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With his first release since 2015, Seattle based Indie-folk hero Rocky Votolato returns with Wild Roots, an intimate concept album inspired by and written for his family. Each song a letter dedicated to a specific family member and focused on a special memory or moment in time. After losing his child in December of 2021 in a tragic car accident, the entire album, and especially the song “Becoming Human”, now a posthumous love letter, takes on an even deeper while devastatingly bittersweet meaning. The production on Wild Roots is hushed, handcrafted, and warm — an intimate and personal experience that brings the nature of Votolato’s storytelling to life in very authentic and genuine ways. Produced, engineered, and mixed by Votolato himself, the record is a deliberate construction of his conceptual vision and new phase of his recording career. Additionally, the record features a stellar cast of renowned musicians whose contributions perfectly compliment the delicate nature of these songs — Abby Gundersen (William Fitzsimmons) on piano, string arrangements, and vocal harmonies, James McAllister (Sufjan Stevens, The National) on drums and percussion, Phil Wandscher (Whiskeytown, Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter) on electric guitar, and Marcel Gein (Perry O’Parson) on electric guitar. In many ways, Wild Roots is not only a break in silence for Votolato, but the opening of a new chapter — one that feels laser focused on what really matters in life. Whether discovering Votolato for the first time or adding another record to your collection, Wild Roots resonates on the most simple and important human levels — a sharing of experience that encourages us to keep believing in ourselves and in the magic of this life, no matter how harsh and difficult it can be.


Track list: 1. Evergreen 2. 23 Stitches 3. Glory (Broken Dove) 4. There is a Light 5. X1998x 6. Becoming Human 7. Breakwater 8. Little Black Diamond 9. Archangels of Tornados 10. The Great Pontificator 11. The Wildest Horses 12. Little Lupine 13. Bella Rose 14. Southpaw 15. Texas Scorpion (The Outlaw Blues)

In hugo, there’s a central question that Loyle Carner keeps coming back to: “I’m young, Black, successful and have a platform - but where do I go next?” The answer is explored in this epic scream of a third album. With urgent delivery and gloriously widescreen production, Carner confronts both the deeply personal (“You can’t hate the roots of a tree, and not hate the tree. So how can I hate my father without hating me?) and the highly political (“I told the black man he didn’t understand I reached the white man he wouldn’t take my hand”). Cinematic in scale and scope, hugo is both a rallying war cry for a generation forged in fire and a study of the personal internal conflict that drives the rest of the album - as a mixed-race Black man, as an artist, as a father and as a son. With Mercury and Brits nominations, NME Awards and appearances in global brand campaigns (Nike, YSL, Timberland), Carner has undoubtedly had a meteoric rise to the top, culminating with his second album Not Waving, But Drowning charting at number 3 in the UK albums chart in 2019. However, hugo sees Carner taking a sharp detour from his previous work, putting it down to lockdown and the “hedonistic side of career being stripped away. There were no shows, no backstage, no festivals, no photoshoots”. By continuing to write in these tumultuous times with a renewed clarity and sense of artistic freedom, Carner reached deeper beneath the surface than he ever had before. The result is his most cathartic and ambitious record yet, a coruscating journey into the heart of what it means to be alive in these tumultuous times, and one which looks set to neatly cement his position as one of the most potent and vital young talents around today. Working alongside renowned producer kwes. (Solange, Kelela, Nao), Carner leaves no stone unturned on this album, in both its sound and its stories. In a 10-track album that moves from gorgeous neo-soul moments to thundering hip hop, with immediate, infectious bangers and sampled interludes from non musicians (mixed-race Guyanese poet John Agard and youth activist and politician Athian Akec) Carner shifts seamlessly from micro to macro, confronting everything from strained relationships with family to the societal tears caused by class stratification. It also lays bare bruises in his personal life that he has never revealed before – often in painful, deeply uncomfortable ways, focusing on Carner's experience of becoming a father in the context of growing up without contact with his biological father. With the song “Polyfilla”, against the backdrop of a warm melodic beat, Carner explores his desire to “break the chains in the cycle” of dysfunctional Black fatherhood, commenting on the narrative of fatherhood in the genre, and saying a key part of the process was realising that his father “grew up in a world where nobody showed him how to love or nurture”. The follow up track “A Lasting Place” is an exploration of the MC’s failure and inability to be perfect in this mission. The album closer is a powerful statement of love and forgiveness; with his signature lyrical dexterity, Carner declares his relentless commitment to his son and sees forgiving his father as a key part of this. The song closes with an emotional ending of Carner telling his dad “still I’m lucky yo that we talk”. There’s a striking duality of hugo’s bold, multilayered tracks and its often starkly intimate and tender lyricism, and that dichotomy is deliberate - it is a message for young Black men, but really, anyone, who is listening. Cognizant of the immense pain and fear and confusion that we are faced with everyday, Carner has thrown down the gauntlet, defying us not to rise above the fray, wake up each day and be ambitious. Ambitious in building strong personal relationships. Ambitious in our pursuit of our goals. Ambitious in never refusing to back down against injustice. Rejecting the title of leader, Loyle Carner sees himself “as holding up a mirror”, and that clearly translates into the album's universal messages.

