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NEW 45 BY DEEP-FUNK PIONEER LUCKY BROWN RECORDED DURING THE NOW LEGENDARY SPACE DREAM SESSIONS!

In around 2001, Joel Ricci, the trumpet player/composer behind his former stage alias, Lucky Brown, went traveling on a worldwide "quest for funk". During that pilgrimage, he went to London England in time to attend Keb Darge's 'Legendary Deep Funk' 6-year anniversary at Madame Jojo's. While in the middle of the dancefloor, he was moved so significantly by this obscure brand of 'deep funk' Mr. Darge was unveiling, he became overcome by a mystical sense of 'coming home'. Additionally, he spent a week at Camden's Jazz Cafe to meet The Poets of Rhythm, The Breakestra, The Sugarman Three, DJ Snowboy, DJ James Trouble, and others. When Joel mentioned the nature of his quest to Neal Sugarman, he warmly invited him to come visit Brooklyn and kick it with members of Antibalas, Binky Griptite & The Mellomatics, and the Dap Kings. But before the trip back to the states, Joel spent some time in Paris playing his trumpet at a club called 'Cithea' where they would host weekly 'rare groove' jam sessions. During the jams, Parisian students of Tony Allen would overtake the stage with their instruments and their full African clothing, chant the word, 'Fela', and begin to play this intense free improvised funk and afrobeat. While traveling by train from Paris to the south of France to visit family, Joel began hearing this inspiring polyrhythm swirling in his inner ear and mixing with the "clack-clacka" of the train moving down the track. As soon as he arrived at his destination, he sat down at a piano and jotted down the polyrhythm, bass line and fundamental horn cluster on a piece of sheet music paper. The simple tune was finally rendered to tape ten years later with Lucky Brown's Crawdad Farmers aka The Funk Revolution on the Magik Carpet at drummer Olli Klomp's Lakeside log cabin in Stanwood, Washington. The tune became the title track to Lucky's first full-length on Tramp Records (Lucky Brown's Space Dream, TRLP-9011).

Space Dream is so titled in part to commemorate a soulfunk masquerade party Joel threw at a temporary all-ages Bellingham Washington music venue called 'The Pickford Dream Space'. This is Joel's stripped-down tape-only remix and re-edit which has never before appeared on 45RPM and commemorates the re-release, remaster and repackaging of upcoming Tramp LPs, "Space Dream" and "Don't Go Away", the fully realised 'director's cut' featuring Ricci's early group funk experiment: "The Funk Revolution."

Boy Harsher, Portishead, Thom Yorke, Radiohead, Beak>, ERAAS, SUUNS. Over the past seven years, Public Memory's distinctive use of analog synthesizers, electronic beats mixed with organic percussion, lo-fi sound design, and gritty ambience has created a singularly eerie and shadowy world. The first seconds of Public Memory's new record, Elegiac Beat, thrust us immediately into that world. We are in media res, with a feeling of sudden movement from a sensible point A to B. Given some time however, we realize that there is something askew–a bit of brightness here, some shadows pushed aside, some jazz and funk amongst the dub and Krautrock. This is an unfamiliar, ambiguous mood that pushes Public Memory towards new ground. We still drift past the clouded lights and hollowed out buildings of previous albums, but with an occasional bounce in our step now, a bit of golden haze around the edges. First single "Savage Grin" cements this clearly. The track has a jazzy, trip-hop flavor, albeit filtered through Public Memory's narcotic, hazy lens. We could be in a hotel lounge in the alps somewhere on holiday, or out of time in a majestic, sparkling ballroom. But we still have the feeling of being haunted, or perhaps even hunted in some way. This feeling intensifies and comes to a head towards the ever-darkening end of the track, leading directly into "Afterimage", in which someone almost imperceptibly sings "I hear them coming" in a twisted, auto-tuned flail. Second single "7 Floor" begins with flanged drums and damaged synthesizer stabs, evoking a kind of apparition floating towards us in the mist. As the track moves on there is, similarly to "Savage Grin", a contrast in feeling between a cold exterior roaming and an interior, warmer, human place. This time however, we move from the colder to the warmer as the synths from the track's beginning make way for a Rhodes-style organ and backing string synth, infusing an unexpected sense of peace. But like "Savage Grin", the track moves to its end through an in-between place beyond the haze. Faded and distant synthesizers meld with voices–human, or perhaps otherwise–that beckon us, or perhaps warn us. We can't be sure which. Third single "Far End Of The Courtyard" brings us closest to classic Public Memory territory with hip-hop beats, chopped and screwed samples, lo-fi ambience, and ghostly electric pianos complementing the vocals. There is darkness, perhaps more here than in the previous two singles, but with a crucial moment of uplifting lightness so subtle it may be missed upon first listen. As an inverse to both "Savage Grin" and "7 Floor" we end with brightness, the jazzier side of the record pushed to the forefront as the track fades away on that golden haze. In the end though, the haze may be just that: a vapor, a mist, a slight dusting of some other world on top of the degraded one Public Memory so effectively portrays. Elegiac Beat is between two places, and as it straddles the line between the two, we are uncertain if the light it brings shines directly from the sun, or if it is dimly reflected through that majestic ballroom world. For fans of 1990s Bristol trip hop, coldwave, and Thom Yorke's The Eraser

Following 2 acclaimed first editions, Stix Records presents the 3rd

volume of its Disco Reggae compilation series.
Like previous one, the 9 tracks comp is made both from productions
of the home labels now sold-out as vinyl, and from brand new
exclusive music by the like of Taggy Matcher, Mato or newcomer
Rosemary Martins, taking over classics titles from Donna Summer,
Stephen Encinas, Roberta Flack, Herbie Hancock, Steve Parks, or Inner City.
The perfect soundtrack to extend the summer!!

Made when mono was still king, Bob Dylan's self-titled 1962 debut is as understated of an entrance as any significant musician as ever made. Already well-versed in American roots music, Dylan simultaneously pays homage to tradition and extends it by putting his own stamp on classic material that metaphorically functions as the soil of our contemporary songs and styles. Free of ego, and performed with masterful conviction, Bob Dylan ranks with the debut efforts of similar artistic giants Elvis Presley and the Rolling Stones.

Mastered from the original master tapes, pressed at RTI, and limited to 3,000 copies, Mobile Fidelity's restored 180g mono 45RPM 2LP version brings the contents of this seminal release as closest as they've ever come to master tape-quality in the original mono configuration. Transparent to the source, the simple sounds of Dylan's voice, acoustic guitar, and harmonica take on lifelike perspective and directness – the "husk and bark" to which Robert Shelton referred in his now-legendary New York Times review of a Dylan appearance at Gerde's Folk City. MoFi has made possible an inexpensive time-traveling trip back to the Greenwich Village coffeehouses and folk clubs in which Dylan cut his teeth, albeit in much better fidelity and without any annoying background chatter. Wider grooves mean more information reaches your ears.

As the preferred mix at the time of the recording, the mono version presents Dylan as he and his producers originally intended. Since the separation of the stereo versions isn't as sharp, the mono edition places Dylan's vocals in the heart of the musical action and as one with the accompaniment. It paints listeners an incredibly accurate portrait of the attention-getting, concrete mass of sound that features no artificial panning and straight-ahead immersion into the music. This is how almost everyone first heard this timeless album – making the mono mix all the more historically valuable and truthful.

Much has been made of the commercial indifference that greeted the album upon its low-key release. Yet focusing on sales figures and the reaction of a public not yet hip to Dylan's name or music is to miss the forest for the trees. Distinguished from the era's other folk efforts by way of the determination, brazenness, and lived-through-this worldliness Dylan approaches the material and sings the songs, Dylan lays the groundwork for the path he'd soon trailblaze and everyone else would follow.

By nodding to Woody Guthrie at the same time he completely re-imagines a sobering tune such as Blind Lemon Jefferson's "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean," Dylan straddles the past and future. He also displays, with challenging authority and savant-like expertise, the ability to handle weighty topics such as death, sorrow, and lamentation with the vaudeville flair, bluesy mannerisms, and poignant command of an artist three times his age.



As Dylan scholar and pop-culture critic Greil Marcus observed in 2010, "Everybody knew Joan Baez and the Kingston Trio; if you knew Bob Dylan, you knew something other people didn't, something that soon enough everybody had to know. Within a year, an album could put an adjective in front of the singer's name as if it were already common coin." It all starts here.

Track List

“Orlando Furioso is a haunting, one-of-a-kind statement, from an important new voice in improvised music.” - Steve Lehman

“…imagining instruments that haven’t been invented yet: space harps, cosmic gamelan, Venusian banjo. It’s the purest distillation of Atria’s musical language, simultaneously grounded and unearthly.” - Stewart Smith for The Wire (November 2022)

“Making liberal use of microtonal harmony and hypnotic, ostinato rhythms – as well as the occasional stylistic smash-cut, reminiscent of John Zorn – Orlando Furioso announced itself on Wednesday as a punchy, creative force on the New York scene. (…) Atria’s rhythms had a welcoming, social propulsion, and the microtonality of his writing for keyboard proposed an individual – even insular – language.” - Seth Colter Walls for The New York Times.

Early European composers felt that their work reflected in its structure the divine nature of the material world. Via tuning, form, and contrapuntal alchemy, these musicians sought to illuminate and edify the complex and perfect order of existence. The music recorded here also reflects the contours of an ordered world, but it is no place any of us has ever visited. By assembling far-flung building blocks from the detritus of a 21st-century musical vocabulary, Orlando Furioso brings the listener into a bizarre new cosmos. The result is deeply expressive music that speaks not with the voice of a narrator or memoirist, but with that of a cartographer.

Like a science-fiction Dante, the listener is taken on a tour of many diverse and colorful provinces of an alien world. Though each composition references its own set of real-world musical locales (from the Andes to Indonesia to Italy to New Orleans), they are bound by stylistic consistency into a coherent, continuous geography. Permeating this world is an uncompromising commitment to microtonal harmony, rhythmic intensity, and an ability to deploy the esoteric (Nicola Vicentino's notorious 31-tone temperament) and the head-smackingly obvious (a surprise djent breakdown) with equal conviction. Though Vicente's compositions are steering the ship, serious recognition is due to all the players on the record for their ability to meet these demands.

Our omnivorous musical diets offer real abundance. They enrich our craft by providing access to limitless approaches from which to choose - more masters to study, traditions to absorb, and techniques to hone than is possible in multiple lifetimes. They can also inflict heavy and often contradictory burdens of influence. When every corner of the map has been charted, it becomes difficult to find a new direction in which to travel. One solution I hope to see more often is the one pursued on this record: breaking down distinct musical worlds into component parts and reassembling them into a language. When completed with precision and with no stone left unturned, the seams between the pieces vanish and the listener is deposited somewhere beautiful and strange, left to assign their sensations meanings of their own. - Mat Muntz

Orlando Furioso is led by Vicente and features David Acevedo, David Leon, Andrew Boudreau, Alec Goldfarb, Daniel Hass, Simón Willson, and Niña Tormenta. Orlando Furioso celebrated its release at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn, NY, as a part of Wet Ink Ensemble's 24th Season opening concert, a performance which The New York Times heralded as "virtuosic", "punchy, creative" and "even revelatory."

Winner of the Deutscher Jazz Preis: Best International Debut Album 2023

In 1972, a foursome of design students set out to make a record. This was, in many ways, a strictly creative endeavor. The quartet — composed of Dave Pescod, Alan Lewis, Phil Rawle, and Ted Rockley — were all trained, not as musicians, but as creatives. Art school heavyweights, the four were well-versed in the methodology of intentional experimentation, in the delicate balance of pushing the limits without completely unmooring oneself from a guiding creative intention. Emboldened by a high-brow familiarity with thoughtful experimentation and all the non-conviction of non-musicians, Bowes Road Band’s stint in the world of popular music yielded a record that is as much mind-melting as it is a direct product of its time. Their sprawling LP “Back in the HCA” embodies the exigence “art for art’s sake,” but it is for art’s sake that this record, however off the deep end it seems to travel (hear: “Doctor, Doctor”), remains a unified, and stunning, body of work. The LP’s do-ityourself garage rock noisemaking meets highfalutin creative processes. “Back in the HCA” is warbling psychedelic freakout (“Two Fingers,” “Doctor, Doctor”), Donovan-esque English countryside folk stylings (“Inside My Head,” “Goodbye to Rosie”), and avant-garde jazz improvisions (“Grass is Grass,” “Tomorrow’s Truth”) in one luminous release.

Originally an 9-track LP, Jakarta, Uno Loop, and Bowes Road Band decided to mine the six most cohesive tracks for the reissue, though the extras may be released somewhere down the line. Cohesion efforts aside, “Back in the HCA” stands alone in its singular conception of a genre-bending continuum — it evades definition. That said, the LP can easily be situated in the sonic environment in which it was conceived. By the end of the 60s, England was crawling with blues-based rock outfits that were starting to venture into prog rock territory. You can hear this popular dint cast over the folkier side of the LP. But Bowes Road Band was armed with their non-musicianship: they existed completely liberated from the motivating yet ultimately paralyzing lust for stardom. Enjoying this liberation, Bowes Road Band was utterly free to make noise. This freedom meant drawn out sax interludes amidst sweetly folk stylings (“Grass is Grass”) and Shaggs-like fuzzed-out freakouts that spiral into a void (Doctor, Doctor). This freedom also meant straight-forward tuneful cuts like “Goodbye Rosie” that conspicuously introduce heavily distorted auto-organ accompaniment mid-track amidst poignant lyricism. Bowes Road Band crafts a unified sound and then cracks it open.

With a completely off-the-radar status, Bowes Road Band could only press 50 copies of the record — 10 for each of them and 10 for the school. The band’s lifespan was to end there, or so they thought. “Back in the HCA” was the accidental fruit of a Berlin flea market treasure hunt by Jannis Stürtz, DJ and co-founder of Habibi Funk and Jakarta Records. After finding and sharing the LP with a few colleagues, Stürtz managed to get in touch with the band, get ahold of the master tapes collecting dust in Ted Rockley’s attic, and start the reissuing process. The record is still adorned with its original cover art designed by Alan Pescod, both reminiscent of bygone school days and the Zoom calls of yesterday — in short, reunion. Its re-discovery was happenstance and ought to be listened to as such. That is, “Back in the HCA” was not made to be listened to on a broad scale, or, at least, was not made with this goal in mind; it is neither in its time nor of its time. Of course, the group explicitly cites the folk tunes of the English countryside, the distorted rock groups that reigned during the record’s conception, and the fringes of psychedelic music that only the uber-underground might recognize (e.g., “Dreaming of Alice”). Yet still with these obvious influences, “Back in the HCA” always existed beyond the domain of both traditional musicianship and conventional commodification. Bowes Road Band’s DIY musicality beams through in technicolor across “Back in the HCA.” The vinyl includes an 8-page booklet detailing the albums creation and interviews with the band.

Lead single “Grass is Grass,” out July 14 along with album pre-order, encapsulates the record’s range: the track unfurls into a sprawling sax-driven trip following a sundrenched, Donovan-esque intro w/ lyrics “naively about parks and gardens, not marijuana!” The keyed-down folk cut “Goodbye to Rosie” is single 2 and elevates stripped-down acoustics with golden tinges, out August 4th. Focus track “Tomorrow’s Truth” constructs the fuzzed-out underbelly of acid folk. Listen for echoes of late Beatles, Mark Fry, and Donovan (if they were armed by an unshakabele willful naiveté). Like Sgt. Pepper’s on a shoestring budget—take a trip to the underground with LP “Back in the HCA,” available everywhere physically and digitally on September 1st via Jakarta Records and Uno Loop.

Besides online promotion from label profiles, the album will be further promoted by external agencies within the UK and US.

Following on the somnambulant heels of When I See The Sun, our massive, near-complete Codeine overview, comes What About The Lonely?, an eight-track LP recorded at the group's live zenith. Captured direct from the mixing board at a stop on Codeine's November 1993 swing through the Midwest, opening for Mazzy Star, this document finds Stephen Immerwahr, John Engle, and Doug Scharin running through their hits at Chicago's notorious Lounge Ax for a crowd of chatty "120 Minutes" fans. Gastr Del Sol's David Grubbs adds his guitar to two songs, slinking on and off the 24-inch stage with little fanfare, but leaving his signature indelibly on the performance.

Following on the somnambulant heels of When I See The Sun, our massive, near-complete Codeine overview, comes What About The Lonely?, an eight-track LP recorded at the group's live zenith. Captured direct from the mixing board at a stop on Codeine's November 1993 swing through the Midwest, opening for Mazzy Star, this document finds Stephen Immerwahr, John Engle, and Doug Scharin running through their hits at Chicago's notorious Lounge Ax for a crowd of chatty "120 Minutes" fans. Gastr Del Sol's David Grubbs adds his guitar to two songs, slinking on and off the 24-inch stage with little fanfare, but leaving his signature indelibly on the performance.

The Bad Guys is a 2022 animation feature film by DreamWorks Animation. Directed by Pierre Perifel, the film stars Sam Rockwell, Richard Ayoade, Zazie Beetz, Alex Borstein and Awkwafina amongst others. The story follows a notorious fun-loving criminal animal crew. After a heist has gone wrong, the pack agree to become model citizens - or at least try to.

The score was composed by Daniel Pemberton who is known for composing the score to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and its sequel Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023). He has also composed the soundtrack for King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017) and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015). Besides the original score, this soundtrack also features the songs "Good Tonight" feat. Anthony Ramos, "Feelin' Alright" by Elle King and "Brand New Day" by The Heavy.

The Bad Guys is available as a limited edition of 500 individually numbered copies on yellow & orange marbled vinyl and includes a 4-page booklet with liner notes by Daniel Pemberton and Pierre Perifel.

Rare Jazz-Funk album from 1978 by Headhunters founder.
Featuring an all-star line-up including Herbie Hancock.
Originally released in 1978 on Tobisha EMI Japan.
First vinyl reissue outside of Japan released in collab w/Totown Records. Comes with double side insert.

Paul Jackson (born in Oakland, California in 1947) needs little introduction. Paul began playing bass at the age of nine and was considered by many of his teachers to be a musical prodigy. Jackson was known as a “Musician’s Musician” and shaped a sound that launched a new direction in contemporary music: the so-called ‘Pulse Playing’, a trademark sound of close-meshed funk grooves combined with sensational rhythms. With this innovative approach, he influenced entire generations of jazz and funk musicians to come. Paul’s compositions were sampled by big acts from the likes of Prince, TLC, Mobb Deep and NWA…just to name a few.

Paul Jackson was a founding member of the Headhunters under Herbie Hancock (THE group responsible for their ground-breaking fusion and jazz-funk compositions that took the world by storm in the 70’s). The solid union between Hancock and Jackson has been especially evident in the many international tours they have made together…not to mention that he participated on most of the Headhunters albums and Herbie’s solo albums.

