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In 2005, an 18-year-old Raphael Gimenes left the sunny shores of Brazil behind, embarking on a journey to a distant and wintry land. "Dinamarca," the Portuguese name for Denmark, became his new home, where he has lived for almost two decades. Today, he presents his third album, a deep exploration of his life in Scandinavia. Rather than being a nationalistic tribute, "DINAMARCA" tells chapters from Gimenes" life story as a Brazilian living in the northern corners of the world. It guides us through the enchanting nordic woods, the vast fields stretching to the horizon, and the timeless sea resting beneath an endless sky. The melodies of blackbirds, the dances of red deer, and the whispers of ancient oaks form the backdrop for his musical stories. Within his songs, we experience moments of deep solitude and boundless inspiration, moments where reflection and creative passion intertwine. Gimenes skillfully turns the power of love into harmonies, dedicating songs to both his companion and his closest friends. Beyond these experiences, he leads us on journeys to Denmark"s neighboring lands, Norway and Sweden, where revelations and encounters with the mystical found their way into the lyrical fabric of his songs. The album"s orchestration includes Gimenes" vocals and the resonant chords of his classical guitar. Accompanying him throughout the album are Jan Kadereit"s multilayered percussion, and Lucas Delacroix"s bass synth, who also plays the electric guitar at times. The music further unfolds with the nuances of a string quartet, and a brass quintet, both recorded in the tropical highlands of Minas Gerais. Other guest musicians feature on individual songs, such as pianist Sebastian Macchi, flautist Flavia Huarachi, cellist Lucas Almeida, and singers Gaby Echevarria, Cecilia Pahl, and Cris Ferro. Gimenes has garnered acclaim and accolades across continents. His debut release, "Raphael Gimenes & As Montanhas de Som," delved deep into the rhythms and traditions of Brazil. It rose to prominence as the top Brazilian release in 2016 in Holland and was hailed as a "conceptual masterpiece" in Japan. His second album, "A Tongue Full of Suns," co-produced with Faroese multi-artist Teitur, ventured into the English language, blending Gimenes" inspirations from the world of prog-rock. Danish rock legend TimChristensen praised it as "top-shelf neo-folk," while Brazilian website80minutos described it as "hypnotizing." The music within "DINAMARCA" delves deep into the soul of a man who embraced a new land with open arms, while staying true to his roots. It unites elements from both of Gimenes" prior works, embarking on a journey across new musical horizons. The result is music that transcends borders, weaving itself into an intricately beautiful tapestry - a soul that has learned to harmonize with two worlds.

Das erste Album mit Gesang der geliebten äthiopischen Nonne, Komponistin und Pianistin Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru enthält tiefgründige und bewegende Kassettenaufnahmen, die inmitten politischer Umwälzungen und Unruhen entstanden sind. Es sind Lieder über Weisheit, Verlust, Trauer und Exil, die direkt in eine Boombox gesungen und von Emahoys unverwechselbarem Klavier begleitet werden. Obwohl sie die Lieder noch im Haus ihrer Familie in Addis Abeba schrieb und aufnahm, singt Emahoy über den Schmerz, weit weg von zu Hause zu sein, über die Revolution von 1974 und den Roten Terror in Äthiopien und über eine Vorahnung ihres zukünftigen Exils in Jerusalem. Im 21. Jahrhundert ist Emahoy weltweit für ihren ganz eigenen melodischen und rhythmischen Stil bekannt geworden. Häufig als "jazzy" oder "honky tonk" fehlinterpretiert, entspringt Emahoys Musik in Wirklichkeit einer tiefen Auseinandersetzung mit der westlichen klassischen Tradition, gemischt mit ihrem Hintergrund in traditioneller und orthodoxer äthiopischer Musik. Diese Lieder, die zwischen 1977 und 1985 aufgenommen wurden, unterscheiden sich von allem, was die Künstlerin bisher veröffentlicht hat. Die Geräusche der Vögel vor dem Fenster, das Knarren der Klavierbank und das Klopfen von Emahoys Finger auf der Aufnahmetaste vermitteln das Gefühl, bei der Künstlerin zu sein, während sie aufnimmt. Emahoys Texte, die sie auf Amharisch singt, sind poetisch und schwer von der Last des Exils. "Als ich hinausschaute / hinter die Wolken / konnte ich den Himmel meines Landes nicht sehen / bin ich wirklich so weit gegangen?", fragt sie in "Is It Sunny or Cloudy in the Land You Live?" Ihr Gesang ist zart und innig und zeichnet die melodischen Konturen ihres Klaviers nach.

