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Emerging DJ and producer Yemi brings the soulful groovers to the Time Is Now white label series.

Having already received support from the likes of UKG mainstays Sammy Virji, Conducta and Smokey Bubblin' B during his relatively youthful career, Yemi is certainly an artist to watch. For justification, look no further than the vibrant, uplifting 6-track EP which combines luscious vocals and blissful piano chords to create a sound which is at once nostalgic and fiercely forward-facing.

Its two opening tracks get things off to a buoyant start, with a bouncing 4x4 rhythm and the syrup-smooth vocals of emerging artist and long-time friend, Bria Keely. Pair these with rattling bongos on "Never Let You Go" and the gleeful trumpets of "Smooth Talkin" and you have two tracks which make it impossible to keep still.

"My Heart" welcomes a change in mood with a loose two-step swing and moody vocals: a track made for the feels. But before you get too self-indulgent, the deep bass grooves of "Soul Food" bring the energy right back and "Tension"'s euphoric piano chords leave things on an ecstatic high.

Hooversound hits the ground running with its first 2022 release, this time introducing UK artist RAVETRX to the table with a heavyweight EP that’s been doing the rounds on NTS, BBC Radio 6, and Rinse FM.

If the first track is a raver’s drive into the sunset, cruising through ecstatic trance vocals and euphoric jungle breaks, the rest of the A-side plants the listener right at the heart of the warehouse, where kick drums land chest first and hi-octane acid stabs fill the air. The B-side takes us deeper with eyes-down, knees-up techno slammers, with previous label collaborator Mani Festo making an appearance on ‘Feels Good Inside.’ Wrapping things up, ‘Tribe Sequence Calling’ shakes off the tension with distorted guitar riffs and a slouchy 4/4 beat.

Hailing from Liege in Belgium, David Body has been put on our radar with releases on the fine Endless Music — but this EP for Exploited’s Black Jukebox series looks set to propel him to a new level.

‘I Bird You’ is a seriously charming affair, led by a colourful, sugary-sweet refrain that twinkles and sparkles in cute fashion. A warm deep house groove crafted through swirling Rhodes chords builds the vibe before the flowery melody explodes into life, pushing the track into an altogether more magical direction.

‘Jack Me Baby’ channels rubbery bass and a galloping house beat, with minor piano chords creating a dramatic feel as a classic vocal sample whoops away in delight. The enormous snare-rolled propelled build-up thrusts the track into overdrive, with a delightful, balmy synth line woven in to provide a mystical counterbalance.

‘The Talking Mouettes’ is a supremely feel-good slab of Balearic-tinged house, with choice piano chords cut up and cascading over a high-energy groove. Big squelchy melodic bass wiggles under the chords and shoulder-popping chime riff, with plenty of power and punch scattered throughout to keep the vibes rolling.

‘Endless Love’ is an absolute monster to close the EP, a soaring, triumphant electro beauty that overflows with euphoric melody and ecstatic, eyes-closed-and-rolling tingles. It just keeps building and building through layer upon layer of synth mastery to an explosive, epic climax.

Oh Yeah" - Charles Mingus (p, voc); Booker Ervin (ts); Roland Kirk (fl, ts, siren, manzello, stritch); Jimmy Knepper (tb); Doug Watkins (b); Dannie Richmond.

Commenting on this album in 1962, Billboard magazine wrote: »He seems to be everywhere, everywhere that is but on his usual instrument«. Charles Mingus, one of the most impressive musicians in the history of jazz, doesn’t play a single note on the bass for a change, but leads the band from his (blues-)piano – the instrument that he always used for composing. He hits the keys, he sings the blues, he shouts and he encourages – apparently Mingus really found the need to express himself loudly in this album. (Doug Watkins stood in for him on the contrabass.) "Oh Yeah" is definitely Mingus’s most powerful and passionate album. He calls on two hot, intensive saxophonists – Roland Kirk and Booker Ervin – as well as Jimmy Knepper on the trombone. Kirk is the main soloist, but all three wind-players deliver expressive improvisations, carrying out a non-stop dialogue with one another, and pushing one other to achieve maximum energy. The music is wild and ecstatic, but it’s not free jazz, remaining – as it does – grounded in blues and gospel. "Hog Callin’ Blues" is an enthralling shuffle with a wealth of riffs, "Devil Woman" a clever slow blues with inventive wind figures. "Ecclusiastics", with its constant change of rhythm and expression alternating between gospel and blues has the most complex form. Blues has always been a part of a black church service, said Mingus. "Eat That Chicken" (a homage to Fats Waller and his favourite food) even plays around with an old-time, Dixie feeling. Humour is never far away. Even in the atomic bomb song (this too, a sort of churchy blues) one hears the words: »Don’t let ’em drop it! Stop it! Be-bop it!«

