It is often the case with popular music that those recordings which have the most profound impact and long-term appeal are often the ones which are produced in a moment without much deliberation or agenda. And that has certainly been the case with Slow Club’s EP of Christmas songs.
The first single from the E.P, Christmas TV, was actually written in soundcheck at Birmingham Barfly and released as a free download for Christmas 2008. The rest of the EP was written and recorded in a short burst in late summer 2009 at Axis Studios in Sheffield and in their friend’s bedroom. It came at a moment of intense creativity for the band when the songs were coming thick and fast and the duo were really hitting their stride. The differing musical styles of the pair was already becoming apparent across the three original compositions and three covers, and there is a real sense of a band pushing their limits in a way which would coalesce in the recording of their breakthrough second album the following year.
The album remastered for the very first time , with Roland Gift's involvement. Includes download card, featuring the album + 29 rare/unreleased tracks (B Sides, live, remixes)
The album remastered for the very first time , with Roland Gift's involvement. Includes download card, featuring the album + 29 rare/unreleased tracks (B Sides, live, remixes)
Includes the hits "Johnny Come Home " "Suspicious Minds"
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Growing Bin say sayonara to summer with these bittersweet Balearic gems from Japan’s Nuback. Emotional pop and daydream dub to make you feel younger than yesterday. While the Discogs hipsters hastily hunt down the last, lost street soul OGs, Growing Bin choose instead to indulge in a little Nuback swing. Enlisting the talents of Tokyo’s Dai Nakamura, Hamburg’s home for sensitive sounds provide a much needed vinyl release for the misty-eyed ‘When The Party Is Over’ and ‘Heartbeat Summer’. Largely operating through his own Too Young Records, Nuback trades in textured soul, sympathetic synthesis and forlorn funk - a master at making you move while breaking your heart. Back in 2013, he waved ‘Goodbye To Summer, Again’, giving a digital release to these two tracks, which lurked a little low for the radar until Dai and Basso met somewhere beyond the algorithm, soon bringing this release to bloom. Opening with a fanfare of featherlight pads and full bodied bass, ‘When The Party Is Over’ is pure sonic seduction, holding both Balearic boogie and City Pop in a tender embrace. Delicate guitar and sparkling sequences tug the heartstrings with nostalgic beauty, and Dai’s smooth vocals are made to make you swoon. Emotional pop at its finest folks. On the B-side, ‘Heartbeat Summer’ drops the tempo and soaks up the sun, losing its cares in a haze of loved up dub. As soulful keys sink into spring reverb and steam kettle synths ride a rolling bassline, this downbeat delight lays back in the long grass, making shapes from the clouds and sipping a cool koshu. For summer lovers everywhere; A facemask ruins a first kiss, so start your romance right with Nuback.
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Back in 1977, the LP Point Of Know Return marked the commercial peak of Kansas. The Progressive Rock band had experienced tremendous success with their previous release (1976’s Leftoverture) and were no longer starving for a hit, yet the sessions for their fifth album were tense. Steve Walsh briefly left the group in the middle of these sessions. Nevertheless, the LP turned out an even bigger success for the band than its predecessor. It would be their highest charting record and with four million copies sold, it was certified Quadruple Platinum by the RIAA. The tour to support the album brought them to huge venues such as New York’s Madison Square Garden and the LA Forum, with the tour book including an essay written by Rolling Stone contributor Cameron Crowe. The band became a staple on FM radio at this point, and during this period was one of the most popular rock acts in the country. “Dust In The Wind” became the hit single of the album.
• 180 GRAM AUDIOPHILE VINYL
• INSERT
• MULTI-PLATINUM 1977 ALBUM FEATURING THE SINGLES “DUST IN THE WIND” & “PORTRAIT (HE KNEW)”
• LIMITED EDITION OF 1500 INDIVIDUALLY NUMBERED COPIES ON FLAMING COLOURED VINYL
This album could easily have turned top-heavy. After all, here’s a record which, in just under 40 minutes, covers anything from Arabic scales to Japanese sounds, from free jazz references to concepts by Finnish pianist Kari Ikonen’s favourite painter Vasiliy Kandinsky.
To realise his vision, Ikonen even personally developed a device allowing him to play micro-intervals on his piano. And yet, things turned out differently: If anything, the results sound dream-like and mesmerising rather than stodgy and severe.
The album’s genesis may serve to explain this paradox. In August of 2019, Ikonen suddenly found himself with a month of free time. Without thinking twice and as if in a premonition of the Covid-lock-down, he recorded ‘Impressions, Improvisations and Compositions’ at his own home. His only companion was his beloved Steinway, captured by a personal selection of high-end microphones. Just a few days after the final session, the pieces landed on the desk of ECM- and Blue-Note-engineer Johannes Lundberg who mixed the album at his Gothenburg Epideminstudios. Clearly then, the music is spontaneous. But it’s also refined and deep. The influence of Kandinsky inspired
Ikonen to write some of his most complex and monumental pieces.
Bristol-based trip hop trio Jabu this week announced details of their second album. ‘Sweet Company’ will be released on November 20th via the group’s own do you have peace? imprint.
