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Over the years, Faust has become many things, distinct as fingers, yet united as the hand that forms the fist. This series of new LPs on Bureau B sees each living member of the legendary 1971-1974 line up present their own interpretation of the Faustian myth, working alone or with collaborators to create new material that reflects their contemporary vision of what Faust can be.

The method is instability.

— Violeta Garcia & Hora Lunga

Violeta García & Hora Lunga return with 4ever, their second album and the follow-up to I’ll Wait For You In The Car Park. Released in 2025 on -ous, their debut received airplay on BBC and NTS and was selected for Bandcamp’s Best Experimental Music year-end list. 4ever picks up where that record left off: in ordinary moments, small scenes and the strange emotional weight of being somewhere between places. But here, these moments are stretched across a much larger, darker screen. A night flight, a terminal, a bad connection. When too many feelings are carried from one place to another, everyday situations begin to feel epic, empty, or apocalyptic.

Built from García’s cello and Hora Lunga’s synths, samples and field recordings, the album pushes further into emotion, letting fragile melodies, orchestral cello gestures, heavy low-end and compressed noise melt into something both dystopian and strangely familiar. Its warmth is not meant to be an escape from this world, but something that appears within it. Acoustically, the album lives through the closeness of the materials, the way sounds stay with each other, and in the feeling that even the most unstable moments are being carried together. The album presents itself in scenes that fade into each other: quiet melodic fragments that are interrupted and restarted, unpredictable changes of direction, held together by an inevitable melody, a bright synth harmony unfolding into an almost orchestral cello arrangement. Later, a broken organ-like sample turning in circles, cello melodies appearing as if they were trying to remember a song that never belonged to one voice alone. An endless loop that is placed under changing lights, briefly opening into emotional chords, then slipping back into emptiness.

It is this instability that Violeta García and Hora Lunga place at the center of their collaboration. They do not decorate the cello with production, or place electronics around an acoustic centre. They explain: “On 4ever, we become part of the same unstable surface. What holds the record together is not resolution, but the trust in staying together as things distort, overload, disappear and return.”

Violeta García, an Argentinian cellist known for her solo work and for her role in the punk band Blanco Teta, brings the instrument close to the body, as melody, pressure, texture, noise and sudden emotional weight. García has brought her distinct musical voice to KEXP, Rewire, Le Guess Who?, Bad Bonn Kilbi, Silent Green, TransMusicales, Roskilde and more.

Hora Lunga, a Zurich-based producer and composer working across unstable song forms, treats electronics less as a frame than as a weather system: something that can hold a scene together, distort it or make it disappear. In recent years, his compositions have ranged from experimental song forms, sound performances, ensemble compositions and film music. His ensemble WIRREN consists of up to fifteen performers.

»Pipe Dreams II & III« presents two new, side-long organ works by Mary Jane Leach, extending the sonic investigations of her 1989 landmark »Pipe Dreams«. Recorded in Ghent and Cologne, the two side-long pieces use shifting stops, resonance and beating tones to turn the pipe organ into a vivid, physical field of sound.

When »Pipe Dreams« was issued on vinyl for the first time by Blume in 2017, it was effectively the first time many of us encountered Mary Jane Leach’s music, finally placing her work in its proper historical context amid the searching Downtown milieu of Julius Eastman, Arthur Russell, Arnold Dreyblatt, Ellen Fullman, Philip Corner, Daniel Goode, and Peter Zummo. Leach collaborated with most of these artists at one point or another, either in Downtown Ensemble or as a guest on their records.

Now »Pipe Dreams II« and »Pipe Dreams III« arrive, recorded in 2023 and 2024 at Miry Concertzaal in Ghent, Belgium, and Kunst-Station Sankt Peter in Cologne, respectively.

»When I was a young child, my family lived next door to a church, where my mother was the organist. I spent many hours lying on the floor of the sanctuary listening to the music, letting the sound of the organ envelop me. I also liked to play the piano loudly with the pedal down, producing clouds of sound, much to my family’s annoyance. These two organ pieces explore some of my earliest musical interests and aesthetics.

In 1989, I lived in a tower attached to St Peter’s Church in Cologne, where I had access to its organ. It had two sets of pipes, front and back, which could create antiphonal effects. I spent countless hours exploring the possibilities of all the permutations of notes, space, and the resulting sound phenomena. I wrote »Pipe Dreams« for that organ. Fast forward to 2023, when I was asked to create a piece for organ for a concert at the Miry Concertzaal in Ghent, Belgium: »Pipe Dreams II«. I had a few days to familiarise myself with the organ, its available stops, and the layout of the console. I choreographed stop changes for a volunteer, as I couldn’t reach them myself. Some amazing sounds began to happen, and at one point the sound was so visceral that I felt as though I were taming a wild beast.

»Pipe Dreams III« was performed in 2024 on the organ that I had spent so much time playing in 1989–90. One big difference, though, was that the console was totally new and computerised. Having access to the organ for only a few hours before the concert, I decided that I did not have enough time to feel comfortable with the console and should not attempt to recreate the piece I had written in 1989. I would instead use the same sequence of stops and perform an improvised piece. I loved the sounds that were being created, and I was having so much fun that at one point I even started to laugh quietly. I began to visualise the beating notes as if they were atoms, opening them up to expose their innards, with the beating, higher-pitched notes — neutrons and protons — shimmering at the top, and the lower notes — the electrons — throbbing away at the bottom. I was playing notes not so much for their pitch value, but for how they affected the notes and sound phenomena already being played. Instead of a time signature, I timed the entries by listening to the beating patterns, waiting for the right moment to enter. And no, I wasn’t hallucinating.«

Mary Jane Leach, 2026

ONE STEP CLOSER TO FULFILLING THE GLOBAL DREAMLAND CONTINUUM. THE RESULTS WILL KEEP YOU MOVING… ALL NIGHT. THE CIA ATTEMPTED TO CONFISCATE OUR TECH BUT HOUSE NATION INTERCEPTED THE CASE. THEY CAN’T STOP US FROM GROOVING. 4TH DIMENSION SONIC ENGINEERING PREVAILS AGAIN.


Label head GD returns to global swing with new EP, "Come Closer."

Following "Gary's Dreamland," his last outing on the label, Garrett continues to refine a sound that's distinctly his own. With "Come Closer," he delivers another confident, fully realized EP. Featuring a collaboration with Shanny Wise of Fcukers, marking a first-time collaboration between the two.

Garrett doesn't cut corners, and it shows. Every track here reflects the same attention to detail that's defined his output for years, pushing his catalog forward while staying true to the underground sensibility he's known for.

Tucked in the heart of Koreatown, Los Angeles, lies The Libra Hotel—the titular architecture of Nick Malkin's new album and site of his musical and psychogeographic exploration. Unlike most musical "site-specific" studies, Malkin remains wholly ambivalent to the documentarian approach, instead sharpening an auteur-like focus on the site as a conceptual and highly expressive backdrop. The Libra is musically explored as a space that houses a noir fragmentation of identity—the exhausted trope of a complicated protagonist walking through rain-soaked street corners and fumy neon lights—where an inner monologue is rendered in both miniature and at a cosmic scale. Casting aside stifling tropes around field recording, ambient, and improvised music, Malkin's work finds its own unique fidelity and emotional core through the assembly and reassembly of memory. Nearly every sound on the album—from frayed saxophones, lambent pianos, and dissected jazz drum kits—are multiplied, shattered, and reconstituted into shapes that adorn The Libra in a motion-blurred fog. The narrative of the Hotel suddenly appears as if out of the mist, with intersecting characters interacting within its walls by happenstance. Adminst the languid set pieces, wraith-like sonic grains gravitate around wide subbass beams that give structural form to The Libra, a narrative tension like when a scene is shot from hundreds of different perspectives: an image both luminous and veiled.

