quête:lav

"Social injustices are implanted into our society, and the powerful are not willing to make way for real change. Urgency is the force driving us both in musical improvisation and life. Our sounds are war sirens against an ongoing disaster."- Simon Grab & Francesco Giudici

Simon Grab & Francesco Giudici's 'No Surrender' is a strong and uncut manifest against social injustices, packed into screaming feedbacks and towering drones. Grab lures tender noises and pulsating frequencies from his fragile no-input-mixing-setup, while Giudici adds linear and visceral guitar drones, opening a dialogue between the two musicians, the room, and the surrounding context. Together, they create a uniquely soft but angry musical creature that feeds from emotions of loss and anger to become a haunting call for change.

The album's cover presents a portrait of 'Madame Rochat' by photographer and film maker Aline d'Auria. The seemingly indestructible concierge was stripped from her home of half a century on the day of her retirement. Still, she persistently continued to fight for the working class' rights. '

Focusing on reduction and the peculiarity of self-referential systems, Simon Grab plays fragile feedbacks, pulsating drones and opulent outbursts of noise on a no-input-mixing setup. His has previously released"Posthuman Species" and "Extinction" on -OUS, while "Diamonds", a collaboration with Togolese rapper Yao Bobby and Asian Dub Foundation's Dhangsha, came out via LavaLava.

Experimental musician and sociologist Francesco Giudici plays guitar in bands and creates music for films, installations and theatre pieces. He has released three albums with his band 'Black Fluo' on PulverUndAsche Records. His research as sociologist and demographer focuses on social and economic inequalities, social gradient in health, gender inequalities, occupational and familiar life trajectories.

First Word Records is very pleased to present a brand new full-length album from Sarah Williams White! Emanating from the "hilly fields of Lewisham" in South London, Sarah Williams White is a singer songwriter, multi-

instrumentalist and producer. Her sound is a unique blend of psych-soul, folktronica and experimental synth-pop.

Sarah released her acclaimed debut album 'Of The New World' on First Word in 2015, which was written, produced and performed by Sarah from her home studio, with the assistance of drummer, engineer & husband, Timmy Rickard. Her projects have seen support from the likes of Lauren Laverne, Tom Ravenscroft, Nemone & Chris Hawkins (BBC 6 Music), Jamie Cullum (BBC Radio 2), FIP Radio, Clash & The Guardian, to name a few, and she's toured the UK with Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip and Golden Rules (Lex). There have been additional collaborations with label-mate Quiet Dawn (on the 2021 compilation / EP 'A Family Affair') and with her brother, Paul White - a revered producer in his own right, with credits including Danny Brown and Sudan Archives.

Following a hiatus, Sarah now brings us her sophomore album, 'Unfathomable'. A project that offers up escapism from the mundane, enticing us to connect with our natural planet in this prevalent time, via the eyes of a new mother.

In her words, Sarah states that the album is "about escape. It's about deflating the ego by looking up to the endlessness of outer space, connecting with the greatness of mother nature, and loving how unfathomable the universe and life itself is".

11-tracks in all, including the recent singles 'Nebula', 'Green' and 'Monsters', this opus sees Sarah's buttery lathing of vocals merged with cutting beats and atypical pop sensibilities across the project, again entirely self-produced from home, defining her as one of the UK's most irresistible DIY psych-soul talents.

With a voice reminiscent of Peggy Lee, tapestried harmony akin to Hiatus Kaiyote, beats fit for Little Dragon, and experimental production evocative of Kate Bush, Sarah Williams White's signature genre-defying sound invites us into a world uniquely hers.

'Unfathomable' is released on vinyl and digital in late January 2022.

Alternately author, actor, outstanding performer - notably in his last piano voice concert “Dans La Peau", Marc Lavoine is a total artist who revels in his freedom in all areas of expression. Three and a half years after his last studio album, he returns to his first love. "Adult Jamais", the new album by Marc Lavoine, includes the duets with Grand Corps Malade and Virginie Ledoyen. Reviews and Ads – R2 and London Macadam

Pompeii, Cate Le Bon’s sixth full-length studio album and the follow up to 2019’s Mercury-nominated Reward, bears a storied title summoning apocalypse, but the metaphor eclipses any “dissection of immediacy,” says Le Bon. Not to downplay her nod to disorientation induced by double catastrophe — global pandemic plus climate emergency’s colliding eco-traumas resonate all too eerily. “What would be your last gesture?” she asks. But just as Vesuvius remains active, Pompeii reaches past the current crises to tap into what Le Bon calls “an economy of time warp” where life roils, bubbles, wrinkles, melts, hardens, and reconfigures unpredictably, like lava—or sound, rather. Like she says in the opener, “Dirt on the Bed,” Sound doesn’t go away / In habitual silence / It reinvents the surface / Of everything you touch. Pompeii is sonically minimal in parts, and its lyrics jog between self-reflection and direct address. Vulnerability, although “obscured,” challenges Le Bon’s tendencies towards irony. Written primarily on bass and composed entirely alone in an “uninterrupted vacuum,” Le Bon plays every instrument (except drums and saxophones) and recorded the album largely by herself with long-term collaborator and co-producer Samur Khouja in Cardiff, Wales. Enforced time and space pushed boundaries, leading to an even more extreme version of Le Bon's studio process – as exits were sealed, she granted herself “permission to annihilate identity.” “Assumptions were destroyed, and nothing was rejected” as her punk assessments of existence emerged. Enter Le Bon’s signature aesthetic paradox: songs built for Now miraculously germinate from her interests in antiquity, philosophy, architecture, and divinity’s modalities. Unhinged opulence rests in sonic deconstruction that finds coherence in pop structures, and her narrativity favors slippage away from meaning.

Scott Lavene is set to release ‘Broke’ on 7th June 2019, an album that is drenched in living in the gutter but staring at the stars.

