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Since slipping out a decade ago, Fürsattl’s sole 12” on Claremont 56 has become an in-demand item, thanks to a mixture of its’ undeniable quality and the patronage of several high-profile, well-regarded DJs. Because of this, the label has responded to demand for a reissue of those two tracks and announced the release of a double-album of the krautrock-inspired trio’s works for the label.

Presented in a gatefold sleeve sporting Mark Warrington’s original 2012 artwork and limited to 400 copies, the 2022 album edition of Rheinlust not only tells the tale of the band’s now decade-long association with Claremont 56, but also features a previously unreleased track from the archives, ‘Für Paul’. Tucked away at the end of the LP, the track is amongst the most atmospheric in their catalogue – a slowly building number in which celestial synthesizer chords, ambient textures, echo-laden electric piano chords and lilting synth strings rise above a rubbery bassline and Jaki Liebezeit style drums.

It provides a superb conclusion to a genuinely evocative album of music you can get lost in, but it’s by no means the only highlight. Fittingly, the album’s first slab of wax boasts both tracks from Fürsattl’s hard-to-find debut 12”: title track ‘Rheinlust’, a driving but deep and hypnotic krautrock masterpiece full of elongated chords, restless bass, twinkling motifs and cascading electronic melodies, and the wonderfully epic ‘Links Der Pegnitz’. Clocking in at just under 15 minutes, this sublime excursion features band members trading glistening guitar and colourful synthesizer solos over a funky but laidback groove that sits somewhere between krautrock and cosmic funk.

The album’s second slab of wax showcases Fürsattl’s lesser-known tracks for Claremont 56, alongside the previously mentioned unreleased cut. These two workouts were originally featured on the label’s Claremont Editions compilations and further expand on their now trademark krautrock sound. There’s ‘Leerlauf’, a breathlessly up-tempo, weighty and immersive chunk of low-slung dancefloor creepiness that you’ll want to get lost in time and again, and the twangy and buzzing ‘Haru’, a birdsong-splattered affair that sounds like their tribute to krautrock originals Neu! and Harmonium. Like the rest of the album, these are seriously seductive outings that slowly build towards impactful, emotive conclusions.

Diabolical Death Metal titans BELPHEGOR unleash their twelfth studio album!

With “The Devils”, long-running Diabolical Death Metal titans BELPHEGOR unleash their twelfth studio album upon the masses, which proves to be one of the strongest and most elaborate records in the group’s career. Produced at renowned Fascination Studios with Jens Bogren (Kreator, Rotting Christ, At The Gates), “The Devils” sounds absolutely crushing and dynamic, sonically pushing the immense variety of the eight tracks to new heights. Blending German and English lyrics, lead single ‘Totentanz – Dance Macabre’ is as ferocious as it gets with its insane barrage of blast beats, spiteful lyrics, and sinister guitar melodies. ‘Glorifizierung des Teufels’ (= ‘Glorification of the Devil’) and ‘Virtus Asinaria – Prayer’ offer epic, mid-paced grandeur and chanted vocals and choirs adding new shades of black to their stylistic palette. The title-track or ‘Damnation – Höllensturz’ prove to be more complex pieces, shifting moods and tempos with ease and expanding BELPHEGOR’s blasphemous onslaught with fascinating twists and turns. Rounded off by impressive artwork created by Seth Siro Anton (Septicflesh, Nile, Paradise Lost), “The Devils” marks the band’s third collaboration with one of metal’s most prolific designers. Ultimately, “The Devils” is an album that musically builds upon BELPHEGOR’s trademark sound, in essence a combination of traditional death and black metal, deeply rooted in the 90’s, yet boasts with intricate compositions and detailed arrangements underlining their outstanding position within the international extreme metal circuit. Known as tirelessly touring band, BELPHEGOR currently presents a few of the new songs during an European tour with I Am Morbid and Hate before hitting South America in May/June 2022, and an intense festival season including Wacken Open Air, Bloodstock, Sweden Rock and many more.
Mix and mastering by Jens Bogren at Fascination Street Studios Örebro, Sweden. Drum engineering by David Castillo at Fascination Street Studios in Stockholm.
Guitars, Bass and Vocals recorded by Jakob Klingsbigl at Studio Mischmaschine Oberalm, Austria.
Artwork by Seth Siro Anton

Stefan Schwanders Repeat Orchestra presents “Infamous Lost Tracks”, an album appearing out of the blue, coming from spheres where time, space and Zeitgeist are nothing more than words.
With the Repeat Orchestra Schwander (who of course also is Harmonious Thelonious, A Rocket In Dub, Antonelli and a lot more) found a unique way of channeling deep House Music, a minimalistic setup and an idea of creating enjoyable music into amazing tracks that sound so effortless and natural. From first track "Call And Response" on it’s obvious that the main thing that this album is about is the groove, sometimes euphoric, sometimes quite unobtrusive but always irresistible, build from massive basslines, complex rhythms and the masterfully performed interplay of repetition and modulation. Warm harmonies, multilayered (at times quite unusual ("Nightdubbing")) melodies and subtle arrangements complete these Infamous Lost Tracks and their very own formular between Düsseldorf, Chicago and Lagos. There’s nothing harsh in this music, no aggression, still it’s far from being tame or tranquil: The pumping energy of "A Means To An End" or the sublime liquid shuffle of "Less Sensational" show the swing and kick inside these works that are made for delight but not to please.

And “Monks In A Club” is the most brilliant example of dancefloor understatement that you’ll ever hear in your life. Reduction, elegance and the right kind of mania concentrated into some minutes of pure club heaven. Handclaps, nonchalance & madness. An essential singularity and the swan song to the Repeat Orchestra, there will be no more of it. Get It And Smile.

O’o share many of the musical characteristics of their ornithological namesake. The Kaua’i O’O produced the most exquisite birdsong before its extinction in Hawaii in the late 1980s. The beauty and character of its voice was delicate and mysterious, tuneful and surprising. You can experience it with just a cursory websearch, a haunting cri de coeur from the last century. If the poor O’O is consigned to history, then life is just beginning for this French duo, based in Spain, who’ve won plaudits and awards already in their short musical lifespan.

O’o are about to release their sublime debut album Touche. This is not an endling, it’s just the beginning: “I found the name on a website of weird English language words, and I loved the way the letters were arranged like a pair of glasses,” says O’o singer Victoria Suter. “Afterwards, I went onto YouTube and started listening to the last bird of its species, calling for a mate that would never come. I thought: ‘Oh my God, that’s so sad’. Then we talked about the name and we thought it could be a nice thing to honour it and keep it alive in some way.”

Suter met her musical partner Mathieu Daubigné at college in Agen, South West France, when the pair were studying music theory in their teens. Victoria moved to Barcelona in 2010; Mathieu followed six years later. Their debut EP, Spells, appeared in 2018 a beautifully crafted patchwork of vocals and samples that is redolent of the uncanny vocalese of Laurie Anderson. The bird makes an appearance at the beginning of the EP: “Sweet tooth beak. Soft melody peak / Oh O’o, go round and round in circles / Looking for a honeydrop, til you vanish, til you drop”.

That sense of profound longing for something lost is carried over to Touche, as well as the same heightened sensory awareness of the world around them. What has developed in spades is the creative process. O’o have blossomed organically, augmenting their pop sensibilities. Avant-garde techniques have been brought to heel as the pair create off-kilter pop music that warms the heart and nourishes the brain. The catalyst that enabled this bold pop transformation came with the song ‘Touche’ itself, a saucy chanson at the heart of the album. Suter’s wry narrative about a botanical femme fatale is inserted into a lithe and skittish song with reggaeton beats and an inviting, balmy atmosphere.

“The song is about a flower which attracts male insects, producing the very same smell as the female of the species,” explains Victoria. “The poor male is fooled by the sex-appeal of this botanical trap, and gets so excited that he exhausts himself and wastes all his other chances of ulterior mating and having any offspring. The flower entices the insect in in mermaid-like fashion, to come nearer and touch her. It’s the hot track!”

‘Touche’ reaches into hitherto unexplored areas of pop, while the rest of the album is accessible in the way that James Blake, Radiohead or Kate Bush are accessible, and it always challenges, in a way that pop isn’t supposed to. Suter writes playful, poignant, observational songs that tell stories as well as tell us something about ourselves. Songs like ‘Dorica Castra’ are built upon the voice as an instrument, centrifugal and layered from its core.

Complimentary to this method is Daubigné, who brings startling innovation with found sounds, samples and clever vocal manipulations—creating unique, otherworldly sonic flourishes. A guitar whirs like a musical spinning top on ‘Spin’, created in Ableton; an Ondes Martenot appears to make a guest appearance on the title track, though it’s the ingenuity of the Prophet 8 synthesiser. “I’ll often say to Mathieu, ‘what’s that?’” says Suter, He’ll reply, ‘that’s your voice’.”

