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A multidisciplinary artist, and avant-garde icon in her own right, Little Annie leaves little room for an introduction that is worthy of her prolific career. She has remained relevant for over four decades through her innate spirit of experimentation and the multiplicity of her genre-bending collaborations with artists traversing the globe such as Adrian Sherwood, Swans, The Wolfgang Press, Kid Congo, Current 93—the list goes on!

For this release, Noir Age is proud to present a 7” single of new material from Little Annie in collaboration with South Florida-based producer and label owner Richard Vergez, recording here under the moniker of Night Foundation. Annie and Richard met back in 2016 after a gig at the ICA in Miami through their mutual friend: Drew McDowall of Coil.

Sharing a requited spirit for visual art and music, they became fast friends and began collaborating, conjuring what you hear on this release: Inertia.

Edition of 300 records, each housed in a silkscreened, custom black 7" envelope jacket with newsprint insert.

Reviewed in The Wire magazine:

"Night Foundation is one of the current electronic projects envisioned by Florida's Richard Vergez. In this instance, his work is smooth and bassoid enough to have a vague dancefloor-friendly feel without being overtly prancy. This notion is enhanced by the presence of a dub B side, so things are not as dark as with most of Verge's projects. But they're still not sunny. Of course, Little Annie's lyrics and casual vocals have more in common with urban menace than sunshine pop, so the pairing works quite well."

Apple Red Vinyl. Eine der umfangreichsten Instrumental-Hip-Hop-Reihen aller Zeiten, MF DOOMs gefeierte Special Herbs"-Serie versammelt eine riesige Sammlung seiner Beats, von exklusiven Tracks bis hin zu leicht überarbeiteten Favoriten, die er für sich selbst und andere produziert hat. Unter dem Pseudonym Metal Fingers veröffentlicht, gelingt es Special Herbs", DOOMs äußerst einflussreichen Sound einzufangen, der immer wieder die Regeln des Spiels zugunsten des Super-Bösewichts bricht und neu interpretiert. Super-Villain. Die Welt ist eine Fundgrube für Sounds, und der Metal-Fingered DOOM kennt keine Grenzen: 70er-Jahre- Soul-/Funk-Klassiker, 80er-Jahre-R&B-Hits, Rap-Nostalgie und sogar Soundbites aus Kinderplatten und dem Fernsehen finden ihren Platz in den Zutaten, die er für seine perfekten Rezepte benötigt.

Als Ahmad Jamal 1995 dieses Album veröffentlichte, war es wie ein frischer Windstoß für den Jazz - befreit von der Eintönigkeit junger Musiker, die nur ihre Vorbilder imitierten.
Mit neuer Energie, vertrauten Weggefährten wie Idris Muhammad und James Cammack, sowie Gästen wie George Coleman und Manolo Badrena, zeigt Jamal, warum er zu den unverwechselbaren Größen des Jazz gehört.
Sein Spiel: kraftvoll, elegant, voller Dynamik und mit einem Sound, den man sofort erkennt. Dieses Album ist vielleicht sein stärkstes der 90er - ein Meisterwerk, das man nicht vergisst.

Legendary postmodern, post punk, post human, past caring collective Mekons return with a brand-new album for 2025. Their first release on Fire Records, ‘Horror’ a collection of songs written in late 2022 but providing a horribly prescient reflection of the world in its current miasma and how we got here. ‘Horror’ looks at history and the legacies of British imperialism with mashed up lyrics set against a typically eclectic sound that amalgamates everything from dub, country, noise, rock & roll, electronica, punk, music hall, polka and you can even take your partner for a nice waltz on ‘Sad And Sad And Sad’. The roots of their global sound reflect their nomadic journey through time and space from Leeds to California in the West and Siberia in the East and is woven into the fabric and intricacies of their song creation… Sounding like The Chills and R.E.M circa the I.R.S Records years, ‘Mudcrawlers’ sees just about the whole band joining Jon Langford on vocals speaking of Irish famine and refugees journeying to Wales. ‘War Economy’ shivers in the cold of such Boroughs spiked one-liners: “Clinical coercion will not achieve dominance!” Sounding like its straight off a Jenny Holzer neon sign (she of Abuse Of Power Comes As No Surprise), it’s held together by a disgruntled swaggering riff that underpins an explosion of disquiet. Meanwhile, Rico takes the lead on the maliciously luscious ‘Fallen Leaves’ an appalled and appalling Hammer Horror take on climate breakdown reminiscent of Rolling Thunder Dylan, that recalls The Pogues at their most introspective, its Celtic twilightism augmented by Susie Honeyman’s keening violin as the dying sun sinks down and the river Styx flows on in the pitch black night. Almost 50 years in the making, these Mekons continue to astound, their sound, sentiment and method of delivery blended to perfection by bass player and studio wizard, Dave Trumfio. The Mekons are Jon Langford, Sally Timms, Tom Greenhalgh, Dave Trumfio, Susie Honeyman, Rico Bell, Steve Goulding, and Lu Edmonds. "Effortlessly eloquent post-punks" Pitchfork // “The Mekons are still vital” Rolling Stone // “The most revolutionary group in the history of rock ‘n’ roll,” Lester Bangs // UK Tour 8-15 May 2025 (including London, Manchester, Glasgow, and more).

