Search:human life

Limited to 250 copies worldwide.

Croatia's Fiume delivers a full length eight track lp for L.I.E.S., following his cult 2019 Bunker Records release.

Jasmin Mahmić, (who is also known for his Le Chocolat Noir project) returns with his absolute blackened industrial onslaught straight from the depths of the Balkans. Fiume takes us into a netherworld of short circuited electronics, scrap yard soundscapes and foreboding, stark ,straight from your worst nightmare vocals. Barren wastelands, tropical depression, vast nothingness of the modern age, pillaged republics and metropolis' that have gone wrong, this is world downfall music. Let your own irrelevance stare you down in the mirror, minutes crawl like days, horror of life goes on. These are the sounds in your head, try to claw your way out. Recommended!

The Line Is A Curve is about letting go. The core of the record is that the pressures we face do not always have to be heavy burdens, but can be reframed; the more pressure a person is under, the greater the possibility for release.

The album plays like a chronicle of pressures - the mind-numbing pursuit of a comfortable life, the eternal striving for more, the pressures of the city, the country, the times. The pressures of maintaining relationships, of battling illness, addiction, poor mental health, the vacuous life of our online selves. As we move through these chronicles though, the mood brightens. The musicality becomes more expansive as the lyrical horizon broadens and we glimpse coastlines, high streets, scrap yards, train stations in the rain; the entire album begins to let go. We encounter the contributions of artists who I love and admire, guest vocalists and instrumentalists, and so we defeat the sense of isolation felt in the opening track with a sense of deeply connected community. More Pressure, the penultimate song, is the essence of the whole album and the epiphany that leads to Grace, which is a prayer, a surrendering; ‘Please move me, please move through me, please unscrew me, please loosen me up.’ But once we get to the end of Grace, and the album, we loop back to the start – to ‘Kiss off the day with a mute mouth. Pass the commute like I can die faster than you.’ Because no matter how much a person grapples with, realises, deeply understands, about life and their place in it, we still wake up in the morning back to square one. Life isn’t solved the minute you figure something out about it. It’s a daily operation to increase your resilience, cultivate a deeper acceptance, let go of what’s chasing you and lean in to the pressures. It’s cyclical, as I believe all things are. And instead of trying to fight the cycles, this album asks us to surrender to them. To let go.

These general themes, of acceptance, resilience, surrender are also about where I’m at in my personal life, in my journey towards a greater acceptance of myself as an artist and as a human being. Being more honest with the world and my community about who I am and letting go of some heavy heavy shame, which is a glorious thing.

This album has a beautiful heart, there is so much love running through it and I can’t wait for people to experience it.

A co-production of Amazon Studios and the New York Times, based on the weekly same-titled weekly column in The Times. This anthology series explores love in all of its complicated and beautiful forms, as well as its effects on the human connection. Each episode brings a different story to life that has been inspired by the newspaper’s popular Modern Love column. The second season premiered in August, 2021 and stars Kit Harington, Jack Reynor and Minnie Driver.

The score of Modern Love Season 2 features both score music and original songs heard throughout the season’s eight half-hour episodes. The music was written by Jay Wadley in cooperation with Gary Clark and feature vocal tracks featuring Rosie Carney, Nerina Pallot, John Byrne and Adermo. In addition, the score feature never-before-released songs written and performed by Andy Shauf, Chong The Nomad, Morcheeba’s Skye Edwards and Gregor Philp.

Emerging when humanity needs him most, and currently adopting the body of a 60 odd-year old carpenter with a penchant for animation and Red Stripe; Terry Perace teams up with Red Laser's own Pharaoh Brunson to form a new perpetual EP series.
The Peraceamid project begins with EP 1. 4 x Hyper-ancient, super-hi-tek audio tools for us Earth dwellers to utilise, corrupting RL's standard "Manctalo" vigour with abandan.

(A1 - Terry Perace - Trip Pop 2020)
Perace himself, ditching the Carpenter attire and hardwiring himself straight into basic circuitry, conjures up skeletal, repetitive reduxes, born outta the oldest primordial gloop, churning together into embryonic life form rhythms that have now existed since the earliest signals of dual-cell organisms on our planet.

(A2 - Kid Machine S.D.M (Terry Perace's InSlaved mix)
Terry sparkles his Martian magic across Kid Machine's S.D.M from the 2020 'Magico' LP. An already high Manctalo watermark now given further accreditation by the highest Elders of Ancient Egypt which Terry confers with on the regular. Welcome to the top of the pyramid gee!

(B1 - Marcus Paulson - Wrecked in Utrecht)
The elusive Marcus Paulson we so far know very little about other than that he's an unconfirmed UFO enthusiast from Warrington...Terry received 'Wrecked In Utrecht' when he accidentally plugged a random USB drive into his earhole (he's not that up on our basic tech yet) in Pharaoh's studio at Hidden. An otherworldly Manctalo vortex and a holographic, plasma-soaked acid track designed to provide a cross-planetary bridge to raves and free parties on Cygnus.

(B2 - Ste Spandex - Examples of You)
Terry's been warmly applying his cosmic voodoo on Red Laser veteran Ste Spandex, nudging him further into the inter dimensional discipline of sonic energy manipulation, the fruits of which are a hyper-driven re-vamp of a '98, Earth-based club classic which he blasts into 5D thru the galvanised circuitry of his palladium-boosted studio.

Licensed and published by Red Laser Records here on Earth. First volume in a perpetual series...

In March 2020, Tahiti 80 had a plan to start recording their new album in the studio. That plan, of course, along with everything else in the world, got derailed. But the five-piece group was resilient and resourceful. They quickly shifted to a socially distanced plan B that included file swapping and virtual sessions, all refereed by producer Julien Vignon. The result, due for release in March 2022, is the buoyant Here With You, a collection of eleven upbeat songs that unfold like a prescription for a post-pandemic panacea.

“When lockdown in France happened, we said, 'We're not going to stay at home not doing anything,'” says singer-guitarist Xavier Boyer. “And our new plan became a hopeful thing, waking up every morning and seeing what the other guys had worked on. It wasn't always easy, but this new method allowed a freer approach where we could really go all the way with an idea without being influenced by each other’s suggestions. It must've been overwhelming for Julien, who ended up selecting all our arrangements. But he stayed positive all the way through.”

To help stay inspired and focused during their time in isolation, the band created a mood board, with the centerpiece a photo of an early '90s rave in the UK.

Boyer says, “Whenever you see pictures from this era, people seem very innocent. There are no cell phones and everybody is in to what they are experiencing. We kept that picture in mind as a kind of mantra that would help everyone feel connected to this idea of people celebrating, gathering and just having fun. We were missing the connection with people, and thought it would be great if we could create music that would inspire that kind of emotion.”

Indeed, the songs on Here With You are brimming the feeling of communion that we've all been missing over the past two years. It's there in the catchy opener Lost in the Sound, which walks the walk with Chic guitar flicks, urban nightfall sparkles and an inviting chorus (“Your heart grooves like a thousand 808s on the right time”). It's there in the Jackson 5-style syncopated bounce of “Vintage Creem,” the lush, dreamy “Breakfast in L.A.” and the panoramic sweep of “UFO.” And it's there in the first single “Hot,” which matches an irresistible groove with a neon-lit, percolating arrangement that evokes the disco clubs of 1979.

What's remarkable is that though Tahiti 80 displays a clear affection for sounds of the past, from bubble gum to '70s soul, they never trade in mere pastiche. Their take is more a slightly warped and playful carnival mirror mash-up of classic pop styles, given depth through Boyer's hang-gliding, coolly emotive vocals and lyrics that often rub against the euphoric grain of the music.

“I like to think of songs as a three-minute drama,” says Boyer. “This concept of drama definitely adds different levels to our music. There's the melody, the lyrics, then the production that can maybe emphasize or counterbalance the interaction between the yin and yang in a song.

“There's a difference between the very upbeat, sunshine-y soft rock and the lyrics, even on our past albums,” he continues. “Not dark, but a little more melancholy, and also looking for some kind of motivation, talking to yourself. Like with a lot of Motown songs, you get that feeling where you body’s dancing while your mind’s reflecting, reminiscing.”

That alluring blend of happy-sad has been a signature part of the Tahiti 80 sound from the time Boyer and bassist Pedro Resende formed the group in 1993, as students at the University of Rouen. Taking their name from a souvenir t-shirt given to Boyer's father in 1980, the duo recruited guitarist Mederic Gontier in 1994, and with the addition of drummer Sylvain Marchand a year later, the lineup was complete. The foursome released a self-produced and self-financed EP, 20 Minutes, in 1996, which resulted a record deal with French label Atmospheriques in 1998. Their full-length debut Puzzle, produced with Ivy's Andy Chase and mixed by Tore Johansson, went gold and featured the international hit “Heartbeat” that established the band throughout Europe and Asia.

