quête:jon may

Automatic Tasty (Jonny Dillon) has been away from Central Processing Unit for five years now, releasing on labels such as AC Records and Furthur Electronix in the intervening time. However, new EP The Future Is Not What It Used To Be shows that the chemistry between label and artist is still in good nick by offering up four tracks of contemplative electro-boogie.

While the preceding CPU/Automatic Tasty drop may be 2015's The Life Parochial, The Future Is Not What It Used To Be actually has more in common with Sentimentalist's Choice, Automatic Tasty's CPU debut which came out back in 2013. This is not due to a huge stylistic shift - all three records bring together classic electro, techno and boogie sounds to create charming and melodious tracks - but more to do with the tone of the record. You see, while The Life Parochial was a squelchy machine-funk delight, The Future Is Not What It Used To Be is a more pensive affair befitting its title.

This isn't to say that The Future Is Not What It Used To Be is a muted EP. Far from it - this record contains some of the most gorgeous electro joints you'll hear all year. The vibe is established on its eponymous opening jam, a vocoder-laced production pitched somewhere between the more ruminative tunes on Posthuman's 2018 LP Mutant City Acid and contemporary boogie acts such as Funkineven/Steven Julien and Galaxians. The track is made by the beautiful, bittersweet timbre of its synths, and these are maintained on following number 'Romance In The Old Country'. Given the offbeat skip in its groove and sunset-glow ruefulness of the keys, 'Romance In The Old Country' is a cut which invokes the instrumentals of Jessy Lanza LPs - and even (whisper it) a little Sade.

The Future Is Not What It Used To Be is an EP of evocative track titles, but there may be none more accurate than first B-side 'Rising Sun'. Here, Automatic Tasty tweaks the wistfulness of the A-side cuts into something more uplifting. While a thoughtful quality remains in 'Rising Sun's soft synths and skittering 808s, the track is driven by the exuberant energy of the 'Woo! Yeah!' drum break to become the sort of tune you drop as dawn begins to break over the rave. 'Rising Sun's afterglow falls over the closing track 'Adventures In The World Of Becoming', a steady IDM-electro pulse that channels the spirit of Aphex Twin's seminal Selected Ambient Works 85-92.

'The future is not what it used to be - no past, no memory'. With this robo-voiced intonation, Automatic Tasty returns to Sheffield's Central Processing Unit with four moving, poignant machine-funk tracks.

The first of three volumes: stomping, rollicking gospel music, intermingling with raw soul, searing blues, hard-rocking doo-wop and jazz, and storming r&b.

Infused and incandescent with the hurting, surging indignation of the Civil Rights movement, here are twenty-four precious scorchers by giants like the Staple Singers and Jimmy Scott, alongside devastating sides by less celebrated names like the Harmonising Five of Burlington, North Carolina, and teen-group the North Philadelphia Juniors, culminating triumphantly with slamming, sanctified versions of Hit The Road Jack and Wade In The Water.

Gatefold sleeve, with full-size booklet; beautifully designed, with stunning, rare photographs and original Savoy artwork.

In the horror genre, sequels are perfunctory. As the insufferable film bro Randy explains in Scream 2, "There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to create a successful sequel. Number one: the body count is always bigger. Number two: the death scenes are always much more elaborate-more blood, more gore. Carnage candy. And number three: never, ever, under any circumstances, assume the killer is dead." Last Halloween, Los Angeles experimental rap mainstays Clipping ended their three-year silence with the horrorcore-inspired album There Existed an Addiction to Blood. This October, rapper Daveed Diggs, and producers Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson return with an even higher body count, more elaborate kills, and monsters that just won't stay dead. Visions of Bodies Being Burned is less a sequel than it is the second half of a planned diptych. It turns out, Clipping took to the thematic material of horrorcore like vampires to grave soil. Before the release of There Existed an Addiction to Blood, Clipping and Sub Pop Records divided the material up into two albums, designed to be released only months apart. However, a global pandemic and multiple cancelled tours pushed the release of the project's "part two" until the following Halloween season. Visions of Bodies Being Burned contains sixteen more scary stories disguised as rap songs, incorporating as much influence from Ernest Dickerson, Clive Barker, and Shirley Jackson as it does from Three 6 Mafia, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and Brotha Lynch Hung. Clipping's angular, shattered interpretations of existing musical styles are always deferential, driven by fandom for the object of study rather than disdain for it. Clipping reimagine horrorcore-the purposely absurdist hip-hop subgenre that flourished in the 1990s-the way Jordan Peele does horror cinema: by twisting beloved tropes to make explicit their own radical politics of monstrosity, fear, and the uncanny. The album features a host of collaborators: Inglewood's Cam & China, fellow noise-rap pioneers Ho99o9, Tortoise guitar genius Jeff Parker, and experimental LA drummer Ted Byrnes. The final track, "Secret Piece," is a performance of a Yoko Ono text score from 1953 that instructs the players to "Decide on one note that you want to play/Play it with the following accompaniment: the woods from 5am to 8am in summer," and features nearly all of the musicians who appeared on both albums. Since their last album, Daveed Diggs-the group's Tony and Grammy Award-winning rapper-has starred in the TNT science fiction series, Snowpiercer, voiced a character in Pixar's Soul, and portrayed Frederick Douglass in Showtime's The Good Lord Bird. Writer Rivers Solomon's novella based on Clipping's Hugo-nominated song "The Deep" has been nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards, and won the Lambda Literary Award for best LGBTQ SF/Fantasy/Horror novel. Clipping's song "Chapter 319"-a tribute to George Floyd (AKA Big Floyd) the former DJ-Screw affiliated rapper who was murdered by police officers in May of 2020-was released on Bandcamp on June 19th and raised over $20,000 for racial justice charities. A clip of the song also became a popular meme on TikTok, generating over 50,000 videos in which teenagers rapped the song's lyrics ("Donald Trump is a white supremacist, full stop_") directly into the frowning faces of their conservative parents. The band also contributed a Skinny Puppy-esque rework of J-Kwon's "Tipsy" to Save Stereogum: An '00s Covers Comp.

