Search:friends

“My hero’s back,” Madeline Kenney sings on the second track of her newest effort, Kiss from the Balcony. In a sense, she means herself; made with friends Ben Sloan and Stephen Patota across just a few in-person studio sessions in Oakland, these tracks represent a culmination of Madeline’s musings on growth and resilience reaching back years, brought to life through this generative and vibrant collaboration. Close listeners can hear the breadth of stylistic elements and themes carried through from various eras of her work, which all come together in a cohesive and timeless record.

In two week-long intensive sessions, the three collaborators grew these nine songs from fragments, sketches, and seeds. With a background in experimental percussion and sound design, Ben Sloan brings an electronic sound to Kenney’s writing; Stephen Patota provides ingenious guitar melodies throughout and grounds the project in acoustic elements. Kiss from the Balcony was originally intended to be an EP, but the sessions brought forth such fruitful ideation and play that the project was expanded to a full length album. It sits in Madeline’s discography as a thematic and musical progression that sees her iterate on ideas about love and explore new sonic motifs through her work with Patota and Sloan.

Much of Kiss from the Balcony is a meditation on modern relationships, a feminist and utterly human contemplation of power and who holds it. “Hereditary backward leaning,” she describes in ‘Slap,’ of the female condition; “But no-one ever likes to see the girls break down / So they keep it to the bathroom floor” she sings in the rapturous opener, ‘Scoop.’ While the songs are shrouded in metaphor, the ubiquity of heartbreak and resilience decode much of the internal conflict Kenney depicts. The album sees her recognize the precarity and peculiarity of life and take it by the horns, realizing she controls her own narrative:


She explores the relationships between joy and suffering, choosing to see them as inseparable, two sides of a single coin. “It’s never over / When will they love me?” Kenney asks on ‘They Go Wide,’ describing her positionality both as a woman in relationship and as an indie artist in the modern music industry.

A playful hopefulness pervades the record, providing a sense of revelation in the journey throughout, Kenney’s radical acceptance of life as it is like a lyrical tongue out at the absurd.

Under his Orion Westbrook alias, the man cooks up some serious heavy-hitting house grooves with a funky twist that hits just right. Side A brings the heat with Pasadena’s own queen Moniquea, laying down her signature style — smooth, confident, somewhere between singing and rapping, and always on point. She glides effortlessly over this modern boogie gem, oozing style and swagger. The wildest part? These two only met once — but the chemistry is undeniable. Flip it to Side B and you’re treated to the sultry voice of Mae Rojas, a familiar name from the Cee-O-Funk sessions. Her sweet R’n’B flavor blends perfectly with a catchy, cosmic-tinged beat that’s equal parts seductive and futuristic. Personal but danceable — the kind of cut that lingers. Both tracks walk the line between dancefloor fire and laidback cruise, and that’s the magic here — funky, versatile, and 100% fresh.

'Mei Semones' sweetly evocative blend of jazz, bossa nova and math-y indie rock is not only a way for her to find solace in her favorite genres, but is an intuitive means of catharsis. "Blending everything that I like together and trying to make something new - that's what feels most natural to me," says the 23-year-old Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and guitarist. "It's what feels most true to who I am as an artist." Plinking guitar tones and asymmetrical time shnatures exemplify her forays into angular indie rock more now than ever before, especially on her debut Bayonet Records single "Wakare no Kotoba"-its wide-interval arpeggios in odd meters being some of the most technically difficult guitar work Mei has ever implemented in her songwriting. Translated to "parting words" in English, the self-described "anti-love song" serves as a farewell to a toxic friendship, complete with orchestral swells and crashing guitars. Originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan, Semones began playing music at a young age, starting out on piano at age four before moving to electric guitar at age eleven. After playing jazz guitar in high school, she went on to study guitar performance with a jazz focus at Berklee College of Music. College is where she met her current bandmates, including string players Noah Leong and Claudius Agrippa, whose respective viola and violin add softness and multidimensionality to Mei's intricate guitar work. After releasing a slew of singles and an EP in 2022, coinciding with her move to New York City, Mei and her band have since gone on to collaborate with post-bossa balladeer John Roseboro and embark on their first-ever tour with the melodic rock outfit Ravi, Semones chronicles infatuation, devotion, and vulnerability in her songs, complete with sweeping strings, virtuosic guitar-playing and heartfelt lyrics sung in both English and Japanese, that have all become part of her sonic trademark: ornately catchy, genre-fusing compositions serving as the backdrop to tender lyrics touching on the universalities of human emotion.

'Mei Semones' sweetly evocative blend of jazz, bossa nova and math-y indie rock is not only a way for her to find solace in her favorite genres, but is an intuitive means of catharsis. "Blending everything that I like together and trying to make something new - that's what feels most natural to me," says the 23-year-old Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and guitarist. "It's what feels most true to who I am as an artist." Plinking guitar tones and asymmetrical time shnatures exemplify her forays into angular indie rock more now than ever before, especially on her debut Bayonet Records single "Wakare no Kotoba"-its wide-interval arpeggios in odd meters being some of the most technically difficult guitar work Mei has ever implemented in her songwriting. Translated to "parting words" in English, the self-described "anti-love song" serves as a farewell to a toxic friendship, complete with orchestral swells and crashing guitars. Originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan, Semones began playing music at a young age, starting out on piano at age four before moving to electric guitar at age eleven. After playing jazz guitar in high school, she went on to study guitar performance with a jazz focus at Berklee College of Music. College is where she met her current bandmates, including string players Noah Leong and Claudius Agrippa, whose respective viola and violin add softness and multidimensionality to Mei's intricate guitar work. After releasing a slew of singles and an EP in 2022, coinciding with her move to New York City, Mei and her band have since gone on to collaborate with post-bossa balladeer John Roseboro and embark on their first-ever tour with the melodic rock outfit Ravi, Semones chronicles infatuation, devotion, and vulnerability in her songs, complete with sweeping strings, virtuosic guitar-playing and heartfelt lyrics sung in both English and Japanese, that have all become part of her sonic trademark: ornately catchy, genre-fusing compositions serving as the backdrop to tender lyrics touching on the universalities of human emotion.

Dana Schechter: Lap Steel Guitar, Bass, Electronics. - Paul Wallfisch: Piano, Organ, SOMA Pipe, Guitaret. Music from the Vienna Volkstheater production of Wolfram Lotz's play "Die Politiker" directed by Kay Voges; performed live in the theatre, spring 2022. These 2 beautiful exiles travel limbic landscapes and underwater dreams with a map that disintegrates instantly when viewed. Their fractured sounds dissolve and reconfigure endlessly in our cochlea and infest our imaginations with spiked armies of ultra-vivid, sentient and carnivorous coral predators, atavistically intent on devouring the sweet meat hiding deep in the center of the amygdala. Michael Gira (SWANS). Wallfisch has played in bands like Firewater and Little Annie, while Schechter has logged time with American Music Club, Angels of Light and her own Insect Ark, among others; both spent time touring and recording with SWANS. They've been friends since meeting in New York in the 1990s. Years later they forged a stronger connection as bandmates in Botanica. They renewed their artistic partnership in 2021, when Paul invited Dana to Vienna to develop the music for a theatrical spectacle called Die Politiker written by Kleist prize winner Wolfram Lotz. The music from the production provides the foundation for the duo's first album, The Heart of A Whale. Across its six intense tracks one can detect a subtle homage to storied Berlin musical traditions, as the pair puts a raw, often brutal veneer on songs steeped in Weimar cabaret (a la Tom Waits) but updated with a visceral mixture of noise, post-punk, and industrial elements. Performed on a panoply of instruments from bass, organ and lap steel to SOMA Synths, Guitaret, a variety of electronics and a grand piano hammered with a shoe, the music reflects the New York- Berlin nexus they've both been part of for decades. Echoes of Swans, Einstürzende Neubauten and The Birthday Party, but also hints of Throbbing Gristle, Eno and even William Basinski and Michael Gordon. The music can't be contained by any single tradition, with a decidedly experimental bent that ruptures the fixed rhythm of rock for something more theatrical and emotionally harrowing.

