Search:ghost music

"Walking On Rubber Eggshells" is Yanik Soland's second release on Futura Resistenza. It is a seven-track journey through bowed koto, flutes, and modular synths, essentially Japanese court music if it had a late-night fever dream, filled with strange characters and ghosts on repeat. The album also serves as the backbone for his solo show at Kunsthaus Baselland, Switzerland, opening in September 2026.

Following the much-loved Library Music: Volume One (2022), and hot on the heels of this year’s critically acclaimed ‘After The Rain, Strange Seeds’ (9/10 - Uncut) , London group The Leaf Library return with a second journey through the margins of their catalogue. Gathering together rare recordings, compilation tracks, limited edition releases, collaborations and hidden gems from their ever-expanding musical world, Library Music: Volume Two is another vibrant and varied collection of electronic indie pop, in all its guises.

Far from a conventional odds and ends collection, the double LP compilation reveals another side of a band who have always treated the spaces between albums as places to explore. These are the moments where ideas stretch out; there are hypnotic drones, motorik rhythms, glowing analogue textures, pastoral electronics and the warm, melodic melancholy that has become unmistakably The Leaf Library. There is the electro-pop of Flowers At The Border, the psych rock-adjacent Building Better Worlds, and the gentle chamber shuffle of Kendrick Road. Tracks range from the 22 minute folk kosmiche epic Versatile Clouds to the 59 seconds, record skip punctuation mark of Harmonic Runout, with a whole array of trips, ideas and experiments in between.

Since forming in a pre-Ghost Box, Castles in Space and Clay Pipe world, The Leaf Library have carved out a unique place somewhere between dream pop, kosmische repetition and experimental songcraft — drawing comparisons to Stereolab, Broadcast, Yo La Tengo and the outer edges of library music, while creating a sound entirely their own.

“We’ve always loved making things outside the pressure of a ‘proper’ album,” says singer/guitarist Matt Ashton. “Singles, collaborations and compilation tracks give you permission to follow an idea wherever it wants to go. Looking back, those pieces tell their own story.”

Where their studio albums have shown the group carefully building immersive worlds, the Library Music series maps the pathways between them — the sketches, diversions and unexpected discoveries that often reveal the most about a band.

Across a lucky thirteen tracks, Library Music: volume two is a reminder that some of the best discoveries are found on the shelves you forgot to check.

[a] Flowers At The Border [4.21]
[b] The Long Dead King [7.16]
[c] Bowed Clusters [4.00]
[d] I Learned To Swim Under Water [4.32]
[e] Building Better Worlds [11.59]
[f] Harmonic Runout [0.59]
[g] Kendrick Road [3.36]
[h] Sailing Day (Wintergreen Remix) [3.59]
[i] Versatile Clouds [22.00]
[j] Bells and Thread [2.54]
[k] No Memories, No Plans [4.33]
[l] Everyone I Met Today [1.00]
[m] Tired Ghost In Orbit [9.19]

Montréal-based sound artist Steve Bates expands his strategies and stylistic influences on An Infinite Antenna, his second solo album for Constellation, giving freer reign to melodic components and textural dynamics: leftfield synth work, deconstructed drum machine, pointillist electric guitar, and radiostatic blur are all part of the new brew swirling around his bruitist signal-bending and field-recording sensibility. Arguably a more ambient album than his acclaimed 2022 Constellation debut, An Infinite Antenna is at the same time more densely packed with ideas, dynamics, evocations and earworms. Coming out of the anarcho-punk scene of the Canadian Prairies in the 1990s, Bates founded Winnipeg’s experimental sound festival Send + Receive in 1998 before moving to Montréal to become Sound Coordinator at Hexagram (Concordia University), delving further into sonic research and theory, tape-based composition, and installation work. Alongside the curatorial arc of his own sound art label The Dim Coast, Bates released several solo and collaborative albums on ORAL_records leading up to All The Things That Happen, the 2022 Constellation debut praised by Boomkat for its “grittily iridescent ambient billow rendering maximalist panoramas” and by Backseat Mafia as “extraordinary soundscapes of unstable, destructive cacophony and tender calm, echoes of the threat of power.” Where that album was noisier and single-minded, made with the self-imposed limit of a Casio SK-1, Bates plays more widely with instrumentation and atmospheres on An Infinite Antenna, also drawing on his post-hardcore roots in seeking a sort of track-by-track concision nonetheless driven by the album’s coherence as a seamless work. “I was trying to set durations I associate with punk rather than the longer, sprawling music coming from more ambient styles (that I very much love), and while I wasn’t able to quite pare it down to Minutemen durations, I had that reduction to essential elements as a sort of whisper over my shoulder.” Incorporating source recordings made throughout 2023-2025, including at artist residencies and site-specific sound installation visits in Bosnia and Herzegovina (the album’s cover photo was taken in Sarajevo), Austria, Greece, and Saskatchewan, An Infinite Antenna combines Bates’ “idea of slowly scanning a radio dial” with a soundworld of recurring timbral and textural touchstones that forge an integrated whole.

The album’s 12 tracks work effectively as stand-alone pieces, replete with shifting undercurrents, buried melody, and stuttering kinetics, and as a sequential flow where the brief interstitial silences between them are like short pauses to flip the next page in a sketchbook of perspectival studies of a wide but singular tableau. The glistening atonal synth expressionism of opener “Pink pink pink pink…pink pink” drifts gently toward submerged ambience, darkened by the noised rumble and static interference of “Green as a ghost”, which introduces broken beats and piano chords in its denouement. Tracks like “Battles and sieges and street trees” and “Easier sad than done” work the foundations of low-end field-recording resonance, but dappled with lovely melodic droplets of treated guitar and synth. “Waste, songs of the world” and “Disaster loans” are among the album’s most explicit stylistic references to posthardcore, with distorted ambient bass and gently abrasive drum sampling. Closing track “Swamps and factories”, the album’s longest piece, is perhaps most reminiscent of Bates’ previous record with its sustained dissonant glimmer-drone, but the journey An Infinite Antenna traces to get there is Bates at his most dynamic, diverse, distinctive, and engaging. Thanks for listening.

Montréal-based sound artist Steve Bates expands his strategies and stylistic influences on An Infinite Antenna, his second solo album for Constellation, giving freer reign to melodic components and textural dynamics: leftfield synth work, deconstructed drum machine, pointillist electric guitar, and radiostatic blur are all part of the new brew swirling around his bruitist signal-bending and field-recording sensibility. Arguably a more ambient album than his acclaimed 2022 Constellation debut, An Infinite Antenna is at the same time more densely packed with ideas, dynamics, evocations and earworms. Coming out of the anarcho-punk scene of the Canadian Prairies in the 1990s, Bates founded Winnipeg's experimental sound festival Send + Receive in 1998 before moving to Montréal to become Sound Coordinator at Hexagram (Concordia University), delving further into sonic research and theory, tape-based composition, and installation work. Alongside the curatorial arc of his own sound art label The Dim Coast, Bates released several solo and collaborative albums on ORAL_records leading up to All The Things That Happen, the 2022 Constellation debut praised by Boomkat for its "grittily iridescent ambient billow rendering maximalist panoramas" and by Backseat Mafia as "extraordinary soundscapes of unstable, destructive cacophony and tender calm, echoes of the threat of power." Where that album was noisier and single-minded, made with the self-imposed limit of a Casio SK-1, Bates plays more widely with instrumentation and atmospheres on An Infinite Antenna, also drawing on his post-hardcore roots in seeking a sort of track-by-track concision nonetheless driven by the album's coherence as a seamless work. "I was trying to set durations I associate with punk rather than the longer, sprawling music coming from more ambient styles (that I very much love), and while I wasn't able to quite pare it down to Minutemen durations, I had that reduction to essential elements as a sort of whisper over my shoulder." Incorporating source recordings made throughout 2023-2025, including at artist residencies and site-specific sound installation visits in Bosnia and Herzegovina (the album's cover photo was taken in Sarajevo), Austria, Greece, and Saskatchewan, An Infinite Antenna combines Bates' "idea of slowly scanning a radio dial" with a soundworld of recurring timbral and textural touchstones that forge an integrated whole. The album's 12 tracks work effectively as stand-alone pieces, replete with shifting undercurrents, buried melody, and stuttering kinetics, and as a sequential flow where the brief interstitial silences between them are like short pauses to flip the next page in a sketchbook of perspectival studies of a wide but singular tableau. The glistening atonal synth expressionism of opener 'Pink pink pink pink_pink pink' drifts gently toward submerged ambience, darkened by the noised rumble and static interference of 'Green as a ghost', which introduces broken beats and piano chords in its denouement. Tracks like 'Battles and sieges and street trees' and 'Easier sad than done' work the foundations of low-end field-recording resonance, but dappled with lovely melodic droplets of treated guitar and synth. 'Waste, songs of the world' and 'Disaster loans' are among the album's most explicit stylistic references to posthardcore, with distorted ambient bass and gently abrasive drum sampling. Closing track 'Swamps and factories,' the album's longest piece, is perhaps most reminiscent of Bates' previous record with its sustained dissonant glimmer-drone, but the journey An Infinite Antenna traces to get there is Bates at his most dynamic, diverse, distinctive, and engaging. Thanks for listening

