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Motown Collected brings together the biggest names in the rich history of this legendary label. From very early singles to the artists that made Motown a household name for decades to come and the cross-over pop success of the late 70’s and 80’s. Featuring legendary artists like Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, Jackson Five, Smokey Robinson and The Commodores, as well as gems from the likes of Marv Johnson, Barrett Strong, The Marvelettes and Tom Clay and pop superstars Rick James, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Lionel Richie and Debarge: just a selection of the 33 incredible tracks featured on Motown Collected.

The documentary Hitsville: The Making Of Motown’, featuring Motown founder Berry Gordy and many of this artists, will premiere in cinemas across Europe this summer as well.






RELEASE: 23-7-2021

MOV proudly presents new Collected compilation albums in collaboration with Universal Music. Motown Collected is the first one, available as a limited edition of 3000 numbered copies on white vinyl. It includes an insert with photos and credits.

Susanna is now releasing a live album of covers with a unique history. Recorded in Oslo and Asker (Norway) in 2019 and 2020
right before the pandemic hit, Live by Susanna and David Wallumrød is a collaboration by the Norwegian and her cousin David, also a prolific musician, whose seeds were unknowingly sown over 20 years ago.“We played a lot together in our childhood and youth, being cousins, growing up in the same small town Kongsberg,” says Susanna. After being highly active musicians for many years, they decided to do a concert together in 2017, at a tiny cocktail-bar concert series in Oslo. It was so much fun they decided to do some more shows. They did, and out of this came Live. The songs on Live are the same covers Susanna and David played together 20 years ago, with a few new additions. They are instantly recognisable classics by Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris and Tom
Waits, played in the way Susanna and David know best - voice and keys. Pure, simple, and stunning. David Wallumrød is one of Norway’s most used piano/keyboard-players, he has participated on over 150 albums and been a regular member in the bands of artists like Knut Reiersrud, Odd Nordstoga, Jonas Alaska, Band of Gold and Torun Eriksen. He has his own band called Spirit in the Dark. Susanna is the woman behind Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, a creator of bold, original and enrapturing music, capable of
building worlds to lose yourself in and collaborator with artists such as Jenny Hval and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. Alongside this Susanna has also long been an interpreter of other people’s works, from AC/DC to Dolly Parton, Joy Division to Henry Purcell. Susanna has an ability to transform these works into music that sits comfortably next to her own work while never losing what made the original - and the original composer of the song - so special.

The Room will be Ricky Reed’s first artist album since becoming a house-hold-name producer, and launching his own label with Nice Life Recording Company. The project features Leon Bridges, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Dirty Projectors, Terrace Martin, Duendita, Ayoni, Lido Pimienta, St. Panther & John-Robert and more. The Room is a title that came to him in the wake of the death of George Floyd and the galvanizing of the Black Lives Matter movement across America and the world. He wanted to create a communal place where it’s as necessary to cry as it is to rejuvenate; where it’s as vital to be angry as it is to find joy. The music is an invitation to share experiences, commiserate, rejuvenate, and offer hope. It is upbeat in places, meditative always, and has real soul to it. Ultimately, Reed feels fundamentally changed by quarantine, particularly with his process of creating. All the songs were written via text and voice memos. The Room feels like an offering to the world at a time when Reed was back in the process again. Back at a new start. “When this comes out, whether it is well or not, the only thing that matters is that I made it.”

