Cerca:just friends

Born in Newtownards, County Down, Northern Ireland, singer/songwriter/guitarist Ricky Warwick was cut from the cloth of a mill workers’ jacket. Raised on a diet of Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, Thin Lizzy, Stiff Little Fingers, Motown and everything in between. Saving his money from a newspaper round and a little help from his father, Ricky got his first electric guitar at age 13. “That cheap electric guitar changed my life....it saved me, it was more than just notes on a fretboard, it was the deepest breath of life I ever experienced.“ explains Warwick.
At age 14 Ricky and his family relocated to Strathaven, Scotland. It was here that Warwick fully immersed himself in the sonic seas of Rock n Roll. Writing and practicing every free moment he wasn’t working on his father’s farm, Ricky got a call to join acclaimed U.K. Punk/Folk band New Model Army as rhythm guitarist on their 1987 ‘Ghost Of Cain‘ World Tour. Following New Model Army, Ricky went on to form The Almighty in Glasgow who enjoyed ten top forty singles and four top twenty albums in the U.K. during the late 80’s/early 90’s, touring worldwide with such iconic bands as The Ramones, Motorhead, Megadeth and Iron Maiden.
In 2002, after relocating back to Ireland, Ricky recorded his first solo album ‘Tattoos & Alibis‘ in Joe Elliott of Def Leppard’s studio in Dublin with Joe also handling production duties. It marked a shift in direction “I realized that I didn’t need to yell over a wall of sound to make my point...less is more, stripped back instrumentation could achieve the same goal just as effectively. I learned so much making that record, primarily about myself”. Warwick would go on to release two more solo albums between 2002 -2010 and tour globally opening for the likes of Def Leppard, Cheap Trick, Bryan Adams and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
In January 2010 Ricky received a call from his old friend Scott Gorham who was spearheading a reformation of Ireland’s favourite sons Thin Lizzy and wanted Ricky to front the new line up. ”I was shocked, terrified, excited and extremely humbled when I got that call. Phil Lynott was my hero and Thin Lizzy were the soundtrack of my life. I realized that I could never hope or even dare to try and stand in Phil’s shoes. All I could do was try and stand beside them and sing his songs with as much heart, soul and passion possible. In late 2012, with a necessity to write and perform new material, out of respect for the Thin Lizzy name, Black Star Riders were born. Warwick is the frontman and main songwriter for the band and 2013 saw the release of Black Star Riders acclaimed debut album


‘All Hell Breaks Loose‘.

Black Star Riders have now released four critically-acclaimed and commercially successful albums, the most recent being 2019’s ‘Another State Of Grace‘. They have achieved two U.K. top 15 albums and one U.K. top 10 album as well as mainstream radio play which includes claiming two “singles of the week” on BBC Radio 2.
Following 2016’s lauded ‘When Patsy Cline Was Crazy... And Guy Mitchell Sang The Blues’, Warwick is getting ready to unleash his 5th solo album in 2021. Titled ‘When Life Was Hard And Fast‘, it was recorded in Los Angeles and produced by Keith Nelson (ex-Buckcherry), who also co-wrote the majority of the songs on the record with Warwick. “Keith Nelson and I share a passion for good, honest, rock ‘n’ soul. Making the album with Keith who shares a similar outlook and work ethic as myself was a no brainer ....also the fact that he has a killer collection of vintage guitars contributed greatly”
“I wanted to create an album that had the simplistic melodies of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers charged with the electric hedonistic fury of Johnny Thunders And The Heartbreakers. Recording the album as live as possible with a full band was requisite to achieving the desired effect”. Xavier Muriel (Ex-Buckcherry) on drums and Robert Crane (Black Star Riders) on bass completed the core band and turned in stellar performances, giving the songs a real lease of life.
Also, once again, Warwick tapped some of his closest friends for guest appearances on the record, including Andy Taylor (Duran Duran & Power Station) Luke Morley (Thunder), Joe Elliott (Def Leppard), Dizzy Reed (Guns n Roses). Ricky also duets with his daughter Pepper on the song ‘Time Don’t Seem To Matter‘. “I can’t wait for people to hear this album and to hit the road touring it whether it’s with my band The Fighting Hearts or just myself and my acoustic - it will be amazing. I’m grateful that after 30 years of making records my appetite for writing and playing is the same as it was that day all those years ago when I got my first electric guitar”
For those intrigued by the album cover, it depicts a crash scene from the famous Ards TT Motor Car Race in County Down Northern Ireland. The race ran from 1928 until 1936 was watched by over 250,000 spectators annually. The embankment in the photograph that the spectators are on is actually a field belonging to Ricky’s Great Grandfather’s Farm, which he grew up on for the first fourteen years of his life.

The band that became Nightshift formed in 2019 in the ecosystem of Glasgow's current indie scene. The city's fertile & creative group of musicians have been committed to pushing the boundaries of and blurring the lines between DIY, punk, experimentalism and indie pop for decades now; a home to bands like Shopping, Vital Idles, Current Affairs, Still House Plants, and Happy Meals as well as forebears like Orange Juice, Teenage Fanclub and Yummy Fur. Nightshift slot right in with all mentioned, featuring members from current indie stalwarts Spinning Coin, 2 Ply and Robert Sotelo. Initially formed by guitarist David Campbell and bassist Andrew Doig as a "No Wave/No New York/ early Sonic Youth/This Heat-esque" group, the addition of Eothen Stern (keyboards/vocals) and Chris White (drums) instantaneously transformed their approach (guitarist/vocalist/clarinetist Georgia Harris joined as the band was writing "Zöe"). The band self-released a full-length tape on CUSP Recordings in early 2020, laying the foundation of their sound; hypnotic, melodic, understated indie post-punk with hooks that stick around long after you've heard them. "Zöe" is the band's newest effort, and first for Trouble In Mind. Unlike the band's previous album, the songs on "Zöe" weren't conceived live in the band's practice space, but rather pieced together and recorded remotely during quarantine lockdown, with each member composing or improvising their parts in homes/home studios, layering ideas over loops someone made and passing it on. The isolation actually allowed for an openness and creativity to flow and many of the songs took on radically different forms from when they were originally envisioned. Vocalist & primary lyricist Eothen Stern says "The process of writing these songs separately during lockdown was a kind of exquisite corpse - I liked this gesticulation of reaching out to one another and responding. Building up the next layer and passing it on." Stern says "poetic restraints" to writing & Eno's Oblique Strategies concepts were on their mind when composing the words to the songs on "Zöe" and lists the influence of author Rosi Bradiotti's book "The Posthuman". "Zöe" means "live drive", derived from the word conatus. Bradiotti defines conatus as "an effort or striving, endeavour, impulse, inclination, tendency, undertaking, serving is an innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself." and Stern views it as "...a kind of feminist re-claiming of communal public, anti- privatisation, looking to strive for social and environmental justice. Zöe kind of became a character of striving for me when writing.". "Zöe" kicks off with "Piece Together", a hypnotic song anchored by the band's chanted vocals and serpentine guitar licks. "Spraypaint the Bridge" showcases Harris' clarinet in an unexpected & delightful melodic shift during the song's anti-chorus. Elsewhere tunes like the swooning "Infinity Winner" and "Outta Space"s minimalist, slinky rhythm swirl in a late-night vibe, while "Make Kin" ruminates on "Looking to kinship as a way of engaging with entangled environmental and reproductive issues... how a band is a bond" and lurches forward with kinetic guitar strangling and staccato rhythmic percussion from White and Doig. "Power Cut" is the album's centerpiece, kicking off side two and lures the listener into its world over it's 7-minute runtime. Lulling them into involuntary movement with its waves of melodic harmonies, synth drones and metronomic pulse, until they all come crashing down in the song's dissonant midsection. The band acknowledges the whiffs of nostalgia prevalent in "Zöe"s songs (the title track in particular), and the nature of writing and recording the album is soaked in the self-work, reflection and reevaluations involved not only personally but creatively in each member's lives. Consequently, the album becomes a collection of sketches of hope, growth, awareness of the power of the world and the power of self, kith, kinship, friendship, resistance, and possibility.

The band that became Nightshift formed in 2019 in the ecosystem of Glasgow's current indie scene. The city's fertile & creative group of musicians have been committed to pushing the boundaries of and blurring the lines between DIY, punk, experimentalism and indie pop for decades now; a home to bands like Shopping, Vital Idles, Current Affairs, Still House Plants, and Happy Meals as well as forebears like Orange Juice, Teenage Fanclub and Yummy Fur. Nightshift slot right in with all mentioned, featuring members from current indie stalwarts Spinning Coin, 2 Ply and Robert Sotelo. Initially formed by guitarist David Campbell and bassist Andrew Doig as a "No Wave/No New York/ early Sonic Youth/This Heat-esque" group, the addition of Eothen Stern (keyboards/vocals) and Chris White (drums) instantaneously transformed their approach (guitarist/vocalist/clarinetist Georgia Harris joined as the band was writing "Zöe"). The band self-released a full-length tape on CUSP Recordings in early 2020, laying the foundation of their sound; hypnotic, melodic, understated indie post-punk with hooks that stick around long after you've heard them. "Zöe" is the band's newest effort, and first for Trouble In Mind. Unlike the band's previous album, the songs on "Zöe" weren't conceived live in the band's practice space, but rather pieced together and recorded remotely during quarantine lockdown, with each member composing or improvising their parts in homes/home studios, layering ideas over loops someone made and passing it on. The isolation actually allowed for an openness and creativity to flow and many of the songs took on radically different forms from when they were originally envisioned. Vocalist & primary lyricist Eothen Stern says "The process of writing these songs separately during lockdown was a kind of exquisite corpse - I liked this gesticulation of reaching out to one another and responding. Building up the next layer and passing it on." Stern says "poetic restraints" to writing & Eno's Oblique Strategies concepts were on their mind when composing the words to the songs on "Zöe" and lists the influence of author Rosi Bradiotti's book "The Posthuman". "Zöe" means "live drive", derived from the word conatus. Bradiotti defines conatus as "an effort or striving, endeavour, impulse, inclination, tendency, undertaking, serving is an innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself." and Stern views it as "...a kind of feminist re-claiming of communal public, anti- privatisation, looking to strive for social and environmental justice. Zöe kind of became a character of striving for me when writing.". "Zöe" kicks off with "Piece Together", a hypnotic song anchored by the band's chanted vocals and serpentine guitar licks. "Spraypaint the Bridge" showcases Harris' clarinet in an unexpected & delightful melodic shift during the song's anti-chorus. Elsewhere tunes like the swooning "Infinity Winner" and "Outta Space"s minimalist, slinky rhythm swirl in a late-night vibe, while "Make Kin" ruminates on "Looking to kinship as a way of engaging with entangled environmental and reproductive issues... how a band is a bond" and lurches forward with kinetic guitar strangling and staccato rhythmic percussion from White and Doig. "Power Cut" is the album's centerpiece, kicking off side two and lures the listener into its world over it's 7-minute runtime. Lulling them into involuntary movement with its waves of melodic harmonies, synth drones and metronomic pulse, until they all come crashing down in the song's dissonant midsection. The band acknowledges the whiffs of nostalgia prevalent in "Zöe"s songs (the title track in particular), and the nature of writing and recording the album is soaked in the self-work, reflection and reevaluations involved not only personally but creatively in each member's lives. Consequently, the album becomes a collection of sketches of hope, growth, awareness of the power of the world and the power of self, kith, kinship, friendship, resistance, and possibility.

The band that became Nightshift formed in 2019 in the ecosystem of Glasgow's current indie scene. The city's fertile & creative group of musicians have been committed to pushing the boundaries of and blurring the lines between DIY, punk, experimentalism and indie pop for decades now; a home to bands like Shopping, Vital Idles, Current Affairs, Still House Plants, and Happy Meals as well as forebears like Orange Juice, Teenage Fanclub and Yummy Fur. Nightshift slot right in with all mentioned, featuring members from current indie stalwarts Spinning Coin, 2 Ply and Robert Sotelo. Initially formed by guitarist David Campbell and bassist Andrew Doig as a "No Wave/No New York/ early Sonic Youth/This Heat-esque" group, the addition of Eothen Stern (keyboards/vocals) and Chris White (drums) instantaneously transformed their approach (guitarist/vocalist/clarinetist Georgia Harris joined as the band was writing "Zöe"). The band self-released a full-length tape on CUSP Recordings in early 2020, laying the foundation of their sound; hypnotic, melodic, understated indie post-punk with hooks that stick around long after you've heard them. "Zöe" is the band's newest effort, and first for Trouble In Mind. Unlike the band's previous album, the songs on "Zöe" weren't conceived live in the band's practice space, but rather pieced together and recorded remotely during quarantine lockdown, with each member composing or improvising their parts in homes/home studios, layering ideas over loops someone made and passing it on. The isolation actually allowed for an openness and creativity to flow and many of the songs took on radically different forms from when they were originally envisioned. Vocalist & primary lyricist Eothen Stern says "The process of writing these songs separately during lockdown was a kind of exquisite corpse - I liked this gesticulation of reaching out to one another and responding. Building up the next layer and passing it on." Stern says "poetic restraints" to writing & Eno's Oblique Strategies concepts were on their mind when composing the words to the songs on "Zöe" and lists the influence of author Rosi Bradiotti's book "The Posthuman". "Zöe" means "live drive", derived from the word conatus. Bradiotti defines conatus as "an effort or striving, endeavour, impulse, inclination, tendency, undertaking, serving is an innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself." and Stern views it as "...a kind of feminist re-claiming of communal public, anti- privatisation, looking to strive for social and environmental justice. Zöe kind of became a character of striving for me when writing.". "Zöe" kicks off with "Piece Together", a hypnotic song anchored by the band's chanted vocals and serpentine guitar licks. "Spraypaint the Bridge" showcases Harris' clarinet in an unexpected & delightful melodic shift during the song's anti-chorus. Elsewhere tunes like the swooning "Infinity Winner" and "Outta Space"s minimalist, slinky rhythm swirl in a late-night vibe, while "Make Kin" ruminates on "Looking to kinship as a way of engaging with entangled environmental and reproductive issues... how a band is a bond" and lurches forward with kinetic guitar strangling and staccato rhythmic percussion from White and Doig. "Power Cut" is the album's centerpiece, kicking off side two and lures the listener into its world over it's 7-minute runtime. Lulling them into involuntary movement with its waves of melodic harmonies, synth drones and metronomic pulse, until they all come crashing down in the song's dissonant midsection. The band acknowledges the whiffs of nostalgia prevalent in "Zöe"s songs (the title track in particular), and the nature of writing and recording the album is soaked in the self-work, reflection and reevaluations involved not only personally but creatively in each member's lives. Consequently, the album becomes a collection of sketches of hope, growth, awareness of the power of the world and the power of self, kith, kinship, friendship, resistance, and possibility.

Just when you thought every loner folk genius had been outed/discovered, hyped, and pontificated about, a new/old challenger lurks in the murky depths of time...and Maine. Sure, you have your Skip Spences, Dave Bixbys, Stone Harbours, and Perry Leopolds already, but have you heard the lonesome sound of Bill Stone? Well, don't feel bad or "unkool", hardly anyone has--unless you lived in rural Maine in the early 70s and grabbed his barely-ever seen LP in the day. Titled simply Stone, Bill's mysterious album was pressed in the micro-est of quantities, covering wistful, airy psychedelia on par with the UK's Mark Fry's classic Dreaming of Alice, while still evoking the earthy, evening-hour melancholy of Leonard Cohen or Tom Rapp. Stone was also especially influenced by one Donny P. Leitch, one Robby Zimmerman, and much trad folk, while growing up in his hometown of Old Town, Maine. Stone started out playing in a few small folk ensembles while also moonlighting with occasional solo gigs, finally recording this lone platter in 1969 in a pottery studio (!?) on a 2-track Panasonic tape recorder in Boothbay, Maine (where he says, they competed with a cat in heat). The LP features Tom Blackwell/Bill Stone-guitars, Arthur Webster-bass, Bob Blackwell/Skip Smith-drums, Bill/Beth Waterhouse on vocals. It also seems cover artist Doug Bane went on to become an acclaimed cosmic painter--committing loads of animals, psychedelic scenes, and Native American portraits to canvas, who knew? But we digress--anyhow, seems Stone's solo career slowed down after marriage hit, and he transitioned to playing covers in bars for cash, but after acquiring a masters and doctorate in education, he moved into the teaching walk of life. Bill published books and articles on subjects as diverse as school counseling and chaos theory--but now retired, he's returned to music, even recording a new album of originals and traditional numbers, based on his experiences as a cab driver (another wrinkle in the Stone Saga we must hear more of someday - but for now check out). So with Bill back in action and the world slowly crawling out of a disillusioning haze, now seems like the perfect time for a first-time-ever reissue of this incredibly rare, happy-sad, gently delicate, Stone(d) classic of a downer song-cycle.

Main Source’s paean to the simple pleasures of relaxing with friends is built over two tried-and-tested samples. The dreamy, swoony sounds of Vanessa Kendrick’s timeless ‘90% of Me is You’ is ever-present during this stone-cold classic, while Sister Nancy’s unmistakeable ‘Bam Bam’ lends several elements to the mix. Throw in some Skull Snaps and Sweet Charles and you’ve got the perfect soundtrack for a roll call of Large Professor’s nearest and dearest.

There are plenty of reasons why so many regard ‘Breaking Atoms’ as an all-time classic album, and the sheer variety of singles lifted from it is chief among them. Large Professor was happy to roam over varied topics at a time when many rappers had a manic focus on one thing.

And where better to hang out with friends than at a barbecue? ‘Live at the Barbecue’ is rightly regarded as one of the best posse cuts of all time, and famous for showcasing the debut of one Nasty Nas. While he delivers a dope verse full of quotables over drums from Bob James’ oft-plundered ‘Nautilus’, credit is also due to the other guests. Fatal and Akinyele aren’t disgraced in this company, and Large Professor tops it off with a rare verse of pure brag-rap.

An undisputed entry in the pantheon of head-nod hip-hop, this is its first official UK release, and another debut on 7”.

• Samples Sister Nancy’s unmistakeable ‘Bam Bam’

• Taken from the all-time classic album ‘Breaking Atoms’

• Features the debut of Nas

• Limited Edition Purple vinyl

It's tempting to think that you have all the answers, screaming your gospel every day with certainty and anger. Life isn't quite like that though, and the debut album from London four-piece TV Priest instead embraces the beautiful and terrifying unknowns that exist personally, politically, and culturally. Posing as many questions as it answers, Uppers is a thunderous opening statement that continues the UK's recent resurgence of grubby, furious post-punk music. It says something very different though - something completely its own. Four childhood friends who made music together as teenagers before drifting apart and then, somewhat inevitably, back together late in 2019, TV Priest was borne out of a need to create together once again, and brings with it a wealth of experience and exhaustion picked up in the band's years of pursuing 'real life' and 'real jobs', something those teenagers never had. Last November, the band - vocalist Charlie Drinkwater, guitarist Alex Sprogis, bass and keys player Nic Smith and drummer Ed Kelland - played their first show, to a smattering of friends in what they describe as an "industrial freezer" in the warehouse district of Hackney Wick. "It was like the pub in Peep Show with a washing machine just in the middle_" Charlie laughs, remembering how they dodged Star Wars memorabilia and deep fat fryers while making their first statement as a band. Unsurprisingly, there isn't a precedent for launching a band during a global pandemic, but among the general sense of anxiety and unease pervading everything at the moment, TV Priest's entrance in April with the release of debut single "House Of York" - a searing examination of the Monarchy set over wiry post-punk and fronted by a Mark E. Smith-like mouthpiece - served as a breath of fresh air among the chaos, its anger and confusion making some kind of twisted sense to the nation's fried brains. It's the same continued global sense of anxiety that will greet the release of Uppers, and it's an album that has a lot to say right now. Taking musical cues from post-punk stalwarts The Fall and Protomartyr as well as the mechanical, pulsating grooves of krautrock, it's a record that moves with an untamed energy. Over the top of this rumbling musical machine is vocalist Charlie, a cuttingly funny, angry, confused, real frontman. Uppers sees TV Priest explicitly and outwardly trying to avoid narrowmindedness. Uppers sees TV Priest taking musical and personal risks, reaching outside of themselves and trying to make sense of this increasingly messy world. It's a band and a record that couldn't arrive at a more perfect time.