There are some first times you never forget. The first time one hears Syd Matters’ captivating voice is one of them.


From “End & Start Again”, his first single in 2003, Jonathan Morali’s warm, soulful vocals and timeless melodies revealed an artist in a league of his own. Success in France and abroad was immediate and has never waned.
Four albums followed between 2004 and 2011, along with a host of unforgettable songs: “Black & White Eyes”, “Obstacles”, “To All Of You” or “I Might Float” left their mark on an entire generation, racking up nearly 200 million streams and 100,000 physical sales. Drawing equally from the songwriting of the 60s, the creativity of the 70s and the modern synthetic era, Syd Matters has developed a unique musical universe, building a loyal and ever-growing audience over the years.


On stage, accompanied by his band, audiences recall intense concerts where the artist and his musicians deliver performances that were at once epic and intimate. Lush and spectacular on stage, their music never lost its center of gravity, gaining even in depth. Syd Matters toured France and Europe (England, Germany, Scandinavia...) for nearly ten years, as well as in the United States and Latin America. In 2011, the tour for his album Brother Ocean culminated in Paris at the mythical venue l’Olympia.
Jonathan Morali then took a step back from the spotlight but remained just as prolific, writing for film, theater, radio, and television and collaborating over the years with directors such Éric Rochant, Rémi Chayé, Thomas Litli, Patrick Mille, and Mélanie Laurent to name but a few. When scoring for films, the musician gives free rein to his desires and intuitions. He works with the very fabric of sounds and their underlying emotions, as if freed from the constraints imposed by the song format.


Between 2015 and 2019, he also composed the soundtracks for the remarkable video games Life Is Strange and Life Is Strange 2, which were massive global hits. Several Syd Matters tracks appeared in the game, and the success was such that it revived the band’s career, introducing their music to a new audience.


After an extended hiatus, Syd Matters will make a major comeback with a new album - their fifth - set for release in September 2026 on Créature - also home to Flora Fishbach and Chassol. They will then tour France and Europe, returning to the legendary stage of the Olympia on November 17, 2026, where they will perform their new songs. And others that we know by heart and haven’t forgotten.

There are some first times you never forget. The first time one hears Syd Matters’ captivating voice is one of them.


From “End & Start Again”, his first single in 2003, Jonathan Morali’s warm, soulful vocals and timeless melodies revealed an artist in a league of his own. Success in France and abroad was immediate and has never waned.
Four albums followed between 2004 and 2011, along with a host of unforgettable songs: “Black & White Eyes”, “Obstacles”, “To All Of You” or “I Might Float” left their mark on an entire generation, racking up nearly 200 million streams and 100,000 physical sales. Drawing equally from the songwriting of the 60s, the creativity of the 70s and the modern synthetic era, Syd Matters has developed a unique musical universe, building a loyal and ever-growing audience over the years.


On stage, accompanied by his band, audiences recall intense concerts where the artist and his musicians deliver performances that were at once epic and intimate. Lush and spectacular on stage, their music never lost its center of gravity, gaining even in depth. Syd Matters toured France and Europe (England, Germany, Scandinavia...) for nearly ten years, as well as in the United States and Latin America. In 2011, the tour for his album Brother Ocean culminated in Paris at the mythical venue l’Olympia.
Jonathan Morali then took a step back from the spotlight but remained just as prolific, writing for film, theater, radio, and television and collaborating over the years with directors such Éric Rochant, Rémi Chayé, Thomas Litli, Patrick Mille, and Mélanie Laurent to name but a few. When scoring for films, the musician gives free rein to his desires and intuitions. He works with the very fabric of sounds and their underlying emotions, as if freed from the constraints imposed by the song format.


Between 2015 and 2019, he also composed the soundtracks for the remarkable video games Life Is Strange and Life Is Strange 2, which were massive global hits. Several Syd Matters tracks appeared in the game, and the success was such that it revived the band’s career, introducing their music to a new audience.


After an extended hiatus, Syd Matters will make a major comeback with a new album - their fifth - set for release in September 2026 on Créature - also home to Flora Fishbach and Chassol. They will then tour France and Europe, returning to the legendary stage of the Olympia on November 17, 2026, where they will perform their new songs. And others that we know by heart and haven’t forgotten.

Pressure is the medium of wind players. Wind instruments all sound thanks to pressure differentials, whether that’s the rush of wind over a lip plate or a steady, buzzing exhalation through pursed lips. Ka Baird and Chris Ryan Williams (HxH) are wind players well- schooled in the power of using pressure and movement to amplify the mystery of an invisible force animating a metal tube. They augment their instruments, flute and trumpet respectively, with electronics, sometimes obscuring the acoustic sound source, sometimes making it hyperreal. Flutters of lip and tongue slither over the listener’s ear, and sustained tones become a dense fog, pushing on other kinds of visceral, emotional pressure points.

On Enthalpy, Baird and Williams’ first album as a duo, the energy they conjure feels barely contained, the pressure built up to a breaking point before spilling out in multiple directions at various speeds. They borrow the title from thermodynamics, referring to the total energy of a system based on its pressure and volume. The music flies out in bursts; it seeps and oozes, flows with intention. It is an incredibly rhythmic work without any hint of meter, full of sounds that punctuate with the thud of a dart hitting a bullseye. Williams’ capability to conjure swirling atmospherics, as well as his remarkable ability to pull fragments of melody from the haze, fit puzzle-like into Baird’s exclamations and the eruption of electronics that often dovetail them. The duo draws on tones from nearly the entire range of human hearing, from nimble but bulbous throbs of sub-bass to pinprick flickers of ultra-high end.

The sessions that produced Enthalpy were completely improvised, showcasing a degree of mind-meld that belies each participant’s thrill at approaching the unknown. This isn’t a casual conversation, but an omnidirectional tangle that ties and reties itself into new knots as the album progresses. Williams and Baird have both become ubiquitous presences throughout the New York City experimental music communities, collaborating with innumerable others and learning how their unique approaches work in tandem with similarly expansive thinkers and players. Even in the album’s most spacious moments, there’s a tension between the feeling of being unmoored and yet completely locked in, like the abyss is just one more river to cross. They ford it together before moving on to the next idea in lock step.

For the listener, Enthalpy is often felt in the body as much as it reverberates within the ears. We’re tossed from side to side, made to shoulder the impact of detonating electronics, absorbing these sounds with the feet, gut, and crown. Baird reaches into the back of their throat for guttural growls, and we can almost feel the scratch. As we tread the border of the synthesthetic, it's a reminder of the physical nature of sound, that the space between our ears and the speakers is its own enthalpic system of energy conduction. Move with it, let it move you, and see how it feels.

