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Didattica is the first album from Zetas, a female rap duo coming straight out of the city of Salerno, on the south west coast ofItaly. Entirely produced by beatmaker, rapper and DJ/producer Tonico 70, a true veteran of Southern Italian hip-hop,the full-lengthdebut isreleased on DJ's Choice, a partner label of Four Flies Records.

Born between the 90s and 2000s, rappers Annarella and Miriade were exposed to the world of underground hip-hop from an early age, jamming and freestyling. Rather than going for the sounds of trap and auto-tune that are so popular in their age group, however, they immediately embraced the spirit of old school rap, withitsboom bap vibes. As suggested by the album's title itself (which translates as 'teaching' or 'learning') they view of rap as a school – that is, as an art form where constant training is key if you want to stay true to your values and identity.

With the help of producer Tonico 70, Zetas have created a record that is fresh and contemporary, while paying tribute to the past.They rap about everyday urban life in the exuberant dialect and slang of their native city, delivering raw rhymes with a tightand very expressiveflow, while Tonico70 uses a classic sampling approach but also incorporates real instruments into his beats–Antonio D'Apolito's guitar, Peppe Maiellano's keyboards, Giuseppe Desiderio's bass and Giuseppe Limpido's drums.

The result is an excitingcombination of funk, soul, dub, R'N'B, reggae, and even electronic influences,one where deep bass and syncopated rhythms blend wonderfully with the melody, urgency and authenticity of dialect rhymes.

Rainbow Generator are Australia’s first true experimental electronic music group. Consisting of David Labuschagne AKA Mojo, and Rob Greaves AKA Ras. Starting in the mid-70’s, the pair took it upon themselves to begin exploring the possibilities of the sonic dimension and with an ‘open mind’ began investigating the interface between psyche and sound.

In 1976 David established the ‘Lectric Loo’ studio in Woolloomooloo, Sydney. Known to the ‘heads’ as simply the “Loo”, the 3-story building was owned by the Department of Main Roads, and slated for demolition. So, it was that the entire block became a haven for squatters, and while Mojo had the main 3-story building to himself, the rest of the buildings were taken by a hotch-potch of people that included Anarchists, a Clown School and a collection of other random squatters.

Recording in the ‘Lectric Loo’ provided them the ability to record freely. In 1975 they began to experiment, putting Mojo’s Fender Strat through effects pedals, playing with sounds while manipulating shortwave radio stations and also challenging convention by playing the insides of instruments. By 1976 they had built a kit synthesizer and shortly after purchased a full Roland 100 Synthesiser set-up and were on their way.

In 1978, with little resources, or any form of distribution they released their sole LP ‘Dance of the Spheres’. As Mojo puts it, “we were intent on making music with whatever we could beg, borrow, buy, and liberate. Albeit with scant regard for the rules or conventions or niceties of the game. Ultimately, it was all an act of love, of joy. Not just an adventure; it was a musical odyssey”.

This odyssey continued their exploration of the interface between psyche and sound.
Fusing genres and boundaries, Dance of the Spheres incorporates elements of 70’s psych and folk with spoken-word and of course the emerging sounds of the synthesizer and drum machines. Furthermore, the addition of traditional instruments such as the didgeridoo and the classical Indian instrumentation technique of a Raga add a timeless layer, all seamlessly complementing the other elements and launching the album to another dimension.

Quartabê’s identity was built upon the metaphor of the classroom: the group sees itself as a school class, which chooses its own teachers from among great masters of Brazilian music. Assuming that the learning and creative processes have in common experimentation and play, the quartet is characterized by its bold versions coupled with irreverent performance.


In addition woto its sound, marked by the group’s various music references - from the São Paulo avant-garde movement to the free improvisation, passing through pop and electronic music - Quartabê also stands out for the formation composed mostly of women who, besides instrumentalists are also arrangers, composers, singers and improvisers - which is unusual in Brazil and it has high political relevance in a music scene where positions of creation and power are still held disproportionately by men. The band started its studies by recording a first album about the work of maestro Moacir Santos, “Lição # 1: Moacir” (2015). After performing this show in Brazil and Europe, the group took a break to record ‘Depê’ (2017), also dedicated to the oeuvre of Santos. In 2018 Quartabê released their third album, starting new studies: “Lição # 2: Dorival”, which was released by the Natura Musical / label RISCO

The lost Belgian blueprint of Brussels based jazz fusion and how free form Franco-Flemish punk put Zeuhl school in the Classroom via to the conception of COS.

Emerging from behind the same clouds that kept formative Belgian progressive jazz records like Brussels Art Quintet and Kiosk’s Mona Call in tangible obscurity, these impossibly rare early Euro jazz recordings shed a new ray of light on the intricate foundations of the scene that elevated COS, Marc Moulin, Placebo, Marc Hollander and Telex to Zen master status, while also capturing one of Europe’s best female vocal artists in the midst of her wide eyed and uninhibited prime.

Never before released on vinyl, these tracks provide us with a sonic chalkboard of Daniel Schell’s ambitious musical equations, recalculated by precocious polymaths, then conveyed via Pascale Son’s inquisitive child-like vocal explorations. For those keen to learn the Histoire De Melody COS? The classroom door is open - prepare to be schooled!

In 1995 the self-titled full-length debut of Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung (DAAU) was released. The band consisted of four young, 'classically derailed' musicians who played their own compositions with acoustic instruments such as violin, cello, clarinet and accordion. Their work contained influences from Roma music, Eastern European folk, klezmer and jazz, but was performed with the energy, rebellious spirit and Sturm und Drang of a bona fide punk band. DAAU was part of the fertile Antwerp scene, which also produced dEUS, Zita Swoon and Kiss My Jazz, and soon signed an international record deal with Sony Classical.

The group's influential first record, which has been out of print for a while, is now finally being released again and is available on vinyl for the very first time.

In those early days, DAAU consisted of four young, classically trained musicians who tackled their instrumental compositions with a true punk spirit. 'If we'd had guitars, bass or drums at that time, we would probably have been just another rock band', says accordionist Roel Van Camp, who, together with his schoolmates Buni Lenski on violin, the latter's brother Simon on cello and Han Stubbe on clarinet made up the Antwerp quartet. 'With our acoustic instruments we tried to create our own version of the music we loved listening to, from sixties rock and prog to new wave.'

The quartet, which initially played in streets and cafes, appealed to a diverse audience and sometimes joked that they were a classically trained unit that had 'gone off the rails'. 'As befits teenagers, we wanted to shake things up', Stubbe remembers, 'even though we always kept cherishing our classical backgrounds.' Van Camp: 'Our education was never supposed to feel like a straitjacket. We were free-spirited enough to ignore the laws and regulations of the music academy and to create our own sound. Our compositions were open to influences from Roma music, Eastern European folk, klezmer and jazz'. 'That eclecticism was a direct result of the zeitgeist', Han Stubbe adds. 'We loved different styles and happily mixed them together'.

The monniker Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung was derived from Steppenwolf, a novel by German writer Hermann Hesse about a character who was outside society. 'In the book, the narrator talks of a theatre', Van Camp explains. 'And at the entrance there is a warning sign sign that says: if you go in here, you are guaranteed to lose your mind. That was an apt description of the way our music worked'.

Almost all tracks on DAAU's first album were 'Drieslagstelsels' (or 'three-course rotations'). The term referred to an agricultural method of the early Middle Ages, but also to the fact that each song of the group consisted of three major movements. Van Camp: 'The titles of those pieces referred to our method of writing. We piled up a huge bunch of ideas, because we wanted to tell more than just one story. With each composition, we took the listener for a ride'.

In 1995 the self-titled full-length debut of Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung (DAAU) was released. The band consisted of four young, 'classically derailed' musicians who played their own compositions with acoustic instruments such as violin, cello, clarinet and accordion. Their work contained influences from Roma music, Eastern European folk, klezmer and jazz, but was performed with the energy, rebellious spirit and Sturm und Drang of a bona fide punk band. DAAU was part of the fertile Antwerp scene, which also produced dEUS, Zita Swoon and Kiss My Jazz, and soon signed an international record deal with Sony Classical.

The group's influential first record, which has been out of print for a while, is now finally being released again and is available on vinyl for the very first time.

In those early days, DAAU consisted of four young, classically trained musicians who tackled their instrumental compositions with a true punk spirit. 'If we'd had guitars, bass or drums at that time, we would probably have been just another rock band', says accordionist Roel Van Camp, who, together with his schoolmates Buni Lenski on violin, the latter's brother Simon on cello and Han Stubbe on clarinet made up the Antwerp quartet. 'With our acoustic instruments we tried to create our own version of the music we loved listening to, from sixties rock and prog to new wave.'

The quartet, which initially played in streets and cafes, appealed to a diverse audience and sometimes joked that they were a classically trained unit that had 'gone off the rails'. 'As befits teenagers, we wanted to shake things up', Stubbe remembers, 'even though we always kept cherishing our classical backgrounds.' Van Camp: 'Our education was never supposed to feel like a straitjacket. We were free-spirited enough to ignore the laws and regulations of the music academy and to create our own sound. Our compositions were open to influences from Roma music, Eastern European folk, klezmer and jazz'. 'That eclecticism was a direct result of the zeitgeist', Han Stubbe adds. 'We loved different styles and happily mixed them together'.

The monniker Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung was derived from Steppenwolf, a novel by German writer Hermann Hesse about a character who was outside society. 'In the book, the narrator talks of a theatre', Van Camp explains. 'And at the entrance there is a warning sign sign that says: if you go in here, you are guaranteed to lose your mind. That was an apt description of the way our music worked'.

Almost all tracks on DAAU's first album were 'Drieslagstelsels' (or 'three-course rotations'). The term referred to an agricultural method of the early Middle Ages, but also to the fact that each song of the group consisted of three major movements. Van Camp: 'The titles of those pieces referred to our method of writing. We piled up a huge bunch of ideas, because we wanted to tell more than just one story. With each composition, we took the listener for a ride'.

Banshee is the new record label from internationally renowned DJ/producer Brianna Price (B.Traits/Baby T). Drawing “esoteric aggressive feminine energy” from the folkloric figure that gives Banshee its name, the imprint will focus on the output of Price’s Baby T alias.