Paul has also worked as a producer and as a studio/live musician alongside acts such as Santana, Sonny Rollins and The Pointer Sisters. He was a frequent guest performer at renowned international festivals such as the Montreux and Newport events. Jackson’s composing has not gone without recognition and was nominated for Grammy Awards in 1974, 1975 and 1976. Like other highly talented, creatively motivated engineers of music, Paul has expanded his career to other mediums such as playing on blockbuster movie soundtracks such as “Death wish” and “Dirty Harry”.

Paul Jackson also wrote five solo albums worth listening to – including the monster of an album that is known as “Black Octopus” which is considered to be a kind of lost Headhunters album.

His debut album “Black Octopus” saw the light of day in 1978 and is a total piece of art filled with abstract sticky funky grooves, floating electric piano playing, strong thumping bass lines, raw heavy drums and amazing vocal acrobatics (Jackson himself takes vocals in 3 out of 5 songs, and his soulful singing voice strikes an emotional chord that does not go unnoticed).

On “Black Octopus” you’ll also find some of the best all-star musicians from the likes of Alphonse Mouzon (Roy Ayers, Betty Davis, Azar Lawrence)…and last but not least fellow Headhunters Bennie Maupin and Herbie Hancock himself.

With “Black Octopus” Paul Jackson wrote the book on how a jazz-funk-fusion album should sound like. The fact that the album was only distributed in Japan at the time (Jackson resided in Tokyo since the late 70’s, where he passed away in 2021) continues to increase its reputation as an album that is VERY hard to find. This is a must-have gem…not only for fans of jazz, funk and rare grooves, but also for DJs and collectors around the globe.

Svitlana Okhrimenko (artist name: Svitlana Nianio) is a Ukrainian artist, musician, and signer. She is one of the most prominent representatives of the independent music scene of Kyiv in the late 1980s — early 90s. She has repeatedly recorded and performed in collaboration with other musicians and bands, such as Oleksandr Yurchenko, Sugar White Death (Cukor Bila Smert’), Ivanov Down, GeeNerve & Taran, and Blemish. Svitlana still performs and publishes new recordings today.

“Transilvania Smile” is one of the first solo works recorded in 1994. During this time, Svitlana repeatedly visited Germany, where she had the experience of playing in parks and on the streets, gathering contacts of the local art scene. Her cooperation with the international choreographic group Pentamonia, based in Cologne and consisting of several girls who performed in theaters, took part in various performances, and were engaged in music. They met in the 1990s during joint performances with "Sugar-White Death." After that, they corresponded, and the idea of doing something together arose. Svitlana attended several of their performances, which inspired her to write music for a new project, and the band members helped to realize their creative ideas. Later, they started rehearsing together.

The name “Transilvania Smile” was invented by the project participants, and it symbolized the mold on the mirror and the reflection of a smiling vampire. However, shortly before the premiere, they changed it to “Firefox”, as the participants actively used flashlights and the play of light and shadows in the scenography.

The premiere occurred in the local Urania theater, previously a gallery. Isabel Bartensein directed the choreography, and Svitlana played, sang, and improvised. She said it was an excellent experience for her and the band. Besides Cologne, they also performed in Aachen.

Later, Michael Springer offered Svitlana to record this material in his "Phantom" studio. They had already worked together and recorded music for their project (Svitlana Okhrimenko / Phanton). Michael was also interested in the Ukrainian independent scene and participated in the creation of several compilations that featured bands from Kyiv and Kharkiv. Svetlana played the piano and harmonium in the studio and also sang. After the recording, the material was never released in its entirety. Two compositions appeared on the cassette compilation “Shovaisia” (Hide) in 1995, some episodes were re-recorded for the “Kytytsi” album in 1999, but for a long time, the full version of this recording remained practically unknown to listeners and was kept in Svitlana's and Michael’s archives.

This album is one of the most personal and insightful works of Svitlana Nianio from the 90s, which you can now get to know in its original form and sound.

As time moves forward, it becomes increasingly clear that the need for emotional expression through artistry is more important than ever, especially in the wake of emerging AI technology that threatens to replace human creativity. Minus & MRDolly's new album, "Giant Stops," is a testament to the enduring power of art to connect with audiences on a deep emotional level.

Named in direct reference to arguably one of the greatest albums ever created, "Giant Steps" by John Coltrane, "Giant Stops" pays homage to the rich legacy of jazz while pushing the boundaries of the genre with a contemporary twist. The album seamlessly blends jazz, hip-hop, and electronic elements to create a unique sonic landscape that is both nostalgic and modern.

For Minus & MRDolly, "Giant Stops" represents a new chapter in his evolution as a musician, showcasing his growth and commitment to pushing boundaries in his genre-bending style. Taking inspiration from the creative process of Makaya McCraven, the album features dynamic instrumentals backed by a live band, with Minus & MRDolly's signature lyricism and storytelling shining through both the instrumentals and the lended work of guest musician such as Meta_ or Luca Argel. By using this production method the album takes a bold stand for the importance of sampling as an art form hoping to encourage listeners to appreciate the rich history and evolution of hip hop and to recognize the essential role that sampling has played in shaping the genre.

As a nod to his Portuguese roots, "Giant Stops" represents a deeper exploration of the artist's identity and a commitment to looking inward to find creative inspiration. With this album, Minus & MRDolly hopes to inspire others to embrace their own unique perspectives and use them to create art that connects with audiences on a deeply emotional level.

In a world where technology threatens to replace human creativity, "Giant Stops" is a reminder that the power of art to connect with people on a fundamental level is enduring and will continue to shape our world for generations to come.

After Miss Machine, Dillinger Escape Plan fans were divided. Many of the folks who were attached to the screaming mathematical metal of Calculating Infinity bailed on the band, disapproving of the experimental musical direction and the meathead appearance of new singer/screamer Greg Puciato. Open-minded listeners were excited about the progressive journey they were taking and many critics hailed the group as a true innovator of metalcore. Ire Works succeeds in many of the same ways that their previous album did, while branching out creatively. They continue to toy with technical metal, blistering hardcore, jazz breaks, and post-punk, but here they evolve again by adding more twists and turns with additional electronic elements. While the merging of too many styles in hardcore can make for a convoluted result (see Avenged Sevenfold's self-titled release), the added instruments and genre changeups enhance the result rather than acting as ornamental distractions. Edgy Aphex Twin-style drill'n'bass drum breaks and stretched and squeezed electro blips feel strangely at home next to the psychotic time-signature changes and manic riffs, especially on the tracks "Sick on Sunday," "Dead as History," and "When Acting as a Wave." Violins, pianos, and trumpets sit nicely in the mix, and the group's willingness to take chances leads to stunning artistic endeavors rather than stale attempts at crossing genres just for the sake of being clever. Original vocalist Dimitri Minakakis makes an appearance, as does Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds, but the most notable inclusion is drummer Gil Sharone, who proves himself an expert at picking up the slack after the departure of founding member Chris Pennie to play in Coheed and Cambria. Undoubtedly, this act added anger to fuel the fire of their heavier numbers. "82588," "Fix Your Face," and "Party Smasher" are as wicked and manic as their most difficult earlier stuff; conversely, the melodic hooks and falsetto of "Black Bubblegum" and the watery ambience of "Mouth of Ghosts" balance out the album nicely. It can be inaccessible and terrifying all at once, but in a genre overly saturated with formulaic groups, Ire Works is a true standout. If DEP aren't careful and continue down this innovative path, they could easily be labeled the Radiohead of metalcore

Curren$y & Harry Fraud's fifth joint project - 'The Director’s Cut' featuring: Snoop Dogg, Larry June, Styles P & Trippie Redd. Just two months following the release of their fourth joint album, The OutRunners, Curren$y and Harry Fraud returned with a brand new project called The Director’s Cut. The longtime cohorts latest project features 9 tracks with guest appearances by Trippie Red, Larry June, Snoop Dogg and Styles P. Initially, the artists intended for The Director’s Cut to be a deluxe version of The Outrunners, but once they went to work they ended up with a standalone project. Curren$y describes the connection between The Director’s Cut and The OutRunners best: “It’s not a deluxe album, it’s the director’s cut of an underground film that garnered a nice bit of mainstream notoriety, with alternate endings, added scenes, secret characters and verses unlocked!

Wewantsounds is delighted to present one of Ennio Morricone's best and least known soundtracks for the 1971 cult French crime film 'Sans Mobile Apparent' directed by Philippe Labro. This superb soundtrack featuring Morricone's classic sound has never been widely available on vinyl save for a small limited edition released under the film's italian title. The set has been remastered from the original tapes with lacquer cut by Frederic Alstadt (Mont Analogue) and gatefold sleeve designed by Eric Adrian Lee. Last but not least Philippe Labro himself has shared his experience in an exclusive interview with Jeremy Allen, discussing the making of the film, working with the Maestro (at only 34 years old) and his amazing career crossing path with Jean Luc Godard, Serge Gainsbourg and Jean-Pierre Melville.

Ivory colored vinyl, limited to 150 copies. "When did time start flying by so fast? It's getting harder to recall the past." The opening lines of As Friends Rust's upcoming album Any Joy are a fitting start for a band that has existed in one form or another for over 25 years (minus a hiatus from 2002-2008). Originally formed in the late `90s, As Friends Rust has been through a few iterations, but it is the core line-up of vocalist Damien Moyal, guitarist Joseph Simmons, guitarist James Glayat, and drummer Timothy Kirkpatrick that are creating thought-provoking melodic punk music for the modern age. With three EPs, two 7 inches, and a full-length in their history, As Friends Rust already have a lifetime of work in their pocket, but the seven songs on Any Joy might just be their most striking yet. Originating in Gainesville, Florida and now spread across the country, As Friends Rust wrote, recorded, and produced Any Joy mostly from the comfort of their own homes. Vocals in Ann Arbor, MI, guitars in Gainesville, FL and Brooklyn, NY, with the exception of the drums, which were recorded in a studio by John Howard in Gainesville. Not currently having a permanent bassist, the band called upon friend Andrew Seward (of Against Me!) to play bass on most of the record, with additional contributions from Simmons. Mixed by James Paul Wisner in Orlando, FL and mastered by Matthias Lohmöller in Germany, the creation of the album was truly a collaborative and international effort. Working in separate spaces allowed the band to experiment more as the songs came together, resulting in a familiar but fresh sound that has more bite than past releases. It's more focused, more direct, more confrontational, more catchy, while still staying true to the band's melodic punk and hardcore roots. Lyrics tackle everything from the emptiness of emoticons as a form of communication on "Positive Mental Platitude" to the need for political and social activism versus the occurrences of daily life on "??No Gods, Some Masters."

Black Truffle is pleased to welcome free jazz legend Joe McPhee back to the fold with Oblique Strategies, a wild trio recorded in Antwerp in 2018 in the company of Mette Rasmussen’s fire-breathing alto saxophone and Dennis Tyfus’s post-Fluxus antics on tape, voice, and percussion. Rasmussen and Tyfus have previously recorded together as Bazuinschal, and some similar strategies are on display here: mysterious metallic scrapes, extended tones in which voice and sax become indistinguishable, comic explosions of varispeed tape. With McPhee on board, however, proceedings are more sumptuous, with the two horns moving fluidly from expeditions into the extremes of their instruments’ registers to pointillistic note-splatter and Ayler-esque folk melodies; we even get to bask in some of the slow-motion free blues that McPhee has now been playing for half a century. McPhee is heard primarily on tenor, Rasmussen mainly on alto, but with Rasmussen doubling on sundry objects, and the whole trio contributing vocals, certainty about who is doing what becomes nigh impossible.

The recording and production add to this hazy unclarity. Where much contemporary improvised music aims at dryly clinical hi-fi, the lively reverberant space of Oblique Strategies calls to mind the less-than-pristine sonics of classic free jazz artefacts like John Tchicai’s Afrodisiaca or McPhee’s own Underground Railroad. A further dimension of oblique unpredictability is added by subtle changes in the sense of space: at times merely a reverb tail glimpsed between phrases, at other points the whole mix seems to be momentarily swallowed up in slap-back, blurring the lines between acoustic instruments and the decayed fidelity of Tyfus’ tape playback. Spread across four pieces ranging from four to nineteen minutes in length, Oblique Strategies moves with anarchic swagger from explosions of clattering cymbals and bellowing horns to near-silent episodes of mysterious rumble and clunk. ‘Death or Dinner?’ opens the record with a lovely duet of climbing melodic patterns shared between the two saxophones, played with a buzzing oboe-like tone. A long, wavering note sung by Tyfus cues the first of countless changes of direction, eventually leading to a crescendo of watery splutters and duelling saxes. At points Tyfus’ keening resemble the signature moves of his friend and collaborator, Ghédelia Tazartès; at others, his tape-sped huffs and puffs possess a rawness reminiscent of Henri Chopin or Gil Wolman. The dialogue between wailing saxophones and vocal cries, punctuated by percussive thuds and crashes, can at times feel less like a musical performance and more like the calls of some mysterious forest creatures, possessing a primordial energy that might remind some listeners of the outdoor antics of Brötzmann and Bennink’s Schwarzwaldfahrt.

Oblique Strategies can also be delicate at times, as on the beautiful third piece, ‘Destilled Edible’, dominated by a slow, microtonal melody played with a breathy tone resembling a shakuhachi. The closing side-long ‘Light My Fire’ ranges across classic improv call and response, skittering trumpet blurts, inept cymbal clatter, mock-operatic vocals, and crude tape manoeuvres. Momentarily pausing at the ten-minute mark for an interlude of ghostly room sound and crackling texture, its closing moments unfurl a glorious dual saxophone finale, the almost epic tone subtly undermined by Tyfus quietly tapping out swing rhythms. Arriving in a striking sleeve adorned with Tyfus’ drawings, Oblique Strategies is an invigoratingly free-spirited blast of improvisation.
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Bob Dylan was at several crossroads in the mid-1970s. Artistically, he was largely written off as being past his prime. Emotionally, he was suffering through a painful divorce from his then-wife Sara Lowndes. Creatively, he appeared at a stalemate, his previous decade's unprecedented run of transformational brilliance finished. Then came Blood on the Tracks.

A start-to-finish cycle that documents a lover's pursuit of, entanglement with, and loss of a woman, the bracingly intimate 1975 effort remains one of the most encompassing break-up albums ever made and ranks as the most personal statement of the Bard's career. To hear it is to experience the agony, frustration, trauma, highs, lows, confusion, sadness, and, ultimately, requisite redemption associated with intimate relationships gone astray. Dylan maintains it's a work of fiction, but it's evident close-vested autobiographical premise is what helps make it universal: It's the icon singing through tears, going out of his mind, battling hallowing emptiness, firing shots across the bow, and accepting culpability. It is, in short, a consummate expression of love's darker sides and the consequences of what happens when dreams unravel.

As part of its Bob Dylan catalogue restoration series, Mobile Fidelity is thoroughly humbled to have the privilege of mastering the iconic LP from the original master tapes and pressing it on dead-quiet LP at RTI. The end result is the very finest, most transparent analogue edition of Blood on the Tracks ever produced – and the first-ever proper analog reissue. Fantastically presenting both the solo acoustic and band-supported songs with the utmost clarity, dynamics, presence, immediacy, spaciousness, imaging, and balance, this version shines a high-powered light on the fluid vocal phrasing, timbral shifts, functional rhythms, and inward-looking strumming that contribute to every song here serving as a wound-exposing confessional.

For all the melancholic pain, unresolved questions, shattered memories, wasted times, unrequited dialogues, and weary regret within, Blood on the Tracks remains as daring as it is reflective. Rather than follow for a monotone caustic vibe, Dylan's songs burrow into the subconscious for the manners in which they are even-keeled, mellow, and occasionally, even peaceful. Dignity, honour, poignancy, and fairness – all traits uncommon in any situation in which partners dissolve histories, change hearts, and attribute blame – instil the record with equilibrium on par with the consistency of the flowing melodies.

Throughout, tunes come on and proceed as if they could continue forever, Dylan spinning poetic verses and conversations amidst finely tied knots of acoustic notes, chords, and fills, the deceivingly simple architecture conjuring the intertwined refractions of a bezeled jewel, various angles, colours, and textures conjoining into a gorgeously inseparable whole. Backed by Tony Brown's flexible albeit subtle bass, Buddy Cage's country-streaked pedal-steel guitar, and Paul Griffin's soul-baring organ – an instrument used to shadow, tuck-point, and illuminate here as effectively as any time in rock history – Dylan pours soulful emotion, open his veins, and bleeds.

Ranked 16 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and replete with existential thought, piercing directness, raw singing, and majestic arrangements,

Given the sonic and artistic merit of this album, we anticipate huge demand.

"German pioneers of industrial metal, MEGAHERZ, return with their newest full-length studio album, In Teufels Namen, set to be released on August 11, 2023 via Napalm Records! Three decades into their career, MEGAHERZ have undoubtedly become one of the most important bands of Neue Deutsche Härte, which they proved with their critically acclaimed 2018 full-length, Komet - storming charts and peaking at #7 in Germany. With their newest offering, In Teufels Namen, MEGAHERZ raise their voice again and direct their gaze to where it hurts - criticizing conspiracy theories, religion and society as a whole, but also facing inner struggles and pain. MEGAHERZ’s new album begins strongly with the epic title track “In Teufels Namen” (EN: ""In the Devil's Name""), detailing their critique on the church as an institution. On “Der König Der Dummen” (EN: “The King Of The Fools”), one of the heaviest songs on the record, the quintet doesn’t mince words once again, commenting on conspiracy theorists in their tinfoil hats, while ""Alles Arschlöcher"" (EN: “All Assholes”) shows off synth-melodies, electronic influences and strong lyrics - criticizing the worst of society in trademark MEGAHERZ style. The hypnotizing track “Amnesie” (EN: “Amnesia”) is heavily built on electronic-inspired beats and melodies, while chanting anthem of the free spirited, “Freigeist”, features catchy synths and a sing-along chorus. On tracks like “Rabenherz” (EN: “Raven Heart”) and “Engelsgesicht” (EN: ""Angel face""), the band show an emotional facet, while the second is a reminiscent of the band’s all-time hit “Miststück” (EN: “Bitch”). ""Menschenhasser” is a powerful, fast Neue Deutsche Härte track that eases into the breather ""Ich Hasse (Epilog)"" (EN: ""I Hate (Epilogue)""), featuring emotional keys, before the empowering “Auf dem Weg zur Sonne” (EN: “On My Way To The Sun”) showcases their vulnerable side before closing the album. Overall, In Teufels Namen is an energetic ride providing the listener with pure industrial metal at its best! "

"German pioneers of industrial metal, MEGAHERZ, return with their newest full-length studio album, In Teufels Namen, set to be released on August 11, 2023 via Napalm Records! Three decades into their career, MEGAHERZ have undoubtedly become one of the most important bands of Neue Deutsche Härte, which they proved with their critically acclaimed 2018 full-length, Komet - storming charts and peaking at #7 in Germany. With their newest offering, In Teufels Namen, MEGAHERZ raise their voice again and direct their gaze to where it hurts - criticizing conspiracy theories, religion and society as a whole, but also facing inner struggles and pain. MEGAHERZ’s new album begins strongly with the epic title track “In Teufels Namen” (EN: ""In the Devil's Name""), detailing their critique on the church as an institution. On “Der König Der Dummen” (EN: “The King Of The Fools”), one of the heaviest songs on the record, the quintet doesn’t mince words once again, commenting on conspiracy theorists in their tinfoil hats, while ""Alles Arschlöcher"" (EN: “All Assholes”) shows off synth-melodies, electronic influences and strong lyrics - criticizing the worst of society in trademark MEGAHERZ style. The hypnotizing track “Amnesie” (EN: “Amnesia”) is heavily built on electronic-inspired beats and melodies, while chanting anthem of the free spirited, “Freigeist”, features catchy synths and a sing-along chorus. On tracks like “Rabenherz” (EN: “Raven Heart”) and “Engelsgesicht” (EN: ""Angel face""), the band show an emotional facet, while the second is a reminiscent of the band’s all-time hit “Miststück” (EN: “Bitch”). ""Menschenhasser” is a powerful, fast Neue Deutsche Härte track that eases into the breather ""Ich Hasse (Epilog)"" (EN: ""I Hate (Epilogue)""), featuring emotional keys, before the empowering “Auf dem Weg zur Sonne” (EN: “On My Way To The Sun”) showcases their vulnerable side before closing the album. Overall, In Teufels Namen is an energetic ride providing the listener with pure industrial metal at its best! "

Mirai is a 2018 Japanese animated adventure fantasy comedy film written and directed by Mamoru Hosoda and produced by Studio Chizu (known for Belle, Wolf Children and The Boy and the Beast). The film stars the voices of Moka Kamishiraishi, Haru Kuroki and Gen Hoshino a.o. It was met with critical acclaim and became nominated for an Academy Award in 2019 for Best Animated Feature Film. Additionally, the movie received an Annie Award in the same year.