O’o found their own voice when they won a competition held by the legendary festival organisers Primavera Sound. Victoria entered the band into a competition she saw on Instagram, sending off rough demos on the final day of entry, thinking little more about it other than the fact Mathieu might be annoyed. Soon they would have to build a live set from scratch and figure out how to present their music for the first time. At stake was seventy hours of recording time at Aclam studios, used by Rosalía and Kendrick Lamar, and for the winner a coveted spot at the festival. A pool of 350 acts were whittled down, and then O’o triumphed at a Battle of the Band style face off.

The O’O might be extinct, but O’o the band have learned how to fly. Just watch them go.

D'Cruze, the legendary DnB producer synonymous with some of Suburban Base's biggest tracks such as 'Lonely' and 'Watch Out' now sees some of his unreleased productions finally getting a much sought-after release.

The Hidden Trax EP's theme comes from concept that the D'Cruze limited US only edition album contained tracks that were only discovered if you allowed that album to play on beyond what was supposed to be the last song, after a gap of silence no track ID and not listed on the track titles. This is where you’d find 'Bittersweet' pt 2 as a hidden track on the CD. This was Bittersweet’s only ever appearance having never been released in the UK and never released on vinyl or digitally worldwide.

The lush rolling workout of ‘Hardstep' is probably our most requested track that has never had a vinyl release having only briefly appeared on the very limited CD only ‘Subbase Sampler’, demand for a vinyl pressing of this has been called for since 1996.
Another beautiful hidden gem 'Sublime State' from 1995 wouldn’t be known to our UK audience as it’s an exclusive tune to the US only CD release that has never seen a UK or vinyl release.

Rounded off with the incredibly beautiful 'Meus Precious Filius', an unheard unreleased D’Cruze track that was considered a 'lost DAT' until recently surfaced. We are now able to bring this to the world as an epic slice of fresh music from D’Cruze.

The EP is presented on blue and black splattered vinyl making every single piece uniquely different. Original custom sleeve artwork is provided by Suburban Base legendary artist Dave Nodz in his iconic graffiti influenced style.

These are already high demand tracks all brought together for a fantastic value 4 track EP, so grab yourself a piece of future history now whilst we have these available for a limited time.

LIMITED EDITION CLEAR VINYL

Solo bedroom-pop project of Michael Ramos (Flowertown, April Magazine, Hectorine). Mostly recorded between last Christmas and New Year's during a window of isolation at home, “Hey There Flower” preserves Tony Jay’s prowess at making beautifully eerie lo-fi pop; like a hazy memory where your favorite Sixties girl-group melody is perpetually slowed down. Without a band to practice with, Tony Jay recorded the music alone, but recruited a slew of friends to remotely record backing vocals: Karina Gill (Cindy), Griffin Jones (Galore), Kati Mashikian (Mister Baby), Alexis Harper (Al Harper), & Hannah Lew (Cold Beat). "Hey There Flower", the most recent release from the prolific and mysterious Tony Jay delivers real melodies -- both lacey with vocal harmonies and dusty with layered guitars -- as fans have come to expect. This release also carries forward and elaborates on Tony Jay's tradition of songs that express a kind of naked honesty about things we all know -- love and loneliness and all that -- while communicating at the same time a wry edge of skepticism, so that the songs are like coins spinning on edge before landing heads, tails, or lost under the couch. Tony Jay brings us into a nostalgia where we recognize moods from music of the past -- Marc Boland definitely comes to mind, as well as Velvet Underground of the Nico era, and Tony Jay even covers Francoise Hardy on this collection -- but the songs create a three dimensional space with what feels like a thousand layers so that instead of being thrown back in time, it's like stepping into a little world with its own laws of nature, of which the listener gets just a few hints. - Karina Gill, Cindy/Flowertown. “Hey There Flower” is introduced by thudding snare beats eliciting reverb-stained tattered noisy guitar scrapes, to weave abrasive shimmery emotive vibrations, imbued with shattered nostalgic dreams, lit by brittle yet dazzling forsaken keyboard flows, over submerged and distorted male vocal’s whispery deluge of obsessive longing, lonely melancholy, and dark desire to exude a hazy gritty concoction of awkward sadness and brooding unrest.” White Light // White Heat // “What Tony sketches are concise commentaries on love, loneliness and a few things in between. His mode of expression is sparse, intense, and captivating. The arrangements are invariably lo-fi and slow tempo, blanketed with a fuzzy hiss. And it only took one listen to decide that it is a very special album. It has a '60s feel, albeit washed in an eerie slowcore machine. An ace example is "September Skies", which could be the 1965 'last dance' at the prom for the introverted students.” - When You Motor Away

Having initially met more than a decade ago at a local community radio station, sometimes doing guest slots on each other’s live, improvised noise shows, Cormac Culkeen and Dave Grenon knew they had a mutual interest in working with sonic textures. They listened to each other’s bands for a handful of years, and in 2017, “made good on a threat” that they’d been making for quite a long time: to start a band. At Cormac’s gentle but clear urging—declaring that they’d gone ahead and booked a space in which to record a video—the two wrote their first song, “Sebaldus,” an ambitious 12-minute trip, which also serves as the fireworks finale to their self-titled debut album. With surges of pathos that smooth out into something more soothing in turn, Cormac goes: “The hunter, you’ve seen him / The archer, his arrows are strong / And hunger, you’ve known her / I know the winter is long.” The track is as much about enduring a Canadian winter as it is about the eponymous 8th century hermit, shot through with sublimated desire. As Cormac put it, Joyful Joyful’s songs are “a little bit outside of time.” But while the lyrics beg close, oblique reading unto themselves, there’s also a distinct sense that they’re only one of many more ways that the duo shapes sound. Cormac, whose voice is like a sea with irregular tides, lights up about an idea in traditional sean-nós Irish music that songs already exist and are out there; it’s up to the singer to become the conduit. This belief in music as something to be channelled, and something more than sound, resonates with the singer’s fundamentalist religious past. To paraphrase: lots of group singing, harmonies, no instrumentation, totally unmediated, no priest, congregational—not choral, not a performance, not about talent, the spirit moves through people. “Of course that informs how I think about singing,” Cormac says. So, when they were exiled from the church because of their queerness, they took the music with them, dislocating it from its dogmatic bounds but not from its transcendent potential. This record might be thought of, then, as a kind of queering of sacred, devotional traditions—or at the very least, a space where all of these things can be held at once. Perhaps perceivable by some as contradictions, these intersecting influences create the conditions for an incredibly singular sound. Dave is steady and exploratory in his handling of this multiplicity, arranging sounds as they’re revealed, corralling them, coaxing them into form. “Because Dave is there,” Cormac says, “I get to sing three times higher, and three times lower, and faster, and backwards, and all of these sounds! That are there. They’re all there.” When asked about early musical memories, Cormac recalled an immediate fascination with harmony: from demanding that the first person they ever heard singing it explain what they were doing, to always (still, to this day) singing in harmony with their twin sister around the house, to being part of a children’s choir that sang soprano in Handel’s Messiah—not realizing until they entered the room with all the other ranges that their learned melody was but one part of the whole. Just as tellingly, Dave reflects on his early attraction to “abstraction and becoming abstract,” describing childhood afternoons messing with microphone and speaker feedback loops, producing long, enduring sounds with almost undetectable variations. In a way unique to the coalescing of these two listeners, notions of harmony are central to their output. Dave samples field recordings, old keyboards and synths, and vocal drones, running the live singing through four or five parallel effects chains, sampling and treating everything again in the moment. “Another way to put it is that Cormac’s voice comes into the board and then comes back out shifted, delayed, and shattered; Cormac and I hear it, live with it, and respond,” Dave says. This work is contingent not only on a deep intuition (neither of them read sheet music) of polyphony and due proportion (something St Thomas Aquinas famously listed as an attribute of beauty) but also on their connection to each other and ability to read subtle cues. Dave says they’d hold each other’s hands while performing if it was more convenient to do so, riffing on something else Cormac mentioned about traditional Irish singing: that someone would always hold the singer’s hand, for fear that without a tether to the ground they might find themselves utterly lost, unsure how to return. Joyful Joyful doesn’t shy away from offering such experiences of departure; they’re willing to unsettle their audiences because they themselves are unsettled. Their shared penchant for spooky, heavy music, and self-described “omnivorous” listening practices equip them with an array of sonic concepts that support this effort; Diamanda Galás, The Rankin Family, Pan Sonic, Pauline Oliveros, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Yma Sumac, and Catholic hymnody were just a few that came up. Observing their audience gives them insight about the effect of each song—something they considered while arranging the album. Its arc is marked by soft, sometimes sudden oscillations between cacophony and euphony, day and night (listen for insects), and from sexual, visceral entanglements to more ephemeral, celestial ones. Front to back, it arouses expansion, unraveling. Of lightning, Vicki Kirby writes: “quite curious initiation rites precede these electrical encounters. An intriguing communication, a sort of stuttering chatter between the ground and the sky, appears to anticipate the actual stroke.” By all accounts, something similar seems to happen at Joyful Joyful shows, between those on the stage and those off it, between what’s earthly and what’s beyond. “A lightning bolt is not a straightforward resolution of the buildup of a charge difference between the earth and a cloud … there is, as it were, some kind of nonlocal communication effected between the two,” writes Karen Barad, extrapolating on Kirby’s thought. Cormac acknowledges that while they and Dave play a role in this mysterious charge that comes about, they’re not solely responsible. However ineffable it may be, it’s undoubtedly a form of communion—and a sensuously shocking one at that

