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Chicago-born composer, producer and arranger Charles Stepney is known to some for his work with Earth, Wind & Fire, Deniece Williams, and Ramsey Lewis, or for his work with Chess Records in the 1960s, where he was an essential creative force behind seminal recordings by Rotary Connection, Minnie Riperton, Marlena Shaw, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Terry Callier, The Dells, The Emotions, and many many more. In the decades since his untimely death in 1976, the presence of his name in liner notes and on vinyl labels has become a seal of quality for record collectors, music historians, and aficionados, while his sound has been used by countless samplers in the hip-hop world including Kanye West, A Tribe Called Quest, The Fugees, MF Doom, and Madlib. But in comparison to the post-mortem renown of his sound, or the music he created and the artists he supported while he was alive, Stepney is a greatly under-appreciated figure... a genius relegated to the shadows.

25TH ANNIVERSARY in Yellow Vinyl

The eighth Studio Album by the Band, released on April 22, 1997. It was produced by Roger Moutenot and recorded at House of David in Nashville The Album expands the guitar-based pop of its predecessor Electr-O-Pura to encompass a variety of other music genres, including Bossa Nova, Krautrock and Electronic Music. Most of the Songs on the Album deal with melancholy emotions and range from short and fragile Ballads to long and open-ended dissonance.

In hugo, there’s a central question that Loyle Carner keeps coming back to: “I’m young, Black, successful and have a platform - but where do I go next?” The answer is explored in this epic scream of a third album. With urgent delivery and gloriously widescreen production, Carner confronts both the deeply personal (“You can’t hate the roots of a tree, and not hate the tree. So how can I hate my father without hating me?) and the highly political (“I told the black man he didn’t understand I reached the white man he wouldn’t take my hand”). Cinematic in scale and scope, hugo is both a rallying war cry for a generation forged in fire and a study of the personal internal conflict that drives the rest of the album - as a mixed-race Black man, as an artist, as a father and as a son. With Mercury and Brits nominations, NME Awards and appearances in global brand campaigns (Nike, YSL, Timberland), Carner has undoubtedly had a meteoric rise to the top, culminating with his second album Not Waving, But Drowning charting at number 3 in the UK albums chart in 2019. However, hugo sees Carner taking a sharp detour from his previous work, putting it down to lockdown and the “hedonistic side of career being stripped away. There were no shows, no backstage, no festivals, no photoshoots”. By continuing to write in these tumultuous times with a renewed clarity and sense of artistic freedom, Carner reached deeper beneath the surface than he ever had before. The result is his most cathartic and ambitious record yet, a coruscating journey into the heart of what it means to be alive in these tumultuous times, and one which looks set to neatly cement his position as one of the most potent and vital young talents around today. Working alongside renowned producer kwes. (Solange, Kelela, Nao), Carner leaves no stone unturned on this album, in both its sound and its stories. In a 10-track album that moves from gorgeous neo-soul moments to thundering hip hop, with immediate, infectious bangers and sampled interludes from non musicians (mixed-race Guyanese poet John Agard and youth activist and politician Athian Akec) Carner shifts seamlessly from micro to macro, confronting everything from strained relationships with family to the societal tears caused by class stratification. It also lays bare bruises in his personal life that he has never revealed before – often in painful, deeply uncomfortable ways, focusing on Carner's experience of becoming a father in the context of growing up without contact with his biological father. With the song “Polyfilla”, against the backdrop of a warm melodic beat, Carner explores his desire to “break the chains in the cycle” of dysfunctional Black fatherhood, commenting on the narrative of fatherhood in the genre, and saying a key part of the process was realising that his father “grew up in a world where nobody showed him how to love or nurture”. The follow up track “A Lasting Place” is an exploration of the MC’s failure and inability to be perfect in this mission. The album closer is a powerful statement of love and forgiveness; with his signature lyrical dexterity, Carner declares his relentless commitment to his son and sees forgiving his father as a key part of this. The song closes with an emotional ending of Carner telling his dad “still I’m lucky yo that we talk”. There’s a striking duality of hugo’s bold, multilayered tracks and its often starkly intimate and tender lyricism, and that dichotomy is deliberate - it is a message for young Black men, but really, anyone, who is listening. Cognizant of the immense pain and fear and confusion that we are faced with everyday, Carner has thrown down the gauntlet, defying us not to rise above the fray, wake up each day and be ambitious. Ambitious in building strong personal relationships. Ambitious in our pursuit of our goals. Ambitious in never refusing to back down against injustice. Rejecting the title of leader, Loyle Carner sees himself “as holding up a mirror”, and that clearly translates into the album's universal messages.

‘Runner is a calmly luminous orchestral piece with the pulsating, propulsive
rhythms that animate much of Mr. Reich’s music.’ – New York Times

‘Reich interweaves the two groups to create a dense textural tapestry that sounds like his most native orchestral thinking to date. A beautiful and dramatically charged masterpiece.' – San Francisco Chronicle

Nonesuch Records releases the first recordings of Steve Reich’s Runner (2016) and Music for Ensemble and Orchestra (2018), performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conducted by Susanna Mälkki.

Reich says Runner is written “for a large ensemble of winds, percussion, pianos, and strings. While the tempo remains more or less constant, there are five movements, played without pause, that are based on different note durations. First, even sixteenths, then irregularly accented eighths, then a very slowed-down version of the standard bell pattern from Ghana in quarters, fourth a return to the irregularly accented eighths, and finally a return to the sixteenths but now played as pulses by the winds for as long as a breath will comfortably sustain them. The title was suggested by the rapid opening and my awareness that, like a runner, I would have to pace the piece to reach a successful conclusion.”

“Music for Ensemble and Orchestra is an extension of the Baroque concerto grosso where there is more than one soloist,” the composer continues. “Here there are twenty soloists – all regular members of the orchestra, including the first stand strings and winds, as well as two vibraphones and two pianos. The piece is in five movements, though the tempo never changes, only the note value of the constant pulse in the pianos. Thus, an arch form: sixteenths, eighths, quarters, eighths, sixteenths. Music for Ensemble and Orchestra is modeled on my Runner, which has the same five movement form.”

Nonesuch has recorded every new piece of music by Steve Reich since 1985, beginning with The Desert Music and continuing through 2018’s Pulse/Quartet, resulting in 22 albums and the two box sets Phases in 2006 and Works: 1965-1995 in 1997. Most recently, the label released his Reich/Richter, performed by Ensemble intercontemporain and conducted by George Jackson, in June 2022. The Times said, ‘What a delight to be able to focus on the music, delivered here with a clever mix of pinprick precision and reverberant haze by 14 members of Ensemble Intercontemporain. The more intently you listen, the more subtleties emerge among the shifting, criss-crossing textures and phrases, sometimes coloured with gentle melancholy but decisively upbeat by the end. Reich/Richter is an ear-tickling tonic and a happy companion to Reich’s newly published book, Conversations.’ Nonesuch will put out a collection of Reich’s complete works in 2023.

Reich released a book earlier this year, Conversations, that includes dialogues with past collaborators, fellow composers, musicians, and visual artists who have been influenced by his work, including: David Lang, Brian Eno, Richard Serra, Michael Gordon, Michael Tilson Thomas, Russell Hartenberger, Robert Hurwitz, Stephen Sondheim, Jonny Greenwood, David Harrington, Elizabeth Lim-Dutton, David Robertson, Micaela Haslam, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Julia Wolfe, Nico Muhly, Beryl Korot, Colin Currie, and Brad Lubman. The Wall Street Journal called the book ‘a testament to the influence of an idea – one that triggered a cultural turning point,’ and the New York Times said, ‘The joy of the book is to hear artists from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds rhapsodizing about their relationship to Reich’s music and how it influenced their own creative processes.’