Lavene has the lyrical smarts and the fairground bark of an Ian Dury, the incisive wordplay of a Costello and the deadpan pop of Madness in his creative DNA, along with the street poetry of an Essex boy version of Lou Reed, the dislocated funk of Talking Heads, the jellied eel lyrical bounce of Chas and Dave, and the inventive surreal see-saw of a Tom Waits, and many other nonconformists.

It’s an intoxicating brew that he makes his own in this collection of wonderful quirky songs that make up ‘Broke’.

These are songs that are full of detail and a life lived in scuffed shoes, rainy towns and the magic of the everyday. Songs about small talk, being skint, doomed affairs and the sweetness of falling in love over a cup of tea.

Creating unconventional backdrops for his street tales Scott builds up shapeshifting rhymes and looping grooves.

Unrelenting but utterly charismatic across four tracks, Valerie Ace's debut EP blends her lived experience intertwined with today's increasingly complex politics of club culture with a thirst for experimentation, unpicking and subverting the strains of toxic masculinity that still run deep through contemporary culture. This is first-rate dancefloor discourse with little room for chin-stroking.

Tape

The Forbidden Dance label is marking their first year of existence and with already top-notch names (Vick Lavender, Alton Miller, The Mechanical Man) with the first three releases, they are celebrating the one year mark with another global gem, disco and house finest - Ilija Rudman!
Where Wild Horses Go is conveying an unquestionable sense of 80's electro and synth boogie filled with smooth and heavily reverberated rhythmics drenched in strong snares. Aligned with catchy and spaced-out disco pads, the album is riddled with ever strong analogue elements processed in a light, quirky and summerish way but with enough groove in some tracks easily applicable on the dancefloors in the late hours.
Dead Horse Gang is a brainchild music band/brand by Ilija Rudman dedicated to cinematic dance concept laying on the Los Angeles funk attitude, Art Of Noise perception of sound and raw 12-bit grooves making a statement of mid 80's culture with surf vibe of California summer.
"Dead Horse Gang Music is more than music, it's a way of life, a way of thinking, a path to a maximum freedom of the one, who can accept it."
-Ilija Rudman

A year after its first edition, the Open Space series returns in order to keep exploring what ambient music might mean nowadays.

A breadth of fresh artists, some new to the label and others renowned for their more dance-centric works, the compilation aims to give each individual artist their creative freedom to explore the space.

Techno producers such as Arthur Robert or label head Len Faki himself keep the beats present but this time focus on evoking states of introspection rather than the shuffle of dancefloors.
On the other end of the spectrum, we find seasoned multi-instrumentalist Laraaji, who has been crafting deeply meditative soundscapes since the 80’s. Using the special opportunity, the label reaches outside its usual sphere, inviting artists like the modular synth expert Jeremy Wentorth or Jimmy LaValle’s band project The Album Leaf. All while still featuring some well known veteran producers the likes of John Beltran or Exos.

No matter their respective scene or background, all artists are using their unique approach to display something deeply emotive. Be it the warm, expansive electro of Future Beat Alliance or a bubbly cosmic arpride by Hamburg Duo Can Love Be Synth.

Truly living up to its name, the Open Space series aims to open up possibilities for artists to freely pursue their creativity in a completely undefined area, a space for exploration and connection.

"Joe Turner is fast becoming a household name. A tastemakers, tastemaker - the DJ, Producer & multi-instrumentalist has already received nods from Jamz Supernova & Chris Hawkins (6Music), BBC Radio 1’s Chillest Show (Sian Eleri) and Future Artists (Jack Saunders), Jaguar, Pete Tong, BBC Introducing London, triple j, Selector Radio, TSHA, John Digweed and DJ Mag.
Born and raised in Croydon, Joe Turner has quickly established himself as one of the most exciting young producers around. His self-released debut single Atmosphere (2019) gained the support of ex-BBC Radio 1’s Phil Taggart, BBC 6 Music’s Tom Ravenscroft and BBC 1Xtra’s Jamz Supernova, who was so impressed with Joe’s talents that she signed him to her own record label Future Bounce to release double A side Retina / Stay. The tracks hit #1 on the HypeMachine chart and gained further support from the likes of BBC Radio 1's Annie Mac, BBC 6 Music's Lauren Laverne, i-D's The Best New Music, and Eton Messy."

Home to Cuca Records and hundreds of Nashville-fantasizing pluckers and singers, Wisconsin’s Driftless region was a hotbed of country music in the 1960s. Influenced by old-timey ethnic songs, Bakersfield outlaws, countrypolitan rainbows, and the lonesome twang of every rural route roadhouse, these 17 Driftless Dreamers washed up at Jim Kirchstein’s Sauk City record plant with little more than $100 and a longing. Collected here are the fruits of Cuca’s documentary approach to record making, capturing the voices and stories of a culture and glacier in abatement.

Since '66, when the British singer- songwriter emerged as the voice of his
generation with the seminal Family band, through every twist of his four-decade
solo career, Chappo's output has defied music industry protocol, challenged
genre, and held up a mirror to the times. "I've never stopped writing," he reflects,
"and with Life In The Pond, I felt the need to hear what I'd put down in music."
Released in 2021 on Ruf Records and Chappo Music, Life In The Pond draws a
line under a period in which the 79-year-old had been absent from the studio but
privately prolific. Twelve years since 2009's acclaimed rarities collection Hide Go
Seek, "A true lionheart still roars," raved The Mirror, Life In The Pond reconnects
the veteran with faces from his past – including ex-Family multi-instrumentalist
John 'Poli' Palmer as co-writer and producer while taking the pulse of modern life.
"Mostly it's anger at politicians that's kept me fired up," says Chapman of the
lyrics.
As for the music, Life In The Pond connects the dots between Chapman's
founding influences. "It's about nostalgia for the different musical styles that
influenced my life. American rock from the '50s to now. British R'n'B from the '60s,
like Georgie Fame, the Stones, Zoot Money. Folk, Blues, Motown, Stax, Blue Note
jazz, Classical, Americana, and Country. A whole mess of influences…" More than
four decades later, Life In The Pond ties all those threads together, finding
Chapman's voice in vintage form and his musical radar more receptive than ever,
on a tracklisting that roams from hypnotic seven-minute epic "Nightmare #5" to
"Rabbit Got The Gun's" dystopian soul-funk.
The world has turned a few times since '66, but Roger Chapman still has
something to say – and with Life In The Pond, his voice as an artist is more vital
than ever. "I'm very pleased and grateful that Poli gave me the opportunity," he
says, "because I think we came up with the goods on this album."

