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Up next we welcome Chinese artist B.AI to the Pleasure Club family for a trip into a melodic cyberspace.

Fusing elements of techno, electro & electronica, and accompanying this with her musical training, she has formed a style completely of her own. One which references the past whilst journeying into the future, and stirs memories of a time we are yet to discover.

Join us as we enter her world...

Jean-Luc Mocard met Jean Ronde in September of 2009, while working at the CASIO Palaiseau factory, near Paris. Before, they were both active musicians with a particular taste for synthesized music, touring extensively through European and Asian underground venues and clubs. Eventually, their furious passion for collecting 80’s keyboards brought them together to become the fabulous duo Vive Les Cônes.

Presently based in Porto, Portugal, by a matter of pure chance, Vive Les Cônes is a CASIO explosion, the fuel of a dancing machine that never stops and cherry picks moments from dance and pop music culture along the way. Their live concerts are non-stop hit parades featuring their very own local cult classics, such as “Bonaparty” or “Brocoli-Rave”, and medleys of pop-culture classics ranging from video-game soundtracks, to dance hits, to classical music.

“De France”, their debut album, is the product of years of playing live, training and mastering the perfect CASIO technique. Every track in this album is played live using only pure unmodded Casio PT-380 and Yamaha PSR-37 keyboards, thrift store fx pedals, bringing to the recorded form the meticulously crafted tracks that set dancefloors on fire all throughout the world.

The album is an eclectic journey through electronic and dance music on cheap keyboards, from traces of House Music in “Maillon” and the instant hit “Je Ne Sais Pas”, fumes of vaporwave in “Machine à Vapeur”, and, of course, baguettes of French electro in “Brocoli-Rave”, the track that usually andeuphorically ends Vive Les Cônes’ set.

The Quietus has referred to the duo as a “weird John Shuttleworth take on house music”, but them being French, a better comparison would be something like “Daft Punk lost all their gear on tour and had to play a gig using some old keyboards”. But could they even do it? Maybe a “Pascal Comelade on molly live set for Boiler Room” could make thembetter Justice. We’re not really sure what to compare them to though, and probably there’s no need to compare them to anything, as the best thing you can do is to give them a go and check them out for yourself.

Jean-Luc Mocard met Jean Ronde in September of 2009, while working at the CASIO Palaiseau factory, near Paris. Before, they were both active musicians with a particular taste for synthesized music, touring extensively through European and Asian underground venues and clubs. Eventually, their furious passion for collecting 80’s keyboards brought them together to become the fabulous duo Vive Les Cônes.

Presently based in Porto, Portugal, by a matter of pure chance, Vive Les Cônes is a CASIO explosion, the fuel of a dancing machine that never stops and cherry picks moments from dance and pop music culture along the way. Their live concerts are non-stop hit parades featuring their very own local cult classics, such as “Bonaparty” or “Brocoli-Rave”, and medleys of pop-culture classics ranging from video-game soundtracks, to dance hits, to classical music.

“De France”, their debut album, is the product of years of playing live, training and mastering the perfect CASIO technique. Every track in this album is played live using only pure unmodded Casio PT-380 and Yamaha PSR-37 keyboards, thrift store fx pedals, bringing to the recorded form the meticulously crafted tracks that set dancefloors on fire all throughout the world.

The album is an eclectic journey through electronic and dance music on cheap keyboards, from traces of House Music in “Maillon” and the instant hit “Je Ne Sais Pas”, fumes of vaporwave in “Machine à Vapeur”, and, of course, baguettes of French electro in “Brocoli-Rave”, the track that usually andeuphorically ends Vive Les Cônes’ set.

The Quietus has referred to the duo as a “weird John Shuttleworth take on house music”, but them being French, a better comparison would be something like “Daft Punk lost all their gear on tour and had to play a gig using some old keyboards”. But could they even do it? Maybe a “Pascal Comelade on molly live set for Boiler Room” could make thembetter Justice. We’re not really sure what to compare them to though, and probably there’s no need to compare them to anything, as the best thing you can do is to give them a go and check them out for yourself.

MD Pallavi & Andi Otto first crossed paths on a theatre stage in India ten years ago. They started collaborating instantly and in 2016 MD Pallavi's mesmerizing vocals for the downtempo raga Bangalore Whispers warmed hearts and ears. Their musical relationship flourished with artistic residencies in Bangalore and Hamburg, their respective hometowns, and a concert tour in Japan. The collaborative track Six made ears turn again on Andi’s album Bow Wave (Multi Culti 2019). And now, years later, the fruits of this artistic endeavour are fully formed here on Songs for Broken Ships - the debut album of the duo.

The album presents an interwoven pop-aesthetic vision of the two artists with their contrasting musical backgrounds. It ranges from organically woven folktronica to cut-up disco tracks and acoustic ballads. Reminiscent of, but not akin to Nicola Cruz, Beach House or Four Tet’s early productions the music is experimental but focused on the listener and their experience.

MD Pallavi is a singer, actress, filmmaker and performer from Bangalore, South-India, where she trained in Hindustani music and poetry since childhood. On Songs for Broken Ships, poems in her native tongue Kannada*, one of India's many languages, are performed over Andi’s alluring production, translating the stories into musical narratives. The poems address topics that are as timeless as the music itself. Social equality is touched upon in Bayalu (written by Bontadevi in the 12th century). Artistic struggles - communicated on An Unwritten Word (Gangadhar Chittala, 1865) - are almost prophetic and the surreal, dreamlike scenario of Clockshop (KS Narasimhaswamy,1958) brings you further inside the sonic journey.

Andi Otto is a composer, cellist and DJ based in Hamburg, Germany, He is known for his idiosyncratic and unconventional dance music productions on labels such as Multi Culti, Shika Shika and Pingipung (which he co-runs and curates). For this collaborative experience his dubbed out basslines gently interlock with the 7/4 and 5/4 beats to create a backbone for the instrumentation and expressive vocal timbres of MD Pallavi. His sound design combines graceful acoustic recordings, juxtaposed against modern drum machines, computer generated noise and vintage synthesizers.

*The LP comes with a text sheet containing all Kannada lyrics - which have their own vocabulary and script - together with the phonetic transcription and English translation.

After Joao Selva, Dowdelin, The Bongo Hop, Underdog Records continue their exploration of the Black Atlantic with IREKE.Ecstatic brass, 70’s keyboards, elastic guitars, round bass and world percussion: from this sonic heritage, Ireke makes a unique fusion, enhanced by the audacious contribution of his dub science, and a few electronic touches

IREKE

Ireke? Sugar cane in Yoruba. Like her, the duo loves tropical climates and intoxicating rhythms, quick to liberate the bodies gathered on a dancefloor. Afrobeat urgency, funk suppleness, dub alchemy, highlife jubilation: with Tropikadelic, Ireke summons the heritage of the masters and the audacity of machines to give life to new sonic territories. At the crossroads. For the love of groove.

From the West, with their ears to the Black Atlantic, Julien Gervaix and Damien Tes- son are both children of the collective and of improvisation, playgrounds for these complete multi-instrumentalists.

The first one puts his talents of arranger-saxophonist at the service of the Nantes collective Soulshine and of numerous formations - in turn funk or rhythm’n blues - where swinging is the rule.This is notably the case of the afrobeat group Walko, in which Julien Gervaix had the honour of sharing the stage and the studio for several years with Kiala Nzavotunga, guitarist extraordinaire for Fela Kuti and Egypt 80. Meanwhile, Damien Tesson was being trained as a dubmaster-guitarist-arranger at the reggae roots school with the digital option of the Vendée collective Shi Fu Mi Temple.This initiation led Damien Tesson to join, among others, the Nantes-based group BIBA (Bingy Band) and then to collaborate with Jideh High Elements, a key figure on the international dub scene, Roberto Sanchez and the team of his Lone Ark Studio, as well as Sana Bob, a famous reggae singer from Burkina Faso.And then, life being well done, the paths of Julien Gervaix and Damien Tesson ended up crossing within the jazz-funk combo Playtime, before meeting again in the Vendée a few years later.

With an obvious tropism for Afro-Latin grooves, tropical colours, electronic tricks and furious swaying, the two musicians create Ireke like a glass of well arranged rum. Here’s to us, here’s to you! As if guided by the spirit of the plant, Ireke toasts the immense richness of these danceable rhythms, true generators of life, connection and energy.

Like Legba, the Yoruba orisha of intersections and crossroads, Ireke thrives in the between worlds.Aware of the lineage of goldsmiths who preceded them, Ireke

knows his classics and humbly draws inspiration for Tropikadelic from the musical genius of Pat Thomas, Poly-rythmo Orchestra, King Tubby,Tony Allen, Fela Kuti, Maître Gazonga, Ernesto Djédjé or the Vikings of Guadeloupe. Ecstatic brass, 70’s keyboards, elastic guitars, round bass and world percussion: from this sonic heritage, Ireke makes a unique fusion, enhanced by the audacious contribution of his dub science, and a few electronic touches patiently flushed out in the studio - which the duo considers as an instrument in its own right.

Finally, to give voice to his compositions, on Tropikadelic, Ireke calls upon an army of serious enthusiasts, each member of which has come up with his or her own lyrics. Thus, alongside Ireke, we find the groove griot Pat Kalla (“Femme qui Danse”,“Love Is Jokin”), the Franco-Laotian reggaeman Amatah Keo (“Man Bo Diak”), the Vendée- based Agnès Hélène (“Petit à Petit”,“Oh Ma Chérie”) and Charly Sanga (“Bas Les Masques”,“Oh Ma Chérie”), the Burkinabè lion Sana Bob (“Métissage”) as well as the Nantes soulman Jy Cooly (“Kinkeliba”).

For the duo, music is above all a collective practice, an active liberation, a rhythmic approach to letting go, a source of communicative joy... In short, groove is the weap- on! And Ireke knows how to use it.

Light in the Attic Records is proud to present the next installment of the Nancy Sinatra Archival Series with the first ever reissue of the classic 1972 album Nancy & Lee Again. Recorded during a 1972 reunion between Nancy and the enigmatic Hazlewood, the album contains some of the pair's most enduring and ambitious duets including the epic "Arkansas Coal (Suite)," the sensual "Paris Summer" and the incredibly powerful Dolly Parton-penned "Down From Dover." Equal parts daring, psychedelic, cinematic, and sweet, Nancy & Lee Again reveals with each track a timeless, natural chemistry between two artists who would remain influential for generations to come. Nancy & Lee Again is available in a variety of formats, including vinyl and CD. The vinyl LP is presented in an expanded gatefold jacket and is accompanied by a 20-page booklet, featuring an array of photos from the legendary singer, actress, and activist's personal collection, as well as in-depth Q&A with Nancy Sinatra, conducted by the reissue's GRAMMYr-nominated co-producer, Hunter Lea (also available in the CD package). All formats have been beautifully designed by Darryl Norsen of D. Norsen Design, and include two bonus tracks, "Machine Gun Kelly" (first time on vinyl) and the previously unreleased "Think I'm Coming Down." Nancy, the eldest daughter of Frank Sinatra, had been working with the Oklahoma-born songwriter since 1965, when she topped the pop charts with "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'." Over the next five years, the two artists forged a prolific relationship in the studio, with Hazlewood writing and producing many of Nancy's solo hits. Soon, the duo found success with a series of duets, including "Sand," "Summer Wine," and "Some Velvet Morning" - all of which appeared on their highly-influential 1968 debut. Not long after the critical acclaim and chart success of Nancy & Lee died down, however, Hazlewood unexpectedly relocated to Sweden, leaving his musical partner in the proverbial dust. America, meanwhile, was in the midst of a cultural shift, as the Vietnam War waged on. By the turn of the decade, the musical landscape had changed significantly. "Trivial music and not profound music became unimportant," recalls Nancy, speaking to Hunter Lea. "It was a tough time." And yet, despite the circumstances, the stars somehow aligned for the duo to record some of their most magnificent music together. Returning to Los Angeles for the project, Hazlewood - who reprised his role as producer - chose to take a new direction with the duo's sophomore album. Nancy recalls, "It was more dramatic; it was more fun to do, more challenging to do_. It was more grandiose." Nancy & Lee Again remains a creative high point in the careers of Sinatra and Hazlewood and, upon its release, garnered rave reviews from Billboard, Record World, and Cash Box, among others. Yet, Nancy & Lee Again never received the spotlight it so utterly deserved. "We didn't have label support at all in those days," recalls Nancy. "Without the strength of a label, records die. We were old. We were old-fashioned. We were just not what was happening. It's a very ageist kind of business." Nevertheless, she adds, "I think it's a very good album. I think it's timeless." Now, after years of being a sought-after rarity, this gem in the Sinatra-Hazlewood canon can finally get its due.

Light in the Attic Records is proud to present the next installment of the Nancy Sinatra Archival Series with the first ever reissue of the classic 1972 album Nancy & Lee Again. Recorded during a 1972 reunion between Nancy and the enigmatic Hazlewood, the album contains some of the pair's most enduring and ambitious duets including the epic "Arkansas Coal (Suite)," the sensual "Paris Summer" and the incredibly powerful Dolly Parton-penned "Down From Dover." Equal parts daring, psychedelic, cinematic, and sweet, Nancy & Lee Again reveals with each track a timeless, natural chemistry between two artists who would remain influential for generations to come. Nancy & Lee Again is available in a variety of formats, including vinyl and CD. The vinyl LP is presented in an expanded gatefold jacket and is accompanied by a 20-page booklet, featuring an array of photos from the legendary singer, actress, and activist's personal collection, as well as in-depth Q&A with Nancy Sinatra, conducted by the reissue's GRAMMYr-nominated co-producer, Hunter Lea (also available in the CD package). All formats have been beautifully designed by Darryl Norsen of D. Norsen Design, and include two bonus tracks, "Machine Gun Kelly" (first time on vinyl) and the previously unreleased "Think I'm Coming Down." Nancy, the eldest daughter of Frank Sinatra, had been working with the Oklahoma-born songwriter since 1965, when she topped the pop charts with "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'." Over the next five years, the two artists forged a prolific relationship in the studio, with Hazlewood writing and producing many of Nancy's solo hits. Soon, the duo found success with a series of duets, including "Sand," "Summer Wine," and "Some Velvet Morning" - all of which appeared on their highly-influential 1968 debut. Not long after the critical acclaim and chart success of Nancy & Lee died down, however, Hazlewood unexpectedly relocated to Sweden, leaving his musical partner in the proverbial dust. America, meanwhile, was in the midst of a cultural shift, as the Vietnam War waged on. By the turn of the decade, the musical landscape had changed significantly. "Trivial music and not profound music became unimportant," recalls Nancy, speaking to Hunter Lea. "It was a tough time." And yet, despite the circumstances, the stars somehow aligned for the duo to record some of their most magnificent music together. Returning to Los Angeles for the project, Hazlewood - who reprised his role as producer - chose to take a new direction with the duo's sophomore album. Nancy recalls, "It was more dramatic; it was more fun to do, more challenging to do_. It was more grandiose." Nancy & Lee Again remains a creative high point in the careers of Sinatra and Hazlewood and, upon its release, garnered rave reviews from Billboard, Record World, and Cash Box, among others. Yet, Nancy & Lee Again never received the spotlight it so utterly deserved. "We didn't have label support at all in those days," recalls Nancy. "Without the strength of a label, records die. We were old. We were old-fashioned. We were just not what was happening. It's a very ageist kind of business." Nevertheless, she adds, "I think it's a very good album. I think it's timeless." Now, after years of being a sought-after rarity, this gem in the Sinatra-Hazlewood canon can finally get its due.

