A new Uk based label from a small collective of close friends with a keen interest of getting fresh music out on vinyl only. To get things going Jase steps up with a 2 track 12''. 'You Wanna Get Real' ... great little stomper with raw bass , raw drums & vocal samples. On the other side 'Whispers' a minimal banger with a cheeky side to it, tidy first release from Off The Map Records.
Das siebte Studioalbum der ehrwürdigen Rock-Institution Titus Andronicus wurde produziert von Titus Andronicus Singer-Songwriter Patrick Stickles und dem preisgekrönten kanadischen Produzenten Howard Bilerman (ARCADE FIRE, LEONARD COHEN, THE WHOLE NINE YARDS) in dessen hotel2tango Aufnahmestudio in Montreal. Mit "The Will To Live" laden Titus Andronicus den Hörer auf eine Reise von der Angst zum Glauben, von der Wut zur Akzeptanz, von der Trauer zur Dankbarkeit ein, immer auf der Suche nach dem mythischen Ideal des ultimativen Rock. In Anlehnung an maximalistische Rock-Epen von "Who's Next" bis "Hysteria" hat die Band ihr bisher reichhaltigstes, dichtestes und härtestes Album geschaffen, das die Weite und den Umfang ihres meist gefeierten Werks erreicht und gleichzeitig ihren ehrgeizigen Angriff effektiver als je zuvor gestaltet. "It may strike some as ironic we had to go to Canada to record our equivalent to "Born In The USA," sagt Stickles, "but the pursuit of Ultimate Rock knows no borders." Titus Andronicus kehrten im November 2021 auf die Bühne zurück, um den Jahrestag ihres bahnbrechenden zweiten Albums "The Monitor" von 2010 zu feiern. Die Tatsache, dass sie dieses Material vor einem ekstatischen Publikum spielten, ließ Stickles entschlossen zurück, ein Album abzuliefern, das dieselben Höhen erreichen würde, wobei sie sich diesmal weniger auf das unbekümmerte Feuer der Jugend verließen, sondern mehr auf die Erfahrung und die Perspektive, zu der eine Band erst mit tausend Shows im Gepäck gelangt. Um diesen Grad an Konzentration und Klarheit zu erreichen, musste Stickles an der Schnittstelle zwischen Triumph und Tragödie stehen. Er schreibt seine neu gefundene häusliche Glückseligkeit und seine unerschütterliche mentale Gesundheit für seine persönliche Stabilität in letzter Zeit ebenso zu wie die Ausdauer der mittlerweile am längsten bestehenden Besetzung von Titus Andronicus - Liam Betson an der Gitarre, R.J. Gordon am Bass und Chris Wilson am Schlagzeug - die alle auf dem 2018er Album "A Productive Cough" und dem 2019er Album "An Obelisk" vertreten sind. Auf der grausameren Seite der Medaille entstand "The Will To Live" zum großen Teil als Versuch, den vorzeitigen Tod von Matt "Money" Miller, dem Gründungs-Keyboarder der Band und Stickles' engstem Cousin, im Jahr 2021 zu verarbeiten. Das Ergebnis erweist sich als Meilenstein für Titus Andronicus, ein ehrgeiziges, nach vorne gerichtetes Werk, das an der Schnittstelle von Triumph und Tragödie steht, angetrieben von neu gefundenem Fokus und Klarheit, und das eine einzigartig begabte Rock'n'Roll-Band auf dem Höhepunkt ihrer kreativen Kräfte zeigt.
Das siebte Studioalbum der ehrwürdigen Rock-Institution Titus Andronicus wurde produziert von Titus Andronicus Singer-Songwriter Patrick Stickles und dem preisgekrönten kanadischen Produzenten Howard Bilerman (ARCADE FIRE, LEONARD COHEN, THE WHOLE NINE YARDS) in dessen hotel2tango Aufnahmestudio in Montreal. Mit "The Will To Live" laden Titus Andronicus den Hörer auf eine Reise von der Angst zum Glauben, von der Wut zur Akzeptanz, von der Trauer zur Dankbarkeit ein, immer auf der Suche nach dem mythischen Ideal des ultimativen Rock. In Anlehnung an maximalistische Rock-Epen von "Who's Next" bis "Hysteria" hat die Band ihr bisher reichhaltigstes, dichtestes und härtestes Album geschaffen, das die Weite und den Umfang ihres meist gefeierten Werks erreicht und gleichzeitig ihren ehrgeizigen Angriff effektiver als je zuvor gestaltet. "It may strike some as ironic we had to go to Canada to record our equivalent to "Born In The USA," sagt Stickles, "but the pursuit of Ultimate Rock knows no borders." Titus Andronicus kehrten im November 2021 auf die Bühne zurück, um den Jahrestag ihres bahnbrechenden zweiten Albums "The Monitor" von 2010 zu feiern. Die Tatsache, dass sie dieses Material vor einem ekstatischen Publikum spielten, ließ Stickles entschlossen zurück, ein Album abzuliefern, das dieselben Höhen erreichen würde, wobei sie sich diesmal weniger auf das unbekümmerte Feuer der Jugend verließen, sondern mehr auf die Erfahrung und die Perspektive, zu der eine Band erst mit tausend Shows im Gepäck gelangt. Um diesen Grad an Konzentration und Klarheit zu erreichen, musste Stickles an der Schnittstelle zwischen Triumph und Tragödie stehen. Er schreibt seine neu gefundene häusliche Glückseligkeit und seine unerschütterliche mentale Gesundheit für seine persönliche Stabilität in letzter Zeit ebenso zu wie die Ausdauer der mittlerweile am längsten bestehenden Besetzung von Titus Andronicus - Liam Betson an der Gitarre, R.J. Gordon am Bass und Chris Wilson am Schlagzeug - die alle auf dem 2018er Album "A Productive Cough" und dem 2019er Album "An Obelisk" vertreten sind. Auf der grausameren Seite der Medaille entstand "The Will To Live" zum großen Teil als Versuch, den vorzeitigen Tod von Matt "Money" Miller, dem Gründungs-Keyboarder der Band und Stickles' engstem Cousin, im Jahr 2021 zu verarbeiten. Das Ergebnis erweist sich als Meilenstein für Titus Andronicus, ein ehrgeiziges, nach vorne gerichtetes Werk, das an der Schnittstelle von Triumph und Tragödie steht, angetrieben von neu gefundenem Fokus und Klarheit, und das eine einzigartig begabte Rock'n'Roll-Band auf dem Höhepunkt ihrer kreativen Kräfte zeigt.