In the horror genre, sequels are perfunctory. As the insufferable film bro Randy explains in Scream 2, "There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to create a successful sequel. Number one: the body count is always bigger. Number two: the death scenes are always much more elaborate-more blood, more gore. Carnage candy. And number three: never, ever, under any circumstances, assume the killer is dead." Last Halloween, Los Angeles experimental rap mainstays Clipping ended their three-year silence with the horrorcore-inspired album There Existed an Addiction to Blood. This October, rapper Daveed Diggs, and producers Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson return with an even higher body count, more elaborate kills, and monsters that just won't stay dead. Visions of Bodies Being Burned is less a sequel than it is the second half of a planned diptych. It turns out, Clipping took to the thematic material of horrorcore like vampires to grave soil. Before the release of There Existed an Addiction to Blood, Clipping and Sub Pop Records divided the material up into two albums, designed to be released only months apart. However, a global pandemic and multiple cancelled tours pushed the release of the project's "part two" until the following Halloween season. Visions of Bodies Being Burned contains sixteen more scary stories disguised as rap songs, incorporating as much influence from Ernest Dickerson, Clive Barker, and Shirley Jackson as it does from Three 6 Mafia, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and Brotha Lynch Hung. Clipping's angular, shattered interpretations of existing musical styles are always deferential, driven by fandom for the object of study rather than disdain for it. Clipping reimagine horrorcore-the purposely absurdist hip-hop subgenre that flourished in the 1990s-the way Jordan Peele does horror cinema: by twisting beloved tropes to make explicit their own radical politics of monstrosity, fear, and the uncanny. The album features a host of collaborators: Inglewood's Cam & China, fellow noise-rap pioneers Ho99o9, Tortoise guitar genius Jeff Parker, and experimental LA drummer Ted Byrnes. The final track, "Secret Piece," is a performance of a Yoko Ono text score from 1953 that instructs the players to "Decide on one note that you want to play/Play it with the following accompaniment: the woods from 5am to 8am in summer," and features nearly all of the musicians who appeared on both albums. Since their last album, Daveed Diggs-the group's Tony and Grammy Award-winning rapper-has starred in the TNT science fiction series, Snowpiercer, voiced a character in Pixar's Soul, and portrayed Frederick Douglass in Showtime's The Good Lord Bird. Writer Rivers Solomon's novella based on Clipping's Hugo-nominated song "The Deep" has been nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards, and won the Lambda Literary Award for best LGBTQ SF/Fantasy/Horror novel. Clipping's song "Chapter 319"-a tribute to George Floyd (AKA Big Floyd) the former DJ-Screw affiliated rapper who was murdered by police officers in May of 2020-was released on Bandcamp on June 19th and raised over $20,000 for racial justice charities. A clip of the song also became a popular meme on TikTok, generating over 50,000 videos in which teenagers rapped the song's lyrics ("Donald Trump is a white supremacist, full stop_") directly into the frowning faces of their conservative parents. The band also contributed a Skinny Puppy-esque rework of J-Kwon's "Tipsy" to Save Stereogum: An '00s Covers Comp.

