Synth legend Suzanne Ciani, Demdike Stare’s Sean Canty & Finders Keepers’ Andy Votel come together on this killer hour-long 2014 synapse popper of a collaboration pooling the occasional group’s esoteric collage-based approach into a remarkably foreboding session pregnant with a dread that’s never quite resolved. Think Vladimir Ussachevsky, Todd Dockstader, Spectre and Company Flow melted thru the Deutsch-Italo industrial DIY tape era and funneled thru an almost impenetrable fog of Ann Arbor basement noizze.
Hustling some of Neotantrik’s most amorphous gestures, ’241014’ is a four-segment movement of reduced Buchla treatments, destroyed vinyl loops and scraping foley suspense; like a cosmic dream diary layered into a collage of drones and clatters. Little in Ciani’s extensive catalogue has hinted at what’s on display here; the joyful lullaby-pop of “Seven Waves” or metallic alien soundscraping of “Flowers of Evil” are only hinted at. She instead paints new sonic vistas, allowing space for her collaborators to make themselves known; Votel’s chiming toy autoharp and Bubul Tarang (a Punjab string instrument) add a distinctive flavor, while Canty’s grimy drones and noise-soaked textures drizzle pitch-black molasses into the cracks and crevices. Together, the effect is a bit like hearing Philip Jeck improvising over Popol Vuh’s peerless Moog-led debut “Affenstunde” or Demdike Stare knocking out impromptu reworks of Tangerine Dream’s abstrakt early run.
Perhaps unusually, the trio have still never set foot in a studio together, exclusively maintaining their practice in-the-moment and on stage when schedules intersect. So it’s all the more remarkable that their improvisations naturally find a democracy of role and such a heightened level of intuition, beautifully converging their thoughts to mutual, open-ended conclusions that leaves billowing room for interpretation. In a most classic sense, it’s like the sensation of sleep paralysis or dream/nightmare ambiguity, with a level of suggestiveness that’s disorienting from end to end.
For the first time the recordings are now available in high fidelity (there was a tape version a couple of years back) - now remastered by Rashad Becker to better represent the otherworldly scope of their actions on stage, from the NWW-like queues and drone of ‘Scanned Accents’ and keening silhouette of ‘Second Action,’ to new sections of subaquatic Porter Ricks-like murk in ‘Anti-Contraction’ and the levitating webs of synth and tactile, sampled textures in ‘Last Canción.’ Tape music and synth music have long shared a passionate embrace, and here turntablism coolly slides in on the action. Canty and Votel’s background in beat tape assembly and crate digging pays off: they’re keenly experimental creators but bring an unfussy sense of rhythm and performance that’s miles beyond any facile repetition of a nostalgia for vintage glory. Combined with Ciani’s delicate Buchla work - it’s a unique proposition.
Following the success of two collaborative releases (EMC “The Show”/2008 and Ace & Edo G “Arts & Entertainment” /2009), Masta Ace joins forces with the metal faced MF Doom for Son of Yvonne, a highly personal concept album that celebrates the life and legacy of Ace’s recently departed Mother. Like his 2004 landmark Disposable Arts, Son of Yvonne is meticulously constructed with stories, settings, and characters that resonate with flesh and bone humanity. Interstitial vignettes provide a thematic backbone to the experience, and each track complements and completes the previous to form a narrative whole: a sometimes visceral, sometimes nostalgic slice of Ace’s young life in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Entirely underscored by MF Doom’s iconic Special Herbs instrumentals, Son of Yvonne features the Juice Crew general Big Daddy Kane, new comers Pav Bundy (The Bundies), Reggie B and even MF Doom on the mic. It’s Masta Ace’s no frills flow, however, that looms largest above the dusty samples and digger loops that define Doom’s production. Ace’s photo-realistic rhymes about stick-up kids, spraycan artists and wack emcees add extra gravity to his already celebrated reputation as “truly an under-appreciated rap veteran and underground luminary” (Allmusic Guide). Like Eminem recalls in his 2008 autobiography The Way I Am, “Masta Ace had amazing storytelling skills. His thoughts were so vivid.” TRACKLIST: A1. DJ Ski's Intro A2. Ninteen Seventy Something A3. Son Of Yvonne B1. Da Pro B2. Store Frontin B3. Me & My Gang B4. Crush Hour feat Pav Bundy C1. Think I Am feat Big Daddy Kane & Mf Doom C2. Fresh Fest Reggie B C3. Hoe-Tel-leftovers C4. Slow Down D1. Home Sweet Home feat Pav Bundy D2. Dedication D3. I Did It D4. In Da Spot feat Milani The Artis D5. Outtakes
Slacker and Seth Troxler presents He Ain’t Here. 15 tracks by Slackers for Slackers. All exclusives.
Featuring exclusive music from: Seth Troxler, O.bee & Tomas Station, Audion, Jonny Rock, Dr Dunks, Krystal Klear, Marc Houle, Hiroko Yamamura and more. This is our dysfunctional family – and this will get weird.
Seth Troxler:
"When I created Slacker I wanted to make something to remind me of my youth in the ’90s. Being born in ’85, the ’90s was a decade that defined me. Culturally America was at a pivotal point. Post Reaganism of the ’80s, the ’90s was defined by the anti-hero. The idea that we had had enough. From grunge to hip hop, house and techno.
"This was the time of independence and indie music. Life without boundaries. A world where everything felt possible and a belief that the future was coming. Home game consoles, futuristic new sports like the X Games. It was about being radical. Living life on the edge and turning away from the imaginary cookie cutter American dream.
"I feel we are in similar times. The future we were promised every day seems more like a nightmare than a utopian dream. And all we have left are our minds and bodies, but who knows how long our freedom to be an individual will exist.
"This compilation is protest – from fight songs to moments of joy. It’s about living, dancing and being. It’s for the freaks, perverts, for the rebels, for those who forever were other, and dared the impossible to just be themselves in a world where everyone wants to be the same. The revolution will not be televised because it’s within ourselves. It’s about being unapologetically individual.
"Freedom is a state of mind as well as a state of being. Being a slacker is as much about pushing, as it is about being. Not giving a f#ck about the rules and making your own. I’m a slacker, you’re a slacker, a loser and nobody. History will forget me, history forgot Elvis.
"The world is about to change. Might as well have a bit of fun while it burns. Welcome to our dysfunctional family. Join us for the bonfire, I promise you things are going to get weird, in the best possible way. HE AIN’T HERE."
The 2013 action-adventure game The Last Of Us was originally published in 2013 by Sony Computer Entertainment and was developed by Naughty Dog. The game is played in a third-person perspective and the player controls Joel, a smuggler who is escorting the teenager Ellie across a post-apocalyptic America. The game received critical acclaim, with praise for its narrative, gameplay, visuals, sound design, characterization, depiction of female characters. The Last Of Us became one of the best-selling video games, selling over 1.3 million units in its first week. The game won multiple Game of the Year awards and has been cited as one of the greatest video games ever made.
The Last Of Us also received acclaim for its score, which was made by composer Gustavo Santaolalla. Santaolalla is also known for his work on Brokeback Mountain and Babel, for which he both won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. The Argentinian composer also created the music for the series Jane The Virgin and Netflix’ Making A Murderer. His soundtrack to The Last Of Us was his first in the video game industry. In 2020, he also returned to compose the music to the sequel, The Last Of Us Part II.
The soundtrack of The Last Of Us: Season 1 is available as a limited edition of 4000 individually numbered copies on yellow marble vinyl. This 2LP is packaged in a deluxe gatefold sleeve with linen laminate finish. It includes printed innersleeves and an 8-page booklet with liner notes by writer and creative director Neil Druckmann.
