Over 10 years ago, Leon Michels released his first full length record, Sounding Out The City. It was Michels' first full length record under the moniker El Michels Affair. At the time, the budding retro soul scene consisted of mostly organ quartets a la The Meters and of course, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings were in the early days of their ascent to world domination. Leon Michels, who was 18 when recording Sounding Out The City began, had just released Thunder Chicken, the first record by his high school band The Mighty Imperials. At the time of SOTC, Michels was just discovering early rocksteady, afrobeat, and 60's garage rock, which inevitably crept its way into the songwriting. He purchased a Tascam 388, an 80's 1/4" reel to reel 8 track intended for home recordings, and began recording music in a 10x10 box with no windows that also doubled as his childhood bedroom. Along with fellow Mighty Imperials Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and Sean Solomon, and Michael Leonhart, Thomas Brenneck, and some of the musicians from The Dap Kings, Michels recorded the LP over a two year period. Upon it's release, it received some rave reviews and the small deep funk community ate it up, but due to the lack luster promotion and distribution the rest of the world was slow to catch on to the instrumental gems featured on SOTC, which Michels appropriately labelled as "cinematic soul". However, in 2005 it found it's way into the hands of the people who were organizing a series of concerts for Scion that paired bands with MC's. El Michels Affair was contacted about playing one show with Raekwon The Chef of Wu Tang Clan fame. The show was such a success it led to a tour, and then to another set of concerts that featured multiple members of the Wu-Tang Clan. This eventually led to the release of El Michels Affair's second record, "Enter the 37th Chamber" which introduced them to a much larger audience and has been their most successful release to date. Michels has since gone on to produce and co-produce numerous records for powerhouse soul artists like Lee Fields. He shares songwriting credits with Adele, Jay-Z, Ghostface Killah, Aloe Blacc, and has played on records by Ray LaMontagne, Lana Del Rey, The Black Keys and Dr. John.
Memories are timeless treasures of the heart.
They never ask to be remembered, they simply endure.
Rooted in authenticity, Barac shapes a full chapter in Storytellers: a life lived underground, poetic and intimate, where heartbeats move as one.
This record nourishes the spirit, reflecting his vision and the true essence of the clubbing experience, alongside the deep connections we share with those we love.
Adepta Editions launches its new FuoriSerie series with catalog number AE/FS-01, a 6-track EP titled Tetsudo by Pauk (Pau Cabruja), a pivotal figure in Barcelona's experimental electronic music and modular synthesizer scene. FuoriSerie is a dedicated series that grants invited artists complete creative freedom, handing over full control of both the musical vision and the visual aesthetic. Within this framework, Adepta Editions operates purely as a platform, empowering artists to build and express their world without constraints. In Tetsudo (Japanese for railway / iron road), Pauk unfolds his signature sonic language through a 6-track journey: a complex architecture built on modular synthesizers, deconstructed glitch rhythms, dense ambient soundscapes, and intricate patterns of friction and inertia. AE/FS-01 stands as an essential release for avant-garde electronic collectors and aficionados of analog-driven, conceptual IDM.
With their sixth studio album, ASN reveal a project in full command of its identity. “Reverie Machine” moves confidently through the many shades of post-punk, grounding its sound in analogue textures while embracing the electronic foundations of dancefloor-oriented wave.
Founded by Libero Volpe in 2007, the project now features Lorenzo Ceccarelli on bass, Alessio Rossetti on guitars and Gianpaolo Cesarini on analogue synths. Together, they carry ASN’s original fascination with kosmische music, science fiction and distant futures into a fully realised interplay of synthesizers, guitars and bass.
Across the eight tracks that make up this outstanding album, dreamlike instrumental passages meet darker songs shaped by evocative vocals, allowing atmosphere and melody to guide the journey. Rooted in the ’80s yet driven by its own imagination, “Reverie Machine” brings these influences together with the assurance and depth of a band at its most mature.
Los Totes 3 compiles more 'celebrated bangers and anthems' from the Colombian label TraTraTrax. This edition features Maoupa Mazzocchetti, Clara!, Wost, Anthony Naples, Dj Babatr, Aquarian and Entrañas. Remixes come from Pariah, Pangaea and Substance. Full fiesta, Full farra
A seasoned DJ and producer with a long-standing presence in New York’s underground dance community, Olive T has steadily built a reputation through her genre-fluid sets, productions and affiliations with key institutions like The Lot Radio and Nowadays. With past releases on labels like Nervous Records, 2MR and Permanent Vacation, her sound is deeply rooted in classic house traditions while consistently pushing forward with contemporary flair.
Following her contribution to Creaked’s 20th Anniversary compilation in 2024 with the hypnotic track "Salt Reflection", New York-born, Geneva-relocated artist Olive T makes a full return to the label with a proper debut release, Light On. This 4-track EP encapsulates her deep understanding of house music’s rich lineage while illuminating fresh sonic perspectives, complete with a standout remix from Swiss luminary producer Deetron.
Naná Rizinni is a São Paulo-born drummer, producer, and composer whose work sits at the intersection of progressive electronics, jazz improvisation, and Brazilian rhythmic traditions. After relocating to London in 2020, Rizinni further expanded her distinctive sound, drawing on influences ranging from contemporary UK experimental jazz to forward-thinking electronic music. A respected collaborator and session musician in Brazil, she has performed with artists including Tiê, Johnny Hooker, Ana Cañas, and Thiago Pethit, and has appeared at major international festivals such as Lollapalooza, Rock in Rio, SXSW, and Primavera Sound.
Her new album,Epiblast, is a deeply personal and sonically adventurous statement. Written and co-produced with saxophonist and producer Mark Cake, the album explores themes of transformation, grief, new parenthood, and self-discovery through a rich blend of acoustic and electronic textures. Combining expansive sound design, intricate rhythmic interplay, modular synthesis, and Brazilian musical foundations, Epiblast draws comparisons to artists such as The Comet Is Coming, corto.alto, Mark Guiliana, and Richard Spaven while maintaining a unique voice of its own. Available on vinyl and digital formats, Epiblastshowcases Rizinni's most fully realized artistic vision to date and positions her as a compelling new voice within the global contemporary jazz and experimental music landscape.
Kraak & Smaak formed in Leiden in pursuit of a particular blend of funk, disco and electronic soul, and over two decades and seven albums, Oscar de Jong, Wim Plug and Mark Kneppers have sharpened a sound that's unmistakably their own: warm, analogue, and always twisting old soul into something new. That sound has carried them from small European clubs to Coachella and American late night TV.
Their 2025 album Velvet Seas was written between Leiden and Los Angeles, and it shows: Californian light and a touch of psychedelia sit easily alongside deep funk and a cinematic reach. The record leaned on a wide circle of guests, among them IVAR, Berenice van Leer, Izo FitzRoy, Butter Bath, The Undercover Dream Lovers, iogi, Kosta G and Kainalu.
