Santamaria Brothers are the latest incarnation of a lifelong musical journey rooted in rhythm, rebellion, and reinvention. The children of Peruvian and Ecuadorian immigrants to Australia, brothers Pat and Andrew Santamaria grew up steeped in the sounds and culture of Latin America - a deep inheritance that coloured everything they did, even as they moved through scenes and styles far from home.
In their youth, the brothers sharpened their first musical swords playing in globally touring indie bands. As the rhythm section of cult outfit Lost Valentinos, they had the opportunity to see the world and learn from the best; touring with, working alongside, and releasing music through the likes of Soulwax, Ewan Pearson, and Kitsuné. Taking those experiences home, they dove deep into the rave underground, co-founding of the crucial Sydney-centric techno label, warehouse party collective, and long-running radio show Motorik! In that guise,they helped shape the city’s electronic music scene over the past decade from the booth, the studio, the airwaves, and the street.
Now, after years behind the decks and on both sides of the mixing board, Santamaria Brothers return to their roots - releasing music under the family name for the first time. With We Got Latin Soul, they bring it all together on a 4-track EP of club-ready edits (via Sosilly Records). Reworking four towering figures of Latin soul; Mongo Santamaria, Ray Barretto, Pucho & The Latin Soul Brothers, and Joe Bataan — the brothers inject each cut with tasteful touches of Balearic haze and chugging acid house pressure, honouring the originals while making them sing on today’s dancefloors.
This is Latin soul filtered through a unique blend of antipodean rave culture, crate-digging, and relentless reinvention. It’s joyful, percussive, and made for the club - a full-circle moment from two lifers forever finding new ways to move bodies.
![VARIOUS - [QR]V.093.STTP!.26](https://www.deejay.de/images/l/8/2/1218782.jpg)
From his roots in House, Alex Finkin is a renowned producer and creative director. Working in his Paris studio he has developed numerous projects, notably his own (Roseaux), as well as commissions for radio and television. Meanwhile, with 30 years of production and DJing under his belt, Rocco Rodamaal belongs to the elite circle of House innovators who continue to influence the scene. He's played alongside some of the best in the industry showcasing his versatility and deep understanding of the genre, and remixed artists including Marshall Jefferson, Kerri Chandler, Louie Vega & Moodymann, Todd Terry, Barbara Tucker and Robert Owens to name just a few. Alex Finkin befriended Rocco Rodamaal, who he met via the soulful Parisian club Djoon, where Alex was resident from 2006 to 2014. They have since collaborated on a number of projects together, including "In Da Hood" released on COD3 QR in 2023. Kenny Dope's "O'Gutta" remixes are a series of house and club-focused reworks characterized by raw, gritty and often stripped-back percussion, which he now brings to "In Da Hood".
Ross McMillan, known professionally as Carlos Nilmmns, is a Scottish electronic music producer, DJ and composer originally from Glasgow. Over the years he has collaborated with a range of notable artists, including Grammy-nominated and Grammy-winning figures, including Kenny Dope, Carl Craig, Kevin Saunderson and Davina Bussey, plus respected artists like Niko Marks, Rolando, Laurent Garnier, Santiago Salazar, Hardrock Striker, Karl The Voice, Zadig, Ben Sims, Andrés (who worked with Jay Dilla and Moodymann), and YouANDme. His music has been released on Planet E, Trax, Cocoon, Ornaments, Circus, Virgin, Skylax/Universal Music France and more. His style draws from house, techno and jazz influences, often combining analogue and digital production methods. A returning regular and COD3 QR favourite, he's back with another stunner in "Latin Quarter".
K' Alexi Shelby is a prominent figure in electronic music and with a career spanning decades, he's established a significant influence on House and Techno. Throughout his career he's worked with many well-known artists and remixed tracks that are now key pieces. The cultivation of his massive musical catalogue has overflowed into albums and the three labels he heads. It's also led to legendary collaborations with artists such as The Pet Shop Boys, Robert Owens, Kenny Dixon, Roy Davis Jr., Maurice Joshua, Terry Hunter, Joe Smooth, Steve Silke Hurley, Tyree Cooper, Ron Trent, Glenn Underground, Larry Heard, DJ Pierre, Carl Craig, Felix da Housecat, Marshall Jefferson, Will Smith and countless others. Already respected around the world as a true underground House legend, he delivered "Flame" in 2025 for COD3 QR. Now he's back with "When I", another deep and sexy cut.
Benny Rodrigues a.k.a. ROD unveiled his new moniker, The Lost Souldancer when he dropped "No More Voices" for COD3 QR last year. In his own words, Benny says: "The Lost Souldancer is about coping with the loss of what once was. Finding comfort in the invisible rather than what can be seen. Disconnect to connect in order to be loved rather than liked." He continues this ethos with the delicate and melodic closing track "Life and Death".
Experience the raw electricity and boundary‑pushing creativity of Jimi Hendrix with this definitive 1‑LP black vinyl edition of BBC Sessions — a release showcasing some of the most dynamic and intimate performances ever captured by the BBC. Recorded between 1967 and 1969, these sessions highlight Hendrix at his most spontaneous and inventive, delivering explosive renditions of his classics, unexpected covers, and rare arrangements unique to these broadcasts.
Sourced from electrifying live performances across October 10–12, 1968, this collection showcases Hendrix at peak creativity, delivering towering versions of his most iconic songs alongside extended improvisations that reveal new dimensions of his musicianship. From the blistering intensity of “Fire” to the soulful sweep of “Little Wing” and the psychedelic charge of “Are You Experienced?”, this curated single‑LP set offers a powerful snapshot of Hendrix in his prime.
Not all 'All Stars' style releases live up to their name, but this multi-artist extravaganza from Demuir's Purveyor Underground Ltd label most certainly does. The Canadian artist has snapped up tracks from some genuinely impressive deep house talents, with predictably fine results. For proof, check the deliciously dreamy, hazy and rolling opener from Atlanta star Byron The Aquarius, the jazzy bass, locked-in beats and lightly psychedelic layered aural textures of Fred P's 'Sunny Rain Drops (Cosmic House Edit)' and the softened DJ Sneak-style sample-rich peak-time bump of Demuir's own 'Alone In Chicago'. Elsewhere, M Squared reaches for elongated electric piano chords, eyes-closed samples and jazzy house grooves on 'Dance', before Justine Joe delivers an exquisite exercise in jazz-house jauntiness ('AFaOA (As Far As Our Attitude)').
New Jon Savage Compilation release alert! Jon Savage's SF Sike 1966-72 (Double Vinyl) Limited Edition. Heavyweight Luxury Gauge Sleeve-Stock & Inners.
The real sound of San Francisco 1966-72." It was the new gold rush, but with drugs, music and freedom the goal. " (Jon Savage -The Guardian August 2012)
A limited edition double vinyl 18 track album celebrating the great pop music and idealism of that time & featuring Moby Grape, Skip Spence, Ron Nagle, Country Joe & The Fish & much more
Full contextual & track-by-track sleeve notes by Jon Savage. Ephemera & archive material from the period.
Audial is a party in Leeds that has made great moves in recent times and has become an essential night out for those who like heady underground sounds. It now takes the natural next step by branching out with a new label and a fresh VA to kick it off. City mainstay Keefy G serves up the first cut 'After Diz' - a raw, gritty garage house slammer with naughty bass. Joejoemojo's 'Moneymaker' spins out on dusty breaks and warped low ends that bring the filth and on the flip Kerouac drops the late night and eerie tech of 'Broken' with bleepy synths and sultry spoken words. Geeson3003 shuts down with a rework of a Streets classic that hits hard with a UKG twist.