Dewa Alit, master of radical Balinese gamelan, returns to Black Truffle with Baur Bentur. Genetic (2020, BT063) introduced international listeners to the magical sound-world of Alit’s Gamelan Salukat, who perform on instruments tuned to a unique scale derived from modified versions of two traditional Balinese scales. The two pieces heard on Chasing the Phantom (2022, BT093) further demonstrated his radical fusion of tradition and experimentation, with passages where unorthodox techniques make the acoustic ensemble resemble glitching electronics. Baur Bentur now highlights another aspect of Alit’s work, presenting pieces composed in 2024 and 2025 where Gamelan Salukat performs alongside virtuoso pianist Sri Hanuraga. Alit’s music is grounded in deep reflection on the tradition of Balinese gamelan and its place in the contemporary world. His title, ‘Baur Bentur’, which translates as ‘mixing and smashing’, points to his embrace of the intercultural mixture of Eastern and Western elements in the search for innovation. Against the calcification of Balinese music into tourist entertainment, Alit poses his searching, experimental work, which celebrates the communal values and performance practices of traditional gamelan while pushing into startling new directions.
‘Sukat Tacara’ is a study in layered tempos, meters, and polyrhythms, a constantly shifting dialogue between piano and the instruments of Gamelan Salukat. It begins close to a traditional concerto, pairing a brisk sequence of melodic variations from the piano with a spare but propulsive accompaniment of drums and hanging metallophone tones, punctuated by low gong strikes. The piano builds in volume and density across a rapid succession of fragments, at points recalling George Antheil’s ticking wind-up machinery, though Hanuraga’s jazz background shines through in the fluidity with which he navigates the complexities of the score, where chromatic movement co-exists with bluesy phrases. An abrupt change in the piano to patterns of dense clusters introduces a new episode, during which the metallic instruments of the gamelan enter the foreground. The piece dazzles with its inventive rhythms and dynamics, building to a stunning passage featuring the signature heavy muting technique of the Gamelan Salukat metallophones in kinetic patterns that would be at home on a Príncipe release.
The title piece begins at high intensity and rarely lets up, working through bracing unison ensemble melodies and punctuation points where piano and gamelan together seem to become a single, thudding drum. For much of the piece the piano is tightly integrated into the ensemble, the harmonic extensions of the melodic line subsumed into a moving cloud of complex overtones generated by the gamelan instruments. Wildly kinetic on the rhythmic level, the piece swarms with microscopic movements of beating patterns generated by the ‘blend and crush’ of three simultaneous tuning systems: the equal temperament of the piano and the saih cenik (small scale) and saih gede (big scale) used by the gamelan instruments. Accompanied by the composer’s thoughtful liner notes and images of the musicians, Baur Bentur is a stunning next step in Alit’s radical combination of tradition and innovation.
Vinyl packaging includes 12" gatefold vinyl with matte UV and spot gloss finish, 2x black vinyl, dust sleeves, and digital download card. In the year 2000, Brother Ali Joined Rhymesayers with a self-produced demo called Rites of Passage. Three years later Ali took the underground by storm with an undeniable stage presence and his critically acclaimed debut full-length Shadows On The Sun. The impact was unquestionable and that next year Ali solidified his place amongst the independent Hip Hop elite with the release of 2004's The Champion EP. Like deja vu, here we are three years later and Ali is ready to take the world by storm with his latest creation. After struggling through a series of personal roadblocks, from parting ways with his wife of 10 years, becoming homeless and trying to secure custody of his only son... Brother Ali along with Atmosphere producer and Shadows & Champion collaborator Ant, present the long awaited sophomore full-length album The Undisputed Truth. Personal, political and more powerful than ever, simply put, the truth is here. "I wanted to make an album that gives you no choice but to feel what im saying at that given time", Ali explains of The Undisputed Truth. "I made choices that sent me through a lot of struggle in the past few years and Ant and I have made music that really communicates the exact feeling of those situations." -Brother Ali
Discotchari is delighted to release a first-of-its-kind various artists compilation: Tehrangeles Vice (Iranian
Diaspora Pop 1983–1993), fully licensed from Taraneh Enterprises. The album is a groundbreaking exposé of
the vibrant subcultural hub of Tehrangeles (portmanteau of Tehran + Los Angeles), and the action–packed, true
story of the Iranian diaspora music industry. Featuring 12 tracks remastered by award–winning Osiris Studio,
lyrics and translations to all featured songs, original cassette covers, a 20+ page album note booklet by Dr.
Farzaneh Hemmasi and more! Sprawling from Westwood to Glendale across the San Fernando Valley, the
Tehrangeles scene was cultivated by the same producers and artists who industrialized the “golden age” of
entertainment in pre–revolution Iran and fled from the 1979 Islamic Revolution along with millions of Iranian
citizens. Through music and visual media, Iranian producers and artists working out of Tehrangeles have
engaged in what the Iranian government calls a “cultural attack” against the Islamic Republic for over 40 years.
The album title Tehrangeles Vice underscores the illicit nature and daring circumstances from which
Tehrangeles pop music was born and compares its legacy within Persian media to one of the most significant
crime–drama TV shows of all time. In the same manner that Miami Vice and its aesthetics had a dynamic
impact on sonic, visual and cultural trends in the United States and around the world, Tehrangeles media was a
shock to the systems of Islamic Republic ideology and Iranian expatriate communities. Listening to these songs
in hindsight, the contribution of Tehrangeles can be better understood as a triumphant effort to preserve Iranian
identity by realizing it in conjunction with prevailing music genres of the ‘80s and ‘90s, and to rebel against the
oppressive regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran through the most seductive of means: dance music.
The second volume in a two-part collection of pirate radio adverts & idents, taken from recordings of London stations between 1984 & 1993.
Many thanks to Wayne Anthony, Simon Reynolds, Stephen Hebditch & The Pirate Radio Archive.
Ode To Native Tongues” attempts to capture the feeling of coming of age between the years of 1989 -1993 (and beyond) while listening and witnessing the legendary Native Tongues crew releasing timeless classic albums and singles. Told through the experience of seeing the early episodes of “Yo! MTV Raps”, a friend sharing De La Soul’s first album, sharing that album with my cousin who in exchange shared Queen Latifah’s music or finding out about “Bonita Applebum” by Tribe at my high school’s homecoming dance. Evoking nostalgia as well as tell a story of how this music served as the soundtrack woven into the fabric of my youth, my coming of age, was the aim.
Everything’s For Sale” was inspired partly by a story of an elderly couple who went brokhaving to pay for their medicine.“Everything’s For Sale” speaks to how the value of money permeates all facets of this modern life, and as such it seemed only natural for it to reach into my creative world. This time however I wanted to make a song that cross examined how this super ficiality has affected music culture, let alone how it has rendered some in our society invisible -- a clear sign of a society void of compassion. The Platurn beat with a moving guitar riff pushed this song further, providing me the cover of a funky beat to dive into a topic that might not normally move an audience. Part cheat code for slipping in a conscious message to the audience without raising the alarm of the listener who may not be expecting anything more than entertainment.
Venice Affaie seeks only to give humans a look into their own lives, history, suffering, and peace, all while providing a backbeat sprinkled with sexuality, romanticism, and especially entertainment. The concept of “Ascension” is much larger than a description of upward motion; it is the human description of our evolution from four to two, from caves to high rises, from child to elder, and from stardust to flesh. This collection of songs has been in the works since 2021 and meticulously arranged to provide the best possible lens into Venice Affair’s concept of human existence.
The track “Alive” seeks to display the contrast between the wholesomeness of romantic affection and the emotional torture of such affection falling through due to externalities. “Dead of Night” is an observation of emotions one may feel when the subject of their love is away without care, leaving in their path longing and unspecified vitriol. “The Web” is a natural progression of these emotions in the verses, a culmination of feelings that leads one to leave. Leaving a once bountiful love is compared through the analogy of nomadic people leaving a region which was once home, now depleted of resources, rain, and vegetation.
Trumpeter, rapper and sonic wanderer Pan Amsterdam has carved out one of the most distinctive voices operating at the intersection of jazz and hip-hop today.