More Late 70s/early 80s Westcoast Yachtpop you can almost dance to!
Buoyed by the incredible love felt for TSTD Vol. 1 in summer 2014, Berlin's renowned pop archaeologist, that master musical excavator DJ Super-markt, has leapt straight back into the soft-top and been out digging for the lost gems you'll find here on Volume 2. This is another perfect collection of missing-in-action, late-70s/early-80s smooth, singer/songwriter, AOR-paced, yacht-based pop and blue-eyed soul. Every song brims over with that West Coast sunshine, and for Volume 2 we've dug even deeper into obscure corners of LA, London, even Cologne, to create an even more potent soundtrack to that lost world that's somehow always with us. So join us on another sunset trip as we soundtrack summer 2015 in the company of these lost luminaries. Bask in every detail of that glorious over-production, and recall an era when the music industry had the time, money and sheer musical talent to make everything BIG. Pay no mind to the cynics, the cooler-than-thou-erati, or the buzz kills of the sincerity police. These are big tunes that deserve to be hits, even if it's taken 40 years to get there, driving slowly up that winding California coast road in the wonderful warm summer air.

The second album from Wehrmacht, “Biermächt” saw the band maturing while still retaining their Thrashcore roots. Released in mid-1988, “Biermächt” featured a slightly cleaner production than the one found on their debut album. To some fans this rendered the album with much less intensity, but to our ears the sound was still very powerful. The massive reverb used on the first album made “Shark Attack” sound like a true shark attack and only added to the overall intensity. This time around the drums are more compressed and some blast beat parts tend to get lost in the overall blur of things. But on the same token, the guitars are much sharper sounding. Marco Zorich and John Duffy were truly evolving as guitar heroes. The thing that is really great and different compared to “Shark Attack” are the funny bit songs. We love them and enjoy them. A lot of the songs on “Biermächt” were leftovers from their demo days, including the phenomenal “Night Of Pain”, one of our all time favorite Thrash songs ever, but newer stuff like “Radical Dissection” and “Balance Of Opinion” showed the band handling a more mainstream Thrash sound somewhere in the middle of a Slayer/Kreator sound and Metallica/Megadeth. There is a certain progressiveness to those songs that hint to a more elaborate musical future. “Biermächt” is a very strong Crossover/Thrash album with a laid back party vibe to it. The sound, however, is very in-your-face. This is not a subtle album by any means. It’s not that they were the funniest bunch around (their side project Spazztic Blurr went a lot further). But Wehrmacht did have their own specific sound (mostly because of the vocals and guitars). Especially after all these years it becomes obvious all Crossover lovers and Thrashers from those days do in fact have this album and hold it dearly. The album has historic importance as well as huge sentimental value. Biermächt is a landmark in eighties Crossover Thrash and should be checked out immediately by all newbies.

Healing Together is a benefit compilation for mental health recovery featuring 23 ambient-electronic artists from around the world. Recognizing that music is a bridge to normalizing conversations about the challenges people are going through, each artist was prompted to create a song that would help someone with mental health struggles know they're not alone. This sprouted into a collection of ambient music holding space for the many emotional landscapes we experience as humans. Healing Together features new compositions specially prepared for the compilation from the incredible line-up of women artists Nailah Hunter, Penelope Trappes, Clarice Jensen, Drum & Lace, Sofie Birch, Hollie Kenniff, Clariloops, more eaze, Ami Dang, Karen Vogt, Patricia Wolf, Zoe Polanski, Sachi Kobayashi, Christina Giannone, Ai Yamamoto, Cat Tyson Hughes, IKSRE, Inquiri, Belly Full of Stars, Claire Deak, Pechblende, Caminuata and marine eyes. Net profits of the compilation will go to Sounds of Saving, a non-profit fueling hope for mental health both by celebrating the power of human connection to music and directing people towards the resources they need before it's too late.

After composing for cinema, theater, multi-platinum French rap singles and French Chanson albums, Gabriel Legeleux, aka Superpoze, continues his journey with electronic and instrumental music.

He expands his intimate and singular work with a third dense and extensive album, where strings, flutes and choirs join his trusty synthesizers, pianos and percussions.

" Nova Cardinale is an album conceived as a world rather than a story. A place made of sounds in which one can find a path, get lost or stay still and observe the surroundings. An album in which the tracks live on a grand scale, ranging from intimacy to emphasis. An album with perspective and vanishing points. It was an intimate and sensitive writing work, and also a real technical work of sound and production. Listening to the album, these two aspects seem to me indissociable today." Superpoze

Joona Toivanen Trio makes their We Jazz Records debut with their new album "Both Only", out 25 Feb 2022. A landmark work for the long standing group, the album showcases a new sound for the band, trekking deep into new ideas for an acoustic jazz piano trio. Since their formation as teenagers in mid-1990's, the trio of pianist Joona Toivanen, bassist Tapani Toivanen and drummer Olavi Louhivuori (of Superposition, Ilmiliekki Quartet and Linda Fredriksson "Juniper") has developed their remarkably coherent band sound step by step, touring the world over. Nowadays, the trio is geographically split between Gothenburg, Sweden (Joona), Copenhagen, Denmark (Tapani), and Helsinki, Finland (Olavi), but the unit has never sounded so together as one, and as adventurous as on "Both Only".

"Both Only" by Joona Toivanen Trio is a cocoon, a welcoming shelter of sound that opens up naturally for the listener to inhabit. The album is moody and introspective, even dark at times, but by the time you get to the closing track, "This and This", you'll likely notice something hopeful brewing up. This is not music dealing with nostalgia or a world lost. Instead, it's a body of work with delicate dynamics, taking a minute just to listen and to look inwards to learn something, to move forward.

The first single "Enlightened" is perhaps the most traditional piece on the album, yet it flows like a vessel beyond genre, conveying a mood, a feeling and an idea. Listen to how the piano, bass and drums discuss, how the groove moves with the instruments having their clear roles but also supporting each other and documenting a musical aging process exactly as that of a quality bottle of red wine. As a song like "Direction" proves, the melody is there all the way, yet there is nothing obvious about how it's carried by the trio. Things remain surprising, fresh and moving at all times. "Except For" keeps its intensity, while nearly erupting into a full on 4-to-the-floor banger. Nearly! The key here is how the energy sustains itself, building the intensity within the music.

"Both Only" is a powerful statement from a band ready to renew itself time and again, and one willing to do it slowly, outside of the hype. This process makes the impact enduring, nuanced and lovely.

WJLP37 Joona Toivanen Trio "Both Only" is available on vinyl as a black vinyl edition and as a LP+7" bundle also including WJ0716 "Except For (7" Edit)" / "Keyboard Study No. 2".