Keen listeners who have dug below the surface of Oren Ambarchi"s triple-digit discography know that alongside hypnotic minimalism, veins of irreverent and joyously wayward exploration run deep. Cooked is something of a landmark in Oren"s work, bringing this gloriously cuckoo sensibility right into the heart of his most high-profile solo work. Carrying on the grand Ambarchi tradition of meticulously constructed all-star studio jams (which reached new heights with Shebang), Cooked brings together collaborators from Australia, Germany, Japan and Sweden for two side-long epics where the foot keeps tapping even as the mind boggles. Cooked is a long way from the spacious, light-dappled grooves of Ghosted, but Oren"s Swedish bandmates play starring roles here, with Johan Berthling"s double bass anchoring both sides, and drummer Andreas Werliin lending his delicate touch to the second piece, "Sleight of Hand". Beginning with glistening layers of electric 12-string guitar, "Sleight of Hand" takes some key cues from electric Miles touchstones like "Feio" or his epic take on David Crosby"s "Guinnevere", with Berthling"s sparse basslines punctuating an almost weightless cornucopia of shifting detail, glimmering with subtle contributions from Michiko Ogawa on sho and James Rushford on a panoply of acoustic keyboards. Suddenly, everything is overwhelmed by a knotty, hyper-complex "solo" from Marcus Pal on digital synthesis, teleporting us to an alternate history where Allan Holdsworth traded the SynthAxe for Xenakis" UPIC. Building with additional drums and percussion from Will Guthrie to a peak of sizzling intensity, the music then goes sideways into a gently surreal coda, where some distinctly Zawinul-esque chords and Fredrik Rasten"s guitar float over a sprightly rhythm box, the avian inventions of Swedish virtuoso whistler Isak Hedtjärn wafting atop the sunlit stew.

Cello player and electronic artist Martina Bertoni returns with her 2nd album for Karl: Hypnagogia delivers six new, masterfully crafted tracks between experimental ambient, drone and modern composition.

Cellist and composer Martina Bertoni started playing the cello at a very young age. Classically trained, her career further developed around experimental and film music, for which her cello has been featured in numerous records, works and soundtracks for films and series. After two EPs and her debut full length All The Ghosts Are Gone (2020), Bertoni joined the Karl roster where she released Music For Empty Flats in January 2021 to critical acclaim (a.o. one of the Top Ten drone albums of 2021).

On her new album Hypnagogia she continues to explore the sonic possibilities of her cello which she uses as primary source for composition and sound processing through reverbs, feedbacks and sub-bass frequencies, thus crafting sonic sculptures, rich of atmospheres and frictions, fed by ambient as much as drone and modern composition.

In the words of Martina Bertoni:
"The six tracks that constitute Hypnagogia have been written during 2021 and partially inspired by the reading of Stanislaw Lem's book Solaris. The title refers to a transitional state of consciousness from wakefulness to sleep, during which one might experience sensorial hallucinations and lucid dreaming, and can tap into the pristine structures of the subconscious. Hypnagogia portraits an imaginary cosmic journey of the Self that crash ends into a blinding sun."

Forest Swords' debut album 'Engravings' is back in print on vinyl and CD for the first time in years, newly remastered by Rashad Becker with previously unheard bonus tracks exclusive to this edition.

Created by electronic producer and composer Matthew Barnes, and originally released via Tri Angle Records, 'Engravings' received instant acclaim from the likes of Resident Advisor, Pitchfork, The Guardian and saw Barnes take his hypnotic live show across festivals like Sonar, Glastonbury, Unsound and Le Guess Who.

While much of British electronica is defined by its inner cities, 'Engravings' was recorded in Barnes' hometown on the banks of an ancient river in Merseyside, the album's earthy, organic soundscape reflected the landscape and climate: all silt and sandstone, woodlands and wind, with the ghosts of Liverpool's pop music and clubbing history echoing in the near distance.

The album was a prototype for a sonic vocabulary Barnes has expanded on over the next few years: in critically acclaimed studio albums ('Compassion' and 'Bolted' via Ninja Tune), collaborations with Massive Attack and Neneh Cherry, remixes for the likes of Bjork, as well as commissions for video games, ballet and film scores - of which he has carved a career as an in-demand composer and sound designer.

'Engravings' is a snapshot of an artist confidently defining their own language: a piece of work that distills influences like dub, ambient, rave, post-rock and psychedelia into an ancient-futurist musical vision that feels timeless and vital.

2026 Repress

December 2012 I showed up totally exhausted in Vancouver BC after touring stupidly and relentlessly for however many straight months and got a job at a call centre raising money for the Red Cross. It was a scent free office but one time this woman cooked a piece of fish in the microwave for 10 minutes on low and hot boxed the whole office - we got sent home early no pay. There was the other woman I named the Call Centre Coltrane because her pitch and routine usually involved improvised flights of fancy that went off in both directions at once somehow landing back down with a credit card number and a donation. I used to sleep under the desk. I was there a few months and at the time I reconnected with John Brennan who I had played with briefly in Montreal at the Mutek Festival. In Montreal John was running an experimental music night at a burrito shop downtown called Garbage Night. While in Vancouver I began connecting with the music scene there and would go hang out with the Shearing Pinx lads who I think lived with Sydney the bass player at the time. I knew Nic and Jer from an AIDS Wolf Tour and was so stoked to get to know them both better. I really fell in love with that era of Vancouver's music scene.
Fast Forward to today. 2024
Actually it was the dying days of 2023 but you get it and John asks if I'll sit in with Earth Ball and I keep thinking about Earth Balance, the vegan butter everyone eats here. I brought my aching bones and my ipads on the beautiful ferry named the Queen of Oak Bay and out to Nanaimo BC, home of the nanaimo bar (a dessert treat - special to this region - that seems to be more popularly found under the weird glass sneeze guards in office building deli's out east in Ontario.... anyhoops ). No one in Nanaimo wants to talk to me about the famous treat. I asked a couple of people. Silence. Nanaimo is like London, Ontario but more fried and by the sea. The town is filled with blown out old sea dawgs with tin coffee pots and loose leaf tobacco, then there's the usual streetfolk you find in this part of the Canadian Pacific Northwest and a bunch of bohemians who I guess have left Vancouver behind - that fine city having become uninhabitable for those not making over 100k a year. And then up the way are all the retirees.
Yup Nanaimo is a strange one. They mined the shit out of this region and Nanaimo is surely haunted by those buried in mining shafts or maimed by the heavy machinery or blown up by accident in the explosives store house. And when Earth Ball fire up the amps in Izzy and Jer's basement you can hear the voices of the ghosts hum through electrical lines and out the speakers, Kellen's hued feedback, Izy's sturdy basslines, Jer's paperbag guitar tone and rumble pack zaps, Liam's (aka the Kid) sheets of sound and Brennen's multidirectional drums.
You wouldn't guess Earth Ball was auto-composing and from what my rat brain can tell - the lyrics are improvised too...Improvising lyrics and singing them is the hardest thing to do in all of music.. Izzy and Jer are pros. And their attitudes are pro too.
The live show is scorched and without naming names they've been known to make headliners nervous. Lucky ones will get to see them live as they tour this beast of a record entitled ‘It’s Yours’ (out May 17th on Upset The Rhythm) and I hope I'm one of them.
But now you, fan of fun but totally fucked up music, have the opportunity to Ball with them thanks to Upset The Rhythm. Enjoy
-Alex Moskos, Montreal QC, Feb 2024

Back in November 2015, after years of collaborations with such as Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, Obie Trice, Sean Price, Kool G Rap, Eternia and countless others, Toronto-based producer MoSS released his debut producer album entitled "Marching To The Sound Of My Own Drum". Since the beginning of his career, the Canadian beatsmith, record digger and music connoisseur has been making a name for himself with his signature sound and on this record he gives an amazing display of what he's capable of doing being backed up by an all stars team that features AZ, Havoc, Slum Village, Onyx, Inspectah Deck, Ill Bill, Skyzoo, Guilty Simpson and 20+ other legendary MC's. A few years after its original release, we've decided to team up with MoSS to bring you this masterpiece on wax and, for the occasion, he's also added an unreleased bonus track called "We Here" that features Smif-N-Wessun that, together with "Emotional Redux", we've put on a 7" together with its instrumental. Limited edition of 500 hand-numbered copies, with the first 200 pressed on orange/black A-side B-side vinyl, and 300 on black vinyl.

