Cerca:into it over it

Audience’ was a 14-track record that signalled a shift back to Hayes Bradley's dancefloor roots. It was a collision of breakbeats, trip-hop, and ambient textures that perfectly balanced nostalgia and forward-thinking sounds, and now it gets spun into all new worlds by some of the scene's most acclaimed contemporary stars.

Special Request, aka UK powerhouse Paul Woolford, has shaken up the scene with his thrilling mix of jungle, bass, techno, rave, and hardcore in recent years. The hugely prolific producer knows exactly how to blow up the club and does that here with two reworks of '& I Love U'. The Special Request Extended Mix is a meticulously crafted jungle workout, featuring precision drums, rising synth tension, and gorgeous melodies that dart throughout and will appear on the vinyl release only. The VIP version focuses more on celestial memories for a heavenly escape.

Next is Shanti Celeste, a house and garage favourite who crafts emotional, high-impact sounds on her own Peach Discs. Her remix of 'Play It As It Lay' is a bubbly, soft-focus, late-night sound with earworm synth motifs and rich bass that sinks you in deep for a nice, heady trip.

Piori is an alias of Canadian musician Francis Latreille, who has built a sprawling discography full of hyper-detailed techno steeped in science fiction and fantasy. He flips 'Awareness' into a zoned-out affair, with broken beats and cosmic synth waves over a bold bassline that shows, once again, why his productions are in such demand.

Last but not least is Kaifeng-born sound artist, DJ, and producer Yu Su, whose truly unique sound has made her a cult underground star. She flips 'Dear Treasure' into a slow motion and sleazy chugger with dark disco energy and raw live drums, shady vocal loops and otherworldly melodies that seep into your consciousness.

Undun is the story of a man, Redford Stevens, dying in reverse, rewinding from the moment he became a statistic and hitting the points in his life where he's at his most self-aware. That he's a criminal who got caught up in the familiar street-hustle trappings that the modern media's documented countless times is a pivotal detail-- it's hit at an angle that seems to emphasize the futile inevitability of it all. His life could be any number of misdirected narratives that ends with a toe tag, and what details listeners learn about him are hazy, buried under archetypal turns of fate and decisive struggles. That this protagonist is a fictionalized composite of a handful of real people, filtered through a matter-of-fact narrative that splits character ambivalence with journalistic impartiality, only makes his lack of direction and the failure of any real closure stand out even more. "Lotta niggas go to prison," Dice Raw states on "Tip the Scale", "how many come out Malcolm X?"

So the Roots' latest album isn't a sprawling, rise-and-fall crime story, not a condemnation or a veneration of a man living outside the law, not a bullet-riddled grand guignol heavy on explicit details of soldiers getting cut down. It's a character study of a man whose existential crisis ends only with his death-- a death gone largely unspecified, the glamor and tragedy washed over with a doomed resignation. That's a hard thing to pull off, even for a band as given to deep-thinking concepts as the Roots are. And when your main lyrical catalyst is Black Thought-- a man more given to allusions than direct statements-- it's likely that it'll take a while for the full scope of Undun to really sink in.

If and when it does, it might strike listeners as a bit skeletal: omit the mood-setting instrumental bookends, including a brief, four-part orchestral suite that builds off Sufjan Stevens' "Redford (For Yia-Yia and Pappou)", and you've got maybe a half hour's worth of material. By ?uestlove's accounts, writing Redford's story introduced the headaches and challenges that come with scriptwriting into their songwriting, and what's left on Undun is the end result of frequent revisions and rewrites that attempt to reconcile character, theme, and continuity. If it comes at the expense of nuance, it's not always obvious: There's an easy-to-trace narrative line from Redford's acceptance of his fate ("Sleep") to his acknowledgement of how close it's approaching ("Make My"), back through declarations of aggravated toughness ("One Time"), and celebratory fatalism ("Kool On"), along ups and downs that juxtapose motivation ("Stomp") and helplessness ("Lighthouse"). When the vocal portion of the album ends with two of the bleakest sets of verses in the Roots discography, peaking with the estrangement of "I Remember" and the desperation of "Tip the Scale", Undun reveals itself as a story where a man's actual death isn't quite as tragic as the circumstances that pushed him to it.

Guti returns to Crosstown Rebels with improvisational new EP, ‘You Know Ya Miss Me’.An exploration of instinct, groove, and the new Latin sound, the Argentinian live maestro returns to Damian Lazarus’ imprint on 13th March 2026.

A new wave of Latin-infused groove arrives on Crosstown Rebels, and South American favourite Guti is at the helm. Returning to Damian Lazarus’ imprint with a release that captures his music in its most immediate and expressive form, his four-track ‘You Know Ya Miss Me’ EP marks his first material on the label since 2020, reigniting a relationship that stretches back over 15 years. For the Argentinian artist, the studio has always been a living room, a jam space, a place where ideas can breathe, collide, and evolve naturally. Throughout his career, Guti has blended groove-driven house and Latin percussion into a signature sonic language in which spontaneity guides the process. The result here is a new release that feels as alive as it does intentional, designed for ears, hearts, and dancefloors alike.
Title track ‘You Know Ya Miss Me’ opens with warm rhythmic layers and subtle instrumental interplay, a space where melody and movement coexist freely. ‘What You Give’ follows, pulsing with the organic energy of jam-session dynamics, each percussive gesture and melodic line alive with intention. On the flip, ‘The Truth’ unfurls a rich tapestry of percussion, soulful vocals, and improvisational motifs, while ‘La Nueva Onda Latina’ closes the EP as a vivid statement; an embodiment of the “new Latin sound” at the heart of Guti’s ethos, where instruments, electronics, and collaborative energy meet on equal footing. At its core, ‘You Know Ya Miss Me’ is a showcase of a musical mind at work: deliberate yet free, precise yet flowing, rooted in tradition but open to the unexpected. It’s a reflection of Guti’s belief that dance music can be both kinetic and expressive, that improvisation and groove can coexist, and that the most resonant sounds are born when musicians let go in the moment. This EP invites listeners into that space, to move with the rhythms, and to experience a sound unmistakably Guti; organic, vibrant, and alive.

As Nathan Fake rises from the nocturnal subterranea and rave catharsis of his previous records, on Evaporator, he resurfaces into the domain of daylight, bringing a tangible sense of air rushing against your face, of big skies, and endless landscapes. The idea of pop accessibility that trickled into 2023’s Crystal Vision is refracted here through the prism of sweeping ambient, deep electronica, and trance uplift. Evaporator is Fake’s idea of “airy daytime music”, with each track a different barometer reading across the album’s varying atmospheres, which range from vibrant sunbursts, bracing rainscapes, and fine mists of clement melodics. “It’s not overtly confrontational electronic club music,” states Fake. “It’s quite pleasant, it’s accessible. As I was progressing through making the tracklist, I called it a daytime album. It doesn’t feel like an afterparty album.” For the past decade Fake has been gingerly introducing collaborations with heroes and friends alike into his lone, idiosyncratic working process. Border Community alumni Dextro AKA Ewan Mackenzie transmutes his ferocious drumming for Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs into the blurred choral thump of ‘Baltasound’. ‘Orbiting Meadows’, meanwhile, is his second collaboration with Clark, an eerily idyllic duet where microtonal 18EDO piano clangs slowly twirl around wailing pads. Evaporator marks the junction point of old technology and ever fresh creativity for Nathan. The trusty “dinosaur” age software, particularly Cubase VST5, that has powered two decades of music is rarely updated. “I used to sort of feel a bit ashamed of using such old software, and then I kind of had an epiphany – that’s just how I work”, comments Fake. “That’s just how I play. I’m very fond of these old tools, and I get the most joy out of them, but now I’ve incorporated new technology too.” When an artist accumulates so much synergy with their instrument, music making becomes instinctual. By Fake’s account, much of Evaporator just fell into place. The album title arrived randomly in his head (“it felt completely perfect. Airy.”), ideas looped and developed until things locked into place and just felt right. ‘The Ice House’ is a fleeting glimpse of the sonic world he taps into in this creative state, its glassy FM synths built around a counterpoint between rough-hewn crystalline arpeggios and sparse yet gravitas-bearing bass. “That riff I just wrote out on the keyboard, I just played it forever and ever and ever. The original track ended up being really short. Here you go, and it’s gone!” These unplanned channellings of sound call forth records from Fake’s past while he looks ahead, perhaps getting at the very essence of his musicianship. The opener ‘Aiwa’ (“the breeziest,” he muses) reminds of the introspection that characterised Providence, excited by the fire and grit of Steam Days’ textural experiments, its chunky slams and clatters surging into a flood of harmonic buzzing as they reach out for old wisdom. ‘Hypercube’ stampedes in a similar chronological confluence, infusing an incessant synth line reminiscent of the golden age of rave with the crackling, ecstatic energy of modern festival anthems. Like the vaporisation of liquid to particles, everything that Evaporator presents has a mutant desire to be amorphous. Sounds rarely settle; the irradiated garage beat of ‘Bialystok’ is pitched downwards to driving, rebounding effect, while ‘You’ll Find a Way’ warps static into shivering energy, cinematic synth strings building anticipation into a gradual gush of chords. This translates into a more expansive stereo field than Fake has explored before. ‘Slow Yamaha’ saves the wildest, most kinetic transformations for last with a cornucopia of crispy melodies and fried drums; a sibilance of cymbals on the left, a susurrus of shakers on the right, and kaleidoscopic lasers pulsing and fizzing all around. Evaporation culminating in pure excited atoms. In a world where music has increasingly become background content, making albums remains lifeblood for Fake: “It makes me realise how long; twenty years is ages! It’s weird to see how much the world has changed. Release day back then you did fuck all, now you spend all day on socials. When I grew up the people who made the electronic music I was into were quite mysterious, and the artwork was very abstract. There was a massive distance between you and that music, and that was a key part of it, really. Now it helps to be an extrovert, and I'm just not, but the album marks the first time my face has graced the cover art. I’ve never wanted to do this before, I'm very shy, and generally I don’t like being seen,” he professes. “But, twenty years in, I supposed I could try something new. I'm very lucky that I'm somehow surviving in this world, where the media world favours extroverts and interesting looking people. It’s not my world but somehow I’m still in it.” Evaporator continues to prove Nathan’s necessary presence, with some of his most engaging, varied, and magical music yet.

INDUSTRIAS MEKANIKAS is back with the third instalment of the ANTIKHRIST VISIONS saga. This release is particularly symbolic: it’s the ninth in the catalogue, marked by the infernal numerology that runs right through the whole series. It’s a descent into a sonic underworld, where noise becomes ritual and pleasure is just pure agony.

The artist tasked with opening this new chapter of the saga is the mighty Óscar Mulero, an essential figure on the national electronic scene and one of our biggest international ambassadors, whose career has left a deep mark on contemporary music. Here, with Faceless, he delves into dark, precise, and devastating electro territory; a spiritual machine that dictates the pulse of chaos.

Next up, we’ve got Pressurized Modulator with Reddrum: hard, crunchy, industrial electro, absolutely buzzing with electrical tension and twisted sonic matter.
Closing out the A-side is Jacko Volvone (aka Hoax Believers) with Quieren Cerrar Las Fábricas: a track that expertly blends electro, techno, and post-punk echoes, resulting in a tense, distorted, and combative sound, like a working-class echo shouting from the abyss.

Flipping over, the B-side opens with Hanging Nuts (made up of Waje Martín, Fake Robotik, and Ruben Montesco). They unleash a murky descent of filthy, distorted, primal electro, slashed through with guitars and raw, guttural vocals: a genuine chant from beyond the grave. The second cut marks the debut of Techselektah & Phil Fork with Champagne No Potable: a raging street anthem packed with fury, energy, and social criticism, where Spanish vocals emerge amidst EBM structures that have that ‘80s spirit, reinterpreted with today’s raw edge. And the big finish is down to HBK1 alongside Rigor Mortis, with Instinto Caníbal: a full-on explosion of electro-industrial and EBM that awakens the body’s most primitive urges.

Antikhrist Visions Vol. III is a sonic summoning from the lands of Hades: ritualistic matter, organic sound, and primal force. A testament to pleasure and torment—Tormento do Gostar—etched into the vinyl as if it were molten iron.

Memento Mori.

Solo 500 delivers another irresistible donut that takes the form of this 2-sided celebration of afro-latin & jazz-funk classics. GSC dusts off 2 deep catalog selections here — & part of the appeal is that neither side is a played-out sample cliché. This one is for heads who already burned through the obvious joints.

Side A digs into Manu Dibango beyond the endlessly flipped “Soul Makossa” universe. “The Panther”, from the 1973 album “Africadelic”, isn’t one of his commonly sampled tracks — & that’s exactly why it hits so hard. Low-slung Afro-funk, stalking bass & suspense-building horns that feel like a break record even if they haven’t been rinsed by every golden-era producer. Selectors who chase texture over recognition will understand the power here immediately. It’s the kind of cut hip-hop heads love not because they’ve heard it before — but because they haven’t.

Side B moves into Latin jazz-funk royalty. Ray Barretto is one of the most sampled percussionists of all time, but “Together” (from the 1969 album of the same name) sits slightly off the obvious break-beat path. Instead of a clean, isolated drum loop, you get rolling congas, warm keys & a communal groove that’s been DJ-tested far more than it’s been sampled. This is the type of Barretto cut that crate-diggers pull when they want rhythm to breathe — bridging jazz floors, disco-leaning sets & hip-hop selectors who think like musicians, not beat miners.

The first resonant space Zosha Warpeha played in was the Emanuel Vigeland Museum in Oslo, Norway. Built as a mausoleum, its walls reach up into a gradual archway, creating an environment where sound expands and reverberates for twelve seconds before decaying into silence. Warpeha was greeted only by dim lights when she entered, and it wasn’t until she had spent several minutes listening that she was able to make out the frescoes that covered every inch of the room: graphic depictions of the cycle of life from conception through death. As the sound of her Hardanger d’amore encountered the walls and these slowly emerging scenes, they obscured its point of origin in both time and space, augmenting its own life cycle. The experience sat in the back of her mind over the next several years as she developed her own patient style of composition and performance, one that comes into full bloom on her new album I grow accustomed to the dark.

When Warpeha was selected as an artist in residence at Brooklyn’s ISSUE Project Room in 2025, she saw it as an opportunity to more intentionally explore how her music might fill a room with ample natural reverb. I grow accustomed to the dark documents two single-take solo performances for Hardanger d’amore and voice at IPR, with both pieces composed in a unique tuning system developed to interact with the space itself. Listeners can trace resonance from the contact of the bow on gut strings into the body of the instrument, its five sympathetic strings offering another layer of refraction, before the sound is thrown about the cavity of the room. The echoes emerge like a photographic double exposure, or wisps of smoke that linger in the air, creating ghostly harmonic convergences that blur the line between what is there and not-there. Sound begins to act like light, a synesthetic alchemy that transforms drones into beams and ornamental trills into flickers.

Both side-long compositions, “filament” and “visual purple,” exemplify a duality that animates Warpeha’s music: an expressive, individualistic style that draws on extensive knowledge of her instrument’s history in folk traditions, and an austere, devotional quality maintained by focus and precision. Though very different in character and structure, both pieces evolve slowly through numerous repetitive phrases, passages of stillness, and bursts of intensity. “filament” opens with a cycle of delicate melodic fragments played and sung around a drone before blossoming into an outpouring of swooping arpeggios, harmonics flying from the strings like sparks off a bonfire. The disorienting pulsation of harmonic beating forms the core of “visual purple,” the close-tone dissonance building to a swarm of open strings ringing boldly throughout the space. After the knotty tones reach their climax, the piece collapses into studied quietude, hushed, but without any drop in intensity.

