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**Includes double sided insert with liner notes and photos*

Al Mati was the pseudonym of eccentric Portuguese-born, Dutch-based artist Alberto Mesquita. The name translates to ‘Alberto Friend’, with ‘Al’ short for Alberto and ‘Mati’ meaning ‘friend’ in Surinamese.
Alberto’s story comes across like a mythical character from a European Kerouac novel, but instead of writing it down, he poured those adventures and characters into his record. The music and the comic-style artwork, drawn by his friend Bruno Scoriels, work as one, with Alberto himself becoming both the story and the character within it.

Raised under Salazar’s regime in Lisbon, where all men were conscripted to Africa, he refused, a pacifist. This put him at odds with his father, born in Angola and a prominent lawyer tied to the dictatorship. Unable to accept his son’s stance, the rift forced Alberto to flee Portugal as a deserter, leaving everything behind.

He sought a new life in Paris, where he met Bruno Scoriels. The pair busked to get by, and young and broke, set off on adventures across Europe. On one trip to Barcelona, they crossed the Pyrenees on foot through a five-kilometre train tunnel, not knowing if they would make it out alive. The train later featured on the cover of Some Shit, a nod to that hazardous journey and the strange turns of his life.

From there he moved to Belgium, where he met Jolanda, his future wife who also features on the album. They lived in The Netherlands, then back in Belgium where they married, before returning to Portugal under false pretences. The regime promised deserters immunity, but it proved untrue, and Alberto was forced to flee again — this time with a young family, using Bruno’s passport to escape to The Netherlands.

They settled in the Gliphoeve flats in Amsterdam’s Bijlmermeer, a vibrant immigrant community. This melting pot of cultures inspired Alberto musically. He started a studio in their flat where musicians from Suriname, Angola, the Antilles, Brazil, Mozambique and Portugal came and went, jamming, rehearsing, recording and forming bands including Albatros, Comoção and Mati Africa, performing internationally and at iconic Amsterdam venues like De Melkweg and Paradiso.

Being an immigrant was tough. Alberto was stateless for years, drifting across countries. Some songs voiced his frustration with the Portuguese regime, others were playful or simply love notes to his wife and kids. He passed away in the Netherlands in 2021, leaving Some Shit open to interpretation. But when you picture Europe in the 1970s — the politics, the upheaval, and his need to connect people across cultures — you can hear an artist shaped by contrast, who poured his experiences, feelings and love into music.

Adey Omotade, a sound artist and cultural cartographer rooted in Lagos and shaped by diasporic experiences in Paris, Johannesburg, Berlin and Ivory Coast, brings a rare sensibility to this work: walking between worlds, bringing with him the cadence of home and the dissonance of diaspora. In his hands, sound becomes ritual: a migration of soul, an assemblage of bells, melodies and chants woven from Ifa shrines, river banks and Yoruba festivals. Playing the dual role of griot and cartographer, Omotade, who works across acoustic ecology, experimental music and sound design, builds each track like a shrine: layered, intentional, alive with breath and blood, each track a libation, each break an invocation. Each track unfurls like aso-oke, the celebratory fabric of the Yoruba people: drums that speak in polyrhythms, synths bending like waves, incantations layered like memory, fading then returning, gently like the water at the banks of the Osun River.

The influence of experimental sound design is evident throughout, but ‘Ni'ran’ is no cold abstraction. It pulses with life, with the heartbeat of talking drums, the breath of ambient textures and the warmth of the voices of babalawos, priests of Ifa, invoking ire (blessings) on all. ‘Oori : Ogbe’ invokes the sacred Odu Ifá — a divination verse that speaks of beginnings, clarity and destiny. In ‘Ofo : 'Nkantation’, polyrhythms unfold like verses, each beat a coded message inviting listeners to reflect on destiny and alignment.The title track ‘Ęęro : Eeşu’ begins with the haunting voice of a priest reciting the Odu Ifá, a calling to give unto Eesu his due. Percussive patterns unfold like verses, each beat both a memory and a prayer.

Juga-Naut, cultural Renaissance man, master of crafts, has done it again. Out of the deepest recesses of Nottingham’s underground caves, in brain-melting stereo and mesmerising technicolor, comes… Bem II.

Following on from 2020’s Bem, while defying the outdated belief that a sequel never outshines its predecessor, this is a lyrically ascendant, sonically euphoric, genre-defying, fever-inducing, hellcat of an album. Built upon the backbone of Juga-Naut’s inimitable production, wry, streetwise and knowing poetics, with hooks so catchy they cause problems when swallowed, Bem II gives listeners more funk, more soul, more grooves, more breaks, and more grit than ever before. The album’s co-stars include incredible artists and collaborators from both sides of the Atlantic, such as Crimeapple, Vandal Savage & Yumah.

Inspired by legendary cinema, each track is filmic in and of itself, a collection of twelve potent and timeless songs that together mean more than a million vapid viral videos. If played in the presence of the planet’s most infamous haters in a darkened theatre on a moonless night, Bem II has the power to unite even the most acrimonious of enemies.

This album is best listened to just before your decide to ask Jugz in 2024 after a decade plus of releases if he is 'still doing his little music thing?'.

RAW, RUTHLESS AND CEREMONIALLY DARK!

Only two years after its inception in 2023, the ominous entity hailing from Germany has come up with their first full-length. Consisting of 6 songs with the first one being an instrumental intro, "Fiery Paths" is a very convincing effort on all levels. Notwithstanding the fact INFERNAL PRESENCE has only been active for 2 years, their hybrid of Black and Death Metal sounds as if it had been composed by a seasoned band. Unlike many outfits whose songs consist of a salad of riffs randomly thrown together, INFERNAL PRESENCE are apt at cleverly composing their material by frequently alternating between different tempi and moods. Fast tremolo picked riffs akin to DISSECTION or MAYHEM are alternated with palm muted Thrash riffs or atmospheric slow-paced arpeggios reminding of WATAIN or ONDSKAPT.

In so doing the two-piece creates dynamic songs that succeed in truly capturing the listener's attention. Just listen to standout tracks like "Eternal Exodus" or the exceptional "Tomb Procession" with its slithering groove and you will see our point proven. Although, only sharing certain musical elements with said bands, the suffocating atmosphere of "Fiery Paths" reminds of NEGATIVE PLANE's first album or early SECRETS OF THE MOON. Fortunately, the production fits the material just splendidly, too. While being gritty and raw, thus emphasising the album’s ferociousness, it's still polished enough so that no detail gets buried in the mix.

INFERNAL PRESENCE unleashed a record suffused with unrelenting darkness! If you consider yourself a fan of some of the bands mentioned above, do yourself a favour and listen to this beast of an album!

It's taken over two decades, but at last, the wait is over: Sevan Mater has unleashed the first- ever vinyl pressing of Live Damage , the iconic live performance by DARK TRANQUILLITY, captured during their "Damage Done" era. Pressed on Gold and Black swirl vinyl, limited to just 500 copies, and housed in a stunning gatefold cover, this reissue is nothing short of melodic death metal heaven. Originally released in 2003 as a DVD, Live Damage immortalized one of DT 's most intense and electric live shows - recorded in Krakow, Poland. Now, for the first time ever, that raw energy, that iconic Swedish aggression, and that perfectly balanced blend of melody and brutality has been etched into vinyl grooves for audiophiles and collectors alike. From the soaring leads of The Treason Wall to the punishing drive of Final Resistance, every track explodes with clarity and presence on wax.

The vinyl mastering brings new warmth and immediacy to the performance, giving fans the closest thing to being there, without the sweat and flying beer. And the packaging? Absolutely elite. Sevan Mater delivers a luxurious gatefold, featuring rare tour photos, liner notes, and an aesthetic drenched in cold, melancholic elegance. If you're a fan of At The Gates, In Flames, or if Damage Done was the soundtrack to your early 2000s fury, this release is a must-own. More than just a live album - it's a time capsule of melodic death metal at its peak.

Sugaring a Strawberry, the sophomore record from Julia, Julia, is a study in coming undone—on purpose. Recorded at COMA, Julia Kugel's home studio, and mixed through a custom Flickenger clone, the album drifts in and out of clarity like memory itself. It's emotionally retrospective, creatively unvarnished, and deeply human. You can hear it in the hiss, the warmth, in the vocals so raw they're like an open window. These songs weren't engineered for perfection. They were built to breathe. Her long-time collaborator and husband, Scott Montoya, mixes it all so loosely that you can hear the air between tracks— a space that makes the music feel inhabited rather than recorded.