BONUS 7”

A1. Emotional Redux (feat. Big Gov, Guilty Simpson, Jon Connor, Vstylez, Willie The Kid)
B1. We Here (feat. Smif-N-Wessun) UNRELEASED
B2. We Here (Instrumental)

Over 10 years ago, Leon Michels released his first full length record, Sounding Out The City. It was Michels' first full length record under the moniker El Michels Affair. At the time, the budding retro soul scene consisted of mostly organ quartets a la The Meters and of course, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings were in the early days of their ascent to world domination. Leon Michels, who was 18 when recording Sounding Out The City began, had just released Thunder Chicken, the first record by his high school band The Mighty Imperials. At the time of SOTC, Michels was just discovering early rocksteady, afrobeat, and 60's garage rock, which inevitably crept its way into the songwriting. He purchased a Tascam 388, an 80's 1/4" reel to reel 8 track intended for home recordings, and began recording music in a 10x10 box with no windows that also doubled as his childhood bedroom. Along with fellow Mighty Imperials Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and Sean Solomon, and Michael Leonhart, Thomas Brenneck, and some of the musicians from The Dap Kings, Michels recorded the LP over a two year period. Upon it's release, it received some rave reviews and the small deep funk community ate it up, but due to the lack luster promotion and distribution the rest of the world was slow to catch on to the instrumental gems featured on SOTC, which Michels appropriately labelled as "cinematic soul". However, in 2005 it found it's way into the hands of the people who were organizing a series of concerts for Scion that paired bands with MC's. El Michels Affair was contacted about playing one show with Raekwon The Chef of Wu Tang Clan fame. The show was such a success it led to a tour, and then to another set of concerts that featured multiple members of the Wu-Tang Clan. This eventually led to the release of El Michels Affair's second record, "Enter the 37th Chamber" which introduced them to a much larger audience and has been their most successful release to date. Michels has since gone on to produce and co-produce numerous records for powerhouse soul artists like Lee Fields. He shares songwriting credits with Adele, Jay-Z, Ghostface Killah, Aloe Blacc, and has played on records by Ray LaMontagne, Lana Del Rey, The Black Keys and Dr. John.

“I like to work with a variety of instruments and set ups,” says Mark Van Hoen, sometimes known as Locust or Autocreation but here working under his own name on the excellent Plan For A Miracle, his first physical release of solo music since 2018’s Invisible Threads. ”Sometimes it’s literally in my studio, with all the hardware electronics available. Sometimes the laptop, using software instruments. Some of the tracks on this record were recorded in the desert (Joshua Tree) using a 4-track tape machine and small modular synthesiser set up. Each track was recorded in different location using different instruments, which accounts for the distinction between each piece. It’s also about my own reaction to my environment, and what’s going on in my life at the time.”

The Croydon-born Van Hoen started musical life in the early 1990s, signing for R&S records in 1993 but developing his own, myriad and distinctive style across a range of releases on Touch, Editions Mego and other labels, using a battery of instruments, including analogue synthesizers and taking a number of different approaches to recording, rather than ploughing a single sonic furrow. He has worked on a number of collaborations, including with Nick Holton and Neil Halstead of Slowdive, under the moniker of Black Hearted Brother - their Stars Are Our Home was released in 2013. “I have known Neil Halstead since 1992,” says Van Hoen. “He shared a house with me for a couple of years, and the music I was making and listening to along with clubs I was attending had an influence particularly on Pygmalion, the final Slowdive album on Creation.”

Each track on Plan For A Miracle does indeed sound like a world unto itself, a mini-environment, a weather condition, an ecosystem created for the moment. It’s a collection of tracks recorded over the past few years, released on Bandcamp - despite his apparent absence, Van Hoen works constantly. Opener “Climates”, in its exquisite limpidity, feels like a homage to Brian Eno, one of his most formative influences in his teen years, commencing with Music For Films, which he bought in 1979. “This Is For Them”, feels like a ghostlike throwback to early drum & bass or electronica, reminiscent of his own, earliest outings. “There have been a number of requests from labels to make some more music like my very early releases on R&S,” says Van Hoen. “This is part of ‘letting go’ and realising that there’s nothing less creative about going back to those styles again.”

“Pencil Of Spheres” is something else again, a magnificent, imaginary glass structure, shimmering, refracting, without visible means of suspension, a thing of impossible beauty. “Electric Lights” evokes an abandoned fairground, its lights still pulsating, its music lingering. “The Underpass”, meanwhile, insofar as it reminds of anything at all, is faintly reminiscent of Cluster or Neu’s! West German ambience, the urban mundane rendered magical, the sodium lights, the whitewashed walls. The reverberant, faintly oriental chimes of “Insight” transport us yet again, burgeoning and intensifying.

The landscapes, the skyscapes rendered on Plan For A Miracle feel unpopulated as a rule - but when he does introduce vocal elements, Van Hoen has a history of doing so to spectacular effect - think of “Real Love” from 1998’s Playing With Time, the seductive intonation of its title recurring throughout like a series of massive holograms, echoing, stuttering, breaking up, surging. Here, there are just the faintest of vocals, barely distinct, disquieting. “There’s been a bit of a game changer in recent times,” explains Van Hoen. “AI software that enables you to extract vocals and instrument parts from virtually any recording. That means sampling individual parts from existing sources is no longer limited to the original mix exposing certain parts soloed. The vocal parts I use are from multiple sources and often pitch shifted altered rhythmically and melodically.“ There’s further vocal chatter on “I Really Do”, proceeding at a faster pace as if giving chase, or being pursued - distant, enigmatic. “The Music”, meanwhile, its beat tolling, lost in its own fog of static, features a curious intonation, like the ghost of a lost Walker Brother.

Sadly, the album’s title is in reference to a personal tragedy on Van Hoen’s part - the loss of his wife. Titles such as “I Won’t Give Up”, which faintly reminds of another Eno masterpiece, Another Green World, in its nautical hurly-bury, or the pastoral strains of “Mrs Who”, heavily clouded with sadness, seem to allude to this. “In fact the record was recorded entirely before she passed away,” says Van Hoen, “most of it before she even became very ill. The title was given to the album when it started to look like she wasn’t going to make it beyond a few months. It was something Osho said - “plan for a miracle” - so it was a statement of hope. Unfortunately it was not to be.” Although the album is non-thematic, non-specific in its atmospheres, sound paintings, elegant structures it most certainly stands as a magnificent monument to Osho’s memory.

-David Stubbs.

Iris is back! This time with a brand-new long-player under the name Irisplus with many featured guests.

Lazy, stumbling slacker songs with multilingual vocals, expanding the melodic, riff-driven sound of previous Iris releases like “Surrender”. Watch out for the full-band live version!

Flute by Falyakon: Music/Ghost
Vox by TRii: Fog, Spoof, EG Land
Extra guitar/percussion by TRii: Deeds
Vox by Falyakon: يا ليل ,قرش و عتيق
Vox by Employee: Fernando, Crossings
Vox by Mo Chan: 今日も明日も

All songs written, produced, mixed and recorded by Iris. Mastered by The Bastard and Maximilian Schweizer. Graphics by Non-CN. Pressed by Disk Media Service.

Erin LeCount returns with the release of EP PAREIDOLIA, now on limited edition transparent glitter vinyl and with the addition of hotly-anticipated track THE CINEMA.