‘Runner is a calmly luminous orchestral piece with the pulsating, propulsive
rhythms that animate much of Mr. Reich’s music.’ – New York Times

‘Reich interweaves the two groups to create a dense textural tapestry that sounds like his most native orchestral thinking to date. A beautiful and dramatically charged masterpiece.' – San Francisco Chronicle

Nonesuch Records releases the first recordings of Steve Reich’s Runner (2016) and Music for Ensemble and Orchestra (2018), performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conducted by Susanna Mälkki.

Reich says Runner is written “for a large ensemble of winds, percussion, pianos, and strings. While the tempo remains more or less constant, there are five movements, played without pause, that are based on different note durations. First, even sixteenths, then irregularly accented eighths, then a very slowed-down version of the standard bell pattern from Ghana in quarters, fourth a return to the irregularly accented eighths, and finally a return to the sixteenths but now played as pulses by the winds for as long as a breath will comfortably sustain them. The title was suggested by the rapid opening and my awareness that, like a runner, I would have to pace the piece to reach a successful conclusion.”

“Music for Ensemble and Orchestra is an extension of the Baroque concerto grosso where there is more than one soloist,” the composer continues. “Here there are twenty soloists – all regular members of the orchestra, including the first stand strings and winds, as well as two vibraphones and two pianos. The piece is in five movements, though the tempo never changes, only the note value of the constant pulse in the pianos. Thus, an arch form: sixteenths, eighths, quarters, eighths, sixteenths. Music for Ensemble and Orchestra is modeled on my Runner, which has the same five movement form.”

Nonesuch has recorded every new piece of music by Steve Reich since 1985, beginning with The Desert Music and continuing through 2018’s Pulse/Quartet, resulting in 22 albums and the two box sets Phases in 2006 and Works: 1965-1995 in 1997. Most recently, the label released his Reich/Richter, performed by Ensemble intercontemporain and conducted by George Jackson, in June 2022. The Times said, ‘What a delight to be able to focus on the music, delivered here with a clever mix of pinprick precision and reverberant haze by 14 members of Ensemble Intercontemporain. The more intently you listen, the more subtleties emerge among the shifting, criss-crossing textures and phrases, sometimes coloured with gentle melancholy but decisively upbeat by the end. Reich/Richter is an ear-tickling tonic and a happy companion to Reich’s newly published book, Conversations.’ Nonesuch will put out a collection of Reich’s complete works in 2023.

Reich released a book earlier this year, Conversations, that includes dialogues with past collaborators, fellow composers, musicians, and visual artists who have been influenced by his work, including: David Lang, Brian Eno, Richard Serra, Michael Gordon, Michael Tilson Thomas, Russell Hartenberger, Robert Hurwitz, Stephen Sondheim, Jonny Greenwood, David Harrington, Elizabeth Lim-Dutton, David Robertson, Micaela Haslam, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Julia Wolfe, Nico Muhly, Beryl Korot, Colin Currie, and Brad Lubman. The Wall Street Journal called the book ‘a testament to the influence of an idea – one that triggered a cultural turning point,’ and the New York Times said, ‘The joy of the book is to hear artists from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds rhapsodizing about their relationship to Reich’s music and how it influenced their own creative processes.’

Steve Reich has been called ‘America’s greatest living composer’ (Village Voice), ‘the most original musical thinker of our time’ (New Yorker), and ‘among the great composers of the century’ (New York Times). His music has influenced composers and mainstream musicians all over the world. Music for 18 Musicians and Different Trains have earned him two Grammy Awards, and in 2009, his Double Sextet won the Pulitzer Prize. Reich’s documentary video opera works – The Cave and Three Tales, done in collaboration with video artist Beryl Korot – have been performed on four continents. His recent work Quartet, for percussionist Colin Currie, sold out two consecutive concerts at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London shortly after tens of thousands at the Glastonbury Festival heard Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead) perform Electric Counterpoint followed by the London Sinfonietta performing his Music for 18 Musicians.

In 2012, Reich was awarded the Gold Medal in Music by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has additionally received the Praemium Imperiale in Tokyo, the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm, the BBVA Award in Madrid, and the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale. He has been named Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Royal College of Music in London, The Juilliard School, and the Liszt Academy in Budapest, among others. ‘There’s just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history and Steve Reich is one of them,’ states the Guardian.

