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Welcome to Is A Feeling, a brand new label presumably from Triform who is also known as Scott Featherstone, and Beyond A Void, and Lemongrass. He has a kick for digging deep into his archives to turn out old but still godlier tackle and we guess that Underground Grooves Vol 01 is another such project. This 2" packs plenty of irresistible heat with the lively and low slung drums of 'Take Control', silvery tech edges of 'Skipron' and best of all, the raw, jacked up house of 'Remember Me.' All three are timeless and very useful tunes.

Alien Men is a 9 track compilation of abstract Dub & Synth experiments by a range of new artists coming out of Glasgow's Southside.

The idea for the compilation came about during a time of lengthy periods of isolation, where loneliness, insecurity and a willlingness to connect with other like-minded souls was challenging or near impossible. The artwork was subsequently created and the music followed, allowing each producer to tell their own story throughout this period.

The music featured, although hard to pin down to one notion, is Bass/Grime-esq, mutant Dancehall in parts with awkward, Ambient synth moments across this essential Club/Not Club record.

Very few copies in on this. Limited to 350 2LP’s pressed at 45RPM Black vinyl, pressed at Kindercore in Athens, GA, housed in “bootleg-style” hand-stamped and numbered LP jacket. Lacquers cut by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service. Mixed by John Congleton w/ Jeremy Lemos and Steve Shelley." In the summer of 2009, Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley and the band’s long time sound engineer, Jeremy Lemos, invited Lemos’ White/Light bandmate Matt Clark and Chicago spacepunx Disappears to come over to Lemos’ Semaphore Recording studio and jam. Their one-afternoon, two-drummers, three-guitarists, no-rules jam evolved into a productive and glorious multi-day freakout, which resulted in the recording of these eight songs. Producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen) later mixed the marathon session with Steve and Jeremy at Echo Canyon West in Hoboken, NJ.

Los Angeles-based visual artist and musician Lionel Williams was born
and raised in a family of musicians - he is the grandson of soundtrack
composer John Williams
Since 2010, he has been releasing music as Vinyl Williams. After three albums
released on No Pain In Pop (Lemniscate, 2012) and Chaz Bundick’s Company
(Into, 2015 and Brunei, 2016), Vinyl Williams joined French label Requiem Pour Un
Twister for his fourth album Opal released in 2018. Throughout his art, both
musical and visual, Lionel Williams explores the syncretistic territory between
reality and dreams, between earth and space. “Music is a chance to transmute
qualitative opposites into the center, to dissolve all illusions of duality”, he says.
Since chaos and disorder are an illusion, Vinyl Williams is trying to reach a new
state of celestial harmony on Opal. The result is an album fueled with mysticism
and space age utopia, ten kaleidoscopic lush pop songs that takes you into a
transcendental journey on an opal marbled vinyl limited to 500 copies.

Hammered ist das 16. Studioalbum der britischen Rockband Motörhead, das am 9. April 2002 veröffentlicht wurde. Zum Zeitpunkt als es in Hollywood aufgenommen wurde war Motörhead eine dreiköpfige Band, mit Mikkey Dee am Schlagzeug, Phil Campbell an der Gitarre und Lemmy am Gesang und Bass. Diese gold-schwarze
Splatter-Vinyl erscheint zur Feier des 20-jährigen
Jubiläums von Hammered.

Joining the dots between Brazilian musical culture and the sonic melting pot that is New York City, Saidera are a trio on the rise. They’ve already released a pair of critically acclaimed, carnival-ready singles on Brooklyn’s Let’s Play House label and are now ready to make their debut on Leng Records.

The band’s roots can be traced back to a trip that Lemonade band member Alex Pasternak made to Brazil in 2014. While DJing at a house party in the bohemian Rio de Janeiro neighbourhood of Sta Teresa, Pasternak was left gobsmacked when a mysterious local singer/sambista Vadinho Freire, grabbed the mic and started freestyling lyrics and melodies over his set. Realising their instinctive musical connection, Pasternak and Freire decided to work together on some music, with New Yorker Le Chev joining them to complete the Saidera trio.

Now based in Rio and California, the group’s sun-soaked sound – which they describe as “samba disco-Afro melody” – is a cross-cultural stew in which infectious Brazilian percussion, colourful synth sounds, glistening guitars and celebratory vocals combine to create magical, life-affirming musical moments.

‘Luzes Da Cidade’, their first outing on Leng, encapsulates all that’s good about the Saidera sound and the trio’s approach to music. The song is about identity and connection and in its original form is languid, loved-up and joyous, with acoustic and electric guitars, Portuguese vocals and Korey Riker’s gently breezy flute solos rising above a squelchy synth bassline and energetic, sweat-soaked samba drums.

