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Multinational industrial black metal rising force Decoherence join Sentient Ruin again to bring you "System I", a 12" vinyl, digital and cassette tape full-length album/compilation of all the band's recent digital only singles and EPs, remastered to their final and ultimate form along with a glorious and previously unreleased cover rendition of Killing Joke's classic cut "The Wait". While these tracks were previously already digitally (self)released, don't be fooled or misled to think you're hearing any "b-sides" or otherwise "left over" material, rather, consider "System I" not only the righteous third official full-length album from the band, but also by far Decoherence's most visionary, cohesive, and imposing songs to date. Awe-inducing and ghastly in its enveloping immensity, the tracks on "System I" see the enigmatic multinational black metal band morph into their most defiant and commanding form yet, as they construct an impenetrable mechanized swarm of liquefying industrial hallucinations and swirling dissonance that eradicates the listener from their corporeal and terrestrial self to cast them at the edge of a light-devouring void. Stylistically "System I" sees Decoherence's sound still thrive and evolve within the familiar synthetic black metal deconstructionist framework of progenitors like Blut Aus Nord and Darkspace, but as the Killing Joke cover included unmistakably hints at, these tracks also reveal a marked shift for the band toward a more unintelligible, unpredictable, and ominous immateriality, as elements incorporated from post-punk and experimental industrial assume stronger delineations adding ulterior dimensions and identities to the band's already alien and otherworldly sound.

The full-length debut from Bendigo Fletcher, Fits of Laughter is a collection of moments both enchanted and mundane, sorrowful and ecstatic: basking in the beauty of a glorious lightning storm, waking with a strand of your beloved’s hair happily caught in your mouth, drinking malt liquor while bingeing “The X-Files” on a lonesome Saturday night. As lead songwriter for the Louisville, KY-based band, frontman Ryan Anderson crafts the patchwork poetry of his lyrics by serenely observing the world around him, often while working his grocery-store day job or walking aimlessly in nature (a practice partly borrowed from the late poet Mary Oliver). When matched with Bendigo Fletcher’s gorgeously jangly collision of country and folk-rock and dreamy psychedelia, the result is a batch of story-songs graced with so much raw humanity, wildly offbeat humor, and a transcendent sense of wonder.

True to its spirit of purposeful wandering, Fits of Laughter unfolds in a wayward yet lushly detailed sound, embroidered with everything from crystalline harmonies to blistering guitar riffs to heady drum-machine beats. For help in forging the album’s ragged elegance, Bendigo Fletcher worked with producer Ken Coomer (the original drummer for Wilco and Uncle Tupelo), whom Anderson met in a flash of strange serendipity. Soon after he’d connected with Coomer via phone and bonded over a shared affection for Pink Floyd’s Obscured by Clouds, the band headed to Nashville to record in Coomer’s garage studio, laying down the album’s eight songs in nine frenetic days.

In keeping with the regional perspective that defines much of folk and country music, Fits of Laughter ponders certain paradoxes inherent in the band’s homeland. “In Kentucky there’s a long-running frustration of tradition and stubbornness versus progress,” says Anderson. “On one side you’re looking at things like the coal industry or Mitch McConnell, but then there’s also a feeling of togetherness and a fuck-the-man attitude and a loving desire for everyone to be left alone.” Referring to Fits of Laughter as a coming-of-age album, Anderson also examines a more internal conflict throughout the songs, including his choice to abandon his medical-school aspirations in favor of pursuing a career in music. “The title’s really about the spectrum of emotions I’ve felt on the way to finding what makes me feel like I’m living truthfully, rather than holding onto what I think other people’s expectations are of me,” he says. “It’s a phrase that bridges all of those emotions—everything from joy to hysteria.”

Matveï is a one’s to watch of the new generation. Brought up on Electronic and Rap music, the French producer makes up an exciting cocktail of international house and urban club sounds. Spotted by Kitsuné while just turning 18, his first releases quickly raised his profile on international tastemakers radar – with support from Martin Garrix and official remixes for the likes of and Future Classic, Liv Dawson and Crystal Fighters.

This maxi is a limited edition specially created for the 2021 Record Day Store in Europe. You’ll find the original version of the track followed by an instrumental version and a club edit.

The Sublime Sculpture of Being Alive,’ the new album from
Los Angeles-based Media Jeweler, is a three-dimensional reckoning with
the contradictions of life in all its manic altitudes and claustrophobia.
Recorded over three chaotic weeks in Omaha, the band’s elaborate sonic infrastructures carry the same sense of studied experimentation as Palm, Guerrilla
Toss or Deerhoof, rollicking across an energetic spectrum that parlay the band’s
post-punk roots, jazz rhythms and art punk choruses into something greater
than the sum of its parts.
The most fully-fleshed release yet, a myriad of musical collaborators were enlisted uniting a finely-tuned sense of adventurousness that roves between the
personal and political to frame an acute portrait of modern day societal revelation.
‘The Sublime Sculpture of Being Alive’ is out on Fire Talk (Dehd, Deeper, Mama

Since its inception in 2019, Beartrax’s Melodize imprint has consistently pushed deep, musical house and techno with contributions from John Tejada, Fort Romeau, Carl Finlow, and many more standing alongside Beartrax’s original productions throughout the label’s back catalogue.

Leading the sixth release, ‘Phantom Night’ sees haunted atmospherics nestled amongst ethereal synth licks, before a cinematic violin takes centre stage. Johannes Albert’s remix peppers elements of the original with slick acid lines and punchy drums, re-imagining the dramatic violin for a fresh and highly entertaining take.

On the flip, the uplifting ‘Valor’ runs through a series of modulating basslines, glistening pads, and sizzling drums, topped off with a majestic cello performance throughout.

Rounding out the release, Lauer adds rubbery low end, floating keys, and hands-in-the air piano stabs to ‘Valor’ for a high-energy end to another stellar EP from Melodize.

"The title 'The Big Picture' is about seeing things from a positiveperspective, the album wants to be an optimistic pill although a bigreflection of what I have been, what I lived and what I have become atthis very moment. I feel in an age where I feel fine looking at the pastas much as looking forward to the future." -AFFKT Inspiration strikes in a myriad of waves. AFFKT's new album bringstogether all the best feelings and elements of the Spanish producer'screativity into one cohesive release. New concepts and styles that deliver the energy needed to be released after a forced pause. Sonically speaking 'The Big Picture' is probably his most expansiveand multifaceted electronic-driven album to date. AFFKT's carefullyconstructed retro-futuristic electronica definitely suggests the quaintand unique forms of body music bringing ties with rock, pop andcertainly more organic sounds. The musician is creating a new path, anew future by travelling to the past. This new LP is redefining its ownnew genre somewhere between techno, indie dance, industrial andnew wave inspirations.

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Remastered reissue of Francesco Messina's seminal LP from 1983 produced by electronic Italian pioneer Franco Battiato.
Messina and Battiato are considered central figures within the Italian avant-garde. Part of a generation of artists who contributed to a radical rethinking of musical practices and composition, they reveal Minimalism as it's rarely known: delicate melodies, subtle harmonic interplay, incorporating diverse creative traditions and slowly giving way to an ever-expanding open space. This album was recorded at the legendary Polygram Studios in Milan and using the most powerful electronic music synthesizers for that times like the CMI Fairlight and the EMU Emulator.

After featuring on the label with a contribution to Erell Ranson’s “Hand In Hand” Remix EP in 2018, SUED co-operator SW. punches back in on KOC with a hectic six-track sonic journey by way of inaugural transmission.

Crest-surfing the margins betwixt abstract beat-making, hardware experimentation and further explosive club-ready wares, the German producer breaks the trip in with the tropical hot "ariaJA" - reeling out a savvy mashup of animalian field recording, spaced-out FXs and loopy elastic bounce.

Cranking up the heat, a notch further, "moonNEWsoon" pulls out a hot mix of muscle-aching breaks, jackin' n’ smackin' toms and iridescent synth stabs, all coated with a thick sauce of mind-boggling machine stunts. Trading its gridlocked intro for an aqueously luxuriant design throughout, gOiOsee has us deep-diving in an all-blue scenario where each element finds itself draped in richly-hued envelopes.

Flip sides and here comes the further shape-shifting, non-formulaic "mASsLESS", which invites us to see straight through glassy cascades of skittish snares, gummy synth arpeggios and futuristic chimes as an Eden of AI-rendered birdsongs and forgotten melodies come to life before our eyes.

