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Violist, violinist and singer-songwriter Marla Hansen returns to Karaoke Kalk with "Salt", her second full-length album to date. Building upon the sonic palette the Berlin-based musician established with her debut "Dust" in 2020, "Salt" takes the delicate mixture of acoustic instruments such as viola, violin, piano and guitar combined with subtle electronics to the next level. The new album is both a remarkable departure and at the same time sheds a new yet reassuring light on Hansen's work and creativity. "Salt" features numerous collaborations with like-minded musicians and friends, e. g. producer and composer Simon Goff, The Notwist's drummer Andi Haberl and the renowned artist DM Stith.

The "Dust" has settled. After having recorded her solo debut of that name, in 2020 the world came to a grinding halt, leaving Marla Hansen left to her own devices in her adopted home of Berlin. For Hansen, who previously had lent her talent to many creative minds such as The National, Sufjan Stevens, The Hidden Cameras, Jay-Z and Ravi Coltrane, the collaborative aspect of writing and producing music had always played a crucial part in finding her own path as a solo artist.

"I started to explore synthesizers and electronic production myself," she remembers of the time when meeting other musicians in person was out of the question. "I am proud that I accomplished many of the electronic elements of the new album by myself, and otherwise laid the groundwork for the final electronic structures through my own experiments. I always wanted to record a 'big' record, one that has a lot of power and sound, and this one is 'bigger' than anything I have done so far."

"Salt" is big, indeed. The opener "Chains" is driven by a gliding bass line, bobbing 808 snares, deep chords and a mesmerizing chorus doubled by luscious strings, marking the beginning of a new chapter in her creative journey. A stark statement, both musically and lyrically. Meanwhile, the title track of the album is an almost abstract sounding ambient miniature, sketch-like, dark and haunting, showcasing Hansen's voice in a shy, brittle and fragile state. If This Mortal Coil/The Hope Blister were ever to record another album, these songs should be high up on the shortlist of tunes to pick. "The One Time" - a duet with Hansen's long-time friend DM Stith - gently meanders between a Philip Glass-inspired piece for chamber orchestra and a vocal ensemble performing on Top Of The Pops. In this range of styles and approaches, Hansen's vision is more present than ever.

For refining and finishing the songs, Hansen turned to Simon Goff, who produced the album and engineered much of the recording, merging Hansen's newly-found songwriting approach with the artistic delicacy which made her debut album an exceptional piece of work. Features include among others: Alice Dixon (Oriel Quartett) on cello, Kyle Resnick (The National, Beirut) on trumpet, Benjamin Lanz (The National, Beirut) on trombone and tuba, and Miles Perkin on bass. And then there is The Notwist's Andi Haberl, who "crafted perfect drum and percussion parts to move the songs wherever they needed to go, either into their driving grooves, slow-build explosions or gentle swells of feeling."

But what are songs actually about? "The themes revolve around a feeling of being trapped. Having to stay inside during the pandemic, with all the silence and stillness coming with it. Simultaneously, I was caught up in a professional situation that was not working for me, yet it required a lot of energy and time. I was thinking a lot about how to break old habits and patterns. Patterns in my life, patterns I saw my friends and loved-ones stuck in. There are a lot of ways that people can be trapped, and breaking out of that requires a lot of courage and energy - on all levels. The title 'Salt' seemed to fit, ocean themes showed up naturally in some of the songs, and I thought often about the quote: 'The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.' Maybe I was just dreaming of the ocean, since it was inaccessible for the first time! But I wanted a cure for this feeling of being trapped, in a time of uncertainty and anxiety, salt as a remedy seemed to have some truth in it: sweat, tears or the sea."

Perseverance and the urge for freedom prevailed in the end. "Salt" is a bold artistic achievement, with songs as big as the biggest waves imaginable. With melodies as alluring as the most comfortable breezes. Perfect from start to finish.

High Roller Records, reissue 2024, black vinyl, ltd 300, lyric sheet, remastered by Patrick W. Engel at Temple of Disharmony

High Roller Records, reissue 2024, transparent deep purple vinyl, ltd 200, lyric sheet, remastered by Patrick W. Engel at Temple of Disharmony

Deer Jade – Jukurpa

Tired of grey skies and long faces? We’ve got a serious dose of musical vitamin D for you! Deer Jade is hailing from the picturesque Lake of Geneva, an area about which the late Jean Paul Belmondo had to say a thing or two. Her infectious smile and uplifting energy behind the decks already made her a household name in clubs and festivals around the globe. This solo debut is an expression of her strong self confidence and in-syncness with the world surrounding her. “Jukurpa” might be just one of the most flamboyant house tunes you’ll come across this year, readymade for swaying to on an early summer morning dancefloor. “Cosmic Dream” is of a more introspective nature, putting gentle psychedelic synth movements to good use. There’s a lot of heart in Deer Jade’s music. We’re happy to give it a home.

David Hasert & Niconé – Wasting My Time With You

Tired of grey skies and long faces? We’ve got a serious dose of musical vitamin D for you! ?This Cologne – Berlin joint venture is shedding rays of sun galore with this lost in reverie deep house jam. Built around a catchy as hell soul vocal and occasional piano outbursts “Wasting My Time With You” will certainly be one of our favorite tunes to waste our time to in 2024.

Deer Jade – Jukurpa

Hast Du genug von grauem Himmel und langen Gesichtern? Wir haben eine ordentliche Dosis musikalisches Vitamin D für Dich! Deer Jade stammt vom pittoresken Genfer See, einer Gegend, über die der unvergessliche Jean Paul Belmondo so einiges zu sagen hatte. Ihr ansteckendes Lächeln und ihre mitreissende Energie hinter den Decks haben sie bereits zum gerne gesehenen Gast in Clubs und auf Festivals rund um den Globus gemacht. Dieses Solo-Debüt ist Ausdruck ihres starken Selbstbewusstseins und ihrer Verbundenheit mit der Welt, die sie umgibt. “Jukurpa” ist vielleicht einer der extravagantesten House-Tunes, die man in diesem Jahr zu hören bekommt, wie geschaffen zum Mitschunkeln an einem frühen Sommermorgen. “Cosmic Dream” ist von eher introspektiver Natur und holt uns mit sanften psychedelischen Synthesizer-Bewegungen ab. In der Musik von Deer Jade steckt eine Menge Herzblut. Wir freuen uns, dass sie es bei uns verschüttet.

David Hasert & Niconé – Wasting My Time With You

Hast Du genug von grauem Himmel und langen Gesichtern? Wir haben eine ordentliche Dosis musikalisches Vitamin D für Dich! Das Köln-Berliner Joint Venture versprüht mit diesem verträumten Deep-House-Jam jede Menge Sonnenstrahlen. ?”Wasting My Time With You” ist mit seinen ?catchy Soul-? Vocals und gelegentlichen Klavier?-?Kaskaden sicherlich einer unserer Lieblingssongs, mit dem wir im Jahr 2024 unsere Zeit verschwenden werden.