Die in Los Angeles lebende Harfenistin Mary Lattimore kehrt mit ihrem neuen Album ,Silver Ladders" zurück. Seit ihrem letzten Longplayer ,Hundreds Of Days" aus dem Jahr 2018 ist Lattimore international getourt und hat gemeinsame Alben mit KünstlerInnen wie Meg Baird und Mac Mccaughan veröffentlicht. Außerdem erschien 2019 ein Remix-Album von ,Hundreds Of Days" an dem sich unter anderem Jónsi und Julianna Barwick beteiligten. Bei einem ihrer Festival-Auftritte traf Lattimore Neil Halstead von Slowdive: ,A friend introduced us because she knew how big of a fan I was and Neil and I had a little chat... The next day, I just thought maybe he'd be into producing my next record." Das tat er schlussendlich auch. Lattimore nimmt ihre Alben traditionell allein auf, daher hinterlässt Halstead als Produzent und Mitarbeiter eine ganz eigene Note. Der Aufnahmeprozess in Halsteads Studio, das auf einem alten Flugplatz stationiert ist, dauerte über neun Tage. Lattimores unverkennbarer Stil ist auch auf ,Silver Ladders" elegant - im Vordergrund stehen sich ausbreitende Harfen-Schichten, welche mit aufblühenden Low-End-Synthesizern und Halsteads Gitarre angereichert werden. Die Musik kann sich teils bedrohlich anfühlen wie der Klang des Ozeans, der sich mit den Gezeiten verändert. Inspiriert von den Erzählungen aus Cornwall, die Halstead mit Lattimore teilte, sowie von diversen Gesprächen, Ideen und ihren eigenen Reisen, haben die Songs deutlich etwas märchenhaftes - und doch ist ,Silver Ladders" offen für eigene Interpretationen. LATTIMOREs Erinnerungen - ,the Cornish landscape, the hotel from the movie The Witches, the cream tea, winning the pub quiz, the Sunday Roast, the ghosts of all of the surfers who had died in the wild waves, the night walks to the top of the hill to see the moon shining on the water." - scheinen durch diese Werke hindurch, ohne sie zu definieren. In gewisser Weise gehören sie, ähnlich wie das Meer oder der Himmel, allen. Das ist die Schönheit ihres Handwerks!

Caiphus Semenya, AKA Mr Letta Mbulu, is a South African legend, and Listen To The Wind, his iconic debut album, is simply a superb modern-soul/boogie album. It’s also incredibly rare, especially in good condition, so Be With is delighted to present this reissue.

Now a revered composer, musician, and arranger, Caiphus left apartheid South Africa in the 60s for self-imposed exile in Southern California together with his wife, Letta Mbulu. Settling in Los Angeles he started working with the likes of Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba and other exiled and semi-exiled South african artists, as well as, of course, his wife Letta.

Caiphus also found himself working with and composing for a broad range of jazz and pop artists, including Lou Rawls, Nina Simone and Cannonball Adderley. His facility with both jazz and African forms served him well. His LA stay was also the beginning of an ongoing collaboration with Quincy Jones, the fruits of which can be tasted in Caiphus’s African compositions for the scores to Roots and Spielberg’s adaptation of The Color Purple.

Given his decades of work behind the scenes, it’s no surprise that it took until 1982 for Caiphus to get around to putting out the first album of his own. But all that experience shows. Listen To The Wind is a deeply impressive synthesis of early 80s US production and instrumentation together with his traditional South African musical roots.

It’s stylistically diverse but the ingredients are never diluted. There are elements of boogie, soul, funk and jazz, all shot through with pan-African flavour, and moving effortlessly from uptempo floor fillers to more meditative, slower soulful tracks. Produced by Caiphus himself, he makes full use of a stellar line up of session musicians including Nathan East, Michael Stanton, Sonny Burke and Paulinho DaCosta. And of course, there are Letta’s show-stopping vocals. To our ears, Listen To The Wind is just one big party, and lord knows we need that more than ever right now.

Opener “Angelina” is one of Caiphus’s most beloved tracks at Be With HQ. It’s a breezy, feel-good SA boogie-funk classic. Harmonic and horn heavy, it sounds as fresh today as it would’ve done in the early 80s. If this one doesn’t make you move, you may need your pulse taking. The drum breakdown alone, a little over halfway through, is sensational.

It’s followed by the gentle reggae lilt of “Play With Fire”. A real melodic slo-mo delight, carried by the tropical vibes and, above all else, by the extraordinary performance of Caiphus himself and his backing singers.

Closing out side one, the spectacular “Umoya” is driven by triumphant horns and slick bass. With its proto-Graceland vibes, we reckon Paul Simon must’ve been listening. Hard. Caiphus trades verses with the unmistakable tones of Letta, and it sounds divine. Yes, it’s as good as anything on Letta’s canonical In The Music… The Village Never Ends. A wide-eyed wonder, made for unity and togetherness, it’s all infectious, smiling faces for nearly nine minutes. But never mind nine, we could party to this for ninety minutes and “Umoya” would leave us re-energised for ninety more.