"Bound" opens the album like a secret passed between sisters, solemn and unspeakably close. It begins with the softest of touches: hushed guitar, a near- whispered delivery that carries the intimacy of someone singing only for one other person. It's a love song, but not romantic, more ancestral in the way long bonds can be. All glow and undercurrent, "I Know," is like hearing someone hum through a wound. The track arrives as if it had been waiting, coiled and complete, to be sung. Its pulse is slow but insistent, anchored on a hypnotic loop and a vocal that's half-incantation, half-confession. One of the most outward-facing songs on the record, "Feeling Lucky," opens like a cigarette flicked in the dark– smoky and a little bit slick. Built on a skeletal beat and a nearly detached vocal, it leans into a sarcastic swagger that barely masks the ache beneath. The delivery is droll and glazed, the instrumentation is sparse and a little woozy, leaving space for her voice to sway—a shrug of a song, stylish in its sadness. "A Love That Hurts" drifts in on soft, fingerpicked guitar and a dry, close-mic vocal that feels both haunted and immediate. The mix is stripped down and analog-warm, letting tape hum and silence frame the emotion. Julia sings like she's remembering something she doesn't want to, each line a slight unraveling. Like the rest of the album, "A Love That Hurts" doesn't push toward resolution. It sits in the ache, sifts through it, makes it beautiful.

Sugaring a Strawberry doesn't seek catharsis so much as stumbles into it. There's a quiet volatility to these songs like they might fall apart if you press too hard. It moves in shadow and softness, asking questions it doesn't answer. It doesn’t end with closure. It ends with truth.

Previously we’ve mentioned influences from the 1970s self-reflective work of Nick Drake & John Martyn to the lovelorn tragedy of troubadours such as Elliott Smith and Jeff Buckley creating a fusion of 1960s/70s folk and blues.

Now Cardiff-based indie folk singer-songwriter Ivan Moult returns with his most personal work to date, Stood Out In The Storm, due to be released on November 7th through Bubblewrap (home to The Gentle Good). The album follows the acclaimed Songs From Severn Grove (2023), which drew praise for its warmth, intricacy and timeless songwriting, cementing Ivan’s reputation as one of Wales’ most compelling contemporary voices.

While Songs From Severn Grove captured moments of renewal and joy - written in lockdown and
during the early days of fatherhood - its follow-up takes a braver, more vulnerable step. Stood Out
In The Storm was written in the aftermath of a personal crisis and charts Ivan’s gradual process of
healing and recovery. The record traverses darkness and light, despair and resilience, offering a
deeply honest exploration of fragility, survival and hope.

Ivan’s signature sound remains at the core: a seamless blend of 1960s/70s folk and blues infused
with modern textures, drawing influence from John Martyn, the late great Terry Reid and Ry
Cooder. On Stood Out In The Storm, that familiar intimacy is expanded with a greater presence
of guitars and organs, adding new depth and urgency to the sound. As with his previous records,
Ivan wrote, played, recorded and mixed the album at his Cardiff home studio, and the record sits
as a companion piece to Songs From Severn Grove.

Over the years, Ivan has gained support from BBC Radio 6 Music, BBC Radio Wales and KLOF
(Formerly Folk Radio UK), earned festival slots at Cornbury Festival, Festival of Voice and Sŵn,
and shared stages with the likes of This Is The Kit, Becca Mancari and Willy Mason. Now, with
Stood Out In The Storm (out November 7th), he offers his most powerful and affecting work yet –
an album born of struggle, but defined by resilience.

“Exquisite”- Folk Radio UK 

“Beautiful” - Huw Stephens, BBC Radio

“Utterly wonderful” - Adam Walton, BBC Radio Wales

”There is a wonderful delicateness that resonates through Ivan’s heartfelt lyrics, deamy music and vocals. Ivan is able to take listeners on their own journey of growth through his soft melodies and blissful atmosphere”
- Amplify The Noise

It has been said of Hiroshi Suzuki, one of Japan's leading trombonists, "If you want to sound good, you need to have him as a member of your group”. Suzuki moved to the U.S. in 1971 when he was invited to play with the Buddy Rich Orchestra, and had been living in Las Vegas ever since. The album Cat was recorded when he returned to Japan for the first time in about four years, and released on Nippon Columbia in 1976. The musicians are the same as in Freedom Unity, the group Suzuki had been a member of until his 1971 departure – consisting of pianist Hiromasa Suzuki, drummer Akira Ishikawa, bassist Kunimitsu Inaba, and saxophonist Takeru Muraoka.

Cat is a kind of second chance for that group, which once had a promising future but came to a premature demise. Based on the synergy that they had cultivated together in the past, the players brought their individual technical and musical growth to the album and collectively refined their efforts even further. Each of them had been active on the front lines of the jazz scene, and the quality of their compositions, arrangements, and performances here are extremely high. Cat is one of the most revered albums in the extraordinary Japanese Jazz discography and an essential piece of any music collection.

(Text by Yusuke Ogawa - Universounds)

Neon Castle hones in on a fleeting sub-genre of early to mid-’80s folk-rock. For a brief moment, glistening slide guitar, fretless bass, satin floating over drum machines intertwined with ethereal female voices, conjuring a sound at once familiar and otherworldly—pop structures touched by myth. Some songs sway with the warmth of open ranch-land, crystal visions beneath thundering skies; others shimmer with candlelit mysticism, as if born in a pagan stone tower, crafted with the very staff Kate Bush might have wielded. Together, these pieces reveal a singular cloth.

Compiled by Charles Bals—now in his third collaboration with Smiling C—Neon Castle affirms his rare gift for storytelling through sound. Each track unfolds like a scene from an imagined film: castles glowing with noble gas, kingdoms awash in purple haze, white horses roaming free, hair cascading to the waist. The collection sketches a realm both new and upon a time, a world where fantasy takes shape through music. With Neon Castle, attentive listening becomes narrative.

Not much is known about the artist Ethan Syann. It's the musician's choice to stay behind his sounds, anonymous and far away from the lights. We don't know if he's behind some other projects or monikers. The only thing we know is that we discovered his works over a decade ago, via Soundcloud. At that time, the quality of the works, the unpredictable range of sounds and atmospheres gave his own imprint to Ethan Syann and the reason to have him on board at a point. It was an obvious fact to put the light on his first and only tracks, recorded between 2013 and 2015. Today, he seems to come back in the area, and started again to record recently for some future projects to come. Yorgos Yatromanolakis choose his works between some various musicians propositions by us, and it has been the perfect match for IIKKI. This is his first release.

Since first arriving on the scene in 2009 with blistering inversions of shoegaze, Montreal's No Joy has always found formidable ways to reinvent itself. Now solely composed of musician Jasamine White-Gluz, No Joy has evolved over four studio albums and five EPs, defying expectation and genre, and cementing itself as something rare: a band without a category. Clearly sympatico at the time of collaborating, Fire-Toolz and No Joy (Jasamine White-Gluz) had both resituated to secluded woodsy milieus prior to the "Bugland seshies", as I now name the historic pairing. Together, they created an aural equivalent of a late 1980 I-d magazine front and back cover, with a non-problematic National Geographic hiding within. Fire-Toolz sums it up: "The collaboration really felt limitless. I didn't have to adhere to a certain vision in a way that made me feel like I couldn't be Fire-Toolz. I could easily relate to this album because Jasamine and I liked a lot of the same music, and I was able to be creative in ways that were freeing as if I was making my own album. " Both spent days driving through on empty rural highways listening to the mixes, and it reflects in the final product. With an open ear, many "influence eggs" can be detected by the listener. Garbage Dream House is Zooropian without any of U2's ego baggage. Seven-minute closing track Jelly Meadow Bright even manages to meld Stooges' Fun House out of control saxophone with the chill buoyancy of a high-end spa. Touching on respected, familiar genres and sounds while attempting to advance one's own isn't easy but Bugland manages to. What genre is it anyway? Is it even shoegaze when it could live happily on a shelf next to Boards of Canada and Autechre? The right answer is `yes'. What a lovely shelf `twould be as well. A marble shelf, with cyberpunk elements. Bugland`s a testament to White-Gluz's evolution and her ability to channel a wide variety of tastes into something cohesive that can descend into fine-tuned chaos, then out of that chaos with ease.

Swimming Paul’s music has always lived in the push-and-pull between euphoria and melancholy; the rare kind of electronic music that can make you cry while your body keeps moving.



On Smiling Through the Pain 2 (out October 24 via Headroom Records), the French-born, London-based producer doubles down on that emotional duality, delivering an album that feels as much like a diary as it does a DJ set.

Over the course of 15 tracks, Paul stitches together late-night catharsis, suburban nostalgia, and the jagged tenderness of early adulthood. The record is sequenced like an unbroken night out: the giddy anticipation, the sudden moments of reflection, the quiet comedown as the sun edges in. It’s an album that refuses to treat joy and sadness as opposites, they coexist here, often in the same chord progression.