“More excellent poetic soundscapes from We Jazz! Love the flow through the tracks here – textural pieces moving into more rhythmic jazz abstractions. Beautifully recorded too.”
Quinton Scott — Worldwide FM

“Following on from the excellent Linda Fredriksson album We Jazz extend the journey with this innovative Joona Toivanen Trio set.”
Paul Bradshaw — Straight No Chaser

“You’ll look in vain here for extravagant splashes of color or bright swathes of sound, but what you will discover are a finely-chiselled set of compositions that make the most of the trio’s limited palette: flint-sharp melodies hewn from the ice, crisp and crackling rhythms.”
Cal Gibson — Ban Ban Ton Ton

“Incredible album from Joona Toivanen Trio and a strong start to the new year from We Jazz.”
Kerem Gokmen — Dubmission

“Encapsulating a new movement in jazz.”
Jay Scarlett — Sounds Supreme

“Interesting listen on the shortest day of the year. They have a very definite and saturated style.”
John Chacona — All About Jazz

“Airplayed the track”
Tom Ravenscroft — BBC6 Music

“Jazz album of the year released already in February?”
Ralf Sandell — Hufvudstadsbladet

“★★★★★”
Iida Simes — Voima Magazine

In the constant state of flux that house and techno are in since their inception, Berlin’s Sascha Funke is at once a fixture and an emblem of the city’s transformations. Probably best-known for his work on BPitch, Kompakt or the evergreen MZ, Funke’s EP for Running Back is an amalgamation of sounds, influences and atmospheres. Subdued rave euphoria, robotic disco-influenced techno-pop and hints of Berlin’s long gone „Dubmission“ party ethics get re-arranged, extracted and reconfigured with „German engineering“ values.
Take the ritual QAM for instance. Using a sample and the legendary morse melody of the weather forecast at the end of each „Tagesschau“ and putting it in a completely different context, is a prime example of a free-form approach to making music and making nostalgia future-proof.
That also holds true for the rest of the EP. While titles like FEZ (Freizeit- und Erholungszentrum) or SEZ (Sport- und Erholungszentrum) refer to lost places in East Berlin, the tracks are anything but. Yearning, precisely programmed and full of joie de vivre at the same time, they all lock into and complement each other. So much, that you will find a new favorite with every listen.

Gilmer’s first release came out in 2015, called ‘Brain Poacher’ on Lobster Theremin. Showcasing a production style taht lands between Ancient Methods, Sandwell district and a more rugged version of the live-orientated Karen Sound. Keeping the Rhythms and grooves undulating under booted foot. The next year after the nuclear arms test that was the ‘Brain Poacher’, Gilmer returns to the lobster family via Lucid, Murky sub-label Mörk with his second record called ‘Lost Tapes’. Taking a much more languid and contemplative approach to his follow up. ‘Lost Tapes’ finds itself washed ashore on waves of warm, translucent, salt-infused techno and house giving his next release the opportunity to make his debut in Turbo Recordings with a foour track EP called ‘Baker Shit Ton’. After releasing on Lobster Theremin and Turbo, Gilmer Galibard launches his own imprint ‘Gilmer Galibard Records’. This project is a pure expression of his personal experiences and stories through music and visual art using each release as a timeline of his life. The concept of the label is also to explore boundaries of introspective musical experiences, taking sound design as a way to connect with his body and soul. These tracks were written in a period of uncertainty and a s big change in Gilmer, seeking powerful change in his life and his music. Inspired by Austin Osman Spare and his book ‘Book of Pleasure’ Gilmer gave birth to Novaturient, to honour that important moment of his life. Novaturient (Rainforest Spiritual DUB) is the first track of GIL01 and delivers almost over 7 minutes worth of deep harmonics and metallic textures, manifesting Gilmer’s own sound design. Even though the core ideology remains correlative. B-Sides Komorebi (Getwaway To The Sun Mix) creates its own identity by venturing into a deep industrial techno with drops of light and hope accompanied by an organic percussion through the track. All tracks produced written and Mixed by Gilmer Galibard

If you’re looking for a raw, sugary blast of distorted pop, look no further than
‘Weird Nightmare’. The debut album from METZ guitarist and vocalist Alex
Edkins contains all of his main band’s bite with an unexpected, yet totally
satisfying, sweetness. Imagine The Amps covering Big Star, or the gloriously
hissy miniature epics of classic-era Guided by Voices combined with the
bombast of ‘Copper Blue’- era Sugar - just tons of red-line distortion cut with the
type of tunecraft that thrills the moment it hits your ears.
 These ten songs showcase a new side of Edkins’ already-established
songwriting, but even though the bulk of ‘Weird Nightmare’ was recorded during
the COVID-19 pandemic, some of its tunes date back to 2013 in demo form.
“Hooks and melody have always been a big part of my writing, but they really
became the main focus this time” he explains. “It was about doing what felt
natural.”
 To be clear: Weird Nightmare is not a ‘pandemic album’, but an album - some of
which had been gestating for quite a while - that just so happened to be recorded
during the pandemic. “I had always planned on finishing these songs, but being
unable to tour with METZ, and forced to lock down, really gave me a push.” After
days spent homeschooling his son, Edkins would drive to the METZ rehearsal
room and tinker deep into the night on these songs’ deceptively simple structures
and rich, static-laden textures. “It was a godsend for me,” he states about the
creative process. “The hours would disappear and I would get lost in the music
and record. It was a beautiful escape.”
 ‘Weird Nightmare’ is, in its own way, a study in extremes: Edkins’ melodic
instincts and penchant for dissonance are both turned up to the max throughout,
the latter reflecting not only the barn-burning tendencies of METZ, but Alex’s own
sonic predilections. “It doesn’t sound right to my ears until it’s pushed over the
edge.” He also cites other artists who are masterful at mixing the sublime and the
punishing - Kim Deal and Scout Niblett among them - as influences on his own
songwriting. “My favorite songs are the simple ones,” he explains. “I’ve never
been attracted to virtuosity or technicality. Certain songs have the power to lift
your spirits like nothing else can. I wanted to create that type of song.”
 A few guests pitch in on Weird Nightmare: Canadian alt-pop genius Chad
VanGaalen adds his unmistakable touch to the ever-escalating ‘Oh No’, while
Alicia Bognanno of Bully lends her distinctive pipes to the thrashing ‘Wrecked’, a
collaboration that effectively saved the song. “I almost didn’t put it on the album
because I thought it was missing something,” Edkins explains. “I sent it to Alicia
and she lifted it way up.”
 And taking risks and reaching out of Edkins’ comfort zone was the name of the
game when it came to making ‘Weird Nightmare’. “I found myself doing new
things I didn’t have the guts to do before, recording everything by myself and
trusting all of my musical instincts,” he states. “I think when music manifests
quickly, a certain amount of honesty automatically comes along with it. When it is
a purely instinctual creation, there is no opportunity to obscure the truth.”
 Loser Edition LP pressed on Coke Bottle Green transparent vinyl.

If you’re looking for a raw, sugary blast of distorted pop, look no further than
‘Weird Nightmare’. The debut album from METZ guitarist and vocalist Alex
Edkins contains all of his main band’s bite with an unexpected, yet totally
satisfying, sweetness. Imagine The Amps covering Big Star, or the gloriously
hissy miniature epics of classic-era Guided by Voices combined with the
bombast of ‘Copper Blue’- era Sugar - just tons of red-line distortion cut with the
type of tunecraft that thrills the moment it hits your ears.
 These ten songs showcase a new side of Edkins’ already-established
songwriting, but even though the bulk of ‘Weird Nightmare’ was recorded during
the COVID-19 pandemic, some of its tunes date back to 2013 in demo form.
“Hooks and melody have always been a big part of my writing, but they really
became the main focus this time” he explains. “It was about doing what felt
natural.”
 To be clear: Weird Nightmare is not a ‘pandemic album’, but an album - some of
which had been gestating for quite a while - that just so happened to be recorded
during the pandemic. “I had always planned on finishing these songs, but being
unable to tour with METZ, and forced to lock down, really gave me a push.” After
days spent homeschooling his son, Edkins would drive to the METZ rehearsal
room and tinker deep into the night on these songs’ deceptively simple structures
and rich, static-laden textures. “It was a godsend for me,” he states about the
creative process. “The hours would disappear and I would get lost in the music
and record. It was a beautiful escape.”
 ‘Weird Nightmare’ is, in its own way, a study in extremes: Edkins’ melodic
instincts and penchant for dissonance are both turned up to the max throughout,
the latter reflecting not only the barn-burning tendencies of METZ, but Alex’s own
sonic predilections. “It doesn’t sound right to my ears until it’s pushed over the
edge.” He also cites other artists who are masterful at mixing the sublime and the
punishing - Kim Deal and Scout Niblett among them - as influences on his own
songwriting. “My favorite songs are the simple ones,” he explains. “I’ve never
been attracted to virtuosity or technicality. Certain songs have the power to lift
your spirits like nothing else can. I wanted to create that type of song.”
 A few guests pitch in on Weird Nightmare: Canadian alt-pop genius Chad
VanGaalen adds his unmistakable touch to the ever-escalating ‘Oh No’, while
Alicia Bognanno of Bully lends her distinctive pipes to the thrashing ‘Wrecked’, a
collaboration that effectively saved the song. “I almost didn’t put it on the album
because I thought it was missing something,” Edkins explains. “I sent it to Alicia
and she lifted it way up.”
 And taking risks and reaching out of Edkins’ comfort zone was the name of the
game when it came to making ‘Weird Nightmare’. “I found myself doing new
things I didn’t have the guts to do before, recording everything by myself and
trusting all of my musical instincts,” he states. “I think when music manifests
quickly, a certain amount of honesty automatically comes along with it. When it is
a purely instinctual creation, there is no opportunity to obscure the truth.”
 Loser Edition LP pressed on Coke Bottle Green transparent vinyl.