Introducing the anticipated 7" re-release of the Equasions single 'It's So Hard To Say "So Long"' & 'World Of Lonliness'. A timeless soul/funk single recorded in San Antonio in 1971, revered by sweet soul collectors internationally, has now become available for the first time in over 50 years through Symphonical Records, in partnership with band leader/songwriter, Robert Williams.

This limited repress is a testament to the sound of San Antonio. The Equasions were immersed in the city's defining impression, performing alongside other local acts Royal Jestors, Sunny & The Sunliners, The Primes, Joe Jama plus many more, all of whom worked to carve out the Alamo sound, one that resonates continues to inspire today.

The 5-piece vocal group, led by Robert Williams, consisted of Vernon Shannon, James Hartfield, Ricky Cotton, and Lamar Sumter. Brackenridge High School graduates, the group were formerly known as 'The Volumes', with their first single being released on Manny Guerra's imprint, 'Garu'. Two years later, the group switched members and formed their new name, recording their single at Joey Internationals studio.

Robert remarks that both songs were written as a universal message; for no one in particular but everyone can relate to. 'It's So Hard To Say "So Long"', is a poignant sentiment to lost love, yet hope created through beautiful harmonies, whereas 'World Of Lonliness' is a psychedelic reflection of society of the era, which Robert mentions remains true today.

Danielle Boutet’s P »Pièces« is a mysterious artifact of Quebecois marginalia, self-released in 1985. Moving from languid ennui to high drama, »Pièces« is a dreamy gestalt, an album that borders Chanson, spoken-word, jazz noir, and minimalism, conjured from the chasm between acoustic and electronic realms. »Pièces« allows us a window into the highly intimate songcraft and compositional skill of an artist who longed to linger not in the public eye, but in relation with others and the world around her.

Born in Quebec City, Boutet studied music at the University of Montreal, where she focused on composition and percussion, before becoming involved in Montreal’s feminist and lesbian art scene. Primarily written, performed, and recorded by Boutet, with voice, guitar work, and technical assistance by Sylvie Gagnon, Pièces was created during a paradigm shift in home recording. Originally composed for the piano, Boutet and Gagnon utilized a consumer-friendly Tascam 4-track Portastudio and versatile Yamaha DX-7, alongside guitar, bass, marimba, and the human voice, to expand and contemporize the original composition’s scope.

Inspired by prog rock and British poet and musician Anne Clark, »Pièces« translates Boutet’s influence by moving between sunny, wistful fairytale and dark, wintry dirge. Filled with longing marimba, vertiginous, startling synth pads, and folk guitar, each track on Pièces offers a wholly unique proposition. Some are modal and rife with the ethereal psychological tension of a sci-fi soundtrack, while others are more like entering a smoke-laced lounge, the entertainer embodying seduction.

With the sprechgesang of artists like Serge Gainsbourg, there is an intense intimacy to Boutet’s delivery, sometimes as if she is performing for an audience of one. As one lyric goes, translated to English from French: “Like holograms/ Images from a world/ That inhales souls/ And exudes drama.” Another song contains an excerpt from The Tao of Physics: “The eastern sages specify clearly that they do not identify an ordinary void, but rather, a void having an infinite creative potential.”

To English-language audiences, the album’s title, »Pièces«, might seem to simply refer to the eleven different pieces. The title can also, of course, refer to parts of a larger whole, but Boutet is keen to point out that there is also another meaning: In French, a pièce is a room. On the cover of the original cassette, Boutet is seen sitting on a chair, alone in an empty apartment, a cable snaking at her feet. Listening to »Pièces« is like entering eleven different rooms: whether a study encased in shadow, a greenhouse left to wither in an eternal frost, or a divine nave.

Boutet sold a few dozen copies around Montreal, a scene mostly occupied by the new wave explosion de rigueur, but the inclusion of Pièces in the 1987 issue of Ladyslipper—the North Carolina-based mail order catalog that championed women musicians of all calibers and careers—led to more exposure throughout North America. “In the catalog,” Boutet says, “they included it in the New Age section, but I was, and still am, aware that this album is relatively unclassifiable.”