Redefining what an orchestra can be, the Los Angeles Philharmonic (LA Phil) is as vibrant as Los Angeles, one of the world's most open and dynamic cities. Led by Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, this internationally renowned orchestra harnesses the transformative power of live music to build community, foster intellectual and artistic growth, and nurture the creative spirit. This is the third recent recording by the orchestra on the label; the others were the Louis Andriessen pieces The only one and Theatre of the World. Additionally, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s recordings of The Gospel According to the Other Mary and Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?, with Yuja Wang, released on Deutsche Grammophon, are included in this year’s John Adams Collected Works boxed set. Nonesuch also released an LA Phil recording of Adams‘ Naïve and Sentimental Music in 2002.

Susanna Mälkki is sought-after at the highest level by symphony orchestras and opera houses worldwide. About to embark on her final season as Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, she concludes a seven-year tenure with a distinctive dynamism and imaginative flair to her programming. In addition to a full season in Finland, she will lead the Helsinki orchestra on tour to the prestigious Lucerne and Edinburgh festivals, New York’s Carnegie Hall, and Washington’s Kennedy Centre this season.

“A rather gorgeous and engrossing collection, that borrows stealthily from a rich history of sound effect and soundtrack to build a tender poem to the night time.” - CLASH
“The plan was to make twenty 90-second tracks designed as TV themes,” says Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat, of the initial thought behind his new instrumental album as Nyx Nótt “But it wasn't a satisfying listen, it was too gimmicky and silly.”
So instead, Moffat decided to stretch the idea out, plunge deeper, and expand the music into full tracks, “making some of them quite long and dramatic, with the odd swift turn here and there.” In fleshing these tracks out into more fully realised songs he began sourcing samples from professional TV and film music libraries. “The focus then turned to making a proper album out of these modern library sounds,” he says. “I decided to stick with the Themes From title and named the tracks after the sorts of shows they made me think of when I listened back.”
The result is a record that explores genre themes such as: ‘Thriller, ‘Porno’, ‘Caper’ and Swashbuckler’, and acts as an audio equivalent of channel hopping through a unique TV station programmed by Moffat. “I still wasn't sure about all this until I did the album cover, which brought it all together,” he says, of the artwork that places an old smashed TV unit front and centre with a woman perched on top. “It has echoes of old TV compilations but is pretty cheeky and slightly sexy in that old 70s compilation style. I wanted this one to look a bit more fun than the last one, as well as hopefully sound a bit more fun too.”
Aside from being a fun experience, it is also a stirring and immersive listen, one that allows the listener to imagine their own accompanying visual scenarios to each musical theme. The opening ‘Docudrama’ marries a gently creeping beat with strings that glide from tense to sweeping, while ‘Porno’ is all seedy smoky jazz that feels plucked right out of Travis Bickle’s late night trips to porn cinemas in Taxi Driver.
Touches of jazz pop up in other places too, on ‘Hardboiled’ this merges with subtle pulses and gargles of electronics that build to a rousing crescendo of horns and bleeps, and on ‘Caper’ there’s a vivacious full jazz band skip to the lively swinging rhythms. “There's a few more jazzy elements here,” Moffat says. “Although I'm not quite sure where that came from. Although, like everyone else, I've had plenty of time to be introspective recently, so I decided the next Nyx Nótt album should be more upbeat and encourage some occasional foot-tapping.”
However, what becomes apparent, the longer you spend in the world of Themes From, is how singular and unique the tone of each composition is. “Each track has its own individual feel,” says Moffat. “The idea was to sound like a different composer and band throughout.” It’s a stylistic leap that continues Nyx Nótt’s trajectory as one that shares no direct link to Moffat’s other projects. “I approach them in completely different ways and with a different purpose in mind,” says Moffat. “I don't think Nyx has ever heard of Arab Strap, and certainly doesn't own any of their albums.” It’s also a notable shift from the debut album under this moniker, and suitably given the theme, Moffat has created a visual comparison between these two sonic worlds. “If the first Nyx Nótt album was like looking out on dark prairies before dawn, this is more like a walk through a neon Soho after a few cocktails.”

Módulo 1000 were not messing around when they made 'Não Fale Com Paredes’. It holds its own, not just as a raw, heavy, experimental “Brazilian” psychedelic rock album, but as a raw, heavy, experimental psychedelic rock album, full-stop!

