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*REMASTERED ROUGH TRADE DEBUT LP LIMITED TO JUST 500 COPIES WITH EMBOSSED OUTER SLEEVE AND ORIGINAL INNER SLEEVE ON BLACK VINYL*

Dream POP, they called it. Given AR Kane’s Alex Ayuli once worked for advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, it’s no surprise that he and collaborator Rudy Tambala invented their own genre before critics could stick their oar in. It was a canny move, but more importantly, it was accurate: the music of AR Kane was made for dreamers, by dreamers, and its languor and longing made it particularly bewitching listening; their music is often smeared and blurry, happily lost in its own indefinable pleasures. “We wanted dream pop,” Tambala says, “that feeling of a dream where the rules are different. Dream logic.”
-UNCUT REISSUE OF THE MONTH

"A.R. Kane carved out a unique musical path, welding elements of pop, psych, dub, electronica, funk, noise, jazz, ambient and more in a way that had never been done before. Or since. Their debut in particular is a work of unbridled brilliance."
*Electronic Sound*

‘Sixty Nine’ the group’s debut LP that emerged in 1988 had critics and listeners struggling to fit language around A.R. Kane’s sound. As a title it was telling - the year of ‘Bitches Brew’, the year of ‘In A Silent Way’, the erotic möbius between two lovers - and as originally coined by the band themselves, ‘dream pop’ (before it became a free-floating signifier of vague import) was entirely apposite for the music A.R. Kane were making. Crafted in a dark small basement studio in which Tambala recalls the duo had “complete freedom - We wanted to go as far out as we could, and in doing so we discovered the point where it stops being music”. There was an irresistibly dreamy, somnambulant, sensual and almost surreal flow to ‘sixty nine’s sound, but also real darkness/dankness, the ruptures of the primordial and the reverberations of the subconscious, within the grooves of remarkable songs like ‘Dizzy’ and ‘Crazy Blue’. Alex’s plangent vocals floated and surged amidst exquisite peals of refracted feedback but crucially there was BASS here, lugubrious and funky and full of dread, sonic pleasure and sonic disturbance crushed together to make music with a center so deep it felt subcutaneous, music constructed from both the accidental and the deliberate, generous enough to dance with both serendipity and chaos. ‘sixty nine’ remains - especially in this remastered iteration - ravishing, revolutionary – Neil Kulkarni


"A.R. Kane made some of the most exciting, forward-thinking, and science fictional music of their era".s*

Decoy is a 1984 album by the famous jazz musician Miles Davis, recorded in 1983. Robert Irving III on keyboards took over the role that Miles had assumed with a true sense of harmony and only a rudimentary mastery of synthetic sounds and movements. Irving shared the responsibilities of directing with the trumpet player’s nephew Vince Wilburn, Jr., but Al Foster continued to lead the tempo. John Scofield drew the funk of bassist Darryl Jones in the direction of chromatic abstraction. The two tracks that he co-wrote with Miles are fragments of solos: “That’s What Happened” reprising the beginning of his solo on “Speak” (Star People). Decoy offered a good balance between the dominant funk that subsequently took over and the jazz tradition, reflected by Scofield’s angularities, Marsalis’ freedom of tone and the breath of Miles’ playing that had recovered its full power. Decoy is available as a 40th anniversary edition of 2000 individually numbered copies on smokey coloured vinyl, housed in a gatefold sleeve.

*REMASTERED ROUGH TRADE DEBUT LP LIMITED TO JUST 500 COPIES WITH EMBOSSED OUTER SLEEVE AND ORIGINAL INNER SLEEVE ON BLACK VINYL*

Dream POP, they called it. Given AR Kane’s Alex Ayuli once worked for advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, it’s no surprise that he and collaborator Rudy Tambala invented their own genre before critics could stick their oar in. It was a canny move, but more importantly, it was accurate: the music of AR Kane was made for dreamers, by dreamers, and its languor and longing made it particularly bewitching listening; their music is often smeared and blurry, happily lost in its own indefinable pleasures. “We wanted dream pop,” Tambala says, “that feeling of a dream where the rules are different. Dream logic.”
-UNCUT REISSUE OF THE MONTH

"A.R. Kane carved out a unique musical path, welding elements of pop, psych, dub, electronica, funk, noise, jazz, ambient and more in a way that had never been done before. Or since. Their debut in particular is a work of unbridled brilliance."
*Electronic Sound*

‘Sixty Nine’ the group’s debut LP that emerged in 1988 had critics and listeners struggling to fit language around A.R. Kane’s sound. As a title it was telling - the year of ‘Bitches Brew’, the year of ‘In A Silent Way’, the erotic möbius between two lovers - and as originally coined by the band themselves,
‘dream pop’ (before it became a free-floating signifier of vague import) was entirely apposite for the music A.R. Kane were making. Crafted in a dark small basement studio in which Tambala recalls the duo had “complete freedom - We wanted to go as far out as we could, and in doing so we discovered the point where it stops being music”. There was an irresistibly dreamy, somnambulant, sensual and almost surreal flow to ‘sixty nine’s sound, but also real darkness/dankness, the ruptures of the primordial and the reverberations of the subconscious, within the grooves of remarkable songs like ‘Dizzy’ and ‘Crazy Blue’. Alex’s plangent vocals floated and surged amidst exquisite peals of refracted feedback but crucially there was BASS here, lugubrious and funky and full of dread, sonic pleasure and sonic disturbance crushed together to make music with a center so deep it felt subcutaneous, music constructed from both the accidental and the deliberate, generous enough to dance with both serendipity and chaos. ‘sixty nine’ remains - especially in this remastered iteration - ravishing, revolutionary – Neil Kulkarni


"A.R. Kane made some of the most exciting, forward-thinking, and science fictional music of their era".
*Reissue Of The Week In The Quietus*

The large and humanistic ensemble Black Lives , led by bassist Reggie Washington (brother of drummer Kenny Washington) and his wife Stefany Calembert, is working to fulfil a dream - some would say a utopia - that is as much musical as it is social. Musicians from the U.S., Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe are united by a common language in their fight for equality and justice. It's about the future of our societies, which are lost in the excesses of all-consuming materialism and mistrust of others. A natural convergence of musical and cultural aesthetics - jazz, soul, funk, hip hop, blues - is shaping a declaration of love and an act of resistance. Hearts beat fast and fists are raised high! The watchwords call for a world of unity, peace, and freedom. It's a strong belief in tomorrow. 'If you unite and struggle, it's possible to change.'

After playing with Mingus, Coltrane, Lady Day and Abbey Lincoln, inventive jazz pianist Mal Waldron moved to Europe and first reached Japan in 1970, where he met Idahoborn double-bassist Gary Peacock, who had played with Art Pepper, Bud Shank, Bill Evans and free-jazz giant, Albert Ayler before moving to Japan to study zen buddhism. First Encounter, recorded in Tokyo in 1971 for French producer Herve Bergerat, shows that the intense pairing was quite natural, the harmonic dissonance of Waldron’s “She Walks In Beauty” contrasted by the up-tempo groove of Peacock’s “What’s That”; future Native Son founder Hiroshi Murakami makes important contribution on drums.

The new album from Lebanese-American musician Solpara, Melancholy Sabotage, marks his full length debut and return to Nicolas Jaar's Other People label. While it was recorded over Covid lockdowns, Jaar had been talking about wanting to back a Solpara full-length since he put out Swing. The album came to life while Solpara was living alone in a Brooklyn loft, collecting unemployment checks and viewing ample free time as the artist residency he'd dreamed of; he'd previously been forced to make music in odd windows between numerous jobs and the unmerciful pace of city life. Free from obligations, he would wake up early to take Arabic lessons online, read Tracey Thorn's autobiography, and skateboard the deserted streets, then come home and design sounds until he had a track that felt like it needed to be released. While this easy going lifestyle was peaceful in many ways, Solpara found more complex inspiration in the emotion that stemmed from participation in Black Lives Matter protests and the 2020 Beirut Port explosion, which rocked all of his extended family members in Lebanon.

Melancholy Sabotage explores the theme of sabotaging melancholy. Echoing sounds from the post-punk, trip-hop, and ambient genres, it is about sabotaging the cycle of melancholy and looking at this process without ignoring the sources that put it into motion. It may be compared to a rattling breaking free from retention, reaching states of dreamy euphoria while simultaneously acknowledging the sources of retention, viewed from above. The sources can be personal, political, or socio-economic. They are to be apprehended post-melancholy, after the sabotaging of the initial cycle of melancholy. In other words, it is about transcending melancholy and understanding where it came from with some distance. It may be beautiful and healthy to feel for a while, but how may one sabotage this cycle when it becomes paralyzing? Ultimately, this album is about feeling melancholy but also resisting it and naming the sources that initiated it.

"Time To Hold Better" points to neglect on both personal and group levels. "This Time Last Year" is a personal time capsule. "We Keep Us Safe" is about solidarity, autonomy, and care witnessed within protest groups. "Melancholy Sabotage" is a sonic exploration of the album concept illustrating anger and sadness, but finally, resistance and liberation from these feelings. "Measures" is a more fluid exploration of the latter after the initial storm has passed. "We Don't Owe" points to bigger bodies inflicting harm on populations that we owe nothing to. "Breaking Points" harkens the times that we may lose focus while pushing to transcend melancholy. "Eviction" is about being pushed out of a space unwillingly while simultaneously being forced to move forward.

Melancholy Sabotage pulls from a range of genres, uniting electronic sounds under the same post-punky glow. It pulls from complex, heavy themes including damage and injustice, presenting Solpara's most moving body of work to date. It highlights the poignance that has always been at the heart of his fluid sound, which caters to dancefloors and avant-garde spaces in equal measure. Working with a mix of dissonant guitars, distorted drum machines, and distant, reverb-washed vocals, Melancholy Sabotage is Solpara's uneasiest outing to date. The record pinpoints the duality at the heart of Solpara's sound, which is as plaintive as it is searing.