Boutet would release one more album, titled Musiques Urbaines, before getting pulled in the direction of interdisciplinary art and theory. “Although I never stopped making music, I lost all interest in public diffusion or performance,” Boutet says. Despite her departure from performance and publicly releasing music, she left behind a strange and enthralling document of Montreal’s 1980s feminist fringe, an aural document of the historic moment when self-recorded music and its practical potential became a prismatic reality.

Danielle Boutet’s Pièces arrives February 16, 2024 as part of uncommon¢ (“uncommon sense”), an open-ended, serialized endeavor from Freedom to Spend that provides new meaning for rarefied recordings from music’s outermost fringe.

Je prie pour que la goutte ne tombe pas" (I pray that the drop does not fall) is the first international release by Japanese trio Chi To Shizuku. While they have released five albums and a 7” in Japan, their spectral, haunted rock songs haven’t yet reached a much wider audience overseas. With this album, then, a live recording taken at Koenji HIGH, Suginami, Tokyo on 23rd November 2021, the unique, quartz-like character of Chi To Shizuku’s music is writ large, the bleak bliss of their songs carved onto twelve-inch vinyl.

Perhaps the best-known member of Chi To Shizuku, at least for audiences with an ear turned to Japanese psychedelia, is drummer Takahashi Ikuro, known for his membership of almost every group worth a damn from that scene – Fushitsusha, Nagisa Ni Te, Ché-SHIZU, Kousokuya, High Rise, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, LSD March, the list goes on. But the core of Chi To Shizuku’s music is the collaboration between vocalist, bassist and lyricist Morikawa Seiichirou, and guitarist and arranger Yamagiwa Hideki. Morikawa is a member of long- running punk/goth group Z.O.A., and has also played with YBO2, Zzzoo, and as collaborator with Takeshi and Atsuo of Boris in A/N; he’s also recently been performing with Mitsuru Tabata. Yamagiwa’s history takes in stints with Katsurei and Cock C’ Nell, and he also recently guested with la scene 裸身.

All this contextual information does relatively little, though, to prepare you for the unique vibration of Chi To Shizuku’s lustrous songs. They shimmer in the same half-light, perhaps, as Shizuka and the quieter moments of LSD March, sharing a similar poise and classicism, and there’s a tenderness and wracked poetry to Morikawa’s voice that reminds of the emotional intensities both of traditional Japanese folk, and of British folk music: on “Musuu No Nemuri No Naka De Kumo Wo Tukamu”, the combination of his singing, backed with gorgeously plangent guitar, reminds of no-one so much as it does The Pentangle or Spriguns Of Tolgus. Chi To Shizuku’s love for the ballad as form gifts their music an archaic, sometimes arcane resonance, and from what you can hear on this album, it’s clear they’re in love with graceful melancholy.

But this is not a folk album, by any means; it just shivers with the same eternal spirit. There are also hints of prog rock, and you can catch some passages of scratchy, distended free rock, on the extended spirit invocation of “Nanhito Hanhito”. je prie pour que la goutte ne tombe pas is an extraordinary album, a melancholy surprise, that reminds dedicated listeners of the seemingly bottomless well of great music to be found via the Japanese underground in its many forms. Perhaps Michel Henritzi says it best, though, in his liner notes, when he writes, “Chi To Shizuku’s music reminds us that our life is a dream that lasts only a season, and that oblivion will follow.”

Roberto Agosta, or just Agosta as he likes to be called, is a Sicilian DJ and producer from Catania active all along the eastern coast of Sicily, a place that proved to be a soulful place and a training ground for a long career, making him an excellent music selector and a reference point in the spread of alternative music.

A soundtrack music enthusiast since he was a child, now a vinyl "serial gathere", Agosta has always put his vast knowledge at the service of a very personal sound that sums many different music styles and contaminations, simple and profound but straightforward and direct at the same time.

Agosta’s eponymous album, released on LP, CD and digital formats, was conceived during the Covid-19 lockdown, thanks to the precious collaboration of friend DJ and producer Massimo Napoli aka Galathea, with whom Roberto has already started another project called AN-AN that will produce a new record for Space Echo at the end of 2022.

This record highlights a typical chill-out aesthetic, thanks to its trip-hop and ambient rhythms and atmospheres, while a deeper exploration reveals the psychedelic essence of the entire work, a daring and exciting journey in the most primitive Sicily, and the energy that sustains all of its ten tracks.