Brianna knows her way around a dance. Years spent producing, DJing, and touring under the B.Traits alias have given Price a vast knowledge of rave culture. Now, all of that experience has been put to good use as part of Baby T’s “hardcore junglist shit only” approach. Anyone who has encountered a Baby T tune in a dark basement over the years should know that there will be no messing around with Banshee’s output. Baby T specialises in hardcore rave tackle schooled by junglism, electro and darkside techno, the project’s sound was honed via releases on labels like Samurai Music and Central Processing Unit. It’s a style at once wild yet focused, untamed yet laser-precise - This is music that will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up – not unlike a banshee’s shriek, in fact…

The first Banshee release is not a collection for the faint of heart. Each of these four cuts is primed for deployment at the point of the party when things really kick into overdrive. Fiercely danceable, and unapologetically abrasive, Baby T’s productions here can school any challenger in the electro, techno, and jungle fields yet also carry themselves with a punkish spirit that sets them apart from the pack.

Still on and about after years of the most intense crate digging, gem mining, desperate head-scratching and avid schooling, thirsty as ever for the next musical thrill to wrap our ears and brains around, here comes the fruit of our life-long love story with Japanese electronics, Denshi Ongaku No Bigaku Vol. 1 and Vol.2. From the soul-fulfilling first crush felt upon hearing the iconic soundtrack of ‘Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence’ by Ryuichi Sakamoto onto our release of Inner Science ‘Cosmo Tracks’, through the life-affirming sets of Laurent Garnier at Dijon’s seminal club, l’An-fer, which have at all times nurtured and expanded our taste for Easternmost delicacies, the influence of Japanese music on our vision and endeavours was paramount to the development of our catalogue, whether directly or indirectly.

This first volume gets the ball rolling with a fine assortment of mostly ambient, electronica and deep house-focussed joints. Draped in organic membranes and ASMR-like synth tapestries, K. Inoue’s nu-agey opener ‘Em Paz’ takes us on a ride across the most serene dreamscapes. Jazzing up these lush and oneiric coastal vibes, Gabby & Lopez ‘Drive form the Miracle’ merges a sense of Californian psychedelia with a straight out hard-bop swing. No stranger to our catalogue, Inner Science returns to serve up a crystalline slice of laid-back house on a mystique-imbued tip he holds the secret to. Flip it over and here comes Aquarium with the splendidly immersive ‘Rainy Night in Shibuya’, which very much feels like wandering amidst its neon-upholstered streets and swarming hallways in a bubble of your own.

Naohito Uchiyama treats us to a synth-drenched nocturnal ballad with the ‘80s-inflected vibes of ’Shugetsu’, whereas Keta Ra cuts a path of ethereal sublimation via the mischievously fun and bouncy balearic lounge of ‘equals’. Masterly crafted by Yuu Udagawa, ‘Infinite Possibility’ eases us in a realm where weightless pop and low-slung abstract hip-hop combine to further exhilarating effect. All in harp-driven brittleness and velveteen sub-bass stealth, Noah ‘Gemini - Mysterious Lot’ has us drifting to a lavishly orchestrated headspace, laying down an impressive work on textures and arrangements. All in on the sedated drip-tease flex, Sauce81 ’Sign of Secret Love’ is a blast of freaky hedonism, just as ready to cast its hypnotic spell down the sweatbox as it was upon its original release ten years ago.

Languid jacking house tune ’Tai+Dai’ from Keita Sano blows the winds of discoid luvin’ across the room with its impeccable balance of sharp, glimmering synthwork and driving bass onslaughts from the depths. An odd slice of reshuffled folk music, Waltz ‘Folkesta’ makes for some eerie invitation of sorts, enchanting and spookily haunting in equal measure. Back to a fevered, hip-swaying mindset, Kuniyuki hi-NRG jazz number ‘Free’ is an absolute wonder of piano and drums-driven boogie, cut from the same cloth as some of Blue Note’s finest Cuban jazz classics. Rounding off the package, Japanese legend Ken Ishii’s version of Larry Heard’s house Hall-of-Famer ‘Can You Feel It’ is pure bliss in a can, tailored to turn any crowd into a shapeless cloud of balmy euphoria and universal love, whatever the place or time.

Still on and about after years of the most intense crate digging, gem mining, desperate head-scratching and avid schooling, thirsty as ever for the next musical thrill to wrap our ears and brains around, here comes the fruit of our life-long love story with Japanese electronics, Denshi Ongaku No Bigaku Vol. 1 and Vol.2. From the soul-fulfilling first crush felt upon hearing the iconic soundtrack of ‘Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence’ by Ryuichi Sakamoto onto our release of Inner Science ‘Cosmo Tracks’, through the life-affirming sets of Laurent Garnier at Dijon’s seminal club, l’An-fer, which have at all times nurtured and expanded our taste for Easternmost delicacies, the influence of Japanese music on our vision and endeavours was paramount to the development of our catalogue, whether directly or indirectly.

This first volume gets the ball rolling with a fine assortment of mostly ambient, electronica and deep house-focussed joints. Draped in organic membranes and ASMR-like synth tapestries, K. Inoue’s nu-agey opener ‘Em Paz’ takes us on a ride across the most serene dreamscapes. Jazzing up these lush and oneiric coastal vibes, Gabby & Lopez ‘Drive form the Miracle’ merges a sense of Californian psychedelia with a straight out hard-bop swing. No stranger to our catalogue, Inner Science returns to serve up a crystalline slice of laid-back house on a mystique-imbued tip he holds the secret to. Flip it over and here comes Aquarium with the splendidly immersive ‘Rainy Night in Shibuya’, which very much feels like wandering amidst its neon-upholstered streets and swarming hallways in a bubble of your own.

Naohito Uchiyama treats us to a synth-drenched nocturnal ballad with the ‘80s-inflected vibes of ’Shugetsu’, whereas Keta Ra cuts a path of ethereal sublimation via the mischievously fun and bouncy balearic lounge of ‘equals’. Masterly crafted by Yuu Udagawa, ‘Infinite Possibility’ eases us in a realm where weightless pop and low-slung abstract hip-hop combine to further exhilarating effect. All in harp-driven brittleness and velveteen sub-bass stealth, Noah ‘Gemini - Mysterious Lot’ has us drifting to a lavishly orchestrated headspace, laying down an impressive work on textures and arrangements. All in on the sedated drip-tease flex, Sauce81 ’Sign of Secret Love’ is a blast of freaky hedonism, just as ready to cast its hypnotic spell down the sweatbox as it was upon its original release ten years ago.

Languid jacking house tune ’Tai+Dai’ from Keita Sano blows the winds of discoid luvin’ across the room with its impeccable balance of sharp, glimmering synthwork and driving bass onslaughts from the depths. An odd slice of reshuffled folk music, Waltz ‘Folkesta’ makes for some eerie invitation of sorts, enchanting and spookily haunting in equal measure. Back to a fevered, hip-swaying mindset, Kuniyuki hi-NRG jazz number ‘Free’ is an absolute wonder of piano and drums-driven boogie, cut from the same cloth as some of Blue Note’s finest Cuban jazz classics. Rounding off the package, Japanese legend Ken Ishii’s version of Larry Heard’s house Hall-of-Famer ‘Can You Feel It’ is pure bliss in a can, tailored to turn any crowd into a shapeless cloud of balmy euphoria and universal love, whatever the place or time.

Japan has produced some exceptionally talented jazz drummers and among them is Tatsuya Nakamura, who joins the BBE Music J Jazz Masterclass Series with his album ‘Locus’ from 1984, a session covering several bases, from heavy percussive samba to meditative avant-ambient. This is the album’s first ever reissue, although a track from ‘Locus’, ‘¼ Samba’, was included on J Jazz vol. 3. Nakamura began his drumming career as a teenager, inspired after seeing the documentary film “Jazz on A Summer’s Day” and listening to his idols Art Blakey and Miles Davis. By his early twenties, Nakamura was working with such luminaries as free jazz guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi, pianist Masaru Imada and band leader & composer Mitsuaki Kanno. In the mid-70s, like several other Japanese jazz players, Nakamura decided to make the move to New York where he studied drumming with Roy Haynes, and performed with members of the AACM and players from the loft and free jazz scenes including Richard Davis, George Adams, John Hicks, and Pharaoh Sanders. Returning to Japan, Nakamura continued playing as leader of his Japanese band The Jazz Fellows and in 1979, he went into the studio as leader for the classic “Where Is The Quarter” session featuring Masaru Imada, Hideto Kanai and Kenji Mori. This session includes the original percussion heavy version of ‘¼ Samba’ and was followed by a period back in NYC during which he recorded the funky/free session ‘Rip Off’ in 1980. 1984 saw Nakamura working as leader of a heavy-duty fusion septet and in February of that year he led them in a performance at Audio Technica Hall. The album ‘Locus’ on Sea Horse Records is the label’s one and only release. On ‘Locus’, Nakamura is joined by a stellar line-up. On trumpet is Shinobu Fujimoto and he’s joined by seasoned bass player Hideto Kanai (1931 -2011) who began playing in the mid-1950s, appearing on King Recs All-Star Jazz Series before going on to be a regular fixture on the legendary Three Blind Mice (TBM) label, backing many of its leading artists. He even released his own album on TBM, ‘Ode to Birds’ in 1975. On guitar is Kazumasa Akiyama. Born in Tokyo in 1955, he taught himself guitar at 10 years old and was influenced initially by The Beatles and Ray Charles, and later Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Chicago Blues, and jazz. When he was a student, he got a chance to appear on Sadao Watanabe's radio program ‘My Dear Life’, which led him to join the Isao Suzuki Group and Mikio Masuda Group. Akiyama released his first leader album ‘Dig My Style’ in 1978 and is still an active musician. On keys is the incredible Jun Fukamachi (1946-2010). Born in Harajuku, Tokyo, Fukamachi started playing the piano at the age of three, showing an extraordinary talent, recognised as a child prodigy. He became a professional musician while still in school and released his first album ‘Portrait of a Young Man’ on Polydor in 1971.

