Revenge Techniques presents the vinyl reissue of TAFKAMP's magnum opus 'INDRUKKEN'. Originally released on cassette tape back in 2018, the album features some of the artist's deeper and dreamy productions to date, an exciting trip through the musical impressions of the artist mostly known as techno/rave producer 'Stranger'. TAFKAMP showcases a selection of music ranging from slow melancholic breakbeat to euphoric uptempo electro and everything in between.
Back on track with a fresh Depth Over Distance release. Jean Bressan delivering the goods with a remix full of filtered percussion by Voigtmann on the flip side.
Important: all records are uniquely different visual versions with a mix of colored, marbled and transparent vinyl, making each record 100% one of a kind.
Zero T returns to the imprint with his Irish soul brother Steo for their much anticipated joint EP on wax.
In collaboration with Myth, the lead track ‘Go’ will be opening sets for days with its long and soulfully energetic intro that crescendos into full dancefloor epicness.
Title track ‘Stop/Start’ draws in on classic jungle-inspired drum and bass edits, beautifully executed with timeless appeal.
Much-hyped French foursome Visages also feature with their techno-inspired rework of the duos much loved ‘Can’t Hide’ – an impressive first outing on the imprint with their signature hypnotizing grit and edge.
Mark your calendars now with August X as the official release of Zero T & Steo’s Stop/Start vinyl EP.
Exklusive Neuauflage des Entombed-Klassikers aus 2001! Hier nun die lang erwartete Wiederveröffentlichung des siebten Entombed Longplayers 'Morning Star'! Neu remastered von Magnus Lindberg (Hellacopters, Alcest, Cult of Luna, Imperial State Electric, Misery loves Co, Lucifer, Dool, Refused u.v.a.) in den Redmount Studios.
Musician and sound/video installation artist Steve Batespresents a solo ambient/noise album ofmelodic smear, radiostatic blur, panoramic noise clouds and dissolving tones. Made primarilyunder the self-imposed 'limitation' of a Casio SK-1, this is his first entirely solo full-length albumin almost a decade. All The Things That Happen showcases the more deliberate, intensive, noise-clustered side of Bates' wide-ranging sonic sensibilities and practices. An isolation record (like so many), itcombines an ineffable melancholy with claustrophobictension and simmering political rage.Powerfully composed from layers of glistening distortion-drenched melody, pulsing and droningoscillation, bursts of blown-out chords, sweeps of static and sheets of crackling hiss, Bates hasmade an impressively dynamic, ardent and iridescent noise album of real depth and underlyingdevastation."This was supposed to be an ambient record; quiet, minimal and sad. These tracks all startedoff that way but I kept reaching for more texture and noise. Somehow the noisier the record got,the less sad it was also. I was listening to, and loving, a lot of music by Andrew Chalk and I hadfinished a year-long run of listening to Eno's 1 and 4. I preferOn LandtoMusic for Airportsalthough I love both.On Landjust has a darkness and uncertainty that appeals to me. Addingmore noise also got me excited about ways this material could be played live even though italso felt like that could never happen again.In 2022, I opened for Godspeed You! BlackEmperor in Saskatoon to give it a try and waspleasantly pleased to hear it all live and loud."A fixture of Winnipeg's burgeoning punk and social justice community in the 80s-90s, Batesplayed in hardcore and indie rock bands (Pull My Daisy, Bulletproof Nothing) prior to foundingthe Send + Receivefestival in 1998. A crucial development in putting Winnipeg on the map foravant music and sound art, Bates helmed Send + Receive for seven years, then moved toTiohti:áke/Montréal, became Sound Coordinator at Hexagram (Concordia University), releasedsolowork on Oral and two albums with his Black Seas Ensemble on Dim Coast, and pursuedmyriad other ongoing audio research, installation and collaborative projects. Relocating toTreaty 6/Saskatoon the year before pandemic,All The Things That Happenis Bates' mostrecent purposive and purely 'recorded' work.Thanks for listening.
Purple Vinyl
Concentric Records present this special edition EP by the Berlin-based duo YHDESSA - composed of Dutch-Italian composer and poly- instrumentalist Grand River and Sardinian electronic music experimentalist Enrica Falqui.
Entitled Along The Simple Line, the 5-track EP is a unique sonic journey that merges in pure form the distinct worlds of the two composers, exposing a warm and delicate essence. Perfectly punctuated, and in a pace of its own, the album gently and precisely unfolds through touching musical spaces, dramatic textures, entrancing rhythms and unexpected vocal lines, revealing a wonderful depth. The result is so perfectly uniting as if woven by the same two hands.
Yhdessa is a collaborative project made up of Grand River and Enrica Falqui which was conceptualised in 2017 while the duo shared a music studio and were living as a couple in Berlin. Their first piece, released in 2018 on the label One Instrument Records, was named after the Vermona E-Piano and is composed entirely using the analogue synthesizer that was built in 1978. Following this came their lingering soundscape Waldorf Micro Q featured on the record “One Instrument Volume 01” as well as an impelling remix of Dunes by Jiska Huizing and Rudi Valdersnes.
Aimée Portioli is a Berlin-based Dutch-Italian composer and sound designer who records and performs as Grand River. The name Grand River evokes nature, scale, and movement, all key forces in Portioli’s work. Her first release as Grand River was the resolute 2017 Crescente EP, which includes Flies, a composition named by XLR8R as one of the best tracks of that year. She followed this with her melodious debut album Pineapple (Spazio Disponibile, 2018), which garnered praise from The Quietus, amongst others. The moving and dynamic subsequent album, Blink A Few Times To Clear Your Eyes (Editions Mego, 2020) was lauded by Resident Advisor and The Verge, and was elected among the best albums of 2020 by Inverted Audio. Separately, Grand River’s work has appeared on compilations by Ghostly International, Tresor, Longform Editions and has composed an official remix for Tangerine Dream.
Enrica Falqui is a Sardinian music producer and DJ currently based in Berlin. With artistic versatility as one of her defining traits: she comfortably traverses between the dimensions of electronic music. For over a decade she has dedicated herself to the study of sound and the relentless excavation of lesser-known music, which has earned her bookings all over the world and commissions for her productions from some of the most respected labels including Marignal Returns which released Plexus, a mini-album of cool, divergent compositions. Enrica is also part of the coveted duo, ERIS, whose debut and sophomore EPs, Moments and Champions League, found their home on the illustrious Cabaret Recordings. The releases entwine the forceful with the ethereal and create an original, future-facing and club-orientated sound. Moloko, a drum-focussed track laced with weaving synths, was considered by Resident Advisor as one of the best tracks of 2019.
Aimée and Enrica’s musical union through Yhdessa, is one of colour and warmth. It expresses an experimental electro-ambient side of the two composers, to form a style that is meditative, other-worldly and at times introspective. Although, the two are now, no longer romantically engaged, they maintain a passionate friendship to match this profound musical partnership.
‘Amorpha’, a side-long shower of synthetic bells and bass, as
patterns interlock and repeat and the beat within the bar lines
shifts constantly, forms a new, latest miniature of infinity. You flip
it, and ‘Geomancy’ resets you, starting anew, with heavy drift and
drone leading into a space of shorter broken lines and Middle
Eastern tonalities, that roll back into ether again - new spaces, but
mysteriously consonant with the vibe.
‘Bajascillators’ arrives almost five years since their last official fulllength, 2017’s ‘Bajas Fresh’. In the eight years prior to ‘Bajas
Fresh’, Bitchin Bajas issued seven albums, plus cassettes, EPs,
singles… wave after wave of analogue synth tones and zones
extending into a stratospheric arc. Each release its own
headspace, shape and timbre, each one sliding naturally into their
implacable, eternal gene pool.
Following the flow, always, the Bajas went ever-deeper-and-higher
on these records, whether making soundtracks or collaborating
with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, using only fortune cookie fortunes as a
libretto. Plus engagement, with a steady stream of shows and
tours around the world; live re-airings and expansions of the space
captured in their records as they continued to grow and flow - all
the way through, really, to the present moment.
Plus, there have been releases since 2017 - a split 12”, a 7”
single, digital track release and two ‘Cuts’ cassettes, plus the allcovers cassette release ‘Switched On Ra’. But the overall number
of releases, plus the five years between long players, implies a
potential distance between phases, a new line in the sand. The
sound of Bajascillators bear this out. How couldn’t it? Compared to
2017, this is a different world.
Mastered directly from half-inch analogue tape, ‘Bajascillators’
floats transparently from the speakers, its expansive grooves
gathering resonance and building momentum over the four sides,
from genesis to re-conclusion, cascading ecstatically. The elastic
magic of time at its brightest. As the world keeps turning, so too do
Bitchin Bajas, in the same unknowable way. You can’t explain it -
just keep turning.
COLD GAWD ist der Name, unter dem der in Kalifornien lebende Multiinstrumentalist Matt Wainwright stürmische, verletzliche Shoegaze-Musik mit offenen Stimmungen und R&B-Melodien kreiert. Inspiriert von diesen Klängen, präsentieren COLD GAWD eine verfeinerte, modernisierte Version des Genres. Das insgesamt zweite Album der Band, "God Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here", nahm im Winter 2020 Gestalt an, während Wainwright lange Solo-Schichten in einem Coffee Shop in Chicago arbeitete. Angetrieben von dem Traum, in seine Heimatstadt Rancho Cucamonga zurückzukehren und alte Freunde aus früheren Hardcore-Bands wiederzutreffen, verkroch sich Wainwright mit seiner begehrten rosa Jazzmaster, einer Reihe von Effektpedalen und einem Laptop und schrieb das gesamte Album in einem Monat. Im März 2021 zog er zurück in den Westen ins Inland Empire, wo er bei Gabe Largaespada im Open Ocean Sessions zum Aufnehmen und Abmischen buchte. Obwohl er jedes Instrument selbst einspielte, haben die Ergebnisse das lebendige Gefühl einer geübten Live-Band (was COLD GAWD jetzt sind, da sie zu einer sechsköpfigen Band angewachsen sind). Kaskadenartige Gitarrenwände wirbeln, wallen und plätschern, umrahmt von versunkenen Rhythmen und Wainwrights entfernter, geschlagener Stimme, die in violetten Dunst gehüllt ist. Wainwright nennt die thematischen Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen Shoegaze und R&B als zentrale Muse, die beide obsessiv auf Liebe, Lust und Sehnsucht fixiert sind, in abwechselnd grandiosen und molligen Formen. Textlich schwankt das Album zwischen schräg und verzweifelt, sehnsüchtig und resigniert - mit Ausnahme von "Comfort Thug", einem grüblerischen, größtenteils improvisierten Spoken-Word-Stück, das durch den bemerkenswerten Mangel an schwarzen Musikern im Shoegaze inspiriert wurde. COLD GAWD ist hier, um das zu ändern. "God Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here" kanalisiert Unwohlsein und Melancholie in hauchdünne, energiegeladene Hymnen über Flucht, Veränderung und Introspektion. Das erdrückende Schlussstück "Passing Through The Opposite Of What It Approaches" wabert und schwebt wie drohende Gewitterwolken, unter denen Wainright singt (und sein Bandkollege Arturo Ramirez schreit), was einem Mission Statement so nahe kommt, wie es das Album bietet: "leave what you know / and get grown / everyday / remember / why you left".
COLD GAWD ist der Name, unter dem der in Kalifornien lebende Multiinstrumentalist Matt Wainwright stürmische, verletzliche Shoegaze-Musik mit offenen Stimmungen und R&B-Melodien kreiert. Inspiriert von diesen Klängen, präsentieren COLD GAWD eine verfeinerte, modernisierte Version des Genres. Das insgesamt zweite Album der Band, "God Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here", nahm im Winter 2020 Gestalt an, während Wainwright lange Solo-Schichten in einem Coffee Shop in Chicago arbeitete. Angetrieben von dem Traum, in seine Heimatstadt Rancho Cucamonga zurückzukehren und alte Freunde aus früheren Hardcore-Bands wiederzutreffen, verkroch sich Wainwright mit seiner begehrten rosa Jazzmaster, einer Reihe von Effektpedalen und einem Laptop und schrieb das gesamte Album in einem Monat. Im März 2021 zog er zurück in den Westen ins Inland Empire, wo er bei Gabe Largaespada im Open Ocean Sessions zum Aufnehmen und Abmischen buchte. Obwohl er jedes Instrument selbst einspielte, haben die Ergebnisse das lebendige Gefühl einer geübten Live-Band (was COLD GAWD jetzt sind, da sie zu einer sechsköpfigen Band angewachsen sind). Kaskadenartige Gitarrenwände wirbeln, wallen und plätschern, umrahmt von versunkenen Rhythmen und Wainwrights entfernter, geschlagener Stimme, die in violetten Dunst gehüllt ist. Wainwright nennt die thematischen Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen Shoegaze und R&B als zentrale Muse, die beide obsessiv auf Liebe, Lust und Sehnsucht fixiert sind, in abwechselnd grandiosen und molligen Formen. Textlich schwankt das Album zwischen schräg und verzweifelt, sehnsüchtig und resigniert - mit Ausnahme von "Comfort Thug", einem grüblerischen, größtenteils improvisierten Spoken-Word-Stück, das durch den bemerkenswerten Mangel an schwarzen Musikern im Shoegaze inspiriert wurde. COLD GAWD ist hier, um das zu ändern. "God Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here" kanalisiert Unwohlsein und Melancholie in hauchdünne, energiegeladene Hymnen über Flucht, Veränderung und Introspektion. Das erdrückende Schlussstück "Passing Through The Opposite Of What It Approaches" wabert und schwebt wie drohende Gewitterwolken, unter denen Wainright singt (und sein Bandkollege Arturo Ramirez schreit), was einem Mission Statement so nahe kommt, wie es das Album bietet: "leave what you know / and get grown / everyday / remember / why you left".
Divino Niño are no strangers to bold reinvention. When Camilo Medina and Javier Forero_friends whose bond dates back to their childhoods in Bogotá, Colombia_moved to Chicago and recruited guitarist Guillermo Rodriguez to form a band, they were psych-pop outsiders playing live shows with a drum machine. With the addition of drummer Pierce Codina, their 2019 breakthrough and debut LP for Winspear, Foam, solidified their place as local indie rock mainstays. Soon after, multi-instrumentalist Justin Vittori joined to round out their lineup. Once again, with their masterful, unpredictable, and eminently danceable new album, the band has done something radical: They totally upended the way they write songs, eschewing practice room jams for unrelentingly collaborative beats, implied grooves for immersive dance floor heaters, and mellow vibes for frenetic doses of reggaeton, electropop, and trap on their most adventurous and ambitious work to date. Welcome to the Last Spa on Earth. Written and recorded over the past two years, Last Spa on Earth deals in release and catharsis: confronting your darkest moments and coming out better for it. The album artwork, done by Medina, a longstanding visual artist, depicts a dreamy, yet graffiti-tagged spa, void of physical bodies so listeners can envision themselves in this unique environment. It represents the yin and yang approach Divino Niño took while creating the album: the serenity of the spa and the chaos of the party. Ultimately, the band's desire is to provide healing in the same way one feels after sweating, shivering, stretching, and resting at the spa against the backdrop of the world's darkness. Last Spa on Earth is the cathartic product of Divino Niño letting go of their musical preconceptions, past traumas, and future anxieties to embrace change, chaos, and each other's contributions both to these songs and to each other.
Divino Niño are no strangers to bold reinvention. When Camilo Medina and Javier Forero_friends whose bond dates back to their childhoods in Bogotá, Colombia_moved to Chicago and recruited guitarist Guillermo Rodriguez to form a band, they were psych-pop outsiders playing live shows with a drum machine. With the addition of drummer Pierce Codina, their 2019 breakthrough and debut LP for Winspear, Foam, solidified their place as local indie rock mainstays. Soon after, multi-instrumentalist Justin Vittori joined to round out their lineup. Once again, with their masterful, unpredictable, and eminently danceable new album, the band has done something radical: They totally upended the way they write songs, eschewing practice room jams for unrelentingly collaborative beats, implied grooves for immersive dance floor heaters, and mellow vibes for frenetic doses of reggaeton, electropop, and trap on their most adventurous and ambitious work to date. Welcome to the Last Spa on Earth. Written and recorded over the past two years, Last Spa on Earth deals in release and catharsis: confronting your darkest moments and coming out better for it. The album artwork, done by Medina, a longstanding visual artist, depicts a dreamy, yet graffiti-tagged spa, void of physical bodies so listeners can envision themselves in this unique environment. It represents the yin and yang approach Divino Niño took while creating the album: the serenity of the spa and the chaos of the party. Ultimately, the band's desire is to provide healing in the same way one feels after sweating, shivering, stretching, and resting at the spa against the backdrop of the world's darkness. Last Spa on Earth is the cathartic product of Divino Niño letting go of their musical preconceptions, past traumas, and future anxieties to embrace change, chaos, and each other's contributions both to these songs and to each other.
Divino Niño are no strangers to bold reinvention. When Camilo Medina and Javier Forero_friends whose bond dates back to their childhoods in Bogotá, Colombia_moved to Chicago and recruited guitarist Guillermo Rodriguez to form a band, they were psych-pop outsiders playing live shows with a drum machine. With the addition of drummer Pierce Codina, their 2019 breakthrough and debut LP for Winspear, Foam, solidified their place as local indie rock mainstays. Soon after, multi-instrumentalist Justin Vittori joined to round out their lineup. Once again, with their masterful, unpredictable, and eminently danceable new album, the band has done something radical: They totally upended the way they write songs, eschewing practice room jams for unrelentingly collaborative beats, implied grooves for immersive dance floor heaters, and mellow vibes for frenetic doses of reggaeton, electropop, and trap on their most adventurous and ambitious work to date. Welcome to the Last Spa on Earth. Written and recorded over the past two years, Last Spa on Earth deals in release and catharsis: confronting your darkest moments and coming out better for it. The album artwork, done by Medina, a longstanding visual artist, depicts a dreamy, yet graffiti-tagged spa, void of physical bodies so listeners can envision themselves in this unique environment. It represents the yin and yang approach Divino Niño took while creating the album: the serenity of the spa and the chaos of the party. Ultimately, the band's desire is to provide healing in the same way one feels after sweating, shivering, stretching, and resting at the spa against the backdrop of the world's darkness. Last Spa on Earth is the cathartic product of Divino Niño letting go of their musical preconceptions, past traumas, and future anxieties to embrace change, chaos, and each other's contributions both to these songs and to each other.
Für das neue Young Jesus-Album öffnete Gründungsmitglied John Rossiter den Songwriting-Prozess für Zusammenarbeit und Improvisation. Das Werk entstand über Jahre hinweg nur mit MacBook, GarageBand und SM57-Mikrofon - aus gefundenen Sounds, Zufallsbegegnungen auf der Straße, weißem Rauschen und Songfetzen aus Sprachnotizen. Das Ergebnis ist der Sound eines Künstlers, der neue Orte aufsucht und sich dem Schmerz und der Angst des Lebens stellt. Der aus disparaten Elementen - gefundene Sounds, Gastauftritte von Freunden, diszipliniertes Songwriting - auf spannende, manchmal schockierende Weise etwas Einzig- und Neuartiges kreiert. 'Shepherd Head' ist ein Album der Heilung, der Akzeptanz von Schwäche, der Liebe, der Hoffnung.
With his Arjunamusic label and a growing catalog of category-defying releases, Samuel Rohrer
continues to quietly, yet confidently, make a name for himself as a genuinely unique figure within
the European electronic music realm. Over the past decade he has assembled a repertoire of
music that fills a sadly neglected gap in the modern musical landscape. That is to say, he has
made a number of “electronically”-aided works that never seem to make “electronic-ism” the main
selling point or raison d'être. Rohrer understands that we inhabit a networked media landscape
that no longer sees a novelty value in every synthetic or technological sound, and by realizing
this, he makes a music that fully engages with the present without completely disregarding the
exciting speculative sensibility that has allowed electronic music to solidify into a tradition. His
latest solo album, Hungry Ghosts, again shows the high quality of sonic design that can be
achieved by conceptualizing musical passages as living, breathing entities rather than as
signposts to some still distant reality.
Maybe more so than any of Rohrer’s solo records to date, Hungry Ghosts is the one that
most unambiguously displays the artist as a kind of inspired sound “cultivator” or landscaper
rather than just a straightforward “producer”. The emphasis here seems to be biological growth
processes rendered in musical form, and in fact some track titles namechecking the biodiversity
of the external world (“Slow Fox”, “Ctenophora”) and neurochemistry (“Serotonin”) lend some
additional credence to this interpretation.
As with previous outings, Rohrer starts with his skills as a genre-resistant percussionist
and builds from there, with dense clusters of drum hits and icy cymbal exclamations leading the
way into a wide-open atmosphere full of fragmented phrases, marked with strange reversals or
compressions of time. The percussive portions and other ambiences merge together in such a
way that the latter seems like a kind of shifting, holographic camouflage for the former; an effect
which makes for a greater than usual number of shifts in mood. Rohrer’s already established
ambiguity and mystery are the moods that permeate throughout, to be sure, but there are also
surprising moments of humorous whimsy (the flourishes of cartoon mischief and teasing silences
on the tracks “Human Regression” and “Bodylanguage”), reverence (the optimistic organ swells
and steady sequencer guiding “Ceremonism”), and meditative focus (the slow-motion spectral
waltz of “Treehouse”). Also notable here are very brief etudes, such as “Window Pain,” whose
dark, lush ebb and flow actually seem tailored to repeated or looped listening.
It’s particularly remarkable that almost all of this material is recorded solo and in a “live /
no overdubs” mode, given how much it feels like well-rehearsed ensemble playing, and given the
impeccable timing involved in continually exchanging the sounds at the very forefront of the mix.
And here we come full circle to the idea of “electronic music” mentioned at the beginning here:
instead of making us feel that we are in the presence of some fully-realized form brought back
from “the future,” Rohrer invites us instead to witness fascinating processes of transition and
mutation, and to value them for what they are now as much as for where they are headed.
"Whom The Moon A Nightsong Sings" ist eine Zusammenstellung von seltenem Wert. Auf zwei CDs und einer Gesamtspielzeit von über 100 Minuten sind hier Stücke sämtlicher Protagonisten sowie der vielversprechendsten Newcomer eines namenlosen Genres enthalten, das sich über die (überwiegend) akustische Vertonung von Naturszenarien und -impressionen bzw. in der Natur gespiegelten persönlichen Empfindungen definiert. Die Tatsache, dass fast alle enthaltenen Lieder exklusiv für diese Zusammenstellung geschrieben und aufgenommen wurden oder seltene, nicht mehr erhältliche Stücke sind, unterstreicht einmal mehr den außerordentlichen Charakter der Veröffentlichung. Besonders hervorzuheben ist hier mit Sicherheit der Beitrag Empyriums, die erste neue Aufnahme des Ensembles seit vier Jahren und der eindrucksvolle Beginn einer neuen Schaffensphase. Auch die Genre-Begründer Ulver sind mit einer äußerst seltenen Aufnahme aus dem Jahr 1997 vertreten: Ihr Lied 'Synen' war bislang nur auf einer Underground-Compilation in kleiner Auflage erhältlich und ist das wahrscheinlich am meisten gesuchte Lied der Norweger.
Temples is a tempting invitation into another world, full of light and movement. From the second the synth comes in this track has got us deep in its pocket. Shotter manages something that is hard to achieve - he has us floating completely, yet steadily carried by tip-toeing metallic rhythm elements and the relentless swells of bright synths. The game changer in the second half is a new, gritty bass quality, which couldn't roll in any more fiercely. At its fullest the track has us in an uncompromising trance, a relentless movement that we don't ever want to escape from. Breaking back down to pleasantly gentle hi-hat reverb-tails and inducing synth patterns Temples lets us down easy, with the unspoken promise to return.
Ueno claims the room to itself completely and immediately. The rise and fall of melodic synth lines lead us through a labyrinth at first, leaving plenty of space for imagination. Before we notice playful call-and-response rhythms are teasing our ears, until the track surrenders itself to an ever-growing wave of synth patterns and their behind-the-beat-delay. It climaxes into a haunting silence with tenuous high-pitched sounds and a clear outer space feel. Finally, all elements lock into a comforting groove, driving us forward, not too fast, not too slow - exactly right.
The track starts off with a blissfully nostalgic vintage-feel - slightly muffled, like the humbling quality you get from an old Technics playing your favourite LP. But don't be fooled, Cube March is bold. And unexpected. Stomping rhythms take over quickly and full-blown gritty synth-stabs cut the air effortlessly, like blades. An unapologetic and careless pumping bass line makes us want to move with every cell in our body. Shotter demonstrates his fearlessness in experimenting with heavy contrasts and elements from different genres here. A break with tastefully placed repetitive rhythm elements is complemented by the constant ebb and flow of melody lines. Both in volume and presence they fluctuate, one handing over the spotlight to the other seamlessly, keeping us hooked until the very end.
This remix lures you away from reality in a matter of seconds, with Definition's signature heavy hitting bass dominating. He expertly weaves shimmery fills into buoyant synth lines and brings us a skilful mix of dark minimal techno, breaks and infectious monster synth lines. Every so often, he adds a new layer, increasing the depth of the track, before letting it all crumble in a breakdown where time stops and tension grows, as we impatiently await the next rise to carry us away. The lengthy build-ups give this remix the energy to fill any room, easily. It is subtle, yet propulsive, too - a lane that Definition seems to manage regularly.
Tape
"Samples, movies and beats. That's the essence of Dead End's brand new LP titled Kino Vol.1. The Portuguese producer takes the chair and delivers a masterful performance that combines music and cinema. Kino Vol.1 is a multidisciplinary album built around samples picked from some of his most loved blockbusters and inspired by iconic movie clips. For the occasion, Saturate's Instagram profile has turned into a video gallery, featuring footage from cult movies and series such as The Office, Sicario, A Fistful Of Dollars, perfectly synched with Dead End's productions.
The album experience itself resembles that of a mini-series like Netflix's Love Death Robot or Oat Studios, where every episode is a story on its own, written and shot in a different way. The fourteen tracks, or episodes as I like to call them, range from heavy club to hip hop and halftime. Some are more colorful and atmospheric like the ending tripled composed by 'Cocoon,' 'Voyage' (feat Dj Ride) and 'Flowers Bloom'. These cuts seem to come off reflective and introspective movies. Others are way heavier, as they were made straight for fighting and chase scenes. In this group, you can count 'Melee Attack,' 'Though Break,' 'Stealth', 'Thin Ice'. My favorite instead are those which set up an ambiguous and sinister mood. 'Bullit Drift,' 'The Fog,' 'Shindeiru,' 'The Road,' all these episodes could fit very well in both mental thrillers (a la Nolan) and unconventional psycho/horror movies. They build a palpable tension that successfully keeps me on my toes as I expect a jump scare or a sudden plot twist to come in at every second given.
In conclusion, Dead Ends' Kino Vol.1 has the virtue of creating a listening experience that, thanks to its references to the world of cinema, becomes interactive and involves the listener in first person. It's impossible not to try to figure out from which films the samples are taken or to try to imagine which scene would be perfect for a specific track."
New edition on Opaque Cream Vinyl, (CLMN12044LPC3) is for Indies only. For Fans of: Menahan Street Band, The Budos Band, Antibalas, El Michels Affair. The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble are definitely on a roll coming off of their third LP, Build Bridges, which debuted at #1 on Billboard's Contemporary Jazz Chart. Their new and fourth LP, Step Down, is a direct reflection of the heavy times they were written and recorded in. Covid-19, two Presidential impeachment trials, the George Floyd murder and resulting social unrest, a seditious attempt to subvert the democratic process at The Capitol… With titles like Step Down, The Other Side, Time To Rebuild, Omnificent, Love Age, and In Common, SFSE uses their music to beautifully paint a picture of societal woes, but also points toward the solution and a better world. Heavy Cinematic Soul, spiritual Jazz-Funk, upbeat Afro-Funk, and deeply introspective rare-groove cuts lace this ten-track transmission vessel. SFSE is deeply defined by the sum of their influences, but always have their eye focused beyond the horizon as well. We think this album will capture your heart immediately, but also provide the depth for discovery upon repeated listens. SFSE have made a true statement here, and we are very proud to present Step Down to the world.
The Brussels based power trio Don Kapot has gained a lot of attention on the national and international music scene in recent years. Their raw and energetic in your face mix of punk, free jazz, afrobeat and other global sounds took them to stages all over Europe.
Their first two records were based on the unique combined sound of Viktor Perdieus' baritone saxophone, the raw and pumping electric bass of Giotis Damianidis and the powerful and creative drumming of Jakob Warmenbol. Recently, the band has been experimenting with incorporating other sounds and instruments into their repertoire. In anticipation of their new full album, they invited a number of musical friends to their rehearsal room at various times at the end of 2021 and recorded an improvised repertoire with them on the spot. One of those musicians is the multi-talented all-round musician and singer Fulco Ottervanger (known from FULCO, De Beren Gieren, BeraadGeslagen). The recording they made turned out to be so successful that they couldn't just let it pass.
In two twenty-minute suites, Don Kapot & Fulco Ottervanger take the listener on a haunting musical trip, in which numerous influences and genres are reviewed: Classical Indian music, blues, krautrock, free jazz, synth-pop, post-punk, ambient, ... you name it. The musical brilliance of these four extraordinary musicians reaches unprecedented heights.
The record, simply titled 'un peu live', will be officially released on the Belgian jazz not jazz label WERF records on September 23.
Melancholia is a made-up medical condition manifested in an incessant moment of reflection. The newest album is a soundtrack to different stages of it and the accompanying feelings. The extremes of those got illustrated by Wojtek Łebski who designed the graphic identity of the album.
"I wrote this music during the last 3 years which for me and to many others were the most bizarre time on the planet we live. Lots of dilemmas, problems, ups and downs, self-doubt and permanent anxiety I transformed into different frequencies of sound. From the very first song, you can hear my fascination with the bass and half-step music scene. Thanks to Mr Envee who mixed the album, it sounds exactly how I imagined - deep and worm. Welcome to the journey." - says the author.
Teielte is a very important person to U Know Me Records - his debut album was the first one in the history of the label. To honour the album properly, the "Melancholizm" was labelled with the number UKM 100 and it will be released exactly 12 years after the famous debut of Taielte's album "Homeworkz".
