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'IDMEMO' would not pretend to be a representative compendium of 90’s-00’s Intelligent Dance Music. It was not Vladimir Ivkovic & Ivan Smagghe’s point when they decided on the project. It is a very personal snapshot of a moment in time, when both of them were working in record shops, when they were listening to indie and electronic music. One can not stress enough the importance of this crossing of roads, pop kids getting through to the dancefloor via Aphex Twin and nerdy house heads dissolving their four to the floor into the futuristic world of Warp compilations.

The compilation unfolds in the loosest, the best way to make some kind of sense. There are some classics (Black Dog’s lysergic 'Psyl-Cosin'), there are some rarities (that Zugzwang track), some tested late night floor melters (Reload remixing Slowdive) and some personal outlandish choices that strangely take their place (Spiritualized’s 'Anyway That You want Me-remix 3').

All in all, This is an anti-archive, a choice of tracks primarily lead by emotion, more pads than glitches,”intelligent” music depraved by that last half-pill at 6am rather than high-brow destructurations, Ivkovic & Smagghe hitting, as ever, at their own margins.

'IDMEMO' is a collaborative project between Above Board Projects, Offen Music and Les Disques De La Mort. Selected and sequenced by Vladimir Ivkovic and Ivan Smagghe. Art and design by Atelier Superplus. Mastering courtesy of Keith Tenniswood @ Curved. Manufacture and worldwide distribution by Above Board, 2020.

Demon Records presents the third and final part of His Dark Materials – now a major TV series.
In this BBC Radio full-cast dramatisation of The Amber Spyglass the young adventurers Lyra and Will must find each other and journey into the World of the Dead. This thrilling adaptation stars Lulu Popplewell as Lyra, Daniel Anthony as Will, Emma Fielding as Mrs Coulter, Tracy-Ann Oberman as Serafina Pekkala, and Terence Stamp as Lord Asriel, with a large supporting cast.
A lavish gatefold sleeve features Dust-inspired illustrations, spectacularly realised in metallic copper ink, plus full cast and production details and exclusive sleeve notes by Philip Pullman himself. This gripping drama is presented on three heavyweight 180g discs of Daemonic Dustburst splatter vinyl.
Philip Pullman’s bestselling trilogy of children’s books, which has sold more than 19 million copies worldwide, is now the inspiration for the major HBO/BBC TV series His Dark Materials.

Mica Paris is back with Gospel, returning to her roots with an album inspired by legends of the genre and the experiences of her life. Featuring classic Gospel hits such as “Oh Happy Day” and “Something Inside (So Strong)”, combined with more recent songs such as Rag ‘n’ Bone Man’s “Human”, interpreted with a soulful flair, the album portrays a message of hopefulness throughout. The album also features original tracks “Mama Said” and “The Struggle” which are an emotional insight into Paris’ experiences, re-enforcing the message of hope and power in self-belief present throughout the album.

Raised in the world of Gospel by her grandparents, Mica Paris has been a powerhouse of the genre from a young age. Having been brought up surrounded by music, and after regular appearances at her local church, Paris began to establish herself as an artist, appearing as a backing vocalist on Hollywood Beyond’s 1985 album, If. At the age of 19, Paris released her debut solo album in 1988, entitled So Good, which has since gone to achieve Platinum certification. Now released on vinyl 5th February 2021

Monster grooves, driven by a perfect symbiosis of fiery oriental rhythms and the deep, relaxed heartbeat of the bass line, with virtuosic, intoxicating solos on bouzoukis, Farfisa organs, clarinets and violins. This is the sound of laika, Greek-oriental pop music from the 60s and early 70s that sets every dance floor on fire!

These 20 carefully selected songs serve as an introduction to this mind-blowing music for the non-aficionado, as it is the first album of its kind to be released outside of Greece or the Greek migrant communities. The extended and illustrated liner notes take you back to the heyday of Greek pop music and put this cultural movement into an historical perspective.

On their Night Dreamer debut, Sarathy Korwar and his allstar “UPAJ Collective” gain brand new ground in their mission to rebalance spiritual jazz with authentic Indian classical music. “UPAJ” means “to improvise” inHindi, and recording direct-to-disc at Artone Studios with almost no preconceived directions, they truly capture the “spirit of spontaneous improvisation”, as Sarathy puts it, like never before.


Sarathy Korwar 2020

"Recording in one take, direct-to-disc is a unique scenario to be in. I feel very blessed to be presented this opportunity. I decided very early on that in order to make the best use of this scenario, the music had to be completely improvised and spontaneous. That is the only true way to record within the limitations of one take. No regrets, no mistakes, no fear and no judgement. These were the ideals. In a way, this was about creating a utopian vision of a world I would like to live in. A microcosm of the ideals that I would like to live by, in the recording studio. The vision of going into the studio with this in mind, was more important than the resulting music we created. Process over product.

Before the session we did some collective breathing exercises that I have learnt from my mother (who is a pranayama practitioner/teacher) and Wim Hof. I believe this helps centre the focus of the group and balances the mind, making it most receptive to new sounds and inspiration.

The song So said Said is a tribute to Edward Said. Intimate Enemy, a tip of the hat to the book of the same name by Ashis Nandy (Intimate Enemy: Loss and recovery of self under colonialism). A cover of Flight IC408 by State Of Bengal is on Side B, as I am a massive fan of the band. Elephant Hangover is the imagery that the tune conjures for me personally on listening to it. A beautiful remix by the brilliant Osunlade of So said Said is on side D.

Thank you to the gifted musicians - Al, Tamar, Achuthan and Giuliano for trusting and letting go. I am lucky to spend time with you."

South London-based band Soothsayers are set to release their ninth studio album 'We Are Many'. Held together by heavy basslines, solid grooves, and socially and politically charged lyrics; the album takes the listener into different sonic spaces with elements of dub, Afrobeat, improvisational jazz and electronica.

The initial steps in recording 'We Are Many' came in January 2019 when the band's founders - saxophonist Idris Rahman and trumpeter Robin Hopcraft - set out on a journey to Brazil. With executive production in the Sao Paulo studio by renowned music journalist and author David Katz, they hooked up with bass player and producer Victor Rice who they'd met sharing the bill at Freedom Sounds festival in Cologne, Germany a year earlier. Victor organised a session in Studio Traquitana, home of acclaimed Brazilian band Bixiga 70, and invited a selection of local musicians. Percussionist and singer Ligia Kamara contributed lyrics and melodies written in the studio, and drummer Bruno Buarque, guitarist Joao Erbetta and bassist Victor provided some solid, personality-driven input. Fresh and vital, what came out was a fascinating blend of Soothsayers' dub and Afrobeat mixed with distinctly Brazilian inflections.

After arriving back in the UK, Idris and Robin set about creating the remainder of the album in a different, yet complimentary way, and called on the services of Wu-Lu and Kwake at their The Room studio in South London. Things started to take shape very quickly, Wu-Lu and Kwake combining Soothsayers' music with electronic elements, while also referencing elements of the current UK jazz scene.

When lockdown hit in March 2020, there was still a lot of work to do in order to complete a full album and Robin and Idris set about working on tracks with their musicians remotely. Having time to consider the album as a whole, they found strong connections between the music recorded in Brazil and the tracks recorded in London and they set about fusing and combining these elements further into a satisfying whole.

UK based Sengalese singer Modou Toure was enlisted to guest on one track while percussionists Satin Singh and Maurizio Ravalico were engaged to help affirm a sound-world where Brazilian flavours, such as the low-end Surdo drum, were combined with sounds more readily associated with reggae and Afrobeat.

Soothsayers' three part vocal harmony is a defining factor in this album. With strong references to the vocal styles of reggae legends such as The Gladiators, Mighty Diamonds, Heptones, and Abyssinnians; it has benefited from the long-standing friendship between Robin, Idris and Julia Biel. Lyrics, melodies and harmonies were presented, discussed, explored and recorded at Idris' and Julia's home studio in Streatham in a relaxed and positive way, with concepts from social and political commentary turned into powerful songs.

Themes cover political observations of Trump and beyond alongside Brazil's president Bolsanaro (Rat Race), speaking out against increasing levels of violence from the Brazilian government towards its native and indigenous people (Love And Unity) and keeping hopeful despite the impending horrors of a no-deal Brexit (We Won't Lose Hope).

Elsewhere they discuss striving to create space for meditation and reflection against the background noise of 24/7 news and social media (Move In Silence), the daily grind (No Sacrifice) and workers' rights (Slave), while highlighting those that fall through the cracks in society and end up without a permanent address, what led to this and how close we all are from this happening (One Step Away).