Much of their author and his lifestyle - mainly based on meditation, the search for spiritual elevation, the relationship with nature and the regaining of contact with those particular places and with the people who live there - is revealed by those tracks that constitute a soundtrack for this spiritual but also extremely physical journey.

The song titles are, in fact, intrinsically linked to Roberto’s real life: the Gorna and Ilice mountains at the foot of Etna, the Carricante vineyard and its excellent wine, Unna, Three Chestnuts, Varanni, Don Alfio, Lady G. Each of them represents a pleasant and dreamlike narration and the escape from the complex dynamics of a city like Catania, among echoes of the most dreamy Pink Floyd, the softer side of ’70s krautrock, but also the Massive Attack and Tricky’s Bristol scene.
There’s also an excellent choice of synthesizers and overdubbed guitars, thanks to the talent of the multifaceted musician and producer Salvo Bruno Dub, and of Manuela Amalfitano, Loredana Poidomani and Deran Obika’s voices.

Agosta is an introspective, deep work with a cinematic vocation, perfectly rooted in the territory where it took shape, among sunny landscapes, lush with vegetation but also deserted and arid lands. From Sicily to the cosmos... enjoy!

Yellow Vinyl

Second release for Jordan GCZ on RAWAX!
After his fantastic debut "Dizzy Dizzy Dizzy" early this year,
we are happy to release Polyphonic Glide EP in November.
Don't miss this highly recommended beauty!

It's not hyperbole to state that Touché Amoré's third album Is Survived By is the band's most pivotal album. Released 10 years ago on September 24th, 2013 via Deathwish Inc., Is Survived By tackles the complicated nature of leaving a lasting legacy and the uncertainty that surrounds that; ultimately resulting in a record about learning to find the validation and love within one’s self. Produced by the legendary Brad Wood (Sunny Day Real Estate, Liz Phair, mewithoutYou), the recording sessions were a lesson in growth for the Los Angeles quintet - vocalist Jeremy Bolm, guitarists Nick Steinhardt and Clayton Stevens, bassist Tyler Kirby, and drummer Elliot Babin - as the band transformed from a group of individuals who play hardcore songs to the established headlining act that Touché Amoré is today. Is Survived By received critical acclaim from the likes of Pitchfork, The A.V. Club, The Needle Drop, and more - resulting in the album being 13th highest rated album of 2013 per Metacritic. It was also the band's first record to chart on the U.S. Billboard 200, peaking at 85. But most importantly, Is Survived By is beloved by fans new and old.

Second release for Jordan GCZ on RAWAX!
After his fantastic debut "Dizzy Dizzy Dizzy" early this year,
we are happy to release Polyphonic Glide EP in November.
Don't miss this highly recommended beauty!

Third studio album from leading French reggae band Ryon, featuring Na man and Tiken Jah Fakoly brass section. Since 2015, the band has been on the road playing festivals and club shows across Europe, sharing its poetic and committed inspirations.
Driven by Cam’s charisma and powerful voice, the quintet gives life to a highly positive and powerful music, between reggae, rock, french variety and even pop music. Inspired by the solar reggae music of Clinton Fearon or Steel Pulse, the band draws its inspiration from modern reggae too. In 2018, they released their second album, Z phyr, which was awarded best French Reggae Album by the renowned “Victoires du Reggae” committee.
Ryon is now back with their third studio album ‘Esperanza’, with the famous French singer N aman and Tiken Jah Fakoly’s powerful brass section as special guests. With this record, the band will spread its sunny and positive vibes as long as possible!

Repress!

On 22nd October, the Nottingham-raised and highly-praised musician/DJ/producer Matt Cutler, AKA Lone, presents his 8th album – and first in 5 years – ‘Always Inside Your Head’. It marks two major changes, with both a new label and new approach – featuring vocalists for the first time.

This deeply textural and ethereal artwork is situated high above the clouds, amidst the heavens, occupying a stratospheric state where swathes of synthesized vapour and azure rays sound like a literal breath of fresh air.

A varied selection of music influenced the record, but two main influences were Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine. “I wanted to approach a range of different styles, but attack them from their angle in a way, so for example on 'Inlove2' I tried to imagine what a Balearic / acid house tune might sound like if it were produced by Kevin Shields”, comments Lone.