“I don’t want to escape the feelings, I want to bring them with me” Paul says. “If you can’t stop thinking about something, you might as well dance with it.”

That philosophy runs through the singles: the emotional release of Holly (with Junior Simba), the aching nostalgia of Different Time, the hypnotic haze of Hard 2 Sleep, and the house-driven Drinking to Get Drunk, a bittersweet ode to nights spent outrunning your own thoughts. Elsewhere, Liza M1 folds heartbreak into an almost triumphant piano hook, while Shine a Light urges listeners to take risks and live without hesitation—as if youth’s boldness could be bottled.



Since debuting in 2023, Swimming Paul has quietly built an empire on emotional resonance: 150 million streams across platforms, 1.9 million monthly listeners on Spotify and more than 50 editorial placements (including Dance Party, Crying on the Dancefloor, Electronic Rising….), 10,000+ radio spins worldwide, and sold-out tours across Europe and North America. His sound has earned co-signs from BBC Radio 1, Triple J, KCRW, Sirius XM and a wave of DJs who value melody as much as momentum.

But Smiling Through the Pain 2 isn’t chasing charts, it’s chasing connections. Paul’s global fanbase, nurtured through a lively Discord community and nights on the road, has become a two-way conversation, with fans’ stories feeding back into the music’s emotional core.
This autumn, Paul takes the album to stages that match its ambition, from London to a string of US club dates, festivals and intimate pop ups designed for shared release.



Smiling Through the Pain 2 is an invitation to feel everything at once. To sweat through the sadness. To let your guard down under strobe lights. To realise that the best nights out don’t make you forget; they help you remember.

Clear Vinyl. Luxurious jacket with embossed logo and details plus cut-out on the side. Explore an emotional sci-fi game with a unique blend of survival, adventure, and base-building elements. Help the sole survivor of an ill-fated space expedition create alternative versions of himself to escape a hostile planet and tackle personal turmoils with this unconventional crew. 11 bit studios, the creators of the award-winning games This War of Mine and Frostpunk, present The Alters, an ambitious sci-fi survival game with a unique twist. You play as Jan Dolski, the lone survivor of a crash-landed expedition on a hostile planet. To survive, you must form a new crew for your mobile base. Using a substance called Rapidium, you create alternative versions of Jan -The Alters- each one shaped by a different crucial decision from the protagonist's past. The one-of-a-kind soundtrack for The Alters was created by Piotr Musial best known for his compositions for games like The Witcher, Frostpunk and This War of Mine. For The Alters, Musial chose to stray from the obvious path when it comes to this genre of games and head for something more original: "While many sci-fi soundtracks these days favor the sound of analog synths, the idea behind the music of The Alters was a bit different. We wanted the music to feel more untraditional and mix digital, glitchy elements, unstable reverb with organic sounds, all of which together could support this unique story." With this approach, Musial dove deep into the world of The Alters to turn abstract ideas and atmospheres in very concrete music: "We aimed for the planet to feel overwhelmingly strange and hostile at first. The music starts as more abstract and based on dense atmospheric sound design. Our circular base, a place of safety and comfort inspired to create a theme that 'goes round' by a repeating leitfmotif. You will always feel at home there, unless there's something bad happening, and that's where the theme will get changed, broken." Musial further explains: "One of the key elements we get to discover in the game is the Rapidium crystal. A strange mineral, with yet unexplored properties. We felt like it could have its own theme too, and therefore, wherever you find it, it 'sings' to you with it's strange, bassy voice, supported by a trace of live recorded strings, that were digitally destroyed to create this translucent texture, that sound unlike the real thing. A glitch crystal, is what they call it after all. But the more we explore the planet, the more the story we uncover. We wanted the music to gradually gain momentum and show the leitfmotifs more often, guiding you through emotional moments, fun moments, tough ones, reaching a grand finale. I hope you'll enjoy this ride." Enjoy playing and listening to The Alters!

Zwei Meister-Improvisatoren, die ihre wortlosen Gemälde aus dem Nichts komponieren, erforschen weiter den tiefen Raum der Zukunft/Vergangenheit. Ihre kollaborativen Kräfte sind noch lange nicht auf dem Höhepunkt, und diese Reise führt sie weiter ins Unerforschte. Diese Stücke entfalten sich als offenkundige Geistesblüten. Sie schaffen einen Baldachin aus Klangformen, in dem sie die seltene Sprache der Welterschaffung sprechen. Dies ist nicht einfach nur Musik, es ist eine Reise ohne Karten, Inside. Diese neue LP führt Nelson & Kramer tief unter die Meere der Erde und zieht den Hörer an ihrer Seite hinab, während sie die unbekannten Strömungen erforschen, die die menschliche Vorstellungskraft beflügeln, flüssig, immer in Bewegung und immer im Wandel. Es ist ein Ausflug in die tiefsten Tiefen der Ambient-Musik und ein Neuanfang an dem Ort, an dem das Leben selbst begann. Der Grund des Ozeans hat einen neuen Klang, und er ist atemberaubend schön. ENG Further explorations into the deep space of the future/past by two master-improvisors who compose their wordless paintings out of thin air. Their collaborative powers are nowhere near their peak and this voyage takes them further into the Uncharted. These pieces unfold as revelatory mind blooms. Creating a canopy of sound forms inside which they speak the rarified language of world creating. This isn't just music, it's a journey without maps, Inside. This new LP takes Nelson & Kramer deep under the earth's seas, pulling the listener down beside them as they explore the uncharted currents that fuel the human imagination, fl uid, always moving, and always changing. It is an excursion into the lowest depths of Ambient Music, and a new beginning from the very place where life itself began. The floor of the ocean has a new sound, and it is breathtakingly beautiful.

For his last solo record ‘Through a Room’, Bill Nace shifted his usual saturated guitar sound and added tapes, hurdy gurdy, doughnut pipe, bird calls and the mysterious Japanese taishōgoto. Setting up for the final night of his three day residency at OTO with only the taishōgoto soundchecked, Nace hoped that Parker would arrive with his small soprano as its opposite. “I’ve been interested in state change, you know, playing until there’s a shift in time.” Known for his development of multiphonics to produce a constantly shifting pattern, Evan Parker has evolved an instantly recognizable sound - his work the soprano most distinct. Happily, it was the soprano Evan brought with him and as soon as the two start to play they entwine - taking off in a double helix of keys and reed primed for endless reconfiguration. Space warps under the velocity of playing, the pitch rising unrelentingly. It felt like unending lift off in the room, sheer energy until the last note makes remember your feet have been on the floor the whole time. Total time bending shredding.

–

"They had never played together before. They had never even met each other before this springtime 2024 concert at London’s Café Oto.

Evan Parker, circular breathing maestro of the saxophone, a legend in the universe that is Free Improvisation since the late 1960s and Bill Nace, one of the most intriguing experimental “noise” guitarists of the 1990s/2000s underground scene.

For those of us who have been enamored by the live and documented work of both these gents, this Café Oto duo was a must-hear event. It could have gone anywhere musically and that would have been totally fine. Particularly with Evan having a history of being thrown into a variety of challenging collaborations throughout his career, employing the learned elegance of trust in his own sensitivity to listening, responding, leading, following, sparring, intertwining, dialoguing, creating in the instant and, essentially, dignifying the non-hierarchical grace of chance.

The aesthetics of socialist consideration in Evan Parker’s playing, in his community of expanded and personal technique, for a younger player such as Bill Nace, strikes an exemplary model. This notion of respect would be entirely the reason Nace, when offered a residency at the most critical “new music” room in England, would request to play in duo with Parker.

Bill Nace came to prominence mostly during the apex of experimental music activity in and around Western Massachusetts in the early days of the aughts, with a focus on visual art and free improvisation guitar action. He could be found in the daytime hours, his head hanging down over a notepad, penning fine-tuned illustrations and abstract line drawings, while in the evenings he’d be attending any number of basement noise gigs, many of which he’d be participating in. His guitar style came across as being informed as much as by the physicality of his writing utensils in friction to the page as it was to his hearing and redefining of radical recordings ranging anywhere from the Black Unity Group to Black Flag.

Utilizing various metal files and other small cylindrical objects Bill would allow his guitar and amplifier to be in tandem with the improvisatory movements of his body as the instrument balanced, intentionally and, at times, precariously, upon his lap. The performances came across thrilling and daring and they would be mostly in the context of venues nothing more than a low-ceilinged damp and dank New England basement, a clutch of people hanging onto rusty pipes or sitting up on dilapidated washer/dryer machines, the shards of Bill’s “file guitar” sounds ringing out like the most alive music on Earth.

