Search:experience five

Since making her debut with the 2011 album Weightless, singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Becca Stevens has tested the limits of musical identity, mining everything from jazz to Irish folk to indie-rock in her striving for complete and authentic expression. In her latest musical endeavor—the five-track EP WONDERBLOOM and a soon-to-follow full-length of the same name—the North Carolina-bred, Brooklyn-based artist again defies all expectation, this time dreaming up a groove-heavy, dance-ready sound infused with elements of pop and funk and R&B. But despite its brighter textures and uptempo rhythms, WONDERBLOOM finds Stevens achieving a profound complexity in her lyrics, ultimately redefining what’s possible in creating music that elevates and edifies. Centered on the captivating vocal presence she’s showcased as a member of David Crosby’s Lighthouse Band, WONDERBLOOM telegraphs an unabashed joy that Stevens partly attributes to the project’s production. In a bold new turn for her musical career, Stevens co-produced and co-engineered WONDERBLOOM alongside Nic Hard (Snarky Puppy, Ghost-Note, The Church), overseeing every aspect of the recording and claiming a sense of agency that had long eluded her in the studio. “Nic and I were truly working as equals and trusting each other to get the job done, and it was an incredibly empowering experience for me,” she says. In another major departure, Stevens purposely brought a communal sensibility to the making of WONDERBLOOM —an undertaking that resulted in more than 40 musicians contributing to the album, including Vulfpeck guitarist Cory Wong, Jacob Collier, and all of her Lighthouse bandmates (i.e., keyboardist Michelle Willis, Snarky Puppy bandleader Michael League, and David Crosby himself).

When Rey Sapienz was eight years old, the Democratic Republic of Congo was plunged into the Second Congo War. The conflict last five years and was the bloodiest since World War II, leaving an indelible mark on East Africa and creating mass displacement and loss of life. But Sapienz endured, cutting his teeth as a young rapper at twelve, first performing to celebrate Congo's independence day. When he finished school, he headed to nearby Kampala to hone his craft and collaborate with local producers. But civil war broke out back home and he was forced to extend his stay in Uganda. Since then, Sapienz has established himself as a force to be reckoned with, co-founding the Hakuna Kulala label, teaching his Ableton Live skills to Kampala's young producers and releasing two acclaimed EPs. For his debut album, Sapienz embarks on an ambitious project that travels beyond the avant beatscapes of his early material. Alongside traditional percussionist, vocalist and dancer Papalas Palata and rapper Fresh Doggis, he has formed The Congo Techno Ensemble, utilizing their skills and experience to offer a statement that speaks to the past, present and future of the DRC. On "Eza Makambo", the trio channel rich musical traditions and historic tension, evolving electronic and traditional forms into boundless sci-fi mutations. The track breaks open the stories all three artists accumulated in the DRC, augmenting radioactive techno-dancehall beats with radical, open-hearted words and rhymes. "Eza Makambo" is a heady cocktail of stylistic futurism and harsh reality that could be compared with Zizou Bikaye's seminal "Noir et Blanc or Danis Mpunga & Paul K.'s genre-breaking electronic experiments. But marked by the DRC's recent scars, it's a critical work that stands painfully alone.

When Rey Sapienz was eight years old, the Democratic Republic of Congo was plunged into the Second Congo War. The conflict last five years and was the bloodiest since World War II, leaving an indelible mark on East Africa and creating mass displacement and loss of life. But Sapienz endured, cutting his teeth as a young rapper at twelve, first performing to celebrate Congo's independence day. When he finished school, he headed to nearby Kampala to hone his craft and collaborate with local producers. But civil war broke out back home and he was forced to extend his stay in Uganda. Since then, Sapienz has established himself as a force to be reckoned with, co-founding the Hakuna Kulala label, teaching his Ableton Live skills to Kampala's young producers and releasing two acclaimed EPs. For his debut album, Sapienz embarks on an ambitious project that travels beyond the avant beatscapes of his early material. Alongside traditional percussionist, vocalist and dancer Papalas Palata and rapper Fresh Doggis, he has formed The Congo Techno Ensemble, utilizing their skills and experience to offer a statement that speaks to the past, present and future of the DRC. On "Eza Makambo", the trio channel rich musical traditions and historic tension, evolving electronic and traditional forms into boundless sci-fi mutations. The track breaks open the stories all three artists accumulated in the DRC, augmenting radioactive techno-dancehall beats with radical, open-hearted words and rhymes. "Eza Makambo" is a heady cocktail of stylistic futurism and harsh reality that could be compared with Zizou Bikaye's seminal "Noir et Blanc or Danis Mpunga & Paul K.'s genre-breaking electronic experiments. But marked by the DRC's recent scars, it's a critical work that stands painfully alone.

If you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with, what happens with the realization that they’re no good for you? When you try to help, try to leave, try and move on, but they won’t let you change and won’t let you go?

Lipstick Jodi’s More Like Me is this raw experience explored and expressed in their national debut album on Quite Scientific. The three-piece outfit from Grand Rapids, Michigan’s layered and complex synth-pop sound is highlighted by the vocals of lead singer Karli Morehouse, which are alternately haunting, triumphant, sorrowful, and make you want to dance around your bedroom punching the air and singing at the top of your lungs.

For more than five decades, John McLaughlin has deployed his peerless guitar technique, compositional gifts, and imagination in service of a deeply personal higher calling, forging a vast legacy unmatched in improvised music. Now as the world reels from the toll of the ongoing viral-induced global lockdown, McLaughlin reflects on both the perils and potential of this challenging moment with ‘Liberation Time’. Characterised by both joy and reflection, ‘Liberation Time’ finds McLaughlin harnessing his frustrations and redirecting that energy. “The result,” he explains in a candid liner note, “was an explosion of music in my mind.”. Unusual for McLaughlin’s recent projects, ‘Liberation Time’ is not the work of one fixed ensemble. With physical proximity no longer a prerequisite, McLaughlin drew upon decades of experience as a bandleader to select musicians best suited to each composition. “That is a choice that can only be made correctly if you know how the musicians play,” he explains. “Not just how well they play technically, but how they play intuitively. Only then can you make the right decisions.” “As the Spirit Sings” introduces the album by contrasting churning rhythmic tension (stoked by drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and bassist Sam Burgess) with McLaughlin’s soaring guitar figure - all underpinned by Gary Husband’s subtle,expansive piano. Knotty post-bop figures form the basis of “Right Here, Right Now, Right On,” one of the most jazz-inflected performances McLaughlin has laid down in some time, featuring Nicolas Viccaro (drums), Jerome Regard (bass), Julian Siegel (tenor saxophone), and Oz Ezzeldin (piano). It is impossible to ignore the profound brotherhood that exists between the members of 4th Dimension - McLaughlin’s current ensemble, which includes Husband along with Etienne Mbappe (bass) and Ranjit Barot (drums). They are featured on the soulful “Lockdown Blues,” a playful refraction examination of blues tropes first released last summer to benefit the Jazz Foundation of America.

Following the release of Limewax's Untitled and Speed Dealer Moms' SDM-LA8-441-114-211, Trickfinger and Aura T-09's Evar Records imprint is keeping its foot on the gas, officially introducing the arrival of its sub-label, RAVE4EVAR. Embracing more of an outlaw mindset, RAVE4EVAR was created as a place for rebellion to collide with rave, offering refuge for off-the-cuff releases, special projects and occasional one-off collaborations.

Ushering in the sub-label's inaugural release, RAVE4EVAR is proud to present Chicago-based DJ, producer and new media artist S4M23's debut EP, Angelface. The five-track project, set to arrive on July 2nd via a limited edition cassette and digital download, combines haunting vocals with pounding kicks and rave synths to create a moving take on hardcore. Written and recorded during a weeklong session in April 2020, the creation of Angelface took place during a period of processing grave personal loss juxtaposed with the collective state of chaos, grief and fear brought on by the covid-19 pandemic.