-LTD. LOSER EDITION-

This LIMITED LOSER INDIES edition is on GREY MARBLED Vinyl! It's tempting to think that you have all the answers, screaming your gospel every day with certainty and anger. Life isn't quite like that though, and the debut album from London four-piece TV Priest instead embraces the beautiful and terrifying unknowns that exist personally, politically, and culturally. Posing as many questions as it answers, Uppers is a thunderous opening statement that continues the UK's recent resurgence of grubby, furious post-punk music. It says something very different though - something completely its own. Four childhood friends who made music together as teenagers before drifting apart and then, somewhat inevitably, back together late in 2019, TV Priest was borne out of a need to create together once again, and brings with it a wealth of experience and exhaustion picked up in the band's years of pursuing 'real life' and 'real jobs', something those teenagers never had. Last November, the band - vocalist Charlie Drinkwater, guitarist Alex Sprogis, bass and keys player Nic Smith and drummer Ed Kelland - played their first show, to a smattering of friends in what they describe as an "industrial freezer" in the warehouse district of Hackney Wick. "It was like the pub in Peep Show with a washing machine just in the middle_" Charlie laughs, remembering how they dodged Star Wars memorabilia and deep fat fryers while making their first statement as a band. Unsurprisingly, there isn't a precedent for launching a band during a global pandemic, but among the general sense of anxiety and unease pervading everything at the moment, TV Priest's entrance in April with the release of debut single "House Of York" - a searing examination of the Monarchy set over wiry post-punk and fronted by a Mark E. Smith-like mouthpiece - served as a breath of fresh air among the chaos, its anger and confusion making some kind of twisted sense to the nation's fried brains. It's the same continued global sense of anxiety that will greet the release of Uppers, and it's an album that has a lot to say right now. Taking musical cues from post-punk stalwarts The Fall and Protomartyr as well as the mechanical, pulsating grooves of krautrock, it's a record that moves with an untamed energy. Over the top of this rumbling musical machine is vocalist Charlie, a cuttingly funny, angry, confused, real frontman. Uppers sees TV Priest explicitly and outwardly trying to avoid narrowmindedness. Uppers sees TV Priest taking musical and personal risks, reaching outside of themselves and trying to make sense of this increasingly messy world. It's a band and a record that couldn't arrive at a more perfect time.

MSG is a legendary name. After two phenomenal records under the guise of Michael Schenker Fest, a true guitar hero is returning to his roots. By forming Michael Schenker Group (MSG) back in 1979, Michael Schenker laid the foundations for one of hard rock’s most glorious solo careers of all times. And while nobody expected anything less from a former guitarist for Scorpions and UFO, it’s close to impossible mentioning everything Michael has built over the past 50 years, or the countless people he influenced or played with. This, truly, is the stuff that hard rocking myths are made of.

“I never looked back,” is how Michael dryly sums up an extraordinary career. Due to this mindset, he only realised much later what a huge impact his playing had made on the world of metal and hard rock. Very few guitarists can be cited as a primary influence for the likes of James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Dave Mustaine, Dimebag Darrell, Slash or Kerry King. However, to understand Michael Schenker means to understand one primary thing: he’s not here to be worshipped or adored, he’s not here to get rich, he’s here to play. And at 65, he’s doing it with the same swagger, verve and dizzying artistry as always. “I’m still 16 in my head,” he laughs.

Right in time for his 40th anniversary as a solo artist and his 50th birthday as a musician, he resurrects the immortal Michael Schenker Group. “Immortal” is also the name of his new album, recorded by likely the strongest line-up in his long history. Its a lightning bolt of an album that sounds fresh, bloodthirsty and agile. “Immortal” showcases the gargantuan vocal talents of Chilean hard rock prodigy Ronnie Romero (Rainbow), backed by singers Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear), Joe Lynn Turner (ex-Deep Purple) as well as Schenker’s brother in arms, Michael Voss (Mad Max) who again produced the record alongside Michael Schenker – flawlessly, punchy and at full steam as if their very lives depended on it.
Next to Michael Schenker caressing his iconic black and white Dean Flying V, we hear bass player Barry Sparks (Dokken), keyboard player Steve Mann as well as the three drummers Bodo Schopf, Simon Phillips (ex-Toto) and Brian Tichy (ex-Whitesnake) pumping gallons of fresh blood through the tracks. And that’s not all, keyboard wizard extraordinaire Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater, Black Country Communion) gives the listener a baptism of fire in the blistering, heavy hitting opener “Drilled to Kill”, powered by Ralf Scheepers’ unbelievable vocal tornado.

Michael Schenker doesn’t live to play, he plays to live, and there’s no better way of summing up his relationship to his music than this – now for half a century and counting. The most emblematic representation of this relationship is the monumental closing track “In Search Of The Peace Of Mind”, a new recording of the very first song he ever wrote. “I composed this track in my mother’s kitchen back when I was 15,” he looks back half a century and smiles broadly: “The solo is just so perfect, I wouldn’t change a single note even today. This is the most important song of the last 50 years for me. It’s what started it all.”
When it finally got released in 1972 on the Scorpions’ debut “Lonesome Crow” Schenker had already moved on to UFO. What followed were several decades of pure hard rock ecstasy on and off stage, featuring a rotating cast of stellar players, always pressing the pedal to the metal. Now, in 2020, he reaps what he sowed. Alongside many of his peers, friends and contemporaries, he is celebrating 50 years of hard rock – fittingly with an album that is something like a zeitgeisty reminiscence of everything he’s ever done. The massive midtempo smasher “Don’t Die On Me Now” sees Joe Lynn Turner going all in, Ronnie Romero works his magic in “Knight Of The Dead” while Michael Voss cuts a grand figure before the microphone as well as behind the mixing desk on the furious second single “After The Rain”.
Towering above them all, Michael Schenker and his guitar prove they’re truly and utterly invincible. The celebrated icon pulls out all the stops – including his legendary “howler”, the fabled magnet he’s used on his fingerboard for a while now. And here’s yet another thing that’s just so archetypically Schenker, when bringing up his fiery and dedicated performance on “Immortal” he nonchalantly shrugs it off: “I simply played from the heart, as always.” This, dear Michael, is the understatement of the year – all the more so for a record that is already one of the top contenders for hard rock/metal album of the year.

MSG is a legendary name. After two phenomenal records under the guise of Michael Schenker Fest, a true guitar hero is returning to his roots. By forming Michael Schenker Group (MSG) back in 1979, Michael Schenker laid the foundations for one of hard rock’s most glorious solo careers of all times. And while nobody expected anything less from a former guitarist for Scorpions and UFO, it’s close to impossible mentioning everything Michael has built over the past 50 years, or the countless people he influenced or played with. This, truly, is the stuff that hard rocking myths are made of.

“I never looked back,” is how Michael dryly sums up an extraordinary career. Due to this mindset, he only realised much later what a huge impact his playing had made on the world of metal and hard rock. Very few guitarists can be cited as a primary influence for the likes of James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Dave Mustaine, Dimebag Darrell, Slash or Kerry King. However, to understand Michael Schenker means to understand one primary thing: he’s not here to be worshipped or adored, he’s not here to get rich, he’s here to play. And at 65, he’s doing it with the same swagger, verve and dizzying artistry as always. “I’m still 16 in my head,” he laughs.

Right in time for his 40th anniversary as a solo artist and his 50th birthday as a musician, he resurrects the immortal Michael Schenker Group. “Immortal” is also the name of his new album, recorded by likely the strongest line-up in his long history. Its a lightning bolt of an album that sounds fresh, bloodthirsty and agile. “Immortal” showcases the gargantuan vocal talents of Chilean hard rock prodigy Ronnie Romero (Rainbow), backed by singers Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear), Joe Lynn Turner (ex-Deep Purple) as well as Schenker’s brother in arms, Michael Voss (Mad Max) who again produced the record alongside Michael Schenker – flawlessly, punchy and at full steam as if their very lives depended on it.
Next to Michael Schenker caressing his iconic black and white Dean Flying V, we hear bass player Barry Sparks (Dokken), keyboard player Steve Mann as well as the three drummers Bodo Schopf, Simon Phillips (ex-Toto) and Brian Tichy (ex-Whitesnake) pumping gallons of fresh blood through the tracks. And that’s not all, keyboard wizard extraordinaire Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater, Black Country Communion) gives the listener a baptism of fire in the blistering, heavy hitting opener “Drilled to Kill”, powered by Ralf Scheepers’ unbelievable vocal tornado.

Michael Schenker doesn’t live to play, he plays to live, and there’s no better way of summing up his relationship to his music than this – now for half a century and counting. The most emblematic representation of this relationship is the monumental closing track “In Search Of The Peace Of Mind”, a new recording of the very first song he ever wrote. “I composed this track in my mother’s kitchen back when I was 15,” he looks back half a century and smiles broadly: “The solo is just so perfect, I wouldn’t change a single note even today. This is the most important song of the last 50 years for me. It’s what started it all.”
When it finally got released in 1972 on the Scorpions’ debut “Lonesome Crow” Schenker had already moved on to UFO. What followed were several decades of pure hard rock ecstasy on and off stage, featuring a rotating cast of stellar players, always pressing the pedal to the metal. Now, in 2020, he reaps what he sowed. Alongside many of his peers, friends and contemporaries, he is celebrating 50 years of hard rock – fittingly with an album that is something like a zeitgeisty reminiscence of everything he’s ever done. The massive midtempo smasher “Don’t Die On Me Now” sees Joe Lynn Turner going all in, Ronnie Romero works his magic in “Knight Of The Dead” while Michael Voss cuts a grand figure before the microphone as well as behind the mixing desk on the furious second single “After The Rain”.
Towering above them all, Michael Schenker and his guitar prove they’re truly and utterly invincible. The celebrated icon pulls out all the stops – including his legendary “howler”, the fabled magnet he’s used on his fingerboard for a while now. And here’s yet another thing that’s just so archetypically Schenker, when bringing up his fiery and dedicated performance on “Immortal” he nonchalantly shrugs it off: “I simply played from the heart, as always.” This, dear Michael, is the understatement of the year – all the more so for a record that is already one of the top contenders for hard rock/metal album of the year.

MSG is a legendary name. After two phenomenal records under the guise of Michael Schenker Fest, a true guitar hero is returning to his roots. By forming Michael Schenker Group (MSG) back in 1979, Michael Schenker laid the foundations for one of hard rock’s most glorious solo careers of all times. And while nobody expected anything less from a former guitarist for Scorpions and UFO, it’s close to impossible mentioning everything Michael has built over the past 50 years, or the countless people he influenced or played with. This, truly, is the stuff that hard rocking myths are made of.

“I never looked back,” is how Michael dryly sums up an extraordinary career. Due to this mindset, he only realised much later what a huge impact his playing had made on the world of metal and hard rock. Very few guitarists can be cited as a primary influence for the likes of James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Dave Mustaine, Dimebag Darrell, Slash or Kerry King. However, to understand Michael Schenker means to understand one primary thing: he’s not here to be worshipped or adored, he’s not here to get rich, he’s here to play. And at 65, he’s doing it with the same swagger, verve and dizzying artistry as always. “I’m still 16 in my head,” he laughs.

Right in time for his 40th anniversary as a solo artist and his 50th birthday as a musician, he resurrects the immortal Michael Schenker Group. “Immortal” is also the name of his new album, recorded by likely the strongest line-up in his long history. Its a lightning bolt of an album that sounds fresh, bloodthirsty and agile. “Immortal” showcases the gargantuan vocal talents of Chilean hard rock prodigy Ronnie Romero (Rainbow), backed by singers Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear), Joe Lynn Turner (ex-Deep Purple) as well as Schenker’s brother in arms, Michael Voss (Mad Max) who again produced the record alongside Michael Schenker – flawlessly, punchy and at full steam as if their very lives depended on it.
Next to Michael Schenker caressing his iconic black and white Dean Flying V, we hear bass player Barry Sparks (Dokken), keyboard player Steve Mann as well as the three drummers Bodo Schopf, Simon Phillips (ex-Toto) and Brian Tichy (ex-Whitesnake) pumping gallons of fresh blood through the tracks. And that’s not all, keyboard wizard extraordinaire Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater, Black Country Communion) gives the listener a baptism of fire in the blistering, heavy hitting opener “Drilled to Kill”, powered by Ralf Scheepers’ unbelievable vocal tornado.

Michael Schenker doesn’t live to play, he plays to live, and there’s no better way of summing up his relationship to his music than this – now for half a century and counting. The most emblematic representation of this relationship is the monumental closing track “In Search Of The Peace Of Mind”, a new recording of the very first song he ever wrote. “I composed this track in my mother’s kitchen back when I was 15,” he looks back half a century and smiles broadly: “The solo is just so perfect, I wouldn’t change a single note even today. This is the most important song of the last 50 years for me. It’s what started it all.”
When it finally got released in 1972 on the Scorpions’ debut “Lonesome Crow” Schenker had already moved on to UFO. What followed were several decades of pure hard rock ecstasy on and off stage, featuring a rotating cast of stellar players, always pressing the pedal to the metal. Now, in 2020, he reaps what he sowed. Alongside many of his peers, friends and contemporaries, he is celebrating 50 years of hard rock – fittingly with an album that is something like a zeitgeisty reminiscence of everything he’s ever done. The massive midtempo smasher “Don’t Die On Me Now” sees Joe Lynn Turner going all in, Ronnie Romero works his magic in “Knight Of The Dead” while Michael Voss cuts a grand figure before the microphone as well as behind the mixing desk on the furious second single “After The Rain”.
Towering above them all, Michael Schenker and his guitar prove they’re truly and utterly invincible. The celebrated icon pulls out all the stops – including his legendary “howler”, the fabled magnet he’s used on his fingerboard for a while now. And here’s yet another thing that’s just so archetypically Schenker, when bringing up his fiery and dedicated performance on “Immortal” he nonchalantly shrugs it off: “I simply played from the heart, as always.” This, dear Michael, is the understatement of the year – all the more so for a record that is already one of the top contenders for hard rock/metal album of the year.

First drop of 2021 from AE Productions is from New York legend Emskee. From solo releases to group projects with The Good People alongside Saint, plus a slew of guest features far and wide his catalogue is staggering! Emskee previously appeared on guest spots with AE Productions for the Cut Beetlez ‘What Beetlez?’ album in 2020 and Oxygen’s ‘Age Appropriate’ album from 2019 but AE and Emskee go way back to 2012 thanks to an introduction via mutual friends Diggers With Gratitude at their Marisco event.

Both tracks here are produced by AE boss Mr Fantastic but for this one turntable duties were shared between Emskee who is one of those rare creatures – a highly skilled MC and DJ, and supplied the timeless scratched in vocal chorus feel from a legendary old school gem for 'Wall To Wall', and Mr Fantastic who supplies the question and answer style cuts for ‘Supernatural Force’ utilizing a couple of Emskee's prior releases as the source.

This is a heavyweight release - 12" black vinyl complete with Main Version, Instrumental and Radio Edit of both tracks - just how Hip Hop singles should be. We all love 45's but a big 12" with space for longer tracks and extra versions is historically where it's at for DJ's and with precious few released now it is a shame so we aim to remedy that here with at least one more new 12” release.

The full sleeve artwork adds to the class of this release with a huge nod back to the style of Blue Note Records’ heyday of the 50’s and 60’s thanks to Nick at Fine Print who has perfectly recreated the feel of those classic sleeve designs.

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

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

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

All royalties and mechanical rights have been paid.

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

Production: Delaney Bramlett and Jimmy Miller

What hides in the fog that keeps people apart, and what does it take to cut through it? These questions hang heavily over
Sarah Beth Tomberlin's music, whose hushed and intimate tones orbit answers as much as they savor the unanswerable.
To be in relation to another human being is to engage with a deep mystery: We are all fundamentally alone, siloed into
confusing bodies, and yet occasionally we ¬nd someone who lets us feel as if we weren't. Tomberlin, the Louisville native
who recently relocated to Los Angeles, delights in articulating and amplifying that mystery, picking out its details and
marveling at its scale. In singing her aloneness she soothes it, and extends a hand to others reckoning with their own
solitude--a paradox that warms her spectral songs.

Tomberlin's new Projections EP continues the arc of her critically acclaimed 2018 debut At Weddings, weaving new collaborators and new techniques into her signature dusky milieu. Since the LP's release, Tomberlin has toured with Pedro the
Lion, Andy Shauf, American Football, and Alex G, played a Tiny Desk concert for NPR, and given a riveting performance on
Jimmy Kimmel Live! The ¬ve-song EP, capped with a cover of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone's stunning "Natural Light,"
re ects this period of intensive growth and self-discovery. "I wrote these songs while getting to know myself outside of
people's perceived notions of who I was," says Tomberlin. "I just started being like, What am I interested in? What do I want
out of relationships and friendships? What am I looking for that I don't have in myself already?"

‘The Fountain was supposed to be a full length album but as the songs took shape, I realized that there was something cohesive going on with a smaller batch.
They all focused on the theme of platonic love with a sense of gratitude. I think that traditionally, I had mostly written yearning, romantic odes and it was nice to focus on what was right in front of me,’ says Justin Sullivan, who records as Night Shop and also plays with Kevin Morby.
Fittingly, The Fountain is a family affair, with friends and collaborators bringing the songs to life. The E.P. features Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee) on backup vocals, Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) on guitar and bass, Sofia Arreguin (Wand) on piano, Jarvis Taveniere (Woods), engineering and playing a host of instruments, Anna St. Louis on backup vocals, Tiffanie Lanmon (Jess Williamson) on drums and Flat Worms bandmates Ivy and Hellman.

‘Chet Sings’ by the trumpeter and vocalist Chet Baker is a classic of West Coast cool jazz. Recorded between 1953 and 1956 this CD reissue includes 10 bonus tracks and vinyl inludes 2 bonus tracks.
The collective personnel accompanying Baker includes Russ Freeman on piano & celeste; Jimmy Bond, Carson Smith, Joe Mondragon, bass; Peter Littman, Lawrence Marable, Bob Neel, Shelly Manne, drums; among others. The 20-page booklet features complete information and specially prepared liner notes by Penguin
Guide to Jazz’s writer Brian Morton and by France’s prestigious Jazz Magazine.
SINGS

‘A Mind of Your Own’ is the debut release from The Bright Siders, the duo of acclaimed songwriter and musician Kristin Andreassen and NYC child psychiatrist Kari Groff, MD. Brimming with uplifting and empowering songs, the album invites its listeners to think deeply on feelings and emotions that come with growing up, while focusing on resilience and mindset.
Along with a slew of all-star guests including Ed Helms, The War and Treaty, Oh Pep!, The Hokes (a.k.a. Punch Brothers), Gaby Moreno, and more, The Bright Siders bring profound sensitivity and vivacity to songs about friendship, bullying, anger, acceptance of others, and coping with sadness and change.
This music is sure to spark meaningful conversations and bring families closer as they explore the beauty and complexity of their emotional lives together.

Kurt Vile’s ‘Speed, Sound, Lonely KV (ep)’ was recorded and mixed in sporadic sessions that spanned four years at The Butcher Shoppe studio in Nashville, TN. It includes five songs - covers of John Prine and “Cowboy” Jack Clement as well as two originals - and was recorded alongside a cast of local heavies like Bobby Wood, Dave Roe and Kenny Malone, with Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys) and Matt Sweeney (Chavez, Superwolf) tossed into the mix as well.