'We Are Many' represents a positive and uplifting statement in the face of challenging times - the overriding force, power and positivity of the music to continue forward, pushing the boundaries of musical concepts into the future.

"Whilst heavy questions of life and death and the future of our species surround us all, music is a guide that can help us perceive the challenges in a different way - a guide that can help us towards a deep inner peace. If we listen, music can help light the way. We hope you will listen, and we hope you will experience the joy, meditative power and beauty in the connection of different musical cultures that was experienced in the creation of this album."

Two years after the release of 'Kreise' Selm have once again peered out from the torture racked enclave they call a studio. Originally conceived as two separate EP's and later stacked into an all-consuming album over 44 minutes 'TiiiER / Post-Adrenaline' pushes Selm's agenda of black dwarf techno and physically exhausting industrial churning to new levels. The opening salvo of tracks that form the 'TiiiER' disc (tracks 1-5) posit a techno minimalism coated in the incredible, almost edible crust of controlled distortion and flaking edges garnered through masterful gain staging. Opener 'Sin' accrues greater density with each iteration and pass. 'Kreise' is classic DBX style beep ran into manic filters and weight gain classes.'Moger' is a truly sinister and clinical piece of industrial sound design raising blood pressure with its stainless steel poise. 'Laus' is a real percy, syncopated just the right side of falling over and baked into the toughest compression throbs. It closes the first 'disc' and perhaps what could be considered the more straight forward tracks of the album. 'Post-Adrenaline' the second disc of the set is where Selm's love of intensely textural sound design work can be best felt. 'Nineteen Voices' opens with its disembodied conversations utterly smothered by the roiling mass of bass synth which surrounds on all sides. 'Irr' terrifies the young with it's truly OTT undulance of seismic tone, as reverential to death industrial as it is to guitar music, the riff laid bare. 'Brett' is a damp, warm environment of intelligent growth. Fermenting itself again in a stew of gnashing bass heaviness now crowned with glowing bowed metal and tuned feedback. 'Sommeil' closes the second disc with not a single positive note played, it's a dreary escalation of all the albums previous incarnations, flickering noise shaped rhythm, serpentine bass formations and no rush to please or to entertain. At just under 6 minutes, it and the album are over. Selm do not hold up on this follow up to Kreise. While the albums share ideas they are refined to a point of punishment here. 'TiiiER / Post-Adrenaline' is hyper-modern music that sounds like it's made from air, stone and rust.

Velvet Season & the Hearts of Gold is the musical adventures of Gerry Rooney & Joel Martin. They have a rich musical history with Gerry Black Cock Records & Joel Quiet Village.

Aldo Tamborrelli – ‘Voices’ (VSHOG Special Version)

VSHOG present their official special version of this highly desirable hidden treasure of hypnotic electronic sleaze excavated from the cult soundtrack to a 1983 Italian ‘Apocalypse Now’ cash-in, and transform it into an 8 minute erogenous bump n’ grind trip to the twilight zone torture garden, cruising leather boys & fetish girls looking for Love in all the wrong places !

‘Voices’ is a narcotic synthesised masterpiece of body music to completely immerse your dark desires on the dancefloor. A dark risqué world of crisp chugging drum machines, mesmerising warm bass pulses, and the erotic wails of seductive screams in the night !

Stefano Torossi – ‘Having Fun’ (VSHOG Special Version)

The VSHOG version of 'Having Fun', from Stefano Torossi's 1974 album 'Feelings' (a holy grail of Italian library music) is an uplifting lush orchestral string laden funky breakbeat feel-good track to raise your vibrations!

Opening with a chunky stripped down drum & bass intro, the strings entice you further in & then the Disco Funk Psyche guitar riff really lifts the track to the sweet spot & you are completely hooked! A beautiful piece of music for all occasions - Balearic Sunsets/Sunrise, Disco dancing, B-Boys and Hip-Hop heads, Jazz Dancers & library music connoisseurs!

Another fantastic offering from the VSHOG Special Version series of releases.

Ralph Heidel is one of the young musicians that represent the spirit of Berlin’s new musical ecleticism better than others. He is part of the avantgarde circles that mix modern jazz and contemporary classical music with elements of new electronica and experimental ambient music. This is the vibe of Germany's next generation.

Heidel creates a sonic universe that is unique. He takes the listener into a deep, atmospheric travel that stimulates emotions and feelings on a different level. Heidel brings together two worlds: what he learned at Musikhochschule München, Germany’s leading academy for classical music where he studied saxophon and composition and the moods happening in Germany's new electronic circles.

On „Relief“ Heidel created six songs. Except one, all of them are instrumental music. Partly composed and often improvised these sounds take the listener into Heidel's specific sonic universe. Raw beat structures, emotive horn lines, strong harmonical tensions and dramatic build ups. Heidel’s signature sound.
In fact Heidel is a multiple influenced artist with a strong personality that absorbs whats around him, connects it with his own wide artistic knowledge and fullfills it into magical musical moments.

Relief is the next step in what could become a longtime artistic career.
After a (very composed) debut album for string quartet and rhythm section for Kryptox (Moments of Resonance 2019), it was important for Heidel, to process current feelings of daily life.
Not just his cultural learnings, but also emotions connected to the hard COVID times and a lot of personal experiences.

Relief are six abstract, distorted patterns. Long deep transitions that lead into euphoric parts of sonic greatness. Heidel's sense for sound design and the soft tone of his saxophone phrases, add a personal note that is somehow alone in the current music scenario. Sampling his saxophone (reeds, keys etc.) to create very organic beats is one of the many techniques to create that special „Heidel“ sound. Also his calm and wide harmonies over disquiet, rough drums are part of his unique ambivalent, disrupted moods.

Most of this EP has been played by Heidel alone. For a few parts he was joined by musicians from the local scene. In fact besides his albums on Kryptox Ralph Heidel is very connected in Berlin’s current cultural playground: He creates music for underground performance art happenings in Neukölln as well as for new German theater (Volksbühne, Berliner Ensemble). Also German rapper Tarek from K.I.Z heard about Heidels string debut album, so they collaborated for an album, where Heidel reworked his record for stringquartet, piano, drums and bass.

Veyl presents 'Nuit' - a split-EP between two excellent projects we're enraptured to share with you. Both hailing from France, Blind Delon (Toulouse) and Contre Soirée (Paris) share a similar vision, bringing music from before any of their birth dates into the world of today.
Dedicating their sound to cold bass lines and synthesizers, the 80s, french post-punk and black romanticism, both acts spent their nights observing, describing, thinking, crying, each in their own way.
Building a bridge between the melancholy and urgency defining that era, ’Nuit' is the fruit of this labour.

25 Years after it was released, the 16x platinum selling Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell is to be repressed on vinyl for the first time since its initial release. Featuring the classic #1 single 'I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)'.
 And following on from the hugely successful Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, Welcome To the Neighbourhood is to be repressed on vinyl for the first time since its initial release in 1995. Featuring the hit single 'I'd Lie For You (and That's The Truth)'.

‘Giants of All Sizes’ was recorded at Hamburg’s Clouds Hill Studio, The Dairy in Brixton, 604 Studios in Vancouver and Blueprint Studios in Salford with additional recording taking place at various band member’s home studios spread across Manchester. As with their previous four studio albums, ‘Giants’ was produced and mixed by Craig Potter. Guests across the album include Jesca Hoop, The Plumedores and South London newcomer Chilli Chilton.

Given such bleak, if ultimately redeemed, subject matter, it is also, perversely, the most relaxed record which elbow have made in some time. On ‘Giants of All Sizes’, each band member extended their usual process of working on demos alone and followed their vision to its conclusion rather than, as Craig Potter puts it, ‘taking the edges off things to find compromise’. In tandem with this, they returned to playing live in the studio, encouraged to experiment with the banks of analogue equipment at Clouds Hill in Northern Germany, giving songs a looser, more live feel. The result is the most starkly dynamic record from the band in recent times, “Sonically unabashed”, as Guy would have it. Whilst album closer ‘Weightless’ has the gossamer melodies and communal harmonies for which the band have latterly been known, this album echoes earlier elbow work at times whilst also breaking new ground.