"The definition of a hidden gem" - John Peel / "The world seems finally to be catching up to Leslie Winer, whose startling intelligence and singular vision shine through her copious recording life." - Max Richter / "She might just be the coolest woman on the planet!" - Boy George "When I Hit You - You'll Feel It" is a 16-track anthology that celebrates the extraordinary work of musician, poet, and author, Leslie Winer. The collection spans Winer's three-decade-long musical career: from her groundbreaking solo work in the early '90s to her latest inspired projects. Featuring musical contributions from Jon Hassell, Helen Terry, Jah Wobble, Renegade Soundwave's Karl Bonnie, and others, the collection also spotlights Winer's diverse collaborations, unearths previously-unreleased recordings and was newly remastered by the GRAMMYr-nominated engineer John Baldwin. The album includes a new interview with Winer, captured by the compilation's co-producer, acclaimed author and critic Wyndham Wallace. Rounding out the package is an insightful essay by the award-winning writer and scholar Louis Chude-Sokei and an original cover collage by the renowned British photographer and artist, Linder, featuring photography by Mondino, and design by designer Christopher Shannon. Musician, poet, iconoclast, model, artist, enigma. Leslie Winer is many things. She grew up in Boston with a voracious appetite for music and the written word and embraced the city's lively jazz and folk scene in the '70s. Moving to New York for art school, she formed an unlikely friendship with writer and artist William S. Burroughs and lived on-and-off with Jean-Michel Basquiat. In London, where Winer began her musical ventures in earnest, she was a regular at Leigh Bowery's underground club Taboo, where she met many of her collaborators, including filmmaker John Maybury, Kevin Mooney (of Adam and the Ants), and Boy George. Winer's striking looks also attracted fashion designers and photographers. Throughout the early '80s, she was an in-demand model-appearing in campaigns for Valentino, Christian Dior, and Yohji Yamamoto, and serving as a muse for a young Jean-Paul Gaultier, who later dubbed Winer "the first androgynous model." She posed for Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, and Pierre et Gilles, and graced the covers of The Face, French and Italian editions of Vogue, and Mademoiselle. But music was Winer's true passion and, at the turn of the '90s, she would unknowingly help invent the massively popular genre known today as trip-hop. On her debut, Witch, Winer masterfully blended the uninhibited sampling of early hip-hop with dancehall basslines and programmed beats, while weaving mesmerizing - and coolly-detached - spoken-word vocals into her ambient tracks. It was unorthodox in the most delicious ways. While Witch was finished in 1990, it wouldn't be released for three years, due to the whims of Winer's label. By the time the album saw the light of day (released under the pseudonym "c"), trip-hop was gaining mainstream traction via acts like Portishead, Massive Attack, and Madonna. Although Winer eventually gained wider acknowledgment (prompting the NME to give her the dubious distinction of "The Grandmother of Trip-Hop"), Witch initially went sorely unnoticed. Winer continued to record, undeterred by the elusive nature of mainstream success in the modern music business. Her network of inspired collaborators continued to grow and expand, yet her influence remained largely a secret except to those in the know, such as Grace Jones and Sinead O'Connor, who would cover her songs. In the modern era, one is hard-pressed to find an artist who continues to push the creative envelope as much as Winer does. And yet, three decades after her revolutionary debut, her work remains just as startling and fresh.

Adam Gibbons, the artist & producer behind Lack of Afro and The Damn Straights, is set to release The Last Bastion OST, a cinematic, funk & soul soundtrack to a film that has yet, and may never, be made. Encompassing lush string and horn arrangements, the project will be released in three parts, with the full soundtrack coming out on limited edition, red vinyl this summer. Having originally got into music with the idea of scoring for films, The Last Bastion sees Adam fulfilling something of a long-held ambition.

"Long before all the Lack of Afro stuff took over, being a film composer was all I wanted to do. All my heroes were composers - guys like John Barry, John Williams & Thomas Newman and more recently David Holmes, Daniel Pemberton and Ludwig Goransson. There is something magical about a great film score - it adds so much to the cinematic experience in every way imaginable. I was always drawn to what the music was doing and I was fascinated by the guys who were the composers of the magic.”

- North American version on CLEAR vinyl (2XLP) - Limited DOUBLE 180g Vinyl Edition (500 copies) with obi strip - Rare Dutch studio recordings, one of Art's last sessions before he passed away - Comes with insert/liner notes // Art Blakey (1919-1990) actually needs little introduction, the American Jazz drummer and bandleader made a name for himself in the 1940s & 1950s playing with contemporaries such as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. He is often considered to have been Thelonious Monk's most empathetic drummer (he played on both Monk's first recording session in 1947 and his final one in 1971). In the decades that followed Blakey recorded for all THE labels that mattered in the field of jazz (Columbia, Blue Note, Atlantic, RCA, Impulse!, Riverside, Prestige, Verve, etc.). His collaborations were numerous and include working with equally legendary artists such as Sonny Rollins, Max Roach, Chet Baker, John Coltrane_.and countless others.Art Blakey was a major figure and a pioneer for modern jazz, he assumed an aggressive swing drumming style early on in his career and is known as one of the inventors of the modern bebop style of drumming. His signature polyrhythmic style was amazing, exuding power and originality, creating a dark cymbal sound punctuated by frequent loud snare and bass drum accents in triplets or cross-rhythms. A loud and domineering drummer_but Blakey also listened and responded to the others in the band. He was an original, an important drummer you'd hear_and would recognize immediately.Art Blakey was inducted into the Downbeat Jazz Hall of Fame (1981), the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame (1991), the Grammy Hall of Fame (1998 and 2001) and was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 2005. He was sampled and remixed by renowned acts such as Raekwon, Black Eyed Peas, A Tribe Called Quest, Digable Planets, Buscemi, KRS-One and Madlib.In the mid-1950s he and Horace Silver formed `The Jazz Messengers': a group that Blakey would perform and record with for the next 35 years. Originally formed as a collective of contemporaries_but over the years the band became known as an incubator for young talent that included artists such as Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton, Chuck Mangione, John Hicks_and MANY others. Art Blakey went on to record dozens of albums with a constantly changing group of Jazz Messengers. Blakey's final performances were in July 1990. He died on October 16 of lung cancer. The legacy of Art Blakey and his band is not only the music they produced, but also the opportunities they provided for several generations of jazz musicians.Released on the legendary Dutch jazz label Timeless Records and one of his final recordings_on the album we are presenting you today (Chippin' In) you'll find ten sublime tracks recorded at Rudy van Gelder's Recording Studio in February 1990. Art Blakey passed away just 8 months after these tracks were cut and you can't hear any signs of him slowing down at all. For these specific recordings, The Jazz Messengers were expanded from its usual quintet or sextet into a septet and they showcase their energetic signature sound with remarkable style, musical knowledge, a dash of good humor and camaraderie you'd expect from a world class band who have entertained, thrilled and amazed for almost five decades. The line-up on these fantastic sessions includes non-other than Essiet Okon, Geoff Keezer, Dale Barlow, Javon Jackson, Frank Lacy, Steve Davis and Brian Lynch_impressive to say the least!Chippin' In sounds as successful, young and vibrant as ever! Expect supercharged hard bop with striking notes, no-holds-barred musicianship, high swinging solos, screaming choruses and plenty of solid virtuosity to spare. This electrifying set of tracks contains both originals and several eclectic versions of standards_making this release a bonafide hit and a must have for any self-respecting jazz fan or collector.