Velvet Seas Remixed hands the album's best moments to a curated set of international producers. British disco heritage, classic French touch, Brazilian disco funk, Melbourne club music and homegrown Dutch groove all take a turn, with each producer bending a familiar song toward their own instincts while keeping the album's character intact. Longer, extended versions and alternate mixes round out the full release, letting several of these tracks land in more than one form.
Mack Loenz delivers his debut album From The Heart on Maceo Plex’s Lone Romantic imprint, expanding his razor-sharp, cinematic sound through analog synthesis and retro-futurist design.
Across its ten tracks, the album moves through a palette that is both nostalgic and forward-facing, with glistening arps, soaring pads and growling basslines shifting between physical club function and emotional extremes of melancholic yearning, romantic tenderness and futuristic intensity. ‘Follow Me’ opens with shimmering arpeggios and driving bass building to a euphoric crescendo, while ‘Switching My Flow’ pushes into heavier territory with gritty hoover synths, skittering vocals and chest-rattling subs. Elsewhere, ‘It’s Complicated’ brings a more tender, melancholic edge with rolling drums and expansive, symphonic synth work, and ‘Trust Issues’ leans into a nocturnal, romantic yet dystopian mood carried by sweeping leads and pitched vocal splicing. ‘Waiting Game’ moves into darker, industrial-leaning tension, before ‘Back To The Stars’ closes on a reflective, emotional resolve.
Shaped by a vision to push electro into a more expressive space, From The Heart carries a clear emotional core throughout. As Mack Loenz puts it, “In a time where there is a lot of darkness, this album is about bringing light, spreading positive energy, and creating moments that people can feel both on the dancefloor and within themselves.” That sentiment runs through the record, shaping a cohesive statement that balances club functionality with atmosphere, emotion and forward-facing electronic production.
Continuing the Hyperspace instrumental ambient series tradition are two ensembles: Mindstreams, and the duet Squash and Biscuit. This LP features a full side for each artist and is pressed in lavender vinyl. Mindstreams is a vocalized ambient bed of sound by JP Berreondo and Stefanie Naifeh. From opera to avant-garde, neo-cabaret to singing world music in 15 languages, Naifeh journeys through a colorful mosaic of music. She began her classical training at the age of 8, performed with the San Francisco Opera in the children's choir in Carmen, and majored in opera at UCLA. She later formed the avant-garde, neo-cabaret band, The Underthings in 1987. Squash and Biscuit is a Los Angeles based husband/wife team featuring composers Shuwen Zhao and Brian Griffith. Recorded live from 2020-2021, each piece serves as a short investigation into the world between sound and music using found sounds, musical samples, instrument recordings, and voice manipulation. Limited to 300 copies
The Comfort enters the double digits of its catalogue with the label’s most ambitious release to date by Saudi Arabian artist Noboot, titled “Call and Pulsate”.
Fluid in genre yet wholeheartedly electro in spirit, Noboot’s creative output shapeshifts across the record: from four-to-the-floor acid-tinged propulsion to time-freezing illuminations, with neon-coloured synths, body-twisting low ends and piercing drum hits mutating throughout the album, and often within the tracks themselves.
Noboot’s capacity for sonic manipulation is on full display here with the pieces moving with a captivating direction and command. Sometimes gentle, sometimes dramatic, but always carried with a particular elegance and poise. To listen to the record from start to finish is to step into Noboot’s own conceptual world, one in which the artist has the confidence to take floor-oriented dance music and elevate it both in spirit and form.
There is composure and ambition in this approach. Tracks move the listener from one emotional state to another in the span of six minutes: not merely teasing transformation, but by fully taking the listener there. To deliver on that ambition requires control and idiosyncratic intuition. If “Desolated Delay” and “Timer Set” are striking examples of Noboot’s capacity for propulsion, “Meter Tired” shows the other side of their talent: the ability to make time feel briefly suspended in a weightless flux of cybernetic psychedelia.
To achieve this once or twice would already be impressive. To sustain it across an album of this scale is rare in electronic dance music, and makes The Comfort’s tenth release a defining moment in the label’s catalogue.
Dutch-born and Singapore-based, Mike Risk has spent more than three decades immersed in house music. As a DJ, producer, promoter and agent, he has experienced the culture from multiple angles, building relationships and sharing dancefloors across Amsterdam, London, Ibiza, New York, Chicago, Singapore and beyond.
Now Is Forever is a full-circle moment. A statement. A celebration of a lifelong relationship with house music.
Mike first made his mark in the Dutch underground through Club Risk and later RiskSoundSystem, two platforms that helped shape nightlife culture in the Netherlands throughout the 1990s and 2000s. After decades spent championing the music of others, Now Is Forever is Mike adding his own chapter to the culture that shaped his life.
Created with longtime collaborator Greg van Bueren (Hardsoul) between Amsterdam and Singapore, the album is a deeply personal tribute to the music, people and places that shaped him. From the clubs of Amsterdam and London to the sounds of Chicago, New York and Detroit, it distils decades of dancefloors, record stores, studios and late-night conversations into one body of work.
From deep and soulful grooves to raw house cuts and acid-tinged late-night moments, Now Is Forever explores house music in its full spectrum. It reflects the way Mike has always approached a dancefloor as a DJ: not as a collection of tracks, but as a journey through the many moods and moments that make a greatnight unforgettable.
Featuring Mike Dunn, Bluey Robinson, Marc Evans and John Agesilas, the album brings together years of experience, inspiration and dedication. Crafted not out of commercial pressure but out of creative necessity, it is the product of pure love-for the culture, for the craft, for the music.
Now Is Forever is a past-forward record: rooted in the music, dancefloors and relationships that shaped Mike, while carrying their spirit firmly into the present. At its heart, it is about honouring the kid who first fell in love with house music-and never let go.
Because when you are truly lost in music, there is no past and no future. There is only now.
EchoPlex Records returns with its second full vinyl release, bringing together label owners Inner Echo, French multi-instrumentalist Youthie and Los Angeles-based bass player Dubsworth.
“Ranger” is a steppers cut built around live bass from Dubsworth, rolling 4x4 drums and Youthie’s signature trumpet playing. Dubsworth is a seasoned bass player and a familiar name within the Bay Area dubstep scene, while Youthie brings her trumpet into the mix, adding live melodies to the production and giving the track another layer of instrumentation.
On the B side, “Ranger” gets the full live dub treatment, mixed straight from the analogue desk with delays, reverbs, filters and live effects. A raw dub cut in keeping with soundsystem culture, with the mix shaped in real time.