Available for pre-order on the 1st July at 5PM BST and set for release on 11th September 2026.

Erin LeCount is a 23-year-old self-taught artist and producer. A visionary sonic architect and the sole writer and producer of her music, her sound ranges from luscious baroque-pop arrangements to alluring gothic-pop. At the foreground of her music are diaristic lyrics and captivating synths which offer an enchanting interplay of vulnerability and power. The themes within her music explore everything from identity to relationships and the meaning of life. Erin’s influences include Fiona Apple, Kate Bush, Lorde, Imogen Heap, Charli xcx, and Sampha.

2020 album from Colorado’s freewheelin’ melodist Josephine Foster. Revolving between her adopted Spain and her native American West, Josephine was stationed this spring in Nashville with maverick guitarist and comrade-in-arms Matthew Schneider. The result: ‘No Harm Done’, a spacious and enveloping love letter of an album. Eight new slow-burning songs branch forth from idiosyncratic country folk blues, sung with sibylline wit and a hint of the absurd, awash in sensually anachronic lyricism. “The Wheel of Fortune”, nearly a title track by virtue of its refrain: 'No harm will come/if there's no harm done', are words of a homebound wanderer finding refuge in healing stillness with her beloved, having 'time to kill' in the midst of 'hard times to feel at home'. All delivered with calm sagacity upon the pedestal of Mr. Schneider's pedal steel and underscored by a knowing trebled chorus in Foster's lower register. Going nowhere never felt like so righteous of a destination before. Devotion in all its permutations, spiritual to carnal, are seamlessly explored. In 'Conjugal Bliss', overtones of the 12-string and autoharp gently interplay, sounding like some unearthed Carter family wedding hymn (it bears the subversive subtitle '69' ) while 'How come, Honeycomb?' bounces low in the hips like a sultry old music hall number à la Harry Nilsson. The obliquely sapphic 'Leonine', it's unquiet harp scaling right out of ancient Lesbos, dreams of a kingless land; in 'Sure Am Devilish', a stargazer humbly confesses to a lowercase lord. 'Old Saw', the mesmeric album closer, is a medium's petition to cross the threshold and merge with the holy spirit. Josephine's enigmatic voice captured once more by frequent co-producer Andrija Tokic in his analog Bomb Shelter studio, where layers of her guitar, piano, organ entwine with Schneider's 12-string, pedal steel and electric bass to rouse a spectral yet full blooded band. The ensuing cycle of songs pulse and glow within the ruins and deep fundamental roots of American song. “Remarkable, ghostly music” The Guardian.

Wondrous ethereal folk songs by a reclusive pen pal of Maxine Funke, first introduced to A Colourful Storm by Funke while sharing music and ideas during her Australian tour. Ghost faced pansies. A moth coloured cat. Cauliflowers, cabbages undying. I hear the spine of the dictionary crack. Is what they call a creature who only wakes at dusk. And turning backs. My afternoon has turned pitch black. For a trace. For a shape. I wipe the steam from the window like the bloom on a grape. Ghost faced pansies. A moth coloured cat. Light of stars long since died.

Born from the Perpignan garage scene in the South of France - built on self-production, independent labels, and a strong international network - Ghost Twist bring together musicians active for decades in Perpignan"s most iconic line-ups. Its members have evolved within key bands (Beach Bitches, Sonic Chicken 4, Crank) and collaborated with Pascal Comelade, Harlan T. Bobo, and the Limiñanas, with releases on acclaimed labels like In The Red, Born Bad, Goner and Trouble In Mind. Formed in 2018, Ghost Twist developed a raw rock sound rooted in the 1960s, shaped by oriental and tropical atmospheres inspired by compilations like "Jungle Exotica" or "Las Vegas Grind". Over time, the band has broadened its sonic palette and incorporated a wide range of influences: from cumbia to the hip-hop of Cypress Hill, from Sonic Youth-style dissonances to Fela Kuti"s afro grooves, all the way to country accents.

For this second EP, Void Control continues to explore the relationship between rhythm, space, and low-frequency energy. Each track is built around movement and atmosphere, combining organic percussion, spacious dub textures, and weighty sub frequencies.

Drawing influence from reggae sound system culture, tribal rhythms, dub techno, and contemporary bass music, the release exists at the intersection of multiple underground traditions. Rather than treating these influences as separate genres, Void Control allows them to interact naturally, creating a cross-pollination of sounds that feels both familiar and forward-thinking.

150 White coloured vinyl, hand stamped and stickered with inlay.

Atlantic was the brainchild of guitarist and songwriter Simon Harrison. Following a successful ghost-writing career and his bands Stranger, Simon wanted to make an album in his favoured AOR/Melodic Rock genre. Heavily influenced by bands like Whitesnake, Journey, Bad English, FM, Heartland and Dare he set about writing the songs that became the first album entitled ‘Power’.
"Power" was first released as a CD back in 1994 on the Music For Nations label and subsequently re-released in 2008 on Escape Music (ESM176). Atlantic raised many eyebrows with this release which can be ranked alongside bands such as “Heartland” "Dare" and "Shy" (Tony Mills also guests on the album!).
Band members include Simon Harrison on guitar and keyboards and the great Phil Bates (Trickster/Quill) on lead vocals, guitars and keyboards. The album had so much potential at the time it is a shame that it did not receive the recognition it richly deserved. The band came back with a killer brand new album in 2024 title “Another World” also on Escape Music ESM388
A true British Classic!

5 x LP
60-page hardback book
Black vinyl
Printed labels
Printed inners
Slipcase
A2 poster
Slipmat

Originally released in 1990 by Happy Mondays, Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches captured the chaotic, euphoric spirit of the Madchester movement, blending indie rock, acid house rhythms and funk grooves into a sound that helped reshape British alternative music. Featuring era-defining tracks such as “Step On” and “Kinky Afro,” the record became both a commercial breakthrough and a cultural snapshot of a generation fuelled by dance culture and Northern nightlife.

More than three decades later, its grooves, attitude and genre-blurring production still resonate strongly with contemporary audiences, influencing modern indie and electronic artists alike.

5LP Edition. All original audio remastered from Factory Records master tapes. Includes original album, Hallelujah + Madchester Rave On, Baby Big Head Bootleg Album (Live at Elland Road, 1991), classic and new remixes, 60-page hardback book with brand new essays from James Brown and Central Station designers, fold-out A2 tour poster and Madchester slipmat.

A long-overdue return to one of the most singular moments in Nurse With Wound's sprawling discography. Originally issued in 1994, Rock 'n' Roll Station marked a turning point - the album where Steven Stapleton's decades-long engagement with collage, musique concrète, and the outer limits of post-industrial sound first met the hypnotic, rhythm-driven studio sensibility of Colin Potter. What began as a request to rework some of the more percussive sections of 1992's Thunder Perfect Mind mutated, under Potter's hand, into something else entirely: an hour of swivelling grooves, warped exotica, and looping psychedelia, channelling the ghosts of Pérez Prado, Graham Bond, Joe Meek, and Jacques Berrocal into the most rhythm-conscious work the group had ever made. Three decades on, it remains one of the most beloved entries in the NWW catalogue. Issued by United Dirter as a limited LP, this new VIP edition reframes the album through four extended remixes and reworkings, each running close to or beyond ten minutes - a deep re-engagement with the source material by the extended Nurse With Wound family. Joining the usual suspects of Colin Potter, Matt Waldron, Andrew Liles, and Diarmuid MacDiarmada is an unexpected and historically significant presence: Jean-Jacques Birgé, the French composer, filmmaker, and co-founder of Un Drame Musical Instantané, whose GRRR imprint (founded 1975) famously appeared on the original Nurse With Wound List nearly half a century ago. A quiet circle, closing. The LP arrives as forerunner to a more ambitious project still to come: The Iron Lung Gives Way To The Surgical Stocking, a 5CD set due later in 2026, of which these reworks offer a first glimpse. Housed in striking new full-colour artwork by Babs Santini - Stapleton's longstanding visual alter ego. 500 ww copies in black & orange vinyl. Genre/Style: Electronic / Dark Ambient / Experimental / Drone

"Music to be heard with ears. Through and through. Over and over. No coherence or meaning. A slow rotating dial of information. In and out of focus between benches, beams, buffs, busses, butter, bars, bees, bumps, beens and boons. Luminous eyes around a small fire. Waiting for something to happen. These two movements. With 10 eyes divided onto 6 faces. Making small sounds as they roll clockwise. Then over the table... stumbling into everyday ghosts"

Robag Wruhme is the solo alias of Gabor Schablitzki, a quietly singular voice in minimal and house music since the early 2000s. His sound is built on precision without ever feeling rigid. Instead of chasing big moments, he lets tracks unfold through subtle movement and carefully balanced tension, always evolving but never rushing.

