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After almost two years of work, we're glad to invite you to a new journey through the fog of time and enjoy the upcoming reissue of the great Ambient/Folk record from 1984. A well-known to collectors but extremely rare record by Jon Iverson a multi-instrumentalist from Palo Alto and his college friend, mandolinist Tom Walters. They shared a love for singer/songwriter fare and gigged around campus playing covers of Neil Young, CSN, and Loggins/Messina in the late '70s.
"First Collection" was recorded during the Spring of 1984 in a small garage that had been converted to a one-room apartment in the seaside community of Los Osos, California.
With an instrumentation of 12-string guitar, piano, mandolin, analog synthesizers, and sampler, the duo has recorded nine bright, weightless, and diverse compositions where electronic experiments mix with ethnic rhythms, sweeping through inspired folk reminiscent of the work of William Ackerman, John Fahey, Master Wilburn Burchette, and Robbie Basho, to homemade pastoral space folk exuding sophisticated, pale, lunar sonic moods that somehow might remind of the work of Roedelius from the early 80s.
Equipment used for tracking included a rented 1/2" 8-track Otari MX5050 analog tape machine and assorted mics. With only a few thousand albums pressed, First Collection has become a collectable in some circles.
Now, almost forty years later, First Collection has been remixed and remastered from the original 1/2" tapes for this release.

The next album release on Goldie's fast-rising, boutique label Fallen Tree 1Hundred, The Day Out of Time by The Degrees is the Acid Jazz/Soul and Trip Hop long-player from drum and bass man of the moment Break, alsongside singer songwriter isha Campbell, heavily inspired by their home town of Bristol.

The album follows a year of lead-in singles nicely supported by Mary Anne Hobbs, Huey Morgan on BBC Radio 6Music, Mi-Soul, Solar and playlisted on the legendary Jazz FM.

Apparel Music Review:

Perhaps it's nostalgia for that wonderful time when making music was more challenging, at times laborious, and the more tiring was the process that led to the creation the more the final product acquired value, but this album brings you back to those times, without sounding outdated.

We know how much work goes into a record of this kind and, even if today's music world runs fast, presenting hundreds of thousands of releases a day, it is important to remember that records can still be timeless. Well, this is the first thing I thought while listening to this LP for the first time: it is timeless. It sounding ageless is perhaps ascribable to the fact that it recalls that famous sound coming from South-West England in the late 90s/early 00 but, having that musical wave had such an impact and therefore created a sonic standard, it can easily be revived and revisited in a current key without sounding obsolete. In addition, this album is full of different influences coming from R&B, Soul, Hip-Hop which, over the years, have grown and developed to become the daily bread of many listeners who have refined their taste with time, and can now perfectly incorporate the multiple sound stimuli coming from it, as 'The Day Out Of Time' satisfies every type of taste

The endlessly prolific and unpredictable Richard Youngs returns to Black Truffle with Modern Sorrow. As any Youngs fan knows, one of the great pleasures of following his career comes from not being able to predict what the next entry in his inexhaustible string of releases will bring: Unaccompanied voice? Country songs? Shakuhachi? Guitar pieces played with his feet? Shredding fuzz bass over the top of hyper-speed distorted drum machine beats? Continuing in the grand Youngs tradition of exploring new techniques, instrumentation and approaches while bringing to all of them his idiosyncratic touch, Modern Sorrow serves up two sides of twistedly elegiac, radically stark takes on contemporary pop production. The side-long title track is built from a piano sample, synthetic bass notes and organ swells, and an iterative blurt that seems to have wandered out of a 90s jungle track. Eventually joined by a shuffling drum machine, the track moves very slowly through a series of chords, each delayed long enough that its arrival comes as a major event. Over the top, Youngs’ heavily pitch-corrected voice is heard. The processing paints his signature wandering melodic improvisations with shades of contemporary R&B; at the same time, it cuts the natural swoops and glides of Youngs’ melodies into rapid microtonal trills, giving his voice a quavering, middle eastern feel. Unfolding languorously over more than 17 minutes, the piece’s final minutes make room for an extended drumless coda, returning to the stark palette of its opening moments. On the second side, the two parts of ‘Benevolence’ push this minimalism ever further, its first half consisting of nothing more than a remarkably slow drum machine hit, bass-heavy chords and pitch-corrected voice, here so heavily processed that it starts to resemble a shawn solo. In its second part, the harmonic foundation drops out from under the piece while two more voices join; at some moments the voices pause, leaving nothing more than isolated, metronomic drum hits. Though Youngs has explored the sound worlds associated with dance music and contemporary pop in previous work, here these elements are radically reduced, foregrounding a meditative bed of silence with a boldness equal to any more academically inclined contemporary composer. Embracing the accessible digital tools of contemporary music production just as at another moment he would pick up a kazoo, like much of Youngs’ work Modern Sorrow uses simple DIY tools to generous ends, producing formally radical music that remains both free from pretension and deeply moving.