Another key example of Cutler’s strange but successful combination of elements is the halcyon bliss of ‘Echo Paths’, where his trademark fat drums and love for hip hop meet double-time pan pipes, dub effects and dream pop, mixed into a wonderfully lysergic concoction.

This rarefied auditory stratus was previously evident in tracks like ‘Alpha Wheel 4 (Ambient Mix)’ from ‘DJ Kicks’, ‘Under Cherry Blossoms (Minds Eye Reprise)’ from ‘Ambivert Tools, Vol. 2’, ‘Pulsar’ (from ‘Ambivert 4’), and ‘How Can You Tell’ (from ‘Abraxas’), but is now more fully-fledged, broader in scope and even more celestial.

In addition to the above, the LP exists somewhere between trip hop on Mo' Wax, 90s Warp, intelligent drum & bass and ambient house. There are heavier forays too, like ‘Mouth Of God’, where darker clouds emerge, but are pierced like acid lightning with fierce, tearing tech-step bass.

Although still firmly rooted in club culture – here Lone shows a definite leaning towards a song-based sound, with several tracks edging towards the same crossover space as the nineties hits which also inspired him – particularly William Orbit’s production on Madonna's 'Frozen', and Olive's 'You're Not Alone'. This is especially evident on the bright, spacious brilliance of 'Hidden By Horizons', where vocals and synths swirl around one another, with crisp breakbeats and reggae rolls pushing purposefully through the ether.

Despite initially seeming almost entirely sunny of disposition, upon deeper immersion there’s lot more beneath the album’s surface, both in its deep pools of immiscible layered elements, and also thematically. When recording Cutler kept in mind a loose narrative based on birth, death, and our existence in-between.

He then extended this idea to reach what may happen after death, which is reflected in the sequencing: By penultimate track ‘Undaunted’ the life reflected in this longplayer has come to an end, which is then followed by 'Coming In To Being And Passing Away' – an afterlife epilogue, which evokes a transition from this world to the next.

Super limited Collectors Edition of 100 Copies in 200G (!) Swirl Color Vinyl,
HiGH QUALITY VINYL HAND MADE IN DENMARK, EVERY 75th COPY QUALITY CHECKED IN FULL.

NEW 2023 ALBUM, 2LP, GATEFOLD,200G,Swirl Color Vinyl, Limited Collectors Edition of 100

Formed in the late 70's, the duo is still grooving at their studio in Vesterbro, Copenhagen.
Laid Back gained their first international major break through in the 80's with Sunshine Reggae and White Horse. The dualism and originality of the two songs has left a worldwide and everlasting reputation of their music. The 3rd evergreen from their hand was made in 1990 named Bakerman altogether with a music video by Lars Von Trier.
More recently, the two members has co-founded their own record company, Brother Music, which has released Laid Back singles such as Cocaine Cool, remixes from Soul Clap, and latest the mini-album Cosyland and the chill out album, Cosmic Vibes.
In 2013 they released the double album Uptimistic Music.
2019 was the 40th anniversary and release of the album Healing Feeling.

2023 marks the year of a new 21track studio album "Road To Fame"

As for concerts, Laid Back is touring worldwide at cherry picked sunny locations with their two-man electronic set up and selected festivals with the band.

Red Vinyl

For the first time in their diverse second act, they allow themselves to be a rock band, freed of adornment and embellishment. As much as Carlson’s guitar has always been the focal point of EARTH’s music, it’s been surrounded by consistently diverse instrumentation. Here the dialog between Carlson and Davies drumming remains pivotal, underpinned by the sympathetic bass of Bill Herzog (Sunn O))), Joel RL Phelps, Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter) and thickened by additional layers of guitar from Brett Netson (Built To Spill, Caustic Resin) and Jodie Cox (Narrows). Perhaps the largest left turn on Primitive And Deadly, though, is the prominence of guest vocalists Mark Lanegan and Rabia Shaheen Qazi (Rose Windows) who transform the traditionally free ranging meditations of EARTH into something approaching traditional pop structures.
On “Rooks Across the Gates,” a song stylistically the closest to the folk inspired modality of Angels Of Darkness, Carlson stretches out into some of his most lyrical playing to date, creating an almost symbiotic relationship between his performance and the vocals of old friend Mark Lanegan. “From the Zodiacal Light,” meanwhile, takes the late 60s San Franciscan/freaked-out jazz-rock transcendence of The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull and quickly re-appropriates that sound into a musky torch song for the witching hour.
This contradictive tension between a band pushing itself ever-forward whilst surveying their history is reflected in the albums twin recording locales. The foundation of the record was laid in the mystic desert highlands of Joshua Tree, California where EARTH recorded hour after hour of meditations on each track's central theme at Rancho de la Luna. Upon returning to Seattle these were edited, arranged and expanded upon at Avast with the help of long-term collaborator Randall Dunn (who was previously at the helm for the Hex, The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull and Hibernaculum sessions).

