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‘ИМА (Ima)’ is a work by KiMiMi, the solo project of a musician Shin-ya Ohno, which captures the layers of time and the presence of people inhabiting ‘Arimasuton Building’―a self-built structure created over 20 years by architect Keisuke Oka, located in Mita, Tokyo, and reconstructs them into music.

A multi-instrumentalist who masterfully handles a diverse range of instruments, with the gaida (an ancestor of the bagpipes) – which he studied in Bulgaria – at the core of his sound, KiMiMi has previously brought traces of daily life and folk melodies recorded during his travels back to the scale of home recording, weaving fantastical folk soundscapes through cassette tape works and stage music.

Alongside his musical activities, he has participated in the construction work for ‘Arimasuton Building’, recording the sounds of hammers and steel beams echoing on site, lunchtime chatter, the melodies of instruments played by others, and the sound of cars passing by. From the end of 2022, a zine titled ‘Monthly Arimasuton Building Urimasu’, based on this construction project, was launched. KiMiMi incorporates these recordings into the musical works he contributes to each issue, layering sounds from live instruments―including the gaida, accordion, guitar, flute, ukulele, piano, foot-pump organ, melodica and xylophone―alongside a few synthesiser tones, to shape a soundscape imbued with the humidity and breath of the site.

KiMiMi’s creative process is characterised not by planned construction, but by an attitude of entrusting the work to chance, intuition and the passage of time. Fragmented recordings are layered, set aside for a time, and then unearthed again. Through this repetition, the music naturally takes shape. This resonates perfectly with the process of ‘Arimasuton Building’, which was built up improvisationally, layer by layer, without any pre-prepared blueprints.

‘ИМА (Ima)’ marks the current stage of KiMiMi’s sonic journey and represents an attempt to gracefully transcend the boundaries between architecture and music, documentation and creation, and the individual and the community. The clamour of the city, the tranquillity of manual labour, laughter, and every sound resonating at the Arimasuton Building site blend with KiMiMi’s music, reflecting the very passage of time in which people live.

Nicola Conte and Nico Lahs’ Tema Due project finally comes to full realization in a double LP entitled “Universo Astratto”,adding a wealth of new musical shades and ideas to the two EPs released on Schema Records in 2025. The albumrepresents not only the natural evolution of their artistic dialogue, but also a statement of intent in terms of sound.Fans of the most sophisticated and refined club music, elevated by the fusion of exquisite electronica with spiritual jazz (it isno coincidence that the opening track evokes the baseline of “A Love Supreme”), African-American rhythms and tribalpercussion, will be thrilled by this complex and multi-layered album, which unveils new hidden details upon each listen.A meticulous selection of exceptional musicians contributes in a distinctive and significant way to broadening the scope ofthe project: Giovanni Guidi, Pietro Lussu, and Dario Bassolino on keyboards, Gabriel Prado and Abdissa Assefa onpercussion, Magnus Lindgren on wind instruments and Hammond organ, and Pasquale Calò on saxophone. On vocals wehave Lalin St. Juste, Siya Makuzeni, Nina Miranda - for what is probably the best track on the album, “Share Your Love”- and Toco - for a new and previously unreleased version of the track “Macumba de Oxalà” featured on the first EP.In “Universo Astratto”, Tema Due’s vision is finally fulfilled: a world of ancestral grooves, cosmic jazz, and electronic musicconceived for clubs as a type of “active experience” in which one is transcended by music. This record is an invitation—tomove, to feel, to elevate—and a manifesto for those who see the dance floor not just as a location, but as a shared experience of awareness and rhythm

Roland Kirk was an extremely talented multi-instrumentalist, who lost his sight at a very early age, and played unconventional jazz, which was not entirely free but in which melodic and very beautiful phases alternated with moments of complete dissonance and conjured up his urban background, especially reflecting his view of the world as a handicapped man. Kirk was not only famous for his unique sound achieved through his playing several instruments simultaneously and his innovative approach to music but also for his dynamic live performances.

In November 1967 Kirk left EmArcy for Atlantic Records, leading his quartet through a highly introspective, somewhat melancholy programme, which was based in the blues and groove traditions of the mid-60s. Kirk himself played flutes, the stritch, manzello and tenor saxophones, the whistle, clarinet and more – precisely those instruments that had created his unique sound, particularly when some of these instruments were played simultaneously by him. Jazz critics who had previously criticised Kirk’s sound now praised him once they had heard the restrained and elegantly layered "Black And Crazy Blues", the breathtakingly executed Creole "Love Call", the razor-sharp soul in "The Inflated Tear" and the gyrating lyricism of the winds in "Fly By Night" – and quite rightly so.

Roland Kirk convinced his listenership anyway and sold over 10,000 copies of the present LP in the very first year of its release. This is Roland Kirk in his most competent and visionary form; his reading of jazz harmony and capricious sonances is virtually incomparable.

On his new album, Micha Acher rearranged compositions for bands such as Tied & Tickled Trio and Ms. John Soda from previous years.

Why are we interested in ghosts? What fascinates us about the eerie? According to cultural theorist Mark Fisher, the allure that the eerie possesses is not captured by the idea that we „enjoy what scares us“. It has, rather, to do with a fascination for the outside. For that which lies beyond standard perception, cognition or experience, as he writes in his book „The Weird and the Eerie“.

In fact, also none of the 15 pieces from Henry and the Ghost is really scary. On the contrary, they all feel strangely familiar. Like revenants or doppelgängers, which in fact they are. They have all been released before. But in a different form. In different line-ups. With different band projects such as Tied & Tickled Trio, The Notwist or the Alien Ensemble.

With the „Songbook“, Micha Acher's aim was, as he says, to find out how the familiar pieces sound in a chamber music instrumentation. Therefore he met with Theresa Loibl (bass clarinet, piano), Timm Kornelius (bassoon), Markus Rom (guitar, banjo, electronics) and Simon Popp (drums, percussion) in his living room for a musical séance in the summer of 2022. The séance lasted two days. Afterwards, Markus Rom (Oh No Noh), added some haunting electronical ideas.

The mood of most of the pieces is melancholic. There are surprising twists and siren-like melodies. Just as ghost stories should be. However, most of the songs sound very light-footed. With their feet in pop, folk, jazz and classical music. Pieces such as „Johanna“ with its wheezing harmonium and spooky piano, or the dreamy „Modest Farewell“ on the other hand have a cinematic flair. Immediately faces and scenes arise in the mind. But at the beginning, there is „Hamlet“. It starts with ghostly electronics and merges into a calm, almost classical guitar piece. Could it be that the ghost of Hamlet's father is hiding between the strings?

„34E“ begins with a banjo. Then the deep humming of Micha Achers sousaphone and the other brass instruments kick in. In the slow, solemn „Aelita“, the sousaphone starts a dialogue with a children's piano. With the banjo and the other wind instruments acting as mediators. The title of „All Tomorrow's Past“ brings Velvet Undergrounds „All Tomorrow's Parties“ to mind. Another ghost from the past. What connects the two pieces is free-floating percussion, which accompanies the sumptuous melodies.

„Arc“ takes us on an exhilarating voyage at sea, with the sousaphone providing powerful propulsion. Towards the end, things get quite turbulent. With the clarinet stirring up the water, before the sea calms down again. „Henry and the Ghost“ is characterised by a ghostly mood change between major and minor. In „Radio Four“ the banjo with its stoic chords keeps the lively brass section in check. „Solid Ground“ is imbued with melancholy. „Space Minor“ takes us into outer space, with the power of sousaphone and percussion.

„Tomorrows“ is filled with cautious optimism. And the concluding „Nordlead“ turns out to be a revenant of the instrumental „N.L.“ from The Notwist's legendary album „Shrink“ from 1998. In the new version, the piece sounds like a distant echo. One that also brings to mind how Micha Acher's music has evolved. Which new worlds he explored and opened up since the nineties. And yet Acher's signature is recognisable in every single note of this fascinating „Songbook“.