‘White Noise White Heat’ is motorik, metal machine soul driven by a vocal that is rage incarnate, ‘Doldrums’ mixes John Carpenter with The Plastic Ono Band to brilliantly disturbing effect and ‘On Deronda Road’ hitches stark bass beats and glitches to an ad-hoc choir. ‘Empires’ delivers dark resignation via an insidious melody and ‘Seven Veils’ continues the subversion by inverting the perception of elbow as a band for lovers into a band for haters, a double-barrelled fuck-you song par excellence. ‘The Delayed 3:15’ marries mariarchi guitars to jazz dynamics, Morricone via Buddy Rich, and ‘My Trouble’ is a clockwork, analogue shuffle housing a delicate melody that builds over the course of the song into a fragile monolith to the power of love.

Lead track, ‘Dexter & Sinister’, released on 10” ahead of the album, encapsulates the whole. A seven-minute musical journey that blends deep bass grooves, sudden keyboard stabs, dislocated piano and guitar runs and soul stylings then abruptly shifts gear, parts the storm clouds and takes wing, flying towards the heat of the sun. It is the soundtrack for these ‘hope free, faith free, charity free days’, a denial of the divine and a reconciliation, two songs in one song, two emotions for one emotion, human, fragile and brilliant like the album which it opens.

"On Tour" - Delaney Bramlett (g, voc); Bonnie Bramlett, Rita Coolidge (voc); Eric Clapton, Dave Mason (g); Bobby Keys (sax); Jim Price (tb); B. Whitlock (org, voc); Carl Radle (b); Tex Johnson (bgo, cga); Jim Gordon (dr)

This 42-minute-long live album, which was recorded in December 1969 in Croydon, England and was awarded 5 stars by the magazine Rolling Stone, is not only the culmination of Delaney & Bonnie’s creative output, but also marks their connection to the further careers of Eric Clapton and George Harrison. On this particular tour Clapton plays the same mixture of country music, blues and gospel that were to hallmark his own early solo appearances from 1970. He rose to the occasion with consistently brilliant virtuosity; the highlights are a dizzying solo in "I Don’t Want To Discuss It", a lengthy 'Slowhand' passage in "Only You Know And I Know", and a dry fervent introduction to the wonderfully balanced "Coming Home". Vocally Delaney & Bonnie were never better than on this live set, and the 11-piece band sounds musically more close-knit than many a quartet of the times, regardless of whether they are playing a lengthy blues number or a medley of Little Richard songs. It is certainly no coincidence that the band featured here would become Clapton’s own choice for his first solo LP, or that the kernel of this group – Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon – would metamorphose into Derek and the Dominos, or that the bulk of the band would constitute the group that would perform with George Harrison in "All Things Must Pass" and The Concert For Bangladesh, except that their playing (not to mention the recording) is better here. Half the musicians on this record attained near-superstar status less than one year later, and although their fame was fairly short-lived, this is certainly justified, as you will ascertain when you listen to this live performance.

This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head. More information under pure-analogue.

All royalties and mechanical rights have been paid.

Recording: December 1969 live at Fairfield Halls, Croydon (UK), by Andy Johns and Glyn Johns

Production: Delaney Bramlett and Jimmy Miller

South London-based band Soothsayers are set to release their ninth studio album 'We Are Many'. Held together by heavy basslines, solid grooves, and socially and politically charged lyrics; the album takes the listener into different sonic spaces with elements of dub, Afrobeat, improvisational jazz and electronica.

The initial steps in recording 'We Are Many' came in January 2019 when the band's founders - saxophonist Idris Rahman and trumpeter Robin Hopcraft - set out on a journey to Brazil. With executive production in the Sao Paulo studio by renowned music journalist and author David Katz, they hooked up with bass player and producer Victor Rice who they'd met sharing the bill at Freedom Sounds festival in Cologne, Germany a year earlier. Victor organised a session in Studio Traquitana, home of acclaimed Brazilian band Bixiga 70, and invited a selection of local musicians. Percussionist and singer Ligia Kamara contributed lyrics and melodies written in the studio, and drummer Bruno Buarque, guitarist Joao Erbetta and bassist Victor provided some solid, personality-driven input. Fresh and vital, what came out was a fascinating blend of Soothsayers' dub and Afrobeat mixed with distinctly Brazilian inflections.

After arriving back in the UK, Idris and Robin set about creating the remainder of the album in a different, yet complimentary way, and called on the services of Wu-Lu and Kwake at their The Room studio in South London. Things started to take shape very quickly, Wu-Lu and Kwake combining Soothsayers' music with electronic elements, while also referencing elements of the current UK jazz scene.

When lockdown hit in March 2020, there was still a lot of work to do in order to complete a full album and Robin and Idris set about working on tracks with their musicians remotely. Having time to consider the album as a whole, they found strong connections between the music recorded in Brazil and the tracks recorded in London and they set about fusing and combining these elements further into a satisfying whole.

UK based Sengalese singer Modou Toure was enlisted to guest on one track while percussionists Satin Singh and Maurizio Ravalico were engaged to help affirm a sound-world where Brazilian flavours, such as the low-end Surdo drum, were combined with sounds more readily associated with reggae and Afrobeat.

Soothsayers' three part vocal harmony is a defining factor in this album. With strong references to the vocal styles of reggae legends such as The Gladiators, Mighty Diamonds, Heptones, and Abyssinnians; it has benefited from the long-standing friendship between Robin, Idris and Julia Biel. Lyrics, melodies and harmonies were presented, discussed, explored and recorded at Idris' and Julia's home studio in Streatham in a relaxed and positive way, with concepts from social and political commentary turned into powerful songs.

Themes cover political observations of Trump and beyond alongside Brazil's president Bolsanaro (Rat Race), speaking out against increasing levels of violence from the Brazilian government towards its native and indigenous people (Love And Unity) and keeping hopeful despite the impending horrors of a no-deal Brexit (We Won't Lose Hope).

Elsewhere they discuss striving to create space for meditation and reflection against the background noise of 24/7 news and social media (Move In Silence), the daily grind (No Sacrifice) and workers' rights (Slave), while highlighting those that fall through the cracks in society and end up without a permanent address, what led to this and how close we all are from this happening (One Step Away).

'We Are Many' represents a positive and uplifting statement in the face of challenging times - the overriding force, power and positivity of the music to continue forward, pushing the boundaries of musical concepts into the future.

"Whilst heavy questions of life and death and the future of our species surround us all, music is a guide that can help us perceive the challenges in a different way - a guide that can help us towards a deep inner peace. If we listen, music can help light the way. We hope you will listen, and we hope you will experience the joy, meditative power and beauty in the connection of different musical cultures that was experienced in the creation of this album."

- Idris Rahman and Robin Hopcraft

Over the course of two decades The Body - Lee Buford and Chip
King - have consistently challenged assumptions and defied
categorization, redefining what it means to be a heavy band.
On ‘I’ve Seen All I Need To See’, they test the boundaries of the
studio to explore the extremes and microtonality of distortion to
find its maximal impact.
Their most incisively bleak album to date, a towering monolith of
noise, Buford’s booming, resolute drums paired with King’s
obliterated guitar and howl.
Course, bristling distortion contorts every instrument, with
samples of spoken word, cymbals, toms and King’s already
noxious tone emerging from layers of feedback.
Features guests Ben Eberle (Sandworm) and Chrissy Wolpert
(Assembly of Light Choir).
Recorded with long time engineer Seth Manchester at Machines
with Magnets (Lightning Bolt, Battles, Daughters) and mastered by
Matt Colton (Sumac, Brian Eno, Uniform, Sunn O)))).
Available on CD, metallic silver vinyl and black vinyl. LP formats
include digital download code.
The Body have collaborated with many, including Full Of Hell,
Thou, Uniform and Bummer.
“The distortion has this ability to envelope you, and not push you
away. It has this strange kind of beautiful timbre... once you give
into the sheer power of it, and let it take you on a ride then it
becomes this whole other kind of sonic experience.” - Matt Colton
The Body have continued to mould their sound into something
even more devastating, gorgeous and terrifying... As a whole, The
Body’s discography is, and will continue to be, without peer.” -
Metal Injection “Some of the most captivating heavy music around right now.” - Rolling Stone

Gerd Janson, Lexx, Bell Towers, Belia Winnewisser, DJ Kaos and Never4ever remixed Ethimm’s By Night EP.

We all know Nights are nicer when you are with your friends, so Ethimm asked some of his old friends and favorite acts to remix his recent EP ‘By Night’. Quite a few hopped on the bandwagon: Germany’s most prolific remixer and DJs DJ Gerd Janson turned Ethimm’s ‘Lies’ into a relentlessly deep and driving house cut with drums reminiscent of New Order. Balearic boss Lexx stripped the track down to its bare vocal and rebuilt it with a 90ies New York vibe. Bell Towers added his prototypical leftfield approach to ‘Don’t Go Away’, while Berlin’s legendary DJ Kaos remade it into a classic acid stomper. The remix EP is completed by newcomer Never4Ever’s breakbeat treatment of the same track and swiss experimental queen Belia Winnewisser’s treatment of ‘Island Jam’.

