Search:end of tape

La grande vallée (1993/95), 20'41

Musical composition, design and sound production carried out at the INA grm Studios (Paris) in 1993/95

Original audio recordings in the Drôme and the Mont Ventoux areas

Voice: Hélène Bettencourt

Vocal occurrences: Frédéric Malenfer, Bruno Roche, Lionel Marchetti

Bass clarinet (for processing): Jean Andréo

Micro-climat (1989/90), 21'33

Micro-climat is the first movement of the Sirrus cycle (Micro-climat, Passerelle, Sirrus) composed in 1989/90

Musical composition, sound design and production, audio recordings in 1989/90 at the CFMI studios in Lyon (Lumière University, Lyon 2)

"I wonder if my fascination for clouds (without being an obsession) may have risen at the end of the 80s as, whilst composing Micro-climat, I would regularly wander between the Vercors mountains and the high plateaus of the Monts du Forez discovering, through my eyes, body, breath, active observation and walk, that natural forms when constantly changing and yet swollen with a unity of matter (in this instance, water) open one up to a deep, fundamental breath and a clear field for the mind. The sky and its forces: our ally.

A model for a natural music which, although fixed, as in musique concrète (a rule of the genre), moreover on a recording tape, will remain charged with such a poetic quality that (isn't it its role or rather its reality?) it will ensure a perpetual renewal for our senses, so as to reach another idea of the world, far more open and richer than what we could have imagined."

Lionel Marchetti, 2011

Lionel Marchetti is a major figure of the "third generation" of concrète musicians, a term he values. Listening to these works, imbued with poetry and traversed by micro-narratives, one can indeed retrieve the original concrète spirit, the one that draws from the sonic world, with ears wide open, so as to extract a fertile, rich and multiple substance then shaped and conveyed towards a formal and musical abstraction. Lionel Marchetti has mastered this process, but his real distinctive feature is a truly unique talent for setting climates (as one sets traps) and keeping us on constant alert. The two pieces in this record perfectly illustrate the entrancing dimension of Lionel Marchetti's music, whose charm leads us, through each successive listening, to become voluntary captives so as to better liberate ourselves.

François Bonnet, Paris, 2020

While Joe Henderson seemed to arrive fully formed on his auspicious 1963 debut Page One, the album was really a showcase for the transcendent collaboration between the tenor saxophonist and trumpeter Kenny Dorham who would form a potent frontline team on numerous mid-60s Blue Note classics. Page One opens with a pair of indelible Dorham compositions (“Blue Bossa” and “La Mesha”), with the balance of the six-song set penned by Henderson including his enduring theme “Recorda-Me.” Dazzling performances by pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Butch Warren, and drummer Pete La Roca further elevate this album making it one of the crown jewels of the Blue Note catalog. This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

TRANSVITAEXPRESS is a psycho-phonic tale of the afterlife. Maybe one of the weirdest italian albums ever released.

'TRANSVITAEXPRESS is the sonorous realization of an idea that had been developing in me for some time and to which the encounter with the poet Barbarino gave the decisive push. I used the "tape-sound" technique, that is the organization and integration of sounds, noises, speech, song and rhythm, of which the resulting sound, being the result of electronic manipulation of the sound events themselves, is audible, therefore repeatable, only by means of magnetic tape. The sound material is, in part, reportage, so the work often takes on the character of a “disc-truth”, in part it is a faithful reconstruction of parapsychological events. We have defined this work "Psycho-phonic tale" in fact it is a sound experience, that is, a journey into the world of sounds of an "afterlife", rooted in us due to childhood, ancestral reminiscences, superstitions, legends, anxieties, utopias and above all fear. Fear of the mystery, fear of the unknown.

TRANSVITAEXPRESS is therefore the sound representation of these cultural and existential limits, and is therefore a critical, liberating, provocative work. I certainly do not expect, and perhaps I do not want someone after having listened to tell me that it is "beautiful".

TRANSVITAEXPRESS is the name of a train full of ... that travels in an afterlife so "beyond" that it coincides with the most central point of my ego. Perhaps the most logical "end-continuation" of life, the least imaginative, the least corrupt. The distortions, things that are too, or too little, defined, realistic situations, clichés, monotheisms and captions are embedded in the most traditional dream fabric, the most suitable in my opinion to promote approaches with the mysterious, with the esoteric, with the magical.'

M. GIOMBINI

Surrender is the debut full length from DJ, producer, and songwriter Endgame. Stepping out for the first time as a vocalist, and lyricist, Surrender is his most ambitious and vulnerable work to date; a striking statement of intent, with moments of beauty and brutality. Endgame has carved an iconoclastic niche in club culture. Breaking into the scene as co-founder of the legendary collective Bala Club, and resident of the radical club-night Endless. Whilst continuing almost a decade hosting his infamous NTS radio show (and now label) Precious Metals, he has forged a path against the tide of formulaic club music. A visionary DJ and producer, Surrender sees Endgame continue this trajectory, with a project that both amplifies the ferocious club constructions he's known for, whilst making space to open up wounded memories and with sombre unfeigned requiems. Having previously released records on Hyperdub, PTP, Golden Mist and Infinite Machine, Endgame's first release on his own Precious Metals imprint, is him at his most reflective. Surrender is a deeply personal record, about loss and finding meaning in despair. Death is a prevailing theme, with the passing of his father a totemic subject. The recollection of his father's torturous final moments leaves him to mournfully contemplate temporality. Using this sense of anguish, he blurs reality-creating a world where angels and demons are among us in a decaying cityscape; akin to the work of Todd McFarlane. The opener Faithless, propels us into this world, with the slow build of industrial precision amidst the sombre build of harsh melodic synths. We descend deeper into this vision with Barbed Heart, featuring a defining vocal from scene staple and long time collaborator Yayoyanoh, as 808's and skittering hi hats ricochet off one another beneath his bass driven vocal. No Heroes continues our journey into the unknown with a chaotic rush of acidic riffs, pounding percussion, and a reference to the brutalist anthem from hardcore punk band Converge (where the track borrows its name). Requiem acts as the turning point of the record as Endgame steps into the foreground as a vocalist. As the name suggests, this lament is a sombre reflection of grief; its minimalist instrumental allows Endgame's haunted verse to rise into the foreground, like an apparition amidst the smoke in the depths of a dimly lit club. The dark clouds fade into the distance in Exhumed, as the elegant melancholic vocal of Bala Club affiliate and gifted vocalist Organ Tapes reflects off Endgame's sanguine verses bringing hope into the heartfelt instrumental filled with melodic flourishes and bass-bin rattling subs. The thematic haze thickens in Abyss, as the pulsating and doom laden instrumental interweaves with Endgame's sepulchral vocal. Like a message from the void, his words act as an agnostic hymn that pulls apart his sense of self. The contrast of his plaintive verse with the intensity of the instrumental creates a contrast that is symbolic of the record itself, a duality that presents moments of soft reflection against a severe sonic palette to create moments of transcendence.

London-based record label Wisdom Teeth kicks off 2021 with something close to home: Blush - the playful, dynamic debut LP by label co-founder, Facta. Recorded unusually quickly over a short stint in early 2020, the record is the product of a period of refreshed and unfussy creativity. It’s an innovative and distinctly contemporary album that moves a good few steps beyond the artist’s work to date - loosely rooted in UK dance music but taking added influence from ambient, modern classical, dreampop, Balearic, folk music and beyond. The result is a lush, ornate record populated by aqueous pads, bleeping arps, wandering melodies and sparse broken rhythms; acoustic instruments that play out alongside FM synths, all processed with a pristine UV sheen inherited from modern pop music. The record opens with ‘Sistine (Plucks)’ - a crystalline synth piece with a stumbling, shifting metre revolving around an odd-ended MIDI harp loop, coloured through with washed-out pads and snatches of found sound. This breezy mood follows through to ‘On Deck’, where an FM vibraphone rings out on top of woozy, warping chords and a subby soca groove. Moving forward the record moves cohesively through a range of shifting moods and hues. The machine jazz of ‘Brushes’ is tense and coiled, with nods towards Burnt Friedman, Photek and Eli Keszler. ‘Iso Stream’ sees a rich, colourful sprawl of arpeggiated synths and dissociated vocal chops unspool slowly to form pooling, lowlit melodies. Title track ‘Blush’ is a forlorn Autonomic love song built from clicks-n-cuts - like dBridge & Instra:mental reduced and reinterpreted by SND. Throughout, bold, broad melodies take centre stage, and the tracks build like compositions rather than loops or club tools. There are echoes of the dancefloor - particularly in the slo-mo bruk of ‘Verge’ and the glacial subs underpinning ‘Diving Birds’ (a collaboration with friend and Trilogy Tapes regular Parris) - however the end results find us somewhere far off. ‘Blush’ is the second long-form release to come from Wisdom Teeth following K-LONE’s 2020 debut album, ‘Cape Cira’, which was widely ranked as one the best LPs of 2020.

‘You Don’t Have to Live in Pain’ is the debut album by
Teeth Agency, curated by Stones Throw founder
Peanut Butter Wolf.
The album includes collaborations with Mercury Prizenominated artist ESKA and producer and musician
Bullion.
Their EP ‘Piano Man Breeds Love’, released on Stones
Throw in summer 2020, received support from 6
Music, KCRW, WWFM, NTS and more.
The Teeth Agency collaboration has already resulted in
the release of art books, exhibitions and audio/visual
based work.
The pair have had four releases with Nyege Nyege
Tapes under the alias Metal Preyers - their self-titled
LP sold out within days of its release and was included
in 2020 End Of Year lists by Crack andd The Vinyl
Factory.
Teeth Agency is the audio/visual project of London
based multi-instrumentalist and producer Jesse
Hackett and Chicago visual artist and gallerist Mariano
Chavez.
The duo are united by their interest in experimental
visuals and a varied range of unconventional musical
styles including lizard lounge jazz, stoner doom psych
and absurdist soul horrorrama. The fourteen songs on
their debut album take the listener through a diverse
range of moods and settings.
For fans of Wilma Archer, Duval Timothy, Paul White,
Bullion, Sam Gendel.

