Buscar:electric hour

JeGong, known for their immersive, rhythm-driven explorations of Krautrock and experimental sound design, now take an exhilarating leap into brighter, nostalgically stranger territory. `Gomi Kuzu Can` is an electrifying journey through Kraut, Post- and Experimental Rock, delivered with the analog warmth of the '70s. Across eleven meticulously crafted tracks, JeGong embrace their roots while fearlessly expanding into neon-lit, beat-driven worlds where kinetic rhythms meet playful sonic futurism. It is music built for movement, contemplation, and the ecstatic strangeness of possibility. Their approach borrows the endurance and patience of minimalism, but they subvert minimalism's austerity with grit, distortion, and physicality. The result is music that feels alive in motion: constantly shifting, tightening, unfurling, and mutating even when its core pulse remains unbroken. "We wanted to create a `70s sound as the recording foundation - a sonic aesthetic that sets a mood through warm tape saturation. Like a kind of memory box where you can store recollections, for example from childhood, when you would spend hours by yourself watching TV and listening to the radio, often both at the same time." (JeGong) `Gomi Kuzu Can`, is hand-built, lovingly assembled from circuitry, intuition, and raw creative impulse. This tactile quality is precisely what makes the album's danceability so impactful. In blending organic rhythm with retro-electronic brightness, they've created a sound that is both familiar and refreshingly new. In the end, JeGong's sound is less a genre and more a landscape: rugged, hypnotic, austere, and strangely spiritual. It is music built on the bones of rhythm and the electricity of repetition, crafted with the precision of engineers and the instincts of explorers. FOR FANS OF Neu!, Cluster, Tangerine Dream, Swans, Mogwai, Sonic Youth, John Zorn The single colour edition comes as Glass Clear vinyl!

As collaborative projects often do, 33 has in time found a more fixed form, a kind of structure that turned it from a loose collection of collaborators gravitating around founders Bill John Bultheel and Alexander Iezzi into something resembling more of a traditional band. Not that there is anything conventional in their creative process tho, nor in the music itself… Nontheless Tripolar - their second album and first for Haunter - seems to take them closer to song territory than ever before.

The (progressive) graduation of multi-instrumentalist Cem Dukkha and vocalist/clarinet player Ivan Cheng from collaborators to full-time members has brought 33 to a more refined awareness of their possibilities as a creative unit, although their compositional process has retained a high level of spontaneity and musical madness. Tripolar was in fact assembled by editing hours of improvisation that Bultheel, Iezzi and Dukkah recorded with no specific endgame in mind. The sessions saw them exchange a variety of acoustic, electronic and electric musical instruments: percussions, guitars, strings, piano, hurdy gurdy, synthesizers and even CDJs as a tool of live sampling manipulation.

By molding the pieces into what they are now, the band managed to concoct some beautiful vignettes of contradictory mental and emotional states, as sonically playful as a renaissance fair happening within a broken timestream. Cheng’s lyrical and vocal contributions helped them coalesce even further into proper songs, adding a melodic presence that’s at once seductive and uncanny. But vocal duties are often ceded to guests, namely Danish pop-neoclassicist Astrid Sonne, Kenyan metal guru Lord Spikeheart, Irish goth raconteur Olan Monk and Japanese body-poet Golin.The amount of different sounds arranged into each of the tracks produces a unique sense of awe and bewilderment, a testament to the incredible talent and craft the musicians have employed into putting together such a broad range of influences and approaches into a coherent and extremely effective musical journey.

An equally erratic thematic thread seems to run through all the tracks, one ultimately preoccupied with mental health and its ramifications. Without turning the project into a concept album, 33 and their collaborators have sprinkled it with references to personality disorders and mental conditions that are all too relevant to the contemporary age, reflecting on the lineage of human inner life. A wide display of lyrical and musical tools is employed to explore these themes, ranging from Sonne’s expressionist depiction of ADHD in the opener, to Cheng’s queer-themed reinvention of an Irish murder ballad in closing track ‘Babymusicc’. Tracing lateral trajectories for introspection, Tripolar is not only highly captivating, but it ultimately sounds esoteric in the best possible way: progressively revealing layer after layer of incredible aural magic, its true meaning living in the form and in its manic scope of energies.

Ribe & Roll Dann serve up potent techno on Mutual Rytm with 'Virtus Occulta'.

Built around concepts of unacknowledged work and enduring merit, the release marks their first EP on SHDW's widely
respected label.

Based in Toledo and Madrid, Ribe & Roll Dann are exciting residents at Laster Madrid and Lanna Club, two of Spain's leading venues. Emerging as driving forces in their national techno scene, they have also made an impact on the global landscape, making wider moves through collaborative releases on Klockworks, and individual outings on a number of other influential labels. Having previously featured in the label's Federation of Rytm IV compilation, the pair make their full EP label on SHDW's Mutual Rytm imprint to open March with a deep dive into their expansive sound.

Opener 'Sub Terra' is a pure club tool that is direct, physical and rooted in the underground with a seriously heavy low end. 'Extra Lumen' is more restrained but still built on a steady, forceful rhythm with controlled energy that prefers to operate in the shadows. 'Ars Non Placens' stays true to the idea that music is not made to please, but to exist on its own terms with hunched drums and dubby undercurrents. Next, 'Meritum Negatum' fizzes with static electrical charge and minimal drum funk and is a direct reflection on overlooked skill and unacknowledged work, before closer 'Virtus Persistens' delivers a continuity and a steady pulse rather than an explosive ending, keeping you locked throughout.

In addition, three digital bonus cuts come alongside the vinyl package. 'Labor Inauditus' speaks to hours of technique, production and booth experience that remain invisible. Next come the taught, rubbery rhythms and unrelenting atmosphere of 'Silentium Testium', while 'Sine Aplausu' - which means without applause - brings a ghostly late night vibe that you will never want to end.

Isa Gordon and Tony Morris were first brought together through their individual releases on Optimo Music, which established mutual respect within the label’s community. While they had not previously performed live together, they were invited to take part in a fundraiser hosted by Queen’s Park Arena in support of Glasgow NW Foodbank and later for JD Twitch’s end-of-life care. Tony asked Isa to contribute guitar and backing vocals to his set, including a track then called Last Night I Had a Dream. That performance became the seed for their collaboration.

The first phase of fleshing it out, recalls Tony: “Somebody said Isa sang like Shania Twain. That got me thinking about country music and call and response, prompting me to come up with alternative lyrics.” Isa remembers: “I cycled over to Tony’s house with my guitar, and we spoke about what the tune meant. It was about him being wrapped up in dreamland, luxuriating in his subconscious, while my character — impatient and trapped in her own routines — barely had time to remember her own dreams.” Tony continues: “Brilliantly I realised that I could never collaborate with anyone in situ and so I sat in the garden for two hours watching my wife tend to plants. Every now and again I would creep up the stairs and put my ear to the door. I could hear Isa warbling away and so would resume my garden watch. After two hours I went back upstairs to see how she was getting on, only to find that she had written one of the greatest songs I’d ever heard. I still think that.” Tony adds: “My overwhelming sentiment about Wake Up Baby is pride. I can honestly say that I’m more proud of it than anything else I have done. It ticks a whole load of boxes. Isa’s singing in various Scottish modes is unique. The way her electric guitar adorns the dance beat makes it a rock song as well as a dance and a C&W song — truly multi-genre.”

The B-side of the 12” release, Syringe Moustache, is a surreal, darkly playful counterpart to Wake Up Baby. The track was inspired by a dream Tony had: “I was in a shopping mall, in a two-level shoe shop, and my attention was taken by a little girl with a syringe taped beneath her nose like a moustache. She went about her business trying on shoes, confident and wise beyond her years. In the dream, I imagined her as the daughter of cultured, intelligent parents determined to raise her independently. I was struck by my own feelings of inadequacy — I knew I could never have coped with such a contraption myself.” Isa’s take on the meaning of this song somewhat differs: “Tony sent me the tune over Instagram months before I met him, and I was spooked — as far as I knew, he didn’t know anything about me, but the story felt like it was written about me as a little girl, growing up around heroin addiction. The syringe beneath the girl’s nose became a symbol of the inescapable constraints of that environment, literally written on her face, yet something you just have to carry on through. On a buzz from the serendipity, I added a full instrumental backing to this most bizarre of works.”

The result is absurd, unsettling, and strangely empowering, staking out its own surreal, cinematic space. The 12” dance single is a format Tony had long wanted to explore — a tangible artefact to leave for family, a medium that celebrates the physicality of sound and the ritual of listening. It allowed the artists to maximise the format’s potential: a strong, multi-genre A-side, a surreal B-side, and remixes that expanded the record’s sonic world. Glasgow music staples Auntie Flo and 100% Positive Feedback were invited to reinterpret the tracks, bringing their distinctive touch — Auntie Flo transforming the A-side into a luscious, dancefloor-ready meditation, and 100% Positive Feedback twisting Syringe Moustache into absurd, playful shapes with false-start drops and over-the-top vocal editing.

The cover photograph, taken at the University Café by Harrison Reid, captures Isa and Tony embodying the characters they brought to life in the songs — a visual reflection of the record’s narrative and emotional stakes. The Café also holds personal significance: it’s where all of Isa’s meetings with Keith McIvor took place, where she first remembers visiting Glasgow as a child, and a place Tony fondly likes to go to drip egg yolk down his tie and watch the world go by. Together, the 12” format, the remixes, and the artwork create a cohesive, tactile experience, amplifying the duality, theatricality, and emotional breadth of the collaboration.

Visionary producer Ibrahim Alfa Jr, who's been traversing the rave's farthest fringes since the late '90s, returns with his most focused and concise set to date, an anthology of undulating, bass-heavy experiments that surveys techno and its distorted history, printing fractured pulses and cybernetic synths over vanishing snapshots of jazz, funk, trip-hop, broken beat, dub and ambient music. It's a body of work that coalesced during a difficult time for Alfa.