Elegantly firing up side two is perhaps the album’s best known track. “Without You” is a heavenly slice of modern soul, an end-of-nighter to end them all. Smooth strutting, disco-fied funk with that unmistakably South African sound, it’s just sublime, with those lyrics that keep coming back to smiling faces and community, “without You the sun won’t shine”. Big with the likes of Rush Hour’s Antal, this is aural perfection.

“Ziph’inkomo” is a soul-soothing, swooning epic. Gently building throughout, its final few minutes are genuinely stirring as the backing vocals and instrumentation swell. Jaw-dropping. The irresistible groove of frantic, percussive workout “Gumba Boogie” closes out what must surely be one of the greatest artistic statements of the 1980s. If his friend Quincy wasn’t feverishly taking notes for Thriller, then you could’ve fooled us.

With Simon Francis handling the mastering of this Be With edition, you know it sounds as fantastic as ever. The cover art, as breezy as the music, has been faithfully restored. All that’s missing is you.

Betty Wright (original name Bessie Regina Norris) rose to fame in the 1970s with hits such as “Clean Up Woman”, “Lovin’ Is Really My Game”, and “Tonight Is the Night”. She was an outstanding performer and this Live album provides much evidence of Wright’s vitality as a singer. Besides the wonderful performances of her own hits she also sounds incredible on the cover of Leon Russell’s “A Song for You”. The album peaked at #63 in the Canadian Album Chart. This expanded edition features two bonus tracks not available on the original album. Betty Wright passed away May 10th, 2020 at the age of 66.

Available for the first time on coloured vinyl as a limited edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on translucent yellow vinyl

Dropsonde was originally released by Touch (UK) in 2006. This is a reissue with seven previously unreleased recordings.

Widely regarded as one of Norwegian electronic music's most important artists, Biosphere's Geir Jenssen career spans nearly two decades, several albums, lots of remixes, various sound installations, commissions, soundtracks and even the odd Himalayan summit.

You may recognise his work without knowing it, so frequently does it crop up on TV trailers and idents. In the early 1990s he was a pioneer of so-called 'Ambient Techno', but since then, he has refined his sound into something more magnetic and enduring.

Dropsonde' isn't a soundtrack like the interwoven 'Substrata' nor an episodic journey in the way that 'Autour de la Lune' is. Here Geir Jenssen is pushing new directions towards the jazz colours of Miles Davis and Jon Hassell, whilst re-invigorating the pulse and projection of his signature sound: a hypnotic combination of pleasure and dread.

The spatial aspects some have dubbed "Arctic sound" but it summons strong feelings, or as Exclaim from Canada put it, "in order to climb higher, you must first go deeper". Jon Savage adds: "As with all of the Biosphere albums, the music draws you in and makes you want to listen and feel. Jenssen's work acts on a very emotional level, one that encourages you to drift away into a haze of images and scenes brought to you by the music, where spectacular beauty hides unseen danger. Intense and moving, but comforting and soothing at the same time."

A 'dropsonde' is a weather reconnaissance device designed to be dropped from an airplane or similar craft at altitude to take telemetry as it falls to the ground. It typically relays information to a computer in the dropping airplane by radio. The fall may be slowed by a parachute. Information collected by a typical dropsonde may include wind speed, temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure.

"I think most of it takes place in dreams," Caleb Landry Jones says of his debut solo album, The Mother Stone. "I'm talking more about dreams than I am about what's happened in the physical realm. Or I'm talking about both, and you're not sure what's what." Caleb Landry Jones was born in Garland, Texas in 1989 and comes from a long line of fiddle players. Three, maybe four generations back, on his mother's side. His grandfather wrote jingles for commercials, his mother was a singer-songwriter who taught piano lessons in the house, and his father was a contractor who did a lot of work for the Dallas music-equipment retailer Brook Mays and knew a guy if you needed a bass or a banjo. But Jones is not sure if you can hear any of this in his music and he does not play the fiddle. Jones has been writing and recording music since age 16, around the same time he started acting professionally. Played in a band called Robert Jones for a minute, lost his guitar player to higher education, moved into his own place, and broke up with somebody, at which point the songs really started coming hard and fast. "I started playing guitar and playing more keys," he says, "and then started writing record after record after record after record, because I didn't know what to do with myself. It was a good way of healing. And it felt like as soon as I started doing it, it felt like it needed to happen all the time." In the ensuing years he'd spend a lot of time carrying unrecorded songs around in his head like goldfish in a bag, waiting for a chance to record them in marathon sessions in his parents' barn. "You gotta play the songs every day, or every two or three days, to keep `em," he says. "Otherwise I forget them." Sometimes the ideas fuse together, one chapter to the next; this is how songs grow into seven-plus-minute epics like the ones on The Mother Stone. His back catalog is around seven hundred songs deep_ a whole discography of full albums, most of them unheard outside the barn, at least for now.

