Buscar:human race

Blood Incantation's "Absolute Elsewhere" ist anders als alles, was man je zuvor gehört hat. Nur wenige Bands beherrschen musikalische Wendepunkte so perfekt wie dieses Quartett aus Denver, Colorado. Mit einer Länge von etwa 45 Minuten sind die beiden Song-Kompositionen dieses Albums ebenso verwirrend wie einnehmend in ihrem Umfang. Sie vereinen die 70er Jahre Prog-Anleihen von Tangerine Dream (deren Thorsten Quaesching auf "The Stargate Tablet II" zu hören ist) mit der tödlichen Intention von Morbid Angel. Blood Incantation haben bereits bewiesen, dass sie mit "Hidden History of the Human Race" (2019) den progressiven Death Metal perfektioniert haben, während sie mit "Timewave Zero" (2022) in ein ausschließlich synthiegetriebenes Soundtrack-Territorium eintauchten. Jetzt, mit "Absolute Elsewhere", das seinen Titel von dem Prog-Kollektiv aus der Mitte der 70er Jahre hat (am besten bekannt als himmlischer Zwischenstopp für King Crimson-Schlagzeuger Bill Bruford), lassen Blood Incantation den Begriff des Genres hinter sich und schreiben eine neue Sprache für die Extreme Musik selbst "Absolute Elsewhere" ist erhältlich als Ltd. Deluxe 3CD+Blu-ray Artbook, Ltd. CD Digipak, Gatefold black 180g LP & Poster, Ltd. Gatefold 180g transp. türkis LP & Poster sowie als Digital Album.

Disrupt Records makes its return to the Jungle world with the first of several releases planned for 2023. Kicking off the new year is a killer 4 track EP from Lithuania's hardware don: IJO!

IJO AKA 300 degrees is a veteran producer who's musical output has spanned broadly across the electronic spectrum over the last 30 years. In recent times he has concentrated on the sounds that he says changed his life in the mid 90's: Hardcore Jungle - made the old school way using analogue hardware equipment!

With releases on Amenology and Straight Up Breakbeat he has already began to make waves in the scene. This EP is created using his trusty Akai S1000 sampler and cements his status as one of the producers to watch in 2023, bringing you two tracks of lo fi modern Jungle filled with chopped up breakbeats, effects manipulation, haunting melodies and atmospheric vocal samples.

This release is in true Disrupt style backed with remixes from two certified OG's and absolute legends of the modern Jungle movement.

First up is one of Jungle's pioneers - Equinox! His label Scientific Wax has become the benchmark for hard edge drum work and beat manipulation. Equinox brings us a remix that might surprise a few in its subtlety, starting of on a mellow tip it grows into a monster, full of the intricate drum edits and breakbeat destruction we expect, a beautiful melody and hard hitting beats.

On the flipside we have the Lo Fi don and Green Bay Wax head honcho - Kid Lib! Bringing the fire with an absolute banger featuring dancefloor destroying amens juxtaposed with lush pads, perfectly crafted breakdowns and killer drops.

On October 4, 2024, Vel will make a splash with the release of her debut LP, MTY-011 «There is Always a Solution», through Anetha’s label, Mama Told Ya. After 3 exciting EPs and the recent rise of her Live performance, Vel made waves last year with the track «Velds1» on MTY-AIR «Mille Attaques, Les Vents Contrèrent» in collaboration with LDS. She is now ready to unveil her first full-length album.
«There is Always a Solution» flows with two slippery vinyl records and 10 immersive tracks. Nine tracks are produced solely by Vel, while one is co-produced by Vel and Anetha. Once again, Mama Told Ya returns with a valuable lesson: no matter the challenge, you will flow a way.

Vel is back with a mesmerizing new album featuring 10 tracks that draw you in with her captivating energy. Are you ready to heed the call? The High Priestess of Drums plunges us into a world of vibrant Techno and brisk Tribal rhythms, while her Ambient passages offer a calming retreat and her Mental influences are bound to stir your emotions. Rest assured, “there is always a solution.” Renowned for her expertise in rhythmic innovation and spatial soundscapes, Vel presents a revitalizing and dynamic release. MTY-011 promises to cleanse and rejuvenate—let yourself be immersed.
With a hint of irony, The Babe (A1) playfully teases, “Do you love me? Do you love my music?” But Vel’s real question is more reflective: you’re in deep water. Dive into the sound bath of Humans in Cafe (A2), close your eyes, and let the drums, the kicks, the bangs, and the buzz wash over you. One Xanax Introspection (A3) later, Vel is inviting us to explore the full spectrum of frequencies—a galloping race of deep bass and high treble in this ambient choreography.
« Don’t let the relentless BPM Anxiety (B1) drown you. Its tortured synth may try to hold you back, but you’re free. You’re in your Pop Tribe (B2), and nothing can stop you—DRUM BIG. »
Darling it's better down where it's wetter: joining Vel for a jam session « under the sea », it’s Anetha! Driving percussions are combining with a pulsating psytrance bassline, pure magic: « Ain’t We Mermaids (C1), dear? » Vel, ever the master of the salty beats, slows it down just enough to say, «I Don’t Care (C2),» as she deconstructs. A few moments later… She’s at it again—just when the BPMs are peaking, she draws us into a state of floating lethargy. That’s the absorbing power of Ambient Core (C3).
The current is strong with this one—prepare for a challenge. Deep Tracks Don’t Sell (D1) will drift you away in a swirl of intertwining undulations and dripping drums. It’s time to return to the surface: with a bubbly twist of whimsy, Oh La La (D2) pops in, full of new-wave energy. Vel gently swims us back to shore.
For this new LP, the artwork was crafted in-house under Vel’s artistic direction. The design was skillfully executed by Diplomatie Studio, while mastering was entrusted to In Aeternam Vale, Vel’s close friend and mentor.

Sect have a lot on their minds. With the release of their brand new single, New Low and the promise of Plagues Upon Plagues, the follow up full-length to 2019’s Blood of the Beasts, Sect explore the intersection of issues which have cascaded over us for the last five years, the “plagues” of the title referring to the literal pandemic, and the metaphorical plague of the political state and the rise of fascism.

Comprised of an international cast of stellar musicians, who cut their teeth in a formative moment of political, cynical, antagonistic extremes, Sect unites Scott Crouse (Earth Crisis, Tooth & Claw) & Jimmy Chang (Undying, Catharsis) - guitars, Steve Hart (Day of Suffering, Mania For Conquest) - bass, Andy Hurley (Fall Out Boy, Racetraitor) - drums and Chris Colohan (Cursed, Unwell) - vocals. They released No Cure For Death in 2017 and Blood of the Beasts in 2019.

Plagues Upon Plagues opens with the bereft waves of “No Uncertain Terms”, a side of the band we haven’t seen before. Vocalist Chris Colohan describes this album as “a funeral rather than a trial”, the activism of previous releases fading to sorrow and grief.

Lead single New Low follows with the advent of marching drums, a funereal procession for the world we hoped to build. There’s frantic horror on the album too, with the track “Drowning in Sorrows” taking a look at the ways in which we numb ourselves as a society. “#ForeverHome” is a bitterly angry track about how people used animals for both narcissistic virtue signalling and one-way comfort in the pandemic, and abandoned them en masse just as selfishly when social life came back. Speaking to their straight-edge principles and how that continues to feed into their songwriting, Chris says, “the only kind of straight edge songs I’m interested in writing are dynamic ones that address human realities that you don’t have to be straight edge to engage with.”

On Plagues Upon Plagues, Sect pierce through the veil of complacency, forcing listeners to confront uncomfortable truths about the fragility of our world. The band wields their sonic arsenal like a prophetic warning and with raw vocals and uncompromising lyrics, they confront the harsh realities of existence in these tumultuous times. As society teeters on the brink of chaos, Sect's cold hard statement resonates with an urgency that cannot be ignored.

