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KIZZY is the breakthrough EP from rising East London artist Bel Cobain, one of the most distinctive new voices emerging from the UK alternative R&B and soul landscape. Written across 18 months of late-night ideas, scattered sessions, and quiet breakthroughs, the project captures an artist in motion. Following a string of singles that introduced her raw lyricism, KIZZY marks a confident step forward with intimate, sharp, and melodically rich songs that sit in the space between endings and new beginnings.

Across these six tracks, Bel moves with striking emotional honesty through a rich palette that encompasses rock’s bite, jazz’s looseness, R&B warmth, hip hop rhythm, folk intimacy, and fractured breaks. She blends conversational storytelling with her distinct smoky vocals, reflecting on change, learning to let go, and finding light in the aftermath. The EP invites the listener to listen closely to the cracks, the softness, and the pulse of the beauty that still rises when a chapter turns.

Bel Cobain is fast becoming known for her ability to connect deeply with audiences, pairing classic songwriting instincts with a contemporary sonic edge. Early support has come from tastemaker radio and press, with momentum building across streaming platforms as listeners discover her unique perspective on vulnerability and self-awareness. Released as Brownswood Recordings celebrates its 20th year, KIZZY continues the label’s tradition of championing the most singular artists.

Marking a significant milestone in her career, this release is Bel Cobain's first-ever record. It is presented as a Collector's Edition Limited Edition 1xLP gatefold vinyl, pressed on Terracotta colored wax. With short-form video campaigns, targeted digital marketing, radio support, and a growing live presence, this release positions Bel Cobain as one of the UK’s most compelling new artists for 2026.

5th solo-album from former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist! 1st album release in over 5 years. Guest appearances from Doro, Matt Barlow, Ronnie Romero & Dino Jelusick. Gus. G. will be touring extensively all over the world during 2026. Gus G. is featured as a playable character in the mobile-game Rock Kommander. The game has a global reach with hundreds of thousands of downloads, and will be promoting Gus G. and Firewind extensively throughout 2026.

Das fünfte Soloalbum des ehemaligen Ozzy Osbourne-Gitarristen! Das erste Album seit über fünf Jahren. Mit Gastauftritten von Doro, Matt Barlow, Ronnie Romero und Dino Jelusick. Gus G. wird 2026 ausgiebig auf Welttournee gehen. Gus G. ist als spielbarer Charakter im Handyspiel Rock Kommander vertreten. Das Spiel hat eine globale Reichweite mit Hunderttausenden von Downloads und wird Gus G. und Firewind im Laufe des Jahres 2026 ausgiebig promoten.

5th solo-album from former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist! 1st album release in over 5 years. Guest appearances from Doro, Matt Barlow, Ronnie Romero & Dino Jelusick. Gus. G. will be touring extensively all over the world during 2026. Gus G. is featured as a playable character in the mobile-game Rock Kommander. The game has a global reach with hundreds of thousands of downloads, and will be promoting Gus G. and Firewind extensively throughout 2026.

Das fünfte Soloalbum des ehemaligen Ozzy Osbourne-Gitarristen! Das erste Album seit über fünf Jahren. Mit Gastauftritten von Doro, Matt Barlow, Ronnie Romero und Dino Jelusick. Gus G. wird 2026 ausgiebig auf Welttournee gehen. Gus G. ist als spielbarer Charakter im Handyspiel Rock Kommander vertreten. Das Spiel hat eine globale Reichweite mit Hunderttausenden von Downloads und wird Gus G. und Firewind im Laufe des Jahres 2026 ausgiebig promoten.

Swedish producer Robert Leiner’s landmark 1994 album ‘Visions Of The Past’ finally gets a vinyl LP reissue on Apollo, the ‘ambient division’ of R&S Records. Long regarded as one of the pivotal ambient/electronic long players, the album has stood the test of time and serves as a reminder on how potent the early ambient techno releases were.