Compilation of all the recordings by this legendary punk band prior to their LPs: the sessions for their single 'Mucha Policía', taken for the first time in 27 years from the original tapes, which has unearthed two studio recordings unissued until now; plus rehearsals, demos and live recordings. Completely remastered. A furious, noholds-barred sonic account of a period of immense changes for Spain and the Basque Country. The origins of the most important Spanish punk group, regarded as one of the essential bands of the genre all over the Spanish speaking world.It was a time when the walls were teeming with socio-political proclamations, where the hammer and sickle - alongside the illegal Ikurriña (the flag of the Basque Country) - were the most widely used symbols. A time of general strikes and protests on the streets that often ended in an ugly manner. A time also of smoky joints, where huge speakers played loud rock and there were dreams of strawberry fields. In Santurtzi, on the left bank of the Nervión estuary, a unique band was born: ESKORBUTO. Iosu Expósito and Jualma Suarez lived in working class neighbourhoods that had grown fast. Both Kabiezes and Mamariga were, in the 50s, mainly rural areas of Santurtzi. In the 60s, industrialization and rampant development transformed them into urban areas without any investment in urbanism. Some elements for the alchemy led to the explosion: intelligent young guys who were nevertheless incapable of adhering to school discipline, a country in full swing towards freedom after 40 years of dictatorship. It was a context very familiar with the turbulence of the "Basque conflict", with neighbours seduced by the "armed fight" and the "liberation of Euskal Herria", with the question of "identity" constantly present, traumatic episodes of killings, tortures and imprisonments .One day at the end of the 70s they decided to start a band. The first period of Eskorbuto's life, before the damage done by the needle became noticeable, was incredibly fruitful. They soon found a rehearsal space, thanks to their first drummer ("Gu"), and there the first songs were born: 'Enterrado vivo', 'Busco en la basura', 'Éste es el porvenir', 'Mucha policía, poca diversión'. It was a period of line-up changes. Iñaki Laiseka played bass for them, and that role was also taken by "Seni" and "Garlopa", two precursors of "left bank" punk. Later on they found Paco Galán, who also came from a similar neighbourhood to theirs (Repélega, in Portugalete). Paco always was the necessary engine, the piece around which the rest revolved, which guaranteed continuity. His drumming also added an apparently chaotic element to the already unbridled guitar melodies and visionary texts, halfway between dirty realism and Edgar Allan Poe's nightmares. These recordings are taken from those early times of excitement and vertigo, of journeys to Madrid under a train's seat and endless trips up and down the left bank looking for "someone that I've heard is selling an amp". Now the Reina Sofía Museum exhibits their "Impuesto Revolucionario" LP and there's no Spanish speaking country without legions of fans.

Superb unreleased soundtrack from British 1972 sex comedy starring Gabrielle Drake (Nick Drake’s sister) and Rchard O’Sullivan (Gilbert O’Sullivan’s brother!). Brilliant music on many levels, 17 sexy tracks of swinging jet-set jazz, groovy scatty vocals, hell it must be good because it’s on Trunk Records.

Take yourself back to the fleapit cinemas of the early 1970s. My home town of Aldershot had two - the ABC/123 (with three screens) and The Palace (just one screen, and anything but palatial). Au Pair Girls, released in 1972, was exactly the kind of soft porn “comedy” flick with a vague plot that would, without doubt, have been playing as part of a double bill to the regular “dirty mac brigade”. Such films and such establishments guaranteed the small crowd regular titillating wide screen visions of nude women in preposterous situations and fulfilling preposterous fantasies.
The title of Au Pair Girls suggests it all of course; yes, four young women fly into London from Europe and Asia, are sent to their new employers and find themselves in unexpected and unusual situations pretty fast. There is of course full nudity, crudity and a large slab of cheese on the menu.There is also no real comedy, a sprinkling of infamous character actors (Richard O’Sullivan, John Le Mesurier), and “UFO” actress Gabrielle Drake (sister of Nick Drake) wearing nothing at all. If anything, the film has maintained a vague middle aged male following because of Gabrielle.
But there’s little to save this film from contemporary criticism - its outdated view of life, rights, sex and taste sit uncomfortably today. But the jet set soundtrack by Roger Webb was worth saving.
By 1972 Roger Webb’s career in film and TV music was taking off. He was an established songwriter and live pianist with a jazz trio. He’d already penned a few British scores and was just starting on a formidable future with library companies including Chappell, de Wolfe and Capitol. His route to Au Pair Girls was accidentally through Norman Newell, one of the giants of the post war music industry.Actress and performer Dee / Deanne Shenderry had asked Newell to recommend an artist to arrange her up and coming album. New;ee recommended Roger Webb.The two worked together and some music was produced, but to my knowledge only got to acetate stage (possibly for Apple Records). Dee husband was Kenneth Shipman, a co-owner ofTwickenham film studios.And so when Kenneth Shipman started pre
production of Au Pair Girls, Roger Webb was an easy go-to for film music composition.
Many years ago there was an original reel / master for Au Pair Girls. It was transferred to CD, DAT and cassette circa 1990 and the rapidly degrading tape was subsequently misplaced, lost or just binned. So all we had to work with was a rather shaky transfer from nearly 30 years ago, one which included numerous wobbles as well as speeding up and slowing down moments.The job of rescuing all this was left to Jon Brooks, my hero for all such musical problems. The end result is what you hear on this album. It is by no means sonically perfect but it is all we will ever have.
It’s certainly not Roger Webb’s best ever score (I have more of his ace work coming) but it has a certain charm and relentlessness.The lyrics were written by Norman Newell, and I can imagine the pair having a huge amount of fun putting the score together and recording it, with - as you’d expect - a pretty tight band and lively vocal group.The main theme does, as one reviewer state, “go on a bit”, but there’s enough musically here for me to get excited about and really want to “stick it out”. So I have.

Tape / Cassette

Everyone's favorite synth acid genius, J. Mono from Lajosmizse is back on Dalmata Daniel with the double album Redate I & II tape release, an emotionally filled journey of 24 songs, all showing deep thoughtfulness of composition, mastering soundwaves and harmonies.

This cassette is limited and numbered to 60 copies with risograph printed J-card sleeve in hard case. Every tape comes with unique label sticker for this release and download code.

Producer extraordinaire John Morales returns to BBE Music, celebrating the life and work of R&B / soul legend Teena Marie with a double album full of brand new remixes, lovingly crafted from the original studio tapes, entitled ‘Love Songs & Funky Beats’. “Teena is somewhat underrated, and people don't really know much about her.” Says Morales. “I set out to immerse people in her music and represent what she really did. That meant for me a dive into more than her R&B hits, to dig into her ballads and dance cuts. People know she was talented. I don't really think they really knew the depth of her abilities, her complete confidence to take it upon herself to do everything – singing, producing, arranging, songwriting. Teena Marie was the total package.” John Morales had the pleasure of mixing many of Teena Marie’s original records over the years, so it felt natural to dig into the archives and select his favourite cuts to rework, extend and subtly update in his own distinctive style. While by no means a definitive collection of Lady Tee’s expansive musical catalogue, ‘Love Songs & Funky Beats’ represents a fitting tribute to a multifaceted and important voice in popular music, by one of the most storied mix engineers and remixers of our age. Jumping into the music industry deep end in 1979 with a three-year mentorship from Berry Gordy & Rick James at Motown, Teena Marie then spent seven fertile years with Epic, which yielded her greatest commercial successes (including the classic album 'Starchild'). After founding an independent label ‘Sarai’, Marie took a ten-year hiatus which ended in 2004 in a deal with hip hop label Cash Money Records; a less unlikely partnership than some might assume, given that Teena was one of the first ‘mainstream’ artists to perform a rap verse, on 1981’s ‘Square Biz’. Teena Marie Brockert forged a unique path through the industry, an artist in-charge of her own destiny, influencing (and heavily sampled by) both the hip hop and R&B sounds of the 90’s and early 2000’s. Her 1982 lawsuit against Motown records resulted in "The Brockert Initiative", which has benefitted literally thousands of other artists by making it illegal for record companies to ‘shelve’ artists by keeping them under contract without releasing their material. She continued to tour regularly and deliver commercially successful, expertly sculpted music, right up until her untimely passing in 2010.

∙ Live they were a revelation. The only group from
the UK scene who could do tight and slick, without
slipping into ‘lift music’ blandness. The core
membership of Andrew Levy, Simon Bartholomew
and Jan Kincaid had been playing together since
college and knew where the other was going. Their
ability to write classic soul songs lifted them above
their contemporaries.
∙ Shibuya 357 is the quintessential (and only live)
document of an era that quickly passed. The hits –
‘Never Stop’ , ‘Dream Come True’, ‘Stay This Way’
and ‘Don’t Let It Go To Your Head’ are all here – as
are some compelling funk jams. This recording
captures the ecstatic rush of joy; when you go from
youthful dream to accomplishment in such a short
period.
∙ The album was only ever released in Japan in the
late 90s and then only for a very short time. Acid
Jazz is pleased to release this new version
remastered from the source tape, and the album
appears on vinyl and on streaming services for the
very first time.
∙ 1991 was a momentous year for The Brand New Heavies.
They started it without a singer second on the bill to
The James Taylor Quartet and by the end they were
had a Top 3 US hit and were about to embark on a
run of 16 Top 40 hits in the UK. N’Dea Davenport
was by this point fronting the group as their guest
singer, and the brilliant string of singles from their
debut album were becoming locked in the minds of
an ever growing fan base.

Dream Violence, Michael Beach’s fourth full-length, is an epic album that explores the duality of the human condition. Or, as Beach himself puts it, the album is about “human futility, passion, desire, anger, frustration, and the struggle to maintain hope in a somewhat hopeless time.” Dream Violence, then, addresses the existential crisis of being an artist in 2020.

