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In the third of the series, we move to 1973 Detroit, we have been so excited bringing this through to pressing and it has been a long but exciting and rewarding road and we hope you enjoy listening to this this 45 taken directly from the Universal master tapes and brought to you 48 years after its initial release on promo only format. Now available under licence and blessings from Universal Music Group on the Black Top series from us.

Is it good – oh yes – but don’t take our word for it, crank the volume up and hit play.

The A side – Young Train is a fabulous funkedged dancer with a message for us all even today, driven by the constant wah wah guitar and bongos. flip it over for a feelgood crossover dancer that has already been getting radio airtime on some of the UKs best soul stations.

Young Train by the Originals. This incredibly rare 45 is a poignant reminder that 48 years later the struggle continues today for equality and harmony for all.

The title “Young Train” is a brilliant collaboration of using Colemans surname and a hark back to the freedom songs enshrined in the blues and soul history of Black America, think Freedom Riders, Southbound train, Midnight train to Georgia to name but a tiny number. It captured the imagination of Detroit leading to the inauguration of the First Black Mayor of Detroit in 1974. Coleman Young captured the hearts and minds of the people of Detroit, some of his actions and associates led to questions around his fitness for office, but the moment in time lives forever in this exclusively rare 45 now brought to you with the blessings of Universal Music Group via MD Records.

On a final note, it is in many ways incredibly sad that this anthemic song still holds a valid call to action in its message in 2021. So, turn the volume up and get on board the “Young Train” for democracy and equality.

Big thanks go out to Karl “Chalky” White for material used in the sleeve.

All aboard for the third release in the Blacktop series from the MD Collective.

“And now for a gentleman who’s come all the way from Kingston, Jamaica and a place called Cling Cling Avenue. We present to you the one and only, the Originator, the Godfather, Daddy U Roy!”

U Roy had visited Brighton before but there was something special about that balmy night in August 2017, when he walked out on stage at the Komedia to a hero’s welcome and immediately got the crowd cheering and dancing. There was so much warmth and excitement generated that night, and it’s all captured on this final live album of the reggae superstar’s illustrious career.

U Roy wasn’t quite the originator, but he was the first Jamaican deejay to dominate the Top 3 places on both radio stations and turn his predecessors’ simple exhortations into an artform – one that evolved into a global phenomenon. It was his performances on King Tubby’s Hometown Hi-Fi that made him the talk of Jamaica and led him to Treasure Isle studio, where he voiced hits like Tide Is High and Wear You To The Ball. From then on his catchy, uplifting rhymes could be heard on radios and jukeboxes throughout the island, as well as from behind the control tower of his King Stur Gav sound-system, where MCs like Josey Wales, Brigadier Jerry and Charlie Chaplin learnt their craft. The veteran deejay, who died in February 2021, continued recording and touring into his late seventies, and without abandoning either his musical standards or Rastafarian beliefs. At his peak, U Roy voiced for Jamaica legends like Lee “Scratch” Perry, Bunny Lee and Channel One, in addition to several European labels. What most of his recordings have in common is a sense of hope and often joy, because even Get Up Stand Up is delivered with optimism. They are the qualities that come across on this life-affirming set, recorded in front of an appreciative audience, and backed by some of the UK’s finest reggae musicians.

For their first album, Caravan was surprisingly strong. While steeped in the same British psychedelia that informed bands such as Love Children, Pink Floyd, and Tomorrow, Caravan relates a freedom of spirit and mischief along the lines of Giles, Giles & Fripp or Gong. The band's roots can be traced to a British blue-eyed soul combo called the Wilde Flowers. Among the luminaries to have passed through this Caravan precursor were Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, and Hugh Hopper and Brian Hopper (pre-Soft Machine, naturally). The Caravan album never sold in serious numbers, and for much of 1968 and early 1969, the members were barely able to survive -- at one point they were literally living in tents. Suddenly, Caravan was an up-and-coming success on the college concert circuit, even making an appearance on British television's Top of the Pops. With national exposure and a growing audience, the group was at a make-or-break moment in their history. They rose to the occasion with their second Decca LP, In the Land of Grey and Pink, which showed off a keen melodic sense, a subtly droll wit, and a seductively smooth mix of hard rock, folk, classical, and jazz, intermingled with elements of Tolkien-esque fantasy.

repressed !

Biogen's a different kind of musician, always travelling the road less trodden. All law's broken - no chords, no build-ups and no traditional drum patterns. Instead Biogen offers listener's fragmented shredding's, constant irritations, glitches, imbalance—and enough creative ideas to supply a whole battalion of electronic musicians. His works are full of contrast. Occasionally soft and mellow - like a cloud in trousers - Biogen would call that 'sofa-trance'. Other times the music's harsh and uncompromising with uncomfortable, irrational beats and glitches - 'Weird-core' - a vast uncharted territory. Some might be tempted to connect the contrast and contradictions in his music to his long battle with manic-depressive disorder. But the disparity in his music is its strength, confounding and delighting the listener.
It's five years since Biogen passed away, but his influence is keenly felt among Icelandic electronic musicians. In the early '90s, Sigurbjörn 'Bjössi' .orgrímsson was a pioneer of the modern electronic scene as a member of the old skool hardcore band Ajax, who for a short time counted Goldie as vocalist, and cemented his reputation for pushing the limits under his Biogen pseudonym. His musical creations weren't made to serve the past or the present, but the future.
Each release and concert offered something different. Concerts were supposed to be challenging and engaging. His releases were not easy to come by and often he'd sell his music on Laugavegur - to unsuspecting tourists intrigued by his Viking-like appearance or mesmerised by his big blue eyes. He was a friend and a mentor to many; in 1995 he was a founding member of Thule Records, and in 2007 one of the leading forces in the Weird-core movement, a group of artists focusing on the unconventional. He'd encourage young artists to release their music into the cosmos - to make mistakes and learn from them - and that wouldn't be done while sitting in a basement. Many have memories of their first gig, watching a tall and comforting figure hovering above everyone else in the crowd. That was him, and it happened rarely that he wasn't there.
A fair amount of tracks on 'Halogen Continues' are previously unreleased, or self-released in very small amounts. The music moves from 'Irrelevant Information' where Biogen illuminates on 'Stabastab" a mysterious international institute he dreamt up, originally on the 'Mutilyn' LP that he handmade and sold himself. It was an anti-LP, a non-linear album of drones, crackles and weirdness. 'Bliss' is from the 1996 double CD compilation entitled "Icelandic Dance Sampler' that he helped compile. '303 Ambient' one of the recent works of the "Weird-core" era - also a regular event showcasing abstract electronica. He was the front man of the movement; regularly performing in Reykjavik with shows included lots of break-beats and 303's.
His creativity and freedom from tradition have seen Biogen gathering appreciation as an artist with the passing of time, and are hand in hand with the concept of . The artwork by Tombo is inspired by the idea of eternity and reverence after death. Nina compiled the tracks much like other album journeys on - 'I was in the car driving in the middle of nowhere in Iceland when I heard Biogen's music for the first time. Dramatic weather conditions outside probably influenced that instant emotional connection that I had with his music. Later navigating through a large archive of his recordings it took me some time until the album took form. I picked the most idiosyncratic cuts that show his creative approach most brightly. Some of them are short cuts ending obnoxiously with a lot of temper and others gorgeous atmospheric narratives - so deep and haunting that it feels like they are not familiar with a notion of time and dissolve slowly into the eternity. It's been an honour and felt exciting to have complied his work, a responsibility I feel keenly, and I hope he would like his music together in this album.'
Biogen's friend the Icelandic musician Ruxpin (Jonas Gudmundsson) who has worked to collect together Biogen's musical legacy through his DAT recordings and hard drives, and kindly granted Nina access to the files, provided much of the text for the press release. Following the album release of 'Halogen Continues', a further album of Biogen's ambient and experimental works will be released on GALAXIID later this year.

For many years now, the comparative of epic has simply been EPICA. Since their formation in 2002 and their quick ascension to stalwarts of symphonic metal noblesse with trailblazing masterpieces “The Divine Conspiracy” (2007) or “Requiem for the Indifferent” (2012), Dutch metal titans only knew one way: Up. Especially with their last three releases “The Quantum Enigma”, “The Holographic Principle” and this years’ “Ωmega”, forming a metaphysical trilogy that’s both alpha and omega of all things symphonic metal, EPICA became rightful monarchs of a genre they themselves helped made become a global phenomenon.

Yet, as every other band, EPICA couldn’t take their latest installment of breathtaking cinematic grandeur to the seven corners of the world as they would have normally done. You know why. Thus, plans have been made and visions fulfilled to produce a once-in-a-lifetime event that couldn’t be further away from yet another streaming show. What EPICA unleashed upon the world on Saturday, June 12th, 2021, was a monument to their music, their career, and their enduring legacy as forebears of a whole genre. Now finally being released on Blu-ray and DVD and various audio formats, “Ωmega Alive” is the EPICA show of your wildest dreams, brought to life by blood, sweat, tears and a healthy dose of megalomania. Think Marvel meeting Cirque de Soleil in a Tim Burton universe.