“I feel like there are two sides of me,” says the Nashville-based singer-songwriter and guitar virtuoso known as Sunny War. “One of them is very self-destructive, and the other is trying to work with that other half to keep things balanced.” That’s the central conflict on her fourth album, the eclectic and innovative Anarchist Gospel, which documents a time when it looked like the self-destructive side might win out. Extreme emotions can make that battle all the more perilous, yet from such trials Sunny has crafted a set of songs that draw on a range of ideas and styles, as though she’s marshaling all her forces to get her ideas across: ecstatic gospel, dusty country blues, thoughtful folk, rip-roaring rock and roll, even avant garde studio experiments. She melds them together into a powerful statement of survival, revealing a probing songwriter who indulges no comforting platitudes and a highly innovative guitarist who deploys spidery riffs throughout every song. Because it promises not healing but resilience and perseverance, because it doesn’t take shit for granted, Anarchist Gospel holds up under such intense emotional pressure, acknowledging the pain of living while searching for something that lies just beyond ourselves, some sense of balance between the bad and the good. Featuring: David Rawlings, Allison Russell, Jim James, Micah Nelson

Louis Armstrong was a widely beloved American icon and cultural ambassador. On this vinyl some of his hits, o.a.: “What a Wonderful World”, “La Vie en Rose” and “Mack The Knife”’. LP 2 are live tracks performed on several different stages in Chicago, Germany, France and Sweden between 1956 and 1967.

Repress!

In the mid-1970s, a force of nature swept across the continental United States, cutting across all strata of race and class, rooting in our minds, our homes, our culture. It wasn’t The Exorcist, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, or even bell-bottoms, but instead a book called The Secret Life of Plants. The work of occultist/former OSS agent Peter Tompkins and former CIA agent/dowsing enthusiast Christopher Bird, the books shot up the bestseller charts and spread like kudzu across the landscape, becoming a phenomenon. Seemingly overnight, the indoor plant business was in full bloom and photosynthetic eukaryotes of every genus were hanging off walls, lording over bookshelves, and basking on sunny window ledges. The science behind Secret Life was specious: plants can hear our prayers, they’re lie detectors, they’re telepathic, able to predict natural disasters and receive signals from distant galaxies. But that didn’t stop millions from buying and nurturing their new plants.

Perhaps the craziest claim of the book was that plants also dug music. And whether you purchased a snake plant, asparagus fern, peace lily, or what have you from Mother Earth on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles (or bought a Simmons mattress from Sears), you also took home Plantasia, an album recorded especially for them. Subtitled “warm earth music for plants…and the people that love them,” it was full of bucolic, charming, stoner-friendly, decidedly unscientific tunes enacted on the new-fangled device called the Moog. Plants date back from the dawn of time, but apparently they loved the Moog, never mind that the synthesizer had been on the market for just a few years. Most of all, the plants loved the ditties made by composer Mort Garson.

Few characters in early electronic music can be both fearless pioneers and cheesy trend-chasers, but Garson embraced both extremes, and has been unheralded as a result. When one writer rhetorically asked: “How was Garson’s music so ubiquitous while the man remained so under the radar?” the answer was simple. Well before Brian Eno did it, Garson was making discreet music, both the man and his music as inconspicuous as a Chlorophytumcomosum. Julliard-educated and active as a session player in the post-war era, Garson wrote lounge hits, scored plush arrangements for Doris Day, and garlanded weeping countrypolitan strings around Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” He could render the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel alike into easy listening and also dreamed up his own ditties. “An idear” as Garson himself would drawl it out. “I live with it, I walk it, I sing it.”

