Cerca:inspired

"This album is about influence, inspiration, perception & reality. Every song was written in an outside environment, so that I could observe the subjects that would become my subject matter. All too often in Hip Hop, reality is limited to that of the artists own, actual experiences. People Hear What They See is my attempt to liberate the MC from those constraints & allow reality to be penned other than my own. Listening to congressmen & lawyers converse on the steps of the supreme court inspired 'American Greed', Watching a couple argue over the phone in a bar inspired 'Maybes'. By having a visual representation of my subject matter, my hopes are that the listener will see them through the worlds & melodies of my songs."

It’s been over seven years since The Rifles released their previous record, but now the east Londoners are set to return with their new album ‘Love Your Neighbour’ on April 26 which they today preview with the new single ‘The Kids Won’t Stop’. Their previous two albums - ‘Big Life’ and ‘None The Wiser’ - achieved the highest chart positions of their career to date, while their cult-like popularity has continued in the intervening years with countless sold-out London shows at venues including the Roundhouse, O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, O2 Kentish Forum, KOKO, Electric Ballroom and Electric Brixton. The triumphant reaction and electrifying energy of those shows inspired The Rifles as they sent about writing ‘Love Your Neighbour’. It’s a record which bursts with the traits that have inspired such devotion amongst fans: songs as gritty as they are anthemic, and full of lyrics which capture broadly relatable experiences and provide evocative snapshots of modern British life. The overriding message of the album is a plea to embrace the power of your local community

Ever since their auspicious beginnings, more than a decade ago, Laughing Bastards have giddily delighted in impurity. Initially a reeds-guitar-bass trio modeled after the classic Jimmy Giuffre 3, the band has remained truthful to its original spirit. Saxophone player Michel Mast and guitarist Jan-Sebastiaan Degeyter have remained its core, but the band went through several permutations, first welcoming Eline Duerinck (cello) and Marcos Della Rocha (for Unanimal in 2019) and solidifying its present-day line-up with bassist Cyrille Obermüller.

Bastards. It's kind of a rude word to throw around carelessly, but there has always been that element of being irregular, being too stubborn to comply with what is expected, that has set them apart. This is nowhere more evident than in the material contributed by Degeyter, who wrote more than half of the album's compositions. A talented illustrator and designer (he created a few of their striking album covers) as well as a versatile guitarist, Degeyter always manages to add a strong visual component to his material. In combination with his knack for pulling exotic influences into the band's overall sound, it leads to a playful, cinematic eccentricity.

"Tigraman" and "Black Spoon" are examples of this. Both are infused with an Ethiopian-tinged sound, but while the first one develops the catchy throbbing of a trance-like soul/rock tune, the second exudes the lush cadence of Golden Age Ethio jazz, the kind that gets under your skin with those sensual, irrepressible rhythms. They are a nice match with the increasing drama of the Slavic-tinged "Red Lemon", the slow, dreamy flow of the Jamaican dance hall-inspired "Sand", a strong feature for Duerinck, and "Dosi", that shows Obermüller's knack for propulsive melody.

The synesthete in Degeyter gets free reign in "Calliope", chamber jazz in which sweeping sax and cello are kept grounded by guitar, bass and drums. Mast's odd meter-song "Fetish" is another showcase for the band's effortless dancing and some gorgeous tenor schmooze. Della Rocha's "Turquoise" starts off in brooding, contemplative way and keeps simmering on a low, glowing fire. To top it off, there are a few covers that remind you of the band's origins. A new take on Giuffre's rootsy "The Train and the River" stresses their loose flexibility with an Americana style somewhat reminiscent of Charlie Haden, while Carla Bley's evergreen "Vashkar" gets a carefully constructed makeover to close out the album with grace.

On their latest album, Laughing Bastards prove they are a quintessential Belgian band - soaking up sounds and influences from all over the place while maintaining a tight unity - with an international appeal. Combining jazz and chamber music with ideas from pop music and multi-colored strains does not only give their music an iridescent edge, but also keeps the interplay fresh and inspired, something to return to while waiting to see them live on stage.