When Warpeha first visited the Vigeland Museum in 2019, she was in Oslo to deepen her relationship to the Hardanger fiddle through the study of Norwegian traditional music, which is primarily passed down aurally. The experience of learning songs by ear, not only internalizing the tune but also absorbing the techniques and tonalities by listening, was a crucial step in her development as a composer. The years since have seen her sharpen those skills as a prolific member of the New York avant-garde and improvised music communities. Warpeha’s music encourages listeners to join her in this journey, to listen closely with each repeated phrase and through each dramatic shift. Like the frescoes on Vigeland’s walls, with time and intention, the depth of I grow accustomed to the dark comes on like a revelation.

The breakthrough album. Enrico Rava's second solo record, recorded in Milan in January 1973 and released on the German BASF label, is nothing less than a cornerstone of Italian jazz-rock - the record that caught Manfred Eicher's attention and opened the doors to ECM. Rava himself has called it his breakthrough, and history proved him right.

The lineup is killer: John Abercrombie on guitar, Bruce Johnson on bass, Chip White on drums. Four musicians operating at the absolute peak of early seventies fusion energy - electric, cosmopolitan, burning with that particular fire that only existed in that brief window when jazz met rock and nobody knew the rules yet. Abercrombie, already on his way to becoming one of the most distinctive voices in electric jazz guitar, delivers some of his most ferocious early work here. White's drumming is relentless, pushing the music forward with an intensity that never lets up.

If Miles' Bitches Brew-era speaks to you, if Ian Carr's Nucleus gets you moving, if you know Sun Ra's Lanquidity and Don Cherry's Relativity Suite by heart - this is essential listening. Rava's vision was already fully formed: South American rhythms, Mediterranean warmth, free jazz ferocity, rock power - all flowing together without borders or categories. By the early seventies, Rava had absorbed everything - the New Thing, the European free scene, the electric revolution coming out of Miles' studio - and forged something entirely his own.

The seven tracks cover serious ground. "Bunny's Pie" introduces the music with an almost cosmic atmosphere of suspense, hovering in that liminal space before it trails off into the up-tempo vibrant frenzy of "Trial N. 5" - Abercrombie and Rava trading swirling solos at full intensity, the rhythm section locked in tight. "Dimenticare Stanca" moves from Rava's expressive balladic intro into pure funk, guitar and trumpet steering over the rhythmic drive with absolute confidence. The title track carries the lyrical feel and cadence of an Incan-Peruvian folksong - that cosmopolitan spirit made audible. "Fluid Connection" rides a funky bass riff into fusion heaven, with standout trumpet and guitar solos that build and release with perfect tension. "Cheerin' Cherry" pays homage to the great Don Cherry - Rava's spiritual mentor and fellow traveler in world music - exploring a North African soundscape that points toward the global jazz to come. Johnson's "Peace" closes the album with a minute and a half of serene, blissful calm - a moment of stillness after the storm.

This audiophile reissue - cut from the original masters, pressed by Pallas in Germany on 180gm vinyl, housed in a thick laminated hand-glued gatefold - does full justice to an album that remains a collector's holy grail.

Don't sleep on this one. Limited Edition.

Double LP pressed on transparent red vinyl with black marbles. In Dying Light: The Beast, you step back into Kyle Crane's skin, but he's no longer the man he once was. Years of experiments have left him torn between fragile humanity and a monstrous power that he can barely control. Every light, every shadow, every choice feels dangerous. The forests and ruins of Castor Woods don't just set the stage, they breathe, they watch, and they punish the reckless. This is survival stripped to the bone, where horror is not just outside, but inside you. Olivier Deriviere's powerful and capturing score for Dying Light: The Beast doesn't just accompany Crane's journey, it is his voice. Sometimes it whispers in empty rooms, fragile and broken, sometimes it roars with distorted rhythms and pounding drums when the Beast takes over. Between silence and sound, the music pulls you deeper into Kyle's fractured soul, making every step and every heartbeat part of the story. It's not just a soundtrack, it's the echo of a man losing, and maybe finding, himself.

Introducing the 4th instalment of the Pacific Coast House rebirth. We bring back another much sought-after 12” from The Coastal Commission & Jesse Outlaw. “Bring down the Walls” was a nod to Raze’s “Break for Love”, Robert Owens “Bring Down the Walls” and Ritchie Hawtin’s use of the Roland 606 throughout “Sheet One”. Long out of reach and fetching $100+ on Discogs, Atjazz’s freshly remastered editions are finally available .. “Let it Go” was never mastered & only ever cut to dub-plate. It has now been mastered & available in all it’s glory.

Coastal Commission “Bring Down the Walls” “Bring down the Walls” was a nod to Raze’s “Break for Love”, Robert Owens “Bring Down the Walls” and Ritchie Hawtin’s use of the Roland 606 throughout “Sheet One.” We gave the tune a Californian psychedelic twist with conga laden drums, a moody synth, low pulsing 303 patterns + Benjamin Zephaniahs patois call to “Move the Body Rhythmwize!” The first PCH releases had dropped Worldwide to International acclaim from DJ’s far and wide across the Globe with support in London, Paris & New York. However the local scene here in L.A that preached “Love, inclusion & Unity” was anything but that. L.A at that time was very tribal & divided up into 3 camps. If you weren’t affiliated with any of them (aka independent) then you were pretty much locked out of getting any kind of gig support or the Dj’s from those camps actually playing the music. The local feedback from Dj’s was that what we were making wasn’t “house,” but “Techno” which was absurd to me. “Bring Down the Walls” was a mantra to “move the bod”y and in doing so “bring down the walls” of separation not just in L.A but throughout society in general. Thank goodness for support from people like Terry Francis, Eddie Richards, DJ Deep & Philly Stalwart King Britt. After years of copies going for upward of $100+ on Discogs the now freshly remastered copies by At Jazz’s Martin Iveson are finally hitting the platters this Spring.

Jesse Outlaw “Let it Go” I met Jesse at Beatnonstop Records on Melrose Ave with Miguel Placencia in the late 90’s. Miguel (RIP) was a mainstay in the Underground scene and had always been very supportive of my endeavors. He had had success with a huge release on Yellow Orange and was working with Jesse under the moniker “When Worlds Collide.” I signed “Brighter Days” & “Set you Free” from them and released the tracks on my Seductive imprint. They told me that they were making the tracks on a Sony Playstation “Music Now” program and I was like FFS “What.s more Underground than that!?” Later Jesse gave me some of his solo work. The track “Let it Go” was never mastered & only ever cut to Dub-plate and featured on my 1st PCH mix “Pacific Coast House Sounds.” It has now been mastered by Martin Iveson and is available in all it’s glory. The dreamy vocal “You need to let it go” beckons over the top of driving percussive Latin beats and church organ which is a great compliment to the flip side of “Bring down the Walls.” All in all two West Coast stompers now finally available remastered on PCH in Orange vinyl.

"Orange Ave. is the fourth studio album by American post-grunge band Seven Mary Three. It was released in 1998. The album was named after a street running through downtown Orlando, Florida, their hometown. The album's only charting single was ""Over Your Shoulder"". ""Each Little Mystery"" was also released as a single, but did not chart. Their debut rode the Pearl Jam bandwagon to commercial success with a combination of crunchy guitars and angst-filled lyrics, and 1995's American Standard was more straiht forward Americana. On Orange Ave., they take chunks of their predecessors and come up with a post-grunge,soul-searching, acoustic-guitar-strumming personal statement. This album blends all this into a perfect mix. Orange Ave. is available for the first time ever on vinyl and will be released on orange coloured vinyl. Limited & numbered to 1000 copies and it will contain an insert"

»Low Tide, Hi Grypus!« is the new live-iteration of JC Leisure as JC Leisure Group. Documenting an encounter and a communication between human improvisers and atlantic grey seals. The record presents responsive improvisation as a form of cross-species collaboration.

The project began on Porthdinllaen, Wales, where Leisure recorded seal vocalisations from a local colony at low tide. Back in their Liverpool studio, Leisure developed a performance system that translates human musical gestures – pitch, timbre, rhythm, density, presence - into triggers for these seal expressions. The resulting system is dual-active, as in it simultaneously acts and is acted upon in the horizontal instance. It creates a new-music non-linear threshold that cannot be replicated.

»Low Tide, Hi Grypus!« was recorded live at 1210 Berlin and captures one instance of this concept. Local improvisers were invited to encounter the performance system. Recorded in one take, pedal-steel, woodwinds, strings, piano, organ, and electronics gradually learn to listen and respond to the marine voices. This interspecific group moves from intimate duets (that's human, seal) into full ensemble works (humans, seals) over the course of one night.

Rather than treating field recordings as static material, the extensive seal archive functions as an active collaborator: shaping form, pacing, and interaction in real-time. Now that’s marine biology meets human communication!

JC Leisure has previously released work on Sun Ark, Warm Winters Ltd, Not Not Fun and collaboratively with Dialect as Raft of Trash. He has composed a radio play commissioned and broadcast by BBC Radio.

LIMITED TO 50 COPIES! Hand Numbered, Edition of 50.

‘Elevation’ is album eleven from High Focus Records founder and 1/4 of The Four Owls Fliptrix.

The latest instalment in a formidable run sees the lyricist further his vision of the world in the hope of elevating the collective mind and spirit of both artist and listener across 19-tracks.

Having worked with Forest DLG in some capacity across all of his records over the past fifteen years, from mixing and mastering, but also collaborating on multiple tracks as rapper / producer, it is surprising that it took so long for the pair to come together on a full-length collaborative project.

‘Elevation’ is that record.

Fliptrix reached out to Forest with a view to creating something completely different from his previous boom bap heavy outing ‘Dragonfly’, he is always looking to advance his craft and take things higher, and after Forest responded with a pack of 70+ instrumentals the direction of travel became crystal clear. The result is an album designed to lift the listener into a higher state of consciousness and trigger conversations about the state of the world, in the hope of enacting positive change during tumultuous times.

Fliptrix’s vision and Forest DLG’s style feel perfectly aligned. The album is truly collaborative; Forest going away and creating the artwork inspired by Fliptrix’s otherworldly experiences with the Shipibo tribe in the rainforests of Peru; from the single covers, to the album cover and merchandise as Fliptrix focussed on writing.

Having worked with all the greats in the UK hip hop scene, Fliptrix actively sought out new energies on ‘Elevation’, especially when it comes to the album features. Jungle forefather General Levy on lead single ‘ENERGY! ENERGY! ENERGY!’ Grime legend Frisco on ‘Visionaries’, Ayah Marar on ‘Transform’, Da Flyy Hooligan, Kamakaze, Coops, and a 19-strong HF posse cut in the shape of ‘Dangerous’ make this album a must-listen for anyone looking to elevate.

France's near-revolution of May '68 was the zenith of that generation's struggle for a new kind of life. It kicked the country's small, but vibrant, counter-culture into overdrive, and birthed a local underground music scene. The bands it spawned made music with much less rock purity than groups from the UK and US. Their musical and cultural influences foregrounded improvisation, disjunction, and genre-blending: Soft Machine, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, free jazz, and radical politics. The introduction of the synthesiser in the early 1970s added fuel to the fire.

This collection of French underground music inaugurates a series to accompany "Synths, Sax & Situationists", the first English-language book to investigate this movement. It focuses on the music of the second wave of bands that emerged in 1972/3, which saw radicalised psychedelic and jazz influences merge with the future-music possibilities offered by new technology. The next volume will investigate the politically-charged bands that erupted in immediate aftermath of May '68.

Igor Tamerlan is a stranger in his own land. Born in 1954 the Hague and spent most formative years in Paris, Igor suddenly had the urge to relocate to Bali in 1986. “I want to settle in Indonesia and marry a local girl,” he told his sister shortly before flying out.

His next journey would be as audacious as his time in the Fifth Republic. Born from a prominent Indonesian expatriate family in Paris with ties to Indonesia’s first prime minister Sutan Sjahrir, Igor earned a degree in architecture at Ecole nationale supe´rieure d’architecture de Paris-La Villette.

He could have been a brilliant architect or a political scientist (he was accepted to Sciences Po), but his passion for music distracted him from his academic works. He was after all named after Russian composer Igor Stravinsky.

During his brief stint at Sciences Po, Igor spent most of times hanging out at recording studios and rub shoulders with the likes of singer-songwriter Jean-Jacques Goldman and Michel Polnaref. He had a brief encounter with The Rolling Stones at the Cha^teau de Thoiry studio in the early 1970s.

But Igor’s musical education and his occidental eyes appeared to be ill-suited for Indonesia. His first record, titled Langkah Pertama (First Step) on the mainstream label Musica was met with a shrug and was a commercial dud. An experimental record blending the influence of Spanish motifs, Francophile production and a whiff of hip hop and ska was seen by critics as being too alien. His sarcasm-laden lyrics and his biting critique of excessive materialism among the upper tier of Indonesia’s nouveau riche in the album was met with confusion from the audience. He was just too far ahead of his time.

He left the label Musica – or may had been dropped – soon after Langkah Pertama and decided to go independent. He then relocated to Bali and set up a state-of-the-art recording studio in Sanur, across the street from Southeast Asia’s first boutique hotel where luminaries like Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Sting, Yoko Ono and Ringo Starr stayed for their holiday.

From the studio, Igor recording everything from the sounds waterfalls, geckos, minibuses to motorized rickshaw and mix them with hip hop, jazz, electronica, dub and Balinese gamelan. A visionary, Igor was the first musician to use MIDI, which started to be available globally in the early 1980s.

On paper, songs like “Bali Vanilli” should not work, a mish mash of disparate elements mentioned above, sung in three languages, Balinese, English and Bahasa Indonesia while tackling the subject of overtourism. The song was also the first to introduce rap to an unsuspecting audience. But for some strange reason “Bali Vanilli” became a sensation and overnight Igor became household name. And in 1987, long before overtourism was an issue, Igor broached the subject to a national audience in Indonesia on the possible destruction of nature and culture from tourism.

Ever an iconoclast, Igor decided to step out of the limelight following the success of “Bali Vanilli” and in early 1990s he relocated to Indonesia’s cultural capital, Yogyakarta. Here, he worked on some more experimental music while juggling as music video director. He passed away in 2018 at the age of 64.

The 10 songs in this compilation, Bali Vanilli: Experimental Pop from Paradise Island (1987-1991), are some of Igor’s best works, music that would have gone into obscurity had it not been for the diligent work of film director Alfred Pasifico Ginting, who managed to track down some of the master tapes while researching on a documentary on the musician.

These recordings have never before been released outside of Indonesia. Igor would have been proud with this reissue project.

Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Son Little expands his musical palette on his upcoming album, Cityfolk. Blending elements of soul, folk, and blues, Son Little captures his signature sound along with expressive yet personal lyrics. Cityfolk is a reflection on love, loss, and finding peace in the chaos. It"s about holding on, letting go, and learning to breathe again when the world feels heavy. Born Aaron Earl Livingston to a preacher and a teacher in Los Angeles, Little"s collaborations with The Roots and RJD2 helped him make a name for himself in his adopted hometown of Philadelphia. Critics were quick to recognize the unique power of Little"s solo recordings, which stripped the past for parts that could be reconstituted into something wholly new and original. NPR hailed Little"s "impeccably crafted songs" as "honest and unpretentious," while The Independent proclaimed him "a formidable talent." Since then, his catalog has racked up over 250 million streams, and Little has toured with everyone from Leon Bridges and Kelis to Shakey Graves and Mumford & Sons alongside festival appearances at Bonnaroo, Newport Folk, and more. Never one to rest on his laurels, Little also earned a GRAMMYî for his work helming Mavis Staples" acclaimed "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean."

Two percussionists, one sound universe. With “All you can BEAT,” Double Drums serve up an energetic and surpri-singly versatile percussion album. The two exceptional musicians have been performing together on stage for 20 years now. In addition to numerous concerts in Germany, they have also performed throughout Europe and Asia.
Now Alex Glöggler and Philipp Jungk are celebrating their anniversary with a work that showcases their entire musi-cal range: from driving rhythms to a multifaceted soundscape to moments of great emotion. “All you can BEAT” is a tribute to everything percussion can be: powerful, delicate, wild, and touching at the same time.