Steve Reich has been called ‘America’s greatest living composer’ (Village Voice), ‘the most original musical thinker of our time’ (New Yorker), and ‘among the great composers of the century’ (New York Times). His music has influenced composers and mainstream musicians all over the world. Music for 18 Musicians and Different Trains have earned him two Grammy Awards, and in 2009, his Double Sextet won the Pulitzer Prize. Reich’s documentary video opera works – The Cave and Three Tales, done in collaboration with video artist Beryl Korot – have been performed on four continents. His recent work Quartet, for percussionist Colin Currie, sold out two consecutive concerts at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London shortly after tens of thousands at the Glastonbury Festival heard Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead) perform Electric Counterpoint followed by the London Sinfonietta performing his Music for 18 Musicians.

In 2012, Reich was awarded the Gold Medal in Music by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has additionally received the Praemium Imperiale in Tokyo, the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm, the BBVA Award in Madrid, and the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale. He has been named Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Royal College of Music in London, The Juilliard School, and the Liszt Academy in Budapest, among others. ‘There’s just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history and Steve Reich is one of them,’ states the Guardian.

Redefining what an orchestra can be, the Los Angeles Philharmonic (LA Phil) is as vibrant as Los Angeles, one of the world's most open and dynamic cities. Led by Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, this internationally renowned orchestra harnesses the transformative power of live music to build community, foster intellectual and artistic growth, and nurture the creative spirit. This is the third recent recording by the orchestra on the label; the others were the Louis Andriessen pieces The only one and Theatre of the World. Additionally, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s recordings of The Gospel According to the Other Mary and Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?, with Yuja Wang, released on Deutsche Grammophon, are included in this year’s John Adams Collected Works boxed set. Nonesuch also released an LA Phil recording of Adams‘ Naïve and Sentimental Music in 2002.

Susanna Mälkki is sought-after at the highest level by symphony orchestras and opera houses worldwide. About to embark on her final season as Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, she concludes a seven-year tenure with a distinctive dynamism and imaginative flair to her programming. In addition to a full season in Finland, she will lead the Helsinki orchestra on tour to the prestigious Lucerne and Edinburgh festivals, New York’s Carnegie Hall, and Washington’s Kennedy Centre this season.

Yellow Vinyl, Gatefold
Wäre Johannes Oerding nicht großzügig Gold- und Platin dekoriert, hätte er nicht über eine Million Platten und ebenso viele Konzerttickets verkauft und gehörte er nicht zweifellos zur Liga der erfolgreichsten Musiker des Landes - was wäre sein Plan B? Eine Frage, auf die der Hamburger nie eine Antwort hatte, weil er sich keine Alternative zurechtgelegt hat. Es mag starkes Songwriting sein, außergewöhnlicher Fleiß, seine Stimme, die unstillbare Liebe zur Livebühne, Charme oder einfach Glück - Oerdings PLAN A ist aufgegangen. Eine Tatsache, die ihm erst kürzlich richtig bewusst geworden ist. "Ich war ehrlich überrascht, als ich den Award für diese unglaublichen Verkaufszahlen bekommen habe. Ich hatte das nicht auf dem Zettel und hab erst mal geheult wie ein Schlosshund. In dem Moment hat etwas Klick gemacht." Dabei ist der Weg, den der 40-jährige Künstler zurückgelegt hat kein kurzer. Seit 2009 erarbeitet er sich jeden seiner Erfolge hart und erntete 2019 mit dem Platinalbum "Konturen" seine erste Nr. 1 in den Charts. Seine Fans gehen seit Jahren jeden seiner Schritte mit und feiern ihn nicht nur wegen der Radiohits, sondern wegen eines Lebensgefühls, einer Haltung. Es ist das Glas, das immer halbvoll ist, die unbändige Freude am Moment und das Wissen, dass der Johnny auf der Bühne auch der ist, den man in der Kneipe trifft. Umso interessanter ist es, sein kommendes Album PLAN A zu hören, denn er lässt hier, wie er selbst sagt: "noch mehr die Hosen runter". Die Brennweite hat sich geändert. Der Meister des Weitwinkels mit Goldsingles wie "Alles brennt", "Kreise" oder "An guten Tagen", die den Nerv ganzer Pop-Jahre getroffen haben, hat sich auf diesem Album mit Freunden, Familie, Beziehung und sich selbst auseinandergesetzt. "Meine Songs waren immer persönlich, aber diesmal habe ich mich gefragt, was uns menschlich und emotional macht. Es hat vielleicht mit der Zeit zu tun, in der wir seit zweieinhalb Jahren leben oder vielleicht liegt es am Älterwerden - jedenfalls habe ich mich mehr als sonst mit dem befasst, was direkt um mich herum passiert." Belegen lässt sich das mit Texten, die intensiver und zugleich lässiger sind und einer Experimentierfreude, die die Messlatte des letzten Albums locker ein Stockwerk höher legt. PLAN A enttäuscht niemanden, der die ersten Singles des Albums schon in der Playlist hat, aber spielt an anderer Stelle genüsslich mit Gospel, Blues, Country, Disco und 80er-Rock, macht High Fives mit Prince, Springsteen und Swift und zitiert tiefenentspannt Lindenberg, Lennon und Michael Jackson. Die einen wird das an Oerdings Anfänge erinnern, die anderen werden eventuell überrascht sein - aber alle werden ihn hinterher noch ein bisschen besser kennen: "Ich habe alles aufs Album genommen, was aus mir rauskam. Den Kopf auszuschalten und noch mehr nach innen zu gehen, hat einfach Spaß gemacht."Die bereits veröffentlichten Albumtracks haben das Licht am Ende des Tunnels schon mal angemacht: Beide Songs sind Johannes Oerding pur. "Plan A ist aufgrund der politischen Entwicklungen vielleicht ein bisschen untergegangen, aber live geht er umso mehr ab und Kaleidoskop mag ich bis heute sehr, weil er etwas ganz Starkes in mir auslöst. Und die Reaktionen auf den Song zeigen, dass er zur richtigen Zeit kam - ich höre oft, dass die Leute genau so einen Song gebraucht haben. Einen mit Happy End."

“A rather gorgeous and engrossing collection, that borrows stealthily from a rich history of sound effect and soundtrack to build a tender poem to the night time.” - CLASH
“The plan was to make twenty 90-second tracks designed as TV themes,” says Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat, of the initial thought behind his new instrumental album as Nyx Nótt “But it wasn't a satisfying listen, it was too gimmicky and silly.”
So instead, Moffat decided to stretch the idea out, plunge deeper, and expand the music into full tracks, “making some of them quite long and dramatic, with the odd swift turn here and there.” In fleshing these tracks out into more fully realised songs he began sourcing samples from professional TV and film music libraries. “The focus then turned to making a proper album out of these modern library sounds,” he says. “I decided to stick with the Themes From title and named the tracks after the sorts of shows they made me think of when I listened back.”
The result is a record that explores genre themes such as: ‘Thriller, ‘Porno’, ‘Caper’ and Swashbuckler’, and acts as an audio equivalent of channel hopping through a unique TV station programmed by Moffat. “I still wasn't sure about all this until I did the album cover, which brought it all together,” he says, of the artwork that places an old smashed TV unit front and centre with a woman perched on top. “It has echoes of old TV compilations but is pretty cheeky and slightly sexy in that old 70s compilation style. I wanted this one to look a bit more fun than the last one, as well as hopefully sound a bit more fun too.”
Aside from being a fun experience, it is also a stirring and immersive listen, one that allows the listener to imagine their own accompanying visual scenarios to each musical theme. The opening ‘Docudrama’ marries a gently creeping beat with strings that glide from tense to sweeping, while ‘Porno’ is all seedy smoky jazz that feels plucked right out of Travis Bickle’s late night trips to porn cinemas in Taxi Driver.
Touches of jazz pop up in other places too, on ‘Hardboiled’ this merges with subtle pulses and gargles of electronics that build to a rousing crescendo of horns and bleeps, and on ‘Caper’ there’s a vivacious full jazz band skip to the lively swinging rhythms. “There's a few more jazzy elements here,” Moffat says. “Although I'm not quite sure where that came from. Although, like everyone else, I've had plenty of time to be introspective recently, so I decided the next Nyx Nótt album should be more upbeat and encourage some occasional foot-tapping.”
However, what becomes apparent, the longer you spend in the world of Themes From, is how singular and unique the tone of each composition is. “Each track has its own individual feel,” says Moffat. “The idea was to sound like a different composer and band throughout.” It’s a stylistic leap that continues Nyx Nótt’s trajectory as one that shares no direct link to Moffat’s other projects. “I approach them in completely different ways and with a different purpose in mind,” says Moffat. “I don't think Nyx has ever heard of Arab Strap, and certainly doesn't own any of their albums.” It’s also a notable shift from the debut album under this moniker, and suitably given the theme, Moffat has created a visual comparison between these two sonic worlds. “If the first Nyx Nótt album was like looking out on dark prairies before dawn, this is more like a walk through a neon Soho after a few cocktails.”