Strap in for another standout release from Hell Yeah, and their final 12" of the year. 'Lagos Connect' is a one-off dance floor bomb from Aura Safari, one of the hottest names on the Italian electronic-jazz-funk circuit. Vocals come from Nigerian singer Villy and the artwork is by long-time label collaborator Andrea Amaducci who finishes off this package in style.

Aura Safari are Alessandro Deledda, Andrea Moretti, Lorenzo Lavoratori, Daniele Melloni and Nicholas Iammatteo. They contributed to the first volume of the Buena Onda compilation in 2020 and released the critical acclaimed Hotel Mediterraneo EP after years entrenched in the local scene of Perugia, attending the Umbria Jazz Festival every summer and legendary Red Zone Club during winter, both of which shaped the sound of Aura Safari. Now, they showcase their good-time grooves and vibrant vibes on two brilliant new tracks.

'Lagos Connect' is a gloriously upbeat tune that brims with musicality. The bass is fat, the chords seductive and the guitars slide in and out with funky charm. It immediately drops you in the middle of an open-air dance floor in high summer. Villy's soulful lyrics are socially and politically aware. They talk of living life with good vibrations even in the face of adversity. They speak of how society views those less fortunate and of staying true to yourself. They add realness and emotion to a sizzling and timeless track that will unite hearts and minds around the world. A reprise, radio edit and dub mix are also included, then 'Moving Rivers' ups the jazz-funk. It's another majestic arrangement packed with dazzling Rhodes chords, crashing drums and squelchy bass that demand that you move every limb in your body.

Keep yourself warm this winter with this pair of irresistible dance floor heaters from Aura Safari.

With their first few releases, Swansea Sound made clear they are not too fond of the big corporations that dominate social media and the internet. The message of the Christmas single they recorded for the Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club is no different. The indie pop punk of ‘Merry Christmas To Me’ holds up a mirror to all the Scrooges of this world, who see Christmas as the perfect way to make even more money than they already have, usually at the expense of others. On the B-side of the 7”, the band turn the opening track of Cheap Trick’s 2017 Christmas album ‘Christmas Christmas’ into an indie song, keep the catchiness of the original and spice it up with some extra punch in both music and message, using some of the most influential companies on the internet as an inspiration. The record comes on white vinyl and is limited to 300 copies.

Swansea Sound reunites Hue Williams (who lives in Swansea) and Amelia Fletcher of the legendary indie band Pooh Sticks. They are joined by guitarist/bassist and main songwriter Rob Pursey (who was with Amelia in Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, Marine Research, Tender Trap and currently in the Catenary Wires) and drummer Ian Button (Thrashing Doves, Death In Vegas and also part of Catenary Wires). Swansea Sound, that came into being during the 2020 lockdown, was named after a radio station (that still exists, but now uses a different name) and set out to play fast, loud and political indie pop punk. The band debuted in 2020 with the 2 track cassette single ‘Angry Girl’ b/w ‘Corporate Indie Band’ on the small Swansea based DIY cassette label Lavender Sweep and followed it up early 2021 with a 7” ‘Indies Of The World’, a call for indie labels to unite, that was released on four different indie labels working together. In between Swansea Sound released a very limited lathe cut 7”, ‘I Sold My Soul On Ebay’, of which the only copy for sale was sold in January of this year on... Ebay. In November the band will release their debut album, ‘'Live At The Rum Puncheon', again on several different labels.

Glimmering medieval weaponry forged, polished and brandished, Zhenya Lavrinov arrives to take us back in time and beyond the stars. As LVRIN, he appeared opposite Maoupa Mazzochetti on a split EP for Arma – but one pockmark in a scattering of machine-powered ruminations for respected, proudly underground labels – and now he returns to wield a new alias across five tracks of ominous, night-creeping sonics.



The tracks making up Milky Way were recorded by Bryansk-based Lavrinov between 2013 and 2020, reflecting a side of his musical demanour not betrothed to the demands of the dancefloor. Golden Axe is far from ambient though – this is still resolutely rhythmic music spoken by specifically sculpted synths and powered by purposeful sequencers.



There’s a cosmic theme at play here, but ‘Moon Influence’ speaks as much to ancient rites and man’s obsession with lunar forces as any space-age sci-fi symbolism you might associate with gurgling electronic patterns. ‘Rhythmbox From Space’ may be brimming with analogue freakery, but it’s also locked into a rhythmic mantra which tracks back to the dawn of humanity.



Cementing the philosophy of the record visually, Milky Way comes clothed in a striking artwork by Alina Vinogradova. Lavrinov’s Golden Axe seems to hail from this very space depicted on the cover, speaking through time-honoured tools and revelling in universal mysticism as it opens a new chapter in his darkly seductive, psychosomatic music.

Hot on the heels of her standout debut single ‘Cool Kid’, hotly tipped 17-year-old YALA! Records signee Cathy Jain has today shared the title track from her highly anticipated forthcoming debut E.P ‘Artificial’

Echoing the modernist pop of Billie Eilish, the production flair of Frank Ocean’s more soothing moments, and Lana Del Rey’s nostalgia for the recent past; ‘Artificial’ is a hazy, sun-kissed, R&B-tinged alt-pop track that stands Cathy out as a unique new voice.