On the one hand, there are rousing original compositions such as “One More Time” and “Hydra,” about which the rhythm artists say: "The music is inspired by the many-headed monster Hydra from Greek mythology. When it loses a head, two new ones grow back. Musically, new patterns or rhythmic elements are constantly being added, overlap-ping each other and pushing others into the background. The result is minimal music based on an energizing flow with a focus on the marimba."

Born in Douarnenez, at the far edge of Brittany (France), Komodor has quickly established itself as one of the most vibrant names in the French rock landscape. Their high-energy rock, fueled by fuzz, sweat, and vocal harmonies woven in the spirit of MC5 and T. Rex, immediately drew attention: Rolling Stone, Rock & Folk, Libération and Rock Hard Germany all praised the fiery impact of their debut album Nasty Habits (which sold over 2,000 vinyl copies). Since then, the quintet has mostly lived on the road: a long European tour, followed by the larger-than-life saga of Komodrag & The Mounodor, carrying them to stages such as Hellfest, Les Vieilles Charrues, and the Francofolies de La Rochelle, among many others.

Their second album, Time & Space, reveals a band in full metamorphosis. Without abandoning the explosive force that defines them, Komodor widens its scope: volcanic riffs, more sinuous grooves, mist-laden harmonies, psychedelic flashes… The energy is still wild, but more inhabited, more liberated, almost ceremonial at times. The record opens with two telling bursts: Bliss & Joy, a libertarian charge with the feel of a manifesto, and Soul Tricker, a rock incantation where trance overtakes sheer electric assault. Two sides of the same coin, pulled taut between urgency and enchantment.

On stage, Komodor remains a true shockwave, forged across European festivals (Freak Valley, Motocultor, Fête du Bruit, and more) and now awaited at the legendary Desertfest London. Their music feels made for such spaces: a visceral, flesh-and-amp kind of rock, drawing from the seventies’ heritage to speak even more vividly to the present. A band moving forward at full volume, without nostalgia or calculation, carried by a simple conviction: as long as the amps are hot, rock can still burn.

In short: Komodor is the band of friends from Douarnenez bringing pencil-and-paper rock into the streaming age while preserving its analog soul (with the album mastered at the legendary Miraval Studios), the smell of warm tubes, the grain of vinyl. With this second album, they hit harder, truer, and more vividly than ever.
Time & Space stands as a “must-have French rock record”, a tangible piece worth cherishing in any collection.

Born in Douarnenez, at the far edge of Brittany (France), Komodor has quickly established itself as one of the most vibrant names in the French rock landscape. Their high-energy rock, fueled by fuzz, sweat, and vocal harmonies woven in the spirit of MC5 and T. Rex, immediately drew attention: Rolling Stone, Rock & Folk, Libération and Rock Hard Germany all praised the fiery impact of their debut album Nasty Habits (which sold over 2,000 vinyl copies). Since then, the quintet has mostly lived on the road: a long European tour, followed by the larger-than-life saga of Komodrag & The Mounodor, carrying them to stages such as Hellfest, Les Vieilles Charrues, and the Francofolies de La Rochelle, among many others.

Their second album, Time & Space, reveals a band in full metamorphosis. Without abandoning the explosive force that defines them, Komodor widens its scope: volcanic riffs, more sinuous grooves, mist-laden harmonies, psychedelic flashes… The energy is still wild, but more inhabited, more liberated, almost ceremonial at times. The record opens with two telling bursts: Bliss & Joy, a libertarian charge with the feel of a manifesto, and Soul Tricker, a rock incantation where trance overtakes sheer electric assault. Two sides of the same coin, pulled taut between urgency and enchantment.

On stage, Komodor remains a true shockwave, forged across European festivals (Freak Valley, Motocultor, Fête du Bruit, and more) and now awaited at the legendary Desertfest London. Their music feels made for such spaces: a visceral, flesh-and-amp kind of rock, drawing from the seventies’ heritage to speak even more vividly to the present. A band moving forward at full volume, without nostalgia or calculation, carried by a simple conviction: as long as the amps are hot, rock can still burn.

In short: Komodor is the band of friends from Douarnenez bringing pencil-and-paper rock into the streaming age while preserving its analog soul (with the album mastered at the legendary Miraval Studios), the smell of warm tubes, the grain of vinyl. With this second album, they hit harder, truer, and more vividly than ever.
Time & Space stands as a “must-have French rock record”, a tangible piece worth cherishing in any collection.

Crackazat returns to Freerange for his latest EP entitled Shine, and sees the artist in his finest form to date! An absolute anthem in the making the title track appears here in Club Mix and Mana’s Dub form, plus an amazing flip of Crouching Tiger from Baltimore legend Karizma Shine is a soulful, jazz-inflicted epic which will have any dance floor worth it’s salt fully locked in. Crackazat’s own vocals bring hints of Jamiroquai whilst his production calls golden era MAW and Blaze to mind. Add an incredible arrangement, live horns, bass and drums to this already heady concoction and you get an idea of why we’re so excited about this release. These kind of club tracks are few and far between these days! Next up we have one of Crackazat’s own Mana’s Dubs of Shine.

A chance for Ben to strip things back, loop things up and dub things out. Keeping the funk intact, we’re treated to a feelgood party-starting house track which has a classic sound that can’t fail to warm the cockles! Flip over for a proper curve-ball from everyone’s favourite Baltimore house hero Karizma who turns Crouching Tiger into the kind of twisted, rolling, jazzy and leftfield workout we love him for. A driving force of the city’s underground, he always comes with the raw energy and fearless creativity. A staple of the dance floor and a leader beyond it, Karizma represents the past, present, and future of Baltimore House and once again proves why he’s such a don.

Drop this one and run for cover whilst the dancers throw crazy shapes! Closing out the EP we have Crackazat’s Mana’s Dub take on previous single Watchu Say. Looping up the killer piano hook and his live bass line, Ben manages to craft the kind of warm, uplifting slice of house music which simply works. And for those who love a big drop, this one should fit the bill with a trademark Mana’s Dub seratonin-boosting build that hits all the right buttons.

E The Artist presents Six, his debut album for Nyahh Records; an incendiary opus of blown-out electronics and daring sonic abstractions, inspired by the seven seals, that posits E as a daring force within the Irish underground.

Garnering a fierce reputation both in Ireland and abroad despite minimal recorded output, the artist known as E instead boasts his infamy on the live circuit. The Nigerian-born, Dublin-based musician impressed over the years with a slew of memorable performances inspired by AfroPunkism, recontextualising contemporary black club genres into their loudest and most intense iterations. Following a brief side quest to Vienna early in 2025, E returned to Dublin relieved by the tangibility in familiarity of his surroundings. This inspired a period of personal reflection on self, mortality and religion in his cramped studio; from these sessions emerged his most substantial body of work to date in Six.
Inspired by the opening of the seven seals in the Book of Revelation, Six acts as a radical departure for E. Opener IDTYEK signals this change, a freak folk oddity that ill-prepares you for the road ahead. From MANTRAS’ obtuse techno through to RISE’s power electronics, E fulfils a listening experience intent on submission rather than interpretation. Dynamic contrasts temper the parameters of its sonic catharsis, a crescendo of geometric flow that challenges convention.

Six also extends the artist’s circle of collaborators. Ruby Eastwood and Mel Keane lend BRIDGE their poetry and creative instability respectively, frequent live collaborator Julia Louise Knifefist douses BLACKOUT with his signature guttural cries while KRAF’s obscured lyrics gives LINT a wayward edge. Bulgarian Umbrella offers the record its most substantial contribution on DROGO, a twenty minute meditation on life and death which forms the core inspiration for the album as a whole.
Six exists as a world obsessed with rationalising finality, a disorienting space between certainty and myth that stands as E The Artist’s most ambitious and strangely beautiful work to date.

"Since their formation in the latter half of 2023, Berlin’s Industry have quickly emerged into the foreground as one of the more exciting groups of the European DIY punk scene. Having released their 2024 debut LP, touring and playing festivals all over the continent, they are now back with a follow up record that’s every bit as bruising and bleak as the first.
Much has been made of how ‘on point’ Industry sound - a mid-paced cocktail of heavy toms and churning riffs recalling ‘No Sanctuary’ era Amebix or classic Killing Joke. But Industry use these sounds as a springboard rather than a template, utilising the form for genuine expression where others are tempted by retro cosplay. Their sound is pared back, pulsing, relentless but danceable. But it’s the words that result in a listen that’s engaging from start to finish, an album that’s both expressive and polemic. Just as people often describe Discharge’s lyrics as Haiku, Industry uses the band’s repetitive grooves as a wide-open canvas on which their exasperated observations are given space to land with precision. The litany of criticisms are familiar to us all - violence exacted on the poor and vulnerable by those in power, the ongoing industrialised slaughter of humans and animals, the disastrous consequences of colonialism, the list goes on… The world in 2025 is fucked, and even though they say they ‘can’t even look’, this band has got their eyes wide open."

"Love, Peace & Harmony - The Best of Bow Wow Wow is a compilation of the iconic new wave group Bow Wow Wow, released in 2008. The band was formed by Malcolm McLaren, the manager of the Sex Pistols. McLaren recruited members of Adam and the Ants to form the band, featuring 13-year-old Annabella Lwin on lead vocals. Over the next four years, the band dominated the British charts, with nine singles entering the UK Top 100. ""Go Wild in the Country"" and ""I Want Candy"" even made it into the top 10. Their success didn't stop in the UK; they also enjoyed success in Australia, the US and the rest of Europe. This version of the compilation includes the song “The Man Mountain”, which reached the top 10 in Belgium and the Netherlands. Love, Peace & Harmony - The Best of Bow Wow Wow is available as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on slightly gold coloured vinyl. "

“Tectonic” is a concise portrait of SIMON BERZ’s geological sound explorations across continents over the last 15 years: drums, electronics, and a set of electronically manipulated basalt stones from Iceland.

SIMON BERZ is a transdisciplinary drummer, sound artist, and music educator based in Switzerland and Berlin. Working at the intersection of improvised music, sound art, and performance, and deliberately crossing boundaries between disciplines, his aesthetics are shaped by a sustained engagement with natural materials, particularly stone, and their sonic transformation through electronic manipulation. Beyond his performance work, BERZ founded BADABUM as an art label and a music school.

For the last 30 years, BERZ has been performing in Japan, China, Russia, the USA, Cuba, Iceland, Turkey, and across Europe. He has collaborated with artists including BILL LASWELL,BABY SOMMER, DAMO SUZUKI (CAN), JAMES TURRELL, JIMI TENOR, JOHN SINGLAIR, JOJO MAYER (NERVE), KONDO TOSHINORI, KIDD JORDAN, LAUREN NEWTON, LEE “SCRATCH“ PERRY, MAURO PAWLOWSKI (dEUS), NILS PETTER MOLVÆR, NIKI GLASPIE, NORBERT MÖSLANG, PAUL LOWENS, PFADFINDEREI, ROB MAZUREK, SKÚLI SVERRISSON, and he was the live drummer for APPARAT. As BERZ understands artistic practice as energy emerging from nature and through dialogue with people, his recorded output is intentionally selective, with one highlight being “Beats versus Breath” with KONDO and LASWELL (2023). Alongside a regular drumkit and electronics, he has developed his own instruments such as the “Lithophon” in which resonating stones are turned into amplified sound through water drops, and “Tectonic”, a set of Icelandic basalt stones shaped through electronic manipulation. These self- built instruments form the material basis for his performances, installations, and sound recordings.

“Tectonic” is also the title of BERZ’s latest work: a summary of his geological sound explorations across continents. From Iceland to Indonesia and Bali, from New Orleans to China, in caves and at shores, BERZ carried his millions-of-years-old basalt stones as both instrument and collaborator. On Java, he met Baron, a builder of stone gamelan instruments. At the Pacitan Tabuhan Cave (Indonesia) he performed with MISBACH BILOK and WUKIR SURYADI (SENYAWA) who work with corals as instruments. BERZ brought these encounters and “field recordings” to the Stöðvarfjörður studio in Iceland, where he recorded with his “Tectonic” set-up, drums, and electronics. The music was later mixed in Berlin by DIRK DRESSELHAUS (SCHNEIDER TM). The resulting album moves from club-driven tracks to ambient passages, from gamelan-inspired textures to HipHop-like beat patterns. It resists easy categorization while staying direct and physical in its impact.

Palmier is producer and rapper Rocé's new album. At the crossroads of Sade and Rakim, the album unfolds an impeccable flow over gentle melodies, the mellow sound of the saxophone softening the sharpness of the spoken truths. Rocé delivers a melody of hope, and appreciation of determination in the face of the impossible. "La Voie Lactée" features the captivating voice of Natacha Atlas and the sublime orchestrated violins of Samy Bishaï, the whole thing wrapped up in the style reminiscent of Isaac Hayes' soul and Portishead's trip-hop. "Laisse les enfants courir" reveals a soulful hip-hop, between powerful groove and relentless flow, where Rocé blends political lucidity and poetic verse while Cisko's subtle arrangements sculpt an organic, sensitive landscape, poised between tension and serenity. On "Lunaire", Rocé surprises us right away, with a sharp and melodic flow. Driven by powerful imagery and sharp lyrics, the track transforms anger into creative energy. It portrays an artist outside the mainstream, aware of the world's failings but determined to create his own haven. Palmier embodies themelancholy of unfinished struggles, perseverance, and the promise of a brighter dawn.FEAT. NATACHA ATLAS & LE VIOLONISTE SAMY BISHAI

ESCAPE-ISM — the found-sound dreamdrama— are back in action & out in front. And this time, they’re leading a “Charge of the Love Brigade. ”This “charge” isn’t the traditional scramble across a muddy, bloody field though, like in the days of yore. This one is a furtive insinuation into the senses of the tuned-in listener.
Their fifth record, and fourth “sound” record — (the third one was “A Protest Against Sound”- an entirely silent LP) — “Charge of the Love Brigade” is revolutionary in its own right. Besides being packed with tunes — super-hits such as “Black Gold,” “Last Of The Sellouts,” “The Rebel Outlaw,” & “Fire in Malibu,” for exam- ple, Charge of the Love Brigade proposes a reformation of the traditional notes and scales; an entire new sound alphabet!
That’s right, ESCAPE-ISM —the “act of musical vandalism”— famous for their development of new prototypes for stomping & smashing, are reforming the scales, chords, & notes (e.g. A, B, F#, etc) that comprise musical literacy to achieve the group’s primary aim: the repurposing of music as we know it. Though many musicians of note have operated their instruments with "alternative tunings," up until now no one has obliterated tuning absolutely or abolished letter-notes for the destruction of bourgeois society.
According to ESCAPE-ISM, this will have a very profound effect: “Music will no longer be cordoned off from the rest of experience as a commodified, specialty freak show, but instead be a pastime which can be prac- ticed and enjoyed –not only by non-musicians and amateurs– but also by plant life, wild animals, and even inanimate objects such as rocks.
“The violent overthrow of musical conventions will lead to the reintegration of humanity into the natural order, the reordering of life itself into a cosmic congruity. This means the convention of time itself will be ended.” Like so-called nature itself, the ESCAPE-ISM group is also on a “loop.”
Play “Charge of the Love Brigade” and listen as ESCAPE-ISM go “over the top” against the note-letters of accepted musicality in a world premiere of a new upside-down antiscale.

Apollo Records proudly present the vinyl reissue of ‘Morning Light’, the acclaimed 1997 album from Mark Van Hoen’s Locust project; a work that blurred the boundaries between ambient electronics, trip-hop, and dream-pop with an emotional precision few have matched since.

Originally issued during the label’s pioneering late-’90s era, ‘Morning Light’ marked a bold evolution for Van Hoen, best known at the time for his dark, abstract ambient work under Locust and as a member of Seefeel. Seeking to create something more human and melodic, Van Hoen assembled a rotating cast of collaborators, including Zoe Niblett, Craig Bethell, Neil Halstead (Slowdive/Mojave 3), and Wendy Roberts, blending fractured dance rhythms, live instrumentation, and intimate vocal performances into something both deeply personal and effortlessly cinematic.