Canyons are places of mystery and beauty. The interesting thing is, while they are one of the great wonders in the history of planet earth and attract scientists of all kinds of disciplines, they have also been a popular retreat for artists and musicians. You will have heard of Topanga Canyon, Rickie Lee Jones and Chicago recorded here. Laurel Canyon is even more well known, a mythical place where Crosby, Stills & Nash developed their unique vocal sound while hanging around Mama Cass' place. Or was it in Joni Mitchell's house on Lookout Mountain? Ok, you get the picture. There is something unexplainable, almost magical going on in canyons.

Maybe that's why Andy Platts and Shawn Lee were thinking of "Canyons" when they wrote and recorded their third album as Young Gun Silver Fox. With "West End Coast" and "AM Waves" these two very talented musicians, singers, songwriters, arrangers and producers already explored all things Westcoast, AOR, Softrock and Boogie. But - especially if you are a into the golden age of this sound running from circa 1976 to 1984 - you will be aware that there is no return once you started digging these unconditional musical delights with their timeless compositions, untouchable musicianship and refined arrangements. The great albums from that era appeared when punk broke and the musical establishment was shaken to the ground. Today they sound more up to date than ever. Who would have thought back then?

On "Canyons" Young Gun Silver Fox turned it up to eleven. They are nothing but "Kids" cruising in the fast lane, totally over the top searching for the "Dream Woman", touching down in Tokyo caught in a "Long Distance Love Affair", imagining the theme for a lost 70s TV series starring "Danny Jamaica", being on the winning side in a "Private Paradise", getting deep and soulful in "Things We Left Unsaid" and wondering how to spread "All This Love". Their bass lines, sound layers, brass arrangements and harmony vocals are immaculate. Everything fits perfectly. Just like this. "Who Needs Words" when everything is crystal clear? Exactly!

"Canyons", after all, are magical places of rare beauty. (Mr. Mellow - Porcaroc Club/Mr. Mellow's Sunday Scene/Soho Radio).

The new album by Robert Piotrowicz does not fit any category. What this multicoloured electronic instrumentation aims to channel is the acoustic experience and energy of the performing musician. As a result of a wide range of creative means used, the narrative language of the compositions bursts withtension and mystery.

The album includes slow hypnotic passages of stone electronics (“To Fleh”), vigorous tempos and circular repetitions (“Euzo Found Gitar”), sprawling artificial soundscapes, back-to-origins ethnicity (ethnical subsoil and elements) liberated from any geographical identity (“Ocarina Wars”), as well as dreamlike minimalism with unpretentious cinematographic traits (“Flares Et Wasser Hole”). Some of these unusual melodic patterns may resemble the corporality of the animal throat rather than any human-created instrument (“Electros Spong”).

Although Euzebio was recorded with synths, the final shape of individual tracks and the album’s overall acoustic image go far beyond any electronic genre. The instruments have not become a goal in itself. They were merely a building block, a tool that helped achieve the album’s extended structure - a diverse whole with rich spatial features.

All sounds performed and recorded by Robert Piotrowicz on Buchla and Serge synthesizers at EMS Elektronmusikstudion in
Stockholm 2013/2014. composed, mixed and premastered by Robert Piotrowicz artwork and photos: Robert Piotrowicz design
and layout: Lasse Marhaug special thanks: Ocarina Jones and Tomasz Gil mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M Berlin
Produced by Musica Genera

WRWTFWW Records is beyond thrilled to announce the first ever vinyl maxi-single release for "Raum", Grauzone's best-kept secret and underground mega-gem from 1980. The four-track affair includes the full title track sourced from the original reels, as well as a club-ready rework by Naum Gabo (Jonnie Wilkes of Optimo and James Savage) with help from Dennis Young of Liquid Liquid, and an extended edit by legendary Frankfurt DJ Ata (Robert-Johnson club, Playhouse/Klang/Ongaku labels). The 12 inch vinyl is cut at 45rpm and comes with a never-seen cover art by band member Stephan Eicher and a handmade Xerox hype sticker.

Initally released almost 40 years ago on the beloved compilation Swiss Wave - The Album (Off Course Records) alongside the band's massive hit "Eisbär", "Raum" is the biggest Grauzone track people have yet to discover. An über-infectious New York style bassline played by Christian "GT" Trüssel and frantic drumming by Marco Repetto blend with Martin Eicher's hauntingly hopeless lyrics and Claudine Chirac's saxophone escapades to personify post-punk heaven and all its wonderful anomalies. It's disco with an edge, pop filled with fear, it's The Cure infused with proto-techno and Swiss art chic. Or maybe, it's simply one hell of a song that will make you dance and shout. It's good!

As we head towards the end of 2019, the CoOp Presents crew unleash a heater for the cold months, and a very warm welcome to the label for Danvers, with an EP entitled 'Light Movements'.