Mirai follows the story of a four-year-old boy named Kun whose world is turned upside down when he meets his new baby sister. After venturing into a magical garden, Kun encounters strange guests from the past and future, including his sister Mirai, as a teenager. Together, Kun and teenage Mirai go on a journey through time and space, uncovering their family's incredible story.

The soundtrack for the film was written by Masakatsu Takagi, who had previously scored Hosoda's Wolf Children and The Boy and the Beast. His work for Studio Chizu has been praised for its magical and whimsical atmosphere. For Mirai specifically, this dreamy aesthetic was mixed with a contemporary sound and made to be simple in tone and be reflective of family.

The master sleuths at Dark Entries bring us Forbidden Overture, another tantalizing mystery from the hidden depths of sleaze. It all began years ago when Bijou Video’s Jules Zinn introduced the label to the soundtracks of the pornographic films of legendary filmmaker Steve Scott and gay superstar Al Parker. It wasn’t until The Magazine’s Bob Mainardi gifted a cassette copy of the soundtrack to the film TURNED ON—a bathhouse fantasy from 1982—that the wheels started turning. The steamy, hypnotic sounds were credited only to “Forbidden Overture…” but who was that? This question remained unanswered for some time, and countless hours of research, Venn diagramming, and elaborate flow charts all proved fruitless.
It wasn’t until a chance screening of BAD GIRLS DORMITORY, a 1986 women-in-prison movie from gay porn director Joe Gage that happened to reuse some of the same music did the answer become clear: Forbidden Overture was none other than the mighty Man Parrish!​

The soundtrack to TURNED ON consists of two epic side-long pieces, both of which employ classic Man Parrish production techniques. “Primal Overture” slinks along with brooding pads and ominous chords, building and oozing throughout its 27 minute runtime like a sultrier Goblin soundtrack. “Strictly Forbidden” takes a similar groove to a major key, but it’s optimistic chirp conceals a wry, mysterious wink. Says director Steve Scott: “It took us about two weeks to find the right piece for the jockstrap scene. But it's like anything else—you know when it’s right.”

​Also included is a 20 page booklet featuring photos, archival material, a pull-out poster, and interviews with Steve Scott and stars Al Parker and Scott Taylor. TURNED ON is an exciting musical rediscovery as well as a vital document of queer history.

A little more than two years after the reunion album ‚The Art of Navigating by the Stars‘, which was received fantastically by the press, SIEGES EVEN released the follow-up ‚Paramount‘ in autumn 2007. The songwriting had started directly after concerts in Russia (Moscow), Greece (Larissa and Athens) and a double headlining tour with DEADSOUL TRIBE.

It was clear from the beginning that this album - the second with the new singer Arno Menses - would not be a concept album. Rather, the band put more emphasis on writing autonomous, partly shorter songs, which were not connected by any concept in terms of content.

For the production they decided this time to work with Kristian ‚Kohle‘
Kohlmannslehner, who had rather made his mark in the field of harder music. The production style was quite different from the work of Uwe Lulis on ‚The Art of Navigating by the Stars‘: There, a lot of the material was recorded live and without clicktrack, whereas Kristian Kohlmannslehner focused more on precision and modern editing techniques. Without judging which approach is the better one, one can say that ‚Paramount‘ sounds perhaps a bit punchier, more conducive to the somewhat altered songwriting and extremely transparent.

The lyrical spectrum ranges from experiences on the mountain Corcovado in the urban area of Rio de Janeiro (‚Iconic‘), human hubris (‚Paramount‘), the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima (‚Bridge to the Divine‘) to personal narratives (‚Tidal‘ or ‚Leftovers‘).

‚Paramount‘, like its predecessor, was very well received by the press. The band embarked on a European tour immediately following the release of the album in the fall of 2007 and played at the renowned ‚ProgPowerEurope‘ festival in the Netherlands, among other venues. In 2008 followed a show at the ‚Rock Hard‘-Festival as well as three concerts in the support of the American AOR legend JOURNEY. The live album ‚Playgrounds‘, released in spring 2008, documents the concerts of this tour. The stars were actually aligned favorably for SIEGES EVEN, so it was all the more surprising that the band‘s journey finally came to an end at the last of the three support shows for JOURNEY in Bamberg in the summer of 2008.

„Paramount“ was not available for many years and was only released on CD in 2007.

No. is the tenth Soft Riot album by Glasgow-based Canadian synth auteur Jack Duckworth (also known as JJD). With origins from the mid-nineties in the vibrant art-punk/hardcore dominating the West Coast American/ Canadian underground at the time, he has clocked in over twenty five years of musical output in various bands and projects.

No. is the logical follow-up to When Push Comes To Shove, released in November 2019 on the Glasgow UK-based label Possession Records, which saw some critical acclaim in the increasingly diverse synthwave scene — a crystallization of the artist’s signature “SynthLord” sound.

With No. things have been shaken up and pushed into new directions. Many different factors came into play, including the conditions of the pandemic lockdowns and an urge for listening to music favourites from beyond his own scene informed developments on this new record. One key feature of these tracks is that under these conditions they were developed as individual pieces — a contrasting approach from previous albums where tracks were written with an album in mind. An evaluation of all of these individual tracks in the summer of 2022 unveiled a common pattern going through these new compositions.

One can still hear any number of echoes of the spirits of original synth artists in his sound, such as Images in Vogue, The Box, Section 25, Thomas Dolby, Skinny Puppy, Chrome, Cabaret Voltaire, Fad Gadget, Japan and Bill Nelson. However, some of Jack’s halcyon punk influences surface as well, taking inspiration from legendary punk/hardcore labels such as Dischord and Gravity, as listening habits over pandemic steered back towards more guitar-based styles. The introduction of expanded production techniques, experiments with vocal styles and tones, and stylistic shifts mark a progression of Soft Riot’s sound. The result is a snarkier, urgent and more playful, with a focus on pure synthpop, new wave, art-punk, proto-EBM as well as grittier synth-punk and post-punk tones.

The variation, energy and tone of this collection of tracks illustrates Soft Riot’s ability to transcend the hallmarks of today’s music environment, which increasingly is fragmenting into smaller and smaller micro-genres. Dry wit and dark humour take the lyrics and the tone of this album on a fun ride through music scenes, dark alleys and inside jokes.

"Terra Em Desapego" marks the second longplayer of the Portuguese for LIFEFORCE RECORDS. On the 2019 album "Eterno Rancor", a cover of the Bad Brains was found in the last place. On the EPs released since then, the group from Lisbon has taken on tracks by Only Living Witness, Napalm Death and Devo. This fits conceivably well, because BESTA have proven to be a band that moves between death'n'grindcore, punk and hardcore. The seven tracks of "Terra Em Desapego" are above all uncompromising and oppressive. BESTA appear direct and furious at all times, but do not miss out on variety. More melody and atmosphere than on the new album have never been. The Portuguese surprise with playful, sometimes really catchy heavy songs that still sound familiar rough and pleasingly uncomfortable. The more consciousness and metallic basis as well as the clearer production work fit in very well. BESTA continue to sound impulsive and biting, but "Terra Em Desapego" opens up a different approach to the rigorous approach of the Lisbon band. All this does not change anything about the lyrics in the Portuguese mother tongue of the musicians - of course not. Cover art was done by CVSPE (Arch Enemy, Uniform) and the album was produced by Miguel Tereso (Analepsy, Sinistro).

Roach is Miya Folick's clearest and most direct work yet, eschewing
some of the lyrical and musical obfuscations she layered onto her 2018 debut album,

Premonitions With ear- worm melodies, heart- wrenching poetry, eclectic production and anchored by Folick's once-in-a-lifetime voice, Roach straddles a line between pop and something more experimental.

She enlisted a team of collaborators who she
trusted to bring out the grittier side of her artistry, including Gabe Wax (War on
Drugs, Fleet Foxes), Mike Malchicoff (King Princess, Bo Burnham), Max
Hershenow (MS MR) and a team of some of LA's best players. The result is an
album that sounds as honest and intimate as the subject matter at hand, a
candid snapshot of where she is now and what it took to get there

Third Man Records is delighted to present Michael Kiwanuka's contribution to the TMR Blue Series of releases. Kiwanuka, a 25 year-old UK native of Ugandan heritage, was raised in north London where he split his time between session work and local gigs. Along the way, having found footing as a solo artist, he was signed to Communion Records, then Polydor, and has since performed throughout Europe and North America too—touring in direct support of Adele. He made his way through Nashville this past summer with just enough pause and aplomb to commit these morsels to tape. The A-side "You've Got Nothing to Lose" is an original composition, featuring The Buzzards' Dominic Davis on upright bass and Cory Younts on piano, joined also by fellow balladeer Lillie Mae Rische on fiddle. Their contributions transform his work into a stone-cold groove with almost orchestral underpinnings, making it a fitting extension of their previous Blue Series. PRODUCED by Jack White (not collaborated with, so please fight your every urge to put "collaborator" in your headline!), the single also features a chilling rendition of Townes Van Zandt's infamous "Waitin' 'Round to Die" on the B-side, the perfect compliment to the timbre and mood of the A-side.

Mary Jane Leach is a composer focussed on the physicality of sound, its acoustic properties and how they interact with space. She has played an instrumental role in NYC’s pioneering Downtown scene alongside Arthur Russell, Ellen Fullman, Peter Zummo, Philip Corner and Arnold Dreyblatt, as well as devoting years to the preservation and reappraisal of Julius Eastman’s work since his death in 1990, compiling the »Unjust Malaise« 3CD set in 2005 and editing the 2015 book »Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music«. »Woodwind Multiples« is her second album for Modern Love, following »(f)lute songs« (2018).

»Woodwind Multiples« features four pieces for multiples of the same instrument: four bass flutes, nine oboes, nine clarinets, and seven bassoons. Each piece works closely with the unique sound of each instrument, combining pitches that create other, sometimes unexpected, tones, primarily combination and interference tones, as well as rhythmic patterns. What you hear is what happens naturally - there is no processing or manipulation.

»8B4 (1985/2022)«, played by Manuel Zurria, is for four bass flutes. It is a revision of 8x4, which was written in 1985 for the DownTown Ensemble and was only performed once, due to its unusual instrumentation: alto flute, English horn (originally bass oboe), clarinet, and voice.

»Xantippe’s Rebuke« (1993) was written for Libby Van Cleve, for eight taped oboes and one live, solo oboe. The eight taped parts are equal and dependent, while the solo part is meant to be a solo with the tape as accompaniment. The piece works with the unique sound of the oboe, starting with unison pitches that create the richest sound, building the piece from there. Pitches and rhythmic patterns that occur naturally are notated and then played later, which in turn create other pitches and rhythmic patterns. So, in effect, the nature of the oboe and its natural sound determine the direction of the piece.

»Charybdis« (2020), played by Sam Dunscombe, is for solo clarinet and eight taped clarinets. It combines a somewhat obscured reference to Weep You No More, a John Dowland piece, which combines with the sound phenomena created from the melody and supporting chords of the Dowland.

»Feu de Joie« (1992) was written for bassoonist Shannon Peet and is an homage to the bassoon and its wonderful sound. It is for seven parts—six taped and one »live.« The taped bassoons combine to create a bed of sound that exploits the unique qualities of the bassoon, creating combination and interference tones, starting off with unison pitches, creating a rich sound that builds from there. Most of the subsequent pitches and phrases occur naturally, and are then notated later on in the piece, which in turn creates other notes and phrases.

A fascinating blend of jazz and contemporary classical influences, How Time Passes is the debut album from the envelope pushing trumpeter and composer Don Ellis Known for his extensive musical experimentation, particularly in the area of time
signatures, Ellis began his long career in the New York City's post bop and avantgarde jazz scenes of late 1950s. Most notably he appeared on Charles Mingus'
Mingus Dynasty, and albums by George Russell and Maynard Feguson. But he
also worked with, among others, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Lionel Hampton, and
Woody Herman. On subsequent albums, Ellis would take an even wilder direction.
Here, on his first recoding date as a band leader, the experimentation begins. Ellis
stretches the boundaries of bop-based jazz playing with time, tempo and meter. It
is the start of his exploration of Third Stream - a fusion of jazz and contemporary
classical music. The album title itself - How Time Passes - was taken from an
article written by the controversial German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen on
the "function of time." The exceptional section features Ron Carter on bass, the
underrated Jaki Byard on piano and saxophone, and Charlie Persip on drums. The
LP includes extraordinary liner notes by Candid A&R man and producer Nat
Hentoff, and noted musician, historian and writer Gunther Schuller - the originator
of the term "Third Stream" - giving a context and insight that adds to the
experience of hearing these extraordinary performances.

FAR aka Simon and Robin Lee's Faze Action Records serve up a special 7" featuring Faze Action's 'Fantasy' which sounds very much like a tune you might unearth in some dusty old crate that hasn't been heard since the 70s and 80s. It has lush synths reaching up to the stars and gentle disco beats that sweep you off your feet. The bustling arrangement bubbles with subtle energy and gorgeous vocals are layered in for extra escapist magic. On the flip is an instrumental that is pared back and more direct, but both tunes really do take you into a fantasy world.

On 'Love Hallucination' Jessy Lanza is in control as a songwriter and producer, flexing her skills in the studio and rebuilding her sound, taking chances with production and energy in all directions, from club-ready, to downbeat and sultry, with the theme of trusting yourself in the moment and using intuition as a compass driving the record forward. ‘Love Hallucination’ is the sound of an artist in bloom, an album of big emotions and big songs, with direct, personal lyrics, such as the upbeat but panicked opener 'Don't Leave Me Now' and the 2-step drama of 'Midnight Ontario', or 'Limbo', an ear worm disco stomper about produced with Marco 'Tensnake' Niermeski. Also featured as co-producers are David Kennedy (Pearson Sound), adding slick arrangements for the club, long-time collaborator Jeremy Greenspan (Junior Boys), and Paul White. ‘Love Hallucination’ is a bold and immediate record from Jessy Lanza, her most clear, authentic and best to date.

2023 Repress

Gedacht als Community-Projekt, schafft The Silhouettes Project eine Plattform für aufstrebende Hip-Hop, Soul und Jazz Künstler aus UK. Im Total Refreshment Centre in Hackney, London bietet The Silhouettes Projekt mit Tonstudio und Live-Venue einen Open Space für MCs, Sänger, Musiker und Produzenten sich zu vernetzen und Musik zu machen. The Silhouettes Project wurde 2019 von den beiden Initiatoren/Künstlern Asher Korner (aka Kosher) und Jaden Osei-Bonsu (aka Eerf Evil) gegründet. Als die beiden uns das Projekt vorstellten und die erste Musik zeigten, waren wir sofort begeistert und beteiligen uns seither als Label Partner an dem Projekt. Für die gesamte Art Direction des Projekts ist der Designer und Illustrator Sergio “SagaUno” Alférez aus Medellín, Kolumbien verantworlich. Seit September veröffentlichen wir wöchentlich Donnerstags einen neuen Song aus dem Projekt von Künstlern wie Kofi Stone, Summers Sons, Enny, KeepVibesNear, Manik MC, Lex Amor, Louis The Hippie, Summer Pearl, Joe Beard und vielen mehr.

Bush Tetras have made punk music at the fringes for over four decades. Flashes of reggae, bursts of noise, guitars that rattle, shake and snake, born out of a gutter behind CBGBs. Over the years they have respawned time and time again, contorting their sound, tweaking the vision, remaining singular and indispensable. In the late 2010s the group-Pat Place, Cynthia Sley, and Dee Pop-reformed again, releasing an EP, Take the Fall, in 2018. It was their first offering of new music in over a decade. A few years later in, 2021, they released a career spanning box set called Rhythm and Paranoia. The New York Times called the box set an artifact that "proves for decades that Bush Tetras continued to evolve in surprising yet intuitive directions." Around the same time, the band began working on a full length record, writing sessions during the pandemic over Zoom. Right before the release of the box set, beloved drummer Dee Pop passed away. Determined to complete the record to honor his memory, the Tetras went into the studio to finish what they'd started, once the timing was right. They brought in a new drummer, Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley, who also served as producer. Enter They Live in My Head. The band's 3rd official LP (a misleading fact when viewed along - side a catalog as expansive as it is influential), They Live in My Head is a collection of songs that sometimes reflect on the past and sometimes reckon with our current reality. From "Ghosts of People," on which Pat Place's legendary guitar meanders through closed doors and portals, to the scorching "2020 Vision," a matter- of-fact call to arms to get on the streets and get something done, the album addresses new and old, in both abstract and specific terms. But whether they're looking forward or backward, Bush Tetras have always been a political band, a band that calls out all kinds of bullshit. And, in that sense, They Live in My Head is absolutely no exception.