Formed in Rio de Janeiro in 1969, Módulo 1000 honed their craft as the house band in clubs and resorts in São Paulo where they predominantly covered American artists such as Jimmy Hendrix as well as British giants, Led Zeppelin. After acquiring a taste for fame following the performance of one of their tracks at the Rio International Song Festival, the band focussed their attention on composing original material. Their manager, Marinaldo Guimarães, encouraged the band to explore their experimental and creative sides. This, in parallel with the explosion of experimental music in Brazil, resulted in the band performing alongside heavyweights such as O Têrço; there was a happening in the air.

Módulo 1000 recorded just one album. Released on Top Tape records in 1972, it featured Eduardo Leal on bass, Candido Faria on drums, Daniel Cardone on guitar, violin and vocals, and Luiz Paulo Simas on organ, piano, and vocals. 'Não Fale Com Paredes' was produced by the popular DJ, Ademir Lemos, and came housed in a fold-out cover featuring tripped-out artwork and design by Wander Borges. However, due the uncompromising nature of its wild, heavy psychedelic rock sound, the album was destined not to be played on the radio in Brazil. Rumours suggest that the label didn't understand the album, and as a result, it wasn't promoted or marketed. Thus, like many other underground cult classics, it was lost in the ether, only later to be rediscovered by a new audience at a different time.

One thing is certain, you definitely know when you've heard Módulo 1000. The sound is raw, heavy and at points quite aggressive, more Black Sabbath than Os Mutantes. It floats between psychedelic rock, prog rock, early metal, and dare we say, displays elements of proto-math-rock.

The band’s discography includes a 7" single, as well as their music being featured on several compilations for Odeon Records, additionally they released a 7" single under their alias 'Love Machine' for Top Tape Records. These compositions are included as bonus tracks on the CD version of our reissue.

Black Screen Records has once again teamed up with Focus
Entertainment to release the soundtrack to A Plague Tale:
Requiem - the sequel to the award-winning adventure game A
Plague Tale: Innocence - by IFMCA award-winning and BAFTA
nominated composer Olivier Derivière on 180g double vinyl and
CD. After signing the soundtrack for A Plague Tale: Innocence,
Olivier Derivière is back to enrich the intense emotional journey
of A Plague Tale: Requiem with his poignant compositions.
Olivier Derivière is a passionate video games composer and an
international star in the field, who won multiple awards and a
nomination for the 2017 BAFTA. His degree of implication is rare
among video games composers, putting the gameplay at the
center of his considerations and even influencing the
development through his input. The compositions also feature
the cellist Eric-Maria Couturier, and the Estonian Philharmonic
Chamber Choir. Eric-Maria Couturier is a distinguished member
of the Ensemble intercontemporain, a contemporary music
ensemble founded by Pierre Boulez, whom Eric-Maria Couturier
collaborated with among other eminent modern music icons.
The two-time Grammy Award-winning Estonian Philharmonic
Chamber Choir is one of the best-known Estonian ensembles in
the world. With a repertoire that extends from Gregorian chant
to contemporary music, it le

Summer at Land's End is not an interlude or tangent for The Reds, Pinks & Purples but rather a perfect fourth movement following the albums Anxiety Art, You Might Be Happy Someday, and Uncommon Weather. As with these self-recorded records (the primary work of songwriter Glenn Donaldson), the songs on Summer at Land's End were crafted slowly and then drawn together to make a unified statement. But here, and more than before, Summer at Land's End combines Donaldson's rueful pop sensibility with a parallel musical universe, one composed of pictures, dreams, and feelings without words. Even if the underlying theme of this collection is one of conflict or unhappiness, the vision of the music presents an escape to a new world, always fading in and out of sight. For listeners who may not be familiar with Donaldson's corner of San Francisco--the Richmond district--or the current wave of hazy, melodic DIY pop groups performing in the city, Summer at Land's End pulls in images and scenes that feel like a collision of the mundane and the sublime of this present landscape. With this record, The Reds, Pinks & Purples give less focus to the vanities of a subculture and more to the challenge of connecting with someone, to the ordinary goals of being human and finding harmony with others. This deliberate saturation in drama and ambiance, along with some of Donaldson's best songwriting to date, is what gives Summer at Land's End its special class in the project's discography. Of the album's cinematic mood, Donaldson refers to films like Summer of '42 and the influence of the classic 4AD catalogue of the 1990s. This style informs much of Donaldson's prior and current ventures of course (The Ivytree, Vacant Gardens, and a dozen projects in between) but now The Reds, Pinks & Purples have taken the mantle, embracing this instinct for instrumental or dreamier modes of pop songwriting. It's a pleasure to experience Summer at Land's End, as this record finds a thrilling balance between songs and sounds, instruments and voices, and the ironic twin poles of art and life.