Gregory Hutchinsons "Kind of Now - The Pulse of Miles Davis" ist eine innovative wie neue All-Star-Hommage an Miles und seine Musik entstand unter der Leitung von Gregory Hutchinson, „dem Schlagzeuger seiner Generation“ laut Jazz Magazine. Jetzt erscheint das Album pünktlich zum 100. Geburtstag der Ikone.
Es ist ein faszinierendes und äußerst lohnendes Album, das einigen unsterblichen Klassikern aus Miles Davis’ Repertoire neues Leben einhaucht, wie etwa Charlie Parkers „Ah-Leu-Cha“ oder Miles’ eigenem „Seven Steps To Heaven“, wobei stets das Offensichtliche außer Acht gelassen und stattdessen die „deep cuts“ hervorgehoben werden. Die Schlagzeug-Interludes des Bandleaders verweben dieses über einstündige Programm eng und verleihen ihm eine futuristische Neuheit, ganz in Hutchs Sinn von Zeit. Kind of Now.
Mit Ambrose Akinmusire, Ron Blake, Jakub Bro, Emmanuel Michael, Gerald Clayton & Joe Sanders
Following her acclaimed 2023 release Flood City Trax, a dreamy, lo-fi take on footwork inspired by the crumbling rust-belt city she calls home, Nondi returns to Planet Mu with her second self-titled album, Nondi…While Nondi… retains some of the hazy, nostalgic atmosphere of Flood City Trax, it pushes her sound in bold new directions. “I made this album to capture the sense of freedom I used to get from music when I was first discovering it all,” Nondi says. “It’s meant to be cute, fun, kinda weird and emotional — but most of all, it’s a presentation of some of the prettiest tracks I’ve made.” Though she hasn’t really experienced club culture where she lives, her impressionistic productions evoke the surreal, lingering sounds of a night out — the melodic haze that hums in your ears as you drift off to sleep. Lo-fi and melodic, yet fluid and free, her music carries a sense of flight and intuitive logic. Nondi’s influences range widely — Actress, Aphex Twin, footwork, and the stranger edges of dub techno are all felt, yet she hallucinates them through her own weathered, dreamlike lens. Her tracks often build from clashing loops that evolve and transform organically, or from familiar genre elements reshaped by her instinct for misty, heart-wrenching melody. Some moments stay closer to genre, like Broken Future 175, a drum-and-bass tear-out that dissolves into lush, blurred chords, or Just Hanging Out, a bruised and beautiful take on 2-step. Lead single Tree Festival feels like a blown-out fusion of rave energy and sped-up new-age bliss, while Death Juke drifts through off-beat vocal samples, pulsing drums and 8-bit FX, reminiscent of early Steve Reich reimagined through a Game Boy. Nondi… is a uniquely moving and exploratory album that expands her sonic world even further. Lo-fi yet luminous, playful yet profound.
Joe Bataan's Ghetto Records released Joe Acosta's "The Power of Love" LP in 1971. It is now beloved among both salsa dura fans for the tough uptempo numbers and with the lowrider "souldies" crowd for its sweet and slow Latin soul track 'I Need Her.' There are a number of funky mid-tempo son montunos, as well as three super hard guaguancos enough variety to make for a solid dancing-and listening experience. Reissued once again thanks to our collaboration with Now-Again Records. Our release includes an insert with liner notes.
Ever since the late 1950s bossa-nova revolution, Brazil’s influence on French music has been undeniable. Pierre Barouh, Georges Moustaki and a vast array of lesser known artists, all made the Musica Popular Brasileira (MPB) an axis of promotion at the service of a cool and metaphysical, modern and mixed Brazilian lifestyle. Some were seduced by the poetic languors of the bossa, some were looking for fun, and others just loved the American hybridization of jazz-bossa, jazz-samba.
What is bossa nova? One of its creators, Joao Gilberto said: "Its style, cadence, everything is samba. At the very start, we didn't call it bossa nova, we sang a little samba made up of a single note - Samba de uma nota so .... The discussion around the origins of bossa nova is therefore useless”. It is nevertheless useful to remember that these magnificent Brazilian songs, which the guitarist describes as samba, were shifted and balanced around improbable chords. "I like things that lean, the in-betweens that limp with grace," said Pierre Barrouh, quoting Jean Cocteau.
With emotion, arrangements for violin and supple guitar licks, bossa nova rapidly changed. A transformation that can be heard in the Tchic, tchic, French Bossa Nova 1963-1974 compilation, the result of a cultural reappropriation, which traveled through the United States and supplemented itself in France.
A musical revolution that has remained significant, bossa nova was born in Rio. From 1956 to 1961, Brazil lived through its golden years. In five years, the country had invented its modernist style. Elected president in 1956, Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira, an elegant man with a broad forehead, brandished a promising slogan: "Fifty years of progress in five years". He quickly got to work. Not worried about increasing debt, he launched the project for a new federal capital, Brasilia, designed by the communist architect Oscar Niemeyer. Volkswagen opened state-of-the-art factories and created the “fusquinha”, the Beetle. In Rio, the Vespa made its first appearance. The Arpoador Surf Club crew run into the “girl” from Ipanema, Helô Pinheiro - the tanned garota ("chick"), between a flower and mermaid, who at 17 walked by the Veloso bar, where the fiery author and composer, Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, were getting drunk on whiskey. From then on, bossa symbolized cool.
In 1958, Joao Gilberto recorded Chega de Saudade, which the directors of Philips denied, calling it "music for fagots". The marketing director, who believed in it, secretly pressed 3000 78-inch vinyls and distributed them at schools around Rio, creating a tidal wave.
American jazzmen then took over. In particular, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and guitarist Charlie Byrd. In November 1962, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs funded a "Bossa-Nova" concert at Carnegie Hall in New York, inviting the genre’s pioneers. Unprepared, the show soon turned to disaster. But the troupe was invited to the White House by Jackie Kennedy. The first lady loved "the new beat" and in particular Maria Ninguem, a song by Carlos Lyra, later covered by Brigitte Bardot.
In Brazil, the 1964 military coup quickly ended this euphoria. The destructive atmosphere that ensued pushed many Brazilian musicians to leave, if not to exile. Thus, Tom Jobim, Sergio Mendes and Joao Gilberto arrived to the United States. In New York, Joao Gilberto met saxophonist Stan Getz. At the time, he was married to the Bahianese Astrud Weinert Gilberto, who had a German father. She had never sung before, but she knew how to speak English. Getz therefore asked her to replace her husband on The Girl From Ipanema. The Getz/Gilberto record with Tom Jobim on piano, was released in March 1964. Phil Ramone, the "pope of pop" was in charge of sound.
Bossa nova arrived in Paris through the classic “guitar-voice” channel (Pierre Barouh, Baden Powell, Moustaki…) But France loved jazz and Paris had already welcomed its American contributors. All these good people were to pass through Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The cabaret l'Escale became the Mecca of Latin American sound where one could find Pierre Barrouh and his friends, such as the Camara Trio, samba-jazz aces, whose only record was published by the Saravah label. With a band strangely called Les Masques (a band that included Nicole Croisille and Pierre Vassiliu, among others), the Camara Trio recorded an interesting Brazilian Sound, including the track Il faut tenir which is present on this tasty compilation of rarities.