After returning to Brighton and sobriety in 2022, he was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism, subsequently suffering two debilitating heart attacks. With his immune system compromised, isolation was the only option, so for months on end Alfa devoted each waking hour to his art, recording samples, building digital synths and effects and meticulously sequencing some of his waviest, most experimental material to date. Over this period he finished over 500 tracks, writing impulsively and constantly challenging himself. "There was nothing to hold me back," he explains. "I just had music, I didn't know if I would see the next day."

Now recovered from his ordeal, Alfa looks back at this prolific period with optimism and fondness. It was a chance for him to reconnect with his art holistically, writing purely for himself without any outside influence. Because, at this stage in his life, Alfa has already been through a series of artistic evolutions. When he was still just a teenager, he penned a slew of grinding, jacking techno 12"s (under a variety of mysterious monikers) in the late '90s before re-emerging a decade ago with the acclaimed 'Hidden By The Leaves', an album made up of deeply personal archival tracks that were thought to have been lost. A few years later, Alfa returned wholeheartedly with a series of records for Mille Plateaux that redrew the boundaries of his "Black political music without words." And on 'Infinite Black Inside', those different strands are muddled with Alfa's profound life experiences and he expresses himself free of any self-imposed boundaries, writing quickly on a hybrid analog-digital setup to document as many ideas as possible.

There's a palpable sense of liberation that drives the album's opening track, 'Subutrax', lubricating polyrhythms that isolate the connective tissue between footwork and Detroit techno as they slip between looped electric piano vamps and vaporous synths. On 'Naked Lunchbreak' meanwhile, the beat generation's excesses are illustrated by mesmeric fast-paced acoustic drums that Alfa balances out with brassy drones and euphoric keys. He captures rubbery hits from a Ghanaian djembe on 'Drum Slinger', re-sequencing them into seismic waves that rumble underneath live woodwind blasts. And on 'Capture', decelerated breaks and garbled voices tumble into humid pads, suspending the album somewhere between the chill-out room and the night sky. It's a record of new beginnings and fresh narratives that collapses the hardcore continuum, revealing a sonic signature that's Alfa's alone.

Nacho Marco drops Colors in Dub Vol.1—deep house soaked in warm analog dub. From the hypnotic “Midnight Blue” and its Satoshi Tomiie remix to the raw pulse of “Bumblebee Yellow” and “Electric Green,” this wax rides late-night frequencies straight from Valencia to Paris.

DJ Feedbacks :


Francois Kevorkian (Wave) : Love the Satoshi mix
Eddie Fowlkes (Detroit Wax, Rekids, Classic Music Company) : thanks
Travis Kirschbaum (Warehouse Preservation Society) : Loving this. Especially Midnight Blue!
Sascha Dive : Midnight Blue for me!!
Brothers' Vibe (Luv4Wax) : Super ep, great works!!
Radio Slave (Rekids) : Another superb ep from Phonogramme and Satoshi's mix is great.
Giles Smith : "midnight blue" is nice
Alexkid (Rawax / FUSE / NG Trax) : Totally my vibe. <3
Aleqs Notal : Yes !!
Italojohnson (Italojohnson) : Track 1 for me!
Ben Sims : Now downloading... will check asap!
Okain (Talman / Infuse / Pleasure Zone) : Electric Green is dope!
Satoshi Tomiie (Abstract Architecture) : Receiving great feedback from the dance floor!
Steffi (Dolly) : lovely release!!
Laurent Garnier : Cool tracks
DJ Bone (FURTHER) : Electric Green and Satoshi Tomiie remix work for me.
Harri (Sub Club) : lovely stuff, will play and support
Rob Pearson (Evasive Records / Sine 102.6fm) : lovely - right up my street, cheers ;-)
Felix Dickinson (Futureboogie, Rush Hour, Cynic) : Solid E.P. current fave Electric Green
Jorkes (Freeride Millenium) : lovely, thanks so much. xo
Kassian (Phonica White / Heist Recordings) : wicked
Jaye Ward (Dalston Super Store / Netil Radio) : massive quality as ever!! super deep and pulsing gear, electric green is ace! thx
Tim Sweeney (Beats In Space) : Sounds great
Chloe Caillet (Smile Records) : love this!
Stevie Cox (Sub Club) : really lush, thank you !
Raresh (ar:pi:ar) : thanks
Ame (Innervisions) : thanks
Geir Aspenes (G-Ha (Sunkissed)) : Thank u
Saoirse (Body Movements) : Super nice dubby vibes
Amotik : Very nice :)
Kai Alce (Real Soon) : Satoshi remix is hot!
Domenic Cappello (Subclub) : nice dubby house
Cee ElAssaad (ENSOULED) : Just the way I like it! dubby and groovy.
Mike Shannon (Cynosure) : Excellent work here from Valencia's finest!

"Mary Yuzovskaya's Monday Off rounds out 2025 with its eighth vinyl-only various artists compilation, arriving 12th December, featuring Feph, Rasser, Mathys Lenne, and Xhato.

Opening the record is Florida's Feph, co-operator of Alchemista Records and Zosimos, with 'A Realization', where wild electric currents crackle over a subtle, sharp beat as shocks and zaps scatter into the darkness. Spanish DJ and producer Rasser follows with 'Constant Pulse', a hulking techno chugger of warped rhythms and hammering metallic hits. On the flip, France-born Germany-based Mathys Lenne, known for outings on Mord, ORBE, and Blue Hour, offers 'A Gentle Singularity', its tumbling percussion and drone-like synth casting a hypnotic spell while sparkling high-end shimmers above. Previous Monday Off contributor Xhato then closes with 'Lemon Swirl', a mystical finisher where soft sequences snake through brooding ambience, providing a guiding light as the kick drum marches resolutely."

Among the true Keiji Haino devotees, Nijiumu’s Era of Sad Wings (released on P.S.F. in 1993) has always held a special place in the pantheon. Operating for only a few years in the early 90s and apparently only performing a handful of shows, Nijiumu operated at the opposite end of the dynamic spectrum to Haino’s famed power trio Fushitsusha, dwelling in a hushed, meditative realm of mysterious droning sonorities and free-floating melodies that occasionally erupts into violence. Black Truffle is pleased to announce a new double-LP edition of a lesser-known 1994 Nijiumu recording, When I sing, I slip into the microphone. Into that void, I bring comrade “prayers”, then, turning to face the outside, together we explode. Here, Nijiumu is the trio of Haino, Tetuzi Akiyama and the obscure Takashi Matsuoka, the three performing on a wide variety of string, wind and percussion instruments, as well as electric guitar and bass, and Haino’s unmistakeable voice.

Like on the early solo Haino album that shares the group’s name (released on P.S.F. in 1993), the instrumentation swims in reverb (the use of which Akiyama recalls as ‘a kind of point of the band’), often obscuring the instrumental sources. On the short opening piece, a distant reed instrument arcs long buzzing melodies over a bed of cymbals and gongs, like a psychedelic take on Tibetan music. The epic second part, occupying almost 50 minutes, begins as a splayed, near-formless cloud of electric guitar and bass, shadowed by bowed and plucked strings, the three elements working through twisting atonal shapes. At various points in the recording, we hear what seems to be the sounds of musicians moving between instruments, their shuffling and bumps fitting seamlessly into this radically open music. Eventually, what sounds like electric guitar moves closer to the foreground, fixing on a repeated melodic cell around which hover mysterious clouds of long tones and a sporadic shaker. At the half-hour mark, the music begins to build to a violently emotive climax, Haino’s impassioned vocal cries punctuating a lumbering, bass-heavy murk, contrasted at points by what sounds like a tin whistle. Suddenly, the volume drops to a near-whisper, opening the way for the stunning final moments, which touch on the slow-motion balladry of Haino’s classic Affection, here given an eccentric twist by an occasional woodblock hit. The third piece opens with a hazy trio of rumbling bass, bowed strings and abstracted slide guitar, the latter calling to mind some of Akiyama’s later solo work. Eventually joined by Haino’s voice, its fragile, haunted tone might remind the listener of the man in black’s documented love of the madrigals of the murderous Count Gesualdo, before the recording abruptly breaks off mid-note. In this new edition, the Nijiumu trio recording is supplemented by a piece recorded solo by Haino in 1973, a bracing electronic blowout stretching almost half an hour. Using a homemade electronics setup to unleash a barrage of crunching distortion and shuddering harmonic fuzz, it takes its place in the canon of extreme live electronics next to Robert Ashley’s Wolfman and Walter Marchetti’s Osmanthus fragrans, looking forward to extreme noise years before Merzbow. Taken as a whole, these four sides of music are a stunning document of some of the lesser-known waystations of Haino’s singular creative path.

Marking his first EP on Damian Lazarus’s revered Crosstown Rebels, OMRI. (pronounced “OMRI dot”) steps into the spotlight with ‘Nothing Wrong’—an infectious, immersive dive that traverses well beyond the dancefloor, laced with rhythm, tension, and soul. Dropping in June, the EP brings together a shimmering original, a hypnotic club-focused cut, and a peak-time remix from fast-rising US talent AYYBO.

Having already left his mark on the label with his remix of Jessica Brankka’s ‘Musk’, OMRI. now arrives with a statement of his own. The ‘Love Mix’ of ‘Nothing Wrong’ leads the release as a full-blown vocal anthem, layering captivating vocals over sweeping melodies and crisp percussion to create a powerful record destined for both club rooms and open-air settings. The ‘Club Mix’ takes a more experimental route—glitchy, stripped-back, and built for locked-in dancefloors and after-hours sessions.

