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Wormrot return with their most stunning work to date! Following on from
2016's critically acclaimed album 'Voices', Wormrot's 4th studio album
'Hiss' is released 24th June 2022 on Earache Records
The Singaporean trio features the same line up as 2016's Voices with Arif
(Vocals) Rasyid (Guitar) and Vijesh (Drums) and is without doubt their most
ambitious and creative work to date. Having already made their mark as one of
Grindcore's biggest names, Wormrot are intent on bringing Grindcore back to the
masses with a sonically stunning record of wildly unhinged and downright feral
noise..

Repress

Identified Patient drops another calamitous record on Pinkman - 4 dungenous slowbeat cuts, brimming with energy, emotion and attitude. The EP kicks off with Geen Syndroom where jaded, murky melodies go in tandem with sexy bass lines and an obliterating broken drum beat. Thereafter, Nog Steeds High Van De Lak progressively evokes feelings of desolation and melancholia, while carrying an aggressive punch and irresistible groove. Do the flip to find two more ferocious productions in Ver Verwijderd Van Vermoeid and Haar Glans Altijd Strak. The former grips you firmly with bubbling acid and machine gun snares on the backdrop of violent kicks. The latter ends the voyage entrancingly with hypnotic synth lines, whiplash-snares and rattlesnake-hats.

“Rohkea rokan syö", or to loosely translate this Finnish saying: “Fortune Favours The Brave”. Truly, none have been braver than Blind Channel. Focusing intently on their mission to take their brand of infectiously ferocious nu-metal outside of Finland’s linguistic restrictions this bravery is engrained within. “It took me eight years to become an overnight success”, this line, buried away in Blind Channel’s fourth album Lifestyles Of The Sick & Dangerous is where their uncompromising journey finds its continuation. Furiously fighting their way into the worldwide mainstream, the six-piece have always been embracing their influences, from nu-metal iconoclasts to pop and hip-hop behemoths, it’s all a part of Blind Channel’s DNA. That’s the key to their draw, they’re only interested in sticking true to themselves while studiously searching for the keys to unlock the doors of success. Blind Channel knew that they had something to process. Not only the "modern-day misery” plaguing the world, as Joel puts it, but also proving that they could deliver more than the crowd-pleasing anthem of ‘Dark Side’. Lifestyles Of The Sick & Dangerous is a lashing, brutal, bravado and swagger filled, sincere depiction of their lives, backed by their trademark unforgiving “violent pop music”. As well as a winking homage to the Good Charlotte track Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous, it’s most importantly a righteous statement of intent. That this is only the beginning.

Taking direction from both the cinematic song stylings of sardonic yet
unfettered troubadours like Randy Newman, Brian Wilson, and Harry
Nilsson and the "visual scoring" of indie pop song placement in 21stcentury films, Best Move's music suggests the sound of a decade of
winding, disparate avenues finally convening in a perfect center
The Sacramento-based trio is composed of Kris Anaya, Joseph Davancens, and
Fernando Olivia. Anaya, a talented songwriter with a penchant for wry, offbeat
guitar-based folk-pop songs, and Davancens, who holds higher education degrees
in avant- garde composition and jazz double bass, formed the electronic act
Doombird together in 2016, but in 2019 the pair gravitated back to what they
consider more natural inclinations: organic instruments, earnest songwriting, and
a more true-to-themselves direction. Adding Oliva, Best Move was born. Many of
Best Move's songs maintain an intentionally similar sonic feel. Guitars strum and
piano twinkles while a layer of manipulated or synthesized instruments spread a
hazy overtone on top of it all, and steady yet minimal drums keep things moving.
Lyrically, the standards prevail - love, loss, friendship, searching for purpose - but
the themes bubble under the surface of a sea of metaphor, leaving the listener to
decipher the message in their own way. Anaya calls the sound a "thank you to the
past," and while a warm, familiar tone echoes throughout the band's universe,
something unmistakably modern remains.

'Soul Food - Cooking with Maceo' blends raw, old-school funk with the
flavours of the New Orleans school of music
Parker worked with Ivan Neville, Nikki Glaspie and Tony Hall, as well as a host of
local musicians to record the songs. The funky flavour of the city weaves its way
through the album as the funk father and his band take on iconic songs of the
Mississippi masters such as Dr. John's voodoo funk of 'Right Place, Wrong Time',
The Meters 'Just Kissed My Baby,' 'Yes, We Can Can' recorded by Allen Toussaint
as well as takes on Aretha Franklin's 'Rock Steady', Prince's 'The Other Side of the
Pillow' and Maceo's long-time hero and Ray Charles Saxophonist, David "Fathead"
Newman's 'Hard Times'. We also get funky workouts from Parkers own back
catalogue on 'Maceo' and 'Cross The Tracks'. The latter adopted by Giles
Peterson at the staple song of his iconic WAG Club in Soho, London in the 1980s.
The amazing P-funk Parker has been at it with his legendary sound for time that
dates back to the 1960's. That's when Maceo and his drummer brother Melvin
climbed on board the James Brown funky soul funk train. It wasn't long before
James coined the solo summoning signature, "Maceo, I want you to Blow!". To
most musicologists it's the musically fertile group of men from this period of
James Brown's band who are recognized as the early pioneers of the modern
funk and hip-hop whose sounds we still jump to in the present day.

Repress incoming...