Back to a more dynamic mindset, “justMUST4y brings lush flights of altered piano chords and pop-informed harmonics face to face with a gritty, metronomic drum work to weave another singularly off-kilter epic SW. holds the secret of, right before "VFXpeaksTWIN" wraps it all up in a soul-invigorating, Twin Peaks-scented and horizon-broadening ambient finale.

Fake Laugh & Tarquin first became acquainted a very long time ago, before they were either Fake Laugh or Tarquin. Two humans in their late teens with a keen interest in sound, they would indulge each other in whatever conversation they could muster while loitering in the corridors of their sixth-form college. Their place of learning existed in a sleepy Sussex town where once a year, the skies are filled with explosions, while burning effigies are carried through the cobbled streets by inebriated locals. The two did not suspect that much would become of their light friendship - but in good time that would all change…

In the years that followed, the two young artists moved to London and embarked upon their own totally distinct musical journeys - Fake Laugh was playing in venues with ‘rock bands’, while Tarquin was carving out a niche for himself in the bubbling, lava-like instrumental grime scene, which brought a new kind of heat to the clubs of the city. His vibrant, unapologetically obtuse (and at times absurd) brand of club-music delighted the ears of listeners, the feet of dance-floor dwellers and the brains of music theorists - all in one fell swoop. Having released with Mr. Mitch’s crucial Gobstopper imprint as well as big-guns Rinse, Tarquin has become a household name in the homes of those that know. All the while, Fake Laugh was in his bedroom writing scores of songs and occasionally releasing collections of the strongest cuts on a variety of indie labels who believed in his talent for timeless melody, focussed through his own rose-misted, yet modern lens.

It wasn’t until the fabled summer of 2019 that Fake Laugh & Tarquin would make music together in the same room. The first session resulted in album opener Slow, a song which for the previous two years, lay dormant in an acoustic form on a dusty Fake Laugh hard-drive. Fake Laugh had the idea that perhaps the song could be transformed into something far bigger and better in the hands of Tarquin - a theory which was proven correct.

Throughout Fake Laugh & Tarquin the pair continuously confound the listener, fusing sharp and glacial synthetic elements with warm organic tones and heartfelt vocal performances. Money was written at the start of the global pandemic, a time in which people had more financial concerns than usual. Rejecting total doom and gloom, Fake Laugh & Tarquin turn this dystopian angst on its head and create a one-of-a-kind club mover that pulls inspiration from the super-slick grooves of early noughties stalwarts Moloko and Groove Armada. The album twists, turns, morphs and mutates until it’s peaceful conclusion in the form of existential piano-ballad Meaningless Thin

Hospital Records are extremely proud to present ‘Smile & Wave’, the
second studio album from drum & bass’ friendliest MC, Inja.
With the biggest smile on his face, the lyricist, vocalist, poet, artist and storyteller delivers
16 tracks, seamlessly weaved together through Inja’s infectiously feel-good flow and sincere
wordsmithery. The entire album was produced by Whiney, further cementing their relationship as one of the most untestable dance music pairings. Also featuring Charlotte Haining,
Eva Lazarus, DRS, Fox, Cleveland Watkiss, Singing Fats, and DJ Marky.
Album title track ‘Smile & Wave’ is the musical embodiment of Inja’s playful demeanour.
Known for being the world’s smiliest artist, Inja wrote and recorded this feel-good bouncer
alongside his daughter who is “pretty much the first person to hear anything” he’s up to
musically. Expect a rude bassline and infectious wordplay.
Teaming up with superstar singer-songwriter Charlotte Haining, ‘Reach Out’ sees two of the
most distinct voices in dance music come together over a bittersweet wobbler written about
times when you feel “so out of place, out of reach” in the words of Inja. Having worked
alongside an impressive array of electronic artists including Hybrid Minds, Sub Focus, My Nu
Leng and Friction, Charlotte’s delicately powerful hooks are the perfect counterpart to Inja’s
heartfelt flows.
Luscious pads and dubbed out pianos and guitars set the scene on ‘Baby Angel’ featuring the
worldwide wave-maker Eva Lazarus who returns to Hospital Records for the first time since
featuring on Etherwood’s ‘Light My Way Home’ back in 2015. Having worked alongside staple
figures including Mungo’s Hi-Fi, Zed Bias and Gentlemen’s Dub Club, Eva infuses her reggae,
hip-hop and jungle flavours alongside Inja’s humbling storytellings.
Inja’s “personal favourite to perform live as it smashes every and any system”, ‘Explode’, is a
140BPM anthem featuring flows that will ignite any room and a killer instrumental that will
have you bobbing no questions asked. Proving himself to be a versatile and skillful microphone controller, Inja’s ability to shell down any tempo is ever more apparent on this upfront
banger.
Three legendary MCs unite on ‘Hands, Lights, Flames, Phones’ where Inja joins forces with
two of Manchester’s very finest - DRS and Fox. Sharp lyricism is rife as the triple threat of
three titan wordsmiths link up, seeing energetic bars bouncing off each other over a cold-cut
drum & bass roller. This is a combination not to be tested.
Inja has established himself as a pinnacle figure within the realms of drum & bass. Loved for
his ability to express his thoughts into honest, relatable lyrics in ‘She Just Wanna Dance’, a
spoken word piece for Amnesty International that was a viral online hit in 2017, and more
recently switching it up to ‘We Just Wanna Dance’ during the UK lockdown, expressing his
desire to be reconnected with ravers again. Then picked up by BBC News and Sky News.
On top of being the MC of choice for drum & bass powerhouse group Kings Of The Rollers,
Inja is no stranger to tearing things up on the airwaves with support from the likes of DJ
Target, Rene LaVice and Danny Byrd on BBC Radio 1 over the years. Since his debut ‘Blank
Pages’ album on Hospital Records in 2018, Inja has flourished as a multi-talented MC, vocalist, singer and songwriter with a series of singles including the Beatport Drum & Bass charttopper ‘Game Face (Stay Alert)’ alongside Whiney, as well as the infamous ‘Lumberjackin’’ on
Serum’s Souped Up.
"To all the supporters that enjoy anything I’m a part of, I would never have had the opportunities to see as much of the world as I have without you. My gratitude has no bounds and I’d
love to share a smile with you all one day.” - Inja

Release Me 2 is a new collection of ten previously unreleased studio performances from the legendary Barbra Streisand, spanning 1962 to 2014. The album showcases exquisite songs and sublime studio performances recorded over the course of Barbra's astounding career, but shelved for various reasons. In her notes for the album, Barbra says, "For me, the studio is a combination musical playground and laboratory…a private sanctuary, where the possibility of catching lightning in a bottle always exists. Whenever that kind of magic happens, it's extremely satisfying. Sometimes though, when the arrangement doesn't quite gel or the song no longer fits the tone of the album it was meant for, the tapes go into the vault for safekeeping. Working on this 2nd volume of Release Me has been a lovely walk down memory lane…a chance to revisit, and in some cases, add a finishing instrumental touch to songs that still resonate for me in meaningful ways.

Release Me 2 features songs penned by celebrated writers and tunesmiths including Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Barry Gibb, Randy Newman, Michel Legrand/Alan Bergman/Marilyn Bergman, Harold Arlen and "Yip" Harburg, Carole King, Steve Dorff, Paul Williams/Kenny Ascher, and Walter Afanasieff/John Bettis.

Widely recognized as an icon in multiple entertainment fields, Barbra Streisand has attained unprecedented achievements as a recording artist, actor, director, producer, screenwriter, author, songwriter and concert performer. Streisand has been awarded two Oscars, five Emmys, ten Grammys including the Legend Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award, a Tony Award, eleven Golden Globes including the Cecil B. DeMille Award, three Peabodys, and the Director's Guild Award for her concert special -- the only artist to receive honours in all of those areas.

After the exploration of snowy mountains of Alpestres, released on Hands in the Dark in 2018, French composer Matthias Puech ventures into new territories, sketching a cartography of the invisible where the journey, in chiaroscuro, is announced as a rite of passage. A Geography of Absence, as introspective as unpredictable, immerses the listener into a unique sensory whirlwind where organic matter becomes almost palpable. A researcher in theoretical computer science and an engineer at GRM, Matthias Puech constructs a dialog between synthetic music and field recording, capturing sounds that surround him and creating his own sonic language with the help of synthesizers he designs and develops; notably the Oscillator Ensemble and the Tapographic Delay, made by the American company 4ms.