Leiner was a central figure in the early European techno and ambient landscape, carving out a distinctive sound that bridged atmospheric depth and rhythmic intensity. Known for his releases as The Source Experience and contributions to the R&S/Apollo catalogue, as a producer and engineer, Leiner’s work resonated across the underground, earning him a reputation for visionary, emotionally charged productions that stood apart from his contemporaries.

'Visions Of The Past’ captures this duality perfectly with expansive ambient passages that drift into hypnotic techno, while layers of intricate sound design and pulsating low end create a timeless and immersive listening experience. Tracks unfold with patience and precision, like the 12-minute-long marine epic ‘Aqua Viva’, balancing introspection with kinetic dance energy, and the new age ambience of ‘Dream Or Reality’ and ‘Northern Dark’ embodying the forward-thinking ethos that defined Apollo’s golden era.

Three decades on, this long out of print album finally returns on vinyl format, freshly remastered and restored, reaffirming its status as an essential document of electronic music’s evolution and Robert Leiner’s enduring influence.

‘Visions Of The Past’ by Robert Leiner is available on Apollo Records from 7th November 2025.

"Dieses Jahr feiert "Dirty Old Hip Hop" sein 20-jähriges Jubiläum, und wir feiern mit einer Neuauflage dieses absoluten Klassikers. Das ursprünglich 2006 erschienene und für die Worldwide Awards nominierte Album ist eine meisterhafte Sammlung von Tracks von Marc Mac (4hero). Mit den Musikern Somatik und Luke Parkhouse sowie den Rappern Voice und Capital A hat Marc Hip-Hop-Breaks & Beats neu interpretiert und in Grooves eingebettet, die den gesampleten Original-Tunes Tribut zollen. Dieser postmoderne Ansatz hat ein Album mit zeitloser Musik hervorgebracht, das Epochen überdauert und gleichermaßen frisch wie vertraut klingt. Und es funktioniert einfach." - Bob Hill. Remastertes 180g Doppelvinyl.

Just when you thought you had heard it all.... Evil Grave were an exceptionally unique underground rock band from Malta that shook the islands with uncompromising attitude and dark imagery. In the early 1970s they ruled the Maltese scene and were voted best band in national polls. Heavily influenced by Black Sabbath and early progressive rock with a traditional Maltese flavour, Evil Grave never released any material during their existence. Several low budget demos were recorded at the time but, over the following years, the name Evil Grave simply vanished into obscurity. Until now! During a recent vacation to the islands, label owner Lee Dorrian became aware of the band and has spent the past three years tracking down as much information about them as he possibly could. With the blessing of original guitarist/songwriter John E Zammit Pace, we are excited to release this ungodly artefact upon the work for the very first time. Death From Malta, gathers together all known existing material from the band, the sound quality of which is decidedly lo-fi but, if anything, this only adds to the mysterious vibe of this simply enigmatic band.

2026 Repress

Gaudi’s Jazz Gone Dub is a masterclass in genre fusion, seamlessly blending the improvisational essence of jazz with the heavy atmospheric grooves of dub. Known for his eclectic approach to music production, Gaudi pushes the boundaries yet again, creating a sonic landscape that feels both nostalgic and refreshingly innovative.

Four years in the making, from the opening track it’s clear that Jazz Gone Dub is more than just a mashup of styles—it's a thoughtful exploration of the intersections between two rich musical traditions.

Gaudi’s multi-instrumental talents are on full display, and the presence of reggae royalty is palpable, courtesy of rootsy melodies from David Hinds (Steel Pulse), Jah Wobble’s iconic bass grooves, Ernest Ranglin’s intricate guitar lines and Sly & Robbie’s rhythmic genius. Add Sardinia’s Train to Roots band, Manu Chao collaborator Roy Paci, veteran guitarist Marcus Upbeat, Mr Woodnote and Tim Hutton’s brass work, Gavin Tate-Lovery’s sultry sax and flute, Horseman’s percussive flair plus Colin Edwin and Vlastur’s serious basslines, and the
result is a rhythmic foundation that’s both solid and fluid, allowing the jazz elements to float freely above the dub undercurrents.