AYYBO adds his own bold interpretation to the mix, injecting a darker, punchier energy that’s become synonymous with his releases on the likes of Experts Only, Insomniac, and HARD Recs. It’s a remix that captures the raw electricity of his sets while reimagining OMRI.’s original through a distinctly West Coast lens. An in-demand name, OMRI. has quickly carved a reputation for transcendental performances at some of the world’s most revered institutions. His sound, shaped across labels such as Hot Creations, Disco Halal, Haccabi House, and more recently through his own imprint Collecting Dots Records, blends deep psychedelia and hypnotic grooves with a forward-thinking approach, with past collaborations alongside Adam Ten, Moscoman, Yamagucci, and more. Set to feature regularly at Lazarus’ Hï Ibiza residency throughout the summer, expect standout sets that reflect his genre-blurring style and connection to the Crosstown Rebels sound as he serves up one of the label's most essential cuts of the year to open the summer in style.

For customers of the Rush Hour shop, this item ships for its may 23rd release date. Any items ordered along with this will ship then also

After five years spent largely confined to the United States, Ron Trent is set to return to global touring in 2025. To mark the occasion, he’s partnered with Rush Hour to release Lift Off, a brand-new album of music recorded at different points over the last decade.

Arriving almost 35 years since he wowed the world with his game-changing debut, the Afterlife EP, Lift Off was inspired by Trent’s desire to ‘let the imagination speak for itself’ while exploring the diverse influences that have shaped his unique musical perspective. A departure from his previous album, 2022’s downtempo masterpiece as Warm, What Do The Stars Say To You, the 10-track set features a mixture of epic instrumentals, inspired collaborations and vocal cuts whose music was written with certain singers in mind.

While it features music that ripples with the experienced producer’s familiar aural trademarks – rich rhythms, warm chords, impeccable instrumentation, inspired arrangements, and lashings of heady hand percussion – it also consciously explores a variety of sounds and tempos, in the process blurring the lines between dance music’s past, present and future. It’s a vision, in his words, of what dance music can become.

For proof, check the five impeccable cuts on part one. There’s the tactile, Wally Badarou-inspired wonder ‘Hot Ice’, the mind-soothing chords, lilting synth-strings and samba-soaked percussion of ‘Woman of Color’, the warming deep house jazziness of ‘Jazz Funk’ and the restless, far-sighted brilliance of ‘Sexstrology’, where relaxed electric piano solos dance atop an infectious, locked-in dancefloor groove.

Best of all though is Leroy Burgess collaboration ‘Let Me See You Shining’ – an inspired musical meeting of minds that cannily fuses Trent’s signature deep house sound with the soulful, vocal-driven brilliance of the New Yorker’s iconic boogie-era work. Even by the two artists’ dizzyingly high standards, it’s a very special song.

From the same recording sessions as Bézier's first EP on Körperspannung records 'Negative Velocity', 'Contraption' channels a few moods and scenarios.

On the a-side 'Contraption' is an insignificant droplet darting through the sky. Soon it joins a disarray of objects positioned above the atmosphere, maneuvers in formation to reveal randomized, decentralized nodes packed for mayhem.

On the b-side Bézier shows a slice of his lived experience. Back in 2004 he used to go to house parties around East LA with friends they grew up with every weekend to listen to music. Winding through the Southern Californian roadway sprawl they'd drive 1/2 an hour to 1 hour on the I-10 (sometimes diverting to Route 60 if gridlock is expected) to get to the location, usually in a residential neighborhood. Being respectful of the communities and the struggle of the progenitors of this music, Bézier presents 'Blue Halo' as an homage to that sound with a twist: Cumbia-Synth to provide a little sauce for your ears. Dave Easlick joins the milieu to provide a percussive framework for this tune.

Lastly, 'Bit by an Electric Wire' showcases Easlick's drumming with an overlay from Bézier. As Dave rips and shreds through his drum kit the OCD machine living inside Yang's brain switches on and organizes, collates and files that dataset into a hardcore rhythm track.

At the start of the 1980’s X-Plode’s dad had a second-hand colour TV business in Bolton, Lancashire where he would buy, sell, repair and trade TVs. He would come back home with all kinds of things he had traded for a TV but the most memorable, to a 10 year old kid at that time, were the keyboards. He use to watch his dad play songs from the 1960’s on these keyboards and when his dad had gone out, Lee X-Plode would sneak on them and start messing about, experimenting with the drum programs and fiddling with the buttons, trying out ideas. He had to move fast though because these keyboards didn’t stay in the house for long as his dad would trade them again for something else; one time that was an old analogue echo chamber, which Lee also messed about with when his dad was out. That echo chamber was a revelation to Lee and opened up the possibilities of what was possible with sound. So by the time Lee was 16, he decided he wanted his own keyboard and started saving. When his 17th birthday came around he had saved up £200 and visited his local Argos where he bought himself a Yamaha PSS 680, an FM synthesizer with memory banks and a basic drum machine incorporated. ‘It was shit quality like, but I didn’t mind. I just wanted it for the programmable drum machine, the synth and the memory banks that came with it” Lee recalls. The year was 1987 and by this time in Lee’s life he was into reggae and hip hop, the latter he first embraced in 1983 by the way of breakdancing and listening to electro, so all he wanted to do when he got his gear was make reggae and electro sounding beats. Recalling his youth and the fun he had with the echo chamber, the next edition to his home set up was to acquire one of those, which he did via a mate of his. But by the time he got his minimal set up sorted in 1988, his musical tastes had changed. House music had landed here in UK and this was Lee’s new passion, so from that point on wards he started experimenting, trying to nail a decent house groove. ‘I wanted 808 sounds, but I didn’t know what one was!’ Lee explains.

Around late 1990 or early 1991, Lee started to improve upon his set up, purchasing an Atari STE, a Cheetah MS6 , a 6 voice polyphonic/multi-timbre analogue rack mounted synth that linked up to his Yamaha – “It wasn’t a great bit of kit, I kept getting electric shocks from it. Eventually it just blew up!” Lee had acquired a cracked copy of Cubase on floppy disk from his local computer game shop but struggled with it. “It was so complicated to understand and took me ages to get used to it. I was stoned a lot back then and I just couldn’t concentrate on anything for long” Lee laughs, continuing “I also picked up a 4 channel sampler/sequencer which plugged into the side of the Atari and that’s when I first started sampling, I think this would have been late 1991. I had the Simon Harris ‘Breaks, Beats and Scratches’ vinyl that he put out on Music for Life which were a godsend back then. I was also sampling a lot from cassette tapes, especially reggae. I would also record the Stu Allan show on Key 103FM, one of the main stations broadcasting out of Manchester. He would do a 3 hour show with hip hop and house, and then hardcore house came along. Eventually he dropped the hip hop altogether and it was just house and hardcore. I recorded the shows onto cassette most weeks and started to learn more about how house and hardcore was put together by listening to those shows.”

Following the release of a number of EPs on Swiss, German, British and Australian labels, Trinidad will release their debut album ‘Palm Trees & Thirty Degrees’ on October 16th 2020.

The album draws on the Swiss-based trio’s experience of sustaining the energy of festival and club shows, while also providing the perfect background to a relaxed summer evening with friends.


The project provides an opportunity for the trio to indulge in a range of musical influences, blending together a mix of synthesizers with the haunting tones of a church organ, the warmth of a string quartet and regality of an opera singer. The album grew organically, with inspiration taking hold beyond the confines of the studio: the bonus track recorded with a Jamaican reggae singer in the back of a VW bus in Greece. Soundscapes from Colombia to India were captured and embedded.

With "Palm Trees & Thirty Degrees" Trinidad guide listeners on a journey to a tropical paradise; to a wonderful, perhaps peculiar place of confidence, created and shaped by the mental theatre of the moment.

The soft kiss of a warm breeze hits you as you adjust to your new surroundings ("Desembarco"); leaving the static chatter of your thoughts behind in the "Lobby" (feat. MonoAbe) of your mind; you allow yourself to imagine what the evening holds in store (“Kopfkino”); But first, there’s a drink in the “Sunset Bar”, a refreshing cocktail "Luciola" that serves as a gateway for you to plunge into the night. A night of unlimited possibilities, the first instances a blur ("Sagrada"), as time starts to lose its meaning ("Tempus Fugit"); everything spins, everything is possible, everything is ("Elevate"). Suddenly, hours (or is it days?) have passed – it doesn’t matter; what matters is the first sign of dawn, the unmistakable warmth dissolving the darkness (“Alma”); the beat slows, and you feel the "Libération" of the new day; looking around you see the moments you’ve shared etched on the faces of your friends ("Fleeting" feat. Julia Portmann); It is not goodbye, it is only "Au Revoir".

The album was produced by Trinidad in their own studios in Bern and Zurich. It features collaborations with a number of artists: Cornelia Aeschbacher Firmin (Hang), MonoAbe (Mallets & Percussion), Jack Williams (text of "Fleeting"), Julia Portmann (vocals), Zenyth (vocals) and Michael Meier (electric bass). The songs were mixed by Marcel Schneider, mastered by Benjamin Fay. Raïssa Lara Lütolf was responsible for the graphic design.