Enjoy The Ride Records in conjunction with WaterTower Music, Warner Bros. Games, and NetherRealm Studios proudly presents the Mortal Kombat 1 (Original Video Game Soundtrack).

It's In Our Blood. Mortal Kombat 1 is the latest title in the acclaimed Mortal Kombat video game franchise developed by award-winning NetherRealm Studios. The game introduces a reborn Mortal Kombat Universe that has been created by the Fire God Liu Kang, featuring reimagined versions of iconic characters as they’ve never been seen before, along with a new fighting system, game modes, bone krushing finishing moves, and more.

Mortal Kombat 1 (Original Video Game Soundtrack) showcases the game's music by Wilbert Roget, II and features stage music composed by Dan Forden, Stephanie Economou, Nathan Grigg, Dan Negovan, Dean Grinsfelder, Casey Edwards, and Joel Corelitz.

Wilbert Roget, II is a veteran composer in the video game and film industries. He joined LucasArts as a staff composer in 2008, where he scored several games in the Star Wars universe, including Star Wars: The Old Republic and Star Wars: First Assault. He later became a freelance writer, scoring Mortal Kombat 1, Star Wars: Outlaws, Call of Duty: WWII, the Emmy Award-winning Star Wars: Vader Immortal, and many other high-profile game scores. He has also written for Japanese anime, scoring the upcoming Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance. His work has earned him several awards and nominations from ASCAP, the Game Audio Network Guild, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (D.I.C.E. Awards), and others.

Roget also co-founded Impact Soundworks, a successful music software company, and is an accomplished lecturer on game music. He frequently gives online masterclasses and tutorials on music composition and production and has a passion for teaching the craft. He is an avid multi-instrumentalist, performing solo flute, keyboards, world instruments, and guitar on many of his scores.

Available on vinyl for the first time, Mortal Kombat 1 (Original Video Game Soundtrack) is a 3xLP, housed in a soft touch gatefold jacket with spot gloss accents. It includes a full-color double-sided 12" x 24" poster.

Timelash is the evolution of Embassador Dulgoon’s cryptozoological sci-fi opus ‘Hydrorion Remnants’ converging with Corum’s surreal sonic mapping as ‘Beguiling Isles’. The combined cinematic vision jettisons listeners through a psychedelic wormhole far beyond the usual perception of known audio latitude.

Aguirre Records has gone all out to inject this tribal dino DNA double slab of wax presented as twelve expansive and mesmerizing tracks of historical mutations linking early communication developments with speculative astrobiological impressions heard as mysterious & riveting melodies that wash over dizzying percussive styles and suspenseful ambience.

A variety of unexampled sounds take shape throughout as tectonic tablature, reptilian choral movements, bubbling bioluminescence, tube calls, orogenic bells, crustacean chatter, lost continent scales, high plains drifting riffs, and primordial soup lapping splashes revealing to listeners a living mural that is ’A Morphology of Wonders'.

The conjuring of cratonic creature harmonics resonate wildly from this interdimensional duet, emerging as Neopangaea music of now

*REMASTERED ROUGH TRADE 4 TRACK E.P LIMITED TO JUST 500 COPIES*

Everything on “Up Home!” is bigger, richer; the guitars are huge, as though they’re being played through the clouds, massive gusts of blue-green noise that move across the stereo spectrum like weather systems. “Baby Milk Snatcher” is built around face-flattening dub bass, with glinting piano and shards of guitar ricocheting through the song. “W.O.G.S.” is delirious to the point of expiration; “One Way Mirror” is their attempt at weird, lopsided ‘anti-funk’, the song’s melody crushed by avalanches of six-string interference. And the closing “Up” is AR Kane’s masterpiece, a disembodied thud pulsing at its heart as a six-note guitar melody spirals ever onward, Ayuli’s voice lost in its own reverie, hymning escapism via references to Jamaican political activist Marcus Garvey’s ‘black star line’.
• Jon Dale, lead review in Uncut Magazine
who grew up together in Stratford, East London. From the off the pair were outsiders in the culturally mixed (cockney/Irish/West Indian/Asian) milieu of the East End, with Alex and Rudy’s folks first generation immigrants from Nigeria and Malawi, respectively. The two of them quickly developed and fostered an innate and near-telepathic mutual understanding forged in musical, literary and
artistic exploration. Like a lot of second-generation immigrants, they were ferocious autodidacts in all kinds of areas, especially around music and literature. Diving deep into the music of afro-futurist luminaries such as Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Lee Perry and Hendrix, as well as devouring the explorations of lysergic noise and feedback from contemporaries like Sonic Youth and Butthole Surfers, they also thoroughly immersed themselves in the alternate literary realities of sci-fi and ancient history (the fascination with the arcane that gave the band their name), all to feed their voracious cultural thirsts and intellectual curiosity.

It was seeing the Cocteau Twins performing on Channel 4 show the Tube that spurred A.R. Kane into being - “They had no drummer. They used tapes and technology and Liz Fraser looked completely otherworldly with those big eyes. And the noise coming out of Robin’s guitar! That was the ‘Fuck! We could do that!
The duo debuted with the astonishing ‘When You’re Sad’ single for One Little Indian in
1986. Immediately dubbed a ‘black Jesus & Mary Chain’ by a press unsure of WHERE to put a black band clearly immersed in feedback and noise, what was immediately apparent for listeners was just how much more was going on here – a tapping of dub’s stealth and guile, a resonant umbilicus back to fusion and jazz, the music less a conjuration of past highs than a re-summoning of lost spirits.

The run of singles and EPs that followed picked up increasingly rapt reviews in the press, but it was the ‘Up Home EP’ released in 1988 on their new home, Rough Trade that really suggested something immense was about to break. SimonReynolds noted the EP was: Their most concentrated slab of iridescent awesomeness and a true pinnacle of an era that abounded with astounding
landmarks of guitar-reinvention, A.R. Kane at their most elixir-like.

If anything, the remastered ‘Up Home’ is even more dazzling, even more startling than it was when it first emerged, and listening now you again wonder not just about how many bands christened ‘shoegaze’ tried to emulate it, but how all of them fell so far short of its lambent, pellucid wonder. This
remains intrinsically experimental music but with none of the frowning orthodoxy those words imply. A.R. Kane, thanks to that second generation auto-didacticism were always supremely aware about the interstices of music and magic, but at the same time gloriously free in the way they explored that connection within their own sound, fascinated always with the creation of ‘perfect mistakes’ and the possibilities inherent in informed play.

Announcing the debut album from one of London’s most electrifying acts, New Regency Orchestra. An 18-piece Afro-Cuban big band, inspired by the musical melting pot of NYC in the 1950s, but with the punch and power of a whole host of London’s best Latin and jazz musicians. Blowing new life into these compositions, the album is a reimagining of some of the finest music from that golden era. From early 1950s René Hernandez and Tito Puente, through to the 1970s salsa of Rafael Labasta and Orlando Marin, produced and performed with fresh fire.

NRO is the brainchild of its artistic director, and the man behind Total Refreshment Centre and Church of Sound, Lex Blondin. Through a long-held passion for jazz, Lex discovered the explosive Afro-Cuban rhythms of mid-1940s NYC via the godfather of Afro-Cuban jazz, Mario Bauzá. A time when two musical worlds collided in a fusion of creativity and energy, jazz luminaries like Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker joining forces with Cuban greats like Machito and Chano Pozo. This vibrant sound was music to dance to and found a home at The New York Palladium, a formative space of freedom and expression that was key to the scene’s development.

Although dance-focussed in their makeup, those early recordings are not often heard in modern club environments and Lex dreamt of retelling their story with a contemporary dynamism. A slice of serendipity followed, as a slot at a new festival opened up and Lex jumped at the chance to make this idea a reality, an 18-piece big band breathing new life into these beloved songs.

Enlisting the expertise of some of the capital’s finest talent, Lex and co-captain Andy Wood, of Como No fame, put together a world-class line-up of talent. Bringing in Eliane Correa as musical director and bandleader, a fluid and interchanging 18-piece band was formed.

The album itself is a hand-picked selection of timeless Afro-Cuban jazz classics, reimagined with NRO’s unbridled energy. It contains ten incredible instrumental tracks including 'Pregon' with its anthemic horn stabs and the addictive head nod bounce of 'Mambo Rama', alongside two scorching vocal numbers in 'Papa Boco' and 'Labasta Llego'. Coupling a heavyweight rhythm section with a wall of horns, they provide a fresh spin on songs from Tito Puente and Chico O'Farrill, René Hernandez through to Rafael Labasta.

“Some of the tunes like Tito Puente’s ‘Mambo Rama’ and ‘Scarlet Mambo’ might sound like they went to a gym as extra drums and bass synth were added to them whilst the tune ‘Sahib & Tito’ is a mix of Tito’s ‘Mambo Buda’ and Sahib Shihab’s ‘Nus’. Our intention is to be both respectful to the innovators and inventors of this incredible music and to pay our dues, but also to add something special from London where the city’s new jazz scene connects with its Latin American musicians and the musical influences around us.”

This pure collective joy, shared experience and music you can’t help but move to.

"Irish singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer, James Vincent McMorrow, returns to the fore with his seventh full-length album Wide open, horses, out June 14th, 2024.

Wide open, horses is a candid snapshot of everything that has brought James to this point. The album signifies a retaking of his own narrative, a freeing self-acceptance, and a rebuilding of both his sense of self and his connection to music. Singles “Stay Cool”, “Never Gone” and “Give up” offer a first taste of what fans can expect, leaning further into the introspective and sincere indie-folk sound of his earlier material, whilst incorporating elements of his more explorative later releases.