Big Red Balloon Swirl Edition! Light in the Attic Records is proud to present the next installment of the Nancy Sinatra Archival Series with the first ever reissue of the classic 1972 album Nancy & Lee Again. Recorded during a 1972 reunion between Nancy and the enigmatic Hazlewood, the album contains some of the pair's most enduring and ambitious duets including the epic "Arkansas Coal (Suite)," the sensual "Paris Summer" and the incredibly powerful Dolly Parton-penned "Down From Dover." Equal parts daring, psychedelic, cinematic, and sweet, Nancy & Lee Again reveals with each track a timeless, natural chemistry between two artists who would remain influential for generations to come. Nancy & Lee Again is available in a variety of formats, including vinyl and CD. The vinyl LP is presented in an expanded gatefold jacket and is accompanied by a 20-page booklet, featuring an array of photos from the legendary singer, actress, and activist's personal collection, as well as in-depth Q&A with Nancy Sinatra, conducted by the reissue's GRAMMYr-nominated co-producer, Hunter Lea (also available in the CD package). All formats have been beautifully designed by Darryl Norsen of D. Norsen Design, and include two bonus tracks, "Machine Gun Kelly" (first time on vinyl) and the previously unreleased "Think I'm Coming Down." Nancy, the eldest daughter of Frank Sinatra, had been working with the Oklahoma-born songwriter since 1965, when she topped the pop charts with "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'." Over the next five years, the two artists forged a prolific relationship in the studio, with Hazlewood writing and producing many of Nancy's solo hits. Soon, the duo found success with a series of duets, including "Sand," "Summer Wine," and "Some Velvet Morning" - all of which appeared on their highly-influential 1968 debut. Not long after the critical acclaim and chart success of Nancy & Lee died down, however, Hazlewood unexpectedly relocated to Sweden, leaving his musical partner in the proverbial dust. America, meanwhile, was in the midst of a cultural shift, as the Vietnam War waged on. By the turn of the decade, the musical landscape had changed significantly. "Trivial music and not profound music became unimportant," recalls Nancy, speaking to Hunter Lea. "It was a tough time." And yet, despite the circumstances, the stars somehow aligned for the duo to record some of their most magnificent music together. Returning to Los Angeles for the project, Hazlewood - who reprised his role as producer - chose to take a new direction with the duo's sophomore album. Nancy recalls, "It was more dramatic; it was more fun to do, more challenging to do_. It was more grandiose." Nancy & Lee Again remains a creative high point in the careers of Sinatra and Hazlewood and, upon its release, garnered rave reviews from Billboard, Record World, and Cash Box, among others. Yet, Nancy & Lee Again never received the spotlight it so utterly deserved. "We didn't have label support at all in those days," recalls Nancy. "Without the strength of a label, records die. We were old. We were old-fashioned. We were just not what was happening. It's a very ageist kind of business." Nevertheless, she adds, "I think it's a very good album. I think it's timeless." Now, after years of being a sought-after rarity, this gem in the Sinatra-Hazlewood canon can finally get its due.

Third Pressing of Gilroy Mere's Adlestrop on blue vinyl with a blue cover.

Adlestrop is inspired by the remains of the rural railway stations, that were closed in the wake of the 1963 Beeching Report.

“This record started with Edward Thomas’s poem Adlestrop and a chance visit to the village that it takes its title from. I wanted to see the station, but found it was no longer there, all that remains is the old platform sign Adlestrop, now part of a local bus shelter. However as I walked around the village I was struck that; “all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire” were still singing away - like ghosts from Thomas’ verse.

Visiting Adlestrop spurred me to get hold of a copy of the Beeching Report which, in Appendix 2, lists all the services and stations recommended for closure in the 1960s. The names read like an epic British poem, from halts to branch-line stops and stations and singular terminals for public schools, mines, ferries and even an asylum. There’s Ravenscar where a resort was planned but got no further in its construction than the station, and a hotel - the grid marked out for the roads never laid. Bethesda, a short branch line from Bangor up towards Snowdonia, was used for slate and passengers and is now just a quiet green valley, Christ’s Hospital on the old Cranleigh Line, opened with seven platforms to cope with the daily flood of pupils attending the famous school nearby which never came as it was a boarding school. Many of the stations have vanished, with just fields and car parks left in their place, some are repurposed as houses, or shops, or abandoned as artefacts of a lone-gone industrial past.

Armed with a digital recorder, and with a copy of Beechings Report as my guidebook I made notes and recordings on my travels around the country, and used them as the starting point for a set of pieces that try to capture the fading layers of history, in the areas where the stations had once stood making sure each track retains something of the real place within them. Back in my studio I reacted, improvised, and crafted musical responses to each station, trying to capture the ghosts and former lives of the stations and their imprint on the present.”

Gilroy Mere is Oliver Cherer who trading as Dollboy, Rhododendron, and Australian Testing Labs as well as his own name has meandered his way through the backwaters of left of centre English folk, ambient and electronic music, issuing numerous albums of original music to much critical acclaim via highly regarded boutique labels such as Static Caravan, Second Language, Deep Distance, Polytechnic Youth, and Awkward Formats.

FÜR FANS VON: Steel Panther, Mötley Crüe, Poison, The New Roses, Kissin' Dynamite, H.E.A.T.
Am 17. März 2023 veröffentlichen die 80er-Hair-Metaller John Diva & The Rockets Of Love ihr drittes Album „The Big Easy“. Während die Band auf
ihrer zweiten Platte „American Amadeus“ noch die Grenzen des Glam Metal auslotete, kehren die fünf Musiker auf Album Nummer drei zu dem
zurück, was sie am besten können: gradlinigem, erfrischendem Rock mit markanten Riffs, harten Beats, vielschichtigen Texten und einem Frontmann
in Bestform. Keine Schnörkel, kein Bullshit, sondern Stadionhymnen für die ganz große Bühne. Wir haben darauf gewartet und endlich ist es so weit:
JOHN DIVA is back! „Remember 80-something — we never seemed to miss a thing“. Schon die ersten Zeilen des neuen John-Diva-Songs „Back In The
Days“ vermitteln, für welches Gefühl die Band steht. Spandex-Hosen, jugendlicher Leichtsinn, Partystimmung und volle Batterien im Walkman: John
Diva & The Rockets Of Love holen die sorglosen Momente der 80er in die Gegenwart und lassen sie klingen wie den neuen heißen Scheiß. Und
können wir nicht alle ein bisschen Sorglosigkeit gebrauchen? John Diva & The Rockets Of Love stehen für fette Partys, leidenschaftliche
Bühnenshows, aber auch für liberale Botschaften in ihren Lyrics. Bullshit? Fehlanzeige. So erteilen die fünf Musiker dem Genre-üblichen Sexismus in
ihren Texten eine klare Abfuhr, zum Beispiel in Songs wie „Boys Don’t Play With Dolls“. „Bei uns ist jeder willkommen und wird wertgeschätzt“, stellt
Frontmann John Diva klar. Gut so. Denn wir können wohl alle ein bisschen Sorglosigkeit gebrauchen.

For a quarter of an hour, Zürich was the navel of the world. Let's look back: at New York's CBGB's, pre-punks were shredding away, Malcolm McLaren, as a man with a fine-tuned taste for the hip, imported the sound to London, where his sweetheart Vivienne Westwood dressed the test-tube band The Sex Pistols. A few pop magazines later (we are in an analog world!) punk bands sprouted everywhere, like shiny pimples on poorly fed teenagers. Contrary to legend, even back then, it was often those with a musical background who were the most successful. One such example, Henrich "Wüste" Zwahlen, who had learned the violin, attended a jazz school and went into prog-rock before joining the Nasal Boys, one of the first punk bands in Zürich. The scene included the female band Kleenex (cover: Fischli of art heroes Fischli/Weiss), whose minimalism was praised by the London music press, while the world's most important rock theorist, Greil Marcus, wrote an ode highlighting Zürich's role as the birthplace of Dadaism. A fertile ground for the militant youth movement that exploded in 1980 and stirred up the city of banks, protestantism and boredom with raw wit and expressive violence. Gathering at concerts of local bands and fueled by endogenous and artificial substances - they paid homage to exuberance and self-indulgence.
The mantra of "everything-is-possible" was driven forward on the musical front by progress in terms of means of production: analog electronic instruments were no longer reserved for hippie nerds, who sat in front of large plug-in boards like autistic-psychedelic switchboard operators connecting cables for their sound carpets. Now snazzy stage personnel elicited fast-paced sounds from handy devices often made in Japan. Kraftwerk was fashionable, the Zurich duo Yello experimented with new synthetic sounds, and the groundbreaking album "Alles Ist Gut" by the Düsseldorf based duo D.A.F. (Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft) was released, which chanted its program of provocation times danceability with lines such as "Tanz den Jesus Christus, tanz the Mussolini, tanz the Adolf Hitler." In England meanwhile, electronically backed New Romantic bands were replacing New Wave. The Human League, Heaven 17, Duran Duran, OMD, Depeche Mode or Visage stormed the charts.
In Zürich's underground, the duo Aboriginal Voices caused a stir at that time. A couple, good-looking, styled, looking cool into the cold neon light, with a danceable beat and sequenced electro sounds, to which Micheline gave a very unique touch when she sang in French and English. Micheline had a classical piano education, had left home early, worked as a lighting technician in a strip joint and at Booster, the hottest boutique in town (one of the relicts that still exists). Voilà: a musician who was as stylish as she was tough. She was already playing with Wüste in the band "Doobie Doos", a band where everyone played an instrument they didn't master. In 1980 the Aboriginal Voices were formed, initially with vocalist Magda Vogel (of later UnknownmiX fame), who was trained as a classical singer.

Frustrated by organizational friction and constant hassles with band lineups, Wüste and Misch decided to do everything as a twosome: self-mixed, self-styled, self-produced. With the top-of-the-line Linn drum machine clocking the beat, Wüste's guitar and Micheline on the Yamaha synthesizer created a unique sound of danceable electronic music. Whereby the Aboriginal Voices acted as a kind of proto-influencer, receiving the latest equipment to try out, especially since they made it a point not to work with tapes, but to design everything for live shows. They had an interface built for the legendary Roland MC-4B, who sequenced the modular Roland System 100M but where one output controlled a light show synchronized with the sound. A pioneering act that fit well into the DIY spirit of punk, with its self-distributed tapes and fuck-you attitude towards the cretins of the music industry. Consequently only two cassettes and an EP were released. There was something futuristic about the sound, the vestiary style and the electronics, while the attitude remained rebellious. Of course something so deeped in the Zeitgeist wasn't meant to last. Wüste moved to New York, Micheline stayed in Zurich, both still active in the music scene to this day.

Sven Regener, head of the band Element of Crime and one of Germany's most successful pop writer said a few years ago when asked if he knew of any Swiss music: "Of course! In 1983, a Swiss band called Aboriginal Voices played with us at a festival in Zurich. Great, avant-garde electro-pop. That was my first encounter."

If you ever saw them live, you never forgot them, and so over the years you belonged to a teeny-tiny circle of insiders, happy to be joined after all these years by new aficionados who appreciate the sound of that quarter-hour, when Zurich was ravishing, creative and exciting.

- Thomas Haemmerli

Zwischen 1988 und 2010 komponierte Steve Reich drei Streichquartette – Different Trains, Triple Quartet
und WTC 9/11. Die Deutsche Grammophon legt diese Werktrilogie nun erstmals auf einem Album vor,
in endgültigen Neuaufnahmen des Mivos Quartetts. Vom Chicago Reader als „eines der kühnsten und
wildesten New-Music-Ensembles Amerikas“ gefeiert, entwickelten die Mivos-Spieler ihre Interpretationen
der drei Quartette – inspiriert von der Musik der Sprache, den Echos von Bartók und den Ereignissen
eines von Terror geprägten Tages - in enger Zusammenarbeit mit dem Komponisten Steve Reich. Reich
selbst unterstützte das Projekt von Anfang bis Ende, beantwortete die Fragen der Gruppe zu musikalischen
Nuancen, beriet zum Stil und lobte das fertige Album, das jetzt sowohl digital als auch auf CD und Vinyl
erhältlich ist.

We are excited to welcome French avant-garde metal duo WuW to our ever-expanding roster of for- ward-thinking artists. Inspired by classical music, free jazz and drone the two classically trained brothers Benjamin and Guillaume Colin have been creating lo-f experimental post-doom epics in the vein of Year of No Light, Dirge and Omega Massif since 2016. "WuW is the sound wind makes when it blows on a hot night," explains the band, "It's a low-end murmur that grabs you by the guts, a blast of air rushing through the mountains and the oceans." Their upcoming third album Orchaostre is an anthem to a restless journey, a fve-part doom symphony that creates a shroud of oppressive atmospheres with only a pinch of light. With their third studio album, WuW deliver a veritable post-metal odyssey, one that takes you on a journey through rhythm and texture and that lets your soul wallow in a soft shell of desolation. The marching rhythm of «Orchaostre 1» and the swaying rhythm with the slow chugging patterns of «Orchaostre 2» take you along on this intric- ate journey, slowly numbing the senses in the throes of repetition. Nevertheless, for those who manage to keep their eyes peeled on this descend into forgetfulness, there is a world of beauty and a spark of hope to be found. The atmosphere is thick, the mood is heavy, and across the slow rifs and funerary drumbeats, the wailing e-bow guitars and myriad of synthesisers evoke kafkaesque at- mospheres as well as strange poignant textures that inspire desolation. Evoking the work of early electronic music innovators, notably during the climactic fnale of «Orchaostre 1» but also halfway through «Orchaostre 3» WuW breed a sense of pristine beauty, like unadulterated nature. In fact, the beauty of Orchaostre feels so un- spoilt, so devoid of any human infuence, it becomes alien, resulting in a harrowing ex- perience of the exquisite in the eye of a hot and hazy storm. FOR FANS OF Russian Circles, Year of No Light, Dirge, Omega Massif, Neurosis, Telepathy, Celeste, Tangled Thoughts of Leaving Limited (100 copies ww) Single Colour Orchaostre 4 (Pink Vinyl) Edition!

Triple coloured vinyl version (Each disc is a different colour) of the double CD that came out on Cherry Red in 2021 Presented in Tri-fold gatefold sleeve with 16 page 12x12 colour booklet, poster & photograph.
ONLY 350 COPIES WORLDWIDE
Among the first crop of Creation Records bands in the mid-1980s, THE LOFT seemed the most likely to break through. Following the success of The Smiths, guitar-based independent pop was in vogue, Alan McGee’s Creation label was turning heads – its bands blending 60s psychedelia, the melodic end of punk and a new sound which would soon be immortalised on NME’s C86 cassette. And in this London quartet, Creation had their answer to bands like Television, The Only Ones or early Modern Lovers, offering taut, off-kilter songs with an irresistibly deadpan cool.
Sadly, after just two singles, 1984’s downbeat debut ‘Why Does The Rain’ and the punchier sequel, ‘Up The Hill And Down The Slope’ – an indie hit which the band performed live on TV show The Oxford Road Show, The Loft dissolved, with various members founding new bands The Weather Prophets, The Caretaker Race and The Wishing Stones. They left behind seven studio tracks, a BBC Radio 1 session for Janice Long and one track from a Creation LP documenting the scene’s roots in small club The Living Room.
However, The Loft’s legend endured, eventually prompting a reunion in the early 2000s with all four original members – singer/songwriter/guitarist Pete Astor, guitarist Andy Strickland, bassist Bill Prince and drummer Dave Morgan. Alongside various well-received live shows, that led to a new single, ‘Model Village’ (2006) and more recently a session for Gideon Coe on BBC 6 Music (2015). The Loft’s reputation as founding fathers of a new breed of mid-80s indie pop continues to grow to this day, with the band often cited as an influence.
Compiled and coordinated by the band, Ghost Trains & Country Lanes expands on previous retrospectives of The Loft, adding those reunion recordings (including three previously unissued tracks), the Gideon Coe session and several live recordings from that historic performance at The Living Room back in 1984. (including many exclusive songs which were never recorded in the studio).
With new sleeve-notes by Danny Kelly, this is the definite tribute to The Loft

The legend of Twilight Force began to form in the year 2007 of the Human Era. It was the result of a yearning to bring back the golden age of Epic Symphonic Power Metal. But Twilight Force soon became an entity of its own, evolving and elevating the genre to new heights and sounds. By fusing triumphant melodies with rich orchestral arrangements and swift performances, Twilight Force creates an intense and immersive experience. Transporting the listener to a magic realm filled with wonder, heroic tales and mesmerising tales from the mythical world known as The Twilight Kingdoms.

Using their vast experience from previous musical endeavours, their classical training, and technical proficiency, Twilight Force spawned the first ever Adventure Metal album in 2014 H.E. - Tales of Ancient Prophecies. Two more critically acclaimed albums followed in its wake, Heroes of Mighty Magic (2016), and Dawn of the Dragonstar (2019), with the fourth opus At the Heart of Wintervale set for release on January 20th, 2023 on Nuclear Blast Records.

Once again, the cover artwork has been created by the brilliantly skilled Kerem Beyit, and is directly connected to the album’s title track as the band explains: “It depicts the tale told in ‘At the Heart of Wintervale’ where an evil curse is broken, and the ancient dragon may finally roam the realms again, free and unfettered!"

At the Heart of Wintervale will be released on CD, Digibook, and Vinyl. The limited Digibook edition will also include three bonus tracks. The first one is a song, many of the band's loyal knights may somewhat recognize; it is an acoustic blend of some of the older works, featuring an entrancing vocal performance and guitar work by Twilight Force's very own wood elf Aerendir. The second and third bonus tracks are orchestral versions of two songs from the album, where fans will have the opportunity to experience a different soundscape, and perhaps discover new exciting elements and intricacies never discerned before.

With the band embarking on a headlining tour through Europe and UK on time with the album’s release, Twilight Force look immensely forward to continue their epic tale.
“So, sharpen your swords, dust off your magic tomes, and brew your strongest potions. It is time to join Twilight Force on their quest for the eternal glory of the Twilight Kingdoms, once again.
May the Power of the Dragon guide you!”