Within that specific period of time, S4M23 channeled intense emotion to reflect how cathartic it can be to honor the connections we build with one another despite how frenetic and heart-wrenching the circumstances of a particular moment or experience can be. Pouring an immense spectrum of emotions into Angelface, these productions eschew simple repetition to create unexpectedly complex rhythms and textures that evoke the sounds of British club music and '90s rave, while simultaneously creating something entirely new.

Tape

Tekanan is the full-length debut of Melbourne-based Indonesian-Australian drummer and sound artist, Rama Parwata. A thorough exploration of rhythmic capabilities and percussive improvisation under ever-shifting timbral and stylistic environments, Tekanan is Parwata’s examination and documentation of his vast musical influences in electro-acoustic improvisation, Indonesian gamelan music, free jazz, electronic music, R&B, and noise music, whilst still maintaining an entirely unique non-idiomatic musical voice. Tekanan sees Parwata experimenting with not only the drum kit, but additionally implementing no-input mixing boards, musique-concréte sampling techniques, junk percussion, electric guitar, and computer music production to create a relentlessly metamorphosing soundscape that abruptly, yet seamlessly oscillates between ethereal ambiances to turbulent barrages of rhythm and noise through five unique movements.



Aptly named after the Indonesian word for pressure and stress, Tekanan was composed by Parwata with the intent of it being a listening experience which would pressure the listener to have no clear indication of the direction of the music and where it will ultimately settle, leading the listener on a sinuous, yet intriguing aural journey. This title additionally applies to the pressure of the challenging nature of the music, in a performative sense, which pushed Parwata to his physical and mental limits to perform and compose.



“As cliche or banal this might sound, I tried to make a record that was purposely made to be hard to put into a box. I didn’t want to make a “drumming” record or a noise record or anything of the type, but a record that just contained "good” music (or what I constitute as being good). Many aspects of my musical life were injected into this release: gamelan music (the first music I was exposed to), noise, hip-hop, free-improvisation, Xenakis, jazz, electronic music. Ultimately this record is a homage to those musical influences.” - Rama Parwata

-


An active figure in Australia’s experimental music and art scenes, Parwata has worked with the likes of Marco Fusinato, Robin Fox, and Robbie Avenaim, and choreographers Stephanie Lake, Juliet Burnett, and Melanie Lane. He is also a member of seminal long-running Melbourne Doom Metal band, Whitehorse.


As of 2019, Parwata has been a co-curator and committee member of Melbourne’s legendary concert series, Make It Up Club, which has been presenting weekly avant-garde improvised performances since 1998.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce the first-ever vinyl reissue of Remko Scha’s Guitar Mural 1 featuring The Machines, originally published as a rare cassette edition by Taal Beeld Geluid in 1982. A computational linguist by profession, Scha played an important role in the development of sound, installation, and digital art in the Netherlands from the late 1970s onward, co-founding the performance and exhibition space Het Appolohuis in Eindhoven in 1980. Alongside Paul Panhuysen and Jan Van Riet, Scha was a founding member of the radical improvisation group The Maciunas Ensemble, though he is best known for his work with mechanised electric guitars, documented on the legendary 1982 LP Machine Guitars.

Guitar Mural 1 documents an installation of Scha’s mechanical guitar ensemble The Machines held at a Groningen gallery space in 1982. Five electric guitars hang from the wall, their strings sounded by rotating rubber strings and a sabre saw controlled by a mechanical apparatus, as well as four ropes criss-crossing the five instruments on the wall. Once the mechanism was set up, Scha’s only intervention was to vary the speed at which it operated. Where Machine Guitars presents short excerpts clearly distinguished by rhythmic and timbral variation, here we are confronted with four enormous side-long slabs of percussive string attack and the resulting clouds of harmonics. Variation is minimal across the duration of each side, making for a sculptural listening experience, as if we are patiently examining each facet of a static object. But significant variety exists between the four sides, each of which shows off a different facet of what The Machines were capable of. The first two excerpts feature open strings sounded at rapid tempos, dissolving the percussive attack into a continuous stream of sound reminiscent of Charlemagne Palestine’s ‘strumming’ technique. On the third side, the strings are partly muted and the tempo slightly lowered, resulting in layers of relentlessly chugging rhythm somewhere between an ensemble of hand drums and an early Velvet Underground bootleg. On the fourth side, havoc breaks loose in percussive waves of asynchronous repetition that bring Scha’s sound world close to that of another pioneer experiment in musical mechanisation, the Solar Music of Joe Jones.

Presented as a limited edition 2LP set in a deluxe gatefold sleeve accompanied by stunning visual documentation of the original installation, remastered audio and new liner notes from Alan Licht and Van Lagestein, Guitar Mural 1 is an exhilarating document occupying a unique space between kinetic sculpture, hardcore minimalism and rock & roll.

LP black vinyl with Download Code. Ltd. Edition of 500. "Free-spirited rapture" Gareth Thompson RNR Magazine Nov 2020. A statement of intent from The NJE. Spirit of Indo takes up the whole first side of their RSD 2021 mini-album - and it certainly doesn't outstay it's welcome. Improvised over a gently incessant yet soporific loop, bassist Mark Bedford and drummer Simon Charterton fall in and out of grooves while multi-instrumentalist Terry Edwards deftly moves between saxes, trumpet and melodica to invent topline melodies within that comfortable straitjacket. As the track progresses bigger instrumentation is suggested by the tunes - and so the track builds with more horns and percussion, the resulting climax making way for the comforting loop to bring us back down to the start. Side 2 opens with an instrumental version of Bowie's Five Years, even more pared down than Edwards' previous take on the tune for a John Peel session in the nineties. Bedders' acoustic and electric basses weave around each other while Simon's understated cymbal-work buoys up the fragile melodica melody. Tizita raises the tempo slightly and is inspired by Ethiopian jazz-legend Mulatu Astatke who Terry had the pleasure of working with a few years back. Title track Nought to 60 is driven by Teutonic beats on electronic Wave drum, a Motorik bassline and heavily effected saxes which thunder towards the buffers - after which you'll want to flip the album and start all over again.