Purple Vinyl in PicCover
"Since it's inception, the various artist compilation series SATURATED! has proven to be the epitome of curation in this small niche scene called bass music or whatever.
Each volume is carefully hand picked and is a picture in sound of the music at that point in time but overall has proven to be timeless.
The arrangement works in such ways that each tune flows perfectly into the next one and actually (given that you have two vinyls like a real dj), you could mix seamlessly from the first through the last track.
Saturate Records has become a hotspot for those seeking fresh sounds from well known and emerging artists within the scene.
Channeling the quintessential stylings of low-end driven beats from across the globe, they have been leading the way in all things bass heavy, broken-beat, experimental, glitch, hip-hop, psychedelic and trap for years now. Having featured releases from names like heRobust and G Jones early on in their careers, SATURATE! continues to help push the new school, hip-hop influenced sound forward with their fingers firmly on the pulse of future freshness.
A weird, wonky and wonderful journey through the raw attitude of the blistering beat driven electronic music scene.
Red Vinyl[27,69 €]
Up The Bracket arrived like a raging bull in a tired post-Britpop china shop and introduced the world to The Libertines, a new gang of London bohemians, whose ragged tunes, red military tunics, opiated poetry and "live now pay never" lifestyle came to define the millennial angst of the early noughties. At the heart of the band is the blood bond bromance between the ramshackle Music Hall Jagger/Richards, Peter Doherty and Carl Barat, ably assisted by the rock solid rhythm twins John Hassall and Gary Powell. Any bookie worth his salt would have given you short odds on this quartet surviving more than a month or two, given the teetering on the brink lifestyle they chose to lead, but here we are two decades later and our Byronic heroes, though older and wiser, are still fighting the good fight and making music every bit as vital as their debut. The belief, talent and fervour that Doherty spoke of in their earliest manifesto has stood them in good stead. Up The Bracket, justly considered one of the greatest albums of the noughties, was originally released on October 21st 2002 by Rough Trade Records. The album, a heady stew of indie rock, skiffle, blues, dub and English bucolic pop, was a huge shot in the arm to a largely redundant music scene and helped to inspire the rebirth of guitar music, going on to influence countless artists who followed in its wake. Up The Bracket, which was produced by Mick Jones of The Clash, takes you on a wondrously poetic journey into the band"s mythical world and their fevered dreams of Albion, a land of squalid glamour, liberty, equality, fraternity, gin palaces and chip shops. Quite simply Pete, Carl, Gary and John created a hugely compelling timeless British rock"n"roll classic debut as relevant now as it was upon its release.
Die lang erwartete erste Wiederveröffentlichung eines Klassikers, dessen (einzige) Originalpressung innerhalb weniger Wochen nach der Veröffentlichung am 15. Oktober 2001 ausverkauft und seitdem nicht mehr erhältlich war.
Vielleicht das dynamischste und abenteuerlichste Album, das die Montrealer Szene der frühen Nullerjahre um Godspeed you black emperor! hervorgebracht hat.
Aufgenommen über einen Zeitraum von fünf Tagen, handelt es sich bei dem beeindruckenden Debütalbum des 13-köpfigen Kollektivs aus Montreal, dem auch Mitglieder von Godspeed you black emperor!, A Silver Mt Zion und Fly Pan Am angehören, laut TimeOut um 'eines der grüblerischsten, dramatischsten, emotionalsten und eindringlichsten Alben, die jemals an deiner Seele gekratzt haben.' Auch Pitchfork zeigte sich beeindruckt und attestierte: 'ein wunderbar einfallsreiches und kraftvolles Album.'
Remastered bei Dubplates & Mastering.
Heist Recordings has been pushing the envelope for house music since day one and we’re always on the lookout for artists that represent our vision on electronic music. Our next guest on the label fits that profile and more. He is the embodiment of modern-day electronic funk and a true wizard on the keys: Atlanta raised cool guy Byron the Aquarius.
Byron has a solid history on the label: He remixed Parker Madicine back in 2017 and did a mad solo on the 2019 released Dam Swindle track ‘The life behind things’. We’ve done some shows together and stayed in touch while Byron was working together with Jeff Mills on his 2020 jazz crossover record ‘Ambrosia’ on Axis. Now, after a solid string of releases on labels like Shall not Fade and Purveyor Underground, Byron is making his solo appearance on Heist. His ‘Akira’ EP goes from dark basement grooves to dreamy broken beats and features a remix by New York dance music wizard Kush Jones.
The Akira EP kicks off with ‘I love yo’. In this track, Byron decides to leave his keys at home and goes in deep with a moody club workout. ‘I love yo’ is a track that juxtaposes dreamy samples with rough percussion and vocal chops with a clear nod to the work of Mr. G. The melody is mellow, but don’t be deceived; clever drum programming and plenty of sub take this track into the club vibe just the way Byron likes it: warm, hazy and sexy AF.
Byron is not known for delivering straightforward house tunes, but when he does deliver them, he does it in style. Enter ‘Get up’; the A2 of the EP. There’s everything we love about house music: smart vocal chops, driving percussion, classic house keys and a booming sub to get you bumping to this beat.
The B-side sees Byron up the tempo and take a deep dive into bass territory with ‘Love’. In this track, there’s lush pads running over a percussive broken beat and chopped R ’n B vocals to add some serious sex appeal. It’s deceptively simple and clean but ever so catchy, which clearly shows Byron’s prowess as an electronic music producer.
Going back to classic house mode, we’ve got ‘Success’: A spoken word house track that fits right in with the classics. Byron sets the mood with some bumpy key-and synth work while brainstorming about originality and blackness throughout the track. Even though the message underneath might be a serious one, Byron succeeds in delivering this in a fun, uplifting way that never gets pretentious or divisive.
