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The Ghentian skyline has low peaks and hides its horrors in full view ~ walk streamside and you’ll quickly be confronted with façades that leer with their tales and secrets, the angels and demons that built this city holding up its mortar and stone in an inextricable embrace. It is within this incongruous backdrop that Benoît Monsieurs has fostered the Venediktos Tempelboom persona. Using the 12-string guitar as his main instrument, the self-taught musician creates passages that take fingerpicking Americana and Eastern transcendence into the Flanders fields, with winding compositions that distill the essence of giants like John Fahey, Robbie Basho and Jack Rose and folds them into the dark drone melancholia of Funeral Folk/KRAAK stalwarts like Silvester Anfang, Helvete and Ignatz. The results are ringing meditations of awe and terror, flamboyant and grotesque yet utterly mesmerizing in their unrooted sonic imagery.

In his debut LP, Syne Vuyle Hoeck, the Tempelboom amalgamates his influences - East, West and deep Flanders alike - into a flurry of acid-drenched tracks that spread out into a distinctive musical iconography. Each composition carries a facet, highlighting angel and demon in equal measure: the solemn opener “De woelige rit op een roze wolkje” is a threading of melodies that carry pensive heft and hopeful asides, as hints of ragtime buoyancy lead into sullen ruminations in a fully lucid change of course; “Ocharme Ochgod” is a sober penitence, slowly and almost imperceptibly building up into a tangle of lines that inexorably coil back into their brooding backbone; the echoing tape loop of “In Flock” reverberates and torments, steel sharpness and frayed magnetic disintegration finding improbable common ground; “El Contrario” swerves unforgivingly in an Eastern-infused openness reminiscent of Six Organs’ rawer days and unnervingly giving way to a forceful - dare we say upbeat - conclusion. And so one treks into the depths of the Tempelboomian universe, a place of high drama and low morals inhabited by a prankster creator who deploys euphoria and distress in equal measure. Just as the strings of his guitar are left to echo like sparkles in the dark, so his music lingers in the soil of our humanity, redolent of the kind of peace one can only make with the demons of the self.

Building on the promise of his standout Vacuum EP, Brendon Moeller returns to Samurai Music to dial his expert dub techno up to 170 for a full-length trip. Moeller is celebrated as a versatile operator applying cavernous sound design and decades-deep machine soul to a broad sweep of tempos and styles, and his pivot to D&B territory is as natural as it is original. It's a perfect fit on Samurai, where palettes, pressure and rhythms are continually yielding fresh results in this highly fertile zone of modern club music.

It's no secret Moeller is a prolific producer, and following his initial connection with Samurai he offered up a vast folder of tracks created in this latest furrow of his production. The label has since sifted through and puzzled out a sonic narrative, first realised on the Vacuum EP in June 2024 and now extended with Further. For anyone keyed into the deep, techno-informed innovations taking place at 170, there is a logical connection to Moeller's take on the sound, but at the same time these tracks stand apart from anything else out there right now. In the particular textures, the unfolding arrangements and monolithic reverbs Moeller threads together with hypnotic poise, his accomplished legacy shines through.

Whether it's the snarl of a delay feedback pushed a little further, a soaring synth swell sculpted into artful noise or a particular shuffle applied to a particular drum rack, Moeller's tracks unfold with a masterful poise, hitting the sweet spot between club-spirited physicality for the deepest of dance floors and introspective headphone trips. Teeming with detail, swathed in soul and engineered to perfection, the inspiration driving Moeller is palpable across the LP, and it's resulted in some of his finest work in a career studded with highlights.

PRESSED ON BLUE INK-IN-CLEAR COLORED VINYL IN A GATEFOLD JACKET WITH OBI, A FOLD-OUT LYRIC INSERT AND TWO BONUS REMIXES

Among hip-hop fans, Boogie Down Productions first two albums – Criminal Minded (1987) and By All Means Necessary (1988) – loom very large. And for good reason: they both captured one of the late 1980s most important and influential crews at their highest powers of lyricism and musical invention. That said, too many people sleep on BDPs third LP, Ghetto Music. Released in 1989, when the hip-hop world was truly beginning to explode and reach new heights of sales and exposure around the world, the album is arguably as powerful as the group's first two. As on By All Means Necessary, in the wake of the tragic death of the founder, producer, and DJ Scott LaRock, KRS-One pushed along mightily on the production side, with help from his extended crew. Musically the sound created on albums 2 & 3 was funky, catchy, and continually innovative, giving him the perfect backdrop to build his Edutainment syllabus. Lyrically there was never a question about KRS-One's power, and on Ghetto Music he continues to impress, teach, and ask important questions. Clear cases in point are two of the album's singles, "You Must Learn" and "Why Is That?" but he gets even deeper on tracks like the anti-police thought-piece "Who Protects Us From You" (still sadly relevant in 2024), "Ghetto Music" and "World Peace." Out of print on vinyl since 2017, Get On Down in partnership with Sony's CERTIFIED is proud to present this '89 classic fresh for 2024 you suckas! Pressed for the first time on double-colored vinyl and packaged in a gatefold jacket with a fold-out lyric sheet and two bonus remixes.

NOTON and The Vinyl Factory are pleased to announce the release of the new edition of Carsten Nicolai’s ∞ (Endless Loop Color Edition), under his alias Noto.

This new limited edition box set celebrates Carsten Nicolai’s beloved interactive installation, bausatz noto, currently featured at The Vinyl Factory: Reverb exhibition at 180 Studios.

The exhibition features an expanded version of Nicolai’s artwork bausatz noto (1998) – an interactive piece centered around four Technics SL-1210 turntables and a selection of colored vinyl records. Visitors are invited to select and play the records, each of which has been cut with 9 or 8 unique locked grooves on each side. As Nicolai explains, “the different colors indicate different sound material, from the very abstract to the graphic” that users can loop and layer to create infinite permutations and combinations.

Previously released as a sold-out signed edition with a hardback book, this 2024 box set edition brings the installation into your own space. Comprised of twelve 10” colored vinyl records, each featuring 18 or 16 unique locked grooves (9 or 8 per side), the concept remains the same: Nicolai provides the tools to build your own soundscapes.

The records are sleeved in twelve custom-made archive folders, housed in a handmade box with artwork. Limited to 1000 copies worldwide.

Lacquers created by Lupo / Calyx Mastering

"My Bed Is An Island" is the third single from The Chesterfields album "New Modern Homes". A live favourite on the recent tour dates, the vinyl 7inch version is limited to 300 copies worldwide and comes in a luxurious package of a classic 90s style indie fold-out sleeve in a memory game style, and two inlays including a full discography plus an album souvenir insert, designed by the Terrible Hildas.

Dauw welcomes back the multidisciplinary artist Zander Raymond to the label with a reissue of his debut album ‘separate in space’. Previously only available on USB/digital, it's now presented in a remastered version for cassette tape alongside a risograph interpretation of the initial artwork.

“I’m listening to the album right now. Are you? If so, you’re likely awash in the humble glow of these tracks, which seem to wonder and wander in equal measure. Yet there are also keen shifts in pace, texture, and pulse that make Separate in Space a dynamic and extremely sessionable atmosphere to revisit. It is perhaps not surprising that, as a visual artist, Zander’s work is grounded in collage and sculpture. The necessary tactility of those mediums is certainly evident here, rippling and dimensional.

In this music, I hear the rhythms of different ecosystems and organisms being evoked–a burbling stream on one track, maybe a dawn chorus on another. Those same tracks could just as soon soundtrack a crowded morning commute. Its adaptability and cohesion are the result of the patient curiosity Zander brings to activating and arranging sound. I hope you’ll spend time with Separate in Space and discover how it shapes you.” - Ned Milligan (Florabelle Records)

The Kings of Northern Hyperblast wear the crown once more with pride: “In The Arms Of Devastation” is a monster of an album that strongly reaffirms KATAKLYSM´s pole position in the world of extreme Metal. Produced by the man himself, KATAKLYSM guitarist J-F Dagenais, “In The Arms Of Devastation” received its accolade through the mixing of mastermind Tue Madsen at the Danish Antfarm Studios. Their 8th album shows the band at its best after a long journey of evolution through the folds of all things brutal, technical, extreme and, most of all, heavy! All the trademarks we love so much about KATAKLYSM bare their teeth in the indeed devastating nine tracks of “In The Arms Of Devastation”. “Like Angels Weeping The Dark” is a killer of an opener and guaranteed to tear the whole place to pieces, whilst the slow, grinding and almost doomy “Crippled And Broken” is the tank that will flatten the remains of the wreckage. “It Turns To Rust” is a first in the band’s history: the first time vocalist Maurizio Iacono has ever recorded a duet for KATAKLYSM. Together with KITTIE singer Morgan Lander he turns the track into a fierce duel loaded with screams and growls from hell. A lesson in violence – just like the whole album, so prepare for total devastation, prepare for the return of the mighty KATAKLYSM!

Prairiewolf make easy listening music for an age of fracture. They almost do it in spite of themselves. No one can seriously question the head music bona fides of the members of this Colorado-based trio.

Guitarist Stefan Beck has already assembled a formidable discography of jewel-toned guitar zone-outs under his Golden Brown moniker. And keyboardist and guitarist Jeremy Erwin and bassist Tyler Wilcox have both made their reputations as chroniclers of the vast world of out-music. Erwin helms the indispensable Heat Warps blog, a performance-by-performance archive of Miles Davis’s labyrinthine electric period. And Wilcox has been covering the ragged edges of psychedelia and experimental rock at Aquarium Drunkard and other publications, not to mention his own virtual basement for heads, the great bootleg blog Doom and Gloom from the Tomb.

These guys come by it honestly. And yet, given their backgrounds, Prairiewolf’s self-titled debut last spring was remarkably free of face-melters, brown acid blowouts, and ascendant spiritual jazz odysseys. Instead, they dropped a record of beautiful, elegant, low-key cosmic groovers that sounded like the piped-in background music to a resort hotel on Jupiter. It was an unlikely psychedelia, brocaded with mid-twentieth century sonic threading from the hi-fi era: vintage synthesizers, smears of spaghetti western, luxe tropical details, the faint schmaltz of space age pop. Imagine something like a Harmonia residency in the airport lounge. And yet somehow it all worked brilliantly. Prairiewolf became last summer’s cool-down standard. After a year woodshedding around Colorado’s Front Range region, the Prairiewolf boys have fired up their trusty Korg SR-120 drum machine for another outstanding collection of suborbital exotica. The appropriately titled Deep Time operates in its own chronology, unspooling at its unhurried pace. All its incongruous period and stylistic references—the new age pulses, Hawaiian steel, shaggy hippie rambles, lysergic guitar spirals, and orchestral synthesizer flourishes—float atop the album’s own singular temporality. Deep Time makes its own time.

From the moment Beck folds his slide guitar, origami-like, into a sound resembling the call of gulls on the tranquil album opener, “Peach Blossom Paradise,” there is a sense of departure from everyday life. The shimmering “Lighthouse” has a similar sunbaked nonchalance, like an afternoon passed day-drinking in a seaside bar. That they named their lush, kaleidoscopic downtempo track “The Meander” pretty much says it all. The ranging, propulsive “Saying Yes to Everything” seems like a nod in the direction of Rose City Band’s brand of wookie krautrock. And the motorik noir of “Demon Cicadas in the Night” also goes hard. Beck and Erwin’s intertwined guitar jam on the eerie album standout “The Cold Curve” evolves into something that sounds like primitive computer music. A genteel bassline from Wilcox on another album highlight, “Revisionist Mystery,” sets the stage for a loopy space jazz turn from guest clarinettist Matt Loewen of Rayonism. The title of post-rock cowboy tune “Another Tomorrow” might refer to the alternative future that so many critics heard in the music of Prairiewolf’s first album. Or it might simply refer to the persistence of time, however deep. Either way,

I’m thankful for the way Prairiewolf make each of their tunes a little oasis or sanctuary, each subsisting according to its own crystalline little logic for a few minutes. It is no simple task to filter out the omnipresent anger and anxiety of everyday life these days. But Prairiewolf are out here making it seem easy.

Brent S. Sirota

An extremely prolific artist, whose work encompasses composition, opera, theatre, radio plays, film or performance, Ergo Phizmiz returns in due time to the Discrepant fold long after his 'Two Quartets' and 'Disco Carousel' - under his given DW Robertson name - albums. A purveyor of the Creative Commons rights, Phizmiz has been deploying much of his work on the ever expanding Free Music Archive directed by WFMU since the early 2000's, creating a sprawling and defiant body of work that defies given and stale notions of sound hierarchies, history and copyright through a process that comprises collage, sampling, reappropriation, songwriting, covers and pretty much any available media with a playful and thoughtful approach.
For this new Discrepant entry, Phizmiz goes back in time to push into the future a number of pieces recorded more than two decades ago creating this perpetual motion outside a linear chronologic progression. Anticipating by almost 20 years the memefication of ASMR videos, 'Selected Ambient & ASMR Works 2001-2003' - itself a pun on the AFX classics - embraces the ambient tag not at its functional face value, but instead as a means to the "evocation of imaginary spaces, and correspondingly the invention of their sonic environments". Collecting recordings from a myriad of instruments - violin, xylophone, banjo, kora, found percussion and so on...-, shortwave radio and field recordings to create loops with different lengths that play with and/or against themselves continuously in a process "(dis)conjunction" not far removed from Feldman's 'Why Patterns?' or hip-hop's sampledelia. A free-floating temporal space that collapses the flashing images of Angelfire pages unto Web 2.0 sense of displacement.

We welcome back Tom Carruthers to the M.A.D fold, first appearing on a V.A back in 2022 it give us great pleasure to present a full EP from enigmatic producer.