• “Choctaw Ridge” explores a new country sound, one that emerged at the end of the 60s in the wake of Bobbie Gentry’s ‘Ode To Billie Joe’, a shock number one hit in 1967. When singers like Gentry, Jimmy Webb, Michael Nesmith and Lee Hazlewood moved from the south to Los Angeles to make it in the music business, they were not part of the Nashville in-crowd and they forged a new direction.

• ‘Ode To Billie Joe’ was the tip of the iceberg, and its success helped a bunch of singers and storytellers to emerge over the next three or four years. Some of the tracks on this collection bear that song’s stamp more clearly than others: Sammi Smith’s moody ‘Saunders’ Ferry Lane’ had a similar mystery lyric, and Henson Cargill’s ‘Four Shades Of Love’ is a portmanteau, with one (or possibly two) of the theoretically romantic situations ending in death.

• Suddenly, character sketches of southerners became a lot more rounded – women didn’t have to stay home, or take abuse at the office, and darkness wasn’t only found at the bottom of a bottle. Storytelling is the link between all of the songs on this collection. We have cautionary tales about what could happen to someone who heads for the bright lights and doesn’t make it, ending up in the grasping hands of ‘Mr Walker’ (Billie Joe Spears), or on the ‘Back Side Of Dallas’ (Jeannie C Reilly), or on a mortuary slab in the case of the songwriter with the ‘Fabulous Body And Smile’ (Robert Charles Griggs). And there are stories about wanting to go home – Nat Stuckey’s ‘What Am I Doing In LA?’ and Charlie Rich’s ‘Feel Like Going Home’ – and others from Ed Bruce and Lee Hazlewood, who know that their home isn’t home anymore.

• The tracklist and fulsome sleeve notes have been put together by Bob Stanley (Saint Etienne) and Martin Green (Smashing, The Sound Gallery), who have been collecting these records for decades.

• The voices are resonant and relatable, and the productions take in the best of what pop had to offer in the late 60s and early 70s. Before the factionalism between smooth pop-conscious Nashville and the hedonistic ‘outlaws’ made it look inward again, this was a golden era for an atmospheric, inclusive and progressive country music. It began on the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day.

For more than five decades, John McLaughlin has deployed his peerless guitar technique, compositional gifts, and imagination in service of a deeply personal higher calling, forging a vast legacy unmatched in improvised music. Now as the world reels from the toll of the ongoing viral-induced global lockdown, McLaughlin reflects on both the perils and potential of this challenging moment with ‘Liberation Time’. Characterised by both joy and reflection, ‘Liberation Time’ finds McLaughlin harnessing his frustrations and redirecting that energy. “The result,” he explains in a candid liner note, “was an explosion of music in my mind.”. Unusual for McLaughlin’s recent projects, ‘Liberation Time’ is not the work of one fixed ensemble. With physical proximity no longer a prerequisite, McLaughlin drew upon decades of experience as a bandleader to select musicians best suited to each composition. “That is a choice that can only be made correctly if you know how the musicians play,” he explains. “Not just how well they play technically, but how they play intuitively. Only then can you make the right decisions.” “As the Spirit Sings” introduces the album by contrasting churning rhythmic tension (stoked by drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and bassist Sam Burgess) with McLaughlin’s soaring guitar figure - all underpinned by Gary Husband’s subtle,expansive piano. Knotty post-bop figures form the basis of “Right Here, Right Now, Right On,” one of the most jazz-inflected performances McLaughlin has laid down in some time, featuring Nicolas Viccaro (drums), Jerome Regard (bass), Julian Siegel (tenor saxophone), and Oz Ezzeldin (piano). It is impossible to ignore the profound brotherhood that exists between the members of 4th Dimension - McLaughlin’s current ensemble, which includes Husband along with Etienne Mbappe (bass) and Ranjit Barot (drums). They are featured on the soulful “Lockdown Blues,” a playful refraction examination of blues tropes first released last summer to benefit the Jazz Foundation of America.