Released in 1961, My Favorite Things made John Coltrane a star with box-office pulling power previously preserved for the likes of Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, the MJQ, and Miles Davis. The dazzling quartet treatment of the Richard Rodgers hit song, features Coltrane on soprano saxophone for the first time on record, exercised a hypnotic effect on all sorts of music lovers and trend-spotters. The title track was a hit single, and the album became a major commercial success. In 1998, the album received the Grammy Hall of Fame award. It attained gold record status in 2018, having sold 500,000 copies. The mono version of this album, believed lost, was recently found, and is included in this deluxe package, as well as the stereo version, both mastered from the original tapes.

The packaging includes liner notes by award-winning writer Ben Ratliff, as well as photos and Atlantic Records ephemera.

'The Best of Chet Baker' pressed on limited edition 180g violet coloured vinyl 14 Essential Chet Baker tracks recorded in Los Angeles, New York, Milan, and Paris between 1954 - 1959 and featuring Herbie Mann, Pepper Adams, Bill Evans and Kenny Drew among others.

Australian hip-hop/neo soul duo SO.Crates are a boom-bap prayer sent live and direct from the heart of two of the culture’s most committed students. The group features Melbourne based beatmaker and DJ Skomes alongside California-via-Adelaide MC & poet Cazeaux O.S.L.O, not to mention the MUSE, a forever changing third party who completes the creative trinity of the Crates. With a legacy built on releasing a steady flow of cold-crush records and delivering uplifting live performances to the party people, SO.Crates prove that hip-hop’s golden era is not a lost date in time, but a foundational state of mind. Functioning as a considered preview of what to expect from the album to follow, the hypnotic first release 'Stars' is an auditory exploration of what happens when two opposing charges collide; the joyful and the melancholy. Here, layers of instrumentation, samples and vocals sit atop a foundation of grounding beats — the track's roots from which piano samples, live trumpet and vocal embellishments spring. "When Skomes gets in his stride, it's always a bit of a happy/sad feeling. It can go either way, like a mood ring", says Cazeaux O.S.L.O. "I guess you could say we make mood ring beats, and 'Stars' is no exception".

Before Madvillain, before Yesterday’s New Quintet and before Quasimoto or any other of his several alter egos, Madlib perfected his craft as an MC/producer in the Lootpack. Along with DJ Romes, and fellow rhymer Wildchild, they released the dusty full-length, Soundpieces: Da Antidote back in 1999, that laid down the foundation for the unique and dusty sound now associated with Madlib. The loose, freeform recordings on this collection are circa 1996 when the group was managed by Madlib’s father, and they show the now-renowned maverick producer in comparatively restrained form. Madlib’s scope and imagination was clearly fixated on East coast jazzy hip-hop production from the early ’90s, laying down soundscapes for his hungry crew including the likes of Kazi, Declaime and Medaphoar, who have all become well known underground rap vets. Madlib’s own strong mic presence is noticeable given his now only-on-rare-occasion rhyming, but it’s his production that is the most fascinating element here. While a resolutely hip-hop project, the burgeoning jazzy flourishes and Madlib’s heavily accomplished ear for sound makes the record an important starting point for adherents of his more recent exploratory work.

Coleman Leslie McCann, known as Les McCann, is arguably the most soulful jazz pianist of the sixties. All you have to do to be convinced of this is to go and listen to him, all business ceasing, with Eddie Harris, in concert in Montreux, on June 21, 1969. This recording is a monument in the history of soul jazz.

But before this concert, the trio of Les McCann with Herbie Lewis and Ron Jefferson, imposed a new style characterized by joy and pleasure, to play, to groove, to listen. Impossible in a Les McCann concert not to participate in his joy, in his desire to share, impossible not to beat time.

Famed free jazz concert registration of an early New Direction for the Art performance. Recorded in 1971. Old-style Gatefold LP, with rare photographs & extensive liner notes by Alan Cummings.

The performance by Takayanagi Masayuki New Direction for the Art at the Gen’yasai festival on August 14, 1971 was an intense, bruising collision between the radical, anti-establishment politics of the period in Japan and the febrile avant-garde music that had begun to emerge a few years before. The ferocious performance that you can hear here was received with outright hostility by the audience, who responded first with catcalls and later with showers of debris that were hurled at the performers. Takayanagi though described the group’s performance to jazz magazine Swing Journal as a success, “an authentic and realistic depiction of the situation”.

In 1962, Takayanagi, bassist Kanai Hideto and painter Kageyama Isamu went on to form an AACM-style musicians’ collective called the New Century Music Research Institute. Every Friday, members gathered at Gin-Paris, a chanson bar in the fashionable Ginza district of Tokyo, to push the outer limits of jazz creativity.

But the pivotal moment for his music was the creation a new trio version of his New Directions group in August 1969, with the free bassist Yoshizawa Motoharu and a young drummer Toyozumi (Sabu) Yoshisaburō. Experiments eventually led to the creation of two basic frameworks for improvisation that Takayagi referred to as Mass Projection and Gradually Projection.

“La Grima” (tears), the piece that was played at the Gen’yasai festival, is a mass projection and listening to it, you can get a clear sense of what Takayanagi was aiming at. Mass projection involves a dense, speedy and chaotic colouring in of space that destroys the listener’s perception of time, and thus of musical development.

The ferocity of the performance of “La Grima” at the Gen’yasai Festival in Sanrizuka on August 14, 1971 was consciously grounded by Takayanagi in a particular historical moment, ripe with conflict and violence. A month after the festival, on September 16, three policemen would die during struggles at the site. This was the context that the three-day Gen’yasai Festival existed within. The line-up reflected the radical politics of the movement, with leading free jazz musicians like Takayanagi, Abe Kaoru, and Takagi Mototeru appearing alongside radical ur-punkers Zuno Keisatsu, heavy electric blues bands like Blues Creation, and Haino Keiji’s scream-jazz unit Lost Aaraaff.

New Direction for the Arts trio topped the bill on the opening day, playing an aggressive, uncompromising “mass projection” set of polyphonic improvisation. Alongside drummer Hiroshi Yamazaki and saxophonist Kenji Mori, Takayanagi soloed hard and continuously for forty minutes. This was performance as precisely calibrated metaphor: three musicians responding to the demands of the moment with instinctive force and fury, untethered by rules, leaderless yet not rudderless (the direction part of the group’s name was no accident). The piece was entitled La Grima – tears - and the fusion between the palpable anger of the performance and hopeless sadness of its title were also perfectly apt for the situation. This was a fight that the state was always going to win. Yet, by all accounts, the band’s set went down like a fart at a funeral. The band were showered with catcalls and debris throughout, and by chants of “go home” when the music finally came to an end.

However, looking back at the event in the year-end issue of Japan’s leading jazz magazine, Swing Journal, Takayanagi was surprisingly upbeat: New Directions brought a solid political consciousness to our performance and succeeded in an authentic and realistic depiction of the situation. But journalism revealed its superficiality in its inability to penetrate the core of the music. I don’t know much about anyone else, but we at least left behind a competent record.

It’s a fascinating statement in many ways. Perhaps on one-hand it can be read as stubborn, solipsistic and self-justifying, yet in conjunction with his statement in 1971 there are points that guide us towards an understanding of just what Takayanagi intended with his performance at the festival. As Kitazato Yoshiyuki has argued, it becomes an almost religious act, directed at the earth deities of the land. A union of anger, sorrow and malevolence that can be placed nowhere effective, all it can do is find expression and channeling. The forcible land seizures at Narita, the eviction of farmers from land that had been in families for generations, the destruction of communities: none of this can be prevented, not least by an artistic action. All that can be done is an attempt to mark the land itself, to soak it with the combined force of emotions and the volume of the performances, to bury something there that cannot be drowned out, even by the coming roar of jet engines.

DOWN TO EARTH became an overnight sensation in certain Soul music circles when their previously unreleased album was unleashed six months ago. This long-lost suite of soulful gems was recorded back in 1996 and finally get’s it’s debut vinyl release via IZIPHO SOUL - proud to release this collection of ‘All killers, no fillers’.

Since the 1990s London-based Stevie Paul and Laurence ‘Lol’ Williams have been making songs, creating harmony and performing the world over. The pair’s songwriting styles stem from their love of Soul music.

The long player’s running order has been organised as THE MEAT SIDE AND THE SWEET SIDE for your listening pleasure!