Composed during a moment marked by ordeal and mourning, A Geography of Absence retraces an inner journey where the physicality of sound leads the listener into an initiatory tunnel filled with apparitions, ghosts, visions. With sound oscillations as a navigational map, we progress, step by step, through the meanders of an unknown world, dazzled by the prospect of a new synthetic horizon, an electronic biotope teeming with life and incarnations. Playing with time, space and matter in an approach similar to that of musique concrète, Matthias Puech combines ambient and noise, floating sounds and electroacoustic experimentations, thus shaking up our listening perspective, which finds itself walking through a parallel universe, strata after strata, sequence after sequence.

The trip begins with “Hollow”, as if on board a night train travelling at full speed through ghost towns. Or is it a spaceship? Removed from their original habitat, sounds – picked up during walks or moduled by synths – are free to be interpreted differently by everyone, according to the memories that shape us. Granular and metallic, this first piece takes us to an elsewhere in orbit. "Work Song" is built around the pulsation of the void, of space, where strange creatures and liquid emanations abound. We become fetus, cocoon coiled in the placenta, heart beating to the rhythm of the gooey choreography of the human body. "Chrysalis" awakens the racket that lies dormant in us, when the skin changes, when the transition takes place. One seems to recognize certain sounds stemming from nature but they could also be mirages, imitating reality to render the barely perceptible engulfing. “Tunnel Vision” brings out a herd of haunted bells, slowly swelling in a pastoral maelstrom, ending in a deafening buzz. Further on, the chirping of an animatronic bird mixes with the hooting of an owl: "A Faint Beacon" invokes a nocturnal vigil that mixes the crackling of a fire and icy gusts of wind blowing everything away. Like an epic, sucking the listener into the breach of a black hole in the center of the Milky Way, it's up to "Homeostasis" to conclude in the high spheres and contemplative vapors, where the balance of dawn announces a rebirth.

A Geography of Absence is a meticulous and sensitive piece that constructs a delicate symphony of extremes, between introspection and desire for the unknown. Accompanied by the ink work of the artist Léa Neuville, whose folds of prints sketch this imaginary atlas, Matthias Puech becomes a narrator of mental adventures. And succeeds once again in transcending reality to dig a path to the unspeakable.

**LONG OVERDUE REPRESS - CLEAR VINYL 300 COPIES ONLY** “With Ela’s music I feel emotional, engaged… I can’t help but feel she’s always looking for a sense of belonging and it
seems to inform all the music that she makes. Glasgow must have more of that belonging feeling than most
cities because she’s spent the most time here, an exotic bird in a rainy city she maybe finds a lttle bit of comfort in. It’s
a pleasure to have her here, in this awful time to be living in Britain, her illuminations feel important and hopeful. A
stubborn light; someone making great timeless music out of the humdrum of the everyday.” - Stephen Pastel
Movies For Ears is a retrospective collection of works by Polish-born, Glasgow-based artist Ela Orleans which
navigates almost two decades of songwriting in the heart of the global pop underground. This remastered collection casts
an ear over what Orleans might call the ‘pop sensibility’ within her back catalogue. Released previously on a number of
small DIY labels, Orleans’ music coincided with the explosion of auto-didactic musicians finding their voice in the age of
the blogosphere, artists emboldened by the democratisation of music-making afforded by the internet. From the outset,
Orleans’ childhood studying formal music mixed with cut-up techniques, sampling, sound-art and experimentation to
create a distinctive signature cloaked in an innate melancholy and playfulness. Fully remastered by James Plotkin,
featuring extensive sleeve-notes and rare photos from Orleans’ archive, Movies For Ears presents an appraisal of the
musician’s work, painting a portrait of an artist with an uncanny ability to evoke emotions and ghosts of memories in the
listener.
Each song pulls sunshine from its surroundings, moments of pleasure plucked from eulogies. The Season employs a
hypnotic loop with Orleans’s prophetic voice heralding the season we’re doomed to repeat. In fact the singer is often cast
as the changing protagonist in her songs: on Walkingman, a hazy ballad heavy with ennui, the narrator is laden with the
world’s weight, forever pacing a groundhog day world blank, a pissed-off actor in a Kafka-esque melodrama. On Light At
Dawn we’re in a seedy kitsch bar-room go-go scene, a ghostly rock’roll romance with shimmering percussion, poledancing
in a Lynchian half-dream. Movies For Ears’ moods straddle memory and fantasy: scratchily invoking halfremembered
exotica, the flickering shadows of europhile cinemas screens, a delicately woven world anchored in Orleans
existential meditations on longing, intimacy, solitude and the search for love. These rich textures in every song don’t
overpower some crystalised moments of emotion however: on In Spring Orleans sings simply “I have been happy two
weeks together,” summarizing that feeling of elation when emerging from a depression, a long winter. It’s a moment that
perfectly illustrates the lightness of touch and clarity in the singer’s voice.
The power of the loop and Orleans’ weaving songwriting that breaks its spell is illustrated perfectly by I Know. Over an
aching chord progression, the vocal takes flight into bittersweet loneliness, Pachelbel’s Canon played at a wedding where
only one person shows up. The repeated refrain “I know, I know” ascends to the heavens as the chords descend to the
dumps and the listener is left in the middle, happy but not knowing why, maybe a little changed, two weeks together. On
Movies For Ears, Ela Orleans lets us into a secret: the rare moments of joy to be found in the joins of the loop, the spaces
between things, the spring after the winter are the moments that last after the day has faded.

Last autumn Leng Records welcomed a new name to the roster, Greek DJ/producer Lex, via some warming and colourful tracks on the label’s 10th Anniversary LP and sampler EP. Now the Athenian has returned with his first full release for Paul Murphy and Simon Purnell’s popular imprint.



Real name Alex Andrikopoulos, Lex first rose to prominence in his home city of Athens when he ran the Radical Soundz record shop during the first decade of the millennium. More recently his reputation has spread worldwide thanks to his association with Leng, a recent 12” on B2 Recordings and DJ sets that frequently join the dots between disco, house and techno.



His first full EP for Leng is arguably his most musically expansive collection of tracks to date, with a swathe of guest players – keyboardist Artis Boriss and drummer/percussionist Harold Perez most prominently – swinging by to help bring Lex’s vivid musical visions to life.



For proof, check out lead cut ‘Punta Allen’, an eight-minute chunk of organic dancefloor goodness in which Lex and his musical associates layer steel pan style melodies, spacey synthesizer flourishes, eyes-closed electric piano solos, warming chords and jangling guitars atop a heady bass guitar line, unfussy drums and sweaty pots-and-pans percussion. The track’s effortless evolution, which slowly unfurls before rising towards a gorgeous and joyous conclusion, is testament to the Greek producer’s dancefloor instincts.



You’ll find more low-slung, dub disco-influenced bass on the exotic ‘The Jamail Pass’, where mazy and feverish organ solos and rolling hand percussion provide a platform for Paqua member Alex Searle’s Nile Rodgers style guitar sounds. The track’s inherent funk – emphasized by occasional bass guitar solos and fills, as well as some tumbling synth sounds – is apparent throughout the track, something that only adds to its smile-inducing allure.



Closing out a very impressive first EP on Leng is ‘Angels of Rhythm’, a hazier, faster and more intergalactic excursion that cannily combines the low-slung bass of dub disco with the intoxicating vibes and warming dreaminess of deep house. The track’s intoxicating late-night feel is partly due to an undecidedly cosmic spoken word vocal from sassy singer Harrier Summer, though Artis Boriss’ pitch-bend-sporting synth solos and fizzing electronic noises certainly help. Driving but also deep and groovy, ‘Angels of Rhythm’ offers a memorable conclusion to a very impressive EP.

The Forbidden Dance label is marking their first year of existence and with already top-notch names (Vick Lavender, Alton Miller, The Mechanical Man) with the first three releases, they are celebrating the one year mark with another global gem, disco and house finest - Ilija Rudman!
Where Wild Horses Go is conveying an unquestionable sense of 80's electro and synth boogie filled with smooth and heavily reverberated rhythmics drenched in strong snares. Aligned with catchy and spaced-out disco pads, the album is riddled with ever strong analogue elements processed in a light, quirky and summerish way but with enough groove in some tracks easily applicable on the dancefloors in the late hours.
Dead Horse Gang is a brainchild music band/brand by Ilija Rudman dedicated to cinematic dance concept laying on the Los Angeles funk attitude, Art Of Noise perception of sound and raw 12-bit grooves making a statement of mid 80's culture with surf vibe of California summer.
"Dead Horse Gang Music is more than music, it's a way of life, a way of thinking, a path to a maximum freedom of the one, who can accept it."
-Ilija Rudman

The latest installment of Four Flies' exclusive 12-inch vinyl series for DJs features Neapolitan-born producer pAd putting a dance-floor spin on "Manhattan" and "Philadelphia", both from Alessandro Alessandroni's soundtrack to Alfonso Brescia's Sangue di Sbirro (aka Knell, Bloody Avenger, 1976), a pulp/noir score that perfectly embodies Alessandroni's take on the Italian approach to blaxploitation (the main theme is clearly inspired by Isaac Hayes's music for Shaft).

pAd gives each Alessandroni original the double treatment, with a "daylight" and a "nightclub" version. His daylight "Manhattan" combines disco-funk with elements of 80s electro, while his nightclub one is more openly nu-disco/nu-soul and incorporates hip-hop and jazz-funk sounds. In its turn, "Philadelphia" is reworked into a delicate, soulful downtempo track (nightclub), as well as into a dub/leftfield & slow funk version with a sprinkling of Arab influences (daylight).

pAd's brilliant reworks fully respect the spirit of the originals while giving them new life in the present, where the music of a genius like Alessandroni is finally getting the recognition it deserves.