Re-mastering by: Cicely Baston at Alchemy/Air Mastering

Recorded in 1986 in Paris and originally released only in France, Great Friends mines the John Coltrane spiritual legacy with fervent incantatory playing and an ecstatic charge. Not that alto saxophonist Fortune and tenor man Harper necessarily speak with Trane’s voice, but the intensity of their playing and their use of certain scales and modes produce a Tranelike atmosphere. Drummer Hart (who organized this band at the request of a Japanese promoter), bassist Workman and pianist Cowell form a hard-hitting team alongside the horns.

Things begin with “Cal Massey,” a tribute penned by Cowell. Harper sets the spiritual vibe in motion with a big-toned, take-no-prisoners solo. The Texas tenor man has the heaviest low-register sound in the business. On Workman’s “East Harlem Nostalgia,” he chomps into the low notes as a prelude to wailing runs into the upper register. Harper’s up tempo “Insight” is the album’s tour de force, with rippling solos and torrid exchanges between the saxophonists. Fortune’s searing tone is well suited to the exuberant joyride of this performance.

The rhythm section can be compared to the McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones triumvirate that backed Trane. Equally heavyweight and agile, it is relentless in its conviction and spiritual attitude.

Heavy 180g black vinyl. First time on vinyl. 350gsm Gatefold, interior sleeve printed. Half Speed Mastering. 45 rpm.

The Threshold HouseBoys Choir was a project by Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson. Operating out of Bangkok, Thailand, the Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV founding member started this audio and visual endeavour following Coil's end. File under COIL Forever, Erotic Trance, Religious IDM, Ecstatic Classical, Post Ethnic Industrial Exotica and best album ever heard.

Pink Vinyl

Drifting on oceans of thunderous stillness, carried away by endless currents, whipped up by waves of darkness devouring you until you see the light. The first album from Platoo, a collaboration between Michelle Samba and Phil Mills, has an unrelenting cadence that grabs you and refuses to let go. A distinctive combination of calming soundscapes and highly-charged energy fitting any occasion, from dancing like lost souls in the empty halls of ancient barracks to ecstatically tripping on a distant desert planet.

To Phil and Michelle creating Platoo was about being given a sense of freedom and exploration, at once shaking off habits and rediscovering forgotten values. Phil's love of the mesh of ''real'' sounds and electronics, and quest to establish a balance where both would feed off each other saw him abandon convention and standard structures, deviate from the beaten path and let things come to life. Michelle's quest to create, to inspire and be inspired, to draw her conclusions from serendipitous events allowed her to break things open and be at ease with letting herself go to create the breathing space needed for this new sound.

What makes their symbiosis fruitful is a common yearning for the unknown, a search for what works without exactly fathoming why it works. The result is something that indeed meets those needs, a strange and beautiful musical exploration.

