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Toy Tonics going New Wave Disco with Baby’s Berserk’s self-titled debut album (to be released on 29 September).

There are many shades of funk in dance music. Berlin’s Toy Tonics label brings up artists that reflect many of these different aspects in dance music. Now the label comes up with a band! A band that is inspired by 1980ies New Wave as well as the Y2K Indie dance scene. Two guys and 2 girls from Amsterdam and Montreal called Baby’s Berserk.

Baby’s Berserk is about taking the freedom to be who you want to be, about being comfortable. Having played in all-girl punk bands since the age of 14, the bands singer Lieselot is an expert on female empowerment. “Dress like a girl and act like a boy,” is a catchphrase she lives up to every day and it clearly is a message that resonates with the band’s wild fans.

In the great tradition of Roxy Music, Throbbing Gristle and Malcolm McLaren, Baby’s Berserk is not just about the edgy music, but also about a very strong own visual style. They readily blend their sounds with underground fashion. What you see is what you get and seeing Baby’s Berserk is feeling right at home. Lieselot is a visionary when it comes to stage presence. Have you always wanted to see an electronic band with a punk attitude perform wearing a mix of haute couture and Flintstone-style rags? Look no further, it’s Baby’s Berserk.

Following on the critically acclaimed singles ‘What I Mean’ (2020) and ‘Toxic Kisses’ (2022), Baby Berserk’s highly anticipated self-titled full-length is now finally about to see the light on Berlin’s Toy Tonics records. Sonically designed for gritty rock venues as well as up-to-date edgy dance clubs, Mano’s lush compositions smoothly intertwine with the highly associative lyrics written by Puggy and Lieselot. Poets and literary addicts may think they’ve just discovered the rock & roll equivalents of Sylvia Plath, Kurt Vonnegut and Allen Ginsberg. To tell you the truth: their wild guess is pretty accurate as the works by these greats lie scattered around the Baby’s Berserk studio for inspiration.
The band was born in a laboratory back in 2019. Tired of being in bands with unruly and unpredictable humans, Mano Hollestelle set out to create a group of high precision robots to create the post-punk sound he had in mind. His outdated technology of floppy disks and cassette tapes worked well to program the androids, until one day a 90s rave mixtape was mistakenly entered into his computer. House music is a feeling and the punk bots instantly got hooked on it upon hearing it for the first time. They could never be reset to factory settings again. Mano worked tirelessly with his androids, currently known by their humanoid names of Lieselot Elzinga, Puggy Beales and Eva Wijnbergen, to fulfil his evil plan to make the rockers dance and the dancers rock. Baby’s Berserk is the fiendish extension of this plot. Beware, the band’s bass driven grooves and computerized beats have been known to cast a spell upon all within earshot.

So what do the songs on ‘Baby’s Berserk’ tell you? That it’s totally fine to have lots of fun in life! To have a boyfriend as an accessory (‘Accessories’), to get inspired by Sponge Bob (‘Dancing with the Fish’) and to blend your spirits with mixers whenever the hell you feel like it (‘Rum ‘n’ Kola’).

Baby’s Berserk member Puggy Beales on ‘Limousine’: “Decant the wine from my tip jar to yours. Soon we'll be on easy street, chauffeured home from the rat race each evening. Is it everything you'd hoped it would be?”

Check not only the debut album but also the forthcoming Remix EP with remixes by Each Other, Niklas Wandt, Sam Ruffillo, Kris Baha and Nicolini.

The album "Interstitial" is a document of a musical experiment, created in collaboration of the musicians Oh No Noh, Jenny Berger Myhre and F.S.Blumm.

The title refers to the process of the album's creation, to the letting go and filling of interstices, the temporally and spatially staggered collaborative composing, the accompanying addition and omission with the foresight to leave room for the ideas of others - without knowing how they would ultimately sound.

The three musicians layered individual elements from field recordings and improvisations into new units. The music developed in this way is a trance-like snapshot and spans wide arcs of ambient, sound art and soundscapes. Oh No Noh, Jenny Berger Myhre and F.S.Blumm each composed a piece, which served as the basis for the overlays of the other two musicians. Each of the three resulting pieces was processed, directed and shaped in its timbre and structure in different ways. The titles of the tracks describe the order of the overdubs (JBM Jenny Berger Myhre, FS Frank Schültge, MR Markus Rom).

2023 Repress

Since Jesper Munk's debut album in 2013 the German singer-songwriter has made a name for himself as multi-instrumentalist , "in the paths of Jack White and Dan Auerbach," as the Rolling Stone Magazine puts it, playing music that ranges from Blues and Soul to heartfelt Pop and indulging Jazz, all this with a very unique, post-Punk
edge. His new album Taped Heart Sounds offers an evolution of Munk's sound: warm, gentle and soft vibes that go deep. "If there is a way to give you a hug in form of an album, this is how I'd attempt to do so," says Munk.

Recorded in an offbeat band room in Berlin with The Cassette Heads, the album brings together classics reaching from Blues to Rock'n Roll. Twelve songs of legendary artists who have influenced and inspired Munk since his early days, including Tom Waits, JJ Cale, Etta James, Hank Williams, Willie Dixon, Jacques Brel, and Mocky.
The entire album was recorded with a Tascam Portastudio 8-Track Cassette Recorder which brought an original and authentic sound to each song: "The technical limitations immediately liberated all other aspects of the recording," Munk says. "It shows how much of making music is just listening and without a screen to catch your eye, you really have no choice but to do so." All Songs face realness and live from these volatile moments that reveal vulnerability and musical generosity. The outcome of this analogue experiment is a very personal album, both inspiring and consoling.
Taped Heart Sounds courageously opens with Donnie & Joe Emerson's Baby; a song so iconic that it actually cannot be enhanced. However, Munk's interpretation stands out and has a presence that gives the song a life of its own - made for walking. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, All the World Is Green, I'd Rather Go Blind, Head in the Clouds - what follows is a journey through Blues and Soul that is so vital and "now" that End of the Line may be the final track but certainly not the end of the story.
The album wouldn't be what it is without collaboration and partnership. Munk's special thanks go to his fans who helped to crowd-fund the recording. "On top of having had a real fun learning experience it all felt like a community project with real support from friends, the Cassette Heads, incredibly inspiring guests, and from Miles Deico, a wonderfully open and able engineer," so Munk about the making of the album.
Taped Heart Sounds is Jesper Munk's 4th album, following acclaimed debut album For in My Way it Lies (2013), CLAIM (2016), and Favourite Stranger (2018). Released via Billbrook Records, Hamburg-based Distributor Wordandsound's new label, the album is available for pre-order now - for purchase on vinyl and CD. The first single 'Baby' is going to be released on November 19, 2021.

Celebrated composer, performer, saxophonist, soloist, band leader, educator, activist, and mixed-media artist Matana Roberts returns with a new installment of their acclaimed Coin Coin series. For over a decade, Coin Coin has been the central artistic project for Roberts, a remarkable exploration of American ancestry and the nature of memory through "sound quilting": modern composition that draws on a wide range of musical sources and traditions, along with research-driven historical and genealogical narratives that yield prose and poetry both spoken and sung, field recordings, and graphic scores. The Quietus declares "when the 12-album cycle is complete, it will be regarded as a singular masterpiece of 21st century sonic and narrative art" and Pitchfork calls it "one of the most provocative ongoing bodies of work by any American musician." Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the garden... is the first new recorded audio chapter since 2019 and centers upon reproductive rights, summoning the story of a family ancestor who died in early adulthood, from a cause kept obfuscated and hushed, shrouded in disinformation and shame. Roberts reimagines diaristic and oral narratives, delivered in strident streams of spoken word that punctuate the hour-long work, with recurring musical themes frequently accompanied by the declarative refrain "my name is your name / our name is their name / we are named / we remember / they forget." As Roberts writes in the accompanying liner notes essay: I find it absolutely disgusting that the same trauma my grand ancestor, whose story we are telling in this chapter, is closely mirroring the experiences of some poor soul today as I write this... Our aforementioned grand, who perished at a young age, leaving her growing children motherless, did not have to die. The negative consequences of her death have reverberated down through generations in my family line, in the same way that a similar resounding might happen for someone else's ancestral line generations from today. While often jazz-adjacent, and with Matana's inimitable saxophone and indomitable voice at the core, Roberts situates Coin Coin outside the Jazz genre and within heterodox pathways of post-modern composition, electroacoustic music, sound collage, experimental voice, and sound art. In the garden... undeniably continues to express and expand upon the project's magnificent iconoclasm, nonetheless being the most jazz-inflected chapter since Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile(2013). Recorded in Brooklyn with a stellar acoustic ensemble that includes Stuart Bogie, Gitanjali Jain, Darius Jones, Matt Lavelle, Mike Pride, Ryan Sawyer, Corey Smythe, and Mazz Swift, abetted by some sparkling pieces featuring modular synthesis courtesy of album producer Kyp Malone (Bent Arcana, TV On The Radio), In the garden... traverses a vivid stylistic array of thematic overtures, excursions and set pieces, ranging from spacious textural invocations to gorgeously tempered horn-led compositions to driving free jazz and exhilarating through composed bursts of cacophony. With storytelling spoken-word lead vocals by Roberts channeled recurringly throughout, alongside various other deployments of layered and group voices, the album is alternately a meditation and fever dream of narrative potency. This is some of the most intense and intensive music Roberts has composed and captured to date, richly conceived and deeply felt, restless yet focused, unflinchingly substantive and unique. Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the garden... channels epigenetic trauma and tragedy with teeming complexity and fierce beauty _ a eulogy, testimony, and celebration, melding music and language in a stunning polychromatic flow of vernaculars and poetics. A powerful work of subjective commemoration and historical-cultural communion that speaks indelibly to the present moment.



2x10” in 350 gsm widespine jacket w/interior colour flood + 300 gsm printed inners + 20”x 10” fold-out insert + DL card

David Eugene Edwards has always been larger than life. His music with innovative heavy droning folk band Wovenhand, and before that the haunting revivification of high lonesome sound antique Americana of 16 Horsepower breathed a near apocalyptic sense of urgency and power into musical archetypes long abandoned in the latter-20th Century. On his first-ever solo album under his own name, Hyacinth, David Eugene Edwards delivers a sound uniquely his own, with a vulnerability and introspection unheard from him before. Stripping back the heavy rock of his recent work with Wovenhand, Hyacinth puts the man's voice, and sparing instrumentation into the main focus. There's a somber beauty and world-weary tone throughout these songs. The album could've been considered a slight return to the more melodic sounds of 16 Horsepower's Secret South (2000) and the first, self-titled Wovenhand album (2002). But there's more going on here: a rhythmic, pulsating undercurrent reminiscent of the tape loops and rudimentary rhythms of 80s Industrial post-punk as well as 808 Drill Style beats. The overall effect is often as if we're hearing the clock ticking away our own mortality. "Hyacinth was a sort of vision," Edwards says. "A dream. I sought out of my old wooden banjo and nylon string guitar a hidden path. Secrets they had kept from me within themselves all these years and created a new Mythos to myself of philosophical and spiritual ideas or concepts." Once he'd harnessed the music within, he enlisted multi-instrumentalist and producer Ben Chisholm (The Armed, Chelsea Wolfe, Converge) to help him realize the album's recording and mix. "Overall, the album is a weaving of narratives ancient and modern, of humankind's search for understanding of this world we find ourselves in and of each other. In all its simplicity and complexity," Edwards continues. "Hyacinth is a reference to the Greek myth of Apollo. And, the word meaning a precious stone and blue larkspur flower of purple and pall."

Jazz, funk, and bossa vibes kiss each other, all wrapped up in JLR's trademark cinematic feel. In his colourful Un Hombre de Buenos Aires, recorded in 1978, JLR puts the political outcry of his early 70s works aside and focuses on his love for the city of Buenos Aires.

Jorge López Ruiz gets far less credit than he deserves. His crucial role in shaping Argentina's jazz history should place him right next to Gato Barbieri and Lalo Schifrin, who found success abroad. It's an honour do dig deeper into his vast discography after having already reissued his masterpiece Viejas Raíces and his historical milestone album Bronca Buenos Aires.

As always, Jorge López Ruiz enroled for the recording of Un Hombre de Buenos Aires some of the best musicians in the country. The line-up includes Dino Saluzzi on bandoneon, Domingo Cura on percussion and his lifelong friend Pocho Lapouble on drums.

It almost seems churlish to regard Celtic Frost as one of the great extreme metal bands, because they were so much more than that. It’s better to hail them as among the finest extreme and experimental bands of the 1980s. Refusing ever to do what was expected or demanded, the band constantly changed musical direction, always brought in surprising influences, and kept people guessing as to where they might venture next. Their catalogue of albums is formidable and unmatched. Each is not only unique, but part of an entire tapestry that only now can be appreciated for being a remarkable part of music history. Despite, or maybe because of, constant turmoil on so many fronts, Celtic Frost achieved an artistic level few others would even have dared to dream of aspiring towards. They climbed high because they were never afraid to fall. Which is why the band are now rightly regarded as icons, and iconoclasts.

Emperor's Return is the second release by the Swiss extreme metal band Celtic Frost. It was released in 1985 as an extended play and was their first record featuring American drummer Reid Cruickshank (a.k.a. "Reed St. Mark"). The band's bleak publicity photographs from this period had an influence on the fashion and style of the developing black metal genre. This EP has been out of print and available on its own since 1985.

She Spread Sorrow is the work of Italian industrialist Alice Kundalini. In her sparse and grimly atmospheric applications of noise, tone, and electronic sequencing, She Spread Sorrow expresses a volatile emotional core that speaks to abuse and repression with an unblinking candidness.

Orchid Seeds was originally published as part of the instantly out of print On Corrosion - a 10 cassette anthology from 2019 that was housed in a handcrafted wooden box and featuring full albums from Kleistwahr, Neutral, Pinkcourtesyphone, Alice Kemp, She Spread Sorrow, G*Park, Relay For Death, Francisco Meirino, Fossil Aerosol Mining Project, and Himukalt. The collection also stood as the 50th release for The Helen Scarsdale Agency, an imprint founded in 2003 and dedicated to post-industrial research, recombinant noise, surrealist demolition, existential vacancy and then some.

Kundalini’s signature whispered vocals once again beckons her audience closer on Orchid Seeds. Kundalini states that the album, “is about 5 different women of my family. Each track is about one of them with their difficult story and strengths. My family is totally destroyed now, no relation between anyone, but in the past there was a strong tradition of women with interesting personalities.” This sibilant allegorical history comes into focus amidst a claustrophobic and cinematic pall of dark ambient blight and death industrial torpor.

David Eugene Edwards has always been larger than life. His music with innovative heavy droning folk band Wovenhand, and before that the haunting revivification of high lonesome sound antique Americana of 16 Horsepower breathed a near apocalyptic sense of urgency and power into musical archetypes long abandoned in the latter-20th Century. On his first-ever solo album under his own name, Hyacinth, David Eugene Edwards delivers a sound uniquely his own, with a vulnerability and introspection unheard from him before. Stripping back the heavy rock of his recent work with Wovenhand, Hyacinth puts the man's voice, and sparing instrumentation into the main focus. There's a somber beauty and world-weary tone throughout these songs. The album could've been considered a slight return to the more melodic sounds of 16 Horsepower's Secret South (2000) and the first, self-titled Wovenhand album (2002). But there's more going on here: a rhythmic, pulsating undercurrent reminiscent of the tape loops and rudimentary rhythms of 80s Industrial post-punk as well as 808 Drill Style beats. The overall effect is often as if we're hearing the clock ticking away our own mortality. "Hyacinth was a sort of vision," Edwards says. "A dream. I sought out of my old wooden banjo and nylon string guitar a hidden path. Secrets they had kept from me within themselves all these years and created a new Mythos to myself of philosophical and spiritual ideas or concepts." Once he'd harnessed the music within, he enlisted multi-instrumentalist and producer Ben Chisholm (The Armed, Chelsea Wolfe, Converge) to help him realize the album's recording and mix. "Overall, the album is a weaving of narratives ancient and modern, of humankind's search for understanding of this world we find ourselves in and of each other. In all its simplicity and complexity," Edwards continues. "Hyacinth is a reference to the Greek myth of Apollo. And, the word meaning a precious stone and blue larkspur flower of purple and pall."

It almost seems churlish to regard Celtic Frost as one of the great extreme metal bands, because they were so much more than that. It’s better to hail them as among the finest extreme and experimental bands of the 1980s. Refusing ever to do what was expected or demanded, the band constantly changed musical direction, always brought in surprising influences, and kept people guessing as to where they might venture next. Their catalogue of albums is formidable and unmatched. Each is not only unique, but part of an entire tapestry that only now can be appreciated for being a remarkable part of music history. Despite, or maybe because of, constant turmoil on so many fronts, Celtic Frost achieved an artistic level few others would even have dared to dream of aspiring towards. They climbed high because they were never afraid to fall. Which is why the band are now rightly regarded as icons, and iconoclasts.

Emperor's Return is the second release by the Swiss extreme metal band Celtic Frost. It was released in 1985 as an extended play and was their first record featuring American drummer Reid Cruickshank (a.k.a. "Reed St. Mark"). The band's bleak publicity photographs from this period had an influence on the fashion and style of the developing black metal genre. This EP has been out of print and available on its own since 1985.