Hier gibt's nun endlich neue Hymnen aus Hamburch!
Kein Einheitsbrei, ganz ohne musikalische Grenzen und genreübergreifend, mit jeder Menge Spaß, Ironie, Pausenspielereien und Texten aus dem normalen Leben und dessen Wandel.
Doch keine Sorge, die Jungs bleiben 'Assi & Charmant' mit klaren Aus- und Ansagen. 8 Jahre, 4 Kinder, 2 Hochzeiten und einer überarbeiteten Bandbesetzung nach dem letzten Album erscheint nun ein schwungvolles und abwechslungsreiches Musikwerk mit 14 Ohrwürmern und einer Ouvertüre. Das neue Album - 'Kackband... Aber Bunt!'

- Ltd. LP (Clear Splattered Vinyl)

Die Originalbesetzung von Black Ox Orkestar ist nach einer 15-jährigen Pause wieder zusammen. Die aus der fruchtbaren Montréaler Post-Punk-Agit-Prop-Szene der frühen 2000er Jahre hervorgegangene Band besteht aus Scott Gilmore, Jessica Moss und Thierry Amar von Thee Silver Mt. Zion (Amar komponiert und spielt auch weiterhin Bass für Godspeed You! Black Emperor) und Gabriel Levine von Sackville. Black Ox Orkestar haben Mitte der 2000er Jahre zwei gefeierte Alben mit aufgewühltem akustischem Avant-Folk veröffentlicht, auf denen sie osteuropäische und nordafrikanische Folklore durch die Linse einer düsteren, resonanten Indie-Rock-Sensibilität erforschten und Interpretationen von Instrumentalstücken aus verschiedenen jüdischen, rumänischen und arabischen Traditionen den Originalen gegenüberstellten. Auch dank Gilmores politisch aufgeladenem jiddischen Gesang sind diese frühen Alben für eine neue Generation von Musikern und Fans der jiddischen, Klezmer- und jüdischen Diaspora-Musik zu Meilensteinen geworden. Das von Greg Norman (Jason Molina, Nina Nastasia, Electrical Audio) hervorragend produzierte Album Everything Returns macht genau da weiter, wo die Band aufgehört hat: ein einschneidend atmosphärisches, melancholisches und doch entschlossenes Album einzigartiger moderner jüdischer Folkmusik, bei dem Klavier, Geige, Kontrabass, Klarinette und Cymbalom die Kerninstrumentierung bilden und die Gesangsstücke hauptsächlich auf Jiddisch gesungen werden. ENG Everything Returns reunites the original Black Ox Orkestar lineup following a 15-year hiatus. Arising from the fertile Montréal post-punk agit-prop scene of the early 2000s, the band comprises Scott Gilmore, Jessica Moss and Thierry Amar of Thee Silver Mt. Zion (Amar also continues to compose and play bass for Godspeed You! Black Emperor) and Gabriel Levine of Sackville. Black Ox made two acclaimed albums of roiling acoustic avant-folk in the mid-2000s, exploring Eastern European and North African folkways through the lens of a gritty, resonant indie rock sensibility, juxtaposing interpretations of instrumentals from various Jewish, Romani and Arabic traditions with originals led by Gilmore's politically-charged Yiddish vocals. These early albums have since become lodestars for many among a new generation of Yiddish, Klezmer and radical Jewish diasporic music practitioners and fans. First revealing its resurrection in February 2022 with a surprise flexi 7" single issued by left journal Jewish Currents as a gift to its thousands of subscribers, Black Ox has indeed fully and fruitfully reunited. Exquisitely recorded by Greg Norman (Jason Molina, Nina Nastasia, Electrical Audio), Everything Returns picks up right where the band left off: an incisively atmospheric, melancholic yet resolute album of uniquely modern Jewish folk music, with piano, violin, upright bass, clarinet and cymbalom making up the core instrumentation, and the vocal tunes sung primarily in Yiddish, alongside album centerpiece "Viderkol" and closer "Lamed-Vovnik" where English also features. This is not fusion music, but diaspora music: a cross-cultural call and response of musical lexicons, emerging from the history of Jewish persecution and displacement, the musicology of 19th century repertoire from Jewish shtetls , the improvisational traditions of nusakh in Jewish music and taqsim in Arabic music, and a wider polyglot dialogue of Jewish, Slavic, Arabic, and Central Asian musical traditions. Lyrically and stylistically, Everything Returns connects key current issues_from refugees forced to leave their homes, to the return of fascism and exclusionary nationalism_with the legacy of modernist Yiddish poetry and song. The new Black Ox Orkestar album is a sublime, poetic, politically-informed statement of re-energized diasporic musical intent, where Gilmore's voice and the band's simmering arrangements conjure an ardent, doleful balladry that echoes the sound and sensibility of artists like Tindersticks, The National, Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. Everything Returns is a haunting, richly textured, darkly sparkling song cycle at once from a vanished world and very much of our time and place. Thanks for listening.

Wu Tang & Staten Island MC/Producer come together again in new vinyl release Wutang x Remedy. Remedy is a MC/producer from Staten Island, New York who first made his mark with the song "Never Again" off the Wu-Tang Killa Beez' debut album The Swarm in the summer of '98. He eventually made his full-length debut The Genuine Article in the spring of '01 & followed it up with Code Red about 2« years later. The last we heard from him on his own was when It All Comes Down to This was released in 2010. But as the 12-year anniversary of that approaches in a few weeks, he's enlisting a star studded cast of veterans to be featured on his 4th album. Ghostface Killah tags along for the opener "Modern Day Miracle" working in an occultist loop to verbally abuse anyone who wants to challenge them whereas "Death Defying" with Inspectah Deck finds the 2 over an operatic instrumental talking about choosing whether to kill or be killed. "Sparrow" takes a more soulful route feeling comparing himself to the titular bird leading into Ghostface returning alongside Conway the Machine for "The Pulpit" incorporating some orchestral samples talking about the street life.The penultimate track "Noir Story" is a full-on Killah Priest solo cut with a drumless instrumental & his lyricism on here is a reminder as to why he's this reviewer's 2nd favorite affiliate right behind Killa Sin in terms of lyrical skill, the previous cuts. "Never Again" then ends the album by mournfully paying tribute to those we've lost along the way.If you're a diehard Wu fan like I am, then you're gonna come away from this highly impressed. It's great to hear Remedy completely rejuvenated & he does an awesome job of paying homage to my all-time favorite hip hop group from the guests to the production.