A little over a year ago, Nathan Williams found himself back in San Diego, writing what would eventually become Hideaway, his seventh album as Wavves, in a little shed behind his parents’ house. It was also the place where he made some of his earliest albums, before he became known for his uncanny ability to write songs that sneered at the world while evoking pathos, sympathy, and a deep understanding of how sometimes we’re our own worst enemies, and that can be okay. Williams’ return to his childhood home was not just a symbolic attempt at jumpstarting creativity. It came as a result of a series of major life changes. A decade ago, Williams released King of the Beach on the maverick indie label Fat Possum. The album was a cocky collection of pop punk gems that catapulted him into the public consciousness, eventually prompting a jump from Fat Possum into the major label system, where he released two albums before becoming disillusioned by the lack of creative agency available to him. In 2017, Williams self-released You’re Welcome on his label, Ghost Ramp. Now, Williams has returned to Fat Possum with a barbed collection of anxious anthems that grapple with the looming sense of doom and despair that comes with getting older in an increasingly chaotic world. “He’ll always skew toward the Bart Simpson character,” says Matthew Johnson, founder of Fat Possum. “But that does not mean that he doesn’t have some commentary, and once in awhile, it’s totally spot on.” Across its brief but impactful nine tracks, Hideaway is about what happens when you get old enough to take stock of the world around you and realize that no one is going to save you but yourself, and even that might be a tall order. The album features Williams’ most universal and urgent songs yet. “Honeycomb” lopes along sunnily, as Williams sings affecting lines like “I feel like I’m dying, it’s cool, it’s great, just pretend I’m okay.” His directness is shocking, and proof that Williams is the kind of songwriter who can capture pain and uncertainty with resonant brutal force. “It’s real peaks and valleys with me,” Williams says. “I can be super optimistic and I can feel really good, and then I can hit a skid and it’s like an earthquake hits my life, and everything just falls apart. Some of it is my own doing, of course.” It’s this self awareness that permeates each of Hideaway’s songs, marking them each as mature reckonings with who he is. After realizing the material he’d been working on in the hideaway was starting to take shape, Williams, along with bandmates Stephen Pope and Alex Gates workshopped the songs in a series of now-abandoned studio sessions, before linking up with musician and producer Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio to help fully realize their new songs.

A limited edition of 500 copies on white vinyl. First ever reissue of Alternative TV's "Action Time Vision", compiled in 1980 and featuring the group's 7"es from 1977 to 1979. Including bonus track "You Bastard" and new liner notes by ATV singer Mark Perry, the founding editor of punk fanzine Sniffin' Glue.

What Mark Perry says:
"It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Punk turned my world upside down! In July 1976, after hearing and seeing the Ramones, I went from just another music fan, avid reader of the NME and Melody Maker, to become editor of punk's premier fanzine, Sniffin' Glue. It was almost an instant success and by December 1976, through our no nonsense approach, our position as the 'punk Bible' was assured. But it was never enough for me. As I saw the initial punk explosion subside into a succession of third-rate copycats, I wanted to have a go myself.

My first attempt at forming a band was in late '76. We called ourselves the 'New Beatles' and it ended after a couple of rehearsals. It wasn't until I met guitarist Alex Fergusson, a mate of Sounds writer Sandy Robertson, in early 1977, that I started putting together some more interesting ideas for a band. I worked on a bunch of lyrics and, pretty quickly, Alex had put tunes to them. Eventually calling ourselves Alternative TV, we had our first rehearsals at Throbbing Gristle's Industrial Studios in March '77.

That initial line-up was just me singing and Alex on guitar, with Genesis P-Orridge helping out on some bass and drums. We did ask Gen to join fulltime, but he decided against it and stuck with Throbbing Gristle. After more rehearsals, we played our first gig at the Nottingham Punk Festival in May 1977, joined by Mick Smith on bass and John Towe (ex-Generation X) on drums.

I started thinking about doing a record almost from the start because, by this time, I was running the Step Forward record label with Miles Copeland, who was also to become the band's manager. It seemed like a natural move to put out my own record, but it instead ended up on Deptford Fun City, another of Miles' labels. Before that actually happened, we made a slight detour by recording a demo for EMI. They didn't want to sign us, but we did end up with the tapes…"

