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Siavash Amini is a composer from Tehran, Iran. He Has worked with labels like Room40, Hallow Ground, Opal Tapes and Umor Rex for the better half of the past ten years. He has performed at festivals like CTM & MUTEK and many other well known international events. Apart from it Siavash is a co-founder of the “SET experimental art events” and “SETfest” in Tehran, Iran. His work ranges from fragile ambient pieces and brittle IDM (incorporating his distinctive style of atmospheric guitar playing) to noisy drones and bleak modern classical pieces. His compositions have been inspired by films such as Andrei Tarkovsky's The Mirror as well as novels by Dostoyesvky and poems by T.S. Eliot.

Saffronkeira is the Sardinian sound researcher Eugenio Caria being active in the electronic music scene since almost two decades. His most recent work - a cooperation with the Italian jazz trumpet legend Paolo Fresu - earned a lot of praise from the international music press for the pure timelessness of the album.

"Upon hearing a small snippet of sound an image is conjured, not a memory but not unfamiliar. A shell of a memory, thousand events superimposed on each other. While trying to extract points of a narrative to ease the discomfort of this recollection, I try to separate and unfold the image and with it the points of the spectrum which make up the sound, a shell of a narrative. Here is an album based upon an almost entirely imagined/ synthesized happening upon hearing a snippet of sound. It sounded like of a whole story that never happened but yet I felt myself amongst it’s participants, a sound triggering a false memory. Each sound in Eugenio’s collection of sounds and ideas guided me a to a point in the narrative and it’s construction. He had handed me a portals of some kind to a few scenes of the whole narrative. This is the soundtrack for that false memory from all the perspectives I can think of."

Directions Out Of Town is the latest and teased as (possibly) the last LP by DIY electronic abstract pop wizard Finlay Shakespeare.

Directions Out Of Town is a fierce mix of headstrong pop bangers. Fact. There is simply no one else traversing the field that Shakespeare is exploring. It can be lonely in the desert, Simon says. Lyrically, Directions Out Of Town is dealing with loss; personally, geographically, politically, culturally - a general decay of everything.

This new record is heavily inspired by structural film where the results unravel a method where metaphor is removed from the act of sound synthesis, production and mix of the tracks. Fiercely independent and brimming with integrity this is a deeply effective journey through machines of the human experience.

The track titles are telling: 'Away', 'Get', 'Direction', 'I go for a walk', etc

This is sentiment via complex synthesis wrung through patterns of pop. One also finds ways out that only turn out to be false/untrue.

"I essentially don't know where I belong any more. This record is the precursor to that."

What is ostensibly an electro pop record reveals a multitude of layers and depth as one man and his machines wrestle with the reality of this tangled matrix. If the charts had brains this would be album of the year.

Finlay Shakespeare is an electronic musician working in the UK. His fascination for synthesized sound was born out of his parents' record collection, leading him to explore the electronic music of decades past throughout his teenage years. While starting to write and record his own tracks, he also began learning analogue electronics, which led him to design and build his own equipment. To date, he has released work on Editions Mego, Superpang, and his own GOTO Records.

“Crazy Funky” marks the official debut of Tommy Soul as a producer — a track born from the desire to blend the groove of 80s funk and disco with a contemporary sonic approach. A warm, dominant funky bassline drives the track alongside a vintage-flavoured, punchy drum groove, supported by modern electronic synths and sound details that firmly place it in the present.The lyrics and vocal melody sung by Tommy Soul, reveal an unexpected falsetto, especially in the harmonic tension of the hook “make me crazy!” The goal was to reinterpret the spirit of original disco productions and bring it into a modern, more electronic and club-oriented dimension, while preserving the analogue soul and authentic warmth of the sound. The result is a track with a strong character: a relentless bassline, gritty vocals, an infectious groove, and an energy built for the dancefloor.

Nachdem Ásgeir jahrelang mit Übersetzern wie John Grant zusammengearbeitet und die Poesie seines Vaters, Einar Georg Einarsson, vertont hat, betritt er nun neues Terrain: Zum ersten Mal in seiner langen und gefeierten Karriere hat er die Texte komplett selbst verfasst.