Is there a better pairing of kindred spirits than a split seven-inch single featuring Le Butcherettes and Death Valley Girls? We're hard pressed to think of one. Sure, the interaction is fleeting, but damn is it satisfying. We've got Le Butcherettes on side A taking on one of Death Valley Girls' most cosmic numbers, the kaleidoscopic centerpiece off Under the Spell of Joy album, "The Universe." Le Butcherettes' fearless and charismatic mastermind Teri Gender Bender takes the tune into even trippier territories, replicating the original song's sonic tapestry of synth, sax, and guitars with layer upon layer of vocals. Only the sparse accompaniment of acoustic guitar and modest percussion keeps the song from being fully a capella. It's a perfect interpretation of Death Valley Girls' communal and choral aims. On side B, Death Valley Girls offer up a new tune - the deliciously ecstatic "When I'm Free." Like every great Death Valley Girls song, it's a celebration of life bolstered by fiery rock n' roll riffage, spiritual organ, dizzying sax, and Bonnie Bloomgarden's defiant and triumphant vocals. Suicide Squeeze Records is proud to offer up this meeting of mystical minds on vinyl and digital platforms on February 11, 2022.

Jessy Lanza has always made music that perfectly suits the mood - whether it's the heads-down trance of the dancefloor or that hazy, post-club bliss. It's no surprise for an artist that takes electronic music's most intoxicating sensibilities and effortlessly reimagines them as experimental pop and R&B. The Canadian singer, producer and DJ from Hamilton, Ontario, has trodden an inspiring path which led to 2013's boldly minimalist debut Pull My Hair Back, released on revered UK label Hyperdub. Gorgeously complex follow-ups Oh No - shortlisted for Canada's prestigious Polaris Prize - and 2020's All the Time crowned her as a singular talent in the left-of-pop sphere. It's with this genre-bending approach that Jessy Lanza presents her entry for the DJ-Kicks series - a sprawling, club-indebted odyssey that draws you in closer and closer with each listen. Recorded this summer, the mix is an incisive snapshot of her emotional landscape during the past 18 months. In 2020, with nothing but a van, a few personal belongings and her musical gear, Lanza and her partner relocated from New York City to the Bay Area to ride out the pandemic. A change of scenery, buoyed by the slower pace of their new home, gave her a fresh perspective during a worldwide screeching halt. Jessy Lanza's DJ-Kicks mix also arrives as a divine stroke of timing. As the world slowly starts to re-open, it's a portal into the ecstatic energy of the dancefloor; an emblem of genuine healing - both personal and communal - that transports listeners to a state of pure euphoria.

Aleksandar Grozdanovski aka Herzel makes his debut on Massimiliano Pagliara's Funnuvojere Records. This release follows a series of EPs on labels like Dubwax, Uncanny Valley and Hivern Discs, as well as a couple of recently self released ambient LPs.

The four tracks exemplify Herzel's mastery of cosmic soundscapes. The rarefied synth lines of A1 - Bitter Tears animate an ecstatic dancefloor. This is deep psychedelic House at its best and it resonates with the arpeggiated and enveloping B1 - Shaking Slightly. A2 - DSCN is unexpectedly raw reminiscing Ghetto House washed over with Cold Waves. Closing the record B2 - Ghosting rises in a dome of fuzzy yet penetrating frequencies. All the compositions sound exquisitely sharp and alive thanks to the skilful beat structures that create a very solid groove.

Heavenly Recordings announce the release of ‘Heavenly remixes 3&4 - Andrew Weatherall volume 1&2’, a brace of compilation albums collecting together some of the finest remixes from the label’s long-time friend, collaborator and go-to remixer. These compilations follow ‘Heavenly remixes 1 & 2’, which showcases some of the label’s other great remixes.

 By the time Heavenly was born in the spring of 1990, Andrew Weatherall was already an inspirational sounding board, as well as a fellow traveller on the bright new road that stretched out ahead, thanks to the massive cultural liberation of acid house. Back then every energised meeting could be turned into a fortuitous opportunity in this burgeoning new underground economy. Bored of your job? Start playing records out! Start a club night! Get in the studio!
Start a label! Just don’t stand still. Commandments Andrew would follow for the rest of his life.

 At the start of things, Andrew was a regular visitor to Capersville - the pre-Heavenly press office run by label founder Jeff Barrett (soon to become Andrew’s manager). It was there that he famously picked up a copy of Primal Scream’s unloved second album and singled out a
track that would later become ‘Loaded’, after being given an instruction to “fucking destroy” it by the band’s Andrew Innes; it was there too that the idea to remix the first Heavenly release
came about.