The song’s main mix comes accompanied by a wonderful instrumental pass featuring more extensive solos by Riker, and Saidera’s own remix of ‘Luzes Da Cidade’ – an extra-percussive, breakbeat-tinged fusion of hazy deep house, energetic samba and sunset-ready synth-disco that will delight DJs and dancers alike.

To round off the EP, Saidera has delivered a brand new “Uprockin Dub” of debut single ‘Deixa Tudo Fluir’, this time with female vocals from Irina Bertolucci taking the lead. Brilliantly kaleidoscopic sonically, with dub delay-laden vocals, guitars and flutes, it’s a superb, life-affirming Balearic reggae interpretation of a now familiar favourite. If you’re not singing along with the chorus after your first listen, we’d be very surprised.

Dritte Auflage, blutrotes Vinyl. In Zusammenarbeit mit dem britischen Entwickler-Studio Kaizen Game Works veröffentlicht das Kölner Soundtrack-Label Black Screen Records im Frühjahr 2021 Barry "Epoch" Toppings funkigen "City-Pop meets Vaporwave"-Soundtrack zu dem von der internationalen Gaming-Presse gefeierten Open World Adventure Game Paradise Killer auf Vinyl. Barrys Toppings Soundtrack erscheint auf limitiertem 180g blutrotem Vinyl und kommt in einem von 80er Animes & City Pop-Alben inspirierten Artwork der deutschen Designerin Mizucat. Zudem enthält das Vinyl ein gefaltetes A2 Poster und einen Download Code. Die Sounds des Paradieses. Die Musik eines kosmischen Traums. Tracks einer anderen Realität. Das Tempo eines Verbrechens, dass alle Verbrechen beendet. Der Beat von lange verlorenen außerirdischen Göttern. Die Playlist des "Investigation Freaks". Lass dich von der Musik ins Paradies führen. Fühle die glühend heiße Sonne auf deiner Haut. Rieche unerträglich heißen Beton. Genieße den süßen Geschmack von Verbrechen, begangen, auf einer tropischen Insel in einer alternativen Realität. Erinnerst du dich daran, wie wir am Strand getanzt haben? Neben den paradiesischen Straßen? Du hast mir dieses Mix-Tape auf dem Dach deines Apartments gemacht. Wir haben den Mond angestarrt. Du sagtest, du würdest den Mond töten. Ich glaubte dir nicht. Wie falsch ich doch lag.

Lo-fi Beats is a fine and elegant new collection made for a cosy trip in music. Relax with a jazzy sound.

Felicia Atkinson’s music always puts the listener somewhere in particular. There are two categories of place that are important to »Image Langage«: the house and the landscape. Inside and outside, different ways of orienting a body towards the world. They are in dialogue, insofar as in the places Atkinson made this record—Leman Lake, during a residency at La Becque in Switzerland, and at her home on the wild coast of Normandy—the landscape is what is waiting for you when you leave the house, and vice-versa. Each threatens—or is it offers, kindly, even promises? —to dissolve the other. Recognizing the normalization of home studios these days, she revisited twentieth-century women artists who variously chose, and were chosen by, their homes as a place to work: the desert retreats of Agnes Martin and Georgia O’Keefe, the life and death of Sylvia Plath. Building a record is like building a house: a structure in which one can encounter oneself, each room a song with its own function in the project of everyday life.

At times listening to »Image Langage« is immediate, something like visiting a house by the sea, sharing the same ground, being invited to witness Atkinson’s acts of seeing, hearing, and reading in a sonic double of the places they occurred. In an aching moment of clarity in »The Lake is Speaking,« a pair of voices emerge out of the primordial murk of piano and organ, accompanying the listener to the edge of a reflective pool that makes a mirror of the cosmos. "I open my feet to fresh dirt, and the wet grass. I hold your hand. You hold his hand. In the distance without any distance. The comets, the stars." At other times, listening to »Image Langage« is more like being in a theatre, the composition a tangle of flickering forms and media that illuminate as best they can the darkness from which we experience it. On »Pieces of Sylvia,« a noirish orchestra drones and clatters beneath and around a montage of vocal images, stretching the listener across time, space, subjectivities. Atkinson says that "Image Langage" is like the fake title of a fake Godard film. There is indeed something cinematic about Atkinson’s work—not cinematic in the sense that it sounds like the score for someone else’s film, but cinematic in the sense that it produces its own images and langage and narratives, a kind of deliberate, dimensional world-building in sound.