Pan Amsterdam is a musical enigma wrapped in an enduring riddle. His creator is a jazz musician from Houston who’s found fame working with Detroit punk rock God, Iggy Pop, and British indie royalty, Metronomy, and now makes shapeshifting, adventurous hip hop out of the music’s spiritual home, New York.
He’s an irreverent character born out of frustration and named after a misunderstanding, yet one who’s on the verge of releasing his fifth album of truth-slaying, genre-crossing rhymes and beats. The result is a catalogue that feels both deeply rooted in Black American musical tradition and completely untethered by convention.
Pan Amsterdam returns with ‘Panarama’, his fourth full length album and a bold reassertion of his hip hop identity, released via Def Pressé. Created by Houston-born, New York-based musician and composer Leron Thomas, the record finds Pan Amsterdam embracing the harder edges of his sound while continuing to blur the lines between jazz improvisation, abstract rap, punk attitude, and experimental production
Written as a response to contemporary life and the endless cycle of information, conflict and distraction that defines modern culture, ‘Panarama’ unfolds as a stream of consciousness journey through hyper-normalised realities. Across sixteen tracks, Thomas navigates social commentary, personal reflection, absurdist humour, and cultural critique, delivering his observations with the same spontaneity and freedom that have become central to the Pan Amsterdam project
Lead single ‘Szechuan Beef’, produced by acclaimed collaborator 1FS, serves as one of the album’s defining statements. Built around Thomas’ signature free-flowing delivery, the track explores the overwhelming nature of contemporary life, where domestic conflict, social division, entertainment scandals and political discourse become flattened into a constant stream of content.
In Thomas’ own words: “My stream of consciousness style comes quite naturally to me due to the conditioning of scroll down culture where everything, no matter how minor or extreme, is hyper normalised.”
Elsewhere, the track ‘Vanilla Ice’ was written in response to widely publicised ICE killings and the speed at which tragedy is absorbed and forgotten within online culture. Thomas channels the anxiety and emotional disorientation of endlessly consuming information, allowing his thoughts to unfold in real time as social commentary collides with everyday digital noise. The result is both deeply personal and sharply observational, reflecting the fragmented reality of modern life. Other album highlights include the cinematic, Interpol-esque opener - ‘Old Friend’ complete with shimmering guitar lines and an far-reaching introspective, no-filter vocal as Thomas teams up with Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and Brad Truax (Interpol) across multiple tracks, often the production traverses left-field indie territory, but always maintaining Pan Amsterdam’s unique musical identity throughout. For the hip hop purists and beats lovers there are plenty of riches to discover from the clever nostalgic sample flips of ‘Cutlery’, the sleepy lofi of ‘Shuriken’ and the wonky LA beat scene / early Flying Lotus era beats of ‘Drunken Noodles’ - all boasting quick witted lyricism. ‘Deep Fried Shiney Things’ explores early electro and industrial sonics while album finisher is an upbeat new wave / indie band cut which sees Thomas take a break from rapping, but of course never letting up on the sharp observations nonetheless
While his previous record explored more alternative territory, ‘Panarama’ marks a deliberate return to rap, as Pan Amsterdam explains:
“I just wanted to do a rap album again.I enjoyed making my last album, but I felt like rapping again. I like to have the freedom to move in between musical worlds that suit the current state I’m in. Frequency accommodating frequency.”
This philosophy runs throughout the album. Tracks move effortlessly between jazz-inflected arrangements, experimental beats, punk energy and underground hip hop aesthetics, allowing ideas to evolve organically rather than conforming to traditional structures. Thomas describes himself as an improviser first and foremost: “I think like an improvisor. That’s how my albums pretty much move. It’s improvisation.”
Featuring additional contributions from Spice Programmers, AnOtter and Mr. Shn, ‘Panarama’ presents a wide-ranging cast of collaborators while remaining firmly rooted in Thomas’ singular creative vision. The record embraces contradiction, humour and unpredictability, capturing fleeting thoughts and observations with the same freedom and spontaneity that define jazz improvisation itself.
A musical enigma wrapped in an enduring riddle, Pan Amsterdam has built a reputation as one of contemporary music’s true outsiders. The project emerged from frustration, experimentation and artistic freedom, with Thomas drawing equally from his background as a jazz musician and his collaborations with artists including Iggy Pop and Metronomy. Operating from New York while carrying the spirit of Houston’s musical heritage, Pan Amsterdam has developed a distinctive voice that sits comfortably between avant-garde jazz, underground hip hop and experimental music.
Reuniting with Def Pressé for ‘Panarama’, Thomas explores what he describes as the more hardcore side of his artistic identity:
“They let me do anything and everything I wanna do so long as it’s on audio, and I need that freedom. What may verbally be perceived as vulgar to one group of people may be very thoughtful and a poignant description of the times that we’re presently in, so I’m glad that I’m part of a label home that understands that.”
Elderberry Jak was and is arguably the finest rock band to come out
West Virginia. It is certainly an arguable case if its single album is an accurate indicator, as the recording reveals a quartet as strong as any number of its more well-known, more commercially successful hard
rock contemporaries--bands such as Free, the James Gang, the
Guess Who, and Three Dog Night--all with which Elderberry Jak shared a variety of sonic attributes. The band came together in the fall of 1969, with bass player Dave Coombs and lead vocalist Joe Cerisano (Silver Condor, Trans-Siberian Orchestra) as its co-founders. The two had previously played together in Coombs' outfit J.B. and the Bonnevilles
. The Bonnevilles formed in 1965 and developed over the next few years into the most outstanding and popular group in the entire state of West Virginia. Upon the demise of J.B. and the Bonnevilles in 1969,
the duo formed a new unit called Kaboose, which lasted seven months. Then, with the addition of Tom Nicholas on guitar and Joe Hartman behind the drum kit, they became Elderberry Jak, named after the elderberry wine made by an uncle of Coombs. The quartet had soon become a powerful unit, mixing hard-driving rock with invigoratingly tight funk. The band traveled throughout their home states, Ohio and Pennsylvania, for performances, eventually earning a record deal with
Kenny's brother Leland Rogers in Memphis. The result was the first-
rate Long Overdue, released in 1970
Some recordings herald the future in ways that are impossible to see in real time. Teodros Makonnen With His Organ (ቴዎድሮስ መኮንን ከኦርጋኑ ጋር), by the artist Teodros Makonnen, also known as Teddy Mak, is one of those. Today, electronic sounds, synthesizers, and digital production are taken for granted in Ethiopian music, but in the early 1980s, they were novelties that polarized opinion. Even to this day, the story of Teodros Makonnen’s legacy has never been properly told. He played a decisive role in defining the sound of the digital era of Ethiopian music that emerged in the 1980s and beyond, both as a keyboard player and as a producer, songwriter, performer, and sound designer.
Ethiopian music was at a crossroads in the early 1980s. Much like music in the rest of the world, technology and automation heralded either a quantum leap in musical development or the annihilation of musicianship, depending on who you’d ask. The changes were incremental nonetheless, but with the benefit of hindsight one can clearly see that the changes meant different things in different contexts. Drum machines and electric organs came to replace many hotel bands because, all of a sudden, one musician could control drums, melody, and accompaniment. Teodros was one of the first musicians in Ethiopia to explore the possibilities this opened up.