Fresh Selects presents the 5 year anniversary re-issue of the underground classic debut LP from one of R&B's most promising stars, SiR. Now a member of Top Dawg Entertainment (alongside Kendrick Lamar, SZA, and more) and signed to RCA, SiR's independent debut features early appearances from both Anderson. Paak and SiR's brother D Smoke (now the winner of Netflix's hit show Rhythm & Flow), as well as production from Knxwledge, Iman Omari, Chris "Daddy" Dave, Tiffany Gouché and more. Long since out-of-print, this 2020 edition of the LP includes new artwork and a fold-out poster, including the original photo that was used for the album cover.

Wo endet The Skull und wo beginnt Legions of Doom? Die Antwort könnte "genau hier" sein. Willkommen bei 'The Skull 3'. Der Tod des Sängers Eric Wagner (The Skull, Ex-Trouble, Blackfinger usw.) im Jahr 2021 überschattete das Debüt von Legions Of Doom, da The Skull-Gitarrist Lothar Keller und Bassist Ron Holzner (ebenfalls Ex-Trouble) Song-Material bearbeiteten, das auf dem dritten Album dieser Band zu finden gewesen wäre. Mit Wagners Beteiligung an der Komposition und dem Segen der Familie des Sängers bewegen sich Legions Of Doom weiter in Richtung Supergroup-Territorium, indem sie Drummer Henry Vasquez (Saint Vitus, Blood Of The Sun) und Sänger Karl Agell (u.a. Corrosion Of Conformity aus der 'Blind'-Ära) sowie Scott Reagers (ursprünglicher Frontmann von Saint Vitus) in die Gruppe aufnahmen. Wagners Geist ist Teil dieser Platte, ganz zu schweigen von seinem Gesang auf 'Heaven' - aber Legions of Doom sind mehr als eine Hommage. Am Ende wird die Platte ebenso sehr zu einem Debüt, wie sie es je als drittes Album für The Skull hätte sein können, und die Persönlichkeit von Legions Of Doom wird sofort durch die Gesangseinlagen von Reagers und Agell unterstrichen. Ja, es ist klassischer Doom von Veteranen, die diese Musikform mitgeprägt haben. Translucent Green Haze Vinyl-LP mit Foldout-Cover und bedrucktem Inner Sleeve; Jewel-Case-CD mit 12-seitigem Booklet.

cLOUDDEAD's debut album, compiling six 10" EPs that appeared between 2000-2001, is aurally dense and obscured. A sprawling mass of miniature beat-suites and Dadaist lyrics, this strange and beautiful 3xLP would influence a myriad of sub-genres (cloud rap, hauntology, lo-fi hip-hop, etc.) in the two decades since its initial release.

Only the three members of cLOUDDEAD – Why?, Doseone and Odd Nosdam – can speak to the group's origins, but in the context of underground hip-hop towards the end of the 20th century, their arrival makes perfect sense. Cincinnati had a vital scene; home to Scribble Jam, an annual confluence of MCs, DJs, B-boys and graffiti artists. While the trio soon relocated to the Bay Area where they co-founded the Anticon collective, their Midwestern roots – in ramshackle basements of off-campus hovels, as the "cerberus of Southern Ohio" – would remain the atomic heart of their early recordings.

As Chris Martins writes in the liner notes, "The only reason we know their names today is because of how loudly and curiously they aired their insularity. They rewrote the entire world as they knew it through their own fucked perspective, and when those mysterious 10-inches started popping up in record shops, it wasn't just a puzzle to investigate: there seemed to be a whole cosmology hidden in those grooves."

Each side of the album represents one of those elusive 10-inches, each embodying a universe unto itself. Opening salvo "Apt. A" and "And All You Can Do Is Laugh" are perhaps most emblematic of the cLOUDDEAD experience. Why? and Dose create a new language through boundless non-sequiturs, sing-song non-choruses and call-and-response hooks, while Nosdam's dexterous production shifts from crackling ambience of Flying Saucer Attack to tight Ohio Players drum breaks and oblique film samples.

Taken all together, cLOUDDEAD is an original interpretation of hip-hop in the surreal Y2K glow – a bizarre meeting point between William Basinski's Disintegration Loops and MF DOOM's Operation: Doomsday. All it took was a Dr. Sample SP-202, Tascam cassette eight-track and cheap RadioShack mic. There's truly nothing like it.

This edition has been faithfully restored by Nosdam. European exclusive version comes on clear vinyl, incl. fold-out poster and liner notes insert.

First Word Records is proud to present 'Nothing Leaves The House - The Anthology'. A vinyl-only album of 16 hip hop instrumentals from Mr Thing, kidkanevil, Tall Black Guy & Eric Lau. This is a collection of a long-out-of print series of beats from four of the most revered beat-makers in the underground scene.

This double-vinyl collection features four brand new tracks specially created for this 10 year anniversary release. The concept behind this project was originally birthed on Record Store Day 2012. First Word label founder Gilla explains "as we dipped in and out of London's Soho record shops, kidkanevil mentioned to me that he wanted to mine Mr Thing's vast record collection for samples. An idea formed to invite a couple of other beatmakers to join him and to press the resulting beats onto vinyl.

Mr Thing enthusiastically agreed to the idea with one stipulation: they could sample what they wanted, but the records had to stay within the walls of his flat. We quickly enlisted Eric Lauand Tall Black Guy to complete the quartet and 'Nothing Leaves The House' was born." The release came to fruition and was released a decade ago, for Record Store Day in April 2014. The quartet met up once again shortly after in another London record shop, to work on a follow up project.

For this one, Mr Thing brought one record for each producer from his collection for them to sample. They reciprocated by picking a record from the racks in the shop for him to use. 'Thing Leaves The House' was then released in 2015. Completing the trilogy of releases, the crew were invited to the legendary John Peel Archive to dig for samples there. After trawling the legendary Peel Acres collection, the producers individually selected sound snippets to create new beats from; this time under the stipulation that 'Nothing Leaves The Archive'. This double 7" release again landed on Record Store Day, 2016. Gilla says "10 years on from the release of the first record, and almost 9 years to the day since we were at Peel Acres, we are now releasing the 4th and final volume.

Whilst Mr Thing is still in England, the other three have travelled far and wide. Eric Lau is now in China, Tall Black Guy has returned to the US and kidkanevil has moved to Berlin. Our indie label budget didn't extend to uniting everyone from the different continents, so instead Mr Thing uploaded a folder of tracks for the trio to work from. With the previous volumes now long sold out, we've added the original beats to this anthology and have moved up from a double 7" to a double 12" LP. One side for each producer; four tracks made across 10 years." 'Nothing Leaves The House - The Anthology' is released on double vinyl, on Black Friday, November 29th 2024.

During the ‘Bad With Names’ promo campaign, Liam Shortall produced 108 new demo ideas for corto.alto, a process not focused on perfection, but rather with the aim to produce as many ideas as possible and deepen his individual writing and production style. Early 2024, he had 108 ideas in a folder - not fully composed tracks that would be placed well on a standard 12 track album, but not throw away ideas either. He decided to dedicate the following 4 months to finish 30 of these tracks; recording some of his favourite musicians in his home studio and remotely. The goal wasn’t to make a perfectly clean and polished album, but to get these ideas out into the world and explore new grooves, sound design worlds and composition ideas Each track has its own single artwork created from photos that Liam took on tour over the last year. The process of making these artworks was very similar to the music: create something from the material you have without doubting yourself - focusing on the creative process rather than the perfect end results.

10 years after their debut, City Of All Times audio-visual enquirers John B McKenna and Richard Greenan re-appear as Devonanon, to share the findings of a decade-long sonic experiment. Like its predecessor, Richard & John is a living, breathing collection of field recordings and compositions, gathered gradually from remote corners of the pair's lives. Familiar waypoints - interwoven microtonal synths, regurgitated live performances, polite whispering, and the gurgling hum of vehicles (land and sea) - all fold into the perpetual stew.

Where City read like a crumpled postcard account of fraternal reportage, Richard & John is a tone poem on something more amorphous, and out of time - a garbled history of human closeness, upheaval and mark-making, that seems to buckle and creak like a tapestry with no beginning or end. No two spoonfuls are the same, as our story reels through kosmische library stylings ('Wilderness Engine'), to cortex-quieting free association ('Generate Countryside'), and baroque instrumentation ('Blood Laughing', which features beautiful turns from Masayoshi Fujita on vibraphone, and Rosa Juritz on bassoon).

a centrifugal spin collapses inward
sucked into the ground
vibrating with the quake beneath the crust
the folding repeats itself in time
an echo amid the buildings of a primordial era

with closed eyes
the shapes begin to take form
in the debris
objects clump together into conglomerates

a scream
trapped in water-retaining cells
the moss that embeds itself after
a short passage of time
you talk back
but I can’t hear you

something springs forth
somewhere

a remnant that remains

—
Strange Meridians is an album by multidisciplinary artist upsammy. It is released by adventurous electronic music label topo2 on November 21, 2024. The record is pressed on 180 grams of ICCS-certified bio-vinyl, housed in a heavy full-colour sleeve, and comes with a download-code to the full release. Mastering is done by Isabel Schröer at Scape Mastering and artwork by courtesy of Thessa Torsing and Kees de Klein. Poetry by Thessa Torsing with editing by Eelco Couvreur.

Remember Bones Brigade Video Show, Future Primitive, Animal Chin featuring the skating of Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero, Tommy Guerrero, Mike McGill, and more? How many times did you and your friends watch these videos? Over and over and over. Did you know there was also original music by various artists playing while you watched these videos? This is the first ever vinyl pressing, double black and red vinyl gatefold jacket with mp3 download card and 2-sided fold out poster. You will instantly be transported back to this visual feast of skating, or if these videos are new to you, you will fall in love with the music from these classic skate videos.

Ben Kaczor and Niculin Barandun reveal their debut album on Dial Records, dedicated to the healing properties of sound. »Pointed Frequencies« contains six mesmerizing compositions. The collaboration between Niculin Barandun and Ben Kaczor started in 2022 with a carte blanche for an audiovisual show at Digital Art Festival Zurich. While working on the performance, a common understanding of sound aesthetics emerged and the foundation for the duo’s project was laid. At that time Ben Kaczor studied sound therapy. Niculin Barandun was intrigued by the concept, and it became subject of the album's creation.

The intention behind »Pointed Frequencies« is to explore the therapeutic potential of binaural beats and solfeggio frequencies, providing listeners with a healing experience. These elements are subtly integrated into the recordings, becoming a freeform blend of experimental and ambient music. A contemporary approach suspends the esoteric background common in this field. Instead, the focus is on crafting a unique sound that is appealing to those seeking a more accessible form of musical recreation. With the dynamics of free improvisation, Ben Kaczor and Niculin Barandun create virtuosly interwoven sound structures. Ambient timbres evoke the presence of the room and create an experience of wordless thinking. An immersive journey invites the listener to sense of intimacy and movement. Calmness and contemplation, beauty and melancholy meet unconventional and stochastic scenes of dramatic character.

One of the Most Exhilarating Live Albums Ever Released: Santana’s Lotus Documents 1973 Performances Distinguished by Passionate Soulfulness, Chemistry, and Inventiveness

Mobile Fidelity’s 180g 33RPM 3LP Set Features Reference Sound and Deluxe Trifold Packaging Faithful to That of the Original Japanese Import: Strictly Limited to 5,000 Numbered Copies, Includes Four Photo Inserts and Two Fold-Out Posters

The bizarre legacy of Lotus transcends its status as both the definitive onstage document of Santana’s career and one of the most spectacular live albums ever released. Originally issued in 1974, the triple LP contains exhilarating performances of the band recorded at two shows in early July 1973 at the 2400-seat Osaka Kosei Nenkin Kaikan concert hall. It bears witness to the eight-piece collective playing with a chemistry, inventiveness, cohesiveness, and soulfulness no other Santana lineup would ever surpass. Featuring seven previously unreleased tracks as well as remarkable renditions of material from Santana’s first four albums and the Carlos SantanaJohn McLaughlin collaboration Love Devotion Surrender, Lotus simultaneously suggests and inspires, dreams and delivers.

Transferred by original engineer Tomoo Suzuki, strictly limited to 3,000 numbered copies, and housed in deluxe trifold packaging faithful to that of the original pressing, Lotus benefits from reference audiophile treatment on Mobile Fidelity’s 180g 3LP set. Featuring rich tones, smooth dynamics, excellent separation, deep soundstages, and involving presence, this reissue pays tribute to both the virtuosic lineup and the magnetic fusion of Latin- and Afro-Cuban-influenced jazz, rock, psychedelia, R&B, and blues. The complexity of the spiritual passages, demands of the crescendos, delicacy of the calm transitions, electricity of the solos: everything is rendered with superb balance and free of the harshness, compression, and fatiguing peaks that would otherwise distract from the presentations at hand. Black magic, indeed.

Did you know there are horses on the cover of Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version? There are at least three in the right hand corner, gathered inexplicably near a white canvas tent, a human possibly perched among its folds. As widescreen and vast as the cover may seem, those little details-the horses, the possible human, the faint wisp of white clouds-give it depth and wonder, something to which the imagination can return. Did you know that the music on Earth 2-repressed now for its 30th anniversary, back in its original artwork, and accompanied by a riveting set of remixes that demonstrate the reach of what Dylan Carlson long ago called "ambient metal"-works much the same way? The surface is massive and obvious, the meatpaw riffs of Carlson and bassist Dave Harwell pounding and swiping and pawing at the speakers, a true bludgeon in three-dimensional sound. Listen, though, for the details in the corners, for the finesse beneath the force, and Earth 2 reveals new levels of depth and wonder. The widespread impact of Earth 2 suggests that others have indeed been leaning in, listening to these minutiae and making something new of them. A masterpiece without many genre precedents, Earth 2 surely helped send doom metal down its more modern drone, ambient, and avant-garde avenues. Those descendants are obvious. Perhaps more surprising and gratifying are the ways it has influenced electronic music, modern composition, and even hip-hop by realigning our senses of tempo, time, and texture. Earth 2 engendered a rearrangement of expectations, regardless of preferred form.