Known for his work touring with the Australian guitar pop band Thigh Master and the late, brilliantly eccentric Israeli guitarist Charlie Megira, currently the focus of a number of reissues by the Numero Group, Beach is the architect of a sound that is both well-built and ramshackle, straightforward and indeterminably complex, out of the norm yet familiar in all the best ways.

Dream Violence unfolds like a revelation, filled with sonic tumbleweeds that reference Neil Young’s On the Beach, Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, the Velvet Underground’s Loaded, and the Go Betweens’ Before Hollywood. Influences ranging from the enigmatic outlier Megira to Glenn Branca to the Oblivians are combined to create a new, exhilarating sound, part of the path that Beach has been on since 2008’s Blood Courses. A veteran of year-end indie rock round ups beginning with Golden Theft in 2013 and continuing with Gravity/Repulsion, released in 2017, Beach distills the best of those early albums and adds sharpened intent.

Dream Violence works beautifully as a start-to-finish album. There are magnificent stand-alone moments: “Spring,” a raggedly building ballad that perfectly captures the ennui attached to new beginnings; “De Facto Blues,” a born-to-lose anthem that, says Beach, “is the sound of people totally at their wits end;” “Curtain of Night,” a simultaneously derelict and bright tribute to the late Megira, which sounds like it could’ve been cut at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio after the Rolling Stones wrapped up sessions for Sticky Fingers; and the delicately vulnerable “You Found Me Out,” which evokes equal parts Lou Reed and Joni Mitchell. On the latter, the lyrics “You found me out, on a ship at sea, you pulled me in, made a wreck of me,” encapsulate “the aimless of a modern world view in a future without hope and the draw/dependence of love in those times,” Beach explains.

Through music, Beach strives to convey both passion and compassion, energy and action. “My hope is that something gets communicated that makes people think outside of themselves or their surroundings,” he says. “To ask questions, and consider the effects of their decisions. To communicate some essential part of the human spirit that understands intuitively how to feel connected to each other rather than divide, exploit, separate, ignore, and all the other heinous shit we have the ability to do with each other.”

Recorded on two continents, Dream Violence documents Beach’s move from Oakland, California to Melbourne, Australia as he navigated a new music scene, plenty of bureaucratic red tape, and, ultimately, citizenship. Parts of the album were recorded and mixed at Tiny Telephone Recording in Oakland, at the end of a 2019 tour with Kelley Stoltz producing. Other tracks were recorded at Beach’s new home in Melbourne, where he could be “relaxed and sloppy in all the right ways,” and partially remixed at Phaedra Studios.

At the Memphis-based Goner label, Beach joins an increasingly unique roster of international musicians that reaches far beyond garage or indie rock to encompass artists like gospel singer Rev. John Wilkins, Kentucky rockers Archaeas, New Orleans iconoclasts Quintron and Miss Pussycat, and no-wavers Optic Sink.

Back in 2015, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the BBC broadcast of Delia Derbyshire & Barry Bermange’s “Inventions For Radio: The Dreams”, The Eccentronic Research Council released their own super-limited edition cassette soundtracking the recalled dreams (and nightmares) of friends, artists, actors, musicians, scientists, poets and filmmakers. The release was called “The Dreamcatcher Tapes Volume 1”. Five years on, and with a large part of the planet under lockdown and with nowhere to go but within their imagination, the ERC put a call out once again to music collaborators, nurses, teachers, truck drivers, writers, journalists and shop workers to upon waking, record their dreams straight into their phones and to then send them to the ERC to soundtrack. And thus, Volume 2 of The Dreamcatcher Tapes was born!

How did you make the album during lockdown?
“We got around 26 dreams sent to us via email over the space of a couple of weeks then Dean Honer my partner in The ERC and I revved up the old analogue equipment and would record music and collage sounds to the dreams (remotely) from our home recording studios and bounce them back and forth to each other till they were done. It was a really good way to work actually, sometimes I didn’t even have to put on any trousers!” says ERC/ Moonlandingz founder Adrian Flanagan. Why a second volume of The Dreamcatcher Tapes? “I was really interested to see how the enforced lockdown and the removal of people’s basic needs such as human contact and hanging out in close proximity to friends was affecting the dreams of my friends, peers and those at the very front line of this horrible pandemic”, Adrian continues. “The Important shared experiences for people’s mental health such as going out to gigs, the pub, the cinema etc. ”It was an interesting experiment. Nurses dreaming of inadequate PPE and having to use blow up Elvis costumes to protect themselves. Teachers dreaming of zombies and lots of people dreaming about sex - where the hair of Greek sorceress’s Circe meets bouncy castle breasts and where other dreamers dream of serial killers or seeing dead family members, or taking baby elephants for a walk, or having discos for one in the middle of the ocean and so much more. I’m really proud of this record. It’s psychedelic in its truest most cerebral form”

Who’s on “The Dreamcatcher Tapes Volumes 1 & 2”? Who are the dreamers?
“Although our long time collaborator Maxine Peake wasn’t on the very first tape (her dream ended up on LTD edition split 7” ERC single we did with Pye Corner Audio) - she was the first dream that we soundtracked when I came up with the idea of doing the concept record. However, on the new vinyl and tape box set - she opens volume 1. Across the 2 volumes there’s film maker Carol Morley, Andy Votel from Finders Keepers records, John Doran from The Quietus (who also wrote the albums brilliant sleeve notes), acclaimed writers Benjamin Myers & Adelle Stripe, musicians such as Evangeline Ling from the group Audiobooks, Lias Saoudi from my ‘semi fictional band’, The Moonlandingz and fat white family, Sidonie from The Orielles, journalists /writers Wyndham Wallace (he wrote lee Hazelwood’s brilliant biography) and Daniel Dylan Wray amongst a whole array of musician friends, eccentrics and people with actual proper jobs!”

Why did you chose Castles in Space for this release?
“Jim Jupp at Ghost Box records suggested them to me so I looked into them and saw they were doing loads of really great strange little bespoke electronic record releases. I think that because this is a very niche limited run release, it required a label that was willing to treat it like a piece of art and not a throwaway mass produced commodity. So making sure the packaging was special, the artwork was bang on point and the sleeve notes were written by a writer we like all were very important to us. “It was also important that we could turn it around from the finished recording to being in people’s hands really quickly as Dean and I have another ten projects between us on the boil - and so far, Castles in Space have been true to their word. It’s an artists label done with love and there’s not many of them about anymore - believe it or not.“

“The Dreamcatcher Tapes Volumes 1 & 2” is an immense collaborative achievement which makes for a thoroughly compelling, and gloriously disorientating listening experience.

It is released as a double coloured vinyl LP in deluxe gatefold sleeve w/insert and a highly limited deluxe double cassette box set. The album is released on March 19th, 2021.

Tape

After tapes on Steep Gloss and Cruel Nature, we are happy that Stuttgart-based collective Zebularin join the OM family with their new release “Hermetic Topography“.

The album, a product of weekly recording sessions between March and July 2020, just when the pandemic slowed a bit down, might be the closest approach to what communal experiences sounded throughout 2020. It‘s a bold design of how collective improvisation can work in the post-covid era.

The first minute of „Budenzauber“ sets the tone for the whole record. Synth waveforms get joined by a drumset, both settling into a vivid conversation between digital noise and analog free jazz, finding a shared rhythm for this journey.

Daniel Vujanic, known to some from his recordings with Höhlenmusk Ensemble, Ixtar or E Jugend and the driving force behind Zebularin, had this urge to layer electro-acoustic solo material, synths, prerecorded audio meditations, without bending the sounds into detailed harmonic structures, but to build up dense, morphing atmospheres. In came Daniel Kartmann, a combatant in many of Vujanic‘s musical endeavours, his percussions, wind instruments and some deep musical talk - from obscure black metal to brazilian psychedelica, from Scott Walker to Gustav Mahler. The duo laid down basic tracks, kept arrangements vague, creating a perfect environment for a range of other players and instruments to walk in: piano, woodwinds, electronics, ebowed guitars and a vibraphone. The resulting record is a tender, affectionate take on jazz and electroacoustic composition. One can hear the routine of the involved cast as well as the fun, deep listening and correspondence that took place; even though this album was not recorded live in big-band-style, musical ideas interlock on an intuitive level and complement each other.

Take „Peljuga“ as a perfect example, a loosened jazz improv reminding of The Notwist‘s more psychic enhanced moments, which blends into a conversation between a contact mic and heavily manipulated synths and turns into a minimalist piano composition, which melds into a climactic peak and is interrupted only to rise again. And as complex as this description sounds, as uplifting is the actual song. Or the album‘s last track, „Holmen“, which starts out as an underwater ambient piece and evolves pretty organically into cosmic power electronics.

Despite its name and the Heideggerian flair of some song titles, „Hermetic Topography“ is all but hermetic. It‘s rich in musical colours without melting into a quagmire of maximalist noise. It‘s sophisticated but never top-heavy. It might be one of your favourite tapes of 2021.

They Say: “Contemporary scores for visual effect”.

We say: Synth-heavy, low-slung space-funk masterpiece.

The creator of the romping tunes that became the iconic themes to the BBC’s Grandstand programme and their televised Wimbledon Tennis Championship coverage, Keith Mansfield was perhaps KPM’s most prolific artist from the mid 1960s right the way through the 1980s. As well as the sort of pop orchestral sound that is all over these classic library records, he could also turn his hand to raw, edgy rock and funk. Quentin Tarantino is a big fan, going as far as including some of Keith’s work on the soundtracks to Kill Bill and Grindhouse.

This is it. This is THE ONE for us: Keith “The Man” Mansfield’s Vivid Underscores from 1977. A sample freak’s wet dream and one of Be With Rob’s favourite ever KPM records. A must for fans of Brian Bennett’s Voyage (yes, THAT good). And no, we’ve no idea either why it took us this long to get round to tackling this monster of a record. But then again some things are worth waiting for.