Woo, formed in 1975 by brothers Mark and Clive Ives in London, is known for its experimental blend of folk, jazz, ambient, and electronic music. Their sound, characterised by the delicate integration of acoustic and electronic elements, has earned them recognition in ambient and healing music spheres. Over decades, the duo has produced over 1,500 tracks, evolving a unique style that evokes dream-like atmospheres and a meditative, soothing quality perfect for moments of reflection.

Dedicated to intertwining the serene beauty of music with the nurturing process of planting seeds when the first new signs of life emerge in the growing season. A carefully crafted collection of ambient & minimalist soundscapes, occasionally branching into the new age. A soundtrack for quiet moments of sowing, nurturing, & witnessing the slow reward of growth.

Each artist will release a recycled cassette and digital format. We plan to release one cassette each month from November through June, aligning our releases with the ideal growing period. Each physical release will precede its digital counterpart by a few months, allowing the music to be experienced in its intended form first, with the tangible connection of a cassette and seeds before becoming accessible to a broader audience in the online sphere. This staggered release allows listeners to engage with the music more profoundly and intentionally, akin to the patience and care required in gardening. Best get that portable cassette player on eBay!

Each release will serve as a soundtrack to quiet moments of sowing, nurturing, and witnessing the slow, rewarding growth process, both in plants and in the listeners' lives. Whether tending to a window sill garden or simply seeking a peaceful retreat in sound, "Music to Watch Seeds Grow By" is an invitation to pause, listen, and cultivate.

Early DJ support including Tom Ravenscroft, Deb Grant, Vladimir Ivkovic,Ruf Dug, Eva Geist, Domenic Cappello, Fergus Clarke & Sofie K.

Jackpot Records is extremely proud to announce our re-issue of the revered reggae album 1976’s War Ina Babylon by Max Romeo & The Upsetters. Originally released on Island Records, the album is considered one of the greatest Reggae albums of all time and was a massive influence on the UK punk movement that was just starting to bubble to the surface.
The record’s incredible power belies an unlikely partnership between one of the world’s greatest producers (and experimenters in sound), Lee “Scratch” Perry, and vocalist Max Romeo (who by 1976 had performed on over 120 7” singles) Romeo had been transforming from his “rude” records to writing lyrics with social themes as the era in Jamaica was rife with poverty, gangs, and politically motivated killings. As he was looking to produce protest music at its most powerful alongside music that would never leave the listener’s souls, Lee Perry and Max Romeo started collaborating together.
Recorded in two weeks in 1976, utilizing Lee Perry’s kitchen sink production, War Ina Babylon is considered part of Lee Perry’s ‘holy trinity’ Black Ark produced LPs released by Island
Records (Junior Murvin’s Police and Thieves and The Heptones’ Party Time being the other classics LPs in the trinity), this LP continues to find new fans with every passing generation.

"Astral Americana hymns hovering somewhere between the dirt and the stars" Pitchfork

"Mood music for moments of solitude, best experienced without distraction" The Times

"Overwhelmingly effective and ravishingly beautiful" The Wire

American Dust is an ode to the beauty of the American Southwest, where vast desert landscapes hold stories both stark and tender. Eve Adams’ characteristic folk noir weaves a vivid tapestry of love, sacrifice and quiet revelation, conjuring images of dust storms, stray dogs and far off trains.