Formed in Oslo in 1996 by childhood friends Jon- Arne Vilbo & Thomas Andersen
along with Jan-Henrik Ohme (later joined by Mikael Kromer, Lars Erik Asp & Kristian
Torp), Gazpacho have honed their unique sound over a string of critically acclaimed
albums & numerous tours, including several with long-time supporters Marillion.
'March Of Ghosts' was the band's follow-up to 'Missa Atropos', which was released on
Kscope in 2011 along with the live album, 'London'. 'London' was recorded on the
band's European tour & the success of this tour helped provide the genesis for 'March
Of Ghosts', as Jon-Arne explains: "the previous tour gave us lots of inspiration. So, the
week after returning we went straight into the studio to capture whatever came." This
material was then honed, dissected & refned throughout the summer & autumn of
2011 to create a coherent whole.
While 'Missa Atropos' can be viewed as a concept album, 'March Of Ghosts' is much
more as a collection of short tales; "The idea was to have the lead character spend a
night where all these ghosts (dead & alive) would march past him to tell their stories.
They are short stories. They are a March Of Ghosts. They are tales that need to be
told."

FRENÉTIKA RECORDS is a new record label based in Nova Prata/RS Brazil, bringing its second release. “MAGIA DA VUDU EP” was inspired by the experiences of friends and dedicated to a very special friend Thaina Severo, aka Vudu.. The EP features three talented artists from the new Latin generation: Molen from Uruguay, Trajano from Brazil and Alquimic from Peru.

The composition of the EP was meticulously thought out to be a complete and mature record with specific tracks and complementary aesthetics so that it could be used at all times.

Limited 300 copies!

Underoath sind seit fast zwei Jahrzehnten eine wegweisende Stimme im progressiven Heavy Rock. Nur sehr
wenige können mit ihnen mithalten, wenn es darum geht, immer wieder an die Grenzen zu gehen oder sich
kreativ weiterzuentwickeln. „Voyeurist“ ist eine Rückkehr zu Underoaths Heavy-Metalcore-Wurzeln, die sie
in den 2000er Jahren zu einer der größten Bands in der Metal-Welt machten. „Voyeurist“ ist ihr neuntes
Album und das erste, das die Band komplett selbst produziert hat. Es wurde im Studio von Gitarrist Tim
in Tampa, FL aufgenommen und enthält 10 Tracks, die schwer, aber dennoch experimentell und manchmal
wunderschön sind. Während das letzte Album „Erase Me“ aus dem Jahr 2018 eine Abkehr von ihrem
Sound war und eher ein geradliniges Rock-Album, kehrt dieses zu den beliebten Metalcore-Wurzeln der
Band zurück, von denen die Fans so begeistert sein.

Emotional Rescue completes the series of non-defined reissues where the label licenses an all-time favourite, remasters and then reappraised with new interpretations by contemporary producers for today’s collectors.

After the series started back in 2019 with Hawkwind’s sprawling psychedelic electronics, featuring deep drone mixes by the esteemed digger Cherrystones (ERC074), the bouncing cosmic-Balearics of Thomas Leer with wonderful reworkings by friend and producer Bullion (ERC075) and then the post punk dubs of The Embrace and Timothy J Faiplay’s brooding italo-dub excursions (ERC076), there was always one artist and producer left out. Finally, then the percussive excursion of the early 80s band The Impossible Dreamers and their cult B side jam, Spin, coming with 9 minutes percussion-dub extravaganza of an extended reversion, plus a dub heavy reprise, by label go-to Dan Tyler (Idjut Boys /Noid), under his NAD moniker.

Started by a group of friends while at Exeter University that centered around Caroline Radcliffe, James Hood, Justin Adams and Nick Waterhouse, their debut 12” record is one of just three on the 100 Things To Do label. The other two releases have already been covered with the Hamburger All Stars ‘Swinging London’ 12” (ERC114) of 2022.

Recorded before the move to West London, ‘Life On Earth’ was a raw post punk vocal pop cut, with influences of dub, funk, hip-hop and African music shining through, there were in their own words, “young music fans starting out, with no agenda”.

However, it was on the B side that things got interesting. Enamored by the growing trend of extended 12” singles, they decided, with the A side wrapped up, to have some studio experimentation by recording a drumming jam, with all the members playing percussion, followed by some overdubbing. Memories are hazy, but at the time the band was an 8-piece, so the results a chaotic explosion, capturing the essence of that time. Featuring Nick and James on 4 hand piano, plus Caroline on Oboe, with some additional hollering and wooping vocals, Spin was a 5-minute burst of energy.

In effect, self-released in 1982, the band didn’t expect much to come of it, but the 12” acted as a calling card leading them to London and later signing for RCA. At the same time, Spin was being discovered in the early eighties alternative club world. On a trip to New York, the track was heard being played Downtown, and on enquiring it was discovered the DJ was playing a 7” that was never an official release but cut in the US solely for the club DJs there.

Its resonance extended further, to Italy and the Cosmic club of the resident, an ever-searching Danielle Baldelli, before being picked up a few years later by a young Andrew Weatherall during his pursuit of an alternative “Balearic” beat during the late eighties Summers of Love and has even recently received the Joe Clausell edit treatment back again in NYC.

For the remake to fit the label series, it was only right to ask label friend Dan Tyler to do what he does so well, putting the original through his array of dub machines and pedals, extending and cutting with aplomb to create an incendiary ‘Reversion’ that will send dancefloors literally in a spin. Teasing the percussion incandescent, looping and teasing, the piano held back before finally releasing in a haze of dub effects.

This is followed by the ‘Riddim Reprise’. Working with London based drummer Matt Bruce (Claptrap), this is the perfect DJ tool, taking the original idea of the band, to just jam see what happens, twisting it full of space echo and reverb, to offer a perfect 12” Extended Mix.

Underground flower punks deliver to the world an infectious grouping on 7 Inches. "Musical Attack: Anarchist + Communist Friendship" was recorded by Joe Nelson at D4MT Labs, and has art by DIY maven of the midwest Diyana Shipp, depicting a possible near-future community center that already exists.

Barry Can't Swim veröffentlicht sein mit Spannung erwartetes neues Album, „Loner“ auf Ninja Tune!

In „Loner“ sehen wir Barry Can't Swim dabei zu, wie er die Welt, in der er sich befindet, erkundet. Geprägt vom überwältigenden Erfolg von Barry Can't Swims ausverkauften Liveshows auf der ganzen Welt, bleibt es seinen Wurzeln verhaftet, während er über Identität und Bodenständigkeit nachdenkt. Barry Can’t Swims hochgelobtes Debütalbum, „When Will We Land?“, das im Oktober 2023 veröffentlicht wurde und derzeit mehr als 100 Millionen Streams verzeichnet, erhielt unendlich viel Lob, darunter auch die Nominierung für den Mercury Music Prize 2024, neben Künstler:innen wie Charli xcx, Beth Gibbons, English Teacher, Ghetts und The Last Dinner Party. Barry Can’t Swim ist nun stolz darauf, neben Aphex Twin, Nia Archives, Burial, Jamie xx, Fred again.. oder Jon Hopkins als in die engere Auswahl für den prestigeträchtigen Preis gekommen zu sein - was als elektronischer Solokünstler eher seltener vorkommt. Darüber hinaus wurde er bei den BRIT Awards 2024 in der Kategorie „Dance Act“ nominiert und stand auf der Shortlist für das schottische Album des Jahres.

Barry Can't Swim veröffentlicht sein mit Spannung erwartetes neues Album, „Loner“ auf Ninja Tune!

In „Loner“ sehen wir Barry Can't Swim dabei zu, wie er die Welt, in der er sich befindet, erkundet. Geprägt vom überwältigenden Erfolg von Barry Can't Swims ausverkauften Liveshows auf der ganzen Welt, bleibt es seinen Wurzeln verhaftet, während er über Identität und Bodenständigkeit nachdenkt. Barry Can’t Swims hochgelobtes Debütalbum, „When Will We Land?“, das im Oktober 2023 veröffentlicht wurde und derzeit mehr als 100 Millionen Streams verzeichnet, erhielt unendlich viel Lob, darunter auch die Nominierung für den Mercury Music Prize 2024, neben Künstler:innen wie Charli xcx, Beth Gibbons, English Teacher, Ghetts und The Last Dinner Party. Barry Can’t Swim ist nun stolz darauf, neben Aphex Twin, Nia Archives, Burial, Jamie xx, Fred again.. oder Jon Hopkins als in die engere Auswahl für den prestigeträchtigen Preis gekommen zu sein - was als elektronischer Solokünstler eher seltener vorkommt. Darüber hinaus wurde er bei den BRIT Awards 2024 in der Kategorie „Dance Act“ nominiert und stand auf der Shortlist für das schottische Album des Jahres.