Teodros’ father, Captain Makonnen Beri, was a chief pilot at Ethiopian Airlines and a music enthusiast at that. This would prove important to his development, as Makonnen brought back a piano from Germany, which would lead to the first steps in Teodros’ long musical career. Captain Makonnen’s work as Head of Flight Operations and as a pilot exposed him to the wider world that was far from commonplace for most Ethiopians. In a house where music captivated the whole family, the piano gave Teodros’ talent an outlet. Not only was a piano at home rare in Ethiopian households, his father also brought an Indian teacher to their home to teach Teodros and his brother, Captain Samuel Makonnen, music theory (solfeggio or ear training) and piano. Teodros and his youngest brother, the late great Dereje, a member of both the legendary Ibex Band and the Ethiopian reggae group Dallol, took up music from that point onward, with Teodros beginning to develop his proficiency at the age of eight. His father encouraged him to practice tirelessly at home, and Teodros later received musical schooling at the German School in Addis Ababa. His obvious talent led to studies and formal education at the Yared School of Music, followed by continued studies in American jazz at Northern Virginia Community College in Virginia. Teodros cut his teeth professionally in his mid-teens, not only as a keyboardist, but also as an arranger for the Wabi Shebelle and Dahlak bands in the 1970s. He mastered electronic sequencing early, rising to prominence through the midnight recording sessions held during the military curfew. The pressures imposed by the curfew required precise and disciplined recordings, and Teodros delivered just that. This, in turn, led to collaborations with iconic artists such as Mulatu Astatke, Aster Aweke, Menelik Wossenachew, Tilahun Gessesse, Mahmoud Ahmed, and Alemayehu Eshete. In those days, he sat in as a keyboardist with the Dahlak Band when Dawit Yifru took a hiatus to study in Russia, and also with the Ethiostar Band. He secured a residency at the Wabi Shebelle Hotel with the Shebele Band, together with Zelalem Tadese (drums), later succeeded by Elias Bekele, Mulugeta Hailu (bass), Teferi ‘Bibisha’ Mengesha (guitar), Kumelachew G/Selassie (trumpet), and Teshome Deneke (saxophone). A friendly competition developed between the bands associated with the Ras Hotel (the Ibex Band), Ghion Hotel (the Dahlak Band), and Wabi Shebelle Hotel (the Shebele Band). The music scene at Wabi Shebelle saw teenagers commanding the spotlight in an industry otherwise dominated by musicians of an older generation. At the Wabi Shebelle Hotel, Teodros met a diplomat from Saudi Arabia and later visited him at his home in Addis Ababa, a meeting that had unexpected musical consequences. The man owned a Yamaha double-deck keyboard. That evening, they recorded Teodros Makonnen With His Organ (ቴዎድሮስ መኮንን ከኦርጋኑ ጋር) in one take. This recording, a cornerstone in the early digital sound of Ethiopian music, came about almost by chance, simply because Teodros got the opportunity. Traditional Ethiopian songs were cast in a wholly electronic style. Once freed from backing duties, Teodros’ keyboards could explore dreamlike soundscapes that took Ethiopian music in new directions. Even though the cassette contained well-known Ethiopian songs, they were given highly original arrangements, performed on an electric organ with drum machine backing and rhythm patterns that left the listener with suggestive, lingering sounds. “Libesh Kabashen” (also known as “Anchi Bale Game”) and “Odu Gol Golesa” wrap you in the very stuff that dreams are made of. Originally released on cassette only, this recording exudes a mystique that surpasses even some of the most obscure Ethiopian recordings of the day. It remained more or less unknown outside of Ethiopia until now. Some of the tracks, like “Addis Fikir,” are permeated with an almost naive buoyancy, free-floating sounds that lost contact with the ground the moment they were conceived. Others, like “Meche New Hageren Yemayew” and “Lelitu Alnega Alegn,” carry a moodier, quirkier timbre, with pulsating rhythms in the background. Yet even the darker pieces contain an unmistakable wave, something essentially Ethiopian. If most recordings of Teodros’s contemporaries at the time were teeming with atmosphere, his songs seem instead at home in the stratosphere, almost ethereal. Some of the music here could be filed under “lullabies,” were it not for the recurring, almost brooding feeling that engulfs the listener on the aforementioned tracks. You could easily be forgiven for drifting into a blissful haze as the music washes over you.
Up to the advent of electronic music production, Ethiopia was totally dominated by big bands on the one hand, and small groups on the other. The former were tied to large institutions such as the military, the latter emerged from the entertainment industry, in hotel bars and nightclubs. These groups were commercially driven, and bands ultimately had to foster a mercenary approach to employment, albeit not to the passion for music. In the light of this, Teodros’ musical legacy can be seen in two ways. On the one hand, he is a key player in Ethiopian music from the 1970s onwards, leaving an indelible mark through hundreds of compositions and arrangements, including soundtracks for numerous documentary films and advertisements for different companies. On the other hand, the way he and others employed electronics brought Ethiopian music onto a fork in the road.
The replacement of traditional instruments with electronic equipment was seen as impending doom by some. Others, like Teodros, saw new avenues for performance, production, and creativity. Just as later producers like Abegasu Shiota of Admas, Teodros was a trailblazer who opened paths that it took Ethiopian music as a whole more than a decade to rush into. The hotel scene had already been pushed toward electronic music by financial necessity and cost-cutting. Today’s revived global interest in Ethiopian music from the seventies and eighties, alongside a broader resurgence, has changed the reasons for using digital means of music production. They have become tools for musical dreaming. This is where the dreaming began.
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Led By Vultures, the new Los Angeles based heavy rock band fronted by Brian Tichy (Ozzy Osbourne, Whitesnake, Foreigner, Billy Idol, Gene Simmons, etc...)
has come together over the past year to record its powerful, uncompromising, undeniable brand of heavy music, and released their highly anticipated first single “Get It Right” in late-March. With that comes 12 songs dominated by loud guitar, massive drums, big riffs, killer grooves, aggressive vocals, and a feeling of flying through a tornado! With a pro home studio, Tichy started the recording
process and instead of trying to find the right players, engineers and producers, he chose to see it through on his own, and aim to make it feel and sound like a band that’s been together for years. Long time buddy/keyboard virtuoso Derek Sherinian (Alice Cooper, Dream Theater) lent a hand on a few tunes, including some co-writing and it was Sherinian who has been one of Tichy’s main friends, supporting him and telling him to stop talking and to get writing and recording!!
Led By Vultures is all about serving the song, the groove and the power it possesses. The recording process began as an organic, exciting, challenge for Tichy but soon became an all-consuming obsession to serve the songs and sounds with all of his being and abilities. This includes a rule of no samples or
auto tune! Led By Vultures; not just a band but a pure musical obsession!
Manonmars’ 3rd album sees him at his most amorphous and psychedelic, at points sharper and laser focused, and at others more blurred and impressionistic than his previous records. Many of the core players remain the same, all of the production is once again handled by O$VMV$M (the duo of Neek and Amos Childs of Jabu) while Paulina Korobkiewicz (also of Young Echo) makes a return handling both the album’s cover artwork and contributing a series of diaristic field recordings and voice notes.
‘The project references movies, cartoons, fictional characters and video games, among other things. The album title is open to interpretation but all of these elements are forms of visual entertainment which have their own unique ability to transcend things like language barriers and cultural divides. The visual element is key because those details bridge the gap on a communicative level.’ - Manonmars
The album blends abstract, blurred braggadocio with more immediate personal details such as on ‘Volcanic Shield’ a posse cut of sorts featuring Bristol improv luminary Dali de Saint Paul and Franco Franco (½ of cyborg rap duo Kinlaw & Franco Franco) - where Mars recalls;
‘Memories of brighter days, happy meal hit the spot
Mum was spinning vinyl playing Super Ape or Pressure Drop
I would spend the weekend with the Turkish mandem on the block
single parent household, mum was studying or on the job
money came and went always was an on and off
made it back from school time to see what’s on the box’
The beat fades away to leave one of Korobkiewicz’s recordings of Mars’ mum talking about her life in London in the 80s, spending her money on reggae records as an ambient chord fades in like an echo of a jungle intro – stretching out as a link between generations of UK music.
The production by and large is brighter and more kinetic than earlier Manonmars records – with O$VMV$M drawing on everything from modern underground rap and drill through to jazz and acid ambient passages.
