Released only eight months after his exhilarating debut, Bruce Springsteen's The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle contains rousing dispatches from the boardwalk, the street, the beach, and the bedroom. It explodes with energy, dares to dream, teases with humour, crackles with tragedy, clings to hope, and overflows with discovery, youthfulness, and personality. It features an unforgettable cast of characters — corner boys, teenage hustlers, doomed lovers, jazz men, junk men, factory girls, fortune tellers, alley cats, pimps, escorts, and more — illuminated by vivid colour, breathtaking detail, and poetic action.
Musically, the heartfelt 1973 record is inhabited by sympathetic vignettes and cinematic arrangements steeped in rock 'n' roll, soul, jazz, and R&B. It finds the New Jersey native looking beyond the parameters of his preceding record and seeking to move on from environments he knows well (and chronicles here) by rushing headlong toward unknown territories, adventures, and people. Underpinned by the singer-guitarist's ambitious poetic enterprise and will to succeed, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle is the album on which Springsteen becomes the Boss.
Mastered on Mobile Fidelity's renowned mastering system, pressed at RTI on MoFi SuperVinyl, and strictly limited to 7,500 numbered copies, Mobile Fidelity's UltraDisc One-Step 180g 33RPM LP set is the definitive-sounding version of Springsteen's sophomore record. Benefitting from SuperVinyl’s nearly non-existent noise floor, superb groove definition, and dead-quiet surfaces, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle plays with a clarity, energy, presence, and openness that complement the expressiveness, dynamics, and scope of the seven restless songs that comprise a work Rolling Stone ranked the 345th Greatest Album of All Time.
Beyond the audiophile sonics that practically place you behind the console at 914 Sound Studios — listen to the separation between the instruments, natural decay of the notes, interplay within the widescreen soundstaging, and nothing-to-lose youthfulness of Springsteen’s voice — this reissue takes seriously this record’s influential merit by presenting it in packaging that underlines its status. Tucked in a beautiful slipcase, the LP is housed in a special foil-stamped jacket with faithful-to-the-original graphics. This reissue is made for listeners who prize sound quality and who want to engage themselves in everything involved with the invigorating set that busted Springsteen loose from the club circuit and landed him on the radio
Determined to liberate anyone within earshot and unafraid to come on strong, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle serves as the debut of the E Street Band — not only heard but seen for the first time by most of the public courtesy of the back-cover photograph. This is where saxophonist Clarence Clemons, organist-accordionist Danny Federici, and pianist David Sancious step out of the shadows — and drummer Vini Lopez and bassist Garry Tallent again stoke a fiery rhythmic engine that helps drive the untamed, reimagined big-band swing of “Kitty’s Back,” breathless R&B thrust of “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” and carefree dance steps of the funky “The E Street Shuffle.”
Of course, the main attraction remains a then-24-year-old visionary on the precipice of becoming a sensation and turning a then-bloated rock scene on its head. Recorded over three months while Springsteen and company were busy touring his debut LP, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle reflects the high-octane approach the vocalist embraced onstage and drifts away from the label-dictated acoustic-based frameworks of his debut. The set also witnesses Springsteen deepening his observational skills, with narratives such as the romantically tinged “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” and redemptive epic “Incident on 57th Street” mirroring changes taking place in the singer’s own life, small towns, and America at large.
A thrilling collision of memories, reflections, and composites — Sandy, Rosalita, and the latter’s parents are all based on actual people Springsteen knew, as is the community depicted in the opening track — the aptly titled The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle resonates decades on due to its truths, authenticity, and spirit. Those characteristics — as well as the fact that many of its lengthy songs come on as the equivalent of sweaty, feverish soul revue that won’t stop until you’ve been exhausted — also explain how this now-iconic album triumphed over the reservations of industry “experts” that both demanded Springsteen re-record it and instructed deejays not to play it.
Yet there’d be no stopping a record that saw the past, present, and future, a band whose will would not be denied, and a phenomenon who was born to run. A never-ending invitation to act real cool and stay up all night, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle always feels alright.