Much like Frank Sinatra's own spatial residency immortalized on "Live at The Sands," "At The Libra Hotel" showcases an exuberant view of entertainment, hospitality, and a form of masculinity, one that can quickly detourn into darkness. Knowing this, Malkin extracts a melancholic core out of The Libra locale. The flickering shadows of American decadence are shown in their ephemeral honesty, lines that trace how even in everyday life virtue is tested, sanity is tested, even reality is tested within the confines of desire, within the night. The album is draped in fleeting textures, carefully arranged with a trance-like microtonality, the faint inflections and articulations of a jazz band cascading into dissipated stillness. Voicemails about changed locations and covert eavesdropping on guests' whispered conversations provide an atmosphere of missed connection and voyeurism—a purloined letter of desire receding into a vanishing point. Like the music itself, The Hotel, a chapel perilous at the intersection of desolation row, the center of it all, yet simultaneously at the edge of town, becomes a structure between libidinous virtuality and actuality—our inevitable half-light.

Ultimately, the pensive atmosphere of "At The Libra Hotel," powerfully asserts a plea for the kinds of intimacy only possible in transient spaces. Here, memory cascades into a force that feels like something supernatural, perhaps even religious, yet always subject to the infidelity of our imagination. Here, the album opens into its primary psychodrama, the transient nature of subjectivity itself and how this becomes fractured in the tumult between our commitments and desires. Within this nocturnal space, to quote Louise Bourgeois, "you pile up associations the way you pile up bricks. Memory itself is a form of architecture."

With the release of "Wildnis" in autumn 2026, Klangwart celebrate 30 years of the group"s existence. During numerous sessions in their own Inkiek studio in Unna/Germany and a residency in Montoriol/France in 2025, Klangwart have created their new work "Wildnis" ("wilderness"), inviting Sébastien Del Grande to add tenor and alto saxophone, drums, marimba and other various percussion instruments to their electronic textures. Catalan composer and performer Ivan Chin aka Ivan Telefunken also participated in the recording sessions by contributing to a Catalan version of Swiss group Grauzone"s famous new wave hit "Eisbär" under the title "Os Polar". Timo Reuber"s arrangements, production and mastering gave the album its final touch. Klangwart started their musical expedition into for them unknown territories already in 2014 when they went to Bogotá/Colombia in order to record with protagonists of the local music scene: Damián Ponce (drums), César Quevedo (bass) and Eblis Alvarez (violoncello), members of The Meridian Brothers, and singers Juanita and Valentina Añez Rothmann a.k.a. Las Añez. The result, released on Markus Detmer"s Staubgold label in 2019, was Klangwart"s trademark sound permeated by a Latin American pulse and pitch. With "Wildnis" the story continues: field recordings from Latin America are interwoven with delicate electronic structures, Del Grande"s iconoclastic approach to the saxophone meets Klangwart"s familiar organ drones, Catalan folk meets German Krautrock.

For years, EYRE LLEW were defined by motion.

Cities blurred into one another. Borders became routine. Airports, night drives, ferry ports, backstage rooms, festival fields, hotel corridors, and long-distance journeys stitched together into a single continuous life of movement. Success, such as it existed, was measured in miles travelled, crowds gathered, and momentum sustained. The band moved because they had to. Because stopping felt like failure. Because “making it” always seemed to live somewhere just ahead.

Then the world stopped.

Lockdown didn’t just interrupt EYRE LLEW’s trajectory; it dismantled it. The relentless forward motion that had shaped their identity for over a decade disappeared overnight. Tours vanished. Plans dissolved. The infrastructure of their lives as musicians collapsed into silence. For a band built on movement, it felt devastating.

Written across lockdown and the years that followed, the album is not a record about absence; it’s a record about presence. About love that feels like home. About stillness as strength. About devotion without spectacle. About grief without melodrama. About healing without performative optimism. About growth that doesn’t announce itself loudly, but happens slowly, privately, and honestly.

After years of movement, it is EYRE LLEW learning how to stand still and discovering that this is where the real growth starts.

For years, EYRE LLEW were defined by motion.

Cities blurred into one another. Borders became routine. Airports, night drives, ferry ports, backstage rooms, festival fields, hotel corridors, and long-distance journeys stitched together into a single continuous life of movement. Success, such as it existed, was measured in miles travelled, crowds gathered, and momentum sustained. The band moved because they had to. Because stopping felt like failure. Because “making it” always seemed to live somewhere just ahead.

Then the world stopped.

Lockdown didn’t just interrupt EYRE LLEW’s trajectory; it dismantled it. The relentless forward motion that had shaped their identity for over a decade disappeared overnight. Tours vanished. Plans dissolved. The infrastructure of their lives as musicians collapsed into silence. For a band built on movement, it felt devastating.

Written across lockdown and the years that followed, the album is not a record about absence; it’s a record about presence. About love that feels like home. About stillness as strength. About devotion without spectacle. About grief without melodrama. About healing without performative optimism. About growth that doesn’t announce itself loudly, but happens slowly, privately, and honestly.

After years of movement, it is EYRE LLEW learning how to stand still and discovering that this is where the real growth starts.

2026 Repress

Lewis Fautzi and The Advent join forces on "Gravity Won't Hold Me", a four-track Sci-Fi techno journey that breaks through the limits of sound and space.

Fusing mechanical energy, futuristic tension, and cosmic textures, the EP unfolds with relentless precision and force, a statement of pure propulsion beyond gravity itself.

Pressure Chords is the first joint album by composer-performer John McCowen, trombonist Weston Olencki and cellist Lucy Railton. McCowen’s composition is based on the spectral analysis of contrabass clarinet multiphonics, and the tuning system corresponds with the overtone spectrum of McCowen’s instrument. The trio adaptation of Pressure Chords presents itself as an exercise in both patience and intensity, slowly building towards an expressive finale. Across its 34-minute runtime, restrained minimalism slowly gives way to maximally affective sonic force.McCowen, Olencki and Railton first shared the stage for an improvised session at Berlin’s KM28. McCowen realised that he found two capable partners for creating orchestrations of his works for the contrabass clarinet. Olencki, who also contributes field recordings to the album, has worked across different genres and traditions, while Railton has made a name for herself as a composer and improviser as well as a performer of Just Intonation music. Weston and Lucy both have immense experience performing and composing music outside of equal temperament, so it seemed like a perfect situation, McCowen says. The trio first presented Pressure Chords live at Berlin’s Morphine Raum in 2023 before recording a studio version with Adam Asnan in the following year. The recording—mixed and mastered by Albert Finnbogasson in Reykjavík—elegantly captures the multi-layered tonal and sonic qualities that the musicians so carefully explore. As a result, their performance doesn’t so much invite but necessitate deep listening—time passes differently on and with Pressure Chords.

Remastered limited edition double vinyl with double-sided screenprinted poster-cover (sleeve folds out to be one huge poster). A real collectors item!