Presented with OBI strip in a clear sleeve and available in two choices of vinyl colour: gold or black.

Muddy Monk was revealed alongside Parisian artists Myth Syzer, Ichon and Bonnie Banane on 'Le Code'. From his native Switzerland, he imposes a fine, synthetic universe that plays a major role in the renewal of French-language song. The journey began in 2018 with 'Longue Ride', a cathartic first album that he describes as 'a kind of therapy' and that was unanimously acclaimed by the critics. In 2020, he returns with 'Ultra Tape', a mixtape which, with the benefit of hindsight, is the first step towards his second album. We discover a more raw universe. Darker too. A superb launching pad for his second album.

With Ultra Dramatic Kid, Muddy Monk delivers a radical new piece, a bubble of just over thirty minutes in which he manages to work his magic and make us dance on the edge of his emotions. As if everything could change in an instant towards happiness or chaos. An electric album and a sublime dive into his universe, which draws equally from Daft Punk, Rage Against The Machine and Travis Scott. A project that takes the form of a global experience, both auditory and visual, since almost all the tracks on the tracklisting have been put into images by Felix de Givry, the whole forming a short film to be discovered with the release of the project. In the end, Ultra Dramatic Kid is an uncompromising album in which it is a pleasure to get lost. An album that further establishes the Swiss artist as one of the artists capable of redefining the contours of French-speaking music for many years to come.

At times music gets lost for years in virtuality… And like an archeologist of modern times he wandered into his own archives, rifling through old hard drives and files exchanged with fellow musicians throughout the years to uncover music from the likes of Arnaud Rebotini, Acid Washed, Rambal Cochet, Danton Eeprom, Mount Kismet, Commando Variété & Seb El Zin.

What other than « Black Ink », as a name, could portray the impression brought on by this collection of tracks? A compilation that writes an original scenario between space opera and romantic Sci-fi story. As the music unfolds, the listener discovers treasures spanning genres such as Indie Dance, Leftfield, Detroit Techno, Electro, EBM…

Prolific London producer Lxury returns to the Lost Palms catalogue, this time with his second-ever solo long play - a honey-dipped journey through the rainbow colours of house music and its adjacent styles.

Living up to his name, no room is spared in Lxury's careful curation of full-bodied soundscapes which make for a truly immersive listening experience. Emotion-laden melodies and glistening pads grant permission for shameless self indulgence, whilst flickers of cooler, harsher tones add dynamism and depth. At times, this sounds like anthemic melodies, reverberating claps and sunshine-doused pads ("Motion" and "YT Storm"); at others, like mournful female vocals which are chopped and looped beneath a shuffling drum pattern ("Get Down On"). Elsewhere, highly-processed flutes and video-game-esque samples transport you to a neon speedway ("Ninja H2R Flyby") before industrial-sounding textures and down-tempo rhythms ease things to a blissful close ("Ride"). No matter where it is that Vivid Night Experience takes you, playfulness and warmth are guaranteed: two descriptors which have become synonyms with the Lxury's musical output.

Vivid Night Experience LP drops 29th April via Lost Palms

Neil Young announces the release of the fourth installment in his Official Release Series (ORS): a box set that includes his classic ‘80s records Hawks & Doves, Re•ac•tor, and This Note’s for You, as well as his Eldorado EP, previously released only in Japan and Australia. Both vinyl and CD box sets will be available for pre-order today and out on April 29th.

The ORS Vol 4 collects an eclectic set of decade-spanning sounds. Hawks & Doves (1980) revisits his folk roots and explores some of his most country-leaning offerings; the blistering Re•ac•tor (1981) showcases a stomping set of heavy, overdriven rock with Crazy Horse; and This Note’s for You (1988) casts Young as a big band leader, belting out intricately arranged blues. The Eldorado EP (1989) is full of feral distortion and earthy crunch featuring Young backed by The Restless (Chad Cromwell and Rick Rosas). It includes two thundering tracks — “Cocaine Eyes” and “Heavy Love”— not available on any other album.

ORS Vol 4 collects a large swath of his diverse and compelling ‘80s work, testifying to the legendary songwriter’s gift for sonic shape-shifting.

Prolific and singular Japanese producer Hoshina Anniversary presents Hyakunin Isshu, a two tracker of extended jaunts deeper into the mystery than he’s yet dared to venture. With a growing reputation for sizzling productions combining propulsive house rhythms with gyrating arpeggios and textured sound design punctured by jazz-inflected keys, Hyakunin Isshu further expands the limits.

On Hyakunin Isshu, Hoshina Anniversary paces it out over the course of two complimentary side-long runs. The A side Karakurenaini rides on a steady 4/4 as cycling percussion loops, squelchy acid basslines and angular piano chords float in and out of the mix. Deployed and rinsed to peak effect, it's relentless repetition evolves just enough to get completely lost in.

On side B Kirigirisu slows the pace down to a crawl, a lurching rhythm and haunting riff ascending almost to the point of vertigo toppling and giving way to a sci-fi drum break, a stirring prolonged break and triumphant culmination, it’s slow-mo future strut equally indebted to melodies of the past.

Hyakunin Isshu is named for Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, an anthology of delicate, reflective Japanese poetry comprised of works from the 12th and 13th centuries. Both tracks share their titles with different entries in the series.

Hoshina Anniversary is the alias of Yoshinobu Hoshina, a reverent reinterpreter of jazz, dance music and traditional Japanese instrumentation. The last couple of years have seen the producer from the Tokyo suburbs release a torrent of inimitable missives on esteemed maisons disques like ESP Institute, Osare Editions, Alien Jams and Youth. Also forthcoming in the summer of 2022 is an LP on Impatience.

The underground music scene in Asia has experimented a notorious rise in the last years, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand or South Korea are more inside the radar than ever, contributing actively with amazing djs and super talented producers; creating an effervescence subculture where to keep an eye on.
Multifaceted producer Mogwaa is not an stranger anymore, awarded in 2021 with best electronic album of the year in South Korea, his versatility and skills have found a place in labels as "Klasse Records", "Spring Theory" or Sound Metaphors' "Bless You" among others.
We are glad to present one of the most awaited records on MM Discos; “Del Mar” is a bliss of fresh air, a story about all this little things that make us dream everyday. “The Sea” as the main actor of the movie orchested by Mogwaa and supported by crackles, waves and little islands where to get lost in.

In March 2020, Tahiti 80 had a plan to start recording their new album in the studio. That plan, of course, along with everything else in the world, got derailed. But the five-piece group was resilient and resourceful. They quickly shifted to a socially distanced plan B that included file swapping and virtual sessions, all refereed by producer Julien Vignon. The result, due for release in March 2022, is the buoyant Here With You, a collection of eleven upbeat songs that unfold like a prescription for a post-pandemic panacea.

“When lockdown in France happened, we said, 'We're not going to stay at home not doing anything,'” says singer-guitarist Xavier Boyer. “And our new plan became a hopeful thing, waking up every morning and seeing what the other guys had worked on. It wasn't always easy, but this new method allowed a freer approach where we could really go all the way with an idea without being influenced by each other’s suggestions. It must've been overwhelming for Julien, who ended up selecting all our arrangements. But he stayed positive all the way through.”

To help stay inspired and focused during their time in isolation, the band created a mood board, with the centerpiece a photo of an early '90s rave in the UK.

Boyer says, “Whenever you see pictures from this era, people seem very innocent. There are no cell phones and everybody is in to what they are experiencing. We kept that picture in mind as a kind of mantra that would help everyone feel connected to this idea of people celebrating, gathering and just having fun. We were missing the connection with people, and thought it would be great if we could create music that would inspire that kind of emotion.”

Indeed, the songs on Here With You are brimming the feeling of communion that we've all been missing over the past two years. It's there in the catchy opener Lost in the Sound, which walks the walk with Chic guitar flicks, urban nightfall sparkles and an inviting chorus (“Your heart grooves like a thousand 808s on the right time”). It's there in the Jackson 5-style syncopated bounce of “Vintage Creem,” the lush, dreamy “Breakfast in L.A.” and the panoramic sweep of “UFO.” And it's there in the first single “Hot,” which matches an irresistible groove with a neon-lit, percolating arrangement that evokes the disco clubs of 1979.

What's remarkable is that though Tahiti 80 displays a clear affection for sounds of the past, from bubble gum to '70s soul, they never trade in mere pastiche. Their take is more a slightly warped and playful carnival mirror mash-up of classic pop styles, given depth through Boyer's hang-gliding, coolly emotive vocals and lyrics that often rub against the euphoric grain of the music.