In the years since, Tahiti 80 – with the additions of Raphaël Léger on drums and Hadrien Grange on keys - has released eight acclaimed albums. The band has fused what MOJO called a “glorious entente of old and new technology” (including singles like “Yellow Butterfly,” “1000 Times,” “Sound Museum,” “Crush!” and “Big Day,” which was featured on a FIFA video game soundtrack), while collaborating with such producers and arrangers as Richard Swift, Tony Lash and Richard Anthony Hewson, who famously arranged The Beatles' “Long and Winding Road.” Boyer has also put out two solo albums, the first under the anagram Axe Riverboy and the second under his name. In 2019, the band released Fear of an Acoustic Planet, a stripped-down reimagining of some of their best-loved tracks from the previous twenty years. It served not only as a look back but a reminder of their formidable songwriting skills.

Boyer is definitely a student of the timeless three-minute pop song format pioneered by '60s artists like The Beatles and The Beach Boys. He says, “I see it as kind of a frame for a painting. Most of the songs on this album, I wrote a verse, pre-chorus and chorus. There aren't many middle eights. I wanted it to be very concise. I feel like people have less attention. There's so much music. It's too easy to switch off or skip to another track, so I want to hook the listener. The three-minute song is kind of an easy code to crack, but at the same time you have to figure out a new way to tell the stories that we've heard before.”

And the stories on Here With You are very much about the longing for connection. Of the album title, Boyer says, “In the world right now, that can mean a lot of different things. Like missing our fans, missing going to concerts. In a way, it can be a statement of what happened last year, and a wish of 'I want to be here with you again.' It's our ninth album. We've had some had some very open, conceptual titles like Puzzle, Activity Center. Sometimes they were more specific like Fosbury orWallpaper for the Soul. Here with You, seems more personal, more engaging in terms of relationships. When I suggested that title, everyone in the band said, 'Yeah, that's it.'”

Until Tahiti 80 can resume a full tour schedule, Boyer says he hopes the new record will make that personal connection. “If I see from the point of view as a music fan, sometimes I see albums I like as companions throughout my life. So if we can be a part of people's existence, even if it's a song that reminds them of the time they were driving with the windows open and it was sunny. Or a sad song that resonates with them after a breakup. That's what we're all looking for when we're making music. You do this very personal thing and you want it to touch as many people as possible.”

Spain’s fastest-rising band, Belako are announcing a very specialedition of their 2020 album ‘Plastic Drama’. The new, deluxe double LP will be released on 8th April via BMG and includes exclusive remixes by the likes of Wolf Alice, The Vaccines, Hinds and Crystal Fighters.

Hailing from the small town of Mungia near Bilbao, Belako have been playing non-stop in Spain and beyond these past few years, building a dedicated fanbase in their native country, which has quickly been spilling out into other parts of Europe and the US.
2020’s ‘Plastic Drama’ was the band’s fourth record, but the first since signing a major international record deal, and certainly their most ambitious to date. Self-produced by the band, ‘Plastic Drama' searches for “the real meaning of things in a world that translates everything into assembly lines, manufacturing and the exploitation of living beings,” say the band. “It’s about the harsh reality our generation is facing and the only good use of new technology, which is the ability to spread the word and call for action. The title of the album has another message, as it also reminds us the first world issues we’ve come so keen to complain about. We can only hope for a more responsible human legacy”.

They were named best new band by Rolling Stone Magazine (ES) and ‘Plastic Drama’ picked up top UK support from the likes of 6 Music, Clash, DIY, Dork, The Line Of Best and NME who hailed the record as ‘a bold next step from a band who have never been afraid of the weird or the wonderful. Belako step up and earn their place among the major players of the scene’.

Relentless in their craft and a ferocious live act at their core, Belako were the first band to tour Europe in the summer of 2020, breathing new life into old forgotten Spanish cinema drive-ins across the country for their live shows. The ‘Belako Pandemic Tour’ documentary was premiered at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and will soon arrive on digital platforms.

Having supported the likes of DMA’s, QOTSA and Liam Gallagher at Finsbury Park, and played major international festivals such as Primavera, SXSW, Rock En Seine & Benicassim, Belako’s explosive live performances have excited crowds from small dive bars in their early days to huge international festivals. Their anything-can-happen stage attitude showcases the power, electricity and punk ethos of this exciting young band, which also lead to them being the first ever Spanish act to be booked for the main stage at Reading & Leeds Festival.

Fast forward to 2022, Belako reinvigorate ‘Plastic Drama’ with a 50-date world tour to be announced shortly, kickstarted with the release of their new deluxe edition album in April, featuring remixes by some of alternative music’s biggest names. The band will also celebrate the release with an album launch party on the rooftop of Madrid’s prestigious Riu Plaza on April 6th. Details for all UK dates this summer will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Chris Imler likes to play drums standing up. He‘s the dandy with the killer offbeat, or, as one major German newspaper once put it, the "Grand Seigneur of the Berlin Underground". He has been making his mark on countless Berlin musical affairs since long before the fall of the Wall, with The Golden Showers, Peaches, Oum Shatt, Driver &Driver, Die Türen, Jens Friebe, to name but a few. He has also been perfoming across Europe as a solo artist for the past decade.

In "Operation Schönheit" (German for "Operation Beauty"), he has recorded his most, well, beautiful album to date. But Benedikt Frey's warm production subverts its own beauty with a multitude of clanking and ingling synth sounds, making the work very much about the cosmetic surgery it performs on itself. It's all in the tradition of the more experimental and electronic side of post-punk in which Imler and his unique groove are rooted. It doesn't take insider knowledge of Berlin's post-punk underground to realise that that Imler groove consists of rhythm that sings, vocals that dance and a look that fits, as illustrated by "Disappoint Me", his latest video: https://youtu.be/YeVJ75ljjB8

Elsewhere - such as in "Movies" - the rhythm sings, less electronically reduced, into the acoustics of an old, high-ceilinged Berlin apartment; metal clatters, a zither trembles and Imler plays with the metronome. Sometimes he moves ahead of time, sometimes trails behind it. He always manages to be in his very own groove, which carries everything along. And this is precisely the essence of the Imler rhythm, which lends itself to being applied to the very rhythm of life: Stretch and compress your time and loop it according to your own groove! Optimise nothing but feel everything! And dance to it! Even when contemplating everyday information overload, as Imler's high-speed mumbling suggests in the hectic yet smooth opening track "Temperature".

But being the ultimate night owl he is, Imler manages to make even the odd bout of paranoia seem like a good thing: like some kind of krauty, groovy B-horror-soundtrack-inflected high-pressure environment, "Whip Me" is a cross between Conrad Schnitzler and Bauhaus. In the title track, whose lyrics were written together with Jens Friebe, he intones: "You want to be something greater / You break your leg / When it heals again / You break it again" and sounds like the most gleeful fatalist you can imagine. Because in his city, one can still lose oneself better than anywhere else - a night easily becomes a whole universe that can be traversed, marvelled at and played with, and one might find one's old self again only when hearing "church bells" and "small birds singing". At least that's how Imler illustrates it in "Emptiness full of stars", and it seems likely that those "stars" are the human companions of the Berlin night in question.

And so once again Imler becomes Berlin's most important cultural ambassador: that scene of the eternally, and somehow successfully, failing creatures of the night, once the envy of the international postmodern bohème, has, despite many claims to the contrary, not been completely "optimised away", and its attitude to life is perfectly summed up in Imler's groove. And, of course, his look. "Schau Hin" (German for "Look!"), he sings in the track of the same name, masterfully dubbed out with the help of Melbourne's Leo James.

Quite right! Look - and listen.

Yours, Johannes von Weizsäcker (The Chap)

Cassandra Jenkins' An Overview on Phenomenal Nature emerged from the blue earlier this year. With pandemic unknowns and political upheaval leaving most at frayed ends, the New York-born musician’s assuring voice and expansive fresh take on songwriting created a much needed reflective space for listeners worldwide. As 2021 comes to a close, Jenkins revisits those flowing textures and refrains with (An Overview On) An Overview On Phenomenal Nature, a collection of previously unreleased sonic sketches, initial run-throughs, demos, and sound recordings from the cutting room floor that provided the scaffolding for what became one of this year’s most critically acclaimed albums.

When Jenkins visited Josh Kaufman’s studio this summer, they opened up their original sessions to uncover the ideas that were shed in the creative process. The new collection, (An Overview On) An Overview On Phenomenal Nature, isn’t merely a retrospective; it acts as a clear-eyed addendum as well as a compelling origin story, coming to life as a subconscious companion to the original album.

First takes of “New Bikini” and “Hailey” are born from opposite starting points; while “New Bikini” began as an airy alto meander, “Hailey”’s origins lie in an upbeat dance track. On “Crosshairs (Interlude),” Jenkins’ pitched vocal delivers a straight monotone, recasting the format as poetry with music highlighting her words, and “Ambiguous Norway (Instrumental)” lifts the ambient nature of the mournful song into glimmering waves. The demo version of “Michelangelo” contains alternate lyrics “I’m Michelangelo, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle,” a lost contrast to the later verse where Jenkins’ likens herself to the sculptor. On “Hard Drive (Security Guard),” we join Jenkins as she listens to a passionate museum guard whose promised “overview” of the exhibit on view builds into a monologue of observations on art, politics, feminism and the human condition. This candid interaction evolved into the cornerstone and title of Jenkins’ album.

Before they decided to make an album together, Jenkins brought Kaufman a song called “American Spirits.”The dusky ballad takes us to the Texas plains via a voicemail from the payphone of a county jail (“Miss Cassandra”). Cassandra sings, “Time here burns through the sunsets / Like you and a pack of American Spirits” over warm instrumentation with a vocal delivery that reinforces Jenkins’ unwavering tenderness towards her subjects.