Far Out Recordings proudly presents Milton Nascimento's Maria Maria. Recorded in 1974 and unreleased until almost thirty years later, the album was written as the soundtrack to a ballet which dealt with the legacy of slavery in Brazil. Raw, atmospheric and emotionally charged, Maria Maria reveals one of Brazil's greatest ever songwriters at his creative peak. Featuring an all-star cast of fellow Brazilian legends including Nana Vasconcelos, Joao Donato, Paulinho Jobim, and members of Som Imaginario, Maria Maria holds what Milton considers to be the definitive versions of some of his classic songs, including 'Os Escravos De Jó' and 'Maria Maria'.

Originally released in 2003 as a double CD package, with Milton Nascimento's 1984 follow up ballet soundtrack Ultimo Trem, Maria Maria will be available on vinyl for the very first time from December 2019, with Ultimo Trem set for vinyl release early 2020.

Milton Nascimento possesses one of the most immediately recognizable voices in Brazilian music: high and sweet and as breathtakingly sublime as that of any soul singer. It was this voice that the legendary Brazilian singer Elis Regina fell in love with back in 1964, having heard Milton perform his song 'Canção do Sal (Sultry Song)' at a private party in Sao Paulo. Ellis went on to record the song in 1967 -giving Milton his first hit in Brazil and beginning a career that has spanned over 50 years.

Born in Rio on the 26th October 1942, Milton moved with his adoptive parents at the age of 18 months to Tres Pontas, a rural town in the state of Minas Gerais, 500 miles north of Rio. He began his musical career as a young teenager, singing in a crooner style he learnt from listening to Brazilian singers and US groups such as The Platters on the radio. Hungry for more opportunities to perform, Milton moved to Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, at the age of twenty. By the beginning of the 60s Milton had made a name for himself both as an accomplished singer and guitarist.

Milton became part of a local network of musicians, film makers, dancers, theatre directors and writers that included the journalist and song writer Fernando Brant as well as lyricist Marcio Borges and his younger brother Lo Borges. Together these four wrote and produced what would become Milton's milestone album, 'Clube da Esquina (Club on the Corner)'. The originality of 'Club da Esquina' shaped the local scene, and it reflects the essence of 'the Nascimento Sound'. Milton's religious upbringing as an Afro-Brazilian Catholic saw him exposed to church choral music from an early age. His love of this genre of music is apparent in both his celestial falsetto and vocal choral arrangements. This collection also displays his early fascination with evocative, non-verbal, scat-style singing, spare, harmonic guitar work and local folk music, jazz and rock.

In 1976, Milton and Fernando Brant teamed up with a new contemporary dance company called Grupo Corpo, whose Argentinian choreographer Oscar Araiz, would become a collaborator with the two musicians. Together, they conceived a show based on the composite life story of the daughter of a black slave called Maria. Nascimento wrote music to Brant's lyrics and "Maria Maria" was premiered in the main theatre of the Belo Horizonte Palacio das Artes that year. "Fernando wrote the lyrics for the ballet, but there were originally no lyrics for the theme song, "Maria Maria'". Milton and Fernando worked on the lyrics together, basing them on folk stories about black women of the countryside. Adds Milton "These memories are mostly things that we witnessed – Fernando and I – rather than what we experienced ourselves.

Milton's music is impressionistic, emotional and romantic. Relying on songs without lyrics as well as evocative vocalizing and choruses, Milton experimented heavily with Afro-Brazilian percussion and taped jungle sounds. His composing method for these recordings was highly unconventional: "I wrote the music for 'Maria Maria' in a tiny Rio apartment with friends and their kids running around and having fun! I love to be in noisy places, surrounded by people", he says.
The music on 'Maria Maria' was performed by an impressive group of young musicians who are today household names in Brazilian music, including Naná Vasconcelos (percussion and effects), Toninho Horta (guitars) and Paulo Moura (sax). Several vocalist including Naná Caymmi, Fafá de Belém, Beto Guedes, and Milton himself, had hits in years to come with reworkings of these songs.

Milton says his compositions follow his visions "like a movie", and he believes that reflects his long love affair with cinema. "I only began composing because of enjoying the movies so much," he says. "I wrote my first song "Peace for the Coming Love" after seeing 'Jules et Jim' (the cult 60s French film directed by François Truffaut), with my friend Marcio Borges. We went early in the morning and watched it four or five times in a row, then went to Márcio's home and wrote the song."

The songs also include solo spoken passages set to music, clearly influenced by this style of French art cinema. On the title track, Maria's story is narrated and translated to music through the use of African Percussion, drums and metal signifying the field slave tools of the day. 'Trabalhos (Works)' runs to work rhythms and whipcracks: no words, just pain. 'Lília' documents the beating of the slave woman. After 'A Chamada (The call)' and the triumphant 'Era Rei e Sou Escravo (I was a king now I am a slave' things begin to turn and Milton employs tropical jungle cries to symbolize freedom. 'Santos Catholicos x Candomble (Catholic Saints vs Candomble)' represents the battle between African and European religions through the music of both sides. Milton's heavenly falsetto pours into 'Francisco' and 'Pai Grande (Great Father)' and the outstanding 'Eu Sou Uma Preta Velha Aqui Sentada no Sol (I'm an old black lady, sitting under the sun)' conjures images of an old woman sitting deep in the forest, her memories painted in drums, piano and voices.