On the heels of his already critically acclaimed (yes, already!) retrospective, World Spirituality Classics 3: The Muslim Highlife of Alhaji Waziri Oshomah, Alhaji Waziri Oshomah — the Oyoyo King, the Godfather of Afemai Music, the Etsako Super Star, Mr. Please Please Please, Mr. Dynamite — returns with Vol. 3.

Along with the other four volumes of the series, Vol. 3 is now available—for the very first time!—as part of a complete set (in a box): Vol 1 - 5 (1978 - 1985) (November 4, 2022).

Waziri hails from a small part of Edo State in southern Nigeria called Afemailand, known for being a harmonious region where Muslims and Christians live—and dance—together. And there, as a devout Muslim and an exemplar of religious piety in his community, Waziri’s music fuses Etsako/ Afemai folk styles with pan-Nigerian highlife and pop to create a sublime vehicle for his Islamic philosophy that gets everyone—Muslims, Christians, whoever—on the dancefloor.

Every song on Vol. 3 (one of which you might recognize from The Muslim Highlife) strikes his signature balance of traditional music, highlife, and funk, as he entreats you to stay on the straight and narrow, though there’s nothing straight about his beat.

Fans of the Escapers know the love of Rock Steady and Reggae Music. This time they pay homage to a Johnny Taylor sung Stax classic and transform it into a Lover’s Rock thriller. A bass heavy Roots rhythm combined with Colton’s haunting lead guitar create a perfect platform. Johnny Ruiz to express his love. Hey baby “Ain’t That Lovin You”? Definitely, and for “More Reasons Than One”

More of a double A-Side release, the b-side has The Escapers calling on The Heavyweight Dub Champion himself...the mighty Scientist to reinterpret their biggest single “Stay”! Overton “Scientist” Brown gives this tune a classic style “version” with all the echo and distortion any reggae fan would want. A real privilege to work with one of the true legends of dub music!

By now, you should all know the work of Andy Meecham as The Emperor Machine; since first utilising the pseudonym two decades ago, Meecham has delivered a swathe of acclaimed albums and singles.

Recommended If You Like: Boredoms, OOIOO, Blonde Redhead, Guerilla Toss, Rolling Stones, Liars, Marnie Stern, Yoko Ono, Battles. Cover by acclaimed photographer and artist Kunie Sugar White Vinyl / White Cassette available while stocks last. Did you know that miracles happen every day? We don’t always see it that way. We look at the state of the world and think, “It’ll be a miracle if we make it out alive.” But miracles are what humans do. We’re Earth’s most inventive and unpredictable species, when we’re allowed to be. Also the most destructive. Miracle-Level is Deerhoof’s mystical manifesto on creativity and trust. It celebrates the infinite small wonders of existence that spontaneously present themselves, when not obstructed by our death-driven masters. Musically, Miracle-Level is vulnerable, brave, and brimming with spicy surprises. Deerhoof’s 19th album is also their their first to be recorded and mixed in a recording studio. Production was entrusted to Mike Bridavsky, at No Fun Club in Winnipeg, Manitoba. This is also their first album written entirely in Satomi’s native language. Deerhoof once again speak in a secret code that only their fans understand, in which hooks abound, and genre is nonexistent.