Pressed as a limited 7” run. The digital release is available exclusively through the EchoPlex Records Bandcamp, with additional dub mixes that aren't included on the vinyl. There will be no release on streaming services or other digital stores.
DJ, model, artist and selector Yuka Mizuhara steps forward with her standout 12-inch release 'Moon Dust' on Rush Hour. For her debut release, she joins forces with producers Benedek and Mickey de Grand IV (Psychic Mirrors), delivering a vibrant boogie and city pop-influenced transmission that bridges contemporary rhythm with classic, sun-drenched grooves.
Having spent formative years immersed in the underground music scene in Tokyo, with extended stays in Los Angeles and London, Mizuhara channels a rich blend of influences into her work. Known widely for her encyclopedic all-vinyl DJ sets, her residency on NTS Radio (Wave Flower), and high-profile collaborations with legends like Haruomi Hosono, Yukihiro Takahashi and Towa Tei, her musical output reflects a deep appreciation for groove, melody, and rhythm, carrying the torch of foundational Japanese techno-pop, experimental, and dance music forward.
On Moon Dust, Benedek returns fully to his signature West Coast boogie roots, laying down rolling, intricate synth basslines and melty chord progressions that form the heavy-grooving backbone of the record. Around this foundation, Mickey de Grand IV and Yuka Mizuhara write and weave extraordinarily catchy, endearing vocal melodies and hook-laden arrangements. Across its three distinct mixes, the track radiates Yuka's cute spirit—evoking a bubbly, high-spirited aesthetic reminiscent of classic 80’s RAH Band productions while blending sophisticated electronic arrangement with warm, organic dance floor vitality.
Fully stepping into her own as a recording artist following recent debut performances at major festivals like RDC and Rally, Yuka Mizuhara invites listeners into a romantic, synth-laden world built on pure groove and creative freedom.
In the realm of Swedish melodic rock from Skövde, few bands command the attention and admiration quite like NIVA. With their signature blend of soaring melodies, powerhouse vocals, and infectious hooks, the band has established themselves as a force to be reckoned. Now, with the release of their highly anticipated 7th full-length album ""Stratospheric,"" NIVA once again proves why they are considered among the elite in the genre.
From the opening chords of the title track, it's clear that ""Stratospheric"" is an album that aims for the stars and reaches new heights of sonic excellence. Led by the Swedish powerhouse vocals of frontman Tony Niva, the album is a tour de force of melodic rock anthems that resonate with passion, energy, and raw emotion.
Throughout ""Stratospheric"" NIVA demonstrates their mastery of the melodic rock genre, effortlessly blending elements of classic rock, melodic rock, and AOR to create a Nordic sound that is uniquely their own. With its larger-than-life production and infectious energy, the album is a testament to the band's evolution and growth as artists, while also paying homage to the rich legacy of melodic rock and AOR that has inspired them along the way.
For fans of NIVA and lovers of melodic rock alike, ""Stratospheric"" is a must-listen experience that promises to transport listeners to new heights of musical ecstasy. With its unforgettable hooks, powerhouse vocals, and electrifying performances, the album is a fitting tribute to the band's enduring legacy and a testament to their status as one of Sweden's most beloved rock acts. So, strap in, turn up the volume, and get ready to embark on a journey to the stars with NIVA's new upcoming release ""Stratospheric"".
- Seventh studio album by the Swedish Melodic Rock group
- Feat. members of Master Massive, Lion’s Share, Wolf, Starchaser
- Produced by Tony Niva & Jan Strandh; mixed & mastered by Thomas Plec Johansson.
For fans of: Niva, Lion’s Share, Treat, Imperium, Eclipse
Katsunori Ishida’s vision of true crossover music reaches its peak. Powerful grooves and striking sound define the resurrection of Zerosen’s legendary first album.
Zerosen was a group led during the 1970s by Katsunori Ishida, who would later gain recognition as a producer, composer, and arranger of numerous television and film soundtracks. With a fluid lineup and only a brief period of activity, the group disappeared almost as quickly as it emerged. The only recordings left behind were two albums originally produced as audio component test records. Yet these recordings would later gain worldwide attention as landmark examples of Japanese rare groove.
Remarkably, this debut album already presents a fully realized concept and sound. Highlights include the rolling groove and vibrant keyboard work of “Scramble”, the hard-driving beat of “Circuit”, and the mellow Caribbean-infused groove of “Majo no Sasayaki”. There is not a weak moment to be found.
Outstanding arrangements and performances generate a groove of exceptional power, while the album’s origins as an audio component test record contribute to its vivid and dynamic sonic character. Here lies crossover music in its truest sense—a timeless fusion of musicianship, groove, and sound quality.
DIVA AS TECHNOLOGY
Arca announces the details of her highly anticipated new studio album, XXXXX, arriving via XL Recordings. Five years after the twice GRAMMY-nominated KiCk i and subsequent KICK pentalogy, the Venezuelan-born musician, producer, vocalist, and visual artist returns with her first full-length album since concluding one of the most ambitious chapters in contemporary music.
If the KICK era expanded Arca's universe outward, XXXXX turns inward and fractures it apart. Across 16 tracks, the album excavates vastly different emotional landscapes to deliver a body of work that is darker, more aggressive, more experimental, and unwilling to settle into fixed form. Initially conceived as a mixtape before revealing itself as an album, XXXXX embraces contradiction as a core methodology. In the spirit of her previous mixtapes @@@@@ (2020)—released as a 62-minute single—and &&&&& (2013), XXXXX thrives on raw exploration and instinct. It arrives as a deliberate interruption of expectation.
“It seems playful, also mischievous, to interrupt that autopilot,” says Arca.
The album's striking artwork depicts Arca as a biomechanical entity, accompanied by two owls—symbols of protection and the underworld in Greek mythology. Like the music itself, the imagery inhabits a space between worlds where transformation is both terrifying and liberatory. Suspended between posthuman augmentation and raw emotion, XXXXX exposes the mainframe. It is a record born from uncertainty, contradiction, instinct, and surrender—a becoming-machine that continues Arca's lifelong project of redefining what it means to be human both in, and against, the machine.
For Arca, rebirth has never been a metaphor, but a practice. She continues to exist in multiple states simultaneously, collapsing boundaries between human and machine, high and low culture, and experimental noise and pop music. Following her first-ever painting exhibition at London’s ICA earlier this year, XXXXX arrives as the latest transmission from a continuously evolving creative process. Over the last year, Arca has remained prolific: unveiling the double-sided single "Puta" / "Sola"; remixing tracks for Addison Rae, Robyn, and Hikaru Utada; collaborating with Tokischa on “Chama”; and contributing production to Madonna’s CONFESSIONS II. She walked the runways and made appearances at major international fashion weeks, while also composing the original motion picture soundtrack for Stillz’s film, Barrio Triste.