(An Overview On) An Overview On Phenomenal Nature bookends Cassandra Jenkins' musical output this year with nuance, coloring in the corners, and giving us another window into her ever-expanding world of chance encounters, experiences, and sonic textures. They glimmer like the sun’s changing patterns on the wall as a new day gets going.

Vinyl Edition of 300 copies

Aesthetical in collaboration with Sync presents "Detect" by Marco Monfardini.

Originally developed as an audio/video live performance, Marco Monfardini based his research for Detect on the decoding of inaudible sounds, sound generated by electromagnetic emissions left from electronic devices and inaudible to the human ear. By using various electro-smog detectors Marco Monfardini creates a sort of detection mapping where electromagnetic emissions are the starting point for the sonorous development of each single composition.

A path that creates a parallel with our lives by questioning how much these emissions affect unconsciously our choices, tastes and perceptions, seeking a relationship between the massive use of technology in everyday life and our emotional state.
The album Detect is developed in 15 tracks in continuous play, an imperfect, faulty mosaic inhabited by invisible beings manifesting themselves in the form of sound streams, mutable entities that find a definitive form in the pattern of the compositional structure.

The album opens with “aR1 detection", sounds of pure detection place themselves in the sound space giving the initial coordinates for the exploration of unconscious parallel areas. The boundaries transform and gradually expand until they flow into the structure of "kernel variations", a growing rhythmic pattern decodes the impulses projecting a perspective that dissolves in the unstable and fluctuating electromagnetic emissions of the subsequent "[a]3020t detection", "binary defect "and "core[2] ". “[A.box]emission” confronts the use of sound downloaded random from internet sample banks and the emissions generated during the download itself, micro sound fragments arrange themselves in an organized and regular pattern, shaping a rhythmic structure. The first part ends with the short “[sa]6030” and “[det]x1a”, absence and presence provide an alternation of movements, inaudible and elusive signals all trying to establish a contact with our perception. “det : scan” opens the second part of Detect, a sort of scanning, leaving EMF (electromagnetic field) textures, a static multilayer that progressively expands until it dissolves into the rhythmic emissions of a common smartphone “[4s]detection”.The track “[rs]zone” " is pushing itself deeper, two minutes of sound speleology that reveal the existence of sound artifacts that seem to vanish getting in contact with the light accented by the bass drum of "[det] 0100+" a constant, rhythmic pumping, a luminous pulsation that reveals an apparent void, which seems to subside entering in the winding and waving atmosphere of "conductive [area]" and "[s3] microfunktion". Detect comes to the end with “[emf]terminal” a mirror of the unarrestable technological acceleration intercepting the flow of data that feeds the system of communication , digital micro waste suffocates the living space by centering up the invisible in an unconscious map.

[a] A1

[c] A3

[e] A5 core[2]
[f] A6 [A.box]emission (2)
[g] A7

[i] B2 [4s]detection
[j] B3
[k] B4 [det]0100+
[l] B5 conductive[area]
[m] B6 [s3]microfunktion
[n] B7 [emf]terminal

Split remix record with Visitor strictly limited to 200 copies. Remixers include Kontravoid, Morah, Xarah Dion, Sarin, Qual, Visitor, Filmmaker, and Oliver. Mastering at Dadub Studio Distributed by ReadyMade Distribution Side A Graphic Design by Jean Lorenzo Side B Graphic Design by Nicolas Zupfer Braid Records 2022

With an increasingly vibrant Norwegian Indie Rock scene on the rise, Lazy Queen - as founded by Colombian-Norwegian Henrik García Søberg (they/them) - have made their mark with a sound inspired by the rich traditions of the Brooklyn DIY scene that birthed the band, ambitious and effervescent releases, coupled with their unique ability to convey personal and relatable experiences through García Søberg's lyrics

The Oslo- based outfit effortlessly blends harmonic and discordant elements together with an instinctive ear for melody into a playful, innovative and vibrant sound, which affixes both context and contrast to lyrics that often explore life's more maladjusted corners. It's immediate. It's urgent. It impatiently demands your attention.

Previous release received widespread support and critical acclaim from renowned outlets such as Wonderland Magazine, Under The Radar, NYLON, Red Bull Music, Earmilk, Indietronica, Impose Magazine, Medium and more.

Spaceship is Mark S. Williamson, a musician, sound artist and educator based in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. His work is often made in response to his environment, working on location, combining field recordings with electronic and acoustic instrumentation, usually recorded outside, amid the landscape and weather. Mark has recorded for wiaiwya, Apollolaan, the Dark Outside and his own Forged River Recordings. His work has been reviewed by The Wire, Electronic Sound, Shindig and The Quietus and he was recently one of the fourteen artists featured in Electronic Sound Magazine’s ‘field recording special’. His collaboration with Luke Turner on series of readings from Luke’s book ‘Out of the Woods’ has seen performances at Cecil Sharp House, Port Eliot Festival, The Trades Club in Hebden Bridge, Krankenhaus Festival and the Horse Hospital and he recently collaborated with the artist Michael Powell on his Calderfolk project. A direct sequel to 2019’s Outcrops (also on wiaiwya), Ravines moves its focus from the uplands above Todmorden to the narrow, steep sided ravines, known as cloughs, that contain the streams that flow down the valley sides to feed the River Calder. These valleys, formed over hundreds, if not thousands of years can be peaceful sanctuaries, their stepped pools and waterfalls a shelter from the windswept moors. In time of heavy rainfall though, they become the conduits for the rapidly descending overland flows which reach the Calder and, in extreme circumstances, cause the floods which remain a part of valley life. These cloughs also saw the beginnings of industry in the area. Colden Clough and Jumble Hole Clough contain the ruin of small water fed mills which would evolve into the much larger steam powered facilities in Todmorden and Hebden Bridge. Mostly recorded in the field using portable equipment, these pieces are intended to reflect all three of these aspects; the peace, the violence and the beginnings of humankind’s ultimate separation from the landscape brought on by the industrial revolution. The sleeve is by Maxim Peter Griffin, an artist, illustrator and writer based in Lincolnshire. A fine art graduate and former stonemason, over the past few years he has been building a body of work that echo his experiences on foot between the North Sea and the hills. "...a luminous soundtrack to the passage of geological time." Shindig // "Williamson is building desire tunnels, churning through the layers of rock and soil to find his conclusions." The Wire // "These rumbling synth drifts and ominous drones transport you to entirely different places-like being cast adrift in a cosmic void" Electronic Sound // "...the droning synthesizer waves conjure up something spectral and eerie, stretching out like the wide horizon..." The Quietus // "Beautiful." Hannah Peel

"So Happy It Hurts" is the brand new album from platinum selling, award-winning artist Bryan Adams.
Bryan Adams is one of the most exciting live musicians in the world and his energetic performance, effortless stage presence and incredible vocals are guaranteed to thrill and entertain. Adams’ influence extends 4 decades, over which time he has released 14 studio albums. His song writing has garnered him numerous awards and accolades including three Academy Award nominations, five Golden Globe nominations and a Grammy Award.
Of the new album Bryan says: “The pandemic and lockdown really brought home the truth that spontaneity can be taken away. Suddenly all touring stopped, no one could jump in the car and go,” says Adams. “The title song ‘So Happy It Hurts’ is about freedom, autonomy, spontaneity and the thrill of the open road. The album of the same name, touches on many of the ephemeral things in life are really the secret to happiness, most importantly, human connection.”

The album So Happy it Hurts, scheduled for release March 11, 2022, marks Bryan Adams’ 15th release and features 12 new songs co-written by him

"So Happy It Hurts" is the brand new album from platinum selling, award-winning artist Bryan Adams.
Bryan Adams is one of the most exciting live musicians in the world and his energetic performance, effortless stage presence and incredible vocals are guaranteed to thrill and entertain. Adams’ influence extends 4 decades, over which time he has released 14 studio albums. His song writing has garnered him numerous awards and accolades including three Academy Award nominations, five Golden Globe nominations and a Grammy Award.
Of the new album Bryan says: “The pandemic and lockdown really brought home the truth that spontaneity can be taken away. Suddenly all touring stopped, no one could jump in the car and go,” says Adams. “The title song ‘So Happy It Hurts’ is about freedom, autonomy, spontaneity and the thrill of the open road. The album of the same name, touches on many of the ephemeral things in life are really the secret to happiness, most importantly, human connection.”

The album So Happy it Hurts, scheduled for release March 11, 2022, marks Bryan Adams’ 15th release and features 12 new songs co-written by him

nothing,nowhere. commented on the new album detailing, “TRAUMA FACTORY is an accumulation of songs written during a confusing time. it is about accepting the present and following your true north through the pain and suffering of human life. I wanted to make an album that was truly genreless and inspire others to challenge themselves artistically. I believe the most inspiring art is unpredictable and unrestrictive. to me that’s what TRAUMA FACTORY is.”