Most importantly, it features what KV has called “Probably the single most special musical moment in my life” - a duet with the late John Prine on the songwriter’s well-loved tune, ‘How Lucky’. “The truth is John was my hero for a long time when he came into The Butcher Shoppe to recut one of his deepest classics with me. And, man, I was floating and flying and I couldn’t hear anything he told me while he was there till after he was gone for the night,” notes Vile in a personal statement that accompanies the record. “A couple nights later we were playing ‘How Lucky’ together again; this time onstage at the Grand Ole Opry on New Year's Eve at the turn of 2020. Nothing like seeing John and his band of musical brothers and family and friends playing into the new decade in front of an adoring audience on that stage in Nashville, TN... and, yup, that’s just how lucky we all got that night."

“The greatest thing about being a musician is experiencing it with other people,” says Ed Riman, the Brighton-based Eurasian singer, songwriter and sound-scapist who records as Hilang Child. “Whether that’s playing with others, creating together, sharing a vision, whatever, I just think in all aspects it’s a totally elevated experience when you’re not alone.” Proof rings out with force and feeling on Hilang Child’s superlative second album, ‘Every Mover’, released on Bella Union.

In 2018, Riman delivered a serene, textured debut album in ‘Years’, rich in sound and feeling. Lauren Laverne, Q, MOJO and others lavished praise but the “isolating process” of making the album left Riman hungry to find alternative ways of working. Meanwhile, the “lonely, pressured” aftermath of ‘Years’ found Riman grappling with “rough selfesteem and anxiety issues,” amplified in part by social media’s “fulfilment narratives.” Duly, he set out to navigate and overcome these mindsets, drawing deeply on his own insecurities and those he recognised in others.

These themes converge emphatically on ‘Every Mover’, an album steeped in everyday emotional states and crafted for cathartic, communal performance. Drawing on a rich spread of collaborators, sounds and themes, Riman uses his frustrations as the impetus to transform the brimming promise of ‘Years’ into upfront and expansive new shapes. “I wanted it to sound a bit gutsier than the first album,” he says, succinctly, “heavier and closer to the kind of stuff that hits me when I go to shows or blast music in the car. I started out in music as a drummer playing for pop or beat-driven artists and grew up listening to louder stuff, but a lot of the music I’ve made as Hilang Child has been more ethereal. I wanted to bring it back to a place that feels more ‘me’ and make more of a thing of having big hypnotic drums, aggressive bass, ripping distorted instruments and a general energy to it.”

‘Good To Be Young’ serves swift notice of this leap, its banked synths and twinkling sound clusters leading to an assertion of fresh force when the main beat lands and a congregation of friends - AK Patterson, Paul Thomas Saunders, Dog in the Snow, Ellen Murphy, members of Penelope Isles - unite for the gang-vocal refrains. “It’s all iridescent colour I’m on,” Riman exults, a claim lived up to on the full-flush folktronica of ‘Shenley’.

A reflection on spiralling insecurity, ‘Seen The Boreal’ ups the ante again with its monkish chorales, looping samples, spectral woodwinds (from multi-instrumentalist John ‘Rittipo’ Moore, of Public Service Broadcasting and Bastille previous) and ecstatic chorus, Riman transforming a meditation on hindsight’s limiting effects into a spur to look forwards. And surge forwards he does with the glittering synths, spacey guitars and Krautrock propulsion of ‘King Quail’, developed in jam sessions with dream-pop wonder Zoe Mead (Wyldest) in her basement studio.

Brought to a sublime close with ‘Steppe’, the resulting album projects its own epiphanic force. Thankfully, most of the main parts were recorded pre-lockdown between East London, Gateshead, Brighton, Wandsworth and elsewhere, before mixing proceeded remotely. Meanwhile, alongside indie-pop trio OUTLYA’s Will Bloomfield (percussion/coproduction on ‘Play ’Til Evening’), visual design collective Tough Honey (accompanying videos) and other collaborators, Riman’s bond with co-producer JMAC (Troye Sivan, Haux, Lucy Rose) proved crucial. “It felt freeing to work collaboratively and have that push-andpull of ideas,” says Riman. “Even the moments where we didn’t see eye-to-eye made it feel like I wasn’t alone, with someone else working just as passionately on the project.”

LP pressed on red transparent vinyl.

Patrick Conway is made of snips and snails and puppy tails. This is his second offering for the ESP Institute. On side A, Hypersocial removes our minds from the daily online cesspool and pulls up emotions we haven’t felt for almost a year. We lost a Summer of dancing together en masse in clubs, fields, warehouses and pubs, but with this beautiful reminder of what true social synergy and collective ecstasy can physically feel like, the Bristolian by way of Berlin hits the nail right on the head (with a little help from his friends Quantum Thomas & Hoyahelper). Lush strings? Tick. Balmy chord progression? Tick. Ethereal vocal chops? Walloping bassline? Infectious rhythm? Goosebumps? Tears of joy? Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick! On the flip-side, Safety Test is surely the tougher counterpart, the warm fuzzies are traded for a ten ton bag of grit. Here, Patrick foreshadows a sonic approach we’ll hear lot more of with his debut album early next year; a combination of abrasive rhythms, processed scraps, a grab bag of stabbing bleeps and bloops, distant car alarms, ballistic fax machines, and an arsenal of low frequencies so brutal your woofers will require jumper cables. So, a heroic slab for both a block party in your brain and sunset in your soul, these two songs will bring back the Summer you just lost.

“We have always been very fortunate to meet and know many talented producers. In recent years, we have been exploring those relationships with different remixes and collaborations, and every time something exciting came out. That’s why we started our Synchronicity project. To challenge ourselves making inspiring, fun and beautiful music.‘Synchronicity’ means "the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection. This very well describes how our path led to the place we are now – somewhere between the club and indie scenes.” – WhoMadeWho

KOMPAKT welcomes back Copenhagen’s WhoMadeWho. Tomas Barfod’s penchant for electronic music poetically juxtaposed with Tomas Høffding and Jeppe Kjellberg’s respective backgrounds in rock and jazz, gives their music an electrifying combination of sounds, merging a variety of influences to produce a unique sonic fingerprint that is emotive, irresistible and immensely satisfying.

Though we both have yet to strike a note together since the release of their 2012 full length “Brighter” (KOM 254), WhoMadeWho have been remarkably productive. With two full lengths, a DJ mix for Watergate’s series and releasing two of 2019’s most played out club tracks together with Rampa (Innervisions) and Artbat (Watergate Records), the trio have found themselves diving more and more into the world of electronic music, tapping into their goldmine of connections within the scene to spearhead an array of collaborations.

Synchronicity is all about ‘meaningful coincidences’ – bringing interpretation to bear on connections that have no actual causal relationship. It’s a canny concept to pin onto Copenhagen trio WhoMadeWho’s latest album, which sees them return to Kompakt for the first time since 2012’s Brighter.

This re-established connection helps us to understand the synchronicity at play, the way that the WhoMadeWho core ave built an album around collaboration with friends and peers, much as Kompakt is all about cross-connections and family. On Synchronicity, WhoMadeWho call on friends old and new – Michael Mayer, Echonomist, Adana Twins, Alex Boman, Robag Wruhme, Frank Wiedemann, Sainte Vie, Mano Le Tough, Marc Piñol, Rebolledo, and Perel is the cast list; WhoMadeWho direct the material, shaping it into one lovingly flowing gem of dance-pop glory.

There’s something particularly generous about hearing an album as all-inclusive and open-hearted as Synchronicity in the midst of the profound social and cultural shifts we’re currently experiencing. While some songs on Synchronicity were recorded together, in real time, such as the collaborations with Adana Twins and Rebolledo, most of them have taken place via long distance, thanks to the pandemic lockdown. But you don’t need to know who was where to understand either the magnesium-flare melancholy of “Sooner”, recorded with Piñol, which has you holding your breath with the gentle thrill of the song’s lush melody, or the stomping strut of the following Adana Twins collaboration, “Shadow Of Doubt”.

Elsewhere, there’s the stentorian robot voice at the heart of “Hamstring”, where they’re joined by Michael Mayer; the lustrous headsoak of “Twenty Tears”, a tender intervention by Rebolledo; the strip-light, slow-motion disco strut of “Cecil”, produced alongside Echonomist; or the glittering, arpeggio dreamwork that Perel helps sculpt into shape on “Der Abend birgt keine Ruh.”… Really, there’s so much to celebrate here, a panoply of pleasures. From pop revelations to dancefloor delirium to slow-burning brooders, Synchronicity is just that; a space for the joys of the unexpected to collide, and to be given meaning by their coincidental co-existence in WhoMadeWho’s beautiful world.

"Wir hatten immer schon das Glück, viele talentierte Produzenten kennenzulernen. In den letzten Jahren haben wir diese Beziehungen durch verschiedene Remixe und Kollaborationen vertieft und jedes Mal kam etwas Aufregendes dabei heraus. Aus diesem Grund haben wir unser Synchronicity-Projekt gestartet: um uns selbst herauszufordern inspirierte, lustige und schöne Musik zu machen. “Synchronizität” bedeutet das gleichzeitige Auftreten von Ereignissen, die scheinbar in einem signifikanten Zusammenhang stehen, aber keinen erkennbaren kausalen Zusammenhang haben. Das beschreibt sehr gut, wie unser Weg zu dem Ort geführt hat, an dem wir jetzt sind - irgendwo zwischen der Club- und der Indie-Szene". – WhoMadeWho

KOMPAKT freut sich über Rückkehr der Kopenhagener Band WhoMadeWho. Tomas Barfods Vorliebe für elektronische Musik im poetischen Kontrast zu Tomas Høffding und Jeppe Kjellbergs jeweiligem Hintergrund im Rock und Jazz macht ihre Musik zu einem elektrisierenden Konglomerat, in das verschiedene Einflüsse zu einem einzigartigen klanglichen Fingerabdruck verschmelzen: gefühlvoll, unwiderstehlich und immens befriedigend.

Obwohl wir seit der Veröffentlichung von "Brighter" (KOM 254) in 2012 keine gemeinsamen Dinger gedreht haben, waren WhoMadeWho in der Zwischenzeit bemerkenswert produktiv. Mit zwei Full-Length-Alben, einem DJ-Mix für die Watergate-Reihe und der Veröffentlichung von zwei der meistgespielten Clubtracks aus dem Jahr 2019 zusammen mit Rampa (Innervisions) und Artbat (Watergate Records), taucht das Trio mehr und mehr in die Welt der elektronischen Musik ein. Für ihre Kollaborationen greifen WhoMadeWho immer wieder auf ihre Goldgrube an Bekanntschaften innerhalb der Szene zurück.

Bei “Synchronicity” geht es um "sinnvolle Zufälle" - also um die Interpretation von Verbindungen, die keinen tatsächlichen Kausalzusammenhang haben. Es ist ein ausgeklügeltes Konzept, das dem neuesten Album des Kopenhagener Trios WhoMadeWho anheftet: Diese wieder hergestellte Verbindung hilft uns, die Synchronizität im Spiel zu verstehen; die Art und Weise, wie WhoMadeWho ein Album um die Zusammenarbeit mit Freunden und Gleichgesinnten herum aufgebaut hat: schließlich geht es auch bei Kompakt um Querverbindungen und Familie. Auf Synchronicity richten sich WhoMadeWho an alte und neue Freunde: Michael Mayer, Echonomist, Adana Twins, Axel Boman, Robag Wruhme, Frank Wiedemann, Terr, Sainte Vie, Mano Le Tough, Marc Piñol, Rebolledo und Perel stehen auf der Liste. Das Trio führt Regie und sorgt für den Feinschliff. Das Ergebnis: ein echtes Juwel aus Dance, Pop und Glorie.

Inmitten der tiefgreifenden sozialen und kulturellen Veränderungen, die wir derzeit erleben, ist es etwas Besonderes, ein Album zu hören, das so offenherzig ist wie “Synchronicity”. Zwar wurden einige Songs gemeinsam und in Echtzeit aufgenommen – etwa die Kollaboration mit den Adana Twins und Rebolledo – die meisten Sessions fanden aufgrund der Pandemie jedoch über größere Entfernungen statt. Letztlich muss man aber gar nicht wissen wer wo war, um die Melancholie von "Sooner" mit Marc Piñol zu verstehen und im sanften melodischen Rausch des Liedes den Atem anzuhalten. Auch die eher brachiale Energie der darauf folgenden Adana-Twins-Kollaboration , "Shadow Of Doubt" vermittelt sich eingehend über die soziale Distanz hinweg.

An anderer Stelle ertönt die schallende Roboterstimme im Herzen von "Hamstring", wo sich Michael Mayer zu ihnen gesellt; die schimmernden "Twenty Tears", einer zärtlichen Intervention von Rebolledo; der Zeitlupen- Disco-Nummer "Cecil", die zusammen mit Echonomist produziert wurde; oder der glitzernde Arpeggio-Traum, den Perel in "Der Abend birgt keine Ruh" in Form bringt.. Ja, es gibt tatsächlich einiges zu feiern: Von Pop-Enthüllungen über Dancefloor-Delirium bis hin zu Stücken, die sich ihre Zeit nehmen - Synchronicity bietet Platz für all das; das Album spendet Raum, in dem die Freuden des Unerwarteten aufeinanderprallen und durch ihr zufälliges Nebeneinander in der Welt von WhoMadeWho Sinn ergeben.

Joshua Abrams’ first album Natural Information from 2010, superb avant-jazz, newly remastered at Dubplates & Mastering.

In his book Powershift, published in 1990, writer and businessman Alvin Toffler predicted that the century ahead would be defined by speed and that time itself is destined to become our most valuable commodity. When Joshua Abrams recorded Natural Information, originally released by Eremite in 2010, he was reacting against such commodification of time and the diminishing attention span that accompanies it by offering music with an irresistible groove, rooted in the sinuous rhythms of the human body and the full play of our senses.

At the heart of this music is the sound of the guimbri, a North African three-stringed bass lute, which Abrams started to play following a visit to Morocco during the late 90s. Traditionally the instrument has a key role in mystical healing ceremonies. Abrams, already a well-established figure in Chicago’s vibrant musical communities, had no desire to repackage tradition. He recognized however that the involving, springy and percussive sound of the guimbri was just the right voice to communicate vital data, to relay the natural information we all need in order to get back in touch with the pulsating continuities of a world we all share.

With Natural Information Abrams entered a new phase of his musical life, extending an invitation to the trance, where time intersects with timelessness. He carried with him a wealth of playing and listening experience. As a bass player he had worked with a host of notable musicians including guitarist Jeff Parker and percussionist Hamid Drake, and had been a member of back porch minimalism outfit Town And Country and the improvising trio Sticks And Stones.

The guimbri is a shaping presence on this remarkable recording, but Abrams also plays bass, bells, kora, sampler and synthesizer. Sympathetic friends including guitarist Emmett Kelly, vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz and drummers Frank Rosaly and Nori Tanaka join him for the project. They set out not to contrive some neat hybrid but to enable coordinated energies and enriching influences to pulse and flow through living, breathing music. Ten years further into a century seemingly dedicated, as Toffler foresaw, to the survival of the fastest, the deep involving groove of Natural Information seems still more relevant, more illuminating, more vital.

Joshua Abrams: guimbri, mpc, percussion, harmonium, bass, bells, dulcimer, donso ngoni, ms20
Jason Adasiewicz: vibraphone
Emmett Kelly: guitar
Frank Rosaly & Noritaka Tanaka: drums

Despite current circumstances, Speedy have had a busy year. The London-based label run by producer Dan Carey alongside Alexis Smith and Pierre Hall were recently coveted with the Best Small Label Award by AIM after being nominated for the second year in a row. Carey also picked up UK Producer Of The Year earlier in the year at the prestigious Music Producer Guild Awards. He also produced the critically acclaimed sophomore album ‘A Hero’s Death’ by Fontaines D.C. which landed a welldocumented No. 2 position in the official album charts.
Speedy Wunderground released their fastest ever selling 7” - The Lounge Society’s timely tour de force ‘Generation Game’, the second band to be signed to the label for a forthcoming EP release following Squid’s ‘Town Centre’ EP in 2019. They also announced the label’s first ever full album release - Tiña’s ‘Positive Mental Health Music’, with recent single ‘Golden Rope’ having just come off the A-list at 6 Music.
Bringing bands into the studio wasn’t an option so the label started an ongoing project called ‘The Quarantine Series’ in which Carey under his Savage Gary techno/electronic alter ego collaborated with artists and friends, old and new over the internet and then uploaded them to the label’s Soundcloud/socials with little or no fanfare - no PR-ing or radio pluggers, just let the bands do their own thing, organically.
The common thread throughout all is Carey, whether it be in his regular name or his Savage Gary guise. However, collaborators in the series so far have included a wide range of people: Kae Tempest, PVA, Willy Mason, Heartworms, Warmduscher, Charlotte Spiral, Boxed In, Stephen Fretwell, Goat Girl and more.
“We chose two tracks/artists that I think we really wanted to shed some more light on” says label co-runner Pierre Hall. “Two that we really didn’t want to go under the radar - and in our opinion reflect this parallel strand of the label that’s forming - with new artists we’re really excited about - and that will hopefully draw people in to explore the series as a whole.”
First on the release is ‘Wait & See’ from rising Bajan artist RoRo. A hypnotic masterful flow which meanders seamlessly around Carey’s pulsating electronics. It’s bursting with attitude and originality. “I saw Dan Carey play with Kate Tempest on one of my first few times ever being out in London” she says, “it was such an amazing show. I was extremely excited to then get the chance to work with him. I’d been trying to do so while in London, but it didn't quite work out that way. We did manage to make it happen remotely whilst I was back in Barbados though, and we knocked it out!”
Second is ‘Cigarettes Pt. 2’ from the enigmatic Londoner youngblackmale AKA Rutare Savage: “It’s a poem, transformed into a song by the ever amazing Dan Carey. It touches (lightly) upon the topics of fear of the police, drug and alcohol abuse, family, and pulling oneself out of a nihilistic worldview driven by a newfound lust for life. This is me trying to reason with the void.”

In 2018 Far Out Recordings signed a record deal with Brooklyn born, nomadic producer Jneiro Jarel. Having just put the finishing touches to the recordings, Jarel suffered an ischemic stroke while living and working in Costa Rica and his wife Indigo was forced to set up a crowd fund to cover special medical transport back to the states to receive treatment. The release was put on hold, but thanks to the generosity of friends and fans around the world, Jarel was able to get the care he needed and is now on the long road to recovery. We’re overjoyed to finally announce that Jneiro Jarel’s After A Thousand Years is now set for an October 2020 release.

Throughout a career that has spanned over twenty years and seen collaborations with MF DOOM, Thom Yorke, Damon Albarn, BadBadNotGood, Portishead’s Beth Gibbons, Kimbra and Khujo Goodie (Dungeon Family), Jneiro Jarel’s consistently distinctive, forward thinking productions, as well as his love for the music of Brazil, made his partnership with Far Out a perfect fit.

Recorded between New York, New Orleans, Miami and Costa Rica, After A Thousand Years features legendary multi-instrumentalist Bill Summers, famed for his work with Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones and Eddie Henderson. The album also features Malawian-American guitarist Masauko Chipembere who has worked with the likes of RZA from Wu-Tang Clan and Ladybug Mecca from Digable Planets.

For Jarel, After A Thousand Years is “a culmination of the longstanding musical contributions of the African diaspora.” Permeating the Brazilian music and Latin jazz Jarel has loved and drawn inspiration from, as well as the stateside jazz, soul and funk Jarel grew up around, the influence of Africa and its musical history, on both North and South America, is key to the album’s sound.

On lead single “Banana Peel”, Jarel’s outernational perspective makes for a track that is almost impossible to place geographically: you can hear the swing of Jarel’s native New Orleans jazz, the vibrance of Costa Rican rainforests as well as the influence of Jarel’s vast collection of Brazilian records. “Viberian Waves 1&2” is equally nonconformist, morphing from funky baroque-flavoured instrumental hip hop into a bossa inspired, percussive jam.

Taking its inspiration from the biblical prophecies found in the books of Isaiah, Daniel, and Revelation, foretelling the fully realized, physical and spiritual restoration of the earth and mankind after the thousand year reign of the Messianic Kingdom, After A Thousand Years contemplates and celebrates a world where everlasting love, peace, and harmony abound under a sovereign, divine rulership.