But as his daughter Day Darmet recalls: “When my dad found the synthesizer, he realized he didn’t want to do pop music anymore.” Garson encountered Robert Moog and his new device at the Audio Engineering Society’s West Coast convention in 1967 and immediately began tinkering with the device. With the Moog, those idears could be transformed. “He constantly had a song he was humming,” Darmet says. “At the table he was constantly tapping.” Which is to say that Mort pulled his melodies out of thin air, just like any household plant would.

The Plantae kingdom grew to its height by 1976, from DC Comics’ mossy superhero Swamp Thing to Stevie Wonder’s own herbal meditation, Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants. Nefarious manifestations of human-plant interaction also abounded, be it the grotesque pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers or the pothead paranoia of the US Government spraying Mexican marijuana fields with the herbicide paraquat (which led to the rise in homegrown pot by the 1980s). And then there’s the warm, leafy embrace of Plantasia itself.

“My mom had a lot of plants,” Darmet says. “She didn’t believe in organized religion, she believed the earth was the best thing in the whole world. Whatever created us was incredible.” And she also knew when her husband had a good song, shouting from another room when she heard him humming a good idear. Novel as it might seem, Plantasia is simply full of good tunes.

Garson may have given the album away to new plant and bed owners, but a decade later a new generation could hear his music in another surreptitious way. Millions of kids bought The Legend of Zelda for their Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1986 and one distinct 8-bit tune bears more than a passing resemblance to album highlight “Concerto for Philodendron and Pothos.” Garson was never properly credited for it, but he nevertheless subliminally slipped into a new generations’ head, helping kids and plants alike grow.

Hearing Plantasia in the 21st century, it seems less an ode to our photosynthesizing friends by Garson and more an homage to his wife, the one with the green thumb that made everything flower around him. “My dad would be totally pleased to know that people are really interested in this music that had no popularity at the time,” Darmet says of Plantasia’snew renaissance. “He would be fascinated by the fact that people are finally understanding and appreciating this part of his musical career that he got no admiration for back then.” Garson seems to be everywhere again, even if he’s not really noticed, just like a houseplant.

Since forming in early 2021, The Prize have established themselves as one of Melbourne's premier rock and roll outfits, funnelling vocal soaked hooks and harmonies through a three guitar onslaught and a pulsating rhythm section. Their unique blend of power pop and rock and roll has earned new fans and followers from all sides of the globe. The Prize’s debut EP "Wrong Side of Town' sold out on the first day of its release and received high praise from the likes of punk legend, Henry Rollins. The band quickly found itself securing plum support slots for bands like the Sunnyboys, Pavement and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. This culminated in a national tour supporting The Chats in late 2022 that has helped to establish them as a premium live act with the tunes to back it up. To top it all off, The Prize are set to embark on their first international outing in August/September 2023 supporting KGLW and the Murlocs on their European tours with a number of headline dates across Europe and UK. “First Sight”, the much anticipated second release from The Prize will be out just in time for the EU/UK tour via Anti Fade Records and Drunken Sailor from August 18th

Espen Eriksen – piano Lars Tormod Jenset – bass Andreas Bye – drums Andy Sheppard – saxophone. The combination of Espen Eriksen Trio and UK saxophone giant Andy Sheppard is truly a match made in jazz heaven, and in the words of Andy: “I knew from the first time I heard the trio play that I would fit right in. I loved the melodic sense and vibe and was thrilled when I was invited to guest with the trio in London in 2016”. The common conclusion drawn in reviews of their first album Perfectly Unhappy five years ago was simply “more, please”, and now we are delighted to introduce As Good As It Gets, the quite brilliant follow-up. The two album titles aptly indicate a subtle change in mood, and it´s fair to say that the new album finds the trio slightly more lively and sunny in parts, still highly melodic and lyrical, often with a typically Nordic melancholic signature (check the Grieg nod in album closer Drifting Clouds). Eriksen is a master of catchy tunes and when Sheppard adds his inimitable playing to the trio´s minimalistic approach, magic is created. Espen Eriksen Trio was formed in 2007 and released their debut album in 2010. As Good As It Gets is their seventh album, all on Rune Grammofon. They have toured on four continents, becoming an increasingly popular concert attraction in several countries. Eriksen´s background is ranging from jazz to pop music and the church organ, while Jenset lived and worked as a musician in Copenhagen for seven years before relocating to Norway. Andreas Bye is one of Norway´s most requested drummers in jazz and pop and has played with Bugge Wesseltoft, John Scofield, Joshua Redman, Dhafer Yousef, Nils Petter Molvær and many others. With a career spanning over four decades, working together with the likes of George Russell, Gil Evans, Carla Bley, Steve Swallow and numerous others, Andy Sheppard is truly one of Europe’s leading saxophonists. As a leader he has recorded for labels like Antilles, Verve, Blue Note and lately four albums for ECM.