I Made It All Up For You is the new record by Hugo Race Fatalists, their 6th studio album, set for release March 20, 2026 thru Gusstaff Records / Helixed on LP/CD and digital.
"In his 40-year career, Hugo Race has lived a thousand lives and played the role of songwriter, producer, musician, performer, head of a record label (Helixed). His music went from folk to lounge, from "trance industrial blues" to psychedelia, from world music to electronics. Starting from post-punk Melbourne in the 1980s, he took fascinating paths that led him from Africa to Turkey, from Berlin to Romagna…"
Hugo Race returns after highly successful collaborative albums with Michelangelo Russo (100 Years), The Church frontman Steve Kilbey (Speed of the Stars) and Gianni Maraccolo (The Vigil, winner of the prestigious Premio Ciampi) with I Made It All Up For You, an epic album with his Italian band Fatalists - existential songwriting framed by the band's signature fusion of roots music, electronica, Italian soundtracks and desert rock.
"I wanted to create something melodic and beautiful in defiance of our current reality. The songs started as bare acoustic sketches written in a remote mountain cabin in Italy where I had two weeks off during a solo tour. The weather turned into a raging blizzard, the days a struggle to keep the wood fire lit and the smoke out of the house. I wrote about twelve songs, threw them all away, started again with an unplugged electric guitar in front of that
damp fire, searching for the album's theme. When the smoke cleared, I was at the crossroads of a long term relationship unraveling under a blazing antipodean sun.
Fatalists recorded the basic tracks at the floating studio on the Puccini lake an hour out of Florence - Giovanni Ferrario (Scisma, PJ Harvey) on guitars and synth, Francesco Giampaoli (Brutture Moderne) on bass and Diego Sapignoli (Sacri Cuori) on percussion.
Violinist Massimiliano Gallo met me in Sicily for a short tour to learn the new songs, adding layers of his Calabrian magic to the mix. Jennifer Charles (singer of New York band Elysian Fields) and I had been talking for a long time about making new music and this was the occasion when we made it happen. Jennifer's distinctive voice graces this
album on the songs I Collide and Broken Love, the lyrics of which were written by author and designer Alannah Hill. My longtime road brother Michelangelo Russo also dusts the tracks with his otherworldly electric harmonica on Against The World, Born To Fly and Open Field. A lot of joy and pain and reflection went into the making of this album and I hope that comes across; this is about the darkness yes, but also the light. Everything changes and every ending is a new beginning but it's how we experience transformation that really matters. I hope you love this album. I made it all up for you."
Hugo Race, Naples, 2025

Lush Life is the Sonar Kollektiv debut EP by German singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Flo Naegeli.

Originally hailing from the Bavarian forests of southeastern Germany, Naegeli began his musical journey at the age of seven as a folk accordionist, later switching to electric guitar and developing a disciplined approach to songwriting and musicianship that led to formal music studies and a professional career. After moving to eastern Germany, he gradually stepped away from band projects to focus on solo work, embracing self-production tools to realise a sound that blends soulful songwriting with warm, organic instrumentation.

Written and largely recorded by Naegeli himself, Lush Life is a deeply personal yet accessible collection of songs reflecting on fatherhood, family relationships and friendship.

With two deeply cherished compilations already in the bag, Luke Una steps up for the third volume in his É Soul Cultura series on Mr Bongo. A love letter to the dancefloor and its power to unite people from all corners of society amid growing division and extremist politics. Genre-spanning in nature, the 15 tracks travel between cosmic soul, boogie, proto-house, slo-mo technoid grooves, drum machine afro, astral bass-bugging futurism, jazz funk, dance, and disco. Each having the ability to move the body as much as the heart.
 
From his formative years in Sheffield to co-founding Manchester’s much-fabled Electric Chair with Justin Crawford, through to helming the iconic LGBTQ institutions of Homoelectric / Homobloc, Luke has spent 40 years immersed in dance music. His latest outlet, É Soul Cultura, has grown from a label to a globe-spanning events series with Luke holding residencies and embarking on tours across the world from Japan and Australia to America and Europe. 
 
“For me, the dancefloor was never about a one-dimensional, thudding, 130 BPM beat only. It's a much more dynamic, broader vision than that. I cut my teeth in an era where a 100 BPM record had as much impact, excitement, and energy as a 134 BPM dancefloor jazz funk or techno record”, Luke mentions. É Soul Cultura Volume 3 is the perfect embodiment of that notion: “It’s about four decades in the trenches playing dance music, the late-night afters, the shebeens, the basements, warehouse parties, the eight-hour journeys in East London, through to festival sets at Houghton and We Out Here. It’s music unconstrained by genre or tempo and more about making your body move”. 

But this isn’t simply a collection of disparate dance tracks; they carry meaning and soul. “It’s less about escapism, more about reconnection. My experience of post-covid has been the coming together of all the clans in various clubs and gatherings. A reaction to a very toxic world out there, where the aggro rhythms of division have sought to divide us, and people don't meet as often. The coming back together face-to-face in clubs has encouraged a real love in the air, there's a real togetherness and collective spirit”.
 
Opening up the compilation is a track that channels that very message, the transcendental, soul-rousing Harris & Orr ‘Spread Love’. Joining the dots from there, to the low-slung deep house closer of Fatdog ‘Remember’, you’ll find electronic drum machine Nigerian funk, sitting side by side with dancefloor Cape Verdean brilliance, a post-punk cover of Fela Kuti, rubbing shoulders with cosmic electro, and an Una-championed, 8-minute, kickless DJ Harvey remix. There’s jazz funk in various guises moving from boogie synth to astral travelling, slo-mo acidic raw techno, and a ‘79 soul stepper, alongside swirling percussive Italo disco and tribal-charged house. All infused with an innate ability to bring people together.
 
As society becomes increasingly fractured, É Soul Cultura Volume 3’s message is more than movement. It’s about dance music’s power to unify people from all walks of life and break down the barriers that divide us.

With two deeply cherished compilations already in the bag, Luke Una steps up for the third volume in his É Soul Cultura series on Mr Bongo. A love letter to the dancefloor and its power to unite people from all corners of society amid growing division and extremist politics. Genre-spanning in nature, the 15 tracks travel between cosmic soul, boogie, proto-house, slo-mo technoid grooves, drum machine afro, astral bass-bugging futurism, jazz funk, dance, and disco. Each having the ability to move the body as much as the heart.
 
From his formative years in Sheffield to co-founding Manchester’s much-fabled Electric Chair with Justin Crawford, through to helming the iconic LGBTQ institutions of Homoelectric / Homobloc, Luke has spent 40 years immersed in dance music. His latest outlet, É Soul Cultura, has grown from a label to a globe-spanning events series with Luke holding residencies and embarking on tours across the world from Japan and Australia to America and Europe. 
 
“For me, the dancefloor was never about a one-dimensional, thudding, 130 BPM beat only. It's a much more dynamic, broader vision than that. I cut my teeth in an era where a 100 BPM record had as much impact, excitement, and energy as a 134 BPM dancefloor jazz funk or techno record”, Luke mentions. É Soul Cultura Volume 3 is the perfect embodiment of that notion: “It’s about four decades in the trenches playing dance music, the late-night afters, the shebeens, the basements, warehouse parties, the eight-hour journeys in East London, through to festival sets at Houghton and We Out Here. It’s music unconstrained by genre or tempo and more about making your body move”. 

But this isn’t simply a collection of disparate dance tracks; they carry meaning and soul. “It’s less about escapism, more about reconnection. My experience of post-covid has been the coming together of all the clans in various clubs and gatherings. A reaction to a very toxic world out there, where the aggro rhythms of division have sought to divide us, and people don't meet as often. The coming back together face-to-face in clubs has encouraged a real love in the air, there's a real togetherness and collective spirit”.
 
Opening up the compilation is a track that channels that very message, the transcendental, soul-rousing Harris & Orr ‘Spread Love’. Joining the dots from there, to the low-slung deep house closer of Fatdog ‘Remember’, you’ll find electronic drum machine Nigerian funk, sitting side by side with dancefloor Cape Verdean brilliance, a post-punk cover of Fela Kuti, rubbing shoulders with cosmic electro, and an Una-championed, 8-minute, kickless DJ Harvey remix. There’s jazz funk in various guises moving from boogie synth to astral travelling, slo-mo acidic raw techno, and a ‘79 soul stepper, alongside swirling percussive Italo disco and tribal-charged house. All infused with an innate ability to bring people together.
 
As society becomes increasingly fractured, É Soul Cultura Volume 3’s message is more than movement. It’s about dance music’s power to unify people from all walks of life and break down the barriers that divide us.

I Made It All Up For You is the new record by Hugo Race Fatalists, their 6th studio album, set for release March 20, 2026 thru Gusstaff Records / Helixed on LP/CD and digital.
"In his 40-year career, Hugo Race has lived a thousand lives and played the role of songwriter, producer, musician, performer, head of a record label (Helixed). His music went from folk to lounge, from "trance industrial blues" to psychedelia, from world music to electronics. Starting from post-punk Melbourne in the 1980s, he took fascinating paths that led him from Africa to Turkey, from Berlin to Romagna…"
Hugo Race returns after highly successful collaborative albums with Michelangelo Russo (100 Years), The Church frontman Steve Kilbey (Speed of the Stars) and Gianni Maraccolo (The Vigil, winner of the prestigious Premio Ciampi) with I Made It All Up For You, an epic album with his Italian band Fatalists - existential songwriting framed by the band's signature fusion of roots music, electronica, Italian soundtracks and desert rock.
"I wanted to create something melodic and beautiful in defiance of our current reality. The songs started as bare acoustic sketches written in a remote mountain cabin in Italy where I had two weeks off during a solo tour. The weather turned into a raging blizzard, the days a struggle to keep the wood fire lit and the smoke out of the house. I wrote about twelve songs, threw them all away, started again with an unplugged electric guitar in front of that
damp fire, searching for the album's theme. When the smoke cleared, I was at the crossroads of a long term relationship unraveling under a blazing antipodean sun.
Fatalists recorded the basic tracks at the floating studio on the Puccini lake an hour out of Florence - Giovanni Ferrario (Scisma, PJ Harvey) on guitars and synth, Francesco Giampaoli (Brutture Moderne) on bass and Diego Sapignoli (Sacri Cuori) on percussion.
Violinist Massimiliano Gallo met me in Sicily for a short tour to learn the new songs, adding layers of his Calabrian magic to the mix. Jennifer Charles (singer of New York band Elysian Fields) and I had been talking for a long time about making new music and this was the occasion when we made it happen. Jennifer's distinctive voice graces this
album on the songs I Collide and Broken Love, the lyrics of which were written by author and designer Alannah Hill. My longtime road brother Michelangelo Russo also dusts the tracks with his otherworldly electric harmonica on Against The World, Born To Fly and Open Field. A lot of joy and pain and reflection went into the making of this album and I hope that comes across; this is about the darkness yes, but also the light. Everything changes and every ending is a new beginning but it's how we experience transformation that really matters. I hope you love this album. I made it all up for you."
Hugo Race, Naples, 2025

MOVIE MOVIE is based out of NYC and features members of the bands TWIN GUNS, THE ELECTRIC MESS, and THE ABOVE. The band combine elements of power pop, '60s, '70s and '80s garage, classic, alternative and glam rock, but they have a sound all their own, with a focus on strong hooks and melodic vocals. "After Hours" is a 1980s New Wave comedy about a party girl on the downtown scene whose claim to fame is a bit part in a popular movie, where she uttered the immortal line, "Won't you look at the time," but she wouldn't give you the time. "Wasting Time" is an existential road picture in the mind of the protagonist, set across heartland America and a sunny beach in the Caribbean, but in reality he never leaves the girl, or town, and in the end ponders his wasted years. "First Love (Never Dies)" is a romantic drama that spans decades, about an aging rocker who reflects on his first teenage love, a girl he has never stopped thinking about. He tries to track her down and reconnect after all these years, only to find she is now married to his old childhood rival.