Morning Glory

Every twenty four hours is a chance to begin again and it is a renewed commitment to be involved in the cycle of nature - to play by rules set forth by something greater than ourselves that constantly resonates in the ears of those who are at peace. At the edge of each one of these beginnings, there is a brief moment that belongs to only "it". A special portion of time that directly connects to the circular motion of Space and Time. It is truth before reality. Realness before rationality. Self before consciousness.

We can feel it when we first see light and the recognize an indication that the new day has begun. It is honoring what makes all this possible.


Axis Expressionist Series.

A collection of vinyl and limited digital releases, curated by Millsart, an alias of Jeff Mills, of his most eclectic and transcendent compositions that derive from his Every Dog Has Its Day project as well as new unreleased works.

Vernacular creations that fall off from the "other side" of the Electronic Music tree, this project is designed for the experienced Techno music listener, and its goal is to reflect upon the pure artistry of the craft of storytelling. A realization between music and life.

Whereas "dancing" is the goal of Dance Music, the goal of this music is about "reflecting on the complexity and simplification of life". Soundtracks for people in their evolutionary process.

In the late 1980s, Disco was taking a backseat to the burgeoning psychedelic scene in San Francisco, marking a pivotal shift in musical culture. A dynamic transformation was underway as the younger generation sought a fresh auditory adventure, all while the devastating AIDS epidemic cast a somber pall over the city's nightlife. Amidst this evolving backdrop, a subtle yet distinct sonic movement quietly emerged within the confines of San Francisco’s vibrant club scene, often referred to as "The Beat." Although Hip-Hop, New Wave, Gothic, Punk, and the burgeoning Modern Rock genre held considerable sway, the pre-RAVE clubs in SF witnessed the fusion of these genres into a unique amalgam of sound that insiders dubbed “The Beat.” This musical tapestry encompassed everything from Hip-Hop and Freestyle to Industrial, New Wave, Boogie, Miami Bass, and Techno – the unifying thread being the distinctive vibe that characterised this eclectic mix.

As House, Techno, and Raving gradually gained prominence along the West Coast, a distinctive interpretation of these evolving sounds took root. Drawing inspiration from influential hubs like New York, Chicago, Detroit, Europe, and notably the UK, which saw a wave of talented young DJs migrate to California, San Francisco became the backdrop for its own version of the second Summer of Love. While the exact chronology might spark debate – some recalling '92, while others leaning towards '93 – what remains indisputable is the era spanning from 1990 to 1994, an unparalleled epoch of exuberant dancefloor revelry on the western shores.

In the face of limited backing from major labels or established independent dance music entities of the time, a grassroots movement of labels and producers emerged organically, ardently championing this distinct sound and catapulting it onto the global stage. This sonic identity was deeply influenced by “the Beat,” acting as a creative wellspring that informed the musical landscape. While the tracks compiled in these volumes might not encompass the entirety of this transformative musical epoch, they offer a vivid snapshot of the melodious tapestry that coloured San Francisco and the broader West Coast during that era. Each track featured stands as a 100% Sure Shot that was played heavily by DJ Spun back in those very heady days.

The second installment of this remarkable journey into the underground scene maintains the same profound level of depth and significance as its precursor. Showcasing tracks from Electroliners, High Lonesome Soundsystem, Single Cell Orchestra, DJ Emma, and Spun's own Central Fire project, all harmoniously enclosed within the captivating and arresting artwork by Villain Standard, this release stands shoulder to shoulder with its forerunner. Beyond a mere compilation, it's an indispensable extension of the narrative that has indelibly shaped the culture of underground American dance music within the region, embodying the era and the individuals involved. This is the authentic underground sound that reverberated across San Francisco and its surrounding environs, a truly distinctive and exceptional moment in time and space.

Before the Odysee, there was the Iliad; a tale of the golden age of heroes and warriors.'

The idea behind the new Iliads series is to return to the sound of the golden age of Jungle/Drum & Bass, and more specifically the original ‘heroes’ of the Odysee label.
This second in the series pays homage to the unique sound of the Mirage releases. The influence of these releases on the SD sound that followed has often been overlooked, principally because it was assumed that the ‘Mirage’ moniker was simply another pseudonym for Source Direct, when in actual fact it was a lethal combination of the powerful engineering and arrangement skills of Jim Baker (Source Direct) and the sound selection and co-production of Odysee’s founder, Tilla Kemal (T-Mirage).

Face In The Shadows immediately opens with that slightly darker feel, with tracks like Feel My Dreams and Stonekiller in mind. The trademark SD style of break switches (aptly named ‘call & response) are immediately evident, although the Funky Mule gives the track its primary momentum. The sound selection is eerie, focusing on the 70’s Film-Noire, and deep Electro in line with Tilla’s particular preferences. The spoken word quotes are also unmistakably ‘Mirage-esque.’

Regenesis is a classic Odysee B-side track; lighter, more experimental and Jazzy in it’s feel. It showcases intricate and crisp rolling break work, and a beautifully refined selection of real stand- out musical quotes; from the sweet R&B-esque vocal ad-libs to the lush 70’s style sleaze of the Rhodes rolls. The interaction of these elements is the glue that holds this tune together.

The Darkness Within is the final track of the E.P. and it is the arrangement of samples that really emulates the ‘Mirage’ sound. Tilla & Jim were very particular about grouping sounds to work with & answer each other in each section of a tune. Samples were often sourced from obscure Film OST’s or rare electro albums which had sample diggers scratching their heads for many years! This track is dubbed out deeper, with a punching & rolling Soulpride features as the hero break and a repetitive deep chord stab forming the foundation of the tune.

Look out for the final instalment Volume III, where we will be focusing on the dystopian Jazz sound of the Hokusai releases!

‘Time Will Tell’ : A journey in reggae music from Bristol to Kingston JA.

Embark on the wild journey of a reggae-loving Bristolian youngster who travelled to the heart of Jamaica on intrepid mission to record a timeless reggae album in the 90s. ‘Time Will Tell’, a collaborative masterpiece uniting the extraordinary talents of Henry & Louis (Andy Scholes & Jac kLundie), Blue & Red (aka Rob Smith from Smith & Mighty) and renowned Jamaican and UK-basedv ocalists.A musical opus that infuses reggae's rich history into modern rhythms straight outta Bristol.

It all began in the summer of 1997, when Andy Scholes decided to trace the origins of reggae music straight back to its origins; armed with a 16-track reel-to-reel and an abundance of passion,he flew to Jamaica with a desire to record his reggae heroes over riddims built by Rob & Jack in Bristol.

Through a series of unexpected events Andy crossed paths with UB40 in the streets of Kingston.He built a friendship with the band and their lead singer, the legendary Ali Campbell took a ninterest in the project, generously giving Andy free access to his studio in Port Maria allowing him to bring life to ‘Time Will Tell’.

Scholes got in the studio with various Jamaican artists and recorded with Tony Tuff, Prince Green, and Johnny Clarke, each contributing their distinct voices and adding to the album's spiritual and conscious themes. The mystical vibe continued with the participation of other artists like Ghadian, Shalom, Pacey, Ben Dice, and Kerosene Oil, each bringing their own authentic style to the project.

The making of ‘Time Will Tell’ required time, dedication, and the synergy of a like-minded collective. The album embodies the warmth and transformative power of music serving as a driving force for positive change.

22 years after its initial release, the album is freshly remastered and reissued onto 12” vinyl by Dubquake Records!

Blue Dolphin was a wild, iridescent punk band from Austin, Texas circa 2016. Over the course of a year, they created a buzzing, liberatory sound, a dark blood mix of melodic ease and existential gloom. This pairing suggests monuments like ’Peace?’ or ‘Is This Real?’ but Blue Dolphin found this path all on their own, through trust and reliance, that practice space unity that the best bands build simply through the joy of playing with each other.

Emboldened by this connection, the band birthed memorably fractured, brisk music full of daring and revelation.

At times, the songs barrel along as if the band is struggling to keep their instruments under control, an unrestrainable, breathless frenzy of notes. Other times, they take on a pensive ache, a weighted despair. Every time they form a perfect skeleton for Sarah Sissy’s vocal shove. The songs will squall and sway, reach overload, rattle half to death, and yet the moment Sissy begins singing they snap into a focused beam, a bulldozing, clear-eyed force.

‘Robert’s Lafitte’ is a rush of darkness, resilience, mystery and bliss, exactly what you’d want from a record named after Texas’s oldest running gay bar, and a band maybe named after the indescribable freedom of ocean life or maybe named after a type of ecstasy.

The LP contains the entire recorded output of Blue Dolphin, including all three self-released tapes and four previously unheard songs.

Members of Blue Dolphin have played in other bands like C.C.T.V., Chalk, Mystic Inane, Chronophage and NOSFERATU.

For fans of Silver Abuse, Chalk, Twelve Cubic Feet, Chronophage, C.C.T.V., Mystic Inane.

Includes poster / insert.

A Crimson Shore is Saåad’s first studio album since Présence/Absente in 2018. In the interim, Toulouse-based composer and producer Romain Barbot has enriched his experience as an artist through multiple collaborations, the composition of soundtracks and commissioned pieces, as well his involvement with the bands FOUDRE! and Sables Noirs.

This new chapter in the artist’s discography reflects this artistic maturity, evoking the project’s finest ambient recordings while revealing a new, unfiltered and decisive personality. Saåad’s use of a more direct musical language (exclusively electronic on this album) is intended to lay bare the inner life of its creator: the tracks are structured in a cycle of loops, vibrations and drones which respond to and confront each other like the torments of existence, torn between the twilight of sombre music reduced to its purest function of catharsis and the dawn of a new, luminous narrative journey.

A Crimson Shore is a raw, all-encompassing album, shot through with the fear of death, of growing old, of accepting it, of grief — past, present, imagined and future — and the search for a transcendental refuge.

Drawing inspiration from sixties psychedelia, specifically the Tropicalia movement, Melotone are a band more interested in texture and ambience than ego. The EP continues the band's exploration of Brazilian soundscapes - the native country of singer Alec Madeley - whilst reconciling their humble beginnings in the Black Country, where the band grew up and met each other. Lyrically and musically, the EP faces questions of identity and of being in the unknown, but creating purpose in this space. It represents Melotone's journey across the music of their homelands as they mould a sound entirely recognisable as their own.

Sometimes drifting into the realms of folk, jazz, and soul, Melotone channel instrumental pioneers Khurangbin and Kikagaku Moyu with vocals that resemble the arresting style of singers Jeff Buckley and Brittany Howard, and at times the spirit of Portuguese-English singing Caetano Veloso.

Majid Jordan is presented in a blue vinyl pressing. Majid Jordan was featured on and co-produced Drake’s triple-platinum #1 hit "Hold On, We’re Going Home" from Nothing Was The Same. Their next collaboration with the hip-hop superstar was "Mine" for Beyonce’s self-titled fifth offering. Solidifying their sound and identity, 2014’s EP A Place Like This would see them construct the framework for this, their self-titled full-length debut original issued in 2016. Majid Jordan features the single ""Something About You"" and the critically acclaimed track "My Love" featuring Drake.

Farewell To The Welfare is now available in a limited edition teal vinyl pressing. The Tribe Records co-founder’s lost album, rumored to exist no more. Mastered from the original tapes and lacquered by Bernie Grundman. “As I thought about re­flecting on an aggregate of music for this album, I projected my attitude and spirit while living and working here, in Detroit, Michigan. We are earning and learning a new way of life, which explicitly tells us to become self-reliant in taking care of our families and each other. Government hand-outs are not an option for us.” Wendell Harrison. The first ever issue of this Spiritual Jazz album. The Tribe label, one of the brightest lights of America’s 1970s jazz underground, receives the Now-Again reissue treatment. This is your chance to indulge in the music and story of one of the most meaningful, local movements of the 20th Century Black American experience, one that expanded outwards towards the cosmos. In the words of the collective themselves, “Music is the healing force of the universe.” Included in an extensive, oversized booklet, Larry Gabriel and Jeff “Chairman” Mao take us through the history of the Tribe, in a compelling story that delves not just into the history of the label and its principals, but into the story of Black American empowerment in the latter half of the 20th Century. The booklet features never-before-seen archival photos and rare ephemera from Tribe’s mid-1970s heyday.

Dunkelgrünes Vinyl. Vor einigen Jahren, irgendwo in einem Tour Van in Idaho, wurde den Chastity Belt Mitgliedern Julia Shapiro, Gretchen Grimm, Lydia Lund und Annie Truscott zu langweilig und sie fanden eine recht ungewöhnliche Beschäftigung: Sie fingen an einander Komplimente zu machen, sehr detailliert und umfangreich. Das mögen wir an dir am Liebsten; Deshalb lieben wir dich. An dieses Bild denke ich die ganze Zeit, die Vier, wie sie sich den anderen gegenüber auf diese Weise offenbaren, freiwillig. Es fällt schwer sich vorzustellen, dass das andere Bands tun würden. Jenseits ihrer doch recht omnipräsenten Social Media Seiten mit tonnen von Duck Face Schnuten, der ,I don't care" Attitüde, liegt ganz am Grund eine Ehrlichkeit und Intimität als auch eine emotionale Brillanz, die alles was Chastity Belt kreieren, verschmelzen lässt. Simple ausgedrückt: Sie sind witzig aber auch in der Lage sehr verletzlich zu sein. Giant Vagina und Pussy Weed Beer, zwei Highlights ihres 2013er Debüts No Regerts, wurden prompt gefolgt von dem großartigen aber leicht zu übersehenden Happiness. Bei dem 2015er Time to Go Home habe ich ständig meine jüngere, unstetere Version vor Augen gehabt. Der kommende Juni markiert die Veröffentlichung von I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone, ihr drittes und bisher bestes Album. Mit dem Produzenten Matthew Simms (Wire) live im Juli 2016 in Portland / Oregon (Geburtsstätte einiger ihrer favorisierten Elliot Smith Alben) aufgenommen, ist es ein dunkles und ungewöhnlich schönes Set aus Moody Post Punk, dass die Gefühlsbreite der Band aus Seattle in vollem Ausmaß und nicht durch Humor gefiltert zeigt. Da ist keine Ironie im Titel: Bevor sie Chastity Belt gründete, sah sich Shapiro klar als einsamen Wolf. Das ist keine kleine Geste. Ich kann dieses Album so sehr nachempfinden wie in meinen 20ern: Das ist ein mutiges und oft berauschendes Gewirr aus gemischten Gefühlen und quälenden Melodien, die atemberaubende Angst (This Time of Night) mit schimmernder Erkenntnis (Different Now) und hauchdünner Ungewissheit (Stuck - geschrieben und gesungen von Grimm) verbindet. Es ist eine ernste Platte. Shapiro definiert es wahrscheinlich am besten selbst: ,I wanna be sincere." Als ich die Band frage, wie dieser Text hier werden soll, war ihr einziger Anspruch, dass er kurz, ehrlich und ohne Übertreibung sein soll, Als ich mehr erfahren will sagt Truscott: "Just say that we love each other. Because we do." So sind sie, deshalb liebe ich sie. - David Bevan (Pitchfork), Februar 2017

The Keplar label presents the next instalment in a series of reissues from the catalogue of Sasu Ripatti’s seminal Vladislav Delay project. Originally released on Mille Plateaux, the vinyl edition of »Entain« from 2000 omitted two shorter tracks and included all others in an abridged form. With this reissue, the full album as it was pressed on CD is finally made available on vinyl. Besides a new remaster by Kassian Troyer, it was also given new cover artwork by Marc Hohmann that picks up on that of the »Whistleblower« reissue, released in early 2023 by Keplar. This serial visual approach highlights the conceptual continuity between those masterful explorations of the interplay between dub techniques, noise, and repetition.

Ripatti himself had reworked material from 1999’s »Ele« album for the release of »Entain,« which means that it can be considered the debut album proper of his Vladislav Delay project. It saw the Finnish artist aim more vigorously for abstraction than in his earlier releases as Vladislav Delay for labels such as Chain Reaction, which were collected on the iconic »Multila« compilation in 2000; another milestone from his back catalogue that has been reissued by Keplar in recent times. To mark this special occasion, »Multila« will be repressed by Keplar with a new artwork that matches the new design of »Whisteblower« and »Entain«.

»Multila« and »Entain« correspond with each other conceptually as much as they seem to differ on a musical level. The material on »Multila« was clearly indebted to the Berlin dub techno sound, marked by its grainy and at times abrasive sonic aesthetics. From the very first moments of the 22-minute long opener »Kohde« however, it becomes clear that »Entain« takes things further away from the dancefloor, aiming less for physical impact than for intellectual stimulation. A sort of electronic minimal music, it was primarily interested in letting discrete elements freely come into play with one another.

Much like »Multila,« however, »Entain« highlighted the subtle differences embedded in what only feels like repetitive music. Of course the massive bassline and ghostly dub riddims that permeate »Notke« as well as the deconstructed beat at the core of »Ele« still hint at Ripatti’s roots in beat-driven music. However, they also make his artistic transformation audible by turning their sources of inspirations into something entirely unheard of. »Entain« took the dub techno formula further than any other record before it—onwards into the realms of pure abstraction.