Now, after years of transformation beneath the surface, her next musical evolution reveals itself.
Sol Novo is a tale of three parts, created by João Comazzi and Murrin of Púca Sounds & Jogada. In many ways a sequel—and a not-so-distant cousin—to 2022’s Cavalo, the pair return to blend their references into a new, ultra-visual language. Spinning through a sonic world mired as much in greenery as it is in the underground, Sol Novo invites you along for the ride.
The title track, "Sol Novo," whirls into a dubbed-out dawn break, collaging through samples and organic ear-catchers while sun-drenched choruses weave through the mix, reverberating as the light lingers.
On the second track, "Pindorama," Paszarinha’s call to the space-warp curls out from under dark blue bass. Fitting equal parts dreamland and dance floor, the track builds a world to get lost in through ever-orbiting breaks layered with Côco rhythms echoing in the deep.
The final track, "Brasia," arrives in full color: a story led by elements of Gagaku with Axêxê chants and a shimmer bathed in vintage synths. Landing like a call to movement that pulls you up and keeps you moving, it’s a kaleidoscopic sound caught between ancient ritual and electronic nostalgia.
After a stellar debut on the No Guestlist label Blay steps back into the light with an ambitious new record Wave Formations. This record finds Blay pushing further into the space where afro-centric jazz and deep house collide, weaving together synth heavy production with organic rhythms and live instrumentation.
From its opening moments its title track ‘Wave Formations’ holds you captive. From field recordings blurring into a dreamy atmosphere, taking you on a 9-minute spiritual journey across the cosmos.
Its counterpart ‘Rhythm Of Love’ is equally dreamy; A reverb-soaked vocal track with live-band-like energy shape-shifts around its steady and forward pushing rhythm before unwinding into a meandering, melancholic piano outro.
On the flipside, ‘New Teacher’ is an invitation to dance — call-and-response synth phrases on top of driving percussive polyrhythms. What starts off simple and stripped down transforms into a full-on celebration; a boisterous rush of sonic afrofuturism that tries to reach the sun.
Keeping the joyful spirit high, the record closes off with the festive and playful ‘Faith In Us’. This highlife and afro funk inspired record reimagines band members feeding off of one another, switching from recognisable motifs to energetic solos pushing each other further into the light.
Twenty years after forming in Tommy Brenneck’s Bushwick apartment, Menahan Street Band returns with Illusions, their fourth full-length album on Brenneck’s Diamond West Records. The band— Tommy Brenneck, Dave Guy, Nick Movshon, Leon Michels and Homer Steinweiss—have each pursued an array of projects in the years since. Brenneck has produced for Baby Rose, Rogê and Kirby, toured with The Budos Band and runs Diamond West Records and Studio. Guy plays trumpet with The Roots and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and has released his own solo album; Steinweiss has made his own solo record and, with Movshon, has worked across multiple platinum album projects; and Michels continues as El Michels Affair, runs Big Crown Records and has produced Grammy-winning and nominated albums for Clairo and Norah Jones.
Despite their many individual ventures, the group reunited with an energy Brenneck says felt like “the first time.” Recorded quickly and instinctively, Illusions blends Menahan’s signature guitar, horns and drums with arrangements by Brazilian legend Arthur Verocai, taking listeners on an instrumental travelogue that lets the mind wander. Artist Ariana Papademetropoulos contributes original artwork to the album’s otherworldly collection of music.
Portuguese experimental musician António Feiteira returns to Perf with Amuleto Apotropaico’s sophomore album. Língua Espúria (Spurious Tongue) withdraws from the guitar-and-drums interplay that anchored the self-titled debut, moving toward fully electronic arrangements of concrète mechanics. What was once shaped through shared physical gesture now condenses into a singular current: a hermetic pulse carving its own labyrinth through the pandemonium.
The album draws inspiration from Milford Graves's visionary mapping of the body's secret rhythms into function generators. Amuleto Apotropaico has engineered a system that emulates Feiteira's own improvisational drumming language such that muscle memory becomes stochastic digital precision.
Língua Espúria opens with 'Abafador'. A track relishing in burnt afterimages as it patiently leads the listener into Amuleto Apotropaico’s new sound world. Its insistent double-tapped rhythm splinters into four cascading versions of itself, a pulse folding & refolding until it becomes its own perforated haze.
'Carpideira' follows as an algorithmic lamentation set in motion by shimmering temporal reversals: motion-captures of cyclic grief. The track persistently builds until only a few pure tones remainder.
The album's most pared-down moment is 'Espinha de Vidro'. It is the clearest statement of the system underlying Língua Espúria. Here, Feiteira's rhythmic concern is laid bare, every detail exposed in a distilled form, its melodic thread emerging with equal exactness.
'Apotropia III' begins as a subtle hinge in the catalogue, its brutalist‑liturgical atmosphere recast in a divined, techgnostic register. A narrative, gestural drift threads through the piece that connects it to Feiteira’s 'Killswitch Counterpoint', which appeared on his Eastern Nurseries release Performing the Heimlich on an Ouroboros. Shared samples cross-feed his parallel projects, letting them momentarily run on the same signal path. Stuttering percussion, flickers of glitched air & a brooding bass melodic line fill out the margins before the track finally shears off into harsh, serrated noise.
Ohio’s 156/Silence return with From a Distance, their crushing new full-length and first release for Pure Noise Records, arriving September 4. Produced by Josh Schroeder (King 810, Lorna Shore, The Plot In You), the album expands on the breakout success of People Watching with a darker, more cinematic approach that balances punishing heaviness, eerie atmosphere, and emotional depth. Featuring guest appearances from Mike Hranica (The Devil Wears Prada) and Alex Reade (Make Them Suffer), From a Distance pulls influence from horror, prestige television, and retro game soundtracks while moving seamlessly between hard rock, experimental textures, and the band’s chaotic mathcore roots. Atmospheric, unpredictable, and unbound by genre, From a Distance pushes 156/Silence further into their own lane while cementing them as one of heavy music’s most fearless rising acts.
Nearly three decades after first forging one of underground hip-hop's most enduring creative partnerships, Aesop Rock and Blockhead reunite for Trouble Mountain, a new full-length meditation on escape, survival, and the strange terrain of everyday life. Inspired by the nostalgic promise of Poconos resort commercials that blanketed New York airwaves during their childhoods, the album imagines a fictional getaway where the search for reinvention proves just as disorienting as the reality left behind. Arriving as Aesop Rock's 13th studio album, Trouble Mountain finds his writing as inventive as ever—transforming family history, work, memory, and the absurd mechanics of modern life into vivid, deeply human reflections. Blockhead's production is equally vital, pairing the duo's unmistakable chemistry with lean, evolving soundscapes that feel both familiar and newly exploratory.