La Bibliothèque De La Bergerie is the new all-star project from producer Emmanuel Mario (Astrobal). 11 evocative and exhilarating instrumental tracks, ranging from synthetic to acoustic, from detailed pop writing to sonic experimentation. He is accompanied here by his companions Julien Gasc, Nina Savary and Vincent Guyot (as Ulysses' companions were known). Each contributes to the composition, arrangement and instrumentation of this colourful and enchanting odyssey. Mario and Savary have been living for years in an isolated former sheepfold in the South of France and have gradually gathered around them a band of artists and musicians who have come to escape their daily lives. The compositions in La Bibliotheque De La Bergerie were born of this timeless space of freedom. Each musician's musical obsessions can be found on the album, as they travel from one track to the next: soundtracks like the ones of De Roubaix or Alessandroni (Le Fleuve De La Nuit), experimental and classy pop like Stereolab/High Llamas (Loterie Solaire) or primary and repetitive electronic music (Tous A Zanzibar tome 3). The choirs and mixed voices of Nina Savary and Julien Gasc add a sunny, melancholy touch to the whole (En Attendant L'Année Dernière). The name Bibliothèque De La Bergerie is a double nod to Library Music, a trend in musical illustration for TV and radio that had its heyday in the 60s, 70s and 80s. And to the aforementioned bergerie, a living space and creative studio. The more observant may also have noticed the titles of the tracks, taken from the novels of the golden age of science fiction. Emmanuel Mario and his friends invite you to escape to another time. The album will be released on vinyl on the Freaksville label on October 6, 2023.Tracklisting: 1. L'homme qui n'existait pas 2. En attendant l'année dernière 3. Tous à Zanzibar (Tome 1) 4. Loterie Solaire 5. Une porte sur l'été 6. Le fleuve de la nuit 7. Le manuscrit Hopkins 8. Tous à Zanzibar (Tome 2) 9. Le Voyageur de l'inconnu 10. Terminus Tel-Aviv 11. Tous à Zanzibar (Tome 3) freedom. Each musician's musical obsessions can be found on the album, as they travel from one track to the next: soundtracks like the ones of De Roubaix or Alessandroni (Le Fleuve De La Nuit), experimental and classy pop like Stereolab/High Llamas (Loterie Solaire) or primary and repetitive electronic music (Tous A Zanzibar tome 3). The choirs and mixed voices of Nina Savary and Julien Gasc add a sunny, melancholy touch to the whole (En Attendant L'Année Dernière). The name Bibliothèque De La Bergerie is a double nod to Library Music, a trend in musical illustration for TV and radio that had its heyday in the 60s, 70s and 80s. And to the aforementioned bergerie, a living space and creative studio. The more observant may also have noticed the titles of the tracks, taken from the novels of the golden age of science fiction. Emmanuel Mario and his friends invite you to escape to another time. The album will be released on vinyl on the Freaksville label on October 6, 2023

Moments of eternity: the first plucks at the strings, a bass note cementing the drift into place a little more than a minute in. The organ drones, iterating unrelivable ancient history, a chiming note of the church. Guitars strings, climbing that stairway to heaven. Gossamer-light when viewed from a distance; up close, the gears grind with a visceral physicality. With BCMC, Cooper Crain and Bill MacKay unite to create Foreign Smokes: provocalogues, equal parts avant-garde noir and fire-and-icy jams to recall bright shades and warm stretches of infinity drawn through the buzzy overdrive of this side of life"s strange and sunny days. Cooper"s organ and synths and Bill"s guitar draw songs from spontaneous statements and elegiac scraps, floating closer, then farther, and closer again to the sounds of the other. Starting with a melody, as set of progressions or even as little as a scale or just a key, gives room for either one of "em to take the lead, depending on where they are or are going at any given time. The reigning motif most often seems to be, to melt and wind around each other"s sound, part of a singular undulation, handed back and forth, a slowly emerging trip up into and through an ideal of exuberance.