Over the course of 15 tracks, TRAUMA FACTORY cuts deep and finds nothing,nowhere. once again emerging from darkness, shedding external expectation, and moving forward into the glow of pure creation. Whether it be the anesthetized beats and intoxicating lull of “love or chemistry,” the cold piano-laden longing of “crave,” or the emotional immediacy of “upside down,” nothing,nowhere. paints from a wide palette of pain.

nothing,nowhere. is the musical endeavor of Vermont songwriter, singer and guitarist Joe Mulherin. For Mulherin, nothing,nowhere. is about a connection. It’s one he finds with fans around the world, who gather to see him play on tour and to listen to his songs online. It’s that connection that urges the singer to place his fears aside and step onstage each night to share his art. He sees the potential to help, to make a change, however small it may be and that is why he brings his music out of the Vermont wildness.

Mercurial London artist Nilüfer Yanya announces her hugely anticipated second
album, ‘PAINLESS’, for release via ATO Records.
 ‘PAINLESS’ is the follow-up to Nilüfer Yanya’s renowned 2019 debut album, ‘Miss
Universe’, which fully established her as a singular artist and a distinctive voice that
simply has to be heard.
 The critically acclaimed ‘Miss Universe’ - a widescreen concept record that took a
tongue in cheek swipe at the most self-involved corners of the health and wellness
industry - was followed last year by the three song EP ‘Feeling Lucky?’, which further
explored Yanya’s fascination with ‘90s alt-rock melodies and drew on themes of
resentment, her fear of flying, and the concept of luck. Pitchfork summed up ‘Feeling
Lucky?’ and her now peerless songwriting aptitude best: “Nilüfer Yanya’s melodies
have a pull so strong they almost necessitate their own law of physics.”
 Yanya also re-released her early EPs on vinyl for the first time this year, on the
record ‘Inside Out’. The release is a fundraiser for Artists in Transit, a collaborative
not for profit group she founded with her sister Molly that delivers art workshops to
displaced people and communities in times of hardship.
 As the daughter of two visual artists (her Irish-Barbadian mother is a textile designer
and her Turkish-born father’s work is exhibited at the British Museum), creativity was
always destined for Nilüfer Yanya’s future. Now she enters the next stage of her
creative journey - Yanya is running head first into the depths of emotional
vulnerability on her sophomore record, ‘PAINLESS’. The album was recorded
between a basement studio in Stoke Newington and Riverfish Music in Penzance
with ‘Miss Universe’ collaborator and producer Wilma Archer, DEEK Recordings
founder Bullion, Big Thief producer Andrew Sarlo and musician Jazzi Bobbi.
 Where ‘Miss Universe’ stretched musical boundaries to include a litany of styles from
smooth jazz melodies to radio ready pop, ‘PAINLESS’ takes a more direct sonic
approach. By narrowing down her previously broad palette to a handful of robust
ideas that revolve around melancholy harmonies and looped industrial beats to mimic
the insular focus of the lyrics, Yanya has smoothed out the idiosyncrasies of previous
releases without losing what is essential to her.
 ‘PAINLESS’ is a record that forces the listener to sit with the discomfort that
accompanies so many of life’s biggest challenges whether it be relationship
breakdowns, coping with loneliness, or the search for our inner self. “It's a record
about emotion,” Yanya explains. “I think it's more open about that in a way that ‘Miss
Universe’ wasn't because there's so many cloaks and sleeves with the concept I built
around it.” Summing up the ethos of the new album, she adds, “I’m not as scared to
admit my feelings.”
 Should stock of ATO0594BI1 sell out, a different standard vinyl format will be made
available (ATO0594LP).
 “A distinctive new voice in indie rock, a deeply expressive singer and sharply
inventive guitarist” - Uncut
 “On a musical and human level, then, the world needs more people like Nilüfer
Yanya” - MOJO
 “A true original” - The Guardian

Noon Garden is an exotic psych-pop odyssey from one of the founding members of Flamingods. Drawing on worldly sounds from the likes of Francis Bebey and Dur Dur Band to Shintaro Sakamoto, tearing up the sonic rule book and conjuring up a distant land where you find yourself cutting loose to grooves that meander their way through a wide spectrum of African disco, funk, exotica and psychedelia. Noon Garden has received support from the likes of Clash and The Line Of Best Fit and recent single Decca Divine was playlisted on Amazing Radio. The track also picked up love at DSP playlists including Spotify’s ‘Fresh Finds: Indie’ and Apple’s ‘New in Alternative’. British born with Nigerian & Jamaican heritage, Prest spent his childhood living in Bahrain surrounded by people, like himself, who were all living on an island away from their homeland. Seeing the world from a young age and the experience of 10 years of globe-trotting touring with Flamingods are imprinted on his new project and have been a huge influence on shaping Noon Garden’s tropical adventurism. As a talented multi-instrumentalist Charles has written, self-produced and played all the parts on the single himself. Noon Garden says of the album: "This debut was an experiment to get to know myself better. Taken from the name of an area not too far from my family home in Norwood south London, the literal words ‘Beulah Spa’ conjured up imagery of being a place to contemplate in warmth and complete tranquility. Writing music is a therapeutic process for me and it’s taken about eight years on and off to finish this album by myself, to try understand what it was exactly that I wanted to say lyrically and explore sonically. The album’s lyrics have shape-shifted so much with time but they take a curious look at the human experience; in my case growing up and soaking up a lot of cultures from an early age in the Middle East, the UK and briefly in Singapore. It’s a reflection on what’s past and what’s yet to come, my connection with others over the years and how that inevitably shapes your outlook on what’s around you. All of this told through the lens of psychedelia which has always given me a sense of possibility. Beulah Spa is the first marker of where I’ve gotten to so far in my life, channeling it all into a musical odyssey that lays the foundation for a lot more to come.”

Johnny Marr started his career with The Smiths, beginning an amazing history as one of the most influential songwriters and guitarists in British independent music. His subsequent creative journey has seen him at the heart of The The, Electronic, Modest Mouse and The Cribs, as well as working with such names as The Pretenders, Talking Heads, The Avalanches, and the musician and composer Hans Zimmer - with whom he recently recorded the score and soundtrack for the forthcoming James Bond film, No Time To Die, including the title track created with Billie Eilish.

In the wake of his time leading The Healers, Marr’s solo career has given rise to three UK Top Ten albums - The Messenger (2013), Playland (2014) and 2018’s Call The Comet, and he will be returning in February with his most expansive work to date, Fever Dreams Pts 1-4. It was created during the long, uncertain period that followed the arrival of the UK’s first lockdown, when his focus was pushed into both his interior life, and evoking the emotional states of others. “It’s an inspired record, and I couldn’t wait to get in and record every day,” he says. “But I had to go inwards.”

The upcoming album reflects his multi-faceted past, but takes his music somewhere startlingly new. “There’s a set of influences and a very broad sound that I’ve been developing - really since getting out of The Smiths,” he says. “And I hear it in this record. There are so many strands of music in it. I think it’s the most ambitious solo record I’ve done.”

The Nonesuch debut of Hurray for the Riff Raff (aka Alynda Segarra), LIFE ON EARTH, is a departure for the Bronx-born, New Orleans-based singer/songwriter. Its eleven new “nature punk” tracks on the theme of survival are music for a world in flux – songs about thriving, not just surviving, while disaster is happening. Hurray for the Riff Raff tours North America this spring, beginning March 19 in Atlanta and continuing through April 20 in Nashville, with stops in Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, among others. International tour dates will be announced shortly.

For her eighth full-length album, Segarra (they/she) drew inspiration from The Clash, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Bad Bunny, and the author of Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown. Recorded during the pandemic, Life on Earth was produced by Brad Cook (Waxahatchee, Bon Iver, Kevin Morby).

Life on Earth’s first single, ‘RHODODENDRON’, is about “finding rebellion in plant life. Being called by the natural world and seeing the life that surrounds you in a way you never have. A mind expansion. A psychedelic trip. A spiritual breakthrough. Learning to adapt, and being open to the wisdom of your landscape. Being called to fix things in your own backyard, your own community,” says Segarra.

Of the ‘Rhododendron’ video, which was directed by New Orleans-based artist Lucia Honey, Segarra says: “It is really far out and fun. I got this bodysuit that just looks like the inside of the human body. It looks like you’re skinless. It’s in a scene where I’m playing to an audience of plants. Just really absurd, but I put that suit on and I was like man, this feels really good. It feels like, ‘This is who I am. Let’s just take the skin off.’

“It reminds me a little bit of Kids in the Hall,” they continue. “With this ‘Rhododendron’ shoot, something clicked in me where I was like, ‘All I have to do is be myself.’ I had been thinking that I had to be something bigger than myself. I felt like I was just never quite making the mark and then something clicked where I was like, ‘I just gotta be me. I could do that. I could show up and be me. And if people don’t like it, then I don’t know what to fucking tell them.’ It was like a brain shift of, ‘Oh, this can be fun. It doesn’t have to be suffering.’ With so many videos and photo shoots before, it really felt like suffering. I felt so uncomfortable being perceived. I didn’t know who I was.”

Honey adds: “We wanted to create something surreal, playful, and saturated that indulged heavily in the aesthetic of the early ‘90s. Alynda and I had many overlapping visual and philosophical references which sparked the initial collaboration. We wanted to make this video an homage to Gregg Araki’s Teenage Apocalypse trilogy but as a nature documentary crossover. I came across Araki’s work as a queer teenager, and he’s always been a big inspiration. Sex, blood, punk rock, camp, etc.