All of us carry a piece of where we’re from with us, but these parcels of fallow land often in a uniquely mysterious way become the prey that nourishes our aspirations. Agnès Gayraud a refined thinker by day that transforms into la Féline at night left Tarbes many years ago in search of greener pastures. After making a name for herself with Adieu l’Enfance (2014), Triomphe (2017), and Vie Future (2019), the author and musician has evolved once again. Her latest release Tarbes reinvents the circle of life and challenges our preconceived notions. She welcomes us to her hometown with sweet and clear melodies over the backdrop of an electronic hum, reminiscent of Mark Twain classic Tom Sawyer. Tarbes is no more than a listen away. Physically prevented from returning to her hometown by the viral threat we all know all too well, Agnès found her way back with a small Electone home organ. The constraints of off-peak hours that called for some DIY savvy, slowly but surely, roused her spirit. With a drum machine, a bass and a guitar, she succeeded in making the young girl inside her smile again. With 13 songs and just as many adventures Tarbes is a concept album that tells the story of a young woman’s formative years, as spent in her hometown. The returning hymn doesn’t only imprint nostalgia, it paints the full emotional portrait of a town. Because for Agnès, Tarbes is not just her theater, but her whole world, showing how fiercely protective she is of her hometown in the song Solazur. Under a magnifying glass of emotion, and with the sentimental testimony that is La Panthère des Pyrénées, the artiste shows us the skeletons in our own closets. Tarbes, more than a brief stopover in a rail journey to the coast, broaches issues that touch on abandonment, desertification, aging and redevelopment that many French towns and cities face today. Alexandre Guirkinger’s photographs serve as album art that illustrates this strangely unique singularity. While fine-tuning this collection of stories, in an oh-so-intimate album where solitude rips away the mask of confidence, Agnès found solace in uniting with other spirits. For 3 songs Tarbes, Jeanne d’Albret and Fum, inspired by an Occitan poem of Louisa Paulin (1888-1944), she invited the young voices of Conservatoire Henri Duparc a building she knows intimately, despite never feeling allowed to enter as a child to breathe the energy of their adolescence into this record. She also collaborated with Lyon’s own François Virot to imbue his delicate rhythms into her work, as well as Belgian guitarist Mocke Depret. Lastly, La Féline entrusted the last production stages to her eternal partner in music, Xavier Thiry, with Stéphane “Alf” Briat on the mixing board. The final piece has a complex tranquility, surrounded by non-verbality, with Jeanne d’Albret, Louisa Paulin and the Pyrénées safeguarding Agnes’ secrets. With the calm reassurance of her metamorphoses, La Féline delivers a slice of silence to her town, serving as both her cradle and theater. Tarbes’ Théâtre des Nouveautés is where Agnès Gayraud, La Féline, has decided to present Tarbes to its residents on October 14, 2022. While “nouveautés” evokes newness, this theater is reminiscent of a future which is already outdated, where modernity is only vague and fictional, carrying reminders of French haute-kitsch accordionist Yvette Horner, whose parents were the caretakers of what was then called the Cani Eldorado a bastion of virtue through the 30s, with its lineup of Catholic films. However, by the 60s, it would have become a temple of pornographic cinema. Tarbes, “Les Nouveautés”, end card. In the mid 90s, then 16 years old, Agnès discovered the volatile dust and the ghosts of the past that were hidden in this apostate theater. This phantom bequeathed song the teenager with the gift of her undeniable talent at her first appearance on stage a high school performance of a guitar-laden ballad sung in Spanish, a language her Andalusian mother has infused her with. On October 14, 2022, Agnès returns to the stage, bass in hand and joined by François Virot (drums), Mocke Depret (guitar), Léa Moreau (keyboard) and the Conservatoire de Tarbes singers to perform the album in its entirety

The undisputed kings of garage rock are back! It’s been 22 years since the last Headcoats album, but now Billy, Bruce, and Johnny return with a brand-new studio album!

Recorded last year at Ranscombe Studios in Rochester. Billy, Bruce, and Johnny kindly answered some pertinent questions…You got back together recently as Thee Headcoats Sect to make the ‘Tribute to Don Craine’ EP. What was it like working with each other again after all this time? BILLY: It was 'fab' and 'gear.' BRUCE: The weirdest thing for me was how weird it wasn't.