The high desert of California is a vast and confounding place. Equally inspiring as it is punishing, it’s a landscape that carries magic in its deep dark nights, holding stories both tender and stark in the coarse layer of dust that settles upon everything. It’s long been a source of inspiration for musicians, writers, and painters, each of them adding to the same current, carried forward over time, through hope and hardship and the passing years.

Somewhere out there in that broad and boundless landscape, Eve Adams has been living her own desert life, quietly writing the follow-up to 2021’s Metal Bird LP. Where that album sang of liminal space, the dream-like turbulence of Hollywood’s golden age, American Dust is far more rooted in traditional storytelling; a eulogy for the American Dream channeled through that sweeping part of the country that holds such power and mystery. Slipping into different and varied costumes throughout its ten songs, it finds Eve not just observing the people around her but stepping into their shoes and peeling back the layers of their quiet lives.

Adams writes from within. A few years ago she moved out there, to “the middle of nowhere”, finding a slowness that didn’t exist in the city, and she knows only too well about the mystical nature of the land and those who live within it. Weaving together themes of grit and romance, American Dust holds its focus on the bittersweet poetry of lives lived in solitude, most notably the women who sustain life at the center of it all. “There’s something very radical about domestic life,” Adams says of this thread. “So many women live their entire lives behind closed doors, completely in the shadows. Within those lives is such sacrifice, devotion, and love. I wanted to honor that: the poetry in the mundane, the longing in the repetition. The way love survives boredom and dust and time.”

Eve is joined on American Dust by Canadian musician Bryce Cloghesy, aka Military Genius of Crack Cloud, who plays throughout and also helped produce the album. Musically bold and vivid, it’s an ambitious and detailed stride forward from what’s come before, the scope of the LP’s narrative reflected in the radiant sweep of the playing. On top of gentle piano and guitar, gorgeous strings drift through the album, lending the songs a woozy sense of romanticism; a collaboration with Gamaliel Traynor (Cello) and Caroline’s Oliver Hamilton (Violin).

For all the drama that’s coiled around these songs, it’s the recurring notion of love and hope fighting against everything that holds true throughout American Dust. Musically it’s lush and vibrant, intimate and cinematic side by side, and always bursting with warmth. But it’s what it holds in its weary bones that elevates it to something truly special, something more than just a collection of songs penned in the heart of the desert. The characters it speaks of, and from, feel shadowed but wholly real, like they’re bursting to share their stories that have remained hidden for years and years and they allow Eve Adams to grow as a songwriter right in front of our eyes.

“The same swirling dust that clung to the covered wagons of my ancestors as they crossed the Great American Desert is the same dust my great-great-grandmother swept off her porch during the Dust Bowl of 1936 in Oklahoma, is the same dust that blows in through the cracks in my windows here in the desert, carrying stories from a time long gone,” Eve says, reflecting on the personal narrative that runs through her new album.

“It’s not just dust—it’s American Dust, the kind that settles into the bones of a family and never leaves. I think about that dust as a symbol of the passage of time. I hope this album will be part of that same current, carrying forward for the next generations of my family to find. I’ve been lucky enough to have journals and poetry from my ancestors that documents their lives during times of pure hope and pure hardship. I’d like to think of this album as a contribution to that family history.”

Jeremy Zucker releases his fourth solo studio album, Garden State, on August 22nd.The thirteen- track project explores the New Jersey-native’s growth since leaving his hometown as a teenager, with themes of nostalgia & what it means to return home carrying new experiences & perspectives. With sentimental melodies & introspective lyricism, the music leaves listeners to reflect on childhood, maturing, & the impermanence of life.

Brenda (Hudson Whitlock of Surprise Chef / Karate Boogaloo / The Pro-Teens) presents new album 'Bath Time', a suite of heartbreaking, cinematic indie-soul ballads from the hotbed of Melbourne, Australia.



Brenda encompasses the left-field soul sensibilities for which Whitlock has come to be recognised in cult instrumental groups Surprise Chef, Karate Boogaloo and The Pro-Teens, alongside heartfelt, introspective lyricism delivered in a sincere, delicate falsetto. Stylistically, lines can be drawn to the 1960s sweet soul ballads of The Delfonics, Jean-Claude Vannier's vivid arrangements for Serge Gainsbourg, and, of course, the unmistakable flavour of Melbourne's cinematic soul movement à la other Whitlock exploits Surprise Chef and Karate Boogaloo.