Repress !

Where We're Calling From
The Liminal Zone: Reflections on Duval Timothy’s Sen Am
Lamin Fofana

Sen Am is an enduring and tender album, rich and beguiling and generous in a quiet way. Over the last few years, I find myself returning to it, listening and absorbing, reflecting on the voices and working through the multiple layers of feelings and themes it announces with confidence and equanimity. Notions of care and contradiction, expressions of joy and desire and the underlying feeling of unease and turmoil; there is an urgent appeal to the listener for generosity, to strengthen our capacity to hear multiple voices simultaneously, to exist in multiple places at once.

Duval Timothy’s music was dropped into our world from another realm sometime in the spring of 2017. We received the call and we answered it. The rhythm and spirit was transmitted via London’s NTS Radio on the Do!! You!!! Breakfast Show with Charlie Bones and a short while later we were listening to the first vinyl edition of Sen Am in our living room in Berlin. The record got a lot of plays (at home and at some shows, before and after performances). It was like sunlight filtering through a cracked window and remaining there for a moment, dancing. Blue music emanating from a liminal zone, an in-between space, somewhere on the outskirts of Freetown, or rural Sierra Leone, or the outer edges of South London, or Bath, UK, or some undisclosed orbit, unfixed location. The music is soaked in diasporic experiences. It refuses to settle but still invites us to enter and stay awhile in that zone, where multiple forms exist (all) together with jazz, hip-hop, various strands of expressive electronics and experimental music all breathing together and moving around. It is a portal to a place of possibilities, a space for building and repairing possible and lost connections. But life in that liminal zone is precarious; it is life under duress; under pressure – not merely the pressure to produce a presentable, categorizable, and salable body of work, but the pressure that compels us to experiment and create new concepts and things that will help us imagine a different existence, a way out of the turbulence.

Freetown is a marvellous and sometimes sad place. It is one of those unmistakable locations inscribed diasporic memory; a place that touches you, a place that holds you and demands you bear witness: witness to pain, poverty, joy and desire. You remember the voices and the eyes of people even in momentary encounters. In Sen Am, you hear not only Duval’s recollections and sounds of Freetown, you hear family and friendship, people coming together and forming bonds, creating surrogate families. Forging community wherever you go is a practice, and community is at the core of this music. It’s in all the voices, from Emmerson and 6pac to Aminata and Aruna. It opens up a space for Black voices, for Sierra Leonean voices, and those voices extend through the succeeding projects, the 2 Sim EP and the album Help, and all that radiates from Duval’s Carrying Colour imprint.

Thank you for the invitation to write about the album Sen Am, on the occasion of its re-release which also coincides with the release of the exquisite double 7” Smɔl Smɔl with cktrl — a wonderful piece which calls on the listener to play both records at the same time to hear the music or play them separately and hear different versions. Duval is strengthening us, encouraging us to feel comfortable with discomfort, with incompleteness, with the hard-to-understand. This is a beautiful thing.

- North American version on CLEAR vinyl (2XLP) - Limited DOUBLE 180g Vinyl Edition (500 copies) with obi strip - Rare Dutch studio recordings, one of Art's last sessions before he passed away - Comes with insert/liner notes // Art Blakey (1919-1990) actually needs little introduction, the American Jazz drummer and bandleader made a name for himself in the 1940s & 1950s playing with contemporaries such as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. He is often considered to have been Thelonious Monk's most empathetic drummer (he played on both Monk's first recording session in 1947 and his final one in 1971). In the decades that followed Blakey recorded for all THE labels that mattered in the field of jazz (Columbia, Blue Note, Atlantic, RCA, Impulse!, Riverside, Prestige, Verve, etc.). His collaborations were numerous and include working with equally legendary artists such as Sonny Rollins, Max Roach, Chet Baker, John Coltrane_.and countless others.Art Blakey was a major figure and a pioneer for modern jazz, he assumed an aggressive swing drumming style early on in his career and is known as one of the inventors of the modern bebop style of drumming. His signature polyrhythmic style was amazing, exuding power and originality, creating a dark cymbal sound punctuated by frequent loud snare and bass drum accents in triplets or cross-rhythms. A loud and domineering drummer_but Blakey also listened and responded to the others in the band. He was an original, an important drummer you'd hear_and would recognize immediately.Art Blakey was inducted into the Downbeat Jazz Hall of Fame (1981), the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame (1991), the Grammy Hall of Fame (1998 and 2001) and was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 2005. He was sampled and remixed by renowned acts such as Raekwon, Black Eyed Peas, A Tribe Called Quest, Digable Planets, Buscemi, KRS-One and Madlib.In the mid-1950s he and Horace Silver formed `The Jazz Messengers': a group that Blakey would perform and record with for the next 35 years. Originally formed as a collective of contemporaries_but over the years the band became known as an incubator for young talent that included artists such as Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton, Chuck Mangione, John Hicks_and MANY others. Art Blakey went on to record dozens of albums with a constantly changing group of Jazz Messengers. Blakey's final performances were in July 1990. He died on October 16 of lung cancer. The legacy of Art Blakey and his band is not only the music they produced, but also the opportunities they provided for several generations of jazz musicians.Released on the legendary Dutch jazz label Timeless Records and one of his final recordings_on the album we are presenting you today (Chippin' In) you'll find ten sublime tracks recorded at Rudy van Gelder's Recording Studio in February 1990. Art Blakey passed away just 8 months after these tracks were cut and you can't hear any signs of him slowing down at all. For these specific recordings, The Jazz Messengers were expanded from its usual quintet or sextet into a septet and they showcase their energetic signature sound with remarkable style, musical knowledge, a dash of good humor and camaraderie you'd expect from a world class band who have entertained, thrilled and amazed for almost five decades. The line-up on these fantastic sessions includes non-other than Essiet Okon, Geoff Keezer, Dale Barlow, Javon Jackson, Frank Lacy, Steve Davis and Brian Lynch_impressive to say the least!Chippin' In sounds as successful, young and vibrant as ever! Expect supercharged hard bop with striking notes, no-holds-barred musicianship, high swinging solos, screaming choruses and plenty of solid virtuosity to spare. This electrifying set of tracks contains both originals and several eclectic versions of standards_making this release a bonafide hit and a must have for any self-respecting jazz fan or collector.

For over 20 years Gosub has brought us his brand of classic electro cuts, so it was really interesting to see his techno mind in action on “Cosmic Cannibals”. Though out this release Gosub drapes soul across the Detroit fueled 808/909 foundation though out this vinyl release.

Starting with “The Depth Charge” a dark dimensional warping bass and a synth that cuts through the darkness sounding like if Charlie Parker designed a synth a definite for repeat. Full 909 in effect on “The Way Home II” with heavy toms an high Ph acid lines provoke the listener to pay further attention to the details in this track.

On the B-Side “The Ratio” which features New York’s Preston Fulwood on vocals and keys brings in the funk infused to Gosub’s more familiar electro beats we find really rewarding. This track is brings the funk and jazz while Preston’s vocals make you want to sing and find your own soul. The ending’s dark vocoder reminds the listener that “This is just your virtual reality”. Preston & Gosub makes you want more of this future sound. Lastly, “Omni Presence” grounds us again with low swung 303 baselines grinding against a straight 4 on the floor beat while supporting synths carry on with their own conversation. Be warned.

We hope you enjoy this analog recording.

It’s finally here, and what an explosive package it is!