When Off Off came out around June 1984, one couldn’t speak of an independent music scene in Portugal. Warm Records’ vague existence didn’t have any impact and Dansa do Som’s inaugural release appeared only in December. 10 years after the revolution, after two IMF interventions, a lot of political instability (not to say turmoil, in the first couple of years) and the natural excesses of a sudden burst of freedom, the Portuguese consumer had more choices but a generally poor standard of living. There was no entrepreneurial culture and serious second thoughts about investing private money in risky ventures.

After many complaints about the whole music scene (institutions, critics and record label executives, popular and classical music alike), something that would continue well beyond the end of the decade, Telectu decided to finance, record, produce, release and sell an album with complete independence from outside structures. Their karmic reward was profit. According to Vítor Rua, Off Off was the only album fully payed by the duo and the only one that really payed off. Not an easy accomplishment for a double LP housed in a large (also double-sided) screenprint with complicated cuts and folds. The artwork was conceived by António Palolo, a friend and multidisciplinary artist. It was based on a collage of heavily saturated and xeroxed polaroids framed in shocking pink and green. Palolo was considered the third member of Telectu, regularly producing slides, video and other visual support for their shows. The inspiration for the type of cover came from GRM’s Gramme series.

Off Off is divided in four distinct sides, each one corresponding to a “theme” or “function” related to Telectu’s manifold artistic interests and interactions. The titles are also gateways to influences and a small portion of Portuguese cultural life:

- Side 1 / “Diagonale” is dedicated to Egídio Álvaro, art critic and gallery director (he opened Diagonale in Paris). Performance art was arguably his main artistic concern over the years, so the music on this side is suggested for use by one or more performers in live or playback situations. The three tracks segue into each other, linked by a synth arpeggio much in the same way as Telectu’s previous “Belzebu” álbum (1983);

- Side 2 / “Anarké” is dedicated to the composer Filipe Pires, one of Jorge Lima Barreto’s recurring invocations when asked about worthwhile contemporary music in Portugal. It is subtitled “concert music”, proposing «a new form of listening». Three tracks also, and these are separated by “clap interludes”, which basically consisted in the following: JLB and VR each had a pair of headphones on, and they clapped their hands according to the rhythm of the music each one was listening. Both musicians were interacting with a different Steve Reich piece: Vítor with “Music for Mallet Instruments”, Jorge with “Six Pianos”. The result is disjointed clapping, an awkwardly deliberate celebration of their own music. Telectu applauded themselves.

- Side 3 / “Cornucópia” is subtitled “music for theatre” and dedicated to Luís Miguel Cintra and Luís Lima Barreto (JLB’s brother), both connected to the Cornucópia theatre company. The side consists of several short pieces previously used as interludes in the Cornucópia staging of “Mariana Espera Casamento” (1983). Field recordings, mood pieces, ambience and a numeric poem (“Soneto Soma 14x”, by E.M. de Melo e Castro) read by João Perry, a quite well-known stage actor. His voice is treated with a flanger effect;

- Side 4 / “Palolo” is “video music”. It’s a one-take mix recorded from cassette sources (Telectu studio experiences) and done live while watching António Palolo’s Om film (1978) projected on the living room wall. It’s a deep, immersive, quasi-mystical 20-minute piece perfectly suiting the meditative, abstract, fluid images created by Palolo by mixing paint and water inside a bathtub. One imagines the Cosmos, hardly suspecting the technique. The film is 90 minutes long, so the music on the LP is of course edited.

The six titles on sides 1 and 2 evoke demons, all of them with conflicting symbolism, since it varies from culture to culture, religion to religion. No explanation is given and Vítor Rua has no idea where this imagery comes from. During virtually the whole stretch of the 1980s, Jorge was the one in charge of titles and concepts, and Vítor didn’t bother too much even reading the liner notes :) In any case, when you synchronize the listening experience with the imagery, a powerful impression emerges, a feeling of being in the presence of these entities while placing yourself inside the sonic narrative.

Off Off is undoubtedly a seminal album in the history of electronic music, as much Heldon as Fripp & Eno, jazz and American minimalism, cosmic out-thereness, mantric miniatures. Telectu at the height of their powers, still very early on, delivering an album-manifesto advocating intermedia art and the fierce independence of Portuguese musicians «from the scum of capitalist music industry monopolies. It’s a path to follow, albeit one that requires enduring hardships and retaliation from music industry gangsters.» Despite a few journalists deemed «capable of being free», the media are «enslaved by the dominant and fascist imbecility of the speculators of light music.» Off Off is addressed to those journalists «and to an audience angry at the cultural misery imposed upon us ..., certain that this music will open new horizons of musical pleasure in the conception of Portuguese avant-garde music, and in the open consciousness of us all. OFF OFF repeats Freedom.»

Those two words are a direct lift from Alberto Arbasino’s 1968 book Off Off, the basis of which is a critical analysis of Theodor Adorno’s and Dwight MacDonald’s ideas concerning the stratification of culture in different levels (high, mid and low) and the pervasiveness of mass culture in the form of a culture industry. In very simplistic terms, and that is precisely the point that inspired Jorge, Arbasino argued that it was possible and desirable to effect a revolution from below, cultivating alternative circuits completely cut-off from what he termed the in-in reality. Telectu’s record was a deliberate demonstration that it could be done, displaying Freedom in the face of all the gatekeepers and other human obstacles.

The studio at 122 West Loveland Avenue was not an unfamiliar space for Steve Okonski, the leader of his eponymous trio Okonski. Ever since the Colemine label set up shop in Loveland, Ohio it has been a host to a number of groups passing through town, including Durand Jones and the Indications who all of this trio's members have connections to. After setting aside some time in winter of 2020, Okonski, trained initially as a classical pianist, invited Michael Isvara "Ish" Montgomery and Aaron Frazer to work on an album that was initially planned to be beat driven and fully composed trio instrumentals.

After finishing this first session with some improvisations, a second week was booked in the summer of 2021 to try and capture some more of that spontaneous energy. During this session, the tracks were all improvised and recorded live to a Tascam 388 during several late nights at the Colemine HQ. They were structured to allow the group's collective intuition to fully shape the melodies and arcs of the music.

The album opens with Runner Up, where a triumphant yet melancholic melody in the piano leads to a more reserved B-section driven by the drums and bass of Frazer and Montgomery. As you journey through the remainder of the album you are met with a plethora of evoked and explored emotions. The calmness one has walking down a moonlit street after midnight, the connection one has for a person who comes into their world for just a moment or a lifetime, and the nerves and catharsis one feels when starting upon a new, unknown journey.
Magnolia closes with Sunday, a track that was recorded late into the night at the close of their first recording session. Without the spontaneity of Sunday, the remainder of Magnolia would likely have never come to fruition.
Magnolia was composed from the heart and from the spirit of those in the studio those late nights in Loveland. It is the culmination of an emotional and artistic release that was not afforded or recognized before the band sat at their instruments, and because of that it is introspective, meditative, spiritual, and new.

Archimboldos have clawed their way out of the starcaves of their primordial past and into the tranquil light of a coral garden on their third full length album, Crusta Arcana, a gumbo stewpot of transcendent electronica suffused with tribal rhythms and liquid ambience. Across a stereo field smeared with tolling bells, post-industrial folk percussion, and tinkling keys, Archimboldos soundtrack a science fictional journey, not into the depths of space, but deep beneath the waves.