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After a hiatus of five years, The Pearlfishers, Glasgow"s finest, return with their ninth album for Marina - most probably their best and most immediate one so far. Driven by main man David Scott"s exceptional songwriting and sophisticated arrangements, Making Tapes For Girls is a goldmine of pop gems - full of witty & colourful lyrics about the affirmative & healing power of music and pop escapism. The title track evokes memories of those days of compiling a C-30/60/90 for your loved one or secretly adored one: "I didn"t know how to say the right thing / So I left it to Joni and Paul...". Those mix tapes that came straight from your heart & soul - "the nub of it, the truth of it, the "you" of it." It is another Pearlfishers classic in the vein of My Dad The Weatherfan and Even On A Sunday Afternoon and also David Scott"s nod to Terry Hall"s The Colour Field.
After a hiatus of five years, The Pearlfishers, Glasgow"s finest, return with their ninth album for Marina - most probably their best and most immediate one so far. Driven by main man David Scott"s exceptional songwriting and sophisticated arrangements, Making Tapes For Girls is a goldmine of pop gems - full of witty & colourful lyrics about the affirmative & healing power of music and pop escapism. The title track evokes memories of those days of compiling a C-30/60/90 for your loved one or secretly adored one: "I didn"t know how to say the right thing / So I left it to Joni and Paul...". Those mix tapes that came straight from your heart & soul - "the nub of it, the truth of it, the "you" of it." It is another Pearlfishers classic in the vein of My Dad The Weatherfan and Even On A Sunday Afternoon and also David Scott"s nod to Terry Hall"s The Colour Field.
Remedy, a dynamic and cutting-edge melodic rock metal band originating from the heart of Stockholm, Sweden, burst onto the music scene in 2022 with an unmistakable presence. Their debut album ‘Something That Your Eyes Won't See' charted in Sweden and had a massive impact, including truly incredible positive feedback from the Rock and Metal World. Now it's the time for the second album ‘Pleasure Beats the Pain', co- produced with the Swedish S-Rock Music Production, a huge sound journey between catchy melodies, powerful riffs, huge sound and mesmerising guitar solos. With these new songs, the band presents a sound even more personal, pushing boundaries even further. Drawing from the lively sounds of the 80s, but adding a modern twist, Remedy captivates listeners with their contagious energy.
Their magic is driven by energetic guitars, powerful vocals, and catchy hooks across Rock, Pop, and Metal genres, blending retro vibes with fresh innovation seamlessly. In line with the production of Remedy's debut album, ‘Pleasure Beats the Pain' is mixed and mastered by Erik Martensson (Eclipse) at Mass Destruction Production. “Fuelled by the success of our debut album, stepping back into the studio felt like the most natural progression for us. With 'Pleasure Beats the Pain,' we reached a defining moment in Remedy's journey, solidifying our sound. With a balance of light and dark, day and night, pleasure and pain, love and hate, our music mirrors life's complexities, melding melodic rock & metal into a harmonious blend. Through this, combined with a distinctive approach to instrumentality and songwriting, Remedy emerges”, Rolli concludes.
Repress!
THE M.V.P.'s burst into life on the Northern Soul scene back in 1975 courtesy of Blackpool Mecca DJ Ian Levine and has long since divided opinion. Is it pop, is it soul, are they black, are they white, etc etc. Well, it's a rock record from 1971 and has nothing to do with soul... but everything to do with Northern Soul! It packed the floor at the Highland Room and was adopted as a Wigan Casino anthem and immortalized by Tony Palmer in his 1977 Granada TV documentary This England. It was reissued by UK Buddah, due to popular demand, driven in no small part by the TV show and its 20 million viewers. Now, some 40 years on, we present the iconic track, both stereo and mono mixes, as mastered at the time by Bell Sound's senior engineer Joe Breschie.