Punk pioneers Crass continue their vinyl reissue series, re-pressing their limited releases by adjacent artists through Crass Records, in association with One Little Independent. The series, including over twenty bands and solo artists recorded at the legendary Southern Studios and produced by Penny Rimbaud, continues with two more historic pieces from the Crass Records catalogue; ‘Barbed Wire Halo’ by Annie Anxiety and ‘Neu Smell’ by Flux of Pink Indians.

They follow records from the likes of Captain Sensible, Omega Tribe, Honey Bane, Jane Gregory, Lack of Knowledge, Sleeping Dogs, Rudimentary Peni and Zounds. First released on 7” vinyl, limiting the sound, the new series has been remastered for 12” by Alex Gordon at Abbey Road Studios, allowing them to be heard as never before. This, plus enlarged replicas of the original covers, brings new gusto to their already radical sound.

New York City musical maverick and performance artist Annie Anxiety, aka Little Annie aka Annie Bandez, began her illustrious career (including work with Adrian Sherwood, Coil, Current 93, and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry) with Crass. They released her first solo single, 1981’s ‘Barbed Wire Halo’ alongside ‘Cyanide Tears’, an extraordinarily prescient piece of jagged electronics, samples, and skeletal rhythms, led by Annie’s nightmarish vocals.

She tells us; “When creating this single with Penny I hadn’t heard the word ‘avant-guard’ nor could I spell it – I only got explained ‘concretism’ via an interview I did in Berlin regarding some of my work three years ago – My father was a printer so I grew up with sound of printing press and subway train beats and always heard melodies and cross rhythms within those beats – I was just making dance music / disco tunes to my mind and Pen heard those same tunes I was hearing – my first recording, in retrospect I guess, was pretty ‘out there’ at its release, but to us it was dance floor for a club yet to be invented- one day”.

Penny Rimbaud expands; “Annie Anxiety is a total enigma, a passionate voice in the wilderness of consensual reason. Dada in instinct, Monroe in affection, Rambo in inflection, Annie rams it home with divine thunder. An instigator and innovator, she’s the bonkers angel of Yonkers, NYC. With no time to spare, Annie takes to the road with complete conviction, overtaking Kerouac halfway down 5th Avenue. Catch her if you can”.

PELIGRE is back on Saike with his most anticipated "BRB Crying" EP.
After releasing ''Welcome To The Sal'' in 2022, it was natural for him to get back to the mothership with this second establishment that has been already destroying the dance floors these past months. With 5 tracks ranging from pure Hard Techno to Neo Trance sounds, the rave just keeps on giving and the energy has never been so high.

Bay Area post-punk outfit Topographies deliver their sophomore LP, Interior Spring, via Dark Entries. Formed in 2018 in San Francisco by Justin Oronos, Jeremie Ruest, and Gray Tolhurst, Topographies link the icy riffs and gloomy atmosphere of early coldwave with the textural depth and warmth of classic shoegaze, emerging with a style that’s both contemporary and timeless.

On Interior Spring, Topographies explore themes of guilt, inherited trauma, and recovery. The meaning of its title is triplicate: a submerged river carrying hope, an anxiously wound clock, and a season where wildflowers bloom on the graves of the past. While the work of Tolhurst’s father - Laurence Tolhurst from The Cure - provides a clear influence, Topographies expertly channel acts like Asylum Party or The Chameleons on anthemic pearls like “Night Sea” and “Chain of Days”. Tolhurst’s lyrics draw on his own experience in recovery from substance abuse to examine the cycle of use and hopelessness that characterizes addiction. Through these ten songs, the group hopes to present the idea that freedom is not an escape but an embrace of the quotidian beauty of human life.

Repress!

London based DJ and producer Dan Shake is set to announce details of his new EP ‘Mosquito’, due for release on 13th March 2020 via his Shake Records imprint.

Dan’s latest outing offers three driving, thoughtful Detroit house influenced club tracks: from the synth-heavy adrenaline rush of title track Mosquito, to the jacking, motoric resolve of The Deep
End, and Hide Seek’s kinetic, sample-driven house groove.

Since debuting on Moodymann’s Mahogani Music in 2014 with 3AM Jazz Club / Thinkin About U, Dan made it into a springboard for his ambitions to work crowds the world over. His love of groove – ranging from sparky acid to Brazilian samba, itchy funk to heavyweight house – fuels his drive to make those around him dance as keenly as he does. At a party, Dan Shake isn’t just loaded with peak time weapons: he is one.

This will be the seventh release on Dan’s Shake imprint, following a string of dance floor-igniting releases, the most recent of which continues to scorch the airwaves from Radio 1 to NTS, garnering DJ support from the likes of Annie Mac, Gilles Peterson, Honey Dijon and The Black Madonna, and a searing set of disco-house releases last year on his own Shake imprint and Denis Sulta’s Sulta Selects.

Dan’s infectious charm and expert ear has resulted in a truly international list of shows in locations as far flung from home as Beirut to Buenos Aires, plus armfuls of Balearic visits, including closing the main stage at Dimensions Festival and playing b2b shows with Jeremy Underground, Marcellus Pittman & DJ Boring to name a few. With a never-ending tour schedule ahead, including his debut U.S. and Australia tour, stops at Nuits Sonores, Love International, Printworks, Kingdom Festival, Fly, Boardmasters, Dimensions, Pikes Ibiza and more new music planned for 2020, Dan Shake is set to have an exceptional year.

Donny Benét is an adult Entertainer, Hit-Maker, Attentive Lover- and one of Australia’s most acclaimed- and experienced Jazz-Musicians. He has toured Europe- and the UK five times through 2017/2018, playing Festivals & Headline-Shows in 14 different Countries- and will be returning in 2020! The Don’s gigs are rammed with 20-somethings partying like a scene out of Miami Vice.

Recorded in the infamous Donnyland-Studios using the finest Japanese, American & Italian synthesizers, The Don speaks to the heart, promising love as soft as Italian leather. Donny’s immaculate Armani grooves hint at the dancefloor and the bedroom The Don is transportive. ‘Night In Rome’ opens the shutters of your hotel room onto a view of The Colosseum, ‘Reach The Top’ thrusts you on a frenzied race to success through the streets of NYC.

‘Working Out’ urges you to break a sweat wherever you may be. ‘Konichiwa,’ is a song assmooth as the silken tofu from whence the song’s spirit is inspired, and ‘Santorini,’ an ode to love worth fighting for along the crystal-waters of the Aegean Sea.

New album “Mr Experience” due for Release on 22nd May, 2020

When accidents happen, they are normally over in seconds, sometimes minutes; this one has been going on for 20 years. It is two decades since the members of Emile Parisien’s quartet played a jam session together. At the end, they looked at each other in disbelief. They had not just been hit by a collective musical thunderbolt, they also knew they had just brought...well...something...into being. The common ground between them was jazz, but each had all kinds of seeds to sow in it, from classical music and contemporary sounds to rock, electronica and chanson. Saxofonist Emile Parisien, Pianist Julien Touéry, Bassist Ivan Gélugne and drummer Julien Loutelier rip up labels, break down barriers, upset codes, and yet they know exactly where they are headed. There is a shared obsession with narrative. “The central axis of the quartet has always been storytelling,” Parisien emphasizes.