Hal Singer – Tenor Sax
Alain Jean-Marie – Piano
August “Gus” Nemeth – Bass
Oliver Johnson – Drums


When the U.S. State Department announced in the mid-1970s that they were sponsoring a South African tour for the Oklahoma-born, Paris-based saxophonist Hal Singer, producer Rashid Vally took note. Even though his nascent record label As-Shams/The Sun (established in 1974) was making waves on the local scene, the idea of commissioning a recording from an international artist was a ballsy idea. With a discography that stretched back to the 1950s, Hal Singer was already somewhat of a legacy artist by 1976. Vally was well-versed on Singer’s accomplishments and specifically enamoured by his composition “Blue Stompin’,” which appeared on a Prestige album from 1959 that had struck a chord in South Africa.

With his irresistible charm, Vally managed to coax Singer into a studio in Johannesburg, South Africa, to record a new version of “Blue Stompin’” with South African sax star Kippie Moeketsi, which became the title track of a 1977 album by Moeketsi. The recording session also yielded an album’s worth of new material by Hal Singer and his quartet that took its name from a track inspired by Singer’s trip to South Africa entitled “Soweto to Harlem.” Released in 1976 and only available in South Africa, Soweto to Harlem captures a laid-back, cheeky and nostalgic rhythm and blues set from the Hal Singer Quartet that is unlikely to have emerged for a different target market.

With her irresistible charm, Vally was able to convince Singer to enter a Johannesburg studio. The recording session produced this album of new material by Hal Singer and his quartet named after a song inspired by Singer’s trip to South Africa, entitled “Soweto to Harlem.” Released in 1976 and available only in South Africa, “Soweto to Harlem” captures a laid-back, unabashed and nostalgic rhythm and blues of Hal Singer’s quartet that would hardly have been born for a different market.

Cinedelic’s 2024 edition of this rare album is sourced from the original tape masters and presents it on vinyl internationally for the very first time. The reissue follows Singer’s passing at the 100 in August 2020 as we contemplate and celebrate his extraordinary contribution to jazz in the United States and beyond.

‘Landmass’ Turtle’s first artist album since 2017’s ‘Human’. To be released on 24 March 2023, it is his third official album having also released the acclaimed ‘Who Knows’ EP in 2013.

‘Landmass’ is a beautiful body of work that flows naturally as one piece of music and is inspired by the sparse surroundings of Jon’s studio in Argyll, Scotland, an area he moved to to try and escape the noise of the city and a move that has directly impacted on his creative process.

Jon Cooper… “Since I started producing music I have never gone into a track with any preconceived ideas, I let the music develop in its own way so my direct surroundings have always played a huge part in how it sounds and the hustle of the city was something I felt I needed to get away from. This was a cathartic experience in making it - it's a real outpouring of love for the Scottish countryside and the beauty I’m lucky enough to live in and see every day!”

Jon’s musical journey is one of experimentation and passion. A regular of the electronic scene in Glasgow in the late 90's/early 2000’s, he started to experiment with DJing and music production more for his mates entertainment than with any aspiration of a career as one of the most understated electronic artists Scotland has produced.