“We live in a moment where the future is bleaker and more unknown than ever, so there becomes a deep comfort in nostalgia and reliving the past. Through our talks, I realised Alynda’s new album touches on many of these same subjects, but perhaps in reverse; running from a past that is always haunting you. Shifting into a more refined self/identity through confronting one’s trauma and baggage. It was easy to reach collaborative synergy for this video project because we’re both interested in tackling similar issues.”

Alynda Segarra was born and raised in the Bronx, which they left at the age of seventeen, running away from everything and everyone they knew, hopping freight trains or hitchhiking across the country in the company of a band of street urchins. Segarra moved to New Orleans in 2007 and formed two bands: Dead Man’s Street Orchestra and Hurray for the Riff Raff. In 2015, Segarra decamped to Nashville, then to New York, to make her most recent album, 2016’s critically praised The Navigator, an ambitious and fully realized concept album that was her quest to reclaim her Puerto Rican identity. Segarra’s previous records as Hurray for the Riff Raff are Crossing the Rubicon (EP, 2007), It Don’t Mean I Don’t Love You (2008), Young Blood Blues (2010), Hurray for the Riff Raff (2011), Look Out Mama (2012), My Dearest Darkest Neighbor (2013), and Small Town Heroes (2014).

"The core of confusion and upheaval that drove some of the band's most fiery earlier work, however, is replaced by a more stabilized undercurrent, a mentality that's reflected in songs not afraid to try new things and honestly explore uncomfortable feelings. When combined with exciting production and songwriting choices, that mindset helps make Feels So Good // Feels So Bad one of the Shivas' best albums.” - AllMusic "Portland, Oregon-hailing psych-surf band The Shivas accomplish another time-traveling, reverb-ridden sound that refuses to get boring. Jared Molyneux’s guitar work knows when to be bright or bashful at the right times, breaking into guitar solos that possess a late-’60s groove… The Shivas seem to blissfully flourish” - Paste "a consistent treat for the ears” - The Vinyl District "Though the psych-tinged guitar riff that drives 'Feels So Bad' was written while The Shivas were still on the road, its lyrics didn’t fall into place until the band was well into lockdown, unsure of when they’d be able to return to their most imperative true love: Live shows... Accordingly, 'Feels So Bad' permeates with a sense of urgent desperation, building off a chugging prog-rock instrumental.” - Consequence (on “Feels So Bad”) "They hooked the audience with their throwback rock sounds. The guitar strums and rhythmic drum beats were layered atop smooth and hallucinogenic vocals. The eyes can tell the take at times and there was a sparkle there that said that the band members just love doing live performances." - California Rocker "This single layers on the fuzz but keeps it dreamy, with an especially sticky guitar riff sure to lodge itself in your brain with minimal effort." - Portland Monthly (on “If I Could Choose”) “'My Baby Don’t' translates the genuine vibrant joy


of the live experience into the studio, bringing the band’s ‘60s garage rock roots, sharp pop vocal harmonies, and fervent performances along for the ride." - Under The Radar "Perfectly straddling the line between a solid-head bopping track and an introspective deep cut, The Shivas’ 'Undone' is a rock & roll gem. The track sounds straight out of the late 60s and fits seamlessly in the Portland band’s electrifying catalog." - The Luna Collective "The first time I clicked play on this track, I knew it was a yes for me." - Ear To The Ground Music (on “If I Could Choose”) "The harmonies would make the “Happy Together” Turtles blush, but the unsettling guitar doesn’t shy away from the woollier implications of the ’60s." - Willamette Week (on “If I Could Choose”) "'Undone' is just the perfect song for the good days and the bad ones." - GlamGlare "another hit" - Austin Town Hall (on “Undone”) "one of the best forthcoming albums of the year" - Austin Town Hall RADIO: #3 Most Added @ NACC - 50 official adds BIO Every working musician has had their life turned upside down by Covid-19. For The Shivas, who had recently released a new LP and normally keep a rigorous touring schedule, it was a particularly screeching halt. “We were about to go to SXSW, the following weekend was Treefort in Boise, and then we were going to open for our friends’ band on tour in the US before going to Europe,” Jared Molyneux remembers. Then everything just stopped. They were faced with a dilemma. “It forced us to adapt or just quit,” Molyneux says. “The reality is that shows are our job.” In truth, live shows aren’t just The Shivas job: they are the band’s greatest love. Shivas shows are bombastic, explosive and thoroughly communal live rock and roll experiences where barriers between the performers and their audience seem to dissolve into the sweat and sound. The stage—or the basement, or the living room—that’s The Shivas’ true element. It’s their raison d’etre. It’s their religion. The band’s live urgency may have been born in 2006, when the band’s young members—who began booking West Coast tours while still in high school—waited without fanfare on sidewalks or in parking lots, before being rushed onstage for their sets at 21-and-up clubs. Maybe it developed a little later, as The Shivas blasted their way through Portland’s storied and unsanctioned mid-aughts house show scene. Whatever the origin of their famously kinetic live experience, it’s the show that keeps them coming back after over 1,000 performances spread over 25 countries in 15 years. In those 15 years, The Shivas have grown tight-knit as a group. Guitarist/singer Jared Molyneux, bassist Eric Shanafelt and drummer/singer Kristin Leonard have all been with the band since its earliest days; guitarist Jeff City, another high school friend, joined in 2017. Together they’ve learned to thread a seemingly impossible needle: They’ve honed and tightened their performances without sacrificing the element of surprise that makes each show special. And despite touring and recording for most of their lives, they speak about their project with humility, in the DIY vernacular of their Pacific Northwest upbringing. They talk up their own favorite bands, play all-ages shows as much as possible, and bring a sort of blue-collar humanism to the live performances they relish so much. “We just want to make people feel good,” Molyneux says. “We want them to forget they have to work tomorrow.” Kristin Leonard elaborates, “The live show is all about that feeling of catharsis—in ourselves and in everyone who comes out. We’re creating this safe space where we can all let go. Where we can exhale. And it feels really good when we are able to facilitate that.” So when Covid hit, the band knew it was time for transformation. After a settling realization that live music would be grounded for the foreseeable future, The Shivas booked significant studio time with Cameron Spies, who also produced the 2019 Dark Thoughts LP. They also transformed their lives: three of the band’s four members found work with a local nonprofit serving unhoused Portland residents. They became engaged in protests and fundraisers for social justice. They spent a whole summer actually living in Portland, settling into the city they had always called home, but that sometimes felt like a temporary stop between tours. “We got into a more community-minded headspace,” Leonard says. “And that did give us some purpose. It felt cool to see everybody come together to stick up for what they believe in. It feels like an incredibly formative last twelve months.” The album that emerged from this new moment finds The Shivas reborn as a band that seems seasoned and perfectly at home with itself. There is a calm, even a hopefulness, to Feels So Good // Feels So Bad that sounds new. The Shivas didn’t write or record the album with a particular theme in mind, but one seems to have emerged: where Dark Thoughts was about confronting your demons with fearless self-examination, much of Feels So Good // Feels So Bad is about what happens once you find that peace: how being honest with yourself changes your relationships and your priorities. “I do think it’s about acceptance,” Leonard says. “There’s a weird relaxation that comes with being at peace with things you can’t control or have regrets about.” Maybe that’s why the squealing, riff-laden break-up song opener, “Feels So Bad,” is such a shock to the system. But it’s more of an exorcism than a melodrama: more a song about not being able to do the thing you love (in


this case, playing live shows) than splitting with a partner. “It’s like part of you goes to sleep,” Leonard says. As bandmates who are also in a long-term relationship, Molyneux and Leonard know that their songs might be seen as glimpses into their personal lives, but their songwriting is rarely autobiography. Leonard compares their process to something more akin to screenwriting. “There’s bound to be some autobiographical material in there,” she says. “But the common denominator is the exploration of universal feelings: ones that everyone experiences or can relate to.” The goal is to use the music to drill down into something genuine and sincere, beyond genre or stylistic affectation. That’s where The Shivas have arrived. Whatever growth led the band to Feels So Good // Feels So Bad, plenty of their fascinations remain. They’re still turning love songs into psychedelic, transcendent epics. “Tell Me That You Love Me” subverts doo-wop extravagance and dabbles in Flamenco rhythms. “Rock Me Baby” is a bubblegum anthem soaked in so much reverb that we might just be hearing it from the stadium nosebleeds. “Sometimes” is almost impossibly huge, like a witchy outtake from the Brill Building era. Those songs feel like logical expansions from a band that has always excelled at a timeless sort of rock and roll that tinkers with and explodes elements from every era. But on the towering and mournful “You Wanna Be My Man,” a slow-burning six-minute shoegaze prayer for a higher sort of love, there is a level of emotional nuance that feels like something altogether revolutionary. It’s there again in the stripped-down vulnerability of the album-closing elegy “Please Don’t Go.” Yes, Feels So Good // Feels So Bad is an album about acceptance. Sometimes that acceptance feels enlightened and sometimes it feels like the end result of a lot of kicking and screaming. The Shivas have adapted in both of those ways. With new tours scheduled and a new album on the way, they’re still hoping--like all of us--for a new era of vibrant, cathartic live music. The lessons they learned from having their normal upended, though, have only helped them grow

Pink Vinyl

Drifting on oceans of thunderous stillness, carried away by endless currents, whipped up by waves of darkness devouring you until you see the light. The first album from Platoo, a collaboration between Michelle Samba and Phil Mills, has an unrelenting cadence that grabs you and refuses to let go. A distinctive combination of calming soundscapes and highly-charged energy fitting any occasion, from dancing like lost souls in the empty halls of ancient barracks to ecstatically tripping on a distant desert planet.