,Pneuma" ist ein Zyklus von acht Kompositionen des Kontrabassisten und Komponisten Henry Fraser, erschienen bei Kou Records, der sich mit Atem, Resonanz und der sich wandelnden Beziehung zwischen Form und Improvisation auseinandersetzt. Fraser betrachtet seine Solopraktik als eine Zusammenarbeit mit dem Instrument selbst und arbeitet direkt mit der Materialität und den akustischen Eigenschaften des Kontrabasses, sodass Klang, Raum und Struktur durch tiefes Zuhören gemeinsam entstehen können. Aufgenommen, abgemischt und koproduziert von Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Thurston Moore) und Ben Greenberg (Uniform, Marc Ribot), erweitert das Album Frasers bisherige Solosprache durch ein erweitertes melodisches Register, vielschichtige Texturen und sorgfältig gestaltete Studioeingriffe. Ausgehend von sowohl vorgefertigten Motiven als auch neu improvisiertem Material entfaltet sich ,Pneuma" in einer Reihe prägnanter Sätze, von denen jeder einer eigenständigen rhythmischen oder harmonischen Idee Gestalt verleiht und gleichzeitig zu einer größeren, zusammenhängenden Form beiträgt. Die Aufnahme, bei der der Schwerpunkt auf natürlicher Dynamik und räumlichen Details liegt, bewahrt die volle physische Präsenz des Instruments und rückt die Resonanz, die Obertöne und die leisen Mikrogesten des Basses in den Vordergrund. Bestimmte Stücke bestehen aus mehreren übereinandergelegten Darbietungen, was den Umfang und den Ausdrucksbereich der Musik dramatisch erweitert. Das Ergebnis ist ein intimes und zugleich immersives Hörerlebnis - akustische Musik, die sich gleichzeitig greifbar und weitreichend anfühlt. ,Pneuma" dokumentiert Fraser in einem Moment künstlerischer Klarheit und bekräftigt sein Bekenntnis zu prozessorientierter Komposition und aufmerksamer Klangpraxis.

Jeffrey Alexander and the Heavy Lidders return with their best album yet, and a UK tour this August. Press by Silver PR
‘’On the alternate timeline where the Meat Puppets inherited the bulk of the Grateful Dead’s tourheads when Jerry Garcia died in 1995, none of this would be necessary, because Jeffrey Alexander and the Heavy Lidders are a household name for evolving their own musical space that overlays dusty folk, cosmic jazz, deep psych, free improv, and even (gasp!) indie rock, building an audience that ranges from open-eared curiosity seekers to deep committed music weirdos that’s also yielded the Heavy Lidders, an infamous sub-cult of concert tapers that you’re already sick of hearing about. A lot of other things are better over on that timeline, too.
But in this consensus reality (and probably the other one, too), Liquid Donnon catches the Lidders at their heaviest, “heavy” in the Lidderverse being far from a monolithic musical idea. There’s heavy like the album-opening “From Loch Raven to Fells Point,” one of several tracks with elegant and gnarled conversational jams featuring the core Lidders lineup of Alexander alongside guitarist Drew Gardner and bassist Jesse Sheppard (both of Elkhorn) and drummer Scott Verrastro. But there’s heavy, too, like “Calliope Walker” and “Tightroping,” featuring Gardner shifted to dream-space vibraphone, the former with saxophonist Tacuma Bradley, the latter with Christina Carter of Texas noise-psych legends Charalambides on veil-crossing wordless vocals, her first collaboration with Alexander in some 20 years.
But then there’s also heavy like the cover photo of Alexander’s late friend and album namesake Donnon, taken at a Dead show at Rich Stadium in Buffalo in 1989, a spirit threading through the songs and weaving unexpectedly into Alexander’s life decades later, emerging especially when Alexander passed through a near-death experience of his own. But, taken together, the different heavies of Liquid Donnon add up into a state of musical grace, where all the Heavy Lidders from all the universes come together as one. Just, like, imagine.
Convened in 2019 on Alexander’s relocation back to his native east coast, the Heavy Lidders are the latest hard-touring expression for the guitarist’s music, joining a vast and tangled discography (and tape list) that includes the beloved long-running west coast Dire Wolves Just Exactly Perfect Sisters Band and, before them, the Iditarod and Black Forest/Black Sea, as well as a bushel of solo play-all-the-instruments projects, a stint with Jackie-O Motherfucker, sessions with Kemialliset Ystävät and Avarus and others, and you’ll have to keep digging for the rest.
And while it’s not hard to find tapers at Lidders gigs (and they encourage you to be one), or to track themes and songs over Alexander’s many live releases, Liquid Donnon makes a new primary text, the original versions of six new pieces for the repertoire. The album closes with a devastating pairing of “Reservoir Drop” into “The Summer Song,” floating into a duo between Alexander’s guitar and Carter’s voice. Catch a half-dozen Lidders shows this summer, and you might not ever catch them playing it like that again, but you just might open the doorway back to that better place." - Jesse Jarnow (writer, WFMU DJ, producer and host of The Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast)

Growing together both personally and musically… That is indeed the good fortune of the musicians in the Marseille-based trio ubaq. We’re talking about bassist Antoine Carletto, guitarist Lucas Schemidt, and drummer Antoine Saussol, winners of the Rezzo springboard competition at Jazz à Vienne 2025. In their early twenties, they met in their late teens while still honing their musical skills. Nearly ten years later, they burst onto the scene, in perfect harmony, with their very first album, “Night WIP,” a follow-up to their EP, “20bis,” released in 2024. They owe their stylized stage name—written in lowercase with a “q”—to the ubac, that side of a mountain with very little sun exposure, where twilight reigns. “We liked that idea because we’re night owls,” says bassist Antoine Carletto. Hence the “night” for “nuit” and the “WIP” for “Work In Progress,” explains guitarist Lucas Shemidt. ubaq’s music is characterized by a nocturnal, melancholic heaviness, pierced by beams of light. “We love creating music that soothes us and highlights the precious nature of composing and playing in complete harmony,” says Antoine Carletto. “We cultivate complex tones, sometimes difficult to bear, whether they’re nostalgic or even verging on depression. But we manage to convey emotions without falling into clichés,” adds Antoine Saussol. Night and twilight serve as the perfect catalysts for this trio, which moves forward with perfect chemistry and harmony.

On this album, they feature the German-Armenian rapper and singer Talin, who is also based in Marseille. She appears on the track “Regarding Others,” where she chants that even though the year 2026 may see mothers weeping in every corner of the world, she still manages to smile. Thus, this track explores the three musicians’ relationship with the world and the necessity of looking at others. The unsettling “Sciatiq,” the haunting “Sakakinik,” and the ambivalence of “Flayosc”—the final track, on which the trio features trombonist Jules Regard—owe their titles to the musicians’ own observations and experiences. The multi-faceted track “Proud,” in two parts, is a tribute to Lucas Schemidt’s mother, who has since passed away. The presence of wind instruments—whether Jules Regard’s trombone or Mathieu Fabre’s saxophone on the intense track “From The Ending”—adds textures missing from the natural landscape depicted in “Night WIP.” This debut album captures the obsessions and introspective wanderings—sometimes anxious, sometimes enchanted—of a trio that cultivates melody as a pledge of warm fulfillment.

Quartier Celeste is a unique project in today’s landscape: here’s Premier Voyage, an album that goes beyond music to offer a complete universe, almost an autonomous mythology, which unfolds through music, lyrics, videos, and a collection of visual artifacts.

It all began with a revelation: the discovery of NASA’s sound archives, recordings collected during space missions to the outer
reaches of the solar system. What can be heard as we approach the Sun? What sound does a black hole produce when its electromagnetic activity is translated into audible frequencies? What does Jupiter's fifth moon whisper through the instruments of
a probe?

From track to track, we drift through an immense space — sometimes calm, almost meditative, sometimes shaken by cosmic storms. We encounter supernovas, cosmic rays, magnetic fields, stellar winds, and clouds of antimatter. The infinitely large rubs shoulders with the infinitely intimate: the fragile, close voice offers a human counterpoint to these titanic forces. The whole is mystical, contemplative, punctuated by bursts of noise, areas of shadow, and flashes of light amid vast areas of darkness.

In 2019, La Volte released Les Furtifs, the latest novel by science fiction writer Alain Damasio. At that time, to mark the publication, Damasio invited the band Palo Alto to join him on stage in response to an invitation from the literary festival Oh les beaux jours !, held at La Criée – Théâtre national de Marseille. What was initially intended as a one-off performance led to a multi-date tour across France. The show performed at La Maroquinerie was filmed and recorded in multitrack and will be release on the 12th of June 2026 on Hublotone (HUBLO006CD).