Celebrating the release of their gargantuan new opus magnum, „Ωmega“, the streaming event saw fans from over a 100 countries flock to the screens to witness a show that has proven to be the defining moment in EPICA‘s concert history. A show that’s nothing short of the band’s most explosive performance to date, brought to life with an enormous production on an ever-evolving stage setting that’s full of visual surprises. For the first time ever, EPICA performed songs like ‘The Skeleton Key’ or the insanely monumental “Kingdom of Heaven Part 3” from “Ωmega”, alongside the band’s most popular songs, rare songs, fan favorites and huge surprises. “What started as a basic idea to do an online release show for “Ωmega” quickly spiraled out of control and became our most ambitious project to date,” creative director and keyboard wizard Coen Janssen says. “As usual, we wanted to push the boundaries, explore the limits, and think outside the box. We found ourselves back in our happy place. This concert film, our ray of light for you in the dark times that we have all been living in.”

For half a year, the band worked tirelessly on a show that’s been setting a new standard for concert films and streaming events. “What we wanted to do was the ultimate EPICA show where we could fulfill every dream we ever had, where there was room for all the ideas, effects and props that are just too big to be taken on tour.” Far from your usual streaming concert, the band developed a trademark feature called a “living backdrop.” Coen explains: “We built another stage right behind our stage where lots of things were going on the whole time. And we meant that very literally,” he laughs. “Every song got something extra, something unique that was fitting its world.”

He can say that again: Elaborate visuals, tailor-made videos and graphic effects, fire, and flames on a Nibelungen level, dancers and actors, artistic performances or fire performers all add to the aura of symbolism and cinematic splendor, setting the stage for a band that can’t be happier to finally bring their new album to life, harmonizing wonderfully and giving their A game for a show to remember. “It was so great finally playing with the band again, actually standing on stage with them. Boy, did we miss this,” Coen emphasizes and adds: “We also built a pretty cool new stage with some fire-breathing snakes and lots of rotating elements. Good thing is, we might also take it on the road when we can finally tour again.”

Until then, “Ωmega Alive” will be a more than efficient remedy against no-concerteritis – for bands, fans, and crew alike who all look back on an extra-long dry spell. Divided into five acts as there are letters in EPICA and “Ωmega”, each part gets a different theme, look, and feel, complemented with references to the history of EPICA, the symbolism of the band and the videos they did. It’s, in short, the best show they ever did, a two-hour spectacle spanning their storied career up to their latest endeavors and graced by Simone Simons’ breathtaking a-cappella rendition of ‘Rivers’ from “Ωmega” complete with choir, easily the most emotional and achingly beautiful moment in their entire career. Frankly, you don’t see this on a normal tour.

What EPICA brought to life here with the help of 75 artists and crew members is a testimony to their burning will to take their band ever higher – even now, in the darkest of times we ever had to endure. Let “Ωmega Alive” be your ray of light as it was theirs, a journey into the heart, body and soul of one of the most passionate and visionary metal bands alive today.

The Ethiopians are one of the great vocal groups to come out of Jamaica. Singing songs of life and times as they found them, themes that resonated with the people of the Island that made them such a treasured group. Lenard Dillon (b. 9 December, 1942, Port Antonio, Jamaica) the founding member of the Ethiopians began his singing career at Clement 'Coxonne' Dodd's Studio One. Initially he recorded under the name of Jack Sparrow, and backed by the Wailers, cutting 'Ice Water' and 'Suffering In The Land'. Under The Wailers encouragement, he went on to form his
own vocal group. Recruiting singers Stephan Taylor (b.1944, Portland, Jamaica) and Aston 'Charlie' Morris to become The Ethiopians. They cut 'Live Good', 'Why You Gonna Leave Me Now' and 'Owe Me No Pay Me'. Although receiving favourable response, Aston Morris decided to leave the band and the remaining pair carried on and cut 'I'm A Free
Man' and 'Don Dead Already' and 'For You'. On meeting contract builder Leebert Robertson who had recently returned to live in Jamaica, ashad he wanted to get into the music business, a session was booked for Treasure Isle Studios. The session produced their seminal 'Train To Skaville' track, which became an immediate hit in Jamaica and in the UK, when in 1967 it reached number 40 in the charts. They also cut 'Engine 54', which became the title of their debut album. Its
follow up 'I Need You / Do It Sweet', did not fare so well and the band moved over to Sonia Pottinger's stable, where they cut 'The Whip / Cool It Amigo' which revived their fortunes and proved another big hit for the band. Two more hits followed 'Stay Loose Mama' and 'The World Goes Ska', after which the band decided to return to a trio, adding
Melvin 'Mellow' Reid to the line up. The band now hit another run of successes with producer JJ Johnson 'Everything Crash, 'Gun Man', 'Hong Kong Flu' and 'The Selah'. Many hits followed leading the band to work with a variety of Jamaican producers. Such tracks as 'I Want To Be a Better Man, ' Conquering Lion', 'Fire A Mus Mus' Tail', and the timeless 'Reggae Hit The Town' to name a few. Two albums 'Reggae Power' (1969) and 'Woman Capture Man' (1970), pulled a lot of these tunes together. Sadly Taylor was killed in 1975 after been struck by a van in a road accident. Dillon returned to Port Antonio till 1977, when he was persuaded to return to Treasure Isle studios with producer Niney The
Observer and cut the Rasta based album 'Slave Call'. Additional members who joined for this album were Bro Fatty, Bro Ewing, Bro T, Mello and Hychi Dread. An album that showed all the Ethiopians magic had not been lost.
For this release we have included the full 'Slave Call' set, 'Ethiopian National Anthem', 'Slave Call', 'Guilty Conscience', 'Hurry On', 'Mus Follow Babylon'(on CD Edition), 'Train To Skaville (1977 version, on CD Edition), 'Culture', 'Obeah Book', 'Let It Be' and 'I Love Jah'. Alongside some of the bands early hits including the original version of 'Train To Skaville', 'Engine 54', the great and poignant 'Everything Crash', 'Reggae Hit The Town' and 'The Selah'. An interesting set to remind us what a great group the Ethiopians really were.

Both regulars of the club, arts and queer scenes of New York, Berlin and London of the last three decades, it's surprising Wolfgang Tillmans and Honey Dijon only met five years ago. A walk between clubs in Brooklyn resulted in the two having a mutual interest to collaborate. Busy as both are, the wait was long, but well worth it. This week's release of Honey Dijon's Euphoria Mix of 'Can't Escape into Space' sets the tone for what is left of this summer: Our desire to be together, with friends and strangers, close up on dancefloors, festivals and open airs. Honey's and Wolfgang's shared unapologetic spirit comes alive as Dijon transforms Tillmans's original song into an electrifying dance floor banger. As we can already sense a reawakening of our freedom blowing in the air, even if many clubs remain closed, the two musicians' call to come together again is euphoric and inescapable.
The original version of the song was released last winter in the midst of lockdown, accompanied by a video showing an empty nightclub and its mirror balls performing for the camera, filmed in 2017 by Tillmans, in pre-pandemic Fire Island. A new video accompanies Honey Dijon's Euphoria mix with three vignettes of longing and passion.

There are records with empathy, records which are your friends and then there's the others... There might be little difference between them, a certain "je ne sais quoi", an "almost nothing but still something" which makes the difference between almost pointless and vital records. Despite, or rather thanks to his cynical despair, Matt Elliott's music never holds up a moralizing mirror to us - on the contrary, it creates a compassionate dialogue with listeners like the rhythm of two steps that synchronize to become as one. In 2016, Matt Elliot brought out his seventh solo album The Calm Before whose obscure title is neither exactly threatening nor comforting... the calm before what? Before the storm for sure but maybe also before the great record, the immediate classic we felt might be coming for a long time in the dual discography of the Bristol-born artist working under his own name and his electronic alias Third Eye Foundation. The elegant details and perspectives of Little Lost Soul (2000) already hinted at the upcoming masterpiece from the English singer-songwriter. The Mess We Made (2003) was Matt Elliott's first solo album and portrayed a universe in a kind of flight towards Balkan horizons made up of visceral despair. With the Songs trilogy, he put aside the electronic side of his work to continue working with a minimalist, stark and lucid style of writing. The Broken Man (2012) was full of tears and long laments sometimes carried by Katia Labèque's piano on a record which painted new shades of grey. On this record Matt began working with the producer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist David Chalmin (La Terre Invisible) who has kept on collaborating with the Bristol-born singer since then. Their partnership continued on Only Myocardial Infection Can Break Your Heart (2013) and The Calm Before (2016). Stéphane Grégoire is the head of the Ici D'Ailleurs label which has accompanied Matt Elliott since 2005 and perhaps he describes this album the best: "This new record by Matt is without a doubt his best album to date, a record that takes him into another dimension where he fully asserts himself as a songwriter and singer of the calibre of artists like Bill Callahan, Leonard Cohen or Johnny Cash." Matt Elliott's other records all seemed like empathic links between each other. Farewell To All We Know is an instant classic based on the sensitive piano and superb arrangements of David Chalmin, the sensitive cello of Gaspar Claus, the subtle bass of Jeff Hallam (who has also played with Dominique A and John Parish). There is a clear form of alchemy in all of this and still we find Matt Elliott's usual atmospheres and scenery, the same Eastern European folk music, long songs that take time to settle over time. Everything is the same but also is transfigured. By making his music stark and purifying and redefining the subject matter, Matt Elliott's work became so much more delicate. However this work is never frail nor really turned in on himself and thus becomes like a vital tune that vibrates and unfolds. The opening song Farewell To All We Know seems torn between the fear of what tomorrow may bring, inevitability and hope for the future in a permanent and progressive dramatic tension expressed by his Spanish guitar, the impressionist style piano and Matt's voice teetering on the edge of whispers. A funereal tribute to endless twilights and the dawns we all dream of seeing. There are touches of Leonard Cohen from Songs from a Room or Thanks For The Dance in The Day After That with Gaspar Claus's counterpoint cello. There is no spirit of resignation in Matt Elliott's work - life's path has to be followed against all odds. We have to follow the river's flow to reach the immense ocean and its infinite freedom. The haunted instrumental Guidance Is Internal harks back to the atmospheres of Howling Songs (2008) with its guitar parts full of scansions and muted threats. The music is transcendental but never seems afraid of the risk of falling. This is also what Bye Now tells us with its quasi-obsolete simplicity and sunburst melancholy reminiscent of the work of Luiz Bonfá, Bill Evans on Peace Piece or laidback crooners of the 50s. In Farewell To All We Know, Matt Elliott incessantly alternates between the dual desires to face up to the world or to protect himself from it. Hating The Player, Hating The Game is a lucid statement about the dullness of our daily lives sometimes, our right to get out of the game and no longer want to be part of it. Matt Elliott is tender but spares no one, particularly himself. Aboulia speaks of the tiredness of living and of looming death while Crisis Apparition says that there is always a time for reconstruction after chaos. This is like initially wearying wandering in the ruins of Aleppo with the slow dilution of the melody into a hallucinated drone. However the smell of great fires always fades and the earth always regenerates. Matt Elliott seems to suggest that the survival instinct is stronger than any cold winds could ever be. Matt Elliott never sings of certainties and prefers possibilities. Possibly the worst is over? Maybe... Maybe the storm has passed and devastated everything, now we just have to rebuild and live again. Farewell To All We Know shows us the distance that still needs to be walked and he walks next to you - right next to you, he is the friend who doesn't spare you the truth like all true friends really do.