Stelios Vassiloudis enters an inspiring new phase as he unveils his sophomore LP All Else Fails available March 25th via Balance Music.

Hailing from Athens, Greece, Stelios Vassiloudis poses a triple threat as a composer, producer and DJ. Having been active in the electronic music scene since the early 2000s he has cultivated his own brand of distinctive ambience reflective of his rich and diverse musical background; transcending the dance floor via an emotional narrative of complex soundscapes, intricate harmonies and hypnotic rhythms. Over the past decade Stelios has released music under various other monikers, yet this new endeavour is his most diligent to date - allowing him to rediscover his love for making music during the process, "I'm more hopeful, inspired and determined than ever before."

Ten years on from the release of his debut LP, Stelios' detail-oriented offerings remain incomprehensibly thought-provoking and thorough with this new album. Noticeably dissimilar to any previous efforts, Stelios consciously took a step back from the pressure of maintaining a steadily flowing supply of functional, club-oriented music and as the world stood still amidst the pandemic, he embraced the opportunity to reconnect and express himself with a broader musical vocabulary. He admits that: "with the world around us seemingly on the fast track to Armageddon, the music ended up being very much reflective of the sadness and helplessness I felt."

All Else Fails is a stimulating odyssey to anyone listening. Harmonically dense, arcadian glistens seep throughout the ten tracks, each complementary to the next. Bask in the wistful iridescence and you won't be disappointed.

Stelios carved his way into electronic music by traversing around the globe as a DJ and performer - performing at intimate underground bars in Beirut, festivals in Miami, after-hours in Tokyo, beaches in Goa and mega clubs in Argentina. Having developed a formidable discography on esteemed labels such as Bedrock, Poker Flat, Ovum, Constant Sound and Darkroom Dubs, among others, Stelios' studio prowess and coveted productions cemented his reputation as a versatile and acclaimed artist. His intense passion and drive for innovation in music serves as the fuel to keep him inspired and relevant, qualities that no doubt ensure his reputation as an artist of the highest calibre, will endure.

The story of the invention of the term, 'deepfunk' is probably only known among fans and practitioners of this niche-genre. In short, it all started in the 1990s when DJs like Keb Darge, Mark 'Snowboy' Cotgrove and others began spinning obscure and feral Funk 45 RPM singles from local American bands, ostensibly generating another sub-category branch off of the mighty Northern Soul tree. The dance-club phenomenon inevitably spilled over to contemporary groups on the funk scene which immediately tried to record their music the way their idols did. The 'rare groove' and 'acid jazz' movements had run their course and there was a concerted effort to reinstate primitive idiomatic styles and techniques into the music, most notably by 90s funk collective The Poets of Rhythm. As more years passed by the number of bands steadily increased (although in tiny numbers, compared to the mainstream market). Almost every country had a representative with the majority of them coming from the United Kingdom. The deepfunk sound was still a niche, however a very few bands made it onto the mainstream charts, most notably Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings.

At the height of the retro-soul movement a questionable development took place. As more bands arrived on the scene, the production became more and more polished and pop-ish. Some of that squeaky-clean tidiness began to creep into the recordings, encouraged in part by the signature sounds of the digital recording technology available at that time. Some bands even tried to jump onto the possibility of promoting their music as 'deepfunk' although they were actually playing slick, funky pop music. This way some people who thought they were listening to raw, energetic funk actually felt quite ambushed when hit with real deepfunk. In fact, a certain percentage of funk music produced within the past 20 years does not deserve to be described as 'deepfunk' at all. Fortunately there were (and are) some pleasant exceptions which did not just imitate but actually rendered amazing funk music just like some of the finest funk combos of the 1960s and 70s.

One of those creative minds is without a doubt Joel Ricci aka Lucky Brown. Originally from Seattle, Washington, USA, he has enriched the deepfunk community since the mid-2000s with his stellar abilities. He is not only an amazing musician playing multiple instruments, but also a brilliant composer, arranger, and producer too. But for us here at Tramp he is much more, a close friend and remarkable human being. Whenever we were struggling, whether with the label or in private life, Joel and his musical work helped us to overcome everything and to keep going our path.

So here we are in 2023. The songs you are listening to right now are the complete Space Dream collection, split into two parts, representing the two living-room recording sessions from which his 2011 Tramp Records debut was compiled. Each fully remastered album contains unreleased material and comes with brand new, beautifully reimagined artwork by Ricci himself, housed in an authentic 1960s tip-on cover. A first class product from a first class musician for the discerning funk enthusiast.

The story of the invention of the term, 'deepfunk' is probably only known among fans and practitioners of this niche-genre. In short, it all started in the 1990s when DJs like Keb Darge, Mark 'Snowboy' Cotgrove and others began spinning obscure and feral Funk 45 RPM singles from local American bands, ostensibly generating another sub-category branch off of the mighty Northern Soul tree. The dance-club phenomenon inevitably spilled over to contemporary groups on the funk scene which immediately tried to record their music the way their idols did. The 'rare groove' and 'acid jazz' movements had run their course and there was a concerted effort to reinstate primitive idiomatic styles and techniques into the music, most notably by 90s funk collective The Poets of Rhythm. As more years passed by the number of bands steadily increased (although in tiny numbers, compared to the mainstream market). Almost every country had a representative with the majority of them coming from the United Kingdom. The deepfunk sound was still a niche, however a very few bands made it onto the mainstream charts, most notably Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings.

At the height of the retro-soul movement a questionable development took place. As more bands arrived on the scene, the production became more and more polished and pop-ish. Some of that squeaky-clean tidiness began to creep into the recordings, encouraged in part by the signature sounds of the digital recording technology available at that time. Some bands even tried to jump onto the possibility of promoting their music as 'deepfunk' although they were actually playing slick, funky pop music. This way some people who thought they were listening to raw, energetic funk actually felt quite ambushed when hit with real deepfunk. In fact, a certain percentage of funk music produced within the past 20 years does not deserve to be described as 'deepfunk' at all. Fortunately there were (and are) some pleasant exceptions which did not just imitate but actually rendered amazing funk music just like some of the finest funk combos of the 1960s and 70s.

One of those creative minds is without a doubt Joel Ricci aka Lucky Brown. Originally from Seattle, Washington, USA, he has enriched the deepfunk community since the mid-2000s with his stellar abilities. He is not only an amazing musician playing multiple instruments, but also a brilliant composer, arranger, and producer too. But for us here at Tramp he is much more, a close friend and remarkable human being. Whenever we were struggling, whether with the label or in private life, Joel and his musical work helped us to overcome everything and to keep going our path.

So here we are in 2023. The songs you are listening to right now are the complete Space Dream collection, split into two parts, representing the two living-room recording sessions from which his 2011 Tramp Records debut was compiled. Each fully remastered album contains unreleased material and comes with brand new, beautifully reimagined artwork by Ricci himself, housed in an authentic 1960s tip-on cover. A first class product from a first class musician for the discerning funk enthusiast.

- Each record includes a download code for the release + 2 digital bonus tracks -

BlueBox is the first of its kind! The new colored series on Front Left by Elad Magdasi.

Elad is going back to his roots while trying something new. Keeping a balance between his serious and playful side, the release includes 4 DJ tools that are different yet embody Elad's sound in every way.

All the tracks are named by their position on the record, similar to the oldskool way, focusing on the music alone.

All BlueBox tracks were produced at the same time, on the same wave of inspiration, they compliment each other though being completely different.

Front Left Love.

The album features 15 tracks, showcasing Bastien’s truly cinematic sound while exploring new sonic territories. The album touches on the melancholic funk drifting between voiceovers of longing and hurt, through surreal, hallucinogenic folk ballads. It’s the juxtaposition of these genres sewn together with ambient synth skits that really makes the album a musical journey. Playful and serious, as the album title suggests, Bastien manages to induce a rye smile with a tear in the eye.


In Seb’s words, “The album tells the story of a failed relationship, as the man narrators missing his other. Whilst he imagines her comforting him, before accepting the end of the relationship, and feeling that the love he feels, she never did.”

Sharing common ground with luminaries such as David Axlerod, Kate Bush, Roy Orbison, Madlib and The Delfonics; Keb plays guitar, trumpet, bass, drums, piano, flute and more Keb’s writing and recording approach is slightly unique. He explains a little about how his records sound the way they do...

“I have a lo-fi approach to recording, for me it’s about the moment, all my records are time capsules of a certain time in my life, so the sound of the recording is secondary. It’s all about heart, that’s all I’m interested in. If I get a melody I have to record it asap, if the mic isn’t plugged in I use the macbook mic, if I’m not by the computer I’ll record into my phone.

For me personally using/sampling other peoples music isn’t making your own music, using your own soul, showing your own heart, it's just my personal opinion. It’s not right for me. No slur on those that do. If there are any samples on my records, it’s me sampling me. For me, this means the music is mine. It’s ‘of me’. That’s really important for me, because I feel that’s where the honesty is. If my music sounds ‘dusty’, that’s why”.

This approach provides us with a wonderfully inclusive record. The album feels almost ‘performed’ to us, live, on each listen. Coupled with Bastien’s capacity to write music which is almost visual, the album is quite enveloping.

Bastien returns to Def Pressé with this new album after the brilliant, Holy Mountain. Released under the name Grandamme, with friend and collaborator Claudia Kane.

In 2015, Cico Beck ( Joasihno, Aloa Input, the Notwist ) and Markus Acher ( the Notwist, Tied & Tickled Trio, Rayon ) started the project "You + Your D.Metal Friend" as a collective for improvisations and ideas apart from their other bands.

They will experiment with different settings and instrumentations and will collaborate with other artists for the music and the cover-artwork.

For "Sonnier", their first recordings, Cico and Markus started with percussion instruments from around the globe, analogue synthesizers and all kinds of acoustic and electronic devices to layer music that sounds like the memory of Gamelan, Italian library-records and minimal electronic experimentation... music, they listened to a lot before recording.

"Sonnier" will be available on vinyl (incl. download-code), limited to 300 for the world, and will not be repressed. Packaged in heavy-cardboard-LP-covers from second-hand records, they collected from their local record-stores with a screen-printed and numbered artwork glued on it. Designed by Richard Greenan from kit-records, London, and printed by Senor Burns (Red Can). Each cover is unique and hand numbered.

Piotr Kurek’s new album “Smartwoods” is a sprawling root system of tiny melodic phrases that loop and curl around subtly evolving instrumental thickets. The Warsaw-based producer and composer takes his cues from early music, baroque music and experimental jazz, entangling his influences with filigree traces of contemporary computer music and fueling it with sonic vapors from the near future.

Made up of seven distinct segments, the album blurs its acoustic and electronic elements into an illusory hedge of abstract sound. Harp, saxophone, clarinet, double bass, voices and guitar twist into computerized processes and synthesizer chirps, creating an uncanny dreamworld where the real isn’t always what it seems. Each player is entwined with the other to create a living, breathing whole.

Like Kurek’s painterly 2021 album “World Speaks”, “Smartwoods” is also inspired by visual art - particularly the whimsical work of Algerian-French graphic designer Jean Sariano. The album cover features artwork by Polish painter Tomasz Kowalski, whose shapeshifting creatures and miniature stories aptly reflect the music’s wild fantasy. The first manifestation of “Smartwoods” – a live show at Unsound in Kraków in 2022 – featured animations by Italian artist Francesco Marrello, who put together a visual treatment for the single “Harps”.

Music composed, arranged and produced by Piotr Kurek
Anna Pašic - harp
Tomasz Duda - clarinets, saxophone, flute
Wojtek Traczyk - double bass, electric bass
Piotr Kurek - keyboards, MIDI wind controller, electric guitar
Recorded in June and November 2022 by Piotr Kurek, Piotr Zabrodzki (Studio Pasterka) and Tomasz Duda

Founding member of Buffalo Springfield and folk-rock supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Stills' first solo album, Stephen Stills, earned a gold record, is the only album to feature both Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, and climbed to #3 on the album charts. Stephen Stills’ single "Love the One You're With" became his biggest solo hit, peaking at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and is the first track on this collection. 14 tracks from Stephen Still’s First US Tour, previously unissued and recorded Live at The Berkeley Community Theater in 1971, featuring David Crosby on two songs. In 1971 Stephen Stills embarked on a US tour, opening each show with an intimate acoustic first set, and closing each night with a riveting electric set featuring the Memphis Horns. These historic, previously unreleased recordings took place over two nights at the Berkeley Community Theater, with David Crosby joining him on vocals and guitar for "You Don’t Have To Cry" and "The Lee Shore." These recordings find Stills at peak performance in both vocal delivery and musicianship, effortlessly incorporating alternate instrumentation on his instantly recognizable tracks, including a seamless medley of “49 Bye Byes" and "For What It’s Worth” unexpectedly played on piano. Hand-picked by Stills from his personal archives, this album captures timeless and era defining performances. Fans who were lucky enough to catch his historic debut trek, dubbed “The Memphis Horns Tour,” were treated to the balladeer, the raving troubadour, the acoustic bluesman, the soul driver, and by far the most passionate music maker. Backed by a loyal cast of friends, including his usual steady rhythm section—drummer Dallas Taylor and bassist Calvin “Fuzzy” Samuels—along with keyboardist Paul Harris, guitarist Steve Fromholz, and percussionist Joe Lala, these Northern California shows were one of the most unique and intimate stops on the tour This album, rather than being an artifact from a bygone era, sparkles and stimulates. It cajoles you into thinking, feeling and—most importantly—moving. Stephen Stills Live At Berkeley 1971 is a cornucopia of priceless sound—and all of it bears the distinct and loving fingerprint of Stephen Stills.

Stomu Yamash'ta's ultra-rare cult 1971 LP is reissued for the first time, it is a deep, cosmic, at time ambient performance recorded live and
featuring two other Japanese legends: Takehisa Kosugi from the TajMahal Travellers and jazz pianist Masahiko Satoh

Remastered from the master tapes with original gatefold artwork, obi and newintroduction by Paul Bowler. Recorded live at Yamaha Hall in Tokyo on April 18, 1971, the all- night concert was recorded in front of an invite- only audience consisting of friends and musicians. Yamash'ta had Satoh on keyboards along with Fluxus master and leader of the Taj Mahal Travellers Takehisa Kosugi on violin and Hideakira Sakurai on electric shamisen.

Edited down to fit two sides of an album that will become 'Sunrise From West
Sea', the performance is both hypnotic and ethereal. It starts with Kosugi's
distinctive electric violin and develops into a deep, spiritual free form
conversation between the four musicians, giving them all the space, they need to
freely improvise and interact with each other, mixing electronics, percussion,
electric organ and shamizen without ever clashing. The interaction alternates
between quiet, tranquil Eastern meditations and more paced parts, fuelled by
Yamash'ta's extraordinary percussion playing.
Yamash'ta never reached the creativity heard in 'Sunrise From West Sea' again.
The album was recorded during one of the most fertile periods in Japan where
such groups as Les Rallizes Denudes and Taj Mahal Travellers and jazz
musicians like Masahiko Satoh and Yamash'ta were revolutionising the Japanese
music scene.

EACH COPY Personally SIGNED BY LEN FAKI

Len Faki has always been a defining character of the techno underground. His unique approach to DJing, the consistent work as a producer and the quality output of his label Figure has all shaped the current environment.
Starting out as a clubber in the 90's, his inspirations have always reached back to the first encounters with electronic music, when new worlds opened and everything seemed possible.

While these experiences have always influenced Faki's productions and used to be released under many different aliases back in the day, they have been waiting since to be made into a proper album under the Len Faki moniker.

After quickly climbing to the top of the international DJ circuit, busy touring schedules never quite allowed for it. Finally faced with the opportunity of a long overdue creative break, Faki decided tackle the life-time venture with the necessary dedication and focus.

Excited about the new project, he also took the time and energy needed to expand his production methods. Finding new techniques allowed him to truly bring all his different influences to the surface. The process was one of following his own heart, occasionally challenging and surprising himself. Naturally the result emerged as two parallel experiences, which are now presented across two discs. Both still carry all the signature features of Faki's style but with added layers of depth and detail. There's that special contrast of dark and heady grooves, paired with dreamy melodies that transport the listener to places beyond the mind. But we also see all strains of his previous work being incorporated, mixed and molded into something new altogether.

While the first disc focuses on the kind of techno, which Faki has been brought up by and given back to for so many years of his life, the second is more loose and experimental, with forays into house, ambient and broken beats - the sounds he has always kept very passionate about.

It creates two distinct experiences, showcasing the entire breadth of Faki's cosmos. Where some ideas stay straight and kick hard, like the neon bleep opener Tor 8 or joyfully booming Astra, others take the newfound freedom to inspire a wistful broken beat ballad such as Hymn (In the Name of Fantasy) or the soulfully subdued Drum & Bass closer Voices.
Many songs even exist as pairings, with their respective counterpart on the other disc. For example, the duo of Shri Yantra/Yantra, where similar soundscapes have been looked through different lenses, making for a more straight-laced or shuffled rhythm. Also noteworthy are Faki's appearance as a veritable house producer on Hymn (In the Name of Freedom) as well as the inclusion of two very personal pieces:
The Halide tracks were made in remembrance of Faki's late mother, who passed away during the final production stage of the EP. These delicate tracks capture the intense sadness Faki was feeling at the time and helped him to process his grief and eventually to finish off the album.