Legendary artist, Raincoats co-founder, songwriter, filmmaker, and feminist icon Gina Birch has announced her eagerly awaited second solo album, Trouble, arriving via Third Man Records on Friday, July 11. Pre-orders are available now.

Trouble is heralded by today’s premiere of the album’s blistering centerpiece, “Causing Trouble Again,” available for streaming now. An official music video – directed by famed photographer/filmmaker Dean Chalkley and featuring an all-star collective of fellow female artists including Birch’s longtime friend and co-founder of The Raincoats, Ana da Silva, Neo Naturists co-founder Christine Binnie, singer-songwriter Amy Rigby, X-Ray Spex and Essential Logic co-founder Lora Logic, painter Daisy Parris, artist Georgina Starr, writer Jill Westwood, multi-disciplinary artist and activist Bobby Baker, award-winning costume designer Annie Symons, veteran photographer and Raincoats collaborator Shirley O’Loughlin, and many more – is streaming now on YouTube.

“For the ‘Causing Trouble Again’ video, after hearing Bob Dylan sing about a white ladder all covered with water, I became obsessed with white ladders,” Gina Birch says. “ I decided to use five white ladders, three with seven rungs…I realized later that this references Jacob’s Ladder and a connection from Earth to heaven, but I think I was thinking of ladders as a symbol of getting on, getting up. I wanted to have a choreographed movement with four of us with these ladders. How do we move with ladders? Do we move together, do we fight, do we dance? “I also wanted to reference the wind scene from the film, The Colour of Pomegranates, and to include as many artist women from the Women in Revolt exhibition as I could.

Though they may not have intended to do so, Naptown's trinity, also known as 81355 (pronounced BLESS), rang out as revolutionaries with their 2021 debut record This Time I'll be of Use. When Oreo Jones, Sirius Blvck, and Sedcairn come together, genre evaporates into enthralling poeticism and sonic hypnosis. Their sophomore LP Bad Dogs, releasing July 11th on Joyful Noise Recordings, acts as an expansive continuation of 81355's signature sound: an angelic, gritty, enthralling urban hymnal for the disillusioned mind. The history of 81355 stretches far back into the history of Naptown's creative scene. Jones and Blvck struck a match as one of Indy's most influential hip-hop collectives, Ghost Gun Summer, before they brought on Sedcairn (Moose Adamson) in 2020. Before Adamson infused 81355 with his melodic soundscapes, he produced Grampall Jookabox, an underground indie meets jangle pop project. Though they may be known primarily for their musical notoriety, the members of 81355 are steadfast in their commitment to uplifting their community with collective creative expansion. Sean (Oreo Jones), alongside his partner Jane Sun Kim, produces and curates Chreece, the largest Midwestern Hip-Hop festival hosted in the heart of Naptown. Niq (Sirius Blvck) is pivotal in the empowerment and advancement of Indy Hunger Network, a local non profit that addresses food insecurity across Indianapolis. Moose (Sedcairn) is a key contributor to Joyful Noise, an Indy based independent label cutting records for artists of all genres. For the first time, the project's live band is part of the production, with Sharlene Birdsong on bass guitar, Dimitri Morris on guitar, and Pat Okerson on drums. The Bad Dogs listening experience also seeps into visual realms: a short film titled Sleep Study will be released in tandem. Sleep Study_soundtracked, written, and produced by 81355, who also star in the film alongside friends and fellow artists from the community_features afrofuturistic sci-fi undertones that explore the toxifying implications of algorithmic control, postmodern brain rot, and late-stage capitalism. As the texturally emotive punctum of its cover art (painted by Stockholm based artist Julia de Ruvo) conveys, the heart of Bad Dogs draws its perseverance from the wild reservation dogs pulsing through the rust-hued indigenous lands of New Mexico and beyond. They are untethered in their roaming, sacred in their fierce communal belonging, yet undefined by a physical place. A vital essence mirrored by 81355: boundaryless, primal creative cultivation that defies what some may attempt to categorize as hip hop or progressive rap.

SEVEN welcomes Seoul-based Suman, whose vocal-driven signature sound marks our seventh release. This EP, exclusively showcasing the talents of Korean artists, features longtime affiliates of Seoul's club FAUST and early friends of SEVEN. The B-side is enriched with two remixes by female artists, DAMIE and Mars Parck. While the opening track drives forward with a more energetic, fast-paced vibe, the remaining tracks on the A-Side embrace dreamy, laidback house grooves accented by slightly cheesy yet classic vocals - perfect for a daytime dance.

Los Angeles trio sunking marry hip hop, and electronic influences on their 2nd album I DON"T LIKE MY TELEPHONE. Childhood friends Bobby Granfelt, a jazz drummer and self-proclaimed hip-hop head, Antoine Martel, a synthesist and composer, branched off their mainstay High Pulp to explore their polar opposite tastes and make music as sunking in addition to multi-instrumentalist Victory Nguyen. Their 2022 debut Smug, was more jazz-influenced, while I DON"T LIKE MY TELEPHONE is akin to the early work of beat-driven artists Thundercat, Madlib, and Flying Lotus. They hand selected artists Salami Rose Joe Louis, Niki Randa, Deradoorian, and Takoda to lend vocals and help capture that spirit. I DON"T LIKE MY TELEPHONE as a series of self-contained "micro-compositions," built around Granfelt"s drum loops and Martel"s new gear. In addition to, they were fueled by an increasing love for electronic music artists like Galcher Lustwerk, The Field, and Susumu Yokota, whose 1994 cult classic Acid Mt. Fuji they cite as a particular inspiration. The result is a record as vibrant as a kaleidoscope, and compact as one too, shuffling through more styles and ideas in neat, three-minute chunks of virtuosity.

Influential hardcore innovators Botch have delivered their electrifying new live album 061524, recorded at the iconic Showbox in Seattle on June 15, 2024—exactly 22 years to the day after their original farewell show at the same venue in 2002. 061524 captures a band still pushing sonic and emotional boundaries, now sharper, louder, and more dynamic than ever. Botch’s impact on aggressive music is undeniable. Their chaotic, math-laced brand of hardcore helped shape the genre’s landscape well after the band’s abrupt breakup in 2002.

For years, a reunion seemed unlikely—until a chain of unexpected events brought the original lineup back together for the band’s first new recording in over 20 years: 2022’s “One Twenty Two.” The song was released to critical acclaim, building into a frenzy of anticipation for Botch to reunite. What started as a nostalgic experiment quickly became a full-circle celebration, with the band reconnecting both personally and musically. That spark unleashed a wave of activity: secret warm-up shows, sold-out headlining gigs, and eventually a carefully curated international reunion tour, culminating in their hometown return at the Showbox—where 061524 was recorded in front of a packed, exhilarated crowd. 061524 is a blistering, unflinching document of a band reawakened—not as a legacy act, but as a vital force.

The album captures the energy, grit, and heart of a group that’s not only older and wiser—but more rehearsed and way more ambitious. The performances are tight but still full of the raw unpredictability that defined their early years. Fan favorites like “To Our Friends in the Great White North” and “Transitions from Persona to Object” are more complex and invigorating than ever before. Other songs, like “Afghamistam” and “Oma,” never considered feasible to pull off live previously, are delivered with the intricacy and intensity that has earned the band a lasting legacy and fresh legion of followers.

Influential hardcore innovators Botch have delivered their electrifying new live album 061524, recorded at the iconic Showbox in Seattle on June 15, 2024—exactly 22 years to the day after their original farewell show at the same venue in 2002. 061524 captures a band still pushing sonic and emotional boundaries, now sharper, louder, and more dynamic than ever. Botch’s impact on aggressive music is undeniable. Their chaotic, math-laced brand of hardcore helped shape the genre’s landscape well after the band’s abrupt breakup in 2002.