The album will be released in two versions - classic black LP and limited colour LP. What's special about the limited edition is that every copy is different and is numbered by hand (100 copies). Also, both versions have different covers designed by Wojtek Łebski
Basslines like a clumsy, exuberant puppy. A braid of guitar notes tickling your neck. The jittery buoyance of a marimba, so cartoonish you can picture its unblinking technicolor eyes. A snare that cracks like every friend knocking on your door at once. These are the fragmentary beats and visions that Josh Diamond and Eric Copeland spent the last two years exchanging, the magnetic, romantic, completely unashamed chunks stacked into the bubbling delight of "Riders on the Storm." These two are, yes, known for vastness, transcendence, and suffocation. Eric is a founding member of Black Dice, weaponizers of volume, misdirection, and alien language. Josh is a founding member of Gang Gang Dance, whose haunted, murky explorations drag listeners to infinite, irreversible revelations. Given these pedigrees, it's natural to anticipate their collaboration as an itchy, opaque monolith. Within the shit and terror of 2022 it's even understandable to yearn for something like that. But "Riders" with its light heart and wiggle and squirm is actually the record we need. "It's intentional," confirmed Josh of the record's lightness: "just wanting to make the opposite of what's going on outside." Eric reinforced this feeling of liberation and inversion, recalling the freedom of sharing unfinished ideas, of trusting Josh's creativity. "Nobody was vying for anything," he explained, "we were just trying to do it for each other." The completed exchange of sound unrolls like a laughter-filled conversation, Josh and Eric each banking on the other's improvements and re-configurations. The most remarkable thing about this trust, this generosity, is how their pair have managed to invite listeners into it, making everyone a part of this free-spirited dance. "Riders on the Storm" is the first full length collaboration between Josh Diamond and Eric Copeland, following their contribution to Mary Staubitz and Russ Waterhouse's 2020 `Distant Duos' project. It was recorded and mixed with the guidance of Ivan Berko (Hidden Fees, Ghost Exits). In addition to their work with Black Dice and Gang Gang Dance, Eric and Josh are both solo artists. Diamond released his debut solo album, "Seek Rips," in 2021. Copeland released his 16th solo album, "Spiral Stairs," in 2022.
This compilation presents for the first time various underground techno groups and projects that emerged in Lima in the mid-1980s. Projects such as Disidentes, Paisaje Electrónico, T de Cobre, Meine Katze Und Ich, El Sueño de Alí, Cuerpos del Deseo, Círculo Interior, Ensamble and Reacción. Disidentes and T de Cobre brought extreme sounds to local electronics, and which has made them an unavoidable reference for any historical account of techno and industrial music in Latin America. This compilation presents for the first time various underground techno groups and projects that emerged in Lima in the mid-1980s. Projects such as Disidentes, Paisaje Electrónico, T de Cobre, Meine Katze Und Ich, El Sueño de Alí, Cuerpos del Deseo, Círculo Interior, Ensamble and Reacción were responsible for introducing styles such as techno-pop, EBM, industrial and minimal synth in Peru. Coinciding with the explosion of punk in Lima and the appearance of the so-called Rock Subterráneo underground rock, these techno groups shared the same DIY spirit, performing in many punk concerts and even creating their own fanzines, and, above all, opening a space for other types of sonic experiences. Meine Katze Und Ich, El Sueño de Alí and Paisaje Electrónico were also the parallel projects of the members of Narcosis, the iconic punk band, one of the founders of Rock Subterráneo. Disidentes and T de Cobre brought extreme sounds to local electronics: viscerality, mechanical rhythms and the use of Casiotones or synthesizers, which resulted in an atypical sound that, in turn, portrayed a critical time in Peru, and which has made them an unavoidable reference for any historical account of techno and industrial music in Latin America. The title of this compilation is inspired by the name of a concert held in Lima in 1991, considered to be the first techno concert to have taken place in Peru. Even though not all intervening groups were doing techno at that time, they did share the fact that they all used keyboards. Four of them, however (Cuerpos del Deseo, Ensamble, Círculo Interior and Reacción), were in fact affiliated to an electronic sound (techno-pop, EBM). The concert was a sign of the diversification of musical styles in Lima's alternative scene, and in particular of the emergence of a micro scene, for which the concert Síntomas de techno [Symptoms of Techno] represented an important step towards the development of a local culture of electronic music during the 90s. Many of the recordings included here are extracted from demos with limited circulation, practically impossible to find. Other tracks are unpublished pieces which come from the private archives of the artists themselves. The compilation has been made by Luis Alvarado and is part of the Essential Sounds Collection, with which Buh Records is making available a vast archive of avant-garde Peruvian music. This compilation is published in vinyl format in a limited edition of 300 copies, with extensive information and visual documentation. Mastered by Alberto Cendra. Art by René Sánchez. Cover photography by Rogelio Martell. This project was awarded with funding from the Economic Stimuli program of the Peruvian Ministry of Culture.
Uruguayan music that sheds light on a new path, guarded by candombe & hip hop. An hypnotic, contemporary and ancestral record. To listen from beggining to end, in a trance. Include contributions of Hugo Fattoruso y Ruben Rada. Txt: Martín Buscaglia . DESCRIPTION Sankofa is the debut album by Avr (Alvaro Silva), a work that takes form through the research and fusion of Candombe and other Afro rhythms from Río de la Plata region with Hip Hop and Black American Music. Avr, the great-grandson of Juan Julio Arrascaeta (one of the first afrodescendant poets to be published in Latin America) writes throughout the album, using several "africanisms" and lost words that date back from colonial and slavery times, giving the lyrics a connection with his great-grandfather's work, introducing himself as a skilfull MC who travels through past, present and future while using several Candombe rhythms in his flow. Highlighting several personalities from the Afrouruguayan culture and from across the American continent, it also presents itself as a valuable work for those interested in researching cultural figures of Black America, especially, Uruguayan. Under the production of Felipe Fuentes, an album knitted with tons of messages, some direct, some to be discovered, came to life. Sankofa means "to look back, to go forward" which is exactly from the beggining what this musical journey is, from a very heavy and dense, ancestral, drum presence, to complex harmonic compositions and arrangments, a work that counts with important contributions of some of the main afrouruguayan artists. A musical "Guiso" (South American stew) Sankofa is the vision of the world of a young black male, his way of feeling and interpreting the past, present and future; and how to transform it in order to generate something new.
Marisa Anderson is one of the most eminent guitarists working today. Her lucid, eloquent approach to guitar music and composition has established her as an unparalleled artist and an insightful, coveted collaborator. Anderson"s work draws on a mosaic of folk musics and lives in conversation with myriad musical traditions. Her music is inviting and candid, beckoning the listener into sprawling ecosystems and intimate corners alike, from barren landscapes to verdant thickets, impassioned communal experiences to pensive reclusions. As a master of her instrument, Anderson translates abstractions into undeniably moving music, tracing through traditional folk tunes, imagined Sci-Fi films, and foggy sanctuaries of sound. Still, Here is Anderson at her most direct, laying bare her practice of processing and understanding the world through music and distilling that practice into pieces as expressive as they are transfixing. The pieces of Still, Here center around Anderson"s present. The album is a compendium of living moments captured by her preternatural ability to mold human realities into enduring, lyrical compositions. Away from the road for the longest stretch of her career, the making of Still, Here affirmed for Anderson the role of the guitar as an essential tool in processing external and internal realities. "I don"t get ideas and then turn to the guitar, rather I turn to the guitar to find out what my ideas are. I turn towards it for meaning." The discordance of protest and upheaval emanates from a propulsive acoustic ostinato and mournful dueling pedal steel guitars on "The Fire This Time," pausing only to allow space for the blare of sirens on the Portland street near Anderson"s studio. "The Crack Where the Light Gets In" rapturously revels in the glimmers of hope that peek through a pall of darkness. Across Still, Here, Anderson"s playing transmutes the tributaries of fluctuating emotions into a unified flow, stirring and sublime.
Marisa Anderson is one of the most eminent guitarists working today. Her lucid, eloquent approach to guitar music and composition has established her as an unparalleled artist and an insightful, coveted collaborator. Anderson"s work draws on a mosaic of folk musics and lives in conversation with myriad musical traditions. Her music is inviting and candid, beckoning the listener into sprawling ecosystems and intimate corners alike, from barren landscapes to verdant thickets, impassioned communal experiences to pensive reclusions. As a master of her instrument, Anderson translates abstractions into undeniably moving music, tracing through traditional folk tunes, imagined Sci-Fi films, and foggy sanctuaries of sound. Still, Here is Anderson at her most direct, laying bare her practice of processing and understanding the world through music and distilling that practice into pieces as expressive as they are transfixing. The pieces of Still, Here center around Anderson"s present. The album is a compendium of living moments captured by her preternatural ability to mold human realities into enduring, lyrical compositions. Away from the road for the longest stretch of her career, the making of Still, Here affirmed for Anderson the role of the guitar as an essential tool in processing external and internal realities. "I don"t get ideas and then turn to the guitar, rather I turn to the guitar to find out what my ideas are. I turn towards it for meaning." The discordance of protest and upheaval emanates from a propulsive acoustic ostinato and mournful dueling pedal steel guitars on "The Fire This Time," pausing only to allow space for the blare of sirens on the Portland street near Anderson"s studio. "The Crack Where the Light Gets In" rapturously revels in the glimmers of hope that peek through a pall of darkness. Across Still, Here, Anderson"s playing transmutes the tributaries of fluctuating emotions into a unified flow, stirring and sublime.
Juan Ibarra's jazz quintet blends hypnotic grooves, sonic landscapes and experimentalism with a cinematic touch. Jazz fusion and Avant-garde united with an unmistakable South American feel. Arco is inspired by an imaginary talk between Eduardo Mateo (Uruguayan Musician) and Thom Yorke (Radiohead) in a bar from deep Uruguay, while drinking cane and playing chess. The talk has its focus on the search for what is our "bow" to be able to launch our "arrow". At the same time they discuss calmly, while they think their movements, the different transformations they go through in life, what are the natural and which ones are necessary. The album seeks a sound between the electric guitar of Martín Ibarra and the acoustic guitar of Jeremías Di Pólito, imitating the voice with the trumpet of Juan Olivera supported by the improvised bases of Andrés Pigatto on double bass and Juan Ibarra on drums, thus opening a limbo to discover between the world Uruguayan folk and jazz.
The illustrious memotone debuts on Accidental Meetings, with a sublime & wonderful thirteen-track LP... Huge tip
The next installment for the AM imprint is headed up by the critically acclaimed artist, memotone. Following previous work for entities such as Black Acre, Disktopia & Termina. Not to mention supplying instrumentation for Batu's debut album, and scoring works for Palace Skateboards.
The multi-instrumentalist showcases his entire repertoire within Clever Dog, thirteen emotive and ambitious tracks traversing between back-alley jazz, low-slung experimental & blissful ambient oddities.
memotone's discography is vast, however, this release truly stands out as a masterpiece. Enough words - dive in.
Color Vinyl[22,23 €]
"Do you know SUCK?" "Yup, had to see them live!" That's about how the conversations go when you ask around in the punk-informed part of the circle of friends. At least in Berlin and the surrounding area, where for some the first musical contact took place in the Berghain Kantine in the support of Amyl and The Sniffers, for whose 2019 tour SUCK gave the support. No easy stand actually - and because they convinced there, the punk band from Kassel left a lasting impression. Which, in a text like this, inevitably leads to the question: Is it actually a curse or a blessing for the promotion of a debut album to be a fantastic live band? Instead of a far-reaching, finely chiseled, cultural journalistic answer, it is recommended at this point to simply turn up the opener "Rip It"
Black Vinyl[19,71 €]
"Do you know SUCK?" "Yup, had to see them live!" That's about how the conversations go when you ask around in the punk-informed part of the circle of friends. At least in Berlin and the surrounding area, where for some the first musical contact took place in the Berghain Kantine in the support of Amyl and The Sniffers, for whose 2019 tour SUCK gave the support. No easy stand actually - and because they convinced there, the punk band from Kassel left a lasting impression. Which, in a text like this, inevitably leads to the question: Is it actually a curse or a blessing for the promotion of a debut album to be a fantastic live band? Instead of a far-reaching, finely chiseled, cultural journalistic answer, it is recommended at this point to simply turn up the opener "Rip It"
"Here’s a star in the making, a brilliant instrumentalist, an inventive singer and an assured performer who can draw the audience into the palm of his hand"
Tim Cumming, The Arts Desk, January 2022
“…can’t think of one who radiates so much heart and joy as Abel Selaocoe... winningly combines his cello with throat singing, improvising, exhorting the audience to shout or clap, and treating his body as a percussion instrument."
Geoff Brown, The Times, August 2021
Glenn Fallows and Mark Treffel released their first album, ‘The Globeflower Master Vol. 1’, on Mr Bongo in September 2021. With its lush, warm and timeless productions paying homage to classic 60s and 70s soundtrack composers, it was very well received and struck a chord with the scene’s connoisseurs. Louder Than War emphatically stated, "It’s impossible not to like The Globeflower Masters Vol. 1.”, with Gigwise echoing that praise “slickly compelling retro vibes”.
The Globeflower Master Vol. 2 is the slightly edgier and more grown-up sequel to Mark and Glenn's 2021 debut album. For this excursion, the Brighton-based duo wanted to lean a little further into their European film soundtrack influences, with particular inspiration mined from the works of Stefano Torossi, David Shire, and Roger Webb. This expansion of their sound builds upon the rich tapestry of cinematic funk à la David Axelrod, Serge Gainsbourg and Morricone that fashioned Vol. 1. Here the arrangements, melodies, and harmonies have been refined; only what is needed is left. Pulled into its vortex for the ride. This record doesn’t pull any punches.
The recordings are drenched in visual imagery; they stimulate the senses and invite the imagination to roam. Ethereal, hazy memories of lost summers are triggered; the beauty of listening to music when driving along a deserted road in the Italian countryside lined with cypress trees heading towards the sun, and beyond. As the musical journey progresses, we even take a voyage to another planet. Whether these memories are real or constructed recollections of scenes from film and television, the tracks evoke a feeling of nostalgia and comfort. Like all the best music, 'The Globeflower Masters Vol. 2' takes us out of ourselves even if it's only temporarily.
To consolidate the shape of the sound, drummers Timmy Rickard and Ollie Boorman (who also featured on Vol. 1) and John Maiden (Tricky collaborator) sprinkled their magic and forged their stamps onto the recordings. Collaborating with other talented musicians contributed to the picture Mark and Glenn wanted to paint. The ‘Globeflower Master Vol. 2’ is a fitting tribute to the music they love and care deeply about and a glorious addition to their musical world.
"Seven years after the release of their last album “Eternal”, Stratovarius once more prove their status as symphonic metal flagship and come back with a big bang.
Not only musically the band is once more at the pulse of time. The environment and humanity’s future has always been an important and reoccurring theme in Stratovarius’ music and so the title of the new album “Survive” as well as the accompanying artwork doesn’t surprise - especially in the view of the current global situation.
The new album brings a total number of 11 brand new tracks"
"Seven years after the release of their last album “Eternal”, Stratovarius once more prove their status as symphonic metal flagship and come back with a big bang.
Not only musically the band is once more at the pulse of time. The environment and humanity’s future has always been an important and reoccurring theme in Stratovarius’ music and so the title of the new album “Survive” as well as the accompanying artwork doesn’t surprise - especially in the view of the current global situation.
The new album brings a total number of 11 brand new tracks"
"Seven years after the release of their last album “Eternal”, Stratovarius once more prove their status as symphonic metal flagship and come back with a big bang.
Not only musically the band is once more at the pulse of time. The environment and humanity’s future has always been an important and reoccurring theme in Stratovarius’ music and so the title of the new album “Survive” as well as the accompanying artwork doesn’t surprise - especially in the view of the current global situation.
The new album brings a total number of 11 brand new tracks"
Recycled Vinyl[39,03 €]
Blue Curacao Vinyl[39,03 €]
Violet Transparent Vinyl[39,03 €]
"Seven years after the release of their last album “Eternal”, Stratovarius once more prove their status as symphonic metal flagship and come back with a big bang.
Not only musically the band is once more at the pulse of time. The environment and humanity’s future has always been an important and reoccurring theme in Stratovarius’ music and so the title of the new album “Survive” as well as the accompanying artwork doesn’t surprise - especially in the view of the current global situation.
The new album brings a total number of 11 brand new tracks"
An’archives announce the release of Ricshari, the first LP from Japanese free improvising duo MAI MAO. Consisting of Shizuo Uchida of Hasegawa-Shizuo, Albedo Gravitas, Archeus, Kito Muzukumi Rouber, TERROR SHIT, UH, etc. on bass, and Kyosuke Terada, of HUH (who have their own release due on An’archives soon), TERROR SHIT, Bay City Rolaz, Praymate, The Obey Unit, etc. on guitar, they’ve previously released two wild cassettes, Curvature Improvement Plan (Haang Niap, 2020) and Folk Dope Rally (2021), both documenting one-take improvisations from live gigs. Ricshari was recorded by Nobuki Nishiyama in January 2021, and is proof, if any was needed, that this duo is one of the most fiercely unique, out -there units currently extant – in Japan, or anywhere, for that matter.
The music of MAI MAO seems to proceed by opposites and juxtaposition, shifting from frantic, hectic runs of splattering note spray to moments of granular stasis, where Uchida and Terada coax their instruments into and out of deep wells of silence, or rest, temporarily, in a lagoon of fermenting fuzz. Spiralling kinetics are largely the order of the day, though – the opener, “Chew a flying flash prayer”, skitters here and there, guitar and bass jumping over one another in games of leapfrog and Twis ter, finding new ways to perplex and puzzle the listener, and perhaps each other in the process, Uchida and Terada fully committed to the short -circuiting spirit of the moment.
The energy here is hyperactive, but it also speaks of a curious and committed attention to improvisatory responsiveness, one that’s just as likely to fork off into different directions in a split second – it’s real edge-of-the-seat stuff, as though the hands are moving too fast for the mind to follow. That’s all the better, then, to let the gush of genuinely free-thinking, devoted duo improvisation to fly at its most playful and intelligent. File next to the likes of Davey Williams & LaDonna Smith and their TransMuseq companions, or th e wickedly perplexing bass-synth/trombone duets of Dave Dove Paul Duo, and you’ve some idea of what’s going on here, provisionally at least, ‘cos this one’s an enthralling, yet welcoming, head-scratcher of the highest calibre.
M_Sessions - Rare Originals is offering a selection of Mania D., Malaria and Matador’s music for the 40th anniversary. Bringing the past into the now and into the future. The original core team of Beate Bartel, Bettina Köster, Manon P. Duursma and Gudrun Gut selected "Rare Originals" from the repertoire of the 3 bands where they saw special relevance and beauty. There are live tracks, living room recordings and demo versions from times long gone.
The project M_Sessions focuses on the All Female bands Mania D., Malaria! and Matador in the West Berlin music and art scene of the late 1970s and 1980s. The three bands around their members Beate Bartel, Bettina Köster and Gudrun Gut played concerts in different formations from 1979 on, released records and toured around the world. The self-determined appearance of the musicians was new, raised some eyebrows and was reflected both in the music and the lyrics, but also in their unique style and the genre-crossing approach of "more art in the music, more music in the art". To this day, the bands are considered visionary, they shaped a new image of women in pop culture and are pioneers and role models for the still important and necessary emancipatory movement in the music industry. Far beyond the borders of Berlin.
Jake Blount and his collaborators embody a group of Black climate refugees as
they perform a religious service, invoking spirituals that are age- old even now,
familiar in their content but extraordinary in their presentation. These songs,
which have seen Black Americans through countless struggles, bind this future
community together and their shared past; beauty and power held in song
through centuries of devastation, heartbreak, and loss.
Uncut Album of the Month - review and Q&A - out now
"'The New Faith' doesn't pretend to be a prophecy or some kind of survival
manual. It is, instead, a celebration of the inherent power of community and
music's ability to connect and resonate through the ages, created by someone
fast becoming one of the most important young voices in modern American Folk
Music." - Uncut
Songlines feature - considering for a cover
The Guardian feature
BBC Radio 2 Folk Show - interview
FRUK Artist of The Month
Known for her time as vocalist in Fairport Convention and respected
globally , Sandy Denny left a beguiling, ever-evolving body of work - Kate
Bush was to namecheck her in song, and Denny's influence can be heard
in generations of singer-songwriters
From its David Bailey cover photo inwards, 1972's Sandy is arguably the definitive
Sandy Denny album. Recorded at John Wood's Sound Techniques studio, and
produced by Trevor Lucas, it adds some special guests into its mix – 'Sneaky'
Pete Kleinow from The Flying Burrito Brothers enhances It'll Take A Long Time
with his unmistakable pedal steel playing, and New Orleans legend Allan
Toussaint adds a brass arrangement to For Nobody To Hear. But it is Denny's
album. Often, it is impossible not be stopped in your tracks by that beautiful, long
gone yet so-full-of-life voice, especially on two of her career-bests – The Lady and
Listen, Listen. Out of print on LP for a number of years, this re- issue faithfully
replicates the original 1972 Island Records UK release with gatefold sleeve and is
pressed onto high quality 180g vinyl.
Now available on vinyl, Heartmind is Cass McCombs' biggest album in
years, garnering the best reviews of his career to date
UNCUT ALBUM OF THE MONTH - "One of the most impressive bodies of work of
the century so far."
MOJO ALBUM OF THE MONTH - "On a mission to find out where the heart and
mind intersect.....there is real emotional impact here."
Songs like "Karaoke" are a god-level burst of powerpop perfection, as fetching as
anything Cass has ever cut: Cass triangulates a perch of his very own out among
The Go-Betweens, The dB's, and The Cure,and vibrates there, a beacon. And then,
of course, there is the song's playful if painful lyrical conceit — the lover who is
making all the sacred motions of commitment but whose feelings may be no
more deep or real than someone simply reading the lyrics for "Vision of Love" or
"Stand by Your Man" from some crowded bar's TV screen.
Cass recorded these songs in multiple sessions on both coasts, in Brooklyn and
Burbank. The great Shahzad Ismaily not only cut the staggering "Unproud
Warrior" and four others here but also played lots of bass. Buddy Ross tracked
"New Earth," a paean of post- humanity renewal with several sharp wisecracks.
Ariel Rechtshaid — now a dozen years into his collaboration with Cass, which
began with 2009's Catacombs—captured Cass' scintillating guitars on "Belong to
Heaven," a thoughtful consideration of what we all lose when we lose an old
friend to the inevitable end. The steadfast Rob Schnapf (who previously produced
McCombs' ANTI- debut, Mangy Love) mixed and merged it all. Wynonna Judd
(yes, that one) offers harmonies, while her beau Cactus Moser provides some lap
steel. Joe Russo, Kassa Overall, Danielle Haim, Nestor Gomez are featured on the
album, too.
Deluxe audiophile 2LP pressing of 'Bucharest 1994', the first joint
performance of Romanian-German jazz pianist Eugen Cicero and
Romanian bassist Decebal Badila, a congenial duo that worked together
successfully until Cicero's early death in 1997
Eugen Cicero - critics reverently called him the man with the "golden hands". For
over 30 years, his name stood for pianistic virtuosity, phenomenal sense of
rhythm and imaginative ingenuity. He masterfully connected works from the
Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods with sophisticated harmonic sequences
from jazz and an infectious rhythm - no one who had attempted such symbioses
before him achieved a similarly inspired and technically accomplished result.
With 'Bucharest 1994', In+Out Records now presents a very special live event by
this man who has created something unique in his mediation between classical
music and jazz standards. This is the first concert with exceptional bassist
Decebal Badila, which laid under lock and key for 28 years. Already at a young
age, Badila adored the music of his older compatriot and was already very
familiar with Cicero's repertoire before their first meeting, which can impressively
be heard on the recordings.
'Bucharest 1994' contains both entertaining, technically demanding and
documentarily indispensable material from the early work of a rising virtuoso
musician and the late work of an exceptional artist whom the jazz world lost far
too early.
Universally credited as the band that invented grindcore, it's no
exaggeration to say that Napalm Death are one of the most important
acts in metal history
Earache Records' third ever release (MOSH003), classic debut album 'Scum' had
an immediate, seismic impact in 1987 and its influence can still be felt far and
wide today. To celebrate its 35th anniversary, this essential album is repressed
with a limited-edition Blue colour sleeve. An absolute 'must have' for any heavy
metal collector. Pressed from the original master tapes, the album has been
specially recreated using 'fdr' – full dynamic range mastering - allowing the
music's nuances to shine through and giving the classic album a more ferocious
and dynamic sound, enabling the listener to immerse in the full audio heaviness
like never before.
LP Tracks: Multinational Corporations / Instinct of Survival / The Kill / Scum /
Caught in a Dream / Polluted Minds / Sacrificed / Siege of Power / Control / Born
On Your Knees / Human Garbage / You Suffer / Life? / Prison Without Walls /
Point of No Return / Negative Approach / Success? / Deceiver / C.S. / Parasites /
Pseudo Youth / Divine Death / As the Machine Rolls On / Common Enemy / Moral
Crusade / Stigmatized / M.A.D / Dragnet
Universally credited as the band that invented grindcore, it's no
exaggeration to say that Napalm Death are one of the most important
acts in metal history
Earache Records' third ever release (MOSH003), classic debut album 'Scum' had
an immediate, seismic impact in 1987 and its influence can still be felt far and
wide today. To celebrate its 35th anniversary, this essential album is repressed
with a limited-edition Blue colour sleeve. An absolute 'must have' for any heavy
metal collector. Pressed from the original master tapes, the album has been
specially recreated using 'fdr' – full dynamic range mastering - allowing the
music's nuances to shine through and giving the classic album a more ferocious
and dynamic sound, enabling the listener to immerse in the full audio heaviness
like never before.
LP Tracks: Multinational Corporations / Instinct of Survival / The Kill / Scum /
Caught in a Dream / Polluted Minds / Sacrificed / Siege of Power / Control / Born
On Your Knees / Human Garbage / You Suffer / Life? / Prison Without Walls /
Point of No Return / Negative Approach / Success? / Deceiver / C.S. / Parasites /
Pseudo Youth / Divine Death / As the Machine Rolls On / Common Enemy / Moral
Crusade / Stigmatized / M.A.D / Dragnet
Universally credited as the band that invented grindcore, it's no
exaggeration to say that Napalm Death are one of the most important
acts in metal history
Earache Records' third ever release (MOSH003), classic debut album 'Scum' had
an immediate, seismic impact in 1987 and its influence can still be felt far and
wide today. To celebrate its 35th anniversary, this essential album is repressed
with a limited-edition Blue colour sleeve. An absolute 'must have' for any heavy
metal collector. Pressed from the original master tapes, the album has been
specially recreated using 'fdr' – full dynamic range mastering - allowing the
music's nuances to shine through and giving the classic album a more ferocious
and dynamic sound, enabling the listener to immerse in the full audio heaviness
like never before.
LP Tracks: Multinational Corporations / Instinct of Survival / The Kill / Scum /
Caught in a Dream / Polluted Minds / Sacrificed / Siege of Power / Control / Born
On Your Knees / Human Garbage / You Suffer / Life? / Prison Without Walls /
Point of No Return / Negative Approach / Success? / Deceiver / C.S. / Parasites /
Pseudo Youth / Divine Death / As the Machine Rolls On / Common Enemy / Moral
Crusade / Stigmatized / M.A.D / Dragnet
Swoontide is being released on 12” Limited Edition x 500 sea green 180GSM colour vinyl this September. Cormorant Tree Oh announces the release of folk horror masterpiece, via Trapped Animal! “Marrying skeletal balalaika and disembodied samples with low-lying synth organ lines and a focal point here – Keane’s arresting vocals, it doubles as one of our favourite Irish tracks of the year thus far.” The Thin Air // Trapped Animal is very excited to announce we will be working with new visual and aural talent, Mary Keane aka Cormorant Tree Oh on her folk horror masterpiece that is Swoontide. The Cave, the first single from Swoontide dropped in June on digitals. Mary says on the track: “This song is a celebration of the form and symbolism of caves. They are portals to another realm, the site of our earliest artistic expression, places of transcendence, the hermit’s refuge. They are colossal gees in the landscape. They are where picnicking lovers go to make mischief on a summer’s day. The cave in question is located in Portrane Co.Dublin.” Swoontide is the distillation of several years of Mary Keane’s life, recorded on her laptop as and when a new song or idea would come along. Mary talks about her process: “I love to stitch in samples from nature as so many of my songs are inspired in some way by the natural world. I’m also drawn to more domestic sounds like my mother’s washing machine or water coming to the boil. I play some unusual instruments throughout the album including balalaika, theremin, psaltery and lots of improvised percussion including bread bins, biscuit tins, stones, and a spiral staircase.” Try taking a walk in the dark with this album, we dare you. Track Listing: 1 Thirty Deer Heads 2 Zip Issues 3 Sphere Of The Sensory 4 Pareidolia 5 Holiday Rigor Mortis 6 Pissing Stones 7 All Of It 8 The Cave 9 We Are Fruiting Bodies
This album records a mystic standoff between Shahzad Ismaily on drums and Niño Lento es Fuego on electric guitar, featuring hypnotic synth storms and spiritual beats brewed into a heavy healing trance. “It was like having that conversation that we never really had,” says Niño Lento es Fuego (a.k.a guitarist Camilo Rodriguez), “‘cause he’s shy, and me too.” Niño Lento and Shahzad Ismaily – multi-instrumentalist, producer and studio owner – have been circling each other for years. They are both legendary players and leaders in their own right who have built many musical worlds in Brooklyn. Ismaily records and performs with artists such as Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Laura Veirs, Sam Amidon, Ceramic Dog, Secret Chiefs 3, John Zorn, Will Oldham and Nels Cline. Rodriguez is a NY-based guitarist and percussionist who co-founded Combo Chimbita, M.A.K.U Soundsystem, Bulla en el Barrio, and Carolina Oliveros y la Nación along with fellow Colombians in New York. He also performs with La Cumbiamba eNeYé, where he first met Ismaily. On September 22, 2022, Figure & Ground releases Ahora Contra el Resto de los Tiempos, Vol. 1, an exploratory and improvisational project comprising six original tracks composed in real time by Shahzad Ali Ismaily (drums) and Niño Lento es Fuego (electric guitar). Produced, recorded and mixed by Lily Wen, the duo recorded guitar and drums live in the room at Figure 8 Recording.
Space is the place - at least, it's the place uppermost in the mind of midwest US label Past Inside The Present founder zake and his sonic partner Ossa - location given as the north pole according to his Twitter - as they embark on collaborative 10 tracks. The fact that that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration - NASA to you and me - has supplied them with celestial sound emissions for the tracks is a bonus. But ultimately, the real headline factor once it's actually on your turntable is the vivid atmosopheres and gorgeous textures that the pair are capable of generating. The album's closer, 'Metric Expansion', is a tremulous glory, peaking and slipping away like rays of sunlight. 'Space & Time', meanwhile, is a simple, gliding analogue delight, and 'Drifting' proves you can carve imperceptible beauty from a couple of well crafted chords.
Today Chicago-based percussionist, composer and producer Makaya McCraven announces the details of his new album In These Times, which is set for release on September 23rd via International Anthem / Nonesuch / XL Recordings. The first offering from the new album is a song tiled "Seventh String," which encapsulates the various musical dimensions present on McCraven's new album, a career-defining body of work that is a remarkable new peak for the already-soaring McCraven. In These Times is a collection of polytemporal compositions inspired as much by broader cultural struggles as McCraven's personal experience as a product of a multinational, working class musician community. It's the recording that he's been trying to create for 7+ years, as it's been consistently in process in the background while he's put forth a prolific run of releases including: In The Moment (2015), Highly Rare (2017), Where We Come From (2018), Universal Beings (2018), We're New Again (2020), Universal Beings E&F Sides (2020), and Deciphering the Message (2021). With contributions from over a dozen musicians and creative partners from his tight-knit circle of collaborators - including Jeff Parker, Junius Paul, Brandee Younger, Joel Ross, and Marquis Hill - the music was recorded in five different studios and four live performance spaces while McCraven engaged in extensive post-production work at home. Featuring orchestral, large ensemble arrangements interwoven with the signature "organic beat music" sound that's become his signature, the album is an evolution and a milestone for McCraven, the producer. But moreover, it's the strongest and clearest statement we've yet to hear from McCraven, the composer. Profiled in the New York Times, Vice, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, the Guardian, and NPR, among other publications, Makaya and the music he makes today is what Passion of Weiss explains, "is part of a necessary conversation about the next evolution of the Black improvised music known colloquially as 'jazz.' He's found the threads connecting the past with the present, and is either wrapping them with new colors and textures, or he's plucking them gleefully like the strings of a grand instrument." McCraven, who has been aptly called a "cultural synthesizer" and "beat scientist," has a unique gift for collapsing space, destroying borders and blending past, present, and future into poly-textural arrangements of post-genre, jazz-rooted 21st century folk music. In These Times encompasses his artistic ethos, his experiences, identity and lineage, while pushing his music to new heights.