Ole Kirkeng is finally ready to drop his highly anticipated debut album. On Still Not Lost, the listener is treated to an artist bursting with talent and creativity. The young singer-songwriter impressed on the 2021 EP Rocking Chair – a release that landed him a deserved Spellemann award (the Norwegian “Grammy”) on his first try. So, this time around, the expectations are high. Not only for the songs that make up Kirkeng’s first album, but also for the artist he is becoming. Looking back at the searching musician who arrived back in Norway after years abroad, we now see an entirely different artist unfolding. The confidence he exudes on stage, the wittiness and wordings of his lyrics, and – last but definitely not least – the songs! If he isn’t already a star, he is fast becoming one. Still Not Lost was recorded and produced along with Norwegian guitar legend and studio wizard Geir Sundstøl, and the result is just top class craftsmanship in all areas. Ole Kirkeng is a songwriter of the old school, who can stand comparisons to names such as Nick Lowe, Randy Newman, Jackson Brown and Father John Misty. He puts a lot of time and effort into the songwriting trade, and that’s obvious when listening to this collection of tunes. From the immediately catchy “Stupid Questions” via the cute and humorous “I Fell in Love WIth You (at IKEA)” to the epic Dylanesque title track, Still Not Lost contains eight songs, flowing freely between americana, folk and indie – all killer, no filler. Still Not Lost is Ole Kirkeng’s debut album and is released on Die With Your Boots On Records on September 8, 2023. After touring both US and Eu with the likes of Courtney Marie Andrews and Molly Tuttle, he has a lot of experience as a touring musician, but as a solo artist this is still a new life for Ole Kirkeng. «Still Not Lost» is Ole's debut album, and will be released on September 8th. It's a beautiful collection of songs, which makes a perfect follow up to his first EP, «Rocking Chair».

Banshee is the new record label from internationally renowned DJ/producer Brianna Price (B.Traits/Baby T). Drawing “esoteric aggressive feminine energy” from the folkloric figure that gives Banshee its name, the imprint will focus on the output of Price’s Baby T alias.

Brianna knows her way around a dance. Years spent producing, DJing, and touring under the B.Traits alias have given Price a vast knowledge of rave culture. Now, all of that experience has been put to good use as part of Baby T’s “hardcore junglist shit only” approach. Anyone who has encountered a Baby T tune in a dark basement over the years should know that there will be no messing around with Banshee’s output. Baby T specialises in hardcore rave tackle schooled by junglism, electro and darkside techno, the project’s sound was honed via releases on labels like Samurai Music and Central Processing Unit. It’s a style at once wild yet focused, untamed yet laser-precise - This is music that will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up – not unlike a banshee’s shriek, in fact…

The first Banshee release is not a collection for the faint of heart. Each of these four cuts is primed for deployment at the point of the party when things really kick into overdrive. Fiercely danceable, and unapologetically abrasive, Baby T’s productions here can school any challenger in the electro, techno, and jungle fields yet also carry themselves with a punkish spirit that sets them apart from the pack.

In Rumi's poem A Great Wagon he writes of a place of total acceptance. "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there," It is a boundless, liminal space where we can release the judgments we make and carry of ourselves, and the comparisons to others. When we think of this field, there is a sense of tranquility that only comes when we are undisturbed by the shadow self and see existence as neither bright nor dim, white nor black. But as lead singer Greg Bertens explains, arriving there is a whole different story. "This is a poem I've returned to over the years, and I love the idea of this place, but getting there is life's journey." Bertens adds "I think the longing for and elusiveness of this field is a recurring theme in our music." Field is enveloped by themes of regret, disconnection and frustration but with the space to understand that these feelings are a natural part of the struggle between reconciling the inner and outer self. The Los Angeles/San Francisco-based group have been indie shoegaze stalwarts since their formation in 2001. After two decades and a handful of line-up changes, their extensive discography presents a dynamically textural, lush psychedelic rock that has featured guest appearances by members of Pavement, My Bloody Valentine, and Snow Patrol, among others. 2021's LP We Weren't Here was hailed for its dense instrumental blanket, where unrelenting hi-hats and heavy kicks exist alongside dreamy drone guitar. This propulsive nature permeates Field, as members Bertens, Noël Brydebell (vocals), Nyles Lannon (guitar), Jason Ruck (synths), Justin LaBo (bass), and Adam Wade (drums) produce a kaleidoscopic sonic landscape. Patient, sprawling instrumentation builds a foundation in which Bertens' themes of endurance, perseverance and clarity can bloom with a considered poise. As a lyricist who writes in response to the instrumental arrangements, rather than a focus on a specific theme or person, Field is a testament to Film School's ability to create in the moment, and to showcase the magic that stems from when we are truly present. Album opener "Tape Rewind" is a swirling rush of color, as sustained guitars, darkened bass lines and urgent, percussive swells dance alongside each other. "This is the newest of all the songs on the record and feels like a new level of heaviness for the band," Bertens explains, noting that its lyrical context of struggling to move past trauma adds to its cathartic essence. Field is bookended by heavier themes, with closer "All I'll Ever Be" taking on the perspective of those we hurt when we embrace our own toxic behaviors. Originally written to be a simple acoustic guitar and vocals song soon turned into an ethereal, effects-laden composition, with Noël's hazy lead vocals ushering in a new-found acceptance. "It's all I want / To be released / And all I can be," she laments, cementing Field's message of accepting ourselves in whatever form we find ourselves in. "Defending Ruins" is a murky relentless underworld, inspired by the freewheeling tones of Texas-based band Holy Wave. "Defending the ruins, defending remains," Bertens spits, among a richly-layered outro. "Don't You Ever" confirms Film School's ability to merge both delicate and growling instrumentation throughout the album, with the song's softly spoken section hovering above sparkling guitar. "Is This A Hotel" bends towards the electronic aspects of the band, with wailing synths accompanying a story of bitter desire. With over two decades in the industry, Field cements Film School as a distinct, dominant force in the shoegaze scene. Soaked in an emotionally open, imaginative atmosphere, the album is both singular and expansive, and leaves the door open for a constantly evolving interpretation. Film School have never confined themselves to the rigidity of specifics, and it's on Field that they urge us to look beyond the binary of certainty, and to take a second look

Odd Holiday are purveyors of a rare breed of hip hop, both anchored in golden-era lyrical dexterousness and aligned to the contemporary movement of minimal soulful production. Their music is deeply emotive, seasoned, and undeniable.
L.I.S.A is the debut release by the semi-nomadic duo consisting of Mattic, a Charlotte, NC native currently residing in France and producer Daylight Robbery! who has one foot in the burgeoning jazz scene of London, UK and the other in the boom bap foundation of Brooklyn, NY. L.I.S.A represents the meeting of two forces who are at the top of their game and supremely comfortable in their craft, merging into something which feels both timeless and brand new.

Sweet little Tekno-Tribe sound, with more familial selecta of artists... A side tends on Techno Pump while the flip is really reminding the old school first OKUPE kind of sounds... Records comes with stickers.

In 1972, a foursome of design students set out to make a record. This was, in many ways, a strictly creative endeavor. The quartet — composed of Dave Pescod, Alan Lewis, Phil Rawle, and Ted Rockley — were all trained, not as musicians, but as creatives. Art school heavyweights, the four were well-versed in the methodology of intentional experimentation, in the delicate balance of pushing the limits without completely unmooring oneself from a guiding creative intention. Emboldened by a high-brow familiarity with thoughtful experimentation and all the non-conviction of non-musicians, Bowes Road Band’s stint in the world of popular music yielded a record that is as much mind-melting as it is a direct product of its time. Their sprawling LP “Back in the HCA” embodies the exigence “art for art’s sake,” but it is for art’s sake that this record, however off the deep end it seems to travel (hear: “Doctor, Doctor”), remains a unified, and stunning, body of work. The LP’s do-ityourself garage rock noisemaking meets highfalutin creative processes. “Back in the HCA” is warbling psychedelic freakout (“Two Fingers,” “Doctor, Doctor”), Donovan-esque English countryside folk stylings (“Inside My Head,” “Goodbye to Rosie”), and avant-garde jazz improvisions (“Grass is Grass,” “Tomorrow’s Truth”) in one luminous release.

Originally an 9-track LP, Jakarta, Uno Loop, and Bowes Road Band decided to mine the six most cohesive tracks for the reissue, though the extras may be released somewhere down the line. Cohesion efforts aside, “Back in the HCA” stands alone in its singular conception of a genre-bending continuum — it evades definition. That said, the LP can easily be situated in the sonic environment in which it was conceived. By the end of the 60s, England was crawling with blues-based rock outfits that were starting to venture into prog rock territory. You can hear this popular dint cast over the folkier side of the LP. But Bowes Road Band was armed with their non-musicianship: they existed completely liberated from the motivating yet ultimately paralyzing lust for stardom. Enjoying this liberation, Bowes Road Band was utterly free to make noise. This freedom meant drawn out sax interludes amidst sweetly folk stylings (“Grass is Grass”) and Shaggs-like fuzzed-out freakouts that spiral into a void (Doctor, Doctor). This freedom also meant straight-forward tuneful cuts like “Goodbye Rosie” that conspicuously introduce heavily distorted auto-organ accompaniment mid-track amidst poignant lyricism. Bowes Road Band crafts a unified sound and then cracks it open.

With a completely off-the-radar status, Bowes Road Band could only press 50 copies of the record — 10 for each of them and 10 for the school. The band’s lifespan was to end there, or so they thought. “Back in the HCA” was the accidental fruit of a Berlin flea market treasure hunt by Jannis Stürtz, DJ and co-founder of Habibi Funk and Jakarta Records. After finding and sharing the LP with a few colleagues, Stürtz managed to get in touch with the band, get ahold of the master tapes collecting dust in Ted Rockley’s attic, and start the reissuing process. The record is still adorned with its original cover art designed by Alan Pescod, both reminiscent of bygone school days and the Zoom calls of yesterday — in short, reunion. Its re-discovery was happenstance and ought to be listened to as such. That is, “Back in the HCA” was not made to be listened to on a broad scale, or, at least, was not made with this goal in mind; it is neither in its time nor of its time. Of course, the group explicitly cites the folk tunes of the English countryside, the distorted rock groups that reigned during the record’s conception, and the fringes of psychedelic music that only the uber-underground might recognize (e.g., “Dreaming of Alice”). Yet still with these obvious influences, “Back in the HCA” always existed beyond the domain of both traditional musicianship and conventional commodification. Bowes Road Band’s DIY musicality beams through in technicolor across “Back in the HCA.” The vinyl includes an 8-page booklet detailing the albums creation and interviews with the band.

Lead single “Grass is Grass,” out July 14 along with album pre-order, encapsulates the record’s range: the track unfurls into a sprawling sax-driven trip following a sundrenched, Donovan-esque intro w/ lyrics “naively about parks and gardens, not marijuana!” The keyed-down folk cut “Goodbye to Rosie” is single 2 and elevates stripped-down acoustics with golden tinges, out August 4th. Focus track “Tomorrow’s Truth” constructs the fuzzed-out underbelly of acid folk. Listen for echoes of late Beatles, Mark Fry, and Donovan (if they were armed by an unshakabele willful naiveté). Like Sgt. Pepper’s on a shoestring budget—take a trip to the underground with LP “Back in the HCA,” available everywhere physically and digitally on September 1st via Jakarta Records and Uno Loop.