“I like to think of songs as a three-minute drama,” says Boyer. “This concept of drama definitely adds different levels to our music. There's the melody, the lyrics, then the production that can maybe emphasize or counterbalance the interaction between the yin and yang in a song.

“There's a difference between the very upbeat, sunshine-y soft rock and the lyrics, even on our past albums,” he continues. “Not dark, but a little more melancholy, and also looking for some kind of motivation, talking to yourself. Like with a lot of Motown songs, you get that feeling where you body’s dancing while your mind’s reflecting, reminiscing.”

That alluring blend of happy-sad has been a signature part of the Tahiti 80 sound from the time Boyer and bassist Pedro Resende formed the group in 1993, as students at the University of Rouen. Taking their name from a souvenir t-shirt given to Boyer's father in 1980, the duo recruited guitarist Mederic Gontier in 1994, and with the addition of drummer Sylvain Marchand a year later, the lineup was complete. The foursome released a self-produced and self-financed EP, 20 Minutes, in 1996, which resulted a record deal with French label Atmospheriques in 1998. Their full-length debut Puzzle, produced with Ivy's Andy Chase and mixed by Tore Johansson, went gold and featured the international hit “Heartbeat” that established the band throughout Europe and Asia.

In the years since, Tahiti 80 – with the additions of Raphaël Léger on drums and Hadrien Grange on keys - has released eight acclaimed albums. The band has fused what MOJO called a “glorious entente of old and new technology” (including singles like “Yellow Butterfly,” “1000 Times,” “Sound Museum,” “Crush!” and “Big Day,” which was featured on a FIFA video game soundtrack), while collaborating with such producers and arrangers as Richard Swift, Tony Lash and Richard Anthony Hewson, who famously arranged The Beatles' “Long and Winding Road.” Boyer has also put out two solo albums, the first under the anagram Axe Riverboy and the second under his name. In 2019, the band released Fear of an Acoustic Planet, a stripped-down reimagining of some of their best-loved tracks from the previous twenty years. It served not only as a look back but a reminder of their formidable songwriting skills.

Boyer is definitely a student of the timeless three-minute pop song format pioneered by '60s artists like The Beatles and The Beach Boys. He says, “I see it as kind of a frame for a painting. Most of the songs on this album, I wrote a verse, pre-chorus and chorus. There aren't many middle eights. I wanted it to be very concise. I feel like people have less attention. There's so much music. It's too easy to switch off or skip to another track, so I want to hook the listener. The three-minute song is kind of an easy code to crack, but at the same time you have to figure out a new way to tell the stories that we've heard before.”

And the stories on Here With You are very much about the longing for connection. Of the album title, Boyer says, “In the world right now, that can mean a lot of different things. Like missing our fans, missing going to concerts. In a way, it can be a statement of what happened last year, and a wish of 'I want to be here with you again.' It's our ninth album. We've had some had some very open, conceptual titles like Puzzle, Activity Center. Sometimes they were more specific like Fosbury orWallpaper for the Soul. Here with You, seems more personal, more engaging in terms of relationships. When I suggested that title, everyone in the band said, 'Yeah, that's it.'”

Until Tahiti 80 can resume a full tour schedule, Boyer says he hopes the new record will make that personal connection. “If I see from the point of view as a music fan, sometimes I see albums I like as companions throughout my life. So if we can be a part of people's existence, even if it's a song that reminds them of the time they were driving with the windows open and it was sunny. Or a sad song that resonates with them after a breakup. That's what we're all looking for when we're making music. You do this very personal thing and you want it to touch as many people as possible.”

"Gregory Porter’s GRAMMY-nominated debut studio album Water was released in 2010, and is now re-issued on Blue Note.

The album was recorded in the summer of 2009. The tracks include love stories, such as Illusion and Pretty, or protest for African-American civil rights, such as 1960 What? which recounts the 1967 Detroit riots. Gregory Porter also covers saxophonist Wayne Shorter's Black Nile with added lyrics. He also did an a cappella rendition of Feeling Good, made famous by Nina Simone in particular. Water was hailed by fans and critics alike, elevating Gregory Porter to the status of the next great male jazz star and marking the beginning of his successful career:

“Porter aptly refers to Water as “an album of love and protest,” though love is the clear victor. From the starkly beautiful “Illusion”, a hushed ode to a lost paramour; and rapturous “Pretty”, reminiscent of “A Taste of Honey”; to the percolated joy of “Magic Cup”, Porter knows how to get to the heart of the matter."" - Christopher Loudon, JazzTimes."

Planet Mu presents ‘ADDLE’ – Bogdan Raczynski’s first album of new music in 15 years. Marking a change from the high-octane jungle tekno braindance for which he is most commonly known, here we find the Polish American musician in a more melodic and zen-like place of peace, which is ergonomic and decluttered, whilst also bittersweet and tinged with melancholy. ‘ADDLE’ is closest in spirit to 2001’s tender ‘myloveilove’, or the light-hearted ditties of this year’s ‘BANANS’ EP, but is also a markedly new milestone. A robust and bottom-heavy rhythm section juxtaposes with sad electronic tear jerkers, at points laced with the soft cooing wail of his vocals, which are loaded with a haunting, heavy and almost wounded emotion. Bogdan comments “Calm is great. You need to take a breather in the eye of the storm now and then. But the real growth happens in turbulence, when your feelings oscillate in and out of sync. It’s not dry land you’re after. You’re trying to build a new island while on a piddly raft. Beleaguered and weary you lay the foundation with your bare hands while the rain lashes your back; a new place for you and yours to moor yourself to until the next storm hits. ‘ADDLE’ is about that storm, its adjacent periphery, and what you look like, in and out, when you set foot. As space and time push against you, that process of adapting becomes an anchor. Among that state of being addled, out of flow, seemingly untethered, there is beauty.”

Although less unhinged and riotous than some of his previous work, ‘ADDLE’ is no less impactful. Lean, punchy and purposeful, this seemingly simple combination of beats and melody belies a razor sharp skill, which bursts with verve and virtuosity. Across its eight unique and moving tracks the listener experiences tenderness, feelings somewhere between unease and comfort, and a sense of reflection, with Bogdan seemingly gazing at twinkling stars, but with his view distorted by welling-up. Sonically, spaces range from razor-sharp choppage, juddering heavyweight head-nodders, bit-crushed siren squall and something akin to Philip Glass’ ‘Candyman’ score played through a high-tech-fairy-tale music box. There’s also a warming, life-affirming moment as close to deep house as Bogdan will ever comfortably get, neck-snapping metallic percussion, Casiotone on steroids and reverberant warehouse throb. Booming drum machines are a prominent factor too – reminiscent of early hip hop instrumentals – but spirited off somewhere, lost in purgatory. Bogdan Raczynski (born 1977) is a Polish-American electronic musician. Raczynski’s work draws inspiration from the chaotic breakbeats of jungle and hardcore rave as well as traditional Polish music and other sources. He has collaborated with Bjork, remixed Autechre, CLPNG and Jonsi from Sigur Ross, and toured with Aphex Twin, who commented how “his records are so underrated.” Bogdan was also a roster mainstay of Richard James’s seminal Rephlex label, with additional releases on Warp, Ghostly, Disciples and Unknown to the Unknown. A keen proponent of tech, he created a sample pack using pollution and recently collaborated with Polyend on a custom made banana-themed tracker.

It begins with a rustle of noise, equally reminiscent of distorted factory noise and a cassette recording of cathedral bells unspooling, before a near-robotic beat and stuttering bassline enter the fray. Initially, you could be forgiven for thinking you’ve stumbled across the lost tapes of Joy Division’s early Warsaw incarnation, but the atonal blast of strafing guitars fading in and out soon make you realise this is a very different proposition. This is The Drin, and ‘Engines Sing for the Pale Moon’ is their debut album. It’s also one of the best things you’ll hear all year. Helmed by Dylan McCartney, drummer of the rock band Vacation, The Drin originally released this album as a hyper-limited cassette via Future Shock. It’s as much of a departure from McCartney’s usual output as it is for Drunken Sailor Records; songs don’t so much explode out of the gate as drift towards you like a creeping fog that turns your skin inside-out and leaves you sloshing organs all across the carpet. Second track ‘Guillotine Blade’ shows the pieces all coming together, a dubbed-out riot of claustrophobic noise that feels like Pere Ubu trapped in a cupboard one minute, and ‘Warm Jets’-era Eno trying on Bauhaus’ trenchcoats the next. Meanwhile, ‘Down Her Cheek A Party Tear’ unfolds across jittering, skittering rustles of drums and an undulating bassline, making you wonder why post-millennial post-punk so often settles for dickheads shouting non-sequiturs over landfill indie, when it could be entering these dark, unsettling territories instead. The Drin like to get weird. The Drin like to get wild. The Drin rarely cut loose, but that’s because the trip is already intense and haunting enough without things getting raucous in here as well. Hey kids, turn off those shite band name redacted records and get into this; you deserve so much better, and better’s right here. Fall into it, immerse yourself and step forward into a brave new world. I love this record

Cassandra Jenkins' An Overview on Phenomenal Nature emerged from the blue earlier this year. With pandemic unknowns and political upheaval leaving most at frayed ends, the New York-born musician’s assuring voice and expansive fresh take on songwriting created a much needed reflective space for listeners worldwide. As 2021 comes to a close, Jenkins revisits those flowing textures and refrains with (An Overview On) An Overview On Phenomenal Nature, a collection of previously unreleased sonic sketches, initial run-throughs, demos, and sound recordings from the cutting room floor that provided the scaffolding for what became one of this year’s most critically acclaimed albums.