In one sense, it's easy for artists-songwriters, specifically-to express their feelings in their work. After all, that's what the lyrics are for! But it's much harder to convey emotional energy in how you play, slash at the guitar, and the structure of the music itself. That's precisely why Girl and Girl's Sub Pop debut, Call A Doctor, feels like such a vital, electrifying shock to the senses. Not since the early work of Car Seat Headrest or Conor Oberst's widescreen emotional brutality as Bright Eyes has indie rock managed to come across as this intimate and grandiose, as the Australian quartet led by Kai James lay a lifetime's worth of woes-mental health, the human race's planned obsolescence if you've been living on this cursed rock you know what we're getting at-across a canvas of indie rock that feels both timeless and in-the-moment. An audacious and aggressively tuneful blast of a record, Call A Doctor is an unforgettable first bow from Girl and Girl, whose origins lie in James and guitarist Jayden Williams jamming in his mother's garage in the afternoon after school. One afternoon, James' Aunty Liss headed down to their practice space after walking her dog and asked if she could sit in on drums. "It sounded really great," James recalls. "We begged her to stay, and she said, 'I'll stay until you find another drummer.' We wore her down, and she eventually became a permanent member." After bassist Fraser Bell joined to round things out, Girl and Girl hit the road and began to make a name for themselves beyond the Australian bush, eventually signing to Sub Pop off the strength of word of mouth. Call A Doctor came together quickly soon after, largely recorded in marathon sessions in a two-story industrial complex over the course of two weeks. "That added to the intensity of the album," James says about the frenzied creative process overseen by producer Burke Reid. "I can hear the stress in the record, which is good because that's what it's about-being tense, tied up, and in your own head." Call A Doctor's eleven songs-spanning sweeping guitar epics and wry acoustic shuffles to spiky punk maneuvers and the type of raw, adoringly unvarnished indie-pop associated with legendary PacNW label K Records-are literally plucked from James' personal history, as he reworked older recordings with newer lyrics reflecting his past struggles as well as new anxieties that emerged prior to the album's recording. "I've struggled with mental health for a lot of my life," he explains, "and I went through a particularly difficult patch when we were making the album; the band had started to get some attention, and I felt an enormous amount of pressure to live up to it." "This record is about an individual who's too far in their head, trying to get out," James continues while discussing Call A Doctor's overall outlook-specifically the snapshot it offers of its creator. But even though this record deals with uneasy topics we all know well from within ourselves, it's important to emphasize how teeming with life Girl and Girl's music is. There's a brazen, bold sense of humor to this stuff, an undeniable brightness to the darkness that makes it impossible not to be drawn in as a listener. Feeling down never sounded so goddamn good.

In one sense, it’s easy for artists—songwriters, specifically—to express their feelings in their work. After all, that’s what the lyrics are for! But it’s much harder to convey emotional energy in how you play, slash at the guitar, and the structure of the music itself. That’s precisely why Girl and Girl’s Sub Pop debut, Call A Doctor, feels like such a vital, electrifying shock to the senses. Not since the early work of Car Seat Headrest or Conor Oberst’s widescreen emotional brutality as Bright Eyes has indie rock managed to come across as this intimate and grandiose, as the Australian quartet led by Kai James lay a lifetime’s worth of woes—mental health, the human race’s planned obsolescence if you’ve been living on this cursed rock you know what we’re getting at—across a canvas of indie rock that feels both timeless and in-the-moment.

An audacious and aggressively tuneful blast of a record, Call A Doctor is an unforgettable first bow from Girl and Girl, whose origins lie in James and guitarist Jayden Williams jamming in his mother’s garage in the afternoon after school. One afternoon, James’ Aunty Liss headed down to their practice space after walking her dog and asked if she could sit in on drums. “It sounded really great,” James recalls. “We begged her to stay, and she said, ‘I’ll stay until you find another drummer.’ We wore her down, and she eventually became a permanent member.”

After bassist Fraser Bell joined to round things out, Girl and Girl hit the road and began to make a name for themselves beyond the Australian bush, eventually signing to Sub Pop off the strength of word of mouth. Call A Doctor came together quickly soon after, largely recorded in marathon sessions in a two-story industrial complex over the course of two weeks. “That added to the intensity of the album,” James says about the frenzied creative process overseen by producer Burke Reid. “I can hear the stress in the record, which is good because that’s what it’s about—being tense, tied up, and in your own head.”

Call A Doctor’s eleven songs—spanning sweeping guitar epics and wry acoustic shuffles to spiky punk maneuvers and the type of raw, adoringly unvarnished indie-pop associated with legendary PacNW label K Records—are literally plucked from James’ personal history, as he reworked older recordings with newer lyrics reflecting his past struggles as well as new anxieties that emerged prior to the album’s recording. “I’ve struggled with mental health for a lot of my life,” he explains, “and I went through a particularly difficult patch when we were making the album; the band had started to get some attention, and I felt an enormous amount of pressure to live up to it.”

Far from the sound of collapsing under pressure, Call A Doctor finds James and Co. stepping up with their entire collective chest. This is a record that’s so out-and-out alive that you nearly feel like you’re in the same room with Girl and Girl as you listen to it; lead single “Hello” practically bursts through the speakers, amplified by Aunty Liss’ unbelievable stickhandling duties. “‘Hello’ is all about romanticizing your own misery. Letting those deep, dark, dirty thoughts take over. Understanding that even if you could pull yourself out, you wouldn’t because the constant stress and worry is far too familiar and comfortable.”

“Mother” pogos on a spiky groove that’s reminiscent of the geographically close New Zealanders who make up the legendary Flying Nun label, while “Oh Boy” draws from the Shins’ own jangly sound, injected with James’ wonderfully nervy vocals. Then there’s Call A Doctor’s sorta-centerpiece “Maple Jean and the Anthropocene,” a five-minute epic offering a new perspective on climate change and the notion of what it means, in a personal sense, to suffer: “I live in the bushland, and I was driving home one night and hit and killed a wallaby with my car,” James recalls while discussing the song’s lyrical inspiration. “My first thought was, ‘What is the universe trying to tell me?’ No remorse, no guilt, just total self-centeredness. Which was like, Woah, you fucking psychopath! This wallaby wasn’t put on this earth to send you a message. That’s what the song is about, our egocentric species - thinking you’re the main character and that everything that happens is somehow about you.”

“This record is about an individual who’s too far in their head, trying to get out,” James continues while discussing Call A Doctor’s overall outlook—specifically the snapshot it offers of its creator. But even though this record deals with uneasy topics we all know well from within ourselves, it’s important to emphasize how teeming with life Girl and Girl’s music is. There’s a brazen, bold sense of humor to this stuff, an undeniable brightness to the darkness that makes it impossible not to be drawn in as a listener. Feeling down never sounded so goddamn good.

An enormous production with musicians of the highest calibre combine to create a bombastic spectacle. The show's infrequencies make it evermore unique. In September 2023, Arjen Lucassen sold out five performances of '01011001 - Live Beneath the Waves' at the Poppodium 013 in Tilburg, The Netherlands. Talking about the show Arjen Lucassen says: "When I wrote the 01011001 album back in 2007, it was never meant to be played live.

So I could make it as complicated as I wanted with countless instrumentalists and no less than 17 singers!" Ayreon mastermind Arjen Lucassen and keyboardist Joost van den Broek managed to gather a large number of the original cast of the 01011001 album and many special guests, including Simone Simons (Epica), Damian Wilson (Threshold), Anneke van Giersbergen, Jonas Renkse (Katatonia), Tom Englund (Evergrey), Daniel Gildenlow (Pain of Salvation), Marcela Bovio (MaYan), Brittney Slayes (Unleash the Archers), Hansi Kursch (Blind Guardian), John Jaycee Cuijpers (Praying Mantis). Maggy Luyten (Beautiful Sin), Michael Mills (Toehider) and Wudstik are among other incredible musicians.