Besides online promotion from label profiles, the album will be further promoted by external agencies within the UK and US.

Back in 2003, during an incredible period of growth and reinvention for legendary artist MF DOOM, he introduced us to one of his numer- ous alter egos, Viktor Vaughn. As the story goes, Viktor Vaughn was an interdimensional time-traveling MC from an alternate realm where Hip-Hop was banned. He’d been exploring time and space looking for new dimensions to sharpen him to 90s era NYC, where he found himself stranded due to a mechanical mishap with his time machine. He began hitting open mics and small venues, battling other MCs and picking up a few side-hustles in order to raise enough funds to repair his time machine and get back to his travels.

Vaudeville Villain is a concept album like no other, where MF DOOM re-envisions himself as a younger, hungrier, more brazen persona, in order to explore subjects new and old from a different point of view. Of course, developing a second self from a more technologically advanced universe, he wanted to take a new approach to the produc- tion too. Viktor Vaughn fittingly raps over next-school beats that move freely in spaces between Electronica and Hip Hop, all courtesy of Sound-Ink producers King Honey, Heat Sensor and Max Bill, with the exception of one track produced by RJD2. Featuring all original lyrics by DOOM, with a few notable guest appearances from M. Sayyid (Anti-Pop Consortium), Lord Sear, Apani B Fly MC, Louis Logic, and more, Vaudeville Villain is one of the more uniquely creative entries in the MF DOOM universe.

Old school Pumpin and newskool Freetekno high time !

Part fantastical historic sonic biopic, part anthropologic
journey into the deep roots of Belgium’s monstrous
cosmic rock sound, this wholly individualistic concept
album combines the lead members of the mighty COS
(Daniel Schell and Pascale Son) with studio genius
Alain Pierre (Ô Sidarta / Des morts) and celebrated
Dutch progressive rock singer Dick Annegarn, for what
many consider to be both the overlooked hiding place
of Belgium’s deepest psychedelic moment and
European prog’s lost map to the ‘Franco-Flemish
Boom’.
 Emerging from the wider musical family that counted
Marc Moulin, Placebo and Marc Hollander amongst its
creative kin, Daniel Schell’s most profound conceptual
project ambitiously combines the tale of the heroic
historical figure of Count Egmont (1522–1568), while
simultaneously tracing the evolution of the ud, or oud,
(‘the grandfather of the guitar’) in this multifarious
hallucinogenic epic.
 Featuring key members of other collectable groups
such as drummer Felix Simtaine from Solis Lacus and
bass player Jean-Louis Baudoin from the mythical
Classroom (COS predecessor), this best-kept secret
vinyl release also harbours the voices of Dirk Bogaert
(of Belgian hard rockers Waterloo), as well as Catalan
singer Ilona Chale (Marc Hollander / Aksak Maboul)
before her later tenure as the COS front woman.
 Initially released in 1978 via Zeuhl school distributors
Free Bird alongside French pressings of Don Cherry,
Jacques Thollot and CAN, it is plain to understand the
niche nature of this maligned ‘lost COS’ LP as it finally
blooms from between the cracked branches of
European jazz-rock-synth-psych-prog-pop history…
and beyond

Coming straight outta Salerno's vibrant music scene, "Amo' / Voce 'e Notte" is the first 7" single from female rap duo Zetas. Released by DJ's Choice, a partner label of Four Flies Records, it contains two songs produced bybeatmaker, rapper and producer Tonico 70, a true veteran of Southern Italian hip hop.

Both young millennials, rappers Annarella and Miriade were exposed to the world of underground hip-hop from an early age, jamming, freestyling and listening to different music than their peers. Active as a duo since 2019, they're now making their official debut with this 7", which will be followed byan album at the end of September.

The A-side track "Amo'", which is about the overuse and loss of meaning of the word 'love' (amo' translates as 'luv'), makes their intentions clear. Zetas rap in the exuberant dialect and slang of their native city of Salerno, while their sound looks back to the '90s through a contemporary lens. Raw rhymes are delivered with an urgent flow over a beat that, rather than boom-bap nostalgia, is a modern take on classic production styles. The result is a happy medium between old school and fresh – one where the melody of dialect rap and rhymes blends wonderfully with the rhythms of funk, soul and reggae.

"Voce 'e notte", on side B, has a different mood, but the same approach. Here, Zetas weave wistful verses tinged with disillusionment and toughness on top of Tonico 70's 808-led beat, paying tribute to a classic Neapolitan song also titled "Voce 'e Notte". The result is a rap serenade that transforms and reimagines the Neapolitan song tradition through today's sensibility and, of course, through hip hop.

When Belgian Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone in the mid-19th century, he could not have imagined what he had set in motion with his invention. Neither in classical music nor in military music did his new woodwind instrument find much appreciation. It was only long after his death that it became the most important instrument in jazz music via swinging big bands. It would probably have amazed Mr. Sax if he had been able to witness a young trio from Germany playing loudly against climate change and the lack of political consequences with two noisy saxophones and a drum set on a stage in front of the Reichstag in Berlin in front of more than 50,000 people jumping up and down during the climate strike in September 2021: BRASS RIOT.

The trio around Constantin von Estorff (Sax), Simon Sasse (Drums) and Carl Weiß (Sax) have been a band since their school days in Lüneburg. What started there as street music became a permanent and sought-after formation through the proximity to political initiatives, above all the Fridays-For-Future movement, and appearances at countless demonstrations. The band's name is slightly misleading, as "brass" in music refers to brass instruments such as the trumpet or tuba, even though most brass bands always include a saxophone. Moreover, the word "brass" means something in the German language, which in turn fits perfectly with this young, energetic trio: Fury.

On the heels of their debut album "Matschsafari" (2018), their second studio album "The Never Acting Story" is now released on Fun In The Church. The album title, in critical allusion to the world-famous fantasy book by Michael Ende, sums up well what the music of BRASS RIOT is about at its core: the possibility to get a noisy outlet for all the fury about the failed politics of the last decades and the frustrations and fears that go with it, and to free oneself from it for a moment. That this path has produced the wildest live music on this crisis-ridden planet is an irony of history - and certainly not the first time it has happened. It's no different in the jazz of Charlie Parker than in the songs of Patti Smith, the raps of Little Simz or the Afro-beat of Fela Kuti.

Musically, BRASS RIOT move more in the area of the melodic ska-pop of Madness, the fake jazz of the Lounge Lizards and contemporary rave brass ensembles like MEUTE between house music and electro beats. The fact that they have managed to politicize their sound so strongly over the years, despite all the party that goes with it, and without any song lyrics at all, is truly phenomenal.

Debut Album Nottingham post-punks Do Nothing blend jerky, spidery rhythms with surreal, half-spoken vocals that recall the Fall 's Mark E. Smith . Do Nothing was formed in 2017 by four long-time school friends: frontman Chris Bailey, guitarist Kasper Sandstrøm, drummer Andy Harrison, and bassist Charlie Howarth. All had played in various acts around the city; the band got their start at the popular Maze Club. Bailey, whose father was a singer in an a cappella folk group, grew up listening to the sounds of Simon & Garfunkel , and his own biggest influence was Tom Waits . Initially attempting to copy big names like LCD Soundsystem (as heard on their first 7" single, "Gangs," released in 2019), they eventually became more confident about doing their own thing, and Bailey gave his stream-of-consciousness lyrics and outsider stage persona free rein. Associated with, but wary of, the then-popular post-punk revival, they made clear it was their intention to follow their own path. Their debut EP, Zero Dollar Bill, was released in 2020; another, Glueland, arrived the following year, with an album in the works.

Repress!

‘Shapes,’ the third album from London-based multi-instrumentalist, Robohands, fuses elements of jazz, krautrock, hip hop and ambient music. For fans of Khruangbin, Yusef Dayes, CAN, Coltrane and 70s library music moods.

Shapes is the solo project of London based composer, instrumentalist and producer Andy Baxter. His debut LP Green was released on Village Live Records in 2018 and was received with much love and acclaim in the UK Jazz, hip hop and surrounding scenes.

His follow up full-length, 'Dusk’, dropped in 2019, combining soul, funk, Latin & experimental moods. It featured vocalists & musicians from around the world including legendary New York French horn player, John Clark, who has worked with Isaac Hayes, Gil Evans Orchestra, McCoy Tyner, Jaco Pastorius, Ornette Coleman and many more greats.

'Shapes' is inspired by 1970s library music and their legendary composers including Piero Umiliani, David Axelrod, Brian Bennett and co. The album builds on these influences and incorporates modern motifs, contemporary jazz/hip hop drumming styles with a nod to 1990s Mo Wax artists such as DJ Shadow. The theme for the record is future/nostalgia, mixing vintage & modern instruments and production techniques.

Much of ‘Shapes’ was recorded with JB Pilon at Buffalo Studios in Limehouse, London. Due to the COVID restrictions that changed everything in 2020, the remaining parts were recorded in Andy’s flat using a collection of old mixing desk preamps and instruments.

For the heads – ‘Shapes’ features an array of vintage snares, including a 1960's Ludwig Pioneer and a mono, overhead ribbon mic on the drum kit provided extra old school points! The kick drum was re-amped through a huge vintage bass amplifier on a couple of tracks to give it some real character: “My favourite guitar sound achieved on this LP project is a Sontronics Sigma ribbon microphone in front of a WEM Dominator amp, which you can hear on the track 'Odysea'. The bass sound for all the tracks is a 1973 Fender Precision into an old Altec valve preamp, the one used on most Motown recordings."

As part of its continuing exploration of Detroit’s Strata label with DJ Amir’s 180 Proof Records, BBE Music reissues the 1974 rare jazz classic ‘Inside Ourselves’ by Sphere. Recorded live on June 28th, 1970 at the Detroit Institute of Arts, ‘Inside Ourselves’ features John Dana on bass, Jimmy Peluso on Drums, Keith Vreeland on, Electric Piano, Eddie Nuccilli on Trumpet and Flügelhorn, plus bandleader Larry Nozero on tenor and soprano Saxophone. The album comprises seven captivating original compositions, written by Vreeland, Nuccilli and Nozero himself. Perhaps Larry Nozero’s single most-recognisable contribution to popular music is the soprano sax solo on Marvin Gaye’s seminal, 'What’s Going On', the title track and tone-setter for one of soul music’s most successful, not to mention conceptual, recordings. Like so many talented reedmen before him, Nozero received instruction from Detroit’s Teal School of Music, creating common ground with Yusef Lateef, Joe Henderson, and Benny Maupin. Although Nozero flirted with the Strata groundlings briefly in 1964 as a member of Charles Moore’s Detroit Contemporary 5, he was soon drafted into the military. A mixed blessing, Nozero took full advantage of the opportunities within the Army Band, which led to several high-profile jobs upon his return to Detroit. Despite lengthy engagements with Henry Mancini, Sergio Mendes, and studio work with everyone from Holland-Dozier-Holland to Berry Gordy, Nozero still relished musical freedom of expression, which made him right at home on the Strata roster. While little is known about Sphere as a standalone group aside from its contributors and producer Bud Spangler, ‘Inside Ourselves’ represents the level of quality jazz expected from the Strata imprint.