It was like time compressed, but to the 'good old days', early on. I was wary that it 'wouldn't be like Thee Headcoats', but it was. JOHNNY: I'm with Bruce and Billy on that one. I think we were all surprised how it all just worked. If I remember correctly, we kicked off role playing like we detested each other. Then we got started and well, you can hear the result.

What were the first songs you ran through when you got in the studio? BILLY: That’s a very good question. No idea. BRUCE: I can't remember. They all sound the same to me. JOHNNY: Bill had stuff on his phone that went “KSSHHCCCKSSHHHH”! So, we did that first. You’ve also paid tribute to Don with a track on the Irregularis album – ‘Oh Leader We Do Dig Thee’.

He was, along with the other members of Downliners Sect, a big inspiration to Thee Headcoats. When did you first become aware of his music and what was he like to work with? BRUCE: We were given (or possibly lent) a reissue of the Sect's first LP around 1977, marketed as 'Punk From The Vaults', which certainly floated our boats and definitely popped our corks, due to the somewhat aggressive yet carefree nature of the tunes and sound in general. Ollie, our old bassist, found an ad in a trade magazine for them with a contact number for a Michael O'Donnell, which I excitedly called almost immediately.

T'was none other than Don his'self and we managed to convince him into venturing down to Rochester to record some tunes with us which became the first Headcoat Sect EP. We were fairly starstruck and presented him with a brand new 'dearstalker' (or 'Headcoat', as they were now known). He was very accommodating and a great laugh and spent the evening with us, regaling us with tales of yore. I recorded a lot of it on cassette, which I may still have somewhere. Gawd bless Don

. Follow up EP to 2022s ‘Barbara’, which was praised by The New York Times, NPR Music, KEXP, KCRW, Stereogum, The Line Of Best Fit, Billboard, Consequence, Under The Radar, Clash and more. Fresh o­ff support tours with Alex G in the US and Japanese Breakfast in the UK. Barrie will be showcasing as an offcial artist at SXSW 2023. New EP expands on the sound of ‘Barbara’ while taking a fresh approach to songwriting and collaboration. Brooklyn-based musician and producer Barrie Lindsay, known simply as Barrie, has a passion for creating left-of-center pop music. She spends her days writing songs and tinkering in Logic, stockpiling her creations in a vast archive of folders and hard drives. When it came time to select the songs for her sophomore LP, ‘Barbara,’ she narrowed it down to sixteen tracks. As the record came together, it became clear that there would be two separate projects - the first being ‘Barbara,’ an emotionally charged collection of songs dealing with the loss of a parent, the love of a new partner, and finding one's own identity. The remaining five tracks, which were more light-hearted and o­ the cu­, were compiled into a new project titled ‘5K.’ As an avid runner, Barrie named the EP after the common foot race. The aptly titled lead single, "Races," is a delightful synth-pop track in a unique 12/8 time, built around a bombastic drum kit and giddy key ri­s. "Nocturne Interlude" acts as a segue between ‘Barbara’ and ‘5K,’ showcasing a haunting melody amidst dark brass-like synths. Second half highlight "Ghost World" has a distorted guitar ri­ and classic drum pattern that evokes a forgotten 90's radio b-side. The song was recorded entirely by Barrie herself, serving as her own band on guitar, bass, keys, and drum kit. Even though most people would finish listening to the project front to back before finishing a 5k run, the short, sweet, and melodically rich EP begs to be replayed over and over. With ‘5K,’ Barrie showcases her versatility as an artist, closing the loop between the sounds found on her debut LP ‘Happy To Be Here’ and her follow-up ‘Barbara’

Lyburnum Wits End Liberation Fly was the one and only full-length album by experimental post-punk innovators, Moss Icon. Recorded in 1988, Lyburnum would not be released until 1993 several years after Moss Icon’s demise.

Originally released on Vermiforn – the esoteric noise label founded by Sam McPheeters of Born Against – the vision that Moss Icon’s Tonie Joy had for Lyburnum failed to manifest in its finished product. Of the process of preparing Lyburnum for its eventual release, Joy recalls, “My creative mind was well into its next chapter, onto an apocalyptic order referring to Joy’s post-Moss Icon band, Universal Order of Armageddon.