"Photograph" is a future arthouse hit, shot in stark black white, about the disintegration of a relationship seen from two different perspectives, captured in an old photograph, in which the truth is revealed in the looks on their faces. "Coming Attractions" is MOVIE MOVIE's second EP, after their debut six track EP, "Now Playing" (2022), on Ghost Highway/ KOTJ Records, and they have two full LPs, "Storyboards" (2023), and "In 4-D!" (2024), both Topsy-Turvy Records.

15 years since their fantasy disco scene-defining 1st volume, Johnny Jewel’s IDIB lasso Sally Shapiro, Desire, Farah, Lovelock and the kreme of their field for a 27-song, 2-hour re-up



Where previous volumes took their sweet time to arrive, ‘Volume 4’ graces the ‘floor only two years since the last, and nobody’s complaining. From its slo-mo, dry-iced covers of Jennifer Lopez’ ‘Waiting For Tonight’, Don Henley’s ’Boys of Summer’ and even flipping R.E.M.’s ‘Losing My Religion’, thru to exclusive pearls by our disco queen crush, Sally Shapiro, and Johnny Jewel as Desire, it’s the ideal soundtrack for late summer into silly season.

It's taken over two decades, but at last, the wait is over: Sevan Mater has unleashed the first- ever vinyl pressing of Live Damage , the iconic live performance by DARK TRANQUILLITY, captured during their "Damage Done" era. Pressed on Gold and Black swirl vinyl, limited to just 500 copies, and housed in a stunning gatefold cover, this reissue is nothing short of melodic death metal heaven. Originally released in 2003 as a DVD, Live Damage immortalized one of DT 's most intense and electric live shows - recorded in Krakow, Poland. Now, for the first time ever, that raw energy, that iconic Swedish aggression, and that perfectly balanced blend of melody and brutality has been etched into vinyl grooves for audiophiles and collectors alike. From the soaring leads of The Treason Wall to the punishing drive of Final Resistance, every track explodes with clarity and presence on wax.

The vinyl mastering brings new warmth and immediacy to the performance, giving fans the closest thing to being there, without the sweat and flying beer. And the packaging? Absolutely elite. Sevan Mater delivers a luxurious gatefold, featuring rare tour photos, liner notes, and an aesthetic drenched in cold, melancholic elegance. If you're a fan of At The Gates, In Flames, or if Damage Done was the soundtrack to your early 2000s fury, this release is a must-own. More than just a live album - it's a time capsule of melodic death metal at its peak.

Alvorada is Montanha’s first long play: an ambient-leaning work, nocturnal in mood yet touched by electricity, tracing a journey from waking activity into dream logic. Recorded mostly in the late hours of the evening with windows open to the city, letting its air and sounds influence the music, it sometimes reached the early moments of sunrise. The title, meaning “dawn,” reflects both the liminal hours of its making and the band’s own renewal. These tracks are closer to drawings than songs: narratives written between instruments, moments of tension and release, fragments of memory and dream. The tracklist follows this nocturnal voyage with the patience of Eno, the disquiet of Uematsu, and the madness of Miles Davis’ Decoy, oscillating between streets and sleep, routine and reverie.

Montanha was formed in 2010 by André Azevedo, Nuno Oliveira, João Sarnadas, and Tito Silva, bonding over architecture school all-nighters on videogame soundtracks (Age of Empires, Super Mario). They began as a psychedelic rock combo and in 2013 released their self-titled EP which introduced a raw, improvised energy. But the album that was meant to follow was abandoned as the band entered hiatus. The four members turned their creative drive towards co-founding Favela Discos, where experimentation with media and form reshaped their ideas of music, and developed their taste, their way of playing, and a more personal sound that was more open and disconnected from a defined genre.

By 2017, Montanha had returned to the studio with new experience, no longer a rock band in the traditional sense but a project devoted to improvisation and electronic soundscapes. An ever gentrifying city forced them to abandon acoustic drums, and they embraced electronic beats instead, and became mobile; one guitar dissolved into full synths, leaving the other to converse with bass. Improvisation remained their compass. In improvisation there are no mistakes, only missed opportunities. Montanha found their opportunity in the routine of the studio to break routines of pop and experimental. The result is a body of nearly fifty hours of recordings, sculpted into an album.

Alvorada is not only Montanha’s first LP but also the dawn of their new phase. Improvised yet carefully sculpted, the record expands the territory of the song into nonlinear narratives, letting the language of night, dream, and city seep into its form.

The duality of "man" is a subject that has been explored in art for centuries, from writings of the Bible to Descartes, all the way up to filmmakers like Lynch, Cronenberg, & Carpenter. Who is your "true self" & what do they want? With their sixth studio album "Wish Defense" (again for longtime home Trouble In Mind Records), Chicago trio FACS take a good, long look in the mirror to face themselves. The return of original member Jonathan Van Herik - who stepped away from the group just before their debut album "Negative Houses" was released in 2018 - replacing longtime bassist Alianna Kalaba brings renewed vigor & a marked angularity from the band's more recent output. The songs still hit hard, but the approach is sideways - the roles have changed since Van Herik's original tenure & his previous time with Case & powerhouse drummer Noah Leger in Disappears; now on bass, Van Herik was originally the group's guitar player and features on the debut, while current guitarist Brian Case played bass. This role reversal has helped the band's dynamic, offering up a different musical perspective than before, now revisiting the trio's long-going collaboration with some distance and time. Case notes that the lyrics on "Wish Defense" revolve around doppelgängers or "doubles", tackling the idea of facing yourself and observing your ideas and motivations. Look no further than the album's title track; "Enter the mirror / Double walker / An intimate / Wish defense / Is it real? / You beside me / The detail / Terrifying / Abject self / Your grief / A public / Performance". Case lays out the entire album's theme in one stanza; Are your actions & emotions your true self? Or are they a performative aspect of that "other" person you put forward? Case says that ultimately the sentiment is "_don't let the bastards get you down, there's something beyond this moment, like hope - but not in the naive belief that ultimately people are good". "Wish Defense"s artwork is also a subtle reference to "Negative Houses"' art, returning to that album's black & white starkness & minimalism. The album's checkerboards everywhere are offset reflections of themselves, mirrored with the album's lyrics printed front & center on the cover. Everything is out in the open. A final note; "Wish Defense" is the last album engineered by Steve Albini. Two days were recorded at Electrical Audio in early May of 2024 before Steve's untimely passing, with renowned engineer & friend Sanford Parker stepping in to finish the session 24 hours later, tracking the last bits of vocals and overdubs. Longtime collaborator John Congleton mixed the album as Albini would have; in Electrical Audio's A room, off the tape, using Albini's notes about the session.

Joel Shearer’s Listening Immerses Itself in Ambient Guitar, Restraint, and the Beauty of Repetition

With guitarist and ambient composer Joel Shearer’s new album, Listening, he took the path of repetition, subtle movement, and pure sound rather than conventional songwriting. What began as a disciplined experiment — limiting himself to just electric guitar — soon expanded. At various points, he introduced piano, cello, and trumpet, allowing the record to evolve organically. "I didn’t know I was making another record,” Shearer says. “I was experimenting, wanting to do something beyond just the electric guitar. So, I started these other tracks, and that’s how Listening came about.”

Unlike albums built around hooks or dramatic shifts, Listening unfolds gradually, moving with patience and restraint. There are no choruses, no obvious climaxes — just sound evolving over time. “Instead of a traditional song structure with a verse, chorus, or B section, it’s one continuous movement that grows and dissolves,” Shearer explains. “It’s not about anticipating the next moment—it’s about sitting inside the sound, getting comfortable with patience.” A Topanga-based session musician, composer, and producer, Shearer’s previous solo albums, Morning Loops and Hours, explored the manipulation of only the electric guitar, using texture and repetition to push beyond conventions. Listening continues that journey, offering music that resists distraction and rewards deep attention.

Shearer recorded Listening without a click track, working in long, freeform takes. His shimmering, clean guitar tones—often unrecognizable, processed through looping pedals and effects—became a foundation, with layers of sound building around it. “I love making the guitar sound like anything but a guitar,” he says. “I might play for just a minute, but once the sound enters the effects chain, it takes on a life of its own. The music keeps evolving, stretching time in ways I couldn’t predict.”

The opening piece, “Big Sur,” is an 11-minute meditation that drifts in slow, hypnotic waves, its layered guitar textures sparkling like light over water. The piece moves without urgency, subtly transforming as it pulls the listener deeper into its atmosphere. “Threshold” features a delicate piano melody that gradually unfurls, allowing its essence to fully settle before the next emerges. Subtle layers of ambient guitar weave around the piano, stretching and dissolving into the background, creating a sense of stillness and slow expansion.

At nearly 15-minutes, “The Clear Light of the Void” is a slow-burning study in sustain and resonance. Layers of guitar stretch and dissolve into an open, drifting soundscape, each note lingering and shifting like a breath held in suspension. Subtle tonal variations emerge over time, creating a sense of vastness—an expanse where sound is less about movement and more about presence.