Recorded in 2011 in a dusty, beloved barn, ‘Even Your Drums Will Die’ is a time machine, a real one, to a moment packed thick with Richard Swift’s singular, crackling liveliness. Where Swift’s studio recordings are marked by texture, tone and mood, ‘Even Your Drums Will Die’ puts a spotlight on Swift’s voice, his lyrics and his songwriting.
Running through all of Swift’s tunes is a certain agitation - a fidgetiness, a restlessness. It’s clearer than ever now, over two years after Swift’s passing, that he used his music to let a little pressure out of his tire. ‘A Song for Milton Feher’ nods to all this, its namesake coming from the professional dancer and director who taught his students to release their “habits of tension.” The song feels like a skeleton key to Swift’s oeuvre, a clear look into the wild wheels spinning inside his big old artist noggin.
On the flipside is ‘Lady Luck’. The classic. The revived ghost of a lost 45 that never existed, or maybe always did, but that only Richard Swift could make real.
If you know these songs, you will find them set alight here. If you don’t, ‘Even Your Drums Will Die’ is an incomparable snapshot of both art and artist. It is a genie, a real one, let loose from the lamp with Richard Swift’s explosive energy, imagination and mischief.
Recorded Live at Pickathon, 2011.
Swift was a celebrated recording artist, collaborator (The Black Keys, The Shins, the Arcs) and producer (Nathaniel Rateliff, Kevin Morby, Guster, Pretenders).

St Leonard’s premier manipulator of drones, loops and echoes delivers his most buzzed out, kosmische and beat driven work to date in a deluxe white vinyl album release for Castles in Space.

Here, Kieran explains the genesis and production of his masterwork:

“Eternal Return was unusual for me in that I actually set out to make an album, rather than find myself with a set of tunes that evolved into a project.

The “Eternal Return” is a concept I have been inspired by before. However it clicked with me in a more profound way recently. Far from seeing the prospect of living life over, unknowingly, on an endless loop as depressing, I suddenly felt amazing comfort in the theory. The Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius said, “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” Far from being trapped in the loop I am elated to feel that it's simply about living the best life you can. One that you wouldn't fear having to live again.

To place the album in context against this newly realised perception, I think of the Side One as the battle to get to that realisation and enlightenment and Side Two represents the acceptance and the decision on how to proceed. The turning point is from thinking about the things I love most and what I would want to experience over and over again. I hope it is an uplifting listening experience. As it happens, the album originally had a darker ending. I think I actually learned a bit about my point of view during the process. There are drums, which wouldn’t often feature in my music (there are in fact more drums on this LP than in my combined output over the last 8 years) and the pieces are noticeably shorter, more focussed and concise than my usual longer form work.

Musically this album is probably the least clearly influenced by anything I regularly listened to. The main outcome was wanting to challenge myself and to add whatever the pieces needed and go with that. I think I was also probably pushed on by the wealth of amazing music being made by my peers across Bandcamp and social media. 2020 was an incredible year in this particular sphere of electronic music. The album was made as I started to transition from a semi-modular to a modular synth set up. I think that this was a key driving force, since a lot of the time I didn’t know exactly what I was doing. It is nice to be surprised by what you’re creating.

Finally, whilst this is in no way a “lockdown album”, the period of time in which much of it was recorded definitely had a bearing on how it sounds. For one thing I spent a lot more time around my studio space when working from home. In keeping with the album's theme, the lockdown also helped consolidate my feelings on what is important in life and what isn’t. One piece was in fact sketched out as a first draft while I sat on mute during a Zoom meeting.

10th Anniversary reissue of Cloud Nothings acclaimed and beloved debut album.
Clear w/ Opaque Light Blue Marble LP - Uncoated Jacket with Spot UV Gloss on Cover Photo, w/ download card.

It’s been 10 years since the release of Turning On, Cloud Nothings’ debut album. Singer-songwriter Dylan Baldi was just 18 years old when he began recording the album, creating each track in his parents’ basement in Cleveland, Ohio. Over one winter, Baldi produced an album of taut, lo-fi guitar-pop songs, playing each instrument himself. His music gained traction in the increasingly popular music blog circuit, allowing Baldi to book his first shows in new places, like New York City. He gathered a band together to play live, and Cloud Nothings were on their way.

The band has accomplished a great deal since Turning On, signing to Carpark Records, releasing seven albums, and headlining numerous international tours. Yet, their debut isn’t dusted over in the band’s history. Turning On still remains the stripped-back core of Cloud Nothings style: raw and grungy, filled with catchy earworms that are surprisingly pop. The album carries all the stored potential of someone ready to venture off into the world, a feeling that bursts with energy even 10 years later.

All the tracks on Turning On are eruptive and restless, its lo-fi quality embodying the desperate need to record an idea by any means necessary. Songs like “Hey Cool Kid” encapsulate Baldi’s talent for churning, hook-filled guitar. The vocals on songs like “Can’t Stay Awake” are distorted, with scattered lyrics that echo the angst of a teenage diary. As a whole, the album delivers dissonance and edge, without sacrificing the authentic romanticism of someone who is on the verge of something big and doesn’t know it yet.

It’s about time that our partner in crime Lostsoundbytes joined us for a ride. Kept on the back burner for a while, the debut album by the Belgium-based producer and Vastechoses label honcho couldn’t have come out at a more convenient time. Keeping with the madness that we all have buried within ourselves, Degenerate Brain sounds like it’s been recorded and corrupted by some artificial intelligence in the grips of mental disorder and paranoia. Frantically exhibiting a wide stylistic palette by means of irradiated kicks laid out on top of distressed electronic modulations; worn out electro bangers and slo-mo keepsakes from imaginary performances to crooked minimal wave ramblings led by a man-machine flying off the handle. A seemingly meaningless stroll orchestrated by a mind that has lost control over some data dump coming in hot — which may fry your brain unless you manage to pull yourself out before it’s too late.

‘Instant Opaque Evening’ is an epic offering from The Underflow, the new trio of Mats Gustafsson, David Grubbs and Rob Mazurek. It makes vast strides on the heels of their self-titled 2019 debut (Corbett vs. Dempsey/Underflow Records) with nearly 90 minutes of intensely focused live performances from January 2020 shows in France, Belgium, Italy and Poland. That tour was a revelation for all three members, experienced as they are, with this still-new group’s freedom to walk onstage each night determined to surprise one another, moving from long instrumental improvisations into and out of songs and covering a terrific amount of ground at each of these concerts.
‘Instant Opaque Evening’ conveys this broad sweep, from the full-tilt electronics of ‘Self-Portrait As Interference Pattern’ and the climax of the seventeen-minute ‘Instant Opaque Evening’ to the inspired, alternate universe chamber music of ‘Planks’ and ‘A Thin Eternity’ and the group’s spontaneous arrangements of three previously recorded songs by Grubbs, ‘Gethsemani Night’, ‘An Optimist Declines’ and ‘Cooler Side Of The Pillow’.
The short version of the long tale of intersecting paths bringing together these three musicians begins in Chicago in the 1990s, with all three active participants in numerous convergences among jazz, free improvisation, experimental rock and more. Both Gustafsson and Mazurek appear as guests on Gastr del Sol albums (‘Upgrade & Afterlife’ and ‘Camoufleur’ respectively; that’s Rob’s cornet taking ‘The Seasons Reverse’ to new heights) and shortly thereafter Grubbs and Gustafsson recorded two duo albums, including the deep minimalism of ‘Apertura’, a talismanic favourite of both musicians.
David Grubbs has played in Gastr del Sol, the Red Krayola and Squirrel Bait and performed with Tony Conrad, Susan Howe, Pauline Oliveros, Will Oldham and many others. He’s the author of the books The Voice in the Headphones, Now that the audience is assembled and Records Ruin the Landscape.
Saxophone player, improviser and composer Mats Gustafsson is known as a solo artist and for international tours and projects with, among many others, Sonic Youth, Merzbow, Jim O’Rourke, Barry Guy, Otomo Yoshihide, Yoshimi, Peter Brötzmann, Neneh Cherry, Christian Marclay, Albert Oehlen, Ken Vandermark and the working groups FIRE!, THE END, LUFT, ANGUISH and Gush, as well as collaborations with contemporary dance, theatre, art, poetry and projects with noise.
Rob Mazurek is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on electro-acoustic composition, improvisation, performance, painting, sculpture, video, film and installation, who spent much of his creative life in Chicago and then Brazil. He currently lives and works in Marfa, Texas. He leads/co-leads many ensembles of various sizes and shapes including his flagship large ensemble Exploding Star Orchestra, Chicago Underground and São Paulo Underground. He has
collaborated with Bill Dixon, Pharoah Sanders, Roscoe Mitchell, Jeff Parker, Nicole Mitchell, Chad Taylor, Jim O’Rourke, Naná Vasconcelos and many others.