SALES POINTS:
All time Northern Soul Classics - Two fabulous sides
Massive appeal to ALL Northern Soul fans
As featured in the film Northern Soul
- A1: Fink - Covering Your Tracks
- A2: Alfa Mist - Mulago
- A3: Charlotte Day Wilson - Mountains
- A4: Moreton - Count A Heart (Feat Jordan Rakei)
- B1: Puma Blue - Untitled 2
- B2: Connan Mockasin - Momo's
- B3: C Duncan - He Came From The Sun
- B4: Oso Leone - Virtual U
- B5: Joe Armon-Jones - Idiom (Feat Oscar Jerome)
- C1: Snowpoet - Eviternity
- C2: Maro - Forever & Always
- C3: Homay Schmitz - Speak Up
- C4: Bill Laurance - Singularity
- D1: Jordan Rakei - Lover, You Should've Come Over (Exclusive Jeff Buckley Cover Version)
- D2: Cubicolor - Counterpart
- D3: Jordan Rakei - Imagination (Exclusive Original Piece)
- D4: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu - Imagination (Exclusive Spoken Word Piece)
Original[27,69 €]
“I wanted to try and showcase as many people as I knew on this mix. My idea of Late Night Tales was to distil a series of relaxing moments; the whole conceptual sonic of relax- ation. So, I was trying to think of all the collaborators and friends that I knew, who’d recorded stuff with this horizontal vibe. Plus, I was also trying to help my friends' stuff get into the world. I know the story of Khruangbin blowing up after appearing on the series (in fact, I think that's how I discovered them). So, the main idea was to create a certain atmosphere, but also to help some of my favourite collaborators and bud- dies to give their songs a little push out into the world. Hope you like it” Jordan Rakei
Due for release on 9th April, Late Night Tales celebrate their 20th anniversary with the release of multi-instru- mentalist, vocalist and producer Jordan Rakei’s majestic compilation. The 28-year-old modern soul icon effortlessly stamps his own jazz and hip-hop driven sound all over this gorgeous array of handpicked tracks. A beautifully layered blend that is mirrored in the music he’s made, itcomes as no surprise that such a supremely gifted songwriter should deliver a mix that is all about the song.
Rakei, born in New Zealand, but raised in Australia, moved to the UK in 2015; he released his debut album, Cloak, with Oz label Soul Has No Tempo, but his two subsequentLPs, Wallflower and Origin, came out on Ninja Tune, the former#2 in Album Of The Year for Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide poll, while Origin was nominated for Best Album at the AIM Awards. Jordan had this to say on his upcoming mix:
As Jordan says,there’s so much more to the song selection on Late Night Tales’latest outing than a random collection of artists. Many have some sort of personal connection, so just as Bonobo provided a platform for the breakout of Khruangbin on a previous LNT, this may have the same ef- fect for Rakei’s friends. After a soothing opener from Fink, good friend and big influence Alfa Mist (part of the Are We Live collective) delivers ‘Mulago.’ “I want to champion their sound and show the world how good he is, and I thought it’d be fitting to start the mix with family,” says Jordan.
Next up is Charlotte Day Wilson with ‘Mountains,’ followed by ‘Count A Heart’ from Moreton, an exclusive collab- oration with Jordan, who grew up on the same street in Brisbane, Australia. “She was the first artist I ever collabo- rated with, and one of the first artists to be involved in mycareer,” he explains. Elsewhere we hear Scottish producer and multi-instrumentalist C Duncan’s haunting ‘He Came from the Sun,’ Barcelona collective Oso Leone deliver a dreamy ‘Virtual U’ and Bill Lauren’s ‘Singularity,’ which evokes a striking sense of time and place.
Snowpoet’s ethereal ‘Evitenity’ is a “long mediative nar- rative over a beautiful soundscape,” which at times seems chaotic, nicely juxtaposed with undeniable beauty, and Maro’s kooky songwriting shines on ‘Always And Forever.’ Long-time buddy Armon-Jones contributes ‘Idiom,’ and Jordan’s exclusive cover version is a two-for-one, Radio- head’s ‘Codex’ merging with ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Home’ by Jeff Buckley and another exclusive,original com- position by Jordan, ‘Imagination.’ The latter works as a piece with the spoken (Spanish) word voiced by movie director Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel, Birdman, and The Reve- nant,) who is a big fan of Jordan’s. “He messaged me when I went to L.A and asked to come to my show. I was in such shock and we hung out after. I thought it would be nice to get him to do this in his native tongue, because I don’t think that’s been done yet on the series.” It certainly is a familyaffair. Not theblood is thicker than water kind, but certainly musical kindred spirits.
Following on from his atomic single release, Phonk On The Dancefloor, Sofia’s Raredub now presents his highly anticipated full EP via Mutual Pleasure Records. Rare, Raw and Ready is a high-voltage introduction to the Bulgarian bass baron, a title that is fully justified with this latest venture of sound.
