“Futurespective” is a remastered compilation featuring the very best releases from the iconic Bulgarian band Les Animaux Sauvages. For the first time ever, these timeless tracks are available on vinyl. Presented in a ONE-OFF truly limited edition of 300 copies lacquered pressed on 180 gr. high quality solid BLACK vinyl. All tracks have been specially remastered for vinyl by Daniel Hallhuber at Young and Cold Studios (Germany).
Danza Tribale opens a new chapter in 2025 with MAITAKE - ??, the debut EP from Italian sound explorer Lo.Sai. Rooted in sonic tactility and movement, the project draws from both ancestral rhythms and experimental structures to create something intimate, immersive, and future-facing.
Named after the "dancing mushroom" from Japanese folklore, MAITAKE is inspired by the interconnected growth of mycelial networks and the emotional ecology of shared experience. Developed in collaboration with choreographer Maria Combi, the EP is a meditation on collective motion - where dance, rhythm, and ritual coalesce.
Across five tracks, Lo.Sai weaves together broken percussion, deep bass, fieldrecordings, and global rhythmic language. Fragments of flamenco, muezzin prayer, and Central African everyday rhythms float through the record - artefacts gathered by the artist's close-knit creative circle in Lunigiana. What emerges is not just a club record, but a living, breathing sonic organism.
Do minerals dream of becoming semiconductors? Do they yearn to carry charges, amplify, switch, and convert energy into emotions comprehensible to humans? And what if, from the darkness of the underground, they had been listening to us sing in caves before the emergence of the first flute? Could they have guided us, through the course of history, to find them, extract them, and create new sounds through sinusoidal waves, to form valves and bend circuits?
If so, minerals would transition from what philosopher Eugene Thacker defines as the ‘planet’—that virginal and unreachable realm for humans that we study through geology, paleontology, and environmental sciences—to the ‘world,’ the space we inhabit, interpret, and synthesise in our daily lives. Sadly, we only remember the world when it erupts violently, through climate catastrophes or when a new virus emerges. Sometimes a tsunami collides with a nuclear plant, or viruses are cultivated as biological weapons in high-security laboratories, provoking a deep biological anxiety, hard to quell, which we all feel beneath our skin.
There exists a third realm, disconnected from both the world and the planet: the ‘earth’, an immense, dense rock floating in space alongside other planets, situated in the cosmological dimension. Relating to the earth is so complex that we only do so through theoretical speculations of a scientific nature or through science fiction, interweaving until one becomes the prophecy of the other, in an infinite, pendular dance. Beyond the darkness of space and Lovecraft’s cosmic horror, the fantasy of human extinction is the most recurrent: to reach a collapse so devastating that we do not survive it, even though the earth does, without us.
In a world where we quantify everything through body sensors, financial algorithms, nanometre-scale robots, and surveillance drones—a world in which everything that can be domesticated and controlled can also be commodified—a superior artificial intelligence would survive the collapse of the species (some speculate it might even cause it) and learn from our mistakes, thanks to our obsessive gathering of data.
Long after our voices fade, minerals will persist in the darkness of screens, in the silicon of chips, and in their pure form, still unexploited underground. Over the millennia, this intelligence might piece together fragments of our reasoning, as if an alien civilization finally connected with one of our spacecrafts loaded with messages cast into the void. It would sort through endless streams of data, unable to grasp the depths of emotion behind what it quantified, recreating simulations of our past, stripped of the nuance that once defined us and conducting experiments in sandboxes.
Some remnants of our existence—faint echoes of forgotten beauty—would be pieced together in an atlas of loss, buried beneath layers of numbers, decayed bots, and corroded hard drives. What will follow? Perhaps bison will once again roam—trotting to the strange pulse of techno, their ancient forms framed by the ruins of our cities.
Buildings will crumble, slowly dissolving under the soft touch of ambient music, and a thousand flowers will bloom with that ancient music created through electrical signals and computation. 7 songs for a future both improbable and inevitable—a final message from a world lost to itself, from planet Earth to planet Earth.
After the success of our first release, UR2wo’s Move Me (including Blame’s legendary Shadow Mix on vinyl) and continued support from big names in clubs and socials, Break-The-Future returns with a new signing: Nathan Cable. A veteran of progressive house, Nathan gained recognition as part of Tenth Chapter, with tracks like Wired on William Orbit’s Guerilla Records in the 90s, supported by DJs like Sasha, Pete Tong, and Dave Seaman. Now back under his own name, Nathan offers a modern blend of intelligent breaks, with a rich, emotional sound that fits alongside Ninja Tune's style. His new tracks are already getting support from John Digweed on Transitions Radio Show.
The release kicks off with Nathan's Innocence featuring the All Tribes Mix, which blends lush pads, whispering arps, and gated vocals. Nathan’s Gyroscope Mix follows with a deeper take, built on rubber bass and rich keys.
For the remixes, we bring Northern Ireland's Richie Blacker, who ramps up the BPMs for the club with a spacey, synth-driven journey.
Last but not least, we have legendary rave innovator Nookie, who offers two remixes: the nostalgic Speed Remix, channeling 90s rave, and the darker Not So Innocent Remix, reminiscent of London’s Rage. Essential!
Exzellente LP mit komplett unveröffenlichtem Material der Stuttgarter Jazz-Rock-Band BAOBAB aus den Jahren 1978-1981. Gegründet Anfang 1970 als Zufallsprojekt der Musiker Karl-Heinz Huschka (sax), Michael Radtke (bass) und Joachim Pflieger (keys), entwickelte sich das Trio im Laufe der Zeit zu einer 7-köpfigen Band mit vielseitigem Spektrum und charakteristischen Merkmalen: Drive mit euphorischen Bläsersätzen, cooler Swing mit Bluesphrasen, Rhythmus mit lateinamerikanischem Anstrich, die Stimme von Beatrice Mathé nicht nur solistisch herausragend, sondern sich auch mühelos integrierend in das Unisono der Leitmelodien. Limitierte Bio-Vinyl-LP im Gatefold samt DL-Code und vielen unveröffentlichten Fotos.
THE REISSUE OF ITALIAN DUO'S SELF-TITLED DEBUT ALBUM – A DELUXE VERSION
OF THE 2015 SOLD OUT RELEASE -180-GR VINYL • 12-PAGE BOOKLET ALUMINIUM FOIL BAG
AND NOW ENTITLED - TEN, (which stands for) Tenth Edition Newness
Drawing inspiration from a wide range of cultures and musical traditions, C'mon Tigre is a dynamic duo that develops its identity into a collective of musicians and artists from all over the world. Along the years, they have collaborated with musicians such as Colin Stetson, Seun Kuti, Arto Lindsay, Xênia França and artists Gianluigi Toccafondo, Harri Peccinotti, Danijel Žeželj and Paolo Pellegrin to name a few. TEN, which stands for Tenth Edition Newness, is an expanded edition of their iconic Self Titled debut album, which was initially published in 2015 through Africantape on a limited vinyl pressing. It sold out quickly, was later repressed by the band and sold out again. Today, it finds its chance to be reissued with the Computer Students™ treatment. Fans will love this remastered version, which sounds substantially better than the original. The album's expansion features a slightly altered record cover in addition to a 12-page booklet with a number of writings and images. TEN will be offered on double black vinyl, audiophile quality pressing 180-gram, inside a gatefold cover. The entire package is housed in a unique heat-sealed aluminum Type-2 foil bag, courtesy of Computer Students™.
Since its inception in 2020, Italo Moderni’s energy, spirit and inspiration has been the dancefloor. The darkened bunkers of Belgium, the trembling speakers of Valencia, the warming dawn of Rimini, these influences have been the lifeblood. Solidifying this tireless effort, Mellow Bangers Vol 2 is the label’s most ambitious collection to date.
In celebration of the imprint’s fifth anniversary, four artists gather with every single one united under a rallying cry. From across the globe, machinists have been drawn together to deliver a statement of acid and wave, of electro and synth with flourishes of italo. The shadowy fringes of the floor are well represented, audio artisans like Cyrk serving distorted drums and melodies dripping with menace in the twisted shape of “Double Crash.” The static haze remains with Fragedis’ “Disco Nicotina,” a lancing melody piercing the soaked speakers of this sweaty romp. Label boss, Adrian Marth leads the charge on the flip. “Modernism” is a stripped and playful two-stepper, a two-stepper that Marth beefs into bawdy proportions before balancing the track with crystalline chords. Amongst the litany of talent are musicians who have both inspired Italo Moderni as well as those who have appeared on the label. Antoni Maiovvi fits such a description, the sound sorcerer slicing beats through bittersweet bars in the immersive “Stopping Power.”
Mellow Bangers Vol 2 is a breathless expression of the floor. A contemporary imagining of the racing rhythms and addictive hooks of the 1980s and 1990s. Four works that summarise what Italo Moderni is and will continue to be
Celebrating 40th anniversary of Yves Deruyter's musical career with this 10 x 12" Vinyl Box Set. Including tracks from F.U.S.E. vs LFO, Tronikhouse, Robert Armani, L.S.G., Edge Of Motion, Plastikman, The Prodigy, Ecstasy Club, and the master himselfYves Deruyter.
Yves Deruyter - 40 Years at the Pinnacle of the Night
Forty years. A rollercoaster of a musical career, meandering through five decades, leaving timeless marks on the collective dancefloor memory. Yves Deruyter is the exception that proves the rule. An icon behind the decks, celebrated far beyond national borders for his legendary sets, impeccable musical choices, and the anthems released under his name. The result of collective effort, where Yves, with his vision and unique touch, consistently left his mark-transforming good tracks into inescapable bombs that still resonate through time.
If you've spent forty years living to the pulse of music, the night is in your DNA. Yves Deruyter, a DJ to the core-the real deal. The man who bent the night to his will, dragging weekend vibes into the workweek like a warrior, a true master behind the turntables who made his people dance. His beats: the oxygen that generations lived on.
Yves sharpened his musical weapons in the early '90s within the iconic afterparty scene of Barocci and The Globe-places that became sanctuaries in Belgium's endless night. Here, die-hard dancefloor warriors, cutting-edge music lovers, and night owls from the four corners of the globe gathered. They willingly followed Yves' masterful mixing and his razor-sharp set construction. Clubs with a more conventional timeframe were the next step, with the iconic Cherrymoon as his home base for years-alongside endless guest DJ spots and global gigs. From there, the underground pulsed through Yves' hands and crates, reaching ever-larger crowds-without ever compromising for commercial or crossover sounds. Yves stayed true to his choices, lifting his audience to euphoric heights like a craftsman, armed with his hits, hidden gems, and freshly unearthed nuggets.
From the pounding energy of Rave City to the flippy, epic flashes of Calling Earth-tracks that not only captured the spirit of the times but conquered dancefloors worldwide. This isn't just music; it's a time capsule-a connection between generations and a reminder of the energy from a golden era.
With musical partners like Roel Butzen, Frederico Santini, M.I.K.E. Push, and more recently, Insider, Yves forged a sound that etched its place into rave and dance history. From The Rebel to The House of House, parts of Yves' musical taste have become immortal pillars of dance music heritage. In the early rave days, he topped Belgium's DJ rankings year after year, elevating every club he played to the highest echelons of popularity. The same held true for the records where his name appeared like a badge of honor.
From The Globe to the globe itself-it seemed almost written in the stars. Yves, thestar DJ, became one of the instigators of the electronic music storm that put Belgium on the global map-a storm that never subsided. Festivals like Love Parade, Mayday, I Love Techno, Nature One, and Tomorrowland saw Yves as a trusted force, effortlessly commanding crowds and turning dancefloors inside out. Forty years later, that storm still ignites partygoers, vibrates through dancefloors, and keeps entire generations moving.
Even today, Yves still holds a steady residency with Yves Deruyter and Friends at Club Moustache, where his concept always sells out. Here, both fresh talent and seasoned DJs deliver a killer blend of modern electronic dance music and timeless classics, creating an atmosphere that hooks the crowd every single time.
Because partying doesn't need an excuse. But forty years? That deserves the spotlight-not as a mere milestone, but as a showcase of timelessness. Music mutates, reinvents itself for new generations, yet retains the same impact as that very first time. Yves proves that forty is just a number, and relevance isn't about trends-it's about vision, energy, and an unmistakable touch. His sets? Indestructible. His sound? A heartbeat echoing through time.
And Yves? He doesn't live in the past. Today, Yves distills those four decades into a compilation capturing the essence of his career. Belgian beats, interpreted and refined into a sound that powered raves around the world. Ten vinyls featuring not just a fiercely curated selection that contextualizes the magic of his early days, but also new versions of three unbeatable anthems-potent hits designed to turn dancefloors upside down in wonder, without losing a shred of their soul. Yves remains a beacon in the night, a searchlight for that one perfect beat-always relevant, always chasing that magical moment.
Yves Deruyter-a name spoken in the same breath as the greats of the scene. A ten-vinyl compilation is more than a celebration; it's a well-earned trophy. As unique, indestructible, and uncompromising as the man himself.
A match made in heaven and hell, since forming in the cradle of Europe Athens, back in 2012, dark synth duo Selofan have paved their own perditious way, reinventing the modern Darkwave scene throughout the continent and worldwide with their prolific creativity and work ethic over the past decade. Through varied experimental synth-scapes conjured with keen ears for sound design, production, and theatrical aesthetics, Selofan rest not on the laurels of just creating highly danceable coldwave infused music, but with together with Joanna Pavlidou's haunting vocals, and Dimitris Pavlidis' throbbing bass guitar, and modular synth compositions, the pair conjure whole other worlds and narratives throughout each album and music video they create. Thus far the Selofan have released 5 studio albums, issued through their own legendary label they curate themselves: Fabrika Records. Through their Fabrika family, Selofan have championed such acts as Lebanon Hanover, and She Past Away, aiding these bands in becoming two of the most popular Darkwave acts worldwide. Drab Majesty even cameoed in a She Past Away video while being hosted by Selofan during one of the band's frequent stays in Athens, and Kaelan Mikla, a handpicked favorite of The Cure, were first championed by Selofan, through the release of the Icelandic Trio's self-titled debut in 2016. In the Spring of 2020, Selofan released the video for the hopelessly plaintive "There Must Be Somebody", the first single from their forthcoming sixth studio album Partners In Hell, the follow-up to 2018's widely popular Vitrioli LP. "There Must be Somebody" is a discordant composition, mimicking the startled song of birds after a disturbance in a wooded enclave on a mountainside, while a magick ritual unfolds. The album itself opens with "Grey Gardens", a menagerie of morose melodies setting a sombre tone for the rest of a bleak record whose sound design and dreamscapes evoke the best sounds of British and German post-punk of the 80s. "Almost Nothing" is a brooding bell-driven track with a dark and pirouetting melody that is the perfect soundtrack to a figurine twirling in a music box. The German language "Nichts" means No, and this song is both sinister and cinematic with sighing keys, shuddering drum machines, and German lyrics sung with sorrowful conviction. "Zusamen", is a word often asked if you are together, or separate, is a dark ballad whose shadowy keys weave a nightmarish delirium, evoking the soundscapes of a lullaby sung in a haunted dollhouse. "4am" is a restless rhythm, whose soft percussive melody tosses and turns alongside subtle bass and string accents overlaid with despondent vocals. "Happy Consumers" sounds like the swirling of a finger drawn upon the edge of crystalline glass, with vocals and drum machines coming emanating from an adjacent room with echoing acoustics, collectively evoking the sound like lingers when the somnambulist wakes from his dream. "Absolutely Absent" hums onward like a phantom train ride that is a one-way ticket to madness, and with the next track "Metalic Isolation" the locomotive beats gather more steam, propelled forward with anachronistic melody. The album closes with "Auf Dein Haut", which translates as on your skin, and the song is both tactile and tenebrous with sensuously dark synth textures amidst howling German vocals that take flight like witches during a sabbat. Partner's In Hell was mixed and produced by Serafim Tsotsonis, and mastered by Doruk Ozturkcan. Genre: Alternative / Post-Punk / Cold Wave
In October 1987, four months after the release of their critically acclaimed Sister LP, Sonic Youth showcased their latest work in a blistering set at Cabaret Metro, Chicago. The concert was introduced by Big Black's Steve Albini (who at the time was banned from the venue) and subsequently released as a semi-official bootleg under the title Hold That Tiger on writer/provocateur Byron Coley's impishly Geffen-baiting label Goofin' (years later the band would use this nom de guerre for their own imprint).
Hold That Tiger's sterling reputation among the Sonic Youth faithful is well deserved. In fact, it isn't a stretch to suggest that the album is to the first handful of SY releases what It's Alive is to the first three Ramones LPs – a feral and liberatory public snapshot of a band's blossoming imperial phase. Indeed, HTT is the sound of a group at the peak of their powers, presenting new songs alongside a handful of older ones with the kind of wild, cathartic enthusiasm common to rock 'n' roll's most revered live albums.
Taking nothing away from Sister – inarguably one of indie rock's first true masterpieces – it is reasonable that many fans prefer the live versions heard on Hold That Tiger to their studio counterparts. On HTT, Sonic Youth is a spiky, pummeling and confident force, alternately mammoth and meditative. Sister and its predecessor EVOL notably added an airy, dreamlike reverie to the band's turbulent doom-lurch, a stylistic evolution that seems to crystallize on HTT. Throughout, Kim Gordon's sinewy, sumptuous bass and Steve Shelley's propulsive, tom-heavy percussion provide the bedrock groove for Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo's ferocious barrages of noise-guitar crunch.
By 1987, the band was confidently articulating their dual lexicon of punk-noir dissonance and supernal, psychedelic sonic calligraphy – bending their jagged, streetwise gnarl into balloon animals of dazzling and beautiful songs. This collision of splendor and chaos would become a hallmark of the group's singular alchemy as well as provide a blueprint for the post-SST American underground they would help invent and ultimately nurture.
Hold That Tiger's encore – four songs by the band's beloved Ramones, which Thurston would later astutely compare to "the perfect pudding after a hearty meal" – serves as a reminder that, like any true punks, Sonic Youth never could resist a good, rousing anthem to send the kids home with their ears ringing, their hearts hot-wired.
This first-time reissue with speed-corrected master comes in a gatefold tip-on jacket. Mastered by Bob Weston from the original tapes. Recorded by Aadam Jacobs. Audio repair/editing by Aaron Mullan.
Over three years in the making, Needle Mythology Records is delighted to announce a super deluxe, expanded remastered reissue of The Lilac Time’s 1991 masterpiece, Astronauts. Released as a triple vinyl, triple CD or single vinyl, only 1000 copies of each format will be produced, there will be no further pressings. Both the 3LP and 3CD editions will come with an extensive 11,000 word oral history of Astronauts and liner notes by Needle Mythology co-founder and longtime Stephen Duffy fan, Pete Paphides.
All three albums including a 2024 remaster, a collection of works in progress entitled‘Softened By Rain The Making Of Astronauts’ and a live compilation ‘Any Road Up The Lilac Time Live 1990/91’ have been mastered for vinyl by Miles Showell at Abbey Roadand will be housed in a triple gatefold sleeve with a colour inner sleeve and new artwork for each disc, which has been especially created by designer Mike Storey. The main sleeve for Astronauts itself will replicate the original artwork but with the four distinctive “blobs” rendered in a red “foil” texture. In addition to these three disc sets, 1000 single vinyl remastered copies of Astronauts will also be made available, in a cherry red vinyl edition to match the outer sleeve.
With the shoegaze and baggy movements at their zenith, The Lilac Time’s fourth album was released at a moment when the left-field music zeitgeist was shaped by the nascent shoegaze, baggy and grunge movements. Whilst Astronauts conformed to none of those trends, neither was it the record Stephen had in his head when he finally finished working on it. We’ll never know how that record would have sounded, but it’s hard to imagine a better version of the album he did end up making. The songwriter who brought ‘A Taste of Honey’ and ‘Hats Off, Here Comes The Girl’ into the world envisaged the sort of choruses that would jump from the single speaker of your favourite transistor and lodge themselves into the collective memory bank.
But while he really was writing some of his most beautiful melodies, Astronauts is a family of songs that demands to be kept together in the sundazed cloud of inspiration that created it. It constitutes a partial retreat from the outwardfacing utopianism of its predecessors, choosing instead to dwell on the journey taken to get to this point. That this is an audibly different band to the pastoral expeditionaries of the group’s previous releases is almost entirely down to the departure of Nick Duffy and the arrival of Sagat Guirey. Suddenly, accordions, banjos and mandolins are out; jazz guitar is in. Sagat’s filigree work on the outro of ‘A Taste for Honey’ acts as a sublime parting shot to a lyric which acts as a wiser, wistful companion piece to Stephen’s 1985 solo hit ‘Kiss Me’, something tantamount to the camera retreating to reveal the years elapsed between the time depicted and the present day. The distance between the carefree youth of pop stardom and the first intimations of mortality can be measured between the first and second verses of the quietly devastating ‘Madresfield’; from the depiction of the deserted cricket pavilion obscured by fresh snowfall to the sudden shift in perspective from subject to protagonist: ‘No one ever told me/That killing time is harmful/For time cannot recover/What soon the ground will offer.’ For all of that, however, the resulting album didn’t correspond to the vision its creator had for it. At a loss as to what to do with it, Stephen surrendered Astronauts to Creation with no plans to promote or draw attention to it. The consciousness shift of which Stephen had hoped The Lilac Time might be a precursor hadn’t happened. Or, rather, it had – but it had happened elsewhere, in the Haçienda and Shoom and in Ibiza. Not on the hills of Herefordshire. In a nod to that sea change, Stephen handed over one song, ‘Dreaming’ to Hypnotone, who
Powerloader Records returns from the graveyard. Serving spooky tunes that will gather all ghouls ’n ghosts onto those dusty, haunted danceoors. Turn into a freak to the A side, get romantic to Glass Skin or just show them what kind of ghoul you are.
Konstantin Sibold makes his debut on Adam Beyer’s revered imprint with compulsively danceable, highenergy, abrasively dark yet, in Sibold’s expert hands, somehow upbeat three-tracker ‘Lost In Space’. Previously releasing on Afterlife, Running Back, Aufnahme + Wiedergabe and Innervisions, the German producer eschews any genre straitjacket with his underground roots and mix of very diverse sub-genres. As a DJ, Sibold plays iconic venues worldwide inc.
Panorama Bar, Fabric, Tomorrowland, Awakenings and is famed for his marathon B2B sessions with artist inc. Solomun, Kobosil, Kerri Chandler, Kevin De Vries, and his remixes of such differing luminaries as Vintage Culture, Rebuke, Adriatique, Lana Del Rey, Laibach, Royksopp & many more. For the title track, Konstantin collabs with rising 20-years-young Brazilian talent KAF3R who aims to bring ‘sentimental and memorable experiences’ to all, creating a maelstrom of yin & yang. ‘Lost In Space’: This Peaktime Mainstage Melodic Techno monster efficiently resets the dance floor and turns it upside down at the same time.
A spacey robot vocal riff predicts a massive synth orchestrated shutdown. Konstantin Sibold debuted this beast at Tomorrowland Winter Mainstage. Heavily supported by Kolsch, Vintage Culture, ANNA, Kevin De Vries, Innellea and many more. ‘The Arrival’: This catchy stadium singalong hymn unites the dance floor with its Hands-Up hook, gated vocals and rolling baseline. Feels like a retro futuristic classic you already seem to know from a distant euphoric memory. ‘Dark Matter’: A hypnotic, recurring melody transcends between light and darkness. Referring to Konstantin Sibold’s old melodic techno hits such as 'Mutter', but with the addition of a trippy, alarming vocal fragment.
‘One of the finest jazz guitarists of her generation, Halvorson is possessed of a questing, restless spirit.’ – Jazzwise
‘With an album of string quartet music as strong as this one, she is worthy of as much renown in the classical field as she holds in the jazz community.’ – New York Times
‘One of America’s finest guitarists. Halvorson’s musicianship is open-minded, demanding and richly engaging.’ – Uncut
Nonesuch Records releases Cloudward by Brooklyn-based guitarist, composer, and MacArthur fellow Mary Halvorson on January 19. The album features eight new compositions by Halvorson, performed with her sextet Amaryllis, the improvisatory band that performed on her critically praised 2022 albums Amaryllis and Belladonna comprising Halvorson, Patricia Brennan (vibraphone), Nick Dunston (bass), Tomas Fujiwara (drums), Jacob Garchik (trombone), and Adam O’Farrill (trumpet). Labelmate Laurie Anderson also is featured on the album track ‘Incarnadine’. Halvorson and Amaryllis will tour internationally following the release of the new album, including January dates in Europe, as well as at the Big Ears Festival as part of Nonesuch’s 60th anniversary celebration.
Halvorson says, “All of the music on Amaryllis was written in 2020, during the thick of the pandemic, in one of the more bizarre time periods I’ve experienced in my life. While composing for Amaryllis, I expanded upon certain musical concepts I’d developed in my life up until that point—the ones that felt fruitful—and left others behind, hitting the reset button and attempting to build from scratch. Two years later, after the release of the first album, I was still writing music for Amaryllis.
“All the music on Cloudward was written in 2022, mostly in the fall and winter, when things started moving forward. Life felt like a creaky machine starting up again,” she continues. “Air travel, however chaotic, had resumed, and we were once again cloudward. Performances and tours and recordings were happening after a long hiatus and with a renewed sense of gratitude. This band, for me, was quite simply working, both musically and personally, and the main thing I felt while writing the music was optimism.”
The Guardian said Halvorson’s 2022 double release “shows how far this single-minded original has come, and affords a glimpse of how far she may go. Both sessions confirm how years of jaggedly lyrical solo and ensemble improvising and a quirkily subversive affection for mainstream music have now nurtured a composer of unpredictable but warmly expressive character… These are new landmarks in Halvorson’s already inimitable discography.” Pitchfork said, “Amaryllis and Belladonna are distinct statements; one could hear either album on its own without a sense that something is missing. But they are most powerful when taken together, like a landscape and its reflection in rippling water.”
Halvorson has released a series of critically acclaimed albums, from Dragon’s Head (2008), her trio debut featuring bassist John Hébert and drummer Ches Smith, expanding to a quintet with trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson and alto saxophonist Jon Irabagon on Saturn Sings (2010) and Bending Bridges (2012), a septet with tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and trombonist Jacob Garchik on Illusionary Sea (2014), and finally an octet with pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn on Away With You (2016). She also released the solo recording Meltframe (2015), and most recently debuted Code Girl (2018, 2020), a new ensemble featuring vocalist Amirtha Kidambi (singing Halvorson’s own lyrics), trumpeter Adam O’Farrill, saxophonist and vocalist María Grand, bassist Michael Formanek, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara.
One of New York City’s most in-demand guitarists, over the past decade Halvorson has worked with such diverse musicians as Tim Berne, Anthony Braxton, Taylor Ho Bynum, John Dieterich, Trevor Dunn, Bill Frisell, Ingrid Laubrock, Jason Moran, Joe Morris, Tom Rainey, Jessica Pavone, Tomeka Reid, Marc Ribot, and John Zorn. She is also part of several collaborative projects, most notably the longstanding trio Thumbscrew with Michael Formanek on bass and Tomas Fujiwara on drums.
DJ Support: Dr. Banana, Secretsundaze, Heels & Souls, Velasco
For their third release, Moonworks look to Italy with a reissue of a hyper-rare underground earworm by Urban Heads, originally from 1998.
Urban Heads’ ‘The Wind’ is a lost Italian gem produced by Federico Scavo which has remained a secret weapon in the bag of a select few tastemaker DJs until fairly recently, with original copies practically impossible to come by. Since producing this record, Federico has gone on to become one of Italy’s best known DJ/Producers, with multiple chart-topping hits under his belt gathering millions of plays.
‘The Wind’ offers two floor-filling mixes of quirky, boisterous, distinctly European house music. Whether you’re playing the disco-infused Cosmic Version or the dancefloor weapon that is the Space Mix Version, we have no doubt that this record’s signature vocoder riff and captivating basslines will remain permanently embedded in the mind of everyone in attendance.
Moonworks have once again worked closely with the original artists to restore and remaster these tracks from the original DAT tapes, as well as revamping the original artwork in their own style.
Like the morning sun penetrating a Winter sky, a shimmering frost flecks the brightness of “Message to Nowhere”.
The four tracker showcases the sound of Ruben Benabou’s Hyperstellar nom de plume, a sound that draws inspiration from sci-fi soundtracks and the warmer currents of electro. Refracted bleeps introduce the title piece, shorn beats cutting through glowing synthlines as the EP takes flight. Tight terse drum patterns are the launchpad from which melodies sail and swoop in “Words in a Void”, bittersweet strings and warbling pads bending and shifting above juddering basslines. Fellow Frenchman, and all-round electro virtuoso, The Hacker remixes “Message to Nowhere”. Pulling the track toward the centre of the floor, scissoring snares slice through echoing notes and silken shrouds in this machine funk remake. Temperatures rise for the close. Bold key changes and snapping rhythms gather in “A Thousand Nights”, a lively late evening close to a quartet of sheer quality.
Age Of Paranoia, the latest chapter in the band's lineage, was recorded by Igor Wouters at ARC Studios in Amsterdam, and includes several special guest guitar solos by J. Mascis (Dinosaur Jr., Witch) and Bubba Dupree (Void, Soundgarden, Dave Grohl's Probot, Brant Bjork).
Age Of Paranoia offers sixteen volatile tracks, packed into a succinct, white-knuckled twenty-eight minutes. The album surges with rapid-fire punk angst, replete with ripping rock leads and raised-fist, group-chanting anthems.
To complete the recording, the cover artwork is created by Marald (Baroness, Kylesa, High On Fire). See cover artwork, track listing and live dates below.
'One of the best and most important hardcore bands today" - PROFANE EXISTENCE
''Excellent and addictive, gathering the best of punk and metal: one part hardcore punk, another Motörhead'' - METAL ADVISOR
'the supreme thrash band in all of current rock 'n' roll'' - MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL
Gospel melts into Soul in this dazzling collection of sides originally released by the Chess subsidiary.
Devised by the same team supporting the likes of Muddy Waters and Etta James at Chess, the vintage of Checker Gospel celebrated here is distinguished by its expertly raw, rugged, live feel — thumping bass and pounding drums, bluesy guitar and horns — and its keen engagement with contemporary realities and politics, with an underlying, unwavering commitment to the Civil Rights movement. Not forgetting its sheer, startling, richly diverse soulfulness.
Key architects of the Chicago Sound and Motown are amongst the scores of contributors: Charles Stepney, Gene Barge, Eddie Kendricks, and Leonard Caston Jr. are in the house… Morris Jennings, drummer on Curtis’ Superfly and Terry Callier’s What Color Is Love… Louis Satterfield from The Pharaohs and Earth Wind & Fire… Ramsey Lewis’ guitarist Byron Gregory… Phil Upchurch… Laura Lee…
Producer Monk Higgins joined Checker in 1967, bringing his experience of R&B and Gospel hit-making for the labels One-derful and Satellite, together with a loyal cohort of musicians. A protege of Willie Dixon, engineer Malcolm Chisholm set up the Ter Mar studio as if preparing for a live gig, carefully teasing measures of bleed into the microphones. With Ralph Bass from King Records running A&R, they knew exactly what they were after. ‘I’m using horns and an R&B sound in gospel recordings,’ said Bass. ‘We have no charts. All the musicians are given the chord changes. I want the cats to think when we’re cutting. I want spontaneity, and that’s what we’re getting.’ And: ‘There is more to gospel than just finding solace in the church. This follows the same message of Martin King, who was fighting for a new way of life. Kids are tired of hearing Jesus Give Us Help. They want a positive message.’