Bush Tetras have made punk music at the fringes for over four decades. Flashes of reggae, bursts of noise, guitars that rattle, shake and snake, born out of a gutter behind CBGBs. Over the years they have respawned time and time again, contorting their sound, tweaking the vision, remaining singular and indispensable. In the late 2010s the group-Pat Place, Cynthia Sley, and Dee Pop-reformed again, releasing an EP, Take the Fall, in 2018. It was their first offering of new music in over a decade. A few years later in, 2021, they released a career spanning box set called Rhythm and Paranoia. The New York Times called the box set an artifact that "proves for decades that Bush Tetras continued to evolve in surprising yet intuitive directions." Around the same time, the band began working on a full length record, writing sessions during the pandemic over Zoom. Right before the release of the box set, beloved drummer Dee Pop passed away. Determined to complete the record to honor his memory, the Tetras went into the studio to finish what they'd started, once the timing was right. They brought in a new drummer, Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley, who also served as producer. Enter They Live in My Head. The band's 3rd official LP (a misleading fact when viewed along - side a catalog as expansive as it is influential), They Live in My Head is a collection of songs that sometimes reflect on the past and sometimes reckon with our current reality. From "Ghosts of People," on which Pat Place's legendary guitar meanders through closed doors and portals, to the scorching "2020 Vision," a matter- of-fact call to arms to get on the streets and get something done, the album addresses new and old, in both abstract and specific terms. But whether they're looking forward or backward, Bush Tetras have always been a political band, a band that calls out all kinds of bullshit. And, in that sense, They Live in My Head is absolutely no exception.

Acclaimed producer, songwriter, and vocalist Shafiq Husayn has been a vital force on the Los Angeles music scene for decades. A member of trendsetting trio Sa-Ra Creative Partners, Shafiq has produced tracks for a staggering spectrum of talent, including Erykah Badu, Ty Dolla $ign, Pharoahe Monch, Robert Glasper, Ice T, Bilal, Jurassic 5, and many more. Over the last few years, the Grammy winner has also become the leader of The Dove Society, an expansive L.A. musical collective. Now, Shafiq Husayn and The Dove Society are debuting the new album So Gold, an eclectic masterpiece emerging from sessions Shafiq describes as “pure love, magic, inspiration!” A worthy follow-up to Shafiq’s acclaimed 2018 opus The Loop, the album features contributions from Anderson .Paak, Syd (of The Internet), Peyton, Thurz, Jimetta Rose, Speed Walton, and many more. Bursting with the kinetic energy of vibrant creative collaboration, the album synthesizes disparate styles into a cohesive tapestry of lush cosmic soul. “It’s new age everything and above,” Shafiq explains. “Focused and direct in the songwriting and production, but still adventurous and refreshing.

Portsmouth quartet Hallan release the brand new
EP, ‘The Noise of a Firing Gun’, via Nice Swan
Records (English Teacher, Sports Team, Courting).
 Spearheaded by lead singles ‘Unwomanly Face Of
War’ and the BBC 6 Music playlisted ‘The Colline
Gate’, the group’s record sees them leave the
mundanity of the 21st century behind and turn to
real life events of the past, bringing attention to the
stories of historical individuals, from the vestals of
Ancient Rome to the art scenes of Berlin.
 ‘The Noise of a Firing Gun’ debuts a new direction
in songwriting and composition for the band.
Experimenting with new production elements,
Hallan shift their gaze towards synthesised sounds
of the 1980s whilst retaining their post-punk edge.

Borrowed Tongue is the debut solo album by Korean singer-songwriter Minhwi Lee. It’s a mysterious, strangely compelling thing, an album of rare poetry, and remarkably self-assured. Originally released in November 2016, the album made waves, winning best folk album of 2016 at the 14th Korean Music Awards. Its eight songs, written and predominantly arranged by Lee, don’t reveal their secrets easily, or at first blush; rather, they take their time slowly to unfurl in her listeners’ worlds. There are hints of other music here, from time to time: the intimacy of Stina Nordenstam, perhaps; the gauzy haze of Hope Sandoval, on the blissed-out pop of “Broken Mirror”; there are touches of acid-folk, and ECM jazz, and a slyly filmic approach to songwriting and arrangement that makes every song fit perfectly into the album’s arc.

Lee arrived at her solo music through a complex, circuitous route. After studying musicology in Seoul, she learned her trade, film scoring, in New York and Paris. She also studied classical music, blowing off steam in a wild punk duo, Mukimukimanmansu, who released one album, 2012, on Korean indie label Beatball. Subsequently, Lee has been refining her music, focusing both on her solo songs, and on writing for television series and films; she’s written scores for films by such directors as Sangmoon Lee, Jeongwon Kam, and Wanmin Lee. She also plays in the jazz outfit Cubed, and recently joined doom metal group Gawthrop on bass.

Since its release in 2016, Borrowed Tongue has slowly bewitched listeners with its idiosyncratic arrangements and evocative songwriting. It’s an album that hints at plenty, but refuses to make grand statements, something Lee seems intent to pursue: in correspondence, she’s very clear that she wants these songs to enact a kind of transmutation, to be adopted into the listeners’ lives and exist within their own imaginings. She does, however, offer a few hints to what propels these mercurial songs, explaining, “this album is about a person who again opens their mouth, which was once shut. The album deals with what it means to speak: things that are known but not said, things that should be said but are not, things that cannot be said but nonetheless are.”

This may well explain the curious mood of Borrowed Tongue, the multiple ‘voices’ that inhabit the album; Lee’s singing voice is pliable and mutable, approaching each song as its own diorama and ensuring the song is sung with just the right tone. The arrangements Lee conjures for her songs are all in service to narrative and melody; they appear to her alongside the composition, which is surely why everything here fits together so beautifully. From there, Lee approaches her songs carefully, in deference to their ‘need to be sung’ a certain way. There isn’t a moment wasted: everything on Borrowed Tongue is as it needs to be, whether a melancholy folk song taking to the air, or a psychedelic reverie dreamed into being. It’s a beautiful, poised and confident debut.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is a 2017 fantasy film directed by Guy Ritchie and is loosely based on the Arthurian Legends. The film stars Charlie Hunnam as the title character, and co-stars Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey, Djimon Hounsou, Aidan Gillen, Jude Law and football star David Beckham. The film follows Arthur, who is robbed of his birthright and comes up the hard way in the back alleys of the city. But once he pulls the sword from the stone, he is forced to acknowledge his true legacy - whether he likes it or not.

The score is written and produced by Daniel Pemberton, an English Ivor Novello Award-winning, Golden Globe Award and multi-BAFTA Award-nominated composer. The soundtrack features Mercury Prize winner and folk musician Sam Lee.

Western Massachusetts band Landowner play abrasively clean minimalist-punk. Singer Dan Shaw began Landowner in 2016, writing and recording Impressive Almanac with a practice amp and a laptop drum machine. Those available tools would inform the band’s unapologetic sound—clean, confrontational, and absurdly stark. With a stated goal to sound like “Antelope playing Discharge”, Landowner’s diamond hard structures, repetitious instrumentals and caricatured hardcore make space for lyrics that reflect on the global systems our lives are tangled in and the dark absurdities we take for granted.

Landowner’s fourth Born Yesterday full length Escape the Compound focuses on the powerful grips manipulators and reality-deniers have on their victims, examining the social, political and interpersonal damage of cult-like influence and control. “A lot of the lyrics focus on cult manipulators and narcissists: falling victim to their toxic dynamics, and the difficulty of escaping their grip” says Shaw. From climate change deniers and conspiracy theorists to deceptive narcissists and actual cult leaders, Landowner explores the ubiquity of modern unreality through evocative imagery and a keen sense of awareness. The band’s plain instrumentation sheds and subverts hardcore punk’s noisy veil in favor of a direct, unswerving examination of these themes.

Written and recorded following the release of 2020’s Consultant, Escape the Compound finds Landowner leaning into the studio through deeper experimentation with a wider palette of sounds. The group’s lineup of Josh Owsley (bass), Elliot Hughes (guitar), Jeff Gilmartin (guitar), Josh Daniel (drums) and Dan Shaw played often since coming together in 2017. But with pandemic restrictions in place, the making of Escape the Compound became a much more insular pursuit, one where the mixing and mastering process helped turn the band’s most varied batch of material into a cohesive, thematic collection of songs.

Album opener “Witch Museum” is a collage of dark Massachusetts historical imagery. The song evokes a kind of cult dynamic travelling like a shadow through time, where dark absurdities are taken for granted, toxic behaviours are excused, and normalcy begins to shift. The line “Gail's behaviour has changed” casts fictional “Gail” as the dark manipulator, whose whim we’re at the mercy of. She sheds her toxic behaviour and the crisis finally ends - “and peace returns to the Commonwealth”- an absurdity, given that cult leaders and narcissists rarely seem to change.

By considering the past, Landowner sheds light on the present. The band challenges egomaniacs reluctant to accept an uncomfortable reality with both cynicism and concern. The literal landowner described in “Heat Stroke” collapses in exhaustion, cooked by a suffocating bass line and sizzling hi-hats. “You'd rather die of heat stroke than to let anybody see you change your mind,” Shaw gasps, later pleading with the character in “Floodwatch” to “please reconsider” their brazen stubbornness as they plunge through the rising waters of a flooded road.

The character in “Swimmer of Note” refuses to admit their miscalculations, instead doubling down on an ever-growing and increasingly-unsteady tower of lies. The sneering “Damning Evidence” sets a scene all too familiar: a smoking gun scenario with zero consequences. Shaw’s exaggerated vocal refrains and sarcastic inflections mock false hope: “how will they be expected to keep their minds intact, at the shock of simply hearing such damning evidence?”

“Beyond the Darkened Library” creaks open a secret passageway into a dimly lit, endless labyrinth of conspiracy theories, in which the character becomes hopelessly lost. “Aftermath” sounds the alarms: “stare so long that you start getting used to it; one glance says you should never get used to it.” The pair of “Tactics” tracks express what Shaw calls “an interpersonal microcosm of the album’s themes.”

Perhaps the most ambitious arc on Escape the Compound loosely begins with the title track. The subject in “Escape the Compound” gradually recognizes their own victimhood and plans a calculated flight from the “captivating shepherd” – hop the fence, flee, and regain autonomy. As the narrator escapes their stifling and abusive cult microcosm, a much grander existential timeline begins to appear. “Thousands of Years in Fast Forward” narrates a psychedelic surrender to the shared human experience through space and time, an ego-death adjacent to our ancestry, our own existence, and the before and after. “At the site of the crater, molecular hands unclasp molecular hands as you lose conditioning,” Shaw sings on the title track, “Your grandmother's garden. Your grandmother's kitchen. Your grandmother's primordial ocean.” It’s a profound actualizing glimpse into a true, forgotten reality and a startling reconnection with the self.

Western Massachusetts band Landowner play abrasively clean minimalist-punk. Singer Dan Shaw began Landowner in 2016, writing and recording Impressive Almanac with a practice amp and a laptop drum machine. Those available tools would inform the band’s unapologetic sound—clean, confrontational, and absurdly stark. With a stated goal to sound like “Antelope playing Discharge”, Landowner’s diamond hard structures, repetitious instrumentals and caricatured hardcore make space for lyrics that reflect on the global systems our lives are tangled in and the dark absurdities we take for granted.

Landowner’s fourth Born Yesterday full length Escape the Compound focuses on the powerful grips manipulators and reality-deniers have on their victims, examining the social, political and interpersonal damage of cult-like influence and control. “A lot of the lyrics focus on cult manipulators and narcissists: falling victim to their toxic dynamics, and the difficulty of escaping their grip” says Shaw. From climate change deniers and conspiracy theorists to deceptive narcissists and actual cult leaders, Landowner explores the ubiquity of modern unreality through evocative imagery and a keen sense of awareness. The band’s plain instrumentation sheds and subverts hardcore punk’s noisy veil in favor of a direct, unswerving examination of these themes.

Written and recorded following the release of 2020’s Consultant, Escape the Compound finds Landowner leaning into the studio through deeper experimentation with a wider palette of sounds. The group’s lineup of Josh Owsley (bass), Elliot Hughes (guitar), Jeff Gilmartin (guitar), Josh Daniel (drums) and Dan Shaw played often since coming together in 2017. But with pandemic restrictions in place, the making of Escape the Compound became a much more insular pursuit, one where the mixing and mastering process helped turn the band’s most varied batch of material into a cohesive, thematic collection of songs.

Album opener “Witch Museum” is a collage of dark Massachusetts historical imagery. The song evokes a kind of cult dynamic traveling like a shadow through time, where dark absurdities are taken for granted, toxic behaviors are excused, and normalcy begins to shift. The line “Gail's behavior has changed” casts fictional “Gail” as the dark manipulator, whose whim we’re at the mercy of. She sheds her toxic behavior and the crisis finally ends - “and peace returns to the Commonwealth”- an absurdity, given that cult leaders and narcissists rarely seem to change.

By considering the past, Landowner sheds light on the present. The band challenges egomaniacs reluctant to accept an uncomfortable reality with both cynicism and concern. The literal landowner described in “Heat Stroke” collapses in exhaustion, cooked by a suffocating bass line and sizzling hi-hats. “You'd rather die of heat stroke than to let anybody see you change your mind,” Shaw gasps, later pleading with the character in “Floodwatch” to “please reconsider” their brazen stubbornness as they plunge through the rising waters of a flooded road.

The character in “Swimmer of Note” refuses to admit their miscalculations, instead doubling down on an ever-growing and increasingly-unsteady tower of lies. The sneering “Damning Evidence” sets a scene all too familiar: a smoking gun scenario with zero consequences. Shaw’s exaggerated vocal refrains and sarcastic inflections mock false hope: “how will they be expected to keep their minds intact, at the shock of simply hearing such damning evidence?”

“Beyond the Darkened Library” creaks open a secret passageway into a dimly lit, endless labyrinth of conspiracy theories, in which the character becomes hopelessly lost. “Aftermath” sounds the alarms: “stare so long that you start getting used to it; one glance says you should never get used to it.” The pair of “Tactics” tracks express what Shaw calls “an interpersonal microcosm of the album’s themes.”

Perhaps the most ambitious arc on Escape the Compound loosely begins with the title track. The subject in “Escape the Compound” gradually recognizes their own victimhood and plans a calculated flight from the “captivating shepherd” – hop the fence, flee, and regain autonomy. As the narrator escapes their stifling and abusive cult microcosm, a much grander existential timeline begins to appear. “Thousands of Years in Fast Forward” narrates a psychedelic surrender to the shared human experience through space and time, an ego-death adjacent to our ancestry, our own existence, and the before and after. “At the site of the crater, molecular hands unclasp molecular hands as you lose conditioning,” Shaw sings on the title track, “Your grandmother's garden. Your grandmother's kitchen. Your grandmother's primordial ocean.” It’s a profound actualizing glimpse into a true, forgotten reality and a startling reconnection with the self.

Ramona Lisa is the current alias of Chairlift's Caroline Polachek. Her new album Arcadia is Polachek’s first self-produced solo record and the first release by Pannonica, part of the Bella Union family. Completely composed in MIDI, it is a concept album of love songs that are nature allegories, and vice versa, which Polachek calls "Pastoral Electronic Music". The making of Arcadia was a year¬long process that began and ended in an empty studio in Rome's Villa Medici and while on tour with her band, Chairlift. The record was made entirely on a laptop without instruments or external microphones - all vocals were sung directly into the computer, making use of hotel closets, quiet airport gates, and spare dressing rooms. Although the album was created on a laptop, the result is a lush and uncannily tangible world of warm textures, reminiscent of analog tape processes rather than a hard drive. Virtual oboes and organs interweave with synthetic insects and quivering sine waves, animated by Polachek's vocal at it's most delirious and intimate yet.

Repress!

Funkiwala Records presents the third in the series of "Lokkhi Terra meets"albums, with the London fusionistas creating another unique sound-clash, this time with ex-Fela Kuti keyboardist and legendary UK Afro-beat ambassador Dele Sosimi, and members of his critically acclaimed Afro-beat Orchestra.

This particular collaboration has been bubbling away for a few years now, teasing audience expectations with a handful of sold out shows each year in between both bands busy schedules.
Featuring the two pianos of Kishon Khan and Dele Sosimi – Cuban percussionists/vocalists Geraldo De Armas (Yoruba Andabo), Oreste Noda (Ariwo), Javier Camilo (Ibrahim Ferrer) - a horn section led by Justin Thurgur (Bellowhead) featuring Yelfris Valdes (Sierra Maestra) and Graeme Flowers (Kyle Eastwood) to name a few – this is an All-star cast.

Kishon Khan's Lokkhi Terra have over a number of years now been quietly establishing themselves as one of London's more unusual heavyweight outfits, described as "Stunning Headliners… A majestic multi-cultural blend of sounds… effortlessly builds bridges between rolling Indian raga rhythms, Afro-Cuban grooves, Acid Jazz/funk and free flowing improvisation" (Timeout London). Included amongst the band members are London's top Cuban musicians, adding their infectious rich musical history to the city's melting pot.
When the band wanted to explore Cuban links with another of their favourite traditions, Afrobeat, who better to bring in then one of the Afrobeat originators – maestro Dele Sosimi – "Sosimi creates some of the most bewitching grooves in modern African music" E Jazz News.
Bringing together two Yoruba speaking musics - with different accents, from different sides of the Atlantic - Havana meets Lagos in London – A Cuban-Afrobeat-Experience. CUBAFROBEAT.

All About Jazz 4star review

A younger version of London's Grand Union Orchestra, founded by world-jazz pioneer Tony Haynes in 1982, Lokkhi Terra was put together by keyboard player Kishon Khan in 2005. Both ensembles have made a specialism of jazz / South Asian fusion, with Lokkhi Terra also giving as much attention to music from Cuba, where Bangladeshi-born, London-based Khan lived for a while in the early 2000s.

Cubafrobeat, as the title foretells, is a blend of Cuban dance music and Nigerian / Yoruban Afrobeat—a fusion rendered seamless by the synergies existing between Afro-Cuban and Yoruban music, language and mythology. The album is Lokkhi Terra's third and partners the band with the keyboard player and vocalist Dele Sosimi .

A young-going-on-child-prodigy member of Fela Kuti's Egypt 80, Sosimi went on to become musical director of Femi Kuti's Positive Force, before relocating to London and setting up Dele Sosimi's Afrobeat Orchestra, the finest Afrobeat band outside Nigeria, bar none, now with a string of consistently engaging albums under its belt. Cubafrobeat features Sosimi as lead vocalist on all four tracks, and on Fender Rhodes on two of them. His singing plays a prominent role in the Afrobeat Orchestra, but, such is the whirlwind impact of the band in full instrumental flight, that Sosimi is often thought of first and foremost for his keyboard and arranging talents. That may change by the time 2018 is over. Cubafrobeat is the third album in as many months to feature Sosimi as guest vocalist, spotlighting the gravitas, air of mystery, intimacy and ferocity his voice can bring to an occasion.

The first of these albums was the genre-bending spiritual-jazz band Emanative's Earth (Jazzman). One of the stand-out tracks, "Ìyáàmi," features Sosimi making obeisance to the titular Mother Goddesses of the Yoruba spirit worlds. His raw and intense invocations carry the track for nine mesmerising minutes. Otherwordly is not the half of it. Next up was dub / reggae / jazz band Soothsayers' Tradition (Wah Wah 45s), which featured Sosimi as lead vocalist on the compelling "Sleepwalking (Black Man's Cry)." Earth and Tradition are both outstanding albums and have previously been reviewed here.