'Bath Time' contains ten entrancingly melancholic ballads that earnestly express Whitlock's dramatic indie-soul sensibilities; encompassing the classically introspective nature of the poetic lyricist and the idiosyncratic use of soulful instrumental arrangements. The songs encompass themes of old romantic habits dying hard, familial rifts and unrequited love.



True to his modest vagabond nature, Whitlock has 'released' six Brenda albums to date, each uploaded exclusively to bandcamp, gladly resigning the music to the underground. Whilst he created theses albums in solitude, playing each instrument himself, 'Bath Time' sees Whitlock relinquishes the isolationism of previous works in favour of including his trusted inner circle of friends and collaborators: Surprise Chef's Lachlan Stuckey and Jethro Curtin on guitar and keyboard respectively, Karate Boogaloo's Darvid Thor on bass, and production from Henry Jenkins (Surprise Chef, Karate Boogaloo, Frollen Music Library).

AVAILABLE IN BLACK ICE WITH ORANGE AND BLUE SPLATTER (COK015WW)

A“This album is about what it means to be human, and its creation is my offering. I attempt to tell a tale of the human experience in the reflection of my own.”

‘In the Andean mythology, condors are believed to be immortal. It is said that once they feel old, without energy, and useless, they climb to the highest peak and let themselves fall to death.’

The Allegorist is a visionary, enigmatic, transmedia, and boundary-pushing artist known for crafting deep, immersive dark sonic tales. Embracing a wide array of influences, weaving together the mysteries, art and spirituality, the art project defies categorisation, resonating with those who seek the unconventional.

From Birth Until Death is an introspective and immersive concept album that reflects on the essence of the human experience. Crafted over six years by The Allegorist (aka Anna Jordan), the album traces the arc of life—from its fragile beginnings to its inevitable end—using sound art to explore existential and philosophical terrain. Inspired by the Andean mythology of the condor – a symbol of immortality – the album blends electronic soundscapes with raw field recordings, evoking a deep sense of connection between the natural world and human existence.

The album’s progression mirrors the stages of life, starting with the birth of new beginnings and culminating in death, with each track offering a unique reflection on the moments in between. From the dynamic energy of Momentum, to the ethereal, illusionary world of Fata Morgana, the tracks guide the listener through emotions, perceptions, and experiences that shape the human condition.

A distinctive feature of From Birth Until Death is its intricate production. The album incorporates field recordings from Grunewald Forest, a distant roar of a jet, barking dogs, blending the sounds of nature – footsteps in the snow, birdsong, ocean waves – with layered synthesisers and electronic beats. The bass and ambient textures are crafted using an array of analog hardware, while all vocals, both lead and backing, are performed and recorded by Jordan. Some of the vocal takes were intentionally left raw, capturing the spontaneous energy of early recordings, while others were re-recorded to balance the album’s organic yet polished feel. Each element is meticulously crafted, revealing its deeper meaning as the album unfolds like a multidimensional, living sculpture.

At its core, From Birth Until Death is a meditation on the full spectrum of life. The album’s title track, From Birth Until Death, encapsulates this journey, reflecting on the passage of time and the unique experience of being human. The final track, Death, offers a melancholic yet beautiful exploration of endings, not as finalities, but as moments in the grand cycle of life. With its combination of evocative sound design and deeply personal themes, From Birth Until Death invites listeners to contemplate their own lives, offering a moving experience of reflection, growth, and transformation.

About From Birth Until Death
Words By Robin Rimbaud (Scanner)

From Birth Until Death is a deeply personal and reflective album and beautifully crafted. A detailed listen reveals that Jordan was in search of a profoundly human and authentic expression. In an era when so much around us seems defined by speed, Anna Jordan, aka The Allegorist, stands apart – aware that skimming the surface of life is neither sufficient nor rewarding. She reminds us of the value of deep, authentic listening.

The track Andean Condor seductively draws us into a smoky, blurred rhythmic soundscape, capturing the essence of the darkest Berlin nightclub, while Birth pulses with an almost shamanic transformation of sound, moving from the organic to the musical. It features a recording of Jordan’s footsteps in the snow in Grunewald Forest, Germany.