In the past the Chilean duo of Nicolás Carcavilla and Felipe Crocco have described their music as “liminal shrimp folk.” Here they continue this strange exploration when they visit the court of the prawns, producing stately electronic chamber orchestrations. Perhaps these are the frequencies used for ritual dream initiation into the mystery schools of drowned Atlantis. Weaving an ancient sacred science, Archimboldos take listeners on a mystic vovage into their singular crustacean mythology, the crusta of their hidden arcana.

Archimbolodos are masters of conjoining cyclonic and centrifugal lines of electricity into spellbinding incantations. These deep-sea transmissions envelope the listener into aquamarine forcefields that are as hallucinatory as they are hypnotic. Navigating these strange fantasias could lead one to getting lost at sea, but the work is buoyed by the somnolent melodies of lonely harpsichords and swelling synth pads whose sustained tones reach towards distant shores. Sailing across a vast expanse of oceanic harmonies and percolating percussion, these pieces are as precise as the hand of a sailor on the rudder, moving with the tide.

Casting their net wide across eight pieces, Archimboldos have made a big catch. From the emotive electronic counterpoint found on “Bursting Armor” to the blocks of seaweed tangled sonic sculpture trawled up from the ocean floor on “Aphelion IX.” Other songs are like samples of biological ambience collected from luminous tide pools: resplendent tones placed into a Petri dish of sound, swirled, cultured and fermented until it undulates with the rhythmic movement of microscopic lifeforms. Alternating between rippling minimalist sonority and pounding, progressive, synth-heavy entrancement, Crusta Arcana charts its own idiosyncratic itinerary of instrumental invention.

All the while light is down streaming from the heavens to pierce the waters, here calm, there choppy. The intrepid musical captains commanding Archimboldos have laid a course for new archipelagos of the imagination, guided by heavenly constellations.

-Justin Patrick Moore, author of The Radio Phonics Laboratory, Telecommunications, Speech Synthesis and the Birth of Electronic Music

The wait is over, Return To The 37th Chamber is El Michels Affair's highly anticipated follow up to 2009's underground cult classic Enter the 37th Chamber. Churning out classic records since then for the likes of Lee Fields, The Arcs, The Shacks, and tons more, it is clear that EMA's signature sound is stronger & sharper than ever. This time, in addition to re-interpreting the Wu compositions for a live band, EMA pays homage to the production and sonic fog that makes a RZA beat so recognizable. Producer and bandleader Leon Michels recorded the album completely analog, sometimes hitting 6 generations of tape before it was ready for mixing, giving the Return to The 37th Chamber it's own hazy sound. Adding to the unique fidelity, the record is laced with psychedelic flourishes, John Carpenter' synths, heavy metal guitars, triumpha0nt horns, and traditional Chinese instruments that make up for the lack of the Wu's superlative vocals. From start to finish it's a dark trip that walks the line between RZA's timeless hip-hop aesthetic and the cinematic soul EMA has become known for. El Michels Affair tackles some classics like 4th Chamber and Wu Tang Aint Nuthin to Fuck Wit, as well as some deeper cuts like Ol Dirty Bastard's Snakes, Raekwon's Verbal Intercourse, and Shaolin Brew, Wu-Tang's contribution to the St. Ide's Hip Hop endorsement campaign from 1994. This time El Michels brings some of the Big Crown family along for the ride. Lee Fields handles vocal duties on Snakes and is joined by Shannon Wise of The Shacks for their version of Tearz, which pays as much homage to the Wendy Rene sample as it does to the Wu-Tang Clan. Lady Wray makes an appearance on the cover of Method Man's hit, All I Need, lending her vocal prowess to what gave the Wu one of their biggest hits of all time. Interspersed throughout the record are some original interludes that are like the rug that ties the room together,' giving Return To The 37th Chamber a cinematic narrative that makes it a proper El Michels Affair record and not just a collection of covers. From the music to the presentation, this album is a perfect example of what can only be achieved through diversity. The end result is as much a kaleidoscope of influences and multiculturalism as the city it was recorded in. El Michels Affair is once again, sounding out the city' that raised them, pulling elements of art and culture from across the country and around the globe to create an album truly unique in it's own right.

Over 10 years ago, Leon Michels released his first full length record, Sounding Out The City. It was Michels' first full length record under the moniker El Michels Affair. At the time, the budding retro soul scene consisted of mostly organ quartets a la The Meters and of course, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings were in the early days of their ascent to world domination. Leon Michels, who was 18 when recording Sounding Out The City began, had just released Thunder Chicken, the first record by his high school band The Mighty Imperials. At the time of SOTC, Michels was just discovering early rocksteady, afrobeat, and 60's garage rock, which inevitably crept its way into the songwriting. He purchased a Tascam 388, an 80's 1/4" reel to reel 8 track intended for home recordings, and began recording music in a 10x10 box with no windows that also doubled as his childhood bedroom. Along with fellow Mighty Imperials Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and Sean Solomon, and Michael Leonhart, Thomas Brenneck, and some of the musicians from The Dap Kings, Michels recorded the LP over a two year period. Upon it's release, it received some rave reviews and the small deep funk community ate it up, but due to the lack luster promotion and distribution the rest of the world was slow to catch on to the instrumental gems featured on SOTC, which Michels appropriately labelled as "cinematic soul". However, in 2005 it found it's way into the hands of the people who were organizing a series of concerts for Scion that paired bands with MC's. El Michels Affair was contacted about playing one show with Raekwon The Chef of Wu Tang Clan fame. The show was such a success it led to a tour, and then to another set of concerts that featured multiple members of the Wu-Tang Clan. This eventually led to the release of El Michels Affair's second record, "Enter the 37th Chamber" which introduced them to a much larger audience and has been their most successful release to date. Michels has since gone on to produce and co-produce numerous records for powerhouse soul artists like Lee Fields. He shares songwriting credits with Adele, Jay-Z, Ghostface Killah, Aloe Blacc, and has played on records by Ray LaMontagne, Lana Del Rey, The Black Keys and Dr. John.

Almost Starlight is the extraordinary new album by Jem Finer (hurdy-gurdy) and John Matthias (violin). Produced by Jay Auborn and recorded in a Medieval Church, deep in the Devon countryside, in the Summer of 2025, the music is suffused with light, heat and the natural acoustics of the space.

The album defies categorisation; forced to pigeon hole it the nearest approximation would be ‘modern-classical’ but this ignores its myriad influences and explorations which encompass inspiration from Arvo Pärt through Terry Riley to Can via Delius, Alice Coltrane and a subtle reimagining of electronic music played purely with acoustic instruments, bending and shaping their possibilities in surprising and unexpected directions.

Jay Auborn plays cello on a number of the compositions and his production opens up and expands the music through a skilled and imaginative use of space, paying homage to the atmosphere of the church; ‘the sound evolved… chasing the imagined acoustics of that church in my mind; a place for worshipping light with sound.’

Almost Starlight will be released on the 4th September by Touch, available as CD, vinyl, cassette and on streaming platforms.

BIOS OF THE ARTISTS

Jem Finer

Since studying computer science in the 1970s, Jem Finer has worked in various fields, including photography, film, experimental and popular music, sound recording, sculpture and installation.

Much of his work relates to systems, extended processes and extremes of scale and includes Longplayer, a musical composition repeating once every 1000 years, and the Gurdy and Hurdy stones, ancient rocks set upright in fields in East Sussex and Gloucestershire with Jimmy Cauty. Their work together includes a band, The Standing Stones, whose most recent release is Twa Sisters, featuring Iona Zajac and Daragh Lynch.