At the same time, to join this release, Palo Alto invited eight artists to remix the pieces composed for the show: Ptôse, Pacific 231, Judith Juillerat, Herb Duncan, Norscq, Thierry Zaboitzeff, Lefdup & Lefdup, and Electronicat.

Bringing together the best of the French underground music scene, these tracks echo avant-garde artists such as Coil and Tuxedomoon, blending electronic music with string instruments, instrumental compositions with acid club influences. They will be available on vinyl in a gatefold sleeve featuring artwork by Kiki Picasso (ex-Bazooka). Inside the gatefold, an exclusive text by Alain Damasio introduces the project.

Palo Alto is a French band formed in Paris in the late 1980s. They have recorded a dozen albums and developed several projects featuring guest musicians such as Scanner, Simon Fisher Turner, Ramuntcho Matta, J. G. Thirlwell / Foetus, Richard Pinhas and the New York trumpeter Rhys Chatham. They contributed to a tribute album to John Balance / Coil and asked a dozen artists to reinterpret "Half-Mute", Tuxedomoon’s debut album, featuring the original members of the American band (Steven Brown, Blaine L. Reininger and Peter Principle). In 2018, they were selected by the Californian band The Residents to take part in a cover album released on Cherry Red Records. Their latest album, dedicated to the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, was released on the Belgian label Sub Rosa in 2020.

a A1 - The Stealthy Ones remix By Ptôse
[c] A2 - Une Grâce [remix By Pacific 231]
[e] A3 - Menace Prophylaxie Niveau 6 [remix By Judith Juillerat]
[g] A4 - La Ville Est À Nous ! [remix By Herb Duncan]
[i] A5 - Lueur Ultramarine [remix By Norscq]
[k] B1 - Une Clameur De Sabbat [remix By Thierry Zaboitzeff]
[m] B2 - Un Cri [remix By Lefdup & Lefdup]
[remix By Electronicat]

[a] A1 - The Stealthy Ones [remix By Ptôse]
[c] A2 - Une Grâce [remix By Pacific 231]
[e] A3 - Menace Prophylaxie Niveau 6 [remix By Judith Juillerat]
[g] A4 - La Ville Est À Nous ! [remix By Herb Duncan]
[i] A5 - Lueur Ultramarine [remix By Norscq]
[k] B1 - Une Clameur De Sabbat [remix By Thierry Zaboitzeff]
[m] B2 - Un Cri [remix By Lefdup & Lefdup]
[remix By Electronicat]

New from Ulla’s 28912 label comes a gorgeous bouquet of lowercase wonders from Justin Cantrell aka J and the Woolen Stars, part of Picnic, and the brains behind the excellent Daisart and se Dessaisir Publishing labels.

»Puff« is a glistening pool of lush refractions and music-box lullabies, featuring an array of acoustic instruments and fragile foley sounds that are gently peeled away until all we’re left with are the faded outlines of half-remembered songs.

A sound that roots itself in the prophetic machinations of artists like Fennesz and the languid Japanese minimalism of Fourcolour or Moskitoo, »Puff« strikes a delicate balance, sounding as bewitchingly informal as a Tenniscoats set, but also consistently muddling the perception of high and low-brow sound. Cantrell’s skill lies in a sort of sonic conjuration, bamboozling the brains of those of us who grew up listening to stepped-on audio via ramshackle RealMedia streams by alchemising the content, turning found sound into gold. Just tell us you don’t get chills from hearing the bitrate-impaired acoustic guitar on »Dirty like an angel«, set against a backdrop of windy, harmonic detritus. It’s both meticulously contrived and gloriously off-the-cuff, like one of Vincent Gallo’s classic »When«-era demos reduced down to 96kbps.

Similarly, »She knows just what to say« provokes faint memories of folk music, with impromptu fiddle parts gently steamrolled to create a sound that’s nothing short of exquisite, like pressed flowers rediscovered in an old, discarded book. Even the more palpably electronic elements are hand sculpted in a way that belies the era we’re living in - it’s music for a digital age that sounds oddly unplugged, flawed and human. An unmistakably lovely antidote to the opiating nostalgia of our time.

Acclaimed producer, DJ, and dancefloor healer Octo Octa (Maya Bouldry-Morrison) announces her fourth full-length album, Sigils For Survival. Following 2013's Between Two Selves, 2017's Where Are We Going?, and 2019's Resonant Body, the new record marks a decade since Maya publicly came out as transgender in November 2015. ''As an autobiographical artist, I set out to write an album that would be a milestone for this past decade of joy and sorrow,'' Maya explains. ''Sigils For Survival is my attempt to encapsulate the intentions and techniques that I used to move through life into a spell.'' For each of the record's eight tracks, Maya drew a sigil. Each is a personal symbol intended to ''bind magic to the song and seal its intention.'' These drawings appear throughout the physical edition's design. Maya's sister, New York artist Hope Morrison, incorporated each sigil into her original paintings, which comprise the album's vivid artwork. Hope Morrison, whose imagery translates the sigils' energy into vivid form; the layout was designed by Jo?o Ervedosa. Created entirely on hardware instruments and later mixed in Logic, Sigils For Survival captures the tactile immediacy of live performance. Maya preserved the feel of MIDI-clock drift and off-grid recording, letting her machines interact in the rhythmic pocket, rather than confirming them to a click. Alongside her signature deep, ecstatic electronics, the album features hand-played dulcimer, hand-pan, and recorder. Her voice also returns, carrying spells of love, protection, and transformation. Across Sigils For Survival, Octo Octa channels the ecstatic house lineage into an intimate ritual space. The music speaks of immediacy, play, and communion -- of magic as method, love as survival, and sound as spellcraft. Sigils For Survival is both a document of ten years lived fully and an invocation for the next chapter -- a glowing testament to music's power to protect, transform, and set the spirit free.

This 4th chapter of the Dubatriation Dubplate Style series presents Philosofy, an epic melodica instrumental crafted by Italian producer Crazy Hertz in a combination with his mentors and UK dub legends Alpha & Omega. While most of the lead instruments have been played by A&O, bass, drums and soundscapes have been provided by Crazy Hertz who also showed his terrific mixing skills on both sides, delivering an immersive dub on the flip.

''Incorregible" is an album where sound becomes a symbolic form of expression and a tool for introspection.

With a sonic language that crosses borders and draws from diverse cultural influences, the album seeks to reframe electronic music as a bridge between the ancestral and the contemporary.

After years of exploring and experimenting with different musical genres such as punk, noise, witch house, reggaeton, Mexican tribal etc., I have arrived at a moment in my life where I seek a deeper, more intimate form of expression, one connected to my personal world.

Although I do not believe in God, I believe in the power of invisible worlds, in the strength of being, and in music as a bridge toward expanded states of consciousness.

This work is born from that conviction: the possibility of turning dance and sound into tools for connecting with the spiritual.

A sonic journey that seeks to connect with the universal rhythms of life through powerful percussions, chants that are poems, Andean instruments, and the hypnotic force of electronic music. Each piece is designed to induce a collective trance, where the body finds its natural place: movement.

Among its most significant moments are the poems in Nahuatl written and recited by Maribel Galicia, a native of Teotihuacán and a member of the Nahua people. Her words resonate like ancestral memories that dialogue with electronic instrumentals, reminding us that tradition and innovation are not opposites, but can dance together.

Tribal Sound System – Incorregible is a sonic ritual that seeks to: Create altered states of consciousness through repetitive musical patterns. Celebrate sonic diversity by fusing sounds from indigenous folklore, Andean instruments, elements of regional Mexican music, and contemporary electronic music. Honor cultural roots by re-signifying electronic music as a bridge between the ancestral and the contemporary.

This project is my way of affirming that music, dance, and shared energy can transform into a healing and transcendent experience. - Rosa Pistola

Fela Kuti in Dub is a showcase album containing four essential songs by Fela Kuti in the style of a Jamaican Discomix, evolving from an instrumental cover version to a dub version, celebrating the musical heritage of Nigeria and Jamaica likewise.

Please understand this work as a hommage to both musical cultures.