Raredub wastes no time in setting the pace for this project, as we’re thrown straight into the searing furnace with opening track BAMBA. Having been road-tested by the likes of KETTAMA, KiNK, Skin On Skin and Raredub himself, BAMBA, with its infectious vocals, gut-hurdling bassline and devious rave-stab melodies, is a carefully constructed weapon of sound, with proven devastating results.
We’re then brought to Juicy Fruit, which sees both Raredub and Mutual Pleasure’s head-honcho Partiboi69 lock palms to create a deeply sensual, highly contagious dance-floor anthem that sees the producer masterfully blend hissing hi-hats and a series of infectious rising chord patterns and melodies which, when combined, are certainly set to cause nothing but dance-floor destruction.
Since being played as the opening track to Partibo69 and DJ Heartstring’s stingzone set, L.L.L is a track which, with its mind-warping bassline,euphoria ladened vocals and pad-work, has enjoyed a growing sense of anticipation from listeners, eager for its arrival.
Snappy Chulo sees Raredub again use a series of piercing rave-stabs to drive his sound, which is partnered with a plethora of electronic experimentation and instrumentation, before the seismic bassline of Break Of Dawn see Raredub bring the walls and ceiling crumbling down; presenting a suitably fitting finale to this atomic attack on the senses.
Rare, Raw and Ready brings Raredub’s prowess for production to the fore, as the Bulgarian producer conducts wild electronic experiments, bending genres and sound into form, to create a versatile, highly contagious and highly atomic serving of sound.
Step into a time machine and groove back to the electrifying era of the mid-80s, where undiscovered US tracks found their sonic sanctuary on Morgan Kahn’s groundbreaking Street Wave record label. The reverberations of this musical revolution rippled from the gritty streets of NYC, transcending borders to captivate the entire globe. Picture it: 808s pulsating, synthesisers painting the airwaves with vibrant hues of rhythm and nostalgia. In the heyday of the eighties, rap wasn’t just a genre – it was a movement, a cultural force with a message that resonated through the beats and break moves. The lyrical poets of the time wove tales of real-life struggles and triumphs, creating a tapestry of sound that still echoes with relevance today.
Fast forward to the present, and the spirit of the 80s lives on in a classic track that encapsulates the magic of that unforgettable era. The torchbearers of timeless tunes, High Fashion Music, recognised the gem that was waiting to be polished. Enter Ben Liebrand, a musical maestro tasked with breathing new life into this iconic piece. Liebrand, has conjured three versions of this classic anthem. First up, the Nu-Disco funk-boogie rub, a groove so infectious it’ll have you hitting the dance floor in a heartbeat. Then, there’s the percussive-led Funk Mix – a rhythm-driven journey that takes the original to new heights. And for the pièce de résistance, the outrageously good nu vintage Electro Mix, a sonic masterpiece that bridges the gap between the past and the present with unmatched finesse.
Join us on this sonic voyage, fast forward into the future, as we celebrate the resurgence of an 80s cult classic, transformed by the wizardry of Ben Liebrand.
London-based four-piece Adult Jazz announce their first full-length album in a decade, So Sorry So Slow, out 26 April 2024 via Spare Thought. Alongside the announcement comes lovesick new single ‘Suffer One’ featuring Owen Pallett, a cautious excavation of self and sexuality, clambering across a gorgeously shapeshifting, filmic five-minutes.
Containing some of the band’s most abrasive but gentle, beautiful and melismatic work to date, So Sorry So Slow has many defining characteristics: romance, panic, devotion and remorse, threaded together by an intentionally laser-focused love. It’s deeply personal, bruised and candid in its expressions of tenderness, and deeply pained in its concurrent reflections of ecological regret. Across its hour-long runtime, a delicate, frenetic energy and glacial heaviness coexist, the band pitting those paces against one another. In their richly experimental timbre, dancing strings and fluttering falsettos prang against a bed of brass drones like a wounded bird.
“We started writing in 2017 and began recording in 2018,” says vocalist Harry Burgess. “We genuinely thought it might be finished in 2018! But things kept developing and, having resolutely not struck while the iron was hot, there was no real external push to rush things after that, so we just kept letting things shift and unfold until it felt right. Listening back to my voice notes it’s nice to notice that there are fragments of ideas from the whole period 2017-2023 which have shaped the record.”