12" Vinyl with reverse board sleeve

DJ, producer and artist Call Super announces their latest release, the double EP titled ‘Cherry Drops’. This is the third and fourth release to come on can you feel the sun, the label they co-founded with London-based DJ and producer Parris.

The adventurous EP by Call Super, real name Joseph Richmond Seaton, is a collection of tracks written around the time they were working on a larger project called ‘Tell Me I Didn’t Choose This’, which reflects on a period in their life of upheaval, trauma and self-discovery. However, the music on Cherry Drops became a release from that project - a distraction from painful reflections and recollections. Reconnecting with music made solely for the dancefloor became their much needed escape, as it was in those spaces they originally found release and freedom during pivotal periods in their life.

In the words of Jerzy Mączyński, Sariani is a musical meditation exploring Indian musical culture and the widely understood concept of trance. The album has its roots in Mączyński’s growing friendship with Waclaw Zimpel, a fellow Polish avant-garde musician with experience in both experimental jazz and meditative ambient music. The pair first connected online during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, with Mączyński suggesting they join forces on an album-length collaborative project a few months later.

Sariani was recorded over the course of eight months at two different studios in their home city of Warsaw (one of which included access to an empty swimming pool, whose unique acoustics were utilised during the recording). Both composers recorded electronic textures, loops, and rhythms, onto which they added saxophone (Mączyński) and voice textures courtesy of fellow Polish musicians Wiktoria Jakubowska and Olga Koziel.

The album comprises six separate musical stories, each of which was inspired either by a specific “empirical experience” from Mączyński’s travels in India, or wider cultural themes relevant to the country in the 21st century. These include Mączyński’s first encounter with the Book of Rag (‘Raga or Raga’); the essence of spirituality within temple buildings (‘Temple of Jetsu’); a vivid dream featuring a superhero who calls for reflection on equality and freedom (‘Sariani’); and a life-changing trip to Mount Everest with guitarist Szymon Wójcik (‘Everest Inn’, which features recordings made by the pair at the Monkey Temple in Kathmandu).

“I want total freedom, total possibility, total acceptance. I want to fall in love with the rock.” That’s how Lillie West describes the theme of “DIVER,” the song she calls the thesis of Lala Lala’s third record, I Want The Door To Open. The rock in question is a reference to Sisyphus, the mythical figure doomed by the gods to forever push a boulder up from the depths of hell. To West, it is the perfect metaphor for, in her words, “the labor of living, of figuring out who you are, what's wrong with you, what's right with you.”

Coming off of 2018’s acclaimed The Lamb, an introspective indie rock album recorded live with a three-piece band, West knew she was ready to make something sonically bigger and thematically more outward-looking than anything she’d done before; a record that would be less a straightforward documentation of her own personal struggles and more like a poem or a puzzle box, with sonic and lyrical clues that would allow the listener to, as the title says, open the door to the greater meaning of those struggles.

The result is I Want The Door To Open, a bold exploration of persona and presence from an artist questioning how to be herself fully in a world where the self is in constant negotiation. From the moment West declares “I want to look right into the camera” over a cascade of dreamy vocal loops on opening track “Lava,” I Want The Door To Open distinguishes itself from anything she’s done before in scope and intensity. The ultra-magnified iteration of Lala Lala is fully encapsulated in the monumental “DIVER.” Inspired by a character from a Jennifer Egan novel, it’s a pop song of Kate Bush-esque proportions replete with layered synths and booming, wide open drumming by fellow Chicago musician Nnamdi Ogbonnaya, and West pushing her vocals to the ragged edge. I Want The Door To Open is a musical quest undertaken with the knowledge that the titular door may never open; but it is through falling in love with the quest itself that one may find the closest thing to total freedom, total possibility, and total acceptance available to us on this plane of existence.

“I want total freedom, total possibility, total acceptance. I want to fall in love with the rock.” That’s how Lillie West describes the theme of “DIVER,” the song she calls the thesis of Lala Lala’s third record, I Want The Door To Open. The rock in question is a reference to Sisyphus, the mythical figure doomed by the gods to forever push a boulder up from the depths of hell. To West, it is the perfect metaphor for, in her words, “the labor of living, of figuring out who you are, what's wrong with you, what's right with you.”

Coming off of 2018’s acclaimed The Lamb, an introspective indie rock album recorded live with a three-piece band, West knew she was ready to make something sonically bigger and thematically more outward-looking than anything she’d done before; a record that would be less a straightforward documentation of her own personal struggles and more like a poem or a puzzle box, with sonic and lyrical clues that would allow the listener to, as the title says, open the door to the greater meaning of those struggles.

The result is I Want The Door To Open, a bold exploration of persona and presence from an artist questioning how to be herself fully in a world where the self is in constant negotiation. From the moment West declares “I want to look right into the camera” over a cascade of dreamy vocal loops on opening track “Lava,” I Want The Door To Open distinguishes itself from anything she’s done before in scope and intensity. The ultra-magnified iteration of Lala Lala is fully encapsulated in the monumental “DIVER.” Inspired by a character from a Jennifer Egan novel, it’s a pop song of Kate Bush-esque proportions replete with layered synths and booming, wide open drumming by fellow Chicago musician Nnamdi Ogbonnaya, and West pushing her vocals to the ragged edge. I Want The Door To Open is a musical quest undertaken with the knowledge that the titular door may never open; but it is through falling in love with the quest itself that one may find the closest thing to total freedom, total possibility, and total acceptance available to us on this plane of existence.

'Dieser neueste Soundtrack aus seiner Feder fühlt sich an wie ein längst überfälliges Wiedersehen mit einem verloren geglaubten Freund: Sofort erkennt man die bekannten Züge wieder, es umgarnt einen und zieht einen hinein in eine Welt, die unverwechselbar seine ist – die Welt von N.O.W. Immerhin kann man dieses Mal drei Dinge identifizieren, die zusammenkamen und dieses Album ganz klar prägen sollten: ein persönlicher Schicksalsschlag, ganz viel Zeit (ein Nebeneffekt der Pandemie) und Black Lives Matter. Inzwischen eher eine Art Bandleader, streckte er seine Fühler aus und knüpfte Kontakte mit jungen Talenten, deren Ansatz irgendwie zu N.O.W. zu passen schien. Bald war er mit Leuten wie Shabaka Hutchings, Haile Supreme, Mara TK und Sabrina Mahfouz in Kontakt. Auch Greentea Peng, OSHUN und Pip Millett fragte er an, erklärte ihnen die Stoßrichtung: Sie alle sagten zu und nutzten die im Titel angedeuteten Freiheiten und Freiräume auf ihre Art, lieferten ihre ganz eigene, vertonte Definition von Freiheit ab.' - Don Letts aka The Rebel Dread

Soopasoul is an enigmatic producer, who's purist approach to jazz, funk and soul music has resonated with DJs, break-dancers, music connoisseurs, critics and casual listeners alike. Since furthering his legacy by creating a hugely successful edits series, Soopasoul returns with some more original cuts in the shape of 'A Wild Mad Beat' and 'Swing Down'.

'A Mad Wild Beat' does exactly what it says on tin. Kicking things off with a tough break that knocks so delightfully hard, this energetic vibe moves swiftly into a lead sax being given the freedom front and centre to flow over tight horn stabs, guitar licks, percussion and a monster of a bassline.

But it doesn't stop there. 'Swing Down' switches things up on the flip, with it's up-tempo feel-good rare groove. The band are in full swing here, deftly providing the playful call-and-response to the sexy call-to-action found in the lyrics, all skilfully delivered with the intention to get the dancefloor into the right mood to party all night long.