Focussed on the late sixties and early seventies, the twenty-five recordings here are all killer no filler, but try these four, random entry points: the heavy funk ostinato of the Violinaires’ Groovin’ With Jesus, working itself up into a post-James-Brown brass frenzy, sure to knock your socks off; Cleo Jackson Randle’s title track, for those who like their Gospel straight-up and hard-core; Eddie Kendricks’ achingly timely choral call-to-arms, Stand Up America, Don’t Be Afraid; the East St Louis Gospelettes’ heart-stopping, fathoms-deep rendition of Bobby Bland’s I’ll Take Care Of You.
A beautiful gatefold sleeve; a full-colour booklet with excellent notes by Robert Marovich; top-notch sound. Another knockout selection by Greg Belson and David Hill.
Colombian-born artist Juan Carlos Torres Alonso, aka OKRAA, presents his third sonic exploration on A Strangely Isolated Place titled, La Gran Corriente. This album marks a profound shift in Juan's creative journey, where themes of portals, the illusion of time, and the paradoxes of self-discovery converge into a powerful auditory experience.
Following a transformative visit to Bogotá in May 2023, Juan underwent an introspective journey that inspired a new direction in his music. This experience, which he describes as an encounter with "an infinite current behind or inside of everything," led to a complete reimagining of his work. Abandoning previous demos, Juan embraced a liberated creative process that was both challenging and exhilarating.
La Gran Corriente is characterized by its innovative production techniques, eschewing fixed grids and BPMs in favor of fluid, organic structures and combining influences from Juan’s other production alias, ‘Laudrup’. This approach not only opened up new creative possibilities but also led to numerous "happy accidents," resulting in a body of work that is as unpredictable as it is cohesive.
At the heart of the album lies a poem written by Juan during production, a text that echoes the themes woven throughout the music. Translated loosely to English, the poem reflects on the nature of reality and time, with lines like "the land of oblivion is not real" and "the great current reminisces; time is an illusion." These words serve as both a guide and a reflection of the album’s deeper meaning.
La Gran Corriente is a record that invites the listener to unlearn and to immerse themselves in a sonic current that is both infinite and transformative. It’s a testament to the power of creative reinvention and the relentless pursuit of deeper truths through music.
Featuring artwork by Peter Skwiot Smith, La Gran Corriente is available on gatefold colored vinyl 2LP, mastered by Taylor Deupree / 12k Mastering.
We are proud to bring you part II of the CEP VA series, featuring six tracks that span a wide range of genres. Each track brings its own signature to this release, making it truly one of a kind.
Beta.V opens the A-side, fusing self-sung vocals with multiple synths that harmonize beautifully together to create a timeless track. This is followed by SWART's 'Eternal Raver', much akin to old-school trance thanks to hypnotic synths and dreamy textures creating a meditative state. A3 introduces ETERA’s 'Classic Shit', a dancefloor weapon with stomping beats and crisp, background drums signaling the signature sound of ETERA himself. On the B-side, SZG stands out with its gated synthline, pounding bass, and catchy vocals from Brazilian MC DDSV adding that unique energetic spin to this release. DJ HENNE’s 'Roboter' on B2 is a hard house slayer featuring a deep mid-track breakdown and self-sung vocals - a DJ HENNE classic. Wrapping up the release, Pōnky combines groovy, funky plucks with a smooth finish, closing the EP out on a playful note.
'Pursuit Of Change' drops via CEP Records on 29th November 2024.
Featuring 17 chart-topping hits from the legendary band Earth Wind & Fire, this album is a must for any collector. Earth Wind & Fire's Greatest Hits is perhaps the best collection for both beginners and lifelong fans of the band. Featuring all the hits of the 100 million selling band, this album is bursting with groovy, funky, and soulful music.
With certified classics such as "September", "Let's Groove", "Boogie Wonderland", "After The Love Has Gone", "Fantasy" & "Shining Star", this is a must for anyone with a turntable.
Greatest Hits is available as a limited edition of 3000 individually numbered copies on flaming coloured vinyl, housed in a gatefold sleeve.
LP + insert with extended liner notes and download code including extra bonus track 'Movements of The Mind'.For his second album on the Belgian leftfield imprint Cortizona, Devin Brahja Waldman gathered a group of insanely gifted and talented musicians to start a new and highly moving musical chapter titled 'Nebulizer'.
From the first moment the pulsating tone of Devin's synth blends with the whispering voices of Earth, Wind and Choir and the menacing bells Naima Karlsson set in motion this record you just know and feel immediately 'Nebulizer' will be a soul-searching journey, soaking you deep into an unknown and very personal musical world.
Devin Brahja Waldman is a New York saxophonist, drummer, synthesizer player and composer who leads the group BRAHJA. He has performed with Patti Smith, William Parker, Nadah El Shazly, Malcolm Mooney, Thurston Moore, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Charles Hayward, Luke Stewart and Yoshiko Chuma. Waldman is also a member of NYC's Heroes Are Gang Leaders (led by poet Thomas Sayers Ellis and saxophonist James Brandon Lewis), of Sam Shalabi's Land of Kush, and of the Norwegian hardcore group MoE.
In 2022 BRAHJA released the critically acclaimed album 'Watermelancholia' on the Belgian leftfield imprint Cortizona. For his second album on the same Cortizona label, Devin Brahja Waldman gathered a group of insanely gifted and talented musicians to start a new and highly moving musical chapter titled 'Nebulizer'.
Together with Adam Kinner, Georgia Wartel Collins, Earth, Wind and Choir, Luke Stewart, Kenichi Iwasa, Naima Karlsson, Alexis Mercelo, Janice Lowe, Watson and Damon Hankoff, Devin forms a slow-burning fireball unity.
A devotional séance channelling unknown powers proving music is a healing force of the universe.
Rejoicing the Holy Jazz Spirit.
Ready to nebulize the world and bring light out from the darkness. Head cleaning the world in 4 musical parts: Geological Drum, Nebulizer, Bushido and Movements of The Mind. Nebulizer is an elevating meditation on our estrangement of nature.
Interstellar sonic stardust from a mindblowing collective that will leave you flabbergasted.
Be prepared and hear it to believe it.
For fans of: Art Ensemble of Chicago, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, John & Alice Coltrane, Kamasi Washington, Shabaka Hutchings, SAULT, Ill Considered, Jamie Branche, Angel Bat Dawid, Mackaya Craven, Matana Roberts, Sun Ra and other good music.
Back to ACID and back to meaningful underground vibes and attitude.
Servants Of Struggle unleash their first EP on their own eponymous label with 4 trax of classic Acid House and Techno with a modern twist.
Made up of a shadowy collective of members this gathering of like minds features at least 2 legends of Acid (inc one original Acid House pioneer) but it isn’t about who’s making it, it’s about the sound, the sound of funked up 303’s, dark vocals, thumping kicks and percussion, and tons of attitude.
Already being championed by the likes of Mr C, Colin Dale, Billy Bunter & Blue Peter
Ashley Henry präsentiert mit diesem Album eine spirituelle Jazzreise, die Hingabe, kollektive Träume und den Kampf um Freiheit vereint. Mit gefeierten Künstlern wie Judi Jackson und Aja Monet ist diese Platte eine kraftvolle Hymne an unsere Zeit, die Nina Simones Erbe widerspiegelt und gleichzeitig Inspiration am Puls der Stadt London und im kollektiven Träumen findet. Gelobt von globalen Medien ist Ashley Henry mit seinem charakteristischen Klavierspiel und seinen beruhigenden Gesangsklängen auf dem besten Weg, einer der einflussreichsten Jazz-Acts in Europa zu werden.
Auf 'Who We Are' arbeitet Henry mit einer Vielzahl zeitgenössischer Künstler zusammen, darunter die Grammy-nominierte Dichterin und Texterin Aja Monet, der Grammy-nominierte Trompeter Theo Croker, die Sängerin Judi Jackson und der Londoner Hip-Hop-Künstler MAK. Henrys lebendige Ausdrucksformen der Jazzkultur wirken ebenso schön wie bedeutungsvoll. Henrys tief verwurzelte Einflüsse und seine visionäre Überzeugung machen ihn zu einem der aufregendsten, neuen Londoner Musiker. Seit er mit Christine & The Queens weltweit auf Tournee war und Loyle Carner in ganz Großbritannien unterstützte, hat Henry viel Lob von den Kritikern bekommen. Unter anderem von The Guardian, Evening Standard, Clash und Wonderland.
Das wunderbare Album erscheint auf Naïve als Gatefold 2LP-Set und CD!
'Science, Art And Ritual' is a story of ‘process'. Growing up in Harrow (a then quiet suburb of London) in the 70’s and 80’s from the age of about 10, Kingsuk Biswas aka Bedouin Ascent's ears opened up to sound as he scanned the airwaves. The undeniable righteousness of 80’s dub via David Rodigan’s Roots Rockers shows was the first prominent influence he received, and with punk roots —and his burgeoning record collection— became exposed to the breathless post punk experimentation that followed in the early 80’s sweeping up free jazz, noise, dub and much more. Throughout though, he maintained his fascination with Indian Classical music which was a mainstay in his parent’s house and spoke with the same infinite space as Joy Division's 'Unknown Pleasures', and King Tubby’s Studio dispatches. Through those teens he assembled and de-assembled, knocking about with fellow travellers —punk bands, garage, space rock, noise. Something was happening. On-U Sound, ECM, Factory Records kept him plugged in and sane.
At that time Kingsuk's core studio setup revolved around his vintage Gretsch, Fender Jazz, Moog, TR-606 and rudimentary FX. He added congas, folk instruments, pipes, hand percussion, gongs, and jammed out shards of funk, noise, jazz fusion, electro and ambience into his hungry Tascam Portastudio. By 1987 these had morphed into what we’d now refer to broadly as techno, but the genre didn't exist beyond the reverberating walls of his bedsit, and he hadn’t yet plugged into the global conversation.
'Science, Art And Ritual' was released in 1994 by Rising High Records and was presented as Bedouin Ascent's debut album, although 'Music for Particles' (released in 1995, again on Rising High) was recorded even before —'SAR' sessions span from 1992-1993, whereas 'Music for Particles' were earlier from 1989-1992, with some older 4-track references from about 1986 too.
Weaved in throughout the album are subconscious references to music that Kingsuk heard in the past that still remained within sight as companions. The opening track "Ancient Ocean III", referencing the extinct ocean Tethis, unapologetically channels Tackhead, Colourbox, Mantronix and Lee Perry. The style was also deliberately juxtaposed to the prevailing sound in techno at the time, which had locked onto a rigid form of symmetrical kicks and light snare drums. Elsewhere 80’s soul and funk are frozen and captured in fragile glass lattices. Electric pianos resound throughout, such as in "He Is She", probably a half-memory of 70’s MOR radio from childhood sleepy night drives. A duel between kick drums from three generations of Roland drum machines —TR-808, TR-707 and R-8— is a central theme in "Transition-R", all in conversation, calling and responding. These were not just machines to Bedouin Ascent, but part of an extended family, with heart and soul.
Three decades after seeing the light, Lapsus is proud to present a special 30th anniversary reissue of this
left-field techno gem in a repackaged and redesigned edition. All pressed on a deluxe 3LP marbled vinyl and including a limited lithographic insert print of the original album cover. All tracks have been restored and remastered directly from the original DAT tapes, and the album also features previously unreleased tracks such as "In the Clouds" and "Thru Water" —regularly performed live at that time and produced in the same period as the album sessions in 1993.
'Science, Art And Ritual’ may refer to esoteric traditions in Indian philosophy, but equally embodies the collision of the science, the art and the ritual that is at the core of being immersed in a deep musical journey.
analoque records presents the first release on their new 180g vinyl-only label: a three-track EP by Buzé, with a remix by Gathaspar—all crafted for the dance floor.
Tracks written & produced by Charly Buzé
Remix produced by Gathaspar
Mastered & cut by Manmade Mastering
Designed by meta-art-design
THE SOUL BROTHERS SIX hailed from Rochester, New York and have played a part on the Northern Soul scene for over 50 years. Their first recording, for 'Lyndell' Records in 1966, is now a 3-figure rarity, but it is their debut disc for Atlantic, I'll Be Loving You', that first graced the decks at the Twisted Wheel, The Pendulum et al and has become a perennial Northern Soul favourite. At the time of release tt was the B-side to Some kind Of Wonderful' which took the disc to No.91 on the R&B charts.
WILLIE TEE has also been a familiar figure on the rare soul scene since the early Mod clubs with his architypal New Orleans mid tempo soul sound. His early recordings on 'Gatur' rank as some of the most collectable 45s to emanate from the Crescent City. Here we feature his club classic from 1964, the anthemic Walkin' Up A One Way Street'.
Calling all fans of cult soundtracks and genre-bending scores! Four Flies is thrilled to present a limited edition gatefold beauty containing the premiere vinyl release of the complete score to Matalo!, one of the most captivatingly unique Spaghetti soundtracks ever.
Matalo! is a 1970 'western crépusculaire' by Milanese director Cesare Canevari, known for his visually striking genre films, starring Swedish enfant terrible Lou Castel and Italian theatre actor Corrado Pani. Canevari adopts an experimental, atmospheric approach, relying heavily on out-of-focus effects and framing his shots unconventionally. This gives a dark and atmospheric turn to thewestern genre, with the typical dusty plains transformed into a windswept ghost town, while action sequences replace dialogues almost entirely, leaving actors with very little to say – and, therefore, putting the music center stage.
Composer Mario Migliardi – who was also a conductor, pianist, and Hammond organist – throws out the rulebook for Italian Westerns. Prepare for a wild ride of psych-rock textures, swirling electronic filters, haunting reverbs, and concrete sounds – a sonic tapestry that seamlessly blends influences ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Luciano Berio.
Migliardi masterfully combines traditional folk instruments like acoustic guitars and percussion withnon-canonical electronic processing, creating an electro-acoustic alchemy thatfeels both fresh and timeless today, probably way more than it did in the1970s. In particular, the Leslie filter, a hallmarkin the Hammond organs popular at the time, is applied to the entire soundtrack, resulting in a very distinctive and dynamic phaser effect.
The soundtrack's highlight is probably the rock song featuring vocals from Giano Ton, aka Giacomo Tosti, the only track to have found its way on vinyl prior to this LP (it wasthe B-side ofa forty-five released by RCA Italy at the time). Its 9-minute extended version, previously unavailable on vinyl, is a fantastichard-blues-rock jam à la Hendrix.
This limited-edition double vinyl LP comes in a stunning gatefold jacket with artwork by Eric Adrien Lee, who drew inspiration from the film's original posters and promo materials.
Definitely a must-have for collectors of unique soundtracks and adventurous music!
Bread & Souls is a new project dreamt up by Italian entrepreneur and music lover Franco Fusari. Franco invited Mark de Clive-Lowe on board to direct and produce an album of collaborations with some of our favorite artists including the likes of Bembé Segué, Vanessa Freeman, Paul Randolph, Rich Medina, Tommaso Cappellato and more...
Presenting Chapter 4! Working On It (here’s the original - you heard the remix on Chapter 3), a mid tempo bossa-inspired track features the wordsmithery of Philadelphia’s Rich Medina speaking on the idiosyncrasies and journey of life, joined by Bembe Segue. Together features Vanessa Freeman on vocals - previously heard in remix form on Chapter 2 - a timelessly uplifting soulful house excursion. Domu returns to the project with a second remix of Little Did I Know - this time flipping it for the broken beat dancefloor in classic Domu style, and we wrap up with Neroli’s Volcov remixing Anybody Out There for the 4/4 lovers.
“Wild Boy …” is a reissue of the well-known 2016 release curated by Brian Chidester, renowned researcher and biographer of Eden Ahbez. Especially for this album, Brian wrote an interesting text about Abi’s life, which definitely became the decoration of the release.
With the new 2020 re-release, we went a little further and kept what is commonly referred to as studio cuts. It’s a few more minutes in the studio with ahbez himself, full of emotion and life. In addition, to the delight of fans, the edition includes an additional composition Nature Boy (Mantovani Orchestra).
Especially, it is worth noting the outstanding mastering prepared from practically decomposed tapes by the Grammy-nominated Jessica Thompson, which guarantees the deepest and warmth possible sound. Jessica a huge ahbez fan and we’re highly appreciated for what she has done to save his music for the future.
Eden Ahbez is definitely at the origin of psychedelic music and this release can be taken as further proof. Over the past twenty years, the iconic figure of the world’s first hippie Eden ahbez has become famous primarily for his 1948 song “Nature Boy”, praising universal love, and his amazingly solo album from the 1960s called “Eden’s Island” – one from the first concept albums in the history of music and probably the first psychedelic music album. “Wild Boy: The Lost Songs Of Eden Ahbez” deepens understanding of the origins of the psychedelic movement in the 1950s.
The disc contains a musical selection of works by Eden ahbez himself, written by him in the period after Nature Boy. The inclusion of songs such as “Palm Springs” – Ray Anthony Orchestra and “Hey Jacques” by Erta Kitt gives the listener the chance to discover for the first time the little-known recordings of world-famous artists composed by Eden ahbez. Through “Wild Boy” and “Surfer John” you can hear the author’s handling of absurd rock and exotic experimentation, as well as sweet psychedelic pop like Monterey (with Paul Horn on flute). Overall, Wild Boy: The Lost Songs Of Eden Ahbez offers an overview of the lost works of 1949-1971 with seven unpublished recordings and eight rare singles.
If in 2020 you are missing the hallucinogenic content in Eden Ahbez, it amazingly makes up for that deficiency with simple chords, expansive arrangements, and lyrics about travel, relaxation, free love, and spirituality. Thus creating the standard of psychedelic music. Eden Ahbez’s songs weren’t only fantasy and his personal philosophy was the real thing that he lived.
reviews:
“This carefully and extensively researched compilation culls covers by top notch mainstream artists juxtaposed with unreleased Eden recordings. What might sound like a mixed bag is actually more like a chronological, musical non-fiction novel about Eden Ahbez. While Eden was writing hundreds of songs and performing live and making recordings in various styles, his songs were also being picked up by popular artists like Nat King Cole and Eartha Kitt who recorded with a more polished mainstream style. There are also some early rock n roll style recordings here. Eden’s professionally recordings often end up as Novelty Pop records such as “Child of Nature” and “The Clam Man” but if you read between the lines and listen to the lyrics it is pretty eye-opening that he is singing about Eastern-religion-style and pre-hippie philosophies about being at one with the planet Earth.
All of this is explained in the lengthy liner notes inside the lp along with a few choice photos that establish Eden as a founding father of Southern California mystic/psychedelic music.” – Tiki_News
“Eden Ahbez’s life philosophy was summed up in the lyrics of his most famous song, “Nature Boy,” a 1948 hit for Nat King Cole: the song describes a “strange enchanted boy” who wanders the world in search of truth. “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn,” he concludes, “is to love and be loved in return.” Ahbez was a pre-cursor of California’s beatniks and hippies, and an exalted icon of ex-otica via his rare 1960 album Eden’s Island. Beyond “Nature Boy” and Eden’s Island, though, there were nu-merous lesser-known Ahbez record-ings. Ahbez biographer Brian Chidester has been doing an exemplary job of archiving and documenting that catalog of work. The Exotic World of Eden Ahbez (reviewed in UT#38) appeared a few years ago, gathering together 14 Ahbez-related rarities” – Ugly Things
Dark Entries picks up Severed Heads yet again for Ear Bitten, a double LP reissue of some of the band’s earliest material. As originary Aussie industrial legends - although founder Tom Ellard would balk at being branded as such - Severed Heads shaped the continental subcultural sound with their kitchen electronics, chaotic tape loops, and quietly infectious nursery-rhyme-esque melodies. In 1979 Ellard, Richard Fielding, and Andrew Wright abandoned the moniker Mr. and Mrs. No Smoking Sign and adopted the edgier name Severed Heads “to pretend to be an industrial band such as Surgical Penis Klinik & Throbbing Gristle.” Noise-rockers Rhythmx Chymx had placed an advertisement in a local shop looking for a band to share the costs of pressing an LP. The Heads set about recording a Dadaist racket on a pair of open reel dictaphones and a cassette deck using a TRS-80 computer, Kawai Synthesizer 100F and Korg Mini Pops drum machine. Ear Bitten was released in 1980; original copies now fetch obscene sums, in part due to most of Severed Heads’ copies perishing in a fire at Richard’s home. The band’s next endeavor was a cassette titled Side 2, a collection of free-form experiments fashioned as Ear Bitten’s second side. For this reissue, Dark Entries has collected both Ear Bitten and Side 2 on the first disc, presenting the album in its full form. Disc two includes the original first version of Ear Bitten, which was only unreleased because it was recorded in a format not suitable for pressing. The album comes in a gatefold sleeve designed by Eloise Leigh and includes photos, liner notes, and reproductions of the original Xerox inserts from the 1980 issue. Ear Bitten delivers 22 tracks of pain you can dance to!
Released in 1981& the last in a decade-long run of Top 50 R&B albums, ‘The Electric Spanking Of War Babies’ was the band’s twelfth studio LP & featured several players new to the Funkadelic line-up, notably Sly Stone. With its allusions to the Vietnam War & US imperialism, George Clinton’s project was destined to court controversy from the start, not least for its uncompromising sleeve art which original label Warner Bros. censored. Described by Robert Christgau as “the solidest, weirdest chunk of P-Funk since one nation gathered under a groove” & originally conceived as a double LP, many tracks saw release on Clinton’s later P-Funk projects. Arguably, it is better for having been précised down to a single album while still spawning two hit singles, the title track (US R&B No. 60) & ‘Shockwaves’ (US R&B No.53). FUNKADELIC Masterminded by the larger-than-life figure of George Clinton, Funkadelic was a key component of his influential P-Funk empire. Funkadelic’s unique combination of Rock, Psychedelia, R&B & Soul led to the band crossing over to the pop mainstream & gaining a vast international following, becoming one of the most important & influential groups in music. On 6 May 1997, Parliament / Funkadelic were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame by Prince. To commemorate six decades of thrilling & delighting fans, George Clinton returned to the stage in 2022 for a series of concerts. To celebrate, Charly have reissued Funkadelic’s classic four albums ‘Hardcore Jollies’; ‘One Nation Under A Groove’; ‘Uncle Jam Wants You’; & ‘The Electric Spanking Of War Babies’ (originally released by Warner Bros during a golden period for the band between 1976-1981). Each album will be available as deluxe gatefold Digi-Sleeve CDs in PVC wallets + obi-strip & facsimile-edition gatefold LPs on 180-gram black vinyl & limited edition 180-gram colored vinyl + 1970s-style obi-strip in a protective PVC sleeve. “They played a HUGE role in creating the future of music.” PRINCE
Die US-Progressive-Metal-Pioniere und Innovatoren PSYCHOTIC WALTZ machen endlich ihren gesamten fesselnden und zeitlosen Backkatalog weltweit über InsideOutMusic wieder verfügbar. In zwei Wiederveröffentlichungs-Schritten (Mai & Juli 2024) werden die klassischen ersten vier Alben der Band - "A Social Grace" (1990), "Into The Everflow" (1992), "Mosquito" (1994) und "Bleeding" (1996) - neu gemastert von Patrick W. Engel / Temple Of Disharmony als 2CD Digipaks mit viel seltenem oder bisher unveröffentlichtem Bonusmaterial sowie erweiterten Layouts erhältlich sein, und die Hauptalben werden zusätzlich als Ltd. Gatefold-LP-Editionen auf 180g-Vinyl neu aufgelegt. Eine zusätzliche Demo-Raritäten-Zusammenstellung (mit einem Teil des Bonusmaterials) mit dem Titel "To Chase The Stars (Demos 1987 - 1989)" wird ebenfalls als Ltd. Gatefold 2LP Edition erhältlich sein, was diese Re-Issue-Kampagne zu einem aufregenden und unverzichtbaren Projekt sowohl für langjährige Kenner der Band als auch für neuere Mitglieder der ständig wachsenden progressiven Musikgemeinde macht.
Golden Haze Vinyl. After being long out of press (with the exception of a small, instantly sold- out pressing in 2018 to celebrate Captured Tracks' 10-year anniversary), Golden Haze is finally back on limited edition Gold vinyl!The charming and gorgeous Golden Haze EP is the culmination of Wild Nothing's (Jack Tatum) sound in 2010. Fresh off the heels of breakout debut album Gemini, Golden Haze has become a true fan-favorite of Tatum's cata- log, and an enduring fixture of Wild Nothing's live shows across the world. The tracklist features the previously unavailable Evertide EP, a Gemini B- Side, and now, for the first time on vinyl, includes bonus tracks "Asleep" and "Vultures Like Lovers."When Golden Haze was released in 2010, the EP filled with melancholy vocals over addictive guitar riffs offered a perfect continuation to Gemini. It also re-revealed that Tatum has a knack for creating unique, modern ar- rangements based on decades-old influence. On Golden Haze's single of the same name, tweaked drums and a "textural mesh of severely-gated snare and sleigh bells" evoke 80s bands like The Cure. "Vultures Like Lovers," a newly available track on vinyl, presents delayed guitars with tremolo'd vocals. The most different to Gemini, it revealed that Tatum could make more "electronically pulsed" songs with echoey, hollow vocals. Over 10 years later, Golden Haze continues to prove Tatum's ability to create new songs while evoking a musical nostalgia for the past.
Overview
Arguably the greatest Jamaican record producer of all time, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry was instrumental in transforming the island’s national sound throughout the Sixties and Seventies, with his unique approach to music making pushing the music beyond previously perceived boundaries.
To mark the first anniversary of his passing, the very best of his work is showcased across a number of products, all of which effectively demonstrate why Perry was widely venerated figure for so long..
The deluxe box set comprises four vinyl LPs and four CD sets featuring his best known and most influential recordings including a previously unreleased mix of Junior Murvin’s powerful ‘Police And Thieves’, UK chart-buster ‘Hurt So Good’ by Susan Cadogan and the Upsetters’ boss reggae classic ‘Return Of Django’, as well as numerous major Jamaican hits.
Aldo included in the set is a 50 page fully illustrated page book, penned by Scratch’s official biographer, David Katz and featuring an array photos by celebrated photographer Adrian Boot, and a newly designed two sided full colour 24” x 24” poster.
The 2x gatefold LP and 2x CD set collection focus upon of the legendary music-maker’s best known productions from the Sixties and Seventies, performed by some of the giants of Jamaican music, with both extensive notes on the man whose talent and imagination took reggae to new heights of excellence.
Multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer Calcou is set to share his sophomore album Murmuration on July 5th, 2024 via MfRD+C. Calcou's latest singles were picked by worldwide Spotify editorials for playlists like Fresh Finds, Late Night Vibes, metropolis or by Apple US for focus playlists like Today's Chill. He has received support from numerous blogs and magazines such as CLASH Magazine, Stereofox, Cercle, House Music With Love, Majestic Casual and ElectroPosé to name a few. Calcou finds inspiration in the works of Kiasmos, Bonobo, and Four Tet. TetTethlatest release calls to mind the likes of Four Tet, Maribou State and George FitzGera
“Valsadeira” is a pulsing uptempo excursion from the African island nation of Cabo Verde, with driving percussion, impassioned vocals, and tasty synth work. Sung in Portuguese, the track begins on a romantic note which builds toward a dramatic flip halfway through that gives way to a hypnotic tropical vamp. The drum tool extends the rhythmic breaks of the song into a useful standalone percussion jam. Odo Kakra Sika Kakra is a bouncy and joyous slice of Ghanaian highlife. With crisp 90s-era production and sweet vocal melodies, JKriv edited this one with love for maximum booty shaking and smiles. "Batonga" is a mid tempo slice of Afrofunk with a mid 1980s downtown NYC feel, led by angular and funky guitars, layered synths, and a female vocal with African chants. The drum break features a textured beat including big electronic drums, percussions and an interlocking kalimba line.
Bread & Souls is a new project dreamt up by Italian entrepreneur and music lover Franco Fusari. Franco invited Mark de Clive-Lowe on board to direct and produce an album of collaborations with some of our favorite artists including the likes of Bembé Segué, Vanessa Freeman, Paul Randolph, Rich Medina, Tommaso Cappellato and more...
Opening with the broken beat, soul-drenched I See You featuring Detroit’s Paul Randolph on vocals along with Taku Hirano on percussion Chapter 3 is here! Vanessa Freeman and Bembe Segue absolutely radiate on the head-nod of Little Did I Know, complete with Marcus Machado lacing classic D’Angelo-meets-Prince guitars. You heard the Domu remix on Chapter 1, and finally here’s the original! The EP wraps up with two remixes courtesy of Alex Attias and LTJ Xperience. Alex reworks the Bembe Segue featuring Never Gonna Leave into a deep tech house dancefloor workout while Italy's LTJ Xperience’s remix brings the mid tempo 4/4 to Rich Medina and Bembe Segue on Working On It (original version still to come!).
Mariah was a Japanese outfit in the field of art pop, way back in the very late 70s and early 80s with 5 albums up their score from 1980 to 1983. The album from 1979 entitled as “Mariah” was actually made before the band Mariah was formed, and was released as a solo album by Yasuaki Shimizu. The album at hand is the fifth and for the time being last album in this row, released as a double vinyl back in 1983. Original copies, that are at least in very good condition, are hard to find. The brand new reissue on Everland, unlike the original and the first vinyl reissue from 2015, comes housed in a thick and artfully designed gatefold sleeve with OBI, which finally does justice to the progressive spirit of the music you will find here.
The musical basement of Utakata No Hibi is a fusion of dreamy synthesizer pop and haunting new wave music, that could be found all around the globe back in 1983. In the vein of TEARS FOR FEARS or more adventurous DAVID BOWIE stuff, with a touch of KRAFTWERK or even BRIAN ENO here and there, but all this gets spiced up with an atmosphere of Japanese traditionalism, with a few bits and pieces from the old music from this Far East island, which sounds so magic to us Westeners. The progressive, wacky art pop of this project was led by the popular Japanese composer and musician Yasuaki Shimizu, a relentlessly exploratory saxophonist who even dared to rework Johann Sebastian Bach’s cello suites for saxophone.
As brilliant as this man is, the music on „Utakata No Hibi“ turns out to be. And the master himself approved and much appreciated the brandnew remastering of this album by assisting a highly professional team of sound engineers who dusted off the ancient tape reels. For certain the record sounds and feels 80s through and through, electronic to the very rhythmical bone of each song sugar coated with catchy melodies that resemble Japanese classic and Enka music, which is a kind of folksy pop music. The listener gets directly drawn into a feverish dream of steaming Far Eastern cities and their darkest and most depraved corners where you find everything cheap in sleazy bars and unlighted backyards and alleys. The next moment he strolls through a beautiful Japanese park surrounded by a sea of blossoms. This change in mood and style you will experience in the sparsely instrumented tune „Shisen“, which indeed comes closest to classic Japanese folk tunes without any too catchy and pop oriented melodies. But we certainly find these harmonies allover the album. Some tunes even feel like ancient BEACH BOYS compositions and Brian Wilson creations played by a then contemporary electronic pop act and sung in Japanese.
