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*** UNRELEASED AOR / YACHT ROCK FROM 1979 AS FEATURED ON PRAISE POEMS 7***

It is a rare occurrence, especially when you consider that we are writing this in the year 2020, that an unreleased AOR/Yacht Rock album surfaces after 40 years. The Tramp crew first heard about it while discussing Penn Central's inclusion of their song "Sometimes" on "Praise Poems Vol.7".

The band Penn Central was formed about 1978 by Gary Phelps and his younger brother Shawn Phelps. They had been playing together in a few different groups in the Erie, Pennsylvania area since Gary returned there from Penn State in 1974. In 1978 Shawn was going to college at Edinboro State University, just south of Erie, where he met Curt Salvador, a student from the Pittsburgh area. They began playing together in a local Edinboro group when Shawn introduced Curt to Gary. Gary, Shawn, and Curt began to collaborate and soon Gary brought in friend and former high school bandmate Allen Bennett who was an accomplished musician on trumpet and percussion. Shawn then found Dave Lindgren who was playing drums in various bands locally and Penn Central was formed.

The group began rehearsing and playing small venues together. Soon, they began to work on original songs that Gary and the band were writing. They decided in 1979 to record some of the original music at a small independent studio in Erie that was owned and operated in by Keith Veshecco and John Mazza. Soon after recording 7 songs there, a large FM radio station, WDVE, in Pittsburgh sponsored a contest for local bands for a compilation album of local groups. Because of Curt's roots in Pittsburgh, he entered the Penn Central song "Sometimes" in the contest and it earned a spot on the 10 track album that was released in 1980. The band subsequently played in the area for the next few years before drifting apart as the members left college, began new careers, and started raising families. Gary, his brother Shawn, and Curt continued playing together and with other group configurations and as solo artists off and on since that time. They remain friends and share musical ideas to this day.

Key selling points:

- previously unreleased album from 1979
- all songs taken from the original reel-to-reel master tapes
- including full album download code

Jesse James rides again! Rejoining the Soul Junction label to bring you his previously unreleased original version of the song “(The Girl In) Clinton Park”

The song is more widely known through the version recorded by the group Masterplan in 1974 as part of their trilogy of 45 releases on the West Coast Fos-Glo label, with this particular release being later picked up and released on The East Coast Delite label.

The story behind Jess’s solo version began 3 years earlier when following his first spell with the 20th Century label Jesse found himself without a label feeling a little disillusioned with major labels but undeterred in his own ability he decided to finance and record his own masters. Hence on 29th of April 1971, Jesse entered the Searra Sound Studio in Berkley C.A under the direction of producer and friend Willie Hoskins (Wilhos Productions, and the man who gave the world the Natural Four on Boola, Boola and ABC, prior to them joining Curtis Mayfield at Curtom). Jesse recorded a five song session, with one particular song being the Stanley Lippett composition “(The Girl In) Clinton Park”. Lippett who prior to becoming part of the Wilhos Productions team sang with the early 60’s group The Five Brooks before recording two very sought after Northern Soul 45’s “The Stran” and “Outta Sight Loving” for Dick Vance’s Out Of Site Label. Stanley later joined Marvin Holmes & The Uptights Band. It had been Marvin Holmes (he of Brown Door Records fame) who introduced Stanley to Willie Hoskins with Stanley subsequently joining Boola Boola Records and Wilhos Productions. Stanley repaid Marvin for this introduction by composing a song based on Marvin’s 3 year daughter, she being the actual girl from Clinton Park!

Returning to Jesse James, two other songs from this session, a cover version of Etta James “At Last” and “I Know I’ll Never Find Another” did gain a release at the time on the Zay label.

We’ve known about Jesse’s version of this song for many years now but the tape was nowhere to be found and even without hearing it, just knowing the song and that Jesse was a great singer I always promised him that one day I’d put it out. But if there is some good to come out of this pandemic then it was during Jesse’s lock down in Richmond and while browsing through his possessions he luckily found the missing tape, bingo we’re in business!

For this release we have coupled “(The Girl In) Clinton Park” with Jesse’s oh so soulful cover version of the Terry Callier/Larry Wade composition “ Just As Long As We’re In Love” (also recorded by Callier himself and The Mighty Dells), previously issued by Soul Junction on Jesse’s 2012 album “Let Me Show You” (SJLP 5005), enjoy.

First released by Cazzo Film in 2001, ebo hill’s Bonking Berlin Bastards has long achieved the status of an underground punk porn classic. Like the Cazzo productions of director Bruce LaBruce, hill’s vision was both ahead of its time and a playful distillation of 90s and early-2000s Berlin Zeitgeist: queer, industrial, hypersexual, exhibitionist and fueled by electronic music. The story is told in large part by the soundtrack, to be released for the first time on Ostgut Ton sublabel A-TON. The music follows a group of squatters, punks and drag queens as they fuck, party and stumble their way through an empty city at the turn of the millennium. Approaching these themes more through location than plot, the film’s narrative freedom is also a narrative of freedom; between chance encounters and sex in public, atop the maze of roofs in the city’s former East, bent over bridges and moaning in ecstasy at oncoming traffic, pants down in telephone booths, packed into sex clubs, in the shadows of abandoned factories and techno clubs lost in time. Composed by improvisational techno trio AeoX and noise / industrial producer Rouage aka CNM (respectively), the music spans a broad range of appropriately pounding industrial, weird techno, noise, ultra-stoned ambient, improvised dub and electro. It’s a sonic spectrum that connects Berlin’s queer hardcore techno and squatter party scenes from which AeoX and Rouage emerged, drawing a direct line between the likes of Berghain-forerunner OstGut (a primary meeting point for the film’s cast & crew) to the more industrial, breakcore and noise- oriented independent party collectives and locations who provided multiple settings for the film, including Grüne Hölle and Stellwerk.