Ásgeir wird seit Langem für seinen detailreichen Folk-Pop, die opulente Produktion und sein sehnsüchtiges, gefühlvolles Falsett gefeiert. „Julia“ markiert eine Wende – nicht nur hin zu lyrischer Eigenständigkeit, sondern auch zu kathartischer Direktheit, mit Songs, die nicht nur meisterhaft vorgetragen, sondern auch durchlebt wirken. „Das war irgendwie das erste Mal, dass ich die Texte völlig allein geschrieben habe“, erzählt er. „Es war beängstigend. Ich versuche immer noch, mich darin zu finden. Aber ich habe versucht, mich zu öffnen, und habe in diesem Prozess viel gelernt. Es war auf jeden Fall therapeutisch für mich.“

Dieses neue Gefühl der Verletzlichkeit zieht sich durch die zehn Stücke des Albums, die über einen Zeitraum von fast zwei Jahren geschrieben und aufgenommen wurden. Viele der Songs entstanden zunächst auf der Gitarre, wobei Ásgeir auf Schlichtheit setzte und Melodie, Klarheit und Bedeutung in den Vordergrund stellte. Die Produktion, gemeinsam mit seinem langjährigen Weggefährten Guðm. „Kiddi“ Kristinn Jónsson entwickelt, bleibt organisch und zurückhaltend – und gibt so Ásgeirs Stimme, und vor allem seiner Stimme als Songwriter, den nötigen Raum.

Der aus Nashville stammende Cellist Nathaniel Smith, den Ásgeir als „Zauberer“ beschreibt, steuert hier und im gesamten Album atmosphärische Klangteppiche bei. Mit improvisierten Melodien verleiht er den Stücken Leben und Tiefe – auf eine Weise, die Ásgeir sich zuvor nicht vorgestellt hatte.

Stoop Kid is the jangly indie rock project of Diest-born Jens Rubens. After Camp Careful (2021) and Mount Cope (2023), Stoop Kid returns with his third full-length album Office Overdue, a ten-song collection that captures the quiet fatigue, flickering humor, and
fragile hope of keeping it together in a world that won't slow down.

'Office Overdue' is a collection of songs Jens made at home in his modest home studio. For this album, he wanted to let go of pressure and expectations more than ever, and only work on music when he genuinely felt like it.No fancy studio, no producer, just walking upstairs and messing around. The result doesn't always sound perfectly polished: the drums are sometimes clumsily programmed and more than a few wrong notes made it onto the record. The guitars were allowed to hit a bit harder this time, with the '90s slacker vibes coming through more prominently. The result is a record that feels raw and honest, and above all, was made purely out of enthusiasm.

Office Overdue explores the attempt to keep functioning in everyday life while the world around us feels on the verge of collapse. The songs move between mental exhaustion and self-reflection, carried by a dry, sometimes bitter humour that helps lighten the weight. The album focuses on repetition and routine, and on the tension between wanting to care for others and being trapped inside one's own head. Themes of anxiety, guilt and dissociation recur throughout, but are always accompanied by small moments of connection, gentle resistance and acceptance. Office Overdue embraces the mess, the doubt and the false notes, without drawing grand conclusions. Not everything is resolved, but the persistence remains.

Following her compelling debut EP Mending, Frida Touray returns with Homebody, a work of raw emotional clarity, crafted duringa time when her voice was literally fighting back. Diagnosed mid-process with a rare condition that forced her into silence andstillness, Touray chose not retreat, but rebuild. From the quiet corners of domestic life, she’s shaped a collection of songs thatradiate warmth, vulnerability and quiet endurance.Musically, Homebody expands on Touray’s jazz-soul foundations with sparse, atmospheric production that amplifies her voiceand message. There’s a newfound looseness in her phrasing, a deeper sense of presence in every word she sings. You can hearthe letting go, of perfection, of control, and the deepening of purpose in its place. Each track lands with unfiltered intimacy andemotional architecture, a subtle act of defiance wrapped in softness.This is music built on stillness and shaped by resilience. A reflection on self-worth, illness, femininity, community and healing.Songs that speak to the unseen parts of recovery and the small rooms we build ourselves back up in. Homebody is a record foranyone rebuilding from the inside.