Other enlightened musicians can also be found on the compilation, such as Jean-Pierre Sabar (songwriter for Hardy, Auffray, Leforestier ...) and the French pop rock organist Balthazar. In 1975, Sabar recorded Aurinkoinen Musiikkimatka on a Finnish label, which featured the crazy Vai, Vai, included on this record. We are now following the footsteps of Brazilian electronic musicians such as Sergio Mendes, Eumir Deodato or Marcos Valle who created funk and disco sounds on their keyboards and synthesizers. A style that influenced Véronique Sanson when she wrote Jusqu’à la Tombée de la nuit in 1969 for Isabelle de Funès, the niece of Louis and a great friend of Michel Berger - Sanson did end up singing this track on her 1992 Sans Regret record.
The pinnacle of exoticism and travel, Sylvia Fels’ Corto Maltese includes bongos, sea mist and ocean sounds. The title was taken from Jacky Chalard’s concept album written in 1974, Je suis vivant, mais j’ai peur (I am alive, but I am scared), based on Gilbert Deflez’s science fiction novel.
However, bossa nova extended the scope of popularity. "In the 1970s, I was a fan of Sergio Mendes, Getz / Gilberto. I fell in love with this music that I knew because I had been an orchestral singer, " explained Isabelle Aubret, who in 1971 delivered a composite record of covers by the very funky Jorge Ben, Orfeu Negro, Tom Jobim, Vinicius de Morais and Jean Ferrat. "I recorded this album for Meys Records in Paris, far from Brazil, with wonderful musicians, François Raubert, Roland Vincent, Alain Goraguer...". The latter wrote the arrangements for Casa Forte, a very percussive title borrowed from Edu Lobo, one of the initiators of the bossa who spent time in California. "Jazz and bossa came together and produced very rhythmic music. I love singing, it allows me to dream, to have fun, to feel a high on stage, and these songs brought me joy, made me swing, my singing felt like a dance.”
The world tours of French singers and their desire for the tropics, often brought them to Rio with its hills, forests, caipirinhas and tanned bodies. There are surprises though, like this Iemenja (Iemenja is the goddess of the sea in the Afro-Brazilian candomblé religion). Not unlike the composer and musician Jean-Pierre Lang, based in Sao Paulo, Claire Chevalier taught Brazil to Brazil. In 1970, the singer and painter published a 45-inch vinyl, Mon mari et mes amants (My husband and my lovers), under the improbable pseudonym of Clarinha (little Claire). She was then living in Rio, with her husband, Joël Leibovitz, who founded a band called Azimuth, and who owned a record label specialized in "sambas enredos" songs for samba school parades.
For its B side, she asked Pierre Perret to come up with lyrics for a song composed by Carlos Imperial: "Oh goddess of the sea, o goddess Iemenja, I bring a white rose to adorn your long hair ..." . "Perret came to see us, and we had fun, remembers Joël Leibovitz. We wrote Lemenja for fun, we recorded it at the Havaí studio, behind the Central do Brasil the central station. Erlon Chaves, the arranger who worked with Elis Regina, joined us" adding his share of Afro-Brazilian percussions and funky brass to the mix.
There is a common misunderstanding in Franco-Brazilian history: that bossa, admittedly hedonistic, is perceived as funny, even though the poets who wrote the texts are often philosophizing on the human condition. Its French interpreters pull it towards a carnival inspired universe, far removed from its fundamental essence. Thus, Jean Constantin covered the famous Samba da minha terra, an ode to the art of samba written by the classic Bahian composer Dorival Caymmi, renaming it with the enticing title of Pas tant de tchi tchi pompon: "On your pier there is no tchi tchi / when you arch your back, you know everything is alright ”(lyrics by Gérard Calvi). This expedited bossa aims for the absurd, but retains a certain elegance.
Indeed, Jean Constantin was not an idiot, the rather large man had a huge mustache and liked fantasy, (Les pantoufles à papa, Le pacha, inspired by cha-cha-cha-cha, salsa and jazz) but he was also the lyricist of Mon manège à moi interpreted by Edith Piaf, the composer of Mon Truc en plume by Zizi Jeanmaire and the soundtrack of François Truffaut’s 400 Blows. Le Poulpe, published in 1970, from which this bossa is extract, was arranged by Jean-Claude Vannier, an accomplice of Serge Gainsbourg’s Melody Nelson. In short: "There is enough of samba / By looking at the parasol / Because my poor cabeza / Is going to die in the sun".
Even the American actress Marpessa Down, who was at the heart of the bossa nova revolution with her role as Euridyce in Marcel Camus’ film Orfeu Negro, winner of the 1959 Cannes Palme d'or, fed the clichée with Je voudrais parler au petit cuica - "Tell me how you manage to always make people want to dance / It's true, I must admit that I cannot resist your magic" - in consequence, once can hear the cuica, a little drum inherited from the Bantu.
But bossa nova had many angles. Societal, of course, pushing actresses who were symbols of women's liberation like Brigitte Bardot, Jeanne Moreau, or Sophia Loren to engage in the exercise of accelerated bossa. In February of 1963, Sophia Loren made a record in French in Rome, Je ne t'aime plus, featuring the song De jour en jour, a bossa written by two Italians, Armando Trovajoli and Tino Fornai, which was released a little later by Barclay. Bossa accompanied the 1960s, a decade of moral liberation. Ann Sorel, who interpreted La Poupée des favellas, caused a sensation with L’amour à plusieurs, a provocative song written by Frédéric Bottom and Jean-Claude Vannier. As for the actress Andrea Parisy, she displayed her bourgeois cheekiness in Marcel Carné's Les Tricheurs before interpreting Les mains qui font du bien. And Magalie Noël, the friend of Boris Vian, who sung Johnny fais-moi mal, was hired to sing Une énorme Samba, composed by Alain Goraguer (arranger to Gainsbourg, Bobby Lapointe and Jean Ferrat) with lyrics by Frédéric Botton.
But in the end, of what wood is bossa nova made of? The answer is given by Christianne Legrand, daughter of Raymond the conductor, and sister to Michel the composer: "With me, with jà" - jà means "immediately" in Portuguese. In 1972, the singer, an expert in vocal jazz and a member of the Double Six, published Le Brésil de Christianne Legrand. Two songs included on the Tchic Tchic compilation that demonstrate how bossa, jazz, funk, rock, etc. work like a swiss army knife: the music is used to denounce broken systems, or miracles, HLM et ciné roman, Cent mille poissons dans ton filet, two songs from the O Cafona soundtrack, a successful telenovela broadcast, at the time in black and white, on TV Globo. The first was adapted in French by the fighter and friend of the Legrand tribe, Agnès Varda. The second is content with a play on words, jostling them into a summer fun.
Véronique Mortaigne
When you name your band Prince Daddy & The Hyena, you sort of accept that chaos isn’t a chapter in your story – it’s the entire ethos. Since forming out of Albany, NY’s DIY scene, Prince Daddy & The Hyena have built a career out of reaching their breaking point and continuing forward anyway. Their first LP, produced by Joe Reinhart, captured a very young band figuring things out in real time; their massive conceptual undertaking Cosmic Thrill Seekers followed and pushed their ambition (and patience) to new extremes. Not long after, a serious van accident nearly took their lives, directly informing the intensity of their self-titled record.
Over the last decade, the band has lost close friends and collaborators, endured relationship struggles, and faced countless moments that would have ended most bands without question. But those experiences never slowed Prince Daddy & The Hyena down. On their upcoming fourth album, Hotwire Trip Switch, they recalibrate and reconnect with their roots while sounding more focused and self-aware than ever. Reuniting with Joe Reinhart for the first time in nearly a decade, the album pulls from the punchy lineage of Green Day, the hook-driven quirk of Weezer, the snarky urgency of Joyce Manor and Jeff Rosenstock – all through the distinctly bratty lens of songwriter and vocalist Kory Gregory.