Recorded for Benin’s Communist revolution,
‘Rhythm Revolution’ is a rare and truly unique
Afrobeat record - it’s rumoured only 200 copies of
the original release survived.

 Ferry Djimmy was a schoolteacher, former boxer,
and a personal friend of Muhammad Ali and Fela
Kuti. He was later Jacques Chirac’s personal
bodyguard.

 Recorded at the Satel Studio in Cotonou, the
album is one of the toughest, wildest and deepest
slices of Afro-Funk cut - with raw African rhythms,
distortion, energy and wit.

 Alongside nods to Hendrix, Kuti and James Brown,
there is something truly unique about Ferry
Djimmy’s musical legacy.


 A must-have for Afrobeat, Afro Funk and Psych
collectors.

"The letter X marks the spot, crosses over, literally with a cross. It’s the former, the ex-. The ex-lover known simply as “an ex”. Ex- is the latin prefix meaning “out”. Exterior, an exit. Extraordinary. Excellent. It’s exciting. Generation X. X-files. X is the unknown. X is Extreme“

Extreme is Molly Nilsson’s tenth studio album. Recorded in 2019 and throughout the 2020 global pandemic at home in Berlin, Extreme is a departure for Nilsson, an explosion of angry love. It’s an album of anthems for the jilted generation, soaked with joy and offering solace, bristling with distorted, Metal guitars and planet-sized choruses that bring light to the dark centre of the galaxy. It’s an album of the times, by the times and for the people. It’s a record about power. About how to fight it, how to take it and how to share it.

Absolute Power explodes with massive guitars, double kick beats and the instantly iconic line “It’s me versus the black hole at the centre of the galaxy.” Nilsson’s performance itself portrays absolute power in its confidence but the song is a call-to-arms, an entreaty to grasp the here and now, to take the power back. It’s Nilsson pacing the ring and we’re instantly in her corner. Earth Girls takes familiar Molly Nilsson themes - female empowerment and subverting the patriarchy - but casually throws in one of the choruses of her career. “Women have no place in this world” she sings, but it’s the world that isn’t good enough. Stadium-sized but still warmly hazy, Earth Girls has its fists in the air, glorifying in harmony, almost ecstatic in its feeling good. Nilsson’s Springsteen-level conviction and righteousness bleeds through the speaker cones, the cognitive dissonance between the song’s cadences and angry lyrics redolent of Bruce in his prime. Female empowerment isn’t always an angry energy on Extreme, however. On Fearless Like A Child, Nilsson’s anthem to the female body and women’s sovereignty of it, she croons over a mid-80s blue-eyed Soul groove. It sets a nocturnal scene as the narrator surveys her past and her surroundings. Before we’re fully submerged in a dreamlike, Steve McQueen-era Prefab Sprout poem to learning from your mistakes the song erupts into one of those lines only Molly Nilsson can get away with: “I love my womb, come inside I feel so alive” she fervently sings. Against the backdrop of ever-encroaching, conservative rulings on women’s reproductive rights in places like Texas, it’s simultaneously angry and full of love.

Every song on Extreme is a gleaming gem in a pouch of jewels. On Kids Today, Nilsson is the voice of wisdom, archly commenting on the eternal struggle between youth and authority. Wisdom infuses Sweet Smell Of Success with a transcendent love that forgives the narrator’s shortcomings and celebrates the moment, it’s a letter to the author from the author that asks “what is success” and concludes that this is it, this song, this moment. It’s a rare moment of simple reflection that is generous in its insight to Nilsson’s inner life. “Success” is a tool of power and we don’t need it… We need power tools and there are moments on Extreme where it feels like Nilsson is showing us how to find them. It's an open conversation through out Extreme. She’s a warm, comforting presence through out the album and specially on these songs of encouragement, songs perhaps sang to a younger Molly Nilsson or, really, to whomever needs to hear them. “They’ll praise your efforts, they’ll call you slurs a rebel, a master, an amateur / Merely with your own existence, you already offer your resistance.” On Avoid Heaven she’s even more direct, pleading with us to avoid concepts of purity and to embrace the glorious, ebullient, emotional mess we’re often in as a method of upending the power structures who need things to be perfect.

They Will Pay brings back the big, distorted power chords in the form of a agit-punk, pop slammer. Of course, when Molly Nilsson does punk pop we get the catchiest chorus this side of The Bangles or The Nerves. It’s rendered in an off the cuff, throwaway manner that is just perfect in its roughness. However, it’s on Pompeii that Nilsson delivers the album’s epic, emotional heartbreaker. Like 1995 on Nilsson’s album Zenith, or Days Of Dust on Twenty Twenty, the lyrics of Pompeii are heavy with a transcendent sadness, an aching poetry that cuts to the truth of the heart like the best Leonard Cohen lines, though here delivered with an uplifting, life-affirming love. It contains the most personal moments of Extreme, a song lit by the dying embers of romance. Yet it’s here where the alchemy at the base of all Nilsson’s best work is found. Turning small nuggets of personal truth into big, generous universal moments that invite everyone to cry, to love and to fight the power. In an album of jewels, it might be the shining star.

Molly Nilsson’s biggest, boldest and most vital album to date, Extreme is about power. Against the love of power and for the power of love.