By doing so Faki has given us a complete artistic statement, one that proves him to be as curious and driven now as ever, taking his sound to all-new realms.

Building off of the themes of identity, storytelling and experimentation on her critically acclaimed debut album, Khonnar (2018), Deena Abdelwahed’s upcoming album Jbal Rrsas is the next chapter of a reimagining of what club music could be. The album spans seven tracks of bass, techno, and experimental music, with Abdelwahed consulting with masterminds like Tunisian composer and multi-instrumentalist Khalil Hentati, aka Khalil Epi, and Iraqi-British multi-instrumentalist, composer, and researcher Khyam Allami, as well as Egyptian mastering engineer Heba Kadry, to help realise her vision.

Jbal Rrsas starts with the seductively apocalyptic opener, The Key to the Exit, a deconstructed sha’bi production. With tracks like Six as Oil and the delightfully intense Violence for Free, Abdelwahed leads users to a desert rave, where industrial rhythms are left unbridled. Abdelwahed’s vocals on Complain and Pre-Island are powerful and exposed, confidently placed on dizzying avant-garde productions. The Wire previously said “Khonnar is an assured debut that sits on the edge of a whole swathe of possibilities, not only sonic but also geographical, social and political.” With Jbal Rrsas finds Abdelwahed deftly navigating through those possibilities, frequently pushing against genres, labels, and social identifiers, while elevating club music to otherworldly heights.

Ghostface Killah reunites with his partner in rhyme Raekwon to bring fans Bulletproof Wallets, which continues Ghost’s winning streak of delivering front to back classic material. Filled with the usual Ghost slang, bass heavy production, Bulletproof Wallets dropped not long after Supreme Clientele without skipping a beat. The fun Ghost & Rae are having on this record is beyond apparent. Bulletproof Wallets is almost like a party album, hit singles and street bangers. “Never Be the Same Again” (with Carl Thomas & Raekwon) and “Ghost Showers” play alongside “Maxine” and “The Forrest” all working off each others energy. Other stand outs like “Walking through the Darkness”, “The Hilton” all bang through the speakers and continues to add to Ghost’s undeniable catalog. On some groundbreaking production from The RZA, Alchemist, Carlos 6 July Broady and Mathmatics, Ghostface shines and the chemistry between Rae and Ghost is incredible!

After the thematic albums 'True' (2012 inspired by Berlin and David Bowie).

'Desire' (2015, an instrumental opera about longing), 'Goldbrun' (2017 a homage to Europe and Honing's interest in European art music) and 'Bluebeard' (2020, a dark album mainly inspired by the 300-year-old fairy tale of the same name), there is now 'Heaven on my mind'.An album on which the quartet's now decade- long existence undoubtedly pays off. Not only is the almost telepathic way the band members communicate with each other an important feature; this fifth quartet album also clearly shows Honing's love for Charles Lloyd, Pharoah Sanders and the freer acoustic jazz that emerged along with the 1960s hippie movement.

These are the kinds of things I learned from my teacher and mentor, the incredible Ukrainian pianist Mikhail (Misha) Alperin. Misha turned my world upside down from the moment we met. I was 19 then, and he continued to have a huge influence on me ever since. We didn't see each other very often in later years, but every time we did, I was filled with energy and inspiration. And in every meeting, he said at least one little thing that I would think about for months afterwards, whether it was during a brief conversation in the academy hallway, or a two-hour monologue in his office. He was intense. He celebrated life and love.

He was singing, dancing and certainly living through his music. His death has left a void in our world that can never be filled, and he is sorely missed. Helge Lien, December 2022

Constant Sound is one of the many labels Burnski aka Instinct is heading up right now and they are all as good as each other. This one focuses on house and tech sounds and welcomes Adam Pitts to the fam with three standouts. 'Gadget Crew' opens up and has a big, high-energy groove with plenty of oversized drum sounds and a retro melody paired with an intriguing soulful vocal. It has a dark garage tinge and is perfect for late-night action. 'Just This Once' is tough and physical, with warped and naughty bass and thwacking great hits irresistible to all. Last all comes a Skins Junglist Crew remix which is exactly that - a fine one for the jungle heads.

In Rumi's poem A Great Wagon he writes of a place of total acceptance. "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there," It is a boundless, liminal space where we can release the judgments we make and carry of ourselves, and the comparisons to others. When we think of this field, there is a sense of tranquility that only comes when we are undisturbed by the shadow self and see existence as neither bright nor dim, white nor black. But as lead singer Greg Bertens explains, arriving there is a whole different story. "This is a poem I've returned to over the years, and I love the idea of this place, but getting there is life's journey." Bertens adds "I think the longing for and elusiveness of this field is a recurring theme in our music." Field is enveloped by themes of regret, disconnection and frustration but with the space to understand that these feelings are a natural part of the struggle between reconciling the inner and outer self. The Los Angeles/San Francisco-based group have been indie shoegaze stalwarts since their formation in 2001. After two decades and a handful of line-up changes, their extensive discography presents a dynamically textural, lush psychedelic rock that has featured guest appearances by members of Pavement, My Bloody Valentine, and Snow Patrol, among others. 2021's LP We Weren't Here was hailed for its dense instrumental blanket, where unrelenting hi-hats and heavy kicks exist alongside dreamy drone guitar. This propulsive nature permeates Field, as members Bertens, Noël Brydebell (vocals), Nyles Lannon (guitar), Jason Ruck (synths), Justin LaBo (bass), and Adam Wade (drums) produce a kaleidoscopic sonic landscape. Patient, sprawling instrumentation builds a foundation in which Bertens' themes of endurance, perseverance and clarity can bloom with a considered poise. As a lyricist who writes in response to the instrumental arrangements, rather than a focus on a specific theme or person, Field is a testament to Film School's ability to create in the moment, and to showcase the magic that stems from when we are truly present. Album opener "Tape Rewind" is a swirling rush of color, as sustained guitars, darkened bass lines and urgent, percussive swells dance alongside each other. "This is the newest of all the songs on the record and feels like a new level of heaviness for the band," Bertens explains, noting that its lyrical context of struggling to move past trauma adds to its cathartic essence. Field is bookended by heavier themes, with closer "All I'll Ever Be" taking on the perspective of those we hurt when we embrace our own toxic behaviors. Originally written to be a simple acoustic guitar and vocals song soon turned into an ethereal, effects-laden composition, with Noël's hazy lead vocals ushering in a new-found acceptance. "It's all I want / To be released / And all I can be," she laments, cementing Field's message of accepting ourselves in whatever form we find ourselves in. "Defending Ruins" is a murky relentless underworld, inspired by the freewheeling tones of Texas-based band Holy Wave. "Defending the ruins, defending remains," Bertens spits, among a richly-layered outro. "Don't You Ever" confirms Film School's ability to merge both delicate and growling instrumentation throughout the album, with the song's softly spoken section hovering above sparkling guitar. "Is This A Hotel" bends towards the electronic aspects of the band, with wailing synths accompanying a story of bitter desire. With over two decades in the industry, Field cements Film School as a distinct, dominant force in the shoegaze scene. Soaked in an emotionally open, imaginative atmosphere, the album is both singular and expansive, and leaves the door open for a constantly evolving interpretation. Film School have never confined themselves to the rigidity of specifics, and it's on Field that they urge us to look beyond the binary of certainty, and to take a second look

- Panda Bear, Voice of the Seven Woods, Mammane Sanni Abdoulaye. File under: Jazz / Electronic. Titi Bakorta almost didn't make it. Born in and raised in Kinshasa, the Congolese multi-instrumentalist was on his way to Uganda when he fell off the boat as it traversed the mighty Congo River. Unable to swim, Bakorta was saved by a friend who dragged him to the closest city Kisangani, where he was unexpectedly acquainted with local singer Dancer Papalas. Soon they were performing in bands together, traveling across the continents and settling in Tanzania, South Sudan and Dubai - they even appeared in front of General Defao, the beloved Congolese vocalist who fronted legendary soukous bands Grand Zaiko Wawa, Choc Stars and Big Stars. Now based in Kampala, Bakorta offers his own unique take on Congolese pop and folk sounds, weaving traditional elements through a psychedelic lattice of guitar loops, mangled voices and eccentric beatbox rhythms on his debut full-length. He bends woodblock snaps on 'Kop' into stuttered blurs, wailing emotionally over twanging riffs and bizarre, theatrical xylophone twinkles. It's still pop music on some level, but curved around Bakorta's unwieldy personal narrative - there's a sense that everything could unravel at any time but it all hangs together, strengthened by Bakorta's confident, contemporary production smarts. 'Elles Vais' is more airy, with celestial soukous vocals that float above tight, electronic drums. Tangled guitar echoes overlap each other like dense, weaved tapestries, contrasting perfectly with Bakorta's urgent, driving pulse. Occasionally, he transcends completely, like on 'Molende' where his chants and phrases neatly flutter between praise music and contemporary R&B. "Hustling, hustling, hustling, everyday I'm hustling," an angelic voice coos over phased electric guitar plucks and looped, AutoTuned chorals. It makes perfect sense that Bakorta should team up with Metal Preyers' Jesse Hackett on the album's final track, the aptly-titled 'Titis Haunted House'. The two artists share a similar obsession with moonlit, carnivalesque soundscapes, and Hackett's eerie synths provide a suitably eccentric foundation for Bakorta's ghostly wails and fuzzy guitar sounds.

Frankie Cosmos, Palehound, Jay Som, Helado Negro, Lala Lala, Mamalarky, Sword II. Atlanta three-piece Kibi James announce their debut full-length album, delusions, out August 25th on Bayonet Records. Mari (guitar, keys), MJ Corless (bass) and Pomi Abebe (drums) join forces in crafting intoxicatingly dreamy melodies, their soft, siren-like voices sweeping you into their world as they bilingually share reflections on love in its many forms – romantic, familial, self – but most prominently the love that comes from their friendship. Co-produced, recorded and mixed by Drew Vandenberg (Faye Webster, SPELLLING, Toro y Moi) at Chase Park Studios in Athens, GA, and mastered by Heba Kadry, delusions is laden with vividly lush portraits of the places they call home Atlanta, their music community, their physical house, and the sense of home they have in one another. While the outside world is often a source of chaos, Kibi James finds security and intimacy in their shared domestic life together – the details of which come in the form of the intimate narratives and memories that make up delusions. From the manifestation spell for their now-apartment that's included in the first verse of "mister g," to finding homely solace in loved ones on "right now" and "bender," the band's ultimate sense of home is both fluid and utterly unshakable, as long as they have each other. They harmonize in both English and Spanish as their voices softly intertwine, singing of their hopes for the future over hazy, treated guitars and the soft pattering of drums. Their strong sense of unconditional love and mutual camaraderie keep them grounded, preserving the warm, optimistic light that has shone through every aspect of the band since their genesis. Corless says, "We're proud of where we come from and where we're headed. We're absolutely going to keep these delusions going."

Frankie Cosmos, Palehound, Jay Som, Helado Negro, Lala Lala, Mamalarky, Sword II. Atlanta three-piece Kibi James announce their debut full-length album, delusions, out August 25th on Bayonet Records. Mari (guitar, keys), MJ Corless (bass) and Pomi Abebe (drums) join forces in crafting intoxicatingly dreamy melodies, their soft, siren-like voices sweeping you into their world as they bilingually share reflections on love in its many forms – romantic, familial, self – but most prominently the love that comes from their friendship. Co-produced, recorded and mixed by Drew Vandenberg (Faye Webster, SPELLLING, Toro y Moi) at Chase Park Studios in Athens, GA, and mastered by Heba Kadry, delusions is laden with vividly lush portraits of the places they call home Atlanta, their music community, their physical house, and the sense of home they have in one another. While the outside world is often a source of chaos, Kibi James finds security and intimacy in their shared domestic life together – the details of which come in the form of the intimate narratives and memories that make up delusions. From the manifestation spell for their now-apartment that's included in the first verse of "mister g," to finding homely solace in loved ones on "right now" and "bender," the band's ultimate sense of home is both fluid and utterly unshakable, as long as they have each other. They harmonize in both English and Spanish as their voices softly intertwine, singing of their hopes for the future over hazy, treated guitars and the soft pattering of drums. Their strong sense of unconditional love and mutual camaraderie keep them grounded, preserving the warm, optimistic light that has shone through every aspect of the band since their genesis. Corless says, "We're proud of where we come from and where we're headed. We're absolutely going to keep these delusions going."

Der Soundtrack zur HBO-Serie "The Last of Us" basiert auf der beliebten Musik und Klangwelt des gleichnamigen Videospiels. Geschrieben wurde der Soundtrack vom mit einem Academy Award ausgezeichneten Komponisten Gustavo Santaolalla und von David Fleming.Die intime, gitarrenbetonte Klanglandschaft spiegelt die Emotionalität der Serie wider und nimmt die Hörer mit auf die ungewisse Reise durch die USA in einer postapokalyptischen Welt, zwanzig Jahre nach der Zerstörung der modernen Zivilisation durch eine, von einem Pilz verursachte Epidemie.

Based on the critically acclaimed video game of the same name developed by Naughty Dog for the PlayStation® platforms, The Last of Us is written and executive produced by co-creators Craig Mazin (Emmy® Award-winning creator of HBO’s “Chernobyl”) and Neil Druckmann (creator and writer of the award-winning “The Last of Us” franchise and Naughty Dog Co-President).


The Last of Us takes place twenty years after modern civilization
has been destroyed by a viral outbreak. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.

The vinyl release to the acclaimed series contains soundtrack
highlights from the show. Featured are score tracks by composer Gustavo Santaolalla, with additional music by David Fleming as well as songs by Depeche Mode, Pearl Jam, Jessica Mazin & Nick Offerman.


The package contains 2x vinyl, standard weight at 140g, 1x green and 1x clear, a double-sided poster of the show’s key art, spot gloss and soft touch on the gatefold and an insert featuring liner notes by Neil Druckmann, Craig Mazin, Gustavo Santaolalla & David Fleming and images from the show.

A year after its first edition, the Open Space series returns in order to keep exploring what ambient music might mean nowadays.

A breadth of fresh artists, some new to the label and others renowned for their more dance-centric works, the compilation aims to give each individual artist their creative freedom to explore the space.

Techno producers such as Arthur Robert or label head Len Faki himself keep the beats present but this time focus on evoking states of introspection rather than the shuffle of dancefloors.
On the other end of the spectrum, we find seasoned multi-instrumentalist Laraaji, who has been crafting deeply meditative soundscapes since the 80’s. Using the special opportunity, the label reaches outside its usual sphere, inviting artists like the modular synth expert Jeremy Wentorth or Jimmy LaValle’s band project The Album Leaf. All while still featuring some well known veteran producers the likes of John Beltran or Exos.

No matter their respective scene or background, all artists are using their unique approach to display something deeply emotive. Be it the warm, expansive electro of Future Beat Alliance or a bubbly cosmic arpride by Hamburg Duo Can Love Be Synth.

Truly living up to its name, the Open Space series aims to open up possibilities for artists to freely pursue their creativity in a completely undefined area, a space for exploration and connection.

The issue was always: How could I transport my work as a producer and beatmaker on to a stage? How can something, that is happening behind locked doors in the studio, emerge into a live experience?" With this vivacious live quartet, he has found his answer.
Songs from a productive solo career spanning a period of over 10 years, Sepalot has a wide variety of songs to pick and choose from. Even in the live set up, his ove for electronic music remains unaffected and the subtle influence of Hip Hop is un- deniable. Despite this being the initial state of the project, a distinctive sound has evolved from jamming together in dark rehearsal rooms. The different characters compliment each other like a puzzle on stage, though Sepalot's part as producer and svengali is undisputable.
FABIAN FU?SS on the drums - longtime partner on the drum set and the voice behind Sepalot's unmistakable radio hit "Rainbows". ANGELA AUX on the bass and mostly the voice of the quartet is a writer and solo artist in his own right. Having released albums on Millaphone his roots are undeniably in hip hop with a heavy tinge of folk. MATTHIAS LINDERMAYR on the trumpet, who originated from a family of musicians, is highly decorated jazz virtuoso. His very own releases grace modern jazz specialist label Enja Records. ... and finally SEPALOT, bringing them together and making them more than the sum of its parts.

The electronic beats, the pulsating bass, Sepalot's enthusiasm for ambient sound design - all this remains unchanged and is garnished with the element of jazz. A unique, unequalled sound that strives for higher ideals and has immense international potential.

Selected Songs 1997-2003 compiles some of the finest moments in the recording history of Hydroplane, the Melbourne-based indie-pop three-piece that operated alongside The Cat’s Miaow through the second half of the nineties. It’s the third release in what feels, now, like a loosely planned series by World Of Echo, documenting the music made by this group of friends in Melbourne sharehouses (The Cat’s Miaow’s Songs ’94-’98, 2022), or in the case of The Shapiros (Gone By Fall, 2023), while traversing the International Pop Underground.