The four tracks were chosen because they are a timeless witness to the political potential of music, that being proofed by their actuality. The songs feature essential dub effects like echoes, reverb and filtering but also feature analogue sound effects underlining and sonically illustrating the missing lyrical content. These vary from thundery spring reverbs and percussion instruments imitating the pouring rain on „Water No Get Enemy“ to marching soldiers and shot gun like reverbs on „Zombie“. From a cash register on „Expensive Shit“ to the dub sirens created live on a Korg MS10 on „Everything Scatter“.

Only analogue instruments, sounds and dub effects were used on this recording. Mixing, dubs and arrangements were done live in consecutive sessions. The premaster was done by Sodi Marciszewer at Zarma Studios (Fela Kuti, Femi Kuti, Seun Kuti, Damian Marley) on the original Decca desk used by Fela Kuti in Lagos. Fela Kuti In Dub was conceived and produced by Cpt. Yossarian alias Manuel da Coll musician, producer and soundman from Munich/Germany. His last work „Bob Marley In Dub“ (2021, Echobeach) attained a lot of critical acclaim and was featured by Don Letts on BBC6, the Riddim Magazine and Helmut Phillips book „DUB - The Sound Of Surprise“ amongst others.

Clear Coloured Vinyl incl. Booklet in silk screened pvc sleeve

Sound fragments unfold across Zurich, making loss, memory, and cultural change physically and acoustically perceptible. In The Rhythm of Design, Zurich-based fine arts duo Michael Meier & Christoph Franz explore urban displacement and its impact on the local music scene.

Focusing on six venues that have disappeared or are under threat, the artists collected materials on site—wood, metal, and other architectural elements—and, with the support of professional instrument builders, transformed them into six musical instruments. Six artists and groups connected to these spaces—namely Kalabrese, Tobibi Ferrari-Bienz, Rafal Skoczek, Lucien Badoux & Jeremy Sauter, Nicola Kazimir, and Dualism—each composed a piece for them, forming the basis for site-specific performances in September 2025. Rather than performing as an ensemble, the works—ranging from experimental funk and punk to kraut, noise, and drone—unfolded simultaneously in spatial fragments at the original locations. Only through movement and listening across the city did the composition emerge as a whole. ​​The work was realized in collaboration with the City of Zurich, Art in Public Space (KiöR).

Eight months after the original performances took place, the pieces are released via Switzerland-based publishing platform Präsens Editionen. The record—available as a limited-edition coloured vinyl with a special artwork, as a digital album, and for streaming—carries the fragmented sounds of Zurich into a new form of collective memory, extending the work beyond its original locations as a lasting document of urban transformation.


* Edition of 300 clear color vinyl
* Special artwork feat. silk-screen printed plastic sleeve and an extensive booklet, designed by award-winning graphic design studio A Language, Melina Wilson and Martin Stoecklin
* Published by Präsens Editionen

"Nusa" is the last part of a trilogy started in 2020 with Masao Yamamoto and Akira Uchida. A project that began with light (“Sasanami”, 2020), moved through darkness (“Kurayami”, 2023), and returned to the ambivalence of the two (“Nusa”, 2026), which ultimately sustain and complement one another in all their variations and complementarities. Both in terms of tones and in the humanity that runs through us in these times of such stark contrast.

For this last part of the trilogy, Masao Yamamoto and Akira Uchida travelled to the island of Hokkaido at the beginning of 2026 to supplement the project with photographs and audio recordings of the ice and the surrounding landscapes.

Graduated in saxophone from Senzoku Gakuen College of Music, Akira Uchida explores sound through tuning, medieval music, and acoustics, supporting jazz pianists as a piano tuner. After training under instrument maker Masahiro Adachi, he became an independent clavichord builder. In 2020, he created an instrument for Ryuichi Sakamoto. In 2021, he crafted one using reclaimed wood from Kiyomizu-dera Temple (FEEL KIYOMIZUDERA). His work focuses on making, tuning, and performing instruments.

Maqom Soul Launches Its Reissue Series with a Cult Classic from Uyghur Ensemble “Yashlik”.
Maqom Soul, a newly founded Uzbek label dedicated to reviving rare and overlooked music from Central Asia, proudly announces its debut release: a vinyl reissue of the seminal album by the Uyghur vocal-instrumental ensemble Yashlik, originally recorded and released in 1978.
Founded in 1973 as part of the Uyghur Music and Drama Theater in Almaty, Yashlik (which translates from Uyghur as Youth) quickly emerged as a groundbreaking force in the regional music scene. Though born out of a theatrical setting, the group transcended those boundaries with a unique blend of Uyghur folk melodies, jazz influences, Soviet estrada, and traces of psychedelic rock.

The ensemble’s founder and artistic director was Murat Akhmadiev, a prominent figure in both the musical and cultural-political life of Kazakhstan. The album being reissued is one of the rare recordings where synthesizers, electric guitars, and drums appear side by side with traditional Uyghur instruments. More than a musical experiment, it stands as a cultural document of its era a creative attempt to preserve identity through the language of modern sound. Originally recorded at the Melodiya studios in the late 1970s, the album’s initial pressing was distributed only within the Soviet Union. Now, over four decades later, listeners finally have the opportunity to experience this music in a lovingly remastered and reimagined edition.
According to the team at Maqom Soul, beginning the label’s journey with Yashlik was a conscious and symbolic choice: “This was a group that embodied youthful energy, deep respect for tradition, and a genuine thirst for innovation. Their music once played at festivals and on television, and then quietly disappeared. We’re bringing it back — not out of nostalgia, but as a living piece of art.”

Maqom Soul is committed not just to reissuing rare records but to restoring the presence of culturally significant music that helped shape the sonic identity of Central Asia. Forgotten music is also part of the future. Maqom Soul brings it back to the stage.

zzzahara is the solo moniker of Eyedress/Simps/guitarist Zahara Jaime. Zzzahara’s work ethic changed in the making of this album.
“I’m not one of those musicians who can slack off and then make a perfect record in, like, a week,” they say. “I need to be consistently playing, consistently trying to learn new techniques.” To make Tender, they locked themselves in their studio and subsisted on cold brew. This monastic experience gave Zzzahara a sense of total control over the output. “I think that’s what made the record what it is.” While Liminal Spaces was recorded at Stone’s Throw and Zzzahara had access to a range of instruments to make it, Tender thrives on the intimacy created in a home studio

Pianist and bandleader Linus Rebmann, together with Gabriel Widmaier on double bass and Johnny Walker on drums, shapes a transparent and powerful sound characterized by great joy in playing and a palpable sense of familiarity. The album's ten original compositions tell of observations, inner movements, and moments whose depth is better expressed through music than words. The three young musicians met in the Baden- Wurttemberg Landesjugendjazzorchester, and after winning the "Jugend jazzt south- west" competition in 2024, the trio was awarded the prestigious Deutschlandfunk Studiopreis at the national meeting. This made it possible to produce the album in the legendary Kammermusiksaal of Deutschlandfunk in Cologne - a space that has been among the country's finest recording venues for decades. The band members deliberately chose an intimate setting for the recordings. Everything was played through a single main microphone, without subsequent corrections to individual instruments. A working method that demands absolute presence and mutual trust. It is precisely this immediacy that shapes the sound of "Listen To The River": the album is transparent, organic, flowing, almost breathing.

There is a particular kind of strangeness that arrives on long drives across Europe. Flat light, service stations and fields stretching endlessly past the window. It might look mundane at first glance, but becomes faintly surreal when the tiredness of touring blurs the edges of everything.

That feeling became the quiet engine behind Driving Through Belgium, the debut solo album from Anton Pearson, best known as one of the guitarists in respected post-punk outfit Squid. The title grew from a track that felt like the record’s centrepiece, which itself came from the recurring image of extensive periods on the road across the continent. It is a record shaped in the margins of touring, and finessed in the in-between hours.

Across six pieces, Pearson leans into atmosphere, texture and space. It is ambient in spirit, adjacent to contemporary classical in feeling, but composed less with notes in mind than with sound itself. The compositions rarely began with harmony or melody, with Pearson instead responding to his environment and sounds in real time, placing trust in his instinct.

