quête:i ching

This is Alejandro Escovedo’s critically acclaimed album, The Crossing, with
the vocals recorded in Spanish.
With the lyrics translated into and sung in Spanish, the concept album which
tells the story of two young immigrants to the US, who bond over a mutual love
of punk rock as they struggle with the racism and discrimination as immigrants,
becomes an even more intimate experience.
It features guest vocalists, as well as Alejandro singing all of the songs from The
Crossing in Spanish. Vocalists on the album include Alex Ruiz (Chingon), Patricia Vonne, Vanessa Del Fierro and Alejandro Escovedo.
Tracks like, “Algo Azul,” (“Something Blue”), “Sonica USA”, and “Bandido Para
Ti” (“Outlaw For You”) really shine here.

At first glance, Sarah Louise might seem an unlikely candidate
to credit technology as inspiration for her new album, Earth Bow.
After all, she has lived in rural Appalachia for the last decade,
foraging numerous species of wild mushroom, concocting
medicine from plants she gathers, and performing what she
terms “Earth Practices” to deepen her relationship with the
natural world. But it is precisely her ability to find connections
between false binaries that makes this album so novel and richly
immersive.
Louise conceived Earth Bow as an interconnected ecosystem,
meant to evolve, interact and grow. Known for her inventive
guitar playing, vocal harmonies and electronic experiments,
it was her use of the SP-404SX sampler that became a primary
inspiration for the album’s woven nature. “Improvising with the
404 during live shows allows me to collaborate with the music
as a living system, almost the way generative music works,” she
says. “I kept finding more and more samples that worked together
and realized I wanted to connect the entire record—and
that there were many ways it could be connected.”
Through this process, what began as eight core songs
blossomed into two sweeping suites. Samples—denizens of
her electronic forest—move around the record with changing
context like words in a sestina or phrases in the I Ching,
revealing new connections with each listen. Mesmeric sounds
abound on Earth Bow, from analog synth tones, to digitally
manipulated sonics that she stretches and layers with a painterly
touch. These electronic sounds inhabit the same environment as
field recordings, ceremonial percussion, guitars and empathic
vocals, weaving together her vast and borderless influences into
an enveloping world. “I want this record to take people on a
journey through the wonders of our incredible planet, to help
people feel held by the mysteries of nature,” she enthuses. “I
believe music can heal.” After a string of celebrated releases on
Thrill Jockey, Sarah Louise is self-releasing Earth Bow on her
new imprint of the same name.

The pioneering electronic composer Mort Garson (Mother Earth’s Plantasia) • takes on supernatural phenomena with lush synth grooves on The Unexplained, his only release under the name Ataraxia. Subtitled Electronic Musical Impressions of the Occult, the album explores tarot, astral projection, seances, and more with Garson’s signature Moog synthesizer serving as the listener’s tour guide to the paranormal. The exploratory, whimsical spirit of its creator is evident throughout the release, but it also takes its subject matter seriously, making it essential for anyone interested in musical conjurations of the occult. This remastered edition marks the first official reissue of the album since its initial 1975 release, and it includes all the original liner notes.

ABOUT MORT GARSON: Morton S. “Mort” Garson was a Canadian-born composer, arranger, songwriter, and pioneer of electronic music. He is best known for his albums in the 1960s and 1970s that were among the first to feature Moog synthesizers. His bestknown album is Mother Earth’s Plantasia, a 1976 Moog album designed to be played “for plants and the people who love them.”

Sacred Bones Records has undertaken the project of giving official, licensed reissues to key releases from Mort Garson’s catalog, with the intention of bringing these bold masterpieces to a 21st century audience.

Hailing from Brussels, Bandler Ching is a creation of musical ideas from composer and saxophonist Ambroos De Schepper. Flawlessly blending contemporary jazz, electronics, hip-hop, noise and global beats, the sound is based around the freedom of expression and improvisation and performed with dazzling conviction.

FILE UNDER: jazz, modal jazz, spiritual jazz
- 2xLP gatefold- 180g pressing- free download card

With 20 years passing since his first foray into recorded jazz, Nat Birchall now ranks as one of the premier saxophonists of his generation. With several highly acclaimed albums in the locker, he now returns with his most ambitious project yet – a tribute to the legend that is Yusef Lateef.

"The Storyteller - A Musical Tribute to Yusef Lateef"

"When Jazzman Gerald first mentioned to me the idea of doing an album as a tribute to the jazz giant Dr Yusef A. Lateef, my first thought was "Where on earth do I start?" Lateef was such a colossus of music, and his scope so broad, that I couldn't hope to begin to cover his musical universe. He was a master of the tenor saxophone, a master of the flute, a master ballad player, a master blues player. Not to mention his skills as a composer and arranger and of course his exploration and use of musical methodology and instruments from all over the world."

"I've always been a great admirer of Lateef, and the challenge was intriguing, so I decided to give it go. We interpreted some of his own compositions (Brother John, Morning & Ching Miau) as well as some compositions by others that he made his own by careful arrangement and interpretation (Love Theme from Spartacus, Ringo Oiwake). I also wrote some original songs that, while certainly not written in his style, might be said to fall into his very broad approach to music making."