After A Thousand Years will be released on Vinyl LP and CD on the 30th October 2020 via Far Out Recordings.

FEEDBACK

“great release. Really like this!” Antal (Rush Hour)
“Banana Peel is exactly what we need now. Visionary Jneiro Jerel at his finest channelling healing sounds and rhythms from Mother Earth. A much-anticipated lens through Jneiro’s third eye. Thank you!” King Britt
“Sounding real good!” Errol Anderson (Touching Bass)
“I love it!!!!!!!” Raffaele Costantino (RAI RADIO 2)
“Sounds great. Congratulations. Will play it on my radio shows.” Batida
“Will pitch album to my editors” Dean Van Nguyen
“Please send me the full album once it's finished.” Francisco Noronha (Publico PT)
“Beautiful man. So happy that he's ok” King Hippo (WLPN-LP / Worldwide FM)
“cracking tune. already lined up to add to playlist. might go into radio show too.. love it” Oli Brunetti (Collectivo Futuro / Olindo Records)
“Amazing! Ive not heard anything from JJ for a long time but a welcome return, this is a cracking track. Looking forward to hearing more new material.” Mickey Jukes (1BTN FM)
“Very vibrant, fresh release! It gets better every time I am listening to it.” Shantisan (Superfly FM Vienna)
“This is a pretty special track , unique sound but very accessible , like it a lot and will play in my show Look forward to hearing the LP” Andy Wilson (Ibiza Sonica Radio)
“So good to hear Jneiro again, loving this cut. Thanks!” Chris Knight (Astrojazz)
“sublime !!!! will definitely play !!!” Mark Milz (Radio Corax)
“I-Robots approved!” Thanks for sharing...” I-Robots

Chris Stapleton veröffentlicht sein brandneues Studioalbum ”Starting Over”. Es beinhaltet 14 Titel und wird Chris’ erstes neues Studioalbum seit seiner letzten Veröffentlichung im Jahr 2017 sein. Die erste Single ist der Track ”Starting Over”. Er hat bisher 5 Grammy Awards, 7-ACM Awards, 10-CMA Awards und 5-Billboard Music Awards erhalten. Mit seinen ersten drei Alben hat er bis heute über 8 Millionen Units verkauft, darunter sein Debütalbum ”Traveller”, das sich bis heute über 4 Millionen Mal verkaufte.
Sein gemeinsamer Song mit Justin Timberlake ”Say Something” war auf Platz 1 der deutschen Radiohits.

Mow Records proudly presents L’enfants De Kita, the third album from a series of five, all produced by label owner Mowgan. Each album features vocalists and performers with African heritage, channeling Mowgan’s passion for the continent’s diverse sounds into vibrant, highly emotive productions. On L’enfants De Kita he teams up with Fanta Sayon Sissoko, a female performer from West African nation Mali. Based in Toulouse, where the album was recorded, Fanta’s musical roots go deep - her father played guitar and ngoni for Baaba Maal and her grandmother is Kandia Kouyaté, one of Mali’s best-known griot singers.

Mowgan always dreamed of working with a female singer from Mali, enchanted by their vocal style. After moving back to France a few years ago he bumped into Eric Diaouré, an old friend who he worked with in his teens. Eric is also a musician and just so happens to be from Mali. Mowgan revealed his ambitions to Eric and a meeting with Fanta was arranged - within a few days they were in the studio together.

Like the other albums in this series, L’enfants De Kita is a fusion of Mowgan’s love for African music and his penchant for electronic sounds. Fanta’s raw, affecting vocals are complemented by Mowgan’s considered production throughout with additional instrumentation from a range of performers, including a group of schoolchildren on ‘Tubani’. Featured artists include Solo Sanou (whose album ‘Soya’ was the second release on Mow Records) playing percussion, Mamadou ‘Madou’ Dembele, a multi-instrumentalist who plays ngoni, Yohan Hernandez on guitar and bass plus Madani Touré aka Chanana (a famous Malian rapper from the nineties) contributing to lead vocals on the album’s title track, with Tim Xavier handling mastering.

Mowgan’s approach to creating albums is to get a vibe going with the singer, produce a batch of songs and then select the best seven for each LP. It’s a pressure-free attitude that has led to some truly heartfelt productions, which encapsulate the purity of the creative process when it’s liberated from rigid constraints. You can hear this freedom of expression throughout L’enfants De Kita, Fanta in her element as she sings with passion and grace across all seven tracks.

The album begins with the title song ‘L’enfants De Kita’, which pays homage to Fanta’s hometown, Kita, in Mali. It is the centre of griotism, the local style of passing on knowledge from one generation to the next via spoken-word storytelling. Chanana joins Fanta on this one, which is the most ‘western’ sounding cut on the LP, Mowgan’s deft touch taking us to the dance floor, while Chanana adds extra depth with his rapid-fire vocal refrain. The glorious ‘Tubani’ tells the story of Djene Tubani, a girl who thought she was a bird. She disobeys her parents and neglects her friends, but eventually learns the error of her ways. Fanta’s vocals are amplified by the voices of a group of schoolchildren, including her own daughter.

‘Mobaya’ is a reminder that we can possess wisdom and deep knowing, but we can also enjoy ourselves; dance, sing and party. This is a club-focused production with 4x4 beats and a traditional house feel, which provide a wonderful accompaniment to Fanta’s uplifting vocals. Next up is ‘Dakan’, a cut which is all about destiny: Everyone has been put on Earth for a reason and by working together we can all achieve our destiny. Layers of percussion skip over the warm low end, with a lively trumpet appearing in the second half.

‘Dounouya’ explores the notion that we live in a world where everyone faces negative criticism. Fanta encourages us to take responsibility and move forward no matter what others think of us with this inspiring guitar-led cut. ‘Djonya’ highlights the fact that slavery still exists in today’s world - modern slavery, hidden from public view but still very much alive. “Our Africa is going to be okay if we all hold hands, if we are all together, all united,” she says. Finally,‘Badeya’, a great outtro which focuses on unity. We are all one family on this planet and this song speaks of people coming together but also respecting ourselves above everything else. The pace is slow and the instrumentation perfectly balanced to allow Fanta’s vocals to flourish.

“His music defies predictable electronic pigeonholing” – VICE French-Canadian producer and live act Christophe Dubé, aka CRi, is a dance music star in the making. Following in the footsteps of fellow Montréalers Jacques Greene and Kaytranada, CRi has risen through the city’s bubbling scene in recent years and now reveals his debut album ‘Juvenile’. A self-taught college dropout, CRi caught the attention of tastemaker press with early single ‘Rush’ and his 'Someone Else' EP. 'Rush', accompanied by an award-nominated music video, and 'Someone Else' picked up a nomination for Electronic Release of The Year at the 2018 Juno Awards (Canada’s equivalent to The Grammy’s). “I’m just a pizza delivery guy that said fuck it…” CRi’s sound blurs light, dream-like melodies with textured production - capturing the energy of the dancefloor, and the nostalgia of the morning after. Christophe draws inspiration from his musical heroes Moby, St Germain and Daniel Bélanger (who appears on the album), along with more contemporary influences ranging from Caribou and Dark Sky to Jacques Greene and Actress.

Gondwana Records are delighted to announce the 6th release of our '7" Series', our first ever 7" vinyl collection series. Featuring bespoke artwork from Gondwana Records designer Daniel Halsall, cut at Calyx in Berlin, and manufactured at Optimal. This one is limited to strictly 300 copies and housed in a reverse board printed sleeve with classic 'dinked' centre holes.

The release also comes with a limited edition postcard

Dwight Trible and Matthew Halsall first met by chance at a festival in South Africa. Dwight sat in with Matt's band for an impromtu jam and a friendship was born. The result was Dwight's 2017 recording for Gondwana Records, Inspirations, produced by and featuring Matthew Halsall and members of the Gondwana Orchestra. With the LP long sold -out we've decided to shine a light on the first two tracks from the album. Together they make a glorious, deep, soulful 7" with a timeless message. On Side A we have, Dwight's impassioned take on Bacharach and David's classic What The World Needs Now is Love and on the flip we have a low-slung take on Donny Hathaway and Leroy Hutson's Tryin' Times. Both feel even more relevant now than they did when written. Just 300 copies and no re-press on this one - so don't miss out.

After six years, The Notwist return with three new tracks on Morr Music. It’s both an exposition of the the band’s musical variety and a prospect on a forthcoming album.

Six years have passed since The Notwist released their last regular studio album, but that doesn’t mean that the members of this outstanding band have been idle in the meantime. There have been side projects, movie scoring, and other activities, like programming four editions of „Alien Disko“, a festival taking place in Munich, Germany. One of that event’s regular guests was the Japanese duo Tenniscoats – and a lovely side effect from that was an evolving friendship between the two bands. It lead to various collaborations: most recently in a new album by international band „Spirit Fest“ (featuring Tenniscoats singer Saya & The Notwist’s Markus & Cico) & a deep digging compilation of Japanese indie music called „Minna Miteru“.

The title track of this new EP is another step in this collaboration – and a first step to an upcoming album by The Notwist – as it features Saya, who lends her voice to the percussive song. It is build around a slightly detuned synthline, which is contrasted by more pragmatic guitar work. „It neither sounds like The Notwist, Tenniscoats, nor Spirit Fest“, tells Markus Acher. „Just like Saya is saying in the lyrics: ‘I want to go outside, I want to meet people’, „Ship“ is another chapter in what The Notwist always tries to do: redefining itself, exploring something new, integrating different styles of music and collaborating with musicians they admire.“

The second song „Loose Ends“ is, in contrast, more classic Notwist material. A gently expanding ballad, this time featuring the distinctive voice of Markus Acher. The song came out of recording sessions for the soundtrack for „One Of These Days“, a movie by Bastian Günther. The EP then closes with „Avalanche“ a carefully optimistic instrumental.

With its variety of styles, „Ship“ also serves as an outlook on an upcoming album, which will be influenced by the band’s experiences from their detailed work of creating sounds and moods for film soundtracks, and it will include more collaborations with international guest musicians.

limited vinyl

The Sweethearts is a project by Tyler Thacker together with Sam Mehran (ex Test Icicles).
Songs were written on a tiny casio between Sam and Zak Mering. Tyler pretty much played all the instruments.

As Tyler explains:
This album was recorded a decade ago underneath a bunkbed in a crowded apartment we shared in Brooklyn. At the time, ‘The Sweethearts’ was just another anonymous moniker among many, intended as a pop-minded musical outlet between primary contributors myself, Zak Mering and Sam Mehran, featuring whatever friends happened to be passing though that day including but not limited to Morgan Whirledge, James Ferraro, Zak Davis, Aaron Frankle, Ian Drennan, Ariel Pink, Ryan Howe.
Like so many of the collaborations from those years, these songs and many more floated to the wayside as we each barreled through various other configurative projects, eventually retired to failing hard drives. But the specter of this specific catalogue always haunted me despite shifting primary focus to painting shortly thereafter. Two years ago in July, the world lost one of its most fearless creators, Sam Mehran , and I lost one of my best friends who oozed melody as effortless as breath.
These songs are letter bombs to adolescence in the information age: reterritorializing the tropes of heteronormative psycho-sexuality proliferated throughout western pop music on top of self-deprecation, heartbreak, disappointment, indulgence, and loss of innocence.
At one point, I caught myself singing harmony to Zak and Sam on a song called ‘Tonight’s the Night’ and it was in that meeting place between the metaphysical and the spirit world, that I finally got to say goodbye to Sam.

Seeing himself as a social commentator, Coops continuously draws inspiration from everything around him and is feeling more inspired than ever. Having signed to the label in 2018 he has already released 2 poignant albums and continues to create at rapid speed.

The 8-track project - which was made in just 4 studio sessions - is unlike Coops’ usual 14+ track albums both he and his fans have become used to. Coops turned the album around in record time to ensure his music was released during this unparalleled time in history. The homegrown beats come from his close friend and long term collaborator Talos who has produced almost all his beats to date.

In the opening track, ‘ Boom Biddy Bye’ Coops doesn’t waste a second in putting his fellow rappers through their paces. A block rapper with no one to please but himself, Coops professes that he barely listens to what other rappers release to ensure they don’t infiltrate and influence his own music. Highly appropriate for these times, title track ‘ Crimes Against Creation ’ is the stand out voice of this generation and his message to the world. ‘W arped perception, thwart connections, they force perfection, then claim the antidotes an injection...’ plays out and we begin to appreciate how the current situation is playing heavily on his mind. As the album progresses we get to see all sides of Coops’ personality with ‘Piss Poor’ reminding us of the raw gritty London lifestyle from which he has risen from, whilst ‘Profile’ demonstrates his softer more promiscuous side as well as touching on themes of fatherhood and online relationships.
Coops’ musical entry point begun by making music with his friends, but it wasn’t until he really looked at himself and the world around him when he decided he needed to go it alone, opening his mind and his solo stream of creativity which hasn’t stopped since. A self-proclaimed hermit he embodies the essence of a true artist and only finds comfort in doing what he loves, not what he is told.

When Bandcamp announced that they will be holding a special fundraiser on June 19th „that is specifically focused on racial justice, equality, and that they will donate their „share of revenues that day to the NAACP Legal Defence Fund“, we thought to put out a special sampler that contributes to that cause. All profits of the sales of „Music for the NAACP“ will go exactly there. Due to the lack of time, it might seemed knocked together, but old and new friends, from near and far alike did their best, to set it up. So, special thanks to everyone involved: especially to Lopazz at Mixmastering, Heidelberg, Rand Muzik Leipzig and the SST cutting house in Frankfurt, who did their part to also make this available on a 2x12“ compilation (same destination for its profits). Thank you for listening, helping and donating.

Sincerely,

Gerd Janson

2020 Re-issue of Keith Kenniff's debut under his Goldmund moniker. Originally only released on CD in 2005 via John Twells' Type Recordings, this album of rare and unusual minimalist beauty is now presented as a vinyl edition for the first time.

Multi-instrumentalist Keith Kenniff is a busy man. He has appeared as Helios on a number of acclaimed releases, including Deaf Center’s ‘Neon City EP’, and released a debut album ‘Unomia’ on Merck records which has appeared on many best of 2004 lists. All this while studying at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, and playing drums, guitar or contributing production to a host of amazing musicians. Kenniff lives and breathes music, something that is very obvious when hearing tracks under any of his pseudonyms.

As Goldmund, Kenniff has disregarded the electronic elements of his music almost entirely in favour of just a piano, a microphone and occasionally a guitar. ‘Corduroy Road’ is thirteen tracks of pure recording, the sound of the piano being opened and the feet on the pedals, the sound of fingers pressing lovingly onto the keys. This is a record of rare and unusual beauty, so shocking and yet unpretentious in its simplicity. When the guitar does emerge from beside the delicately touched piano, it serves as a balancing point for the record. Weaving in and out of the melodies, it adds another layer to what is already incredibly moving music.

‘Corduroy Road’ is rooted in Kenniff’s love of folk music from the American Civil War. We can hear this directly from his rendition of Civil War era classic ‘Marching Through Georgia’, but the influence carries throughout the record. There is an unheard voice which propels each track through history, maybe the ghosts of dying soldiers whispering in a long forgotten bar. Every haunting note drifts deep into the psyche and is lost in the ether of nostalgia. In this way it is a concept recording of sorts, it certainly has a narrative and has to be listened to in sequence. The story has clear themes; loss, history, friendship, camaraderie, forgiveness and hope, all clearly marked out by musical segments. It is no surprise that Kenniff’s passion for cinema shines through so strongly.

It would be hard to draw comparisons to music so rooted in folk traditions, but the music evokes traces of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Mark Hollis, Keith Jarret or even Eno’s more piano based compositions. Yet influence seems unimportant when listening to this deeply personal work. Just let it sink in and drift into the psyche.

Kniteforce and Just Another Label (owner of the Bear Necessities Sub Label) have been friends since the early 90’s, so when JAL wanted to remaster and repress some old and much sought after classic EPs, it was only natural for Kniteforce to take on that roll. This much sought after EP was originally a 10” but is now reissued and remastered as a 12” due to popular demand! Both tracks are absolute classics of the time, with deep and heavy vibes throughout!

To say Fredfades and Jawn Rice are House music producers would be sneering at their efforts across genres like Hip Hop, Soul, and Jazz. The Mutual Intentions collaborators have forged a sound together in classic House, siphoning a myriad of influences through their intricate constructions in the studio as solo acts since first meeting in 2007. Becoming fast friends over a shared love of the dusty beats of an SP1200, Jawn Rice and Fredfades started working together while the Mutual Intentions collective gestated around them. Individual works by Jawn and Fred dot the collective’s back catalogue like various nodes of evolution through the course of MI’s output.
“We’ve always been sharing sketches,” explains Jawn Rice, “but I feel that these past years have been more productive in getting some of these sketches out as songs with Fredrik. It’s just a continuation of our friendship.” Emboldened by this friendship and with their finely tuned skills in the studio,
honed to near-perfection, they eventually started making music together. Following two seminal solo LPs – Fredfades’ Warmth and Jawn Rice’s Highlights – the pair consolidated their music as a duo in 2019, striking out with their electrifying debut, Jacuzzi Boyz. In a fusion between Jawn’s electronic inclinations and Fred’s soulful eccentricities, Jacuzzi Boyz established the duo as a new force workingNew Release Information within the broad scope of House music, with a sound imbued in the origin story of House and the genre’s hip-hop allegiances.
In 2020 they continue to pursue music together in the sophomore LP, Luv Neva Fades. Following the release of the title track and lead single, Luv Neva Fades finds the producers cementing their artistic voice and re-enforcing their commitment to a singular sound. Lush Rhodes keys and bouncing percussion lay the foundations for the album, while buoyant bass-lines and sparkling synthesisers provide
the catalyst for a crooning vocal or ruminating melody. It’s a record that thrives in a sultry mood; an LP that basks in the warmth of its analogue origins and cools in the shade of languid chord progressions.
Like Jacuzzi Boys, this album is an extended collaborative affair, as Mutual Intentions’ reach stretches across the Atlantic with guest appearances from Byron the Aquarius, Javonntte, Arthur Kay, Bendik HK and the SP1200 that started it all. Shimmering melodies, hazy harmonies and boisterous beats draw Fredfades and Jawn Rice out of the jacuzzi and onto the dance floor, moving under shimmering stars, where the duo cement what they started with Luv Neva Fades.

Visions Recordings present here two new jams from Alex Attias productions with a collaboration featuring long-time friends Mark De Clive-Lowe, Justin Chapman AKA Just One and Hajime Yoshizawa.The A side is a latin house bossa organic track with Justin on vocals and guitar over beautiful lush Rhodes and synths played by the incredible Japanese musician, Hajime Yoshizawa. The track is a 10 minutes’ journey into a jazzy soulful vocal jam. A summer vibe to warm us up before the sun comes back.on the B side, Mark de Clive-Lowe delivers keys and piano sounds on top of Alex ‘s funky and groovy mpc house beat for maximum impact on the dancefloor. Two strong tracks to have in your collection for those who love house music with soul and jazz.

Saturday Night is the debut LP by old friends and collaborators Alex Twomey, Matthew Sullivan, and Sean McCann. Recorded over numerous evenings at the artists’ homes, and completed just before the birth of Matthew’s daughter, Flora. The album became an excuse to spend time with one another as well as perform. As the trio ordered take-out, drank scotch, smoked on patios, laughing off the weight of reality–they stumbled into moments of musical focus.

This album has a prism of fidelities. High and low resolutions press together as the environment blows through the instruments. The woozy, side-long titular track of hesitant cello and pianos opens the record. Quiet music with blemishes and inebriated pauses, breathing an alleviated air. Phrases with failing propellers, teetering between melodic and apathetic. The true speed of their Saturday nights.

