Roberto Cagnoli started his musical career in 1995 in Florence, enriching the already prosperous regional musical heritage with numerous aliases. He produced music for labels like Disturbance and appeared in the “Progressiva” compilation by Gigi D’Agostino.
Evasione Digitale teamed up with the artist to reissue his project “Megaton - Essence”, originally released on Stefano Noferini’s experimental techno label Plate Records in 2000. Mesmeric and heavy on percussions.
Recorded in Memphis, 1960-62 by Home of the Blues Record Company – sixteen tracks of vintage rocking Memphis blues that went unissued at the label’s demise and were lost in a warehouse, ultimately rediscovered and released by Acoustic Archives.
All now remastered to perfection by Oz Fritz and a team of A&R experts working with the original masters, including ones made by Sam Phillips Recording Studios in Memphis.
Featuring the superb arrangements of trumpeter Willie Mitchell, accompanying some of the best singers of the day, with guitar by Sammy Lawhorn, bass by Lewi Steinberg and drums by AI Jackson Jr. Recorded in glorious mono by Scotty Moore at Sam Phillips Recording Service.
Each artist bio had been thoroughly researched under the guidance of Acoustic Archives producer Marc Ryan with the assistance of Dr. Dave Evans, head musicologist at Memphis State U. The story provided in the 12-page booklet includes how these cuts eventually surfaced from the early 1960s and features the photos and commentary on the recording artists, with how the original owners of the Home of The Blues Record Shop, once at 107 Beale Street, worked at the recordings.
The debut recording from the duo of multi-award-winning Scottish author David Keenan and Bruce Russell, the guitarist from the greatest underground rock band of the late 20th century, New Zealand’s The Dead C, was recorded live in Christchurch, NZ, as part of the WORD festival in August 2023. A series of live improvised settings that pair readings from Keenan’s monolithic and critically-acclaimed modernist masterpiece, Monument Maker (White Rabbit 2021), with guitar and electronics from Russell, the music takes off on the kind of post-VU fantasy of punk-primitive free music posited by Russell in projects like A Handful of Dust while expanding on Russell’s no-technique blues w/scalpel sharp riffs and aformal blats of pure electricity that match the religious eroto-mania of the text. Keenan reads w/shamanistic intensity and with a sonorous, incantatory rhythm, while Russell conjures the very ghost of the book straight out of the air. Think the early Patti Smith/Lenny Kaye spoken word/guitar jams informed by religious painting, Bach cantatas, Pierre Reverdy, Goya, Charles Olson, Arthur Doyle and Rudolph Grey. Features full colour photography by musician and artist Heather Leigh taken in-situ during the writing of Monument Maker in France in 2018. Bruce Russell is a practitioner in sound, who for forty years has been a member of The Dead C and A Handful of Dust. He mixes rock, electro-acoustics, noise and improvisation in equal measures. Also directed two of New Zealand’s vanguard independent labels, Xpressway and Corpus Hermeticum. His solo guitar practice reconfigures the blues as a form of improvisational auto-destruction. He is also a writer and his next book is titled ‘Rock’n’roll: my part in its downfall’. David Keenan is the author of six novels; This is Memorial Device (Faber & Faber) which won the London Magazine Prize for Debut Fiction and was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize; For the Good Times (Faber & Faber), which won the Gordon Burn Prize and was shortlisted for the Encore Award for Second Novels; Xstabeth (White Rabbit), which was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Prize; The Towers The Fields The Transmitters (White Rabbit); Monument Maker (White Rabbit), which was a Rough Trade Book of the Year; and Industry of Magic & Light (White Rabbit). Edna O’Brien has said of him “I sometimes think David Keenan dreams aloud. His prose has the effortless, enigmatic, unsettling quality of dreams… reading him feels like being cut open to the accompanying sound of ecstatic music.”