This album is a sequel to trumpeter/bandleader Red Rodney’s ‘One For Bird’ recorded live at the Tivoli Gardens 1988. The band he brought from USA includes then up-and-coming young players: Dick Oats (alto saxophone), Garry Dial (piano), Jay Anderson (bass) and John Riley (drums), musicians that have become regular SteepleChase recording artists. Red Rodney (1927-1994) succeeded Miles Davis’ post in the Charlie Parker Quintet from 1949 to 51. This indelible experience enabled him to be an adviser on Clint Eastwood’s 1988 Golden Glove awarded film “Bird”, which featured Red’s character extensively. The publicity that came with the film seemed to have given a boost to his career. Red started to play professional at the age 15 but slowed down during early and mid- 70s due to his addiction. He made a successful come back later and toured the world with his band. “Rodney rockets through most of his solos here, ascending into high-register terrain with the audacity if youth. At 62, he plays with the ebullient spirit more typical of men half his age.” - Mark Stryker, Cadence

Oliver Wood is a mainstay of modern-day American roots music. The frontman of the Wood Brothers since 2004, he's spent the 21st century blurring the boundaries between folk, gospel, country-soul, and Americana, earning an international audience and a Grammy Award-nomination along the way. Always Smilin', his debut as a solo artist, continues that tradition while also shining new light on Oliver's sharp songwriting, savvy guitar chops, and a voice that evokes the swagger of a Saturday evening picking party one moment and the solemnity of a Sunday morning gospel service the next. Always Smilin' is an album of bridges, mixing a wide range of collaborations with a uniquely personal touch. Guests include bandmates from Oliver's musical past and present, from mentor and co-writer Chris Long (who performed alongside Oliver in King Johnson, the roots-rock band that dominated Atlanta's music scene around the turn of the millennium) to percussionist Jano Rix (Oliver's partner in The Wood Brothers). Blues heroine Susan Tedeschi, Hiss Golden Messenger's Phil Cook, Medeski Martin & Wood's John Medeski, Tedeschi Trucks Band's Tyler Greenwell, Nashville staple Phil Madeira, and singer/songwriter Carsie Blanton also make appearances, with Rebecca Wood — Oliver's wife — handling the album's handmade linocut cover art. For Oliver, the goal was simple: to collaborate freely with a mix of old friends and new partners, embracing a new level of independence.

Nonesuch Records releases an album of songs written and performed by Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion, Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part. The musicians, who have known each other since their student days, were presented with three days of gratis studio time and decided to experiment with ideas they had begun putting to tape during the sessions for their January 2021 Nonesuch release Narrow Sea. With Shaw on vocals and Sō – Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting – filling out this new band, they developed songs in the studio, with lyrics inspired by their own wide-ranging interests: James Joyce, the Sacred Harp hymn book, a poem by Anne Carson, the Bible’s Book of Ruth, the American roots tune ‘I’ll Fly Away’, and the pop perfection of ABBA, among others. The album is co-produced by Shaw, Sō Percussion, and the Grammy Award–winning engineer Jonathan Low (The National, Taylor Swift).

Shaw, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her vocal composition Partita for 8 Voices, written for and performed with Roomful of Teeth, makes her solo vocal debut with Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part. The album’s first track, ‘To the Sky’, from the Sacred Harp, takes its lyrics from Anne Steele. “I love the songs about death, and going home, and looking toward a time that is better or brighter, which, if there’s one thing to think about in the world, maybe that’s the thing,” Shaw says. “This one I love in particular. There’s a line, ‘Frail solace of an hour / So soon our transient comforts fly / And pleasure blooms to die.’ It’s meditation on the ephemeral, and I love it.”

“I hadn’t written very many songs, but I have certainly loved many in my life. I’ve been thinking of making a solo album for seven or eight years, but it takes having the right friends and community in the room,” Shaw says. “The prompt for all of us was: What would we make in the room together with no one person in charge, like a band writes in the studio?”

Cha-Beach recalls of the early test run during the Narrow Sea session: “It had that capturing-lightning-in-a bottle feeling.” When the opportunity to have three days in their friends’ studio, Guilford Sound, came up, the five musicians decamped for Vermont with engineer/co-producer Jonathan Low. “Jon is an amazing editor,” Cha-Beach says. “He is so helpful in thinking about: ‘We have these ideas: how do we shrink those and make them come across on an album?’”

One such idea was for Shaw to do a duet with each member of Sō. She sings with Josh Quillen on steel drums on the title track, which she wrote in under an hour in a “free-writing zone, very inspired by James Joyce, taking on that brain space,” she says. Lyrically, the song is “related to some math bits that I love, but also memory, and love songs of somebody who’s gone or passed away, or that you’re no longer with: what is the sound of that kind of devastation or confusion or love?” They recorded the song only twice, and the first take is on the album. “It’s very spare. The playing is very Josh; it’s so sensitive,” Shaw says.

Adam Sliwinski’s marimba duet with Shaw is an interpretation of the ABBA song ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’. She explains, “It’s really a Bach chorale. Also, the idea of someone singing ‘Don’t go wasting your emotion / Lay all your love on me / Don’t go sharing your devotion / Lay all your love on me,’ over and over again very slowly, there’s a certain tragedy in it. And then Adam did some absolutely exquisite layering that built this stunning world from the marimba.”