“Let Them Cook” is like a breath of fresh air, and with a band sound now firmly and unmistakably of 2024 rather than 2004. There was a particular turning point: at a concert in Sweden near the end of their “Double Screening” album tour, they had taken a chance and tried out a move from an entirely acoustic sound to incorporate some electronics.It worked, so they stayed with it: they found that these electronic punctuations never polluted the band’s DNA, but rather stimulated it. The electronic apparatus was clearly additive to the stories of these compositions, the way it all fitted together was astounding.

Which brings us back to the ever-present question: how do you get away from the classic jazz quartet of sax, piano, bass and drums? “We’re always trying to find the answer! There’s no point in redoing what the John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter groups did, because in many ways you’ll never reach their level.” “There’s a certain road in life most people walk on,” Wayne Shorter once said, “because it’s familiar, and they can jostle to get in front. I prefer to take a different road that’s less crowded, with many forks, where you get a wider view of life. I call it ‘the road less travelled’. That’s where I want to be.” In the year which marks its 20th anniversary, Emile Parisien’s quartet has never been more in tune with the thinking of one of its main influences.
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Les Égarés

Les Égarés

The ever poignant yet exceedingly elusive Chorg Dorgon speaks on the new album by Charles Moothart, entitled Black Holes Don’t Choke: “For the sake of clarity, and its clarity that we seek, Charles has been a pillar of our musical experience since he began playing eons ago in the various projects and countless albums he has contributed to. Charles is a musician who has been constantly on the road for years playing in Ty Segall’s Freedom Band and Fuzz. When there has been a rare time away from those engagements especially in the post-pandemic scramble to catch up world of gigs and tours, he has been spending all of his time in his laboratory figuring out how to synthesize all of the info he has collected and musical ideas he has developed in the past few years since the last CFM record and subsequent shows for this new solo work. Just before the pandemic started, he was out playing solo shows in a project that revolved around an MPC sampler, just to give an example as to the wideness of his explorations. His result is Black Holes Don’t Choke. Love songs for the apocalypse. A prayer toward optimism amid chaos. A plea toward nature. The themes on this album are the themes of today. Charles appeals for us to visualize evolution. And with a signature, the music sounds exactly as you want it to. It sounds like Charles Moothart’s music only more evolved and with greater focus and direction. With greater textural dynamic and more sonic variation and realization, but never sacrificing the insane riff that he is clearly the master of. He gets to the point on this record. He is presenting a voice you can understand and rely on as you make your own journey into it. Create your own meanings. The record now belongs to the world. Because we all start a thought as that which is beginning-less and endless and at some certain point it becomes its own thought, takes it owns shape and becomes itself, separate from the thinker, separate from the observer. alive in the ether!”

Finally REPRESSED 2024 !

6 Bloody good tunes with a particularity : It sounds mental but it is not because tunes are changing their kicks or their environement every 64 mesures... It's a very well done thing to drop people into mental and then turning into shouting crowds again... Excellent job !!! Tunes are a bit short but they have a comon feeling and speed so the EP is finally easy to mix :) ENJOY !

Étrange Hiver (Strange Winter) is UK songwriter, Tom McRae's 9th studio album. An exquisite collection of original duets with renowned French artists, such as Keren Ann, Chien Noir, Alex Beaupain, Clou and more. McRae decided to collaborate on these 11 new songs with various artists as a way of acknowledging his deep love of French music, and deepen his relationship with mainland Europe, following Britain’s disastrous decision to leave the EU. Tom’s debut album went Gold in France in 2001, selling over 60,000 copies, and he has divided his time between Paris and Wiltshire since 2021. Says Tom: “I grew up being intrigued by classic French songs. Before streaming services made all music readily available, only the huge crossover pop songs made it across the channel, but while my friends were listening to Vanessa Paradis, I was listening to Serge Gainsbourg. It seemed exotic, adventurous, and to be from another planet, let alone a country only 21 miles away from my own.” During Covid, McRae released a single with his Belgian friend, Wannes Cappelle, a reworking of one of Tom’s songs in English and West Vlaams, as well as an album of duets with a Welsh artist, Lowri Evans. Both projects sparking his interest in collaboration with other artists. “It’s not been a great time to be British since 2016”, says McRae. “We’ve become politically, economically and culturally isolated since Brexit - and I want to show that I feel more of a European than simply just an English person.” “But mostly this album, Étrange Hiver, is about beautiful songs, some in English, some in French. Sung as duets with friends (some established artists, as well as some new or undiscovered voices) and creating 11 little emotional moments in a crazy world. Some cinematic, some more intimate and personal, all of the songs addressing the important things in life: love, loss, political populism, impending climate collapse… written at a time when it feels as if the world may never escape from this long, strange winter.“ Artists duetting on this album with Tom include: Keren Ann, Chien Noir, Clou, Alex Beaupain, Rose, Naya, Vanille, Helena Noguerra, Alma Forrer, Aïtone, Julien Brocal, and now more are lining up to sing with Tom on a volume 2

The Rhythm Method veröffentlichten 2019 ihr Debütalbum und kündigen heute, vier Jahre später, den Nachfolger Peachy an, der am 8. März auf Moshi Moshi Records erscheint. Publikationen wie The Guardian, Dazed, Dork, i-D, Loud + Quiet haben die Band schon früh gelobt und sie mit Künstlern wie Pet Shop Boys und Squeeze verglichen. The Rhythm Method kehren nun mit einem völlig anderen Sound zurück, und, wie sie sagen, mit einem "zusammenhängenden Meisterwerk". Das neue Album, das von Bill Ryder-Jones produziert wurde und an dem auch Aoife Power von Whenyoung mitwirkt, ist das erste Mal, dass sie Musik in einem richtigen Studio aufgenommen haben. Es ist von dem Wunsch beeinflusst, das eigene Potenzial voll auszuschöpfen und sicherzustellen, „dass man es auf dem Sterbebett nicht bereut", so The Rhythm Method, die von Mike Skinner bis Michaela Coel gefeiert werden.


Über die neue Single „Have A Go Heroes“ sagt das Duo:

"Nach einem Gig in Hull im Jahr 2018 hatte Rowan einen psychotischen Anfall. Pech gehabt. Er machte (entgegen allen medizinischen Ratschlägen) mit einer kompletten UK-Tournee weiter. 'Have A Go Heroes' ist das Ergebnis davon.

Es ist eine Collage der britischen Regionallandschaft: Tankstellen, einsame Hügel, euphorische und mörderische Gedanken in einem."