At times, the music feels almost sculptural in shape and tone – lifting, pushing, lilting, opening, and closing – where each piece is given room to fully develop. Many of the works blend synthetic sound with the natural, incorporating the human voice alongside environmental recordings: the wild waves of the ocean, a jet flying overhead, and barking dogs.

With From Birth Until Death, Jordan, like an alchemical architect revealing in the process of getting lost and relinquishing control, leaves us with a taut, immersive soundtrack in which to lose ourselves.

About the album ‘From Birth Until Death’
words by The Allegorist

“The album From Birth Until Death did not come easily to me. I started working on it in 2019, and it underwent many alterations over the years. I produced multiple versions of the tracks each year, but the album name, the track titles, and the album cover art stayed the same for 6 years. Not everything I did fit into the album’s final form, but I hope the heavy selection just made it better. I played this piece live in my techno live set between 2019 and 2020, and in the years after, I performed different art, ambient, and vocal versions of it, most notably the one at the church St. Marienkirche in Berlin in 2022. It just wanted to live and didn’t want to be finished. As I aged, this album aged with me. And now I’m ready to let it go.”

LTD. CLEAR BLUE VINYL

New York painter and musician exploratory industrialist Tor Lundvall initially envisioned his 14th album, Beautiful Illusions, as an entirely instrumental affair, "inspired by memories of sitting in a church or cathedral watching the shifting sunlight through stained glass." Although he ultimately chose to wreath the majority of the tracks with hushed, poetic vocals, his original muse still resonates. These are certainly songs of shadowplay and vaulted skies, the quiet grandeur of dusk deepening on the horizon. Lundvall characterizes the lyrical subject matter, too, in ways both specific and surreal, exploring "the doubts, the anxieties and even the bleak fantasies the mind spirals into during moments of isolation, separation and distance." Tricks of the eye, mind, and ear, magnified by silence and the looming long winter. Shivering pulses and muted bass lines tread the twilight while icicle synths and wiry guitar map the melody until the voice enters, narrating oblique moods of essence and absence, tenderness and truth. Glimpses of dark humor flicker in the wordplay but the greater sonic landscape is one of falling leaves and failing light, small gestures rendered as revelation, cloaked in reverb and spatial fog. Lundvall's mastery of nuance and negative space continues to heighten, whispered brushstrokes of the invisible and the unsaid, what lies beneath and what lies beyond: "Behind the shields and false fronts is usually a sadness. The heartbreaking reflections of what might have been."

When you love a record too damn much, you will soon discover whether you "got what it takes” to make it yours. Such is the case with Turbo label head Tiga, who has played 11Schnull & Newinfluenzer’s 2023 underground hit “Ich und meine Ubahn” in each and every one of his DJ sets since its non-Turbo release. But unbridled track-passion is not always enough, and sometimes one must take a step back and recognize that the music business is also a business. So our in-house Corporate Development team, which has of late been entirely focused* on figuring out how best to monetize Tintin entering the public domain, set to work, successfully licensing the original while also creating the fun and potentially life-saving opportunity to visualize just how amicable the licensing process was.

All of which brings us to the remix pack at hand. The essentially perfect electro programming and vocal performance of the 2023 original leaves virtually no angle for improvement, save for the fact that the 4:20 runtime not enough for the median touring DJ to satisfy their chatbot mistress before they must begin the exacting work of selecting and mixing the next track. As such, we enlisted producers who could interpret the song from different planes of existence, namely Chilean-German wizard Matias Aguayo, French hardstyle prodigy Krarmpf, German aesthetes Extrawelt, Hamburg electro master DJ MELL G, and Asturian highbrow god Architectural. For reference, the planes conjured by these remixes are as follows: blacked out on Ivermectin; finally beat a pay-to-win mindfulness game; voted the Greatest Living Teen Artist by the readers of US Weekly; transformed into an expressionless little muscleman as if by magic; going viral; and curing jet lag in our lifetime. It is not for us to say which remix corresponds to which realm of human experience, but we do know that it is limited to those options.

Finally, please do not invite a chatbot lover into your marriage. Your spouse cannot hope to compete. And know that this advice comes from our best understanding of current world affairs, and does not represent what a repressed British man would calling “taking the pee.” At their very best, jokes are funny, and the fate of the human bedroom is no laughing matter at all.