He was a founder member of The Pogues, with whom he has played, written and recorded since 1981.

Recent music revolves around a fascination with the hurdy-gurdy and includes hrdy-grdy, a cassette released by Benedict Drew’s Thanet Tape Centre. His latest collaboration, with John Matthias, Almost Starlight, will be released by Touch in September 2026.

John Matthias

Since studying Theoretical Physics in the late 1980s and 1990s, John has created music and sound in many forms, including for installation, popular music, music for film, for dance and orchestra.

Much of John’s work plays with the physics of complex systems but he is also greatly influenced by stories and song. John has collaborated with Matthew Herbert, Stanley Donwood, Jay Auborn, Radiohead, Thom Yorke, Nick Ryan and many others to create music with a variety of textures and sonorities. He is particularly interested in simplicity and form and how context informs the way music sounds.

His latest collaboration, with Jem Finer, Almost Starlight, will be released by Touch in September 2026.

'Baroque Sunburst is proud to present Melaponica, the unique and unheard music of the interdisciplinary Brazilian artist João Machado, entirely created by electronically processing the recordings of stingless bees.
'Machado's work with field recordings of native bees form a sound library held in international collections such as the British Library and the Animal Sound Archive in Berlin, and his research into stingless bee communication has unfolded into experimental electronic music, finally finding its way on vinyl for the first time.
'Within its 40 minutes of never-stopping music, Melaponica reveals its unique sonic universe, flawlessly moving from complex percussive rhythms to melodies and soundscapes that seem to come as much from earth as from outer space. With an impressive ability to explore the potential of its original audio sources while pushing it to the limits, João Machado's idea of music never loses musicality and groove, even in its more intimate moments.'

In 2001, Shin’ichi Ogawa of Sugar Plant was working for the SAL Disc record label and came up with the idea of doing an E2-E4 tribute album with his friends. This album would come off the back of a Neil Young tribute album which might have seemed odd but these two artists, Neil Young and Ashra (Manuel Göttsching), would be played regularly as equals at after-parties that Shini’ichi would throw at his house. Longtime friend and collaborator, Taro Yoda, noted that the eclecticism of these after-parties were influenced by the variety of parties they were attending at the time, from the legendary Japanese open-air rave party Life Force to Cream at Amnesia in Ibiza. Taro was obsessed with European trance and left-field downtempo while the two members of Sugar Plant were into ’70s soul—especially Marvin Gaye and William DeVaughn and at the same time, they were listening to Phish and the Grateful Dead too. All three of them were of course inspired by the DJ’ing and selections of Larry Levan.

A- Side – Sugar Plant – “Just Be There” – Production began in my home studio. Since I was frequently attending a house party called “Life Force” (with DJ Nick the Record as the resident DJ) at the time, I thought deep house would be the perfect style for a Sugar Plant cover.
I looped a two-chord electric piano track and applied filters using plugins and outboard gear to create a “sound I could listen to forever.” I recorded the bass on guitar and converted it to an analog synth (Doepfer MS-404).

From there, I layered synths improvisationally, listening to the track over and over again to make fine adjustments. I think I worked on it for days, mostly late at night.
I recorded the guitar at the very end of the track. After playing it a few times ad lib without any set plan, I suddenly had the idea to add vocals during the bridge, so I set up a mic in my hallway and recorded them.

I think this track is packed with the emotions I felt when listening to “E2-E4” back then, as well as the vibe I experienced at that party. – Shin’ichi Ogawa

2026 Repress

Jordan Fields Remix

Tokyo's EXPLORATIONS deejay crew strikes again with this unreleased disco cover version of STEVIE WONDER's classic "AS ALWAYS". With additional production by Chicago's own JORDAN FIELDS. 1-sided heavy weight green colored vinyl in paper sleeve. VERY limited like the last one!

REBIRTH is the debut EP from grime/nu-metal sensation Native James, the Ipswich-based artist making his way through festival stages such as Glastonbury and Download and support slots for everyone from letlive., Skidred, and Don Broco to Hyphen, Bob Vylan and Nova Twins. This non-stop onslaught of energy features fan-favourites "Hammer" and "Power".

Northern Earth is Dean McPhee's sixth full-length album and the second release on his own label, Bass Ritual. Expanding on the low-end focus of 2024's Astral Gold and last year's The Bradford Boar on the Folklore Tapes label, Northern Earth integrates overdriven guitar, a wooden snare drum pedal and a powerful 18-inch subwoofer, pushing his sound further beyond the sparse fingerpicked solo guitar of his earlier releases. Drawing on influences from psychedelic rock, British folk, dub and underground electronic music, the album's three expansive compositions - including the side-long title track - were honed through live performance and recorded live with no overdubs at McPhee's home in Bradford. His solo setup - stacked valve amps, subwoofer, guitar, percussion pedals and expansive pedalboard - now functions as a single self-contained instrument, layering hypnotic basslines, ritualistic loops and fluid melodies with physical weight and a deep sense of space.

“At this point in his career, each new Dean McPhee release feels like a legitimate event” – Brainwashed

“There’s really no one else who can create (and sustain) the darkly seductive mood that’s embedded within his work.” - Aquarium Drunkard

“Dean McPhee stands out as a true one-off in a crowded field.” - Loud & Quiet

Time Heals Everything is the fifth studio album from Blu and Exile, a duo that first connected in 2007 and has spent nearly two decades refining a chemistry that continues to evolve. The ten-track LP follows 2024’s Love (the) Ominous World and leans deeper into their core strengths: soul-forward production, incisive writing, and left-field choices that feel instinctive rather than experimental.
The album opens with “Soul Unusual,” a mission statement that builds on the lineage of “Soul Provider” and “Soul Amazing,” reframed through Blu’s present-day perspective. “The word special comes to mind,” Blu explains. “This is my perspective of those songs now.” Exile adds that the record went through multiple iterations before landing in its final form. “Once I changed the beat, it really came together for me, and his words hit differently,” he says, setting the tone for a project rooted in refinement and intention.
“Crumbs” pairs Blu with Rome Streetz and ICECOLDBISHOP on a golden era-inspired backdrop, taking aim at the ‘crumbs’ people are expected to accept from corrupt systems of power. The track underscores one of the album’s central themes: clarity through experience, and the perspective that comes with time.
Time Heals Everything finds Blu and Exile honoring their foundation while continuing to push forward, proving once again that soul and risk-taking can coexist without compromise. “We took a different approach with the direction while still staying true to the culture our music has built with our fan base,” Blu says. In 2026, that culture remains alive, evolving, and resonant as ever.