From the haunting reimagining of The Carpenters’ ‘No-One In The World’ to the slow blooming emotional arcs of ‘All Your Own Way,’ ‘Folie’, and ‘The Girl With The Fairytale Dream’, the album’s 13 tracks form a widescreen narrative of melancholy and beauty. Reviewers at the time hailed it as “a subtle delight” and “sheer God-given genius”, comparing its mood and texture to Massive Attack, This Mortal Coil, and Portishead, yet noting its entirely singular voice.

This reissue restores Morning Light to vinyl for the first time in over two decades. A crucial artefact from the fertile intersection of experimental electronica and ethereal pop, ‘Morning Light’ stands today as one of the label’s most quietly influential releases.

PAF stands for Pogo Amongst Flokati, Paranoia After Friday, Performative Awkward Feelings, Pop Against Formality, Pleasure And Fear, Post-Authentic Fantasy, People Acting Feral, Punk Agains Faschism, or whatever else you like.

PAF are a trio who overgrow punk, office disco, tiredness, fear, lethargy, tears, Baltic Sea beaches, mix-ups, crossroads, house-sitting, and Prosecco into electronic thickets that sometimes grow into danceable tracks, sometimes into intricate structures of electric bass, vocals, and synthesizers.

PAF are from Hamburg and consist of Anna G. on vocals and electronic percussion, Pia A. on the MS-20 synthesizer, and Felix R. on bass and vocals. Punk by other means—where the means break the form itself. Here now is the debut LP, following the legendary tape released on Happy Tapes from Leipzig. The cover was drawn by Raoul Dóre and printed in color. A printed inner sleeve offers the chance to read along with the lyrics. The whole thing will be available in spring 2026 on 200 well-pressed vinyl records.

Chalybeate documents a month long stay by Tokyo based producer aus in Ikaho, one of Japan's most established Onsen (hot spring) towns, during autumn 2024.

Working from field-recordings captured inside multiple ryokan baths, aus synthesized the subterranean movement of the onsen's with local details: the bubbling of source water, the hoozuki lantern plants and wind chimes placed at each inn, and the surrounding insects and birds. Rather than portraying Ikaho as a landscape, the recordings trace the town's respiration.

The material was first presented on site as an installation unfolding across eight different baths, where visitors listened while soaking in roten-buro (open air hot baths). The project drew wide attention for proposing listening as a bodily act, inseparable from heat, moisture, and duration.

Chalybeate re constructs that installation as an album. The recordings were left to sit for a year within Ikaho's air and humidity, allowing the sound itself to slowly change. The title refers to Ikaho's iron rich mineral water, known as "Golden Water," which oxidizes upon contact with air and leaves rust colored traces in its baths. Following this process, the album's sound was repeatedly re submerged and re worked, gradually absorbing a corroded texture.

Tape hiss, gentle distortion, and subtle fluctuations rise quietly, like steam.
What remains is not documentation but residue.

Mixing was handed over to Manchester based producer The Humble Bee by Craig Tattersall, known for his work with The Boats and The Remote Viewer, after aus exhausted himself traversing Ikaho's steep stone steps. The exchange mirrors the work itself: from bathtub to hot spring, from sound to something that surrounds the body.

Woodwind like tape noise and the movement of water dissolve into one another.
The music does not arrive all at once. It settles slowly, as if lowering into warm water.

Represss!

Z Records continues its commitment to unearthing the obscure and
long forgotten tracks from the last 40 years through the ever-popular
Under The Influence series. Following on from Red Greg, Nick The
Record, Sean P, Faze Action, and last years Alena Arpels. It’s now the
turn of one of the scene’s most impressive collectors & DJs; Rahaan

Hailing from Chicago his love affair with muzik started in the late 70’s early 80’s, listening to muzik on the radio combined with his mom and dad playing their records every weekend. In the early 80’s on the South side of Chicago, he started hearing something a bit different, what they called ‘house muzik’. A combination of Disco, Jazz, Soul Funk, New Wave and Italo Disco. Here Rahaan digs deep into his impressive record collection that he has collected, built up and crafted over his many years of travelling, networking and DJin to showcase 22 of his finest and rarest cuts. Many of the tracks on the album would cost hundreds and that’s if you were even able to find the originals! As always with ZR compilations a lot of time and effort has been spent on creating these masters from the original vinyl, cleaning them up, removing all the clicks and pops resulting in the cleanest sounding copy possible.

Repress!

Legendary NYC house label Strictly Rhythm is celebrating a mammoth 3 decades of cutting edge, roof-raising house music. Truly a benchmark. Originally founded in 1989 by the dynamic pairing of music industry man Mark Finkelstein and A&R expert Gladys Pizarro, Strictly tapped directly into the fertile New York underground & after hours club scene, helping to launch and bolster the recording careers of dance music luminaries like Armand Van Helden, Roger Sanchez, Ultra Nate, Todd Terry, Wamdue Project, DJ Sneak, Louie Vega,
and many more ...

Strictly Rhythm is easily one of the most recognisable and respected dance music powerhouses of all time.
Across 3 limited double vinyl offerings, the Strictly catalogue has been expertly picked over to present you with a snapshot of some of the most earth shattering house music to emanate from the streets of New York City.

A who's who of producers and artists, all killer and no filler. End to end classics that help to tell the story of one of dance music's most well loved labels. Classic cuts and essentials from Armand Van Helden, Logic, Roger Sanchez (Underground Solution), Photon INC and more all feature on part 2 in their unedited, 12" mix glory.

Fully legit, remastered and selected with love courtesy of Strictly Rhythm and Above Board distribution for 2020 - Happy birthday Strictly Rhythm!

For the first time in more than a decade, Paul St. Hilaire (AKA Tikiman) presents a solo album – 100% Tiki.

Over his 30-plus year career, St. Hilaire has become one of dance music’s quietly legendary figures. Born and raised in Dominica, he moved to Berlin in 1994 and has lent both his voice and his musicianship to some of the most iconic electronic music from the German capital – and beyond. Renowned for his collaborations with Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus (AKA Rhythm & Sound), he has also appeared on records with Deadbeat, Rhauder, Larry Heard aka Mr. Fingers and Stereotyp (G-Stone Recordings), amongst others.

However, few know the extent of St. Hilaire’s compositional and technical mastery. From his home studio in Kreuzberg, which includes an extensive collection of vintage hardware, self-built instruments and notebooks scribbled with endless lyrics, he has created a vast archive of material spanning ambient dub, avant-jazz, lush techno and lovers rock.

Tikiman Vol. 1 is a heady, downtempo tour de force of patois metaphors on education, displacement and personal vs. global histories, as is evident on slippy album opener “Bedroom in My Bag”: Mister, mister / Where are you going? / I’m heading for a faraway land / What are you having in the bag in your hand? / Help us to understand / He said, I’ve got my bedroom in my bag.

Overall, the album’s lyrics reflect on life between Berlin and Dominica, specifically St. Hilaire’s hometown of Grand Bay, where he has worked with various musicians famous for the island’s different genres of carnival music. St. Hilaire himself always favoured the island’s more “discrete” music, developing a sonic synergy between two different geographical strains of groove and minimalism, and combining them with foundational Caribbean mixing techniques, which provide the basis for his songwriting and distinct
baritone.

Tikiman Vol.1 offers a rare insight into St. Hilaire’s complex artistry, from the eyes-down grooves of “Little Way” and the guitar-heavy digi dancehall experiment “Keep Safe,” to the subtle hypnosis of “Ten to One” and the softly crashing synth waves of closer “Three And A Half”, evoking not only beaches but also coasts and borders. It’s a fitting expression of both the breadth of St. Hilaire’s work, as well as his history as one of the few black, Berlin-based artists who, despite remaining largely overlooked, has influenced the city’s electronic music culture since its beginnings.


Credits
Written & Produced by Paul St. Hilaire
Mastered by Stefan Betke
Artwork by Grant Gibson

Kynant Records was founded in 2015 by Richard Akingbehin, a British-Nigerian radio programmer (Refuge Worldwide), music writer and DJ. Originally specialising in deep techno and featuring artists such as Cio D’Or, Terrence Dixon and Donato Dozzy, Kynant has since launched a sub-label Kynant EX which focuses on ambient, dub and experimental electronics.

No Drama, the label founded by Roy Rosenfeld, continues its vinyl and digital series with a new release from Eli Nissan, an artist whose work consistently rewards close listening.



The musical material unfolds over 15 minutes and 4 seconds, offering a concise yet layered statement.



While Hedonism opens with driving percussion and a flexible groove, layering textures and effects into a high-energy, immersive cut built for peak-time moments, Shout closes the release with a deeper, more introspective direction, blending vocal samples with a laid-back, psychedelic flow balancing repetition and variation to create a sense of elevation and continuity.



Concise, versatile, and DJ-ready, the fifth edition of the No Drama catalog continues the path with clarity and purpose.

Two forward-thinking cuts, pressed loud and unapologetic, straight from the Bristol-based producer who knows exactly how to move a system.

“Paisley Breaks” is a break-driven speaker melter — restless drums, nuff low-end pressure, and just enough chaos to keep the dance on edge. Flip it over and “Sunday Monday”switches the mood: laid-back, hazy, and reflective, capturing that slow-burn feeling after a weekend that went a little too far (in the best way).

From the shadowy edges of Limbo into the basscomesaveme universe, this release balances raw energy with late-night introspection — made for sound systems, afterhours, and everything in between.

Repress!

Legendary NYC house label Strictly Rhythm is celebrating a mammoth 3 decades of cutting edge, roof-raising house music. Truly a benchmark. Originally founded in 1989 by the dynamic pairing of music industry man Mark Finkelstein and A&R expert Gladys Pizarro, Strictly tapped directly into the fertile New York underground and after hours club scene, helping to launch and bolster the recording careers of dance music luminaries like Armand Van Helden, Roger Sanchez, Ultra Nate, Todd Terry, Wamdue Project, DJ Sneak, Louie Vega and many more. Strictly Rhythm is easily one of the most recognisable and respected dance music powerhouses of all time.

Across 3 limited double vinyl offerings, the Strictly catalogue has been expertly picked over to present you with a snapshot of some of the most earth shattering house music to emanate from the streets of New York City. A who's who of producers and artists, all killer and no filler. End to end classics that help to tell the story of one of dance music's most well loved labels. Classic cuts and essentials from Danny Tenaglia (Code 718), George Morel, Kerri Chandler (KCYC), Louie Vega and more all feature on part 1 in their unedited, 12" mix glory.

Fully legit, remastered and selected with love courtesy of Strictly Rhythm and Above Board distribution for 2020. Happy birthday Strictly Rhythm!

Limited to 300 copies. Yellow Vinyl. Approaching Doom is the third album by Monsternaut, a darker and heavier representation of the band's established devotion to groovy riffs and to the point compositions. The songs took shape over several years, during which the arrival of a new drummer opened the door to more adventurous rhythms and riff ideas, pushing the band into new territory while staying true to their roots. Sonically, the album leans toward the grit and weight of early 90s metal rather than polished modern production, giving it a raw and immediate edge. Its lyrics and atmosphere follow a naturally darker direction as well, adding an extra layer of tension beneath the grooves. Recorded entirely the old fashioned way, straight to analog tape with no digital editing, it captures the band playing as they are, relying on performance, chemistry, and feel rather than correction. The result is a record that hits harder, feels more focused, and marks a confident new chapter in Monsternaut's evolution.

Repress on purple vinyl. Limited to 250 copies. "Our upcoming album, titled "Helichrysum," delves deep into the human experience, exploring the wounds we carry and the transformative power that lies within us. It serves as a culmination of the countless creative and personal choices we have made, leading us to a place of greater harmony within ourselves, with each other, and with our collective intentions. Musically speaking, the new album is a testament to our commitment to delivering a sonic experience that is unapologetically raw, adventurous, heavy, groovy and psychedelic. The choice to name the album after the Helichrysum plant, holds a significance as the plant symbolizes endurance, healing, immortality, and the power to overcome adversity, which mirror many of the themes throughout the record."

For here lies one of the most influential bands in the realm of gothic metal, a group with doom and death metal roots that has flourished for over three decades, boasting thirteen albums that have garnered devoted acclaim. This injustice is now being set right by The Circle Music , beginning with the vinyl release of the classic album "Burning: A Wish", which emerged twenty-four years ago. "Burning: A Wish", released in the twilight of the year 2001, stands as a dark reliquary of dreams lost to the velvet fog of melancholy. To revisit it now, two dozen years later, is to unseal a time capsule of gothic ache, doom- laced longing, and the tormented tenderness that only Lacrimas Profundere could conjure at their creative height. It was a candle-lit corridor between worlds. A slow fall into velvet shadows. A scream muffled by rain.

By the time "Burning: A Wish" was released, Lacrimas Profundere had already begun to evolve from their early death- doom origins, shaping their identity with the sophistication of seasoned mourners. The death growls had receded, replaced by the haunted, baritone croon of Christopher Schmid, whose voice is an echo from a chapel ruined by time. Yet, while the growls faded, the emotional gravitas remained intact, transmuted into melody, into baroque gloom, into something more sorrowfully refined. Produced with lush, theatrical clarity, the album never drowns in its own atmosphere, it breathes with it, moves with it. The soundscape is dominated by somber guitar textures, languid tempos, and subtle orchestral touches. From the very first notes, it is clear that this is music for ruined lovers and moon-drenched graveyards.

This is the hallmark of Lacrimas Profundere 's style: an emotional minimalism that does not explain or elaborate, but merely opens wounds and lets them breathe. That this album has remained, until now, absent from the warm embrace of vinyl is both tragic and oddly poetic. For what format better suits a record such as this than the one that cracks and hisses like an old seance? Vinyl is tactile, intimate. It requires attention, reverence. To place Burning: A Wish on a turntable is to light a candle in the dark.

Romphea lands on Scottish imprint Hilltown Disco with his debut EP, Blind Protocols. A producer who’s been making serious waves worldwide, Romphea’s forward-thinking take on electro has already found a home on respected labels such as Pinkman, Tiger Weeds, FERMA, and recently on Hilltown Disco’s charity compilation.

Romphea distills his sound on ‘Blind Protocols’ into a fierce club-ready statement. The A-side delivers three break-neck electro cuts, loaded with acidic pressure and gripping, sweat-driven drum workouts. Flip it over and the EP slips into darker territory, leaning into EBM influences with two killer remixes from Hayter and Timothy J. Fairplay.

Limited to 300 copies on vinyl.

With »News from Planet Zombie«, The Notwist return to view after years of exploration and experiment with an album rich in both melancholy and positivity, sketched across a suite of thrilling, fiercely committed pop songs. It’s an album reflecting a chaotic world, but responding with warmth and generosity, to achieve creative and spiritual consolidation. Recorded in their home base of Munich, it reconnects with the security of the local to explore the troubles of the global: a guiding impulse writ large across this album’s eleven songs. It’s also the first studio album since 1995’s »12« that the entire band recorded together in the studio in its expanded live formation.

A new album by The Notwist is always a curious endeavour; their musical language is as consistent and resilient as the contexts for creativity are unpredictable and ever shifting. For »News from Planet Zombie«, the core trio of Markus and Micha Acher and Cico Beck embraced the plural possibilities of writing together, bringing songs to the collective and then arranging, rehearsing and recording that material live, in the studio.

The result is an album that’s energised, fully in ›the now‹, with spectacular moments where you can hear the magic bubbling up in the dynamic between the Achers, Beck, and fellow members Theresa Loibl, Max Punktezahl, Karl Ivar Refseth, and Andi Haberl. If »Teeth« begins »News from Planet Zombie« quietly and reflectively, by »X-Ray« everyone’s supercharged, blasting out future anthems with the collective energy cranked up high. The chiming keys of »Propeller« skim the instrumental’s surface like stones across burbling water; »The Turning« clangs its way into one of the album’s most heartwarming melodies.