A RADICAL HORIZON is comprised of a series of duets between cellist Lori Goldston and pianist Stefan Christoff, recorded on a late Fall afternoon in Brooklyn, NY. A conversation between friends, these improvised excursions reflect a willingness to be open to the spirits in the space and between the notes; a spirit of communion that, as Stefan writes, "guides and dances with our dialogue together".
Stefan Christoff is a Canadian musician, community organizer, and journalist based in Montreal, Quebec. He has collaborated with artists such as Sam Shalabi and Adriana Camacho, performs with his brother Jordan as a duo in Anarchist Mountains, and has released music on labels such as Moon Villain, Shimmering Moods, and Aural Canyon.
A lifelong community activist, he helped establish the Musicians For Palestine project and has engaged in street-level solidarity work in Lebanon and The Philippines as well as closer to home in Montreal. This is his second appearance on Beacon Sound after 'In Sofia', an album of piano improvisations recorded in Bulgaria, was released on the label in 2023.
Classically trained and rigorously de-trained, possessor of a restless, semi-feral spirit, Lori Goldston is a cellist, composer, improvisor, producer, writer and teacher from Seattle. Her voice as a cellist, amplified or acoustic, is full, textured, committed and original. A relentless inquirer, her work drifts freely across borders that separate genre, discipline, time and geography.
Current and former collaborators and/or bosses include Earth, Nirvana, Mirah, Jessika Kenney, Ilan Volkov, Eyvind Kang, Stuart Dempster, David Byrne, Terry Riley, Jherek Bischoff, Malcom Goldstein, Steve Von Till, Lonnie Holley, Cat Power, Ellen Fullman, Maya Dunietz, Mik Quantius, Embryo, O Paon, Tara Jane O’Neil, Natacha Atlas, Broken Water, Ed Pias, Christian Rizzo and Sophie Laly, Threnody Ensemble, Cynthia Hopkins, 33 Fainting Spells, Vanessa Renwick, Mark Mitchell, Lynn Shelton, and many more.
Her work has been commissioned by and/or performed at the Kennedy Center, Sydney Festival, Cineteca Nacional de México, Tectonics Festival, Frye Art Museum, Time Based Art Festival (TBA), WNYC, The New Foundation, Paris Fashion Week, Northwest Film Forum, On the Boards, Seattle International Film Festival, Seattle Jewish Film Festival, Bumbershoot, Crossing Border Festival, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, Joe’s Pub, the Stone, University of Chicago, and venues large and small throughout North America, Mexico, Australia, and Europe.
Somehow, 15 years has passed since I worked on A Colour For Autumn.
This recording was, in many ways, a critical one for me. In some respects, it rounded out a period of work that was focused on a particular marriage of thematics and harmony. Like For Varying Degrees Of Winter, it dwelled on old world impressions of the seasons, something that, in the southern hemisphere, isn’t intrinsically part of our way of approaching place. I think it was this incongruity with my own lived experience that kick started the interest in making these recordings.
The intention had originally been to take Vivaldi head-on , as the holder of the Four Seasons terrain (I jest of course), but shortly after completing this album, it became resoundingly clear that even in the old world, seasonality was a thing that was known ‘then’, and unknowable ‘now’.
Climate change, as a lived experience and not merely as a ‘possibility’, suddenly came into focus with reports flooding in about the climatic dynamics since the turn of the century and events like the Black Saturday fires here in Australia. It felt like, and continues to feel like, seasonality as some predictable measure of our world is relegated to the ‘before’ times. This record is not about these climatic shifts however, more a recognition of how we have used patterns and predictability to guide us over the centuries and perhaps a realisation that the way forward is not the path we have known historically.
Listening back to the record with fresh ears, a process made completely delightful by Stephan Mathieu who has carefully remastered it, I am struck by how minimal some of the structures were. There are moments that strike me as uncharacteristically patient and even generous, allowing one element to hold without interference. I’m grateful to still feel a deep connection to this edition and to the people and places that helped shape it.