Produced by Josephine ''Jo'' Bridges and signed to her We Produce imprint, The Temprees were a Memphis soul vocal trio powered by one of the great falsettos in pop music, that of Jasper ''Jabbo'' Phillips. Their 1972 debut Lovemen is aptly named; this is one of the greatest make-out R&B albums ever made, with one smoldering slow jam after another. Their take on ''Dedicated to the One I Love'' is rightly considered the greatest version ever made, but ''If I Could Say What's on My Mind,'' ''Love... Can Be So Wonderful,'' and ''I Love You, You Love Me,'' will get you and your partner's hips swaying (and patch up any lovers' quarrels tout suite, too). Stax didn't really know what to do with soul this sweet (We Produce was a Stax imprint), so Lovemen languished commercially, but nowadays it's recognized as a model of its kind. For its first-ever LP reissue, we've cut Lovemen ALL-ANALOG straight from the original two-track album master, and pressed it up in two versions, one in black vinyl, the other in eco-friendly, sonically superior valentine red PET plastic. The heart on the front cover sums this one up...

Produced by Josephine ''Jo'' Bridges and signed to her We Produce imprint, The Temprees were a Memphis soul vocal trio powered by one of the great falsettos in pop music, that of Jasper ''Jabbo'' Phillips. Their 1972 debut Lovemen is aptly named; this is one of the greatest make-out R&B albums ever made, with one smoldering slow jam after another. Their take on ''Dedicated to the One I Love'' is rightly considered the greatest version ever made, but ''If I Could Say What's on My Mind,'' ''Love... Can Be So Wonderful,'' and ''I Love You, You Love Me,'' will get you and your partner's hips swaying (and patch up any lovers' quarrels tout suite, too). Stax didn't really know what to do with soul this sweet (We Produce was a Stax imprint), so Lovemen languished commercially, but nowadays it's recognized as a model of its kind. For its first-ever LP reissue, we've cut Lovemen ALL-ANALOG straight from the original two-track album master, and pressed it up in two versions, one in black vinyl, the other in eco-friendly, sonically superior valentine red PET plastic. The heart on the front cover sums this one up...

Flick Wilson's "School Days" album has long been one of our all-time favorite LP's through it's killer combination of super heavy Roots Radics rhythms, wild Scientist mixing, and the Flick's unique alternating falsetto style. Never widely available and only ever released in NYC, it's now deservedly reissued.

Another excellent find here, an unreleased dub/instrumental album compiled by Lloydie Slim at the end of the 70s, featuring exclusive dubwise & instrumental cuts to many of his rhythms from earlier in the decade. As a bonus we've added 2 more tracks to the original 10 track album tape - the vocal & dub cuts to Johnny Clarke's "I'll Never Fall in Love Again", one of Slim's personal favorites of his productions. This single was originally released in 1975 in JA on his Don One label, and again in New York a few years later on his namesake Ivanhoe the Conqueror label. This album is a great listen which reminds us of the classic Channel 1 Revolutionaries instrumentals of the mid/late 70s.

For over six decades, Charlemagne Palestine (b. 1947, New York) has been a pioneering composer, performer, and multimedia artist, celebrated for his ecstatic sonic explorations and ritualistic, metaphysical performances. Emerging from the cross-disciplinary New York art scene of the 1960s and ’70s, he helped shape a heretical edge of minimalism alongside figures like Conrad, Riley, Niblock, and Glass. Trained as a Jewish cantor and later as the carillonneur at St. Thomas Church, Palestine cultivated a deep fascination with resonance and overtone—an obsession that evolved through his use of percussion, early synthesizers, and monumental piano works, influencing artists from John Cale to Nick Cave.