The Lost Daughter is a critically acclaimed 2021 psychological drama film written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal in her feature directorial debut, based on the 2006 same-titled novel by Elena Ferrante.

The film stars Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Dagmara Domińczyk, Jack Farthing, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, with Peter Sarsgaard, and Ed Harris. Colman also serves as an executive producer on the film. The film follows Leda (Colman) who is on a solo-vacation at the seaside and becomes consumed with a young mother and daughter as she watches them on the beach. When a small, seemingly meaningless event occurs, Leda is overwhelmed by memories of the difficult, unconventional choices she made as a mother and their consequences for herself and her family. The seemingly serene tale of a woman’s pleasant rediscovery of herself soon becomes the story of a ferocious confrontation with an unsettled past.

The Lost Daughter premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival, where Gyllenhaal won the Golden Osella Award for Best Screenplay. At its opening night world premiere, the movie received a four-minute standing ovation from Venice Film Festival attendees. The film also received three nominations at the 94th Academy Awards for Best Actress (Colman), Best Supporting Actress (Buckley), and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Thescore is composed by Dickon Hinchliffe, founding and former member of Tindersticks. Dickon’s unique style of composition and arrangements developed from his classical study of the violin and song writing and recording in bands.

The Lost Daughter is available as a limited “Peal it like a snake, don’t let it break” edition of
750 individually numbered copies on orange marbled vinyl. The LP features alternative artwork designed by Yelena Yemchuk, a Ukranian professional photographer, painter and film director, best known for her work with The Smashing Pumpkins. The vinyl package includes an inset with pictures and liner notes by both Maggie Gyllenhaal and Dickon Hinchliffe.

Halb orange/halb violettes Vinyl. Exklusiv für den Indiehandel! Das einzigartige und von der Kritik gefeierte norwegische Quartett Blood Command meldet sich mit einem brandneuen Album "Praise Armageddonism" über Hassle Records zurück. Das neue Album ist das erste, auf dem Nikki Brumen, ehemals Mitglied von Pagan, als Frontfrau und Leadsängerin der Band zu hören ist. Mit einer Distanz von 10.000 Meilen zwischen Nikki (in Melbourne, Australien) und dem Rest der Band (in Bergen, Norwegen) verlief 2020 nicht ganz nach Plan. Nachdem die ursprünglichen Pläne für die Aufnahmen in Norwegen auf Eis gelegt werden mussten, entschied sich die Band im Januar 2021 dazu, das neue Album aus der Ferne aufzunehmen; die gesamte Musik wurde in Norwegen aufgenommen, während Nikki den Gesang in einem lokalen Studio aufnahm, sobald die regionalen Beschränkungen dies zuließen. "A Villain's Monologue" ist der erste Track des neuen Albums, bei dem Nikki zeigt, warum sie bei Pagan so hoch angesehen war, was Kerrang dazu veranlasste, ihren Gesang als "eine krawallige Zurschaustellung von unbändigem Talent zu beschreiben, die sie zweifelsohne als zukünftigen Star auszeichnet". Die Band, die ihren Sound selbst als als "Deathpop" bezeichnet, ist ein einzigartiges Projekt. Hardcore trifft auf Metal trifft auf Pop trifft auf Punk. Die Band wurde bereits von Rock Sound als "eines der bestgehüteten Geheimnisse der Welt" bezeichnet, erhielt die Auszeichnung als eines der Alben des Jahres in Kerrang! und wurde vom Metal Hammer gelobt.

Halb orange/halb violettes Vinyl. Exklusiv für den Indiehandel! Das einzigartige und von der Kritik gefeierte norwegische Quartett Blood Command meldet sich mit einem brandneuen Album "Praise Armageddonism" über Hassle Records zurück. Das neue Album ist das erste, auf dem Nikki Brumen, ehemals Mitglied von Pagan, als Frontfrau und Leadsängerin der Band zu hören ist. Mit einer Distanz von 10.000 Meilen zwischen Nikki (in Melbourne, Australien) und dem Rest der Band (in Bergen, Norwegen) verlief 2020 nicht ganz nach Plan. Nachdem die ursprünglichen Pläne für die Aufnahmen in Norwegen auf Eis gelegt werden mussten, entschied sich die Band im Januar 2021 dazu, das neue Album aus der Ferne aufzunehmen; die gesamte Musik wurde in Norwegen aufgenommen, während Nikki den Gesang in einem lokalen Studio aufnahm, sobald die regionalen Beschränkungen dies zuließen. "A Villain's Monologue" ist der erste Track des neuen Albums, bei dem Nikki zeigt, warum sie bei Pagan so hoch angesehen war, was Kerrang dazu veranlasste, ihren Gesang als "eine krawallige Zurschaustellung von unbändigem Talent zu beschreiben, die sie zweifelsohne als zukünftigen Star auszeichnet". Die Band, die ihren Sound selbst als als "Deathpop" bezeichnet, ist ein einzigartiges Projekt. Hardcore trifft auf Metal trifft auf Pop trifft auf Punk. Die Band wurde bereits von Rock Sound als "eines der bestgehüteten Geheimnisse der Welt" bezeichnet, erhielt die Auszeichnung als eines der Alben des Jahres in Kerrang! und wurde vom Metal Hammer gelobt.