London is also a central character here, bustling and constantly shifting, either when bleeding in through field recordings, or as an ever-present backdrop in the lyrics;
‘I’m a fusion of Tippa Irie and Topper Harley
Hit the target like the black Atari
I dropped a tab now shit’s A Scanner Darkly
Got the munchies, Imma yam a sarnie
Pour the Wray and Ting like man at Carni
Exit Peckham Rye and turn left, walk past Hannah Barry
Get your (w)raps up like its January’
‘I've always considered London my home, despite spending some time in the South West of England too. My mum had been living in London for 25 years (...) That was a pretty big deal in some ways because it removed us from multicultural society during the period which overlapped with my teenage years. (...) I never got used to how quiet it was in the countryside (...) Bristol was the closest city to where we lived and it was through travelling there and making connections that I became involved in making music and playing gigs.’ - Manonmars
Mars’ practice as a painter (under his given name Jack Martyn Richardson) and photographer also loom heavy over the album, he cites Paul Verhoeven, Abdul Mati Klariwein and H.R Giger as influences – as well as Miles Davis, Drakeo the Ruler and DJ Rashad.
As with much of Richardson’s work the raps at times feel blurred to a point of almost inscrutability, creating a distance between the audience and himself. A process that ties into his visual work and the way he experiences the world as mainly abstract colour without his glasses. He explores this further in an ongoing visual collaboration with Korobkiewicz, ‘Fun and Games’ which serves as a visual archive of one of London's largest and oldest travelling fairgrounds.
‘I was diagnosed with very severe short-sightedness at the age of seven. I remember my early formative years as visually blurred. Some of my photography reflects this experience of partial vision and uncertainty, referencing memory and perception rather than fixed representation.’
Manonmars’ first public outing as a rapper was at a Young Echo radio event, broadcast shambolically from a practice room just off Jamaica street, Bristol in 2011, as much as things have moved on both stylistically and in terms of focus - strong links back to the city remain a key foundation throughout the collaborations and guest appearances.
‘I have no problem with being an outsider looking in. One of the things I enjoy about London is the anonymity (...) it's easy to be a stranger here when so much is happening. I feel like thats more valuable than people may realise.’
Aesop Rock & Homeboy Sandman kehren mit dem neuesten Teil ihrer fortlaufenden Lice-Reihe zurück: Miami Lice: Season 4. Dieses Mal übernimmt Aesop Rock die gesamte Produktion und schafft eine Balance zwischen stimmungsvollen Synthesizern und Drums, die von karg und schwer bis hin zu Wohlfühl-Vibes mit einem Hauch von Schwung reichen. Der Eröffnungstrack ,Who Sent You" ist ein hervorragendes Beispiel für Letzteres und dient als hervorragende Vorahnung dessen, was auf der EP zu erwarten ist: eine Mischung aus Humor, cleveren Texten und einer Fülle von Stilelementen - Eigenschaften, die Der Eröffnungstrack ,Who Sent You" ist ein hervorragendes Beispiel für Letzteres und dient als ausgezeichnete Vorahnung dessen, was auf der EP zu erwarten ist: eine Mischung aus Humor, cleveren Texten und einer Fülle von Stilen - Qualitäten, die ihren Höhepunkt erreichen, wenn die beiden in dem herausragenden Track ,Burnt Mauve" die Zeilen hin und her werfen. Im Laufe der acht Songs beweist dieses Projekt erneut, dass Aesop und Sandman zusammen immer natürlicher klingen und ein großartiges Paar bilden. Schalten Sie ein für Staffel 4, Lice ist zurück!
"exquisitely produced and expertly rendered"." Pitchfork "startlingly accomplished and nuanced performance" The Quietus "the delicious irony of her lyrics remains intact, as does the freshness of the music" The North Devon Gazette "She's often described as a storyteller, and in interviews, she's spoken about wanting to win a Grammy or an Oscar," Resident Advisor VINYL COLOUR IS TRANSPARENT. For the first time ever, Frozen, by the Clovelly spawned artist Klein, will be available on real vinyl. 'Frozen' was previously released in two different versions: a two-cassette edition entitled Frozen: The Motion Picture Music Soundtrack that featured all the tracks from the film, and Frozen: Music from the Motion Picture, a bandcamp edition contained a selection of highlights from the soundtrack. The album was an international top 10 success, reaching #2 in the US and #1 in the UK, and contains three hit singles; "U got this" (#18 in the US and #10 in the UK), "grit" (#8 in the US, #3 in the UK, and #1 in France) and "tribute" (#7 in the UK). "mark", specially composed for the film Frozen, won both the Oscar and the Golden Globe for Best Original Song. Klein, herself, took home the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical, and the film won the award for Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical in 2022.
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Included in Rolling Stone’s Most Anticipated Albums of 2020 list, this dynamic collection of Kelsea Ballerini’s latest 13 songs is aptly self-titled – kelsea - not surprising since this is her most authentically, self-aware reflection to date. Writing or co-writing all of the songs on the record, It’s an introspective look into the emotions of the last two years of her life. Using songwriting as therapy, she explores everything from social anxiety to the importance of real friendships to new perspective on old heartbreaks to the realization that even the most independent, stubborn people need someone sometimes. The writing credits on this album are, in her words, “pretty RAD”. In addition to Nashville royalty Shane Macanally, Hillary Lindsay and Ashley Gorley, she wrote with Ed Sheehan, Tayla Parx, and Julia Michaels. This is the first time Ballerini has been in the producer’s chair throughout the project, co-producing each track. She allowed the songs to drive the sonic personality of the record, resulting in a broad range of production elements/styles . Ballerini also set the collaboration bar high with two on this record... Stay tuned.
With her highly anticipated CiCi (Deluxe) album, Grammy Award-winning icon Ciara steps fully into her power; reclaiming her narrative with clarity, confidence, and the most dynamic soundscape of her career. A celebration of freedom, femininity, and evolution, CiCi is more than a return — it’s a full-on reinvention.
The Deluxe Edition expands her sonic universe even further — introducing four new songs that fuse sensuality, rhythm, and empowerment with global influences—featuring standout singles like the globally acclaimed “Low” (with Diamond Platnumz), “Ecstasy” (featuring Normani & Teyana Taylor), “How We Roll” (with Chris Brown), amongst other hits, the project seamlessly blends Ciara’s R&B and pop legacy with futuristic production, cross-continental energy, and unfiltered storytelling. Among them, “Low” stands as a defining moment — an electrifying fusion of Afrobeats and R&B that bridges Atlanta and East Africa in one hypnotic groove. The visual, rich with dance-floor heat and unapologetic sensuality, showcases Ciara’s signature choreography and global reach, earning millions of views and sparking an international dance challenge.
For over two decades, Ciara has defined what it means to be a cultural force — from trendsetting choreography to genre-shaping hits. With CiCi (Deluxe), she bridges generations, reignites her core, and welcomes a new wave of fans into her world. It’s bold. It’s intimate. It’s CiCi. Behind the scenes, CiCi also marks a powerful chapter in Ciara’s entrepreneurial journey. Through her self-founded, female-led Beauty Marks Entertainment, Ciara has created a home for her music, media, film, fashion, tech, and philanthropic ventures. BME empowers her to own her narrative, lead with vision, and build legacy — on her terms.
Bass: Sam Jones
Cello, Bass: Isao Suzuki
Drums: Billy Higgins
Electric Guitar: Kazumi Watanabe, Kazumasa Akiyama
Recording & Remix Engineer: Yoshikane Okada
Executive Producer: Toshinari Koinuma
Piano, Electric Piano, Fender Rhodes: Cedar Walton
A gem of a crossover album from Isao Suzuki, who has continued to lead the Japanese jazz scene as a bassist.
Capturing the vibrant energy of the 1970s, this record has been rediscovered by club music aficionados and rare groove collectors alike.
The album fuses Van Morrison–like bluesy grooves with deep funk and jazz sensibilities, along with a uniquely Japanese melodic sense.