Attention! Calling all crate diggers, DJs, beat heads, Hip Hop junkies, MF DOOM fans! Behold! Vivid Underscores makes sampling easy. Prepare to be up all night, every night, chopping, looping and splicing these endless grooves and spacey synths. The highlights are too many and too mind-blowing so we’ll pull out a few particular highlights. Trust us, this library LP is just jaw-dropping.

“High Velocity” sets the tone with its aggressive horns, wah-wah guitars, funky baseline and wobbly synth refrain. So good and so hypnotic that Memphis Bleek just had to swipe the ominous, frazzled intro for “What You Think of That” featuring Jay-Z. Also, for real drama, the 1985 Lakers retrospective “Return to Glory” used it to soundtrack the footage from the legendary game five of the NBA finals at the Forum. Heady days. “Crash Course” - Stetsasonic horn refrain? Beautiful - jazzy chase-funk, amazing warm keys, percussion and funky horns - all action.

The more restrained “Matter Of Urgency” is an utterly amazing, brass-heavy underscore. The grandiose, uplifting “Dawn Of Aquarius” still sounds like the future with its tense, thundering drums, killer bassline and swirling synths. Version II loses the drums and percussion but is no less startling. “Staying Power” closes the first side with a relentless, pounding groove which *will* snap your neck. Be warned.

“Trucking Company” is a pacey, synth-and-string masterpiece and its accompanying parts (a–c) mess with the formula to great effect. Part (a) adds echo delay to really dazzle and part (c) plays the breezy, beautiful middle section without the tension. “Hot Cargo” and “Espionage” are both tense spy-funk themes par excellence. “Interplay” is a quiet killer, with flutes over a glistening piano refrain just waiting to be looped. The intro to the menacing “Omen” might’ve been sampled by 7L & Esoteric for their classic “So Glorious” but the entire 5 minute track is a mini-drama masterpiece, one only Mansfield could create.

Even though its a mix of short themes in-and-amongst longer, full-length tracks, Vivid Underscores is still thoroughly listenable from start to finish. That’s not something that can be said of all library records and it still manages to serve as rich resource to keep even the keenest samplers busy for a while.

As with all of our KPM re-issues, the audio for Vivid Underscores comes from the original analogue tapes and has been remastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis. And as usual, the sleeve reproduction duties were handed over to Richard Robinson, the current custodian of KPM’s brand ident

Tape

Dylan Henner is back on Dauw with his new album "Great Prairie Plains: studies of American Minimalism". The album is a celebration of two pieces of music that he loves and have been hugely important to his musical life and education.

The album starts with an arrangement of Terry Riley's In C. During his school-time, Henner was allowed by his music teacher - with plenty of persuasion, in an environment of mostly much straighter classical music - to study this piece. He not only had a deep familiarity with it, but also the pdf scores that he transcribed for his homework. The arrangement was created mostly with the marimba, as an instrument that can layer very deeply without muddying the frequency range and also includes some synths, piano and a VST choir.

“I tried to balance my boundless admiration for the piece with a personalised arrangement. It would be pointless to copy Riley's original - it's too good - but I can at least try to do well by it.”

Alongside In C is an arrangement of Su Tissue's 2nd Movement, from her near-mythical "lost" album Salon de Musique. After trying to buy a copy of this record for years - they are so scarcely found he suspects he never will – Henner wondered if the next best thing would be - instead of owning a copy - to create his own copy. He started this arrangement with as much faith as he could. According to Henner, Su’s work is too rare to warrant changing, but instead should be honoured with autencitiy.

“It's not until the end of the piece that my arrangement begins to take a different shape to Su's. Once I started playing along on the piano, the rest fell into place.”

Dylan lives in Brighton, works as a photographer's assistant for his day-job and plays analogue synths, tuned percussion and cello. Last year Dylan released well-received albums on Dauw and AD 93 (fka Whities) among others. Even though he is a relatively new name, with these albums he already came to the fore as a promising artist within the electro-acoustic field.


a 01. In C [Terry Riley]
[b] 02. 2nd Movement [Su Tissue]

[a] 01. In C [Terry Riley]
[b] 02. 2nd Movement [Su Tissue]

When Linda Smith purchased a 4 track cassette recorder in the mid-1980s she was playing guitar in a band called the Woods, and thought it would be useful for sharing demos with her bandmates. In the end, the new hobby followed her from New York back to her native Baltimore, and over the next decade she’d release several albums worth of delicate, bewitching solo music on cassette. Till An- other Time: 1988-1996 is the first retrospective collection of Smith’s charmingly lo-fi music.

Sparse and gentle, Linda’s music is tinged with lovelorn melancholy despite the sweetness of her voice. Over ‘60s pop-indebted melo- dies on tracks like “A Crumb Of Your Affection”, she delivers ob- servations with an earnest softness. Elsewhere, her voice takes on a post punk deadpan, as on “I See Your Face.” The effect of both modes is a haunting charm, equally reminiscent of early Cherry Red Records and ‘60s yé-yé.

With a no-nonsense approach to recording, Linda recorded almost all of her songs at home. There was a creative freedom that came with recording on tape, and unbeknownst to her, this was a conclu- sion that many musicians were reaching at the time.

Unfortunately, the independence that made at-home recording ap- pealing to Linda also made it difficult for her to reach a wider au- dience. Relying on niche publications, cassette trading, and word of mouth to share music, Linda released a few 7”s on labels like Slumberland and Harriet but remained relatively local in terms of reach. Nevertheless, one can trace a direct line from Linda Smith to the ubiquity of bedroom recording today.

Originally released in 1980, ‘Amanita’ is an early approach of Canadian artist Sherine Cisco, formerly known as Stu Cisco, to the limitless world of synthesizers in music, through ambient, progressive rock and drone noise.

A unique combination of ambient, progressive rock and even drone noises and space-age that converged in ‘Amanita’, her first full album and a piece of music history. This LP marks a milestone in the investigation, experimentation and evolution of musical instruments, where the Mini Moog demonstrated its versatility and creative potential, opening Sherine a path of limitless possibilities.

By the time ‘Amanita’ was first released in 1980 (only 300 copies were pressed at the time), Sherine had been playing synths for seven years. But far from acknowledging how traditional instruments were played, she tried to do things her own way, creating moving landscapes and a unique language of sound. This DIY approach to music was, as well how the album was made, in her own studio, with synthesizers that were originally meant for live performances such as the Elka Rhapsody or the Elektro Harmonix, channeled through a Dokorder 4 Tape Recorder.

However, what Sherine Cisco was living in her personal life, a gender transition, was as important to the record as the instruments she used to create it. “Beginning in the early 1980's, I began experimenting with taking the female hormone, estrogen. I felt like I was gradually being re-born. It affected my music, the mood of the music, and me, physically and mentally”.

A spacey vibe surrounds each of the 12 cuts that compose ‘Amanita’, waving from ambient to experimental music, introducing drone noises that add mystery to the whole piece and creating epic moments, with the Mini Moog accompanied by Randy Gray’s drums. To close things off, a synth pop infused track works as a masterpiece ending to this story.

In Zusammenarbeit mit dem britischen Entwickler-Studio Kaizen Game Works veröffentlicht das Kölner Soundtrack-Label Black Screen Records im Frühjahr 2021 Barry "Epoch" Toppings funkigen "City-Pop meets Vaporwave"-Soundtrack zu dem von der internationalen Gaming-Presse gefeierten Open World Adventure Game Paradise Killer auf Vinyl. Barrys Toppings Soundtrack erscheint auf limitiertem 180g Curacao & Pink Doppel-Vinyl und kommt in einem von 80er Animes & City Pop-Alben inspirierten Artwork der deutschen Designerin Mizucat. Zudem enthält das Vinyl ein gefaltetes A2 Poster und einen Download Code. Die Sounds des Paradieses. Die Musik eines kosmischen Traums. Tracks einer anderen Realität. Das Tempo eines Verbrechens, dass alle Verbrechen beendet. Der Beat von lange verlorenen außerirdischen Göttern. Die Playlist des "Investigation Freaks". Lass dich von der Musik ins Paradies führen. Fühle die glühend heiße Sonne auf deiner Haut. Rieche unerträglich heißen Beton. Genieße den süßen Geschmack von Verbrechen, begangen, auf einer tropischen Insel in einer alternativen Realität. Erinnerst du dich daran, wie wir am Strand getanzt haben? Neben den paradiesischen Straßen? Du hast mir dieses Mix-Tape auf dem Dach deines Apartments gemacht. Wir haben den Mond angestarrt. Du sagtest, du würdest den Mond töten. Ich glaubte dir nicht. Wie falsch ich doch lag.

Having previously released on RNT as part of duo Balako, Diogo Strausz now makes his solo debut on the label with an absolutely stunning offering of electronic Brazilian jazz. A São Paulista now living in Paris, Strausz made international waves earlier this year with his piece ‘Pausa,’ a grand and sprawling orchestral work written and recorded by musicians around the world in isolation.

The two songs on Strausz’ new Emancipação EP showcase his gift for instrumental composition that feels at once both fresh and timeless, informed heavily by the classic Bossa Nova and Samba repertoires of his native Brazil, yet translated through a modern production lens, and executed with exceptional musicianship. The end result is an undeniably unique sound that will fit equally well in the collections of jazz and MPB aficionados, as in the crates of modern DJs and listeners alike.

Favorite Recordings proudly presents an exclusive eponymous LP by Brazilian singer and composer George Sauma Jr., originally produced in 1985. Imagine a never-marketed release on which you’d hear not only the beautiful and genuine George’s songs but also the work from two figures of the Brazilian Music Golden Age: Arthur Verocai and Junior Mendes! A much-needed album for all Brazilian connoisseurs.

Back in the days, George Sauma Jr. was a young artist from Rio de Janeiro, learning on his side how to play chords and compose songs since he was 10. Still at the university, he’s influenced by Brazilian artists like Cassiano or Tim Maia, deeply fascinated by the arrangements and the “levada” (the groove) of all these new Brazilian songs. Simple and romantic music that resonated to his soul and creativity.