Hydroplane would be familiar to anyone already following these breadcrumb trails – Andrew Withycombe, Bart Cummings and Kerrie Bolton were the group’s core, all members of The Cat’s Miaow. With Cat’s Miaow drummer Cameron Smith itinerant, having moved to London, the trio used this opportunity to expand their music. It’s a subtle, but important shift. If The Cat’s Miaow was about the perfect, minimalist, two-minute pop song, Hydroplane’s music was far more open-ended, embracing the loops and drones, sampled house-y shuffle beats, the burbling of a Roland Jupiter-4 synth, all of which the trio joined, effortlessly, to their endless capacity for moving, elegant melodicism.

They may have only planned to release one seven-inch single, but the sound Hydroplane created was so bewitching, so compelling, that the project’s lifespan ran for around half a decade, and they ended up releasing three albums, including a self-titled debut recently reissued by Efficient Space, and seven singles. There are all kinds of compelling things happening in the music compiled here – the hazy repetition of the gentler side of Krautrock is in here, somewhere, which also suggests Stereolab at their most intimate and disarmed; the gently drifting guitars, gauzy and oneiric, set the songs adrift and floating, each one lost in its own imagined, distracted world. Songs like “The Love You Bring” set indistinct tonal floats across dance rhythms, in a way not quite heard since My Bloody Valentine’s “Instrumental” – but with the added gift of Bolton’s gorgeous voice.

This loose coalition with dance music, and the quiet experimentalism at the heart of Hydroplane, also gestures towards peers like Hood, Acetate Zero and Other People’s Children, and releases on renegade labels like Wurlitzer Jukebox and Enraptured. Like those groups and labels, The Cat’s Miaow were reconciling independent pop music’s past – sweet melody and melancholy, chiming and droning guitars – with the futures promised by DIY electronics and nascent digitalia, the interface of indie and IDM that led to some of the underground’s most blissful, texturally swoonsome music. All that is here, but also, the poise of the melodies is pure Cat’s Miaow, though, with Bolton’s voice sailing, pacifically, over some of the most pared-down, gorgeous music made during their decade.

It was a time, too, when such music could make waves – “We Crossed The Atlantic”, one of their early singles, was picked up by John Peel, who played it repeatedly on his legendary radio show, the song reaching #13 on his 1997 Festive 50. That the song itself was a cover of a tune by 1960s Australian beatnik-pop-poet Pip Proud felt even more perfect – a group of outsiders paying tribute to another outsider, played on the radio one of the few broadcasters brave and human enough to take a chance on this music. But it was a time where everything was up for grabs, and genres were flowing into each other: folk songs went drone; indie re-discovered noise; ambient pop floated, again, out onto the dancefloor. And while they may have been sequestered away in Melbourne, Australia, Hydroplane felt core to that scene, a quietly driving force.

Compiling material from across their brief but mercurial career, this double album perfectly captures the magic and mystery of Hydroplane’s dreamlike, perfect pop songs.

Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench is a 2009 American romantic musical film directed, written, produced, shot, and co-edited by Damien Chazelle. The film was the feature directorial debut of the Academy Award-winning director who is known for Whiplash (2014), La La Land (2016), First Man (2018), and Babylon (2022).

After connecting with the shy Madeline, a jazz trumpeter embarks on a quest for a more gregarious paramour, but through a series of twists and turns punctuated by an original score, the two lovers seem destined to be together.

The film score was composed by Justin Hurwitz, who went on to compose the music for Chazelle's other movies, including La La Land (2016) for which Hurwitz received two Academy Awards. Chazelle and Hurwitz met each other at Harvard in their freshman year and soon became friends. They both understood and appreciate each other's work and collaborated ever since.

Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench is available on vinyl for the first time as a limited edition of 500 individually numbered copies on orange & black marbled vinyl and includes a 4-page booklet with lyrics and liner notes by Justin Hurwitz.

The free folk/jazz sound of modern Los Angeles. Featuring a heavy bunch of musicians and vocalists including Moor Mother.

"Fearlessly Accessing the Divine Spirit From Here on Out" is the vinyl debut from pianist, composer, and producer Diego Gaeta. He has previously released projects as Club Diego and with the trio Human Error Club (whose members Mekala Session and Jesse Justice helped produce this record). He has quickly become a fixture in a number of Los Angeles musical environments, working with Lionmilk, The Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, Carlos Niño, Black Nile among others. This album is a synthesis of these many LA environments, and carries chamber, jazz, ambient, and folk influences, ultimately giving it an uncategorizable feel similar to works by Arthur Verocai or David Axelrod.

Gaeta recorded the initial ideas for the album by himself after experiencing a burst of creativity during the lockdown of 2020, in the aftermath of a season of protests in Los Angeles, on a piano at his home in El Sereno. "I was constantly not in tune with myself, always awaiting outrage and tragedy in a very unstable world. However, hitting the streets in support of various ongoing pandemic community actions felt necessary and it marked a point in time that ushered in large societal changes. The weight of that era made me feel allergic to making art at the time. All of these ideas came after that period, expressing my reflections subconsciously. I remember that the ideas came in a short amount of time, and then they developed."

Once he had created the tracks as Ableton sessions, he realized the gravity and context of how he was processing his ideas so he, as he puts it, "felt like taking them outside the hands of midi and into the hands of friends." Gaeta was able to assemble his dream band, which ended up being a 9-piece ensemble, or a nonet. "I felt that at some point I was channeling the geometrical balance of that nonet...it's almost as if I had a sextet and then the three of the sextet that's not the rhythm section were doubled. It's a really dense sextet, that's how I see it."

The recording process began the following summer in June 2021 as the musicians were all adjusting to the newfound dynamic of getting tested for COVID, waiting a few days, and then meeting up to record. "We were eating Indian food, some of us were smoking, it was a nice memory, but I felt a little stressed, because I was the bandleader, and I felt the emotional weight of my music."

The title track and single, featuring vocals by Jimetta Rose, begins with a speech by Gaeta delivered when playing with Black Nile in 2019 at the Levitt Amphitheatre in MacArthur park. Gaeta provides the following account: "Even though it was in 2019, socio-political tensions and issues were at the forefront for me at that time. I wrote a speech that was intended to be critical of the US but it ended up becoming a collage inspired by different women that had messages of freedom that spoke to me the most. I quoted Nina Simone and Georgia Anne Muldrow, it wasn't something that I read but something that she said "kicking it with consciousness and style" that phrase stuck with me, so I used it in that speech. Although critical, the speech had a positive feeling to it, and it was hopeful. I gave that speech while fireworks were going off."

Moor Mother & Zeroh are found on their respective tracks, Memory Screen & Eccolo - both delivering a distinct, commanding vocal performance. Low Leaf colors the track Soft Spot with harp, a beautiful ballad nestled in the center of the album. Other players include Gregory Uhlmann on guitar, Jon Kaye on violin, Devin Daniels on alto saxophone, Caleb Buchanan on bass, Dante Luna on vibraphone, Patrick Behnke on viola, Bryan Baker on tenor saxophone/flute, and Mekala Session on drums.

"I’d like for us tonight to embody a freedom oriented life. Freedom isn’t just a dream, it’s a place we must all arrive at together, as one by one the people of the Earth help each other to be Free of power, hate, and insecurities. Let’s kick it with consciousness and style. Can y’all dig that? YEAH. I can too. So now we’d like to present to you a spiritual transmission I like to call: 'Fearlessly Accessing the Divine Spirit of Freedom From Here On Out.' YEAH" - Diego Gaeta

Coke Bottle Clear Vinyl. High Vis were formed in 2016 from the ashes of some of the UK's best hardcore bands. Gild-toothed frontman Graham Sayle's anguished lyrics about life in working class Britain were familiar to fans of Tremors' full-throttle thrash, but alongside his former bandmate Edward `Ski' Harper and veterans of Dirty Money, DiE and The Smear, High Vis sought to transform that energy and intensity into something entirely new.Like scene-mates Chubby and the Gang did by pulling in unlikely source material from classic doo-wop or Micromoon have by combining everything from psychedelia and metal into their high potency mix, High Vis' 2019 debut album, No Sense No Feeling showed the band were never going to be constrained by any sense of genre rules or regulations. Its claustrophobic rattle bore traces of Joy Division, Bauhaus, Crisis, The Cure and Gang Of Four lurking in the shadows. 2020's synth-driven EP, Society Exists, was further evidence of the band's restless creative MO.High Vis' second album Blending sees them open their viewfinder wider than ever before. Alongside longstanding favourites such as Fugazi and Echo and The Bunnymen; Ride and even Flock Of Seagulls were shared reference points as the band worked on the album together.From the anthemic sweep of opener "Talk For Hours", through the title track's psychedelic swirl and "Fever Dream"'s baggy groove, it sees High Vis' sound blossoming into something with an unlimited richness. The hazy drift of "Shame" or the melodic jangle of "Trauma Bonds" may take them until uncharted waters, but they still have all the power and bite that made No Sense No Feeling so remarkable.Lyrically, the album represents another leap forward too. Talking frankly about poverty, class politics, and the challenges of everyday life, Sayle's lyrics have always addressed the downtrodden and discarded communities across Britain slipping below the waterline. This time around, Sayle's lost not of that social consciousness, but he's looked at himself and his own emotional landscape, and in the process created something that feels more universal, that reaches a hand-out to people and ultimately gives a message of hope."To me, the lyrics are less selfish," reflects Sayle. "In the past, I couldn't see past whatever was going on with me. It's about accepting things and being open to conversations and learning to talk to people rather than just thinking that we're all doomed."The song "Talk for Hours" is a prime example of that. Born out of an afternoon meeting up with an old group of mates "repeating the same thing and not actually learning anything about each other" it offers to actually break the cycle and to listen and speak frankly about shared feelings and experiences. "Trauma Bonds", meanwhile, traces the broken lines of those living in lost communities, but ultimately realises that despite our shared scars, there's still hope to move on to a better future."The message of the album is you're not who you're told you are," Sayle summarises. "You're not your class background. Whatever it is, you're not that. Don't resign yourself to thinking you can't be this and you can't be that."It's a vitally important message right now, and one that could be the motto for not only Blending, but for High Vis themselves.

Sophisticated, suave, and masterfully composed, this 45 is a sonic love letter to late 60s and early 70s soul, nodding to the giants of the genre and bowing to its unsung heroes. With inspiration from artists like The Moments, Baby Huey, The Delfonics, and especially the late Curtis Mayfield, this 7" is drenched in the era-defining tone that can only come from its origins on analog tape. From the first notes of the first track "Beck & Call", the songs shimmer and glow from one moment to the next like a summer's drive with the windows down, with a steady cruise anthem like "Daydreaming" floating by like a cool breeze. Friends since childhood, The Sextones are Mark Sexton (guitar, vocals), Alexander Korostinsky (bass), Daniel Weiss (drums), and Christopher Sexton (piano). Having known each other for so long, their musical chemistry is effortless and forms the foundation of the band's longevity and creative workflow. Despite their bond, each member has been able to channel their creativity into other acclaimed groups_Alexander and Mark with their cinematic-soul project Whatitdo Archive Group, whose acclaimed debut LP The Black Stone Affair was released on Record Kicks in 2021, and Daniel with the soul/jazz group Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio (Colemine Records). Flexing their creative muscle individually has only strengthened The Sextones' collective songwriting ability and heralds their formidable return to the spotlight. With their recent signing to Record Kicks, the self-made heroes of soul begin a new chapter in their sonic journey, ready to scale new heights and plumb deep emotional depths in service of the genre they love.

Katie Munshaw really needed to finish the fucking quilt, and find a way to
sew herself into it
The lead singer of Ontario four-piece Dizzy has been thinking a lot about the way
things look and the way you can find comfort in disappearing into it all. She
describes the album, a bright indie-pop beast continuing the legacy built from two
previous shimmering records, as a "patchwork quilt" with each song a square, or a
sliver, of her life. "None of them have all that much to do with each other and yet
they wouldn't exist without one another," she says.
It makes for a colourful record that's intrinsically Dizzy - one that swerves
comparison, instead reflecting the shapeshifting and imperfect nature of its
musicians. Avoiding the spotlight yet more confidently themselves than ever.
Munshaw is satisfied with where this record finds Dizzy. The band's first record,
she says, was "formative" to what kind of musician she became, even though "I
was young and had no business making a record. The Sun and Her Scorch was
our rebellious teenage phase where we thought we could do it all ourselves, this
new chapter is about throwing our hands up saying 'we don't have all the
answers. I'm open to having somebody help me. Help us.'"
Listeners will find that Dizzy have made what sounds like their most confident
work to date; embracing the best parts of what has made fans fall in love with
them in the past while confidently stepping into the future and trying new things;
ready to show the world exactly who they are as artists - mask or no mask.
Heavily supported across DSPs, with prime playlist placements across Spotify,
Apple Music, Amazon, YouTube, Deezer and Tidal.
Plays on BBC Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio X.
Coverage on The Independent, Clash, Line of Best Fit, DIY, Dork, Brooklyn Vegan,
Gigwise, She Makes Music, Scientists of Sound, Cool Music & Things, Mystic
Sons and many more.

Gatefold single vinyl LP with an 8 page 12" size bookelt in the other side of the gatefold.

We're thrilled to announce the return of Tobor Experiment, the visionary musical project led by the enigmatic Giorgio Sancristoforo, to the Bearfunk fold. After a twelve-year hiatus, Tobor Experiment emerges from the shadows with their second LP, "Available Forms". Picture the ethereal ambiance of a dimly lit jazz club colliding with the futuristic vibrations of a 1970s sci-fi TV show, and you'll begin to grasp the sonic experience that awaits. Giorgio draws on a whole host of musical inspirations, from the name checked Tim Gane & Letitia Sadier to the moog pioneers Claude Denjean & Jean Jaques Perrey. With the moogsploration of contemporary jazz Tobor Experiment invites listeners on an extraordinary musical odyssey where jazz meets electronica meets nu-disco.

Prepare to be captivated from the very first note of the infectious opener, "Lowpass Risotto" as Tobor Experiment masterfully combines familiar elements with their unique artistic vision. Resonating with undertones reminiscent of the timeless classic "Take Five" the track immediately grabs your attention. While the familiar drum shuffle sets a comforting foundation, Tobor Experiment takes an unexpected twist by infusing the composition with squelchy Moog lines and captivating hollow body guitar solos. The result is a harmonious blend of nostalgia and innovation that transports you to an entirely new sonic realm.

Continuing the journey, the mesmerizing 6/8 rhythm of "Up!" pays homage to the iconic sounds of Stereolab while showcasing Tobor Experiment's innovative spirit. As enchanting synth pads weave through the air, you find yourself immersed in a dream-like state, carried away by the hypnotic shifting patterns of the bass and drums.

With "Astounding Stories" Tobor Experiment returns to the energetic vibes of the album opener, inviting you to surrender to a sonic tapestry rich with musical exchanges. In traditional jazz style we receive solo's from all parties. Each instrument adding its unique voice to the narrative, creating a dynamic and engaging musical conversation.

As the album progresses, "Moonscape Dust" emerges, drawing inspiration from the atmospheric brilliance of "Low." This track serves as a portal to an otherworldly sonic landscape where time and space lose their hold. Here, organic drums step aside, making way for a low-fi drum pattern that lays the foundation for ethereal synth pads. The composition invites you to explore the depths of your imagination, transcending earthly boundaries and allowing you to float in an immersive soundscape.

The album's closing track, "Monsters" has an air of "Air" about it... the ethereal synths beckon you to surrender to the weightlessness of space, just allow yourself to be carried away by the infectious rhythms, intricate melodies, and atmospheric textures that shape this extraordinary musical journey.

Each track on "Available Forms" showcases Tobor Experiment's exceptional ability to transcend musical boundaries, creating a genre-bending album that defies all expectations. From start to finish, the soundscape presented is a testament to Tobor's relentless pursuit of musical innovation. Each composition is a fusion of diverse elements, seamlessly blending organic instruments and electronic textures in a way that challenges traditional genre classifications.

The AI-generated artwork serves as a portal to an alternate dimension. Paying homage to the retro-futuristic aesthetic of 1970s science fiction TV shows, it captures the essence of the album's fusion between organic and electronic realms.

Neurotwin is a Trilogy:

Part I
In the fight against Alzheimer's, epilepsy, schizophrenia and other diseases characterized by an imbalance in neuronal activity, there are chemical weapons, such as those that try to prevent the protein fragments known as beta-amyloid plaques from developing in the cerebral cortex , and physical, such as electrical stimulation that allow to restore the functionality of brain cells. This last resort, which has already been shown to be effective in modifying the activity of the cerebral cortex, is today a weapon of general intervention. Converting it to precision requires the development of individualized and predictive brain models that allow identifying where and how much to stimulate each patient. To achieve this, an international European team is working on the creation of virtual replicas of the most unknown organ in the body: the Neurotwin project.

According to recent research, the decrease in power in the neuronal oscillations of the gamma band of the cerebral cortex (a pattern whose frequency ranges between 20 and 50 Hertz) favors the development of protein fragments related to Alzheimer's.

Transcranial application of weak electrical currents has proven to be an effective and painless way to modulate brain activity without side effects.

The objective is to create complete computational models of the brain with real data of living beings (human patients) and that allow to anticipate and specify the effects of non-invasive stimulation techniques on neurological mechanisms.