Der legendäre Rock & Roll-Hall-of-Famer Dion liefert ein neues Album ab, das Generationen überschreitet: Girl Friends. Auf seinem neuesten KTBA Records-Release arbeitet er mit einer herausragenden Besetzung weiblicher Künstlerinnen zusammen, darunter die Soul-Lady Susan Tedeschi, Kraftpaket Shemekia Copeland, Ikone Carlene Carter, Virtuosin Joanne Shaw Taylor und die vielseitige Maggie Rose. Dions zeitlose Stimme und die unterschiedlichen Stile dieser gefeierten Künstlerinnen bilden eine Fusion, die das reiche Spektrum amerikanischer Musik feiert.

An intimate, vast, and mineral landscape, that's MaMaMa’s first album.

« Hier Sera Meilleur » (« Yesterday Will Be Better ») is the most personal project the musician has ever undertaken. It's an album of confessions and echoes. The echoes of the world within him, those of the past that haunt and drive the present, and also the echoes of the future that are already speaking to us.

Entirely composed, written, arranged, and mixed by Elliot, the tracks that make up this album blend organic recordings with synthetic productions. Euphonium, saxophone, clarinet, or a string quintet recorded in the studio coexist and intersect with various synthesizers and electronic plug-ins.

Ancient textures meet modern sounds. Black and white turns into color.

Everything changes and nothing is ever just what we perceive it to be, MaMaMa seems to tell us, however for the duration of a song, we are there. Yesterday will be better.

Delicate and beautiful music from the combined forced of the recently ubiquitous East-Coast psychedelic combo Elkhorn and Pelt’s Mike Gangloff, laying down two epic raga-like performances captured on a 2022 collaborative tour. Gangloff—fresh from the triumph of his VHF solo fiddle album Evening Measures—has found a distinct instrumental voice, blending drone music and trad influences in way that really advances the tradition into new areas. “East Dauphin Suite” builds patiently on the interlocking acoustic guitars of the Elkhorn duo, with Gangloff’s hardanger fiddle carrying the melody over the top. The sound is a neat riff on American primitive, with just enough Appalachian-style touches via Gangloff’s careful glissandos cutting through the Vuh-type chords and patterns to create a unique and supremely melodic hybrid. “Summerfield Raga” takes things further out, with more microtonal variation in the embroidery, with assertive bowing and an increased energy level. Pressed in Chicago and housed in an amazing jacket by Jake Blanchard.

"Something happened on No. The early EPs from Baltimore’s Tomato Flower were pretty, dreamy psychedelia. Warm to the touch, like looking up at the trees on a cloudless day. On No, the four-piece’s debut album, those trees, that cloudless sky, have become haunted, thorny, stormy. It takes Tomato Flower from buttoned-up, almost technically formalist psych pop to something more urgent, raw, emotionally immediate. No is messier, more expansive, and through all of its chaos, the band’s most rigorous artistic statement to date.

No is the band’s first effort made entirely in person, the first thing tracked in a studio instead of in a bedroom. It is a highly collaborative record written and recorded by everyone, partially made live. It is very much the byproduct of a band that has done some serious touring, following a coast-to-coast tour with Animal Collective in the summer of 2022.

Lead single “Destroyer,” has Jamison Murphy practically screaming over angular guitars, oscillating in a sonic space somewhere between the prettiness of Broadcast and the sludge of Jesus Lizard. It also presents an early entry point to one of No’s major conceptual underpinnings: that of the breakup between Murphy and fellow co-lead vocalist and guitarist Austyn Wohlers, which occurred during the composition of the album.

It wouldn’t be fair to just call No a break up album. It’s far more complicated with that. No is a record about negation: I will not do this, you cannot tell me what to do, we are not living in a utopia, don’t be delusional. No embraces a kind of brutal realism, a confrontation of life that only happens when you wizen up a little bit. All of it is a brutal delight, a departure from the past, a nod to a startling present."

Statiqbloom's new album "Kain" is embodying the true essence of industrial music, going beyond just a particular sound and encapsulating an outlook on the world. The fusion of forward-thinking, dystopian sounds, pulsating basslines, and mid-tempo rhythmic beats, all of which contribute to a masterfully crafted industrial techno experience.

Brooklyn-based artist Jonah Parzen-Johnson returns with the new album You're Never Really Alone, out on We Jazz Records, March 8. If you look at the label on the LP containing eight intimate compositions for baritone sax & flute, you will find the words, “we made this together”. At first thought, this simple phrase may seem out of place on a solo record, but just like the compositions on this album, it was carefully crafted to cut to the core of what this music is all about.
In Jonah’s words: “It’s pretty hard to end up at a solo saxophone concert by accident. Odds are pretty good, if you are there, it is because you light up when you experience something new, something experimental. That shared desire connects us, and suddenly, for a night, we are a community. For me, being connected to those spontaneous communities is the best part of being an experimental artist. Everything I make is in service to the cultivation of that community, our community. Without it my music doesn’t exist and because of that I can joyfully say to each person, at every concert, that we made this together.
”You’re Never Really Alone arrives in stark contrast to Parzen-Johnson’s 2020 We Jazz Records solo debut, Imagine Giving Up. Where Imagine Giving Up was celebrated for Parzen-Johnson’s ability to assemble deeply evocative electr acoustic sound worlds, “filling the landscape in one element at a time until a picture emerges that could almost be a full band,” (Wire Magazine, March 2020) You’re Never Really Alone shows us that Jonah can look you in the eye and say “my voice alone is enough”.
Across eight tracks, Parzen-Johnson, a Chicago native, explores the technical limits of his baritone saxophone and flute without ever making the listener feel like he has something to prove. You will find circular breathing, multiphonics, and explosive levels of sound, but more importantly, you will enjoy every moment of musical storytelling and compositional skill. This album is made for repeat listening.
The opening track, “When I Feel Like Myself” is a meditative invocation of self realization. Parzen-Johnson summons three and four note harmonies from his saxophone with deep control, as he gently explores how tension can become its own release. An unadorned melodic thread gently weaves each musical expression to the last, guiding us deeper into an album that simultaneously celebrates the power of one, and the yearning for exploration that unites us all.

Das lauteste Rock/Fusion-Instrumental-Power-Trio der Welt beschert uns ihr erstes Konzeptalbum: In DUCK flieht der Protagonist, eine Ente, vor einem Pinguinpolizisten nach New York, wo Aufreger und Gefahren auf ihn warten. Die Aristocrats - Guthrie Govan/Gitarre, Bryan Beller/Bass, Marco Minnemann/Schlagzeug - haben ein kaleidoskopisches musikalisches Universum erschaffen, in dem sie sowohl typische Genre-Pastiches als auch einfallsreiche neue Arrangements erforschen - einige davon überraschend gefühlvoll und sensibel -, um die Geschichte zu ihrem rasanten Ende zu führen. Und während ihre offensichtliche Virtuosität und die ihr innewohnende Absurdität wie immer vorhanden sind, wird sie nun in der bisher ambitioniertesten kompositorischen und klanglichen Produktion der Band eingesetzt. Die abwechslungsreiche Musik begleitet den Protagonisten von der Ente in einem Großstadt-Tanzclub ("Aristoclub") über den gewaltsamen Rauswurf aus einer Spelunke ("Hey, Where's MY Drink Package") bis hin zum düsteren Thema für seinen Pinguin-Verfolger ("Sgt. Rockhopper") und endet schließlich mit dem actiongeladenen Balkan-Fusion-Finale "This Is Not Scrotum", bei dem der Geiger Rusanda Panfili (Hans Zimmer Live) als seltener Aristocrats-Album-Spezialgast auftritt. Duck ist das erste neue Studioalbum der Aristocrats seit fünf Jahren und wurde und mit einem Original-Artwork von Lance Myers (Space Jam) versehen. Und es ist klar, dass die ARISTOCRATS ihre kollektive Kunstfertigkeit auf ein völlig neues, wenn auch absurdes, Niveau gebracht haben. Als Standard CD, CD Deluxe Package in Box mit USB-Stick mit Stunden an Bonus-Material, Schlüsselanhänger und mehr sowie Dopple-Vinyl-LP erhältlich!