UMAN is the project of French musicians and sibling duo Danielle and Didier Jean. "Chaleur Humaine" is their debut album, resurfacing for the first time on vinyl and remastered CD since its original release in 1992. UMAN experienced varying degrees of recognition with Chaleur Humaine at the time of its release, specifically around tracks plucked for various New Age / Chillout compilations, but ultimately the album defies genre in its exploration of voice and sampling / synthesizer technology and places it alongside the futurist works of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Nuno Canvarro, and even Enya. UMAN resembles human' in many Romance languages but signals a spirit from a deeper earth force that the duo channel throughout Chaleur Humaine, manifesting in a mantra found throughout the album reimagined in various languages across different tracks: "It's this force, almost animal, warm, like a kiss, fresh like the morning dew, that we call human warmth.ü" Chaleur Humaine has become a leftfield classic since its initial release, and long sought after on vinyl (the album was only available on CD until now). RIYL: Nuno Canavarro's Plux Quba, Piero Milesi and Daniel Bacalov's La Camera Astratta, Cocteau Twins and Enya

Joshua is the follow-up album to Olympic. While the second album, typically, often shows what critics call “maturity”, here Simon has released instead an album of adolescence. The musician opened up his own memory box to contemplate his childhood souvenirs, and dust them off of all nostalgia. At that time, he would VHS-record movies from TV and tape record soundtracks directly from the TV speaker, so he could listen to them in his bedroom. This is when he “discovered the power of music, the way it makes you enter another world, far from reality. I wanted to pay tribute to the era I shaped myself in – the ’80s and ’90s”. Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and Soft Machine. Logically, these are the sonic signatures that seem to haunt the album. The timeless pioneers of synthetic music constitute the sound references, without any established chronological timeline, that blend with the atmosphere of typically “French Touch” movie soundtracks – long before the term was even coined. “I use a musical palette that acts as a flashback to my favourite teenage movies: the synth sounds of Close Encounters of the Third Kind; the synth pads in Jean-Jacques Cousteau’s fascinating documentaries about the sea world; the melodies in the manner of François De Roubaix; the themes that evoke the soundtracks of late-night TV sessions (those by Verneuil, those with Belmondo, Depardieu, etc.); and the sci-fi ambiences like in Blade Runner.” In short, an aesthetic was decided on by Simon very early on: French analog synths instead of North American symphonic orchestras.

The name Joshua has two meanings for French 79: one is linked to the idea of nostalgia, the other to adventure. On the one hand, the computer in the 1983 movie Wargames, and on the other, the boat of French sailor Bernard Moitessier.

The track titled Joshua synthesizes the spirit of the album – an odyssey, a neverending crossing of the world in search of oneself, a spontaneous escape into the future, under the benevolent eye of the past. This epic invites everyone of us to a specific place in our imagination, which is also the source of an indescribable pleasure for French 79: a gust of wind, a sailboat ride, a skateboarding trick, the smell of freshly fallen snow, or the dull roar of an impatient audience.

The same aesthetic preferences are found in the videos that illustrate Joshua’s first tracks: for Hold On, the skateboarder chose to recall the cult ’90s skate videos that he would watch on repeat as a teenager, while Hometown hints at Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Although he now calls Marseille home, Simon continuously draws with passion from the anachronic contemporaneity of his childhood in the Eastern French region.

“I need escape to be able to create. A two or three-day sailing trip gives me enough inspiration to lock myself in the studio for a week when I’m back on dry land.” His boat takes him far away from everything, far from the Old Port where she moors, the rest of the time Simon would escape by walking the streets of his city or climbing the Alpine mountains.

Not only does the new version French 79 reveal a few biographical pieces of Simon henner's history, but it also inaugurates the first vocal track for the musician. One feels a guilty pleasure when hearing him take the lead on the first track, The Remedy. The electronic fugue that opens the album sets the tone: Simon has found the cure for his inner turmoil and wants us to discover our own treatment too. Hold On is a sonic explosion that celebrates the feeling of freedom - what's more of a teenage dream than this feeling - and it eventually command one to feel the same way too. Echoing Olympic, the electronic argonaut invites his muse again, singer Sarah Rebecca. On By Your Side and Touch The Stars, the native of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, now based in Paris, hoisted the mainsail of dream pop. First, though a dialogue that surfaced their unfailing attachment to the bonds of friendship, then through the light hearted atmosphere that leaves us with no choice but to believe in our own dreams and do anything possible to fulfill them. The quest for peace in the midst of the daily din is heard in both Code Zero and the title track Joshua, two majestic journeys in search of hedonism, combined with introspection.

Emotional Rescue and HMV Record Shop (Japan) present Red Cloud and their roots disco rarity I Want To Be Free, with it's even scarcer dub version Freedom, together on 7" for the first time as part of the DISCO REGGAE LOVERS series.

This Brixton based band appeared on Emotional Rescue last summer with their Double Talk / Dubble Dub 12" (ERC102) rightly shining a light on their underrated output. Releasing on Tuff Gong, Red Stripe and Dancefloor the band released two albums and numerous singles of warm, rock-soul touched British roots sound system shakers.

I Want To Free / Freedom only appeared on the B-side of their super rare debut 12". While the A side's Double Talk was 'inna Lovers Disco style', here they keep the groove but explore the righteous stance of Pan African-Caribbean culture of the time, with a call for equality and fairness.

Centred around the writing of Keith Drummond and drummer / producer Specs Bifirimbi, plus support from founder Floyd Lloyd Seivright, it is in the dub version, Freedom, that the interplay of keys and drum and bass shine, a rock-reggae-disco bomb.

Tony Scott (born Anthony Joseph Sciacca June 17, 1921 – March 28, 2007) was an American jazz clarinetist and arranger with an interest in folk music around the world. For most of his career he was held in high esteem in new-age music circles because of his involvement in music linked to Asian cultures and to meditation. Tony performed with many star as Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Harry Belafonte and before moving to Italy in the early ‘70’s he just cut two sought after masterpiece moving forward from his early idea of bop and cool jazz. In particular ‘Djanger Bali’ (1967 Saba) - recorded with The Indonesian All Stars - and the self titled Tony Scott (1968 Verve) - featuring Richard Davis on bass, John Berberian on oud and Attila Zoller on guitar – set the pace for a revolution in terms. This set recorded in Africa around the mid 90’s is a pure rhythm festival pushing the boundaries of his afro fusion agenda

Transmeridian is the first album from Departure Lounge (ex-Bella Union) in 19 years. It features all four original members plus a guest appearance from legendary REM guitarist, Peter Buck, one of many long-standing admirers of a band that embodied a lost age of reflective, experimental pop music coming to the fore at the turn of the Millennium alongside The Beta Band, Tunng, Boards Of Canada and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci.

The surprise new album, named after the defunct ‘golden age of aviation’ cargo airline for which singer/guitarist Tim Keegan’s dad was chief pilot, is released on Violette Records (formed by Michael Head (Shack, The Pale Fountains) and Matt Lockett ) on digital and vinyl formats on Fri 26 March 2021.
Originally scooped up by Simon Raymonde’s Bella Union label (labelmates with John Grant’s Czars) following the self-funded release of their debut album Out Of Here (1999), Departure Lounge’s sophomore outing, Too Late To Die Young (2002) was equally acclaimed and was honoured as the first ever Album Of The Week on the emergent BBC 6 Music. The band toured extensively in the UK, Europe and the US, including outings with The Go-Betweens, Morcheeba, Paul Heaton and Robyn Hitchcock, peers whose stylistic contrasts reflect the eclectic nature of Departure Lounge themselves.

Calling a halt in late 2002, citing family and geographical reasons (drummer Lindsay lives in Nashville, where their second album Jetlag Dreams (2001) was recorded), the four members remained firm friends and occasional collaborators, before reuniting in late 2019 for shows at The Green Door Store, Brighton and The Lexington, London, ostensibly to support the digital reissues of their first three cult-classic albums. With no plans other than to make some new music, the next day they set off for Middle Farm Studios, Devon.
Tim Keegan (vocals/guitar), Chris Anderson (lead guitars/keyboards/bass), Lindsay Jamieson(drums/keyboards) and Jake Kyle (bass/guitar/drums) channelled their evident joy at being back together into a complete 13-track album, largely conceived and recorded in just one 24-hour session in the company of studio owner and co-producer, Peter Miles. Ranging from soulful Americana to piano and mellotron-fuelled melancholia via pastoral musings on the nature of post-youth and eerie Spaghetti Western-tinged instrumentals, the next leg on the Departure Lounge journey is a multi-mood expression of pure artistic freedom.
The ‘leak’ of instrumental track Al Aire Libre (remixed by Parisian groovemeister Kid Loco) in October 2020 gave little away as to what fans could expect from a new Departure Lounge record, the track going gracefully everywhere and nowhere on a whistled Latino breeze. First single proper, Mercury In Retrograde, covered in the twinkling lights of a music box Casio CZ101 melody, turned the clock back - this was an old live favourite that never got past the studio door. Unfinished business brought to a happy conclusion, the single returned Keegan’s honest and distinctive lyrical voice back to British music at just the time listeners needed it.
It was an emotional thread, rather than one musical style, which gave the first three Departure Lounge albums their coherence. The songs told the story of the band. Transmeridian has the same sense of deeply connected musical energy. The purring, campfire acoustica of Timber and So Long bear no obvious resemblance to the ethereal, end-of-the-evening, piano-led interlude Paging Marco Polo, whilst the quasi-glam stomp of Mr Friendly would normally have no business sharing space with the strange, spacey Gurnard Pines (named after an abandoned holiday camp on the Isle Of Wight). Yet the journey’s ebb and flow, accelerations and pauses make for compelling, grown-up listening. Australia, showcasing the chiming Rickenbacker 12-string of Athens, GA’s finest guitar slinger, leaves no doubt that Departure Lounge’s pop sensibilities also remain solidly intact.
These four friends from different musical backgrounds came together originally with the stated aim of ‘creating music to soothe the troubled soul’. Citing their love of (and placing on record their debt to) influences including Robert Wyatt, Nick Drake, Talk Talk, Lou Reed, Arvo Pärt and Cocteau Twins, the band’s diversity of taste is reflected in the music they create.
Transmeridian is only the second full-length LP released by Violette Records, formed by Michael Head (Shack, The Pale Fountains) and Matt Lockett as a platform for Head’s work and developing into a respected independent label as well as multi-disciplinary event organiser, drawing in outsiders working in music, literature, art and design. The label continues to host live events whenever possible and recently initiated an ELP (halfway between and EP and an LP) vinyl series, putting out acclaimed releases by The Pistachio Kid and Studio Electrophonique.