David Lovato’s first outing as LOVA, the superb Gypsophilia EP, was one of NuNorthern Soul’s most lauded and cherished releases of 2021 – a gorgeous collection of emotive, sun-soaked sounds from the mind of a producer who got his chance on the imprint after handing a USB of tracks to Phil Cooper at Hostal La Torre in the summer of 2020.
Now, the EP returns for 2022 in expanded form, with a trio of fresh, mood-enhancing remixes joining the three original tracks featured on last year’s release. It’s those – ‘Cecilia’, Lovato’s glistening, emotionally resonant musical tribute to his baby daughter, mid-tempo nu-disco gem ‘Echoes of Memories’ and the stunning, sunset-inspired ‘Esperanza’ - that form the first half of the EP, with a trio of reworks following in hot pursuit.
Long-time friends of the label Leo Mas and Fabrice, an Italian duo famed for their brilliant Balearic reworks whose individual and collective histories stretch right back to the late 1980s (Mas, for example, was one of the resident DJs at legendary White Isle venue Amnesia at the back end of that decade). Given this shared Balearic history, it’s fitting that they step up first and give their spin on ‘Cecilia’. Making the most of Lovato’s stunning, reverb-drenched guitar licks, dreamy chords and atmospheric pads, the pair delivers a shuffling, club-ready interpretation underpinned by a locked-in dub disco groove. It’s a fine take on a track brimming with positivity and joy.
Hear & Now, an Italian duo best known for delivering a trio of brilliant albums on Claremont 56, give their interpretation of ‘Echoes of Memories’. Beginning with a mixture of quietly colourful chords, enveloping sonic textures and hazy guitar motifs, the mix gently builds as it progresses, with the pair introducing a pitched-down house groove, chiming electronic melodies and alluring elements from Lovato’s original version. Like much of Hear & Now’s work, it sits somewhere be-tween Balearica, slow-motion electronic disco and the Rimini-friendly dream house sound that marked out Italian club cuts at the turn of the ‘90s.
To close out the EP, rising star Danilo Braca – an Italian producer based in New York City who began DJing in his home country way back in 1996 – gently leads ‘Esperanza’ towards the dancefloor. Braca is a member of production duo Synth & Soda, whose 2020 remix of DJ Harvey presents Locussolus track ‘Berghain’ was selected by the man himself as the winner of an online competition. On this solo revision, Braca wraps a punchy, Latin-tinged house beat in cascading melodic motifs, bubbly synthesizer arpeggio lines, rising and falling electronics and pads so sumptuous you might want to marry them. Simultaneously morning fresh and sunset-ready, Braca has delivered a classic-sounding chunk of Balearic nu-disco/deep house fu-sion.
Gypsophilia Remixed is the latest volume in NuNorthern Soul’s Myths of Ibiza series of EPs, which all feature specially commissioned artwork from illustrator Emily McGuinness. This time round, McGuinness’s distinctive artwork depicts Tanit, the ‘protector goddess’ of Ibiza. A warrior deity of dance, fertility, creation and destruction, her spirit is said to watch over the island’s West Coast, particularly the area around Atlantic and the mysterious Es Vedra rock.
Albert van Abbe & Jochem Paap join forces for General Audio.
Recorded at Willem Twee studios in Den Bosch, General Audio explores a unique and esoteric approach to sound creation. Using test and measure equipment from the 1950’s, originally designed for the maintenance of various audio and radio transmitters, van Abbe and Paap create otherworldly walls of sound and dense rhythmic abstractions with an early form of synthesis. Rudimentary signals are combined and processed before being committed to tape via mic’s set up to capture the Willem Twee studio’s unique acoustics. The equipment itself predates the invention of the analog, modular synthesizers developed in the 70’s that are now commonplace in many studios.
The record opens with 220Lock-in, a gently undulating drone composition. Effervescent at the top end and fathoms deep at the bottom, it shifts ominously with ring modulated tones that build and then give way to thick washes of white noise. A single synth flourish provides a surprising final moment. The record continues with WZ-1Wobbel Zusatz, a low-sunk percussive piece with an off-kilter rhythm and wet spring reverb doing the bulk of the sonic heavy lifting. Deep in the mix, delicate shifts in pitch and tone deliver a kind of arcane musicality, and as the recording approaches its final moments the piece descends into an exhilarating chaos, with sonic components falling slowly by the wayside. Pegelmesser riffs on a similar reverb characteristic, but this time a driven, arp-like lead propels the work forward. Crisp shifts in colour and distortion arrive unexpectedly, providing a curious musical sensation once more – and harsher moments of feedback break up the recording in its later stages. On Rel 3L 212c LC-pi the pair strip things back, with more present percussive components and subtle distortion lines, before Wandel ups the ante with a corrosive dirge broken up by sporadic submerged synth hits. The penultimate recording SR 250 Boxcar Averager shows off impressive pitch modulation, resulting in a variety of intriguing sensations. Cinematic and remarkably visual, it charts a strange and affecting course, the synth lead underpinned by a repetitive percussive motif and all manner of sends delivering fascinating details. Nim Bin closes the record and once more van Abbe and Paap invite that subtle musicality into the recording. A tight VCO modulation drives the piece while various percussive synth strikes provide a kind of rhythmic component, though they remain untethered to any time signature – a neat conclusion to an intriguing and exploratory record.
Written and Produced by Albert Van Abbe & Jochem Paap
AM006 is by Berlin's ML, titled 'Life always breaks your heart'. Two 30-minute pieces were written, constructed, collaged and fixed together by himself. It's an important story, so there's a copy from ML below and also ours was written by Bokeh Version Industrial to do it justice.
Hallucinated Brazilian poetry read by text to voice engines, supernatural thrillers ripped from Youtube, the clang of cutlery and distant canteen conversation, that noise wire fencing makes when you rake it with a stick, crickets chirping over odd dance emotions, a sample you think your recognise but can’t name…..
The trivial is cosmically important, the cosmically important is trivial. ‘It’s about the product’ - all of life’s a sample. You contain universes.
Alice in Wonderland, late night sessions with kosmische guitar legends, ethnographic chants from an unknown land, “There’s no monopoly of knowledge / there’s no monopoly of power”: forecasts from global political trends, China will be important they say, someone’s whistling a tune that doesn’t exist, I’m thinking of times long before I was born . . .
Growing naturally like a beautiful montage from his field recordings (a rich library of personal psychoacoustic details) and his 150 Session on NTS, ML's Life Always Breaks Your Heart is mixtape-concrète:
Gamelan of the soul, Bio-Curry-Wurst in Kreuzberg, zither overlays the booms of the squatter’s homegrade grenades…
Mark Leckey vs. Alvin Curran, Gustav Flaubert vs Cabaret Voltaire, free association flashbacks with the timestamps mixed up, with added bass guitar, OP-1, Ableton, distinguishing the ‘real’ instruments becomes unimportant….they’re absorbed by memory foam….
No country, no flag – outernational without a cause!
There is no purpose, there is only reverie.
ML -
"A useless ruin, things are falling apart, even in our deepest, we long for harmony. A hypothetical path, for obscure reasons, fades into transparency. The mediocrity of Western culture, sicken by P.R., life offers a chance, a place for enthusiasm. The texture of the world, them can read it in your eyes. In the heart of schizo-culture, distance, suddenly shortened, forms characters as symbols. Deafen by mass media, embittered by unsettled chemistry, the willing body, forever in transition. The pre-invented existence, owned by language, creates a passage towards chaos. Paragraphs of currents, amplify the feelings, while silence leaks into the new luxury of time. Gentrification of sentiments, beneath our palms, all these memoirs. A modern consciousness, stretching over years in narcissistic differentiation. In touch with another human spirit, blowing backwards, beneath dark waters. We put our hands on your body, onto a new landscape, employed by metaphysical mutations. At the edge of the cosmos, prairies and mountains hide the truth in tactical silence. Apparently so, a number of months ago, above our head, a landscape of journals. Mystical content, statistically insignificant. A new patio, them crawled through the walls."
Born in Juazeiro, Bahia, Brazil on June 10, 1931 (and 87 years .old at this writing), singer/song writer Joao Gilberto is a living legend of bossa nova. While Antonio Carlos Jobim set the standard for the creation of bossa nova in the mid-’50s (with songs like “The Girl from Ipanema” and “Desafinado”), it was Gilberto who brilliantly reimagined (and, arguably, defined) the genre. The first bossa nova song, titled “Bim-Bom”, was written as Gilberto watched passing
laundresses on the banks of the Sao Francisco River balance loads of clothes on their heads. In 1956 he went to Rio de Janeiro and struck up old acquaintances, most significantly Antonio Carlos Jobim, who was by then working as a composer, producer and arranger with Odeon Records. Jobim was impressed with Gilberto’s new style of guitar playing, and set about finding a suitable song to pitch the style to Odeon management. In 1959 Gilberto presented his first LP, Chega de Saudade. The title song turned into a hit, launching Gilberto’s career and the bossa nova craze. Besides a number of Jobim compositions, the album featured older sambas and popular songs from the 1940s and 1950s, all performed in Gilberto’s distinctive style. This album was followed by two more in 1960 and 1961, by which time the singer featured new songs by a younger generation of performer/composers such as Carlos Lyra and Roberto Menescal.
By 1962, bossa nova had been embraced by North American jazz musicians such as Herbie Mann, Charlie Byrd, and Stan Getz, who invited Gilberto and Jobim to collaborate on what became one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time, Getz/Gilberto. Chega de Saudade was issued in the United States as The Warm World of Jo o Gilberto.
repressed in Clear Orange Marbled Vinyl
Splendid re-issue of this sought after Dutch ambient techno classic from the early 90's. Produced by the same team behind the It's Thinking project: Gerd, Dirk & Mark. Originally released through Deviate from Utrecht. Now manufactured by the self titled Marvo Genetic imprint, a one-off subsidiary to Gerd's own Frame Of Mind. Including a previously unreleased track called The Reprise found on the original session tapes. Tip!
Impressive reissue of sound designers and masters of field recordings Ultra-Red! These unique sounding tracks were first released on the legendary Fatcat 20 years ago and kept as secret weapons of DJs like Ricardo Villalobos, Craig Richards and Miss Kittin over the years. Here we have the two long, uncut versions that were never released before!
Limited copies!!
Toronto-based musician and producer David Psutka aka ACT! (fka Egyptrixx / Anamai / Ceramic TL) will release his latest project ‘Strange Bounty / About Life’ for his own Halocline Trance imprint.
‘Strange Bounty / About Life’ is Psutka’s debut album proper as ACT! following the release of the “sonic mixtape” ‘Universalist’ in 2018 and the augmented reality soundtrack ‘Grey Matter AR’ in 2021; a series of Snapchat filters created by artist Karen Vanderborght and soundtracked by ACT! which explored the poetic and existential potential of AR and social media.
The new album represents a refinement of aesthetic and compositional ideas that exist across Psutka’s various projects and collaborations. It is a bold blend of new psychedelia braided with ecstatic groove. It’s a collage of physical sound, composition and freeform electronics that is simultaneously original, bold, and balmy whilst retaining a certain timeless familiarity and the obvious, indelible hallmarks of Psutka’s creative vision.
“‘Strange Bounty / About Life’ is in some ways my most refined record. The previous period of solo material was quite experimental and spontaneous, whereas this was written slowly and with more intentionality, and as a result, feels very clarified. Robin Dann of Bernice, and Alanna Stuart of Bonjay both contributed lovely vocal work to the record and it was written and performed primarily on guitar. I think it is fair to call this an 'experimental guitar record'.” David Psutka (ACT!)
On opener ‘Oblivion Shuffle’ synths trickle and squelch beneath vintage arcade bleeps, an off-kilter rhythm and mournful vocals. The palette of faintly dystopian electronics, unnerving ambience and scorched, wonky rhythmic pulses reoccur across the album on tracks like ‘Separation Code Is Togetherness Meta’, ’50 Million Motives For Making’, ‘Peace Javelin Heaven Bound’ and ‘Street Racer’.
Elsewhere on the record the guitar is more obviously prominent, and its presence allows the thematic subtleties of ACT’s music to flourish. It becomes clear after numerous listens that there is a push and pull at play across the whole project; one of optimism vs existentialism, of anxiety vs hope - a consistent theme of Psutka’s back catalogue. The track titles themselves even begin to reveal juxtaposition contained within and a deeper inspection of the lyrics reveals more.
‘Lotto’ and ‘Rebuild Your Body’ and title track, ‘Strange Bounty / About Life’ all feature slick classic soul hooks, silky vocals and smooth Balearic guitar licks over the idiosyncratic beats and distinctive electronic instrumentation. A perfect melding of the two seemingly disparate stylistic directions on the album. A real testament to the refinement promised by Psutka on this project.
In addition to ACT!, Psutka has released music with numerous projects including Anamai, Egyptrixx and Ceramic TL, he has collaborated widely with artists such as Junior Boys, Ipek Gorgun, and Kuedo as well as Jessy Lanza (2016) and an official remix for Massive Attack’s ‘Hymn of the Big Wheel (2012). The contributions on this album, from Robin Dann and Alanna Stuart, reflect the deeply collaborative nature of the Halocline Trance label and the Toronto creative scene more broadly.
Many of Psutka’s releases have received critical acclaim from media outlets such as Pitchfork, Exclaim, The Quietus and Resident Advisor. As a live performer, he has toured extensively including performing at Sonar Festival, Roskilde, Mutek, MOMA PS1 Warm-UP and CTM Festival. He’s also presented sound installations at various institutions such as Galeria Civica Commune di Modena, and Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO).
In 2015, Psutka launched Halocline Trance as a home for his various sound projects, events and collaborations. Now a creative collective and label, it has grown to include a diverse array of artists including Casey MQ, Xuan Ye, Myst Milano, Colin Fisher and others. The label is described as “genre-agnostic” and conceptually open, supporting work across a wide spectrum of creative fields including soundtrack recording, AR design and traditional artist albums. Their impeccable roster also includes, theorist/improviser Eldritch Priest, and AR/VR artist Karen Vanderborght. In recent years, Halocline Trance has established itself as a platform that facilitates many of Canada’s most exciting creative music projects. Many of the releases have received critical acclaim from outlets including Pitchfork, Exclaim, Bandcamp and Resident Advisor.
It comes as no surprise to discover we are massive fans of Marcos Valle here at Mr Bongo, but this forgotten and obscure gem from the Brazilian maestro has proven to remain elusive to us until very recently.
'Girassol' is a lost Brazilian-boogie stunner from 1983. It was originally released as an ultra-rare promo only 7”. Composed by Marcos Valle, Paulo Sérgio Valle and Ribeiro José Francisco, this all-too-short nugget (under 2 minutes) was recorded and pressed on the Valle, Ribeiro & Associados Ltda. imprint for Rede CB De Supermercados. It was a promotional item to be distributed to customers of a supermarket chain as a gift. Due to not having any conventional distribution channels this resulted in the 7" becoming a slippery customer to find.
It’s a smooth AOR / Brazilian boogie joint with an uplifting chorus. The vibe is reminiscent of the much loved ‘Estrelar' era of Marcos Valle’s glorious recording career, and certainly one for fans of the Lincoln Olivetti, Robson Jorge production sound.
Born in Girona, Spain and based in Berlin since 2019, Alex Busse' Santacruz's Ameeva project previously came to life on the Lowless music label in 2020 and the album 'Fractura del SueNo'. His live set for the 9128 Birthday event took these experimental electronics to a deeper, more personal level, weaving friends' samples and conversations into a rich tapestry of drone and field recordings, creating an immersive and enveloping 40-minute narrative. That's been captured here by the 9128 label, which aims to document significant live performances by artists that previously performed on the 9128.live platform, with results that are imaginative and impressionist, like clouds of synths and other soundscapes with the serene relentlessness and sense of purpose as molten lava moving down the mountainside.
Having established himself as one of the most sought-after young jazz guitarists in London, Jamie Leeming has steadily carved out his own musical niche, during his extensive work for the likes of Alfa Mist, Tom Misch and Jas Kayser. His debut EP ‘Heartsong’ gained support from Jazz London Radio as one of the “Best Jazz Releases of 2015” and his follow-up collaborative album ‘Flow’ (with pianist Maria Chiara Argirò) received critical acclaim for The Guardian’s “Jazz Album of the Month”. Leeming now unveils his debut solo long-player ‘Resynthesis’ via Alfa Mist’s Sekito imprint.
Jamie’scuriosity has always been a key part of his ever-evolving relationship with music. Whether that be as a teenager and being captivated by the cover of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew in a local HMV, or his fascination with how we experience memories. ‘Resynthesis’ sees the guitarist creatively hitting his stride and exploring new sonic territories as he takes on the role of producer.
‘Resynthesis’ was created with the help of a handful of close friends, regular collaborators and some of the tightest young players around, many of whom met at an improvised music night hosted by Hugo Piper (who also plays on Resynthesis) called Champion Sounds. It was at one of these nights that the basis for ‘Champion’ was formed, plucked from a twenty second snippet recorded on a phone of one of the legendary jams, which has in turn been reimagined on ‘Resynthesis’ by some of the musicians that were present on the night itself. In addition to the trio instrumentation, Quinn Oulton and Nathaniel Facey lend their skills on saxophone. The album is tied together by artwork from painter and musician Kaya Thomas-Dyke, which includes reference to a number of the memories the album is inspired by.
Comet Records present the first release out of the Comet new reissue series with this cult French Free Jazz LP from 1974, Crowded with Loneliness by Full Moon Ensemble was produced by Claude Delcloo, check the classic ‘Samba `Miaou’, like a lost Pharoah Sanders tune mixed with politically-engaged French poetry! The whole LP is varied, avant-garde and spiritual and now available as Vinyl LP with Gatefold cover, set to become collectible as the original is impossible to find.
Space is the place - at least, it's the place uppermost in the mind of midwest US label Past Inside The Present founder zake and his sonic partner Ossa - location given as the north pole according to his Twitter - as they embark on collaborative 10 tracks. The fact that that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration - NASA to you and me - has supplied them with celestial sound emissions for the tracks is a bonus. But ultimately, the real headline factor once it's actually on your turntable is the vivid atmosopheres and gorgeous textures that the pair are capable of generating. The album's closer, 'Metric Expansion', is a tremulous glory, peaking and slipping away like rays of sunlight. 'Space & Time', meanwhile, is a simple, gliding analogue delight, and 'Drifting' proves you can carve imperceptible beauty from a couple of well crafted chords.
Instrumentals[36,09 €]
Lewis Parker continues to dig deeper and get stronger in ways, on his most recent addition to his impressive and wide body of work. 20 plus releases into his career, Parker goes in from the opening bars of his new LP ‘Frequency of Perception’. The veteran producer and rapper comes in hot, clearly rooted in his ideas and views, wasting no time dropping knowledge and his opinions on social issues, current rappers, and the rap industry itself.
From 2008 comes 'Keys, Strings, Tambourines' - Kenny Larkin's fourth full length LP.
Yet another advanced, singular and funked out techno milestone that bears all of Larkin's idiosyncratic stylings and melodic touches. Once more he shows us how it's done, sounding like nothing you've heard from him previously, 'Keys, Strings, Tambourines' is a truly adventurous record that defies categorisation today. Quietly influencing producers and DJs since its release, it points to where techno can go and what it can be and is a truly and criminally overlooked modern Detroit techno classic. This is an essential purchase for all electronic machine-funk aficionados worldwide. This special expanded edition boasts a slightly reshuffled track order and some additional cuts that were only available on singles at the time, now giving the world 3 solid slabs of futurist techno sonics for the believers! Essential music from the motor city.
'Keys, Strings, Tambourines' has been legitimately reissued for 2022 on Kenny’s own Art Of Dance imprint. Remastered from DAT tapes and original sources by Curve Pusher. Artwork redesigned by Atelier Superplus.
2LP + 7'' 2022 Repress
This limited edition set contains the original LP plus a 10 track bonus LP and a bonus 7” with 2 previously unreleased tracks.
Remastered and pressed on colour vinyl with a reworked sleeve by original designer Andy Royston.
Including the singles Boy Meets Girl, So What; Should The Bible Be Banned; Keep An Open Mind Or Else & This Nelson Rockerfeller.
Originally released in 1989. The Enraged Will Inherit the Earth is a musical molotov cocktail that’s a mixture of power chords and virile, virtuous lyrics.
The songwriting is tightly forged and their knack for producing raw pop is at its finest here. The Enraged Will Inherit The Earth is a powerful weapon that didn’t get enough of a user base to make its intended impact. If the question was ever proposed, “can art be a weapon?” I think this album answers with a bold and resounding “yes.”
Vinyl Only
An emotional journey, Pitter Patter EP has everything within from jazz to world utilizing live instruments, samples and textures that are fused impeccably to form an introspective-predominant approach to minimal. Three Montreal natives Guillaume Coutu-Dumont & Vincent Lemieux also know as the Flabbergast duo and Ohm Hourani meet up in the studio, each working individually with Ohm to formulate 2 original works of music and thus formulating two new duo's Guiohm (Guillaume Coutu-Dumont & Ohm Hourani) and Wetsuit (Vincent Lemieux & Ohm Hourani). Let the music speak for itself.
Seven Psalms finds Australia's most imperious musical misfit Nick Cave leaving his Bad Seeds at home and teaming up with frequent collaborator Warren Ellis for a limited 10". The spoken word pieces on this record are the result of a daily song writing practice over a week during lockdown - Cave himself describes them as "small, sacred songs," set to appropriately subtle musical accompaniment. Recorded during the sessions for Cave and Ellis' 2021 album Carnage, it's a rich work in its own right that offers a different perspective on Cave's considerable gifts as a soothsayer.
Grey Marbled Vinyl
Clear water hits the surface of a grainy ball. The stream slowly dissolves and flows down the spherical structure until it finally drops on a candle. The flame extinguishes; fragile streaks of smoke ascend until they hit the rough surface of the colossal globe again.
The cover art to Marble Arch, the second long-player of Vienna- and Berlin-based artists Oberst & Buchner, depicts masterly the dramatic juxtapositions the musicians have always been reflecting in their musical outcome.
The massive density of a giant sound wall is contrasted by spacious openness. Fragile sonic details are sparkling out of colossal pitch-black clouds. The songs are filled with gentle warmth and cold roughness, bright digital clarity and deep analogue crackle, ranging in style from pulsating dark-disco over classic pop to experimental ambient.
The duo's two-week artist residency in a 250-year-old house, located in the mystic landscape of the Bavarian woods set this specific mood for the 10-track album which became a mixture of electronic synthesis, organic instrumentals and field recordings. Heavy-weight basslines in combination with bitter-sweet orchestral instrumentation and the minutiae of precise percussion recordings and drum programming are the characteristics that formed the sound of Marble Arch.
Oberst & Buchner's way to deal with tension is in how they compose their song structures as extreme arcs of suspense in a near classical manner. Their intense dynamic arrangements always alternate between rise and explosion or implosion and fall. This way the compositions pick up the motive of creation and destruction throughout the long-player in the same way as the cover-art.
Taken together, all these fragments form the duo`s signature cinematic articulation of dramatic slowed down club music and moments of surprise.
BIO
Oberst & Buchner are two friends and musicians living in Vienna and Berlin. They look back on a mutual musical journey that is as rich in variety as it is more then 15 years long. For one thing, countless high-energy DJ sets in clubs and at festivals all over Europe in recent years have earned them a reputation as a dynamic duo infernale. At the same time, their own productions draw from the full palette of moods and emotions.
Boiled down to the very essence, there's one common denominator running through the duo's musical works: colossally massive elements are masterfully set against a shimmering backdrop of incredibly detailed layers. Each so full of subtle suspense that they feel like the first raindrops before a monstrous thunderstorm. You can literally hear the calm before the storm in every break they build up, then feel the force of the wind in your face when it hits you.
Ranging from pulsating electronica over slow organic sounds derived from both nature and acoustic instruments to deep dance pop ballads, their songs are full of suspense and packed with drama. In their productions, the two friends conjure up soundscapes that are extremely dense and at the same time infinitely open and spacious. Within this framework, they play with stark contrasts of antithetic elements: repetition and improvisation, functionality and emotions, emptiness and overload, clarity and crackling.
If the name Seb Martel is still unknown to you, the guitarist appears on the credits of classic albums from Tony Allen, Femi Kuti, Morcheeba or Blackalicious. Saturn 63, his new album on InFiné is dedicated to the exploration of the electric guitar in all its nuances. This new opus made from a selection of 9 guitars from the Musée de la Musique (a branch of the Philharmonie de Paris), and only enriched with the voices of his close collaborators (Camille, Sabrina Bellaouel...), unfolds on fourteen tracks a musical fresco faithful to the historical and geographical heritage of his instrument. The album includes fascinating reworks of Carl Perkins, Benjamin Britten, Chavela Vargas or Vincent Segal in addition to his own compositions. However, adopting a dogmatic approach, and dressing his compositions with sounds and effects collected during the recordings, Martel offers an abstract and experimental edge to Saturm 63, which transports the listener into an out of time experience. Two famous names of the French Chanson, -M- and Mathieu Boogaerts joined Martel to close the album with the snapshot of a speechless improvised session.
KUTU is the brainchild of revered French violinist and composer Théo Ceccaldi - a stalmart of the European improvised music scene - and Addis-Ababa based singers Hewan Gebrewold and Haleluya Tekletsadik. Following a first impressive round of shows and festivals all over France, KUTU are ready to take the world by storm with their astonishing debut album Guramayle (which both stands for ‘bilingual’ and ‘black and white’) due this fall. Unleashing hypnotic and trance-heavy grooves, thanks to a forceful rhythm section, cosmic keyboard lines and stellar vocal performances, KUTU merges the freedom of jazz, the immediacy of dance music and the incomparable depth of the Azmari sounds.
Black Truffle is pleased to announce a major archival discovery from the wildest outer fringes of the FMP universe, the Bergisch-Brandenburgisches Quartett’s Live ’82. The Bergisch-Brandenburgisches Quartett (BBQ) was formed in 1980 in Rostock, East Germany, when three of the most radical and riotous members of the West German free music scene—reedist/accordionist Rüdiger Carl, percussionist Sven-Åke Johansson and Hans Reichel on violin and his modified ‘strange guitars’ — first played as a quartet with East German saxophonist Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky. A rare example of a working band with members from both sides of the wall, during its lifetime the BBQ left only one recorded document, a studio LP on Amiga, the pop and jazz sublabel of the GDR state-run Deutsche Schallplatten Berlin. Neither pure fire music nor orthodox free improvisation, the four members of the BBQ shared an all-embracing aesthetic where quotes and jokes sat comfortably alongside radical extended techniques and sonic experiments. Beautifully recorded at the 1982 Moers festival, the music presented here is a kaleidoscopic demonstration of what Johansson has called the BBQ’s ‘free postmodernism’. Beginning with a fractured landscape of clarinet flourishes from Petrowsky, Johansson’s spacious drums accents, banjo-esque plucks from Reichel’s handmade guitar and the groans and squawks of Carl on cuica, the music lurches between flowing melodicism and stunted locked grooves, settling after a few minutes into a lyrical clarinet and bass clarinet duet accompanied by shimmering guitar chords and some inexplicable percussive rotations. When Petrowksy starts to unfurl long, flowing flute lines accompanied by hand percussion, the music suddenly recalls Don Cherry’s global fusions, but this turn to the folkish quickly takes on a more European character when Carl and Johansson pick up accordions for the first of several comical but oddly moving duets. The more frantic second half of the set takes in a raucous digression into honking R&B, an Ayler-meets-Schlager romp with almost rockish chordal accompaniment from Reichel and an outrageous free jazz blowout with Carl on accordion, not to mention episodes of Johansson’s signature improvised Sprachgesang and antics with his expanded percussion set up, including items such as shoe stretchers and the Berlin yellow pages, which more than once cause the audience to burst into laughter. Arriving in a beautifully designed sleeve with copious archival photographs and flyers from Johansson’s collection and extensive new liner notes from Francis Plagne, Live ’82 is a major historical document that remains both musically challenging and immensely entertaining forty years on.
It’s common knowledge that KOMPAKT’s TOTAL series serves as our yearbook, a musical wrap up of the past 12 months. Therefore it doesn’t come as a surprise that this year’s edition is informed by another pandemic year, where dancefloors were still mostly deserted and the devastating developments in Eastern Europe. Kompakt’s A&R team still kept on foot on the imaginary dancefloor, while scouting different realms apart from the big room euphoria. Anyway, brain dance has always been a key ingredient to our catalogue.
The Voigt brothers are opening this years vinyl edition in an unusually romantic fashion. ‘Why’ combines a bubbly FM bassline with lush washes of looped guitars. High off the (presumably high) heels of her recent album ‘Jesus Was An Alien’ she delivers a spanking new excursion into her sonic world, ‘The Hill’. Our Mexican friend Rebolledo makes his first ever solo appearance on TOTAL with his trademark hypnotic desert sound. Jürgen Paape is calling a spade a spade with ‘Le Monde À Changé’ – The world has changed indeed. Our prodigal son, Matias Aguayo, returns to the mothership with ‘Cinco Y Rojo’. An exercise in Chicago-esque groove theory paired with a cheeky visitor from Denmark. Spot the reference and win a pair of hooves. It’s hard to find a quality party around Cologne without Jonathan Kaspar on its bill. Rightly so, as he continues to hone his craft as an impeccable DJ and producer. Michael gives the tremendously talented Danish singer songwriter eee gee a proper Mayer treatment and Kompakt founding member Jörg Burger closes off the festivities with a groovy midtempo chugger that reminisces ‘Blue Lines’ era Massive Attack as much as the late Andy Weatheralls low slung psychedelia.
Es ist allgemein bekannt, dass die TOTAL Reihe eine jährliche Positionsbestimmung des Kölner Labels KOMPAKT darstellt und der Jahrbuch-hafte Charakter war ja auch immer beabsichtigt. So wundert es wenig, dass man TOTAL 22 die Irrungen und Wirrungen des zweiten pandemischen Jahres 2022 deutlich anhört. Die A&R Abteilung des Labels hatte zwar – trotz geschlossener Clubs – weiter mindestens einen Fuss auf dem imaginären Tanzboden, aber man spürt, dass es ein eher verhaltener Jahrgang geworden ist. Dance Tracks brauchen einen entsprechenden Resonanzraum – und der war zumindest bis zur Deadline dieser Platte kaum gegeben. Aber Kopfdisco gehörte schon immer zum kompakten Repertoire. Letztlich entsteht in diesem vom Big Room los gekoppelten Bereich meist die interessanteste Musik.