20th Anniversary edition pressed on Californian Sunburst vinyl with
newly designed artwork and bonus 7” featuring ‘Brown Eyes’ and the
previously unreleased ‘The Earth From Above’.
 ‘California’ was released in 2002 to massive critical acclaim and reached
a much wider audience across Europe. Features the hit singles ‘This
Life’ and ‘Ordinary Day’.
 The album features Glenn Garrett on bass, Neil Conti (David Bowie /
Prefab Sprout) on drums and Dickon Hinchcliffe (Tindersticks ) and Rick
Carter (The Sisters of Mercy) on keyboards.
 ‘California’ was mostly co-written with Italian composer Marco Sabiu,
who collaborated with and was mentored by the late, great Ennio
Morricone.
 Perry Blake, Sligo-born singer / songwriter, is one of music’s great
untapped resources. After his first three singles - taken from his debut
album - received Single Of The Week on Jo Wiley BBC Radio 1, Blake
moved to France, where he was met with critical acclaim with his next
four albums, touring Europe with Carla Bruni and writing two songs for
Francoise Hardy’s Platinum-selling album ‘Tant de belles choses’,
appearing on various TV shows in France as her special guest.
 You may very well wonder what to expect of an album with American
West Coast orientations from an Irishman who happens to be critically
acclaimed on the Continent but is largely ignored in Britain. Thankfully,
Blake lives up to his billing with apparent ease. His song writing is
evidently mature and melodic; he incorporates lush orchestral
arrangements with tender vocals; and combines pop-like hooks with a
deep sonic texture.
 ‘California’ is a thriving and absorbing collection of songs in which
orchestral arrangements strain with emotion, melodies thrive and bloom,
like The Verve at their peak, though far more fragile and balmy.
 ‘California’ is ether for the soul - a truly magnificent and touching
collection of frankly beautiful songs, which is up there with class of Bryan
Ferry, The Blue Nile and anyone else who can turn a night around.
 Blake’s glimpses of people living a state of mind is one of those great
escapes it’s very hard to get away from. His gift here is to take a
subdued, grown-up collection of songs but make them sound like they
deserve daytime radio.
 Radio - Radio 2 Jo Whiley session.

South American Jazz & Bossanova flavours from 60s & 70s in Liguria, north west Italy. Melody sounds really close to Brazilian Portuguese and instrumental tracks smells of South American Jazz.
Nonetheless, the sound landscape clearly reflects the Italian Library Music of the time. This mingling was made possible by the commercial and cultural interconnections during the discovery of the New World: the local Ligurian language was influenced by new stimuli from the new territories and vice-versa. Moreover, from the end of the Nineteenth Century, a strong migration of Italians involved South America, with numbers comparable to the Italian migration in the USA, but less known because less represented in films or narrative.
As a result of these connections, these songs sound mellow, carioca and exotic, based on the phonetics of one of the most musical, folkloric and peculiar Italian dialects.
The artwork project is a homage to lithographs and ADV that were inspired by the first tourist and migration trips departing from Genoa towards Rio De Janeiro. The lithographs were recovered by “L’Image” an existing art gallery in Alassio, a small town in Liguria.
"Bossa Ligure" can be seen as a micro-genre and a different form and aesthetic of Brazilian music, which is unknown to many, but that we would like to make available with this collectanea. A musical and a
cultural expression which reveals a strong influence and connection to the Brasileiro sound in an unexpected territory.

The career defining fourth album from French Tech Death masters EXOCRINE - showcasing a level of musicianship that can only be described as jaw dropping, EXOCRINE are the bridge between the ferocity of ARCHSPIRE or CRYPTOPSY and the potent Progressive leanings of OBSCURA & GOROD.

“I’m closing a chapter in my life,” Barbie Bertisch says to me from a park bench in Greenpoint, “I spent the last four years working towards gaining confidence around my ideas and my creative perspective. This feels like a culmination of that process” The “this,” in question is Bertisch’s debut record Prelude, a collection of eleven songs that chronicle 5 years of Bertisch’s life. The legendary musician Anna Domino describes the record best: “Prelude is a record of layers and depths. The melting phases and soaring distances.”


Raised in Buenos Aires and Miami, Bertisch has called New York home for most of her adult life. When she started piecing together Prelude, she was in her Brooklyn kitchen. It was early quarantine. Stuck at home instead of DJing at clubs, she found the space to parse through the archives. What she previously considered unworthy of attention in the era of distractions, finally made sense as a whole once all the noise was turned down. Compiling a list of songs in various states of completion, Bertisch dreamed up an album, a chronicle in growth and healing frustrations of the past, an honest account of someone trying to find her own voice. That in and of itself was a journey. It took years for Bertisch to accept that she was an artist. “I felt like I was surrounded by men who ruled every space. I constantly felt like I had to ask permission to enter, always around bands but never the girl in the band” she says.


Prelude is an introspective record. It explores all of the valences of being and feeling. Some songs are chaotic and choppy. Others are soft and searching. There is rage and innocence, and moments of forced stillness, like capturing the aftermath of panic attacks, as in “After The Storm”. Bertisch also focuses on rhythm, bass guitar being her main instrument, and no stranger to the power of the beat. The record also draws on influences as varied as Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Cocteau Twins, Berlin School, and pioneering producer François Kevorkian. Both sonically and conceptually, Prelude is a portrait of who Bertisch is as a person.“Is This What You Wanted?” is fiery, a pointed provocation to domineering figures from her past. It’s full of strobing, strident synths, and heady lines of bass. It gives off the same vibe as a fire alarm, as a big room dance track that subverts your expectations of what it means to dance in a sea of bodies. “28,” the record’s opening track is more peaceful. It’s all languid keyboard arpeggios with the occasional flourish of a cascading synth effect.