Together, they revisit the themes that have connected their work since Labor Days: labor, alienation, and the enduring hope that there's somewhere else we'd rather be. Rather than offering an escape, Trouble Mountain asks why we're always searching for one—delivering one of the duo's most imaginative and resonant collaborations to date.
Nearly three decades after first forging one of underground hip-hop's most enduring creative partnerships, Aesop Rock and Blockhead reunite for Trouble Mountain, a new full-length meditation on escape, survival, and the strange terrain of everyday life. Inspired by the nostalgic promise of Poconos resort commercials that blanketed New York airwaves during their childhoods, the album imagines a fictional getaway where the search for reinvention proves just as disorienting as the reality left behind. Arriving as Aesop Rock's 13th studio album, Trouble Mountain finds his writing as inventive as ever—transforming family history, work, memory, and the absurd mechanics of modern life into vivid, deeply human reflections. Blockhead's production is equally vital, pairing the duo's unmistakable chemistry with lean, evolving soundscapes that feel both familiar and newly exploratory.
Together, they revisit the themes that have connected their work since Labor Days: labor, alienation, and the enduring hope that there's somewhere else we'd rather be. Rather than offering an escape, Trouble Mountain asks why we're always searching for one—delivering one of the duo's most imaginative and resonant collaborations to date.
Maryos Syawish (b. 1993, Iraq) is a Chaldean Iraqi artist and musician based in Naarm/Melbourne working fluidly across visual art, sound and curatorial practice. His creative work spans more than 15 years and is defined by a lawless, unorthodox approach that resists traditional genre boundaries.
His Research Records debut is an introspective and meandering exploration of place, legacy and personal history. It’s a marked change of pace for the Melbourne-based producer, who has carved his name into the Australian underground as one half of Sleep D and Butter Sessions Records, but his first full length under his own name feels like an extension rather than a departure from what those attuned to his productions will already know.
Qurmami – which translates to “my roots” – functions as an audio collage that bridges the artist’s dual experiences of growing up in Australia and his heritage as a Chaldean Assyrian. Developed over the course of eight years, the record is anchored by field recordings captured during a pivotal trip to Iraq which are sewn into lush ambient electronics over two sides.
Over 42 minutes the production swells and grows; a delicate and mind-transporting beginning gives way to a more rhythmic, body-moving tail end, drawing subtle influences from dub, ambient, and traditional music from the Northern Iraq region along the way. Syawish’s contemporary, friend and fellow Research artist Khaled Kurbeh features, as does Melbourne-based cellist Abby Sundborn, while Sarah Ujmaia – Maryos’ cousin – contributed the album art and a familial through line that rounds out a cohesive, evocative exploration of identity, memory and the spaces that shape who we are.
Tara Cunningham’s guitar glitch miniatures draw patterns in negative space on new mini-album Warm Ground. Operating predominantly within improvisational and experimental music, guitarist Tara Cunningham has developed a discrete sonic language that reveals the full textural and timbral range of her instrument.
Marking a new chapter for Cunningham that builds on her solo debut, Almost – Not Exactly, released on Non Classical in 2025, Warm Ground unfolds across seven compelling instrumental dialogues - each a conversation of rhythms and found sounds, syncopated and juxtaposed, open to encounter.
Implied by the title of first single ‘Following a Thought’, Cunningham weaves an exploratory melody into the spaces between field recordings. At once introspective and highly relational, each track ushers the listener into a world of different scales, seeking beauty and meaning in the everyday, from the discrete mechanisms of ‘Fridgelight’ to the delicately unhinged organism of ‘Flying Ant Day’.
Cunningham finds a natural home on Odda’s roster of artists sensitive to the details of their materials and surroundings, finding kinship alongside the intimate songcraft of Kirk Barley and Fohn in the gaps between composition and improvisation.
In 2026 she released a self-titled LP as The Sleeves with Jack Cooper, performing at Cafe Oto ahead of a US tour in the autumn. She continues to pursue a range of projects as collaborator and side person with Modern Nature, Sebastian Rochford, Red Snapper, Liam Noble, Laura Jurd and Caius Williams.
Mohammad Syfkhan is back with his second album for Nyahh Records. This collection of new recordings marks a hug milestone in Mohammad’s career as it’s the first album that features all original compositions. And with a full band! We had the great help of Syrian Cellist and composer Naseem Alatrash to help with the string arrangements. The resulting record is a beautiful journey into a timeless Middle Eastern and North African sound akin to the likes of Fairuz or Umm Kulthum with a fast Kurdish Dabke tempo.
I Love You Ireland is an incredibly personal album for Mohammad. The title alone, much like his debut ‘I Am Kurdish’ is as personal as it it’s political. To express such love for a place in music is saying, thank you for making me and family feel safe. Thank you for taking us in. A stand out track titled ‘Ah Yu Donia’ is Mohammad’s first real public moment of grieving for the loss of his son at the murderous hands of Isis. In this song he asks God why he was taken. Trying to figure the sense in the actions of fundamentalists. The strings sections are sad, but not morbid. Acting like a release or companion to the horrific reality of losing a child.
‘Al Huriya’ is Mohammad’s first attempt at using an Irish rhythm known as a Reel, as appose to his usual Middle Eastern rhythms. Again, this is a beautiful way for Mohammad to give thanks to all the musicians and supportive people his has met in Ireland since 2011.
WHO IS MOHAMMAD SYFKHAN
Mohammad Syfkhan is a Kurdish/Syrian Singer and Bouzouki player. He began
playing music in 1980 while he was in college studying nursing. When he got
his degree in 1983, Mohammad moved to the city of Raqqa, Syria where he
began working as a professional singer and started his own band, The Al-Rabie
Band which played concerts, parties, weddings and festivals all over Syria. The
Al-Rabie Band were a much sought-after group. Their live sets included Kurdish, Arabic, Turkish and some Western songs as well as Mohammad’s own original material.
Mohammad continued to play with his band while also working as a surgical
nurse until the war broke out in 2011. This unfortunately brought tragedy to
Mohammad’s family when one of his sons was killed by Isis thus threatening
the lives of the rest of his family. His family had no choice but to leave their
home and seek safety in Europe. Three of Mohammad’s sons were resettled in
Germany while Mohammad, his young daughter and wife were taken in by
Ireland. Mohammad has spoken at length of his confusion and despair with
fundamentalists and how their message is a far cry from the teachings of love
and understanding that he considers the true message of Islam.
Born in West Palm Beach, Florida, to a mother of Indian and Congolese heritage and a father of Slovak and Belgian descent, Siân grew up between Belgium and New York before finally letting her travelling wings come to rest in Paris. What could have become a story of fragmentation instead became a source of creative strength. Singer, songwriter, composer and photographer, Siân has always turned borders into bridges.