By the time Bill reached Café Oto in early 2024 he had relocated to Philadelphia all the while releasing a succession of collaborative LPs on his Open Mouth label to present his developing progression of solo and collaborative work. He also would find himself considerably engaged with playing the electric taishōgoto, a keyboard-activated string instrument from Japan which can exist as a one, two, four, five, or six string oblong sound object. Bill’s approach to the taishōgoto would not be too unlike his approach to the traditional electric guitar, though no outboard implements such as files, sticks, and rocks are utilized. The similarity would lie wholly with Bill’s full immersion of high velocity action-playing where, with the taishōgoto, an electric drone beauty occurs. The flurry of sonics and resultant harmonics emanating from the amplifier (which Bill opts to dial into with borderline loud-as fuck volume settings) furthers the meta-mantra properties of the instrument in an astounding display of drone dynamism.

This sound world of Bill’s two-stringed taishōgoto on this Café Oto night worked beautifully with Evan Parker’s improvisatory saxophone conceptions. The duology achieved instant lift off at ground zero only to find it’s eventual finale as if it were organically ordained. Time seemingly morphed from its ancient human construct of control, rendered inconsequential to the torrential transcendence of the room wildly activated by the magic resonance of the multi-directional pan-spatial sonance of the music as if it were some beatific blessing. It was one of those nights where art as a liberating force of spirit gifted the listeners with an offering of exaltation and joy. It was entirely mystical and mind blowing. A night of Total Music."

Thurston Moore, London, 2025

On April 13th, 2019 Record Day, Vega Records celebrates with the new release 'My Body' performed by none other than the Legend and King Luther Vandross. This is a song that was never released and was recorded back in 1979 by Luther Vandross when he was working on the colossal album 'Never Too Much'. Brought to Louie Vega by artist and renowned background singer to the greats Mr. Fonzi Thornton, Vega was able to work on the immaculate sounds of Vandross. As Vega recalls 'When I put up the tracks in my studio it sounded as if Luther were singing today, it made it so easy to come with the house grooves having such a perfect vocal performance and one of kind tone. Once I came with the music, I felt I needed to call his original background singer team, which Fonzi organized in a flash. He called upon the genius background singers Brenda White, Lisa Fischer, Cindy Mizelle, Tawatha Agee and Fonzi himself. We are talking the A-Team of background singers, a dream come true in my studio', Vega recalls.
The Result is a stunning art piece by Richard Wilson on the cover of the vinyl double pack 12'. There are seven versions to choose from ready to work back to back.
So not only is it record day, it's also the birthday of Luther Vandross which is on April 20,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUTHER VANDROSS!!!
LOUIE VEGA SENDS A BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LUTHER VANDROSS & THANK YOU TO FONZI THORNTON, SEVETA WILLIAMS, AND VANDROSS MUSIC, LLC.

The neon "pdqb Arcade" sign in Port Astra flickered with the same chaotic energy it had decades ago. Six men, now with more gray hair and worries than they once had, stood at the entrance. They were the "Lucky Six," reunited after years of scattered lives and separate paths.

"I can't believe this place is still here" said Noise, who had flown in from Tokyo. "It hasn't changed 8 bits, haha". CEM, now a father of 3340 synthesizers from Bari, replied with a grin. "We have. Look at Galaxian, he's unrecognizable!"

Each of them held a single, precious coin. Their plan, born of a wave of nostalgia and the understanding that they couldn't stay forever, was simple: one coin, one game, one last chance to be a legend. Each man would choose the game that meant the most to him and play the round of his life…

At the end, pdqb, the arcade owner, came up to the guys. "Don't be sad", he said. "Even if it was your last credit, there's always one more somewhere in some game". He then walked through the arcade and played four different machines that just happened to have an extra credit on them. "See?", he said.

Synaptic Cliffs proudly presents pdqb together with six black belt gamers (PRZ, Noise&Noise, Galaxian, CEM3340, Dark Vektor, Mesak), each a legend in their own right. They don't just replay pdqb's 8 1/2 Bit album; they become it. Together, they embark on a journey through legendary worlds, creating a place filled with soundscapes and challenges that blur the line between music and game. They move with the rhythm of the music and face the challenges within, weaving their own stories into the fabric of the iconic work.

“In a concert, I show something with a beginning, a middle and an end. But, there is no end. Of course, there is no end. Because I am the music, and I am still here.” - Sophie Agnel

‘Learning’ - Sophie Agnel’s first solo LP, feels like the dark, physical inversion of her excellent ‘Song’ which came out on Relative Pitch earlier this year. Sinking her unique sound into vinyl for the first time, the LP arrives as Agnel recovers from a brain tumour - a shocking discovery that will require Agnel to start again with the piano. It’s a terrifying prospect, but Agnel has been here before, having reorientated herself almost entirely away from her early classical training over the last 4 decades of her work.

‘When I was young I had very good ears, oriole absolute. Then later I began to make strange sounds with my piano, to do different kinds of music. I was more interested in the sounds than the melody, for example. I remember once I sat down in a shop to try to read the scores of Schubert and there was a light emitting a very strong bzzzzzzz. And I couldn't listen to my oriole internal - I couldn't read the score. I was entirely subjugated by the sound of the light. And I understood that something had changed. Ten years before I could read and not hear the light. Now I understood that my ears were completely different. I was more open to the sounds of life.”

Born in Paris in the 60’s and playing her parents piano as soon as she could stand up, Agnel quickly grew tired of the classical world. What frustrated her was the strange disconnect between the frame of the piano and its keyboard - a weird boundary that seemed to form some hushed code of etiquette. “The first thing I put inside the piano was a plastic goblet. I’d seen a few pianists do it: Fred Van Hove, for example, put rubber balls inside his. But what didn’t appeal to me was that there seemed to be no link between the pianos outside and inside.”If you see Agnel play now, the body of her piano is littered with fish tins, ping pong balls, wooden blocks - not that you’d recognize their sounds. Having absorbed the language of the European avant-garde, Agnel is known for pulling the piano’s interior outside of itself by tipping her handbag into it. But these ‘strange sounds’ don’t just come from Cage - they also share the poetic force of Cecil Taylor and ‘Learning’ demonstrates that Agnel’s work on the piano's keyboard is just as important as what she’s littered on its strings. The record lets loose her ability to unleash a formidable sound mass and then rope it back to one single, clarifying note. With one hand, Agnel plays 88 tuned drums and on the other an enormous guitar - with the LP rotating through oncoming trains, and blues harmonica and feedback. It’s single minded stuff, borne out of a dedication to a wholly personal language of gesture, accumulation and deft reduction. “Maybe when I’m 80 I will not need anything,” Agnel says in a recent film made at her home. “I will do the same but with one note, and one finger. Maybe it's enough.”

‘Learning’ arrives in a reverse board sleeve designed by Jereon Wille. Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Billy Steiger on 6th June 2023 and 4th June 2024. Mixed by James Dunn and Benjamin Pagier. Side B edited by Benjamin Pagier. Mastered and cut by Loop-O. Front photograph by Aimé Agnel. Typography and layout by Jeroen Wille.

Slip is Paul Abbott’s response to his 3 day residency at OTO in 2023. It’s a continued exploration of the acoustic-digital hybrid drum setup Abbott has been developing for some time, which involves drum kit and synthetic sounds combined closely—through an entanglement of limbs and cables—in an intimate but strange relationship with each other.

Paul Abbott hasn’t had any formal musical training, but has a long history of making music, having collaborated for years with Seymour Wright, Pat Thomas, Michael Speers, Cara Tolmie, Anne Gillis and many others. Eventually, led by a profound suspicion of what is fixed or limited, Abbott began finding other ways to organise sound - or what he calls ‘material’:

“I wanted a way to 'persuade' or guide the possibility of something happening - my activity or the events of an algorithmic composition - for example, but without certainty or formalism. It felt to me, during playing, that certain ideas had a particular sort of shape, but more than the form of a line. I began to write alongside (before/after) playing the drums, and ‘characters’ began to enter the scene as a more wobbly, and therefore appropriate option to notation. Working with these characters allowed me to simultaneously approach body, imagination, language and music: without dividing things up or separating these aspects from each other. It allowed me to leave things messy and entangled, whilst trying to deal with form and specificity: wanting to have some things feel or respond differently to other things at other times.”

In approaching his residency, Abbott developed a fixed cast of characters - crystal, lleaf, reiy.F, reiy.C, strike, nee, qosel, sphu and aahn. They each communicate using different kinds of movement and drum kit/s, and Abbott choreographed them as ‘dances’ based on different feelings, or outlines of behaviours suggestive of ways of moving (body, drums, sounds). He then arranged these characters into ‘compositions’: one for each performance day, with each composition featuring multi-layered activity - options for behaviours, ways to move around the rooms, play drums, develop synthetic sounds, change the lights or re-distribute the sound in the space.