Peter Karp gehört zu den unverwechselbaren Stimmen der amerikanischen Americana-, Blues- und Roots-Szene. Seine Musik verbindet kraftvolle Emotionen, feines Storytelling und eine tiefe Verwurzelung in den Klangtraditionen des amerikanischen Südens. Aufgewachsen zwischen New Jersey, New York City und Alabama, entwickelte er früh ein Gespür für die Energie urbaner Songkultur ebenso wie für die Ursprünglichkeit des Blues. Künstler wie Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters oder Howlin" Wolf prägten ihn ebenso wie die poetische Kraft von John Prine und die erdige Direktheit von Joe Ely. Karp schreibt Songs, die das Leben so zeigen, wie es ist: ehrlich, rau, humorvoll und voller beobachteter Details. Seine markante Stimme, sein expressives Gitarren- und Pianospiel und sein Gespür für melodische Hooks machen ihn zu einem der respektiertesten Songwriter seines Genres. Kritiker loben seine Fähigkeit, Blues, Folk, R&B und Americana zu einem eigenen, zeitlosen Stil zu verbinden. Peter Karp steht für authentische amerikanische Musik - tiefgründig, mitreißend und voller Charakter. Ein Künstler, der die große Tradition des Songwritings fortführt und gleichzeitig seine ganz eigene Handschrift setzt.
From Wisdom Teeth’s recent compilation nagoyaka na kaze / 和やかな風 (quiet wind)—which cast a spotlight on the Japanese city of Nagoya—emerges “2++”, a new label launched by abentis, who curated the compilation alongside Facta and K-LONE as a central figure in the scene. Conceived as a series introducing facets of Nagoya’s underground electronic music to the world on vinyl, its inaugural release is abentis’ debut album, Dim Grow.
Across the album, intricately designed electronic mallet sounds—created using Ableton Live’s physical-modeling synthesizer—take center stage. Fresh and percussive like marimba or kalimba, yet simultaneously carrying an otherworldly, unreal quality, these tones form the core of the record’s sonic identity. In moments of near-silence, a crystalline resonance poised between glass and metal shimmers with subtle shifts in temperature, giving the album its distinctive texture.
While resonating with the sonic sensibilities of fellow Wisdom Teeth affiliates such as K-LONE, Tristan Arp, and Salamanda, abentis’ uniquely strange palette can be traced back to one of his strongest influences: Haruomi Hosono. In particular, Hosono’s mid-’70s tropical-infused solo albums — Tropical Dandy (1975), Bon Voyage Co. (1976), and Paraiso (1978) — serve as a key reference point. Symbolically reflected in Hosono’s marimba and vocal performance at a 1976 live show in Yokohama Chinatown, the marimba functioned as a central instrument for constructing imagined exotic landscapes inspired by Martin Denny and Hawaiian music.
For abentis—who worked at a local jazz bar before becoming active as a hip-hop beatmaker—the language of “tension chords,” a harmonic vocabulary rooted in jazz and R&B that hovers ambiguously between brightness and darkness, forms a consistent grammar throughout Dim Grow.
Behind the album’s core theme of “mallets + tension chords” lies a broad musical lineage: the harmonic sensibility of Claude Debussy, who anticipated the tensions of jazz; the proto-minimalist spirit of Erik Satie; the marimba-centered structures of Steve Reich; their continuation in Japan through Mkwaju Ensemble (with Midori Takada and production by Joe Hisaishi); and the subsequent branches into post-rock, electronica, and ambient music.
Growing up in Nagoya—an industrial city where creative independence is deeply valued—and being rooted in punk and hip-hop counterculture scenes naturally fostered abentis’ affinity with these predecessors. His practice between genres, combined with an encounter with the highly cross-pollinated musical perspective cultivated around Wisdom Teeth, provided the framework through which his own musical language crystallized. Dim Grow stands as the natural culmination of that journey.
Ultra Knites Records welcomes Mike Sharon for UKR058, a refined and deeply effective 4-track statement shaped for the late-night hours. Subtle in detail, hypnotic in flow, and built with the kind of understated pressure that stays with you long after the record stops spinning. Pressed on 180g black vinyl, Genetica EP fits perfectly into that classy underground space: functional for the floor, but rich enough for close listening. A versatile release for selectors who value precision, atmosphere, and timeless dancefloor design.
Ghetto Records was Latin music legend Joe Bataan’s way to get over on The Man and out of the ’hood, a bold move by an artist looking for independence and creative control in an industry that had exploited his talents and treated him like chattel.
As Bataan puts it today, “Ghetto Records was part of my journey, a stepping stone to everything else that I’ve done. I learned enough that it enabled me to get out of the box with my thinking, it showed me how to deal with adversity.” Like many dreams and schemes born of the street, this one was audacious, perhaps even reckless to a fault.
Hatched from desperation yet full of hope Ghetto Records came crashing down shortly after its inception. The seven albums in its discography languished out of print - until now.
"Weejuns is all about interplay,"erklärt Gitarristin Mollestad. ,Bitches Blues besteht aus sechs Instrumentalstücken oder Musikabschnitten mit einer extremen Bandbreite an Dynamik. Einige basieren auf kräftigen Beats, während andere Stücke weitaus lyrischer und rubato sind. Die Bandbreite reicht von riffbasierten rockigen Stücken über lautes Chaos bis hin zu melancholischen Balladen und sogar völlig freien Improvisationen." Mit einem kultivierten und dennoch erfrischend instinktiven Ansatz, Instrumente und Einflüsse miteinander zu verflechten, wechselt Bitches Blues (ein ironischer Verweis auf Miles Davis' Album Bitches Brew) unvorhersehbar zwischen langsamen und sanften, klar gegliederten Songs mit disziplinierten Akkordfolgen und explosiven Ausbrüchen kathartischer und komplexer Strukturen. Weejuns (eine Slang-Abkürzung für ,Norwegians") stellten sich 2023 mit einem selbstbetitelten Doppel-Live-Album vor. Ursprünglich von Mollestad für das Kongsberg Jazz Festival zusammengestellt, wo sie mit dem renommierten Musicians Prize ausgezeichnet wurde, hat sich die Chemie innerhalb von Weejuns als dauerhaft und verlockend erwiesen, auch als Gegenpol zum bisher härtesten Album des Hedvig Mollestad Trios, Bees in the Bonnet aus dem Jahr 2025. Mollestad hat mit ihrem gleichnamigen Trio acht gefeierte Alben veröffentlicht. Das Markenzeichen ihrer 15-jährigen Karriere ist die Verschmelzung von ernsthaftem Können mit einem offensichtlichen Fokus darauf, Spaß am Klang zu finden. Als Tochter eines Jazzmusikers vertiefte sie sich in dessen Plattensammlung und studierte klassische Werke von Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Joe Pass und Jim Hall, bevor sie in ihren 20ern Riff-gewaltige Titanen wie Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath und Mahavishnu Orchestra entdeckte. Dies führte zur Gründung des Hedvig Mollestad Trios, dessen unermüdlicher Aufnahme- und Tourneeplan seit Anfang der 2010er Jahre der Gitarristin eine Reihe von Auszeichnungen einbrachte, darunter zwei norwegische Grammys (Spellemannprisen) und die Ernennung durch das DownBeat-Magazin zu einer der 25 Künstlerinnen, die ,den Jazz für Jahrzehnte prägen könnten". Ståle Storlokken (Bass, Synths) ist Gründer und langjähriges Mitglied von Supersilent und Elephant9, seit Mitte der 90er Jahre die ,rechte Hand" von Terje Rypdal und hat mit Motorpsycho auf Platte und auf der Bühne sowie mit unzähligen anderen zusammengearbeitet. Ole Mofjell (Drums) ist das jüngste Mitglied und spielt bei Krokofant, Signe Emmeluths Amoeba und seinem eigenen Free-Jazz-Trio 3 Days Of Maceration.