Since most of the songs already existed in some form or another, Bertisch’s job on Prelude was to refine and reimagine music that had previously been private. She spent time rearranging, rewriting, adding elements newly available to her, such as the saxophone, and pushing the limits of the rough mixes to mold the universe she envisioned. Along the way, Bertisch grew more excited about her abilities as a musician. The resulting record is one that is inherently confident.


Prelude is also a homespun release. It’s coming out on Bertisch’s own label, Love Injection Records, which she runs with her partner Paul Raffaele. The two also DJ and make zines under the name, which started in 2015. Love Injection is a love letter to New York. Prelude is a word of encouragement to those struggling with self-actualization. The record was mixed by Justin Van Der Volgen and mastered by Walter Coelho. Love Injection Records holds the remix tradition in high regard, and they’ve enlisted reworks by some of Barbie’s favorite producers. It’s all a labor of love for Bertisch. Prelude is her: Barbie the musician.
©℗ Love Injection Records 2022

'Hotel Florida', the debut album by trombonist Andreas Tschopp and
baritone saxophonist Matthias Tschopp's Swiss sextet Sparks and Tides,
delivers an enthralling, improvisation-laced set of electro-acoustic
soundscapes
The first collaboration co- led by brothers Andreas and Matthias Tschopp, the
Swiss sextet makes a subtly enthralling debut with Hotel Florida, an album
marked by lapidary textures, extended melodies, and finely calibrated production.
Sparks and Tides also refers to the flow of their music, which unfurls in unhurried
waves until suddenly surging with quicksilver flurries. Cinematic and full of
intriguing passages, it's music for unsettled dreams. "There are lots of little things
like drum machine tracks, bass drones, live sampling of the horns by the
keyboardist and using the sounds as samples, and also some modular synth
processing of the saxophone," Andreas says.
The group brings together some of the most creative figures on the small,
intertwined and fervently inventive Swiss jazz scene. A member of the R&Binfluenced electro- duo True, drummer Rico Baumann is as deeply versed in hip
hop, pop and electronic music as he is jazz and improvised music, which is the
terrain he inhabits with Andreas in the collective jazz quintet Le Rex.

After her stunning collaboration with Jim O’Rourke (Le Piano Englouti, BT055), Brunhild Ferrari returns to Black Truffle with Stürmische Ruhe, her first duo with Christoph Heemann. A legendary figure in underground music, Heemann has quietly produced a unique body of work since his beginnings with the absurdist cutups of H.N.A.S. in the mid-1980, including collaborations with Merzbow, Organum and Nurse With Wound, the eerie psychedelia of Mirror (with Andrew Chalk), In Camera (with Timo van Lujik) and Plastic Palace People (with Jim O’Rourke), and the precise cinema pour l’oreille constructions of his solo works. Created together in Ferrari’s Parisian studio (once shared with Luc) between 2011 and 2014, Stürmische Ruhe is a single half-hour piece that folds rain and storm recordings into a intricately woven fabric of haunted electronics, unexpected edits and disorienting processing. Banging with the jarring thump of a slamming door (an element that will reappear periodically throughout the piece as a kind of punctuation mark), it is immediately obvious that concrete sound is used here in a free, poetic way outside of the strict confines of documentary field recording. The wind captured by Ferrari’s microphone roars and whistles, accompanied by thick clusters of wavering tones whose unpredictable rises and falls in volumes are synchronised with the bumping and thudding of windows and doors. At some points the microphone sound melts into a wavering low-bit digital smear before fanning out into broad, atmospheric depths. The cinema for the ear constructed here suggests not linear narrative or documentary, but an organic flow of cross-fades, double-exposures and abrupt cuts, a free-associative dream in which wind and water take on mythical characteristics. Throughout the piece's second half, layers of synthetic floating tones and pinging upward glissandi negotiate a constantly shifting balance with wind-borne whispers and rustles, at times dropping to silence, at others rising up with elemental force. As Ferrari explains in her liner notes, Stürmische Ruhe is a meeting of ‘completely opposite sound worlds’ in which ‘almost-violence’ is joined with a ‘reconciling harmony’. Reaffirming the infinite possibilities of the musique concrète tradition while avoiding its academic tropes, Stürmische Ruhe is accompanied by tri-lingual liner notes from Brunhild Ferrari and arrives in a sleeve graced with the beautiful art informel paintings of her father, Wolfgang Meyer Tomin. Cut at 45rpm for maximum fidelity.

"The past 5 years we have taken our music all over the world: Europe, Asia, Africa besides our homeland Denmark, and even though we cannot speak with many of the people we meet, our music is a universal language that transcends borders. The meetings we have had (and continue to have) all over inspire us to create new music. But of course we are the composers of the music, so this is our representation of those meetings.

Our 3rd album is called AFROTROPISM. Tropism is a biological phenomenon that indicates growth of a plant in response to the environment; so when you see a plant turning for the sunlight, this is tropism. In other words, this is not so much about the plant's roots but more about how it reacts when it touches the air, feels sunlight or rain - in other words the outside world. So AFROTROPISM refers to the fact that we are drawn towards the African traditions, but we are "growing" our own music.

