Поиск:lamb

Vice Squad are a UK Punk Rock band who’s first single releases included the classic ‘Last Rockers’ 7” in 1981. This was followed by the landmark albums ‘No Cause For Concern’ in the same year and ‘Stand Strong Stand Proud’ in 1982 which were both released on EMI. Since then Vice Squad have delivered short sharp songs with incisive political lyrics and a dash of humour spat out over a thunderous rhythm and machine gun Rock ’n’ Roll guitars. Their latest releases are the EPs 'Born In A War' and 'Ignored To Death V2' taken from the forthcoming album ‘Battle of Britain’ set for release on their own Last Rockers label in May 2020. The band have become 100% DIY since forming Last Rockers Records in 2009. In keeping with the DIY ethic the previous albums were recorded in the band’s own ‘Sci Fidelity’ studio South London and the new album ‘Battle of Britain’ continues this with the band maintaining full artistic control with the benefit of global distribution via Cargo. Their last album ‘ Cardboard Country’ was launched on the back of a very successful Pledge campaign raising funds for the Shelter homeless charity in line with the album title which was inspired by 'Cardboard City', the name given to the settlement of homeless people living in cardboard boxes near London's Waterloo station. Vice Squad is fronted by raucous voiced singer/guitarist Beki Bondage who was famed for being a teenage champion of Animal rights long before the current popularity of veganism. Vice squad’s song ’Humane’ was one of the first ever Animal Rights songs. Beki has been featured on the front cover of a number of influential music tabloids such at Melody Maker, NME, Sounds, Record Mirror and Smash Hits. After a hiatus, Beki formed a new version of Vice Squad in 1997 featuring longstanding members of her post VS outfit The Bombshells and they have released several quality albums of powerful punk songs that have been very well received across the world. Vice Squad are considered one of the most influential punk rock bands of all time, paving the way for other female Punk and Rock singers and influencing male performers such as Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame who was introduced to Vice Squad via his sister’s record collection. The first rule of Punk is there are no rules and Vice Squad ably illustrate this with ‘Battle of Britain’. Written, Recorded and Mixed by Beki Bond and Paul Rooney in their home studio. The 13 track album opens with the blistering ‘Ruination’ which cuts through the bullshit of small time promoters and blaggers with consummate swagger and melody while ‘I Dare To Breathe’ is an amphetamine driven anthem to paranoia. ‘When You Were 17’ is almost-tender and tells of first tattoos and under age booze whilst the more chilling ‘Ignored To Death’ rails against isolation and homelessness. The explosive ‘Born In A War’ rages along like a missile ravaging a third world country and warns ‘See how they treat refugees? That’s how they’ll treat you and me’. Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’ reworked with a pulsating industrial bass segues into title track, 'Battle Of Britain' where Beki's vocals soar like a Spitfire over the crunching de-tuned riff and spit fury over the hypocrisy of putting war memorials before people. The dystopian ‘Poverty Face’ hits you with the opening line ‘Disinheriting the meek, slyly killing off the weak’ and is counter balanced by the more upbeat ‘How The Other Half Lives’. ‘No Evil’ is a relentless attack on the normalisation of the suffering and death of billions of animals for the meat industry. Battle of Britain's hard hitting collection of anger and riffage pulls no punches in covering topics from austerity and factory farming to the pernicious influence of the Mainstream Media - ‘Led by lies lambs to the slaughter, tax exiles say who you vote for’. Brexit, fake patriotism and cognitive dissonance all get a good kicking too. The penultimate track, 'You Can’t Fool All Of The People' mixes baritone guitar with violin and Celtic rhythms climaxing in an epic James Bondesque heavy guitar/orchestral blend and breaks every rule in the Punk Police hand book whilst pleading for unity against a rigged political system. ‘Pulling Teeth’ with its ominous riff and hilariously frustrated lyrics ‘Dithering jibbering solid as jam, is it fair I’m both the woman and the man’ closes the album in manic style