"I also wanted to utilise as many different instruments as possible, something I hadn't explored too much until this album. So it was a nice opportunity to finally get around to playing some of the many small instruments I've collected over the years; the Turkish zurna, the mbira from Zimbabwe, the balaphon from Mali and the arghul from Egypt. We have also tried to use varied time signatures in the music, so we have songs in 3/4, 5/4 and 7/4 time, as well as the standard 4/4."

"Ultimately the best music tells a story to the listener and takes them to places they might not have imagined themselves. Yusef Lateef certainly did that, and as such was a master storyteller."

Nat Birchall

The album starts with 'St. Fabian Tower', named after the now demolished tower block in Chingford where Anthoney used to DJ for Rude FM. The track's lush detuned synths and syncopated drums are girded by stern low end frequencies. Drum and bass, jungle and hardcore are the touchstones here, but the forms he creates make no attempt to imitate the music of those eras. Take the rolling, bubbling, almost jazz-drummer patterns of 'Yeah, I Like It' and 'I Want You' where strange pops and bubbles seem to be forced through the grid almost like they're an effect of pressure. It's an odd juxtaposition next to the soulful vocals but an effective one. 'Edge Of Darkness' meanwhile, is an intense, rough ride of sliding rhythms and elephantine bass. Elsewhere, like on 'A New Consciousness', things are tempered into a more streamlined techno-like hybrid. He lets loose in the claps and kicks banger of 'Fi Di Gyal', but even here there are neat sonic tricks that sound like nods to minimalist composition.

On The Threshold is a balance of smart and energetic, non linear thoughtfulness and makeshift experimentalism that does away with boundaries, but is very much its own self contained world.

Honey Soundsystem met October (aka Jules) while on a one-night affair in Bristol in which he immediately dragged us from an artist dinner to the saddest Bear bar in the UK. After a few pints, vetting his taste for drag, boys, and girls that make love to boys who make love to boys, Jules confessed he has always wanted to release on HNYTRX. And so the hazing began, a year of torturing yet another sexy-stranger into refreshing, reminding, and refining a flurry of demos into the army of skeleton soldiers you now have in possession. Money drops, midnight withdrawals, 4 crisp singles: this is the Pay Day EP — gonna make that dance-floor 'cha-ching' bitch!

A lot of people hate October so... that is why we are releasing this record in September. But seriously though, upon cracking open this 4 track EP you might wish you had saved the vacuum seal just a couple days longer, keeping these ghosts contained until the month where screaming winds strip trees nude

What works reliably is to know the raw silk, hold the uncut wood. Need little. Want less. For- get the rules. Be untroubled.Laurel Halo presents six instrumental pieces that form a meditative, cinematic listening ex- perience. Inspired by recent film score work for Metahaven and Ursula Le Guin's translation of the Tao Te Ching. Featuring cello work by Oliver Coates and percussion by Eli Keszler.Working in abstraction leads to a deeper lon- ging for touch and closeness.The tactile sen- sation of struck organ keys and bowed strings, wood and felt on drum heads. Smoke and dirt and stone. Febrile and tactile, hairy and hissy. A clover of highway onramps, a continuous flow, like old leaves melting on their way down a stream at the back of a house. Constant contradiction, the truth's nowhere.

Coloured Vinyl
Iona Fortune is a composer and producer from Glasgow and presents the 'Tao of I' album as her debut release.
Inspired by Eastern Philosophy and slated to be the first in an 8 album series exploring all the symbols of the I Ching, her music is influenced by oriental sounds and features a palette of instruments that includes the Guzheng, Gamelan and Synthi AKS.
The overall effect is a singular and beguiling sound that loosely fits in with the Fourth World concept imagined by Jon Hassell, and indeed Iona Fortune has also contributed a track to Optimo Music's new Fourth World compilation 'Miracle Steps'.
The initial vinyl edition will come on a translucide pressing with inside sleeve and original artwork by Iona Fortune.

For our next release we have called upon Sideways. Two artists who's relationship with Watergate dates back to the clubs beginning nearly twelve years ago. It was in the early 90's when Marcus Kaye and Lee Ching worked at two of the most influential record shops in the UK resulting in a mutual friendship born out of an eternal hunt for new and exciting music. Soon both were at the forefront of a progressive Drum and Bass movement under their Marcus Intalex and Dj Lee monikers performing on a global scale and contributing some of the most influential music of the genre but never actually collaborating. As Kaye broadened his horizons creating the Trevino alias to critical acclaim and Ching went the mundane route of 9 to 5 normality the duo's still weekly conversations about the nuances of modern house and techno turned into Sideways. Finally, after more than a decade, the two have joined forces to bring us the truly unique and exciting EP, Retraced". Although all the tracks on Retraced' are rooted heavily in a techno aesthetic, they all possess parts spanning across a wide range of genres from drum and bass to deep and soulful house. With the title track Retraced' the two take a euphoric journey laced with rich strings laid over a hefty bassline while Minor Difference' holds no punches and goes straight for the four to the floor approach ripe for the strobe lights on a crowded, dark dance floor. The final cut on the EP is PJ's Groove' and of all the three, it's the throwback. With crisp open hi hats, warm organ stabs and big washed out pads it feels like a trip down memory lane, yet with an updated, modern twist. After more than a decade in the making, we think it's the perfect collaboration for us at Watergate and, we think you will feel the same.