PALE GREEN STARS VINYL

Summer at Land's End is not an interlude or tangent for The Reds, Pinks & Purples but rather a perfect fourth movement following the albums Anxiety Art, You Might Be Happy Someday, and Uncommon Weather. As with these self-recorded records (the primary work of songwriter Glenn Donaldson), the songs on Summer at Land's End were crafted slowly and then drawn together to make a unified statement. But here, and more than before, Summer at Land's End combines Donaldson's rueful pop sensibility with a parallel musical universe, one composed of pictures, dreams, and feelings without words. Even if the underlying theme of this collection is one of conflict or unhappiness, the vision of the music presents an escape to a new world, always fading in and out of sight. For listeners who may not be familiar with Donaldson's corner of San Francisco--the Richmond district--or the current wave of hazy, melodic DIY pop groups performing in the city, Summer at Land's End pulls in images and scenes that feel like a collision of the mundane and the sublime of this present landscape. With this record, The Reds, Pinks & Purples give less focus to the vanities of a subculture and more to the challenge of connecting with someone, to the ordinary goals of being human and finding harmony with others. This deliberate saturation in drama and ambiance, along with some of Donaldson's best songwriting to date, is what gives Summer at Land's End its special class in the project's discography. Of the album's cinematic mood, Donaldson refers to films like Summer of '42 and the influence of the classic 4AD catalogue of the 1990s. This style informs much of Donaldson's prior and current ventures of course (The Ivytree, Vacant Gardens, and a dozen projects in between) but now The Reds, Pinks & Purples have taken the mantle, embracing this instinct for instrumental or dreamier modes of pop songwriting. It's a pleasure to experience Summer at Land's End, as this record finds a thrilling balance between songs and sounds, instruments and voices, and the ironic twin poles of art and life.

LIMITED EDITION PICTURE DISC EDITION OF PAUL DRAPER'S NEW
ALBUM CULT LEADER TACTICS .Meaty art-rock, austere orchestral
interludes & driving future pop - Classic Rock 8/10 Cult Leader Tactics is
sleek & smart, full of melody, humour and flair - Record Collector 4*
Former Mansun frontman, Paul Draper, returned in early 2022 with a
collection of his finest songwriting since the bands' imperial phase
Cult Leader Tactics', is a self-help manual on how to become a complete cult in
the music industry & is his first solo album since 2017's much- lauded Spooky
Action'. Cult Leader Tactics' offers a satirical analysis of the self- help manual
genre. A guide on how you can get to the top of your chosen profession, or ahead
in life & in affairs of the heart, by acting in a Machiavellian manner, employing
dirty tricks or Cult Leader Tactics' to achieve your life goals. After experiencing
these types of human behaviours & themes, the album arrives at the conclusion
that the only true answer in life is love. Paul plays most of the instruments on the
album, including lead vocals, guitar & various Moogs & synthesisers. An album
produced with long-time collaborator & acclaimed producer Paul P-Dub' Walton
(Massive Attack, The Cure, Bjork) at Loft Studios, it also includes guest
appearances from Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson & Gam of the band Sweat' as
well as featuring a 288-person C.L.T. Lockdown Choir. Cult Leader Tactics' offers
a selection of Paul's most focused & ambitious work so far, a brilliantly dark
commentary on an industry he is all too aware of. Kscope are proud to present a
limited Picture Disc edition of Cult Leader Tactics'.

Over the last two years, the Innate and We’re Going Deep labels – run by friends Owain K and Placid respectively – have become must-check imprints for those seeking brand-new, timeless-sounding electro, deep house, acid and techno. Now the pair are joining forces on a new collaborative venture that looks to the past for inspiration: InnDeep.

Focused on unearthing and showcasing slept-on gems from across the deep spectrum, the reissue-focused label will have an emphasis on UK producers and imprints whose work in the ‘90s and 2000s has arguably been criminally overlooked.

To kick things off, they’re taking a deep dive into the back catalogue of Headspace Recordings and Emoticon co-founder Tom Churchill, a Welsh producer whose trademark take on deep house achieved cult status in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The Personal Interpretation EP was first released on Headspace way back in 1997, and dates back to a time when Tom was the very definition of a bedroom producer. He created the EP’s three tracks while still a teenager and mixed them down using the same pair of headphones he used for DJing.

Now painstakingly remastered, the EP sounds every bit as immersive and intergalactic as it did at the tail end of the last millennium. On the EP-opening title track, Churchill builds a sturdy, chunky groove out of clicking, hissing and metallic percussive elements and a wonderfully deep, tactile bassline, over which gorgeous chords, melodic motifs and eyes-closed vocal snippets stretch out as if reclining in the afternoon sun.