PRESENTED FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER ON VINYL AS A DOUBLE LP IN A GOLD VINYL PRESSING WITH A FOLD-OUT INSERT

As music fans know, James Brown wasn't just the greatest funk and soul singer the world has ever seen - he was also a musical visionary and businessman, who surrounded himself with geniuses who made him better and pushed him further. From horn masters Maceo Parker and Pee Wee Ellis to vocalists Lyn Collins and Bobby Byrd, Brown was a musical A & R master, restless and always looking for the next big thing. Most times, that would manifest in the latest James Brown smash under his own name. But not always. His stable of talent was overflowing in the 60s and 70s, and, thankfully, the tape machine in his studio was always rolling. Originally released in 1988, during the era of hip-hop's golden age of sampling, it's no surprise that just about every note heard in this incredible collection has been used on not one, but multiple rap classics. Which, at the time, was proof of Brown's (and his crew's) staying power. But we are over three decades beyond those days now, and it has lost none of its musical potency. Diving deeper into the vaults than the also-incredible Part 1 of the Funky People series, there is not a weak track in the bunch. Moving beyond well-known JBs cuts, things get interesting from the get-go with Bobby Byrd's monumental groove "I Know You Got Soul". Hank Ballard and Marva Whitney also enter the fray, leading the way to Myra Barnes's emotional and powerful "Message From The Soul Sisters (Parts 1 & 2)" and Lyn Collins's slow, smoldering cover of Isaac Haye's "Do Your Thing." Politics even get the funky soul treatment, with Fred Wesley & The JBs "You Can Have Watergate But Gimme Some Bucks And I'll Be Straight" and "I'm Paying Taxes, But What Am I Buying?" And it should not be overlooked that Maceo & The Macks instrumental workout "Soul Power ‘74" even features a proto-sampling snippet from MLK’s I’ve Been To The Mountaintop speech from 1968. This is another amazing collection of James Brown's funky friends, without one second of filler, brought to you as a glorious 2-LP gatefold by your friends at Get On Down.

2024 Reissue

The syndicate manifests its sonic potential in full glory. Giving rise to this collection of colossal heavyweights, Sentry demonstrates its spotless record of selecting certified heavyweights for the discography once again, twenty-fold. Stepping into the ring are some of the scene's most prolific artists alongside a plethora of promising, choice newcomers.

Boasting more than an hour of supercharged sound system pressure with names like Caspa, Truth, Bukez Finezt, Nomine and Youngsta himself on the controls - the subsequent inferno proves to be an authoritative display of quality bass music, that is sure to reach roaring stacks of speakers all around the globe for years to come."

"Vintage flavours transmute into fiery low-end excursions in 'Sun Ra' as Onhell reigns with fire and brimstone and makes way for what's to come. Rolling on, Taso lays waste with dimly lit half-time flows as we enter the smoke-filled mansion of Argo's meticulously crafted 'Since Then' - a prime cut of hip-hop infused breakbeats and bass.

Abstrakt Sonance & Substance set the heater into overdrive and blunts aflame as we proceed into the shelling of 207's 'Gypsy Dub' - then promptly being crunched to bits by 'Crocodile' - encapsulating Dayzero's cold-blooded dance floor armaments. Brace yourself for battle as we step to the drums of Caspa's tribal warfare, full-frontal assault engineered for the club.

Unrestrained power surges propelling us onwards in Coltcut & Ourman's decidedly high-grade collaboration as listeners march through Khiva's haunting sound system belter 'Teeth' and a zealous dosage of Dubstep as envisioned by Truth. Led through eerie alleys and pressure-ridden environments with LSN on the buttons, the onslaught proceeds with the relentlessly driving 'R U Broke' in Mr. K's signature style.

Opus merciless injects straight fury in an auditory form in the spiked 'Lime Pickle' - Bukez Finezt keeping pace with a murderous Cembalo-ridden thug anthem, lunacy! Minimal instrumentation to its fullest effect, Sukh Knight's 'Modulate' keeps it spicy - as does the claustrophobic sub-bass chiming by Leftlow. Thanom ignites what's left of the residual air in 'Tumble It' - dangerous goods.

The subsequent time bomb armed by A:Grade & Feonix, cast into the abyss that is Nomine's space-bending 'Judas' - big speaker business. The clock strikes its final hour - Youngsta & Cimm finish off the survivors with a no-holds-barred showdown, the 'Last Judgement' executing its massive verdict.

The eagerly anticipated release from the Glasgow-born award-winning producer and DJ comes with a
full-size booklet of lyrics & exclusive imagery selected by TAAHLIAH, as well as a fold out poster in full
colour print. If you’ve caught her ecstatic DJ sets, heard her AIM award-winning debut EP Angelica, or
spun her bootleg club edits, you know TAAHLIAH to be an artist not bound by genre borders. With her
debut album, Gramarye, she continues her eclectic approach, interweaving pop ballad songwriting and
club-ready anthems to delve into and represent her internal world.

DJ Support: Alix Perez, Hybrid Minds, DJ Marky, DJ Krust, Doc Scott, Pola & Bryson, AC Slater, Imanu, Hamdi and more.

1985 Music presents the first edition of 'Fragment' their new various artist series. Featuring familiar faces from the imprint and special guests, this album combines the 1985 Music sound in all forms.

Featuring tracks from label head honcho Alix Perez with the strictly soulful 'Bloomsbury', while New Zealand producer/DJ Headland reworks 'Trust' the anthem from EPROM. Joining the fold GLM, Eijer and Satl make their debut on the imprint while regular artists Visages, Drone, Bredren and Ebb continue to deliver the goods.

Radio support: Charlie Tee BBC Radio 1, Fred V Kiss FM, Mary Anne Hobbes BBC 6 Music, 1985 Music RinseFM show (monthly).

Next up on Feral Child, sees not only a second ever release from New Zealand based VOR-STELLEN but a teaming up with one of label head dom’s favourite ever labels, the mighty Flying Nun. Despite some patchy European distribution the first VS release “Parallelograms”, was a constant player at FC HQ; 4 superb tracks of super laid back, kraut flavoured slow burners, (lead track “Voyager” especially, comes hugely recommended with its accompanying film clip), so when the band OK’d a second release for Feral Child, we were stoked. Vor-stellen is the experimental project of Brendan Moran, which blends fixated guitars and drums with ad-hoc electronic layers producing perforated waves of sustain which echoes off the fourth wall. Brendan has released work previously as part of avoid!avoid (their album “Particle and Wave” was released by Flying Nun in 2016) and The Subliminals, of which Flying Nun re-released -in 2021- a vinyl edition of their highly acclaimed album “United State”. With Vor-stellen he picks up where those other projects have left off as a foray into 'kraut' inspired compositions “which seek to transform pre-determined ideas of music into open-ended sound objects, untethered from any sense of conventional outcomes”. On this, second VS record, he teams up with his Subliminal buddies once again to continue on an exploration, “folding the weird and the eerie into a dark ecology of long-sound via indefatigable environments of modulation and improvisation, creating sonic counterpoints that hinge on a reanimation of musical gestures”. The record features two side long slow builders and are released in a beautiful Brendan Moran designed sleeve.

“Christmas is constant,” says Ben Folds. “Allowing you to take stock of what’s different, to understand who you are and all the ways you’ve grown and changed.” That notion lies at the heart of Folds’ brilliantly titled new holiday collection, Sleigher. Built on an eclectic mix of originals and reimagined classics, the album examines thepassage of time through the lens of Christmas, reflecting on memory, loss, and longing as it explores the variety of ways the yuletide season marks the chapters of our lives. The songs are playful here, full of humor and cheer, but they’re also laced with an inescapable sense of melancholy, a looming darkness that always seems to hover around the periphery of those late December nights. Folds’ performances, meanwhile, flirt with the standards while stretching the boundaries of tradition, at times offering up flashes of Vince Guaraldi and Burt Bacharach while still remaining true to Folds’ singularly virtuosic brand of off-kilter indie pop. The result is not so much a Ben Folds Christmas record as it is a Ben Folds record set at Christmas, a meditation on the inexorable turning of the calendar and our ever changing selves as observed at the most wonderful—and challenging—time of the year.

Queen’s self-titled debut album will be remixed and released this October. This is the first time that a Queen album has been remixed. Retitled Queen I for this release, the front cover’s Queen logo, originally designed by Freddie Mercury, will be updated with the addition of the Roman numeral “I”. The original album was recorded in 1972 and was released in July 1973 on EMI Records in the UK and Elektra in the USA.

Featuring the singles “Keep Yourself Alive” and “Liar”, the album achieved Gold sales in the UK and USA, and has been a fan favourite ever since.

This Collector’s Edition sees the album presented in a whole new light, having been newly mixed from the original multi-track masters, and with the song “Mad The Swine” now reinstated into the album running order in its originally intended place.

The bonus discs that complete the 6CD+1LP set include: De Lane Lea Demos (also newly mixed from the original multi-track masters for the very first time); a CD comprised entirely of previously unreleased Queen I session out-take music and dialogue; a CD of instrumental and backing track versions of the album; a live CD featuring some of the best and most interesting live performances of songs from this album (some of which are previously unreleased); and finally, a disc comprised of Queen I tracks that were recorded for BBC Radio One (including DJ announcements).

Queen I – including “Mad The Swine” – is also presented on 180g black vinyl.

The Collector’s Edition is complemented by the addition of a 108-page 12” hardback book, which features a treasure trove of rare and previously unseen photography, hand-written lyrics, Freddie Mercury’s sketches, and more.

Presented in a rigid two-piece box with fold-out poster and four photo prints

Queen’s self-titled debut album will be remixed and released this October. This is the first time that a Queen album has been remixed. Retitled Queen I for this release, the front cover’s Queen logo, originally designed by Freddie Mercury, will be updated with the addition of the Roman numeral “I”. The original album was recorded in 1972 and was released in July 1973 on EMI Records in the UK and Elektra in the USA.

Featuring the singles “Keep Yourself Alive” and “Liar”, the album achieved Gold sales in the UK and USA, and has been a fan favourite ever since.

This Collector’s Edition sees the album presented in a whole new light, having been newly mixed from the original multi-track masters, and with the song “Mad The Swine” now reinstated into the album running order in its originally intended place.

The bonus discs that complete the 6CD+1LP set include: De Lane Lea Demos (also newly mixed from the original multi-track masters for the very first time); a CD comprised entirely of previously unreleased Queen I session out-take music and dialogue; a CD of instrumental and backing track versions of the album; a live CD featuring some of the best and most interesting live performances of songs from this album (some of which are previously unreleased); and finally, a disc comprised of Queen I tracks that were recorded for BBC Radio One (including DJ announcements).

Queen I – including “Mad The Swine” – is also presented on 180g black vinyl.

The Collector’s Edition is complemented by the addition of a 108-page 12” hardback book, which features a treasure trove of rare and previously unseen photography, hand-written lyrics, Freddie Mercury’s sketches, and more.

Presented in a rigid two-piece box with fold-out poster and four photo prints

"Dark Horse Records celebrates the 25th Anniversary of ROCK ART AND THE X-RAY STYLE, the debut album by JOE STRUMMER AND THE MESCALEROS, with a 2LP black vinyl pressing (including a limited lyric sheet reproduction) and CD.
The remastered 1999 album, which was Strummer’s first album release in a decade, is spread over 2 LP’s for optimal sound quality, and the original gatefold artwork by Damien Hirst has been meticulously reproduced.
The LP also includes a reproduction of Joe’s handwritten lyrics to the song “X-Ray Style.” The CD includes a fold-out poster."

Distance as a measure of time and place informs Kelly Finnigan's, A Lover Was Born with a grit and grace that turns passion into virtue. The latest solo release from The Monophonics frontman roots itself in the best traditions of midwest soul labels like King, Curtom, Dakar, and the Bodie Recording Company. A Lover Was Born is a testimony that these deep cut grooves are not resigned to nostalgia, instead, they are at the burning heart of longing and hope. The journey Finnigan takes listeners on over Lover's eleven tracks echo the state of motion and growth since his solo debut, The Tales People Tell (2019). These two records bookend a prolific period of output, including a pair of Monophonics albums, a Christmas album, a mixtape, and a full slate of producing other artists (The Ironsides, Alanna Royale, the Sextones). "There's nothing like making records," says Finnigan. "It feels like that's my purpose _ the reason I was put on this earth." Written in California, Ohio, and Staten Island, Kelly Finnigan collaborated with old friends in and outside the studio. "I enjoy working alone but it's not how you want to make a record_almost everybody I brought in for this album I've worked with, toured with or spent a great deal of time with." Max and Joe Ramey (The Ironsides), Jimmy James (Parlor Greens), Sergio Rios (Orgone), Joey Crispiano (Dap Kings) and Jay Mumford (aka J-Zone) all contribute to the overall sound of A Lover Was Born. Dramatic influences like Isaac Hayes (check out the piano on "Be Your Own Shelter") and Jerry Ragovoy are chopped and folded into Northern Soul uptempo numbers to create stompers like "Get a Hold of Yourself" or "Chosen Few". Finnigan's take on Deep Soul is captured brilliantly on "Walk Away from Me" and "Love (Your Pain Goes Deep)", while Boom Bap pervades on hard hitters "His Love Ain't Real" & "Cold World". Slower songs such as "Let Me Count the Reasons", the emotional "All That's Left", and the soul-stirring album closer "Count Me Out" show the honest and tender side that has become Finnigan's calling card. All the while, the voice is raw and earthy _ in the best tradition of R&B shouters like Otis Redding, Lee Moses, and David Ruffin. The songs on A Lover Was Born reconfigure the spliced and sampled DNA of hip hop (extracted by crate diggers like Dilla and RZA) to create something new, underscoring both the spectrum and depth of soul while making a case to the timelessness of Finnigan's sound.