I hope you find some sense of your place here. It’s offered with that intention and invitation.
The Post-Punk Synth Alchemists return with new album ‘Strange Loops’. With blistering rhythms and searing bass, AK/DK return with their highly anticipated fourth album, ‘Strange Loops’. It builds on the momentum of their previous release; Shared Particles, which sold out of the Dinked edition even before its release and achieved no. 7 in the Indie Record Store charts. Known for their trademark motorik energy and riotous joy, AK/DK are back, and for the first time, they’ve introduced guest vocalists into the fray. This new release sees the drum and synth duo collaborate with three exciting artists: the musician TVAM, punk poet - Thick Richard, and I Am Fya; sound artist. The angular guitars and spaced-out vocals of TVAM intertwine with the duo’s driving beats and convulsing synths, resulting in the pulsating Devo-esque powerhouse of ‘Square Route’. The two bands have been crossing paths on festival line ups for a while now and it seemed inevitable that they should join forces. I Am Fya’s usual experimental textures and sound-collage is temporarily put to one side on ‘Pull Up’. For this deep and heavy sub-rattling cut; I Am Fya and AK/DK lean heavily into sound system bass and dancehall style. Her febrile and powerful vocals interweave with tectonic sub bass and stuttering rhythms, sounding like Missy Elliot jamming with a modular synth. Manchester’s very own Thick Richard adds his lyrical, jet-black humour to the track ‘Nobody Shouts’. Their collaboration began when the band invited the punk poet up for an impromptu improvisation during their set at Beatherder festival 2020. It went down so well that they had to record it; learning the track from fan footage online. This is nothing new for AK/DK, creating powerful improvised moments for those lucky enough to be in the audience. Strange Loops presents two distinct halves of music. The A side offers sure-fire bangers that will linger in your ears and have you pounding the dance floor, while the B side delves into more experimental and ambient territories with completely live takes from the studio, reflecting the duo’s love of ‘70s German Kosmische bands. “We always had more ambient experimental tracks on our records, and wanted to give them a spotlight on this release” says the band’s Gee Sowerby. Their previous releases have earned accolades such as BBC 6 Music’s ‘Album Of The Day’ and impressed judges on Steve Lamacq’s Roundtable, solidifying their reputation as pioneers in their genre. It’s on stage where AK/DK truly come to life. Their electrifying performances, characterised by joyous live-looping of keyboards, drums, and distorted whoops, have made them a fervent fan favourite for over a decade. They’ve left an indelible mark on audiences at festivals like End Of The Road, Blue Dot, and Green Man, winning over new audiences wherever they play. With Strange Loops, AK/DK continue to push boundaries and defy expectations, reinforcing their status as one of the most dynamic and innovative acts in the scene
“Friends, they are my ticket out of this place I am in… feels like nothing more than a dirt bike vacation stop between Phoenix and San Diego.” Dirt Bike Vacation—for Worried Songs Records—explores the sonic world of the late amateur guitar player, Charles ‘Poppy Bob’ Walker, through a captivating set of instrumental songs made in the mid-1980s. Recorded on a single-track, Marantz field recorder, the project is a transportive document of Walker’s days spent as a meatpacking employee in Yuma, Arizona and the dailiness of that existence: driving to work, sitting in his backyard, walking around drunkenly, unwinding on the couch with a friend. These sketches, showing an experimental tendency, are surprisingly ahead of their time; some exhibit ad hoc tape delay (“Granite Bluffs,” “Goodbye YMCA”), while others make use of primitive overdubbing (“Continuation to Moon Doctor”). Not dissimilar to works such as Bruce Langhorne’s The Hired Hand soundtrack, Walker’s guitar playing is melodic, texturally rich and beautifully sober. On a musical tour from Nashville to Los Angeles, musician-archivist, Cameron Knowler, uncovered these songs from a series of dusty cassette tapes housed at a branch of the Yuma County Library. Originally tipped off by cryptic metadata entries found through an online finding aid, Knowler requested a sound sample and was immediately drawn in by their eerie, yet hopeful nature: “I didn’t care what they