Liz Phair announces ‘Soberish’, her highly-anticipated new album and first collection of original
material in eleven years. Produced by Phair’s longtime collaborator Brad Wood - known for helming
Phair’s seminal albums ‘Exile In Guyville’, ‘Whip-Smart’ and ‘whitechocolatespaceegg’ - ‘Soberish’ is
released via Chrysalis Records.
Almost thirty years since her peerless debut album ‘Exile In Guyville’ was released (voted #56 in
Rolling Stone’s 2020 list of the 500 Greatest albums Of All Time), Phair returns with a new record that
will both intrigue and satisfy her long-standing fans and introduce her to a smart young audience
whose contemporary heroes have been reading from Phair’s playbook since they first picked up a
guitar.
Liz Phair has achieved the kind of status in her industry rarely bestowed on recording artists. Her
albums in the 1990s were central to the indie rock canon of the day. Her image was featured in
countless magazines, early Apple commercials and Gap ads. Her eponymous album for Capitol
Records in 2003 took Phair in a pop direction that ruffled some critics’ feathers but nonetheless went
gold, galvanizing a host of new fans, particularly among young women who fell in love with hits like
‘Why Can’t I’ and ‘Extraordinary’, tracks that were featured in several major films and TV shows,
including 13 Going On 30, Raising Helen and How To Deal. Liz has picked up two Grammy
nominations and a spot in Pitchfork’s Greatest Albums Of The 90s, with over five million record sales
to date (including three US gold albums). She sang ‘God Bless America’ at the opening game of the
Chicago White Sox World Series victory in her hometown in 2005.
‘Soberish’ is a portrait of Phair in the present tense, taking all of the facets of her melodic output over
the years and synthesizing them into a beautiful, perfect whole. She’s at the top of her game in the
recording studio, drawing upon years of experience in television composition to weave through the
songs daring and unexpected sound design. With Brad Wood’s exquisite engineering and masterful
production, the result is a wholly fresh yet satisfyingly familiar sound that challenges on the first listen
and seduces with each subsequent play through. The earworms are strong with this one.
Phair says, “I found my inspiration for ‘Soberish’ by delving into an early era of my music development,
my art school years spent listening to Art Rock and New Wave music non-stop on my Walkman. The
English Beat, The Specials, Madness, R.E.M.s Automatic for the People, Yazoo, The Psychedelic
Furs, Talking Heads, Velvet Underground, Laurie Anderson, and the Cars. The city came alive for me
as a young person, the bands in my headphones lending me the courage to explore.”
None of the arrangements on Soberish are traditional songwriting standards but the hooks are so
catchy, the imagery so compelling, that the listener is drawn effortlessly along with the music. There
are the off-kilter, unexpected guitar chords listeners will recognize as her signature style, a mainstay
from her earliest work; the instantly knowable choruses of her most pop-friendly songs of the early
2000s; the frank lyricism and storytelling that has opened doors for countless women picking up
guitars and attempting to speak about their experiences.
Phair shares insight into the meaning of her title: “‘Soberish’ can be about partying. It can be about
self-delusion. It can be a about chasing that first flush of love or, in fact, any state of mind that allows
you to escape reality for a while and exist on a happier plane. It’s not self-destructive or out of control;
it’s as simple as the cycle of dreaming and waking up. That’s why I chose to symbolize ‘Soberish’ with
a crossroads, with a street sign. It’s best described as a simple pivot of perspective. When you meet
your ‘ish’ self again after a period of sobriety, there’s a deep recognition and emotional relief that
floods you, reminding you that there is more to life, more to reality and to your own soul than you are
consciously aware of. But if you reach for too much of a good thing, or starve yourself with too little,
you’ll lose that critical balance.”

Joviale is a multidisciplinary artist from North London making otherworldly, immersive music that plays with “minimal textures, killer interjections and vocals that are equal parts restraint and rage.” (The Times) Looping these high vocals with heady, emotional chords, they weave a screen around the listener, pulling them into chaptered, strangely sweet variations of the artist, divided out across albums, and designed to generate a performative atmosphere, both on stage and through the recording.

For their forthcoming EP Hurricane Belle NEVER SEVEN, spring 2021, Joviale combines warm sensual exposure with a flash of teeth, as the fictional Hurricane Belle whirls onto the scene, an embodiment of the “sense of electric and spiralised chaos” erupting from the artist’s centre. Hurricane Belle is a Champion that was inspired by Peter Shenai’s “Hurricane Bell” experiment, in which he cast brass bells modelled on the five stages of Hurricane Katrina. Industrial, insatiable and metallic, Hurricane Belle is embedded in the album not only through sound, but also through sight; the first single of the project, Blow, will be accompanied by a self-directed video, reflecting Joviale’s increased interest in the visual arts, and in building multisensory experiences. As written in the accompanying prose for the album, “Let yourselves into my breath, my rhythm and my core. Take pleasure in the whiplash of this collection.”

2019 saw the release of the artist’s debut EP Crisis, in which Joviale wielded narrative and storytelling to build a dreamy, silk-wrapped universe across songs such as Dreamboat, and Taste of the Heavens. As with Hurricane Belle, Crisis was created in collaboration with the producer Bullion, and it has been widely supported by press, including interviews in The Face and Coeval, and features in Dazed, Line of Best Fit, Guardian, The Times, Fader, Crack and Clash, among others. The EP also merited radio support from Huw Stephens on BBC Radio 1, Jamz Supernova on BBC 1xtra, Selector FM, Matt Wilkinson on Beats 1, Tom Ravenscroft, Tom Robinson on BBC 6 Music, Dan Alani on Reprezent, and Worldwide FM, among others.
Joviale belongs to a generation of artists with a strong sense of collaborative, interdisciplinary practice. The artist leans into this skill-sharing, research-led community, valuing project-based work that allows for the development of concepts related to visual and sound culture. This is reflected in them having recently directed a video for Laura Groves, as well as running a bi-monthly radio show on NTS over a period of twelve months. They carry a deep interest in the connection between the arts, ecological sciences, and semi-fictive encounters, as well as the wider London scene. In 2019, The Face described Joviale’s sound and aesthetic as “building the London artist a loyal fan base”, an effect that encompasses their involvement in the city’s music circuit; Joviale built a reputation for their live shows before releasing any official music. They have played support shows for artists that include Celeste, Zsela, Kate Tempest, Nilufer Yanya, Babeheaven, Kindness, and Westerman, and, in 2019, Joviale sold out their first headline show at Folklore, Hackney.

black vinyl in mirrorboard gatefold jacket with die-cut! Much like the New Orleans-born artist who created it, Second Line is an unapologetic genre bender that pushes boundaries, expands possibilities, and shatters expectations. It's more than just an album: Second Line is a cohesive sensory experience that questions traditional ideas of sound, production, and visual aesthetics as they relate to music. Its interlocking parts tell an epic story about the quest for artistic expression, with Dawn describing her project as "a movement to bring pioneering Black women in electronic music to the forefront." She elaborates: "You never see women appreciated as producers and artists alike _ especially Black women in the electronic space. The time is now for us to start recognizing their talent, not only in electronic music but in all genres. I wanna be the reason why a young Black girl from the South can be whoever she wants to be musically, visually, and artistically." Second Line cuts to the chase with its opening suite of dancefloor bangers, immediately displaying Dawn's mastery of layered production and melodic hooks. Second Line treats Louisiana Creole culture, New Orleans bounce, and Southern Swag as elemental, allowing Dawn to weave in and out of house, footwork, R&B, and more. As she says, "I am the genre." The story of Second Line centers on Dawn's persona King Creole, assassin of stereotypes, a Black girl from the South at a crossroads in her artistic career. To move forward, she decides to look back, but where previous album New Breed took influence from her father, Second Line is illuminated by Dawn's mother. Her proud repeated proclamation of "I'm a Creole Girl" introduces the ecstatic dancehall pop of "Jacuzzi," and later, on the cinematic album centerpiece "Mornin | Streetlights," she answers Dawn's question of how many times she has been in love. Intimate conversations like this between the two are interlaced throughout Second Line, giving credence to how the protagonist came to be, and direction to build a lane forward. It's no surprise that King Creole's story parallels Dawn Richard's. As a founding member of Danity Kane, and later with Diddy's Dirty Money, Dawn was able to explore the ins and outs of commercial pop music. As a solo artist, she opted to selfrelease her music. Over the span of five critically acclaimed full-length albums, Dawn has made the message clear that she will not bow down or bend to industry norms. All the while, she's built her resume with enough extracurriculars to make your head spin: Cheerleader for the New Orleans Hornets? Check. Animator for Adult Swim? Check. Owner-operator of a vegan pop-up food truck? Check. Martial arts expert? Check! Second Line embodies the heritage of soul music and the roots of New Orleans, all surrounded by the influences of electronic futurism. "The definition of a Second Line in New Orleans is a celebration of someone's homecoming," says Dawn. "In death and in life, we celebrate the impact of a person's legacy through dance and music. I'm celebrating the death of old views in the industry. The death of boxes and limits. I'm celebrating the homecoming of the Future. The homecoming to the new wave of artists. The emergence of all the King Creoles to come." Dawn Richard is bold, confident, purposeful, and a King throughout Second Line. Are you ready to dance?