Animated by a spirit of ecstatic play and what he calls his »meschugge« (Yiddish for »crazy«) sensibility, Palestine’s universe blends the sacred and the absurd, filled with soft toys, ritual gestures, and immersive sound environments. Rejecting the »minimalist« label in favor of a maximalist, »spontanimalist« approach, he creates long-form, resonant performances that transform spaces into vibrating, living organisms—opening portals into the nature of time, sound, and devotion.

In the same vein, the aptly titled live record »The Organ is the World’s Greatest Synthesizer« – performed during the Sonic Acts Festival at Amsterdam’s Oude Kerk in 2025, and taking its title and cover art from a drawing realized by Palestine himself during the concert – adds to his opaque yet vibrant personal mythology and intimate transcendence, marking a return to the Staalplaat catalog after »Fffroggssichorddd« (2020) and »Music for Big Ears« (2001).

Beginning with a resonating bell and his falsetto overtone singing, then surrendering to the endless, wild soundscapes of tone-feeling and beat frequencies generated by the church’s organ, across 40+ minutes, single sound sources evolve into clusters, entangle fully with one another, and establish their own spatial existence and aural architectures. We witness the traces of something that can be described as a perpetual performance, a test for the ever-changing interaction between artist, instrument, space and, ultimately, us.

Since Palestine has always defined his execution as a form of anti-composition - of simply »being in the music« as if inhabiting a space - the true power of »The Organ is the World’s Greatest Synthesizer« lies in encapsulating a moment of Palestine’s practice in its most authentic, live dimension. Sound becomes at once subtle substance and strange telluric force, animating physical forms from some unknown channel beyond and within, accessible only through our sensorium. The point in this liminal temple of tone, timbre and frequency is not to learn anything but to simply enter. Palestine earns once again his self-given title of contemporary shaman by keeping this sonic portal open, allowing us to witness and make it last.

»I have always felt and heard and mixed the sounds in my world as liquids not as solids. Sonic liquids are material that is endlessly transformable. But I’m not crazy about people who go around defining stuff.«

Eddie Kendricks was the falsetto voice of The Temptations during the group’s heyday years at Motown Records. Signed as a solo artist with the Tamla label he achieved further success with an array of hits (including the No.1 single “Keep On Truckin’”) and popular album tracks that remain in demand today. “Date With The Rain” was originally released in 1972 (from the album “People…Hold On”), “Intimate Friends” later in 1977 (from the album “Slick”), a song written by Garry Glen who would go on to write for Al Hudson (“Spread Love”), Phyllis Hyman (“Be Careful How You Treat My Love”) and Anita Baker (“Caught Up In The Rapture”) among many. More. “Intimate Friends” has also been sampled over 80 times by artists including Alicia Keys (in “Unbreakable”), Erykah Badu and a significant number or r&b/hip hop artists. “Date With The Rain” has also been much sampled and covered most notably by Jamie Principle in 1990.

The second volume in Death Is Not The End's survey of a form of Brazilian country music known as música caipira ("hillbilly music") - a stripped-back forerunner to música sertaneja, the Brazilian equivalent to US country & western which in it's contemporary form has come to dominate the domestic music industry in recent decades. This collection covers some of the earliest recordings made by the pioneering folklorist Cornélio Pires at the end of the 1920s, through to records from the 30s, 40s & 50s and the beginning of the 60s.

Somewhat rooted in Portuguese troubadour folk traditions, música caipira is typically performed by a duo singing in parallel thirds and sixths, drawing upon a Portuguese-Brazilian style known as moda de viola - with the viola being the viola caipira, a Brazilian-style ten-string guitar that is the core instrument of the music. Born out of the "outback"-style region in north-eastern Brazil, these songs tell stories of pain, love, loss & betrayal - often backed by homemade guitars using invented tunings. Away from the polished pop country & western-stylings of the sertaneja, these recordings could be viewed as the Brazilian equivalent to the roots music of the American dustbowl or Appalachia.

2026 Repress

Flickering in ultraviolet, there is an elusive place where blue pill meets red, ups become downs, and day merges with night. Those liminal spaces where anything is possible is where you’ll find Nightbus and their hypnotic debut album Passenger. Doom, uncertainty, and opportunity lurk in the shadowy corners of their murky existence with stops at disassociation, co-dependency, and addiction before reaching its final destination - a glimmer of hope.