*Like a laser!

More than a decade after his last full album, Kim Hiorthøy returns with Ghost Note, released by the Belgian label Blickwinkel. Though his music has quietly existed in the background—shaping contemporary dance, film, and theatre—this album brings it into focus once more. Ghost Note is an exploration of sound on the edge of presence and absence, a fictional world that is both constructed and organic.

Using mostly digital technology, Hiorthøy created a set of instruments that are real—you can hear them, they have tone, timbre, and resonance—but also not. The percussion, for instance, sounds like cheap scrap metal drums. But are they real? Do they exist? Hiorthøy plays with perception, challenging what feels real and what feels like a memory. In doing so, Ghost Note becomes an invitation to embrace uncertainty and indefinability.

“It's a kind of foggy area between theatre and daily life. Ghost notes. I wanted to try to make music that existed in this in-between space. Electronic music that is acoustic, a kind of emotional music that also hides in abstraction (or the other way around), and to try to make tracks that were sort of falling apart as I was making them.” ­- Kim Hiorthøy

Brenda (Hudson Whitlock of Surprise Chef / Karate Boogaloo / The Pro-Teens) presents new album 'Bath Time', a suite of heartbreaking, cinematic indie-soul ballads from the hotbed of Melbourne, Australia.



Brenda encompasses the left-field soul sensibilities for which Whitlock has come to be recognised in cult instrumental groups Surprise Chef, Karate Boogaloo and The Pro-Teens, alongside heartfelt, introspective lyricism delivered in a sincere, delicate falsetto. Stylistically, lines can be drawn to the 1960s sweet soul ballads of The Delfonics, Jean-Claude Vannier's vivid arrangements for Serge Gainsbourg, and, of course, the unmistakable flavour of Melbourne's cinematic soul movement à la other Whitlock exploits Surprise Chef and Karate Boogaloo.



'Bath Time' contains ten entrancingly melancholic ballads that earnestly express Whitlock's dramatic indie-soul sensibilities; encompassing the classically introspective nature of the poetic lyricist and the idiosyncratic use of soulful instrumental arrangements. The songs encompass themes of old romantic habits dying hard, familial rifts and unrequited love.



True to his modest vagabond nature, Whitlock has 'released' six Brenda albums to date, each uploaded exclusively to bandcamp, gladly resigning the music to the underground. Whilst he created theses albums in solitude, playing each instrument himself, 'Bath Time' sees Whitlock relinquishes the isolationism of previous works in favour of including his trusted inner circle of friends and collaborators: Surprise Chef's Lachlan Stuckey and Jethro Curtin on guitar and keyboard respectively, Karate Boogaloo's Darvid Thor on bass, and production from Henry Jenkins (Surprise Chef, Karate Boogaloo, Frollen Music Library).

AVAILABLE IN BLACK ICE WITH ORANGE AND BLUE SPLATTER (COK015WW)

Our favorite Icelander is back on Riotvan. Sexy Lazer! His midlife crisis is over,
and he's diving headfirst into a new chapter—reinvented and re-energized. Honestly,
we can’t quite put it into a box, but that’s exactly what makes it so thrilling.
It’s pop, it’s lo-fi, it’s electro, it’s indie. It’s pretty much everything we
think is cool. With Ape Escape, he not only throws a nod to his roots (the pros
will know) but also opens a gateway to a world of playful details that leave us
absolutely delighted. This EP is a concept, a performance, and so much more—without
ever feeling forced or pretentious. Pure authenticity from start to finish,
culminating in… a film. Yep, you heard that right. Not just a music video, but a
proper short film that does this whole thing justice. And now, suddenly, it all
makes sense. Or maybe it doesn’t. But that’s exactly why we love Sexy Lazer. A
wild-haired whirlwind who does whatever the hell he wants. And for that, we say:
Thank you!