Distance as a measure of time and place informs Kelly Finnigan's, A Lover Was Born with a grit and grace that turns passion into virtue. The latest solo release from The Monophonics frontman roots itself in the best traditions of midwest soul labels like King, Curtom, Dakar, and the Bodie Recording Company. A Lover Was Born is a testimony that these deep cut grooves are not resigned to nostalgia, instead, they are at the burning heart of longing and hope. The journey Finnigan takes listeners on over Lover's eleven tracks echo the state of motion and growth since his solo debut, The Tales People Tell (2019). These two records bookend a prolific period of output, including a pair of Monophonics albums, a Christmas album, a mixtape, and a full slate of producing other artists (The Ironsides, Alanna Royale, the Sextones). "There's nothing like making records," says Finnigan. "It feels like that's my purpose _ the reason I was put on this earth." Written in California, Ohio, and Staten Island, Kelly Finnigan collaborated with old friends in and outside the studio. "I enjoy working alone but it's not how you want to make a record_almost everybody I brought in for this album I've worked with, toured with or spent a great deal of time with." Max and Joe Ramey (The Ironsides), Jimmy James (Parlor Greens), Sergio Rios (Orgone), Joey Crispiano (Dap Kings) and Jay Mumford (aka J-Zone) all contribute to the overall sound of A Lover Was Born. Dramatic influences like Isaac Hayes (check out the piano on "Be Your Own Shelter") and Jerry Ragovoy are chopped and folded into Northern Soul uptempo numbers to create stompers like "Get a Hold of Yourself" or "Chosen Few". Finnigan's take on Deep Soul is captured brilliantly on "Walk Away from Me" and "Love (Your Pain Goes Deep)", while Boom Bap pervades on hard hitters "His Love Ain't Real" & "Cold World". Slower songs such as "Let Me Count the Reasons", the emotional "All That's Left", and the soul-stirring album closer "Count Me Out" show the honest and tender side that has become Finnigan's calling card. All the while, the voice is raw and earthy _ in the best tradition of R&B shouters like Otis Redding, Lee Moses, and David Ruffin. The songs on A Lover Was Born reconfigure the spliced and sampled DNA of hip hop (extracted by crate diggers like Dilla and RZA) to create something new, underscoring both the spectrum and depth of soul while making a case to the timelessness of Finnigan's sound.

Distance as a measure of time and place informs Kelly Finnigan's, A Lover Was Born with a grit and grace that turns passion into virtue. The latest solo release from The Monophonics frontman roots itself in the best traditions of midwest soul labels like King, Curtom, Dakar, and the Bodie Recording Company. A Lover Was Born is a testimony that these deep cut grooves are not resigned to nostalgia, instead, they are at the burning heart of longing and hope. The journey Finnigan takes listeners on over Lover's eleven tracks echo the state of motion and growth since his solo debut, The Tales People Tell (2019). These two records bookend a prolific period of output, including a pair of Monophonics albums, a Christmas album, a mixtape, and a full slate of producing other artists (The Ironsides, Alanna Royale, the Sextones). "There's nothing like making records," says Finnigan. "It feels like that's my purpose _ the reason I was put on this earth." Written in California, Ohio, and Staten Island, Kelly Finnigan collaborated with old friends in and outside the studio. "I enjoy working alone but it's not how you want to make a record_almost everybody I brought in for this album I've worked with, toured with or spent a great deal of time with." Max and Joe Ramey (The Ironsides), Jimmy James (Parlor Greens), Sergio Rios (Orgone), Joey Crispiano (Dap Kings) and Jay Mumford (aka J-Zone) all contribute to the overall sound of A Lover Was Born. Dramatic influences like Isaac Hayes (check out the piano on "Be Your Own Shelter") and Jerry Ragovoy are chopped and folded into Northern Soul uptempo numbers to create stompers like "Get a Hold of Yourself" or "Chosen Few". Finnigan's take on Deep Soul is captured brilliantly on "Walk Away from Me" and "Love (Your Pain Goes Deep)", while Boom Bap pervades on hard hitters "His Love Ain't Real" & "Cold World". Slower songs such as "Let Me Count the Reasons", the emotional "All That's Left", and the soul-stirring album closer "Count Me Out" show the honest and tender side that has become Finnigan's calling card. All the while, the voice is raw and earthy _ in the best tradition of R&B shouters like Otis Redding, Lee Moses, and David Ruffin. The songs on A Lover Was Born reconfigure the spliced and sampled DNA of hip hop (extracted by crate diggers like Dilla and RZA) to create something new, underscoring both the spectrum and depth of soul while making a case to the timelessness of Finnigan's sound.

'Whiplash' is the first album recorded by bôa in over twenty years, following the incredible reemergence of 'Duvet'. The album is a collection of melody-driven narratives, leaning into the emotive and relatable lyricism which resonates so well with fans. “Whiplash” is very human and uniquely universal — reflecting on the tides of time and relationships, which can refer to past entanglements, deep-rooted friendships, or even the abruptness of social change around us today. Newer fans craving more of the timeless warmth that has made “Duvet” an enduring hit will find that in abundance here, while decades-long fans will feel as if they’re welcoming an old friend back into the fold.

Long time PPU contributor, video producer, and designer, SOFTgrid steps into the fold with their EP “Knock”. Includes “FEELU” as featured in the 2024 summer blockbuster Bad Boys IV : Ride Or Die starring Martin Lawrence & Will Smith.

Demoscene and Cracktro enthusiast, SOFTgrid started life navigating the dark waters of text user interfaces, with early memories of Bulletin Board Systems, and as time and technology progressed, they eventually obtained the various bits of software needed for their creation, this was by means of WAREZ servers in private chat rooms far from town hall.

SOFTgrid is most at home organizing their existence to a grid, be it pixels or the linear movement of sound on a timeline. ASCII and ANSI are their preferred means of expression, SID and PAULA chips their preferred means of communication.

Bridge was to be the Edinburgh-born Kieran Warren’s debut release circa 1994 on Metatone - a short-lived techno label by J. M. Adkins (Electro Music Union) and Damon D'Cruz (Jack Trax, Chill). As fate had it, Metatone folded before the album got printed, and the music was lost in time. That is, until Adkins tipped the Cold Blow boys off while they were working on his anthology, the 2019 double LP "Electro Music Union, Sinoesin & Xonox Works 1993-1994".

Atonal’s Cithare EP last year was the world’s first glimpse at the fuzzy, warm techno archives of Kieran Warren. As a sequel, Cold Blow has restored and compiled their vision of the ‘94 “Bridge” while tapping into the same demo archives that were being scoured through by Metatone in their day.

Essential for the fans of early Aphex Twin, the album moves between warm melodic techno cuts and nostalgic ambient pieces before reaching the grand finale of Arkanoids, an 8-minute ambient epic straight from the school of Selected Ambient Works 2.

Housed in full, cosmic artwork designed by Ed Cheverton. Mastered by Keith Tenniswood.

Xylitol is the alias of Catherine Backhouse, producer and DJ under the name DJ Bunnyhausen. She was a resident DJ at Kosmische, the now dormant Krautrock club and is a fan of jungle and hardcore. She currently co-hosts the radio show Slav To The Rhythm, which focuses on vintage central and eastern European pop and electronica and she's also co-writing a book on Yugoslavian pop culture. 'Anemones' is a total project from the cover to the music. Backhouse is fascinated by early botanical illustrations of anemones and other aquatic fauna, and how the act of taxonomy reveals as much about human psychology, desire and sublimation as it does about the organic specimen as a thing in itself. Each track is a microcosm of this 'other life', an allegory for the extraordinary potential latent within bodies that the dancefloor has the power to activate. Using early jungle and garage as starting points to connect dots and open up contrasts between dance music and vintage electronics, Backhouse finds a sweet spot which, in her words "feels like something that's simultaneously still and ancient yet propulsive and ecstatic." Not afraid of letting the the hiss and flutter of the music show, 'Anemones' holds attention with ancient bubbling synths and gracefully drifting arpeggiations, occasionally brought to heel by charming melodies, all accompanied by breakbeats that explode like fireworks. 'Anemones' has a lively and unpolished aesthetic that's a kindred spirit to Nondi_'s 2023 album of smeary, water-damaged footwork, 'Flood City Trax'. 'Moebius' pits the spaced out neon chords of the track's namesake against absolutely tearing breaks, allowing time for this almost overwhelming combination to become near enough transcendental, while the bleeping melody and sad slavic chorus motif in 'Okko' feels like an artifact from an alternative future. The Drexciya meets 2-step garage of 'Dobro Jutro' creates a welcome respite at the album's midpoint before the flow builds up again to 'Daša' with its glassy sounds from a lost radiophonic workshop miniature meeting bruising kicks and snares. Meanwhile 'Iskria' has purring synth chords and 8-bit melodies evoking the cosmonaut age. The subliminal influence of the Yugo era is felt in DIY synthesis and Mitteleuropean melody and seen in song titles such as 'Jelena', 'Miha', 'Daša' (named after novelist Daša Drndič) and 'Iskria' (taken from the fictitious Balkan region in Ottessa Moshfegh's bleak fable 'Lapvona'). 'Anemones' very effectively folds experimental genres from different times and places into a very enjoyable new sound.

Four years after their Discrepant debut - 'OOOO' -, Lisbon-based travellers Jibóia return to the fold with another offering of globetrotting psychedelia with 'Salar'. With the core trio of Óscar Silva, Ricardo Martins and Mestre André augmented by a stellar parade of collaborators on various roles, 'Salar' further expands on the transglobal visions by now pretty trademarked by the band. Intersped among shorter vignettes for drums, saxophone and bass, each of the more fully fleshed tracks casts a guest to elevate Jibóia's music to uncharted realms - both in a mystical and geographical sense.

Opener 'Selar' summons the cello of songstress Joana Guerra for a skewed dialogue with Silva's guitar, propelled by Martins' drums and percussion and André's electronic textures into 4 minutes and 20 seconds that feel epic - if there was any psychedelic numerological symbolism needed. On 'Solar', Silva's non-western plucking rides on for Yaw Tembe's trumpet to veer in a multitude in directions, while the mysterious 'Sitar' conjures the voice of moroccan musician Ayoub El Ayadi for a contemplative nighttime prayer. Elsewhere, guitarist Rui Carvalho aka Filho da Mãe injects dissonant guitar lines unto 'Sarar's pummelling dance and Pedro Augusto's electronics hover below the shapeshifting dynamics of 'Sonar', among mesmerising keyboard lines. 'Salir' featuring Daiyen Jone enchanted flute brings the album to a close at its most reflective, all crepuscular synth lines and reverbed handclaps.

2024 Reissue

DE-TÜ make their long awaited return to Infernal Sounds. Having previously released on IFS008, IFSXXX002 and also featuring on IFS018 alongside DRPTNDRP, this double header may be their highest calibre of dub-influenced 140 to grace the label. 'Roadblock' kicks off proceedings in the best way possible, hitting you deep in the belly with monumental amounts of weight on the drop, whilst layering a reverberating vocal lead and a daunting backdrop to bring you deeper inwards. The flip however, 'St. Paul's (City Road Dub)' takes things in a slightly different direction. Although it still provides that trademark DE-TÜ sound, it's certainly orientated more around the soundsystem, providing a perfect flex within the dubwise sound. It's the perfect example of progression as all the elements fold and merge, creating a track that will captivate you from start, to finish.

The release has already received heavy support from the likes of J:Kenzo, Truth, Leftlow, Kursk (Innamind Recordings) and a few other reputable DJs.

The Villain I Never Was is the debut studio album from Ghanaian singer and rapper, Black Sherif. Originally released on October 6, 2022, the 14-track album was supported by five singles, “Second Sermon (Remix),” “Soja,” “45,” “Konongo Zongo,” & the smash hit, “Kwaku The Traveller,” which debuted at number 2 on the UK Afrobeats Singles Chart. Since the release of The Villain I Never Was, Black Sherif’s career has seen considerable growth and accolades, such as Artist of the Year (Ghana Music Awards UK 2022), West African Artist of the Year (The Headies 2023), & Best International Flow (BET Hip-Hop Awards 2023). Now for the first time, fans are able to enjoy this momentous album on vinyl. First pressing limited to 500 copies worldwide.

Strange Sensations is a new EP from Paul Renegade.
In between Lazerdrome / Phonomena releases (news on that soon) and with a folder full of spare tunes, this 4 track EP comes on white vinyl on sister label DragonDrop Records
This release features a mix of happy pianos, dark synths, ruff beats and Jungle Tekno vibes, all at various BPMs so there’s a bit of something for everybody.
On the A-side, Zer0 Gravity Fire is fast-paced ’94-style stompy hardcore (160BPM) with rushy pianos, while the synths and piano lines of Mind Over Mind slow the pace down a bit at 140BPM in an early ‘92 style.
On the flip side, Weird Dreams (160BPM) takes you between the worlds of happy and the darkside and Danger: Battledroid is an experimental dark hardcore track at 165BPM, mixing well in either a hardcore or jungle set.

Oh yes! First ever official reissue of the positively sublime and very rare Butterfly LP, recorded in Tokyo in 1979 by Japanese songstress Kimiko Kasai and jazz legend Herbie Hancock.

Due to it's super-rare status as a Japan-only release, this exquisite collection of covers never got the recognition it deserved at the time, despite incredibly inspired performances from Kimiko, Herbie and the supremely talented musicians assembled for the project. From heavenly drummer Alphonse Mouzon and renowned organist Webster Lewis to bassist Paul Jackson, reedman Bennie Maupin and the master percussionist Bill Summers, the legendary performers crafted amazingly good vocal versions of Herbie / Headhunters jazz-funk. Unsurprisingly, it has been heavily in demand for many years.

The LP opens with Kimiko's highly desirable version of "I Thought It Was You", an elegant take on Herbie's own anthem. Other superb re-workings include the delicately soulful "Butterfly", jazzy groover "Sunlight", the smooth and sexy "Tell Me A Bedtime Story" and the beautiful ballads "Maiden Voyage" and "Harvest Time". A wonderful example of perfectly understated and masterful jazz-funk soul fusion that shouldn't be missed, the set closes with a jaw-dropping version of Stevie Wonder's "As".