Although initial inspiration came from the road, the album was recorded in a studio he shares in Brighton, and marks his first fully solo project made in that setting. It gave him access to not only new tools and techniques, but a hitherto un-experienced freedom. Much of the process began experimentally, feeding instruments into unfamiliar chains, pitching loops into unexpected registers and playing with previously unused synthesizers simply to see what they might reveal. Many of the sounds were created out of pure curiosity, wanting to understand a piece of equipment or technology, and then following wherever it led.

The album was built with this experimentation at its core, as Pearson would layer then extract, processing stacks of sound until things blur and confuse. Guitars dissolve into drones, a Pianet Clavinet dances against muddier textures whilst a Korg PS-1000 occasionally cuts through with its glittering top end. On ‘Driving Past the Muscular Cows in Belgium’, a flat, still drone is pushed through valve amps until it growls and tightens with tension, before receding again. Even the trumpet, which Pearson freely admits he is not technically proficient at, is embraced in its naivety, its squeaks left intact rather than corrected. The twin ‘Tintinnabulation’ pieces frame the record with looping, pitched bell like tones, accidental discoveries that became structural anchors. Meanwhile, ‘Teeth to Cut the Grass’ deliberately introduces abrasion, some of the harshest textures on the record, a refusal to become passive background music.


That embrace of imperfection is central. In contrast to the hyper-analytical precision of his band, Pearson was keen to honour first takes. If something felt good, it would stay. The end result is an album that favours looseness, instinct and the energy of creation itself. If Squid thrives on propulsion and tension, Anton Pearson finds his energy in suspension on Driving Through Belgium. It is curious rather than declarative, creating a space where experimentation feels playful again.

"All the tracks on this release come from a live concert at Sharmanka, a beautiful and unique museum of kinetic sculptures in Glasgow, and throughout the record, the sounds of the sculptures moving and emitting noises are incorporated into the music performed. The four pieces presented are entirely improvised. There was no discussion beforehand of what instruments or what approach would be taken, and each piece evolved as a musical negotiation as the performers individually made choices about what instruments to play and how to support and meet each other within the unfolding musical narrative. While Macdonald and Ferlaino both share a lifetime of work with their chosen primary instrument, the saxophone, they also share a passion for exploring other instruments and objects for their sonic and socio-creative potential. This record foregrounds both these aspects of their work: they use saxophones, but also incorporate bells, toys, bagpipes, accordions, percussion instruments and voice.
"Raymond MacDonald is a saxophonist and composer with an extensive career in music, cross-disciplinary arts and academia. He has played on and released over 100 albums, toured and broadcast worldwide and has composed music for film, television, theatre, radio and art installations. He is a founding member of the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, and his work is informed by a view of improvisation as a social, collaborative, and uniquely creative process that provides opportunities to develop new ways of engaging musically.
"Christian Ferlaino is an Italian saxophonist, bagpipe player, improviser, composer and ethnomusicologist. He composes for ensembles of improvisers, both from the jazz and improvised music scene, as well as for contemporary music ensembles. His work explores the relationships between composition and improvisation, and the expressive potential of improvised music. His musical research also focuses on creatively engaging with the sonic and musical realm of Calabria, with special attention to its performing techniques and approach to sound and music generation."

Very limited numbers, orders will need to be confirmed.

For his new album, Irreparable Parables, Andrew Wasylyk felt a strong desire to write a set of songs featuring an element hitherto rare in his work: the human voice. Equally strong was the conviction that he did not want to sing them himself.

The Scottish multi-instrumentalist and composer set about assembling a group of guest singers, sending out the songs to wherever they were in the world. The vocals were recorded remotely and then, like migrating birds, winged their way back to Scotland. The result is an album of great beauty which, perhaps preeminently in Wasylyk’s work, expresses the vulnerability and resilience of the human spirit.

Six singers appear on the record, represented by six songbirds illustrated on the sleeve by Clay Pipe Music’s Frances Castle. The cuckoo is a nod to Belle and Sebastian’s 2004 single ‘I’m A Cuckoo’, that band’s Stuart Murdoch being the first voice you hear on the new album. When the vocal for ‘Private Symphony #2’ arrived, says Wasylyk, “it was everything that I was looking for and more. But this is Stuart Murdoch. Of course he’s going to make something incredibly beautiful and thoughtful.”

The song lyrics were, for the most part, written by the singers. The music is Wasylyk’s creation. He navigates a sound world that lies somewhere beyond the borders of classical and jazz, ambient and abstract. It is difficult to describe, but easy to understand, which is to say to feel. That is the way Wasylyk’s work is experienced: as a feeling. It takes you back to childhood, perhaps, to feelings of comfort and safety, or to memories of walks at sunrise and sunset, or to the way a shadow falls on a particular field in a particular place at a particular time in your life. This is consoling music. That is why, though pretty, it is not merely pretty. These are songs to shore up the soul.

Wasylyk writes in a room, in his native Dundee, full of “half broken” instruments. He picks these up, plays a little, seeking an idea, a feeling, a door that lies ajar. The musical palette of Irreparable Parables includes brass and woodwind, a six-piece string section, guitar, bass, drums, vibraphone, Mellotron, Fender Rhodes, tape loops, synthesisers and percussion. The strings were arranged by the cellist Pete Harvey, a long-term collaborator.

Among the other guest vocalists are Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals, Saya Ueno from Japan’s Tenniscoats and Peter Brewis from Field Music. Wasylyk himself takes the lead vocal on the title track, though a throat infection and touch of pitch-shifting have altered his singing in a way that even he, having fallen out of love with his own voice, finds acceptable.

The heart of the record can, arguably, be found in two tracks, ‘Love Is A Life That Lasts Forever’ and ‘Spectators In The Absence of God’, sung respectively by Molly Linen and Kathryn Joseph. The former, bright with trumpets, was inspired by the writing of Derek Jarman. “I was feeling deeply upset about the world and wanted to try and write some- thing that was obviously hopeful,” Wasylyk says.

‘Spectators …’ offers an emotional counterpoint. It is an “apocalyptic hymn” that seems to grapple with watching human suffering from afar, too distant to be at physical risk, but experiencing the psychological wounding, and feelings of helplessness, even complicity, that come with constant awareness of other people’s pain. “Kathryn’s a pal, I love her dearly, and she’s a brilliant artist who really feels what she writes,” Wasylyk says. “The cracked tenderness of her voice is spellbinding.”

The album closes with an instrumental piece, ‘Soul Enters The Ocean Sun Climbs Out Of The Sea’, all piano and strings, that offers a sense of resolution and ascension. A good moment, too, for Wasylyk to reflect upon the artistic companionship that he enjoyed while making this record – the songbirds that answered his call: “These humans are incredible at what they do. I’m deeply grateful and feel so lucky. It blows my mind.”

Philip Glass, the great American composer, was already in his mid-30s before his first album appeared, and then only because he produced the double LP himself. Music With Changing Parts was the inaugural release on his own Chatham Square imprint in 1971.

At this point, Einstein on the Beach, Glass' first opera, was still five years away. Yet in Changing Parts, one can already hear much of his vocabulary in full bloom: the buoyant arpeggios, the melding of electronic and acoustic instruments, the elongated drones of human voice, the primary emphasis on pulse (an interest he shared with fellow composer Steve Reich) and the ecstatic potential inherent in repetition.

The album features the original Philip Glass Ensemble – the composer himself, along with Jon Gibson, Dickie Landry, Art Murphy, Steve Chambers and Robert Prado – playing Farfisa organs and woodwinds as well as Barbara Benary on electric violin.

As Glass describes in his memoir Words Without Music, he secured a $500 interest-free loan for the recordings' initial release from the Hebrew Free Loan Society – an organization intended to help immigrants from the Old World upon arrival in the US. Though Glass was merely the grandson of immigrants, the venture wasn't far off the society's charter as Changing Parts helped usher in a new world of sound that would become known as Minimalism.

Chatham Square went on to release albums by other composers in Glass' circle, including Gibson and Landry. The label was named after the Manhattan intersection where Landry had a studio and the ensemble rehearsed.

Born in Baltimore in 1937, Glass first moved to New York to attend Juilliard at just nineteen, having already graduated from the University of Chicago. A staple of the Downtown scene, he can perhaps be appreciated as akin to the likes of sculptor Richard Serra or filmmaker Jim Jarmusch: mavericks who became major cultural figures entirely on their own terms.