Vice Squad are a UK Punk Rock band who’s first single releases included the classic ‘Last Rockers’ 7” in 1981. This was followed by the landmark albums ‘No Cause For Concern’ in the same year and ‘Stand Strong Stand Proud’ in 1982 which were both released on EMI. Since then Vice Squad have delivered short sharp songs with incisive political lyrics and a dash of humour spat out over a thunderous rhythm and machine gun Rock ’n’ Roll guitars. Their latest releases are the EPs 'Born In A War' and 'Ignored To Death V2' taken from the forthcoming album ‘Battle of Britain’ set for release on their own Last Rockers label in May 2020. The band have become 100% DIY since forming Last Rockers Records in 2009. In keeping with the DIY ethic the previous albums were recorded in the band’s own ‘Sci Fidelity’ studio South London and the new album ‘Battle of Britain’ continues this with the band maintaining full artistic control with the benefit of global distribution via Cargo. Their last album ‘ Cardboard Country’ was launched on the back of a very successful Pledge campaign raising funds for the Shelter homeless charity in line with the album title which was inspired by 'Cardboard City', the name given to the settlement of homeless people living in cardboard boxes near London's Waterloo station. Vice Squad is fronted by raucous voiced singer/guitarist Beki Bondage who was famed for being a teenage champion of Animal rights long before the current popularity of veganism. Vice squad’s song ’Humane’ was one of the first ever Animal Rights songs. Beki has been featured on the front cover of a number of influential music tabloids such at Melody Maker, NME, Sounds, Record Mirror and Smash Hits. After a hiatus, Beki formed a new version of Vice Squad in 1997 featuring longstanding members of her post VS outfit The Bombshells and they have released several quality albums of powerful punk songs that have been very well received across the world. Vice Squad are considered one of the most influential punk rock bands of all time, paving the way for other female Punk and Rock singers and influencing male performers such as Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame who was introduced to Vice Squad via his sister’s record collection. The first rule of Punk is there are no rules and Vice Squad ably illustrate this with ‘Battle of Britain’. Written, Recorded and Mixed by Beki Bond and Paul Rooney in their home studio. The 13 track album opens with the blistering ‘Ruination’ which cuts through the bullshit of small time promoters and blaggers with consummate swagger and melody while ‘I Dare To Breathe’ is an amphetamine driven anthem to paranoia. ‘When You Were 17’ is almost-tender and tells of first tattoos and under age booze whilst the more chilling ‘Ignored To Death’ rails against isolation and homelessness. The explosive ‘Born In A War’ rages along like a missile ravaging a third world country and warns ‘See how they treat refugees? That’s how they’ll treat you and me’. Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’ reworked with a pulsating industrial bass segues into title track, 'Battle Of Britain' where Beki's vocals soar like a Spitfire over the crunching de-tuned riff and spit fury over the hypocrisy of putting war memorials before people. The dystopian ‘Poverty Face’ hits you with the opening line ‘Disinheriting the meek, slyly killing off the weak’ and is counter balanced by the more upbeat ‘How The Other Half Lives’. ‘No Evil’ is a relentless attack on the normalisation of the suffering and death of billions of animals for the meat industry. Battle of Britain's hard hitting collection of anger and riffage pulls no punches in covering topics from austerity and factory farming to the pernicious influence of the Mainstream Media - ‘Led by lies lambs to the slaughter, tax exiles say who you vote for’. Brexit, fake patriotism and cognitive dissonance all get a good kicking too. The penultimate track, 'You Can’t Fool All Of The People' mixes baritone guitar with violin and Celtic rhythms climaxing in an epic James Bondesque heavy guitar/orchestral blend and breaks every rule in the Punk Police hand book whilst pleading for unity against a rigged political system. ‘Pulling Teeth’ with its ominous riff and hilariously frustrated lyrics ‘Dithering jibbering solid as jam, is it fair I’m both the woman and the man’ closes the album in manic style

Back in 1994, when Lambchop first lurched lackadaisically into public view, they seemed to many people freakish, outlandish, destined at best for the pages of photocopied fanzines and the graveyard hours of specialist radio stations. A sprawling collective of Nashville musicians —eleven were credited on the sleeve of I Hope You’re Sitting Down / Jack’s Tulips, one of them apparently responsible for “open-end wrenches” —they’d named themselves after a sock puppet, inexplicably given their album two titles, and stuck a painting on the cover of a small, barefooted child holding a dog whose cock and balls are on proud display. Perhaps to counteract this bold depiction of canine masculinity, the inner sleeve offered a black-and-white shot of what the more refined sometimes call a “lady garden.” The back cover offered a painting detail of a wedding dress. So far, so weird.

Where Lambchop brought us was somewhere so singular and bewilderingly gripping that — to perhaps no one’s greater surprise than
the band themselves, whose homeland remained baffled for quite some years to come — the album ended up in British music paper NME’s Top 50 Albums of the Year. In case anyone were to consider this an anomaly, France’s similarly influential Les Inrockuptibles placed it at number 25 on their own list. Not bad for a band who had gathered since the mid-1980s, once a week, purely for pleasure, in that smoky, dimly lit basement. Not bad, either, for a record whose sessions were initially only expected to produce enough material for a handful of 7 -inch singles. Disheveled yet tender, anarchic yet intricate, I Hope You’re Sitting Down / Jack’s Tulips instead provided the springboard for a career — still ongoing, despite repeated reinventions, and still compelled by stubbornly freakish, outlandish intentions — during which Lambchop’s ever-changing line-up has continued to confound expectations. Wagner, meanwhile, remains one of our most cryptic but crucial voices, an authentic poet of the magical banal. Sure, it was weird here, but it was wonderful, too. Over a quarter century later, it still is.