Despite this star-studded line-up, Gaudi remains the glue that holds this gem together: his production is meticulous yet organic, allowing each track to breathe and evolve naturally. The use of space, delays and reverb—a hallmark of dub music—is expertly handled, giving the album a dreamy, immersive quality. Tracks like Susceptible and Alabaster Moon showcase Gaudi’s ability to create mood and atmosphere without sacrificing melodic and rhythmic complexity.

In Jazz Gone Dub Gaudi has crafted an album that feels both timeless and forward-thinking, a celebration of musical synergy where the free-spirit of jazz meets the deep resonance of dub. Whether you’re a fan of either genre or simply appreciate masterful musicianship and innovative production, this album is a must-listen.

File under Boy Harsher Jae Matthews lends her unmistakable voice to a striking reinterpretation of Buzz Kull’s cult classic “Man On The Beat.” Built for midnight drives and neon-lit highways, Matthews’ version transforms the track into a dark, hypnotic pulse of tension and atmosphere, carried by her haunting, commanding vocal. Released as a special limited-edition 12" by Heartworm Press, the single reimagines the underground favorite with a colder, more cinematic edge.

On the B-side, Los Angeles duo Spike Hellis deliver an extended remix, stretching the track into a dancefloor-ready transmission of ecstatic synth and rhythm. Matthews is widely known as the vocalist of the dark electronic project Boy Harsher, but here she steps into a different light, channeling the nocturnal spirit of the original while making the song unmistakably her own.

The North Carolina trio Setting brings together their substantial collective skills as musicians and their collaborative mindset to bear in their inventive and rich improvisations. Known for work in Mind Over Mirrors, Califone, Black Twig Pickers, Pelt, Peeesseye, Sylvan Esso, and Jake Xerxes Fussell, multi- instrumentalists Jaime Fennelly, Nathan Bowles and Joe Westerlund subvert expectations while creating a sense of wonderment. Their intricate interplay of synthesizers, cassette loops, banjo, keyboards, electronics, zithers, and a litany of percussive instruments form a tactile amalgam of celestial transcendence and terrestrial rhythm, a loamy pulse fluidly guiding every minute fluctuation in feel. Setting"s self-titled album is a definitive statement of their improvisational acumen meeting compositional rigor, a robust wellspring of hypnagogic grooves and mosaiced textures. The eponymous album from Setting is the product of three intuitive players and deep listeners, artists who use those skills to create transformative music. The trio shirk any broader categorizations, as their unique dynamic pieces are alight with arrangements urgent and smoldering, patient and emotive.

The North Carolina trio Setting brings together their substantial collective skills as musicians and their collaborative mindset to bear in their inventive and rich improvisations. Known for work in Mind Over Mirrors, Califone, Black Twig Pickers, Pelt, Peeesseye, Sylvan Esso, and Jake Xerxes Fussell, multi- instrumentalists Jaime Fennelly, Nathan Bowles and Joe Westerlund subvert expectations while creating a sense of wonderment. Their intricate interplay of synthesizers, cassette loops, banjo, keyboards, electronics, zithers, and a litany of percussive instruments form a tactile amalgam of celestial transcendence and terrestrial rhythm, a loamy pulse fluidly guiding every minute fluctuation in feel. Setting"s self-titled album is a definitive statement of their improvisational acumen meeting compositional rigor, a robust wellspring of hypnagogic grooves and mosaiced textures. The eponymous album from Setting is the product of three intuitive players and deep listeners, artists who use those skills to create transformative music. The trio shirk any broader categorizations, as their unique dynamic pieces are alight with arrangements urgent and smoldering, patient and emotive.

Yearly compilation series RADAR KEROXEN return with its sixth volume of theme-driven releases, continuing to chart the fractured sonic terrain of the Canary Islands’ undergrowth.

