann 'Ladybug Mecca' Vieira. Unlike that debut, it meant broadening to include guests such as Gang Starr's Guru, Jeru the Damaja, and Jazzy Joyce. Following the gold-selling commercial success of their debut, they here set out to prove their artistic prowess. This is intelligent, alternative hip hop that sounded like party music. Its lyrics are dense with wit, social commentary and politics - and its original inner sleeve was modeled on the newspaper of the Black Panther movement.

Clear Vinyl

Future music duo Second Woman's sophomore full-length for Spectrum Spools further hones their distinctive fusion of shapeshifting software sculpture and tessellated footwork. Shivering digital textures oscillate with and against algorithmically mapped percussion samples, smeared synthetic chords levitate in the distance, stabs of digital noise punctuate the mix in twitchy, time-distorting patterns. Their anamorphosis verges on ascetic: stark, splintered waveforms rendered into unique fiber optic hieroglyphs.
Multi-instrumentalists Josh Eustis and Turk Dietrich share a deep history going back to their days in the New Orleans ambient electronic community, as part of Telefon Tel Aviv and Belong, respectively. Even so, S/W pushes beyond their combined discographies to date, flexing impossibilities, building rhythms from arrhythmia, teasing veiled emotion from bold iterations of cold code.

As a duo they embrace both sides of the coin, drums and guitar, chaos and order, male and female, ying and yang, the angel and the devil. They are more than the sum of both counterparts though, making for a maximalist auditory experience. PIKA brings her skills of mystifying performance to the table, all free-drum bluster and vocals veering between shrine maiden and wild spirit. Kawabata's guitar-work moves from a roar to a whisper, a yell to a sob, he's working on the same canvas of extremes. The aim of their unity is to write truly celestial hymns for the outer world and odes of love for the inner cosmic context.
 
No strangers to one another, the pair have not only gigged together with their respective bands but also recorded together, when these two outfits temporarily fused in 2005 to become Acid Mothers Afrirampo (releasing an album of the same name). Two years later they distilled their collaboration, all other players being stripped away to leave the core of Pikacyu's manic drums and pop vocal, and Makoto's schizoid guitar conjurings. In 2011 they spent five weeks touring the US and their first album, 'OM Sweet Home: We Are Shining Stars From Darkside', which was released by the esteemed UK label of all things heavy and brilliant, Riot Season. Last year they spent two weeks touring through Europe whilst writing a new album suffused with the outreaching sound and message of their impulsive live performances. This new album is entitled 'Galaxilympics' and will be released by Upset The Rhythm on August 4th on LP and CD.
'Galaxilympics' is an album of contrasts, so much colour, so much shade! 'Space Sumo' kicks off the record in explosive style. Pikacyu's drums jitter, crash and stumble, but steadfastly refuse to groove. Makoto attacks his guitar, cloaking himself in reverb to produce a wall-of-sound, alternating between melody and noise. 'Funifunikonefuni' follows with it's frenzied take on pop music, bubbling with energy and PIKA's multiple vocal layers. 'I'll Forgive' is chant-like in its devotion to following the tumbling melody line of the song even to absurd and unpredictable dimensions. 'Pika Mako Hall' is a more serene affair, with whispered echoes and guitar drones swirling amongst bursts of rapid sequencer ambience. 'Castle Of Sand' picks up on this more spacious approach with slowly developing programmed electronics, before the title track erupts with gurgling synths, soaring guitar trails and PIKA's most searching vocal yet.
 