“The world is noisy—so much information, so much distraction,” Shearer says. “I wanted to create something that allows people to just be present with the sound, without expectation.” It’s an album that demands nothing from the listener but offers space — to focus, to drift, to listen without waiting for what comes next.

It's taken over two decades, but at last, the wait is over: Sevan Mater has unleashed the first- ever vinyl pressing of Live Damage , the iconic live performance by DARK TRANQUILLITY, captured during their "Damage Done" era. Pressed on Gold and Black swirl vinyl, limited to just 500 copies, and housed in a stunning gatefold cover, this reissue is nothing short of melodic death metal heaven. Originally released in 2003 as a DVD, Live Damage immortalized one of DT 's most intense and electric live shows - recorded in Krakow, Poland. Now, for the first time ever, that raw energy, that iconic Swedish aggression, and that perfectly balanced blend of melody and brutality has been etched into vinyl grooves for audiophiles and collectors alike. From the soaring leads of The Treason Wall to the punishing drive of Final Resistance, every track explodes with clarity and presence on wax.

The vinyl mastering brings new warmth and immediacy to the performance, giving fans the closest thing to being there, without the sweat and flying beer. And the packaging? Absolutely elite. Sevan Mater delivers a luxurious gatefold, featuring rare tour photos, liner notes, and an aesthetic drenched in cold, melancholic elegance. If you're a fan of At The Gates, In Flames, or if Damage Done was the soundtrack to your early 2000s fury, this release is a must-own. More than just a live album - it's a time capsule of melodic death metal at its peak.

MJ Lenderman is a songwriter born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina. The anatomy of an MJ record might go something like this: warped pedal steels and skuzzed out guitar; a voice reminiscent of the high-lonesome warble of a choirboy; the keen observations and reflections of a front stoop philosopher. Songs snake their way from a lo-fi home recording to something glossier made with longtime friends at Asheville's Drop of Sun studios, but the recording setting
doesn't seem to matter much - at its core, a Lenderman song rings true.

MJ Lenderman was recorded, mixed and mastered for digital in 2019 by Colin Miller in Asheville NC, and was self-released online to quiet but firm acclaim. Now available as a Double LP and remastered for vinyl by Heather Jones, it offers a glimpse into the formative steps of a style; focused and precise, yet expansive and rough around the edges, that remains consistent across MJ's catalogue to date.

Looking as firmly to the legacy of 90s slowcore as it does to the tenor of Magnolia Electric Co. and sound wall of Neil Young and Crazy Horse, these 9 songs clock in at just over an hour and offer warm, patient worlds of heavy colour that blow by breezily. These are songs that wrap mysterious and urgent feeling in layers of patience and clarity that unfold anew with each timeless listen.

For his last solo record ‘Through a Room’, Bill Nace shifted his usual saturated guitar sound and added tapes, hurdy gurdy, doughnut pipe, bird calls and the mysterious Japanese taishōgoto. Setting up for the final night of his three day residency at OTO with only the taishōgoto soundchecked, Nace hoped that Parker would arrive with his small soprano as its opposite. “I’ve been interested in state change, you know, playing until there’s a shift in time.” Known for his development of multiphonics to produce a constantly shifting pattern, Evan Parker has evolved an instantly recognizable sound - his work the soprano most distinct. Happily, it was the soprano Evan brought with him and as soon as the two start to play they entwine - taking off in a double helix of keys and reed primed for endless reconfiguration. Space warps under the velocity of playing, the pitch rising unrelentingly. It felt like unending lift off in the room, sheer energy until the last note makes remember your feet have been on the floor the whole time. Total time bending shredding.

–

"They had never played together before. They had never even met each other before this springtime 2024 concert at London’s Café Oto.

Evan Parker, circular breathing maestro of the saxophone, a legend in the universe that is Free Improvisation since the late 1960s and Bill Nace, one of the most intriguing experimental “noise” guitarists of the 1990s/2000s underground scene.

For those of us who have been enamored by the live and documented work of both these gents, this Café Oto duo was a must-hear event. It could have gone anywhere musically and that would have been totally fine. Particularly with Evan having a history of being thrown into a variety of challenging collaborations throughout his career, employing the learned elegance of trust in his own sensitivity to listening, responding, leading, following, sparring, intertwining, dialoguing, creating in the instant and, essentially, dignifying the non-hierarchical grace of chance.

The aesthetics of socialist consideration in Evan Parker’s playing, in his community of expanded and personal technique, for a younger player such as Bill Nace, strikes an exemplary model. This notion of respect would be entirely the reason Nace, when offered a residency at the most critical “new music” room in England, would request to play in duo with Parker.

Bill Nace came to prominence mostly during the apex of experimental music activity in and around Western Massachusetts in the early days of the aughts, with a focus on visual art and free improvisation guitar action. He could be found in the daytime hours, his head hanging down over a notepad, penning fine-tuned illustrations and abstract line drawings, while in the evenings he’d be attending any number of basement noise gigs, many of which he’d be participating in. His guitar style came across as being informed as much as by the physicality of his writing utensils in friction to the page as it was to his hearing and redefining of radical recordings ranging anywhere from the Black Unity Group to Black Flag.

Utilizing various metal files and other small cylindrical objects Bill would allow his guitar and amplifier to be in tandem with the improvisatory movements of his body as the instrument balanced, intentionally and, at times, precariously, upon his lap. The performances came across thrilling and daring and they would be mostly in the context of venues nothing more than a low-ceilinged damp and dank New England basement, a clutch of people hanging onto rusty pipes or sitting up on dilapidated washer/dryer machines, the shards of Bill’s “file guitar” sounds ringing out like the most alive music on Earth.

By the time Bill reached Café Oto in early 2024 he had relocated to Philadelphia all the while releasing a succession of collaborative LPs on his Open Mouth label to present his developing progression of solo and collaborative work. He also would find himself considerably engaged with playing the electric taishōgoto, a keyboard-activated string instrument from Japan which can exist as a one, two, four, five, or six string oblong sound object. Bill’s approach to the taishōgoto would not be too unlike his approach to the traditional electric guitar, though no outboard implements such as files, sticks, and rocks are utilized. The similarity would lie wholly with Bill’s full immersion of high velocity action-playing where, with the taishōgoto, an electric drone beauty occurs. The flurry of sonics and resultant harmonics emanating from the amplifier (which Bill opts to dial into with borderline loud-as fuck volume settings) furthers the meta-mantra properties of the instrument in an astounding display of drone dynamism.

This sound world of Bill’s two-stringed taishōgoto on this Café Oto night worked beautifully with Evan Parker’s improvisatory saxophone conceptions. The duology achieved instant lift off at ground zero only to find it’s eventual finale as if it were organically ordained. Time seemingly morphed from its ancient human construct of control, rendered inconsequential to the torrential transcendence of the room wildly activated by the magic resonance of the multi-directional pan-spatial sonance of the music as if it were some beatific blessing. It was one of those nights where art as a liberating force of spirit gifted the listeners with an offering of exaltation and joy. It was entirely mystical and mind blowing. A night of Total Music."

Thurston Moore, London, 2025

Following releases on Longform Editions and her own Paralaxe imprint, Dania descends on Somewhere Press with crepuscular, quixotic pop that hits a sweet spot between Mark Clifford’s Cocteau Twins remixes and Massive Attack.

Parked next to Alliyah Enyo, Slowfoam, and Angel R, Dania’s found an ideal home at Somewhere Press, and »Listless« is her most confident, transcendent set to date. Her last few albums were steeped in meaning – a way for the Iraq-born, Tasmania-raised artist to explore her identity and probe the impacts of colonisation. Here, she gives herself more room to breathe, thriving in the mysteries of nighttime – a direct reference to her nocturnal existence as an emergency doctor in Australia. The album was completely composed in the midnight hours, but it’s not self-consciously dark in the way you might expect. Opening track »On a Grassy Knoll« is one of the prettiest – and poppiest – tracks Dania has released, cracking open her voice with thrumming harmonies that she complements with granulated, Guthrie-esque guitars and, most unexpectedly, half-speed drums. It’s the first time Dania’s used percussion, and it suits her extremely well.

In fact, even when the powdery breaks drop away in the album’s final breaths, you can almost hear an outline of where they might remain. On »Write My Name«, Dania loops her voice between waved strings and slippery piano phrases, and the hypnotic closer »A Hunger« is a thudding, sub-heavy 4/4 away from being Peak Oil-style contemporary dub techno.

But the big draw here is Dania’s batch of hazy dream-pop miniatures, like the Seefeel-adjacent »Heart Shaped Burn« (with Rupert Clervaux on drums), and the Bristolian »Car Crash Premonition«, that features a rolling bassline taking us right back to 1998. Very strong – peak listening if you’re into Bowery Electric, MBV, or Mark Van Hoen.

Wounds is the band's long-awaited fifth album - their first in six years, their most eclectic and ambitious work to date. As heavy as it is haunting, the record masterfully blends doom, post-punk, and driving krautrock in a dynamic, hypnotic maelstrom - pushing London's most exciting cult band into intoxicating new territory. "Wounds is a series of songs about the different ways people live with and process 'the wounds' of their lives," explains vocalist Maya. "A strange celebration of that formative pain we have all experienced in some way. The loss and joy of survival - the celebration of finding others like us, the gift of knowing life comes after fire." Wounds was recorded by Mike Bew, on location at Foel Studio. The band could be found working deep into the witching hours, experimenting with new sounds and filling the valleys with cantankerous wails of sound, bursting from amps borrowed from My Bloody Valentine. "The Welsh countryside has a mystical quality to it," says guitarist Adam. "We recorded in a deep, dark valley; misty days and shooting stars at night. You could wander through nearby woods and stone circles during breaks. Foel Studios is woven into this setting with a transcendence of its own - its storied history includes sessions by Electric Wizard, Hawkwind and The Fall." Synths on the album are arranged by Berlin-based Bow Church, an influential figure in the dark electronic scene and a longtime collaborator of the band. His work weaves icy and atmospheric textures into the album's tracks. While meticulously crafted, Wounds captures the visceral energy of Cold in Berlin's renowned live shows. The album's arrangements and raucous sound remain true to the unrelenting intensity and atmosphere of their stage performances - every track retains the sweat, urgency, and immediacy of a band performing in the moment.