On our first two albums we have recorded extensively with African musicians, and AFROTROPISM is centered around The KutiMangoes (TKM) as a band. We are developing our artistic direction by going more in depth with how we can mix our inspirations with our own musical heritage. Our musical mission is (and has always been) to mix cultures and create our own sound.

With our background in jazz music, TKM counts virtuoso instrumentalists with a heartfelt intent and sound innovators with our horns, effect pedals, synthesizers, drums and percussion from all over the world. AFROTROPISM is a further and deeper development of our trademark bold sound that experiments with synthesizers, soundscapes and a bit of electronic effects without losing it's focus on groove, melody, atmosphere and musicianship."

The KutiMangoes, July 2019


About each track:

STRETCH TOWARDS THE SUN
This track opens up with a synthesizer groove that is inspired by the polyrhythmic grooves played by the balafon (a predecessor of the piano) from West Africa. Our rolling sequence could not be played on the balafon because of the key changes, but the basic idea comes from that instrument. Quick and light, we wanted to write a song where you can feel the sun coming out and feel the energy it's rays give. The combination of the programmed groove, the horn-arrangement, the huge percussion section and the live instruments makes for a sound that we have not heard before, and it illustrates what this album is all about (and what the track's title refers to): that we stretch towards the things that give us energy – and that although our roots are in Denmark, when we encounter a musical tradition as rich as in West Africa, it changes us and our music.

A SNAKE IS JUST A STRING
The first time we saw Mali-bluesman extraordinaire Vieux Farka Touré on stage was just after we had played at a huge festival in Burkina Faso, and we almost literally caught on fire. Their groove was so strong and insistent that we were mesmerized, and it inspired us to come up with the opening guitar part of this song. Basically a bluesy tune with some unusual chord changes and a crazy synthesizer solo by Johannes Buhl Andresen reminiscent of that fuzzy guitar-sound we love so much in the Mali blues. The title is an homage to the Nigerian writer Chinua Acheba, who in his masterpiece novel "Things Fall Apart" tells that in the village during the night, to ward off the fear of darkness, people would call dangerous animals by a different name: don't be afraid, a snake is just a string.

KEEP YOU SAFE
It is a basic human necessity to have a place where you can feel safe. But there are far too many people in our world that fear for their safety, their livelihood, their children, their relatives – and this is surely not a feeling that helps us to flourish as humans. With this song we are saying that we all need to make it a priority to help our fellow humans to feel safe. And of course, if our song can offer a feeling of safety and comfort for a short time to those who listen, we are truly thankful.

MONEY IS THE CURSE
This track is directly inspired by Fela Kuti's ability to create music that is both physical and political. Dance music with a serious message about our times. For the solo part we wanted a more melancholy, pensive feel (than the full-on baritone-trombone melody) and also wanted to experiment with some choppy, stuttering effects to make the horns sound desperate. Money is the curse because it can become the objective of our life; money is the curse because it changes the relationships we have with our fellow humans. Money is the curse.

THORNS TO FRUIT
This melody is inspired by the scales and developments of a traditional Bambara folk-song. We love the way these melodies constantly evolve with small developments and changes. We felt like an accompaniment that is really dry, sparse and earthy would fit well and then made a contrasting solo part. As a group we are interested in how to develop our improvisations together and create sonic landscapes that evoke a distinctive atmosphere – so here, we have no soloist, but a collection of synthesizer parts, saxophone lines and guitar-sounds that together create a dreamy and lush ambience.

SAND TO SOIL
We started out with a short ngoni riff played by our good friend and master musician Aboubacar Konaté. We then sampled it, built soundscapes and our own both meditative and pumping groove around it. We created a melody with both melancholy and joy, with afterthought and impulse and then the brilliant Aske Drasbæk added an emotive and blistering saxophone solo. The title refers to the contrasts in our humanism. As part of our human nature, we have a dark side that drives us (and each other) towards destruction – making the fertile soil into barren sand. The title is an encouragement to emphasize the opposite movement in our nature: to create life and help it flourish. We keep ourselves human by insisting that we must never forget this side of our nature no matter how tough, tiresome or trying it might be. Let's keep our focus on the light, the warmth, the positive energy – that can turn the cold stone into fertile ground.

Animal Records – founded by Chris Stein of Blondie fame – only ever released one album in its brief early-80s history, but what an album that was. Wild Style remains the most seminal soundtrack in hip-hop history, a snapshot of the scene as it evolved from the streets to the recording studio. But it’s not just a vital document, it’s also a damn good listen.

The line-up is a who’s who of those who stood out from hip-hop’s nascent block party days. The Double Trouble pairing of Rodney Cee and KK Rockwell, The Chief Rocker himself, Busy Bee, the mighty line-ups of both The Cold Crush Brothers and The Fantastic Freaks. The music captures the free-form, roaming nature of the film – it’s rough at the edges, it’s occasionally amateurish, but it’s completely, utterly glorious.

The original Animal tracklisting, of which this is a reissue, is full of recurring sounds and motifs, all of them co-produced by Chris Stein and Fab Five Freddy, stepping away from breakbeats to produce a sound that reminds you of them, while being totally unique. The epic drums are courtesy of Lenny ‘Ferrari’ Ferraro, a Vietnam vet and punk drummer whose career spanned stints backing Aretha Franklin and Lou Reed.