Wie ein Schneesturm unter einer Glaskugel Im Herbst 2003 erschien bei dem amerikanischen Indie-Label File 13 Records Martin Revs mittlerweile sechstes Soloalbum. Nachdem Rev bereits 2002 zusammen mit seinem musikalischen Partner Alan Vega und ihrem gemeinsamen Projekt Suicide mit dem Album "American Supreme" neue Wege beschritten hatte, setze sich diese Neuausrichtung auch in seinen Soloarbeiten fort. Klang das 2000er Werk "Strangeworld" noch wie ein aus der Zeit herausgelöstes, abstraktes Komposite aller musikalischen Einflusswelten Martin Revs, scheinen auf dem drei Jahre später veröffentlichten Album "To Live" auch kontemporäre Einflüsse hörbar zu werden. So kommen hier erstmals Gitarren-Samples zum Einsatz. "Der Sound von "To Live" war eigentlich einer, den ich schon seit ein paar Jahren live auf der Bühne benutzte. Die Inspiration kam nicht aus den 2000er Jahren, sondern wahrscheinlich aus einer viel früheren Zeit, obwohl ich nicht genau sagen könnte, woher. Es hängt auch mit der Rhythmus-Technologie zusammen, die ich verwendet habe." erinnert sich Rev. Die Anmutung dieses Sequence-gesteuerten und für die späten 1990er Jahre so typischen Industrial-Rocks scheint - zumindest für ein Rev-Album - ungewohnt und so fielen die Kritiken beim Erscheinen der Platte 2003 zunächst sehr gemischt aus. Wie bereits Anfang der 1970er Jahre als Suicide für ihren neuartigen Sound gleichermaßen gehasst und gefeiert wurden, polarisierte Rev mit seiner Musik auch 30 Jahre später noch immer. Doch auch wenn jene Tracks auf "To Live" weniger von Synthesizer-Drones und minimalistischen Keyboardfiguren geprägt sind als die vorherigen Platten, so sind dennoch alle Stücke des Albums getrieben von jener eigentümliche Formsprache, die Martin Revs Sound so prägnant und unverkennbar macht. Verhallte, sich überlagernden RhythmusSchleifen durchzogen von Revs sporadisch einsetzendem, zärtlich wie bedrohlichem Sprechgesang wachsen zu einem heftigen Schneesturm unter einer Glaskugel an, in dem verchromtes Glitzer und goldenes Konfetti wie wild durcheinander gewirbelt werden. Besonders beeindruckend ist dies auf dem Track "Gutter Rock" gelungen, das wie ein übersteuertes, hypnotisch betörendes Stück Lounge-Exotika anmutet. Und es ist speziell dieser Sound der Gegenpole zwischen harten Drummachine- und Gitarrensalven und dem Ungreifbaren von Revs Stimme, in dem mitunter auch jene Stimmung und Verunsicherung zu Beginn des neuen Jahrtausends zu hören ist, die insbesondere in eine Stadt wie Revs Heimat New York beherrschte, die erst zwei Jahre zuvor von den Ereignissen des 11. Septembers 2001 erschüttert wurde. So ist "To Live" ein widerspruchsvolles und schwer zu verdauendes Werk, das als vor allem als Kind seiner Zeit und Transition innerhalb Martins Revs Gesamtwerk einen ganz besonderen Platz einnimmt.

Stockholm's Havenaire follows up a series of head-turning ambient releases on the likes of Shimmering Moods, Polar Seas and Glacial Movements with a limited new long player on Past Inside The Present. Across six slowly shifting soundscapes he layers up his misty-eyed chords into music that is designed to empty your mind but that also gently sweeps you heart. There is subtle hope and optimism amongst the ambient fog here that leaves you feeling cleansed and soothed. All six pieces have their own character but are very much united by a sense of calm and serenity that is utterly captivating.

"Love Is Overtaking Me", originally released in 2008 comprises 21 demos and home recordings of unreleased pop, folk and country songs from Arthur"s vast catalogue. While much critical and popular affection for Russell"s music has come about well after his untimely death from AIDS in 1992, many fellow artists believed in his genius and were drawn to collaborate with him during his lifetime. The legendary producer John Hammond (Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen) recorded Russell on several occasions; a number of these recordings can be heard on "Love Is Overtaking Me". Alongside songs recorded with various incarnations of The Flying Hearts, a group formed by Russell with Ernie Brooks whose shifting line up included, by turns, Jerry Harrison, Rhys Chatham, Jon Gibson, Peter Gordon and Peter Zummo as well as Larry Saltzman and David Van Tieghem. Several other Russell projects are represented on Love Is Overtaking Me, including The Sailboats, Turbo Sporty and Bright & Early. Compiled from over eight hours of material, "Love Is Overtaking Me" reaches back further to Russell"s first compositions from the early `70s and spans forward to his very last recordings, made at home in 1991. Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear contributed mixing, restoration and editing to the album, whose tracks were selected by Audika"s Steve Knutson, Ernie Brooks and Russell"s companion, Tom Lee. Several songs feature prominently in Matt Wolf"s film "Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell". Extensive "Love Is Overtaking Me" liner notes by Tom Lee provide an intimate perspective on Russell"s diverse catalogue, which spanned an extraordinary diversity of styles and won the love of artistic communities that would seem utterly disparate, from Philip Glass, John Cage and Allen Ginsberg to rock bands like The Talking Heads and The Modern Lovers; the pre-Studio 54 disco-party scene of Nicky Siano"s Gallery and David Mancuso"s Loft; and DJ-producers like Francois Kevorkian and Larry Levan, among others.

Jazzrausch Bigband has more or less invented a new art form,
techno jazz, and has become well-known for performances of it. But
the band also has another, different story to tell. It has invented its
own tradition of hitting the road and touring at the end of each year
with a programme consisting of Christmas music, and has been doing
this ever since the band first emerged eight years ago. Bandleader
and founder Roman Sladek explains: “Whereas our regular projects -
the most recent album, ‘Emergenz’, is a good example - are all about
working through a specific theme and finding new ways to reinvent
ourselves, our Christmas thing is something we do for one reason
alone: to have fun. It was our very first programme, we still love it, and
we’re still nurturing, developing and growing it. Being able to devote
one month a year entirely to the big band tradition is something we’re
all really passionate about.”
Some bands might have been tempted just to throw together an
album of Christmas chestnuts any old how, but the Jazzrausch way of
doing things is not like that at all. Unlike any other album by the band,
for the first time we hear purely instrumental music. Furthermore,
Kuhn has taken ten classic Christmas songs - each one of them
rarely heard in jazz, and tunes which can often come across as a bit
staid in their original settings - from ‘Tochter Zion, freue dich# to
‘Adeste fideles’ or ‘Ihr Kinderlein, kommet’. The title track, ‘Alle Jahre
wieder!’ (based on the 1830s carol to music by Silcher which is very
familiar to children and adults in the German-speaking world) appears
here in completely new orchestral garb.
Sometimes the listener will recognise the kind of swing typical of
Glenn Miller. At other moments it is the incomparable big band
elegance of, say, Artie Shaw. ‘Es wird scho glei dumpa’ (an Austrian
carol) is given the full extra high pressure Tijuana brass treatment.
‘Maria durch ein’ Dornwald ging’ gets the touch of the Thad Jones /
Mel Lewis Orchestra after a Henry Mancini-like intro, and ‘Ich steh’ an
deiner Krippe hier’ recalls more of the great swing heritage.
Once again Jazzrausch Bigband has succeeded in a way that only
very few in the jazz field can, notwithstanding the openness of the
genre: they have brought young and old together, tradition and
revolution, the familiar and the new. Which is why it feels so
completely natural and right that they should continue to do this
‘again every year’, as the album title tells them: ‘Alle Jahre wieder’.

Robbie Williams remains one of the most successful British pop stars of his generation many years after he put out his most notable albums. Life Thru a Lens was one of them and it now turns a frankly hard to believe 25 years old. This special anniversary edition comes on limited clear vinyl and takes you right back to the end of the last millennium. The songs are big singalongs with plenty of Williams's swaggering confidence shining through each one as he muses on growing old, love and of course loss with his biggest single of all, 'Angels.'

Café Türk, an inimitable Turkish-Swiss band formed in the 1980s, whose genre-bending sonic palette draws from Anatolia, the Caucasus, and western Europe. The group's frantic trajectory connects the Swiss town of Schaffhausen and the Turkish city of Kars, eastern Anatolian city of Turkey with a background story as rich and unexpected as their sound.

Based in rural New Mexico, William Fowler Collins (b.1974) is a composer, recording artist and performer. His music extends across and beyond many genres including drone, minimalism, and free improvisation. He records and performs in both solo and group contexts. Collins has released music on the SIGE, Type, Blackest Rainbow, Handmade Birds, Sicksicksick and Root Strata record labels. In addition to his work as a solo artist, Collins has several collaborations including Thalassa with Aaron Turner and Mesa Ritual with Raven Chacon. He has also collaborated with Marshall Trammell, James Jackson Toth, Mamiffer and is currently working on new music with Margarida Garcia.