In many ways, the music of Writhing Squares could have only originated in Philadelphia; the city itself a microcosm of creatives, go-getters, freaks & weirdos that have coalesced into a supportive & boundary-pushing crew. Former Purling Hiss bassist Daniel Provenzano & Ecstatic Vision sax-player & vocalist Kevin Nickles' first musical missive was shot forth in 2013 (the self-released CDR "Live In Space") & various singles, split releases, albums (and a double-album) later we arrive at the duo's fourth full-length "Mythology", their third for Chicago-based Trouble In Mind Records. "Mythology" picks up the pieces left shattered by their previous double-album "Chart For The Solution" and reconnects the broken shards together like Kintsugi, the ancient Japanese technique for mending broken ceramics, infusing the breaks with powdered gold. The Squares themselves are like mad-scientists, taking the ruined detritus populating junk shops & surplus outlets & constructing their own sonic laboratories in their New Jersey basements to record, mix & tweak "Mythology"s eight tracks. Their new location allowed the band to regroup, reassess & reconstruct their sound from the ground up, shearing away the cosmic excess of 2021's "Chart For The Solution" to a sharper point. Tracks like `Barbarians' & `LEM' are classic Squares; brutal, aggressive, unwavering assault of Motorhead/Stooges-inflected sci-fi punk scree, while others like `Chromatophage's mutant funk & `Cerberus's techno-slink owe a serious debt to electric-era Miles Davis or Herbie Hancock & show that the group has more to offer than bludgeoning you with sonic force. Provenzano's bass & electronics are like a tank rolling across the terrain - a gnarly construct of Hawkwind-ian headiness & `Vincebus Eruptum's snarl - uncaring of what gets in the way. Nickles' brass vacillates between Stooges-influenced sleaze, jazzy no-wave stabs, & cacophonous sonic storms, strafing the listener into oblivion. The duo are joined on "Mythology" by drummer John Schoemaker - who contributed drums to "Chart For The Solution"s epic closing track `Epilogue' - whose percussive pulse adds an organic swing to The Square's sonics, particularly on album closer "The Damned Thing"s cosmic strut. "Mythology" tackles a multitude of themes, from fantastical tales of hellhound `Cerberus' or the comic-inspired "Eternity " to `Chromatophage's colorful/evil yarn about animals that eat colors (or a Magic: The Gathering card) to the true-life influenced `Acid Rain' that deals with the uncertainty of consuming drinking water after a chemical spill in the Delaware River. Elsewhere, `Ferrell' is an homage to the late, great Ferrell "Pharaoh" Sanders & `The Damned Thing' by a short horror story penned by Ambrose Bierce about an animal whose coloring is invisible to the naked eye. Writhing Squares are in a transitional phase, mapping out a new sonic mythology for themselves after crossing the event horizon into unknown space. "Mythology" is streaming on most DSPs & released on black vinyl & limited fluorescent green vinyl (while supplies last) on April 26th, 2024.

In many ways, the music of Writhing Squares could have only originated in Philadelphia; the city itself a microcosm of creatives, go-getters, freaks & weirdos that have coalesced into a supportive & boundary-pushing crew. Former Purling Hiss bassist Daniel Provenzano & Ecstatic Vision sax-player & vocalist Kevin Nickles' first musical missive was shot forth in 2013 (the self-released CDR "Live In Space") & various singles, split releases, albums (and a double-album) later we arrive at the duo's fourth full-length "Mythology", their third for Chicago-based Trouble In Mind Records. "Mythology" picks up the pieces left shattered by their previous double-album "Chart For The Solution" and reconnects the broken shards together like Kintsugi, the ancient Japanese technique for mending broken ceramics, infusing the breaks with powdered gold. The Squares themselves are like mad-scientists, taking the ruined detritus populating junk shops & surplus outlets & constructing their own sonic laboratories in their New Jersey basements to record, mix & tweak "Mythology"s eight tracks. Their new location allowed the band to regroup, reassess & reconstruct their sound from the ground up, shearing away the cosmic excess of 2021's "Chart For The Solution" to a sharper point. Tracks like `Barbarians' & `LEM' are classic Squares; brutal, aggressive, unwavering assault of Motorhead/Stooges-inflected sci-fi punk scree, while others like `Chromatophage's mutant funk & `Cerberus's techno-slink owe a serious debt to electric-era Miles Davis or Herbie Hancock & show that the group has more to offer than bludgeoning you with sonic force. Provenzano's bass & electronics are like a tank rolling across the terrain - a gnarly construct of Hawkwind-ian headiness & `Vincebus Eruptum's snarl - uncaring of what gets in the way. Nickles' brass vacillates between Stooges-influenced sleaze, jazzy no-wave stabs, & cacophonous sonic storms, strafing the listener into oblivion. The duo are joined on "Mythology" by drummer John Schoemaker - who contributed drums to "Chart For The Solution"s epic closing track `Epilogue' - whose percussive pulse adds an organic swing to The Square's sonics, particularly on album closer "The Damned Thing"s cosmic strut. "Mythology" tackles a multitude of themes, from fantastical tales of hellhound `Cerberus' or the comic-inspired "Eternity " to `Chromatophage's colorful/evil yarn about animals that eat colors (or a Magic: The Gathering card) to the true-life influenced `Acid Rain' that deals with the uncertainty of consuming drinking water after a chemical spill in the Delaware River. Elsewhere, `Ferrell' is an homage to the late, great Ferrell "Pharaoh" Sanders & `The Damned Thing' by a short horror story penned by Ambrose Bierce about an animal whose coloring is invisible to the naked eye. Writhing Squares are in a transitional phase, mapping out a new sonic mythology for themselves after crossing the event horizon into unknown space. "Mythology" is streaming on most DSPs & released on black vinyl & limited fluorescent green vinyl (while supplies last) on April 26th, 2024.