"Never turn your back on a friend."
- Alfred Hitchcock

Part II
The Neurotwin project is the successor to an initiative that encompasses many projects called Virtual Physiological Human, which was based on the idea of creating a complete model of a human being on a computer, to perform non-invasive tests at the computational level. Now the concept has been derived to "Digital Twin", which seeks not only to have an equal computational model for everyone, but to create "twin" digital models of each patient in order to be able to make personalized medicine from the genome of each individual. Specifically, in our project, we have focused on digital twin brains, which would be representations of patient brains created from data extracted with current neuroimaging and brain activity monitoring techniques.

"Mirrors are used to see the face, Art to see the soul."
- George Bernard Shaw

Part III
A digital twin is a computer system programmed in such a way that, receiving the same inputs as the physical object or process it is a twin of, it provides the same outputs.

Characteristics of digital twin technology
1 Connectivity
2 Homogenization
3 Reprogrammable and intelligent
4 Digital traces

"There is no light without shadows and no fullness of mind without imperfections. Life requires for its realization, not perfection, but fullness. Without imperfection, there is no progress or growth."
- Carl Gustav Young

Sophisticated, suave, and masterfully composed, this 45 is a sonic love letter to late 60s and early 70s soul, nodding to the giants of the genre and bowing to its unsung heroes. With inspiration from artists like The Moments, Baby Huey, The Delfonics, and especially the late Curtis Mayfield, this 7" is drenched in the era-defining tone that can only come from its origins on analog tape. From the first notes of the first track "Beck & Call", the songs shimmer and glow from one moment to the next like a summer's drive with the windows down, with a steady cruise anthem like "Daydreaming" floating by like a cool breeze. Friends since childhood, The Sextones are Mark Sexton (guitar, vocals), Alexander Korostinsky (bass), Daniel Weiss (drums), and Christopher Sexton (piano). Having known each other for so long, their musical chemistry is effortless and forms the foundation of the band's longevity and creative workflow. Despite their bond, each member has been able to channel their creativity into other acclaimed groups_Alexander and Mark with their cinematic-soul project Whatitdo Archive Group, whose acclaimed debut LP The Black Stone Affair was released on Record Kicks in 2021, and Daniel with the soul/jazz group Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio (Colemine Records). Flexing their creative muscle individually has only strengthened The Sextones' collective songwriting ability and heralds their formidable return to the spotlight. With their recent signing to Record Kicks, the self-made heroes of soul begin a new chapter in their sonic journey, ready to scale new heights and plumb deep emotional depths in service of the genre they love.

Amanaz were serious, and they made a serious stab at an album. They titled their album Africa, according to original band member Keith Kabwe, “because of how it was shared and how its inhabitants were butchered and enslaved, its resources stolen… all the atrocities slave drivers committed. “ Thus, their “Kale,” a blues sung in Nyanja, that traced the continent’s arc from slavery to Zambia’s independence closes the album. Kabwe and rhythm guitarist John Kanyepa have a winsome softness to their vocals, which sit politely aside the feral growl of drummer Watson Baldwin Lungu, bassist Jerry Mausala and bandleader/lead guitarist Isaac Mpofu. Africa’s vibe ranges from anxious (“Amanaz”) to escapist (“Easy Street”) to straight-up pissed-off. On the “History of Man,” his voice whiskeyburned, his distorted guitar buzzing like swarming hornets, Mpofu indicts his species.
There’s a darkness to Africa not found on any other Zamrock records, and a melancholy drifts throughout, specifically on Mpofu’s more restrained “Khala My Friend,” which stands as an effective, bleak situation for the Zambian everyman, the average citizen of a struggling, new nation, who might have had relatives in conflict-torn countries on the horizon, who might have been struggling to find his next meal, who might have seen a bleaker future than his president promised. Then there’s the clear Velvet Underground-influence on the nostalgic “Sunday Morning,” which, as Kabwe
recalls, was the first song written for the album, back in 1968, when Velvet Undergound and Nico was a new release - and the underground funk of “Making The Scene.” The album also tackles traditional Zambian music and early-‘60s rock – punctuated, of course by Kanyepa’s wah-wah and Mpofu’s fuzz guitars. But every time Amanaz get too deep, too violent, they come back with an accessible song and woo their listener back to the groove. “Green Apple” is a civil song, featuring Kanyepa’s sighing guitar. It is a perfectly arranged album, from the dichotomy of Mpofu’s and Kanyepa’s lead and rhythm guitars, to the vocal harmonies, to the rhythm section’s sense of space and time, which allows Africa’s funk to build. Inexplicably, Africa was given two separate mixes and two separate presses: one version is dry, with the vocals and drums mixed loud, the other slathered in reverb, with the vocals and drums disappearing into the mix, and with the guitar solos mixed much louder. We’ve presented them both here as they each have their appeal: it’s up to the listener to pick the one he or she prefers. This is a highpoint of the Zamrock scene and we hope that this can be seen as its definitive reissue.

The life-affirming energy at the heart of Sven Väth‘s recent album Catharsis is revisited, reanimated, and remixed by some of the most exciting names around, closing the circle on a superlative burst of
recent work that has not only given us the epic original LP, but also the extraordinary compilation What I Used To Play.

Roman Flügel, Benjamin Damage, Robert Hood, Planetary Assault Systems, Mano Le Tough… do we need to go on? This hand-picked list of luminaries have answered the call and certainly don’t disappoint, each fusing their signature sound with Sven‘s DNA to create a wild, uncompromising companion piece to the original album.

True to form, the running order is very much rooted on the dance floor, Silvi‘s Dream, revisited by Damiano von Erckert, explodes like a Balearic sunrise. Dreamy strings with a touch of Detroit create a lovely atmosphere while the beautiful piano sound goes right into your heart and appears as if you could feel the warm sun on your skin. Roman Flügel’s acidic rework of What I Used To Play is a homage to the 80s and the early sound of electronic music which creates nostalgic feelings and offers a greatly produced retro soundscape à la Kraftwerk. Staying close to the original, but with the perfect amount of spin, it’s a symbiotic interplay of synthetic bass pads, and a tiny bell melody. Robag Wruhme’s cranking minimal funk takes us down The Worm-hole. A concise interference sound builds
up sustained tension, tangled but structured, deep and yet driving. Robag took over the deep and dirty rhythms of the original perfectly and delivers a versatile piece. This opening salvo oozes quality and
sets things up perfectly for the electrified celebration of hi-octane technology come.

Jonathan Kaspar‘s growling interpretation of We Are provides a melancholic atmosphere with fascinating percussion parts. Zaps shoot through the air like small laser pistols while we let ourselves
be carried away by the bass, the frisky vocal stutter effect is the icing on the cake. Speeding things up, the euphoric trance that engulfs Krystal Klear’s epic version of Feiern. Expansive strings increase up
to ecstasy and guide us to a love-filled unity. This remix is sure to be an excellent peak-time smasher for the open-air season. On to a wild ride of pure techno with Benjamin Damage, who delivers a dry and uncompromising Berlin Techno version of Mystic Voices. Harder pace but the string synthesizer harmony brings light to an otherwise gloomy environment. Next up is Luke Slater’s PAS Deep Heet Mix to add a retro nineties vibe to proceedings on Nyx. Entering a rough space with gigantic clap impacts, we are blessed with straightforward Techno. Shimmering and spooling, this groove hits the
mark. Then, as if it was ever in doubt, Sven‘s lofty place in the techno firmament is underlined by a peak-time contribution by non-less than Detroit legend Robert Hood. Unmistakable, you must recognize the signature Robert Hood drive on Butoh. Chord stabs fulfill the Detroit feeling with offtaking string elements and high-energy vocal transformations. It’s a warm embrace that triggers emotions. Planetary Assault Systems then blasts things ever deeper into the cosmos on a second outing of Nyx. Reduced and to the point but of course, true to form, with powerful tribal percussion parts and intensive cutting hi-hats.

From there on in, the collection gradually re-enters the atmosphere, burning with a phosphorescent, melancholy glow. Harald Björk extrapolates Being In Love into a hypnotic groove for the early hours. A playful and atmospheric electronica interpretation to soothe our souls due to disharmonious synth pads and a dreamy deformation of the original melody. Mano Le Tough harnesses the ethno-rhythms
and brooding energy of Catharsis into a low-slung, tribal stomper. Anomalous organ parts ring out and link up with a trance-like sequence, summer feelings arouse as you feel like you can almost smell Ibizan air. The collection comes full circle with a second equally seductive interpretation of Silvi‘s Dream by Florian Hollerith. Stripped-down and hypnotic, the homage to Sven's girlfriend Silvi is extended as a reverence to Sven himself. Sven's profound vocal clearly infuse time and space and leave a forever-lasting memory of love.

By accident or design, it somehow leaves us with the reassuring sense that, although this specific part of the journey may be drawing to a close, the mission of the man behind it all most definitely isn't.

written & produced by: Sven Väth & Gregor Tresher

Pink Siifu’s latest release, GUMBO!, is another sprawling Afrocentric vision from one of the boldest voices in contemporary rap. Following up on 2020’s NEGRO, the album’s songs are as rich and varied as its titular stew. Siifu’s boundless style makes for an unpredictable but rewarding ride across the album’s 18 tracks, as he explores the diverse sounds of his influences and breaks new ground with a unique class of co-stars.

Siifu, born Livingston Matthews and raised between Alabama and Cincinnati, has already notched a conspicuous list of collaborations in his burgeoning career, from legendary producer the Alchemist to Australian electronic group the Avalanches. Siifu also embodies various inspirations through a range of alter-egos, often producing under the moniker “iiye,” or as half of the duo B. Cool-Aid with Ahwlee, both of which appear on GUMBO!.

The variety of guest features and production on GUMBO! only elevates Siifu’s ability to push the boundaries of genre and song structure. “Voicemails Uptown” (produced by Soulection’s Monte Booker) is the second of two back-to-back posse cuts, sporting five plus vocalists each. “Lng hair dnt care,” the album’s first single, was produced by Ted Kamal, who first garnered attention for his outside-the-box edits of contemporary rap staples. And while several of the album’s tracks are well within his bag, the jazzy, drumless loop on “Fk U Mean/Hold Me Dwn” could’ve been a cut off of his collab album with Virginia rapper Fly Anakin, FlySiifu’s.

Though rife with standout tracks, GUMBO! is greater than the sum of its parts. Siifu’s ambitious range and impressive pool of features create an otherworldly listening experience. Overall, it reflects an intense desire for self-expression and creative growth, one which he shares with many of his influences. Like Outkast, Sun Ra, Baraka, or Bad Brains, his unique soundscapes re-imagine a genre without restrictions, breaking new ground in search of artistic and personal freedom.

FOR FANS OF : Brian Eno, Robert Rich, Ashra

Dreamland is the third album from Italian ambient band PCM. This time out, the trio of Francesco Perra (P), Matteo Cantaluppi (C), Matteo Milea (M) veer away from the inter-cellular themes of their previous collections to shed aural light on what humans spend most of their life doing: sleeping.

Each track on Dreamland focuses on a phase of sleep from that ever-frustrating half-awake feeling to tranquil R.E.M. and from disaffect- ing nightmares to blissful dreaming.

As a result, each of the album's works float by, some with a cloudiness that mirrors confused sleepy feelings and others that display the vividness of the most memorable of dreams.

What happens if you pit The House Crew and NRG against each other? And then you have both artist remixed by a legend from the dutch gabber scene? This. This is what happens. This lovely little white 10" contains two HUGE, tearing, old skool gabber remixes of "We Are Hardcore" and "He Never Lost His Hardcore" and as such, its something both totally new and never before seen. Limited in number, this one will sell as fast as it plays, which is...very!

Edna Wright's idiosyncratic "Oops!" is one of the most sublime vocal refrains in soul music history. Anchoring its host album's leadoff cut, it sets the tone for a uniquely satisfying modern soul LP. Indeed, whilst many of its ilk come laden with filler, Wright's one solo record is an exercise in elegant restraint, a concise killer.

Originally released in 1977 on RCA, this rare and sought-after album followed the 1973 disbanding of Edna's much-loved Honey Cone. Produced by her husband, legendary producer/songwriter Greg Perry, the album was somewhat of a risk, a deep soul album released during the period when disco was altering the landscape of popular music. And perhaps inevitably, despite the stellar production and spine-tingling vocals throughout, the album glided gracefully under the radar, spawning only one single and seeing no chart action.

That single - the magnificent title-track - soon became a notorious rare groove stepper in its own right. However, in the years since, it has become a crate diggers classic. Its fame was elevated among hip-hop heads when Prince Paul memorably looped the shimmering intro when crafting the melodic hook for De La Soul's late-summer-stunner "Pass The Plugs", a wistfully melancholic back-porch nostalgia trip. And, more recently, Leon Vynehall liberally lifted the same intro for his sepia-tinged "Midnight On Rainbow Road" to augment the excellent Rush Hour compilation Musik For Autobahns 2.

Yet this album is so much more than its most famous song. An assuredly lean masterpiece from start-to-finish, the album features a further six dynamite tracks of warm, smooth soul. As such, it's an impossible task to choose certain tracks to highlight alongside the mighty title track. Throughout, Edna's strikingly mature vocals are wonderful, proudly stepping out with a sophisticated groove reminiscent of Jean Carn or Gloria Scott, whilst Greg Perry's gorgeous string-drenched backdrops add a rich depth. So much so, many of the other tracks have been sampled by producers with impeccable taste, from 9th Wonder to The Alchemist for songs featuring Nas and Talib Kweli.

Following her glowing role in the acclaimed documentary 20 Feet From Stardom, we pray this long overdue reissue will allow further light to shine on Edna. Officially licensed and beautifully remastered for vinyl by celebrated engineer Simon Francis, it has been pressed on audiophile 180g vinyl for the first time and features the original iconic artwork. Each copy includes a printed inner sleeve with a sumptuous black & white photo, full lyrics and heartfelt notes from Edna herself.

Suff Daddy (578k monthly listeners on Spotify), is one of the legendary beatmakers who shaped a whole era of bedroom producers. His unique approach and musical understanding sets him apart from all the other fish in the pond. He has released countless genre-defining albums and EP’s over the past 15 years building a loyal fanbase. Suff Daddy's songs have previously been featured in many editorial playlists including Spotify's "Jazz Vibes" (2.1M Likes), "BUTTER" (770k Likes), "Sweet Soul Chillout" (1.2M Likes) and many more.

Introducing "Hair Of The Dog," Suff Daddys musical journey that blends instrumental hip-hop, electronic, and dance genres. This captivating album, produced with his own Suff Style invites listeners to unwind From start to finish. Once again a Suff Daddy album thrives on the pure brilliance of his on way to create music. The album's cover art, masterfully crafted by the renowned painter Mitch (@itsallinsideus, 165k Followers), adds an intriguing visual dimension to the experience. Both artists have known each other for a long time and are currently preparing their audiovisual release- event for August 18th in Berlin. Bringing their art together as a unique experience for their audience.

The phrase "Hair of the dog that bit you" commonly denotes consuming alcohol as a remedy for a hangover, aiming to alleviate its effects. Suff Daddy plans to introduce his own hangover solution, which will be plant-based and devoid of alcohol. Through all of his career he frequently played with alcohol references and now its the perfect timing to release his own hangover cure. Additionally, this endeavor will serve as a social media catalyst for the entire project.

The concept of strict musical genre has arguably been dead for decades, and the latest offering from Danish powerhouses Gustaf Ljunggren and Emil de Waal once again reinforces this notion. Their third collaborative album "Stockholm Kobenhavn", a spacious, cinematic and boundaryless exploration of their shared musical connection is set to release on July 7th on April Records. Emil de Waal has been one of Denmark"s leading drummers for three decades. Gustaf Ljunggren initially studied the saxophone at the Rhythmic Conservatory of Copenhagen, where whispers spread throughout the school that he was the best saxophone player in town and yet never practiced. His career has seen him prove that he can bring grace, musicality and heart to any instrument he touches, from the pedal steel guitar, to the bass, piano, and more. In the words of Danish multi-instrumentalist Kresten Osgood, "Although an instrument may be new to him he is able to play it like he has had a lifetime of experience working with it. Over the years I think the only instrument I haven"t seen him play is the drums." "Stockholm Kobenhavn" has a vast array of influences including Jazz, Americana, Film Music and Electronica. It is full of space, coaxing the listener into a meditative state and inviting them to drift away with their own imagination. The record plays as a series of open-ended sketches or moods, absent of big defining melodies or familiar song-like structures. Each piece evolves over time, providing musical interest in the form of rhythmic ideas, rich harmony, texture, and repetitive melodic patterns from a guitar or rhodes. Imaginative electronic production techniques combine the warm sounds of acoustic instruments with a constantly developing palette of otherworldly textures and effects. Grounded by an unwavering pulse, the combination of programmed beats and acoustic drums provide the hypnotic foundation over which the pair explore and challenge their common musical ground. The album closes with an intimate recording from a performance at STUK in Belgium, with a comforting guitar-led Americana tune bringing the listener back into the room and sharing in the joy the duo have felt in playing together over the past twenty years.

I could smell the curves of the river beyond the dusk and I saw the last light supine and tranquil upon tide-flats like pieces of broken mirror, then beyond them lights began in the pale clear air, trembling a little like butterflies hovering a long way off. -The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner

This is the third and final instalment of Jeremiah M. Carter’s album triptych, »Vessels«. Following »Rejoice« and »Speak You Also«, all three album’s where conceived within a 6 month period during ferociously exalting creative sessions.