‘Runner is a calmly luminous orchestral piece with the pulsating, propulsive
rhythms that animate much of Mr. Reich’s music.’ – New York Times

‘Reich interweaves the two groups to create a dense textural tapestry that sounds like his most native orchestral thinking to date. A beautiful and dramatically charged masterpiece.' – San Francisco Chronicle

Nonesuch Records releases the first recordings of Steve Reich’s Runner (2016) and Music for Ensemble and Orchestra (2018), performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conducted by Susanna Mälkki.

Reich says Runner is written “for a large ensemble of winds, percussion, pianos, and strings. While the tempo remains more or less constant, there are five movements, played without pause, that are based on different note durations. First, even sixteenths, then irregularly accented eighths, then a very slowed-down version of the standard bell pattern from Ghana in quarters, fourth a return to the irregularly accented eighths, and finally a return to the sixteenths but now played as pulses by the winds for as long as a breath will comfortably sustain them. The title was suggested by the rapid opening and my awareness that, like a runner, I would have to pace the piece to reach a successful conclusion.”

“Music for Ensemble and Orchestra is an extension of the Baroque concerto grosso where there is more than one soloist,” the composer continues. “Here there are twenty soloists – all regular members of the orchestra, including the first stand strings and winds, as well as two vibraphones and two pianos. The piece is in five movements, though the tempo never changes, only the note value of the constant pulse in the pianos. Thus, an arch form: sixteenths, eighths, quarters, eighths, sixteenths. Music for Ensemble and Orchestra is modeled on my Runner, which has the same five movement form.”

Nonesuch has recorded every new piece of music by Steve Reich since 1985, beginning with The Desert Music and continuing through 2018’s Pulse/Quartet, resulting in 22 albums and the two box sets Phases in 2006 and Works: 1965-1995 in 1997. Most recently, the label released his Reich/Richter, performed by Ensemble intercontemporain and conducted by George Jackson, in June 2022. The Times said, ‘What a delight to be able to focus on the music, delivered here with a clever mix of pinprick precision and reverberant haze by 14 members of Ensemble Intercontemporain. The more intently you listen, the more subtleties emerge among the shifting, criss-crossing textures and phrases, sometimes coloured with gentle melancholy but decisively upbeat by the end. Reich/Richter is an ear-tickling tonic and a happy companion to Reich’s newly published book, Conversations.’ Nonesuch will put out a collection of Reich’s complete works in 2023.

Reich released a book earlier this year, Conversations, that includes dialogues with past collaborators, fellow composers, musicians, and visual artists who have been influenced by his work, including: David Lang, Brian Eno, Richard Serra, Michael Gordon, Michael Tilson Thomas, Russell Hartenberger, Robert Hurwitz, Stephen Sondheim, Jonny Greenwood, David Harrington, Elizabeth Lim-Dutton, David Robertson, Micaela Haslam, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Julia Wolfe, Nico Muhly, Beryl Korot, Colin Currie, and Brad Lubman. The Wall Street Journal called the book ‘a testament to the influence of an idea – one that triggered a cultural turning point,’ and the New York Times said, ‘The joy of the book is to hear artists from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds rhapsodizing about their relationship to Reich’s music and how it influenced their own creative processes.’

Steve Reich has been called ‘America’s greatest living composer’ (Village Voice), ‘the most original musical thinker of our time’ (New Yorker), and ‘among the great composers of the century’ (New York Times). His music has influenced composers and mainstream musicians all over the world. Music for 18 Musicians and Different Trains have earned him two Grammy Awards, and in 2009, his Double Sextet won the Pulitzer Prize. Reich’s documentary video opera works – The Cave and Three Tales, done in collaboration with video artist Beryl Korot – have been performed on four continents. His recent work Quartet, for percussionist Colin Currie, sold out two consecutive concerts at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London shortly after tens of thousands at the Glastonbury Festival heard Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead) perform Electric Counterpoint followed by the London Sinfonietta performing his Music for 18 Musicians.

In 2012, Reich was awarded the Gold Medal in Music by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has additionally received the Praemium Imperiale in Tokyo, the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm, the BBVA Award in Madrid, and the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale. He has been named Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Royal College of Music in London, The Juilliard School, and the Liszt Academy in Budapest, among others. ‘There’s just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history and Steve Reich is one of them,’ states the Guardian.

Redefining what an orchestra can be, the Los Angeles Philharmonic (LA Phil) is as vibrant as Los Angeles, one of the world's most open and dynamic cities. Led by Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, this internationally renowned orchestra harnesses the transformative power of live music to build community, foster intellectual and artistic growth, and nurture the creative spirit. This is the third recent recording by the orchestra on the label; the others were the Louis Andriessen pieces The only one and Theatre of the World. Additionally, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s recordings of The Gospel According to the Other Mary and Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?, with Yuja Wang, released on Deutsche Grammophon, are included in this year’s John Adams Collected Works boxed set. Nonesuch also released an LA Phil recording of Adams‘ Naïve and Sentimental Music in 2002.

Susanna Mälkki is sought-after at the highest level by symphony orchestras and opera houses worldwide. About to embark on her final season as Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, she concludes a seven-year tenure with a distinctive dynamism and imaginative flair to her programming. In addition to a full season in Finland, she will lead the Helsinki orchestra on tour to the prestigious Lucerne and Edinburgh festivals, New York’s Carnegie Hall, and Washington’s Kennedy Centre this season.

The elusive SW. returns to Avenue 66 with okALGORYTHM. His third LP for the label is a semi-opaque wandering through the shadowy byways of memory, driven by tough-yet-supple production and his unmistakable, unerringly original voice. Inspired by all night electronic radio shows of the '90s, okALGORYTHM pulses with rich imagination and a sense of purposeful meandering. Speaking in cryptic fragments, the artist hints at elusive reminiscences "back then on the autobahn, to Berlin, with friends" while also noting that some recollections are "of things that didn't happen that way."

To this end, the album drifts from the knotty synth spirals of opener "WHAtADAY" through the tense, technoid tropics of "stepCLASSixMOtor," the brightly melancholic Larry Heard-isms of "TROPyCALLhytsrIA" to the stately skronk of closer "What endingENDs." The rhythmic undergirding never lets up, suggesting a limitless night drive tinted in deep greens and refracted reds. Each of the album's ten tracks comes alive with warm, analog finesse and a palpable atmosphere, though they play out by turns urgent or unhurried, coaxing or inscrutable. Yet throughout, there's a consistently hypnotic quality which draws the listener deeper into the album's unique balancing act.

If listeners are trained to expect throwback anthems every time the '90s are referenced, here they might find a more apt touchstone in the wilder, left-of-center corners of Chicago's foundational epoch. Throughout the album, the spirit of jacking house is absorbed, metabolized and transmuted. Drawing on lineages of taut, nervy synth-and-drum machine workouts, SW. manipulates his hardware with the delicate, considered touch of a painter. Perhaps the memory that lingers longest from that bygone era is the sense of profound possibility that dawns before forms become rigidly calificed and commodified. Either way, adventurous listeners will find that okALGORYTHM blooms with a uniquely affecting grace and SW.'s inimitably obscure loveliness, infused with a somber glow and marked by shimmering, untraceable contours.

Amsterdam's much-tipped seven-piece Personal Trainer return today with news that their debut album, "Big Love Blanket", is landing on November 4th. It follows two excellent singles this year, and a debut EP "Gazebo" that landed mid-pandemic on tastemaker label Holm Front (Walt Disco, Krush Puppies, Sports Team).

The ten tracks of "Big Love Blanket" display a playful diversity of sounds and influences, landing on one all of their own that has been championed as "rapturously fun" by Ones To Watch, "incredibly catchy indie-led pop" by Record Of The Day, "curious and endearing" by Steve Lamacq, "remarkable" by CLASH and even compared to LCD Soundsystem by Marc Riley. The first song to be released ahead of the album, "Key Of Ego", was one of NME's New Bangers too, and rightly so.

True concept albums are actually few and far between. While it can be said that The Who’s Tommy and Quadrophenia, or Pink Floyd’s The Wall were designed from the ground up, that’s not necessarily the case for equally mythical, yet composite, albums such as Bowie’s The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust…, or Lou Reed’s Berlin. In France, the genre established its pedigree in the 1970s with Serge Gainsbourg, then in the early 1980s with Léo Ferré. Cri d'amour by Mélanie Chédeville adds to this list of albums that tell a story through characters.

Cri d'amour was produced in a seaside setting, which may explain its flowing, organic character. It is all by herself that the violinist-by-training composed, wrote and arranged this collection of string-drenched songs that recall Jean-Claude Vannier’s work for Serge Gainsbourg. The latter would undoubtedly have been impressed by Mélanie’s fine-cut lyrics and melodies that are as raw as they are sophisticated, vocalized in a sprechgesang recalling his own. The deliberately retro palette, up to the bass sound so typical of 1960s English rock, betrays an artist indebted to the creator of Bonnie & Clyde and Initials B.B. through a sensual, clear tonality. Yet, polyrhythms borrowed from the late afro-beat legend Tony Allen, and the touches of guitar, piano, percussion and synthesizers distilled here and there by Éric and Mélanie, end up giving the whole affair a resolutely atemporal color.

Mélanie was sixteen with a head full of Beethoven and Brahms when she succumbed to an unexpected fascination for the world of Éric, a pianist, composer and sound engineer, who regularly delivered scores for Marc Dorcel’s X-rated films. She evokes him in L'Alpha-bêta and Le Pornographe, through whispered choruses that would suit the late Julee Cruise or Vanessa Daou to a tee, and explicit allusions to a “sword of Damocles” of “XXL” dimensions.

These are not the only texts on this album that remind us of the Franco-American author Anaïn Nin’s erotic poems, a model that Mélanie willingly takes on, adding to the list of her literary influences alongside Apollinaire and his Debauched Hospodar:

Some may find this album old-fashioned, which, far from being a flaw, is a credit to the fine musician that Mélanie is. Others will call it a charming album, which is not a bad way to describe it, provided that it is a powerfully relentless charm.

There's a certain winking resignation to the title of Nick Lowe's At My
Age, as if it were designed to be spoken with a soft, knowing sigh
Now in his late fifties, Lowe is hardly running away from his advancing years --
quite the contrary, the singer/songwriter is comfortable in his skin and his years.
Certainly, he's comfortable in his music, since At My Age marks the fourth time
that he's mined the intimate, well-worn country-rock vibe of The Impossible Bird,
and if at this point it no longer is a revelation, it's hardly lost its appeal, either. Part
of that lies in Lowe's ever-potent charm, and to overlook an album as exquisitely
crafted as At My Age is to be a fool, because nobody does this kind of relaxed
Americana as well as Lowe, who is still writing songs that stand proudly
alongside his previous classics. For instance, there's "I Trained Her to Love Me," a
song as wickedly witty and bitterly self- loathing as "Cruel to Be Kind" or "The
Beast in Me," a tune that's balanced by the wry new-love anthem "Hope for Us All,"
which has its share of gently funny lines but is nevertheless a ringing, sincere
endorsement of love, worthy of the man who wrote "(What's So Funny 'Bout)
Peace, Love and Understanding?" And that's always been one of Lowe's greatest
gifts, that he is possessed with rare humor but also a big heart, which is what
gives his music great resonance. This 15th anniversary edition of At My Age is
pressed on silver vinyl and limited to 2,500 copies worldwide. This marks the first
time this long- out- of- print classic has ever been available on color
vinyl.Packaging; LP jacket; silver vinyl

6 face-melting gurners for the 21st Century’s, wilted and jilted generation.

Glasgow’s Lady Neptune follows her New Gorbals Gabber cassette E.P. with her debut vinyl release NOZ. Over the course of 23 bloody fisted minutes, Lady Neptune’s – aka Moema Meade - hyper destructed take on Gabber and Happy Hardcore breaks down the genre tropes before rebuilding them as a new pop music. If 2020’s New Gorbals Gabber showed an artist building their own language from fragments of different genres, 2022’s NOZ goes harder into the cyberpunk-ass future and takes no prisoners. Recorded and mixed at Glasgow’s legendary Green Door Studios and mastered by Rashad Becker, here Lady Neptune evolves into a monster.

With the classic weapons of Dutch Gabber – distorted 909 kick drums, bursts of noise and world-eating Rave-O- Matic hoovering synth riffs, Lady Neptune’s 6 tracks constantly threaten to careen off the speaker into the sweatiest, most gibbering, messy corners of the club. The two years since her debut has seen Meade destroying festival dancefloors, training for the full assault that is NOZ. Live performances have seen foam guns, tequila-pistols, neon stage dancers and a full, maxed-out orgy of fast-as-hell BPM, rave music burning up the cones. The experience reaps rewards from the outset on recorded form here. APOCOLYPS begins with monstrous vocals and the all-consuming kick, pulled back and taut for launch. The arsenal builds; warbling synths and high-pitched synth-strings before dropping into Bald Terror-sized hoovers and stuttering 4/4s. It quickly bleeds into MASTERER, with a looped, pitched up vocal intersecting with the synth riff. The aesthetics might be Happy Hardcore but the dynamic feels like a synthetic, evil Nu Metal-influenced Industrial music. Constantly evolving and twisting with its own natural drama, the drop at 2:15 is pure ecstatic release. fusing Meade’s inclination for pop hooks with the first out-and-out 180BPM (ish, who’s counting?) anthemic melter of the E.P., TELL ME has THE big catchy chorus, used sparingly and sung by Meade with angelic devilishness, coming at you in waves of XTC. It’s a repeater.

It’s then massive fists in the air for the ruthless Side B opener WIT. In the Welsh-Brazilian artist’s adopted home of Glasgow it translates directly as WHAT!? Itt makes sense. g. Sharp, weaponised, rhythmic punishment abounds before OH responds. Pitched up vocals and another mid-frequency synth hook wipes the slate clean. Like the best Gabber, the tension and release dynamic is used to full effect by Meade, with the thunderous low end kick -expertly tweaked in the mastering by Rashad Becker – slipping into the ghostly cavern. Industrialized 4/4 and noise-snares propel onwards to be utterly squashed by that bloody synth, stinging and horribly brilliant. Proving her genius for a ridiculous A-N-T-H-E-M, TIME 2 MAKE U FEEL GOOD closes the 23 minutes of ragged, drugged glory with a festival-slamming chorus built from the wreckage. It’s a song that does that thing we all know and love but can’t put our finger on. Sad, happy, tragedy, ecstasy, joy, horror...There’s big, minor chord changes (yes there’s some CHORDS on this slammer), the kick is submerged in layers of pads and Meade’s actual secret weapon: her vocal and knack for writing a chorus line. In the listener’s mind it’s over before it’s begun, a track destined for the big rewind.

NOZ is a breathless, E-number riddled eternal ecstasy.

Das Debütalbum der siebenköpfigen Amsterdamer Band Personal Trainer folgt auf die exzellente Debüt-EP 'Gazebo', die dieses Jahr auf dem Tastemaker-Label Holm Front (Walt Disco, Krush Puppies, Sports Team) erschien. Die 10 Tracks auf 'Big Love Blanket' zeigen eine spielerische Vielfalt an Klängen und Einflüssen, die zu einem ganz eigenen Sound zusammenfließen, der als 'rapturously fun' (Ones To Watch), 'incredibly catchy indie-led pop' (Record Of The Day), 'curious and endearing' (Steve Lamacq), 'remarkable' (CLASH) und von Marc Riley (BBC 6 Music) sogar mit LCD Soundsystem verglichen wird. Die erste Singleauskopplung 'Key Of Ego" wurde zum NME 'New Banger', und das zu Recht.

To say that R.A.M.B.O. occupies a singular space in punk history is an understatement. During their initial run from 1999 to 2007 the Philadelphia band took influences from thrash, anarcho-punk, d-beat, crust, and hardcore and combined that with intelligent but very fun – and at times downright ridiculous – lyrics to create what was very much a DIY powerhouse. In those eight years they released two albums, 7" splits with Crucial Unit and Caustic Christ, and played thousands of gigs across the country and across the world. They might have gone out at the top of their game but now, 15 years later, R.A.M.B.O. is back with their aptly titled new album, Defy Extinction. This is not a nostalgia trip, or an attempt at recapturing past glory; R.A.M.B.O. have their sights trained on the present. On these 16 tracks of pounding epic crust-infused hardcore punk and beatdowns, R.A.M.B.O. is imploring you to believe in science, fight authoritarianism, and most of all DEFY EXTINCTION!

Freedom is both an integral and multi-layered topic for improvised music, describing its mechanics, aesthetics, and values and often an underlying political dimension as well. In the case of free jazz specifically, the word carries additional weight given the music's deep connection to the black liberation movement of the 1960's and 70's.

The passionate and unclassifiable work of Calgary-based improviser Jairus Sharif embraces each of these definitions of freedom and others, albeit strictly on its own personal and idiosyncratic terms. Since early 2020, the 34 year-old autodidact has been generating a steady stream of homespun solo recordings that forge unprecedented connections between hip-hop abstraction, cosmic skronk, outsider jazz, and staunch post-punk DIY ethos.