Returning after three years with their second studio album, Double Dog Dare, WHITE DOG have been revelling in a state of creative flux and are poised to share their revelations with the world. Formed in 2015 in Austin, Texas, White Dog began with a shared vision of blazing, fuzzed-out rock that drew gleefully from their home city's rich cultural melting pot. Emboldened by an us-against-the-world gang mentality and inspired by everything from dusty roots rock to explosive old school prog, the band's self-titled album emerged in 2021, courtesy of natural home Rise Above Records, and immediately stood out as a sophisticated, earthy and characterful new strain of retro rambunctiousness.
Recorded over a period of eight days at Stuart Sikes Audio (with engineer Andrew McCalla) in Austin, Double Dog Dare takes all of the debut album's deftly assembled ingredients and allows them to fly free, liberated from expectation. At times mellower than its predecessor, at others strident and ferocious, these new songs showcase White Dog's organic development, with elements of everything from wistful southern rock to crusty-eyed jazz rock finding a place. Somehow even more fluid and fiery than before, this band are growing and expanding before our ears.
Now free to peddle their incendiary wares, they return to the stage with their strongest material to date, and a newfound enthusiasm for giving The Riff the respect and imagination it deserves.

Returning after three years with their second studio album, Double Dog Dare, WHITE DOG have been revelling in a state of creative flux and are poised to share their revelations with the world. Formed in 2015 in Austin, Texas, White Dog began with a shared vision of blazing, fuzzed-out rock that drew gleefully from their home city's rich cultural melting pot. Emboldened by an us-against-the-world gang mentality and inspired by everything from dusty roots rock to explosive old school prog, the band's self-titled album emerged in 2021, courtesy of natural home Rise Above Records, and immediately stood out as a sophisticated, earthy and characterful new strain of retro rambunctiousness.
Recorded over a period of eight days at Stuart Sikes Audio (with engineer Andrew McCalla) in Austin, Double Dog Dare takes all of the debut album's deftly assembled ingredients and allows them to fly free, liberated from expectation. At times mellower than its predecessor, at others strident and ferocious, these new songs showcase White Dog's organic development, with elements of everything from wistful southern rock to crusty-eyed jazz rock finding a place. Somehow even more fluid and fiery than before, this band are growing and expanding before our ears.
Now free to peddle their incendiary wares, they return to the stage with their strongest material to date, and a newfound enthusiasm for giving The Riff the respect and imagination it deserves.