Sweet Company is the second album by Jabu. Where their first LP, Sleep Heavy, was an unflinching exploration of grief, dark and disembodied, Sweet Company’s deep, sedative soul feels like more of a lovers’ outing: optimistic, becalmed, looking outwards as well as inwards, and longing for the kind of human connections where ego and self-consciousness might dissolve. It is perhaps also an exhortation to love and accept yourself, to recover a lost innocence and peace – that paradise which has always been lost. Released via their own do you have peace? label, Sweet Company is on the one hand a very intimate and private-sounding work - the sound of life played out in a room, a bubble, a home, a head. The rhythms of everyday domesticity: listening to the plants, cars in the street, voices through the wall…. going to work, not going to work, sleeping heavy or not sleeping at all. Wavering on the brink of a revelation, of something just beyond the material world, while you wait for the kettle to boil. The core Jabu trio of producer Amos Childs and vocalists Jasmine Butt and Alex Rendall is present and correct. Sweet Company has theexhilarating sweep and confidence of a collaboration between people who trust and understand each other implicitly, and, secure in that knowledge, are able to give the absolute best of themselves to us. As before, Jasmine’s voice is a textural, painterly instrument, layered and blurred into abstraction, resisting the limits of language; the songs she sings on are portals into vast internal landscapes where the normal rules of gravity are suspended, every sound is smothered in a cathedral-like resonance, and you're both fearful and hopeful that you might never find your way back out again. Alex takes a more narrative, confessional and no less engaging pop tack: as on the gauzy, decelerated 2-step of ‘Lately’, with his masochistic, self-mocking entreaties to “be cruel to me … I like it when you make a fool of me”. Childs has a true hip-hop fiend's ear for a striking sample, and how to loop it to most hypnotic and rapturous effect, but here takes things to ever more powerfully uncanny and auteurish places, drawing inspiration from the voidal bliss-outs of shoegaze (AR Kane’s amniotic dream-pop epic 69 is one influence cited) and the space-time disturbances of dub, commanding both a raindrops-on-cobwebs delicacy and an immense, oceanic pressure. His productions seem to resist linear progression - instead they move by a kind of unstoppable diffusion, like weeds reclaiming an unkempt garden, or alien flora patterning the sea-floor and coral-caves of the subaquatic level of a computer game which may exist only in your, or his, imagination. Perhaps it's Daniela Dyson, the British-Afro-Colombian artist who contributes her vivid, energising poetic mysticism to two tracks, who best sums up Sweet Company's ambition and effect: “Me quiero perder en los momentos tan puros en su esencia que Las Horas mismas se detienen para ser testigo de nuestro amor” (I want to lose myself in the moments so pure in their essence / that The Hours themselves stop to bear witness to our love…). For a precious half an hour, we're invited to celebrate the smallness of our lives - and the limitless grandeur which that smallness contains. When it ends, we step back from the brink but things aren’t quite the same anymore: we’re haunted by what we briefly almost knew.
out of Stock
Last delivered 4 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
For Intervals, Arndt's chose the family piano to begin the creative process. By placing less importance on the skittering rhythms, which propelled previous Near the Parenthesis collections, Arndt was able to focus more on the instant gratification of sitting down and just playing. These ideas became the back- bone in which he then composed eight tidal tracks, mostly in the early morning hours in his East San Franciso Bay creekside home.
In these sessions, Arndt utilized various synths, and percussion to provide additional depth and atmosphere to the tracks' original skeletal structures. Arndt says of Intervals, "The title has a dual meaning as there has been a decent period of time between my previous album Helical and the release of Intervals, Four years to be exact. This concept of time and the spaces between gives the title its other connotation, which is a nod to musical intervals and the spaces between notes. I think this becomes evident in my use of arpeggiation, which I feel is a grounding motif across the album."
As with many Arndt's Near The Parenthesis works, there is a gentile hopefulness sewn through Intervals forty-minute runtime that provides much-needed solace in such unsettling times.
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Misha Sultan is a professional musician multi-instumentalist and sound engineer with a wide background. He started making music over 20 years ago with his brother and neighbors in the heart of Siberia. Misha’s hometown Novosibirsk is located between Europe and Asia where lots of his inspiration came from.
«The Red Fern Road» is a trip for years and for less than an hour at the same time. While listening to the album you’re going into the void of time and place. But the world that opens up to you when you listen to the music is such a beautiful universe that you want to stay there forever.
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
""Dad! Look, we can see the moon through the window."
Record made on Earth. All children, young and old, you will hear my heart here without a stethoscope. This record is "home-made with a window open to the world". Inspired by my family and friends, these music tracks are dedicated to them!" The Architect
The Architect takes us on a trip through the world and styles: Hip Hop, Jazz, Electro, Soul, Funk... A true vinyl lover and real digger, turntables have always been his favorite playground. Hyperactive beatmaker, he is also engaged with different side projects such as L’Entourloop and Bloc.
The success of his first EP "Foundations" released in 2013, including several hits such as "Les Pensées" (8M views) or "Dreader Than Dread (ft. Skarra Mucci & L'Entourloop)" (15M views), led him to do more 200 shows around the world and accumulate more than 35M of streams on the platforms.
Seven years later, The Architect finally returns with a new single "Darling", the first single from his long-awaited new album entitled “Une plage sur la lune” to be released on June 12th, 2020. A "home-made album with a window open to the world" as he describes it himself.
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
* Modern day classc roots reggae vocal set from England-based female singer Donette Forte.
* A criminally under-recorded artist with only handful of recordings to her name, including three 45’s already released by Partial and featured on this LP: `Jah See and Know’. `Homeward Bound’ and `Time For a Change’.
* `Wilderness’, produced by Rej Forte was originally released on the Jah Works label 1991 and has been out of print ever since.
* This reissue features two additional dub versions which were not featured on the original release.
* Limited to 500 copies only.
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Tappa Zukie (David Sinclair) born 1955 Kingston,Jamaica actually cut his first record in England,after being sent there aged 17.
He was breaking from his troublesome past that found him running with the rough crowd on the streets of Kingston. On his arrival in sunny Ladbroke Grove London, producer Bunny Lee called him up on stage at a local dance to sing a tune. Impressed with the results fellow producer Larry Lawrence got the young Tappa in the studio the very next day and cyt 'Jump and Twist'.