Our beloved Ricky Nelson’s previously unreleased and final “live” concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England that Ricky and his band performed on November 17th, 1985 - along with a very special added extended play record that includes 5 tracks from his final unreleased sessions with Curb Records. This vinyl package is a MUST for anyone who loves to listen to the original rockabilly artists of the 50s in addition to Ricky’s millions of fans and collectors alike.

It’s finally here, and what an explosive package it is!

Our beloved Ricky Nelson’s previously unreleased and final “live” concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England that Ricky and his band performed on November 17th, 1985 - along with a very special added extended play record that includes 5 tracks from his final unreleased sessions with Curb Records. This vinyl package is a MUST for anyone who loves to listen to the original rockabilly artists of the 50s in addition to Ricky’s millions of fans and collectors alike.

»Dog Mountain« is the second release by the Zurich-based producer and composer Laurin Huber on Hallow Ground. After last year’s »Juncture« saw the Edipo Re co-founder work mostly with synthesizers and programmed rhythms, the four tracks are much more restrained, drawing on tape loops and feedback, recordings of acoustic guitar and synthesizers such as the Korg MS-10 as well as field recordings that relate to the overarching topic that informed the making of the record. While »Juncture« had previously aimed at deconstructing the binaries and dualities that shape our lives and thinking, »Dog Mountain« is dedicated to geographical divisions that result from political processes and social constructions. »›Here‹ means one nation, ›there‹ another,« writes Huber in a literary piece that accompanies the record. »Being in sound, such a separation seems odd.«

While treating the metaphor of the border as a »membrane, registering and translating the vibrations of its surroundings« and thus as something that is constantly (re-)defined, maintained and defended however, the artist also takes into consideration that »one cannot escape one’s standpoint,« as he puts it. The music on »Dog Mountain« may transcend and overcome certain borders, but it does not deny the realities that they impose on each and every one of us – whether in our political lives or in the realm of sound. This is mirrored in Huber’s engaging in the structural and sonic interplay of repetition and difference. Working with slowly evolving and modulating elements that are exposed to slight shifts, »Dog Mountain« puts a focus on the interaction between small elements that together form a bigger whole which is marked by constant evolution and change.

Opener »Raja« (»border« in Northern Sami and Finnish) starts off with a two-note melody played on an out-of-tune guitar. Different field recordings and synthesizer sounds drop in and out of the mix until the dynamic shifts and Huber starts playing more notes on his instrument, thus increasing the tension. It’s a meditation on minimalism, but also a piece that mediates between notions of what constitutes the difference between noise and music or referentiality and abstraction in sound. After »Nickel« (named after a Russian monotown near the border to Norway) dedicates itself to explore the friction between hissing white noise and melancholic tape loops, »A Town Is Not a Town« (a phrase taken from the documentary »Kiruna – Rymdvägen«) structurally mirrors the experiment of »Raja« with very different sonic means.

Closing the record, »Storskog-Borisoglebsk« (the title refers to the northernmost land border between Schengen-Europe and Russia) is the longest and most challenging piece, working with both long-form drones and musique concrète elements. It proposes a synthesis of the opposites that are explored patiently and with much attention to detail throughout this record.

 On ‘Phantom Rhythm’, Gong Gong Gong’s raucous debut, the
minimalist Beijing duo created a drummer-less sound that was
more than the sum of its parts, inspired by back-porch blues,
Sahelian guitar music, New York no-wave, Cantonese lion
dance percussion and, seemingly most incongruously, techno.
 With ‘Phantom Rhythm Remixed’, Gong Gong Gong bring to life
a concept they’ve planned since the release of their acclaimed
first album, curating their favourite China-connected electronic
music producers to remix ‘Phantom Rhythm’ in its entirety.
 The globe-spanning collaboration features Yu Su (Vancouver /
Kaifeng), Zaliva-D, Simon Frank, Howie Lee (Beijing), Mong
Tong, Scattered Purgatory (Taipei), Knopha (Xiamen), Wu
Zhuoling (Chengdu), Angel Wei (Copenhagen) and P.E.
(Brooklyn).
 The album traces a common thread, organically expanding the
palette of Gong Gong Gong into ambient club tracks, thumping
dance music, cinematic soundscapes and doomy, bit-crushed
psych.
 Gong Gong Gong are the duo of Tom Ng and Joshua Frank.
Formed in 2015 in Beijing, China, they make music from the
sparest of means: one guitar and one bass, interweaving riffs to
create forward-charging, drumerless grooves. Their inspirations
extend from Bo Diddley to African and Southeast Asian folk
music, psychedelic drone and the structures of electronic music.
 “A couple of misfits and a brash bouquet of sound” - Pitchfork
 “Spare and savage” - The New Yorker
 “String-focused, hypnotic, spitfire tracks” - Stereogum
 “A rare kind of intimacy you don’t often find with driving,
ramshackle funk” - Loud And Quiet
 “Depending on your ear, the Beijing-based guitar-and-bass duo
could sound like The Feelies’ stuttering post-punk, Bo Diddley’s
rock and roll boogie or Tinariwen’s droning desert blues” - NPR

"The definition of a hidden gem" - John Peel / "The world seems finally to be catching up to Leslie Winer, whose startling intelligence and singular vision shine through her copious recording life." - Max Richter / "She might just be the coolest woman on the planet!" - Boy George "When I Hit You - You'll Feel It" is a 16-track anthology that celebrates the extraordinary work of musician, poet, and author, Leslie Winer. The collection spans Winer's three-decade-long musical career: from her groundbreaking solo work in the early '90s to her latest inspired projects. Featuring musical contributions from Jon Hassell, Helen Terry, Jah Wobble, Renegade Soundwave's Karl Bonnie, and others, the collection also spotlights Winer's diverse collaborations, unearths previously-unreleased recordings and was newly remastered by the GRAMMYr-nominated engineer John Baldwin. The album includes a new interview with Winer, captured by the compilation's co-producer, acclaimed author and critic Wyndham Wallace. Rounding out the package is an insightful essay by the award-winning writer and scholar Louis Chude-Sokei and an original cover collage by the renowned British photographer and artist, Linder, featuring photography by Mondino, and design by designer Christopher Shannon. Musician, poet, iconoclast, model, artist, enigma. Leslie Winer is many things. She grew up in Boston with a voracious appetite for music and the written word and embraced the city's lively jazz and folk scene in the '70s. Moving to New York for art school, she formed an unlikely friendship with writer and artist William S. Burroughs and lived on-and-off with Jean-Michel Basquiat. In London, where Winer began her musical ventures in earnest, she was a regular at Leigh Bowery's underground club Taboo, where she met many of her collaborators, including filmmaker John Maybury, Kevin Mooney (of Adam and the Ants), and Boy George. Winer's striking looks also attracted fashion designers and photographers. Throughout the early '80s, she was an in-demand model-appearing in campaigns for Valentino, Christian Dior, and Yohji Yamamoto, and serving as a muse for a young Jean-Paul Gaultier, who later dubbed Winer "the first androgynous model." She posed for Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, and Pierre et Gilles, and graced the covers of The Face, French and Italian editions of Vogue, and Mademoiselle. But music was Winer's true passion and, at the turn of the '90s, she would unknowingly help invent the massively popular genre known today as trip-hop. On her debut, Witch, Winer masterfully blended the uninhibited sampling of early hip-hop with dancehall basslines and programmed beats, while weaving mesmerizing - and coolly-detached - spoken-word vocals into her ambient tracks. It was unorthodox in the most delicious ways. While Witch was finished in 1990, it wouldn't be released for three years, due to the whims of Winer's label. By the time the album saw the light of day (released under the pseudonym "c"), trip-hop was gaining mainstream traction via acts like Portishead, Massive Attack, and Madonna. Although Winer eventually gained wider acknowledgment (prompting the NME to give her the dubious distinction of "The Grandmother of Trip-Hop"), Witch initially went sorely unnoticed. Winer continued to record, undeterred by the elusive nature of mainstream success in the modern music business. Her network of inspired collaborators continued to grow and expand, yet her influence remained largely a secret except to those in the know, such as Grace Jones and Sinead O'Connor, who would cover her songs. In the modern era, one is hard-pressed to find an artist who continues to push the creative envelope as much as Winer does. And yet, three decades after her revolutionary debut, her work remains just as startling and fresh.