After the performances, Abbott took home 9 hours of recordings split into up to 28 multitrack channels for each day, and re-organised his cast once more into a performance for 2LP, CD and digital. It’s an enormous amount of work - but Abbott is activated by the process. For him, the pleasure of unstable edges, possibilities, slippages, is the vital attraction. Like all living organisms, Abbott’s characters have malleability and responsivity. They stimulate a bundle of possible behaviours, a tendency to act a certain way, a temperament, a boundary of respective limits or affordances.

It’s an affective way of working, inclusive of Roscoe Mitchell, Sun Ra, Nathaniel Mackey and Milford Graves. In ‘Pulseology’(2022), Milford Graves reminds us, ‘Breath varies, so cardiac rhythm never has that (metronomic) tempo. It’s always changing. All the alignments of the heart are determined based on the needs of the cells, specifically tissues and organs. The heart knows if it needs to speed up.’ In Slip, to slip, in a heartbeat, is to descend not into the grid of the even metre accorded to the heartbeat, but into a play of mutability and modality. To change is the condition of the heart.

180GR./GATEFOLD SLEEVE/12 PAGE BOOKLET/20 TRACKS/COLOURED VINYL

On “Cold Sweat,” James Brown famously called to “give the drummer some.” In 1974, Philadelphia vibraphonist Khan Jamal called to Give the Vibes Some, with superb results. Pianist and composer Jef Gilson’s PALM label gave Jamal the platform he needed to deliver a thorough exploration of contemporary vibraphone. After launching PALM in 1973, Gilson quickly demonstrated that he would only produce records not found anywhere else. Give the Vibes Some, PALM number 10, was another confirmation of this guiding principle.



Raised and based in Philadelphia, Khan Jamal took up the vibes in 1968, after two years in the army during which he was stationed in France and Germany. Decisively drawn to the instrument by the work of the Modern Jazz Quartet’s Milt Jackson, Jamal studied under Philadelphia vibraphone legend Bill Lewis and soon made his debuts in the local underground.



Early in 1972, Jamal made his first recording, with the Sounds of Liberation. The band attempted an original fusion of conga-heavy grooves with avant-garde jazz soloing. Saxophonist Byard Lancaster, an important figure in Jamal’s development, contributed much of the solo work. Later in 1972, Jamal made his leader debut with Drum Dance to the Motherland, a reverb-drenched, never-to-be-replicated experiment with live sound processing. Both albums appeared on the tiny musician-run Dogtown label.



“We couldn’t get no play from nowhere. No gigs or recording sessions or anything. So I took off for Paris,” Jamal recalled in a Cadence interview with Ken Weiss. “Within a few weeks, I had a few articles and I did a record date. It didn’t make me feel good about America.” That was in 1974, while Byard Lancaster was recording the music gathered on Souffle Continu’s recent The Complete PALM Recordings, 1973-1974.



Jamal’s record date delivered Give the Vibes Some. At its core, it was an exploratory solo vibraphone album, even if two tracks added (through technological resourcefulness?) a très célèbre French drummer very much into Elvin Jones appearing under pseudonym for contractual reasons. Another track, for which Jamal switched to the vibes’s wooden ancestor, the marimba, added young Texan trumpeter Clint Jackson III. The most notable article published on Jamal during this stay in France was a Jazz Magazine interview. Jamal’s last word there were “The Creator has a master plan/drum dance to the motherland.” “Give the vibes some” could be added to this programmatic statement.

The story begins with Kevin Morby absentmindedly flipping through a box of old family photos in the basement of his childhood home in Kansas City. Just hours before, at a family dinner, his father had collapsed in front of him and had to be rushed to the hospital. That night Morby still felt the shock and fear lodged in his bones. So he gazed at the images until one of the pictures jumped out at him: his father as a young man, proud and strong and filled with confidence, posing on a lawn with his shirt off. This was in January of 2020. As the months went on and the world dramatically changed around him, Morby felt an eerie similarity between his feelings of that night and the atmosphere of those spring days. Fear, anxiety, hope and resilience all churning together. The themes began twisting in his mind. History, trauma and the grand fight against time. Having the courage to dream, even while knowing the tragedy that often awaits those who dare to dream. While his father regained his strength, Morby meditated on these ideas. And then, he headed to Memphis. He moved into the Peabody Hotel and spent his days paying tribute and genuflecting to the dreamers he admired. In the evening, he would return to his room and document his ideas on a makeshift recording set-up, with just his guitar and a microphone. The songs, elegiac in nature, befitting all he had seen, poured out of him.Produced by Sam Cohen (who also worked on Morby’s Singing Saw and Oh My God), This Is A Photograph features musical contributions from longtime staples of Morby’s live band, as well as old friends and new collaborators alike. If Oh My God saw Morby getting celestial and in constant motion and Sundowner was a study in localized intent, This Is A Photograph finds Morby making an Americana paean, a visceral life and death, blood on the canvas outpouring. As Morby reminds us early on, time is undefeated. So what do we do while we’re still here? This is a photograph of that sense of yearning

NAIVE020 epitomizes what the Lisbon-based label, run by Violet, has become cherished for: imaginative yet timeless, soothing yet moody, melodic yet sonic music. Entitled 'Computer Hermetics', this new record is an EP by Berlin-based UrbnMowgli.

The opening track, 'Fast Love Life', is a 145 bpm electro-bred, breakbeat-driven emotive dancefloor banger. It features menacing stabs juxtaposed with beautiful pads and acid-drenched arpeggio motifs that lend it a oneiric quality. 'Oracle Algorithm' picks up the 303 spirit and delves into trippier territories, densening the dreamlike, expansive atmosphere while infusing the record with electro-driven grit. Closing side A is 'Warschauer Rush-Hour', a futuristik, high-tempo twisted electro banger that's both tough and playful.

'Immaterial Desires' inaugurates side B—an ode to adventurous drum programming and intricate sound design in the form of a percussion-punctuated curveball belter. 'Digital Dawn' brings it all back home to the heart and closes the record with its deepest, most immersive moment, giving us big bass lines that alchemically converse with angelic bleepy melodies as if soundtracking a soulful sci fi movie that doesn't exist yet.

"PROG-ROCK LEGENDS SPOCK’S BEARD ARRIVE ON MADFISH WITH NEW ALBUM THE ARCHAEOPTIMIST. GATEFOLD 2LP VERSION, PRESSED ON RED VINYL. “mad time signatures, impossible harmonies, intense arrangements…sensational”
THE PROG REPORT “a true heir of the legacy of bands as Yes, Gentle Giant, Pink Floyd & old Genesis…a truly fascinating voyage.” METAL TEMPLE If Spock’s Beard have taught us anything over their 30+ years in the business, it’s that they have no interest in becoming their own tribute act. The Archaeoptimist - their latest offering & first release on Madfish - is not a retreat into old habits, but a recalibration. Just when you think they’re settling in, they kick the walls out instead. At the centre of this particular storm is Ryo Okumoto, whose fingerprints are all over the album - not just as a performer, but as a driving creative force. Teaming up with co-writer Michael Whiteman (I Am the Manic Whale) & longstanding bandmembers Alan Morse & Ted Leonard, Ryo has helped shape an album that is undeniably Spock’s Beard with a characteristic wry smile to boot. The album was produced by Okumoto & recorded at each band member’s respective home studios. Esteemed producer Rich Mouser (Dream Theater/Weezer) takes up the mixing & mastering duties. Over more than 30 years, Spock’s Beard have established themselves as one of modern progressive music’s most exciting & consistent acts, with live shows as renowned as their studio work & tours that draw sold-out audiences across the globe. Their albums regularly chart worldwide, with 2018’s Noise Floor reaching #3 on the UK Official Rock & Metal Chart & #6 on the Official Progressive Albums Chart.

If people were unaware of the significance of Joan Baez to western culture, her portrayal in the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown (played by Monica Barbaro) underlines how central she was to the popularization of folk music in the early 1960s. And it is her decade- previous relationship with Dylan that hovers joyously over Diamonds & Rust. The title track is about a thinly disguised ex-lover who calls up out of the blue; it remains one of her most loved songs in a 65- year- career.

There's a playful cover of "Simple Twist Of Fate" from Dylan's then just released Blood On The Tracks, complete with impersonation in a later verse; and "Winds Of The Old Days", written in response to Dylan touring again after a lengthy hiatus. Diamonds & Rust is a perfect, sunshine- drenched album of west- coast folk- tinged rock, full of star session players. It could almost have been a signal to all the recent comers on her patch many of them friends and colleagues, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Maria Muldaur that Baez was here first and was sweetly reasserting her authority. Just listen to her mastery on "Children & All That Jazz", her cover of Stevie Wonder's "Never Thought You'd Leave In Summer" and the poignant closing medley of "I Dream Of Jeannie/Danny Boy".