Around 1985, the story took an unexpected turn. George tells: “Dna Deyse Lucidy, the mother of Junior Mendes was a candidate for deputy and went to my father’s company to advertise. When I saw her, I shouted, “I’m a big fan of your son!” ” Of course, she could not praise more the work of her son. On her advises, George went to his studio on Rua Siqueria Campos at Copacabana. Junior loved the project and sent him to Arthur Verocai to improve the arrangements. Without money, the decision was taken to record everything at Junior Mendes’ studio on an 8-channel mixer. It was a small set-up but the emotions were there! George surely had other plans for some of his songs but without the budget, they ended up doing everything the best they could. And they did very fine with a top-notch team of musicians: Paulo Black on Drums, Arthur Verocai on Guitar, Ricardo Do Canto on Bass and Helvius Vilela on Keyboards.

Leaving the studio with the tapes, George tried to knock doors of international labels, but none did even dare to give him an answer. With less than 1000 copies pressed back in the days and without any distributor or label behind him, he went with proud to record stores, but received nothing than a strong reality check regarding the difficulties for a young Brazilian artist to achieve something on the saturated market of the 80s. Even for free, record stores didn’t want it. In the end, he ended up giving copies to friends and families, knowing deep inside that the songs were good! George tells: “I decided to leave, calm and conscious. I’ve still made three more albums, however on tapes, as it was more affordable. This time, just for my pleasure…”.

Thirty-five years after, it’s with great emotion that this first album by George Sauma Jr. is now made available as Vinyl LP with its original offset printed innersleeve & CD

Originally released on Celluloid Lunch (Canada), really excited to do the Euro edition. Drawing influence from the looser end of the Ork records catalogue, the sensitive side of Ohio’s proto-punk scene and the grittiest and most sluggish tangent of 70’s power pop, Itchy Self’s debut 12” is an exploration of fully formed songs treated with spontaneous delivery. The group got together in early 2020 for 3 practices and a recording session and here are the results, laid out in their raw form. This is cross-generational racket n roll music that wears its heart on its loosey goosey sleeve. ‘B what you B’ is a life affirming testament to living against the grain that calls to mind the Modern Lovers’ aggressive positivity. Title track ‘Here’s the Rub’ is a barrage of abstract lyrics and skronky shred. ‘God Bless the Ego’ is an ode to the looseness and blurry eyed lucidity of indie rock’s forbearers such as Chilton, Kilgour, Pollard and Malkmus. ‘Reprobate’ is a Stones style ballad that channels the Saints and Johnny Thunders in equal measures. ‘Playing MTV’ is an audacious end remark to the record, that rips on classic Velvets strut and testifies it’s own ridiculous merit through boastful and catty lyrics. All in all, of course, it’s only Rock n Roll. This record is 1 part follow up to the Protruders “Poison Future” 12” on Feel It records (2019) and 1 part the first chapter of a new and exciting group formed in Canada’s capital of de-proffessionalized rock music. Recorded to 1/4 inch tape by Scott Munro (Preoccupations) and mastered by Mikey Young (Total Control), this record should provide a concise opening statement to anyone with the least bit of concern about Itchy Self. You’re gonna need an ocean of calamine lotion. Sorry State Records

The saga of composer Tim Story's 1982 debut is a case study in the shifting sands of the early progressive music industry. Recorded on a Tascam 4-track reel-to-reel in his basement bedroom in Whitehouse, Ohio using a ragtag array of equipment – salvaged vibraphone, pawn shop Les Paul, his mother's spinet piano, a PAiA synth kit assembled by his girlfriend's father, and a Yamaha CS-30 – Story optimistically dubbed six cassettes and sent them around the world. Following a polite rejection from Klaus Schulze, the French avant-garde label Atem (This Heat, Univers Zero, Art Zoyd) reached out with an offer to release Threads via their new instrumental electronic subdivision, Labyrinthes. After several letters confirming terms of the arrangement as well as multiple rounds of test pressings, correspondence suddenly ceased. Some months later the label folded, never having begun. Synchronistically, however, Schulze's copy ended up in the glovebox of an engineer associate, who happened to play it for a couple visiting journalists with contacts at a newish Norwegian imprint, Uniton Records (Popul Vuh, Harold Budd).

Impressed, they connected Story to the label head, but by then he'd already recorded a follow-up, the more neoclassical-leaning In Another Country, which became his inaugural release. Finally, 40 years later, Dais Records is rectifying history's error by properly issuing Threads on vinyl for the first time. It's a beautiful, beguiling work, exploratory but emotive, documenting, as Story puts it, “the path not taken... like the first chapter of a book that was set aside to begin another.” Despite only being in his early twenties at the time of its creation, Threads feels finessed and considered, weaving through a diverse spectrum of moods and minimalist melodies. From sunburst synthesizer devotionals (“Tethered By A Thread”) to shadowy cosmic drift (“Without Waves,” “Iso”) to fragile piano vignettes (“Burst,” “Scene And Artifact”), Story's compositional instincts skew subtle and sophisticated, carving gemstones of fluctuating radiance. He cites his discovery of tape loops as a central tool in the process, allowing him to generate recurring patterns of echoes and texture, decaying in volume and fidelity as desired: “A whole new and inspiring world opened up.” As both time capsule and discographical fountainhead, Threads vividly captures the threshold sensation of early 1980's electronic music: post-kosmische, prenew age, before ambient became codified, just as synthesizers began slipstreaming into the underground. It's an album of beginnings and forking paths, inner space voyaging towards limitless horizons, born of “youthful dedication to something one loves, in a world that feels uncertain.”

· First ever vinyl edition, originally set to be released in 1982 but due to original label's untimely demise, it was never issued until now.

· Collaborative releases with Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dwight Ashley, with releases on notable labels Uniton, Windham Hill, and Hearts of Space.

· For fans of Harold Budd, Brian Eno, Roedelius, Nils Frahm, Klaus Schulze, Popol Vuh, Vangelis, Jean-Michel Jarre · The song "A Thousand Whispers" has been in regular rotation at Sirius XM.

· Tim Story is a Grammy nominated artist in 1988 for his "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" recording with Glenn Close.

“Our first ever show in the UK was the opening slot at Brixton Academy so this is just totally emblematic of the support that has grown overseas we are ever grateful for. It’s still the greatest show we have ever played and we will never forget that night. See you all soon! Stay safe.” DMA’S
On March 6th, 2020 a sold-out audience filled the O2 Academy Brixton’s cavernous space from wall-to-wall. The band played the biggest headline show of their career to date half a planet away from home, yet the show conjured the atmosphere of an intimate homecoming celebration.
The O2 Academy Brixton show was immediately hailed as one of the highlights of the band’s career so far, and it has taken on whole new significance given the events that have followed. For many fans it was their final show before live music events were halted.
From early favourites ‘In The Air’ and ‘Lay Down’ to new material such as ‘Silver’ and ‘Life Is A Game Of Changing’ from ‘THE GLOW’ The show is documented in the ‘Live at Brixton’ album, which will be released almost a year to the day later on March 5th. ‘Live at Brixton’ will be released on a striking smoke-effect pink/orange limited edition double vinyl. Its design was inspired by a flare that was set off during the show. The album offers a chance to reminiscence on the life-affirming power of live shows, and also an inspiring reminder of what we’re all looking forward to returning to.

The ultimate pressings of the Beach Boys discography from Analogue Productions!
Original mono mix produced by Brian Wilson
One of 10 titles featuring 33 1/3 mono and stereo remastered editions: Surfin' USA, Surfer Girl, Little Deuce Coupe, Shut Down Vol. 2, All Summer Long, Today!, Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), Beach Boys Party!, Pet Sounds and Smiley Smile
Mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, most from the original master tapes or best sources available
Lacquer plating by Gary Salstrom and 180-gram vinyl pressing by Quality Record Pressings!

"It was Pet Sounds that blew me out of the water…I love the album so much. I've just bought my kids each a copy of it for their education in life. I figure no one is educated musically 'til they've heard that album." – Paul McCartney

"All of us, Ginger (Baker), Jack (Bruce), and I consider Pet Sounds to be one of the greatest pop LPs to ever be released. It encompasses everything that's ever knocked me out and rolled it all into one." – Eric Clapton

"For those in search of an original mono in pursuit of sonic quality, search no more. This Analogue Productions pressing is now the definitive pressing and the one we chose to feature at our Classic Album Sundays events to honour the 50th anniversary of Pet Sounds, an album that helped change the course of pop music." — Colleen ‘Cosmo' Murphy, Classic Album Sundays

"Overall though, this new reissue is the best sounding of all. The bottom end has more weight and solidity and the instrumental separation and front to back layering is nothing short of astonishing compared to the pleasing mush offered up by other editions. ... Pet Sounds belongs in every serious rock record collection and if you're going to have but one version this one from Analogue Productions is the one to have." — Music = 11/11; Sound = 11/11 - Michael Fremer, AnalogPlanet Read the whole review here.

"What I can say is that Kevin Gray has been able to extract every last bit of information from whatever tape is in the box, and present it in a way that is pleasing and natural to the ear. ... in my opinion, the Analogue Productions pressings are now THE definitive issue of each Beach Boys album, and will be my reference copies until if and when something better comes along — which may be never." — Lee Dempsey, Endless Summer Quarterly, Summer 2015 Edition

To meet the standards of Analogue Productions, our Beach Boys album reissues had a mission to achieve: Present the band's music the way that Brian Wilson — famed co-founder, songwriter and arranger — intended. Mono mixes created under Wilson’s supervision were how the surf rockin’ California crew rose to fame! And we’ve got ‘em!

For the early part of the Beach Boys' career, all of their singles were mixed and mastered and released only in the mono format — they didn't release a single in stereo until 1968. In those days, hits were made on AM radio in mono. And the mono of those times worked well for Wilson, who suffers from partial deafness. In fact, for their first 13 albums, Wilson originally turned in all the final mixed Beach Boy albums to Capitol Records only in mono. The mono mixes were where Wilson paid intense attention, and the dedication paid off!