An amazingly colorful album with songs that are based on solid substance rather than cheap pop structures. This is music for the bold listeners and music lovers and this awesome reissue should quickly find it’s way into the record collections of 80s synth and art pop aficionadoes.
Yasuaki Shimizu did what he wanted with MARIAH, pushed the borders of popular music further than anybody would have thought. Listen to a track like „Shonen“ with a repetitive rhythm pattern that hypnotizes you and somehow silky melodylines by saxophone and synth piano upon which a female voice sings in a very spiritual way. Praising pop or whatever this can be called, it is sheer magic put in music. I wonder if this would have made it into the charts back then, but you never know. It is a piece of musical art that shall be listened to.
To celebrate 10 years of one of London’s most loved underground club nights, Tangent, Mr Bongo are thrilled to launch this new compilation series. Crafted by its two residents, John Gómez and Nick the Record, it aims to transmit a taste of Tangent’s spirit. A party rooted in inclusivity and open-mindedness, whose name captures the spontaneous switches in musical direction that are a defining element of their nights. For the compilation, the pair have cherry-picked a selection of their prized, rare and dancefloor-ready tracks from around the globe, that have soundtracked the past decade of parties.
Friends for close to 20 years, music lovers, record obsessives and internationally renowned DJs in their own right, John and Nick have two lifetimes worth of musical knowledge to draw from. John a long-standing NTS Radio resident and compiler for Music From Memory. Nick one of the UK’s go-to record dealers, resident DJ since the ‘90s at one of Japan’s pioneering parties, Life Force, and co-captain / co-edit-expert of Record Mission with Dan Tyler (Idjut Boys).
In 2014, the pair decided to bring some of Life Force’s grassroots principles to the UK, whilst channelling underground clubbing institution Plastic People’s meticulous attitude to sound. Tangent grew from being a small gathering of friends, to an established fixture in London’s nightlife, whilst always maintaining a strict no guest DJ policy. “As London’s clubs have become increasingly reliant on international guests, we wanted to emphasize the importance of a club night growing through its residents”, John and Nick reflect. With 10 years of the duo at the helm, an intimate connection between DJ and dancefloor has been built, allowing for freedom of expression on both sides of the decks.
Tangent reaches around the globe and across different eras to make connections that stimulate emotional reverberations in the unfamiliar. Where the blissfully Balearic ‘Laberinto’ by Miguel Perikás, goes hand-in-hand with the Cameroonian hip-house of King B.’s ‘Love is Crazy’. The thundering ‘Amek Amek’ by L'Innovateur Djoe Ahmed et le Zoukabyle, rubs shoulders with the soulful Caribbean-influenced touch of Champagn’s ‘Bel Ti Négress’. And Pellegrin El Kady’s afro-cosmic ‘Seiva de Carnaval’, crosses paths with Kajou’s Kompa disco anthem ‘Tet Chajé’.
Tangent’s longevity is in part down to it having always embraced contemporary sounds. The sub-rattling bass of Srirajah Sound System’s stunning Molam dub stepper ‘Si Phan Don Lovers Rock’ and the slow, woozy mantra of leftfield dancehall explorer Androo’s ‘Lyriso’, are two shining examples.
This compilation represents an ongoing dialogue between past and present, transporting listeners to the heart of a pure musical experience, where open minds and open hearts are eager to follow the tangent.
Anaconga”, the fourth Dome album by Bluey and Citrus Sun, is an homage to jazz and soul greats from back in the day, and is the band’s first to be released as a gatefold 2LP.
The album opens with the gorgeous Maynard Ferguson tune “Mister Mellow” from the Seventies, with backing vocals from Tony Momrelle and Deborah Bond. Bluey and Richard Bull share the production . “Down For The Third Time”, the album’s lead single, is a deliciously funky remake of a classic Bobby Caldwell groove from 1978, with Natalie Duncan on vocals and Dominic Glover and Charlie Allen tearing it up on trumpet and guitar respectively.
“Mystic Brew” was originally written and recorded in the Seventies by funk, soul and jazz keyboard legend Ronnie Foster and Bluey includes it “to say thank you for his massive contribution to the music we love and are inspired by”. Erykah Badu’s “Honey”, also with vocals by Natalie Duncan, features beautiful trumpet and flugelhorn from Kevin Robinson.
The stand-out new songs on the album are “Santiago”, which features the young Indonesian harmonica player Rega Dauna, who starred on the band’s “Hard Boiled” instrumental hit from their last album “Expansions & Visions”, and “In Search of the Blue Note”, with Dominic Glover on flugelhorn and Graham Harvey on keyboards, which Bluey says is “inspired by New York City’s jazz history and nightlife”.
Bluey sums up the mood of the album: “I hope that the rhythms wrap themselves around your consciousness and the music slithers into your soul, whilst you bask in the light of the Citrus Sun! Unconstricted love, Bluey”.
Citrus Sun is the mainly instrumental-oriented side project which runs alongside Incognito and features many of the same musicians. The band released their first Dome album “People Of Tomorrow” in 2014.
Das Meisterwerk der amerikanischen Jazz- und R&B-Sängerin jetzt erstmalig auf 2 LPs im Gatefold, remastered und inklusive 4 Bonustrack, die bisher ausschließlich als CD Single B-Seiten veröffentlicht wurden.
Walker & Royce have released their highly-anticipated sophomore album No Big Deal out now via Dirtybird Records.
Embarking on a four-part mission to bring the party back to dance music, Walker & Royce have embraced the boisterous, unruly nature of their over-the-top signature to deliver 10 non-stop anthems. A highly collaborative body of work, No Big Deal features a colorful collection of characters including comedian/ musician Reggie Watts, Grammy-nominated and multi-platinum selling artist James Patterson (and 1/2 of the electronic duo The Knocks), peak-time queen VNSSA, Grammy-nominated vocalist Barney Bones, and more.
From the tongue-in-cheek lyricism of ‘I Don’t Remember’ and ‘Might Just’ to the overzealous charisma imparted on tracks like ‘Motivashun’ and ‘Fatalistic Groove’, No Big Deal boasts the sense of humor and lightheartedness that Walker & Royce have brought to countless dance floors throughout their career. The album is hallmarked by the kaleidoscopic elements of their dance music roots: catchy vocals, playful melodies, thumping basslines, and relentless four-on-the-floor percussion.
No Big Deal is a wondrous homage to the weird and wacky tropes that have distinguished Walker & Royce’s no-holds-barred style for more than a decade. An auditory yearbook cataloging Walker & Royce’s sonic inspirations from their early days in New York City’s 90s underground raves to the Dirtybird BBQs and Campouts where they found their home, No Big Deal is a victory lap for Walker & Royce as they cement their status as headliners and hitmakers.
No Big Deal is a reminder to enjoy the ‘Cheap Thrills’ that life presents, to ‘Get Down Down’ and adopt a motto like ‘Let’s Live It Up’.
2xLP, Gatefold Jacket, Picture Disc, cut at 45rpm. First pressing limited to 500 copies.
Ten years after his first full-length effort ‘Man Is Deaf’ landed him firmly in the runnings for DJ Mag’s album of the year, prodigal son Michael Anthony Wright AKA Brassica returns to Civil Music with a deeply accomplished, painstakingly whittled LP of hydraulic electro slickness, rich synthscapes, and hooky, peak-time tearjerkers for the most discerning front-left lifers. ‘Tribeless Gathering’ is a barnstorming testament to Brassica’s stylistic and timbral deftness, touching down in the elusive epicentre of the club/home listening venn diagram with ease.
From the elastic, neon acid pointillism of opener ‘Hop Kweng’ to the mardy, miasmic plod of closing chugger ‘Changa Hill’, Brassica seamlessly segues between avenues of influence, his notoriously omnivorous musical knowledge roadmapping each turn. Raised on a diet of everything from early rave standards to metal, and schooled in avant garde sonics as a student of sound design at LCC, Brassica does a peerless job of sublimating his countless influences into a record of refined, heterogeneous, and most crucially, catchy, club moods.
Less spartan than his more recent oeuvre on Feel My Bicep, and less baroque than his technicolour experiments in postmodern synth pop with vocalist Stuart Warwick, Tribeless Gathering represents Brassica’s triumphant return to the main room, replete with rushy hooks primed for the planet’s finest soundsystems, and passages of heads-down tension bound to draw listeners right to the edge of their seats. Overall it is a concise and refined testament to Wright’s command of spectral sonics and effortless ability to pressurise a dancefloor. It is no surprise that he has also worked as a prolific mastering engineer, tuning music from a plethora of dance disciplines for maximum club impact. This work extends to his own projects (including this one), cementing them as rare expressions of complete artistry from studio to turntable.
As we delve deeper into the record, we are ushered through a series of accomplished and varied club moods, each channelling a unique cocktail of influences, but retaining a warm, ebullient analogue sensibility unique to Brassica’s work. This playful scope of influence calls to mind James T Cotton or Machinedrum’s experiments in dance music form, but Wright manages it all under one roof, wrangling everything from sashaying wub-laden two step to snarling Dillinja-esque FM damage into something inherently his.
Choice cut ‘Change Yourself’ layers an almost Cerrone-like piano refrain over radiant surges of saturated bass, dubby, strobing chords and a jagged, driving break, building to a jaw-clenching apex of dancefloor elation, while the rude, playful half-step of ‘Elevation’ breaks down the vintage speed garage formula into linear fragments, utilising a tight palette of resonant bass slugs, infectious synth leads and Papua New Guinea-style vocal strobes. The aptly named ‘Hold Tight’ fuses heart-in-mouth UK ‘ardkore pads with glissando acid disturbance and surgical snare fills in a formula which recalls the ethereal grit of Nubian Mindz’ 00s experiments in big-smoke break science, while the questing melodic arcs and arpeggiated squarewaves of ‘Pinball Marinara’ could easily have soundtracked an 80s sci-fi epic, beset with sparkling, bare-bones drum programming and hazy beds of sub sediment.
With ‘Tribeless Gathering’, Brassica both irreverently fuses and pays homage to the many unique and weird permutations of UK dance music. The short lived gathering of junglists, ravers and house hotsteppas of a similar name may have long since dissipated, along with the tribes themselves, but across these 11 tracks, he lays a blueprint for a new sound of togetherness.
Glasgow based Seated Records return with more 1980s Scottish Post-Punk / New Wave material. In this 8-track mini compilation the label introduces the work of Stirling band 22 Beaches, offering a deep dive into music recorded between 1980-1984 - the majority of which has never seen the light of day!
22 Beaches formed in Stirling in the late 1970s as an evolution of the short lived group ‘Alone at Last’ - drummer Fred Parson’s and guitarist Stephen Hunter being the two who spanned the divide. Out of the six members of 22 Beaches, many were school friends, and the rest naturally fell together. The band toured extensively and played at a truly diverse set of venues across the UK: from a local swimming pool boiler room, to small nightclubs and university parties, to several fundraisers for the miners strike. Maybe most notably of all, drummer Fred Parsons described playing at what he calls “the Grangemouth International”, organised by local promoter Brian Guthrie and which featured an all-star lineup of 22 Beaches, The Exploited and the first incarnation of The Cocteau Twins. A coach was hired to ship the audience to Grangemouth from Stirling, the cost of which was included in the ticket. The gig then paused halfway through for a 'help yourself' buffet. Young promoters take heed. This is how it's done!
Over the course of the 80s the band released music on three different, and now sought after, various artists compilation cassettes. “What Day Is It?” and “Sadie When She Died” were released on a compilation of local Stirling artists 'The A.N.K.L.E File'. The track from which the current record takes its namesake - “Dust” - was initially released on a compilation-tape for the fanzine 'Another Spark'. And ‘‘Zoo” (also featured on this record) was first released on Glasgow label Pleasantly Surprised via compilation, 'An Hour Of Eloquent Sounds', where 22 Beaches rubbed shoulders with early music from Scottish names Primal Scream, Cocteau Twins, The Wake and Sunset Gun. Unfortunately, 22 Beaches never met the same level of commercial success as these others and decided to retire the project in 1984 - leaving their recordings and demos to gather dust (hehe)…until now!
This compilation, “Dust: recordings 1980-1984” follows the band's journey and the changes in their sound over the years. It moves from the raw, punk energy of early DIY recordings through to the A Certain Ratio style Balearica of their later pieces. The record's opener and title track “Dust” is perhaps the most shining example of the latter. Characterised by the plenitude of sonic space in the mix, “Dust” has an almost dub sensibility that is communicated through centrality of Parsons’ drums, McChord’s percussion, and Fildes’ Bass while the harmonising vocals of Sharkey and McGregor chant over the top to give the track its distinctive psychedelic edge. This is an atmosphere only exacerbated by the lofi quality of the recording which sits the vocals in the same aural realm as much 1960s psych-folk. On “Cartoon Boy”, the band strips things down further. A droning bass line persists through the tape fuzz and is accompanied by the sounds of a sole looping guitar chord sequence and McGregor and Sharkey’s vocals - respectively and carefully dancing around one another before harmonising in the most beautiful way. The result is a haunting and abstract Marine Girls style heartbreaker. ‘That Girl’ again delivers a dub adjacent rhythm section similar to that of “Dust”. However, on this instance crisp guitar chords, a distant, phased organ and blue-eyed soul vocal delivery, produce a track that could easily have been a lost Orange Juice recording from their sessions with Dennis Bovel. On “Somebody Got It Wrong” and “One Of Us” the band employ a more macro approach where a jangling guitar with an almost highlife-influenced tone, vocal ad-libs and syncopated percussion give the music a Talking Heads-esque swagger.
Taken together these tracks illustrate a clear trajectory in the band's sound, moving from from the high energy no-wave quality of early recordings towards a more dub influenced, and stripped-back sound - a sonic trajectory followed by so many bands of the time, not least those emerging from the diaspora of Manchester’s Factory Records.
On “Breathing’’ we hear the beginning of this transition, with the strong influence of the oddball NYC disco styles of Was (Not Was) and ZE records. All of this is meshed together with the residual punk rock energy of 1980s UK. This combination is employed to excellent effect with the addition of the distinctly Scottish (and what the band confirmed to me to be spontaneous) vocal delivery of: “Do you love me? Do you want me?” “Aye!” “Do you love me? Do you need me?” “Naw!”.
On the record’s closing tracks, “Zoo” and “Talent Show”, we hear early examples of the band’s work, playing with their rawest all-in-one-take live energy where Hunter’s spiralling guitar riffs and McGregor's distorted vocal exclamations lead the charge. The band recalls that these initial-forays did not always translate so well into multitrack recording and overdubbing: “the deconstruction took away some of the band's natural feel”. On “Talent Show” the record ends with Sharkey delivering an almost unintelligible spoken word section over the top of the track, making for one final, disorientating, almost manic slice of post-punk.
These tracks from 1980-1984 chart the progress of a unique contribution to the world of Scottish Post-Punk and New Wave, encapsulating not only the musical trajectory of 22 Beaches but also echoing the broader sonic landscape of 1980s UK, a testament to the adaptability and creativity of the UK’s underground music of the time.
Standard version on 2LP black vinyl in gatefold sleeve. ‘Lefto presents Jazz Cats' is back with volume 3 and still doing what it does best: putting you in the front row of what the thriving Belgian jazz scene currently has to offer and revealing a melting pot of the musical talent.
'Lefto presents Jazz Cats' is back with volume 3 and still doing what it does best: putting you in the front row of what the thriving Belgian jazz scene currently has to offer and revealing a melting pot of the musical talent coming out one of the smallest countries in Europe. Never change a winning team they say, so we're happy to have Belgian DJ and eclectic connoisseur Lefto on board again.
Although you expect thecompilation to be talking jazz, volume 3 explores a broader array of styles, genres, and sounds than ever before, arriving at a point where the 'young cats' of today don't bother no more. It may focus on the Belgian scene, but let's face it, seeing the influences, this one could be compiled from all over the world. From the empowering and bittersweet voices of Oriana Ikomo and Adja, over the more acoustic-electronic productions of Moodprint, Ciao Kennedy, Kassius and echofarmer. It's even expanding the Jazz Cats universe to dub and bass-heavy tracks with Kin Gajo and Le Ministère, Ethio-jazz from Azmari, while sending you back to earth with bodies' swirling sax and drums. That saxophone still rings in your ears when you end up in the orbit of the march-like drums of Bodem, Orson Claeys' piano testing your ability to follow him, slamming the breaks to go smooth cruisin' with HONEY (Morricone meets Khruangbin, anyone?), to crashing in a raging tempo on that last track of Bruno x Soet x Moene. And there you are, back with us.
2018's 'Lefto presents Jazz Cats' included tracks from some of Belgium's biggest hitters, including Black Flower, STUFF. De Beren Gieren and Glass Museum who have all gone on to receive global acclaim. The album was given the accolade of 'Album of the Week' on Worldwide FM and also received further radio support from Jazz FM in addition to numerous glowing reviews. The 2022 follow-up 'Jazz Cats volume 2' paved the way for a new generation inspired by its peers, entering another era of very talented individuals and collectives. Maybe even more so than 4 years before. It uncovered a beautiful balance of more established but also obscure musicians and artists. Opening up to electronics and dance, enter bands like ECHT!, Stellar Legions and TUKAN. Thrilling innovative soundscape grooves and jazz fusion with Bandler Ching and L?p?GangGang, not to forget about the weaving musical odyssey that is M.CHUZI. In addition, there's the balanced unease of One Frame Movement, the laidback 'acoustic electronica' of Boombox Experiments, the classic funky jazz stylings of Cargo Mas and cinematic The Brums, all of these have set volume 2 on the map as an essential release for any jazzhead with a passion for new sounds.
Tastemaker, selector, curator, DJ and producer, these words often get mentioned when Lefto's name pops up in discussions. And rightly so. If you've ever had the pleasure to listen to one of his incredible Boiler Room sets or one of his many radio shows, you'll know why. Famed for his gloriously eclectic taste on the decks, he switches effortlessly between hip hop, funk, breaks, neck-snapping beats, future bass, South-American influences, bruk riddims, some wild African rhythms and of course, jazz.
Growing up as a child, his father would have the sounds of jazz flowing through the speakers. Which led him to bars around town to hear the latest jazz ensembles. Falling in love with the genre, he would later refine his knack for record digging and fine ear for music working at Belgium's legendary Music Mania record store in his hometown Brussels. Which makes that Lefto is consistently a couple steps ahead. He doesn't wait for the next thing to land in his lap, but actively seeking it out.
Lefto on Jazz Cats volume 3:
"Another release in less than two years! I am very impressed by the amount of creative "jazz" talent we've managed to compile over the last couple of years. Thanks to the internet, young musicians find inspiration from around the globe and incorporate diverse influences into their work. Given the history and heritage of jazz in this country, it has managed to create a healthy jazz scene supported by festivals, venues, press, and labels. Therefore, I am very proud to present to you the thirdinstallment of Jazz Cats. This compilation is dedicated to the young and hardworking musicians who are the present and the future of Belgium's jazz scene."
Bread & Souls is a new project dreamt up by Italian entrepreneur and music lover Franco Fusari. Franco invited Mark de Clive-Lowe on board to direct and produce an album of collaborations with some of our favorite artists including the likes of Bembé Segué, Vanessa Freeman, Paul Randolph, Rich Medina, Tommaso Cappellato and more.
Chapter 2 EP continues with more future classics, kicking off with the jazz dancefloor workout Never Gonna Leave featuring the Queen of Broken Beat Bembé Segué on vocals and shredding sax solos courtesy Teodross Avery. In classic soulful broken beat fashion, Bembe reunites again with Vanessa Freeman for Technicolor Sunshine – drenched in MdCL’s signature production sound. Two remixes complete this installment with Mr Scruff and Kaidi Tatham’s downtempo reworking Anybody Out There (check out the original version on Chapter 1) and Italy’s G&D coming through
● Essential 14 track collection of "WaJazz" music selected and compiled by renowned Japanese jazz expert Yusuke Ogawa, owner of the Universounds record store in Tokyo.
● Gatefold 180g heavy double vinyl LP. Comes with extensive track-by-track liner notes by Yusuke Ogawa.
● All tracks licensed by Nippon Columbia, Tokyo, Japan.
● Mastering and lacquer cut by Jukka Sarapää at Timmion Cutting Lab, Helsinki, Finland.
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Universounds, HMV Record Shop and 180g team up for an exceptional release: from blazing hard bop to free jazz, to introspective saxophone solos and massive big band sounds, renowned Japanese jazz expert Yusuke Ogawa presents an essential 14 track collection of "WaJazz" music taken from the Nippon Columbia vaults. Featuring Jiro Inagaki, Minoru Muraoka, Hiroshi Suzuki, Hozan Yamamoto, Count Buffalo, Takeshi Inomata, and much more!
"Japanese jazz has been recognized and celebrated by music lovers worldwide for decades. The origins of this trend may be traced back to the rare groove movement that flourished in the 1990s, but its current deep and wide popularity seems to be connected to the fact that Japanese people have been reevaluating their own jazz since the mid-2000s, locally referred to as WaJazz ("Wa" meaning Japan but also theShōwa emperor period, from 1926 to 1989). Since the beginning of the 2000s, there has been a growing trend to move away from the DJ-focused perspective and to appreciate jazz with a deeper understanding. Nowadays, there is more and more interest in the background and roots in which jazz has developed in Japan, with Japanese jazz as a whole now considered as its own distinctive genre.
Of course, even if we speak about "WaJazz" as one genre, there is a truly wide variety of styles within it. However, when Japanese musicians play, there is something uniquely Japanese flowing through that creates a kind of synergy. It may be the melody, the rhythm, or even something deeper, like an inexpressible flicker. I would be happy if some of its charms and secrets emerge from the fourteen tracks included in this collection." (Yusuke Ogawa)
Yusuke Ogawa has been running the Universounds store in Tokyo since 2001, specializing in jazz and second-hand, rare, and collector records. He is also a reissue supervisor, label manager, DJ, and music writer. Known for his vast musical knowledge, eye for detail, and archival skills, Ogawa has worked on more than 250 reissues and compilations – including the highly praised Deep Jazz Reality and Project Re:Vinyl series. He is the co-author of the Wa-Jazz Disc Guide and the Independent Black Jazz of America books.
A collection of music for the various films and theatre plays by Mirko Krsticevic, Croatian and Yugoslavian composer and musician active since 1970s. All and Nothing at All (Film and Theatre Music 1978 - 1988) focuses on his work for the underground and avantgarde cinema from the era: directors Ivan Martinac, Svemir Pavic, Lordan Zafranovic, Aleksandar F. Stasenko and Vanca Kljakovic are all part of the Split Cinema Club association; their work explores art, death, sexuality and eroticism. Pavic's portrait of surrealist painter Ljuba Popovic, made in the same year as its counterpart by Walerian Borowczyk, features scenes form Beaubourg Gallery in Paris and Udo Kier as a guest. Side B of the record is all about theatre: plays by Sam Shepard, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Jean Giraudoux were all produced in Sarajevo and Split in the 1980s, with the rare electronic takes by Mirko Krsticevic and his subtle minimalist soundings of the themes from the Cold War era. This unique and diverse compositions by founder of the rock band Metak and sound studio Tetrapak from Split, are document of the time that is, especially in the closing Chernobyl theme, relevant again. Composer, musician and musical arranger Mirko Krsticevic was born in 1948 in Sibenik. He graduated in music theory at the Pedagogical Academy in Split and then at the Music Academy in Sarajevo. He studied composition with Josip Magdic, Mladen Pozajic and Miroslav Spiler. He is the co-founder of the Tetrapak music studio in Split, where numerous performers and musicians have recorded (Animatori, D'Boys, Haustor, Oliver Mandic, Gibonni, Srdjan Marjanovic, Stil, Trotakt Projekt and others). The first group he founded was the rock group Che, which performed his own songs, in which he played bass guitar. It was founded in the summer of 1969. Together with Ranko Boban and Momcilo Popadic, he founded the Metak group in the spring of 1978 in Prigradica on Korcula. In the group, he is the author of songs and lyrics, and he also plays the bass guitar. "Da mi je biti morski pas" is the group's most successful single, which in 1980 became one of the most played songs on radio and television. Metak performed in Belgrade in front of 70,000 people, and the media declared them the best group along with Macedonian Leb i sol. In compositional work and arrangements for other pop and rock artists, Krsticevic had high commercial success with Tutti Frutti Balkan Band, Biljana Petrovic, Seid Memic Vajta, Pepel in kri, Osmi putnik, Oliver Dragojevic , Djordji Peruzovic, Henda and others. Parallel to his pop and rock career, Krsticevic composed stage and film music for 45 films, mostly collaborating with the circle of experimental and amateur directors of the Split Cinema Club (Kino klub Split) as well as the rest of the local underground scene. He is the author of stage music for 130 theatre plays, and also records his own compositions in the field of contemporary music. He wrote over 30 works for solo instruments, chamber and symphonic music. At the end of 2007, he founded the Split society for contemporary music and the contemporary music ensemble Splithesis. In 2015, he founded his own orchestra The Highway to Well Family, composed of fourteen musicians and three singers. In 2021, he founded Arthesis, an artistic organization for contemporary music and visual arts. He is the author of four operas: "Krvava svadba" (1997), "Halugica" (1999), "Atlantida - Legenda o Dan'zoru" (2018) i "Atlantida II - Lu'blis Kaoamos" (2020). He is the winner of numerous awards, lives and works in Split. Gatefold LP with extensive liner notes, Direct Metal Mastering (DMM) from original tapes, pressed at Record Industry. File under: Soundtrack, Stage, Electronica
First vinyl issue of the Saint Seiya Anime's cult Soundtrack. Limited Edition.
Seiya is an orphan who, as a young boy, was selected by the Kido Foundation to bring legendary bronze armour back to Japan. He succeeds, along with 10 other orphans. Forced by the foundation to take part in a "show", the knights embark on a tournament before the prize, the golden armour, is stolen. Little by little, they realise that their problems stem from the Sanctuary in Greece, home to the 12 most powerful knights, the Golden Knights, and their leader, the Great Pope. His target is the young Saori Kido, heiress to the foundation and reincarnation of Athena.
The series was a huge success and spawned an extensive franchise, with TV series, films and video games. This album features the best music and songs from the anime, composed and arranged by Seiji Yokoyama (GATCHAMAN).
Bread & Souls is an ensemble of musicians, singers, DJs, producers and most of all, friends: a global family brought together by Franco Fusari under the musical direction of producer/electronic jazz pioneer Mark de Clive-Lowe.
Chapter 1 features vocal and instrumental tracks kicking off with an incredible exclusive: for the first time together on the same track West London Queens Bémbé Segue and Vanessa Freeman deliver a broken beat future classic. Paul Randolph features on a superb boogie tune, while Domu delivers an amazing remix of “Little Did I Know” - after almost a decade’s absence, he’s as brilliant as ever. And all supported by a great band: MdCL (keys), Tommaso Cappellato (drums), Marcus Machado and Landy Shores (guitars), Max Luthert (bass), Taku Hirano (percussion).
Free Hand was Gentle Giant's seventh album, originally released in July 1975. This album was the most commercially successful of the band's career, reaching the top 40 albums in Billboard Magazine. It stands as the culmination of the band's maturity, following the successes of 'In A Glass House' & 'The Power & The Glory'.
Having toured Europe & North America non-stop in the years prior to this release with artists like Jethro Tull, Yes, Zappa etc, the band had gone from strength to strength. By the time 'Free Hand' was released Gentle Giant had become a major headliner in their own right. All the members were multi-instrumentalists and the band were never afraid of surprising an audience with a 4 part recorder ensemble followed by a vibraphone solo, all the while rocking the audience and thoroughly enjoying themselves onstage.
Gentle Giant albums featured many songs with both literary subjects as well as social and personal commentary on life as rock musicians. 'Free Hand' has more than most. The title of the album and first track were so named as the band had just changed record labels and management and felt unshackled by prior contractual obligations.
Putting these issues behind them upon its first release, Gentle Giant embarked on an extensive tour of North America and Europe, plus a short tour of the UK, to promote the album. The incredible range of Gentle Giant's music is evident throughout this album. From the intricate vocal fretwork of 'On Reflection' and the delicate medieval
flavour of 'Talybont,' the Celtic-tinged rock of 'Time To Kill' and the jagged rhythms of 'Just The Same,' all those diverse elements which made the band so strikingly original are skillfully blended and perfectly executed.
Award winning producer and musician Steven Wilson has added his delicate touch in remixing 'Free Hand' . His tonal range and painstaking attention to sound quality make 'Free Hand' sound as fresh today as it did on first release. A fitting tribute to the compositional skills and expertise of five dedicated musicians.
This special gatefold 2LP edition is pressed on White Vinyl and limited to 500 pieces worlwide
Debut album from UK jazz saxophonist and composer Miles Spilsbury, featuring Carlos Niño. Produced by Slugabed.
Light Manoeuvres is about warmth, generosity and openness. The music which would become Light Manoeuvres was sketched in fragments, but began to take shape in earnest during a period of living under the Marseille haze in the South of France.
The specific character and opacity of the light in Marseille inspired the album title which imagines the movement of light passing over different subjects and spaces in intricate motion. Sand blows over from the Sahara on the Sirocco wind and is whipped up by the Mistral, the Marseille sky becomes golden and vapoured, then intermittently pastel blue. That image stuck while shaping this body of work, and became integral to the function of the compositions - which act as jumping off points for the players and myself, vehicles for improvisation and gateways to something else entirely.
Miles Spilsbury is a saxophonist, composer and multi-instrumentalist. Light Manoeuvres may be Spilsbury’s first full-length as bandleader, but the Brighton-based artist brings more than a decade of experience to bear on this record. In addition to a list of collaborators which includes Carlos Niño, Iglooghost, Nate Mercereau, Surya Botofasina and Yasei Collective, Spilsbury has been a permanent member of celebrated avant-rock experimentalists The Physics House Band since 2018. He has performed at prestigious UK venues such as the Southbank Centre and the London Jazz Festival, and has toured extensively throughout North America, Europe and Japan.
In time between other musical projects, Spilsbury spent several years sketching fragments of solo material. The music which would become Light Manoeuvres began to take shape in earnest during a period of living in Marseille. The specific character and opacity of the light there inspired the album title, which imagines the movement of light passing over different subjects and spaces in intricate motion.
Glasgow’s iconic and highly influential progressive house label Limbo Records celebrates it’s 30th anniversary. An incredible compilation across two 12”s in an expertly designed gatefold sleeve with a poster insert that takes a look back at some of the biggest tracks that graced the label over the past three decades.
A true collector’s item, showcasing the power and presence of this Scottish stalwart, lovingly remastered by Davie Forbes and reissued for a whole new generation of listeners. The compilation kicks off with Havana - Schtoom, the record that started it all given the remix from legendary Scottish duo Slam, before the party anthem ‘Buruchacca’ from Mukkaa aka Kiltie and Crichton gets a signature remix Apollo 440.
Elsewhere Gypsy hit with undeniably one of the highlight tracks in the Limbo catalogue ‘I Trance You’ and Sublime serve up another of Limbo’s classic releases, the dance floor banger ‘Transamerican’ which topped all the charts at the time.