Cubafrobeat is a total stonking blinder, too. It is an effectively nuanced affair, opening with the fiery "Afro Sambroso" and closing with the relatively reflective "Rumbafro." Sosimi's vocals light up the music, as do the several solos from trumpeters Graeme Flowers and Yelfris Valdes Espinosa and trombonist Justin Thurgur (a member of both Lokkhi Terra and the Afrobeat Orchestra). Sosimi and Kishon Khan's intertwining Fender Rhodes solos on "Cubafro" are also a delight, as is the drum and percussion section throughout.

The sound of summer, for sure, Cubafrobeat has enough depth and variety to make it something for all seasons.

Songlines 4star review

Lokkhi Terra are one of London's most authentic groups. They are a Latin-flavoured collective whose keyboard player and bandleader Kishon Khan segues from percussive montunos to complex Bengali rhythms and back, with jazz chops sparking funky and outward-looking fusions. Their collaboration with Dele Sosimi, Britain's foremost Afrobeat ambassador, has been bubbling for a while; here four tracks at ten minutes see musical conversations that never lose their sense of flow. An extensive line-up of stellar players, including trumpeter Yelfris Valdés, conguero Oreste Noda and trombonist Justin Thurgur, highlights the genre-crossing potential of world traditions. Opener 'Afro Sambroso' showcases batá drums from Gerardo de Armas Sarria before the track links Cuban grooves with Afrobeat. 'Timbafro' crackles and sways via Khan's organ, Sosimi's vocals and Oscar Martinez's timbales. 'Cubafro' features dazzling interplay between Khan, Sosimi and Javier Camillo's Spanish-language vocals. 'Rumbafro' is all rumba choruses, Yoruba vocals and Afrobeat horns. Rooted in their sources, but with musical threads intertwining, separating and reconfiguring – with grooves at a premium – this is a fusion lover's dream

Another Piero Umiliani classic gets its first-ever release on 7" vinyl! Shortly after 'Sweden: Heaven and Hell', in 1969 'Angeli Bianchi, Angeli Neri' continued the collaboration between Umiliani and director Luigi Scattini, this time in the direction of magic and esotericism, as the English title of the film, "Witchcraft '70", makes abundantly clear.

The two tracks included in this release reflect that direction, which informs more or less the entire score written by the Florentine composer. On side A, the wonderful "Saudade" features Brazilian singer Maria da Penha Silva, whose hypnotic and sensual voice soars over soft percussion, as if casting a spell.

On side B, the irresistible "Macumba" sounds almost like an Amazonian ritual, something halfway between capoeira and batucada, with its driving percussion over which the mysterious wordless vocalizing of Edda Dell'Orso creates a wildly fascinating theme. This limited edition 7" is a genius combination of groove and magic. Don't miss out!

Portland, OR-based multimedia artist William Selman returns to Mysteries of the Deep with his third album for the label. Drawing on influences such as David Toop, Beatriz Ferreyra, Elizabeth Waldo, and David Behrman, “The Weather Indoors” melds live and synthesized instrumentation, field recordings, and digital processing techniques in a new, more melodic and approachable direction.

Immersive site recordings open into melodic woodwinds, orchestral instrumentation, bass guitar, gongs, and vibraphone. Borrowing from the anthropologist Tim Ingold’s concept of “inversion,” this widescreen staging cuts immediately to the core of the project: the way human beings use the faculty of imagination to aestheticize their built surroundings with architecture, images of distant locales, and domesticated flora and fauna to contain the anxiety for the natural world that surrounds human life.

A clear peak in Selman's extensive catalog, “The Weather Indoors” captures his work at a moment expanding his musical and aesthetic project: Neither genre ambient nor musique concrète, but a unique sound world dense with conceptual play and moments of more traditional harmonic beauty.

“We are contaminated by our encounters: they change who we are as we make way for others. As contamination changes world-making projects, mutual worlds—and new directions—may emerge. Everyone carries a history of contamination; purity is not an option.” —Anne Lowenhaupt-Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World

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'A Soft Degeneration' was featured in a mix from Mysteries label boss, Grant Aaron, entitled 'Sundays are for' – hosted by Delayed.

William Selman has releases on Mysteries of the Deep, Critique of Everyday Life, Going In, Hausu Mountain.

In 1983 there came a sound from the depths of the Brazilian rainforest that was primal, ground-breaking, and completely ahead of its time. The roaring of amplifiers and the beating of drums was the sound of Max and Iggor Cavalera creating their debut cult-classics 'MORBID VISIONS' and 'BESTIAL DEVASTATION', and now it seems that after many years, the Cavalera brothers will be returning to their raw upstarts with a full re-recording of these beloved yet obscure albums.
When 'MORBID VISIONS' and 'BESTIAL DEVASTATION" were first spawned it was done in ramshackle conditions in Belo Horizonte, where the duo grew up. Max and Iggor were 14 and 13 years old during the original recording, and they had all the tenacity and energy of a pack of wild dogs. Only, their sound was not quite refined at that time, their adolescence bled through on those early records. It is well known that Max's guitars were completely out of tune on those sessions, and Iggor's drums often swung around tempos crazily. There's an air of youth and passion that could only be achieved by two teenagers that wanted to shock the world. Four decades later and it is plain to see that they certainly did gather the world's attention.
Despite the production being rough around the edges and the band still carving out their direction, there was a noticeable level of craftsmanship to the song structures and a clear indication that given their desire to thrash like maniacs, these kids from Brazil were going to tear the place up night after night. These albums still hold a dark, mystic and at times eerie quality to them that many have come to love over the years. For some, the music does not have to be delivered with perfect technical precision, the spastic live delivery is something to be cherished, and even with their guitars out of tune, they played like the gates of hell were opening. The crossroads of a shamanistic spiritual summoning at a back-alley metal show in downtown Belo Horizonte.
It is a task of heavy magnitude to try and cross the gap between the accomplished artists that they are today to the scrappy boys that they were when they first wrote these songs, but the duo have executed the performances flawlessly. The perfect bridge between the unbridled energy of the original sessions and the high-quality sound of a 21st century production. It is truly astounding to hear Max once again growl like a monster during "Troops Of Doom" and riff at insane speeds through "War" and "Crucifixion". Iggor's barbaric drumming on "Anti-Christ" is like the galloping hooves of a death-rider. Accompanied by bassist Igor Amadeus Cavalera (HEALING MAGIC, GO AHEAD AND DIE) and lead guitarist Daniel Gonzales (POSSESSED, GRUESOME) the quartet is a force to be reckoned with.
How this re-recording attained such a familiar tenacity is almost a mystery, like some spell that brought these albums back from the grave. Within the first few beats you can hear that the Cavalera’s have lost no momentum, attacking the songs at maximum speed and ferocity. In fact, it seems that the brothers have only empowered their connection through music over the decades. You can feel the spark that those two create, a dynamic sound rich with subtleties and ear-grabbing hooks. As Iggor counts in each song with his drumsticks, and Max's guitar feedbacks loudly as he approaches the microphone, there is palpable apprehension. It is apparent that when these two icons get together to play, they are going to electrify the room with their presence.
Few have had the incredible careers that Max and Iggor have achieved through their music. Even fewer had faith in the young boys that wrote 'MORBID VISIONS' and "BESTIAL DEVASTATION' all those years ago. Yet here they still stand ripping through their earliest works with decades of experience under their belts. For them, it is a breath of fresh air to finally give these songs the desired production that they deserve. They both feel that the fans also deserve a fresh look at these albums, a chance to appreciate them in a completely new light.
From start to finish 'MORBID VISIONS" and "BESTIAL DEVASTATION" are a torrential whirlwind of riffs, beats, and screams. A blast from the past that is sure to take every last listener back to the raucous live shows of the eighties.
Mysterious clouds form above an old cathedral, the summoning of dark magic is upon us, and the troops of doom march forth to announce the arrival of 'CAVALERA'!

RAR001 was featured in Resident Advisor's Best music of July list

RANT & RAVE
An enigmatic new sound is oozing out of your speakers. Seemingly self-tasked with reviving the essence of the techno rave style, Rant & Rave Records presents the world with an updated vision that sounds exactly like it should. Based in Berlin, the techno epicenter, It's a dangerous new label, unafraid to stir things up and break the rules. Run by Tresor resident and Sonic Groove recording artist Maedon, the label intends to inject some hard-hitting fun back into the techno underground. About to be revealed; EPs from Maedon, Lady Starlight, JoeFarr (of Turbo fame), and veteran industrial techno guru Mark Crumby, (aka Codex Empire, Konstruktivitis). Look for Rant & Rave records this summer at all fine record shops.


RAR 001
Berlin-based American expat Maedon (Tresor, Sonic Groove) ushers in the arrival of Rant & Rave Records with a slickly produced debut EP entitled 'Cease and Desist'. '1989' opens with booming kicks, driving mechanical percussion, and hallelujah samples interspersed throughout. The droning rave synths sound eerily akin to kamikaze dive bombers heading directly for your brain. 'Grandstand' and the title track 'Cease and Desist' continue in this direction, abundant with hypnotic electronics and relentless energy. On 'The Worlds So', Maedon shares her thoughts on the state of world current events with looped vocals 'The worlds so fucked... all we can do is dance'. Gritty, dark rave tracks for peak time workout that provide a nice blueprint of what to expect from this label. No prisoners taken.

Habibi Funk is excited to share “Marzipan” - our first full length contemporary release courtesy of Beirut’s multi-instrumental phenom Charif Megarbane, also known as the man behind prolific Cosmic Analog Ensemble. The LP is a journey into Charif’s styling, one he terms “Lebrary”: a vision of Lebanon + Mediterranean expressed through the kaleidoscopic sonics of library music. Drawing from artists that encapsulates the HF sound, such as Ziad Rahbani, Ahmed Malek and Issam Hajali, Charif translates these influences into an LP that is equally at home in ’23. We always wondered why Charif’s music stayed under the radar for so long, that all changes with “Marzipan”.
Charif Megarbane, the staggeringly prolific producer, instrumentalist, and all-around musical mastermind returns with full LP “Marzipan.” Following his previous release of EP “Tayara Warak” in 2022, “Marzipan” is a sonic journey that seeks to capture the full scope of Megarbane’s habitus. As a composer and producer, Megarbane touts hugely versatile, sometimes volatile musicianship — his 100+ catalogue of projects (including legendary groups like the Cosmic Analog Ensemble, Free Association Syndicate, Monumental Detail, etc.) features a huge domain of sonic direction. This collection was previously developed in Megarbane’s own Hisstology label which hosts a wealth of collaborative efforts. Now, Habibi Funk represents Megarbane under his own name. Megarbane finds a sonic through-line in his surrounding soundscapes as he draws on the chaotic energy of the crowded Beirut metropolis (“Souk El Ahad”), the warm atmosphere of the Lebanese countryside (“Chez Mounir”), or the lushness of a Mediterranean beach resort (“Portemilio”). Reflecting the aural composition of his direct surroundings into kaleidoscopic instrumentation provides a unique insight into how one musical phenomenon transposes sight into sound. Habibi Funk is thrilled to share “Marzipan” and finally throttle this under-theradar phenomenon into the solo spotlight. Despite the magnitude of his catalog, Megarbane’s LP sounds as fresh—as resolutely inspired—as a debut record. “Marzipan” continues down the winding path he trod on EP “Tayyara Warak” (released Decmber, 2022) which features solid footing in the hectic city sounds Megarbane hears as home. Despite his obvious musical acumen, Megarbane’s greatest talent seems to be his open ears. In many ways, “Marzipan” is a cartographic feat — it travels and traces a journey across many dimensions (both sonic and physical). Megarbane’s instrumental catalogue is vast: toy glockenspiel, harpsichord, pedal steel, a classic Wurlitzer, et al are used liberally on the record. The resultant sound is as sprawling as the musician’s instrumental dexterity. “Marzipan’s” closing track “Bala 3anouan” can be translated loosely to “without address” — a fitting final word. Despite the entire record being a sincere testament to Megarbane’s environmental approach to music-making, the record is not bound to any particular coordinates, or any particular sound for that matter. The vastness of his influences — beloved artists like Ahmed Malek and Issam Hajali (both Habibi Funk veterans); West African funk deep cuts; European cinematic scores; et al — result in a record of somewhat unparalleled expansiveness. Floating melodies and frantic rhythmic interludes both find natural homes across “Marzipan.” The record is tinged with psychedelic elements—fuzz-drenched guitar, sliding microtonal interludes, hypnotic rhythmic breakdowns. Reflecting on his creative process, Megarbane cites a stream of consciousness approach: “It’s a very spontaneous, playful, and diary-like approach and workflow…I trust my instinct because instinct is based on experience.” Lead single “Souk El Ahad” opens the roll-out with a raucous energy, out June 12. Megarbane abstracts busy city sounds into a psychedelic framework, casting technicolor hues on everyday experience. Following is second single “Pas de Dialogue” out June 23. The track jerks the listener towards a more meditative state with lulling harpsichord and expanding, cinematic sound. “Marzipan” will be available physically and digitally everywhere on July 14, 2023. Be sure to listen for focus track “Chez Mounir” that captures the warmth of community in a joyful, laidback groove.
Uncover greater insight into the world of Charif Megarbane in the booklet accompanying the LP

Crackazat & Heist present: “Senses”. A stunning mini album that sees the artist deliver a heartwarming perspective on contemporary electronic music
On “Senses”, we see the pure talent of Crackazat come to life like never before. We’ve all danced to “Alfa” or his most recent hit on Heist “Demucha” and have heard his venture into the more poppy side of things with his 2022 album ‘Evergreen’ on Freerange. “Senses” however, is on another level. Crackazat takes you on a sonic journey exploring his musical personality with live keys, vocals, bass and production all coming from his studio in Uppsala, Sweden. The
jazzy horns that are featured throughout are recorded by Adeev and Ezra Potash, better known as the Potash twins. The duo took a sidestep from their recordings with John Legend, Robert Glasper and even Diplo to dive into this project with Crackazat and help him deliver arguably his best work to date.
The 6-track album starts off with the low-slung groove of ‘I need to know’. The whole atmosphere is warm, dreamy and seems to be written to lift your spirits, no matter where you are in life. Plucked strings, arpeggios and long horn notes give this song its energy, which is subtly supported by lo-fi drums and sparse bass licks.
“Do you think about me”, keeps the energy tight with a lovely drum groove and a sparse bass section. From the first note of the track, you get the feeling like the energy could change any moment. Halfway through this is exactly what happens, when uplifting keys and a buzzing lead take control of the track. The string arrangement is subtle enough to never overshadow the other instrumentation, but simply adds a beautiful layer to a track that’s already filled with
emotion. It’s all smiles when the energy of this track is set loose!
If “Do you think about me” is Crackazat in pop mode, “Freddie’s Groove” is Crackazat in full-on jazz mode. The nod to Freddie Hubbard is clear, and Crackazat cleverly takes ideas from both the jazz legend and his legendary French sampler, Pepe Bradock for this track. The horns are deep and moody, the groove is jazz-house at its best and Crackazat’s soft vocals have the perfect amount of fragility to fit the groove. The changeover into a stabby synth section
halfway through the track is a subtle reminder from the skilled producer that – even with all these musical elements – he can direct you to the front of the dancefloor with the twist of a note.
“Phantom” sees Crackazat move into a shuffling Latin-dance vibe. Here, the song reaches its full potential through the horn section, so it’s only fitting that this is the feature track for the Potash Twins. The Latin rhythms are lush, the key progression is on point and the energy on this track just keeps on going with layers and layers of horns, powerful vocal chops, and subtle but effective percussion changeovers.
“Endless life” is a track that feels like it’s building up momentum with every repetition. Whether it’s the broken beat groove, the offbeat keys or the sparse horn hits, chord hits or leads, there’s a certain energy in this track that takes a hold of you and simply doesn’t let go.
The outro “When we last met” is built around vibey drunk keys and a downtempo hip-hop groove. There’s a hint of old school D’angelo in this track and you can clearly hear the artist feels at ease with the path he’s taking the listener on. It’s a perfect ending to a record that showcases the beautiful world that Crackazat has crafted through his compositions and one thing is for sure: This is an album we will all keep coming back to for a long time to come.
Yours Sincerely,
Maarten & Lars

The Tribe founders’ collaborative debut, remixed from the original mutli-track master tapes under the direction of its creators and lacquered by Bernie Grundman. Phil Ranelin’s side has been pitch-corrected and restored to a suite, as was originally intended. Wendell Harrison’s side contains extended, full versions of two songs. The definitive reissue of this Spiritual Jazz masterpiece. The Tribe label, one of the brightest lights of America’s 1970s jazz underground, receives the Now-Again reissue treatment. This is your chance to indulge in the music and story of one of the most meaningful, local movements of the 20th Century Black American experience, one that expanded outwards towards the cosmos. In the words of the collective themselves, “Music is the healing force of the universe.” Included in an extensive, oversized booklet, Larry Gabriel and Jeff “Chairman” Mao take us through the history of the Tribe, in a compelling story that delves not just into the history of the label and its principals, but into the story of Black American empowerment in the latter half of the 20th Century. The booklet features never-before-seen archival photos and rare ephemera from Tribe’s mid-1970s heyday.

First ever commercial releases of New Orleans’ legend Alvin Batiste’s Spiritual Jazz albums created with the college band he instructed and led in Baton Rouge - Goes To Africa With Love and Live at The 1971 American College Jazz Festival Originally given away as souvenirs at Southern University, these albums contains deep Batiste originals and, on Live, are paired with excellent John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard covers. They are some of the most sought after albums of Americas 70s jazz underground. Each album contains extensive booklet detailing Batiste’s life and his time spent honing and recording this remarkable band of young students. That one of the great Spiritual Jazz albums of the era could be found in duplicate New Orleans thrift store in the 1980s goes a long way in illustrating the lack of acclaim this special and overlooked album maintained, even in a city where the Batiste name is musical royalty. The Southern University albums Alvin Batiste offered the world were novelies, not worthy of serious consideration, a moment captured, but not necessarily worthy of being collected or preserved by anyone not immediately involved in its creation. That changes now. With the release of the two Southern University albums, Now-Again continues a conversation begun with the late Kashmere Stage Band director Conrad O. Johnson and the issue of his high school students’ music as Texas Thunder Soul, and the continued belief that beautiful music created by youth - even under the most adverse circumstances - can always inspire us.