After digging through indie, psychedelia, shoegaze, and site-specific drone, Vol. 6 dives headfirst into the after-hours circuitry of the islas afortunadas, assembling a hand-picked selection of underground club mutations from five long-standing operators within the local electronic ecosystem.

If Vol. 5 was shaped by the cavernous resonance of Santa Cruz’s obsolete gasoline tank, Vol. 6 is fuelled by late-night club aesthetics and mid-90s hardware obsession. Opening the record, Dancelwerk — one of the archipelago’s early modular practitioners — delivers tightly wound structures nodding to Warp-era golden agefuturism and southern Tenerife’s rave boom. Cmos34 follow with their first-ever published material, injecting instability into the system through improvised techno rituals built on friction and feedback.

Jorganes drags the narrative deeper into hypnotic territory, stripping club music down to its skeletal pulse and channeling disciplined repetition and late-90s minimalism into austere, trance-inducing momentum. From Gran Canaria, Sunday German Flowers bends the mood toward cinematic dub: heavy low-end pressure, spoken word, and nocturnal atmospheres stitched into slow-burning club noir.

Closing the circle, Nico Hernández pulls the compilation back to volcanic ground with ambient compositions shaped by Lanzarote’s raw geological landscape — basalt echoes, tectonic silence, and island isolation rendered in sound.

As always, the release is housed in a post-tropical collage artwork by Pura Márquez.

Master by Daniel García
Artwork by Pura Marquéz

On "Enduring Sonance," saxophonist and flutist Steve Wilson reflects on a lifetime of lyrical, deeply felt songs drawn from jazz, pop, and film—brought to life by an all-star ensemble featuring Renee Rosnes, Joe Locke, Jay Anderson, and Kendrick Scott. *** Certain songs have a way of lingering in the imagination—resonating long after we’ve last heard them, sometimes for a lifetime. On his breathtaking new album "Enduring Sonance," veteran saxophonist and flutist Steve Wilson celebrates the music that has left the deepest imprint on his musical life. “Some of the tunes on this record have stayed with me for, in some cases, over 50 years from the time that I first heard them,” Wilson says. “I wanted to put some music out there that people can connect with, no matter what kind of music they like.” Originally conceived as a ballads project, Enduring Sonance evolved into something broader and more personal. Rather than focusing on tempo or style, Wilson gravitated toward a sense of lyricism—music whose emotional clarity and melodic resonance endure across genres, decades, and listening habits.

To realize this vision, Wilson assembled a deeply intuitive ensemble featuring pianist and arranger Renee Rosnes, vibraphonist Joe Locke, bassist Jay Anderson, and drummer Kendrick Scott, with special guest Kevin Newton (French horn, Imani Winds) appearing on two tracks. Each musician brings a rare sensitivity to melody, texture, and space, allowing the material to unfold with warmth, restraint, and quiet authority. The repertoire draws from a wide musical landscape, including works by close collaborators and modern jazz masters Billy Childs and George Cables, alongside enduring songs by Michel Legrand, Quincy Jones, Milton Nascimento, Gino Vannelli, Bill Lee, and Eliane Elias. These are not standards in the traditional sense, but deeply personal selections—songs that have accompanied Wilson through different chapters of his life. The album opens with Childs’ “Quiet Girl,” its subtle rhythmic motion enhanced by Newton’s luminous French horn, and travels through cinematic ballads, soulful grooves, and reflective lyricism. The title Enduring Sonance speaks both to the lasting resonance of these songs and to Wilson’s enduring musical relationships—most notably with Rosnes, whom he has known for nearly four decades and whose sensitive arrangements help unify the album’s diverse repertoire. “These songs are the soundtrack of my life,” Wilson says. “I’d love it if listeners came away from this album with the same kind of enduring sound and feeling.”

Limited run of cassettes, full on body print & double sided J-card, design by Ciaran Birch, 49m30s each side.