Scowl is a band that sounds exactly like their name implies. Venomous, fierce, antagonistic. A sneer not to be crossed. Over the last five years, the Santa Cruz, California, band has firmly planted their flag in the hardcore scene with their vicious sound and ripping live show, sharing stages around the world with Circle Jerks, Touché Amoré, and Limp Bizkit, and filling slots at prominent festivals like Coachella, Sick New World, and Reading and Leeds. But with their new album, Are We All Angels (Dead Oceans), Scowl is aiming to funnel all that aggression through a more expansive version of themselves.Much of Are We All Angels grapples with Scowl's newfound place in the hardcore scene, a community which has both embraced the band and made them something of a lightning rod over the past few years. Standout single "Not Hell, Not Heaven" outright rejects the narratives cast onto them by outsiders. "It's about feeling victimized and being a victim, but not wanting to identify with being a victim," explains vocalist Kat Moss. "It's trying to find grace in the fact that I have my power. I live in my reality. You have to deal with whatever you're dealing with, and it ain't working for me." The band breaks from a sense of disassociation to seek deeper connections on "Fantasy." "It's incredibly challenging to try to balance my love for the scene while also feeling, in some spaces, extremely alienated and hated," Moss says. "`Fantasy' is about feeling like I don't know how to connect with these people anymore, because I have shelled myself away so hard." The album ends in a philosophical place on the closing, titular track, "Are We All Angels," asking questions like, "Is this all there is?" and ultimately putting it on the listener to decide. "It's about the personal struggle between good and evil. It doesn't matter how `good' or `bad' you are, there are systems that will try to rewrite your narrative no matter what you actually do," explains Moss, noting that punctuation on "Are We All Angels" has been deliberately omitted in an attempt to leave the statement open-ended. Are We All Angels is the highly anticipated follow-up to Scowl's debut, 2021's How Flowers Grow, a 16-minute primal scream over punishing riffs. But amidst the pounding chaos, it was the record's sonic outlier, a cleaner interlude called "Seeds to Sow," that, true to its name, planted the seed for what was to come for the band. "It kind of laid out this destiny for us, and I feel like now we're fulfilling that," says drummer Cole Gilbert. The band continued to expand their sound on 2023's widely acclaimed Psychic Dance Routine EP, incorporating more pop hooks and favoring gentler singing over heavy screaming, paving the way for what would come next.Scowl's growth got a huge boost from producer Will Yip (Turnstile, Title Fight, Code Orange, Balance and Composure), who broadened the band's scope. "Will would say, `Everything you have here is correct, but it's in the wrong place,'" says Gilbert. Moss adds: "Will really helped restructure a lot of the material. Some songs he tore apart to make more space for the really good hooks and choruses." But even through this more eclectic approach, Scowl loses none of their edge, and still manages to convey the anger and frustration that lies underneath. They are deeply committed to carrying the ethos of punk and its sense of community. "Hardcore and punk have sculpted how we operate, what we want to do as a band, and how we participate," says guitarist Malachi Greene. "At our core, we are a punk and a hardcore band, regardless of how the song shifts and changes."

CRAIG DAVID RETURNS WITH NEW ALBUM 'COMMITMENT'.

Created with Mike Brainchild, Toddla T, Tre-Jean Marie and Wretch 32 and featuring collaborations with Jojo, Tiwa Savage and Louisa - one of the greatest British singers and songwriters of all time returns this summer with a brand-new album.

'Commitment' is Craig David's ninth full-length record and it is a total triumph. Imbued with a resounding sense of joy and playfulness, the 13 track-player balances a powerful feeling of confidence and ebullience alongside an agile nuance and delicate vulnerability.

This is Craig David at his very best.

Opening emphatically with the rallying cry of UKG head turner Wake Up, 'Commitment' spans the best of British music; from the rich house refrains of Leave The Light On, through to the perfect tropical pop of SOS and the warm embrace of Afrowave on the utterly gorgeous title track. Craig also flawlessly delivers, throughout, those signature R&B riffs, ad-libs and runs that he is so known and loved for. And while there are nods to the past, this is a body of work that exists very much in the present. Like Craig classics before it, 'Commitment' embodies the best of what's been before while pushing things firmly forward.

A heretical masterpiece with an overwhelming presence in the history of Japanese jazz. Jiro Inagaki was one of the central figures in the development of jazz rock in Japan. Inagaki, who had doubts about the existing jazz music, turned the helm to jazz-rock at once with this album recorded in 1970. From the opening track "The Vamp" to the closing "Head Rock," Inagaki poured all his ideas and passion into this jazz-rock album that leaves no time to exhale.