sounded like at first, but once I heard just a few seconds, I had to find out everything I could about Charles, who he was, and if he was still alive.” As it turns out, the two had miraculously crossed paths over 20 years prior when Cameron was a young boy accompanying his mother, a gem trader, on a biyearly sojourn to Quartzsite, a town 80 miles north of Yuma: “Charles, sitting down and smoking in a recliner, withdrawn, held what I now understand to be a mid-1990s Martin D-28 guitar. Unlike other old-timers, his instrument was sharply tuned and had a nice sound, even to my young and uncalibrated ears. Though his left hand showed signs of highly developed arthritis, his musical ideas were animated by a palpably deep understanding of fretboard anatomy, arrangement and harmony.” Sorting through the index cards associated with these tapes, Knowler was able to gain a detailed sense of most recording’s provenance, whereabouts and time: Walker’s Datsun pickup truck chugging along boiling hot Interstate 80, the Marine Corps Air Station parking lot, the Eastern Wetlands on the banks of the Colorado River, a fishing trip to Martinez Lake. Trying to reduce the amount of his own subjectivities coloring the work, Cameron constructed titles and track sequences by borrowing information gleaned from Charles’ handwritten notes: “I tried to organize everything by time of day, giving the listener the sense of how a Yuma day might sound and feel like, and each song title—even the record itself—is borrowed from his own words.” This proved no small task, as many notecards had to be deciphered and then coupled with their native tapes which needed extensive restoration treatments. The result is a project very much out of the blue, and one that is intensely personal to Knowler, having grown up in the same town under similar circumstances. “It feels like a part of my own journey as a guitarist reckoning with the defining marks of a gothic border town,” he remarks. “At the time I would’ve met Walker, I didn’t have much outside influence, but he has been in there all the while.” In their current form, the tracks combine to create a sonic journey that boldly contributes to the traditions of acoustic guitar soli, archival digs and field recordings all the same; most importantly, it is a creative document which shows a day-in-the-life of a man grappling with the human experience under a ubiquitous Yuma sun.
Emerging from the same circle of musicians that spawned Squirrel Bait and Slint, Rodan formed in 1992 out of a failed high school rap project. Guitarists Jason Noble and Jeff Mueller enlisted Tara Jane O’Neil on bass and a couple drummers before Kevin Coultas came aboard permanently. After a couple 7”s and self-released cassettes, Quarterstick Records released the band’s first and only full-length Rusty in 1994. The band broke up at the end of the year, aiding their growing cult following. Jason went on to form Rachel's, Jeff started June of 44, and Tara began a solo career after recording with Retsin, and The Sonora Pine. Jason and Jeff later reunited in The Shipping News. Rodan was Quarterstick’s indie rock super group that spawned numerous other intriguing projects. “(Thirty years ago) a Louisville band called Rodan released the only record they’d make in their two year tenure. Rusty would become one of those records that launched a thousand very f**king good bands in the 90’s, an historical moment in real need of poets and punks and beautiful freaks who could render some sense and beauty out of the cultural grey water”. Joe Manning // “Whatever scene or geographical associations Rodan dealt with by being from Louisville, KY, in the early '90s, setting those aside and looking at the music straight up reveals one key fact: this was an amazing band, one with clear roots but also one with a sense of its own strong fusion… this is an album to readily get lost in”.
Minimal wave legend Das Ding is back on Electronic Emergencies after 10 years with a stunning selection of archival tracks from retrieved tape recordings. In the early eighties, Danny Bosten got together with his friends after school in his bedroom studio, somewhere in the bleak Dutch countryside. They experimented with cheap analogue gear and made music to kill time. The sound is raunchy and slightly experimental, but already unmistakable Das Ding. New wave, early EBM and proto techno are found this album, pressed on clear vinyl. To preserve the original atmosphere and sound, the tapes received the Ruud Lekx mastering treatment.