Take to side 3 and you’ll find the second release on Limbo a percussive drum laden epic from Havana entitled ‘Shift’ that planted Limbo firmly in the must buy section of record shops across the UK. Another highlight on side 4 sees legendary Glasgow DJ Harri of Sub Club fame with his debut on Limbo – a superb slice of hard to house.
All in all, this is a serious slice of history that every collection should have nestled in its racks.
Keith Farrugia aka The Maltese Magician aka Sound Synthesis has been changing the face of the electro/techno community for many years now with his deep audioscapes. Taking you on a musical journey that’s deeper than Atlantis!
With previous releases on Ralph Lawson’s 20/20 Vision, Nocta Numerica, Gated Recordings, Planet 17 and Exalt to name but a few, Keith is a producer in high demand and we are grateful that he graced AmenTec with two incredible tunes that take the listener on a journey of musical imagination.
On the flipside, Amen Brother supplies the remixers for this release. Firstly, we have Cridge & Powder, two Bristol old school dons and royalty of the hardcore and jungle scene. Cridge is a member of the Bristol band Up, Bustle & Out and label boss of Tribe Recordings. Powder is part of the old skool hardcore group Fruit & Veg, who have been repressing their music on Vinyl Fanatiks recently. The guys turn in a rolling hardcore joint.
Next up on the remix are the Moving Shadow legends that are Tone Def, straight outta Bournemouth Town. The guys ease of the BPM a little and add an addictive vocal hook to their mix, showcasing the broad spectrum of the hardcore rave community. Rog from Tone Def is also the owner and creator of the Void soundsystems!
An EP with many layers!
c b1. Electrical Synapses Cridge & Powder 'Fruit & Veg' Mix
Tone Def Remix
Ten songs that ultimately changed the world. Ten songs pulled from precedent-establishing albums recorded between 1963 and 1966. More than five-million copies sold. In every way, Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits is a fundamental collection for every music lover, and the perfect choice for those seeking an introduction into the legend's vast career. For this is a collection so prized, even the cover photo won a Grammy.
Greatest-hits volumes are often hit-and-miss propositions not because of what they contain, but because of what's missing. Filtering the top selections from the six formative, life-altering albums Dylan made between 1963 and 1966 is an arbitrary process but one performed impeccably on this set. Home to his biggest chart successes as well as his most influential songs, Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits is a veritable template for any aspiring singer-songwriter, an American history lesson, and a seminal release for anyone new to his work – as well as for audiences that find some of his deeper cuts an acquired taste. Every signature facet of Dylan is represented, and done so authoritatively. Serious, protest folk anthems ("Blowin' in the Wind," "The Times Are A-Changin'") sit alongside defiant rock statements ("Positively Fourth Street"), landscape-changing epics ("Like a Rolling Stone"), beautiful blues-inspired odes ("I Want You"), and surrealist dreamscapes ("Subterranean Homesick Blues"). Infused with literary poetry, impassioned emotion, and career-making performances, this material doubles as a definitive account of American culture and society, and functions as a soundtrack to the era's social movements.
Gathered in one place, it's no wonder the songs here gave Dylan what remains the biggest-selling album of his career.
GRAILS don’t mince words. Awesomely communicative but entirely instrumental, this dynamic band’s violin, guitars, piano, and drums collide with sober melodies and massive emotion. At alternate moments, Grails can sound vaguely classical, Eastern European, Irish, like the lost tapes of Pauline Oliveros, and, you know, rock. They’re not really like anything else on the Neurot roster, but they’ve got something in common with all the Neurot bands: a commitment to intense music that forges new paths and, yeah, communicates in the most real way possible.
Grails have their fair share of ambient noise - shivery violins, a trickle of a high-hat, the amplified scrape of a guitar string - but their music is based on strong, narrative melodies that resonate in the heart. At times it sounds delicate, but they never cower; Grails ROAR, even when they’re being quiet.
The Burden of Hope is the debut LP, following a pair of self-released, eponymous ep’s in 2000 and 2002. The LP is the culmination of a year’s worth of recordings, including a reinterpretation of Sun City Girls’ classic “Space Prophet Dogon.”
Grails are gathered in Portland, Oregon from Baltimore, Little Rock, Louisville, Chapel Hill, and Reno. As an ensemble, their respective backgrounds in hardcore, classical, folk, and rock blend seamlessly. Formed in late 2000 to execute live the bedroom recordings of guitarist Alex Hall, the once-tentatively-assembled group found unexpected success with both audiences and local press. Originally formed under the moniker Laurel Canyon, the name of the group was changed to Grails to coincide with the release of The Burden
‘Gentle Persuaders’ is the Love Love debut from London based neo-noise-jazz outfit Sly & The Family Drone. In the form of a four track long player, Sly vomit forth a smooth serving of curious and clattering noise not devoid of fun.
With the ingredients of shattering baritone saxophone, splurges of analogue noise, rolling drum derangements and snarling feedback it is immediately clear that these formidable noise-mongers have honed their methods of ear-attack adeptly. Textural spaces are peppered with bouts of densely packed controlled-chaos creating a tension that builds almost imperceptibly until the crushing pay-off that comes with the final track.
The politest of bludgeonings, ‘Gentle Persuaders’ has a real sense of cohesion and style, at times subtle and at others shudderingly direct.
With their unusual and interactive live shows, the group cut their teeth stunning the audiences of punk and noise scenes across the UK and Europe. Now, Sly & The Family Drone present their most complete recording to date; a rush of sheer ataxia ushering in a new age of noise.
You never have to guess what Tink’s thinking. The Chicago-born songstress and rapper says it all in her music. She spits, speaks, and sings straight from the heart without filter or apology. At the same time, she breaks boundaries, dropping off bars with uncontainable charisma and belting out hooks with show-stopping range. She can be romantic in one crescendo before getting raw in a bout of wild wordplay. This versatility consistently affirms her as a force in her own lane. Following her 2011 debut mixtape, “Winter’s Diary,” she dropped projects at a prolific pace, including “Alter Ego,” ‘Blunts & Ballads,” and “Boss Up.” 2014 saw “Winter’s Diary 2: Forever Yours” arrive to widespread critical acclaim, landing on year-end R&B album lists from Billboard and Rolling Stone. It also yielded “Treat Me Like Somebody,” which gathered 64 million Spotify streams and counting. A year later, XXL touted her among its coveted “Freshman Class.” Following a stint in the major label system, she embraced independence again with “Winter’s Diary 4” 2016, “Voicemails” 2019, “Hopeless Romantic” 2020, “A Gift And A Curse” 2020, and “Pillow Talk” (2023).
The debut work by Hekura, the duo formed by Ernest Pipó and Edu Pons, both from Barcelona's impro music scene.
The songs in this LP serve as a voyage that evokes daydreams inspired by the everyday. Daydreams that change in surprising ways, as if they were old slides reflecting long-forgotten objects that once carried significance.
Everything begins with "the single petal of a rose" by D. Ellington in a choral rendition that emulates a dialogue between wind instruments, from which fantasy and memories flourish, starting with the ethereal "vane" and the dampness of "frogs". The first stage comes to an intense climax with a gripping gathering in the desert in "runes".
"Mound" takes us on a beautiful descent into the darkest depths of "calf", from which we emerge with life, but tinged with nostalgia in "wine". The book's cover is sealed with a guitar epilogue, where once again, "the single petal of a rose" brings the journey full circle.
This work was recorded by Uriel Ireland at Can Donzella (Sils, Girona) and mixed and mastered by Ferrán Conangle.
A blistering collection of ska tunes from Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd's legendary Studio One Records, Jamaica's foundation label of reggae music. Featuring classic cuts from the originators of Ska - The Skatalites, The Wailers, Lee Perry - alongside a heavy dose of superb rarities from the might vaults of 13 Brentford Road - pure Ska Fever !
Soul Jazz Records new Studio One Ska Fever returns back to the early 1960s when Ska was the soundtrack to Jamaica's Independence and Sir Coxsone ruled the land and The Skatalites and Studio One were creating history on a daily basis with an endless stream of blistering, scorching classic tunes.
This album includes an incredible line-up of only the finest artists in reggae music, including Roland Alphonso, The Gaylads, The Ethiopians, Don Drummond, Jackie Opel and many more. An all-star cast from Studio One, as Chris Blackwell famously noted, the 'University of Reggae'.
The accompanying booklet contains extensive sleeve-notes from Studio One historian Rob Chapman (author of Never Grow Old and Downbeat Special), with information on musicians, tracks, label scans and more. Soul Jazz Records' Studio One Ska Fever is released in
CD- jewel case, 24-page booklet with card slipcase, as well as a heavyweight double-vinyl edition in deluxe strong gatefold sleeve (with full sleeve notes).
Josh Milan has been recording music professionally for over 30 years.He's played every role from artist to engineer in the studio.This project, Honeysweet, focuses on his production and musicianship.Utilizing only one musician on sax, Josh plays every instrument and sings every note on this project. His songs are packed with soulful dance floor grooves inspired by iconic, soulful groups like Brian Auger, Cymande, Pleasure, Africano, Santana and others.
"I wanted to do music that made me and my family feel good when I was growing up. It's the kind of music that families dance to at gatherings with a record player and no DJ”, says Josh. “Intros, Accents, Breakdowns, Bridges, and endings were all part of the music.” This music will transport Josh's audience to a place of musical freedom. This is music with, seemingly, no rules.
Josh Milan describes each track on the Honeysweet EP “Exodus” in his own words :
"Last Night Changed It All featuring Lawrence Clark on sax is the kind of groove that keeps its dance floor value while holding up the banner of true musicianship. This song was written after hearing a DJ set,where the DJ didn’t seem to be concern about staying within a musical box. He played all sorts of music in one set. I knew then that I’d branch out musically when recording.Rhodes, picked bass guitar, rhythm guitar and drum kit is all that's needed on this one.”
"Exodus the manipulation of major and minor chords in this groove make it complex and interesting. The listener is lead by the organ solo featured here. The song is a mental escape. A mental exodus complete with bongo section.”"Being Free is a message that captures the point of this entire project. Musical freedom and expression is where this project gets its
fuel. Horns, are included on this production. A true expression of soulful music. Being free should be all the time I'm your mind all the time.”
“Cranberries and Cream is my tribute to funk grooves as they were featured on records in 70’s. I’m a fan of that sound and I like to play by own funk grooves when I’m alone. This is one of the tracks on the ep I prefer to rock.”
“And So She Waits has eerie sounding pads in the background. They linger throughout the track. Popping in and out, as though they’re waiting for something. You will hear the change in mood once she is no longer waiting. The groove returns to it’s original state. Only she is no longer waiting, he is.”
“Crazy is me bringing the funk to dirty house music. Complete with house piano in the mix. The chords are unsettling. They are, in fact,Crazy. I though adding a horn arrangement to a house track like this would sound interesting and different.”Honeysweet “Exodus” out at all digital outlets and double pack vinyl set.
A selection of unheard tracks by argentine cult proto-industrial band Quum, recorded between the years 2012/2014. Xtraqt Vol. 1 is the second release of Tecnologías Elementales, a record label founded by Djs Diamin and F.A.N.G.O.
Formed in 1978, Quum is an argentine group (currently consisting of brothers and founders members Gustavo and Daniel Gatti) that offers hypnotic and rhythmical improvisations in the language of experimental electronics, with a great participation of randomness, risk and uncertainty. Their music is inspired by science fiction, Zen Buddhism, chaos theory, ecology, the UFO phenomenon and the wabi-sabi concept.
Quum subscribes to the driving attitude of the Madí Movement ("invent and create"), coinciding in a conceptual vector that unites their teachers Jorge L. Borges, Gyula Kosice and Xul Solar.
Quum is a quiché-maya word extracted from the Popol Vuh that means "the secret", "that which is hidden behind the apparent", or "the mystery". The symbol that identifies them is a replica of the huge spider drawn mysteriously on the Nazca-Peru plateau.
Quum is, in addition to music, a living gesture of alternatives to conventional paradigms and pre-established archetypal behaviors.
Some kind of dirty ambient, cybernetik trance and organic industrial music.
Foundation is set in the future when the world is barely remembered and humans have colonized the galaxy. The record introduces Donnie Ozone, a brilliant visionary rapper and psychohistorian whose job is to use lyrics and rhymes to predict the future. It is divided into six chapters, each showing a part of the bigger picture portrayed on the outstanding cover by Infidel.
Teslasonic gathers together the galaxy's top scientists and artists on a bleak outer planet and sets out to preserve the accumulated knowledge of humankind and begin a new human galactic empire based on Art, Science and Technology. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation and designs it to withstand a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that he predicts will last for a long time.
CALAMITA = KARKHANA members TONY ELIEH, SHARIF SEHNAOUI and Lebanese drummer MALEK RIZKALLAH join forces with the Egyptian singer AYA METWALLI - the result is the improbable meeting between free jazz / improv, punk rock & Oum Kalthoum!
CALAMITA is the "rock project" of SHARIF SEHNAOUI and TONY ELIEH, two of the most active musicians on the Lebanese experimental scene (among others projects, both are members of the "free Middle Eastern music" collective KARKHANA). SEHNAOUI comes from a jazz and improv music background, ELIEH is primarily a rock musician and founding member of the Lebanese post-punk band THE SCRAMBLED EGGS whose work in the last decade has covered many directions from pop-rock to plain experimental. They are joined by Lebanese drummer MALEK RIZKALLAH (WHO KILLED BRUCE LEE, ex THE SCRAMBLED EGGS). As trio they develop instrumental pieces that draw their inspiration from artists as diverse as Tony Conrad, Last Exit or Oum Kalthoum.
AYA METWALLI is an Egyptian singer/songwriter, composer and sound artist currently based in Beirut. Grown up in Cairo, her father would play non-stop Oum Kalthoum songs on road trips to the beach and Aya's mother; known to have the most beautiful voice in the family, she always sang at home and at family gatherings, so long before Aya was able to form her own music taste, immense amounts of Arabic classic songs and melodies already settled in her subconsciousness …
After her first EP "Beitak" in 2016, Metwalli (named "a musical enigma" by The Guardian) started to integrate more experimental and eerie sonic excursions into her avant-pop, so the collaboration with CALAMITA feels like a natural or logic step.
The roots for "Al Saher" ("stay awake") were laid when SEHNAOUI and METWALLI first worked together in "Night", a dance piece by ALI CHAHROUR which included a wide collection of Arabic songs and ancient poems, later Sehnaoui invited her to work with CALAMITA. The four met in a recording studio in Beirut, using songs by "The Voice of Egypt" Oum Kalthoum as starting point.Together they aim to fully revisit the song format and explore the possibilities of classical Tarab songs, extracted from their origins and reframed within the music of the twenty-first century. The result is a mix of various styles and influences that often seek to stretch the contrasts to towering extremes - animprobable blend between free jazz & improv, punk rock & Oum Kalthoum!
Grammy Award Nominated 'Solace' LP pressed on 180gram vinyl with a gatefold jacket.
It is through this seamless transcendence of styles that their own sonic realm has unfolded; a landscape painted with the club culture of yesteryear and a poignant yet infectious ability to be ever in the moment.
The Age newspaper called Solace "a triumphant record", writing that "Electronic music is often thought of as harsh and unlistenable, but Solace is delicate and incredibly sophisticated in its production. The lyrics hinge on one central theme of yearning, whether that be for change, company or space."
Wax Tailor announces the release of his new album "Fishing For Accidents" on February 10th, 2023, accompanied by a new international tour.
"The starting point of this record is a quote from the film director Orson Welles, which evokes the notion of accident in the creative process. I always thought that accidents were an integral part of creation and the job of a film or music director is also to know how to capture them in order to make the accident an artistic intention. I decided not to follow a well established concept but this more instinctive guideline and to go fishing for accidents".
In this new opus, Wax Tailor explores with his sampler a world of vinyls and cinematographic references, brandishing as a flag a stamped musical culture and multiplying references to the 7th art in a music written in 33 rpm and 24 images seconds. After the dark "The Shadow Of Their Suns" released in 2021, Wax Tailor takes us with "Fishing For Accidents", on a brighter and more colorful side without ever betraying his universe and his convictions.
A multi-recidivist talent scout, he gathers around him a prestigious cast ranging from hip hop (Mick Jenkins, Mr. Lif, Kuf Knotz, Lojii, Napoleon Da Legend, Ill Conscious, Voice Monet, David Bars, Mattic) to the indie rock scene (Jennifer Charles, singer of the legendary band Elysian Fields and Victoria Bigelow).
With one eye on the past and the other on the horizon, Wax Tailor instills the incandescence of an organic sound and distills his art of sound anachronism in a wide gap between nostalgia and modernity that has made him one of the leaders of the international electro hip hop scene for over 20 years.
High Focus Records are excited to share a new full length offering from prolific Brighton based producer Mr Slipz, this time with a fresh label signing, Australian rapper Nelson Dialect. A landmark release and signing for High Focus with Nelson being the first international signing on the label. UK listeners might have first heard Nelson collaborating with Verbz & Mr Slipz on the song ‘Hope’ from their acclaimed LP ‘Radio Waves’ released on High Focus in 2020. Nelson has a cult following in his own right in Australia, and previously released music on the legendary U.S label Fat Beats to great acclaim. Now teaming up with one of the most exciting and respected UK producers, Nelson & Mr Slipz deliver ‘Ever Since’. A statement piece by two artists with well over a decade spent on their craft which sounds as urgent and refreshing as if it were their first time releasing music. The album’s title is a reference to the endless quest for a timeless sound, reflecting the creative partnerships which spark from a seemingly forever existing thread of music. The two artists crossed paths whilst Nelson was on tour in Brighton, and a chance introduction to Slipz made this album a reality. As fate would have it, due to a cancellation of plans and changing of schedules during Nelson’s tour, the pair ended up in the studio for 8 days straight together which is when the bulk of the album was created. They each saw this as a cosmic alignment and thus played into the albums astrological artwork themes and overarching concept. Striving to capture the lightning in a bottle moment, what resulted musically on this album was an inspired surge of energy and intense creative output that is felt across the entire LP. Equal parts personal and lyrically dextrous, Nelson explores a multitude of concepts over the hard hitting drums and jazzy samples producer Mr Slipz is renowned for through his previous work with artists including Verbz, Kofi Stone, Vitamin G & Datkid among many more. The album features a slew of impressive guest verses including label mates Vitamin G & Verbz on the emphatic ‘Oxford Scholars’. Two legends Jehst & Confucius MC combine on ‘Smooth Ride’. Bronx pioneer & D.I.T.C legend A.G delivers a show stopping verse on ‘Trembling the Marrow’. There are hypnotic singing performances by Indira May on ‘First Date’ & ‘Open Book’ as well as Hiatus Kaiyote back up vocalist Jace XL on the soul stirring anthem “Figure Out What’s Right”. U.S rappers SickInTheHead & Cazeaux O.S.L.O round out the impressive guest list on the album with their inspired verses. Listeners caught their first glimpse of the duo with their debut single ‘Only Just Begun’. A whirlwind 3 verse tune showcasing the relentless wordplay and imagery Nelson is regarded for over a moody, hard hitting Slipz production. With a buzz already around what Nelson Dialect & Mr Slipz are brewing, the duo have just released their second single ‘Oxford Scholars’ featuring label mates Vitamin G & Verbz
It was released on February 2, 1993 and is celebrating its 30th Anniversary. Lead MC Grand Puba left the group to pursue a solo career in 1991, following the release of their revered debut One for All. DJ Alamo also left to work with Puba, leaving MC's Sadat X and Lord Jamar, who enlisted DJ Sincere to join the group. It was a safe bet that In God We Trust wouldn't have attempted any new jack swing crossovers or tie-dyed imagery. Though the makeover is drastic, it is convincing, with Lord Jamar and Sadat X stepping up with some of the era's fiercest, most intense rhymes and lyrics that were extremely militant reflecting the group's identity adhering to the philosophy of the Nation of Gods and Earths. The album produced two singles, Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down and Love Me or Leave
Me Alone which both charted on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Utter presents the extraordinary audio-visual project 'SuperEverything*' by multi-media artists The Light Surgeons.
'SuperEverything*' is a live cinema performance piece that explores identity, ritual and place in relation to Malaysia’s past, present and future. Commissioned by The British Council in 2011, it was created in collaboration with a group of Malaysian audio and visual artists. Over the past decade, the project has toured to various film and new media arts festivals internationally.
'SuperEverything*' is a fusion of music, field recordings, documentary filmmaking and real-time moving image manipulation that together transports its audiences through a series of universal narratives; exploring themes of tradition and modernity, globalisation and development, race and national identity, to consumer culture and belief.
'SuperEverything*' surveys our human condition to reveal what unites and divides us. It weaves together a rich kaleidoscope of stories, sounds, images and smells live on stage. It is a truly immersive, cross disciplinary performative artwork that reflects on how our complex identities are formed through ritual in relation to our rapidly evolving physical and psychological environments.
'SuperEverything*' poses many questions about how people form a sense of identity in a world increasingly dominated by information networks and fast changing social and economic landscapes.
This limited edition vinyl and digital album features the nine original tracks that make up the musical score to this groundbreaking live cinema project, fusing traditional South East Asian instruments with field recordings, electronica and western classical string instruments.
Accompanying the record is a 24 page full colour booklet and double-sided poster, housed in a gatefold sleeve. The booklet contains quotes from the narrative interviewees whose voices are interwoven throughout the performance. These quotes accompany images from the production and performances to help illustrate the musical journey and allow you to contemplate the themes and ideas explored in this work. The poster design features a collection of filmstrips taken from the video material in the show with a single striking album image photo on the reverse.
The release is also accompanied by a previously unavailable film of the full live cinema performance recorded at Hackney Empire in collaboration with The Barbican in 2013.
Ivor Cutler is loved by generations of fans - including Paul McCartney, Billy Connolly and Alex Kapranos - for his unique music and poetic humour. A phenomenal stage presence for 50 years, with a prolific output. Championed by legendary DJ John Peel for whom Cutler recorded 21 sessions. 'Privilege' was produced as a vinyl LP for Rough Trade Records in 1983 and has been unavailable for decades. The album is only one of two where Cutler collaborates with other artists. It is unique in that there is a second voice - singer Linda Hirst. Musicians Steve Beresford and David Toop play several instruments and produced the record.
• Gil Scott-Heron’s “Pieces Of A Man” is one of the most important albums in the history of black American music. Although it didn’t set the charts alight, it stands as a masterpiece alongside contemporary works such as Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”, Curtis Mayfield’s debut LP, Funkadelic's “Maggot Brain” and Isaac Hayes’ “Shaft”. All were brilliant in their way, but lyrically Scott-Heron was on a different level from almost every other writer.
• It was a landmark album with its bold, poetic lyrical content allied to progressive and melodic music, and it saw producer Bob Thiele help Gil and his musical partner Brian Jackson paint the picture they needed to get their message across. Thiele put Gil and Brian together with Ron Carter, Hubert Laws and Bernard Purdie, giving them the musical heft they wanted.
• For many years the focus was on ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’, which was included in the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 2014, but this focus sometimes overshadowed the heights which Gil reached throughout the album. Today ‘Home Is Where The Hatred Is’ and ‘Lady Day And John Coltrane’ are also considered standards, whilst the album’s title track is a prescient and heart-breaking warning about the way in which big business dehumanises its workers.
• The album reached its landmark 50th year in 2021 and we decided that we would create this special edition to celebrate its incredible sound. The original master tape was taken to Frank Merritt at The Carvery in London, who cut it as a double disc 2 x 45 RPM record, in an all-analogue chain. The original record - especially side two - was long, and serving it up this way allowed the music a greater level of fidelity.
• The release is packaged in the original album’s gatefold sleeve.
3xLP, Widespine Jacket
Yellow & Black Translucent Smoke Vinyl
Yellow Tape 2 is the follow-up to Key Glock's 2020 debut album, Yellow Tape, and like it's predecessor, remains distinctly featureless. The album showcases Glock, at times alongside his alter ego, Glizock, floating over trap-heavy production with the authentic tone his fans have come to know. Featuring the singles, "Toolie," "Ambition for Cash," & "Da Truth," the album sees production from Tay Keith, Juicy J, Sosa 808, Budda Bless and more. The Deluxe version features 10 new tracks, including the standout single, Proud, dedicated to the late Young Dolph.
Freude am Tanzen is back for a very special occasion. In 2022, three Various Artists EPs will be released, celebrating the 24th anniversary of the label from Thuringia. Whilst occasions like this would
normally be celebrated on the quarter century, this release makes sense not only on the mathematical level. 3 compilations with 4 tracks provide the half of 24.
The release however also makes sense in terms of history. Freude am Tanzen is showcasing a broad range of electronic music, never neglecting their history but also looking into the future.
The second Edition of the Compilation features tracks from Caldera, Freund der Familie, Gathaspar and Front Left. The A-Side focusses on Dub-House. Calderas Track ‚30 Friends‘ gets a smooth yet groovy vibe across. Freund der Familie contributes a hypnotic production, which would suit well incorporated in a warm up or on the home speakers.
The flip side goes deeper into the minimalistic region of electronic music. Gathaspar has produced a trippy journey, featuring the vocals of Anna Partini. One for the morning hours on the dance floor.
Front Left praises the groove with his track ‚AM3N‘. Very playful and delicate and a lovely selection of percussion. Do not miss!5.
For the very rst time Blintmusik welcomes two artists to remix tracks from the label’s back catalogue. Keeping the tradition of two tracks per release - on the A side we meet the french grandmaster of Electro, Umwelt. His remix of ‘Chauncey Street‘ is a pure dark whirlwind with bitter-sweet synth-strings oating over a set of forward pushing drums
and a drilling bassline. On the ipside is Sonae, best known for her immersive albums on labels like Monika Enterprise.
Her Remix of ‘92 Avenue‘ opens the gates to a distorted synth-utopia. In a total deconstruction, the Cologne based artist turns the original club banger into a nightmarish noise staccato which spirals down your spine before dropping into a heavyweight kickdrum-inferno. Truly unsettling club music at its best.
One year after its original release, the Placid Angles album Touch The Earth is being remixed by an impressive array of artists from the extended Figure family. With John Beltran being a distinct voice within the electronic music scene for over thirty years now, Figure is thrilled to reveal a whole LP’s worth of reinterpretations, including two works by the original artist himself.
Opening up is Marcel Dettmann, who seamlessly has integrated the lush soundscapes of the original album into a beat-driven but equally serene journey. Picking up on the LP’s underlying dark garage tropes, Planet Mu headmaster M-ziq infuses his rework with even more rolling drums and ethereal vocal chops. The also inherent IDM roots of Touch The Earth have been kept close by Warp-veterans Plaid who deliver a shuffling flurry full of horns, synths and syncopated rhythms. More straightforward interpretations include Dauwd’s dazzling piece of feathery, fast, atmospheric techno; a gorgeous melodic house remix by Baltra and Cassy who turns in a rigid UK stomper.
Amidst all the reworks, John Beltran himself makes two appearances across the record. As Placid Angles he adds another heads-down percussive/ambient swirl, which represents exactly what the producer has been hailed for since more than three decades now. His own remix finishes the record on an epic note, with an organic drum track that celebrates life and the necessity for communal gathering in order to dance.
Beltran’s own additions to this LP are like the essential glue that makes it all bind together, forging the old and the new into something equally exciting as already intimately familar.
Following on from his debut album ºs on AD93, conceptual artist Aboutface presents a new vaporous LP– a vital climate emergency-themed project which utilises poetry collected from his dreams alongside glaciology research and sound recordings captured during polar expeditions c/o the Alfred Wegener Institute – a centre for polar and marine research. Featuring long term Violin collaborator Taro and dream prose reciter Leyla Pillai, the album explores a surreal and abstract intersection between the collective dream realm and the disappearing polar cryosphere, evoking the interconnectivity between environmental change and the collective subconscious.
A self-release, all profits will go towards Extinction Rebellion’s legal fund to help provide counsel to those protesting against contributors to the climate emergency. Limited to 300 Eco renewable-energy recycled gatefold vinyl produced with Deepgrooves, NL. Downloads and streaming limited to one of Earth’s revolution of the Sun only– an ephemeral release for an ephemeral existence.
Mr. K is back again with a double-sider that tackles the ups and downs of love and does it in fabulous style with two solid soul classics.
Yvonne Fair was a veteran of the soul music world when she finally got the chance to record her first full length album in 1975. She had recorded multiple singles under the guidance of James Brown (her “I Found You” was reworked by Brown into the chart-topper “I Got You (I Feel Good)”) and, after leaving the JB camp for the auspices of Motown, a clutch of 7-inches with Norman Whitfield. These were gathered together to form her first (and only) full-length, but before the album was completed a final song was added to fill things out. This last minute touch would turn out to be the crowning achievement of her career. “It Should’ve Been Me” didn’t seem to be a notable addition at first. The song was originally done by Kim Weston a decade earlier and then by Gladys Knight. But Fair’s version had something special. In addition to the novel addition of a percolating drum machine pulse, Fair imbued the lyrics with a heartfelt sincerity and gruff emotion that touched listeners in a way that other versions had missed. Released as a single in the UK in late ’75, the song rose to the top ten of the British charts by February of the following year, inspiring Motown to release it as a US single. The song never replicated its UK success in the States, but went on to have a long life as a staple of drag performances and gay club life. Gay club life being the heart of all great club life, it’s only natural that the impact of the song has continued to spread, from Adeva’s hit house version in 1991 to Miley Cyrus’s recent revival of the song. Danny Krivit pays tribute to this storied history with his own version, a simple yet effective edit that stays true to the original but gives DJs a little more room (and fans a little more time to sing along!) than the all-too-brief original.
Continuing on our theme of lovelorn loss and redemption, Mr. K turns his attention to the New Birth’s “Brand New Lover” for our B-side. While the original slowly moves from the tentative, immediate aftermath of breakup to the eventual positive path forward, Krivit’s edit jumps straight to the joyous resolution to find new love, riding a delicious call and response chorus punctuated by signature breakdowns from master producer Harvey Fuqua. Danny’s edit provides a natural uplifting opportunity that never stops building over the course of its extended five minutes. Until now, the track has only been available on the group’s debut 1970 full-length, and never on a 7-inch single.
As always, this release has been mastered to the highest standards and is certain to find a spot in the bags of discerning listeners and DJs alike.
In an interview for The Wire magazine back in January 2012, Spencer Clark claimed that one the most important "lesson" learned while performing with The Skaters was "stay true to your imagination". Taking this life motto at heart, Clark's world today is still a place of wonder and myth, conveyed through a myriad of aliases and invocations like Vodka Soap, Fourth World Magazine or Typhonian Highlife. Always the wide-eyed mystic and searcher of the netherworld, Clark surfaces again on Discrepant sister label Pacific City Discs, straight from the Canary Islands with this not quite but somewhat reissue under his celebrated and celebratory Monopoly Child Star Searchers alias.
Combining visions from two long, long sold out and hardly traceable releases on Clark's own Pacific City label, pressed for the first time ever in wax with a new master by D&M - as it should - 'The Aqueducts Of Channel Island/Prince Of Parrot Shooters' stands as a vital piece in an ever changing and deeply personal mandala-like oeuvre. An hypnotic and appropriately lo-fi flux of bouncy hand percussion loops, nature calls and celestial synth harmonies that weave themselves into trance inducing rituals. Levitating fever-dream recordings from imaginary topographies, or perhaps a gateway to fortean alternate realities just lurking around the corner. Stay true to your imagination indeed.