Marylou is a French DJ and sound artist based in Berlin, known for her boundary-free, anything-goes approach to DJing. Previously affiliated with Morphine Records, YOUTH, and Ominira, she’s also part of the Wheel of Fortune collective alongside rRoxymore, CCL, and Nono Gigsta.

Her tape for Accidental Meetings drifts effortlessly through dub, noise, traditional folk, improv jazz, footwork, and breakcore—never sitting still for long. The tape clocks in at just under 100 minutes, packed with offbeat selections that give a deeper glimpse into her ever-shifting sonic world.

In Sheep’s Clothing announces the long-awaited vinyl pressing of Marc Leclair’s beloved 2005 album Musique pour 3 femmes enceintes. The album will also be available on streaming for the first time via Community Music Group.

For years after Marc Leclair released Musique pour 3 femmes enceintes, he heard from listeners who had lived with the record in an unusually intimate way. Many described how the music became part of the emotional landscape of the months leading to birth. “I never expected that,” Leclair says. “Many women told me they listened to the record throughout their pregnancies. They said it made a real difference, that it helped them. It became more than just a record.”

First issued on CD in the early 2000s, Musique pour 3 femmes enceintes (Music for Three Pregnant Women) now returns in a new edition from In Sheep’s Clothing Hi-Fi, appearing on vinyl for the first time as a double LP. The record is being pressed in Detroit at Archer Record Pressing, the historic plant behind deep-groove classics by Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Underground Resistance, UR’s Jeff Mills, and J Dilla.

Listeners who know the Montreal-based Leclair through his better-known work as Akufen might be surprised by the tone here. During the same years he was shaping the intricate micro-sampling tracks that made Akufen a cult figure on labels including Perlon, Force Inc. and Trapez, Leclair was quietly developing this far more personal project. The meticulous craftsmanship remained the same, though the focus shifted from the hyper-detailed cut-up rhythms of his dance records toward something slower and more atmospheric. “I always compare my work to a jeweler,” Leclair says. “It’s really very precise. I’m a bit of a detail freak. I can spend hours or days on just one phrase in one song. Everything has to be perfectly put together.”

The project began almost accidentally. A few members of Leclair’s circle became pregnant nearly simultaneously, including one who had long believed she couldn’t conceive. The first track he recorded for the project wasn’t meant to advance a larger concept, he says. “It was meant to highlight the fact that three of my closest friends became pregnant at exactly the same time.”

Leclair was already a father with a three-year-old daughter, so the emotional terrain of early parenthood was familiar. Gradually the idea expanded. “I began thinking, why not make a whole album that celebrates this and also follows the entire pregnancy, the nine months,” he says. The music developed piece by piece, including a track originally commissioned by the Berlin experimental duo Rechenzentrum that would later become the album’s opening movement.

Nearly seven years passed between the first composition and the finished album, and the music mirrors the strange arithmetic of pregnancy itself. What begins as a single idea multiplies outward, sounds layering and branching until the album feels less like a sequence of compositions than a living process unfolding in time. “I work very slowly,” Leclair says. “Everything has to be something I’m completely behind. I never want to rush anything. I want things to come naturally.” Across its 72 minutes, the album blossoms with the patience of a long meditation on time, growth and emergence.

When Musique pour 3 femmes enceintes first appeared via Mutek, it circulated quietly but steadily. Critics who discovered it later recognized its unusual scope. In a 2006 Pitchfork review, Mark Richardson gave the record an 8.1, calling “150e Jour” “an unfailingly gorgeous and tightly sequenced quilt of guitar and piano samples reminiscent of Tangerine Dream,” and describing “85e Jour” as infused with “viscous pop ambient drift, the gauzy synth pads ebbing and flowing with rhythm.” Boomkat described the album as “a majestic opus from a producer that's always promised so much — here delving into a panoramic construction of almost visibly radiant music that works so beautifully through each and every second of its 72 minute lifespan.”