The album concludes in reflective manner with the suitably titled 'Sayonownara', a song as much in the present as it is in the act of saying farewell. It's positively elegiac with washes of cymbal and deep acres of guitar drone for the first five minutes before PIKA's drums take things up a gear and into more psychedelic out-rock terrain. This insurgence eventually peaks and the album melts away to silence. PIKACYU-MAKOTO have made an album that takes you on a trip into your very soul before emerging once more at the edge of another galaxy. 'Galaxilympics' is a triumph of opposites united, it enjoys walking out into the unknown, but it's also a portal into the very real world of two musicians who find peace and semblance through their interaction. Hymns and odes to one side, this is a giant album of future-facing song and noise, where better to find harmony enthroned

Eight years after their first collaboration, ‘The Compass Joint’, slipped out as an ultra-limited white label, Charlie Soul Clap and Tom Trago have reunited to bring us a similarly warming, sun-splashed sequel, ‘The Compass Jawn’.

Like its predecessor – a now near-mythical 12-minute epic recorded late one night in Tom’s former squat-turned-studio close to legendary Amsterdam venue Trouw, and subsequently championed by DJ Harvey – ‘The Compass Jawn’ was inspired by the pair’s mutual love of both Caribbean keyboardist and FM synthesis enthusiast Wally Badarou, and the 1980s output of Chris Blackwell’s legendary Compass Point studio in Nassau, the Bahamas.

As sequels go, ‘The Compass Jawn’ is a bit of a belter. During the recording in 2019, Tom and Charlie sought to subtly evolve the original’s memorable lead line, reaching the for Yamaha DX7’s percussion patch – something utilized many times by Badarou during the 1980s.

The resultant ‘Studio Version’ is, if anything, even more emotive and uplifting than its predecessor. Underpinned by a shuffling rhythm pattern, the track ebbs and flows brilliantly, with jaunty synth stabs, undulating melodies and sparkling keyboard riffs ushering in held-note chords and a gorgeously rushing, ever-rising lead line. Throw in some starry pads and sunset-ready synth motifs, and you have another gorgeous, life-affirming treat.

‘The Compass Jawn’ comes backed with two top-notch alternative mixes. First up is an ambient ‘Dub’ mix from Trago that strips back the beats and instead focuses on the track’s many key melodic elements. Pushed forwards by drum machine handclaps, it’s a bubbly, sun-bright revision full to bursting with twinkling electronic motifs, jammed-out motifs, hands-aloft riffs and a bleeping take on the fluid and kaleidoscopic lead line.

Rounding off the package is the duo’s original demo mix – a raw, tough, and slightly more sub-heavy affair that’s notably more percussive and sweat-soaked whilst still sporting the key lead lines and FM synth sounds that make the studio version such a memorable and mood-enhancing affair.

Future music duo Second Woman's sophomore full-length for Spectrum Spools further hones their distinctive fusion of shapeshifting software sculpture and tessellated footwork. Shivering digital textures oscillate with and against algorithmically mapped percussion samples, smeared synthetic chords levitate in the distance, stabs of digital noise punctuate the mix in twitchy, time-distorting patterns. Their anamorphosis verges on ascetic: stark, splintered waveforms rendered into unique fiber optic hieroglyphs.
Multi-instrumentalists Josh Eustis and Turk Dietrich share a deep history going back to their days in the New Orleans ambient electronic community, as part of Telefon Tel Aviv and Belong, respectively. Even so, S/W pushes beyond their combined discographies to date, flexing impossibilities, building rhythms from arrhythmia, teasing veiled emotion from bold iterations of cold code.

Solo project of Nathan Van Brande (TUKAN, Saudade), Bleu Mustang navigates between Lone, ClapClap and Floating Point. The young Brussels producer signs his first EP "NOCTUELLE" on the MAGMA label (Umbra, ECHT!, TUKAN). Between powerful and jerky rhythms and melancholic chords, Bleu Mustang's music can be listened to both in the back of a Berlin hangar and while contemplating a landscape. Currently in residence in Volta for the creation of his live album, he is preparing a duo with a drummer.