Polish composer Olga Wojciechowska and veteran electronic producer Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner, combine on A Strangely Isolated Place to revisit a beloved Strie album - Olga's more electronic and experimental alias. With previous releases on Serein and Time Released Sound as Strie, Olga Wojciechowska's 'Struktura' was released in 2015 to a limited audience due to its physical-only format.
As Olga's work becomes increasingly more coveted, through her more recent releases on A Strangely Isolated Place (Unseen Traces & Infinite Distances), and with Struktura praised as one of her finest albums to date, the discussion to breathe new life into the album resulted in a unique pairing with Scanner, an electronic music producer and multimedia artist responsible for some of the most defining works of the genre since the early 1990s.
Blurring the line between harmony and dissonance, Struktura's original recordings paint an eerie, haunting and beautiful picture, conceptualized around abstract art, with intricacies and mystery abound. Here, Strie's original recordings remain untouched, albeit lovingly remastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri, and it is left to Scanner to provide further interpretations of Olga's original recordings. Scanner productions can typically traverse a myriad of styles, but here, Robin took a primarily live-hardware approach to the remixes, allowing the rawness of his recordings to add story and depth. Recorded in one take, with no overdubs, the reinterpretations strip the melodies and textures to their original essence, bringing an entirely analog element to Olga's intrinsically detailed originals. Featuring artwork by Rep Ringel and mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri, Struktura Revisited will be available on Gatefold 2LP in a black/grey half-and-half vinyl, with 6x6" soft-touch heavy art card.
Baby Buddha is David Javelosa and musical partner Charles Hornaday playing instruments and providing their own whacked-out vocals. Baby Buddha really was less of a band than a project; a side project in fact, for some members of another group, Los Microwaves. Baby Buddha would eventually record and release an album, 1981's provocatively-titled Music for Teenage Sex on Robbie Fields' L.A.-based Posh Boy label.
Happily, the project's guiding creative light, David Javelosa has recently seen to a vinyl reissue of the now-40-year-old record, mystifyingly retitled Music for Teenage Sects. Definitely among the stranger releases of the new wave era, Music for Teenage Sex/Sects could perhaps only have been created when and where it was made. But on the occasion of its 40th anniversary, the music sounds as weirdly wonderful as ever. "We Are Not" sounds like Human League stuck in a car with The Residents. And their cover of "All Shook Up" sounds like a musical kin to those inscrutable eyeball guys too; it wouldn't be out of place on Meet the Residents. "Little Things" is a house-of-mirrors, scary track, with spoken-word vocals by Los Microwaves' Meg Brazill and label head Fields.
The album cover is slightly different as well: it displays a bedroom scene like the original LP, but with the young female model absent. The new release (on Javelosa's own Hyperspace Communications label) is pressed on beautiful translucent blue vinyl and comes in a gatefold sleeve with a lively collage of photos, buttons, gig posters. Limited to 500 copies.This playfully titled release features David Javelosa (on synth and vocals) along with Meg Brazill (on bass and vocals) plus drummer Todd "Rosa" Rosencrans. Side One features five studio tracks, none of which were included on the band's 1981 Posh Boy LP, Life After Breakfast. Three of these tracks were recorded in '82; there's no information regarding the provenance of the other two songs. The records' second side collects five live recordings, capturing Los Microwaves onstage in New York City (The Peppermint Lounge) and Boston as well as at San Francisco's own I-Beam, a venue that often played host to the band. Those tracks date form roughly the same ear, 1980-83. Sonically the songs variously recall Blondie, Flying Lizards, Gang of Four and a far less dour Human League. Importantly, the band rocks, even when it's employing a spare drum kit, solid but elemental bass, and monophonic analog synthesizers. The stripped down aesthetics of the group – necessitated by its minimalist instrumental approach – are nonetheless thrilling. Even if you weren't there in 1980, this'll take you back.
Wewantsounds continues its collaboration with Bob Shad's venerable
jazz label Mainstream Records, and present a selection of 12 turntable friendly tracks recorded between 1971 and 1975 and showcasing the
label's superb blend of Spiritual Jazz, Funk and Soul by the likes of Buddy Terry, Sarah Vaughan, LaMont Johnson and Johnny Coles.
Most of the tracks are released on vinyl for the first time since their original release in the early 70s. The 2-LP set comes with gatefold sleeve featuring never seen photos from the Mainstream vaults and new liner notes by UK journalist Paul Bowler.
Mainstream Records is one of the key independent jazz labels of the early 70s, together with Flying Dutchman, Strata East, CTI and Black Jazz. Founded by legendary label man Bob Shad (who had been head of A&R at Mercury Records and set EmArcy in the 50s), the label concentrated on Psychedelia in the 60s before switching back to Shad's jazz roots in the early 70s, signing a new crop of jazzmen fed on John Coltrane and Miles' electric experiments. Thus was born the
cult Mainstream "300 series" with its distinctive artwork and outstanding music from which this selection is largely drawn.
Giving a chance to many young jazz players and a few old friends, Shad recorded some of the most exciting jazz of the early 70s, mixing spiritual influences with funk and soul. Mainstream Records has a lot more exciting music in the vaults and 'Mainstream Funk' is just the tip of the iceberg serving as a timely reminder that Bob Shad's taste as a producer and A&R man was one of the finest on the scene.
For their second release Breidenbach Label once more gathers six artists from their regional circuit. Connected by their floating and sometimes even hypnotic soundscape, pulsating pads and strong grooves, each of the four tracks has its own intimate style.
With Love Entropy Crécy delivers a powerful and emotional ambient introduction to the A-Side. His fellow artist and close friend Ami adds a poetic layer: spoken word which shimmers through the sound, adding to the sentimental vibe. An atmospheric first serve. KliX picks up the love theme and transforms it into a mesmerizing ear catcher called Give Me Love. The somewhat trancy elements accompanied by evolving patterns, vocoder-vocals and classy 909 drums give this track its enticing and unique character.
Spaceloop on the records B-Side marks a debute release for the Mannheim based duo Seeder. They teamed up with Benny Delara to deliver a hip shaking dancefloor weapon that captivates through its strong and pulsating baseline combined with atmospheric elements that carry the records narrative. The EP is accomplished by Tech Report from the promising live-due CVSO. While blending breaky grooves with atmospheric elements the listener may find himself surprised by a jazzy piano melody that is proof of their creative and forward-thinking musical mindset.
Subtil is back with the "Rest & Peace" EP, marking a new and totally different approach for the imprint.
"Rest & Peace" results from their intentions to release something different from what they typically do and gather music to listen to outside of the club ecosystems. Embracing a more musical, experimental, and definitely peaceful character, this EP is will cater to the introspective moments or those cozy hours with your favorite ones.
Subtil had some leftover covers from previous releases from the past few years and thought it was an excellent opportunity to use them for the release. Combining the "rest" of their covers and music created with "peace" in mind, "Rest & Peace" is a unique and unusual collection of tracks and a bold musical statement from Subtil's key producers.
London's SlothBoogie return with the second instalment of their 'Dancing With Friends' series this August, featuring exclusive new music from Kemback, Felipe Gordon, Mak z, Bill Mango, The Revenge and more.
Following the success of the inaugural 'Dancing With Friends', which featured the likes of Kassian, Letherette, Joe Cleen and Ruff Stuff amongst others, the crew are back with that ever so tricky... second album. This sequel however, will not disappoint. The team have scoured the four corners of the globe to provide listeners with a comprehensive follow up that showcases more brand-new music from their favourite producers.
'Dancing With Friends Vol.2' is a deftly curated selection of the diverse styles synonymous with the SlothBoogie sound, ranging from the hazy deepness of cuts by Amy Dabbs, DJ Counselling, Bill Mango, Metropolitan Soul Museum and Kristy Harper to Disco tinged, jazzy, bumpy numbers from the likes of Jesse Bru, T.U.R.F. and Felipe Gordon through to more tripped out acid workouts by The Revenge, Fede Lng & Mojeaux, Togethrs and Pablot.
With this latest collection you can trust SlothBoogie to bring some much-needed dancefloor unity and sun-drenched energy to the world for the summer of 2021. The perfect soundtrack to reconnect and begin dancing with friends once again.
The vinyl format will come as a Gatefold Cover with 2 x 12" cream speckled clear vinyl and will include the full digital album download cards.
Special Request continues his impeccable run of form with a typically fervent entry into the DJ-Kicks mix series. His adventurous 25 track mix takes in personal favourites, new school classics and of course a selection of his own brand new and exclusive edits, dubs and reworks next to some overlooked gems. Leeds based Paul Woolford dares to go where few others do. He can do face-melting underground bangers, peak time piano anthems, ambient cinematics or chart climbing crossover hits. What unites his work as Special Request across labels like Houndstooth and R&S, though, is precision engineering, but never at the expense of real, raw emotion and visceral impact. He is an artist who very much pours his heart into everything he does, and has been on such a prolific run in recent years that it has been impossible to keep abreast of all his many projects. Even in this mix, he hints at yet more new sides and sounds. As always with Special Request, this is an emotional, full spirited ride through the musical mind of one of the most accomplished artists of the day.
SUMMER OF SEVENTEEN are MONIKA KHOT (NORDRA, ZEN MOTHER), WILLIAM FOWLER COLLINS, DANIEL MENCHE, FAITH COLOCCIA (MAMIFFER), and AARON TURNER. (SUMAC, SPLIT CRANIUM).
Wildfires plagued Washington state during the summer of 2017, their smoke drifting westward toward the Seattle area and toxifying the air. Shortly before that trauma, MONIKA KHOT, WILLIAM FOWLER COLLINS, DANIEL MENCHE, FAITH COLOCCIA, and AARON TURNER had gathered at the latter two musicians' House Of Low Culture studio on idyllic Vashon Island with revered producer RANDALL DUNN. There they cut eight songs that capture the makeshift band's feelings of what COLOCCIA calls "a kind of doomsday lurking in the background." It's as if these highly attuned players had a premonition.
"Summer Of Seventeen" -which was edited and arranged by MONIKA KHOT, who records apocalyptic music solo as NORDRA and plays in the avant-rock band ZEN MOTHER—is a nuanced admixture of these musicians' sounds and a culmination of all of their previous collaborations. COLOCCIA and TURNER have created eldritch folk and chamber rock for over a decade in MAMIFFER while engaging in various solo and group projects that explore their profound spirituality in sound. MENCHE has been a fixture on the abstract composition scene for 31 years and COLLINS is a savvy explorer of drone and ambient forms. Their ephemeral summit meeting has yielded a masterwork for the ages.
A heaven/hell and beauty/beastliness dichotomy pervades the album—as if a titanic struggle was transpiring in that small studio. The fearsome trumpet fanfare that starts "Chorus Of The Innocents" heralds a baleful fate. With a subliminal industrial rhythm bristling beneath the eerie exhalations, the song submerges us in a slow-motion maelstrom, a horror-film facsimile of MILES DAVIS' "Bitches Brew". "Perceived Slight" threads death-metal screams through a stark, suspenseful atmosphere, with austere glints of guitar and beats like fists on a casket lid intensifying the dread.
Angelic chants and celestial drones perfume the air in several of the songs on "Summer Of Seventeen", countered with muted blast beats, serrated hums, jagged glitches, simulacra of grinding gears and lightning. It's as if no good deed goes unpunished. "Spirits Of Redeemer" could be an elegy for the human race while "Cultural Orphan" sounds like a symphony for a malfunctioning factory. The album ends with "Theatre Needs An Audience," a harrowing ballad somewhere between EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN and MERZBOW; it's a savage rent in the space-time continuum.
"Thinking about this record now," COLOCCIA recalls, "it seems like we were all sort of anticipating something like this current pandemic happening, although we were thinking about it as fire in the hands of man (literal fire, and also gunfire) that would overturn the normal running of things and reveal the current false beliefs systems holding up most of America."
That grave aura infiltrates "Summer Of Seventeen", However, a hopefulness bubbles beneath the foreboding architecture of sound and noise summoned here. The bunker is the new penthouse.
Following the release of a number of EPs on Swiss, German, British and Australian labels, Trinidad will release their debut album ‘Palm Trees & Thirty Degrees’ on October 16th 2020.
The album draws on the Swiss-based trio’s experience of sustaining the energy of festival and club shows, while also providing the perfect background to a relaxed summer evening with friends.
The project provides an opportunity for the trio to indulge in a range of musical influences, blending together a mix of synthesizers with the haunting tones of a church organ, the warmth of a string quartet and regality of an opera singer. The album grew organically, with inspiration taking hold beyond the confines of the studio: the bonus track recorded with a Jamaican reggae singer in the back of a VW bus in Greece. Soundscapes from Colombia to India were captured and embedded.
With "Palm Trees & Thirty Degrees" Trinidad guide listeners on a journey to a tropical paradise; to a wonderful, perhaps peculiar place of confidence, created and shaped by the mental theatre of the moment.
The soft kiss of a warm breeze hits you as you adjust to your new surroundings ("Desembarco"); leaving the static chatter of your thoughts behind in the "Lobby" (feat. MonoAbe) of your mind; you allow yourself to imagine what the evening holds in store (“Kopfkino”); But first, there’s a drink in the “Sunset Bar”, a refreshing cocktail "Luciola" that serves as a gateway for you to plunge into the night. A night of unlimited possibilities, the first instances a blur ("Sagrada"), as time starts to lose its meaning ("Tempus Fugit"); everything spins, everything is possible, everything is ("Elevate"). Suddenly, hours (or is it days?) have passed – it doesn’t matter; what matters is the first sign of dawn, the unmistakable warmth dissolving the darkness (“Alma”); the beat slows, and you feel the "Libération" of the new day; looking around you see the moments you’ve shared etched on the faces of your friends ("Fleeting" feat. Julia Portmann); It is not goodbye, it is only "Au Revoir".
The album was produced by Trinidad in their own studios in Bern and Zurich. It features collaborations with a number of artists: Cornelia Aeschbacher Firmin (Hang), MonoAbe (Mallets & Percussion), Jack Williams (text of "Fleeting"), Julia Portmann (vocals), Zenyth (vocals) and Michael Meier (electric bass). The songs were mixed by Marcel Schneider, mastered by Benjamin Fay. Raïssa Lara Lütolf was responsible for the graphic design.
German cult band "Bohren & der Club of Gore" release their eigth studio album via 'PIAS Recordings'. The band have built a loyal international fanbase on the back of their trademark ‘Doom Jazz’ sound and count musical icons such as Mike Patton and Stephen O’Malley among their fans. Strictly instrumental, this band and their sound have the healing power to survive these hectic modern times. For fans of Melanie de Biasio, Sunn O)))' and the soundtracks of David Lynch. The band played two sold out shows in London’s Round Chapel recently and will tour the UK again in 2020.
'PIASD5045LP' pressed & designed on 2x12" Gatefold Coloured Vinyl.
The ‘Art On Ice’ EP is a tasty preview of the forthcoming ‘Ski Infinity’ LP by ‘The Steaming Jeans’: the official soundtrack for the ‘Winter Of Love’! The legendary ‘Winter Of Love’ was an athletic event of unprecedented scope and ambition held throughout the 1980s. For one beautiful decade, ice lovers from all four corners of the globe gathered at Mount Unity for two weeks of spectacular competition, dazzling snowscapes and glittering nightlife.
Contains exclusive instrumental version of ‘Art On Ice’. Limited edition of 150 copies on snowy white vinyl!
From playing chaotic house parties in their home city of Oxford to becoming major festival headliners across Europe, Foals' trajectory has been remarkable. They've earned critical acclaim (NME and Q Award wins, plus Mercury Prize, Ivor Novello and BRIT Award nominations) and fan devotion (1.7 million sales of their four Gold-certified albums) in equal measure. And while the majority of contemporaries have fallen by the wayside, Foals continue to hit new peaks.
After more than a decade in the game, Foals again embrace that love for the unconventional with the bravest and most ambitious project of their career: not one, but two astonishing new albums: 'Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost'. A pair of releases, separate but related, they share a title, themes and artwork. 'Part 1' will be released on March 8th, with 'Part 2' following later in the year.
'They're two halves of the same locket,' frontman Yannis Philippakis explains. 'They can be listened to and appreciated individually, but fundamentally, they are companion pieces.
Fundamentally tethered but possessing their own personalities, the two bodies capture the most compelling, ambitious and cohesive creations they've ever produced. Eager to break the traditional pop song structure which they felt they were becoming increasingly tapered to, the 20 tracks defy expectation. There are exploratory, progressive-tinged tracks alongside atmospheric segues which make the music an experience rather than a mere collection of songs. Yet the band's renowned ability to wield relentless grooves with striking power and skyscraper hooks also reaches new heights.
The album's lead single 'Exits' is a case in point, featuring Philippakis conjuring the image of a disorienting world via a contagious vocal melody. It's a fresh anthem for Foals' formidable arsenal, but also an ominous forecast.
'There's a definite idea about the world being no longer habitable in the way that it was,' says Yannis. 'A kind of perilousness lack of predictability and a feeling of being overwhelmed by the magnitudes of the problems we face. What's the response And what's the purpose of any response that one individual can have'
'Exits' signposts what to expect thematically from both instalments of 'Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost'. The title is a warning that anything - from the tiniest fleeting moment of inspiration through to the planet's own biological diversity - can be under threat of being irrevocably erased.
It's a theme that permeates throughout the album's material, as Foal mirror the public neuroses that have been provoked by our current cultural climate. Paranoia of state surveillance Fear of environmental collapse Anxiety over Trump's next potentially cataclysmic move It's all there in these apocalyptic songs.
'Lyrically, there are resonances with what's going on in the world at the moment,' summarises Yannis. 'I just feel like, what's the utility of being a musician these days, if you can't engage with at least some of this stuff These songs are white flags, or they're SOSs, or they're cries for help... each in a different way.'
The new albums' journeys began as the 'What Went Down' era ended. Founding bassist Walter Gervers departed on amicable terms after playing the Festival Paredes de Coura in Portugal in August 2017. Foals felt that he couldn't be replaced - a decision that ushered in a period of recalibration, reorganisation and, ultimately, rejuvenation.
After taking a little time out, Foals - completed by Jimmy Smith (guitar), Jack Bevan (drums) and Edwin Congreave (keys) reconvened - with Yannis on production duties, who, together with Edwin, also covered the bass parts. They began by writing in a rehearsal space before exporting those sketches into the recording phase at 123 Studios, Peckham, with the assistance of engineer Brett Shaw. They'd repeat the cycle between the two spaces, effectively creating an ongoing feedback loop as they sought to push every new idea to the finish line.
1 x 12" black vinyl 180gsm
- label 4/c
- discobag on reverse board with matt varnish
- gatefold on reverse board with matt varnish
- shrinkwrap
Castanea Records returns with its seventh release, we are talking again about an LP this time signed by Paradroid. The artist is the new entry in the label and returns after a long time with an album that draws a definitely microhouse sound which characterizes him being a pioneer of this genre.
An old school sound unique and characteristic perhaps missing in the market since long. 8 tracks cared in minimum and the high quality details mixed and registered 100% in analog tape.
This icing cannot miss in the disk bag of any connoisseur in gender or non. There will be a novelty even on artwork level, this time we have decided to adapt to release a beautiful gatefold rough collectible cover.
Music has always coursed through Roman Lindau's blood. Even if he weren't the accomplished producer and respected DJ he is today, the German audiophile would still be spending all his money on the stuff; giving over all his time to the art form. ''I'm a music junkie. I need music to live'' he states matter-of-factly. ''For me it's the elixir of life.''
Good job, then, that he gets to spend his ..
Roman Lindau is a German techno DJ, artists and producer, as well as being a core member of the infamous Fachwerk Records from Berlin.
Music has always coursed through Roman's veins ever since he was a young boy so it is no suprise that he became the accomplished producer and highly respected DJ that he is today.
In the late 2000´s Lindau became active in the Berlin electronic music scene, beginning to play music in clubs as well as producing his own music.
The first track he released in 2008 on his home label Fachwerk Records appeared in one the world famous Berghain Mix Compilations, mixed by Len Faki.
Following from this Berghain invited Roman to contribute an exclusive Track for Ben Klock´s Berghain Mix in 2009. After this success the gates opened for him to play regularly as a DJ at Berghain.
At the same time he continued to work on music for Fachwerk Records. He produced dance floor smashers like ´Crasse´ in 2011 and ´Rave on´ in 2014, which were charted by the likes of Ben Klock, Sven Väth & Chris Liebing, afirming his deserved place amongst the techno elite.
More recently in 2015 the well known Victor Calderone from NYC invited Roman to release on his label Matter+.
The reason why Roman is such a great DJ is because of the fact he knows what the people want! ''I love to dance and that's very important: as DJ you need to feel what the crowd want so you can help them to party and have fun.''
Combining a varied selection of raw house and techno in his sets, recent bookings have taken Roman across the world; from the hallowed techno Mecca that is Berghain to dark underground clubs as part of the recent Fachwerk label tour.
He has performed at every legendary Berlin venue, past and present from Tresor to Berghain, and it is this that gives Roman the edge above the rest. If you can do it there, you can do it anywhere!
From 2014 Till the closing he was a resident DJ at Stattbad, one of Berlins findest adress for Electronic Music.
Chapter 1: 'The soul within them'
Beneath their rugged skin and scalding flesh, there is a human soul trapped in eternity, burning with excruciating and insatiable energy.
Chapter 2: 'Inside their lair'
In the mountains old as the world itself, warlocks from across the lands has gathered inside their cavernous lair to celebrate and bless the birth of a hundred dragons. As they chant, their mother roar.
Chapter 3: 'They soar through flames'
Up in the endless sky, the hunters are soaring in the flames blasting from their jaws. With scales hot as the sun, flesh like molten iron, the fly in honor of this day of legends.
Chapter 4: 'Hatchlings, hatching'
As the celestial portals align, the hatchlings start to hatch. Catching their first glimpse of starlight and screaming to the eternal void as their tiny wings start to flap.
Supported by:
Deepbass, Ness, Rraph, Svreca, Antonio de Angelis, Arnaud le Texier, Hector Sandoval (Exium), Kwartz, Takaaki Itoh, The Noisemaker, Unam Zetineb, Valentin Corujo (Exium), Vilix, Mattias Fridell, Oscar Mulero, Refracted, DJ Sandrien, Eric Cloutier, Giorgio Gigli, Nihad Tule, Attemporal, Ben Buitendijk, Brendon Moeller (Echologist), Etapp Kyle, Nima Khak, Rasmus Hedlund, Retina.IT, Victor Martinez, Antonio Ruscito, Dubit, Periskop, Shaded Explorer, Warmth, Astronomical Telegram to name a few.
Gatefold 1 LP Paris, 1954. Henri-François Rey wrote the thema of the piece « la bande à bonnot » and asked Boris Vian to write the songs in order it to become a musical comedy. « la bande a bonnot » was the name of a french illegal anarchist group... As soon as the piece was played at Théâtre du Quartier Latin, french authorities made it being stopped. Musical parts have been lost . 1971, Jacques Canetti has been told the original handwritten lyrics of the Boris Vian songs have been found again. Jacques Canetti asked Louis Bessières to re create music parts. 1975, Jacques Canetti released this record with songs being performed by Judith Magre, Yves Robert, Lucienne Vernay , Pierre Jamet, Kim Ibarra, Maurice Barrier & Cécile Vassort. + 2 bonus tracks whose lyrics were suppsoed to be too for the original spectacle : « la java des chaussettes à clous » by Jacques Higelin & « l »anguille » by Magali Noël.
Available for the first time since 1976 the official reissue of Sid Lovejoy’s roots missile “King Kong Man” puts this absolute gem back in circulation.
Bursting out of the gate with psychedelic lead guitar, the track pares down to roots militancy followed by a monstrous Channel One dub.
Originally released on Toronto label “G Clef”, “King Kong Man” was a very tough pull until now.
The song’s mastermind Sid Lovejoy, was a singer, musician and producer who ran a record store, studio and label at 917 Bathurst St in the beating heart of what was then Toronto’s “Little Jamaica” community.
50 years on, Sid’s rallying cry to stand up to tyrants, bullies and oppressors is as relevant as ever.
Sid Lovejoy passed away in 2025 in Jamaica, this release is dedicated to his eternal memory.
One of 3 official releases showcasing Sid Lovejoy's Toronto productions including the long out of print “Rebel” by Rothadam and the impossible to find horns version of “Garden of Life” by Leroy “Heptone” Sibbles.
With Lost Lost Lost, Pratt & Moody gather the defining moments of their journey and package it with fresh soul gold into one cohesive, slow- burning statement. What began as a series of cult 7” vinyl releases – often mistaken online for forgotten soul classics from another era – now finds its natural home in album form. Written and recorded with Timmion’s trusted house band Cold Diamond & Mink, the record captures the duo’s unmistakable chemistry: emotionally rich songwriting wrapped in warm, analog textures that blur past and present.
From the velvet sway of “Addictive Touch” to the cinematic tension of “You Bring Me Joy” and the beat ballad ache of “Hard Way To Live,” the album moves effortlessly between bedroom-soul intimacy and widescreen drama. “Hang Tight” opens with a blissful piano figure that nods to gospel-tinged 1970s soul before unfolding into a full-bodied groove, while “Hooked On Your Love” glows with golden-age group soul harmony sweetness. Across both sides, Pratt’s finely tuned vocals and Moody’s expressive guitar work anchor songs that feel timeless rather than nostalgic.
At its core, Lost Lost Lost is an album steeped in atmosphere – lush downtempo moments sit alongside sweet harmony-driven soul, cinematic builds dissolve into dark restrained grooves. Analog string synthesizers, vibraphone accents, tremolo guitar, and deep-pocket rhythms create emotional tension without excess. Pratt & Moody’s strength lies in their melodic instinct: songs that feel big without being pompous or losing their human quality. The result is a record that feels cohesive, immersive, and that real thing – reaffirming the duo as key architects of the contemporary lowrider soul revival.
With Lost Lost Lost, Pratt & Moody gather the defining moments of their journey and package it with fresh soul gold into one cohesive, slow- burning statement. What began as a series of cult 7” vinyl releases – often mistaken online for forgotten soul classics from another era – now finds its natural home in album form. Written and recorded with Timmion’s trusted house band Cold Diamond & Mink, the record captures the duo’s unmistakable chemistry: emotionally rich songwriting wrapped in warm, analog textures that blur past and present.
From the velvet sway of “Addictive Touch” to the cinematic tension of “You Bring Me Joy” and the beat ballad ache of “Hard Way To Live,” the album moves effortlessly between bedroom-soul intimacy and widescreen drama. “Hang Tight” opens with a blissful piano figure that nods to gospel-tinged 1970s soul before unfolding into a full-bodied groove, while “Hooked On Your Love” glows with golden-age group soul harmony sweetness. Across both sides, Pratt’s finely tuned vocals and Moody’s expressive guitar work anchor songs that feel timeless rather than nostalgic.
At its core, Lost Lost Lost is an album steeped in atmosphere – lush downtempo moments sit alongside sweet harmony-driven soul, cinematic builds dissolve into dark restrained grooves. Analog string synthesizers, vibraphone accents, tremolo guitar, and deep-pocket rhythms create emotional tension without excess. Pratt & Moody’s strength lies in their melodic instinct: songs that feel big without being pompous or losing their human quality. The result is a record that feels cohesive, immersive, and that real thing – reaffirming the duo as key architects of the contemporary lowrider soul revival.
“When the flesh gets cut off the soul, it’s not the end.”
More than forty years after hardCORPS emerged from a Brixton basement, ‘Metal & Flesh’ returns in a new expanded edition on double vinyl and CD, newly remastered with the full involvement of surviving members Rob Doran and Clive Pierce. Born from the collision of punk, analogue synthesisers, sequencers, disco, reggae and experimental studio techniques, hardCORPS created electronic music that was as physical and emotional as it was mechanical. The arrival of French vocalist Regine Fetet gave the group its defining identity, placing her raw, uncompromising voice against the dense machinery of Hugh Ashton, Clive Pierce and Rob Doran. Working mainly with a Roland System 100, several Roland MC4 sequencers and later an additional MC500 and Atari ST 1040 computers, etc. pp., hardCORPS always transformed limitations, accidents, distortion and human imperfection into part of the music itself. Although rooted in the early 1980s, ‘Metal & Flesh’ refuses easy nostalgia, retaining the tension, space and character that made hardCORPS unlike their contemporaries. Yet, shall we eventually mention Kraftwerk, maybe let’s quote Ian Shirley from Record Collector magazine: „’Je Suis Passée‘ was not only a love letter to Kraftwerk but penned with such verve, passion and precision that Ralf and Florian probably would have accepted a blind date at a Düsseldorf cocktail bar (…).“ And as Martin Rushent famously said in 1990: “Hard Corps were ignored in their time. Perhaps it is the burden of the adventurous and the innovative to be ignored in their time, which is sad. Don’t ignore them now.”
This new edition has been carefully remastered to preserve that character and dynamics rather than simply making the recordings louder or more ‘modern’, while the artwork has likewise been developed to reflect the band’s original identity. Metal & Flesh’ is not merely an artefact of the 1980s, but a rare and fiercely individual document of four people discovering what happens when human instinct and machines collide.
Remastered by Martin Bowes. Graphic design by hard CORPS and Steve Lippert.
Gatefold sleeve gloss lamination, printed inner sleeves with lyrics, two double-sided hand-numbered.
A space is often described by its dimensions. The height of the ceiling, the expanse between walls. Division into functional elements of varying density follows. We have ideas of how such dimensions should be balanced to work well for sound — the classical concert hall, a Northward mastering room.
It’s tempting to try and use this idea of space to understand Space the group (Lisa Ullén, Elsa Bergman, Anna Lund). To calculate their cartesian co-ordinates: dynamics that run from whisper soft to punishing, shaking force; Ullén’s piano running the full expanse of the frequency spectrum; the mix of sudden, surprising and suggested variations in density (the space) that generates their musical structures.
But (a) space is a social phenomenon where meaning is accumulated and possibilities created by and through a constantly shifting set of social relations and their histories and entanglement inside and beyond the physical structures of a room or building. Reduced to its raw dimensions, Cafe OTO shouldn’t sound good: the low ceiling, the hollow void underneath the stage-not-stage, the hard glass windows out onto the street. But OTO as a social space — for gathering close to listen; the serious pursuit of a convivial good time (its productive mythology that an OTO audience is both up for it but also expects more); and then the idea of all that has happened before and what will come; that this is also part of ‘the music’ and changes what sounds to the point that none of those cartesian co-ordinates matter.**
It’s less of shock that Space sound good. Lisa Ullén is easily the most singular pianist in Sweden right now and Elsa and Anna’s ability to reroute in realtime reaffirms just how well they function as a group. The trio might have got their shit together holding down the rhythm section for the first incarnation of Anna Högberg Attack — but much like Högberg’s ongoing pursuit of artistic renewal, the trio avoid being shackled to any ideas about what a piano trio should be and there is something that happens (happened) in that room, on that night, with those people that made for something beyond just good.
It’s a gift that the sound of every concert at OTO gets recorded. A choice handful of these transcend their decoupling from that social space and radiate the room’s attendant energies. This record is one of them.
** See Jack Halberstam in Fred Moten & Stefano Harney, The Undercommons (2013): “…we must refuse the idea that music happens only when the musician enters and picks up an instrument; music is also the anticipation of the performance and the noises of appreciation it generates and the speaking that happens through and around it, making it and loving it, being in it while listening."