*Artists:* CNM / Rouage (Kathinka): Born in 1975 and raised in East Berlin. Co-organization of subcultural events since 1998 in Berlin, Potsdam, Leipzig and Barcelona. Experimental music, collaborations, exhibitions and audiovisual shows since 2000.

AeoX: Active between 2001 and 2007. Originally a quartet, then a trio, the group eventually shrank to two permanent members: Alex.E and Hanno Hinkelbein. The latter founded Null Records, where AeoX released two album and numerous EPs. They also released on Mental.Ind.Records founded by former OstGut resident Cora S. Musically, the group experimented with combining improvisational hardware techno, breaks, traditional instruments (guitar, clarinet, piano) industrial and metal.

Ursprünglich 2001 von Cazzo Film veröffentlicht, hat Bonking Berlin Bastards von ebo hill längst den Status eines Underground-Punk-Pornoklassikers erreicht. Wie die Cazzo- Produktionen von Regisseur Bruce LaBruce, war auch hills Vision seiner Zeit voraus und ein spielerisches Destillat des 90er- und Anfang-2000er Berlin-Zeitgeists: queer, industriell, hypersexuell, exhibitionistisch, angetrieben von elektronischer Musik. Die Geschichte wird größtenteils über den Soundtrack erzählt, der auf Ostgut Tons Sublabel A-TON zum ersten Mal veröffentlicht wird. Die Musik folgt einer Gruppe von Hausbesetzern, Punks und Drags, die ficken, feiern und durch die leere Stadt um die Jahrtausendwende streifen. Bonking Berlin Bastards erzählt diese Themen mehr über die Drehorte als über die Handlung. Die erzählerische Freiheit des filmischen Narrativs ist gleichzeitig eine Erzählung von Freiheit: Von zufälligen Begegnungen bis hin zu Sex in der Öffentlichkeit, auf Dächern im früheren Osten Berlins, sich über die Brüstungen von Straßenbrücken beugen, trotz und wegen des Verkehrs stöhnen, mit heruntergelassenen Hosen in Telefonzellen, in überfüllten Sexclubs, im Schatten aufgegebener Fabriken, zeitverloren in Technoclubs. Der Soundtrack wurde sowohl vom Improvisationstechnotrio AeoX als auch von Noise-/Industrial-Producer Rouage aka CNM komponiert und spannt einen weiten Bogen von explizit pumpendem Industrial, schräg klingendem Techno, Noise, ultra-stoned Ambient, improvisiertem Dub und Electro. Das musikalische Spektrum verbindet Berlins queere Hardcore-, Techno- und Hausbesetzer-Party-Szenen, aus denen AeoX und Rouage selbst hervorgingen und zieht dabei eine direkte Linie zwischen dem Berghain- Vorgängerclub OstGut (ein wichtiger Treffpunkt für die Darsteller und Crew des Films) und den eher Industrial-, Breakcore- und Noise-orientierten Independent-Partykollektiven und -Locations wie Grüne Hölle und Stellwerk, welche mehrfach als Drehort und Kulisse des Films auftauchen.

CNM / Rouage (Kathinka): 1975 geboren nd aufgewachsen in Ost- Berlin. Co-Organisation subkultureller Events seit 1998 in Berlin, Potsdam, Leipzig und Barcelona. Experimentelle Musik, Kollaborationen, Ausstellungen und audiovisuelle Shows seit 2000.

AeoX: Aktiv zwischen 2001 und 2007. Ursprünglich ein Quartett, dann ein Trio, dann verkleinerte sich die Gruppe auf zwei permanente Mitglieder: Alex.E und Hanno Hinkelbein. Letzterer gründete Null Records, auf dem AeoX zwei Alben und zahlreiche EPs veröffentlichte. Ebenfalls Veröffentlichungen auf Mental.Ind.Records, welches von der ehemaligen OstGut resident Cora S. gegründet wurde. Musikalisch kombiniert die Gruppe improvisierten Hardware- Techno mit Breaks, traditionellen Instrumenten (Gitarre, Klarinette, Klavier), Industrial und Metal.