For years, a reunion seemed unlikely—until a chain of unexpected events brought the original lineup back together for the band’s first new recording in over 20 years: 2022’s “One Twenty Two.” The song was released to critical acclaim, building into a frenzy of anticipation for Botch to reunite. What started as a nostalgic experiment quickly became a full-circle celebration, with the band reconnecting both personally and musically. That spark unleashed a wave of activity: secret warm-up shows, sold-out headlining gigs, and eventually a carefully curated international reunion tour, culminating in their hometown return at the Showbox—where 061524 was recorded in front of a packed, exhilarated crowd. 061524 is a blistering, unflinching document of a band reawakened—not as a legacy act, but as a vital force.

The album captures the energy, grit, and heart of a group that’s not only older and wiser—but more rehearsed and way more ambitious. The performances are tight but still full of the raw unpredictability that defined their early years. Fan favorites like “To Our Friends in the Great White North” and “Transitions from Persona to Object” are more complex and invigorating than ever before. Other songs, like “Afghamistam” and “Oma,” never considered feasible to pull off live previously, are delivered with the intricacy and intensity that has earned the band a lasting legacy and fresh legion of followers.

‘With Time, We Learned To Ask Less’ is the first duo album by Giuseppe Ielasi and Riccardo D. Wanke after decades of friendship and the occasional artistic collaboration. Working with only electric guitar and electric piano as well as a gentle dose of reverb, these improvisation-based recordings showcase the rapprochement of two artists whose interests are perfectly aligned. Their carefulness, attention to detail, and shared desire to sculpt space through music instead of just occupying it create a unique harmony between these two exceptional musicians who consistently stay mindful of the old adage that music is the space between the notes. Following up on solo albums sees them seamlessly combining the sparse but lush aesthetics of those experiments throughout these 44 minutes. Having lived close to each other in Northern Italy, where the prolific mastering engineer Ielasi still resides to this day, he and Wanke were members of the group Medves together with Andrea Belfi, Renato Rinaldi and Stefano Pilia before Wanke relocated to Lisbon. When Ielasi, who had mastered Wanke’s recent solo albums including 2023’s »i« for electric pianos, was invited to play a concert in the Portuguese capital in the summer of that year, the two took the opportunity to go on stage together. Infatuated by the results of this fully improvised set, they organised a two-day session in Ielasi’s Monza studio shortly thereafter and edited the recordings over the course of the following months. The resulting album shows them moving slowly through sonic space and time, complementing and counterpointing each other’s playing. They leave each other room in which to unfold and let short moments of silence speak for themselves. ‘With Time, We Learned To Ask Less’ is the closest you will get to hearing the air sing.

This 14-song full length was originally released by Bloodshot Records in 2018, but because it contains the potent “I Hate Chicago” diss track, it’s sacred writ that the album needs to be on a Windy City record label. So basically, we drew the short straw and now it’s our cross to bear. Laura Jane Grace is best known for fronting indie-punk titans, Against Me!, but on “Bought To Rot” her debut solo album you will hear lullabies and angular rock with influences ranging from The Pixies to Crass. You’ll come to learn about how Laura hates tra‑c and emails, but if you really listen, you’ll hear an album full of love songs. And we hope you really listen and hear that too.

Lifelong friends Richard Lowe and Rob Bendelow formed their first band “Lammergier” during the mid 1970’s together with bassist Barry Yates. Following their first love performance in 1977 the band gigged extensively across the British midlands. The standard of these performances combined with their unique brand of symphonic rock saw “Lammergier” amass a large and loyal following. Then a new decade arrived changes were made, the music remained the same, but they called themselves “Saracen”.

After several months on the road Saracen decided it was time to record an album, and in October 1981 they released “Heroes, Saints and Fools” to critical acclaim. Saracen tracks received regular airplay on Tommy Vance’s Friday night rock show and the single “We have arrived” was recorded. In 1983 line-up changes occurred and the band eventually stopped touring in 1985.

Two decades later and the band re-appear with a vengeance and the release of “Red Sky” in March 2003 put the band firmly back on the map, and it was a rework of some of the old classics with new tracks added. The band regained its popularity, and a further three albums have emerged to critical acclaim, namely “Vox in Excelso”, “Marilyn” and “Redemption”.

With renewed interest in the vinyl format of recorded music “Vox In Excelso” has been re-released in 2025 as a numbered limited edition with new artwork and now “Red Sky” is to follow, again with new artwork. These are beautiful works of art and the recordings sound fresh and vibrant, its classic progressive rock brought into the present day and it doesn’t get better than this..

Smut is the project of lyricist Tay Roebuck, guitarists Andie Min and Sam Ruschman, drummer Aidan O’Connor, and bassist John Steiner. Roebuck, Ruschman and Min started the band a decade ago in Cincinnati, Ohio. Since then, they’ve played alongside Bully, Wavves, and Nothing. After years in the Cincinnati DIY scene, they made their Bayonet Records full-length debut, How the Light Felt. The record was a revelation. Pitchfork called it “a rigorous, decade-spanning study,” and a “well-oiled spin on late-’80s guitar pop.” Under the Radar called it “pop perfection,” that “blends subtle hooks with wistful lyrics.” It was a record that explored grief through the lens of melancholic dreampop, using drum machines and layered, intricate melodies.
Tomorrow Comes Crashing, Smut's first record with O'Connor and Steiner, sees the band re-energized and trained on the limitless potential that comes with making music with people you love. Galvanized with a new lineup, Smut focused on creating a record that possessed the same towering intensity as the records that first got them into music: Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, Relationship of Command. The outcome is ten of their most intense, bombastic, and focused songs to date.
Catharsis bursts through the seams throughout Tomorrow Comes Crashing. “Syd Sweeney, ”inspired by the actress, is the record's centerpiece. It's about how profoundly strange it can be to be a woman, to be misunderstood by people who don’t even know you. The song is driven by chugging guitars and big, rolling drums. In other words: stadium rock about perception. Paramore meets Dookie. “She connects to the youth and the girls in the water/All she amounts to is someone’s daughter,” sings Roebuck in one particularly poetic moment. The song comes to a thrashing metal-inspired breakdown. It’s ecstatic.
To make the record, Smut recorded “as live as they could,” alongside Aron Kobayashi-Ritch(Momma) in a studio in Red Hook, Brooklyn, over the course of ten days. “We have so much energy right now,” says Roebuck. Right before they went off to New York, Roebuck and Min got married, with the rest of the band by their side. The recording was a true labor of love — driving from Chicago with all their equipment, returning from 12 hour studio days to sleep on friends' couches and floors, Roebuck completely blowing her voice by the end. Smut has always been DIY. Because they love it. Because they have to do it–there’s no other option. Tomorrow Comes Crashing is the culmination of that DIY spirit: making a record that completely encompasses the intensity, moodiness, and emotion of their journey so far.

‘Mormaço Queima’ is where it all began for Ana Frango Eléctrico. Raw, quirky and lo-fi, it’s a debut album brimming with attitude and youthful energy, characteristics that would go on to define their sound. Previously released digitally in Brazil in 2018, with a private press CD version in 2020 and later a Brazilian vinyl version in 2022, here at Mr Bongo we felt it deserved a much-needed worldwide edition for all of us to savour.

A charming, idiosyncratic blend of MPB, Tropicália, and indie from a talented singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer who would later become one of Brazil’s brightest international stars. ‘Mormaço Queima’ has a cool, laidback, swagger channelling ‘90s bands such as Pavement. The arrangements feel loose and easy, the opener, 'Farelos' (Crumbs), seems to ebb and flow on a razor's edge before the percussion and Antonio Neves' trombone draws the song into a structure. Another highlight is 'No Bico Do Mamilo', which has a free-flowing vibe, Ana pushing, pulling, and playing with the song's energy, keeping listeners constantly on their toes. Tracks such as 'Roxo' lean more into a punk attitude, with the pendulum swinging from easy-going to frenetic. The longest song on the album 'Picles', continues to sway the pendulum this time moving from DIY punk-funk into a psychedelic workout

Co-produced by friends and fellow future collaborators Guilherme Lirio, Gustavo Benjão, Marcelo Callado, and Thiago Nassif, ‘Mormaço Queima’ is a playful showcase of Ana Frango Eléctrico’s distinctive style. Plotting Ana's musical career, it's clear they are not one to be pigeon-holed, nor to be confined to a single genre. Instead, they are ever evolving and this captivating debut album was the building block for a career that has already seen them gain multiple Latin-Grammy awards and tour the world with their music.