This first-time vinyl reissue reproduces the original side-breaks and gatefold sleeve.

'Honesty Flowers' is the fourth studio album from Italian multi-instrumentalist Alessio Ferarri under the Upupayāma moniker. An epic double album set due for release May 29th 2026 on Fuzz Club, 'Honesty Flowers' finds Upupayāma's ever mind-blowing brew of organic psychedelic rock meets global grooves at its most percussive, lively and distorted. Equally hedonistic and heady, it courses through rhythmic funk grooves, doubled-down scorched fuzz riffing, winding motorik jams, tranquil drones and pastoral acid-folk across its seventy minute run time. A six-piece band live, where things take a more ever-evolving improvisation-based approach (see their recent 'Live At Fuzz Club Festival '25' LP), on the recordings Ferarri writes, plays and records everything himself – guitars, keys, flute, sitar, and an arsenal of percussion all feature. Never not working on new music, Ferarri started laying down these new tracks in his home barn studio in a small mountain village overlooking the city of Parma before its 2024 predecessor 'Mount Elephant' even hit the racks. The result was mixed by Chris Smith at Kluster Sounds (Kikagaku Moyo, Wax Machine) and mastered by Joseph Carra (King Gizzard, Babe Rainbow, ORB) On the new record, Ferarri says: "Honesty Flowers was born from listening to lots of funk music from all over the world, lots and lots of African music, and from listening to myself as I spent whole nights playing all kinds of percussion instruments. I would fall into a sort of trance and play the same rhythm for hours on congas or on a djembe. It's an album that was born above all from the beauty of being able to narrate the unknown and recognise yourself in it, which could translate into telling stories and bringing them to life.

ounded in 1992 by the larger than life, Scottish punk-rock poet laureate, Mr Paul McKenzie, this merry band of miscreants has spent more than three decades circumnavigating the globe to bring the McKenzies gospel to an ever-expanding throng of rebels, scallywags and ne'er do wells. There's not many bands that can boast of a 30+ year career as staggeringly adventurous, wildly tempestuous and utterly death-defying as The Real McKenzies. It would be a serious mistake to write them off as just another Celtic punk band (they’ve been around longer than the Dropkick Murphys after all). They are an unstoppable juggernaut of touring mayhem. A ferocious troupe of insanely talented minstrels, storytellers and entertainers melding traditional acoustic and electric instruments to create a sound like no other. Their list of accolades is long. From sharing the stage with the likes of NOFX, Rancid, Flogging Molly, Metallica and Shane McGowan to appearing in film, books and video games to early releases with the almighty Fat Wreck Chords, their legendary status only continues to grow. On Yer Bike is an absolute beast of an album. A newly revitalized and laser-focused Paul McKenzie has never sounded better and his longtime bandmates have never been tighter. Boasting thirteen epic tracks, including the Sawney Bean trilogy (a trio of songs about Scotland's most infamous cannibal highwayman), the songs rage across topics including but not limited to love, literacy, historical sagas, eating sardines with your mother and, of course, cannibalism. Soaring bagpipes, heart pounding percussion and ultra melodic shoutalong Celtic punk rock are the orders of the day and are delivered piping hot from one of the most respected and adored pioneers of the genre.

2026 Repress

It’s rare that a certain sound is entirely an artist’s own. Although undeniably a stew of impeccable influences – from blues to folk to Latin to dusty funk, soul and hip-hop – one cannot hear a Tommy Guerrero song without immediately recognising it as his - and his only.
The cult skater from San Francisco is globally renowned as one of the original members of the legendary “Bones Brigade” team. And as an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, his laid-back soul is beloved by all who’ve basked in its blissful glow.
There’s something elemental about this music that really stirs the soul. Strikingly beautiful and instantly addictive, it’s a kind of funk-fuelled, melody-driven, groove-based magic. There’s a serenity and heart in the playing that radiates warmth and splendour, as if crafted for endless sunsets. His albums that surfaced on Mo Wax at the turn of the century have been treasured since their release and it’s two of his most vital LPs that we’re honoured to reintroduce.
The originals were quietly pressed on to a single piece of vinyl so we’ve worked closely with Tommy this year to bring you these fresh, limited editions. They have been lovingly remastered, cut nice and loud on to heavyweight double vinyl and presented in deluxe gatefold jackets.
Soul Food Taqueria continued Guerrero’s guitar soul but represented a step forward with its polished production and greater complexity of instrumentation. Denied the promotion it deserved upon release, it flew under the radar. It is now the most wanted record of his wondrous back catalogue.
Guerrero’s atmospheric touch and subtle guitar provide lush, glimmering pieces of musical texture. Within his spacious compositions, uniquely arranged instruments flourish alongside each other to create a languid soundtrack for halcyon days.
As ever, the diversity on display is beguiling. From bossa nova, samba and cumbia rhythms to understated folk, funk and soul grooves, this is another exotic set of mellow gold; perfectly represented by ESPO’s memorable artwork. Furthermore, the title’s hybridity reflects the intoxicating sweep of stylistic flavours served up, reminding us that, however tricky it is to categorise Guerrero’s special blend, it’s always a pleasure to indulge in something so creative and adventurous.
Dubby, bass-heavy instrumentals give way to moody folk-soul – witness “It Gets Heavy”, featuring melancholic vocals from Gresham Taylor – whilst “Thank You MK” is a gentle ode to the tropics, featuring ethereal instrumentation, bright bass and warm, jazzy guitars. The second half in particular contains a number of stunning ambient tracks – check “Lost Unfound”, “Another Brother Gone” and “Broken Blood” - built around minimalist, laid-back grooves and detailed guitar orchestrations which wouldn’t be out of place on the latest Jonny Nash release.
Guerrero closes this flawless set with a moment of true beauty. Restrained and graceful, “Falling Awake” is a pared back piece containing meditative guitar melodies set against melancholic piano arrangements. It brings proceedings to the most peaceful close. Seductively good, it reminds you just how great simplicity can sound.

Parra for Cuva returns in 2026 with a new LP – Nacar – and world tour, marking the next step in his ongoing artistic evolution. Known for creating immersive electronic soundscapes that combine organic instruments with detailed, emotive production, he now extends his vision with a renewed visual language and live experience that deepen the connection between sound and space.

The complete album + 5 bonus tracks - limited edition pressing on 180g vinyl American piano player and composer Martin Denny developed a new musical genre in the mid-'50s by combining lounge jazz, Hawaiian music, Latin rhythms, bird calls, and ethnic instruments from around the world (such as koto, gamelans, Burmese temple bells) into a sound that became known as Exotica. Best known as the "Father of Exotica," Martin Denny was responsible for the genre's biggest hit of all time with his 1956 single version of Les Baxter's 'Quiet Village', the title of the album presented here, and with the single included as a bonus track.









[i] Quiet Village [1956 Version]

Considered the most accomplished modern jazz harpist, Dorothy Ashby (1932-1986) established the harp as an improvising jazz instrument, beyond earlier use as a novelty or background orchestral instrument. She proved the harp could play bebop as adeptly as the instruments commonly associated with jazz. Presented here is one of her best albums, Dorothy Ashby Plays for Beautiful People (Prestige PR7639 - also issued as In a Minor Groove), a 1958 quartet session featuring venerable players Frank Wess, Herman Wright, and Roy Haynes.

Australian composer-performers Judith Hamann and James Rushford have worked together in countless projects for two decades, perhaps most notably in Golden Fur, their trio with Sam Dunscombe. Black Truffle is pleased to announce Midmeste, their first work as a duo. Its title is Middle English for ‘the middlemost point’, alluding to how the piece builds on the points of overlap between the highly personalised musical languages Hamann and Rushford have developed in recent years. Performed on cello and a variety of pipe organs, Midmeste is a spacious, sometimes unsettling exploration of their shared interest in alternative tunings, psychoacoustic phenomena, the physical properties of their instruments, and the usually peripheral sounds generated by the performing body.

Beginning with a sequence of austerely vibrato-less harmonics from Hamann's cello, trailed by Rushford's whistling portative organ tones, the music soon expands into a slow-moving melodic wander, pausing at times to linger over an uncomfortable harmony or particularly resonant cello tone. Hamann and Rushford have long histories of engagement with pre-Classical European musical traditions, having in past projects performed and radically extended the work of Solage, Louis Couperin, Johann Conrad Beissell and other composers. Here they use a 15th century song by John Dunstaple, ‘O rosa bella’, which returns throughout the piece, distorted, aerated and splayed into new forms.