The now legendary show that started the teuchter rock trio’s sold out UK tour at the beginning of 2020 at Glasgow’s favourite venue, The Barrowland Ballroom. Features live versions of all their favourites from their first two albums “Uptown Fank” and “Light my Byre”. Having recently won album of the year and live at of the year at the Na Trads awards and recently showcased their music on BBC2’s show “the misadventures of romesh ranganathan”.

From the band:

Peat and Diesel – Live at the Barrowlands
The year 2020 started out fine but as the year went on it has changed the way we live dramatically.

Remember when thousands of strangers would all pile into a gig, jammed in like sheep at the fank, not a care in the world, just there to feel the buzz and magic of live music. It was crazy. Are these days gone forever??

Let’s go back to January 2020, the first time Peat & Diesel arrived in Glasgow, to play the famous Barrowlands Ballroom (aka The Barras). There were an army of 2000 true P&D fans waiting to have the craziest night both the band and the crowd had ever seen and if you don’t believe it… this album will prove it!!!

“Peat & Diesel - Live at the Barrowlands 2020” is an album which was recorded to capture the
incredible sound of the crowd (not the band!) and the atmosphere they brought with them that special night. It is not in any way recorded with any fancy tools to sort any mistakes or nonsense, its 100% raw, just the way Peat & Diesel wanted it.

Nach Crazy Rhythms Of Mata Hari, Shake Your Bones, dem Cool Cat Club und Born To Hula! Folgt nun der 5. Teil der DJ-Set Serie auf Stag-O-Lee. Wie auch bei den Vorgängern handelt es sich hier um einen auf 80 Minuten eingedampftes DJ-Set von einem verdienten Recken der Zunft - Keb Darge. Gaz Mayall folgt direkt mit Volume 6. Linernotes: Rockabilly didn't cross my world until the early nineteen eighties at a Dirtbox weekender in Bournemouth, until then I was a pure northern soul boy. I didn't really get stuck into collecting the stuff until a decade later, but when I did what a wonderful world of tunes opened up to me, and I went wild on it. I was very lucky to be doing a record stall in Camden market at the time just across from Boz Boorer and Neil Scott's stall. They along with other serious collectors Dave Vickers, Barney Koumis, Cosmic Keith, Jim Fox, Dave Crozier, and many others taught me all I needed to know. I only ever made one great rockabilly discovery which none of them knew, "Little Bit Lonesome" by Charles Ross, but I was happy enough buying all their recommendations as they were all new and exciting for me. I have done several rockabilly comps before, but sadly the Philippines typhoon in 2013 destroyed my village and forced me to sell the bulk of my collection. Here are some of my favourites that I never got round to putting out before that happened. Two of the aforementioned collectors are no longer with us. I therefore dedicate this comp to Dave Vickers and Cosmic Keith who both had a huge influence on my life and my musical taste.

Skylax Armagnac's darling who released his first EP just a year ago, which had an international resonance with rave reviews from Resident Advisor, Bicep, Chaos in the CBD, Peach or even soul clap. Rightly some saw it as a resurgence, a modernized version of 90s New York house, silky and elegant in the Bobby Konders, Mr Fingers way. For this new EP, with fantastic remixes of the brilliant Simoncino, our French prodigy is inspired by the beginnings of trance on the title song (and title of the ep by the way) "The world as we know it (masterclass mix)", UK dub and rave influences, as on some Nu Groove releases (notably the first joey beltram) - the lead vocal sample comes from a speech in which Noam Chomsky describes the United States as a violent country and hard. According to the author "If this piece says something, I believe it is that the music and the party should not serve to forget the problems of the world, but rather to find the strength, the resources, the inspiration to solve them." On "Oh La Musique" Armagnac used the sound of his neighbors as a voice sample ! Indeed, during this incredibly complicated period that we are living in, confinement due to the devastating effects of covid 19, one of his neighbors played music really loudly and for 20 minutes ignored the other neighbors who were screaming "oh oh, the music" through the window. "Turning this moment of irritation into a sample to the glory of the music strikes me as pretty funny." Still according to the author. On B1, it’s a house masterclass lesson by the phenomenal & ultra prolific Simoncino, but do i need to remind you how much italians are masters in their way of paying homage to all the best house music that has ever been created & produced ? Good taste is often on their side ! The red zone club is a tense and incredibly effective mix that can be enjoyed either on a house or techno dancefloor, it is clearly a banger. B2 saw the italian master offers us a beautiful ambient mix. And to conclude "On My Own" is according to Armagnac "a title that speaks of the trust that one can place in one's fellow human beings and of emancipation." A superb EP that adds to the long list of must-haves from Skylax Records.

Ein einzigartiger Künstler an einem legendären Ort: Tripping with Nils Frahm dokumentiert seine transzendentalen Liveshows in der geschichtsträchtigen Kulisse des Funkhaus Berlin. Gleich vier Shows im Funkhaus Berlin gaben den Auftakt zu Nils Frahms ambitionierter All Melody Tournee Anfang 2018, die sein gleichnamiges und allseits gepriesenes Studioalbum in den nächsten zwei Jahren auf die Bühnen dieser Welt brachte. In den folgenden über 180 ausverkauften Shows war der Ausnahmekünstler unter anderem im Sydney Opera House, in der Disney Hall in Los Angeles, im Barbican in London, in der Elbphilharmonie sowie auf zahlreichen großen Festivalbühnen zu Gast. Dennoch blieben Frahm die Konzerte im ehrwürdigen und für seine großartige Akustik gerühmten Saal 1 im Funkhaus Berlin in,mm besonderer Erinnerung.

Als Frahm ein knappes Jahr später zu vier weiteren Konzerten im Funkhaus einlud, waren die Tickets binnen Stunden vergriffen. Frahms langjähriger Freund und Filmemacher Benoit Toulemonde, der unter bereits für die Film-Konzertserie La Blogothèque mit zahlreichen weltbekannten Künstler-innen und Bands zusammenarbeitete, hielt die Abende an diesem geschichtsträchtigen Ort mit einem siebenköpfigen Kamera-Team fest.

Tripping with Nils Frahm ist ein Dokument Frahms vielfach gepriesener Fähigkeiten als Komponist und passionierter Live- Musiker sowie der besonderen Stimmung und Atmosphäre seiner legendären Funkhaus-Shows. Ein außergewöhnlicher musikalischer Trip — exklusiv und intim, roh und direkt.

"It was about time to document my concerts in picture and sound, trying to freeze a moment of this period where my team and I were nomads, using any method of travel to play yet another show the next day. Maybe tonight is the night where everything works out perfectly and things fall into place? Normally things go wrong with concerts, but by combining our favorite moments of four performances, we were able to achieve what I was trying to do in

these two years of touring: getting it right! When you hear the applause on the end of the film you should know that I was smiling happily, being a tad proud and feeling blessed to share these moments with you.

Much love, Nils"

Recorded in a string of sessions between Curve Pusher’s former Darnley Road location in London and new facility in UK seaside town Hastings, ​Old Tight Selektah​ sees Radioactive Man and Ben Pest (OverworX) riff off their shared passions for studio hardware and live set jams, maintaining the funk at all times.

Lead track ​Old Tight​ works in ​recorded licks from the Pest band’s horn section - Off-Key He-Man. Bar Tab smooths out into a glimmering and acid licked electro number. ​You Bring It, We’ll Wing It​ enjoys more of the Pest brass service, slowing the pace to a dubby, broken beat tempo. Finishing up the EP ​Bracetings​ is a jumpy, up tempo finish to the release showing off both producer’s flair for high precision beat programming.

Ben Pest is a hardware-made-techno specialist based in Bristol. He runs his own label OverworX and has also released his heady raucous sound on ​Varvet, Don’t and I Love Acid.

Asking For Trouble est. 2017
Mastered and cut by Keith Tenniswood at Curve Pushe

At the disco there is a mentasm... You will find me there..."