She first honed her voice in the jazz clubs of Paris and New York, performing alongside renowned artists such as Richard Bona, Jon Batiste and Mike Stern. Yet her path has always extended far beyond the stage. For nearly a decade, she led cultural initiatives with women and children living through exile, violence and poverty across India and Southern Africa, weaving together music, photography and artistic transmission as tools for dialogue and empowerment.
The true turning point came when she discovered the kamele ngoni, the West African harp whose ethereal sound seemed to echo something long buried within her. The instrument became her musical alter ego—the invisible thread binding together her many inheritances. Guided by Malian master Abou Diarra, Siân embarked on an inward journey towards her African roots. Yet this return to her origins was never an act of retreat into identity. Instead, it gave rise to a body of work that remains profoundly open to the world, where Africa enters into conversation with jazz, folk, soul, alternative pop and the rhythms of Brazil.
Along the way, she has crossed paths with remarkable artists including Rogê, Chico César, Fatoumata Diawara, Lokua Kanza, Flavia Coelho, Thomas de Pourquery and Philippe Baden Powell. On stage and in the studio, Siân continues to shape a musical universe that refuses labels. Like artists such as Björk, Joni Mitchell and Laura Mvula, she moves forward as an explorer, guided not by genre but by intuition.
Today, Siân stands as one of the most distinctive voices of the new Francophone music scene an artist capable of uniting musical sophistication with emotional power, introspection with collective celebration, depth with an irresistible urge to dance.
Animal — The New Album
With Animal, produced by British musician Tom Excell (Nubiyan Twist, Africa Express...), Siân delivers her most intimate and assured work to date. Every song feels like a shedding of skin, a quiet metamorphosis, exploring self-acceptance, femininity, the freedom to be oneself, cultural heritage, and the reconciliation of one's own imperfections.
From Stereotype, a fearless manifesto against the expectations imposed on women, to the title track Animal, an anthem celebrating the beauty of imperfection ("I've turned my cracks into a crown"), the album gives a voice to everyone who refuses to fit into predefined boxes. In Terre, je danse sur toi, featuring Fatoumata Diawara, Siân pays tribute to Mother Earth and to the roots that unite us all. Oh! Congo, recorded with Lokua Kanza, reconciles her cultural heritage with an ancestral homeland that feels both distant and intimately familiar. En équilibre, with Flavia Coelho, embraces the exhilaration of risk and the courage to leap, while Put a Mask and I Could Kill confront hidden wounds and the invisible violences that quietly shape who we become.
In ADé, Siân addresses Adenomyosis as though speaking to an unwanted housemate. "My body is your battlefield," she sings, giving voice to an intimate shadow lodged deep within herself. This bittersweet lullaby transforms a pain so often left unspoken into an act of profound tenderness towards oneself.
The album also holds a rare treasure: Reste tel(le), an unpublished text by Pierre Barouh, the founder of the Saravah label. Never before set to music or performed, this elusive poem of free love finds new life through Siân's voice, becoming a dialogue across time between two artists united by the same devotion to freedom, métissage and openness to the world.
Driven by Tom Excell's vibrant Afro-pop pulse, the spiritual breath of the kamele ngoni, organic arrangements and deeply personal songwriting, Animal is an album of liberation. It invites us to lay down our masks, embrace our contradictions and reconnect with the free, instinctive and powerful animal that lies dormant within us all. More than a collection of songs, it is a radiant manifesto for the richness of identity, the passing on of memory, and reconciliation with oneself.
Animal is not simply the title of an album, it is a declaration of independence. An invitation to live fully, unapologetically, and without instructions.
A citizen of the world, travelling freely between continents, languages and memories, Siân Pottok delivers with Animal her most personal, and perhaps her most universal work to date: an album that reminds us that our fragilities, our roots and our differences are, beyond doubt, our greatest strength.
— Christophe Tison
More good news for fans of Luke Vibert's Plug output. Hot on the heels of the Variety Magic album, released earlier this year, De:tuned returns to the vault with four more previously unreleased Plug tracks.
Following the hugely acclaimed 11-track Variety Magic, which saw Vibert unearth and hand-pick a collection of forgotten jungle and drum & bass gems from his original mid-90s DAT archive, Robotic Futuristic digs even deeper into the same treasure trove. Four more raw, playful and highly distinctive Plug cuts, all previously unheard and finally brought to light.
The EP takes its title from one of the tracks and opens with Luke Vibert's personal favourite: 'Bring A Fuckin' Army'. A full-on jungle workout driven by rolling breaks, heavyweight bass and that unmistakable Plug funk. Put the needle on the record and let it rip. Go 'Head - Do It!
Robotic Futuristic also marks the 17th anniversary of De:tuned, making this a particularly fitting release for the Belgian label.
Visualised by the Variety Magi. Stencil art by Pablo Fiasco and rewired by Openmind. Mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis. A separate digital release will also be available at the usual digital shops.
More good news for fans of Luke Vibert's Plug output. Hot on the heels of the Variety Magic album, released earlier this year, De:tuned returns to the vault with four more previously unreleased Plug tracks.
Following the hugely acclaimed 11-track Variety Magic, which saw Vibert unearth and hand-pick a collection of forgotten jungle and drum & bass gems from his original mid-90s DAT archive, Robotic Futuristic digs even deeper into the same treasure trove. Four more raw, playful and highly distinctive Plug cuts, all previously unheard and finally brought to light.
The EP takes its title from one of the tracks and opens with Luke Vibert's personal favourite: 'Bring A Fuckin' Army'. A full-on jungle workout driven by rolling breaks, heavyweight bass and that unmistakable Plug funk. Put the needle on the record and let it rip. Go 'Head - Do It!
Robotic Futuristic also marks the 17th anniversary of De:tuned, making this a particularly fitting release for the Belgian label.
Visualised by the Variety Magi. Stencil art by Pablo Fiasco and rewired by Openmind. Mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis. A separate digital release will also be available at the usual digital shops.
In celebration of John Coltrane's centennial, this 3-LP boxset includes all 3 albums recorded with Wilbur Harden in 1958 for Savoy Records: Mainstream 1958, Tanganyika Strut and Jazz Way Out. Featuring players including Tommy Flanagan, Curtis Fuller, Doug Watkins, Louis Hayes, Art Taylor and more and cut from the original tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio the album is pressed on 180-gram black vinyl at RTI and housed in Stoughton tip-on jackets and new liner notes from Syd Schwartz.
Three Stripe Records, the original ‘Bristol Sound’ label release their first vinyl in 30 years.
Founded in 1988 by Smith & Mighty, the label was set up to release music from local talent as well as the pair’s own recordings, and in the late eighties released a string of underground hits.