Joe Danvers has been building a diverse catalogue of dance music over the past several years, including releases on FINA Records, Boogie Cafe and Wotnot (his debut release also featured mixes from the likes of Joe Armon-Jones & Warren Xcince). Aside from his solo efforts, Danvers makes up 50% of Kassian, who in turn have dropped releases on Phonica White & Heist Recordings, as well as a series of highly-acclaimed remixes. Their debut track 'The Premise' was nominated as "Track of the Year" at Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Awards.

These various projects have been shown support far and wide from selectors such as Bradley Zero and Detroit Swindle, whilst Danvers & Kassian have been booked for parties across Europe this past Summer. Danvers is also co-founder of Curve Records, along with Luke Campion & Mike Wilkin of Fact / Vinyl Factory.

So to the EP - 4-tracks demonstrating Danvers' flair for eclectic bruk boogie. 'Devotional' kicks off the set, featuring the soulful vocals of Natalie May atop a rhode-laden bubbler. The EP's title track 'Light Movements' follows and is a more stripped-down affair, with big kicks and synth stabs. Next comes 'The Flex', inspired by Selectors Assemble runnings - a tasty stepper with a huuuuge b-line. Finally closing out the EP on a deeper jazzy vibe we have 'Calmer' featuring the don T. Williams.

Expect more big things from Danvers and from the CoOp Presents crew in 2020. In the meantime, get this one on your speakers and watch for the movements. Standardly essential business.

Like a fine 40-year old whisky, the layers on this record and influences are complex, nuanced & Layered. You might taste something different but here are my tasting notes...

The Nose - Notes of Bobby Cauldwell, Steely Dan, David Crosby a definite Sun Drenched yacht folk dram.

The Body - I can taste strong notes of Jimmy Webb and Aztec Camera not present on the nose, this a much deeper dram than initially nosed, I can see myself enjoying this in front of a warm fire.

Finish - Long finish on this one, I can taste the Miami tarmac, the Beach and salt water, the nightclubs and linen clothing, Don Johnson's dirty washing.

Whisky tasting over, both the albums this LP was compiled from were recorded at Coconuts recording Studio in Miami, notable for Miami Sound Machine recordings and Blood, Sweat and Tears. I have been into these for a long time and whilst not the rarest AOTN re-issue to date (although that may change now the words out) they deserve to be recognised for the solid LPs that they are. Just buy it and float away.

Albert’s Favourites co-founder Adam Scrimshire is set to release his fourth album 'Listeners'. Musically, 'Listeners' draws from Scrimshire's passion for jazz, soul and electronic music of all styles; from an energetic combination of Afrobeat and garage on 'Won't Get Better', to the lushly orchestrated neo-soul of 'Thru You', and the harmonious jazz experimentations of 'I Never'. The album features a host of esteemed guest vocalists and musicians telling their own personal stories, including Georgia Anne Muldrow, Emma-Jean Thackray, Joshua Idehen, Madison McFerrin, Chip Wickham, and James Alexander Bright.

"With this album I wanted to get a more focused sound after six years of relearning and development in the studio. But I also struggled to find my own words, to speak about where I/we are now. So I allowed my collaborators total freedom to tell their own story and as they came back to me, they were telling the same stories I wanted to. It's resulted in some deeply personal confessional pieces: mourning family, collapsing relationships, extremes of self doubt and analysis, trying to balance public and inner persona, and a reminder that life in all forms is important.

It’s called 'Listeners' as I am a listener here, I feel like I've been given these very personal experiences to care for. Listeners because, the travesty of the last few years is that we stopped listening to each other, everyone is shouting at each other and no one is learning. And Listeners because I hope I've made something that is for other people more than I have before. I've tried to craft something warmer and more enjoyable, made for those who give me their time in listening to my music."
- Adam Scrimshire

Since joining the Wah Wah 45s label in 2007, Scrimshire has released three albums of experimental cinematic jazz, and electronic sounds. Following his 2009 debut ‘Along Came The Devil One Night’, his second album ‘The Hollow’ (2011) was a BBC 6 Music Album of the Week, with Gilles Peterson calling it “A late contender for album of the year”.

In the time since the release of his last album ‘Bight’ (“An eclectic range of influences ranging from disco to fusion to more contemporary electronic styles” XLR8R) in 2013, Adam has worked with long-time musical accomplice Dave Koor on new project Modified Man, and launched Albert’s Favourites releasing projects by The Expansions, Hector Plimmer and Jonny Drop. He has continued to gain radio and DJ support for his successful “Scrimshire Edits” series and has produced and mixed records for artist including Stac, Daudi Matsiko, Bastien Keb, Ronin Arkestra, Jonny Drop. He has also continued to develop the Wah Wah 45s label, where he is now a co-owner and director.