Cindytalk is the mercurial, expressionist outlet of Scottish artist Cinder. An evolution of her early 1980's Edinburgh-based punk band The Freeze, she launched the project upon moving to London, inspired by the crossroads of exploratory UK post-punk and early European industrial. Her work thrives on chance and transformation, collaging elements of noise, balladry, soundtrack, catharsis, and improvisation. After a series of celebrated albums for the Midnight Music label as well as collaborations with This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins, Cinder migrated to the United States, becoming involved with various underground techno collectives around the Midwest and West Coast. Subsequent relocations to Hong Kong and Japan further expanded Cindytalk's horizons, resulting in a fruitful partnership with Viennese experimental institution Editions Mego, for whom she released five full-lengths of swooning, granular atmosphere. 2021 finds her as engaged as ever, at the precipice of long-awaited back catalog reissues alongside multiple new works, guided by her lasting love of discovery and deviation: “new pathways always being uncovered.”

The 3rd album by Scottish industrial enigma Cinder aka Cindytalk began life as the soundtrack to an experimental film by English director Ivan Unnwin entitled Eclipse (The Amateur Enthusiast's Guide To Virus Deployment), and was originally slated for release via Factory Records' video division, Ikon. Inspired heavily by Alan Splet's eerily disembodied sound design in David Lynch's Eraserhead, the collection's 15 pieces seethe between field recordings, wistful piano vignettes, and lurking metallic haze – a hybrid palette Cinder characterized at the time as “ambi-dustrial.” Unfortunately Ikon collapsed on the eve of the project's completion so the film was never distributed, but the Midnight Music imprint repackaged Cindytalk's score as an LP in 1990 under the name The Wind Is Strong... (full title: The Wind Is Strong - A Sparrow Dances, Piercing Holes in Our Sky).

Cindytalk is the mercurial, expressionist outlet of Scottish artist Cinder. An evolution of her early 1980's Edinburgh-based punk band The Freeze, she launched the project upon moving to London, inspired by the crossroads of exploratory UK post-punk and early European industrial. Her work thrives on chance and transformation, collaging elements of noise, balladry, soundtrack, catharsis, and improvisation. After a series of celebrated albums for the Midnight Music label as well as collaborations with This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins, Cinder migrated to the United States, becoming involved with various underground techno collectives around the Midwest and West Coast. Subsequent relocations to Hong Kong and Japan further expanded Cindytalk's horizons, resulting in a fruitful partnership with Viennese experimental institution Editions Mego, for whom she released five full-lengths of swooning, granular atmosphere. 2021 finds her as engaged as ever, at the precipice of long-awaited back catalog reissues alongside multiple new works, guided by her lasting love of discovery and deviation: “new pathways always being uncovered.”

The 3rd album by Scottish industrial enigma Cinder aka Cindytalk began life as the soundtrack to an experimental film by English director Ivan Unnwin entitled Eclipse (The Amateur Enthusiast's Guide To Virus Deployment), and was originally slated for release via Factory Records' video division, Ikon. Inspired heavily by Alan Splet's eerily disembodied sound design in David Lynch's Eraserhead, the collection's 15 pieces seethe between field recordings, wistful piano vignettes, and lurking metallic haze – a hybrid palette Cinder characterized at the time as “ambi-dustrial.” Unfortunately Ikon collapsed on the eve of the project's completion so the film was never distributed, but the Midnight Music imprint repackaged Cindytalk's score as an LP in 1990 under the name The Wind Is Strong... (full title: The Wind Is Strong - A Sparrow Dances, Piercing Holes in Our Sky).

Cindytalk is the mercurial, expressionist outlet of Scottish artist Cinder. An evolution of her early 1980's Edinburgh-based punk band The Freeze, she launched the project upon moving to London, inspired by the crossroads of exploratory UK post-punk and early European industrial. Her work thrives on chance and transformation, collaging elements of noise, balladry, soundtrack, catharsis, and improvisation. After a series of celebrated albums for the Midnight Music label as well as collaborations with This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins, Cinder migrated to the United States, becoming involved with various underground techno collectives around the Midwest and West Coast. Subsequent relocations to Hong Kong and Japan further expanded Cindytalk's horizons, resulting in a fruitful partnership with Viennese experimental institution Editions Mego, for whom she released five albums of swooning, granular atmosphere. 2021 finds her as engaged as ever, at the precipice of long-awaited back catalog reissues alongside multiple new works, guided by her lasting love of discovery and deviation: “new pathways always being uncovered.”

Across decades of activity Cinder’s body of work has forever followed its own elusive muse but nowhere is this restless spirit more apparent and ambitious than the 4th Cindytalk LP, Wappinschaw. Conceived as “a call to arms” inspired by Scotland and its struggle for independence, the title refers to an archaic Scottish battle inspection during which clan chieftains surveyed their group's weapons to ensure they were combat ready. A mindset of reflective preparation threads throughout the record, manifested in forms both naked and noisy, ancient and anguished.

Opening with an aching solo vocal rendition of the British folk standard “The First Time Ever (I Saw Your Face),” the album then surges into the Cindytalk classic, “A Song Of Changes,” sparkling and spiraling in strange waves of sorrow and joy. From there the mood fragments, tracing asymmetrical paths of feverish dirge, pensive spirituals, noir abstraction, spoken word (landmark Glaswegian writer Alasdair Gray guests on “Wheesht”), bagpipe drone, and apocalyptic post-punk. Given its aggressive eclecticism, it's not surprising that Cinder describes the creation of Wappinschaw as a “precarious” process, composed from “scraps” with abruptly shifting personnel – a situation only compounded by the impending dissolution of their label at the time, Midnight Music.

Cindytalk is the mercurial, expressionist outlet of Scottish artist Cinder. An evolution of her early 1980's Edinburgh-based punk band The Freeze, she launched the project upon moving to London, inspired by the crossroads of exploratory UK post-punk and early European industrial. Her work thrives on chance and transformation, collaging elements of noise, balladry, soundtrack, catharsis, and improvisation. After a series of celebrated albums for the Midnight Music label as well as collaborations with This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins, Cinder migrated to the United States, becoming involved with various underground techno collectives around the Midwest and West Coast. Subsequent relocations to Hong Kong and Japan further expanded Cindytalk's horizons, resulting in a fruitful partnership with Viennese experimental institution Editions Mego, for whom she released five albums of swooning, granular atmosphere. 2021 finds her as engaged as ever, at the precipice of long-awaited back catalog reissues alongside multiple new works, guided by her lasting love of discovery and deviation: “new pathways always being uncovered.”

Across decades of activity Cinder’s body of work has forever followed its own elusive muse but nowhere is this restless spirit more apparent and ambitious than the 4th Cindytalk LP, Wappinschaw. Conceived as “a call to arms” inspired by Scotland and its struggle for independence, the title refers to an archaic Scottish battle inspection during which clan chieftains surveyed their group's weapons to ensure they were combat ready. A mindset of reflective preparation threads throughout the record, manifested in forms both naked and noisy, ancient and anguished.

Opening with an aching solo vocal rendition of the British folk standard “The First Time Ever (I Saw Your Face),” the album then surges into the Cindytalk classic, “A Song Of Changes,” sparkling and spiraling in strange waves of sorrow and joy. From there the mood fragments, tracing asymmetrical paths of feverish dirge, pensive spirituals, noir abstraction, spoken word (landmark Glaswegian writer Alasdair Gray guests on “Wheesht”), bagpipe drone, and apocalyptic post-punk. Given its aggressive eclecticism, it's not surprising that Cinder describes the creation of Wappinschaw as a “precarious” process, composed from “scraps” with abruptly shifting personnel – a situation only compounded by the impending dissolution of their label at the time, Midnight Music.

Re-mastering by: Ray Staff at Air Mastering, Lyndhurst Hall, London

With the Buena Vista Stars, including Candido Fabre. Based on a true story and filmed in the exotic countryside outside Havana, this remarkable and engaging film will move both your spirit and your feet with its unforgettable passion and intoxicating music. The soundtrack and live performances in the film include some of the legendary Cuban artists who appeared in the box office smash, Buena Vista Social Club.

MAMBO MAN is packed with musical contributions from Cuban legends including; Candido Fabre, Maria Ochoa, Alma Latina, David Alvarez, Arturo Jorge, Omara Portuondo, Eliades Ochoa, Juan De Marcos Gonzalez and the Afro-Cuban All Stars.

REVIEWS Rome Prisma Independent Film Awards

“There is rather the mature and conscious gaze of two authors who want to represent Cuba, and the story of the protagonist, with truth and love. With this awareness, each shot conveys a charm superior to that of a good staging. This film, made with passion, penetrates the audience to the rhythm of music and tells us about a whole, small, precious universe, absorbing its beauty and misery. “Mambo Man” is a bit like Cuba: beautiful, kind and melancholic.”