Bosconi welcomes fellow producer Mattia Lapucci on board with his EP titled Levitated Sensor Detector (LSD) with a massive 4-track that includes a great variety of styles: from Electro to Deep House with a touch of progressive trance reminiscences, all fused in a decidedly original and unique style.
The record opens with "LSD Hallucinogen", surely a floor killer with a retro flavor and EBM inspiration characterized by mechanical grooves with an industrial appeal and a hypnotic voice capable of dragging you into this sonic 'mind bending' vortex.
The second cut of the A side is "Quantum Entaglement" which goes deeper into the territories of the renowned old school 90s Italian house with its recognizable deep basslines and its mysterious sound weaves in full afterhour style.
Side B opens instead with "Density Matrix", a song performed during the quarantine period that resonates in its suggestive hybrid vein between New Beat and Balearic carefree as a nostalgic call to freedom.
The closing piece of this release is finally entrusted to the fluid atmospheres of "Kinematic Postulates" where a relaxed and fascinating proto trance melody will keep you ready for a soft landing in the most psychedelic territories of dance music. One for the Eat Static fans for sure, we hope you dig it!

Australian artist Indigo Sparke has signed to Sacred Bones and announced a new release date for her debut album, echo, now due May 21st. To celebrate, she has shared a video for the album's latest single "Everything Everything."

Of the song, Sparke says "I wrote this song not long after coming back from a magical castle in Italy where a group of us had been making music and soaking in the golden honey days. I met a beautiful human Shahzad Ismaily who had discovered I also write poetry. One night around midnight he called across the castle and asked me to come over and speak some of my poetry over an instrumental track he had recorded. The only thing he asked me to do was to sing a line or so if I felt it. That song was dog bark echo. He invited me back to NYC and I was living in his empty spare room in Brooklyn briefly. I borrowed this little parlour guitar of his and completely fell in love. I just sat in that room for hours and days playing around and just laying next to the guitar looking at the ceiling thinking about life and death and the poetry of it all. How life and death will hold us up to light. How grief ripens inside us

all and we all decay and everything changes and flies away. I remember feeling this liberating sense of freedom and melancholic nostalgia. It was so hot and the wind almost blew through from a different dimension or plane. I guess the song came through from that place too. It just came out. I can almost still feel that time on my skin, or in my breath."

Indigo Sparke brings her deeply personal lived experiences to her music, highlighting the spaces between the polarity of softness and grit. Pulling from her experiences of addiction, of healing, of queerness, of heartbreak, of joy, of connection, of the softness and of the grit alchemizing it all into tenderness through her music, she conjures up a myriad of feelings that is undeniably potent.

echo was co-produced by Sparke, Big Thief's Adrianne Lenker and Andrew Sarlo.

Australian artist Indigo Sparke has signed to Sacred Bones and announced a new release date for her debut album, echo, now due May 21st. To celebrate, she has shared a video for the album's latest single "Everything Everything."

Of the song, Sparke says "I wrote this song not long after coming back from a magical castle in Italy where a group of us had been making music and soaking in the golden honey days. I met a beautiful human Shahzad Ismaily who had discovered I also write poetry. One night around midnight he called across the castle and asked me to come over and speak some of my poetry over an instrumental track he had recorded. The only thing he asked me to do was to sing a line or so if I felt it. That song was dog bark echo. He invited me back to NYC and I was living in his empty spare room in Brooklyn briefly. I borrowed this little parlour guitar of his and completely fell in love. I just sat in that room for hours and days playing around and just laying next to the guitar looking at the ceiling thinking about life and death and the poetry of it all. How life and death will hold us up to light. How grief ripens inside us

all and we all decay and everything changes and flies away. I remember feeling this liberating sense of freedom and melancholic nostalgia. It was so hot and the wind almost blew through from a different dimension or plane. I guess the song came through from that place too. It just came out. I can almost still feel that time on my skin, or in my breath."

Indigo Sparke brings her deeply personal lived experiences to her music, highlighting the spaces between the polarity of softness and grit. Pulling from her experiences of addiction, of healing, of queerness, of heartbreak, of joy, of connection, of the softness and of the grit alchemizing it all into tenderness through her music, she conjures up a myriad of feelings that is undeniably potent.

echo was co-produced by Sparke, Big Thief's Adrianne Lenker and Andrew Sarlo.

After making a name for itself through acclaimed reissues of forgotten gems, Lyon’s Tunnel Vision Records is back, this time with a previously unreleased cult EP from the Serbian underground: InnVision’s Lake produced by Welljam aka Velja Mijanović, one of the pioneers of electronic music in Serbia and host of the legendary “Liquid” show on Yu Radio.

While it is fairly common these days for tracks to reach cult status after being uploaded to Youtube and picked up by its recommendation algorithm, the story of the Lake EP is truly unique.

Picture this: it’s the summer of 94 in Serbia and despite US sanctions, something was going on in the country’s musical underground with open-air parties on lakesides and other natural locations, fuelled by a feeling of freedom and creativity. At the time, InnVision was a 26-year-old producer inspired by the likes of The Orb, Brian Eno, Underworld, and Spooky. Unconcerned with adhering to trends or finding ways to make commercially-viable music, he created the tracks on this EP with Cubase running on an Atari computer and several synths fairly common at the time.

But the result was beyond anything common or ordinary. Described by its creator as “organic (ambient) house, but you can call it trance”, LAKE is rapture in its highest form. Pure enthusiasm seems to be driving this uplifting track, with an abundance of heavenly arpeggios and positive energy, along with masterful arrangements that make it even more grandiose, while retaining a light and dreamy quality (perhaps it is no coincidence that Lake in Serbian evokes weightlessness). It is one of those rare tracks that have a deep impact on body, mind, and soul and for which the repeat button was created. While adhering to a central theme, it never feels stale and this is explained by the fact that it was arranged live, with InnVision muting and tweaking everything in one go, which makes this track a “deskmix”, to use dub terminology. In fact, the producer remembers jumping around and shedding occasional tears while he recorded the final take.

On the flipside is another previously unreleased track, the forward-thinking NIGHTY. By no means filler, this is a timeless track with a subaquatic feel. With lush pads and elements doused in delay and reverb, you’d think this is a purely ambient cut, but it’s much more than that. Subtle melodic and rhythmic elements are engaged in a dialogue, and distant breakbeat samples can be detected in the background, enough to induce movement but never overtaking the vibe carefully created by InnVision. The result is a track that is at the same time featherlight and impossible to listen to without some sort of movement. Once again, truly unique music that transcends time and place.

When Linda Smith purchased a 4 track cassette recorder in the mid-1980s she was playing guitar in a band called the Woods, and thought it would be useful for sharing demos with her bandmates. In the end, the new hobby followed her from New York back to her native Baltimore, and over the next decade she’d release several albums worth of delicate, bewitching solo music on cassette. Till An- other Time: 1988-1996 is the first retrospective collection of Smith’s charmingly lo-fi music.

Sparse and gentle, Linda’s music is tinged with lovelorn melancholy despite the sweetness of her voice. Over ‘60s pop-indebted melo- dies on tracks like “A Crumb Of Your Affection”, she delivers ob- servations with an earnest softness. Elsewhere, her voice takes on a post punk deadpan, as on “I See Your Face.” The effect of both modes is a haunting charm, equally reminiscent of early Cherry Red Records and ‘60s yé-yé.

With a no-nonsense approach to recording, Linda recorded almost all of her songs at home. There was a creative freedom that came with recording on tape, and unbeknownst to her, this was a conclu- sion that many musicians were reaching at the time.

Unfortunately, the independence that made at-home recording ap- pealing to Linda also made it difficult for her to reach a wider au- dience. Relying on niche publications, cassette trading, and word of mouth to share music, Linda released a few 7”s on labels like Slumberland and Harriet but remained relatively local in terms of reach. Nevertheless, one can trace a direct line from Linda Smith to the ubiquity of bedroom recording today.