In most any Dungeons & Dragons adventure worth
completing, the hero must come face-to-face with
themselves in some form - a cursed, mystical mirror that
reveals all that our hero is and is not; a reflection in some
Blood River that displays for our hero the monster they
have become; a doppelganger that reveals how much our
hero has changed since the beginning of the adventure.
 So, as their year-long 25th Anniversary campaign enters
its final chapter, Jagjaguwar must also confront their
former self. They’re going all the way back to the
basement of the sushi joint in Charlottesville; all the way
back to when they were just a haphazardly made zine; all
the way back to the original mantra which served at
Jagjaguwar’s early guiding force. The Sentimental Noise
echoing through the caverns of self-discovery is tender
and deafening.
 The label have uncovered new and unreleased work from
some of their earliest friends like Drunk, Manishevitz and
Bevel. They’ve called upon necromancers like Norway’s
Jenny Hval, Jagjaguwar legends Wilderness and
Bloomington post-rock heroes Tammar. Mysterious noise
mongers like Canada’s Wold and Oslo’s Some Nerve have
delivered on their promise to absolutely split skulls open.
There are two loving tributes to Patron Saint of Jagjaguwar
John Prine. And they have unearthed two songs from
Atsushi Miura, who once upon a time allowed founder
Darius Van Arman to book shows in the basement of the
sushi restaurant he ran. He dedicates one song to Darius
and in the other, humorously lambasts the college town he
called home for all those years. Today Jagjaguwar dies;
tomorrow Jagjaguwar is reborn.
 Double LP on metallic silver vinyl.

Legendary Brazilian group Orquestra Afro-Brasileira are reborn for first new album in over fifty years, produced by Beastie Boys collaborator Mario Caldato Jr.

Led by maverick composer Abigail Moura, Orquestra Afro-Brasileira were one of the most influential yet overlooked groups in Brazilian music history. Operating for almost thirty years until 1970, they released just two albums - the first of which, Obaluayê, has recently been reissued by Day Dreamer Records - and left behind a legacy of Afro-Brazilian consciousness that continues to resonate today.

Combining Yoruba spirituality, folk tales, Candomblé chants and West African percussion with the instrumentation of the big band jazz tradition in the United States, the Orquestra placed Afro-Brazilian heritage in a new and vital context. Weaving emancipatory narratives into complex poly-rhythms and powerful, syncopated horn lines, the group educated and enlightened all those who saw them perform.

For Abigail’s protégé and percussionist on the group’s 1968 album Carlos Negreiros, the message of the group’s music had a profound impact: “I became aware of what it is to be black,” he says, “discovering the extraordinary potential of the Afro-Brazilian culture in the making of the national ethos.” Now the last remaining member of the original Orquestra, Carlos was tracked down by producer Mario Caldato Jr. - whose credits include Beastie Boys, Marcelo D2 and Seu Jorge among others - to oversee the first new album of Orquestra Afro-Brasileira material since 1968.

“I was overwhelmed with the percussive rhythms, beautiful deep vocals and combined energy,” Caldato Jr. explains. “It felt like the most authentic Brazilian roots music I had ever heard. It was raw and dynamic, a pure organic sound and energy. It was a spiritual experience.”

Alongside arranger Caio Cezar, Carlos assembled his Orquestra to record five tracks at Berna Ceppas’ Estudio Maravilha 8 studio in Rio De Janeiro. With percussion, horns and vocals cut in single takes over three days, the session captured the intuitive, pure and natural spirit of the group in full flow.

Following the success of the initial session, five additional tracks were recorded at the iconic Estudio CIA dos Tecnicos in Copacabana to complete the album. Mixed by Caldato Jr., 80 Anos is a contemporary incarnation of Abigail Moura’s vision, bristling with the flair of the original recordings.

Giving form to a broad personal project of continuous inquiry and existential expression, A World Of Servicemarks the Ostgut Ton debut of Spanish producer, DJ and artist JASSS aka Silvia Jiménez Alvarez.

The evolution of A World Of Servicehas curved around genre collapsing and unexpected metamorphoses. Formerly the name of the monthly radio show JASSS hosted in Berlin, and soon to be the title of her expansive multi-sensory touring concept in collaboration with Ben Kreukniet, here A World Of Serviceis powerfully concentrated in sonic form. Throughout the album JASSS muses on the especially current human and technological barriers to interconnectivity; both lyrically and musically she deconstructs the self, unmasks anxieties and interrogates the insufficiencies of language as applied to gender, identity and interpersonal relationships. Forming her own fluid, nuanced lexicon in response, JASSS seeks a deeper understanding of her multiple selves, emerging through unbridled adolescent rage and the wisdom of maturation, traversing liminality with abstract electronics and baroque industrial pop. Visually this is underscored by Matt Lambert’s uncanny floral cover portraiture, as well as the record’s distinct scent of wet earth, flower and woods developed for the album by Meri Bonastre and applied to the vinyl innersleeve.