‘Island’, the latest album from Oscar-nominated composer and
songwriter Owen Pallett, released on Domino / Secret City
Records (Canada).
Almost entirely acoustic, ‘Island’ begins with 13 darkened
chords and was recorded live at Abbey Road Studios with the
London Contemporary Orchestra. The introduction is the sound
of waking up alone and on the shore of a strange land. What
follows is a shimmering and luscious orchestral album that
draws across the full breadth of Pallett’s discography, from
‘Heartland’’s Technicolor to the glittering, fingerpicked guitar
that marked Pallett’s first records with their trio, Les Mouches.
In addition to Pallett’s Grammy Award-winning work with
Arcade Fire, Pallett’s commissions have included string, brass
and orchestral work for Last Shadow Puppets, The National,
The Mountain Goats, Christine and arrangements for Frank
Ocean, Caribou, R.E.M., Linkin Park, Sigur Rós, Taylor Swift and
the Pet Shop Boys.
Since the release of ‘In Conflict’ (2014), Pallett has earned an
Oscar nomination for their film scoring work on Spike Jonze’s
‘Her’ and an Emmy for Sølve Sundsbø’s ‘Fourteen Actors Acting’.
Their score for Matt Wolf’s ‘Spaceship Earth’, a documentary
about a crew who spent two years quarantined inside a replica
of Earth’s ecosystem called BIOSPHERE 2, is out now.

I’ve known Alex Bleeker my entire life. Well, okay, maybe not since I was born, but there’s no doubt that I’ve shared a fair bit of memories with him over the years. We’ve acted in high school productions of Shakespeare together, gone on late-night diner runs, argued about which Weezer album is the band’s best, and swapped mutual appreciation for the music of Yo La Tengo on car rides careening around the snaky suburbia of our hometown. Just like his Real Estate bandmates Martin Courtney and Julian Lynch, we attended high school in the New Jersey enclave of Ridgewood, a place where sticky summer days yielded cool nights with a glow so nocturnal that you can practically hear the fireflies buzzing off of this sentence alone.

Indie rock—a type of music that can easily be made or listened to in someone’s garage—often dominates teenage suburban preoccupations, and both Alex and I were no exception. You can hear this legacy of listening on his new album Heaven on the Faultline, which departs from his last full-band outing as Alex Bleeker and the Freaks, 2015’s Country Agenda. Whereas that album had a more full-bodied explicitly folk-y feel, Heaven on the Faultline finds Bleeker getting back to his homespun roots over the course of its 13 songs, from the jangly guitar pop of New Jersey heroes the Feelies and YLT’s hushed, acoustic reveries to the open-hearted folk rock that marks so much of the Grateful Dead’s early catalog.

Written and recorded over the last several years, Heaven on the Faultline’s songs were initially recorded straight to GarageBand in Bleeker’s bedroom before receiving further studio refinement in co-producer Phil Hartunian’s Tropico Beauty space in Los Angeles. With contributions from Confusing Mix of Nations’ Josh Da Costa, Cameron Stallones of Sun Araw, singer-songwriter Kacey Johansing, and Parting Lines’ Tim Ramsey, Heaven on the Faultline achieves a warm and intimate feel that defines Bleeker’s mission for the album: “I wanted to capture the moment in which I fell in love with making music to begin with. This is music for myself—me getting back to music for music’s sake.”

The unsteady times we live in certainly creep into view on Heaven on the Faultline. The deceptively easygoing “D Plus” was written on the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration with the cursed event in mind, while the anxiety of climate change hovers just above the lovely guitar loops of “Felty Feel.” “The album is very much about dealing with the anxiety of a sense of impending doom,” Bleeker states while discussing the album’s portentous vibes. “When is the hammer going to fall? How do we go forward in the face of such anxiety and experience the complexity of life?”

Tough questions with few answers, but try not to stress too much. It’s possible to experience such existential doubt while also enjoying the simple pleasures that life has to offer, and that ethos is square at the heart of Heaven on the Faultline. It defines who Alex Bleeker is, too, and is one of many reasons why I’m proud to have known this special person and artist for so long.

Larry Fitzmaurice

Formed from the ashes of The Beta Band, The Aliens blazed a trail with two critically acclaimed LP's in the mid to late Noughties - hitting the UK official charts as well as Hollywood film & TV - before mysteriously vanishing from the Humanoid star system.

Hot on the heels of marking their return with the surprising electronica-delia of Electronville The Aliens pre-sent their latest album-length EP and a return to something more familiar for their long time fans. The A-side on Back To Beyond entails the 10 minute drone rock disasterpiece Follow The Son, the melancholy instru-mental sdlmnm strings and the bastard love child of two of their most popular songs in Roxbot. Side B features atmospheric instrumental tingler For Emma, a Robot Man disco mix appropriately titled Reboot Man and finishes with the longer, dirtier, rawer, inbred cousin of fan favourite Magic Man - Majic Man Pre-quel. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue… Back To Beyond is like a wedding of The Aliens.

After a dormant decade the mercurial Gordon Anderson AKA Lone Pigeon is on a crusade to release as many of his estimated 10,000 songs as Alienly possible and come to the rescue of the downward spiralling Humanoids of Planet Earth. While The Aliens continue work on their much anticipated new LP the good news is that there’s plenty to keep fans occupied in the meantime.

The music on Dance Nos. 1-5 was originally conceived as a three-way collaboration between composer Philip Glass, choreographer Lucinda Childs and artist Sol LeWitt. Dance received its world premiere in Amsterdam on October 19, 1979 and its New York premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on November 29, 1979.