Unrelentingly grim and gruesome death metal that fractures the speed of sound. Continuing to morph both stylistically and conceptually, mangling and overwhelming all they encounter.

Axis of Time is the stunning debut album from Philadelphia mallet percussionist and poet Angelo Outlaw. Featuring Eraserhood Sound's signature synth & soul production, Axis of Time is a dazzling blend of jazz, rare groove, funk, soul and r&b. According to Outlaw, the album is meant to transport the listener to a dream-like state, where space and time slowly fade away and reality is merely a distant memory. Each song sets a unique scene, as the pace of the music swells and sways_from the euphoric highs of lead single "Free My Mind" and uninhibited groove of "Speed of Light" to the trance-like meditation of "Dreams" and mournful melodies of "Invisible Clock," Angelo and the Eraserhood Sound house band truly go to the cosmos and back. The record is an extraordinary debut from Outlaw, a young gay Black man who hopes to serve as an inspiration to others who might be perceived as different or other. His work transcends race, creed, religion, and politics, and has the power to speak to the universality of time, space, and human connection.

Axis of Time is the stunning debut album from Philadelphia mallet percussionist and poet Angelo Outlaw. Featuring Eraserhood Sound's signature synth & soul production, Axis of Time is a dazzling blend of jazz, rare groove, funk, soul and r&b. According to Outlaw, the album is meant to transport the listener to a dream-like state, where space and time slowly fade away and reality is merely a distant memory. Each song sets a unique scene, as the pace of the music swells and sways_from the euphoric highs of lead single "Free My Mind" and uninhibited groove of "Speed of Light" to the trance-like meditation of "Dreams" and mournful melodies of "Invisible Clock," Angelo and the Eraserhood Sound house band truly go to the cosmos and back. The record is an extraordinary debut from Outlaw, a young gay Black man who hopes to serve as an inspiration to others who might be perceived as different or other. His work transcends race, creed, religion, and politics, and has the power to speak to the universality of time, space, and human connection.

Boris Divider presents a new original release with this 3 tracker ep. New refreshing stu­ for the Drivecom’s catalogue after the more experimental electro works from the “Generative Operations” series, and after the limited 20th anniversary reissues of “Ultralink” and “Take My Beat”.



Now it’s time to hear and feel “Your Light”. A special work that brings back the puristic electro vibe from the early works on Drivecom but with a new sonic spectrum and powerful sound production. Repetitive and syncopated synthlines as Divider’s ID signature, powerful rhythm patterns and an exclusive and unique vocoder treatment that build-up the original track to open the A side. Meanwhile A2 track “Your Light” (The Variant Version) is a slowed and darker deep version that will remind us some kind of an aseptic and much more minimalistic sound design with some similar soundscapes and echoes of the earlier Arpanet’s stu­. In the other side, “Your Light” (The Infrared Version) is a ready-for-the-‑oor soundtrack with more aggressive FM synth modulations and characteristic pitch-shifted voice, a track that keep the essence of the original title but balances the release into a more solid club-oriented tool.



About the message behind this track. The lyrics represent a desire from an entity who wants to know the deal about the deepest wishes and ever growing curiosity of mankind and their di­erent proles, and with such statement the entity wants to feel what are we made of and shows to the audience if they really understand what scientic evolution means for their own, the human race, with all the pros and cons, an always double-sided sword taking the light as a pure and indomable source of energy. This message is also re‑ected in a special Video clip you’ll nd soon on Drivecom’s YouTube channel as a bonus promotional material.

A great balanced 12” Ep which serves as an introduction for what we’ll have in the near future: “Memories from the Dust”.

A long awaited new B. Divider’s album on Drivecom records.

Dave Matthews Band’s first album in four years,
largely written throughout the pandemic, is as
much a reflection on the current times as an urge
to find common ground.
The twelve-track album was recorded with
producer Rob Evans in studios throughout Seattle,
Charlottesville, and Los Angeles.
‘Monsters’ was produced by longtime collaborator
John Alagia.
‘Walk Around The Moon’ touches on my children,
the futility of our struggles as a human race, gun
violence, love, modern political discourse,
gratitude.” - Dave Matthews
LP in gatefold sleeve

Repress!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our reality as a human race has been one of cruelty, vitriol, and chaos

All the horror that surrounds us creates a reality that we as individuals are force fed to consume - This 9-track album explores our existence with themes of corruption, isolation, suicide, bigotry, and war

Somewhere between here and the cosmos there is an Astral Dance Party in the Celestial City...

Bobby. is your host and this is the sound of that cosmic soiree.

Space is the place <3

Toy Tonics going New Wave Disco with Baby’s Berserk’s self-titled debut album (to be released on 29 September).

There are many shades of funk in dance music. Berlin’s Toy Tonics label brings up artists that reflect many of these different aspects in dance music. Now the label comes up with a band! A band that is inspired by 1980ies New Wave as well as the Y2K Indie dance scene. Two guys and 2 girls from Amsterdam and Montreal called Baby’s Berserk.

Baby’s Berserk is about taking the freedom to be who you want to be, about being comfortable. Having played in all-girl punk bands since the age of 14, the bands singer Lieselot is an expert on female empowerment. “Dress like a girl and act like a boy,” is a catchphrase she lives up to every day and it clearly is a message that resonates with the band’s wild fans.

In the great tradition of Roxy Music, Throbbing Gristle and Malcolm McLaren, Baby’s Berserk is not just about the edgy music, but also about a very strong own visual style. They readily blend their sounds with underground fashion. What you see is what you get and seeing Baby’s Berserk is feeling right at home. Lieselot is a visionary when it comes to stage presence. Have you always wanted to see an electronic band with a punk attitude perform wearing a mix of haute couture and Flintstone-style rags? Look no further, it’s Baby’s Berserk.

Following on the critically acclaimed singles ‘What I Mean’ (2020) and ‘Toxic Kisses’ (2022), Baby Berserk’s highly anticipated self-titled full-length is now finally about to see the light on Berlin’s Toy Tonics records. Sonically designed for gritty rock venues as well as up-to-date edgy dance clubs, Mano’s lush compositions smoothly intertwine with the highly associative lyrics written by Puggy and Lieselot. Poets and literary addicts may think they’ve just discovered the rock & roll equivalents of Sylvia Plath, Kurt Vonnegut and Allen Ginsberg. To tell you the truth: their wild guess is pretty accurate as the works by these greats lie scattered around the Baby’s Berserk studio for inspiration.
The band was born in a laboratory back in 2019. Tired of being in bands with unruly and unpredictable humans, Mano Hollestelle set out to create a group of high precision robots to create the post-punk sound he had in mind. His outdated technology of floppy disks and cassette tapes worked well to program the androids, until one day a 90s rave mixtape was mistakenly entered into his computer. House music is a feeling and the punk bots instantly got hooked on it upon hearing it for the first time. They could never be reset to factory settings again. Mano worked tirelessly with his androids, currently known by their humanoid names of Lieselot Elzinga, Puggy Beales and Eva Wijnbergen, to fulfil his evil plan to make the rockers dance and the dancers rock. Baby’s Berserk is the fiendish extension of this plot. Beware, the band’s bass driven grooves and computerized beats have been known to cast a spell upon all within earshot.

So what do the songs on ‘Baby’s Berserk’ tell you? That it’s totally fine to have lots of fun in life! To have a boyfriend as an accessory (‘Accessories’), to get inspired by Sponge Bob (‘Dancing with the Fish’) and to blend your spirits with mixers whenever the hell you feel like it (‘Rum ‘n’ Kola’).

Baby’s Berserk member Puggy Beales on ‘Limousine’: “Decant the wine from my tip jar to yours. Soon we'll be on easy street, chauffeured home from the rat race each evening. Is it everything you'd hoped it would be?”

Check not only the debut album but also the forthcoming Remix EP with remixes by Each Other, Niklas Wandt, Sam Ruffillo, Kris Baha and Nicolini.