We’ve taken 10 of the most classic, best-sounding Beach Boy titles ever and restored them to their mono glory!

But there’s no disputing that the close harmonies and one-of-a-kind rhythms of hits like “Surfer Girl,” “In My Room,” “Little Deuce Coupe” and more lend themselves naturally to stereo. So we’ve got your 2-channel needs covered with prime stereo mix versions as well.

Mastered by Kevin Gray, most from the original master tapes, and plated and pressed by Quality Record Pressings, the finest LP pressing facility in the world, these are awesome recordings to experience. And the look of each album befits its sonic superiority! Presented in "old school" Stoughton tip-on jackets, these time honoured favourites shine brighter than the originals!

Pet Sounds is famous for its use of multiple layers of unorthodox instrumentation as well as other cutting edge audio techniques for its time. It's considered the best Beach Boys album, and one of the best of the 1960s. The group here reached a whole new level in terms of both composition and production, layering tracks upon tracks of vocals and instruments to create a richly symphonic sound.

Conventional keyboards and guitars were combined with exotic touches of orchestrated strings, bicycle bells, buzzing organs, harpsichords, flutes, Theremin, Hawaiian-sounding string instruments, Coca-Cola cans, barking dogs, and more. It wouldn't have been a classic without great songs, and this has some of the group's most stunning melodies, as well as lyrical themes which evoke both the intensity of newly born love affairs and the disappointment of failed romance (add in some general statements about loss of innocence and modern-day confusion as well). The spiritual quality of the material is enhanced by some of the most gorgeous upper-register male vocals (especially by Brian and Carl Wilson) ever heard on a rock record. "Wouldn't It Be Nice," "God Only Knows," "Caroline No," and "Sloop John B" (the last of which wasn't originally intended to go on the album) are the well-known hits, but equally worthy are such cuts as "You Still Believe in Me," "Don't Talk," "I Know There's an Answer," and "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times." It's often said that this is more of a Brian Wilson album than a Beach Boys recording (session musicians played most of the parts), but it should be noted that the harmonies are pure Beach Boys (and some of their best).

VH-1 named Pet Sounds as the No. 3 album in the Top 100 Albums in Rock 'n' Roll History, as judged in a poll of musicians, executives and journalists. It's been ranked No. 1 in several music magazines' lists of the greatest albums of all time, including NME, The Times and Mojo Magazine. It was ranked No. 2 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.

Limited

LOVE IS A STREAM :: 10 year anniversary edition. Remastered by Stephan Mathieu. Design by Farbod Kokabi.

Jefre Cantu on Guitar & Electronics. With Lisa McGee, John Twells, and Maxwell August Croy on vocals. Orginally released October, 2010 on TYPE records, UK.

From the original press release: As a member of San Francisco legends Tarentel and Type’s premier astral travellers The Alps, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma is hardly a new addition to the label, so it’s hard to believe that ‘Love Is A Stream’ is his first Type solo album. Previously releasing on Arbor, Spekk and his own Root Strata imprint, this latest album marks his journey into the beautifully cacophonous world of dream pop. Shoegaze music has been much maligned in recent years, probably due to its rebirth and subsequent explosion of popularity (which gave rise to hundreds of young bands aping the over twenty-year-old sound). However it was only a fragment of the genre that these bands attempted to re-create, and on ‘Love Is A Stream’ Cantu, instead of focusing on tired weeping melancholy ballads, focuses solely on expansive, almost noise-ridden hopefulness. This is the kind of noise we fell in love with when My Bloody Valentine blew our ear drums performing ‘Loveless’, or the kind of harmonic excess we heard on hundredth listen to Catherine Wheel’s ‘Ferment’, but taken into deeper, more abstract realms. ‘Love Is A Stream’ is dedicated to love itself, and the dreamy, shimmering blown-out textures might at first sound like white noise before they ultimately give way to blissful harmony and hidden melody. Underneath the grit and growl are hidden guitar parts, synthesizer drones and even vocals (provided by Lisa McGee, John Twells and Maxwell August Croy) that succeed in swelling the dense, tape-saturated songs to heady new heights and belie any influences they might have. On each listen the mind strips away another layer of dust and bones to reveal haunting and deeply moving beauty. The world might be spiralling into despair, but Jefre Cantu-Ledesma has brought us a record that isn’t afraid to share the love. All that’s left to do is drown in it.

Delicate Sound Of Thunder encapsulates a band at their best. Alongside the classic live album and full concert film (restored and re-edited from the original 35mm film and enhanced with 5.1 surround sound), included in The Later Years box set, all stand-alone editions feature 24-page photo booklets, with the 4-disc box edition including a 40-page photo booklet, tour poster and postcards. The 3-LP 180-gram vinyl set includes 9 songs not included on the 1988 release of the album, while the 2-CD includes 8 tracks more than its original release.

In 1987, Pink Floyd made a triumphant resurgence. The legendary British band, formed in 1967, had suffered the loss of two co-founders: keyboardist / vocalist Richard Wright, who left after sessions for The Wall in 1979, and bass player and lyricist Roger Waters, who had left to go solo in 1985, soon after the 1983 album The Final Cut. The gauntlet was thus laid down for guitarist/singer David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason, who proceeded to create the multi-platinum A Momentary Lapse Of Reason album, a global chart smash, which also saw the return of Richard Wright to the fold.

Originally released in September 1987, A Momentary Lapse Of Reason was quickly embraced by fans worldwide, who flocked to attend the live tour dates, which started within days of the album’s release. The tour played to more than 4.25 million fans over more than two years, and, as a celebration of the enduring talent and global appeal of David, Nick and Richard was unsurpassed at the time.

Filmed at Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum in August 1988 and directed by Wayne Isham, the 2020 release of the Grammy Award nominated Delicate Sound Of Thunder is sourced directly from over 100 cans of original 35mm negatives, painstakingly restored and transferred to 4K, and completely re-edited by Benny Trickett from the restored and upgraded footage, under the creative direction of Aubrey Powell/Hipgnosis. Similarly, the sound was completely remixed from the original multitrack tapes by longtime Pink Floyd engineer Andy Jackson with David Gilmour, assisted by Damon Iddins.

Pink Floyd’s stellar supporting cast for the live dates included: Jon Carin (Keyboards, Vocals), Tim Renwick (Guitars, Vocals), Guy Pratt (Bass, Vocals), Gary Wallis (Percussion), Scott Page (Saxophones, Guitar), Margret Taylor (Backing Vocals), Rachel Fury (Backing Vocals) and Durga McBroom (Backing Vocals).

Technical credits include: Film Producers: Curt Marvis and Carl Wyant; Director of Photography: Marc Reshovsky; Lighting Designer: Marc Brickman, with conceptual footage directed by Storm Thorgerson, except ‘Money’ directed by Storm Thorgerson, Barry Chattington and Peter Medak. Animation on 'Time' was by Ian Emes.

The band that became Nightshift formed in 2019 in the ecosystem of Glasgow's current indie scene. The city's fertile & creative group of musicians have been committed to pushing the boundaries of and blurring the lines between DIY, punk, experimentalism and indie pop for decades now; a home to bands like Shopping, Vital Idles, Current Affairs, Still House Plants, and Happy Meals as well as forebears like Orange Juice, Teenage Fanclub and Yummy Fur. Nightshift slot right in with all mentioned, featuring members from current indie stalwarts Spinning Coin, 2 Ply and Robert Sotelo. Initially formed by guitarist David Campbell and bassist Andrew Doig as a "No Wave/No New York/ early Sonic Youth/This Heat-esque" group, the addition of Eothen Stern (keyboards/vocals) and Chris White (drums) instantaneously transformed their approach (guitarist/vocalist/clarinetist Georgia Harris joined as the band was writing "Zöe"). The band self-released a full-length tape on CUSP Recordings in early 2020, laying the foundation of their sound; hypnotic, melodic, understated indie post-punk with hooks that stick around long after you've heard them. "Zöe" is the band's newest effort, and first for Trouble In Mind. Unlike the band's previous album, the songs on "Zöe" weren't conceived live in the band's practice space, but rather pieced together and recorded remotely during quarantine lockdown, with each member composing or improvising their parts in homes/home studios, layering ideas over loops someone made and passing it on. The isolation actually allowed for an openness and creativity to flow and many of the songs took on radically different forms from when they were originally envisioned. Vocalist & primary lyricist Eothen Stern says "The process of writing these songs separately during lockdown was a kind of exquisite corpse - I liked this gesticulation of reaching out to one another and responding. Building up the next layer and passing it on." Stern says "poetic restraints" to writing & Eno's Oblique Strategies concepts were on their mind when composing the words to the songs on "Zöe" and lists the influence of author Rosi Bradiotti's book "The Posthuman". "Zöe" means "live drive", derived from the word conatus. Bradiotti defines conatus as "an effort or striving, endeavour, impulse, inclination, tendency, undertaking, serving is an innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself." and Stern views it as "...a kind of feminist re-claiming of communal public, anti- privatisation, looking to strive for social and environmental justice. Zöe kind of became a character of striving for me when writing.". "Zöe" kicks off with "Piece Together", a hypnotic song anchored by the band's chanted vocals and serpentine guitar licks. "Spraypaint the Bridge" showcases Harris' clarinet in an unexpected & delightful melodic shift during the song's anti-chorus. Elsewhere tunes like the swooning "Infinity Winner" and "Outta Space"s minimalist, slinky rhythm swirl in a late-night vibe, while "Make Kin" ruminates on "Looking to kinship as a way of engaging with entangled environmental and reproductive issues... how a band is a bond" and lurches forward with kinetic guitar strangling and staccato rhythmic percussion from White and Doig. "Power Cut" is the album's centerpiece, kicking off side two and lures the listener into its world over it's 7-minute runtime. Lulling them into involuntary movement with its waves of melodic harmonies, synth drones and metronomic pulse, until they all come crashing down in the song's dissonant midsection. The band acknowledges the whiffs of nostalgia prevalent in "Zöe"s songs (the title track in particular), and the nature of writing and recording the album is soaked in the self-work, reflection and reevaluations involved not only personally but creatively in each member's lives. Consequently, the album becomes a collection of sketches of hope, growth, awareness of the power of the world and the power of self, kith, kinship, friendship, resistance, and possibility.