»News from Planet Zombie« was recorded over one week at Import Export, a non-profit space for arts and music. You can tell, too; there are some pleasingly rough edges here, as though The Notwist’s striving for hazy perfection means they’re also confident enough to let the songs breathe and mutate between our ears. That openness to chance also takes in guest turns from friends both local and international, reflective of a cosmopolitan Munich: Enid Valu joins in on vocals, while Haruka Yoshizawa guests on taishōgoto and harmonium, Tianping Christoph Xiao on clarinet, and Mathias Götz on trombone.

The Notwist aren’t best known for cover versions, but »News from Planet Zombie« features two: a gorgeous version of Neil Young’s »Red Sun« (from 2000’s »Silver & Gold«), which the group originally developed for a theatre play directed by Jette Steckel, and a take on Athens, Georgia folk-pop gang Lovers’ »How the Story Ends«. They slot into the album’s narrative perfectly, nestling in like old friends, revealing The Notwist as poetic interpreters. Played well, the cover version is both acknowledgement of fellow travellers and act of generosity, and The Notwist nail both aspects here.

And that narrative, the way the album plays out? »News from Planet Zombie« acknowledges the distress of our current geopolitical impasse, while reminding us there are collective ways forward. Fed through the figure of the zombie, Markus Acher explores our anxieties: »In the title and some lyrics I reference B- and horror-movies, which is a reference to the crazy world at the moment, which seems to be like a really bad and unrealistic B-movie.« But there’s a reminder here not to lose the thread entirely, that these things, too, will pass.

»The river here in Munich I often go to has been there forever and will be there long after us,« Acher reflects, pinpointing an important source of succour for him, »always the same but always changing. Very calming, but also always reminding me that like this river time only flows into one direction and you can’t go back. Every moment is very precious.«

Artwork by Marie Vermont

The Notwist:
Markus Acher: vocals, guitar
Micha Acher: bass, sousaphone, euphonium, trumpet
Cico Beck: electronics, keyboards, guitar, recorder, percussion
Theresa Loibl: bassclarinet, clarinet, piano, harmonium, organ
Max Punktezahl: guitar
Karl Ivar Refseth: marimbaphone, vibraphone, glockenspiel, congas, percussion
Andi Haberl: drums, dulcimer
+
Enid Valu: vocals on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11
Haruka Yoshizawa: taishōgoto on 6, harmonium on 9, 10, 11
Tianping Christoph Xiao: clarinet on 4, 10, 11
Mathias Götz: trombone on 4, 10, 11

With »News from Planet Zombie«, The Notwist return to view after years of exploration and experiment with an album rich in both melancholy and positivity, sketched across a suite of thrilling, fiercely committed pop songs. It’s an album reflecting a chaotic world, but responding with warmth and generosity, to achieve creative and spiritual consolidation. Recorded in their home base of Munich, it reconnects with the security of the local to explore the troubles of the global: a guiding impulse writ large across this album’s eleven songs. It’s also the first studio album since 1995’s »12« that the entire band recorded together in the studio in its expanded live formation.

A new album by The Notwist is always a curious endeavour; their musical language is as consistent and resilient as the contexts for creativity are unpredictable and ever shifting. For »News from Planet Zombie«, the core trio of Markus and Micha Acher and Cico Beck embraced the plural possibilities of writing together, bringing songs to the collective and then arranging, rehearsing and recording that material live, in the studio.

The result is an album that’s energised, fully in ›the now‹, with spectacular moments where you can hear the magic bubbling up in the dynamic between the Achers, Beck, and fellow members Theresa Loibl, Max Punktezahl, Karl Ivar Refseth, and Andi Haberl. If »Teeth« begins »News from Planet Zombie« quietly and reflectively, by »X-Ray« everyone’s supercharged, blasting out future anthems with the collective energy cranked up high. The chiming keys of »Propeller« skim the instrumental’s surface like stones across burbling water; »The Turning« clangs its way into one of the album’s most heartwarming melodies.

»News from Planet Zombie« was recorded over one week at Import Export, a non-profit space for arts and music. You can tell, too; there are some pleasingly rough edges here, as though The Notwist’s striving for hazy perfection means they’re also confident enough to let the songs breathe and mutate between our ears. That openness to chance also takes in guest turns from friends both local and international, reflective of a cosmopolitan Munich: Enid Valu joins in on vocals, while Haruka Yoshizawa guests on taishōgoto and harmonium, Tianping Christoph Xiao on clarinet, and Mathias Götz on trombone.

The Notwist aren’t best known for cover versions, but »News from Planet Zombie« features two: a gorgeous version of Neil Young’s »Red Sun« (from 2000’s »Silver & Gold«), which the group originally developed for a theatre play directed by Jette Steckel, and a take on Athens, Georgia folk-pop gang Lovers’ »How the Story Ends«. They slot into the album’s narrative perfectly, nestling in like old friends, revealing The Notwist as poetic interpreters. Played well, the cover version is both acknowledgement of fellow travellers and act of generosity, and The Notwist nail both aspects here.

And that narrative, the way the album plays out? »News from Planet Zombie« acknowledges the distress of our current geopolitical impasse, while reminding us there are collective ways forward. Fed through the figure of the zombie, Markus Acher explores our anxieties: »In the title and some lyrics I reference B- and horror-movies, which is a reference to the crazy world at the moment, which seems to be like a really bad and unrealistic B-movie.« But there’s a reminder here not to lose the thread entirely, that these things, too, will pass.

»The river here in Munich I often go to has been there forever and will be there long after us,« Acher reflects, pinpointing an important source of succour for him, »always the same but always changing. Very calming, but also always reminding me that like this river time only flows into one direction and you can’t go back. Every moment is very precious.«

Artwork by Marie Vermont

The Notwist:
Markus Acher: vocals, guitar
Micha Acher: bass, sousaphone, euphonium, trumpet
Cico Beck: electronics, keyboards, guitar, recorder, percussion
Theresa Loibl: bassclarinet, clarinet, piano, harmonium, organ
Max Punktezahl: guitar
Karl Ivar Refseth: marimbaphone, vibraphone, glockenspiel, congas, percussion
Andi Haberl: drums, dulcimer
+
Enid Valu: vocals on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11
Haruka Yoshizawa: taishōgoto on 6, harmonium on 9, 10, 11
Tianping Christoph Xiao: clarinet on 4, 10, 11
Mathias Götz: trombone on 4, 10, 11

In 2023, Wood secretly worked with producer Kevin Antreassian on a new mix of his top-selling release "The Normal Album." Digging into the original 2019 recordings for more muscular takes, smoother edits, and a more nuanced and balanced mix, Antreassian and Wood created a version of the fan favorite that is one of the rare cases where a new mix is widely considered to improve on the original noticeably. "The Normal Album" is yet another turn in Wood's discography, sardonically playing with Americana and doo-wop sounds, strategically restrained but still highly emotive vocals, and lyrics densely packed with scientific and philosophical references. The dark mania of Wood's prior 2016 release, "SELF-iSH," continues on some tracks but is arranged with greater precision with a new band at his command. Like his 2015 debut "Everything is a Lot," the songs whiplash tonally but are brought together through intertwined themes and recurrent musical motifs and an undercurrent of simultaneous obtuseness and vulnerability. After the original mix of "The Normal Album" was released, a live version of the 4th track on the LP, "I/Me/Myself," had an unexpected viral moment, which brought attention to many other songs on the LP. Songs like "2econd 2ight 2eer" and "Laplace's Angel" continued to attract new fans with their dense wordplay and high-energy attitude, and the album became Wood's first major break into larger notoriety, proving that his sudden burst of popularity was not just a fleeting trend. After taking some time away from the public, Wood began to revisit the album with the intent of giving it the production that he had originally envisioned for it. Wood's top-selling album re-edited for a fuller sound and clearer instrumentation, bringing the album to a new level: new Modern Stereo Mix - 2023 Edit

A journey into the raw and visceral origins: from the demo sessions mixed by Steve Albini to the night of the very first secret show on December 20th, 1988. In the heart of Chicago, Geordie and Martin Atkins turned frustration and distance into pure creative energy, recording the now-legendary "Black Cassette" demos at Albini"s house. Distorted, menacing bass lines, unruly oscillators, and Albini running endlessly up and down the stairs between the basement drum room and the pantry control room defined a sound that was brutally direct and uncompromising. The first interactions with the Yamaha drum machine foreshadowed elements that would later shape parts of the album. Those sessions sparked essential ideas, while the future studio - purchased from Steve and moved to Wabash Ave - would soon become the core of Invisible Records and Killing Joke"s operations. On the other side, a truly rare document: excerpts from Atkins"s very first show with the band, at Burberries in Birmingham on December 20th, 1988. In a small, mirror-lined club filled with tension, adrenaline, and inevitable collisions with the walls, Extremities, The Fanatic, Intravenous, and The Beautiful Dead were performed publicly for the first time. It was the night when everything ignited: the blast beat still in its embryonic stage, the controlled fury Geordie demanded - "can you go a bit more Moonie on it?" - and above all Jaz"s theatrical yet strikingly genuine laughter. Not just joy, but a declaration: a giant "fuck off" to the doubters and a prelude of what was about to come. A raw, essential, indispensable testimony: the birth of an era.

A journey into the raw and visceral origins: from the demo sessions mixed by Steve Albini to the night of the very first secret show on December 20th, 1988. In the heart of Chicago, Geordie and Martin Atkins turned frustration and distance into pure creative energy, recording the now-legendary "Black Cassette" demos at Albini"s house. Distorted, menacing bass lines, unruly oscillators, and Albini running endlessly up and down the stairs between the basement drum room and the pantry control room defined a sound that was brutally direct and uncompromising. The first interactions with the Yamaha drum machine foreshadowed elements that would later shape parts of the album. Those sessions sparked essential ideas, while the future studio - purchased from Steve and moved to Wabash Ave - would soon become the core of Invisible Records and Killing Joke"s operations. On the other side, a truly rare document: excerpts from Atkins"s very first show with the band, at Burberries in Birmingham on December 20th, 1988. In a small, mirror-lined club filled with tension, adrenaline, and inevitable collisions with the walls, Extremities, The Fanatic, Intravenous, and The Beautiful Dead were performed publicly for the first time. It was the night when everything ignited: the blast beat still in its embryonic stage, the controlled fury Geordie demanded - "can you go a bit more Moonie on it?" - and above all Jaz"s theatrical yet strikingly genuine laughter. Not just joy, but a declaration: a giant "fuck off" to the doubters and a prelude of what was about to come. A raw, essential, indispensable testimony: the birth of an era.

Demetrio Castellucci and Massimo Pupillo present the music of Sleep Technique, a performance by Dewey Dell inspired by the Chauvet cave and its ancient cave paintings.
The music comes to life anew on record, an immersion into the depths of sonic particles, moist electroacoustic rhythms, the repeated forms of speleothems, and the electric bass that scrapes the walls, shaping them into concave or convex surfaces. A voice that moves incredibly slowly, yet is in constant motion, like the millennia-old, unceasing erosion of water.
The album’s journey follows the geography of the cave in reverse, moving from its deepest chamber back to the entrance.

Demetrio Castellucci is a composer and sound designer who has been involved in theater productions, choreography, and film since 2004. Around the same time, he began performing as a DJ, favoring an omnitemporal approach geared toward dance that transcends musical genres. Since 2006, he has been a member of the dance company Dewey Dell, and since 2007, he has been active as Black Fanfare, a maximalist electroacoustic project. He has collaborated on performances by Andreco and Enrico Ticconi/Ginevra Panzetti, as well as on films by Ahmed Ben Nessib, Beatrice Pucci, and Ilaria di Carlo. After living in London and Berlin, he settled in Vilnius, where in 2018 he founded Unarcheology, a digital platform that publishes music and radio programs. He is also active as Airport Gad, an ambient project which, together with Unarcheology, launched its own “Airline Company”: concerts in a flight simulator built from cardboard, where the pilots are also the musicians.

Massimo Pupillo is best known as a founding member of the band Zu, with whom he has released 18 albums and performed over 2,000 live shows worldwide. He has maintained a highly open and multidisciplinary approach that has led him to work with some of the most acclaimed figures in the contemporary art world: South African photographer Roger Ballen, actors Malcolm McDowell and Marton Csokas, Romeo Castellucci and Chiara Guidi of Societas Raffaello Sanzio, American choreographer Meg Stuart, poet Anne Waldman, and Italian poet Gabriele Tinti, among others. He has collaborated live and in the studio with avant-garde musicians and composers such as Alvin Curran, piano duo Katia & Marielle Labèque, and classical virtuosos like Viktoria Mullova and Giovanni Sollima. He has also worked with some of the most influential names in the international rock scene, including Mike Patton, Thurston Moore, Jim O’Rourke (Sonic Youth), Guy Picciotto & Joe Lally (Fugazi), Buzz Osborne (Melvins), and Damo Suzuki (CAN).

In the field of improvised music, he has collaborated with Peter Brötzmann, Toshinori Kondo, Mats Gustafsson, Ken Vandermark, and Tony Buck, among others. Within the experimental music scene, his collaborations include Oren Ambarchi, David Tibet (Current 93), Thighpaulsandra (Coil), Stephen O’Malley (Sunn O))), Abul Mogard, Mick Harris (Scorn), Gordon Sharp (This Mortal Coil), FM Einheit (Einstürzende Neubauten), and many more. In cinema, he composed the score for Kirill Serebrennikov’s film LIMONOV, presented at Festival de Cannes in 2024.

The “5” Royales were the most enduring and influential of all the 1950s proto-soul groups. In a very crowded market, their success was remarkable. The Royales were the first African American group to introduce gospel based vocal styles into the rhythm and blues format. This gave an intensity to their recordings and live performances that no other combo could get near, thanks to the passion and power that lead singer Johnny Tanner generated. Furthermore, the group possessed in Lowman Pauling a songwriter of genius and a guitarist, who invented an exciting style of playing that linked stinging solos with rhythmic accompaniment. The Harbingers Of Soul is a mouth-watering overview featuring the best of the King era and the most soulful sides from their stay at Home Of The Blues. 180gsm vinyl. Sleeve notes by John Ridley.

MF Robots return with a euphoric blend of Afro-soul-funk, delivering a release brimming with optimism, tight vocals, and the inescapable grooves that have become their signature. This album is a celebration of life, love, and musical joy, radiating positivity from start to finish.


Co-founder Jan Kincaid describes the track Glide as “a celebration of the unfolding of a love story.” From its romantic, reflective instrumental introduction to the soulfully upbeat opening bars, the listener is immediately swept into a journey.

True to MF Robots’ style, the track is joyful and celebratory, yet it pushes further—exploring the path love takes over time, and how, when it works, we can glide through life’s challenges with the right person by our side.


The album’s vibe is exuberant and full of energy, paying homage to soulful greats while adding a modern twist. There’s a subtle nod to legends like Earth, Wind & Fire, but what truly shines through is the sense of fun—the feeling that MF Robots are having an absolute ball singing, playing, and creating music that moves both body and soul.

MF Robots return with a euphoric blend of Afro-soul-funk, delivering a release brimming with optimism, tight vocals, and the inescapable grooves that have become their signature. This album is a celebration of life, love, and musical joy, radiating positivity from start to finish.


Co-founder Jan Kincaid describes the track Glide as “a celebration of the unfolding of a love story.” From its romantic, reflective instrumental introduction to the soulfully upbeat opening bars, the listener is immediately swept into a journey.

True to MF Robots’ style, the track is joyful and celebratory, yet it pushes further—exploring the path love takes over time, and how, when it works, we can glide through life’s challenges with the right person by our side.


The album’s vibe is exuberant and full of energy, paying homage to soulful greats while adding a modern twist. There’s a subtle nod to legends like Earth, Wind & Fire, but what truly shines through is the sense of fun—the feeling that MF Robots are having an absolute ball singing, playing, and creating music that moves both body and soul.

Solid Ball of Rock is the tenth studio album by legendary heavy metal band Saxon and was originally released in 1991. Five of its eleven tracks were written by new bassist Nibbs Carter, who co-wrote another three songs.