Developed while the two shared residencies at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart in 2020 and La Becque on Lake Geneva in 2023, Midmeste integrates recordings made (at at the invitation of the Biennale Son) on the organ of the Basilica St Valere in Sion, Switzerland—the world’s oldest playable organ, built in the early 15th century. Played by both Rushford and Hamann, the instrument’s idiosyncratic features, including bellows pumped manually using massive wooden beams, are integrated into the music through amplification. Creaks and thumps locate the music physically both in the performers’ bodies and the specific site of its making. Moving through a series of distinct episodes across its forty-minute span, Midmeste makes space for near-silent duets of high harmonics and hissing air, moments where twittering high tones and rumbling sub-bass could be electronic, and static fields that unexpectedly blossom into almost Romantic harmonies.

Listeners familiar with Hamann and Rushford’s work will find many familiar features here: the stunningly rich cello tones, their patient sustain allowing heightened awareness of the inner life of sound and its interactions with the environment; the care with which acoustic space is activated, becoming at times a third instrumental voice; the attention to fragile, unstable sonorities that sometimes have a comic edge. A major work from two key figures in contemporary experimental music, Midmeste synthesises rigorous exploration of fundamental questions of sound and performance with an unapologetic embrace of beauty.

XKatedral Anthology I is the first in a series of archival releases dedicated to presenting music by XKatedral affiliated composers working within the realm of slowly evolving harmonic and timbral music. This double-vinyl set contains an array of pieces dating from 2010 - 2020. Four of the works included here were originally released on cassette tape early on in the label's history, while the two remaining pieces are presented by the label for the first time.

"The works Ir Himinn, Grooenn by Kristoffer Svensson, Disquiet (Heart) by Marta Forsberg and Lamé by Isak Edberg were first released on the compilation XKatedral Volume II in 2016. Svenssons piece from 2014 combines justly tuned gamelan percussion and prepared piano intricately interwoven in a way that obscures the boundaries between the two instrument groups. Forsberg and Edbergs pieces both use a monolithic form to explore the timbral and harmonic spaces provided by the Düben Baroque organ situated in Tyska Kyrkan in the oldest part of Stockholm. While similar in terms of instrumentation the two works differ formally - Edbergs Lamé composed in 2010 uses the registers of the organ to articulate a seamless spectral transformation while Forsbergs Disquiet (Heart) from 2014 deals in blocks of sound with a varying degree of opacity, saturation and intensity.

Glory for two electric guitars by Caterina Barbieri and Kali Malone was composed and recorded in Tempo Reale in Florence, Italy, and was originally released on the cassette compilation XKatedral Volume III in 2016. This music takes the form of an ever-evolving hypnotic pattern shared by the two instruments articulated through an additive and subtractive canon. Dissolving Ceremony, composed in 2012 by Edberg/Erlandsson/Lisinski, was first presented publicly on the self-released record Stratum. The music contained in that release was formed from a collection of gamelan percussion instruments augmented by two sets of live-electronic instruments tuned to the harmonic framework formed by the partials of the metal percussion. Originally positioned in the center of the record running order between two long monolithic process-based pieces, Dissolving Ceremony now stands on its own as a memory of a time and methodology from the not so distant past.

The newest piece in this set is Shipwrecks by Daniel M Karlsson. While this work is a recent one Karlsson should be considered one of the forerunners of the musical expression contained within this record set. Active within new music for two decades his strongly articulated musical ideas and constantly evolving craftsmanship has resulted in an enormous body of work, and has served as an inspiration for many of his fellow composers. This piece is a celebration of transposition and its immense capacity for timbral transformation using a vast array of instruments performed, recorded and electronically treated by the composer to form a liquid uncanny topography where a deeply personal harmonic language constantly shifts, slides and shivers."

There is an abruptness to waking up to the sight of the other person’s back, a quiet violence hidden in the impression of intimacy, that’s leaving an aftertaste of emptiness. The feeling of losing oneself completely in a love that is given but never returned. Or the slower, less immediate one - the gradual disintegration of a world into which so much was once invested.

Love, Diskito is like a worn out overdubbed cassette found in a drawer, with its underlying tracks flickering between contrasting emotional states. Written, produced and mixed by GbClifford, the release follows up on the elusive, multifaceted output of the Prague-based experimental artist, who dresses fleeting glimpses of youthful yearning, sentiment and fragility in the blunt apparel of distortion and immediacy.

Drawing from their idiosyncratic, collage-like approach to music production, GbClifford condenses on Love, Diskito a varied palette of field recordings, samples, distorted instruments and ambient sounds. They resemble doodles in the corner of a school notebook, tightly overlapping with the evocative, minimalistic artwork by Czech artist Kateřina Šípová.

The guidance of GbClifford’s personless, at times highly decomposed vocals modulates the emotional urgency of the recording and reflects on the past. “I’m so close to relapsing, I’m here for you, closer than ever,” echoes in the elusive track So Only Yours, carrying the undercurrents of surrendering to the sole necessity of caring, even at the cost of individual ache. While the album does not forgo its earthbound, bare setting, there is something deeply pastoral and sky-gazing in the layered, multi-pitched vocals, horn-like tones and sense of space that Love, Diskito evokes.

Solid Red Vinyl Edition - 10@ Mini album. Originally release in 2025 in a painfully limited 2x7" + Book edition.

"Dream of the Egg" is the debut solo album by Tomo Katsurada, known for his work with the Japanese psychedelic band Kikagaku Moyo. This project is a unique fusion of music and visual art, inspired by the Japanese 1920s children's book “Yume No Tamago (Dream of the Egg)”. It reveals a deeply personal journey, reflecting Tomo's dreams and the numerous rebirths experienced in 2024—a year marked by profound new beginnings in every facet of his life.

This mini album was driven by a passion for raw and immediate expression. Every song was crafted and recorded with only the materials available to him at the time, embracing an organic and handmade atmosphere. By eschewing rhythm clicks and standard instrumental tunings, a spontaneous sound emerged, capturing the essence of both uncertainty and immediacy. Adding to this distinctive sonic landscape, guest musician Jonny Nash (UK) contributed ethereal guitar sounds on the first and final tracks, enriching the record's dream-like quality.

The journey begins with the opening track, "Moshimo," which means "If..." in Japanese. Here, Jonny's guitar weaves seamlessly with the vocal melody, creating a harmonious dialogue. The first half of the album concludes with "Zen Bungalow" a cover of Gabriel Yared's “Bungalow Zen” from the soundtrack of the film “Betty Blue 37°2 Le Matin”. This particular track is his partner’s favourite song to listen to every morning and left a profound impression on him. One day, he heard a song in his dream that combined both of these tracks and loved how they blended together. This experience inspired him to create a new arrangement, "Zen Bungalow," which has become a central piece of the “Dream of the Egg” album.

The third track serves as an interlude, printed on a flexi disk attached to the middle of a picture book. This interlude transitions the listener into"Inner Garden," a bittersweet folk song that explores themes of love. The EP's narrative spans 20 minutes, culminating in the final title track “Dream of the Egg”. This piece features a delicate session between Tomo & Jonny, combining cello and guitar to create a spectrum of tones that evoke the imagery of a rainbow. The focus on smooth dynamics and meticulous play reflects an intent to convey a sense of physical trembling. This track sounds like the beginning of a new dream; as if the egg of one’s dream is about to hatch, bringing a sense of anticipation and wonder to the listener. Throughout the album, a variety of instruments come into play, drifting between notes and embracing the beauty of imperfection. By incorporating free-form sounds in a highly technological age, the record aims to reconnect listeners with the tangible, human-made quality of sound.