About 20 years ago, Carlos Giffoni quickly made a name for himself both as a noise guitarist and a laptop noisician upon arriving in New York (via Florida and Venezuela). His expertly curated annual No Fun Festival, as well as his No Fun label, further solidified him as a key figure in the international noise scene. The festival's success proved the formula for experimental and improvised music fests could work with the noise underground as well, but it also capitalized on the faster rate of connections being made between geographically disparate artists as a result of the (still relatively nascent) internet. Back then Carlos would play his laptop like a pinball machine, in contrast to the static stage presence of most laptop performers, and his solo music, like many others' at that time, expressed a less dark and dour vision of the implications of harsh noise. By the close of the 2000s, he had stopped doing the festival, switched gears musically to playing the lighter No Fun Acid sets, and moved to LA. Now he has re-emerged in a big way with Dream Walker, his first full-length since 2018's Vain (and only his second since 2010). Inspired by the masterful performances and diffusions he heard at the February 2023 GRM electronic music festival in Paris, particularly sets by old friends Lasse Marhaug, Jim O'Rourke, and Eiko Ishibashi, he began conceptualizing new music of his own in response, turning to synthesizers and other hardware to produce a work more firmly in the tradition of European electronic music than anything else he's done. Intended as a late night listen that evokes the edge of consciousness, with Carlos getting as close as possible to a trance state during the actual recording and mixing, each of the eleven tracks transition into one another rather than being standalone discrete pieces, forming two side-long suites that proceed like stages of a dream. Unabashedly tonal and repetitive, the glistening opener "Now Dream," the droning "Sleep Walker," and the closing triptych of "Lost in Descanso," "Sunrise," and "The Hidden Path" occupy a power electronics-ambient nexus that feels spiritually close to the Mego label. Elsewhere, "Ticking Clock" is reminiscent of Stereolab's non-easy listening vintage electronic side, while the two-part arpeggiated "Euphoria" recalls early Oneohtrix Point Never (which Carlos released on No Fun). The contrast between "One Breath"'s crackling opening and its remarkably fluid and soaring sustained synthesized chords is a distillation of the album's lingering tension between electronics' ability to project mechanical rupture as well as the organic and the infinite _or "walking between dreams," as Carlos himself puts it. Produced by Lasse Marhaug (who also mastered Carlos' first solo album, Welcome Home, back in 2005), released by Stephen O'Malley (who I remember DJing at the No Fun fest), with cover art and photos by personal friends, Carlos considers the album a family affair. But Dream Walker most of all heralds a maturation of the artist, and stands as a record that exists out of pure desire, rather than obligation or force of habit; a statement of reconnecting with music not by merely revisiting it, but by building on what's come before, both in his own work and in the music he loves. -Alan Licht, New York, December 2023

Shirane Kenichi, drummer of GREAT3 and TESTSET. This album has an electronic sound of inspired by Detroit techno and house.

Hunting for rhythm, as if our lives depended on it, as if, without rhythm, we’d starve to death. Can body and soul live without rhythm? Seizing its different forms, dissecting it, ingesting it, digesting it, could very well be akin to the Rhythm Hunters’ creative process. What are the rhythmic principles that lead us to develop its polyphonic, groovy and trance-like aspects (Africa), or mathematically complex ones (India), or irregular pulsations that transcend asperities (Balkans), among others? To go on a rhythm hunt, why not explore all these places, appreciate the infinite diversity of rhythms and, back home, try to understand and experiment with enriching your own rhythmic vocabulary with the basic principles underlying each musical tradition. What can these principles contribute if you transcend borders and begin to adapt your musical knowledge and experience to the new ramifications of the rhythm you’ve just discovered? The music of The Rhythm Hunters is one of the answers.

A few years ago, the musicians in this band and I began a specific practice on unusual mixes of rhythmic ideas, inspired by traditions from various parts of the world, with the intention of integrating them until they became a personal vocabulary and means of expression. The result is on this album.

Stéphane Galland & The Rhythm Hunters by Stephane Galland & The Rhythm Hunters, released 26 April 2024, includes the following tracks: "Positivv ", "Artemis" and more.

This version of Stéphane Galland & The Rhythm Hunters comes as a 1xCD in a(n) O-Card packaging.

nit is the genius underdog of the current French chanson scene. After playing along with Sébastien Tellier or Juliette Armanet (a huge success in France), after remixing Phoenix, Myd, Dita Von Teese, Cola Boyy, Tony Allen or Jane Birkin, here he comes with his debut album. The balearic sound is always a big nit influence, feel good electronics & lush acoustic chords.

Spotted by French label Record Makers (Sébastien Tellier, Kavinsky, AIR, Cola Boyy) with his 2017 “Dessous de plage” first EP, nit has since grown from funky DIY library music to a lush and complex groovy sound. The magic of this debut album “Big Bang Puzzle” is a keen sense of composition and an innate affinity for 90’s European electronica.
It’s a playful album, the work of an artist at the peak of his craft, determined to twist styles and references (Daft Punk, Ennio Morricone, Robert Miles, Vangelis...) in order to give them a new form.