Recorded in bursts at studios across London and in the band members’ flats, at Konk, on the Isle of Wight and in Sussex, So Sorry is unambiguous in its evolution. Sonically, there are sparks of the arrhythmic brightness that afforded the band’s critically acclaimed debut album Gist Is its cult adoration, for fans of Arthur Russell and Meredith Monk, but with a blossoming, melancholic darkness often overhead. Piano sprees and luscious string sections appear like low-hanging stars on a night-time drive, whilst plunging vocal distortions and humming brass loops resurrect heavy limbs in a bad dream.
“I usually have objects as kind of totems for ideas,” explains Burgess. “The album initially started out to do with performance… the totem was a head mic, one of the subtle skin-tone ones, discreet on the forehead of a West End star. A number of the first songs in their original forms were almost musical theatre piano ballads. I think that was really a device to write about my life as the ‘main character’ (pre internet-speak reframing): regrets about romance, relationships - unsustainable relationships with the self and others.”
“However, once we started writing, the ideas about unsustainable personal relationships, loving unevenly and heartbreak conflated with a more expressly ecological regret. Like contending with big feelings of loss, endings, beauty, desolation, and with how much joy the earth contains in it. Feeling so much gratitude bound up in waves of sadness. Maybe witnessing a slow-motion goodbye to all that, or its last gasps. I love the earth and the life it supports so much. I love how ecosystems fit together - even the brutal stuff. It may be basic to say, but now is the time to be laser focused on that love. I was thinking about human centrality on earth, us as the ‘main character’, the way that is served by faith and romanticism, and the subsequent disingenuous understandings of our position in the ecosystem, as only stewards somehow, rather than subjects. The totems at this point: a herald’s horn, lorry inner tubes, archaeological tools. I guess from doom, industry, history respectively.”
“Now I would say the record is about gripping. Totems being: crampons, rope, drips, desalination equipment, accruing various survival tech. I think gripping sums up both of the threads. There’s the emotionally correct clinging to the earth that is the substrate of everything we value, or the delusional clinging to our imagined dominant position. But also the practical, technological aspects of creating a sustainable relationship, of remaining here. Then I think of romance again.”
So Sorry So Slow comes out 26th April 2024 on Spare Thought, mixed by Fabian Prynn at 4AD Studios and mastered by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road.
Adult Jazz is Harry Burgess, Tim Slater, Steven Wells and Tom Howe.
Entering the world of MOOON is like entering a time machine. The young Brabant power trio, consisting of brothers Tom and Gijs de Jong and their cousin Timo van Lierop, takes the listener to the Golden Age of pop music: the heyday of psychedelia in the 60s and 70s.
Following up their recently released LP "III", here comes a brand-new 7" by MOOON. Featuring a mono-version of "Hurtin' My Heart", taken from their latest album "III" and on the B-side an unreleased song from the same session; "How I Learned (To Say Goodbye)".
"Hurtin' My Heart" is a fuzz & Farfisa driven tune, that everybody on the dancefloor will dig. "How I Learned (To Say Goodbye)" is a jangly 3 part harmony pop song but with a high energy twist!
This is a 7" that both sounds and looks 60's-stylish (with flap outer sleeve) and every DJ will need in their box!
Jackpot Records is proud to reissue what many call arguably the greatest album of the punk rock era: The Flesh Eaters’ 1981 punk-noir masterpiece, ‘ A Minute To Pray A Second To Die. Once referred to as an all-star roots/voodoo combo, The Flesh Eaters could only have crawled out of the myst of the late L.A. 70s punk scene. Fronted by punk poet/composer Chris D. (Desjardins), the band was a satellite for exquisite collaborators that allowed him to bring the full force of his dark, messed-up lyrical nightmares. Members of X, Wall Of Voodoo, Los Lobos, The Blasters, and The Plugz all hopped into his unmarked car to take a drive with Chris D. Its grabbed-by-the-throat vocals are powerfully buoyed by the tight melodicism emanating from the players on this record (John Doe andDJ Bonebrake from X, Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, Dave Alvin & Bill Bateman of The Blasters). Hell, we even get the perfectly executed John Doe original, “Cyrano de Berger’s Back,” which was re-recorded by X in 1987. The creators of this record made a pulp novel for your ears with an equal chance to scar your heart. Do not miss out this is punk noir at its greatest.