That same approach runs through this EP. It's about letting momentum emerge naturally, allowing each element to settle into place while the energy continues to build.

Across four tracks, Robag creates a world where rhythm and atmosphere constantly shape one another. The arrangements are rich with detail, yet nothing competes for attention. Even in the densest passages, every sound feels deliberate.

OLAHNI opens patiently, with ghostly textures and hypnotic vocal fragments setting the tone before the bassline slowly comes into focus. The arrangement keeps evolving, with subtle details drifting in and out as the groove steadily deepens.
IFTHAH takes things into darker territory, driven by a heavy rolling bassline and a looping motif that never quite loosens its grip, adding weight without disrupting the flow.

On FUMAXOHN, the groove remains tight while the mood shifts. A warm harmonic layer gradually emerges as the vocals dissolve into texture, drawing the track towards something more melancholic.
PENTHO closes the EP in its most direct form. Stripped back and driving, it lands with quiet confidence, bringing the journey to a close while holding onto the hypnotic tension that defines the record.

It's been a pleasure bringing this EP together, and we're excited to finally share it with you. We hope these four tracks draw you into Robag's world as much as they have us.

Classic Me First And The Gimme Gimmes reissued: The Gimmes roll into town for a 12-song shootout with Country & Western. These Blue-State bandits are gonna show Kenny Chesney how it's really done. But now the demanding bunch are back, and this time, it's country that gets a kicking. More C&W-styled numbers are easy targets, be it the ever popular "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky," which here gallops straight into hardcore, "Desperado," which will never escape this incendiary melodic punk rock arrangement, and "On the Road Again," which is delivered up in a similar sizzling style. "Jolene," having already suffered the indignities of a goth make-over, is now manhandled by the Gimmes, who storm Dollyland with utter abandon and a barrage of guitars and battering drums, all the better to keep their man -- hmm, shades of Brokeback Mountain. "Annie's Song" is dragged off of John Denver's country roads, and dumped center stage in the middle of a rock concert, which is just where it belongs. Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" gets even more inspired treatment, including a bagpipe! Even a seemingly straightforward punk do-over like "Goodbye Earl" provides some scintillating moments, from the Rancid meets the Clash styling to the bright harmonies and soaring lead guitar licks. The musicianship really shines through on this set, the guitars blaze, the bass becomes assaultive, and the rolling drums sound like the thunder of mortar in the distance, while the production is equally notable. But hey, the Gimmes can play country, too -- well almost -- the first half of "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)" boasts some fine fingerpickin' guitar, although the country styling keeps sliding into surf: hey, your roots are showing, guys. Now this is country music everyone can enjoy, gimme more! The 20th anniversary edition comes in a yellowish, more brown Mustard colored vinyl.

After the wild Afro-jazz fusion of Trancedance (reissued as BT118) and the meditative solo Christer Bothén Donso n’goni (BT133), legendary Swedish multi-instrumentalist Christer Bothén returns to Black Truffle as part of a dream quartet completed by the three members of Ghosted: Oren Ambarchi (guitar), Johan Berthling (bass) and Andreas Werliin (drums). Recorded at a rustic studio built by Werliin and Hans Fredriksson in the sylvan surrounds of Hamburgsund, Sweden across a few days in September 2023, Serpentine offers up four generous slices of hypnotic repetition and shimmering resonance, cut through with wild bursts of Bothén’s bass clarinet.

The depth and ease of the quartet’s rapport is evident from the first moments of the opening title-track. Berthling’s resonant upright bass locks into a head-nodding ostinato that makes sensitive use of a prominent end-of-phrase rest, opening spaces through which Werliin’s continually shifting statements of the pulse shine through. Having worked together in various groups for many years, Berthling and Werliin are masters at playing subtle games of difference and repetition, creating a driving rhythmic flow animated by perpetually changing details: here, you can never step in the same groove twice. Weaving through it all is Ambarchi’s now-signature Leslie-cabinet guitar tone, sounding out long chords at times strikingly close to a Hammond, while also creating intricate cross-rhythms through the play of his tremolo modulations against the bass and drums. When Bothén enters five minutes in, the growl of his bass clarinet at first works deep in the collective brew, carving off brief staccato phrases and twisting them into fragmented melodies. As he moves into the instrument’s higher registers, Bothén’s playing becomes wilder, twinning with Ambarchi’s guitar in shimmering arcs like a 21st century update of the Garbarek-Rypdal pairing immortalised on Sart.

Each of the four pieces explore different possibilities of a shared language. On ‘Antigorite’, another hypnotic bass riff emerges gradually from an atmospheric haze, eventually developing into a frenetic rhythmic workout propelled by Werliin’s cowbell. Berthling sits out for ‘Lizardite’, while Bothén moves from bass clarinet to the Donso n’goni, the sacred Wassoulou hunter’s harp he has studied for half a century; the resulting performance streamlines the approach heard on other tracks into pure modal propulsion, sparkling with harp-like arpeggios from Ambarchi’s guitar. On the closing ‘Chrysotile’, the bottom drops out, leaving a swampy, churning mass of wavering organ-like chords, roaming bass runs, and distant toms, over which Bothén floats bass clarinet figures by turns bluesy and abstract, the whole thing landing somewhere between classic ECM and the most blasted freeform moments of early Amon Düül II. Bearing a delicate calligraphic abstraction by Bothén on its cover and beautiful documentation of the recording sessions on its inner sleeve, Serpentine is a powerful reminder of the magic that can happen when inventive musicians just get together and play.

For the 10th Anniversary of the iconic and unique For Honor, Kid Katana Records teamed up with Ubisoft to bring you this high quality album on an exclusive double vinyl. With over 35 million players since its release, For Honor has kept on bringing new content in the game, enriching the players’ experience with new Heroes, Factions and Music to keep the battle for survival and honor alive.


The physical edition is a premium 2LP designed in close relationship with the game's creative team:


● Track selection handpicked by For Honor team, including 2 new tracks (Year 10 exclusive) and a track never released before from Y1 Season 7
● 2 Golden vinyls
● Exclusive cover art with glossy effect on the logo
● Exclusive 16-page booklet with insights on each faction’s music, liner notes
from the game’s creative team and composers Luc St-Pierre, Danny Bensi and
Saunder Jurriaans



The tracklist is a selection of music from the 10 seasons of the game, one side per faction:

Within the broad church of metal and its many offshoots – rock, doom, stoner and all the rest – it remains a minor thrill to stumble across a group who seem to exist at a slight tangent to everything else. Crumbling Ghost is one such anomaly. Crumbling Ghost are not newcomers. They've been operating for some time, releasing records sporadically, Four' is in fact their fourth release. Along the way they've accumulated a fervent coterie of followers, not to mention the occasional nod of approval from tastemakers such as Stuart Maconie, Stewart Lee and Tom Ravenscroft. And though they've appeared at Roadburn, shared stages with Hawkwind and even Damo Suzuki, they remain (possibly by design) curiously under the radar.
The group's core idea is deceptively simple: traditional folk material refracted through the haze and heft of heavy, fuzzy stoner rock with a chunk of psyche and a smattering of doom. But crucially, this is done without the costumery and theatrical tics that often accompany such collisions. No mock pagan pageantry, no graveyard cosplay, no cartoon Satanism.
What Crumbling Ghost latch onto is not folk as a museum piece, but as a lived experience, the dramas rooted in the culture, stories, and daily lives of ordinary people, the folklore, the tales of love and death, murder and adultery, freedom and oppression. Singer Katie Harnett says. "Doting mothers, possessive, violent partners, vulnerable women, seasonal workers and Royal scandals this album is our representation of the trials and tribulations of human existence and universal experiences that still feel relevant today.