Inspiration Information Is Presented In An Opaque Metalic Silver Pressing. Well before Shuggie Otis cut his debut album, musicianship and performance had long been a part of his life. The son of rhythm and blues legend Johnny Otis, Shuggie learned to play guitar as early as the age of two, and performed professionally with his father's band at eleven. Throughout his long and illustrious career he performed on records for the likes of Frank Zappa, Al Kooper, Etta James, and George Duke, to name a few. Despite only moderate success upon its initial release, Shuggie Otis' third album Inspiration Information turned into underground smash decades later and has since maintained a level of cult status normally reserved for mysterious, unearthed legends like Sixto Rodriguez or Lee Fields. Inspiration Information is also noteworthy among Shuggie's other releases, as it was entirely self-produced, as opposed to being overseen by his father Johnny Otis. Shuggie's signature blend of baroque funk is on full display, but with a heavy dosage of psychedelic soul blended in, resulting in an album that's equally swarthy, lush, funky, and emotional; gathering all the best bits of Marvin Gaye, Love, Miles Davis, and even Os Mutantes. Inspiration Information is more than worthy of all acclaim awarded to it, despite the delayed reverence. Track Listing: A1. Inspiration / Information A2. Island Letter A3. Sparkle City A4. Aht Uh Mi Hed B1. Happy House B2. Rainy Day B3. XL-30 B4. Pling! B5. Not Available

On « Bless We », find a super fresh Jungle groove, no too much amen break, and very orientalized. With "Concrete Coulds" the amen break is back, and fat, a bit like a DJ K style : fat and slammin' ! At least, "Aurora" drops into oldschool deep Jungle... Once again Junglelivity brings fresh tunes, out of the common fields, with colors, relief and a variety of structures. A superb record ! SUPPORT !

Diese Aufnahme von Vivaldis „Vier Jahreszeiten“ aus dem Jahr 1969 mit der Academy of St Martin in
the Fields und Sir Neville Marriner – dem am häufigsten aufgenommenen Orchester-Dirigent-Duo der
Geschichte – ist nach wie vor so frisch und voller neuer Ideen wie bei ihrer Erstveröffentlichung.
Alan Lovedays wunderbar stilvolle Violinsoli und Simon Prestons einfallsreiche Continuo-Bearbeitung auf
Cembalo und Orgel machen diese Aufnahme zu einer der musikalisch befriedigendsten „Jahreszeiten“-
Einspielungen. Transparent, lebendig, tänzerisch.
Die Serie wurde von Rainer Maillard gemastert und von Sidney C. Meyer in den renommierten EmilBerliner-Studios unter Verwendung ihrer 100 % rein analogen Techniken (AAA) geschnitten. Es werden
ausschließlich analoge Quellen aus den originalen Stereo- und Quadrophonie-Masterbändern verwendet,
darunter auch kürzlich entdeckte analoge Master von frühen Digitalaufnahmen.
Diese in Deutschland bei der Schallplattenfabrik Pallas auf 180 g Virgin-Vinyl gepressten Deluxe-GatefoldVeröffentlichungen in limitierter Auflage enthalten: das Original-Artwork und Liner Notes; Archivfotos und
Faksimiles der Original-Aufnahmeblätter. Jede einzelne Veröffentlichung enthält individuelle Anmerkungen
von Dominic Fyfe, in denen die Geschichte der Aufnahme, der technische Hintergrund und der MasteringProzess detailliert beschrieben werden.

The deluxe 10th anniversary edition of case/lang/veirs features the new track "Accidental Tattoo" and twelve never-before-released live recordings alongside the original studio album from supergroup of singer-songwriters Neko Case, kd lang and Laura Veirs. Released in 2016, case/lang/veirs is a true collaboration between three phenomenal, self-driven artists: "the strongest voices in their field - lang the full-voiced seductress, Case the hurricane, and Veirs the wry storyteller" (Pitchfork). The women wrote all 14 songs and shared lead vocals equally, sometimes even within the same track. Full of stunning harmonies and spellbinding rhythms, case/lang/veirs travels through aches and eras, torch songs and tributes to the undersung. "There"s a generosity of spirit to case/lang/veirs," NPR praised upon the album"s release, "a worthy extension of three tremendous catalogs, in which three great singer-songwriters sound enhanced and invigorated by the challenge of living up to each other"s legacies." They worked over two and a half years in Portland, Oregon, where lang and Veirs both live, sometimes in lang"s loft with a view of Mount St. Helens, others in Veirs" dining room or backyard studio. The album was written from the ground up without any real plan beyond a desire to make music together and a faith that it would reveal itself. They produced the album with Tucker Martine, at his Portland studio in November 2015.

The deluxe 10th anniversary edition of case/lang/veirs features the new track "Accidental Tattoo" and twelve never-before-released live recordings alongside the original studio album from supergroup of singer-songwriters Neko Case, kd lang and Laura Veirs. Released in 2016, case/lang/veirs is a true collaboration between three phenomenal, self-driven artists: "the strongest voices in their field - lang the full-voiced seductress, Case the hurricane, and Veirs the wry storyteller" (Pitchfork). The women wrote all 14 songs and shared lead vocals equally, sometimes even within the same track. Full of stunning harmonies and spellbinding rhythms, case/lang/veirs travels through aches and eras, torch songs and tributes to the undersung. "There"s a generosity of spirit to case/lang/veirs," NPR praised upon the album"s release, "a worthy extension of three tremendous catalogs, in which three great singer-songwriters sound enhanced and invigorated by the challenge of living up to each other"s legacies." They worked over two and a half years in Portland, Oregon, where lang and Veirs both live, sometimes in lang"s loft with a view of Mount St. Helens, others in Veirs" dining room or backyard studio. The album was written from the ground up without any real plan beyond a desire to make music together and a faith that it would reveal itself. They produced the album with Tucker Martine, at his Portland studio in November 2015.

Layered guitars, synths and wordless vocals set the scenery in this epic, beautiful and introspective solo debut by musical wanderer Lynn Wright.

Wright, who has mostly eschewed developing a fixed artistic identity throughout his already long career, has preferred to remain on the periphery of collaborative projects and behind the scenes. It took until recent times for him to make “Before The Sinking Plains”, which arrives as his first solo recording after decades of traversing underground scenes in New York and beyond. Wright defines the album as “a collection of atmospheric compositions structured as songs or songs masking as atmospheric compositions.”

The album began during a long neurological illness as guitar loops Wright would make each morning in his apartment and let play quietly in the background. At some point he began recording the ones he liked and adding layers of treated guitars, vocals, and synths, and then, eventually, giving them defined structures. The album features none of the aggression of his louder bands and improvisatory projects, but retains the dark hues.

Before The Sinking Plains lives on the familiar peripheries of our post-everything sound world, with elements of everything from washed-out dream pop and atmospheric drone works to sparse noir folk and minimalist vocal composition moving within the linings of Wright's subtle yet grand pieces, creating a perfect backdrop for watching the sky merge with the vast open fields.

Since relocating to Berlin some years ago from New York, he has worked closely with composer Simon Goff, who mixed his current album, as an editor, engineer and composer on various film and recording projects. He also plays lap steel guitar in Swans bassist Dana Schechter’s band Insect Ark. This is just the top of the iceberg when it comes to Wright's collaborations and projects throughout the years.

In den letzten 15 Jahren hat sich Ryan Gustafson von The Dead Tongues zu einer der markantesten Stimmen des modernen Folk entwickelt. So eigenwillig und geisterhaft die Songs manchmal auch waren, hat Gustafson seine Visionen und Texte stets mit solchen Ohrwürmern verknüpft, die man wie Talismane verstaut, um sie im Notfall wieder hervorzuholen. Auf ,Montana" hat Ryan Gustafson den Sound von The Dead Tongues erweitert. Indem er Einflüsse aus der Old-Time-Musik der Appalachen und dem primitiven Drei-Finger-Gitarrenstil in seinen bereits etablierten, einfachen und doch unkonventionellen Ansatz beim Songwriting einfließen lässt, schafft Gustafson ein facettenreiches, unverkennbar amerikanisches Patchwork, das zwischen idyllischer Wärme und seltsamer Intensität schwankt. Mit dem bei den Fans beliebten Titel ,Wildflower Perfume" ist dieses geliebte Album zum ersten Mal auf Vinyl erhältlich.