Special Thanks
Jonny Nash – Guitar

STRICTLY LIMITED TO 100 COPIES ARTIST PROJECT After discovering techno at La Concrète, invited by my girlfriend, it was a revelation, and I very quickly felt the urge to contribute in my own way. My intention has been to create tracks infused with positive energy (even if the creative process sometimes leads into slightly darker corners of music). Still, I realized—rather late—the importance of the musical genre known as “techno.” Here is my reflection on it: Nothing is closer to village music (with everything that implies among indigenous peoples, for example—important and respected moments of communion) than techno. On one side, you have basic organic instruments and the voice; on the other, the most advanced technology available. But fundamentally, the difference is only superficial—the essence is the same: a guide, and people who participate intuitively, ultimately finding or discovering their own inner paths… individuation. Techno represents the re-emergence of a kind of initiation rite that had been missing in the West for quite some time—a sort of continuation of Woodstock, more spread out over time but just as powerful from a societal perspective. This release is my contribution to that revival, in the same way a villager might feel free to join trance music with a simple stick that sounds right, or a drum—something intuitive that all our ancestors must have practiced naturally at one point or another. In short, nothing pretentious—just something made with heart

Canadian-born Alexander 'Skip' Spence was the co-founder of Moby Grape, and played guitar with them until 1969. In the same year he released his only solo album: Oar.

The album was recorded after Spence had spent six months in a mental institution following a delusion-driven attempt to attack his Moby Grape band mates with a fire axe, after having ingested LSD. As the urban myth goes, on the day of his release he drove a motorcycle - dressed in only his pyjamas - directly to Nashville to record his only solo album. Fact is that he recorded this album in seven days, playing all the instruments himself, and that the end result is now considered to be a classic psychedelic folk album. After this album Spence largely withdrew from the music industry.

Original copies of Oar fetch quite the sum nowadays, so Music On Vinyl teamed up with Columbia/Sony to make this psychedelic folk gem available for everybody to enjoy.

Oar is available as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on transparent vinyl.

Noko is a Gda?sk-based (Poland) band operating at the intersection of jazz, electronics, and club music. Their sound grows out of improvisation, but instead of following a traditional jazz narrative, it focuses on trance, repetition, and the physicality of rhythm. The band's sound is built on a fusion of acoustic instruments-trumpet, saxophone, double bass, and drums-with electronics and synthesizers. The result is a dynamic structure that works just as well at jazz festivals as it does in a club setting. ?oko's second album is a sonic residue suspended somewhere between a jazz festival and a Berlin techno club. KO is a form of recycled jazz and electronics that opens up wide, cinematic landscapes for the listener. It's deeply physical music, driven by a trip-hop groove that keeps things grounded while allowing the mind to drift into less obvious territories. For this release, ?oko invited two outstanding artists who add a unique character to the whole. Novika brings her signature dreamlike calm, while the voice of Maciej ?winiarski appears in a song about death, closing the band's improvised journeys. This is a personal record the band wants to share with you.

There’s a song on There’s A Whole World Out There, the second album by Canadian four-piece Arm’s Length, called “Palinopsia”. Derived from the Greek for “again” (palin) and “seeing” (opsia), it’s a visual phenomenon marked by the persistent image of something that’s no longer actually there. Singer and lyricist Allen Steinberg wrote the song wrote about “pure devotion or love towards someone that may no longer be a part of your life”, but it also applies to the record as a whole.

Because throughout this album’s 12 songs, Steinberg wrestles a with the part of life that’s been and gone. Yet there’s a noticeable difference between the person who wrote this record compared to the one who wrote Arm’s Length’s 2022 debut, Never Before Seen, Never Again Found. “This record speaks more to my life at the moment than the past,” he explains, “even though there’s still a good amount of past on it. But it’s how I’m dealing with it now, as opposed to being enveloped in it—there’s more a sense of being on the other side of it, of seeing it with hindsight. The tone has shifted a little. I’m probably just a bit more mature, as my frontal lobe is developing as we speak.” Produced by Anton DeLost—who worked with the band on Never Before Seen, Never Again Found and 2021’s EP, Everything Nice—There’s A Whole World Out There does indeed expand Arm’s Length’s horizons in accordance with Steinberg’s developing frontal lobe, presenting him as more self-reflective contemplative than he was before. He wrote the parts for all the instruments, as well as the vast majority of the lyrics, alone in his room, and then brought those initial sketches, recorded as voice memos, to drummer Jeff Whyte, who added percussion to Steinberg’s song skeletons. While the majority of the creative process was in Steinberg’s hands, it was only when these songs were recorded as a full band with Jeremy Whyte, who played bass on the record, and Ben Greenblatt that their full potential was realized. The result is that the feelings driving these songs burst and bloom with full force, building on the incredible foundations set by the band’s previous recorded output.

Since their ground-breaking US debut the Amigos have lived a double life. In their hometown of Caracas, Venezuela, they"ve hosted underground club nights for years (the most recent called "Super Sancocho Variety"). Then, insouciant single-entendre songs like "Sexy" and the doggy-style anthem "Ponerte En Cuatro" landed them on MTV and radio, and before long, the six young men found themselves pop idols. It wasn"t hard, but their hearts remain on the dance floor and in the clubs. AREPA 3000 is live instruments, start to finish. "Electronic music tries to simulate human sounds," says the guitarist. "It"s really easy to buy a groove box or an 808 to make us sound like techno. So we try to get those sounds from our instruments, to go the other way. Make the human sounds sound electronic. When we do our club shows, I"ll spin before our set and we"ll add live instrumentation. We can play four, five hours like that.

“Lonesome for a Storm” is the result of a felt sense in the summer of 2024.

A fleeting feeling in the body meditated on and played through a restrained pallette of instruments and found sound . LFAS is Gustav Kemps’s first solo album under his own name, but he’s been a frequent behind the scenes coll- aborator in various other bands (if you can connect the dots, there’s a lot to find). Mystery can be fun, but this album of his feels tender and generous in what it conveys.

RIYL: Empress, Loren Connors, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, The Humble Bee, Yo La Tengo, Taku Sugimoto...

Repress

The Collaboration - Having toured together over the years, Lattimore and Barwick now join forces to co-write and record this full-length album. Their creative synergy brings together harp, voice, and analog synths in a deeply emotional, immersive sound journey. The album was recorded at the Philharmonie de Paris with co-producer Trevor Spencer (Fleet Foxes, Beach House). This album continues a unique series of collaborations between the label and the Musée de la Musique, featuring historical instruments in contemporary composition. Since 2017, InFiné and the Philharmonie de Paris have co-developed a series of albums designed to highlight the extraordinary instrument collection of the Musée de la Musique. Following the albums InBach by Arandel (2020) and Saturn 63 by Seb Martel (2022), this third release is a meeting of two iconic contemporary ambient voices: Mary Lattimore and Julianna Barwick. The project offers the artists full access to the museum’s playable instruments for recording, sound conservation, and creative reinterpretation.



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Tragic Magic brings together Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore, two of contemporary ambient, experimental and electronic music’s most celebrated composers, for a unique collaboration at the Philharmonie de Paris, with extraordinary access to the Musée de la Musique’s instrument collection, in partnership with the French label InFiné. The album features seven immersive, evocative compositions guided by the human spirit – intimate, grounded in friendship, both earthly and cosmic – and part of a greater continuum, reflecting the solace and transformative power of artistry across generations.

Co-produced by Trevor Spencer (Fleet Foxes, Beach House), Tragic Magic was created in just nine days, a testament to the “musical telepathy” that has developed between Barwick and Lattimore over years of touring and friendship. Arriving in Paris from Los Angeles shortly after the 2025 wildfires, their sessions combined improvisation with the emotions and experiences they carried, in a setting both inspiring and deeply supportive. Lattimore selected harps tracing the instrument’s evolution from 1728 to 1873, while Barwick chose several iconic analog synthesizers, including the Roland JUPITER and Sequential Circuits PROPHET-5. In freeform dialogue between voice and instrument, they create a meditation on tragedy, wonder, and the restorative power of shared experience.

The duo, often joined by Spencer, also explored the city, sharing meals and visiting museums and landmarks, each encounter leaving an impression on their next session. The experience allowed them to work intimately with rare instruments, blending their personal sensibilities with centuries of history, resulting in music that honors the past while remaining a deeply authentic expression of the present.
Throughout Tragic Magic, Barwick and Lattimore find something beyond themselves: a sense that while everything may not be okay, beauty persists. Their approach – transforming life into music, observing, feeling, and creating – continues a lineage of creative expression and visionary invention, embodied in the very instruments they employed for this project.