Post-dating Einstein on the Beach - Glass’s 1975-76 collaboration with director Robert Wilson - Dance was another Glass collaboration, this time with choreographer Lucinda Childs, known for her austere, athematically exact dances, and artist Sol LeWitt, who provided a ghostly, gigantic black- and-white film for several of the piece’s five sections.














RELEASE: 5-3-2021





• 180 GRAM AUDIOPHILE VINYL
• DELUXE HEAVYWEIGHT SLEEVE WITH GLOSS LAMINATE
• PVC JACKET
• THE COMPLETE ALBUM, AVAILABLE ON VINYL FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ITS ENTIRETY ON A 3LP-SET
WITH FIVE SIDES OF MUSIC
• INCLUDES PHILIP GLASS CATALOGUE WITH INFO ON THE PHILIP GLASS SERIES ON MOV


SIDE A

Dance has an abstract purity that easily earned it the label “minimalist,” a term that Glass himself disavows but that seems appropriate, at least in this case. After Dance, Glass’s music took several turns, not so much in style as in the various new contexts in which it was presented: major opera commissions and film scores led him to write for forces other than those of the Philip Glass Ensemble. At the same time, an attempt to reach a wide audience resulted in some shorter, perhaps more accessible, narrative pieces. Dance marked the blossoming of the composer’s experimental work. Here, though, the music - particularly Dance Nos. “1”, “3” and “5”, all written for the Ensemble— has an unforgettable exuberance that somehow speaks all at once of joyful innocence, intense erotic desire, tenderness, regret and, finally, acceptance. On the other hand, Dance Nos. “2” and “4” see Glass composing several large-scale works for solo organ; for instance, Dance No. 2 originated as a 1978 work entitled Fourth Series Part Two. This piece, later incorporated into Dance, and Dance No. “4” as well, have a more subdued, more darkly romantic quality than the work’s other sections and are quite unlike anything Glass had previously written. Still, they too, with their mysterious tilts of time and key signatures, continue the exploration of polyrhythms and harmonic complexities within the context of Glass’s repetitive, “minimalist” style.

The complete Dance Nos. 1-5 album is now available on vinyl for the first time in its entirety on a 3LP-set with five sides of music. The 3 LP’s are housed in a heavyweight sleeve.

James Johnston (Gallon Drunk / Nick Cave / PJ Harvey) and Steve Gullick (renowned music photographer) are pleased to announce their new album out on the 26th Feb 2021. It's a dark but beautiful trip. After working together on an art show in late 2019, the idea of making music again immediately resurfaced. Without any firm strategy, Johnston and Gullick began recording, unprompted, drawing upon a shared love of noise, folk, and classical. After the first tracks began to evolve, however, they knew they’d unearthed something compelling and fresh, not to mention unexpectedly mysterious. This became WE TRAVEL TIME.The result is a deceptively crafted album that slowly reveals – and, more importantly, embraces – beauty in its cracks. Piano, voice, violin and guitar create a drifting haze, with the focus on these acoustic elements forging an imagined soundtrack which offers echoes of Big Star, Nico, Lee Hazlewood and Palace Brothers, as well as the gentle, haunting influence of contemporary minimal classical. Ambient sounds – birds, rain, cars, clocks, distant voices – also drift in and out, melting into the music’s fabric via windows left open during the early 2020 heatwave. WE TRAVEL TIME, nonetheless, resists definition, remaining enigmatically timeless.

Thumbing Thru Foliage is a blunted journey through YUNGMORPHEUS’ mind where personal lyrics intertwine with socio-political themes and tongue in cheek humour. Produced entirely by ewonee. Lead single ‘Fistfulofgreens’ grooves on a g-funk-esque plain and is an assured mission statement - “original man who got the game plan, I aint switching my hands inside these strange lands” whilst also sharing some intimate insight “I don’t ever answer questions that the feds askin, they were cuffin’ my mama, you know I had to blast them”. Second single ‘Sovereignty’ takes a more soulful turn with ceremonial strings and r&b samples ringing under braggadocious bars. Third single ‘Middle Passage’ is a more introspective cut - sombre vocal and piano loops are juxtaposed with neck snappin’ energetic drums. Describing the project in his own words, YUNGMORPHEUS says, “Peace peace, I consider this album a call to action of sorts. The world is rife with distractions and oppressive tactics but niggas move through it nonetheless ! Respect to ewonee for providing a beautiful backdrop for me to get some much needed shit off my chest. Maneuver through the foliage yall... Power to all black people ! Salute to those who listen”. ewonee adds, “Growing up like we did in this corporation Neegas deal with a lot. Usually gotta go through the mud to get to the greens. Good comes with the bad and vice versa, learning how to adjust is a must. Hope y’all get that from this. Roll up count up and mount up. PEACE”. YUNGMORPHEUS is an American rapper and record producer, originally from Miami but now based in LA. He has released music on Leaving Records and Rap Vacation as well as collaborating with Pink Siifu, Fly Anakin, Koncept Jack$on and Ohbliv. Previously supported by Okayplayer, XLR8R, Bandcamp, DJ Booth, Tiny Mix Tapes, Earmilk, BBC6 Music, Dublab, NTS and Worldwide FM. ewonee is an American Multi-instrumentalist, Producer, Beat-maker & Audio engineer from New York. Part of the Mutant Academy crew and also involved with the Beat Haus Show, ewonee has previously produced & collaborated with the likes of Your Old Droog, Fly Anakin, Reginald Chapman and Koncept Jack$on.