Kitsune No Yomeiri, which translates to the fox’s wedding, is an endearing expression used to describe sunshowers. Dawson returned home from a recent tour of Japan with a collection of field recordings documenting the spring rain he encountered throughout his travels. These curious sounds, stretching from peaceful shrines to clattering city streets, underpin the material.

Dawson also credits the wonderful folks he met on that tour with profoundly shaping the direction of the album. After each show he found himself immersed in inspiring conversations about the guitar. Through navigating the language barrier, he discovered he was communicating with an immense sincerity that he would ordinarily avoid at all costs. “I’ve always just made records at home in a vortex, but this time it felt like those conversations were there with me in the studio.”

Musically the album has a slight western slant. It’s not country, but it does see Dawson lean softly into his prairie past. Constellations of stray notes and rusted tones form nostalgic melodies, like chance encounters between old friends. Dawson allows phrases and gestures to repeat across the record, resulting in a collection that’s more akin to turning the pages of a novel than a series of vignettes vying for attention.

Long Slow Distance is an album about finding peace, and making peace where it can’t be found. It’s inspired by change, grief, acceptance, forgiveness, love, and running.

Dawson began running around the same time he started making records. At this point it’s unclear where one practice ends and the other begins. The album’s title has become the ethos he’s embraced for all things in life.

Long Slow Dance unravels the woven collage of his previous work. Here each song consists of three long guitar takes, panned across the stereo-field with minimal overdubs. “I remember my grandmother always kept a rain barrel on the farm. Just a simple vessel that served as a means for gathering water for the garden and the flowers. I wanted to instill that sentiment on this record. Other than some panning and recreational EQing, the computer was just a vessel to gather sounds.”

There is a distant grace to the album. A soft expanse, a quiet contrast. Guitars dissolve and then recalibrate. Sparse melodic motifs bloom and fracture. Warm chords clash and make amends. Alpenglow textures shimmer against tones that feel weathered by salt air. The songs are lightly propulsive, yet drift at a glacial pace. Fields and artifacts ground the material, like keeping your eyes on the horizon. Long Slow Distance feels intuitive, sentimental, and like Dawson is one step closer to whatever distance he is chasing.
Downloadable Assets

For 10 years, the Austin, Texas- based experimental avant- pop/ electronic musician, born Roger Sellers, has been creating atmospheric soundscapes brimming with layers, texture, and deep emotional resonance. On his fourth and most immersive album to date, 'Filters', Sellers picks up where he left us on 2023's mournful yet popminded 'Temporary Time'. With its elegantly constructed melodies, silken synth-work, a sprinkle of field recordings, and an upbeat yet blissful blend of piano and percussion, Filters finds Sellers entering a new phase of existence as he works through the grief around losing his father and into a place of acceptance.

THE EPIC NEW STUDIO ALBUM FROM THE LONG-STANDING JAPANESE METAL PIONEERS, INCLUDING GUEST APPEARANCE FROM OPETH'S MIKAEL AKERFELDT - PRESENTED ON DIGIPACK CD & VINYL LPJapanese metal pioneers Sigh formed in 1989/1990 Their genre- classic Black Metal debut 'Scorn Defeat' arrived in 1993, & with a subsequent journey through the strange & the psychedelic, incorporating a whole eclectic mix of genre styles & ideas throughout their career, Sigh has remained a vital creative force in the avantgarde field whilst maintaining their old school roots, as witnessed on the 2022 album (& first for Peaceville Records), 'Shiki'. This was followed by the remaking of their 'Hangman's Hymn' album as part of the band's 35th anniversary celebrations, in the shape of 'I Saw The World's End: Hangman's Hymn MMXXV' (2025).

THE EPIC NEW STUDIO ALBUM FROM THE LONG-STANDING JAPANESE METAL PIONEERS, INCLUDING GUEST APPEARANCE FROM OPETH'S MIKAEL AKERFELDT - PRESENTED ON DIGIPACK CD & VINYL LPJapanese metal pioneers Sigh formed in 1989/1990 Their genre- classic Black Metal debut 'Scorn Defeat' arrived in 1993, & with a subsequent journey through the strange & the psychedelic, incorporating a whole eclectic mix of genre styles & ideas throughout their career, Sigh has remained a vital creative force in the avantgarde field whilst maintaining their old school roots, as witnessed on the 2022 album (& first for Peaceville Records), 'Shiki'. This was followed by the remaking of their 'Hangman's Hymn' album as part of the band's 35th anniversary celebrations, in the shape of 'I Saw The World's End: Hangman's Hymn MMXXV' (2025).

Ecology Division is a new compilation from Bastard Jazz that brings together a network of producers and musicians working across jazz, soul, electronic, and beat-driven styles. Featuring artists from Brooklyn, Chicago, Montreal, London, Lisbon, Melbourne, and Ludhiana, the release highlights a core group of collaborators and peers connected to the label’s extended orbit. The project is presented with cohesive visual direction inspired by vintage field guides and naturalist illustration, with each track paired to a distinct animal. This framing positions Ecology Division as a curated snapshot of an active, evolving creative community rather than a traditional compilation.

The release features contributions from Simon Mavin (of Hiatus Kaiyote), Sholto & David Bardon, Danny Scott Lane, Rachel Kitchlew & DOUGH, Lapgan, Korovo, Birocratic, Kartik, Nick Marks, and Pimenta Caseira. Collectively, these artists have released music on respected independent labels including Ninja Tune, Brainfeeder, Mr. Bongo, Melting Pot Music, WRWTFWW Records, and Moon Glyph, among others—underscoring the compilation’s reach across established global scenes.

When one thinks of the terms “mass” and “massive” in music, especially contemporary music, perhaps certain aural images come to mind: generic metal heaviness; dynamics-bereft noise; ear-battering dance floor madness; the multitudinous forms of drone darkness. All of these are massive in their own fashion. However, this newstudio album from 7FO (pronounced “nana f o”), a composer-performer based in northern Osaka, investigates and inhabits a different aspect of the massive. A glorious combination: dense low frequencies; sculpturally condensed blocks of sound, subtly swinging gravitational fields ― and a surprising sense of rolling and rollicking joyfulness and play. “Massive” doesn’t have to mean “dark” ― consider the sun. This is the third 7FO release on EM Records, following the well-received Ryu no Nukegara (Dragon's Husk) (2018). On these 2024-25 recordings, 7FO focuses his drum machines, synths and musical vision into eight compact structures which were partially inspired by the intense essence of American pre-war blues and the shining soul of traditional Ethiopian music, especially the works related to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. While not obviously evident, the glowing core of these musics has been captured and condensed here; another inspiration is the massive sculptural 1980s works of Yoshi Wada ― although there are obvious differences, there is a similar material tangibility to the vibration of the air. The final piece, “Shirohebi”, is an update of the b-side of 7FO's 7-inch single "Healing Sword" (2023), featured on Henry Rollins’ radio program. We invite you to experience and enjoy these eight massive blocks of sound, imbued with 7FO’s heartfelt warmth and humour, dense but not dark; shifting, rolling, appearing and disappearing: 7FO once picked up a roadside stone, which split as it sat in his palm. This experience, referenced in the release’s title, hints at the metaphysical magic of music, a realm beyond mere coincidence: even the massive density of stone can split, and reveal the magic within. Available on CD, LP and digital download.