Blue Vinyl

Das GRAMMY-nominierte Trio PVA veröffentlicht ihr mit Spannung erwartetes Debütalbum, „BLUSH“ Mitte Oktober auf Ninja Tune. Das Album der Südlondoner Band, das kurz nach ihrer 2020 beim Ninja Tune-Sublabel Big Dada (u.a. Yaya Bey, Young Fathers oder Diplo) veröffentlichten EP, „Toner“, erscheint, verbindet den Pulsschlag elektronischer Musik mit der rohen Energie eines lebensbejahenden Konzerts und offenbart mehr über das Trio, als sie bisher je preisgegeben haben. Die elf mitreißenden Tracks der Gruppe, bestehend aus Ella Harris und Josh Baxter (die sich Leadgesang sowie Synthesizer-, Gitarren- und Produktionsarbeit teilen) sowie Schlagzeuger und Perkussionist Louis Satchell, basieren auf einer Formel aus Acid, Disco, knallenden Synthesizern, der Befreiung des Dancefloors und kathartischem Spoken Word-Post-Punk.

PVA begann, als Harris und Baxter 2018 begannen, gemeinsam etwas zu machen, das sie als „Country-Friend-Techno“ bezeichneten. Ihre erste Show, eine Nacht namens „Narcissistic Exhibitionism“ im The Five Bells Pub in New Cross, fand nur zwei Wochen nach ihrem Kennenlernen statt. Der Abend wurde von Harris kuratiert und bot im Obergeschoss Malerei, Bildhauerei und Fotografie, während im Erdgeschoss Bands auftraten. Sie buchte PVA als Headliner. Einer ihrer ersten Songs, „Divine Intervention“, entstand, als Harris ihrer neuen Bandkollegin ihre Träume diktierte. Auf ihrem Debütalbum nehmen PVA die gleiche Energie aus der Live-Szene mit, während sie gleichzeitig eine ganzheitliche Welt voller Textur und Herz aufbauen. „BLUSH“ ist reich an schwergewichtigen Industrial-Beats, zerklüftetem Punk-Spirit und Momenten stiller Kontemplation durch Harris' poetische Lyrics. Das Album rennt unermüdlich vorwärts und verbindet Einflüsse wie Portishead, PC Music, Laurie Anderson und das kultige Rave-Pop-Duo The Pom-Poms mit Leichtigkeit. „BLUSH“ wurde während der verschiedenen Lockdowns geschrieben, eine Leidenszeit für eine Band, die es eigentlich gewohnt ist, die Grenzen ihres Sounds live auf der Bühne auszuloten. Diese Einschränkungen machten PVA aber nicht zu schaffen. Wenn überhaupt, fühlten sie sich durch die erzwungene Distanz in ihrem Songwriting gestärkt. Harris schrieb Gedichte und lernte, Musik zu produzieren, Baxter arbeitete mit anderen Künstler*innen als Produzent, und Satchell setzte sein Musikstudium an der City University fort und studierte unter anderem alte afrikanische Polyrhythmen.

Manchester duo Cortese return to Time Is Now with their second release, a sonic rambling through UKG, 4x4 garage and breaks.

Whilst the title track and 'SPU1' use flute melodies and warped basslines to create immersive atmospheres, the aptly-named 'In Transit' is all about movement. Finally 'Regulate' provides a blissed-out take on UKG before '2 b wit u' brings things to a dramatic close with a full-bodied soundscape and skittering breaks.