Reissued for the first time ever, here’s the remastered debut album of jamaican singer/producer Enos McLeod, originally released in 1983 on Soul Beat record. An ultra rare affair recorded at Joe Gibb's studio with a great backing band featuring Sly & Robbie, Earl Chinna Smith, Winston Wright and more…
TSTD NEO returns with smooth slow disco remixes for three tracks, originally featured on THE SUNSET MANIFESTO Volume 2:
One of the standout tracks of THE SUNSET MANIFESTO 2, the super smooth Westcoast inspired "Hands of Love" gets an even smoother remix treatment by Liverpools BEN JAMIN, perfectly suited for your next late night bar dj sets.
Stockholm meets Mexico City! TSTD resident producer Monsieur Van Pratt returns from remixing Poolside on The Sunset Manifesto 2, and comes back with a romantic slow disco version of Kimchi's "Do You Ever"
Last but not least UK producer Matt Hughes already did a funky electro disco remix for Goodvibes Sounds' "Stay For One More Night" on The Sunset Manifesto 2. Looks like the original tune didnt leave his head, so he returned to his studio for new remixes. Here you can find the "Echo" version of his new 80s cinema sounding "Late Night Radio Remix", which would sit well in the soundtrack oft he Stranger Things TV series. The long version of this remix will be relased later digtially.
Joe Fujinoki centered the compositions of his latest album Glass Torso round the idea of the fragility of the human body. Fujinoki described the narrative thread of the album as that of “holding the shape of a human body as if it might shatter like glass”. The precariousness of the body, the essence of the body as defined by Fujinoki as the torso, and the object relations between the boundaries of dialectical exercises pack themselves into his creative process.
Fujinoki recorded Glass Torso exclusively with analog synthesizers, stumbling in and out of structural loops to find space for accidental discoveries. The ten pieces of recorded material feel somewhere on the edge of typified form, feeling like a vascular system pumping in and out its undulating liquidities. Maybe this is the hollowed space held together by Fujinoki’s notion of the torso where you hear a microscopic world, dubby and generative. Fujinoki is adept at organizing this realm of subtle sound sources, giving proper considerations of shared tonal space. Seemingly, this handling of the precarity of sonic material elucidates Fujinoki’s mature attention to detail.
Ambient music genre tropes often affirm the listeners vessel for escape and dissociation. It provides an intoxicating allure by respite from an overwhelming exterior reality far outside the listeners controls. Here this space becomes apolitical, or its protest vocabulary softer and subtle. Fujinoki does not aim to tackle hyperobject topics on how to course correct the world, but he does something increasingly rarer to come across. On Glass Torso an alternative space is created not as shelter, but as a meditation on negotiation and compromise. This twenty eight minutes of audio lays down a foundation for imagination, for imagining how to negotiate the fragility of the self. Zoomed out, the implications of his negotiative sonics can be a playground for broader reflections on distributive care and attention.
Fujinoki says he feels “alert” to his physicality and placement in the world amidst vast digital cultures creating impositions on him and his surroundings. On Glass Torso he creates a concretized space on a vinyl record, where the virtual and the tangible antagonize one another that create the spectacle of the listening experience. This spectacle is a soft one, a considered one, and an utmost enjoyable one. Fujinoki juggles opposing forces brilliantly, and formulates an exquisite palette of soft passing music so he can also help the listener with the exquisite burden of their own Glass Torso.”
- Nick Klein, January 2026
Newly remastered version of Oren Ambarchi’s long out-of-print classic Hubris originally released on Editions Mego in 2016. Expertly remastered by audio wizard Joe Talia who worked with the original mixes, highlighting the myriad details of the audio with forensic precision, previously unheard up until now.
From the 2016 press release:
Hubris continues the exploration of relentless, driving rhythms heard on Ambarchi’s Sagittarian Domain (2012) and Quixotism (2014). Where those records looked to Krautrock and techno for their starting points, the sidelong opening track here begins from the perhaps unlikely inspirations of disco and new wave, drawing particularly from Ambarchi’s love of Wang Chung’s soundtrack to William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. Leaving behind the song-forms of these reference points, Ambarchi weaves a sustained and pulsating web of layered palm-muted guitars from which individual voices rise up and recede, eventually setting the stage for some lush guitar synth from Jim O’Rourke. Arnold Dreyblatt collaborator Konrad Sprenger contributes overtone-rich motorized guitar, pushing the piece into a satisfying intersection of shimmering minimalism and rhythmic drive that smoothly builds up until the entrance of Mark Fell’s electronic percussion in its final section.
After a short second part, in which Ambarchi, O’Rourke and crys cole pay tribute to the skewed harmonic sense of Albert Marcoeur with a track built from layered guitar figures and abstracted speech, the long final piece pushes the concept of the first side into darker and denser areas. Joined by electronics from Ricardo Villalobos and the twin drums of Will Guthrie and Joe Talia, the layered guitars of the first piece are transformed into a raw and tumbling fusion-funk groove that calls to mind early Weather Report or even the first Golden Palominos LP. As this stellar rhythm section rides a single repeated chord change into oblivion, a series of spectacular events emerge in the foreground: first, aleatoric synthesizer burbles from Keith Fullerton Whitman, then slashing skronk guitar from Arto Lindsay, until finally Ambarchi’s own fuzzed-out harmonics take center stage as the piece builds to an ecstatic frenzy. Few artists could hope to include such an incredible variety of collaborators on one record and still hope for it to have a unique identity, but Ambarchi manages to do just that, crafting three pieces that emerge directly out of his previous work while also pushing ahead into new dimensions.
Players: Oren Ambarchi, crys cole, Mark Fell, Will Guthrie,
Arto Lindsay, Jim O’Rourke, Konrad Sprenger, Joe Talia, Ricardo Villalobos, Keith Fullerton Whitman.
Das erste Album mit Originalmusik von den englischen Künstlern Flying Mojito Bros., die total auf Americana und Dance-Musik stehen. FMB hat dank seines einzigartigen Stils, der als Desert Disco und Outlaw House bezeichnet wird - ein neu definierter Americana-Sound, der von Poolside-Vibes bis zur Tanzfläche reicht -, eine wachsende Fangemeinde in den USA gewonnen. Das Album bietet eine hochkarätige Besetzung mit Künstlern wie Scott Hirsch, Will Worden und Rob Chaney (weitere werden noch bekannt gegeben!) und hat die Unterstützung von einflussreichen Persönlichkeiten wie Diplo, Phish, Pretty Lights, BBC 6 Music und KEXP erhalten. Just Passing Through zeigt die Entwicklung von FMB und kombiniert ihre charakteristischen Re-Edits und Remixe mit Live-Band-Aufnahmen. Es ist ein mutiger Schritt in ihrer Karriere, bei dem sie von den 1970er Jahren inspirierten Rock und elektronische Rhythmen mit Kollaborationen von Top-Musikern wie Shawn Lee (Young Gun Silver Fox), Joe Harvey-Whyte (The Hanging Stars) und Joe Stoddart (ABBA Voyage) verbinden. Dieses Album markiert ein neues Kapitel in der kreativen Reise von FMB und fängt ihre Erkundung der neu definierten Americana und den interkulturellen Rock-Austausch zwischen den USA und Großbritannien ein.