This lovingly curated reissue enables a long overdue reappraisal of this hitherto unavailable masterpiece. The stunning artwork which adorned the original jacket - complete with OBI strip and sumptuous
4 page folded insert - has been faithfully restored. Simon Francis' sensitive mastering elevates the sound throughout and, as ever, it has been pressed at a reassuringly weighty 180g. Essential.

Aesthetically, Ed Schrader’s Music Beat hates to tread water. At the same time, the Baltimore-based two-piece of vocalist Ed Schrader and bassist Devlin Rice won’t force their songs to fit a preconceived style. “The next album’s always gotta be different from the last one. We’re different people from record to record. So, writing authentically to ourselves will always bring our work to a place that we haven’t been to yet,” Rice said. Schrader added, “We’re terrified of turning into AC/DC. We never want to be married to one scene or time or sound. We want to be the Boba Fett of bands! Constantly altering the way in which we make records has been pretty key in that process.”
For Orchestra Hits, the band’s latest, that alteration was welcoming longtime musical comrade Dylan Going into the fold as a co-writer and co-producer. A songwriter in his own right, a guitar sideman for ESMB on their last two tours, and a collaborator with Rice in the noise riffage band Mandate, Going had both a unique vision and an intimate familiarity with the ESMB vibe.
“Dylan came to every show we’ve ever played in New York—no matter how weird it was,” Schrader said. “He’d be standing there ready to move an amp or feed us barbecued cactus after the gig and toss on some Golden Girls so we could decompress. It felt like family as soon as we began working, but I honestly had no idea how damn good he was at tossing out these hooks.”
According to Schrader, the songs “just poured out of us” over the course of a highly caffeinated three-day weekend in a tiny room in Devlin’s house while his cat, Sandy Goose, screamed continually. “It was like three kids hiding from the world to get into some lovely mischief,” they said. The lack of external pressure in the process gives Orchestra Hits an almost paradoxical vibe. For all of the album’s layers, that mix live and sequenced instruments, it never loses the raw energy of a small handful of friends in the same room plugging in, cranking up, and playing until they pass out.
Lyrically, the album finds Schrader, now 45, meditating on experiences in their youth to make sense of the present moment. “We are not into the garden,” Schrader wails on the relentless “Roman Candle,” a song about the sad debacle of Woodstock ’99, and a direct response to Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock,” a utopian ode to hippie idealism. A 19-year-old Schrader, having snuck into Woodstock ’99 through a hole in the fence, was there the night members of the crowd used candles intended for a vigil for victims of the Columbine High School massacre to set fires all over the grounds. Even before the fires, Schrader remembered feeling disconnected from the music, the nostalgic cash grab, and the meatheads in the crowd. After watching a press tower collapse, they boarded a random shuttle bus and were dropped off near a Denny’s. “It was a far cry from the Garden of Eden,” Schrader said. “That experience defined what I didn’t want to be a part of, and yet America is more like Woodstock ’99 than ever.”
With percolating synthesizer arpeggios, and climbing bass grooves, “IDKS” is the album’s dance-floor slapper. “’IDKS’ is a funny one,” Schrader said. “We already had a pretty satisfying suite of songs when Dylan was packing up to head back to New York, but he missed the train because of a freak snowstorm. Realizing he’d be stuck in town another day, he says to me, ‘Here’s this other weird thing I have.’ It was ‘IDKS.’ The hooks were so good I felt like Homer Simpson at a free donut convention. I just dove right in, and we cranked that baby out in like 20 minutes.”
Lyrically, “IDKS” is a letter from the true self to public-facing self. “It’s an angry song,” Schrader said. “Because the public-facing self is always looking for an easy escape, but it forces the true self into a cage. I honestly thought my lyrics were corny and was about to change them, but Dylan was digging it just the way it was. So that’s what you hear.”
With the soaring “Daylight Commander,” the band went against all of their musty-basement-bred instincts. “I went full High School Musical with the vocals,” Schrader said. “At first it felt almost embarrassing, but I remember reading somewhere that Bowie recommended always floating a little bit above your comfort zone, and that’s what we did here.” The song is part exercise in absurdity and part pop Trojan horse. “If ever we had a ‘Shiny Happy People’ moment, I guess this is it,” Schrader said.

Ever-evolving the mythologies and magic of Dialect's sonic sphere, Andrew PM Hunt returns with Atlas of Green, elegantly molding unexacting details of memory and mistranslation into the framework of the British musician and composer's creative pursuit. The album imagines a young musician named Green working in a future dawning era where lost signals and enduring impulses are unearthed from the sediments of technology and time. Across twelve compositions, Green becomes the compass in an epoch of transition; one shaded with pastoral patinas and studded with the fragments of allegorical ruin. As tattered as it is tender, Atlas of Green is a patchwork of scavenged relics and bygone hues, cast through the iridescent shimmers of a mid-future in flux. Growing up on the Wirral Peninsula in North West England, Hunt was surrounded by stone age landmarks and rock carvings that infused the landscape with legend. It was beside those carvings on a residency at Bidston Artistic Research Center where he began the journey of Atlas of Green, experimenting with tape loops and exploring the center's library of sci-fi. Here Hunt also encountered the work of Italian philosopher Federico Campagna, a writer who believes we're at the end of our current world. This encouraged Hunt's exploration of how the fabric and fantasies of our current era might endure into the future of Green, as they try to make sense of the riddles of the past, utilizing broken electronics and simple acoustic instruments to create new mythic forms. This question of endurance led Hunt to inscribe Atlas of Green with its own lucid markings - sometimes almost anthemic adornments - which unfurl through the album's melancholic air as possible new metaphors for how the human spirit might persist through dark days and regain lost wisdom. As Hunt reflects, "We're not just on an endless procession through constantly better worlds. Our lack of action (on climate and inequality) feels hopeless at times. I find some comfort in the idea that maybe the world needs a new song in order to tell a new story about itself". The image of Green as a journeying adolescent in-between eras developed out of a burgeoning interest in the fantasy writing of Ursula K. Le Guin and Gene Wolfe and occurred at a point in Hunt's life where the question of starting a family was looming. Green became a device for thinking about the future, or futures, putting someone in another world and granting access to a slightly longer timeframe than one's own life. What would this person, in this as-yet-unsung world do with something as powerful as music? As Hunt notes, "I imagined them doing what we've always done with music - using it to build a map of feeling, providing boundaries and tracing the edges of our emotions, defining a space of possibility and giving voice to our intuition. This is an alternative future to the one of endless growth but one which still holds space for hopes and dreams." Mapping new folds in the passage of time, Atlas of Green is traced with an aura of sonic urgency which arises through its process-led construction. Following a series of live shows in early 2023, the record was created with an assemblage of analogue electronics and acoustic instruments, including scratched records and a broken four track, collaging studio work with recorded live recordings featuring work in progress. Where the indeterminate energies of Under~Between (2021) appeared through digital processing, Atlas of Green embraces chance encounters within the malfunctions of physical media and glitching gear. Within these interwoven clusters of organic and blemished sound, Dialect reclaims the joyfulness of the inner amateur and creates a soft landing for new seeds of magical possibility - rooted in the bounds and abundance of realism. "As a planet of people we have to deal one way or another with our finite existence. We have to deal with that loss with hope still in our hearts - our capacity to love cannot be contingent on things lasting forever, and so this image of Green is not a vision of dystopia, nor utopia but an expression of trust and an acceptance of limits."

Malcolm Pardon (Roll The Dice) is back into the fold for his second solo album, "The Abyss". The album, which will be released on Leaf, is a meditation on the taboos that surround mortality in our culture, looking past the bleak or macabre to observe death as a multi-layered, lifelong acquaintance. It"s also highly melodic and very beautiful. Malcolm has enlisted some remarkable creative talent around the project, including photographer Chris Shonting, designer Peter Ström and film-maker Oskar Wrangö.

Malcolm Pardon (Roll The Dice) is back into the fold for his second solo album, "The Abyss". The album, which will be released on Leaf, is a meditation on the taboos that surround mortality in our culture, looking past the bleak or macabre to observe death as a multi-layered, lifelong acquaintance. It"s also highly melodic and very beautiful. Malcolm has enlisted some remarkable creative talent around the project, including photographer Chris Shonting, designer Peter Ström and film-maker Oskar Wrangö.

REISSUED!!! Received an 8.1 rating from Pitchfork. "Sadly, many will hear Chris Corsano & Bill Orcutt's latest LP, Made Out of Sound, as 'not-jazz,' though it would be more aptly described as 'not-not-jazz.' In a better world, it would warrant above-the-fold reviews in Downbeat, or an appearance on David Sanborn's late-night show (if someone would only give it back to him). More likely, we can hope for a haiku review on Byron Coley's Twitter timeline to sufficiently connect the various improvised terrains trodden by this long-time duo—but if you've been able to listen past the overmodulated icepick fidelity of Harry Pussy, it should surprise you not an iota that Orcutt's style is rooted as much in the fractal melodies of Trane and Taylor as it is in Delta syrup or Tin Pan Alley glitz. As for Corsano, well, it may seem daft to call this particular record 'jazz' (because duh, it has a drummer), but to me Corsano is beyond jazz, almost beyond music, his ambidextrous, octopoid technique grappling many stylistic levers and spraying a torrent of light from every direction. Corsano's ferocity has elevated many 'mere' improv records to transcendence, but here he's crafted his polyrhythms within more narrative channels, bringing to mind his 'mannered' playing in the lamented Flower-Corsano duo. It's not 'groove' playing precisely, but it follows many grooves simultaneously, much like Orcutt's own melodic musings—which is why they're so naturally lock-in-key here. Which maybe makes it all the more surprising that Made Out of Sound was in fact recorded in different rooms on different coasts at different times, and stitched together by Orcutt on his desktop. Corsano recorded the drums in Ithaca, NY, and (as Orcutt states), 'I didn't edit them at all. I overdubbed two guitar tracks, panned left/right. I'd listen to the drums a couple times, pick a tuning, then improvise a part, thinking of the first track as backing and the second as the 'lead', though those are pretty fluid terms. I was watching the waveforms as I was recording, so I could see when a crescendo was coming or when to bring it down.' Fluidity ties the tracks together. With a little more groove and a little less around-the-beat maneuvering, one could almost hear the boiling harmonic layers as Miles-oid in 'Man Carrying Thing,' but with new-found Sharrockian modalities, Corsano accentuating the tumbling nature of the falling notes. The Sharrock vein continues with 'How to Cook a Wolf,' its Blind Willie-esque melodic simplicity and repetition extrapolated 360-style in a repetitive descending riff that falls into Cippolina-isms (by way of Verlaine ) until the end crashes upon the shore. Much like Orcutt's last solo album, Odds Against Tomorrow, there's a gentler, almost pastoral flow to some tracks ('Some Tennessee Jar,' 'A Port in Air,' 'Thirteen Ways of Looking') that calls to mind the mixolydian swamplands of Lonnie Liston Smith—but unlike Odds , other tracks ('The Thing Itself') smash that same lyricism into overdriven, multi-dimensional melodic clumps that push several vector envelopes at once in an Interstellar Space vein. With the help of Corsano, Orcutt has managed to slither even further out of the noise/improv pigeonhole lazy listeners/writers keep trying to shove him into. Looking at the back cover of Made Out of Sound , we should not see Orcutt hurling a guitar into the air with post-punk bravado, Corsano toiling behind him in the engine room—we should witness an instrument levitating from his hands, rising on invisible major-key tendrils of melody, fired by percussion, spiraling into an invisible event horizon..."—Tom Carter

PRESSED ON MYSTIC EYE COLORED VINYL HOUSED IN A GATEFOLD JACKET WITH LINER NOTES INCLUDING AN INTERVIEW WITH KRS-ONE

Last August marked the 50th anniversary of the birth of Hip-Hop and we continue to honor the artists and albums that had a significant impact on the culture. In partnership with Sony's CERTIFIED, we are following up on our RSD reissue of BDP's Edutainment and KRS-One's Return of the Boom Bap with a long overdue reissue of KRS-One's 1995 self-titled album, KRS-One. Two years after the release of Return of the Boom Bap, KRS-One got back in the studio and behind the boards and enlisted for additional production DJ Premier, Showbiz, Diamond D, Norty Cotto, and Big French Production. In August of '95 KRS-One dropped the Preemo-produced lead single "MC's Act Like They Don't Know" with "Represent The Real Hip-Hop" featuring Das EFX on the B-side of the 12-inch, boasting KRS-One's lyrical skills and backing up his status as one of the best live performers in the game. KRS-One knocked it out of the park on his second solo effort with another Premier single about the current state of Hip-Hop on "Rappers R, N. Dainja" and straight-up Boom Bap rap on the Fat Joe assisted track "De Automatic." He offers political and social commentary on "R.E.A.L.I.TY.", "Hold", and "Free Mumia" with Channel Live and continues to diss sucker MCs on "Wannabemceez" with Mad Lion. Get On Down is proud to present this deluxe reissue packaged in a gatefold jacket with a new interview by Check The Technique author Brian Coleman, complete with a foldout lyrics sheet.

Futurismo proudly present a celebration of the Paisley Underground scene with TWISTED DREAM MACHINE The Paisley Underground / California’s Psychedelic Renaissance: 1982-1986, the next volume in their Altered Vision compilation series.

This collection draws from the neo psychedelic movement that took hold in California during the early to mid 80’s, one that melded the psychedelia, country, garage rock, avant-garde and pop of the 60’s with the DIY ethos of the then burgeoning punk scene, a hypnotic amalgamation of sound that came in staunch contrast to the blown out sonic excesses of the time.