The addition of young bassist Nibbs Carter seemed to inject new life into the group, which unleashed some of its most aggressive songs in years, including the full-on thrashing "Altar of the Gods" and positively scorching "Baptism of Fire."

"For our audience – and without an audience there is no band – our focus returned on Solid Ball of Rock…" noted singer Biff Byford. "Since then, we've been right on it."

Solid Ball of Rock is available as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on silver vinyl and includes an insert.

The very special return of Boo Williams on Rush Hour. A trip from the Strictly Jaz Unit member that reflects on the sound that has been and where it's going.

Timeless house music from Chicago that draws heavily on Boo's styles and influences from the past, fusing it into a completely idiosyncratic style that is paying tribute to past yet simultaneously looking to the future. Delving very deep without losing form for the dancefloor. A timeless addition to the vast catalogue of heavy classics by Boo!

Constellation Tatsu welcomes US artist Brendan Principato aka Saapato for what is a hugely conceptual new album based around decomposition. It was sparked when Saapato saw a dead fox lying by the side of the road on his way home from a job in a local warehouse. He used that as a jumping-off point to interrogate "transformation, interconnectedness, and renewal" and the five stages of decomposition, namely fresh, bloat, active decay, advanced decay and dry/remains. Several collaborators help him on his way as he sketches out various instrumental textures which variously have occasional shards of light, lingering melancholy and a subtle sense of hope.

WRWTFWW Records is delighted to announce the first-ever vinyl release of Art Form I, the overlooked 1997 compilation from Tokyo’s cult imprint FORM@ RECORDS, now available as a limited edition double LP housed in a heavyweight sleeve as part of the ongoing collaborative series between the Swiss and Japanese labels.
Originally issued only on CD, Art Form I is a fascinating deep dive into the rich and singular world of late ’90s Tokyo electronic music—an inspired collection of timeless IDM, techno, ambient, and electronica experiments. Showcasing a roster of visionary underground artists including fan-favorite Virgo (Landform Code, Remnants), the compilation maps the innovative spirit of the era: emotional machine music, intricate rhythmic architecture, mind-expanding textures, and the soulful heart that serves as the solid foundation of everything FORM@ RECORDS.
Art Form I reminds of the pioneering explorations from Warp’s Artificial Intelligence series, B12, The Black Dog, Ken Ishii, and early Carl Craig, all while maintaining its own distinctive local identity. This long-awaited vinyl edition offers listeners a fully immersive rediscovery of a pivotal moment in underground music.
Following the acclaimed reissues of Virgo’s Landform Code (1998) and Remnants (1999), the simultaneous releases of Art Form I and Art Form 2 (1998) continue the archival collaboration between WRWTFWW Records and FORM@ RECORDS, with a forthcoming vinyl edition of remix collection Re-Form Ver-1.0 (1999) to follow.

Kiva, the first and only album from Royce Doherty and Paul Mac’s duo project of the same name, is a sparkling gem hiding in plain sight within the Australian musical canon. Originally released in 1997 by id/Mercury, Kiva offers up a collection of timeless queer pop songs draped in dreamy ambient, downbeat and dub sensibilities. The music is the product of a serendipitous meeting of minds between two young music obsessives who crossed paths in Melbourne in mid ‘90s. It’s also a perfect evocation of the futuristic techno-utopian impulses that supercharged the global electronica counterculture during the race towards the 21st century. “I never had these big diva plans or anything like that,” Royce reflects. “It just sort of evolved that way.”

Nearly three decades after the fact, Royce and Paul remember Kiva as a golden moment of creative synergy. “When I listen back to this album now, it’s got such a vibe and feel that’s really its own,” Paul enthused. “There's so much of our version of dub on this record. It’s beautiful hearing Royce's core song ideas stretched out to eight minutes of trippy, acid kind of moments set over slow breakbeats and stuff. It felt so fresh being able to have this elastic sound, pull songs apart and stretch them into space.”

Originally released in 1997, this CD has been gracing select chill-out rooms, and queer afters-sessions ever since. With a loving remaster by Mikey Young, this infrequent discogs pop-up is now yours to own on vinyl for eternity (born). This is a Vinyl Only Release

The Venetian Orchestra strikes again, this time with "Señora" on the A side, an extended new take on Victor “Il Pirulli’s” rendition of “Señora”, kept in secret for years, but a track that few lucky ones might have already heard on certain DJ Harvey sets over the last recent years. Skilfully encapsulating the Balearic juices of the original while still giving it a playful full bodied new sound, sitting somewhere in between the categories of a remix and cover version with a newly made instrumentation, pure drama!
B side shifts the listener into a slower gear with a Gypsy Kings downtempo classic “Caminando”, stretching it out into dreamy mediterranean bliss, a chuggy dub atmospheric re-work of a Flamenco love anthem. Limited quantities, buy on sight.

James Ruskin's Blueprint Records continues its 30-year celebrations with a new EP by Kr!z who returns with his fourth EP for the label. Kr!z made his Blueprint debut in fine style with his "Neutrino EP" in 2022 and went on to deliver the "Revelation EP" in 2023 and "Horo EP" in 2024 so it's fitting that he's back to join in this landmark label anniversary.

Kr!z has been at the forefront of techno for more than a decade. Influenced by the hypnotic and energetic sound helmed by veterans such as Jeff Mills, Steve Rachmad and James Ruskin, he gradually but steadily developed his own identity in the international techno scene.

After making a name for himself as a skilled DJ with sharp focus and a quick mixing style in home country Belgium and the Netherlands, Kr!z launched Token Records in 2007. It has since been a leading outlet for heady, purist sounds. He rapidly established the label as a fixed value with a timeless and powerful sound and took it around the world with label nights on every continent. Token remains important in defining techno today - always straightforward, sometimes weird, often catchy - all under the helm of Kr!z as avid A&R.

After 12 years spent assiduously focused on curating the Token discography, showcasing artists he has nurtured and supported over this time, and incorporating the connoisseur's knowledge and experience he has cultivated in his work as a DJ, in 2019 he released his own debut EP "Mantra" on the label, earning high acclaim from both media and key DJs. Since then, he has continued to develop a strong body of work, regularly releasing on the influential Blueprint Records and SK_eleven alongside his own Token imprint, and producing aseries of notable remixes. This steady output has established him as a key figure within the techno landscape, recognized for both consistency and artistic depth.

Kr!z's latest Blueprint EP "Footprints" is released 13th March on vinyl and digitally.

KALEIDOBOLT’s fifth album is pungent to the ears – KARAKUCHI out in March Karakuchi is one record you can judge by its cover. The first time Kaleidobolt’s faces have adorned an LP, they have been fused into a torpedoing biomechanical vehicle. Echoing The Birthday Party’s Junkyard or Motörhead’s Orgasmatron (…on acid?!), the illustration epitomises perfectly Kaleidobolt’s agenda of “hyperkinetic rock”. Their feverish, psych-prog sound is full of motion. It jerks around at different speeds, threatening to spin out of control and crash into flames at any given moment. What’s more, it isn’t taken too seriously. This is heavy and intricate music, yes. But as bassist and co-singer Marco Menestrina puts it, the Kaleidobolt attitude is “an ugly smirk more than an angry face with a fist.” On their fifth album since forming in 2014, the Helsinki-based outfit lean into their strengths as a formidable power trio. With their previous two records, 2019’s Bitter and 2022’s This One Simple Trick, they had thrown everything at their disposal into the recording with no expense spared on overdubs, effects and kitchen sinks. Produced again by Niko Lehdontie (Oranssi Pazuzu), Karakuchi comes from tightly rehearsed, live-in-the-studio takes. Kaleidobolt realise that greater sparsity can be a strength, and they’ve allowed their instruments extra space to breathe. It makes for their earthiest, purest and perhaps most authentic record to date. Karakuchi’s exuberant style emerges from the individual members’ contrasting listening habits. These span classic prog, Japanese city pop, noise rock, post-hardcore and historical podcasts. One record they can all agree is a masterpiece, the centre of the Venn diagram where all three members meet, is King Crimson’s Red. As for their new album’s title, that’s as suitable as the cover art. “Karakuchi” is the slogan of the Japanese beer brand Asahi Super Dry. Translated literally, this means “pungent to the mouth”. As drinkers of that product, Kaleidobolt acknowledge its parallels to their songs. “It’s very intense, right at the front, like at the first bite,” explains Menestrina. “And then it leaves your mouth feeling refreshed. The flavour doesn’t linger in your mouth, basically. It has a quick, hard finish. With a bit of a stretch, we thought that that could also be said of our music.” Karakuchi is Kaleidobolt at their hardest, fastest, tightest and super-driest. Pungent to the ears. -JR Moores, November 2025

KALEIDOBOLT’s fifth album is pungent to the ears – KARAKUCHI out in March Karakuchi is one record you can judge by its cover. The first time Kaleidobolt’s faces have adorned an LP, they have been fused into a torpedoing biomechanical vehicle. Echoing The Birthday Party’s Junkyard or Motörhead’s Orgasmatron (…on acid?!), the illustration epitomises perfectly Kaleidobolt’s agenda of “hyperkinetic rock”. Their feverish, psych-prog sound is full of motion. It jerks around at different speeds, threatening to spin out of control and crash into flames at any given moment. What’s more, it isn’t taken too seriously. This is heavy and intricate music, yes. But as bassist and co-singer Marco Menestrina puts it, the Kaleidobolt attitude is “an ugly smirk more than an angry face with a fist.” On their fifth album since forming in 2014, the Helsinki-based outfit lean into their strengths as a formidable power trio. With their previous two records, 2019’s Bitter and 2022’s This One Simple Trick, they had thrown everything at their disposal into the recording with no expense spared on overdubs, effects and kitchen sinks. Produced again by Niko Lehdontie (Oranssi Pazuzu), Karakuchi comes from tightly rehearsed, live-in-the-studio takes. Kaleidobolt realise that greater sparsity can be a strength, and they’ve allowed their instruments extra space to breathe. It makes for their earthiest, purest and perhaps most authentic record to date. Karakuchi’s exuberant style emerges from the individual members’ contrasting listening habits. These span classic prog, Japanese city pop, noise rock, post-hardcore and historical podcasts. One record they can all agree is a masterpiece, the centre of the Venn diagram where all three members meet, is King Crimson’s Red. As for their new album’s title, that’s as suitable as the cover art. “Karakuchi” is the slogan of the Japanese beer brand Asahi Super Dry. Translated literally, this means “pungent to the mouth”. As drinkers of that product, Kaleidobolt acknowledge its parallels to their songs. “It’s very intense, right at the front, like at the first bite,” explains Menestrina. “And then it leaves your mouth feeling refreshed. The flavour doesn’t linger in your mouth, basically. It has a quick, hard finish. With a bit of a stretch, we thought that that could also be said of our music.” Karakuchi is Kaleidobolt at their hardest, fastest, tightest and super-driest. Pungent to the ears. -JR Moores, November 2025

On the release of his debut EP, aldn shares, “‘greenhouse’ represents my mind and thoughts. The individual songs represent the different plants within that greenhouse. Each song gets its own special attention and dedication just like a plant would. Everything on this EP was written and produced by me which makes them extremely personal to me, I’ve grown them all from a simple melody into what they are today. I want all of these songs to be put into your own interpretations to make them more personal to you.”

Through the interwoven storylines and soundscapes of greenhouse, aldn’s experimentation with a broadly sculptured experimental palette shares a snapshot into the worldbuilding he has created over the past two years, an honest representation of the thoughts you only feel comfortable sharing through the lens of your phone, and a therapeutic diary entry set to the dim lights of the corners of the club. As the world moved online in the past year, this new music became even more of a crucial component as a direct means of communication where crossed wires connect the dots more than ever.

We Release JAZZ is very happy to announce the limited vinyl edition of Ill Considered's transcendent new live album Live in Jura, an expansive document of the trio's 2023 performance at Spiegelberg Festival - now available as a double LP with a bonus D-side, housed in a heavyweight sleeve with obi and an original artwork by Vincent de Boer.
Captured in the heights of Saignelégier, Switzerland, in the middle of a pasture overlooking the Jura mountains, Live in Jura bottles the singular Ill Considered live experience at its most open, responsive, and elemental. From Idris Rahman (sax, flute), Liran Donin (bass), and Emre Ramazanoglu (drums), this is deep free improv built from intuition and heart - an ever-evolving conversation of groove, texture, and spirit. Whispered motifs bloom into towering climaxes; earthy bass surges meet shimmering cymbal work; woodwind lines move from meditative invocation to ecstatic release. It is music shaped by the audience, the environment, and the moment : alive, unrepeatable, and deeply organic.
The bonus D-side extends the album's world with a unique ambient composition made from field-recorded organic sounds of the forest surrounding the concert area. Re-composed into a drifting, luminous piece, it features The Voices of the Alpenglow, blurring the boundary between performance and landscape, human gesture and elemental presence.
Ill Considered - known for forging improvised music around simple themes or spontaneously created structures - here reach a new level of sensitivity and power. Live in Jura follows We Release JAZZ's release of Shoals by Ill Considered members Earth and Bones, continuing a line of exploratory, heart-forward music grounded in profound listening and spontaneous creation.

Sicilian-born, Amsterdam-based Fran LF returns to Nastia's imprint with three Techno tracks built over a year of studio work, each one telling part of a single story that unfolds across the EP. The narrative moves through different chapters, starting with tracks that shift and transform as they play out, building tension through evolving elements rather than straightforward drops. These are straight-up warehouse cuts - the kind that start one way and shift into something heavier as they unfold. Dubby atmospheres that harden into driving rhythms, basslines that anchor the groove, and synths that evolve throughout.
Closing the record is a remix from Sicilian producer LPV, a close friend and admirer who reworks "Tsufuru Relaxation" with his signature dark, driving approach. He strips it down, adds a relentless bassline, and gives the track a completely different, moody and ethereal energy while respecting what made the original work.
Solid dancefloor techno with enough depth to keep things interesting.

Julius Hemphill's debut record, 1972's Dogon A.D., was self-produced for his Mbari imprint, and it was issued with a beautiful black-and-white cover. Very DIY. The label's name writ large along the bottom edge, like it was the band's name. It's a quartet record featuring Hemphill on alto and flute, with Baikida Carroll on trumpet, Abdul Wadud on cello, and Phillip Wilson on drums – a classic jazz front line/rhythm section format, but nothing conventional about the way the music sounds.

The long track – from where the LP takes its title – is one of the key epic statements of new jazz in the era. Among its remarkable distinctions, it manages to draw on Wilson's schizoid experience having been a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and the first drummer for the Art Ensemble of Chicago, in making an 11/8 rhythm into a staggeringly funky thing of joy. Over the course of fourteen and a half minutes, Hemphill builds a nearly continuous solo, his spiritual blood brother Wadud sawing the cello with a deep blues soulfulness that is raw and mantra-like in its repetitive incantation. It feels right and wrong in equal measure, the theme carrying its own piquancy with honked barnyard dissonances and some contrary motion between the horns and string. Most of all, it takes its own sweet time, in no hurry to get anywhere in particular, but out for a righteous stroll. – John Corbett (excerpt from the liner notes)

Michel Houellebecq is, of course, well-known for his novels, translated into more than 40 languages, and his Goncourt Prize (The Map and the Territory, 2010), but perhaps less so for his debut album, released exactly a quarter of a century ago on Tricatel label. One can sense the influence of Serge Gainsbourg's L'Homme à la Tête de Chou, a disillusioned Procol Harum and a world-weary Burt Bacharach hovering over Houellebecq's poems in Présence Humaine, a now cult classic album orchestrated by Bertrand Burgalat and the musicians of Eiffel. Twelve thousand copies sold and a few concerts later, the writer decided (or so we thought) to bid farewell to the stage, only to generate more media attention though his literary success. Frédéric Lo is, of course, known as an exceptional lyricist, composer, arranger, and producer, author of a sublime fourth solo album (L'Outrebleu, released last March) and a master of collaborative work, notably with Bill Pritchard, Peter Doherty and Daniel Darc. Initially, Michel Houellebecq and Frédéric Lo met for the tribute album that the latter was planning for the tenth anniversary of Daniel Darc's death, but their recording of "Psalm XXIII" was, to their great disappointment, rejected by the label and therefore did not appear on the final version of Cœur Sacré (2023). Fortunately, every cloud has a silver lining, and the two men decided to take their collaboration a step further. Lo decided to set the writer's words to music, in his studio in Pantin. Raw, stripped-down music draped in electronica, adorned with piano and antediluvian drum machines, often minimalist, sometimes repetitive, provides the perfect backdrop for twelve tracks that question and reflect on humanity's past and future (if indeed there is one). Reflections on the human condition, 21st-century style, a work of speculative fiction conceived by two eternally modern "young lads," Souvenez-Vous de l'Homme (Remember Man) is an album that might occasionally evoke The Stranglers' La Folie, and, given the title, that's probably no coincidence. But above all, it's a hypnotic and melancholic album, uncompromising and captivating. Most importantly, it's an album like no other.