The new In Sheep’s Clothing Hi-Fi edition finally presents the record in the format Leclair long imagined. “I always thought that record deserved a vinyl edition,” he says. Spread across two LPs, the music now has room to unfold at its natural pace. More than twenty years after it first appeared, Musique pour 3 femmes enceintes remains what it was from the start: a carefully shaped meditation on transformation and the quiet miracle of life beginning.

Los Angeles alt-punks Death Lens return with What"s Left Now?, an album that feels like a jolt of clarity after a year that never seemed to slow down. Fresh off touring with Militarie Gun, they dove into the studio with producer mixer Zach Tuch (Knocked Loose, Touché Amoré) to craft their first new music since 2024"s Cold World. The result is a set of songs that coil hooky guitar lines around lyrics about taking stock of what you have, what"s been taken from you, and confronting what remains without any sugar coating. Death Lens have always played with contrast: ferocity disguised by swagger, volatility wrapped in melody. Onstage, they transform that tension into something communal-cathartic enough to leave rooms wrecked, connective enough to leave people changed. Once a crew of partydriven garage punks, they"ve sharpened their voice into something broader and more urgent, speaking on life in heavily policed neighborhoods, immigration reform, and the responsibility to lift up the communities that raised them. What"s Left Now? pushes that vision forward, framing resilience not as a slogan but as a lived philosophy: one world, one community, one band refusing to stand still. Death Lens is comprised of Bryan Torres (vocals), Jhon Reyes (guitar, backing vocals), Tony Rangel (drums), and Ernie Gutierrez (guitar).

妖精の通る道 (The Path Where Fairies Pass) is the debut vinyl release by Reimaki, the duo of Rei Yokoyama (Triggers Flowers, Stakaidan, Lapiz Trio, 新井薬師自警団, and Fujio, Chiko Hige and Rei), and Maki Miura (Tsubamegami, Les Rallizes Dénudés, Shizuka, Fushitsusha, Ohkami No Jikan and Katsurei). The duo has been an understated presence in Tokyo, playing occasional under-the-radar shows and self- releasing a few CD-Rs, but they’ve recently started to break cover, with a recent cassette on UFO Creations, released in support of a late 2024 tour of China. It’s also a welcome reappearance on the scene for both musicians; Miura’s musical history, in particular, is being reevaluated thanks to a recent string of welcome Shizuka reissues.

But the music Reimaki make together is a different thing entirely, much as it shares some psychological and aesthetic interests with both Miura’s and Nokoyama’s other projects. Their sound is split between two main interests – an extension of glacial, deoxygenating psychedelic improvisations, and a deep interest in medieval European music. They’ve also been known to cover compositions by English prog/improv musician Fred Frith. These various elements of the Reimaki aesthetic are all present through 妖精の通る道, from the fragility of the opening “Novel Amor” through to the smeared, hazy textures of the three extended pieces that comprise the album’s flipside.

There’s a beautiful sympathy in these performances, and a generous simplicity, too; you can sense that this music is informed by decades of finding just the right way to say the right thing in the clearest manner possible. Yokoyama and Miura never overstate things; make the statement, play the song, let it hang in the air for a while, and then move on to the next essential expression. The music is unburdened by self- consciousness. Their take on medieval music cuts to the core of melody and melancholy; their psych- improv side is blurred and drifting without ever lapsing into rote generic gestures.

There’s some shared space with other artists who suspend the timeless within the kaleidoscopic possibilities of the psychedelic – Kendra Smith & The Guild of Temporal Adventurers; Emmanuelle Parrenin; Rosina de Peira – and a tangled folksiness that might put listeners in mind of Jan Dukes De Grey, Comus, Current 93, and Tower Recordings. Accompanied by beautiful photography from street photographer Takehiko Nakafuji, who was also personally chosen by Mizutani to document Les Rallizes Dénudés, 妖精の通る道 is a most unique and necessary trip.

Notoriously spirited, hard parrtyin' West Coast rap trio Tha Alkaholiks have returned with their first new studio album in over 10 years!

Combining fresh takes on some of the band's best known singles including "Daaam!" and "Make Room" PLUS several new songs, this album hits that '90s rap nostalgia spot!