This collection assembles the range of sources that Robert Johnson heard and learned from including songs from his mentor Son House and from other Delta performers and from sources that show aspects of the musical world in which he lived. His tastes ranged far and wide and he had a gift for absorbing sounds of all kinds, including from tin pan alley to hillbilly songs. He was a brilliant creative musician who managed a stunningly effective fusion of his Delta roots and the smoother approach of the then prominent contemporary blues artists. As with any genius in any field he was able to produce great work only because he was standing on the shoulders of previous great artists. This collection provides an introduction to a number of them and gives a sense of how Johnson adapted and combined their styles. It presents music that can still excite and inspire us today just as it did to Robert Johnson back in the first golden age of the blues.

Ltd Edition!

Anläßlich des 45ten Jubiläums der Compilation veröffentlicht Domino die LP am 8. März 2024 in durchsichtigem, orangefarbenem Vinyl.

„Singles Going Steady“ ist ein Compilation-Album der englischen Punkrock-Band Buzzcocks, das ursprünglich am 25. September 1979 auf I.R.S. Records in den Vereinigten Staaten veröffentlicht wurde.

Format: Limitierte, nummerierte translucent-orange Vinyl inkl. Booklet und Downloadkarte (2019 Remastered Version)

First Word Records is proud to bring you 'The Essance' - the classic debut album by Essa (formerly known as Yungun), originally released in 2004, now released on vinyl & digital for the first time, 20 years on!

A lyricist, lawyer and a Londoner, legendary MC Essa has earned praise over the years from artists such as Nas and Mark Ronson, as well as performing and recording with legends like De La Soul, Wu-Tang Clan, Guru, Slum Village and Pharoahe Monch.

This 15-track album is considered one of the greats to emerge during UK Hip Hop's "golden era"; a vibrant time for the genre when artists such as Ty, Jehst, Roots Manuva, Klashnekoff, Skinnyman, Task Force, Doc Brown and Foreign Beggars were garnering huge fanbases, and an eco-system of shops like Deal Real, club nights like Kung Fu, labels like Lowlife, and stations like Itch FM were prevalent, while BBC 1Xtra was a mere infant.

'The Essance' includes production and features from luminaries such as Harry Love, Mr Thing, Lewis Parker, Kyza, Devise & Ben Grymm, to name a few.

Esteemed author Musa Okwonga says on the reissue liner notes "the most startling thing about 'The Essance' was its range. Yungun (Essa) was one of the few MCs who could perfectly walk the paths of hope and melancholy with equal ease, whose artist name belied the wisdom of his lyrics. Beyond that, his delivery was supremely self-assured, filled with a swagger he could always justify.

Yungun's gifts also extended to the stage, where he was one of the best young actors that many of his contemporaries had seen, and to languages, which saw him writing and rhyming in Spanish with a notable flourish. He was also someone who constantly walked between two worlds, excelling in one of the country's most competitive academic environments during the day and then delivering a soaring radio set by night. Raised in a vibrant vein of North London, endlessly curious about the world around him, Yungun's fine ear for music and passion for the variety of life made him someone who could reach all audiences.

'The Essance' is a beautifully-woven meditation on the human condition, one which takes you from the dancefloor to the summer afternoon barbecue to the bathroom mirror; yet it is also the opening statement of a unique career."

In the words of Essa himself "my key goal for this album was to span so many moods and styles that I couldn't be categorised, leaving me free to then go in whatever direction I chose. I was almost too successful with this – I would later struggle to pin down my own identity, both on and off the mic, as a rapper slash lawyer, of mixed-heritage, blessed to be able to enter many circles but feeling truly at home in none. As I write this, twenty years (plus a marriage and several children) on, I finally feel more at peace with being undefinable, and am getting better at bringing my full, authentic self into as many aspects of life as I can. I am grateful to be able to look both back and forward, with equal passion."

'The Essance' was followed with a collaborative album with DJ Mr Thing ('Grown Man Business'), then some years later on First Word with 'The Misadventures of a Middle Man' in 2014. There's also a forthcoming project in the works, due for release Summer 2024 with all-new material produced by Pitch 92. Both these releases also coincide with the 20th anniversary of the First Word label (named "label of the year" at the 2019 Worldwide Awards).

A timeless piece of work, 'The Essance' is true-skool boom bap through and through that stands up two full decades later, from the ethereal anthem 'Liquid Love', to the uptempo bounce of 'Dancing Shoes', to the grit of 'The Big Idea', to the thought provoking 'What Eye See Pt.2', to bangers like 'Push' or 'Spit Fire', this is an essential addition to the collection of any discerning hip hop head.

'The Essance' is due to be released on vinyl & digital worldwide on February 23rd 2024.

“But into my miserable brain, always concerned with looking for noon at two o’clock" - Charles Baudelaire (1869)

The Foreign Department is the second album by Astrel K, the solo project helmed by Stockholm-based British ex-pat, Rhys Edwards. Those already familiar with Edwards’ work will likely know him for fronting the cultishly great Ulrika Spacek, and given he operates as the principal songwriter in both projects, much of the same hallmarks of his cathartic, elliptical songwriting are present in Astrel K. Nonetheless, The Foreign Department feels like a rubicon moment of sorts, and the album that Edwards has unconsciously been working towards his entire creative life.

As a title, The Foreign Department offers an instructive guide for the listener, framing a life-in-transition/artist-in-exile document that maps two impromptu moves in twelve months for its songwriter: the first from London in pursuit of a relationship, the second between homes in Stockholm as that decade long relationship then suddenly dissolved. Indeed, diffusion, dissolution and reconstitution feel like appropriate touchstones for its recurring themes. Written amidst the flux of two states, at once isolated from home and then any established emotional anchor, the resulting eleven tracks came to represent a precognitive search for shifting identity and with it forming an unwittingly biographical record. It's commendable and somewhat telling that during this shake up, Edwards somehow landed upon his most realised and original work.