The Emotional turmoil of the early pandemic is as present on »Vessels« as it is in the other two albums, yet the final instalment showcases as more distinctive sense of focus, where the earlier albums saw Jeremiah expel a state of uncertainty and trepidation into an intense, almost spiritual form of musical cleansing, Vessels still bears those same hallmarks, yet comes across with an air of refinement and finality.

Spanning six pieces, each work feels like an integral part of the albums overarching narrative, fervently nestled amid divinity and humility. By its final piece, which also clocks in as the longest in the entire triptych, we are treated to one of Jeremiah’s finest moments, and for a few seconds, it all comes together for one last swansong, forming a sonic distillation of elation and grief, desire and passion. – It’s all here.

Julian Cannonball Adderley's only Blue Note album, Somethin' Else, would likely forever be famous in music lore if just for the presence of Miles Davis. The iconic composer/trumpeter steps into the role of sideman on the 1958 set, one of just a handful of times he'd make such a move after the calendar passed the mid-1950s. Yet evaluating Somethin' Else strictly on Davis' involvement misses the big picture. Plain and simple, Adderley's jubilant work remains a jazz landmark due to the chemistry of its Hall of Fame personnel, enthusiasm of its participants, and sophistication of its arrangements – not to mention the reference-grade production and inclusion of the definitive renditions of two all-time jazz standards.

Limited to 6,000 numbered copies, pressed on dead-quiet MoFi SuperVinyl at RTI, and mastered from the original master tapes, Mobile Fidelity's ultra-hi-fi UltraDisc One-Step 180g 45RPM 2LP collector's edition pays tribute to the record's merit and includes the bonus track "Allison's Uncle." Offering reference-calibre sonics, this spectacular collector's version provides a clear, transparent, ultra-dynamic, and up-close view of a cornerstone effort that witnesses Adderley and Davis sharing horn duty alone for the only time in their fabled careers – an arrangement that occurred as a result of Adderley having joined Davis' majestic sextet a year prior.

The premium packaging and beautiful presentation of the UD1S Somethin' Else pressing befit its extremely select status. Housed in a deluxe slipcase, it features special foil-stamped jackets and faithful-to-the-original graphics that illuminate the splendour of the recording. No expense has been spared. Aurally and visually, this UD1S reissue exists as a curatorial artefact meant to be preserved, touched, and examined. It is made for discerning listeners that prize sound quality and production, and who desire to fully immerse themselves in the art – and everything involved with the album, from the iconic photos to the gorgeous finishes.

The vibrant potency reveals itself openly on an analogue set that provides full-range reproduction of an ensemble that also includes pianist Hank Jones, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Art Blakey. Each and every snare hit, downbeat, and cymbal splash registered by the latter take on realistic proportions, blooming and decaying as they would right in front of you on a stage. Jones' foundational bass lines register with uncommon depth and palpability, the litheness of the strings and fullness of the instrument epitomizing the definition of rhythm. Stellar, too, are the surefooted 88s. Sublime in scale, tonality, and attack, with the delineation such you can practically separate the white and black keys in your mind. As for that liquid interplay between Adderley and Davis? Breathtakingly lifelike in timbre, naturalism, purity, and presence. This collector's version takes you there – there being Rudy Van Gelder's legendary New Jersey studio in March 1958 to witness it all unfold, again and again.

For reasons that extend far beyond the outstanding playing and flawless repertoire, Somethin' Else is without question a record you'll always want to watch and hear come together. As veteran critic Bob Blumenthal observed writing about the album four decades after its release, "The instant rapport achieved by the quintet is thus the product of much shared and common history, though the tensile strength that they create throughout created a totally unique feeling that can be attributed to the sensitive musicianship of all concerned, including the supposedly hard bopping leader and drummer." Such inimitable feeling, or emotion, courses throughout every passage, and no where more obviously than on "Autumn Leaves" and "Love for Sale."

Without question, the discreet interpretations of the Johnny Mercer and Cole Porter songs, respectively, found on Somethin' Else have long been considered part of jazz's alluring mystique. Adderley and Davis bring contrasting approaches to the table yet sound of a singular mind on "Autumn Leaves," with the latter's muted trumpet and the headliner's lush alto saxophone dovetailing into a performance that endures as a blueprint for expression, counterpoint, sophistication, fluidity, and linearity. Blues, melody, and romance pour from their horns. Their bandmates, picking up on the intimate vibe and calm mood here – as well as on the spry, head-over-heels spirit of "Love for Sale" – join in on the conversation with sharp economy and float-on-air roundedness.

Not to undersell the other three numbers, all deserving five-star status. Twelve measures in length, the title track offers a slow burn in swing. Written by Adderley's brother, Nat, the 12-bar "One for Daddy-O" transmits funk flavors. The closing "Dancing in the Dark" pops with lushness and temptation, its stream of bold colours and understated textures calling for a moonlight twirl, or at least fantasies suggestive of a memorable night. Somethin' else, indeed.

The collaboration between Klara Lewis and Nik Colk Void somehow seemed inevitable. Both artists having seen their releases published by Editions Mego, individually carving out idiosyncratic voices in the worlds of extreme, abstract electronic music. With Full-On, Lewis and Void explore and assimilate the very edge of their individual practice where a unique collaborative interface allows two voices to combine and morph into a third voice.


Lewis and Void play ping pong with the conversation of sounds, generating ideas and bouncing them off each other, simultaneously encouraging the other to go further with their ideas opening up an opportunity to engage with previously unexplored terrain. Guitars, synths, euro rack modular systems, voice, sampling and outboard processing are folded in a playful unification with a propensity to tease, explore and extract new ideas and shapes, sometimes brutal, sometimes playful.

Trust was also a compositional tool allowing instinct to freely move on any aspect of the sound and space. This sound/feeling/instinct/association let this wild and wonderful material grow organically into something new.

The result of this exploratory interplay are 17 intense miniatures reveling in the process of unadulterated experimentation and whimsical interplay, not just between the humans, but the machines themselves. United in an endless series of sonic U-turns, this daring duo intertwine pop and noise whilst also bringing together visions of tender techno and forthright ambient.

The various zones which manifest from all this reveals vocals shifting in mysterious ways, dust drenched beats churning limpidly and devilish string loops navigating a disorientating domain. The experience of listening to Full-On is to be confronted with a range of ideas resulting in a platter of emotions. A place where beauty and the beast collide with the impulsive and outright weird. What a wonderful world.

Chain Of Flowers return with their lofty and long-simmering sophomore full-length, rich with reckonings, reverb, and redemption: Never Ending Space. Despite some of the songs dating back a few years, the record first began materialising in earnest during the pandemic, by which point most of the band had relocated from Cardiff to London.

Reunited and rejuvenated, they picked up where they left off, booking two multi-day sessions at Hackney hub Total Refreshment Centre with producer Jonah Falco. In this time they successfully channelled their kinetic chemistry into 10 full-blooded anthems of torn dreams, poetic delirium, and “hope stretched too far.” Musically, Never Ending Space skews notably more maximal than the group’s previous work, fleshed out with trumpets, saxophone, synth, percussion boxes, and spoken word. (Smith jokingly calls them The Chain Of Flowers Orchestra).

Yet the songs still swing and soar with a charged heart, ripe with hooks, drama and ragged melody. Opener “Fire (In The Heart Of Hearts)” stirs to life on a tide of wiry guitar and defiant horns, facing down the embers of love that still glow in the wake of pain: “Peace came tumbling like a shower of bricks / The mind twists slowly till everything fits.”

A tense energy ripples throughout – from the nocturnal rush of “Serving Purpose” and “Amphetamine Luck” to the bruised battle cries of “Torcalon” and “Old Human Material.” Outliers like “Praying Hands, Turtle Doves” hint at proggy possible futures, while instrumental vignette “Anomia” offers an intriguing glimpse at a lesser heard facet of the band: swaying, shadowy, subdued. The album’s title track is also its closing cut, a stomping, sparkling ode to “the wrong side of the night, where time goes to die.” Smith describes the scene: “Everyone’s talking, screaming, trauma bonding, but no one’s listening. Broken dialogue. Shouting over each other. You want to switch off, but everyone’s too fucked.” The guitars spiral and slide towards the oblivion of dawn, the chance to crash and do it all again.

Chain Of Flowers return with their lofty and long-simmering sophomore full-length, rich with reckonings, reverb, and redemption: Never Ending Space. Despite some of the songs dating back a few years, the record first began materialising in earnest during the pandemic, by which point most of the band had relocated from Cardiff to London.

Reunited and rejuvenated, they picked up where they left off, booking two multi-day sessions at Hackney hub Total Refreshment Centre with producer Jonah Falco. In this time they successfully channelled their kinetic chemistry into 10 full-blooded anthems of torn dreams, poetic delirium, and “hope stretched too far.” Musically, Never Ending Space skews notably more maximal than the group’s previous work, fleshed out with trumpets, saxophone, synth, percussion boxes, and spoken word. (Smith jokingly calls them The Chain Of Flowers Orchestra).

Yet the songs still swing and soar with a charged heart, ripe with hooks, drama and ragged melody. Opener “Fire (In The Heart Of Hearts)” stirs to life on a tide of wiry guitar and defiant horns, facing down the embers of love that still glow in the wake of pain: “Peace came tumbling like a shower of bricks / The mind twists slowly till everything fits.”

A tense energy ripples throughout – from the nocturnal rush of “Serving Purpose” and “Amphetamine Luck” to the bruised battle cries of “Torcalon” and “Old Human Material.” Outliers like “Praying Hands, Turtle Doves” hint at proggy possible futures, while instrumental vignette “Anomia” offers an intriguing glimpse at a lesser heard facet of the band: swaying, shadowy, subdued. The album’s title track is also its closing cut, a stomping, sparkling ode to “the wrong side of the night, where time goes to die.” Smith describes the scene: “Everyone’s talking, screaming, trauma bonding, but no one’s listening. Broken dialogue. Shouting over each other. You want to switch off, but everyone’s too fucked.” The guitars spiral and slide towards the oblivion of dawn, the chance to crash and do it all again.

Mary Jane Leach is a composer focussed on the physicality of sound, its acoustic properties and how they interact with space. She has played an instrumental role in NYC’s pioneering Downtown scene alongside Arthur Russell, Ellen Fullman, Peter Zummo, Philip Corner and Arnold Dreyblatt, as well as devoting years to the preservation and reappraisal of Julius Eastman’s work since his death in 1990, compiling the »Unjust Malaise« 3CD set in 2005 and editing the 2015 book »Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music«. »Woodwind Multiples« is her second album for Modern Love, following »(f)lute songs« (2018).

»Woodwind Multiples« features four pieces for multiples of the same instrument: four bass flutes, nine oboes, nine clarinets, and seven bassoons. Each piece works closely with the unique sound of each instrument, combining pitches that create other, sometimes unexpected, tones, primarily combination and interference tones, as well as rhythmic patterns. What you hear is what happens naturally - there is no processing or manipulation.

»8B4 (1985/2022)«, played by Manuel Zurria, is for four bass flutes. It is a revision of 8x4, which was written in 1985 for the DownTown Ensemble and was only performed once, due to its unusual instrumentation: alto flute, English horn (originally bass oboe), clarinet, and voice.

»Xantippe’s Rebuke« (1993) was written for Libby Van Cleve, for eight taped oboes and one live, solo oboe. The eight taped parts are equal and dependent, while the solo part is meant to be a solo with the tape as accompaniment. The piece works with the unique sound of the oboe, starting with unison pitches that create the richest sound, building the piece from there. Pitches and rhythmic patterns that occur naturally are notated and then played later, which in turn create other pitches and rhythmic patterns. So, in effect, the nature of the oboe and its natural sound determine the direction of the piece.

»Charybdis« (2020), played by Sam Dunscombe, is for solo clarinet and eight taped clarinets. It combines a somewhat obscured reference to Weep You No More, a John Dowland piece, which combines with the sound phenomena created from the melody and supporting chords of the Dowland.

»Feu de Joie« (1992) was written for bassoonist Shannon Peet and is an homage to the bassoon and its wonderful sound. It is for seven parts—six taped and one »live.« The taped bassoons combine to create a bed of sound that exploits the unique qualities of the bassoon, creating combination and interference tones, starting off with unison pitches, creating a rich sound that builds from there. Most of the subsequent pitches and phrases occur naturally, and are then notated later on in the piece, which in turn creates other notes and phrases.

Terror in Tokyo! Godzilla is back and is determined to cause as much damage as possible in GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA. After the "Big G" delivers a crippling blow to the JXSDF (Japanese Xenomorph Self-Defence Force), the government decides to build a new weapon to defeat Godzilla. Their solution: Kiryu, aka Mechagodzilla, a metal monster packed with all the firepower needed to put Godzilla down. But things go awry when Kiryu malfunctions and turns on the JXSDF, thanks to its use of the original Godzilla's DNA. Can they get back control and put an end to the "Big G"?

Selected to score GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA was Michiru Ōshima (GODZILLA VS MEGAGUIRUS, STAR WARS: VISIONS), who brought an exciting and heroic musical aesthetic to the film. Employing the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, Ōshima's music sounds as enormous and powerful as the kaiju themselves, with a new menacing theme for Godzilla that uses the lower registers to bring across the monsters immense force. In contrast, Ōshima's theme for Kiryu uses high brass for an almost superheroic feel, with both themes working beautifully in counterpoint to each other when the two titans have their rumble. As scary as it is thrilling, Michiru Ōshima's GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA is one of the most significant scores to emerge from the hallowed halls of Toho. - Charlie Brigden

Composed by Michiru Oshima
Artwork by Luke Preece
Manufactured in Czech Republic

REPRESS

Codek is the brainchild of Jean-Marie Salaun who grew up in Paris influenced by the folklore of the inner city. In 1978 he joined art rock group SpionS alongside Gregory Davidow and recorded two singles. Diving into the Paris post punk scene he met Claude Arto and designed the artwork for Claude's single on Celluloid Kwai Systeme / Betty Boop.' Robin Scott (M Pop Music') had produced the SpionS first single and wanted to collaborate further. With Claude, Jean-Marie wrote Me Me Me', intended for a choir, for M. Then SpionS split and Robin was off to Switzerland to record an album to follow-up his hit single. That left Jean-Marie alone in London, where he began working as Codek, a play on the brand name Kodak The Me Me Me' single was released by MCA Records in 1980. Back in Paris, now with some studio experience, Celluloid Records hired Jean-Marie to produce records for Artefact and Les Orphelins. Over the next 2 years he began working on ideas for the next Codek single Closer / Tam Tam'

Closer' started its life as an electric baseline played by Jean-Marie. Claude Arto sequenced the floating synthesizers. Laurent Grangier and Frédéric Lapierre of reggae band Immigration Act played the horns. The lyrics Hard to say. Easy to do. We don't need to say what we do' were a statement on creation as narration expressed Jean-Marie's ennui, I'm tired with it.' Tam Tam' was inspired by Burundi drummers playing on the plaza in front of Beaubourg where the song was recorded. Jean-Marie enlisted one of the drummers from the circle, Georges Atta Dikalo, to lay down percussion for the song. The female singers were from the French Caribbean and added falsetto tribal chants. JM was part of the the African night scene in Paris, remixing Xalam's Kanu' and Touré Kunda's Salaly Muhamed.' Claude achieved complex rhythmic patterns using a modular synthesizer and heavy processing. Jean-Marie recorded himself beating his chest for the thump noises. The recording of Tam Tam' and Closer' spanned over two years. They started on 16-track in Studio d'Auteuil, where JM blew the woofers, before resuming in Studio Centre Georges Pompidou with an added 8-track recorder. Jean-Marie was producing other bands, and a lot of this was recorded on "borrowed" studio time. The single was released in 1981 on West African Music, a tiny label from the Ivory Coast, and was re-released a year later by Island Records in the UK (where the B-side was re-named Tim Toum'). Both tracks were staples in the DJ sets of Beppe Loda and Daniele Baldelli, finding a spiritual home in the Cosmic scene of Italy.

Both songs have been remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The jacket is an exact replica of the 1981 edition with artwork by Angela Boy, inspired by primitive electronics and African paintings. Each copy includes an doubles-sided insert with photos and liner notes by Jean-Marie Salaun.

After taking time out from working together to focus on separate musical projects, maverick composer Alan Roberts (Jim Noir) and crowd-rousing vocalist Leonore Wheatley (International Teachers of Pop / The Soundcarriers) have re-joined forces to introduce Co-Pilot. Each the other’s wing person, they’re plotting an escape through Manchester’s claustrophobic grey skies with the pencil case colour of a hand-sewn multi-coloured primary school patchwork quilt. “We are both the creators in charge of navigating Co-Pilot’s overall sound which changes from track to track,” Leonore hints at what to expect. “There are about 6 different genres on one album, it's a pick n mix record!”