The in-between of Nightbus’ own Gotham lies where Manchester’s city pulse meets Stockport’s outer realm. An audio-visual entity formed among a musical family of friends, freaks, and foes in messy mills and after hours on dancefloors alike, their sound bleeds from tension where collective creative forces are bound together and collide with the fallout of being torn apart. Before even playing a show, their So Young released single ‘Mirrors’ – a knowing nod of respect to some well-known gloomy Northerners - may have made old school indie heads shimmy at shows in Salford’s The White Hotel but also signalled the duo’s knack for offering listeners a Bandersnatch approach to hitchhiking their own personal Nightbus in whatever direction they choose to take. “Everyone can have their moment with our songs; the music is our response to who we are as young people, living in the city full of this energy right now,” they say.

Whilst reverb hefty melodies and dread-filled loops embody isolation from writing at each of their home studio set-ups, magic happens in the ether across 90s trip-hop, indie sleaze and electronica; Jake’s production layers Olive’s pop sentimentality with drums and samples whilst tales of a cast of faceless characters place Olive as puppet master; her severed self’s perspective manipulating their stringed limbs at arm’s length to see how their stories play out when scenes reflecting her own lie close to the bone. “It’s a bit fucked; like having this out of body experience with a made-up movie running through my head,” she says. “As I write I can see they’re all from a similar world, but they allow me to explore different feelings without giving away part of myself.”

Recorded at The Nave in Leeds with producer-engineer Alex Greaves (Heavy Lungs, Working Men’s Club), surprise and danger lies in every crevice. Brooding whispers turn to chants on 6-minute opus ‘Host.’ Improvised when performed live, its immersive shift in tempo leads to hefty dub courtesy of Jake’s pedals. Even then, you won’t know shit’s hit the fan until its mid-point reveal when ominous bass blasts a thunderous soundtrack as its protagonist defiantly walks away after committing the perfect crime. “It makes you wait, and more songs should have sirens,” Olive grins.

Leaning deeper into alter-egos via the video game-psychological horror of a Silent Hill dystopia, the band’s Fight Club moment ‘Angles Mortz’ turns its literal translation of death angles on its head as it reflects upon kink and internalised shame reincarnated as pride. Elsewhere the ice cool ‘Landslide’ is a Requiem for a Dream about the addiction of being in a band; ‘The Void’ explores co-dependency and estranged relationships; and carefully selected samples revive house track ‘Just A Kid’ from the band’s early incarnation. Passenger’s every direction is to face challenges head on. “That is what’s so great about horror; you can see through predictable patterns so when the unexpected occurs it's more realistic and uncomfortable… I want to own the dark stuff!”

As for Passenger’s first single, the pulsating ‘Ascension’ is a spiralling deep dive into death, suicide, and legacy around who or what we leave behind. A noughties club banger by way of NYC beats - ergonomically designed for those who like to stay out a little too often and too late - it throbs like a house party’s partition wall as the literal levelling up undergoes a neon transformation; blue glitching to pink, diffusing the white construct of the Nightbus Matrix. “It really does feel like the end of something and was purposely written that way,” they say, “the ascension is like a firework going off!”

With wheels in motion, Nightbus has become a movement surpassing sonic realms. Between shows from Porto to Brighton taking in The Great Escape, Rotterdam’s Left Of The Dial and Paris’ Supersonic; DJing; remixing; guesting (BDRMM’s Microtonic album); and even enlisting talented like-minds to craft a 3-part queer coming-of-age music video series which ties in with a new ‘hyperpop’ phase in the evolution of their popular Nightbus Soundsystem club night, heads are now being turned from sports brands to high-end fashion designers. “There are things we can’t reveal just yet,” tells Olive, “but we’re excited about the direction this beast we’ve created is heading.” As the album philosophises and asks one ultimate question; what does it truly mean to be ‘Passenger’? Nightbus may not claim to offer a definitive answer, but it might make you feel a bit better about those demons.