"Released in May 1986 on SST Records and Blast First! in the UK, EVOL was the third studio album by Sonic Youth and showed the first signs of the band transforming their No Wave past into a greater alt-rock sensibility. “EVOL … marks the true departure point of Sonic Youth’s musical evolution,” noted Pitchfork, “In measured increments, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo … bring form to the formless, tune to the tuneless, and with the help of Steve Shelley’s drums…, impose melody and composition on their trademark dissonance.” ""If Daydream Nation is Sonic Youth’s opus, EVOL was crucial research. There’s a directness that makes everything feel close. It is pure tension with little release. The entire record is a shadow." Stereogum likewise praised the album as one, “full of suspense…, the cornerstone Nico-evoking monotone [by Kim Gordon]. ‘In The Kingdom #19,’ featuring Mike Watt on bass and … vocals [by Ranaldo]…, is a harrowing story of a highway wreck over a suitably edgy instrumental backing punctuated by … live firecrackers in the vocal booth.” For Popstache, “EVOL slithers into the unconscious. Once the....detuned melodies and haunting riffs and final whispers of feedback depart from the speakers… the music [leaves] a faded footprint, forever reeling the listener back for another strange trip.” // “The seeds of greatness…” Pitchfork (who placed the album #31 of the Top 100 Albums of The 1980s) // “A near-masterpiece.” Trouser Press // “A stunningly fluent mixture of avant-garde instrumentation and subversions of rock’n’roll.” All Music Guide"

Sophistication is a very apt description of both the music and the performing artist that is Bill Albright (real name Anthony Bills). Born in 1961 and raised in Baltimore, MD. Albright received a vocational as well as an associates degree in Electrical Engineering and Technology during 1981 the same year as he was blessed with the birth of his son Anthony Jr. From 1982 through to 1985 Bill had moved to New York City to model professionally for several major retail corporations such as Macy’s and Bloomingdales making good use of 170 pounds, six feet tall frame and handsome photogenic looks, while still finding time to hone his singing, songwriting and studio engineering skills through attending art Composers Theatre. His musical management and composing skills were to continue upon his return to his native Baltimore in 1986 as the prelude to him joining the national fundraising touring team for The United Negro College Fund in conjunction with the National Basket Ball Association (NBA) Slam Dunk Contests. Interacting with such celebrity players as Magic Johnson, Arsenio Hall, Spike Lee and Robert Townsend and Atlanta Hawks team mates Spud Webb and Dominique Wilkins.



Through his travels during 1989 Albright decided to settle in Atlanta, GA, making it his home to this present day. Once settled he founded his own cleaning business ‘All Bright Cleaning Services Inc’ built on good old-fashioned ethics of hard work and a strong determination to succeed, the exact same traits that he would later display in his future musical journey. While providing his cleaning services to major commercial companies, home, office and car detailing Albright found the time to continue pursuing his musical ambitions with a strong emphasis on live and recorded performances. In 1993 Albright formed ‘Bill Albright Productions Inc’ working with the late Keith “Keecho” Rawls the former Keyboardist and Musical Director for Peabo Bryson. Albright’s work has often been likened to Peabo’s for obvious reasons as well as Luther Vandross and Johnny Gill, He also draws inspiration from the stars of his youth Nat King Cole, The Isley Brothers, Frankie Beverley and Marvin Gaye amongst others. Albrights productions while being contemporary still retain an old school leaning which widens his appeal to a broader audience. Feeling that the time wasn’t right to release his material Albright continued with his successful cleaning business and live performances, that was until 2022 when he released the first of his productions (as a download only) the stylish “Sitting By The Phone” which gives more than a passing nod to Billy Stewart’s timeless classic “Sitting In The Park” but recorded in Albright’s own unique way. Albright’s second and forthcoming release is the more contemporary mid-tempo mover “In The Middle Of The Night” (only available as a download in the United States) but is due for a simultaneous vinyl 45 release in the UK paired with the aforementioned “Sitting By The Phone” as Soul Junction’s next 45 outing.

Spaceman, otherwise known as Stephen Munson or Stephan James, is the former lead singer of English cult glam punk band Living In Texas, one of the very first bands to play an MTV Europe session when MTV was in its infancy, one of the last bands to play at the legendary Elixir Festival in France, once #3 in the Italian charts (1985.),...

At the end of Living In Texas, Munson continued to form other projects without such conviction and to write songs, until meeting Christelle Canot aka Confused, a moment which he describes as his epiphany. He entrusted her with the production of his first (double) solo album.

This follows during the pandemic by the production of a double album featuring 9 songs already recorded in 2000 and the composition of 16 others with musicians from all over the world, carried by the same punk and DIY spirit that has always lived with him.

Poet, director, an artist touching everything and a great lyricist, his songs are personal and universal, love letters to his children, to nature, to our addictions, confessions of weakness, regrets, his life passes through these 25 songs that range from the folk lo-fi masterpiece "frEND" to pure postpunk sound straight out of the 80s "Everybody's Hooked On Something", to folk-rock ballads like Martin's Garden, eternal songs with "Loving Ways" or ballads of Lynchian love... As many universes as eras crossed with the greatest sincerity through the eyes of an eternal child.

ME LOST ME led by Newcastle-based artist Jayne Dent announces a new album RPG via Upset The Rhythm on 7th July, and is touring across the UK including support dates with Pigs x7. RPG (recorded in Blank Studios with Sam Grant of Pigs x7) is ME LOST ME’s fourth outing as a collective, having transitioned from an ambitious solo project in 2017, Jayne now regularly collaborating with acclaimed North-East jazz musicians Faye MacCalman and John Pope.
ME LOST ME delights in experimenting with songwriting and storytelling, creating a beguiling mix of soaring vocals and atmospheric electronics that playfully weave together disparate genres, drawing influence from folk, art pop, noise, ambient and improvised music. Hauntological in part, RPG is concerned with tales and with time - are we running out of it? Does insomnia cause a time loop? Do the pressures of masculinity prevent progress? Jayne Dent asks these questions and more on RPG, her homage to worldbuilding and the story as an artform, calling back to those oral traditions around a campfire, as well as modern day video games - bringing folk music into the present day as she does so.
ME LOST ME presents sound reaching in opposite directions, straddling time towards the archaic and timeless traditions of folktales, and towards the possible and potential futures of pastoral Britain and the world at large. Part speculation, part reminiscence, what results on the new album RPG is music that sounds ultimately displaced and yet omnipresent, adjacent to a hapless Vonnegut hero whose life is scattered throughout time and history, but full of wonder and curiosity rather than fear.
On track “The Oldest Trees Hold The Earth”, we see time stretched out between the branches of impossibly old beings in the woods. This track was co-written in Aarhus, Denmark with fellow Newcastle folk musician (with Danish heritage) Ditte Elly. The pair wordlessly passed a sheet of paper between each other to write the lyrics, inspired by Højbjerg and Mosegård, the woods they were sitting in. “How long should I wait/Before the moss grows?/On my skin, on my outstretched arms,” the lyrics are sung in a round, the close harmonies delicate and detailed.

A central thesis of this album is the joy of creation, something which is paid homage to in the album’s final track, “Science And Art” (Not because we need it to last/just because we needed to make it - so we invented the words/this language). It is also reflected in the definition that Jayne gives for “folk” itself. She comments, “To me, folk is quite an expansive idea. I think of it as creative work that's often made ad-hoc, with things that are at hand and more often than not it's born of a DIY ethos. It is songs and stories of the people, as in the traditional sense, but also creative coding, game design etc. Whatever outlet someone has for their creative expression could be described as folk. It's the things we make because humans need to make things, and the stories we tell about ourselves and the world around us.”
Crucially, on latest album RPG, Dent expands her songwriting and looks towards the unreal locations of worldbuilding in video games for inspiration. She comments, “I think the main similarity is the importance of a song's setting/environment to inform its narrative and textures, I'm often most inspired when out walking in the natural landscape, in cities and travelling to places I've never been before - the environment I'm in really impacts the work I make. While writing this album, however, I found myself inspired by imaginary landscapes, those in video games, paintings, etc. I was writing stories into these unreal locations instead. Even the songs inspired by real places, like The Oldest Trees Hold the Earth, have a very surreal quality to them in the songs, like they're being warped and turned into something not of this world. I think that's the main difference for me in terms of the thematic content and inspiration behind this album - I've been getting more and more interested in balancing surreal and fantastical environmental elements with ordinary and everyday settings.”
RPG upends the concept of the eternal return - we may be in the midst of inevitable repetition, but we tell stories whilst awaiting the passage of time.
"Being familiar with, and a fan of Jayne's earlier work, it was great to get the opportunity to work with her on the production of her new record. I had in mind a sense of what the record might be, but what came of the sessions, led by the vision Jayne had for the record, totally exceeded my expectations. As far as albums go, it has a breadth of writing and a sonic depth that made it a truly brilliant record. Having Jayne join us on a leg of the Pigs x7 tour in April is going to be ace. The creative nature, the sincerity and bold strokes of ME LOST ME put it in that space outside of any genre pigeonholes, and between our two sets I imagine the audience is going to have a proper sonic bath..."
Sam Grant, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, 2023
“The music of Me Lost Me is beguiling, idiosyncratic and cinematic - or should that be video-game-omatic? This suite of songscapes often hits the sweet spot between ancient and modern with its masterful blend of stark folk, neon electronic burbling and unusual arrangements. Jayne's singing is refreshingly straightforward and nuanced - it's exquisite! - and perfectly punctures the nebulae of synths and brass which billow around the old wooden frames of the songs. Whilst listening I had images in my mind of what Northumberland might look like through the eyes of Simon Stalenhag - foggy moors, a robot looking across the sea to Lindisfarne, twinkling lights on metal towers.... that sort of thing. It's a really great album.”
Richard Dawson, 2023

“Session Victim debut on Rhythm Section Intl with an EP of understated but highly effective jazzy house rollers“

Having cemented themselves as firm favourites on the Rhythm Section dance-floor over the years, the German duo step forward to present their debut EP on the South London label: “ Basic Instinct”.

Known for their unparalleled energy when performing live or DJing, Hauke and Matthias fly the flag for sample based, soulful house music and a commitment to the art of vinyl DJing. With the never- ending search for the perfect beat at the core of what they do, it was no surprise they found a deep affinity with Rhythm Section INTL over years of playing for each other, jamming in the studio and crossing paths at festivals and airports around the world. In short, this record was an inevitable culmination of two passionate, like minded groups, a match made in Heaven and a long time coming!

Despite hailing from the techno meccas of Berlin and Hamburg, Session Victim are direct descendants of the German Jazzy House masters, tracing inspiration from the likes of Jazzanova, Soulphiction & Compost Records - the likes of which have gone on to inspire a renaissance of this more soulful sound in German clubs, spearheaded by labels like Tartelet and Toy Tonics - the latter of which the duo recently released an EP with.

This latest effort on Rhythm Section INTL is a masterclass in restraint, demonstrating a deep understanding of dancefloor dynamics, putting the maxim ‘less is more’ to great effect. The
opening track, ‘Trying To Make it Home’ is the most immediately engaging cut: a double bass riff drives along a Kerri Chandler-esque filtered piano pattern which gives way to a soaring Gospel

Vocal , allowing the groove to take control as flutes, strings and occasional guitar licks meander in and out of the mix to create a real ‘heads down, arms up’ moment for the dancefloor.

Somewhere in the Lower-Franconian vineyards lies a hidden and mostly unknown canyon, a place that often returns to the thoughts and dreams of Läuten der Seele’s Christian Schoppik. Though a much rarer occurrence now as a consequence of environmental change, chance encounters upon the area in the past would sometimes reveal small ponds amongst the reeds, teeming with life and populated by colonies of newts and the now endangered yellow bellied toad. The transience of the water and the wildlife it hosts, dependent on season or climate, lends the area an almost fantastical, dream-like quality. Was it ever even there at all? A secret place that may or may not be present holds vast appeal to some enquiring minds… Ertrunken Im Seichtesten Gewässer, the third Läuten der Seele album in two years, is inspired directly by these experiences. Translating as ‘drowned in the shallowest stretch of water’, a title as pregnant with dread as it is wonder, the themes present speak both to personal memories and a wider understanding of place and time, and how we might interpret our own position within an ever-changing, sometimes disappearing world.

The record is presented as two long-form pieces divided into four separate movements, each titled so as to reflect this natural environment and its intersection with imagination, relying on processes of collage that draw from myriad indeterminable samples, field recordings and various recorded instruments. Those familiar with Schoppik’s work, both as Läuten der Seele and with Brannten Schnüre, will find present many of his signature tropes - the way deeply layered collages render abstracted visions of the past alive in the present - though what is always significant about his approach is not so much aesthetic as the wider concepts it attempts to express and emote. Indeed, emotional response is key to the Läuten der Seele sound, how overlapping notions of nostalgia, memory and identity calibrate experience and understanding of who we are and the world around us, whether it’s a world that’s gone or another imagined into being. If you observe the artwork closely enough, you may find a clue as to the canyon’s location, though such specifics are besides the point. The music itself infers a wider sense of the impermanence that characterises hidden worlds, wherever they might be or whoever they might belong to.

Curious, he bid on the item and ended up winning it for a few dollars. Upon investigation, the simple and intuitive nature of its interface appealed to him, especially in comparison to the dense 'menus within menus' design of contemporary DAWs, and he soon began to seek out other programs from this 'first wave' of music software development. The result of over a year of study, experimentation, and creation (often involving direct correspondence with the software creators themselves), 'Universal Synthesizer Interface' is Roos's homage to this early era of algorithmic music making.

Those two prior releases were voted #4 and #5 best albums of the year, respectively, in the annual Francis Davis Jazz Poll of over 150 jazz critics. In two 4 1/2 Star reviews, Downbeat called Mesmerism "wonderfully simple, yet breathtakingly deep" and Off- Off Broadway (featuring saxophonist Greg Osby) "music robust enough to have you believe the energy generated by the group is its own discrete force."While the new release features the same musicians as on Mesmerism - Sorey on drums, pianist Aaron Diehl and bassist Matt Brewer - the result could not be more different.

Drunk Hymns on the A Side. All the previous hits on the B Side. Lovely job A band formed over pints in a small English pub in late 2021, CARSICK have exploded onto the scene with love from the likes of Gemma Bradley, John Kennedy, Nels Hylton, Dork Magazine, Gigwise and Tom Robinson - and take influence from a range of different artists and genres, from indie rock to post-punk to hip-hop with electronic elements, but their tongue-in-cheek lyrical approach directly tackles the trials and tribulations of life as a young adult, and especially the drinking culture which dominates the band's demographic.

Shamanic call from the ethereal field where all shapes fluidly come to one. Inspired by the multilevel constant dynamics of slowed down and pushing forward energies of one frequency.
“Diamond Director” with clear edges and smooth surfaces turns slowly glittering like the transparent stone under the sun or the spots in the club.
“Ruby Director” is steady colored going deep into a simpler way of movement without losing its pressure of serious laziness.
“Shayde's remix” means the state of trance after the glitter of the turning diamond occupying the personal view with little sparkles.
“Dan Bay's remix” is the consequence of the deep slowed down original bringing the slow pressure back to faster laziness again.
“Le Rubrique's remix” as a fusion of the two originals shows how different similarity can be and rolls up everything in a new way.

Lewis Taylor's legendary magnum opus: The Lost Album. "Now you're talking. That's my favourite LT album. Unlike all of the others, there isn't anything about it that embarrasses me." Straight from the genius's mouth. What can we say about this? Well, it's the most requested record ever at Be With Towers. The Lost Album was the intended follow-up to his first album but Island rejected it for fear of "confusing" the marketplace and its conception of Lewis as a soul artist. Their loss. It's a breezy sunset masterpiece.

The genesis of this incredible record needs unpicking a bit. Lewis stopped promoting the first album after a year and went home to record a completely different record that was the most un-R&B album you could probably ever hear: "I pushed in such an extreme direction the other way with what eventually became The Lost Album. It was a knee-jerk reaction to a perceived ‘trapped in R&B’ feeling I was going through at the time. Some people around me were in favour of it and others weren’t. In the end I think I lost confidence in it and did Lewis II instead." We did at least get Lewis II, which is a remarkable album, and he kept Island happy...for a bit. Not long after, Lewis was dropped. And what was to become The Lost Album could've been...er...lost. Forever.

Thankfully, however, Lewis and longtime partner Sabina Smyth revisited those scrapped demo tracks in 2003. They decided to re-arrange, re-record and then self-release them. So it was that the brand new version of The Lost Album finally dropped in late 2004. It's sheer perfection, and we don't say that lightly. The Lost Album was a fully 50/50 collaboration between Lewis and Smyth. As well as production, Sabina did a lot more writing on it, from the melody to "Listen Here" to the chord sequence for "Let's Hope Nobody Finds Us." Thankfully, Sabina is credited this time around.

No, it's not straight up "soul music" in the vein of his previous work. Yet, in its perfectly formed suite of one dozen songs, The Lost Album is dripping in soul. It's so warm, so effervescent and so alive with possibilities. It features deep, fresh imprints on well-loved, accessible sounds. It's a proper 70s style double album. Just one listen and the musical influences on The Lost Album are fairly self-explanatory, as Lewis recently told us, but it's always nice to hear that, in case we were in any doubt, he was definitely channeling Love, Yes, Brian Wilson, CSN, Laura Nyro and, of course, Todd Rundgren. The influences don't end there: "I’m particularly fond of my bass playing on that album, there’s a lot of Chris Squire going on which is cool."

Deep orchestral opener "Lost" is a sublime, harp-laced, string drenched gem, a cinematic, melancholic Axelrod-esque mini-epic that simply beguiles. Written by Smyth, it evokes Donny Hathaway's celestial "I Love The Lord, He Heard My Cry" from Extensions Of A Man. The only problem is the brief 90 seconds running time. It segues into the classic Brian Wilson-meets-power-pop-rock splendour of "Listen Here" which, with its outstanding extended harp-licked beatless intro, sounds like the younger cousin to Boston's "More Than A Feeling". We then drift into the ringing guitars of classic 70s rock anthem "Hide Your Heart Away". It's Lewis's personal favourite, "especially the multi-tracked guitar solo – I was listening to Boston at the time, which was fun." A-ha!

A new version of the heart-stopping, shoulda-been-a-massive-pop-hit "Send Me An Angel" opens Side B before the arrival of, in Lewis's completely correct words, "the clear standout, "Leader of the Band"; the perfect distillation of everything that album was trying to achieve." Soaring, piano-led Rundgren-esque power pop that makes the hairs on the back of your next stand on end. Truly, otherworldly. This is pure pop for now (and then) people. The simple jangly brilliance meets experimental prog-rock of "Yeah" sounds like simultaneously like prime CSNY and late 90s Radiohead (if they'd had a slightly more accessible bent and could write better tunes).

Oh, you wish The Beach Boys had continued writing amazing songs beyond Holland? Well, allow us to point you in the direction of the downlifting stunner "Please Help Me If You Can" and the warm textures and brilliant atmospherics of goosebump-inducer "Let’s Hope Nobody Finds Us". Words can't really describe the sheer beauty of these songs. So we'll stop trying. Just listen. Listen, listen, listen. Closing out this remarkable side of music, the accidentally Balearic "New Morning" should be blasting out at every sunrise set in Ibiza, this summer and forevermore.

The final side opens with the vaguely Beatlesey "Say I Love You". It's just classic, soaring pop-rock songwriting and should strictly be canonical. It's that good. The sassy, Stonesy swagger of "See My Way" injects enough rock'n'roll attitude to compensate for the rest of record's peace-loving, AOR sun-dappled vibe whilst album closer, "One More Mystery", emerging out of the rubble of the previous track, comes on initially like a Baroque-Pop George Harrison before piling crunching drums and screeching guitar solos atop the dreamy harmonies til close.