Finnish dub-techno craftsman TM Shuffle, head of Vuo Records, resurfaces with a deep and distilled EP that goes straight for the late-night heart of the dancefloor. Rooted in Tampere’s raw, analog dub sound, his productions have long balanced weight and warmth, smoked-out chords, rolling low-end and subtle shuffle that keeps the groove in constant motion.
The lead track “Kellari” dives into basement mode: pressure-cooker drums, slow-burning stabs and a humid, lived-in atmosphere that feels equally at home on a huge system or in headphones at 4 a.m. On the second original cut, TM Shuffle links up once again with long-time collaborator Monoder, the alias of Jussi-Pekka Parikka, known for his dubbed-out explorations on labels like Statik Entertainment and Pakkas-Levyt since the early 2000s. Their joint track stretches time, letting echo, tape hiss and distant melodic fragments float around a rock-solid groove, channelling years of shared studio language into one focused, hypnotic flow.
On the flip, Anton Kubikov (SCSI-9) steps in with a lush reinterpretation of Kellari. A true Russian techno veteran with a catalog that spans Kompakt, Force Tracks, Mayak and beyond, Kubikov melts the original into a widescreen, dream-state trip, soft-focus pads, gentle yet insistent percussion and that unmistakable rolling pulse that made his work so enduring. The remix doesn’t just extend the track; it opens a new dimension, turning the basement pressure into a slow-rising, celestial drift.
Pressed on limited coloured vinyl, this EP is built for selectors who like their dub techno deep, human and timeless, a record that will quietly live in bags for years and keep resurfacing whenever the room calls for true late-night elevation.
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Jefferson Berry combines story telling with the intricacies of JamBand and Roots instrumentation. His songs are performed by a cadre of unique
players: The Urban Acoustic Coalition. The band is anchored by the virtuosity of Bud Burroughs and the harmonies of Theresa Ratliff. While acoustic
by nature, never missing is the locked-in bass/drums drive of Uncle Mike and Adam Stranburg. Complementing all this with a variety of guitar styles, Berry’s projects bring a danceable style and contemporary point of view to a unique wing of Philadelphia’s local music scene. With the release of his fourth album in five years, this reputation is spreading nationally. Berry’s lyrics are informed by his years in corporate media followed by a dozen years teaching African American History, Economics and Government to inner-city Philadelphia high school students. Symeer Woods (aka Lil Uzi Vert) and the late Rasheen Jones (aka Runup Rico) were among his students. Prairie Fire was originally released in 2023 and has 11 tracks in total featuring “That Was Me”,
“Long Way From Home” and the title track “Prairie Fire”.
On December 19, 2025, HAMMER KING will release a very special double edition, closing the circle of their band’s history while opening a new chapter. To mark the 10th anniversary of their debut album “Kingdom Of The Hammer King”, the album returns as a freshly remastered edition. The original artwork has received a modern twist, and thanks to Alexander Ecker’s brilliant remastering, the album now sounds warmer and more present than ever – without losing the charm and magic of the original. But that’s only half of the royal celebrations: with “Hammer King X – Alive In '25”, HAMMER KING release their very first live album! Recorded in the summer of 2025, it captures the raw energy and magic of their acclaimed shows – including performances at Summer Breeze, Bongert Open Air, Formosa Bierfest, and their traditional summer homecoming at the 7er Club Mannheim. Of course, the vinyl edition is also included: the anniversary edition is available as a double album on CD and vinyl, making it the perfect gift for all metalheads.
Für Aesop Rock war der Satz "I heard it's a mess there too" zuerst nur ein Songtext, aber es dauerte nicht lange, bis ihn dieser Satz packte. Er kam ihm bekannt vor, wie ein Satz, den er in den letzten Jahren tausendmal gesagt hatte, wenn er sich mit Freunden in verschiedenen Städten austauschte und sie sich gegenseitig erzählten, wo sie gerade waren und was dort so los war. Je länger er über diesen Satz nachdachte, desto mehr wurde ihm klar, dass er der Kern von etwas Größerem war. "I Heard It's A Mess There Too" steht für Aesop an der Schnittstelle zweier persönlicher Bedürfnisse: dem Bedürfnis, sich hinauszuwagen und seine Umgebung zu dokumentieren, und dem Wunsch, in Verbindung zu bleiben - besonders wenn die Lage unsicher ist. Musikalisch betritt Aesop Rock auf dem Album Neuland. "Ich habe viele Jahre lang auf die gleiche Weise Tracks produziert", sagt er, "aber hier habe ich bewusst meinen Prozess geändert. Ich habe ein paar neue Tools ausprobiert und versucht, meine Beats klarer und minimalistischer zu gestalten. Die Drums sind reduzierter, die Basslines dürfen einfach für sich stehen, ohne dass zehn weitere Elemente darübergelegt werden. Ich wollte nicht, dass der Beat und der Gesang um Aufmerksamkeit konkurrieren - ich wollte nur genug, um eine Welle ins Rollen zu bringen, und nicht viel mehr, nur eine Stimmung schaffen, zu der ich mich bewegen konnte." Diese zwölf Songs markieren verschiedene Stationen auf diesem Weg des Experimentierens und der Suche nach etwas Neuem.
Für Aesop Rock war der Satz "I heard it's a mess there too" zuerst nur ein Songtext, aber es dauerte nicht lange, bis ihn dieser Satz packte. Er kam ihm bekannt vor, wie ein Satz, den er in den letzten Jahren tausendmal gesagt hatte, wenn er sich mit Freunden in verschiedenen Städten austauschte und sie sich gegenseitig erzählten, wo sie gerade waren und was dort so los war. Je länger er über diesen Satz nachdachte, desto mehr wurde ihm klar, dass er der Kern von etwas Größerem war. "I Heard It's A Mess There Too" steht für Aesop an der Schnittstelle zweier persönlicher Bedürfnisse: dem Bedürfnis, sich hinauszuwagen und seine Umgebung zu dokumentieren, und dem Wunsch, in Verbindung zu bleiben - besonders wenn die Lage unsicher ist. Musikalisch betritt Aesop Rock auf dem Album Neuland. "Ich habe viele Jahre lang auf die gleiche Weise Tracks produziert", sagt er, "aber hier habe ich bewusst meinen Prozess geändert. Ich habe ein paar neue Tools ausprobiert und versucht, meine Beats klarer und minimalistischer zu gestalten. Die Drums sind reduzierter, die Basslines dürfen einfach für sich stehen, ohne dass zehn weitere Elemente darübergelegt werden. Ich wollte nicht, dass der Beat und der Gesang um Aufmerksamkeit konkurrieren - ich wollte nur genug, um eine Welle ins Rollen zu bringen, und nicht viel mehr, nur eine Stimmung schaffen, zu der ich mich bewegen konnte." Diese zwölf Songs markieren verschiedene Stationen auf diesem Weg des Experimentierens und der Suche nach etwas Neuem.
late night drive home have never known a world without Wifi - without access to the endless stream of joy, sorrow, heartbreak, and hope that we all tune in and tune out to on the daily. In many ways, the guys can"t really extricate themselves from that reality - even their band name comes from a random Wikipedia page - but they"re trying to at least grapple with it. "Most of us grew up on the internet with unsupervised access at a very young age," says singer Andre Portillo. "As we started foreseeing all the outcomes - both good and bad - of this kind of access and advancement, we started writing... forming a sound and message that would become our next record." The culmination of that, then, is the buoyant yet ominous as I watch my life online, the band"s debut album. late night drive home was born in El Paso, Texas, and Chaparral, New Mexico, hardworking communities where folks built their houses by hand and collars were mostly blue. Comprising guitarist Juan "Ockz" Vargas, singer Andre Portillo, drummer Brian Dolan, and bassist Freddy Baca, the entirely self-taught quartet released their first digital EP as a full band, 2021"s Am I sinking or Am I swimming?, and blew up with the single "Stress Relief," a blast of early-Aughts indie that racked in tens of millions of streams. After they signed with Epitaph Records in 2023 - and releasing 2024"s grunge-inspired 3 song EP i"ll remember you for the same feeling you gave me as i slept - they found themselves playing stages their indie idols previously shredded: Coachella, Shaky Knees, Austin City Limits, and Kilby Block Party. Since the end of the pandemic, though, the band had been dreaming up as i watch my life online. "I started thinking about the time after the pandemic and how much things were changing," says Vargas. "So the whole album is a critique of social media and the way we use the internet to distance ourselves from each other." The resulting suite of tracks is a series of online vignettes that hammers home the band"s message: the photos on your phone shouldn"t be your identity; your posts aren"t your inner monologue. A bigger life is lived where there"s no service - in your hometown on a late night road with your friends, and on stage, where the band finally found their destination after that long drive.