When Jenkins visited Josh Kaufman’s studio this summer, they opened up their original sessions to uncover the ideas that were shed in the creative process. The new collection, (An Overview On) An Overview On Phenomenal Nature, isn’t merely a retrospective; it acts as a clear-eyed addendum as well as a compelling origin story, coming to life as a subconscious companion to the original album.

First takes of “New Bikini” and “Hailey” are born from opposite starting points; while “New Bikini” began as an airy alto meander, “Hailey”’s origins lie in an upbeat dance track. On “Crosshairs (Interlude),” Jenkins’ pitched vocal delivers a straight monotone, recasting the format as poetry with music highlighting her words, and “Ambiguous Norway (Instrumental)” lifts the ambient nature of the mournful song into glimmering waves. The demo version of “Michelangelo” contains alternate lyrics “I’m Michelangelo, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle,” a lost contrast to the later verse where Jenkins’ likens herself to the sculptor. On “Hard Drive (Security Guard),” we join Jenkins as she listens to a passionate museum guard whose promised “overview” of the exhibit on view builds into a monologue of observations on art, politics, feminism and the human condition. This candid interaction evolved into the cornerstone and title of Jenkins’ album.

Before they decided to make an album together, Jenkins brought Kaufman a song called “American Spirits.”The dusky ballad takes us to the Texas plains via a voicemail from the payphone of a county jail (“Miss Cassandra”). Cassandra sings, “Time here burns through the sunsets / Like you and a pack of American Spirits” over warm instrumentation with a vocal delivery that reinforces Jenkins’ unwavering tenderness towards her subjects.

(An Overview On) An Overview On Phenomenal Nature bookends Cassandra Jenkins' musical output this year with nuance, coloring in the corners, and giving us another window into her ever-expanding world of chance encounters, experiences, and sonic textures. They glimmer like the sun’s changing patterns on the wall as a new day gets going.

Los Yesterdays made a big debut on Penrose with their first single and it is still getting heavy plays by soul DJs all over the place. Now they return with another perfect delivery of mid-tempo excellence that will appeal to fans of Eddie Holman and Billy Stewart. 'Nobody's Clown' pirouettes on splashy cymbals with natty chord riffs and twirling drums that dance their way into your heart. On the flip is the more forlorn and beautifully pained 'Give Me One More Chance.' It's about a love lost, like all the best tunes, and frankly, given the performance, it is a chance Mr Victor Benavides well deserves.

In Spring 2021, Mike Paradinas (µ-Ziq and the owner of Planet Mu) spoke to long time friend and past label signing Hannah Davidson (Mrs Jynx) about the therapeutic power of writing music when times are tough. Both had recently been dealing with the loss of a parent due to cancer, and fresh from writing Scurlage, Paradinas suggested a collaboration. “I’ve always thought Hannah’s melodic sensibilities chime well with my own," says Paradinas, "and I've wanted to collaborate with her for a long time, since her 2010 album 'Shark Carousel' in fact, because she'd written some melodies that I wish I had.” In a matter of weeks the two collaborated online, sending stems back and forth, each encouraging the other and fitting perfectly together. “After about ten days we had ten tracks we were happy with." adds Davidson, "It was exciting to hear what Mike would do with the stems I sent, and equally exciting to see what he thought of my additions to his stems.” Overall the result is an opus of deeply personal moments of grief, depicted in a feeling of serene, misty tranquility that makes it easy to get lost in. Davidson and Paradinas settled on the title 'Secret Garden' due to the melodic vista which unexpectedly opened up before them on the final track. The album truly is a melodic exploration that is so often missed in this genre. There are twists and turns in mood, from the pastoral loveliness of 'Jynxiq' and 'Unheard Melodies' which fall away to the dubby beats of 'Hi Jynx'; the sadness of 'Loss' leading into the beatless forlorn 'The Ballad of Darth Vader. The album ups the pace with the muffled kicks and warm atmosphere of 'Afternoon Sunshine', which sets the tone for the happier mood of the second half. This all leads up to the album's denoeument in final track 'Secret Garden' whose naïve meandering synth melodies, orchestral accompaniment and glockenspiel end the album in happy resolution.

Song Education brings together some of the pivotal songs from these series, showcasing great music from the Sixties until the Nineties resurrecting through trending series like La Casa De Papel, American Horror Story, Sex Education and Breaking Bad. And what’s a better way to rediscover old gems than by listening to them on a classic vinyl record

With ‘Love on My Mind’ - the six-song mini-album, mixed by Claudius
Mittendorfer (Tennis, Parquet Courts, Johnny Marr) - Bambara condense all the energy and darkness that have made them so compelling and rearrange it into something defiantly new.

Opening track, ‘Slither in the Rain’, all hissing high-hat and spectral
synthlines, is a true statement of intent. It’s minimal and atmospheric,
foregrounding Bateh’s raw vocals as he introduces one of ‘Love on My Mind’s main characters years after the events of the album are over, a lonely man who throws bottles at airplanes and dances a two-step in the pattern of a figure-8. While Bateh has always been adept at character sketches, tracks like ‘Slither’ introduce a newfound vulnerability that runs true through the entire album and cause the songs to hit on a more human level.

Similarly, ‘Point And Shoot’ - in which each stanza describes the louche, lawless scenes of “rooftop girls / standing shoulder-to-shoulder, naked figures with their hips / cocked,” busted up jaws, and couches full of burnholes captured by the snapshots of ‘Love on My Mind’s female lead - displays an autobiographical intimacy that is not as apparent in Bambara’s previous releases. This tenderness is echoed on ‘Birds’, a rare love song (from which the EP’s title is derived), and album closer ‘Little Wars’, a gripping finale of loneliness and isolation.

But while these songs may display a softer side of Bambara, it’s important to note that they haven’t lost the thrill of what attracted so many people to them in the first place. ‘Mythic Love’ (featuring vocals from Bria Salmena), with its driving bassline and ricocheting guitar lines, brings to mind past rave-ups like ‘Serafina’ and ‘Sunbleached Skulls’ but obliterates them in the process, while ‘Feelin’ Like A Funeral’ - a dangerously oscillating tale of a city knifing - is probably the most thrillingly anthemic song the band have ever recorded.

Taken together, ‘Love on My Mind’ amounts to another massive step forward for Bambara - the boldest thing they’ve ever done - and the sound of yet another breakthrough.
“Engrossing, dark and irresistible… an adventurous group, who just keep getting better all the time.” - CLASH
“Never anything less than captivating.” - Upset
“What Athens, Georgia bunch Bambara do, they do very well… the trio’s commitment to the dark side is never in question.” - DIY
“Bambara are ice cold and sharp as a knife’s edge.” - Loud & Quiet
“Brooklyn based doom-mongers delight… the trio go further than most in their quest to rattle.” - Q (4/5)
For fans of Daughters, Protomartyr, IDLES, King Krule, Ice Age.

Techno pop dance music incoming! Pretty much 10 years after its debut with the „She Knows EP“, Jet Hammer – the collaborative project of seasoned producer Nacho Marco and trusted vocalist Garen Moreno – finally expand its horizon with new songs. The Last Night EP sees the valued tradition of the extended dance mix gets rejuvenated, readjusted and reprised. Recorded between Warm Studio in Valecia and Chief’s Peak Studio in California, with influences ranging from the avant-garde fusion of Tuxedomoon to the groove of the Pet Shop Boys and the subsequent fashion that became Acid House (the UK definition, of course), the EP is home to four tracks that are cut from the same cloth.
Last Night sounds modern on the main mix and like a lost The Cure demo on the 1981 version, it’s hard to resist in either version. How We Started develops the thought into something of a power ballad and last, but not least, the instrumental version of On Your Side delivers the sugarless dessert for allergic subjects. Halcyon dance hall days ahead!