At this point in human history, we've all heard about this calculation: if planet Earth were to enter a black hole, it should shrink to the size of a ping-pong ball but retain the same mass.
Singularity AI usually rides the waves of acid music. Here, he's delivering a pop anthem born in the night. If a single by Lexi once claimed that dreams are the shadow of something real (quoting the film ‘The Last Wave’), we could just as easily say that this one is the shadow of a dream. On the other side, AEK is giving voice to the melancholy of exhaustion in a calm and powerful introduction to their universe, a whole world contained in a small black circle with a hole in its centre and a light gravity.

Music and words: Singularity AI & Aek
Mixing: Mim, Mastering: Frederic Alstadt
Artwork: Emilie Wave, Benoit Lorent
Coproduced by a1000p

The Heinz Beauvaix project dates back to the mid-1990’s when Niels Rønne and Flemming Kaspersen played in Danish ambient act Swimwear Catalogue. On an ever growing number of DAT tapes they recorded semi-improvised synth/sampler/sequencer jams that mixed influences from ambient, electro and industrial. Later they began working with more detailed studio productions.

The seven tracks on “Vision Man” combine complex synth pads, interweaving monophonic synth lines, discrete drum rhythms, and strange voice samples. The sound is experimental and melodic at the same time. Influences range from early industrial to IDM, techno and synth pop. Rønne and Kaspersen originally met through a shared obsession with Canadian industrial giants Skinny Puppy. And if there is one seminal album that has influenced the Heinz Beauvaix sound, it is the obscure Skinny Puppy side project Doubting Thomas and their solitary album “The Infidel”, released in 1990.

Others have mentioned influences from bands such as Coil, Severed Heads, Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber’s Delerium and Future Sound Of London.

“Vision Man” is old school synthesizer music with tunes you can hum.

2025 Repress

“UR wonders” What happens to jazz if combined with the current electronic sound tools used to make Detroit techno now?
What might Jazz sound like if the inspirational pioneers of fusion ie; Return to Forever, Astral Pirates or Weather Report had access to the music production technology available now or in the future?
The artform called Jazz was a unique reflection of “The African American experience here in the United States.Unfortunately by the 90″s it had been compromised by major record companies and made “smoother” for mainstream consumption and more profits.
Born in America’s rural black south Rock & Roll had suffered the same fate years earlier. Original artists eventually replaced by well studied clones and corporate mega profits!! Also happening the original artform of jazz appeared to be caught, processed & throughly EXPLAINED by people who sought to intellectualize “struggle & human emotion” into mere words and then benefit immensely financially by being authorities on the subject.
Hmm sound familiar?

As you watch the current intellectual colonization of the urban inner city African American art forms house music, hip-hop, Jungle & Detroit techno get studied, bent, twisted renamed and turned into EDM profit formulas.

There stands records like Nation 2 Nation that defy these definitions and inspire the next generation of Pioneers who continue the undefined exploration of Jazz like Derek Jamerson, Jon Dixon, Raphael Merriweathers, Desean Jones, Timeline, Galaxy 2 Galaxy, Raphael Statin & Ian Finkelstein. Mother to daughter, Father to son,

Nation 2 Nation a work inspired and that inspired what’s next.

Something is brewing in the state of Norway! Kronstad 23 are the latest trailblazers from northern Scandinavia: a creative force exploring the boundaries of musical genres, including but not limited to: psych rock, jazz, post-rock & scandinavian folk music. The group of young players follows the footsteps of Motorpsycho, Elephant9 & El Paraiso’s own Lotus, Fra Det Onde & Kanaan, carving out their path through the musical landscape in seemingly effortless ways! One minute you’re floating on cosmic Pharoah Sanders waters, the next you’re ascending on electrified if-Tortoise-played-Allman Brothers-style jamming.


The band describes their approach as: “Sommermørket is an escape from inhumane technology and politics in search of something that feels authentic. The music breathes in the little that is left of old air and rises slowly into the hazy summer twilight like brittle thoughts that try to connect and fade away.”


Kronstad 23 was formed in Kronstad, Bergen, Norway in the Autumn of 2023. As old friends and musical collaborators, they rekindled a creative spark that had been dormant for over 10 years. Rarely rehearsed and often caught on first take, Sommermørket was recorded live on tape in the studio of Keyboardist Øyvind Vie Berg in Bergen, Norway. The record captures three sessions across one year, from spring and late summer in 2024 to winter of 2025.

For Marcela Dias Sindaco’s third release on the Oklahoma City label Fixed Rhythms, she delivers a full-length 2xLP of her characteristically magical electro. These songs were recorded in various studios across Brazil, capturing the intangibles of Brazilian city life. You can hear her influences (Detroit techno, kosmische synth travel, electro, etc.), but she distills it all yet again into something completely her own. Whenever you listen to her music, you know it’s her. Hypnotizing electro made on warm machines with her sung/spoken Portuguese woven enchantedly throughout…truly sublime listening. This is a 16 track groove journey that will make you a Marcela fan if you aren’t already one.

The two black 12 “s come housed in a beautiful jacket that offers you a glimpse into Marcela’s world. The background of the artwork on the backside features a wallpaper design that you may find in an old home in Brazil. Inside is an insert written by Italian curator and philosopher Massimo Torrigiani. Only 300 copies pressed…don’t sleep on this one.

Hailing from the southwest of France, The Deweys is a flexible trio, evolving through encounters and invitations. Influenced by American folk, blues, and country music, the group has built its own identity and etched the names of its heroes, from Johnny Cash to Nick Cave, from Calexico to R.L. Burnside. On Windwalker, The Deweys have expanded the cinematic side of their universe by inviting a string quartet and a percussionist to form a temporary orchestra, The Black Cat Orchestra, dedicated entirely to the album"s songs. The result is a unique atmosphere, with an opening that pays homage to Ennio Morricone (El Camino Del Rey) and a conclusion that feels like something straight out of a musical (the duet The Gaslamp Memories). In between, you"ll find minimalist folk, psychedelic, Floydian blues, or a heartbreaking ballad... If you needed a soundtrack for a journey, inner or otherwise, Windwalker would be the right companion.

An enthralling weave of cathartic, introspective spirituality and thrumming, industrial darkness; The Wounded Healer is the first full-length from PREYRS, the new incarnation of Irish singer-songwriter Amy Montgomery and her band as one formidable entity. From the fourpiece's new janiform name; a twisting, conflicting play on the tenderness and innocence of prayer and the deadly dance of prey and predator to the band's fiercely independent journey, PREYRS is a project already steeped in story. After breathtaking album opener `Humble Eyes', lead single `Wave of Wisdom' immediately lays this concept bare as Amy's incandescent delivery of uncertainty, "lesson learned / don't know how / but here I am again / stronger than before", soars over a defiantly discordant clash of alt-folk slide guitar and Mormecha's pummeling industrial percussion. Elsewhere, the high-octane `Zeros, Ones & Lies' wrestles with the spiritual toll of being fed constant footage of atrocity and catastrophe by a media that accepts no responsibility for their part in the global race to the bottom. As such, the track bursts into furious life with urgent, double-time drums met by guitars distorted to the brink of destruction before the song all but caves in on itself as Amy quietly asks of us "Can you feel it? / like a river / it flows so silently / it flows so violently". By contrast, `Bring Ur Bruises' radiates resplendent, self-empowering positivity. Centred once again on the concept of the wounded healer, `Bring Ur Bruises' implores the listener to welcome their trauma in, to own it and wear it as a paradoxical means of ultimately letting it go as triumphant, reverb-soaked guitars soar ever higher. If it wasn't already clear, PREYRS are no strangers to doing things differently and, across every iteration, the band have always taken a DIY approach to every aspect of their existence. From covering themselves in paint and rolling over every single early album cover to, until recently, booking all of their own shows and festivals as diverse as Glastonbury, Green Man (UK), Blizzarrrd Rock (GER) and Bloodstock (UK), last year the band found themselves touring the UK as Amy Montgomery in support of musical heroes and British post-punk legends New Model Army. In November 2025 they will be joining New Model Army again on tour across Europe, but this time as PREYRS performing tracks from The Wounded Healer, the same four people but an entirely different beast. FOR FANS OF Nine Inch Nails, Chelsea Wolfe, Sonic Youth, Julie Christmas, Alanis Morissette, My Bloody Valentine, Siouxsie and The Banshees, Melvins