This led to cutting his 'Man I Warrior' album,but somewhat disillusioned and homesick he returned to Jmaica shortly afterwards.
But this venture in the Uk was to pay dividends,seeing his 'I Man Warrior' album receive great reviews on its release.
We have collected together some great lost treasures and some alternative cuts to some of Tappa'sbetter known releases.
Mr Zukie, DJ/Toaster/Producer Roll the tape one more time if you please.......
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Dynamic Sounds Studio has its roots firmly set in Jamaica’s history. It was the first state of the art studio built in Kingston, Jamaica and a firm favourite with all the topflight homespun artists. Bob Marley chose to record the bulk of his seminal 'Catch A Fire' album there and many foreign musicians trying to catch some of that reggae magic and emulate that sound have beaten a path to its doors. As you will see the studio had a history already of its own, that was carved out before it became the aptly named Dynamic Sounds.
Originally named WIRL Studio's (West Indies Records Limited), it was set up initially to record Jamaica's versions of the American Rhythm and Blues tunes that were proving so popular on the island. It was started back in 1958 by Political leader Edward Seaga an astute businessman, who had many interests around the island including clubs and bars. As the R & B music evolved into its own styles from Mento into Ska, one of its main protagonists Byron Lee and his band the Dragonaires would be at the forefront and be seen as ambassadors to the cause. Edward Seaga would choose the band to head the 1964 World’s Fair and take them to New York to showcase the Jamaican Ska Music. His political ambitions leading the American friendly JLP (Jamaican Labour Party) against the Cuban inspired PNP (People's National Party), would see him cutting back his other interests and lead to the selling of WIRL, lock stock and barrel to Byron Lee. On taking over the business he renamed it Dynamic Sounds and extended it to include not only a top of the range recording studio but a pressing plant to distribute the new hot sounds of the day directly to the streets of Jamaica. The address would also change to 15 Bell Road, it's old address No 13, seemingly too unlucky for such a fine establishment.
The studio has become part of the Jamaican culture and each twist and turn in its musical story has been caught and recorded here. We get on board when the music had slowed down to the reggae skank that we now know and love. We have picked some fine cuts that we feel best represent the times. The rhythms are pushed to the fore and the great Sylvan Morris a much-underrated studio master, always came up with some interesting effects to enhance the version cuts. A fine time in reggae's history caught at one of Jamaica's finest studios. Dynamic Sounds from a Dynamic Studio.....
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Outider sweet soul track by Mississippi Garage Band the Sypyres, 'Looking for a place' was originally the flip to Mark Prewitt insanly rare cover of Animals classic 'Baby Let Me Take You Home'. The new masters sounds significantly better than OG plus is on Vinyl rather styrene so its ready for bumming out the finest clubs and bars as soon as they open!! Big up to Brian Sears who did the reasearch on this one.
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
"I have been in love with the Detroit sound of techno since forever, so when I discovered Subradeon, I was immediately struck by the soul and energy of their music. I have been lucky enough to get to know Giuseppe and Salvatore over the last year and so it was always a dream for me to have them release a record together on Sous. Now this is happening, I couldn't be more excited. They have made three spectacularly good tracks that I know will last forever in my heart, and hopefully in yours too" opens Anja.
Sous has been drip feeding us top line releases all year long, despite the world coming to a standstill, Anja believes that continuing to release music is important to keep spirits high. She has been showcasing some of the newer talent from around the globe alongside some household names including Marcus Suckut, Fort Romeau and Mella Dee to the last release from Italian duo Reform.
October brings Subradeon. Hailed as the new school of the techno scene, they might have grown up in the Neapolitan underground scene, but their sound has become a melting pot of influences from their current home town of Berlin and the duo's self- confessed spiritual home of Detroit.
Giuseppe Salone and Salvatore Lannotta deliver their debut release 'Breaking Down Borders' on Sous, compromising of their characteristic raw soul, profound meaning and energetic purpose. This package includes a remix from Techno pioneer Stephen Brown (Djax Records, Transmat, Music Man).
out of Stock
Last delivered 3 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
One town, three times of the day, a triarchy of Techno music, rolling into the deep – coming as green marbled vinyl with an exclusively designed festival wristband!
Rico Puestel rears a monument to his growing-up-town „Uslar“ with three different approaches on this second part of the home-loving „Solling“ series that dig deep into a downscaled and natural framework of sound (all recorded and produced right at that place).
The initiation ritual on A1 with Uslar at 6'23 in the morning starts off with an actual electric guitar theme, originally recorded back in 2003, that builds the foundation hub to one crisp and point-blank Techno-Electro ceremony. The clean minimalistic sound will showcase all the details of any structure within while one's certainly getting caught by the overall force of melodic attraction like the sun working its path through the misty valleys.
At 13'35 noon, a rising rhythmical and progressive interpretation of the initial morning sounds makes an appearance on the flipside that doesn't allow much time to leap right into the centre of the da(y)nce, immediately creating the guesswork where side AA is leading all along.
The evening hours at 21'55 then take a flying leap into the mystical peak of the whole process, taking the morning sounds from side A into some uneasy realms and sceneries, prevailed by an almost voodoo-like momentum and a dance into the depths of its surrounding woods that will coherently dignify 90's loop Techno par excellence.
This fourth record on Exhibition is and feels right here and right now, paying tribute to the past and many different streams of Techno while cherishing a future that has yet to be written, celebrating the
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Flaming Tunes' sole release is perhaps the finest elegy to the '80s home recording ethos that you've never heard. Originally released in 1985 on cassette (with individually hand-colored covers), this self-titled album grew out of the collaboration between childhood friends Gareth Williams and Mary Currie.