A unique and particularly special artist project, Wide open, horses was initially performed live having booked two nights at The National Concert Hall in Dublin, where he recorded a handful of lo-fi demos, practiced the material for a week, and then hit the stage prior to ever recording a single song. Phones weren’t allowed, but James recorded it to “see what worked and what didn’t work.”

James has beckoned listeners to open their minds and hearts since his emergence in 2010. Along the way, he gathered over 1 billion streams across an expansive catalog. Among many standouts, “Higher Love” went BPI Gold in the UK and ARIA platinum in Australia. His cover of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” soundtracked the trailer for Season Six of HBO’s Game of Thrones and generated over 130 million Spotify streams on its Live At Killkenny Arts Festival version. Toppling charts, 2016’s “We Move” notably debuted at #1 in Ireland. At the same time, he lent his voice to “Hype” from Drake’s multiplatinum blockbuster Views, “I’m In Love” from Kygo’s Cloud Nine, and “Run Away” from dvsn’s Morning After, among others. Meanwhile, he’s sold-out tours on multiple continents, even packing the world-famous Sydney Opera House twice."

At the frayed bottom-edge of Indiana - just a moderate bike ride north of Louisville, Kentucky - multi-instrumentalist, artist and songwriter Ryan Davis' Americana-noir soundwaves have been emanating for years in a myriad of forms. As driving force for the lauded State Champion, long-running member of Tropical Trash, administrator of the esoteric and excellent Cropped Out festival, and lone proprietor of the Sophomore Lounge label, Davis lays down his first proper 'solo' release with Dancing On The Edge, a rich, 2LP tapestry of tunes that absolutely glows over seven expansive cuts. It's a pure collage of modernity and heritage. Recorded in early 2023 with help both in-studio and remotely from peers like Joan Shelley, Catherine Irwin (Freakwater), Will Lawrence (Felice Brothers, Gun Outfit, John Early), Jenny Rose (Giving Up), Christopher May (Mail the Horse), Elisabeth Fuchsia (Footings, Bonnie "Prince" Billy), and Aaron Rosenblum (Son of Earth, Sapat), the results herein are melancholic, gentle, minimal yet colorful in mood: a lilting highway accompaniment of crisp instrumentation and a relaxed, amiable approach to vocals with rhapsodic wordsmithery. Fans of the aforementioned artists as well as those of Souled American, David Berman, Kurt Vile and 'Comes A Time'-era Neil should all easily find bounty. While bare-boned and uncluttered in presentation, many of these pieces track over 6 minutes allowing a fair amount of expansiveness. Dancing On The Edge stares down into the navel of the American Experience underbelly with a fair amount of outward reach. Besides the Kosmische-synth and violin stabs reaching into a European element, stately organ swells build a musical bridge between 1969 Southern California and Felt's latter era smooth moves, with layers of intelligent gesture taking this well beyond the realm of its archetypal indie troubadour/acoustic songwriter tag. Music and mint juleps never went down so well together." Originally released via Ryan's own label, Sophomore Lounge, in the US late 2023, it picked up some incredible reviews: best of 2023 in both Pitchfork and Rolling Stone, 9/10 lead review in Uncut, and a raft of other notable publications. "This is the sound of someone bearing a torch." - Bill Callahan (Smog) - RIYL Silver Jews, BPB, Lambchop, Cass McCoombs, Sparklehorse.

The 8th full length studio album from RJD2! You may know him from the Mad Men theme. Or "Deadringer". Or those commercials and shows and movies and such. You may not even know the name, but you surely know the tunes. Well into his third decade in the game, RJD2 refuses to let his foot off the gas with quality albums. Ever so funky, mysterious, and quirkily soulful, "Visions Out Of Limelight" continues his tradition of making records free your mind, and you know what will follow. Featuring vocals from the legendary Jamie Lidell, long time collaborator Jordan Brown, and even one song by the man himself, this album is sure to satisfy longtime fans and those new to the party alike.

Inspired by a life long obsession of dub, synth, industrial and different kinds of minimalism, "Extended Player" 12"EP by The Idealist is a tribute to these inspirations aswell as an attempt to move forward or elsewhere. This is experimental techno and electronic music from an artist that is freely moving between drone and noise to this. Party music for professionals.

A Haunted Tongue is the third album by Colossal Squid, the solo project of producer/virtuoso drummer Adam Betts (Goldie, Squarepusher, Melt Yourself Down, Jarvis Cocker). The first self-titled Colossal Squid album (2016) was intended by Betts as a way of exploring the process of creating music from purposefully limited tools (a drumkit and electronica) and finding a place where technology and live performance could happily meet. In comparison, the second album Swungert (2019) acted as a chance to see if the music written from that same process could be moulded (via collaboration and editing) into something more traditionally recognisable as a ‘song’. A Haunted Tongue moves things on one step further, letting the process and approach fade into the background, freeing Betts to balance a million inspirations (early 90s Warp, rave tapes, Nubian drumming, Indonesian gabba…) and filter them through an anything-goes punk aesthetic that results in a feeling of freedom that is both refreshing and rare. Betts has spoken of “a recurring dream of a stranger trying to get across an important message but not talking in any discernible language” that guided these recordings. This feels appropriate to the listener – the language of A Haunted Tongue isn’t straightforward or easily classified but yet the message is clearly understood and embraced by the listener at a primal level. That message is one of hope - channelling the shared euphoria of communal musical experience and searching for an uncynical and personal expression of positive energy that can move people and resonate with them. “A while back we had a chat with JR Moores, he was doing a Bandcamp piece on the label. We mentioned we wished we did more rave-related releases. Within seconds we had the Johnny Broke album in our inbox. Johnny Broke is actually Wayne Adams. Wayne messaged and told us about Adam Betts (AKA Colossal Squid). And here we are, dealing with someone who drums for Squarepusher and Goldie. Both Chris and I have the biggest love for 90s rave music. For me (Joe) I'm listening to an alternative world that I was old enough for but missed out on. I knew the music but didn't have the knowledge to drive around the M25 looking for the fields. It's a history I don't quite have but feel like I do. It's like the Beatles: known all my life but no idea why. It's cut into our DNA. It was our punk rock but we missed it. This Colossal Squid album, no matter how many times I listen to it, brings something new every time. And it makes me feel like I'm finally there” – Wrong Speed HQ

As the winds of music blow, a wise heart navigates the spiral, finding wisdom in each of its twists and turns.

As the releases of DUBBLACK’s catalogue pile up, the novelty and exploration for new music keeps on thriving.


A brand-new record is approaching, as always available both on a 12” vinyl – limited to 300 copies – and in digital format, featuring the presence of two Masters from the Electronic Music scene: A2 Abd El Monim and Tocchitek.


The two-track EP baptised “Dark Side” includes the gems “Euriale” and “Steno”; two expansive compositions that, also due to their length, masterly observe the task of narrating two complementary stories, each with its distinct moments, yet marked by a strong rhythmic temper. Both tracks are planned to share similar sonic elements: a pulsating 160 bpm kick drum, ghostly pads serving as an inevitable backdrop, and indispensable rhythmic details enriching the whole structure and arrangement.


A2 Abd El Monim, born Alan Abd El Monim, is an Italian-Egyptian artist/composer. He expresses himself through the creation of music ranging from electronic to purely instrumental, and through the interaction between the arts. His poetics opens in a “dark” dimension that considers and interprets the facts through the notion of shadows and darkness but also through penombre. His “dark” vision stands as a filter through which he reads the world and its interactions, therefore using also the notion of light. His music has been performed in Festivals including Musica d’arte (Riccione – Italy), Luci d’Artista (Salerno – Italy), GAMO (Firenze – Italy), Spazio Musica (Cagliari – Italy), On Air – On site (Den Haag -Netherlands), Sound Spaces (Malmö – Sweden), etc.


He composed songs for the solo exhibition “La pelle degli oggetti” and for works Lui&Lei by the artist Giovanni Oberti. In 2020 he undertook a collaboration with the poet Milo De Angelis , putting to music the lyric “A volte , sull’orlo della notte, si rimane sospesi”. He wrote music for several theatre performances by director Emily Tartamelli and has written music for several directors films including Reto Gelshorn, Enea Francia, Paola Piscitelli and Fabio Corbellini. He collaborated with the London based fashion brand B DODI and was invited as an artist to participate in the collective exhibition “Instructions to Light-Keepers” (Milano – Italy). In March 2023, “Periodo Nero”, its interactive and generative installation music and video, was selected for the tribute to Picasso in the city of Florence, will be presented at the Certosa of Florence in September of the same year. In 2017 he won the International Competition of Composizione Silenzio Musica, in 2020 the diploma from President and Artistic Director of Winterreise International Composition Competition Moscow, in 2021 the Call For Scores banned by the Cultural Association Esecutori di Metallo su Carta. A2 Abd El Monim is signed to international label F.M.T Records and Dubblack Records, with which he regularly publishes his electronic music.


Tocchitek is an underground Tekno producer and performer born in Milan, Italy. He started playing live in 2007 as part of the “Approdo Caronte” sound system based in Milan. His first significant appearance as a live performer was at a “Mayday Parade” in 2008 in Milan. In 2009, he joined the “R909 Records” chapters crew based in Milan, bringing his live set to many local club dance floors. Meanwhile, he collaborated and played with many crews around Europe, spreading his music in the free Underground Tekno movement. In 2021, in Milan, he launched “F.M.T Records”.


Simplicity is often the hardest thing to achieve when producing this type of music, primarily designed for uncompromising dance-floors, but the duo successfully channels their message with purity and truthfulness.