An enthralling weave of cathartic, introspective spirituality and thrumming, industrial darkness; The Wounded Healer is the first full-length from PREYRS, the new incarnation of Irish singer-songwriter Amy Montgomery and her band as one formidable entity. From the fourpiece's new janiform name; a twisting, conflicting play on the tenderness and innocence of prayer and the deadly dance of prey and predator to the band's fiercely independent journey, PREYRS is a project already steeped in story. After breathtaking album opener `Humble Eyes', lead single `Wave of Wisdom' immediately lays this concept bare as Amy's incandescent delivery of uncertainty, "lesson learned / don't know how / but here I am again / stronger than before", soars over a defiantly discordant clash of alt-folk slide guitar and Mormecha's pummeling industrial percussion. Elsewhere, the high-octane `Zeros, Ones & Lies' wrestles with the spiritual toll of being fed constant footage of atrocity and catastrophe by a media that accepts no responsibility for their part in the global race to the bottom. As such, the track bursts into furious life with urgent, double-time drums met by guitars distorted to the brink of destruction before the song all but caves in on itself as Amy quietly asks of us "Can you feel it? / like a river / it flows so silently / it flows so violently". By contrast, `Bring Ur Bruises' radiates resplendent, self-empowering positivity. Centred once again on the concept of the wounded healer, `Bring Ur Bruises' implores the listener to welcome their trauma in, to own it and wear it as a paradoxical means of ultimately letting it go as triumphant, reverb-soaked guitars soar ever higher. If it wasn't already clear, PREYRS are no strangers to doing things differently and, across every iteration, the band have always taken a DIY approach to every aspect of their existence. From covering themselves in paint and rolling over every single early album cover to, until recently, booking all of their own shows and festivals as diverse as Glastonbury, Green Man (UK), Blizzarrrd Rock (GER) and Bloodstock (UK), last year the band found themselves touring the UK as Amy Montgomery in support of musical heroes and British post-punk legends New Model Army. In November 2025 they will be joining New Model Army again on tour across Europe, but this time as PREYRS performing tracks from The Wounded Healer, the same four people but an entirely different beast. FOR FANS OF Nine Inch Nails, Chelsea Wolfe, Sonic Youth, Julie Christmas, Alanis Morissette, My Bloody Valentine, Siouxsie and The Banshees, Melvins

NOW Music proudly presents the next release in our “NOW That’s What I Call An Era” series – NOW That's What I Call An Era - Disco: 1973-1980 – a dazzling celebration of the golden age of disco.



This stunning 3LP set, pressed on blue, violet and pink vinyl, showcases 48 essential tracks that lit up the dancefloors, charts, and airwaves at the height of disco fever — an era when glittering anthems, euphoric grooves, and iconic vocal performances defined nightlife around the world.



LP1 opens in iconic style with Chic’s monumental ‘Le Freak’ followed by Sister Sledge’s equally legendary ‘We Are Family’, and Gloria Gaynor’s empowering #1 ‘I Will Survive’. Anthems follow from Sylvester with ‘You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)’ and Chaka Khan with ‘I’m Every Woman’, ahead of the timeless ‘Young Hearts Run Free’ by Candi Staton and the first side finishes with production by Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards on massive hits for Diana Ross with ‘Upside Down’, and Sheila & B. Devotion with ‘Spacer’. Flip the LP over for Amii Stewart’s version of ‘Knock On Wood’ followed by The Three Degrees, Eruption and the first smash from Boney M., ‘Daddy Cool’. The Village People topped the chart with ‘YMCA’ which has become an enduring party favourite, which leads to the infectious ‘Let’s All Chant’ from the Michael Zager Band, Lipps Inc. with ‘Funkytown’ and to close the first LP, sci-fi disco from Dee D. Jackson with ‘Automatic Lover’.



LP2 begins with Donna Summer’s epic version of ‘MacArthur Park’, before Earth, Wind & Fire with The Emotions bring pure euphoria on ‘Boogie Wonderland’, and McFadden & Whitehead with the floor-filling ‘Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now’. Great vocals from Marvin Gaye and Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes come ahead of George McCrae’s ‘Rock Your Baby’, one of the collections’ earliest and inspirational moments. UK artist Tina Charles hit the top with ‘I Love To Love’, and Andrea True Connection complete the side with the ear-worm ‘More More More’ whilst over on the other side legends Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons hit dancefloor gold and the #1 spot with ‘December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)’, ahead of The Trammps with their era-defining ‘Disco Inferno’. A Taste Of Honey, Grace Jones and a second appearance from Diana Ross are up next – before the LP closes with an enduring classic, ‘Follow Me’ from Amanda Lear, Patrick Juvet’s ‘I Love America’, and Frantique with ‘Strut Your Funky Stuff’.



LP3 bursts to life with the international smash and UK #1, ‘Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’ from Baccara, before a huge hit cover from Belle Epoque with ‘Black Is Black’. Next; Alicia Bridges, Rose Royce and UK chart toppers The Real Thing, ahead of funk-infused disco brilliance from Kool & The Gang and Barry White – whilst the side closer is Yvonne Elliman’s ‘If I Can’t Have You’, from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and over on the final side there’s a stellar run of Disco nuggets: kicking off with Elton John’s irresistible ‘Are You Ready For Love’, originally released in 1979 and a #1 in 2003 along with ‘Boogie Nights’ from Heatwave, The Emotions with ‘Best Of My Love’, and LaBelle’s influential ‘Lady Marmalade’. The anthemic ‘Got To Be Real’ from Cheryl Lynn is next ahead of the trio of closing tracks: Odyssey with the sublime ‘Native New Yorker’, Thelma Houston’s Grammy-winning ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’, and fittingly, Donna Summer’s iconic ‘Last Dance’, ending the collection in perfect style.



An unforgettable journey through the songs that defined the dancefloor: NOW That’s What I Call An Era – Disco: 1973-1980 — the definitive celebration of disco’s golden age.

Noumen returns to Central Processing Unit after a six-year absence with Altum. This bumper record, the Ukrainian artist's fourth release for the Sheffield label and first since 2019 double-LPObscurium, serves to remind us all why Noumen's music has been lauded by the likes of Mixmag and Resident Advisor in the past.Altumis a consummate piece of contemporary electronic production, a technoid exploration of outer-edges electronica that nods to genre greats like Autechre while still maintaining its own unconventional charm.

Across well over an hour of music here we find Noumen repeatedly playing punchy mid-tempo beat work off of some more cerebral tuned synths.Altumkicks off with the epic 'Oion' - beginning in that Autechre/AFX mid-tempo zone, full of deep-sea bangs and whirrs, the track slowly builds to a final stretch of delay-drenched keys which set us free amidst the outer cosmos, almost Sun Ra-style. It's a perfect liminal-space roller and an apt scene-setter forAltum.

'Oion' provides a blueprint for several of the album's other highlights - plenty of the joints here adopt that same approach of hitting hard with the drums and soft with the synths. Second track 'Splitter' takes on the baton from 'Oion' while souping up the kick to warehouse levels; the beats in 'Far Wind' splutter like a needle skipping on a mid-90s Tresor drop; 'Fate Carette', all eerie looped synth leads, is a highlight as the album enters the home straight.

The rhythm production (which, it should be noted, is exemplary throughoutAltum) is ratched up in intensity on a handful of numbers. 'Telemask' displays a delightful breakbeat - if you'd told me this was sampled from golden age A Tribe Called Quest, I'd have believed you. Mid-section anchors 'Awe' and 'Axis' are glitchers in the Mike Paradinas mould, with the latter showing off some pleasing steel pan-esque synth leads for good measure. And whileAltumgenerally maintains a processional pace throughout, there are points where Noumen toughens up the drums for club deployment - 'Unveilness' shows off a real chunkiness in the low end, closer 'Spurling Sign' plays a satisfying rolling groove off of ever-layering synths, and the title-track is an alien machine-funker in keeping with fellow CPU electronauts like Silicon Scally and Cygnus.

Noumen's third album for Central Processing Unit is a pleasingly hefty double-LP which builds on the zany invention of acts like Modeselektor and Autechre to delightful effect.

FFO: Autechre, Aphex Twin, Modeselektor, Bochum Welt, LFO

Big Thief will release their sixth studio album, Double Infinity, on 5 September 2025.

Double Infinity is the follow-up to 2022’s Grammy-nominated album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, recorded last winter at the Power Station, New York City. For three solid weeks, the trio would ride bicycles on frozen streets between Brooklyn and Manhattan, meeting in Power’s Station’s warm wood-panelled room. Together with a community of musicians (Alena Spanger, Caleb Michel, Hannah Cohen, Jon Nellen, Joshua Crumbly, June McDoom, Laraaji, Mikel Patrick Avery, Mikey Buishas) they would play for nine hours a day, tracking together – simultaneously – improvising arrangements and making collective discoveries. Double Infinity was produced, engineered and mixed by longtime Big Thief collaborator Dom Monks.