The EP finishes with a remix by New Yorker Kush Jones. This is an artist who understands how to build a groove. He could take you anywhere from house to juke, footwork and techno, which is exactly why he’s been getting so much love for his music recently. Kush is an artist who sees no boundaries in his music and still manages to create his own sonic universe. His remix of ‘I love yo’ takes a dreamy approach with soft chords running over an electronic groove with a pure and improvised feel. All elements fit together perfectly and it’s the clever ad-hoc programming and arrangement that suck you into his unbounded world from the first beat.
As always, enjoy the music and play it loud.
Yours sincerely,
Maarten & Lars
Having already played to 40,000 fans this year in their native Ireland, The Coronas release their new single If You Let Me, and their highly anticipated new album Time Stopped, the follow-up to 2020’s intl breakthrough and critically acclaimed True Love Waits. Prior to the release of the Time Stopped album on the 7th October, the band will embark on a 25 date European, North American and Australian tour. The tour culminates in a 4 night run at the Olympia Theatre with the final show expected to be the band’s 60th consecutive sell-out show at the prestigious Dublin venue. Known for high energy live performances and audience singalongs, it’s not surprising that The Coronas were named #1 Live Act of the Year in Ireland’s Hot Press 2022 Readers' Poll.
Lead singer Danny O’Reilly explains the origins of the new single:
“If You Let Me” is a subtle declaration of support - lyrically it’s our answer to the Jackson 5’s ‘I’ll Be There’. When you see that someone you care about is going through a tough time and even though you know that you should wait until they ask for your advice or help, you can’t stop yourself from telling them how you feel about their situation.
Produced by long-time collaborator George Murphy (Mumford & Sons, The Specials, Ellie Goulding) and mixed by Grammy award winning Peter Katis (The National), sonically If You Let Me is a joyous, catchy, indie-rock jaunt that really shows The Coronas at their radio friendly, foot-tapping best.
BACK IN STOCK
Precious, timely, moody reflections on migrating from Côte d’Ivoire to Moss, in Norway, over ruff breakbeat funk supplied by the nimble bass-playing of Maimouna’s old man (from Kambo Super Sound), and the expert conga and kit-drumming of Stliletti-Ana (from Jesse, in Helsinki). Even in their delirium, b-boys and girls will savour traces of the Incredible Bongo Band, in the chorus. Over the eight minutes, and going deeper on the flip, the mix lifts off into a cosmic steppers dub, featuring Gilb-r alongside Sotofett on keyboards, with no let up for the dancefloor in energy and vibes.
Diggin’ in the vast vaults of Victor Simonelli, a collection of classic Jazz-N-Groove remixes from the legendary Bassline Records label, fully remastered for the first time on one 12”.
Started back in 1993 by the man himself, the label features releases from the likes of Romanthony, Jocelyn Brown, DJ Duke and many more, also going on to spawn the Big Big Trax sublabel too.
For this 12 inch, a spotlight on Jazz-N-Groove, the legendary production team consisting of Marc Pomeroy, Brian Tappert & previously Roy Grant. Showcasing soulful house done properly, this EP takes in four of their sought-after ‘90s remixes of anthemic cuts from Northbound, Body Moods and Strive For Jive. For the house trivia heads out there, the pair also went on to launch Soulfuric Records and also digital download store, Traxsource.
Vinyl LP[23,49 €]
As the sun sets on a quaint East Nashville house, a young man bares a piece of his soul. Facing the camera, sporting a silky suit jacket/shirt/slacks/fingerless gloves ensemble that announces "singer" before he's even opened his mouth, Lee Tracy Johnson settles onto his stage, the front yard. He sways to the dirge-like drum machine pulse of a synth-soaked slow jam, extends his arms as if gaining his balance, and croons in affecting, fragile earnest, "I need your love… oh baby…"
Dogs in the yard next door begin barking. A mysterious cardboard robot figure, beamed in from galaxies unknown and affixed to a tree, is less vocal. Lee doesn't acknowledge either's presence. He's busy feeling it, arms and hands gesticulating. His voice rises in falsetto over the now-quiet dogs, over the ambient noise from the street that seeps into the handheld camcorder's microphone, over the recording of his own voice played back from a boombox off-camera. After six minutes the single, continuous shot ends. In this intimate creative universe there are no re-takes. There are many more music videos to shoot, and as Lee later puts it, "The first time you do it is actually the best. Because you can never get that again. You expressing yourself from within."
"I Need Your Love" dates from a lost heyday. From some time in the '80s or early '90s, when Lee Tracy (as he was known in performance) and his music partner/producer/manager Isaac Manning committed hours upon hours of their sonic and visual ideas to tape. Embracing drum machines and synthesizers – electronics that made their personal futurism palpable – they recorded exclusively at home, live in a room into a simple cassette deck. Soul, funk, electro and new wave informed their songs, yet Lee and Isaac eschewed the confinement of conventional categories and genres, preferring to let experimentation guide them.
"Anytime somebody put out a new record they had the same instruments or the same sound," explains Isaac. "So I basically wanted to find something that's really gonna stand out away from all of the rest of 'em." Their ethos meant that every idea they came up with was at least worth trying: echoed out half-rapped exhortations over frantic techno-style beats, gospel synth soul, modal electro-funk, oddball pop reinterpretations, emo AOR balladry, nods to Prince and the Fat Boys, or arrangements that might collapse mid-song into a mess of arcade game-ish blips before rallying to reach the finish line. All of it conjoined by consistent tape hiss, and most vitally, Lee's chameleonic voice, which managed to wildly shape shift and still evoke something sincere – whether toggling between falsetto and tenor exalting Jesus's return, or punctuating a melismatic romantic adlib with a succinct, "We all know how it feels to be alone."