The visual aspects of layout and design are once again entrusted to Vittorio Valigi, who puts a greyscale spiral at the center of the cover. A spiral within which one an eye can be glimpsed – the eye of the musical soul of DUBBLACK harmoniously fused with that of A2 Abd El Monim and Tocchitek, who become worthy ambassadors of the Dubblack’s sonic mission.

My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross, ANOHNI"s sixth studio album, expresses a world view by shape-shifting through a broad range of subject matter. Through a personal lens, ANOHNI addresses loss of loved ones, inequality, alienation, acceptance, cruelty, ecocide, devastation wrought by Abrahamic theologies, Future Feminism, and the possibility that we might yet transform our ways of thinking, our spiritual ideas, our societal structures, and our relationships with the rest of nature. On her first full album since 2016"s HOPELESSNESS, she explains the creative process was painstaking, yet also inspired, joyful, and intimate, a renewal and a renaming of her response to the world as she sees it. "Some of these songs respond to global and environmental concerns first voiced in popular music over 50 years ago." ANOHNI"s approach since her last record has shifted from someone tasked with challenging global denial, to an artist seeking to support others on the front lines. "I learned with HOPELESSNESS that I can provide a soundtrack that might fortify people in their work, in their activism, in their dreaming and decision-making. I can sing of an awareness that makes others feel less alone, people for whom the frank articulation of these frightening times is not a source of discomfort but a cause for identification and relief. On "It Must Change," ANOHNI soulfully describes systems in collapse with a note of compassion for humanity: "The truth is I always thought you were beautiful in your own way // That"s why this is so sad." ANOHNI"s voice is sensual and smoothed, selectively reaching to the edges of what it can contain. "We"re not getting out of here // No one"s getting out of here // This is our world," she murmurs. A portrait of legendary human rights activist Marsha P. Johnson taken by Alvin Baltrop features on the cover, reflecting a 25-year relationship with the memory of Johnson that ANOHNI has held space for in the presentation of her own work. Elsewhere, the album artwork states "IT"S TIME TO FEEL WHAT"S REALLY HAPPENING". In some ways it feels as if she is reaching across her life"s expression, and has found a moment of unique composure, wearing her long exploration of disarming intensity, with the maturity of a painter carefully choosing her colors. "I want the work to be useful, to help others move through these conversations we are now facing, to move with dignity and resilience through this bitter dawning."

Bonny Light Horseman - das gefeierte Trio aus Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson und Josh Kaufman - hat heute angekündigt, dass ihr drittes Album und Jagjaguwar-Debüt, das Doppelalbum Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free, am 07. Juni 2024 erscheinen wird. Außerdem haben sie die Leadsingle "I Know You Know" zusammen mit ihrem allerersten Musikvideo veröffentlicht. Der Song, der von Mitchells und Johnsons stets eindringlichen Harmonien getragen wird, zeigt die Fähigkeit der Band, emotionale Erschütterung mit einer Pop-Sensibilität zu verbinden, wie das Wohlfühl-Arrangement und der hymnische Refrain.

Bonny Light Horseman - das gefeierte Trio aus Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson und Josh Kaufman - hat heute angekündigt, dass ihr drittes Album und Jagjaguwar-Debüt, das Doppelalbum Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free, am 07. Juni 2024 erscheinen wird. Außerdem haben sie die Leadsingle "I Know You Know" zusammen mit ihrem allerersten Musikvideo veröffentlicht. Der Song, der von Mitchells und Johnsons stets eindringlichen Harmonien getragen wird, zeigt die Fähigkeit der Band, emotionale Erschütterung mit einer Pop-Sensibilität zu verbinden, wie das Wohlfühl-Arrangement und der hymnische Refrain.

As part of the series - Blockhead presents his new album, Luminous Rubble, where the artist dives deep into KPM’s iconic music and sound design library. Blockhead has released 15 albums over the past 15 years and is regarded as one of the modern masters of instrumental hip-hop. It’s a producer’s dream: Being given access to a vast library of material to construct something completely new and exciting out of all of it and when Blockhead’s at the controls, the results are a listener’s paradise, too. The New York City-based hip-hop production legend’s Luminous Rubble is the latest missive in a particularly busy period for the underground hip-hop veteran, who’s spent the last decades lending his considerable talents to work from artists like Armand Hammer, billy woods, Murs, and Open Mike Eagle; in 2021, he released the critically acclaimed collab LP Garbology with rap legend and longtime collaborator Aesop Rock, just last year he unleashed his twelfth solo album, The Aux. “For me, as a producer who uses samples, there’s nothing better than free rein. That was so exciting for me. Their vault is the one I’m most familiar with,” he says with a laugh. “Back when I used to go record shopping a lot, I would pretty much buy any KPM record on sight. They were always a huge find at record stores. So to be able to tap into these records with no limitations was really nice. Having no boundaries can be overwhelming when it comes to the creative process. Working with these samples forced me to find middle ground in cases where I’d typically just walk away and look elsewhere.” After hearing Luminous Rubble, you’ll be happy he stuck around.

While she was still a member of Nasmak, one of the leading bands of the Dutch ultra-movement, Truus de Groot started Plus Instruments in 1978 with herself as the sole member. When the project evolved, she found a wide range of rotating collaborators like Michel Waisvisz, Lee Ranaldo and James Sclavunos. Plus Instruments was about freedom and the live performances were largely improvised. The sound minimal but captivating. The music always came from within, but De Groot was also triggered by bands like Red Crayola, Suicide, DAF, Wire, Per Ubu, Devo and the No Wave scene in NY. She was always experimenting with primitive multi-track recording and whatever crappy gadgets she could find. Always looking for a gritty, dirty sound and bizarre overtones.

At a young age she travelled to New York and began to immerse herself in the nightlife of the city that never sleeps. Here she found true creativity, passion and expression. The club scene was alive but highly competitive, so this fearless Dutch girl would just knock on promoter’s doors to get gigs booked at places like CBGB’s, Peppermint Lounge, Underground and the Pyramid. De Groot eventually settled in the United States and never stopped experimenting with sound. In recent years she reinvented Plus Instruments and led the group into new territory.

The recordings for this LP were made by De Groot at home and the music is experimental, minimal, industrial but also playful, sounding nothing like most of the later material. 14 tracks in total of which 7 are taken from the elusive and impossible to find self-released debut cassette as ‘Truss Plus Instruments’ which was sparingly distributed by Nigel Jacklin and his legendary Alien Brains fanzine in 1980. The remaining 7 tracks are from the same period (1979-1980) and were carefully selected from the vast archive of De Groot. We are glad to present this anthology that serves as a long overdue testimony to the formative phase of a unique female pioneer of electronic music.

very dope.

With this EP an attempt is made at documenting the vibrant action happening during the late 1970s and early 1980s in the Pioneer Valley area of Western Massachusetts, US. The story is richer than the snapshot we present here, and a more detailed account is to be found in the accompanying book that can be purchased separately.

The Five Colleges in Hampshire County congregated a vast student population that inevitably interacted with the towns in the area. Bars, music and record stores, live music and a lot of experimentation and free thinking. Hampshire College, especially, promoted new approaches to teaching, subjects that might be considered radical by some even today, although a more favourable context would now surely exist for openly debating such topics as American Indians, Kayak Design, Black Oral Tradition, Food Management, etc. And the music? The immediate "punk effect" motivated the creation of numerous bands, many short lived, others evolving into New Wave / Power Pop territory, eventually crossing into Post-Punk experimentation. What is captured in "Noho EP" is a more electronic disposition, favoured by the existence of EMS gear and other equipment at Hampshire College and University of Massachusetts. We chose to focus on a group of musicians who, for a time, played together in different combinations under the loose umbrella of the Tekno Tunes label and the structure around it.

These musicians come from very different backgrounds and the nucleus portrayed here consisted of Christopher Vine, Elliott Sharp, James Whittemore and Nicholas Brown.

Of the several line-up changes The Scientific Americans went through, it was actually only the duo of Chris Vine and Jim Whittemore who recorded "Among Bodge Watt". Never before released, it is a companion piece to their track "El Salvador" available on the 1981 ROIR tape-album "Load & Go!". The Sci Ams were founders of the Tekno Tunes label and also created the Tekno Tours "concert promotion agency", under which name they exposed local audiences to bands such as The Stranglers, The Slits, Pylon, Pere Ubu, The Psychedelic Furs, The Bush Tetras, Steel Pulse, etc. Their own sound kept progressing but at its best there's a solid dub undercurrent, pretty obvious in "Among Bodge Watt".

Human Error was born out of a collective jam by Chris Vine, Elliott Sharp, Jim Whittemore and Nick Brown. Elliott Sharp had moved to Northampton in August of 1978 and naturally became involved in the local music scene, hooking up first with Whittemore at a hi-fi audio store where he worked at the time. Basement jams followed stimulating conversations, and other musicians joined the sessions. "Clandestinator" sounds gorgeously loose, an effortless groove coming from a quasi-dub set-up. Nothing here seems calculated, the music just flows, contagious and irregular as the handclaps in the mix.

The Higher Primates later evolved into a "proper" band but started as Nick Brown's solo project. The Primates only ever released a (now sought-after) 7" single in 1980 (on the Tekno Tunes label, precisely). Both tracks on "Noho EP" were recorded the following year and never released until now. "Auto Music in the Disco Dub Style" is self-explanatory, with a steady, mid-tempo TR808 beat running through, supporting synth squelches, echoes and reverbs, a fat bassline, dissonant melodic lines and odd vocal snippets. Kind of a DJ tool when the concept was barely in place. The more uptempo "Teresa Variations" adds a Fender Jazz bass and Selmer sax to the electronics. It actually sounds more "Disco", even with the robotic, unintelligible vocals. On top of this, the vibe is sealed by the overall Radiophonic Workshop analogue strangeness applied to a dance beat.