To Phil and Michelle creating Platoo was about being given a sense of freedom and exploration, at once shaking off habits and rediscovering forgotten values. Phil's love of the mesh of ''real'' sounds and electronics, and quest to establish a balance where both would feed off each other saw him abandon convention and standard structures, deviate from the beaten path and let things come to life. Michelle's quest to create, to inspire and be inspired, to draw her conclusions from serendipitous events allowed her to break things open and be at ease with letting herself go to create the breathing space needed for this new sound.

What makes their symbiosis fruitful is a common yearning for the unknown, a search for what works without exactly fathoming why it works. The result is something that indeed meets those needs, a strange and beautiful musical exploration.

Hangman's Chair, formed in 2005 in Paris, are one of the most unique sounding doom rock bands currently active. Through the years, they have found and fine-tuned their own sonic brand, somewhere at the crossroads between Type O Negative, Alice In Chains and Sisters of Mercy, to name a few, mixed with a certain street credibility connected to the group’s roots in hardcore, and even tinges of shoegaze. ‘Cold Doom’ as the band likes to call it.

Each album takes its strength and essence from the band members’s life experiences, which they portrait with unflinching honesty. Whether it is the loss of band members, drug overdoses or the hardships of living in suburban Paris, all those human emotions resonate within each of their songs as they embrace the darkness and transform it into something beautiful, heavy and melancholic.

After five studio albums and a handful of splits / EPs, Hangman's Chair is releasing their sixth studio album, "A Loner", their first record on Germany based, worldwide leading metal label Nuclear Blast. Telling tales about loneliness in all its forms, this record has all the trademarks that makes Hangman's Chair’s music so visceral, and will keep you in its tight grip from the very first listen.

Words have a force of their own: a life generated by their meaning and by the imaginary world they refer to; a power increased by the dynamic interplay with other words. Just put 'Moon' and 'Apollo' together, and you'll be almost inevitably transported to mankind's greatest adventure: the Moon landing and, before that, the space race between the US and USSR, the early missions, and the incredible technological challenges faced at the time by astronauts and engineers.

It is against this imaginative background that beat-maker and bass player Moonbrew and organist and keyboardist Paolo Apollo Negri conceived The LEM Tales project. Their collaboration, too, is the coming together of 'Moon' and 'Apollo', and of their two worlds: a sonic universe where hip hop meets funk, pop merges with jazz, old school interacts with new possibilities, and urban and space blend into something new.

The LEM Tales - Chapter One narrates the space race from the American point of view. This vinyl edition, which includes two exclusive tracks (*) not on the digital release, takes us on a journey from "Project Gemini" - NASA's second human spaceflight program - to "Tranquillity Base" (*) (the site on the Moon where Armstrong and Aldrin landed and walked in July 1969) , through tracks titled "Capsule Communicator" (the individual in the mission control center who maintained communication with the astronauts in space), "EMU" (Extravehicular Mobility Unit, better known as the spacesuit), "Saturn V" (a threestage, liquid-fuelled rocket used between 1967 and 1973), and "Mercury Seven" (*) (the group of seven astronauts chosen for the Mercury Program in 1959).

Inspired by iconic images that are part of our collective visual memory, Moonbrew and Apollo's first collaborative effort tries to provide a contemporary sonic representation of what the past means to us today – and, perhaps, will mean to future generations. It does so through a feast of vintage synthesizers, transistor and tonewheel organs, string machines, electric pianos, tube amplifiers, obscure analogue devices, electric bass, and modern samplers.

An old-school hip hop approach was used in the first stages of writing the album: individual drums hits from old, dusty records were first sampled and then physically played on real instruments to create patterns and build up the rhythm section. Moonbrew then laid down the electric bass grooves and Apollo layered his dreamy, evocative vintage keyboards on top. The result is a combination of different styles, sounds and genres that is fresh, original and contemporary while being clearly influenced by many musical legends of the past.

The LEM Tales - Chapter One is released by Four Flies in partnership with Record Kicks.

Gratitude is the eagerly anticipated new solo album from Abiodun Oyewole, the poet, teacher and founding member of The Last Poets. The album liner notes include an extensive new interview with Abiodun himself, detailing the writing process of the album.

Looking back, the Last Poets are often referred to as the godfathers of rap, and by listening to their early recordings; it’s easy to hear why. Their words encompass revolution, sex, death, drugs, and Black Power - they own their words. From their mouths – words are a sense of pride, a statement, and a feeling of empowerment. There’s no self-conscious hang-up with the Last Poets using words as an art form. On May 19th, 1968 (in celebration of Malcolm X’s birthday), The Last Poets performed their first ever concert in Mount Morris Park (in Harlem), now called Marcus Garvey Park. Their debut album was released in 1970 including poet/singer Abiodun Oyewole.

Now AFAR is proud to present a whole new way of thinking socially, politically, emotionally, and humanly – via the perspective of Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets with his new solo album ‘Gratitude’ - it's not a protest album, it's an inspirational LP/CD via the inclusive words and God-like voice of Abiodun - this is not an angry man, but an older wiser man - reflecting on his life and spiritual quests. Rappers love him for coining the phrase "Party and Bullshit" decades ago - but this is not that - this is a sacred journey with a universal message for all people regardless of their background and nationality.

“ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL SPOKEN-WORD GROUPS THAT PIONEERED HIP-HOP” NPR

“EXPERIMENTING WITH STREET POETRY AND PERCUSSIVE SOUND, THE MUSIC OF HARLEM’S LAST POETS HELPED LAY THE GROUNDWORK FOR HIP-HOP” ROLLING STONE

From director George Miller, originator of the post-apocalyptic genre and mastermind behind the legendary Mad Max franchise, comes Mad Max: Fury Road, a return to the world of the Road Warrior, Max Rockatansky. An apocalyptic story set in the furthest reaches of our planet, in a stark desert landscape where humanity is broken and almost everyone is crazed fighting for the necessities of life.

The film’s epic score is written by Tom Holkenborg, aka Junkie XL, a Grammy nominated and multi-Platinum producer, musician and composer. Junkie XL’s versatility puts him on the cutting edge of contemporary music, as well as in the vanguard of exciting film composers. He is able to draw on his extensive knowledge of classical forms and structures while keeping one finger planted firmly on the pulse of popular music. When this eclectic background is paired with his skill as a multi-instrumentalist (he plays keyboards, guitar, drums, violin, and bass) and mastery of studio technology, a portrait emerges of an artist for whom anything is possible.

In my parents' living room stands an elaborately hand-forged copper kettle - my grandfather's masterpiece, hammered out of a single piece of copper. Growing up in a family of craftsmen, I have been familiar since early childhood with the attitude of perfecting a thing for its own sake.

The deepening concentration and slow maturing of execution, the craft shares with spiritual rituals, with arts, sports and the sciences. I am touched by the sight of almost ideal expressions of human activity, be it a forged piece, a perfectly build sentence or an athletic performance. I dedicate my album SKILLS to this fascination.

A branched succession of changing skills has brought mankind to the present day. The skills that were originally life-supporting grew into handy crafts and art. This development through the times reflects the enormous changes in ethics, aesthetics and morals. People describe this process in many shades, from culturally pessimistic dystopias to posthumanist utopias.

The music of SKILLS lives in this field - between hymn and melancholy.

It was obvious from the first riff on the first song from their very first album: MASS WORSHIP were born fully-fledged, utterly unique and magnificently destructive. Emerging from Scandinavian shadows like an unstoppable, shape-shifting bulldozer, they have swiftly become one of the most praised and talked-about bands in the metal underground. Despite spending a big part of 2020-2021 locked inside, writing and recording new material, MASS WORSHIP did complete a highly successful tour in support of Polish death metal legends Vader. Meanwhile, MASS WORSHIP are primed and ready to unleash their second full-length assault. Due for release in 2022, “Portal Tombs” is a terrifying but electrifying exploration of the gloomy depths of human nature: a monolithic manifestation of the musical force that is MASS WORSHIP. Drawing inspiration from bands such as At The Gates, Mastodon and Meshuggah, MASS WORSHIP could be likened to many bands, but somehow forge their musical identity into something exceptionally distinctive and transcendent, and with enough confidence and conviction to win over even the most orthodox fans of the genre. “Portal Tombs” will once again proclaim MASS WORSHIP’s one-of-a-kind potency with maximum force. A triumph for both style and substance, “Portal Tombs” is the kind of metal record that shatters epochs, audaciously redefining what it means to be heavy. MASS WORSHIP continue to lead the charge for individuality and verve, while still delivering a never-ending tsunami of life-affirming, spine-shattering riffs. Lyrically, too, “Portal Tombs” takes the path less trodden, exploring the dark recesses of humanity’s past, its present and, darkest of all, its future. As we spiral towards an abyss of our own making, MASS WORSHIP’s soundtrack will resonate loudest of all. “Portal Tombs” is available as: Ltd. CD Digipak, Gatefold LP, Digital Album

Summer at Land’s End is not an interlude or tangent for The Reds, Pinks & Purples but rather a perfect fourth movement following the albums Anxiety Art, You Might Be Happy Someday, and Uncommon Weather. As with these self-recorded records (the primary work of songwriter Glenn Donaldson), the songs on Summer at Land’s End were crafted slowly and then drawn together to make a unified statement. But here, and more than before, Summer at Land’s End combines Donaldson’s rueful pop sensibility with a parallel musical universe, one composed of pictures, dreams, and feelings without words. Even if the underlying theme of this collection is one of conflict or unhappiness, the vision of the music presents an escape to a new world, always fading in and out of sight.