Liberation is the latest evolution by David West, a dedicated underground dweller and traveler with his groups Rat Columns and Rank/Xerox and previously spotted in Lace Curtain and Total Control. Many familiar elements of West's songwriting creep out from the speakers this time around, albeit in a sonically more adventurous and personal manner. Swathed in analogue and FM synths, pinned down by near-funk drum machines, and with a vision expanded into the past and future. While in previous incarnations, West's alienated and fragile vocal has battled with jangling guitars and distortion, Liberation sets free his woes and ruminations into space. Taking inspiration from the heyday of Mute Records, the beginnings of electronic dance music's rudimentary sampling, broken and sound art, Liberation's debut LP is 10 songs of the road, about the nameless ghosts on the highway, accidental lovers, the alienation of the stranger in a strange land, the unbearable weight of freedom.
Beginning with a curveball, Liberation's first vocal sets out the position of the forever-cuckold, the sad lover hanging on: Looking For A Lover combines a Roland 707's loping mid-tempo with creeped-out synth lines as West intones his intentions close to the ear. Continuing in a more baroque manner, Move Me makes astounding use of string samples and space, with esteemed engineer Mikey Young's (Total Control / Eddy Current Suppression Ring) production prowess making for a distilled yet inviting loneliness. Forget is the night-drive centerpiece of the album, a 7 minute that erupts into a nihilistic sub-disco darkness. A constant theme of Liberation is the friction between West's characters: a frustrated love in victim-status paired with a menacing intent. The adorable, fragile stalker in the moonlight, illuminated by Whatever You Want, a
subjugated protagonist offering they have while the city burns. The brightest pop moment of the album has this in abundance: Cold And Blue, a classic synth pop jam to be played on repeat til the end of time, like New Order played by one man in his bedroom, with no drugs for a cushion, coming down the stairs, she looks like a perfect fear and Im a monument to your existence. But West has moments of touching sincerity that speak direct to the listener, as in album highlight Leaves Falling; a sparse string arrangement frames his vocal, "why do I keep falling for you I must just really like to be alone." Liberation is the freedom from attachments, about how sometimes they're what you want most.

All the best music has a community underneath it. The extended family around London’s Total Refreshment Centre (TRC) connects continents and generations, creating the rich relationships in full effect on Transmissions From Total Refreshment Centre. It’s an eclectic and electric collection that draws from new school jazz, hip hop, dub, soul, funk, and drill: sounds you’ll hear trailing out of cars as they spin up the Kingsland Road or spiraling out of doorways like so much smoke. Turn it up loud to hear the widescreen young cousins of Guru’s landmark Jazzmatazz in full effect: top players from London, Chicago, and Melbourne seeking out new collaborations, new ways of working, or just new tunes, always coming back to that central truth – that we all need each other.

Excited to present the fifth installment of our limited series.

The artist behind this record is , eclectic dj and producer active since late 90’s which always supported the underground Italian scene and not only.

His “Belong to me EP” is the result of days and nights spent on his MPC, looking for the right samples, chopping them to build the right groove.

On the remix duties we have a legend who doesn’t need any introduction: Terry Farley! He joined forces with Wade Teo to make a Dub version of the main track “Belong to me” in perfect UK style.
From the peak time during a freeze winter night to the summer beach parties this record always fits: old school baby!

The 1st volume of »San Francisco Moog: 1968-72« introduced the world to a trove of recordings from a little-known hinge point in electronic-music history. Vol. 2 brings to light the rest of tapes—and the rest of the story. In 1968, Bay Area native Doug McKechnie got hold of one the very first modular Moog synthesizers ever made and began finding his own way to play it. Soon, he was hauling the finicky instrument around to perform improvised concerts at colleges and psychedelic ballrooms, as well as an ill-fated appearance on the bill at Altamont. Some of the performances were recorded, and the surviving tapes—never before released—capture a free-flowing, transportive sound that fills in the gap between the austere mid-century academic avant-garde and the expansive cosmic suites of Tangerine Dream and the rest of the Berlin School in the ’70s.

Vol. 2 captures a wider range of sounds and moods, encompassing austere sonic experiments, early sequenced pulses, and melodic etudes.

“These pieces represent amazingly fully formed early approaches to the very idea of musical synthesis...arresting even to modern ears.” — Goldmine

“Presages both Tangerine Dream’s soundtracks and, in its most grimy moments, Acid Tracks.” — The Wire

Marroon coloured vinyl.

1st pressing on Maroon coloured vinyl. Manzanita is the common name for a kind of small evergreen tree endemic to California which has strong medicinal properties. It's also the name of the brand new full length by visual artist, writer, songwriter, and musician Shana Cleveland. Subtle, powerful, and unafraid. We can't actually tell you how much we love this record because you'd never believe us, so we'll just say that it is her strongest and most personal album to date. These songs are as strong as the bricks in the Brill building, and seem destined to be covered by others in years to come. Where her previous record, 2019's Night of the Worm Moon (Hardly Art) functions as a collection of speculative fictions equally inspired by Afro-futurist pioneers Herman "Sun Ra" Blount and Octavia Butler, Manzanita concerns the love that loves to love. "This is a supernatural love album set in the California wilderness," Cleveland explains. The combinations of words and song structure are so strong throughout that one hardly notices Cleveland's nimble fingerpicking on first listen, or how much is packed into the arrangements. The lyrics are satisfyingly direct, with the buoyantly whimsical descriptions typical of the 1960s New York School of poetry. It's peppered with the kind of unexpected turns that make the words more modern, and in their spookiness they are more West Coast, as in "Mystic Mine," with its "Mystic Mine Lane, cars rotting away/ I feel so relieved to be/ Back in the country." So much of the pop music we love is propelled by those first blushes of infatuation and lust, but Manzanita concerns the kind of love that one can only experience with time, work, and devotion. Cleveland says: "The songs were all written while I was pregnant (side A) or shortly after my son's birth in that weird everything-has-quietly-but-monumentally-shifted state (side B)," she says. Moving to the country, starting a family, laughing for real at the same joke the thirteenth time you've heard it, surviving heavy shit (this is the first release since Cleveland's successful treatment for a diagnosis of breast cancer at the start of 2022). This is a love album that's somehow populated with the insect world, ghosts, and evil spirits. Sonically, Manzanita sits in a meadow similar to her previous solo records, set back and away from the genre-recombinant garage pop of her band La Luz. This is part due to the fact that there's a different sonic palette in use here. While Cleveland continues to play guitar and vocals; Johnny Goss, who has recorded all of Shana's solo material and early La Luz recordings, and Abbey Blackwell (Alvvays, La Luz) play the bass; Olie Eshleman is on pedal steel; and Will Sprott plays the keyboards, dulcimer, glockenspiel, and harpsichord-little of which would have been out of place on her previous two solo records-Sprott also adds layers of synthesizer infused with the sounds of the natural world.

Tape

1st pressing on Maroon coloured vinyl. Manzanita is the common name for a kind of small evergreen tree endemic to California which has strong medicinal properties. It's also the name of the brand new full length by visual artist, writer, songwriter, and musician Shana Cleveland. Subtle, powerful, and unafraid. We can't actually tell you how much we love this record because you'd never believe us, so we'll just say that it is her strongest and most personal album to date. These songs are as strong as the bricks in the Brill building, and seem destined to be covered by others in years to come. Where her previous record, 2019's Night of the Worm Moon (Hardly Art) functions as a collection of speculative fictions equally inspired by Afro-futurist pioneers Herman "Sun Ra" Blount and Octavia Butler, Manzanita concerns the love that loves to love. "This is a supernatural love album set in the California wilderness," Cleveland explains. The combinations of words and song structure are so strong throughout that one hardly notices Cleveland's nimble fingerpicking on first listen, or how much is packed into the arrangements. The lyrics are satisfyingly direct, with the buoyantly whimsical descriptions typical of the 1960s New York School of poetry. It's peppered with the kind of unexpected turns that make the words more modern, and in their spookiness they are more West Coast, as in "Mystic Mine," with its "Mystic Mine Lane, cars rotting away/ I feel so relieved to be/ Back in the country." So much of the pop music we love is propelled by those first blushes of infatuation and lust, but Manzanita concerns the kind of love that one can only experience with time, work, and devotion. Cleveland says: "The songs were all written while I was pregnant (side A) or shortly after my son's birth in that weird everything-has-quietly-but-monumentally-shifted state (side B)," she says. Moving to the country, starting a family, laughing for real at the same joke the thirteenth time you've heard it, surviving heavy shit (this is the first release since Cleveland's successful treatment for a diagnosis of breast cancer at the start of 2022). This is a love album that's somehow populated with the insect world, ghosts, and evil spirits. Sonically, Manzanita sits in a meadow similar to her previous solo records, set back and away from the genre-recombinant garage pop of her band La Luz. This is part due to the fact that there's a different sonic palette in use here. While Cleveland continues to play guitar and vocals; Johnny Goss, who has recorded all of Shana's solo material and early La Luz recordings, and Abbey Blackwell (Alvvays, La Luz) play the bass; Olie Eshleman is on pedal steel; and Will Sprott plays the keyboards, dulcimer, glockenspiel, and harpsichord-little of which would have been out of place on her previous two solo records-Sprott also adds layers of synthesizer infused with the sounds of the natural world.

In the late 1980s, the renowned American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger John Hicks formed one of the most influential ensembles consisting of musicians that had played music at the highest level all their lives and gained their status as both stand-alone artists and important sidemen. Each of them had participated in many of jazz’s great moments and all shared the ability, documented on many albums, to inspire their fellow musicians to even greater heights. The ‘John Hicks Trio’ had several line-up changes over the years that included greats such as Clifford Barbaro (Strata East, Blue Note, Sun Ra Arkestra, Charles Tolliver), Clint Houston (Prestige, Nina Simone, Roy Ayers, Azar Lawrence), Ray Drummond (Freddie Hubbard, Art Blakey, Lalo Schifrin), Marcus McLaurine (Muse, Verve, Weldon Irvine, Kool & The Gang) and Victor Lewis (Steve Grossman, Stan Getz, Charles Mingus, Cedar Walton, Chet Baker).