“Big Bang Puzzle” is a tangle of psychedelic and cartoon-esque pieces, an abstract modernist painting of sounds inspired by vintage pop music. The cover, created by Swiss artist Flora Mottini, offers a first glimpse of his brand new universe.

But it’s also by collaborating with French iconic design studio H5 that nit suddenly enters the French Touch genealogy. nit takes the shape of an n that grows legs and arms to become a cheeky cartoon character traveling through a real space-time continuum. Parisian H5 studio has been involved since the end of the ‘90s in the design of strong visual concepts for French Touch’s elite (Etienne de Crécy, AIR, Mirwais). French music at its best from which nit is a direct descendant. And one who expands and opens even further: pop, italo-disco, trip-hop impulses, Morriconian cavalcades, lo-fi aesthetics, Caribbean music. Producer and mixer Lucien Krampf (Oklou, Ascendant Vierge, Casual Gabberz, CRYSTALLMESS) was the person in charge of mixing this ambitious record.

nit is both a question and an answer, and a musical enigma that pushes us to explore the far reaches of our imagination…

Happy 20th birthday to Family Album, the third recording of Faun Fables and the first one released on Drag City. These songs belong to sons and daughters, entwined and orphaned, domesticated and feral; to all the family vines unraveling from a ball of yarn. In this family album, runaways graze the wild together, a mother finds her courage playing the piano, dogs become thieves and wolves, and a son is taken too soon. Fourteen-year-old nymphs sit dangerously at the crossroads, a younger brother tries to find his place, packs of girls defeat fear with a march, and the nightly adventures of the household mouse are spied upon. Dawn McCarthy"s creative background was forged in oral tradition amidst a large musical family in Spokane, Washington; studying piano, music theater, rock bands, guitar, folklore and ethnomusicology. Dawn cut her teeth as a singer and performer with various bands and cabarets in Madison, Wisconsin and New York City, most notably as yodeler with the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, whom inspired her to want a gypsy life with a kindred spirit someday. Her focus took a pivotal turn in that direction in 1997 with a solo quest through the UK and Ireland and their bardic traditions; singing songs in clubs and homes, all the while undergoing a pastoral, psychological experience with the land. Upon her return to the States, a fateful meeting with Oakland, CA born-and-raised Nils Frykdahl (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum) moved McCarthy back to the West to begin a new creative collaboration in the thriving hills and art community of the San Francisco Bay Area. Since 1999, Faun Fables have released six albums and performed their animist, otherworldly folk music across North America and Europe, with shows in Australia, New Zealand and Israel, as well. Dawn"s writing and voice (described by The New Yorker as "one of the more compelling instruments in contemporary music") opens hearts and minds with a whisper to a rallying battle cry, further animated by Frykdahl"s adventurous musicality and vocals. Dawn has written musical theater performed by the Idyllwild Arts Academy, among others, and has lent her vocals to Bonnie "Prince" Billy on The Letting Go and What the Brothers Sang. In 2022, Faun Fables debuted their family band, joined onstage by their daughters with vocals, percussion, keyboard and dance.