"People think we went to a studio," says Isaac derisively. "We never went to no studio. We didn't have the money to go to no studio! We did this stuff at home. I shot videos in my front yard with whatever we could to get things together." Sometimes Isaac would just put on an instrumental record, be it "Planet Rock" or "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" (from Evita), press "record," and let Lee improvise over it, yielding peculiar love songs, would-be patriotic anthems, or Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe tributes. Technical limitations and a lack of professional polish never dissuaded them. They believed they were onto something.
"That struggle," Isaac says, "made that sound sound good to me."
In the parlance of modern music criticism Lee and Isaac's dizzying DIY efforts would inevitably be described as "outsider." But "outsider" carries the burden of untold additional layers of meaning if you're Black and from the South, creating on a budget, and trying to get someone, anyone within the country music capital of the world to take your vision seriously. "What category should we put it in?" Isaac asks rhetorically. "I don't know. All I know is feeling. I ain't gonna name it nothing. It's music. If it grabs your soul and touch your heart that's what it basically is supposed to do."
=
Born in 1963, the baby boy of nine siblings, Lee Tracy spent his earliest years living amidst the shotgun houses on Nashville's south side. "We was poor, man!" he says, recalling the outhouse his family used for a bathroom and the blocks of ice they kept in the kitchen to chill perishables. "But I actually don't think I really realized I was in poverty until I got grown and started thinking about it." Lee's mom worked at the Holiday Inn; his dad did whatever he had to do, from selling fruit from a horse drawn cart to bootlegging. "We didn't have much," Lee continues, "but my mother and my father got us the things we needed, the clothes on our back." By the end of the decade with the city's urban renewal programs razing entire neighborhoods to accommodate construction of the Interstate, the family moved to Edgehill Projects. Lee remembers music and art as a constant source of inspiration for he and his brothers and sisters – especially after seeing the Jackson 5 perform on Ed Sullivan. "As a small child I just knew that was what I wanted to do."
His older brother Don began musically mentoring him, introducing Lee to a variety of instruments and sounds. "He would never play one particular type of music, like R&B," says Lee. "I was surrounded by jazz, hard rock and roll, easy listening, gospel, reggae, country music; I mean I was a sponge absorbing all of that." Lee taught himself to play drums by beating on cardboard boxes, gaining a rep around the way for his timekeeping, and his singing voice. Emulating his favorites, Earth Wind & Fire and Cameo, he formed groups with other kids with era-evocative band names like Concept and TNT Connection, and emerged as the leader of disciplined rehearsals. "I made them practice," says Lee. "We practiced and practiced and practiced. Because I wanted that perfection." By high school the most accomplished of these bands would take top prize in a prominent local talent show. It was a big moment for Lee, and he felt ready to take things to the next level. But his band-mates had other ideas.
"I don't know what happened," he says, still miffed at the memory. "It must have blew they mind after we won and people started showing notice, because it's like everybody quit! I was like, where the hell did everybody go?" Lee had always made a point of interrogating prospective musicians about their intentions before joining his groups: were they really serious or just looking for a way to pick up girls? Now he understood even more the importance of finding a collaborator just as committed to the music as he was.
=
Isaac Manning had spent much of his life immersed in music and the arts – singing in the church choir with his family on Nashville's north side, writing, painting, dancing, and working various gigs within the entertainment industry. After serving in the armed forces, in the early '70s he ran The Teenage Place, a music and performance venue that catered to the local youth. But he was forced out of town when word of one of his recreational routines created a stir beyond the safe haven of his bohemian circles.
"I was growing marijuana," Isaac explains. "It wasn't no business, I was smoking it myself… I would put marijuana in scrambled eggs, cornbread and stuff." His weed use originated as a form of self-medication to combat severe tooth pain. But when he began sharing it with some of the other young people he hung out with, some of who just so happened to be the kids of Nashville politicians, the cops came calling. "When I got busted," he remembers, "they were talking about how they were gonna get rid of me because they didn't want me saying nothing about they children because of the politics and stuff. So I got my family, took two raggedy cars, and left Nashville and went to Vegas."
Out in the desert, Isaac happened to meet Chubby Checker of "The Twist" fame while the singer was gigging at The Flamingo. Impressed by Isaac's zeal, Checker invited him to go on the road with him as his tour manager/roadie/valet. The experience gave Isaac a window into a part of the entertainment world he'd never encountered – a glimpse of what a true pop act's audience looked like. "Chubby Checker, none of his shows were played for Black folks," he remembers. "All his gigs were done at high-class white people areas." Returning home after a few years with Chubby, Isaac was properly motivated to make it in Music City. He began writing songs and scouting around Nashville for local talent anywhere he could find it with an expressed goal: "Find someone who can deliver your songs the way you want 'em delivered and make people feel what you want them to feel."
One day while walking through Edgehill Projects Isaac heard someone playing the drums in a way that made him stop and take notice. "The music was so tight, just the drums made me feel like, oh I'm-a find this person," he recalls. "So I circled through the projects until I found who it was.
"That's how I met him – Lee Tracy. When I found him and he started singing and stuff, I said, ohhh, this is somebody different."
=
Theirs was a true complementary partnership: young Lee possessed the raw talent, the older Isaac the belief. "He's really the only one besides my brother and my family that really seen the potential in me," says Lee. "He made me see that I could do it."
Isaac long being a night owl, his house also made for a fertile collaborative environment – a space where there always seemed to be a new piece of his visual art on display: paintings, illustrations, and dolls and figures (including an enigmatic cardboard robot). Lee and Issac would hang out together and talk, listen to music, conjure ideas, and smoke the herb Isaac had resumed growing in his yard. "It got to where I could trust him, he could trust me," Isaac says of their bond. They also worked together for hours on drawings, spreading larges rolls of paper on the walls and sketching faces with abstract patterns and imagery: alien-like beings, tri-horned horse heads, inverted Janus-like characters where one visage blurred into the other.
Soon it became apparent that they didn't need other collaborators; self-sufficiency was the natural way forward. At Isaac's behest Lee, already fed up with dealing with band musicians, began playing around with a poly-sonic Yamaha keyboard at the local music store. "It had everything on it – trumpet, bass, drums, organ," remembers Lee. "And that's when I started recording my own stuff."