Jason Treuting on the drum kit joined Shaw for ‘Long Ago We Counted’. She suggested, “Why don’t we start with the voice and the kit having a weird conversation, sort of like two babies talking to each other? And then we built this loop, and we go from this place that’s totally uncomfortable and nonsensical to something that’s rich and rolling and satisfying.” For ‘Some Bright Morning’, the duet with Cha-Beach – who here plays electronics, piano, and Hammond organ – Shaw drew upon a twelfth century liturgical hymn she had sung regularly in church during her college years: ‘Salve Regina’.

“Some songs on Let the Soil… were very specifically composed by Caroline,” Cha-Beach says. “But others were this assemblage of ideas: finding words, an idea for how a melody could work, a harmony, and then tossing it in a blender and trusting each other.” Shaw adds, “What I love about Sō is the curiosity about how objects make sounds and how they speak to each other. There was an underlying thread of thinking about what goes into soil, how we take care of it, how we allow it to be itself, how we contain it, and what can come out of it if you cultivate the right environment, which for me is always this wonderful metaphor for creativity and collaboration: let people be themselves and see what happens,” she concludes.

Caroline Shaw is a New York–based musician – vocalist, violinist, composer, and producer – who performs in solo and collaborative projects. She was the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013 for Partita for 8 Voices, written for the Grammy–winning Roomful of Teeth, of which she is a member. Shaw’s film scores include Erica Fae’s To Keep the Light and Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline as well as the upcoming short 8th Year of the Emergency by Maureen Towey. Hailed for ‘astonishing both the pop and classical music worlds’ (Guardian), she has produced for Kanye West (The Life of Pablo; Ye) and Nas (NASIR), and has contributed to records by The National and by Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry. Shaw currently teaches at NYU and is a Creative Associate at The Juilliard School. Her 2019 Nonesuch/New Amsterdam album Orange won a Grammy Award.

Through its interpretations of modern classics, innovative multi-genre original productions, and ‘exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam’ (New Yorker), Sō Percussion has redefined the scope and role of the modern percussion ensemble. Sō’s repertoire ranges from twentieth century works by John Cage, Steve Reich, and Iannis Xenakis, to commissioning and advocating works by contemporary composers such as David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and Steven Mackey, to collaborations with artists who work outside the classical concert hall, including Shara Nova, choreographer Susan Marshall, The National, Bryce Dessner, and many others. Sō has recorded more than twenty albums, including a performance of Reich’s Mallet Quartet on the Nonesuch record WTC 9/11; appeared at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Walt Disney Hall, the Barbican, the Eaux Claires Festival, MassMoCA, and TED 2016; and performed with Jad Abumrad, JACK Quartet, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and the LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel, among others.

Purple Vinyl

Even if you're well-acquainted with composer and multi-instrumentalist Colin Fisher's richly varied output, his gentle fifth solo album, Refections of the Invisible World may come as a surprise. Psychedelic lyricism has always been a fundamental aspect of his sonic signature, but his second collaboration with producer Jeremy Greenspan (Junior Boys, Jessy Lanza, Morgan Geist) finds the Toronto native luxuriating in expansive atmospherics for its full duration.
That's not to downplay the eclecticism he finds within this ethereal landscape. Each track tills its own discrete sonic acreage, and while every one emanates from a clear focal point, the spontaneous impulse that drives Fisher's more audibly improvisational music always remains close at hand. Some pieces unfold rippling aquatic vistas or delight in prismatic guitar arpeggiation, elsewhere his plaintive, blues- infected tenor saxophone wafts like some strange jazz apparition, or becomes a chorus of cosmic murmurs. The presence of electronics is undeniable, but equally irrefutable is the organic instrumental sources of these disparate hues. In fact he's discovered a rare balance: no matter how effects-saturated, every gesture on the record feels palpably sculpted by Fisher's hands and breath. As such, Refections of the Invisible World carries a sense of intimacy at the heart of its diffuse, dream-like sonics.
Fisher has a been a major presence in Canada's music community for more than twenty years—particularly in more experimental and improvisational circles. Nothing short of a guitar virtuoso, he also wields saxophone, drums, and various other instruments with similarly refined musicality, vivid textural imagination, and sometimes feral abandon. His one-man-band tape Garden of Unknowning for Manchester's Tombed Visions, showcase all of this as he spars with different iterations of himself. The Quietus' cassette critic Tristan Bath extolled it as "miraculous," adding that "it’s a visceral experience soaking up this record, and it’s all down to Fisher’s utterly innate sense of musicality." He subsequently cited it in his 2018 contributor's year-end chart for the Wire.
In 2014 his partnership with Nick Millevoi's trio Many Arms on Suspended Defnition (Tzadik) prompted Spin's Brad Cohan to remark "Many Arms have dug even deeper into math-metal wizardry, bolstering their already imposing lineup with gale-force blowing guest saxophonist Colin Fisher, thus blasting their outré sonic blitz into a fire-breathing free jazz otherworld." Fisher later engaged the band's bassist, Johnny DeBlase, to team up with him and Kid Millions (Oneida, Man Forever) as Monas. As an ongoing collaborator to introspective dance music auteur Caribou, Fisher frst appeared in offshoot project Caribou Vibration Ensemble, and subsequently on acclaimed albums Swim and Suddenly. He's also made two duo albums with celebrated Nova Scotian jaw harp innovator chik white for Dylan and Lisa Nyoukis' Chocolate Monk label. In addition to performing alongside the likes of Jaime Branch, Joe McPhee, William Parker, Laraaji, Gerry Hemmingway, and Fred Frith, he has contributed to recordings by the Constantines (Sub Pop), Bernice (Arts & Crafts), Rhys Chatham (Table of the Elements), Born Ruffans (Warp), Anthony Braxton and AIMToronto Orchestra (Spool), and many more.