Williams is best known as a member of English art-rock band This Heat. After leaving the group in the early '80s, he travelled to India where he studied classical Kathakali dance – an experience that would profoundly shape the music of Flaming Tunes.
In an old Victorian house in South London, the duo recorded during the day while Currie's young son attended school and Williams conducted tape treatments at night. They were joined by various guests including This Heat guitarist Charles Bullen as well as long-term collaborators Martin Harrison and Rick Wilson.
Using whatever instruments they had on hand (clarinet, piano, bells, etc.), Flaming Tunes create lo-fi melodies around simple arrangements, oblique rhythms and densely layered natural sounds. The results are a mesmeric collage of instrumental daydreams and sideways pop songs, floating into one another in a hazy confluence of late '60s Canterbury psych-folk and early Residents experimentation.
All of these beguiling elements converge in a personal manner, quietly insistent in listeners' ears like the blood pulsing in one's veins on a warm summer day.
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
One of the two great chapters in reggaes history was the DJ phenomenon that conquered the Sound Systems in and around Kingston town in those heady 1970's, the other was the dub plates specials that allowed the DJ's to explore a tune in the first place. Giving some fine question and answers to its original vocal, emphasising its meaning or taking it into another subject matter altogether. When you have these two styles and add to it that original vocal, dubbed in at various points you get a fantastic melting pot that lifts a tune and can take it almost anywhere it likes.
Although DJ's were operating in Jamaica in the 1950's and 1960's with the likes of Count Matchuki and Sir Lord Comic, their role was that of mainly selector with a few vocal embellishments to instrumental tracks to gee up the crowd. 1969 saw the art form broaden with the likes of DJ King Stitt (Winston Spark) who scored a couple of hits for producer Clancy Eccles with 'Fire Corner' and 'Herbsman Shuffle'. But it was Clancy Eccles next releases with a certain U Roy (Ewart Beckfort) in the same year that saw the style explode. When hearing the DJ holding the crowd’s attention on King Tubby's Home Town Hi - Fi Sound System, the producer rushed the DJ into the studio and cut 'Wake the Town' and 'Rule The Nation'. Which would top the Jamaican charts in the soon to follow 1970.
In true Jamaican musical style when a new sound hits on the radio waves, many would soon follow. With an abundance of already tried and tested hits, producers would get the new
toasters of which there were many and revamp and breathe new life into their back catalogues.
But what makes this set of cuts, chosen for this release that little bit more interesting, are the working of the dub plates and effects alongside these vocal talents. Adding another layer to this musical cake.
A fine selection of tunes worked over by the cream of the 1970's DJ circuit.U Roy, I Roy. Jah Stitch, U Brown, Dillinger, Prince Jazzbo, Dennis Alcapone and the vastly underrated Shorty the President alongside some classic King Tubby dubs surely a match made in heaven...
Subheim adds a new chapter to his catalog of shadowy raves with ΠΟΛΙΣ – the fourth long player. Pronounced "Polis," the Greek word for "city," ΠΟΛΙΣ doesn't so much evoke the rapid cadences of life in a modern metropolis as it does the unspoken tension between longing to escape and being trapped in some kind of concrete stasis – living together with millions of souls in an expansive emptiness.
Subheim uses ΠΟΛΙΣ as a vehicle to depart from traditional songwriting structures, crafting each track as a piece of a larger sonic collage. Songs come out of nowhere, abruptly come to end before they even get a chance to start or introduce new motifs and surprise reprises long after we expect the next track to cue up. These stutter-start forms reflect the four years it took for the record to take shape: a series of failed musical experiments, indecision, balancing an unstoppable creative drive with the unavoidable emotional ebb and flow of life.
Though this is clearly Subheim working at a new level, listeners will recognize the sound of ΠΟΛΙΣ instantly as his, with both hints of the IDM/electronica of Approach era and the unmistaken human element that is present in all his work. The natural, off-grid time feel of the record is effortlessly augmented with field recordings and found sounds, this time around with the addition of more grit and power, and with heavier use of analog synthesizers.
Despite the album being born out of a feeling of alienation from one’s surroundings, it's impossible to ignore the sense of hope that runs through this LP. In ΠΟΛΙΣ, we hear an arrival at a deeper understanding of oneself, an inner peace amidst the decay and a cautious optimism that comes from someone who just happens to feel most at home in darkness.
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
4 LP Boxset mit 52 seitigem Booklet vom 2018er Coachella Auftritt. Die epischen pyramidenförmigen Tribünen hatten rund 100 Tänzer und eine Band mit besonderen Gastdarstellern wie Solange, JAY-Z, Kelly Rowland und Michelle Williams, die Destiny's Child Magie, Harmonie und Nostalgie brachten.
out of Stock
Last delivered 4 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
FILM Recordings will release the debut LP from Denial of Service.
The album follows up EP's Sensou (2015), and more recently Contour & Shape (2017) - but marks the producer's most expansive release on the label thus far by some margin. Clocking in at 15 tracks, the lengthy opus draws from the same palette found on previous work - drum machine driven, heavily mutated Electro and IDM sit alongside low slung Techno cuts and arpeggiated EBM references. As ever, the production is stunning - crisp and plosive, as much a record for the club as it is a tempered headphone experience; whilst the mood channels that same dank, claustrophobic energy found on previous missives.