Leading up to the pandemic, Sharif's immersion in spiritual and exploratory jazz had culminated in him deciding to purchase an alto saxophone. Unbeknownst to him this instrument would be a catalyst for him to discover his own ardently individualistic artistic voice.

Prior to that point, he had always been somewhat of a solitary musical traveler. In 2002, he acquired his first instrument—a pair of Technics 1200s — but struggled to find local collaborators that had equal investment in hip hop culture. Ultimately, Sharif picked up the guitar, turning to the resilient local punk community, that had also nurtured both of his mothers some time earlier.

As Black Lives Matter gained momentum in the wake of George Floyd's murder, Sharif was suddenly flooded with an acute awareness of his own identity. It compelled him to zealously plunge headlong into open-ended spontaneous solo creation. Water & Tools, his strange and stirring debut for Toronto's Telephone Explosion Records (home to full-lengths from the likes of Brodie West's Eucalyptus, Mas Aya, and Joseph Shabason), offers a glimpse into this ongoing hermetic journey.

As Sharif dedicated himself to uncovering his own deeper musical truths, he assembled a home studio in his basement, cobbling together a drum kit from bits his bandmate had left at his house pre-pandemic, chaining effects together and outfitting the entire space with microphones. Somewhere between the chaos of child's treehouse and the tidy import of a shrine, this space (pictured on the album's back cover) consecrated his own imagination. He laid it out to maximize access to any and every tool in his arsenal, providing him a freedom to explore that he had never permitted himself to consummate before.

Within this cozy private universe, his recent purchase—the saxophone—assumed new meaning. It furnished a tangible connection to the black radicalism that mobilized free jazz, but also something far more personal. From a technical standpoint, the instrument was completely unfamiliar to him, yet rather than this being a hindrance to Sharif, his inexperience opened fruitful path forward, unencumbered by preconceptions. Resolving to shirk formal training, convention, and build his own understanding of it from scratch, allowed him to access his most raw, fundamental creative impulses. The Saxophone's inseverable bond with breath compounded this effect, echoing revelatory discoveries he had been making about breathing through yoga, research, and psychotherapy. Of course, the parallels with BLM's harrowing rallying cry—“I can't breathe”—were not lost on him either.

Water & Tools is a dense, contradictory statement with a blustery surface that shelters a soulful heart. It's generous music, exuding profound vulnerability—grappling with the loss of one his mothers, Lisa—all the while brimming with electric wide-eyed wonder. Almost every one of the nine pieces seems to carry some semblance of a groove, while remaining completely untethered from pulse. For Sharif, this collection is an expression of newfound lucidity, however for the listener his sonic concoctions act as powerful psychotropics. At points, there's a timelessness that's conveyed through the music's processional, ritualistic tenor, and yet there's an endless amount of wild, futuristic detail waiting to unspool at any given moment. Similarly, while this recording emerges from Sharif's private pilgrimage and personal emancipation, he also leaves room for collaboration. Woven throughout Sharif's one-man-ensemble textures, one finds Maxmilian Turnbull (of Badge Epoque, U.S. Girls, and Cosmic Range infamy) providing sundry keyboards and treatments, as well as his mixing skills.

Whether conjuring effusive psychedelia or plumbing introspective depths, the music that Jairus Sharif produces is singular, visceral, and wondrously unpredictable. Water & Tools sketches a raw, firsthand account of his nascent explorations within his own unbridled imagination.

Repressed !

We are proud to present a set of edits of this long-lost classic from the golden age of African music, from a figure who is still beginning to get his props internationally, Eji Oyewole.

Born to a royal lineage in Ibadan, Prince Eji Oyewole has had a career as a flautist, saxophonist and sometime bandleader spanning well over half a century. He trained both in Nigeria and then at Trinity the prestigious music school in London, and his life as an itinerant musician also saw him living for extensive periods in Geneva, Hamburg and in Lyon.

While for many years Fela Kuti (with whom Eji played) and King Sunny Adé commanded international attention to the exclusion of most other Nigerian musicians, as if there was only room for one Nigerian superstar at a time on the world stage, on the domestic scene things were very different. Eji was part of the huge craze for ‘highlife’, a generic term that in fact subsumed many different styles, united in their fusion of traditional west African forms with jazz influences and electric instruments, and in the bands’ working practices as entertainers at the nation’s numerous hotel / nightclubs. As this cracking album, recorded for EMI Nigeria at the tail end of the ‘70s and now remastered, reveals, Eji’s version of highlife was even more distinctive than most, eschewing the usual emphasis on guitars for a brasher, horn- laden sound, seemingly influenced as much by American funk as it was jazz, and of course with the heavy percussive undertow central to most African music.

This gave Eji a chance to shine, and there are some scorching solos as well as tight ensemble playing across the four lengthy (to ears accustomed to the three-minute pop song) songs. Eji also played piano on the session. The material has an element of social commentary (Oil Boom and Unity In Africa) and should help feed the seemingly insatiable appetites of the many who have been turned onto African music by the enterprising efforts of devoted collectors, labels and fellow fans.

Surely one of the few musicians who has played with Fela, Miles Davis and Bob Marley, Eji Oyewole still plays regularly in Lagos, recently had an album of new material out with his current band The Afrobars, and has been a member of Faaji Agba, a super-group that has toured internationally and been dubbed ‘the Nigerian Buena-Vista Social Club’.

On the eponymously titled final song of her debut album Land of No Junction, Irish songwriter Aoife Nessa Frances (pronounced Ee-fa) sings “Take me to the land of no junction/Before it fades away/Where the roads can never cross/But go their own way.” It is this search that lies at the heart of the album, recalling journeys towards an ever shifting centre - a centre that cannot hold - where maps are constantly being rewritten.

The evocative phrase is the result of a fortuitous misunderstanding. Reminiscing about childhood visits to Wales, Aoife’s musical collaborator and co-producer Cian Nugent, mentioned a train station called Llandudno Junction, which she misheard. “Land of No Junction later became a place in itself. A liminal space - a dark vast landscape to visit in dreams… A place of waiting where I could sit with uncertainty and accept it. Rejecting the distinct and welcoming the uncertain and the unknown.” Reveals Frances.

The songs traverse and inhabit this indeterminate landscape: the beginnings of love, moments of loss, discovery, fragility and strength, all intermingle and interact. Land of No Junction is shot through with a sense of mystery - an ambiguity and disorientation that illuminates with smokey luminescence. Yet, through the haze, everything comes down to what, where and who you are. Frances has built a universe full of intimacy and depth, with lyrics written through a process of free thought writing. It lends the record fluidity, each song in dialogue with the next not only through language, but the way each musical choice complements or threads into another.

Navigated by the richness of Aoife’s voice, along with the layers gently built through her collaborators’ instruments (strings, drums, guitars, keys, percussion), gives a feeling of filling up space into every corner and crack. A remarkable coherent sonic world: buoyant and aqueous, with dark undercurrents. The crossroads as a place where someone can be stuck, static in the face of the future, becomes instead an amorphous realm, where the remnants of the past and what is unknown meld together and come to an understanding. Where nostalgia and newness ebb and flow in equal measure.

By 1980 James Brown did one album for Henry Stone"s T.K. While this doesn"t have Brown bubbling over with innovation, he still provided a more substantial alternative to disco. On this album, we have a sublime sped-up version of "The Payback," which rocks like nobody"s business. Or on the remake of "Mashed Potatoes", Brown is reuniting with Bobby Byrd. Shortly afterward they both go through a travelogue of cities and states like it"s "Night Train" all over again. Soul Syndrome has Brown still full of ideas. The inane "Funky Men" has a killer reggae/funk guitar riff and a fantastic Latin horn arrangement...In the end, it makes it a nice album that counts in the rich carrer of the master of Funk !

Jan Anderzén and his partners celebrate the transcendental power of ecstatic music. Alas Rattoisaa Virtaa is the first Kemialliset Ystävät album in four years. It is the result of chance enhancing online collaboration methods, desire to get lost in the sound archives and the high art of meticulous editing. The album title is from visions of rivers running down from Heart of Darkness to the City of Joyful Noise. If contemporary music is a high speed train passing by then KY's music would be an orgy of light under a railway bridge.

A band member Lars Mattila experiences the music of Alas Rattoisaa Virtaa in spatial terms:

"There are worlds accessed only through our auditory system. I hear a Wunderkammer of freestanding sound objects. Rhythms like sequences of seemingly random stuff laid out on the forest floor: a pair of thrones, a Henry Moore sculpture, a watermelon, two thrones, a Moore sculpture, a melon... I trust the path to go on even if I can't see behind the hill. There's motion, wether it be drunk driving or super human rapid eye movement. The sheer amount of detail makes it impossible to take everything in at once. One's perception and shifting focus reshape the experience on each listen. I remember my visit to Cappella Palatina in Palermo where Normann architecture, Arabic arches and Byzantine dome form a harmonious whole. Various cultural and spiritual influences are recognized as equals. The sense of space also brings to mind the end scene of The Lawnmower Man when the dude is trying to escape the virtual world."

We are proud to present "I'm Always Right" by Imagination, an unreleased jazz rock LP from 1977. Comprised of five tracks with a playtime of roughly 30 minutes, you will hear one of the finest German late-70s rock-tinged electric jazz albums of the era. The recording is a delightful stand-out with unique compositions, aspiring solo work, and a soulful spirit throughout. Additionally, the album veritably glows with exceptional sound quality, as it has been remastered from original tapes that were cut more than four decades ago at the WDR Funkhaus, Cologne.

Here is the story of how label founder John Raincoatman became aware of these lost tapes:
"I first got in touch with members of Imagination from Düsseldorf (not to be confused with the UK disco band under the same name) in 2017 for licensing the track "Strawberry Wine" from their collectible "Shake It" album from 1980. A couple of months later, when I was speaking with Willi Hövelmann, the guitarist for Imagination, he told me about some recordings the band had made a couple of years before, when they had been invited to to the studio of the WDR, a major German broadcaster. A couple of weeks later, when Hövelmann finally sent me the files that he had requested from the WDR, I could not believe what I heard - not only that the songs were totally different from what I expected, but that they were also very very good! The music wasn't comparable to any other kind of fusion release that I knew of. These five songs were straight forward, tight and soulful electric jazz rock, a combination rarely heard from Germany from that time period."

How come Imagination - at that time a young newcomer band consisting of musicians between 19 and 22 years of age - was able to record at the well-equipped Funkhaus studio of German radio and television? Hövelmann explains: "The WDR got to know us from a newcomer band competition called "Pop am Rhein" (Pop at the Rhine) which was set up to support local bands and was promoted by several bigger newspapers. Imagination was one of the 5 contestants which were picked from 59 bands by a jury of music journalists and our band was invited to play a concert at the Philipshalle in front of about 3500 guests. Although a band called "Accept" won the contest (yes, the heavy metal band that gained international success in the following years!) and Imagination only made 3rd place, we were invited by music host and journalist Wolfgang Neumann to record in a professional studio."

Neumann's broadcasting show at the WDR was called "Rock Studio", and one of his special goals was to help push newcomer bands by giving them airplay. As a side note, Neumann actually compiled a series of three LPs on the Harvest label from 1979-1982, each of them featuring four bands. However, the earlier recordings of Imagination had only been used for broadcasting reasons, they were aired a couple of times but never made it to a vinyl or CD release.
So, on October 10th, 1977, it was time for the band to show up and prove themselves in the studio. The tracks were all recorded in one afternoon, mainly as one takes. In some cases flute, saxophone were overdubbed, as well as the vocals on "Love is Genesis", as Hövelmann remembers.

The first song, "Jazzgang" can probably be seen as Imagination's most characteristic composition out of their early period: heavy bass, saxophone leads and speedy solos by the band members. A genuine, rough, yet funky uptempo jazz rock tune. But it's "I'm Always Right", the second track on the album, that raises the bar as the key track of the release with its 10-minute length. The song starts with a great piano solo by Mario F. Demonte. In fact, "Demonte" was a pseudonym of Ratko Delorko, a classically trained piano virtuoso who is still active today as conductor, composer and performer. At that time, it was simply impossible for him to officially be part in a band like Imagination and hence the alias was invented. Anyway, the speedy intro leads to a very soulful mid-tempo jazz funk groove that offers space and time for the band members to perform a solo. First off is Uwe Ziss with sax and flute combined. The second solo belongs to Willi "Sultan" Hövelmann on electric guitar. For the furious ending the pace is set back to high speed. Delorko serves us with one of the most brilliant uptempo piano solos you may have heard in a while on a jazz record.

The next song stylistically stands out from the rest. "Biting My Time" incorporates a rhythm and blues feel with a 60s soul jazz attitude. The track was composed by Uwe Ziss who leads through the track with aspiring flute solos which feel like an easy summer breeze after the first two rock tinged tunes.

"Himalaya" sees Imagination move away from jazz quite a bit, rather approaching the psychedelic rock genre with a vibe reminiscent of the sound of the early 70s. Again starting with a piano solo by Ratko Delorko the pace is quickly at 150 bpm with the full band laying down an energetic jazz rock sound. Just after a little over one-and-a-half minutes there is a breakdown to a slower tempo with overdubbed mysterious vocals and psyche-y screams which may remind more of the legendary krautrock band Can than what is typically known as "jazz". The mood continues with tense saxophone and guitar solos, just to speed up again towards the end with furious drumming by Andreas Oelschläger.

"Love Is Genesis" concludes the release. It was composed and sung by former bassist Robert Schlickmann. Though most of the band members didn't really like the song at that time it still is a one-of-a-kind soft rock pop ballad which partly reminds of some of the vocal song tracks later to be found on the "Shake It" LP from 1980. The track manifested that Imagination were never really supposed to be solely an instrumental band.

We are now happy to have cleared the exclusive rights for this recording from the WDR and are proud to re-present this amazing collection of songs. It should appeal to fusion, jazz rock and jazz funk aficionados but also to late krautrock collectors. We are also certain that it will also please fans of the "Shake It" album, simply in terms of being such a bright and soulful debut with great music overall.

CELEBRATING SUN RECORDS - THE LABEL WHERE ROCK 'N' ROLL WAS BORN! The Rock 'n' Roll Collection features 40-songs from the most important record label in the history of music, with everyone newly remastered from the original Sun Records master tapes. A comprehensive introduction to some of the most iconic and influential music ever recorded. These are the list remaining copies of the strictly limited edition pressed on orange vinyl exclusive to UK retailer Sainsbury’s. Elvis Presley introduced the rockabilly sound to the world in 1954 with the recordings he made at Sun Records. These epitomised the famous “Sun sound” and set the scene for the rock ‘n’ roll explosion to follow. This raw and exciting new sound was a remarkable fusion of white country music and black R&B and quickly found an eager audience with the youth of the day. Presley’s extraordinary success at Sun Records led to the tiny Memphis-based label becoming a magnet for aspiring rockabilly singers from all over America’s South. Despite a relatively short heyday, that “Sun sound” has endured the test of time and remains as popular as ever with listeners of all age groups. As well as featuring Elvis and such other household names as Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich and Roy Orbison, the gatefold-sleeved double-album also includes significant contributions from the label’s other important artists such as: Billy Lee Riley, Sonny Burgess, The Miller Sisters, Warren Smith, Malcolm Yelvington, Jimmy Wages, and Earl Hooker. Includes such all-time rock ‘n’ roll classics as: Mystery Train, That’s All Right, Blue Suede Shoes, Great Balls Of Fire, I Walk The Line, Yakety Yak, Rock Island Line, Good Rockin’ Tonight, Red Hot, Ooby Dooby, Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On …and many more!

CELEBRATING SUN RECORDS - THE LABEL WHERE ROCK 'N' ROLL WAS BORN! The Rock 'n' Roll Collection features 40-songs from the most important record label in the history of music, with everyone newly remastered from the original Sun Records master tapes. A comprehensive introduction to some of the most iconic and influential music ever recorded. These are the list remaining copies of the strictly limited edition pressed on orange vinyl exclusive to UK retailer Sainsbury’s. Elvis Presley introduced the rockabilly sound to the world in 1954 with the recordings he made at Sun Records. These epitomised the famous “Sun sound” and set the scene for the rock ‘n’ roll explosion to follow. This raw and exciting new sound was a remarkable fusion of white country music and black R&B and quickly found an eager audience with the youth of the day. Presley’s extraordinary success at Sun Records led to the tiny Memphis-based label becoming a magnet for aspiring rockabilly singers from all over America’s South. Despite a relatively short heyday, that “Sun sound” has endured the test of time and remains as popular as ever with listeners of all age groups. As well as featuring Elvis and such other household names as Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich and Roy Orbison, the gatefold-sleeved double-album also includes significant contributions from the label’s other important artists such as: Billy Lee Riley, Sonny Burgess, The Miller Sisters, Warren Smith, Malcolm Yelvington, Jimmy Wages, and Earl Hooker. Includes such all-time rock ‘n’ roll classics as: Mystery Train, That’s All Right, Blue Suede Shoes, Great Balls Of Fire, I Walk The Line, Yakety Yak, Rock Island Line, Good Rockin’ Tonight, Red Hot, Ooby Dooby, Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On …and many more!