Guitarist John adds. "Themes of murder, betrayal, loss, jealousy, and love are found across the record. In particular, the songs of Martin Carthy have been a particular source of inspiration".
The result is a set of murder ballads, supernatural reckonings and cautionary tales, all wrapped in slabs of heavy, thumping fuzz and atmospheric sonics. Harnett's voice sits at the centre: unmistakably folk rooted, but shorn of prettification, melodic yet capable of real bite.

The album opener 'Bows Of London' is a murder ballad of sisterly hatred and grim sibling rivalry, centred on a haunted fiddle fashioned from a dead sister's bones. The loping relentless, hypnotic backing chillingly and perfectly accompanies the narrative. Of course, the story doesn't end well. 'Bill Norrie' follows, a hooky melody propelled by an insistent bassline and a haunting psych tinged haze punctured with sheets of noise.. The story of young Bill Norrie who sends a token to a married woman, whose jealous husband beheads him, without knowing he was his wife's son from an earlier affair. An instrumental palate cleanser arrives in the shape of 'Valtz Efter Tor Lohne' a Norwegian traditional the band jokingly describe as a "banger".
Then we have 'Lovely Joan' which offers a rare note of sly triumph: a quick witted woman outmanoeuvres a predatory nobleman, escaping with his ring and his horse. Muscular riffs give this tale of empowerment a welcome sense of teeth. 'Gower Wassail' is a traditional Welsh folk tune that captures the raucous spirit of communal ritual, noise making and drink fuelled hope for a good harvest. Captured perfectly here by CG complete with wah wah guitar and a drunken groove catching the song's celebratory chaos. Then we have a little gem in 'Last Of All Sleep' , an original band composition and a genuine highlight: a heavy lidded, shoegaze tinged folk reverie, equal parts distortion and delicacy. It's a drop-dead gorgeous shoegaze-tastic psychedelic grunge mini epic. The album closer 'The Unquiet Grave' is a very apt place to finish. It's about a young man whose constant grief at the death of his true love disturbs her eternal sleep so she cannot rest. Even though the playout on this track, complete with a demonic repeated riff and feedback feels suitably bleak, even this song allows a glimmer of release ... we think.
And there we have it, 7 songs, 7 worlds, all honed to perfection by producer Wayne Adams (Green Lung/Big Lad) that will reward every repeated listen.

Folk and metal/heavy rock do have a connection of course, just look at Green Lung and their 'folk horror' infused musical universe, but Crumbling Ghost are a very different beast.
'Four' amply and beautifully demonstrates that when it comes to 'folk horror' there's nothing quite as horrible as folk ... Here, the horror such as it is, and it must be said, the moments of light, comes not from theatrics, but from the songs themselves – which, after all, is where it's always lived.
Crumbling Ghost are John Mosley – Guitar / Donny Hopkins – Guitar / Ruth O’Loughlin – Bass / Katie Harnett – Vocals / Matthew Atkins- Drums.

Maverick folk artist and touring veteran Rev Hammer has been writing and releasing music for over 40 years. He regards his music not so much as a passport to fame and fortune but as a ticket to ride and has enjoyed numerous tours, collaborations, and projects over his long and varied career. The Old Crow Folk Club album features 23 of his songs re-imagined by friends and artists including Justin Sullivan (New Model Army), Mark Chadwick (Levellers), Maddy Prior (Steeleye Span), Simon Friend (Levellers), Seth Lakeman, John Jones (Oysterband), Dan Donnelly & Jon Sevink (Levellers), Nick Harper, Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman, Nick Parker,

Bist du verrückt genug um in die Welt von SPOOKYMAN einzutauchen, dem Klangforscher und Sound Tüftler Instrumenten Bauer aus Rom Italien, mit Weissem Operations Kittel und präzisions Brille, schickt er dich auf eine Zeitreise in Vergangenheit und Zukunft. Er benutzt Instrumente, die wie aus einem vergilbten Science-Fiction-Film entsprungen, zbsp ein Oszilloskop, das Schallwellen aufzeichnet, und einen Schallblaster, der mysteriöse Tonbänder abspielt. Seine Musik kann man unterordnen in einem Mix aus Library Music, Science-Fiction und Freak-Post-Blues und mann kommt sich vor wie in einem Spionagethrillers. SPOOKYMAN & SEIN AKUSMATISCHES ORCHESTER erwarten dich, um dich in eine Klangdimension zu entführen, in der die Zeit keine Rolle spielt und die Gegenwart in einer Mikro Dosis LSD aufgelöst ist. Summarized in VRR own words: "B-Picture Spy Explotation Movie sound researcher and tinkering instrument builder from Rome, Italy, he plays the oscilloscope that records sound waves and a sound blaster that plays mysterious tapes in a mix of library music, science fiction, and freak post-blues" Rabenschwarzes Vinyl und Kassette erhältlich!

Bist du verrückt genug um in die Welt von SPOOKYMAN einzutauchen, dem Klangforscher und Sound Tüftler Instrumenten Bauer aus Rom Italien, mit Weissem Operations Kittel und präzisions Brille, schickt er dich auf eine Zeitreise in Vergangenheit und Zukunft. Er benutzt Instrumente, die wie aus einem vergilbten Science-Fiction-Film entsprungen, zbsp ein Oszilloskop, das Schallwellen aufzeichnet, und einen Schallblaster, der mysteriöse Tonbänder abspielt. Seine Musik kann man unterordnen in einem Mix aus Library Music, Science-Fiction und Freak-Post-Blues und mann kommt sich vor wie in einem Spionagethrillers. SPOOKYMAN & SEIN AKUSMATISCHES ORCHESTER erwarten dich, um dich in eine Klangdimension zu entführen, in der die Zeit keine Rolle spielt und die Gegenwart in einer Mikro Dosis LSD aufgelöst ist. Summarized in VRR own words: "B-Picture Spy Explotation Movie sound researcher and tinkering instrument builder from Rome, Italy, he plays the oscilloscope that records sound waves and a sound blaster that plays mysterious tapes in a mix of library music, science fiction, and freak post-blues" Rabenschwarzes Vinyl und Kassette erhältlich!

Repress of the 13th chapter of this highly acclaimed compilation series, originally released in 2017.

As usual FSOJ is compiled by Compost head honcho Michael Reinboth with a solid sense of leftfield tracks, punchy floorfillers, ghostly, cinematic, balearic, frazzled, bitter-sweet or mind-shaking hybrid tunes.
Several magazines voted FSOJ as the one of the best compilation series of all time. With this series starting 1995 the term Future Jazz became a genre landmark.

FSOJ 13 including some exclusives, sought-after tracks and previously unreleased tracks. Some highlights are: First of all the Van Hai track in a Ripperton remix is a perfect opener into a tranquil music venture. A sheer bliss tune. Montezumas Rache „Wu Du Wu“, which was only released on vinyl before - still difficult to find the original 12“ - is a freaky outstanding funk hybrid. Karim Sahraoui – with a punchy Detroit-ish track, picked up from Derrick May’s Transmat label - is currently in the works with a follow up 12“ later in 2017 on Compost. Acid Pauli delivers a brand new dubby balearic remix, which he recently did for Matanza, a live band from Chile. Peter Kruder came up with something special exclusive, a warm breath in the open air tune, which drives listeners into a chilled wormhole. Beside new names, bigger names like Axel Boman, Tony Allen with a Ricardo Villalobos & Max Loderbauer remix, you’ll find more lefties tracks from respected labels like Studio Barnhus, Innervisions, Lovemonk, Transmat, Mule, Tru Thoughts, Rebirth, Ninja Tune and m.o. next to other exclusive deliveries by Manuel Tur, Marsmobil, coupled up with semi exclusives: the first time on vinyl or digital.