Diplo—the prolific artist's self-titled album and first full-length of electronic/dance music in 18 years—is the realization of a three-year deep dive into the house music that first blew Diplo's mind as a teenager and that he has now founded Higher Ground to champion worldwide. A titan of electronic music, he’s now turned his focus back to these roots.
The album includes the Grammy-nominated “On My Mind” with Sidepiece, "Don't Forget My Love" with Miguel, “Looking For Me” and “Promises” with Paul Woolford and Kareen Lomax, “Don’t Be Afraid” with Jungle and Damian Lazarus and “One By One” with Elderbrook and Andhim—classic house records that have soundtracked the reopening of clubs worldwide—as well as collaborations with Aluna, TSHA, Leon Bridges, Lil Yachty, Busta Rhymes, Seth Troxler, Amtrac, RY X and more.
A special Australian export edition from Sweat It Out featuring a curated selection of remixes by Barry Can’t Swim, DJ Seinfeld, Andhim, and more. This 3x LP set is the exclusive physical home for these remixes. Each of the three discs comes in a unique color: Green, Red, and Blue.
b A2 - Diplo & TSHA – Let You Go (feat. Kareen Lomax) [Sebastian Ingrosso & Desembra Remix]
[c] A3 - Diplo & Seth Troxler – Waiting For You (feat. Desire) [Extended]
[e] B1 - Diplo & SIDEPIECE – On My Mind (Purple Disco Machine Remix) [Extended]
[g] B3 - Diplo & Joeski – Fortress (feat. Rhye) [Extended]
[h] B4 - Diplo & Melé – Right 2 Left (feat. Busta Rhymes) [AMÉMÉ Remix]
[j] C2 - Diplo & RY X – Your Eyes (Barry Can’t Swim Remix) [Extended]
[k] C3 - Diplo & Damian Lazarus – Don’t Be Afraid (feat. Jungle) [Soulwax Remix]
[m] D1 - Diplo & Miguel – Don’t Forget My Love (John Summit Remix) [Extended]
[o] D3 - Aluna, Diplo & Durante – Forget About Me (Nite Version) [DJ Seinfeld Remix]
[q] D5 - Aluna, Diplo & Durante – Forget About Me (Nite Version) [Andhim Remix] [Extended]
[s] E2 - Diplo - High Rise (feat. Amtrac & Leon Bridges) [Major League DJz Remix]
[t] E3 - Diplo & Seth Troxler – Waiting For You (feat. Desire) [Kalabrese Troxler Alternative Mix – Edit]
[u] E4 - Diplo & TSHA – Let You Go (feat. Kareen Lomax) [Extended]
[w] F1 - Diplo & Damian Lazarus – Don’t Be Afraid (feat. Jungle) [Extended]
[x] F2 - Diplo & Melé – Right 2 Left (feat. Busta Rhymes) [Extended]
[z] F4 - Diplo - One By One (feat. Elderbrook & andhim) [Sofia Kourtesis Remix] [Extended]
[b] A2 - Diplo & TSHA – Let You Go (feat. Kareen Lomax) [Sebastian Ingrosso & Desembra Remix]
[c] A3 - Diplo & Seth Troxler – Waiting For You (feat. Desire) [Extended]
[e] B1 - Diplo & SIDEPIECE – On My Mind (Purple Disco Machine Remix) [Extended]
[g] B3 - Diplo & Joeski – Fortress (feat. Rhye) [Extended]
[h] B4 - Diplo & Melé – Right 2 Left (feat. Busta Rhymes) [AMÉMÉ Remix]
[j] C2 - Diplo & RY X – Your Eyes (Barry Can’t Swim Remix) [Extended]
[k] C3 - Diplo & Damian Lazarus – Don’t Be Afraid (feat. Jungle) [Soulwax Remix]
[m] D1 - Diplo & Miguel – Don’t Forget My Love (John Summit Remix) [Extended]
[o] D3 - Aluna, Diplo & Durante – Forget About Me (Nite Version) [DJ Seinfeld Remix]
[q] D5 - Aluna, Diplo & Durante – Forget About Me (Nite Version) [Andhim Remix] [Extended]
[s] E2 - Diplo - High Rise (feat. Amtrac & Leon Bridges) [Major League DJz Remix]
[t] E3 - Diplo & Seth Troxler – Waiting For You (feat. Desire) [Kalabrese Troxler Alternative Mix – Edit]
[u] E4 - Diplo & TSHA – Let You Go (feat. Kareen Lomax) [Extended]
[w] F1 - Diplo & Damian Lazarus – Don’t Be Afraid (feat. Jungle) [Extended]
[x] F2 - Diplo & Melé – Right 2 Left (feat. Busta Rhymes) [Extended]
[z] F4 - Diplo - One By One (feat. Elderbrook & andhim) [Sofia Kourtesis Remix] [Extended]
Bahamadia’s 1996 debut album Kollage is rightly regarded as one of the greatest rap albums of the 1990s. For the first time ever, Be With present the definitive double LP version of this eternal hip-hop classic, including the legendary "Path To Rhythm" which never appeared on the original LP or on vinyl, anywhere. An indelible VIBE from start-to-finish, Kollage presents Bahamadia's swirling rhymes delivered with an irresistibly butter flow and razor-sharp assuredness over a steady slew of smoothed-out, jazzed-up, blunted beats. Achingly cool and effortlessly funky throughout, it's an absolute must for true 90s hip-hop fanatics.
The entire Kollage project was recorded at D&D Studios and the ties to Gang Starr are keenly felt, with DJ Premier producing five tracks in addition to the killer songs Guru had already produced with her. Working with the cream of the mid-90s East Coast sound, Kollage is, accordingly, a record that demonstrates a varied musical taste with disparate influences, as Bahamadia has previously stated: “The title Kollage was a reflection of my state of mind. I first got interested in music from playing my parents’ and grandparents’ records, as well what I heard on the radio. I wanted Kollage to reflect that diversity both lyrically and sonically."
With intelligent, poetic lyricism and a laconic verbal style bursting with both warm texture and deceptive energy, Bahamadia’s flow was as inspired by Aretha and Nancy Wilson as it was Q-Tip, Schoolly D and Lady B. Swaggering out the gate, "WordPlay" finds Bahamadia confidently showcasing her considerable old-school battle-rhyme skills over a Guru beat that utilises an infectiously bouncy bassline with splashes of sultry jazz horns and a Jeru vocal snatch for the hook. Up next, the quietly shimmering and ruggedly beautiful "Spontaneity" is one of the most alluring on the record, Da Beatminerz crafting a brilliantly soulful and jazzy soundscape for Bahamadia's effortless vocals to float across. It's followed by "Rugged Ruff", where the rapper carefully constructs a swift off-beat flow over Premier's raw jazzy fire.
With smooth spacey synth vibes overseen by former Geto Boys producer N.O. Joe, "I Confess" is, without question, a fly love song and soothing (p)-funk groove. "UKNOWHOWWEDU" is an airy, chilled tribute to her hometown. Produced by Ski Beatz & DJ Redhanded, it rides a gloriously mellow break. It's a true Philly anthem, shouting out a who’s who of the entire city’s scene. Early banger "Total Wreck" follows, presenting a murky Guru instrumental elevated by jazzy horns. Bahamadia invokes the title's suggestion, firing her brilliant bars more aggressively than we’re accustomed to. More Beatminerz-brilliance comes in the way of "Innovation", an opportunity for the MC to invoke Freestyle Fellowship in her forward-thinking and literary verses. "Da Jawn" features hometown buddies The Roots, with Black Thought gliding into a back-and-forth with Bahamadia over ?uestlove’s warm, snapping percussion. With the strut club banger "True Honey Buns (Dat Freak Sh*t)", DJ Premier provides some laidback vibrant boom bap for Bahamadia to share a wild, cautionary tale about a night out with her girl, Kia.