The phenomenal three-piece band includes members of Oranssi Pazuzu, K-X-P, Grave Pleasures and Aavikko


Svart Records is proud to release the debut album, I, from Haunted Plasma, a powerhouse of futuristic synth in symbiosis with the super violent atmospherics of kosmische Black Metal. Haunted Plasma is “man meets machine” in a cybernetic wasteland, set to a conceptual backdrop of William Gibson and Phillip K. Dick style mind-melt. The highly evolved creatives at the heart of Haunted Plasma’s sound, cite Terry Riley, Massive Attack, a contemporary take on Krautrock hypnosis, psychedelic Black Metal and 90s Techno, resulting in an orgy of mutant sound.



The phantoms at the beating nucleus of this unearthly machine are Juho Vanhanen (Oranssi Pazuzu, Grave Pleasures), Timo Kaukolampi (K-X-P, Op:l Bastards) and Tomi Leppänen (Circle, Aavikko, K-X-P), transmitting a music form evolved from a life of redefining sonic boundaries in their respective projects. Also featuring guest vocals from Mat McNerney (Hexvessel, Carpenter Brut, Grave Pleasures/Beastmilk), Pauliina Lindell (Vuono, Dust Mountain) and Ringa Manner (Ruusut, The Hearing). Haunted Plasma promises an extraterrestrial experience from some of the foremost contemporary musicians at the heart of the Finnish heavy and avant-garde musical underworld.



Haunted Plasma reveals:

“We are liberated futurists, embracing free-form and natural composition, mirroring the merciless forces of cosmic creation. We have a motto to stay true to our feelings, to spawn a sound that’s never been heard before. Servants of music. Energizing, radical and pure”


The first single from Haunted Plasma’s cascading debut, Reverse Engineer, is a creepy, slowly erupting, synthetic nightmare, of a downloaded being waking up in the wrong future. Ghostly vocals demand the listener to “give us what we want” in an Orwellian glimpse into the current dystopia we live in, where information is controlled, and thoughts are bought and sold. As McNerney intones the words “technology of power” he describes the threat of a malevolent and omnipresent artificial intelligence, as much as describing the oppressive and electromagnetic sonar pulse of Haunted Plasma’s sound itself. Psychedelic guitar hypnosis from Vanhanen snakes around Kaukolampi’s molten and morphing synths, while Leppänen’s uncanny man/machine rhythms pull our strings and animate their other-worldly mechanisms. Have a look at the official visualiser of "Reverse Engineer" on the Svart YouTube channel here


Culminating in the full-blown fast Krautrock of the final self-titled track, oozing with blistering noise elements and enigmatic vocals from Ringa Manner, the album's journey reaches its zenith, taking you to unknown territories on a Kubrikian space trip. I is a rare record of talented musicians coming together to create a completely new sound, which is entirely their own, boldly glowing, where no light has shone before. From the dreamy psychedelia of Echoes to the discombobulated Spectral Embrace, Haunted Plasma is a willful force of deliberate sound contortion.


Whether you want to give in to Haunted Plasma’s sound or not, you are being watched, you are being recorded and your every move is monitored. Haunted Plasma will enter your system on the 31st of May 2024. Turn on your phantom circuits and be prepared for an interdimensional excursion into Haunted Plasma’s alien dreams.

The debut album from Haunted Plasma will be packaged in a beautiful tip-on sleeve, swirling fog artwork, complete with 12” booklet and pressed on 3 exclusive vinyl colours: 300 copies on Standard Black Wax, 500 copies in Amber + Black Smoke and 200 copies of Svart exclusive Turquoise/Black Marble. The album will also be available on CD and digital platforms.

"Listen to This." As the original working title for Bitches Brew, the instruction and invitation resonates to this day as the best way to approach a record that shattered conventions, altered music history, and, more than five decades after its original release, still sounds far ahead of its time. The aural Mount Rushmore of jazz fusion, Bitches Brew is rightly ranked by virtually every significant outlet among the 100 greatest albums ever made in any genre. Sewn together with vibrant colours, voodoo textures, and ethereal moods, the 1970 landmark emerges with supreme detail on Mobile Fidelity's definitive 180g 33RPM 2LP set.

Sourced from the original master tapes and pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI, this numbered-edition version of Bitches Brew joins the audiophile ranks of other essential Miles Davis sets reissued by Mobile Fidelity. Having established new possibilities for studio-recording techniques, the record can now be experienced to maximum degree by way of a pressing that widens and deepens the soundstage, opens up separation between instruments, and broadens the dynamic range. If ever a jazz album can be said to have gone to outer space and back, this is it.

Davis conceived Bitches Brew by having the musicians stand in a semi-circle, where he pointed at them with vague directions for tempo, solos, and cues. The collective improvisation and interplay spawned a galaxy of melodies and grooves later spliced together by producer Ted Macero. On this reissue, these creations take shape with utmost realism. Compositions stretch across black backgrounds and paint abstract canvasses on par with those of Axis: Bold As Love and Abraxas. Juxtaposed percussion, loose jams, and melodic segues explode with impressionistic verve.

And "verve" defines Bitches Brew. Gathering a Hall of Fame-worthy lineup of musicians and tweaking it according to his desires, Davis follows through on his idea to "put together the greatest rock and roll band you ever heard." Central to his proposition is the presence of two (and sometimes three) drummers and two bassists, a tactical move that thrusts rhythms into central focus. Akin to the futuristic album cover art, the drum-driven suites head toward distant universes and uncharted territories. At once hypnotizing and grooving, they chart maverick adventures with quixotic rock, funk, and R&B elements.

Conceptually, Davis described Bitches Brew as "a novel without words" and "an incredible journey of pain, joy, sorrow, hate, passion, and love." The vast psychedelic expanses of warped echoes, liquid reverb, and tape loops confirm such ambitious contrasts of light and dark, fear and hope. Yet the most absolute characteristic of this watershed effort lies in how it resists definitive interpretation and encourages free thought — the very principles with which Davis conceived the everlasting beauty and fascination that remain Bitches Brew.

The current lineup of New Haven's long running Mountain Movers (guitarist/vocalist Dan Greene, bassist Rick Omonte, guitarist Kr yssi Battalene, & drummer Ross Menze) have been playing together for over a decade now, making their recorded debut on a slew of singles released from 2011-2013, but it wasn't until 2015's "Death Magic" (released on New Haven label Safety Meeting) that the potential of that iteration of the group became clear; Mountain Movers are a force of nature. The camaraderie & sensitivity to each others playing has only grown over time, cr ystallizing on the group's trio of albums for Trouble In Mind; 2017's eponymous "Mountain Movers" served as a reintroduction of the group to a larger audience, while 2018's "Pink Skies" raged like a group confident in its strengths, and 2020's prescient "World What World" - written & recorded before the world shut down - slightly shifted focus away from the jams & back toward the weight of guitarist/songwriter Dan Greene's poetic tales of magical realism. The band's ninth album "Walking After Dark" finds a happy medium between both aspects of the band's strengths; Greene's lyrical compositions and the group's long-form improvised jams. To those that are tuned in, that feeling of communion is evident in the Movers' playing. The members swap & cycle effortlessly through instruments without missing a beat, utilizing the downtime of lockdown to write & record every jam in their practice space. Those piles of tapes would eventually get edited & sequenced into "Walking After Dark", a tour-de-force double-album that balances fried, stony brilliance with outré excursions of experimental serenity. Consider the opening track "Bodega On My Mind" that ambles in like a road-worn traveller, its lysergic folk strums peppered with acidic lead lines from Battalene's Telecaster, eventually giving way to "The Sun Shines On The Moon, where the group's sizzling guitars are buoyed by Omonte's pillowy bass & Menze's percussion. From there on out, tracks like "Factory Dream" give the listener a taste of The Movers' modus operandi here; a mixture of (more) traditional song craft interspersed between long-form, improvised pieces of modern psychedelia. The group shuffles through instruments; synths, drum machines, auto-harp, various forms of percussion (and whatever else was laying around) as well as the trad guitar/bass/drums configuration to craft a suite of songs that - while not necessarily similar in composition - feel unified in their overall sonic scope. Tracks like the 14-minute "Reclamation Yard", whose deep-space electronic pulse is juxtaposed against side C opener "See The City "s persistent acoustic strum that showcase similar ideas of the `spirituality ' of losing ones self in repetition, but executed differently. In many ways "Walking After Dark"s duality feels like a merger of "On The Beach"-era Neil Young & the collective freak-outs of Amon Düül, taking inspiration in the `incorporeality ' of free music and lacing it with Greene's hazy, haunting lyricism and is an exciting step forward for a band that's already a few steps ahead. "Walking After Dark" is released on black double-vinyl in a full color gatefold jacket & includes an insert with artwork & lyrics by member Dan Greene.

It’s burning, everything is catching fire, and Aquaserge are singing and dancing on the embers of a world contemplated in a rear-view mirror. A world which is hyper-connected, yet forgets its primary emotions.

This seventh album by the band is an ecological poem, where present and past collide. A resolutely rock-sounding album, laced with electronics, experimental pop songs and audio archives. Along the way, the listeners will encounter traces of Oulipo (the famous experimental French literary movement founded in the ’60st), Dada and free jazz. They will cross paths with the ghosts of Ennio Morricone, Walter Benjamin and Marguerite Duras, with the shadows of Kim Gordon and Brigitte Fontaine. And other audacious and exciting melanges, in the pure tradition of Aquaserge.

The album was arranged and produced by Benjamin Glibert, the band’s guitarist and main composer.

The recording took place in a house located in the french countryside (where Aquaserge’s mobile studio was installed). The mix was done at Studio St Guidon in Brussels, the album was mastered by the legendary Dominique Blanc-Francard at the Labomatic studio in Paris.