The new record follows Priddy"s sophomore LP "The Pendulum Swing" which firmly established her as one of the most exciting artists on the contemporary British music scene. Produced by Rob Ellis (PJ Harvey, Anna Calvi, Bat for Lashes), "These Frightening Machines" was written over the course of a year as Priddy made the transition from her 20s to her 30s. The most sonically varied of her career, the songs span a full spectrum of emotions from anger and despair to hope, longing and lust, from reclaiming the voices of women silenced by history, to expressing solidarity and love, to confronting illness, disconnection, the vulnerability and importance of relationships, and the general ache of growing older and not always wiser. They explore what it means to keep going when things fall apart, to hold onto connections in a world that sometimes divides, and to figure out where we fit into the machines and systems we find ourselves a part of.

The new record follows Priddy"s sophomore LP "The Pendulum Swing" which firmly established her as one of the most exciting artists on the contemporary British music scene. Produced by Rob Ellis (PJ Harvey, Anna Calvi, Bat for Lashes), "These Frightening Machines" was written over the course of a year as Priddy made the transition from her 20s to her 30s. The most sonically varied of her career, the songs span a full spectrum of emotions from anger and despair to hope, longing and lust, from reclaiming the voices of women silenced by history, to expressing solidarity and love, to confronting illness, disconnection, the vulnerability and importance of relationships, and the general ache of growing older and not always wiser. They explore what it means to keep going when things fall apart, to hold onto connections in a world that sometimes divides, and to figure out where we fit into the machines and systems we find ourselves a part of.

One of the UK’s most singular voices, Murkage Dave has spent the last decade crafting a body of work that refuses to fit neatly into any genre box. His music, loosely pop but informed by indie, outsider art, and an instinct for storytelling, is built on honesty, empathy, and fearless social commentary. Across his career, he has earned a cult following and praise from Pharrel Williams, Iggy Pop, BBC Radio 6 Music, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Clash, Complex, Highsnobiety, and Vogue. His debut album Murkage Dave Changed My Life (2018) amassed over 12 million Spotify streams, while follow-up The City Needs A Hero (2022) reached #10 on the UK iTunes Chart and #15 on the UK Independent Chart.

Since 2020, 12 Inch Lovers have been releasing new samplers every year, eagerly anticipated by collectors. These samplers have now become a staple and are easily added to vinyl collections across Europe. They offer timeless classics and rare tracks that are often hard to find elsewhere.

With Samplers 11 & 12, they surprise again with a mix of modern classics and tracks that have never been released on vinyl or are difficult to find. By adding unique and exclusive tracks, the 12 Inch Lovers samplers remain innovative and high-quality. They are a must-have for DJs, collectors, and fans of contemporary classics!

SAMPLER 11

A1) Paul Kalkbrenner - No Goodbye (2019)

Berlin techno producer Paul Kalkbrenner became world-famous with his 2008 hit Sky & Sand. Since then, he has released one record after another and performed all over the world in the biggest venues and at the most renowned festivals. No Goodbye is one of his more recent hits, released in the summer of 2019.

The track was created using an a cappella he received on a demo tape while on tour. He was immediately inspired by the vocal and built his own sound and production around it. Interestingly, Kalkbrenner rarely uses vocals, but for No Goodbye he collaborated with Australian singer Chiara Hunter, giving the track a unique and instantly recognisable character. The result is a stylish, dance-floor-friendly track with a rolling house groove that quickly became a modern classic on dance floors worldwide.

A2) Water World - Give Me Love (2000)

This trance classic by Water World appeared in 2000 on the French label Adequat Records and is the perfect tune for a sunny summer evening. Warm melodies and pulsing beats instantly create that beach feeling, as if you were dancing with your feet in the sand. The record recalls Beachball by Nalin & Kane, sharing the same dreamy, sun-drenched vibe.

Behind Water World were producers Laurent David and Frédéric De Backer-names well known to many trance fans. In the nineties De Backer was active with projects such as Global Trance Mission (Dream Mission) and Y-Traxx, the trio that released the 1997 classic Mystery Land.

Give Me Love clearly bears their combined signature: euphoric, warm and melodic, with a timeless build that perfectly balances emotion and energy. The track was released on vinyl as part of Trance E.P. Vol. 01 and remains a fixture in retro-trance sets to this day.

B1) Panoramic - Colors (1996)

Colors by Panoramic is a Belgian trance classic released in 1996 on the legendary label XTC Records, a sub-label of Bonzai Records. Panoramic was a collaboration between Belgian techno icon Marco Bailey and Mauro Mirisola. The duo, also known under playful aliases such as The Coke Man & Sniff, released an EP featuring two powerful trance tracks.

We chose Colors, a tune with pure Belgian trance DNA: driving rhythm, dreamy synths and a catchy female vocal. The combination of Bailey's production expertise and Mirisola's creative touch resulted in a timeless track that still appears in many classic playlists.

B2) Natasha Bedingfield - Pocketful Of Sunshine (StoneBridge Club Remix) (2008)

British singer-songwriter Natasha Bedingfield released the album Pocketful of Sunshine in 2008, featuring the title track as a single. The original pop version became a major hit in North America, reaching the Top 5 in the US. Swedish DJ and producer StoneBridge (Sten Hallström) reworked the song into a groovy house version, released in the summer of 2008.

StoneBridge gave the upbeat pop tune a club-ready beat and an infectious piano riff that made it shine on dance floors worldwide. It was not his first time transforming pop into house gold-he had already achieved global fame with his remix of Robin S - Show Me Love (1992), one of the greatest house anthems of all time. He also remixed Sia - The Girl You Lost to Cocaine in 2008, another club favourite.

The StoneBridge Club Remix of Pocketful of Sunshine appeared on a special remix EP in July 2008 and was played endlessly in clubs-by us too, in the venues where we performed. The result is a timeless, sun-soaked house classic thatmakes sitting still impossible.

C1) Y-Traxx - Mystery Land (Fred Baker vs Mr Sam's Magical Mystery Dub Mix) (original release 1995)

Y-Traxx was a nineties trance project by DJs Laurent David and Fred Baker. This trance classic first appeared in 1995 as a B-side but gained real attention when it featured on a Paul Oakenfold mix album. Thanks to that success it received an official re-release in 1998 on the respected French label FFRR (Full Frequency Range Recordings).

In 2003 an excellent remix by Mr. Sam & Fred Baker followed on the Nebula label. That version is highly sought after on vinyl by trance collectors, and we are proud to feature it on our new sampler.

C2) Weiss - Feel My Needs (2018)

Feel My Needs by British producer Weiss (alias Richard Dinsdale) is the tune with that unmistakable old-school piano and catchy vocal that instantly pulls you onto the dance floor. Released in May 2018on the UK label Toolroom Records, the track is pure feel-good house with a modern touch. From the very first piano riff, hands go up in the air.

Toolroom even called it a "future anthem" for the summer of 2018, and indeed Feel My Needs became a huge floor-filler. The record charted high on global dance lists and gained massive popularity at festivals and clubs that year. With its warm piano chords, tight beat and soulful vocal, this is a modern house classic that will stay in the collective club memory for a long time.

D1) The Killers - Mr. Brightside (Jacques Lu Cont's Thin White Duke Mix) (2005)

American band The Killers formed in 2001 and scored a massive hit a few years later with Mr Brightside. Taken from their debut album Hot Fuss (2004), it became their biggest and best-known track-a true rock-pop anthem.

In 2005 the song was given an electronic twist when renowned producer and remixer Jacques Lu Cont (the alias of Stuart Price) created an eight-minute dance version titled Mr Brightside (Jacques Lu Cont's Thin White Duke Mix). This remix replaced the raw rock energy with a more progressive and electronic vibe, driven by a steady beat and long build-up.

The track found a second life in club culture and quickly became a dance-floor favourite. For vinyl collectors it was an instant must-have, and to this day it stands as the perfect party closer. The Killers themselves loved it so much that they often used the remix live as an outro, followed by the original version. A remix that perfectly bridged rock and club culture-and has since become a genuine classic.

D2) Sia - Drink To Get Drunk (Different Gear Remix) (2001)

The legendary ice-cube sleeve says it all: Drink to Get Drunk was a huge club hit in the early 2000s. Released in 2001 on the UK label INCredible, a sub-label of Sony Music, it was a collaboration between British DJ duo DifferentGear (Gino Scaletti & Quinn Whalley) and singer Sia.

The producers took Sia's original song Drink to Get Drunk from her album Healing Is Difficult and gave it a complete transformation, keeping her distinctive vocal and placing it over a hypnotic progressive-house groove.

The combination of Sia's unmistakable voice and the deep, driving production hit hard: the track became hugely popular in Belgian clubs and turned into an anthem of its time. In Belgium it even reached number one in the dance chart in early 2001, and it also performed strongly in the UK and the Netherlands.

To this day it remains a nostalgic crowd-pleaser that perfectly captures the atmosphere of the early 2000s.

Cheeba’s Funky Rock Ensemble are back with two sides of funky rock breaks for hairy b-boys !

After the great feedback of their debut release 18 months ago, they went back into the studio soon afterwards to record some more slices of hip-hop orientated funky-psyche beats aimed at the dancefloor. Since then, both new tracks have been on a one-off dubplate and getting aired all over the country to an enthusiastic reception - so it’s about time we got them out there for everyone else to, like , just dig, maaaaan !

DRUG-CRAZED LONDON HIPPIES takes you down to the seedy back street clubs of late 60s swinging Soho - to the early discotheque scene and the psychedelic experience of numerous young rock groups and their fans. With heavy fuzz, funky beats and dirty flute loops this takes you straight to those hedonistic dancefloors in the early hours.

YOU WANNA RIDE ? Stays in the same era and same counter-culture, but on the other side of the Atlantic with the free festival vibe of alternative lifestyles in California. More fuzz-rock sounds, blended with heavy beats , screaming hammond and wordless female vocals to take you on a deep trip - to lose yourself in a field as the sun rises.

8-page lyric / drawing booklet, glossy poster, download card (inc. mp3s), white inner paper bags, sticker on cover.

After 7 strange years of relative silence, and 13 years of being a band, Dog Chocolate have returned with ‘So Inspired, So Done In’. Their fourth album is their most focused, cohesive and song-y yet. They still sound like a bin full of wasps, but now the bin has double-cream or a Viennetta or something at the bottom. While many of the 16 songs on here barely make it past the 3-minute mark, each one is bursting with all the textures and colours of an office cupboard: full of old sweets, fluorescent markers, and multiple ways to fix paper together.

Thematically, a lot of ground is covered, with songs tackling subject matter as diverse as overheard conversations, healing fungal toenails, the Rogerian concept of the Actualising Tendency, bronze age living conditions, dreaming songs into being and human-plant relations. Work (and anti-work) is a recurring theme, as is artistic inspiration and burnout. Dog Chocolate revel in the mundane and incidental, to explore bigger, existential questions. Recorded and mixed by POZI’s Toby Burroughs and mastered by Sofia Lopes, ‘So Inspired, So Done In’ charts a long and confusing period in the band’s collective life, marked by major life changes, losses and shifts, colouring the band’s trademark frantic, daft and anxious energy with a contemplative glaze. Dog Chocolate continue to investigate their internal and external landscapes with playful curiosity, frustration, silliness and empathy.

Pre/history of the band: In the early 2000’s Andrew (vocals), Rob (guitar, vocals) and Matthew (guitar, vocals) played together as teenagers in South-East London-based maximalist, costumed surrealist punk band Yeborobo. They met drummer Jonathan playing with his instrument-swapping masked band Limn at art space Utrophia in Deptford. Later, when both bands had split, Dog Chocolate formed with a shared desire to make a band that was simpler than their theatrical past: small amps and light guitars, no more than 2 drums at any one time, a keyboard no longer than a ruler and a shared ethos… “it’s about giving a shit, but at the same time not giving a shit, but not ‘whatever’, not giving up never!”. The band floated the term “pencilcase punk” to describe their jumbled, colourful, dense and instant music.

Dog Chocolate built on this early scrappiness, bedding into their sound over several albums. Their first “Or” (2014) was a split with Ravioli Me Away, soon followed by “Snack Fans” (2016) and “Moody Balloon Baby” (2018). Along the way they played gigs with bands as wide ranging as Deerhoof, No Age, Dry Cleaning, Palm, Daniel Wakeford, Shopping and Pozi.

With a tendency to converse with each other both lyrically and musically cultivated over many years, the members of Dog Chocolate bounce off each other, respectfully disagree, try to make each other laugh and share some of their most vulnerable feelings with each other. ‘So Inspired, So Done In’ is their own unique offering during these unsteady times: a language of friendship translated into songs.

With over 20 albums under his belt, John Beltran returns to his much-loved Placid Angles project with one of his strongest albums to date. Years of experience have brought a deep focus and awareness of textures, space and emotion that reveal a producer at the top of his game.

From the sound of slowly moving mountains that is the title track "Canada" to the breakbeat-laden "Hero BK" and collaborations with Sophia Stel, Tom VR, and Yussh, it's easy to hear why this album is special.

Beltran notes, "Everything from the scenery to the people just made sense, so I decided to dedicate this record to them and that beautiful country." He adds, "I think you'll hear a little bit of all of the Placid records in this one. I encapsulated what the project has always been and will continue to be moving forward."

On "Canada", the past is present in a joyous way, a record full of emotion and ambience connecting nostalgia with the now.
"That's what Placid Angles is," Beltran says. "A peek back into that wonderful era of music."

Welcome to the second instalment of the collaboration between THE REFLEX’ DISCOLIDAYS label and BECAUSE MUSIC in Paris, remixing gems from the ZAGORA catalogue.

Created in 1975 by producer Daniel Vangarde (father of Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter), the Zagora label created some of the most exciting disco music in France, ranging from cult underground artists Who’s Who and Starbow, to massive international hits by the Gibson Brothers, la Compagnie Créole and Black Blood.

On this 12’’, we’ve got two first time ever remixes from LA COMPAGNIE CREOLE, one of the most successful acts in France during the 80’s who expertly mixed tropical sounds from the West Indies with pop and disco to staggering record sales.

With tapes thought to be long lost, a chance find of stems from two of their songs not only makes this release possible, but also perfectly showcases two sides of the band with ‘Le Bal Masqué’ which was a huge hit commercially in 1984 and ‘La Nuit Des Requins’ which is probably their least known and most underground track, both masterminded by songwriters DANIEL VANGARDE and JEAN KLUGER.

‘LE BAL MASQUE’, now devoid of its cheesiest sections, puts the focus on that infectious groove adorned with percussions and electronics but with its singalong chorus intact and stronger than ever. A guaranteed tropical disco floor filler at 122bpm, regardless of your knowledge of the French language!

‘LA NUIT DES REQUINS’, an ode to session musicians found regularly in Paris studios back in the day, gets a complete overhaul by putting the exhilarating drums and killer bass line of the original to the fore into a brand new 124bpm version that is destined to rock the most discerning dance floors the world over.

Released on 180g vinyl with custom artwork on card sleeve designed by AL KENT / MILLION DOLLAR DISCO.