The label’s first venture in ’88, a cover of Dionne Warwick’s ‘Anyone Who Had A Heart’, featured local singer Jackie Jackson alongside rappers M.C. Kelz and Krissy Kriss and stayed at the top of the indie charts for several weeks.
Now after a long hiatus, a new three-track 12” vinyl featuring Tammy Payne performing a cover of the ’60s Mandel & Webster classic, ‘The Shadow Of Your Smile’ is due to be released on 13th November 2026.
The vinyl’s three tracks capture different variations of breakbeat, dub and soul.
The A side is a break driven, dynamic bond-esque version with orchestral drops and rises, over a tough hiphop rhythm.
AA1 is a head nodding, rolling breakbeat affair with a digi dub style bassline, while Tammy’s vocal floats in and out on a sea of echo.
AA2 is the original mello mix with sparse beat machine style patterns and 303 bass line. Tammy’s full vocal carrying the flow in contrast to the urgent backbeat, occasionally joined by keys, guitar melodies and fx.
Each version having it’s own identity while all remaining very ’Smith & Mighty’
In April 1963, The Beatles stepped into a formal lunchtime ceremony at EMI Studios, where they were honoured with their first silver disc, for Please Please Me. This event, attended by EMI staff and the press, was likely recorded for Radio Luxembourg’s Friday Spectacular. Just one month later, the raw energy of Beatlemania exploded at the Walthamstow Granada. The 9-minute newsreel from this show is a time capsule of wild, full-throated screaming—a stark contrast to the relaxed EMI ceremony.
Fast-forward to 1964 and we feature TV performances from Shindig & Blackpool Night Out plus a Tyne Tees TV Interview where the interviewer tried—and failed—to pin down the band’s voting intentions on 15th October 1964, the day of the UK General Election. Whether you’re a longtime fan or a newcomer, these performances offer a unique lens into the group’s early years.
¡NO PASARAN! is the extension to Extrawelt's DYSTORTION, from brooding tension to playful relief, the album took listeners on a six-year-crafted exploration. Their next EP picks up where this epic chapter left off and is clearly related. It's a hypnotic dive into shadow and dream, darkness and melancholy with subtle flashes of light.
The title track of the EP, already known from the album (D1 - Extrawelt - ¡No Pasaran!) carries a commanding presence, pulses with a rolling, insistent bassline that anchors shifting rhythmic currents and evolving sonic layers. Between tension and release, shadows and melody, it's a track that moves like a living entity.
Arctic Dead Run hits like a surge of raw energy. Acid lines roll relentlessly, building tension that feels alive. Then a melody sneaks in - soft, almost fragile - cutting through the intensity, until hi-hats erupt and the groove snaps into full focus. Maximal yet controlled, every element finds its place.
Clipping Me Softly dissolves the pressure with a dark, playful groove. Precise rhythms meet spacious pads, opening into a dreamlike state where night slowly gives way to warmth and light.
A focused and uncompromising continuation of Extrawelt's sonic language: Dense grooves, acid pressure, and dreamlike relief collide in a release built for deep listening and late-night floors.
On March 1 2025, Kim Deal hosted a once-in-a-lifetime sold-out performance at London’s historic Barbican, playing special orchestrated renditions of songs from her acclaimed debut solo album Nobody Loves You More, followed by tracks from The Breeders’ back catalog and earlier solo work. The evening, culminating with a heartfelt standing ovation, was documented in full, to be released as a live record entitled Live at the Barbican on November 13 — arriving almost two years after Nobody Loves You More’s initial release (on November 22, 2024) and rounding out its celebrations.
Live at the Barbican finds Deal backed by a 25-piece ensemble, marking the first time in a decades-long career, that she has played with an orchestra. The idea for the performance came to Deal while mixing her solo album in Hackney: “I invited myself! That’s how I came to play ‘Nobody Loves You More’ at the Barbican. Years ago, I had worked with Chris Sharp at the 4AD label and I knew he was currently at The Barbican. So, I reached out to Chris and said I have orchestration on this record. I would love to be able to perform these songs with an actual orchestra. And Chris said yes, we’d love to have you.”
Alongside the orchestra and Shards choir, Deal was also joined by a band composed of Mando Lopez (The Breeders), Susan Voelz (Poi Dog Pondering), Lindsay Glover, Nick White (Phoebe Bridgers), and Rob Bochnik (The Frames), as well as special guest Raymond McGinley (Teenage Fanclub). The live record was mixed at Studio Black Box and mastered by Heba Kadry.
With »The Future Is Futuristic«, the fifth album for Haleiwa (and third with Morr Music), Stockholm’s Mikko Singh draws from a deep well of nostalgic feeling, while making music that feels razor-sharp, on point, and full of hazy dream-pop pleasure. After 2019’s »Cloud Formations« and 2022’s »Hallway Waverider«, which imagined psychedelic post-shoegaze and mantric pop songs into being, »The Future Is Futuristic« feels like both consolidation and magnification; the noise-drenched songs feel thicker, heftier; the electronic interludes playful and kinetic; the rhythms boundless. It’s as though Singh has truly found his metier, his voice, a place from which he’s comfortable to indulge in the kind of home-recorded worldmaking that has always marked Haleiwa out as something special.
»The Future Is Futuristic« passes by in a rush of whiteout tones and scurrilous energy; the whole thing is over within half an hour, Singh ensuring his songs say exactly what they need to say – no more, no less – before bustling through into the next ecstatic pop moment, pushing the music further into the zone. While his music often has a similar, drenched quality to shoegaze, on »The Future Is Futuristic«, Singh seems to be settling in alongside other spirits – there are touches of the experimentation of both A.R. Kane and Flying Saucer Attack here; the more motoric tunes recall New Zealand’s Snapper; the glitchtronics have a City Centre Offices sensibility, while the sparkling folksiness of the melodies can recall Bristol bands like Light or AMP.
But it’s ultimately not about influence, beyond perhaps Haleiwa nestling alongside some like-minded souls in perceptive listeners’ minds. Instead, thrill to the rush of rhythms that float between jungle and punk on »Flourishing« and »96«, the latter a reference, from Singh, to moments of early revelation – »it’s about being thankful for having found punk rock and skateboarding at a young age, in 1996.« There’s also the hypnotic dream-rush of the opening »Smoke Will Rise«, the beautiful Cure-esque guitars swimming through »Sunset Street« and »Strange Notes«, the tumbling rhythms and heady, elated chord changes that grant lift-off to »Wave Chaos«… A real panoply of pleasures, in fact.