Alone Inside the Walls of Night is music for Mellotron, violin, synthesizers, and electric guitar. It was completed in 2022 and is dedicated to Maria Valentina Chirico. It features Heather Trost on violin. Artwork by Chris Bigg.

RIYL: A Hawk And A Hacksaw, Leonard Cohen, Daniel Kahn, Xylouris White, Arooj Aftab, Tindersticks, Nick Cave, Alasdair Roberts, Geoff Berner, The Klezmatics. Deluxe 180gLP with 350gsm Arktika jacket/inner + 36”x12” art/lyrics fold-out + DL. CD in gatefold jacket + art/lyrics fold-out. Recorded by Greg Norman (Jason Molina, Nina Nastasia, Electrical Audio). Everything Returns reunites the original Black Ox Orkestar lineup following a 15-year hiatus. Arising from the fertile Montréal post-punk agit-prop scene of the early 2000s, the band comprises Scott Gilmore, Jessica Moss and Thierry Amar of Thee Silver Mt. Zion (Amar also continues to compose and play bass for Godspeed You! Black Emperor) and Gabriel Levine of Sackville. Black Ox made two acclaimed albums of roiling acoustic avant-folk in the mid-2000s, exploring Eastern European and North African folkways through the lens of a gritty, resonant indie rock sensibility, juxtaposing interpretations of instrumentals from various Jewish, Romani and Arabic traditions with originals led by Gilmore’s politically-charged Yiddish vocals. These early albums have since become lodestars for many among a new generation of Yiddish, Klezmer and radical Jewish diasporic music practitioners and fans. First revealing its resurrection in February 2022 with a surprise flexi 7” single issued by left journal Jewish Currents as a gift to its thousands of subscribers, Black Ox has indeed fully and fruitfully reunited. Exquisitely recorded by Greg Norman (Jason Molina, Nina Nastasia, Electrical Audio), Everything Returns picks up right where the band left off: an incisively atmospheric, melancholic yet resolute album of uniquely modern Jewish folk music, with piano, violin, upright bass, clarinet and cymbalom making up the core instrumentation, and the vocal tunes sung primarily in Yiddish, alongside album centerpiece “Viderkol” and closer “Lamed-Vovnik” where English also features. This is not fusion music, but diaspora music: a cross-cultural call and response of musical lexicons, emerging from the history of Jewish persecution and displacement, the musicology of 19th century repertoire from Jewish shtetls, the improvisational traditions of nusakh in Jewish music and taqsim in Arabic music, and a wider polyglot dialogue of Jewish, Slavic, Arabic, and Central Asian musical traditions. Lyrically and stylistically, Everything Returns connects key current issues from refugees forced to leave their homes, to the return of fascism and exclusionary nationalism—with the legacy of modernist Yiddish poetry and song. The new Black Ox Orkestar album is a sublime, poetic, politically-informed statement of re-energized diasporic musical intent, where Gilmore’s voice and the band’s simmering arrangements conjure an ardent, doleful balladry that echoes the sound and sensibility of artists like Tindersticks, The National, Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. Everything Returns is a haunting, richly textured, darkly sparkling song cycle at once from a vanished world and very much of our time and place. Tracklist: 1 Tish Nign 2 Perpetual Peace 3 Oysgeforn / Bessarabia Hora 4 Mizrakh Mi Ma’arav 5 Skotschne 6 Viderkol (Echo) 7 Epigenetik 8 Moldovan Zhok 9 Lamed-Vovnik

Bingo Harry sprang out of nowhere a few years back, when Martin Bramah of Blue Orchids was shocked by their opening set for his band, Blue Orchids. Bramah's enthusiasm went so far as to lead Blue Orchids to recording a then-unreleased Bingo Harry composition, "If They Ever Lay A Finger On Us", a subtle yet unusually powerful and enigmatic revolutionary song of caution to oppressors. The original recording was later released on Bingo Harry's self-titled debut, which sold well, and merited more studio sessions. These days, Bingo Harry is more a often solo vehicle for songwriter Benny Jones than a band. Currently living on a houseboat in northern England (which somehow manages to contain his home studio as well), Benny spent the past few years recording dozens of songs before winnowing them down to fit on Bingo Harry's second album, "Where Do We Go?", not to mention constructing the collage of the album cover. The cosmic inheritor of a certain Marc Bolan-esque knack for simple yet spiritual and thrilling tunes, Benny's songs span seemingly glam-induced groovers to a handful of gentle-but-trippy epics which would be overwrought in lesser hands, but here manage to capture a beautiful bit of the cosmos alongside their relevance to the wearying state of the world today. "Shine If You Can", the album's final track, works as well for an anthem of the times as anything you'll hear in the next few years. Tracks: Gullible / Fearsome Tannoy / Melted / Evolution / Rope Over The Wall / Where Do We Go? / Safe In Human Form / Weapon Against The Dark / Rabbit Hole / Did You Hear That? / Shine If You Can

RIYL: ESG, LCD Soundsystem, Liquid Liquid, Hercules & Love Affair, Talking Heads. Melbourne, Australia "heat beat" icons NO ZU regroup after the passing of vocalist Daphne Camf, to release their first new original music since 2016. NO ZU have played Barcelona's Primavera Festival, performed live on French television, and toured Australia with no wave icons ESG and James Chance. Led by the magnetic, tireless Nicolaas Oogjes, NO ZU's multi- limbed, mutant punk funk has evolved over the last decade to make them one of Australia's most distinctive and debauched groups. Daphne’s passing in 2021 left a huge hole in the band, and they fell into a long silence. Now they return with an EP featuring her final recordings with the group. Heat Beat, named after the band’s own trademarked genre, is classic NO ZU. Dark and playful, layered with cryptic allusions and implausibly danceable, the EP shows NO ZU at their restless, exploratory best. 2016 second album Afterlife took NO ZU to Europe as well as US shows where they collaborated with members of Liquid Liquid. 2017 remix EP BODY2BODY2BODY saw Afterlife tracks reworked by the band's 80s idols A Certain Ratio and Jonny Sender of Konk. In 2020 they released a double A-side single covering Hunters & Collectors’ Talking To A Stranger and Bryan Ferry’s Sensation, and played their last live show in Feb 2020. Now NO ZU return with a joyful, celebratory EP of their final recordings with beloved vocalist Daphne Camf. Like a post-punk band discovering the joys of dub, disco, and Afrobeat” – Pitchfork // “Melbourne’s freakiest multi-limbed ensemble are masters of percussive lunacy and wild x-rated boogie” – The Vinyl Factory // Side A: 1. Liquid Love 2. Mind Melt.. Side B: 3. Cosmetic Beat 4. Heat Beat Head 5. Phone Call Melt Down

With his first release since 2015, Seattle based Indie-folk hero Rocky Votolato returns with Wild Roots, an intimate concept album inspired by and written for his family. Each song a letter dedicated to a specific family member and focused on a special memory or moment in time. After losing his child in December of 2021 in a tragic car accident, the entire album, and especially the song “Becoming Human”, now a posthumous love letter, takes on an even deeper while devastatingly bittersweet meaning. The production on Wild Roots is hushed, handcrafted, and warm — an intimate and personal experience that brings the nature of Votolato’s storytelling to life in very authentic and genuine ways. Produced, engineered, and mixed by Votolato himself, the record is a deliberate construction of his conceptual vision and new phase of his recording career. Additionally, the record features a stellar cast of renowned musicians whose contributions perfectly compliment the delicate nature of these songs — Abby Gundersen (William Fitzsimmons) on piano, string arrangements, and vocal harmonies, James McAllister (Sufjan Stevens, The National) on drums and percussion, Phil Wandscher (Whiskeytown, Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter) on electric guitar, and Marcel Gein (Perry O’Parson) on electric guitar. In many ways, Wild Roots is not only a break in silence for Votolato, but the opening of a new chapter — one that feels laser focused on what really matters in life. Whether discovering Votolato for the first time or adding another record to your collection, Wild Roots resonates on the most simple and important human levels — a sharing of experience that encourages us to keep believing in ourselves and in the magic of this life, no matter how harsh and difficult it can be.