Following the imaginative nostalgia of Weightless, her 2017 debut album for iDEAL Recordings, as well as her series of blistering dancefloor 12”s for Whities/AD 93, A World Of Servicefolds personal and societal concepts in on themselves, not seeking answers but rather luxuriating in the unique friction that questions create. JASSS is intensely focused yet musically unbridled; this is reflected in tonal shifts of A World Of Service. Through the computerised yearning and bruising of a heartbreak on “Luis”, to the jagged and wordless tundra of “Vapor Dentro”; the intriguing juxtaposition of warm, alluring Spanish vocals against rigid pillars of industrial heft and bass grind (“Camelo”), and the soaring maximalist industrial popof the album’s closer, “Wish.”

As intensity rises through the pandemic-era trip hop of the album’s title track “A World Of Service”, JASSS sings: “Pleasure / Is nowhere to be found inside this world of service / I call to be my life.” Pleasure may remain elusive to her, but in the determination to make peace with her various identities in this technological age, JASSS offers a compelling glimpse into an essential type of artistic voice.

By now you’re probably familiar with our wildly popular Brown Acid series of rare, lost and unreleased proto-metal and stoner rock singles from the 60s-70s. In the endless pursuit of those glorious gems, we often uncover equally brilliant rarities from the late-70s to late-80s Golden Age of Heavy Metal that also just must be heard, but they don’t fit the series’ aesthetic. Scrap Metal, Volume 1 collects some of the greatest unknown and lost Heavy Metal tracks, long buried beneath the avalanche of the era’s classic output.
We all know the old adage that history is told by the winners. But sometimes the losers tell the best stories. And while none of these bands found fame and fortune, this artifact and the volumes to come are testament to the enduring power of heavy music. You can hear the blood, sweat and beers that went into each of these singles. The recordings may be low budget, but the inspiration and talent is immutable. Not only are the amps turned up to 11, the boyish sexual innuendo is cranked to 69. You can hear the convergence of influences — NWOBHM, thrash, glam metal, doom, etc — colliding at once as the era birthed a wellspring of subgenres.
Many of these singles are self-released and were thus limited to a small run of copies. Those that remain are hoarded by collectors and sold for exorbitant amounts. We’ve collected the best of the best for you here. As with Brown Acid, all of these tracks are licensed legitimately and the artists all get paid. Because it’s the right thing to do.
LINER NOTES:
Rapid Tears launch this series with the perfect christening. The Toronto, ON quintet’s 1981 single “Headbang” is such the pinnacle of heavy metal madness that it almost sounds like a spoof. There’s also enough of the rapid-fire sputum that inspired Metallica to bang the head that doesn’t, as such, engage in said practice, to be found on the band’s sole full length Honestly. But “Headbang” is a straightforward glammy anthem for the ages.
Air Raid’s “69 In A 55” may be lyrically so sophomoric that it’s actually pretty clever, but this 1983 Bay Area power metal single is loaded with sleek Judas Priest riffs and interwoven melodies that are downright sublime. The band’s sole release, the 2-song Rock Force 7” features a curious band photo in which 3 band members — dolled up in Crüe makeup and leather — are sexually menacing the lead singer/guitarist tied to a bed. Another low budget highlight is when singer/guitarist Tommy “Thrasher” Merry imitates a delay effect on his vocals as he sings, “tonight!...tonight...night.”
Hades’ “Girls Will Be Girls” has a real demo cassette feel to its vastly uneven mix, but the energy to the performance makes this an undeniable keeper. The long running Paramus, NJ quintet’s 1982 2- song debut 7” titled Deliver Us From Evil features this blistering thrasher dominated by shimmering leads and confident vocals that show why the band went on to near-fame on Metal Blade Records.
Resless don’t need no T to prove that they’ve got “The Power” with this 1984 driving mid-tempo rocker in the vein of Mötley Crüe and Ratt. The River Vale, NJ quartet’s tight crunch wails all over Bon Jovi posers but it’s the band’s unique and subtle deployment of background vocals that gives this rager its staying power.
Pittsburgh, the Steel City, is home to Don Cappa, a band that pays tribute to the burgh, the metal, and the awesomeness of both with “Steel City Metal.” Their lone single, issued in 1987 with only 300 copies released, sounds like the work of some serious steel driving men, with a drummer who might’ve forgotten to wear a hard hat one too many times on the construction site.
The Beast has more of a punk feel to their aggressive “Enemy Ace” track from the 4-song Power Metal EP from 1983 — something like Dr. Know meets D.O.A. But their look, artwork and lyrics all prove that Heavy Metal is where their hearts lie. And this hook filled monster delivers repeated lines like, “I command them all in my lofty realm,” with commendable conviction.
Dead Silence from Denver, Colorado, debuting in 1984 is not to be confused with Dead Silence from Denver, Colorado, who also debuted in 1984. The former a workman’s hard rock bar band, the latter a political peace punk band and neither knowing of the other’s existence throughout their tenure. The pre-internet days were a marvel, indeed.This Dead Silence spits out a slick, Nugent tinged rocker called “Can’t Stop” about life on the road.
The Danger Zone is, by all accounts, not the place to be. And, Hazardous Waste of Boston, MA saw fit to add their two cents on the matter with this 1986 single that combines Van Halen’s flashy musicianship with NWOBHM aggression that sounds so awesome it teeters on itself entering the “Danger Zone.”
Czar’s heavy, doomy “Iron Curtain” single from 1982 hearkens to the sleazy sounds of Saint Vitus and Pentagram with its cranked up DOD Distortion pedal in a Peavey combo amp guitar tone and meaty, barking vocals. The upstate NY quintet only issued this 2-song single, but its driving rhythm, nosedive whammy-bar guitar solos and comparatively mature Cold War subject matter show they had real potential.
Not much is known about Real Steel’s majestic “Viking Queen” from 1987, other than it rocks hard and the 7” 45 sells for upwards of a grand on the collectors market. The Flint, Michigan band recorded at the home studio of local radio personality Bill Lamb, who primarily released Christian Gospel recordings. So, perhaps the band was struck down by a bolt of lightning shortly after this rare single’s release. Whatever the case may be, it’s a must have for fans of classic metal mayhem.