When asked what it means to have these records available on vinyl for the first time, Lewis is in no doubt: "It’s great and it’s really nice to be able to offer fans a different listening experience. There’s a whole other dimension with vinyl that taps into that whole nostalgia thing, well for me anyway. Something about the physical aspect of pulling it out of the sleeve and putting it on, it does tend to make you feel like you’re more engaged."

Lewis was adamant that he wanted all new artwork for The Lost Album vinyl sleeve and his brief was just the sort of classic tropical-beach-at-sunset you’d want to see on the front of a record that sounds like this. On the finished sleeve, the beach at sunset is just where we start out, before heading up through the painterly clouds and heading out into the stars. And yes, the lettering is a definite subtle nod to all those in-between-period Beach Boys bootlegs we all love. Simon Francis's sensitive mastering combines with Cicely Balston's precise cut for Alchemy at AIR Studios so the album sounds appropriately outstanding. The immaculate Record Industry double LP pressing will ensure this previously lost masterpiece stays forever found.

Going past musical genres and instead straight towards something more elemental - Selvhenter’s music creates a strikingly direct, physical experience of sound composed of polyrhythms, acoustic and electric melodies, heavy music and improvised beauty.

Since forming in Copenhagen in 2010, drummers Jaleh Negari and Anja Jacobsen, saxophonist Sonja LaBianca and trombonist Maria Bertel have forged a unique approach to making music that starts with their instrumental setup: two drummers that interlock as frequently as they go their own way, a trombone put through a bass amplifier loud enough to rattle your chest and a saxophone put through a range of effects so that it often sounds unrecognisable. Selvhenter work within their own idiom, drawing from the individual players’ personalities and interests to make a highly collective music, where all four musicians are absorbed into a total sound where an improvised free jazz approach collides with experimental electronic music and avant-garde noise/post-punk sonorities.

Their new LP Mesmerizer - which marks their first physical album release in nearly a decade and their debut on the French label Hands in the Dark - carries forward this process of exploration, deploying original and complex patterns of rhythm through various percussive instruments and finely textured horns and synths. The attention to sonic details is also almost pushed to an extreme on this new offering, making the open auditory adventure suggested by the title of the album all the more captivating. These creative developments have brilliantly kept Selvhenter’s music alive to new uncharted moods and possibilities, while at the same time strengthening their core elements: a propulsive, dense and often ecstatic music.

2024 Restock

"Warren 'Sonny' Sharrock died of a heart attack at the age of 53 in 1994. At the time of his death, many writers noted that he had recently landed a contract with a major label (RCA) and was perhaps 'destined for big things.' In my opinion, these writers missed the point. Although Mr. Sharrock may not have been successful financially (as though that might be a primary motivating goal for any true artist), he was uncommonly successful aesthetically. Certainly, there are a few dubious moments to be found inside his oeuvre, but Mr. Sharrock produced several of the most mind-shredding avant-garde albums ever recorded. Premier among them is Black Woman.

"Originally released on the Vortex label in 1969, Black Woman may be the universe's first true statement of guitar skronk majesty. It also represents Mr. Sharrock's first date as a leader and stands as the sole documentation of a band that well-understood the essentials of energy. Besides Sharrock's explosive guitar, the band features the omni-directional percussion mastery of Milford Graves (then in the midst of recording Love Cry with Albert Ayler), the gorgeous post-tongue vocalizing of Sonny's then-wife Linda Sharrock, the sinuous bass presence of Norris Jones (later known as Sirone) and some the most explicitly abstract piano work ever recorded by Dave Burrell. That Black Woman was produced by flautist Herbie Mann, a guy not well-known for his affinity to fire music, makes it even more intriguing." – Byron Coley

In the mid-'60s, Albert Ayler found himself at the center of major transformations within jazz. On his albums for ESP-Disk', his delivery was radically aggressive and his tone blistering – aiming for something beyond the New Thing. His music would be further energized when (at the behest of John Coltrane) Bob Thiele signed him to Impulse! As Ayler told The Plain Dealer at the time, "It's not about notes anymore. It's a sound – a feeling. The approach we're taking will discontinue the use of the word 'jazz.'"

In Greenwich Village, Ayler's first LP on Impulse!, perfectly captures the Cleveland-born saxophonist's radiant intensity. Sourced from a pair of live engagements – February '67 at the Village Theatre on New York's Lower East Side and December '66 at the Village Vanguard – these recordings show an improved clarity in production and performance.

Both sets feature two basses (including Alan Silva and Henry Grimes) which allowed the ensemble to go in different harmonic directions while maintaining an organic unity. Of particular interest are "For John Coltrane," a tribute to Ayler's mentor who would pass later that year, and "Truth Is Marching In" where trumpeter Donald Ayler joins his brother to celebrate and ultimately deconstruct several jazz traditions to stunning effect.

Vibrant in sound and vision, Albert Ayler's In Greenwich Village is a landmark statement in free jazz and a career high-point for this truly original artist. Superior Viaduct is honored to present this classic album on vinyl for the first time domestically in 30 years.

From Alehouse to Playhouse Bjarte Eike and his barnstorming Barokksolistene capture the vital spark of Restoration London’s entertainment scene with a captivating new recording for Rubicon Classics! The Playhouse Sessions will be released on 23 September 2022 to coincide with Barokksolistene’s concert double-bill at London’s Southbank Centre.

‘A smattering of Purcell, dances from Playford’s Dancing Master, shanties, reels and ballads succumb to a nine-piece ensemble drawing on Baroque, jazz and folk styles for a no holds barred hooley of riotous improvisatory give and take,’ (BBC Music Magazine review of The Alehouse Sessions, August 2019)

London’s musicians, pushed in the 1650s, to the margins of society by order of Oliver Cromwell, found room for new forms of entertainment in city-centre taverns and alehouses. They remained there long after the restoration of the monarchy, performing sets of dances, theatre songs and bawdy ballads to audiences glad to be free from Puritan constraints on pleasure.

Norwegian violinist Bjarte Eike and his Barokksolistene have restored the spirit and substance of those long-forgotten performances with their Alehouse Sessions, hailed by The Times as ‘irresistible’ and ‘fabulously unrestrained’ by The Guardian. Five years ago the Norwegian violinist and his band scored a best-selling album with The Alehouse Sessions on Rubicon Classics. They return to the label with another compelling collection of music and words of the kind on offer more than three centuries ago at Henry Purcell’s favourite Westminster watering holes. The Playhouse Sessions, set for release on Rubicon Classics on 23 September 2022, reflects the uplifting energy and engaging emotional contrasts of Barokksolistene’s Alehouse performances.

“The album contains a sort of inner narrative that runs through the recording,” says Bjarte Eike. “It has become like a play in its own right, with each track being a small tale within a larger story.” The recording’s tracklist includes Eike’s beguiling arrangements of music from Purcell’s semi-opera The Fairy Queen and his own original compositions on words from the play on which it is based, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; popular songs and ballads such as ‘The Irish Washerwoman’, ‘I often for my Jenny strove’ and ‘The Three Ravens’; tunes from Purcell’s welcome odes and stage shows, Come ye sons of art and Dido and Aeneas among them; the ‘Willow Song’ from Shakespeare’s Othello; Eike’s own voice in Puck’s monologue from Act 5 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and John Dowland’s sublime air ‘Can she excuse my wrongs’.

London’s theatres were closed at the start of the English Civil War in 1642 and remained shut until the Restoration. Alehouses offered redundant musicians, actors and dancers a place to scrape a precarious living and soon became their creative refuge. “Although a few surviving theatres reopened in 1660 with the return of Charles II, there was little money around to rebuild those that had been demolished,” observes Bjarte Eike. “And a generation of musicians had already found an audience in places like the Black Horse in Aldersgate Street. So popular were their alehouse sessions that Cromwell tried to abolish them! But they outlived him and became part of Restoration musical life.” The form of a Barokksolistene Alehouse, he adds, is like a creative room. “Within its framework I can frequently refurbish the show with new contents. The Playhouse project is likewise an extension of the ever-evolving Alehouse Sessions. Together they tell the story of music and theatre in London during Cromwell’s time and after the Restoration. Of course there’s an historical context to what we do. But there’s also the practical context – which is even more important to me – of connecting with a contemporary twenty-first century audience. An Alehouse / Playhouse performance is not something for the museum; it's about music made in the present moment, just as it was in the London alehouses of Purcell’s day -- with their playhouses annexed to the rear of the beer-drinking saloons. The encounter of musicians onstage and the audience in the hall is the real magic of it. We have to fuse the audience into the action of our performance!”

The Playhouse Sessions will be launched on Friday 23 September with a late-night concert at the Purcell Room and a post-concert Alehouse Session in the foyer of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Soprano Mary Bevan is set to join Eike and his Alehouse Boys for the first half of their Southbank Centre double-bill, offering unique interpretations of songs from Purcell shows and other hits from the late seventeenth-century London stage. “The Southbank Centre is a direct descendant of concerts given in the 1650s in the alehouses of London,” notes Eike. “These alehouses after all staged some of the world’s first public concerts. Later, after the Restoration, it became common for promoters to advertise alehouse concerts in the press and offer subscription tickets. Purcell and his fellow musicians were thus just as at home performing there as they were in the chambers of the royal court or in London’s new theatres.”

Bjarte Eike launched his Alehouse Sessions in company with like-minded musicians 15 years ago. The ensemble comprises a core of regular performers, all of whom have committed to memory a huge setlist of up to four hours of music. Typically they meet a day or so before a concert tour to share a meal and make music together; then next day, re-grouping thirty minutes before the show, they discover Eike’s select-menu for the evening. “That ensures that every show is fresh,” he notes. “I make sure we never repeat the same programme twice. It’s therefore essential to work with people who share my outlook and dare to adventure. We’re into a high-risk sport, with lots of traps and places where the unexpected appears - for good or for ill. And so the audience knows we’re vulnerable. But our skill is seen in how we re-act on the hoof to the unpredictable. That’s authenticity and honesty - and above all it’s a performance that’s genuine.”

Armed with a classical training and a background in folk music and improvisation, Bjarte Eike was drawn naturally to Early Music in all its stylistic variety. “I never really felt at home with only one genre,” he recalls. “Early Music allowed me to study profound, complicated compositions, but performing it has also opened up the chance of rebellion and uproar! Early music offers wide, multi-faceted areas of musical exploration for me. You find, for instance, links to different types of music wherever you look in seventeenth-century English repertoire. And I am fascinated by all these connections. They offer a foundation for the Alehouse Sessions and for all Barokksolistene performance more generally. Every member of the group plays, sings, dances and improvises without limitation. We’re all interested in the many different fields of being a stage performer and pushing hard at the ‘normal’ boundaries of what it means to be a classical musician.”

Brian Jonestown Massacre, Velvet Underground, TOY. “Upon the highways of Freedom, where Evil is like a Ferrari… “ Unbeknownst to its members, Index For Working Musik was born on an evening in late 2019 amidst the discovery of a collection of faded b&w photocopies that had been marinating on the floor of a urine-alley in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona. An assortment of sacred and profane imagery were crumpled amongst an essay on early Christian hermits, entitled Men Possessed by God, the meaning of which was enticingly vague. Received together, they planted the seeds for a new endeavour. Though Max Oscarnold and Nathalia Bruno were already engaged in a creative ping-pong of sorts, the results to this point had only totaled a 30 min long ½ inch tape containing one track and four interludes. They needed a page and they needed ink, and they needed a place and it needed energy. Suddenly by chance or divine intervention, their experimental venture had been given form and direction. Back home in London’s cursed smog, they moved themselves and their 8-track studio into a basement in E8, where the project’s gravitational pull gained strength, quickly developing into an unexpected collective with the incorporation of drummer Bobby Voltaire, double bass player E. Smith and guitarist J. Loftus. As the world shifted around them and the Plague Years followed, it became increasingly clear that they were not going to leave that small basement room. The scarcity of light or outer world presence was less a limitation, instead the main tool at hand, allowing the recording to stretch for boundaryless days in architectural isolation, and forcing them to make straight forward free guitar music, adopting a ‘first thought, best thought’ approach. 35 minutes of repeat phrased guitars, slow-clipped drums and dulcet vocals where the recurring landscape is the desert. Reel-to reel-loops of Afghan music compete with the found sound overlays of voices recorded at the queue of the pharmacy and drum machines borrowed from Spanish heroes, channelling both far-off climes and snippets from a closer reality. It’s a strange psychic brew, built of imagined mysticism and domestic realities, of fever dreams and days that stretched into weeks of months. What was sparked by that discovery in the Gothic Quarter was actually a realisation that what they were looking for was with them all the while, buried as it was in piles of voice memos and recorded guitar feedback. Men Possessed By God they may be not: it was self-possession that was to guide their way in the end. “Life, despite all its destructive changes, remains indestructibly powerful and joyful

New York City's loudest band A Place to Bury Strangers have had their intense live performance captured and immortalized directly to 12” wax. The post-punk legends are the 9th & latest entry in the Live at Levitation archival vinyl series. “Levitation 2021 was our second show as a new band and I felt so psyched to bring the new band members to such an epic festival. It was like a homecoming for me. Bob Mustachio was doing lights and playing with Ringo Deathstarr, Kikagaku Moyo & the Black Angels all on the same bill had me so rev’d up and excited. I knew it had to be an epic show. I remember right when we started I was flailing around so much like a freak on speed that I almost flung my guitar off the stage. By the time we got out into the crowd I thought I was gonna pass out. I remember we rented this PA speaker from Rock N Roll Rentals and for some reason they trusted us with this top of the line like $5000 12” monitor that we rolled around in the crowd while I was screaming at the top of my lungs. I love Levitation and Austin Psych Fest. They are always a UFO of a good time.” - Oliver Ackermann (APTBS)

Richie Culver had been waiting his whole life to record I was born by the sea. His debut album immediately and messily inscribed the artist into the canon of outsider music and experimental electronics, serving both as an arresting statement of intent and a painful reckoning with the difficult path that lead up to it, stealing one last glance back at a place he always knew he had to escape. Between grim lamentations, faded memories and anxiety attacks, all told with searing honesty and disarming openness, I was born by the sea excavates a space for hope, finding Culver digging through Humberside silt to find a world weary optimism, the raw material from which his visual and sound art is shaped. For this collection of expansions and inversions, Culver invites a collection of kindred spirits, contemporary inspirations and old heroes to wade into the salt water of his formative years spent living for impromptu raves and afterparties, connecting vivid memories of his birth place of Withernsea to artists hailing from as nearby as Preston and Bridlington, further afield, from Manchester and London, Berlin and Paris, before returning back to Hull, to where it all began.

For some, responding to I was born by the sea means diving even deeper into the record’s furthest reaches. Space Afrika clear away the pummelling loops of noise from ‘It’s hard to get to know you,’ revealing a cool and cavernous expanse in its wake. Distant chatter, previously heard as though through thin, plasterboard walls, now echoes from outside the maddening claustrophobia of the original’s Sisyphean sonics, illuminated as a dense storm cloud suspended amidst a more open scene, washed clean by a lighter rain, allowing the tender heart of the track to beat clear. London producer MOBBS stretches out ‘Pigeon Flesh’ into an epic, 10-minute, cold-sweat spiral, strung-out tension wrung from disconnected phone tones twisted in unexpected directions, snatches of Culver’s voice turned inside-out and deep fried bass threatening to tip the track over into oblivion, the build-and-release of a nervous breakdown experienced in real time. In an act of subversive self-reflection, Morgane Polanski switches one kind of ennui for another in her adaption of ‘I was born by the sea,’ swapping the sea for the city, English seaside towns in January for summer evenings in Paris and flashing lighthouses and sparkling oil rigs for the Eiffel Tower and the traffic around L’Arc de Triomphe. Even Culver finds time to revisit ‘Dream About Yourself,’ a track taken from his EP Post Traumatic Fantasy, breathing new words into its glacial drift, the half-remembered testimony of a shut-in: Woke up in the evening / Pray for me / Don’t trust anyone / Pray for algorithm. Reframed in a more melancholy light, the track’s reverberant keys even more clearly evoke a mournful nostalgia, fresh pain felt in old wounds.

Others find a parallel universe in Culver’s visceral world building. Rainy Miller flips the script with a scorched, avant-drill rework of ‘Daytime TV’, threading puncturing hi-hats and queasy low-end surge through the track’s steady ambient cascade, invoking the irresistible Preston beat magic of Miller’s own essential debut album, Desquamation. Aho Ssan melts away the crystalline textures of ‘Love Like an Abscess’ with the ominous crackle of a nascent fire, building through swathes of organic Max/MSP squelch and brittle, nails-down-chalkboard scrape, swelling and metastasising the original to spill over Culver’s desperate hymn to corporeal desire, at once flesh and not. Teresa Winter transports us an hour up the coast from Withernsea to her native Bridlington, replacing the sea wall of synthesis on ‘Nervous Energy’ with muffled ASMR murk and fever dream whispers, transforming Culver’s unflinching observations into a haunting call-and-response, filling in the blanks with her own eerie utterances, a fleeting conversation with a ghost. In a touching victory lap, Fila Brazillia, eccentric stalwarts of beloved ‘90s trip hop imprint Pork Recordings, whose performances at Hull institution The Lamp convinced a young Culver of the necessity to make his mark on club culture, resurface for their first remix in 20 years. Steve Cobby and David McSherry lead a low-slung, heartfelt stroll back through a suite of tracks from I was born by the sea, tracing a full circle saunter from Culver’s origins to his current musical practice, the sounds of his present repurposed by the sound of his youth. In a gesture that reflects the emotional complexity of the project, Fila Brazillia find joy at the end of Culver’s troubled reflection, picking out an undeniable groove in the stasis of feeling trapped in your hometown. Underlining Hull’s vital musical legacy, from Baby Mammoth to Throbbing Gristle, Cobby and McSherry demonstrate that, though there are certainly storms, by the sea there is also sun and through the fog, if you listen, you can hear a singular sound, a sound now carried by Richie Culver.

Participant is a record label and creative studio run by William Markarian-Martin and Richie Culver

Director's note : "My encounter with Wild Dee, the main actor in DOUBLEPLUSUNGOOD, was a determining factor in the making of this film. Not only are we strongly influenced by the same literary atmospheres - Among them American authors like Harry Crews, Iceberg Slim, N.Tosches and Belgian horror author Jean Ray - we also share the same cinematic tastes - low budget cinema be it French, Japanese or Spanish. Our main aim was to recreate the spirit, and play with and even subvert, the codes of Exploitation cinema. We also share the same taste for Rock & Roll, as our parallel musical backgrounds show. We were both singers in emblematic Belgian rock bands of the 80's and 90's - Wild Dee in The Wild Ones and me with Marine (79/81 - 3 singles with Les Disques du Crepuscule) and La Muerte (84/94 - 6 albums with Pias). The film's soundtrack, inspired by Francois de Roubaix, John Carpenter, Lalo Shiffrin, is like its second layer of dialogue: the original compositions of Renaud Mayeur (winner of the Magritte 2013 Belgian cinema awards for best soundtrack) and of J-M Lederman (Fat Gadget, TheThe, ... ), Moaning Cities, Ashtoreth, The Nick Leonardo Orchestra, The Manarays, Jack'O'Roonie. " A further thing that brings us together is something that has been with us since childhood and that we Belgians call: Belgitude...