Twisted Dream Machine takes you on a trip from the city to the desert, as the kaleidoscope of noise drifts from the The Dream Syndicate’s Velvet Underground inspired take on Crazy Horse and The Three O’Clock’s chiming baroque powerpop, to Rain Parade’s dreamy Beatlesesque melodies and the Bangles hook-laden Love inspired pop. Also featured are the wondrous sounds of Green On Red, The Long Ryder’s, Game Theory, True West, Thin White Rope and others highly worth your attention. If you are not familiar with some of the bands here, you will surely question how that is possible. The Paisley Underground, if anything, encapsulated a certain musical mindset, an outlook where the past and the future would collide in the moment. This thread would bond the bands, yet each honed it’s own sound in a twisted incarnation of the seeds planted two decades earlier. Whilst the ‘scene’ did remain contained, its influence did in fact spread throughout mainstream culture as the Bangles stuck a chord into the heart of MTV, whilst Prince took inspiration from the movement in his own songwriting and the naming of Paisley Park, as well as signing The Three O’Clock to his label and writing one of the Bangles biggest hits.

As you listen to the tracks on Twisted Dream Machine you will be reminded that there is still music left to discover and inspire, this compilation is aimed to hopefully delight longtime fans, as well as ignite a passion for those new to the bands. The Paisley Underground was the sound of neo psychedelic rock, it was subterranean pop...in

the classic sense, it was alternative rock before the term existed, a distillation of the fundamentals present at the dawn of rock ‘n’ roll, with a twist. The bands of the Paisley Underground may have been writing out of their own time, but as you listen to them in today’s context these songs should be heard as landmarks, rather than throwbacks. After all, nothing this good should stay underground. This 2xLP comes on limited edition coloured vinyl, it is housed in a gloss laminated outer sleeve with colour inner sleeves and contains a large fold-out poster with unseen photos and liner notes by Lisa Fancher of Frontier. Also available on CD with Gloss laminated Sleeve and Fold Out Poster.

PRESSED ON ORANGE SWIRL COLORED VINYL PACKAGED IN A GATEFOLD JACKET WITH A FOLDOUT LYRIC SHEET

In 1996, after 14 years in the game that started with Too $hort and Freddy B selling tapes out of the trunk of their car in East Oakland, Too $hort announced he would be retiring. On May 21, 1996, Too $hort released his 10th studio album Gettin' It with the lead single of the same name featuring Parliament Funkadelic. Retirement was more of a hiatus as Too $hort got back in the game in 1999 with the appropriately namedalbum Can't Stay Away. If Gettin' It was going to be Too $hort's last album, he was going off on a high note by earning his 6th Platinum record. In addition to having Parliament Funkadelic contribute to two songs, Ant Banks and Shorty B are back with their laid-back Bay Area funk along with some G-Funk contributions by Colin Wolfe, L.A. Dre, and Spearhead X. Too $hort delivers another Bay Area classic full of nasty pimpin' rhymes with dope features by MC Breed, Erick Sermon and Rappin' 4-Tay. Previously only available on promo vinyl, Get On Down in partnership with Sony's CERTIFED is proud to present a proper vinyl release of Gettin' It in an orange swirl-colored vinyl run packaged in a gatefold jacket with a foldout lyric sheet.

Honour's debut album is a ligament stretching from Lagos to London and to New York, curling across the diaspora and brushing the darker hues of blues, hip-hop, free jazz, ambient, gospel with Christian mythology and Yoruba folklore. As cinematic as it is painterly, Alàáfíà is a meditation on themes of life, death and love that pulls inspiration from the unexpected poetic profundity of casual conversations, field recordings, literature, ephemera, or personal archives. The result is an impressionistic vision in Black and Blur that both exhausts and implicates language_substantiating a mythos proposed by Fred Moten that sublimates boundaries between everywhere and nowhere; history and the present; the individual and the universal. Alàáfíà delineates a gothic landscape cut by overdriven beats, swooping orchestral blasts, choral bursts and ear- splitting fuzz, where the fleshly and spiritual realms commune. Dedicated to Honour's late grandmother, the title track began to take form after their last embrace and remains steeped in her influence and spirit_a tape-saturated composition that starts in Lagos and ends in London's smoke-stained cityscape, the song's dream-like quality developed out of the artist's grief and PTSD coping with this loss. Beneath the stretched guitar drones and stuttering loops, their grandmother's shared faith bubbles to the surface. "When Angels Speak of Love," borrows its title from two works by Sun Ra and bell hooks, respectively. Sculpting echoes of praise music into disorienting spirals perforated with syrupy DJ Screw-inspired breaks and sharp splinters of melancholic guitar, "When Angels Speak of Love" engages a conceptual dialogue with the spirits of both late thinkers, folding them into Honour's pantheon of ancestral guides. The album's ninth track, "Giz Aard ($uckets)," is a dirge of regimented drums which anchor this somber melody as it whirls into a blizzard of heartache, uncertain if its consequence will be death or eternal joy. The album's sole lyrical offering, "Pistol Poem (Lead Belly)," begins with a darkly humorous bar, "He went thru hell and back/ came back/ 2 get the strap," that swells into a haunting allegory based on the life of Philip "Hot Sauce" Champion. A modern take on the Blues, Honour's lyrics reify the artist's status as a student of both literature and popular culture, crossbreeding the artist's clever wordplay with additional references to Richard Pryor, Robert Johnson, Kelly Rowland & Bryon Gysin. Setting core principles of hip-hop, R&B, jazz and gospel music to atemporal soundscapes and compositions, Honour crafts a record that marinates in its own knotty contradictions. The ghosts that sit on the artist's shoulders have never been more tangible than with this emotive debut.

Transparent LP with HQ download limited to 250 units worldwide.
5ilth is Suumhow’s fifth album.


5ilth is album number five from Belgian experimental electronic music duo Suumhow. The album is the follow-up to the, previously hidden, full-length Extra Failed Items. 5ilth finds the duo pushing their digital grittiness to new heights. Suumhow experimented with the limits of folding audio into analog video equipment for the album then further pushing the aural boundaries within the digital realm. As the title suggests, the sonics on 5ilth can be incredibly filthy, often recalling the pixelated equivalent of a sand storm or locust plague.
These monolithic moments of clipping and swirling 1s and 0s give way to warmer flashes of analog respite, and in some cases, the clipping itself is somehow shimmeringly melodic. As with their previous efforts, 5ilth does have its share of glitchy distorted beatwork that pushes and pulls the listener through the squall. It's a gratifying listen with equal parts: tribunal and reprieve and hold and release.

Mutant, in partnership with WaterTower Music, are proud to present the premiere physical media release of Tom Holkenborg’s explosive score to George Miller’s latest wasteland epic FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA. Tom Holkenborg’s collaborations with the legendary George Miller Mad Max: Fury Road, Three Thousand Years of Longing have produced some of the most unique and powerful film music of the last decade. With FURIOSA, he takes the sonic landscape he created with the last film and shifts into higher gear. The loudest revving-engine of a score you’ve ever heard, absolutely pulsating with ferocity and white-knuckle tension.

"My collaboration with the incredible George Miller began over a decade ago with our work on Mad Max: Fury Road, a project that marked a pivotal moment in my career as a film composer." says Holkenborg. "Returning to this world to score the odyssey of Furiosa, an epic tale of survival, resilience and revenge has been just as eye-opening and gratifying. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a testament to the vision of a singular film maker, whose pursuit of excellence always inspires me to push my creative limits."

Pressed on 2x 140 gram eco vinyl, with liner notes by composer Tom Holkenborg and housed in a tri-fold sleeve designed by Mutant co-founder Mo Shafeek.

Ace hat den Teppich ausgerollt, als es um die Neuauflage der Deluxe-Vinyl-Edition von The Seeds' gleichnamigem Debüt (HIQLP 129) sowie 'A Web Of Sound' (HIQLP 135) ging. Beide Alben enthalten nicht nur die Original Tracklistings, sondern auch eine zusätzliche LP mit Outtakes, alternativen Versionen und anderen Juwelen. -Ace freut sich nun, eine 2-LP-Deluxe-Edition des klassischen dritten Albums 'Future', anbieten zu können. Diese LP erschien ursprünglich 1967. Die erste LP präsentiert das Original-Stereo-Master von mit Titeln wie 'Out Of The Question', 'A Thousand Shadows' und 'Travel With Your Mind'. Die zweite LP enthält Bonustracks, alternative Takes und Mixe, die zeigen, dass der klassische Rock'n'Roll-Sound von Seeds unter den Overdubs genauso stark geblieben ist wie eh und je. 'Future' wird in einem dicken Hochglanz-Foldout geliefert und enthält außerdem ein achtseitiges, reich illustriertes Booklet mit Anmerkungen von Alec Palao.

Dark Entries and Honey Soundsystem Records have teamed up once more to release the final volume of gay porn soundtracks by San Francisco-based musician and producer, Patrick Cowley. One of the most revolutionary and influential figures in the canon of disco, Cowley created his own brand of Hi-NRG dance music, The San Francisco Sound.' Born in Buffalo, NY on October 19, 1950, Patrick moved to San Francisco in 1971 to study at the City College of San Francisco. He founded the Electronic Music Lab at the school, where he would make experimental soundtracks by blending various types of music and adapting them to the synthesizer.

By the mid-70's, Patrick's synthesis techniques landed him a job composing and producing songs for disco superstar Sylvester, including hits like You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)', Dance Disco Heat' and Stars.' This helped Patrick obtain more work as a remixer and producer. His 18-minute long remix of Donna Summer's I Feel Love' and his production work with edgy New Wave band Indoor Life were both of particular note. By 1981, Patrick had released a string of dance 12 singles, like Menergy' and Megatron Man'. He also had founded Megatone Records, the label upon which he released his debut album, Menergy'. Around this time Patrick was hospitalized and diagnosed with an unknown illness: that which would later be called AIDS. Throughout 1982, he recorded two more Hi-NRG hits, Do You Wanna Funk' for Sylvester, and Right On Target' for Paul Parker, as well as a second solo album Mind Warp'. On November 12, 1982, he passed away.

In 1979 Patrick was contacted by John Coletti, owner of famed gay porn company Fox Studio in Los Angeles. Patrick jumped on this offer and sent reels of his college compositions from the 70s to John in LA. Coletti then used a variable speed oscillator to adjust the pitch and speed of Patrick's songs in-sync with the film scenes. The result was the VHS collections Muscle Up' and School Daze' released in 1979 and 1980. Afternooners' is the third collection of Cowley's instrumental songs, recorded in May 1982. These recordings were culled from two 23-minute reels in the Fox Studio vaults. All songs were originally untitled, so we've used the titles from Fox Studio's 8mm film loops. This compilation also includes three bonus tracks found in the archives of fellow Megatone Records recording artist Paul Parker and the attic of teenage friend Lily Bartels. Influenced by Tomita, Wendy Carlos, and Giorgio Moroder, Patrick crafted a singular sound from his collection of synthesizers, percussion, modified guitars, and hand-built equipment. The listener enters a world of forbidden vices, evocative of Patrick's time spent in the bathhouses of San Francisco. The songs on Afternooners' reflect the advances of the equipment available at the onset of the 1980s. Cowley's unadulterated electronic forms are stripped down and dubbed up. Lush electronic percussion, soaring synthesizer riffs and low slung funk grooves comingle on these magnificent soundscapes.

Featuring 70 minutes of music never before released on vinyl. All songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, CA. The vinyl is housed in a gatefold jacket designed by Berlin-based artist Gwenael Rattke, featuring black and white photos of Patrick in his studio that opens to a full color array of x-rated scenes from the Fox Studio vaults. Included is a fold-out poster featuring a handmade collage using photography and xeroxed graphics of classic gay porn imagery and an essay from Drew Daniel of Matmos. For Patrick's 67th birthday, Dark Entries and Honey Soundsystem Records present a glimpse into the futuristic world of a young genius. These recordings shed a new light on the experimental side of a disco legend who was taken too soon.

Steve Moore returns to the library music fold and it's a total doozy: Cursed Objects is truly sensational prog-synth-wave. Featuring epic electronic explorations with chamber music and symphonic flourishes, it's our favourite thing Steve has ever done. In keeping with the horror heat of the music contained within, this vinyl release is frighteningly limited, with just 500 pressed for the world.

New York-based multi-instrumentalist/producer/film composer Steve Moore is probably best known for his synthesizer and bass guitar work as Zombi, together with Anthony Paterra. But he is also part of Miracle and Titan as well as being a prolific solo artist releasing music as Gianni Rossi, Lovelock and under his own name. Steve’s music has found a home across hallowed labels like Future Times, Mexican Summer, LIES, Static Caravan, Kompakt, Death Waltz, Ghost Box and, of course, Be With Records.

Steve released Cursed Objects for fresh library label Fold. Run by ex-KPM head Paul Sandell, it's a library with values we can all get behind. It's the first production music platform working exclusively with independent labels, publishers and artists to create a truly authentic artist-led sound, at production music rates. Here's what Steve had to say: "I had worked with Paul before, at KPM. After he left, he mentioned that he had started a new library - Fold - and I was very interested in being a part. And I happened to be working on a bunch of music at the time that I thought could fit." So here we are!

The LP opens by letting in "The Uninvited One". Calm and relaxed arpeggiated synths build around sweeping strings and plucked harp to create a mystical and hopeful feel. The title track sees dark synths merge and swell with a piano, string and harp melody that is dark, mysterious and brooding. "Evolutionary Steps" is an electro synthwave track that builds with epic strings and beats, offering an expansive and dreamy approach with a mystical and driving rhythm. Next up, "The Icarus Feather" is daring, pulsing and cinematic synthwave that builds with arpeggiated synths to a hopeful end. "Daily Affirmations" offers calm and meditative ambient synths with plucked harp and strings for a reflective, peaceful, daydreamy feel.

“Mesmer's Bauble” ushers in side two, its dark synth backing builds with plucked harp and strings building with a sense of unknown and dread; it's introspective and heartfelt. "Quiet Springs" is all mystical synths, harps and strings, building to an epic panoramic scope with a hopeful and poignant atmosphere. "Festival Of Samhain" presents a dark and brooding piano melody which builds with synths and strings to create a slow and desolate feel. "The Icarus Feather (Revisited)" is epic building synthwave with arpeggiated synths and strings and a driving rhythm - the beat builds with the strings entering a forceful and marching mood. To close, "Shard Of Medusa" rides a serious and dark piano melody and, in concert with harp and strings, it creates a suspenseful and solemn atmosphere.