Federico Durand’s music is a weave of sound searching introspection and delight through simple melodies, made in the heart of Argentina. Federico likes music, gardens, John Keats’ poetry, collecting stamps and Earl Grey tea. Since 2010 he has been released on various labels such as 12k, Home Normal, IIKKI, Spekk, White Paddy Mountain and more.

"Herbario is the Spanish name given to a collection of dried plants and flowers preserved in an album. The collector usually writes with pencil the name of the herb, the place and date of collection, thoughts, and the habitat where the plant was collected from.

I live in a place surrounded by mountains and wild gardens which are, to me, a source of inexhaustible beauty. Through them I feel the passage of time: an ancient, circular temporality that follows the course of seasons, dialogues with the dark stillness of the mountain and the moon calendar. Each musical piece of Herbario has the name of my favourite flowers and trees.

Through a year of uncertainty, from March 2020 to March 2021, I composed this album in the same way a botanist would have proceeded: collecting and preserving simple, broken and hypnotic melodies." - F. D. / La Cumbre, Argentina.

Leo Ceccanti should be a familiar name to all followers of the Claremont 56 label. Alongside sometime studio partner Gianluca Salvadori, he was responsible for two delightfully distinctive Almunia albums released on the label, 2011’s New Moon and 2013’s Pulsar. Both sets were filled with golden, sun-kissed sounds, psychedelic grooves and immersive, life-affirming soundscapes.

Now he’s decided to go it alone as Leo Almunia, delivering a debut album for Claremont 56 that’s every bit as alluring, wide-eyed and evocative as those he made with Salvadori. In keeping with his previous work, the album blends layered acoustic and electric guitars with toasty bass, dreamy synthesizers and grooves that variously touch on hypnotic house, chugging mid-tempo disco, sunset-ready Balearic beats and, on the glistening, life-affirming album highlight ‘Wishing Star’, loose-limbed jazz breaks.

What’s most significant about Ceccanti’s personal musical style is not the blend of stylistic influences he draws on – think psychedelic rock, progressive rock, jazz-rock, new age ambient and slow-motion disco – but rather the way he uses it to paint vivid aural images that genuinely linger long in the memory.

After opening with the duelling guitars and chunky dub disco grooves of ‘Sinking Fields’, Ceccanti sashays between magical moments of rush-inducing positivity, heart-tugging poignance and heady nostalgia.

Along the way, you’ll find numerous sonic highlights. On the intoxicating 21st century psychedelia of ‘Panerea’, jangling chords and eyes-closed psych-rock guitar solos ride a chugging, thickset electronic bassline, while ‘Il Cormorano’ is a metronomic, flash-fried workout rich in fuzz-tone guitar motifs, bluesy riffs and echoing instrumental touches.

He cannily joins the dots between Mid-West Americana and throbbing, psychedelic disco-chug on ‘Loveblind’, while ‘Minor Circle’ sits somewhere between Santana, the Pat Metheny Band and sunrise-ready Balearic blues. Arguably even better is the saucer-eyed brilliance of ‘Brillo De Luna’, where a dubbed-out electronic beat becomes enveloped in life-affirming acoustic guitar chords, exotic slide guitar motifs and string-bending solos. If John Lennon had ingested MDMA rather than LSD before writing ‘Across The Universe’, it would probably sound like this.

Then there’s the album’s crowning moment, closer ‘Can’t Hold a Lover’. A heart-aching, largely ambient instrumental that channels the loneliness and anguish felt by many of those separated from their nearest and dearest during the pandemic, it sees Ceccanti brilliantly wrap a variety of sun-bright guitar textures and solos around some of the loveliest synthesizer chords you’re every likely to hear. On an album packed with effervescent, mood-enhancing musical highs, it’s a rare moment of bittersweet bliss.