Debut album recorded for launch of new record label by award-winning mastering engineer Kevin Gray!
Recorded all-analogue/all-tube at Gray's new studio, Cohearent Recording, for Cohearent Records!

Shapes and Sound from jazz saxophonist Kirsten Edkins is the debut LP release from Cohearent Records — the new record label companion to famed mastering engineer Kevin Gray's latest enterprise, an all-valve (vacuum tube) recording studio (Cohearent Recording) adjoining his home-based mastering facility in California.

"It's the 'essence of an era' we are trying to recapture with today's musicians, not the sound of specific spaces, engineers or recordings," Gray told music reviewer Michael Fremer.

This album was produced all-analogue/all-tube at Gray's Cohearent Recording on December 10 and 11, 2021. Dave Connor produced, while Gray and Ryan Wirthlin co-engineered. Edkins on sax was joined by Gerald Clayton (courtesy of Blue Note) on piano, Ahmet Turkmenoglu on bass, Lemar Guillary on trombone and Chris Wabich on drums.

Edkins, a composer and saxophonist from Los Angeles, graduated from Eastman School of Music on scholarship. She studied composition and arranging with Bill Dobbins, as well as Walt Weiskopf and the legendary Ray Ricker. Before her time at Eastman she studied with Bob Sheppard, a jazz recording artist and woodwind specialist. Edkins is a sought-after improviser who has performed with Arturo Sandoval (Al "Tootie" Heath), Tim Hagans, Clay Jenkins, John Beasley, and Geoffrey Keezer.

She has performed with the Clare Fischer Big Band, Bill Holman Big Band, Bernie Dresel Big Band (The BBB), Sara Gazarek and others. She's appeard on television shows such as American Idol, Duets, Knight Rider, Glee, and Bones, plus The Tonight Show. She's also a music educator whose associations include Cal State Fullerton, Stanford Jazz Workshop, Saddleback College and Golden West College. She also direct the American Jazz Institute's community outreach program and teaches saxophone at Occidental College in Eagle Rock.

The album is an excellent showcase for Gray's new recording studio. Cohearent Recording was born from Gray's relentless passion to create the best sound recordings. It was that passion that has inspired Gray's long career cutting lacquers for such noted labels as Blue Note, Music Matters and Analogue Productions.

He spent 15 years building gear for the project. "I had a novel idea: In order to get the vintage sound we all love, (I'd) design and build an all-valve (vacuum tube) recording system from microphones through to the disc cutting head, NO transistors or IC's anywhere in the signal path. That took much longer than anticipated but it is finally complete."

Gray was inspired to use his own living room as the studio space when he realized it was similar in size and shape to legendary jazz recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder's Hackensack N.J. parents' home. Many classic jazz albums were recorded there by Gelder.

Some of the same microphones used on those earlier Gelder recordings are in use in Gray's setup. The custom vaccum tube electronics are different and for Shapes and Sound Gray used a tube-based Studer C37 rather than an Ampex.

Gelder's Hackensack recordings for both Blue Note and Prestige, Gray says, are "some of my favourite jazz records, and they are also exceptionally good sonically."

Three years after his last album ‘I Need Space’, Mounika. is back on his favorite playground: electronic music, which arouses his curiosity since his beginnings. He is now ready to unveil ‘Don't Look At Me’, a new opus that takes us, by other paths, to his unique universe. Recorded during the confinement in the intimacy of his home studio, the French artist reveals little by little another facet of his artistic personality, more raw and affirmed, without totally abandoning the cottony sounds already proposed on titles like ‘Cut My Hair’ (diamond single) or ‘Tender Love’ (gold single). We discover sensitive compositions, still inspired by his love for trip-hop, piano and artists who made his musical culture during his youth: Moby, Ratatat, Air or Bonobo. After all, a Mounika. album without a tribute to these figures is not really an album...

But something new was needed to distinguish this opus from the previous ones. From the very first tracks, we can clearly feel this need for exploration that has always guided the French producer. ‘BonXair’ or ‘Nomadics’ take us, for example, in a more straight electronic, more heady than usual. In the same spirit, the rhythms close to the deep house of a track like ‘See You Dancing In The Dark’ offer to the album a new direction, and yet is quite representative of the work undertaken by Mounika. these last years.

In this new record that will also satisfy the fans of the first hour (a sample loop well felt, as on ‘Little Love’ or ‘I Looked Into Her Eyes’, always makes its effect), the French artist has also opened to collaborations of choice. Mounika. works on the heart, and thus wished to welcome those who have particularly marked him during his more or less recent discoveries. The American artist Roland Faunte lends his voice to the effective ‘Little Love’, while Ural Thomas & The Pain (discovered notably on the series ‘It's Bruno’) takes care of the chorus of ‘I Looked Into Her Eyes’. The British rapper Lord Apex delivers a spellbinding performance on ‘Memories’.

Finally, if you listen carefully, you can even hear Mounika. singing on some tracks... like ‘20’ or ‘Don't Smoke’. Put together, these appearances perfectly complement the energy transcribed by Mounika. throughout ‘Don't Look At Me’.

And what could be better than an amazing graphic universe to open the doors of this album like no other? Meet Carl & TJ, two cartoonish characters created in collaboration with Berlin-based artist Joe Taylor, who take care of guiding the listener through this new adventure. One is dreamy and contemplative, the other asks himself a lot of questions... and between them, they form a colorful duet illustrating with tenderness the universal emotions that punctuate this third opus, and that Mounika. will notably defend in the first part of Wax Tailor's French tour starting next April.

The successive pianos composing the productions of ‘When In My Heart In Your Heart’ then ‘Outro’ come, at the end of the record, to conclude the setting in orbit proposed by this ‘Don't Look At Me’. One more step in the sensory journey that Mounika. is committed, from the intimacy of her room to the international success, to build relentlessly.

One of this year’s breakout success stories from the UK’s current thriving independent music scene,
critically acclaimed seven-piece Black Country, New Road present here their highly anticipated second
album ‘Ants From Up There’ via Ninja Tune.
 Debut album ‘For the first time’ was shortlisted for the 2021 Hyundai Mercury Prize. The band
performed ‘Track X’ live on BBC 4.
 ‘Ants From Up There’ was written in lockdown in the early part of 2021 when the band were unable to
go on tour as planned to support their album release. The result is a stunning collection of songs and a
move in direction to a more crossover, alternative sound beyond the experimental and ‘post-punk’
nature of their debut.
 New album expands on their unique concoction to create a singular sonic middle ground that traverses
classical minimalism, indie-folk, pop, alt rock and a distinct tone that is already unique to the band.
 Extensive global touring in 2022, including their biggest London show to date at the Roundhouse, full
UK and European Tour in April/ May. Sold out 2021 shows include Brighton, Liverpool, Manchester,
Birmingham, Glasgow, Bristol and Dublin and more.
 2021 festival dates include End Of The Road, Latitude, Fusion, Roskilde, Dour, Bol Festival, Pohoda,
Le Guess Who, Dour. In 2022 they’ll play Primavera Sound, Dour, Way Out West, Bad Bonn Kilbi, Bol
Festival.
 For fans of IDLES, Black Midi, Squid, Phoebe Bridgers, Jockstrap, Nick Cave, The National,
Radiohead.
 Deluxe 4LP 140g vinyl box set with bonus ‘Live from the Queen Elizabeth Hall’ double LP, black paper
inner sleeves, 4 art prints, lyric booklet and sticker.

Repress!

N0!zy blighter Russell Haswell returns to Diagonal 5 years after his label debut with a spontaneously combusting follow-up to ’37 Minute Workout’ generated again from a mix of analog/digital synths and modular systems edited on a computer. It was inspired by a visit to CERN, The European Organisation for Nuclear Research, in Geneva; and dinner with Ted Nelson, whose theories of interwingularity and transclusion chimed with the direction recordings took.There are few artists who can genuinely make music that sounds like your needle and/or record is melting, but Russell Haswell is one of them. His 2nd volume of extremely kinky calisthenics is a potent example of daring to be different in a world where exponentially increasing production options are leading producers of all stripes to the exact same conclusions. But, with thanks to Russell’s iconoclastic intent, restless nature and ascetic aesthetics, he still sounds quite like nobody else, and, even better yet, doesn’t give a shit if you like it or not. For the record (this one in particular), we’re all over it like a hot rash.
Since reincorporating his early love of freestyle electro and Industrial dance music into his patented n0!ze matrices circa the 1st volume of ’37 Minute Workout’, Russell has steered that rhythm-driven style into a string of fizzy bangers for Diagonal and even applied it to his production for Consumer Electronics with typically radical results. Russell’s 2nd volume of ’37 Minute Workout’ is cut from similarly (but never the same) ragged material as the first batch, and spits, kicks and claws with equal amounts of eething, pent energy and rambunctiousness ready to jab the ‘floor in the eye or dissolve a party where needed.
Crowbarring cues ranging from the Latin Rascals to Incapacitants and Jeff Mills into 7 wickedly awkward designs, Haswell keeps his avant aerobics radically irregular as he hops from the tendon-twitching angularity of ‘The Wild Horses of the Revolution have arrived Without Knight’ to steel-hoofed clatter in ‘Central Crisis Management Cell’ and the lacquer-eating dynamics of ‘Painful
Memories From The Past Need To Be Acknowledged’, before toning a proper nasty acid special in the UR inversion ‘Dancing on the Head of an Eagle’, and seemingly sucking your brain out thru a straw with ‘Starting Something You’re Not Able To Finish’, with the dry witted, skeletal jazz-funk squirm of ‘Diplomatic Cocktail Circuit’ closing the party down in style.

The Search for God is a wake-up call for a troubled world that’s still worth saving, animated by a belief in the power of small connections to add up to big changes. At 10 songs delivered in a brief 15 minutes, Jimmy Whispers’ long-awaited sophomore album feels present in a way that feels brand new for the cult auteur. Like many of us, Jimmy has been affected by the pressure of the past few years. After embracing sobriety in 2019, and now as a filmmaker sharing the stories of lesser known Los Angeles community members, he’s brought his dreaming down to earth, while turning its direction even further out.

Recorded with his longtime friend Ziyad Asrar of the band Whitney (and re-recorded after a hard drive incident destroyed the original files), The Search for God was created in the wake of Jimmy’s COVID isolation, and returns to some teen influences that are out of step with the chill/lo-fi LA indie rock scene he’s found himself lumped in with. Created mostly with two vintage synths, a single Roland CR5000 drum machine, and a busted karaoke machine, it channels Midwestern emo, the Beach Boys’ Smile, subtle nods at hyper-pop production, and forgotten jewel-box era college radio of the early aughts into a pure pop sound that transcends easy categorization.

The album’s standout single—and its statement of purpose—is “Hellscape,” which packs more into a minute and 40 seconds than you’d think possible: multiple immediately-unforgettable hooks, kaleidoscopic keyboards, and a bracing reminder that even the most transcendent moments are rooted in a world full of suffering. “This is a fucking hellscape,” Jimmy sings. “This is real life / this is happening.”

That may sound like punk nihilism, but The Search for God is anything but. Every lyrical acknowledgment of how fucked things are right now comes with a promise that we can still make positive changes. Jimmy calls it “God”; you might call it Love or Peace or A Place In the Universe That Makes Some Kind of Sense.

Will The Search for God deliver whatever that is to you? Of course not. At its heart, it’s still just a really good pop album. But maybe that’s enough. For a minute or two at a time, Jimmy’s music cracks open a space where the divine can enter our lives. The utopia we’ve all been dreaming of is already here if we’re just willing to build it. Jimmy Whispers is there, ready to add his voice, whenever we want to reach out.

Green Monster, the 4th Kito Jempere studio album is a journey through love, interconnectedness and creative freedom, bound together by musical friendship that breaks through walls, borders, languages and shapes; accumulated over a celebrated twenty year career and ten years of Kito Jempere.

Over fourteen tracks Kito teams up with over 26 artists from all over the world: a range of talented artists including Warp records artist Jimi Tenor, Red Snapper drummer Rich Thair, Azari & III ex-vocalist Starving Yet Full, L.I.E.S. records Lipelis (on bass), Curly Castro and SINDYSMAN. The album blends hip-hop, free-flowing jazz and world-building soundscapes into a piece dedicated to Kito’s musical roots; marrying multiple artforms, cultural influences and international artists into a body of work that feels deeply personal, healing and detailed. The accompanying artwork is a world created by Kito made using Midjourney prompt, connecting the albums audio world with visible objects — both vinyl and CD will contain booklets with lyrics and the visual world of Green Monster.

Kito describes the album ‘like getting Ennio Morricone, Weezer, The Beatles, Oneothrix Point Never, Eduard Artemiev, Jaga Jazzist, Massive Attack, Fugazi, Jimi Tenor, Hans Zimmer, Radiohead, John Cage and Aphex Twin all together, then collaborating with movie-directors Wes Anderson, David Lynch, Dziga Vertov and Andrei Tarkovskiy.’ Used as a metaphor to help create his album.

Born from the fractal innerworld of Vymethoxy Redspiders,
better known as Urocerus Gigas from Leeds-based xenofeminist
crisis energy rock duo Guttersnipe, The Ephemeron Loop's
debut is a synaesthetic acid bath that cracks open the doors of
perception to reveal a sonic landscape of ineffable beauty,
divine femininity and continual transformation.

"PsychonauticEscapism" sublimes Guttersnipe's teeth-gnashing spacegrindaesthetic leaving washes of dream pop ambience, dilated
speedcore fusillades and shapeshifting psychedelic dub effects.

It's an album that lodges itself creatively between Cocteau
Twins, Arca, Basic Channel and Napalm Death, lysergically
fluxing imperceptibly between seemingly contradictory sonics
and philosophies. Miss VR took 14 long, difficult years to write
the album, which developed cautiously as she broke through
the misery of her pre-transition life with shoegaze music, rave
and psychedelic drugs in Leeds' queer underground. An
existence languishing in negativity, soundtracked by extreme
music was replaced with the opportunity to experience
euphoria, elation and ecstatic freedom, emotions that coalesce
sensually on "Psychonautic Escapism".

These formativeexperiences are the album's initial building blocks, assembled between 2007 and 2018 as Miss VR came to grips with her
reality as an autistic/ADHD trans woman and the multidimensional psychotropic experiences that assisted that realization. And as V's worldview expanded and shifted as she lived a fresh life, the music itself developed spiritually. In 2018,after being impressed with producer Ross Halden's work with Guttersnipe, Miss VR asked him to assist her with developing The Ephemeron Loop's fragmented songs and visions. "I learned a lot about why people don't usually combine various kinds of sounds or styles in music," she admits. "It is very difficult to get it to all work together!" But after two-and-a-half years of the duo navigating a "labyrinth of fragmented Reason 5 and Logic
projects," re-recording and processing, and working tirelessly on
complex arrangements and compositions, they eventually found
a light at the end of the tunnel. The finished album is towering
and ambitious, Escher-like in its illusory reconstruction of
familiar elements into brain-altering forms. The album begins
with 'Psychonautic Escapism (Cold Alienation)', decorating Miss
VR's disembodied moans with throbbing dub techno synths,
insectoid digital percussion and disorientating high-BPM
electronics.

Her vocals hover weightlessly between My Bloody Valentine's Bilinda Butcher and Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser, and on 'Lattice Dysmorphism of Lysothymic Oneiroid Cytoterrain' drift against grinding industrial hardcore kicks, serrated bass and Lorenzo Senni-esque trance pointillism. On 'Trench Through Pink Death', Miss VR's voice mutates into a shrill scream as she directs the music from splattered freeflowing doom into harsh hyper-speed death metal and
breakcore. Woven together with both precision and delicacy, "Psychonautic Escapism" turns a rough patchwork of ideas,
experiences, feelings and vivid emotions into a glorious neon
tapestry. In living and exploring the realities of autism, ADHD
and trans identity, Vymethoxy Redspiders has masterminded a
sonic language that feels fresh, urgent and shockingly honest.
Psychedelic is a term that gets thrown around far too loosely at
the moment - in this case there's just no better way of
describing the album's scope.

The ever-prolific and established artist Alan Abrahams aka Portable makes a swift and very welcome return to Circus Company with the impressive lead single "Guiding Me", giving us an early taste of his forthcoming album Augmented Dreams to be released in the fall.

Conceptually the direction of this new project refers to the use of technology to alter our dreams, inadvertently or not, as so much tech advancement becomes available and ingrained in our daily lives. The timely lead single here inspired by Abraham's South African ancestors the Khoi San people and the guidance they provide, appropriately exuding both futurist formed sonics and dream-like tenderness in content, led by his dulcet-toned vocals and delivered with the super solid production we've come to expect. Wonderful multi-purpose electronic music which will find itself right at home on late-night discerning dance floors, or indeed guiding the listener through their respective travels, solo meditations or get-downs in headphones.

Along with the excellent "Guiding Me" original mix, we are graced with a masterful remix by Hamburg's Lawrence of Smallville and Dial fame, who takes the track into an even more floor-focussed realm with his patented rolling sub-bass lines which will guarantee plenty of summertime sound system finessing, as well as the EP-exclusive B2 track "Vigor" in which Portable goes even deeper in tone with classic styled vocal cut-ups and repurposed shards of tasty sound design added to keep the dancers endlessly entranced when and wherever they may be.

Black Duck captures a band already deeply in tune with one another. The three-piece super-group consists of Douglas McCombs, Charles Rumback, and Bill MacKay each has a distinct musical voice that is instantly recognizable, yet blends seamlessly with one another-their time performing together, playing to the moment and reading each other and the spaces they"re in formed a fluency between the trio which allows them to follow each other down winding paths and short tangents alike. McCombs is a founding member of Tortoise, Pullman, and Brokeback and the long-standing bassist for Eleventh Dream Day, an artist whose contribution to the music world can not be overstated. MacKay began releasing records in the early 2000s. He has released several acclaimed solo albums with Drag City as well as a duo album each with Nathan Bowles (Banjo, Black Twig Pickers), and Katinka Kleijn (Cello, Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO)), and two beloved records with Ryley Walker. Rumback burst onto the fertile Chicago improvised music scene in the early 2000"s. His fluid technique and expressive playing garnered him much attention. In addition to his solo releases, Rumback has recorded with Ryley Walker, jazz greats such as Jim Baker, James Singleton, and Greg Ward. Black Duck"s debut is a testament to that fluency, an expedition led by three veterans into alluring worlds bathed in myriad splendors. Black Duck is a gallery of sonic tapestries, unbound by any genre constraints. Black Duck redefines what two guitarists and a drummer can do, pieces move from breezy shuffles to stormy blues rumbles to gorgeous textural drones. Playing entirely improvised live sets for years helped develop the trio"s acute senses for one another, knowing precisely how to listen to the others and bolster whatever direction they move in. In the short time the trio have played together, they have performed at Big Ears Festival and alongside acts like Yo La Tengo.