Preceded by singles 'Thru You' featuring Georgia Anne Muldrow and 'Life Is Valuable' featuring James Alexander Bright; 'Listeners' is set for release on LP and digital formats via Albert’s Favourites on 19th July 2019.

DJ Support / Press:

Huey Morgan (BBC Radio 6 Music)

Jamie Cullum support on BBC Radio 2

Jamz Supernova on BBC Radio 1Xtra

Thru You Premiered By Mary Anne Hobbs on BBC 6 Music “So Beautiful

“He is Nigh.”
“He is? Already? How??”
When Aziraphale (Angel and part-time rare book dealer) and Crowley (an Angel who didn’t so
much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards) learn that the Antichrist has been born on present day
Earth, they agree to work together to prevent the End of Days. Eleven years later, all bets are off
when innocent Adam Young discovers he has the power to bring about Armageddon. As the stage
is set for a showdown between the forces of Good and Evil, the prophecies of Agnes Nutter,
Witch may yet come true…
For the first time ever on vinyl, Good Omens is adapted and co-directed for BBC Radio 4 by the
award-winning Dirk Maggs (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; Neverwhere; Stardust; Anansi
Boys; The X-Files; Alien; Batman; Superman). It is based on the novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry
Pratchett, now the basis for a major Amazon Prime TV series premiering in Summer 2019.
Starring Mark Heap as Aziraphale and Peter Serafinowicz as Crowley, with Josie Lawrence as
Agnes Nutter, Colin Morgan as Newton Pulsifier and Charlotte Richie as Anathema Device, the
cast also includes Phil Davis, Harry Lloyd, Paterson Joseph, Rachael Stirling, Jim Norton, Nicholas
Briggs, Neil Maskell, Steve Toussaint, Simon Jones, Julia Deakin, Mitch Benn, Louise Brealey, Mark
Benton and many more including cameo appearances by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
The unique four 180g heavyweight heaven and hell split black and white vinyl — includes a laser
etched Side B — are presented in illustrated wallets inside a rigid, bound 16 page book, with
exclusive sleeve notes written by Neil Gaiman and Dirk Maggs.
“Heaven and Hell are preparing for war, and it’s going to be very messy.”

The 2 songs are remixed by south London-based artist Klein (Hyperdub), and Tokyo-based
experimental hiphop musician Killer Bong (Black Smoker Records)
Mastered by Bunsho Nishikawa, who is known for his works with goat and Tenniscoats,
among others.

The ominous clockwork nursery song “Kazega Fuitara Sayonara” (Goodbye When The
Wind Blows) was originally written by Koichi Yamanoha and released under the name of
Grimm Grimm via Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine) and Charlotte Marionneau (Le
Volume Courbe)’s Pickpocket Records / Honest Jons in 2014.
London-based Tokyo-born singer-songwriter experimentalist Koichi Yamanoha has been
operating under the guise of Grimm Grimm since 2013. The project is an outlet for his
fragile, haunted, otherworldly forays into baroque folk, futurist lyricism and electroacoustic
oddities. His debut album, “Hazy Eyes Maybe”, was released by ATP Recordings in 2015. A
track “Last Word Is Mine” from the album was used over the end credits for the Aaron
Brookner / Jim Jarmusch directed documentary film “Uncle Howard” (2016), featuring
William Burroughs. His sophomore album, “Cliffhanger” was released in June 2018.
And currently the 3rd album has been mixed and co-produced by Marta Salogni.

The virtual 3D music video for Klein remix has been directed and edited by London based
film maker Kenichi Iwasa. He filmed the footage in Tottenham using Super 8, 3rd
generation iPhone and 4K Camera, and created the zero zone virtual world with glitchy SFX
work by William Cunningham. Iwasa is also known for his legendary Krautrock Karaoke
night as well as being a sought after collaborator throughout Europe.

"I love it. SO beautiful"
Josh Rosenthal [Tompkins Square]

Songs For A One-String Guitar is the debut instrumental acoustic guitar LP from Jonny Dillon. Better known for his analogue electronic music productions and all-hardware live sets under the ‘Automatic Tasty’ moniker [Lunar Disko, CPU, Wrong Island], Jonny’s records (bearing heavy acid and electro influences), along with live appearances at venues like Berlin’s Panorama Bar and Kiev’s Closer belie the fact that he has been quietly exploring the musical landscape of the guitar for nearly twenty years.

Recorded as a series of sketches over the last 10 years, Songs For A One-String Guitar represents a snapshot taken over a long exposure; one individual’s private response to a variety of currents and inspirations both musical and emotional. While informed in large measure by the world of Irish traditional music and song (of Sweeney’s Men, Planxty and Seán Garvey) along with that of primitivism and the American Spiritual (of John Fahey, Hank Williams and Mississippi John Hurt) these songs are equally a personal attempt to give expression to an inner landscape, from the experience of sorrow and loss to the promise of redemption and renewal.