The technology afforded Lee the flexibility and independence he craved, setting him on a path other bedroom musicians and producers around the world were simultaneously following through the '80s into the early '90s. Saving up money from day jobs, he eventually supplemented the Yamaha Isaac had gotten him with Roland and Casio drum machines and a Moog. Lee was living in an apartment in Hillside at that point caring for his dad, who'd been partially paralyzed since early in life. In the evenings up in his second floor room, the music put him in a zone where he could tune out everything and lose himself in his ideas.
"Oh I loved it," he recalls. "I would really experiment with the instruments and use a lot of different sound effects. I was looking for something nobody else had. I wanted something totally different. And once I found the sound I was looking for, I would just smoke me a good joint and just let it go, hit the record button." More potent a creative stimulant than even Isaac's weed was the holistic flow and spontaneity of recording. Between sessions at Isaac's place and Lee's apartment, their volume of output quickly ballooned.
"We was always recording," says Lee. "That's why we have so much music. Even when I went to Isaac's and we start creating, I get home, my mind is racing, I gotta start creating, creating, creating. I remember there were times when I took a 90-minute tape from front to back and just filled it up."
"We never practiced," says Isaac. "See, that was just so odd about the whole thing. I could relate to him, and tell him about the songs I had ideas for and everything and stuff. And then he would bring it back or whatever, and we'd get together and put it down." Once the taskmaster hell bent on rehearsing, Lee had flipped a full 180. Perfection was no longer an aspiration, but the enemy of inspiration.
"I seen where practicing and practicing got me," says Lee. "A lot of musicians you get to playing and they gotta stop, they have to analyze the music. But while you analyzing you losing a lot of the greatness of what you creating. Stop analyzing what you play, just play! And it'll all take shape."
=
"I hope you understood the beginning of the record because this was invented from a dream I had today… (You tell me, I'll tell you, we'll figure it out together)" – Lee Tracy and Isaac Manning, "Hope You Understand"
Lee lets loose a maniacal cackle when he acknowledges that the material that he and Isaac recorded was by anyone's estimation pretty out there. It's the same laugh that commences "Hope You Understand" – a chaotic transmission that encapsulates the duality at the heart of their music: a stated desire to reach people and a compulsion to go as leftfield as they saw fit.
"We just did it," says Lee. "We cut the music on and cut loose. I don't sit around and write. I do it by listening, get a feeling, play the music, and the lyrics and stuff just come out of me."
The approach proved adaptable to interpreting other artists' material. While recording a cover of Whitney Houston's pop ballad "Saving All My Love For You," Lee played Whitney's version in his headphones as he laid down his own vocals – partially following the lyrics, partially using them as a departure point. The end result is barely recognizable compared with the original, Lee and Isaac having switched up the time signature and reinvented the melody along the way towards morphing a slick mainstream radio standard into something that sounds solely their own.
"I really used that song to get me started," says Lee. "Then I said, well I need something else, something is missing. Something just came over me. That's when I came up with 'Is It What You Want.'"
The song would become the centerpiece of Lee and Isaac's repertoire. Pushed along by a percolating metronomic Rhythm King style beat somewhere between a military march and a samba, "Is It What You Want" finds Lee pleading the sincerity of his commitment to a potential love interest embellished by vocal tics and hiccups subtlely reminiscent of his childhood hero MJ. Absent chord changes, only synth riffs gliding in and out like apparitions, the song achieves a lingering lo-fi power that leaves you feeling like it's still playing, somewhere, even after the fade out.
"I don't know, it's like a real spiritual song," Lee reflects. "But it's not just spiritual. To me the more I listen to it it's like about everything that you do in your everyday life, period. Is it what you want? Do you want a car or you don't want a car? Do you want Jesus or do you want the Devil? It's basically asking you the question. Can't nobody answer the question but you yourself."
In 1989 Lee won a lawsuit stemming from injuries sustained from a fight he'd gotten into. He took part of the settlement money and with Isaac pressed up "Saving All My Love For You" b/w "Is It What You Want" as a 45 single. Isaac christened the label One Chance Records. "Because that's all we wanted," he says with a laugh, "one chance."
Isaac sent the record out to radio stations and major labels, hoping for it to make enough noise to get picked up nationally. But the response he and Lee were hoping for never materialized. According to Isaac the closest the single got to getting played on the radio is when a disk jock from a local station made a highly unusual announcement on air: "The dude said on the radio, 107.5 – 'We are not gonna play 'Is It What You Want.' We cracked up! Wow, that's deep.
"It was a whole racist thing that was going on," he reflects. "So we just looked over and kept on going. That was it. That was about the way it goes… If you were Black and you were living in Nashville and stuff, that's the way you got treated." Isaac already knew as much from all the times he'd brought he and Lee's tapes (even their cache of country music tunes) over to Music Row to try to drum up interest to no avail.
"Isaac, he really worked his ass off," says Lee. "He probably been to every record place down on Music Row." Nashville's famed recording and music business corridor wasn't but a few blocks from where Lee grew up. Close enough, he remembers, for him to ride his bike along its back alleys and stumble upon the occasional random treasure, like a discarded box of harmonicas. Getting in through the front door, however, still felt a world away.
"I just don't think at the time our music fell into a category for them," he concedes. "It was before its time."
=
Lee stopped making music some time in the latter part of the '90s, around the time his mom passed away and life became increasingly tough to manage. "When my mother died I had a nervous breakdown," he says, "So I shut down for a long time. I was in such a sadness frame of mind. That's why nobody seen me. I had just disappeared off the map." He fell out of touch with Isaac, and in an indication of just how bad things had gotten for him, lost track of all the recordings they'd made together. Music became a distant memory.
Fortunately, Isaac kept the faith. In a self-published collection of his poetry – paeans to some of his favorite entertainment and public figures entitled Friends and Dick Clark – he'd written that he believed "music has a life of its own." But his prescience and presence of mind were truly manifested in the fact that he kept an archive of he and Lee's work. As perfectly imperfect as "Is It What You Want" now sounds in a post-Personal Space world, Lee and Isaac's lone official release was in fact just a taste. The bulk of the Is It What You Want album is culled from the pair's essentially unheard home recordings – complete songs, half-realized experiments, Isaac's blue monologues and pronouncements et al – compiled, mixed and programmed in the loose and impulsive creative spirit of their regular get-togethers from decades ago. The rest of us, it seems, may have finally caught up to them.