Berlin based live performer Sarah Sommers' debut Album recorded live. HeartCore is 74 minutes of dance music driven by Sarah’s deep love of electronic dance music from different eras and genres including dub, techno, house, dubstep, drum n bass and breakbeat. The album spans 9 Tracks taken from Sarah’s live sets over the last two years from performances predominantly in Berlin clubs.
Wolfgang Tillmans’ latest album, Build from Here, is driven by a desire to explore and to expose. It navigates joy and heartbreak amid ruin and rebuilding, embodying hopeful defiance in uncertain futures. The songs vary in style, from propulsive and catchy to contemplative, featuring lush instrumentals transitioning into danceable beats. Tillmans’ voice, whether growling and confrontational or tender and stripped down, maintains its prominence throughout, serving as the album's core.
Smalltown Supersound’s Le Jazz Non Series returns with a collection of pure, emotional club bangers, on a tip somewhere between Aphex Twin’s first Analogue Bubblebath and Drexciya’s most direct The Other People Place romancers.
’Slay Tracks’ is Bratten’s 6th album and perhaps the closest to Smalltown’s heart, personally selected from his swelling hard drive by label bossman Joakim Haugland. You can see the tip he’s on too, opting for a sort of refracted view of ‘90s electronics, propulsive but always emotionally driven.
‘Res’ hits most closely to classic Richard D James with its doe-eyed, single note bassline, while screwed acid vignette ‘Tunnel’, reminds us of Sockethead and Michael J. Blood with its slow, square bass grind. ‘Repair’ gives it all gossebump-inducing melodies in a mode not far from classic Titonton Duvanté or even The Black Dog’s earliest, many-monikered excursions, while ‘A Fog’ craftily dices with a vibe redolent of Phoenicia or the Miami lot, and the closing couplet of ‘The Returner’ and ’Strayed’ smartly extend that analogue on a low- down, offbeat bent like some classic Push Button Objects.
Irresistible Brazilian blues reggae from the heart of the Amazon rainforest. A psychedelic guarana induced trip and ode to the fading indigenous cultures and shifting hegemony in Brazil. This one-off release by Manaus native Natacha Fink was originally written in 1986 as the lead track on NOSSA MUSICA - a compilation celebrating regional music from the Amazon. Emerging out of the dictatorship, Natacha and her fellow artists rejected the aesthetic standards driven by internal colonialism and sought out new ways to express themselves away from the styles of the dominant Rio-São Paulo axis. What surfaced was a melodic blend of genres, with Natacha’s haunting vocals and playful lyrics gliding over an arrangement of guitars and double bass. Vocal backing is led by Torrinho, well known for his layered composition style, whose song ‘Porto de Lenha’ is recognised throughout Amazonas as an unofficial anthem. Hidden within the Amazon, Pirarublue lies in that wonderful space between innocence and honesty. Proudly exploring cultural and ecological spaces through a refreshing, ghostly infectious groove. For fans of Gal Costa, Elis Regina, Chico César, Jorge Ben Jor and Joni Mitchell.
Accompanying Natacha’s beguiling single is the field recording “Unseen Songlines” by artist and academic Nimalan Yoganathan. The composition immerses the listener in the soundscapes of Mamori Lake, a remote village inside the Brazilian Amazon. Nimalan explores the ambiguous perception of sounds emanating from the dense rainforest and deep beneath the Amazon River, where we hear the sounds but cannot see their sources: an acousmatic concert performed by the rainforest itself. Processed field recordings of birds and frogs, as well as underwater hydrophone recordings of dolphins and fish subtly weave throughout electroacoustic textures and beats. The listener is invited to hone in on the musical subtleties hidden throughout the environment. The compositional methods employed in this piece draw on the concepts of sonic rupture, presence, absence and memory found in the dub music tradition.