So begins Cornwallis' "At The Disco", a robot-voiced spoken word oddity released on Power Vacuum in 2015.

Power Vacuum is all about the mentasm: the mental orgasm, the moment when psychoactive electronics remould your grey matter into discombobulating new shapes, and when silliness, surreality, and playful aggression flip the sensible order of things upside down.

The Anticipatory Organization is an energetic EP that could only be the work of The Sun God. There are three rousing tracks to stir the attention. The Things We Don't Know is a mesmerising key driven journey. It features gorgeous keyed sparkles, washing waves of acid and clopped beats. The Disbelief Habit is driven by a strong melody that really grabs you and won't let go. This is accompanied by a strong bassline, focused keys and closely held percussion. The Achievement Factory rounds off the EP with another distinctive musical effort that marches straight into the middle of the dancefloor. Punishing percussion and an in-step cavernous bassline are joined by loose acid and riffing keys. Once more, The Sun God delivers as only he can.

Terry Gross is an engrossing trio composed of guitarist Phil Manley (Trans Am), bassist Donny Newenhouse, and drummer Phil Becker. The trio are also connected as owners and engineers at Bay Area recording spot El Studio, where they began improvising together as a way to test the boundaries and gear of the studio. Their loose, organic chemistry burgeoned into a deep camaraderie and a sound both expansive and exacting. The three experienced musicians crafted their first fulllength album through the pure joy of playing together with no expectations. With the tapes rolling on their rehearsals, the band captures the exuberance of live performance and elevates those recordings through a deft use of the studio as their collective instrument. On their debut LP Soft Opening, Terry Gross channels their cosmic powers and considerable chops into a gleefully mesmerizing odyssey fit for an arena. Soft Opening took shape over the course of 2016-2019, with Terry Gross writing and refining their songs. "Space Voyage Mission" and "Worm Gear" parallel one another as sinuous jams that pulse with adamantine fervor. Each mountainous epic churns spellbinding repetition and simplicity into dizzying gallops that take hairpin turns into sinewy riffing and elysian vocal melodies. Phil Manley's guitar takes on a constellation of tones across "Space Voyage Mission" with drifting delays soaring over the Newenhouse and Becker's driving rhythm section which all succumb to frothing overdrives that spin the song into entirely new pastures. The hypnotic throb of "Worm Gear" grows all the more enchanting as Newenhouse and Becker add subtle shifts to the single-chord barrage. "Specificity (Or What Have You)" contrasts these two in its more traditionally pop-oriented structure while retaining its predecessors wide-eyed energy and delves further into the album's lightheartedyet-earnest take on sci-fi tropes from space and time travel to the singularity. As Terry Gross, Phil Manley, Donny Newenhouse, and Phil Becker are sonic scientists traversing the borderlands of rock. Soft Opening captures the simple joy of a no-holds-barred trio in stunning detail, transporting the listener into the splendor and freedom of rock.

“The earth shall rise again...”
AMOR/LEMUR finds the Glasgow quartet AMOR in partnership with Norwegian improvising ensemble LEMUR to hopeful and ecstatic effect. Conceived before the onset of Covid 19 but finished during spring lockdown, their eponymous EP is the most loose, alive and elevated recording in AMOR’s catalog. AMOR/LEMUR takes the template of throbbing avant disco expanded upon on previous recordings for Night School and lifts it into new

territories, with new tonalities and unexpected turns on the journey. More than anything, the expanded, near- cinematic expression of human connectivity feels like a lightning new energy to grasp in the dark.

Following a revelatory concert in Glasgow in January 2020 wherein the two sets of musicians met and performed together for the first time, a recording session was arranged the following day, resulting in the most elevated permutation of AMOR’s art to date. Each track was built upon a rhythmic bedrock of percussion and drums performed by Paul Thomson and samples/synthesizer by Luke Fowler. Thomson used bamboo Javanese gamelan (most notably on For You) and scrap metal, as well as traditional percussion and drums while Fowler incorporated processed ambient field recordings recorded in enclosed acoustic spaces around Glasgow. Singer/pianist Richard Youngs contributes some of the most bright and mindful work of his career. Acoustic bass player Michael Francis Duch, whose lush playing as ever provides the elastic spine to each song, scored the string parts for LEMUR on piano at home in Norway. The addition of swelling strings and drones fills out the AMOR sound significantly, lending a sonorous tone to 8 minute, epic closer For You or an ascending melodic introduction to Stars Burst that feels like a new morning dawning on a world saved from certain death. With the circumstances of lockdown forcing the musicians to work differently, a thread of optimism and utopia grounded in the moment weaves through these tracks. Unravel reveals a spine tingling vocal from Youngs. It’s a song about the simultaneously grounding and ecstatic effect of love, feeling connected to others. It’s a simple message, “I’m finding myself in your smile, always unravels me” speaks of ego death, the dissipation of the material into a nirvana of pure energy, the power of surrender. This isn’t a quasi-religious message, this is the power of each other, a love song to connection in a temporary age of isolation. Stars Burst is a play on the inner and outer cosmos, with narrator Youngs exploring wonder to a pounding galloping rhythm and snake-charming synth. It’s an open dance, with the group locked in together for the wild ride. Fear is the centerpiece of the record, starting with drones and scraped overtones before swirling synth notes filter upwards to meet reverberating minor chords. Over 8 minutes of tight but loose playing, Youngs is the shaman instructing us to use Fear as a celebration of the moment, embrace it and jump into the unknown. The only way to overcome your fear is to feel it, use it as an energy. The use of the studio as an instrument throughout side 2 is particularly important, with the dubbing and mixing prowess of engineer Paul Savage (who mixed unattended due to lockdown restrictions) and tape manipulations performed by Jason Lescallet coming into play. For You closes out with a largely instrumental, evolving composition that uses many of the abstract and novel aspects of this permutation to aid the trance. It’s massive, an unfurling creature with unexpected tonalities and serious heft.

On Palberta5000, Ani Ivry-Block, Lily Konigsberg, and Nina Ryser max out traditional pop forms_blowing the genre out into lush, kinetic extensions_to create their own hardcore style of popular music. Together these 16 adventurous, hyper-melodic tracks represent the band's most accessible album by far_one that is bursting at the seams with vocal hooks and exuberant playing. Palberta5000 was recorded with Matt Lambozza (PALM, Shimmer), whose Peekskill, New York, studio is located in the original home and family lamp-store of Paul Reuben (Pee Wee Herman). Lambozza's recording and mix capture the band's rollicking instrumentation and vocal precision with greater clarity than anyone has before. Tracks like the emotionally chaotic "Before I Got Here," which charges hard before turning on a dime into a hypnotic krout-surf outro, convey the panicked feeling of falling in love, while Palberta's ear for pop music makes itself apprent on heart-melting harmonies like those fround on "Corner Store." Adding variation to Palberta5000's well thought-out song cycle are lavish downtempo jams ilke the slow waltz that is "The Way That You Do," and the enchanting "Red Antz." Taken together, these songs create a full album experience, and one that is sure to excite the band's devoted following while welcoming new fans along for the ride.

LTD. TRANSPARENT RED VINYL

On Palberta5000, Ani Ivry-Block, Lily Konigsberg, and Nina Ryser max out traditional pop forms_blowing the genre out into lush, kinetic extensions_to create their own hardcore style of popular music. Together these 16 adventurous, hyper-melodic tracks represent the band's most accessible album by far_one that is bursting at the seams with vocal hooks and exuberant playing. Palberta5000 was recorded with Matt Lambozza (PALM, Shimmer), whose Peekskill, New York, studio is located in the original home and family lamp-store of Paul Reuben (Pee Wee Herman). Lambozza's recording and mix capture the band's rollicking instrumentation and vocal precision with greater clarity than anyone has before. Tracks like the emotionally chaotic "Before I Got Here," which charges hard before turning on a dime into a hypnotic krout-surf outro, convey the panicked feeling of falling in love, while Palberta's ear for pop music makes itself apprent on heart-melting harmonies like those fround on "Corner Store." Adding variation to Palberta5000's well thought-out song cycle are lavish downtempo jams ilke the slow waltz that is "The Way That You Do," and the enchanting "Red Antz." Taken together, these songs create a full album experience, and one that is sure to excite the band's devoted following while welcoming new fans along for the ride.