Die Gebrüder Voigt eröffnen TOTAL 22 auf einer unerwartet romantischen Note. Quirlige FM Bässe schmiegen sich an verhuschte Gitarrenloops, so dass es eine wahre Freude ist. Perel hat gerade ihr fulminantes Album “Jesus Was An Alien” abgeliefert und spurtet bereits mit Siebenmeilenstiefeln (oder vielleicht auch Pumps?) zum nächsten Ziel: ‘The Hills’. Unser mexikanischer Freund Rebolledo ist erstmals solo auf einer TOTAL zu finden und beschwört mit ‘The Sharper Image’ seinen hypnotischen Prärie Sound herauf. Jürgen Paape nennt das Kind direkt beim Namen: Le monde a changé… Die Welt hat sich verändert – ein Kommentar zum Zeitgeschehen, der keiner Erklärung bedarf. Nach längerer Abstinenz hat Matias Aguayo wieder am Mutterschiff angedockt. ‘Cinco Y Rojo’ ist ein Lehrstück in Sachen Chicago-esquen Grooves, kombiniert mit einem frechen Besucher aus dem Dänemark der 80er. Findet die Referenz und gewinnt ein paar nagelneuer Hufen. Es ist derzeit schwer eine qualitativ hochwertige Party im Rheinland zu finden, auf der Jonathan Kaspar nicht spielt. Zurecht, denn er schärft seine Skills als DJ und Produzent wie ein Sushi Chef sein Messer. Michael Mayer dreht die überaus talentierte Singer Songwriterin eee gee auf links und überlässt seinem Weggefährten Jörg Burger das letzte Wort. "Crawling Up That Hill’ ist ein slicker Midtempo Groover, der in seiner behutsamen Psychedelik irgendwo zwischen Massive Attack in der ‘Blue Lines’ Epoche und Andy Weatherall changiert.
Quandary is a work of electronic music that wants to balance between opposites - nature and technology, human agency and artificial thinking, ritual and machinery. That’s how quandaries emerge, as an impossible choice between two extremes. But music isn’t binary thinking and allows the exploration of obscure connections. Underground, a growing mycelium intersects and communicates with a fiber optic backbone: on the surface, the curtains open, and the quandary may begin to dissolve.
Produced in Berlin between 2019 and 2021, the album originates from open jams, which were then deconstructed through heavy editing - and finally recomposed, sometimes challenging the original spirit.
Bob Meanza's oblique approach to music production encompasses the creative textures of guitarist Alex Baboian, and is enriched by the vocal appearances of Bianca Guitton. A small orchestra of three that already implies roots in Germany, Italy, USA, Armenia and France - each musician carrying him/herself the «quandary» of having at least two homes. But again, this unexpected network can bring precious fruits to the surface.
“Good evening Black Buddha” is Black Jesus eXperience’s seventh studio album. Inspired by the land we live on and the connection to all that have gone before and will follow, inspired by the multicultural power of our community, inspired by the paradox of the story of the Black Buddha. From the perversity of the pandemic and its imposition of separation comes "Good Evening Black Buddha", celebrating togetherness. Darkness is light.
At the heart of Black Jesus eXperience’s inspiration is Ethiopian/Australian singer Enushu Taye. Enushu’s openness and poetic insight, delivered with unique beauty in her own Amharic tongue, lie at the core of "Good Evening Black Buddha" and all that Black Jesus eXperience (BJX) do. MC Mista Monk (Liam Monkhouse) compliments and contrasts with rhymes and flow born of Africa and outback Australia. BJX are joined by their great friends powerhouse singer Vida-Sunshyne, and crystalline new voice Gracie Sinclair.
The songs on “Good Evening Black Buddha” rove from the lightness of touch of a trio to BJX’s full fourteen piece polyrhythmic, polymetric, polytonal Ethiofunk juggernaut with six-piece horn arrangements. Soloists include living national treasure Bob Sedergreen on keyboards, Peter Harper on saxophone, Ian Dixon on trumpet, Zac Lister guitar, Larry Crestani guitar and his own invention ‘kraartar’, over the deep grooves of Richard Rose bass, James Davies kit, and Kahan Harper percussion. Black Jesus eXperience is also proud to be joined by our friends conga player Louis Poblete, kraar and masinko virtuoso Endalkachew Yenehun, proud Kuku Nyunkal man and master yiki yiki (dijeridu) player Sean Ryan.
White Vinyl[43,07 €]
Tradition and experimentation are two familiar territories that C"mon Tigre, a duo who find their identity by working with musicians from all over the world, can balance between very well. As they did for their debut album (2014), they have put together a multicolored collective for their second record Racines (2019) and now their third album Scenario. Sailing from the Mediterranean basin and being guided by the fascination for Africa and the Middle East, C"mon Tigre give rise to a personal language, made up of mixtures with jazz, afrojazz, the rhythmics of hip hop, funk, club music. All without ever confining their songs to one style, but pushing the exploration as much as possible, into a dimension that every journey worthy of this name should encompass. With the musicians they work with, the exchange and experimentation continue till the end, the songs can take different directions at any time. The result is a mixed, cosmopolitan record, which escapes from any label for the affirmation of a free attitude. It led C"mon Tigre to seek a connection with dancefloor culture, even if considered only as an evocation to revisit in a personal way. This cinematic imagery pushed C"mon Tigre to translate their musical wandering into a visual form, as they already did in the past with animated videos made with the painter Gianluigi Toccafondo and 3d artist Sic Est for "Underground Lovers" and "Behold The Man", two tracks from the previous record. Now the will to merge music and images is even greater: Scenario is also released in a colored vinyl + book version, including a volume to browse through with a wide selection of photo taken by Paolo Pellegrin. Paolo has spent the last 30 years documenting the world. He lives and testifies to issues regarding living conditions, poverty, sufferance and violence, always implementing an anthropological approach. A subjective but detached gaze, which is both a reflection and an analysis, that coincides with an attitude of openness, respect, and interest in the times of history, an odyssey between human and inhuman. Scenario wants to tell about what defines us as human beings: joy, connection, anger, sense of belonging, pain, anguish, violence, dignity. These are tales of someone observing with stretched ears.
Black Vinyl[28,53 €]
Tradition and experimentation are two familiar territories that C"mon Tigre, a duo who find their identity by working with musicians from all over the world, can balance between very well. As they did for their debut album (2014), they have put together a multicolored collective for their second record Racines (2019) and now their third album Scenario. Sailing from the Mediterranean basin and being guided by the fascination for Africa and the Middle East, C"mon Tigre give rise to a personal language, made up of mixtures with jazz, afrojazz, the rhythmics of hip hop, funk, club music. All without ever confining their songs to one style, but pushing the exploration as much as possible, into a dimension that every journey worthy of this name should encompass. With the musicians they work with, the exchange and experimentation continue till the end, the songs can take different directions at any time. The result is a mixed, cosmopolitan record, which escapes from any label for the affirmation of a free attitude. It led C"mon Tigre to seek a connection with dancefloor culture, even if considered only as an evocation to revisit in a personal way. This cinematic imagery pushed C"mon Tigre to translate their musical wandering into a visual form, as they already did in the past with animated videos made with the painter Gianluigi Toccafondo and 3d artist Sic Est for "Underground Lovers" and "Behold The Man", two tracks from the previous record. Now the will to merge music and images is even greater: Scenario is also released in a colored vinyl + book version, including a volume to browse through with a wide selection of photo taken by Paolo Pellegrin. Paolo has spent the last 30 years documenting the world. He lives and testifies to issues regarding living conditions, poverty, sufferance and violence, always implementing an anthropological approach. A subjective but detached gaze, which is both a reflection and an analysis, that coincides with an attitude of openness, respect, and interest in the times of history, an odyssey between human and inhuman. Scenario wants to tell about what defines us as human beings: joy, connection, anger, sense of belonging, pain, anguish, violence, dignity. These are tales of someone observing with stretched ears.
Repress!
Blu is the leader of West Coast Hip Hop. Since the days of Pharcyde, Freestyle Fellowship, and Jurassic 5, there have been few wordsmiths that have grasped the attention of listeners worldwide. Introduced to NWA and Public Enemy by his father, Blu later was captivated by the likes of Black Star, The Roots, and Common, creating a unique balance that is displayed in Blu’s personality and music. Blu’s first full length LP, “Below the Heavens” pairs Blu with producer Exile on the Sound in Color imprint. His first single, “Narrow Path” has rocked stages across the world, as fans begin to feel the impact of Blu’s music. His delivery flows flawlessly, while the content reflects the joy and pain of working class youth everywhere. Since the release of “Narrow Path,” Blu has performed alongside Slum Village, X-Clan, Platinum Pied Pipers, Lyrics Born, DJ Houseshoes, and many others, while participating in 3 high-profile nationwide tours alongside musical family members: Ta’Raach, Aloe Blacc, and Exile. The buzz has fans salivating for new music. Worldwide, people are looking to put hope into the ‘next’ emcee that will give them the same feeling when they first heard Black Thought, Common, or Slum Village. Blu fulfills this need, but maintains something that is entirely new, while not recycled.
Global techno titan Josh Wink returns to his own Ovum Recordings for big new single 'Balls Back', which comes with a remix from Marco Faraone. Philly-born DJ, legendary producer and the man behind many of techno's most iconic cuts, Josh Wink remains as prominent now as he did a quarter of a century ago. That is because of the constant sense of innovation in all he does, as well as his rare understanding of dance floor dynamics and mastery of his studio. Says Josh of his latest track, “Every time I play this people rush over asking 'what is this track that says “get your balls back”?' Its reaction after playing has been amazing and reassuring that it hits hard, works on the floor, and sticks in people's heads.“ He's not wrong: the powerful 'Balls Back' is a spatial, acid-tinged techno stormer that builds and builds until it ultimately explodes in signature Josh Wink fashion. The 303s are saturated in deep processing along with heavy 909 percussion and a ‘slap-you-in-your-face’ vocal sample that will lead to dance floor devastation. The dub version is a raw, stripped down and faster-paced bass jacker that turns up the heat, and a Balls Tool is also included for dexterous DJ deployment. Italian Marco Faraone is a fellow techno heavyweight and one of the scene’s most versatile producers. He has brought his always impactful sounds to labels like Drumcode, Rekids and Etruria Beat. His remix is typically robust: vast, rolling drums power it along while glitchy percussion peels off the groove and the percussion gets ever more wild and heavy. It's a real main room monster. This is no-nonsense techno that perfectly marries form and function into a dynamite package.
This album presents two multichannel works recorded at the seminal INA GRM Studio in Paris and ZKM Institute in Karlsruhe respectively, mixed to stereo at the composer's Cellule 75 Studio in Hamburg with excellent mastering by Rashad Becker. While his releases under the Black To Comm moniker often touched the fringes of acousmatic techniques and Musique Concrete this is Richter's first foray into a more abstract spatial music.
Recorded in the week leading up to the Paris terror attacks at the GRM studio, "Diode, Triode" (21:57) is loosely based on a reading of (and, in parts, a failure to understand) "Le Parasite" (1980) by Michel Serres, a philosophic metaphor about human interaction and communication (which can also be interpreted as a lyrical essay on capitalism; part confusion, part enlightenment).
As core elements Richter is using speech synthesis and the transformation and distortion of concrete sounds, instruments, voices and breathing. Abstract incognisable sounds are combined with strings, reeds and percussion while dismembered musical fragments emerge and vanish rapidly. Chunks of interfering noise are followed by long periods of silence; chaos and order are alternating. Choirs of synthetic and processed human voices are recounting stock market values, seemingly random sequences of numbers and inscrutable lyrics while parasitic sounds are trying to crack, collapse and fractionise the compositional stream and sonic interactions. Finally, a haunting piano chord is wrestling with a broken Publison machine. Like the book, it's part confusing, part enlightening - and a radical piece of sonic art.
"We are buried within ourselves; we send out signals, gestures, and sounds indefinitely and uselessly. No one listens to anyone else. Everyone speaks; no one hears; direct or reciprocal communication is blocked." (Le Parasite)
"Diode, Triode" was premiered on the Acousmonium at INA GRM's Akousma Festival in Paris, January 22, 2016 alongside new works by François Bayle, Robert Hampson, Leo Kupper and Ragnar Grippe.
The second piece "Spiral Organ of Corti" (17:00) has been composed in 2014 for the 47-speaker Klangdom concert hall at ZKM Karlsruhe at the foot of the Black Forest (where Richter was born and raised).
How does one listen with closed ears? Sine tones, alienated human voices and breathing noises build a labyrinthine puzzle alternating between the natural and the artificial. Human sounds merge with winds and strings, sine tones morph into metal sounds. Acoustic illusions confuse the listener, and dense noise-clouds slowly emerge from deceptive silence. Deep base sounds define space. Temporary focus glides into chaos. "Spiral Organ of Corti" is yet another extended composition that proves Richter is on a path of his very own.
"Spiral Organ of Corti" is dedicated to the late Gary Todd.
"Tongues that came from wind and noise. To speak in tongues after the fire." (Le Parasite)
Marc Richter records as Black To Comm for Thrill Jockey, Type and Dekorder and under the Mouchoir Ètanche and Jemh Circs monikers for his own Cellule 75 imprint. He collaborated with visual artists such as Ho Tzu Nyen, Jan van Hasselt and Mike Kelley. Under his own name he is composing for film and installations.
Anita Clark’s new Motte album, »Cold + Liquid«, builds glacial atmospheres, frozen moods and isolated impressions. Portraying New Zealand through socio-geological sound, breathing in Christchurch cultures and locales, the album embodies an artistic simulation of the Kiwi environment. Motte borrows from an array of sound sources to create an immense entity, with each piece situated precisely along the path. »Cold + Liquid« offers this rich sensory experience, transporting the listener into a world of Clark’s imagination.
As a master violinist, Clark is a favorite of the NZ music scene. She’s been employed by Nadia Reid, Marlon Williams, Lawrence Arabia and Maryrose Crook of The Renderers for her skills. Currently, she plays with The Phoenix Foundation, Luke Buda and Don McGlashan and The Others. Her skillful reach across genres fuels her popularity both with the rock under and overground, and she has also built a rich CV of film soundtracks and contemporary dance compositions.
With such a powerful musical force behind it, Cold + Liquid germinated as a result of a prolonged silence. Clark was suffering from vocal cord paralysis, leaving her with a culminating sense of frustration which could only be released through songwriting . The album’s early life was purely instrumental. But as she prepared for the studio and was searching old voice memos hoping to find vocal tracks, her voice returned. A fervent week followed, where she reimagined the entire album, now with singing. She aimed to make something colossal, and set about finding the right textures to add. A friend who works at Oamaru Freezing Works gave her field recordings of the temperature control room, a vast cold space of isolated machinery, where ice grows and dissolves in ever-evolving sculptures. Getting her hands on shortwave/longwave radios, she incorporated frequency sweeps. Another friend provided her with the mechanical drones underneath the deck of a cement cargo ship, as it lay docked in Lyttelton Harbor. Still more sources came from Sign of the Bellbird, an historic environmental site in South Christchurch, where Clark and Thomas Lambert recorded bellbirds, rolling boulders, snapping sticks, thrown dirt and the papery sound of the native harakeke plant.
While violin dominates the first Motte album, Clark sought to expand instrumentation. She was gifted a handmade Pūrerehua puoro, a traditional Māori instrument that sounds similar to the whirling and hovering of a moth (which is “motte” in German). A reacquaintance to the guitar occurred after developing an alter ego project entitled 'Sex Den,' with sleazy noir-esque guitar riffs in response to a failed rumour from a local drug-addled dive bar. Guitar and synth allowed for a broader songwriting palette along with a sometimes Dadaist approach to lyric writing. These new tools accent the extreme ambiences of »Cold + Liquid«, while additional work was provided by Ben Woods on synth and bowed guitar.
Deep-listening organ piece from Malaysia-born, Berlin-based composer Rishin Singh, performed by Martin Sturm on the Lizst organ in Thuringia, Germany. RIYL: Kali Malone, Anna von-Hausswolff - "An endless and captivating exploration of one organ's timbres and tones. Both whispered and shouted, large and small, close and far, Singh's work is both unsettling and a balm, and has invited me to reconsider pitch, consonance, dissonance, tension and release." – Clarice Jensen, artistic director of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) In the 1850s the influential composer Franz Liszt, who was living in Weimar, Germany at the time, carried out, with the famous cantor Alexander Wilhelm Gottschalg, a series of “ländlichen Orgelexperimente” (rural organ experiments) in Thuringia – investigating various instruments and their capabilities for contemporary music. They eventually settled on the organ in Denstedt because of its high quality. Many years later, award-winning organist Martin Sturm would invite the Berlin-based composer Rishin Singh to repeat these “ländlichen Orgelexperimente” with him and they again chose the organ at Denstedt, now named in honour of Liszt, as the best instrument – the most flexible and expressive – to perform and record Singh's music for organ. mewl infans is a contemporary classical piece that invites modern listeners to ponder the enduring pull of an instrument that was first conceived more than 2,000 years ago and has, in recent years, been rediscovered by a new generation of composers and listeners. Throughout the larger architecture of the four movements, melodic motifs return over and over, fractured by noise, fragmented by carefully calibrated alternate tunings, dissolving into thin air, and generating drones which then transform into new melodic variations. Over the 44 minutes of the piece the organist at times attempts to exert complete control over the instrument, and at other times relinquishes all control entirely. Conceptually rigorous and emotionally charged, mewl infans rewards deep listening and patience. At times conjuring a sense of doom, at other times suspense, pastoral drift, or aquatic submersion, the album is a universe of tiny details comprised of noise and air, of the journey each tone takes from birth to expiration. HIGHLIGHTS: – Singh has been commissioned by the GRAMMY-nominated JACK Quartet. Premiere in NYC Spring 2023 – Collaborations between Singh and Sturm are ongoing: Sturm will premiere Singh’s concerto for organ, timpani, and string orchestra later this year – Sturm is the youngest professor of organ in German history – The debut album from Singh‘s ensemble Leider, A Fog Like Liars Loving, was released by Beacon Sound in May of 2021 Bios: Martin Sturm, born 1992 in South Germany, in an International award-winning organist (ION, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Festival St Albans, Haarlem, Bavarian Culture Prize, and Keck-Köppe Foundation). He performs regularly as an interpreter and organ improviser at festivals, churches, and concert halls around the world. In 2019 he was appointed Professor for Organ and Organ Improvisation at the University of Music “Franz Liszt” in Weimar (Germany), after teaching at the Universities of Music in Würzburg and Leipzig. Rishin Singh (b. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) is a composer and trombonist living in Berlin. He has been commissioned to compose for the JACK Quartet (US), Piano+ (US), Claire Edwardes (AUS), DNK Ensemble (NL), Prof. Martin Sturm (DE), the Amsterdam Wandelweiser Festival (NL), Quiet Music Ensemble (IE), and others. Upcoming premieres include “every day” a concerto for organ, timpani, and string orchestra (Martin Sturm, Thuringia, 2022), and “melancholy objects” a string quartet (the JACK Quartet, New York, Spring 2023). He is currently working on his first chamber opera and is the composer and lyricist for the art song ensemble Leider.
Ryuichi Sakamoto, Daniel Lanois, Loscil, K Leimer, Deaf Center, Tangerine Dream, Arvo Pärt Wake is a distillation and reflection of the work of three Portland musicians thrown, like the rest of the world, into forced isolation by the continually-mutating curse of a natural world in disequilibrium. The product of involuntarily inward-looking emotional landscapes, Wake emerged sounding surprisingly expansive and confident. The trio uses a variety of instruments –including harp, fretless bass, piano, and a variety of synthesizers– to conjure sparkling panoramas of the imagination that are deep-pooled and impressionistic, bracing yet comforting. Mike Grabarak and Joshua Ward have performed together for years as a duo under the moniker of Location Services, while Derek Hunter Wilson has primarily worked as a solo composer in the classical realm. For the Points Of No Return compilation, Beacon Sound's 50th release and a benefit for the Beirut Musicians Fund, they recorded a collaborative piece entitled "Interdependence In Solitude" that was so promising the label offered to release an album if they continued down the path they had started upon. The resulting eight songs are simply mesmerizing. Made during a period of change and upheaval in the world and society where many people were disconnected from others, the album is the product of a collage-like dialogue built on trust and patience. While the musicians couldn’t physically be together for much of this time, they began sending musical ideas to one another in a conversational back-and-forth that acted as an anchor of stability – something they found they could turn to and depend on when things felt uncertain elsewhere. This comfort zone led to some transcendent moments of experimentation. “Delicate Need”, for example, features recordings of exaggerated pizzicato that were sampled and then run back through processing effects, which were then subsequently performed live over the original track. As things became less risky on the Covid front, they would occasionally meet for backyard rehearsals. Indeed, a recording of one of these rehearsals became the basis for the opening track “Photo Aware”. Wake will be available later this summer as a limited edition LP, with design work by Berlin-based Studio Bernhardt. The cover painting was created by Portland artist Nate Ethington. Highlights: – Derek was invited by the artist Gregory Euclide (Bon Iver, Erased Tapes) to participate in his label project, Thesis, along with artists such as Benoit Pioulard, Loscil, and Julianna Barwick. – Derek‘s first and second albums as a solo artist were released by Beacon Sound (Travelogue, 2017; Steel, Wood, & Air, 2019). – Location Services likewise released their 2019 album Reincorporate on the label. – The artists plan to tour together in 2023. Cascadia release shows TBA. Bios: Location Services is the Portland-based project of multi-instrumentalist Mike Grabarek (Magic Fades) and harpist Joshua Ward. They’ve released music on Beacon Sound and Beer On The Rug. They perform both written and improvised music. Derek Hunter Wilson is a composer and multi-instrumentalist based in Portland. He has released two solo albums on Beacon Sound and has also collaborated with visual artist Gregory Euclide for his Thesis Project label, resulting in a split 10" with Spanish musician Rauelsson. He has additionally collaborated with poets Zachary Schomburg and Brandi Katherine Herrera for several sound and performance pieces. He has performed live on the West Coast and in Berlin, sharing the stage with artists such as Colleen, Amulets, and Liima.
140gm gold vinyl in gatefold. MENTALIST, the Saarbrücken Germany based Melodic Metal group, like maybe no other recently new band has managed to leave big, positive marks in the Power Metal scene! After the big success of the debut album ‘Freedom Of Speech’ (2020), the German/ Swedish foursome consisting of Peter Moog (guitars), Thomen Stauch (dr., ex BLIND GUARDIAN), Kai Stringer (guitars) and Swedish exceptional singer Rob Lundgren just scraped past the German official media control album charts with their 2021 effort ‘A Journey Into The Unknown’ (trend charts: #63)! On iTunes, MENTALIST reached an impressive #2 as highest position at the Metal charts, and the fans of the Facebook group ‘Power Metal’ with 110K followers voted ‘A Journey Into The Unknown’ as best Power Metal release of the year 2021. ‘Empires Falling’, the third full length by the German/Swedish outfit, now continues where its predecessors have stopped! Oliver Palotai (keys, Kamelot) und Mike LePond (b., Symphony X) again joined MENTALIST as energetic guests on keyboards and bass. On this release, outstanding musicianship teams up with fabulous melodies and fine, subtle arrangements as parts of epic, stirring and energy-driven songs which reinforce the high quality of MENTALIST. The front cover artwork again was designed by Andreas Marschall (Blind Guardian, Running Wild), the mix & the mastering once more was handled by Jacob Hansen (Volbeat, Amaranthe, Pretty Maids etc.). ‘Empires Falling’ will be released on September 16th, 2022 on CD, digital, and as gold vinyl 2-LP. A tour for Autumn 2022 is currently in preparation. Track listing: Solution Revolution; Stairs Of Ragusa; Tears Within A Paradise; Empires Falling; If You Really Want; Columbus; Noah’s Ark; Generation’s Legacy; Heavy Metal Leia; Out Of The Dark; Years Of Slavery; Forbidden Fruits (Bonus Track); Bumblebee (Bonus Track)
Finally it’s here! After many years, the repress arrived. This time how it was supposed to be. With new cover artwork and newly mixed songs. It's a rare but exhilarating occasion when you put on a new LP and are utterly blown away by what you hear. Every now and then, music makes you feel magically alive -- makes you want to jump around, pound your fist in the air, and shout "Oh, yeah!" Listening to Grand Fury, the second major release by Los Angeles quartet the Bellrays, is such an experience. Imagine the Funhouse-era Stooges fronted by a female R&B singer instead of Iggy Pop, and you'll have a vague understanding of what the Bellrays call "maximum rock 'n' soul". Although they've drawn comparisons to the Stooges or the MC5 fronted by Tina Turner, Etta James, or Aretha Franklin, the Bellrays rightly point out that soul was an important element in those Detroit-area punks' sounds. So, in some ways, the Bellrays are just bringing out an element of early punk music that was there all along. Nonetheless, the resulting sound is startlingly unique. Lead singer Lisa Kekaula has also sung jazz, and it's obvious she has technical skill, but she tears into these songs with a venom and passion that is pure rock 'n' roll. Bandmates Tony Fate, Bob Vennum, and Ray Chin provide a raw, blues-edged backing that is loose enough to allow Kekaula considerable room to go wild. And does she ever. With her raucous voice and the aggressive songs penned by guitarist Fate, Kekaula makes you believe she'd sooner spit in your face than look at you. "I'm stuck inside a moment / Can't find my way out / And time keeps draggin' on" she sings on "Fire on the Moon", but the confident way she spits out the words makes you believe she could claw her way out of anything. Likewise, Kekaula's indictment of "Stupid Fuckin' People" is so fierce it's almost scary. When she snarls, "Stupid fuckin' people always get in my way / Want to ruin my piece of the world" you know you'd better get out of her way. The only time this sonic assault slows down is on "Have a Little Faith in Me", a sexy soul number that Janis Joplin would have been proud to sing. While Kekaula's amazing voice and charisma are key to the Bellrays' sound, the rest of the band has to be commended for rocking so hard without drowning out that fierce set of pipes. With all the over-produced pap dominating the airwaves, hearing a band this raw and raucous is a dream come true.
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)
On the occasion of Christian Muthspiel's 60th birthday, In+Out Records is
releasing the album 'Simple Songs' for the first time on vinyl - limited to
999 copies worldwide and personally hand-signed by the jubilarian
Aside from Werner Pirchner's "Himmelblau", the nine duos which Christian
Muthspiel composed especially for this album form a cycle of duets in the mood
set by the first track, "Pas de deux tranquille". Muthspiel is featured on trombone,
piano, e- piano and once even on the recorder, alongside Steve Swallow, whose
distinctive sound on the bass guitar is perfectly suited for this project.
Overdubs, loops and other electronic effects were intentionally avoided in order to
focus on the pure quality of the playing. The underlying principle for all of the
compositions on this album was to keep it simple, both in terms of composition
and sound; to seek refinement in simplicity and to follow the natural, consistent
development of one small musical cell per song. The progression of keys, modes
and tempos from one piece to another also played an important role.
The liner notes to this album are by the Austrian writer Christoph Ransmayr, who
writes very pictorially: "When I hear the Simple Songs that Christian Muthspiel has
composed and then he and his companion Steve Swallow have made twirl and
soar and float, I am sometimes transported to a riverbank in summer, where the
branches of a wild elder tree, stones and grasses become the neck and body of a
bass guitar or the tuning slide and bell of a trombone played with thrilling ease."
Vente (The Danish word for "wait") was released in 2021 and was the sixth album and the latest result, of a long-running collaboration between drummer Emil de Waal, clarinetist Elith "Nulle" Nykjær, multi-musician Gustaf Ljunggren and hammond organist Dan Hemmer. Emil de Waal has played drums with an impressive line-up of names in Danish rock, pop and jazz, ranging from Bagdad Dagblad, over Old News and Maluba Orchestra, to his current band Kalaha, an ensemble known for mixing electronic music with elements of jazz and African music. Elith "Nulle" Nykjær, who is 84 years old, is a living legend in Danish jazz and has had an impressive career as an actor, writer, musician and composer at DR (The Danish Broadcasting Corporation). Since the late '80s, he has toured in both Europe and in the US with his ensemble, Nulle & Verdensorkestret ("Nulle & The World Orchestra") and the repertoire of this very popular group has affected the repertoire on Vente. Gustaf Ljunggren was born in Stockholm, Sweden and lives in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he studied to become a saxophone player at The Rhythmic Music Conservatory. He became a household name in Denmark when he was the bandleader on the Danish talkshow 'Det Nye Talkshow' in the period 2009- 2011. He has performed and recorded with a wide variety of artists, such as Robyn, Teitur and Caroline Henderson. Ljunggren is often referred to as a "multi-instrumentalist" and he masters both wind instruments, strings and keys. Dan Hemmer is known as one half of the duo, Lindberg Hemmer Foundation, with the late, great Danish cult figure, entertainer and bass player, Morten Lindberg aka Master Fatman. Besides that, Hemmer has played with virtually everyone within all genres of music, and over the last decade or so, he and Danish saxophonist Michael Blicher, have been playing with none less than American funk master - drummer Steve Gadd. The four musicians on Vente all come from their individual musical backgrounds, bringing with them elements of their personal history. And when they get together to play, they don't intend for the music to come out in any particular way - it just has to feel right for all of them. This free-spirited approach to playing music, combined with the album's delicate mixture of originals, written by various members of the ensemble, and carefully selected jazz-standards, played with the group's groovy personal touch, gives the music on Vente a nostalgic, yet timeless, quality.
LOCUS launches VA series ‘LOCUS Trax’, with the first volume welcoming Stephan Bazbaz, Julian Anthony, Sucasa and Ben Jones.
Since launching in summer 2020, FUSE’s sister imprint LOCUS has quickly become a go-to outlet for quality house material from emerging and established talent, welcoming releases from Chris Stussy, Sidney Charles, Lauren Lo
Sung, Rossi. and Casey Spillman amongst many. A new addition for 2022, the imprint now unveils its various artist series LOCUS Trax, with Volume 1 welcoming the return of Tel Aviv’s Stephan Bazbaz, alongside label debuts from
bubbling Dutchman Julian Anthony, London-based pairing Sucasa and Liverpool’s Ben Jones.
Stephan Bazbaz’s ‘Dars’ showcases a lively effort as swinging drums work beneath resonant chords and meandering basslines, while Julian Anthony lays the focus on cosmic pads, vibrant organ bass and shuffling percussion across
‘It’s Showtime’. On the flip, Sucasa dive into deeper spheres with the blissful yet impactful sonics of ‘Time Travel’, before handing over to Ben Jones for the peppy sounds and slinking grooves of ‘Get To Know’.
Roman Flügel’s pioneering Tracks On Delivery series returns for a new EP on Rekids.
In the early 00’s, Roman Flugel’s ‘Tracks On Delivery’ releases saw the producer put out four records on Ongaku Music that helped defined an era of oddball minimal techno. Returning to the concept in 2022, the Frankfurt-based electronic music luminary delivers four idiosyncratic techno tracks for Radio Slave’s imprint.
Active since the 90s, Flügel has been at the forefront of electronic music for decades. Founding the labels Ongaku, Klang Elektronik, and Playhouse, Flügel also boasts a storied discography across labels such as Running Back, ESP Institute, Dial and many more, as well as having contributed to both Live at Robert Johnson and fabric’s iconic mix series.