As a body of work, the LP displays the distinctive touch of a production veteran. The transformative shifts in structure on opener A Fine, New Mother Now belie a kind of boldness found less often across the contemporary electronic music landscape; and the drum programming on IDM-leaning explorations Autoimmune & Supercell bear the hallmarks of a perfectionist with time on his hands and in full control of his art. Space and the placement of sonic components plays a huge role in the artist's work and the 3 Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch displays this canny knack for generating both textural, wide angle soundscapes whilst maintaining that wrought-iron edge to drums and percussive elements - even more fervent, noisy compositions like Dr Manahattan manage to keep hold of this remarkable balance. It's impressive stuff, a fine and well worked meeting point between artistic vision and engineering prowess.
An elongated discussion, no doubt - but worth hearing every word. Each twist and bend, however sharp, remains carefully placed and beautifully recorded. Dryer works Slither & Junkie Foxtrot towards the LP finish offer a less introspective, more hard hitting angle to the work, and by the time the listener arrives at dual closer the Daisy Chain - Adults - they're ready for its heady catharsis.
The debut album from Denial of Service is a trip, and the line between club space and home listening environment is decidedly blurred - an emotive exploration of true psychedelic Electronica, delivered direct from the source.
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Rift Vision 001 is producer and stay-at-home-DJ Lauren Ritter’s latest record. It is the debut album from her own, newly-minted label, Rift Vision.
The album acts as vanguard of Rift Vision’s aesthetic: liminal, subconscious, and ultimately, synesthetic. At the outset, it’s apparent that Ritter has traded in the “cool” of her minimal dance music performances for deeply personal, dream-like compositions. Live instruments, spoken word (Tenesha the Wordsmith), and melodies written on Ritter’s modest collection of synthesizers are hallmarks of each bespokenly-titled track.
While it’s not hard to imagine hearing any of Rift Vision 001’s tracks on the dance floor, it is hard to imagine why Ritter waited so long to release music like this.
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Leroy Smart the self-proclaimed ‘Don’, carries much respect in the Jamaican musical community. His attacking vocal style gives his lyrics and tunes that extra meaningfulness.
Born in Jamaica and orphaned as a young child, Leroy was sent to Maxfield Park children's home and educated at the famed Alpha Boys School. The school was run by nuns who encouraged musical talent and would provide the world with the cream of Jamaica’s artistic talent. Such legends as Don Drummond, Tommy McCook, Johnny’ Dizzy’ Moore, to name but a few, all learnt their musical trade in this strict environment.
Leroy worked with many Jamaican producers, but seemed to find his feet working with Bunny ’Striker’ Lee. With whom he cut many of his greatest tunes. It is from this period that we have compiled this album. Featuring lost to now dubs to many of his classic tunes, like ' Wreck up my Life’, featured here as ’Dub Wrecker’. ’God Helps the Man’ Help yourself to Dub, Pride and Ambition If I should Dub. Fittest of the Fittest Dub for the Fittest and the title track of this selection his self-affirming Mr Smart Mr Smart in Dub.
These work alongside less known cuts that he also puts his musical stamp on .’No Love’ No Love In Dub. which sees him working over the ‘Zion Gate’ rhythm, made famous by Mr Horace Andy. The ‘My Conversation’ rhythm originally cut by Slim Smith but made into Leroy’s own ‘Jah Jah Forgive them’ For They Know What They Dub. All portrayed in his enviable style.
Such was Mr Leroy Smart’s stature in his homeland Jamaica, that when the ‘One Love’ peace concert line-up was put together for the 22nd of April 1978. The best of Jamaica’s Reggae stars was picked to play alongside Bob Marley & the Wailers. Such greats as Dennis Brown, The Mighty Diamonds, Peter Tosh and Inner Circle were chosen alongside the Don himself, Mr Smart. Whose stage shows were always colourful and to say the least eventful..
Mr Smart has continued to release music during the 80’s & 90’s, most notably with ‘She Just a Draw Card’ & ‘I’m the Don’. But as a set we feel this stands up with the best of them. Hope you enjoy the ride...
Respect Jah Floyd.
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Wa Wu We is the artist alias and vinyl only label from Sebastian Mullaert. This is the fourth chapter, crafted in the Swedish woods. The rst 6 episodes of the Wa Wu We label will form a collection of records, united by their signi cant and unique cover art and the way they’ve been recorded; this being the focus on improvising expression, resting in meditation and the nature surrounding Sebastian’s studio. All 6 of these episodes will be released as vinyl only and will be limited to 500 copies each.
THE STORY Wa... the Wu are We? Let the question appear, and dissolve in the dance! Wa Wu We is back with the third vinyl release, and like before its vinyl only. Deep jams nurtured by the Swedish woods, the home of Sebastian Mullaert.
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
The Radio 2 Top 2000 is the largest annual radio event in The Netherlands. The audience of Radio gets to vote for their favorite all-time songs. These literally millions of votes come together in the Top 2000. All these 2000 songs are broadcasted back to back from Christmas until a few minutes before New Years Eve, when they air the No.1 of the chart.
Top 2000 - The 60’s contains the best hits from the century in which the music industry saw its biggest change. It were the years some of the biggest bands in the history of music rose to fame, like The Beach Boys, The Kinks, The Who, and Fleetwood Mac. Rock, pop, funk, soul and psychedelia all stand side by side on this release, with artists like James Brown, Nina Simone, David Bowie, Etta James, Elvis Presley, and Dusty Springfield. These artists and many more you’ll find on this wonderful 2LP.
The Top 2000 bridges the gaps between all musical generation from the Sixties to the present, making it the most eclectic chart out there, and keeping more that half of the country glued to their radio day and night for the whole week it’s broadcasted. And with a daily tv spin-off during its broadcast, it has reached an even bigger audience.
Top 2000 - The 60’s is available as a limited edition of 2000 individually numbered copies on yellow vinyl. The package includes an insert.