Far Out Recordings continues its reissue campaign of the late Argentinian guitarist Agustin Pereyra Lucena's work with the first-ever vinyl reissue of his singular 1988 private press album, Puertos De Alternativa, now his most sought-after LP. The album features some of Agustin’s most uniquely beautiful compositions, including “Luces de Valeria” and “Preparativos Maritimos,” alongside Baden Powell's “Pequeño Vals” and “O Cego Aderaldo (Nordeste...),” and “Tema Barroco” by his longtime collaborator, Guilhermo Reuter.

By 1988, Agustín had established himself as one of Argentina’s foremost interpreters of Brazilian music. The seventies saw success with his group Candeias, and he gained recognition in Brazil, forming friendships and collaborations with luminaries such as Vinicius de Moraes, Baden Powell, Dorival Caymmi, Toquinho, and Maria Bethania. Following the era of dictatorship in South America, Agustín spent the late seventies and early eighties, living and touring in Norway as part of his European travels with his group Agustín Pereyra Lucena quartet.

Recorded after returning to his native Buenos Aires, Agustin Peyera Lucena’s Puertos de Alternativa emerged from this confluence of diverse experiences and influences, revealing an artist deeply connected to his environment. The album's title, meaning "Alternative Harbours," reflects Agustín's particular affinity for water. He observed that much of his favourite music originated from places with rivers and seas nearby, noting, "There is a flow near water that influences guitar playing for sure."

With a profound connection to both instrument and environment, Agustín’s music is often difficult to place. The album begins rooted deeply in South American soil, drawing clear inspiration from Brazilian guitar masters like Heitor Villa Lobos, Garoto and Baden Powell. But, as it progresses, a sense of journey unfolds, evoking new landscapes and horizons – from the crystalline beauty of glacial Norway to the gentle currents of the Rio de la Plata.

The ensemble on Puertos de Alternativa features notable Argentinian musicians, including drummer Osvaldo Avena, flautist Rubén Izarrualde, and saxophonist Bernardo Baraj.

Mastered by Stuart Hawkes at Metropolis Studios from the original master tapes which had been lovingly kept by Agustin’s nephew José Lucena Perreyra


Tracklist & Credits:

A1. Luces De Valeria (Agustin Pereyra Lucena)
Guitar, Vocals – Agustin Pereyra Lucena
Piano, Bass, Drums, Vocals – Guillermo Reuter
Tamboril – Julio Said

A2. Pequeña Valsa (Baden Powell)
Arranged By Flute – Lucho González
Drums – Osvaldo Avena
Flute – Alejandro Santos
Guitar – Agustin Pereyra Lucena
Tambora – Eduardo Avena

A3. Planicie (El Llano) (Agustin Pereyra Lucena)
Arranged By Flute – Lucho González
Flute – Rubén Izarrualde
Keyboards, Acoustic Bass, Percussion, Arranged By Keyboards – Guillermo Reuter
Guitar – Agustin Pereyra Lucena

A4. Tema Barroco (Guillermo Reuter)
Guitar – Agustin Pereyra Lucena
Percussion – Guillermo Reuter

A5. O Cego Aderaldo (Nordeste...) (Baden Powell)
Guitar – Agustin Pereyra Lucena

B1. Tres Que Quedaron (Agustin Pereyra Lucena, Andrés Laprida)
Drums – Osvaldo López
Flute – Rubén Izarrualde
Piano, Keyboards, Bass, Directed By – Guillermo Reuter
Soprano Saxophone – Bernardo Baraj
Electric Piano, Arranged By – Andrés Laprida
Guitar, Electric Guitar, Vocals – Agustin Pereyra Lucena

B2. Preparativos Maritimos (Andrés Laprida, Agustin Pereyra Lucena, Guillermo Reuter)
Guitar, Vocals – Agustin Pereyra Lucena
Keyboards, Acoustic Bass, Percussion, Arranged By – Guillermo Reuter

B3. Puertos De Alternativa (Agustin Pereyra Lucena)
Guitar, Effects – Agustin Pereyra Lucena

B4. Casi-Numbe (Luis González Cárpena, Agustin Pereyra Lucena)
Bass – Lucho González
Bass Flute – Rubén Izarrrualde
Berimbau – Horacio Veros
Keyboards, Piano, Vocals, Drums, Arranged By – Guillermo Reuter
Guitar, Vocals, Arranged By – Agustin Pereyra Lucena

Gilles Peterson presents International Anthem is a compilation chronicling the legendary London-based radio host, DJ, label head, curator and cultural impresario"s long-standing affinity for and interaction with artists and music from the Chicago-born record label International Anthem. The tracks on this compilation were chosen by Peterson via an extensive review of track lists from his broadcasts on BBC Radio 6 Music, Worldwide FM, and various syndicated radio programs. The compilation also includes a previously unreleased track recorded live on the Peterson-founded online radio station Worldwide FM. This album is released via International Anthem as part of their "IA11" series of releases and events - where the label celebrates their eleventh year of existence by looking back on their first ten years while establishing new standards for the next ten years.

Returning to the Bordello, and the seven-inch, is Real Velour. This secretive figure reappears with two tracks of indie dance that bend and re-shape elements of italo disco, minimal pop and synth wave to create an utterly unique experience. Sleazy basslines and tropical percussion give way to heavily vocodered words in “Lover”, machine amor breaking to spoken human voice as melodies twirl. The romance described is one of passion, of friendship and of fidelity; but, with a hint of control. Clever and addictive, the composition cherry-picks bittersweet sounds to depict this relationship. The flip, “Look What You’ve Done”, maintains the candystore keys of the A-Side; the tone shifting as lyrics adopt a brazen and fortified vigour. It appears maybe that the promises of “Lover” have been shattered. While the love story turns to hurt feelings and regret, Real Velour keep the energy high to revel in the final break-up.

Repress!

In the mid-1970s, a force of nature swept across the continental United States, cutting across all strata of race and class, rooting in our minds, our homes, our culture. It wasn’t The Exorcist, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, or even bell-bottoms, but instead a book called The Secret Life of Plants. The work of occultist/former OSS agent Peter Tompkins and former CIA agent/dowsing enthusiast Christopher Bird, the books shot up the bestseller charts and spread like kudzu across the landscape, becoming a phenomenon. Seemingly overnight, the indoor plant business was in full bloom and photosynthetic eukaryotes of every genus were hanging off walls, lording over bookshelves, and basking on sunny window ledges. The science behind Secret Life was specious: plants can hear our prayers, they’re lie detectors, they’re telepathic, able to predict natural disasters and receive signals from distant galaxies. But that didn’t stop millions from buying and nurturing their new plants.



Perhaps the craziest claim of the book was that plants also dug music. And whether you purchased a snake plant, asparagus fern, peace lily, or what have you from Mother Earth on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles (or bought a Simmons mattress from Sears), you also took home Plantasia, an album recorded especially for them. Subtitled “warm earth music for plants…and the people that love them,” it was full of bucolic, charming, stoner-friendly, decidedly unscientific tunes enacted on the new-fangled device called the Moog. Plants date back from the dawn of time, but apparently they loved the Moog, never mind that the synthesizer had been on the market for just a few years. Most of all, the plants loved the ditties made by composer Mort Garson.