"Life, Love And Faith" - Allen Toussaint (p, g, hca, arr); Alvin Thomas (ts); Francis Rousselle (tp); Clyde Kerr (tp, frh); George Plummer, Vincent Toussaint (g); Walter Payton (b); Joe Lambert, Joseph Modeliste (dr); a.o. & The Meters

Allen Toussaint had it all around him – the voices and spirits of black music, rhythm ’n’ blues, funk and soul. He was born in New Orleans and grew up there, the birthplace of jazz. As from 1960, he worked as a record producer and an A&R man at Minit Records, an independent label, which was closely associated with the transformation of the New Orleans Sound. His compositions for fellow musicians landed them in the charts, he frequently participated by performing with them on the piano, and so became a connoisseur and master of all possible sounds.

"Life, Love And Faith" marks his launch into his solo career, and quite rightly so. In the songs, Toussaint amalgamates all he had mastered with a rocking R&B, funky rhythms and expressive soul to create his highly personal sound.

Although it is a soul album through and through, one has the feeling that one is listening to an album from Reprise’s stable of singers/songwriters – including such artists as Randy Newman, Bonnie Raitt, Little Feat and Joni Mitchell – rather than what usually came out of New Orleans in the early Seventies. And also because "Life, Love And Faith" captures an eccentric genius who pursues his own idiosyncratic vision. It is a structured, multi-layered album, which does not show Toussaint in his purest form, but it is his only album that shows just how widely ranged and profound his many talents were.

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: 1972 at Jazz City Studios, New Orleans, by Cosimo Matassa and Skip Godwin

Production: Allen Toussaint

“I want total freedom, total possibility, total acceptance. I want to fall in love with the rock.” That’s how Lillie West describes the theme of “DIVER,” the song she calls the thesis of Lala Lala’s third record, I Want The Door To Open. The rock in question is a reference to Sisyphus, the mythical figure doomed by the gods to forever push a boulder up from the depths of hell. To West, it is the perfect metaphor for, in her words, “the labor of living, of figuring out who you are, what's wrong with you, what's right with you.”

Coming off of 2018’s acclaimed The Lamb, an introspective indie rock album recorded live with a three-piece band, West knew she was ready to make something sonically bigger and thematically more outward-looking than anything she’d done before; a record that would be less a straightforward documentation of her own personal struggles and more like a poem or a puzzle box, with sonic and lyrical clues that would allow the listener to, as the title says, open the door to the greater meaning of those struggles.

The result is I Want The Door To Open, a bold exploration of persona and presence from an artist questioning how to be herself fully in a world where the self is in constant negotiation. From the moment West declares “I want to look right into the camera” over a cascade of dreamy vocal loops on opening track “Lava,” I Want The Door To Open distinguishes itself from anything she’s done before in scope and intensity. The ultra-magnified iteration of Lala Lala is fully encapsulated in the monumental “DIVER.” Inspired by a character from a Jennifer Egan novel, it’s a pop song of Kate Bush-esque proportions replete with layered synths and booming, wide open drumming by fellow Chicago musician Nnamdi Ogbonnaya, and West pushing her vocals to the ragged edge. I Want The Door To Open is a musical quest undertaken with the knowledge that the titular door may never open; but it is through falling in love with the quest itself that one may find the closest thing to total freedom, total possibility, and total acceptance available to us on this plane of existence.

“I want total freedom, total possibility, total acceptance. I want to fall in love with the rock.” That’s how Lillie West describes the theme of “DIVER,” the song she calls the thesis of Lala Lala’s third record, I Want The Door To Open. The rock in question is a reference to Sisyphus, the mythical figure doomed by the gods to forever push a boulder up from the depths of hell. To West, it is the perfect metaphor for, in her words, “the labor of living, of figuring out who you are, what's wrong with you, what's right with you.”