The LP opens with ‘Turning Invisible In An Imaginary Rose Garden One-Evening’ a contemplative piece played in free-time; “I’ve been playing this piece for years, and it’s gone by so many different names in that time. It’s a sort of shoe-staring daydream, to my mind at least. I want people to disappear when they hear it, and think it suits the LP to open up slowly and reflectively”. While a contemplative strain underpins some of these songs, others are informed more directly by the experience of grief; “I wrote ‘A Requiem For Joe Dillon’ at the death of my uncle. He used play lots of wonderful songs of his own at family gatherings when I was a child, and while a very gifted and sensitive soul, was also troubled by his own demons. The last time I saw him alive was at my family home with my father; I was going out to see some friends and Joe called me back, gave me a hug and made the sign of the cross with his thumb on my forehead, to bless me. It still chokes me up when I think about it. A song of his ‘Light A Penny Candle’ I included to finish the piece in his honour.” A sense of longing and hope is present in other pieces; “Songs like ‘Again But With Feeling This Time’ and ‘Start Again (Carry On)’ come from a sort of hopeful yearning feeling which is always within me; a melancholic sort of joy in search of redemption. For me, music has the strange capacity to express contrary positions simultaneously; to console, redeem and offer transcendence while also expressing suffering and pain. I don’t know what any of this means, but feel as though I’m trying to find my way home by writing the same song over and over again.”

Songs For A One-String Guitar may seem to represent a departure for those who know Dillon for his electronic productions alone, though the reality is that these songs merely represent a new opening onto an old landscape; they are an invitation to more fully share in one individual’s yearning to find meaning through creative expression. “These songs are very personal to me, so there’s a certain nervousness in my seeing them released. I hope that they prove of some use, and that they do some small good to those who hear them.”

LP comes pressed on 180 gram vinyl.

On 29th March, Reclaimed Records are proud to present pianist and composer Taz Modi's elegant debut solo album 'Reclaimed Goods', which brings to light his love for contemporary composition – something which may come as a surprise to fans of soulful dance music heavyweights Submotion Orchestra, and jazz trumpeter Matthew Halsall's Gondwana Orchestra - for both of whom Modi plays keys/piano. Whilst also gaining further demand as a musician, including for A-list studio and live work for funk 'n' soul legends Dennis Coffey and Fred Wesley, plus beatmaker heroes DJ Shadow and Mr. Scruff, Modi has been discreetly pursuing an additional passion during down-time for years – and his prolonged, patient crafting shows in the record's tasteful and beautiful spirit.

Calling to mind the piano music of Cage, Frahm, Hauchska, Sakamoto and Aphex Twin, 'Reclaimed Goods' is a graceful affair, in which lush strings and gently pulsing rhythmic flutters sit alongside prepared and plaintive piano, with the tunes ranging from sparse beauty to weightier moments of electronic rhythms. This allows the music to appeal equally to fans of heavier electronic acts such as Cinematic Orchestra and Bonobo, to devotees of ambient and contemporary classical music, as well as those familiar with Modi's work with both Submotion Orchestra and Matthew Halsall.



Positive review by John Lewis for the Guardian's contemporary music album of the month section: 'An even more effective exploration of solo piano territory comes from British pianist Taz Modi; best known for his work in various jazz and funk ensembles, his solo debut Reclaimed Goods features a host of introspective instrumentals that are reminiscent, variously, of Ryuichi Sakamoto (Libra), Nils Frahm (Time to Practise, Crystalline) and Hauschka (Ethical Tourist).

Featured in Music Week's Tastemaker section, 15th April 2019 with Haydon Spenceley: 'Listen to it; it'll lift you high above our care-worn world to a place of safety and grace'.

First single 'Ethical Tourist' featured as a premiere on 18 Feb 2019

Second single 'Crystalline' premiered on Boiler Room's 4:3 video channel, 12 Mar 2019

'A kaleidoscopic album that seductively pulls you in and leaves you curious about the inspiration behind the songs' - AAA Music

Positive review on Magazine Sixty

Support on Soho Radio, Dom Servini

Played on Worldwide FM, April 3, Gondwana Records show

Featured on Bleep's Spotify playlist 'For Your Ears and For Your Head', April 2019

Played by Mischa Kreiskott, NDR Radio Germany, ndr.de

Worldwide FM's Gondwana Records show on May 1 featured an interview with Taz Modi, along with multiple tracks from the album.



Musicians:

Taz Modi – piano, keyboards/electronics, arrangement and production

Natalie Purton – violin + viola

Liz Hanks – cello

Margit van der Zwan – cello

Seb Hankins and Jon Scott – drums