DESCRIPTION
Lone Bison / Nick Bonell lives by the sea in Ramsgate. Mainly a guitar player and pedal freak, Nick bought a used Korg MS20 and fell in love with synths. As one half of Stuntmen, Nick released the sample-heavy single 'You're the Beat Find' on the groovy Tummy Touch label, which led to him scoring three Ford adverts in the U.S and a few pieces of well-used production music - which paid for more synths and pedals!
An album, 'Transistor Memory' and single 'Drugs' came out via Dom Martin's brilliant Polytechnic Youth records in 2021. "Wave Construction" was released by Castles in Space in Autumn 2023. An album for the CiS Subscription Library entitled "Mechanical and Electrical" was released in late 2024.
Nick Explains: "After recording "Transistor Memory", "Wave Construction" and "Mechanical and Electrical" pretty much back-to-back, I wanted to change my sound palette a little. I started programming my Hydrasynth Explorer in obsessive detail and was also drawn to using my voice, in a sampling kind of way at first. Sampling my voice then shifted into recording more straightforward vocals and writing proper songs again. "Rise Up" started as a field recording in my local park and then some wonky piano loops with a cheap mic – somehow a song arrived. I’ve always really liked really concise records, so I got interested in packing lots of synth textures into a three-minute pop song. As the record progressed, I did less leaning on vocoders and harmonisers and developed the courage to just do more up-front vocal mixes. Things like Maths and Minimal / Maximal are more groove-based and came from recording 20 minute drum tracks then jamming bass guitar over it then editing it all down and adding loads of synths. Oh, and there’s a bit of James Williamson era Stooges at the end of Minimal / Maximal – I was a bit nervous about playing garage rock guitar on a Castles in Space record but Colin told me I would be ‘fucking mental’ if I didn’t end the record with it."
Lone Bison's music is influenced by Krautrock, electronica, post-punk, soundtracks, a splosh of modern classical/minimalism and post-rock. He's a hot genius.
The album is preceded with "The Power" which will be available on streaming platforms as well as on our Bandcamp for those who want to listen or pre-order the album. There's a fantastic remix from MAPS included as well.

No Drama, the imprint founded and curated by Roy Rosenfeld, continues to expand its artistic vision with a sixth release valuing originality over convention. The label has steadily established a platform for forward-thinking electronic music, inviting artists to challenge familiar structures while remaining grounded in musical substance.

The latest release features two tracks by internationally recognized producer Yuvée, known for seamlessly blending live instrumentation with deep house, melodic elements, and organic percussion. While Yuvée appears solo on one track, the other is a collaboration with Omer Inbar, who performs under the name Oi.

The opening track, Lava Core, presents the sound that has earned Yuvée international recognition. Tribal influences unfold through carefully crafted percussion, while evolving textures occupy every part of the stereo field. Every section advances the narrative, allowing the arrangement to grow naturally while maintaining dancefloor impact from beginning to end.

The second piece, Blue, brings Yuvée together with Oi, an internationally acclaimed DJ, producer, and sound engineer whose work bridges psychedelic vibes and groove-driven electronic music. The collaboration introduces greater club energy. Tonal and atonal elements interact with shifting harmonies and evolving instrumental phrasing, creating constant movement without losing coherence.

Rather than relying on formulas, the duo demonstrates the value of artistic perspective in an era increasingly shaped by technological automation. The result is music that balances intellect with feeling, offering a listening experience that remains equally compelling on a festival sound system, in a club, or through focused listening at home.

With its sixth release, No Drama reinforces its commitment to artists who expand the language of contemporary electronic music through craftsmanship, authenticity, and creative ambition.

Manonmars’ 3rd album sees him at his most amorphous and psychedelic, at points sharper and laser focused, and at others more blurred and impressionistic than his previous records. Many of the core players remain the same, all of the production is once again handled by O$VMV$M (the duo of Neek and Amos Childs of Jabu) while Paulina Korobkiewicz (also of Young Echo) makes a return handling both the album’s cover artwork and contributing a series of diaristic field recordings and voice notes.

‘The project references movies, cartoons, fictional characters and video games, among other things. The album title is open to interpretation but all of these elements are forms of visual entertainment which have their own unique ability to transcend things like language barriers and cultural divides. The visual element is key because those details bridge the gap on a communicative level.’ - Manonmars

The album blends abstract, blurred braggadocio with more immediate personal details such as on ‘Volcanic Shield’ a posse cut of sorts featuring Bristol improv luminary Dali de Saint Paul and Franco Franco (½ of cyborg rap duo Kinlaw & Franco Franco) - where Mars recalls;

‘Memories of brighter days, happy meal hit the spot
Mum was spinning vinyl playing Super Ape or Pressure Drop
I would spend the weekend with the Turkish mandem on the block
single parent household, mum was studying or on the job
money came and went always was an on and off
made it back from school time to see what’s on the box’


The beat fades away to leave one of Korobkiewicz’s recordings of Mars’ mum talking about her life in London in the 80s, spending her money on reggae records as an ambient chord fades in like an echo of a jungle intro – stretching out as a link between generations of UK music.

The production by and large is brighter and more kinetic than earlier Manonmars records – with O$VMV$M drawing on everything from modern underground rap and drill through to jazz and acid ambient passages.

London is also a central character here, bustling and constantly shifting, either when bleeding in through field recordings, or as an ever-present backdrop in the lyrics;

‘I’m a fusion of Tippa Irie and Topper Harley
Hit the target like the black Atari
I dropped a tab now shit’s A Scanner Darkly
Got the munchies, Imma yam a sarnie
Pour the Wray and Ting like man at Carni
Exit Peckham Rye and turn left, walk past Hannah Barry
Get your (w)raps up like its January’

‘I've always considered London my home, despite spending some time in the South West of England too. My mum had been living in London for 25 years (...) That was a pretty big deal in some ways because it removed us from multicultural society during the period which overlapped with my teenage years. (...) I never got used to how quiet it was in the countryside (...) Bristol was the closest city to where we lived and it was through travelling there and making connections that I became involved in making music and playing gigs.’ - Manonmars

Mars’ practice as a painter (under his given name Jack Martyn Richardson) and photographer also loom heavy over the album, he cites Paul Verhoeven, Abdul Mati Klariwein and H.R Giger as influences – as well as Miles Davis, Drakeo the Ruler and DJ Rashad.

As with much of Richardson’s work the raps at times feel blurred to a point of almost inscrutability, creating a distance between the audience and himself. A process that ties into his visual work and the way he experiences the world as mainly abstract colour without his glasses. He explores this further in an ongoing visual collaboration with Korobkiewicz, ‘Fun and Games’ which serves as a visual archive of one of London's largest and oldest travelling fairgrounds.

‘I was diagnosed with very severe short-sightedness at the age of seven. I remember my early formative years as visually blurred. Some of my photography reflects this experience of partial vision and uncertainty, referencing memory and perception rather than fixed representation.’

Manonmars’ first public outing as a rapper was at a Young Echo radio event, broadcast shambolically from a practice room just off Jamaica street, Bristol in 2011, as much as things have moved on both stylistically and in terms of focus - strong links back to the city remain a key foundation throughout the collaborations and guest appearances.

‘I have no problem with being an outsider looking in. One of the things I enjoy about London is the anonymity (...) it's easy to be a stranger here when so much is happening. I feel like thats more valuable than people may realise.’