Hawkwind have always been associated with music festivals, most notably the free festivals, where Dave Brock has said that, at

those events, the band is not shackled to appease an audience by giving them what they expect and have paid to see. With that obligation removed, the band can relax and experiment more than usual and gigs become even more fun. Their sessions, where they played for free, sometimes with the Pink Fairies, at Canvas City, outside the official site of the Isle Of White Festival in 1970, are a matter of legend and Nik Turner gained much attention when he painted his face silver and was much photographed as a result. During his set, Jimi Hendrix referred to him as 'the cat with the silver face'. However, when we think of Hawkwind and festivals, the word Stonehenge leaps to the fore.

The band always loved being there, enjoying the whole event as well as the freedom of how and when they played. This was not a time of business, but a time of fun. The most important one of these was Stonehenge 1984, which proved to be the last festival before the authorities moved in the following year to block the festival from being set up and Hawkwind ended up playing a few miles away instead. It was the sad end to an era. It had taken place twelve times and, had it been allowed one more time, it would have become a public event and the powers that be were determined to prevent that from happening. Happily, the 1984 festival was recorded and filmed and the Hawkwind Solstice Eve and Solstice Morning were both preserved...and we should be grateful for that.


The fact that Hawkwind were playing for free didn't mean it was a basic show. As well as the line-up of Dave Brock, Harvey Bainbridge, Huw Lloyd Langton (who played the evening session, but not the following morning), Nik Turner, Alan Davey and Danny Thompson, there were half a dozen dancers, a mime artist and fire spitting. A free event, it was the ideal time to introduce the new rhythm section to the band in the form of Danny Thompson on drums and Alan Davey on bass, with Harvey moved to keyboards. A move which was to have a long term affect in the way he made music, leading to his solo career, as well as years playing synths for Hawklords, in years to come, after his stint as the Hawkwind keyboards player came to an end.. Danny fitted the bill comfortably and drummed for the band until he left in 1988, to be replaced by Richard Chadwick. Danny went on to play for other bands including Bedouin and Pre Med. He also recorded a cassette album called Skinwalker. Alan made a good team alongside Dave Brock and it can be seen on the video just how pleased he was to be playing alongside Dave Brock, a man whom he had only met for the first time in November 1982, backstage at the Ipswich Gaumont. He went on to be the longest serving Hawkwind bass player, before moving on to pursue solo projects and form a nmber of bands. So in terms of the line-up, Stonehenge 1984 had a notable impact on the formation of the band for a number of years and, indeed, the destinies of Harvey, Danny and Alan. As if that were not enough to make the event special in the annals of Hawkwind, they played an interesting and varied main set in the evening, featuring a blend of old and new Hawkwind songs, along with numbers from Inner City Unit and

Bob Calvert's Lucky Leif And The Starfighters album. In keeping with the relaxed atmosphere, there was a considerably extended

version of Ghost Dance, lasting around ten minutes. The sunrise set was special too, with a long, laid-back, jam at dawn, in fitting with the occasion.



A lovely and relaxing start to the day and the kind of jam they couldn't really play to a paying audience. It's good to have the

memories of this significant festival gathered together in three formats.

Enjoy this special set, which commemorates a special event, not only in the history of Hawkwind, but of the saga of Stonehenge festivals.

Enter, ANGST a series of musical ‘essays on the ephemeral being’ by Portuguese pianist and composer Tiago Sousa.

After 2015’s Um Piano nas Barricadas (Discrepant, CREP23) Sousa expands his compositional chops by writing and performing along with a trio made of clarinet, percussion and vibraphone adding a magical realism aura to the music.

It was fate that the releasing of these compositions would arrive in one of the most troubled passages of recent memory, just as a new decade begins. If it was already established that anguish is one of the hallmarks haunting our modern era, these last few years expose this existential feeling with even greater urgency.

The album that Tiago now presents, part angst part nostalgic escapism addresses this very modern concern as well as other themes dear to the so-called existentialist thinkers such as Heidegger, Camus or Kierkegaard, who among others, seek to directly challenge the Being with various concepts such as Repetition, Temporality, Interiority, Despair…

Throughout the 8 themes here presented, a delicate attempt is made to sketch a phenomenological cartography through its content and form, loosely describing the feeling of being launched into the wide world and the discovery of one self. In other words, the artist’s aim here is to convey the growing pains that the whole question about the meaning of life throws at us.

In an approach that is difficult to catalogue, the album tries to avoid genres and crystallizations in which music presents itself as a vehicle to express the ineffable and the incommunicable, expressing instead a magical world of wonder and enchantment.

After two tracks were successfully taken for a limited Maxi single, the whole album is now available on Double LP - Nicely remastered.

Patience, Violet ,and Pinky recorded their first Album in 1992. Knowing each other from the music scene, the back up singers turned friends teamed up with Emmanuel Diale and signed with Mob Music to embark on their music career as their own act. The first two albums were straight African Disco, A leftover sound of the 80's that some had still hoped to capitalize on. By the time they released their third album Why O Nketsa so Baby, loosely translated to "Why are you doing this to me Baby", Kwaito was still called either Disco or International House, and it was new sound that was taking over. The third album was influenced by the Shangaan sound made largely popular by artists like Penny Penny and Peta Teanet. Looking back now, at the time Mob Music was really leading the pack with this new sound. Being one of the last labels to have official releases with artwork and a group of young talented producers given full creative freedom they pushed the sound in a way only few other labels of that time can be given the same credit.

For their fourth and final album on Mob Music they worked with legendary producer/songwriter Malcom "X" Makume. With three years of songwriting experience and stellar talent behind the desk the result was the LP Malende. Eight tracks that would combine the early kwaito sound with the more uptempo International House topped off with productions heavily inspired by what had been slowly making its way from Chicago over the last 10 years. At the time they had some success and to this day are well known amongst the real heads.

The girls would go on to record one final album once their contract with Mob was up and then after a 5 album catalog would hang up their matching outfits for work a in a newly free South Africa. They remain friends to this day.

At Cloud’s Length is a collaborative compilation of musical works from artists on Melbourne/Naarm based collective WAT artists, using the vehicle of music as the driving force of connection.

While the opportunities to gather have been put on hold, this compilation is a collaborative release rising from a challenge set to the WAT artists roster to connect and create using isolation as a creative parameter from which to generate new music, resulting in surprising and powerful musical cross-pollination.

At Cloud’s Length - an ode to the use of cloud storage as the last front of musical collaboration during lockdown - reaches through the veil of isolation, passing overland, gathering energy and offering a release saturated with creativity and collaboration from afar.
This compilation is both a confluence of unique and diverse creative minds and a narrative of humanity's desire for deeper meaning and connection.

Music contributors:

30/70, Adam Halliwell (Mildlife), Alex Albrecht, Barney McCall, Bell Towers, Big Yawn,
Edd Fisher, Fantastic Man, IN2STELLAR, Kris Baha, Loure, Mike Callander, Morgan Wright, Michael Ozone, Rings Around Saturn, Sleep D, Sui Zhen, Toni Yotzi, ZFEX

South London-based band Soothsayers are set to release their ninth studio album 'We Are Many'. Held together by heavy basslines, solid grooves, and socially and politically charged lyrics; the album takes the listener into different sonic spaces with elements of dub, Afrobeat, improvisational jazz and electronica.

The initial steps in recording 'We Are Many' came in January 2019 when the band's founders - saxophonist Idris Rahman and trumpeter Robin Hopcraft - set out on a journey to Brazil. With executive production in the Sao Paulo studio by renowned music journalist and author David Katz, they hooked up with bass player and producer Victor Rice who they'd met sharing the bill at Freedom Sounds festival in Cologne, Germany a year earlier. Victor organised a session in Studio Traquitana, home of acclaimed Brazilian band Bixiga 70, and invited a selection of local musicians. Percussionist and singer Ligia Kamara contributed lyrics and melodies written in the studio, and drummer Bruno Buarque, guitarist Joao Erbetta and bassist Victor provided some solid, personality-driven input. Fresh and vital, what came out was a fascinating blend of Soothsayers' dub and Afrobeat mixed with distinctly Brazilian inflections.

After arriving back in the UK, Idris and Robin set about creating the remainder of the album in a different, yet complimentary way, and called on the services of Wu-Lu and Kwake at their The Room studio in South London. Things started to take shape very quickly, Wu-Lu and Kwake combining Soothsayers' music with electronic elements, while also referencing elements of the current UK jazz scene.

When lockdown hit in March 2020, there was still a lot of work to do in order to complete a full album and Robin and Idris set about working on tracks with their musicians remotely. Having time to consider the album as a whole, they found strong connections between the music recorded in Brazil and the tracks recorded in London and they set about fusing and combining these elements further into a satisfying whole.

UK based Sengalese singer Modou Toure was enlisted to guest on one track while percussionists Satin Singh and Maurizio Ravalico were engaged to help affirm a sound-world where Brazilian flavours, such as the low-end Surdo drum, were combined with sounds more readily associated with reggae and Afrobeat.

Soothsayers' three part vocal harmony is a defining factor in this album. With strong references to the vocal styles of reggae legends such as The Gladiators, Mighty Diamonds, Heptones, and Abyssinnians; it has benefited from the long-standing friendship between Robin, Idris and Julia Biel. Lyrics, melodies and harmonies were presented, discussed, explored and recorded at Idris' and Julia's home studio in Streatham in a relaxed and positive way, with concepts from social and political commentary turned into powerful songs.