Features special guests Planet Asia and spookybands!

Psychedelic MasterpieceOriginally released on Capitol Records in 1969, Euphoria’s debut album A Gift From Euphoria is an unsung album; one with incredible sonic radiance, masterful songwriting, and everlasting harmonies—with their fantastical combination of psychedelic, folk, country, and hard rock. The 15 songs set up a journey through the best of what had been happening within modern music by 1969. Comparisons to The White Album are apt as it leaps from genre to genre with shocking confidence, as if they knew this was their only chance to say it all on a record. But it was too good to last as this was the only album Euphoria made, one that is critically championed in hindsight and highly sought after nowadays, and it is Jackpot Records honor to be able to bring it to you. Now reissued from the original analog master tapes with the original cover artwork exclusively for RSD 2026.

Cathartic avant-rock, literate DIY folk & experimental composition exploring displacement, love, climate change, belonging & the places we call home - RIYL Jim O’Rourke, Richard Youngs, This Heat, Richard Dawson, Flying Nun. ‘Real Home’ is the new album by the Manchester-born, London-based artist Kiran Leonard. His sixth album proper (not including innumerable tour-only CD-Rs and short-run cassettes), since his precocious debut in 2013, ‘Real Home’ finds Leonard invigorated by inspiration and experience, making passionate, literate, and mercurial music that explores displacement, love, memory, climate change, connections to home and more. Encompassing songs recorded after moving to South London, ‘Real Home’ reflects on ideas of belonging and domesticity through folkloric, stream-of-consciousness songwriting. Across nine tracks, Leonard traces lived impressions of the household and the city, expressing sentiments of dislocation, alienation and stasis, but contentment too. Infusing the avant-rock effervescence, terraced dynamics and visionary lyricism of his music with what he defines as a greater sense of openness, Leonard is as versatile, fervent and imaginative as ever on ‘Real Home’, yet his music is somehow more intimate, affecting, and acutely expressive. Shaped by dual considerations of simplicity and formalism, ‘Real Home’ is by turns beautiful, allusive, and ruminative, an album on which Leonard considers what his songs have resembled in the past and what they mean now. In recent years, Leonard has crafted eloquent chamber music inspired by the likes of James Joyce and Clarice Lispector (‘Derevaun Seraun’), responded to contemporary politics and communication breakdown in the digital age (‘Western Culture’), and compiled solo works and ensemble recordings for a longform ode to Jonas Mekas and to one of Leonard’s enduring themes; home (‘Trespass On Foot’). On ‘Real Home’, Leonard reiterates this abiding thematic focus yet ascends to new, different heights, in music of cathartic delicacy and dissonance where all the myriad dimensions of his work to date seem to crystallize. There are sinuous songs about struggle and defying the pace of city life through drift and diversion (‘Pass Between Houses’), stirring songs of intense feeling and crescendo, described as a form of speculative detective fiction (‘Theatre for Change’). There are touching solo piano ballads (the title track), symbolic contentions with carbon capture and climate change (‘Utopia of Bog’), modes of experimental minimalism (‘Void Attentive’), and other profuse feats of compositional range, embroidered with wild tendrils of narrative and lyrical depth. A record to pore over, and get lost in. Exemplifying the vast aesthetic scope of Leonard’s music, lead single ‘My Love, Let’s Take The Stage Tonight’ is inspired by country lodestar Hank Williams, Russian poetry and a late period love poem by William Carlos Williams. Yet for Leonard, the song signals a sense of accessible materiality, and is the product of a more linear approach to writing songs: “My imitation of the great Hank Williams, in spirit if not in substance…This is one of the best efforts on Real Home at a song-as-object. Looking at it now I realise I was trying to write a song that made itself known as a song to the listener, and I wonder whether that’s crucial if you want a song to transcend its context. And that this is either accomplished through a total openness – by being inviting, by laying the tricks of the song out plain to see, as Williams and his many ghostwriters did so well – or by adopting a knowing aloofness, positioning oneself against the listener but letting it be known that that’s what it’s doing. In this song I try both, but mostly the former: as in, I wanted to write a song where every line follows on from the next.” Imbuing the endlessly elaborate and inventive qualities of his music with a newfound streak of candid, clear-cut melodicism, Leonard has reached a special place in his artistry, on a record that feels familial, and expresses closeness. Assembled with affiliates including Lauren Auder, Otto Willberg, Jasper Llewellyn (caroline), Tom Hardwick-Allan (Shovel Dance Collective), Magda McLean (caroline, The Umlauts), Alex Mckenzie (caroline, Shovel Dance Collective), Isabelle Thorn (Dear Laika) & more, the recording process had a significant influence on the subject matter of ‘Real Home’, in sessions defined by close-knit camaraderie and artistic eccentricity: “The theme of the home obviously recurs throughout the record; the album was mostly recorded in domestic spaces with friends, and the name of the album is Real Home. I like the qualifier ‘real’, like you’re getting past the cloak of the word and towards the thing-itself…also nearly all the percussion in this record was recorded on items from my dad’s shed (jam jars, sandpaper, blocks of wood, etc). Real home record!” ‘Real Home’, like anything by Kiran Leonard, is a record of dazzling multiplicity. Yet it’s a companionable prospect with a central premise; a collection of songs where listeners old and new can find a home. An album led by a scene; of Leonard standing at the threshold, ready to welcome you inside. “Exceptional songs that linger” - The Guardian // “An autodidact of amazing talent & energy” – Pitchfork // “A ridiculous amount of talent…confrontational, celebratory, provocative or perverse – he manages all of these emotions & more” - The Quietus /