Steve recorded Cursed Objects, as always, at his home studio in Albany, NY. For synths, he mostly used his trusty Prophet 6, as well as his Moog Minitaur and lots of Korg Polysix too. But he also utilised a lot of virtual instruments - he doesn't have the budget for a full string section, or a harpist, alas.

The album’s cover was designed by Chris Stevenson. The artwork is a nod to first wave cyberpunk and in particular Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash and the idea of mind viruses and cursed data. Mastering for this vinyl edition was overseen by Be With regular Simon Francis, and it was cut by the esteemed Cicely Balston at AIR Studios to be pressed in the Netherlands by Record Industry. Far from being cursed, this is another future classic library LP.

The clans of Activision, FromSoftware, and Laced Records have come together to release the majestic music of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice on deluxe quadruple vinyl.

Set in a fictionalised 16th Century Japan, players take on the role of the shinobi Wolf in trying to protect the young Divine Heir Kuro from the remnants of the Ashina clan. Progression requires a mastery of stealth combat and extreme precision while battling some of From’s most iconic boss encounters to date. No one forgets the first time they bested Genichiro atop Ashina Castle...

The vinyl sets feature 50 tracks by lead composer Yuka Kitamura (Bloodborne, Dark Souls III) and co-composer Noriyuki "α" Asakura (Tenchu series.) The dramatic score features traditional Japanese instruments, orchestral and choral elements, and outlandish, mysterious sounds that transport listeners to a war-ravaged Japan during an alternative history Sengoku period.

Rising UK label Human Worth proudly present TORPOR's third full length album Abscission. A fine tapestry of sludge metal, lumbering doom riffs, forward thinking post-rock dynamics, cerebral drone passages, ambient textures and stark spoken poetry. Recorded by producer Wayne Adams (whose credits include Wallowing, Green Lung, Possessor and more), 'Abscission' is a paean to earth shattering tones, subtle detailed textures, immersive sound design and most importantly... ABSOLUTELY CRUSHING HEAVINESS. For their third album, TORPOR were compelled to withdraw into the bleak and elemental vistas of rural Wales, embracing isolation and solitude in order to craft this autumnal sonic landscape. The trio brought producer and frequent collaborator Wayne Adams (Petbrick, Big Lad) out of his London city studio to work at Giant Wafer Studios.

TORPOR's excursions into the wilderness can really be felt across these lengthy songs. Bludgeoning riffs show a new found density and weight reminiscent of gallant trees standing tall amongst battering wind and rain. All of this sonic magnitude has been finely captured by Adams, with the final master by James Plotkin (Khanate) completing this all-encompassing experience – quite fittingly the trio were also invited to showcase the album in full at the 2023 Roadburn Festival, on the day that Khanate headlined! Abscission is the sound of Torpor fully realising their visceral and cinematic vision, turning an unflinching gaze towards the unrealised lives we all carry with us. Human Worth have pressed a limited edition of environmentally conscious Eco-Mix Vinyl in a stunning packaged designed by Jack Burley, featuring a 12" foldout insert, with 10% of all proceeds donated to charity Second Step – a leading mental health charity in Bristol and the South West.

We interrupt our regular Drum Chums programming to bring you a little V/A tackle via the 'Percussion Pals' project.
These razor sharp cuts come from friends near and far, old and new, each one primed to upgrade your record collection.

Debuts abound on the A-side, first via international man of mystery DJ Poufsouffle and his Balea-rock disco stomper "Totally Manic". Brimming with Flash & The Pan style pub-rock wonk this one boasts a growling vocal, sparkling keys and an uplifting chorus which doesn't quite break the spell of extreme silliness.
On the A2, Bristol's Spice Route rescue a nebulous reggae gem from Library obscurity, swinging the scalpel and working the desk to turn out an unstoppable groover.
Built around an irresistible rhythm section, "Gruler Dub" keeps on getting higher as the space-based vocals and trilling synths turn your brain inside out.

The B1 brings the return of Drum Chum extraordinaire Neil Diablo, who follows the Balearic brilliance of his last label outing with a cosmic caper into pure oddball pop. "Starry Night" slinks along in a chromed out catsuit, purring weirdo vocals over robo-chug and mechanical drums before indulging in a catchy chorus packed with addled innuendo. Not only is this as arch as Gina X doing a forward fold, but it also boasts some serious bass weight in the later stages - you have been warned.
We're delighted to finally feature a little magic from Australian Italo wizard Hysteric, who brings the curtain down in utterly emotional fashion via AOR disco dream "Pinball". A steady beat, infectious bassline and glistening chords play host to a swooning vocal, which reminds us to go with the flow and follow fun at all times.

100% Drum Fun Guaranteed.

Kompakt is proud to announce, finally, a reissue of the first, self-titled GAS album. Originally released on electronica imprint Mille Plateaux back in 1996, it’s been unavailable in its original form ever since – the version of GAS included in 2008’s Nah Und Fern box featured several different tracks. Here, however, GAS is restored in all its glory, the debut full-length from Wolfgang Voigt’s most enigmatic, quixotic project.

There had, of course, been signs of what was to come. Back in 1995, Voigt essayed the first GAS release, a slender, yet remarkable four-track EP, Modern. Its centre label featured a reduced symbol – an overhead or lamp light, switched on, its glow radiating outwards in four bold black lines – a perfect representation of the tight, stylised ambient electronic pop contained on that 12”. A few curious compilation tracks were floating around, too, for Mille Plateaux’s Modulation & Transformation and Electric Ladyland series. If you were attentive enough, you could tell something was up.

But nothing quite prepared us for the languorous, effervescing loops and regular-like-clockwork beats that Voigt folded together on GAS. Its six long tracks, all untitled, neither begin nor end but hazily fade into earshot, vibrate majestically in your cochlea for fifteen-or-so minutes – some a bit shorter, some longer – and then meander away, reading the mise-en-scène for the next example of Voigt’s drift and dream logic to unfold. The material is referential in the most distant way, and you can sense only the most evanescent of ghostly presences, haunting these six compositions.

GAS feels, also, like a more pliable hint at what’s to come, as the GAS concept really solidified on its successor, 1997’s Zauberberg, and reach its apotheosis on Königsforst and Pop. Those three albums share a very similar palette – blurred, hazy samples, often of classical music, stacked and cross-thatched across a muted 4/4 thud. GAS, then, is an outlier of sorts: it’s more expansive in its remit, lighter in its mood, perhaps more fleet of foot. This, of course, is part of its charm.

In clearing space for Voigt, by preparing the terrain, GAS sits both at the edge of the forest, and at the verge of an expansive, wide-eyed future; one where GAS would become truly eternal.

Text by Jonathan Dale

Kompakt ist stolz, endlich eine Neuauflage des ersten, selbstbetitelten GAS-Albums ankündigen zu können. Ursprünglich im Jahr 1996 auf dem Electronica-Label Mille Plateaux veröffentlicht, ist es seitdem nicht mehr in seiner ursprünglichen Form erhältlich – die gleichnamige Version von GAS, die 2008 in der Nah Und Fern Box enthalten war, enthielt verschiedene andere Titel. Nun liegt das 3er Album in seinem naturbelassenen Originalzustand wieder vor.

Bereits 1995 zeichnete sich mit der Maxi GAS - Modern auf Profan, sowie einigen Kompilation-Beiträgen auf Modulation & Transformation und Electric Ladyland auf Mille Plateaux dieser frühe, weltentrückte, rätselhafte GAS Sound ab, der sich erst in den sechs scheinbar endlosen, majestätisch-sprudelnden Tracks des Albums voll entfaltete. Die Musik ist von ätherischer Leichtigkeit, in der wie aus einer anderen Sphäre abstrakte Referenzen aus weiter Ferne nur andeutungsweise herüberzuwehen scheinen.

Dieser frühe, eher sphärisch-leichte, gleich einer sonnendurchfluteten (Wald-)Lichtung anmutende GAS Sound, stellt gewissermaßen den Ausgangspunkt der audiovisuellen „Welt“-Reise in den düster-romantischen Acid-Wald dar, in den sich GAS ab 1997 mit den Alben Zauberberg, Königsforst, Oktember und ab 2000 mit Pop an anderer Stelle wieder hinaus und in seine ganz eigene Ewigkeit begeben hat.

Across the vast expanse of the cosmos we approach a shimmering satellite globe. Entering its orbit in a hypnotic swirl our eyes peer closer and closer to the glowing sea below. We land near an intertidal zone wondering what enchants this world and its waters.

Coral Morphologic’s first album took us on a journey through space. Now with their sophomore LP we arrive at our destination, an aquatic world teaming with life.

*features a foldout poster with album art by Robert Beatty*

Across the vast expanse of the cosmos we approach a shimmering satellite globe. Entering its orbit in a hypnotic swirl our eyes peer closer and closer to the glowing sea below. We land near an intertidal zone wondering what enchants this world and its waters.

Coral Morphologic’s first album took us on a journey through space. Now with their sophomore LP we arrive at our destination, an aquatic world teaming with life.

*features a foldout poster with album art by Robert Beatty*

Tokyo female group Gallhammer was formed in February 2003 by Vivian Slaughter (bass/vocals), following her passion for the primitive work of Swiss legends Hellhammer & other metal, punk & crust acts. The band's debut studio album, 'Gloomy Lights' swiftly followed the year after, leading to a deal with Peaceville Records for the release of the 'Ill Innocence' (2007) & 'The End' albums, before the band folded.

Having become somewhat of an underground sensation in the years prior, the aptly-titled 2011 release, 'The End', was to become the farewell opus for Gallhammer. The album was recorded at Void)))Lab in Tokyo in mid-October 2010 & evolved further from the foundations of 'Ill Innocence', with an album of disturbing & dark drone music with a hypnotic bass & drum combination mixed with the band's raw black metal & punk origins. To further enhance the Gallhammer sound circa 2011, there was also the introduction of saxophone performed by Vivian, who at the time described the overall album direction as "strange & psychedelic experimental sounds of doom".

This edition of 'The End' is presented on black vinyl & appears on the format for the very first time.

2024 Repress

After 7 years and countless requests, Sneaker Social Club finally deliver a repress of Dream Cycle - Part One.

After a chance meeting at Gottwood in 2016 a bond was established between Dream Cycle (Robin Clarke) and label owner Jamie Russell over a shared love of 2 Bad Mice and Moving Shadow. It wasn't long before Clarke began channeling elements of that influence to produce his Dream Cycle Part.1 EP. Unfolding over 4 steppy tracks and an ambient closer, Clarke melds sharp snares, summery motifs, dense atmospheres and thick subs whilst keeping things suffused with a distinctly UK quality that marries his work perfectly with the Sneaker catalogue.

DJ Support: Ryan Elliott, DJ Die, The Blessed Madonna, Octo Octa, Bwana, Altered Natives, Noodles (Groove Chronicles), Liem (Lehult), Deejay Astral, LA4A, 2 Bad Mice, Fred P, Matt Karmil, Flori, Marco Zenker, J.Rocc (lol at comment!), Ajukaja, Gnork, William Djoko, Till Von Sein, Fold, ASOK, Gene Farris, DJ bwin, Seven Davis Jr, TRP, DJ Octopus, DJ Normal 4, Gerd, Dean Man s Chest, Poté, Doc Scott, Violet, James Welsh (Kamera), Konx-om-Pax, Etch, Raresh, Hrdvsion, Michael Serafini (Gramaphone), Frazer Ray, DJ Guy, Mak & Pasteman, Shenoda, Urulu, Mark Archer & James Zabiela, Zinc, Lehult, Jackie House, Mosca, Noodles (Groove Chronicles) & DJ Die.

Stella Polaris is all about quality Scandinavian electronica, chill out, down tempo, leftfield indie music. This 18th edition of the Copenhagen chill-out festival brand comes with a double gate folded colored limited edition (300 copies) vinyl with a focus on inspiring female talent

Heaven Born and Ever Bright is the third studio album by British rock band Cardiacs. It was produced by Tim Smith, engineered by David Murder and mixed by both Available on CD Digifile and Single Sleeve Violet coloured vinyl (pressed from the 1991 master) Cardiacs are an English rock band formed in Kingston upon Thames by Tim Smith (guitar and lead vocals) and his brother Jim (bass, backing vocals) in 1977 under the name Cardiac Arrest. One of Britain's leading cult rock bands, Cardiacs' sound folded in genres including art rock, progressive rock, art punk, post-punk, jazz, psychedelia and heavy metal (as well as elements of circus, baroque pop, medieval music, nursery rhymes and sea shanties), all of which was topped by Smith's anarchic vocals and impressionistic lyrics. Their bizarre sound and image made them unpopular with the press, but they amassed a devoted following Tim Smith was the primary lyricist, noted for his complex and innovative compositional style. He and his brother were the only constant members in the band's regularly changing lineup. The band created their own indie label, the Alphabet Business Concern, in 1984 and found mainstream exposure with the single "Is This the Life?" from their debut album A Little Man and a House and the Whole World Window (1988). Their second album, On Land and in the Sea (1989), was followed by Heaven Born and Ever Bright (1992), which displayed a harder edged, metal-leaning sound retained in the subsequent albums Sing to God (1996) and Guns (1999). Tim Smith was hospitalised with dystonia resulting from a cardiac arrest in 2008, which brought increased and belated critical recognition to Cardiacs, with several music outlets calling Sing to God a masterpiece. His death in 2020 saw a raft of tributes on social media

Sumer Is Icumen In is Quentin Thirionet's (Dhavali Giri, Pairi Daeza) debut album. Still, his musical escapades are vast and varied, based almost entirely on improvisation and live recordings, of which he occasionally distributes tapes without further information. Elusive to categorization and identification, unwilling to fix his musical activity under a stable pseudonym, his projects have ranged from gypsy jazz guitar swings, French traditional songs from Auvergne, and various experimental collaborations. Increasingly closer to electronic instrumentation, he crafted what Belgian label KRAAK presents here as Maibaum, his first ever solo output. As the title goes, this may be a maypole on which his multicolored sonic visions spring about.