‘Y Dydd Olaf’, which is sung entirely in Welsh,
apart from one song penned in Cornish, draws
inspiration from Owain Owain’s 1976 novel of the
same name. The book is set in a dystopian future
where robots enslave the human race through the
use of medication, while Gwenno’s album covers
such themes as patriarchal society, governmentfunded media propaganda, cultural control,
technology, isolation and the importance of
minority languages.
 ‘Y Dydd Olaf’ was initially released by Peski
Records in October 2014, before being released
worldwide in 2015 by Heavenly Recordings.
 Now available on crystal clear vinyl. Includes
digital download of ‘Y Dydd Olad’ plus nine bonus
tracks of remixes and rarities.
 “This record demands what’s left of your time.” - Q
(★★★★)
 “Blissful, dreamy psychedelia, full of twinkling
electronics and metronomic drums.” - Evening
Standard (★★★★)
 “Language as a metaphor for political defiance…
floats beautifully over the krautrock/space-rock
soundscape, a Goldfrappian album you should
hear.” - The Sunday Times (★★★★)

DMX Krew unearths the lost Cold War LP.

Created for 1983. Created in 2003. Released in 2023. In mistrust and blindness mankind wages a COLD WAR, East against West in a spiraling cycle of mindless escalation. For 40 years the madness continues until it reaches its inevitable climax, NUCLEAR WAR.

Armageddon is achieved at the push of a button, millions of lives are destroyed. Those who are spared struggle for survival in the bleak conditions of NUCLEAR WINTER.

Acid rain destroys the landscape, darkness falls across the face of the
earth and hope is lost as the population falls prey to radiation sickness and cancer. Deep underground, the last survivor works feverishly in his isolated laboratory. A lone scientist attempting desperately to save mankind, he uses occult technology and deep-frozen human tissue to create a group of 12 radiation-resistant HUMAN CLONES.

They set forth to rebuild and repopulate the planet, whilst the scientist continues his work to improve and strengthen mankind. He develops a technique to fuse his own living flesh with the transistorized mind of a supercomputer, transforming himself into FUTURE MAN. Synergy of man and machine. Having transcended his mortal condition, he is now deemed ready to meet THE ELOHIM, a race of super-evolved aliens who created mankind 40000 years ago and have been watching and waiting ever since for the day when man at last becomes enlightened.

They descend from the heavens in their storship telling Future Man to
rejoice, for the trials of mankind are over and they sing to him of their long wait and THE GOLDEN AGE which is about to begin. Future Mom and the Clones are taken on board the spacecraft whereupon the Elohim transport them through the STAR GATE to a planet paradise where they are able to live in peace and happiness and once again become prosperous and many.

The second collaborative album from Laetitia Sadier Stereolab & solo and Brazil's Mombojó. Release via Stereolab's Duophonic Super 45s imprint. Modern Cosmology is a musical ensemble composed of six individuals of the human race, none of which are cosmologists or astronomers, although Felipe S. - who sings and plays the guitar - knows quite a bit about reading astrological charts. He shares his frontperson duties with one Laetitia Sadier who, by virtue of her singer-songwriter career both as a solo artist and as part of the Stereolab ‘groop’, happens to be one of the key figures of her bandmates’ musical formation. Their paths first crossed when Marcelo - also on guitars - lent his amp for some of Laetitia’s solo concerts in Brazil under the condition that he got to meet his musical idol, and along came his brother Vicente - who plays the drums - and keyboardist Chiquinho. The four lads, plus Missionário José on bass, are collectively called Mombojó, an established band on the Brazilian alternative scene.

French techno titan Madben unveils his much anticipated ‘Troisième Sens’ LP on Maceo Plex’s Ellum Audio.

Madben started absorbing the techno of Jeff Mills, Dave Clarke and Speedy J in the 90s, growing up in Lille in northern France. He retains a passion for DIY culture and warehouse parties thanks to youthful raving at Brussels' Fuse, Gent's Kozzmozz or in abandoned factories in Courtrai. All this has shone through in his music, including a debut album on Astropolis in 2018 that featured a collaboration with Laurent Garnier and a recent EP for Garnier and Scan X’s label.

Over the last decade, he has become a European club and festival favourite playing places like Berghain and Awakenings. His studio boasts a fine array of machines utilised to full effect on this latest opus. ‘Troisième Sens’ perfectly reflects what the artist has always loved, listened to and played, keeping one eye on the dance floor but never at the expense of musical narrative. It’s a genuinely progressive, multi-genre body of work that allows listeners to fully immerse themselves in the seemingly limitless depths of the Frenchman’s sonic capabilities.

He says, “Over the years, I learned to have more fun with the gear in my studio, and this has been the result. The album took three years to finish; I started in an underground basement studio in Paris before moving to Nantes. Therefore, it may surprise listeners with such a diverse selection of moods. It's dark in places but happy in others.”

'Departure' kicks off with uplifting synth work and broken techno beats that have a celebratory feel. 'Addicted' is a lithe cut with steamy vocals and a more fulsome combo of drums and bass, while 'Circuit Breaker' cuts loose in the cosmos. Acid wobbles, smeared synths and metallic percussion all make for a bouncy cut before 'Fade In Fade Out' continues the cosmic trip with vastly oversized synth patterns that will light up a dark space with overwhelming euphoria.

The brilliant 'It's 1 am In A Rave' is a dark, heads-down banger with 'Lost Memories' then layering up melancholic synths and Plastikman-style drum loops into something full of deep thought. There is no let up with the superb acid techno gymnastics of 'No fear', and 'The March' is a turbulent mix of sheet metal synths that whip about over steel-plated drums. 'You Dance Like A Robot' is end-of-the-world electro with a menacing robot vocal, and the electro tip continues with expert drum programming and menacing leads on 'Deep In The Jungle'. 'Meta' is a flailing rhythmic workout that sounds like the machines are in meltdown, and 'I Made A Dream During This Nightmare' is a serene techno soundscape for ruminating about the future of the human race.

Intelligent yet immediate, impactful but emotional, ‘Troisième Sens’ is another standout techno record from Madben.

DOUBLE BLACK LP : 2 x 140 G Black Vinyl , Sleeve & 2 x Heavy Weight Printed Inner with UV Gloss Finish

Legendary electronic music duo Orbital return Early 2023 with new album “Optical Delusion”, the Hartnoll brothers first studio album since 2018’s Monster’s Exist. Recorded in Orbital’s Brighton studio, “Optical Delusion” includes contributions from Sleaford Mods, Penelope Isles, Anna B Savage, The Little Pest, Dina Ipavic, Coppe, and perhaps most surprisingly, The Medieval Baebes.
Earlier this year, Orbital celebrated their storied history with “30 Something” which, unlike other Best Of’s, contains reworks, remakes, remixes and re-imaginings of landmark Orbital tracks including “Chime”, “Belfast”, “Halcyon”, “Satan”, and “The Box”

SHORT BIOG:

“A human being experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest of humanity – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison…”

You many have seen this quote attributed to Albert Einstein on social media, the archetypal Smartest Guy Ever apparently having an out-of-character religious epiphany. It certainly leapt out at Paul Hartnoll of Orbital who spotted it in Michael Pollan’s 2018 book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence.

“As soon as I saw ‘optical delusion’ I thought Oh hey, that’s the album title,” says Paul. “It just seemed to say so much about how people construct their own realities, how we see patterns that aren’t there, how we see what we want to see.

“But it’s actually a misquote. He never quite said that. In the German original what he’s really saying is that human experience is as relative as physics. Wouldn’t it be good if we could accept that, and find a kind of universal theory of everything for the human race? Then you look at everything from history to art to your Twitter feed and you think yeah, that’s what we’re all trying to do all of the time…”

Hence ‘Optical Delusion’, the tenth original Orbital album and the latest in a burst of renewed post-pandemic creativity for two brothers who’ve stayed at the top of their game longer than anyone from the post-1988 Class of Acid House.