For listeners who may not be familiar with Donaldson’s corner of San Francisco––the Richmond district––or the current wave of hazy, melodic DIY pop groups performing in the city, Summer at Land’s End pulls in images and scenes that feel like a collision of the mundane and the sublime of this present landscape. But settings such as these are the backdrop for personal narratives, expressed as a struggle with love, with companionship and the conflicts of home. With this record, The Reds, Pinks & Purples give less focus to the vanities of a subculture and more to the challenge of connecting with someone, to the ordinary goals of being human and finding harmony with others.

This deliberate saturation in drama and ambiance, along with some of Donaldson’s best songwriting to date, is what gives Summer at Land’s End its special class in the project’s discography. Of the album’s cinematic mood, Donaldson refers to films like Summer of ‘42 and the influence of the classic 4AD catalogue of the 1990s. This style informs much of Donaldson’s prior and current ventures of course (The Ivytree, Vacant Gardens, and a dozen projects in between) but now The Reds, Pinks & Purples have taken the mantle, embracing this instinct for instrumental or dreamier modes of pop songwriting. It’s a pleasure to experience Summer at Land’s End, as this record finds a thrilling balance between songs and sounds, instruments and voices, and the ironic twin poles of art and life.

Norwegian duo Lost Girls, artist and writer Jenny Hval and multi-instrumentalist Håvard Volden, release their first album after collaborating for more than ten years. Volden has been playing regularly in Hval's live band for more than a decade, and their duo project goes back to an acoustic collaborative album from 2012, using the moniker Nude on Sand. Instead of resurrecting the previous band, Hval and Volden opted for a fresh start for their 2018 EP Feeling, taking nomenclatural inspiration from the 2006 graphic novel by writer Alan Moore and comics artist Melinda Gebbie.

For their first LP, Hval and Volden booked an actual studio (Øra studios, Trondheim, Norway), which they had never done before. Recording sessions took place in March 2020, even if they felt like the material wasn’t really ready for recording. This left a lot to improvisation, and so Menneskekollektivet was created in-between set structures and the energy of collective exploration.

Perhaps this is what makes Menneskekollektivet unique: The quality of trying something, to see if the structures fit. In a way this is a more physical version of what Hval has been exploring lyrically over the past decade in her solo work. The title is Norwegian and translates to human collective, which adds to the feeling of a recording made as part of a strange, improvised performance project.

The music flickers; between club beats and improvised guitar textures; between spoken word and melodic vocal textures; between abstract and harmonic synth lines. Throughout the piece, Volden’s guitar and Hval’s voice come across as equals, wandering, wondering, meandering. Sharing the space.

There is nothing quite like an evening under the rhythmic spell of the legendary David Morales. Stepping on the dancefloor while he's behind the decks requires full trust and surrender. You agree to hand the reins of your mind, body, and spirit to his intuition and ability to guide you to where you need to be at all times. It will occasionally be cathartic and intense. It will often make the hairs on your body stand on end, and make you sweat more than you ever have before. The endorphin release will be powerful. You will feel like you can touch joy and euphoria it in the air around you. As he gently brings you back down to reality, you will feel renewed and ready for anything life brings your way. This is more than a night of dancing. This is an experience at the hands of a magical maestro of music. How is this possible from a night on the dancefloor? Well, it begins with the brilliant mind of an artist at the peak of his creative power, imbued with the empathy necessary to connect with what has become a global legion of fans. "If there is any secret, it's really simple: I love what I do with all of my heart," Morales says. "I'm a DJ first. I thrive on human interaction. I am always adjusting my sets based on what the people in the room need. Each night, we form an emotional connection that inspires the music as it comes."

For Morales, "working in the studio is important, but it exists as a way of supporting the DJing experience. It's all to inform how it will work on the dancefloor."

To that end, you're reading these words as you dive into a new collection of Morales classics. Ever the collaborator, he has enlisted the input of a wide range of voices and talent. There is the diva power of fellow legend Ultra Nate, who brings her signature sass to "I Can Dream," while Michele Perera's explosive chemistry with David is all over the inspiring "Life is a Song" and "Never Give Up", as well as the impassioned "Addicted."

Morales reminds the listener of his ever-evolving musical scope in collaborations with blondewearingblack ("What Can I Do"), Lea Lorien ("Never Looking Back"), and Blakkat ("Can't Get Enough"). There's the clubland supergroup of David with Mr. V, Scotty P. and DJ Rae on "The Feels." Rounding out the set is a reunion with longtime muses Elle Cato ("I Feel Love") and British soul icon Joe Roberts ("Easy"). Just be sure to listen closely, because there's bound to be a surprise tucked between these grooves to tickle your ears and move your body.

The beauty of this sparkling new foray into electronic music is the heightened intimacy between Morales and the music. What you are hearing here is almost exclusively from the man's own fingertips. "The technology has evolved in the most extraordinary and liberating ways," he says, adding that he is now able to be far more directly hands-on during the building of each track. "Back in the '90s, I had to have more people involved, With the changes and growth in technology, I can now do it, myself. I don't even have to be in the studio anymore. It's smart, financially, but it's also way more fun and creative."

David adds, "I don't have to wait to manifest an idea anymore. I can just build my ideas as they come to me." In fact, he reveals that many of these new tracks were born in unique places, like planes, cars, his bedroom, and a host of other settings. "Music is always spinning around my mind. I no longer worry about losing an idea."

Surviving the highs and lows of an ever-changing world has also brought Morales back to the basic essentials of life and music. "The pandemic has brought things full circle for me," he says. "I love what I do and I still have the passion of a kid who is just getting started"

Yet, we know that Morales has been in the game for longer than a minute. He's a Grammy award-winning producer, remixer, and songwriter. He has lent his skill to countless of records by icons that include Mariah Carey, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer, Seal, and Jamiroquai. As a turntable artist originally from New York City, he earned his bones of credibility back in the '80s and '90s in clubs like the Paradise Garage, Red Zone, Tunnel, and Club USA. He initiated the concept of DJs touring beyond their hometowns with countless, wildly successful treks that have taken him the farthest-reaching corners of the world. As electronic music thrives on pop radium, David tops the list of every young artist and DJ as a primary influence.

Even with such a staggering legacy, Morales never looks over his shoulder.

"That is how you stumble and fall," he says. "If you get all caught up in the past, you're going to lose sight of what is right in front of you. You lose the excitement of discovery. That is what gets me off; taking what I know and combining it with what I don't know as I learn it. There is nothing better than experiencing how it all comes together. It's different every time."

And that is the ultimate secret to that extraordinary spell that David Morales casts over us all every single time.

PAUL DRAPER RETURNS WITH HIS NEW ALBUM, 'CULT LEADER
TACTICS'
Former Mansun frontman, Paul Draper, returns with a collection of his
fnest songwriting since the bands' imperial phase
'Cult Leader Tactics' is a self-help manual on how to become a complete cult in
the music industry & is his frst solo album since 2017's much- lauded 'Spooky
Action'.
'Cult Leader Tactics' offers a satirical analysis of the self-help manual genre. A
guide on how you can get to the top of your chosen profession, or ahead in life &
in affairs of the heart, by acting in a Machiavellian manner, employing dirty tricks
or 'Cult Leader Tactics' to achieve your life goals. After experiencing these types
of human behaviours & themes, the album arrives at the conclusion that the only
true answer in life is love.
Paul plays most of the instruments on the album, including lead vocals, guitar &
various Moogs & synthesisers. An album produced with long-time collaborator &
acclaimed producer Paul 'P-Dub' Walton (Massive Attack, The Cure, Bjork) at Loft
Studios, it also includes guest appearances from Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson
& Gam of the band 'Sweat' as well as featuring a 288- person C.L.T. Lockdown
Choir.
'Cult Leader Tactics' offers a selection of Paul's most focused & ambitious work
so far, a brilliantly dark commentary on an industry he is all too aware of.
Digipack edition with 16-page bookletOn tour across the UK from 27th February
to 23rd March 2022.'Cult Leader Tactics' will be available via Kscope.