Enjoy The Ride Records and Enjoy The Toons Records in partnership with WaterTower Music proudly present |The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) by Emmy-nominated composer Joshua Moshier (Baskets, The Shrink Next Door). Pressed on limited edition colored vinyl, this pressing is limited to 1,000 copies.
That’s not all folks! From Ketchup Entertainment, Warner Bros. Animation, director Pete Browngardt, and the creative team behind the award-winning “Looney Tunes Cartoons” comes The Day the Earth Blew Up: Looney Tunes Movie, a brand-new buddy comedy starring one of the greatest comedic duos in history - Porky Pig and Daffy Duck! This richly crafted, hand-drawn 2D animated adventure marks the first fully animated feature-length film in Looney Tunes history, told on a scope and scale that’s truly out of this world.
Porky Pig and Daffy Duck venture to the big screen as unlikely heroes and Earth’s only hope when their antics at the local bubble gum factory uncover a secret alien mind control plot. Faced with cosmic odds, the two are determined to save their town (and the world!)... that is if they don’t drive each other totally looney in the process. Featuring the voices of acclaimed actors Eric Bauza, Candi Milo, Peter MacNicol, Wayne Knight, and Laraine Newman with the laugh-out-loud gags, vibrant visuals, and beloved characters that make the Looney Tunes so timeless and iconic. The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie arrives in theaters on March 14, 2025.
Black Hole Superette, the latest album from Aesop Rock, delves into the invisible forces that shape our lives and psyches. It's about the small, often overlooked moments_the everyday experiences that blur the lines between the real and the unreal, waking and sleeping. Aesop's signature gift for transforming the mundane into something dreamlike gives the album a surreal quality, leaving listeners questioning what's truly real as they navigate its vivid, half-remembered imagery. Entirely self-produced, Black Hole Superette is one of Aesop Rock's most technically accomplished works to date. The album's intricate beats and complex structures provide the perfect backdrop for his expansive lyricism, balancing cerebral exploration with emotional depth. From the reflective 'Movie Night' and the eccentric 'Send Help' to the wistful 'Black Plums,' Aesop channels the spirit of a mad scientist, experimenting with sound and concept in ways that defy the ordinary. With a stellar lineup of collaborators that includes Lupe Fiasco, Armand Hammer, Hanni El Khatib, Open Mike Eagle and Homeboy Sandman, Black Hole Superette is dense and kinetic, an album that deftly navigates between complexity and instinct. It's clear this project stands as one of Aesop Rock's most multifaceted and ambitious works yet.
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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.
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Black Hole Superette, the latest album from Aesop Rock, delves into the invisible forces that shape our lives and psyches. It's about the small, often overlooked moments_the everyday experiences that blur the lines between the real and the unreal, waking and sleeping. Aesop's signature gift for transforming the mundane into something dreamlike gives the album a surreal quality, leaving listeners questioning what's truly real as they navigate its vivid, half-remembered imagery. Entirely self-produced, Black Hole Superette is one of Aesop Rock's most technically accomplished works to date. The album's intricate beats and complex structures provide the perfect backdrop for his expansive lyricism, balancing cerebral exploration with emotional depth. From the reflective 'Movie Night' and the eccentric 'Send Help' to the wistful 'Black Plums,' Aesop channels the spirit of a mad scientist, experimenting with sound and concept in ways that defy the ordinary. With a stellar lineup of collaborators that includes Lupe Fiasco, Armand Hammer, Hanni El Khatib, Open Mike Eagle and Homeboy Sandman, Black Hole Superette is dense and kinetic, an album that deftly navigates between complexity and instinct. It's clear this project stands as one of Aesop Rock's most multifaceted and ambitious works yet.
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Last delivered 13 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Enjoy The Ride Records and Enjoy The Toons Records in partnership with WaterTower Music proudly present The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) by Emmy-nominated composer Joshua Moshier (Baskets, The Shrink Next Door). Pressed on limited edition colored vinyl, this pressing is limited to 1,000 copies.
That’s not all folks! From Ketchup Entertainment, Warner Bros. Animation, director Pete Browngardt, and the creative team behind the award-winning “Looney Tunes Cartoons” comes The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, a brand-new buddy comedy starring one of the greatest comedic duos in history - Porky Pig and Daffy Duck! This richly crafted, hand-drawn 2D animated adventure marks the first fully animated feature-length film in Looney Tunes history, told on a scope and scale that’s truly out of this world.
Porky Pig and Daffy Duck venture to the big screen as unlikely heroes and Earth’s only hope when their antics at the local bubble gum factory uncover a secret alien mind control plot. Faced with cosmic odds, the two are determined to save their town (and the world!)... that is if they don’t drive each other totally looney in the process. Featuring the voices of acclaimed actors Eric Bauza, Candi Milo, Peter MacNicol, Wayne Knight, and Laraine Newman with the laugh-out-loud gags, vibrant visuals, and beloved characters that make the Looney Tunes so timeless and iconic. The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie arrives in theaters on March 14, 2025.
Singer-songwriter Dan Arsenault’s avant-garde music infuses classic progressive rock and modern hard rock vibes - crafting himself a unique style of accessible songs that truly inspires the listeners. Born and raised in Atlantic Canada - home of many diverse artists, Dan’s taste in music genre greatly varied in his adult life, you can surely spot many of his style influences in his songs, ranging from early progressive rock to modern rock. His lyrical metaphor style along his punched-in odd signature moments, brings a strange complexity to the songs always leaving you discovering something new in each playbacks.
Dan’s first official released music arrived in 2021, with his first full length instrumental album ‘Eminence’ which was nominated for recording of the year at the MNB Awards 2021 and was highly accepted by the progressive music
community and qualified as a hidden jewel. Dan’s new concept album, ‘Signs point to Yes’, will truly showcase his passionate composing and producing skills, through the story journey of a kid on his quest for musical stardom and
happiness, featuring elite artists like Joe Calderone (Arch Echo), Jemma Heigis and Danny Bourgeois.