The members of the band’s current line-up all took part in the recording: Audrey Ginestet (vocals, bass, guitar, etc.), Benjamin Glibert (vocals, guitar, keyboards, etc.), Olivier Kelchtermans (saxophones, keyboards, vocals, etc.), Manon Glibert (clarinets, vocals, etc.) and Julien Chamla (drums, vocals, etc.).

SIHR: sonic manifesto by a post-anything quartet feat. multi-instrumentalists from the Mediterranean inland Sea. New folklore for a devastated planet, including Frédéric D. Oberland (Oiseaux-Tempête), Grégory Dargent (H), Tony Elieh (Karkhana) & Wassim Halal (Polyphème).

After a few concerts/screenings improvised as a duo in Cairo and Beirut, as well as for the Rencontres d’Arles, the Lille photography center and the Belgian magazine Halogénure, Dargent and Oberland have teamed up with mavericks Elieh and Halal for a puzzling cross-border manifesto. The first sonic moves of this eclectic quartet, made in a bunker studio somewhere between Paris and Berlin, urgently took the form of a quest, that of a neo-folklore for troubled times, a music seeping with many kinds of atavism and experimenting in all directions. A fertile no-man’s-land where trance and contem- plation, jazz and electronica, acoustics and electricity would merge in a stimulating mystical magma.

From the possible emergence of a Babelian language to the shared desire to rediscover music as a ceremonial act, this encounter took place over three days of improvised sound bacchanalia, the phases of which were all recorded by Benoit Bel (Zombie Zombie, Thurston Moore Group, Oi- seaux-Tempête). A hallucinated and generous testimony, SIHR is a synergy of many different worlds and many different possibilities, the sonic vision of a present conjugated in a hybrid tense and exalted by too many tangos danced on the glowing ashes of our days.

Multi-instrumentalist & photographer, Frédéric D. Oberland has been leading the Oiseaux-Tempête collective for over ten years, lying somewhere between avant-rock and free jazz, repetitive music and electronics. Founding member of the bands FOUDRE! and Le Réveil des Tropiques, he’s also perfor- ming solo and composing soundtracks for cinema and installation art. Since 2018, Oberland co-cu- rates the NAHAL Recordings imprint alongside producer Mondkopf.

Electric guitarist, oud player, composer and photographer, Grégory Dargent cultivates his musical schizophrenia and identity through improvised music, trance music, jazz, hijacked maqam, repeti- tive music, pop, electro-acoustic installations and French chanson. From L’Hijâz’Car to Babx, from Berber singer Houria Aïchi to Rachid Taha, from Trio H to Sirventés enragés, from music for images to contemporary choreography, from the most acoustic of ouds to the most nuclear of guitars, he conducts, accompanies, composes, deciphers, questions, delves, makes mistakes, bounces back, ar- ranges, orchestrates and tirelessly shares his creative passions.

Tony Elieh is one of the pioneers of experimental music in Lebanon. A founding member of the first post-rock group of post-war Lebanon, The Scrambled Eggs, he has since developed his unique elec- tric bass skills in various groups and styles of music including collaborating with in groups such as Karkhana, Calamita and Wormholes Electric. Relocated in Berlin in recent years, he has performed a solo set of heavily processed bass generated sounds.

Is Wassim Halal only a darbuka player? Maybe !? But what about his music, compositions, ideas. You can find him with Polyphème playing and co-composing popular-contemporary music with Gamelan Puspawarna, or next to the french bagpiper Erwan Keravec, with the Bey.Ler.Bey trio (w/ Laurent Clouet & Florian Demonsant) working on an improvised-balkan-already-improvised-music, with per- formers and drawers Benjamin Efrati and Diego Verastegui, with Gregory Dargent and Anil Eraslan in H, creating a new pedal generating »Random taksim«, composing his own »Poème Symphonique pour 100 youyou« or composing pieces for ensembles.

"Deep Dancefloor Jams of African Disco, Funk, Boogie, Reggae & Proto Electro Music 1977-1986reggWhen a passionate DJ and crate digger intuitively selects music for a DJ compilation, without artistic compromise and without the burden of trends, AfroMagic vol.1 emerges from the depths of his soul. Herewith we present the new favorite phonomancer’s tool for all the DJs who experience the dance floor as a sanctuary and a source of freedom and love.

The most fundamental thing that defines African music is that it was created for dancing. In African dance, there is often no clear distinction between ritual celebration and social recreational entertainment – one can seemlessly merge with the other. Because dance and rhythm have more power than gesture and more richness than words, and because they express the deepest experiences of human beings, dance is in itself a complete and self-sufficient language. It is truly an expression of life with all of its emotions – joy, love, sadness and hope – without which there is no African music and dance. For the African people, dance and music are integral parts of the body and soul, thus depicting the expression of life, current emotional states, visions or dreams. Through hypnotic repetitive music and dance, people communicate with each other and with the souls of the dead, the animals, the plants, the stars, the Gods… They free the body and the spirit through ecstatic states, reaching a healing sense of freedom, happiness, and satisfaction.

Throughout history, this transcendental perception of rhythm and dance originating from Africa, influenced popular music worldwide, thus creating new living and breathing forms of musical genres – freeing them from their industrial mold. Funk, disco, soul, boogie, reggae, dancefloor jazz etc., developed in parallel all over the world. It is foolish to perpetually discuss where they originated from and who were the creators of all these fiery dance floor genres – being obvious that they directly or indirectly originate from the African continent and its people who were as well, over the centuries, influenced by disturbing socio-cultural factors of colonialism. However, no one can enslave the soul. The seeds of free and uninhibited dance and rhythm, true to their original form, initially first sprouted onto the USA’s fertile fields of clubbing and popular music while later evolving in other parts of the world.

The disco funk club culture manifested itself as a phenomenal explosion of artists and grooves in the second half of the 70s in the USA. Shortly it spread around the world continually reigning over charts in its various forms – to this day. Clubs emerged where the DJ is an almighty shaman and the dancers are a tribe united under one roof. This urban ritual had and still has a single goal: togetherness, freedom, and love. Clubs have evolved into temples where we free ourselves from the burden of a consumerist lifestyle and suppressed emotions – a place where we receive love and give love – to be who we really are.

Disco funk clubbing was such an influential global phenomenon that its influence can be observed in various other genres from the disco funk era i.e. progressive rock, which mutated by layering complex rock arrangements with a disco funk groove resulting in hybrids, highly sought by today’s diggers, producers and collectors. The profit-hungry music industry of the 80s very quickly commercialized the original disco funk sound by amputating of its original Afro groove to be able to easily ‘sell’ it globally. So, the original disco funk groove became underground again, and it has remained so until this day. Today, for a DJ to unearth that ravishing groove that will lead the dancers to the stars, he must dig passionately like a true musical archaeologist in search of that groove that picks you up after just a few initial beats. That groove which forces the atoms in your body to vibrate, that groove which unites the body and releases the burden.

The AfroMagic compilation series is created as a tool for real DJs who stick to the aesthetics and essence of clubbing.

This continuation of the Afromagic compilation by DJ Borovich was created in a private jam session which served as an escape route from intense and complex love problems.

Unconsciously driven by intuition and emotion and following a live mix tape framework where many tunes are arranged instantaneously, Borovich narrates his story with a strong rhythm that cuts loose even the most blocked off energy nodes and restores happiness to the spirit and the body.

The musical experience of the groove is completed by the lyrics of the songs, which symbolically give DJ Borovich universal answers to his questions arising from questioning the boundaries, nuances and other forms of love.

When considering that Borovich’s selection was created to facilitate an escape from the burdens of reality through rhythm and dance, we can be sure that Afromagic Vol. 2 will have a 100% uplifting, energized and spaced-out effect on the listeners.

The intro to A1, “Feeling Happy” by the Apostles, introduces us to an experienced and slow, cool and irregularly tight groove containing a confidently sung chorus that instantly gives a sense of freedom and hints at the remainder of Afromagic Vol. 2: “I’m gonna feel happy, ´cause I know I’m gonna be myself.” After the anthemic song mantra of the Apostles, Aigbe Lebarty uncompromisingly continues with a dirty disco rhythm. Acidified by accented synths that elevate it to shamanic levels and held together by a female tribal choir, we embark on an uncompromising ritual disco journey. Without a moment to take a breather the prog funk band Mighty Flames and their Road Man launch a highly vicious and raw, thick funk groove spiced with acid synths and dirty RnR breaks, raising the bar for the A side. Jimi Hendrix himself would surely praise it given the ultimate freedom and virtuosity in the solo sections. With the last tune on A side DJ Borovich decides to burn the floor with Geraldo Pino’s psychedelic, acid furious groove and lyrics which describe this HEAVY part of love problems: “The way she walk, the way she talk, the way she does a funky dances, she is really really heavy – that woman”.

While the A side represents a compact intoxicating afro groove machine that separates us from reality and lifts us up to the stars in over 23 minutes, the B side is a treasure trove of proto sub-genres gems. This selection represents the mission of the Afromagic: to find singular events in African recorded discography of popular music from the 70s and 80s that give evidence to the birth of new modern genres on the Dark Continent even before they emerged in the U.S.A. or Europe. The beginnings of electronic music influenced genres are represented back to back with 80s synth jazzy pop, all painted in African colours.