'the commentary of the worst reality show you can imagine...Britain'

Following the recent self-titled mini album, Dead Sheeran returns with his full debut album 'A National Disgace'. Once again Dead looks at the way the country continues to spiral downwards into oblivion in his usual satirical and tourette-like way. Pianos and strings play over harsh basslines and hip hop beats, and punk rock fuses with video game soundtracks, while the lyrics paint a dark picture of the situation we find ourselves in. The album was started in the last throes of Lockdown 1, with songs such 'Can Things Get Any Worse?' 'The Problem With This Country' and the government's failed attempts at getting UK furloughed workers to get out and harvest fruit in 'Pick For Britain' narrating the crazy days of Summer 2020. As lockdown eased, and society started to erupt, tunes such as 'Kicking Off In The Streets, and 'Keep Your Distance' started to come into play. Self awareness, social media abuse, litter louts and right wing mates all come under fire over the duration of this 11 track album, with the moods changing as regular as the F-bomb gets dropped. Essential listening for these strange times.

Dead Sheeran aka Paul Catten writes, produces, mixes and plays all instruments on this. From programming beats, fiddling with synths to recording himself playing Pac-man, Dead pushes further musically than the previous release. The influences of the Sleafords, The Fall, The Streets and the many punk outfits that influence him still rumble in the distance, but make no mistake, this is a Dead Sheeran record. He has carved out his own sound and vibe on 'A National Disgrace', and as Dead will tell you, this is only the beginning…

Fabrizio Lapiana continues to offer up deep musical escape from these troubling times with another expertly crafted techno EP, Cantamen, on his own Attic Music label. It features four of his own original cuts and builds on the success of his latest release, Collective Chaos, back in March.

For more than a decade, this Italian artist has been at the forefront of a techno scene that deals in deep and rolling drums, well sculpted synths and cavernous grooves that are rich in ambient detail. His Attic Music label has been at the centre of that thanks to careful A&R and always innovative releases, while he has also released on cult imprints such as M_Rec Ltd, ARTS, Figure Jams and Out-Er and many other collaborations.

Sleek opener 'Demons' is a mind melting and widescreen deep techno groove. Groaning synths creep across the face of the track as all manner of earthy and organic motifs drift by, as if you're racing through an underground network of caves. It's music for the mind as well as the body, and the hugely atmospheric 'Cantamen' is just the same - fizzing synth details and alien life forms fill the airwave with tension as the smooth and supple kick drums pound away down below.

The hypnotic masterclass continues on 'Kura' with rattling snares and harder hitting drums making you move your body before coarse claps and a majestic arpeggiated synth hook repeats up top and takes you to another level of rapture. Last of all is the fantastic 'Back Home', which has a skeletal electro groove run through with late night sci-fi pads. Its vast sense of cosmic infinity leaves you feeling floating adrift amongst the stars.

These are four evocative and cinematic techno tracks that take you into another dimension.

This reissue of Billie Holiday’s ‘Lady In Satin’ recorded in 1958 with Ray Ellis and His Orchestra also includes eleven bonus tracks recorded a year later with the same personnel.
The 20-page booklet contains complete information with specially prepared liner notes by Penguin Guide to Jazz’s writer Brian Morton and by France’s prestigious Jazz Magazine. “Every track is performed in an inimitable and extraordinary way, and the tragic mood never falls into the pathetic. Even today Billie continues to influence the style of innumerable singers and instrumentalists, both male and female. What’s the secret?
Just the fact that Billie Holiday simply invented a way of singing.” Penguin Guide to Jazz

Kiwi Jr. is a phenomenal "rock" and/or "punk" and/or "indie-rock" (whichever you like more) band from Canada, made up of Jeremy Gaudet (mic, guitar), Brohan Moore (drums), Mike Walker (bass), and Brian Murphy (guitar). Cooler Returns is their second album, and their first for Sub Pop. Despite being a snapshot of the pandemic-infused beginnings of this decade, Cooler Returns is truly a whole lot of fun. RIYL indie-pop from down under, things that are smart/exuberant/catchy all at once. Buildings burning in every direction; macabre unknowns in your friendly neighbor's basement; undecided voters sharpening their pencils: under pressure we could call Kiwi Jr.'s Cooler Returns "timely." But what year is it, again? On Cooler Returns, Kiwi Jr. cycle through the recent zigs & looming zags of the new decade, squinting anew at New Year's parties forgotten and under-investigated small town diner fires, piecing together low-stakes conspiracy theories on what's coming down the pike in 2021. Put together like a thousand-piece puzzle, assembled in flow state through the first dull stretch of quarantine, sanitized singer shuffling to sanitized studio by streetcar, masked like it's the kind of work where getting recognized means getting killed, Cooler Returns materializes as a sprawling survey from the first few bites of the terrible twenties, an investigative exposé of recent history buried under the headlines & ancient kings buried under parking lots. Not so long since their debut Football Money in archaeological time, unending gray eons later in the dog years of quaran-time, spiritually antipodean Canadians Kiwi Jr return to disseminate this year's annual report to the shareholders, burying the incriminating numbers in the endless appendices of a longform narrative record, a 3,000 word tract for stakeholders to pore over. These stories - memories of Augusts past, unrepressed & transcribed fast - go down easier thanks to meaningful changes enacted in 2019's KiwiCares Pledge: delivering on a promise to transition from Crunchy to Smooth by 2021, the caveman chug of Football Money has been steamed & pressed with the purifying air of a saloon piano - operated with bow-tie untied - and a spring green side-salad of tentatively up-tempo organ taps & freshly fluted harmonica. A chronically detuned spin of the dial through swivel-chair distractions & WFH daydreams, an immersive ctrl-tab deluge cycling through popular listicle distractions like the unentombing of Richard III, or the deja vu destruction of the Glasgow School of Art, Kiwi Jr. sing this song to an indoor audience, crisscrossing canceled, every other prestige distraction source wrung dry, only songwriting remaining to deliver engrossing tales to the populace, just how I imagine it worked in the old days. Fixing loose ingredients into a sturdy whip, Kiwi Jr. beam in live from the 9-5, striding into 2021 with a mastered brainwave that comes equally from the back room of the record store as the penalty box. And how do we, left holding this box of deliberate entanglements, sign off to those as yet uninitiated, undecided, uncertain, unseen, absent return coordinates - Best Wishes, Warm Regards, Good Luck? Cooler Returns, Cooler Returns, C o o l e r R e t u r n s ! Cooler Returns was produced by Kiwi Jr., mixed and engineered by Graham Walsh (METZ, Bully) in Toronto, and mastered by Phillip Shaw Bova at Bova Labs in Ottawa, Ontario.

LTD. LOSER EDITION

Kiwi Jr. is a phenomenal "rock" and/or "punk" and/or "indie-rock" (whichever you like more) band from Canada, made up of Jeremy Gaudet (mic, guitar), Brohan Moore (drums), Mike Walker (bass), and Brian Murphy (guitar). Cooler Returns is their second album, and their first for Sub Pop. Despite being a snapshot of the pandemic-infused beginnings of this decade, Cooler Returns is truly a whole lot of fun. RIYL indie-pop from down under, things that are smart/exuberant/catchy all at once. Buildings burning in every direction; macabre unknowns in your friendly neighbor's basement; undecided voters sharpening their pencils: under pressure we could call Kiwi Jr.'s Cooler Returns "timely." But what year is it, again? On Cooler Returns, Kiwi Jr. cycle through the recent zigs & looming zags of the new decade, squinting anew at New Year's parties forgotten and under-investigated small town diner fires, piecing together low-stakes conspiracy theories on what's coming down the pike in 2021. Put together like a thousand-piece puzzle, assembled in flow state through the first dull stretch of quarantine, sanitized singer shuffling to sanitized studio by streetcar, masked like it's the kind of work where getting recognized means getting killed, Cooler Returns materializes as a sprawling survey from the first few bites of the terrible twenties, an investigative exposé of recent history buried under the headlines & ancient kings buried under parking lots. Not so long since their debut Football Money in archaeological time, unending gray eons later in the dog years of quaran-time, spiritually antipodean Canadians Kiwi Jr return to disseminate this year's annual report to the shareholders, burying the incriminating numbers in the endless appendices of a longform narrative record, a 3,000 word tract for stakeholders to pore over. These stories - memories of Augusts past, unrepressed & transcribed fast - go down easier thanks to meaningful changes enacted in 2019's KiwiCares Pledge: delivering on a promise to transition from Crunchy to Smooth by 2021, the caveman chug of Football Money has been steamed & pressed with the purifying air of a saloon piano - operated with bow-tie untied - and a spring green side-salad of tentatively up-tempo organ taps & freshly fluted harmonica. A chronically detuned spin of the dial through swivel-chair distractions & WFH daydreams, an immersive ctrl-tab deluge cycling through popular listicle distractions like the unentombing of Richard III, or the deja vu destruction of the Glasgow School of Art, Kiwi Jr. sing this song to an indoor audience, crisscrossing canceled, every other prestige distraction source wrung dry, only songwriting remaining to deliver engrossing tales to the populace, just how I imagine it worked in the old days. Fixing loose ingredients into a sturdy whip, Kiwi Jr. beam in live from the 9-5, striding into 2021 with a mastered brainwave that comes equally from the back room of the record store as the penalty box. And how do we, left holding this box of deliberate entanglements, sign off to those as yet uninitiated, undecided, uncertain, unseen, absent return coordinates - Best Wishes, Warm Regards, Good Luck? Cooler Returns, Cooler Returns, C o o l e r R e t u r n s ! Cooler Returns was produced by Kiwi Jr., mixed and engineered by Graham Walsh (METZ, Bully) in Toronto, and mastered by Phillip Shaw Bova at Bova Labs in Ottawa, Ontario.