GOSPELHEIM haben mit "Ritual & Repetition" eine ebenso wunderbare wie wunderliches Wesen erschaffen: Seine glitzernde Haut ist aus eingängigen Dark Rock Melodien gemacht, seine Knochen aus massivem Gothic Metal geschnitzt. Seine gespaltene Zunge singt sowohl mit weiblicher Schönheit als auch mit klarer männlicher Härte. In seinen feurigen Augen spiegelt sich eine tiefe Melancholie, doch seine scharfen Zähne beißen ohne jede Reue zu. Diese junge britische Band legt auf ihrem Debütalbum ein erstaunlich ausgereiftes Songwriting vor, das scheinbar mühelos eine Fülle diverser Einflüsse vereint und mit seiner stilistischen Spannweite beeindruckt. Neben dem offensichtlichen Dark Rock und Gothic Metal fügen GOSPELHEIM eine Vielzahl an Klangaromen hinzu, die sogar Blues Rock und eine gesangliche Prise Rush aufbieten. Diese und andere würzige Zutaten kitzeln den musikalischen Gaumen und schmeicheln den Ohren. Gitarrist und Sänger Ricardo hat GOSPELHEIM zusammen mit Bassistin und Sängerin Coco in Manchester während der dunklen Tage des Jahres 2020 gegründet, als die Welt zum Stillstand kam. Das Duo ließ sich von der Lage der Menschlichkeit, Moral und existenzieller Konzepte wie Gut und Böse inspirieren, sowie von Horrorfilmen der Stummfilmzeit. Anfang November 2020 nahmen GOSPELHEIM im No Studio in Manchester ihr Debütalbum "Ritual & Repetition" mit Joe "Doctor" Clayton auf. Das Line-up der Band wurde später durch den zweiten Gitarristen Jordan und Rob am Schlagzeug komplettiert. Mit einer so beeindruckenden Visitenkarte wie "Ritual & Repetition" hinterlassen GOSPELHEIM einen bleibenden Eindruck bei ihren Hörern. Für alle, die sehnsüchtig auf ein Dark Rock Debüt gehofft haben, das es mit dem glorreichen Erstling von BEASTMILK aufnehmen kann, ist dies ein Album, das sich mit Nachdruck für eine Hörprobe empfiehlt.

GOSPELHEIM haben mit "Ritual & Repetition" eine ebenso wunderbare wie wunderliches Wesen erschaffen: Seine glitzernde Haut ist aus eingängigen Dark Rock Melodien gemacht, seine Knochen aus massivem Gothic Metal geschnitzt. Seine gespaltene Zunge singt sowohl mit weiblicher Schönheit als auch mit klarer männlicher Härte. In seinen feurigen Augen spiegelt sich eine tiefe Melancholie, doch seine scharfen Zähne beißen ohne jede Reue zu. Diese junge britische Band legt auf ihrem Debütalbum ein erstaunlich ausgereiftes Songwriting vor, das scheinbar mühelos eine Fülle diverser Einflüsse vereint und mit seiner stilistischen Spannweite beeindruckt. Neben dem offensichtlichen Dark Rock und Gothic Metal fügen GOSPELHEIM eine Vielzahl an Klangaromen hinzu, die sogar Blues Rock und eine gesangliche Prise Rush aufbieten. Diese und andere würzige Zutaten kitzeln den musikalischen Gaumen und schmeicheln den Ohren. Gitarrist und Sänger Ricardo hat GOSPELHEIM zusammen mit Bassistin und Sängerin Coco in Manchester während der dunklen Tage des Jahres 2020 gegründet, als die Welt zum Stillstand kam. Das Duo ließ sich von der Lage der Menschlichkeit, Moral und existenzieller Konzepte wie Gut und Böse inspirieren, sowie von Horrorfilmen der Stummfilmzeit. Anfang November 2020 nahmen GOSPELHEIM im No Studio in Manchester ihr Debütalbum "Ritual & Repetition" mit Joe "Doctor" Clayton auf. Das Line-up der Band wurde später durch den zweiten Gitarristen Jordan und Rob am Schlagzeug komplettiert. Mit einer so beeindruckenden Visitenkarte wie "Ritual & Repetition" hinterlassen GOSPELHEIM einen bleibenden Eindruck bei ihren Hörern. Für alle, die sehnsüchtig auf ein Dark Rock Debüt gehofft haben, das es mit dem glorreichen Erstling von BEASTMILK aufnehmen kann, ist dies ein Album, das sich mit Nachdruck für eine Hörprobe empfiehlt.