Svart Records is proud to unleash the debut album from Dutch female Black Metal duo Doodswens! “Lichtvrees” (translation: fear of light) will be unveiled to the world on the 14th of January 2022. Doodswens Black Metal is a bleak, distorted wave of negative energy according to the tenets set by the Scandinavian originators but with their own new organic reflection of darkness. Their name translated as “Death Wish,” Doodswens breathe new life into the dust of the past, inspired by the rawness of the ‘90s and capturing the black hearts of a new throng of acolytes as they ignite the gloom. Founded in Eindhoven in 2017 by Fraukje van Burg (vocals and guitar) and Inge van der Zon (drums), Doodswens initially erupted into the underground scene in 2019 with their demo, which sent a shiver through its decaying corpse. With their debut album “Lichtvrees,” Doodswens opens up the cesspit of the human condition, giving voice to our bleakest emotions through old-school Black Metal like a freshly dug grave. Proudly expressing feelings of inner negativity and depression, Doodswens have taken the promise of their underground roots and crystallized their very own atmospheric war of sound on “Lichtvrees,” making it an enthralling and captivating inception. With deathly conviction and intense passion they bring their music alive on stage, playing at Roadburn Festival and many esteemed nocturnal events, their cult infamy leading them to be picked for a support slot on Marduk’s upcoming tour of Europe. If you like your Black Metal served especially cold, but with wide-screen atmosphere, then Doodswens could be your new moonless catharsis. “Lichtvrees,” is a highly conceptual work which deals with life and death, reaching enlightenment and fulfilling the symbolical “death wish” that Doodswens represents. Cast your shadow in the unholy light of “Lichtvrees” and discover a rising new star in the Black Metal cosmos.

Cloakroom celebrate their tenth anniversary as a band with their new album, Dissolution Wave. Dissolution Wave is a concept - a space western in which an act of theoretical physics—the dissolution wave—wipes out all of humanity’s existing art and abstract thought. In order to keep the world spinning on its axis, songsmiths must fill the ether with their compositions. Meanwhile, the Spire and Ward of Song act as a filter for human imagination: Only the best material can pass through the filter and keep the world turning. This is the universe that Cloakroom guitarist/vocalist Doyle Martin conceived as a way of processing the last few years. “We lost a couple of close friends over the course of writing this record,” he says. “Dreaming up another world felt easier to digest than the real nitty-gritty we’re immersed in every day.” With lyrics based on an imagined cosmology, Dissolution Wave also marks a grand expansion of Cloakroom’s dreamy space-rock palette. Written from the perspective of the album’s protagonist—an asteroid miner who writes songs by night—”A Force at Play” has an airy, pastoral feel. Meanwhile, the melancholy title track captures the miner’s regret as they lament that they signed up for such a long stint on the job, while closer “Dissembler” describes their anxiety about the revelator who will judge their work. “If you don’t write a good enough song in this universe, you run the risk of being forgotten and lose the opportunity to return as a meaningful form of life,” Martin explains. The stakes have never been higher!

First ever box set from one of the most thrilling bands of the Twentieth
Century.
 Deluxe 7” singles box set featuring the phenomenal original run of singles
with two bonus singles exclusive to this set. Seven 7” singles housed inside
a lift-off lid box with a booklet featuring an essay by Clinton Heylin,
reminisces from Thurston Moore, Henry Rollins, Mark Lanegan X and Dan
Stuart, rare photographs and flyers, new exclusive issue of the ‘Fire of Love’
fanzine, Ruby Records postcard and a ‘Gun’ button badge.
 If ever there was a band seemingly determined to come from nowhere and
go straight back there, it was The Gun Club. Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s search and
destroy combo was spawned by the LA punk scene in 1979. Two years later
their first LP, the incendiary ‘Fire Of Love’, was spewed out by Slash
Records, a matter of months after the punk zine Pierce wrote for, and the
label named itself after, breathed its last. ‘Fire Of Love’ was one of the 80’s
genuinely shape-shifting US debuts, igniting post-punk depth and minting
genres including blues, psychobilly and Americana.
 Jeffrey Lee Pierce was an extraordinary character. Learning to play guitar at
the age of 10, he quickly immersed himself firstly in reggae and later the
Delta Blues, particularly works by Tommy Johnson and Robert Johnson. By
1976, he had become obsessed with Blondie, going on to become President
of the West Coast Blondie Fan Club. It was Jeffrey Lee Pierce who
suggested to the band they cover ‘Hanging On The Telephone’. The Blondie
connection would later resurface in 1982 when Chris Stein signed and
produced The Gun Club for his Animal Records label. In 1996 after releasing
seven studio albums, 37-year-old Jeffrey Lee Pierce sadly passed away
following a stroke. What he left behind is a legacy of work that has had a
prolific effect on some of the most distinguished rock acts of the past 20+
years, these include Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Sonic Youth, The White
Stripes, Mark Lanegan, Primal Scream and The Black Keys.
 “Jeffrey was a human tornado. Yet during the most turbulent points in his life,
he was able to tap what seemed to be a limitless supply of astonishingly
beautiful music. Even now, songs like ‘Flowing’ and ‘Desire’ catch me up.
The immense power that passed through Jeffrey, like an electrical current,
informed his amazing body of work. That level of unrelenting heat and
incandescence is simply not survivable. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.” -
Henry Rollins (April 2021)
 Six 7” singles reprinted with original artwork. Additional ‘Miami Demos’ 7”
exclusive to this box set. All singles remastered especially for these vinyl
editions.

BURNING THE OPPRESSOR is a group founded in 2012 by passionate musicians with different influences and armed with remarkable stage dynamism. With intense texts and brutal riffs, BTO puts into words and sounds the trials of modern life and the sufferings of a society in turmoil. Militant in favor of social equity and the inclusion of all people, the band denounces discrimination and oppression through its work.

BURNING THE OPPRESSOR is a group founded in 2012 by passionate musicians with different influences and armed with remarkable stage dynamism. With intense texts and brutal riffs, BTO puts into words and sounds the trials of modern life and the sufferings of a society in turmoil. Militant in favor of social equity and the inclusion of all people, the band denounces discrimination and oppression through its work.

Released in 2019 in a limited edition of 50 cassettes, 'Planetary Exploration' by Ogawa & Tokoro is a handcrafted synthesizer dream sequence. Looking through an ancient oriental telescope, let us seek the future of music and Zen in this new era. When the time comes to abandon our planet, we still will be the ancestors of all humankind. Pressed to vinyl for the first time, remastered by Kuniyuki Takahashi!

From its earliest utterances, experimental music has been particularly disposed to transnational and cross-cultural collaboration. Seeking the answer for a fundamental problem - how to transcend the boundaries of difference, distance, and time - it presents a means to find common ground and communicate through the elemental form of sound. Over the last 5 years, this precisely what the duo of Félicia Atkinson & Jefre Cantu-Ledesma has achieved, intertwining sublime sonorities across the geographic expanses between their respective homes in France and the United States. Their third album for Shelter Press, ‘Un hiver en plein été’ (‘A winter in the middle of summer’) - the first to have been largely recorded by Atkinson and Cantu-Ledesma together in the same space - distills a mesmerizing pallet of acoustic and electronic sources into an open discourse of radically poetic forms, offering glimpses of warmth and intimacy waiting in the post-covid world to come.

Both veteran experimentalists with celebrated bodies of solo work behind them - each traversing the challenges of electroacoustic practice in their own singular ways - prior to their first recorded outing in 2016, Félicia Atkinson and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma had only crossed paths in person once, initially meeting in San Fransisco during 2009. The mutual bond formed during that brief encounter flowered into their first LP, ‘Comme Un Seul Narcisse’, followed two years later by 2018’s ‘Limpid As The Solitudes’. Both recorded remotely - sending files back and forth, fortified by conversations on a vast range of subjects - these two albums were guided by impassioned conceptual nods to Guy Debord, Baudelaire, Brion Gysin and Sylvia Plath, while seeking resolutions for the challenges and unique possibilities that working at a distance provoked.

Where the triumphs of its predecessors rose from the bridging of disparate moments and divergent spaces, ‘Un hiver en plein été’ culminates as a celebration of closeness, a result of Atkinson and Cantu-Ledesma working together in the studio, responsively in real time, for the first time. Recorded in Brooklyn during August of 2019 - a handful of months before the pandemic would impose chasmic distances across the globe - its six discrete works, carefully crafted and finalized over the ensuing year, evolve seamlessly across the album’s two sides, weaving a sprawling tapestry of sonority, within which both artists retaining their own voices and visions, while drawing each other towards uncharted ground.

Atkinson likens the recording of ‘Un hiver en plein été’ to have been akin to “a playground”, each artist “hungry for each sound, a bit like the rush in the Louvre in Godard’s Bande à part”, to which Cantu-Ledesma adds that the process seemed to have had “a mind of its own”, with both “along for the ride”. This organic sense of entropy and enthusiasm - a joyous exploration of the unknown - guides the momentum of the album’s evolving arc, as unfolding chasms of ambient space ripple with humanity, life, and fleeting glimpses of the actions that led to its material core.

Crafted from deconstructed melodic elements and drifting long-tones - laden with subtle nods to Indian classical ragas and free jazz - searching patterns of speech, textural elements captured within the studio and the outside world, and searching tonal and percussive interventions, ‘Un hiver en plein été’ coheres as a multi-faceted series of electroacoustic dialogues; nesting conversations between two artists working at the juncture of abstraction and narration, field recording and harmony, and the philosophical and phenomenological, in search for the meaning of friendship, and its manifestation in pure sound.