Five years on from Birdy’s last studio album ‘Beautiful Lies’, it may sound like a long break between albums but for Birdy, taking time to stop, experience the world and find out who she really is, was a necessary circuit break. Travelling to Nashville, home to the greatest heartache songs ever written and visiting LA drawing from classic artists Joni Mitchell and Nick Dave was the perfect way to seek inspiration. These gorgeous surroundings and collaborators seemed to know, instinctively, how to draw the words out from Birdy imbued Young Heart with strokes of the artists who had gone before.

‘Young Heart’ is quite the departure from Birdy’s previous album, 2015’s dramatic Beautiful Lies. Where Beautiful Lies was a fairy tale, Young Heart is a gritty realist portrait of the artist in pain, looking for the light.

Speaking of Young Heart, Birdy says: I’m so proud of this album, my last record was a lot more theatrical–there was a lot going on, it was a big production. Whereas this is quite stripped back -anything that didn’t need to be there, isn’t. There’s no decoration. This album just feels very personal – I’ve grown up a lot over the past five years and have experienced new things that have shaped my understanding of the world, but also of who I am as an artist. This album means a lot to me -I want to protect it.”

Built on a foundation of authenticity, passion and innovation, Archie Lee Hooker & The Coast to Coast Blues Band is a spearheading group that has established itself in the world of music. Formedby Archie Lee Hooker, the nephew of John Lee Hooker, Archie and his leading handpicked team arehighly recognised for creating compelling, soul-enriching productions that leave their audienceswanting more.
Archie was born on Christmas Day of 1949 in Lambert, Mississippi, just 20 miles from thecrossroads where Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the devil. He was the son of a sharecropper, and up until age thirteen, that was the life he was accustomed to. That all changed when he headed up north and found himself standing in the big city of Memphis,Tennessee.
The paved roads and city lights felt like a new world to Archie, one that was filled with opportunities. Inspired by the Memphis music scene, it didn’t take long for Archie to begin singing with his first gospel group called The Marvellous Five. However, December of 1989 was when hispassion for Blues started to surface. During this time, Archie lived with his uncle, John Lee (the Boogieman himself) until his death in 2001. Being surrounded by him and other committed, talented, and influencing musicians is what became the catalyst for Archie to crave sharing his own life experiences through music and leave his lasting impression.
Though Archie left for France in 2011 to join Carl Wyatt & The Delta Voodoo Kings to tour Europe, he eventually chose to seek the right musicians to have on his side. He wanted a team that resembled family, chemistry, and a bond unlike any other. Once he found them, Archie founded the Archie Lee Hooker & The Coast to Coast Blues Band, which was specially named after the late John Lee’s Coast to Coast Blues Band. Since then, the crew has done nothing but thrive and impress.
They released their first album called ‘Chilling’ under the French label Dixiefrog in 2018, which received a 5-star review in Rolling Stone Magazine. Fast forward to today, they have recorded a new 12 song CD called ‘Living in a Memory’, and this all-original playlist of storytelling art is set to be released through Dixiefrog worldwide on April 16th, 2021. In the end, every song and performance that Archie Lee Hooker & The Coast to Coast Blues Band creates paints an incredible picture that inevitably provokes uplifting emotional influences and invested attraction.
They are entirely passionate about delivering remarkable music, and continuously provide fully authentic productions that have shaped them to become what they are today. With their immense drive and determination, it is exciting to see what they will launch next.

Hedvig Mollestad Thomassen - guitar/Ellen Brekken - bass/Ivar Loe Bjornstad - drums. Only nine months after her momentous debut solo album Ekhidna, the guitarist is back fronting her trio. With their previous album, Smells Funny, this explosive and expansive trio experienced a breakthrough of sorts, having gone from strength to strength through five albums since their 2011 debut Shoot!, gathering respect from both rock and jazz camps, sharing big stages with the likes of John McLaughlin and Black Sabbath, and being equally comfortable on jazz and rock stages. Hedvig enforced this breakthrough with Ekhidna, appearing on both jazz and rock best of 2020 lists, like coming in third in Prog's "Album of the Year" poll. She was included in Downbeat's "25 for the future" and received heaps of international attention and great reviews.With the hypnotic title track, the spacious ballad Four Candles and generally a more varied mood, Ding Dong. You're Dead. is the trio's most dynamic album to date. That said there's still enough solid and creative riffing here to satisfy the headbangers, as well as the jazzheads, as they further explore the free and open landscapes most notably started with their Black Stabat Mater album and continued with Smells Funny. As Nate Chinen wrote about "Black Stabat Mater" in JazzTimes: Her trio, which has Ellen Brekken on bass and Ivar Loe Bjornstad on drums, caught my ear then with its audacious style references: the loose swagger of early Black Sabbath; the density and prowl of peak Led Zeppelin; the expeditionary urge of Jimi Hendrix; the incantatory fervor of John McLaughlin. As recent performances have shown, online and in the flesh, this trio radiates confidence and have become a surefire hit on the Norwegian live scene. Hedvig first picked up her mother's acoustic guitar at ten, before discovering a whole new world through her father's jazz and rock record collection as a teenager. She was given her first electric guitar and amplifier as a confirmation present. Hedvig met Ellen and Ivar at the Music Academy in Oslo and asked them to join her after she received the Young Jazz Talent of the Year award at Molde International Jazzfestival in 2009. They have stayed together since, and all previous albums have been released on Rune Grammofon to wide international acclaim.

Hedvig Mollestad Thomassen - guitar/Ellen Brekken - bass/Ivar Loe Bjornstad - drums. Only nine months after her momentous debut solo album Ekhidna, the guitarist is back fronting her trio. With their previous album, Smells Funny, this explosive and expansive trio experienced a breakthrough of sorts, having gone from strength to strength through five albums since their 2011 debut Shoot!, gathering respect from both rock and jazz camps, sharing big stages with the likes of John McLaughlin and Black Sabbath, and being equally comfortable on jazz and rock stages. Hedvig enforced this breakthrough with Ekhidna, appearing on both jazz and rock best of 2020 lists, like coming in third in Prog's "Album of the Year" poll. She was included in Downbeat's "25 for the future" and received heaps of international attention and great reviews.With the hypnotic title track, the spacious ballad Four Candles and generally a more varied mood, Ding Dong. You're Dead. is the trio's most dynamic album to date. That said there's still enough solid and creative riffing here to satisfy the headbangers, as well as the jazzheads, as they further explore the free and open landscapes most notably started with their Black Stabat Mater album and continued with Smells Funny. As Nate Chinen wrote about "Black Stabat Mater" in JazzTimes: Her trio, which has Ellen Brekken on bass and Ivar Loe Bjornstad on drums, caught my ear then with its audacious style references: the loose swagger of early Black Sabbath; the density and prowl of peak Led Zeppelin; the expeditionary urge of Jimi Hendrix; the incantatory fervor of John McLaughlin. As recent performances have shown, online and in the flesh, this trio radiates confidence and have become a surefire hit on the Norwegian live scene. Hedvig first picked up her mother's acoustic guitar at ten, before discovering a whole new world through her father's jazz and rock record collection as a teenager. She was given her first electric guitar and amplifier as a confirmation present. Hedvig met Ellen and Ivar at the Music Academy in Oslo and asked them to join her after she received the Young Jazz Talent of the Year award at Molde International Jazzfestival in 2009. They have stayed together since, and all previous albums have been released on Rune Grammofon to wide international acclaim.