A folk/bluegrass troubadour from Vermont who delves into shape-note traditions and Appalachian ballads and makes it all beguilingly his own. His guitar lines have the fancy fingerwork of a crack banjo player and his banjo lines have the tugging suspensions of a jazzer.’ – Guardian

‘Amidon is a rare Americana artist whose … signature banjo-strewn style … and disparate mix of influences play into a sound that is at once archaically rootsy and savvily refined.’ – Wall Street Journal

Sam Amidon considers his new self-titled album the fullest realization to date of his artistic vision. It comprises his radical reworkings of nine mostly traditional folk songs, performed with his band of longtime friends and collaborators. Amidon produced the record, applying the sonic universe of his 2017 The Following Mountain to these beloved tunes, many of which he first learned as a child. ‘Pretty Polly,’ for example, was one of the first traditional tunes he learned to play, and ‘Time Has Made A Change’ is a song that his parents – singers who were on the 1977 Nonesuch recording Rivers of Delight with the Word of Mouth Chorus – sang around the house when he was young. Amidon will perform two concerts at Kings Place in London on October 3. A limited number of tickets will be available in the venue, as well as tickets to stream the event from home. Further details are available here.

Amidon and his frequent band of multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Chris Vatalaro were joined in the studio by Belgian guitarist Bert Cools (who played on his last EP), as well as Amidon’s wife, Beth Orton, who adds vocals on three songs. Acoustic bassist Ruth Goller and saxophonist and labelmate Sam Gendel also play on the album, which was mixed by Leo Abrahams. Sam Amidon was mostly recorded live in the studio. Amidon arranged the songs, which are traditional tunes, with the exception of Taj Mahal’s ‘Light Rain Blues’, Harkins Frye’s ‘Time Has Made A Change’, and ‘Hallelujah’, which is an 1835 William Walker shape-note tune using earlier words by Charles Wesley, found in the Sacred Harp collection of early American folk-hymns.

Sam Amidon is Amidon’s fifth recording on Nonesuch and follows the 2019 EP Fatal Flower Garden (A Tribute to Harry Smith). Additional recordings include his 2017 album The Following Mountain and Kronos Quartet’s Folk Songs the same year, on which he was a featured singer along with Rhiannon Giddens, Natalie Merchant, and Olivia Chaney; Lily-O in 2014; and his label debut, Bright Sunny South, in 2013.

Four albums in, the convenient and generalized catchphrase for Here Lies Man’s erudite sound — if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat — might seem a little played out. But Ritual Divination is perhaps the best rendering of the idea so far. Particularly on the Sabbath side of the equation: The guitars are heavier and more blues based than before, but the ancient rhythmic formula of the clave remains a constant.
“Musically it’s an opening up more to traditional rock elements,” says vocalist/guitarist/ cofounder Marcos Garcia, who also plays guitar in Antibalas. “It’s always been our intention to explore. And, as we travelled deeper into this musical landscape, new features revealed themselves.”

The L.A. based band comprised of Antibalas members have toured relentlessly following their breakout 2017 self-titled debut. Their second album, You Will Know Nothing and an EP, Animal Noises, both followed in 2018. Third album No Ground To Walk Upon emerged in August 2019. All of them were crafted by Garcia and cofounder/drummer Geoff Mann (former Antibalas drummer and son of jazz musician Herbie Mann) in their L.A. studio between tours. Ritual Divination is their first album recorded as the full 4-piece band, including bassist JP Maramba and keyboardist Doug Organ.
Ritual Divination continues with an ongoing concept of HLM playing the soundtrack to an imaginary movie, with each song being a scene. “It’s an inward psychedelic journey, the album is the trip,” Garcia says. “The intention and purpose of the music is to create a sonic ritual to lift the veil of inner space and divine the true nature of reality.”

Likewise, musically and sonically, the album is self-reflexive. “On this album the feel changes within a song,” Garcia says. “Whereas before each song was meant to induce a trancelike state, now more of the songs have their own arc built in.” Similarly, the guitar sounds themselves herein eschew the fuzz pedals of previous recordings, going for the directness of pure amp overdrive and distortion using an interconnected rig of 4 amplifiers. And, here, the well-versed live band is able to record as a unit, giving it much more of a live and dynamic feel.

Rough Trade named the band’s self-titled debut in their prestigious Top 10 Albums of 2017. BBC 6 & Classic Rock Magazine deemed it among the year’s best, as well as countless other press outlets singing its praises. Each subsequent album furthered the band’s reputation for genre-smashing rhythmic experimentation, topping many year-end lists as well as earning features from countless metal and indie rock outlets, plus cover stories in weekly papers.
“We’re very conscious of how the rhythms service the riffs,” Garcia explains. “Tony Iommi’s (Black Sabbath) innovation was to make the riff the organizing principle of a song. We are taking that same approach but employing a different organizing principle: For Iommi it was the blues, for us it comes directly from Africa.”
Ritual Divination will be available on LP, CD and download on January 22nd, 2021 via RidingEasy Records.

Four albums in, the convenient and generalized catchphrase for Here Lies Man’s erudite sound — if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat — might seem a little played out. But Ritual Divination is perhaps the best rendering of the idea so far. Particularly on the Sabbath side of the equation: The guitars are heavier and more blues based than before, but the ancient rhythmic formula of the clave remains a constant.
“Musically it’s an opening up more to traditional rock elements,” says vocalist/guitarist/ cofounder Marcos Garcia, who also plays guitar in Antibalas. “It’s always been our intention to explore. And, as we travelled deeper into this musical landscape, new features revealed themselves.”

The L.A. based band comprised of Antibalas members have toured relentlessly following their breakout 2017 self-titled debut. Their second album, You Will Know Nothing and an EP, Animal Noises, both followed in 2018. Third album No Ground To Walk Upon emerged in August 2019. All of them were crafted by Garcia and cofounder/drummer Geoff Mann (former Antibalas drummer and son of jazz musician Herbie Mann) in their L.A. studio between tours. Ritual Divination is their first album recorded as the full 4-piece band, including bassist JP Maramba and keyboardist Doug Organ.
Ritual Divination continues with an ongoing concept of HLM playing the soundtrack to an imaginary movie, with each song being a scene. “It’s an inward psychedelic journey, the album is the trip,” Garcia says. “The intention and purpose of the music is to create a sonic ritual to lift the veil of inner space and divine the true nature of reality.”

Likewise, musically and sonically, the album is self-reflexive. “On this album the feel changes within a song,” Garcia says. “Whereas before each song was meant to induce a trancelike state, now more of the songs have their own arc built in.” Similarly, the guitar sounds themselves herein eschew the fuzz pedals of previous recordings, going for the directness of pure amp overdrive and distortion using an interconnected rig of 4 amplifiers. And, here, the well-versed live band is able to record as a unit, giving it much more of a live and dynamic feel.

Rough Trade named the band’s self-titled debut in their prestigious Top 10 Albums of 2017. BBC 6 & Classic Rock Magazine deemed it among the year’s best, as well as countless other press outlets singing its praises. Each subsequent album furthered the band’s reputation for genre-smashing rhythmic experimentation, topping many year-end lists as well as earning features from countless metal and indie rock outlets, plus cover stories in weekly papers.
“We’re very conscious of how the rhythms service the riffs,” Garcia explains. “Tony Iommi’s (Black Sabbath) innovation was to make the riff the organizing principle of a song. We are taking that same approach but employing a different organizing principle: For Iommi it was the blues, for us it comes directly from Africa.”
Ritual Divination will be available on LP, CD and download on January 22nd, 2021 via RidingEasy Records.