»The Future Is Futuristic« was recorded solely by Singh on four- and eight-track in his home studio, with a quick trip to Telefonstudion to record drums. Recording at home grants a certain intimacy to »The Future Is Futuristic«, even as the songs, at times, bliss their way off into the skies; there’s something both expansive and intimate about the music here, as though Singh is grappling immensities into intimacies. It also feels deeply personal for Singh, a summation of much of what he’s done over the years; as he says, simply and clearly, »The album is in my interpretation a mix between punk, electronic music, and dream pop.« The threads that connect these creative phenomena? Energy, texture, melody, tone, sensuality; pure pop pleasure.
Metabolising 20-plus years gorging on the hardcore continuum, Luke J Murray returns to Sneaker Social Club with the first album under his Liquid DnB-Like Ambient Grime 2 alias. As the first self-titled EP in 2024 demonstrated, with this project Murray applies a hauntological supplement to his life-long diet of rave's codes and signals. These 11 tracks could be embraced as dank bangers in their own right, but the ghostly shroud that lingers is no accident. It's an evocative expression of the hinterland places that frame the pursuit of the dance as much as the energy spikes in front of the bass bins — a diaristic reflection on trudging puddle-peppered streets to find little black doors or staggering home, ears ringing, as dawn comes to chase down the street lights.
Haunted House, Garage & Grime walks the line between atmospheric scene building and straight-up beatdowns with a relaxed swagger. 'The Ginnel In SK4' paints a vivid picture of urban malaise with its bleak synth warps and punk-dub splashes, not a drum sequence in earshot. It's flanked by the Caustic Window-meets-Mark One 'The Flats On Belmont Way' on one side, and low-slung electro-creeper 'Hollywood Park' on the other. As the titles hint, this is music tangibly attached to very specific places locked in Murray's memory — unmistakably UK locations that reflect back the half-hollowed out echoes of late night soundtracks, glancing off red brick and pebble dash concrete at odd angles.
There is space on the album for full-chested amen tear-outs like 'Pete's Gone Mad With The Axe' , but for the most part the mood remains downcast and pensive. The sparse approach affords you space to tangibly hear the (not-so-silent) name-checked rain pattering in the background of 'The Crown Under The Viaduct, While Rainfalls Silently Into The River Mersey' , or imagine the crunch of litter and dead leaves underfoot that snakes its way through minimalist stepper 'Bowerfield Lane, After Dark'.
Murray's vision is sharply realised, and his stated inspirations slot logically into his shelves of ordered ideas drawn from disorderly memories. From Mark Leckey's O' Magic Power Of Bleakness to the Ghost Box records alumni, Hatcha's seminal Dubstep Allstars Vol. 1 and Laura Grace Ford's Savage Messiah book, Haunted House, Garage & Grime is the logical product of a deep thinker making tracks with decades of rave in his bones and the sense that it all means something, even if it's not always clear what.
For over three decades, Berlin-based DJ, producer, and curator Marcel Dettmann has remained a central force in electronic music, continuously pushing the boundaries of the craft. Deeply rooted in early influences ranging from post-punk and industrial to synth-pop, his dynamic DJ sets and expansive discography, including seminal releases on Ostgut Ton and Dekmantel, effortlessly weave together raw techno, Chicago house, electro, and avant-garde soundscapes.
Far beyond club booths and releases on his own imprints, MDR and Bad Manners, Dettmann’s multidisciplinary ethos has led him into artistic territories spanning gallery soundscapes, ballet compositions, and cinematic film scores. This relentless creative curiosity defines a career built at the intersection of dancefloor functionality, collaborative experimentation, and perpetual sonic evolution.
Dettmann introduced My Own Shadow last year, a project where music, visual art, and photography converged in two EPs, Approaching (2025) and Faultline (2026) prior to the release of the full album this coming Autumn. More than just a name, this project lets sound, image, and vision blend organically, reflecting his intuitive process of deconstruction, resonance, and emotional discovery.
Speaking about the project Marcel says “My Own Shadow wasn’t born from a big concept. I simply liked the idea of working under another name and started following it. Different things I was doing - music, photography, visual work - slowly began to connect.
It happened quite naturally. My Own Shadow is me - just seen from another perspective.” Neither an alter ego nor a departure, My Own Shadow: Album is an intimate reflection of the artist; a transient, ever-shifting form that dances with the light and subtly reshapes its contours to reveal new depths.
My Own Shadow: Album is built with textural minimalism through rhythm, tension and release, embarking on a path through the recollections and experience of the dancefloor. This space remains the ultimate proving ground where history, instinct, and transcendence collide, guiding Dettmann through his musical interests.
My Own Shadow - Album is driven by rhythm, texture, space and tension. Across tracks such as ‘Gravitational Scar’ and ‘Resolution Vector’, these elements are constantly reshaped, connecting Dettmann’s past with a sound that remains firmly in motion.
Land of Talk is still here. That wasn’t always a guarantee. Over the multi-faceted twenty year history of their project, Lizzie Powell has drifted from and back to music, always interrogating their role as an artist. In the time since 2023’s Performances, they found themselves utterly worn down by the vicissitudes of the music industry and wracked with worry around their aging parents. Yet the music didn’t stop: Powell heard songs in traffic and in birds chirping, in their downstairs neighbor’s daily prayers and in the babble of children on the street. Melodies slowly cohered over time. “Life can become so unbearable, and music is where I go to metabolize it,” they explain. “I know the music was the only thing that was going to help me.” Soon Powell reemerged with the sixth Land of Talk album, LASTS.
LASTS is full of double meanings — both resilience and finality, acting as a noun and a verb. Though LASTS is haunted by crises including climate collapse, political upheaval, and genocide, the mangitude of global turmoil led Powell towards smaller, humane depictions of suffering and grief. As both their parents became ill, Powell reflected on the last time a person might walk, might talk to a loved one. Yet watching their parents near the other side of life’s arc also made Powell consider all they had survived across their own decades on this earth, their new songs channeling both gratitude and rage. LASTS became a phrase, honoring Land of Talk’s circuitous route and all Powell’s reckoned with through the years. “I think of this record as a love letter to life,” they say.
The end result is an album both lean and winding, allowing Powell’s words and melodies to take centerstage, uncrowded in visceral, shot-no-chaser arrangements. LASTS jumps right in with “Broken Tongue,” a wiry track built on thrumming electric guitar and ghostly synths as Powell rails against the lack of justice for victims of abuse. The trio’s interplay is readily evident in “Saffron” and “4:44,” two earworm songs that also allow themselves to unspool into extended instrumental codas. Early in the record, there are seething tracks like “Dogs” — “Just your basic instinct / Even dogs know better,” Powell growls in the chorus, before the song quiets into a plaintive plea of “Leave us alone now” — and later there are more vulnerable, wandering moments. In “Projections” and “Cedars,” Powell ventures deep into their head, inviting their co-conspirators and listeners alike to follow the songs wherever they meander.
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