Collecting orders for Repress

The Detroit Party Train shows no signs of slowing down. After last year's Let's Rock All Night, Maaco brings four more bangers to the table that go all the way up to make you get down. True Detroit electro for those not afraid to rock it. Real recognize real, ya know.

Aaron Frazer - der in Los Angeles lebende Sänger, Songwriter, Multi-Instrumentalist und Mitglied der gefeierten Gruppe Durand Jones & the Indications - lässt mit "Into the Blue" eine gewagte Mischung aus Soul, Psychedelia, Spaghetti-Western, Disco, Gospel und Hip-Hop auf sein hochgelobtes Debütalbum "Introducing_" aus dem Jahr 2021 folgen. "Into The Blue" repräsentiert die beeindruckende Bandbreite von Frazers klanglichen Talenten. "Es ist das klarste Porträt dessen, was ich als Künstler bin", sagt Frazer über sein zweites Solo-Album, auf dem er die unverwechselbare Falsettstimme und das klassische Songwriting beibehält, für das er bekannt ist, aber mit einer Hip Hop inspirierten Mentalität im Kern, die Genres und Produktionstechniken miteinander verwebt und "Into The Blue" somit fest im Hier und Jetzt verankert. "Into The Blue" ist das Ergebnis eines gebrochenen Herzens. Nach dem Ende einer langen Beziehung zog Frazer quer durchs Land von Brooklyn nach Los Angeles und begab sich auf eine Reise, die sich in den Themen des Albums widerspiegelt: Trauer, Einsamkeit und die Suche nach Heilung. "Into The Blue" enthält Momente mit überragenden Arrangements, die an David Axelrod und Ennio Morricone erinnern, wird aber durch die Rohheit von iPhone-Aufnahmen und One-Take-Vocals ausgeglichen. Als Co-Produzent für das Album konnte Frazer den Grammy-Gewinner Alex Goose gewinnen, der für seine Crate-Digging-Samples und die Zusammenarbeit mit Hip-Hop-Künstler*innen wie Freddie Gibbs, Madlib und Brockhampton bekannt ist. Frazer experimentierte auch zum ersten Mal mit Samples, die er aus unerwarteten Quellen wie der R&B-Gruppe Hi-Five aus den 90ern bezog. Und Obwohl "Into the Blue" aus Herzschmerz entstanden ist, hofft Frazer, dass es die Zuhörer*innen mit einem Gefühl des Optimismus zurücklässt. "Weißt du, man kann auch an einem Tag, an dem man trauert, lachen", sagt er, "es gibt keine Gipfel ohne Täler" - aber mit "Into The Blue" erreicht Aaron Frazer neue Höhen.

Brixton Heights Records proudly presents the brand new single ‘Am I the Same Man?’, a soulful roots-reggae gem featuring a heavyweight all-star lineup including: Mafia & Fluxy on drum and bass respectively, the Ital Horns on brass, Gussie Clarke on mastering and Gaudi on falsetto vocals + BVs, dub mixing, piano and co-production alongside The Brixton Heights Orchestra.

Drawing inspiration from the timeless instrumental groove ‘Soulful Strut’ by Young-Holt Unlimited, the track channels vintage soul through a deep lovers-rock lens. A fresh and earnest reinterpretation of Barbara Acklin’s 1968 classic ‘Am I the Same Girl?’, this version flips the narrative with an adaptation on the lyrics voiced by none other than Gaudi singing in falsetto, resulting with a smooth, dub-infused love song that combines classic soul and international reggae into a modern masterpiece.
Gaudi is not stranger to falsetto-singing and backing vocals, in fact he has lent his distinctive vocal talent to albums by reggae giants such as Steel Pulse, Horace Andy, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Don Letts, Johnny Clarke, Mad Professor, Hollie Cook, Michael Rose, Creation Rebel, Africa Unite, Awa Fall, African Head Charge, Lion D & Capleton.