Mildred have announced their debut album Fenceline (out 24 April via Memorials of Distinction / Dog Day Records), they have also shared the Nick Roberts directed video for lead single ‘Fish Sticks’. Speaking of ‘Fish Sticks’ and the album, Mildred say: “Fish Sticks is a song of scenes from two worlds. Conversations with your boss. Acute workplace mediocrity. Riding home and eating fish sticks with your friends. For UK audiences, a fish stick is a fish finger, ideally Alaskan-caught cod. The song comes packaged in Fenceline, an album about conversations with old friends, little cousins, ceaseless piles of dust in your crumbling duplex, loves and theologians and their books. Fencelines mark two places but belong to neither. Neither nor, either or.”
Ahead of Fenceline, at the end of last year Mildred released their debut twin EPs mild and red, an insatiable collection of songs birthed before Mildred even knew they were a band. Arriving purposefully on the scene in that gentle, approachable Mildred way, the EPs picked up support from The Guardian, The Line of Best Fit, Uncut (‘We’re New Here’), The New Cue, Clash, DIY and more. Mildred is a band from Oakland, CA of four equal parts. They don’t have a lead singer, no one person writes the songs. The songs that make up Fenceline come together as a group with their genesis sprouting from any one of their members - Henry Easton Koehler (vocals, guitar), Jack Schrott (vocals, guitar), Matt Palmquist (vocals, bass, woodwinds) or Will Fortna (drums, production) - each time.

The songs are often wrestled from the lead writer by the other three, a lyric might have been mumbled absentmindedly for a few days before one of the other three grabs at it. Summed up neatly by Clash “imagine if Pavement went Americana and you’d be close”, Mildred make music that is pure and poetic, gently addictive and never overwrought. The lyrics for their songs are written largely alone and often draw from their own individual lives and experiences but there’s a shared something there. “It makes sense when common threads emerge” they say, “because we do things together a lot as friends: cook, laze about on a weekend, listen to an album, go walkabout, read, go see movies etc.
Strikingly literal or intriguingly oblique, Mildred have a remarkable way with lyrics that lodge themselves in your head softly but with such determination that they begin to feel like shimmering memories from your own life. Fenceline is a collection of songs that you want to hold close and delve into, and yet play to everyone you know.