A quick scan of the world’s favourite crowdsourced discography reveals that Sonic Youth co-founder Lee Ranaldo was not a total stranger to crackling electric experimentation in the years following his songwriting turns of the 20-teens. Yet »The System«, ingeniously culled and sequenced from Ranaldo’s soundtrack work for Dutch filmmaker Joris Postema’s ›eco-doc‹ of the same name, nonetheless feels like a reawakening. Quietly released in a vastly different (and much more ›filmic‹) form by Doxy Music/Riva Media Records in 2025, this LP reimagines and reconfigures the initial release, including unreleased material written and recorded for the film, to lend it new stature as both a return to drone-improv form and a reunion with introspective Downtown angst.
Given the state of the world, it’s not surprising that the film Ranaldo scores – a documentary on three climate activists bruising their fists on the black iron prison of techno-fascist deathkultur – is a study in despair and futility. But rather than wallowing in navel-gazing doom and gloom, the film documents the unstoppable spirit that has animated human resistance since the time of the Pharaohs.
As it turns out, the gorgeous scope of Lee Ranaldo’s guitar palette is a perfect manifestation of the hope and despair that animates the film. But like other high-water marks in the guitar-centric soundtrack canon – the high plains raga of Bruce Langhorne’s »Hired Hand«, Neil Young’s sparse and ghostly solo transmissions on »Dead Man«, or the monolithic mantras of Popol Vuh’s »Nosferatu« – its devotion to spectral gestures and meditative song forms launches it firmly outside of the OST orbit into a universe fully its own.
It might seem like a long journey from the Lower Manhattan rhythmic grime of the album’s opener »Tajikistan (Nice to Meet You)« (reminiscent of guitar opuses like Robert Quine and Jody Harris’s »Escape«) to the ringing cowboy chords of the final track, but the narrative logic of the LP pulls the listener along as solidly as a pack horse. As the LP unwinds, and collaborators like Jim Jarmusch, cellist Leila Boudreil, Yeah Yeah Yeahs snare shaman Brian Chase, and guitarist Yonatan Gat take their places, new vistas unfurl: the ritualistic thrum of »Berlin Blockade«, the haunted overtone palaces of »Bergelmir«, and the cavernous acoustic strumming of »Instruments of Violence«. It all winds up with the high lonesome standard »Cool Water«, each unhurried note trailing off into long-tail reverb, layers of shifting vocal harmonies pulling everything skyward – a hopeful note in an album where existential dread never lurks too deeply below the surface.
In the end, »The System« functions both as a film score and a hallucinatory (mostly) instrumental guitar record, revealing a sensibility not too often spotted in the 21st century – a liminal space where the song, the jam, and the meditation merge into a blurred whole. »The System«’s expansive fabric, emerging from a collective sound circling around Ranaldo’s signature tones, envelops and ampl amplifies the contributions of its community of creators – the perfect antidote to narcissistic despair. Much like the subjects of the film light the way towards intra-generational resistance, the music of »The System« reveals a path through gathering darkness. The world could be yours if you follow.
A quick scan of the world’s favourite crowdsourced discography reveals that Sonic Youth co-founder Lee Ranaldo was not a total stranger to crackling electric experimentation in the years following his songwriting turns of the 20-teens. Yet »The System«, ingeniously culled and sequenced from Ranaldo’s soundtrack work for Dutch filmmaker Joris Postema’s ›eco-doc‹ of the same name, nonetheless feels like a reawakening. Quietly released in a vastly different (and much more ›filmic‹) form by Doxy Music/Riva Media Records in 2025, this LP reimagines and reconfigures the initial release, including unreleased material written and recorded for the film, to lend it new stature as both a return to drone-improv form and a reunion with introspective Downtown angst.
Given the state of the world, it’s not surprising that the film Ranaldo scores – a documentary on three climate activists bruising their fists on the black iron prison of techno-fascist deathkultur – is a study in despair and futility. But rather than wallowing in navel-gazing doom and gloom, the film documents the unstoppable spirit that has animated human resistance since the time of the Pharaohs.
As it turns out, the gorgeous scope of Lee Ranaldo’s guitar palette is a perfect manifestation of the hope and despair that animates the film. But like other high-water marks in the guitar-centric soundtrack canon – the high plains raga of Bruce Langhorne’s »Hired Hand«, Neil Young’s sparse and ghostly solo transmissions on »Dead Man«, or the monolithic mantras of Popol Vuh’s »Nosferatu« – its devotion to spectral gestures and meditative song forms launches it firmly outside of the OST orbit into a universe fully its own.
It might seem like a long journey from the Lower Manhattan rhythmic grime of the album’s opener »Tajikistan (Nice to Meet You)« (reminiscent of guitar opuses like Robert Quine and Jody Harris’s »Escape«) to the ringing cowboy chords of the final track, but the narrative logic of the LP pulls the listener along as solidly as a pack horse. As the LP unwinds, and collaborators like Jim Jarmusch, cellist Leila Boudreil, Yeah Yeah Yeahs snare shaman Brian Chase, and guitarist Yonatan Gat take their places, new vistas unfurl: the ritualistic thrum of »Berlin Blockade«, the haunted overtone palaces of »Bergelmir«, and the cavernous acoustic strumming of »Instruments of Violence«. It all winds up with the high lonesome standard »Cool Water«, each unhurried note trailing off into long-tail reverb, layers of shifting vocal harmonies pulling everything skyward – a hopeful note in an album where existential dread never lurks too deeply below the surface.
In the end, »The System« functions both as a film score and a hallucinatory (mostly) instrumental guitar record, revealing a sensibility not too often spotted in the 21st century – a liminal space where the song, the jam, and the meditation merge into a blurred whole. »The System«’s expansive fabric, emerging from a collective sound circling around Ranaldo’s signature tones, envelops and ampl amplifies the contributions of its community of creators – the perfect antidote to narcissistic despair. Much like the subjects of the film light the way towards intra-generational resistance, the music of »The System« reveals a path through gathering darkness. The world could be yours if you follow.
Inspired by the sights, sounds, and feeling of summer, the project channels seasonal nostalgia through breezy melodies, dusty drums, and lush production. Across "Fireworks At Sunset," "Holding Hands," "July 4ever," and "People Under The Sun," Aloefi crafts a collection of instrumentals that capture backyard gatherings, lingering daylight, and evenings spent beneath a sky lit by fireworks
"Guitarize the World" lässt die außergewöhnliche Erfolgsgeschichte des genreübergreifenden Gitarrenduos Café del Mundo erstmals auf einem Album erklingen und versammelt einen Querschnitt der mitreißenden Arrangements aus Klassik, Filmmusik und Pop, mit denen Jan Pascal und Alexander Kilian ihr Publikum weltweit bei ihren spektakulären Live-Auftritten begeistern. Aufgenommen in legendären Studios wie Abbey Road und in Zusammenarbeit mit renommierten Ensembles wie dem Royal Philharmonic Orchestra oder dem Deutschen Filmorchester Babelsberg, präsentiert "Guitarize the World" den unverwechselbaren Sound des Duos in mehr als 20 Tracks. Von reduzierten Gitarren-Miniaturen bis hin zu opulenten Orchesterarrangements umfasst das Album eigene Kompositionen wie "Dance of Joy", "Space Gitanos" und "Smile", Adaptionen klassischer Titel wie "Clair de Lune" und "Air on a G-String", Arrangements von Filmmusiktiteln aus "Interstellar", "Cinema Paradiso" oder "Forrest Gump" sowie bombastische Cover von Pop-Hymnen wie "Viva la Vida", "With or Without You" und "Smooth Criminal". Darüber hinaus enthält das Album exklusiv ein Arrangement von Beethovens Klavierkonzert Nr. 5 für zwei Gitarren. Die 180-g-Color-Vinyl-Edition beinhaltet 23 Titel auf 2 Schallplatten in Grün und Pink im hochwertigen Gatefold. Exklusiv in diesem Format enthalten sind die Aufnahmen von "Blessing", "Easy" und "Smooth Criminal". Die limitierte 2-CD-Edition enthält die 20 Titel des Albums sowie als Bonus-CD "80s Unplugged" mit 13 Gitarrenarrangements legendärer Klassiker der 1980er-Jahre, darunter "Everybody Wants to Rule the World", "Time After Time" und "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For".
Experience the music of Hans Zimmer like never before with this limited collector’s edition 2× color laser-etched vinyl. Featuring highlights from the acclaimed “The World of Hans Zimmer” albums, this premium release combines Hans Zimmer’s iconic music with cutting-edge vinyl design—an essential for collectors and fans alike. The set includes 10 electrifying tracks across the A-sides of two vinyl records, housed in a high-quality gatefold sleeve. The B-sides feature stunning laser-etched artwork instead of audio: a detailed clockwork design on one disc and a cosmic landscape on the other. These unique engravings reflect light across the full spectrum of colors, creating a stunning rainbow-like effect that changes with every movement of the vinyl.
This exclusive edition presents concert suites for orchestra, choir, and the legendary soloists of Hans Zimmer’s band, specially arranged by Hans Zimmer. Each suite reimagines the original film scores in a powerful new symphonic form. The album features excerpts from concert suites based on: Man of Steel, Wonder Woman, The Dark Knight, The Rock, Pirates of the Caribbean, No Time To Die, The Lion King, Gladiator, Interstellar, and Inception.
Performed by world-class musicians, including long-time collaborators such as Lebo M, Lisa Gerrard, and Pedro Eustache, alongside the Odessa Orchestra & Friends (conducted by Gavin Greenaway), the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Martin Gellner), and the Nairobi Chamber Chorus. A visually stunning and sonically powerful collector’s vinyl release—perfect for fans of film music, audiophiles, and Hans Zimmer enthusiasts.
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Electronic tastemaker Reznik makes his Defected debut with a remix of Chasing Kurt's 2014 club favourite, "From The Inside." Following his critically acclaimed "Cloudy Eyes" featuring Jesse Boykins III, Reznik continues to build momentum across the global club circuit with 2026 appearances at The Loft Amsterdam, Scorpios Mykonos, Gate Club Paris, Hï Ibiza, Extrema Belgium, KOKO, and more. Championed by Keinemusik, Tripolism, DESIREE and more, the remix has become a sought-after ID among underground selectors.
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“Paradigm of Tomorrow” is the representation (or sound) of concepts related to an innovative future and the radical changes brought about by technology in society that is, a way of thinking that redefines the present and opens up new possibilities. Published by Biometric-Audio (DE) Mastered by Paul Mac (UK) Lacquer cutting by Simon Exchange (UK) Release Management: Daniele Angelo (IT) Distribution: Triple Vision (NL) Artwork: Yuki Raw (DZ) A3 – She Spoke in a Detached Way Voice recorded by Hamza (Zahham) in Algiers (DZ) Mixed by Basic in collaboration with Punchlines Room (IT) Recorded at Neoromatik Studio (DE)
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Regarded by many as the greatest funk album of all time, ‘One Nation Under A Groove’ was recorded at United Sound in Detroit & included a live track from their concert appearance at the Monroe Civic Center in Louisiana in April 1978. The band’s tenth studio album released during September 1978 was also their most commercial & gave the band their first platinum disc. The iconic title track was an international hit and a US R&B No.1. With lead guitarists Michael Hampton & Eddie Hazel dazzling, the personification of funk Bootsy Collins on bass, Bernie Worrell & Walter “Junie” Morrison’s keyboard wizardry & many more, the album was produced by the genius of George Clinton. Regularly ranked at or near the top of various “best album” lists, ‘One Nation Under A Groove’ is mastered for vinyl in a deluxe facsimile gatefold sleeve with booklet & lyric inner sleeves, all housed in a protective PVC sleeve. The albums’ original bonus songs are now included on a second 12-inch “Special EP” which adds the rare 11-minute “Disco Mix” of ‘One Nation Under A Groove’ to replicate the original first UK pressing from 1978. FUNKADELIC Masterminded by the larger-than-life figure of George Clinton, Funkadelic was a key component of his influential P-Funk empire. Funkadelic’s unique combination of Rock, Psychedelia, R&B & Soul led to the band crossing over to the pop mainstream & gaining a vast international following, becoming one of the most important & influential groups in music. On 6 May 1997, Parliament / Funkadelic were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame by Prince. To commemorate six decades of thrilling & delighting fans, George Clinton returned to the stage in 2022 for a series of concerts. To celebrate, Charly have reissued Funkadelic’s classic four albums ‘Hardcore Jollies’; ‘One Nation Under A Groove’; ‘Uncle Jam Wants You’; & ‘The Electric Spanking Of War Babies’ (originally released by Warner Bros during a golden period for the band between 1976-1981). Each album will be available as deluxe gatefold Digi-Sleeve CDs in PVC wallets + obi-strip & facsimile-edition gatefold LPs on 180-gram black vinyl & limited edition 180-gram colored vinyl + 1970s-style obi-strip in a protective PVC sleeve. “They played a HUGE role in creating the future of music.” PRINCE
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The original intention of the Builders and the Butchers was to make funeral music, but on the way to the cemetery something changed. An album, like any piece of art, is an artifact of a time. In a world where the process of listening to and obtaining music has never been cheaper or easier, vinyl is a last hold out. You can tell when you\'re holding the weight of wax in your hand, that you\'re connected to what you are doing. The first Builders and Butchers record is also an artifact of a time. Recorded in the living room of a house on SE Division St. in Portland, Oregon in 2007. It was recorded with no expectation, just wanting to document the songs folks had been gathering to sing along to since our first shows in the fall of 2005. The songs having been played only on the street up to that time. At those shows anyone who showed up was handed an instrument and quickly made part of the band. During the recording we attempted to bring that organic singalong rowdiness of the live show into the recording. We brought in about 20 close friends for a Sunday morning booze soaked choir session. We made sure that every instrument of the recording was made of wood and powered by a musician, there are no electric instruments and hardly any effects on this record.
In August 2025, Lee Bains decamped to the Cherry Street Tavern in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a scene known for holding a light for collective good and personal freedom, in order to record a live album. Over that weekend, a group of anti-war activists, union workers, queer rights organizers, inclusive pastors, and people of goodwill—old-time folks—came from Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia to gather at the Cherry Street Tavern. That weekend, that small group of people on Cherry Street, just like innumerable other groups that day and throughout history, demonstrated to each other and to the microphones, that, in 2025, the South was comprised of free people, no matter what. Free South 2025. Free South 2026. Free South forever. Lee Bains is a poet and songwriter from Birmingham, Alabama, who since 2012 has released four studio albums of what Rolling Stone calls “Southern gospel punk," and will publish his debut poetry collection Work Lunch with Hub City Press in 2026 after several of the poems were first published by the New Yorker in 2021. A cult songwriter forged in independent scenes, his work has carried him all over the U.S. and Europe, has received acclaim from the likes of Rolling Stone, The New York Times, NPR, The New Yorker, and The Guardian, and has led him to be a supporting musician for other artists like Lonnie Holley, Moor Mother, and Algiers. Lee has lent his work to support striking coal miners, immigrants’ rights groups, abortion funds, and anti-racism organizations. He has performed and read at Emory University, the University of Mississippi, Tulane University, Auburn University, and The Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, Sweden). He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where he works between tours as a handyman.
New super-groovy one-off pressing purple double-vinyl very limited edition of Miami Sound 2 housed in gatefold sleeve, complete with two full-colour inner sleeves containing extensive text and exclusive photography from TK Records in-house photographer Larry Warmoth. Soul Jazz Records’ Miami Sound 2 is a superlative collection of 70s soul, funk, disco and boogie featuring tracks from legendary artists such as Betty Wright, Timmy Thomas, Gwen McRae, Milton Wright, T-Connection and many more, all released on the mighty TK Records musical empire based in Miami, Florida.
Throughout the 1970s founder Henry Stone’s TK Records rose up to be one of the most important forces in black music, successfully pioneering the evolution in musical fashions from the early gritty funk and soul at the start of the decade to the arrival of disco in the mid-70s. This album is a rollercoaster journey across soul, funk, disco and boogie, a party-rocking dancefloor-filling collection of monster tracks that includes million-selling hits such as Betty Wright’s classic ‘Clean Up Woman’, Timmy Thomas’s ‘Why Can’t We Live Together’, T-Connection’s ‘Do What You Wanna Do’, anthemic rare groove club hits including Gwen McCrae’s massive ‘All This Love I’m Giving’ and Milton Wright’s ‘Keep It Up’, plus a host of hard-to-find gems and rarities from the likes of Raw Soul Express, Chocolate Clay, Beginning of the End, Robert Moore, Clarence Reid, Little Beaver, Paulette Reeves and many more. TK Records functioned more like a close-knit family than a typical record company. Based in the industrial Hialeah district of Miami, music man Henry Stone surrounded himself with a host of creative artists, musicians, songwriters and producers who created an immediately identifiable TK sound as well as making musical stars out of many of its artists
The Yummy Fur’s first album of new material in over 25 years is seductive and ambiguous; a fast-paced flip through scenes from art, myth, life and fantasy; a witty whole made from glittering scraps. The band’s original incarnation – fronted by singer, songwriter and guitarist John McKeown from 1992 to 1999 – morphed from making quick-hit cartoon-art songs to Eno and Cale-influenced creepers, populated by characters from McKeown’s life in Glasgow and the films, books and poetry that he lived a parallel life through. Everybody Talks About The Weather delights in using every past iteration of the band as potent collage material: a melee of sounds and ideas existing at once, revealing themselves then dipping back into hiding.
Recorded by the original core trio of McKeown, Brian MacDougall (guitar) and Paul Thomson (drums), Everybody Talks About The Weather comes 17 years after the band reformed for sporadic live shows, and seven years after the release of their sorta-greatest hits compilation Piggy Wings (Rock Action). Ten tracks long with nothing to spare, it is as condensed and vital as their best songs, with a new clarity of sound that allows their ambiguities to come into the light.
The album begins with “Cogs”, a taunting inquisition from within. As McKeown stages a fight between his id and ego, the tension heats up between conversational guitar lines and minimalist repetition; threatening sing-song melody and real, palpable menace. The band members are forced in tandem only to break apart, sustaining a genuine sense of just-hidden danger throughout the whole record – except, arguably, “Headphones”, a looser moment which sees McKeown make an existential something out of nothing while waiting for someone in the car (“I should have brought a book.../My ears are bleeding from the compression on your album”)
The songs are riots of reference: “Unity Over Europe” is a slyly complex two act play about the Mitford sisters – Diana, Unity, and Nancy, in a wink to the YF canon – smashing tragic biographical detail together with allusions to Thomas Pynchon and Francis Bacon. Pynchon is also lifted to serve “Blue Sunshine”, a collision of school shooters, serial killers and fictional fuck-ups (“Fast forward to Compton/Fast forward to Pynchon/Fast forward to Columbine'”) whose buzzy guitar lines are taunting and confrontational like a smarmy teenager. The innocuous title of “My Lasagne” belies a song that exists in several time periods at once: a visit to see Guernica, 50 people with their backs to the portrait of Dora Maar; the time that Picasso painted from; the Reina Sofia and the dirty streets of the Malasaña; myth-making musicians and the myths they’re riffing off overlapping and leering at each other.
All this could be laboured in lesser hands, but cultural verbosity is second nature to The Yummy Fur, who transform all this source material into songs that are weird, sexy, funny and absurd. Meaning is not happily understood or flattened. Susan Sontag's essay Against Interpretation accompanied McKeown as he wrote this album, and she’s paraphrased in “Semolina Ballerina”, the album’s justification of artistic ambiguity. Thomson’s motorik beat leads a gathering of back-and-forth instrumental phrases – including a wiry contribution on saxophone – embodying the futility of trying to parse something definitive from repeated action. “Listen to the very first thing that’s in your head,” Sontag-via-McKeown commands directly, then slinks sideways: “Interpretation is a conversation in an unmade bed”
The album features two more focused portraits, or at least The Yummy Fur’s version of such a thing. “Wanda” merges the life of filmmaker Barbara Loden and the title character of her semi-autobiographical 1970 feature film, with Loden’s then-husband Elia Kazan joining the fray of no-good men in her film. It’s a mix of adaptation and avant-criticism, with McKeown’s wordplay and mannered pronunciation mirroring the way that non-fiction and fiction twist around each other in the song. The title track is a series of vignettes and impressions from the lives of the band’s ‘90s inner circle, positing painter Mac McNaughton as a kind of Falstaffian ringleader. As with Piggy Wings and the recent single “New T-Shirt”, McNaughton painted the cover of Everybody Talks About The Weather – like the album’s music, the image of a coy girl in a white dress is an uncanny amalgamation of styles, suggestions and references just out of reach, as though seen in an art museum in a dream.
The album ends with two reads of the same frustration. “King of Nothing” is the closest The Yummy Fur will ever get to sludge-rock: the band melts together into a dusty, dreary haze as McKeown drowns in a drudgery of personal struggle (“Two jumpers on in Babylon/And only cats to talk to”) and the rhythmic toppling of heroes (Rowlands, Duvall, Munro). The majority of visible dirt is cleaned off for “Say Hello”, an uncharacteristic depiction of throwing the windows open after a dark night of the soul. Here, the situation is still cold and hard (“When the sun burns gold, but the heat never reaches your fingertips”) but it feels surmountable. Everybody Talks About The Weather is an unpredictable album from an unpredictable group, but ending on a moment of almost uncomplicated light is maybe its biggest surprise. - Claire Biddles (2026)
The Yummy Fur’s first album of new material in over 25 years is seductive and ambiguous; a fast-paced flip through scenes from art, myth, life and fantasy; a witty whole made from glittering scraps. The band’s original incarnation – fronted by singer, songwriter and guitarist John McKeown from 1992 to 1999 – morphed from making quick-hit cartoon-art songs to Eno and Cale-influenced creepers, populated by characters from McKeown’s life in Glasgow and the films, books and poetry that he lived a parallel life through. Everybody Talks About The Weather delights in using every past iteration of the band as potent collage material: a melee of sounds and ideas existing at once, revealing themselves then dipping back into hiding.
Recorded by the original core trio of McKeown, Brian MacDougall (guitar) and Paul Thomson (drums), Everybody Talks About The Weather comes 17 years after the band reformed for sporadic live shows, and seven years after the release of their sorta-greatest hits compilation Piggy Wings (Rock Action). Ten tracks long with nothing to spare, it is as condensed and vital as their best songs, with a new clarity of sound that allows their ambiguities to come into the light.
The album begins with “Cogs”, a taunting inquisition from within. As McKeown stages a fight between his id and ego, the tension heats up between conversational guitar lines and minimalist repetition; threatening sing-song melody and real, palpable menace. The band members are forced in tandem only to break apart, sustaining a genuine sense of just-hidden danger throughout the whole record – except, arguably, “Headphones”, a looser moment which sees McKeown make an existential something out of nothing while waiting for someone in the car (“I should have brought a book.../My ears are bleeding from the compression on your album”)
The songs are riots of reference: “Unity Over Europe” is a slyly complex two act play about the Mitford sisters – Diana, Unity, and Nancy, in a wink to the YF canon – smashing tragic biographical detail together with allusions to Thomas Pynchon and Francis Bacon. Pynchon is also lifted to serve “Blue Sunshine”, a collision of school shooters, serial killers and fictional fuck-ups (“Fast forward to Compton/Fast forward to Pynchon/Fast forward to Columbine'”) whose buzzy guitar lines are taunting and confrontational like a smarmy teenager. The innocuous title of “My Lasagne” belies a song that exists in several time periods at once: a visit to see Guernica, 50 people with their backs to the portrait of Dora Maar; the time that Picasso painted from; the Reina Sofia and the dirty streets of the Malasaña; myth-making musicians and the myths they’re riffing off overlapping and leering at each other.
All this could be laboured in lesser hands, but cultural verbosity is second nature to The Yummy Fur, who transform all this source material into songs that are weird, sexy, funny and absurd. Meaning is not happily understood or flattened. Susan Sontag's essay Against Interpretation accompanied McKeown as he wrote this album, and she’s paraphrased in “Semolina Ballerina”, the album’s justification of artistic ambiguity. Thomson’s motorik beat leads a gathering of back-and-forth instrumental phrases – including a wiry contribution on saxophone – embodying the futility of trying to parse something definitive from repeated action. “Listen to the very first thing that’s in your head,” Sontag-via-McKeown commands directly, then slinks sideways: “Interpretation is a conversation in an unmade bed”
The album features two more focused portraits, or at least The Yummy Fur’s version of such a thing. “Wanda” merges the life of filmmaker Barbara Loden and the title character of her semi-autobiographical 1970 feature film, with Loden’s then-husband Elia Kazan joining the fray of no-good men in her film. It’s a mix of adaptation and avant-criticism, with McKeown’s wordplay and mannered pronunciation mirroring the way that non-fiction and fiction twist around each other in the song. The title track is a series of vignettes and impressions from the lives of the band’s ‘90s inner circle, positing painter Mac McNaughton as a kind of Falstaffian ringleader. As with Piggy Wings and the recent single “New T-Shirt”, McNaughton painted the cover of Everybody Talks About The Weather – like the album’s music, the image of a coy girl in a white dress is an uncanny amalgamation of styles, suggestions and references just out of reach, as though seen in an art museum in a dream.
The album ends with two reads of the same frustration. “King of Nothing” is the closest The Yummy Fur will ever get to sludge-rock: the band melts together into a dusty, dreary haze as McKeown drowns in a drudgery of personal struggle (“Two jumpers on in Babylon/And only cats to talk to”) and the rhythmic toppling of heroes (Rowlands, Duvall, Munro). The majority of visible dirt is cleaned off for “Say Hello”, an uncharacteristic depiction of throwing the windows open after a dark night of the soul. Here, the situation is still cold and hard (“When the sun burns gold, but the heat never reaches your fingertips”) but it feels surmountable. Everybody Talks About The Weather is an unpredictable album from an unpredictable group, but ending on a moment of almost uncomplicated light is maybe its biggest surprise. - Claire Biddles (2026)
Following the much-loved Library Music: Volume One (2022), and hot on the heels of this year’s critically acclaimed ‘After The Rain, Strange Seeds’ (9/10 - Uncut) , London group The Leaf Library return with a second journey through the margins of their catalogue. Gathering together rare recordings, compilation tracks, limited edition releases, collaborations and hidden gems from their ever-expanding musical world, Library Music: Volume Two is another vibrant and varied collection of electronic indie pop, in all its guises.
Far from a conventional odds and ends collection, the double LP compilation reveals another side of a band who have always treated the spaces between albums as places to explore. These are the moments where ideas stretch out; there are hypnotic drones, motorik rhythms, glowing analogue textures, pastoral electronics and the warm, melodic melancholy that has become unmistakably The Leaf Library. There is the electro-pop of Flowers At The Border, the psych rock-adjacent Building Better Worlds, and the gentle chamber shuffle of Kendrick Road. Tracks range from the 22 minute folk kosmiche epic Versatile Clouds to the 59 seconds, record skip punctuation mark of Harmonic Runout, with a whole array of trips, ideas and experiments in between.
Since forming in a pre-Ghost Box, Castles in Space and Clay Pipe world, The Leaf Library have carved out a unique place somewhere between dream pop, kosmische repetition and experimental songcraft — drawing comparisons to Stereolab, Broadcast, Yo La Tengo and the outer edges of library music, while creating a sound entirely their own.
“We’ve always loved making things outside the pressure of a ‘proper’ album,” says singer/guitarist Matt Ashton. “Singles, collaborations and compilation tracks give you permission to follow an idea wherever it wants to go. Looking back, those pieces tell their own story.”
Where their studio albums have shown the group carefully building immersive worlds, the Library Music series maps the pathways between them — the sketches, diversions and unexpected discoveries that often reveal the most about a band.
Across a lucky thirteen tracks, Library Music: volume two is a reminder that some of the best discoveries are found on the shelves you forgot to check.
[a] Flowers At The Border [4.21]
[b] The Long Dead King [7.16]
[c] Bowed Clusters [4.00]
[d] I Learned To Swim Under Water [4.32]
[e] Building Better Worlds [11.59]
[f] Harmonic Runout [0.59]
[g] Kendrick Road [3.36]
[h] Sailing Day (Wintergreen Remix) [3.59]
[i] Versatile Clouds [22.00]
[j] Bells and Thread [2.54]
[k] No Memories, No Plans [4.33]
[l] Everyone I Met Today [1.00]
[m] Tired Ghost In Orbit [9.19]
Das im Oktober 1957 aufgenommene Album “Sonny Clark Trio” sticht aus zweierlei Gründen aus der
Blue-Note-Diskografie des Pianisten Sonny Clark (1931-1963) heraus. Einerseits, weil er sich nicht wie
auf seinen anderen Alben für das Label mit einem Quintett oder Sextett präsentierte, sondern im Trio mit
dem Bassisten Paul Chambers und dem Schlagzeuger Philly Joe Jones. Zum anderen, weil er darauf keine
Eigenkompositionen spielte, sondern auf subtile Weise erstmals ausschließlich Standards aus dem Great
American Songbook und Werke führender Jazzkomponisten jener Zeit interpretierte. Das Album kam bei
den Fans und Kritikern so gut an, dass Clark im Dezember 1957 und im November 1958 nach demselben Muster mit zwei anderen Trio-Besetzungen zusammenarbeitete. Aus unerfindlichen Gründen sollten
diese Aufnahmen jedoch erst lange nach Clarks Tod veröffentlicht werden - und zunächst auch nur in Japan.
Nun erscheinen die kompletten Aufnahmen zusammen mit alternativen Takes des Albums “Sonny Clark
Trio” auf einer Doppel-LP innerhalb der audiophilen Blue-Note-Tone-Poet-Serie unter dem Titel “The Art
of the Trio”. Die Veröffentlichung kommt in einer luxuriösen Tip-On-Gatefold-Hülle daher und enthält ein
Booklet mit neuen Liner Notes von Syd Schwartz, den Original-Liner Notes von Ben Sidran und Bob Porter
sowie bisher unveröffentlichten Fotos von Francis Wolff.
Errands is the first duo recording from Marja Ahti, Swedish-Finnish sound artist and electroacoustic composer, and John McCowen, a native of Southern Illinois, now residing in Iceland, whose work centres on a radical exploration of clarinet multiphonics. Working without the aid of electronics, McCowen has spent years finessing performance techniques that allow him to layer beating patterns and split tones that belie their source in a monophonic instrument. Ahti, in contrast, has built up a stunning body of work in recent years using a classic electroacoustic palette of electronic, field recordings and instrumental sounds. Sharing a bill at the 2024 iteration of Stockholm’s Edition Festival, the pair discovered a sensibility shared across their different sonic means, beginning the collaborative process that would eventually result in the mercurial side-long pieces heard on Errands.