I started writing the songs for V at the beginning of 2023, and the demos were finished by the end of that year. While creating this material, I kept returning to one thought: everything we take for granted - everything that feels stable and permanent - is, in reality, incredibly fragile. Nothing lasts forever, and the sense of things slipping away can hit much sooner than we expect. I tried to translate those feelings into sound. At that time, a lot of difficult things were happening in my life, things I didn't know how to cope with. Music became a form of therapy - a way to process emotions I couldn't express in any other way. In early 2024, we began working through the songs together as a full band. After finalizing the arrangements, we spent the rest of the year recording them. The process stretched over many months, split into several sessions across different studios. I didn't want to rush anything. I wanted, as always, to refine every detail the best we possibly could. Soon you'll be able to hear the result for yourselves. For me, this album is something deeply personal. It's an act of opening up to anyone who chooses to listen - a glimpse into things I can't fully describe with words, into what I felt and who I became during that period. I'm incredibly happy that together with my friends from the band, we've created another record. What comes next_ time will tell.

Magenta Vinyl, limited to 450 copies. I started writing the songs for V at the beginning of 2023, and the demos were finished by the end of that year. While creating this material, I kept returning to one thought: everything we take for granted - everything that feels stable and permanent - is, in reality, incredibly fragile. Nothing lasts forever, and the sense of things slipping away can hit much sooner than we expect. I tried to translate those feelings into sound. At that time, a lot of difficult things were happening in my life, things I didn't know how to cope with. Music became a form of therapy - a way to process emotions I couldn't express in any other way. In early 2024, we began working through the songs together as a full band. After finalizing the arrangements, we spent the rest of the year recording them. The process stretched over many months, split into several sessions across different studios. I didn't want to rush anything. I wanted, as always, to refine every detail the best we possibly could. Soon you'll be able to hear the result for yourselves. For me, this album is something deeply personal. It's an act of opening up to anyone who chooses to listen - a glimpse into things I can't fully describe with words, into what I felt and who I became during that period. I'm incredibly happy that together with my friends from the band, we've created another record. What comes next_ time will tell.

2026 Repress


Another Thought was the first collection of Arthur Russell’s music to be released after his death in 1992. Released in 1993 on Point Music it marked the beginning of nearly 30 years of work to let the world hear the enormous archive of unreleased recordings Arthur left behind. Be With revisits this first compilation for a new gatefold double vinyl version and a triple-fold digipak CD reissue.

Both versions of Be With’s 2021 reissue of Another Thought have been mastered by Simon Francis and the vinyl cut by Pete Norman. The original artwork has been restored and tweaked at Be With HQ for the gatefold sleeve and the triple-fold digipak, with the essential help of Janette Beckman. Each version comes with an insert reproducing the liner notes and lyrics from the original CD release.

Together with Calling Out Of Context, Soul Jazz’s World of Arthur Russell, and much of the ongoing work of Audika, Another Thought is absolutely essential for even the most casual Arthur Russell collection. In fact we’d argue it’s essential for any fan of non-obvious pop music. This is the only place where you can hear some of Arthur’s most recognisable tunes and it’s an album that absolutely deserves to be kept in press.


We’ll assume that by now you’re all at least a little familiar with the story of Arthur Russell, the farm boy from Iowa who moved to 1970s New York. Arthur Russell the genuine musical genius who died just 40 years old, leaving behind a wealth of music that dwarfed the few 12"s and LPs that were released during his short life.

Although Arthur had been working on an album for Rough Trade during his last years, with the label no-longer operating it was Point Music (Philip Glass and Michael Riesman’s label set up together with Philips) who stepped in to help Arthur’s partner Tom Lee start working out exactly what Arthur had left behind.

Tom suggested that Arthur’s friend Mikel Rouse was the right person to make the first catalogue. Working in Tom and Arthur’s apartment he had only two weeks to go through what turned out to be around 800 tapes.

As Tom explained “at the end of each day he would generally wait for me to come home and I would, to the best of my knowledge, name and identify pieces in question from that day’s work. As he worked Mikel compiled about a dozen cassettes that he thought would present the most finished sounding songs for Don/Point to use. As Don listened he would then suggest and ask me and thus we collaborated on the choices.”

Don is Don Christensen, Another Thought’s producer. With a final selection of songs from recordings made between 1982 and 1990, including sessions with some of Arthur’s regular collaborators Peter Zummo, Steven Hall, Mustafa Ahmed, Elodie Lauten, Julius Eastman, Jennifer Warnes and Joyce Bowden, it was then Don’s job to turn these into a finished album.

Another Thought is a little different from the compilations of Arthur’s music that came out since. In our conversations with Steve Knutson (who founded Audika Records and who manages Arthur’s estate together with Tom), he explained that “more than any project released by Arthur during his lifetime or posthumously by Audika, ‘Another Thought’ is the most worked over. The material was significantly edited and rearranged from the original source tapes”.

If the aim was to release a comprehensive exploration of every facet of Arthur’s music, from the most avant-garde of his avant-garde compositions through to the most disco-not-disco of his disco-not-disco tunes then the project was a spectacular failure. But as a coherent album of non-obvious pop music Another Thought is wonderful.

Starting with the sparse voice-and-cello of the title track, A Little Lost adds some guitar along with the sneaking suspicion that we’re listening to something nowhere near as simple as it first sounds. By the time we get to This Is How We Walk On The Moon - it could be the moment you notice the congas, or the percussion that’s been building behind them, or maybe it’s that blast of trumpet and trombone - we realise we’ve gone from splashing around to being completely submerged in the musical world of Arthur Russell.

From here the album heads off on its journey around the sounds of the left-field contemporary classical music of the time, re-directed towards pop ears, with minor detours through the swirling woozy disco of the half-remembered night before on In The Light Of The Miracle and My Tiger, My Timing. Whether it’s just Arthur, his cello and some bleeps on Just A Blip, or whether he has some vocal help as he does on the bounding Keeping Up, this is difficult music made so, so easy. And through it all is Arthur’s voice and cello. Sometimes drowned in distortion and sometimes clear as a bell, but always there somewhere.

A Sudden Chill finally returns us to the calmer waters we started in and this last track closes the album with a melancholy that’s not surprising given how soon after Arthur’s death the album was put together.

Whilst Another Thought holds together with the consistency of a proper album, there’s still no getting away from the fact that this was put together from audio recorded in different ways, in different places, with different people at different times. Those with keen ears will hear traces of tape hiss, the occasional blown-out note and some digital fuzz, all fingerprints of those original recordings as well as of the 1990s digital equipment that was used to piece Another Thought together.

Add to this Arthur’s obvious pleasure in making music from the sort of sounds that can make microphones, speakers and ears uncomfortable, it’s no surprise that Another Thought isn’t glossy and pristine. Don Christensen’s productions have been careful to not scrub up those original recordings so much that they lose their original vibe, understandable given that Arthur wasn’t around as a guide. We’ve applied a similarly light touch with the mastering for these Be With versions, just working to make sure they sound like they should on both the vinyl and the CD.

Despite the Discogs rumours, Another Thought was never originally released as an LP. So when it came to the sleeve for this Be With vinyl version we took the original CD artwork as a starting point to come up with something that looks like it could have been in the record racks back in 1993.

We have to thank Janette Beckman for helping us reproduce her iconic photograph of Arthur in his newspaper boat hat. One of many photographs she took of Arthur, Janette shot this in her New York studio back in 1986 for a short article in the January ’87 issue of The Face Magazine. Those with eagle-eyes will notice we’ve used an ever-so-slightly different shot from the one that appeared in The Face and then again on the original cover of Another Thought. The original has long since been lost so we’ve worked with what is left in Janette’s archives. And we also have to thank Tom Lee for giving us permission to reproduce his liner notes from the original CD booklet, together with Arthur’s lyrics.

If you know your death metal history, you are then well aware that 'Hating Life' stands for one of GRAVE earliest and gnarliest demo days classics, later on rerecorded on their immortal debut 'Into The Grave', later on once again used as the title of their fourth full-length, back in 1996. So when a brand new entity proudly waving an old-school death metal flag and bearing the same name seemingly creeps out of nowhere, you're entitled to except the same kind of HM-2 drenched, tribute-in-disguise and downtuned death metal innit? Well, for the time being, the answer would be yes. And no at the same time. Not so hidden behind the whole thing is Santi, guitar player and founding member of ATARAXY, one of Spain most respected and relentless old-school death metal outfit since 2008. "The whole process was very spontaneous, the result of me jamming with a Gibson Les Paul and a HM-2 pedal and ending up soon with great riffs, melodies and plenty of ideas. With ATARAXY having now a very specific personality, it felt great to rediscover primitive death metal roots." Describing HATING LIFE overall sound as "putrid and raw", he doesn't deny the obvious GRAVE nod, especially since the opening track/intro of their debut recording is simply called 'Into The Grave'. "You can call it a tribute or a declaration of intent. The first GRAVE material was and remains a clear exponent, among many others, of the kind of death metal that truly motivated me to compose the tracks for this."

Recorded during lockdown and previously only available as a CDr self-released in an edition of 99 in 2022, 'The Sympathy Portal' collects four tracks (one of which is divided into three parts) that make full use of Edward Ka-Spel’s command of melodies, cosmic churn, subtle field recordings, percolated vocals, hypno-rhythms, tempered noise, broken clocks, atmospheric keyboards, uncoiling springs and carefully hewn dynamics. Coupled to often despairing or melancholic lyrics, the album ultimately forms a fantastic addition to a body of work from this hardworking artist usually found at home fronting The Legendary Pink Dots and apparently barely able to rest when not engaged in commitments to them. Here is what he says himself about 'The Sympathy Portal': “'The Sympathy Portal' was created as 2020 drifted into 2021 with the world in the grip of a pandemic. He studied charts on TV, horrified by statistics, temporarily free from a lockdown but well aware that we'd be back in our cubicles soon enough. It was hard to be positive in such an environment and this album reflects much of the fear and tension of the time. But the last song, 'Angel Trail ( Slight Return)', was intended to offer some genuine hope, having been revived for the release after first appearing in a different form on The Legendary Pink Dots' '9 Lives to Wonder' back in 1994.” The album pays testament to a troubled and troubling time that now, a mere few years on, strangely appears like the grand entrance to a series of heavily dark periods we are still desperate to crawl from. It could be argued that the angel trail Edward so eloquently refers to is something that needs to be found more than ever and that, thankfully, his music helps to illuminate this despites its mostly distressed overtones.
Away from the confines of a now hard-to-find and long sold out CDr, Lumberton Trading Company brings this album back as a vinyl release that’s limited to 300 and is scheduled to appear in February 2026.

Pioen is the second album by Elisabeth Klinck & Nils Vermeulen, released on blickwinkel. It was recorded in a small chapel of a monastery in the city center of Ghent. A chapel by nature is a place of contemplation and meditation, which automatically had influence on the music. Movements slow down, attention is sharpened and the overwhelming silence of the space becomes part of the music. Sound and silence are meticulously woven into each other. Even when the music grows at times dense and heavy, there is an ever-present sense of closeness and intimacy. This is reinforced by the use of the voice, which naturally appears throughout the album, not as a separate layer but as an extension of the instruments.

The pieces – this time more curated than on their previous album Pair, Paire – arose from hours-long improvisations where sound became space and space became sound. Bringing together violin, double bass and voice, Pioen unfolds as a serene and honest journey, inviting the listener into a state of contemplation.

Elisabeth Klinck is a contemporary violinist, composer and performer based in Brussels, known or her timeless, deep-listening sound worlds. Her album Picture a Frame (2023) and Chronotopia - selected by The Quietus as one of the best albums of 2025 - were released on the Swiss label Hallow Ground. A big part of her work revolves around tactility, fragility, and a very physical approaches to sound.

Nils Vermeulen is a Belgian double bass player active in all varieties of adventurous music. He has played with Paul Lytton, Martin Küchen, Seppe Gebruers, William Parker, John Dikeman, Luis Vicente, among others. He works across many scenes, from free improv to jazz to contemporary classical music, and in many distinct constellations, such as his own groups Kabas and Jukwaa, a Norwegian free jazz trio with Tollef Østvang and Heidi Kvelvane, a string duo with Elisabeth Klinck, and as the double bassplayer of Nemo ensemble. In 2023, he released his debut solo album on Aspen Edities.

There’s an alternate reality where everyone makes a living wage and the cleanest buses you’ve ever seen arrive every other minute. Where the most intense songs are about confessing your love to a crush at the apple orchard, and where gentle feelings and chaotic energy are inseparable best friends. This is the timeline where Cootie Catcher is right at home. This Toronto based four-piece exudes both vulnerability and unbridled excitement, creating a sound that hypercharges the open-hearted tenderness of twee pop with spiraling synths and giddy electronics. New album Something We All Got is the clearest and most vibrant reading of Cootie Catcher’s vision yet, with songs of sweetness, nervousness, and expectancy that beam out unguarded.
After releasing music made primarily in basement recording environments, Something We All Got is the band’s first flirtation with studio recording. The edges are still sharp, however, with some parts assembled from time-honored lo-fi methods and fun, personally-sourced samples seeping into the production. The sound is explosive and upbeat, with euphoric guitars, bubbly synth lines, speedy drums both played and programmed, and all other manner of sound constantly colliding. Cootie Catcher has three songwriters, Sophia Chavez, Anita Fowl, and Nolan Jakupovski, all of whom have distinctive voices but still manage to overlap in their writing on shared concerns like navigating the lines of romantic and platonic relationships, their city’s social scenes, and struggles in both the microcosmic experience of playing in a band and the zoomed-out challenges of living through late-stage capitalism.
Joy still touches every surface of Something We All Got. “Quarter Note Rock” bounces around the room in a fit of jangling guitar chords, scratched samples, and interplay between breakbeat loops and somersaulting live drums. It’s a blast of positivity even with lyrics about how disappointing it can be to meet your heroes. A smiling electro pop instrumental supports lyrics about having to step painfully away from an almost realized love on “Gingham Dress,” a song that subverts themes of domesticity as a backdrop for the dashed wilt of hopeless devotion.
Cootie Catcher rolls down hills and jumps through flaming hoops throughout Something We All Got without ever dumbing down the visceral emotions that drive these songs. There’s a palpable tension between the band’s exhilarating sonics and the raw, often uneasy sentiments expressed, but it’s an integral part of what makes them unique. Rather than hide behind the kind of calculated vagueness that plagues so much of the indie rock landscape in the time of cursed algorithms, Cootie Catcher runs full-speed toward every confusion and excitement, fearlessly direct and embracing the reality they’re in.

It's an anthemic sound that's taken the group from their hometown of Los Angeles -- where frontman Paul Givant formed the band as a bluegrass- inspired act, making room for punky tempos and fiddle solos -- to venues across the country, where their sound grew to encompass the sweep of rock & roll, the sonics of folk music, and the storytelling of country. With American Seams, the band's fifth studio release, Rose's Pawn Shop nod to the wide range of those influences with also doubling down on their folky roots. Produced by Grammy nominee Eric Corne during a series of live-inthe-studio performances, it's a raw, reflective album about stepping into a new stage of life, reflecting upon all the lessons learned and mistakes made along the way.

For Givant -- a journeyman songwriter who's weathered the twists and turns of the music industry, unwaveringly dedicating himself to a project that's earned high marks from Rolling Stone (who called the band's work "a blast of 21st century pickin'-party music") and GQ (who praised their "knee-slapping bluegrass-y twang") -- it's also a showcase of the the band's staying power. This is resilient roots music, grounded in sharp songwriting and the hard-won experience of a band that's dedicated itself to the long haul.

Medium Rare showcases The Mighty Mighty Bosstones at their finest — a dynamic mix of B-sides, unreleased gems, and three brand-new songs that bridge the band’s early ska-punk roots with their mature, horn-driven sound. Bursting with energy, grit, and heart, this collection captures the spirit of the Bosstones’ Boston-bred attitude and their unmatched ability to blend melody, muscle, and message into timeless ska-core anthems.