The band that became Nightshift formed in 2019 in the ecosystem of Glasgow's current indie scene. The city's fertile & creative group of musicians have been committed to pushing the boundaries of and blurring the lines between DIY, punk, experimentalism and indie pop for decades now; a home to bands like Shopping, Vital Idles, Current Affairs, Still House Plants, and Happy Meals as well as forebears like Orange Juice, Teenage Fanclub and Yummy Fur. Nightshift slot right in with all mentioned, featuring members from current indie stalwarts Spinning Coin, 2 Ply and Robert Sotelo. Initially formed by guitarist David Campbell and bassist Andrew Doig as a "No Wave/No New York/ early Sonic Youth/This Heat-esque" group, the addition of Eothen Stern (keyboards/vocals) and Chris White (drums) instantaneously transformed their approach (guitarist/vocalist/clarinetist Georgia Harris joined as the band was writing "Zöe"). The band self-released a full-length tape on CUSP Recordings in early 2020, laying the foundation of their sound; hypnotic, melodic, understated indie post-punk with hooks that stick around long after you've heard them. "Zöe" is the band's newest effort, and first for Trouble In Mind. Unlike the band's previous album, the songs on "Zöe" weren't conceived live in the band's practice space, but rather pieced together and recorded remotely during quarantine lockdown, with each member composing or improvising their parts in homes/home studios, layering ideas over loops someone made and passing it on. The isolation actually allowed for an openness and creativity to flow and many of the songs took on radically different forms from when they were originally envisioned. Vocalist & primary lyricist Eothen Stern says "The process of writing these songs separately during lockdown was a kind of exquisite corpse - I liked this gesticulation of reaching out to one another and responding. Building up the next layer and passing it on." Stern says "poetic restraints" to writing & Eno's Oblique Strategies concepts were on their mind when composing the words to the songs on "Zöe" and lists the influence of author Rosi Bradiotti's book "The Posthuman". "Zöe" means "live drive", derived from the word conatus. Bradiotti defines conatus as "an effort or striving, endeavour, impulse, inclination, tendency, undertaking, serving is an innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself." and Stern views it as "...a kind of feminist re-claiming of communal public, anti- privatisation, looking to strive for social and environmental justice. Zöe kind of became a character of striving for me when writing.". "Zöe" kicks off with "Piece Together", a hypnotic song anchored by the band's chanted vocals and serpentine guitar licks. "Spraypaint the Bridge" showcases Harris' clarinet in an unexpected & delightful melodic shift during the song's anti-chorus. Elsewhere tunes like the swooning "Infinity Winner" and "Outta Space"s minimalist, slinky rhythm swirl in a late-night vibe, while "Make Kin" ruminates on "Looking to kinship as a way of engaging with entangled environmental and reproductive issues... how a band is a bond" and lurches forward with kinetic guitar strangling and staccato rhythmic percussion from White and Doig. "Power Cut" is the album's centerpiece, kicking off side two and lures the listener into its world over it's 7-minute runtime. Lulling them into involuntary movement with its waves of melodic harmonies, synth drones and metronomic pulse, until they all come crashing down in the song's dissonant midsection. The band acknowledges the whiffs of nostalgia prevalent in "Zöe"s songs (the title track in particular), and the nature of writing and recording the album is soaked in the self-work, reflection and reevaluations involved not only personally but creatively in each member's lives. Consequently, the album becomes a collection of sketches of hope, growth, awareness of the power of the world and the power of self, kith, kinship, friendship, resistance, and possibility.

The band that became Nightshift formed in 2019 in the ecosystem of Glasgow's current indie scene. The city's fertile & creative group of musicians have been committed to pushing the boundaries of and blurring the lines between DIY, punk, experimentalism and indie pop for decades now; a home to bands like Shopping, Vital Idles, Current Affairs, Still House Plants, and Happy Meals as well as forebears like Orange Juice, Teenage Fanclub and Yummy Fur. Nightshift slot right in with all mentioned, featuring members from current indie stalwarts Spinning Coin, 2 Ply and Robert Sotelo. Initially formed by guitarist David Campbell and bassist Andrew Doig as a "No Wave/No New York/ early Sonic Youth/This Heat-esque" group, the addition of Eothen Stern (keyboards/vocals) and Chris White (drums) instantaneously transformed their approach (guitarist/vocalist/clarinetist Georgia Harris joined as the band was writing "Zöe"). The band self-released a full-length tape on CUSP Recordings in early 2020, laying the foundation of their sound; hypnotic, melodic, understated indie post-punk with hooks that stick around long after you've heard them. "Zöe" is the band's newest effort, and first for Trouble In Mind. Unlike the band's previous album, the songs on "Zöe" weren't conceived live in the band's practice space, but rather pieced together and recorded remotely during quarantine lockdown, with each member composing or improvising their parts in homes/home studios, layering ideas over loops someone made and passing it on. The isolation actually allowed for an openness and creativity to flow and many of the songs took on radically different forms from when they were originally envisioned. Vocalist & primary lyricist Eothen Stern says "The process of writing these songs separately during lockdown was a kind of exquisite corpse - I liked this gesticulation of reaching out to one another and responding. Building up the next layer and passing it on." Stern says "poetic restraints" to writing & Eno's Oblique Strategies concepts were on their mind when composing the words to the songs on "Zöe" and lists the influence of author Rosi Bradiotti's book "The Posthuman". "Zöe" means "live drive", derived from the word conatus. Bradiotti defines conatus as "an effort or striving, endeavour, impulse, inclination, tendency, undertaking, serving is an innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself." and Stern views it as "...a kind of feminist re-claiming of communal public, anti- privatisation, looking to strive for social and environmental justice. Zöe kind of became a character of striving for me when writing.". "Zöe" kicks off with "Piece Together", a hypnotic song anchored by the band's chanted vocals and serpentine guitar licks. "Spraypaint the Bridge" showcases Harris' clarinet in an unexpected & delightful melodic shift during the song's anti-chorus. Elsewhere tunes like the swooning "Infinity Winner" and "Outta Space"s minimalist, slinky rhythm swirl in a late-night vibe, while "Make Kin" ruminates on "Looking to kinship as a way of engaging with entangled environmental and reproductive issues... how a band is a bond" and lurches forward with kinetic guitar strangling and staccato rhythmic percussion from White and Doig. "Power Cut" is the album's centerpiece, kicking off side two and lures the listener into its world over it's 7-minute runtime. Lulling them into involuntary movement with its waves of melodic harmonies, synth drones and metronomic pulse, until they all come crashing down in the song's dissonant midsection. The band acknowledges the whiffs of nostalgia prevalent in "Zöe"s songs (the title track in particular), and the nature of writing and recording the album is soaked in the self-work, reflection and reevaluations involved not only personally but creatively in each member's lives. Consequently, the album becomes a collection of sketches of hope, growth, awareness of the power of the world and the power of self, kith, kinship, friendship, resistance, and possibility.

There is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it anecdote tucked into one of
the many fine documentaries about seminal 20th Century artist
Jean-Michel Basquiat regarding the habits of his studio practice.
As we watch inspiring footage of Basquiat darting from one
piece to the next with rapid-fire brush strokes, a friend or
gallerist in a voice over says that it was not unusual for
Basquiat to be working on several paintings in the same
moment as several radio stations and televisions played in the
background. Not much more time is spent on the anecdote but
it feels like a skeleton key into Basquiat’s endlessly alluring,
neoexpressionist work.
And while Bryan Devendorf’s solo curio ‘Royal Green’ doesn’t
possess the only-in-New York vibe of Basquiat’s work, there is
something shared in its many-channels-open style of creation.
Satellite signals, strange voices from lost television
documentaries and radio operas are all woven into its fabric -
like it’s using these endless tides of media and information to
unlock the subconscious. Even its covers - Bob Dylan,
Fleetwood Mac, The National (with a nice big wink), The
Beatles - are like stunning, albeit satanic takes on hymns, or
like American standards almost dragged into the underworld.
Like the best of Spacemen 3, Sparklehorse or massively
underrated San Fran band Skygreen Leopards - the music
makes you queasy in one movement and lulls you into
blissmode in the next. It’s the very edge of outsider pop
songwriting.
For all the amphitheaters and festival fields Devendorf has
played to over his career, ‘Royal Green’ almost feels like an unlearning and a newfound love of homemade/found/fractured
sounds - and how, if collaged just so, detritus can become
stunningly gorgeous and surreal. And not without hooks. Look
no further than ‘Frosty’, which could be Little Billy Corgan’s
decayed demo tape from just before the Smashing Pumpkins
appeared on the scene. And the unspooling, slightly unglued
dream-pop of ‘Breaking the River’ is as rapturous as it is
sinister. And that’s probably where Devendorf wants it.

Jack’s Mannequin is the name of a side project headed by Andrew McMahon, the lead singer of Something Corporate. It is a concept album centred around McMahon’s return to California and the demise of a long-standing relationship. McMahon wrote the material during a dark period of self-exploration in his life impacted by Something Corporate’s hiatus and the ending of a long relationship with Kelly Hansch caused in part by his career pursuit. It charted at number 37 on the Billboard 200 and sold over 250.000 copies.

Available as a limited edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on transparent vinyl. The package includes an insert.