Swedish heavy metal commando ENFORCER proudly presents its second live album, “Live by Fire II”, which will be released through Nuclear Blast Records on March 19th, 2021. “Live By Fire II” offers an intense and passionate performance captured in front of a truly dedicated and wild audience in Mexico City, 2019. “Live by Fire II” lets you experience ENFORCER at the top of their game and marks an outstanding live record documenting the group’s steady path to global recognition in recent years. It also serves as a stunning reminder of how many heavy metal anthems ENFORCER have crafted on their total of five studio albums so far! From the speedy metal attack of ‘Destroyer’, ‘Searching For You’, ‘Midnight Vice’ to perfect sing-alongs like ‘From Beyond’, ‘One Thousand Years In Darkness’ and ‘Take Me Out Of This Nightmare’, the enthusiastic crowd and powerful sound of “Live By Fire II” result in a captivating and extremely entertaining listen.

Physical formats of the release will be including extensive booklets containing a tour program, liner notes and tons of photos compiled and designed by vocalist/guitarist Olof Wikstrand recapturing ENFORCER’s touring cycle for the albums “From Beyond” and “Zenith” during the years 2015-2020.
“Live By Fire II” will be released as Gatefold 2LP with 16-LP sized booklet, CD with 28-page booklet, and digital album.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mondo, in collaboration with Back Lot Music, is proud to present a vinyl pressing of James Newton Howard's Golden Globe Nominated score to Universal Pictures’ powerful new film from acclaimed filmmaker Paul Greengrass, News of The World.

Set five years after the end of the Civil War, News of the World follows Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Tom Hanks), a veteran of three wars, who now moves from town to town as a non-fiction storyteller, sharing the news of presidents and queens, glorious feuds, devastating catastrophes, and gripping adventures from the far reaches of the globe.

In the plains of Texas, Kidd crosses paths with Cicada, aka Johanna Leonberger (Helena Zengel, System Crasher), a 10-year-old taken in by the Kiowa people six years earlier and raised as one of their own. Johanna, hostile to a world she’s never experienced, is being returned to her biological aunt and uncle against her will. Kidd reluctantly agrees to deliver the child to where the law says she belongs. As they travel hundreds of miles into the unforgiving wilderness, the two will face tremendous challenges of both human and natural forces as they search for a place that either can call home.

The film is a moving exploration of our present through the lens of our past, and the music by eight-time Academy Award® nominee James Newton Howard (The Hunger Games, The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Fugitive) is innovative, emotional, and beautiful, as it follows Captain Kidd’s journey from regret to redemption. A haunted, and healing sound of vintage Americana floods from your speakers as the tender strings and piano guide you over gorgeous landscapes.

TERMINAL BLISS makes their Relapse Records debut with the unrelenting album Brute Err/atta! A veritable who’s who of Virginia punk, the band features vocalist Chris and guitarist Mike Taylor (Pg. 99 and Pygmy Lush), drummer Ryan Parrish (Darkest Hour, Iron Reagan, City of Caterpillar) and bassist Adam Juresko (City of Caterpillar). Inspired by the likes of Born Against, Gauze and Void—not to mention Black Flag, Crass, Negative Approach, Disrupt, Necros, Crossed Out and Disclose—TERMINAL BLISS conducted their first band practice on January 14 th, 2020. Just six weeks and five practices later, they were recording their full-length debut with Majority Rule frontman Matt Michel in the engineer’s chair. The name TERMINAL BLISS was born out of the merciless consumerism and environmental destruction that are America’s enduring legacy. From dystopian, sci-fi themes in tracks such as “March of the Grieving Droid”, to the apathy of the checked-out masses on “Small One Time Fee” and the personal recount of loss and the inefficacy of our healthcare system in "Clean Bill of Wealth", it’s the merging of personal experience and social critique that has informed the punk edge behind the members of TERMINAL BLISS for decades now. For TERMINAL BLISS, it’s become a crucial combination born of decades of playing live. (Unfortunately, the band’s first show was cancelled when the US began its COVID-19 lockdown.) “I realized early on that if you don’t write something that resonates with yourself on a fundamental level, it’s going to get trite when you’re performing night after night,” Chris Taylor says. “So, with the idea in mind that we’ll eventually play shows, I always try to write something that will resonate.”

NOTON signs Italian-born, Bern-based sound-artist and producer Saele Valese.
In ‘IVIC’, his debut LP, Saele Valese, distills hauntological noise, droning tonal experiments and minimalist rhythms into a series of electro-acoustic-wave ventures written over five years in Berlin, Saas-Fee and Thun.
Drawing influences from the psychoacoustic properties of the live album format, IVIC’s 11 tracks were mixed and recorded live on DAT cassettes and through DAW experimentation, without the possibility to revise the final recordings. Valese adopted this approach to conceptually propose reconciliations between the irreversibility of the
past, and acceptance of its residuals in the present. The track titles themselves follow this pathos, citing the works of the American photographer Francesca Woodman and the poet Sylvia Plath. The inclusion of passages incorporating live sonics and throes of industrialismnso,ton.info contributes to the images of gravity, intimacy and spatiality that the music presented here invokes.
In keeping with this imagery, the music possesses a dilated, shuffling rhythmic base, much like the firm traversal of a tanker against a storm of jangling components, and still moments of gloomy sonics
alternating with more ravenous upheavals of power electronics.
If the track divisions do not pass by unheeded, they are consistently assembled to sonically accompaign the emotional charges and momentum of an imaginary cinematic experience; the beats caves in
for instants of relief, only to recoil in a cognated tempo but rearranged structurally. In another gesture of cogitated stride, the portentous waves of the record progressively rage into a turmoil in its third quarter during 'Horse The Color Of Rust'. The album reaches its closure fluctuating through microtonal oscillations to slowly eclipse into silence.
´In Your Rosary ì and Yì ou Cannot See Me From Where I Look At Myself ì were previously released on vinyl via Saele Valese’s own imprint, JSMË.
The track ‘You Cannot See Me From Where I Look At Myself’ 4 - is dedicated to the memory of Marco Bacher.
Artwork designed by Carsten Nicolai. Mastering by Matt Colton (Metropolis Studios, London).

BLACK vinyl with deluxe origami fold out sleeve & obi strip & DL Card. CD Wallet. The third album from Dutch punk-laced noiseniks adds new maturity and a conceptual feel that pulls the extremes of their sound together. A psyche-fuelled journey into the id punctuated with rhythmic kabuki modal mood swings, thunderstorms, digital beeps, traffic noise, and just plain old beautiful cacophonous reverb-drenched sound when needed. The 'third chapter' refers to the last five years that the Dutch band have spent creating their "difficult" third album. Each song spins a yarn; there are plagues, dreams, wind and fire, 'mythical' characters, and the search for the secret government warehouse. Lead single, Tokyo Music Experience, resonates with a conveyor belt-propelled modal guitar, reflecting the halcyon days of Japanese super-productivity; a mesmerising mantra, infected with news bulletin on-the-hour bleeps underlining its time-sensitive nature; a pristine super-commercial anthem to drive loyalty and reinforce solidarity with the party! Having been described as creating "underground noise with a bracing, warped pop appeal" (Mojo), their new album is a coming-of-age post-classic with a unique worldview - inspired by Van Dyke Parks (Song Cycle) Scott Walker (3 & 4), Moondog (Elpmas), White Noise (An Electric Storm) and Beach Boys (Smile). If their previous effort (Tape Hiss) was their very own sketch of a sketch for an incomplete concept album, a noisy reaction to their previous life, then 'Excerpts From Chapter 3..', with all its interlaced intricacies, is the realisation of their transition from punk-spiked-pop to psyche-pop protagonists. Evolving, testing, infectious...