Eight cuts of cinematic electronic music from synthwriter OFFLINE. To follow this rainbow of silky sounds is to reach a point of no return, where the last person on Earth you'll be able to communicate with will be a 1970s synthesiser.
Coyote team up with Quinn Luke Lamont for a one off collaboration. Quinns vocals add a distinctly yachty feel to Coyote's chuggy early evening acid groove. Project Sandro tighten up the percussion and strip the vocals back and create a dreamy more contemplative warm weather shuffler.
Artisjok Records is happy to present you the second EP on the label of 'Hyas' - a Lyon based DJ / Producer who knows no bounds in merging different influences. The release kicks off with "Level", a fusion of broken beat and dub techno that creates a deep, textured sound, setting the tone for the entire journey. "Yellow Zushi" follows with a jazzier approach, weaving broken beat drums with smooth, melodic elements. For footwork aficionados, "Dontgiveashit" delivers at 160 BPM, blending a funky, jazzy vibe that captures the producer's energetic yet laid-back style. "In Walked Dub" then introduces the bass-heavy wobble of dubstep, featuring a homemade bassline that will shake any sound system. Finally, "Exclusive" pays homage to the early days of Skream with raw, dubstep-inspired grooves that will resonate with fans of the genre.
Selection of all winners from the Music Team label - mid 80s to early 90s gems on here!
One of South Africa’s biggest independent labels for more than a decade, Music Team offered working musicians a shot at fame via access to top studios, producers, songwriters and session musicians, as well as distribution via a number of imprints: CTV, Red Label, Solid, Spinna, Mambo Music and others. Artists in the stable who tasted success would typically release a few albums over as many years before moving on to other labels or falling off the radar as times changed. At their peak, according to label boss Maurice Horwitz, Music Team was selling a million records a month, and was at the forefront of South African pop music as it evolved from soul to disco and beyond.
Afrosynth Records’ ‘Music Team Sampler’ dusts off six rare and long-forgotten gems from the Music Team catalogue, originally released between 1986 and 1992. Four are typical of the label’s take on the popular ‘bubblegum’ sound of the day — Isaac ‘Cool Cat’ Mofokeng’s ‘Candy’, ‘I Won’t Let You Go’ by Linda Oliphant, Jappie Lebona’s ‘My Love is Yours and ‘Instant Love (Eyami Lendoda)’ by Thandi Zulu (aka TZ Junior). Two instrumentals — Mr. Ace’s ‘Ace 1’ and ‘Axe Chop’ by The Hard Workers, a studio project by Music Team’s in-house producer Tom Mkhize — meanwhile hint at the imminent rise of kwaito and house.
Forged in the fire of a cruel and volatile political system that was gradually unraveling, instead of addressing political realities these indelible pop songs sought to provide an escape to a world where love and music were all that mattered.
Studio 1/11 – Schwarz
Beside GAS, Studio 1 is probably the most known project within Wolfgang Voigt’s oeuvre. The series, comprising ten vinyl-releases and one CD-compilation, was brought into being in 1995 and is - until today - known as one of the most important conceptual precursors of Minimal Techno.
The formally strict but highly memorable series of ten maxis without individual titles, whose covers only distinguish themselves by the chosen colour gained international attention, even far beyond the techno discourse.
In the context of the latest mammoth project »EARQUAKE – Wolfgang Voigt 1991-1999«, a comprehensive digital new-, respectively initial release of Voigt’s almost entire musical work of the 1990s, there are also some so far unpublished pieces going to be released on vinyl. So is the maxi-single »Studio 1/11 – Schwarz« from 1997, which - in respect of its sound and vision - assimilates seamlessly in the so far known series. A collector’s item.