Side two opens with “London On My Mind.” Reflecting the other pole, manic cassette treatments duel over Twomey’s placid keyboard, ultimately breaking into a little joke on the piano. “Collection” features guitar by Sullivan, remembered for his thick fog of work under the alias Earn. With Sullivan’s return to the instrument, he is joined by Twomey on upright piano and McCann processing the room in real-time. The brief final work, “Bird,” recalls the style of the group's private press cassettes, The Bird and Charlotte’s Office: poorly-played pleasant-hearted music.

Each edition of the record includes a 20-page photo booklet of stills documenting the recording process.

7"
Limited to 300 handmade copies!
We only knew Pop's (Steven) singing voice as a whistle. He whistled while he worked, and he worked all the time. But not even a whistle accompanied him on the guitar. A woodworker by day, he brought his craftsmanship home, softly picking his patient melodies. Those few tunes were played over and over again, becoming smooth and refined as a carefully finished armoire.
It wasn't until Christmas 2008 that we really heard him sing. Our mother pulled out an old cassette tape labeled Steve at Marco's, a brief recording session from 1979. The first thing we heard was the song. The only song. Blue. A thick delay over the entire mix told us he was shy even back then. But then came that voice, which, underneath the wash, wasn't shy at all.
Blue, and the stream of short instrumentals following, seemed a rare capture at the heart of our origin with music. And as we shared these recordings with friends, we soon realized it wasn't just us who found them so warm and beautiful.
A proper closet musician, Pop would never share this music on his own accord, so we've taken the liberty of doing it for him. - Heather & Peter Broderick, August 2011

Marking their 20th year as a band, Maserati returns with their first new album in five years. Produced by the band and mixed by Grammy-winning producer, John Congleton (Explosions In The Sky, Swans, Angel Olsen), Enter The Mirror is Maserati's most compelling mélange of triumphant guitar hooks, abstract synth-pop, and Wax Trax-inspired noise anthems. The gated drums of Phil Collins and chorus-drenched guitars of INXS were prominent influences on Enter The Mirror, paired to magnificent effect with the increasingly dystopian lyrical themes (which, ironically, were also massive influences on popular music in the 1980s, and feel ever more relevant now). In addition to longtime members Coley Dennis, Matt Cherry, Chris McNeal, and Mike Albanese, Maserati are joined by friends and collaborators, Bill Berry (R.E.M.), Owen Lange, and Alfredo Lapuz Jr. Self-reflection and loss of control as both a positive and negative aspect of modern existence is at the heart of Enter The Mirror. It is Maserati's most efficient and cohesive album, and a monumental accomplishment for a band who have weathered many storms throughout their first two decades - and found the will to not just keep moving, but to move with style and chase.

2x12"

since long, chilean/swiss producer and dj luciano is a prominent figure in the global electron-ic club music circle. already from a young age on he was exposed to music profoundly, as his father worked as a jukebox repairman and possessed a large record collection.

when he was twelve, his mother gifted him a guitar, that turned luciano shortly into a mem-ber of a school punk rock band. soon after, his passion for electronic music rose. infected by detroit techno and engaged by close friends like producer dandy jack, he started to play rec-ords in local santiago de chile dance clubs and became involved in the minimal techno scene around friends like ricardo villalobos.

when luciano moved back from chile to switzerland in 2000, he established a residency at weetamix club in geneva, started releasing his own productions on labels like mental groove and joining the cocoon team in ibiza to play at the famous monday night at club amnesia.

since then he is a regular on the balearic island, holding residencies at clubs like dc10 or, with his “vagabundos” serial, at ushuaïa. besides playing around the globe with the likes of carl craig, richie hawtin or loco dice, he is releasing groundbreaking minimal techno and house on his label cadenza since 2003, featuring music by artists like nsi, ricardo villalobos, pikaya, reboot, maayan nidam and himself.

his very own music, so far issued on three albums and countless eps, was always ambiguous. there is his club leaning creativity that can dance slightly into pop spheres while never for-getting the power of precise sliced rhythms and subtle bass sensations.

and then there is a calmer luciano, that displays his love for “music to listen at home, done for a spiritual travel, an inner universe and a moment paralyzed in ether”, as he describes it.

on his first ever mule musiq album release “luci neu house”, luciano now delivers meditative journey music full of repetitive patterns that slowly playing tricks on the listeners subcon-sciousness. “i love music that has a dimension more than music designed for the radio or tv format. mu-sic, that is designed to bring you a higher level of energy and creativity.

so, there is no pretentious things in it ... more just sounds and dimension that will lead your head into the fall of jupiter” he reveals about the one-hour long composition “luci neu house”, whose esoteric deepness reminds on the intensely meditative class of his older pro-ductions like “behind my soul” from 2010.

an epic tune cut on vinyl into four 15-minute long pieces, who shift slowly, almost unper-ceived, whilst absorbing the mind of close observers into a micro-sliced world of moving gen-tleness.

maelstrom magnetism against the gravity of time, that also can be found on the additional mule musiq 257 12inch, which functions as a soothing footnote to luciano’s album.

the almost 13 minutes long trip “flags of himalaya” opens with restful percussions that unhur-riedly start to dance with soft string, piano and horn melodies. on the opposite, the nine-minute long “the evasion of the spiritual soldier” grooves laidback with jazzy rhythms and italo leaning melodies.

a perfect tune for slow dance sensations and endless sunset seaside drives. at a total length of almost 90 minutes, all new mule musiq music composed by luciano distributes a mesmer-izing healing spirit, that grounds organically, even if it is totally rooted in the digital, soft-ware driven world of composing music. “check your buddha” tunes, that somehow sound novel during each new listening circle.

Volker.live ’s debut and final release
“My Love Will Set You Free” Final release? We see the question mark popping up over your head. Well yes, these four tracks are a time capsule, a historic cache which takes you back to one hot summer of 2019. When this care-free boy band formed and made it their goal to climb up the world’s stages to play an all-hardware live set & have f.u.n. while doing so. This endeavor went swimmingly. Festival gigs were pocketed and crowds intrigued. The stand-out track of their gigs was always “My Love Will Set You Free”, an acid-house stomper with uplifting, yet melancholic vocals from their friend ÆN.
Friends and neighbors were quick to re-interpret the song and the idea of a record took shape.
Lehult’s Lucky Charmz propels the listener into the void by upping the acidity. Closing in on a playtime of 10 minutes, we’re readily giving up our sense for time and space. Whirring drum hits meet feedbacking tape delay while riding the rock solid bass line.
Erobique liked the song so much, he quickly drew up two versions of his own. His “Disko Mix” oozes that saccharine, danceable magic mélange of days past. Warm keys, hand claps, and Aen’s intimate voice are stirred into an exquisite cocktail. You know that Carsten Meyer would never forget the umbrella on top. He’ll keep the cherry though.
The “Black Velvet Mix” closes the curtains for a slow dance. This is personal, it’s just between you and the song. Sub rosa.
In the meantime, Volker.live decided to follow separate paths of their adventure, but everyone agreed to release these songs into the world. May they serve as a reminder of what can be created out of care-free energy that’s driven by a deep connection to music. Please check out their other musical undertakings as Echoel and Goodmemory.live .

Kristian Craig Robinson, aka Capitol K, is a multi-instrumentalist and record producer with a long history in London’s most interesting under-the-radar music places and spaces. With a musical story like his, you can expect side streams. New record ‘Birdtrapper’ is “the sound of an initiation rave in a utopian hidden village”, and his latest exploration of Mediterranean audio mythos following from ’Goatherder’ (2018). The six track mini-album was similarly formed from ritualistic improvisations performed in Malta (where Capitol K was born), using home-made flutes, reed pipe, bamboo percussion, drum machine, bass guitar, but this time features a wider use of synthesizers, with the alternative dance floor in mind. Where ‘Goatherder’ was an awakening of genetic primitivism, ‘Birdtrapper’ is an evocation of sonic bird callers, proto-rave abandon, ambient resonance and an ecstatic captive state, along with the previous work's visions of hunters, temples and scrub land music
‘Goatherder’ caused a quiet kind of quake and was beloved by The Quietus, BBCR3 and 6Music. Vinyl Factory described it as “like a series of manipulated field recordings that have an ancient, ritualistic quality … Goatherder shimmers with Balearic strangeness, rooted in an earthy outer-national dance music tradition”. For the last seven years K has been behind the consoles at the heavily influential Total Refreshment Centre, recording and mixing records with the likes of Trash Kit, The Comet Is Coming, Rozi Plain, Alabaster DePlume, Dry Cleaning, Flamingods Cykada, Ibibio Sound Machine, BAS JAN and John Johanna. It’s not just recording. He’s also become an influential if understated mentor to a new wave of producers and bands. His experience in studio environments is long and storied, including stints at Studio Plateaux on an island in the middle of the Thames and in the Royal Symphonia’s squatted rehearsal rooms. Capitol K has released seven albums and the 'Birdtapper EP' follows a legacy of influential releases on early 2000s electronica labels including Planet Mu and XL. Aside this he also runs the record label Faith & Industry. It’s a friends and family, love not money affair and he has released music by Champagne Dub, John Johanna, Super Best Friends Club, Blue House & Clémentine March.

After releasing their critically acclaimed debut LP “NOW” just last September, The people at Malka Tuti felt it was the time to continue pushing the name SHARI VARI to new realms & territories... A Remix Pack was born. For the remix pack, Malka Tuti chose a few close friends of the family to give new life and new interpre- tations to the now “instant classic” songs by the Hamburg duo.... The Ep begins with Fantastic Twins’s mid tempo, Coil inspired, break-beat groove, slowly building up in emotion with warm pads and 90’s vibe acid lines to- wards an epic catharsis. Benedikt Frey takes it from there, remixing a personal favourite - New York City, turning it into a dark trip- hop inspired journey, cleaning those distinct vocals, echoing Beth Gibbons’s smokey high tones.... On the B-side we find Black Merlin’s 11 minute trippy mid tempo dance floor banger. Cuts and slices from the original vocals of the song Dance Alone, laid carefully on top of a repetitive modular bass line, and sprinkled on top - those out-worldly sounds and FX that makes the track simply HUGE. Last but not least, Düsseldorf’s very own Lucas Croon’s Dub Version, released digitally last year, final- ly sees its day on wax. 90’s Break beat beats, gated vocals and everything else that takes to make a dance floor hit the roof.

This release represents the first original Zion Train album in 5 years and features 9 vocalists alongside the extremely talented musicians. Vocalists include Cara, Michel Grena Prince Jamo and Rider Shafique whilst amongst the musicians are such luminaries as
Paolo Baldini, Don Fe and Gianni Denitto.

Zion Train are working alongside the Stop Ecocide and Extinction Rebellion campaigns with the release of this music to help attempts to build a brighter future for our planet - to this end they are reprinting the Leap Manifesto authored by Naomi Klein and friends with this release.

Nils Frahm, born in 1982, had an early introduction to music. During his childhood he was taught to play piano by Nahum Brodski a student of the last scholar of Tschaikowski. It was through this that Nils began to immerse himself in the styles of the classical pianists before him as well as contemporary composers. Today Nils Frahm works as an accomplished composer and producer in Berlin. In early 2008 he founded Durton Studio, where he has worked with Peter Broderick and Dustin O' Halloran amongst other fellow musicians.

The three instrumentals, which make up his debut release 'Wintermusik' are piano led pieces, coloured with occasional celeste and reed organ parts. The record's equal measures of sorrowful refrains and uplifting passages, combined with a real intimacy that makes for an album you'll want to return to again and again.

The songs were originally intended as a Christmas present for friends and family, hence its winter release via London-based cinematic music label Erased Tapes. As the curator of the Swedish boutique label Kning Disk's Piano Series, Peter Broderick invited Nils to record a new Nils Frahm, born in 1982, had an early introduction to music.

During his childhood he was taught to play piano by Nahum Brodski a student of the last scholar of Tschaikowski. It was through this that Nils began to immerse himself in the styles of the classical pianists before him as well as contemporary composers. Today Nils Frahm works as an accomplished composer and producer in Berlin. In early 2008 he founded Durton Studio, where he has worked with Peter Broderick and Dustin O' Halloran amongst other fellow musicians.

The three instrumentals, which make up his debut release 'Wintermusik' are piano led pieces, coloured with occasional celeste and reed organ parts. The record's equal measures of sorrowful refrains and uplifting passages, combined with a real intimacy that makes for an album you'll want to return to again and again. The songs were originally intended as a Christmas present for friends and family, hence its winter release via London-based cinematic music label Erased Tapes.

As the curator of the Swedish boutique label Kning Disk's Piano Series, Peter Broderick invited Nils to record a new album of piano improvisations the result is 'The Bells', which will now be released on Erased Tapes in the UK, Ireland and North America. Perhaps the most stunning aspect of what on the surface appears to be an entirely pre-planned and composed body of work comes with the discovery that these pieces were in fact improvised.

These two friends share a common affinity in that they both possess an absolute mastery of melody, composition and performance able to deliver with devastating effect. The modest Mr. Broderick states 'I remember thinking to myself as I lay there stunned, that I could spend ten years trying to write an amazing piece of piano music, and still it would never be half as good as these improvisations!'

Recorded in a rented, beautiful old church in the heart of Berlin over two nights, Nils 'just played' with the occasional instruction from Peter 'I spouted "Make a song using only the notes C, E, and G", or "Make a song that you could imagine me rapping over the top of" (Track 8 'My Things'). At one point I was even inside the piano, laying on the strings, asking him to make a song called 'Peter Is Dead In The Piano'. The resultant work 'The Bells' shares the same excitement and air of playfulness.

For a musician this early in his career, Frahm displays an incredibly developed sense of control and restraint in his work. As the recognition continues to grow for both, 'Wintermusik' and 'The Bells', we are pleased to announce that 2010 will also see his next album release on Erased Tapes.

On his new record "Companionship", London-based Soft-Rock, Soul and Disco artist Joel Sarakula keeps the mood easy and the grooves deep. Ten new songs see Sarakula develop a deeper, more introspective lyrical style from his previous works as he celebrates and laments friendships, love and loneliness. Interspersed with a few standout up-tempo tracks to keep the ship sailing, "Companionship" is a chill-out album and listening experience of the highest order.

"Companionship" opens with "Midnight Driver", a driving soft-rock fantasy where the narrator laments his partner's nocturnal habits: 'When she's coming up, it gets me down'. The Californian sun-kissed guitars, vocal stylings and percussion all help to set a cinematic mood which unsurprisingly also makes it a great driving song. On the introspective "King Of Clowns", Sarakula creates a pop song that calls to mind the craftmanship of Hall & Oates and Elvis Costello. Both an admission of guilt and an unapologetic statement of intent, his low vocal careens in the dangerous divide between self-pity and self-parody: "My bad decisions worked out for a while, I'd do my dance tried to make you smile, I'll never wise up it's just the way I am". These confessions all occur over a down-tempo funk groove complete with some vintage synthesizer musings that makes the track ready to be sampled for a hip-hop record.

"Sunshine Makes Me" steps straight out of its mid-1970s swimming pool, heavily dripping in jazz fusion to dry off in the cold light of today's sunshine. The chorus is a mantra of desire, needs and reality that sees Sarakula sing 'Sunshine makes me lose my mind, thirty degrees and my eyes get so wide. Dreaming big and living slow, don't you know that time is on our side". On "Companionship", Joel Sarakula, prolific writer, producer, performer and multi-instrumentalist finally unleashes his chill-out pretensions. In this follow up to the critically acclaimed "Love Club" (2018) he develops a deeper and more mature compositions and production style. His love of all things vintage extends to a devotion to analog synthesizers and on "Companionship" you can hear a genuine love of synthesis that at moments is reminiscent of 70s synth production pioneers Todd Rundgren and George Duke.

Joel Sarakula will tour "Companionship" through Europe and the UK this Spring and Summer 2020 with his musical companions. Born in Sydney, based in London and a true internationalist, Sarakula tours with pickup bands sourced from each territory he plays in: a Barcelona band for Spain, a Berlin band for Germany and so forth. This cross-cultural exchange is a sly nod to the golden era of the 1960s and 1970s when travelling US pop, soul and blues artists would do the same.

Limited to 800 copies Red Vinyl
Includes postcard and poster
The Die Young EP was released on the group’s own Cafeteria label, released early 1987. Michael Fury was inspired by James Joyce’s short story The Dead. Only previously available on a 4 track12” .This 7” version comprises 3 of those 4 tracks
Metro Trinity were a short lived Manchester based indie band that included Jon Male, later of Soul Family Sensation and Republica fame. Drummer Colin Rocks, bass player Tim Whiteley and Doves guitarist Jez Williams.
Metro Trinity only other release came on a split with the Inspiral Carpets on Dave Haslam’s Debris fanzine. Which featured the track “Stupid Friends”.
Andy Williams of Doves joined the band later on, but does not feature on this EP. The band split up shortly after.

In 2017 Brooklyn's Bryce Hackford spent a week at the PRAH Foundation in Margate (UK) recording rhythmic foundations and the environment around him. After his residency, eleven musician friends contributed their performances to what would become Safe (Exits). All of these contributions, however, were made in isolation and the task of mixing them together became the crux of the production.

Bryce's records largely explore improvisation with electronics, using recording as the compositional medium, and feature the occasional contributing musician. Eleven make Safe (Exits) more of a chance ensemble record, with players in unlikely combinations, from disparate backgrounds both personal and musical, pushing a collage aesthetic beyond sampling. The poetics of these sounds is the focus of this album.

Safe (Exits) attempts to create a rare space where rhythms get propulsive enough to make one dance yet become subtle enough to make them nod into the serene vistas of distant, contemplative waves.

Safe (Exits) is Bryce's first album since 2015 and second release with Spring Theory.

Featuring: Gabi AsFOUR, Brian Close, Matt Evans, Adrian Knight, Kiki Kudo, David Lackner, Frank Lyon, Camilla Padgitt-Coles, Bernardo Risquez, Viktor Timofeev and Justin Tripp

1970’s best-kept Bossa Nova secret. Surrounded by mystery for nearly 50 years due to its obscurity, this is one of the most honest, personal and unpretentious albums of it's genre.

A selection of 12 exquisitely crafted songs supported by measured, subtle arrangements. The list of musicians born or raised in the Tijuca district of Rio de Janeiro is long and illustrious and includes names that have shaped Brazilian music: Tom Jobim, Roberto Carlos, Tim Maia, Milton Nascimento, Jorge Ben or Erasmo Carlos – to mention but a few.

We can now add to that list another name: Werther. In 1970, a man by that name recorded an album unique in its personality, its honesty, and its lack of pretense. In a time when Bossa Nova had become a global phenomenon and its main characters were already household names in Brazil, Werther assembled a collection of songs that uncannily – almost naively – remind us of the time when Bossa Nova was just a group of youngsters making music. His songs are about simple things: bohemian life, the sea, love.

Despite Werther and his friends being only in their teens, without any previous experience recording music, those working behind the scenes were not equally amateur. Producer Peter Keller had already worked with Aloysio De Oliveira in the quintessential Bossa Nova label Elenco, and was also an initial partner in Roberto Quartin’s cult label Forma.

Studio owner Bill Horne was a very loved character in the Rio jazz scene who had regularly taken part in the legendary meetings in Nara Leão’s apartment and befriended some of Brazil’s most respected musicians. Some of these musicians were, for example, Naná Vasconcelos and Edison Machado, who provided small contributions to Werther’s album.