J.B. Spins, Joe Bendel

“It’s a dynamic, colourful film, with bustling markets, lively clubs, friendly outdoor cafes, and—best of all—a remarkable soundtrack of classic Cuban music, which is a focal point of the film.”

Tape

"Precision ambient might be a suitable genre description for metra.vestlud's work. Every element has a clearly delineated meaning and purpose, and the precise interaction between these elements makes the musical pieces seem more like songs rather than Eno-style ambiences. From flowing water, to nervous birds and rich emotional textures, ∞ sends us onto a deep and thoughtful sonic journey about the flow of life and the many springs therin."

Artem Dultsev was born in 1993, in Revda, Russia. In 2010 he started to write music and later released under different aliases: Artem Dultsev, Moon Rabbit, Virusmoto. In 2017 he founded with a friend Daniil the label Faktura, where they began to release records from the Urals region. The history of metra.vestlud began In 2019 with the release of the album - Hydrogen Lifeforms (Faktura).

metra.vestlud began as a protest against the standard principles of sound recording and musical theory. All the rules and boundaries were shifted towards the unconscious - that something unique would emerge. But on the album ∞ - the other side of this sub-personality showed itself, the sensual side. The music of metra.vestlud is inspired by the eco-futurism and new age of the 80's-90's.

“The album is dedicated to my wife. In April 2021 we had a son.”

"Two days before the birth of our first child, I was sitting at home alone while my partner was already in the hospital. I wasn't able to visit due to Covid restrictions. Anxiously waiting for any updates, while Germany being in complete lockdown, searching for distraction, I did something I rarely do: look into the public-facing email account of my previous label. Normally, I only find spam in there, but this time there was an email that looked different, it was a demo I was supposed to consider for release. I could tell this person had listened to previous music I had been involved with and deliberately chose to send this to me. I could also tell right away that something special was being sent to me. I downloaded the music, listened to it, and to my surprise, was moved to tears. This was on a Friday night in Leipzig, around 32 hours before our child was born.

Sometimes this world can be incredibly strange but in the most beautiful way. For some reason, someone from Yekaterinburg in Russia, close to where the European and Asian continental plates meet, decided to send me an unspeakably beautiful album for release on my new label (which I technically hadn't even founded yet). The album is centered around love and birth, and it sounds like emotion-fueled beginnings, like a meta-version of spring you can visit any season you like. And I received it less than two days before the birth of our child and a couple of months before the birth of their child - what are the odds? And not just that, I had visited Yekaterinburg many years ago with my parents due to a somewhat mysterious obsession my father had with the place and it had left quite an impression on me. There are some moments in life where you think: "please just pinch me". I am just not sure anymore how much of all of this can be attributed to chance. Probably a lot, but if so, it also means incredibly unlikely and beautiful things do happen even if they probably shouldn't.

In any case, I am grateful metra.vestlud reached out to me at this very special moment in time and I am grateful we have created something that will forever document a very special time in our lives. And we are incredibly happy that we are able to share this document with the world." - kofla tapes

∞ is dedicated to metra.vestlud's wife, In April 2021 they had a son.

Exclusively on vinyl, The 60s Album brings together some of the biggest and most iconic names of the decade.



A value packed 37 tracks kick off with one of the greatest of all time ‘Good Vibrations’ from The Beach Boys, and continues with solid gold smash hits including ‘House Of The Rising Sun’, ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’, ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’’, the timeless ‘In Dreams’ from Roy Orbison, ‘Blue Velvet’ from Bobby Vinton, and the epic ‘River Deep Mountain High’ by Ike & Tina Turner.

Side B begins with a 6-track salute to the soul female stars and groups of the era - The Supremes, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, The Ronettes, The Crystals, The Shangri-Las and Lesley Gore are all here, alongside some easy listening from Andy Williams and Julie London, and the cool pop jazz of Astrid Gilberto and The Dave Brubeck Quartet.



The second LP begins with 6 of the most iconic U.S. tracks ever: Simon & Gafunkel’s ‘Mrs Robinson’, and Harry Nilsson’s ‘Everybody’s Talkin’ lead into the peerless ‘Witchita Lineman’ from Glen Campbell, the immaculate ‘California Dreamin’ from The Mamas & The Papas, Scott McKenzie’s ’San Francisco’, and Linda Ronstadt’s defining vocal as part of The Stone Poney’s on ‘Different Drum’. The side is rounded off with 3 of the most atmospheric pieces of music from the 60s… ’A Whiter Shade Of Pale’, ’Nights In White Satin’, and Fleetwood Mac’s stunning ‘Albatross’.

The final side offers up Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Ben E. King and Dusty Springfield as some of the best voices and most soulful performances ever, before some of the greatest pop from Petula Clark, Love Affair and ‘I Got You Babe’ from Sonny & Cher and then it’s left to two of the biggest names in music history to close the album - Bob Dylan, and the incredible ‘In The Ghetto’ from Elvis Presley.



37 of the greatest tracks and artists from an era-defining decade… The 60s Album.

Available on CD and 180gram heavyweight gatefold LP.
Noura Mint Seymali hails from a Moorish musical dynasty in Mauritania, born into a prominent family of griot and choosing from an early age to embrace the artform that is its lifeblood. Yet traditional pedigree has proven but a stepping-stone for the work Noura and her band have embarked upon in recent years, simultaneously popularizing and reimagining Moorish music on the global stage, taking her family's legacy to new heights as arguably Mauritania's most widely exported musical act of all time.
Arbina is Noura Mint Seymali's second international release. Delving deeper into the wellspring of Moorish roots, as is after all the tried and true way of the griot, the album strengthens her core sound, applying a cohesive aesthetic approach to the reinterpretation of Moorish tradition in contemporary context. The band is heard here in full relief, soaring vocals and guitar at the forefront, the mesmerizing sparkle of the ardine, elemental bass lines and propulsive rhythms swirling together to conjure a 360 degree vibe. Arbina refines a sound that the band has gradually intensified over years of touring, aiming to posit a new genre from Mauritania, distinct unto itself, music of the "Azawan."

Supported by guitarist, husband and fellow griot, Jeiche Ould Chighaly, Seymali's tempestuous voice is answered with electrified counterpoint, his quarter-tone rich guitar phraseology flashing out lightning bolt ideas. Heir to the same music culture as Noura, Jeiche intimates the tidinit's (Moorish lute) leading role under the wedding khaima with the gusto of a rock guitar hero. Bassist Ousmane Touré, who has innovated a singular style of Moorish low-end groove over the course of many years, can be heard on this album with greater force and vigor than ever before. Drummer/producer Matthew Tinari drives the ensemble forward with the agility and precision need to make the beats cut.
Many of the songs on Arbina call out to the divine, asking for grace and protection. "Arbina" is a name for God. The album carries a message about reaching beyond oneself to an infinite spiritual source, while learning to take the finite human actions to necessary to affect reality on earth. The concept of sëbeu, or that which a human can do to take positive action on their destiny, is animated throughout.

Lyrically, the Moorish griot tradition is complex and associative. Poetry is held in a continuum between author and audience in which a singer may draw on disparate sources, selecting individual lines here or there for musicality to form a lyrical patchwork expressing larger ideas via association. A griot may relate her own thoughts and poetry, sing poetry written for and about her by a third party, and transmit lines from one party addressing another in the course of a single song. With this ever-fluid narrative voice, stories are told.

A first-time replica re-issue of a highly sought-after, rare Brazilian MPB / Funk nugget from 1974.

Brazilian 7" singles or compacts sometimes get a bit overlooked outside of the world of avid Brazilian collectors and DJs, but here are where some of the most exquisite jewels of Brazil's rich musical tapestry lie.

This release has been a long time in the works, but now finally we are thrilled to present a replica version of one of our favourite Brazilian 7”s - the outstanding 'Morro Do Barraco Sem Água' by Lemos E Debétio (aka Toninho Lemos & Paulo Debétio). Discovering tracks like 'Morro Do Barraco Sem Água' makes you want to go the extra mile. You spend that little bit more time than is rational examining and dusting off a stack of 7”s hunting for an elusive gem, or end up disappearing down an Internet wormhole eating into time you don’t have before you need to be up for work again in the morning. This is a calculated effort, as the reward of the revitalising musical vitamins that you've stumbled upon are the big pay off.

'Morro Do Barraco Sem Água’ was originally released on Odeon Records in 1974, and even though this was a major record label it remains extremely hard to find. From the first moment the needle hits the groove with its guitar and drum break intro you know the song is special. A feel-good addictive melody with fantastic swooping arrangements and a pulsating funk backbeat, which is over all too soon. We hope you enjoy this audio treasure as much as we do!!!