Now with ‘Optical Delusion’ the Hartnolls dig deeper into the unquiet psyche of our increasingly surreal and disordered world. Sketched out partly during lockdown but fully recorded in the uncertain After Times, the album summons up conflicting emotions and sometimes beguiling images from years when the science fiction doomsdays that the Hartnolls watched on TV as kids finally came true. There are mesmeric tracks with names like ‘The New Abnormal’ and ‘Requiem For The Pre-Apocalypse’ and ‘Day One’. But there are also straight-up bangers and ethereal cosmic dreams, abstract sound wars and deeply human songs of separation and loss.

And it all starts with a bang. Lead single ‘Dirty Rat’, an outright Fall-meets-Front-242 class rant with vocals by Sleaford Mods mob orator Jason Williamson, harks right back to the Hartnolls’ days of politicised anarcho-squatpunk. It began as a remix swap (Orbital did the Sleafords’ ‘I Don’t Rate You’) and morphed into a comic, brutal, bass-driven harangue not so much against our rulers but at the petty, mean-spirited, frightened, Mail-reading voters who put them there: the people who are “blaming everyone in hospital/blaming everyone at the bottom of the English Channel/blaming everyone who doesn’t look like a fried animal.”

Also key to the album is opening track ‘Ringa Ringa (The Old Pandemic Folk Song)’ which returns to an Orbital truism, that time always becomes a loop. This chugging, cyclical Orbital groove gives way to an unnerving past-meets-present timeslip fit for ‘Sapphire And Steel’ as goth maenads The Mediaeval Baebes materialise to sing ‘Ring O’Roses’ – the innocent nursery rhyme whose roots are in the Black Death.

“I’ve always liked folk music and mediaeval sounds,” says Paul, himself an occasional Morris dancer. “I had the basis of that track and I wanted to spin it off somehow.” Trawling his archives he stumbled on The Mediaeval Baebes’ version of ‘Ring O’Roses’ “and my hackles just went up. I was like, my God, this is the original pandemic folk song.”

?his being Orbital, there are collaborations galore on the album, the roles once played by Alison Goldfrapp, Lady Leshurr or David Gray now filled by new talents. London singer-songwriter Anna B Savage contributes a compellingly fragile, Anohni-like vocal to ‘Home’, in which nature reclaims the scorched and vacant mega-cities. ‘Day One’ is a pulsing techno track featuring the singer Dina Ipavic. Paul got in touch with her after working on a score for a sculpture show of giant robotic installations by his friend Giles Walker during the pandemic. First Paul cut up his own score and Ipavic’s vocals on the track The Crane, which appears on the deluxe version of the album. Then he thought, Why not work with her for real? The result is school of ‘Belfast’, a bassy dreamscape with vocalised clouds billowing above.

The pensive ‘Are You ?live?’ adds to the Orbital product range of existential questions (‘Are We Here?’, ‘Where Is It Going?’) in collaboration Bella Union signings Penelope Isles, AKA brother and sister act Lily and Jack Wolter. “They’re our studio mates, they work upstairs!” says Paul happily. “And they’ve both got amazing voices.”


But Orbital are Orbital and never far from the dancefloor. “Eventually the more abrasive bits came back into the fold…” ‘You Are The Frequency’, first of two tracks to feature mysterious vocalist The Little Pest, surrounds the listener with warped voices ordering you to the dancefloor (Phil: “we wanted the idea that the music is kind of absorbing you”). And the second, the sinister ‘What A Surprise’, traps you in a paranoid electronic hall of mirrors.

In another nod to Orbital’s resurgent past the cover artwork once again comes from fine art painter John Greenwood, creator of fantastical grotesques for the covers of ‘Snivilisation’, ‘In Sides’ and Orbital’s most recent album, 2018’s ‘Monsters Exist’. Orbital had just had a slick Mark Farrow cover for ‘30 Something’ – this is a return to the overripe and bulbous techno-organic constructions that somehow express Orbital’s own uncontrollably fertile sound.

There are gaps in the future that Orbital are desperate to fill too; there will be tours and festivals and rooms and fields full of people. Those long paralysed months when we had little to look forward to but a Zoom DJ set made Paul and Phil appreciate the things that make life worth living.

2 x Solid White LP, 5mm spine Sleeve UV Gloss Finish, 2x Heavy Weight Printed Inner Sleeve UV Gloss finish, marketing sticker.

Legendary electronic music duo Orbital return Early 2023 with new album “Optical Delusion”, the Hartnoll brothers first studio album since 2018’s Monster’s Exist. Recorded in Orbital’s Brighton studio, “Optical Delusion” includes contributions from Sleaford Mods, Penelope Isles, Anna B Savage, The Little Pest, Dina Ipavic, Coppe, and perhaps most surprisingly, The Medieval Baebes.
Earlier this year, Orbital celebrated their storied history with “30 Something” which, unlike other Best Of’s, contains reworks, remakes, remixes and re-imaginings of landmark Orbital tracks including “Chime”, “Belfast”, “Halcyon”, “Satan”, and “The Box”

SHORT BIOG:

“A human being experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest of humanity – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison…”

You many have seen this quote attributed to Albert Einstein on social media, the archetypal Smartest Guy Ever apparently having an out-of-character religious epiphany. It certainly leapt out at Paul Hartnoll of Orbital who spotted it in Michael Pollan’s 2018 book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence.

“As soon as I saw ‘optical delusion’ I thought Oh hey, that’s the album title,” says Paul. “It just seemed to say so much about how people construct their own realities, how we see patterns that aren’t there, how we see what we want to see.

“But it’s actually a misquote. He never quite said that. In the German original what he’s really saying is that human experience is as relative as physics. Wouldn’t it be good if we could accept that, and find a kind of universal theory of everything for the human race? Then you look at everything from history to art to your Twitter feed and you think yeah, that’s what we’re all trying to do all of the time…”

Hence ‘Optical Delusion’, the tenth original Orbital album and the latest in a burst of renewed post-pandemic creativity for two brothers who’ve stayed at the top of their game longer than anyone from the post-1988 Class of Acid House.

Now with ‘Optical Delusion’ the Hartnolls dig deeper into the unquiet psyche of our increasingly surreal and disordered world. Sketched out partly during lockdown but fully recorded in the uncertain After Times, the album summons up conflicting emotions and sometimes beguiling images from years when the science fiction doomsdays that the Hartnolls watched on TV as kids finally came true. There are mesmeric tracks with names like ‘The New Abnormal’ and ‘Requiem For The Pre-Apocalypse’ and ‘Day One’. But there are also straight-up bangers and ethereal cosmic dreams, abstract sound wars and deeply human songs of separation and loss.

And it all starts with a bang. Lead single ‘Dirty Rat’, an outright Fall-meets-Front-242 class rant with vocals by Sleaford Mods mob orator Jason Williamson, harks right back to the Hartnolls’ days of politicised anarcho-squatpunk. It began as a remix swap (Orbital did the Sleafords’ ‘I Don’t Rate You’) and morphed into a comic, brutal, bass-driven harangue not so much against our rulers but at the petty, mean-spirited, frightened, Mail-reading voters who put them there: the people who are “blaming everyone in hospital/blaming everyone at the bottom of the English Channel/blaming everyone who doesn’t look like a fried animal.”

Also key to the album is opening track ‘Ringa Ringa (The Old Pandemic Folk Song)’ which returns to an Orbital truism, that time always becomes a loop. This chugging, cyclical Orbital groove gives way to an unnerving past-meets-present timeslip fit for ‘Sapphire And Steel’ as goth maenads The Mediaeval Baebes materialise to sing ‘Ring O’Roses’ – the innocent nursery rhyme whose roots are in the Black Death.

“I’ve always liked folk music and mediaeval sounds,” says Paul, himself an occasional Morris dancer. “I had the basis of that track and I wanted to spin it off somehow.” Trawling his archives he stumbled on The Mediaeval Baebes’ version of ‘Ring O’Roses’ “and my hackles just went up. I was like, my God, this is the original pandemic folk song.”