Cool Kid immediately made an impact at Radio 1 with the track added to their coveted Introducing playlist; garnering big on-air talk ups from Annie Mac, Clara Amfo and Greg James, while Jack Saunders subsequently named it as his Next Wave pick. Further radio support came from Lauren Laverne and Steve Lamacq at 6music. Whilst glowing write-up’s from NME, Clash, and Line Of Best Fit added to the groundswell of support from leading industry tastemakers.

 ‘Paint It Blue’ is dedicated to the man who, for many still today embodies
the central figure at the genre’s source: Julian Edwin ‘Cannonball’
Adderley (1928 - 1975). Maybe he didn’t invent Funk. Together with his
co-musicians in his 60s quintet, Cannonball’s alto sax style, his attitude,
humour great musicality, and his love for his audience allowed him to
become a synonym for funk.
 Nils Landgren, born in 1956, grew up between the music of his father, a
Jazz cornet-player, and the music of his grandfather, a pastor on the
island Gotland. He first heard Cannonball Adderley on ‘Kind Of Blue’. In
this Miles Davis Sextet of the late 1950s, they were all together: “Miles,
the master of beauty. Coltrane, the master of sound. And Cannonball
Adderley, the master of funk,” Nils Landgren writes in the liner notes to
‘Paint It Blue’. From that point on, he procured everything of
Cannonball’s that he could lay his hands on. “Without the soul of
Cannonball it would have been impossible to form my group Funk Unit
many years later,” he writes.
 Landgren edited Cannonball’s live concert announcements into his own
arrangements, so that the time jump between the original and the
nouveau arrangement appears non-existent. An effective device that
literally brings this revered musician into the fold of Nils Landgren’s Funk
Unit.
 Whoever speaks of Cannonball Adderley, must also speak equally of his
brother Nat Adderley. It was an obvious thought to invite the most
important brothers in Jazz after the Adderleys to guest on ‘Paint It Blue’;
with the high energy Funk-Jazzrock of the late 70s, the Brecker brothers
have proven worthy heirs to the Adderleys. Both of them solo on
Landgren’s track ‘You Dig’.
 The equally noble and forcible groove is delivered by the sideman to
countless Soul greats, Bernard Purdie. Bernard’s own stylistically related
production with the Brecker Brothers, Nils Landgren, amongst others is
now strongly in the public consciousness on ‘Soul To Jazz’. Much like
Cannonball Adderley, Airto Moreira owes important impulses to his time
with Miles Davis.
 ‘Paint It Blue’ is possibly Nils Landgren’s most lavish record to date and
with some certainty also his best. Landgren’s playing is cool and smooth,
with warmth, temperament and thought. Here his sound combines
organically with everything he surrounds himself with. The album sounds
as if the recordings for it were a pure joy for all participants. Nils
Landgren has the prerequisite for serious fun, the gift of intelligent
serenity.

This is the Soundtrack of Ys: the Oath in Felghana, the gorgeous A-RPG by Nihon Falcom! Composed & arranged by the Falcom Sound Team jdk, Ys: The Oath in Felghana is the acclaimed remake of Ys III: Wanderers from Ys. which soundtrack is also included in this release!

Originally released as a limited yellow vinyl LP in April 2021, this debut from Taiwan’s psych-heads Dope Purple quickly sold out and gained immediate cult appreciation. Now recut and reissued on swanky transparent lavender coloured vinyl. For fans of Acid Mothers Temple, Les Rallizes Denudes, Asian psych etc

'Grateful End’ in their own words ...

"Grateful End" is our album release in 2019 in the form of CD and cassette.

The title "Grateful End" clearly shows that this is our album with the theme of "End", such as "The Last Day of Humanity" and “Good Night, Good Death" are two of our songs with the theme of "End". However, this album also has another theme of " Live", in fact most of the songs on this album are based on our imagination of "Live". “End" is not the antonym of “Live”, "End" is just one of the stages of “Live”, in other words “End" is also our “Live”. “Grateful End" is a meaningful “End" for people struggling to “Live”. It is only when the “End" comes together with “Live” that we can find significance in it and pay attention to how people face the “End" of “Live”. The End of something enables us to understand “Live”.

Most of the tracks for Grateful End was recorded in 2018, before the epidemic, so our music doesn't reflect the situation of epidemic, but there was a time in 2020 when I thought about the reality that humanity was facing the last day of humanity. Thanks to the efforts of many people, humanity is not yet extinct, and thanks to the help of many people, we can now release this vinyl. We are very grateful to all of you.

But at the same time, the plight of the epidemic has re-emerged many humanity and morality issues that we have avoided looking at. Maybe we won't die out, but if we don't face our humanity squarely, we will lose our humanity in the future and will no longer be human. I don't know what our music can do about humanity, but it is true that music is one of the creations of humanity, and music cannot leave humanity. As music music lovers, our creations will always face humanity. I hope that in the future, after the epidemic is over, we can understand and inspire each other through our live and music.