On the album we are presenting you today (I’ll Give You Something To Remember Me By from 1988) the trio consists out of some of the biggest and best players in the jazz, funk and soul scenes:

On piano we have the Atlanta based trio’s bandleader JOHN HICKS (1941-2006). He served as a leader on more than 30 albums and played as a sideman on more than 300 other recordings. After being taught piano by his mother, Hicks went on to study at Lincoln University of Missouri, Berklee College of Music, and the Juilliard School. After playing with a number of different artists during the early ’60s (including Oliver Nelson and being part of Pharoah Sanders’s first band) he joined Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers in 1964. In the early ’70s he taught jazz history and improvisation at Southern Illinois University before resuming his career as a recording artist. Next to his many solo recordings for labels such as Strata East and Concord, Hicks would collaborate with all the big names in the scene, including Archie Shepp, Mingus and Alvin Queen. In 2014 & 2015, J Dilla paid homage to John Hicks by sampling two of his songs.

On drums we have the legendary IDRIS MUHAMMAD (1939-2014) who to this day is still considered as one of the most influential drummers covering a multitude of genre-transcending styles. Born in New Orleans, he showed early talent as a percussionist and began his professional career while still a teenager, playing on Fats Domino’s ‘Blueberry Hill’. He then toured with Sam Cooke and would later go on to work with Curtis Mayfield. Next to his landmark solo recordings for Prestige Records, Idris would collaborate with iconic musicians and acts from the likes of Manu Dibango, Ahmad Jamal, Melvin Sparks, Charles Earland, Walter Bishop, Ceasar Frazier, Roberta Flack, Gato Barbieri, Nathan Davis, Sonny Rollins, Lou Donaldson, Galt MacDermot, Lonnie Smith…and countless others. Idris Muhammad’s work was sampled by renowned performers such as Drake, Beastie Boys and Fatboy Slim.

On bass we have CURTIS LUNDY (born 1955) who originates from Florida. Lundy is a well-respected bass player (and a master of his instrument), choir director, arranger, composer and producer who was part of performances and recordings of renowned acts and artists such as Pharoah Sanders, Frank Morgan, Cole Porter, Chico Freeman, Khan Jamal… and many others!

On I’ll Give You Something To Remember Me By (recorded at the legendary Dutch Studio 44 in March 1987 and released on Limetree Records in 1988) the listener is treated to eight majestic tracks of the highest caliber (including an excellent Thelonious Monk cover-tune) and features a remarkable outing of advanced musicianship by three jazz-giants in their prime, delivering an inspirational gem of an album.

These recordings sound as successful, young and vibrant as ever! Expect supercharged ragtime Post Bop with striking notes, no-holds-barred musicianship, high swinging solos, screaming choruses and plenty of solid virtuosity to spare. The up tempo none stop Latin beat is complimented by the terrific drum solos of Idris Muhammad and the rhythmic bass strokes of Curtis Lundy. This electrifying set of tracks makes this release a bonafide hit and a must have for any self-respecting jazz fan or collector.

At the frontier of beeing Hardcore... Tempo is high, rave sounds around, and a very electric ambiance stands around.
But still the kick remain very Techno, not too loud and hard.

Kind of a Freetek 2.0 , old school hardtek or something out of the comon fields : WICKED !!!

Gondwana Records announces 'Goodbyes' the debut album from Estonian pianist and composer, Hanakiv, a deeply beautiful, meditative piano album featuring special guest Alabaster dePlume

"This is an album about healing. It is about saying your goodbyes to everything that doesn't serve you anymore. Each of these songs has a little goodbye in it. So, these are very beautiful and necessary goodbyes".

Hanakiv is a young composer and musician from Estonia (now based in London) who creates meditative piano-based ambient music with elements from classical and electronic music. 'Goodbyes' is her debut recording and draws on influences as diverse as Tim Hecker, Björk "Vespertine", Kara-Lis Coverdale, Arvo Pärt, Erkki-Sven Tüür and Aphex Twin as well as her own cultural heritage. Music has an important part in Estonian culture, especially choir music and its traditions, but Hanakiv also draws on her love of nature – the beautiful Estonian seaside and forests - and on her time in Iceland. However, it was moving to London that gave her the freedom to make her own music: "London gave me the freedom and courage to really be who I am (as a person and musically)" and her heritage and her new home both offer inspiration to Goodbyes, as Hanakiv moves between these two opposite places, a bustling metropolis and a small country full of nature, drawing inspiration from both as she sculpts her own voice.

Hanakiv had an unconventional music education – she started studying music at a school for handbells when she was nine and was part of a handbell ensemble for eight years. Starting on piano at the same time she went on to study composition at high school, and later at the Estonian Academy of Music. Eventually switching to electroacoustic composition, she studied in Reykjavik, and did internships in Malmö, and again Reykjavik before moving to London. She grew up in a musical family and her grandmother was a piano teacher and choir conductor.

"I would always ask her to take me to her choir rehearsals. I remember sitting under the grand piano, listening to the choir and just being mesmerised by the sounds. She also teaches in a local music school in the south of Estonia with about ten pianos, and I'd spend a lot of time there as well. I believe this was the starting point for me to get to where I am now. The last two pieces on the album (Home II and Home I) are composed in this same music school, so it feels like a full circle.

An early influence was Regina Spektor "the first artist who made me really want to play piano" alongside dream pop and Sigur Rós' as well as Estonian contemporary composers such as Erkki-Sven Tüür and Arvo Pärt. Later her studies took her to Reykjavík: "There is this amazing record shop called 12 Tónar in Reykjavik where you can drink espressos and listen to all their vinyls. I spent quite a lot of time there. There is something about Icelandic music that really excited me (the mixture of contemporary electronic sounds with melancholy, emotionality). This is when I started getting more into electronic music, and experimenting outside of classical music". Following a year long break from studying and inspired by making an electroacoustic soundtrack for a friend's abstract video, she was inspired to complete a masters in electroacoustic composition, diving fully into the worlds of sound recording and mixing and focusing on surround sound and how to position and move sounds in space, eventually doing an internship with composer Kent Olofson in Malmö, who works with multi-speaker systems for theatre productions. "I learnt a lot from him and he introduced me to some of my favourite plugins I've used a lot on this album as well."

Hanakiv moved to London just as the pandemic hit and found herself trapped, in a big new city, without any network or family and so just concentrated on making music. "I stayed in my room with my basic equipment - keyboard, Korg minilogue, SM 58 and Rode nt1-a microphones, laptop and speakers. I was reading about mixing, and trying out different things and listening to a lot of music to get the sense of the mixes and production and finishing a commission piece for 5.1 multi speaker system at that time so I set up four speakers for quadrophonic surround sound in my room!". She also found her way back to piano - my instrument – and started practicing again, playing the pieces she used to play, but also just improvising, and this was the beginning of what would become her debut album, 'Goodbyes'.

"I started appreciating everything about music again (even melody!), and everything just came together naturally, and I arrived to a point where I finally found my voice, and I had something that I wanted to say and share. I composed "Meditation I" first and started with "Goodbye", and all the other pieces are derived from that. Without "Meditation I" there wouldn't be this album. If you listen closely, "Meditation I" starts where "Goodbye" ends; "Meditation II" is born from "Meditation I".

But it was meeting Fi Roberts, a sound engineer based at the legendary Strongrom Studios in Shoreditch, London in December 2020 that really brought the album into focus. The pair bonded over an interest in prepared piano and a similar approach to production ideas (a balance of not overdoing it, and letting the songs speak for themselves, but being open to explore) and Fi became a friend but also a confidant and eventually co-producer

"Fi has a big impact on this record but I don't know how to really explain that properly. Of course, this album is sonically stunning thanks to her amazing mixes and recording skills, but she also believed in this music so much and it created something very special - that's difficult to measure with words. She just works with heart, and I really appreciate that"

This then is 'Goodbyes', the first offering from a major new voice, who offers us a meditative work full of space and tranquillity but also life and friendship and meaning. And we are very proud to welcome her to the Gondwana family.

Kate NV's WOW offers listeners a prismatic shift in perspective and scale, a parallel dimension in which the mundane becomes funny, unfamiliar, and altogether sensational. Turning the contents of her 2020 album Room for the Moon upside down and spilling them across a floor checkered with intrigue and surprise, Kate places sound, object, and ritual under the microscope to magnify the delight hidden in plain sight of everyday life. WOW is Kate Shilonosova's fourth full-length release as Kate NV in six years, and third for RVNG Intl. Her prolific musical output aligns with a highly attuned aesthetic and a deep commitment to visual world building. WOW is one of many of these worlds in which music is fully saturated with color, deeply tactile and textural. Shiny, sproingy, plastic. Where Room for the Moon embraced structure (abstractly speaking) and veered pop, WOW happily abandons conventional song shapes, parsing the experience of musical time into ecstatic fragments. It's difficult to imagine a more fitting album title: pure exclamation, an organic pitch of delight leaving the mouth, with no clear etymological links. On Room for the Moon, Shilonosova's voice was layered and lyrical, with sweeping and urgent melodies. WOW finds her as a peripheral purveyor of high jinks, peeking out from the corners, commenting on her surroundings in non-verbal, and arguably non-human, utterances. Instead of employing lyricism, Shilonosova steps outside of language, and rewards us with a gum ball machine of textures: soda fizz and wind-up teeth and scraps of bubble wrap become comically huge, as if heard from an insect's perspective. Words are tasty plosives, onomatopoeias, percussive chirps and one-liners, and singing serves as another form of what Shilonosova refers to as "funny tiny sounds." WOW skews and skitters, trips over its own feet and laughs about it, plays out of tune on purpose, tilts and leans like a top-heavy flower. Shilonosova is a longtime user of Found Sound Nation's Broken Orchestra sample pack, a sound catalog of over one thousand dilapidated instruments sourced from Philadelphia public schools. These perfectly imperfect instruments are tightly spliced into WOW's patchwork of synthesizer and reworked snippets of Shilonosova's friends playing clarinet, flute, and marimba. It's central to the record's internal logic: a disregard for what is, and isn't, broken, what is, and isn't, a sentence or a song. A commingling of subject and object, with a firmly new wave sensibility. Shilonosova has long had an unusual relationship with inanimate objects (citing her bicycle as her best friend), as if the joys they evoke for her are personality traits of the objects themselves. On WOW, she evinces a kind of inverted anthropomorphism: she shrinks her voice and becomes an object among multitudes, toylike in size and perspective, cohabitating with sedentary, indifferent roommates. This pursuit of childlike perspectives is a thread that runs through much of her catalog, and places her work on a plane with that of her personal hero Nobukazu Takemura, who for decades has treated his music as a portal to childlike curiosity, both in subject matter and tone. With an invitation to pursue this curiosity, WOW further confirms Kate NV's deeply inventive, fluid and technically dizzying artistry. By refusing constraints and rules, Shilonosova embodies a profound freedom, allowing objects, sounds, and processes to unfold organically; or, as she puts it, a commitment to "accepting randomness." She succeeds terrifically at a breed of auditory defamiliarization that is all her own, and the rewards for listeners are many: through her lens, the small becomes monstrous, the abstract becomes sensorial, and the old becomes new. Kate NV's WOW will be released on February 10, 2023 on vinyl and digital formats. On behalf of Kate NV and RVNG, a portion of the proceeds from this release will benefit War Child, an organization that supports children and their families impacted by conflict, and working to build sustainable peace for generations to come.