Coming off of 2018’s acclaimed The Lamb, an introspective indie rock album recorded live with a three-piece band, West knew she was ready to make something sonically bigger and thematically more outward-looking than anything she’d done before; a record that would be less a straightforward documentation of her own personal struggles and more like a poem or a puzzle box, with sonic and lyrical clues that would allow the listener to, as the title says, open the door to the greater meaning of those struggles.

The result is I Want The Door To Open, a bold exploration of persona and presence from an artist questioning how to be herself fully in a world where the self is in constant negotiation. From the moment West declares “I want to look right into the camera” over a cascade of dreamy vocal loops on opening track “Lava,” I Want The Door To Open distinguishes itself from anything she’s done before in scope and intensity. The ultra-magnified iteration of Lala Lala is fully encapsulated in the monumental “DIVER.” Inspired by a character from a Jennifer Egan novel, it’s a pop song of Kate Bush-esque proportions replete with layered synths and booming, wide open drumming by fellow Chicago musician Nnamdi Ogbonnaya, and West pushing her vocals to the ragged edge. I Want The Door To Open is a musical quest undertaken with the knowledge that the titular door may never open; but it is through falling in love with the quest itself that one may find the closest thing to total freedom, total possibility, and total acceptance available to us on this plane of existence.

Ein Weihnachtsalbum zwischen sentimentalen Pop-Balladen, Witz, Swing und Charme präsentiert Darren Criss, multitalentierter Sänger, Songwriter, Emmy- und Golden-Globe-prämierter Schauspieler und
Broadway-Star. Seine Fans lieben den gutaussehenden jungen Mann für seine Rollen in ”GLEE”, ”VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY” oder ”HOLLYWOOD”.
Jetzt erfüllt sich Criss einen Wunsch mit einem Weihnachtsalbum, das zwischen Pop und Swing a’la
Dean Martin allerbestes Entertainment unter dem Weihnachtsbaum verspricht. Sein erstes Album in voller
Länge besteht aus Originalsongs und kreativen Neuinterpretationen klassischer Weihnachtshits. Als Gäste
hat er Adam Lambert, Lainey Wilson und Evan Rachel Wood zur Weihnachtsparty geladen.

Collaboration project of Hamburg based techno and electronic composer Martin Stimming and Berlin based pianist and composer Lambert - the first new music from the duo since 2018’s minialbum 'Exodus'. The 11 track collection will be released by XXIM Records, the new imprint for post genre instrumental music by Sony Masterworks. On this record the duo leave their 'safe and cosy' piano sound behind, embracing lo-fi analogue synths, new rhythmic techniques and a versatile understanding of synthesised sound to explore uncharted electro acoustic territory. This record is more ambitious, complex, extravagant and sophisticated than anything the pair have released before. Specialist promo/marketing activity.

John Prine’s Grammy Award-winning album, Fair & Square, is available on vinyl for the first time in over sixteen years. There are three special double LPs: standard black, opaque green and a limited amount of “Irish Edition”—green and orange vinyl with a matte jacket featuring embossed lettering.
Originally released in 2005, Fair & Square won Best Contemporary Folk Album at the 48th Grammy Awards and achieved the fastest rise to number one in the history of Americana radio. The record marked Prine’s first album in nine years, following 1995’s Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings. Rolling Stone declared Fair & Square “an excellent set of songs full of rootsy warmth and unpretentious wit,” while The Washington Post praised its relatability: “this low-key masterpiece arrives not just as a reminder of Prine’s cleverness and mischievous wit but also as a confirmation of his deeply human values. These are values rooted in the enduring mystery and majesty of everyday, ordinary lives.”
Prine is a four-time Grammy winner and Lifetime Achievement Award honoree, a seven-time Americana Music Award-winner, a PEN New England Lyrics Award recipient and member of both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Since his debut in 1971, Prine released over 18 albums and has had his songs recorded by Johnny Cash, Carly Simon, Bette Midler, Bonnie Raitt, Norah Jones, George Strait, Miranda Lambert, Zac Brown Band and many others, while drawing effusive praise from Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Bonnie Raitt, Roger Waters, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and more.

4LP & 2CD Genesis Hits package to coincide with the bands UK tour in September 2021 with 3 sold out shows at London’s 02 Arena. This will be Genesis’s first tour in over 13 years with the classic line up of Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks & Phil Collins. They have sold around 100 million albums worldwide with over 20 top 40 UK hits with songs such as Follow You Follow Me, Turn It On Again, Mama, I Can’t Dance and many more. Genesis have won awards over the years at the American Music Awards, Grammy Awards, Ivor Novello Awards and a Lifetime Achievement at the Progressive Music Awards. The track list is made up of the songs the band have been performing in rehearsals and will make up the majority of the setlist during the gigs, the title of the release is the same as the tour. 4LP set is to be housed in a hardback gatefold book-style package, this will include classic images of the band, rare and unseen images from their archive & images of the rehearsal and the stage used for the gigs.