“How can beauty that is living be anything but true?” Adrianne asks as she drives nose against the future with childhood mementos on ‘Incomprehensible’. She understands, “everything I see from now on will be something new.” The silver hairs on her shoulders are new as well. Yet fear of aging is cracked by proof. If a life is shaped by living, “Let gravity be my sculptor, let the wind do my hair.” Being born, then staying a while, remains the greatest mystery. Adrianne claims her place and time. “Incomprehensible, let me be.”







g 7. Grandmother ft. Laraaji







g 7. Grandmother ft. Laraaji







g 7. Grandmother ft. Laraaji







g 7. Grandmother ft. Laraaji







g 7. Grandmother ft. Laraaji







[g] 7. Grandmother [ft. Laraaji]







[g] B2. Grandmother [ft. Laraaji]







[g] B2. Grandmother [ft. Laraaji]

2025 Repress!

Recorded in a remote cabin on the Devon coast, STILL OUT is an album-length collaboration between musician-filmmakers – and childhood friends – Will Cookson and Tom Haverly. A reflection on friendship, landscape and the passing of time, it inspired a road trip from North Yorkshire to North Devon they took together in the summer of 2024, and forms the soundtrack to a film of the same name which had its premiere screening as part of Stroud Film Festival in March 2025.

Like the film, STILL OUT is also an oblique homage to The KLF’s iconic 1990 album Chill Out, which the Gloucestershire-based pair revisited after it turned up unexpectedly a few years back in Tom’s dad’s record collection. Inspired to create their own recording using a similarly free-spirited process, Will and Tom relocated to the Devon coast in late summer 2023, splicing together a 40-minute mix from their personal archive of recordings and found sounds in a remote cabin with no electricity or mobile reception.

"It came together using cut-and-paste techniques, with ongoing shifts and tweaks,” says Will. “The final result was an audio collage that felt like something legendary hip hop producers The Bomb Squad might make - if ambient music was the only material in their sample library."

Using ‘ambient’ as a starting-point rather than an end in itself, they took inspiration from across the musical spectrum – classic-period Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Bill Evans, plus outliers such as 80s singer-songwriter Virginia Astley and the late DJ-producer Andrew Weatherall. The connections, though, are anything but obvious as the audio shifts seamlessly from field recordings and spoken-word interludes to mood pieces and snatches of vintage pop.

Edited and assembled using freely available open source programs, the source material was often radically altered using tools such as “PaulStretch”, a digital sound-morphing algorithm that allows users to stretch audio files to extreme lengths.

"When we found ourselves in a creative slump or unsure how to navigate a tricky part, we'd say, ‘Let's put some syrup on it and slow it down,’” says Tom. “That always helped us get back on track during late-night recording sessions at the cabin."

Part-soundtrack, part-meditative experiment, STILL OUT is intended as a reflection on the mental and emotional shift that occurs when stepping away from the routine of daily life – an album that forms a celebration of our ever-changing relationship to the world around us and the mystery of what it means to pass through time and space.

“The true follow up, 35 years later, to The KLF’s ‘Chill Out’”.
JD Twitch (Optimo).

An ambient journey reflecting on friendship, the British landscape - and The KLF’s landmark album Chill Out

"This record and film are just lovely. You need this in your life. Moo-Moo!” Balearic Mike (Down To The Sea & Back)

"The album is a perfect companion to the KLF classic, utilising the British countryside as the setting, occasionally reminding you that Mother Nature is not to be messed with.” Strictly Kev (DJ Food)

"A beautiful ambient journey into the landscape, taking the listener from reality to dream state and back again. A mystical realm full of mysterious chanting, rattling trains and sounds from the very depths of the earth."
Lally MacBeth & Matthew Shaw (Stone Club)

Epsilon Record Co is pleased to introduce its latest release ICE CREAM.

The two previously unissued tracks from 1978, recorded in Los Angeles, California, re-mastered by Steve Fuji.

Steve Fuji and I have collaborated on several projects including Paris Ford, The Kopestetics, Real Side, Taxie, Kenyatta, Henderson & Jones, Natural Impulse, Ray Williams & Prime Cut. He is a valued member of Epsilon Record Co and we are grateful for his assistance and expertise.

Several years ago Steve informed me that he had a master tape from a recording session he conducted in 1978 (he believes it was at Mystic Studio) from one of the original members and co-founders of Taxie, Charles Erwin Williams II, also known as ‘Ice Cream’.

The tape was in good condition and the original version of With Love You’ll Find A Peace Of Mind was 7 minutes 38 seconds. I asked Steve if it was possible to shorten it to approximately 3 minutes.

A few days later I received several versions re-mastered and re-mixed by him and we both agreed they sounded excellent.

We hope you will enjoy this as much as we do. It is a fantastic piece of unheard Californian soul music available exclusively on Epsilon Record Co.



The B side Seaside Vibe is a killer funky instrumental with an amazing production.

Heavyweight psychedelic improvisers EarthBall are back with their third and most monstrous record to date: ‘Outside Over There’, released on Upset The Rhythm (Nov 7th). Born from the haunted basements of Nanaimo, Canada, the quintet thrives on spontaneity, shaping improvisation into jagged hallucinations and ecstatic eruptions.
Recorded live-off-the-floor in 2024 in Jeremy, Izzy, and Kellen’s basement, and mixed by drummer John Brennan, ‘Outside Over There’ is an album that feels both summoned and inevitable. Each track lands with uncanny purpose, as if uncovered rather than written.
The opener, 100%, features a cameo from comedian and English icon Stewart Lee, who lent his blessing for the band to use a fragment of his stand-up. The album was mastered by John Dieterich (Deerhoof), with liner text contributed by longtime comrade John Olson (Wolf Eyes). Olson describes the album in his unmistakable style:
“This eight-track odyssey unfolds like a dreamscape, where whispered incantations brush against the shadowy fringes of the cosmos, and wild, Cézanne-inspired rock anthems erupt like geysers of color in the midst of a western warm and wet rain storm… culminating in the sprawling eleven minute masterpiece, ‘And The Music Shall Untune The Sky,’ aptly dubbed the Earth Crusher. A creation so utterly deconstructed and intertwined with the pulse of nature itself that if AI was called upon to conceive ‘Outside Over There’ anew, it would just spit back, “F.U. in Tree Font”. An enchanting invitation for even the flat-earthers to join the circle, if only just a little.”
EarthBall’s trajectory has been relentless. Their 2024 album ‘It’s Yours’ was praised by The Quietus as “fully aggressive and fully life-affirming,” and by The Wire as "a boisterous mind-melting album”. The band’s live double set LP ‘Actual Earth Music Vol. 1 & 2’ (2025) captured blistering performances: a performance opening for Wolf Eyes at the Fox Cabaret, and a Café OTO improvised throw-down featuring Chris Corsano and Steve Beresford. These releases on their own confirm them as one of Canada’s most vital experimental exports, not to mention the impressive self-released discography on their Bandcamp. The band’s reach has stretched far beyond their west coast roots with a UK tour May 2024, plus this past June, EarthBall closed Montreal’s Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival alongside Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon. This November they will perform at Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, with a European tour to follow (tour dates below). Outside of EarthBall, each member carries their own torch. Jeremy Van Wyck, founding member of the legendary Shearing Pinx, has toured extensively, released over 100 records, and has been a vital force in the Vancouver and West Coast underground for the past 25 years. He and Isabel Ford (Izzy) play together not only in EarthBall, but also in Psychedelic Dirt, Shearing Pinx, Behaviours, and Crotch.
John Brennan collaborates widely, including recently with Endlings (Raven Chacon and John Dieterich), Evichen (Victoria Shen), Francesco Fonassi, Plan Your Future (with Greg Saunier of Deerhoof), Brennan/Corsano duo and Physics with John Dieterich. Kellen Maclaughlin performs with KVMP and Ora Corgan, while saxophonist Liam Murphy is a west coast staple, playing with the best across Vancouver Island and the mainland. On three of the tracks of ‘Outside Over There’, the band is joined by their comrade Justin Patterson, who also plays with Brennan in the duo Modale. This cross-pollination fuels EarthBall’s sound - a collective improvisation, psychically overdriven, and grinding into bloom.
Outside Over There’ is more than an album though, it is a ritual, a gathering of sound at the forest’s edge; where feedback, saxophone screams, and ecstatic vocals dissolve the boundary between chaos and clarity. EarthBall invite you into their circle, to share in the joyful terror of spontaneous creation. ‘Outside Over There’ will be released on November 7th through Upset The Rhythm digitally and as a limited blue-in-black vinyl LP.