For WOLFEP088, we’re welcoming an Italian stallion to the WOLF stable. DJ Soch is a renowned DJ, producer, and label owner whose roots in house music run deep. Beginning his journey behind the decks in the mid-1980s, he has spent more than four decades honing a sound shaped by house, techno, disco, funk, hip-hop, and the timeless influence of Detroit and Chicago. As the founder of Black Angus Records and a resident DJ at the renowned Italian club Serendipity, he has shared lineups with some of the best to ever do it, helping to shape Italy’s underground electronic music scene.

When his tracks hit the WOLF inbox, we knew we were onto something special. The first one we heard, ‘Let Me Tell You’, was an instant yes, must sign moment. There’s skippy drums, warm keys, church organ, a heavy bassline and a pleading, soulful male vocal. One of those tracks that should come with a neck-brace. Soulful, but powerful. There’s also a ‘Power Mix’ version that keeps all the elements we loved, but strips back the vocal and ramps up the church organ. Absolute Holy Ghoster! This is the type of track that would have torn up the dance floor at the Shelter, a real Timmy Regisford tops-off jam.

On the flip, there’s a hypnotic deep house groove entitled, ‘Chewing Gum’. This is proper stuff, heads-down, deep house for the dance floor. We’ve paired it with a remix from Prince Palmer, one of the standout remixers of recent years, and a great group of guys. The Prince has delivered a reinterpretation that gives a nod to 90s US Garage, complete with all the trademark production chops you would expect from a regular on the stellar Bobby Donny label. It’s a track that wouldn’t sound out of place on a peak-period Strictly Rhythm 12”, so that’s all you need to know.

Four belters, all on one record, designed for maximum listening pleasure.

Downtown Boys have pushed relentlessly forward as an artistic and political project since their founding. Singer Victoria Marie and guitarist/singer Joey La Neve DeFrancesco first met at union meetings while working together at a hotel in Providence, RI, writing many of the band's early songs about labor organizing and exploitative workplaces. The quintet is completed by Joe DeGeorge (sax/synth), Mary Jane Regalado (bass), and Joey Doubek (drums). Over years of touring, and three acclaimed albums, Downtown Boys have continued to grow as artists, musicians, and organizers. Now, the band has arrived with Public Luxury, an enthralling album that keeps politics front and center while summoning the band's most urgent and powerful sound to date. The definition of Public Luxury falls very much in line with that of the title of the second Downtown Boys LP, Full Communism. Straight up, Public Luxury means, "everything for everyone." It's the stubborn insistence that a better world is possible, while fully recognizing the horrors we witness daily, and the individual and collective responsibility to resist the nihilism and hopelessness we all feel. Sentiments like "everything for everyone," and "we will have it all" perfectly represent the cathartic, communal live experience this cadre of multi-instrumentalists create. These sentiments also encapsulate the inclusive, joyful sonic fusion that defines the album: anthemic punk and indie rock mix with Latin traditions, drum machines blend with acoustic drums, saxophones punctuate riffs, and layers of synths add flourishes from new-wave to industrial. The amount of ground covered on Public Luxury can't be overstated, and yet the album feels totally vital and cohesive. Public Luxury is a revisitation of the band's past for the sake of their future. It was co-produced by DeFrancesco with recording engineer and longtime Downtown Boys supporter Seth Manchester (Lambrini Girls, Lightning Bolt, Model/Actriz) at the Pawtucket, RI studio and arts space Machines With Magnets, not far from the band's first home of Providence, RI. Victoria Marie's grandmother-a monumental figure for the band throughout their existence-passed away in May of 2025, and her influence looms large over the album; the songs "No Me Jodas" and "Sirena" are crystallized representations of the love between a woman and her ancestor. Beyond the loss, rage and frustration of the present, Public Luxury points boldly towards a vibrant, open-hearted vision of both music and the world: "Our music is simply for anyone and everyone who believes in the new future we can make together," Victoria Marie declares. "A world that will be awkward, inconsistent, yet truly free when it comes to all that matters."

Two tracks by the “queen” of ’90s dance music on one
vinyl: her dance cover of Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly”
(later made famous again by the Fugees and Lauryn Hill),
and her first major original hit, “Day by Day”.

*Repress*

From the slamming science of “Ricochet,” through the jittery ghost-rave of “Survival” and the outer-space lover’s rock of “Dubbing You,” to the manic magic of “Finest Illusion,” this collection of early EPs by rave legends Foul Play tracks an astonishing evolution across barely more than a year. Some of the top tunes to come out of the hardcore > jungle > drum & bass journey? Yes, but also some of the most thrilling and gorgeous music of the entire ‘90s.

Simon Reynolds, author of Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture.

Re-mastered by Beau Thomas of Ten Eight Seven Mastering and re-issued for your aural pleasure. Don't sleep on this one!

Originally released in 2008. Although this album invites aesthetic comparisons to works by the likes of Philip Jeck, William Basinski, and Janek Schaefer – draped as it is in an obfuscating, soupy crackle – there’s a very specific conceptual agenda at work here.

Part of the success of »Persistent Repetition of Phrases« comes from the attention it pays to the function of »the loop«, not only as a narrative ordering system in modern music, but as a means by which the brain itself recalls and interprets information; it’s as old as recorded sound itself, but in this context the repetition of small shards of auditory information becomes an elegy to fading memory and the worn-out synapses of old age. The track titles offer signposts through Kirby’s labyrinth of faulty remembrances, pointing their way towards the peculiarities dictating the manner by which the mind stores and attempts to recover information: »Lacunar Amnesia« references a condition that leaves a specific event absent from the sufferer’s memory, and Kirby’s music sounds suitably stuck on a prelude to something that never happens.

Bathed in gusts of crackle, the piece gets stuck on what might be a start of something, but we never get to hear what. Many of the pieces refer to different ways the memory might find itself caught in a holding pattern: »Von Restorff Effect«, »Rosy Retrospection«, and the title track itself are all suggestive of reliving a single event or point in time – here, both music and memory are united by the notion of »glitch«, whereby a fault or fissure causes the replaying of the same pocket of data over and over again, but what distinguishes Kirby from so many other musicians operating within the field of loops and broken recordings is the unnerving, ghostly sentimentality that courses through this process. »Long Term (remote)« is particularly explicit in its reaching back through the first half of the 20th century, exhuming snatches of music hall romance, now warped into a sinister new form by the erosions of time. It’s like watching John Carpenter’s »The Fog« only to find that instead of vengeful phantoms emerging from the mist, it’s The Glenn Miller Band. Which is infinitely more disturbing. More eerie still is the detachment from authorship endemic to this sound – at no point do you really sense the presence of a composer’s hand; this album just... is. A remarkable thing that only seems to have improved with age (which is either highly appropriate or highly inappropriate, I can’t quite decide which), »Persistent Repetition of Phrases« is an even better fit on vinyl, a medium which itself wears and fades just as the memory does.

Damian’s Ghost materialises from the shadows on Astrophonica with another collection of outstanding, heartfelt, and authentically deep jungle music. Universalis showcases four tracks that further define what is fast becoming the unmistakable Damian’s Ghost sound: a perfect blend of rawness and attention to detail, underpinned by a constant focus on emotion and mood. No fanfare, no lyric videos—just music.

Fracture:
“Lots of people are making Jungle music, but only Damian’s Ghost makes Damian’s Ghost”