Churchill opts for a deeper, Detroit-influenced sound on ‘First Principles’, with undulating electronics and a raw analogue bassline working in unison with ghostly chords and deep space melodies, while ‘Crossed Wires’ is a tispy, off-kilter epic – all breathless drum machine rhythms, pots-and-pans percussion, woozy chords and weighty sub-bass. It provides a fittingly energetic, out-there end to a long-overlooked EP that remains as fresh now as it did back in 1997.

(180 gr vinyl) Musique Pour La Danse presents another collaboration with SF-based Jonah Sharp following the first ever vinyl release of his Reagenz LP with Move D in 2021. This time, the iconic Flurescence EP by his Spacetime Continuum solo project gets the reissue treatment, after being released on the Scotsman's own Reflective Records back in 1993 with an unforgettable holographic center label.

Musique Pour La Danse presents another collaboration with SF-based Jonah Sharp following the first ever vinyl release of his Reagenz LP with Move D in 2021.

This time, the iconic Flurescence EP by his Spacetime Continuum solo project gets the reissue treatment, after being released on the Scotsman's own Reflective Records back in 1993 with an unforgettable holographic center label.

There is a good reason why this EP, actually Sharp's debut release, was so hard to find at reasonable prices and why it has appeared in countless compilations and top lists in the last 3 decades with no sign of slowing down.

Truly timeless, this masterclass in forward thinking electronic music focuses on deeply textured, masterfully arranged, and skillfully morphing tracks with a cosmic tinge that feels warm instead of cold, and rewards repeat listens.

Prepare to bend the very fabric of spacetime during the 28 minutes of heavenly chill out and celestial techno/trance contained in this 12" black hole, remastered and repackaged for the 21st century. Title track Flurescence is one of the very few that actually captures the ambience of those magical floating years and a trip to the edges of outer space that never ceases to amaze, while Transmitter is a deep dive to the bottom of an ethereal ocean of fur suspended in time, with mysterious samples from the producer's answering machine to boot. Drift is a bona fide gem of rhythmic psychedelic electronic music, breaking down and projecting early trance, IDM and electronica ideas like a prism turning revealing a colorful spectrum of colours after being hit by light. Finally, the fast-paced dancefloor weapon Drug#6 is up there with Choice's Acid Eiffel, Resistance D's Cosmic Love, and Red Planet's Cosmic Movement in the intergalactic pantheon of narcotic, acid techno cuts.

Needless to say, zero gravity listening is strongly encouraged.

Quoth is the brainchild of Alex Egan (Utter) and Mike Smaczylo (Half Edge). Singular in focus, this newly minted (sub)label harnesses the pair’s diverse and expansive tastes in weird and hallucinatory sonics, aimed squarely at the dancefloor. We're very proud to present ‘Barney’s Maze’, a four-track EP of twisted techno, drawing influence from IDM, bass, and older strains of textural music.

‘Barney’s Maze’ is the work of Nottingham producer Coralie (aka Steven Randall). It fell on our ears strangely dislocated from time and place. Its sound world is utterly modern, technical and weird; mangled sonics slip deftly out of reach of easy categorisation. But the spirits evoked feel ancient, spectral resonances of a psychedelic continuum older than memory.

Haunting voices predominate: human, not too human, but captured and distorted by technology, cut from any source of context and voided of meaning. The sonic spaces conjured here are cavernous; great cathedral-like structures resonating with the collapsed centuries of digital time. Broken techno rhythms roll echoing in an artificial void with synthetic voices, raised to synthetic heavens. Strains of the sacred glimmer within a form that’s entirely profane, the most human of constructs.

It’s a stunning EP - moody, atmospheric and gorgeous, each track a world unto itself, but fully primed for the dance. We recommend it wholeheartedly.

Coralie tells us it’s dedicated to his dog.

Available on hand stamped vinyl, limited to 200 copies (including insert), and digital formats. Mastered by Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven.

MixCult presents LO-FI sublabel CRYSTAL MUD focused on limited edition lathe cut 7" & 10" discs.
Dub Techno Music in Dubplate Culture. Highly Exclusive.

First trained in his church choir, Print played in R&B bands in high school and later developed a reputation as a standout rapper. On Adventures in Counter-Culture, he experiments with the synths, keyboards, and drum machines that connected the musical dots of those early days.

Print began pursuing his career as a musician in 2001, working on several hip hop projects including his collaborative project Soul Position with DJ/Producer RJD2. Releasing The Unlimited EP & 8,000,000 Stories on Rhymesayers Entertainment with RJ, Blueprint began work in 2004 on what would become his first solo album, 1988. The success of that album allowed him to tour extensively throughout North America and Europe, before returning home to focus on writing and recording his next album. When he sat down to work on this sophomore effort, Print began with the dark, soulful and sample heavy hip hop of the early 90's, but soon found himself hitting a creative wall. What shook him loose was a new mission: to create an album that encompassed every facet of music he knew, blurring genre lines and bringing it back home as one cohesive listening experience. The more he worked to pair new found interest in rock & electronic music with his love of hip hop, the more he was able to break down that creative barrier.