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Nadia Khan returns on Scissor and Thread for another sublime mini LP, Port Ana. Based in North Carolina, Khan first drew a lot of attention via a cassette release on Where To Now? Records in 2015.
Her sophomore statement was the beautiful In Gleam released in 2018 on Francis Harris’ Brooklyn-based label, which set the tone for these five tracks of meditative music. The title track Port Ana opens the journey - a gentle, droning soundscape with effortlessly bewitching glints of melody. Conversation follows on, drawing on loops and textures to create the background for a deep, pulsing kick drum. The sounds shift and evolve, leaving a hazy sense of movement to drift away to. Next up is Objects In Form which presents a fragile chord progression that barely holds itself together, surrounded by shifting pads and swathes of reverb. Rain Again is presented here in two versions. The original combines ethereal sounds, weightless and adrift, while the Lawrence remix firmly grounds the track with a hypnotic, deep groove. The Dial boss provides another remix for the digital release that further plays with the textures of the original to create something that works both for an open minded dancefloor and as a home listening experience.
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
It’s 2020, the year Pop Ambient turns twenty-one years old, a spritely young adult waltzing out of its teenage joys and tears. Pop Ambient has always stood for a certain classicism and elegance, a kind of beatless music that’s diaphanous and hazy, gossamer and glittering. It’s a music that’s no less inviting for its slow pace and becalmed nature, with a different kind of tension bubbling under the surface. For twenty-one years, KOMPAKT co-founder Wolfgang Voigt has curated a series of peerless compilations that repeatedly find refreshing answers to a simple question – What happens when the dancefloor is empty, and everyone’s home to drift away?
As with many other Pop Ambient compilations, Pop Ambient 2021 offers a welcome platform to contributions from both old friends and new faces. It opens with the gorgeous, slo-mo drift of “Of A Vessel”, from new Kompakt signings Blank Gloss. Sending their music out into the world from their home in Sacramento, this duo makes music that’s featherlight and luscious, the muted chime of a guitar over here, the steady hum of a halatial drone over there; everything in its right place, and nothing overdone. The poise is all. Neozaïre (Tobias Sawitzki aka Noorden) and Seventh World (Juho Hietala aka Blamstrain) are our other two new voices, the latter closing (the CD version of) Pop Ambient 2021 with a long, lambent dreamsong, Neozaïre offering us two gaseous, morphing driftworks, “Vor den Toren Europas” and “In Verschwenderischer Fülle” (CD only), etched across with bell-like arpeggios.
Pop Ambient has always felt like a field for play for the KOMPAKT cognoscenti, and 2021 is no different, with Joachim Spieth collaborating with Pepo Galán on the sidereal visions of “Libration”, while Leandro Fresco teams up with Thore Pfeiffer on the lovely “Abejorro”. Pfeiffer also contributes two lovely solo miniatures of abstract longing. Yui Onodera calls in again, long distance, for their fourth Pop Ambient running, with the refracted, glinting lightscapes of “Cromo 5” and “Monochrome”, while there are also star turns from Max Würden, both solo and in Reich & Würden (with Luis Reichard), and Morgen Wurde, who drops by with the ‘ethereal drama’ of “Mittsommer”.
Pop Ambient gets the balance right: visions and soundscapes, long-distance communications and intimate asides, sweetness and light, drama and dreaming, all wrapped up in floral abstractions – a most beautiful distraction.
Wir schreiben das Jahr 2020, das Jahr, in dem Pop Ambient einundzwanzig Jahre alt wird – das entspricht etwa einem lebenshungrigen jungen Erwachsenen, der gerade aus den letzten Teenager-Freuden und Leiden herausgewachsen ist. Pop Ambient steht seit jeher für eine gewisse Klassik und Eleganz, beatfreie Musik, die, transparent und leicht verschwommen, zart und glitzernd leuchtet. Musik, die trotz ihrer Langsamkeit und ihrer sanften Natur unter Spannung steht, weil hier immer etwas unter der scheinbar ruhigen Oberfläche brodelt.
Einundzwanzig Jahre lang hat KOMPAKT-Mitbegründer Wolfgang Voigt diese einzigartige Compilation-Reihe kuratiert, die immer wieder neue Antworten auf eine einfache Frage findet: Wie füllt man die Leere nach dem Club?
Wie viele andere Pop Ambient-Compilations bietet auch Pop Ambient 2021 eine Plattform für die musikalischen Beiträge von alten Freunden und einigen neuen Gesichtern. Es beginnt mit dem wunderbaren Slo-Mo-Drift von "Of A Vessel" von Blank Gloss, einem neuen Kompakt Signing. Das Duo stammt aus Sacramento in Kalifornien und sendet von dort seine überaus leichte und sinnliche Musik in die Welt hinaus – ein zartes Zupfen an einer Gitarresaite hier, das gleichmäßige Dröhnen eines prunkvollen Soundscapes hier; alles ist hier am richtigen Platz und passiert ohne übertriebene Betonung. Gelassenheit ist alles. Neozaïre und Seventh World sind zwei weitere Neuzugänge. Hinter Seventh World steckt der finnische Produzent Juho Hietala aka Blamstrain, der (die CD Version von) Pop Ambient 2021 mit einem epischen, flackernden Traum names “Light The Waves Before Dawn“ beschließt, während Neozaïre, ein Seitenprojekt von Tobias Sawitzki aka Noorden, zwei gasförmige, sich immer wieder morphende und abdriftende Tracks abliefert: "In Verschwenderischer Fülle" (CD only) mit seinen glockenartigen Arpeggios und “Vor Den Toren Europas“.