Mother Twilight is the second Faun Fables album. It has since been noted by Scottish author R.J. Stewart as a work containing true artifacts of the oral underworld tradition. Dawn and Nils made a hand-assembled first pressing and peddled it to nearly every bar and rural hall across North America from 2001-2003. Drag City reissued the CD in 2004. Things are glowing outside, enough to bring any sun worshiper in for the night. But you must remain outside and begin walking. It"ll prepare you for the night, which otherwise comes as a chilling surprise. If you pay attention this time, maybe you"ll understand why you"re becoming invisible. When your memory began, it wasn"t startling, wasn"t a mistake. It came out of an old, dark and familiar thing, like a storyteller, like Twilight... so save us from fear, mother, and tell your story. Dawn McCarthy"s creative background was forged in oral tradition amidst a large musical family in Spokane, Washington; studying piano, music theater, rock bands, guitar, folklore and ethnomusicology. Dawn cut her teeth as a singer and performer with various bands and cabarets in Madison, Wisconsin and New York City, most notably as yodeler with the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, who inspired her to want a gypsy life with a kindred spirit someday. Her focus took a pivotal turn in that direction in 1997 with a solo quest through the UK and Ireland and their bardic traditions; singing songs in clubs and homes, all the while undergoing a pastoral, psychological experience with the land. Upon her return to the States, a fateful meeting with Oakland, CA born-and-raised Nils Frykdahl (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum) moved McCarthy back to the West to begin a new creative collaboration in the thriving hills and art community of the San Francisco Bay Area. Since 1999, Faun Fables have released six albums and performed their animist, otherworldly folk music across North America and Europe, with shows in Australia, New Zealand and Israel, as well. Dawn"s writing and voice (described by The New Yorker as "one of the more compelling instruments in contemporary music") opens hearts and minds with a whisper to a rallying battle cry, further animated by Frykdahl"s adventurous musicality and vocals. Dawn has written musical theater performed by the Idyllwild Arts Academy, among others, and has lent her vocals to Bonnie "Prince" Billy on The Letting Go and What the Brothers Sang. In 2022, Faun Fables debuted their family band, joined onstage by their daughters with vocals, percussion, keyboard and dance.

Legendary alto saxophonist Charles McPherson makes his Smoke Sessions debut with an inspired new album, Reverence, dedicated to his lifelong mentor and friend Barry Harris. These thrilling performances were captured in front of a live audience at Smoke Jazz Club and feature his quintet of Terell Stafford, Jeb Patton, David Wong, and Billy Drummond and represent the first of a series of live recordings scheduled for release to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Smoke Sessions Records and the 25th anniversary of Smoke Jazz Club. McPherson certainly reveals why he’s been held in such reverence for the last 60 years. The set is a showcase for McPherson’s gifts as both composer and soloist and bridges his deep and far-reaching exploration of the full jazz spectrum.

Sleap-e is reclaiming herself. The Italian singer-songwriter’s second album, 8106, captures the spirit of play; the child-like instinct to pursue what you love without compromise - and here it is, that particular magic that rarely survives adulthood, remarkably intact. Each of its eleven songs are vibrant shards which build a mosaic of Asia Martina Morabito’s world: the growing pains of your early twenties, remaining faithful to your dreams despite the hostility of adulthood, places of escape both real and imagined - and the pulse of Bologna, her home and north star. As a student of old-school iconoclasts like The Fall and inspired by the outsider streak of Jimmy Whispers and Daniel Johnston, it was not any particular musical quality of theirs which Asia wanted to channel in Sleap-e, but their confidence to “explode in a raw, free and authentic way.” Though her sound has shifted from the tender bedroom pop of her 2020 EP Mellow and her 2022 debut album Pouty Lips which was bedecked with jubilant brass and Mediterranean rhythms, it’s her self-belief which endures. 8106 is Sleap-e’s most raucous, unpolished and playful offering to date, steeped in the influence of “egg-punk”, an internet-grown genre which seeks to satirise the tropes of punk with its danceable irreverence. There is joy to be found, Asia feels, in refusing to conform, and it has brought her closer to herself than ever before. But to gain her sense of self, first, she had to lose sight of it. Summer of 2023, when the outlines of the record were made, was a difficult time for her. 8106 was the number of the hotel room she felt confined to, alone and adrift from comfort when she was working away from home. Writing this album was her getaway car. “It represents an important choice I made,” she explains. “I chose happiness. I chose myself.” The title represents a kind of mental post-it note reminding herself to stay focused on what she loves; it’s a talisman to protect her from hard times. She returned home, and there she began recording the album in residency at the Bronson Club, a hive of like-minded creatives and mentors who helped it take its final form. At home, her own music was played freely and instinctively. The artwork for 8106 is by Noemi Vola, a prolific Bolognian illustrator and author who specialises in designs for children, which reflects the “funky, fairytale mood” of the record itself.