What or HOO do you get if you mix guitarist Neil Halstead, Farmer Dave of Beechwood Sparks with uncompromising folk angel- Jackie Oates, producer-songwriter and organic gardener with a penchant for wah-wah, Nick Holton? The answer is the widescreen, heartbreaking glory of HOO’s second album WE SHALL NEVER SPEAK. A more song filled leap forward from debut CENTIPEDE WISDOM’s post-rock electro adventures. Holton is a master builder of woozy dynamics, his songs unfurl with a mysterious, hooky logic all their own - this is cinematic and deeply emotive machine music. A glorious hybrid of electro, shoegaze, dubby ‘niceness’ and floating dream pop. The spooked, narcotic throb of opener GHOST IN YOU. The pounding, chewy Kraut/Space rock of CRANIUM. THE MIGHTY’s exquisite slow build towards Can-like lift-off. The snarly, groovy drive of centrepiece & single STILL DREAM. A brief flirt with musique concrète on the metronomic NO ONE CAN SEE THIS. The Halstead co-penned shoegazy, echoey swagger of WE SHALL NEVER SPEAK. The album’s poisoned chalice & peak song moment, POWDER MOON. The synthpop of YOU CHANGED THE WAY YOU SMILE. Closer SEA OF GLASS sounds like Leonard Cohen visiting Kraftwerk’s Klingklang studio. Let that sink in - the idea is perhaps the heart of this venture.The detail and texture is extraordinary. A glorious hybrid of an album that over eight songs builds into something unique. Epic and homegrown. Upbeat and melancholic. Questing and questioning. Haunted by loss but future-facing. It’s a genuine marvel. Holton’s HOO co-conspirators this time are Neil Halstead, Charlie Holton, Ian McCutcheon, Paul Blewett, Chris Monger and Lee Lavender. Guests include acclaimed folk singer Jackie Oates and West Coat Legend Farmer Dave Scher

What or HOO do you get if you mix guitarist Neil Halstead, Farmer Dave of Beechwood Sparks with uncompromising folk angel- Jackie Oates, producer-songwriter and organic gardener with a penchant for wah-wah, Nick Holton? The answer is the widescreen, heartbreaking glory of HOO’s second album WE SHALL NEVER SPEAK. A more song filled leap forward from debut CENTIPEDE WISDOM’s post-rock electro adventures. Holton is a master builder of woozy dynamics, his songs unfurl with a mysterious, hooky logic all their own - this is cinematic and deeply emotive machine music. A glorious hybrid of electro, shoegaze, dubby ‘niceness’ and floating dream pop. The spooked, narcotic throb of opener GHOST IN YOU. The pounding, chewy Kraut/Space rock of CRANIUM. THE MIGHTY’s exquisite slow build towards Can-like lift-off. The snarly, groovy drive of centrepiece & single STILL DREAM. A brief flirt with musique concrète on the metronomic NO ONE CAN SEE THIS. The Halstead co-penned shoegazy, echoey swagger of WE SHALL NEVER SPEAK. The album’s poisoned chalice & peak song moment, POWDER MOON. The synthpop of YOU CHANGED THE WAY YOU SMILE. Closer SEA OF GLASS sounds like Leonard Cohen visiting Kraftwerk’s Klingklang studio. Let that sink in - the idea is perhaps the heart of this venture.The detail and texture is extraordinary. A glorious hybrid of an album that over eight songs builds into something unique. Epic and homegrown. Upbeat and melancholic. Questing and questioning. Haunted by loss but future-facing. It’s a genuine marvel. Holton’s HOO co-conspirators this time are Neil Halstead, Charlie Holton, Ian McCutcheon, Paul Blewett, Chris Monger and Lee Lavender. Guests include acclaimed folk singer Jackie Oates and West Coat Legend Farmer Dave Scher

Driven by support from the likes of Gilles Peterson, Quantic, Nightmares On Wax, The Nextmen, Lauren Laverne, Danny Krivit and most prominently Craig Charles, Sam Redmore has built a name for himself over the last few years for crafting soul-drenched remixes and reworks of both solidified classics and lesser-known material.

Having spent so much time re-working the classics it is no surprise that production values are high when it comes to his own original music.

At the start of 2021 Sam signed to Jalapeno Records, giving everyone involved cause for celebration after a difficult year and his debut album is slated for May 22.

Many of the album tracks were purpose-built for inclusion in his DJ sets - which can range from cumbia, afrobeat, samba, funk and reggae through to house, broken beat, disco and everything in between…

On The One will be the first single to drop from the album and features the inimitable vocals of poet and rapper Mr. Auden Allen as well as the soul drenched horns of Renegade Brass Band. Debuted on BBC 6 Music when Sam performed a guest mix in April this year, it seemed the perfect track to debut from Sam's new record.

Have we ever needed great storytellers so badly? Voices to snap us out of our collective grey funk, to pull us out of our narrow, hemmed-in worlds and to lighten our days and enlighten us with their perspectives, Immersing us in their worldview and history. People who can make us laugh, cry, gasp or nod sagely, to see our world anew and not feel so alone. We need stories, vignettes, new windows to look out of, and narrators to help those new visions make sense.

In short, we need Scott Lavene. Born and raised in Essex, but a man of the world who has wandered far and wide, Lavene’s a storyteller who can capture all the madness, joy and frustration of life while singing about worms writhing in the ground. Lavene’s been in bands since his teens, but only really located the voice that makes his new album Milk City Sweethearts so remarkable – that combination of wry observation, humble wisdom, unguarded vulnerability and unpredictable humour – in a music workshop for alcoholics and addicts, long after he’d bid farewell to childhood dreams of pop stardom, and the ghosts and demons that accompany those dreams.

He released an album as Big Top Heartbreak, 2016’s Deadbeat Ballads, and followed it with his first album under his own name, 2019’s droll and marvellous Broke. “I was signed to a little label in Bristol, but then they went skint,” he remembers. This time, however, the disappointment didn’t shake his confidence or his resolve. “I started writing prose, like ‘flash fiction’, and I’ve begun a novel,” he says. “And I’ve started some creative writing workshops for people who’ve come out of my situation.”

Amid all this activity, the songs that became Milk City Sweethearts began to take shape. Lavene noticed the border between his prose and his songwriting beginning to become porous, and the album feels like a clutch of excellent short stories set to music. Without a label, he recorded the album at home, and assembled it in a week in his mum’s garage during lockdown’s heavy manners. It’s a warm, witty, charismatic record with a dark heart at the centre, Lavene sounding dislocated and therefore able to write his everyday stories with a left-handed brilliance and blunt honesty that keeps them so fresh, like classic Kinks, or David Bowie if he’d never had to go to space to feel otherworldly. His songs are talking blues, set to loose and minimal and excellent art-rock with a pop sensibility, the honk of Roxy sax and the guttural weird-funk of Ian Dury’s Blockheads haunting their grooves.