On the prospect of at long last reaching a wider audience, Isaac says simply, "I been trying for a long time, it feels good." Ever the survivor, he adds, "The only way I know how to make it to the top is to keep climbing. If one leg break on the ladder, hey, you gotta fix it and keep on going… That's where I be at. I'll kill death to make it out there."
For Lee it all feels akin to a personal resurrection: "It's like I was in a tomb and the tomb was opened and I'm back… Man, it feels so great. I feel like I'm gonna jump out of my skin." Success at this stage of his life, he realizes, probably means something different than what it did back when he was singing and dancing in Isaac's front yard. "What I really mean by 'making it,'" he explains isn't just the music being heard but, "the story being told."
Occasionally Lee will pull up "Is It What You Want" on YouTube on his phone, put on his headphones, and listen. He remembers the first time he heard his recorded voice. How surreal it was, how he thought to himself, "Is that really me?" What would he say to that younger version of himself now?
"I would probably tell myself, hang in there, don't give up. Keep striving for the goal. And everything will work out."
Despite what's printed on the record label, sometimes you do get more than one chance.
It’s taken a long time for me to feel good about myself,” says Andreya Triana of the journey to her third album. “As a musician, as a woman, it’s difficult getting to that space. It’s really wonderful where you reach that time of having more good days than bad.” That sense of celebration is what drives ‘Life In Colour’, Andreya’s most confident, instinctive and heartfelt work to date; a record that celebrates love, freedom, independence and womanhood. “‘Life In Colour’ is about stepping into my womanhood and being like ‘OK, I know this space. Let me try some s**t. I know it’s going to be hard but I know it’s going to be OK’. I just wanted to put some good energy out there.” The first taster of that sweet release was teased with lead single ‘Woman’ - a soulful pop anthem of self-love, tracking Andreya’s life from awkward teen to mighty queen, from memories of heartache and trauma to triumph. “You know when you’re feeling so uncomfortable in yourself and you just want to be swallowed up into a hole in the ground?,” Andreya recalls of her youth. “This is about moving on from being a victim to a place of strength, to feeling like a superhero. “Anyone who has gone through difficult times like I have, should know that it’s absolutely possible to get to a good place. It doesn’t define who you are or your future. You have to fight like hell every day to move forward but anything is possible. We’re all full of so much goodness. Don’t lose sight of that.” The lyric video is a tribute to Andreya’s mother, grandmother, the strong females of her life and the many sacrifices that women make day-to-day, generation after generation.
The third album 'Life In Colour' by the MOBO nominated British soul/jazz singer Andreya Triana who's collaborated with Bonobo, Flying Lotus been endorsed by the likes of Gilles Peterson & Jamie Cullum.
Pittsburgh, PA-native Buscrates returns to Bastard Jazz with a synth-heavy 7" single, "Internal Dialogue." The two-tracker sees the artist take an easy-going approach to his signature funk-filled sound, with a slowed-down tempo and melodic key riffs. "Internal Dialogue" is a mellow boogie joint that combines plenty of Moog, rich ARP strings, and syncopated clavinet chord stabs; "Early Morning" is reminiscent of a late-90s neo-soul beat, with rich Rhodes chords, while a squelching bass line evokes 70s electro-funk. Both tracks are undeniably Buscrates and are sure to have your head bobbing.
Buscrates - aka Orlando Marshall - is a DJ, producer, and multi-instrumentalist based in Pittsburgh. He draws influences largely from 90s hip hop and early-mid 80s electronic funk, which is evident in the boomy, swinging drums and bubbly Minimoog bass lines heard throughout some of his productions. He works locally and sometimes internationally either behind a pair of turntables spinning 45s or working his trusty Roland SP-404SX sampler and various other little portable gadgets at one of his beat sets. Some of his production credits include Phonte & Eric Roberson, Wiz Khalifa, and the late great Mac Miller.
A deluxe, remastered, 20 year anniversary edition of the Heads’ third album proper, the under-rated gem in their canon that is “Under Sided”.
Originally released in 2002 on the Sweet Nothing label (SNLP/CD 11), Under Sided was recorded in 2001 at WhiteHouse Studios in Weston Super Mare, with Martin Nichols engineering. The band had previously recorded tracks for Mans Ruin 10” at these studios (also famous for Ripcord, Heresy, Slowdive, Hardskin, Decadence Within, Icehouse.. amongst many others!).
For the reissue, the original recordings were remastered for vinyl and CD by long time Heads Masterer (!) Shawn Joseph. The resultant 8 tracks, spread over 4 sides of vinyl are some of the best music the Heads have recorded, after a bit of a hiatus following their 2000 US tour / Peel session (included in the boxset / on the 2CD version here), the band regrouped and worked out the tracks for the album, relentless rehearsing for the recording. Very few shows happened in that 2001-2002 timeframe.. band members were busy, earning a living, getting on with life, but they still had some riffs/songs there.
Upon release in 2002 the album got great reviews in the press, from Kerrang and MOJO to the Sunday Times, all helping the Bristol fourpiece confirm their cult status, which has continued to current times..
The remastered album is being reissued as a 4LP + 2CD boxset. The extra 2LP features their Peel session from 2000, as well as a couple of compilation tracks (For Mad Men Only / Born To Go), and some unreleased demo versions, as well as 2 exclusive to this set CDS that feature nearly 150 minutes of Live recordings (mastered, but RAW!) from their gigs on the Thekla in Bristol and rehearsal room tapes in 2001 and 2002.
The boxset will also have a special slip-mat, stickers, and a 24 page booklet of photos /writings, including recollections by each band member, and others including Stewart Lee.