Over time, those sounds – the Charlie Chase and Grand Wizard Theodore scratches, the indelible lyrics - have become hip-hop touchstones, endlessly sampled and referenced, the bedrock of so much music to follow. That’s because the soundtrack perfectly encapsulated the essence of the film, the scene and hip-hop’s emergence from The Bronx to the attention of the wider world. Presented in this reissue with the original artwork, it remains the blueprint.

An absolutely legendary album from Lebanon by Issam Hajali’s group Ferkat Al Ard, “Oghneya” stands out as one of the great musical gems of the Arab world. A groundbreaking release from 1978 that represents the meeting point of Arab, jazz, folk and Brazilian styles with the talent of Ziad Rahbani, who did the albums arrangements. Filled with a variety of sounds and genres, from Baroque Pop to Psych-Folk to flashes of Bossa Nova, Tropicalia and MPB, “Oghneya” is like if Arthur Verocai took a trip to Beirut in the 70’s to record an album.

In 2015 we heard Ferkat Al Ard’s music for the first time, a Lebanese trio compromised of Issam Hajali, Toufic Farroukh and Elia Saba. It was a stunningly unique release that blends traditional Arabic elements, jazz and Brazilian rhythms hand in hand with poetic-yet-politically engaged lyrics. The band was active in the left-wing movement of Lebanon of the time and they communicated their political ideas candidly through their songwriting.

In our mind the idea was to see whether Issam was interested in re-releasing “Oghneya.” He was not opposed to it, but also made it clear that it was not his priority for a first project. He suggested we start with his first album, before Ferkat Al Ard was formed, “Mouasalat Ila Jacad El Ard,” which was recorded in 1977 in Paris together with his friend Roger Fakhr (whose work we have been privileged to re-release in the meantime as well.) “Mouasalat Ila Jacad El Ard” is melancholic, stripped-down, guitar-based folk intertwined with jazz-fused breaks, and the unique sound of the santour glistens through. While the music is very accessible, some song structures are rather atypical, neglecting common patterns of verse, hook, verse, hook. The lyrics mostly trace back to the poetic work of Palestinian author Samih El Kasem, with one song also written by Issam, who composed the music for the whole album.

We re-released Issam’s “Mouasalat Ila Jacad El Ard” in 2019 to a great reception, with positive reviews all over the place and an ongoing appreciation for the album. This meant it was time for us to undertake an “Oghneya” re-release again!

If you compare “Mouasalat Ila Jacad El Ard” and “Oghneya,” one apparent distinction is the strong Brazilian influence in the music. Issam Hajali explained that you can already hear traces of this influence on his debut, but it’s “Oghneya” where this musical relationship really peaks. Lebanon and Brazil have had a strong connection for nearly a century due to the continuous flow of immigrants from one country to the other. Today, Brazil has the largest Lebanese diaspora in the world, the “Brasilibanês”. The migratory route was not a one-way street, however, and some Lebanese returned to their home country, taking recordings of the music they learned to love in Brazil with them. They were followed by Brazilian musicians who visited primarily Beirut during the 1960’s and the first half of the 1970’s, just like many other musicians from around the world. In these years between the independence and the beginning of the civil war, Beirut became even more of a cultural center and regional hub than it already was.

Bossa Nova, at that time, was one of the defining sounds of Brazilian popular music. Issam Hajali remembers hearing it at a bar in Beirut’s Hamra district in 1974, which hosted musicians from Brazil playing the occasional gig. When Issam had returned from Paris in 1976 he got to know Ziad Rahbani, son of Fairouz, who had a shared passion with Issam for a lot of things, among them Brazilian music. Issam showed him some of the tracks he was working on, and Ziad agreed to help with arranging. The music that evolved from this cooperation between Ferkat Al Ard and Ziad Rahbani’s arrangement is, to put it lightly, outstanding. Issam’s singing is embedded into the uniquely beautiful string arrangements backed by the band’s poignant, swinging groove. The lyrics of the songs on “Oghneya” are based on poems by Mahmoud Darwish, Samih Al Qasem and Tawfiq Ziad, three pillars of Palestinian poetry within the last century, and their influence on “Oghneya” was itself a strong political statement during the Lebanese war.

“Oghneya” was eventually released in 1978 by the band themselves on cassette tapes. Finding a blank tape that fit the playing time proved to be impossible during the war so they needed to open up the case of each cassette to physically cut down the tape and customize it to the playing time. The album was well received, though some cultural critics deemed it too “occidental” in its sound. While the cassette was circulating, Ziad Rahbani started a label called Zida, together with Khatchik Mardirian. They decided to help the band with a re-release on vinyl in 1979, a year after “Oghneya” was originally released on cassette.

Sadly, there are two tracks from the original release of “Oghneya” that did not make it onto the reissue. “Ghfyara Ghaza” was replaced by the song “Juma’a 6 Hziran.” while “Huloul” was taken off without a replacement. This happened as a precondition from the band for this reissue to happen. We would have loved to include all tracks, but the decision ranged between having either a reissue like the one we put out or no reissue at all. Thus, an easy choice for us.

As always both vinyl and CD come with an extensive booklet with an interview with Issam as well as unseen photos from the recording sessions.