?his being Orbital, there are collaborations galore on the album, the roles once played by Alison Goldfrapp, Lady Leshurr or David Gray now filled by new talents. London singer-songwriter Anna B Savage contributes a compellingly fragile, Anohni-like vocal to ‘Home’, in which nature reclaims the scorched and vacant mega-cities. ‘Day One’ is a pulsing techno track featuring the singer Dina Ipavic. Paul got in touch with her after working on a score for a sculpture show of giant robotic installations by his friend Giles Walker during the pandemic. First Paul cut up his own score and Ipavic’s vocals on the track The Crane, which appears on the deluxe version of the album. Then he thought, Why not work with her for real? The result is school of ‘Belfast’, a bassy dreamscape with vocalised clouds billowing above.

The pensive ‘Are You ?live?’ adds to the Orbital product range of existential questions (‘Are We Here?’, ‘Where Is It Going?’) in collaboration Bella Union signings Penelope Isles, AKA brother and sister act Lily and Jack Wolter. “They’re our studio mates, they work upstairs!” says Paul happily. “And they’ve both got amazing voices.”


But Orbital are Orbital and never far from the dancefloor. “Eventually the more abrasive bits came back into the fold…” ‘You Are The Frequency’, first of two tracks to feature mysterious vocalist The Little Pest, surrounds the listener with warped voices ordering you to the dancefloor (Phil: “we wanted the idea that the music is kind of absorbing you”). And the second, the sinister ‘What A Surprise’, traps you in a paranoid electronic hall of mirrors.

In another nod to Orbital’s resurgent past the cover artwork once again comes from fine art painter John Greenwood, creator of fantastical grotesques for the covers of ‘Snivilisation’, ‘In Sides’ and Orbital’s most recent album, 2018’s ‘Monsters Exist’. Orbital had just had a slick Mark Farrow cover for ‘30 Something’ – this is a return to the overripe and bulbous techno-organic constructions that somehow express Orbital’s own uncontrollably fertile sound.

There are gaps in the future that Orbital are desperate to fill too; there will be tours and festivals and rooms and fields full of people. Those long paralysed months when we had little to look forward to but a Zoom DJ set made Paul and Phil appreciate the things that make life worth living.

Utter presents the extraordinary audio-visual project 'SuperEverything*' by multi-media artists The Light Surgeons.

'SuperEverything*' is a live cinema performance piece that explores identity, ritual and place in relation to Malaysia’s past, present and future. Commissioned by The British Council in 2011, it was created in collaboration with a group of Malaysian audio and visual artists. Over the past decade, the project has toured to various film and new media arts festivals internationally.

'SuperEverything*' is a fusion of music, field recordings, documentary filmmaking and real-time moving image manipulation that together transports its audiences through a series of universal narratives; exploring themes of tradition and modernity, globalisation and development, race and national identity, to consumer culture and belief.

'SuperEverything*' surveys our human condition to reveal what unites and divides us. It weaves together a rich kaleidoscope of stories, sounds, images and smells live on stage. It is a truly immersive, cross disciplinary performative artwork that reflects on how our complex identities are formed through ritual in relation to our rapidly evolving physical and psychological environments.

'SuperEverything*' poses many questions about how people form a sense of identity in a world increasingly dominated by information networks and fast changing social and economic landscapes.

This limited edition vinyl and digital album features the nine original tracks that make up the musical score to this groundbreaking live cinema project, fusing traditional South East Asian instruments with field recordings, electronica and western classical string instruments.

Accompanying the record is a 24 page full colour booklet and double-sided poster, housed in a gatefold sleeve. The booklet contains quotes from the narrative interviewees whose voices are interwoven throughout the performance. These quotes accompany images from the production and performances to help illustrate the musical journey and allow you to contemplate the themes and ideas explored in this work. The poster design features a collection of filmstrips taken from the video material in the show with a single striking album image photo on the reverse.

The release is also accompanied by a previously unavailable film of the full live cinema performance recorded at Hackney Empire in collaboration with The Barbican in 2013.

1000 black vinyl LPs. London-based ‘indie-supergroup’ SUEP announce their long-awaited debut mini-album Shop, a collection of 6 oddball, car-boot-sale pop songs with a sprinkling of theatrical storytelling. Led by Georgie Stott (of Porridge Radio, Garden Centre) and Josh Harvey, SUEP was born out of a near-decade of playing in sheds and barns with like minded personnel, holding a mutual love for Paul McCartney, Jona Lewie, the B-52s, Devo and other performative freaks enjoying themselves. Following a move to London from Brighton, the pair added George Nicholls (The GN Band, Joanna Gruesome, The Tubs), Will William Deacon (PC World, Garden Centre), and Ollie Chapman (Boil King) to the line-up. The 5 piece take turns writing songs and taking the lead vocal duties in a wonderfully playful but coherent collaboration, with their debut being a kaleidoscopic off kilter pop ride, taking the listener through haunted castles, deprived encounters, days lost to the imagination in bed, and through the integral friendships that give SUEP the energy to keep dancing to their own beat. The album was arranged and recorded in the Red Lion Boys Club, an ex-youth centre in which Georgie and Josh both lived. Using equipment collected by Josh in his travels as a bootsale and market trader, the sports hall was transformed into a makeshift studio for a few days, with sessions conducted by producer Matthew Green (Sniffany & The Nits, The Tubs, etc.) Mark Riley (BBC 6 Music) described SUEP’s debut single and album opener, ‘Domesticated Dream’ (2021) as “perfect pop music.” The joyfully kitsch track brims with a 70s Yamaha disco beat, deep bass, nostalgic drum machines, and hooky melodies. Possibly the most psychedelic and infectious track born out of lockdown, it tackles homelife, drinking too much, and making big plans that never come to fruition, but with a big technicoloured positivity for the future of the human-race, with the chorus’ refrain, “the psychedelic 4000s,” predicting the return of the psychedelic Age of Aquarius in a couple of millennia time. The following single ‘Misery’ (2021) is pure cosmic swing-pop wizardry in part inspired by spy music and The Supremes. Ollie, The track’s baritone vocalist, describes it as “A love song disguised as a song about loss. It's about cherishing the things that matter but it’s also about having the courage to say goodbye,” with each line of the song a small story about a different character. Whilst latest Shop taster ‘In Good Health’ is darkly euphoric like a pleasantly strange meeting of Siouxsie Sioux and Jona Lewie. It’s a playfully discombobulating mix of 80s jangly guitar, chirpy keyboard and moody post-punk tackling mental health, drug addiction, and the power of friendship, written after the song’s vocalist Georgie came out of hospital following a mental health crisis. “I wanted to write a song that encapsulated how important my relationships with my friends and boyfriend were at that time” she explains “…and one that also felt dark like I did at the time. I couldn’t go outside due to anxiety surrounding my health so I stayed inside for weeks. People would visit and watch films with me or let me tattoo them or make music with me. My community helped me recover.” Elsewhere on Shop is ‘Just The Job’ fronted by Harvey and described by him as “About the relief of accepting a menial existence, and allowing life to be boring - but (within that) how the small things are the important ones, how pulling a sicky or extra long lunch break are important things to do for yourself. It’s an anthem for working people who’ve had enough - and a crowd favourite at SUEP gigs. The darker undertones and post-punk angles of the Georgie-fronted ‘Onions’ is inspired by the crapness of cliques, with the band calling the song “A cry of welcome to all;” and finally the hooky ‘Friend of Mine,’ described as “A love letter to all the people that come and go throughout your life no matter how long you know them”. SUEP have received coverage in Independent & Clash, (among many others), with big support from Mark Riley and Steve Lamacq (BBC 6 Music) for early singles.