'The Works and Days: The Black Sections' is a sound collage album that emerged out of the production material of the film, The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin). The film — winner of the Encounters Golden Bear for Best Film at the 2020 Berlinale — is the second feature of C.W. Winter & Anders Edström. It is an eight-hour fiction shot for a total of twenty-seven weeks, over a period of fourteen months, in a village population forty-seven in the mountains of Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. It is a geographic description of the work and non-work of a farmer. A portrait, over five seasons, of a family, of a terrain, of a sound space, and of a duration. The film was named one of the Ten Best Films of the Year by critics at: Artforum, Cargo, Cinema Scope, Desistfilm, Filo, La Internacional Cinéfila, Mubi, Nobody, Senses of Cinema, and Sight & Sound.

The film is accompanied by this LP, TheWorks and Days: The Black Sections, by C.W. Winter, and the photo book, Shiotani, by Anders Edström. The album features musical excerpts from Tim Berne & Bill Frisell, Tony Conrad, Graham Lambkin, Mary Jane Leach, Alvin Lucier, Phill Niblock, Folke Rabe, Éliane Radigue, and Akio Suzuki. Producing, editing, and recordings by C.W. Winter. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu.

Winter & Edström’s first feature, The Anchorage, won a Golden Leopard at Locarno Film Festival and won the Douglas E. Edwards Independent/Experimental Film/Video Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. It was named one of the Ten Best Films of the Year by critics at Cinema Scope, Film Comment, Senses of Cinema, Variety, and Indie Wire and was named Best First Film of the Year by The New York Times. Their first film, a documentary short called One Plus One 2 was made in collaboration with the late British guitarist, Derek Bailey. Their film/video work has shown at such venues as the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), Centre national de la photographie (Paris), Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Fotomuseum Winterthur, NRW-Forum (Düsseldorf), the Harvard Film Archive, Anthology Film Archives, the Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus), Centre de cultura contemporània de Barcelona, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, and the National Museum of Modern Art (Kyoto).

C.W. Winter was born in California. In 2020, he completed his DPhil in Art Practice & Theory at The Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford. He received his MFA from California Institute of the Arts where he studied closely under Thom Andersen, James Benning, and Allan Sekula. His writing has appeared in Cinema Scope, Moving Image Source, Purple, and Too Much. He lives in the United Kingdom where he is currently a Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Art and a Lecturer at the University of Oxford.

Side A excerpts:
“Thursday, May 5, 1977 & Friday, May 6, 1977: Part 4” Performed by Tony Conrad. Used by arrangement with The Tony Conrad Estate
“Sethwork” Performed by Phill Niblock. Used by arrangement with Phill Niblock
“What?? (Second Version)” Performed by Folke Rabe. Used by arrangement with the Folke Rabe Estate
“Pipe Dreams” Performed by Mary Jane Leach. Used by arrangement with Mary Jane Leach
“What?? (Second Version)” Performed by Folke Rabe. Used by arrangement with the Folke Rabe Estate
“2011” Performed by Tim Berne & Bill Frisell. Written by Tim Berne. Published by Party Time Music BMI. Recording courtesy of Minor Music Records/Screwgun Records

Side B excerpts:
“Ceremoniolose” Recorded by Graham Lambkin. Used by arrangement with Graham Lambkin
“Kugiuchi” Performed by Akio Suzuki. Recorded live for TheWorks and Days Used by arrangement with Akio Suzuki
“Music on a Long Thin Wire (Side A)” Performed by Alvin Lucier. Used by arrangement with Alvin Lucier
“A Third Trombone” Performed by Phill Niblock. Used by arrangement with Phill Niblock
“Triptych: Part 1” Performed by Éliane Radigue. Used by arrangement with Éliane Radigue

Following on from the acclaimed Tiger Balm / Amazonia Dreaming / Immersion LP (BT028), Black Truffle is thrilled to present two major new instrumental works from legendary sound artist and experimental composer Annea Lockwood. Demonstrating the ever evolving and radically open nature of Lockwood’s practice, these two recent works were developed in close collaboration with their performers. ‘Becoming Air’ (2018), developed with and performed by trumpeter Nate Wooley, uses extended technique and electronics to interfere with Wooley’s virtuosic control over his instrument, pushing him into areas of fluctuating pitch and timbral instability. Motivated by a desire for ‘the letting go of sound to be itself’, ‘Becoming Air’ unfolds as a series of texturally distinct moments separated by pauses, each fixing on a particular approach to the instrument (long tones, upper-register whistles, breathy wooshes) and maintaining it in an essentially static fashion, focussing our attention on subtle changes and variations. Dipping into near-inaudibility in the fragile high tones of its opening section, the piece dramatically increases in volume and intensity in its final third, climaxing with a passage of roaring distortion, where the interaction between feedback and trumpet pitches calls up the shuddering interference effects of Robert Ashley’s Wolfman.