Mixed and co-produced by Gaudi at his Metatron Studio in London UK and mastered by Gussie Clarke at Anchor Studios in Kingston Jamaica, ‘Am I the Same Man?’ is more than a cover version, it’s a heartfelt transformation that captures the emotional core of the original song while creating a whole new vibe that speaks to today’s lovers and soul seekers alike.

The B-side presents a meticulously crafted dub version by Gaudi, produced exclusively with analogue equipment and vintage studio hardware. The mix brings forward the intricacies of the original instrumentation and enhances the lyrical elements through spacious delays and warm, analogue textures. Last but not least, in order to maintain the highest level of authenticity and an organic sonic texture, all recordings were done at 432Hz, tuned to resonate naturally.

French artist based in Brussels, Che Vuoi presents her first album Cinecittàx, a nod to the great Italian studio, and a tribute to false dreams.

A theatre at the back of a run-down piano bar, where surreal and intimate scenes unfold; words and stories drawn from disparate sources: Fellini, G. Réal, Diderot... or written by herself, spoken, shouted or barely whispered by an altered voice.


Noises, samples, a drum machine, a brush on a snare drum, a piano spinning round and round until it reaches delirium and its own abolition, leaving us suspended in a constant in-between or a time that never truly existed.



« This voice, gentle, mad, with lightning verve, tells between the lines and the echoes the presence of threatening shadows and ghosts. And it is Che Vuoi, her character, her world of images, that haunts us. It is a strange bewitchment that carries us beyond the words she has freed from "the stationery I stole from Bellavista the other night" ("le papier à lettre que j’ai chipé au Bellavista l’autre soir") into the lair of her universe, as whimsical as it is silky in which we let ourselves slip, as one would slip over the rock of an esoteric river, in the heart of a forest that makes music and has delirious things to tell us. »

**Includes double sided insert with liner notes and photos*

Al Mati was the pseudonym of eccentric Portuguese-born, Dutch-based artist Alberto Mesquita. The name translates to ‘Alberto Friend’, with ‘Al’ short for Alberto and ‘Mati’ meaning ‘friend’ in Surinamese.
Alberto’s story comes across like a mythical character from a European Kerouac novel, but instead of writing it down, he poured those adventures and characters into his record. The music and the comic-style artwork, drawn by his friend Bruno Scoriels, work as one, with Alberto himself becoming both the story and the character within it.

Raised under Salazar’s regime in Lisbon, where all men were conscripted to Africa, he refused, a pacifist. This put him at odds with his father, born in Angola and a prominent lawyer tied to the dictatorship. Unable to accept his son’s stance, the rift forced Alberto to flee Portugal as a deserter, leaving everything behind.

He sought a new life in Paris, where he met Bruno Scoriels. The pair busked to get by, and young and broke, set off on adventures across Europe. On one trip to Barcelona, they crossed the Pyrenees on foot through a five-kilometre train tunnel, not knowing if they would make it out alive. The train later featured on the cover of Some Shit, a nod to that hazardous journey and the strange turns of his life.

From there he moved to Belgium, where he met Jolanda, his future wife who also features on the album. They lived in The Netherlands, then back in Belgium where they married, before returning to Portugal under false pretences. The regime promised deserters immunity, but it proved untrue, and Alberto was forced to flee again — this time with a young family, using Bruno’s passport to escape to The Netherlands.

They settled in the Gliphoeve flats in Amsterdam’s Bijlmermeer, a vibrant immigrant community. This melting pot of cultures inspired Alberto musically. He started a studio in their flat where musicians from Suriname, Angola, the Antilles, Brazil, Mozambique and Portugal came and went, jamming, rehearsing, recording and forming bands including Albatros, Comoção and Mati Africa, performing internationally and at iconic Amsterdam venues like De Melkweg and Paradiso.

Being an immigrant was tough. Alberto was stateless for years, drifting across countries. Some songs voiced his frustration with the Portuguese regime, others were playful or simply love notes to his wife and kids. He passed away in the Netherlands in 2021, leaving Some Shit open to interpretation. But when you picture Europe in the 1970s — the politics, the upheaval, and his need to connect people across cultures — you can hear an artist shaped by contrast, who poured his experiences, feelings and love into music.