Getting Lyburnum to look like what I envisioned in my mind became an uphill battle that involved misplaced photos, misunderstood instructions by the printer, increasing apathy, and lack of advanced printing knowledge (on my part), amongst many other technical and creative issues.

With a deadline near it ended up being an it-is-what-it-is situation. Some corrections were attempted for the second pressing the following year, but a further lack of coordination between various parties saw it losing even more of the original vision.”

Despite these challenges and shortcomings, Lyburnum Wits End Liberation was instantly cherished as a feral masterpiece a singular entity that would become a defining influence on post-hardcore and emo in the 1990s and beyond.

Nothing before sounded like this, and nothing since has quite captured the same mysterious fury. Now, finally, Moss Icon’s seminal Lyburnum Wits End Liberation Fly LP will be released exactly as it was always intended to look, sound, and feel. The artwork has been fully restored and includes previously unpublished photos that were inadvertently missing from the original release.

Brilliantly remastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Music, the vinyl has been newly cut by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service, and pressed onto audiophile-grade vinyl at Record Technology Inc.

Lyburnum Wits End Liberation Fly was the one and only full-length album by experimental post-punk innovators, Moss Icon. Recorded in 1988, Lyburnum would not be released until 1993 several years after Moss Icon’s demise.

Originally released on Vermiforn – the esoteric noise label founded by Sam McPheeters of Born Against – the vision that Moss Icon’s Tonie Joy had for Lyburnum failed to manifest in its finished product. Of the process of preparing Lyburnum for its eventual release, Joy recalls, “My creative mind was well into its next chapter, onto an apocalyptic order referring to Joy’s post-Moss Icon band, Universal Order of Armageddon.

Getting Lyburnum to look like what I envisioned in my mind became an uphill battle that involved misplaced photos, misunderstood instructions by the printer, increasing apathy, and lack of advanced printing knowledge (on my part), amongst many other technical and creative issues.

With a deadline near it ended up being an it-is-what-it-is situation. Some corrections were attempted for the second pressing the following year, but a further lack of coordination between various parties saw it losing even more of the original vision.”

Despite these challenges and shortcomings, Lyburnum Wits End Liberation was instantly cherished as a feral masterpiece a singular entity that would become a defining influence on post-hardcore and emo in the 1990s and beyond.

Nothing before sounded like this, and nothing since has quite captured the same mysterious fury. Now, finally, Moss Icon’s seminal Lyburnum Wits End Liberation Fly LP will be released exactly as it was always intended to look, sound, and feel. The artwork has been fully restored and includes previously unpublished photos that were inadvertently missing from the original release.

Brilliantly remastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Music, the vinyl has been newly cut by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service, and pressed onto audiophile-grade vinyl at Record Technology Inc.