With a former life stripped away, there emerged an opportunity to reinvent a sense of self through art, now not just as a writer, but a composer also. Developing the confidence to arrange songs in ways he'd previously considered off-limits, while also taking cues from the opulent string and brass arrangements of records like Mercury Rev's Deserters' Songs and Death of A Ladies Man by Leonard Cohen, Edwards enlisted a range of performers to bring to life the mini-symphonies forming in his head. Perhaps it's inevitable that an album written while facing the consequences of being alone would eventually ossify around the process of bringing people together.

For all its troubled origins, The Foreign Department is a remarkably warm sounding collection. Edwards' lyrics are typically knotty and neurotic, dancing around the poetry of quarter-life anxiety, but the music itself is often joyous and even uplifting, the combination expressing that neat duality of melancholic euphoria. Edwards sings variously of crises, "torrid pieces of art", of "houses on fire" and not "having the guts for it", yet these troubling sentiments are framed by seemingly incongruous swelling strings, chirping horns or motorik percussion, creating that sense of pushing forward or floating above, of wrapping your troubles in dreams, a salve for the moments when you get a bit too much for yourself.

Lead single, 'Darkness At Noon', likely captures this all best. Named for the French idiom "midi a quatorze heures", the maddening idea of attempting the impossible for the sake of some greater possibly pointless cause, it directly grapples with the opposing notions of wanting and not wanting, of being here and being there at the same time. The conflicting and impossible self. It’s something Edwards addresses in the song at perhaps his most open, opining, “I know I want to be seen, but I hate most of what comes out of me”. And yet here is, putting it all out in the open and on the line, the dialectics of his enlightenment up on show.

In July of 2022, just one month before jaimie branch"s death sent shockwaves around the world, the trumpet player and composer was in Chicago at International Anthem (IARC) studios putting finishing touches on an album. It was a suite of music she had composed and then recorded with her flagship ensemble, Fly or Die, over the course of a residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska. In her wake, the album was near complete, with only mixing tweaks, final titles, and artwork to be fully realized. In the months following, her family (led by sister Kate Branch), her band (Jason Ajemian, Lester St. Louis, and Chad Taylor), and her collaborators at IARC (engineers Dave Vettraino and David Allen, comrades Alejandro Ayala and Scott McNiece) banded together to gather memories, texts, emails, photographs, artwork and fragments belonging to jaimie to light the path forward. The goal was always to do what jaimie would have done. Packaged in stunning artwork by John Herndon, Damon Locks, and branch herself, Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)) is jaimie"s final album with the quartet.

ScruScru is a name you might well recognise but it is fair to say you might not recognise his work on this first release from Talkbox. He shows a very different side off the back of plenty of top edits that bottle up plenty of disco and Bossanova vibes. Here he has teamed up with Russia's dubplate don BR Selecta for an EP full of energy and joy. 'YEAH YEAH' is happy-go-lucky garage with pitched-up vocals and lively drum, 'Get My Gruv' is a kinetic two-stepper and 'Cyberrave' is just that with its all-out synth madness and flurries of breaks, then 'Serious Talking' closes out on a darker jungle tip. A varied and vital 12' for sure.

As its title suggests, Stornoway"s 2010 debut album, Beachcomber"s Windowsill, is something of a treasure. Featuring singles "Fuel Up", "I Saw You Blink" and "Zorbing", it showed just why so many were excited by the Oxford indie-folk quartet"s arrival - a DIY guitar band unusually rooted in folk tradition. They stood out further with their deft ability to try their hand at most instruments, never shy to experiment while their pure pop harmonies soared. Warmly received on release, Beachcomber"s Windowsill quickly attained Silver status in the UK and among the many positive reviews, The Observer praised it for having a "real emotional depth that transports their music from throwaway sunny songs to something altogether more poignant and enduring", while the NME called it "beautifully rendered and melodically magnifi cent; a Constable landscape of a record." The album is complemented by a stunning sleeve by designer Chris Bigg, who has played on the album"s title and their songs about nature by working with illustrations of shells, aquatic life and old maps.

Italian hard techno DJ-producer MAIKE DEPAS announces EP "Rave the Planet" (out 29 February) ahead of MAIKE DEPAS 2.0 audio-visual makeover

"Depas strikes a fine balance between raw energy and subtle melodic hooks." (DMY)

"Throughout the pounding track Midnight Ride, the Italian beatsmith expertly blends lush synths with intricate rhythmic components and gritty bass." (EDM com)

"Depas' approach to techno is a veritable melting pot of influences, blending sounds from the 80s and 90s with contemporary symphonic and cinematic elements." (Magnetic Mag)

Upon the return from the dark and dreamy regions of his previous EP "Euphoria", Milanese hard techno DJ-producer MAIKE DEPAS (Michelangelo De Pasquale) announces new EP "Rave the Planet", out 29 February via The Innovation Studio, ahead of MAIKE DEPAS 2.0 audio-visual makeover. Sending tremors through the electronic underground scene, Depas joins Kobosil and In Verruf in carrying the torch of uncompromising Berlin techno while keeping his feet firmly planted in the melodic 1990s trance of Push, Jam & Spoon, and Cygnus X.

Introducing his new heavy-duty fusion of face-melting techno and trance carrying "Go Hard or Go Home" warning sign, Depas makes the crowd grind their teeth with a behemoth of an opener "Heartbreaker" only to fill the dancefloor with dread on the shiver-inducing "Vortex", a power move designed to set the scene for the title track"s fervent rave sermon delivered in a cyborg voice by Depas, followed by the erotic undertones of throbbing closer "Float Together" including the blistering remix by the Italian DJ Amstra.

"Rave the planet / Stay together / In techno we trust / Rave the planet" - MAIKE DEPAS, Rave the Planet

At its core, "Rave the Planet" is Depas" personal paean to the true spirit of the original rave culture as represented by Lukas Havlik"s (Ludenworks) Luis Royo-esque artwork of a pulsating cybernetic planet of complex, interconnected nerve fibres wrapped around the Depas globe logo. “As a raver, you feel this sense of unity with community and it"s similar to a religion we"ve had for thousands and thousands of years,” Depas compares. “We are the planet, we are the culture, so both are the reflection of ourselves in the wider world.” For Depas, the concept of solidarity runs deep within techno culture. Coming right from the heart, Depas is driven by the opportunity to bring people together for one thing and one thing only: “Just for the love of techno and to celebrate the music in a club.”

"As a raver, you feel this sense of unity with a community similar to a religion we"ve had for thousands and thousands of years." - MAIKE DEPAS

"Rave the Planet" is released in conjunction with MAIKE DEPAS 2.0, a tectonic audio-visual shift that entails a wide array of digital content as varied as DJ sets live streamed from Berlin"s Teufelsberg and other dystopian locations around Europe as well as enhanced PR-photos featuring cyberpunk-inspired outfits designed by Demobaza, a cyberpunk-inspired casual couture brand best known for their sustainable Dune X Demobaza collection. Over the course of upcoming metamorphosis from a flesh-and-blood individual into a mysterious CGI character, Depas is another step closer to revolutionising the dance music scene through the metaverse.