Today Margot share new single Walk With Me via Full Time Hobby. The Peckham band ended 2019 supporting Swimming Tapes on their U.K. as well as releasing their debut EP earlier this year. New single Walk With Me is a song about empathy, depression and the power of talking. All channelled by frontman Alex Hannaway's pastel vocal hues and searingly honest delivery. Walk With Me works as a conversation between someone experiencing a depressive episode and another trying to understand. "It’s about listening, friendship, understanding, I’ve had experiences where friends, family members have been patient, they’ve been persistent and caring, and it’s this that has really helped me in my life" explains Hannaway. In addition to the official video, the band have also shared a 'Karaoke Video' for the single. "We've been using home karaoke sessions to blow off steam during the lockdown period. Often feeling confined, bored, angry, frustrated; the elation and release of belting out familiar songs in our living room felt cathartic. So it felt perfect for the video, capturing not only the isolation of lockdown but also the communal, spirited moments too" explain Margot. Margot comprises of five friends who moved from the suburbs of south London to Peckham after finishing University. In two separate bands at the time, drunken nights out discussing the merits of a merger evolved into the first few rehearsals. It went well - Margot formed in 2018 and released a steady stream of singles across the year. The band employ a DIY ethic, self-producing their recordings in their home studio. After ending 2019 supporting Swimming Tapes on their UK tour, the band released their debut EP in February 2020 and are set to support Dana Gavanski on her upcoming tour in March 2021. Margot's nuanced blend of dream-pop, neo-psychedelia and jangle-guitar create a propulsive, cruising feel reminiscent of Real Estate or War on Drugs. Expect to hear more from them in 2020.

"When Candy Opera first appeared on the kaleidoscopic early 1980s Liverpool music scene, by rights they should have changed the world" ~ Louder Than War
"Very welcome news as a highly underrated band who is now back with a force. While their previous output is stellar, this new single is even more commanding of attention. This is absolutely stunning, the band reaching higher than ever before" ~ Big Takeover Magazine
Sometimes it takes a while to realise what you’ve got. So it goes with pop craftsmen Candy Opera, who emerged during Liverpool’s 1980s golden age and whose new LP 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' is their first collection of new material in nearly three decades.
Ahead of that, they present 'These Days Are Ours', a rally cry of hope for the current times and the first single from this long-play, which is due for release in mid-November via European / UK label A Turntable Friend Records. The video was created / produced by James
Davies and Paul Malone.
Mixed by Grammy award-winning producer Guy Massey and featuring back vocals by Paul Simpson of The Wild Swans, the track was recorded at Elevator Studios in Liverpool.
With all the hallmarks of an enduring pop anthem, this impeccably produced, adrenalin-fuelled song captures the essence of Candy Opera’s infectious energy and celebrates life with a genuine wonder-lust, whilst delivering the excitement of their live performances.
Following the overdue release of two archival sets - '45 Revolutions Per
Minute' and 'Rarities' (released in 2018 by Firestation Records., quickly selling out of their first runs) - their new album 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' picks up where the band left off, with 14 fresh songs ready for discovery of a sound as timeless as any Candy Opera output.
Candy Opera were formed in Liverpool in 1982 and went through various incarnations before calling it a day in 1992. By 1985, the band had played alongside the likes of The Pogues, The Go-Betweens and The Redskins, as well as appearing on Granada TV.
The band's current line-up is drawn from all eras of the band’s existence and features Brian Chin Smithers (guitar, vocals), Alan Currie (drums), Frank Mahon (bass), Paul Malone (vocals, guitar), Ken Moss (guitar) and Gary O'Donnell (keyboards, vocals, percussion).
This new LP also features a swathe of friends and contemporaries, including Paul Simpson (The Wild Swans) and Phil Jones (Afraid of Mice). The result is an exquisite piece of pop craftsmanship that brings their songs into the light. This is a labour of love born of experience, but retaining the sense of wonder that brought the band together in the first place.

"When Candy Opera first appeared on the kaleidoscopic early 1980s Liverpool music scene, by rights they should have changed the world" ~ Louder Than War
"Very welcome news as a highly underrated band who is now back with a force. While their previous output is stellar, this new single is even more commanding of attention. This is absolutely stunning, the band reaching higher than ever before" ~ Big Takeover Magazine
Sometimes it takes a while to realise what you’ve got. So it goes with pop craftsmen Candy Opera, who emerged during Liverpool’s 1980s golden age and whose new LP 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' is their first collection of new material in nearly three decades.
Ahead of that, they present 'These Days Are Ours', a rally cry of hope for the current times and the first single from this long-play, which is due for release in mid-November via European / UK label A Turntable Friend Records. The video was created / produced by James
Davies and Paul Malone.
Mixed by Grammy award-winning producer Guy Massey and featuring back vocals by Paul Simpson of The Wild Swans, the track was recorded at Elevator Studios in Liverpool.
With all the hallmarks of an enduring pop anthem, this impeccably produced, adrenalin-fuelled song captures the essence of Candy Opera’s infectious energy and celebrates life with a genuine wonder-lust, whilst delivering the excitement of their live performances.
Following the overdue release of two archival sets - '45 Revolutions Per
Minute' and 'Rarities' (released in 2018 by Firestation Records., quickly selling out of their first runs) - their new album 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' picks up where the band left off, with 14 fresh songs ready for discovery of a sound as timeless as any Candy Opera output.
Candy Opera were formed in Liverpool in 1982 and went through various incarnations before calling it a day in 1992. By 1985, the band had played alongside the likes of The Pogues, The Go-Betweens and The Redskins, as well as appearing on Granada TV.
The band's current line-up is drawn from all eras of the band’s existence and features Brian Chin Smithers (guitar, vocals), Alan Currie (drums), Frank Mahon (bass), Paul Malone (vocals, guitar), Ken Moss (guitar) and Gary O'Donnell (keyboards, vocals, percussion).
This new LP also features a swathe of friends and contemporaries, including Paul Simpson (The Wild Swans) and Phil Jones (Afraid of Mice). The result is an exquisite piece of pop craftsmanship that brings their songs into the light. This is a labour of love born of experience, but retaining the sense of wonder that brought the band together in the first place.

After a tumultuous period of emotional blows, leaving the majority of the band getting to grips with new life scenarios, the new album is rooted in reflection and redemption, and sees You Me At Six harness those darker experiences as a catalyst for creativity, empowerment and positivity.
Recorded over five weeks at Karma Sound studio in Bang Saray, and continuing their creative relationship with that album’s producer, Dan Austin (Biffy Clyro, Massive Attack, Pixies), ‘SUCKAPUNCH’ is the sound of a band embracing change. You Me At Six have crafted their most experimental, personal and
progressive record to date

LA-based electronic wizard Amon Tobin teams up again with Dutch composer and producer Thys (Noisia) for their cinematic "Ithaca" EP. The fractal five-track offering is an odyssey into the unknown, carefully constructed, intricately layered and arranged with purity of intent. "Ithaca" is an unnerving feast for the ears with a distinct curative vibe. It makes for a wholly immersive and atmospheric experience, delivered by two artists at the top of their creative game.

Art by Khomatech

The mantra from day one has been striking a balance between the nightlife sound system and the living room listening experience. Time Capsule celebrates ten years of this ethos in a gorgeous 10x7" boxset.

Nadia Khan returns on Scissor and Thread for another sublime mini LP, Port Ana. Based in North Carolina, Khan first drew a lot of attention via a cassette release on Where To Now? Records in 2015.
Her sophomore statement was the beautiful In Gleam released in 2018 on Francis Harris’ Brooklyn-based label, which set the tone for these five tracks of meditative music. The title track Port Ana opens the journey - a gentle, droning soundscape with effortlessly bewitching glints of melody. Conversation follows on, drawing on loops and textures to create the background for a deep, pulsing kick drum. The sounds shift and evolve, leaving a hazy sense of movement to drift away to. Next up is Objects In Form which presents a fragile chord progression that barely holds itself together, surrounded by shifting pads and swathes of reverb. Rain Again is presented here in two versions. The original combines ethereal sounds, weightless and adrift, while the Lawrence remix firmly grounds the track with a hypnotic, deep groove. The Dial boss provides another remix for the digital release that further plays with the textures of the original to create something that works both for an open minded dancefloor and as a home listening experience.