A multi-layered kaleidoscopic musical ride that will take you to places no other soundtrack has ever taken you before. Uplifting latin funk, melancholic chanson, dark synth drone, biguine punk, acid techno and a few absolutely indescribable hybrids, the songs created by Figueira to back the images of the film where he also plays the main character, are very impactful and cover an impressive array of influences and musical languages, put together in exquisite cinematic fashion.
After 5 highly acclaimed singles under his own name, the unpredictable, “out there” song writing and production style of Figueira is displayed here from a new perspective. Composing expressively for specific moments of the film, he has allowed yet new elements arise in his already extensive palette of sounds.
Relying once again exclusively on himself to get the job done, he has assembled a collection of songs that portrait many different emotions. Happiness, awe, fear, paranoia, helplessness, disappointment, excitement… are all evoked, reflecting all key twists and turns of the short-film directed by Mateo Fava and Dave Postma.
Limited cassette release (99 copies) with exclusive dialogue excerpts from the film (not included in the digital version). Hand-numbered, beautiful risographed foldable inlay, drawn by Kevin Mancera.
Supported by the world-renowned Aarhus Jazz Orchestra, multi-award winning quartet Kalaha present Tutku, an energetic fusion of jazz, Turkish psychedelic rock and 80's inspired synth-pop. Their most ambitious and adventurous record yet album pairs the self branded "Danish band with world roots" with a big band committed to embracing innovative contemporary jazz and guest star vocalist Hilal Kaya. Formed after an improvised set at 2013's STRØM Festival in Copenhagen, the four members that make up Kalaha share a collective passion for collaboration and an open-minded approach to music making. Each being active members of different corners of the Danish music scene, the result of their combined musical personalities is refreshingly modern cross between thoughtful songwriting and high level jazz-minded musicianship. While their 2021 release 'Mystafa' saw them collaborate with a number of vocalists, 'Tutku' sees the entrancing vocals of Danish/Turkish artist Hilal Kaya as the focal point of the record. Grounded by the driving sounds of Anatolian rock, the nine track work weaves between folk, spiritual jazz, and even disco, serving up a wealth of danceable grooves and rich harmony. Produced by Kalaha themselves, the production style shifts between the close, modern sound of a pop outfit and the expansive, reverberated sound of a 20 piece ensemble. Soaring over the top of AJO's intricate ensemble arrangements are an expansive network of electronic sounds, carefully designed and played by two of Denmark's leading synthesists, Jens "Rumpistol" B. Christiansen and Mikael "Spejderrobot" Elkjær. With careers including international recognition from UK trendsetter Gilles Peterson, their immersive sound-world of melodic synth solos and explosive dub-tinged sound effects transform Tutku into a large ensemble record unlike any other. Completed by legendary drummer Emil de Waal and in-demand guitarist Niclas Knudsen, Kalaha's striking and colourful visual identity shares the Middle Eastern influence of their music and enhances the psychedelic nature of their songs, invoking otherworldly imagery in the listeners' minds and rounding Tutku off as a cohesive, well thought out recorded statement. Line up>> Niclas Knudsen – Guitars, Emil de Waal - Drums amd percussion, Jens "Rumpistol" Christiansen - Synths & vocals, Mikael "Spejderrobot" Elkjær - Synths and Laptop, Hilal Kaya - Lead vocals, Plus: Aarhus Jazz Orchestra
"Kontakt Audio and Infinite Fog Productions proudly present the 25-th anniversary reissue of the one of most unique albums on avantgarde/neoclassic music – Ihor Tsymbrovsky – Come, Angel.
Recorded in 1995 in Ukraine and released in 1996 just as a small run on cassette on Polish label Koka Records, the album without any promotion little by little became legendary and madly wanted by many fans all around the world. And from the first seconds, you can hear why it is so. Pretty hard to explain what songs play Ihor, moreover that would be senseless. “Come, Angel” is one of those albums which are so unique that takes you in a vacuum of verbal forms in an attempt to describe the record. In a few words, this is definitely very intimate and deeply emotional music with an absolutely incredible voice. The first associations could forward you to Antony Hegarty from Antony And The Johnsons, Marc Almond, Arthur Russell, Baby Dee, Bjork. Experienced listener familiar with these great artist knows that all of them are inimitable and Ihor Tsymbrovsky is totally inimitable as well.
In 2016 well-known German label Offen Music published 3 tracks from the album “Come, Angel” which brought a lot of attention to Ihor’s music. This time we’re excited to announce the first full album reissue on CD, Double vinyl, and tapes. Beside the full version of the album, you’ll find an exclusive bonus song from the cult compilation “Music The World Does Not See” – Nefryt Records 2000.
~
“For me, music is a certain way of cultural survival. Here I do not set myself theoretical problems or experiments.
The connotations of life are important: rhythms, melodies, their connection with language, poetry, real life, virtual or imaginary space. It is very important to me how the recitation of work sounds, how consonant and vowel sounds dissolve in singing, how they combine musically. I understand sound space as a field of my interpretations, preferences, priorities, and I do not use direct imitation. If I hear a melody or a musical phrase, and it is fixed in my memory, later I extract it in my own interpretation, as already formed by this field. In art, the goal is in the work itself, not outside it. For me, the expression “To be is to create a new reality” is another winged reality.” – Ihor Tsymbrovsky
~~
“Tsymbrovsky – an architect, musician, a poet, an artist; one of the most underestimated musicians in Ukraine’s artistic world. Many critics pulled their hair out trying to get to the bottom of Tsymbrovsky’s music. It has been inspired by jazz, minimal, modern, ethnic, and meditation music. Tsymbrovsky is not a virtuoso, however, he creates whole worlds with his astonishing falsetto. Although Cymbrovsky’s music is simple it is made of many elements. Filled with magic and unusual sensitivity and warmth it can be therapeutic for the listener. This is that kind of music, which can be listened to many times – in a different way each time.” – Koka Records.
~~~
“Igor Tsymbrovsky’s only album “Come Angel” (1995) still remains perhaps the most bizarre phenomenon in Ukrainian music since independence. The story of its author is a vivid example of cultural amnesia. In the pre-Internet era, Tsymbrovsky was a prominent figure in the Ukrainian underground, performed on the “Red Route”, went on tour in Germany. However, he left a minimum of evidence of his activity and became a silent legend for a few. We talked to Igor to find out where he came from and where he was going.
The album “Come Angel” is eight compositions performed with a falsetto to the accompaniment of a piano. (Tsymbrovsky’s falsetto is a legacy of the Lviv Dudaryk choir, where he sang as a child.) It would seem that it could be easier. But, despite such ascetic tools, Tsymbrovsky managed to create a phenomenon unique to Ukrainian culture. Some people compare him to Benjamin Clementine and Anthony Hegarty, but no comparison will be exhaustive. The lyrics of the songs attract special attention: two of them were written by Tsymbrovsky himself, the others demonstrate his remarkable literary knowledge. Here and Guillaume Apollinaire, and Mikhaijl Semenko, and even less obvious poets, such as Mykola Vorobyov or Jozsef Attila.
The young performer’s first performance took place in 1987 in the club of the Forestry Institute. It is quite symbolic that this room used to be a Jesuit church because such a chamber environment suits his songs about angels much better than the noise of big festivals. However, there were also many festivals in Tsymbrovsky’s career: in 1989, Chorna Rada and Chervona Ruta, in 1991, Kharkiv’s Nova Scena and Ukrainian Nights in Gdansk, Alternativa in Lviv. Ihor calls his first performances musical performances and notes that they sounded completely different. Unfortunately, we will never know exactly how.” – Amnesia
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“The magicians at Dusseldorf’s Offen Music pluck a madly beguiling pearl of late-night songcraft by Ukraine’s Ihor Tsymbrovsky to follow their vital releases by Toresch and Rex Ilusivii. Come Angel was first recorded in Lviv, Ukraine, in 1995, and issued on cassette by Poland’s Koka Records in 1996. There appears to be no prior mention of the release or artist on the internet and quite how it came into of Offen Music possession is not disclosed, and that only ratchets the record’s enigma to astonishing degrees once you’ve heard the music. In a quivering, high register, androgynous trill, Ihor Tsymbrovsky beckons heavenly beings in the remarkable A-side Come, Angel against a swirling backdrop of phasing, subtly delayed organ. It was recorded in one take (this is the 2nd version), and, if we’re not mistaken, you can hear the keys being pressed rhythmically in the background, which seems to be the song’s only tangible connection to this mortal world as Ihor vaults octaves high and close-in-the-mix with the sort of alien, dreamlike vocal that requires pinching oneself to make sure you’re awake. Spellbinding is definitely the word. On the other side he (we’re assured it is a ‘he’ in the promo text) sets two poems by Mykola Vorobyov and Mykhal Semenko, respectively, to emphatic piano keys, this time more shy of FX save for some delay, placing that willowing, avian vocal at a dreamy arms reach in Roses for the Poet, and with a sort of liturgical dark jazz feel, sorta like Lewis repenting his sins as a castrato monk, in the spare atmosphere in By the Sea. This is gold-seal business, we tell ya. Clock the clips and clear some swooning room.” – Boomkat
credits:
Music By – Ihor Tsymbrovsky
Lyrics By: Ihor Tsymbrovsky (tracks: C2, D1)
Atilla Joszef (tracks: B1)
Mychajl Semenko (tracks: B2, C1,C3, D2)
Mykoła Worobjow (tracks: A1,A2)
Engineer – Edward Hryhorjew
Remastering – Ihor Tsymbrovsky"
Synthetic Music From Yugoslavia 1980-1989
"The galloping technical progress in the second half of the last century dominated all spheres of daily life, art and culture. In the music industry machines took over the role of classical instruments and did not stop at RnR, punk nor industrial music. No one could resist the challenge, but also the prevailing trends in the 80s. The music industry was influenced by the electronic virus globally, not sparing even the remotest corners of the planet, producing bands like Depeche Mode, New Order, Soft Cell or lesser known ones like Liquid Liquid, Section 25, The Wake as well as the pioneers of the electronic music Silver Apples, Pierre Henry,etc .
What was going on in the music industry of former Yugoslavia and at Jugoton, the biggest YU music label at that time? The all over answer is given by a new release of Everland Music: Electronic Jugoton - Synthetic music from Yugoslavia 1964. - 1989. Vol. 1
Electronic Jugoton is the first part of two double albums, where the second part will even go back to pre-electronic music from 1964. Both double albums were initially released by Croatia Records (ex-Jugoton) in 2014 on a 2CD set with no less than two and a half hours of material (47 songs, 35 performers), showing the contemporary trend of Jugoton at that time towards avant-garde and provocative directions in electronic music. This untimely compilation is released for the first time on vinyl now on two double LPs, housed in gatefold sleeves by Everland Music, where part 2 will be released in 2023.
The brave and insightful creators of the compilation Electronic Jugoton, veteran crate diggers Višeslav Laboš and Zeljko Luketić, have excelled at reconstructing the musical past of electronic music in Yugoslavia from 1964 – 1989. Jugoton's extensive research included the most exciting and progressive moments of pop and disco music, early rap, electronic responses of new wave, RnR, post punk and industrial bands to the current trend of the 80s, but also pioneers of avant-garde electronic music.
Electronic Jugoton part 1 is officially opened by the band Laboratorija with the song Devica 69, which opens a window to a completely new and experimental world in former Yugoslavia.Laboš and Luketić have boldly chosen the material without reservations, suggesting that for the first time in one place we have a section of forgotten, unique underground bands like Beograd, Data, Brazil, The Master Scratch band, DU DU A and beyond.
Besides the excellent underground bands, we find popular performers of the time performing less well-known songs: Denis & Denis, Oliver Mandić, Slađana & Neutral Design.
Electronic Jugoton part 2 is partly dedicated to unique electronic music in the performance of important Yugoslav punk, new wave, RnR and industrial bands: Zana, Pekinška patka, Električni orgazam and Borghesia, while the second part of the material is focused on avant-garde early electronic music in Yugoslavia, where the works of composers Igor Savin, Branimir Sakac, Igor Kuljerić and Miroslav Miletić were presented. Luketić and Laboš rescued the obscure electronic tune Elektra by Zdenka Kovačiček, who was at that time Jugoslovska Soul and funk diva.
The uniqueness and quality of this compilation are also audio stories for children, which were extremely fertile ground for an experimentation with electronic sounds, as they should be highly imaginative to attract the attention of the childrens. Electronic Jugoton is also the first compilation in which the listener will find fragments of interviews with actors from the time gave for Jugoton Express. This was a series of promo vinyls printed in extremely small quantities in the 80's and intended to be exclusively for radio stations. An average of 30 minutes of promotion material and interviews with musicians were available for the first time through this compilation.
The value of this compilation is time and priceless. The only question is whether you will be fast enough to catch your copy of the limited double vinyl editions!"
Steppin up, steppin in. Tom Esselle, one half of the minds behind the South London label and former Peckham record store, Yam Records, joins the WOLF Music fam for his first full length EP. And you best believe it doesn’t disappoint.
Following VA appearances on Rhythm Section and his own imprint, he goes all out for this first solo EP outing. Shuffling bumpers, SE LDN jazz-flecked deepness, tough drum workouts and broken beat heaters, all mixed down by Chaos In The CBD main man Beans, this really does have a cut for every occasion and shows an accomplished head rests on Esselle’s shoulders. Someone who’s been part of the scene for years, slingin records and throwing parties, he knows what makes people tick and even better what makes people move.
This is premium grade dancefloor business, tinged by a whole host of different influences and genres, strung together with that distinctive South London feel.
David Versace is an Australian multi-genre keyboardist, composer and producer based in Meanjin, Queensland. Growing up in a very musical household it was always important to express and embrace all types of music and sonics. His sound ranges from Jazz and Samba to ambient works and the odd dance-floor heater. David also plays in Meanjin nu-jazz dance outfit First Beige.
Since late 2019, he has self released around 20 different tracks and with the most recent signing to La Sape Records David is excited to announce his debut solo album 'Okra' a conceptual body of work that flows through a culmination of raw organic concepts conceived by In The Moment, and his most elegant & articulated work yet.
Hailing from Paris, Molly heads up the third release on Mexico's Kilometro 4.5 imprint.
Following standout performances for world-class institutions such as Panorama Bar, Boiler Room, Sonar and Primavera to name but a few, her DJ sets showcase her ability to weave together a variety of styles, with everything from unctuous deep house to tougher techno.
Productionally, the former is reflected in her debut EP for the label 'Favorite Cocktails'; a true-to-self journey of ethereal textures that cruise and guide you through a smooth landscape of luscious deep house.
"Matasuna Records" returns to Mexico for a third time to dig for rare treasures. They got their hands on a special gem - two obscure Latin/Jazzfunk tunes by a band called "Colorado" from "Mexico City". The songs were released in 1976 on the Mexican label Peerless and the super rare original 7inch is virtually unavailable. Fortunately, the release is finally available for the first time as an official reissue in a remastered edition. An unjustly under-the-radar Latin jazzfunk highlight!
The song "Colorado", named after the band, opens the "A-side" of the single. The hypnotic fender rhodes puts the listener in the right mood right from the start, before the drums and percussion set the rhythm. The horns also add depth and melodiousness before the song takes a turn and reveals its funky side with guitars, synths and bass. A nice guitar solo also reveals the affinity for rock music without losing sight of the vibe of the song or tipping it a different direction. Definitely a fabulous song that comes up with a lot of ideas and inspirations, offering an unexpected richness in the under 3-minute running time.
The "B-side" also continues musically energetic in the same way with "Para Ti". Here, too, you can feel and hear the playfulness and experimentation of these extraordinary musicians. Atmospherically dense passages alternate with quieter phases and solo parts, before the tension rises again and literally explodes. As in the song "Colorado", rhodes, brass, guitars & bass offer a great and varied interplay. The secret highlight, however, might be the drum and percussion parts in the middle of the track, which will surely enchant not only the B-Boys and B-Girls.
Artist info:
The internet, a source of almost endless knowledge, offers no information about the band Colorado. All the more fortunate that one of the band's founding members, "Emilio Espinosa Becerra", provides detailed info for the reissue.
In 1968 the three brothers "Luis", "Francisco" and "Emilio Espinosa Becerra" from Mexico City started to rehearse together to play wellknown rock & pop songs at friends or family parties. At first, they played on Japanese guitars and a Teisco bass borrowed from a school friend. They saved up money to then buy guitar & bass amps and a microphone, which they always had to rent until then. However, the budget was only enough for Mexican replicas of the legendary Fender Bassman and the Fender Super Reverb. Original equipment was simply unaffordable.
Shortly thereafter, more members joined the band. Three musicians from the school band "Tepeyac": "Marco Nieto Bermudez" (trumpet), "Raymundo Mier Garza" (tenor saxophone) and "Alfonso Romero" (trombone). Another classmate named "Carlos Mauricio Fernández Ordóñez", who studied piano, also joined the group. His father had a chemical factory in the United States and helped bring equipment (amplifiers and a Farfisa Fast 5 organ) - hidden in the back of a truck - to Mexico. In the time that followed, more instruments were acquired, including bass and guitars (from Gibson, Rickenbacher and Fender) and microphones (from Shure) for vocals and horns.
With a larger band and new equipment, they played many parties in their district of "Lindavista" in "Mexico City" and neighboring areas from 1970 to 1973, as well as gigs at various festivals and school events. The group's band name at the time was "Sound Core Brass". However, more and more often people with turntables and speakers showed up at parties, which were also able to heat up. The so-called "Sonideros", a sound system culture that was emerging in the 1960s, charged less than a multi-piece live band, so the band's performances declined.
During those years, three other "Espinosa Becerra" family members joined the band: "Jorge Rafael" (trombone), "Sergio Alejandro" (tenor saxophone) and "Felipe de Jesus" (drums and percussion).
A brother of the musicians, "Carlos Espinosa Becerra", studied electrical engineering at the University. Together with another fellow student, he designed and built a 10-channel console with a variety of functions and features that far surpassed the devices available at the time. They also went to the US again to buy JBL speakers & tweeters to build their own sound system. On another trip to Los Angeles, they bought Phase Linear amplifiers, which offered enormous power by the standards of the time and had an extremely low distortion factor. With this equipment they could turn up the volume really loud and noise-free.
This was also the time when they stopped playing music from English bands & youth groups and changed their repertoire completely. They played mambos, chachachas, pasodobles and tangos on special occasions in big ballrooms and halls. Also, every now and then they hired a string quartet of well-known Mexican violinists to provide the musical entertainment at dinner events.
During those years, classmate "Pablo Rached Diaz" joined the band, playing tenor saxophone. Pablo was very active and organized many parties. He was also the one who helped the band to record on the Mexican label "Peerless". So in 1975 they were asked by Peerles Records to record their own songs. They had recorded a total of 12 songs - six of these songs were released on three vinyl singles (45rpm). Most of the songs were composed by "Gustavo Ruiz de Chavez Sr.". The band was asked to adopt a more commercial name, and so they had chosen the band name "Colorado". In the course of the releases, the band made some promotional tours and appeared in shows on "Televisa", the most important television station in Mexico in those years.
Later, several members of "Colorado" graduated and began to pursue regular professions. They didn't stop playing at events, but priority was given to more formal duties and the band was no longer as active as it had been in its heyday.
About 8 years ago, the band got back together to play again. The next generation of musicians also joined the band: two sons, a nephew and a brother-in-law of the original band members. Currently, they are back playing at friends' parties and family gatherings in Mexico City.
Our French brother returns to TAU with his latest outing, Return From Delta EP - a collection of four tracks that further cement his reputation for classy synthwave-inspired dance floor artillery. Darlyn is based in Valencia, where he is always deeply immersed in his audio lab, concocting new and unique ways to express his creativity. In 2021 he dropped the Doble Impacto EP, and now he’s back to bring us more synthesised freshness as only he can do...
Italy’s rising star Mauro Venti will arrive on Hot Creations for the first time in July with the three-track Sirens EP. It continues a stellar 2022 for the burgeoning artist, having released on EMI and Snatch Records already this year.
The title track leads the charge, blending minimal-laced bass elements with a rolling lead groove. It’s a modern house cut through and through, building cleanly into the futuristic sounds of Prison. Signature synths create a bladerunner-esque feel, transporting us to far away realms, before Symphony ends proceedings on a techy, late-night note courtesy of four-four bass patterns and gritty, hard-hitting percussion.
Mauro Venti is fast-becoming one of contemporary house music’s leading forces. His releases speak for themselves, with appearances on Green Velvet’s Relief, Superfett and Gorgon City’s Realm Records already under his belt. At just twenty-five years old, such feats are made all the more impressive, proving there’s plenty still to come for the young Italian talent.
The members of Szun Waves may not have been collectively in the same country, let alone room, for over two years, but that hasn't prevented them from realising their third album, Earth Patterns. The trio - comprised of producer Luke Abbott, saxophonist Jack Wyllie (Portico Quartet) and drummer Laurence Pike (Triosk/PVT/Liars) - recorded the album sessions together at the tail end of their 2019 European tour, locking themselves away in the studio for three days of improvisation. They emerged with hours of music, some inspired by their live shows, most born fresh in the studio itself, ready to be moulded into the group's third album in five years.
Lampen is Kalle Kalima and Tatu Rönkkö. Kalle plays guitar, Tatu plays percussions and sampler. Together they're Lampen, a duo making highly addictive "post jazz" with a musical heart far beyond genre. Call it what you will, but the main point is listening, and there's a high season for that coming as Lampen is set to release their debut album on We Jazz Records on "Kintsugi Gold" vinyl and digitally. Previously a CD only release (Karkia Mistika Records, 2020), "Lampen" presents two artists who have a knack at making music which opens up with each listen, pulling you deeper and deeper. Meditative passages flow by slowly as in a peaceful river stream, erupting into full rapids of sound when the time is right. This is sonic rafting for the curious listener.
Tatu Rönkkö (b.1983) is a Finnish percussionist and drummer who has been active in the experimental music scene of Helsinki and Berlin during the past ten years and has toured Europe, U.S. and Asia extensively. He is a forming member of Liima (DK/FI) and has performed with such artists as Ilpo Väisänen (Pan Sonic), Samuli Kosminen (Múm), Jimi Tenor, Nils Frahm, Efterklang, Raoul Björkenheim, Elifantree and Islaja. Rönkkö has been playing improvised solo concerts in people's kitchens ("I Play Your Kitchen") using only kitchenware found in each home as instruments.
Kalle Kalima (b. 1973 in Helsinki, Finland) has worked with trumpeters Tomasz Stanko and Wadada Leo Smith, sax players Juhani Aaltonen, Anthony Braxton, bass players Greg Cohen and Sirone, guitarist Marc Ducret, composers Michael Wertmüller and Simon Stockhausen, pianists Jason Moran and Hans Lüdemann, drummers Jim Black and Tony Allen and singers Andreas Schaerer, Linda Sharrock as well as with Ensemble Resonanz and Jazzanova. Kalima has composed orchestral music for Opera Lyon, Ensemble Resonanz (Chamber Ensemble of Elbfilharmony in Hamburg), String Trio of Munich Symphony, NDR Big Band, Umo Big Band and Jousia Ensemble among others.
Pablo Bozzi is a Berlin-based French producer also known under the alias of Lapse of Reason and as ½ of projects like Soft Crash, Infravision and Imperial Black Unit. Bozzi, who has been long recognized for his ability to omit electronic music conventions with remarkable ease, returns to BITE with his second solo EP on the imprint. BITE020 serves as a further exploration of his signature Italo Body Music style. In the best traditions of so-called Bozzi Music, the EP is a stylistic hybrid rich with nostalgic synth lines, electro and new beat influences, while this time leaning even more into the hard-hitting EBM territory. All while staying true Bozzi’s playful and euphoric spirit, which resonates with so many dancefloor enthusiasts. Artwork by Silent Editions and Simone Ling Design by Eloise Leigh Mastered by Gianmaria Dell’Aera
Halv Drøm is the EBM/techno/punk/esoteric project of Berlin-based Australian DJ, producer and Fleisch Records co-founder, Saxon Jörgensen. Halv Drøm’s approach to creating music is deeply rooted in ideas of political upheaval and possibilities of spiritual healing through raw and confrontational sounds. Halv Drøm’s debut appearance on BITE is an intense 5 track EP that alternates between trance-inducing esoteric polyrhythms, high-impact body music and gloomy techno, and results in a dark trip-like musical experience, where modern electronics and ancient rhythmic structures perform a ritual of harsh healing. The EP is supported with remixes by BITE regulars – Unhuman and Human Performance Lab. Artwork by Florian Engerling Design by Eloise Leigh Mixed by Gianmaria Dell’Aera and Manos Simotas Mastered by Gianmaria Dell’Aera
Svart Records to release new album by rising stars of eclectic heavy rock, Messa on the 11th of March 2022. Messa’s rising trajectory hits the stratosphere on their immense new album “Close”. Soaring up out of the Italian Doom Rock underground in 2014, Messa have been rapidly garnering a frenzied throng of devotees, in thrall to their monumental and broad-ranging sound craft. Releasing two widely celebrated cult records, the latest of which “Feast For Water” in 2018 was a critical breakthrough success, with Rolling Stone calling the whole album “captivating, wringing maximum drama out of its savvy stylistic clash,” Messa have had everyone on tenterhooks, waiting for what was next. New album “Close” draws us further into Messa’s spellbinding textures and immersive dynamics. Described as “Stevie Nicks fronting Black Sabbath,” singer Sara’s colossal voice omnipotently carries the listener on an emotional rollercoaster ride where the sonic cauldron of Iommi guitars gives way to Arabian oudh and progressive solos in a masterful style-clash that well befits Messa’s incendiary reputation. The hushed Fender Rhodes piano intro on opener “Suspended,” picks up where Messa left off on their previous album “Feast For Water” but then collapses gloriously into Jazz guitar and widescreen impassioned crushing riffs, lighting our way for the odyssey ahead. The scene is set magnificently for the journey that “Close” expertly takes the listener on, with Messa’s obvious care and passion for the album as a pilgrimage of sonic experience. Heavyweight tracks like “If You Want Her To Be Taken” or “0=2” are modern Doom Rock classics that expertly upgrade and leave the genre reeling in their wake. “Pilgrim” and “Orphalese” are woven with tapestries of Mediterranean sounds where oudh and eastern chord phrasings expand Messa’s cinematic palette with a panache that is all their own. Atmospheric and grandiose belters like “Rubedo” and “Dark Horse” build into an almost limitless climax of discord and harmony where blast beats and saxophones descend into a thrilling cacophony that’s a masterclass in artful cutting edge Doom. Referencing bands like Dead Can Dance, Swans and Om, Messa have created an album where song, experience and atmosphere are focused into a crystalline modus where high art flawlessly embraces good old fashioned riff-worship. Transcending the occult and noir-tinted atmospheres of their past works, “Close” confidently weaves Messa’s multifarious influences into a singular breath-taking sound that leaves the listener enthralled. Perfection or something extremely close, Messa’s “Close” is not just a Metal record, but it’s definitely one of the best things to break out of the confines of Metal in a long time.
Genre defining label Hot Creations welcomes in another milestone release this July, as imprint-founder Jamie Jones makes a long-awaited return with the three-track Bionic Boy. It acts as his first solo EP on Hot Creations since last September’s Handy Work, continuing a standout 2022 for the UK talent.
We’re graced with JJ’s techy, groove-laced sound right from the offset, as Bionic Boy leads the charge. Packed full of hard-edged percussion and rampant kick-hat pairings, a well-known female vocal takes us to the dancefloor and beyond before Moment Of Clarity soon arrives. Euphoric piano stabs live beside Chicago-esque key solos, paving the way for Here Comes The Drums. Darkened pads, tribal drums and whomping kicks meld to form a late-night, club-driven number that represents the signature Jamie Jones sound that we know and love.
As a world-renowned DJ and producer, head of Hot Creations and founder of the global Paradise event series, Jamie Jones has etched out a legacy in electronic music that few others can attest to. His personally curated Paradise series offers an international showcase of house and techno’s most recognisable artists, whilst his flagship label, Hot Creations, continues to pioneer a contemporary house sound. 2022 sees the label host a ‘Ten Year’ anniversary tour, with events planned across Miami, London, New York and Amsterdam, whilst Paradise makes its home in iconic Ibiza nightspot Amnesia. Confirmed guests for the weekly Wednesday residency include Joseph Capriati, Nicole Moudaber, Loco Dice, The Blessed Madonna and many other genre-leading performers.
Tape
Spirit Fest is an underground avant-pop supergroup (for those of us that feel the weight of each member’s individual power), made up of Saya and Takashi (Tenniscoats), Markus Acher and Cico Beck (Notwist), and Mat Fowler (Jam Money). They have steadily been crafting and solidifying a beautifully surreal world since their inception in 2016. Their independent artistic selves have been stripped back to their rawest forms, and they then have become a centralized being. The building blocks used are made with materials that have already started to decompose. It’s familiar, but also “kind of off”. Their sounds become a part of our collective consciousness. Spirit Fest is more than a band. It’s an idea that we can all participate in. A spirit we can all conjure. The freedom and space they give is a gift. This is an invitation into a freedom we can all experience. But first, you have to follow suit, rid yourself of your preconceived ideas and become your rawest form.
Moone Records bring you Spirit Fest’s first live album entitled, “Live at Import Export”. Here are some words Markus Acher shared about this show and the tour surrounding it:
“In 2021 Spirit Fest went on a summer tour to Italy which ended at our favourite alternative venue in Munich, called Import Export. Italy had been like heaven, Through mountains and tunnels with a soundtrack by Morricone, Yo La Tengo and Teenage Fanclub we drove from Autogrill to Autogrill and played outdoor-concerts at welcoming places. Although our dear friend Mat, who is an important part of Spirit Fest couldn‘t come, we felt like a real band and there were many evenings, when the moment and the music, the heart and the hand became one. We visited the tower of Pisa and had the best ice-cream. And the food of course! Another drive + another tunnel and then a last concert in Munich. A new song by Saya about Fuchur from the „Never Ending Story“. Saya‘s singing on Takeda No Komoriuta stopped time. So moving. I will never forget this tour and I am happy, there is a recording of the Import-export concert and Caleb from Moone Records made this beautiful tape from it.” - Markus Acher
Recorded live at Import Export, Munich, on June 27, 2021 by Noel Riedel
An iconic landmark album within Death Metal. “Testinomy of the Ancients” gets the well-deserved reissue! Two years after releasing one of the best death metal albums ever to surface from The Netherlands, Pestilence hit jackpot again with their 1991 album “Testimony Of The Ancients”. The biggest differences with their previous effort “Consuming Impulse” are simple: The production is more clean, short intermezzos between all the songs, the average pace is lower and Patrick Mameli has taken over lead vocals. Pestilence has had a well-deserved place in the first wave death metal elite, mentioned in one breath with the likes of Death, Sepultura, Cynic, Atheist and the likes. Rightly so, because their progression up untill this album is comparable to, say, Carcass. With every album they developed their sound so no release sounds alike but still stays Pestilence undeniably. Their previous album “Consuming Impulse” was unprecedented in brutality and morbidness. ‘Testimony of the Ancients” is less relentless, but it makes up for that with an onimous dose of morbid melodies, great lyrics and an all out Lovecraftian atmosphere. The highlight of this album is definately the guitars. Patrick Mameli and Patrick Uterwijk are a great tandem, combining melodic (twin) soloing with screeches and crashes of tremolo filled chaos. Take for example the song “Land Of Tears”. The guitar solo starts out very emotional, almost ballad like and then switches into high gear, so that all listeners who were dreaming away immediately abbandon all hope for solution of the saddening first guitar part. Noteworthy also are the supportive keyboard samples, never obnoxious, always morbid. Other album highlights are the title track (with truly frightening and insane lyrics), ‘Twisted Truth’ with its catchy dynamics, ‘Profetic Revelations’ (excellent chorus) and basically the whole album is perfect. Special attention to the final track (the album sticks together with samples, which are all great by the way) ‘Stigmatized’. This is death metal perfection, combining Slayer, Death and even Iron Maiden to create a masterpiece of metal.