Mike Lundy, Lemuria, Aura. This trifecta of inimitable Hawaiian acts descended upon Honolulu’s state-of-the-art Broad Recording Studio in late 1979 to create what have now become the most coveted Hawaiian funk/soul/jazz albums of the era.

But whereas Lemuria functioned as a short-lived studio band and Mike Lundy saw little success from his album’s release, Aura — comprised of eight siblings from the Mendoza family — remained a key figure in the nightlife scene of Hawaii of the 1970s and early 1980s.

Each tune on their 1979 LP showcases the band’s unmatched musical talent that continues to astonish listeners in the 21st century, including Juno Records: “Raw funk… honey-coated soul… grooves and big smiles… lavish Hayes-level horns… dynamic and luxurious full-spectrum harmonies. Stunning.” Available on vinyl and digital for the first time since its initial release, Aura is a rare example of an album that in today’s crowded reissue landscape really does live up to its mystique.

Mike Lundy, Lemuria, Aura. This trifecta of inimitable Hawaiian acts descended upon Honolulu’s state-of-the-art Broad Recording Studio in late 1979 to create what have now become the most coveted Hawaiian funk/soul/jazz albums of the era.

But whereas Lemuria functioned as a short-lived studio band and Mike Lundy saw little success from his album’s release, Aura — comprised of eight siblings from the Mendoza family — remained a key figure in the nightlife scene of Hawaii of the 1970s and early 1980s.

Each tune on their 1979 LP showcases the band’s unmatched musical talent that continues to astonish listeners in the 21st century, including Juno Records: “Raw funk… honey-coated soul… grooves and big smiles… lavish Hayes-level horns… dynamic and luxurious full-spectrum harmonies. Stunning.” Available on vinyl and digital for the first time since its initial release, Aura is a rare example of an album that in today’s crowded reissue landscape really does live up to its mystique.

Clive Phillips, Dominic Goodman, Peter Blundell are Mosquitoes, a somewhat inscrutable London-based outfit in operation for something close to seven years now, and have released music across a host of celebrated and broad-minded underground labels. Give or take the occasional interview in the less-straight parts of the music press, this is as much formal biography as their music has thus far allowed, for there's something essentially unknowable at the centre of what makes Mosquitoes what they are. So murky is their early history in fact, the first two self-released Mosquitoes records seemed to disappear from sight before really becoming visible. As more records have emerged, those first communications accumulate new meanings, acting as vital documents in tracking the evolution of a band who stand at the vanguard of contemporary British music.

The second of these records, recorded to tape in summer 2016 and first released as a single-sided 12" under the name MOS-002, is arguably the first true iteration of Mosquitoes. Now fittingly renamed Mosquitoes for its reissue as a dubplate-style 10" on World of Echo on 5th March, these five cryptically titled, shape-shifting tracks, see the trio embrace a near-genre-less fluidity, and in doing so express a unique combination of both freedom and intent. By design or instinct, Mosquitoes stand at their own inverted rock nexus, presenting a music that's turned inside out, and in doing so, music that twists the listener the same way.

In that sense, Mosquitoes plug into a long lineage of DIY savant iconoclasts, those outliers who would deny orthodoxy in order to excavate new languages and ideas - The Dead C, This Heat, the anti-formalism of No Wave, David Toop's General Strike. As such, Mosquitoes rely on a musical pluralism in order to take it apart - you must know how something is made before you reassemble it anew. Labelling this an EP may possibly underplay the breadth and ambition of what's on show. Later records would arguably be more cohesive, but what stands as particularly startling with this early work is their fearless and all-encompassing dive into the avant garde. Consider the anti-rockism of the scorched earth 90s re-imagined through a distinctly avant filter of free jazz and dub aesthetics. And it's the latter which perhaps shapes Mosquitoes most, dub the perfect vehicle for the articulation of such wilful anti-formalism. Make no mistake, this is music that's unafraid to be tough, to demand something of the listener and to not ask permission. And to bear witness to a rejection of formalism so aggressively pursued is to be reconciled.

Ceramic’s 2nd EP presents New Delhi based artist Shantam’s wonky and groovy take on beat. 4 diverse and swirling tracks make up 3fer-disco. I hear a lot of Luke Vibert and early Warp/ IDM influences channeled into modern modular techniques.