 Andrew’s mix of that first Heavenly record is very much a product of its time. ‘The World According To Sly and Lovechild’ is a swirling bass punch topped with a hypnotic marimba line and the kind of ecstatic diva vocal that you’d hear coming out of the speakers all night at postShoom clubs like Yellow Book.

 His take on the label’s next release - Saint Etienne’s ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart (A Mix of Two Halves’) - would set the template for his next three decades of audio exploration. A drawn-out imperial dub, the track builds and builds with a moody intensity (partly down to the
melodica played by Weather Prophets legend Pete Astor) that’s far more Kingston JA at dusk than Kingston-upon-Thames at kicking out time. It’s both a dancefloor record to get lost in and
headphone psychedelia of the highest order - a perfect example of what he did better than anyone else.

 Between 1990 and his untimely death in 2020, Andrew fed more Heavenly bands through the mixing desk than those of any other label. Consistently, he returned visionary music to the
office, often in person for (at least) one ceremonial playback - a ritual that would involve the volume cranked up high and Andrew rocking back on his heels, eyes closed, lost in the alchemy of it all.

 Each time, he would warp and twist originals into beautiful new shapes - elasticated club records that might evoke Detroit techno one second and Throbbing Gristle the next, before wheel-spinning into something akin to The Fall produced by King Tubby.

 Andrew’s studio adventures would always be guided by that early advice to destroy the source material. It’s why he was the first name that came up when remixes were discussed; the first number on the speed dial. Listening back to these remixes now - to thirty years of glorious outsider sounds - it bangs home again just how fucking good Andrew was.

The Norwegian-born/Berlin-based electronic duo Soft as Snow returns with their most powerful statement yet. Their second full length 'Bit Rot' perfectly captures the friction of our contemporary existence in which smooth digital surfaces are locked in conflict with messy physical realities. The crumbling of fantastic European infrastructure is mirrored by luxurious synthwave and ecstatic trance crumbling into nightmarish, corroded cyberscapes.

The songs on 'Bit Rot' create a wide variety of zones in which pleasure and discomfort come together organically and seamlessly. Even as these songs are eaten alive by oppressive atmospheres and destabilizing glitches they never lose sight of their strong melodic underpinnings. Tracks like 'Always On', 'Soft Body Hard Dreaming' and the terrifyingly intense title cut are like visits to a rave inside a paranoid microchipped brain, while 'Rubber Boy' presents electro-industrial funk sung by a caged mutant. On the more restrained tip, fluorescent ballads like 'Hollow' and 'Quiet Anger' evoke the feeling of slipping into a fugue state at an all-night convenience store. This is European nightlife imagined as biomechanical horror.

The album was mixed by Ville Haimala of fellow nordic club destroyers Amnesia Scanner, and the striking cover art features a sculpture by Norwegian artist Camilla Steinum. To further elaborate the album's themes in the visual realm the duo is creating a music video and live A/V show with 3D artist Guynoid, including a special latex suit made in collaboration with AGF Hydra. In this way, 'Bit Rot' grows beyond the album itself into a larger project exploring the fluidity of body and identity when the digital and the physical fuse as one.

Lion's Drums full length exists as en exploration in multiple dimensions. First by challenging the notion of the album format by presenting a body of work that lies snuggly between remixes, edits and original works and secondly as a means to delve into the transcendent potential of the drum. The album sets the tone by putting these two concepts fully on display with its hypnotic chant, swaying one into ease over the first two songs. In orderly cue folding and unfolding, meditatively through, melodies as muddied pastelle whispers cast over the measured language of the drum. Breaking away from the musing themes of the opening songs we find an ecstatic ritual in "Tanz der Korperlinge" and "Journey to Middle Earth", two distinct varieties but both of the same perennial species. Inky ether seeps back in through the second half of the album with a peak of frenzied tumbling toms and incongruous textures hovering above in the Manos Tsangaris' collaboration "Crying Tafel" and his re-imagining of Tullio De Piscopo's unhinged drum excursion "Fastness". The closing exemplifies the edit/remix/original ethos proposed for this work with Lions Drums drawing from tapes and original material of electronic pioneers Suzanne Ciani and Roberto Musci. Drawing from unreleased music and song sketches by the original artists as well as field recordings from travels & studio sessions made by Roberto Musci & Manos Tsangaris in the 80's and early 90's he constructs a side winding journey through playful textures and ethereal moods.