Track list: 1. Evergreen 2. 23 Stitches 3. Glory (Broken Dove) 4. There is a Light 5. X1998x 6. Becoming Human 7. Breakwater 8. Little Black Diamond 9. Archangels of Tornados 10. The Great Pontificator 11. The Wildest Horses 12. Little Lupine 13. Bella Rose 14. Southpaw 15. Texas Scorpion (The Outlaw Blues)

David Gedge says: "During our `Hit Parade' series in 1992, there were a couple of Science-Fiction-themed singles, namely `Flying Saucer' (July) and The Queen Of Outer Space (November). And, would you believe it, I've only gone and done it again, haven't I? Thus, hot on the heels of last month's `Astronomic' comes the November single, erm... `Science Fiction'. It's not about the whole genre as such; the title will make sense when you hear the song. Although it's quite a sad lyric I, rather glamorously, wrote it whilst enjoying the amenities of a fancy hotel in Hollywood, so maybe the proximity of the film industry inspired me. Talking of inspirations, one band that has influenced The Wedding Present, off and on, over the years is The (mighty) Fall. And I don't know if they even planned it but, on `Plot Twist', Jon's spiky guitar riff and Melanie's crunchy bass line totally remind me of the classic Craig Scanlon / Steve Hanley combination that was memorably to be heard on sessions like the one recorded for John Peel in March 1983. Suitably inspired myself, when writing this lyric, I decided to also reference The Fall (for the second time in Wedding Present lyric history, the first being `Take Me!' some thirty-three or so years ago)." Penultimate release in this monthly series, in 2022 The Wedding Present will be releasing a new 7" single every month, the last but one is available for indie record stores only soon. This fascinating project - which goes under the name of 24 Songs - comes thirty years after the band's similar Hit Parade series of 7"s in 1992 and features two brandnew recordings of the current WP incarnation. Each of the records comes in a beautifully designed sleeve featuring brutalist photography by Jessica McMillan

The Anne, EP is the afterword to Joseph Shabason's acclaimed 2018 harmonic suite Anne, through which he examined and processed his mother's struggle with Parkinson's disease. Employing a small supporting cast that includes vocalist Dan Bejar (Destroyer) and guitarist Thomas Gill (Owen Pallett), Anne, EP spotlights the Toronto saxophonist as he builds empathic tropospheres of woodwinds and synthesizers, deepening the sentiment established by the EP's companion album. In doing so, Shabason further cements jazz, ambient sound design, and new age revivalism into a timely new genre all his own. Also Available From Joseph Shabason: The Fellowship LP/CD, Anne LP/CD, Aytche CD. “gorgeous and empathetic ambient music.” – Pitchfork // “I love it…very original...so exciting." – Bob Boilen, NPR Music // “…densely textured ambient jazz that is wonderful to immerse yourself in…” - The Guardian // “...seriously engaging…” – Aquarium Drunkard // “…magical transportive healing vibes.” – Gorilla vs. Bear // “…rich, healing ambient jazz.” – The A. V. Club // “…at once intimate and universal, honest and hopeful.” - Resident Advisor // Tracks: 01 West Of Heaven 5:12, 02 1517 5:57, 03 I Don't Want To Be Your Love 4:30, 04 Broken Hearted Kota 5:12, 05 Face Chord 7:13, 06 Gymnopédie No. 1 7:26.

The Anne, EP is the afterword to Joseph Shabason's acclaimed 2018 harmonic suite Anne, through which he examined and processed his mother's struggle with Parkinson's disease. Employing a small supporting cast that includes vocalist Dan Bejar (Destroyer) and guitarist Thomas Gill (Owen Pallett), Anne, EP spotlights the Toronto saxophonist as he builds empathic tropospheres of woodwinds and synthesizers, deepening the sentiment established by the EP's companion album. In doing so, Shabason further cements jazz, ambient sound design, and new age revivalism into a timely new genre all his own. Also Available From Joseph Shabason: The Fellowship LP/CD, Anne LP/CD, Aytche CD. “gorgeous and empathetic ambient music.” – Pitchfork // “I love it…very original...so exciting." – Bob Boilen, NPR Music // “…densely textured ambient jazz that is wonderful to immerse yourself in…” - The Guardian // “...seriously engaging…” – Aquarium Drunkard // “…magical transportive healing vibes.” – Gorilla vs. Bear // “…rich, healing ambient jazz.” – The A. V. Club // “…at once intimate and universal, honest and hopeful.” - Resident Advisor // Tracks: 01 West Of Heaven 5:12, 02 1517 5:57, 03 I Don't Want To Be Your Love 4:30, 04 Broken Hearted Kota 5:12, 05 Face Chord 7:13, 06 Gymnopédie No. 1 7:26.

His debut was recorded in the winter of 2003 with assistance from Texas
chamber pop collective The Earlies, followed by three albums of original material
and one all-covers album. In 2011, a near-fatal car crash paralyzed his arms for
months. He spent his recovery time listening to some demos he'd made before
the crash. The material eventually culminated in the darkest and most intensely
personal collection of songs from him thus far and garnered widespread critical
acclaim. (Micah P. Hinson & The Nothing). Since then, each record is a final
confrontation with himself, each song shakes with danger. I Lie To You, the new
Micah P. Hinson album, comes from five days and five nights of recording in
Irpinia, South Italy, with production by Alessandro Asso Stefana (PJ Harvey, Mike
Patton, Vinicio Capossela). Accompanying Micah and Asso are Raffaele Tiseo's
celestial strings, Zeno De Rossi metaphysic drumming and the double bass
gentleman Greg Cohen. On this new album he sings, with his weathered, husky,
prophet-like voice, eleven tales of love, loss and regret, which once again reveal
his heart as an artist laid bare.

Shelter Press extend a quietly cine-poetic invitation to visit the Outer Hebrides via immersive sounds - field recordings of psalm singing and local dialect - collected and arranged by interdisciplinary artist Joshua Bonnetta, going hand-in-hand with Shelter Press’ core interests in the fading light of its 10th year in operation. A beautiful artefact - complete with 60 page photobook.

Accompanied by an evocative photo study and access to an accompanying film and essay, Bonetta’s second release for Shelter Press following 2016’s ‘Lago’ imparts a real feel for the archipelago, off the north west coast of Scotland, where he was stationed during an artist’s residency during 2017-2019. Stitched together from observant field recordings and interviews with residents on the islands of Barra, Berneray, Harris, Lewis & North Uist, the work elicits a sense of timelessness in its slow drift between shores, hills, standing stones and the intimacy of its voices, including Gaelic spoken word, folk song and whistling. Save for the appearance of a plane overhead, the sounds of car and boat motors, plus a little bit of electronic disturbance that pull you into the modern era; the results practically imagine what it would have been like to visit the islands with a recording device at any point since the last ice age. 

For Bonetta, who hails from rural Canada, the similarities between his formative landscapes and those of Scotland must have appeared familiar, perhaps a subconscious recall/reminder that the two places shared a landmass, albeit 425 million years ago. His sound sensitive subtlety and cinematic ear in arranging his collected sounds serves to highlight the way the modern world only just infringes on Innse Gall’s ancient landscapes and only relatively modern tongues (if we’re thinking in geologic terms of scale). We hear the sounds of its avian population seamlessly eliding its humans in the whistling of Alick Macauley, and the natural cadence of of its mild oceanic climate mirrored in lilting Gaelic folksong, here performed by Calum McDonald, Joey Morrison, and Maggie Smith, and more generally practiced by only a tiny percentage of Scotland’s population (some 1%) but still surely alive in its meridian isles where time moves much more slowly.