After two stellar Split EPs with Das Komplex, Brazilian sound wizard ROTCIV delivers his first Solo EP on Luv Shack Records. With 4 intricate original cuts and a Massimiliano Pagliara remix, the Elev8tion EP is a bold testament to modern EBM.

The titular track sets the stage with a firework of dramatic synths, brash elektro beats and a fluttering acid line, finding a perfect balance between dancefloor appeal and leftfield quirkiness.

Italian maestro Massimiliano Pagliara remixes "Elev8tion" in a straightforward fashion, opting for a percussion heavy drummachine pattern, a driving bassline and additional synth melodies, yet incorporating the original 303 to great effect.

On "Unbelievable", ROTCIV lays out a complex carpet of alternating arpeggios, heavily automated synth melodies and an array of weird vocal snippets, atop a minimalistic electronic drum track. "Muquifo", which literally translates to flophouse or dump (or shack?), is a slow burning breakbeat track with eerie strings and tripped out acid melodics, making it a hot contender for future afterhours.

"The Morning After" is a similarly low slung track, with a broken beat and a distinct industrial flair, yet the synth melodies strike a more hopeful chord and have an almost

If Shelter swam through the serene side of the Library experience on GBR016, CV Vision blasts off in the opposite direction, riding an explosion of funk breaks and frazzled synths into the event horizon on his retro-futurist opus ‘Insolita’.

As contemporary life accelerates way past peak-weird, CV Vision leans into uncertainty and leaves Earth in the rear-view. Strung out on Simulacron-3, World On A Wire and Omaggio Ad Einstein, the Berlin-based musician imagines his own Brave New World, an alternate eXistenZ in a secret simulation.

Using the space age obsession of the Italian libraries as a launch pad, Dennis Schulze slathers a sonic storyboard with ferocious percussion, psychedelic fuzz and the pastoral electronics of Germany’s Kosmische movement. But this is less Can, more uncanny - and Schulze perfectly renders the cognitive estrangement of a simulated reality through his adventurous production. The monolithic live drums, recorded in a Neukölln garage on a battered Soviet kit are smeared with tape hiss, compressed to death and fired through LFOs, re-materialising on record in impossible scale. Time slips out of joint under the wow and flutter of the reel to reel, drum computers add digital interference to organic rhythms and the unfaltering slew of the 303 lends the hallucinatory thrill of the club sound system to an already psychedelic affair.

As Schulze’s imagination runs free, we’re taken through epic space battles and narrow escapes, moments of reflection and affection and a final resolution, all expressed through a dexterous control of movement and mood. For every explosion of break-fuelled adrenaline, there’s a cruise into cryo-chamber music and holodeck exotica. For each neck-snapping blast of acid funk, there’s a zero gravity lullaby waiting just around the corner.

So put isolation on ice and surrender to the strange, this is a trip you don’t want to end.

Para One presents " Sundial ", the third extract from his new album SPECTRE: Machines of Loving Grace. After " Shin Sekai " and its commanding choir and drums, the chilling skies of " Alpes ", the producer points his arrow towards the heart. The track goes only up, from its hopeful arpeggio, a melodic bassline building higher floors, towering with layers of direct yet fine drawn synth chords. " Sundial " is wide and intimate, nostalgic, and confident at the same time.

The " Sundial " EP offers 3 remixes. Hot Chip draw first with a dance floor ready version, adding their own signature riffs and textures to the original canvas. The " Nodandanintheokotantan Mix " by England born / Berlin based Call Super chooses a playful replaying of the whole piece, changed into an array of micro percussions, reshaping the main melody from bits and pieces, until a plain piano enters the frame. Finally, Para One himself reworks " Sundial " and reveals even more the versatility of the original track, remodeling it into a manifest to dance, elastic beats and house music stabs in hand.

Die weltbekannte Band aus Island ist mit ihrem elften Studioalbum, dem hoch emotionalen "Mobile Home", zurückgekehrt und veröffentlicht damit ihr erstes Album seit 2018. Das Kollektiv beweist einmal mehr die Meisterhaftigkeit, seine künstlerischen Grenzen zu erweitern, indem sie eines ihrer ambitioniertesten und kraftvollsten Alben seit Jahrzehnten veröffentlichen. Für ihr neuestes Album holten sich GusGus die VÖK-Sängerin Margrét Rán zur Hilfe, um ihren Stil zu erweitern und den Sound des Kollektivs so frisch wie immer zu halten. Das 9-Track-Album bietet eine Mischung aus elektronischem Rock, Ambient, Darkwave, Downtempo und Synthpop. GusGus besser denn je!

World-renowned group GusGus have returned with their 11th studio album, the highly emotive Mobile Home, marking their first album release since 2018. The collective once again prove their commitment to pushing their artistic boundaries as they release one of their most ambitious and powerful albums in decades. For their latest record, GusGus call on VÖK’s lead singer Margrét Rán to help expand their style, keeping the collective’s sound as fresh as ever. The 9-track album features a concoction of electronic rock, ambient, darkwave, downtempo, and synthpop.

After announcing a new album in October 2020, GusGus wowed fans with their first single “Higher,” offering a first taste of how VÖK’s impactful vocals mesh seamlessly with GusGus’ intelligent and powerful electronic production. “Higher” was soon followed up with the darker, downtempo “Stay The Ride” and the bright and energetic synth work on “Our World.” The three captivating singles each received equally remarkable music videos courtesy of founding members Arni & Kinski, the directing team known for working with the likes of Sigur Rós, Kiasmos, Ólafur Arnalds, Of Monsters and Men, and more.

Every track on Mobile Home doubles as a window into a futuristic dystopian world that has been overtaken by machines. A nod to the rise of technology and ever-growing uncertainty surrounding automation, the album explores themes of solitude, rebellion, science fiction, hedonism, pleasure, and anger. Swirling within this world is a disconnected, aching soul who is on the verge of slipping into complete dementia. Forgotten purpose and goals but continues to be driven by the hedonistic default program of material consciousness; sensually self-indulgent and engaged in the pursuit of pleasure alone. In Mobile Home, GusGus challenge themselves like never before, resulting in a wonderfully chaotic reflection of the ongoing war between soul and machine.

With Mobile Home, GusGus show the quality and sonic diversity of the singles pervades throughout the full LP, while preserving the melodramatic themes that tie its 9 tracks together. “Simple Tuesday” showcases the group’s aptitude for blending contemporary electronic production with pop sensibilities while keeping an optimistic tonality at the forefront. Meanwhile, “Love Is Alone” and “Original Heartbreak” offer a slower, more pensive take on synthpop, and evoke feelings of solitude and deep melancholia. “Silence” and “The Rink” boast some of GusGus’s more experimental production, each alternating between radio-ready vocal verses with inventive and exciting synth elements. GusGus closes Mobile Home with “Flush,” an instrumental score that leaves the listener riding high as they finish the LP.

CRESCENT was formed in 1998 by Ismaeel Attallah and Amr Mokhtar in Cairo, Egypt. It started as a Black Metal band influenced by the Swedish Black Metal scene. In 2014, the band released their full-length debut ‘Pyramid Slaves’, focusing on Ancient Egyptian history/mythology, which marked the band’s complete transformation towards Black/Death Metal infused with Egyptian elements. In the following years, CRESCENT was booked to major Metal festivals such as Wacken Open Air, Inferno Metal Festival, Fall of Summer festival among others . 2017 CRESCENT ’s much anticipated second full-length ‘The Order of Amenti’,a tribute to the Ancient Egyptian gods, showed more emphasis on the blackened death Metal epic soundscapes and thematic atmospheres while maintaining its primordial Egyptian Death Metal essence. CRESCENT’s new album 'Carving the Fires of Akhet' was mixed/mastered by Victor ‘Santura’ Bullok (Triptykon, Dark Fortress) at Woodshed studio. The artwork was done by Khaos Diktator (Thron) , which is a Baroque-style recreation of one of the most influential and ancient Egyptian relics. The album title acts as the thread that holds all tracks together. The Fires of Akhet represents the great divine will that was carved into humanity's history and future. A value that brought nations to their apex and brought others to their knees, and the cycle goes on. Lyrically, the album touches upon a primeval epic story that is full of struggle and blood. It also reflects drunkenness with divine power, and pure evil in its religious and historic form (and beyond). Finally, the album lays a dark path of philosophical and material decay. The themes will not only be represented by the sound, but also by artworks that relays the sub-themes. It manifests CRESCENT's growing identity and beyond any of its previous works, starting a new era for the band.