Circassian-Turkish Producer Sine Buyuka debuts new solo project Sinemis with lush, graceful album ‘Dua’, gently combining the ancestral Sufi music of her homeland with sophisticated techno-inflected ambient. Dua’s life began with a life-threatening illness. “I started feeling unwell last year and no one could figure out the reason,” Sine writes. “It was a scary time, not knowing and trying to manage symptoms while they slowly worsened. In late 2021, while I was visiting my family in Turkey during the Christmas break, I was taken into A&E. After more tests, I had a diagnosis and had surgery in January.” Following this, within the healing process - highly emotional as well as physical - Sine was drawn to the traditional Sufi music of Turkey and the Middle East. Ritualistic music to accompany ancient sema ceremonies, in which whirling dervishes enter a transcendental consciousness through ecstatic movement and repetition. With this influence at heart, Sine began work on ‘Dua’, with a newly-formed artist name to signify new, unfamiliar music from a celebrated electronic producer. For her, the album marks a significant step in her recovery. But it is also a potent marriage of contemporary and ancestral trancestates, interweaving sci-fi synthesis and floor shaking bass tones with mystic imagery, textures and timbres. A meditative, spiritual balm that melds field recordings, found sounds, ambient soundscapes, electronics and acoustic instrumentation to celebrate life and survival in challenging circumstances. The breathy, cinematic tones of album opener ‘Dua’ hover and shiver in preparatory stasis as broken-machine punctuation begins to dot rhythmically through the space. A yearning, repeated vocal sample - a living, beating heart inside the machine - characterises a crucial theme for the album: the marriage of digital instrumentation with the analogue, the human and the organic. Later, ‘Elegy’ reflects its title with heartbreaking chordal shifts and glitching birdsong, conjuring a sound world somewhere between KMRU and Max Richter. Key track ‘Gazel’ moves in glacial slo-mo, like whirling dervishes frozen in time at the peak of their trance. Euphoric ceremony made haunting and poignant without losing a mote of power…Across the album, the timbres of Sufi ritual are often captured by the otherworldly presence of the historic ney flute, said to be as old as the Holy Books. “Sufi music can be created using several different instruments but the ney flute is at the heart of it. The sounds emanating from this fascinating instrument kept capturing my imagination,” Sine tells us. Working both with samples and with Turkish musician Omar Faruk Tekbilek, Sine achieves a rare balance of reverence and recontextualisation for such a time-honoured instrument, here performed by a lifelong student of its intricacies and mysteries. In Sinemis’ hands, the processing and sonic treatment of the ney even sometimes renders it indistinguishable from Dua’s synthesis and sound-design

LORI finds Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam drawing from the songbook of noted singer-songwriter and multiple Grammy winner Lori McKenna. Recorded at the famed Sam Phillips Studios (Memphis, TN) with producer Matt Ross-Spang, Beam takes on four of his favorite McKenna tracks with help from Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart, known collectively for their work in the indie-art-pop band Finom (formerly known as Ohmme.) Beam came to McKenna’s music a few years ago on the suggestion of a friend. As the lock down dragged on, Beam found himself, like so many, turning to music for comfort. McKenna’s catalog of work was never far from reach. Taken by her heart-on-your-sleeve confessional style storytelling, Beam admits it’s a trait that draws him to McKenna and something not often found in his own songwriting. As a well-known interpreter of other artists’ songs, when the time came for him to shake off the pandemic cobwebs and record, McKenna’s songs were as fresh and familiar to Beam as his own. Traveling to Memphis in March of 2021, Beam invited Cunningham and Stewart to join him in the studio. During the three days of recording, Ross-Spang was a logical choice to take the helm as he had handled Iron & Wine’s 2019 collaboration with Calexico, the twice Grammy nominated Years to Burn, and had also worked on two of McKenna’s own records. Having enjoyed successful solo careers outside of Finom, Cunningham and Stewart bring their own touches to LORI and helped Beam find even further depths to McKenna’s songwriting. Together the trio sonically re-interpreted her plaintive odes into a tapestry of sounds effortlessly blending their signature singing styles and breathing fresh life into the lyrics

Darling West decamped for a tiny island on Norway’s west coast to begin writing what was to become Cosmos, their fifth studio album. For the first time, the band’s core – married couple Mari and Tor Egil Kreken – have included band members Thomas Gallatin and Christer Slaaen in the songwriting and production process. As a larger united, Darling West has really evolved. Cosmos is indeed the sound of expansion. West coast, cosmic folk, americana… Call it what you will – there are even hints of afro blues on here – but where the band once fit firmly in the folk/americana category, you might as well just call it pop these days. Cosmos was recorded and produced in its entirety by Darling West. Vocal guests on the album include Matthew Logan Vasquez (Delta Spirit) and Jarle Bernhoft, while David Wallumrød, Lars Horntveth and Torjus Vierli all excel on keys. Finally, the one and only Rob Moose (Paul Simon, Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens, Phoebe Bridgers) provides strings on “Till Night Turns to Day” and “Old Man”. The listener is also awarded plenty of what we’ve come to love from Darling West: Mari Kreken’s gorgeous voice and Tor Egil Kreken’s incredibly versatile playing (guitar, bass, banjo, etc.) playing. The sum of these parts makes up a magical record, with songs and melodies that will stay on your mind for the unforeseeable future. While many struggled to keep their heads up during the pandemic, the band did their best to contribute positively, and came out on the other side with a growing, dedicated fanbase, due to their incredibly popular “Family Sessions” on Youtube. A recurring concept where they featured a host of friends and other artists, thus creating a community – or family – which is still going strong. The music on Cosmos searches outward, while the lyrics look inward. The resulting record includes elements of pop, while it pushes the envelope for what Norwegian americana can sound like. Cosmos is also about loving yourself, and there are of course a handful of love songs about shaky relationships – as we’ve come to expect from Darling West. The band continues to develop their unique musicianship and Cosmos is indeed another masterstroke from the band.