This limited edition 7” by Sticky Buttons puts these two outlying works together for a unique listening experience, combining the human and more-than-human experience of life at the heart of Brazil. Both uniquely Amazonian but with a universal appeal.
sentiment is a meditation of the poignant emotional terrains of loneliness, nostalgia, sentimentality, guilt, and sex. The album"s narrative arc is guided by delicate musical gestures and artistic vulnerability, audaciously synthesizing disparate and unexpected influences. claire rousay is a singular artist, known for challenging conventions in experimental and ambient music forms. rousay masterfully incorporates textural found sounds, sumptuous drones and candid field recordings into music that celebrates the beauty in life"s banalities. Her music is curatorial and granular in detail, deftly shaped into emotionally affecting pieces. rousay"s vocals and guitar take center stage on sentiment. Her intimate, diaristic lyrics contrast with her mechanical-inflected vocal effects, emphasizing a powerful desire for connection, a deep yearning and a lingering sense of separation. The spare guitar playing and laconic tempo both drive the songs and exude a sense of resignation. Her delicate mastery of nuance draws on her explorative musical past that she, with sincerity and admiration, seamlessly interweaves into her adventurous textures and distinctive compositions. "I want to belong to the worlds and communities I look up to. Same as someone using a Fender guitar or dressing like Kurt Cobain. Emulate your heroes," says rousay. The album balances the poetic soul of her influences with a documentarian heart, rousay capturing moments of her life while living alone in houses across the country, learning to play guitar, and reconnecting with pop music. Her innate ability to conjure pure feeling from sound derives from her delightful embrace of pop forms, the vulnerability found in field recordings, minimalistic arrangements and innovative sound choices. sentiment is blissfully, achingly melancholic, and an undeniably sensual listening experience.
"From the garage, through the city‘s air, straight into those hearts drumming with want for drink and noise. Monomers clink fuzzy garage drive, the sexiness of well-oiled blues tunes and the longing of contemporary indie easily together and it only takes the spark of a real crooner to send the rocket into the veld. Which is exactly the plan and it works. Monomers rush through the fjords of noise while sucking in lots of flowers on their wild ride towards enthralling hooks. Stagnation is death which is why Monomers refuse to use any breaks. The sun is setting, so catch the train and enjoy the ride."
"Elusive by Monomers" includes the following tracks: "Strangers", "Fill In The Blanks", "Empty The Past", "Pity" and more.
sentiment is a meditation of the poignant emotional terrains of loneliness, nostalgia, sentimentality, guilt, and sex. The album"s narrative arc is guided by delicate musical gestures and artistic vulnerability, audaciously synthesizing disparate and unexpected influences. claire rousay is a singular artist, known for challenging conventions in experimental and ambient music forms. rousay masterfully incorporates textural found sounds, sumptuous drones and candid field recordings into music that celebrates the beauty in life"s banalities. Her music is curatorial and granular in detail, deftly shaped into emotionally affecting pieces. rousay"s vocals and guitar take center stage on sentiment. Her intimate, diaristic lyrics contrast with her mechanical-inflected vocal effects, emphasizing a powerful desire for connection, a deep yearning and a lingering sense of separation. The spare guitar playing and laconic tempo both drive the songs and exude a sense of resignation. Her delicate mastery of nuance draws on her explorative musical past that she, with sincerity and admiration, seamlessly interweaves into her adventurous textures and distinctive compositions. "I want to belong to the worlds and communities I look up to. Same as someone using a Fender guitar or dressing like Kurt Cobain. Emulate your heroes," says rousay. The album balances the poetic soul of her influences with a documentarian heart, rousay capturing moments of her life while living alone in houses across the country, learning to play guitar, and reconnecting with pop music. Her innate ability to conjure pure feeling from sound derives from her delightful embrace of pop forms, the vulnerability found in field recordings, minimalistic arrangements and innovative sound choices. sentiment is blissfully, achingly melancholic, and an undeniably sensual listening experience.
Khôra is the medium Matthew Ramolo uses to delve deeply into initiatory world-building by way of sound, image, and lyrical prose. Figuring wholly realized art-myths which distill and rouse the numinous while provoking the visceral and cathartic, Khôra intricately collages studio documents of ritualized instrumental performances, introducing overdubs by transient, heteronymic personae which dismantle stable points of reference in the music and open uncommon planes of consciousness.
"Gestures of Perception" is Khôra’s first double album with a supporting artbook and features a fascinating array of sources subjected to patterned assembly, poetic layering, and the elevations of the heart. Deft handling of modular synthesis is palpably central, while feedback, erhu, keys, flute, contact electronics, guitar, field sounds, and various percussion objects (rattle and frame drums, seed pod sticks, random metal objects, meditation bowls, kalimbas, bells) all serve to provide breathing structures and energetic contours that guide and scaffold inner and outer journeys into the far-near. Prominent across the record's span is a home-built, solenoid drum machine, responsible for the alive and askew techno-archaic flows and conceived as the album’s "rhythm seed”. The music on Gestures is teeming with organic and alien textures, soaring drones, inter-dimensional noises, and emotionally resonant melodies; balanced on the fringes of exotica and meditative trance, with capacities that untether the listener from the ballast of limited reality.