Thus began his Adventures in Counter-Culture, a monumental undertaking that would involve reinventing himself as a musician and person. His growing cynicism with the world, his disdain for pop culture, the state of politics, and an apathetic, uninspired society, all worked as fuel to inspire this sophomore album. Moved by the impact that sampling lawsuits were having on the music community, Blueprint also decided to return to his roots and began writing and producing his own original content.

First trained in his church choir, Print played in R&B bands in high school and later developed a reputation as a standout rapper. On Adventures in Counter-Culture, he experiments with the synths, keyboards, and drum machines that connected the musical dots of those early days.

Print began pursuing his career as a musician in 2001, working on several hip hop projects including his collaborative project Soul Position with DJ/Producer RJD2. Releasing The Unlimited EP & 8,000,000 Stories on Rhymesayers Entertainment with RJ, Blueprint began work in 2004 on what would become his first solo album, 1988. The success of that album allowed him to tour extensively
throughout North America and Europe, before returning home to focus on writing and recording his next album. When he sat down to work on this sophomore effort, Print began with the dark, soulful and sample heavy hip hop of the early 90's, but soon found himself

hitting a creative wall. What shook him loose was a new mission: to create an album that encompassed every facet of music he knew, blurring genre lines and bringing it back home as one cohesive listening experience. The more he worked to pair new found interest in rock & electronic music with his love of hip hop, the more he was able to break down that creative barrier.

Thus began his Adventures in Counter-Culture, a monumental undertaking that would involve reinventing himself as a musician and person. His growing cynicism with the world, his disdain for pop culture, the state of politics, and an apathetic, uninspired society, all worked as fuel to inspire this sophomore album. Moved by the impact that sampling lawsuits were having on the music community, Blueprint also decided to return to his roots and began writing and producing his own original content.

Federico Madeddu Giuntoli is an italian multidisciplinary artist. Mostly autodidact, his art is based on groundedness and simplicity, and focused on the complexity of human journey in a non aggressive, warm and unfiltered way.

His works, ranging from contemporary art, music, writing and photography, are usually delicate and subtle, yet unequivocally tuned into a certain kind of pop communication, however essential and experimental it may be.

"The text and the form" is his first solo album, featuring german e-poetess AGF and japanese artist Moskitoo (12K).

The album is a collection of 11 minimal and intimate short songs, in which piano fragments, lonely guitar solos, spoken words and evocative vocals resonate with processed microsounds and lo-fi field recordings, creating a concise and very deep journey into romance and sense of mystery.

In the artist's words, "the album shaped itself according to a loose process of refinement and layering. A long, undisturbed assembling across more then a decade, often against my own will to reach a definitive form. If any relevance in this work can be found, I would say it resides in its capability to deliver a rare sense of vulnerability, longing and aliveness together, an aroma of improvisation and instability mixed with a unexplicable impression of perfection".

Y Bülbül is back on the controls accompanied by Yumurta, a percussionist from Istanbul. Pingipung introduced the London based artist in 2020 with his psychedelic, synth-laden debut “Fever”.

“Not One, Not Two” is based on a one-way transmission of improvised drum recordings from an industrial estate in Maslak, Istanbul to another one in Tottenham, London, where Y Bülbül laid down fragmented layers of bass, synths, guitars and field recordings over Yumurta’s singular drum takes. The result is a free-form deep listening album for fans of dub, ambient and kosmische music, where the groove and harmonies are mystically interwoven, yet somehow manage to stay on the brink of collapse. Although the sessions were non concurrent and scattered over two continents, the collaboration evokes scenes of a telepathic communion where individual perspectives, circumstances and stories are exchanged between the two.

Resembling Moondog, Holy Tongue or Luis Paniagua in the sense that they favor the raw over the polished, holistic presence over conceptual perfection and questions over answers, the duo’s focus on bare sounds and repetition guides the listener throughout the album. The ride cymbal opening the minimalistic “I’m This”, for instance, briskly disarms the listener who might have been looking for more traditional songwriting or production clues. There are plenty of immediately rewarding moments too in “Not One, Not Two,” like the organic acid bassline in “Maurin Quina”, the euphoric drum fills of “Big K” and the intoxicating groove of the hypnotic vibe-setter “Jah Oto”.