A prehistoric tribe dances around the fire. Young revelers lose themselves on a packed dancefloor. Explorers fly a rocket toward another galaxy. In the TIMEBEING universe, these things are all connected. From the earliest days of humanity, people have strived to expand their reality beyond the limitations of the here and now_and have used technology to make it happen. Their methods and machines may have changed across the centuries, but the drive remains constant, vibrating through history and occupying a space where time loses all meaning. "The art of making music is the art of manipulating time," says Uji. "I have had experiences where time shifts dramatically; sometimes it slows down to a halt, while moments seemingly become infinite. This is where the magic happens. This is when the fabric of what we call reality begins to show its seams." An Argentintian electronic producer and ethnomusicologist, Uji has been navigating those seams for more than two decades, initially as one half of the pioneering duo Lulacruza, but more recently with his own solo work. TIMEBEING continues that lineage, but also elevates it, taking shape as a interdisciplinary multimedia journey that includes a new album, an accompanying short film, an immersive live show and the birth of a new decentralized community of like-minded artists, creators, seekers, and dreamers. Mesmerizing and deeply psychedelic, the TIMEBEING LP certainly reflects the rich sound palette of Latin America_and its intersection with various strains of electronic music_but Uji taps into traditions_both musical and spiritual_that can't be hemmed in by borders and boundaries. Transcendence is the goal, and the album moves through fantastical spaces that may or may not exist: a metallic jungle, a Balkan spaceship, a cloud that morphs into a tumultuous whirlpool. All the while, Uji criss-crosses history, consulting elders and futurists alike as he throws open the doors of perception and pens a new mythology about what it means to be human. FOR FANS OF: Floating Points, Four Tet, Oneohtrix Point Never, Actress, Nicola Cruz, Dengue Dengue Dengue, Nicolas Jaar, Mount Kimbie, Mucho Indio.

Stellar Legions is four experienced space cadets from the Antwerp interstellar legion, led by Captain Andrew Claes (STUFF., BRZZVLL, Internal Sun). With a sound rooted in jazz, improv, hip-hop, dub and electronic music, brace yourself for an intergalactic trip through colourful musical worlds and allow yourself to be carried away to indefinable, otherworldly but always hospitable beacons.

Alongside Claes, the delegates on duty are all heroes from the Allied star: Bram Weijters (Raymond Van Het Groenewoud, Crazy Men), Klaas De Somer (Tourist Lemc, Selah Sue) and Fre Madou (ex-DAAU, Namid). With them, come stories and artifacts from the multidimensional cosmos to our beloved mother planet Earth and this autumn, they passionately present their first omnibus 'Stellar Legions', released 21st October via the groove-obssessed Sdban Ultra label.

The album consists of eight tracks recorded in the studio and live, resulting in one big cosmic experience that exhilarates down to every last arrangement. From Claes' twisted sax on the semi-electronic ecstatic dream world that is an 'An Arp in Tunisia' to the jazzy snatches of 'Wessel' where De Somer's hurried drum patterns and Weijters frenzied keyboard solos catch light, Stellar Legions unites the adventure and improvisation of jazz with contemporary sounds.

At the core of the Stellar Legions sound is a rhythm section Sly & Robbie would have approved of: loose and sticky, grinding and unwinding: De Somer's drums fizz with expectation while the relentless bass strokes from Madou provide the beating pulse. It's fresh, it's raw and it keeps us listening, grooving and wanting more. Elsewhere, 'Odyssey' is a cataclysmic mix of feverish sounds and melodies that take you to an extra-terrestrial place, while the live recording of 'Alcyone', basks in a spatial mix of futuristic grooves and ethereal soundscapes before album closer 'Covix', results in a spacious and wonderfully atmospheric affair.

Electronics wizard Andrew Claes has recorded music in a wide range of styles ranging from free jazz outfit Chaos of the Haunted Spire (duo with Teun Verbruggen) to techno icon Marco Bailey and New Wave hero, Marcel Vanthilt. In addition, he has collaborated with Zach Danziger, Zap Mama, Brussels Jazz Orchestra, Hermes Ensemble, Mauro Pawlowski, Josse De Pauw and many others and released music with the electro-jazz collective AAN/EOP and his solo project, Internal Sun.