MOFAK, the funkiest producer from the south of France (Marseille), is back with a double Modern Boogie single just the way we like it!

A side: the bass of the single sets the tone over a fat beat featuring the vocals of Saïd (IAM) and Elois Scroggins! The vocoder gives us a real treat, and the chorus takes it all in and sets the dancefloor alight!

B Side : Big beats and groovy bass are the recipe for the intro, then AprilSoul takes it all in when the synthesizers kick in! Mofak on vocoder lifts the track, then the chorus kicks in and keeps us on the edge of our seats until the awesome guitar chorus forces us to play Air Guitare ! !

With this double single, Mofak confirms his Modern Boogie level of production and makes it clear that we'll have to keep a close eye on him in the shops.

Dez Dare ventures further into the void than ever before on his 4th album and the 1st to be released via God Unknown Records, ‘A Billion Goats. A Billion Sparks. Fin.’. On past records Dare has fought beasts and beats alike, waging a fuzz war and tackling the biggest topics the world has to face; Doom scrolling, capitalist demagogues, a passionate dislike of the beach in summer. On this record he leaves the sardonic frustration behind for sarcastic existentialism, zeroing in on the big philosophical questions, and the pedantic shards of nonsense that make up our existence. Piling up the synths, noise boxes and guitar pedals, Dez set about building a soundscape of noise and ideas around the nature of reality, time, and how we interact with them. From the music you would play in your last moments, to the reverse Darwinism of modern society, to arguing with time itself, and very boring people talking at you, all is covered here for the aspiring existentialist. The self-produced Australian has spent over 3 decades producing music, releasing and touring bands, and doing live sound for z-grade metal bands. Growing up in the coastal town of Geelong (Djilang) in Australia, he was introduced to the DIY punk and rock scene at 15 and this community and the ideas rooted in the underground music scene have guided his output and ethics throughout his career. This year Dez will be joining forces with label titans God Unknown (Cassels / Duke Garwood / James Johnston + Steve Gullick / KLÄMP / Oneida / Oneida / Laura Loriga / Monster Magnet / Wellwater Conspiracy Soundgarden + Monster Magnet) and will be producing a deluxe version of the release that will include a 12 page comic illustrated by long time collaborator Mike Keane. Across the drone of noise and washed out guitars of the final track, ‘A Billion Voices Screaming, Hello Void!’, the chant repeats “We all return to where we begun...” which encapsulates the message that Dare delivers. We are all made from the same stardust and we all return to the universe that spat us out, we just need to enjoy the many shards of nonsense on that swift descent into the void...with wizards painted on the side." MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL "Early 90s-inspired take on DEVO punk... high energy sucker punches on your ear." Weirdo Shrine "Sludgey-grungey-fuzzed psychedelic-noiserock... I like the fact that despite all the edgy complexity, catchy songs emerge again and again."

Soft Walls is the solo recording project of Dan Reeves, who has spent his entire adult life kicking around in the dust of the UK's underground music scenes. Cutting his teeth in the South West's post-hardcore scene; centred around Exeter's The Cavern club, before moving to the South East and forming his own record label; Faux Discx, and the propulsive post-punk band: Brighton via London's Cold Pumas. Projects have come and gone over the years, but Reeves' Soft Walls has remained, an outlet for whatever musical whim takes his fancy.

'True Love' is Soft Walls' 4th album. Written and recorded at home, during breaks in work. During the aftermath of you-know-what.

For this album Dan leaned heavily in to his guitar playing, searching for those purest moments of true emotion and connection. Aiming to strike an instant blow. "Emotional guitar music. But not Emo." The result of falling in love with an instrument again and playing for the joy of it, much like he did as a teenager. Just older, wiser(?) and certainly more world-weary / teary-eyed.

Thematically, 'True Love' revels in stating its love for everything that is dear to Reeves. Odes to marriage, romance, unconditional love, parenthood and creativity pierce through the record's down-swings that tackle existential crisis and the feeling of falling in to depression. Each song attempts to encapsulate a vivid feeling, be it positive or negative. It's all part of a life worth living.

Although recorded at home, this album marks a leap in to digital mid-fidelity for Soft Walls, embracing a wider, richer sound beyond the tape hiss of earlier releases. That same spirt is still in the mix, but is presented wide-eyed and caffeinated in to clarity. Elevated by the input of a handful of collaborators contributing to the performances and helping to shape it sonically, 'True Love' ends up being the truest version of Soft Walls committed to (digital) tape thus far.

Maybe your demands of punk are a little too high. Maybe they're a little too exacting - you know what you want, but you don't know how to get it. Maybe you've got an itch that's needed scratching since you first heard '(I'm) Stranded' (sounds like a doctor needs to look at that, mind). Maybe all or none of these things are true and you're just in search of three or four chords and some righteous snot. Reader, you have come to the right place. Split System came sauntering out of Melbourne back in 2022 with a self-titled 7" and a debut LP (the sensibly-titled 'Vol. I'), and as a listener of exquisite taste, one or both of those items will have carved out their own spaces within easy access of your record player. With members of acer-than-ace garage punkas Stiff Richards and Speed Week among their number, not to mention the redoubtable Jackson Reid Briggs, they deal in a gloriously back-to-basics take on punk that's part Undertones, part Royal Headache and part Chris Bailey - all hooks and glory, all the time. They're so much more than the sum of their parts and they make this shit sound effortless. Well, here's an update for you: they're back! Second album (the equally-sensibly-titled 'Vol. II') is now upon us, and a thoroughly tremendous follow-up it is too. As soon as opener 'The Wheel' slams into your speakers, it's clear that they've lost none of the pep or power that made their debut such an essential listen; if anything they're even more raucous and revved-up than before. Yep, that's jargon for 'they rule hard', and let me add here that you could listen to this album 100 times in a row or simply try inserting dynamite sticks with lit fuses into your ear canal; either way, your poor little mind is gonna blow. It's an album made entirely of bangers (still on that explosion metaphor, are we?) - the concise questioning of 'End of the Night' is as pure a punk rock nugget as you could ever wish to uncover, and 'The Drain' is just energy distilled to a perfect series of hooks - with a passion for rock'n'roll in its most scintillating form. Just listen to it. That's all you need to do. Your demands have been met - here's your new favourite record.

« Tas Malonumas »
Lithuanian word
Def: meaning That Pleasure
Example: conversation between a young, inexperienced person and an elderly person who’s near death’s door. The old one is telling the young one how life is an unceasing search for pleasure.
Track: takes the form of a mental stroll that takes you far, far away.

« Room of Men Eaters »
Human expression of cannibalism
Def: absurd situation in which men and women eat each other in a room
Track: the contrast between the absurdity of the situation and the apparent normality of speech told by the vocoded voice of Shkema is just astonishing.