Happy in the haze of many boozy hours the album was recorded over just a few months whilst holed up and hanging out in Al’s city centre Dookstereo studio. The former Mill allowed the pair to relax, laugh and create without constraint. Armed with their original demos and vocal recordings from Al’s flat, they’d nip by the offie to pick up some Dutch courage before setting to work: building arrangements from a drum beat and basic chord pattern, the pair were so in tune they rarely spoke, allowing only the music to lead the way. “We’d communicate through nods of agreement or grimaces of dismay,” Leonore recalls. “Using the instruments with Al in production mode, we let the sound dictate the process whilst being drunk enough to follow it.”
The sound of life coming full circle after honing their separate crafts, Leonore had previously played keys and vocals in Jim Noir’s live band before moving on to front International Teachers of Pop for two critically lauded albums of joyous dancefloor filling bangers - their self-titled debut (2019) and Pop Gossip (2020). During that time Al would further expand Jim Noir’s universe with AM Jazz, which was celebrated as the no.1 album in Piccadilly Records’ ‘End of Year Review’ (2020), followed by the Deep View Blue E.P. (2021) cementing his status as one of Manchester’s finest songwriters.
As Leonore added her vocal magic to Al’s early demos of what would eventually become Co-Pilot’s ‘Spring Beach’ and a crooked original version of closing track ‘Corner House’, the vibe was prophetic “like the ending of Grease as Danny and Sandy take flight through the clouds”, letting their imaginations fly. The songs were the catalyst to spark a new phase of the pair working together, picking up where they left off. “From messing about with sounds during rehearsals in the very beginning it was always clear we liked the combination of sounds we made,” Leonore recalls.
Powered by a ‘try anything’ approach, Co-Pilot blends the musical DNA of what you’ve come to expect from each of the pair’s previous flight paths. “Whatever is switched on or nearby gets used. There's no 'correct' for us. If it sounds good, record it,” Al tells. United through typically turbulent wonky pop and lurking samples, whether culled from 70s TV themes or recreations of past and found sounds (see Al’s 60s tropicalia guitar on ‘Brick’, or the innocent ‘Swim to Sweden’ which opens with an ice cream van jingle Al recorded from his bedroom window) their process offers up a bucket load of Easter eggs. The album even features snippets from dearly departed pal Batfinks whilst ‘Motosaka’ is perhaps the most expensive 2-minutes on the album, featuring a Columbia Records Japan-cleared sample of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s ‘Thousand Knives’. Its synth squelches and Tom Tom Club funk also received the blessing of Haroumi Hosono, Godfather of Japanese Electronica, who agreed to being sampled in an original version of the song. “We just kept listening back and hitting gold,” Al recalls. “I was thinking ‘yeah, not sure what this is but I like it! We were buzzing with what we had made.”
But the sound wouldn’t come without self-imposed instrumental challenges. Thanks to an old mellotron sample on ‘Move To It,’ the moog riff and nautical accordion breaks on ‘Swim To Sweden’ and the 6/8 and 7/8 jaunt of ‘Brick’, time signatures were lovingly skewed to create Co-Pilot’s unique mood. “It was a bastard getting the drums right,” Leonore reveals, “but I like the wonkiness”. Levelling up through the lyrics, the words of smoky and evocative ‘She Walks In Beauty’ are based on a Lord Byron poem, with the sentiment of remembering Leonore’s late grandparents. “I wanted to see how much I could get away with just singing on one note, and how I could harmonically change everything else around it vocally,” she says. Elsewhere ‘Can You See’ was written from the perspective of a concerned sister to a brother which tells of keeping someone safe. “The lyrics are quite metaphorical about day-to-day happenings, people loved and lost. Others are rhythmic nonsense! It’s up to the listener to figure out what’s true.”
It’s clear from Al’s productive production techniques and Leonore’s knack for vocals and lyricism, Co-Pilot’s course is engineered by two aeronautically adept sonic storytellers. “We share a pretty similar sense of humour,” Al tells, “It is funny listening to this quite serious album but knowing we were giggling as we recorded it all. It’s been great to have another brain to bounce off.” Their destination might be unknown, but the clouds are about to part for a sound that is light years ahead. “You'll like at least one song,” Leonore suggests, “and hopefully them all.”

To call Current Affairs a Glasgow band may initially seem misdirection. Though Joan Sweeney (ex-Rose McDowall’s Band, Aggi Doom, The Royal We) is a lifer, Sebastian Ymai (Comidillo Tapes, Pissy, Anxiety) came from Chile via York, recently relocating to Berlin in 2021, and new member Gemma Fleet (The Wharves, Order of the Toad, Dancer) alongside Andrew Milk (Shopping, Pink Pound) were persuaded to leave London for the ‘second city’ after touring through with previous bands. However, Glasgow is the heart and hub of the band’s music, musical life and the place where Off the Tongue was solidified and produced. Their current line up formed in 2020, but the four have been circling each other for years, touring and playing with their previous bands within the close UK network of DIY music. Stalwarts of their respective scenes they finally began working together through the creation of the Spitehouse collective – a project designed to promote Queer and female-fronted music through events mainly held at Transmission Gallery and Glasgow Autonomous Space, putting on many local and international acts (Sneaks, Sacred Paws, Still House Plants and Comfort amongst others). When an opening for a new bassist arrived, Gemma was the obvious compliment, the slogan of Spitehouse being the language of Current Affairs – “Everyone’s welcome, but don’t get it twisted.” Following on from 2019’s singles collection, Object & Subject, the wait for their debut full-length may belie the urgency of its sound. Songs that were written in pieces over a long time and distance, but fully formed in the instant of the recording room across just a few days by producer Ross McGowan at Chime Studio. Current Affairs’ song-writing process has always been collaborative. Songs are developed responsively, with each of the band’s members sending/bringing elements or hooks to each other, but practices being the place where the songs flesh out, structure and are fully realised. These new songs feel a little brighter than their previous offerings, yet still hold true to their propulsive and caterwauling sound. Still embryonic in the most exciting way that that can be. Current Affairs’ music straddles new-wave pop and gothic post-punk in the way that you should expect a Glasgow-Berlin band to do so: with grit and panache. Written from within the world of crumbling services, broken bonds and wounded spirits, Off the Tongue rolls off an ecstatic rage, filled with hope for you, them and everyone else. It’s a rallying cry away from hopelessness, forgiving your fears and laying them to waste. Their album holds a place for you to be angry and to be focussed. In lieu of having anything else, we’ve always got each other, and an uncertain future is open game for us too

The follow up to the band’s celebrated 2020 release Fish Pond Fish and Darlingside’s fourth LP marks a subtle but remarkable departure for the Boston-based quartet NPR once described as “exquisitely arranged, literary minded, baroque folk- pop.” While the album retains much of the lushness and sophistication of Extralife (2018) and Fish Pond Fish, the band’s latest work highlights the individuality of the four songwriters in a way that adds a fitting element of reinvention to an album that captures brilliantly the quality of the moment in which it was made. Grappling with change both personal and universal, with quandaries domestic and existential, Everything Is Alive is an album about loss and the struggle for a semblance of redemption; themes of grief, distance and hope permeate an album filled with vivid imagery and lyrical creativity. Comprised of Don Mitchell, Auyon Mukharji, Harris Paseltiner and David Senft, four likeminded multi-instrumentalists who first met at Williams College in 2009, Darlingside’s career has been defined by the elegance of their compositions and the remarkable unity of their four voices. Their talent for harmony and melodic world-building is part of what garnered praise from outlets like NPR, Rolling Stone and The New Yorker, and what has created demand worldwide for their extraordinary live performances. Becoming beautifully unindividualized has, in other words, worked very well for Darlingside in the past. With a vigor and discipline more common to graduate-level writing workshops than to indie rock, Darlingside have, over the years, experimented with all manners of idiosyncratic methods for elevating and upholding a truly democratic process of songwriting—processes that include multiple rounds of group writing and recording exercises—all with the aim of escaping the trap that bands with multiple songwriters often fall into: the ruse of ego-driven infighting and artistic incoherence. Everything Is Alive is Darlingside taking a risk. Nudged by the limitations created by pandemic isolation, as well as through other more voluntary catalysts, the album, which was produced and recorded by the band and mixed by Tucker Martine (My Morning Jacket, Sufjan Stevens, Iron and Wine), foregrounds in a sustained and heretofore untried way the individual voices of each member.

Borrowed Tongue is the debut solo album by Korean singer-songwriter Minhwi Lee. It’s a mysterious, strangely compelling thing, an album of rare poetry, and remarkably self-assured. Originally released in November 2016, the album made waves, winning best folk album of 2016 at the 14th Korean Music Awards. Its eight songs, written and predominantly arranged by Lee, don’t reveal their secrets easily, or at first blush; rather, they take their time slowly to unfurl in her listeners’ worlds. There are hints of other music here, from time to time: the intimacy of Stina Nordenstam, perhaps; the gauzy haze of Hope Sandoval, on the blissed-out pop of “Broken Mirror”; there are touches of acid-folk, and ECM jazz, and a slyly filmic approach to songwriting and arrangement that makes every song fit perfectly into the album’s arc.

Lee arrived at her solo music through a complex, circuitous route. After studying musicology in Seoul, she learned her trade, film scoring, in New York and Paris. She also studied classical music, blowing off steam in a wild punk duo, Mukimukimanmansu, who released one album, 2012, on Korean indie label Beatball. Subsequently, Lee has been refining her music, focusing both on her solo songs, and on writing for television series and films; she’s written scores for films by such directors as Sangmoon Lee, Jeongwon Kam, and Wanmin Lee. She also plays in the jazz outfit Cubed, and recently joined doom metal group Gawthrop on bass.

Since its release in 2016, Borrowed Tongue has slowly bewitched listeners with its idiosyncratic arrangements and evocative songwriting. It’s an album that hints at plenty, but refuses to make grand statements, something Lee seems intent to pursue: in correspondence, she’s very clear that she wants these songs to enact a kind of transmutation, to be adopted into the listeners’ lives and exist within their own imaginings. She does, however, offer a few hints to what propels these mercurial songs, explaining, “this album is about a person who again opens their mouth, which was once shut. The album deals with what it means to speak: things that are known but not said, things that should be said but are not, things that cannot be said but nonetheless are.”

This may well explain the curious mood of Borrowed Tongue, the multiple ‘voices’ that inhabit the album; Lee’s singing voice is pliable and mutable, approaching each song as its own diorama and ensuring the song is sung with just the right tone. The arrangements Lee conjures for her songs are all in service to narrative and melody; they appear to her alongside the composition, which is surely why everything here fits together so beautifully. From there, Lee approaches her songs carefully, in deference to their ‘need to be sung’ a certain way. There isn’t a moment wasted: everything on Borrowed Tongue is as it needs to be, whether a melancholy folk song taking to the air, or a psychedelic reverie dreamed into being. It’s a beautiful, poised and confident debut.

After the release of "3.3 magnitude" and the remixes of the single "1.3 HDG" unveiled last February, H3 Records continues its musical exploration between rap and electronic music with a new release, "Music 4 Tesla".

This time, rapper Kaba joins forces with producer Hyas and unveils a slender and festive 6-track track, true to the label's identity.

Hyas started producing music in 2017 and released his first projects completely independently. Today, he has more than twenty releases on labels such as 99CTS and Casa Voyager. The Lyon native, resident of Le Sucre and Rinse FM, has a string of dates and festivals in France and abroad and founded his own label Bardouin Music in 2020.

For his part, Kaba has released three singles this year, including two featuring Karmen (formerly Tortoz) and Samy Ceezy, and a 10-track "Long Story Short", a joint project with the young beatmaker Keno.

The connection between the two artists was very natural: the rapper's ambitions and Hyas' influences complemented each other and led to a first draft of tracks, convincing enough to form the basis of a joint project. With influences from UK Garage, Acid House, Ghetto House and 2step, "Music 4 Tesla" is a high-flying, catchy, danceable, warm and sunny project. Throughout the tracks, Kaba borrows incisive old school flows (like on "4daMob") but also "DMV" (overlap flows where the phrases overlap like on "Original G") and enriches the musical universe of the project, which carries in it this fever of H3 Records' sounds.

Between pervasive house influences and bouncy bass, borrowed from funk sounds, "Music 4 Tesla" depicts throughout its 20 minutes a captivating gradation of festive ambiences, and proves again that the marriage of rap and house is definitely made to last.

'Jump Into Love' is the new album from Half Japanese, true DIY noise-rock royalty, led by the ever-effervescent Jad Fair. It's a meeting of minds, a coming together from the world's favourite indie-alt-rock outsiders. Atypically out there and off-kilter, the album wears its heart on its sleeve through a cascade of new, dark and brooding songs from the band who would be king. Loved by Kurt Cobain, Daniel Johnston, Penn Jillette and outsiders everywhere, Half Japanese continue their quest for answers; creating a soundscape for a post-zombie land where bells chime and it's OK to say "Yes". It's another adventure; series 20 from an introspective parallel world where the super prolific Jad Fair cogitates on life, love, giants, the possessed and even bigger issues that simply swell the brain. Musing on the writing process, Jad explains "I feel a need to do music and do song writing. It's something I really miss when I'm not doing it. There's a certain amount of tranquillity that's obtained from the fact that you can be working on songs each day. I think you use that certain portion of your brain that is otherwise not used. I kind of kind of prefer using it than not using it." Half Japanese currently includes Jad with John Sluggett, Gilles-Vincent Rieder, Mick Hobbs and Jason Willett, a veritable who's who of DIY indie culture. 'Jump Into Love' was recorded at Tempo House, Baltimore, Russian Recording, Bloomington Indiana, Studio de la Trappe, Donneville France and la Casamurada, Tarragona Spain. The album was mixed by long time Half Japanese sparring partner Jason Willett at his home in Baltimore, Maryland. "Amid hard-riff jams, swinging ditties, lovelorn ballads and other catchy gems, Jad persistently breathes life into the Half Japanese" NPR "One of indie rock's most reliable sources of positivity" Pitchfork

LP includes Poster.

When Sacred Bones first began their Mort Garson reissue project in 2019 with a proper reissue of Plantasia, the Garson-naissance began in earnest. Soon after, you could hear Mort Garson and his Moogs bubbling up on TV shows, documentaries, podcasts, hip-hop tracks, or anywhere else, the man a cultural phenomenon once more.

Like a perennial that returns with each new spring, the Mort Garson archives have brought to bear yet another awe-inspiring bloom.

Journey to the Moon and Beyond finds even more new facets to the man's sound. There's the soundtrack to the 1974 blaxploitation film Black Eye (starring Fred Williamson) alongside some newly unearthed music for advertising. Just as regal is "Zoos of the World," where Garson soundtracks the wild, preening, slumbering animals from a 1970 National Geographic special of the same name.

The mind reels at just what project would have yielded a scintillating title like "Western Dragon," but these three selections were found on tapes in the archive with no further information. The crown jewel of the set is no doubt Garson's soundtrack to the live broadcast of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, as first heard on CBS News. That's one small step for man, one giant leap for Moogkind. But for decades, this audio was presumed lost, the only trace of it appearing to be from an old YouTube clip. Thankfully, diligent audio archivist Andy Zax came across a copy of the master tape while going through the massive Rod McKuen archive.

So now we get to hear it in all its glory. Across six minutes, Garson conjures broad fantasias, whirring mooncraft sounds, zero-gravity squelches, and twinkling études. It showcases Mort's many moods: sweet, exploratory, whimsical, a little bit corny, weaving it all together in a glorious whole.

Maybe at the time it scanned as crass and opportunistic for Garson to apply his keyboards to subjects like astrological signs, the occult, hippiedom, houseplants, or the moon landing. But more than most other electronic music pioneers of his ilk, Garson foresaw the integration of such electronics into our daily lives, how they would allow us to engage with the world.

LP includes Poster.

When Sacred Bones first began their Mort Garson reissue project in 2019 with a proper reissue of Plantasia, the Garson-naissance began in earnest. Soon after, you could hear Mort Garson and his Moogs bubbling up on TV shows, documentaries, podcasts, hip-hop tracks, or anywhere else, the man a cultural phenomenon once more.

Like a perennial that returns with each new spring, the Mort Garson archives have brought to bear yet another awe-inspiring bloom.

Journey to the Moon and Beyond finds even more new facets to the man's sound. There's the soundtrack to the 1974 blaxploitation film Black Eye (starring Fred Williamson) alongside some newly unearthed music for advertising. Just as regal is "Zoos of the World," where Garson soundtracks the wild, preening, slumbering animals from a 1970 National Geographic special of the same name.

The mind reels at just what project would have yielded a scintillating title like "Western Dragon," but these three selections were found on tapes in the archive with no further information. The crown jewel of the set is no doubt Garson's soundtrack to the live broadcast of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, as first heard on CBS News. That's one small step for man, one giant leap for Moogkind. But for decades, this audio was presumed lost, the only trace of it appearing to be from an old YouTube clip. Thankfully, diligent audio archivist Andy Zax came across a copy of the master tape while going through the massive Rod McKuen archive.

So now we get to hear it in all its glory. Across six minutes, Garson conjures broad fantasias, whirring mooncraft sounds, zero-gravity squelches, and twinkling études. It showcases Mort's many moods: sweet, exploratory, whimsical, a little bit corny, weaving it all together in a glorious whole.

Maybe at the time it scanned as crass and opportunistic for Garson to apply his keyboards to subjects like astrological signs, the occult, hippiedom, houseplants, or the moon landing. But more than most other electronic music pioneers of his ilk, Garson foresaw the integration of such electronics into our daily lives, how they would allow us to engage with the world.