Claes is also a teacher of 'Live Electronics' at the Conservatory of Antwerp and a doctorate in the arts, where he is currently investigating the possibilities of an electro-acoustic saxophone. He also regularly gives workshops on the Belgian synthesizer microcontroller platform, Axoloti. His latest achievement is AI-driven robot-jazz project 'BotBop' with Dago Sondervan and Kasper Jordaens, which explores the possibilities and limits of 'computer aided music performance'. Their latest project 'Integers & Strings' premiered at the Sònar festival in Barcelona in November 2021.

Since making his mark in the ‘90s through the early aughts as a part of the legendary Boot Camp Clik and one half of “Da Incredible Rap Team” and duo Heltah Skeltah, Rock (also known as the Rockness Monsta) has been conservative with solo efforts. With one of the most distinct voices in hip-hop, the Brooklyn emcee released his full-length debut solo albumRockness AP in 2017, and now looks to step back into the spotlight with his sophomore album, Ether Rocks.

Produced entirely by Harlem, New York’s Ron Browz (Nas’s “Ether”, Jim Jones’s “Pop Champagne”, etc.), the project sees Rock’s ominous tone and sharp flow transposed from the traditional Boom-Bap beats of Da Beatminerz and others, into a sonic backdrop that retains grit yet bolsters an updated and more sophisticated style from the legendary emcee.

The 12 track LP boasts guest appearances from Method Man, Steele (Smif-N-Wessun), Ruste Juxx and more, and is available via DSPs, CD and vinyl through American B Boy Records in partnership with Fat Beats.

“Dope is dope. I'm trying to break out of the underground rap box and ease into ‘grown man rap’. This album is basically my way of showing y’all more sides to myself musically and conceptually. A lot of our culture wants you to do the same thing over and over. That’s understandable but not realistic as we are forever evolving as human beings. So, while I continue to serve jedi level barbarian bars, I’m adding some things to the menu.” – Rockness Monsta

OVERVIEW: "After receiving regional praise for his 1976 debut Abrabo, Dan Boadi set his sights on leaving Ghana and bringing his highlife sensibilities to an American audience. Recorded at Paul Serrano namesake studio on E. 22rd St. in Chicago, Boadi's U.S. debut showcased the true scope of his musical range weaving in and out of funk, highlife, afrobeat, and reggae. The title track immediately demands the listener' attention with a chugging drum lead by The African International's King Tuch setting the pace for Boadi's colorful orchestration to follow. Money Is The Root of Evi claims t's own space as a musical melting pot and reflects the excitement Boadi waslearningto harness as a musician in his newfound home of Chicago."

Among the rarest albums from Jim Kirchstein's Wisconsin-based Cuca label, 1964's Birdlegs & Pauline runs a playful gamut of girl group soul, sultry R&B, bluesy torch songs, and junk shop doo-wop. The Rockford, Illinois-based husband and wife duo struck gold with their Top 20 R&B hit "Spring" the year prior and frequently returned to Sauk City to see if there was any additional magic up Cuca's sleeve. Gathered here are the best of Birdlegs & Pauline's family album of songs, featuring several previously unissued songs found deep in the Cuca vault.

Among the rarest albums from Jim Kirchstein's Wisconsin-based Cuca label, 1964's Birdlegs & Pauline runs a playful gamut of girl group soul, sultry R&B, bluesy torch songs, and junk shop doo-wop. The Rockford, Illinois-based husband and wife duo struck gold with their Top 20 R&B hit "Spring" the year prior and frequently returned to Sauk City to see if there was any additional magic up Cuca's sleeve. Gathered here are the best of Birdlegs & Pauline's family album of songs, featuring several previously unissued songs found deep in the Cuca vault.