The horn of plenty arrives at your door, full of freshly harvested produce. It contains fruits of artists you already know and from others waiting to be introduced to you. Don’t be afraid though – they are only your new neighbours. Clear Memory Farms recommends this five track Various Artist EP: EDM-free, sustain-able, enriched with biodynamic electro spells and mystic funk chants. Have a try at this asymmetric game but don’t be surprised to turn into a hairy rebel. Is it worth it? Will you experience all die goede dingen? Seems like we can’t find any good answer for that – find out for yourself.

Mastering by Rude 66
Artwork by Dr. Rekorder

-Dedicated to Theo-

Recorded live during their headline North American tour in the summer of 2019, A Royal Affair Tour was a must-see best-of-British-rock show and featured support by Asia with the return of founding member Steve Howe in a special performance, John Lodge of The Moody Blues, and Carl Palmer’s ELP Legacy with guest vocals by Arthur Brown. The Yes performing line up was Steve Howe (guitar – joined 1970), Alan White (drums since 1972), Geoff Downes (keyboards; first joined in 1980), Jon Davison (vocals since 2011) and Billy Sherwood (guitar/keyboards in the 1990s and the late Chris Squire’s choice to take over bass/vocals in 2015), with Jay Schellen on additional drums. Yes performed songs from their storied career, one of rock music’s most prized bodies of work, and their set was in honor of the memory of YES members Chris Squire and Peter Banks.
Continuing the British theme, the set featured Alan White of YES’ tribute to John Lennon; White was the drummer on Lennon’s solo material including the recording of “Imagine.” Of the tour, Steve Howe said “Yes is delighted to headline this celebration of British music which has been so warmly received in America over the past five decades.” Alan White: “I’m looking forward to joining a number of classic British talents that have delighted so many fans over the past half century.” Geoff Downes: “This is a unique celebration of the British contribution to classic rock over many decades. It will be inspirational to be a part of. And I know it is what John Wetton would have wanted.”
A Royal Affair Tour – Live was recorded live at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, Friday 26 July 2019.

The packaging features brand new artwork by legendary artist and longtime Yes collaborator, Roger Dean.

The latest record from Delinquent Delivery sees label-head Stephen Mahoney round up five of Dublin’s most prolific producers. Stuey Lyons, Jon Hussey, Jack Jennings, Stephen Mahoney & Rustal have contributed to Stretching Ohms, the fifth release on Delinquent Delivery. Dancefloor directed techno at its finest.

Stuey Lyøns & Jon Hussey have teamed up for A1, a straight-shooting dancefloor oriented techno work. With over forty years of experience between them,Lyøns & Hussey’s expertise is put to work on A1. Dark, pensive and groove-oriented, A1 never deviates too far from its source, making it a useful techno tool for any DJ’s arsenal.

Jack Jennings contribution on A2 is another dancefloor directed number, featuring a dissonant lead married with a swinging percussive section which creates an infectious groove. Jennings’ production style would be synonymous with dark, late night sets, such as those by Marcel Dettmann or Chris Liebling.

Mahoney’s input to Stretching Ohms is B1, a commanding techno banger. Mahoney’s production style is similar to his DJ sets, delicately blending subtle elements throughout B1 while never losing focus of the main driving components. B1’s direct approach makes it perfect for late night sets.

Rustal rounds the record off with B2, a groovy roller which echoes Detroit through and through. Chiming in as the fastest track on the record, Rustal effortlessly balances a funky bassline with a compelling lead, reminiscent of the Belleville Three’s earlier work. B2 marks the end of Stretching Ohms, continuing on the energetic path set out before.

Stretching Ohms delivers high-octane dancefloor driven bangers of the highest quality. Each track differs in style, but combined they all have similar DNA – they’re all made in Dublin. This release highlights the talent that Ireland has to offer to techno globally.

Libreville Records is proud to present a focus on legendary electronic swiss project Mega Wave Orchestra in the form of a compilation LP including unreleased material.Originally released privately in Geneva in 1988 as a box set containing five LPs by The Mega Wave Orchestra and five prints by the artist H. Richard Reimann. The Mega Wave Orchestra, the brain-child of musician, mathematician and composer Christian Oestreicher, was conceived as an multi-media electronic music big-band. It was comprised of seven multi-instrumentalists Christine Schaller, Vincent Barras, Jacques Demierre, Olivier Rogg, Rainer Boesch, Roger Baudet, and Benoit Corboz, with Oestreicher as arranger and producer.The Mega Wave Orchestra created a new hybrid music. It was a music with roots in the jazz and classical traditions, but one which also drew on the sonic freedom of musique concrete and the kind of total experience offered by psychedelia. The diverse backgrounds and specialisms of each of the band leaders/writers resulted in a wide variety of music across the five discs: from austere drones and granular aural detail to warm oddball fusion and gorgeous but cracked vocal jazz. There are useful contemporary comparisons to be made: zoned synth jazz like the Azimuth LP on ECM or Karin Krog’s Freestyle; Larry Heard’s sequencer dreamtime; the Valium minimalism of Pep Llopis or Jun Fukamaki; Dexter Wansel’s shimmering arrangements for Loose Ends, or even the FM sheen meets cold war threat of Donald Fagen’s Night Fly. Here, too, is the sound of music technology about to snowball and define its own aesthetic, unknowingly prefiguring auteurish bedroom producers like Black Dog or The Detroit Escalator Company.Lovely crafted tip-on sleeve. Remastered from Master tapes. 600 copies.

Techno boldness from the depths of Upstate New York. Mysterious L’estasi Dell’oro returns with eight mind-boggling machine songs. Twisted mechanical workouts, enchanted while driving hard like awakened nature recapturing unattended industrial structures. Circular melodies cut through the rectangular metallic clutter. This is the stuff to bring us back together. Following previous releases on Macro, Field, Flaneur Audio, Fifth Wall and Voodoo Down, Christopher Ernst leaves his Brooklyn phase behind and starts afresh with his first long-form release in five years.

Re-release of the record originally released on 2016-02-05!

Remastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M Berlin and presented in an exact replica sleeve of the original 1966 release by Stephen O'Malley.

sales information: Black Truffle is honoured to present the first vinyl reissue of the classic debut album from AMM, AMMMusic. Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of its recording in 1966, this reissue makes one of the cornerstones of the experimental music tradition available again in its original form, replete with Keith Rowe's beautiful pop art cover and the terse aphorisms by the group that served as its original liner notes. A testament to the interaction between the experimental avant-garde and the countercultural underground, the album was originally released on Elektra, recorded by Jac Holzman (the label's founder, responsible for signing The Doors, Love, and The Stooges) and produced by DNA, a group that included Pink Floyd's first manager Peter Jenner. (Pink Floyd paid tribute to AMM's influence on their improvisational sensibility with the track 'Flaming' on their debut album, named after the piece that occupies AMMMusic's first side, 'Later During a Flaming Riviera Sunset').

Formed in 1965 by three players from the emerging British jazz avant-garde - Keith Rowe and Lou Gare had played with the great progressive big band leader Mike Westbrook and Eddie Prévost played in a post-bop group with Gare - AMM quickly evolved from a free jazz group into something decidedly more difficult to categorise. By the time these recordings were made, two more members had joined the group: another Westbrook associate, Lawrence Sheaf, and the radical composer Cornelius Cardew. Then at work on his masterpiece of graphic notation Treatise, Cardew brought with him extensive experience of the post-serialist and Cageian currents in contemporary composition. Using a combination of conventional instruments and unconventional methods of sound production (most famously Keith Rowe's prepared tabletop guitar, but also prepared piano and transistor radio), the group performed improvised pieces often running for over two hours and ranging from extended periods of silence to terrifying cacophonies.