Fan favourite "3 Tha Hard Way" is a hypnotically sinister cut, with Bahamadia, K-Swift and Mecca Star taking star turns to coast over DJ Premier’s raw beat whilst the tender "Biggest Part Of Me" is a heartfelt stunner dedicated to her son. Incredibly, only the European and Japanese CD versions of Kollage was released with the brilliantly breezy “Path To Rhythm”, featuring Ursula Rucker. Whilst ostensibly a "bonus track", it's anything but, to our ears. Very much in sonic conversation with KRS-One's stretched-out sleeper classic "Higher Level", it's absolutely essential so we had to include it, appearing on wax for the first time here, exclusively. Quite a coup.
Somewhat predictably, whilst Kollage was released to significant critical acclaim, it suffered from disappointing sales. In the intervening years - and for far too long - it was a criminally underrated record, an increasingly hidden gem. We hope this double LP reissue - which looks and sounds amazing - will go some way to correct this. This 2024 Be With double LP re-issue has been mastered for vinyl by Simon Francis, cut by Cicely Balston and pressed at Record Industry. It's too bold and beautiful to remain overlooked and underserved.
Hiroshi Sato’s landmark solo debut album, recorded at Electra Studios in California with the support of local musicians including Amos Garrett and Joe Carrello.
The album features a self-cover of “Rainbow Sealine”, originally written for Minako Yoshida, as well as “F.W.Y.”, later covered by Chu Kosaka.
Original Release: LQ-7008 (May 25, 1976)
After Maghreb K7 Club – Synth Raï, Chaoui & Staïfi (1985-1997) and Maghreb K7 Club Disco Singles Volume 1, 2, and 3, Sofa Records and Les Disques Bongo Joe team up again for a new project exploring funky, synth-driven tape music from the Maghreb.
This compilation brings together eight songs —delivering a Saharan pop sound melted with reggae, dub, new-wave and funk — by Yassine (Ahl) Nana, the iconic figure of Mauritanian pop music in the 1980s and 1990s. Yassine and his band recorded songs between Nouakchott, Paris, and Rabat, resulting in only a pair of rare cassette tapes. This music was definitively part of the vibrant wave of African sounds sweeping across the continent at the time, from Abidjan to Oran and Kinshasa.
This compilation features previously unreleased recordings, along with liner notes, interviews, and exclusive iconography.
This compilation brings together eight tracks by Yassine Nana and his group, recorded between 1984 and 1989, during a key moment in Mauritania"s musical history. A central figure of one of the country"s most respected musical families, Yassine stands at the crossroads of a long-standing tradition and a period of deep transformation in form, sound and production. Recorded in Mauritania as well as during stays in Paris and Rabat, these songs integrate drum machines, synthesizers and electric guitars into Saharan musical structures. Influenced by reggae, soul and new wave, the group develops a sound that reflects the circulation of music and technology in the 1980s, while remaining firmly rooted in Mauritanian languages, themes and melodic systems. Love, travel, exile and music itself run through lyrics sung in Hassaniya and classical Arabic.
As the world sinks deeper into screens and algorithms blur the line between creation and imitation, Nubiyan Twist return with Chasing Shadows, a record that reclaims the pulse, warmth and spontaneity of human connection.
The band’s fifth studio album is a rich and restless blend of jazz, afrobeat, hip hop and electronic textures, exploring the space between the organic and the digital. It’s music that moves, sweats, and breathes, made by real people in real rooms with heavyweight features bringing together varied voices from the music community which they inhabit.
Bandleader and producer Tom Excel explains: “We wanted to make something that felt joyous and defiantly human — something that couldn’t exist without that connection between people. You can get an AI to write a fugue in seconds, but it can’t capture the chemistry and chaos that happens when musicians lock in together. Chasing Shadows is our way of holding onto that.”
Folowing 2024’s acclaimed Find Your Flame, praised by Roling Stone, Jazzwise, NPR and more, Chasing Shadows pushes the band’s sound further into new soulful territory under Exce l’s expert guidance, featuring bright new vocalist Eniola and a glowing cast of icons and innovators. Malian star Fatoumata Diawara lights up the title track on a powerful slice of Afrobeat, Joe Armon Jones leads the dub workout ‘Rhythm Of You’ and the band take it back to their hip hop roots on great colabs with The Pharcyde’s Booty Brown, Ghanaian MC M.anifest and London dancehal favourite, Mr Wi liamz.
On Chasing Shadows, Nubiyan Twist continue to look outwards with their music but keep the focus firmly on humanity and positivity. It is an album which crosses continents and which shamelessly celebrates our co lective strength.
Fifth album from UK-based co lective Nubiyan Twist led by bandleader & producer Tom Excel (Africa Express, Onipa)
Featuring Booty Brown, Fatoumata Diawara, M.Anifest, Mr Wi liamz and Joe Armon Jones.
Pressed on Yelow Vinyl LP, or Green & Yelow splatter Vinyl LP (exclusively for UK indies).
After a series of successful outings alongside sidekicks Ofofo and Zongamin, studio wizard MYTRON turns in his debut solo full-length for Multi Culti World Records. With contributions on Invisible Inc, Calypso, Bongo Joe, Kalahari Oyster Cult, LYO, Codek Records and Earthly Measures, Mytron has carved out a name for himself in a carefully-curated left-field quadrant of the indie-dance galaxy. Tuning his oscillators to myriad sounds — from dub and disco to krautrock — the London-based producer perhaps most notably channels the pristine compositional style of Kraftwerk. While most apparent in the use of vocoder, there’s a consistent efficiency of arrangement that recalls the man-machine in effervescent, idealistic fashion. Mytron manages to keep it simple, funky and musical — whimsical tunes that bop along with analog grit, wilderness, and wonk. There’s a warmth and wit that shine through every synth line, an understated confidence that speaks of years spent tangled in wires and waveforms, with an inclusive sonic eclecticism that flattens hierarchies between genres, geographies, and generations. Each influence is invited to the table, treated not as pastiche but invited to dine and dance in a space where kosmische dub disco and Afro rhythms can coexist without borders. The sleeve design echoes this philosophy: video-feedback patterns hinting at our modern screens, both portals and filters — coloured, distorted intermediaries through which we perceive the world. In the trippiest sense, the record is both reflection and refraction — a sonic mirror held up to an interconnected, glitchy reality. Tailored equally for DJ use and home-listening head trip, the album is meticulous, mischievous and merry.
BanBanTonTon review:
On Mytron’s debut long-player for Multi Culti groovy 21st Century leftfield house gear collides with Daniele Baldelli and Beppe Loda’s hugely influential `80s afro / cosmic. The 9 tracks are chunky, chugging and full of funky, funny noises. Old school B-lines mixing with eccentric electronics. Spinning, spiralling sounds.
Sugar is an electro-pop, vocoder confection, cut from the same sonic cloth as cult classics like Codek’s Tam Tam. Created from tough trap drums, splashing effects and a mutant Giorgio Moroder bass arpeggio. The title track, Propellor, pits Kraftwerk-esque hardware harmonised vocals against a bongo loop and a whistling hook. Playground has simian shrieks surround tumbling tom-toms. Highway Maintenance adds kosmische synths to a dance of woodblocks and buzzing bottom end. Keep On Dubbing is an organ-led, clip clopping percussive canter.