'Very ‘Eavy, Very ‘Umble’ by Uriah Heep, Picture Disc Vinyl, Limited Edition, Official Collectors Release, The debut album which helped pioneer the heavy metal genre. LP set on heavyweight vinyl.

BMG are ecstatic to announce the release of ‘Very ‘Eavy, Very ‘Umble’, the debut studio album from Uriah Heep, on an ‘Official Picture Disc LP’ for the very first time. Containing the original audio recorded in Lansdowne Studios, this new pressing of the album contains the hits ‘Gypsy’, ‘Come Away Melinda’ and more.

This seminal album was first released in June 1970, featuring the obscured, cobwebbed face of David Byron on the artwork.

Uriah Heep continue to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the formation of Uriah Heep with the release of their debut album ‘Very ‘Eavy, Very ‘Umble’ on official picture disc LP for the very first time. This LP begins a series of collector picture disc’s releases from the Uriah Heep catalogue.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Party lose themselves in this collection of ancient songs whose lyrics recall Sufi poetry and stories. Shahbaaz is intense, ecstatic and uplifting. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is one of the key artists on Real World Records and certainly one of the most influential. His voice is universally recognised as one of the greats in musical history and he was key in bringing the Qawwali music tradition—a form of Sufi devotional music popular in South Asia—to the Western world. In his lifetime, Khan collaborated with many Western musicians, including Peter Gabriel, Eddie Vedder and Michael Brook. His vocals appeared on soundtracks to films directed by Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone and Tim Robbins. The foremost reason for his popularity is inventiveness—an ability to bring together separate traditions. To the popular Qawwali (devotional Sufi) form he has blended elements of the highly classical vocal tradition known as Khal (Persian for imagination). In this way he has created a wholly original fusion. More importantly perhaps he also draws on a range of lyrical material. It is as though he is continually both forgetting and reliving the six centuries of his family’s musical experience in a quest to find new and ever more daring paths to the sublime, carrying both eastern and western audiences to that realm known to the Sufis as Isshq— the state where earthly passion and divine love are reconciled.

Sharing the same forward-facing approach to techno music, it was about time that Roman DJ and producer Adiel lands her debut EP on Stroboscopic Artefacts. Following on from an array of 12-inches on her own imprint, including a recent joint effort with Anthony Linell, 'If Not Now When?' is an ode to the all-enveloping strangeness of eternal nights that cuts a path of ecstatic light in the dark.

*Limited edition of 200 copies, heavy weight vinyl, comes with poster* fmvee joins Queeste with who do u love?, an EP of fractious songs recorded over a tumultuous four-month period in Los Angeles. Having debuted in 2018 with a set of club contortions touching on jungle and 2-step, the US artist returns with a work of intense self-reflection. Lived experiences are transmuted into an amorphous bricolage of pummelling kicks, synthetic textures, and diaristic details, what they describe as an act of "remembrance." Working and living in LA, the "grind" alongside "aspirational partying," and the confrontation of depression during an intense relationship, informs the EP on levels both sonic and thematic. The slippery rhythm and melodic stabs of 'the way you see yourself' embodies a state of flux, also recalling the early experiments of the LA beat scene. Distant jazz drumming fills its peaceful coda before 'everythingUneverKnewUwanted' introduces an echo lifted directly from the artist's life: a trickling courtyard fountain. This first phase of the release finds resolution with 'thewayothersseeyou,' a conceptual mirror to its start, and one which carries a notable shift in tone; gleaming percussion has given way to ominous synths. Despite the EP's personal nature, collaboration is crucial. 'Seed Perfuming (LoLo v665)' is an fmvee original transformed into a cascading breakbeat by New York producer and engineer Loric Sih AKA LoLo, an ecstatic yet familiar form nestled amidst otherwise bruising encounters. 'sobbing' follows, a digital-age ballad of original lyrics exploring dependency: emotional, physical, and otherwise. It's a poignant conclusion to an appropriately hallucinogenic collection, an intoxicating chemistry of love and loneliness co