Wonky noir specialist, Kercha, is back with five spun-out cuts, merging dubstep, jazz, garage, techno and a whole lot of weird.

‘Disarray’ is as discombobulating as its title suggests, a slinky beat hidden among umpteen odds and ends from Kercha’s cabinet of curiosities. A subby wiggle here, a far-off siren there, the warm tinkling of a Fender Rhodes, and was that someone falling down the stairs? Our only constant allies are a vaguely disturbing vocal and a bass clarinet that’s definitely up to no good.

‘Witness’ employs a similar palette but switches tactics, stripping back to the basics as faint whispers and the ever-growing presence of a whirring alarm suggest something dangerous might be lurking around the corner.

‘Conjugate’ is more direct, the percussion elevated from its usual backseat as thudding kicks and taught snares make their presence felt among the digi-dub wobbles — a theme repeated on digital bonus track ‘New World’, though there, jagged mid-bass lines provide an extra dollop of screwface-inciting muck.

And bringing this leg of DNO’s journey to a close is ‘Long Way’, which rumbles along like a lonely night train, its chugging bassline matched with eerie engine whistles, the rhythmic clink of a cowbell and, somewhere deep in the mix, the familiar clickety-clack of tracks.

Weaving together disparate worlds like some interdimensional architect, Kercha simultaneously places us among the inebriated haze and freewheeling expression of a basement jazz club, and the 10-tonne rhythms that have fuelled DNO’s parent party The Mine for the past decade, and will continue to do so into the future.

Rhythms of postmodern realism at the very bottom of the DNO.

‘Complex and dangerously catchy, lyrically sophisticated and provocative, noisy and somehow serene… Yankee Hotel Foxtrot… is simply a masterpiece.’ – Pitchfork, 10/10, April 2002

‘The looped chaos and plangent melodies... effectively heralded the birth of a new band, as Jeff Tweedy overhauled his compositional modus operandi. So tender was the emotional core of songs like ‘Jesus, Etc.’ that the record became wrapped up in America’s post-9/11 cultural discourse... Yankee Hotel Foxtrot embedded Wilco’s great American songwriter status.’
– Mojo

‘It's as if the Flying Burrito Brothers suddenly decided to cover Pavement songs. There is a gentle, rootsy beauty here that Wilco has buried in a box of vulnerability and covered with a handful of dirt.’ – New York Times

‘Born out of turmoil, Wilco’s fourth album was a stone-cold classic.’ – Uncut

Nonesuch releases seven special editions of Wilco’s landmark 2002 album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The now-classic record has been remastered and will be available as part of each set. The Super Deluxe version comprises eleven vinyl LPs and one CD – including demos, drafts, and instrumentals, charting the making of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot – plus a live 2002 concert recording and a September 2001 radio performance and interview. That box set includes eighty-two previously unreleased music tracks as well as a new book featuring an interview with singer/songwriter/guitarist Jeff Tweedy, drummer Glenn Kotche, and Jim O’Rourke, who mixed the acclaimed 2002 album; an in-depth essay by journalist/author Bob Mehr; and previously unseen photos of the band making the album in their Chicago studio, The Loft. For the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot recording, Wilco was Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt, Leroy Bach, Glenn Kotche, and Jay Bennett with Craig Christiansen, Ken Coomer, Jessy Greene, Fred Lonberg-Holm, and Jim O’Rourke.

A live version of ‘Reservations’ from a legendary concert contained on Snoozin’ at The Pageant – Live 7/23/02 at The Pageant, St. Louis, MO – a recording that is part of the Super Deluxe LP and CD sets as well as the Deluxe LP and digital sets – is now available. A limited-edition vinyl 7” with versions of ‘I’m the Man Who Loves You’ and ‘War on War’, from the Super Deluxe box set, is available now from wilcostore.

Wilco marked the anniversary of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot – which was released commercially on April 23, 2002, after a circuitous and storied gestation, including a period of streaming for free on the band’s website – with a performance of the album’s ‘Poor Places’ on April 18’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which may be seen here. The band is currently performing Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in its entirety (plus a mix of concert favourites and rarities) in two limited runs at New York City’s United Palace and Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre. The Chicago show on April 23 will be available as a live stream here.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was widely acclaimed as one of 2002’s best albums, appearing in year-end lists of Mojo, NME, Q, Rolling Stone, and Uncut, among many others. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot also was featured in multiple decade-end lists, with Rolling Stone naming it #3 Album of the 2000s, as well as many Greatest Albums of All Time lists, including in the NME.

Among Yankee’s inspirations was a recording Tweedy bought at Tower Records in the late 1990s, The Conet Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations. As Bob Mehr points out in his new album note, the record got “deep under Tweedy’s skin.” Tweedy said in his 2017 memoir, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back), “It was as fascinating to me as anything being made by actual musicians using actual instruments… I wanted to know why it was so hypnotic to me. Why could I listen to hours of this stuff, even though I had no clue what any of them were saying. That question became the foundation for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot… the way people communicated or ultimately failed to communicate.” The album takes its title from a haunting recording of a woman repeating those words that is included in The Conet Project; that recording is sampled in the penultimate song on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, ‘Poor Places’.

“Conceptually, Tweedy had decided to focus on a big idea for the next album: the state of America. His lyrics – often distilled from scribbled pages of free verse or poetry – became a form of inquiry,” Mehr continues. Tweedy said, in 2004, “I wanted to write about the stuff right in front of my eyes, microscopically looking at America and asking questions about each little thing… How can there be all these good things and things that I love about America, alongside all of these things that I’m ashamed of? And that was an internal question, too; I think I felt that way about myself.”

Mehr says, “Exploring those questions, while weaving in strands of Eastern philosophy and bits of autobiography – Yankee lyrics would be loaded with the pained imagery of someone suffering from migraines and mental health issues – Tweedy would conjure a deep examination of both country and self.”

Describing the uncanny, strangely prescient feeling of the album, which Wilco began offering as a free stream on its website in 2001, Mehr notes: “In the wake of 9/11, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot would be burdened with unintended meaning. The disc had originally been scheduled for a September 11 release. Its cover – a Sam Jones-shot image of Chicago’s twin Marina Towers angled in looming fashion – bore an eerie resemblance to the felled World Trade Center towers. And the songs – with titles like ‘Ashes of American Flags’ and ‘War on War,’ and lyrics about how ‘tall buildings shake, sad voices escape’ – took on a terrible new resonance.”

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was the first Wilco release on Nonesuch Records following the band’s infamous split with Reprise (both labels are part of Warner Music Group). It was also the first release featuring the line-up of drummer Glenn Kotche and multi-instrumentalist Leroy Bach joining founding members Jeff Tweedy and John Stirratt. The 2002 Sam Jones film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart documented the fraught recording and mixing process, personnel changes, and label issues.

The relationship with Nonesuch would last nearly a decade and include three more studio albums – the Grammy Award-winning A ghost is born, Sky Blue Sky, and Wilco (the album) – along with a live album and a live DVD, plus reissues of earlier records, before Wilco began its own label, dBpm. The band’s current lineup of Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt, Glenn Kotche, Mikael Jorgensen, Patrick Sansone, and Nels Cline has been together for nearly twenty years.


DISC 5: HERE COMES EVERYBODY – BUILDING YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT (PART 2)
Side I: (TRAIN)
1. Radio Cure (Here Comes Everybody Version) *
2. War on War (Here Comes Everybody Version) *
3. Venus Stopped the Train (Here Comes Everybody Version) * #
4. I'm the Man Who Loves You (Here Comes Everybody Version) *
5. The Good Part (Here Comes Everybody Version) * #
Side J: (KETTLE)
1. Pot Kettle Black (Here Comes Everybody Version) *
2. Ashes of American Flags (Here Comes Everybody Version) *
3. Poor Places (Here Comes Everybody Version) *
4. Shakin' Sugar (Here Comes Everybody Version) *
5. Reservations (Here Comes Everybody Version) *

DISC 6: HERE COMES EVERYBODY – BUILDING YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT (PART 2) / THE UNIFIED THEORY OF EVERYTHING – BUILDING YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT (PART 3)
Side K: (ESCAPE)
1. Cars Can't Escape (Here Comes Everybody Version) * #
2. A Magazine Called Sunset (The Unified Theory of Everything Version) ** #
3. Remember to Remember (Hummingbird) The Unified Theory of Everything Version ** #
4. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (The Unified Theory of Everything Version) ** #
Side L: (WAR)
1. Kamera (The Unified Theory of Everything Version) ** #
2. Radio Cure (The Unified Theory of Everything Version) ** #
3. War on War (The Unified Theory of Everything Version) ** #
4. Jesus, Etc. (The Unified Theory of Everything Version) ** #

DISC 7: THE UNIFIED THEORY OF EVERYTHING – BUILDING YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT (PART 3) / LONELY IN THE DEEP END – DEMOS, DRAFTS, ETC.
Side M: (DRUMMER)
1. Ashes of American Flags (Stravinsky Mix) ** #
2. Heavy Metal Drummer (The Unified Theory of Everything Version) ** #
3. I'm The Man Who Loves You (The Unified Theory of Everything Version) **
4. Pot Kettle Black (The Unified Theory of Everything Version) ** #
5. Poor Places (The Unified Theory of Everything Version) ** #
Side N: (RESERVATIONS)
1. Reservations (The Unified Theory of Everything Version) ** #
2. Love Will (Let You Down) Lonely in the Deep End Version *
3. Lost Poem Demo (Lonely in the Deep End Version) *
4. I’m The Only One Who Lets Her Down (Lonely in the Deep End Version) *
5. Has Anybody Seen My Pencil? (Lonely in the Deep End Version) *














[l] E1. Anniversary (Nothing Up My Sleeve) [American Aquarium Version] *









[v] G2. Not for the Season (Laminated Cat) [American Aquarium Version] *


[y] H2. Not for the Season (Laminated Cat) [Here Comes Everybody Version] * #





[xe] K3. Remember to Remember (Hummingbird) [The Unified Theory of Everything Version] ** #











[xq] N2. Love Will (Let You Down) [Lonely in the Deep End Version] *

Keith Fullerton Whitman brings his 3-part Generators series for Japan’s NAKID label to a close with a third and final instalment that ravishes the senses with hybrid analogue/digital systems tekkerz.

Hazing into a solemn start of floating organ and slurred drums, the first part fizzes into action with pranging irregularities, tentatively allowing the system to voice varying pitches and nimble rhythms that resemble balletic footwork plies as much as classically-trained instrumentalist flurries. It’s deeply trance-inducing, meditative gear that over the course of 25 minutes slowly gains momentium and complexity, first adding robust arps to complicate the structure, treading the finest line of chaos and discipline. In time, those arps turn themselves into a rhythm track, landing somewhere between Whitman's earliest junglist works as Hrvatski and a sort of plucked rhythmic minimalism that reminds us of Mark Fell’s Sensate Focus, gliding on natural, brownian motion and flux of texture, punctuated by what sound likes a plucking of a drum machine from the inside-out.

In part 2 the mood pools and diffracts in slow-fast meter, bristling ruptures of atonality that send limbs flailing one way and then another, adding subs for a dimensional shift that’s rhythmically fractured but always grounded at the low registers. The wavy embroidery of Whitman's machines trigger each other in endlessly fascinating forms of gyring workshop ballistics and dub reverberations.

A special bonus piece ‘Meakusma (Generators, Soundcheck)’ is the most curious of the lot, with a lone clarinet heard in the air, perhaps a serendipitous inclusion form someone else’s soundcheck, lending an enchanting depth perception to his frolicking bleeps.


[a] 1 | MEAKUSMA [Generators] (190606) Part 1
[b] 2 | MEAKUSMA [Generators, Redactions] (190606) Part 2
[c] 3 | MEAKUSMA [Generators, Soundcheck] (190606)

"Train of Thought, the third full length release by Kamloops, British
Columbia based psych quartet Mother Sun is a 12 song day trip through
an overstimulated frame of mind
Using 60's and 70's psych pop, garage rock, jazz and soul as a jumping off point,
the band refines their modern eclectic storytelling through lush and adventurous
arrangements, highlighted by abstract hooks, velvety strings and triumphant
horns."
"Train of Thought captures the moment as it happened, as natural as possible,"
explains drummer Jared Wilman. But judging from the way the ribbony loops of
Alex Ward's bass weave through the crystal shards of Jared Doherty's and Emilio
Pagnotta's guitars, the in-the-room reality experienced by Mother Sun may be a bit
more warped than average. "Posing a question, falling asleep/ Glued to a fish eye,
blind in the ocean/ Water resistance, growing webbed feet," Doherty sings on
"Webbed Feet", as a pulse of retro soundtrack horns and bombast drums propel
his bleary-eyed vocals into an endless psychedelic expanse.
That track's blend of riotous complexity and souped up devolution digs at the
thesis of the album as it teeters at the edge. "It's all about the way our thoughts
control us and we control them," Doherty says. "Being anxious about mind control,
noticing your surroundings, caring for your mental health, being mindful of others,
and not letting your train of thought run away due to complacency."

ELECTRIC CALLBOY melden sich endlich mit ihrem mit Spannung erwarteten neuen Studioalbum TEKKNO zurück. Mit jeder Menge Energie und Spaß an Bord liefert die Band aus Castrop-Rauxel ein beispiellos fulminantes Metalcore-Feuerwerk ab, das seinesgleichen sucht. Auf 11 unglaublich starken Tracks, darunter die bereits veröffentlichten Hit-Singles 'We Got The Moves' und 'Pump It', zeigen ELECTRIC CALLBOY auf ihrem bisher zweifellos besten Album, was in ihnen steckt.

From the folk punk roots of Carry Me, through the anthemic One Way, Fifteen Years and Top 20 hits Hope Street, Just The One and Beautiful Day - more recent tracks such as Truth Is, The Cholera Well and The Recruiting Sgt show the Levellers' mix of scathing political comment and positive DIY attitude to life hasn't dissipated over the years.

Most exciting of all, there are brand new recordings of the Levellers collaborating with contemporary artists re-working some of their classic material. Imelda May is the Queen of all time on Beautiful Day, while Bellowhead and the legendary Billy Bragg help out on Just The One and Hope Street respectively.

Finally, lifelong Levellers fan Frank Turner joined the band in the studio - breathing new life into Julie - bringing us back full circle for another generation of the disenfranchised to discover the Levellers for the first time.

Introducing - The Mellons finds that balance somewhere in pages of the
Beach Boys book of psych pop.Jepson and Beck unlocked the expansive
potential of their songwriting when they found their match in another pair
of collaborators
Multi- instrumentalist and producer Dennis Fuller and percussionist Ian Francis
had worked together in a handful of bands, and Jepson and Beck enlisted them to
join The Mellons and round out their sound. "All of these pieces of songs that Rob
and I had swirling around in our heads started to magically come together," Beck
says. Though the resultant tracks are jampacked with everything from clarinets
and violins to sleigh bells and trumpets, the layers never overpower the intimate
harmonies and honeyed lyrical emotionality at the songs' core. "I wanna get
closer/ I wanna go deeper/ I wanna know it all," they sigh on opener "So Much to
Say", surrounded by twirling guitar riffs and glimmering bells. The Mellons play a
symphony's worth of instruments, and self-producing the record largely at Fuller's
No. 9 Studios in Salt Lake City allowed them to chase that stratified sweetness to
its heartfelt extreme. "Writing, arranging, and composing everything ourselves
gives us the freedom to really get the exact sound we're all interested in," Fuller
says. Always focused on the power of a taut hook, The Mellons made sure that
freedom was used for a purpose. "We stay true to the musical stylings of the midto late-'60s while still creating room for the vogue," Francis says. "It's all about
finding that balance." The nostalgic vibe to the psychedelia doesn't end at the
music, as the quartet opt for paisley or matching turtlenecks as well as vintage
collage. A trained illustrator and designer, Beck funnels visual influences into The
Mellons' vibe. Pressed on Yellow color vinyl.

2022 Repress

2x12", high gloss photo like gatefold sleeve, 180g Vinyl , WAV&MP3 Download code included
Following their debut EP with 'Ezra Was Right' and support from the likes of Gilles Peterson, Grandbrothers are presenting their debut album 'Dilation". Twelve modern Experimental / Ambient / Piano pieces, whose sounds are generated completely out of a grand piano using small electromagnetic hammers. Grandbrothers are Erol Sarp and Lukas Vogel. After meeting at university in Dusseldorf, Erol and Lukas formed Grandbrothers to tie together their respective musical backgrounds and disciplines: Erol is a trained jazz pianist, while by day Lukas constructs synthesizers at Access Music. Together, they create a sound that combines classical composition with modern, experimental production and sound design. Their first song, 'Ezra Was Right', earned an early supporter in the esteemed Gilles Peterson, who included the track on his Bubblers 10 compilation and played it numerous times on his Worldwide radio show for BBC Radio 6 Music, with the song eventually being voted #7 by listeners in his end-of-year poll in 2013. A full EP on FILM followed - backed by remixes from legendary Manchester DJ Greg Wilson, Optimo's JD Twitch, and Kim Brown - which sold out its initial run within ten days. Now, Grandbrothers present their debut album, Dilation. The product of two years work, Dilation builds on some of the ideas established on 'Ezra Was Right' while exploring further elements of minimalism, ambient music, IDM, and techno.

Much of a million magnets sounds as if Möbius has left the music to its own devices. As if he has given it space instead of closing it in and channelising. Little seems to be organised, reflected or calculated. Rather it booms and pulses and chugs and swells.

In 2015 Möbius invited the drummer Andrea Belfi to record with him for his album Batagur Baska (Shitkatapult 2016). They spent a whole day in the studio at Funkhaus Nalepastraße, Berlin. Belfi implemented ideas from Möbius for various pieces and contributed his own ideas. Everything was recorded although in the end only one hi-hat track was used. All the other recordings were left to snooze and be forgotten in a folder on the computer. Years later Möbius discovered them again by chance during a train journey. He decided to answer Belfi’s powerful and concentrated drumming.

If sound recordings are used on specific tracks they start to lead a life of their own. Möbius mostly left Belfi’s recordings unedited. He took them as a trigger for the structure and character of new tracks. So we get the opening track Abayanga with its stoic pulse and airy cymbals. Or Schlucht with such restless drums, fluttering feedback and the mantra-like spoken-song of Yuko Matsuyama. The magical How To Never Make Up is almost a song: feverish percussion (Andrea Belfi on rimshots, Ansgar Wilken on the table top), a rich bass and the other worldly singing by Jana Plewa.

The accordion on Windjammer seems to blow in all directions at the same time, propelled by Belfi’s hounding cymbal playing. Side B starts with a reflection of Windjammer: Discrete Wiring. Guitar riffs in endlessly circling movement and Yuko Matsuyama’s voice and all that it conjures up. Feed Me Fog freely improvised with on drums and feedback is simply complete as a self-contained piece. The singing on Chayyam comes from the Cambodian Prak Chum, who’s voice can also be heard on the title track of Batagur Baska.

‘Reich’s music expands from minimalist austerity to more full-bodied passages and back again. Reminiscent of his earliest work, it is very beautiful.’ – Financial Times

‘The music has tender energy, and an undercurrent of melancholy. Its droning tones sometimes seem to be pulling apart – like taffy, or like Richter’s stretching spaghetti stripes of color.’ – New York Times

Nonesuch Records releases the first recording of Steve Reich’s Reich/Richter, performed by Ensemble intercontemporain and conducted by George Jackson. The composition was originally written to be performed with German visual artist Gerhard Richter and Corinna Belz’s film Moving Picture (946-3).

Reich describes Richter’s book Patterns, which served as source material for the film: “It starts with one of his abstract paintings from the ’90s. He scanned a photo of the painting into a computer and then cut the scan in half and took each half, cut that in half and two of the four quarters he reversed into mirror images. He then repeated this process of ‘divide, mirror, repeat’ from half to quarter, eighth, sixteenth, thirty-second, all the way up to 4096th. The net effect is to go from an abstract painting to a series of gradually smaller anthropomorphic ‘creatures’ (since the mirroring produces bilateral symmetry) to still smaller very fine stripes.

“Belz described the film in terms of ‘pixels’. It begins with two-‘pixel’ stripes and the music begins with a two-sixteenth note oscillating pattern. When the film moves to four ‘pixels’, the music moves to a four-sixteenth note pattern, then to eight, and sixteen,” the composer continues. “After that, I began introducing longer note values – initially eighth notes, and later to quarter notes. By the middle of the film, when the images move from 512 to 1064 pixels, the music really slows to dotted half notes. Finally, as the ‘pixel’ count begins to diminish, the music moves back into more rapid eighths and then ending with the most intense rapid sixteenth movement.”

After more than one hundred performances of Reich/Richter at The Shed in New York in 2019, it was performed in London at the Barbican by the Britten Sinfonia conducted by Colin Currie and then in Paris at the Philharmonie, where this recording was made. The Austrian ensemble Windkraft Tirol, led by Kasper de Roo, will perform Reich/Richter on September 8 at Szentrum, Silbersaal in Schwaz, and the LA Phil New Music Group, led by Brad Lubman, performs the piece, accompanied by Richter and Belz’s film, at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on April 1, 2023.

Nonesuch has recorded every new piece of music by Steve Reich since 1985, beginning with The Desert Music and continuing through 2018’s Pulse/Quartet, resulting in twenty-two albums and the two box sets Phases in 2006 and Works: 1965-1995 in 1997. The label will put out a collection of his complete works in 2023.

Reich released a book last month, Conversations, that includes dialogues with past collaborators, fellow composers, musicians, and visual artists who have been influenced by his work, including: David Lang, Brian Eno, Richard Serra, Michael Gordon, Michael Tilson Thomas, Russell Hartenberger, Robert Hurwitz, Stephen Sondheim, Jonny Greenwood, David Harrington, Elizabeth Lim-Dutton, David Robertson, Micaela Haslam, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Julia Wolfe, Nico Muhly, Beryl Korot, Colin Currie, and Brad Lubman. Booklist said in its review, ‘Iconoclastic American composer Steve Reich is singular in his own right, and when he is in conversation with other equally iconoclastic composers, conductors, sculptors, musicians, percussionists, and video artists, sparks not only fly, they sparkle. Reich and his colleagues conduct lovely give-and-takes during which they share stories, creative approaches, and viewpoints. Reich's Conversations is the best kind of eavesdropping.’

Steve Reich has been called ‘America’s greatest living composer’ (Village Voice), ‘the most original musical thinker of our time’ (New Yorker), and ‘among the great composers of the century’ (New York Times). His music has influenced composers and mainstream musicians all over the world. Music for 18 Musicians and Different Trains have earned him two Grammy Awards, and in 2009, his Double Sextet won the Pulitzer Prize. Reich’s documentary video opera works – The Cave and Three Tales, done in collaboration with video artist Beryl Korot – have been performed on four continents. His recent work Quartet, for percussionist Colin Currie, sold out two consecutive concerts at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London shortly after tens of thousands at the Glastonbury Festival heard Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead) perform Electric Counterpoint followed by the London Sinfonietta performing his Music for 18 Musicians.

In 2012, Reich was awarded the Gold Medal in Music by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has additionally received the Praemium Imperiale in Tokyo, the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm, the BBVA Award in Madrid, and the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale. He has been named Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Royal College of Music in London, The Juilliard School, and the Liszt Academy in Budapest, among others. ‘There’s just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history and Steve Reich is one of them’, states the Guardian.

Pierre Boulez founded the Ensemble intercontemporain in 1976 with the support of Michel Guy (who was France’s Minister of Culture at the time) and the collaboration of Nicholas Snowman. The Ensemble’s thirty-one soloists share a passion for twentieth and twenty-first century music. Under the artistic direction of Matthias Pintscher, the musicians work in close collaboration with composers, exploring instrumental techniques and developing projects that interweave music, dance, theater, film, video and visual arts. In collaboration with IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique), the Ensemble intercontemporain is also active in the field of synthetic sound generation. New pieces are commissioned and performed on a regular basis. Resident of the Cité de la musique – Philharmonie de Paris, the Ensemble performs and records in France and abroad, taking part in major festivals worldwide.

George Jackson, winner of the 2015 Aspen Conducting Prize, came to attention after stepping in at short notice with Orchestre de Paris, where he stepped in for Daniel Harding. Recent highlights include leading Ensemble intercontemporain at Festival Romaeuropa, the Rainy Days Festival in Luxembourg, and Festival D’Automne in Paris, as well as conducting the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra of Opéra de Rouen and the world premiere of Tscho Theissing’s Genia with Theater an der Wien. His varied operatic experience includes performances at Opera North, Hamburg State Opera and Opera Holland Park, as well as conducting a new production of Hänsel und Gretel at Grange Park Opera.

After having released solo albums on Western Vinyl and Preservation, Domes presents the first entirely instrumental work of the California based multi-instrumentalist Heather Woods Broderick.

Domes is a collection of meditative pieces based around the cello. While not being her primary instrument, the cello holds a very special place for the artist. Throughout the past 2 years, Heather often felt the need to find moments of respite in response to the chaotic and turbulent times we all faced in that period. Her days started or ended with the cello. A single melody initiated a process in which new elements were gradually added to the initial loop until the sounds filled her up. This process and the instrumental nature of these pieces opened the path for self-reflection and enabled her to express emotions outside the world of words or lyrics:

“The cyclical nature of the loop combined with the sound feeling like it’s surrounding me feels serene and safe. My hope is that listeners experience this as well.” - Heather Woods Broderick

Domes is a documentation of that period and offers 7 pieces which to the artist feels like dense masses – strong grounding sounds that can hold weight or be used to disperse weight - in an emotional sense. The album title, Domes, reflects this idea as domes are made out of triangles – the strongest shapes in the physical world. Coincidentally, there are 7 different triangles. As such, the pieces on Domes each reflect a different triangle, a different strongest shape which offers the listener a solid basis to find rest and calmness.

Heather Woods Broderick is a composer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Growing up in a family of musicians, music took root in Heather’s life at a very young age. Evenings spent singing along to her parents folk music collection began to shape her sense of song as a child. After many years of classical piano training, she began to expand her musical toolkit by learning to play guitar, cello, and flute among others. Deeply influenced by rich tapestries of the natural world, she excels at crafting sonic landscapes that reflect both lushness and intimacy. Heather has released three solo albums to date, and over the years has recorded and toured extensively around the world with a multitude of artists including Sharon Van Etten, Efterklang, Alela Diane, Horse Feathers, Damien Jurado, Lisa Hannigan, Laura Gibson, and more.

For the best part of 10 years, For Those That Knoe has maintained its position as a platform for obscure and under-represented artists of recent past, (re)introducing their music to the world in the form of a stories told in chapters and specially crafted albums.

Taking a slightly different tack, For Those That Knoe is looking to the present rather than back in time with a first LP outing for Slovenian producer Vid Vai.

Vid Papez has had a succession of quality EPs under his belt, originally classically trained on violin, lute and guitar, his sound has developed into a lush mix of catchy breakbeat rhythms, precise intelligent percussion and other-worldly melodies and sound scapes.

In constructing Laminar Flow, Vid has taken inspiration from fluid dynamics and coupled it with early influences in the form of UK bleep, IDM and breakbeat sounds. The result is a timeless piece of liquid-smooth sonic art that is strongly relevant in 2022 whilst also giving a gentle nod to the pioneers of the deeper end of the rave scene.

Alex the Fairy is an artist based in Berlin producing music with an emphasis on electronic and concrete methods. Alex the Fairy is also part of the 3Ddancer trio, a live act focusing on improvisation and expression using electronics.

Alex The Fairy writes: "I had sent The Tapeworm tracks before, but I was being difficult so was asked to send a new bunch, with a deadline. I sent the new bunch, a fairly odd collection expecting perhaps some of them to be combined with the older stuff but not seeing any coherence in them. I figured The Tapeworm would find at least something. To my surprise the suggestion that came back was exclusively the tracks I had sent the second time, and, re-listening through the tracks in this new order after returning from a Christmas dinner lying on the floor of my nephews bedroom gave them a completely new context. Despite them being quite varied in terms of age (one had been flung together a few days earlier on the train while another was approaching Schulreife) they seemed to meld together in such a way that I hardly recognised them…

Last year my grandmother died. My last grandparent. I had put off seeing her during corona, as I thought it best not to put her at risk and had almost left to visit her days before her death but had delayed my departure because of a medical appointment. My failure to her weighs heavy on my mind - fates grimacing grin: too little, too late. The approaching march of death, one generation closer was a confrontation I wasn't prepared for.

While clearing out her flat in the following weeks I had kept some of my grandfathers cassettes, live recordings of jazz greats, Pink Floyd, Sade and some classical among them, none originals, several presumably from the radio e.g. a church organ rendition of Bach. At the time I wasn't sure why I was hanging on to them, other than the urge to hoard, and that it felt wrong not at least to keep some. Half a year later, half way through mixing this cassette, suffering from my first bout of COVID, I had the insatiable urge to hook up the cassette player I had received from my grandfather after his death around nineteen years earlier and had been dragging along with me since. I stuck a cassette in only to immediately return to the safety of my covers. I began to work my way into what I had saved, hearing the fruits of my grandfathers labour decades before. It felt like quite an intimate interaction with someone I had long lost contact to/was long gone. Quite a wonderful thing, these time traveling cassettes.

I returned to the tracks to mix them shortly before my corona/cassette experience, with a new mixing console at hand. I had been looking for one for several years, but nothing had ever clicked, until I found this old broadcast desk 30 minutes from my place (it also coincided with a payment from a job the sum of which matched the price identically… fates return). Installing became a massive hassle and I doubted my decision continuously, but the further it was implemented the more it made sense. The first track I recorded with the mixer is on this cassette. Shortly before the mixing I was introduced to an Effektgerät by a friend, Rapha. Another good friend Art lent me their one, and I ended up using copious amounts of it throughout mixing, alongside my usual space creators. All the tracks on this release were mixed again on this mixer and are in a sense all a bit of a dub of the originals. I wouldn't have worked this way without the mixer, and the effect gave me a dimension I hadn't had before, so, from a technical perspective, the mixer and this effect define this release, giving it a coherence, at least for me. Emotionally of course the chaos and turbulence of the preceding year and my newfound appreciation for the medium give it a meaning I will struggle to formulate." – Alex The Fairy, Berlin, 9 May 2022

Rock 'n' roll is often hard to define, or even to find, in these fractured
musical times - But to paraphrase an old saying, you know it when you
hear it - And you always hear it with The Wallflowers
Exit Wounds, which stays true to its title, is an album that is an ode to people -
individual and collective - that have, to put it mildly, been through some stuff. 'I
think everybody - no matter what side of the aisle you're on - wherever we're going
to next, we're all taking a lot of exit wounds with us,' says Jakob Dylan. 'Nobody is
the same as they were four years ago. That, to me, is what Exit Wounds signifies.'
To be sure, Exit Wounds is populated by scarred souls and the things they carry
with them. Those are your exit wounds. And right now, we're all swimming in
them. Pressed on Pink and Purple Splatter Color Vinyl.

Repress

Brainwaltzera's debut LP 'Poly-ana' follows quickly on the heels of the producer's Aescoba EP - also released this year via FILM. Across thirteen tracks of both previously released material and fresh excursions into the artist's world, Brainwaltzera explores sounds ranging from luscious, downtempo grooves and expertly reduced braindance cuts with nods to early 90's experimental IDM to harder, more caustic outings - all bound together by a recurring theme of otherworldly ambience. Taking its name from a variety of sources dear to the artist, including polyphonic analogue synthesizers and the Pol-lyanna Principle itself - a theory that suggests individuals recall pleasurable experience more acutely than displeasing ones - the title represents a meeting point in the artistic process between creative method and conceptual choices. Production techniques range from more traditional hardware synthesis to the incorporation of a modified dot matrix printer acting as a modulation source for MIDI parameters. Sample sources include VHS material from the produ-cer's own childhood and ambient Bullet Train samples from an on-the-fly production session traveling from Tokyo to Kyoto. According to the enigmatic producer, memory and its fundamental role in the human experience is one of the central themes of the record. While the artist's own experiences shaped the sound of the record, there is no attempt to impose them on the listener through blatant exposition.

Tom Tykwer discussed the composers’ work on The Matrix Resurrections. “There’s a powerful and distinct musical legacy here. In my opinion, The Matrix Trilogy is one of the great scores of all time. And what’s particularly fantastic about it is that it was also, to my knowledge, one of the first film scores that so implemented electronic music and connected it with progressive late-modern orchestral music. It started a movement, which we are paying tribute to with this music. And yet, this film is playful and emotional with complex development, open in every direction. Johnny and I felt our challenge for the music was to pay tribute to The Matrix lineage and also support this cinematic endeavor of expanding that legacy to explore new directions. That needs to be represented in the music and that is what we are trying to investigate musically.”
Johnny Klimek elaborated, “We spent several months working on material for The Matrix Resurrections, building the main themes, crafting alternative arrangements and electronic variants. We had a lot of fun mixing electronics with classical orchestra. The technology has come so far since I started scoring film.”

The Matrix Resurrections - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Includes all 24 tracks composed for the film by Johnny Klimek and Tom Tykwer, mastered for vinyl and pressed on 2x 180 Gram Black vinyl, with original artwork by Mondo's creative director Mo Shafeek

Sam Gendel and Antonia Cytrynowicz didn't set out to make a record – it just happened. LIVE A LITTLE, a collection of songs resulting from one late summer afternoon in Gendel's Los Angeles home, is less an album and more a moment. The ten tracks here were recorded mostly in one sitting, fully improvised, in the order in which they appear. It was the first and last time the songs have been played – a snapshot of an idea, an artifact of inspiration, at once both a beginning and an end. At the time of recording, Cytrynowicz was only eleven years old. The younger sister of Gendel's significant other and creative partner Marcella, Cytrynowicz is an artist in her own way. She has no formal musical training, but is the product of a creative family and is someone who makes art the way many kids do – in the purest way, simply because they are moved to. On LIVE A LITTLE, she spontaneously crafted all the melodies and lyrics on the spot as Gendel played alongside her. Cytrynowicz's musicality is sophisticated, strange, and other-worldly, and the resulting record is experimental jazz colliding with some sort of fantasy universe. Because of that, LIVE A LITTLE is a stand-out amidst Gendel's extensive and varied catalog. Over the years, the multi-instrumentalist has been known for his prolific musical output as both a sought-after collaborator and as a solo artist. During 2021 alone he collaborated with Vampire Weekend, Maggie Rogers, Moses Sumney, Laurie Anderson, and Mach Hommy, as well as released Notes With Attachments with Blake Mills & legendary bassist Pino Palladino. In the same year he also released the 52-track Fresh Bread, as well as the follow-up to the acclaimed Music for Saxophone & Bass Guitar with Sam Wilkes. Then Mouthfeel / Serene, AE-30, Valley Fever Original Score, and singles "Isfahan" and "Neon Blue." LIVE A LITTLE, though, exists on its own island. For one, the majority of Gendel's work under his own name skews instrumental, but here the playfulness of his saxophone and nylon-string guitar work alongside the twinkle of Cytrynowicz's voice. It’s the sound of unapologetic imagination running amok – and really, more than anything, the sound of having fun. Cytrynowicz is the ideal collaborator for Gendel, who throughout his career has remained largely unconcerned with the pageantry and presentation of the music business, instead focused solely on the music-making itself. Here, he found the purest sort of writing partner – he admires Cytrynowicz' "supreme openness," explaining: "Whatever is happening, she's there with you. We really meet right where we are. She's all ears, I'm all ears. I don't even know how to explain what it is. It just works out somehow." LIVE A LITTLE is a series of "what ifs" cascading into one another, off-kilter and experimental, a kaleidoscope of spontaneity and imagination. It's a sweet distillation of the musical present, of daring to follow through on an impulse – what happens when a project is helmed by someone who doesn't have time for second thoughts or self-doubt. The moment is the thing, and LIVE A LITTLE just happens to capture it.

The second album from the transatlantic duo Wilma Vritra is richly orchestrated, replete with references to faith, mythology, and the cosmos, its 11 tracks grapple with themes of self-preservation and refuge from the world, even as they edge their way to a sort of redemption. Grotto is the work of two musicians separated by an ocean but undoubtedly operating on a shared wavelength. One is Will Archer, a Newcastle-born but London-based multi-instrumentalist and composer who today records as Wilma Archer, but who you might also know for his writing and production for artists like Celeste, Nilufer Yanya and Jessie Ware. Wilma Archer’s debut solo album A Western Circular, featured guest spots from the late MF DOOM, Future Islands’ Samuel T Herring, Sudan Archives and Laura Grove. The other is Hal Donell Williams Jr, aka VRITRA - a Los Angeles-based rapper whose tales of graft and grind are often couched in spiritual or cosmic terms. VRITRA has previously collaborated with Matt Martians via The Jet Age of Tomorrow, Pink Siifu and YUNGMORPHEUS. Grotto’s striking cover image is by Swampy, an enigmatic Californian street artist whose itinerant lifestyle – tales of squatting and train-hopping across North America – have made him a demi-mythical figure. A playful image, but it communicates the album’s themes – of a voyage through darkness, and the promise of light at the end of the tunnel.

The Line Is A Curve is about letting go. The core of the record is that the pressures we face do not always have to be heavy burdens, but can be reframed; the more pressure a person is under, the greater the possibility for release.

The album plays like a chronicle of pressures - the mind-numbing pursuit of a comfortable life, the eternal striving for more, the pressures of the city, the country, the times. The pressures of maintaining relationships, of battling illness, addiction, poor mental health, the vacuous life of our online selves. As we move through these chronicles though, the mood brightens. The musicality becomes more expansive as the lyrical horizon broadens and we glimpse coastlines, high streets, scrap yards, train stations in the rain; the entire album begins to let go. We encounter the contributions of artists who I love and admire, guest vocalists and instrumentalists, and so we defeat the sense of isolation felt in the opening track with a sense of deeply connected community. More Pressure, the penultimate song, is the essence of the whole album and the epiphany that leads to Grace, which is a prayer, a surrendering; ‘Please move me, please move through me, please unscrew me, please loosen me up.’ But once we get to the end of Grace, and the album, we loop back to the start – to ‘Kiss off the day with a mute mouth. Pass the commute like I can die faster than you.’ Because no matter how much a person grapples with, realises, deeply understands, about life and their place in it, we still wake up in the morning back to square one. Life isn’t solved the minute you figure something out about it. It’s a daily operation to increase your resilience, cultivate a deeper acceptance, let go of what’s chasing you and lean in to the pressures. It’s cyclical, as I believe all things are. And instead of trying to fight the cycles, this album asks us to surrender to them. To let go.

These general themes, of acceptance, resilience, surrender are also about where I’m at in my personal life, in my journey towards a greater acceptance of myself as an artist and as a human being. Being more honest with the world and my community about who I am and letting go of some heavy heavy shame, which is a glorious thing.

This album has a beautiful heart, there is so much love running through it and I can’t wait for people to experience it.

Co-produced with Metronomy's Joseph Mount, electro-pop artist TATYANA's debut album is a careful fusion of her classical harp training with her keen sense for pop production and songwriting. Inspired by late-2000s indie pop and Swedish pop auteurs, Treat Me Right is a sparkling, catchy collection of `80s synths and futuristic auto-tuned vocals. TATYANA has lived in Holland, Russia, Singapore, and Boston - where she attended Berklee College of Music on a full scholarship - before settling back in her hometown of London in 2018. The transient nature of her upbringing has certainly informed her music: from underground raves to viral YouTube covers to playing harp on tour with Neneh Cherry, there seems to be no scene that she doesn't thrive in. Last year, she released her thrilling debut EP Shadow On The Wall via Sinderlyn. The self-produced collection was met with praise from tastemaker outlets like NYLON, FADER, Office, Bandcamp, Line of Best Fit, and Crack, as well as an exclusive vinyl pressing with Vinyl Me, Please's Rising program. Treat Me Right is the irresistible product of these impressive first steps, the kind of precisely produced, impossibly catchy pop that takes other artists their entire careers to nail.

In the galaxy of popular music, Elvis Presley can lay claim to his very own constellation. It is not just the global record sales he accumulated, or the No. 1 hits from all over the world - nor even the songs made famous from his film career...It is simply that it is now impossible to imagine the world of music without 'The King'. Some forty years on from his untimely death, his enduring legacy still
prevails. A musical debt acknowledged by Bob Dylan, The Beatles and Rolling Stones.

'Welcome To The End Of The World' delivers The Dead Milkmen's
trademark twisted humour along with some underlying dark elements
that will creep in to your consciousness if you pay close enough attention

The six tracks run the gamut of weird and wild, from the heavy, Ramonesinfluenced lead single 'Only The Dead Get Off At Kymlinge', a ghost story about the haunted trains terrorising passengers on the Stockholm Metro to 'Battery Powered Rat', a jangly instrumental about two popes, a chess game, and a rat at the Vatican. ("Battery Powered Rat is one of the weirdest things we've ever done", says drummer Dean Clean.)
Musically, the band draws on industrial influences, with a strong beat- driven aesthetic. "It's a pretty good representation of the different styles of things that we do", Dean Clean explains. "It's got some sort of heavy stuff and some groovy, almost dance-oriented stuff, which is fun to say".

Following two stunning singles, prodigiously talented producer and composer Frederic Robinson is set to drop his debut album,
'Mixed Signals', on Blu Mar Ten Music on 14th October. The album is the culmination of over a year's work and a lifetime of musical
obsession for Robinson, comprising of a series of intricately crafted and delicately emotive tracks exploring a forward-thinking
electronic vision, which he describes as "music for the listener with a broad horizon and a short attention span'.
Over its eleven tracks, 'Mixed Signals' gives Robinson the canvas to showcase the full breadth of his talents like never before.
Amalgamating the many influences that inform his productions, from drum & bass and electronica to contemporary classical
composers, 'Mixed Signals' is a brilliantly crafted and coherent artistic statement that draws upon his talents as a classically trained
multi-instrumentalist as well as an electronic producer. Filled with light and shade, impact and intricacy, 'Mixed Signals' is much more
than a drum & bass record or a collection of club tracks; this is an album in the truest sense of the word.
"So far, this album is my biggest musical project and my greatest achievement. I worked on it for about a year and went through many
different creative phases in that time, all of which are represented somewhere on the LP. It is a summary of my current talents, skills
and interests. It marks the end for some ideas and concepts and the beginning for many others." - Frederic Robinson.
Built from a collage of acoustic and electronic elements, Robinson's music is a dense patchwork of skittering rhythms, found sound
and lush instrumentation, which harnesses a compelling emotional draw as much as it does an undeniable dance floor energy. Both
immediate and nuanced, 'Mixed Signals' is a brilliant balance of contrasts.
The sweeping drama of previous single 'Theme Park' opens the album, remaining as fresh and brilliantly unique as ever, while 'Off
Topic' and 'Bloom' featuring Stray both also provide familiar touchstones, exploring esoteric manifestations of 170 bpm's outer
possibilities. Three vocal tracks are scattered throughout the tracklist, with the soft, otherworldly tones of Melanie Robinson providing
an entry point to Robinson's world of broken percussion and wandering melodies.
Elsewhere, 'Vamp Till Ready' balances rich string orchestration against a wave of skittering percussion and 'Shut' offers an expansive
beauty in its naïve, dreamlike melodies. 'Particles' showcases an innate understanding of drum & bass constructs, warping tight
breaks and deep bass against bold blasts of colour while the eponymous track explores a playfully off-kilter and delicately nuanced
downtempo vision, before the album is played out on wave of hazy melodies and light-footed rhythms with closer 'Static Float'.
'Mixed Signals' provides the broad canvas that Robinson thrives in painting with his sprawling musical influences and complex
arrangements, and the results are phenomenal. The album is a masterpiece in dance floor escapism from a talent whose career is
undoubtedly in the ascendant.

After turning heads with the densely orchestrated Riddles, produced by Dan Deacon, the Baltimore-based duo Ed Schrader’s Music Beat have given us another giant leap forward with their fourth record Nightclub Daydreaming. The whiplash-inducing stylistic shifts between aggressive noise rock and operatic gloom pop that have become the band’s trademark have given way to a single aesthetic that fuses both impulses. On Nightclub Daydreaming, menace teems just below the surface as propulsive, stark arrangements leave space that Schrader fills with strident, reverb-soaked narration.

LIMITED GOLD VINYL w/ Download Card

When Ed Schrader and Devlin Rice began writing the record in 2019, the idea was to make a fun, danceable album, but an underlying moodiness proved unshakeable. As Schrader puts it, “The cave followed us into the discotheque.”

The duo road-tested the songs “This Thirst,” “Echo Base” and “Black Pearl” with drummer Kevin O’Meara on tour with Dan Deacon in February 2020. COVID restrictions cut the tour short, squashed plans to go immediately into the studio and sent the touring party on a sprint from LA to Baltimore. “We broke down outside Roswell,” Schrader recalls. “And these cops laughed at our dumb asses as we used all our pent-up stress and fear to propel our half-submerged bus out of the muck, yelling epithets to the sky.”

It was one of the last experiences they had with O’Meara, whose death in October 2020 weighed heavily on Rice and Schrader’s minds as they worked on the record. It was also a cathartic moment that presaged the aesthetic that would permeate the songs on Nightclub Daydreaming: “mad euphoria in the face of doom,” as Schrader puts it.

“This Thirst” is an alienation-fueled barn burner barely restraining itself through musically sparse, lyrically dense verses to culminate in a howling, synth-saturated chorus that beats horror punk at its own game. “Came from the north with a twisted planetarium, rock salt, nervous tic and novocaine,” Schrader sings, assuming the guise of a vagrant whose irresistible urges lead him through a fever dream of chemicals, back-alley bartering and existential threats.

The hyperactive “Echo Base” exudes agitated-cool, with breakneck drum fills and a relentless bass line. The narrator is stranded in a frozen landscape and running out of options. “She is just a night train away,” we are assured, and yet we sense that may not be an altogether good thing.

The band recorded and mixed Nightclub Daydreaming over a two-week period with Craig Bowen at Tempo House in Baltimore with David Jacober on drums, turning demos with artificial sounds and placeholder melodies into fully realized songs playable by a live band. The end result is not the album of “sunny disco bangers” that Rice says the band set out for, but something deeper, darker and more rewarding.

Studio Electrophonique is James Leesley: a young songwriter and musician from Sheffield.

Since the critical acclaim accompanying his sought-after debut 10" album "Buxton Palace Hotel" in 2019, James has captivated audiences performing at his own curated events in Sheffield, Liverpool, London and Paris as well as at The Green Man and End Of The Road festivals.

In 2020 Studio Electrophonique performed at L'Olympia in Paris at the personal invite of the legendary Étienne Daho as well as across the UK and Ireland with Richard Hawley - both are long-time supporters and admirers of James's work.

James is currently putting the finishing touches to a film featuring Jarvis Cocker and Sean Bean which retraces the fascinating history of Ken Patton's original Studio Electrophonique home recording studio in Sheffield.

Songs come to James Leesley in airless attics, dinner time chippies and late afternoon bookies shops; on long walks through town with a sandwich in each pocket, on morning runs through the park in lost-property trainers or on the top deck of the 52A with rain-laced windows and wet toe-ends.

He records on an old four-track machine using deadstock Metal Maxima cassettes sourced from an unnamed charity shop close to Bramall Lane. This machine kills flashiness. There is no room for garnish. Choice is minimised to serve the song, intimacy is maximised to serve the ache.

Studio Electrophonique is a semi-fictional collective of analogue romantics sent to reassure us that art is not some far off place, that sadness can be enjoyed like happiness and that glamour can descend like a minor key melody on the shoulders of anyone willing to pay their subs and the price of a day-return to Ballifield shops.


Studio Electrophonique's latest 5- song record is a plaintive symphony of love and hope, yearning and hopelessness.

“Coffee & Clouds” EP is the latest release from Sam Hutton and Al
Wreaves AKA South-London soul duo fika, collaborating with songwriter, vocalist and artist Bambie.

Co- produced by Berlin- based producer Fabich, the EP features previous singles “How Can I Love? (When I Can’t Get Away From You)” and “Love Like Mine” which have seen the duo garner support from the likes of Jack Saunders (BBC Radio 1), Jamz Supernova (BBC Radio 1Xtra), Jess Iszatt (BBC London Introducing), Nabihah Iqbal, El Train, Rob Da Bank (Worldwide FM), Stereofox, Mystic Sons and
IGGY Magazine. Stemming from a two-day session between fika and Bambie, the “Coffee & Clouds” EP was co-produced by Berlin-based producer Fabich. The EP expertly balances nuanced musicality with generously open song writing. fika’s ever-growing community of collaborators and irresistible releases has seen them perform at the legendary Ronnie Scott’sand garner support from BBC presenters
Phil Taggart (BBC Radio 1), Jess Iszatt and Abbie Mac (BBC Radio Kent) and from the wider radio community including Jyoty (Rinse FM) and El Train (Soho Radio).

At the end of 2021, they will be appearing at The Jazz Café alongside BBC Radio 1’s Victoria Jane, Raquel Martins, Ruby Francisand Kara Marni. The duo have also seen press and online support from the likes of TRENCH, Indie Shuffle, Notion, Acid Stag, Beautiful Buzz, Somewhere Soul and Discobelle. A project born out of collaborative joy and mutual admiration; the “Coffee & Clouds” EP is set to further
cement fika’s place as a one- to- watch in the realms of Neo- Soul, Hip Hop and Contemporary RnB.