Under Sided is a pounding sike-nightmare that shows the Heads at the peak of their powers, there’s a flow throughout the album of melding psychedelic noise rock to unrelentin rhythms and creating a bad trip for all listening.. open battering-ram “Dissonaut” is a staple in their live shows to this day… even the gentle sooth of “Energy” is enveloped by a white noise fury.. the intensity of some of the tracks: the terror inducing “Bedminster” or “False Heavy” (a tour worn riffmonger from 2000) or the Magnet-esque “Heavy Sea”, showed the band as ferocious as any of the insurgent “stoner” genre of that time.
They were never going to make their living out of touring, record sales… as Hugo mentions in his notes for the booklet, “.. we had less boundaries and felt we could experiment more and not worry about commerciality…” but they were able to make this album.
A deluxe, remastered, 20 year anniversary edition of the Heads’ third album proper, the under-rated gem in their canon that is “Under Sided”.
Originally released in 2002 on the Sweet Nothing label (SNLP/CD 11), Under Sided was recorded in 2001 at WhiteHouse Studios in Weston Super Mare, with Martin Nichols engineering. The band had previously recorded tracks for Mans Ruin 10” at these studios (also famous for Ripcord, Heresy, Slowdive, Hardskin, Decadence Within, Icehouse.. amongst many others!).
For the reissue, the original recordings were remastered for vinyl and CD by long time Heads Masterer (!) Shawn Joseph. The resultant 8 tracks, spread over 4 sides of vinyl are some of the best music the Heads have recorded, after a bit of a hiatus following their 2000 US tour / Peel session (included in the boxset / on the 2CD version here), the band regrouped and worked out the tracks for the album, relentless rehearsing for the recording. Very few shows happened in that 2001-2002 timeframe.. band members were busy, earning a living, getting on with life, but they still had some riffs/songs there.
Upon release in 2002 the album got great reviews in the press, from Kerrang and MOJO to the Sunday Times, all helping the Bristol fourpiece confirm their cult status, which has continued to current times..
The remastered album is being reissued as a 4LP + 2CD boxset. The extra 2LP features their Peel session from 2000, as well as a couple of compilation tracks (For Mad Men Only / Born To Go), and some unreleased demo versions, as well as 2 exclusive to this set CDS that feature nearly 150 minutes of Live recordings (mastered, but RAW!) from their gigs on the Thekla in Bristol and rehearsal room tapes in 2001 and 2002.
The boxset will also have a special slip-mat, stickers, and a 24 page booklet of photos /writings, including recollections by each band member, and others including Stewart Lee.
Under Sided is a pounding sike-nightmare that shows the Heads at the peak of their powers, there’s a flow throughout the album of melding psychedelic noise rock to unrelentin rhythms and creating a bad trip for all listening.. open battering-ram “Dissonaut” is a staple in their live shows to this day… even the gentle sooth of “Energy” is enveloped by a white noise fury.. the intensity of some of the tracks: the terror inducing “Bedminster” or “False Heavy” (a tour worn riffmonger from 2000) or the Magnet-esque “Heavy Sea”, showed the band as ferocious as any of the insurgent “stoner” genre of that time.
They were never going to make their living out of touring, record sales… as Hugo mentions in his notes for the booklet, “.. we had less boundaries and felt we could experiment more and not worry about commerciality…” but they were able to make this album.
A deluxe, remastered, 20 year anniversary edition of the Heads’ third album proper, the under-rated gem in their canon that is “Under Sided”.
Originally released in 2002 on the Sweet Nothing label (SNLP/CD 11), Under Sided was recorded in 2001 at WhiteHouse Studios in Weston Super Mare, with Martin Nichols engineering. The band had previously recorded tracks for Mans Ruin 10” at these studios (also famous for Ripcord, Heresy, Slowdive, Hardskin, Decadence Within, Icehouse.. amongst many others!).
For the reissue, the original recordings were remastered for vinyl and CD by long time Heads Masterer (!) Shawn Joseph. The resultant 8 tracks, spread over 4 sides of vinyl are some of the best music the Heads have recorded, after a bit of a hiatus following their 2000 US tour / Peel session (included in the boxset / on the 2CD version here), the band regrouped and worked out the tracks for the album, relentless rehearsing for the recording. Very few shows happened in that 2001-2002 timeframe.. band members were busy, earning a living, getting on with life, but they still had some riffs/songs there.
Upon release in 2002 the album got great reviews in the press, from Kerrang and MOJO to the Sunday Times, all helping the Bristol fourpiece confirm their cult status, which has continued to current times..
The remastered album is being reissued as a 4LP + 2CD boxset. The extra 2LP features their Peel session from 2000, as well as a couple of compilation tracks (For Mad Men Only / Born To Go), and some unreleased demo versions, as well as 2 exclusive to this set CDS that feature nearly 150 minutes of Live recordings (mastered, but RAW!) from their gigs on the Thekla in Bristol and rehearsal room tapes in 2001 and 2002.
The boxset will also have a special slip-mat, stickers, and a 24 page booklet of photos /writings, including recollections by each band member, and others including Stewart Lee.
Under Sided is a pounding sike-nightmare that shows the Heads at the peak of their powers, there’s a flow throughout the album of melding psychedelic noise rock to unrelentin rhythms and creating a bad trip for all listening.. open battering-ram “Dissonaut” is a staple in their live shows to this day… even the gentle sooth of “Energy” is enveloped by a white noise fury.. the intensity of some of the tracks: the terror inducing “Bedminster” or “False Heavy” (a tour worn riffmonger from 2000) or the Magnet-esque “Heavy Sea”, showed the band as ferocious as any of the insurgent “stoner” genre of that time.
They were never going to make their living out of touring, record sales… as Hugo mentions in his notes for the booklet, “.. we had less boundaries and felt we could experiment more and not worry about commerciality…” but they were able to make this album.
Black Vinyl[15,76 €]
It has been twenty years since the first Back To Mine release but still the series is going strong. These personal after-hours soundtracks have never sounded more relevant than now, and next up is GRAMMYr Award-nominated, San Francisco-based artist Tycho. It finds him going deeper than one of his famous Burning Man sets as he heads into otherworldly, cinematic headphone territory with tunes from Lancaster, Little Dragon, Octo Octa, Ulrich Schnauss and many more across four fantastic sides of vinyl.