With the nuance and poetry expected of a Shelter Press title, ‘Innes Gall’ reflects on the area’s anglicised name, meaning “islands of the strangers”, with calming, soberly documentarian results as heartwarming and fascinating as a visit to the area, just without the effort of travel, and from the comfort of your own living space. Bonnetta is incapable of ignoring the cinematic frame, and intersperses each shot with enough poetry to keep you entranced.

LIMITED EDITION PICTURE DISC EDITION OF PAUL DRAPER'S NEW
ALBUM CULT LEADER TACTICS .Meaty art-rock, austere orchestral
interludes & driving future pop - Classic Rock 8/10 Cult Leader Tactics is
sleek & smart, full of melody, humour and flair - Record Collector 4*
Former Mansun frontman, Paul Draper, returned in early 2022 with a
collection of his finest songwriting since the bands' imperial phase
Cult Leader Tactics', is a self-help manual on how to become a complete cult in
the music industry & is his first solo album since 2017's much- lauded Spooky
Action'. Cult Leader Tactics' offers a satirical analysis of the self- help manual
genre. A guide on how you can get to the top of your chosen profession, or ahead
in life & in affairs of the heart, by acting in a Machiavellian manner, employing
dirty tricks or Cult Leader Tactics' to achieve your life goals. After experiencing
these types of human behaviours & themes, the album arrives at the conclusion
that the only true answer in life is love. Paul plays most of the instruments on the
album, including lead vocals, guitar & various Moogs & synthesisers. An album
produced with long-time collaborator & acclaimed producer Paul P-Dub' Walton
(Massive Attack, The Cure, Bjork) at Loft Studios, it also includes guest
appearances from Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson & Gam of the band Sweat' as
well as featuring a 288-person C.L.T. Lockdown Choir. Cult Leader Tactics' offers
a selection of Paul's most focused & ambitious work so far, a brilliantly dark
commentary on an industry he is all too aware of. Kscope are proud to present a
limited Picture Disc edition of Cult Leader Tactics'.

Tape



By its very nature, intuition is something of which we easily lose sight. Music however, as both bridge and secret technology, connects the natural, artificial, and the earned. It can act as both a reminder of cultures and people gone, while materialising and alchemising from thin air elements not to be found on any periodic tables, and visions no human can see.

»Pin down the dust« is the first meeting of Nighte - Christina Carter (Charalambides) and Mari Maurice (more eaze) - and it feels both automatic and natural. The collaboration stems from a spontaneous decision by the duo to start playing together weekly. “That's how this music was made,” explains Carter, “with gut feeling as the guiding principle. Mari understands the music I've made on such a deep level that playing with her feels so natural.”

The result of this meeting is inarguably some of the most beautiful music to ever emerge from either Carter or Maurice. The structures are spacious, generous, and gentle, with scraped violin strings and seemingly ancient moans strewn sparingly like falling leaves on a picnic blanket. Having begun life as freeform interplays between the duo recorded live at Maurice’s house, overdubs were later added and the material mixed by Maurice alone into finalised pieces.

Maurice’s varied instrumentation litters the background with distant and oneiric miscellanies, from groaned saxophone phrases and heavenly organ drones to glissandi guitars. Carter’s voice sits in the centre, embodying and channelling (mostly) wordless human ecstasy - and at times unease - amidst the allotment of blossoming sounds. Maurice & Carter’s clairvoyant connection notwithstanding, music always offers a portal back to our buried intuitions. “Pin Down The Dust” is both a tribute and a guide to this spontaneity and instinct, putting aside thought in favour of feeling.

16 track compilation of 1980s classics.
Formed in Scotland in 1979, APB were a post-punk trio blending edgy
guitars with funk and new wave sounds
The band had many early 80s alternative radio and rock dance club hits including
‘Shoot You Down’, ‘Rainy Day’ and ‘Palace Filled With Love’.
New York-based Link Records originally issued ‘Something To Believe In’ in 1985,
and the ten- song title was perceived at the time to be APB's debut album
although it was actually a compilation drawn from the band's previous eight
independent singles. The band's 1981 debut single ‘Chain Reaction’ is now added
as a bonus track to the vinyl release, while that song and an additional five tracks
will appear on the expanded edition CD. ‘Danceability’ will appear in its original
mix on the vinyl LP, while the CD will feature the song in its extended ‘Danceability
Parts 1 & 2’ form.
"When I bought the second APB single, 'Shoot You Down'. I was blown away by
the pure energy and sparse funk groove that drove the record." said Matt Pinfield,
former host of MTV's 120 Minutes. "Over the course of the next few years, I saw
the band live about 15 times. They would always pack clubs in New York, New
Jersey, and Long Island -- anywhere they received airplay." In 2018's Beastie Boy
Book, band member Adam "Ad-Rock" Horowitz referred to ‘Shoot You Down’ as a
"punk dance-floor classic."
In 2022, APB remains an active touring band, which includes original members
Slater, Roberts and Cheyne. Over the decades, APB's sparse, rhythmic sound has
influenced everyone from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Franz Ferdinand. A new
generation is primed to make their acquaintance.

Originally released in 2014, “Instruction Booklet N. 1232” marks the first cassette release on Dauw for Tatersall under his The Humble Bee moniker. Taking advantage of the format, each side on “Instruction Booklet N. 1232” is reserved for a single piece nearing the 20-minute mark.

“Exploding View” (aka Side A) swells into existence with a very grand sounding synth-driven melody. Of course the other thing that’s present is the decaying sound of the tape loop that’s working to bring that music to life. At first, the melody grows and grows, fairly undisturbed, but eventually the sound of so-much tape warble threatens the rising nature of the piece until it sounds as though it is one loop away from total decay and simply fluttering out of existence.

But of course that’s the point. There’s a tension between that grand melody that opens these moments and that warble. It’s a lesson in opposites: the mechanics of a tape loop, guaranteed to break down, placed in contrast with those signature Tatersall melodies, which somehow seem eternal. And just as that tension seems too much to bear — the melody dies to be replaced by something altogether new. What comes next is something much quieter, driven by a sub-aquatic bassline, some rhythmic tape hiss and some gentle piano.

It’s a very dramatic and sudden break. The technical elements of that could be attributed to Tattersall’s understanding of how far a melody can be pushed before it succumbs to the abuse of being processed out of existence — perhaps the tape had been looped and processed to its breaking point. Regardless of whether it was a technical or artistic choice, that hard break serves an important narrative function. Frequently in instrumental music, musicians play with opposites (quiet-loud, clean-distorted) to create a narrative to their work since they don’t have words/lyrics as a tool. In the case of The Humble Bee’s use of tape loops, one set of opposites in tension is always driven by the fragility of the melodies and the limitations of a machine guaranteed to inevitably decay the media it is designed to support. And where one thrives, the other takes a backseat. As side A winds down, the melodies are much more sparse — appropriate for en ending, yes; but it also gives more space for those hisses and crackles to claim their moment.

Side B is filled out by “Manual with Foot Pedal” and it begins as gently as its predecessor ended. Slowly eking outing it existence – it’s as if watching Tatersall set the board, showing his players on opposite sides of the table before really setting them in motion to do their thing. By the piece’s midpoint, melody has taken centre stage as a glitchy, piano-led rhythm marches its way forward, clearly carving out its space and claiming its territory. And almost immediately following that: the decay takes over again and those tape loops seem processed to near death — the melody almost barely decipherable as it flutters under the weight of the history of being looped/played ad nauseum. And in the very final moments, the melodies are sparse again, giving the tape hiss room to play its part — it’s as if Tatersall is giving both players enough space to take their final bows.