Pop Ambient fühlte sich immer schon an wie ein Experimentierfeld für eingefleischte KOMPAKT-Künstler, und auch 2021 ist das nicht anders: zum Beispiel Joachim Spieth’s Kooperation mit Pepo Galán ("Libration") oder Leandro Fresco, der mit Thore Pfeiffer das liebevolle "Abejorro" produzierte. Pfeiffer steuert mit “Grape“ und “Center“ zwei weitere Solo-Miniaturen voller abstrakter Sehnsucht bei. Der japanische Klangkünstler Yui Onodera meldet sich mit den gebrochen-glitzernden Lichtlandschaften von "Cromo 5" und "Monochrome" bereits zum vierten Mal auf Pop Ambient zu Wort, während Max Würden sowohl solo, als auch als Teil von Reich & Würden (mit Luis Reichard) ebenso wie Morgen Wurde schon zu den Stars dieser Compilation gehört.
out of Stock
Last delivered 7 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Trouble, the aptly named new album on Goner Records, is a confident and joy-filled statement delivering the good-news gospel message unapologetically through music influenced by Ray Charles, Junior Kimbrough, Bill Withers and of course, his father.
Recorded at legendary Royal Studios in Memphis by Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell (Al Green, Solomon Burke, John Mayer, Buddy Guy, Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars, North Mississippi Allstars), Trouble is the culmination of everything in Rev. Wilkins’s remarkable life, his regional history, his family music history. And in a world once again riven with discord and division, like the Memphis of Wilkins’ youth in the 1960’s, Trouble delivers passionate and confident musical performances with a message of hope that meets our present moment equal to the best music from that earlier era.
To call the Reverend John Wilkins a national treasure would not be an overstatement. He is the son of pre-war blues/folk-revival legend Reverend Robert Wilkins and he leads one of the most exciting and uplifting musical acts on the blues and gospel circuit today. His multiracial, multi-generational band blends soul, southern gospel and hill country rhythm, into a sound that has the infectious drive of hill country blues with the emotional heights of a summer tent revival.
Following in the footsteps of his famous father Rev. Robert Wilkins, a blues-singer turned preacher who went from the juke joint to the pulpit, the life of Rev. John Wilkins took a similar path, echoing the story of the elder Wilkins’ most famous song, “Prodigal Son.”
But in 2020 John Wilkins’ life has been closer to a different iconic bible character, Lazarus, as he has miraculously risen after surviving a month-long stay in intensive care battling Covid19 in a Memphis hospital. As Rev. Wilkins sings on the closing track of his forthcoming album, “I’ve come through the storm and rain, I’ve come through the storm and rain, and I made it!”
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Raster presents »Il Quadro di Troisi«, a project by Andrea Noce (Eva Geist) and Donato Scaramuzzi (Donato Dozzy). The record is a colorful ode of an Italian scented vision, overflowing of details and profound intensity. The contemporary world condition, the pandemic in Italy and around the world define »Il Quadro di Troisi« as a unique and right-on-time release.
This record is a enigmatic collaboration between the two Italian natives Andrea Noce and Donato Scaramuzzi. Andrea Noce takes lead on the vocals, with Donato Scaramuzzi carving the dreamlike soundscapes of the record. The record was born with a correspondence between the two artists about the late actor and director Massimo Troisi, and this exchange soon became an inspirational source of identification. Andrea Noce’s lyrics are sensitive and multi-faceted, they perfectly cling to the musical phrases and flow like a filmic monologue from the oeuvre of that very Troisi.
In a highly creative and confident manner, entire decades of national music history are comprehended and transformed into the here and now. The record takes its cue from the italo-disco, synth pop tradition corroborated by the contribution of artists such as the legendary Twilight Music co-founder, Paolo Micioni, as well as Stefano Di Trapani who wrote »L’ipotesi«. With »Il Quadro di Troisi«, Noce and Scaramuzzi prove their eclecticism, and passion for their home country.
»Il Quadro di Troisi« is a collaboration between Raster and the Milan-based festival Terraforma. With this release, the first with a purely Italian focus on the label, Raster celebrates its long standing relation with Italy and the Italian audience, encapsulated in the label's project ›Electric Campfire‹ held in Rome for ten years. Terraforma is an international experimental and sustainable music festival taking place since 2014 in the park of Villa Arconati, where Dozzy has been invited at every edition in different forms, DJing, live performing both in solo and with Voices from the Lake (together with Neel).
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
´Distant Memories - Live in London´ vereint ausgewählte Songs von DREAM THEATERs aktuellem Album ´Distance Over Time´ (2019) zusammen mit der vollständigen Aufführung von ´Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory´ (1999). An einem lang herbeigesehnten und fast schon als historisch zu bezeichnenden Abend in der Geschichte der Band entstand dieses bemerkenswerte Live-Album. Die Tour ´The Distance Over Time Tour: Celebrating 20 Years of Scenes From a Memory´ war ein Dankeschön an die Fans für ihre jahrzehntelange Wertschätzung und Liebe. Für die Band war ´die Tour in vielerlei Hinsicht wirklich unglaublich. Wir durften unsere neuesten Werke präsentieren, die von DT-Fans auf der ganzen Welt auf eine Weise aufgenommen wurde, für die wir unglaublich dankbar sind. Und die zwei Abende, die wir in London aufgenommen und gefilmt haben, gehörten definitiv zu den besten Shows der Tour.´ Petrucci fährt fort: ´Egal ob man die Gelegenheit hatte, diese Tour persönlich zu sehen und das hoffentlich großartige Konzerterlebnis noch einmal erleben möchte, oder ob man das Konzert zum ersten Mal auf Video genießt: ´Distant Memories´ fängt die Live-Energie sehr genau und sehr schön ein - ebenso wie die positive Aufregung, die wir alle im vergangenen Februar gemeinsam im Apollo verspürt haben.´ Er hebt das ´unglaubliche Touring- und Produktionsteam sowie unser großartiges Filmteam hervor, die allesamt perfekt abgeliefert haben und es uns ermöglichten, in bestem Licht präsentiert zu werden. Wir sind überaus stolz darauf, diese Veröffentlichung dank unseres talentierten Mix Engineers, unseres Regisseurs und Art Directors mit brillantem Sound sowie in visueller und künstlerischer Perfektion anbieten zu können.´ Die bedeutsame Performance ´Distant Memories - Live In London´ ist als Limited Deluxe 3CD / 2Blu-Ray / 2DVD 44-seitiges Artbook, Limited Edition 4LP + 3CD Boxset, Special Edition 3CD + 2Blu-ray Digipak, 3CD + 2DVD Mulitbox & als Digitales Audioalbum erhältlich.