Originally released on Axis records. Moonlight Serenade Year 3036, the Third Empire of Human spans hundreds of star systems, only accessible by a faster-than-light spaceship. No other intelligent beings have ever been encountered, not until a light sail probe enters a human system carrying a dead alien. The probe is traced to the Ursea, an isolated star system in a thick dust cloud, and an expedition is dispatched. After a search that lasted thousands of years, humans stand on the verge of first contact with an alien race. The mission's objective: learn everything there is to know about the extraterrestrial intelligence. DJ Surgeles has a longstanding professional relationship with Detroit legend Jeff Mills. Connected through music, DJ Surgeles learned the insides and tricks of Jeff. Many conversations and meetings over the years led to this new concept, The Escape Velocity. DJ Surgeles has also collaborated exclusively with Jeff Mills on the concepts Something in The Sky and STRMRKD, and produced a special Axis Records 10 year anniversary release, The Bells: DJ Mix back in 2007. I wanna thank Jeff Mills for making this album happen.

Fronted by brothers Peter O'Doherty and Reg Mombassa, Dog Trumpet have been playing, writing and recording their
music since the early 90s. Reg and Pete were founding members of iconic Australian band Mental As Anything, who hit
the charts around the world with “Live It Up”. The band made a mark with their left field mix of music, art, video and
humour and leading eventually to ARIA awards and induction into the Hall of Fame in 2009.
• Recorded and produced by Peter at home in his 'South Road' studio, the brothers have created an inventive and original
body of work distinguished by an eccentric and offbeat harmonic warmth and melodic drive propelled by Reg's distinctive
slide guitar and Peter's elegant acoustic guitar and mandolin. Their poetic, yet at times absurdist lyrics are set against a
sonic backdrop that could loosely be described as a meld of rock and roll, psychedelic folk, country and semi-abstract
blues.
• “Shadowland” is the duo’s brand new album, recorded earlier this year, with the guys playing all the instruments
themselves. Amidst a group of songs with all sorts of subject matter (including the sheep of New Zealand, and Nina Simone)
is the very direct “F***ing Idiots”, about the human race and its continuing desire to wage wars.
• The inner sleeve features all the lyrics and wonderful paintings by both Reg and Peter.

Thirty years into their career, Canadian indie rock perennials Sloan return
with their 13th album - Steady
Featuring the band's trademark harmonies and every band member taking lead
vocal duties on at least a couple tracks, there's no better musical commonwealth
than this quartet. You'll hear the power pop rockers like "Magical Thinking" and
"Keep Your Name Alive" to the moving, stripped-back introspective numbers like
"Simply Leaving" and "Human Nature", and the psychedelic trips of "Panic of
Runnymede" and "Close Encounters." It's hard to think of another band that has
stayed as consistent for three decades musically and still has all the same band
members for their entire career. Thirteen albums later, slow and steady wins the
race.

Collapso Calypso is the long-awaited third album from dreampop artist Chorusgirl. Initially planned for release in 2020, but the pandemic and a nervous breakdown brought everything to a screeching halt. It took Silvi Wersing - aka Chorusgirl - the rest of 2020 and 2021 to rebuild her life and reconsider everything, including her music and the band. She decided to relocate from London to her small hometown in Germany, to become a carer for her increasingly ill father and to take Chorusgirl back to its roots as a solo project, just like in 2014. She revisited old demos and wrote a few more songs, and steadily worked to complete the album as an anchor at a time of turmoil. With the album charting her progress back to health, she decided to call it Collapso Calypso, a riff on taking her despair for a dance. The album includes a multitude of references from music and film and features Silvi's trademark self-reflective lyrics on the themes of coming through a crisis, grief, resilience, and ultimately letting go, or the inability thereof, all set to the sounds of 60s girl groups and her favourite bands from the 80s. The release follows on from 2018 album Shimmer and Spin (Reckless Yes) and the self-titled 2015 debut (Fortuna Pop). “Chorusgirl pertain to a certain kind of cold, detached dreaminess you’d associate with a label like 4AD in its prime: their overall sound being seemingly informed by Lush’s successful hybrid of classic pop, fiery punk and shimmering soundscapes. … Yet, rather than reliving a sound there’s a sense here that Chorusgirl are more intent on reinventing it. Look no further than their debut self-titled LP for conviction.” (8/10) Line of Best Fit “Chorusgirl’s sound is distinctly London (although, more the London of the 80s than of now) but it’s also the sound of escaping London. (…) It’s the feeling of sleeping with the bedroom window open for the first time in months and waking up with a fresh wafting across your face.” Noisey “Chorusgirl explore universal themes with the catchiest of tunes, thundering rhythms, a wry sense of self and fascinating multi-meaning lyrics.” (8/10) Louder Than War “There’s no slack on the album – from the starting gate to the finish line, Chorusgirl bristle with static and nerves.” … Chorusgirl are simple, until they’re not. You might recognise the distant spirits, the razor chords, the surfy snarls. But where other bands coast on borrowed sound, Wersing bends it to her own life, creating a space that resonates with insight and empathy. Ever felt separate from the human race? Be comforted, for here is your kind.” (7/10) Drowned In Sound This is a record with teeth… one of the most impressive first albums of a year rich in strong debuts.” (5/5) NARC Magazine “Sparkling with bright rhythms and jangling pop…with hints of something shadier, bittersweet and more potent.” London In Stereo “Lovingly smudged guitars” (7/10) Loud & Quiet

OVERVIEW: When an ancient monster that laid waste to planets when the dinosaurs roamed Earth is accidentally released from its underground prison, there's only one kaiju you can count on to defend us all: Mothra! Directed by Okihiro Yoneda with a story by the great GODZILLA creator Tomoyuki Tanaka, REBIRTH OF MOTHRA sees the legendary lepidopteran protect the human race from Belvera, the evil sister of Mothra's twin priestesses. She wants to destroy the world with the superspace demon beast Desghidorah, a three-headed extraterrestrial dragon. But Belvera and her monster aren't counting on the larva of Mothra joining the fight. Enter Mothra Leo! Brought into score REBIRTH OF MOTHRA was Toshiyuki Watanabe, son of the great tokusatsu and anime composer Michiaki Watanabe (YOKAI MONSTERS: 100 MONSTERS, MAZINGER Z), who lived up to his legacy by supplying a bold and thrilling orchestral score. Watanabe's music is full of ethereal beauty, with a fantastic opening title cue replete with a glorious female choir to celebrate Earth's greatest defender and full-blooded brass magnificence as Mothra and son fight against the evil Belvera and Desghidora. And of course, it wouldn't be complete without Yuji Koseki's classic Mothra's Song: Over time, oversea, like a wave - our guardian angel! (Charlie Brigden)

Freestyle dig out another rarity in the form of a DIY brit-funk 7" from Highway Motion aka David Humphrey (a session drummer who played with Sparks, and with PiL on the iconic Metal Box LP & Death Disco 12"). Tinged with raw post-punk edge and 70s library music-style synth leads, this 45 is quite simply massive amounts of fun.

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David Humphrey's professional career as a drummer began aged 19 with Public Image Ltd, providing some of the drum tracks on their iconic Metal Box album and Death Disco single. Humphrey would then go on to work with Mike Oldfield and then Sparks, playing with the latter on their Number One Song in Heaven tour, Top of The Pops and recording sessions for Beat the Clock and Tryouts for the Human Race (those sessions were included and featured in Edgar Wright's recent film 'The Sparks Brothers).

In 1980, Clap Hands and Double O One Disco were recorded under the name 'Highway Motion' - intended by Humphrey as "raw experimental tracks" they were both laid down on a 4-track and subsequently released on the DIY Star Records imprint. Rough, grooving, candid and playful; these two tracks seem to somehow simultaneously meld the burgeoning brit-funk sound of the early 80s with a riotous post-punk edge, along with a good dollop of synth-led library music.