Bülbül is Turkish for a singing bird while Yumurta simply means egg. Which one is first? Who is to follow? It’s this enigmatic entanglement between the two artists which creates the lurking tension, emphasized by the Zen Kōan-like title. The beauty in this album is a peculiar one, and it certainly is a rabbit hole too. Dissonance is fluid as everything moves, and whenever two sounds collide, a third one emerges.

Finnegan's Hell has spawned a new subgenre within Celtic punk and folk rock by adding influences from hard rock, hillbilly country and Swedish folk. What the press has labeled "The New Wave Of Swedish Celtic Punk", takes no prisoners. With the focus on great melodies and sing-alongs, "One Finger Salute" is an album which will stand the test of time.

PRESS QUOTES ABOUT THE BAND:

"This is so good that I'd say it is superior to the latest offerings by the flagship bands of the sub-genre (looking at you Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys)" - The Mighty Decibel

"These Swedes have a solid grasp of the Celtic punk idiom and are able to use stomping folk melodies and traditional instrumentation to reveal, and revel in, the gnarlier side of life." - Vive Le Rock

"They may not be as well-known as the Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly, Blood Or Whiskey, or The Mahones, but they are gaining quite a reputation on the European scene. Listening to the band's last album, "Work Is The Curse Of The Drinking Class", it's easy to see why."
- IPA Music

"They're hard to describe, but just imagine a blend of Metallica and The Kilfenora Ceilí Band and you'd be about right." - The Irish Times

Second Editions presents a new collaborative work by Marja Ahti and Judith Hamann.

After their distinguished duet ‘Portals’ for Cafe Oto's Takuroku label, ‘A coincidence is perfect, intimate attunement’ is a wonderful sophomore collaborative work pieced together over two years of changing seasons, ideas, moods, and feelings. The release is formed from a shifting field of sound correspondence that pivots on moments of coincidence, of a tuning in.

What are we opening ourselves to when we tune in to sound? How can one be truly open to a sound? How can the activity of recording move beyond notions of capture and release into more generative frames? Rather than a tool purposed for preservation or ‘conservation’ of memory, of time and place, can recording sound instead form new vibrant or vibratory spaces of attunement?

‘A coincidence..’ is an LP length composition of multiple interlocking parts, created through exchange, alignment, unpredictability: the title borrowed from poet Fanny Howe falling right into place, a flock of birds in flight, pitches matched and moved across different geographies and temporal frames. Marja & Judith have created an intuitive, lyrical longform piece that considers the idea of attunement itself as, in some sense, the smallest form of measure or denominator connecting their respective practices: across field recording, just intonation, electronic sonorities and instrumental bodies. ‘A coincidence..’ reflects a sense of a willingness to tune in to impulses given, or gifted to the other, a position that embraces an intimate synchronicity.

Recordings & correspondances between 2020-2022. Mixed by Marja Ahti & Judith Hamann. Mastered and cut by Anne Taegert at Dubplates & Mastering in Berlin, 2022. Title quotation from Night Philosophy by Fanny Howe, Divided Publishing, 2020. Photogrpahy by Joshua Bonnetta. Thanks to Nino Bulling, Niko-Matti Ahti and leo. The work was supported by Kone Foundation, Akademie Schloss Solitude and NEUSTART KULTUR.

Marja Ahti (b. 1981) is a Swedish-Finnish composer and sound artist based in Turku, Finland. Ahti works with field recordings and other acoustic sound material combined with synthesizers and electronic feedback in order to find the space where these sounds start to communicate. She makes music that rides on waves of slowly warping harmonies and mutating textures – rough edged, yet precise compositions, rich in detail. Ahti has presented her music in many different contexts around Europe, in Japan and the United States. She is currently active in the duo Ahti & Ahti with her partner Niko-Matti Ahti and in the artist/organizer collective Himera.

Judith Hamann is a cellist and performer/composer from Narrm/Melbourne in so-called Australia, currently based in Berlin. Their work encompasses performance, improvisation, electro-acoustic composition, field recording, electronics, site specific generative work, and micro-tonal systems in a deeply considered process based approach to creative practice. Currently Judith’s work is focused on an examination of expressions and manifestations of 'shaking’ in solo performance practice, a collection of works for cello and humming, as well as ongoing research surrounding ‘collapse’ as a generative imaginary surface, and the ‘de-mastering’ of bodies (human and non-human) in European settler-colonial heritage instrumental practice and pedagogy. Judith likes working with and thinking-with other artists which sometimes includes people like Joshua Bonnetta, Dennis Cooper, Charles Curtis, Golden Fur (with James Rushford and Sam Dunscombe), Lori Goldston, the Harmonic Space Orchestra, Sarah Hennies, Yvette Janine Jackson, and Anike Joyce Sadiq.