Yellow Vinyl

Kate NV's WOW offers listeners a prismatic shift in perspective and scale, a parallel dimension in which the mundane becomes funny, unfamiliar, and altogether sensational. Turning the contents of her 2020 album Room for the Moon upside down and spilling them across a floor checkered with intrigue and surprise, Kate places sound, object, and ritual under the microscope to magnify the delight hidden in plain sight of everyday life. WOW is Kate Shilonosova's fourth full-length release as Kate NV in six years, and third for RVNG Intl. Her prolific musical output aligns with a highly attuned aesthetic and a deep commitment to visual world building. WOW is one of many of these worlds in which music is fully saturated with color, deeply tactile and textural. Shiny, sproingy, plastic. Where Room for the Moon embraced structure (abstractly speaking) and veered pop, WOW happily abandons conventional song shapes, parsing the experience of musical time into ecstatic fragments. It's difficult to imagine a more fitting album title: pure exclamation, an organic pitch of delight leaving the mouth, with no clear etymological links. On Room for the Moon, Shilonosova's voice was layered and lyrical, with sweeping and urgent melodies. WOW finds her as a peripheral purveyor of high jinks, peeking out from the corners, commenting on her surroundings in non-verbal, and arguably non-human, utterances. Instead of employing lyricism, Shilonosova steps outside of language, and rewards us with a gum ball machine of textures: soda fizz and wind-up teeth and scraps of bubble wrap become comically huge, as if heard from an insect's perspective. Words are tasty plosives, onomatopoeias, percussive chirps and one-liners, and singing serves as another form of what Shilonosova refers to as "funny tiny sounds." WOW skews and skitters, trips over its own feet and laughs about it, plays out of tune on purpose, tilts and leans like a top-heavy flower. Shilonosova is a longtime user of Found Sound Nation's Broken Orchestra sample pack, a sound catalog of over one thousand dilapidated instruments sourced from Philadelphia public schools. These perfectly imperfect instruments are tightly spliced into WOW's patchwork of synthesizer and reworked snippets of Shilonosova's friends playing clarinet, flute, and marimba. It's central to the record's internal logic: a disregard for what is, and isn't, broken, what is, and isn't, a sentence or a song. A commingling of subject and object, with a firmly new wave sensibility. Shilonosova has long had an unusual relationship with inanimate objects (citing her bicycle as her best friend), as if the joys they evoke for her are personality traits of the objects themselves. On WOW, she evinces a kind of inverted anthropomorphism: she shrinks her voice and becomes an object among multitudes, toylike in size and perspective, cohabitating with sedentary, indifferent roommates. This pursuit of childlike perspectives is a thread that runs through much of her catalog, and places her work on a plane with that of her personal hero Nobukazu Takemura, who for decades has treated his music as a portal to childlike curiosity, both in subject matter and tone. With an invitation to pursue this curiosity, WOW further confirms Kate NV's deeply inventive, fluid and technically dizzying artistry. By refusing constraints and rules, Shilonosova embodies a profound freedom, allowing objects, sounds, and processes to unfold organically; or, as she puts it, a commitment to "accepting randomness." She succeeds terrifically at a breed of auditory defamiliarization that is all her own, and the rewards for listeners are many: through her lens, the small becomes monstrous, the abstract becomes sensorial, and the old becomes new. Kate NV's WOW will be released on February 10, 2023 on vinyl and digital formats. On behalf of Kate NV and RVNG, a portion of the proceeds from this release will benefit War Child, an organization that supports children and their families impacted by conflict, and working to build sustainable peace for generations to come.

Russell Small and DNO P jump on remix duties delivering an upbeat house music interpretation that will put your feet firmly on the dance floor and a smile across your face.

Russell Small has had a string of chart topping tunes with Phatts and Small and the Freemasons so this remix has a pedigree that is second to none.

LazerGirl is a Brighton based European Electronic Dance Music singer and songwriter. She is bright and full of sass, just like her music. Her pulse racing dance music with a euro twist allows her to stand out from the crowd as her style is fresh and catchy and each song is packed full of energy.

Brighton producer and DJ Steve Mac delivers a full on acid house excursion with his stylish remix of LazerGirl's "Tocarme".

Steve Mac has a prestigious bio and discography that most producers can only dream about and this remix exudes all the class you would expect from an artist of this calibre.

With its feet planted firmly in 2020, the remix effortlessly transports you back to the second summer of love combining the old school with the new decade.

Pure Class!

Country songwriter from Brooklyn's indie underground, Dougie Poole blurs the lines between genre and generation on his third solo album, The Rainbow Wheel of Death. Rooted in sharp songwritingvand the organic sounds of a live-in-the-studio band, it's a classic-sounding record for the modern world. The Rainbow Wheel of Death's title nods to the colorful pinwheel that appears onscreen whenever a computer's application stalls. For Poole _ who found himself working as a freelance computer programmer once the pandemic brought his touring schedule to a temporary halt in 2020 _ it's also a reference to the holding pattern that's left much of society feeling stuck, unable to move ahead in an uncertain world. That feeling was pervasive when he in his New York City bedroom and wrapping up the songwriting process in the recording studio itself. Once hailed as the "patron saint of millennial malaise" for his sardonic wit and topical, tongue-in-cheek songwriting, Poole broadens his reach here. "High School Gym" builds a bridge between 2020s lo-fi textures and 1980s pop vibes, while "Must Be In Here Somewhere" _ whose narrator sits at a lap top, searching through "every server burning in North Carolina" for a digital souvenir of a long-lost relationship _ mixes modern concerns with classic country instrumentation. If records like 2017's Wideass Highway and 2020's breakthrough release The Freelancer's Blues told stories about uninspired Millennials languishing in dead-end jobs and no-good relationships, then The Rainbow Wheel of Death focuses on more universal issues like mortality, love, and the passing of the time. With The Rainbow Wheel of Death, Dougie Poole breathes new life into country music, retaining the acclaimed elements of his previous work _ drum machines, synthesizers, and his deep-set voice _ while pushing toward something warm, organic, and prismatic.

Impatiently returning to the golden age of Ecuadorian musica national, this second round of retrievals is more of a selectors’ affair: less reverent, more free-flowing, with more twists and turns. There is no let-up in musical quality, maintaining the same judicious, heart-piercing balance between emotional desolation and dignified endurance, the same bitter-sweet play between affective excess and musical sublimity.

This time around, the woman steal the show. Laura and Mercedes Suasti were child stars, with an exclusive Radio Quito contract. Unlike nearly all the men here, they lived long and prospered: Mercedes died last year, at the age of 93. Gladys Viera and Olga Gutierrez both came to Ecuador from Argentina. To start, Gladys plugged the scandalous new Monokini swimwear; Olga performed for visiting British royalty in 1962. Olga was glamorous but tough. She would make little of the amputation of one of her legs: ‘I don’t sing with my leg.’ She is accompanied on our opener by quintessentially reeling, sultry musica national: haunted-house organ, twinkling xylophone, Guillermo Rodriguez’ heart-plucking guitar-playing, and lilting, dance-to-keep-from-crying double-bass. ‘Sometimes I think that you will leave me with no memories,’ she sings, ‘that you hold only disappointments in store for me… In the future your love will search me out, full of regret. By then it will be too late, there will be no consolation, only disappointment awaiting you.’

Other highlights include the two contributions of Orquesta Nacional: Ponchito Al Hombro, like an off-the-wall forerunner of the Love Unlimited Orchestra, beamed into the tropics from an unknowable time and space; and the tone poem Atahualpa, a mystical yumbo invoking Quito’s most ancient inhabitants, the Kichwa. Also the tremulous, gypsy-flavoured violin-playing of Raul Emiliani, who arrived in Quito from Italy, suffering PTSD from the Second World War; the inscrutable, sardonic experimentalism of organist Lucho Munoz; and the mooing and whistling of Toro Barroso — school of Lee Perry — in which a muddy bull dashes home to his darling chola, fearless, full of desire.

Lavishly presented, with a full-size, full-colour booklet, with transporting art-work and expert notes. Luminous sound, by way of Abbey Road, D&M and Pallas.

DOUBLE BLACK LP : 2 x 140 G Black Vinyl , Sleeve & 2 x Heavy Weight Printed Inner with UV Gloss Finish

Legendary electronic music duo Orbital return Early 2023 with new album “Optical Delusion”, the Hartnoll brothers first studio album since 2018’s Monster’s Exist. Recorded in Orbital’s Brighton studio, “Optical Delusion” includes contributions from Sleaford Mods, Penelope Isles, Anna B Savage, The Little Pest, Dina Ipavic, Coppe, and perhaps most surprisingly, The Medieval Baebes.
Earlier this year, Orbital celebrated their storied history with “30 Something” which, unlike other Best Of’s, contains reworks, remakes, remixes and re-imaginings of landmark Orbital tracks including “Chime”, “Belfast”, “Halcyon”, “Satan”, and “The Box”

SHORT BIOG:

“A human being experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest of humanity – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison…”

You many have seen this quote attributed to Albert Einstein on social media, the archetypal Smartest Guy Ever apparently having an out-of-character religious epiphany. It certainly leapt out at Paul Hartnoll of Orbital who spotted it in Michael Pollan’s 2018 book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence.

“As soon as I saw ‘optical delusion’ I thought Oh hey, that’s the album title,” says Paul. “It just seemed to say so much about how people construct their own realities, how we see patterns that aren’t there, how we see what we want to see.