Recommended if you like: Com Truise, Toro Y Moi, Tycho, Tourist. British Columbia producer Jamison Isaak didn’t anticipate an adulthood of globe-trotting songcraft, but teenage exposure to iconic French house music videos cast a spell on him that still holds: “I knew then this is what I wanted to do'’ Catalyzed by synthetic sights and sounds from oceans away, he patiently taught himself primitive software and recording programs, reverse engineering the heady, swooning horizons of the dance music that had permanently bewitched him. A decade later, having amassed an expansive discography of soft-focus synth pop and romantic electronic a crisscrossing the planet many times in the process the subtext of his project’s journey rings clear: “Teen Daze is dream fulfillment'’ Enter Interior. An ode to electric futures glimpsed in ecstatic heights, from bedrooms to big rooms, it’s an album of first loves refracted through prisms of wisdom, wounds, and wonder. Filter house and flashing lights; soft acid and vaporous neon; bumping clubs in spiral towers: “Like what the teenagers in Akira might be listening to'’ Collaborative cameos by multi-instrumentalist Joseph Shabason (on sublime fantasia opener “Last Time In This Place”) and vocalist Cecile Believe (on the glitch-glamorous anthem “2AM (Real Love)”) evocatively expand the record’s palette but otherwise Interior is Izaak’s love letter to his own artistic awakening, to the paradigm shifts inherent in youthful discovery and remote dreaming — your world exploded, your life forever changed. Years of devotion and divergence have honed his craft radically; tracks like “Nite Rune “Nowhere and“Translation”are among the most supreme bangers in the entire Teen Daze canon, a delirious fusion of textural finesse and emotional transcendence. It’s music of skylines, escape, and sensual energy, forever cresting through nights that never end.

Recorded in Stockholm in 1962, and originally released on Sonet Records, these sessions stand as Ayler's first step into a new sonic world. This was when Ayler was still dealing with classic Jazz standards such as "I'll remember April", M Davis's "Tune Up" and "Rollins Tune", a declared tribute to the older master Sonny Rollins. His already super-strong tenor sax voice dominates a quiet, almost shy, local rhythm section featuring Torbjorn Hultcrant on bass and Sune Spangberg on drums. This was just before stepping into his unique, hyper energetic and ecstatic form of Free Jazz. This was Ayler sowing the seeds of a revolution to come!

“We go round and round in the night and are consumed by fire” *

After their highly acclaimed 'Come La Notte' (2019) WOW are back with 'Falene' a special limited release, a flickering light in the dusk where the comedown is ecstatic, intense and staggering.
In between lockdown the Roma Est quartet played the liberating Meletao festival in the Simbruini Mountains in the middle of a forest. One night a moth (falena) started dancing above the fire attracted by the light and after a few twirls dived into the flames.
Somehow ‘Come La Notte’ anticipated many of the atmospheres and emotions we’d encounter during confinement and isolation; ‘Falene’ instead was born directly from those ashes, ghostly homes, clandestine get-togethers, an old farfisa saved from dust that sparked the initial motif of the album’s title-track, a somber march, a mini-opera that sways gently, sprinkled by the beautiful sax played by Gianlorenzo Nardi and by one of the most intense China performances layed down on tape, foreshadowed by Julie Normal’s Ondes Martenot that graciously elevates the ‘Anticoda’ intro.
Tropicantesimo’s remix of ‘Occhi Di Serpente’ breathes new life into ‘Come La Notte’s classic, elevating the hypnotic and extending the pure tribal force with one of the signature trademarks of the Pescheria crew. ‘Partirai’ sung by Leo Non again is WOW at its purest, escapism to the max encapsulated in a nugget of primitive rock’n’roll and 60s night clubbing. Folks, it’s time to start living again.