Have we ever needed great storytellers so badly? Voices to snap us out of our collective grey funk, to pull us out of our narrow, hemmed-in worlds and to lighten our days and enlighten us with their perspectives, Immersing us in their worldview and history. People who can make us laugh, cry, gasp or nod sagely, to see our world anew and not feel so alone. We need stories, vignettes, new windows to look out of, and narrators to help those new visions make sense.

In short, we need Scott Lavene. Born and raised in Essex, but a man of the world who has wandered far and wide, Lavene’s a storyteller who can capture all the madness, joy and frustration of life while singing about worms writhing in the ground. Lavene’s been in bands since his teens, but only really located the voice that makes his new album Milk City Sweethearts so remarkable – that combination of wry observation, humble wisdom, unguarded vulnerability and unpredictable humour – in a music workshop for alcoholics and addicts, long after he’d bid farewell to childhood dreams of pop stardom, and the ghosts and demons that accompany those dreams.

He released an album as Big Top Heartbreak, 2016’s Deadbeat Ballads, and followed it with his first album under his own name, 2019’s droll and marvellous Broke. “I was signed to a little label in Bristol, but then they went skint,” he remembers. This time, however, the disappointment didn’t shake his confidence or his resolve. “I started writing prose, like ‘flash fiction’, and I’ve begun a novel,” he says. “And I’ve started some creative writing workshops for people who’ve come out of my situation.”

Amid all this activity, the songs that became Milk City Sweethearts began to take shape. Lavene noticed the border between his prose and his songwriting beginning to become porous, and the album feels like a clutch of excellent short stories set to music. Without a label, he recorded the album at home, and assembled it in a week in his mum’s garage during lockdown’s heavy manners. It’s a warm, witty, charismatic record with a dark heart at the centre, Lavene sounding dislocated and therefore able to write his everyday stories with a left-handed brilliance and blunt honesty that keeps them so fresh, like classic Kinks, or David Bowie if he’d never had to go to space to feel otherworldly. His songs are talking blues, set to loose and minimal and excellent art-rock with a pop sensibility, the honk of Roxy sax and the guttural weird-funk of Ian Dury’s Blockheads haunting their grooves.

On his new album, ‘APART’, Washington-based
singer/songwriter Allen Stone reimagines some of
his most beloved songs to date, stripping each
lavishly arranged track back to the very essence of
its creation.
 Featuring 11 songs culled from across Stone’s
catalogue (and one exquisite Bob Marley cover),
‘APART’ kicks off with the dreamy rumination of his
first break-out hit ‘Unaware’.
 One of the most breath-taking moments on
‘APART’ is ‘Bed I Made’, as R&B star Alesia Cara
joins him for a duet.

Home to Cuca Records and hundreds of Nashville-fantasizing pluckers and singers, Wisconsin’s Driftless region was a hotbed of country music in the 1960s. Influenced by old-timey ethnic songs, Bakersfield outlaws, countrypolitan rainbows, and the lonesome twang of every rural route roadhouse, these 17 Driftless Dreamers washed up at Jim Kirchstein’s Sauk City record plant with little more than $100 and a longing. Collected here are the fruits of Cuca’s documentary approach to record making, capturing the voices and stories of a culture and glacier in abatement.

Elsa Hewitt is a London-based music producer and writer hailing from Sussex, via Yorkshire. Beginning as a young singer-songwriter producing demos on a four-track, she progressed through fronting post-punk bands and solo electronic songwriting, all the while developing a passion for album-making which would ultimately lead her to electronic production, establishing her name producing avant-garde, experimental & ambient, leftfield dance, and lo-fi, psychedelia. Since her 2017 official debut ‘Cameras From Mars’, stepping onto the scene as a Future Bubbler and Lynsey de Paul Prize winner, Hewitt has amassed a series of distinct yet interlinked philosophical worlds; each one holding its own tones of joyful beauty and abstract darkness. With a boundless approach to merging elements of dance & ambient, Hewitt’s adventurous approach remains pinned by her earthy voice, idiosyncratic songwriting style and sharply poetic lyricism.

“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.

With a decade between releases, VILDHJARTA remain as inscrutable and as close to anonymity as a band can be. VILDHJARTA's down-tuned, staccato riffs and pulverizing grooves are the sound of music stripped to its essence. Yet, the Swedish collective’s long-awaited album, måsstaden under vatten, is far more than a recitation of djent values. Clocking in at 80 minutes, it thematically picks up where the dark Swedish fable of 2011’s Måsstaden left off and delivers on the promise that record hinted at. Tracks like the recently released “när de du älskar kommer tillbaka från de döda” (“When the Ones You Love Return From the Dead.”) suggest a newfound subtlety and sophistication amidst the bombast and beauty in the breakdown.
Since dropping a minute of new live music in 2016, the band's focus has almost entirely been on the new album with drummer and now noted producer, Buster Odeholm (Born of Osiris, Shadow of Intent, Humanity’s Last Breath) heavily involved in the production, mixing and mastering of the music. Visual artist Rickard Westman, who did art for VILDHJARTA's debut as well as their Thousands of Evils EP in 2013, has also returned to the equation to reprise his disturbing visual iconography. Says the band: “Art happens when art happens.”
The sound of music is rarely this challenging, unforgettable and worth the wait.

Clear Vinyl

Side A begins with Veil of Secrecy, its darkness bubbling up from the depths of a strong bass groove, loaded with rich textures and quirky shifts. Psyk offers his hypnotic trademark on the remix, a stripped down feeling with skillful changes to provoke the mind.

Side B begins with Deep State, its intensity gripping immediately due to its lavish percussion, off-kilter leads and unrelenting rolling bass driving the masterly arrangement. The Fourth Branch marches an eerie minimalism into bass oblivion with an abundance of lush atmosphere and well timed changes.