Comes with download code. Limited 300. " "Où cela commence-t-il ?_x000B_Where does cultural appropriation end and procreational fusion begin?_x000B_The answer to that depends on the perceiver. For some, applying the structures of electronic music to folkloristic samples may seem de-contextualizing. Yet when considering the similarity between dancefloor compositions and the minimalism of Steve Reich and Terry Riley, the gap to traditional music begins to fade away. They remain distinct mostly by aesthetic characteristics of sound. Nicolas Sheikholeslami's premiere solo record as Çaykh is named after the French conjunction "Où" - meaning "where" - as this was the linking element during production. We witness an attempt to re-contextualize music that travelled from analog tapes - recorded in different localities along the Indian Ocean - to a hard-drive via 192kb youtube rips. The sample-based compositions were digitally arranged before regaining their warm sonic qualities in a vintage mixing studio This EP assembles three metamorphic 4th-world disco pulsations. Expect some heavily trancy and polyrhythmic analogue-fi jams. Nicolas Sheikholeslami aka Çaykh is a Hamburg-born and Berlin-based DJ and producer. He is active as drummer & percussionist for the projects Spiritczualic Enhancement Center and Circuit Diagram. Çaykh's three earlier sound-collage cassette releases have already earned him a certain fame in the 4th-world and outsider-disco realms. His collection of pre-war Somali music called "Au revoir, Mogadishu" paved the way for the Grammy-nominated "Sweet as Broken Dates" compilation, which he co-curated.

We’ll get to the vocal content in a second, but first it’s time to acknowledge what a patchwork tapestry of genius ‘Peace is not the word to play’ is in terms of production. Large Professor being a prodigy on the SP-1200 is well established, but the way he flips parts of MFSB’s ‘TLC’ and Milly and Silly’s obscure ‘Gettin’ Down for Xmas’ with a sprinkling of Lyn Collins here establishes his credentials in the top tier.

Lyrically, it’s a tour de force, with Main Source taking exception with the misuse of the word ‘peace’ by the hip-hop fraternity. With even the most homicidal of gangster rappers dropping it at the end of tracks at the time, time was overdue for some regulation.

The album version makes its point pithily in a single verse, while the remix, included on the flip of this first ever 7” release, expands on the topic with new verses and some new samples too. It’s a welcome reminder of the time when remixes were remixes – not just the identical track with the latest hot rappers joining in.
Most of all, Main Source once again walk the fine line between lyrical lecture and head-nodding banger – the rare example of a track with a point to make that can still fill a dancefloor and get necks snapping.

• Samples MFSB’s ‘TLC’; Milly and Silly’s obscure ‘Gettin’ Down for Xmas’ and Lyn Collins

• First ever 7” release of the Remix

There is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it anecdote tucked into one of the many fine documentaries about seminal 20th Century artist Jean-Michel Basquiat regarding the habits of his studio practice. As we watch inspiring footage of Basquiat darting from one piece to the next with rapid-fire brush strokes, a friend or gallerist in a voice over says that it was not unusual for Basquiat to be working on several paintings in the same moment as several radio stations and televisions played in the background. Not much more time is spent on the anecdote, but it feels like a skeleton key into Basquiat's endlessly alluring, neoexpressionist work. And while Bryan Devendorf's solo curio `Royal Green' doesn't possess the only-in-New York vibe of Basquiat's work, there is something shared in its many-channels-open style of creation. Satellite signals, strange voices from lost television documentaries and radio operas are all woven into its fabric _ like it's using these endless tides of media and information to unlock the subconscious. Even its covers _ Bob Dylan, Fleetwood Mac, The National (with a nice big wink), The Beatles _ are like stunning, albeit satanic takes on hymns, or like American standards almost dragged into the underworld. Like the best of Spacemen 3, Sparklehorse or massively underrated San Fran band Skygreen Leopards _ the music makes you queasy in one movement and lulls you into blissmode in the next. It's the very edge of outsider pop songwriting. For all the amphitheaters and festival fields Devendorf has played to over his career, `Royal Green' almost feels like an un-learning and a newfound love of homemade/found/fractured sounds _ and how, if collaged just so, detritus can become stunningly gorgeous and surreal. And not without hooks. Look no further than "Frosty" which could be Little Billy Corgan's decayed demo tape from just before the Smashing Pumpkins appeared on the scene. And the unspooling, slightly unglued dream-pop of "Breaking the River" is as rapturous as it is sinister. And that's probably where Devendorf wants it.

33 1/3 years after its first release Piranha Records reissues the groundbreaking Stella Chiweshe international debut Ambuya! on quality 180g vinyl, remastered from analog tapes, together with a bonus John Peel session from 1988. Stella Chiweshe stands as one of the most enduring and successful women activists in African music. She started playing the Mbira and performing in her motherland Zimbabwe despite all kinds of racial and male dominant mentalities of that time, setting a spectacular example of how music can cross all kinds of borders, a message that is perfectly aligned with our core values as a record label. With her album Ambuya? the Mbira finally went electric and combined the spiritual with the popular in a creative exchange with British world indie legend 3 Mustaphas 3. Thrilled to have, and still be, teamed up with such a pioneering artist, we feel like time spins like an album: our mbira-meetstapha kick-off of 1987 still lives and rotates with Piranha Records in 2021. Ambuya? Ambuya!

We’ll get to the vocal content in a second, but first it’s time to acknowledge what a patchwork tapestry of genius ‘Peace is not the word to play’ is in terms of production. Large Professor being a prodigy on the SP-1200 is well established, but the way he flips parts of MFSB’s ‘TLC’ and Milly and Silly’s obscure ‘Gettin’ Down for Xmas’ with a sprinkling of Lyn Collins here establishes his credentials in the top tier.

Lyrically, it’s a tour de force, with Main Source taking exception with the misuse of the word ‘peace’ by the hip-hop fraternity. With even the most homicidal of gangster rappers dropping it at the end of tracks at the time, time was overdue for some regulation.

The album version makes its point pithily in a single verse, while the remix, included on the flip of this first ever 7” release, expands on the topic with new verses and some new samples too. It’s a welcome reminder of the time when remixes were remixes – not just the identical track with the latest hot rappers joining in.
Most of all, Main Source once again walk the fine line between lyrical lecture and head-nodding banger – the rare example of a track with a point to make that can still fill a dancefloor and get necks snapping.

• Samples MFSB’s ‘TLC’; Milly and Silly’s obscure ‘Gettin’ Down for Xmas’ and Lyn Collins

• First ever 7” release of the Remix

DeWolff return with their new album, Wolffpack, released on 5th February 2021 via Mascot Records.

DeWolff, the kaleidoscopic warriors were not long into their 2019 Tascam Tapes European Tour when the Covid19 pandemic broke and they, like so many others, had to turn back and head home. They started working on the new album Wolffpack.

The album kicks off with the first song they finished, the soulful psychedelic funk of "Yes You Do," featuring Ian Peres and longtime friend of the band, Judy Blank. "We wrote it in a Zoom meeting!" Pablo says. "Treasure City Moonchild," struts in with a funky swagger and Piso's trademark swirling Hammond, with Dawn Brothers' Levis Vis providing some Bass juice. "Do Me," includes Theo Lawrence on vocals and is through the eyes of an anti-hero who realizes he isn't worthy of the woman of his dreams, and dates back to 2019 and the Next of Kin live show. "I consider this the best song I ever wrote, so I couldn't stand the idea that it was only used for those Next of Kin shows and then never again! That's why I brought it to DeWolff, but it needed some rearranging," he says. Another song from the Next of Kin sessions was "Sweet Loretta" and features Dawn Brothers' Stefan Wolfs and Darilyn's Diwa Meijman. "Loretta is the protagonist's childhood sweetheart. She has a rich dad, but he's really conservative, and so she can only inherit his money if she marries a man. But she's lesbian. So, the protagonist, who's also out for this old guy's money, suggests they play pretend and marry so they can split the money."

They sweep through disco on "Half Your Love," swamp rock on "Bona Fide" and take on sci-fi and the Old Testament on "RU My Savior." Their tour buddies The Grand East show up on "Roll Up the Rise." Written in the first days of quarantine, it's about the end of the quarantine - told from a future perspective. "Lady J," came after Pablo watched the documentary "13th." "I was quite shaken up by it," he admits. "The lyrics are based on the idea that Lady Justice seems to have a scale that doesn't measure the "weight" of your crime but the tone of your skin. She is supposed to be blindfolded, but the people who act in "her" name aren't blind at all: they discriminate between white and black."

The album ends with the forlorn "Hope Train." Based on the Pulitzer prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead about two slaves in the US during the 19th century, who make a bid for freedom from their Georgia plantation. "I found it really hard to envision the world in which it takes place," he says. The band used a 1970s Fisher-Price Toy cassette recorder in the intro, "We wanted to see if we could somehow approach the sound of those very early country blues recordings, like the ones by Blind Willie Johnson.”

Being as LSD was first developed in a laboratory in Basel, it is perhaps no coincidence that one of the most far out albums of all time was made by this Swiss band (no small feat, given the competition!). Braintickets 1971 debut, Cottonwoodhill, begins normally enough with two fine psychedelic/Krautrock-influenced tracks, but the remainder of the album plays like an acid trip with a soundtrack, dominated by Joel Vandroogenbroecks endless droning organ, a variety of musique concrète-type sound effects and vocalist Dawn Muirs trippy vocals. The album, banned in several countries, even came with this self-imposed warning: After Listening to this Record, your friends may not know you anymore. / Only listen to this once a day, your brain might be destroyed!. Gatefold sleeve. Fully remastered from the original master tapes!

"Odeyalo" is a Russian word that means "blanket". This blanket is made from many rags. It's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins, but the main thing is that you can cover yourself with this blanket.

Foresteppe is the musical project by Egor Klochikhin, artist and history teacher from Russia. Foresteppe's music is a constant experiment with the sounds of tape cassettes, acoustic instruments, field recordings and electronics. Detailed sound collages by foresteppe explore the space of history and memory, as well as the themes of nostalgia and trauma.

"Odeyalo" has been played live with ten cassette tape players and several dozens of cassette tape loops in June – September, 2019 in Vyksa, St.Petersburg, Moscow, Brussels, Tomsk oblast, Novosibirsk and Berdsk.