Martin Georgi is not a newcomer. He is more like one of those who like to stay under the radar. The sample-based music producer made his debut in the deephouse sector on his own more than 10 years ago, completely without a label or distribution. In 2016, the Berlin record label OYE Records became aware of the hitherto unknown artist and finally re-released the tracks from his debut. Since then, his early tracks have been compared around the world with the early works of Moodyman or Theo Parrish.
After more than 10 years and the maxi “9 to 5 is killing me” (2018), a second album is finally released on the underground label quietelegance records. Stylistically it ties in with the first work. “Money from the trunk” is the title of the new album and it includes socially critical issues such as class differences that are created by capital. Georgi plays with a large portion of irony and of course plenty of samples, which the passionate record digger skillfully processed into eight new songs.
Georgi not only stands out from the conforming deep-house crowd with his raw, unconventional production style, but also ensures that old-school sampling continues to have its place in current club music. In doing so, he reacts to global music trends, which he incorporates into his tracks through the finest sample operations. So it is not surprising that his new album “Money from the trunk” has a rap song as title song, for which the renown artistic-activist rap duo Fokn Bois from Ghana is jointly responsible. Also on the list of prominent guests are Felipe Gordon from Colombia and Delfonic from Berlin as well as Cornelia Lund from fluctuating images. Roskow Kretschmann appears as co-producer, whose name is associated with many other well established musicians.

pink vinyl limited to 500
Insides’s music shimmers and tingles with the tantalising promise of a different direction that UK pop could’ve gone: future-facing and fresh, rather than nostalgic regurgitation.” Simon Reynolds, author and music critic, writing in  Euphoria re-issue liner-notes in 2019

“A sound still as dew fresh, dawn dazzled and shot through with luscious darkness as it was nigh on three decades ago.” Neil Kulkarni, The Wire, 2019

Insides are Julian Tardo and Kirsty Yates. They first recorded together in the early 90s as Earwig, and released an album, 'Under My Skin I am Laughing', which brought them to the attention of 4AD. Earwig morphed into Insides and  two further albums were released on 4AD’s Guernica imprint: ‘Euphoria' (1993) and 'Clear Skin' (1994). In 2019 ‘Euphoria' was reissued for US Record Store Day by Beacon Sound, and was hailed as a lost treasure by discerning outlets. 

'Soft Bonds' is Insides’ first release for 20 years. It’s the sound of heart-stopping slow motion, blood rushes, fingers digging into bruised flesh, and sleeping with clenched fists.

“We found some things that were recorded a long time ago. We added some things that have been haunting us for for years and recorded some other ideas that we’d just thought of. Recording started at home in 2012, and continued every now and then in our studio, on trains, in the Greek island of Naxos and while wandering around Cissbury Ring, Chanctonbury Ring and Devil’s Dyke in the South Downs. We finally walked away from the recordings in late 2019 and decided to release a small run of CDs and LPs on our own Further Distractions label.

'Soft Bonds' is about the past haunting the present, and gripping onto your crumbling sense of self. It’s informed by the spirit of This Heat/This Is Not This Heat, Patty Waters, Annette Peacock, Eartheater, Mhysa, Hailu Mergia, Scott Walker and Arca.”

The first track to be released, 'Ghost Music', was also the first to be finished and came about by scrapping the original structure, leaving only the trace elements. Working in the negative space that’s left behind, where rhythms are pulses and heartbeats and melodies are memories, it’s insistent, staring, but not shouting. Almost absent, or heard from another room. The video uses footage of Kirsty and Julian filmed and used in live shows in 1993 and cut with more recent footage from 2016. The past haunts the present.

“Pop loving the sound of itself to death. And hating the fact that it can’t stop loving.” Rob Young, The Wire, 1993

“...they seemed to be creating an entirely new version of pop. Their hooks were unmistakable, in that they triggered movement like perpetual-motion clockwork. Their grooves were sparse and spectral and nagged at you like breakbeats but made your heart and hair-follicles dance more than your feet. Their music was amniotic, ebbing and alive with iridescent melodic detail and lyrics that turned the turmoils and trauma of love into the sweetest searing honesty you’d been privy to since you first heard the Supremes.” Neil Kulkarni, The Quietus, 2011

With his new album, Year Of The Living Dead, Vienna-born and LA-based producer John Tejada finds a blissful extended moment of balance between the new and the familiar. Anyone who’s followed his career to date, which has included four previous albums for Kompakt, outings for storied labels like Plug Research, Playhouse and Cocoon, and numerous remixes and collaborations – most recently, his Wajatta duo with actor and musician Reggie Watts – will immediately sense the warmth and eloquence that Tejada brings to his gilded, pliant techno and electro hybrids. But there’s more here, too; an explorer’s glimmer in the producer’s eye, as he gets to grips with new ways of working and being, while offering a reflective opening for the listener, something echoed in artwork by graphic designer and ‘contemplative artist’ David Grey.

“The album was started using tools I was unfamiliar with, which became an interesting exploratory process,” Tejada says. “Staying away from the obvious and having to re-learn simple things was a fun challenge.” You can hear these new creative pulsions pushing the eight tracks on Year Of The Living Dead ever-forward; the album has an unique cast, and though there are trace elements of the genres Tejada has indulged previously, he’s never quite put them together this way before. There’s the dubwise glitter sprinkled across the moody opener “The Haunting Of Earth”, the kind caresses found amongst the deftly woven textures of “Sheltered”, and the churchy melancholy, all hymnal and golden, of “Echoes Of Life”.