« Sarka Syrkaza »
From the future
Def: meaning “super sarcasm”
Example: one day you wake up in the morning and you feel that something within you has changed. All seems to be nonsense and you start to look at everything through the grey glasses of sarcasm. One might look enjoying oneself, but in reality this is an extremely draining state of mind.
Track: musical expression of that state of mind

« Je n’aime pas les fêtes »
World expression
Def: parties are boring
Track: Shkema remix of his friend Afrodelic is a wacky version that contrasts French lyrics talking about how disastrous parties feel with a beat that just makes you want to dance.

The cinematic opening track Inthenever starts off as a film >> somewhere on a desolate coast, where everything has already ceased. This is going to be an album with a story and depth, a fearless tour of the barren shores of our days // or is it possibly just a mirage conclusion of their razor-sharp sound brutalism? Tittingur's third album, Epiphany, is here, pounding with waves they had not done before.

It seems as though this dyad has disposed of all the genre confines that had locked them in, and have grasped the sound of new subject matters, for which the moniker of experimental techno is finally too narrow. With utter urgency and candid to their emblematic, thunderous sound, Dominik's and Matus's deafening mallets collide in beats which are now, more than ever, drenched in a mass of palpable gloom and anguish. As though we could touch the rising levels of the oceans, and smell the melting of the glaciers themselves.

In one way or another, the music of Tittingur has always been about nature, its fierce essence, and its stark contrast with the post-era that we have found ourselves living in. However, whereas before, it was the sound of old, weather-stained concrete, and the pounding of abandoned, overgrown buildings, now it is, unavoidably, their most direct and honest return to nature landscapes, and to human, age-old traditions, referenced in the Slovak folk motives, recordings and found sounds.

On Epiphany, Tittingur's sound becomes yet more abstract, in a sound world that is ambiguous but also unified, and works on its own. The duality of nature and technology, of inland human folklore and the trenches of deepest oceans, invite us to come closer and observe the volatile obliteration taking place. Can we even attempt to re-assess our position with nature, or is this whole experiment doomed to fail?

Unsurprisingly, in the echoes, all the ingredients of the classic Tittingur sound are still present, distilled into new forms >> the ever-present over-saturation, the exaggerated, maximalist approach and megalomania >> the sound of impending climate change, doom, and near-apocalyptic visions, the scent of borovička mixed with the wild North Sea, the agony of contemporary urban life, and the adventure of wilderness: ferocious synths, monumental beats, aggressive basslines and crumbling noise-scapes built of a found-sound, music concréte-like, collagist approach.

At moments, it seems the means have changed. Just until you realise that the sentences of this story are spoken in a new language. If you dive deep enough, and listen to the essence that the music of Tittingur articulates, it's surprisingly easy to understand >> although the notions and emotions are difficult to put into words. The profound narrative of Epiphany is that of an endless inner struggle of society, anxiety, crises, and ambiguously easy // difficult solutions in the post-modern global chaos. It is the calm before a storm. It is the storm. Is it the calm. It is all of it, in itself. credits

Mannequin Pussy"s music feels like a resilient and galvanizing shout that demands to be heard. Across four albums, the Philadelphia rock band that consists of Colins "Bear" Regisford (bass, vocals), Kaleen Reading (drums, percussion), Maxine Steen (guitar, synths), and Marisa Dabice (guitar, vocals) has made cathartic tunes about despairing times. "There"s just so much constantly going on that feels intentionally evil that trying to make something beautiful feels like a radical act ," says Dabice. "The ethos of this band has always been to bring people together." Their new album, I Got Heaven, which is out March 1 via Epitaph Records, is the band"s most fully realized recording yet. Over ten ambitious tracks which abruptly turn from searing punk to inviting alternative pop, the album is deeply concerned with desire, the power in being alone, and how to live in an unfeeling and unkind world. It"s a document of a band doubling down on their unshakable bond to make something furious, thrilling, and wholly alive. Following the 2019 release of their critically acclaimed third album Patience, Mannequin Pussy returned in 2021 for their EP Perfect. They toured that release relentlessly and added guitarist Maxine Steen to the band"s official lineup. The band changed their entire creative formula, choosing to write together in the studio in Los Angeles with producer John Congleton , over slowly crafting tracks at home. "Everyone felt empowered to speak up about their own ideas to make this thing the best it could possibly be," says Regisford.

Mannequin Pussy"s music feels like a resilient and galvanizing shout that demands to be heard. Across four albums, the Philadelphia rock band that consists of Colins "Bear" Regisford (bass, vocals), Kaleen Reading (drums, percussion), Maxine Steen (guitar, synths), and Marisa Dabice (guitar, vocals) has made cathartic tunes about despairing times. "There"s just so much constantly going on that feels intentionally evil that trying to make something beautiful feels like a radical act ," says Dabice. "The ethos of this band has always been to bring people together." Their new album, I Got Heaven, which is out March 1 via Epitaph Records, is the band"s most fully realized recording yet. Over ten ambitious tracks which abruptly turn from searing punk to inviting alternative pop, the album is deeply concerned with desire, the power in being alone, and how to live in an unfeeling and unkind world. It"s a document of a band doubling down on their unshakable bond to make something furious, thrilling, and wholly alive. Following the 2019 release of their critically acclaimed third album Patience, Mannequin Pussy returned in 2021 for their EP Perfect. They toured that release relentlessly and added guitarist Maxine Steen to the band"s official lineup. The band changed their entire creative formula, choosing to write together in the studio in Los Angeles with producer John Congleton , over slowly crafting tracks at home. "Everyone felt empowered to speak up about their own ideas to make this thing the best it could possibly be," says Regisford.

. The Classic Example were a Los Angeles singing duet consisting of Curtis Colbert and Harriet Hurst. Their eponymous LP was released in 1972 on GSF Records alongside infamous acts such as Skull Snaps and The Whatnauts. Very little is known about the duo, only one LP was recorded and the group disbanded shortly after release. The backing band for the entire album is none other than Hodges, James, Smith, and Crawford. Newly remasted and pressed on audiophile virgin vinyl.

Few artists have done as much as Heinrich Dressel to rekindle the genre of soundtracks. Even fewer are as capable as the Italian at writing such silver screen scores. Yet, Valerio Lombardozzi is much more than just one style. He has shown this time and time again, doing so once more with The Obscure Cities. Works of fiction, rather than film, are the fount of inspiration with tracks drawing on the likes of J.G. Ballard, Francois Schuiten, Benoit Peeters and Valerio Mattioli. The listener is transported to worlds of Dressel’s own making, landscapes of melody, textures of bass punctuated by drums. “Galatograd” opens. From understated beginnings, the track expands into a symphony of strings as columns of warmth descend. Tempos rise for “Eden Olympia”. A different tone is set. Juddering arpeggios and clean snares are elevated by bright and hopeful keys that sparkle with an enthusiasm and innocence. Deep unctuous bass gives way to gliding notes for “Remoria”. A piece where melodies and memories melt in the morning dawn. “Mylos” is the last visit of the EP. Delicate, almost fragile, notes are buttressed by drum patterns in this hazy dreamlike finale.