Tracks such as Speaker Can Talk, shot through with disco lasers blasts and recalling Curt Cress’ Dschung Tek, also lift the tempo up, but the bulk of the music here is a mid-tempo, techno drum circle. Squelchy sequences gurgling in and out of programmed percussion. On Quasar, spiky acid edges in and slowly takes over.
Key references that come to mind are Baldelli’s own turn-of-the-2000s Cosmic Sound Project productions, and Wolf Müller’s scene shaking sides on Themes For Great Cites, from around a decade later.
Brighter Discs opens with its first release from label founders Kamma & Masalo. Born out of Brighter Days, the duo’s long running party series since 2014. A colourful get together where generations mix freely, DJ legends share space with new voices, and the dancefloor is treated as common ground. Brighter Discs carries this same spirit into recorded form, a natural continuation following the Brighter Days compilation previously released on Rush Hour.
Brighter Discs starts things off with ‘Can’t Fake The Feeling’, built around the original vocal by Renee Mohannon, taken from the 1989 release produced by house music pioneer Joe Smooth. The vocal is fully cleared and officially licensed, with everything surrounding it newly written and produced, resulting in a club track that honours the emotional core of the original vocal while giving it new space to shine.
The ‘Club Mix’ unfolds with immediate lift, a classic yet upfront house energy carried by Kamma & Masalo’s elevating instrumentation moving in lockstep with Renee Mohannon’s vocal. A pure club track celebrating dance music to the fullest.
On the flip you will find K&M’s ‘Unity Dub’, a darker, percussion driven workout that strips things back and presents the track in a different light. A twilight version that highlights the duo’s versatility and deep dancefloor understanding.
Kamma & Masalo have tested both cuts extensively while touring, from sun soaked festival stages to esoteric club spaces. Each version has been shaped in real rooms and refined on the road, ensuring the tracks are heard in their best possible form.
All produced with care and free-spirited party energy, Brighter Discs 001 marks the beginning!
GALA announce Ten Years of GALA – a compilation marking a decade of independent culture
Ten Years of GALA is both an archive and a horizon: a reflection on where GALA has come from, and a signal of what lies ahead.
Founded in 2016 as a one-day gathering in South London, GALA has grown into a global point of reference for dancers, artists and collectives drawn together by a shared commitment to independence, collaboration and underground music culture. Rather than charting success through scale alone, the festival has consistently prioritised integrity, community and musical curiosity – values that underpin this release.
Spanning fifteen tracks, Ten Years of GALA unfolds as a considered journey. It opens with an intimate spoken contribution from Charlie Dark, grounding the compilation firmly in GALA’s home of Peckham before gradually expanding outward into fuller, club-focused terrain. From there, the record moves between moods and tempos, tracing a path from reflective moments into the physical language of the dancefloor.
The compilation brings together longtime friends of the festival alongside newer voices drawn into its orbit in recent years. Each artist contributes a distinct perspective, but collectively the tracks form a coherent portrait – not of a single sound, but of a shared ethos shaped over ten years of gatherings, collaborations and days spent dancing together.
Rather than a retrospective in the conventional sense, Ten Years of GALA functions as a living document. It captures fragments of past editions, scenes and relationships, while remaining firmly oriented toward the future. These are not museum pieces, but records designed to be played, shared and folded back into the spaces from which they came.
Together, the compilation holds a piece of GALA’s first decade – not as a closed chapter, but as a foundation for what comes next.
Preston duo White Flowers announce new album, Dreams For Somebody Else - due for release 1st May 2026 via The state51 Conspiracy.
White Flowers, the long-running collaboration between Joey Cobb and Katie Drew, exists within what they call “the realm” – a shared creative space, wherein time, rather than being a restrictive force, is fluid and boundless, and music exists as an endless conversation with their past and present selves. Adopting what the band describe as a “sketchbook” approach to writing, White Flowers is the product of a decade’s worth of recordings - snippets nestled away on hard drives, only to truly make sense years later.
On Dreams For Somebody Else, the band expand upon the dark-hued dream pop of their debut, channeling the catharsis of dance music via repetitive structures and “sad, euphoric sounds”. Working alongside LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip’s Al Doyle on production, the album maps out a mosaic of soaring choruses that swirl around imposing arrays of synths, guitars, and percussion.
Through this new lens, the band explore themes of isolation, dissociation and identity - drawing inspiration from Annie Ernaux’s The Years. “Whilst recording the songs for ‘Dreams For Somebody Else’, we really connected with the concept of Annie Ernaux’s book, ‘The Years’ - a ‘collective autobiography’ pieced together from mismatched fragments from her past, conjuring the effect that she’s merely an observer of her own life. This concept merges into the White Flowers world, where time, rather than being restrictive, is fluid and boundless, with our music existing as an endless conversation with versions of ourselves at different stages of our lives.”
“The album has that same feeling of disassociating from your own life, because you’re just blending into everyone else”, the band explains. “There’s a sadness there, because it’s as if you’re looking back on things that happened to you, and they feel like they don’t belong to you anymore”. It’s the dull ache of nostalgia intertwined with a sense of wonder at what could lie ahead - the hopeful optimism and endless loss that defines the human experience. “It’s this idea of identity not being a fixed thing, but something that’s always changing. It’s a fluid thing, similar to time. Things aren’t really fixed, but rather in a constant state of change. It’s important to remember that we’re all going through that.”
Chapter 1[40,29 €]
Spinnin' Records, one of the most influential dance music labels, celebrates its 25th anniversary with the Chapter 2 compilation featuring a further selection of iconic hits that have shaped the global electronic music scene.
Since its founding in 1999, Spinnin' has been a trendsetter in electronic dance music (EDM), nurturing superstar artists and groundbreaking tracks across house, future bass, big room, and deep house genres.
This edition of Spinnin' 25 Years...Chapter 2 double vinyl LP collection includes the hits "Lay Low" by Tiësto, "Turn Up The Speakers" by Afrojack & Martin Garrix, "Satisfaction" by David Guetta & Benni Benassi, "Intoxicated" by Martin Solveig & GTA, "Gecko" by Oliver Heldens, "Sex" by Cheat Codes x Kris Kross Amsterdam and 25 more tracks showcasing their signature sound and major contributions to the label.
Spinnin' 25 Years...Chapter 2 is available as a limited edition on blue vinyl. The iconic Spinnin' logo is printed with an uv spot varnish on the gatefold sleeve.
Joe Chambers ist ein US-amerikanischer Jazz-Schlagzeuger, Pianist, Vibraphonist und Komponist. In den 1960er- und 1970er-Jahren spielte Chambers mit vielen namhaften Künstlern wie Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, Wayne Shorter und Chick Corea zusammen und wirkte an mehreren legendären Blue-Note-Alben der 1960er-Jahre mit. Double Exposure, ursprünglich 1978 bei Muse Records veröffentlicht, ist eine seltene und genreübergreifende Session, die zwei visionäre Musiker in einem sehr persönlichen, experimentellen Rahmen zusammenbringt. Der Schlagzeuger und Komponist Joe Chambers wird von Larry Young begleitet, einem wegweisenden Jazzorganisten, dessen modale und avantgardistische Neigungen Tony Williams' Lifetime und Miles Davis' Bitches Brew-Ära mitprägten. Remastered & Cut AAA direkt von den originalen Analogbändern durch Matthew Lutthans bei The Mastering Lab. Gepresst auf 180g-Vinyl und verpackt in Stoughton Old Style® Tip-On Jackets. Enthält ein Insert mit neu verfassten Liner Notes von Bill Milkowski und Barney Fields sowie seltenen Fotos von Jan Persson und Raymond Ross.