Year Of The Living Dead also speaks obliquely to its moment, though Tejada works this implicitly, allowing the strange circumstances of 2020 to cast their inevitable shadow without being obvious or didactic. “The production process began right before lockdown and continued through what felt like a very serious time for all of us,” he recalls. “Not being able to see or touch our loved ones made me feel we are all like ghosts. We can observe from a distance but cannot really be there. We are isolated and alone.” And yet, Year Of The Living Dead’s tenderness offers an out for that anxiety and loneliness, its intimate immensities gifting the album a redemptive and compassionate core. Compact and glistening, Year Of The Living Dead sculpts unassuming beauty.

Mit seinem neuen Album “Year Of The Living Dead“ findet der in Wien geborene und in Los Angeles lebende Produzent John Tejada die richtige Balance zwischen Neuem und Vertrautem. Wer seine bisherige Karriere verfolgt hat, seine vier Alben für Kompakt, Beiträge für Labels wie Plug Research, Playhouse und Cocoon, zahlreiche Remixe und Kollaborationen wie zuletzt das Projekt Wajatta zusammen mit dem Schauspieler und Musiker Reggie Watts, spürt sofort wieder die Wärme und Eloquenz, die Tejada in seine geschmeidigen Techno-Elektro-Hybride einbringt. Doch es geht auch noch einen Schritt weiter. Da ist dieses Aufblitzen des Entdeckers im Auge eines Produzenten, der sich mit neuen Arbeits- und Seinsweisen auseinandersetzt und dem Zuhörer gleichzeitig etwas sehr Offenes und Nachdenkliches anbietet, etwas, das im Artwork des Grafikdesigners und "kontemplativen Künstlers" David Grey nachklingt.

"Ich hatte angefangen, das Album mit mir noch unbekannten Tools zu produzieren, was sich zu einem interessanten Forschungsprozess für mich entwickelte", sagt Tejada. "Sich vom allzu Offensichtlichen zu trennen und einfache mal Dinge neu lernen zu müssen, war eine recht spaßige Herausforderung.“ Man kann diese neuen kreativen Impulse hören, die “Year Of The Living Dead“ auf einer Länge von 8 Tracks nach vorne treiben; das Album hat einen einzigartigen Ansatz, denn obwohl es Elemente der Genres gibt, denen Tejada zuvor gefrönt hat, hatte er sie doch noch nie zuvor so zusammengefügt wie hier. Da ist dieses dubbige Glitzern im atmosphärischen Opener "The Haunting Of Earth", die freundlichen Zärtlichkeiten, die man in den Texturen von "Sheltered" findet, und schließlich die heilige Melancholie im hymnischen "Echoes Of Life".

Auch “Year Of The Living Dead“ enthält Andeutungen auf die momentane Situation und erlaubt es, den seltsamen Umständen des Jahres 2020, ihren unvermeidlichen Schatten zu werfen, ohne dabei zu offensichtlich oder gar belehrend zu sein. "Der Produktionsprozess begann kurz vor dem (ersten) Lockdown und setzte sich in einer Zeit fort, die sich für uns alle als eine sehr ernste Zeit anfühlte", erinnert er sich. "Da wir nicht in der Lage waren, unsere Lieben zu sehen oder zu berühren, hatte ich das Gefühl, dass wir alle wie Geister sind. Wir können nur distanzierte Beobachter sein, aber wir können nicht wirklich anwesend sein. Wir sind isoliert und allein." Und doch scheint die Zärtlichkeit von "Year Of The Living Dead" einen Ausweg aus dieser Angst und Einsamkeit anzubieten, die grenzenlose Intimität des Albums enthält einen erlösenden und mitfühlenden Kern. Derart konsistent und schillernd formt "Year Of The Living Dead" eine unprätentiöse Schönheit.

Lost Horizons release their new album ‘In Quiet Moments’ via Bella Union. The album features a stellar array of musical guests including John Grant, C Duncan, Marissa Nadler, Porridge Radio, Penelope Isles, Karen Peris (the innocence mission), Tim Smith (Midlake), Ren Harvieu and many more.
In 2017, Simon Raymonde and Richie Thomas had both abstained from making music for 20 years until they united as Lost Horizons and released a stunning debut album, ‘Ojalá’ - the Spanish word for ‘hopefully’ or ‘God willing.’
“These days, we need hope more than ever, for a better world.” Thomas said at the time. “And this album has given me a lot of hope. To reconnect with music.... And the hope for another Lost Horizons record!” Thomas’ hopes had a mixed response.
On the plus side, the new Lost Horizons album ‘In Quiet Moments’ is an even stronger successor to ‘Ojalá’ with another distinguished cast of guest singers and a handful of supporting instrumentalists embellishing the core duo’s gorgeously freeflowing and loose-limbed blueprint that one writer astutely labelled, “melancholydelia.”
On the minus side, any hope for a better world, as Earth continues to freefall toward political and social meltdown. Then, to make matters worse, as Raymonde and Thomas buckled down to create the improvised bedrock that Lost Horizons is built on, the former’s mother died. At least Raymonde had a way to channel his grief.
“The way improvisation works,” he says, “it’s just what’s going on with your body at the time, to let it out.”
Raymonde (bass, guitar, keyboards, production) and Thomas (drums, occasional keys and guitar) forged ahead, creating 16 instrumental tracks to send to prospective guests. When he did, Raymonde suggested a guiding theme for their lyrics: “death and rebirth. Of loved ones, of ideals, at an age when many artists that have inspired us are also dead, and the planet isn’t far behind. But I also said, ‘The most important part is to just do your own thing, and have fun.’”
Lost Horizons’ melancholy-delia also feels buoyed aloft by airy currents, informed in part by Raymonde and Thomas’ former respective bands: the legendary Cocteau Twins and Dif Juz. Their former bands were labelmates on 4AD in the mid-80s, which is how they first met.
“I think ‘In Quiet Moments’ is more in the direction of where we’re going,” Thomas concludes. “People have retreated into their lives and, in those quiet moments, reflected on the world, how we fit in and who we and trust. Maybe the next album will be about rebellion! But the road is long and winding. We just need to express ourselves in how we feel at the time.”
Coloured vinyl 2LP (disc one green, disc two blue) in PVC outer sleeve with printed text, 350gsm wide spined sleeve on uncoated/reverse board, 16pg booklet on standard paper with contributions from all featured artists and digital download code.