Black vinyl editions of four 'Elephant' era singles ('Seven Nation Army', 'I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself, The Hardest Button to Button' and There's No Home For You Here). Featuring badass non-album b-sides, 3 of which are covers of songs from some of Detroits turn-of-the-millenium best and brightest (Brendan Benson, Jason Falkner, Dan Miller (Blanche), Soledad Brothers), and one of which is a live White Stripes medley of "I Fought Piranhas" and "Let's Build a Home," recorded at New York's legendary Electric Lady Studios. Most of these tracks have been remastered from the original analog sources, and the artwork on all the singles has been improved upon by the Third Man Creative Hive. "There's No Home For You Here", which was originally coupled with a generic company sleeve, now has stunning new artwork. It looks electrifying! On top of looking good, these sleeves are soft as a baby, printed with an aqueous coating, so they feel like a cross between rubber and lambskin. It's nice.
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
On the back of V- Necks re issue Auto and the Lost 1990s Recordings one half of the band V Neck Mark Churcher takes time out from from his Chicago Bee project to deliver his first full length album on Emote.
He teams up with the cult Brighton based experimental artist Alasdair Willis (The Vitamin B 12) who plays saxophone on 3 of the 11 tracks on the album.
The album has all the hallmarks of an Emote record and more. Likely to be listed as down tempo / abstract ambient and blending many different styles together.
If you are in tune with free jazz and abstract electronic tribal music you should find this good home spooky listening .
Supported by Chloe Alice Frieda of Alien Jams and Damo B of the Outer Limits Radio Show
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
One of dance music’s most enigmatic figures returns home to Anjunabeats. GRAMMY-nominated producer Mat Zo is back with a brand new artist album set for release in October: ‘Illusion Of Depth’. At the age of 30, this is the London-born, L.A.-based producer’s third artist LP. He broke onto the scene in 2008 and has been causing an uproar ever since. In the early naughties, he penned Anjunabeats classics like ‘The Lost’ and ‘Synapse Dynamics’ which were far ahead of their time. They were followed by the likes of ‘Superman’, ‘The Sky’ and ‘Rebound’ (with Arty). He pushed the Anjunabeats sound to the mainstage, racking up spins from Pete Tong, Axwell and Armin van Buuren. It was his GRAMMY-nominated debut album ‘Damage Control’ that fully showcased Mat’s avant-garde approach in 2013. Featuring break-out hit ‘Easy’ with close friend Porter Robinson, the track took Mat mainstream: a Radio 1 A-List addition, Sirius XM BPM listing, a #1 Billboard Heatseeking record, an Essential Mix of the year nomination and, ultimately, a GRAMMY nod for best dance and electronic recording. Since then, Mat has grown his own stable. Self-releasing his second LP in 2016, ‘Self Assemble’, via Mad Zoo, Mat’s imprint nurtured a new generation of eclectic, genre-agnostic creators.
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Das zweite Blue-Note-Album des gefeierten jungen Vibraphonisten!
Seit Joel Ross 2019 sein Blue-Note-Debüt „KingMaker“ veröffentlicht hat, fand er weltweit Anerkennung: die New York Times nahm ihn z.B. in die begehrte Liste “Best Jazz of 2019” auf und der Rolling Stone führte ihn in seinem alljährlichen ”Jazz Listeners Guide”.
Mit seiner zweiten Blue-Note-Veröffentlichung „Who Are You?“ will er diese Erfolgsgeschichte jetzt fortschreiben.
Zu seinen bestens eingespielten Mitstreitern Jeremy Corren (Piano), Immanuel Wilkins, der gerade selbst ein Blue-Note-Debütalbum veröffentlicht hat, (Saxofon) und Jeremy Dutton (Schlagzeug) kommt neu Kanoa Mendenhall am Bass dazu. Melodischer Modern Jazz vom Feinsten!
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Jamie Clarke is a producer, musician and DJ. His label Either// hosts his recent work. Its first release, ‘Mirror Talk’, features remixes by Pablo Mateo, Casanova, and Philippa with early support from Tensnake, Ame, Piem, Joyce Muniz, Alinka, DJ T, Acid Pauli, Gene Farris bc, Severino… You can find earlier work appearing on diverse labels of favoured artists. “The Gene Krupa of electronic music” an admirer commented of his style: rolling, syncopated, digressive but ultimately melodic. Now, late 80s, a dark Detroit basement, eyes shut, the pound and sweep of that sound - you’re there.
Residencies at home in Dublin include The Pod, Hospital and his own UP!, the renowned rooftop party. He regularly guests across the continent and has projects in development in the US. In recent years the Reykjavik music scene has been a second home where Kaffebarrinn is a favourite haunt.
out of Stock
Last delivered 5 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability