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Der offizielle Soundtrack zu "Frieren: Beyond Journey's End" von Evan Call ist jetzt als Doppel-Vinyl erhältlich. Diese exklusive 2-LP-Ausgabe bringt die emotionalen Höhepunkte von Frierens Reise auf den Plattenteller - eine Reise voller Freundschaft, Verbundenheit und der Kostbarkeit gemeinsamer Zeit. Die zwei coloured LPs (in Smaragdgrün und Kobaltblau) kommen in einem liebevoll designten Gatefold und mit einem Insert mit Original-Illustrationen. Ein Must-Have für alle, die Frieren, Himmel, Heiter und Stark ins Herz geschlossen haben.

With her 3rd Blue Note album Synonym, Meshell Ndegeocello presents a remarkable album of duets on classic songs that are known, loved, and diverse in tone, “genre”, intent, and BPM. This is an album about joy, love, selfhood, individual representation and universal experience that explores expressions of desire, care, heartbreak, friendship, disappointment, and love in all the forms. All the songs feature two singers who identify as the same gender, wherever that might be on the continuum, and are musically matched for contrast or compliment including Cynthia Erivo, Cat Power, Robert Glasper, Chaka Khan, Madison Cunningham, Laura Lee (Khruangbin), Emily King, Lizz Wright, Lianne La Havas, Moses Sumney, Brandi Carlile, ANOHNI, WILLOW, Bill Callahan, Chris Thile, and more.

Curated by Shadi Zaitoun, ZF002 marks Zuflucht's return after a two-year pause in releases, this time with a physicalrecord made with the help of R.A.N.D. Muzik and Inch By Inch. It means a lot to bring together talented friends and their music for a shared cause. Across the record, the tracks move between early-hour warmth and late-night dancefloor weapons. All profits from ZF002 will be donated to Plan International, supporting their humanitarian work with children and families affected by the ongoing devestating crisis in Sudan.

Nachdem der Pianist Ahmad Jamal zwischen 1968 und 1971 mit seinen langjährigen Trio-Partnern Jamil
Nasser (Bass) und Frank Gant (Schlagzeug) vier exzellente Alben für Impulse! Records eingespielt hatte,
wagte er 1973 bei dem Label 20th Century Records einen Abstecher in für ihn ungewohnte musikalische
Gefilde. Begleitet von einem Orchester mit Streichern und Stimmen ist Ahmad Jamal hier mit Versionen
damals aktueller Hits von Stevie Wonder und der Band War sowie mit Spiritual-Jazz- und Funk-Stücken
zu hören. Das ausgefallene Album ”Ahmad Jamal ’73” produzierte der Pianist, der hier auch erstmals am
E-Piano zu hören ist, zusammen mit Arrangeur und Komponist Richard Evans, der durch seine Arbeiten
mit u. a. Ramsey Lewis, Dorothy Ashby, Terry Callier und Marlena Shaw bekannt wurde.

There is a hush most of us only knew as children, the warm drift between familiar household sounds and being carried to bed, a place that belongs to you and to some self you have not met yet. June McDoom’s debut full-length, Follow the Light, lives in that dream space and then keeps walking, slipping out of time and waking somewhere new, barely familiar enough to feel like home yet wholly your own. She came up in a Jamaican household on the edge of the Florida Everglades, an existence built of extended family, communal care, bass and harmonics. Her father, a carpenter and a student of sound, built his own speakers and kept three sound systems going across as many rooms. His low end would rise through her bedroom floor like some wayward cat while she lay above it with folk records, finding harmonies that were new and hers alone. Two musics in one room. Lushness as past and premonition. She found folk on her own, somewhere between the cast recording of The Sound of Music and Simon and Garfunkel, while everyone around her called it sleepy music. She did not mind being the only one. The solitude let her fall for harmony first, before words, before anything else, and harmony is still the thing she reaches for. Generationally speaking, the music was already in the air. Her grandfather, Colin Smith, is a distinguished mento man who played banjo and guitar and built his own rumba boxes, worked to keep Jamaica’s oldest acoustic folk form alive. Mento is the root of all of it: ska, rock steady, reggae, dub and everything after. He is the one who put a guitar in her hands. An inheritance, a gift and a map. Even her name is part of it, though she will tell you she landed on it more by feel than reason. She records as June McDoom, born Alyssa, June being a nickname one of her grandmothers, Joan, went by, a name she thought was cool to carry and simply liked the sound of. An etheric channel that reverberates all the same. A dub all its own.


Made slowly and by hand with her longtime partner Evan Wright, Follow the Light lays the harmony of folk over the rhythm of dub, with Dionne Warwick, Minnie Riperton, Pentangle and the washed guitars of Cocteau Twins haunting its outer edges. Voice and guitar seeking each other out first, then everything else stacked across long days in the studio they keep at home, restraint kept on purpose. The lead single “Without You” is the whole method surfacing, split open and sparkling like a geode in a creek bed. Angelic heroics, and nothing less.


At the heart is family. Her grandmother Aggie, the light behind “Memory,” guiding still. And underneath, the quieter truth the record keeps: none of us are only one person, but a continuum of selves, the ones who shaped us and the ones we have yet to meet. Future you is an ancestor your current self gets to greet. Press play and the same invitation is yours: A few minutes out of time, a place that turns familiar the longer you stay until you surface somewhere new and find it was yours all along

There is a hush most of us only knew as children, the warm drift between familiar household sounds and being carried to bed, a place that belongs to you and to some self you have not met yet. June McDoom’s debut full-length, Follow the Light, lives in that dream space and then keeps walking, slipping out of time and waking somewhere new, barely familiar enough to feel like home yet wholly your own. She came up in a Jamaican household on the edge of the Florida Everglades, an existence built of extended family, communal care, bass and harmonics. Her father, a carpenter and a student of sound, built his own speakers and kept three sound systems going across as many rooms. His low end would rise through her bedroom floor like some wayward cat while she lay above it with folk records, finding harmonies that were new and hers alone. Two musics in one room. Lushness as past and premonition. She found folk on her own, somewhere between the cast recording of The Sound of Music and Simon and Garfunkel, while everyone around her called it sleepy music. She did not mind being the only one. The solitude let her fall for harmony first, before words, before anything else, and harmony is still the thing she reaches for. Generationally speaking, the music was already in the air. Her grandfather, Colin Smith, is a distinguished mento man who played banjo and guitar and built his own rumba boxes, worked to keep Jamaica’s oldest acoustic folk form alive. Mento is the root of all of it: ska, rock steady, reggae, dub and everything after. He is the one who put a guitar in her hands. An inheritance, a gift and a map. Even her name is part of it, though she will tell you she landed on it more by feel than reason. She records as June McDoom, born Alyssa, June being a nickname one of her grandmothers, Joan, went by, a name she thought was cool to carry and simply liked the sound of. An etheric channel that reverberates all the same. A dub all its own.


Made slowly and by hand with her longtime partner Evan Wright, Follow the Light lays the harmony of folk over the rhythm of dub, with Dionne Warwick, Minnie Riperton, Pentangle and the washed guitars of Cocteau Twins haunting its outer edges. Voice and guitar seeking each other out first, then everything else stacked across long days in the studio they keep at home, restraint kept on purpose. The lead single “Without You” is the whole method surfacing, split open and sparkling like a geode in a creek bed. Angelic heroics, and nothing less.


At the heart is family. Her grandmother Aggie, the light behind “Memory,” guiding still. And underneath, the quieter truth the record keeps: none of us are only one person, but a continuum of selves, the ones who shaped us and the ones we have yet to meet. Future you is an ancestor your current self gets to greet. Press play and the same invitation is yours: A few minutes out of time, a place that turns familiar the longer you stay until you surface somewhere new and find it was yours all along

By the end of 1986, with Miles Davis’ career in resurgence, he was approached by the producers of the movie Siesta, based on the book by Patrice Chaplin and starring Ellen Barkin, Gabriel Byrne and Martin Sheen. Miles agreed to create the music for the movie and immediately asked Marcus Miller to help compose and produce.

As had taken place with Tutu, Miles looked to bassist Marcus Miller—working with keyboardist/programmer Jason Miles—to compose and construct the various tracks, over which he blew his trumpet parts. Matching the music to the mood and tempo of the film’s scenes lay on Miller’s shoulders. The soundtrack came together in early 1987 in Los Angeles, Miller and Jason Miles working in North Hollywood, and Miles driving in from Malibu to play his parts. Miller brought in a number of players to add solos and texture: guitarists John Scofield and Earl Klugh; flautist James Walker, and drummer Omar Hakim.

Dedicated to arranger Gil Evans, the music is greatly influenced by his style with Miller creating an electrified but very warm orchestra to accompany Davis' melodic solos. This was the first of several instances in which Miles Davis, in the twilight of his life, returned to his roots.

Siësta is available as a numbered limited edition of 1000 copies on gold vinyl.

“I am not sure which of us it is that's writing this page” - Jorge Luis Borges. There are places where a river runs through the story even when you cannot see it. Austin Cash grew up in the Arkansas Delta, and Nathan Smerage in the Chicago suburbs, their paths crossing years later in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where both became members of the Ozark Free Music Society, a loose congregation of musicians who made free and experimental music in non-traditional venues across the city. ‘River Season’ began as an impulsive text sent to Smerage in the summer of 2024, Cash suggesting they should make an album of guitar duets. Calling his bluff, Smerage returned a folder of recordings within a week. Cash had a handful of pieces of his own, originally written for an unreleased film about an Ozarks ceramicist. The songs began traveling back and forth between them by email, however, after opening for the Magic Tuber String Band and playing the compositions live for the first time together, realised the decision to record them live was the only true option. For four days, in the basement apartment where Cash lived, they recorded River Season live. The result is a meticulously composed collection of steel-string guitar music: part folk record, part road map.

Fahey and Ackerman are somewhere in the distance, alongside Bert Jansch, Nick Drake, Marisa Anderson, Nathan Salsburg, Loren Connors, and others. But River Season belongs to neither Arkansas nor Chicago entirely. Cash grew up in Arkansas before moving to Chicago, whereas Smerage grew up in Illinois before moving to Arkansas. River Season catches the two musicians at an intersection in their paths; it belongs to the stretches of road and rivers between them, real and imagined. "This new collaboration between Austin and Nathan is intimate and tonally diverse. Many of the tracks see Austin playing acoustic and Nathan on electric. The statements are succinct (all but two clock in under four minutes) and idiosyncratic. "Bell Harp" and "Painting Friend" are two stand out examples for me in which the textures of the electric/acoustic pairing play off each other in a way that I can't say I have encountered before." -Evan Morgan (Magic Tuber Stringband)

Named after the tendency to impose familiar likenesses, such as faces, on random - usually inanimate - objects, Pareidolia is Jake Muir's way of interpreting the consonances between so-called “ambient” music and extreme heavy metal. Extracting the headiest, most atmospheric sections from hundreds of death metal and black metal tracks, Muir plays the role of both DJ and electroacoustic composer, concocting a lysergic elixir of fractal distortions and prolonged, decelerated riffs that slowly evaporates into iridescent vapor. If there's any trace of the original sources left, Muir makes sure that residue is subtly bewildering, like clouds in the sky that form imposing, larger than life images, or trampled bracken that falls into the shape of “trve kvlt” insignia.

The idea for the album materialized when Muir was working on 2022's Talisman, his collaborative album with multi-instrumentalist Evan Caminiti. Processing guitar for the first time, Muir began to unpack his long relationship with rock music and its Escher-like maze of sub-genres, from the tech metal he obsessed over as a teenager to Loop and Main's drone-y, textured variants. Scraping the internet for unconventional contemporary metal albums, he stumbled across music that seemed to hover between different realms, merging its frenetic, noisy sections with psychedelic interludes that harmonize with classic industrial and avant-garde music, material like :zoviet*france:, Nocturnal Emissions and Z'EV.

House is the Religion. The DJ is my Deacon. The Music is my God and James Bangura is cool af.

Genuine, passionate, clear, authentic and real…. He isn’t trying, he just is. And his music is the same. It’s fucking cool. It’s real and authentic and it just is James Bangura. So it’s a real honour to add him to the Shall Not Fade roster; from Techno to Jungle to House and everything between the DC native can extract the true essence of a genre and simultaneously make it his own & pay homage to its roots.

So on Jack Sermon there’s no surprise when he flexes a seemingly generationally inherited knack for all things House (and Techno) and delivers four tracks of raw, real, genuine House music. OG shit.

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‘House is the Religion, and the DJ is my Deacon, but the music is my God” says the Evangelical vocal on title track ‘Jack Sermon’. Never has there been a more aptly named track…This is a jack sermon… an OG inspired Chi town cut channeling early house music’s soulful beginnings delivered with straight up jacking house beat offset with laidback dusty dub chords….. We don;t say this lightly but we’re calling anthem on this one.

‘Scat Pack’ takes a more percussive and drum forward House motif. Thunderous kicks tease techno but this is still house, NY at heart complete with voguing diva vocals . Blown out and choppy we could say ‘this could have been ripped from a late 90’s club recording on a lost tape’ but that would do disservice to the precise but invisible fusion that's been laid down here..

‘Funk To Berlin’ opens the flip side and in Bangura’s journey to explore classic forms of house and techno, this track may well have taken root from Dub techno pioneers from the past. Deep dub chords and deeper subs lead the track but that jacking percussion makes this more than homage. Machine Funk, Machine soul. AA side business.

‘The Green Line’ closes out the EP in style.. rolling it out with skittering synths that work like percussion, ethereal pads and a faint vocal ‘Chicago’ spiralling into itself making this track one you can get lost in. Some might argue that this one is techno but who cares. It’s the journey not the destination. Two tickets please.

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If you don’t know James Bangura’s music already (or even if you do) do some digging.. Look for releases on Mister Saturday Night, K7! and Floorspeed and check his output as part of “Black Rave Culture” with Amal and Nativesun and as a member of Groovedeep with Toronto’s Ciel and fellow DC native Jackson Ryland.

To close, we’ll leave you with this note from James……. told he is cool af.

House music, to me, exists on a wide spectrum. I’m inspired by its many forms: stripped-back minimalism, percussive drive, hypnotic textures, and soulful undertones. Rather than confining myself to one approach, I treat each track as an exploration—testing structure, pushing rhythm, and allowing subtle details to carry emotional weight. The studio becomes a space where groove and atmosphere meet intention. This body of work highlights that process. It reflects how I balance technical precision with feel, tension with release, and tradition with forward motion. Every decision—from drum programming to spatial design—is part of shaping a sound that feels honest and instinctive. - James Bangura

Straddling an intriguing intersection of Drum & Bass, Jazz, Fusion and unidentifiable electronica, ‘You Won't Find Your Way From Here’ is the debut album from Jhauk.

An extremely talented multi-instrumentalist from Sheffield, UK, Jhauk came to Blu Mar Ten’s attention when, in 2017, he created a wild prog-rock inflected remix of BMT’s track ‘Titans’
Further conversations with Jhauk revealed the depth of his unorthodox approach to electronic music and unearthed a treasure trove of production skills, culminating in the album before you.

Oscillating between the late-night, moody calm of late 50s Miles Davis, John Coltrane & Bill Evans, the riotous 70s instrumentation of Weather Report, the modern cool stylings of Matthew Halsall and the gritty edges of modern D&B production, it’s scarcely believable that this collection of tracks came from one person working alone in their studio. With tempos and time signatures skittering all over the place, Jhauk uses genres as catalysts rather than containers, he finds the interesting stuff in the hinterlands of their structural relationships and tensions. 

Talking about the album, Jhauk has strong opinions:

“Drum & Bass emerged as club music, and club music comes with its own logic. Specific structures, specific build-ups, a formula that supports that context. 
That's fair enough, but almost 40 years later, why is 99% of D&B still made the exact same way when 99% of the time it's never heard in a club? The same structure, the same formula, barely any development beyond the core idea. Tracks where you can hear 10 seconds of the drop and know almost beat-for-beat how the next 5 minutes sound. No real musical depth or exploration. People regurgitating the same material ad-nauseum but never actually saying anything for themselves. 
This period of composition for me was about taking what I love about D&B, the rhythmic energy and potential for creative freedom it presents and really stretching it to its limits. Of taking drum & bass as a starting point and seeing where it ends up without an idea of what that destination might be. Most people would probably never call a lot of the results D&B, but that's okay because it was never the point.”

 
Dripping with melancholy, euphoria, longing and pure urgency ‘You Won't Find Your Way From Here’ is unlike anything else you’ll hear this year. The sound of an artist entirely unconcerned with impressing peers or performing on ‘socials’; you're hearing a true musician at work, expressing ideas through the skill of his hands, mind and ears. The album’s secrets aren’t revealed with a single play-through, but bears (or even requires) multiple listens to expose its layers.
In previous times, they called this ‘art'.

Straddling an intriguing intersection of Drum & Bass, Jazz, Fusion and unidentifiable electronica, ‘You Won't Find Your Way From Here’ is the debut album from Jhauk.

An extremely talented multi-instrumentalist from Sheffield, UK, Jhauk came to Blu Mar Ten’s attention when, in 2017, he created a wild prog-rock inflected remix of BMT’s track ‘Titans’
Further conversations with Jhauk revealed the depth of his unorthodox approach to electronic music and unearthed a treasure trove of production skills, culminating in the album before you.

Oscillating between the late-night, moody calm of late 50s Miles Davis, John Coltrane & Bill Evans, the riotous 70s instrumentation of Weather Report, the modern cool stylings of Matthew Halsall and the gritty edges of modern D&B production, it’s scarcely believable that this collection of tracks came from one person working alone in their studio. With tempos and time signatures skittering all over the place, Jhauk uses genres as catalysts rather than containers, he finds the interesting stuff in the hinterlands of their structural relationships and tensions. 

Talking about the album, Jhauk has strong opinions:

“Drum & Bass emerged as club music, and club music comes with its own logic. Specific structures, specific build-ups, a formula that supports that context. 
That's fair enough, but almost 40 years later, why is 99% of D&B still made the exact same way when 99% of the time it's never heard in a club? The same structure, the same formula, barely any development beyond the core idea. Tracks where you can hear 10 seconds of the drop and know almost beat-for-beat how the next 5 minutes sound. No real musical depth or exploration. People regurgitating the same material ad-nauseum but never actually saying anything for themselves. 
This period of composition for me was about taking what I love about D&B, the rhythmic energy and potential for creative freedom it presents and really stretching it to its limits. Of taking drum & bass as a starting point and seeing where it ends up without an idea of what that destination might be. Most people would probably never call a lot of the results D&B, but that's okay because it was never the point.”

 
Dripping with melancholy, euphoria, longing and pure urgency ‘You Won't Find Your Way From Here’ is unlike anything else you’ll hear this year. The sound of an artist entirely unconcerned with impressing peers or performing on ‘socials’; you're hearing a true musician at work, expressing ideas through the skill of his hands, mind and ears. The album’s secrets aren’t revealed with a single play-through, but bears (or even requires) multiple listens to expose its layers.
In previous times, they called this ‘art'.

Our journeys into uncharted lands of the Reducerverse continue.

Essential must-buy shit for all disciples of: The Rootsman x Muslimgauze, Love's Secret Domain era Coil, Chris & Cosey, Meat Beat Manifesto, early Reinforced Recs, Shut Up & Dance, He Dark Age, Zombies Under Stress, SPK.

If you've just joined us: Reducer ARE the greatest lost dub punks. Rumoured to have almost signed to On-U Sound but told Sherwood to stuff it when he wanted his hands on the desk. Fame never found them, cos they didn't want it anyway. Living in the obscure memories of the select squatters and weirdos lucky enough to have had their minds blown, their first recordings were scraped off the linings of the cosmic dustbin recently through a series of self-released 12"s, cassettes, USBs and strangest of all a 3D performance screened at the Cube (in association with pals Bokeh Versions).

In short: Reducer's the most thrilling fairytale resurrection these pages have been privy to, joining 23 Skidoo, Killing Joke, PiL, Slits, Terminal Cheescake etc on the Mount Olympus of the Punky Reggae Party.

This latest slice of karmic justice comes from The Human Aerial aka Reducer's guitarist and prime mover Hooly. And ohhhh what a justice it is. Drawing on 40 years of private solo recordings across 7 tracks from Abu Ama style dabke jaguar steppas punishment to thumping bass-led electro, peak Depth Charge dubby big beat to careening breakbeat hardcore, trashcan gamelan spirituals and Jamie Vex'd style maximalist beats blissouts,

Tying together this jaw-dropping range of styles and fashions is a relentless sampladelic bombardment. The Human Aerial's habitual pilfering of TV and radio for into lovingly spliced tape loops and samples showcases humanity at its best and absolute worst. Tele-evangelists rub shoulders with long dead chieftans: "there is no death, only change of worlds" "We're MAD AS HELL AND WERE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE" "THe land is sacred, a cathedral of the spirit". These wisdoms and grave sins slip into us subliminal through the dance, the needle drops like a waking dream.

While the Reducer archives may be running low, we assure you the Human Aerial coffers are full. And long may our minds be blown by this ongoing renaissance.

Sound the alarm, we’re back! PAGER15 is our first VA since 2020, and it’s a special one— dropping soon with four tracks, four unique voices, and enough groove to shake your neighbor’s picture frames off the wall!

First up, our homeboy Phil Evans, aka "the coach” aka daddy cool, with Chocolate Funk. Imagine warm pads, crispy drums, and a bassline so addictive it should come with a warning. Add his signature offbeat stabs and a swing smoother than the creamy drizzle on kimchi fries, and you’ve got a groove that lingers long after the needle lifts.

Fresh blood incoming! Wavelength Infinity marks the Pager debut of the Parisians Aline Umber & Maxime dB, and they’re making waves. Deep, undulating basslines meet shimmering pads in a hypnotic blend of rhythm and texture. It’s a groove-roller that pulls you in faster than a free drink at the bar.

Flip it over, and California Sunshine Boy Rocky delivers debut number two with Aquatic Maneuvers. Flowing pads and bubbling percussion weave together a lush, evolving soundscape. Organic and intricate, it shifts like underwater currents, with each layer wrapping around you like the warm embrace of an after-hours vibe you never want to end!

And then there’s the Gude-Launebär himself—Markus Sommer, aka Frau Hommer, answering the eternal question: Does it Funk? Spoiler: absolutely. Rolling basslines, sharp percussion, and cheeky melodic twists come together. This is Hommer energy at its peak!

You know the drill: Either you grab it while it’s hot, or you’ll be left watching it spin on someone else’s deck. PAGER15 is calling—don’t let it go to voicemail!

MUSIC BY MADLIB / ARRANGED BY KIEREN HEBDEN (Four Tet)

Gil Evans to Miles Davis…. Holger Czukay to the ensemble known as Can….Jean Claude Vannier to Serge Gainsbourg on Histoire de Melody Nelson. That’s the only way to explain the specificity of Four Tet and Madlib’s collaboration, in this special album that showcases a two-decade long friendship that has resulted in an album that follows Madlib’s classics like Quasimoto’s The Unseen, Madvillainy and his Pinata and Bandana albums with Freddie Gibbs.

“A few months ago I completed work on an album with my friend Madlib that we’d been making for the last few years. He is always making loads of music in all sorts of styles and I was listening to some of his new beats and studio sessions when I had the idea that it would be great to hear some of these ideas made into a Madlib solo album. Not made into beats for vocalists to use but instead arranged into tracks that could all flow together in an album designed to be listened to start to finish. I put this concept to him when we were hanging out eating some nice food one day and we decided to work on this together with him sending me tracks, loops, ideas and experiments that I would arrange, edit, manipulate and combine. I was sent hundreds of pieces of music over a couple of years stretch and during that time I put together this album with all the parts that fitted with my vision.” - Kieren Hebden AKA Four Tet

Crossover deviants IRON REAGAN call upon thee to join the holy order of thrash on their latest full-length, Crossover Ministry! Across 18 tracks and thirty minutes of frantic, punk-metal fury, IRON REAGAN mix a blitzkrieg of relentlessly catchy riffs and irresistible, mosh-ready grooves with punchy, thrash gallops and hardcore punk attitude. Crossover Ministry was recorded byIRON REAGAN guitarist Phil (Landphil) Hall at Blaze of Torment Studios, mixed by Kurt Ballou (Converge, High on Fire, Toxic Holocaust) at God City Studios and features stunning artwork by Bonethrower (Mastodon, Young Widows). On Crossover Ministry, IRON REAGAN prove that they are the new leaders of thrash evangelism. Hear their vicious sermon at a circle pit near you!

Through an intimate, conversational approach, free from any trace of mannerism, pianist Enrico Pieranunzi and guitarist Bebo Ferra probe the innermost mystery of a genius whose expressive language combined charm and intellect are in equal measure. Drawing on languorous ballads at unhurried tempos, the program alternates reinterpretations of emblematic Evans themes - 'Song for Helen', 'Very Early', 'Once Upon a 'Summertime' - with a series of inspired original pieces. Occasionally joined by the deep, reassuring double bass of Diego Imbert ('Song for Helen', 'Calling Enrico'), they move from post- romantic atmospheres to more introverted lyrical passages, steering clear of both sentimental excess and detached formalism.

Im Februar 2026 erscheint zum zwanzigjährigen Jubiläum Hard to Love a Man" von Magnolia Electric Co. als erweiterte Edition und zum ersten Mal auf Vinyl. Diese Jubiläumsausgabe der ersten EP der Band enthält drei zusätzliche Tracks: remasterte Demos von 31 Seasons in the Minor Leagues" (zuvor unter dem Titel Tonight I'm So Down" bekannt) und Lonesome Valley", aufgenommen in den Echo Park Studios in Indiana während der Hard to Love a Man"-Sessions, sowie One Thin Dime", aufgenommen während der Black Ram"-Sessions in den Sound of Music Recording Studios in Richmond, Virginia. Working-Class-Rock" ist ein Begriff, der häufig zur Beschreibung von The Magnolia Electric Co. verwendet wurde. Kategorisch hatte sich die Band ihren Platz unter gleichgesinnten Ikonen wie Bob Seger, CCR, Tom Petty und Bruce Springsteen gesichert, doch es handelte sich nicht nur um eine ästhetische Beschreibung, sie untermauerten dies mit ihrer Arbeitsmoral. Im Jahr 2005 waren The Magnolia Electric Co. erstaunlicherweise acht Monate unterwegs. Diese Tatsache wurde den Bandmitgliedern selbst am deutlichsten bewusst, da sie so lange von ihrem Zuhause und ihren Liebsten getrennt waren. Daher die Bedeutung des Titeltracks. Wenn Jason Molina die Perspektive der Person einnimmt, die er zurückgelassen hat, und in Hard To Love A Man" singt: "It was hard to love a man like you / Goodbye was half the words you knew / While you were waiting for me not to call / I sent my love", dann wird die Einsamkeit und Schuld der Trennung schmerzlich deutlich. Jennie Benfords verletzliche Stimme, gepaart mit Jason Groths fließender Gitarre und Mike Kapinus' klagender Orgel, unterstreicht dieses Gefühl eindrucksvoll, unterlegt vom charakteristischen, präzisen und geschmackvollen Rhythmusfundament von Mark Rice und Pete Schreiner, während Nicole Evans eine neue, dynamische Stimme hinzufügt. Hard To Love A Man" und der Live-Favorit Werewolves Of London" wurden mit Steve Albini in seinen Electrical Audio Studios aufgenommen, die übrigen Tracks entstanden während eines kurzen fünftägigen Heimaufenthalts in Indiana bei Echo Park Studios mit Paul Mahern, dessen Engineering-Resume schon damals Projekte wie The Blake Babies, Lisa Germano und John Mellencamp umfasst. Während die Magnolien weiter wuchsen und erblühten, ließ Jason Molina die Insassen das Irrenhaus regieren.

Toronto’s Ducks Ltd. (formerly Ducks Unlimited), the bright jangle-pop duo of Tom McGreevy (lead vocal, guitar, bass, keyboards) and Evan Lewis (guitar, bass, drum programming), accomplish the impossible. The pair craft songs that play to very specific inspirations without drowning underneath them—immediately evidenced on their critically acclaimed EP, Get Bleak, and sharpened on Modern Fiction, their debut LP. “The Servants, The Clean, The Chills, The Bats, Television Personalities, Felt,” Evan rattles off. “Look Blue Go Purple is one I reference a lot with our production.” Echoes of ‘80s indiepop abound, but they never overwhelm. This is not a nostalgic record, after all, nor is it a derivative one. Instead, across 10 cheery-sounding songs, Ducks Ltd. explore contemporary society in decline, examining large scale human disaster through personal turmoil (hence the title, taken from a university course called Gnosticism and Nihilism in Modern Fiction, influenced by Graham Greene novels. Bookish indie fans, look no further.)

Writing the album was intimate. Tom drafted the nucleus of a song on an unplugged electric guitar and brought it over to Evan’s apartment, where the pair sat in his bedroom, placing percussive beats from a drum machine under nascent melodies, passing a bass back and forth, adding organs and bridges where necessary. “It’s computer music trying extremely hard not to sound like computer music,” Tom jokes. Fearful that limited and expensive studio time would kneecap the project creatively, eroding their charming naivete, the pair re-recorded the album in a storage space owned by Evan’s boss. Ornamentation through collaboration followed: there’s Aaron Goldstein on Pedal Steel in the Go-Betweens’ “Cattle and Cane”-channeling interlude “Patience Wearing Thin,” Eliza Niemi on cello (“18 Cigarettes,” a song loosely inspired by a 1997 Oasis performance of “Don’t Go Away”), and backing harmonies from Carpark labelmates The Beths (on an ode to friendship at a distance, “How Lonely Are You?,” “Always There,” and on the sped-up Syd Barrett stylings of “Under The Rolling Moon.”) While in his native Australia due to covid-19, Evan worked closely with producer James Cecil (The Goon Sax, Architecture in Helsinki) on Modern Fiction’s finishing touches—at one point, in the mountains of the Macedon Ranges in Victoria, recorded a string quartet (featured on “Fit to Burst,” “Always There,” “Sullen Leering Hope,” “Twere Ever Thus,” “Grand Final Day.”)

It’s danceable, depressive fun, with some relief: in “Always There” and “Sullen Leering Hope,” Modern Fiction’s faithful heart. “There’s a tendency in my writing, because of my world view, to be very bleak.” Tom explains. “A quality I don’t always see in myself and really appreciate in others is the courage to go on.” And yet, the record manages resiliency—enough for pop fans to fall in love with.

The Spice of Life, released in November 1969, stands as Marlena Shaw's second--and final--studio album for Cadet Records, produced and arranged by the renowned Richard Evans and Charles Stepney. From the opening, Shaw's voice--both playful and powerful--cuts through the lush yet tight-knit arrangements, weaving together a vibrant tapestry of soul, proto-funk, jazz, gospel, and blues. The album features two defining classics: her deeply resonant original of 'Woman of the Ghetto' and a signature take on Ashford & Simpson's 'California Soul', both staples in sampling culture (you'll probably find that you're more familiar with Shaw's material than you thought.) Evans and Stepney's arrangements are far from mere support--they're panoramic and inventive. You'll hear kalimba flourishes, psych-tinged guitar accents, and bongo-fueled organ textures that elevate each track, keeping the atmosphere rich but never overwhelming. Moments like the Bacharach-styled 'Looking Through the Eyes of Love' or the dramatic flair of 'Stormy Monday' showcase their widescreen sensibility and Shaw's versatility. Beneath its musical elegance, "The Spice of Life" carries a weighty current of social commentary. Tracks such as 'Woman of the Ghetto' and the succinct, fierce 'Liberation Conversation' bring political and feminist themes into a soulful, expressive framework--adding unexpected depth to the sophisticated sonic palette. This album offers an immersive journey through soul-jazz mastery, one that rewarded listeners with sampling gold for decades to come. Reissue on 180g vinyl.

David Bazan was, for many years, the songwriter and driving force behind the acclaimed indie band Pedro the Lion, building a dedicated following and selling a couple hundred-thousand albums based in large part on his extraordinary melodic sense and erudite, theologically-themed songs. After a decade helming the project,he found himself embroiled in a major personal philosophical and spiritual cataclysm, wrapped in a growing drinking problem. Bazan got to work exorcizing both his demons and angels, ditching the Pedro moniker in favor of his given name and producing two incredible pieces of work in the Fewer Moving Parts EP and the 2009 full-length Curse Your Branches (Barsuk). Branches is considered by many to be a legitimate masterpiece. Charting Bazan's increasingly skeptical struggle with the precepts of the evangelical Christian world in which he was raised, the album covers some pretty serious ground. NPR called it "an album of great music and great humanity." Strange Negotiations focuses Bazan's energies toward the external, centering on his disappointment in the current state of accelerating American and global social fragmentation. Musically, most of Strange Negotiations sounds like a great rock band playing songs theyre beyond intimate with. Its the first full-length he's recorded with a band, the same band with which he toured relentlessly in support of Curse Your Branches.

San Francisco hardcore stalwarts Western Addiction return with Psychedelic Munitions, a high-octane successor to Frail Bray that captures the explosive fervor and technical precision of their Bay Area roots. Recorded and mixed by Scott Evans at Sharkbite Studios and Antisleep Audio, then mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege, the album delivers a massive, "live-in-the-room" sound that avoids modern polish in favor of visceral, room-shaking grit. Despite the time between releases, the band bridges the gap with a collection of songs that feel both seasoned and dangerously urgent. Psychedelic Munitions stands as a definitive masterclass in authentic California punk, honoring the legacy of the Gilman Street scene while pushing the boundaries of the genre's aggressive potential. Since forming in 2003, WA has defied easy categorization, the band crafting songs that comfortably draw from a wide swath of rock 'n' roll while retaining punk's ferocity with a hardcore feel. Fat Mike often lists WAs "Cognicide" (2005) as one of the greatest releases on the label, also calling it one of the best hardcore albums he's ever heard. Joey Cape from Lagwagon has also stated that it's his favorite album released on Fat Wreck Chords.

Das Erste, was man hört, ist eine einsame, klare Gitarre und ein sanfter Gesang, der von "city scenes caught up in the moment" erzählt, bevor das Schlagzeug einsetzt und es losgeht! So beginnt die atemberaubende, kraftvolle Eleganz von The Spatulas neuestem Album ,A Blue Dot". The Spatulas, das sind im Wesentlichen Miranda Soileau-Pratt und wer auch immer sie rekrutiert, um ihre Vision zu verwirklichen. Alles begann in Oregon, wo frühere Veröffentlichungen wie ,March Chant" und ,Beehive Mind" mit dem Schlafzimmer-Schmerz von ,Beyond the Implode" und der wackeligen Psych-Magie von ,Garbage and the Flowers" glänzten. Doch obwohl diese Elemente nicht verschwunden sind, ist ,A Blue Dot" ein ganz anderes Kaliber. Ein Umzug nach Cambridge, Massachusetts, und eine notwendige personelle Veränderung haben das, was einst eine beständige, schimmernde Lockerheit mit voller Rockdynamik war, verwandelt. Die neue Besetzung (Gitarrist Luke Einsiedler, Bassist Elijah Bodish und Schlagzeuger Greg Witz) hat ihren Sound zu einer lauten Masse aus harter und stimmungsvoller Jangle-Explosion verdichtet. Der Post-NZ-Glory-Pop von Barbara Mannings SF Seals ist hier zu finden, ebenso wie der dichte Wirbel von Rain Parade. Fachmännisch aufgenommen im Suddenly Studio von Emily Robb, gemischt von Evan Mersky und von Sarah Register zu vollendeter Kohäsion gemastert, klingt das Ganze laut und stolz. Seit der Fertigstellung dieses wunderbaren Albums sind Miranda und Elijah nach Indiana gezogen, wo glücklicherweise eine neue Besetzung gefunden wurde. Aber ein noch glücklicheres Ende ist, dass diese spezielle Crew noch nicht fertig ist mit dem gemeinsamen Musizieren, und hoffentlich wird diese elende Welt noch lange genug existieren, um im Sommer 2026 eine Tour an der Ostküste mitzuerleben. Man kann sich im Leben wenigstens auf eine Sache freuen! - Max Milgram

El Pulso del Acero: Shinkansen is Esplendor Geométrico's electrifying new album, blending trance-inducing industrial rhythms with bold voice and noise collages. Featuring 16 tracks, it revisits the raw power of their 80s classics while exploring futuristic industrial sounds, with recordings from Tokyo (2025) and a rare previously limited tracks now on vinyl for the first time. After over 40 years of continuous innovation, the influential Spanish duo continues to shape industrial, techno, and experimental noise music worldwide. Available on double vinyl and CD digipack. The raw power of their early work is also present here in some brilliant reconstructions of 80s tracks turning out very different from the originals (Rotorama, Trybuna V, Shinkansen, Héroe del Trabajo 2025, or Introspectivo). Songs such as Auto Reverse will be especially appreciated by the most avid fans of EG's early sound. Other tunes of futuristic industrial music closer to their previous album, Strepitus Rhythmicus, are also included (Experiencia AV, Isla, Por un Perro_) Ten tracks were recorded in 2025 in Tokyo, where Arturo Lanz (founding member of E.G.) currently resides. The other six were released, only on CD,in an ultra-limited edition shared with the group De Fabriek in 2023, long sold out, now finally on vinyl for the first time. Born in 1980 as a trio, and currently a duo formed by Arturo Lanz (founding member) and Saverio Evangelista (member since 1991), Esplendor Geométrico is an influential and international electronic cult band and also a rare case in the Spanish music scene, as they have developed their own independent path aside from tags, fashion or trends, in spite of being often classified as industrial music. Their career for more than four decades hasn't had interruptions. They haven't stopped composing, releasing albums or playing live.Their influence has marked many later artists, usually classified in the so-called industrial music or rhythm & noise, as well as artists from current techno and certain types of experimental noise music.

Portrait in Jazz was Bill Evans' third album as a leader and his first LP with the talented bassist Scott LaFaro. The Evans-LaFaro collaboration would reach a climax with their June 1961 club recordings at the Village Vanguard in New York. Portrait in Jazz is made up of eight popular standards plus a couple of original compositions; Evan's 'Peri's Scope', and 'Blue in Green, co- composed by Evans and Miles Davis and first taped in March of 1959 by the two musicians in Miles' sextet that produced the perennial classic, Kind of Blue. This special edition features exclusive photographs by famous French jazz photographer Jean-Pierre Leloir. Includes the bonus track 'Autumn Leaves' (Mono take) from the same session but not on the original LP.










[j] Autumn Leaves [mono Take]

Das zweite Album des Palace-Records-Gründers Andrei Nikolsky ist stark von Soundtrack- und Library-Musik der Vergangenheit beeinflusst, darunter auch von einem seiner Helden, John Cameron (Kes, KPM, Bruton), der auf dem Album mit dem Song "Swing Time" zu hören ist. Die Platte bietet eine Mischung aus ungewöhnlicher Elektronik, modalem Jazz und experimentellem Disco. Weitere Mitwirkende sind Mitglieder seiner Band The Kanpai Quartet (Charlie Searle, Euan McGinty, Dan Kabakov) sowie die Schlagzeuger Filippo Galli, Mike Bandoni (aka Funkshone) und Felix Weldon (Johnny Dankworth, Ian Shaw, Jean Toussaint, The La's).

- "Verdammt nochmal, Mann, was für ein Jazz!" - Sarah Evans (BBC6-Produzentin)
- "Ein wunderschönes Album! Perfekt für meine One Jazz-Show." - Dom Servini (Wah Wah 45s)
- "Schöne Soundsammlung." - Rory More (Les Hommes)
- "Die neuen Tracks klingen super! Ich mag die Anspielungen auf Disco und die verschiedenen musikalischen Richtungen." - Paul Osborne (Project Gemini)

Limited edition classic LP, reissued on 180g vinyl, audiophile pressing
Portrait in Jazz was Bill Evans' third album as a leader, following New Jazz
Conceptions (1956) and Everybody Digs Bill Evans (1958). It was also Evans' first
studio album with his legendary trio, featuring Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian.
The repertoire here consists of standards (all of them treated in Evans' very
personal style) plus two originals, "Peri's Scope" – premiered on Portrait in Jazz,
and "Blue in Green," which was co-composed by Miles Davis. Bill first recorded the
latter composition in March 1959 with Miles for the classic album, Kind of Blue.






[f] BLUE IN GREEN [alternative take]




[k] AUTUMN LEAVES [Mono take]

Announcing Perseverance Flow, the latest album from acclaimed Chicago-based ensemble Natural Information Society (NIS), release date 2024-10-24. After a trilogy of double LPs by expanded manifestations of the band that began in 2018 with Mandatory Reality & continued through Since Time Is Gravity (a Pitchfork Best Jazz & Experimental Album of the Year selection & Mojo’s #1 Underground Album of 2023), NIS returns to its core formation of Lisa Alvarado on harmonium, Mikel Patrick Avery on drums, Jason Stein on bass clarinet, & composer/multi-instrumentalist Joshua Abrams on guimbri for one continuous 37 minute composition across a single LP. As the rocket boosters on spaceship earth sputter closer to burnout, lower your stylus into a soundfield that grows stronger the deeper you travel into it; a dose of the medicine many of us look to music to deliver awaits you inside.

One of the deep contemplations of this natural information (thanks Bill Callahan) is the wide range of source materials Abrams draws from over the band’s more than 15 year history: Ideas from minimalism, modal jazz & traditional musics are regularly reimagined in these compositions. The 2021 double LP descension (Out of Our Constrictions), with guest soloist Evan Parker, reflected aspects of Abrams’ love of party music, Chicago house, & John Coltrane. *But even veteran travelers with the NIS best brace themselves for the Perseverance Flow.

Speaking to the history & the inspirations behind the album, Abrams offers: “We played the piece for a year in concert before the recording. At Electrical (Audio Studios, Chicago) we went in at 11 & were done in time to pick our kids up from school.” Abrams continues: "In a reference world, I imagine Perseverance Flow like a live extended realization of a Jaylib lost instrumental as remixed by Kevin Shields. Or vice versa. I also think it has sympathies to some of the more rhythmically intricate dance musics out of Chicago & Lisbon.”

The core NIS ensemble heard on Perseverance Flow always address Abrams’ writing with the discipline of orchestra musicians & the creativity of improvisers. But this time around, instead of inviting living legend status musicians Evan or William Parker or Ari Brown as honored guests to solo freely over the composed materials, Abrams’ invited guest collaborator was the medium of the recording studio itself. Situated at the board with engineer Greg Norman, Abrams pushed post production techniques found only sporadically on earlier NIS records deep into the heart of the music, distorting & reshaping instruments to subtly &, at times, aggressively mutate timbre & texture, color & time.

Refracting the band’s signature mesmerizing chains of overlapping rhythmic patterns through the sonic funhouse of dub makes Perseverance Flow the most formally experimental NIS album to date. Now a soundworld fully unique to itself is listening to itself, consoling & humoring itself, & consoling & humoring you. A destruction myth & a creation myth of a soundworld together at once —”energetically nutritious” (October 2025 Issue 500 The Wire) supernatural information society.

“Perseverance Flow is skipping rope in slo-mo. A dance of co-operation to rally guts & humors & keep marching through pouring tears” (Abrams).

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

–

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thurston Moore, London, 2025

Haunted Heart: The Legendary Riverside Studio Recordings brings together the complete studio recordings by the Bill Evans Trio featuring Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian. Included are the albums Portrait in Jazz and Explorations, plus 26 alternate takes - 17 previously unreleased. The collection includes rare photos, introduction by John Densmore (The Doors), and new liner notes by Eugene Holley Jr. and audio is newly remastered by Paul Blakemore, with lacquers cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio.

OOOOH! by Alex Bad Baby Lukashevsky with Cocoa Corner (2025)

Celebrated veteran of Toronto’s music scene, known for his boundary-pushing approach to folk and avant-garde music, twists rock music into strange and brilliant new shapes with the help of young jazz players, U.S. Girls, and his own immensely talented son.



OOOOH! is hard on the outside and soft on the inside. Made in the spirit of unity,
humanity, and poetry — disobediently renouncing the glory of personal triumph for the
generosity of an honest experiment. On the last track of the album you’ll hear “Or do you only ever never want to make a single enemy? / That’s not freedom or humility / It’s nothing, honestly.” Oooh, that's a bad baby!

A celebrated Toronto songwriter and performer, Alex Lukashevsky has always been disobedient. Which simply means, nothing is off the table when he’s looking for his
poetic voice; when trying to find the realest I of the teller. As he sings on the lead track “that musician that’s dead” The musician is radical/ it’s the world that’s demented/ listening with their eyes, the music looks dented/ they’re over-represented.
OOOOH! was recorded in January 2024 at Sound Department in Toronto, engineered by Patrick Lefler (ROY), mixed by Grammy-nominated producer Matt Smith. All the songs were tracked live off the floor in two days, with one extra day for recording vocals, to keep the recording fully alive and breathing. As leader of Deep Dark United, as a solo performer, and a sideman in Brodie Wests’ Eucalyptus and Luka Kuplowsky’s Ryokan Band, Alex has been an outsized influence on the Toronto music scene that spawned acts like Broken Social Scene and Owen Pallett. (Pallett, who has toured with Lukashevsky, went so far as to record an entire album’s worth of Alex’s songs, backed
by a full orchestra.)

Lukashevsky has approached each of his albums and projects as something completely new, using only the musical boundaries he creates with each song. Even when he
has recorded songs with nothing but his voice and his own acoustic guitar accompaniment, the results are never “stripped down” or “back to basics,”
Gong! How do you get to heaven / have fun! have fun!
It’s cool to approach music as a game of “spot the influence”; Burt Bacharach-meets-Black Flag; Lana Del Rey-meets-LCD Soundsystem etc. Glorified mash-ups are promising because of their conversational nature. But they can turn us into hyperboreans; blowing cold air beyond ourselves while doing what we can to remain warm. To devise a game or a narrative is to have a winner and a loser, but we all know that just as you win/ so you lose. And does anything really change? Alex Lukashevsky and Cocoa Corner are more at ease drawing blind contours or playing an old game like consequences. They let things add up without knowing particularly how. Cognition is recognition.

Lukashevsky, in addition to writing all the songs, plays guitar and sings on OOOOH!, doing both in ways that are soulful and spikey at the same time. Joining him on guitar and vocals is his oldest child, Charlie Lukashevsky, who, at 23, is already a talented performer and songwriter in his own right. Cocoa Corner also includes Aidan McConnell, an in-demand drummer and composer, Jack Johnston, a jazz bassist and Barry Harris acolyte, and percussionist Evan Cartwright (The Weather Station, U.S. Girls, Cola, Tasseomancy), who plays steel pan and marching drum.

Working with his son and with other younger musicians is central to the album’s
unpredictable aesthetic. It reinvigorated the sound in unexpected ways. Lukashevsky says, “I had to reconsider my own instincts. I had to deal with being 99 years old.”
In addition to these performers, the album includes a tasty contribution from Meg
Remy, the visionary musician and producer who is the leader of the critically acclaimed
project U.S. Girls. Remy duets with Lukashevsky on the imagistic and sprawling album
closer “things keep happening.”
About that album title: OOOOH! is taken straight from “that musician that’s dead” an
arch and unhinged comment on the exertion required to navigate a lifetime of music making.
Lukashevsky’s delivery of that one emotive word is a kind of cultural posture, but also a
hundred percent primitive expression. The impact is never less than visceral. His vocal
delivery ranges through rich baritone blues to keening falsettos to a kind of sprechstimme that periodically steps out from the music to grab the listener’s shirt. He
doesn’t sound too nice, but he is sincere. When life gives you lemons lament.
For OOOOH! his first official full-length album since 2012’s Too Late Blues, (a collection of knotty-yet-effervescent tunes built upon the enchantingly serpentine harmonies of Lukashevsky and his vocal collaborators, Felicity Williams (Bahamas, Bernice) and Daniela Gesundheit (Snowblink, HYDRA)), Alex has once again broken apart and rebuilt his own approach to music. Or rather (because that sounds too over-determined), he
has allowed his music to build itself into strange new shapes that only fleetingly and
coincidentally, but happily, resemble anything that might be called rock and roll. There is some editorializing within the song’s lyrics— Lukashevsky even cheekily contributes to the “spot the influence” game with the line “Muddy Waters, Rite of Spring!” a funny preemptive strike against anyone already reaching for some variation of avant-blues to describe what the song is up to here. In fact there are many names checked on this record (literally and in spirit); they are the lily pads that trace the path of this expression! Palestrina, Peter Pears and Benjamin Brittain, Andrés Segovia, Stravinsky, Lotte Lenya, Alice Coltrane, Skip James, Chuck Berry, D’Gary, Betty Carter, Mukhtiyar Ali, Chuck D, Yoko Ono, Hailu Mergia, David Bowie, Jane Siberry. rhythm is a skeleton mansion / haunted by melody / feckless prodigy / the world is under a spell / cast by some demon angel / Practice day and night / Try as hard as hell / no one can sing that well Musicians are often worried by the way in which they are prepared to fail rather
than how they would like to succeed; it’s such a deep concern that it tempers their creativity and shackles their process. Current cultural proclivities, tend to comfort a certain kind of artistic failure and abnegate another kind. How many testimonials, full of heartfelt care and investment, have you heard for Taylor Swift, and yet a craftsman like Chris Weisman is often dismissed easily as though he’s doing something anti-social. what’s throwing itself in my ears and my eyes / arrogant devil ad hominem christ.
The music you will hear on this recording veers off in multiple directions at once,
and features a rock and roll spirit with a divergent heart. This is no sclerotic clomp of the Average Rock Song, but in fact a flood of humanity in all its darkness and moodiness and unpredictability. If most performers make songs that are like sports cars or pickup trucks to drive around, Lukashevsky has built something more akin to a rowboat in a tree: it’s weird and beautiful.

"Horizons/West" (2025) completes the thematic arc begun with "Horizons/East" (2021), pairing personal reflection with sweeping sonic ambition. Self-produced by the band, engineered by guitarist Teppei Teranishi, mixed by Scott Evans, and mastered by Matthew J. Barnhart, "Horizons/West"balances cinematic tones with spacious atmosphere. Teranishi calls it "less dense," while vocalist Dustin Kensrue sees it as their first sequel-two halves of a larger emotional and political panorama. Blending post-rock textures from their earlier albums "Beggars" and "Major/Minor", with rhythmic complexity from "Horizons/East", the band sharpens its edge without losing nuance. Kensrue"s vocals shift from whisper to roar, anchoring meditations on perception, memory, and social influence. "Horizons/West" looks inward while never ignoring the larger world - urging listeners not to adopt beliefs, but to interrogate them. After more than two decades, Thrice continues building catharsis from chaos, and clarity from noise.

"Horizons/West" (2025) completes the thematic arc begun with "Horizons/East" (2021), pairing personal reflection with sweeping sonic ambition. Self-produced by the band, engineered by guitarist Teppei Teranishi, mixed by Scott Evans, and mastered by Matthew J. Barnhart, "Horizons/West"balances cinematic tones with spacious atmosphere. Teranishi calls it "less dense," while vocalist Dustin Kensrue sees it as their first sequel-two halves of a larger emotional and political panorama. Blending post-rock textures from their earlier albums "Beggars" and "Major/Minor", with rhythmic complexity from "Horizons/East", the band sharpens its edge without losing nuance. Kensrue"s vocals shift from whisper to roar, anchoring meditations on perception, memory, and social influence. "Horizons/West" looks inward while never ignoring the larger world - urging listeners not to adopt beliefs, but to interrogate them. After more than two decades, Thrice continues building catharsis from chaos, and clarity from noise.

Seattle punk rock 'n rollers The Drowns are proud to present their brand new live album Live At Rebellion, on Pirates Press Records. This is the band's first foray into recording a live performance, but it has been an idea on the table from very early on. While the band are rightfully acclaimed for their studio albums, the first thing anyone in the know talks about is their electrifying live shows. "Within the first year of starting the band, we saw the reactions we were getting from people live, and we had the idea to record a live album," says guitarist and singer Rev. "Almost a decade later now, we felt like the time was right." While a live album recorded during the first year may have captured the raw power of a hungry band kicking off their momentum, Live at Rebellion is the sound of a seasoned band playing in front of a veritable army of international fans on their largest festival stage at Rebellion Festival in Blackpool, UK - fans that they have earned one by one, sweating it out with relentless transcontinental touring. "Rebellion has always been a highlight of our year, and we love the performances there because the energy from the crowd is raw and visceral," explains Rev. "That's why we made the choice to do it there in Blackpool." While far from a "Greatest Hits Live" preserved in amber, the setlist features selections from every era of the band's career and was determined by the band's knowledge of what songs get their audiences fired up - all killer, no filler, as the saying goes! The gritty attack of "Them Rats" exemplifies the band's streetpunk influences and lyrical calls to unite against abusive authoritarian power. Meanwhile, the vital ass-shaking boogie of "Live Like Yer Dyin'" was a direct result of the band fully embracing their collective appreciation of the energetic joys of both 70s glam and original 50s rock 'n roll! Their choice of cover song - "Ballroom Blitz," - truly hits the Sweet spot, if you'll pardon the pun, as one of the foremost glam-proto-punk-bovver rock masterpieces. It is executed here in masterful hands by The Drowns. The band acknowledges Daz Russell & Daryl Smith, the organizers at Rebellion, for backing the making of the record. David Casey (Success, One Step Beyond) helmed the boards to capture the recording, mixing and engineering was done by Evan Douglas Foster (The Sonics, Boss Martians), and the final master was produced by Seattle legend Jack Endino (Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden), who also recently oversaw the re-master of The Drowns' debut album View From the Bottom. "This album was a cumulative effort between people who still believe in rock 'n' roll," sums up Rev. "We couldn't be more proud."

The Cold Stares are from Evansville, Indiana, formed in 2009. The duo (now recently a trio) has
released seven studio albums. The band's 2012 release A Cold Wet Night and a Howling Wind sold 25,000 copies and reached #1 on Amazon Music's Blues Rock albums chart. For almost ten years, The Cold Stares had toured the world relentlessly as a duo, blowing away
audiences across the US and Europe with a fierce, blistering live show that belied their bare bones,
guitar-and-drums setup. In 2023 the band began embracing a whole new kind of chemistry and
launched into their next chapter, adding a third member and channeling the classic power trio sound they grew up on with their explosive acclaimed album,
Voices. Working off the international success of Voices which was voted one of the best albums of 2023 by Classic Rock Magazine, The Cold Stares went into Memphis Magnetic Studio
in Memphis Tennessee and recorded the band’s next chapter and progression, the sprawling album The Southern. Now they are back with The Southern Part 2
which has already bolstered the
blues rocking tracks “Automobile”
and “Little More Rope”.

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