New York electronic experimentalist Nicky Mao's 4th full-length, Silvercoat the throng, emerged against the backdrop of lockdown, compelled by an intuitive directive: “resist the urge to fill the space.” Compositionally this translated as a simmering, shadowy energy, veiled but variable, traced in a composite of strings, synthetics, rhythm, and voice. The title alludes to a poetic notion of “possibility, rescued from darkness,” which aptly evokes the shape-shifting, devotional feel of these ambitious and elegant sound designs, crafted in defiance of impermanence, driven by the pursuit of becoming “more and more articulated, differentiated.”
Collaborations with travis from ONO, Speaker Music, and Muqata'a further expand the album's lyrical, liminal palette, meshing elements of experimental techno, spoken word, neo-classical, and industrial noise into a fluid, encrypted dialect all its own. Mao speaks of creative strategies of solidification and reification, encounter and transformation, pure being and punctuation – a multitude
of sparks, fuses, and forking paths leading across fresh thresholds and twilit terrain. Taken as a whole, Silvercoat captures Hiro Kone at the peak of their powers, alchemizing disruption and decomposition into regenerative interior worlds: “Within the darkness and absence is an opportunity for discovery.”
Demon are proud to release “Eddie Piller Presents British Mod Sounds Of the 1960s”, the follow up the “The Mod Revival”. This 2LP set serves an introduction to 'British Mod Sounds of the '60s’ and features 34 tracks.
Curated by Acid Jazz Records and Modcast founder Eddie Piller, this collection features the stapes of the British Mod scene including Small Faces, The High Numbers, The Action, The Fleur De Lys, The Kinks, Spencer Davis Group, The Creation, Rod Stewart, The Yardbirds, and The Love Affair.
"Be in with the In Crowd once more."
Every great youth cult deserves a great soundtrack, and when the '60s Mods adopted classic American R&B, with a side order of hip Jazz, they undoubtedly found the right music for their exuberant and stylish way of life. And yet, buying expensive imports, hoping for a local release or praying for a rare visit from overseas talent was never going to be enough to satisfy British youth with a thirst for the latest sounds. Certainly not those on the dancefloor and definitely not those with their own musical ambitions.
It was a music scene that began with imitation, before skill and imagination lead curious minds to innovation, a scene that evolved from average (at best) copies of releases on the Chess, Motown and Stax labels, to become something more sophisticated,something quite unique, something very British.
Labyrinth is dark, brooding, beat-heavy, melancholic mood music courtesy of Ian Carr and the Nucleus crew. A favourite of Madlib, it goes without saying that this is one magnificent record. Originally released on Vertigo in 1973, Labyrinth was never re-pressed and of course those original copies are now very tricky to score. Like all the Nucleus records, it’s aged ridiculously well and this Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press.
Genius trumpeter and visionary composer Ian Carr was one of the most respected British musicians of his era. He was a true pioneer and saw the potential in fusing the worlds of jazz with rock, just as Miles Davis and The Tony Williams Lifetime did in the US. In late 1969, following the demise of the Rendell-Carr quintet, and tiring of British jazz, Carr assembled the legendary Nucleus. Regarding music as a continuous process, Nucleus refused to “recognise rigid boundaries” and worked on delivering what they saw as a “total musical experience”. We can get behind that.
Under bandleader Carr, Nucleus existed as a fluid line-up of inventive, skilled musicians. This constant evolution and revolution was all part of the continuous musical exploration and discovery that took jazz to new levels. And the music has kept relevant. To steal a line from a recent review of our re-issue of Roots, when it comes to anything Nucleus “it’s basically already hip-hop”.
At this point Carr had parted ways with guitarist Alan Holdsworth and as a result the Nucleus sound found itself returning to the core elements of groove and melody. Carr had become bolder and more self-confident in his compositions and it shows in the sheer ambition of Labyrinth. Composed by Carr, and with lyrics written by his wife Sandy, Labyrinth was the result of a commission from the Park Lane Group and funded by the Arts Council of Great Britain. Originally a live performance by an augmented Nucleus, some of the expanded cast were brought back for the recording sessions, including vocalist Norma Winstone. So as the front cover of the finished album says, this is literally “Nucleus Plus”.
Labyrinth is presented as a suite, based on the ancient Greek legend of the Minotaur with musical instruments representing the various elements of the mythology. According to the LP’s original sleeve notes, the bass clarinet represents the tragic element, the trumpet represents the heroic element and the voice represents the human element. The rest of the musicians represent the two societies of Athens and Crete and their comments on the story as it unfolds.
The album opens with the experimental, sumptuously dissonant “Origins”. Teasing strands of atmospheric bass clarinet introduce the first theme before swiftly fading out with a startling blast of staccato fanfares and big drums. Heavy. The album soon finds its rhythm as it alights on the spell-binding and groove-friendly “Bull-Dance”, showing off the best Nucleus has to offer: subtle trumpet melodies, compelling rhythms, a psych-rock vibe and tight soloing. And of course there’s Norma Winstone’s stunning wordless vocals, that also take the lead in the next track “Ariadne”, a spacey-jazz song with beautiful piano, flute and clarinet, and the only recognisable lyrics on the album. You might recognise a snatch of it being looped by Madlib on Quasimoto’s “Astro Travellin”. The first part of the improvised “Arena” closes out the first side of the album, a short experimental piece with piano and horns.
Over on the flip-side, the powerful second part of “Arena” introduces a new theme. It swiftly builds, with vocal melodies, piano and horns all pronounced over the thick drums snapping your neck. It comes on like an alternate take on “Bull-Dance”, noisier, with a looser rhythm. The triumphant, shuffling Latin-jam “Exultation” leans on more scintillating vocals from Winstone, and a chunky counter melody from the rhythm section. It’ll get you moving.
The final track, the haunting, twelve minute “Naxos”, is an incredible way to close out this remarkable record. A circling bass guitar loop inspiring the group to a meditative psychedelic jazz rock improvisation in a silent, Miles kind of way, with a great flugelhorn solo from Carr and an ace synth climax.
This Be With edition of Labyrinth has been re-mastered from the original Vertigo master tapes, Simon Francis’ mastering working together with Pete Norman’s cut to weave their usual magic with these wonderful recordings. Another great Keith Davis sleeve has been restored in all its airbrushed Golden Age of comics, gatefold splendour. Complete with Minotaur of course.
Knucks takes the Hip Hop world by storm as he gears for the release of his highly anticipated new project "Alpha Place"'.Following the release of his unorthodox visuals, Knucks delivers heartfelt messages through addictive rap compositions
A dynamic new face to the genre, "Alpha Place" focuses on the feelings and thoughts that the artist and producer has been experiencing growing up in London, channeled through the stirring essence of music. Highlighting important narratives and revitalising the Hip Hop genre, with a composition which is both soulful, moving, and memorable, the rising new artist is changing the rules of the
game.Knucks is taking his artistry to new heights in Alpha Place, with soulful samples and distinctive production styles paired with some of the UK's biggest names in the rap game. The project is more than just an ode to the neighbourhood Knucks grew up in Alpha House but a representation of life and culture on all sides of the capital. Giving a voice to many experiences shared by young people growing up. Knucks makes his mark on the industry with this new body of work pushing boundaries and channelling his authentic flow and flair.
From selling out headline shows and opening for the likes of Wretch 32, Knuck's approach and unorthodox style has garnered over 150 million streams across all platforms independently as well as earning critical acclaim from outlets such as GQ Style, Wonderland, Notion and many more. Boasting a range of noteworthy features including contributing show-stealing verses on collaborations like "Beg To Differ" with Emil, "Ting Tun Up, Pt. II '' with Montreal's Skiifall.
"What took you so long?" might be a valid question concerning the ten year gap between Zanshin's new album "In Any Case By Any Chance" and his first album "Rain Are In Clouds".
Of course it is a question that the Viennese musician has asked himself quite startled in his usual self-critical manner, just to realize at a closer look that it has not been a lack of creativity or laziness at least. He used the Zanshin moniker on four EP releases and several remixes, plus a game soundtrack. Not to forget all his output as one half of producer duo Ogris Debris (the album "Constant Spring" from 2016 and roughly two dozen singles and remixes) and the many, partly award-winning audiovisual installations and performances with Leonhard Lass as DEPART (depart.at). Furthermore he has also built two sound installations in 2021, "I Gong" at Elevate Festival and "Cymatic Sands" at Ars Electronica. In addition, Zanshin performs with the Max-Brand-Synthesizer from time to time as part of the compositions by Elisabeth Schimana, and together with label mate Dorian Concept he has also composed and performed the piece "Half Chance/Music for Moogtonium" for this unique instrument, built by Bob Moog himself.
Not spared by certain global developments of recent years, but rather invigorated by exploring his own resilience, Zanshin had a talk with Affine Records Operator Jamal in the beginning of 2021, speaking of future ideas and releases. And what was initially a single release spawned into a whole album in seemingly no time. An old skit ("Polar Polychrome") on the Roland MC-505 groove-box that had never really been forgotten, but was rather waiting patiently somewhere in the back of his mind, suddenly proved to be the initial spark for the album.
The term "Zanshin", roughly translated as un-focussed attention, is in fact more than just a pseudonym but rather a directive in the artists life. Zanshin really likes to go in several directions at once, kind of according to Wittgenstein's claim that "The world is everything that is the case.", to find out where his love for music might lead him this time. He also somehow went back to his roots with this album. Not necessarily in the sense of certain musical influences or genres, because then the album would be even more eclectic than it already is. More like a focus on the core values in the fabrication process of the music itself, the freedom to rather follow the structures and sounds than to shape them in a completely predetermined way. Somebody once called it, "to weave what the music demands."
In this regard, Zanshin often feels more like a sculptor and tries not toadhereto strongly to the rules of specific sub-genres of electronic music. Searching for sounds and designing them is one of the energies that fuels his interest the most, thus at the beginning of a lot of tracks there are small skits and ideas that have the freedom to grow in whatever direction.
Hence this album has no elaborate story to tell, there is no extensive "narrative" or big time "storytelling" at work. "In Any Case By Any Chance" is not a novel but rather a collection of short stories (which are certainly dense and have complex plots nonetheless). The result is a long-player where playful electronica, skillful songwriting, extrovert dance music and symphonic film music enter into a symbiotic relationship. Returning to another Wittgenstein quote, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent", the emotional impact of music is the main focus and the results can be quite solemn at times, but around the corner always lurks the next bone-breaking rhythm pattern and gnarly sound design.
The infamous saying, "writing about music is like dancing about architecture", is another brick in the wall of sound in Zanshin's approach to music. He rarely roots himself in traditions or uses them too overtly, he really likes to agglomerate sounds, to challenge the listeners. It seems like he tries to avoid classification on purpose, because he knows that everyone has their own perception anyway. The only thing that this music demands implicitly is a willingness to listen attentively.
Very dense, at times really heavy and massive, then again airy and playful. "Music for clubs that don't exist.", might be another fitting caption to describe this album, which lasts for a little more than an hour.
The opener "Heatseeker" rushes to a sudden head start with its steel pan extravaganza, tropical vibes meet a bass line drenched in electro funk, and electrified synth stabs support the declaration of love in the lyrics. Kind of Jamie XX meets Electro meets Diva House. The monster that is "Bronteroc Brawl" is up next, a serious test for the speakers and a wild ride with metallic, growling sounds. The aggressive sound design reminds of suspense ridden shark chases, vicious dogs and cunning dinosaurs, in any case a track for people who love a proper bass stomper.
A new approach for the "indie discotheque" brings the emotional roller-coaster "In Gloom" with snappy drums and hypnotic synth motives á la Alessandro Cortini, creating an epic atmosphere together with the multi-layered vocals. A psycho-acoustic treat is position 4, the crisp instrumental "Polar Polychrome", you could even go as far as calling this a Zanshin signature track. Like mentioned before, the roots of this track go back to 2002 and you can hear the unmistakable influence of beat wizards like Photek, a piercing bass line is supported by poly-rhythmic drums, while dense pads try to escape the claustrophobic lockdown mood of winter 2020/21.
Another round of intense pathos waits for the listeners in the ensuing track "In Search Of". Moderat say "Hello", a melancholy piano melody is rushed to a climax by a wild bass arpeggio and forceful drums, the desire for a perfect sunrise at the next after-hour to the max. Initially just an appendix to the preceding track, "Time After Thought" swiftly developed from a mere improvisation to an ambient epic with a croaking alien piano, as if Keith Jarrett were on his way to Alpha Centauri.
Up next is the first single "Because Why", a breakbeat driven, synth-heavy track with winged vocals and a popular film quote. The title refers to the movie "Alphaville" by Jean-Luc Godard, a dystopian science fiction film noir, in which an omniscient computer system named Alpha 60 is ruling society and humans can only say "because" but never "why". As if the gears of a galactic mechanism were spinning into motion sounds "Identity Slices". A raspy chord structure finds its counterbalance in a kind of stumbling, wonky beat, and Zanshin would never deny the huge influence that Autechre's sounds and structures always have had on his music. Micro- and macrocosm meet on the same level and this friction is also a metaphor for questions of identity and self-awareness, without using voices or lyrics.
Off we go into the IDM bubble bath of "Enzyme Enigma", the bass drum is stomping and a fizzy acid-line is twisting in all directions behind rolling dub-techno chords. "Corrosion Creak" is a kind of acoustic degradation process, the rave dogs are finally let loose and everything happens at once, funky synths shred, string sounds wail and then there is this bass that sounds like smashing a rusty metal plate in the junk yard with a vengeance.
Towards the end everything slows down a bit, the beat in "Whatever Words" is Warp school cerebral hop at its best and therefore loads of glittery, creaky sounds swarm out until the synapses are overloaded, cumulating in a mighty bass ending. Last but never least, "Rebus Redux" guides us into the limitless night sky, with long indulgent pads dotted by an aimlessly wandering piano, while a compact net of tamed resonances and meandering sub frequencies unfolds in the background, enticing navel-gazing imagination.
Sanna Mun debuts on her imprint, Katabasis, with a three techno cut EP (vinyl & digital).
Sanna Mun is an interdisciplinary artist based in Berlin. Her approach to production is inspired by her work as an archaeologist, using digital modeling and field recordings of ancient sites to extract their psychoacoustics. Sanna's multifaceted sound ranges from ambient to mental and classic techno. Her sense for organically evolving motifs drives her live sets, which resolve to induce a state of meditation. Sanna's music has already received support from O Phase, Developer, and other mainstay techno names.
Katabasis started out as an experimental techno event at Sameheads in Neukolln, Berlin in collaboration with local musicians and visual artists. The vision behind the project is to springboard underrepresented artists reinventing minimal, hypnotic and early techno. Its name and imagery derive from Western esotericism, rooted in Sanna's experience as an archaeologist specializing in occult sciences. The label's first release features tracks exploring Pythagoras' musica universalis, planetary frequencies informed by her studies with Luz Peuscovich.
2022 Repress
Multi-faceted artist Calibre today shares his sixteenth studio album "Feeling Normal". The album is out now to pre-order on Vinyl, CD and on digital platforms via his own independent imprint Signature Recordings.
The record is his first bonafide 140bpm record and a staggering body of work that shows the genius levels of one of electronic music's most respected auteurs. Across the 13 tracks, he transcends through space and time, creating music that will take the listener on a weighty sonic journey. The album announcement is accompanied by two dub versions "Bad" and "Badder" deconstructed from the track "Badman" with DRS from Mark Ernestus available via his Hardwax store January 29th and Bandcamp February 12th. "Getting to work with Mark Ernestus is a real honour, I collected Basic Channel, Rhythm & Sound and his other work for many years and still do. It's hard to avoid the influence of this guy in electronic music across genres and so it is a real pleasure to have him do his thing with the Badman tune which I think sounds closely related."
All of the tracks on the record have been road-tested in Calibre's DJ sets over the last 2/3 years with many of them being sought-out by his hardcore fans. It was only a matter of time then that he put them out for all to consume. With a nod to the dancefloor, the clear idea for the album came about following the release of his most personal album to date "Planet Hearth". "It still works in the headspace but ultimately it's been written for the sweaty club experience we miss now, also after an album like Planet Hearth it felt very liberating to do," he remarks. When writing albums, he often just puts it down to the general chaos of life, not citing any one influence but generally just waits to see what comes. With one of the tracks on the album written 7 years ago on the island of Valentia, It became a project that he spent the intervening years collecting tracks for, not really knowing when he was going to put it together as an album. "The whole album is special to me, everything on there has import and meaning beyond for me, I have spent much time on all these and hope they are special for other people too."
Belfast-born, Berlin-based Calibre - AKA Dominick Martin - shows no sign of slowing down. As a producer, DJ, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and painter, he is one of the most unique and inspiring living artists. With a career spanning two decades, his ability to remain underground whilst being one of the most-respected is testament to who this enigmatic artist is. To this day, he has never been remixed and has a seriously impressive amount of unreleased music under wraps. With everything on hold and gigs on the backburner, this record is exactly what the world needs right now.
Fat Beats in partnership with Space Invadaz is pleased to release the 25 year anniversary edition reissue of Mood’s acclaimed 1997 debut LP, Doom. Originally released on September 23 of 1997, Doom was an important springboard for the careers of Talib Kweli, DJ Hi-Tek, Sunz of Man and Lone Catalysts. The 18 track LP is an artistically experimental album marked by stand out production and lyricism that remains on-point throughout.
Cincinnati rappers Main Flow and Donte kick apocalyptic rhymes that cite sacred scripture, ancient history, and politics. Both their rhyme schemes and chemistry are strong and prove to be equally compatible with DJ Hi-Tek, who made his production debut on this record, composing nine of the album’s 18 tracks, with newcomer Jahson handling the remaining production. Similar to the lyrical pairing, the production duo of Hi-Tek and Jahson are well matched, as they add a sense of darkness and mystery that shrouds the sonic backdrop throughout the album.
Doom is lyrically and sonically an outstanding body of work that stands out as one of the more noteworthy indie rap titles of ’97. In celebration of the 25 year anniversary milestone, this reissue comes equipped with remixes, including the J Dilla Remix for “Secrets of the Sand” which was never before featured on any previous album represses or reissues.
[a] 1 Esoteric Manuscript (Remix) [feat. Micah9]
This EP was born with the idea of creating a path, a process. Hence the title "Sacred Process". All the tracks have the intent to immerse the listener in another dimension, from devotion to aversion. We have created specific sounds for this work, from darker atmospheres to more impactful sounds. The whole is completed by a super remix by maestro Dino Sabatini.
Mit ihrem kurzweiligen "Slow Food" richtet das polnische Quintett ZK Collaboration den Fokus aufs kulinarische Ohr, das selbst bei atemberaubendem Improvisationen und rasanten Unisonoparts immer noch jede Zutat präzise herausschmecken will und nach einem Kontrast zu unserer informellen Fast Food Mentalität sucht. Mit eingängigen Themen, packenden Grooves und verführerischen Sounds ist " Slow Food" genau das richtige Album für diese Zeit.
Die stilistische Karte ihres Slow Foods ist weit gestreut, aber zu keinem Zeitpunkt eklektizistisch oder gar beliebig. In den verschiedenen Töpfen, Pfannen und Öfen wird ein Acht-Gänge-Menü gezaubert, dessen Ingredienzien sich zwar mit Jazzrock, Fusion, Post Bop, freier Improvisation, Folk, epischen Soundscapes und
typischen polnischen Jazz-Motiven von der Komeda-Tradition bis zur Aufmüpfigkeit des Yass beschreiben lassen, aber ganz eigene Geschmacksnoten und Konsistenzen entfalten, die sich jeder eindeutigen Zuordnung entziehen
A thrilling collaboration between the acclaimed Belgian composer/instrumentalist Catherine Graindorge and the ever-iconic Iggy Pop. Haunting string and electronic textures melding with Iggy's baritone, cautionary tales. A deep dive into the heart of these unsettled times. "Iggy said to send him a track. I began to improvise, and came up with three pieces. We communicated and started to exchange ideas." - Catherine Graindorge "My contribution is to report, through words, the current threat and the longing for happiness and peace." - Iggy Pop
Sub Pop are excitedly finally repressing vinyl versions of three scorching ‘90s
psychobilly classics by Reverend Horton Heat. All three have been out of print on
vinyl since the mid-1990s, with original pressings going for considerable amounts at
the ol’ junk shop.
The band’s 1990 debut, ‘Smoke ‘em if You Got ‘em’, made quite the first impression
with frantic stand-up bass, fiery guitar playing, and the Rev’s wild howls stirring up a
volatile cocktail of ‘50s rockabilly, punk energy, and sly humour. AllMusic said of the
album, “it’s all sleaze, it’s all wrong, and it’s all so very, very right,” while, on
encountering the hit single ‘Psychobilly Freakout’, Beavis and Butthead raved “This
dude is weird!” “Yeah, yeah, he’s like… our kind of people.”
As a collective thought, Spice's Self-Titled debut album offers a deliberate isolation of pain as interpreted through different vehicles. Less than 30-minutes in length, the record diverts from a singular mood, tempo, or delivery, instead focusing on orchestrating emotional drain as single impulses_fast, slow, driving, simple, and layered_that coalesce in their machinations. At its core, Spice's SelfTitled album is wired together by brawny and brittle guitars, lock-groove rhythms, and vocals announce each moment and mood. Formed in 2018 and based across California, each members' roots are in the North Bay of San Francisco. Comprised of Ross Farrar (vocals) and Jake Casarotti (drums), both of Ceremony, along with Cody Sullivan (bass), Ian Simpson (guitar), and Victoria Skudlarek (violin), Spice's sound pulls from the sense of melody and drive inherent to Bay Area pedigree, peppered with modernity and awash with an anthemic haze. The hook is in the connection as much as melody, with each song building its inner narrative and exploration of affliction. Traversing guitar-driven indie-pop and call-to-action impulse, Spice balances their urgency by interspersing violin melodies and layers, creating depth without oversaturating the heart of each song. Building complexity with laser focus, Spice shares the authoritative drive of Jawbreaker, J Church, The Horrors, and Fugazi, set in their own world of unrest. The treatment of each song is a statement that informs the whole - anecdotes that can bleed slowly or swirl quickly. In a sense, the Self-Titled album itself is an entire song, with each track becoming the verses, choruses, and interludes that narrate its intent. Ending with the final track they workshopped for the album titled "I Don't Wanna Die in New York," the album ends with a punch before winding back into meditation. Honed over late nights at Panda Studios in Fremont, California with producer Sam Pura (Basement, The Story So Far, Self Defense Family), Spice spent hours tweaking it until it became a little world formed by what they refer to as "the power of groupthink." Sprinkled with field recordings_audio snapshots from the member's every-day-lives_the record offers an intimate twist that builds on its theme of a single thread that connects everything with continuity, making it a single organism with as many depths as questions.
As a collective thought, Spice's Self-Titled debut album offers a deliberate isolation of pain as interpreted through different vehicles. Less than 30-minutes in length, the record diverts from a singular mood, tempo, or delivery, instead focusing on orchestrating emotional drain as single impulses_fast, slow, driving, simple, and layered_that coalesce in their machinations. At its core, Spice's SelfTitled album is wired together by brawny and brittle guitars, lock-groove rhythms, and vocals announce each moment and mood. Formed in 2018 and based across California, each members' roots are in the North Bay of San Francisco. Comprised of Ross Farrar (vocals) and Jake Casarotti (drums), both of Ceremony, along with Cody Sullivan (bass), Ian Simpson (guitar), and Victoria Skudlarek (violin), Spice's sound pulls from the sense of melody and drive inherent to Bay Area pedigree, peppered with modernity and awash with an anthemic haze. The hook is in the connection as much as melody, with each song building its inner narrative and exploration of affliction. Traversing guitar-driven indie-pop and call-to-action impulse, Spice balances their urgency by interspersing violin melodies and layers, creating depth without oversaturating the heart of each song. Building complexity with laser focus, Spice shares the authoritative drive of Jawbreaker, J Church, The Horrors, and Fugazi, set in their own world of unrest. The treatment of each song is a statement that informs the whole - anecdotes that can bleed slowly or swirl quickly. In a sense, the Self-Titled album itself is an entire song, with each track becoming the verses, choruses, and interludes that narrate its intent. Ending with the final track they workshopped for the album titled "I Don't Wanna Die in New York," the album ends with a punch before winding back into meditation. Honed over late nights at Panda Studios in Fremont, California with producer Sam Pura (Basement, The Story So Far, Self Defense Family), Spice spent hours tweaking it until it became a little world formed by what they refer to as "the power of groupthink." Sprinkled with field recordings_audio snapshots from the member's every-day-lives_the record offers an intimate twist that builds on its theme of a single thread that connects everything with continuity, making it a single organism with as many depths as questions.
Das dritte Soloalbum von Sheku Kanneh-Mason, das von ihm persönlich kuratiert wurde, spiegelt die musikalische Bandbreite des Cellisten wider. „Song“ verbindet fantastische Stücke aus den Bereichen Klassik, Folk, Jazz sowie Pop: Shekus eigene Arrangements schöner Volkslieder, darunter „Myfanwy“; Werke von J. S. Bach, die Sheku zum ersten Mal für mehrere Celli arrangiert hat; Improvisationen über Jazzmelodien wie die weltberühmte Ballade „Cry me a river“; Shekus Solo-Pizzicato-Bearbeitung von Aretha Franklins „I Say a Little Prayer“; ein Satz aus Messiaens bewegendem „Quartett für das Ende der Zeit“ und ein neues Auftragswerk von Edmund Finnis, das speziell für Sheku geschrieben wurde. Das Album
enthält außerdem Stücke für Cello und Klavier von Beethoven und Mendelssohn, die Sheku zusammen mit seiner Schwester und Konzertpartnerin, Isata Kanneh-Mason, spielt. Neben seiner Schwester hat Sheku mit vielen Musikerfreund:innen zusammengearbeitet, darunter dem Jazzpianisten Harry Baker, der Sopranistin Pumeza Matshikiza und dem Sänger Zak Abel, mit dem Sheku einen neuen Popsong für dieses Album geschrieben hat.
Content:
- Softcover: 300g/m² raw cardboard, granular lamination, open spine binding
- 352 pages: Neon CMYK print on Lessebo Smooth Natural 90g/m² and Galaxi ArtSamt 115g/m²
- Dimensions: 22,0 x 30 x 2,2cm (1,4kg)
Tresor: True Stories is the first printed excavation of Tresor’s legendary history. Digging deeply into its rich
archives, the venerable institution has unearthed countless treasures from its over three-decade old history.
Over 400 never before seen photographs, flyers, faxes and other artefacts illustrate a story that intersects
with the most important social and musical trend in the modern history of Berlin. The story is told with the
voices of those that were there - over 40 protagonists share their first-hand reminiscences of the ‘big bang’
that launched techno into the world. Through the story of Tresor, the book charts the heady days of 80s West
Berlin through to the explosion of new energy that midwifed in the new social reality of reunified Germany.
This is a unique and essential printed monument to the institution that changed electronic music forever,
and the city that allowed it to exist.
Chapters:
I. Dada at the End of the World
II. The Wild Years
III. Tresor Never Sleeps
Editors:
Harry Glass, Paul Reachi, Sven von Thülen
Authors:
Dimitri Hegemann, Paul Hockenos, Regina Baer
Interviews and transcriptions:
Felix Denk, Jeannette Goddar, Jürgen Laarmann, Ruro Efue
Digitization:
Felix Moser, Rüdiger Müller
Translations, proofreading and copyediting:
Edessa Malke, Paul Fleischmann, Paul Sabine
Photography:
Gustav Volker Horst
Oliver Wia
Tilman Brembs
Wolfgang Brückner
Additional photography:
Anja Rosendahl
Carlos Alberto Heinz
Carola Stoiber
Daffy
Eberle & Eisfeld
Ernst Stratmann
Jan Hillebrecht
Jo?rg Blank
Helge Birkelbach
Helge Mundt
Marie Staggat
Martin Holkamp
Norbert Smuda
Susanna Kubernus
Susanne Deeken
Uwe Reineke
Concept, layout and design: onlab
Vanja Golubovic, Matthieu Huegi, Thibaud Tissot
8 rue des Vieux Grenadiers, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
Lithography, printing and binding: Druckerei zu Altenburg GmbH
Gutenbergstrasse 1, 04600 Altenburg, Germany
What is there to say about this album that hasn’t been said before? Multiple words could be used to describe this album: Timeless. Essential. Masterpiece. Definitive. Sickening. Yes, even sickening falls into this category, because believe it or not, back in 1996 when Cryptopsy released “None So Vile,” it was unlike anything else at the time. From the first drum hits and guitar riffs of “Crown Of Horns,” it would have been obvious, and still is to this day, that Cryptopsy improved on themselves since “Blasphemy Made Flesh.” But then you combine some of the most technical and speedy Death Metal to date with the sickening screams, snarls, growls, and grunts of vocalist Lord Worm, and I’m sure that 1996 was the year Death Metal changed forever. “None So Vile” is a testament to the Death Metal formula, and the odd thing is is that not many have tried to emulate it. I don’t know why. Maybe it might be because of how difficult it would be to emulate an album of this calibur. Cryptopsy is a massive influence upon Death Metal. Many factors contribute to the influence Cryptopsy struck upon Death Metal. One of them is absurdly seen from Flo Mounier’s maniacal drumming. As far as I’m concerned, two words can sum up this man: Speed Demon. But just because he’s speedy doesn’t mean he loses any shed of technicality. But Flo is not alone in making Cryptopsy. With the duo of Jon Levasseur and Eric Langlois on guitar and bass respectively, Cryptopsy was noted for their technical music playing. Just look at songs like “Slit Your Guts,” “Graves Of The Fathers,” and “Phobophile” to see how this duo completely tore apart everything that may have been considered a standard for Death Metal at that time. These two remade the standard by bringing shredding guitar and audible, crushing, and technical bass playing into the mix. The playing by these two is a testament to technical playing. But what truly makes Cryptopsy, and many would agree, is Lord Worm. This man is down right beastly. No true word in the English vernacular could describe what this man brings to Cryptopsy and what he did for Death Metal on “None So Vile.” At this point in time, I don’t think anyone could have anticipated vocals like this. He is downright in-fucking-human. His screams are vicious, his gutteral growls are putrid, and the longevity at which he can perform and hold these vocals is insane. But not only did Lord Worm bring a sickening unnatural vocal style, he brings
The Best Old School Death Metal album from the Netherlands gets a well-deserved re-issue! Crushing, aggressive, abrasive, pounding, bone crunching... In an age when blast speed drums were still mostly used by grindcore acts (and some pioneers such as Morbid Angel) and now classic bands such as Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation, Deicide were still tiny demo acts, Dutch masters Pestilence released one of the best old school Dutch death metal classics ever to be unleashed upon mankind, the album that made a huge impact upon its release. “Consuming Impulse” is one intense album. one could say this album is definitely up there with classic death metal albums such as Death’s “Leprosy”, Obituary’s “Slowly We Rot”, and Morbid Angel’s “Altars of Madness”. With “Consuming Impulse”, Pestilence created their greatest, most complete album, successfully marrying the primitive brutality of their previous effort ‘Maleus Maleficarum’ with the technicality of their later releases. Whereas their debut album “Malleus Maleficarum” had some hints of thrash metal, this was gone on “Consuming Impulse” although the up tempo beat was still of course very much present. The production was heavy yet remarkably transparent. The riffs of Patrick Mameli on “Consuming Impulse” are simply mind-blowing. Even though quite simple at times they still prove extremely deadly. Try the main riffs in the verses of ‘Process of Suffocation’ and ‘The Trauma’ for starters. Speed monsters like ‘Dehydrated’ and ‘Reduced To Ashes’ were simple compositions but the intensity of this material just oozes out of your speakers. The presence of these straight forward raging death metal tracks was perfect to balance the dynamics and variety of the album. Songs such as ‘Chronic Infection’ and the classic ‘Out Of The Body’ incorporated some great interacting differentiating guitars and much more diversity in pace and riffing.