The B side opens big with Jake Sollo and a huge reggae blues number singing about the humiliation of a man – goosebumps guaranteed! “You think I’m nobody that’s why, you don’t know the way for me, I’m somebody I know, I found myself at last”. Adolf Ahanotu then enters the scene with a hard sliding tackle at B2 and an exotic rare disco funk dancefloor napalm. A ‘Sensation’ that would ignite even the coldest of introverts. While we approach the end of the compilation the narrative revolves again and takes a different turn. No less and no more than to the proto-electro that Baad John Cross serves us in “Give Me Some Lovin´”. The fat and repetitive broken electro synth groove, championing many early 90s electro tracks, is presented here without hesitation and with constant tension accompanied by a mantric chorus “Gimme some, gimme some, gimme some looooovin’, EVERBODY!!!”. Finally, we’re guided to the end of Afromagic Vol. 2 by Eji Oyevole’s 80s synth pop style presented in an authentic afro manner, giving us a glimpse at yet another released Afromagic edition, as well as giving an answer to DJ Borovich’s love problems. A smoothly broken electronic rhythm resembling electrified highlife sounds, carried on the wings of a virtuoso dreamy saxophone on top of which Eji presents the most intimate parts of himself. Finalizing the track with a symbolic chorus, on the surface referring to the dancefloor and simply having fun, but in actuality referring to the skill and happiness of living: “I´m a dancer, I can dance”. So, get up and dance among the stars with DJ Borovich and Afromagic.

Some albums are game-changers in a genre. Take OutKast's Speakerboxxx / The Love Below or Primal Scream's Screamadelica, they observe, study, and then flip what an album can mean to a genre or moment in time.

From the very first listen of Rubel’s Latin Grammy-nominated third album As Palavras, Vol. 1 & 2, you can feel its transformative force for the MPB genre. Here we see one of Rio’s brightest stars, fusing the contemporary with the classic, soaking up the richness of Brazil’s musical heritage. The result is a marauding 20-track epic, incorporating traditional styles such as forró, MPB, pagode and samba with modern baile funk, rasteirinha and hip-hop.

The album exudes a sense of freedom and creativity, playfully and provocatively juggling the familiar with the forward-thinking. The tracks are divided across two records, navigating feelings of love, heartbreak and discovery, whilst balancing themes of violence, passion, irony and affection. Collaborating with some of the country’s most esteemed artists such as Gabriel do Borel, Liniker, Luedji Luna, Tim Bernardes and Ana Caetano, Rubel takes this fusion of styles, subjects and flavours to the global stage.

The grand, forró-blending, choral opener, ‘Forró Violento (Instrumental)’ sets the tone for the album, with references and links between tradition and modernity everywhere to be seen. From the Ana Frango Elétrico produced, funk flexing, samba-soul brilliance of ‘Não Vou Reclamar de Deus’, to the album’s title cut ‘As Palavras’, in collaboration with Tim Bernardes, that melds MPB influences with electronic elements and hip-hop touches.

Across both sides of the album, Rubel’s story-telling gift is given space to shine. ‘Torto Arado’ featuring Liniker and Luedji Luna, beautifully references the racial injustice, tragedy, hope and ambition found in one the most celebrated Brazilian novels of recent times by Itamar Vieira Júnior. Elsewhere, ‘Na Mão do Palhaço’ manifests a satirical march about a suicidal conservative middle-aged man, who is rescued by the miracle of the carnival.

At times the album is gentle and intimate with tracks like ‘Toda Beleza’ featuring Bala Desejo, or the ode to friendship ‘Lua de Garrafa’, composed with the legendary Milton Nascimento. At others, the grooves hit harder, with sounds from the favelas laced within. ‘Put@ria!’, explores the universe of baile funk, with BK’ and MC Carol trading off on the mic, as ‘Rubelía’ moves between reggaeton, funk, and hip hop. The latter is a tribute to a key influence of the album, Spanish star Rosalía and her parallel mix of current with classic.

Ultimately though the beauty of this album lies in its concept. In the midst of a country divided, ‘As Palavras Vol. 1 & 2’ sets out to bring together genres and generations, grounded in rhythms and words that have helped define Brazil through the ages.

Solo Throat is the first solo LP from vocalist, composer and movement artist Elaine Mitchener. Drawing on the work of African-American and African-Caribbean poets Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Aimé Césaire, Una Marson and N. H. Pritchard, these twelve new vocal compositions disrupt semantic sense, play with the margins of lyrical translation, and give rise to new voicings. Elaine Mitchener is a veteran of vocal expression in the global Black Avant Garde, traversing free improvisation, cross-disciplinary music theatre and contemporary composition with clarity and joy. Most recently, Mitchener has been improvising and composing with the written word as source material - challenging classical ensembles with her piece (“the/e so/ou/nd be/t/ween”), and commissioning composers Matana Roberts, Jason Yarde and George Lewis to respond to the work of Sylvia Wynter (“On Being Human as Praxis”, Donaueschinger Musiktage, 2020). Her performance of Umbra poet N.H Pritchard’s text FR/OG at OTO in 2021 was a revelation - a solo vocal recasting of the powerful visual-material form that Pritchard uses to disrupt semantic ‘sense’. Building on this performance, Solo Throat takes the work of Pritchard alongside poets Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Aimé Césaire and Una Marson as its source material. Its compositions are a loose translation - a carrying from text to voice which holds multiplicity and celebrates the transformative power of literary possibility. Surrendered to the spacing and repetition of consonants and vowels, Michener’s exceptional phonetic freedom gives rise to a sensuous experience which intensifies the roles of rhythm, timbre and breath in expressing meaning. Solo Throat comes together as much through difference as similarity. Mitchener’s own solo improvisations sit alongside the work of Brathwaite, Césaire, Marson and Pritchard, forming a constellation of unlikely alignments which make no aesthetic conclusion. Instead, Solo Throat is a site of encounter, an irreducibly plural de-composition of words into a heterogeneous assemblage of sounds and impulses, emphasising what Anthony Reed calls, “the play on and the surplus of margins of lyrical translation to resituate other pathways of expression”. Just as the poets cited use white space to complicate our act of reading, so Mitchener utilises silence and multiphonics to complicate the act of voicing and the way we listen. Genre: Experimental / Vocal / Poetry

Repress!

Extending the heritage left from the first chapter of the homonymous collection, Schema Records presents "Freedom Jazz Dance Book II". The concept comes from an idea of Luciano Cantone aiming at offering "New Standards" that can be understood and responsively absorbed by young generations. The title deriving from a composition from Eddie Harris describes precisely the project's essence: the intuition of something overcoming hurdles laid by rigid market rules. From this, the artistic meaning of "Freedom", solid funded in "Jazz", from which spawns subsequently the natural impulse to movement, manifesting in "Dance" in fact. With "swing" setting the right pathway without hesitations, the objective of the project remains capturing younger people inside the magic of Jazz. The only possible way it's organic: by leaving the music to free up the spirit within themselves.

Nick Llobet (they/them) was ready to throw in the towel. Llobet, who grew up in South Florida, learned to play guitar at a very young age, dabbling in everything from classical, blues, classic rock, and flamenco. They'd spent much of their early 20s searching for their voice as an artist and as an individual, as well as for a musical community Llobet would eventually move to Brooklyn, but after three years of looking for a hopeful artistic breakthrough, they spent much of their time in seclusion, consumed by social anxiety and imposter syndrome-and they were considering abandoning songwriting completely. One day, while commuting through Penn Station en route to their partner's family home in Virginia (that would also lead to the crucial purchase of a secondhand Tascam cassette recorder), they noticed Patti Smith sitting alone, waiting for a train. The typically shy Llobet decided to approach the icon, who was, in turn, delighted to see that Llobet was carrying a guitar. At the end of their interaction, Smith offered some parting wisdom: "She wished me luck and said, 'Practice hard, Nick.'" Llobet took her advice to heart, and this chance encounter kicked off a personal and artistic rebirth. They started performing as youbet, a play on their last name, and began "changing their vision for what a song could be." youbet's debut, Compare & Despair, a delightful gem of a record that showcases Llobet's propensity for freewheeling whimsy and emotional intensity. In May 2019, inspired by a song-a-week writing group that produced Compare & Despair, Llobet started a second club in which contributors would upload that week's song to a private Bandcamp. Invigorated by this small musical collaboration, the feedback, and the accountability, Llobet wrote 18 songs throughout the duration of the club, twelve of which became Way To Be. After this songwriting marathon, Llobet spent 2020 focusing on instrumental guitar work and political engagement. By the summer of 2021, they were ready to revisit the Way To Be tracks. Over the next year-and-a-half, Llobet worked on the record relentlessly, refining the lyrics, recording, and arrangements from their apartment. Llobet self-produced Way To Be and describes the process as an enormous, labor-intensive undertaking that felt akin to "making a whole film." Along the way, Llobet was joined by collaborators, including Julian Fader (Ava Luna), Adam Brisbin (Buck Meek), and Daniel Siles. Across Way To Be's 12 delightfully off-kilter tunes, Llobet uses wordplay and tongue-in-cheek humor to obliquely explore dysfunctional relationships, regret, self-confidence or the lack thereof, queerness, and self-discovery. Fuzzy at the edges and filled with playful, kinetic arrangements, Way To Be is a bridge into the entrancing world of youbet. You won't want to leave.

1981, the leaden years are over, the socialist left is in power in France and the first wave of punk seems a long way off. However, the youth of the day had not said its last word, and bands were springing up all over the place, free radio stations were opening up, fanzines were being published, concerts were being staged on the fly and little by little a scene was forming, a motley crew of kids in revolt, radical activists and just plain old folk passing through.

After having cut their teeth in a variety of more or less confidential bands, in which you'd come across a good number of players from this up-and-coming alternative scene, the members of Guernica moved up a gear, determined to blow on the still-glowing embers of rebel rock. With the shortage of venues the rule at the time, they began by scouring the suburban MJCs, putting on wild concerts and eventually meeting up with the squatters of the Couronnes commune and the members of V.I.S.A., with whom they played an active part in organising concerts in squatted buildings in these relegated areas of the capital.

In February 1983, the V.I.S.A. association and the Abattoir art collective (which included some members of Guernica) organised a concert at the Usine Pali-Kao. That evening, two groups took to the stage in succession: Guernica and a fledgling duo, Bérurier Noir. The evening will go down in the history of alternative rock as one of the key turning points of the period. After the departure of Loran, who played guitar with both bands, Fabrice Benoît joined Guernica on guitar, and the gang continued for a few more months, ending on a high note with a chaotic concert at the Eldorado in Paris.