‘Into the Vanishing Point’ (2019) is a collaborative work developed with New York piano and percussion quartet Yarn/Wire, who have performed work by major contemporary composers such as Olivia Block, Catherine Lamb and Klaus Lang. Carrying on the ecological and environmental concerns of some of Lockwood’s previous works, ‘Into the Vanishing Point’ was inspired by a devastating news article on the global collapse of insect populations. Discovering that the four members of Yarn/Wire had also read this text, Lockwood mapped out a loose structure for the piece that would allow the composer and four performers to explore their ‘feelings about what is happening ecologically’. Working with a huge variety of instruments, objects and techniques of sound production, the resulting work is an alluringly lush, organically unfolding tissue of unorthodox textures and haunting tones. Though not intended to sonically represent ecological issues in any direct way, its unique sound world of rubbed piano strings, gently handled objects and chiming pitches often calls up natural images: of insects and frogs, wind rushing through trees, a bird’s wings in flight. Presented in a stunning gatefold cover with liner notes by Lockwood, Wooley and Yarn/Wire, Becoming Air/Into the Vanishing Point is a testament to the generosity and experimentation that continue to characterise the work of this extraordinary artist, active for over fifty years.

Guitarists Marisa Anderson and William Tyler distil deeply
rooted and varied traditions into distinctive voices all their own.
Anderson and Tyler are each unyielding in their desire to extend
through those traditions and the confines of ‘guitar music’ to
craft music at once intimate and expansive, conversational and
transcendent.
The duo’s debut collaborative album tethers together their
singular voices into unified narratives that glisten, drive and
sway. On ‘Lost Futures’, Anderson and Tyler’s guitars dance
through lush arrangements and pastoral duets serpentine and
reverent.
‘Lost Futures’ takes its name from writer Mark Fisher’s cultural
theory of the loss of potential futures, the hopes and ideals
which once felt inevitable but have since been interrupted.
Anderson and Tyler’s use of textural drones, rhythmic repetition
and harmonic shifts embody the building tensions of uncertainty
created by profound loss: loss of life, experience,
companionship, compassion. Across ‘Lost Futures’, Anderson
and Tyler mold their instruments into breathtaking panoramas of
blight and bliss. Each movement contains a dense biome of
transportive sound.
The duo’s music together reckons with mounting pressures as
well as the joy of newfound friendship and gratitude for being
able to play together. In tandem, Marisa Anderson and William
Tyler have composed a work of remarkable breadth, brimming
with resplendent odes of solace.
Marisa Anderson and William Tyler are both prolific solo artists.
Tyler has also toured with groups including Lambchop and
Silver Jews and Marisa has contributed to recordings by Beth
Ditto, Sharon Van Etten and Circuit Des Yeux among others.
‘Lost Futures’ features guests Gisela Rodriguez Fernandez on
violin and Patricia Vázquez Gómez playing quijada.
Package features artwork by Sam Smith. LPs include artworked
inner-sleeve featuring photography by Marisa Anderson.

Fuelled by an uncertain future and conflicting feelings towards the
connectivity and intensity of the modern world, Press to MECO’s eagerly
awaited new album ‘Transmute’ follows up from 2018’s critically acclaimed
‘Here’s to the Fatigue’.
Produced by Machine (Clutch, Lamb of God, King Crimson) in a 16th century
tower in the UK, ‘Transmute’ feels more defined, where the heavy moments
are brutal, the quiet aspects are beautiful, and the cinematic flourishes make
the whole thing feel epic.
FFO: Foals, Biffy Clyro, Billy Talent.
Print ads going in Kerrang, Rock Sound, Upset/Dork, Alt Press in UK, Visions DE
plus more EU TBC.
25k+ across socials, plus 300+ Discord group and guitarist has 500+ Twitch
channel
Key supporters of the band include BBC Radio 1, MTV Rocks, Kerrang! Radio,
Kerrang! Magazine, Alt Press, Rock Sound, Upset alongside editorial support
from Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and Amazon Music.
Previous touring includes touring Europe with Shinedown, UK tours with
Don Broco, SikTh and Arcane Roots alongside performances at festivals
such as Download, Slam Dunk, Truck Festival, 2000 Trees, NAMM and Teddy
Rocks.

The music on this album by Sofie Birch was originally created for the ASMR performance piece ‘Whisper Fold Brush’ in collaboration with SLØR Visual Performance / My Lambertsen. The album release version focuses on the music that was composed for the performance, while the ASMR sounds were moved to the background or are in some cases not present at all.

Zagreb-based Legalize Lambada are back with a four track jaunt taking in slow street trance, disco reggae, pumping house and lovers disco.