Tape
Over the course of two nights, a few weeks before the pandemic arrived in Portugal, André Gonçalves (ADDAC System) and Casper Clausen (Efterklang) recorded music from another realm, dreamy and scary at the same time, sounds complete but it seems to be falling apart at any moment. It is like an alien language or a way to process sound that sounds foreign because it is different from everything else, formally, and aesthetically. This is “Aether”, 37 minutes of constant take-off. A departure from what both musicians have done in the past.
That’s the beauty of these collaborations. You don’t know exactly the point of departure and where it leads. “Aether” masters that feeling throughout seven parts. The synthesized sounds hang in the air like clouds slowly moving, transforming into something else. Sometimes they touch each other and form something else. Or they just hang in there, waiting, just waiting. And then Casper Clausen’s voice shows up and offers a “Twin Peaks” feeling to everything, transforming that sound mass into ethereal melodies that become too overwhelming.
We think about all those Popol Vuh soundtracks from the Werner Herzog films, the fog that never goes away. The constant ecstasy of creating something magical or achieving the impossible. Or even Vangelis and his ability to elevate simple sounds into something beautiful and glorious. Both share this element of the unexpected, you’ll never know what you’ll listen to or feel during the process of active listening. It is a bizarre but comforting experience, a synthetic dream you want to be part of. Music to be touched and felt.
Shadows by The Mysterious Flying Orchestra (Remastered Edit) b/w Morning (Remastered Edit) / Acquarius (Remastered Edit) by Cal Tjader | Black Hole BLKG-3 | Fresh delivery via @galaxy_sound_company test pressing! Black Hole's 3rd release in the Sample Series finds Black Cash & Theo link up for a trio of #jazzfunk, #soul sounds, all served up as special remastered edits.
Side A’s “Shadows” by The Mysterious Flying Orchestra is taken from their self-titled & sole 1977 LP & Is a cover of a Lonnie Liston Smith tune from 1974. Sampled by the likes of @gangstarr, Curren$y, & others, “Shadows” a stand-out track from an obscure album by the legendary jazz producer Bob Thiele that is wonderfully moody. Smith's melody is rather slight, which requires TMFO, in Ott's arrangement, to create the right atmosphere, perfectly voiced by the horn section. Smith is heard beautifully dancing throughout the piece on electric piano, offering a voice that was already one of the instrument's most distinctive at this point. Marcus solos on tenor sax. It is funky fusion made by some of jazz's best improvisers of the time & an absolutely essential addition to your 45 crates.
Side B offers up 2 tasty #CalTjader tunes that many hip-hop & beat heads fans are more than familiar with. Tjader is known for his deep love affair with Latin music & his fusion with his jazz sensibilities to form an inimitable & intoxicating heady blend of grooviness. “Morning” is taken from his 1971 LP “Agua Dulce” & was sampled by the likes of Gangstarr, Pete Rock, the Beatnuts & Buckwild. “Aquarius”, from Tjader’s 1968 LP “The Prophet”) is a lullaby #90shiphop heads immediate recognize via @atcq’s use on an interlude for the 1993 hip-hop classic LP #MidnightMarauders.
ercussive Maintenance is an initiative by drummer Simon Popp and Squama aimed at forming new ties through improvisation. For the monthly events at ZIRKA in Munich, Simon invites fellow artists to engage in an open-format collaboration.
The second episode featured Embryo's Marja Burchard on vibraphone and the recording is now available on tape in a limited edition.
"The prolific band returns with a brief and seething left-turn: a furious homage to the scummiest, crustiest hardcore of the early ’80s". (Pitchfork)
"Brain stem cracking scum-punk recorded tersely in the basement of my home. After a notoriously frustrating eon, the knee-jerk song path was aggressive and hooky. This is an homage to the punk bands we grew up on—the weirdos and art freaks that piqued our interests and pointed us on the trail head to here / now. Bad times make for strong music is something I agree with. I would say that is evident by the past few years of output from the underground. Transmissions have been all over the map: scanning…searching...sweeping out in the darkness looking for a foot hold.
OSEES A Foul From represents some of our most savage and primal instincts. Fight or flight. And the importance of a sense of humor in the darkest hour. Nothing wrong with keeping it snappy in the meantime. For fans of Rudimentary Peni, Crass, Bad Brains, Black Flag, Screamers, Abwärts, Stooges and all things aggressively tilted towards your face. You can lean back but don’t flinch…it’s a brief foray into the exhausting pogo pit, so stiffen your back and jerk with your knees. Enjoy." - John Dwyer
The music on this long-awaited solo vinyl album by legendary tape artist Jérôme Noetinger was recorded live in the studio with no overdubs. Signals were sent through tube broadcast monitors and picked up with room microphones. Produced by Tobias Levin. Cover by Meeuw.
Long-time touchstone of international experimental music presents his monolithic (and first) solo vinyl »Sur Quelques Mondes Étranges« on Felix Kubin’s Gagarin Records. Jérôme Noetinger is known to most for the audio-visual trio Cellule d’Intervention Metamkine, alongside his countless recorded & live collaborations, compositions for radio & stage, and breathtaking multi-channel diffusions in the acousmatic tradition.
Discovering the ReVox B77 tape machine as his tool for live electro-acoustic music in 1987, Noetinger has doggedly investigated his instrument over 35 years, establishing him as a vital contemporary composer/performer of the medium. His work is radical and interrogatory, using a pan-historical array of analogue devices to construct soundworlds which sidestep digital monochrome, landing in a galaxy of simmering malfunction, dynamic physicality & rhythmic debris. Programming Le 102 in Grenoble for over a decade, as well as directing Metamkine distribution for over three, his encyclopaedic knowledge of manifold sonic traditions is on display here; unified by a staunch discipline, impressive dedication and flat rejection of empty trends.
The results synthesise his tireless timbral research into 11 striking sonic investigations which combine modern studio possibilities with years of performance experience worldwide. An ominous malaise hovers over proceedings; yet it never feels nihilistic, presenting solutions which electrify the listener with ecstatic discovery. The perceptual orchestration therein - from throwing our ears right against the body of the tape machine to flinging them into cavernous space alive with the aurally strange - is both delirious & calming. Noetinger is all too aware things are bad, but his drive for discovery and joyous belief in music somehow coruscates brilliantly through contemporary gloom.
Meticulously recorded & produced with Tobias Levin in Hamburg, Sur quelques mondes étranges presents a detailed & rich vocabulary both real & unreal: gesture & repetition, structure & collapse, familiar & uncanny all dance with each in the most pumping discothèque concrète in this universe. This is a powerful and exacting statement from an elegant composer & extraordinary musician who has humbly dedicated his life to his practice.
– Anthony Pateras
Peggy Gou’s Gudu Records steps into 2022 with Brain De Palma’s second EP for the label, Purple Brain.
Although this is only his second release under the Brain De Palma name, Alexei Versino has been honing his sound for the best part of a decade, both solo (as Panama Keys) and as one half of the duo Stump Valley, previously releasing on labels like Dekmantel, Soul Clap and Off Minor. Born in Ukraine but settling as a child in Turin, he’s currently based in Berlin and makes up a key part of the Gudu stable.
Coming straight out the gate with an instantly impactful bassline, opening track ‘IQarus’ sets the tone for the rest of Purple Brain: bold melodies and basslines shot in high-definition, full of detail and idiosyncrasies. As with his last EP for Gudu, cinema is a key reference for Brain de Palma: ‘IQarus’ is a reference to his directorial namesake’s first film, while later in the EP, ‘(O.W.D.) Once Were Dancers’ nods to the 1994 drama Once Were Warriors, “dedicated to all the ravers, DJs, aficionados who had to go through the lockdowns … a shout out to people who keep on fighting for the underground culture!”
Elsewhere on the EP, ‘Purple Brain’ pairs an unforgettable arpeggio with stargazing stabs and a marching cowbell beat, while the Netherlands’ Deniro takes ‘IQarus’ into the depths of the night with a cosmic remix that grabs hold of a groove and refuses to let go.
Please see below for the next Kalita 12" - Adelle First - Don't Give Up.
A South African Boogie, dancefloor heater reissued on vinyl for the
first time since the original release in 1986.
Kalita are excited to announce the first ever official reissue of Adelle First’s highly sought-after 1986 12” South African boogie single 'Don’t Give Up'!
Originally privately released on infamous South African label Music Team’s imprint Solid Records, the single features both the shorter vocal version and devastating 9-minute long extended ‘Dub Mix’, a true testament to the genius of producer Tom Mkhize. Having recently rocketed in demand,
fuelled by equal measures of quality and scarcity, and with original copies now selling for over £200 on the second-hand market, Kalita now offer this masterpiece to the world once more, sourced from the original analogue master tapes.
The 40th Anniversary Edition of Fairytales is the final of many incarnations of singer Radka Toneff and pianist Steve Dobrogosz’s jewel of a duo album. In the course of the 40 years that have passed since its release – on LP in 1982, CD in 1986 – Fairytales has sold well over 100 000 units, making it the top-selling Norwegian jazz record ever, and was also voted Norway’s best album of all time in a poll of Norwegian musicians in 2011. For four decades the sometimes delicate and sometimes robust melodic intimacy between the singer and the pianist, and the fragile strength with which they imparted their lyrics and music, has cast a spell on listeners from all music scenes. Constantly new generations are enthralled by the 41 auditorily minimalist but eloquently narrative minutes, and this final version, with improved sound quality, brings us closer to the magic of the Toneff/Dobrogosz duo than ever before. Fairytales had a solemn epilogue when Radka died under tragic circumstances a few weeks after the album was released and had begun to go from strength to strength. In retrospect, though, it is not the memory of the loss of an incomparable singer, but rather the content of what Radka accomplished together with her American duo partner that keeps Fairytales alive. “It’s not just the sound itself, but it’s also about how Radka sings, about the sensitivity in her voice,” Steve Dobrogosz has said. The pianist describes Radka as a superb, forthright and genuine interpreter who was “at her best” with Fairytales, and he rejects any implication that she sounds especially lonely or depressed, or that the album can be construed as part of any autobiographical timetable. The sum of singer Radka Toneff was, naturally, more than the parts she was able to display on Fairytales. But when practically all subsequent singers in Norway, from Sidsel Endresen up to the young talents of today, get a warmth in their voices and eyes when they talk about Radka as an artistic ideal and a source of inspiration, it is not least because they heard Fairytales at some point, and were sold. The fact that the album has also been the impetus for an interest in Radka that has produced posthumous records, books, radio documentaries and countless articles only confirms the strong position the album still occupies in the Norwegian music scene, a position that this 40th Anniversary Edition will further reinforce. Terje Mosnes, January 2022 01 The Moon Is A Harsh Mistres (Jimmy Webb) 02 Come Down In Time (Elton John/Bennie Taupin) 03 Lost In The Stars (Kurt Weill/Maxwell Anderson) 04 Mystery Man (Steve Dobrogosz/Fran Landesman) 05 My Funny Valentine (Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart) 06 Nature Boy (Eden Ahbez) 07 Long Daddy Green (Blossom Dearie/Dave Frishberg) 08 Wasted (Radka Toneff/Fran Landesman) 09 Before Love Went Out Of Style (Dudley Moore/Fran Landesman) 10 I Read My Sentence (Steve Dobrogosz/Emily Dickinson)
Aidan Baker is a classically-trained multi-instrumentalist using the electric guitar as his primary instrument. Using prepared and alternate methods of playing the guitar, along with various electronic effects, Baker creates music which generally falls within the ambient/experimental genre but draws on influences from rock, electronic, classical, and jazz. A highly prolific artist, Baker has released numerous recorded works, both solo and with various group projects - most notably the duo Nadja - on such independent labels as Karlrecords, Important Records, Southern Lord, and his own imprint, Broken Spine Productions. Baker is also the author of several books of poetry. A regular live performer, Baker has toured extensively around the world, including appearances at such international festivals as FIMAV, SXSW, Incubate, Unsound, and Mutek, among others. Originally from Toronto, Canada, Baker currently resides in Berlin, Germany. Recorded mid-pandemic, Songs of Undoing cannot help but have a sort of mid- or post-apocalyptic overlying concept, lyrically dealing with themes of exodus and travel / wandering, self-reliance, the weight of history...with pointed references to two post-apocalyptic, societal / environmental collapse novels, Octavia Butler's "Parables of The Sower" and Kate Wilhelm's "Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang." Musically, the songs move between minimal slowcore and a sort of textural noise-rock or what might be called deconstructed grunge, taking influence from artists like Lungfish, American Analog Set, PJ Harvey, and Stina Nordenstam.
Now who would have thought? Pile are back with an experimental improv record that is pure bliss. Painting immense landscapes and mixing viola, cello an tape loops to create a beautiful ambient voyage through noise, emotional electronics, pulsating drones and kosmische atmospheres. Dive in.
Trapped Animal Records are proud to present for the first time on vinyl, Stars and Rabbit's 2020 smasher 'Rainbow Aisle'. Remastered at Metropolis to lacquer and cut to 300 Purple Stripe 180GSM 12"s this is a very special package from Indonesian household names, Stars and Rabbit! // Press quotes : Alternative Fruit, UK - This fun and catchy album is laid back to back with classic numbers which each have a soul of their own. A friendly rock 'n' roll delivery mixed with classical melodies and homely closeness allows us to hear this band in person from wherever we happen to be. // Analogue Trash, UK - Reviewed (Little Mischievous) There’s a joy and innocence at the heart of Little Mischievous that is delightful and infectious, in large part down to the fun, rollercoaster vocals of Elda Suryani. Sounding like a cross between Nina Persson and Björk, her livewire performance is the perfect foil for Didit Saad’s equally electric lead guitar melody and the briskly bouncing arrangement. // Reviewed Naked King - They make up the central core of the song, as soft synths and lush strings wash in and out of perception, combining to confect a sweet sense of serenity. Though contemplative, Naked King looks outward and also seeks to engage the listener: the children’s choir and assertive guitar solo bringing the song to a euphoric crescendo, with Elda Suryani’s performance directing the song to ever greater heights. // Antenna, Japan - Stars and Rabbit were captivated by a variety of songs that sublimated 90s introspective alternative rock, mainly in Europe, such as Sigur Rós, Radiohead and Portishead. On one occasion, listeners like "Little Mischievous" show light guitar pops that can sing a long, and "Attic No.7" shows a jazzy, dark side like a trip hop. // Atwood Magazine, UK - Elda Suryani and Didit Saad make up the group and both employ signature rhythms and harmonies onto each song of theirs, and “Little Mischievous” is no exception with its slick guitar riffs and tantalizing vocal performance. // Beehive Candy, UK - Their new LP, Rainbow Aisle, a full spectrum of colors, showcasing their knack for groovy electro rock as well as intimate acoustic confessions. // Big Takeover, US - Wow, such a vocally and lyrically intriguing number! Yet again, there’s the ’90s alt-rock feeling, but the vocals are yes, mischievously impish; a teeny-tiny bit like SOAK vocally, but with a grainier, deeper timbre.
Sympathetic Magic is an ecstatic, delirious, and deeply touching piece of music; a towering new work in Kim Myhr’s increasingly substantial output as an artist and composer. Sympathetic Magic is the follow-up to Kim Myhr’s 2017 album You | me, which was widely praised and received an honorary mention at the 2018 Nordic Music Prize. While the immersive warmth of You | me is still present, Sympathetic Magic is more expansive than its predecessor. A band of eight musicians playing a wide variety of instruments including electric 12-string guitars, drum machines, vocals, synthesizers, organs and lots of drums and percussion, has created a work of a grander scale. The shimmering, oceanic waves of You | me has been traded for cosmic currents in Sympathetic Magic. Put simply, Sympathetic Magic is a collection of song-like structures that has expanded into symphonic proportions. “With You | me, I wanted to create an ocean of sound, where the listener is surrounded by a myriad of elements that has equal importance in the music. I wanted to challenge this a bit, to push certain elements forward. The result is a more song-like kind of music than what I’ve done before.” – Kim Myhr Just before starting working on Sympathetic Magic, Kim bought an old 70s Yamaha organ (the YC45d), after falling in love with the sound of it on different recordings. At first, he thought the organ would be a subtle element on the new record, but it ended up becoming a focal point: “It’s a brilliant in-your-face sound that brought an ecstatic quality to the music. Playing around with this instrument, along with an 80s Roland Juno synth and a new drum machine took the music in new directions.” – Kim Myhr. Thematically, Sympathetic Magic circles around a longing for collectivity and togetherness. While the world was locked down in 2021, thanks to a commission from Oslo Jazz Festival, Kim had the opportunity to delve deeply into this project, working with the members of the band, one at a time: “The music created a situation of unexpected positivity. It felt like a social project even if I spent most of the time on it alone. And all this positive, joyful energy felt quite magical, arriving like out of thin air in this otherwise grim situation. It all felt like a hallucination, which fed back into the music. Sympathetic Magic is like a dream within a dream.” – Kim Myhr The title of the record is a term coined by James Frazer in The Golden Bough. He writes: “things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed”. “In a closed down world where all our connections with the outside suddenly are remote or absent, the line between the real and imaginary is blurred. I felt that the term perfectly summed up the thoughts, processes and sentiments that went into the making of this record”, says Myhr. “Kim Myhr is a master of slow-morphing rhythms and sun-dappled textures that seem to glow from the inside”. The Guardian 1/And I Thought These Are My People 2/Gifting Senselessly In Endless Lavishness 3/Move The Rolling Sky 4/Iridescent 5/Up To The Sun Shall Go Your Heartache 6/I Wonder If I Shall Fall Right Through The Earth 7/Heart Streams
Slyder Smith first swaggered onto the stage as lead guitarist with glam-tinged power popsters, Last Great Dreamers. After releasing four studio albums and one live album on Ray Records & having toured extensively throughout the UK & Europe with LGD, Slyder now takes centre stage leading Slyder Smith & The Oblivion Kids (Tim Emery, Bass and Rik Pratt, Drums) in an honest outpouring of grit, glamour and emotion. Stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight, the self-confessed ‘frustrated lead singer’ has been forced to delve deep into his own psyche, to carefully craft lyrics and melodies that speak from the heart. Slyder’s emotive vocals are powerful, yet melancholic, the perfect balance of light and shade sitting effortlessly within the sonic landscape of his varied rhythm guitar sounds and highly melodic & anthemic lead lines. “This album has been a real labour of love for me, I’ve really put my heart & soul into it. Over the last year or so I’ve been working very hard developing my guitar playing, music & lyric writing pulling myself in all sorts of directions, really stretching myself. I feel I have accomplished what I set out to do, create songs from the heart in no specific genre & perform them to the best of my ability on the record. I guess for years I have been a frustrated lead singer so I have relished the opportunity to showcase what I can do vocally too.” – Slyder Smith - Stage left, Slyder is joined by Tim Emery, a towering enigma, whose stylish bass lines are the only thing to outshine his impeccable apparel and at the back sits the Oblivion Kids’ powerhouse and beat master, Welshman, Rik Pratt. A man of few words but whose presence is palpable in this rock steady rhythm section. But this is no ordinary guitar-based rock album; together with producer Pete Brown (George Harrison, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Marc Almond, The Smiths and Sam Brown), Slyder has allowed the songs to dictate the direction they have gone in; discovering melodies and hook lines along the way. Making use of Hammond organ and piano with the help of Neil Scully (Richard Davies & the Dissidents), a 1950s Phillicord organ, lap steel guitar & even a bit of banjo. A chocolate box of sonic sensations offering up a little something for everyone - from heavy riffage with walloping drums akin to the brothers Young to the anticipated sleaze rock shades of Hanoi Rocks. However, this band is not afraid to step away from their rock roots, instead, with nods to the likes of The Doors, Velvet Underground, The Stranglers and The Kinks from the past and the alternative rock sound of Manic Street Preachers, The Oblivion Kids have reimagined an 80s synth pop classic and mastered singalong pop, gothic, dark Americana, and dare I say it, funk rock?! There are a few firsts for Slyder on here too in the form of an instrumental track with a western feel and to a duet featuring the ethereal vocals of Nina Courson (Healthy Junkies). The result is an idiosyncratic 14 track album of outstanding versatility. A Charming debut, I’m sure you’ll agree.
The 16-track album opens with “War & Wonders'' as Smoke begins his journey foreshadowing an upcoming battle featuring impassioned flows and rhymes describing the violent challenges of urban living. The track opens with a storyline of Smoke getting knocked down from his ongoing battles and a woman calling his name to wake up. The narrative then progresses with latest singles “Shame On You” and “Common Sense” featuring SiR commenting on humanity’s unique simplicity and embracing our differences. At the core of the album, “Stay True” featuring John Legend accentuates the meaning of living your best life by staying true to your authentic self regardless of what life throws your way and the hardships you may face. Then “Good Thing” featuring Ty Dolla $ign offers an upbeat, positive track bringing light to companionship and finding joy in life through many avenues. Smoke wraps the project with rhythmic, jazz infused “Free Write” reflecting on the crusade of each track leading to the end of his battles, and bringing awareness to the grieving of his city from politics to systemic racism and his influence on making the situation better for future generations. War & Wonders spotlights poignant themes, necessary social commentary, and the hurdles we overcome in order to appreciate what we have in this life. For Smoke, he showcases Inglewood’s war on losing love, being in love, and battling himself as he is always being led in different directions. It is a continuous journey of learning, growing, self-discovery, and reinventing a better version of himself.
Vol. 1[17,52 €]
823 is a multifaceted Perth-based record label, fashion brand, and artistic community, founded by Australian producer and all-around creative, Ta-ku (846k monthly listeners on Spotify). With an ethos of attention to detail and appreciation for the everyday things in life, 823 doesn’t stick to any particular genre. 823’s releases include Cabu’s (800k Monthly Listeners on Spotify) “So Far To Go” EP, Ta-ku and matt mcwaters’s duo project “Black and White,” which featured Masego collaboration “Flight 99” (14 million streams on Spotify), their debut release with Australian producer and instrumentalist Kuzich, and multiple sold out clothing capsules. “All Things Considered Vol. 1” set off a collaborative series of curated compilations, featuring both budding and well-established artists around the world including Idealism, Wun Two, pastels, SwuM, Jinsang, Saltyyyy V, and more. “All Things Considered Vol. 2” sees the continuation of this project, this time in partnership with fellow Perth-based powerhouse, Butter Goods.
Butter Goods is a Perth clothing brand rooted in skating culture and style, but drawing inspiration from hip-hop, jazz, and music at large. Butter Goods has been featured in major publications, including GQ, Complex, and HYPEBEAST. They’ve collaborated on releases with Peanuts and Puma, and have reached international levels of popularity. Butter Goods co-founder Garth Mariano’s deep love for and eclectic tastes in music drive his creativity, and are front and center in his partnership with Ta-ku and 823 on “All Things Considered Vol 2,” where the two team up to curate a wide-ranging compilation.
Arriving on September 2nd, 2022, “All Things Considered Vol. 2” is an exploration of Ta-ku’s and Mariano’s extensive and often overlapping musical palettes in two parts. The record pays homage to the love of instrumental music and hidden gems of new school jazz and funk that act as a source of inspiration and nostalgia for the both of them. The collaboration brings together over a dozen producers and instrumentalists from Sydney to Chicago, including Jadu Jadu, Gnarly, Tenderlonius, silentjay, and more. Side A is curated by Ta-ku and 823. It’s as much a love letter to the past as it is a nod to the future of beat-making. Featuring sample heavy, drum looped beats, sprinkled with the occasional ear candy for the attentive listener, it presents cruisy soundscapes & easy listening. Side B is curated by Garth and Butter Goods. It’s a raw and eclectic companion to Side A, leaning heavily into the texture and grit of multi-layered jazz and funk-driven beats.
As with any 823 release, the project is as visual as it is sonic. The artwork and visualizers are a celebration of Garth’s love of thrift culture and old nature documentaries, fused with 823’s design aesthetic of bringing everyday inspirations to the forefront. CRT style visuals are paired with 90’s spin, slide and fade away transitions. When partnered with the music, each visualizer could easily work as the intro for an episode of a VHS series of nature docos.
1st single, “senzu bean,” arrives on July 7th and kicks off Side A, showcasing Ta-ku’s hip-hop-centric tastes. Sydney producer Jadu Jadu teams up with UK-based TAMBALA, apltn, and Makzo for a vibrant instrumental. From a head-nodding bassline beneath fuzzy synths, to soft horn licks sprinkled over electronic drums, “senzu bean” is sonically rich and multilayered.
2nd single, “Too Much” by UK producer saaaz arrives July 20th. It’s a moody and low-tempo beat that builds itself up over time, complete with cryptic vocal samples and syrupy drums and bass. Also off of 823’s Side A, “Too Much” maintains a laid-back hip-hop theme but with saaaz’s signature and definitive lo-fi twist.
3rd single, “Goodmorning” from Baro Sura and silentjay of Melbourne arrives August 3rd, kicking off Butter Good’s Side B. The track is bright from start to finish and is a sun-filled track perfect for closing out the summer with. Final single, “Fool’s Gold” by Los Angeles producer L.Dre arrives August 17th. The infinitely creative beatmaker layers soft hums and the sounds of crashing waves over crisp drums and an infectious bassline. Together, it makes for a beat that sounds like it was made outside, under the sun, and is best enjoyed in the same way.
Focus track, “Seventh Wonder” by Tenderlonius, comes off of Side B, and is a window into the ideas and palettes on both sides of the compilation. The beat slowly fades in, one sound at a time, until it reaches a full-fledged groove, soaked in synths, bass, and horns, that’s impossible not to move to.
On the whole, “All Things Considered Vol. 2” is a forward-focused, sonic journey into the minds behind two of today’s great creative brands, and is as artistically eclectic and varied as those minds are, and a proud follow-up to its first volume.
LP contains A2 poster on uncoated stock.
repressed !
It's no understatement that London Grammar's forthcoming album is one of the most highly anticipated debuts this year. Confirmed for release on September 9, the album is a result of 18 painstaking months spent writing and recording. Each of the 11 tracks is testament to the trio's innate understanding of the roles that subtlety, contrast and restraint have played in the creation of memorable, timeless and transcendent music. 'That's how this all started,' says Dan, 'and it's always been our primary goal, to keep space in the music. The way that, say, the guitar and vocal interact is massively important to us.'
Heavily involved in every decision made on the album, the band handpicked their team, working closely with producers Tim Bran (The Verve, Richard Ashcroft, La Roux) and Roy Kerr AKA The Freelance Hellraiser. Drafting in Roc Nation's KD (Outkast, Beyoncé, Jay-Z) to mix the album, with Grammy-winning Tom Coyne (Adele's 21), joining them to master.
Tracks like If You Wait and Flickers possess that strange duality of lament and defiance, filled with textures, colours, shadings and interjections that are subtle yet deliver devastating power. The next single, Strong, out on September 1 is the final, killer blow. Building - as you would expect from London Grammar - from nothing, from the barest of bones, Hannah's soaring vocals propels the song to its crashing climax.
More than delivering on their promise, London Grammar's electrifying debut solidifies them as being one of the most exciting and innovative bands to emerge in 2013.
The Globeflower Masters Vol. 1 takes its inspiration from classic soundtrack and cinematic composers such as Axelrod, Morricone, Gainsbourg, Jean-Claude Vannier and Piero Umiliani. Created during Summer 2020, this album is the product of a fruitful collaboration between Brighton-based musicians Glenn Fallows (The Impellers / Andres y Xavi) and Mark Treffel (Blue States / The Soul Steppers). These seasoned performing and recording artists have put their abundance of experience and skilful musicianship into effect with aplomb on this album. This is as accomplished a debut release as you will ever hear, and dare we say, a future classic in the making.
The Globeflower Masters project was borne from an idea Glenn had to create an album that leant on the influence of soundtrack and library composers - particularly of the late 60s and early 70s. This rich sonic palette had previously been innate in his writing and composition but, for this album, the direct inspiration was placed front and centre. After penning several sketches, Glenn contacted Mark to fulfil the vision he had for a complete sound. Mark had an arsenal of vintage synths, pianos and other fun toys which could supplement the drums, guitars and bass that Glenn had been working on. As the album progressed, the pair worked increasingly collaboratively, with each of them starting and sharing ideas to curate the final eight finished tracks.
The results are an album of lush, warm, timeless productions that are drenched in strings and classical instrumentation. Awash with atmospheric excursions, it is a listening experience that moves you through moods whilst transporting you to a world of deeply evocative settings and imagined scenarios. The Globeflower Masters Vol. 1 resonates equally as well on a dark melancholic Winter's day as it does sound-tracking a halcyon Summer day. Though influenced by 60s and 70s productions the record is not a simple pastiche, feeling both simultaneously brand new as well as authentically retro.
- Stunning debut album filled with lush, warm, timeless productions.
- Taking inspiration from classic 60s and 70s soundtrack, and cinematic, composers such as Axelrod, Morricone and Gainsbourg
The sixth release on Italian imprint Tempo Dischi comes from Alessandro Bernabeo, aka Raduan, the Italian DJ and producer behind 'Taki-Naki-Naki', one of the most eclectic and unconventional electronic records made in Italy in the late 1980s.