Themes cover political observations of Trump and beyond alongside Brazil's president Bolsanaro (Rat Race), speaking out against increasing levels of violence from the Brazilian government towards its native and indigenous people (Love And Unity) and keeping hopeful despite the impending horrors of a no-deal Brexit (We Won't Lose Hope).

Elsewhere they discuss striving to create space for meditation and reflection against the background noise of 24/7 news and social media (Move In Silence), the daily grind (No Sacrifice) and workers' rights (Slave), while highlighting those that fall through the cracks in society and end up without a permanent address, what led to this and how close we all are from this happening (One Step Away).

'We Are Many' represents a positive and uplifting statement in the face of challenging times - the overriding force, power and positivity of the music to continue forward, pushing the boundaries of musical concepts into the future.

"Whilst heavy questions of life and death and the future of our species surround us all, music is a guide that can help us perceive the challenges in a different way - a guide that can help us towards a deep inner peace. If we listen, music can help light the way. We hope you will listen, and we hope you will experience the joy, meditative power and beauty in the connection of different musical cultures that was experienced in the creation of this album."

South London-based band Soothsayers are set to release their ninth studio album 'We Are Many'. Held together by heavy basslines, solid grooves, and socially and politically charged lyrics; the album takes the listener into different sonic spaces with elements of dub, Afrobeat, improvisational jazz and electronica.

The initial steps in recording 'We Are Many' came in January 2019 when the band's founders - saxophonist Idris Rahman and trumpeter Robin Hopcraft - set out on a journey to Brazil. With executive production in the Sao Paulo studio by renowned music journalist and author David Katz, they hooked up with bass player and producer Victor Rice who they'd met sharing the bill at Freedom Sounds festival in Cologne, Germany a year earlier. Victor organised a session in Studio Traquitana, home of acclaimed Brazilian band Bixiga 70, and invited a selection of local musicians. Percussionist and singer Ligia Kamara contributed lyrics and melodies written in the studio, and drummer Bruno Buarque, guitarist Joao Erbetta and bassist Victor provided some solid, personality-driven input. Fresh and vital, what came out was a fascinating blend of Soothsayers' dub and Afrobeat mixed with distinctly Brazilian inflections.

After arriving back in the UK, Idris and Robin set about creating the remainder of the album in a different, yet complimentary way, and called on the services of Wu-Lu and Kwake at their The Room studio in South London. Things started to take shape very quickly, Wu-Lu and Kwake combining Soothsayers' music with electronic elements, while also referencing elements of the current UK jazz scene.

When lockdown hit in March 2020, there was still a lot of work to do in order to complete a full album and Robin and Idris set about working on tracks with their musicians remotely. Having time to consider the album as a whole, they found strong connections between the music recorded in Brazil and the tracks recorded in London and they set about fusing and combining these elements further into a satisfying whole.

UK based Sengalese singer Modou Toure was enlisted to guest on one track while percussionists Satin Singh and Maurizio Ravalico were engaged to help affirm a sound-world where Brazilian flavours, such as the low-end Surdo drum, were combined with sounds more readily associated with reggae and Afrobeat.

Soothsayers' three part vocal harmony is a defining factor in this album. With strong references to the vocal styles of reggae legends such as The Gladiators, Mighty Diamonds, Heptones, and Abyssinnians; it has benefited from the long-standing friendship between Robin, Idris and Julia Biel. Lyrics, melodies and harmonies were presented, discussed, explored and recorded at Idris' and Julia's home studio in Streatham in a relaxed and positive way, with concepts from social and political commentary turned into powerful songs.

Themes cover political observations of Trump and beyond alongside Brazil's president Bolsanaro (Rat Race), speaking out against increasing levels of violence from the Brazilian government towards its native and indigenous people (Love And Unity) and keeping hopeful despite the impending horrors of a no-deal Brexit (We Won't Lose Hope).

Elsewhere they discuss striving to create space for meditation and reflection against the background noise of 24/7 news and social media (Move In Silence), the daily grind (No Sacrifice) and workers' rights (Slave), while highlighting those that fall through the cracks in society and end up without a permanent address, what led to this and how close we all are from this happening (One Step Away).

'We Are Many' represents a positive and uplifting statement in the face of challenging times - the overriding force, power and positivity of the music to continue forward, pushing the boundaries of musical concepts into the future.

"Whilst heavy questions of life and death and the future of our species surround us all, music is a guide that can help us perceive the challenges in a different way - a guide that can help us towards a deep inner peace. If we listen, music can help light the way. We hope you will listen, and we hope you will experience the joy, meditative power and beauty in the connection of different musical cultures that was experienced in the creation of this album."

- Idris Rahman and Robin Hopcraft

"When Candy Opera first appeared on the kaleidoscopic early 1980s Liverpool music scene, by rights they should have changed the world" ~ Louder Than War
"Very welcome news as a highly underrated band who is now back with a force. While their previous output is stellar, this new single is even more commanding of attention. This is absolutely stunning, the band reaching higher than ever before" ~ Big Takeover Magazine
Sometimes it takes a while to realise what you’ve got. So it goes with pop craftsmen Candy Opera, who emerged during Liverpool’s 1980s golden age and whose new LP 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' is their first collection of new material in nearly three decades.
Ahead of that, they present 'These Days Are Ours', a rally cry of hope for the current times and the first single from this long-play, which is due for release in mid-November via European / UK label A Turntable Friend Records. The video was created / produced by James
Davies and Paul Malone.
Mixed by Grammy award-winning producer Guy Massey and featuring back vocals by Paul Simpson of The Wild Swans, the track was recorded at Elevator Studios in Liverpool.
With all the hallmarks of an enduring pop anthem, this impeccably produced, adrenalin-fuelled song captures the essence of Candy Opera’s infectious energy and celebrates life with a genuine wonder-lust, whilst delivering the excitement of their live performances.
Following the overdue release of two archival sets - '45 Revolutions Per
Minute' and 'Rarities' (released in 2018 by Firestation Records., quickly selling out of their first runs) - their new album 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' picks up where the band left off, with 14 fresh songs ready for discovery of a sound as timeless as any Candy Opera output.
Candy Opera were formed in Liverpool in 1982 and went through various incarnations before calling it a day in 1992. By 1985, the band had played alongside the likes of The Pogues, The Go-Betweens and The Redskins, as well as appearing on Granada TV.
The band's current line-up is drawn from all eras of the band’s existence and features Brian Chin Smithers (guitar, vocals), Alan Currie (drums), Frank Mahon (bass), Paul Malone (vocals, guitar), Ken Moss (guitar) and Gary O'Donnell (keyboards, vocals, percussion).
This new LP also features a swathe of friends and contemporaries, including Paul Simpson (The Wild Swans) and Phil Jones (Afraid of Mice). The result is an exquisite piece of pop craftsmanship that brings their songs into the light. This is a labour of love born of experience, but retaining the sense of wonder that brought the band together in the first place.

"When Candy Opera first appeared on the kaleidoscopic early 1980s Liverpool music scene, by rights they should have changed the world" ~ Louder Than War
"Very welcome news as a highly underrated band who is now back with a force. While their previous output is stellar, this new single is even more commanding of attention. This is absolutely stunning, the band reaching higher than ever before" ~ Big Takeover Magazine
Sometimes it takes a while to realise what you’ve got. So it goes with pop craftsmen Candy Opera, who emerged during Liverpool’s 1980s golden age and whose new LP 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' is their first collection of new material in nearly three decades.
Ahead of that, they present 'These Days Are Ours', a rally cry of hope for the current times and the first single from this long-play, which is due for release in mid-November via European / UK label A Turntable Friend Records. The video was created / produced by James
Davies and Paul Malone.
Mixed by Grammy award-winning producer Guy Massey and featuring back vocals by Paul Simpson of The Wild Swans, the track was recorded at Elevator Studios in Liverpool.
With all the hallmarks of an enduring pop anthem, this impeccably produced, adrenalin-fuelled song captures the essence of Candy Opera’s infectious energy and celebrates life with a genuine wonder-lust, whilst delivering the excitement of their live performances.
Following the overdue release of two archival sets - '45 Revolutions Per
Minute' and 'Rarities' (released in 2018 by Firestation Records., quickly selling out of their first runs) - their new album 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' picks up where the band left off, with 14 fresh songs ready for discovery of a sound as timeless as any Candy Opera output.
Candy Opera were formed in Liverpool in 1982 and went through various incarnations before calling it a day in 1992. By 1985, the band had played alongside the likes of The Pogues, The Go-Betweens and The Redskins, as well as appearing on Granada TV.
The band's current line-up is drawn from all eras of the band’s existence and features Brian Chin Smithers (guitar, vocals), Alan Currie (drums), Frank Mahon (bass), Paul Malone (vocals, guitar), Ken Moss (guitar) and Gary O'Donnell (keyboards, vocals, percussion).
This new LP also features a swathe of friends and contemporaries, including Paul Simpson (The Wild Swans) and Phil Jones (Afraid of Mice). The result is an exquisite piece of pop craftsmanship that brings their songs into the light. This is a labour of love born of experience, but retaining the sense of wonder that brought the band together in the first place.

This compilation sees the coming together of independent music makers from across the globe to meet in one place and gather as a single entity. That simmering hub of warmth and affection is known as Motor Jazz - a place for artists to congregate and share their devotion for songs that are infused with rhythms created by anodic wires, buttons and other digital paraphernalia. That's electronic music to you and me, and in this case electronic music with swing, a sense of freedom and improvisation that some might call 'Jazz'.