Few characters in early electronic music can be both fearless pioneers and cheesy trend-chasers, but Garson embraced both extremes, and has been unheralded as a result. When one writer rhetorically asked: “How was Garson’s music so ubiquitous while the man remained so under the radar?” the answer was simple. Well before Brian Eno did it, Garson was making discreet music, both the man and his music as inconspicuous as a Chlorophytumcomosum. Julliard-educated and active as a session player in the post-war era, Garson wrote lounge hits, scored plush arrangements for Doris Day, and garlanded weeping countrypolitan strings around Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” He could render the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel alike into easy listening and also dreamed up his own ditties. “An idear” as Garson himself would drawl it out. “I live with it, I walk it, I sing it.”



But as his daughter Day Darmet recalls: “When my dad found the synthesizer, he realized he didn’t want to do pop music anymore.” Garson encountered Robert Moog and his new device at the Audio Engineering Society’s West Coast convention in 1967 and immediately began tinkering with the device. With the Moog, those idears could be transformed. “He constantly had a song he was humming,” Darmet says. “At the table he was constantly tapping.” Which is to say that Mort pulled his melodies out of thin air, just like any household plant would.



The Plantae kingdom grew to its height by 1976, from DC Comics’ mossy superhero Swamp Thing to Stevie Wonder’s own herbal meditation, Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants. Nefarious manifestations of human-plant interaction also abounded, be it the grotesque pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers or the pothead paranoia of the US Government spraying Mexican marijuana fields with the herbicide paraquat (which led to the rise in homegrown pot by the 1980s). And then there’s the warm, leafy embrace of Plantasia itself.



“My mom had a lot of plants,” Darmet says. “She didn’t believe in organized religion, she believed the earth was the best thing in the whole world. Whatever created us was incredible.” And she also knew when her husband had a good song, shouting from another room when she heard him humming a good idear. Novel as it might seem, Plantasia is simply full of good tunes.



Garson may have given the album away to new plant and bed owners, but a decade later a new generation could hear his music in another surreptitious way. Millions of kids bought The Legend of Zelda for their Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1986 and one distinct 8-bit tune bears more than a passing resemblance to album highlight “Concerto for Philodendron and Pothos.” Garson was never properly credited for it, but he nevertheless subliminally slipped into a new generations’ head, helping kids and plants alike grow.



Hearing Plantasia in the 21st century, it seems less an ode to our photosynthesizing friends by Garson and more an homage to his wife, the one with the green thumb that made everything flower around him. “My dad would be totally pleased to know that people are really interested in this music that had no popularity at the time,” Darmet says of Plantasia’snew renaissance. “He would be fascinated by the fact that people are finally understanding and appreciating this part of his musical career that he got no admiration for back then.” Garson seems to be everywhere again, even if he’s not really noticed, just like a houseplant.

This album is one that is always going to be reissued until the end of time. It's pure, raw, inescapably good soul music that was popularised in recent years by Floating Points and his Melodies International label. The 1976 debut album by Chicago soul, rare-groove and jazz-funk fusionists Tomorrow's People was led by the Burton Brothers. This reissue comes on red vinyl for the first time and is full of a dynamic blend of styles-from the sax-driven disco-funk of 'Let's Get Down With The Beat' to the doo-wop-tinged 'Hurry Up Tomorrow' and the fiery 'Hurt Perversion'. The 20-minute title track, Open Soul, is a mesmerising space-soul journey which kicks off this highly sought after gem in style.

Efficient Space charts Ghost Riders’ North American roadmap, crashing into 1973 New York to ignite the unfiltered teen dreams of Dennis Harte.

In the late ’60s, 11-year-old prodigy Dennis Harte was handed a Sears-bought Silvertone 1448, its in-case amplifier primed for street-level incantations. Recruiting two neighbourhood friends, the trio hammered out raw rhythms, drawing in Brooklyn’s wandering bohemians, keen to glimpse a prepubescent Alex Chilton in the making.

Also jamming with his older brothers, Bart and John, a family friend introduced the siblings to budding music exec Carl Edelson, who had spent the better part of two decades hustling through a string of local labels. A father figure of sorts, Edelson backed them immediately, facilitating sessions at the famed A-1 Sound Studios and Sanders Recording Studio and pressing four 7”s on his newly minted Roundtable Records. To maximise his chances of courting major labels, he strategically assigned each release a different artist name - Dennis Harte, Pure Madness, Harte Brothers and the wryly titled Harte Attack.

Dennis’ emotional maturity and sheer talent bleed into the defining ‘Summer’s Over’, penned by Edelson and once recorded by mid-'60s New Jersey garage vocal group The Wouldsmen. Morphing into an unfathomably teenage, blue-eyed soul/psych lament, it aches for a season slipping away forever. Its Harte Attack edition counterpart - the candied ballad ‘Running Thru My Mind’ - delivers unison harmonies and kinetic guitar interplay with a streetwise punch, channeling the spirit of NYC-area icons The Rascals, The Lovin’ Spoonful, and The Youngbloods.

Roaring like the Spencer Davis Group, Pure Madness’ organ-driven bruiser ‘Freedom Rides’ screams of biker gangs, yet its true subject - ’60s civil rights activists the Freedom Riders - looms as another towering theme for an adolescent perspective. Meanwhile, the loose, bluesy ruckus ‘Treat Me Like a Man’ digs back into Edelson’s catalogue, covering the Beatles-inflected Levittown group The Shandels.

Though Dennis later found success touring with Wilson Pickett and now doubles as a piano tuner to the stars, these four snapshots frame ambition on its outer edge - a heartfelt homage to an unbreakable brotherhood.

German/Canadian outfit ANiML is a collection of artists with long histories in electronic music. They founded the Stratasonic label as a way of working with friends, peers and legends without any genre restrictions. Following the ‘Star Walk’ album, which was a comprehensive deep dive into their sound with improvisation and off-the-cuff collisions of a wide array of moods and grooves, it now gets remixed by three underground mainstays.

Detroit's Seth Troxler is one of the most iconic characters in the scene. His left-of-centre sets and sounds have taken him to the world's most notorious clubs, festivals and labels over the last 20 years. His take on 'Breather' is a richly layered minimal groove with suspensory pads rising up through a cosmic sky. There is a mystic quality to the pads and tripped-out atmosphere that will hypnotise dance.

Next is the legendary Mathew Jonson, a notorious synth magician and live show maestro with a jazz schooling and countless seminal tracks to his name. His understanding of dance floor dynamics and meaningful melody runs deep and shines through his remix of 'Baby D.' It's a wonky, off-balance rhythm with shimmering melodies and soulful vocal snippets. Fractured percussive sounds, muffled horns and golden keys marble the mix, which is psychedelic and wonderfully woozy.

Brooklyn-based Galcher Lustwerk has been at the forefront for more than a decade with a signature blend of experimental house and stream-of-consciousness rap informed by funk, rhythm, and blues. His compelling take on 'Bruv' is powered by a bubbly, acidic low-end with shadowy vocal whispers bleeding in and out of the raw, ice-cold beats.

REPRESS

New Delhi-based Peter Cat Recording Co. will release their debut album, ‘Bismillah’ on June 14, 2019 via French independent label Panache Records. Debut UK live shows are soon also to be announced by the band.


Peter Cat Recording Co. could almost have a question mark on the end of its name. Not least as founder & frontman Suryakant Sawhney refuses to explain where that name really comes from or what it means (perhaps a reference to the Tokyo jazz club owned by Haruki Murakami), but also since the very existence of the band itself raises a raft of questions. When was the last time we fell for an indie rock band for the right reasons? Not because the band in question nostalgically imitate a perceived ‘golden age’ but because they innately embody the fundamentals of such music: fantasy, sincerity and the freedom to make music without rules or career aspi- rations. And when was the last time this kind of band sounded like Sinatra, Barry White, the sweetest doo-wop, humid fanfares and a psychedelic wedding band, all at once? And all of this coming from India?
In truth, the story of Peter Cat Recording Co. was written within the triangle of San Francisco, Delhi and Paris.
In the first of these cities, Sawhney (a native of Delhi) pitched up to study film-making. More distracted by the city’s peaking live scene of the early noughties, this is where he started to make music and to sketch out an idea for the band.“
The people I lived with supported my idea of writing music, they introduced me to great mu-
sic. There used to be a great garage scene in San Francisco, like The Oh Sees also Ty Seagall, Mikal Conin, all those bands. This is a world I had never seen in my entire life. A big inspiration from San Francisco was that you could record yourself. You don’t need to be in a studio and spend a lot of money to make an album. You can do it”.