Studio 1 ist neben GAS das wohl bekanntestes Projekt im Gesamtwerk von Wolfgang Voigt. Die 10 Vinyl-Veröffentlichungen und eine CD-Compilation umfassende Reihe wurde im Jahr 1995 ins Leben gerufen und gilt bis Heute als einer der wichtigsten konzeptionellen Vorläufer des späteren Minimal Techno.
Die formal strenge Serie aus 10 Maxis ohne individuelle Titel, deren Cover sich nur durch die gewählte Farbe unterschieden, erlangte - nicht nur durch den hohen Wiedererkennungswert - internationale Aufmerksamkeit, die weit über den Techno-Diskurs hinaus ging. Im Kontext des aktuellen Mammut-Projektes »EARQUAKE – Wolfgang Voigt 1991-1999«, einer umfassenden digitalen Neu- bzw. Erstveröffentlichung von Voigts nahezu gesamten musikalischen Schaffen der 90er Jahre, werden auch einige bisher unveröffentlichte Stücke auf Vinyl erscheinen. So auch die drei Stücke umfassende Maxi »Studio 1/11 – Schwarz« aus dem Jahr 1997, die sich in Sachen „Sound & Vision“ nahtlos in die bislang bekannte Reihe einfügt. Ein Sammlerstück.
Pink Martini’s illustrious “Little Orchestra” joins forces with Hollywood Legend, Mamie Van Doren, in an enchanting duo set of throwback singles. “I Told Ya I Love Ya Now Get Out” brings a buoyant beat to a shockingly delightful breakup track. Mamie revisits “Ich dich liebe” after first singing it in the 1964 Spaghetti Western film Freddy and the Song of the Prairie and somehow it’s as transporting now as it was then. Building on her already incredible legacy, Van Doren brings a fantastic energy to these tracks, which she recorded with Pink Martini in her early 90s, injecting her quintessential charm and verve into the vocals, which interweave perfectly into the rich and glamorous sound of Pink Martini.Ads and reviews in R" and London Macadam.
8 years after the official reissue of the LP “An Eye For An Eye” by Byrne & Barnes, Favorite Recordings proudly presents this new single release.
The 7inch first includes the classic “Love You Out Of Your Mind”, extracted from the WestCoast classic LP, which was a one-stop collaboration between Robert Byrne and Brendan Barnes, however both display incredible music career and went on to produce for famous artists such as Pointer Sisters, Patti Austin, Earth Wind & Fire, or Phil Collins to name just a few. The song parades all the elements of the AOR style: a jazzy sometimes fusion approach, with modern soul and groove flavors.
The other side features an exclusive and unreleased track by Robert Byrne, dug by the original executive producer up in his archives for our great pleasure. “Do You Wanna Make Some Love” is also nurtured with Westcoast and AOR vibes, while leering to Boogie and Disco influences. We have no doubt it will delight all the Byrne & Barnes music lovers and many more.
Proper old skool rave vibes all over this epic debut EP from The Break Doctor and Fibzy. 4 slammin breakbeat workouts, with pianos and vocals all over the place, sounding like unreleased material from late 1994, this EP is a dead cert for any proper old skool rave heads...pure vibes!
DJ Support: David Morales, Louie Vega, Hector Romero, Dave Lee ZR,Tony Humphries, Kevin Yost, Jimpster, Atjazz, Ron Trent, Dj harvey.
Considered the Master of Italo piano house, Don Carlos is up next on friends Micky More & Andy Tee's label Groove Culture Deep with an EP of Finest Classic Piano house.Features the amazing, warmup Classic House of ‘Italian Paradise Piano’ followed by the Deep heater ‘Soul Emotion' and The Garage Late-night ‘Good Emotion’(Vocal Mix) on the A-side. The flip offers ‘Paranoia’(Piano Edit) and ‘Good Emotion’(Paranoia Mix) both tracks perfectly capture the zeitgeist of house music's golden era of late 80’s early 90’s.