The album opens with the ominous drone of the Mega Corp., sounding like one of the parties responsible for 2020's almost post-apocalyptic feel. It's perhaps an unlikely opener for a what's a positive and optimistic collection courtesy of young musicians from across the globe, but we all need to be reminded of who's in charge sometimes, and Dutch producer Jon Sewi does just that!

The mood soon lightens though, with the soulful strings and enticing keys of Gladdics by the mysterious Black Soyls, before well established German musical artisan Renegades of Jazz brings the family in for It's Tea Time with ticking clocks, warm tea pots and slices of cake, whilst being serenaded by a very vintage sounding horn section.

Serafin Plum almost steer us into drum & bass territory with their off-the-wall percussive nugget Jagged, whilst keeping a calming hand on the shoulder (as all good parents should) with soothing keys, before it's playtime once again.

There's nothing conventional about the Motor Jazz family though, and after tea time and play time, it's time to rave! In Greek mythology, The Maenads were female followers of Dionysus; their name literally translating as "the raving ones". Often they were portrayed as being inspired by the god into a state of ecstasy through a combination of dancing and intoxication, during which time they would dress in fawn skins and carry a thyrsus - a long stick wrapped in ivy or vine leaves and tipped with a pine cone. With a sound ranging between Jazz, Techno, Rave and Breaks their track, Opera, delivers a psyche and Jazz influenced piece with colliding styles, busy drums and rich melodies.

Heading over to Dublin, Ireland, and multi-talented producer, musician and DJ, Donal Sharpson (aka Double Screen) makes his presence known with grandiose brass preempting a four-to-the-floor wood block frenzy in the shape of Sheikah, complete with enthusiastic whoops and a persuasive bassline. Meanwhile, somewhere below the Irish Sea, aquatic artiste Stubby Dials delivers the bass worrying Put It On Ice the only way he knows how - living in a submarine, he emerges from time to time to leave his master tapes on the beach with a note saying "Release this!" before submerging, never been seen again.

Back in the Netherlands, Bram van der Hoeven, otherwise known as Lucinate, is an electronic Jazz producer par excellence. His effortless balance of organic musical roots like Fusion, Bossa Nova and Soul, into the world of modern beat orientated sounds is something to behold, and with The Cards he offsets life-affirming keys with rolling drums reminiscent of some of the seminal liquid Drum & Bass he grew up with.

As the global Motor Jazz family expands, we head to Canada, where the wonderfully monikered Woodpecking Mantis brings a little acid to the party with his squelchy, stuttering and brilliantly entitled Waving At A Melting Square Tooth Of A Specific Rabbit……. We're guessing they like acid a lot in Canada.

We're going down under to Newcastle, Australia next, where things take a more serene turn. Wrenasmir, known to his parents as Craig Smith, used to be a baroque pipe organist before he discovered samplers and synthesizers. Now he makes imaginary soundtracks at his studio for the twilight beachside city that lives in his head - full of vinyl and pixels and bittersweet memories. The gorgeous Lucempight is exactly that.

Keeping things low key and tranquil, Poets And Rockets, the latest offering from Jay Solomon is a horn driven slice of futuristic dub that makes way for The Motion Orchestra's majestic Midnight Sun, complete with Alexander Bednasch on double-bass, Mark Matthes on violins, Andy Sells on drums and David Hanke on electronics and production. Though influenced heavily by neo-classical and jazz sensibilities they occupy a musical space that sits in neither sphere, with a compositional style that deftly fuses the orchestral and electronic worlds. The full Motion Orchestra album, All One, will be released later this year on Bathurst.

Sixteen year old, self taught producer and multi-instrumentalist Teis Ortved is something of a prodigy. The Copenhagen based wunderkind has so far self-released two EPs, and if What, his offering here, is anything to go by, he's going to be making big waves across the eclectic music spectrum for years to come.

If Teis is the new kid on the block then what better way to round off this compilation that with its patriarchal figure. Funki Porcini has over a quarter of a century of recordings in his back catalogue, and has spent fifteen of those years dedicated to the independent UK behemoth that is Ninja Tune records. The Last Recording From Earth is exclusive to this album and is in many ways the perfect closing song. Perhaps more concept art than traditional piece of music, the idea behind it is that an alien archeologist has found this recording tens of thousands of years after humans have disappeared into the sand…. You never know, it might just happen, and hopefully Them To Us will take on a whole new meaning.

4 LP Boxset mit 52 seitigem Booklet vom 2018er Coachella Auftritt. Die epischen pyramidenförmigen Tribünen hatten rund 100 Tänzer und eine Band mit besonderen Gastdarstellern wie Solange, JAY-Z, Kelly Rowland und Michelle Williams, die Destiny's Child Magie, Harmonie und Nostalgie brachten.

2021 looms, the world stands on the brink.

A Pandemic rages, economies crumble, leaders sacrifice individuals on the altar of the media.

Adelphi Music Factory resurface with a siren call of hope.

My People: an ode to humanity in the grip of crisis, a joyous tribute to enduring love for empty dance floors across the world.

Sisterhood, brotherhood, freedom, peace

4 x R1 Hottest Records

LIMITED REMASTERED VINYL REPRESS WITH NEW COVER ART AND SLEEVE NOTES.

The La’s are one of the most enigmatic bands of the last few decades releasing only a handful of singles and one 'official' critically acclaimed album (which was disowned by the band itself!).

Lee Mavers (singer/songwriter) has stated repeatedly, that the closest he came to capturing his perfect vision was with the original recordings- which now appear here on limited vinyl with an undisputed spirit and freshness that could never be recaptured.

With so much mythologising around the bands early recordings, and their eventual disappearance, Viper are proud to present the songs which appeared thirty years ago on The first La's album, only as nature intended- authentic, endearing and quite simply magical.

Amongst many highlights is the first ever recording of There She Goes, 'Live'- now correctly considered to be a standard. Noel Gallagher famously stated that :'Oasis wanted to finish off what the La's had started' It's fair to say it's right here where Brit Pop started.

Following up the last People of Earth release from Stefan Ringer was a tall order, but we decided to call on French producer Hugo LX to take on the task. Presenting “The Free Form” EP. Spacey and deep, just the way we like it. Thick, bouncy bass lines lead the way on each track. Add live trumpet, keys, percussionists and you have one incredible record.

Walter ‘Junie’ Morrison released his third solo LP, Suzie Super Groupie, in 1976. A slick, smooth and soulful record, it’s a genre-melting tour de force with rich elements of proto-boogie, funk and jazz. In short, this is yet another essential album reissue from Be With.

The sublime “Suzie Thundertussy”, is a favourite of Harvey and Theo, and was brilliantly sampled by Madlib for Kanye West’s “No More Parties In LA”. The track opens with a sinuous synth and combines Junie’s storytelling abilities with an emphatic vocal style and funky arrangements. The powerful bass and sinister chords create an undeniable groove, and the explosive chorus is full of ambition and joy.

“If You Love Him” is a great, mid-tempo soul song. With a swinging jazz-infused middle-eight, it demonstrates Junie was much more than a mercurial funkateer. The laconic groove of “What Am I Gonna Do” recalls “Fresh”-era Sly Stone, whilst the frantic “Super Groupie” showcases his sharp imagination and sense of fun. The lyrics range from humorous to dirty, all fuelled by an infectious groove and tight horn arrangements.

The P-Funk of B-side opener “Surrender” bounces and sparkles, with a strutting Junie backed by great harmony vocals and joyous horns. “Suzie” is a sleek, softer affair albeit with a disco pulse; a beautiful combination of bright, funky horns, fluid basslines and vigorous rhythms. “Stone Face Joe” is another character song, this time one that chugs along on a sweet boogie rhythm.

The winner for us, however, is the closing piece. An extended funk-rock jam, “Spirit” has a heart-rending spoken-word intro and, as a nod to Jimi Hendrix, creates a live concert sound, complete with screaming crowd and fuzzy vocals.

Junie made his name as the lead singer and keyboardist of the Ohio Players. As the mastermind behind “Pain”, “Pleasure”, “Ecstasy”, and the oft-sampled “Funky Worm”, he was beloved by countless musicians, not least Prince. As co-writer of some of Funkadelic’s seminal works - “One Nation Under A Groove”, “(Not Just) Knee Deep” – his standing as one of the structural fathers of funk is undisputed.

In late 2016, Solange’s “A Seat At The Table” featured a track called “Junie”, a tribute to the freedom he created in music. His work continues to be as relavent and inspiring as it was when it was first recorded.

In February 2017, Junie died, aged just 62. With records as mighty as Suzie Super Groupie, his legacy will live forever and Be With is proud to be able to do our bit to make this LP accessible again on vinyl.

The MINDFULNESS HIPERNORMALISATION album itself marks a new turn in Eduardo's work, breaking away from any musical style or stereotype and always trying to seeking freedom of expression,marked also by a strong connotation of voluntary ostracism.A new stage in which Eduardo uses this double vinyl like a tool to mark a distance with the current international scene and also support the Adam Curtis theories shown on his acclamed documentary "The HiperNormalisation" 2016 . The album show influences that goes from romantic ambient melodies to the most complex and experimental electronica,also including easy listening techno where it is difficult to differentiate the line between techno and ambient.

Francois Kervorkian,DJ and official engineer of albums belonging to Depeche Mode or Kraftwerk, gives support to this great work of Eduardo which will remain in the near future and without any doubt as a cult album.