Before MF DOOM donned his mask and became one of the most prolific MC-producers of modern Hip-Hop, he was a member of KMD, an early ‘90s rap group whose work still goes criminally under-appreciated to this day.

Following their 1991 debut album, Mr. Hood, the former trio shed one member leaving only two remaining – Subroc and his brother, Zev Love X (better known today as MF DOOM). Originally scheduled for release in 1994, their sophomore album Black Bastards showed clear progression from their debut. It was a truly amazing record, both sonically and lyrically, full of youthful creativity and tinged with the stresses of growing up as Black men in urban America. Songs like the lead single “What A N*gga Know”, the slippery, bass-driven “Get U Now”, and the album’s title track explore Black consciousness viewed through young-but-experienced eyes. Musically alternating between bouncy and raw – many times both, concurrently – the tracks gave the MC’s the springboard they needed to express themselves clearly.

Sadly, Subroc would face a sudden and untimely death in 1993, just as the duo were finishing the album. Grief-stricken, his brother Zev Love X – now the sole remaining member of the group – was determined to carry the legacy of KMD onward, but Elektra Records unceremoniously shelved the project in the eleventh hour, due to controversy surrounding the album’s provocative cover art. Following the fallout with Elektra, Zev tried for years to release the album on other labels, but he was continually met with dead ends. Struggling through the pain of losing his brother, coupled with the inability to release their final project together, a discouraged Zev Love X quietly withdrew from the scene and began quietly plotting his revenge on an industry that had broken him spiritually. Thus, in order to understand the true origin story of the super-villain, MF DOOM, one must recognize and appreciate the evolution of his former group, KMD, and the backstory of their pivotal album, Black Bastards.

Animalia's exploration of the lesser known artists of Melbourne continues with the launch of new sublabel, Cirrus, focusing on non-club, downtempo, ambient and otherworldly sounds from local Australian artists. The first release comprises of dreamy, non-linear modular improvised soundscapes from Melbourne/Naarm local The Soulscaper, a sideproject of Eugene Pascal, member of Animalia's electronic trio Menage. The Inside Voices LP offers a sentimental, familiar musical journey, evocative of the distinctive charms of life in Australia's south-eastern hub. All produced in the northern suburbs of Melbourne/ Naarm, the tracks provide an open window into the studios of the city's deeper side. The LP is a poignant follow on from the musical outputs of Animalia, staying true to the label's deep, cinematic and melodic style.

Travel, the 19th studio album by Australian improvisational trio The Necks, documents their recent practice of starting each day in the studio with a 20-minute trio improvisation.

The recordings offer some of their most ecstatic and captivating music cut to tape. As bassist Lloyd Swanton puts it: "It's a really nice communal activity to bring us together in focus each day, and some lovely music has resulted from it." Although a straight "live" improvisation has never been recorded in the studio by the band, these tracks (save for some light overdubs/post-production) feel closest to what they've been doing live for more than 30 years now.

In 2017 Stephen O'Malley's Ideologic Organ label released the band's lauded Unfold, which first offered up this uncharacteristic studio work: four sub-20-minute pieces - instead of the typical 60+ minute arc for which the band is known - along with an obfuscated track list which leaves play order to the listener's hand. The album quickly sold out, and persists as a treasure in collections or as a high-priced 'Want' on Discogs. Travel marks a return to this double-LP format, offered in a beautiful gatefold package that features photography by Traianos Pakioufakis and impeccable mastering by Doug Henderson.