Until now, it's been impossible to get your hands on any of the band's recordings unless you're lucky enough to own the Paris Mix compilation, the Guernica/Bérurier Noir split or the V.I.S.A. Usine Cascades 1982 cassette. This vinyl, a perfect record of the era, brings together the six tracks recorded by the band at the time.

Nick Llobet (they/them) was ready to throw in the towel. Llobet, who grew up in South Florida, learned to play guitar at a very young age, dabbling in everything from classical, blues, classic rock, and flamenco. They’d spent much of their early 20s searching for their voice as an artist and as an individual, as well as for a musical community. Llobet would eventually move to Brooklyn, but after three years of looking for a hopeful artistic breakthrough, they spent much of their time in seclusion, consumed by social anxiety and imposter syndrome—and they were considering abandoning songwriting completely. One day, while commuting through Penn Station en route to their partner’s family home in Virginia (that would also lead to the crucial purchase of a secondhand Tascam cassette recorder), they noticed Patti Smith sitting alone, waiting for a train. The typically shy Llobet decided to approach the icon, who was, in turn, delighted to see that Llobet was carrying a guitar. At the end of their interaction, Smith offered some parting wisdom: “She wished me luck and said, ‘Practice hard, Nick.’” Llobet took her advice to heart, and this chance encounter kicked off a personal and artistic rebirth. They started performing as youbet, a play on their last name, and began “changing their vision for what a song could be.” youbet’s debut, Compare & Despair, a delightful gem of a record that showcases Llobet’s propensity for freewheeling whimsy and emotional intensity. In May 2019, inspired by a song-a-week writing group that produced Compare & Despair, Llobet started a second club in which contributors would upload that week’s song to a private Bandcamp. Invigorated by this small musical collaboration, the feedback, and the accountability, Llobet wrote 18 songs throughout the duration of the club, twelve of which became Way To Be. After this songwriting marathon, Llobet spent 2020 focusing on instrumental guitar work and political engagement. By the summer of 2021, they were ready to revisit the Way To Be tracks. Over the next year-and-a-half, Llobet worked on the record relentlessly, refining the lyrics, recording, and arrangements from their apartment. Llobet self-produced Way To Be and describes the process as an enormous, labor-intensive undertaking that felt akin to “making a whole film.” Along the way, Llobet was joined by collaborators, including Julian Fader (Ava Luna), Adam Brisbin (Buck Meek), and Daniel Siles. Across Way To Be’s 12 delightfully off-kilter tunes, Llobet uses wordplay and tongue-in-cheek humor to obliquely explore dysfunctional relationships, regret, self-confidence or the lack thereof, queerness, and self-discovery. Fuzzy at the edges and filled with playful, kinetic arrangements, Way To Be is a bridge into the entrancing world of youbet. You won’t want to leave.

The collaboration between renowned drummer Jim White and acclaimed guitarist Marisa Anderson is a natural union of two of the most intuitive players and listeners working in music. Jim White is known for his groundbreaking trio, Dirty Three, as well as duo, Xylouris White. His list of collaborations is vast and include artists such as Nick Cave, Bill Callahan, Cat Power, Marnie Stern and Warren Ellis. Jim just released his debut solo album, All Hits: Memories. Marisa Anderson, known primarily for her solo work, in demand collaborator who has worked with Tashi Dorji, Sharon Van Etten, Yasmine Williams and Michael Hurley. She has released records with William Tyler and Tara Jane O"neal. White and Anderson are each highly sought after collaborators in no small part because of their mastery, versatility and highly expressive playing. Their sophomore album, Swallowtail, finds the duo completely attuned to each other, fluidly moving as wind and water. They avoid preconceived movements, instead focusing on their musical conversation. As Anderson puts it: "The ideas aren"t the music, they are the pathway into the musical possibilities." Their skillful interplay creates an effervescence throughout the album. The ebb and flow to the duo"s motions bring a sense of serenity and ease to spontaneous transitions, each swell and retraction sounding as free as it does inevitable. White and Anderson"s preternatural alchemy as a duo allows each fleeting gesture to feel featherlight and stirring while maintaining an inquisitive spirit. Their music is an enchanting and illuminating.

The collaboration between renowned drummer Jim White and acclaimed guitarist Marisa Anderson is a natural union of two of the most intuitive players and listeners working in music. Jim White is known for his groundbreaking trio, Dirty Three, as well as duo, Xylouris White. His list of collaborations is vast and include artists such as Nick Cave, Bill Callahan, Cat Power, Marnie Stern and Warren Ellis. Jim just released his debut solo album, All Hits: Memories. Marisa Anderson, known primarily for her solo work, in demand collaborator who has worked with Tashi Dorji, Sharon Van Etten, Yasmine Williams and Michael Hurley. She has released records with William Tyler and Tara Jane O"neal. White and Anderson are each highly sought after collaborators in no small part because of their mastery, versatility and highly expressive playing. Their sophomore album, Swallowtail, finds the duo completely attuned to each other, fluidly moving as wind and water. They avoid preconceived movements, instead focusing on their musical conversation. As Anderson puts it: "The ideas aren"t the music, they are the pathway into the musical possibilities." Their skillful interplay creates an effervescence throughout the album. The ebb and flow to the duo"s motions bring a sense of serenity and ease to spontaneous transitions, each swell and retraction sounding as free as it does inevitable. White and Anderson"s preternatural alchemy as a duo allows each fleeting gesture to feel featherlight and stirring while maintaining an inquisitive spirit. Their music is an enchanting and illuminating.

Following the singles "Zanzare" and "Barocco", Chiaré is the self-titled debut album from songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Chiaré, aka Chiara Ianniciello, the latest recipient of the Bianca D'Aponte Award for emerging Italian singer-songwriters.

The album, which will be out on April 19th, contains eight atmospheric and intimate tracks where Chiara's warm and gentle voice weaves snapshots from her feelings and her personal story over retro-flavoured, jazz-infused arrangements that are reminiscent of some of Italy's finest singer-songwriters (Lucio Battisti and Pino Daniele in particular).

"It all started about three years ago," says Chiara. "Ernesto Massimino Voza and I started from a sound that somehow wasn't really me, and after a long process of trial and error, we finally found what seemed to be right for me. Peppe Maiellano, who arranged all the music, brought it full circle. The album has a common thread: love. Almost all of the songs are about strategic love, the fear of freely loving someone and the frustration at not being able to get out of an on-and-off relationship that made me suffer, but that I've tried to narrate with some irony. If my writing were an artistic movement, it would be naturalism. I drew a lot of inspiration from Pino Daniele, Eduardo De Crescenzo, and Lucio Battisti, while trying to develop my own personal, authentic style."

Chiara holds a diploma in jazz singing and is now completing her studies in classical double bass. In her debut album she uses both standard Italian and the Neapolitan dialect, mixing jazz, soul and R'n'B. Modernity and tradition come together, creating a delicate yet irresistible sound.

Some albums are game-changers in a genre. Take OutKast's Speakerboxxx / The Love Below or Primal Scream's Screamadelica, they observe, study, and then flip what an album can mean to a genre or moment in time.

From the very first listen of Rubel’s Latin Grammy-nominated third album As Palavras, Vol. 1 & 2, you can feel its transformative force for the MPB genre. Here we see one of Rio’s brightest stars, fusing the contemporary with the classic, soaking up the richness of Brazil’s musical heritage. The result is a marauding 20-track epic, incorporating traditional styles such as forró, MPB, pagode and samba with modern baile funk, rasteirinha and hip-hop.

The album exudes a sense of freedom and creativity, playfully and provocatively juggling the familiar with the forward-thinking. The tracks are divided across two records, navigating feelings of love, heartbreak and discovery, whilst balancing themes of violence, passion, irony and affection. Collaborating with some of the country’s most esteemed artists such as Gabriel do Borel, Liniker, Luedji Luna, Tim Bernardes and Ana Caetano, Rubel takes this fusion of styles, subjects and flavours to the global stage.

The grand, forró-blending, choral opener, ‘Forró Violento (Instrumental)’ sets the tone for the album, with references and links between tradition and modernity everywhere to be seen. From the Ana Frango Elétrico produced, funk flexing, samba-soul brilliance of ‘Não Vou Reclamar de Deus’, to the album’s title cut ‘As Palavras’, in collaboration with Tim Bernardes, that melds MPB influences with electronic elements and hip-hop touches.

Across both sides of the album, Rubel’s story-telling gift is given space to shine. ‘Torto Arado’ featuring Liniker and Luedji Luna, beautifully references the racial injustice, tragedy, hope and ambition found in one the most celebrated Brazilian novels of recent times by Itamar Vieira Júnior. Elsewhere, ‘Na Mão do Palhaço’ manifests a satirical march about a suicidal conservative middle-aged man, who is rescued by the miracle of the carnival.

At times the album is gentle and intimate with tracks like ‘Toda Beleza’ featuring Bala Desejo, or the ode to friendship ‘Lua de Garrafa’, composed with the legendary Milton Nascimento. At others, the grooves hit harder, with sounds from the favelas laced within. ‘Put@ria!’, explores the universe of baile funk, with BK’ and MC Carol trading off on the mic, as ‘Rubelía’ moves between reggaeton, funk, and hip hop. The latter is a tribute to a key influence of the album, Spanish star Rosalía and her parallel mix of current with classic.

Ultimately though the beauty of this album lies in its concept. In the midst of a country divided, ‘As Palavras Vol. 1 & 2’ sets out to bring together genres and generations, grounded in rhythms and words that have helped define Brazil through the ages.