"At the age of 7, I started attending a music school learning to play the piano. At 11 I began working as a speaker in various radio stations, and at 14, I joined Punto Radio where I grew up professionally and launched my own radio show, PLAY MUSIC, under the name Alessandro Giordani. The success was impressive, and thanks to my friend Gianfranco di Lizio, I also started my DJ career by playing in some of the best dance clubs under the artist name Raduan or Rad-one. Mixing funk, soul, afro and cosmic disco in my music gave me a chance to meet and establish relationships with many of the protagonists of this new musical scene, like l’Ebreo, Fari, Maselli, Claudio Mozart Rispoli, Pery, Rubens. In 1988 I was a resident DJ in a well-known club at the time, the 'RIO CLUB', and together with my keyboardist and percussionist, I had the idea to produce a maxi single. The song was recorded in about 40 hours without sleep at the Cicero Bros studio in Cassino in April 1988, with the support of Lino Rufo, a great artist from Molise, as well as his dear friend and old producer Toni Ochiello. The initial project was completely reworked. The original sampled drums were coupled with an acoustic one, and new melodies and fantastic spacey new sounds and effects were created by keyboardist Bengha. The hypnotic and repetitive voice of Cristina, Claudio Baglioni's background vocalist at the time, and that of Jamaica, originally from Mauritius, made the project even more interesting. 'Taki Naki Naki' is an Italo song, with Cosmic disco and Afro influences, and it's the title track of the EP originally released in June 1988 on Bmg Ariola, ex RCA. The EP includes two other songs 'Nightflight' and 'Hiroshima'. The record was a big hit in all the Italian Disco clubs and launched me into the international dance music scene. It was a fantastic time, with different styles of music and House Music was also on the way. There was a lot of research spirit and the people of the club were ready for various types of change. This record has left a mark, international DJs and shops from all over the world still contact me to ask if I have a vinyl copy left in my archive."
Last time he brought his Emperor Machine project to Leng, via the seductive, call-to-the dancefloor that was ‘Dance Par Amour’, Andrew Meecham had vocalist Severine Mouletin in tow. On this welcome return to the label, Meecham has enlisted the help of another sublime singer: Bom Carrot 봄캐롯, lead vocalist with South Korean punk-pop outfit Tirikilatops.
Although the pair share a mutual friend, who had extolled the virtues of a potential collaboration to Meecham, it was only when Bom Carrot 봄캐롯 reached out on social media that the pair were finally connected. Meecham jumped at the opportunity to kick-start a collaboration, quickly firing over a track he’d been working on. A few months later, her vocals landed in his inbox and the rest, as they say, is history.
The resultant track, ‘춤춰 Chumchwo – Let’s Dance’, may feature many of the aural trademarks of Meecham’s Emperor Machine work – spiralling analogue electronics, vintage synth sounds, effects aplenty and infectious grooves inspired by New York’s no-wave movement of the early 1980s – but is somehow even more thrillingly wild, excitable, and exhilarating than you’d reasonably expect.
A big part of that, of course, is the inspired contributions of Bom Carrot 봄캐롯. Her freewheeling vocals – part sung, part spoken, and part improvised – are energetic, distinctive, and addictive, adding layers of post-punk abandon and a genuine sense of musical freedom. Combined with Meecham’s outrageously unpredictable backing track – there are twists and turns aplenty, as well as surprising percussive and musical touches that seemingly appear and disappear at will – the resultant song is like the unlikely sonic lovechild of Talking Heads, YMO, Pierre Henry and K-Punk.
As you’d expect given his track record of delivering freewheeling instrumental reworks, the vocal version comes backed with an extra-special Emperor Machine ‘Instrumental Dub’ version. Stripped back and percussive, with dropouts and breakdowns aplenty, this is no mere vocal-free take, but rather a reconstructed revision piled high with extra percussion, spacey electronics, echoing vocal snippets, bubbly bass and razor-sharp Tom Tom Club guitar licks –all arranged to rise, fall and rise again around Meecham’s killer groove. As the track’s title suggests: “Let’s Dance!”
David Sylvian describes his 2nd solo album for his own Samadhisound label as being: “A modern kind of chamber music. Intimate, dynamic, emotive, democratic, economical”. Recorded in London, Vienna and Tokyo, the 8 songs and 1 instrumental on ‘Manafon’ bring together “the world’s leading improvisors, and innovators, artists who explore free improvisation, space-specific performance and live electronics” including Evan Parker, Keith Rowe, Christian Fennesz, Sachiko M, Otomo Yoshihide, John Tilbury and members of Polwechsel. This is the first time on 180gram vinyl for this 2LP set
Eric Dolphy's final studio album is hailed as one of the finest examples of mid-'60s post bop. Its reputation is purely one of backwards significance. Dolphy, having recorded the album in February 1964, was in Europe less than six weeks later and his all-too-brief life ended less than two months after that. Though likely he never held a copy in his hands or heard any critical opinion of it, it marked his last flurry of original compositions and is considered his apex. It is fascinating to consider whether he would had moved past or away from the album in 1965, had he lived.
Though Dolphy should not be considered an avant-garde musician by the term's most common definitions, most interpretations of Out To Lunch have been done by players working squarely in that area. So it is with this album, the most ambitious in its recreation of the five-tune disc (with one original added to the final "Straight Up and Down, extending the piece to almost thirty minutes). All five compositions from the original quintet LP are revisited in the same order, the record sleeve even duplicates the old album jacket, down to the typeface and black-and-blue color scheme, although a photo taken by Daidō Moriyama inside Tokyo's massive (and massively busy) Shinjuku railway station replaces the Dolphy's album's enigmatic "Will Be Back" sign, whose clock hands indicated no conventional time of expected return.
Otomo Yoshihide first came to international prominence in the 1990s as the leader of the experimental rock group Ground Zero, and has since worked in a variety of contexts, ranging from free improvisation to noise, jazz, avant-garde and contemporary classical. The always surprising and sometimes confounding turntablist, sound artist, onkyo improviser and now avant jazzer heading up a 15-piece aggregation of Japanese and European experimentalists. Who better to grapple with Dolphy's legacy -- so idiosyncratic in its day and yet so influential to creative improvisers who followed -- than a musician with his own singular take on how sounds can be organized in the jazz realm over 40 years later and half a world away? In other words don't expect the conventional from Otomo any more than you would from Dolphy himself. That's not to say that recognizable themes ("Hat and Beard," "Out to Lunch," "Straight Up and Down") don't appear, or that individual players -- including Alfred Harth on bass clarinet bursting into the mix and leaping across the instrument's tonal range in a way that recalls the master himself -- don't carry forward echoes from the past in the spirit of a sincere and heartfelt homage.
However, a good deal of the time all bets are off; in addition to the usual brass, reeds, bass, and drums (and of course a bit of vibraphone, here played by Takara Kumiko in far less prominent role than that of Bobby Hutcherson) are such sonic paraphernalia as sine waves, contact mike, no-input mixing board, and, of course, "computer." (Otomo himself plays skronky electric guitar.) From composition to composition and even during episodes within compositions, the band takes radically different approaches. There are blasts of free jazz energy not too far removed from the Peter Brötzmann Tentet, an impression reinforced by the presence of spluttering wildman Mats Gustafsson on baritone sax. Not surprisingly and often in contrast with the Dolphy original, the music is dense and filled to overflowing with sounds -- sometimes due to fundamental reworkings in structure rather than just the larger size of the ensemble. The middle section of "Something Sweet, Something Tender" somewhat belies the original's title with elongated howls and cries from the horns over slo-mo bass, drums, and electronic noise poised somewhere between dirge and drone, and the sudden explosion of punk-ish rock energy in the following "Gazzelloni" is a startling contrast.
At times, the feeling is that of listening to the original Out To Lunch while a séance is going on to contact Dolphy's ghost, with supernatural sounds swirling around the stereo. The effect is disconcerting, as is the post-apocalyptic cloud hanging over the arrangements, but it makes the effort more than an unnecessary tribute album. Instead, Dolphy is transported into the 21st Century and allowed to romp through modern developments in music. An inspiring concept and an album that will stretch the boundaries of anyone who comes into contact with it.
It's time to present in Umor Rex a new collaboration between two great exponents of contemporary music who have been part of the electronic and experimental avant-garde for the last three decades. On the one hand, we have the Berlin-based musician, composer, and video artist Frank Bretschneider, recognized for precise sound placement, complex, interwoven rhythm structures, and his minimal, flowing approach. On the other hand, Giorgio Li Calzi, the Italian trumpeter, composer, producer, and performing director based in Turin, whose work is known for electronic/effects improvisation combined with the trumpet.
The creation process of Zero Mambo started when Giorgio and Frank met in Chamois, the Italian Alps, in 2018. A year later, Bretschneider sent to a few drafts in the form of audio files, loops, and sequences, and Li Calzi used this material quasi as a framework to create new compositions on it. At that time, in the pandemic, with the unprecedented intervention in lives and rituals, the situation led to ideal conditions to reflect and produce music, a snapshot of the weird times. Li Calzi and Bretschneider offer in Zero Mambo a fascinating album between electronic and jazz. It is clear that it is elegant, clean, and minimal, but we have to say, Zero Mambo is also exuberant and cheerful. A fantastic Berlin-Turin music connection.
Kristian is a new anonymous project on Figure Music, exploring a different kind of sound that is based on subtly nuanced live jams and oriented towards a slightly more raw house and dubby-related style.
Opener Doubtful makes a strong first impression as Kristian weaves together lush, cheerful chords with a tight yet rolling bass momentum, carrying the track forward effortlessly. In stark contrast, Dry Dub is groove reduced to its bare essence. A straight-up drum track made of
sparse elements that confidently unfold their subliminal power over time.
The flip holds cuts that really want to spring to life. Swirly, dubbed-out sounds create a colorful and dynamic palette, rapidly changing in movement and direction. Insider riffs on heavily animated, filtered synth action, while closing track Worthiness goes deep and spacey, oozing with warm machine charm, squelching acid, and bubbly bass.
The long-running Kompakt imprint will release an EP by German DJ and producer Sascha Funke in September. Sharing five tracks that traverse quirky house and techno, Treets marks Funke’s monumental return to Kompakt since his Zug um Zug two-tracker in 2014.
Speaking about Treets, Funke says he is "very happy to be back on the mothership Kompakt" after an eight-year break. As one would expect with Funke, the EP fits the cosmic world of Kompakt to a tee. The title track conveys a weird, tripped-out atmosphere as an alien-like vocal burbles between an acid bassline and squeaky percussion. It's a tantalising glimpse of Funke's freaky underworld. E_Plus follows a similar wonked-out vein, only this time, the vibe is ominous. Funke pairs an orchestral vocal with bleepy pads and signature acid-drenched melody — a solid offering oddball of energy. On Alles Paletti, a 2-step drum pattern and string of bright claps create a sunny soundscape, complemented by a robust bassline and ethereal synth notes. It's fairytale house music, the kind only Funke can produce. The penultimate track Haus More is subdued, as chugging drums slither between a wobbly melody. The Other Version feels futuristic, as Funke goes full-force electro. Extra-terrestrial vocals return, but the pace is cranked up by strident sound FX and thudding drums. An eccentric end to an eccentric EP.
Sascha Funke is a Berlin-based producer and DJ with two decades' worth of releases building his back catalogue. BPitch Control, Turbo Recordings, Endless Flight, Running Back, and several more esteemed imprints have released his work. Today, he continues to create sleek sounds that weave various genres from house, techno, disco, Krautrock, wave, electro and unclassified anomalies. As a DJ, Funke is just as free-wheeling as his productions. He's played E1 in London, Caos in São Paulo and Renate in Berlin, amongst others, displaying his sweeping sound to a worldwide audience. Having been exposed to euro-dance pop as a youngster, you can hear flashes from the genre stitched throughout his work but blended in a way that's quintessential to Funke. Never one to change his sound according to the latest trend, Funke stays true to his creative vision — one of the most significant challenges for producers today.
Das traditionsreiche Kompakt-Imprint wird im September eine EP des deutschen DJs und Produzenten Sascha Funke veröffentlichen. Mit fünf Tracks, die sich durch schrulligen House und Techno auszeichnen, ist “Treets” Funkes monumentale Rückkehr zu Kompakt seit “ Zug um Zug” im Jahr 2014.
Im Gespräch über Treets sagt Funke, er sei "sehr glücklich, nach acht Jahren Pause wieder auf dem Mutterschiff Kompakt zu sein". Wie bei Funke nicht anders zu erwarten, passt die EP hervorragend in die kosmische Welt von Kompakt. Der Titeltrack vermittelt eine seltsame, abgedrehte Atmosphäre, wenn eine außerirdisch anmutende Stimme zwischen einer Acid-Bassline und quietschenden Perkussionsinstrumenten dahinplätschert. Es ist ein verlockender Einblick in Funkes freakige Unterwelt. “E-Plus” geht in eine ähnliche Richtung, nur dass dieses Mal die Stimmung bedrohlich ist. Funke paart einen orchestralen Gesang mit bleepigen Pads und seiner typischen Acid-getränkten Melodie - ein solides Angebot voller Energie. Auf “Alles Paletti” schaffen ein 2-Step-Drum-Pattern und eine Reihe heller Claps eine sonnige Klanglandschaft, die durch eine robuste Bassline und ätherische Synthesizernoten ergänzt wird. Das ist märchenhafte House-Musik, wie sie nur Funke produzieren kann. Der vorletzte Track Haus More ist zurückhaltend, da tuckernde Drums zwischen einer wackeligen Melodie schlittern. “Treets (The Other Version)” fühlt sich futuristisch an, weil Funke hier voll auf Elektro setzt. Der außerirdische Gesang kehrt zurück, aber das Tempo wird durch schrille Soundeffekte und stampfende Drums angezogen. Ein exzentrisches Ende für eine exzentrische EP.
Sascha Funke ist ein in Berlin ansässiger Produzent und DJ mit einem Backkatalog von zwei Jahrzehnten an Veröffentlichungen. BPitch Control, Turbo Recordings, Endless Flight, Running Back und einige andere angesehene Labels haben seine Arbeiten veröffentlicht. Heute kreiert er weiterhin geschmeidige Sounds, die verschiedene Genres wie House, Techno, Disco, Krautrock, Wave, Electro und unklassifizierte Anomalien miteinander verweben. Als DJ ist Funke genauso freizügig wie seine Produktionen. Er hat unter anderem im E1 in London, im Caos in São Paulo und im Renate in Berlin aufgelegt und seinen mitreißenden Sound einem weltweiten Publikum vorgestellt. Da er schon als Jugendlicher mit Eurodance in Berührung kam, sind in seiner Arbeit immer wieder Anklänge an dieses Genre zu hören, die aber auf eine Art und Weise vermischt werden, die ganz typisch für Funke ist. Niemals verändert Funke seinen Sound nach dem neuesten Trend, sondern bleibt seiner kreativen Vision treu - eine der größten Herausforderungen für Produzenten heutzutage.
Sarah Brown releases her debut album ‘Sarah Brown Sings Mahalia Jackson’ on 20th May 2022, preceded by a new single ‘Walk Over God’s Heaven’ on the 6th May. The record sees Sarah offer her interpretations of some of the classic tracks of arguably the most famous gospel singer of the last century who gave Brown hope and sanctuary through hard times faced over the years. Having recently appeared on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour performing her debut single ‘I’m On My Way’, she is currently on tour with Simple Minds with whom she has been playing with for the last 15 years.
Sarah explains: “For as long as I can remember, Mahalia Jackson with her fever pitched performances have been a soothing note to my tapestry. At 10 years old, I remember hopelessly trying to sing along to her bellowing thunder of a voice. In my bedroom I would become her. I chose these songs because they tell of my story. Growing up in a Caribbean home to parents who were a long way from their home. Anger and fear were the two prominent emotions that I lived with.
The style I was trying to achieve was influenced by early jazz, blues and the spirituals. I am happy with the sound/style of the album. It was always going to be an experiment but I had no idea that it was going to sound as good and as authentic as it does. ‘Didn’t It Rain’ as a jazz feel. ‘Nobody Knows’ as a spiritual feel then it goes into swing jazz. ‘Walk over God’s Heaven’ as a hint of rock & roll with a bit of early swing.”
You may not know Sarah Brown’s name but you’ll definitely have heard her voice. From her collaborations with the likes of George Michael, Stevie Wonder, Duran Duran, Simply Red, Roxy Music, Pink Floyd, Simple Minds … Sarah Brown is one of the most prolific and in-demand vocalists in the world. Jim Kerr from Simple Minds comments: “In a sane world Sarah’s colossal talent would ensure that she would be front of stage every night, so I would be in the front row. Every night. I am her biggest fan after all”
Mahalia Jackson (October 26, 1911 – January 27, 1972) is widely considered as a major influence on Mavis Staple, Little Richard, Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, Donna Summer, Ray Charles, and a civil rights icon (Malcolm X noted that Jackson was "the first Negro that Negroes made famous”, Harry Belafonte stated "there’s not a single field hand, a single black worker, a single black intellectual who did not respond to her”, and it was Mahalia who prompted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr to improvise the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.
This previously unreleased album by the Horace Tapscott Quintet was unearthed from master tapes in the Flying Dutchman archives. Recorded in 1969 and was intended to be a follow-up album to the classic 'The Giant Is Awakened' which was released that year.
The iconic pianist and composer Horace Tapscott was one of the most unique and important figures in LA’s jazz world. This lost recording was produced by one of the pivotal figures in jazz, Bob Thiele, a leading behind-the-scenes star who worked with many of the greats in jazz, such as Quincy Jones, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Della Reese, Shirley Scott, Gil Scott-Heron, the list goes on. His name can be seen gracing, arguably the best, Impulse! releases and those released on his own Flying Dutchman imprint set up in 1969.
Joining Horace for this three-track, deep, heavy, avant-garde session is the same stellar cast featured on 'The Giant Is Awakened'; Arthur Blythe on Alto Sax, Everett Brown Jr on Drums, with David Bryant and Walter Savage Jr. on Bass. Kicking things off we have 'World Peace’, which starts with an almost baroque-esque melody, leading to an eruption in sound, it then ends in the same manner it began. The beautiful 'Your Child' is the jewel in the crown, skirting modal, deep jazz and introducing elements of free jazz. 'For Fats' with its bow bass and piano intro takes you on a journey, dropping into, at times dark, stormy melodies and developing a driving energy as the composition progresses.
After recording this album, Horace was said to be wary of the music industry, so he retreated and distanced himself from this world, recording only for the independent labels UGMAA, Interplay Records, and Nimbus West Records. He set up The Pan-Afrikan People’s Arkestra and reintroduced the pan-African-roots sound back into the heart of jazz. He also developed and promoted the art form through performances and recordings.
Thankfully, this session from these wonderful musical pioneers was preserved and finally has its time to shine.
Featuring brand-new artwork by the illustrious artist/designer/musician Raimund Wong (Total Refreshment / Floating World Pictures)
Born of chance meetings in Accra, the band brings together a Burundian producer and vocalist, Betina Quest; with a Ghanaian singer-songwriter, Eli A Free; and a German percussionist and multiinstrumentalist, Ma.ttic. Nyamekye Junction take their name from a bustling junction in the Ghanaian capital, where a number of major roads merge, embodying the musical approach of the band: a singular sound at the junction of their cultural heritages.
In Eli’s words, ‘Dasein’ (from the German for ‘existence’, ‘being there’), captures “the need to live in this moment here and now with a heart full of gratitude” while exploring a number of interlinked themes, including the importance of one's environment – cultural and political, as well as physical - in situating, shaping and explaining each individual’s identity.
The band adeptly channel a wide range of influences, from the Ghanaian legends Ebo Taylor and Osibisa through to US mainstays such as Nina Simone and Erykah Badu; with equal regard given to UK innovators like Benjamin Clementine and Mala. The resulting debut EP ‘Dasein’ is a stunning collage which showcases the band’s impressive range and evolving sound by traversing a diverse range of moods, rhythms and textures.
The lead single ‘GMT’ (short for ‘Ghana Man Time’) is a dancefloor-ready track that carries a deft political message. Driven by a weighty bassline alongside punching drums and percussion, for a rhythm section that would be at home in any broken-beat set, the song explores and emphasises differing conceptions of time between the West and Africa with a playful irony.
In the gutter lie sun dried leaves, scraps of paper, burnt matches and cigarette butts. It is early morning; the sun rises with warm grace. you've come to the right party... you see, the body of a young man sitting by a pool, nobody important, really. Just a movie writer with a couple of "b" pictures to his credit. He always wanted a pool. Well, in the end he got himself a pool, but let's go back some time and find the day when it all started in “Hollywood,” the place where they pay a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.
Three years after he celebrated “Sketch of Japan” EP, Superpitcher returns to Mule Musiq, bringing an epic super-pitched 40 minutes trip named “Hollywood”, that perfectly works as the score for the above remixed opening scene of a famous movie on the trances of Hollywood, the cage, that catch our dreams. It’s a slow grower, incorporating some of core elements of the city of celluloid dreams: action, drama, romance - all epic noir and yet so flooded by light. As ever the producer and DJ from Paris garnished his long building up and going down voyage with se-ducing melodies, glamorous pop, and psychic rhythms, creating the hippy dance ambiences he is famed for. Even though the twelve inch comes in accustomed a/b chapters, “Hollywood” should be perceived in one go to feel the depth of Superpitcher’s tropical leaning story arc, that stretches the idea of a track into a dream of satin teardrops on flickering velvet lights. It paints sonic celluloid pictures of ghostly creatures, while a female/male voice is the music’s constant melodic companion, injection Janus-faced longing dream pop spheres on the overall tripping house melancholy. A heroic electronic drama, elegant as Tamara de Lempicka painting. It asks for endless rides on the Hollywood freeways. in the back the sun – a big orange ball – sinking slowly below the horizon.
You've come to the right party... you see, the body of a young man sitting by a pool, in the back a long, graceful bar, bathed in soft light, filled with elegant customers. There's nothing else, just us and the music and those wonderful people out there in the dark, ready for a divine dance in closeup.
Black Truffle is thrilled to announce Drumming Up Trouble, the first release of previously unissued music by Alvin Curran on the label. Collecting works recorded between 2018-2021 and a side-long epic dating back to the early 80s, as the title suggests, Drumming Up Trouble focuses on a hitherto almost unknown aspect of Curran’s encyclopaedic and omnivorous musical world: his experiments with sampled and synthesised percussion. As Curran’s wonderful, wildly sweeping liner notes make clear, his fascination with drumming belongs to the radical investigation of music’s fundamental elements that has marked his output since the beginnings of MEV, who aimed (as he says in a recent interview) to return ‘in some collective way to a non-existent start time in the history of human music’. Whatever kind of music our proto-human ancestors played, he writes, ‘drums were front and centre in the mix. Drums rule!’
In a paradox typical of Curran’s approach, Drumming Up Trouble interrogates this most ancient dimension of music with contemporary technology. On the first side, we hear recent pieces performed using the sampling software and full-size MIDI keyboard setup Curran has refined since the 1980s. Two of them are wild real-time improvisations, primarily utilising an enormous bank of hip-hop samples. Building from polyrhythmic layers of drum machine fragments to wild cacophonies of clashing vocal samples, scratching, and frantic pitch shifting, these energetic and at times hilarious pieces occupy a space somewhere between John Oswald’s Plunderphonics, Pat Thomas and Matt Wand in the Tony Oxley Quartet, and the propulsive Kudoro/Grime fusion of Lisbon’s Príncipe label. They are improvisations are accompanied by two austere, minimal compositions realised in collaboration with Angelo Maria Fallo: ‘End Zone’ for orchestral bass drum and high oscillator, and ‘Rollings’, where a snare roll is gradually stretched and filtered by digital means into ‘floating electronic gossamer’.
The incredible breadth of Curran’s output makes it pretty unlikely that a listener familiar with his work would be surprised to find it branching out in a new direction. But no degree of familiarity with his work can really prepare for side B’s epic and bizarre ‘Field it More’. It’s perhaps best to let the maestro describe this unhinged and infectious offering in his own words: ‘It features an 8 bar funky minimal riff à la James Brown, played on synth and an-out-of-tune piano, synced to a pre-paid patch on the Roland drum machine. Over this is laid a heavily processed track of the voices of dancer Yoshiko Chuma and movie-maker Jacob Burckhardt discussing an upcoming performance of theirs at the Venice film festival, capped by a track of my playing an increasingly out of control blues over the top of all of the above’. Only Pekka Airaksinen’s Buddhas of the Golden Light comes to mind as a reference point that might even vaguely compare to this wild home-brew of drum-machine funk, mad improvisation and squelching electronics, which eventually dissolved into a massive, layered cluster. Ancient and modern, synthetic and human, hysterical and rigorous, Drumming up Trouble is 100% Curran.
Over the past decade, the mysterious, London-based artist Moiré has perfected a syrupy, addictive brand of dance music via labels like Actress's Werk Discs and illustrious imprints like Ghostly and Rush Hour. For most of this period, Moiré seemed pramarily concerned in creating alternative universe club tracks. The beats were hypnotic, if wonky. The pads were deep before they were refracted through an oblique filter. In a discography bearing a surfeit of leftfield high points, Circuits, Moiré's latest album for the Berlin-based Avenue 66 (Lowtec, John Frusciante, Joey Anderson) is a massive creative leap that fully breaks with the strictures of a "conventional" dance music.
While there are still nods to the low-slung, slow house style Moiré's perfected in the past ("Circuit 1"), as well as the looming shadow of hardcore ("Circuit 8), Moiré's style now billows into a liminal, cinematic zone that recalls the canonical SAW albums, BOC or even Seefeel's enduring, genre-free experiments. Rhythms come and go at all tempos, from Hauntological four-on-the-floor to flickering downtempo and ambient house approximations. But the emphasis lies with the melodies. From the queasy orchestral style of "Circuits 1" to the glacial, "end credits"-style synths that close out the album, these motifs bear an uncanny familiarity, as though they always existed. You recognize them, not from a previous listen, but rather, some half-remembered dream, or, perhaps, a previous lifetime.
After Dinner’s Paradise of Replica is a concise nugget of tomfoolery that occupies a whimsical no man’s land between art pop, Japanese folk music and full-assed Art Zoydian avant proggery. Gentle, arcane and covertly sweeping, it typifies that friendly strain of experimentalism that Eastern music seems so predisposed towards and which curious minds find such great delight in.
Assembled by the enigmatic chanteuse and composer known simply as Haco, After Dinner was less a band and more of a loose art collective that utilized a plurality of different musical disciplines stapled together through free improvisation sessions. And some of this does come through on Paradise of Replica—the record is a scrapbook of bells, strings and koto humming under Haco’s ethereal vocals, and the effect, while perfectly tuneful, does come off more as a musical project than a conventional album.
But Paradise of Replica is far from an impenetrable scholastic endeavor—in fact, there’s something of an Elephant 6-like quality in its ability to warp conventions while still coming off more or less like pop music. Counter to the ramshackle hostility of much improvised music, After Dinner’s choices are melodious and feel deliberately sequenced. Even crescendos don’t tend to rise above a murmur, and there are even apparent hooks on tracks like “A Walnut” and “Ironclad Mermaid.”
Ultimately, there’s not much to be said about Paradise of Replica that can elucidate more than actually hearing it will be able to. Proggy, playful and lush, it’s a brief glimpse into something in the vicinity of genius, and just outside the realm of commercial music. It’s a quietly bold project that shows a softer side of the avant-garde, and makes a perfect companion to Stereolab and Magma at once.
2002-2022, that’s 20 years of Pingipung! The German record label celebrates its anniversary with exclusive tracks by a fine selection of artists from the label roster as well as new names. Instead of looking back at the classics, Pingipung chose to compile a kaleidoscopic preview of possible future directions for the label. The line-up features playfully melancholic songs by Museum Of No Art, Peter Power or The Notwist, an excursion to the desert by RVDS or a psychedelic take on Dub in Tolouse Low Trax’ remix for the Ainu singer Umeko Ando. Artists such as Anadol, Y Bülbül, MD Pallavi & Andi Otto, M.RUX, Sven Kacirek, Schlammpeitziger, Peter Presto and F.S.Blumm are already well known to the Pingipung audience. They contribute exclusive new tracks, adding to their existing output on the label.
It’s impossible to file this compilation under a genre, which is exactly the case with Pingipung in general - bull’s eye. The collection of tracks is pressed in the perfect format to match the Pingipung jubilee: A 2x10’’ vinyl in a gatefold sleeve.
Note price increase and cat number change from last time around. In the late 1960s, the American trumpet player and free jazz pioneer Don Cherry (1936-1995) and the Swedish visual artist and designer Moki Cherry (1943-2009) began a collaboration that imagined an alternative space for creative music, most succinctly expressed in Moki's aphorism "the stage is home and home is a stage." By 1972, they had given name to a concept that united Don's music, Moki's art, and their family life in rural Tagårp, Sweden into one holistic entity: Organic Music Theatre. Captured here is the historic first Organic Music Theatre performance from the 1972 Festival de jazz de Chateauvallon in the South of France, mastered from tapes recorded during its original live broadcast on public TV. A life-affirming, multicultural patchwork of borrowed tunes suffused with the hallowed aura of Don's extensive global travels, the performance documents the moment he publicly jettisoned his identity as a jazz musician, and represents the start of his communal "mystical" period, later crystallized in recordings such as Organic Music Society, Relativity Suite, Brown Rice, and the soundtrack for Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain. The musicians in Don Cherry's New Researches, hailing from Brazil, Sweden, France, and the US, converged on Chateauvallon from all over Europe. The five-person band Don and Moki Cherry, Christer Bothén, Gérard "Doudou" Gouirand, and Naná Vasconcelos performed in an outdoor amphitheater and were joined onstage by a dozen adults and children, including Swedish friends who tagged along for the trip and Det Lilla Circus (The Little Circus), a Danish puppet troupe based in Christiania, Copenhagen. The platform was lined with Moki's carpets and her handmade, brightly colored tapestries, depicting Indian scales and bearing the words Organic Music Theatre, dressed the stage. As the musicians played, members of Det Lilla, led by Annie Hedvard, danced, sang, and mounted an improvised puppet show on poles high up in the air. The music in the Chateauvallon concert aspired to a universal language that would bring people together through song. In a fairly unprecedented move, Don abandoned his signature pocket trumpet for the piano and harmonium, thereby liberating his voice as an instrument for shamanic guidance. The show opens with him beckoning the audience to clap their hands and sing the Indian theta "Dha Dhin Na, Dha Tin Na," and the set cycles through uplifting and sacred tunes of Malian, South African, Brazilian, and Native American provenance including pieces that would later appear on Don's albums Organic Music Society and Home Boy (Sister Out) all punctuated by outbursts of possessed glossolalia from the puppeteers. "Relativity Suite, Part 1" notably spotlights Bothén on donso ngoni, a Malian hunter's guitar, prior to Vasconcelos taking an extended solo on berimbau. A vortex of wah-like microtonal rattling, Vasconcelos's masterful demonstration of this single-stringed Brazilian instrument is a harbinger of his work to come as a member, with Don, of the acclaimed group Codona. The sounds of children playing on the ensemble's achingly tender rendition of Jim Pepper's oft-covered beacon of spiritual optimism, "Witchi Tai To," lends the proceedings an especially intimate, domestic glow. Given the context of the star-studded international jazz festival, the concert's laid back, communal vibe feels like an attempt by the Cherrys to show Don's jazz audience that he was moving on. At the same time, however, Don was extending a warmhearted invitation for them to come along for the ride. With liner notes by Magnus Nygren. Track list: 1. Intro: Dha Dhin Na, Dha Tin Na 2. Butterfly Friend 3. Elixir 4. Amazwe 5. Interlude with Puppets 6. Ganesh 7. Elixir Reprise / Witchi Tai To 8. Resa 9. Relativity Suite, Part 1 10. Berimbau Solo 11. Interlude / North Brazilian Ceremonial Hymn 12. Elixir Reprise / Ganesh 13. Ntsikana's Bell / Traditional Melody