Following it's release David formed the group Reflex, recording and releasing the Funny Situation 7" in 1981 - forming the only other title in the Star Records catalogue. A more straight-up brit-funk dancer yet still pressed and sold in small quantities, Funny Situation became a sought-after record on the second hand collector's market, and finally saw reissue last September 2020 on the start-up Paint A Picture label - garnering plays from from Gilles Peterson on BBC 6 Music and Worldwide FM, StreetSounds radio and reaching No 1 in Juno records Chart. David has now started to working on new music using the name Davey H, and released his first new material in decades recently on Six Nine Records.

Last years Black Friday release now available in the Now Again catalogue. The compilation features a collection of small run releases and private press releases. All long out of print and impossible to find. Now-Again’s follow up to one of its most well-loved compilations, Forge Your Own Chains, and this, as the title hints, a recollection and rumination of what might befall the human race made especially salient by the past year’s trials and tribulations as performed by prison funk ensembles, Krautrock legends, Turkish teenagers, Icelandic prog-rock bands and even E-40’s uncle, the man to first distribute No Limit, and the creator of this album’s title track, St. Charles “Chucky” Thurman. Tracks: A Side. 1. Golden Wing - Hari Yang Mulya 2. Beybonlar - Nenni? 3. Icecross - Sad Sad Man 4. Paternoster – Realization 5. Christopher - In Your Time. B Side. 1. Chucky Thurmon - Tickets For Doomsday 2. Upheaval - Paradise Lost 3. DR Hooker - The Bible 4. Jean and Donella - Get Ready (For That Day)

Cosmic jazz from the Canary Islands. After a few years in London, where he worked with Archie Shepp and recorded a sought-after album for the famed library music label De Wolfe, Argentinian pianist Luis Vecchio settled in the island of Gran Canaria following advice from a superior entity from outer space. Vecchio subsequently opened the first jazz school in the Canary Islands, effectively planting the seeds of jazz in the archipelago.


In Contactos, recorded in 1978 in the Mayra studio owned by Ramiro González, Vecchio gives a free jazz account (with a dash of funky jazz rock) of his contacts with Adionesis, who delivers his ominous message upon the human race on side B of the album. Fellow Argentinean Fernando Bermúdez on percussion and Japanese bass player Yoichi Yahiro complete the line-up of Contactos.

New York’s Straw Man Army return with 'SOS', the follow-up to their 2020 debut LP, 'Age of Exile'. Emerging from the D4MT Labs group that also includes Kaleidoscope and Tower 7, Straw Man Army’s delicate musical touch, embrace of melody, and rapid-fire, clearly articulated vocals separate them from the louder and noisier end of New York’s fertile punk scene. While 'Age of Exile' examined the legacy of colonialism through the musical milieu of melodic anarcho-punk, 'SOS' turns its attention to the increasingly bleak prospects for the human race and planet earth. While Straw Man Army’s lyrical approach remains dense and thought provoking on 'SOS', their musical scope grows wider, encompassing 'Age of Exile’s' melodic take on anarcho, bleak and brooding post-punk, psychedelic instrumental excursions, and even the wistful pop of album highlight 'Beware'. 'SOS' is everything Straw Man Army’s fans could have hoped for in a follow-up and so much more, cementing the band’s status as one of the most original, exciting, and important groups in the contemporary punk underground.

REDSHARK was founded in 2012 in Barcelona - Spain, by Philip Graves (guitar) with the aim of delivering Classic Pounding Heavy Speed Metal. Their traditional 80s metal influences may plunder the nostalgia circuit but REDSHARK are ruthlessly carrying the torch with great attitude, and powerful melodic songwriting. The band had their full line up fixed in 2013 with Javier Bono on 2nd guitar, Mark Striker on drums, Chris Carrest on bass, and Pau Correas on vocals. Their debut official release "Evil Realm" ep came out in 2019 and showed the band pushing the velocity further. Those intense five songs drew a roaring response and helped to spread REDSHARK name nationwide and abroad. REDSHARK have since honed their gloriously raw yet precisely incisive, dark, catchy and addictive speed heavy metal crunch staying faithful to their original influences taken from undisputed metal legends like Judas Priest, Savatage, Exciter and Metal Church. The band's albums front cover concepts look entertaining with their comic book type of artworks depicting a mad red human shark on a killing spree. It also represents the band's out for blood impulse in churning out those hard hitting riffs and also refers to their energetic live performances. That redshark is obviously the band's mascot. In 2021, they composed and recorded their full length debut album 'Digital Race’. It was produced by Jaume Perna (Jack Dark) and mixed & mastered by Gonzalo Vivero in In The Red Audio. As always, the cover art was by Jose Antonio Vives. LG Valeta , guitar player from the much acclaimed ‘77 guests on the track 'Pallid Hands' with a stunning Flamenco guitar solo. REDSHARK is pursuing their heavy speed galore with 'Digital Race', sticking to their traditional and catchy melodic sound that has been associated with the band 80s tinged Metal since their early days.

**LTD BLACK AND RED MARBLE**

As humans, we are aware of our inner beast and should therefore be able to control it. We understand our hard-wired primal urges and why they exist in an evolutional sense. We understand the relationship between mind and body. Highly evolved and intelligent, we should be able to recognize these genetic hangovers and control them as a means to act positively and move forward as a compassion-ate species. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Recent global events have proven this. The human race is consuming itself.

World Eater, the new album by Benjamin John Power's Blanck Mass project, is a reaction to this. There is an underlying violence and anger throughout the record, even though some of these tracks are the closest Power has ever come to writing, in his words, actual love songs.'

Maybe subconsciously this was some kind of countermeasure to restore some personal balance,' Power explains.

On World Eater, Power further perfects the propulsive, engrossing electronic music he has created throughout his impressive decade-plus career, both under the Blanck Mass moniker and as one-half of Fuck Buttons, as he elaborates upon the sound of 2015's brilliant double album Dumb Flesh. As massive as the sonic world of the new record often feels, its greatest achievement is in its maximization of a limited set of tools, a restriction intentionally set by Power himself.

As an exercise in better understanding myself musically, I found myself using an increasingly restricted palette during the World Eater creative process. Evoking these intense emotions using minimal components really put me outside of my comfort zone and was unlike the process I am used to. Feeling exposed shone a new light on this particular snapshot. I feel enriched for doing so.'

(A) 1. John Doe's Carnival of Error
(B) 2. Rhesus Negative
(C) 3. Please
(D) 4. The Rat
(E) 5. Silent Treatment
(F) 6. Minnesota / Eas Fors / Naked
(G) 7. Hive Mind

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.

Nicfit are a four-piece punk band from Nagoya, Japan. Comprising Hiromi on vocals, Charley on guitar, KenKen on bass and Kuwayama on drums the group are by turns melodic and menacing. Nicfit are a nervous itch, incessant and impossible to predict. They flip between head-down tumbles of hardcore bounce and freaked feedback clamber with glee, sounding as casual as a slap in the face.
Formed in 2009 after Charley relocated from San Diego to explore the Japanese punk underbelly, Nicfit bonded through a mutual appreciation of Essential Logic, Magazine, Black Flag and Wire. They quickly recorded a demo and started opening for groups like DMBQ, Thee Oh Sees, Total Control and Wimps. To date the band have released a debut 7” EP, a split cassette with Pinprick Punishment and most recently shared a 7” with their comrades M.A.Z.E. too. Now they’ve gathered a spiky new batch of hyperactive songs together into their enthralling debut LP entitled ‘Fuse’, which Upset The Rhythm will release this December.

‘Fuse’ is a flexing treat of a debut album, packed with browbeaten stomp, taut breakouts, guitars that sound more akin to warning sirens and an astute railing vocal delivery. ‘Fuse’ was recorded, mixed and mastered at the Geru Studio in Toyota City with the help of Shigeru Matsui at the board. These ten original blasts of song, and one cover of the Urinals (‘Ack, ack, ack’) are as pummelsome as they are keen to race against the clock. Total life-affirming trample, with pointed metallic moments and glammy undercurrents that forever soar out of the sprawl.