Evan Parker famously described the improvisational logic of AMM's music as 'laminal', in contrast to the 'atomistic' approach more common among the generation of British improvisers (Bailey, Rutherford, Stevens and co.) to which he himself belonged. AMM improvised in layers: layers of sound subtly rising and falling or abruptly starting and stopping without being propelled by the implied pulse of free jazz improvisation. Rather than a pulse, AMM's music began with the sound of the room in which it was played, the Cageian anarchy of silence. By embracing the non-synchronous simultaneity of layered sound, AMM was able to create a musical container into which nearly anything could be incorporated at any moment: on AMMMusic, long tones sit next to abrasive thuds, the howl of uncontrolled feedback accompanies Cardew's purposeful piano chords, radios beam in snatches of orchestral music (and, on the LP's second side, an extended fragment of 'Mockingbird').

AMM's clearest break with jazz-based improvisation concerned the idea of individuality. Where improvised music has tended to foster the development of idiosyncratic stylists who move freely from one group to another, AMM, initially through an engagement with eastern philosophy and mysticism and later though a politicized communitarianism, sought to develop a collective sonic identity in which individual contributions could barely be discerned. In the performances captured on AMMMusic

the use of numerous auxiliary instruments and devices, including radios played by three members of the group, contribute to the sensation that the music is composed as a single monolithic object with multiple facets, rather than as an interaction between five distinct voices.

- Francis Plagne

The premise for Quindi Records is simple – to represent music with a universality at its core.
Without adhering to specific genre tropes, the releases are intended to have a meaning and purpose in all kinds of situations – a social soundtrack as much as a stimulating experience,
feeding emotions and the psyche with a sentimental palette of sounds. Lovers’ music, loners’ music, music for friends and family alike.
Woo makes for a perfect choice to meet this loose concept head-on – the music of Clive and Mark Ives straddles disparate worlds and finds its own peculiar balance. On one hand it’s delicate synthesizer music with a minimalist bent, while on the other their joyous, twinkling harmonies have an immediacy that speaks to the soul. You can detect privacy in their craft – the brothers originally recorded their music in relative isolation in London in the 70s, 80s and early 90s. It’s only in recent years their sublime work has enjoyed a wider audience through an extensive run of reissues.
Arcturian Corridor ? presents a rare, previously unreleased piece of music from Woo – the expansive suite of the title track that unfurls across five parts. It’s an enchanting listen that shows a new breadth and depth to the duo – detailed drum programming and a broader palette of synth tones cascading in elegant unison. The name refers to Arcturus, the fourth brighteststar in the night sky. As Woo themselves explain, “The Arcturian Corridor is said to be a channel of light that brings unconditional love and wisdom from Arcturus to Earth.”
In addition to the 20-minute A-side piece, Woo also presents a new version of “Love On Other Planets”, a standout piece from their 1990 album ?Into The Heart of Love? . The fragile subtlety of the original has been embellished here with rich new passages that turn it into a kind of electronica epic, although still marked out with the sensitivity one expects from a Woo record.
Two remixes complete the set, both furthering Quindi’s modus operandi as a genre-agnostic force for cosmically charged music. Dublin’s Wah Wah Wino collective present their Wino Wagon manifestation for a tastefully strange house version of the fifth part of “Arcturian Corridor” that channels the freakiness of Pepe Bradock, the robo-funk of Metro Area and a soupcon of pop nous. British duo Ultramarine maintain the stylistic ambiguity as they channel decades of expressive experimentation between live band dynamics and machine soul on their version of the title track’s second chapter.

Fantastic first album of Tunisian producer Azu Tiwaline, melting psychedelic dub, industrial and hypnotic techno deeply rooted in her berber culture, supported by Lena Willikens, Nicola Cruz, Toma Kami and Violet, to name a few!

Azu Tiwaline is a new name for a new spirit: one of a producer inspired by the need to explore her origins, rooted in the Tunisian Sahara. The Call to a different sound, organic and raw, vibrating in the great spaces of the African desert where trance music resonates... Ecstatic ritual.

Her first album, Draw Me A Silence, conceived as a diptych, reveals the multiple facets of her identity. Uniting the bonds that connect Berber music, dub culture and techno hypnosis, Azu Tiwaline invites us to refocus on our senses and our Nature. She knows how to use contrasts between light and the invisible, exploring the complexity of our emotions and the mystery that emanates from them, in a polyrhythmic chiaroscuro that runs through each one of her tracks, and of which we discover, as we go along, all the outlines.

Draw Me A Silence Part. I (to be released in February 2020), delivers the most hypnotic variant of her music, centered on dark percussive rhythms and a skillful use of repetition; each of the 5 tracks ineluctably carrying the listener into a trance. Two major tunes particularly illustrate the artist's imagination: "Itrik" and "Berbeka", perfectly synthesizing the heritage of Berber trance music and her techniques derived from minimalist and repetitive electronic music.

The continuation, Draw Me A Silence Part. II (to be released in April 2020), gives prominence to a deep heritage drawn from the dub culture and its numerous bass music filiations. This second part thus gives a new breath in the use of sound space, exploited in a much broader way, leaving all their space to complex syncopated percussive lines, supported by massive basslines dedicated to the best sound-systems. Omok, the first of the five tracks of this Part II is the perfect demonstration of this, playing here the essential role of a bridge to the darker waters of this album's end.

Each of these two parts exist as an Entity, and it is only when they are united that they will reveal their full meaning. Thus, in May, Draw Me A Silence will find its final form in a double-vinyl unifying them. Listening to this album in its entirety offers us a wide panorama of the sound landscapes visited by Azu Tiwaline, who seems to breathe primitive sounds of a faraway desert into a music with modern tones - and vice versa. A resolutely hybrid sound and a singular experience, playing with contrasts and nuances to catch the listener in vast and so far unexplored territories.

Premisession’ pays homage to the pivotal but now defunct Minneapolis warehouse venue “Premises,” of which Craig Lambert aka Midnight Music Club founded, and where Kajunga hosted their rst ever all night party. The EP showcases MMC’s hardware uency with a lavish cruise through mesmerizing grooves and pronounced warmth.

Calling Card creates a welcome invitation to the record with sensual synth lines, paired with the drive of undulating tom rhythms. A New Day evokes the feeling of an acid soirée. Rich emotion and improvisational elegance resonate throughout the track.

Five A.M. starts the B-side off with spring-time air; blooming into a Sunday morning daydream. Private Guy seals the deal by providing a more moody take on A New Day, with melodies weaving through playful percussion.

Midnight Music Club has been collecting records for over 40 years, sharing them passionately for nearly 30 and studying music production for 20. This live artist’s timeless yet distinctly old school sound is reminiscent of early Chicago and Detroit pioneers, with a blend of deep house and techno that is uniquely his own.

He has released on Chicago’s Descendants of the Deep label, as well as Headphoniq and his own self titled outlet. His ‘Premisession’ EP is an ode to the pivotal but now defunct Minneapolis warehouse venue Premises, which he himself founded and which hosted Kajunga’s rst- ever all-night party.

dJ FeedbACK:

“Overall cool 12", Calling Card being my fav on here, the remix is nice as well!” - Kai Alce

“Dope!!!” - Fred P

“This record from Focus is off the chain! Analog funky grooves with real rhythms. Minneapolis coming with it on Kajunga.” - Ricardo Miranda

“Dope EP, A New Day does it for me.” - Roman Rauch

KAJUNGA is a record label, party series and monthly mix series formed in 2015; the result of four Minneapolis artists’ shared love for thoughtful music and unadulterated dance floor experience.