Entitled ‘My Heart Is Hungry And The Days Go By So Quickly’ Danish singer and songwriter Jacob Bellens presents his fifth solo album. Thanks to his unique voice and his talent for heartfelt melodies, over the years Jacob, also known as frontman of I Got You On Tape and Murder, has become one of the most distinctive figures on the Scandinavian music scene. Slightly darker in tone than its predecessors ‘Trail Of Intuition’ (2018) or ‘Polyester Skin’ (2016), the new album lets us see the world through Jacob’s eyes.
Somewhere between left-field pop and a classical singer/songwriter approach, the songs were recorded in two sessions with producer Mads Brinch, drummer Tobias Laust, bass player Jonas Westergaard, keyboardist Malthe Rostrup and guitarist Tobias Fuglsang. “So many good friends and amazing instrumentalists have contributed to the sound“, explained Jacob. “And mostly, people were playing what they felt the song needed, which was an incredibly inspiring way of just letting the process develop naturally, and take on a life of its own.” As such, the recordings give off a distinct light-footed and organic feel. Rich in metaphors, the lyrics deal with personal perceptions based on everyday life occurrences that at the same time hint at the meaning of life in general - or at least suggest a higher perspective. The sonical expression is timeless but also modernistic and the lyrical point of view is refreshingly diverse, never just black or white. The sad songs have uplifting, often surreal qualities, and the lighter, uptempo songs also invite to a certain darkness. A flower basket full of difficult emotions, sprinkled with magical fairy dust that somehow makes everything worthwhile.

Kicking off 2020 – Great Circles takes a step away from the dance floor with the release of the monolithic new work from Philadelphia-based artist Radere, ‘I Do Not Want What I Have.’ This long-in-gestation set of slow burning electronics and shadowy drones is part of the label’s growing selection of releases dedicated to deep listening, following on from the 2017 Prefix Moniker LP.

Radere is the ongoing project of Carl Ritger, who has worked under the nom de plume since 2009 and has deep ties to the Great Circles family. He played some of his earliest shows at Inciting HQ, the recently shuttered, label-affiliated venue, and invited Justin Gibbon AKA Westov Temple and Great Circles label founder to contribute to some of his earlier recordings. While he started out as a more straightforward ambient guitarist, Ritger’s work developed into more experimental textures as he explored modular synthesis and processed found sounds.

Ritger’s releases from his time spent living in Denver, CO c. 2011-2018 are marked by a particular strain of east coast nihilism and an angular aesthetic that keeps the listener off balance. Now back in his native Philadelphia, the two long-form pieces that comprise ‘I Do Not Want What I Have’ represent a perhaps more nuanced meditation on pain and loss. “Spitty Kisses,” the 15-minute album opener, takes aim at the listener with a brutal salvo. It is almost sadistic in its sonic intentions – acerbic modular sound and abrupt stuttering in the material leave a listener personally affected. “You’ve Been A Ghost Your Whole Life,” on the flip, delivers a salve for the A-side’s wounds and resolves its masochistic tones.

Written through a period of intense personal trauma as a means to seek comfort and solace through creative action, it’s clear that the puerile humor of nihilism is gone and grown out of in Ritger’s work.

FFO: taking long walks off of short piers, the legend of the monk Kelpius living among the trees of the Wissahickon, traditional creation and destruction stories in polytheistic faiths, and John Coltrane.

The record is accompanied by a digital-only series of remixes by friends of the artist and regular collaborators, including new works from Borne and Shivers, as well as Great Circles alums Westov Temple, Chaperone, and WOLF DEM.

‘Oh, baby, this is where it gets good.’ - Zaphod

The last ever BBC radio series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy makes its vinyl debut! Materialising in the lavish packaging style of the preceding five series (Primary Phase, Secondary Phase, Tertiary Phase, Quandary Phase and Quintessential Phase) the Hexagonal Phase will make its presence known to all humanity on heavyweight Neon Geen vinyl! First broadcast in 2018, the Hexagonal Phase is based on Eoin Colfer’s And Another Thing…, the first - and, to date, only – official sequel to Douglas Adams’s original book series. This is also the first ever publication of the original radio edits of the Hexagonal Phase, as heard on their original Radio 4 broadcast. Arthur Dent and friends are thrown back into the Whole General Mish Mash in a rattling adventure featuring Viking Gods and Irish confidence tricksters, taking in a rare glimpse of Eccenrica Gallumbits and a brief but memorable moment with The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.
Starring John Lloyd as The Book, with Simon Jones as Arthur Dent, Geoff McGivern as Ford Prefect, Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod, Sandra Dickinson as Trillian/Tricia McMillan, Samantha Béart as Random and Jim Broadbent as Marvin, with a guest cast including Jane Horrocks, Lenny Henry, Jon Culshaw, Mitch Benn, Ed Byrne, Toby Longworth, Professor Stephen Hawking and many more, with music by Philip Pope. Adapted, Directed and Co Produced by Dirk Maggs, based on the novel And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfer, with additional material by Douglas Adams.

Presented on 3 x 180g heavyweight neon green vinyl, and
presented in illustrated wallets inside a rigid, bound 20 page book,
including a perspective sleeve note by Geoff McGivern and a
concluding overview of the series’ development by Jem Roberts,
Adams’s official biograph

You’re home just in time for tea.’ - Fenchurch

It's been a long, winding road to Hailu Mergia's sixth decade of musical activity. From a young musician in the 60's starting out in Addis Ababa to the 70's golden age of dance bands to the new hope as an emigre in America to the drier period of the 90s and 2000s when he mainly played keyboard in his taxi while waiting in the airport queue or at home with friends. More recently, with reissue of his classic works and a re-assessment of his role in Ethiopian music history, Mergia has played to audiences big and small in some of the most cherished venues around the world. With 2018's critical breakthrough "Lala Belu" Mergia championed himself and consolidated his legacy, producing the album on his own and connecting with listeners through the sheer creative power of his version of modern Ethiopian music. His subsequent performances revealed an artist who is in no way stuck in the nostalgia for the "golden age" sound. The press agreed, including the New York Times, BBC and Pitchfork, calling his music "triumphantly in the present" in its Best 200 Albums of the 2010's list. Mergia's new album "Yene Mircha" ("My Choice" in Amharic) encapsulates many of the things that make the keyboardist, accordionist and composer-arranger remarkable_elements that have persisted to maintain his vitality all these years, through the ebb and flow of his career. The rock solid trio with whom he has toured the world most recently, DC-based Alemseged Kebede (bass) and Ken Joseph (drums), forms the nucleus around which an expanded band makes a potent response to the contemporary jazz future "Lala Belu" promised. "Yene Mircha" calcifies Mergia's prolific stream of creativity and his philosophy that there is a multitude of Ethiopian musical approaches, not just one sound. Enlisting the help of master mesenqo (traditional stringed instrument) player Setegn Atenaw, celebrated vocalist Tsehay Kassa and legendary saxophone player Moges Habte from his 70's outfit Walias Band, Mergia enhances his bright, electric band on this recording with an expanded line up on some songs. Mergia produced the album which features several of his original compositions along with songs by Asnakesh Worku and Teddy Afro. An artist still reinventing his sound every night on stage during his marathon live sets, this 74-year-old icon refuses to make the same album twice. The album feels as urgent and risky as his concerts can be, pushing the band to the outer limits of group improvisation and back with chord extensions during his exploratory solos. "Yene Mircha" captures this live experience and fosters an expansive view of what else could be in store for this tireless practitioner of Ethiopian music.

Third time is a charm they say. But if the first 2 times were already so memorable, what more can you ask for?
Nebraska comes in with a bang for his third release on Heist after ‘Soften the Wireless’ EP in 2016 and ‘Metaphor to the floor’ in 2017. It’s hard to believe it has been 3 years since his last appearance on Heist, but with ‘Y’miss me baby?’, Nebraska takes back center stage with another releasefull of disco flavored electronics. Italian disco man-of-the-moment Giovanni Damico comes along for the ride and delivers a stunning 80’s flavoredremix.
It’s not to say that Nebraska (Alistair Gibbs) has been sitting still since 2017. He’s launched his own label ‘Friends & Relations’ where he explores his cut-and-paste style even more with some seriously cool disco dubs and other sonic adventures. Furthermore, he made a guest appearance on Aaron Dae and JKriv’s Razor ‘n tape Reserve. Apart from his regular musical explorations, he has also published a book (Surprise party every week) where we get a glimpse of how Gibbs sees the world.
His view is one of humor and positivity and one of creating new meaning through rearranging context. This is certainly true for his music and this new EP on Heist. The title track ‘Y’miss me baby?’ oozes funk with a clever combination of samples from different contexts put together to create something altogether new, yet familiar. The track has a real 80’s disco vibe to it and the vocoder adds even more to the ‘Zapp & Roger’ flavor of things. It’s a laidback track that feels like it was recorded on a gloomy Sunday evening with no pressure on anything and just room for fun.
The vibe takes a complete left-hand turn with ‘Dip and Flip’, a high energy house track that rattles, loops and bleeps into a full-on disco frenzy.
The b-side kicks off with Italian disco wizard Giovanni Damico remixing the title track. He’s had a great run recently with releases on Lumberjacks in Hell and more recently on Star Creature, where he’s found a home to explore his own view on modern day boogie. His ‘jam’ remix flips the track into a freeform arrangement where guitars, disco claps, delays and retro synth licks all work together for a great taste of Italian boogie.
The EP finishes off in true Nebraska style, with yet another curveball. ‘Xia long bao’ sounds like a lost Nick Holder track from the 90’s with its loopy island style Rhodes and lazy chanting. The choice of samples along with the catchy groove makes this a signature Nebraska track and a quality closer for this single.
We are super happy to have Nebraska back on Heist and with this amazing EP, you are certainly going to create smiles on your dancefloor of choice.
Yours Sincerely,
Lars & Maarten

"No Secrets" - Carly Simon (voc, g, p); Jimmy Ryan (g,b); Bobby Keys (ts); Lowell George (g); Kirby Johnson (el-p); Peter Robinson (p); Bill Payne (org); Klaus Voorman (b); Andy Newmark, Jim Keltner (dr); a.o. & orchestra & backing vocals.

Carly Simon’s unquestionably best album, "No Secrets", was also her commercial breakthrough. It topped the Billboard charts for over five weeks, thus quickly gaining gold status, as did the single release of "You’re So Vain".

This song determined the album’s flippant tone, with its sexually unashamed autobiography (»You had me several years ago/When I was still quite naïve«) and its observations on the lifestyle of the jet set. But Simon’s sincerity also meant that her lyricism was double-edged. Now that she thinks she has found true love, she expresses her joy over her relationship to James Taylor with "The Right Thing To Do", another top ten hit.

On the other hand she was just as willing to recognize her own mistakes and regretted pointing her finger at other people. It was not just Simon’s frankness that made the album a success, but also Richard Perry’s simple, elegant pop-rock production, which lent Simon’s music a vitality it never known before.

Perry was mindful in particular of Simon’s vocals, making them more perceptive and stirring than in her other productions. And of course her fellow musicians, such as Paul and Linda McCartney, Mick Jagger, Klaus Voormann, Lowell George, Bobby Keys, Jim Keltner as well as her ex-husband James Taylor all contributed to the success of the album, which was awarded official platinum status by the Recording Industry Association of America.

This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head.
All royalties and mechanical rights have been paid.
Recording: September-October, 1972 at Trident Studios, London by Robin Geoffrey Cable. Production: Richard Perry.

Exhilarating, previously unreleased recordings by Derek Bailey and his guests at Company Week in 1983: Jamie Muir, Evan Parker, Hugh Davies, Joëlle Léandre, John Corbett, Peter Brötzmann, Vinko Globokar, Ernst Reijseger and J.D. Parran.
What’s remarkable throughout this album is the respect and affection the musicians show for each other, exemplifying the dictionary definition of ‘company’ as ‘the fact or condition of being with another or others, especially in a way that provides friendship and enjoyment.’

It starts with Landslide, a brilliant, spiky, spluttering, twanging reunion of Music Improvisation Company members Evan Parker (tenor sax), Hugh Davies (electronics) and Jamie Muir (percussion). Next up, Seconde Choix, with Joëlle Léandre’s close-miked prepared bass and Bailey’s acoustic guitar seemingly heading in different directions before coming together miraculously in just four minutes.

The opening of First Choice, a duet between Bailey and Muir, is a revelation for those who moan that the guitarist plays too many notes. His patient and truly exquisite exploration of harmonics is beautifully counterpointed by Muir’s metallic percussion.

On Pile Ou Face (Heads Or Tails) Davies concentrates on his high register oscillators, carefully shadowed by Parker’s soprano until Léandre’s deft, springy pizzicato lures them into the playground. JD In Paradise is a surprisingly delicate wind quartet, with John Corbett’s trumpet, fragile and Don Cherry-like, punctuating the sinuous interplay between Peter Brötzmann and J.D. Parran (on sopranos, flutes and clarinet), while trombonist Vinko Globokar growls approvingly in the background.

Igor Stravinsky’s definition of music as the ‘jeu de notes’ comes to mind listening to Bailey’s duet with cellist Ernst Reijseger (executing fiendish double-stopped harmonics with staggering ease). Technical virtuosity has never sounded so effortless – it is, as its title Een Plezierig Stukje simply states, a fun piece.

On the closing La Horda, Bailey and Reijseger team up with the horns for what on paper looks like it could be rough and rowdy sextet but which turns out once more to be a thoughtful, spacious exchange of ideas, shapes and colours.

· This compilation features the rarest and unknown instrumental tracks of that Funky Groove early sound.
· Light music along with wind section and keyboard ready to hit the dance-floor, that we call Spanish-Grooves.
· Composers, musicians & arrangers like Gregorio García Segura, Rafael Martínez, Antonio Barco, Antonio Latorre, Jaime Botey, etc.

During the 70's, an important number of orchestras and dance bands popped up in our country but not many of them released their own songs or covers on vinyl, so we can’t say that our music library has bulky volumes, rather it’s just the opposite.

You have to dig deep in the catalogue of obscure record labels to find some quality pieces, which we will usually attribute to Tinglado 13, Conjunto Nueva Onda, The Matches, Conjunto Don Pelegrin, Rafael Martínez, Carlos de Ros, Salgado y su Grupo, Mesié Bató, Pedro González, Jorge Enrique.

Most orchestras played bossa nova, soul, some lounge and easy listening, and a usual mix of light music with wind section and keyboards, something like “spanish-soul” or “rhythm'n'blues-pasodoble”.

It was a time when the bands survived playing shows with a repertoire based, mostly, on Spanish popular songs and international hits.

Many artists recorded with nicknames, many others used licensed songs paying rights to the original authors and some orchestras changed their names when they pressed their records, in an attempt to appear modern or simply for pure commercial purposes, that's why it is difficult to trace accurately the musical path of many of these artists. This scene was especially intense in Aragon and Catalonia, where a bunch of labels emerged, often simply as platforms for bands to promote their own music.

This compilation aims to discover to a wider audience some of the most sought-after instrumental gems by discjokeys and disco music collectors, eager for soul, groove and hot sounds.

· This compilation features the rarest and unknown instrumental tracks of that Funky Groove early sound.
· Light music along with wind section and keyboard ready to hit the dance-floor, that we call Spanish-Grooves.
· Composers, musicians & arrangers like Gregorio García Segura, Rafael Martínez, Antonio Barco, Antonio Latorre, Jaime Botey, etc.

During the 70's, an important number of orchestras and dance bands popped up in our country but not many of them released their own songs or covers on vinyl, so we can’t say that our music library has bulky volumes, rather it’s just the opposite.

You have to dig deep in the catalogue of obscure record labels to find some quality pieces, which we will usually attribute to Tinglado 13, Conjunto Nueva Onda, The Matches, Conjunto Don Pelegrin, Rafael Martínez, Carlos de Ros, Salgado y su Grupo, Mesié Bató, Pedro González, Jorge Enrique. Most orchestras played bossa nova, soul, some lounge and easy listening, and a usual mix of light music with wind section and keyboards, something like “spanish-soul” or “rhythm'n'blues-pasodoble”.

It was a time when the bands survived playing shows with a repertoire based, mostly, on Spanish popular songs and international hits.

Many artists recorded with nicknames, many others used licensed songs paying rights to the original authors and some orchestras changed their names when they pressed their records, in an attempt to appear modern or simply for pure commercial purposes, that's why it is difficult to trace accurately the musical path of many of these artists. This scene was especially intense in Aragon and Catalonia, where a bunch of labels emerged, often simply as platforms for bands to promote their own music.

This compilation aims to discover to a wider audience some of the most sought-after instrumental gems by discjokeys and disco music collectors, eager for soul, groove and hot sounds.

London-based folk-psych-country band The Hanging Stars return with their eclectic third studio album, A New Kind Of Sky, due out on 21 February 2019. Carrying on their exploration of transatlantic psychedelic folk and cosmic country, the new album blends twelve-string, harmony-laden lullabies with soft rock anthems to create a guilded box of bucolic folk-rock. As well as the band’s signature wistful pastoral escapism, there are lyrical concerns about the recent past; the systematic division of people, values, facts and humanity in The West in general - and the UK in particular. The band weave the same thread they have always woven but this time with a more unified vision, creating a kaleidoscopic poncho for these times.

The Hanging Stars comprise songwriter, singer and guitarist Richard Olson, Sam Ferman on bass, Paulie Cobra on drums, Patrick Ralla on guitars, keys and vocals, and renowned pedal steel player Joe Harvey-Whyte. Returning guest Collin Hegna from Brian Jonestown Massacre plays an instrument called a Marxophone on “Choir of Criers”. They also welcome Sean Read of The Rockingbirds and Dexy's Midnight Runners, who adds horns to “Three Rolling Hills” and “I Was A Stone”.

The main bulk of the recording for the new album was done live in the studio at Echozoo in Eastbourne with Dave Lynch. For the first time, the band decided to dive straight in to the recording studio following their German tour in 2018. Having lived in each other’s pockets and playing their new songs every night, the band were as tight and primed as they could possibly be. There ensued a few, very long, days of recording, capturing the essence of the band in their element.

The songwriting process was even more collaborative for this album, with the usual co-writes between Richard Olson, Sam Ferman and Patrick Ralla enhanced by Joe Harvey-White’s arrangements and Paulie Cobra’s harmonies. The biggest difference is that Sam Ferman sings lead on the first single “‘(I’ve Seen) The Summer in Her Eyes”, a song about lost love and self doubt channeled through two and a half minutes of garage pastoralism.

The album’s title track “A New Kind of Sky” tells a story from the point of view of somebody who idealises a past that never existed. The band go glam-rock on the stand-out track “I Will Please You”, a tale of a cult leader/world leader and his irresistible (for some) charm from the point-of-view of his most recent victim and “Heavy Blue” is a country music tale of drunken debauchery seen through the eyes of an inexperienced young man. The triumphant trumpet-driven song “These Rolling Hills” is a minor-key tale of a journey into the hills of Marin County, California undertaken by Paulie and Richard to visit friends Asteroid No. 4, with a most interesting outcome.

The Hanging Stars released their debut album Over the Silvery Lake in 2016, which received plaudits from broadsheets such as The Times, who described it as; "An album with enough of a hazy, sun-dappled charm to make the capital's dreariest weather bearable”, as well as The Guardian, who said; “Mersey-laced harmonies and just a whiff of the Gun Club.” They picked up a good amount of support at 6 Music and “The House on the Hill” scored a much-coveted 10/10 by John Robb on Steve Lamacq’s Roundtable.

Their second album Songs For Somewhere Else in 2017 received critical acclaim from the likes of Uncut (Revelations article), Shindig (several features and 4* review) as well as The Quietus and The Line Of Best Fit, plus radio support from Gideon Coe and Bob Harris (they performed an Under the Apple Tree Session for Bob Harris in January 2019).

Whilst playing their own successful sold-out headline dates, the band were invited to share the stage with Teenage Fanclub, The Clientele, Wolf People, The Long Ryders and GospelbeacH, as well as playing festivals such as Liverpool’s International Festival of Psychedelia, Red Rooster, Ramblin' Roots, UK Americana Festival and The Long Road.

Kniteforce and Just Another Label (owner of the Bear Necessities Sub Label) have been friends since the early 90’s, so when JAL wanted to remaster and repress some old and much sought after classic EPs, it was only natural for Kniteforce to take on that roll. Here we have the third of those EPs, and its another one that many have been looking to get hold of for a long time! A timeless old skool EP and one that has been high on many a collectors wants list for decades!