Noir Brésil is the debut album from Franco-Brazilian artist, composer and producer Yndi. Formerly known as Dream Koala, she decided to retire the moniker back in 2017 and began writing what ultimately became Noir Brésil, a modern pop album where afro-Brazilian percussion meets French and Portuguese poetry to create an immersive soundscape. As Dream Koala, Yndi released EPs Odyssey (2013,) Earth. Home. Destroyed. (2014,) and Exodus (2015,) as well as popular single "We Can't Be Friends", gaining her international success and garnering multi-millions of streams across platforms. In 2020, there were so many images of black people suffering on social media. After that traumatizing year, Yndi needed images showing that being black wasn't only about suffering, she wanted healing images. It's exactly what the Afro-Brazilian culture has been doing for centuries, it conveys a strength that keeps us alive in a dehumanizing society. The title track "Noir Brésil" is a poem for her ancestors. Yndi wrote "Amazona" on an atabaque (Afro-Brazilian percussion) rhythm inspired by the myth of the Amazons, warrior women, and Douanier Rousseau's painting La Guerre. The violence of the lyrics contrasts with the melancholic harmonies. The song pays tribute to the anger and strength required by women to live in the contemporary world. The song "Novo Mundo" and its animated video directed by Nina-Lou Giachettia are a reflection of Brazil, through luminous and colorful landscapes. Here the evocation of the divine, the beauty and the violence of nature reflects perfectly the essence of Yndi'sdebut album.

"Nothing and no one can extinguish this flame within you," sings Emilie Simon from the opening title of Polaris, her first true album in ten years. An apparent long eclipse that the French singer, musician, and producer has nevertheless used to explore new territories, open uncharted paths, and reinvent her musical vocabulary and narrative threads. Like Ariane in a dreamlike world, she stretches these threads along her journey, inviting us to blindly follow.

After composing music for the film "The Jesus Roll" with John Turturro, and a musical journey between Earth and Mars through a series of singles, in 2023, Emilie Simon chose to revisit her debut album, both in the studio and on stage, to definitively close a chapter begun twenty years earlier. She also published "Phoenix," a gothic tale with a "vampiric" theme, sung and spoken in alexandrines. The central character, Lily Mercier, is the same one found at the heart of the Polaris adventure. Clearly, Lily is a projection of Emilie, on a quest for the North Star that symbolizes the never-extinguished desire to find her way. The dazzlement too, when one is a musician always eager to ignite again for the infinite mysteries of sound and to translate its shivers into songs.

This album, sung in both French and English, succeeds in combining the clarity of melodies with the demands of production. It immediately captivates (the irresistible burn of the Sun) and enchants over repeated listens, like a lasting iridescence of a thousand sonic fragments. Recorded in New York (where Emilie lived for a long time), Los Angeles, Montreal, Rome, and Paris (where she returned to settle), Polaris has its own cartography. Its universe is the standard scale, its pulsation inspired by cosmic rhythms, and its unique poetry both disturbs and captivates. A sign that nothing and no one can extinguish this flame within her.

Following the most prolific year of his production career, Adam Beyer starts 2024 right with another standout EP, Let’s Begin’, which takes influence from the ‘90s Drumcode sound with a modern touch. Looking backwards to go forwards, the three-track work kicks off with ‘Let’s Begin’ and sees Beyer lean on faster tempos and rugged rhythms to craft a high octane, atmosphere heavy cut that hits you right between the eyes. An absolutely cracking peak-time tune that highlighted recent gigs at Blitz Club in Munich and Amnesia in Milan. ‘Computerized’ is a masterclass in dancefloor mentalism, bringing forth shades of hardcore influenced vocals and menacing synth lines reminiscent of early 2000s Frankfurt. No surprise this brought maximum vibes at Beyer’s NYE gigs in the States at Teksupport and Insomniac’s Countdown NYE event. Fresh out of the studio, ‘Red Room’ is a dreamy belter that takes in subtle hints of classic four-to-the-floor grooves reminiscent of UK hard dance, before an industrial synth section ramps up the intensity. Exhilarating stuff. “This new three-tracker is on the rawer techno tip and is an ode to Drumcode’s earlier material. It’s a take on the ‘90s sound blended with new modern elements. For this release I wanted to take the Adam Beyer techno sound from that period and bring it up-to-date. It’s dirty with a new twist, direct and to the point. This project is not a statement, rather it’s a release that was inspired by the big techno shows