“But it’s actually a misquote. He never quite said that. In the German original what he’s really saying is that human experience is as relative as physics. Wouldn’t it be good if we could accept that, and find a kind of universal theory of everything for the human race? Then you look at everything from history to art to your Twitter feed and you think yeah, that’s what we’re all trying to do all of the time…”

Hence ‘Optical Delusion’, the tenth original Orbital album and the latest in a burst of renewed post-pandemic creativity for two brothers who’ve stayed at the top of their game longer than anyone from the post-1988 Class of Acid House.

Now with ‘Optical Delusion’ the Hartnolls dig deeper into the unquiet psyche of our increasingly surreal and disordered world. Sketched out partly during lockdown but fully recorded in the uncertain After Times, the album summons up conflicting emotions and sometimes beguiling images from years when the science fiction doomsdays that the Hartnolls watched on TV as kids finally came true. There are mesmeric tracks with names like ‘The New Abnormal’ and ‘Requiem For The Pre-Apocalypse’ and ‘Day One’. But there are also straight-up bangers and ethereal cosmic dreams, abstract sound wars and deeply human songs of separation and loss.

And it all starts with a bang. Lead single ‘Dirty Rat’, an outright Fall-meets-Front-242 class rant with vocals by Sleaford Mods mob orator Jason Williamson, harks right back to the Hartnolls’ days of politicised anarcho-squatpunk. It began as a remix swap (Orbital did the Sleafords’ ‘I Don’t Rate You’) and morphed into a comic, brutal, bass-driven harangue not so much against our rulers but at the petty, mean-spirited, frightened, Mail-reading voters who put them there: the people who are “blaming everyone in hospital/blaming everyone at the bottom of the English Channel/blaming everyone who doesn’t look like a fried animal.”

Also key to the album is opening track ‘Ringa Ringa (The Old Pandemic Folk Song)’ which returns to an Orbital truism, that time always becomes a loop. This chugging, cyclical Orbital groove gives way to an unnerving past-meets-present timeslip fit for ‘Sapphire And Steel’ as goth maenads The Mediaeval Baebes materialise to sing ‘Ring O’Roses’ – the innocent nursery rhyme whose roots are in the Black Death.

“I’ve always liked folk music and mediaeval sounds,” says Paul, himself an occasional Morris dancer. “I had the basis of that track and I wanted to spin it off somehow.” Trawling his archives he stumbled on The Mediaeval Baebes’ version of ‘Ring O’Roses’ “and my hackles just went up. I was like, my God, this is the original pandemic folk song.”

?his being Orbital, there are collaborations galore on the album, the roles once played by Alison Goldfrapp, Lady Leshurr or David Gray now filled by new talents. London singer-songwriter Anna B Savage contributes a compellingly fragile, Anohni-like vocal to ‘Home’, in which nature reclaims the scorched and vacant mega-cities. ‘Day One’ is a pulsing techno track featuring the singer Dina Ipavic. Paul got in touch with her after working on a score for a sculpture show of giant robotic installations by his friend Giles Walker during the pandemic. First Paul cut up his own score and Ipavic’s vocals on the track The Crane, which appears on the deluxe version of the album. Then he thought, Why not work with her for real? The result is school of ‘Belfast’, a bassy dreamscape with vocalised clouds billowing above.

The pensive ‘Are You ?live?’ adds to the Orbital product range of existential questions (‘Are We Here?’, ‘Where Is It Going?’) in collaboration Bella Union signings Penelope Isles, AKA brother and sister act Lily and Jack Wolter. “They’re our studio mates, they work upstairs!” says Paul happily. “And they’ve both got amazing voices.”


But Orbital are Orbital and never far from the dancefloor. “Eventually the more abrasive bits came back into the fold…” ‘You Are The Frequency’, first of two tracks to feature mysterious vocalist The Little Pest, surrounds the listener with warped voices ordering you to the dancefloor (Phil: “we wanted the idea that the music is kind of absorbing you”). And the second, the sinister ‘What A Surprise’, traps you in a paranoid electronic hall of mirrors.

In another nod to Orbital’s resurgent past the cover artwork once again comes from fine art painter John Greenwood, creator of fantastical grotesques for the covers of ‘Snivilisation’, ‘In Sides’ and Orbital’s most recent album, 2018’s ‘Monsters Exist’. Orbital had just had a slick Mark Farrow cover for ‘30 Something’ – this is a return to the overripe and bulbous techno-organic constructions that somehow express Orbital’s own uncontrollably fertile sound.

There are gaps in the future that Orbital are desperate to fill too; there will be tours and festivals and rooms and fields full of people. Those long paralysed months when we had little to look forward to but a Zoom DJ set made Paul and Phil appreciate the things that make life worth living.

2 x Solid White LP, 5mm spine Sleeve UV Gloss Finish, 2x Heavy Weight Printed Inner Sleeve UV Gloss finish, marketing sticker.

Legendary electronic music duo Orbital return Early 2023 with new album “Optical Delusion”, the Hartnoll brothers first studio album since 2018’s Monster’s Exist. Recorded in Orbital’s Brighton studio, “Optical Delusion” includes contributions from Sleaford Mods, Penelope Isles, Anna B Savage, The Little Pest, Dina Ipavic, Coppe, and perhaps most surprisingly, The Medieval Baebes.
Earlier this year, Orbital celebrated their storied history with “30 Something” which, unlike other Best Of’s, contains reworks, remakes, remixes and re-imaginings of landmark Orbital tracks including “Chime”, “Belfast”, “Halcyon”, “Satan”, and “The Box”

SHORT BIOG:

“A human being experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest of humanity – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison…”

You many have seen this quote attributed to Albert Einstein on social media, the archetypal Smartest Guy Ever apparently having an out-of-character religious epiphany. It certainly leapt out at Paul Hartnoll of Orbital who spotted it in Michael Pollan’s 2018 book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence.

“As soon as I saw ‘optical delusion’ I thought Oh hey, that’s the album title,” says Paul. “It just seemed to say so much about how people construct their own realities, how we see patterns that aren’t there, how we see what we want to see.

“But it’s actually a misquote. He never quite said that. In the German original what he’s really saying is that human experience is as relative as physics. Wouldn’t it be good if we could accept that, and find a kind of universal theory of everything for the human race? Then you look at everything from history to art to your Twitter feed and you think yeah, that’s what we’re all trying to do all of the time…”

Hence ‘Optical Delusion’, the tenth original Orbital album and the latest in a burst of renewed post-pandemic creativity for two brothers who’ve stayed at the top of their game longer than anyone from the post-1988 Class of Acid House.

Now with ‘Optical Delusion’ the Hartnolls dig deeper into the unquiet psyche of our increasingly surreal and disordered world. Sketched out partly during lockdown but fully recorded in the uncertain After Times, the album summons up conflicting emotions and sometimes beguiling images from years when the science fiction doomsdays that the Hartnolls watched on TV as kids finally came true. There are mesmeric tracks with names like ‘The New Abnormal’ and ‘Requiem For The Pre-Apocalypse’ and ‘Day One’. But there are also straight-up bangers and ethereal cosmic dreams, abstract sound wars and deeply human songs of separation and loss.

And it all starts with a bang. Lead single ‘Dirty Rat’, an outright Fall-meets-Front-242 class rant with vocals by Sleaford Mods mob orator Jason Williamson, harks right back to the Hartnolls’ days of politicised anarcho-squatpunk. It began as a remix swap (Orbital did the Sleafords’ ‘I Don’t Rate You’) and morphed into a comic, brutal, bass-driven harangue not so much against our rulers but at the petty, mean-spirited, frightened, Mail-reading voters who put them there: the people who are “blaming everyone in hospital/blaming everyone at the bottom of the English Channel/blaming everyone who doesn’t look like a fried animal.”

Also key to the album is opening track ‘Ringa Ringa (The Old Pandemic Folk Song)’ which returns to an Orbital truism, that time always becomes a loop. This chugging, cyclical Orbital groove gives way to an unnerving past-meets-present timeslip fit for ‘Sapphire And Steel’ as goth maenads The Mediaeval Baebes materialise to sing ‘Ring O’Roses’ – the innocent nursery rhyme whose roots are in the Black Death.

“I’ve always liked folk music and mediaeval sounds,” says Paul, himself an occasional Morris dancer. “I had the basis of that track and I wanted to spin it off somehow.” Trawling his archives he stumbled on The Mediaeval Baebes’ version of ‘Ring O’Roses’ “and my hackles just went up. I was like, my God, this is the original pandemic folk song.”

?his being Orbital, there are collaborations galore on the album, the roles once played by Alison Goldfrapp, Lady Leshurr or David Gray now filled by new talents. London singer-songwriter Anna B Savage contributes a compellingly fragile, Anohni-like vocal to ‘Home’, in which nature reclaims the scorched and vacant mega-cities. ‘Day One’ is a pulsing techno track featuring the singer Dina Ipavic. Paul got in touch with her after working on a score for a sculpture show of giant robotic installations by his friend Giles Walker during the pandemic. First Paul cut up his own score and Ipavic’s vocals on the track The Crane, which appears on the deluxe version of the album. Then he thought, Why not work with her for real? The result is school of ‘Belfast’, a bassy dreamscape with vocalised clouds billowing above.

The pensive ‘Are You ?live?’ adds to the Orbital product range of existential questions (‘Are We Here?’, ‘Where Is It Going?’) in collaboration Bella Union signings Penelope Isles, AKA brother and sister act Lily and Jack Wolter. “They’re our studio mates, they work upstairs!” says Paul happily. “And they’ve both got amazing voices.”


But Orbital are Orbital and never far from the dancefloor. “Eventually the more abrasive bits came back into the fold…” ‘You Are The Frequency’, first of two tracks to feature mysterious vocalist The Little Pest, surrounds the listener with warped voices ordering you to the dancefloor (Phil: “we wanted the idea that the music is kind of absorbing you”). And the second, the sinister ‘What A Surprise’, traps you in a paranoid electronic hall of mirrors.

In another nod to Orbital’s resurgent past the cover artwork once again comes from fine art painter John Greenwood, creator of fantastical grotesques for the covers of ‘Snivilisation’, ‘In Sides’ and Orbital’s most recent album, 2018’s ‘Monsters Exist’. Orbital had just had a slick Mark Farrow cover for ‘30 Something’ – this is a return to the overripe and bulbous techno-organic constructions that somehow express Orbital’s own uncontrollably fertile sound.

There are gaps in the future that Orbital are desperate to fill too; there will be tours and festivals and rooms and fields full of people. Those long paralysed months when we had little to look forward to but a Zoom DJ set made Paul and Phil appreciate the things that make life worth living.