Für Fans von Smerz, The Internet, Erika De Casier & Japanese Breakfast Es braucht ein starkes Selbstbewusstsein um seine Komfortzone zu erweitern. Bei der Künstlerin Gaisma scheint diese Ausweitung keine Grenzen zu kennen. Vom professionellen Tanz, über das DJ Leben in den Nacht Clubs, bis hin zu eigenen musikalischen Kompositionen und Produktionen. Die Disziplin mit der Alisa Scetinina aka Gaisma ihren Leidenschaften nachgeht, kommt nicht von ungefähr; aufgewachsen in Lettland wo sie sich in jungen Jahren dem Ballett verschrieb und schließlich in der Choreografischen Schule in Riga aufgenommen wurde. Mit 15 Jahren kam sie alleine nach Deutschland und nachmehreren Engagements u.a. in München und an der Stuttgarter Oper, entschied Alisa aus dem nichts Kunst zu studieren und live zu performen. Damit war der kreative Hunger noch nicht annähernd gestillt, es kam Cinematography hinzu, sowohl vor als auch hinter der Kamera, diverse Choreografie Arbeiten und eben ihre eigens produzierte Musik die Genreübergreifend in alle Richtungen fließen kann. Nach diversen Singles und zwei Alben auf Bandcamp, die ausschweifenden Techno sowie sanfte R'n'B Klänge beinhalteten, entschied die 27jährige die eigenen Produktionen beiseite zu legen und sich mit Paul Schwarz (Levin Goes Lightly, Karies, Human Abfall) zusammen zu tun um eine EP aufzunehmen und zu produzieren. Dabei herausgekommen ist "Mirrors of the Cosmic Cinema", eine musikalische Reise die Hörer*innen in träumerische Momentaufnahmen entführt. Die 5 Song starke EP überzeugt mit cleverem Songwriting rund um zwischenmenschliche Wahrnehmung und kleinen alltäglichen Geschichten. Durch technische Finesse scheint sich die Zeit beim Hören auszudehnen und lässt somit Realitätsflucht und kleine Gedanken Abenteuer zu. Eine Mischung aus Indie Bedroom-Pop, Contemporary R'n'B und einer brise psychedelic Soul wird verfeinert mit treibenden Rap Passagen und jazzigen Drums, das zeigt die Vielfalt und das Talent mit dem Gaisma Genres aufbricht und miteinander vereint.

Extremely rude, extremely powerful, extremely Detroit. You will never miss this one if you are on the dance floor. The boss of Visillusion records was one of the first music producers and DJ’s who dipped his toes into the deep black pond of techno. Actually, that was so long ago that nobody knew the name of this genre at the time. From 1987 he has appeared under different monikers around the globe for many occasions and he is definitely cannot be stopped.

Fresh three-tracker from Thomas Barnett is a gold horse. Moscow-based Exarde has got you covered if you are one of those DJ’s who like lifting heavy weights. Just pop the A-side on the deck without even looking and let this warehouse bounce. But don’t forget to flip it in a few minutes because the B-side has a more experimental feel if we might say and just can’t be missed by any electronic music aficionado.

The Sol Power All-Stars are back once more on the Rocksteady Disco label with some superb new covers of much-loved British funk band Cymande. Each one brings a fresh perspective while paying heed of the Afro-roots of the originals. 'Anthracite' (feat Denise Henderson) opens up and is designed for moaner dance floors with cosmic synth work and big, bouncing drums. There is a deeper and more steamy sense of rhythm to the tropical sounds of 'Getting It Back' while the Parkway dub of 'Anthracite' sounds like early house music. Two versions of 'Genevieve' offer shuffling rhythms and big horn stabs and stomping, ass-wiggling Afro-jazz.

Three generous portions of blissful beats on the Electric Shrine imprint, kicking off with the downbeat (in BPM terms) but lively 'Solar Visions' coming on like a dub mix of a lost Chic classic, 'What You Love' more like prime-era John Carpenter remixed by a mischievous Orb and 'Un Amore Supremo' a slow motion (one of the slowest we've ever encountered) reverb-fest, designed for more eccentric chillout rooms. And that's all before the opera singer pitches in.

TwoStep2 aka DJ Relay and Jo Public have been known for their superlative but distinctly old skool sounds, but lead track on this three cut 12" is rather a subtle departure. The beat is a little more wonderfully wonky than you might expect and the bassline bigger and more adventurous, with pleasingly original results. 'Starlight' plays off its abrasive backspins with fluttering harps that are more Luke Vibert than Sticky or Noodles, true genius, and a bubbling beat to boot. 'Weapon of Choice' plunders ravier elements but again, it's no museum piece with its off kilter piano and slowed down, drowsy atmospherics. If you're looking for memorable tunes that stick out rather than fit in, make this your destination.

Ever spent Christmas in New
York City? It’s pure magic…the
department store decorations,
the nip in the air putting color in
the cheeks of eager shoppers, the
general spirit of bonhomie that
pervades the street and subway,
and—if you’re lucky—the silent
beauty of a fresh snowfall reflecting
in the streetlights. Having grown
up in New York, Lea Michele knows
well just how spectacular New York
can be during the holiday season;
and on this, her Top 40 2019
album, the Glee star (currently
playing Fanny Brice in Funny Girl on Broadway)
captured a sleigh-full of that Yuletide joy. The centerpiece of the
record is “Christmas in New York,” an original that, in her words,
“paints this beautiful picture of New York, but it also is really about
what it means to be with your family and friends and engaged in that
holiday spirit.” The rest of the record, which is produced by Glee
producers Alex and Adam Anders, is equally transcendent, featuring
duets with fellow Glee stars Jonathan Groff (the voice of Kristoff
in Frozen) and Darren Criss, plus a showstopping vocal display on
“Angels We Have Heard on High” with Cynthia Erivo. For its vinyl
debut, Christmas in the City comes to you in a gatefold album jacket
containing a printed inner sleeve featuring beautiful shots of Lea
spreading some Christmas cheer. A snow white vinyl pressing limited
to 1500 copies…Merry Christmas!

Blue Vinyl

2019 saw Firescope release a seminal album, The Lonely Machine by Britain’s John Shima. The world has become a very different place since then. The pandemic, economic turmoil and global crises prevail. It is amidst such uncertainty that Shima returns with a new collection to combat the savagery of our times, enter Empty Lands.

Dauby basslines and silken strings introduce “Component”, saturated snares giving ballast as Shima’s signature style immediately comes to the fore. A throbbing kick and orbiting notes are peppered with hi-hats for “Neglected”, a sonorous stratum synergising beautifully. Shima is a student of techno. His appreciation and knowledge of the sound is central to the album as he composes within the traditions of the UK and US canon while exploring new plains. The influence of “bleep” is woven into the tapestry of pieces like “Depart” and “Mettle” with the minimalism of the 90s genre reimagined through new textures. “Sayaka” flows with a different current. Rhythms are understated, lapping against undulating keys as dawn rises. Harmony and melody are cornerstones of record, the gentle ebbs and flows of key and drum merging. Inspiration arises from home as well. The steady pulse and metallic tang of “Projection” recalling the industry of Sheffield and the pioneering electronics that sprouted from that rust red earth.

Track titles, and the album name itself, suggest periods of challenge and difficulty. “Paralysis”, “Desolate”, “Empty Lands”. Words that conjure certain feelings and responses. Shima’s music is a counterbalance to these emotions. Positive compositions of subtle shifts, complementary percussion and welcoming warmth acting as a tonic to the negativity that swirls; the ten audio works on offer acting as a balm to soothe the soul in these troubled time

Talented multi-instrumentalist Flevans returns with his most musically expressive and personal long player, 'A Short Distance To Fall'.

A largely instrumental album, though peppered with lush vocal samples throughout, 'A Short Distance To Fall' is a listening experience and one meant to be savoured from start to finish - drawing you in and guiding you through an ever changing musical world, taking in snippets of electronica, disco, funk, beats, soul and downtempo - delivering them all with a warm, musical, lo-fi aesthetic.

With nods to luminaries such as The Avalanches, early Ninja Tune and Nightmares on Wax through to contemporaries such as Folamour and Art of Tones, the challenge was to create something cohesive that could traverse the different genres he loved whilst remaining true to the Flevans sound.

Diverse and eclectic, yet warm and cohesive throughout - from the atmospheric beats of 'In Shadows' the uplifting radio-ready warmth of first single 'It Take The Whole Day', the lurching groove of 'We Walk Alone' through to the driving disco of 'Digits' and 'I Got Soul', the album rewards repeated listens, never sitting still on one style or sound.