When most musicians reach a career milestone they take it on tour. Texas, whose debut album turned 30 last year, had bigger ambitions. Rather than simply perform their old songs, the Scots set out to meet their old selves – the wide-eyed kids who made Southside, their two million-selling, Top 3 debut, and the band who bounced back eight years later with the six times platinum White On Blonde.
The vaults at Universal were raided for recording sessions for both albums, stored on tape and DAT and never digitised. Top of Texas’ list was their first, failed attempt at I Don’t Want A Lover, scuppered by Chic bassist Bernard Edwards.
“Just after we signed, we were in the studio with Bernard and Chic’s drummer Tony Thompson,” recalls guitarist Johnny McElhone. “Bernard got coked up and ended up running away to Mexico before Sharleen even started her vocals. But that’s a whole other story.”
Late in 2018, the aborted version was found, alongside several songs recorded during different sessions which didn’t make their debut. The biggest revelation, however, was a 15-strong batch of tracks from the White On Blonde sessions which both Johnny and Sharleen Spiteri had forgotten existed.
“When we made that album, no one in Britain gave a shit about Texas,” says Sharleen. “We were still doing really well in Europe, but here we couldn’t get arrested.
“No one at our label was asking to hear any music or pushing us, so we just kept writing and recording and trying out new stuff until we felt the record was ready. Hence we ended up with a lot more material than usual.”
So good were the songs that Texas initially planned to release them as a ‘lost’ album, possibly to be called Blonde On White. But working with their old recordings inspired them to start writing new songs.
“Tweaking the old stuff was so much fun,” says Sharleen. “It felt like us, now, collaborating with ourselves of 25 years ago. It was amazing to go back there – my voice was so young! – and to hear how much energy and passion we had. We were fighting for our careers at the time, trying to prove that Texas were still relevant.
“Our excitement at finding this treasure trove of songs collided with our excitement from back then and, unplanned, new songs started coming. You could say we were inspired by ourselves, if that didn’t make us sound insanely big-headed.”
Hi, Texas’ tenth album, is the result of that bonkers journey back but has its eyes firmly fixed on the future. The title track and sensational first single aptly fuses the two. A brand new collaboration with Wu Tang Clan, it finds a soulful Sharleen nestled next to boisterous raps from RZA and Ghostface Killah over a cinematic backdrop of lush beats and acoustic guitar.

The same crew as the boundary pulsing improvisation record Bent
Arcana has made a trajectory shift and picked up Ben Boye along
the path. The aptly-named Moon-Drenched is the second installment
from these sessions and keeps a heavy-lidded late night perspective
on things as it eases from the somewhat familiar liminal twilight
of skittering hues of black-blue and snaking street groove, to
fizzing off into the ether in pursuit of lunar prism beams heretofore
unseen. The more rhythmically dialed bits here have a lysergic halo of
strangeness to them, and the wispy bits between are spun of iridescent
gossamer. It sounds like a frizzled message from a future just filthy
with guitar hoots echoing off of neon-splattered high rises, oil-slicked
waterways and skittering digital beasts. For Castle Face’s money this
is the strangest slice of this last bunch of John Dwyer and his crew’s
improvisations.

Sinéad O’Connor marks a long-awaited return with a stunning version
of ‘Trouble Of The World’, a traditional song made famous by exalted gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, available as a 7” single backed with an a cappella version on Heavenly Recordings.

It follows somewhat belatedly the-ever-more pertinent ‘Trouble Soon Be Over’, her contribution to 2015’s ‘Tribute To Blind Willie Johnson’ compilation and once more exudes the heart and soul of this extraordinary performer.

Sympathetic to its origins, the heartfelt, evocative tones propel this impassioned rendition to the present its poignancy highlighted by a remarkable artist who leaves her own indelible mark on this topical realisation whilst realigning with a positive viewpoint.

In her own words, she explains; “for me the song isn’t about death or dying. More akin, a message of certainty that the human race is on a journey toward making this world paradise and that we will get there.”

The inspirational lyrical narrative that underpins ‘Trouble Of The World’ bears more relevance than ever today in the context of the death of George Floyd and the highlighting of the persistent racist undercurrents that trouble mixed societies across the globe.

The song sees Sinead joining forces with renowned producer David Holmes and, recorded in Belfast, Northern Ireland at the easing of the lockdown, it shares an uncanny albeit eerie symmetry with our new trouble of the world backdrop and once again Sinéad awakes our souls to the ironies and similarities of our collective past and present. The pair have created a sonic tonic and shout out to the powers that be as a voice of the people still questioning all-toofrequent events such as witnessed over the past few months that ensue decades since the nascent birth of the civil rights movement in the United States.

Embodying a voice with beauty and innocence, a spirit part punk, part mystic with a combined fearlessness and gentle authenticity - unique, uncompromising, a pioneer, a visionary, just some of the descriptions that perhaps merely touch the surface of Sinéad O’Connor.