We all know that people in Switzerland are different, but these guys take it over the top! The brainchild of mastermind Andy Dormann, an established musician of the Swiss Rock Scene (KISSIN’ BLACK, CHARING CROSS) proves that fun and filthy loud music is alive and kicking on the streets of Switzerland. Get ready for a wild ride Sunset Strip-Style with a Happy Ending. D’OR Rock ’n’ Rolls like a relentless big screen cargo train. Amphetamine-primed guitar artistes with a growl like a peppery G’n’T. A galvanizing groove machine. Filterless cigarettes and a chronic scratchy throat is served up with a double espresso and a thundering sidecar. Melodic? Of course! Pretentious? Absolutely! Clichéd? Hey, D’OR glitters AND is gold! Tongue in cheek? Could be! VENI VIDI IGNIS is fresh and packed with energy. Think Terminator going back in time in a DeLorean to fetch the sexy 80s attitude to life and throw it in your 2020 face. D’OR possesses your neck muscles with an alchemy of hard rock and heavy rusty metal. If you like SKID ROW, W.A.S.P or ALICE COOPER with a bit more dirt, you better be prepared. The Goldfingers are ready. Now fasten your seatbelts!

Athlete Whippet return to Toy Tonics with an EP showcasing emotionally layered dance tracks and their refusal to stick to genre conventions. The duo are synonymous with sublime cuts that are just as suited to late nights and early mornings on the dancefloor, as they are to home-listening, this perfectly exhibited on the "Noguiera" EP.

The four-tracker is named after a remote place in the mountains around Rio de Janeiro where it was made on a creatively fruitful getaway in 2021. It's sentimental, joyful, bouncy, and futuristic, and showcases the duo’s musicality combining bass guitar and piano, with hardware synths, loops and fragmented vocal samples.

Robin explains - "Spending time in Brazil in recent years was a blessing. The nature, culture and musical heritage over there is beautiful. Mostly in solitude, as I ended up spending most of my time in a remote place in the mountains around Rio, music became the only real emotional outlet for a while. So in a way this is a record of dance music created as far away as we’ve ever been from the dance floor!"

Both from a live performance background, Robin and Avi met studying at Goldsmiths London and found their way to the dance floor via playing in bands, Robin a guitarist, Avi classically trained in trumpet and later on picking up the keys. Absorbing the community of South London, they eventually set up artist collective and record label Squareglass - a proudly established home for new artists coming out of the area. They’ve remixed for the likes of Rhythm Section, collaborated with Olugbenga, and their releases have come with reworks from Ross from Friends, Cameo Blush, Baltra and Seb Wildblood. In 2021, their hybrid sound found a new home with tastemaker German label Toy Tonics who released their "Vesta" EP in May, followed by a run of European tour dates including Funkhaus Berlin, Phonox London and Amsterdam Dance Event.

Nonesuch Records releases Ghost Song, the label debut of singer/songwriter Cécile McLorin Salvant. Ghost Song features a diverse mix of seven originals and five interpretations on the themes of ghosts, nostalgia, and yearning. Salvant says, “It’s unlike anything I’ve done before – it’s getting closer to reflecting my personality as an eclectic curator. I’m embracing my weirdness!” Cécile McLorin Salvant plays at Cadogan Hall on November 16 as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival, four shows at SFJAZZ in February, and two nights featuring the music of Ghost Song at Jazz at Lincoln Center in May. Salvant says of the title track, out now, “What if the love has gone, the love has left you and you have the emotions around that, and you’re still going through them, still engaging with the ghost of that love?” She continues, “Some songs are so painful to come out but this one came out pretty quickly. I’ve had some loss the last couple of years: my grandmother, the drummer in my band Lawrence Leathers.”



Ghost Song opens and ends with a sean-nós (traditional Irish unaccompanied vocal style) performance by Salvant, recorded in a church. On track one, she transitions into Kate Bush’s 1978 classic ‘Wuthering Heights’. Salvant says of the song, “Wuthering Heights is a book that really struck me to my core as I was making this album, during the pandemic. And the best interpretation of the novel is Kate Bush’s song.” She continues, “It’s the most classic ghost story. I decided I wanted to do an album called Ghost Song, and I knew that one had to be on it. Then I had the idea to mix it in with the sean-nós ‘Cúirt Bhaile Nua’, which binds it to the traditional ‘Unquiet Grave’, the last track on the album. The ghost is not haunting me; now I am haunting the ghost. They parallel each other so well and they’re such different time periods. I wanted the album to be a circle, with the sean-nós reference at the beginning and at the end. So it is the first track but it’s also the last track and it’s also the middle track, which is how I listen to music, walking around my neighborhood, on a plane, travelling somewhere, putting stuff on repeat.” “All the songs on the album kind of mirror each other. I tried to create this strange symmetry. So as you go in from both ends, the songs are sort of matched together,” Salvant says. “‘I Lost my Mind’ is the center of the Russian doll. I wrote that in the middle of the pandemic. There were nights when I wanted to just scream. It was this deeper part of me saying, ‘It’s OK if this sounds completely crazy, OK to just go with the completely crazy thing and not worry if people think you have lost your mind for doing it.’



“The bands also mirror each other from top to bottom. In terms of the instrumentation, everything,” Salvant explains. “That’s why the songs are there in that relationship: they match each other, they’re like fraternal twins, or one is the evil twin of the other. I, as the living, am visited by the ghost, and then I go visit the ghost in turn. I am haunting the ghost and annoying the ghost, which is saying, ‘Get out of here and go live.’” Of the sonic variety on Ghost Song, Salvant says, “Texture is a big part of how I sing, having multiple textures in one song. It’s almost a compulsion. I can’t allow myself to stay in one texture. The instrumentation creates that but the recording process as well. It’s something I like, even when I’m eating. You want the creamy and chewy and crunchy at the same time. Warm and cold.”



Cécile McLorin Salvant, a 2020 MacArthur Fellow and three-time Grammy Award winner, is a singer and composer bringing historical perspective, a renewed sense of drama, and an enlightened musical understanding to both jazz standards and her own original compositions. Classically trained, steeped in jazz, blues, and folk, and drawing from musical theater and vaudeville, Salvant embraces a wide-ranging repertoire that broadens the possibilities for live performance. Salvant’s performances range from spare duets for voice and piano to instrumental trios to orchestral ensembles. Her unreleased work Ogresse is an ambitious long-form song cycle based on oral fairy tales from the nineteenth century that explores the nature of freedom and desire in a racialized, patriarchal world. Salvant studied at the Université Pierre Mendès-France. She has performed at national and international venues and festivals such as the Newport Jazz Festival, the Monterey Jazz Festival, the Village Vanguard, and the Kennedy Center. Salvant is also a visual artist.

Three locations. Three pianos. Three hours on each. I was told where and when the piano would be ready. I would go, play, and leave. Very little was said. All pieces were improvised. There were no demos, run throughs, re-dos, or edits. At times I was responding to the natural reverb of the spaces, as well as the effects and sound treatments that Mark was adding in tandem with the performances.

What you hear is what happened there and then, at the end of the challenging year that was 2020. Kevin Hearn is best known as a multi-instrumentalist from Barenaked Ladies, the multi-platinum selling band he's played with for almost two decades. One of the most respected Toronto musicians of the past 25 years, Hearn's solo albums take the listener on a journey of boundless creativity often
driven by adventure and experimentation. 'There and Then' is played at 45RPM, and is intended to be enjoyed on the warmth of vinyl, but will also be released digitally.

"It's fun for me to make music that doesn't have to fit a certain criteria, whether it be regarding the style or sound, or who is playing it. When I make my own records, I can follow my heart and curiosity." - Kevin Hearn

The followup to 2019's 'Calm and Cents', which was Juno-nominated for Best instrumental Album of the Year.

The wheels rattle into the thrilling unknown on The Coral’s first new music since 2018, finding the unsurpassed, metamorphic gonzo-pop five-piece in the company of crooks, sell-by-date candyfloss and plastic skeletons as they release Faceless Angel. Of misplaced memories from a place and time that might never have been, the track precedes a new and vividly evocative body of work from the legendary Merseyside band in the form of their TENTH and first, ever double-album: Coral Island.

Squinting into the neon-lit penny arcades and draining an after hours glass with the displaced and dispossessed once the power is pulled, The Coral’s latest caper concerns listeners with the light, shade, thrills and profound melancholy of coastal palaces packed with fun and fright. Both now and then, or perhaps never as fiction encroaches on reality, the feverous anticipation of a night amongst the screams, fights and romance of the fair become part of life on the newly-built Coral Island.

Welcoming travellers one trepidous step at a time, Faceless Angel sits amongst a series of promised audio visual portraits of and inspired by the Island’s inhabitants. Conceived and created by artist, Edwin Burdis, the single’s video was filmed ‘on’ Coral Island itself, a sprawling diorama purpose-built inside a deserted Chinese restaurant in Cardiff. It’s the band and fans’ first venture onto the surreal land mass, populated by surreal sculptural forms, charity shop-finds, looming mountains and gathering storm clouds. Filmed in debt to the traditional model-based filmmaking methods of greats like George Lucas or Ray Harryhausen, Burdis navigated Coral Island at waist-height and via camera-friendly pathways to gather 360 degree footage from inside and outside his and The Coral’s fascinating, fabricated world. The expansive and ambitious installation also provides the album artwork for Coral Island as well as designs for Faceless Angel and future singles.

Indebted in part to the classic pre-Beatles rock and roll era of Duane Eddy and Chuck Berry alongside the clattering of a weary ghost train’s rusted wheels on worn steel, Faceless Angel’s title evokes DC Comics ominous occult detective series, Hellblazer and the broken character of the strip’s protagonist, John Constantine.

The wheels rattle into the thrilling unknown on The Coral’s first new music since 2018, finding the unsurpassed, metamorphic gonzo-pop five-piece in the company of crooks, sell-by-date candyfloss and plastic skeletons as they release Faceless Angel. Of misplaced memories from a place and time that might never have been, the track precedes a new and vividly evocative body of work from the legendary Merseyside band in the form of their TENTH and first, ever double-album: Coral Island.

Squinting into the neon-lit penny arcades and draining an after hours glass with the displaced and dispossessed once the power is pulled, The Coral’s latest caper concerns listeners with the light, shade, thrills and profound melancholy of coastal palaces packed with fun and fright. Both now and then, or perhaps never as fiction encroaches on reality, the feverous anticipation of a night amongst the screams, fights and romance of the fair become part of life on the newly-built Coral Island.

Welcoming travellers one trepidous step at a time, Faceless Angel sits amongst a series of promised audio visual portraits of and inspired by the Island’s inhabitants. Conceived and created by artist, Edwin Burdis, the single’s video was filmed ‘on’ Coral Island itself, a sprawling diorama purpose-built inside a deserted Chinese restaurant in Cardiff. It’s the band and fans’ first venture onto the surreal land mass, populated by surreal sculptural forms, charity shop-finds, looming mountains and gathering storm clouds. Filmed in debt to the traditional model-based filmmaking methods of greats like George Lucas or Ray Harryhausen, Burdis navigated Coral Island at waist-height and via camera-friendly pathways to gather 360 degree footage from inside and outside his and The Coral’s fascinating, fabricated world. The expansive and ambitious installation also provides the album artwork for Coral Island as well as designs for Faceless Angel and future singles.

Indebted in part to the classic pre-Beatles rock and roll era of Duane Eddy and Chuck Berry alongside the clattering of a weary ghost train’s rusted wheels on worn steel, Faceless Angel’s title evokes DC Comics ominous occult detective series, Hellblazer and the broken character of the strip’s protagonist, John Constantine.

Brion Starr lives and works in New York City, joined by a group of foreign and domestic collaborators. Their latest album 'A Night To Remember' is a meditation on night itself, a spinning sci-fantasy through this future darkness we all contemplate, a journey to the end of the night told as a story of one evening in an internationalist future city with no up and no down, no beginning and no end. Passing through the seedy clubs, with all their trappings, when the night is just turning into morning. Have you lost your mind? Blackout and wake on a train. Is this a dream? We are nocturnal. There’s fire in the streets. The first tier looks down on you. So find the ones you love and hold them tight.
Recorded at the Chateau d’Herouville and produced by Tony Visconti (David Bowie, T. Rex, Sparks).
Starr’s current collaborators include Jaie Gonzalez (Splashh), Hayden Tobin (Hanni El Khatib), Pete Sustarsic (Public Access TV), James Hurst (Beach Party), Ben McConnel (Beach House), Grace Kennedy, Charlie Sands, and composer Nigel Wilson.
“We had a listening party when we finished, Tony was so happy that day, he told me he hadn't had a listening party in "probably 30 years" (and we were in the middle of the pandemic!) I smile when I think of him suggesting we do it. It was a true celebration, I still have the cork from the champagne!”

Soundtrack from Academy Award-nominated actor Ethan Hawke’s 2001 film Songs written by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy with the score performed by Tweedy and Glenn Kotche Featuring two previously unissued bonus tracks and available on CD and (for the first time) Vinyl. Includes performances by Wilco, Billy Bragg, Robert Sean Leonard, “Little” Jimmy Scott, and more Packaging features new liner notes from Ethan Hawke, Glenn Kotche, and a conversation between Jeff Tweedy and Grammy®-winning set producer Cheryl Pawelski “It was pivotal for me. There was a burst of creativity that continues to this day because I took the last remaining guardrails off of what I’d been willing to allow myself to do.” –Jeff Tweedy The same year of his Oscar®-nominated performance in Training Day, Ethan Hawke made his full-length film directorial debut with Chelsea Walls (starring Kris Kristofferson, Uma Thurman, Vincent D’Onofrio, Robert Sean Leonard, and more). A fan of Wilco, Hawke approached Jeff Tweedy about scoring the film, and Tweedy agreed. Around this time, Tweedy had collaborated with musician and producer Jim O’Rourke (Sonic Youth, Stereolab) for a special live performance. As fate would have it, O’Rourke had been working with Glenn Kotche, and O’Rourke introducing Tweedy to Kotche would lay the groundwork for the trio’s work together on the debut album by their band, Loose Fur. Tweedy also asked Kotche to work with him on an improvised soundtrack to the movie he had agreed to score.













[m] 13. Finale (Extended) [Bonus Track]
[n] 14. Promising [Bonus Track]

Chìsake Algonquin: to chant; to conjure; to cast a spell; this generally involves a shake-house, or shaking tent, in which the conjurer goes into a trance; the conjurer then has an out-of-body experience, going into the future to predict coming events, or into the past; as well as going into any locality in the universe to seek out someone or something generally practiced for ancestral divination.

The unaccompanied flute pieces within this album are adaptations of Anishinaabeg shaking tent chants. The Anishinaabeg also known as Anishinaabe are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples that reside in areas now called Canada and the United States. They include the Odawa, Saulteaux, Ojibwe (including Mississaugas), Potawatomi, Oji-Cree and Algonquin peoples. The word Anishinaabeg translates to "people from whence lowered". The Anishinaabeg origin myths describe their people originating by divine breath.

The shaking tent or conjuring lodge was the setting for a divinatory rite performed by specially trained shamans otherwise known as Chìsakewininì. During the shaking tent ceremony the Chìsakewininì would construct a special cylindrical framework typically of birch or spruce uprights planted in the ground with respective wood hoops to bind it together. This created a tensile structure of which birch bark, deer skin, or cloth was used as a covering. Rattles of caribou and deer hooves, or cups of lead shot, were tied to the frame. The floor was usually softened with freshly cut spruce boughs. The vertical axis of the shaking tent represents the realm of mediating beings, while the horizontal axis the earth or world of humans. The Chìsakewininì would enter the shaking tent at night and once inside would not be visible from onlookers. The singing of chants and drumming would summon the Chìsakewininì's spirit helpers, whose arrival was signified by animal cries and erratic tent shaking. During this transcendent state, the Chìsakewininì could dispatch these spirit helpers or Manidò to distant regions to answer questions from the onlookers about the most auspicious places to hunt, the well-being of a distant relative, and what would happen in the future.

The chants were usually sung using vocables before, during, and after the Chìsakewininì entered the shaking tent. Like many other similar divination ceremonies, singular or collective, the opening chants begin lyrically. They gradually turn to more reductive abstract structures midway and then end in lyrical chants. This symbolizes the performer and listener leaving the external literal world, entering a more abstract state of mind, and then returning. Traditionally all songs were carved on birch bark for record-keeping with mnemonic pictographs or other marks for future use. Tally mark clustering, sometimes used for song-keeping throughout the Anishinaabeg, is used for this album's track titles and numerical sequence.

The album intro begins with the shaking of a necklace of otter penis bone, fish spine, bear teeth, elk teeth and deer hide, gifted from Algonquin Elder Ajawajawesi. It is meant to focus the listener's attention before the flute pieces begin. The warble or multi-phonic oscillation prevalent in the middle tracks traditionally represented the "throat rattling" vocalization of the tonic note or sometimes known as the horizon of which the melody floats off of. Due to the repetition of multi-phonic oscillation the performer will breathe erratically creating an altered state correlating with the Chìsakewininì ceremonial actions. All songs are repeated seven times to signify the seven sacred directions: east, south, west, north, above/sky, below/earth, and center.