Operating hermetically in the penumbra of Toronto's cultural scene for well over a decade, Khôra has been invested in self-publishing handcrafted editions of spiritually driven recordings which led to the LP/CD reissue of inaugural album "Silent Your Body Is Endless" by Constellation. Khôra has toured extensively in North America and Europe both solo and in collaboration with Picastro, Nick Kuepfer (Hrsta,1/4 Tonne), and Brandon Valdivia (Mas Aya, Lido Pimienta), generated over a hundred hours of unreleased, bewildering drone through durational performance with experimental outfit Nidus (Marc Couroux, Jason Doell), composed for live dance and independent film, been commissioned by MaerzMusik, and seeded and co-run the now defunct music and art venue Ratio in Toronto.
Empires rise and fall every day in the human heart, and riding these cycles--stories with no beginning or end, only transformation--churns us through the reckless, ridiculous, rueful, redemptive. A founding member of Lake Street Dive and writer of some of their most enduring songs, Iowa-born and Brooklyn-based Bridget Kearney is known for writing smart, unexpected lyrics and melodies built for a heart-baring dance or an introspective drive. Kearney writes music as if filtered through a camera lens. Her stories, steeped in nostalgia and joy, construct a bittersweet framework around the memories that make us human, and shape who we are. As the absurdity of life abounds, Kearney can hold these fragile snapshots and rolling reruns with evident notes of levity, and compassion for a past self. On her new album Comeback Kid, produced by Dan Molad (Lucius, Buck Meek), there are reminders to cherish the moments that make up the collage of what we see in the mirror, but to also plant our feet firmly in the present, for those are the times that will come to form the future. The tracks hop through time, from the relentless, obsessive romanticization of the past, to unrestrained lust for a different future, all inherit the spirit of resilience needed for any move forward, whether it's to dive back in, walk away, or wrestle with the memory itself. In moments, our Comeback Kid wishes to encase a night in amber to revive it at will, like the old man in Jurassic Park, but ultimately is hip to the bittersweet truth that it will never be the same when you return. Kearney began making Comeback Kid back in 2021, in between her work with Lake Street Dive, and a new position as a songwriting teacher at Princeton University. During the process of Comeback Kid, Kearney took inspiration from her Princeton students, as well as her peers when she embarked on a song-a-day workshop. As she found herself surrounded by the thoughts and processes of others, she was able to pinpoint what it is about songwriting that she truly cherishes: namely, the textures and flourishes that come to form the mood of each creation. Comeback Kid is soaked in vintage synths, Kearney's soughing vocals and delicate-yet-driving percussion that ushers in a bright and serene tenor. "If you're driving, baby I wanna go," she soothes on opener "If You're Driving," welcoming us to the LP with windows down, eyes closed, air rushing through our fingers. It's a celebration of staying in the moment, of saying "yes," even though you know it won't last forever. With references to real psychological games, like Rorschach tests and the phenomenon of Ironic Process Theory, they help build the theme of the mind bending nature of obsession, memory, and perspective. Just like the acrobatic brain games we play in relationships, Kearney plays with language and references, with multiple meanings of "comebacks and coming back," and nods that run the gamut from Samuel Barber's mid-20th century masterpiece Adagio for Strings to Jerry Seinfeld's late-20th century masterpiece Seinfeld. The single "Security Camera" captures the carefree liminal space of reminiscence, as Kearney collects those significant, special moments of a past love. There is no animosity or even sorrow here but rather a warm, propulsive rush of gratitude and awe. "You have these really wonderful, blissful times in your life that are fleeting," she explains. "It's an attempt to keep loving the moments in your past, to carry them with you." These moments are carried with care throughout Comeback Kid, but with an eye on the farcicality of simply existing. Kearney is both sincere and silly, somber yet spirited, expertly gathering the iridescent spectrum of what it means to be alive.




