At the end of the 2000s, Suryakant returned home to New Delhi, and started his band for real, more or less the same band that plays today. “I wasn’t so concerned about will we be performing, will we be the greatest band, will we be trendy. I just wanted to make something that was consequential and important for us, I think. Something which would last, something people could listen to and be like « this is life changing ». It was for the sake of beauty”.


For the first few years and in India alone, this is exactly what Peter Cat Recording Co. did, in total indifference to the rest of the world. This was until young Parisian label Panache stumbled across the band online via Vice’s THUMP subsidiary, stupefied by the band’s cosmic video for seven-minutes-and-counting track, ‘Love De- mons’. And so in spring of 2018, ‘Portrait Of A Time: 2010-2016’ was released on Panache - making the first international release from Peter Cat Recording Co., bizarrely enough, an anthology of re-mastered, hidden gems from the band’s ramshackle back catalogue, previously recorded in Suryakant’s own living room. With Peter Cat’s off-kilter charm hitherto unheard of beyond the fringes of India, the release provided a gateway op-
Whilst the title track found its way onto Tracks Of The Year lists at the Guardian & NME, it was tricky for new PCRC enthusiasts to get a firm grip on the startling push/pull between the immediate, uncanny music this release gathered, and the cultural backdrop of New Delhi at which it was so startlingly at odds.


Opportunity for a wider fanbase to fall in love with their cloud-like, drunken songs for the first time.
If discovering your favourite new band via a ‘Best Of’ feels a curious premise, then ‘Bismillah’ does more than hint towards the promise of Peter Cat Recording Co’s future. Blending gypsy jazz, psychedelic cabaret, space disco, bossa supernova, Bollywood and uneasy listening with kaleidoscopic ease, in many senses, the band’s knack hasn’t altered. Always different, paradoxical, unpredictable yet somehow familiar. The new album opens to the strains of bird chatter, the whisper of a city’s soundscape and the first few notes from an instrument which seem to be calling us to the departure lounge, a fore-shadow of the flight ‘Bismillah’ launches its listener
on. Suryakant sings with the detached, rueful elegance of Sinatra marooned on a desert island, whilst his band create small space-time capsules which navigate their way through genres and eras – including the future – and between nostalgia and eccentricity.


Peter Cat recently trailed ‘Bismillah’ with the release of ‘Floated By’, an appositely titled musing on failure & missed opportunities, punctuated by the fulsome brass section which weaves through so much of the album.


The languid, blue quality to the track is offset by the attendant music video, created with footage shot, implau- sibly enough, at Suryakant’s own marriage ceremony (needless to say, the wedding band hired for the day was of course, Peter Cat Recording Co.) Sawhney dryly notes; “Hopefully it’s not a many-a-times-in-a-lifetime event. You can’t fake that set, those people actually having a good time, being really emotional and intense.” ‘Bismillah’’s colour-drenched album cover also captures Suryakant’s father-in-law making his wedding toast on that same day - a nod back towards the cover of ‘Portrait Of A Time’, itself a black & white image taken at the wedding ceremony of Suryakant’s own father.


A stumbling but gracious collection of songs rooted in a kind of drunken soul music, the melancholy nature of some of the songs on ‘Bismillah’ renders them almost liquid, before they develop into more dance-like shapes. Suryakant’s rangy voice swoops from the falsetto glide of ‘I’m This’ to the beat-up baritone blown along by the warm breeze of ‘Soulless Friends’. The elliptical structure of album opener ‘Where The Money Flows’ also al-
lows for the use of brief bursts of autotune effect on his vocal without feeling incongruous, whilst the desultory lyrics of ‘Heera’ (a Hindi word for diamond) - sharing something with the Morricone school of grand storytelling - have an emotional weight that would impress even coming from a native English speaker. Perhaps the most gleefully unpredictable moment on ‘Bismillah’ comes with the illusory, vocal loops on the intro to ‘Memory Box’, errupting into 8 exhilarating minutes worth of unbridled, string-backed disco joy. A cat might have nine lives, but on ‘Bismillah’ and beyond, Peter Cat Recording Co. are hinting towards an un- knowable multitude of dimensions. Throw them all together, and it equates less to a listening experience and more to an out-of-body experience.


Peter Cat Recording Co. are: Suryakant Sawhney (vocals/guitar/organ), Dhruv Bhola (bass), Kartik S Pillai (organ/guitar/electronics), Rohit Gupta (horns), Karan Singh (drums)

Nach seinen Megaerfolgen der letzten Jahre mit der erfolgreichsten Radiosingle 2021 „Save Your Tears“ (Platin) und dem erfolgreichsten Song 2020 „Blinding Lights“ (3x Platin) beginnt The Weeknd nun sein
nächstes Kapitel.
Dieses kündigte der Superstar bereits im Herbst 2021 mit “The Dawn Is Coming” auf seinen Social-MediaKanälen an und bestätigte die Gerüchte für ein neues Album dann an Neujahr. Der erste Vorgeschmack auf sein neues Album erfolgte mit der Single „Take My Breath“. Diese stieg direkt in die Top 20 der deutschen Charts ein und erreichte Platz 2 der Airplay Charts.

Sein letztes Studioalbum „After Hours“, welches u.a. die Erfolgshits „Blinding Lights“, „Save Your Tears“ und „After Hours“ enthält belegte Platz 5 der Albumcharts. Seine anderen Alben „Beauty Behind The Madness” (2015) und “Starboy” (2016) sind in Deutschland beide mit Gold ausgezeichnet. Sein neues Album „Dawn FM“ erscheint nun am 07.01.2022 digital und enthält Feature-Artists wie Jim Carrey, Tyler The Creator und Lil Wayne.

Am 28.01.2022 erscheint es auch auf CD und wird ab dem 29.04.2022 auch als Vinyl erhältlich sein.

If there is one quality that best sums up the personality and music of Michel Petrucciani, it is generosity.
It was on stage, in the moment, in close proximity to the audience, in the warm intimacy of a club setting, that he most truthfully expressed his passion for sharing.
Many musicians, he confessed, play too selfishly. They play only for themselves and a few happy few. I play to please and to communicate. I’d like to think I’m a very happy person.

That’s why it’s essential for me to transmit and give others the generosity that is vital in art, music, and life.”
This is proven by these magnificent moments captured live in 1997 in Tokyo.
Accompanied by Anthony Jackson and Steve Gadd - two close friends with whom he shared an almost telepathic musical relationship - Michel Petrucciani delivers an intense hour of pianoforte, performing both standards and original compositions to unleash his boundless generosity and sensual lyrical expression live on stage.

Once again, one is struck by the solar clarity of his phrasing, the vigour and percussive precision of his touch (this master of tempo played ‘deep in the note’), and the breadth of his long lines where each note remains distinct and articulate. Michel infused everything he played with great emphasis and nuance - but above all, with sincerity. His heart sang immediately through the piano. This record is the most brilliant demonstration of that.
· Until now, this album had never been released on vinyl. Now available as a 180g double vinyl edition, mastered specifically for vinyl, housed in a 350g leather-textured sleeve with Struktura finish, offering an elegant texture and refined feel.

VERY LIMITED 2025 REPRESS ON BEAM OF LIGHT VINYL .

Everything changed for The Beths when they released their debut album, Future Me Hates Me, in 2018. The indie rock band had long been nurtured within Auckland, New Zealand’s tight-knit music scene, working full-time during the day and playing music with friends after hours. Full of uptempo pop rock songs with bright, indelible hooks, the LP garnered them critical acclaim from outlets like Pitchfork and Rolling Stone, and they set out for their first string of shows overseas. They quit their jobs, said goodbye to their home town, and devoted themselves entirely to performing across North America and Europe. They found themselves playing to crowds of devoted fans and opening for acts like Pixies and Death Cab for Cutie. Almost instantly, The Beths turned from a passion project into a full-time career in music.