A Milan-born multi-instrumentalist of Venetian heritage, Alberto Baldan Bembo was a gifted vibraphonist, organist, pianist, arranger, and composer whose work bridged jazz, pop, and film music. By the early 1960s, he was performing with Italy’s leading ensembles, including I Menestrelli del Jazz and Bruno De Filippi’s group, and soon became an in-demand session musician. For several years, he toured with the legendary Mina, providing the piano and organ backbone to her live shows—a role that sharpened the cinematic sensibility and refined musicianship that would later define his soundtrack work. In the years to come, he would be celebrated for his scores to films such as L’Amica Di Mia Madre (1975) and Lingua Argento (1976), earning a place alongside Piero Umiliani, Alessandro Alessandroni, Berto Pisano, and other luminaries of Italy’s golden age of soundtrack and library music.

Io E Mara is the soundtrack to a film that was never made. Originally released on the CGD label in 1969, this debut album from the brilliant Maestro Baldan Bembo is a sophisticated concept-album tracing 24 hours in the life of two young lovers. Told entirely through music, the record unfolds as a continuous suite of ten tracks, where cinematic lounge, bossa, and jazz flavors mingle to create a dreamlike atmosphere. Baldan Bembo’s signature piano and organ are masterfully complemented by Mara’s ethereal vocals, while immersive soundscapes of crashing waves, seagulls, and rain showers enhance the feeling of a deeply personal and intimate journey. A cast of exceptional musicians brings this vision to life, including Bruno De Filippi on electric guitar and sitar, Carlo Milano on electric bass, Rolando Ceragioli on drums, and Pasquale Liguori on sound effects. This singular work not only showcases the burgeoning talent of a future soundtrack master but also features the original pop art front cover by Italian cult illustrator Guido Crepax.

François and Sylvain Rabbath have turned six years of touring into a joint album that patiently and intensely distills a variety of musical flavors gathered from around the world.

Since the early 1960s, François Rabbath's double bass has resonated through enough landmark recordings to fill several shelves in a record collection. As an arranger, composer, and musician, his imprint on music goes far beyond his collaborations with Barbara, Paco Ibáñez, Charles Aznavour, or Édith Piaf. Aspiring double bassists owe him a groundbreaking method for learning the instrument. Born into a lush musical universe that quickly became his own, his son Sylvain first accompanied him on his travels before settling at the piano and sharing stages around the world at his side.

Those years of accumulating visas in their passports were put to good use by father and son. The continents, countries, and cities they passed through became a rich source of inspiration for composing Amall, the album by the Rabbath Electric Orchestra.

Long hours spent in the air or on the road, watching passing landscapes that never stayed the same, were transformed into compositions imbued with the atmospheres of the places they crossed or visited. Inspiration sometimes struck with force, like a green oasis appearing in a desert of stone—unexpectedly, as glowing red rocks suddenly dominated an otherwise open landscape with an endless horizon, while the mind wandered into a state between meditation and introspection.
Born from these travels, the pieces took on their final colors once brought into the studio, refined, and finally arranged to welcome the guitars of Keziah Jones and Matthieu Chedid, the piano of Laurent de Wilde, the bass of Victor Wooten, the saxophone of Raphaël Imbert, and the percussion of Minino Garay. Enhanced by the scale of the jazz-soul orchestrations, by the richness of arrangements bursting from strings, brass, rhythms, or keyboards, the epic breath of vast plains became ingrained. The urban tension of funk, echoing their movements, found its place—alongside more electric expressions or the ambience of a darkened room.
Melancholic and melodious, expressive and edgy, the bowed double bass—played in the high register where few dare to go—emerged as the musical guide. One that draws a path between Seville and Minneapolis, connects François Rabbath's native Syria to France, and bridges South America to Europe. It sets the tone to follow—the emotion that will carry the piece, and if not filled with light, will carry it there nonetheless.
Musical visions packed in luggage, transported in cargo holds, or imprinted in their minds just long enough to cover the distances to the next stop—father and son deepened their bond, beyond family and art. And their hands have never held each other more tightly.

François et Sylvain Rabbath ont fait fructifier six ans de tournées pour un album commun distillant patiemment et intensément la variété de parfums musicaux récoltés autour du monde.
Depuis le début des 60’s, la contrebasse de François Rabbath résonne dans assez de références pour combler plusieurs étagères d’une collection de disques. Arrangeur, compositeur, musicien, l'empreinte laissée dans la musique va bien au-delà de ses collaborations avec Barbara, Paco Ibanez, Charles Aznavour, ou Edith Piaf. C’est à lui que les
apprentis contrebassistes doivent une méthode novatrice pour apprendre l’instrument.

Né dans un univers musical luxuriant qui est vite devenu aussi le sien, c’est d’abord dans ses voyages que son fils Sylvain l’a accompagné, avant de s’installer au piano, et parcourir les scènes du monde à ses côtés. Ces années où les visas se sont entassés sur leurs passeports, père et fils les ont mises à profit. Continents, pays, et villes qui se sont succédés sont devenues un gisement pour composer Amall, l’album du Rabbath Electric Orchestra.

Les longs moments passés dans les airs ou sur la route à contempler un paysage qui défile sans pour autant rester le même, se sont convertis en compositions habitées par les ambiances de ces endroits traversés ou visités. Là où l’inspiration s’est imposée parfois brutalement, sous
la forme d’un oasis de verdure surgissant au milieu d’un désert de pierres. Au hasard d’imposantes roches rougeoyantes s’invitant dans un paysage jusqu’alors dégagé sur un horizon sans fin, quand l’esprit se laisse aller à un mélange de méditation et d'introspection.

Nés de ces pérégrinations, les titres ont pris leurs couleurs définitives une fois ramenés en studio, peaufinés puis, enfin, pensés pour y inviter les guitares de Keziah Jones et de Matthieu Chedid, le piano de Laurent de Wilde, la basse de Victor Wooten, le saxophone de Raphaël Imbert, les percussions de Minino Garay. Sublimé par la dimension des orchestrations jazz-soul, par la richesse des arrangements jaillissant des cordes, des cuivres, des rythmiques ou des claviers, le souffle épique des plaines immenses s’est imprimé.
La nervosité citadine du funk rythmant les déplacements a trouvé sa place, non loin d’une expression plus électrique ou d’une atmosphère de salle obscure.

Mélancolique et mélodieuse, expressive et nerveuse, la contrebasse jouée à l’archet, dans les notes hautes du manche où peu s’aventurent, s’est érigée en guide musical. Celui qui trace le chemin entre Séville et Minneapolis, relie la Syrie natale de François Rabbath à la France,
réduit la distance entre l’Amérique du Sud et l’Europe. Donne la note à suivre, l’émotion qui traversera le morceau qui, s’il n’est pas habité par la lumière, le portera néanmoins jusque là.

Visions musicales mises dans le coffre, transportées en soute ou imprimées dans l’esprit le temps de couvrir les distances qui les mèneront aux prochaines, c’est côte à côte que père et fils ont prolongé leur lien par delà des seules limites familiales et artistiques. Et leurs mains ne se sont jamais serrées aussi fort.
credits

First released on August 18, 2023, "Outline of Nature" started as an experiment in building a modular synthesizer system and ended up as a voltage controlled outpouring of love for the natural world. Sylvan-born and pastoral-powered, sap-blooded and lightning-charged, this album grew out of the damp florescent corners of the woods, each note and sound, a fractal extension of their seedling sounds. It was nurtured into being at The Twilight Research Centre, a studio facility situated on the border of Somerset and Dorset. During Covid lockdown 1.0, I spent the outdoor hours we were permitted, wandering through the centre's surroundings, in the green lanes, woodlands and corridors of the wilds with their wary and flickering inhabitants, beneath the distant eyes of the soaring buzzards and the hulking red kites. I didn't expect it, but it was in the quiet, ferociously vibrant dens of nature, that I found a deeply profound connection with the natural world. It once again made sense to feel as much a part of the woods as the trees were; I felt like a natural entity in its habitat again, not something I'd properly felt since running wild through the gullies, dells and fells of the Midlands as a child. And I became afflicted with a powerful urge to build strange electronic sound systems that were organic, chaotic, fractal and in some way reflective of the awesome natural systems that surround us and surround the centre. I plugged in the modular, and went searching for signs of life. Adding to this, just before the lockdowns, I stumbled across a three volume nature encyclopedia in a local charity shop, called "Outline of Nature in the British Isles" by Sir John Hammerton. The sub-heading reads "A Comprehensive Photo-Survey of the Varied Life of Field and Hedgerow, Moor and Mountain, River, Pond and Sea", and it's a stunning collection of grainy photographs, beautiful illustrations and wondrously poetic writing, some of which inspired track titles and of course, the album title. I also rekindled my love of Ladybird nature books such as the "What to Look for in Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter" series, "Birds and How They Live" and "Butterflies, Moths and Other Insects", rebuilding a small collection I had as a child and discovering numerous volumes new to me. Between the two literary sources, I had a rich well of imagery, writing and pastoral nostalgia to draw from; and coupled with the extended sessions of blissing out in my own heavily ecstatic awe descended on me in the sheer grandness of the wilderness, I set about enticing out of the woods an album of phosphorescent electrical music, abundant with comparatively microscopic, but persistent and wild life-forces.

For many bands, having all their gear stolen would be catastrophic. For Third Ear Band, this unfortunate 1968 incident opened a portal to beneficial change. Leader/percussionist Glen Sweeney viewed the heist as a sign to alter Third Ear Band's approach, and they switched to exclusively using acoustic instruments. With electrified psychedelia in full bloom, Sweeney, Paul Minns (oboe, recorder, whistles, flutes) and Richard Coff (violin, viola) struck out on an individualistic path, blending Indian raga with chamber music – without plugging in.