Back by popular demand, Memorials of Distinction is rereleasing Porridge Radio's shed-recorded debut album on a limited pressing of 1000 clear vinyl and CD. This comes after a year in which Porridge Radio's Every Bad, their first on Secretly Canadian, led to top reviews in Pitchfork, The Guardian, NME, The Times, The Quietus, Clash, Uncut, Q, The Independent, LOBF, DIY, Stereogum, Paste, Vice, amongst others, and then being shortlisted as one of the Hyundai Mercury Prize's 12 Albums of 2020. Porridge Radio started as Dana Margolin’s bedroom project, but grew to a Brighton-based band who, on this debut, inelegantly knotted together tender melodic pop songs with vicious and furious emotional outpour. After a series of home-recorded solo demos and the growing legend of their live shows on the UK DIY scene, they originally released this lofi debut full band LP in 2016. The album documents struggles with life, love and boredom - spelt out with sticky fingers by five idiot savants. RP&OF's lyrics, title and artwork, as well as the group's name, brings to mind a certain scrapbook absurdism at the core of Porridge Radio's earlier work. Faced with the dark abyss of existence, Margolin and co. scrape together some value from the nonsensical and the pointless, and then cling to it, giggling, for dear life.

Transparent Red Vinyls

"Iza jinjô ni… Shôbu!” Be prepared for the battle!

Wayô Records and SNK Corporation are pleased to announce their first collaboration project! For the coming of the new Samurai Shodown game from the legendary fighting game series, we are proud to present the international release of its soundtrack in both CD and Vinyl formats!

With its beautiful Japanese instruments, the music of Samurai Shodown (2019) combines the power of modern times with the spirit from the roots of the series, performed by the best traditional Japanese players, including the legendary HIDE×HIDE duo! This soundtrack features the theme song Revive the Soul and each of the character themes, for a total of two hours of epic music!

The original soundtrack on Vinyl includes 19 tracks on two 180g LP red-marbled discs in separate sleeve into a gatefold package.

LIMITED TRANSPARENT RED WITH BLACK SWIRLS DOUBLE VINYL

Nine years after it’s initial release, 'The Ripper At The Heaven's Gates Of Dark' is back. The original black vinyl and CD editions sold out pretty quick, and have been a constant source of repress requests ever since. So, at Makoto’s personal request here it is. And I agree with him that it’s definitely the best AMT studio album from that short lived four piece line up.

With the exception of the album's opener 'Chinese Flying Saucer' and it's unashamedly obvious musical references to Led Zeppelin II (hello 1969!) the rest of the album locks into a much more laid-back groove than on recent AMT releases. This dynamic shift is best displayed on the 22 minute jam, 'Shine On You Crazy Dynamite' and also the album's closer 'Electric Death Mantra'. The band opt for less frantic explosions of electric guitar overload and fuzz, replacing those elements with a more epic, blissed-out and at times brooding Japanese psychedelia, with more emphasis on acoustic guitars, sitar, organ, synthesiser and at times, really trippy vocals (most prevalent on 'Back Door Man Of Ghost Rails Inn'), recalling the twisted psychedelics of early Pink Floyd. Yet still, their sound remains so expansive that it is easy to become totally immersed in this album.

Epic in proportions, cloaked in a cosmic haze and shimmering in a synth utopia. 'The Ripper At Heaven's Gates Of Dark' maintains AMT's status as masters of out-of-this-world music and reveals their darker side of the moon.

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. at the time of this recording were :Tsuyama Atsushi : monster bass, voice, soprano sax, cimpo flute, soprano recorder, acoustic guitar, cosmic joker Higashi Hiroshi : synthesizer, dancin'king Shimura Koji : drums, latino cool Kawabata Makoto : electric guitar, electric bouzouki, sitar, organ, percussion, electronics, speed guru

Recorded at Acid Mothers Temple, Japan Produced & engineered by Kawabata Makoto
Digital mastered by Yoshida Tatsuya.