Songwriter and lead vocalist Elizabeth Stokes worked on what would become The Beths’ second LP, Jump Rope Gazers, in between these intense periods of touring. Like the group’s earlier music, the album tackles themes of anxiety and self-doubt with effervescent power pop choruses and rousing backup vocals, zeroing in on the communality and catharsis that can come from sharing stressful situations with some of your best friends. Stokes’s writing on Jump Rope Gazers grapples with the uneasy proposition of leaving everything and everyone you know behind on another continent, chasing your dreams while struggling to stay close with loved ones back home.

"If you're at a certain age, all your friends scatter to the four winds,” Stokes says. “We did the same thing. When you're home, you miss everybody, and when you're away, you miss everybody. We were just missing people all the time.”

With songs like the rambunctious “Dying To Believe” and the tender, shoegazey “Out of Sight,” The Beths reckon with the distance that life necessarily drives between people over time. People who love each other inevitably fail each other. “I’m sorry for the way that I can’t hold conversations/They’re such a fragile thing to try to support the weight of,” Stokes sings on “Dying to Believe.” The best way to repair that failure, in The Beths’ view, is with abundant and unconditional love, no matter how far it has to travel. On “Out of Sight,” she pledges devotion to a dearly missed friend: “If your world collapses/I’ll be down in the rubble/I’d build you another,” she sings.

“It was a rough year in general, and I found myself saying the words, 'wish you were here, wish I was there,’ over and over again,” she says of the time period in which the album was written. Touring far from home, The Beths committed themselves to taking care of each other as they were trying at the same time to take care of friends living thousands of miles away. They encouraged each other to communicate whenever things got hard, and to pay forward acts of kindness whenever they could. That care and attention shines through on Jump Rope Gazers, where the quartet sounds more locked in than ever. Their most emotive and heartfelt work to date, Jump Rope Gazers stares down all the hard parts of living in communion with other people, even at a distance, while celebrating the ferocious joy that makes it all worth it -- a sentiment we need now more than ever.

Das dritte Album von Mission to the Sun, Seven Years, markiert eine bemerkenswerte Entwicklung für das Projekt. Während sie ihrer Mischung aus atmosphärischem Sounddesign und gespenstischen Gesangsséancen treu bleiben, dringt das Duo weiter in melodisches Territorium, wobei es die Zugänglichkeit mit seiner Grundlage von elektronischem Lärm und grüblerischen Texturen beibehält. Christopher Samuels' akribische Musikproduktion erschafft eine Welt aus hypnotischen Rhythmen, gebrochenen Melodien und dichten Klanglandschaften, während Kirill Slavin's Gesang rohe Emotionen kanalisiert und den Hörer durch Themen wie Sucht, Besessenheit, Macht, urbane Isolation, nächtliche Verletzlichkeit und die unausweichlichen physischen Zwänge der Realität führt. Von den Basslines und gefundenen Samples von ,Dead Friends", bis hin zu ,Black Hole Soul", dem dem einzigen Stück des Albums mit erkennbarem Beat, wo Samuels üppiger Orgelsynthesizer und IDM-infizierter Rhythmus eine geisterhafte Grundlage für Slavins Meditation über Selbstzerstörung bietet, ist Seven Years unerbittlich in seiner Tiefe. Der Schlusstrack ,Infection" schwillt mit schwermütiger Intensität an, während Samuels Streicherarrangements und Klavier ineinander greifen. Mit "Seven Years" verfeinern und erweitern Mission to the Sun ihr klangliches Universum und dringen mit ihrem Sound in neue emotionale und melodische Gefilde vor und erschaffen dabei die raue, eindringliche Atmosphäre, die ihre Arbeit definiert. Ein Album der Transformation und Abrechnung und die bisher eindrucksvollste und vollständigste Veröffentlichung von Mission To The Sun.

This is an album made during a crucial period in South Africa’s history during which there was a palpable feeling of a slow turning towards the collapse of the apartheid state side by side with an increasingly well-organised culture of resistance through the formation of the United Democratic Front (UDF) and various affiliated bodies. However, as a result, there was increased pushback from the state security establishment, a turning to dirty tricks and the formation of hit squads whose members murdered and tortured many of our friends and created chaos throughout South Africa as well as neighbouring countries.

This album is situated in this political environment however it took advantage of the new do-it-yourself music technologies available at that time. Technologies that made it possible to make and release records without interference from traditional record company executives. Two musician friends of mine pooled their resources after their respective bands had broken up. Ivan Kadey (National Wake) and Lloyd Ross (Radio Rats) built an 8-track recording studio control room and fitted it out in a second hand caravan and called it Shifty. They parked it in a garage attached to the only house left in a demolished and derelict mining village near Soweto on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
All the work on this album was completed there, mainly after hours and mostly alone where I enjoyed an exhilarating freedom to develop a whole new set of musical skills and ideas, incorporating my love of a wide range of music I’d grown up with. Influences of 1970s progressive/kraut/and psychedelic rock combined with mbaqanga bass styles, early reggae/dub and Indian tabla rhythms. Stockhausen, early Zappa and Holgar Czukay were radio text and shredding influences, and Chris Cutler’s band Henry Cow & Art Bears helped me see a way to political expression. Mostly though was the exciting post-punk and no-wave music coming through to us from Europe and America: bands like This Heat, the Mekons, Raincoats, Sonic Youth and Pere Ubu were immensely important to me as was my reading from the period: J.M.Coetzee’s first 3 novels are strong influences on Free State Fence; the stark landscape, superstition, ritual, and sexual repression are in many of his settings. JG Ballard was a constant presence throughout that period, especially whilst living in such a surreal environment, surrounded by mine dumps, but mostly I think the whole French post-modern philosophical movement—Derrida, Foucault and of course, Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation—set out a new sense of possibilities, possible ways to express oneself, ways to think, and ways to try and analyse the political intersection of public and private life. Most important at that time was the influence of sound recordings I had made and experiences garnered from working as a sound recordist on documentary films. These financed my work and later the studio and were consistent employment throughout the 1980s. Film work also enabled me to experience much of South Africa that was hidden from most. The track Independence Day is a good example; drawn from some time spent in the rural homeland of Venda. This then was the first full length Kalahari Surfers album, completed in summer of 1984 it was taken to EMI pressing plant but rejected by the cutting engineer as being ""political, pornographic and anti religious"". Chris Cutler at Recommended Records took up the challenge and released the album through his label. He wrote the original liner note

Limited Super Sound 12" Single out in June 2025

The Chairman of Acid Norwich debuts on Offen with The Caustic Wymondham EP.
Four much beloved tunes to impress your friends.

AI for the Zoomers:

MOY, the groundbreaking artist/band/group, has set a new milestone in the music/entertainment industry with their latest record-breaking achievement. His/Her/Their newest [album/single/track], titled [Album/Single Name], has officially become the [fastest-selling/highest-streamed/most-awarded/etc.] [album/single] in [genre/category], cementing MOY’s status as a global phenomenon.

A1 Phaseacid
A2 Outburst
B1 Strange Geometry
B2 Platonic Solid

All tracks written and produced by Jonny Moy

Noumena is the second volume of music capturing percussionist Tim Barnes in a variety of collaborative settings recorded in extraordinary circumstances over the past few years. Since the 90s, he has collaborated with a range of talents in the indie rock, improvised & experimental music scenes. In 2021, Tim was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer"s at the age of 54, and he and his family went public with this immediately. The response from Tim"s network of friends and musical peers was overwhelming, and, beginning in late 2021, collaborative recordings were undertaken, coordinated and assembled by Tim"s longtime friend Ken (Bundy) Brown, with whom Tim had worked in the past as a member of the group Pullman, early pioneers of the new Americana movement in the indie scene of the late 90s. The recordings for Noumena feature the playing of Joshua Abrams, Oren Ambarchi, Ken Brown, John Dieterich, Darin Gray, Glenn Kotche, Robert Carlos Lange, Ro(b)//ert Lundberg, Douglas McCombs,, Matt Mehlan, Rob Mazurek, Tara Jane O"Neil Jim O"Rourke, Chad Taylor, Thollem, Britt Walford and Mike Watt. As with Lost Words, Noumena cuts a dramatic swath through a sweep of music styles, all of which are deepened by Tim"s versatile, intensely stimulated percussive feel.