We recognize that now is a difficult time in society across the globe and especially to our dance music community where the impact is still unknown, however because of this, we believe it is more important than ever to share a common bond and a love for techno.

Hidden proves again its strength in consistency and quality with another hard-hitting four-track EP by label boss, Deepak Sharma.

The release is tough, gritty, dark and reflective of both the times we live and the artist involved: Deepak Sharma's heavy, rolling and sobering originals are paired with a somber, powerful remix with subtle movements by Psyk.

Frozen Music’ was recorded in New York City 32 years ago and like most of
pianist Andy LaVerne’s releases this album has not lost its original energy
and charm.
Tenor and soprano saxophonist Rick Margitza was then a young rising star under contract with Blue Note. Andy was already a prolific composer who penned
all the tunes of this album. Bassist Marc Johnson who was a member of Bill
Evans’s last trio gave graceful and subtle colouring to LaVerne’s compositions.
“Frozen Music, Andy LaVerne’s third album for SteepleChase, is a solid, modern
blowing session...he makes skilful use of suspensions, pedal points, and ostinatos, which along with the music’s floating harmonies, give the soloists a wealth
of elbow room.” - Mark Stryker, Cadence
Personnel: Andy LaVerne (piano), Rick Margitza (tenor and soprano saxophone), Marc Johnson (bass), Danny Gottlieb (drums)

ANNA LEONE will release her first album, ‘I’VE FELT ALL THESE THINGS’,
produced by Paul Butler (Michael Kiwanuka, Hurray For The Riff Raff).
The debut follows Stockholm native Anna’s widely applauded debut EP ‘Wandered Away’, drawing fans at 6Music including Lauren Laverne & Guy Garvey,
alongside Ones To Watch tips from Spotify and Youtube, and over 18 million
streams online.
‘I’VE FELT ALL THESE THINGS’ is an album that explores how we close ourselves
off to the world, a feeling that has become ever-present in the sad, surreal climate of 2020, in more expansive ways. It’s also an album about how we try and
get beyond those inclinations, and how we make it through

Music is a means to purpose. Consuming music, dancing to music or creating music is a form of survivalism, and a purpose to serve. ‘Survivalism’ is the next mini LP offering from Label boss Sepehr as he returns to Shaytoon with a diverse mini LP of music making nods to late 90’s drum n bass, storming and beautiful techno, middle eastern flavors and more. Music to survive to.

Dedicated to the sounds of Black & Brown musicians. Reviving and releasing unissued cuts from back in the day. Each release in direct collaboration with the creators & producers to retain a legacy for these almost forgotten tracks

THE PALE FOUNTAINS - LONGSHOT FOR YOUR LOVE (Marina Records) New enhanced, remastered vinyl edition of the long-deleted, much sought-after Pale Fountains compilation "Longshot For Your Love" - originally released in 1998 - covering the band's early years from 1982 to 1984. "Longshot For Your Love" is a collection of rarities, radio sessions and previously unreleased tracks by Liverpool's second best band ever - fronted by Michael Head ("Our greatest living songwriter" - NME). Seven cuts are released here for the first time ever - incl. the superb John Peel and Old Grey Whistle Test BBC Sessions ('82/'83). The album comes with enhanced artwork - in a beautiful gatefold cover plus inner sleeve feat. lots of unseen band photos and extensive linernotes by former Pale Fountains manager Patrick Moore. On Marina Records.

Lava Love is the new album by Zoe’s Shanghai. Led by singer Zoé Renié Harris, the band has
made a splash into the crowded neo-soul scene with their debut EP A Mirage (Meant To Last
Forever) released in 2019 - a deeply evocative sound and Zoe’s extraordinary voice gained them
immediately the spotlight as ones to watch (“a worthy torchbearer for heady and hearty soul music”-
Earmilk).
Following a successful string of EPs and singles, the Barcelona & Paris-based four-piece band is
now ready to share with the world their first full-length album.
Lava Love was recorded in an old stable in the French region of Auvergne - known for its mountain
ranges and dormant volcanoes, this region could not have been a more apt setting.
Lava and love portray in fact a dynamic flow of memory and meaning pouring out of Zoe’s
Shanghai’s heart. In and out of the metaphor, Lava and love can be powerful, frightening, beautiful,
dangerous and at the same time are essential elements that create fertile change and growth.
Through the 11 songs, the band evoke memories and pose questions - inner dialogues, life stories,
encounters and relationships – the album depicts a kaleidoscope of moods and feelings, prompting
the listener to open to the conversation: while each song presents a microcosm on its own, the album
manifests itself in the shared musical experience - immersive music to listen to and enjoy with your
loved ones.
Produced with Oli Barton-Wood (Nubiyan Twist, Joe Armon-Jones, Nilufer Yanya), the sound of
Lava Love brings together hypnotic melodies, groovy rhythms and thoughtful lyrics - fusing the
essence of multiple music styles and forging Zoe’s Shanghai unique contemporary soul.
The album follows the critically acclaimed EP ‘A Mirage’, which garnered the support of Gilles
Peterson & Huey Morgan (BBC 6 Music), Jamz Supernova (BBC Radio 1Xtra), Worldwide FM and
Earmilk to name a few.

Early support by: Laurent Garnier, AME, Marco Bailey, Jennifer Cardini, Terrence Fixmer, Kyle Geiger, Marcel Dettmann, Apparat, Richie Hawtin, Vril, Charlotte De Witte, Sasha, Benjamin Demage any many more..