Club / DJ Support
Billy Bunter, the Fat Controller, Glowkid, Slipmatt, Dj Jedi, Dj Luna-C, Dj Brisk, Clayfighter, Jimni Cricket, Bustin, Sc@r, Doughboy, Saiyan, Dave Skywalker, Ponder and many others

Kniteforce and Just Another Label (owner of the Bear Necessities Sub Label) have been friends since the early 90’s, so when JAL wanted to remaster and repress some old and much sought after classic EPs, it was only natural for Kniteforce to take on that roll. Here we have the fourth of those EPs, and it’s a 4 track stunner that many have been looking to get hold of for a long time! A timeless old skool EP and one that has been high on many a collectors wants list for decades!

Club / DJ Support
Billy Bunter, the Fat Controller, Glowkid, Slipmatt, Dj Jedi, Dj Luna-C, Dj Brisk, Clayfighter, Jimni Cricket, Bustin, Sc@r, Doughboy, Saiyan, Dave Skywalker, Ponder and many others

A record to be enjoyed to its very last second AM Jazz is set to place this songwriter where he just might, finally, receive the recognition he deserves; from unsung hero to a truly worthy candidate for being called up to join the City of Manchester’s ranks of great musical icons. Whether you prefer to know him as Mr. Roberts or simply call him Al, it’s time to become acquainted with the real Jim Noir.

Tossing his bowler onto the hat stand and sliding on his slippers, AM Jazz sees ‘Jim’ putting his feet up whilst Alan Roberts takes the lead. A creative masterpiece for the record player and the mantlepiece, it’s a multi-layered album that features close friends including those dearly departed, and is his truest record to date, by a songwriter painting his own hypnotic Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

“I haven’t 'felt' like Jim Noir for a long time. I’m not sure I ever did; it was a construct of other people’s imaginations,” reveals Al. “AM Jazz is definitely the kind of music I make generally. It harks back to when I started making music years ago and didn’t worry about capturing a particular style. It will be nice to show people more of that.

It's the best album I've written; real hypnotic minimalism, the good stuff!” 15 years since he recorded the first ever 'Jim Noir' EP, AM
Jazz is the record all Noirheads won’t be surprised Al had inside him.

Letting the Beatlesesque stylings of his most recent album Finnish Line be (5 years ago no less), AM Jazz suits the Noir repertoire of his catalogue so far and is another homegrown offering which sees the Daveyhulme composer tinkering in his suburban Manchester studio once more, with the magic of his computer work sorcery, analog and tape recordings.

“For this I went back to the slightly more haphazard way I wrote my first album, Tower Of Love, wherein I’d use things in front of me, or a bit wrong like headphones for a microphone, to make the most Hi-Fi Lo-fi album ever.”

Whilst a brief disappearance of Jim’s online persona may have provoked bleak theories as to his whereabouts, Al had little time for digital distraction. Whilst writing and creating with friends, he has worked on electronic pet project, FAX with former Alfie guitarist, Ian Smith, and the vintage analogue house meets electro sound of his own solo EP Granada Personnel Recovery, as well as producing local band, Shaking Chainsor, and helping long-time musical colleague, Aidan Smith with his long-awaited 'The Planets' project; “I’ve been writing in dribs and drabs when I feel like it,” Al says. “I used to write all day everyday but it’s a lot harder now I’m (feeling) over 100 years old.” Never not sonically exploring or being inspired by the sounds around him, there was even a red-carpet moment when he appeared as a film premier guest after a couple of his songs were selected for the OST of director Jason Wingard’s film Eaten By Lions.

Performing all AM Jazz’s instrumental parts himself but also, at the right moment, bringing in present and past pals along the way, sexy lounge song, ‘Hexagons’ features 'Phil Anderson' and Mark Williamson singing and playing “legendary OTT guitar solo” respectively. Meanwhile the orchestration of ‘Peppergone’ waltzes like a beautifully romantic ode to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata – a tribute to dearly departed best friend 'Batfinks' who originally wrote the chords in his song 'Peppercorn.' “I hope he doesn’t think it’s shit,” Al jests. Listen closely and you may even find a few unsuspecting celebrity guest appearances as, perhaps, it could be the very first album to feature soundbites of podcasts sneaking onto the recordings. “I will have a podcast on if I’m recording; Adam Buxton, Athletico Mince, Frank Skinner or Richard Herring… I’m sure some mics will have picked them up, like in the old Tower of Love days,” he says referring to his breakout debut.

Culled from around 50 tunes AM Jazz moves like the time of the day, from dawn to night, stirring from the pop of ‘Good Mood’ and ‘Upside Down’s Beta Band groove. “As the album was playing, I imagined this smoky backstreet with all those neon signs outside clubs at about 4am,” Al says. Mellow ‘TOL Circle’ is like Percy Faith’s Theme From A Summer Place synthesized, capturing the style of TV library music or movie soundtrack obscurity that has always stirred Al’s curiosity, and the album plunges into a vast chasm of instrumental exploration with ‘Mystermoods,’ visiting Japan’s funky synth whiz duo Testpattern and Hakabashi Sakamoto. Darkening and deepening in intensity, ‘Eggshell’ is like an undiscovered gem from Angelo Badalamenti’s cutting room floor, the Panda Bear shimmer of ‘Lander’ is where blissful positivity and sadness meet, about another of his friends who left the world too young. “By the album’s close, its nearly time to let go and enter the ether,” he says of the album’s story. “Like one would do when they take their final sigh on this earth.”

Black Truffle is pleased to present Realejo, the first vinyl release from Brazilian sound artist and composer Manuel Pessoa de Lima. Having composed works for diverse contexts including cinema, contemporary dance, theatre and television, Lima’s live appearances often take the form of self-reflexive lecture performances that combine electro-acoustic sound, red light, video and spoken text, moving unpredictably from the hilarious to the distressing.

Realejo consists of two side-long pieces of highly idiosyncratic electro-acoustic collage, beginning with recordings Lima made of himself playing the organ in the Schloss Solitude Chapel in Stuttgart. Exploring the peculiarities of the instrument’s mechanics, Lima made hours of recordings with the organ stops half-way open, moving from haunting gliding tones to oddly tuned fair-ground melodies reminiscent of the record’s namesake realejo, a hand-cranked organ traditionally found in Brazil as the musical accompaniment to the work of fortune-telling parrots.

To these organ sounds, Lima added recordings of a security guard made in São Paulo: ‘Just before coming to Stuttgart, I started making field recordings of a security guard in São Paulo. It's something pretty common in residential areas: they sit in a chair with a whistle, and use that to signal when people arrive, leave or pass by in the street. This particular security guard, Miguel Viana, works on the same street my parents live, and where I had my childhood, and he has worked there since I was a small child. He has watched the street at night, from 8PM to 6AM, every single day, except Sundays, for over 30 years’.

The poignant sounds of the security guard’s whistles punctuate Lima’s electro-acoustic environment, which also includes raw digital synthesis, recordings of his friends’ infant child, audio lifted from Youtube, and, on the LP’s second side, elements taken from an earlier work, ‘36 English to Portuguese Lessons’. Finely chiselled from dozens of hours of source material into a detail-rich, mercurial structure, Realejo is alternately jarring and seductive, introducing listeners to a young composer with a powerfully individual voice.

A chance meeting in a New York club led to the conception of Mowgan’s debut album, in collaboration with renowned African Benin-born Nigeria raised singer and multi-instrumentalist, Kaleta (Leon Ligan-Majek) an ex Fela Kuti, Sunny Ade, Lauryn Hill cohort who also fronted Akoya Afrobeat Ensemble and presently heads up a 70s style afro funk band called Super Yamba based in NYC.

The Frenchman was working at Lina Frey when he overheard a Beninese salsa singer called Laurent Hounsavi channeling Afro-centric vibes through his performance. He approached the singer and was put in touch with Kaleta, who lives in the Big Apple, too. What happened next was pure magic, as the two men got to work in the studio to bring their two worlds together.

It’s the kind of mystical alchemy that only happens once in a blue moon; Kaleta was given carte blanche over Mowgan’s extensive collection of Africa-inspired electronic instrumentals.

He selected his favourites and performed on each one, delivering an original vocal, and his own guitar licks, over the top. To stir up even more electrifying vibes, Kaleta also invited several of his talented friends to join the recordings sessions - they included vocalists Shade Myers Emmanuel, Justin Masters and Gbenga Wise, Freddie Deboe on sax, Mic Dada assisting Mowgan on synth pads and Takuya Kuroda, the infamous Japanese trumpet player from Kobe who specialises in neo-soul, hip hop and electronica.

The result is ‘Karoussel’, a vibrant, dynamic, soul-enriching hybrid between electronica and deep African musicality that sets the standard for contemporary collaborations between western and African artists, and the first in a series of album projects from Mowgan on his fledgling label Mow Records...

Please find enclosed one 'Deluxe' stereophonic gramophone record from Concept City, containing thirteen recordings of musics entirely produced upon 4-track portastudio for your pleasure and discourse - the sole work of Mr Robert Grant of this parish.

So states the photocopy insert from the 1985 November LP on Cordelia Records. Home to R. Stevie Moore, Rimarimba recently reissued by Freedom To Spend - and label owner Alan Jenkin's The Deep Freeze Mice, Cordelia was home to a menagerie of sound collage plucked from the ether.

Included is the only vinyl release from Concept City, spreading across 13 instrumental tracks of samples and noise. The Welsh choir and robovox meets hypnotic bass of Open The Network glides to the acoustics of Jayne Andrews and Filament, before Steam amasses TV ad cassette archives. As Etruria and Lapse Wine's Durutti meets reel-to-reel to the cold wave of War, Children and wasp synth of Helsinki, Grant slowly unfolds a masterpiece.

Looped drum samples, multiple layered to tape, sped up and slowed down for phasing, the title track is a pinnacle of 80s DiY genius. 'Crossroads' multi-sampling Meg leads to the exotica 'muzak' closings of Penetration and Friends. With just 5 albums over 40 years the music of Mr Concept can be a discovery and cherished.

When acclaimed South African musician Guy Buttery first sought out Dr. Kanada Narahari in late 2016, it was as his patient.

“It was a dark time.” Buttery recalls, “I had been bedridden for months and had been suffering from debilitating bouts of fatigue which no diagnosis or medication could help me get to the bottom of. When I first met Kanada, I was at the stage where even picking up my guitar to make music had become a joyless and taxing exercise.”

As Buttery’s searched for a cure, a family member recommended he see Kanada an Ayurvedic doctor who had relocated to South Africa from India and set up a practice in Durban. It was during this consultation, that the musician first experienced how Narahari infused the healing properties of Indian Classical music into his practice. Rather than treating him with a smorgasbord of pharmaceuticals, Narahari played his sitar and set Buttery on a strict daily diet of Raga’s to fast track his recovery.

Buttery was not only struck by his doctor’s musical talents but by the powerful healing properties inherent in his sitar compositions. When he left Narahari’s doctors room that afternoon, he asserts he was feeling decidedly clearer, lighter and stronger.

“Diving into Kanada’s music was definitely one of the reasons I'm still here today.” he admits. “The consistent tonal centre at the heart of Indian Classical Music, literally became my support pillar over this period. A central core of sorts in which to fall back on, strengthen and discover.”

Narahari as it turned out, was not only a prominent music therapist (and one of the only Ayurvedic doctors practicing in South Africa) but like Buttery, a highly accomplished musician with a devoted following back in his homeland.

Born in a small village along the Western Ghats in Karnataka, India, Narahari, at the age of nine, had enrolled to study Carnatic classical vocal and developed an interest in Hindustani Classical music with a particular passion for the sitar. While Buttery had secured his reputation as one of South Africa’s musical treasures, a multi-instrumentalist who commands sold-out performances both locally and internationally and more recently had been awarded the prestigious 2018 Standard Bank Young Artist for Music.
From this consultation, a friendship developed between the two musicians with Buttery soon inviting Narahari to join him in his studio. But it wasn’t all plain sailing in the beginning. While Buttery and Narahari’s sensibilities were very much aligned, there were a range of cultural and musical influences, nuances and inflections that first needed to be navigated and understood.
“I suppose we had to find a common ground.” Buttery says, before adding, “Which in the end turned out to be pretty "uncommon ground" for the both of us.”
It was after a few intensive sessions together that something exhilarating began to emerge. What began as a few idle improvisations soon evolved into feverish and lengthier jams. Whenever time permitted, the musicians would meet, descending deeper into the emerging sounds, while reimagining the realms that existed between their African and Indian heritages.
Over the next few months, the duo would rack up over fifteen hours of recordings in studio, and it was up to Buttery to shape the material into an album which they collectively titled Nāḍī, which Narahari translates from the Sanskrit as "The Channel" or "An Internal River".

During this period, Narahari bestowed upon Buttery, the moniker Guruji while Guy would refer to him, in affectionate return, as Panditji. Each time the musicians would meet, the studio space would be cleared by an impromptu ritual, with Guruji burning African Imphepho while Panditji would chant a Sanskrit mantra dusting Indian Agarbatti clouds over their instruments.

Once the room had been made hazy with this aromatic alchemy (with the ancestors welcomed in) the musicians would pick up their instruments and plunge into shimmering tides of sound. Reflecting on these sessions, Narahari recalls the immense creative freedom he felt throughout: “Guy and I tried to wander as much as possible, without any speculative, preoccupied ideologies or limitations. Love remained at the forefront of our journey together.”

“Those evenings we spent together in the studio” adds Buttery, “felt incredibly rich with purpose and a profound sense of freedom. While improvising, anything could happen and mostly did.”

On a first listen, the tracks on Nāḍī emerge as salty, humid invocations to the inscrutable depths and misty myths of the Indian ocean-- that vast body of water that stretches between, and laps the shorelines, of the artists’ respective homelands.

When asked to describe the sound him and Narahari refined, Buttery prefers to relay a series of evocative images.

“For me” he explains, “Nāḍī is a lighthouse, a beacon that resides at the bottom of the ocean.” As Buttery envisions it, “what once offered light to guide ships to safety, has been submerged and re-purposed by marine life as a coral-reef temple. Similarly, this sunken lighthouse exists as a concealed cenotaph, memorializing the ancient sea-routes and passages that once connected the two distant lands.”

On paper this may sound obscure but listening to the songs, it serves as an apt metaphor.

Across each meditative movement, listeners are able to relive the journey, immersing themselves in a series of incantations, replete with high dynamics, delicate African-Indian inflections and virtuoso string playing of an entirely new order. Further complimenting the fusion of musical dialects are a range of guest artists including Shane Cooper on bass, Thandi Ntuli on vocals, Chris Letcher on organ, Ronan Skillen on tabla and percussion and Julian Redpath on guitar, synth and backing vocals.

Now like the submerged lighthouse, the recordings stand as a monument, a marker and snapshot of this fortuitous meeting, a tribute to the healing gifts of Guruji and Panditji in performance. It’s a process that already, both musicians look back on with reverence and nostalgia.

Buttery ruminates in closing, that when he first met Kanada his illness correlated with the biggest drought South Africa had experienced in many years “…for whatever reason, whenever we would connect and make music together, the sky would tend to open. Even if it was just a few drops. This went on for months, until finally the drought dissipated and my health had been restored.”

By the time the heavens did open across the East Coast, a deep friendship had been forged and with it abundant musical offerings poured down. A treasured sample of which we able to share in every time we press play and immerse ourselves in the sacrosanct musical universe that is Nāḍī.

Double cyan blue vinyl in a gatefold sleeve. Two printed inner sleeves and a six panel oversized booklet. Download card enclosed. The vinyl includes the Deluxe track listing - 17 tracks in total.

U2 return with their hotly anticipated new studio album 'Songs of Experience'. The Island Records priority release completes a stellar year for the Dublin band, following their return to stadiums with the critically acclaimed, sold out 'The Joshua Tree Tour 2017' playing to 2.4 million fans in just 51 shows across Europe and North and South America, as well as the successful 30th Anniversary re-issue of 'The Joshua Tree'.

Recorded in Dublin, New York and Los Angeles, Songs of Experience was completed earlier this year with its subject matter influenced by Brendan Kennelly's* advice to Bono, to ...write as if you're dead'. The result is a collection of songs in the form of intimate letters to places and people close to the singer's heart: family, friends, fans and indeed himself.

Songs Of Experience is the companion release to 2014's 'Songs Of Innocence', the two titles drawing inspiration from a collection of poems, Songs of Innocence and Experience, by the 18th century English mystic and poet William Blake.
Produced by Jacknife Lee and Ryan Tedder, with Steve Lillywhite, Andy Barlow and Jolyon Thomas, the album features a cover image by Anton Corbijn of band-members' teenage children Eli Hewson and Sian Evans.

'The Blackout' and 'You're The Best Thing About Me' were the first songs to be made available from the album. 'You're The Best Thing About Me' is the band's first UK Top 20 airplay record in a decade and has also been remixed by Norwegian superstar DJ and producer Kygo.

*Brendan Kennelly - Irish poet, novelist and Professor Emeritus at Trinity College, Dublin.

I remember the first time I read W.E.B. DuBois eclectic masterpiece The Souls of Black Folk. The way in which this Weberian scholar flowed from personal account to prose to sociological analysis to music and even political intervention has had a lasting impact on my own work as a cultural anthropologist. It made me understand that as scholars we must use different means in order to give expression to the totality of the lived experience: There is only so much in an academic text.

The experience of alienation has always been at the heart of my scholarly and artistic practice. I have used academic writing, lecturing, theatre performance and electronic improvisation to understand and represent it as a theoretical concept, postcolonial condition and lived experience. I believe, some issues need to be told like a story, some analyzed in most abstract terms and others need to be sung like a gospel. The medium changes the message.

In this sense, I guess, I’m a singing cultural anthropologist.

For some time now I have been engaged in the use of dystopian themes and sounds to paint a sonic picture of structural racism and whiteness of our present. But recently I have grown weary of this Ballardian idea of Future Now and the resulting phantasmagorian aesthetics myself and others have been invested in. The widespread availability of Digital Audio Workstations, sequencers, loopers and delay pedals has lead us into a futuristic cul de sac best described by Mark Fisher as the very absence of future.

Likewise, I am most skeptical of the “naturalist” countermovement, the return of folk. Especially in Germany, I am convinced there is no such thing as an innocent or progressive folk musical expression as it is always connected to the idea of the homeland (“Heimat”) which in turn produces the colony. It seems to me, the current zeitgeist is stuck between a “museum of a dystopian future” and a “museum of an idealized past”, but I wanted to sing about the present.

So, I involuntarily returned to pop music in its two-folded meaning of something popular and addressing not an essentialist notion of “Volk” or its woke cousin “communities”, but society as a whole.

I entered the studio just with a few lo-fi sounding melodies and rhythms from my circuit bent CASIO synthesizer. I had no clue what the finished product would sound like. But as soon as Markus started drumming, in a way strangely reminding me of CAN’s Ethnographic Forgery Series, my uptight sounds were suddenly embedded within a warmer global sound spectrum. The alien at home and abroad and the strange overlapped: We were seeing one and the same sound differently but were gently held together by Tobias’ producing.

Making music is about building coalitions. It’s about suggesting an articulation of styles, sounds and people, that hasn’t materialized, yet, but may help us in the current crisis: I wanted Amon Düül II to send their drug induced archangel thunderbird to rescue the refugees, that had tried to escape the police by climbing up a tree in Munich in 2016. I wanted Sun Ra to taunt far-right protesters in Chemnitz in 2018. And I wanted to mourn the loss of a former kebab shop cum discotheque that served as proof that there is such a thing as a minoritarian universalism.

SCHLAND IS THE PLACE FOR ME is a pop album featuring songs of alienation, not only as a tragic experience, but as a pop-cultural promise. Maybe Bill Callahan sung it best, “I am Star Wars today, I am no longer English grey”. I want those who suffer from alienation to stand in alliance with those who seek alienation, and vice-versa. A coalition, that tolerates the possibility that we are moved by the same groove for contrary reasons.