Third Ear Band's 1969 debut album, Alchemy, established them as a solemn, powerful force in the global underground. On Alchemy, Sweeney laid down a steady pulse on hand drums, while Minns and Coff wove in melismatic patterns on oboe, recorder, violin and viola. This approach carried over to Third Ear Band's self-titled sophomore album, often called Elements due to its track titles being named after the four basic components of medieval European alchemists' doctrines.

On this 1970 LP, Third Ear Band sounded at once ancient and contemporary, yet they turned on the hippies with their epic, trance-inducing jams that suggested secret knowledge of infinity. Although Third Ear Band flourished during the West's countercultural zenith, they were peculiarly estranged from it on a sonic level. Even outré contemporaries such as Comus and Jan Dukes De Grey sounded like pop groups compared to TEB. Having no traditional front person or electric instruments, Third Ear Band forged a singular path that flowered most vividly on Elements.

The long songs here stream forth from their skilled hands, evoking a communal transcendence in sound – a hypnotic swirl that doesn't swing, but rather wafts and undulates with cloistered beauty. TEB's music exists in an eternal now, a perpetual wow. It is an ouroboros of organic textures, seemingly magicked into the air spontaneously, yet possessing a rigor that suggests long hours in the lab. Without electricity, it somehow burrowed deeper into your consciousness.

– Dave Segal (excerpt from the liner notes)

Chickasha, Oklahoma is not a place known for producing a lot of original proto-punk bands. In fact, there is, to our knowledge, only one: Debris'. Formed in 1975 by bassist Chuck Ivey, guitarist Oliver "Rectomo" Powers and drummer Johnny Gregg, the trio created some of the most art-damaged outsider rock 'n' roll this side of MX-80 Sound.

When a local studio offered the package deal of ten hours for recording and mixing as well as pressing 1,000 LPs and two-color jackets, Debris' came in well-rehearsed – nailing all eleven of their songs in just one take. In April 1976, the same month as Ramones' debut album, Debris' would release their lone record onto the world.

Opener "One Way Spit" could easily be mistaken for a lost KBD single – from Chuck's bizarre count-in to the band's trashy start-stop rhythms, unfurling a Dadaist flag around Johnny's visceral vocals. On "Tricia," a reference to the then-current Patty Hearst trial, Oliver's gruesome groans are sardonically juxtaposed with an electric saw. These LSD-tinged tunes are a potent mix of Beefheart-ian controlled chaos and the genuinely weird avant-rock associated with the mid-'70s Cleveland scene.

Enhanced by analog synthesizers and electronic effects, the album sounds like Eno-era Roxy Music or Stooges' Fun House buried deep in the red Oklahoma dirt. While punk would spark a handful of bands who boldly straddled the line between the primal and the experimental, the relatively unsung Debris' were one of the first to do so.

Debris' had a standing invitation to play New York at Max's Kansas City and CBGB in 1976, although they never made it out of Oklahoma. The private-press edition of their self-titled album (also known as Static Disposal, which was actually the label name printed on the original front cover) has since become a collector's item and is even namechecked on the infamous NWW list.

Dutch upstart Epsie pulls a rabbit, or maybe a Roland, from the hat with Rule of Thumb, a
debut EP that’s as wobbly and wide-eyed as a warehouse party at the early morning
hours. It’s a small marvel of mangled synth wizardry and chopped-to-hell drum patterns
that somehow stay locked tighter than your last three-day weekend. There’s a charming
messiness to it all.

“Fedde” kicks things off with a percussive punch to the frontal lobe, big-room bravado
laced with a subtle wink. “Electric” takes a left turn down acid alley, tripping over a
broken beat and landing in a puddle of molten 303 line. But nothing here feels tacked on
or stitched together post-hangover; it’s all curiously cohesive, like chapters in a fever
dream authored by a bedroom producer with a dusty sequencer and an interstellar
agenda.

Nostalgic without being derivative, danceable without chasing a trend, Rule of Thumb is
fit for all forms of dancing, and the roof tops that dare to hold it.

Bulbous Monocle focuses its lens further into the legacy and archives of the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282. These Things Remain Unassigned—a phrase coined by Brian Hageman, one of the band’s musical snake appendages emanating from its Medusa crown—is presented as a double LP (gatefold jacket with a twelve page libretto). It gathers together the band’s singles, compilation tracks, outtakes and never before released gems encompassing the arc of TFUL’s musical corpus. Every track has been surgically remastered by Mark Gergis (Porest / Sublime Frequencies / Mono Pause) with his signature craftsman approach. This collection is an auditory and visual feast. The extensive booklet included features band ephemera, concert flyers, photographs, and commentary about each track from Mark Davies. Beyond the rare singles and unreleased tracks from the TFUL archives, are cover versions from such disparate artists and composers as Ennio Morricone, Krzysztof Komeda, The Residents, The Shaggs, Caroliner Rainbow and Pérez Prado. “…In addition to these compilation one-offs, there were also a few studio recordings that were never quite completed or released. Throw in an alternate mix or two and the handful of singles that came out on various labels over the years, and you end up with what I feel works well as its own body of work, a bunch of adopted oddballs that somehow fit together as a family. I hope youʼll agree with me that these things are now no longer unassigned, but part of a somewhat cohesive whole, stitched together into something mysterious and glistening.” —Mark Davies (2023)

Fit for Consequences: Original Recordings, 1984–1987 is the first ever archival release from Repetition Repetition, the “two-man electric minimalist band” consisting of Ruben Garcia and Steve Caton hailing from Los Angeles in the mid 1980’s. Repetition Repetition’s unique blend of cosmic art-rock minimalism / maximalism was self-released across a series of cassettes produced in micro editions, and while garnering the attention and participation of luminaries such as Harold Budd, remained under the radar during the band’s existence. Fit for Consequences: Original Recordings, 1984–1987 collects select material from across the duo’s catalog.

It was over a plate of Mexican breakfast food when Ruben Garcia and Steve Caton first told Harold Budd of Repetition Repetition and the worlds they intended to explore by respective way of synthesizers and guitars --- a rendezvous instigated by the former’s fan mail to the legendary composer. If the upstarts entered this restaurant from a one-way street of admiration, they would leave with not only Budd’s interest but, sometime later, a blessing in the wake of many hours shared by the three in Garcia’s Los Angeles home recording studio: “This is going to be difficult, but God help them, I think they’re great,” noted Budd in a USC lecture in 1985. Now several degrees removed from prior rock music aspirations, the real game was afoot.

Between 1984 and 1988, Repetition Repetition operated within something akin to the underground of the experimental underground, although even that designation perhaps overstates the case. The duo’s sparse output consisted of three cassettes self-released on Garcia’s Third Stone Music label: Repetition Repetition (1985), Lakeland (1987), and The Machinist (1987). Their songs would also be included during this period on Trance Port Tapes’ vital scene-scanning compilations assembled by A Produce. Live performances occurred with similar infrequency, but Garcia and Caton counted converts in quality over quantity, numbering among them the aforementioned Budd, a Chambers Brother, and, judging by a memorably drop-jawed reaction following a rare Repetition Repetition gig, Jackson Browne.

Likewise, critical support materialized in the form of KCRW deejays Brent Wilcox and Dean Suzuki, whose steady airplay positioned Repetition Repetition’s music amidst fearless company like Jon Hassell, Hiroshi Yoshimura, and Richard Horowitz. Yet, to hear fellow Trance Port featured players like Tom Recchion and Bruce Licher of Savage Republic tell it, Garcia and Caton moved as ghosts --- a notion more vexingly endorsed by the silence of record companies that failed to come knocking --- and therein lies an overarching truth to the work itself.

Journey to the heart of Repetition Repetition and one discovers a collective ear impossibly attuned to the hypnotic possibilities of stylistic convergence, the resulting music possessed of seamless multimodalities which beckon to a glimmering plane of the disembodied. Where Caton sought his artistic fixes at an intersection of popular genres, Garcia zoned in on the sonically spare, drawing from the same wellspring as the Enos and Rileys of his personal avant-garde pantheon, and in their coming together the two tapped into a deeper cosmic source. Synthetic walls of keyboard sound in forever states of reprise met waves of shimmering --- and at times even punishing --- guitar in reply, their soundscapes hovering convincingly between, as suggested in fittingly dualistic fashion in a press kit assembled by Garcia, such disparate sensations as bird flight in one song and oil drilling in the next.

But don’t call it a push-pull dynamic, as this was a creative partnership founded upon fluidity and organicism by way of, naturally, repetition. In contrast to, say, the Bressonian ideal of repetitive motion as a great stripping away, the concept in the hands of Garcia and Caton equated to ascendancy via continuous unfolding, a maximal route to minimalism. To be sure, their recording philosophy morphed over the course of the act’s short history, and what started as a process defined by consistent in-person interplay developed into a more isolated method formulated by Garcia, who eventually took to his own one-man bedroom-studio sessions in order to fully chart any and all potential ostinato-loaded paths which he could travel down, the Tascam-captured resonances subsequently provided to Caton as blueprints from which to take flight himself, adding layer upon layer of steel to the proceedings.

If the practice and execution changed, however, the evidence certainly didn’t rest in the results: The seamlessness remained, and, despite the brevity of their time together, so has Repetition Repetition. With this finely calibrated collection of songs in Fit for Consequences: Original Recordings, 1984–1987, Freedom To Spend sees to it that the private worlds of Garcia and Caton can now be visited by all rather than just the count-‘em-on-both-hands lucky few whose musical endeavors or collector vocations carried them into this once-distant dimension.

Repetition Repetition’s Fit for Consequences: Original Recordings, 1984–1987 will be released on Freedom To Spend in vinyl and digital editions on May 30, 2025. The collection includes extensive liner notes from Bill Perrine, and wil be offered alongside Over & Over, a supplemental collection of music available exclusively as a mail order cassette from Freedom To Spend and RVNG Intl.