The word ‘errand’ suggests something purposeful but routine, and Ahti’s and McCowen’s work is suffused with the everyday. Meeting with McCowen to record in Iceland, Ahti used the opportunity to gather field recordings, capturing not the natural sublimity often associated with the country—think Chris Watson’s shifting glaciers—but everyday life in Reykjavik. Snatches of bustling streets and what could be humming engines thread between static sinewaves, stretches of clarinet resonances and fleeting textures, the latter often at once visceral and impossible to identify. Errands: we are a long way from the grandiose framing devices favoured by the pioneers of electroacoustic music, yet many of their principles are at work here. The gradual metamorphosis of one sound into another, the carefully achieved ambiguity between the acoustic and electronic, the treatment of the stereo field as a compositional element: all of these link Ahti and McCowen’s music to the electroacoustic tradition, yet their sensibility is radically different. The overall effect is a kind of stillness, but one at peace with continuous change. Like the unwieldy but somehow stylish everyday forms captured in the Hertta Kiiski photographs that adorn the record's sleeve, the music seems to prize a kind of deliberate awkwardness, interrupting static held textures not with an abrupt cut, but with a quick fade, suddenly revealing background as foreground.
Ahti and McCowen’s world is everyday and unornamented, but also shadowed by the numinous. Halfway through 'Chorales', we hear an arrangement for overdubbed recorders of an early motet of Messiaen’s, O sacrum convivium! Played on recorders, the piece shrinks into delicacy and dim memories of childhood music lessons, while at the same time its harmonies retain the grandeur of their liturgical origin. This double quality inflects much of what follows on Errands, including snatches of field-recorded water or air, which seem at once elemental and domestic. Enlivened with countless details that repay repeated relistening, Errands is a record that leaves the listener ready to open their ears anew to their own sound environment.
You have to wonder why Railcard took so long to be born: their debut album feels like it should have been in your collection for years.
But it wasn’t until 2025 that Rachel Love (Dolly Mixture), Ian Button and Peter Momtchiloff (both Heavenly) met at a gig, realised that they were exactly the same age, and decided that this was an excellent reason to form a new band. The shared history, the same pop references, the parallel lives… Railcard had to happen, and there was no time to lose. Two Steps At A Time - the album title and theme song - express exactly how quickly Railcard have worked since then - jumping over pavement cracks and whistling past graveyards to get these songs written, recorded and released while they are still sweet and fresh.
The band released three digital EPs in early 2026, which were then gathered onto a CD and released by Skep Wax and Slumberland. They sold out very quickly. The critical response to a mail-order-only CD was far greater than anyone expected.
Railcard made their live debut in December 2025 and had by then recruited their fourth member: Allison Thomson (Trash Can Sinatras, The Love Band), whose flawless trumpet and swirly keyboard-playing complete the Railcard sound, allowing the band to fulfil the significant ambition and range of the songs, which are mostly co-written and often co-sung by Love and Button. “Flannelette” and “Sunday Sun”, delicate and swoony, could almost be Slapp Happy at their most Bacharach. “Foxy”, mysterious and charming, has more than a hint of Kate Bush December magic. The raucous duet “I’m A Disaster” is The Kinks meets deadpan Shangri-Las. The title track could have been an alternative theme tune for Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads. “Runaround” is like a school choir doing The Raincoats. “Unstable Neighbour” is mesmerising and insistent: it might make you think of Stereolab; we might imagine an indiepop Hawkwind. Peter Momtchiloff also contributes two wonderful songs on the album: the fragile and hallucinatory “Paper Thin” and the Love-meets-Undertones rush of “Hillman Minx”.
As with the first EPs, Railcard enlisted the sonic services of Medway psych expert Allan Crockford (of The Prisoners, James Taylor Quartet and many more) who has delivered mixes that pump with vintage valve energy and reverby depth.
Railcard have a string of UK dates through the summer and Autumn.
Savage first-wave screamo from San Diego’s white belt progenitors. Collected for the first time on this 39-minute LP are Antioch Arrow’s complete Gravity recordings, including In Love With Jetts LP (+ a pair of previously unissued outtakes), The Lady Is A Cat 12”, Candle split, and two live Che Cafe tracks captured at the quintet’s spazzy peak. 23 tracks remastered from corroded DATs and annotated by Tony Rettman, plus lyrics, photos, and flyers, all housed in a stunning gatefold jacket for maximum McClard ragebaiting.
”A roar of nothing”—HeartattaCk
Savage first-wave screamo from San Diego’s white belt progenitors. Collected for the first time on this 39-minute LP are Antioch Arrow’s complete Gravity recordings, including In Love With Jetts LP (+ a pair of previously unissued outtakes), The Lady Is A Cat 12”, Candle split, and two live Che Cafe tracks captured at the quintet’s spazzy peak. 23 tracks remastered from corroded DATs and annotated by Tony Rettman, plus lyrics, photos, and flyers, all housed in a stunning gatefold jacket for maximum McClard ragebaiting.
”A roar of nothing”—HeartattaCk
Remastered limited edition double vinyl with double-sided screenprinted poster-cover (sleeve folds out to be one huge poster). A real collectors item!
When Off Off came out around June 1984, one couldn’t speak of an independent music scene in Portugal. Warm Records’ vague existence didn’t have any impact and Dansa do Som’s inaugural release appeared only in December. 10 years after the revolution, after two IMF interventions, a lot of political instability (not to say turmoil, in the first couple of years) and the natural excesses of a sudden burst of freedom, the Portuguese consumer had more choices but a generally poor standard of living. There was no entrepreneurial culture and serious second thoughts about investing private money in risky ventures.
After many complaints about the whole music scene (institutions, critics and record label executives, popular and classical music alike), something that would continue well beyond the end of the decade, Telectu decided to finance, record, produce, release and sell an album with complete independence from outside structures. Their karmic reward was profit. According to Vítor Rua, Off Off was the only album fully payed by the duo and the only one that really payed off. Not an easy accomplishment for a double LP housed in a large (also double-sided) screenprint with complicated cuts and folds. The artwork was conceived by António Palolo, a friend and multidisciplinary artist. It was based on a collage of heavily saturated and xeroxed polaroids framed in shocking pink and green. Palolo was considered the third member of Telectu, regularly producing slides, video and other visual support for their shows. The inspiration for the type of cover came from GRM’s Gramme series.
Off Off is divided in four distinct sides, each one corresponding to a “theme” or “function” related to Telectu’s manifold artistic interests and interactions. The titles are also gateways to influences and a small portion of Portuguese cultural life:
- Side 1 / “Diagonale” is dedicated to Egídio Álvaro, art critic and gallery director (he opened Diagonale in Paris). Performance art was arguably his main artistic concern over the years, so the music on this side is suggested for use by one or more performers in live or playback situations. The three tracks segue into each other, linked by a synth arpeggio much in the same way as Telectu’s previous “Belzebu” álbum (1983);
- Side 2 / “Anarké” is dedicated to the composer Filipe Pires, one of Jorge Lima Barreto’s recurring invocations when asked about worthwhile contemporary music in Portugal. It is subtitled “concert music”, proposing «a new form of listening». Three tracks also, and these are separated by “clap interludes”, which basically consisted in the following: JLB and VR each had a pair of headphones on, and they clapped their hands according to the rhythm of the music each one was listening. Both musicians were interacting with a different Steve Reich piece: Vítor with “Music for Mallet Instruments”, Jorge with “Six Pianos”. The result is disjointed clapping, an awkwardly deliberate celebration of their own music. Telectu applauded themselves.
- Side 3 / “Cornucópia” is subtitled “music for theatre” and dedicated to Luís Miguel Cintra and Luís Lima Barreto (JLB’s brother), both connected to the Cornucópia theatre company. The side consists of several short pieces previously used as interludes in the Cornucópia staging of “Mariana Espera Casamento” (1983). Field recordings, mood pieces, ambience and a numeric poem (“Soneto Soma 14x”, by E.M. de Melo e Castro) read by João Perry, a quite well-known stage actor. His voice is treated with a flanger effect;
- Side 4 / “Palolo” is “video music”. It’s a one-take mix recorded from cassette sources (Telectu studio experiences) and done live while watching António Palolo’s Om film (1978) projected on the living room wall. It’s a deep, immersive, quasi-mystical 20-minute piece perfectly suiting the meditative, abstract, fluid images created by Palolo by mixing paint and water inside a bathtub. One imagines the Cosmos, hardly suspecting the technique. The film is 90 minutes long, so the music on the LP is of course edited.
The six titles on sides 1 and 2 evoke demons, all of them with conflicting symbolism, since it varies from culture to culture, religion to religion. No explanation is given and Vítor Rua has no idea where this imagery comes from. During virtually the whole stretch of the 1980s, Jorge was the one in charge of titles and concepts, and Vítor didn’t bother too much even reading the liner notes :) In any case, when you synchronize the listening experience with the imagery, a powerful impression emerges, a feeling of being in the presence of these entities while placing yourself inside the sonic narrative.
Off Off is undoubtedly a seminal album in the history of electronic music, as much Heldon as Fripp & Eno, jazz and American minimalism, cosmic out-thereness, mantric miniatures. Telectu at the height of their powers, still very early on, delivering an album-manifesto advocating intermedia art and the fierce independence of Portuguese musicians «from the scum of capitalist music industry monopolies. It’s a path to follow, albeit one that requires enduring hardships and retaliation from music industry gangsters.» Despite a few journalists deemed «capable of being free», the media are «enslaved by the dominant and fascist imbecility of the speculators of light music.» Off Off is addressed to those journalists «and to an audience angry at the cultural misery imposed upon us ..., certain that this music will open new horizons of musical pleasure in the conception of Portuguese avant-garde music, and in the open consciousness of us all. OFF OFF repeats Freedom.»
Those two words are a direct lift from Alberto Arbasino’s 1968 book Off Off, the basis of which is a critical analysis of Theodor Adorno’s and Dwight MacDonald’s ideas concerning the stratification of culture in different levels (high, mid and low) and the pervasiveness of mass culture in the form of a culture industry. In very simplistic terms, and that is precisely the point that inspired Jorge, Arbasino argued that it was possible and desirable to effect a revolution from below, cultivating alternative circuits completely cut-off from what he termed the in-in reality. Telectu’s record was a deliberate demonstration that it could be done, displaying Freedom in the face of all the gatekeepers and other human obstacles.
505 Games und Laced Records präsentieren die mitreißende Musik von „WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers“ auf Doppel-Vinyl.
Die gesamte Musik wurde von Joe Caithness speziell für Vinyl gemastert. Das Gatefold-Cover ziert ein Artwork des Entwicklers Leenzee, das den Protagonisten Bai Wuchang darstellt.
Die Handlung spielt im Land Shu während der Ming-Dynastie, und die Filmmusik spiegelt eine Welt wider, die von kriegführenden Fraktionen, einer mysteriösen Krankheit und monströsen Kreaturen heimgesucht wird. Die Musik fängt die feierliche Schönheit der Landschaft und die darunter lauernde Furcht ein und verbindet traditionelle chinesische Instrumente und kraftvolle Gesangsdarbietungen mit grandiosen Orchesterarrangements und unheilvollen Gesangseinlagen.
Zusammen bilden Musik und Artwork ein Werk, das sich zugleich elegant und unheilvoll anfühlt – ein Artefakt, das der untergegangenen Dynastie, die es repräsentiert, würdig ist.
Proudly partnering with the globally acclaimed Forza Horizon gaming series for the fifth time, Hospital Records once again bring their D&B A-game to the world of racing & gaming with a whopping 24-track soundtrack that's getting pressed to a pristine 3x12 triple gatefold vinyl product. For both Forza & Hospital fans alike, this is a physical piece of both D&B and gaming history.
out of Stock
Last delivered 26 days ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Oscar Later is the solo project of one half of Once Twice, formerly known as Parallels. The EP takes its premise from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which ruled that no nation could claim ownership of the Moon or any other celestial body. Across six tracks, that idea of ownership, distance and free imagination runs through the record, which combines breakbeat and shimmering synths with processed vocals and clips from vintage ads and obscure films.
"I wanted the record to feel like public-domain myths, commercial promises and space-age optimism all colliding," Oscar says, "blurring the line between memory and fantasy."
Opener 'Air Time for Andre' channels chopped-up breaks reminiscent of Skee Mask, combined with processed found audio. 'Wenlocked', named after the East London street where it was written, develops from a downtempo sketch into a heavier club track as the bassline builds, inspired by releases on Voam and Floating Points' live sets. 'It Never Made Sense' steps away from the dancefloor, built around a granulated Orion Sun vocal that, as Oscar puts it, "ties the track into quite a surreal space," leaning towards Burial, Overmono and Radiohead.
The title track, 'The Moon Belongs to You', runs a vocoded 90s ad through a detuned one-note synth. It's the track Oscar says "best encapsulates the intention of the EP as a whole: surreal, wacky and clubby." 'Yaya' keeps the energy up as a straight techno cut, its gated bassline locking in around a chopped vocal and pitched samples. Closer 'That's Quite A Lot Of Zeroes!' expands from a stripped-back Buchla line into something huge, driven by chopped samples and inspired by sci-fi scores like Dune and Annihilation.
The cover is designed by art director Will Millner with designer Josh Lowe, a homage to space food and 80s industrial design geared to survive life on the moon. It's available as a limited vacuum-packed 12" record.
The EP launches alongside a music video for 'It Never Made Sense', directed by Louis Mackay, telling the story of a group of kids who steal the moon for themselves.
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Last delivered 27 days ago available to reorder, subject to availability
180g 2LP im Gatefold mit 40 Seiten Booklet & 3 neuen Tracks
1976 und 1977 waren zwei sehr entscheidende Jahre im Leben von Manfred Mann's Earth Band. Die Band wechselte mehrere Bandmitglieder in der Mitte einer erfolgreichen Fünf-Alben-Abfolge, während sie mit ihrer einzigartigen Mischung aus Progressive Rock, Jazz und Bluesmusik eine unglaubliche Anhängerschaft in der ganzen Welt aufbaute. Obwohl Manfred selbst mit früheren Erfolgen in den Pop-Charts vertraut war, verschaffte The Roaring Silence Manfred Mann's Earth Band eine ganz neue Ebene des Ruhms, da dieses Album 1977 die Spitze der Charts erklomm.
Natürlich hatte Bruce Springsteens »Blinded By The Light« alle Voraussetzungen für einen Hit, aber es muss sowohl die Band als auch Springsteen überrascht haben, denn es war für beide die erste Nummer-Eins-Platte. Dieser Titel wurde von einer ganz neuen Legion von Mann-Fanatikern beklatscht, da die erfrischende Kombination aus dem Leadgesang des neu hinzugekommenen Chris Thompson und Manns vertrauten Keyboard-Phrasierungen diesen Titel zu einem modernen Classic-Rock-Standard machten. Auch heute noch ist dies einer der meistgespielten Songs der klassischen Rockgeschichte.
Limitiertes 180g Doppelvinyl im Gatefold mit Hängetaschen plus 40 Seiten Booklet mit ausführlichen Infos und Interviews!
Im Jahr 2026 jährt sich die Veröffentlichung des legendären Albums »The Roaring Silence« von Manfred Mann's Earth Band zum 50. Mal. Das Album, auf dem auch der US Nummer-1-Hit »Blinded By The Light« zu finden ist, stürmte weltweit die Charts. Diese Jubiläumsausgabe enthält das Originalalbum sowie ein exklusives Bonusalbum mit drei brandneuen Tracks der Band und Live-Versionen von Albumtiteln, sowohl aus der Zeit der Veröffentlichung als auch von aktuellen Konzerten. n
Turn the page to a warmer chapter. The second instalment of our Seasons 2026 collection has arrived. This carefully curated compilation captures the golden warmth of the season, the laid-back rhythms of lazy afternoons and the soothing atmosphere of endless summer days. Packed with hours of gentle summer lo-fi, this album is your perfect companion for soaking up the sun, focusing on your work sessions, or unwinding after a long day.
There is a pivotal scene in “August in the Water” (dir. Sōgo Ishii, 1995) where the surface of a pool turns into a stone wall. The water that gave the protagonist's life its meaning becomes a threat. As you fall through this stone wall, you appear in a set of underwater coral-reef corridors, and one of the most beautiful musical themes begins to play: Aquatic Ambience, composed by David Wise for Donkey Kong Country (1994). It's a theme that represents the weightless vibe of your new deep-sea life, where you go about your mundane errands, collecting bananas while driving on a swordfish, or, as HerzMayhem put it: "Poor monkey... always swimming, never going anywhere..."
Synthetic Water Music is the second of three compilations, following Synthetic Bird Music and timed to mappa's 10th anniversary. As with the birds, it gathers friends of the label, artists who have released with mappa or played our shows. Most of the music is new, made to measure for this compilation, much of it from Central and Eastern European hands. Birds and water mix well, so please feel invited to play them together, creating your own environments.
Where the birds were in one flock, water is dispersed across four chapters. You live your life as a droppity drop: vapour in the heavens, condensing in clouds, falling into a swamp, trickling into the deepest sea.
Tlālōcān (Cassette 1, Side A)
A place of eternal spring, of aquatic energy that nourishes everything and allows all things to bloom. Bubbly and splishy-sploshy, it is full of dripping sounds and moist caverns (“Emerald Pool” by Pauline Anna Strom), a landscape filled with living fountains (“Oh, to be a Fountain” by Eva Sajanová) and winding streams that flow through the area, forming part of its organic architecture. It is also a paradise reserved for those whose deaths were water-related, where the aquatic and terrestrial beings live in symbiosis and perspectives shift rapidly, from observing a single droplet (Shakali, Lau Nau) to dew (Feronia Wennborg & Lucy Duncombe) and on to flowing currents (Visible Cloaks) that gradually transform into river music (Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton).
Nephelora (Cassette 1, Side B)
A celestial anti-gravity sound world made of evaporation, steam and the formation of clouds, as if looking at “The Sky At The Bottom of the Well” (by Natalia Beylis) or at “The Cloud That Never Rains” (by Henrique Vaz).
If a cloud never rains,
it is not a cloud at all, but a veil that parches the earth with its gaze.
It generates only its own shadow —
a looming mass of suspended longing,
a sky that hoards but never yields,
a reservoir that swallows every river and returns nothing but echoes.
The water in this world is often invisible but sometimes all the more present, as Bint Mbareh describes it: “Recently been obsessed with invisible waters because I come from a place where you have to imagine the water is there even though you cannot see a river, a sea, usually no rain, so water is in the air, the voice and the imaginal realm, drought is imagined to be negotiable.”
Žaboglach Zha-bo-glahch (Cassette 2, Side A)
A fusion of Scottish lochs and Slovak ponds: a misty, foul-smelling, swampy realm, the kind of place that swallowed Artax from The NeverEnding Story. Stagnant waters full of decay become a blooming habitat for sirens (“thereby losing the weightless delight of being swept along with it” by Adam Badí Donoval) and beings straddling the line between fauna and flora, inventing their own communication systems (“Water-lily phase” by Action Pyramid).
R'lyeh (Cassette 2, Side B)
A brooding sunken city at the bottom of the ocean. It’s a journey to get there. Let this chapter guide you, from the shore down to the depths, to the gates of an unexplored world that is inherently dark, unfathomable, and beyond the limits of human perception: starting with seasickness ("Seasick" by Nikolaienko), passing through a classic Poe-esque maelstrom ("Flurry at the Whirl-pull" by Atte Elias Kantonen), a gateway into the darkness and emptiness of the ocean floor, and finally traversing the city itself (“last waves of 2025” by Jules Reidy).
But what is pulling you to a place like this that only a few explore and even fewer leave? Maybe “the darkness that water can contain, the expanse of things we don't know and that can trigger fear instincts even as we try to rationalise them and think we are in control of the rest of nature” (“supercritical fluids” by Diane Barbé).
Dive in and surface wherever you like. Always swimming, never going anywhere. Just don’t forget to take water breaks.
P.S. Birds, then water, can you guess what comes next? Synthetic Soil Music, an elegy for insects and worms? Synthetic Glaciers, or maybe Pollinators? Which sounds would you miss the most if they disappeared? Or what if the third one never comes at all, and somebody, or something, makes Synthetic mappa Music instead. Don't you worry, with the right training data, it can all be replicated, better than the real thing.
Strut presents Nigeria 80, the next essential chapter in the legendary Nigeria 70 series, diving deep into the explosive sound world of 1980s Nigeria.
Following the global impact of 2001's Nigeria 70, which helped introduce rare Nigerian recordings to international audiences, Nigeria 80 continues the journey, unearthing a rich, restless, and wildly creative decade of music from Lagos to Enugu. Despite economic instability and restrictive political conditions in the 1980's, Nigeria’s music industry flourished, driven by a growing network of independent labels such as Tabansi and Phonodisk, which championed local artists and expanded creative freedom. The 1980s also marked a significant rise in visibility for female artists, with trailblazers like Onyeka Onwenu helping to reshape the landscape and open doors for a new generation of performers, writers, and producers.
Nigeria 80 showcases the extraordinary breadth of this era, with all tracks reissued here for the first time. The compilation brings together essential recordings from across Nigeria’s musical spectrum: highlife greats Victor Uwaifo and Nico Mbarga appear alongside Paulson Kalu, whose personal favourite “Akugbue Nwa Ewu” stands out as a prime example of the style. Prince David Bull’s “Soko Soko” (later reinterpreted in Starboy’s Afrobeats hit “Soco”) features as a key touchpoint between eras. Segun Adewale delivers a driving juju workout, while Lekan Animashaun, longtime bandleader of Africa 70, contributes a late-era Afrobeat classic produced in collaboration with Fela Kuti.
The compilation also highlights more experimental and hybrid sounds, from I.C. Rock’s proto–hip hop gem “Advice” to Evi-Edna Ogholi’s self-produced reggae statement “The World”. The set closes with “Apama” by Ibealaoke Chukwukeziri, the “Apama Boy” from Achi in eastern Nigeria, featuring hypnotic vocals and percussion from his Anaedeonu band.
Nigeria 80 is available as a black vinyl 2LP housed in a gatefold sleeve or CD digipak, which includes a 16-page booklet with artist photos and liner notes by Francis Gooding. Compiled by Duncan Brooker. Audio restoration by See Why Audio. Mastered by The Carvery.
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A Project dealing with the relative length of time at a record label and the effect of adding another zero. To explore this passage of time and all those memories, we’ve commissioned remixes of key tracks from the LEX catalog by artists we love and admire. The album features contributions from Danger Mouse & Jemini, Fly Anakin & Pink Siifu, Eyedress, Golden Rules featuring Yasiin Bey and Freddie Gibbs, Neon Neon feat. Cate Le Bon, alongside Kaleida, Belief, Nevermen, Prince Po and MF DOOM. With remixes that reinterpret the tracks by Boards of Canada, Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine, DJ Premier, Prefuse 73, Madlib, Stereolab, Warpaint, King Krule, Chad Hugo and Thom Yorke. The limited edition physical release is presented in a rigid slipcase, with the vinyl housed in a triple sleeve gatefold, and accompanied by a large format board book, with both featuring artwork by Commission Studios. The records are pressed on 180g heavyweight vinyl, with the D-Side finished with a bespoke etched design.
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Six drum-forward, tape-warped club constructions from the elusive Comandante engineer. Sampled 80s wreckage crushed through hardware and heavy compression: club-chug weapons + late-nite astral howling.
12″ edition of 200, individually hand-stamped and numbered. No represses.
Strange and sepulchral, Pedronium has crafted a mini-album on an astral flight, looping in and around macabre wormholes, from the strange sepulchre of opening serenade ‘4D VISION 1987’ to the deranged primal scream of ‘Nixe’ [dusk in the studio, crooning drunk on mic, disturbed sonics dragged up at the warbled gates]
‘Churms’, an unrelenting club chug banger that we’ve already heard send Lisbon’s best club systems into overdrive; ‘Finesse [The Right People]’, a teknicolor weapon hitting like a jackhammer on the concrete floor.
The grotesque charm of ‘Naked / Afraid’, the rickety jilt of ‘Snav’, all tape delay and foreboding pads, an imminent threat, a polysonic picture in a weird forgotten theatre.
The sanity of reason is already a distant dream on the late-night floor or the morning after. All tracks meticulously arranged and recorded live in one take.
The acclaimed compilation series returns with volume 4! Fourteen tracks showcasing the most exciting emerging voices in Belgian jazz, ready to claim a permanent spot on your turntable.
The latest instalment in the celebrated compilation series once again shines a spotlight on the most adventurous and forward-thinking artists emerging from Belgium's jazz scene. Curated by Belgian tastemaker, DJ and broadcaster Lefto Early Bird, the collection continues a tradition of uncovering hidden gems and introducing them to a wider audience of dedicated diggers.
Over the years, the Jazz Cats series has become a trusted barometer of Belgium's ever-evolving jazz landscape. Long before many artists gained international recognition, they first appeared on these compilations, making the series both a discovery platform and a snapshot of one of Europe's most exciting musical ecosystems.
Jazz Cats Volume 4 captures a scene bursting with creativity, diversity and ambition. Across fourteen carefully selected tracks, the compilation explores the many directions contemporary Belgian jazz is taking today. Jazz, hip-hop, electronic music, afrobeat, spiritual jazz and experimental sounds coexist effortlessly throughout the collection.
The opening stretch of the compilation, led by Brussels-based Irreversible Entanglements band member Aquiles Navarro, Ola Tunji and HelenaCasella, offers an early glimpse into a scene that rarely stands still. Their music moves freely between traditions and contemporary influences, reflecting less concern with preserving genres than expanding them. Artists such as Lupo Spaccaro and Kunde, joined here by the raw soul voice of Fred Gata, draw inspiration from hip-hop and contemporary beat culture, yet neither approaches these influences in a conventional way. Instead, they reveal how naturally these sounds have become part of the vocabulary of a new generation of jazz musicians.
Experimentation emerges as another defining thread. KVR and BREAD FOR PIGEONS embrace unpredictability through unexpected textures, shifting atmospheres and confident compositional choices, creating music that constantly challenges expectations. Elsewhere, artists like Gaiko and VLIEGWERK favor immersive soundscapes that reward repeated listening. Whether there's a connection between musical adventurousness and a preference for capital letters remains a question for future research.
At the heart of the compilation lies a strong sense of movement and groove. Ragini Trio and Foutloos approach that rhythm from different angles, yet both build their music around powerful, pulsating foundations. Their tracks need close attention, revealing layers of detail and low-end richness that practically demand to be experienced on a proper sound system.
By the time it reaches its closing chapter, Lucid Lucia, SLAGADER and Kuna Maze bring the focus back to forward motion. Jazz and funk-infused grooves provide a fitting finale, reminding us that however far these artists push the jazz genre, they never lose sight of its ability to connect, uplift and move people.
The result is a body of work that feels remarkably cohesive despite its diversity: a portrait of a scene that continues to evolve through curiosity, collaborationand constant reinvention.
Over the course of more than four decades, Andrew Chalk has created one of ambient and experimental music's most distinctive, influential, and enduring bodies of work. Though his recordings have taken many forms—from the raw, post-Industrial sounds of Ferial Confine in the 1980s to the fragile guitar meditations, blurred keyboard studies, and richly textured collages that populate the Faraway Press catalogue—they remain united by a singular sensibility: an uncommon attentiveness to atmosphere, nostalgia, and the power of restraint.
Mystical Obscurant offers a rare opportunity to encounter the expansive character of that oeuvre in miniature. Rather than documenting a single period or methodology, it functions almost like a survey of Chalk's musical language—a collection of new music that illuminates the breadth of his practice while distilling the singular vision that unites it.
“The Sea of Sorrow” and “Peacemaker” feel cut from the same cloth as the sacred guitar minimalism of The River That Flows Into the Sands, while “Against the Tide” would sit naturally alongside the smudged and distant keys of Blue Eyes of the March. Other pieces draw upon environmental sound and loop-based constructions, hallmarks of Chalk's more recent, vignette-like compositions. Though these recordings emerge from different moments in his long creative journey, each inhabits a recognizable world: one where melodies drift in diffuse, unhurried forms and sound gathers with painterly grace.
What is most striking when these pieces are heard together is not their difference but their coherence. Across changing instruments, collaborators, and approaches, Chalk has consistently pursued a subjunctive music of suggestion rather than declaration, creating spaces where memory and imagination are allowed to unfold at their own pace.
Inhibitions are to be checked at the door with the arrival of Farsa on Step Ball Chain. The inconspicuous (for now) Beirut based producer steps up for number 19 with an EP of intentional, timeless club music; deeply intimate, dynamic and understatedly sexy. Promiscuous Dubz is laced with an infectious bounce; that pure unadulterated groove which starts ground up and doesn’t stop til it hits you in the face and leaves you gathering your jaw. The 4 track record (+ exclusive bonus digital) features a bratty breakneck remix from label head(less) Roza T herself, rounding off a chic&freaky collection of introspective, stylish tracks for headphones or heads down in equal measures.
All tracks written, produced & mixed by Farsa in Beirut, Lebanon.
Mastered by Anne Taegert at Dubplates & Mastering.
Distributed by One Eye Witness.
Artwork by Dylan Batelic.
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Long Slow Distance is an album about finding peace, and making peace where it can’t be found. It’s inspired by change, grief, acceptance, forgiveness, love, and running.
Dawson began running around the same time he started making records. At this point it’s unclear where one practice ends and the other begins. The album’s title has become the ethos he’s embraced for all things in life.
Long Slow Dance unravels the woven collage of his previous work. Here each song consists of three long guitar takes, panned across the stereo-field with minimal overdubs. “I remember my grandmother always kept a rain barrel on the farm. Just a simple vessel that served as a means for gathering water for the garden and the flowers. I wanted to instill that sentiment on this record. Other than some panning and recreational EQing, the computer was just a vessel to gather sounds.”
There is a distant grace to the album. A soft expanse, a quiet contrast. Guitars dissolve and then recalibrate. Sparse melodic motifs bloom and fracture. Warm chords clash and make amends. Alpenglow textures shimmer against tones that feel weathered by salt air. The songs are lightly propulsive, yet drift at a glacial pace. Fields and artifacts ground the material, like keeping your eyes on the horizon. Long Slow Distance feels intuitive, sentimental, and like Dawson is one step closer to whatever distance he is chasing.