Fehler Kuti
Munich, Autumn 2019

Music by Julian Warner, Markus Acher & Tobias Siegert
Saxophone on RINDERMARKT by Franz Brunner
Trombone on RINDERMARKT and IL by Matthias Götz
Recorded and mixed by Tobias Siegert in Munich.
SONTAGSFAVORIT mixed by Dario Albiez in Dusseldorf.
Mastered by Duphonic in Augsburg.
Artwork by Atelier Grande, Munich.

Skyf Connection (pronounced skAyf) was a short lived project by long time friends Anthony Mthembu and Enoch Nondala. At the time they were working for Annic Music, an independent label run by married couple Anne and Nic Blignaut. Although the label was known mostly for Zulu, Sotho, Tsonga and other traditional styles, they had a few Disco releases on the label including groups like Keith Hutchinson’s Focus and Enoch’s discovery Lena, who went on to have huge success under the name Ebony a few years later.

In 1984, when an artist didn’t show up for a booked session they decided to make use of the studio time and began working on a demo. At the time Anthony and Enoch had been playing for a year at a new club called Gamsho, located on a farm on the outskirts of Kliptown Soweto. Along with Blackie Sibisi, Sepate Mokoena and Elijah “chippa” Khumalo they made up the resident house band. Due to cultural boycotts and American artists refusing to perform in the country, locals took it upon themselves to fill the market with the American sound the crowds demanded. The demo they recorded at Blue Tree Studios was going to be their product they could use to promote their brand of the American sound. They then took the demo to Universal Studios where their friend and trusted engineer Jan “fast fingers” Smit was working. It would be here that they would polish their demo into something they could take to their bosses and have pressed. Equipped with a DX 7, Linn Drum and some Juno synthesizers they were on their way. Jan lived up to his name and programmed the drums, it is rumoured he could program in almost real time, a skill that translated to the local arcade where he held high scores on many machines. Enoch would be singing and playing guitar while Anthony would do all the Bass and Keyboards. The result was 4 funky party anthems with synth work like no other recording at the time. Their take on what they believed the crowd would want to hear at the beloved club they called home.

From start to finish the 4 tracks portray what would have been a standard night at the Gamshu. Although the club would open earlier and the standard hours of most clubs was 6 to 6 , the band would start playing at 10pm. With their standard set time and Anthony and Enoch unique view on what a Disco should be, they chose the motto Ten to Ten as the album title because those were the hours when they were the stars and Disco ruled the dance floor. To get to the club was a bit difficult, you needed to drive along an empty road where thieves waited for any patrons trying their luck walking after dark. Since there was no transport during the night, the safest way to get home was to wait till the next morning to walk home. Even though in the summer months of Johannesburg light begins to peek in just after 4am, crowds refused to leave and stayed enjoying good music and company until 10am. The lead off track “Let’s Freak Together” has powerful lyrics encouraging people to let go of their worries, put aside any differences and let the music bring everyone to freak and dance together. The whole album is about the joy we can all feel when we share the same moments and how music can bring people together in a unique way, a philosophy shared with the original nightclubs of 70s New York. This approach to music is where the name Skyf Connection comes from, translating from slang to mean the connection we create through sharing, in this case Music and good times.

Skyf Connection would go on to play at Gamsho till the club’s closure in 1986. In those years their popularity lead to being booked for private events like weddings and birthday parties, as well as gigs in some other venues like Mofolo Hall. They would share the stage with many artists through the years learning artist’s songs and providing support as a backing band. After the club closed Anthony would go on to join the house band at The Pelican, another famous club located in Orlando East, as well as dabbling with songwriting for artists like Phumi Maduna and helping Enoch on many projects through the years. Enoch would ditch live music altogether and immerse himself in studio work, starting full time as a house producer and A&R for the recently formed Ream Music. He would go on to produce hit albums for pop artists like Percy Kay and Makwerhu but made his mark discovering countless artists that would become stars in the traditional market. They would remain friends until Anthony’s passing in 2016 and although Anthony is no longer with us his spirit lives in the grooves he left on this one of a kind record. His wife Vinolia will be accepting his portion of the profits on his behalf.

After a three year absence, Kasper Bjørke returns to hfn music with a sublime new double EP entitled
“Nothing Gold Can Stay”. Having followed a deeply personal ambient music path that last year led to
the release of “Kasper Bjørke Quartet: The Fifty Eleven Project” on Kompakt Records, (named 5th
Best Contemporary Album 2018 in The Guardian), Kasper has found his way back to producing some
of his signature leftfield danceable beats, which “the past decade has seen Bjørke steadily rising amongst the ranks of artful, eclectic electronic producers…” (XLR8R).The Double EP “Nothing Gold Can Stay” explores both the analogue and organic side of his production work on Side A - while Side B reflects on sounds that he would play today, in one of his nightclub DJ sets. Side A contains four collaborations with four friends from LA, New York and Copenhagen. “Water” feat. Toby Ernest, the slow mo opener to the EP, revives the partnership with Toby that was last seen on 2014’s After Forever album (on the single “Rush”). Toby also provides the vocals on the cover version of Alessi Brothers’ 1975 classic “Seabird” - a track that came about through Kasper’s friendship and musical synergy with DJ and vinyl digger Christian d’Or, who is lead crooning while Toby delivers his signature falsetto. The “Seabird” cover adds a distinct contemporary feeling to the original version while staying true and respectful to the delivery and mood of the songs core. The 2nd half of the release, Side B, is directly aimed at the floor. Having stepped away from releasing club jams for a few years, Kasper is clearly enjoying getting back to the business of making people move. Side B of Nothing Gold Can Stay is both a testament to Kasper’s versatility as a producer and an all-out dancefloor assault, made with precision and sensitivity.

Analog Fluids of Sonic Black Holes is a new full-length by Philadelphiabased artist, poet, and musician, Camae Ayewa, who performs under the name Moor Mother.
A sonic black hole is a place where fluid moves so fast that it traps all sound.
To be entangled in its gravity is to feel the pressure of an unjust system -- corruption so powerful that it drowns out whatever you throw at it. Analog fluids are resistance -- individuals who work to create and preserve community in the face of immense darkness and cosmic pressure.
Begun in 2017 as a sonic counterpart to Ayewa’s art show at New York performance space, The Kitchen, Analog Fluids was refined through exhaustive touring. It tracks Ayewa’s emergence into an expanded artistic ecosystem, with contributions from a distinctive set of friends and collaborators like Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, Zonal), King Britt, Saul Williams, Giant Swan, and Bookworms

LIMITED EDITION 500 ONLY COLOURED VINYL LP WITH DOWNLOAD CODE IN GLOSS FINISHED 350GSM BOARD SLEEVE

Way back in 2004, ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO U.F.O. released the CD only album 'Minstrel In The Galaxy' on Riot Season Records. The decision to make it CD only at the time was down to the epic title track being almost 42 minutes in length. Fast forward fifteen years and new technologies and we have the first ever vinyl release of this classic album, with a new edited especially for vinyl mix by main man Makoto Kawabata.
 
What we said back then ...
 
‘Minstrel In The Galaxy’ is the sound of the newly slimmed down four-piece AMT recorded in their smoke filled basement Studio in Nagoya during summer 2004. The sounds captured on these three tracks are the first post-Cotton Casino AMT workouts. The diminutive beer and cigarettes goddess has upped sticks and moved to the USA to start a new life and plan her solo career. We’ll miss her that’s for sure but we can’t worry about that now, AMT have another ten albums to lay down before New Year.
 
The AMT line up for this album features the core trio of Makoto Kawabata (Guitar), Atsushi Tsuyama (Monster Bass), Hiroshi Higashi (Guitar & effects) and new permanent drummer (and ex-Mainliner man) Hajime Koie (Drums). The free jazz style drumming from Hajime has helped give AMT their sense of improvisation back, most of their work is improvised and recorded live to tape which gives that great loose feel they have that takes them off on tangents and makes each new record that little bit different from the last. And with this new studio album I think we can safely say it’s something of a new direction.
 
They’re joined on this album by Japanese underground queens AFRIRAMPO, who’ve just finished a tour with Sonic Youth and look set for big things themselves in the near future. Musically this album is a slight departure for AMT, anyone buying it expecting a head-melting riff heavy record are going to be disappointed.

To these ears ‘Minstrel In The Galaxy’ sounds darker and more stripped down that any previous AMT release. The title track alone lasts a staggering 41 minutes, over the course of which the band take our heads in a few gentle directions before letting rip towards it’s crushing finale. For me it’s the gentle openings that make me tick, I love the way it rolls for what seems like ever just going round and round in your head. You almost expect it to explode way before it does and that my friends is the art of foreplay AMT style!

Black Truffle invite you to an evening of drunken revelry in the Batcave! After a chance meeting at a local supermarket in Poughkeepsie, New York, Joe McPhee and Graham Lambkin have performed together as a duo extensively in recent years, in addition to their joint work excavating some of the wildest tapes from McPhee’s archive for Lambkin’s now defunct Kye label. Live in the Batcave documents an evening the two friends spent together in the company of Joe’s brother Charlie and Lambkin’s son Oliver in November 2017 at Charlie’s house in Poughkeepsie. The LP captures seven increasingly drunken snapshots of the four shooting the breeze, playing flutes and whistles, drumming on anything at hand, and playing records.

Edited together in Lambkin’s distinctive style of lo-fi domestic tape collage, the multiple simultaneous cassette recordings of the shenanigans abruptly cut in and out and fall out of sync, creating disorientating, woozy echoes. Mics are bumped, stories are told, drinks are poured, text messages arrive, and AACM-esque flute jams are interrupted by violent bursts of laughter and wet-mouthed sound poetry. All the while, classic soul records play, initially in the background, but coming increasingly to the fore until the record culminates in a strangely moving free-associative singalong. Presented in a gatefold sleeve with extensive photographic documentation and liner notes from Joe McPhee, Live in the Batcave is a truly unique document that exists somewhere between free jazz, audio verité, performance art, and everyday life. File next to your copy of Das Kümmerling Trio. ‘Our music was born from the sounds of jazz, funk, soul, noise … sounds with no other reason so exist, except because they did, sounds which occurred like putting one step in front of the other to see if the way was clear to take the next step. The plan was, there is no plan, just start at the beginning, end at the end and party like it’s 1999’ – Joe McPhee

With its fourth catalogue number, Steinlach returns to the vinyl format with a remix EP. On board are international friends of the label, who layed hands on Wice's originals with outstanding re- interpretations. While the A-side contains two groovy and club-oriented remixes of "Just kiddin", the trippy flipside focuses on the second outcome of the label and refers to the two pieces "Absent" and "Hertz".

The record opens with a fast-paced and jacking "Just Kiddin" version by Deep'a and Biri. The two guys from Tel Aviv re-interprate the clubby aspect of the piece, furnish it with a portion of percussions and accompany it with a volatile beat. Discharging the track with a big bang, they're leaving the listener with no chance but to move energetically to the groove patterns while cherishing the original lead melody.

Just like Deep'a and Biri, Jon Hester bets on the energy and the recognition value of the original synth line. As typical for Jon, he gives a more Chicago-style housey and bouncy touch to the composition. The lead is getting chopped, re-interpreted and re-arranged into a new groove and melody pattern, sure to inspire the floor to shake and to catapult everyone around into a frisky dancing mood. Suddenly, the well-known arpeggio of the original comes in and makes for the climax of this brilliant remix.

With side B, the club aspect of the record might not be left behind, but moved into more stripped and trippy terrains. The B1 track is fashioned as a ruthless "Absent" version, unmistakably having Refracted's writing all over it. The smallest variations of the synth line, drones, and pads, without resorting to typical drum rack aspects, find their way deep inside the listener's head, and draw them into their subtle rhythm. The unapologetic roughness of the interpretation is striking and makes it a brilliant peaktime weapon.

Rounding up the whole EP, the last remix of the record is a wonderful re-interpretation by the talented Australian that is Mosam Howieson. He ministered to Wice's personal favourite piece and crafted a loving and deep version of "Hertz", which translates the magic of the original into own words and emotions, adds a subtle groove to it, then invites to listen more carefully. One quickly dives into a hopeful world in which a certain magic seems to be present, and where everything seems to be alright. Be it as a perfect last piece after a long fulfilling evening, or as the outstanding means to make the sun rise in the morning-Mosam's interpretation sure hits the spot.

Special thanks go out to our close friends Simon Sandleitner who is always in charge of the great artworks and Roger Reuter (Roger23) for having always an open ear, his helpful advises and his thought-out criticism.

The legendary Blade is back on vinyl with this limited edition 7" and digital release from Boot Records! These are 2 killer tracks from the archives, "Dark Friends" and "Make it Connect", both with cuts from Boots Jazz T. The cover art is by Stilts cementing this as a record not to be missed!



General Information

Title: DARK FRIENDS

Lyrics Written & Performed by: Blade

Produced by: The Manos

Recorded @: The Lion's Den

Mastered by: N/A

Label: 691 Influential

Catalogue Number: N/A

Recorded: 2003

Blade had met a couple of young guys whilst selling his records on the streets around 1991 and kept in touch on a regular basis as they both had a love for the creative side of music making. At this time the guys were just fans of Blade's music but one day turned up at Blade's flat to produce a beat with Blade's help and ever since then have been good friends and later went on to be called THE MANOS

12 years later and with the release of Blade's "STORMS ARE BREWING" album, his distribution company had declared bankruptcy and left him on the verge of losing his house. Not being able to provide for his family, he called up on his close friends THE MANOS to produce a couple tracks while he focussed more on just writing and performing the lyrics while doing what he needed to do to make sure the bills were paid and his house saved from repossession

The first helping of their production skills was showcased on Blade's "SOLDIERS" track which also featured LIFE MC & RESPEK BA. "SOLDIERS" was officially released in 2003 and around the same time Blade & THE MANOS hit the studio again and recorded "DARK FRIENDS"


Due to constant unexpected and sudden unpredictable changes in Blade's personal life, "DARK FRIENDS" never got to see an official release and was shelved as an incomplete demo until years later when it saw an underground release on "BOOT RECORDS". At this point the track was still missing the scratching and now again almost 10 years later and with Blade's very close friendship with DJ JAZZ T and with the addition of the scratching by the one and same, "DARK FRIENDS" now complete with sharp and to the point cutting finally sees the light of day.

Blade retired in 2006 and has been off the radar since until December 2018 when he became a little more active on Facebook and has reconnected with a lot of the fans and friends, with which obvious conversations about unreleased material was bound to surface and as a result "DARK FRIENDS" now is finally released on a limited edition 7" vinyl

General Information

Title: MAKE IT CONNECT

Lyrics Written & Performed by: Blade

Produced by: Blade

Recorded @: The Lion's Den

Mastered by: N/A

Label: 691 Influential

Catalogue Number: N/A

Recorded: 1997

"MAKE IT CONNECT" is one of those rare demos that Blade just threw together in about an hour to pass time and over the years turned out to be one of his favourite tracks, but at the time being completely broke and homeless, living in the basement of a local equipment store in New Cross, releasing this was simply not possible. This track has been sat on a cassette tape for over 20 years and having been played over and over again the quality has completely worn down. Unfortunately the version on the cassette tape was the only version available so separating the channels to get a proper mix is not possible either

However, thanks again to DJ JAZZ T that only made it more interesting to make something of this gem of a track. Blade having been retired now for 13 years, it would only really take one of two things to see Blade on tracks again for public consumption

Can it really be thirty years since The Brand New Heavies first sashayed into the public eye with a romantic’s heart, a hedonist’s spirit and a Superfly sensibility?

A heady cocktail of Chic-style funk-pop, sunshine grooves and scorched soul balladry, the release of TBNH on September 6th sees The Brand New Heavies writing a new chapter in what has been an illustrious journey whilst also marking a return to their spiritual home, Acid Jazz Records.

Today The Brand New Heavies share a breath-taking version of Kendrick Lamar’s These Walls recorded with long-time associate and vocalist N’Dea Davenport and produced by uber-fan Mark Ronson. It was that line-up of the band that had originally brought the funk into his life having caught their show in New York in 1991, later inviting them to play at his 40th birthday party. Insistent once more to reconvene that line-up, successfully reuniting N’Dea and The Heavies for his production of this track for their 30th-anniversary album.

The album’s heart, both musically and physically is a friendship that can be traced back to the mid-Eighties - more specifically the shared experiences growing into adulthood on the western reaches of London for Simon Bartholomew (guitar) and Andrew Levy (bass) and a return to the formula that saw the band score sixteen Top 40 hits and three million album sales.

Refined, reimagined and revisited, TBNH was recorded under the watchful eye of producer Sir Tristan Longworth, as Andrew elaborates; “as fathers of young kids, time was important, and we needed someone to crack the whip.” Adding further with a grin; “he also makes these amazing gin and tonics with chilli’s in. The pair also decided to feature various vocalists on these tracks, not only reuniting with Heavies alumni, N’Dea Davenport and Siedah Garret but collaborating with soul legends Beverley Knight and Angie Stone alongside current singer Angela Ricci and new boy on the block, label mate Laville – to present a gilt-edged collection of songs making arguably the best album of their career. Summed up by its cover artwork- shot in the suitably louche environs of ultra-hip nightspot Annabel’s – Simon explains with a smile; “It’s a bit clubby, a little bit sleazy, with a bit of luxury and a smidgen of street.”

“In October 2018 we took several recordings in and around Eddie Prévost’s home village of Matching Tye in Essex, where he has been living for the past fifty years. The majority of the pieces that made it to this LP took place in All Saints Church, High Laver, the burial site of John Locke. This fact was notable in the choice of title for this set of recordings, and it seemed necessary to put forward Eddie’s own take on Locke that he offered in our correspondences:

“Scholars of Locke’s philosophy will be familiar with the idea of mixing labour with materials as a fore-running notion of possessive individualism and basis for private property. Such ‘mixing’ is a persuasive description of a creative act. But the theory is more worthy of a social dimension.” As for the individual titles for each of the studies on the LP, each takes ideas and elements from music past. For example, MaxPlus makes a nod towards bebop pioneering drummer Max Roach who offered an earlier hit-hat study. Eddie utilises such examples, offering further creative insights which can then be woven back into the common wealth of sound. The final track, returning to the bowed cymbal method of the first, was recorded outdoors on a breezy green, and is pictured on the back cover of the sleeve. It was an attempt to capture the playing in its ‘metamusical’ relationship with the untempered sounds of the external environment.

Eddie has written about Metamusic in his book The First Concert (Copula, 2011): invoking childlike ‘protomusical’ behaviour, or the sense of music that a person might possess before the inevitable influences come to play any role in their productive, and appreciative, musical development.

Ross Lambert provided a few words along side his cover drawing entitled ‘The Metamusician’: “The eyes would symbolise for me things like searching, examining, closeness or friendship I think; engagement with the world. Decisions in making the image were completely intuitive, this is just me looking for the meaning, post-analysing, post rationalising.””

- Daniel Kordik & Edward Lucas, March 2019

Mysterious Sydney songstress Justine recorded one album in ’79, which was never officially released. Left Ear have chosen two tracks for a 45 RPM 12” single, which they feel best highlights Justine’s unique vocal talents and songwriting ability. Here the crafty songstress wields melancholic soul and a funky Jazz inspired number with personal and reflective lyrics, both with an intimate and honest approach.

Elusive Sydney songstress Justine (Bradley) almost entirely wrote, produced and arranged her sole LP in ’79, an album that was funded by a radio station as the beneficiary for emerging talent. The music was created specifically for radio play without any intention of being manufactured. Luckily however, a friend with ties to a pressing plant known aptly as ‘Midnite Flite’, managed to sneak into said plant one evening and press up a small number for the enjoyment of family, friends & those involved.
Left Ear have decided to release what they consider to be the two most significant tracks from this release onto a 12” single, now for the enjoyment of all. The A-Side will feature the haunting ‘Wordless Songs’, a melancholic soulful number which according to Justine explores the “capacity to comprehend a partner’s internal quest for authenticity and connection”. The B-side ‘Mama Didn’t Tell Ya’ is more uplifting in both tempo and arrangements comprising an extended outro, while the lyrics remain just as personal and reflective.