THE NEW STUDIO ALBUM FROM THE JAPANESE LEGENDS - AN OPUS
OF DARK & ECLECTIC BLACKENED HEAVY METAL, SHROUDED IN
TRADITIONAL EASTERN INFLUENCES..
Cult Japanese black metal legends Sigh formed in 1989/90, featuring
mainman Mirai Kawashima, Satoshi Fujinami & Kazuki Ozeki
Following initial demos, Shinichi Ishikawa was brought in & Sigh set about
recording the masterpiece debut 'Scorn Defeat' for Euronymous' Deathlike Silence
Productions, going on to become one of the country's greatest & most revered
metal exports. With a journey through the strange & the psychedelic,
incorporating a whole eclectic mix of genre styles & experimentation throughout
their career, Sigh has remained a vital creative force in the avantgarde field whilst
maintaining their old school roots.
'Shiki' marks the latest chapter in the Sigh legacy & includes some of the band's
heaviest & darkest material for some years; a fine hybrid of at times primitive
black metal akin to early influences such as Celtic Frost amid more epic melodic
heavy metal riffing & solos. The album also utilises a whole host of instruments
to give further texture & dynamics to the compositions & eerie atmosphere,
incorporating traditional oriental instruments such as the Shakuhachi & Sinobue
flutes.
The word "Shiki" itself has various meanings in Japanese such as four seasons,
time to die, conducting an orchestra, ceremony, motivation, colour. The two
primary themes for the album are "four seasons" & "time to die".
The concept & artwork is based around a traditional Japanese poem & on 'Shiki'
Mirai explores how at this stage of life he himself is going through Autumn, with
Winter coming soon & so empathises with the contrasting sentimental feelings
from watching cherry blossoms (a symbol of spring) in full bloom.
Joining Mirai & Dr Mikannibal for this release are Frédéric Leclercq of Kreator,
plus US drummer extraordinaire, Mike Heller of Fear Factory, along with an
appearance by long-time member Satoshi Fujinami on bass. 'Shiki' was recorded
across multiple studios & mixed & mastered by Lasse Lammert at LSD studios in
Germany.
Marked by resilience, maturity, and the optimistic joy of a creative resurgence, Pat Green’s Miles and Miles of You is the work of an icon reclaiming ground only he himself could have ceded. Ten fresh tracks feel like the spiritual exhale of a celebrated troubadour, taking fans on a journey to the other side of turmoil… and to a place where the old ways feel new again.
Credited as one of Texas country’s modern-era founding fathers, Green has traveled many roads in the 25 years since his debut album, Dancehall Dreamer. A Grammy nominated singer-songwriter with a restless creative spirit, his career has gone beyond the bounds of a “country star” to include the work of a painter, sculptor, philanthropist, family man and more. But one constant has remained – his vision.
Green’s 14th album overall, Miles and Miles of You is also his first in nearly seven years – since his inspiration-first writing style means he won’t force a song into existence. But that philosophy also makes it possible for a whole album to arrive in a dam-burst of expression, and Green now calls Miles and Miles of You an “effortless” project.
“It was just so smooth and natural,” he says. “I write the song when it comes, and it was like ‘Man, we’re on a roll.’”
Recorded outside Austin with producer Dwight Baker (Bob Schneider, Josh Abbott Band), more of that story is revealed with each track, as Green and his band mirrored the loose vibe of the songwriting with country balladry, dancehall energy, soul-baring reflection and at times, a swampy blues strut. “The older you get, you just have more to think about,” he says. “So that’s
what this record is – a guy with more to think about, coming through a hard time and into something as fun and beautiful as creation. I’m just gonna take the ball and run with it.”
"They push everything right to the brink and then pull back at precisely the right moment" - Pitchfork
"'Growing Up Pains (Unni's Song) gives a tantalising glimpse of where their future could lie. Matching lucid pop elements to daring innovation, ALASKALASKA allow the song to become a portal to their own potential." - Clash
"It’s impossible to walk away without the repeated promise 'I won’t let you down' in 'Growing Up Pains' stuck in your head – and it’s a mantra we should all be following as we as a species continue to fight for our future." - Beats Per Minute
ALASKALASKA announce their superb new album, Still Life, arriving October 14th on Marathon Artists (Lava La Rue, Courtney Barnett, Pond).
'Still Life' finds writers and producers Lucinda Duarte-Holman and Fraser Rieley embrace a more free-form electronica, giving a taste of what's to come with this fantastic new record produced by Jas Shaw (of Simian Mobile Disco)–full of digital sounds, drum machine and synth melodies cunningly sat beside rich, organic, acoustic instrumentation, it's a looping tug of war between existential dread and everyday simple pleasures.
Listen to / watch the video for 'Still Life' (shot by Jacek Zmarz) here: https://youtu.be/TL7s6QJ3ANc
Four seasons of dawn chorus, panoramically framed by fruit trees and more analog synths than can comfortably fit in a cow shed-come-recording studio...the scene is set for the recording of ALASKALASKA’s second album Still Life. Ordinarily located in South East London, writers and producers Fraser Rieley and Lucinda Duarte-Holman were eager to get out of the city. Taking advantage of this rustic countryside scene, they were able to capture something uniquely their own.
Following their debut album in 2019, they resurface into a new era embracing all the things that first put the band on the map, attracting the likes of Tame Impala, Hot Chip, Porches and Nilüfer Yanya for tour support slots. For Rieley and Duarte-Holman, writing began in 2019, pre-lockdown-era, although the subsequent alone together/together alone time added a new spin on ALASKALASKA's process of experimentation and fine-tuning. The band now push their foundational ideas further and explore the freedom of playing with new sounds. Duarte-Holman explains, “...with everything going on at the time, the restrictions led us to try working in a new way. The limitations were different, but meant we were able to adventure into a more electronic soundscape that we're really looking forward to expressing live."
The ‘Still Life’ LP has been pressed on recycled black vinyl to reduce the carbon intensity of the finished product.