Former rope access worker and currently a farmer of organic greens, Thirionet lives up to these lines of work as a musician. He assembles precisely what seems like a subtle balance between high manmade structures and soft fertilized soils; a high voltage pylon placed in a biotic landscape. It's all an even blend, spontaneous and steady, but this contraption comes from profound considerations. "I chose these tracks among many others," says Quentin, "because I heard the melodies all the time in my mind, and because I cried while playing them without really understanding why."
Armed with nothing more than a blackbox, a sequencer, a freeze pedal, and a tape player, Thirionet orchestrates a vivid rite of polished futures. At times reminiscent of Hans-Joachim Roedelius' enveloping arrangements, Maibaum's ambiances rely on mild repetitive patterns subsequently textured by prickling sprouts, mechanic dislocations and revamps that stoke and brighten the stirring motions. Jim O'Rourke's I'm Happy and I'm Singing comes to mind in terms of its detailed and prismatic nature, but Sumer Is Incumen In has its particular narrative. It's a tale of regeneration, of spring's delicate procedures and allure, a celebration of gracious and fortunate junctions between nature and machinery.

The album unfolds like a massive engine being made flesh to drift along the ether of a sultry land. The terrain turns pleasant and fertile in the title track; the colors and melodies of May start to unravel. Chromatic columns rise and define the scenery's depth of field breeding a synesthetic stream between crystal lights and warbling organisms. Grande Albero Buono Magico Uoma's brisk kaleidoscopic arpeggios sound like scanning a tree's litmus foliage. Then Ciguri takes us back to the foggy swamp of the beginning but is suddenly lit by an insect’s labyrinthine roundabout. The Jeweled Grid is a poem Quanta Qualia's lustrous metallic voice recites as a report of the album's phenomena. "Shiny revelations jump out. Pearls of thought flicker about." Images from within that distill to swirl around among us. The thicket dissolves as the album concludes calmly in Le Concept De Chien N'aboie Pas. Swaying under sieved solar light, leaves and branches tingle until the winds grow weak. All the warm creatures gathered along the way, and all those who danced around the maypole's splendid equilibrium now withdraw, folding up small to foster rebirth once again.

José Badía Berner

This album was recorded in Philadelphia in 1977 by Rare Feelings, a band led by Rick Mason, who was fully involved as songwriter, arranger, and producer while also supporting the band's groove as bassist. This is a superb example of one of the few soul and funk hard diggers that every hard digger has wished to have and has been lucky enough to acquire, and it is a masterpiece that is numbing not only in its sound but also in its vintage-inspired artwork! Rick Mason's bass roars, the organ and horns fold in and out, and a faintly haunting vocal (?) enters, blended with an exquisite psychedelic feel. The opening track "Rare Feelings" (A1) blends exquisite psychedelic sensation with slap bass, swirling intro, raging horns and organ, and then suddenly changes the tone to mid-tempo with the intertwining of bewitching vocals again. The song suddenly changes to a mid-tempo and leads to "Dope" (A2) with its bewitching vocals, a sound that is worthy of being called rare groove! The instrumental number "Metamorphosis Funk" (B2), which features not only bass and organ, but also continuous drum fill-in, fast cutting guitar and solo, and flute lead, is sure to get the floor going! This is the first official reissue in the world!

Chicago's Black Diamond debuts on We Jazz Records with their new album Furniture Of the Mind Rearranging on 26th July. Co-led by Artie Black and Hunter Diamond (composers, saxophones, and other woodwinds), Black Diamond appears in both quartet and duo formations. The first three album sides present the quartet, complete with long standing band members Matt Ulery (double bass) and Neil Hemphill (drums), under the heading Furniture Of the Mind. The remaining two tracks on side D fall under the title The Mind Rearranging, with Black and Diamond presenting a meditative duo encounter of two tenor saxophones.

Furniture Of the Mind Rearranging is an assemblage of new compositions and improvisations that develop the band's established sound and exemplify the way in which this band folds into the Chicago creative music community. The quartet traverses their familiar aesthetic ranges between driving off-kilter groove, plaintive minimalism, and intimate chamber music, with the everpresent spirit of small-group jazz and a hovering influence of Chicago’s improvised music culture. And while this collection represents three previous

albums and more than a decade of close kinship and artistic evolution between co-leaders Black and Diamond, neither are too precious about any one element on the album. This is very simply the latest work in what continues to be an expanding body work founded on a guiding principle: cultivation without expectation.

The four sides with two formations flow together in a natural way, forming an idiosyncratic musical entity that is sure to grow with each new spin on the turntable.

Outsider ambient soundscape by two musicians from the Paris alternative : Désiré Bonaventure & Zach.

An enchanted yet psychedelic dream-like ballad recorded in one take in an ephemeral delirium; borrowing from dub, drone, IDM & techno, reflecting singular inter-worlds and inviting us to join them.

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Rue des Garderies is a distillate produced by the spontaneous collaboration of Désiré Bonaventure and Zach, two musicians evolving in the Parisian alternative scenes and so named in homage to a former local hotspot of other-music Rue des Gardes - now bygone - where this improvisation took place. Accustomed to exorcising time and space with the multidisciplinary collective †een▲ge g:-)d, Zach has also been evolving in various frequencies - beatmaking, mastering - for over 15 years. Désiré Bonaventure, on the other hand, is a member of the duo Euphonic Alliances Ltd. and R.A.F. Soundsystem.

Rue des Garderies was recorded in one take, using samplers and effects, amidst a tangle of cables, with eyes closed, as dawn approached, in anticipation for another moment of the present. Here, Désiré and Zach delve into the in-between worlds (musical, but not limited to), immersing themselves in their cracks, folds and emanations, attempting to narrate them to us.

From this material they shape a new alchemy lasting over 1h30, akin to a prolonged journey into psychedelia, drawing from various currents (such as ambient, drone, IDM, dub techno, and the English electronic scene of the 1990s), rich in organic and analogue textures that overlap, stretch, fold and expand.

The result is a grand and ethereal fresco, with shifting colours and textures, evoking astral projections and sporadic rhythms; a whole other world, populated by shapes, hues and new lives, forming a complex but enchanting sound essay.

Born of a fragile chaos, Rue des Garderies is an ephemeral harmony that accompanies moments of existence; a dance without tangible movement.

Boxed set of five 7-inch vinyl records, 300 copies limited edition. Artwork poster included.

All tracks remastered from the original master tapes.

Alessandro Alessandroni is no longer remembered simply as 'the whistler' in Morricone's spaghetti western soundtracks – and rightly so, since he was the key figure behind much of Italian 'secret music' from the 60s and 70s, always there in the studio during recording sessions, whether as a multi-instrumentalist or as the leader of session vocal group I Cantori Moderni di Alessandroni. Today his pervasive presence and important role has been finally recognized by music professionals and enthusiasts alike, so much so that he is now considered the true father of Italian library music – a genre whose sound he shaped since 1968.


As a film composer, Alessandroni often worked for small productions that had very limited (and often regional-only) distribution, and whose budgets were worlds apart from those in the 'top league' where friends and colleagues like Morricone, Bacalov, Trovajoli or Piccioni thrived. Rarely released as a soundtrack, this music ended up, at best, forgotten inside dusty ¼-inch reels or, at worst, disappearing into thin air.

After a string of releases that have brought back to life forgotten or lost works by Alessandroni (Sangue di Sbirro, Afro Discoteca, Lost and Found, etc.), it was pretty natural for us at Four Flies to start delving into a little investigated area of his filmography: his scores for erotic films, the last genre to gain popularity in the flourishing Italian film industry of the 60s and 70s, and perhaps the most extreme too, the one that, by pushing things too far, eventually put an end to that industry and its genres.

So, we're now very proud to present Alessandroni Proibito, an exclusive boxed set of five 7-inch records. It contains a total of 14 previously unreleased tracks from the soundtracks of 4 soft-core erotic films that included hard-core sequences and, therefore, fell somewhere in-between normal commercial distribution and the underground scene of adult movie theatres.

Taking an artisanal approach to his musical craft, Alessandroni was not afraid of having to deal with spicy subject matter, wobbly productions, implausible plots, improvised actors, or cinematographers who were clearly no disciples of Storaro. And he was so good at making a virtue out of necessity, at turning budget constraints into creative advantages, that he created soundtracks that far surpass the films' quality, with music that at once captures and elevates the spirit of the erotic genre as if into a condensed symbol.

More specifically, the maestro recorded many of the pieces in a DIY fashion at home, using a 4-track Teac tape machine to arrange his compositions. The Teac allowed him to play different instruments on each track, which meant he could basically put an entire soundtrack together all by himself, or almost all by himself.

These recordings often feature drum machines – which provide that retro, early electronic music vibe – as well as funk guitars and exotic-sounding percussion in the rhythm tracks. In addition, there is an extensive, almost bewildering use of synthesizers to replace solo instruments that would have required a paid session player. On top this minimalist arrangement, Alessandroni layered what he could: some piano chords, a little flute and, most importantly, his signature 12-string guitar phrasing.

The result is just stunning: a unique mixture of electronic music and acoustic instruments, in a style that stops short of kitsch and ranges from cinematic ambient pieces like "Tensione erotica" to disco-funk tracks like "Snake Disco" and "One Sunday Morning", both of which feature vocals by Alessandroni himself.

Alessandroni Proibito comes with artwork by Eric Adrien Lee and a matching 30x70cm folded poster inspired to the insert-size posters which used to be hung outside movie theatres to attract cinema-goers.

The boxed set is being released in a limited edition of just 300 copies and will never be reissued. First come, first served.

Trombonist Phil Ranelin, who founded the legendary jazz label "TRIBE" with Wendell Harrison and was an important figure in the Detroit jazz scene in the early 70's, is back with a newly mastered version. This album, released in 1976 as the last release of "TRIBE", is a historical piece that cannot be overlooked when talking about the Detroit jazz scene, spiritual jazz, and rare groove in the 70s! From the opening track, the dope "Vibes From The Tribe" (M1) overwhelms you with its supernumerary breakbeats, and the superb jazz funk of "Sounds From The Village" (M2) folds in with its gorgeous horn ensemble and waist-breaking groove, while the bossa flavors of "Rare Groove" (M3) and "Vibes From The Tribe" (M4) are a must-have for any jazz musician. The album is newly mastered and reissued with the latest specifications!

Yellow Vinyl

Seba smashes his way into 2022 with the much anticipated release of his third studio album, "Ingaro".

Prepare yourself for ten brand new tracks of Seba. Secret Operations presents the first LP in almost ten years, from a producer who believes albums are not to be taken lightly.

"Ingaro" takes it's name from the small island outside of Stockholm, which Seba has called home for the last 20 years and is also where he spent his formative years.

The new LP takes the listener on a soaring journey through the entire Seba sound. Whether it's the dark and insistent forces of "Horse Power", which grow and fold in on themselves throughout the track, or the blooming euphoric roller "Public Beauty". A fresh collection of tracks which contain the unmistakeable Seba DNA, which has helped cement the name Seba firmly into the world of drum and bass.

Any album is not complete without some guests joining along the way and Seba has also enlisted some helpers on the journey and the LP includes collaborations with Collette Warren, Björn Berglund, Samuel Lancine and Blackeye.

For many, Seba is a name they are very familiar with. From his early releases on Good Looking right through to the present day Seba has made a name for himself for his exciting and varied production.

His music draws influence from far and wide across the musical spectrum and his work alongside the legendary Paradox and vocalist Robert Manos have gone down in Drum and Bass history.

Not just famed for his work in the studio, Seba's sets have gained a reputation for their energy and emotion. One of the scene's unique veterans. Seba's work is inspiring producers and fans more than ever. An album which sets the bar high for 2022!

I have a lot of beats lying around that I keep meaning to use for something. File under "Beats to Use". I thought I'd put them together on a little beat tape.

In my folders, my beats have random names like "BEATS 114 S_Z - 82" so in needing to give these ones names and in homage to "Special Herbs" I have named them all after drugs. Broadly these beats are pretty menacing, and have a big electronic influence.

I thought they sat well together and alongside the vocal feature from Jam Baxter. Some beat tapes are full of vocal samples or play continuously. I wanted this one to hark back to some of the beat albums of the late 90s that were meant for beat juggling with, cutting or rapping over. So here we are.

Efficient Space welcomes Th Blisks to the fold with their mutant strain of melodica dub, torched hip hop breaks, post-punk and procession song.

Th Blisks' members have many notches on their collective belt. Amelia Besseny and Altered States Tapes’ founder Cooper Bowman are prolific in their ritualistic ambient-pop duo Troth, while Yuta Matsumura holds a formidable Sydney punk band pedigree on top of his Low Company-backed solo work. A reward for those who took the time to dig it out, Th Blisks’ 2022 debut How So? was a DIY creation that fully embraced its outsider roots, revelling in opportunities for connection through pop flourishes. Feeling like it might have been a one-off, we proclaim their return with Elixa.

With an unseen clarity of vision, Elixa conjures its meticulously fleshed out world. Those familiar pieces are all there - the mystery, the patience, a cheeky pop hook - however this time there's an intentionality to it all. A blurred dialogue stretching across Australia, it was largely recorded remotely with tracks bouncing between Bowman and Besseny in Muloobinba (Newcastle) and Nipaluna (Hobart), and Matsumura stationed in Warumpi (Papunya). Every element is carefully considered, stemming from their individual time spent as lifers in the local DIY scenes. Through these tracks you can feel that history; echoes of Castings and Vincent Over The Sink in ‘Do You Bless It?’, Bowman's distinctive submerged tape loops gurgling away under boom bap and *that* Sydney guitar tone in ‘Esk’.

Elixa attempts to bottle some pinged-eye wonder at the magic surrounding, whether in the city or the bush. Informed by the old but drug into The New, it is a begrudgingly current Australien record that respectively nods at the UK’s sound history.