Fresh off of a remix for Grimes’ “My Name is Dark”, producer Julien Bracht has been powering through CV19 studio seclusion on full-power, with a distinct vision for brighter days ahead. Bracht’s new album, “Now Forever One,” an emblem of dark analog synthwave, is set to drop June 11. Bracht’s first solo album under his own namesake is cut with surgical precision for the shoegazing astral sound travellers who long to break out of their pandemic quarantines, and reconvene for techno-induced ascension. The album’s first single, “Melancholia,” and it’s accompanying video, is already breaking hearts and charts. An exquisite sonic hybrid of communal revelry and profound introspection, “Now Forever One,” focuses Bracht’s multilayered craftsmanship on resolving this era’s angst with sensory exploration and optimism.



As a lifelong drummer, Bracht’s insatiable musical energy lead him to bang out his first 3 EPs within one year of first being signed in 2011-12. In 2015 he founded the band Lea Porcelain with Markus Nikolaus in London. Their hypnotic post-rock debut release in 2017, “Hymns to the Night,” gained instant acclaim from UK tastemakers Lauren Laverne, Steve Lamacq and Zane Lowe, to name a few. The lads broke back onto the international stage with dates on several major festivals around Europe, including the Leeds/Reading Festival, Great Escape Brighton and Latitude. Rich output combined with the inclusion of live drums in his solo live sets quickly gained Bracht recognition and slots on the global tour circuit.

“Now Forever One” forges Julien Bracht’s transition from techno djing, while continuing the explorations of texture and timbre over functional song structures from Lea Porcelain, to a more open-ended search for the aural sublime — the substrate on which music, life and light glide to create momentary nodes of meaning in an increasingly meaningless sociopolitical atmosphere. These are crucial themes to Bracht’s process and approach. “The intention in my music is to strengthen people’s awareness and minds… I want us all to gather in spirit and stick together.”

The album exemplifies Bracht’s hunt for elemental juxtaposition with the warm Prophet 6’s sawtooth howls and bright pads against chillingly indifferent pulsing basslines and percussion. Clocking in at just under 65 minutes, “Now Forever One’s” tracks are sequenced to take the listener through the full emotional arch of a 15-hour rave, with an emphasis on those moments of collective epiphany where heaving techno floors become the perfect microcosm for an idealistic and interconnected future. Interspersed with improvisational one-takes, the album submerges the listener in polyrhythmic meditations, of which “Streets” and “Nocturne” are standout examples, and soars on the vaulted synth melodies of future dance floor favourites “Melancholia” and “Dreams of Euphoria.” Sascha Ring of Apparat & Moderat puts it perfectly: “I played “Melancholia” the night I got it at Mutek Festival in Mexico City, and instantly knew it’ll shine on a big floor at the right time. It’s just the right balance of majestic melodic deepness.” The sounds are both triumphant and exploratory.

Greater than the sum of its parts, Bracht’s latest release hints at the artist’s emerging potential for nailing our moment’s zeitgeist; learning to live smaller while constantly seeking higher heights. Inhabiting the fertile ground between solitary rumination and dance-floor convenance, the launch of “Now Forever One’s” lunar expedition into the techno oblivion of pandemic lockdown is oddly fitting.

Love returns with 'Lavender', the follow up to the Canadian crooner’s LP, 'Night Songs' (Taxi Gauche Records, February 2020).
A reflective timeline of dusty folk, 'Lavender' aims to capture the modern loneliness of the 21st century. A sorrowful soundtrack, inspired by the production of great crooners and folk artists of the 70s/80s like Cohen, Lightfoot, and Nick Drake, to name a few, Love achieves a similar quality on Lavender. Like a Chris Isaak trapped in a David Lynch film, Love’s haunted
vocals guide the listener through poetic verses on the archetypes of love and truth, posthumous poetry by his grandfather circa 1930s, and escapism, all melting and flowing into a pool of celestial wisdom.
Acoustic guitars sweep across desolate sonic landscapes of global narcissism, social media and the universal need for connection. Hypnotic bass grooves and lush 3D string ensembles, wrap the listener in a familiar cinematic romance, embraced and mystified. 'Lavender' explores the universal threads that make us feel and experience what we do, in a time when the need to peer into ourselves has never been more important. 'Lavender' draws you inwards, like staring up at the stars at night, or standing alone with the silence of the forest, 'Lavender' wants you to find your own meaning. Self-recorded in a variety of spaces through out Turtle Island (Canada & The USA). Specifically, Toronto Island, a basement in Edmonton, AB, various apartments and motels in Los Angeles and around the United States, on a road trip west via the Trans-Canada highway and ending at a cabin in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.


“There’s a lonesome vibe to his brand of heartland rock, evoking late nights on a deserted road, or neon-lit streets just after a rainstorm.” (Brooklyn Vegan)

Following the footsteps of her SUPER MILD split album with TENTENKO (TAL15) from 2019, Tokyo producer KOPY makes a welcome return to TAL with a new EP full of gritty wonders and buzzing rythm structures. Eternal EP presents two of her new tracks plus luminous remix appearances by Elena Colombi, Harmonious Thelonious and Dynamo Dreesen & SJ Tequilla.

KOPY sums it up: "For Fujiko, I had an aggressive spaciousness in mind. The track LOK made me feel like my feet were firmly on the ground."

The pièce de résistance of the entire EP might be the extended reworking by Elena Colombi (Osàre! Editions), who in her debut appearance in the producer's chair offers up a cinematic bricolage, inspired by dreams and scraps of intimate, cartoonish ambiences. The eight minute long journey is full of space, swirling alarm clocks and candid evocations of imaginary creatures and environments crossed with diverse snippets of KOPY’s two original tracks.

Harmonious Thelonious who has already shared the stage with KOPY at Düsseldorfs Salon des Amateurs, contributes a trademark HT remix which combines infectious danceable beats with injections of oddness and raw beauty.

For their KOPY KONTRAST mix DD and SJT drew inspiration from a fulminant Kopy live set in Osaka which they had witnessed while being on a tour in Japan.

The 12"EP is lavishly presented, with a fully illustrated jacket and inner sleeve design by Sarah Szscesny.