For Fans of, KISS, Starz, Angel, and 70’s classic rock! Employing a dazzling mix of glam rock, hard rock, and progressive rock, Angel's outrageous, white-satin-heavy image and equally over-the-top stage shows, making them one of the more colourful arena rock bands of the mid-'70s and early '80s. Discovered by KISS bass player, Gene Simmons, the group issued their eponymous debut album in 1975, which hewed closer to prog rock than the glam pop that would inform future endeavours like On Earth as It Is in Heaven(1977) and Sinful(1979). The group released a total of 5 studio albums and 1 live album before going their separate ways in 1981.Formed in Washington, D.C., the group's self-titled 1975debut was recorded for the flamboyant Casablanca Records label--home to KISS--with a line-up comprising Frank DiMino (vocals), Punky Meadows (guitar), Gregg Giuffria (keyboards), Mickie Jones(bass), and Barry Brandt(drums). A heavy slab of heavy pomp rock with lengthy songs swathed in Giuffria's atmospheric keyboards and featuring the longtime stage favourite "Tower". Now to celebrate the50thAnniversarythis classic has been remastered and is being released on both a 6-pane l CD digipak and on 180G vinyl with liner notes by Rock Candy journalist Dave Reynolds. There are only 700 of the Black-Blue swirl worldwide. A must have for any Angel fan with classics like “Tower” and “Rock & Rollers”
Andrew Duhon has a knack for telling the kind of stories that clearly cost the writer something to tell- the kind of honesty that feels noble and never half hearted. When a song written by a stranger heals you, even in the smallest way, that's a connection beyond entertainment, and that is the journey Andrew Duhon sets out on from his home in Louisiana. His songs are about recognizing our story as much as they are about telling his, and his coast to coast pursuits have given him a clearer view of the American Landscape than most are privy to. Still, after years of voyaging off to every corner of the country, a new sensation arises with each return home to New Orleans. From that familiar return comes The Parish Record, a snapshot of life venturing from and returning to one of America's purest cultural vignettes, and the beauty, conflict, and stories that come with it. The Parish Record was recorded at Dockside Studios in Maurice, LA, where deep in Cajun country sits a wood-panel barn engulfed in oak and cypress trees along the slow butterscotch bayou pace of the Vermillion River. In this isolated hub of Acadiana, Andrew Duhon embarked with his trio of most trusted musicians - Myles Weeks (James Hunter Six, Eric Lindell) on Bass, Jim Kolacek (Feufollet) on Drums, and Daniel Walker (Heart, Ann Wilson, Amy Ray) on Keys - to harness of the sound and feeling of their surroundings. "I wanted this record to feel like home. It wasn't time to get out of town or try out something new on this one. It was about believing in the songs from where the songs came from," Duhon says.
Obliteration is imminent: As The World Dies return with their triumphant second offering. “Nebula” is a colossal lesson in crushing death metal and cosmic mysticism. “‘Nebula’ is the quintessence of what As The World Dies is all about,” band leader and scene veteran Scott Fairfax says. “We pushed our musical boundaries and wanted to create an album that was both brutal and thought-provoking. It’s heavier, darker and more profound than anything we’ve done before.”
While we go about our petty business, leading our small and insignificant live under the sun, death is hurtling towards us at breakneck speed: An asteroid names Apophis will come in very close contact with planet Earth in 2029. Aptly named after the Egyptian god of dissolution, darkness and chaos, it has the power to obliterate life as we know it. Seriously: it doesn’t get any more death metal than this.
Scott Fairfax is well aware of that. The death metal veteran of Memoriam fame is back with his other vehicle of death and destruction, As The World Dies. Three years after their earthshattering and star-studded debut “Agonist”, he’s taking things into space with “Nebula”, a cosmic death metal requiem of colossal proportions. Brought to life and recorded mostly by Scott Fairfax alone in his home studio, this isn’t so much of a band effort and rather the work of a dedicated individual pissed off by pretty much everything going on around him.
Angry, haunting and miserable songs are, though. “Nebula” is full of them. An album like an uncompromising alien threat to our planet, as unrelenting and indifferent as an asteroid. The end is coming, folks. Let’s all enjoy it while we can
Obliteration is imminent: As The World Dies return with their triumphant second offering. “Nebula” is a colossal lesson in crushing death metal and cosmic mysticism. “‘Nebula’ is the quintessence of what As The World Dies is all about,” band leader and scene veteran Scott Fairfax says. “We pushed our musical boundaries and wanted to create an album that was both brutal and thought-provoking. It’s heavier, darker and more profound than anything we’ve done before.”
While we go about our petty business, leading our small and insignificant live under the sun, death is hurtling towards us at breakneck speed: An asteroid names Apophis will come in very close contact with planet Earth in 2029. Aptly named after the Egyptian god of dissolution, darkness and chaos, it has the power to obliterate life as we know it. Seriously: it doesn’t get any more death metal than this.
Scott Fairfax is well aware of that. The death metal veteran of Memoriam fame is back with his other vehicle of death and destruction, As The World Dies. Three years after their earthshattering and star-studded debut “Agonist”, he’s taking things into space with “Nebula”, a cosmic death metal requiem of colossal proportions. Brought to life and recorded mostly by Scott Fairfax alone in his home studio, this isn’t so much of a band effort and rather the work of a dedicated individual pissed off by pretty much everything going on around him.
Angry, haunting and miserable songs are, though. “Nebula” is full of them. An album like an uncompromising alien threat to our planet, as unrelenting and indifferent as an asteroid. The end is coming, folks. Let’s all enjoy it while we can
At the start of the 60s, a new wave of gospel-influenced jazz started to emerge, with hits such as Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers' "Moanin'" and Cannonball Adderley's "Work Song" epitomizing this evolution in the genre. The terms "soul jazz" and "funky jazz" were coined as a way to describe this new sound that was making an impact in the US and also on the other sides of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
In 1964, Ray Charles made his first visit to Japan. Then, in 1968, Martha & The Vandellas and Stevie Wonder set foot in the country, followed by Sam & Dave in 1969, Ike & Tina Turner in 1970, and B.B. King in 1971. The TV show "Soul Train" also began airing in Japan in the early 1970s. A watershed moment happened in 1973 when Sammy Davis Jr. was cast in a TV commercial for Suntory whisky — and the influence of the US Black entertainment world had really landed, with soul, jazz, and funk artists becoming household names.
Nippon Columbia played a pivotal role during this turning point. The company had contracts with Buddah Records and Blue Thumb Records, releasing notable works by artists such as Gladys Knight & The Pips, Curtis Mayfield, The Crusaders, and The Pointer Sisters. At the same time, the label was also releasing several Japanese soul, jazz, and funk projects under the lead of music director Jiro Inagaki. Inagaki, a saxophonist who began his professional career in the early 1950s, honed his skills at U.S. military camps, where he shared his love of music with the Black servicemen. In the 1960s, he played with drummer Hideo Shiraki's band, which was widely considered to be Japan's representative group of the funky jazz movement. Later, Inagaki went on to pursue more cutting-edge sounds with his Soul Media project, including being a pioneering figure in the "jazz rock" genre. By working closely with Inagaki and his various musical projects, Nippon Columbia really placed the company at the center of an exciting and important period in Japanese music.
In 1965, Nippon Columbia opened a recording studio in Tokyo's Akasaka neighborhood. Akasaka was also home to the first ever discotheque in Japan, the legendary MUGEN, which ran from 1968 to 1987 and where many acts performed, including Con Funk Shun, the Bar-Kays, Ike & Tina Turner, B.B. King, Sam & Dave, Three Degrees, and Edwin Starr, as well as many local Japanese singers and musicians. This melting pot of creativity in the area led to the recording of many singles and albums by Japanese artists that were infused with the sounds of soul and funk. Most of these recordings were not available outside of Japan and remain rare and unknown musical gems. The selection you are holding in your hands is an explosive collection of 10 essential tracks released by the legendary Nippon Columbia label between 1969 and 1977, capturing the raw, unapparelled energy that was flowing through the air of the Akasaka streets at this electrifying time. Enjoy!
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Das Debütalbum „A Hometown Odyssey“ des aufsteigenden Sängers, Songwriters und Produzenten Livingston ist nun auf Vinyl und CD verfügbar. Der Alt-Pop Phänomen bringt upbeat und uplifting Sounds
mit schweren Drums und hypnotischen Klängen zusammen. Im Anschluss an den digitalen Release am 8.
März 2024 konnten Fans das Album bereits live auf der anschließenden, ersten US-Tour “A Hometown
Odyssey Tour” des Künstlers erleben. Das Album feiert seither über 100 Millionen Streams bei Spotify
und chartet auf Platz drei der Global Charts. Besonders „Last Man Standing“ und „Shadow“ stechen als
Fan-Favoriten heraus. Im Juni erst wurde Livingston als YouTube’s “Artist On The Rise” vorgestellt, womit
YouTube recht behalten soll und Livingston mit seinen Lyrics in „Look Mom I Can Fly“ zustimmt: “Make
me believe I’m gonna reach the clouds, ‘cause I just wanna feel alive, look mama I can fly!”