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Noch bevor Brian Eno dies tat, schuf Mort Garson zurückhaltende Musik. Garson, der an der Juilliard School ausgebildet wurde und in der Nachkriegszeit als Session-Musiker tätig war, komponierte Lounge-Hits, schrieb die Musik zur Mondlandung von 1969 und schuf opulente Arrangements für Doris Day sowie die sehnsuchtsvollen ,Countrypolitan"-Streicherbegleitungen für Glen Campbells ,By the Time I Get to Phoenix". Mitte der 1970er Jahre fegte eine Naturgewalt über die kontinentalen Vereinigten Staaten hinweg, die alle Schichten unabhängig von Rasse und Klasse durchdrang und sich in unseren Köpfen, unseren Häusern und unserer Kultur festsetzte. Es war weder ,Der Exorzist", noch ,Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" oder gar Schlaghosen, sondern ein Buch mit dem Titel ,Das geheime Leben der Pflanzen". Das Werk des Okkultisten/ ehemaligen OSS-Agenten Peter Tompkins und des ehemaligen CIA-Agenten und begeisterten Wünschelrutengängers Christopher Bird schoss an die Spitze der Bestsellerlisten und breitete sich wie Kudzu über das Land aus, bis es zu einem Phänomen wurde. Scheinbar über Nacht blühte das Geschäft mit Zimmerpflanzen in voller Pracht auf, und photosynthetische Eukaryoten aller Gattungen hingen an den Wänden, thronten über Bücherregalen und sonnten sich auf sonnigen Fensterbänken. Die wissenschaftlichen Ansätze hinter ,Secret Life" waren fadenscheinig: Pflanzen können unsere Gebete hören, sie sind Lügendetektoren, sie sind telepathisch, in der Lage, Naturkatastrophen vorherzusagen und Signale aus entfernten Galaxien zu empfangen. Doch das hielt Millionen Menschen nicht davon ab, ihre neuen Pflanzen zu kaufen und zu pflegen. Die vielleicht verrückteste Behauptung des Buches war, dass Pflanzen auch Musik mögen. Und ganz gleich, ob Sie eine Schlangenpflanze, einen Spargelfarn, eine Friedenslilie oder was auch immer bei ,Mother Earth" auf der Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles erwarben (oder eine Simmons- Matratze bei Sears kauften) - Sie nahmen auch ,Plantasia" mit nach Hause, ein Album, das speziell für sie aufgenommen wurde. Mit dem Untertitel ,Warm Earth Music für Pflanzen _ und die Menschen , die sie lieben" war es voller idyllischer, charmanter, kiff-freundlicher und entschieden unwissenschaftlicher Melodien, die auf einem neumodischen Gerät namens Moog eingespielt wurden. Das Album erlangte Jahrzehnte nach seiner Veröffentlichung eine enorme Kult-Anhängerschaft. Die Neuauflage von Sacred Bones aus dem Jahr 2019 trug dazu bei, ,Plantasia" einem breiteren weltweiten Publikum bekannt zu machen, und bescherte Garsons ungewöhnlichem Meisterwerk ein bemerkenswertes zweites Leben. Was einst ein seltsames Relikt der Pflanzenbegeisterung der 1970er Jahre war, ist zu einem geliebten Evergreen geworden, der von einer neuen Generation von Hörern wiederentdeckt und neu geschätzt wird und weit über seinen ursprünglichen Moment hinaus gedeiht, wobei er sich von einer obskuren Kuriosität zu einem geliebten Kultklassiker und einem Meilenstein des Streaming-Zeitalters entwickelt hat. Nun, 50 Jahre nach seiner ursprünglichen Veröffentlichung, markiert ,Plantasia" von Mother Earth einen bedeutenden Jubiläumszeitpunkt. Ein halbes Jahrhundert später hallt es weiterhin nach - eine bleibende Erinnerung an Mort Garsons Fähigkeit, das Synthetische seltsam lebendig und das Skurrile auf merkwürdige Weise tiefgründig wirken zu lassen.
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Others take years to reveal why they belong together.
PLNK008 is the first solo release by Natural Goofy on Planka Records. Following a series of appearances across various labels and collaborations, this record offers a deeper look into the sound he has been quietly shaping over the years.
A collection of recordings gathered over time, connected less by genre than by a shared sense of mood and movement.
Rather than chasing functionality, the record follows instinct. Loops are allowed to breathe. Details appear slowly. Tension builds almost unnoticed. Elements drift in and out of focus. The intention was never to arrive somewhere quickly, but to stay inside a feeling for as long as it remains interesting.
The release also includes a special reinterpretation of one of the EP's tracks by dear friend and talented Italian producer Shkedul.
The original version of the track will be available exclusively as a digital bonus on Planka's Bandcamp.
These tracks were not designed to demand attention. They reward it.
For those willing to spend time with them.
Limited edition. Vinyl only.
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AOP 11 Welcomes the Italian GNMR to the family for another psychedelic offering with the 'I Love You EP'
A1 opening with the title track I Love You with a no nonsense tribalism, taking us stumbling through a muddy Peruvian forest trip - after loosing & finding our minds
A2 follows with the deep and introspectif Sunrise Reprise. Slower broken drums guide, accompanied by moody groans and a nagging synth that weaves through the vines and trees.
B1 Bunda returns to the tribalism for a gated giddy dance ritual - clatterings drums, stuttered chants and rhythmic movements.
B2 rounds off the EP with Constantinople From The Mindset. Cleverly programmed loose percussion and trippy chants, a chundering bass and a solid kick, the track progresses craftily and confidently, gradually arriving at a euphoric and climatic.
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For any other artist, an album like Asher White’s Love Aggregates might come out of a conscious push to treat no idea as off-limits, to make something bold and new. Jubilant art-funk about cocaine addiction—absolutely. Swooning orchestral pop about Jerry Garcia—why not? Rippling electronic noise, jazzy brushed drums, an elderly motorcyclist with dementia, a profoundly emotional bass solo—put them all in one song. There are threadbare folk tunes, glammed-up power-pop bangers, “Sir Duke” horn charts, Morton Feldman string arrangements, layers of guitar feedback like violins made of liquid chrome. Yes, for another artist, Love Aggregates might be the most adventurous album in their catalog. For Asher White, it’s what passes for settling down.
White is 25 years old and has been making records—writing, recording, producing, and playing almost everything herself—for over a decade. She’d released two dozen of them on Bandcamp before catching the indie-rock industry’s attention with 2024’s Home Constellation Study and last year’s 8 Tips for Full Catastrophe Living. The latter album’s dizzy eclecticism and formidable craft landed her on Rolling Stone’s Future 25 list with the likes of xaviersobased and Oklou, along with a slew of other accolades. That came as something of a surprise to White, who didn’t craft the chaotic 8 Tips with a breakthrough in mind. Love Aggregates feels like a chance, for one of the most thrilling musical talents of her generation, at a more deliberate introduction.
She wrote and recorded her new album while her previous one was gathering
momentum, tinkering in the DIY recording studio where she always works, acutely conscious now that people would be listening to whatever she came up with. At around the same time, her years-long romantic relationship ended in a flurry of betrayal and addiction, her first experience of devastating heartbreak. Even so, Love Aggregates is not a bitter album about wallowing or seething, but instead making use of those impulses as raw materials in work that transcends the specificity of its origins, fashioning them into something surprising and new.
When everything around is racing blindly toward ruin, change direction and spin as fast as you can until you defy gravity and rise above the ground into blissful madness. "K-drone", the debut album by three renegades—Jakub Šimanský, Michal Vaľko, and Ján Podracký—is like a hallucinatory Calvary with five stations. Each station is a time-loop capsule, a tiny utopia sneering at the phantom progress of the world outside.
The opening track, "Speedrone", is pure vertigo; for seven long minutes, there's nothing to hold onto. Šimanský’s banjo cuts through the air, Vaľko’s hurdy-gurdy sounds like someone scraping a rusted sheet of metal with a handful of nails, and Podracký’s bass recorder hums like a slowly intensifying migraine. "Sine" is like a train journey through a barren wasteland, where the images outside the window constantly repeat like a bad trip. "Pro DJ" starts like a gig in a bar at the end of the line—a gig that never actually goes anywhere. It’s as if all three are locked in a spasm, their repeated motifs turning into haunting earworms. "Alien Radigue" shifts into a strange idyll in a clearing in the middle of the forest, where an unknown bird species trills in the background. The end and definitive dissolution come in "Slush", where everything suddenly slows down. Šimanský plucks a simple guitar melody, Podracký’s harmonica drifts from side to side like a boat gently rocking by the shore, and Vaľko’s hurdy-gurdy drones like a drunken mosquito buzzing around.
"K-drone" sounds like an acid anti-western movie recorded in a tucked-away burrow, like smoke-soaked folk and experimental campfire songs echoing through a deep forest. It evokes Third Ear Band's "Alchemy", it screeches and repeats like some of Henry Flynt's experiments, and you could easily imagine hearing it drifting from one of the windows on the cover of Hala Strana's eponymous album.
Jakub Šimanský is the bard of Czechoslovak guitar primitivism, an earthy folk sommelier whose fingerpicking you may also know from the duo Šimanský Niesner. Michal Vaľko, aka Line Gate, needs no introduction to fans. He has released three albums on mappa, and his hurdy-gurdy meditations hold an important place in the drone and minimalist music scene. "Den", "Apex", and "Trap" have become essential listening. Ján Podracký is a self-taught composer and musician whom you might know from various participatory music projects, such as an orchestra where all the players play diatonic harmonicas. Besides harmonicas, he has long explored a wide range of flutes. In short, a pied piper who will guide you through other worlds.
Some people change your life in every way that a life can be changed. David Lynch is one of those people. When Alicia Witt first worked with him at age 7 in his classic Dune (1984) she had no idea what he meant to anyone as a filmmaker, nor that she would work with him 3 more times over the course of his life and that he would become one of her greatest influences. She only knew that she had found a kindred spirit and that she loved him. Between Heaven & Earth is a tribute to his energy, his legacy, and most of all, his love. When Alicia attended his memorial gathering shortly after his passing in 2025, she was struck by the depth of the relationships in that space. The knowing that if you were loved by David, you stayed loved. As those in the room spoke of their shared experience that David was still among them - directing from beyond - Alicia became ever more aware that she was being encouraged to create an album from this space of eternal unconditional love. ‘Use my name,’ David whispered. And so it was. Produced by renowned producer and singer-songwriter Joe Henry (Emmylou Harris; Milk Carton Kids; Bonnie Raitt; Rodney Crowell), this album was recorded live in studio in 5 days in New York City in January 2026. Alicia Witt on piano and vocals, accompanied by a band of 5 musicians, take you on a sonic journey that could never be recreated, channeling the energy that was brought together in this moment to honor the immeasurable effect that David Lynch had and still has on the world. He was palpably present in every moment of the making of this album. The 13 songs that were chosen reflect everything Alicia feels she learned about love from David - the acceptance, the insistent optimism, the curiosity, and the permanence. The final song, The Director, recounts messages he has sent to her from beyond over the year since he passed away.
Die britischen Alternativ- und Progressive-Rocker von The Pineapple Thief melden sich 2016 mit einem neuen Album zurück. »Your Wilderness« heißt der Nachfolger von »Magnolia« aus dem Jahr 2014.
Mit gerade einmal acht Songs handelt es sich dabei auf den ersten Blick fast schon um ein Minialbum. Bei näherem Hinsehen bzw. Hinhören stellt man aber fest, dass alle Songs zwischen 3:46 und 9:52 Minuten liegen, was eine Durchschnittslänge von rund 5 Minuten pro Song macht. Hier kommt also niemand zu kurz.
Im Gegensatz zu früheren Alben haben sich The Pineapple Thief für »Your Wilderness« zum ersten Mal einen ganzen Haufen illustrer Gäste eingeladen.
Zunächst einmal ist Schlagzeuger Gavin Harrison mit von der Partie, der dem einen oder anderen bereits durch seine Mitgliedschaft bei der Band Porcupine Tree bekannt sein dürfte. Für einige Klarinettenparts stand zudem niemand Geringeres als John Helliwell von Supertramp zur Verfügung. Geoffrey Richardson von den legendären Caravan steuerte unterdessen das Streichquartett bei, das auf dem Album zu hören ist. An der Gitarre unterstützte Darran Charles von Godsticks. Zu guter Letzt sorgte ein vierköpfiger Chor für die Backgroundgesänge.
Produziert wurde »Your Wilderness« komplett in Eigenregie der Band, mit Ausnahme der Drumparts, die Harrison in seinem eigenen Studio einspielte.
Mit »No Man’s Land« haben The Pineapple Thief auch bereits die erste Single des neuen Albums vorgestellt. Und die lässt erahnen, dass die Band sich trotz neuem Personal musikalisch treu bleibt – zur Freude vieler Fans.
Schwarzes 180g Vinyl im Gatefold Sleeve! Die Innenhülle kommt im schwarzen Doppel-Druck mit UV-Spotlack. LP mit 16-seitigem 12" Booklet und Downloadcode. "Do To The Beast" ist das erste neue Album von THE AFGHAN WHIGS seit eineinhalb Jahrzehnten. Gegründet 1988 in Cincinnati, Ohio, war die Band mit ihrer wilden, stürmischen Mischung aus Alternative Rock, klassischem Soul und den Obsessionen ihres Frontmanns Greg Dulli ihren Zeitgenossen immer mindestens eine Nasenlänge voraus. Das neue Album ist somit sowohl eine Heimkehr - zum Label Sub Pop, das die Band 1989 als ersten Act unter Vertrag nahm, der nicht aus Seattle bzw. dem Nordwesten kam und die beiden Alben "Up In It" (1990) und "Congregation" (1992) veröffentlichte - als auch ein Blick in die Zukunft einer der anerkanntesten Rock Bands der letzten 25 Jahre. "Do To The Beast" ist damit ein angebracht wilder Titel für die vielleicht intensivste, kathartischste Platte in der Karriere von Greg Dulli und sorgt für frischen Wind im AFGHAN WHIGS-Kanon: Da gibt es die brutale Selbstprüfung von "Gentlemen" (1993), die Film Noir Erzählung von "Black Love" (1996), den Überschwang von ,1965" (1998). "Do To The Beast" versprüht ein galvanisiertes musikalisches Spirit und rhythmisches Gewicht, das inmitten des Aderlasses Transzendenz und Hoffnung suggeriert. Aufgenommen zwischen L.A., New Orleans, Cincinnati und Joshua Tree - eine Landkarte der aktuellen und vergangenen Heimatstätten der Band - wartet das Album mit den AFGHAN WHIGS Gründern Greg Dulli und John Curley auf, zusammen mit der Kernband aus den Gitarristen Dave Rosser und Jon Skibic, dem Multiinstrumentalisten Rick Nelson und Schlagzeuger Cully Symington. Außerdem mit dabei: der Soul-Bilderstürmer Van Hunt, Marc McGuire (EMERALDS), Johnny "Natural" Nagera (der Musical Director von USHER), Alain Johannes (QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, ARCTIC MONKEYS), Clay Tarver (BULLET LAVOLTA, CHAVEZ), Dave Catching (QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, EAGLES OF DEATH METAL).
Back on vinyl, We're Already There is Mazarin's cult-favorite 2005 masterpiece. Pressed on rusty red vinyl and housed in a deluxe gatefold sleeve, this essential reissue brings renewed attention to one of the most overlooked and rewarding psychedelic indie albums of the 2000s. Originally released in 2005, We're Already There is the acclaimed second album by Mazarin, the project led by Quentin Stoltzfus. Blending lush psychedelic textures, melodic indie rock, and intricate studio craftsmanship, the album occupies a unique space between dream pop, chamber pop, and neo-psychedelia, earning a devoted following among fans of adventurous independent music. Widely regarded as the band's defining statement, We're Already There showcases richly layered arrangements, warm analog production, and timeless songwriting that continues to resonate two decades after its original release. Long sought after on vinyl, the album remains a hidden gem of the mid-2000s indie landscape. This reissue is presented on rusty red vinyl and housed in a gatefold sleeve, offering the definitive vinyl edition of a modern cult favorite. Combining strong collector appeal with enduring musical relevance, We're Already There is an essential catalogue title for retailers serving indie, psychedelic, and alternative music audiences.
Hand Me My Flowers brings together one of underground hip-hop’s most relentless voices with one of the genre’s most revered producers. The result is a hard-hitting collaboration that bridges generations, uniting Flee Lord’s raw street narratives with Buckwild’s unmistakable golden-era production pedigree.
A cornerstone of the legendary Diggin’ In The Crates (D.I.T.C.) collective, Buckwild has spent decades shaping the sound of East Coast hip-hop, crafting classics for artists such as The Notorious B.I.G., O.C., Big L, Fat Joe, Nas, and countless others. On this project, he delivers a masterclass in gritty, soulful production—dusty samples, hard drums, and cinematic arrangements that provide the perfect backdrop for Flee Lord’s uncompromising lyricism.
Throughout the album, Flee Lord sounds right at home over Buckwild’s expertly crafted soundscapes, weaving vivid tales of survival, loyalty, sacrifice, and perseverance. His commanding delivery and relentless work ethic are matched by production that honors hip-hop’s foundations while remaining timeless and relevant.
More than a producer-and-emcee collaboration, this album represents a meeting of eras. Buckwild’s decades of experience and crate-digging mastery merge seamlessly with Flee Lord’s modern underground sensibilities, creating a project that feels both classic and contemporary. Every track reflects a shared commitment to authenticity, lyricism, and the enduring spirit of New York hip-hop.
For longtime fans of boom-bap and newcomers drawn to today’s thriving underground scene, this collaboration stands as a powerful reminder that real hip-hop never goes out of style.
Mit seinem 1965 erschienenen Album We’re Gonna Make It vereinte Little Milton die emotionale Tiefe des
Blues mit dem modernen Sound des Soul auf beeindruckende Weise. Nachdem der aus Mississippi stammende Sänger, Gitarrist und Songwriter Anfang der 1960er-Jahre über das Chess-Label Checker Records zur
Chess-Familie gestoßen war, verlieh er dem Traditionslabel mit seinem unverwechselbaren Stil neue Impulse.
Der Titelsong „We’re Gonna Make It“, eine eindrucksvolle Hymne, die eng mit der aufstrebenden amerikanischen Bürgerrechtsbewegung verbunden ist, hielt sich drei Wochen in Folge an der Spitze der US-amerikanischen
R&B-Charts. Das Album unterstreicht Little Miltons außergewöhnliche stimmliche Ausdruckskraft, seine
präzise Phrasierung und sein außergewöhnliches Gespür für die Verbindung von Blues und Soul – Qualitäten, die seinen Crossover-Erfolg maßgeblich begründeten. Zu den weiteren Höhepunkten zählen „Who’s
Cheating Who?“, „Blind Man“ und „Stand By Me“.
Erleben Sie den unverwechselbaren Klang eines der bedeutendsten Blues-Labels Amerikas in audiophiler
Qualität – mit der Chess Records Acoustic Sounds Series. Für diese hochwertigen Neuauflagen wurden
klassische Alben und Compilations aus dem Chess-Records-Katalog sorgfältig von den originalen analogen
Masterbändern neu gemastert und auf 180-Gramm-Vinyl bei Quality Record Pressings gefertigt. Jede Ausgabe erscheint in einem hochwertigen Tip-on-Gatefold-Cover aus erstklassigem Karton und erfüllt damit
höchste Ansprüche an Klangqualität und Verarbeitung.
Geometrik Records is delighted to once again play a part in the exclusive recovery of Marcelo Expósito's previously unpublished work, which had been lost since its original creation in the 1980s. Marcelo Expósito is one of Spain's most internationally renowned contemporary artists, whose work is regularly exhibited across Europe and Latin America. He began his career at a very young age during the era of sound experimentation that flourished in the wake of so-called industrial culture, which found particularly fertile ground in Spain. As co-editor of legendary publications such as the fanzine Experiencias (1983) and, above all, the cassette-fanzine publisher Necronomicón (1983-1987), which operated on an international scale, Marcelo Expósito has, in recent years, been reconstructing those of his sound experiments that had been lost for decades. The album we are now presenting brings together material previously released on cassettes as EGK023 in a very limited edition. These tracks have now been remastered and expanded to complete this record, which noise musician Mattin has described as "secret recordings that constitute a gem from the rich Spanish underground of the 1980s". In the words of Luis Alvarado, editor of the Peruvian label Buh Records, this album allows us to appreciate how "Expósito developed a style of his own that understood sound as a malleable material open to chance. The recordings gathered on The Lost Tapes reveal an artist who moves as much through territories of unsettling textures and atmospheres as through zones of abstraction and radical noise". Influenced by the early work of figures such as Maurizio Bianchi, Nurse With Wound, and La Otra Cara de un Jardín, the release of this album provides a key piece in reconstructing the genealogical puzzle of Spanish experimental music. This carefully curated edition-in Spanish and English-includes a lengthy essay by Marcelo Expósito on the creative processes behind his work and the historical context of the industrial culture of the 1970s and 1980s, as well as extensive liner notes contributed by Vittore Baroni, editor of the legendary Italian label Trax; Francisco Felipe, co-founder of the Ars Sonora programme on Radio Clásica (Radio Nacional de España) and one of the most active names on the Spanish experimental scene of the 1980s; Mattin and Susana López (Susan Drone), key figures in the sound experimentation of the generation that emerged in the 2000s; as well as the aforementioned Luis Alvarado.
Special gatefold LP + 12-page booklet attached to the sleeve, featuring in-depth essays, archival photography and historical material. Fully licensed from the Soliano family.
Habibi Funk’s new sister label Audible Beauty Records debut release: A landmark collection retelling the untold story of Malaysian jazz featuring 11 songs from the legendary composer, arranger and pianist Alfonso Soliano, originally recorded for Radio Television Malaysia (RTM) and only released in a run of a few dozen copies for radio broadcast. Widely regarded as one of the foundational figures of Malaysian music, Soliano blended jazz, Latin influences and traditional Malay musical forms into a uniquely local sound of all original compositions. The recordings also feature contributions from some of Malaysia’s most important musicians and composers of the era, including Johari Salleh and Ahmad Nawab. For fans of Salah Ragab, Ahmed Malek, Mulatu Astatke, Dollar Brand and co. The release includes extensive liner notes and previously unpublished archival photographs documenting Soliano’s life and legacy.
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Last delivered 48 days ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Kacper Krupa is one of the most distinctive saxophonists of the younger generation, a key collaborator of Skalpel and Łona x Konieczny x Krupa (whose album Taxi was certified Gold in Poland), and leader of Siema Ziemia, with whom he has performed at prestigious European festivals and concert venues such as the London Jazz Festival, Jazz Jamboree, Le Périscope, and Bimhuis.
SEKWA marks another important step in Kacper Krupa’s artistic journey. The album was created at the intersection of jazz, improvised music, contemporary chamber music, electronics, and ambient, forming a diverse yet coherent whole.
Katatonia released their seismic opus, ‘The Fall Of Hearts’, in 2016 to chart & media success; reaching #1 in the USA Heatseekers & #5 in the USA Hard Rock charts, #2 in Sweden's Hard Rock chart, #3 in Canada's Hard Rock chart, #4 in the UK's Rock & Metal chart, #6 in Finland, #11 in Germany & saw success in Australia with their first ever chart entry.
Katatonia had worked tirelessly touring the world since 2012's ‘Dead End Kings’, as well as expanding their fanbase through two albums on Kscope, Peaceville's sister label. 2013 saw the release of ‘Dethroned & Uncrowned’, which exploded the core of the songs on ‘Dead End Kings’ creating new moods & textures. Both releases illustrated the band’s journey toward ‘The Fall Of Hearts’, which featured a more progressive sound, a sound which provoked The Guardian to refer to the band as "bridging of the gap between metal & modern prog."
‘The Fall Of Hearts’ was the first record to feature new drummer Daniel ’Mojjo’ Moilanen with the addition of their then recently recruited guitarist Roger Öjersson (Blindead 23, ex-Tiamat), who sprinkled some blistering solos on the album. With this release, Katatonia continued to push their musical boundaries beyond the metal scene whilst drawing in new fans from across the musical spectrum, putting them on par with peers such as Opeth & Anathema, cementing their place as one of the most revered & cherished bands in modern heavy music.
This special & limited tenth anniversary pressing of 'The Fall Of Hearts' is presented on double pearl dawn vinyl, & includes gatefold sleeve.
“If there is one thing you can always count on with Alex Lahey, it’s that the Melbourne-born indie singer-songwriter is going to provide fans with a hell of a good time.” – Billboard
Impressed Recordings is proud to present a world exclusive variant of Alex Lahey's original EP, 'B-Grade University'. In addition to the original EP, this repress includes brand new re-recordings of “You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me” and “Let’s Go Out,” alternate versions of “Wes Anderson” and “Let’s Go Out” taken from Lahey’s 2020 Between the Kitchen and the Living Room EP, plus a version of “You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me” recorded in 2017 live in-studio at triple j in Australia for their Like A Version series.
"I vividly remember writing this collection of songs in my childhood bedroom at my mum’s house next to a small window where I could catch glimpses of the ever expanding edges of the Melbourne city landscape in the years I lived there. I sold my trusty blue Toyota Corolla (aka the Corolls Royce) and gathered every single dollar I could from random day jobs to pay for studio time and will the project into existence.""
"I am not exaggerating when I say this EP completely changed my life. These songs found their place in the world in a way I could have never fathomed and have forged a life of their own over the last decade. They’ve taken me to corners of the world I could only have dreamed of seeing, let alone playing music in, given me the privilege of meeting so many people who have found their own stories in the songs and they have enabled me to keep making the next thing. I feel indebted to all of these songs and treat them with extra care and love whenever I play them live."
In the early 1960s, beat groups from the Dutch Randstad dominated the national charts. Yet far from the big cities, in the clubs of Drenthe, one band was already being billed as “Beatgroup Number One”: Cuby + Blizzards. But frontman Harry Muskee never embraced that label. Raised on broadcasts from The Voice of America, he possessed a deeper understanding of the blues than most of his contemporaries. Muskee didn’t want to sing ‘songs,’ as he called them, he wanted to sing the blues, raw and unfiltered, in the tradition of Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters.
Their debut single “Stumble & Fall” was recorded in the Bavohuis, a simple gym hall in Amsterdam, with Addy Kleingeld as producer. But the debut album Desolation marked a turning point, recorded at the Phonogram Studios in Hilversum with renowned blues producer Tony Vos, it captured the band exactly as Muskee intended.
The resulting album became a jewel of Dutch music history. Never before had the Netherlands heard a blues singer who poured his emotions into a recording with such conviction and authenticity. Muskee even outshone his British peers. Eric Burdon (The Animals), Paul Jones (Manfred Mann), Mick Jagger (The Rolling Stones) and Van Morrison (Them).
At the 1968 Grand Gala du Disque (the Dutch equivalent of the Grammys), Muskee received an Edison Award for Desolation, handed to him by cabaret artist Wim Sonneveld, whose lukewarm speech couldn’t diminish the significance of the moment.
Sixty years later, the legacy of this groundbreaking album still resonates, an essential document of European blues and a defining moment in the story of Cuby + Blizzards.
This 60th anniversary edition of Desolation is now available as an expanded 2LP-set including the original 1966 album plus fifteen bonus tracks. The gatefold version features songs “Things I Remember”, “Stumble & Fall”, “L.S.D. (Got A Million Dollars)”, is a limited edition on blue vinyl and includes new liner notes by Dutch Blues authority Johan Derksen.
Limited Edition 20th anniversary re-issue of _And the Battle Begun, 2xLP featuring a newly remastered version of album plus unreleased live recordings in a gatefold jacket with gold foil. Four new live songs include fan favorites "Apparition", "In Her Drawer" and "Only for the Night" Rx Bandits' landmark album ...And the Battle Begun marked a defining creative leap for the band, channeling intricate musicianship, dynamic arrangements, and socially charged lyricism into one of the most influential independent rock records of its era. Originally released in 2006, the album captured the band at a creative crossroads - expanding far beyond the ska-punk roots they emerged from and embracing a broader spectrum of progressive rock, jazz fusion, reggae, dub, psych, and melodic experimentation. The result was a deeply ambitious and emotionally resonant album whose impact continues to be felt twenty years later. In celebration of the album's 20th anniversary, Sargent House will release a limited-edition deluxe double LP featuring a newly remastered version of the full album alongside four previously unreleased live recordings, housed in a special gold foil gatefold jacket. The re-issue also commemorates the first album ever released by the label, honoring the lasting legacy of a record that continues to inspire listeners and stands as a defining chapter in Rx Bandits' history.
Limited Edition 20th anniversary re-issue of _And the Battle Begun, 2xLP featuring a newly remastered version of album plus unreleased live recordings in a gatefold jacket with gold foil. Four new live songs include fan favorites "Apparition", "In Her Drawer" and "Only for the Night" Rx Bandits' landmark album ...And the Battle Begun marked a defining creative leap for the band, channeling intricate musicianship, dynamic arrangements, and socially charged lyricism into one of the most influential independent rock records of its era. Originally released in 2006, the album captured the band at a creative crossroads - expanding far beyond the ska-punk roots they emerged from and embracing a broader spectrum of progressive rock, jazz fusion, reggae, dub, psych, and melodic experimentation. The result was a deeply ambitious and emotionally resonant album whose impact continues to be felt twenty years later. In celebration of the album's 20th anniversary, Sargent House will release a limited-edition deluxe double LP featuring a newly remastered version of the full album alongside four previously unreleased live recordings, housed in a special gold foil gatefold jacket. The re-issue also commemorates the first album ever released by the label, honoring the lasting legacy of a record that continues to inspire listeners and stands as a defining chapter in Rx Bandits' history. 2LP Vinyl colour is Eco Citrus!
Throughout the 1980s the inimitable Sun City Girls self-released over twenty full-length cassettes . Each of these cassettes were universes unto themselves, each a slice of the one of a kind SCG universe. Three Lobed is honored to help bring some these long out of print titles to vinyl for the first time ever through the continuation of a series of 2xLP releases. Remastered from original sources and packed within heavy gatefolds filled with never-before-seen vintage photos, these titles give fans - long time, long suffering, intrigued by the legend - the first real chance to hear these titles in over thirty years. Presented here are "Cloaven Theatre" (assembled from three titles which were originally released in 1987 and 1989 as Cloaven Cassettes #14, 15 and 18) and "That Old Western Sieve" which was originally released in 1989 as Cloaven Cassette #21. From a one-time edition of 1000 copies on heavy black vinyl housed within old-style heavy Stoughton gatefolds.
Throughout the 1980s the inimitable Sun City Girls self-released over twenty full-length cassettes . Each of these cassettes were universes unto themselves, each a slice of the one of a kind SCG universe. Three Lobed is honored to help bring some these long out of print titles to vinyl for the first time ever through the continuation of a series of 2xLP releases. Remastered from original sources and packed within heavy gatefolds filled with never-before-seen vintage photos, these titles give fans - long time, long suffering, intrigued by the legend - the first real chance to hear these titles in over thirty years. Presented here are "The Palm Leaves of Victory" (originally released in 1987 as Cloaven Cassettes #13) and "Audio Letter to Mitch Myers" (originally released in 1989 as Cloaven Cassette #19). From a one-time edition of 1000 copies on heavy black vinyl housed within old-style heavy Stoughton gatefolds.
"Motorway City" is a superb, driving-based collection of library music. The tracks on this album were all written between the mid-60s and the early 80s to hymn car travel, back when the petrol-operated motor car was seen as the transport mode of the future, when motorways were new and thrilling. It was car travel’s golden age.
The tracks are highly collectable rarities from the libraries of De Wolfe, Chappell and Hudson. It has been compiled by Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne who has also written the informative sleevenotes. It stretches from mod movers to proto-ambient, something for every car journey.
Library music soundtracked the many short films that extolled the virtues of TopTray restaurant at Watford Gap or the comfortable leather seats in an Alpine Sunbeam. These tunes illuminated the joys of motor travel, and were given titles such as ‘Fast Lane’, ‘Super City’ and ‘Clearway’.
Many of these tracks seem time specific. The sun peeks over the horizon for Basil Kirchin’s ‘Through New Territory’; Reg Tilsley’s ‘Hold The Road’ is so bright at midday that you’ll need to wear shades to stop the sun getting in your eyes; John Fiddy’s ‘City Skyline’ has to be seen (and heard) at dusk.
Ex-Soft Machine Karl Jenkins provides the tense ‘Wheeling’, and Peter Reno’s thunderous ‘Convoy’ shifts the mood up a gear. Maybe you should risk nudging the speed up, 80-plus, to the soundtrack of Alan Hawkshaw’s ‘Fuel Injection’ or Simon Park’s mellow-but-dynamic ‘Big Road’.
Beautifully packaged in a gatefold sleeve, "Motorway City" could be the soundtrack to your summer holiday.