»Image Langage« is built from instruments recorded as if field recordings, sound-images of instruments conjured from a keyboard, instruments Atkinson treats like characters, what she calls “a fantasy of an orchestra that doesn’t exist.” And then, speaking of Godard, there are the monologues, operating as both experimental-cinematic device and a literary style of narration. Voice can be a writerly anchor or a wisp of a textural presence. Atkinson’s capacious and slippery speech plunges into and out of the compositional depths, shifting shapes, channelling the voices of any number of beings, subjectivities, or elements of her surroundings—not unlike her midi keyboard, able to speak as a vast array of instruments.

»Image Langage« is an environmental record, in the vastest sense of the world. It is about getting lost in places imagined and real; it registers, too, the dizzying feeling of moving between such sites. It puts forth a concept of self that is hopelessly entangled with the rest of the world, born of both the ache of distance and the warmth of proximity.

For Félicia Atkinson, human voices inhabit an ecology alongside and within many other things that don’t speak, in the conventional sense: landscapes, images, books, memories, ideas. The French electro-acoustic composer and visual artist makes music that animates these other possible voices in conversation with her own, collaging field recording, MIDI instrumentation, and snippets of essayistic langage in both French and English. Her own voice, always shifting to make space, might whisper from the corner or assume another character’s tone. Atkinson uses composing as a way to process imaginative and creative life, frequently engaging with the work of visual artists, filmmakers, and novelists. Her layered compositions tell stories that alternately stretch and fold time and place, stories in which she is the narrator but not the protagonist.

MOVEMENTS Vol.11 – A bag full of rare rhythm & blues, mod-jazz, soul, and mid 70s funk.

Side A starts with rhythm & blues and jazz from the 1960s. The first three tracks were pulled from hopelessly obscure 7" singles. Macy & Company are responsible for the first 'aha' moment. Their version of "Sixteen Tons" would have certainly astouned even Tennessee Ernie Ford. A truely fantastic version indeed! "Snatchin' It Back" completes the first side with a furious bigband jazz cut.

Side B is all about mod-jazz. "Undun" is just like "Big Boy" a sure-shot for any dancefloor. Rare Groove DJs will have a lot of fun spinning these tunes in a club. Admittedly, the next one is a strange cut. "See How You Are" was recorded on a whim when they two composers were spontaneously pulled into a studio. High time for 'aha' effect #2. Many bands have tried their hands on a cover version of the Lee Morgan jazz classic, one of them being Mr. Palumbo. Listen closely to Dianne Elliott's contribution as it is a highlight for sure despite the fact von Frau Elliott.

Side C begins with 'aha' effect #3 and a fantastic cover version of Gerald Wilson's "Viva Tirado". "Blue Jamaica", is the second track on Movements 11 were a vibraphone is the lead instrument. "Bawana Jinde" is a wild, wailing blast of percussive instrumental explosion while "The Creeper" is the perfect choice to finish this side.

Side D is reserved for proper 1970s funk. The flip side of Reunion's sole 45rpm single was included on a previous Tramp compilation album. "A Brighter Day" has not been compiled yet. "Real Life", "Syrene" and "Breezy" are all prime examples how mid 70s funk has to sound . A dream for B-Boys and B-Girls.

Those of you who have been enjoying the detective work of the people behind the label over the past 18 years know that the Movements series can be easily considered as the flagship compilation series on Tramp. So, after having listened to the entire selection of this brand new volume we sincerely hope that we will have achieved our aim to surprise, delight, and enlighten you once again!

Tiptoe between the toadstools of Liverpool’s city parks, and amongst the foliage you might find a Strawberry Guy, contemplating his next chord-progression. Composing hi-fi symphonies from within his humble abode, the Welsh-born songwriter is ready to share the fruits of his labour with debut album Sun Outside My Window. A timeless vista of ethereal balladry looking towards 19th Century musical maestros and works of art, it brings new meaning to the term ‘Modern Classic’ and is the most optimistic of lockdown records yet.
“It’s about seeing the simple things in life and them making you happy,” tells Alex Stephens, the Guy behind the Strawberry. “I remember this day when I was really down… looking out the window, the sun beaming in was beautiful, it made me want to go outside – it was simple but made me so happy in that instance.”
A one-man impressionist, painting majestic soundscapes, Strawberry Guy blends truthful lyrics with lush arrangements to conjure new emotive worlds. Inspired by composers of the Romantic period, or Debussy, Ravel, and other classical artists of the 1800s, his wonderland moves like a Monet painting where arpeggios dance between meadows of dazzling dynamics and dramatic key changes. As former keyboard player of The Orielles and Trudy and The Romance, the light through his floor to ceiling windows has caused a dramatic Greenhouse Effect and now ripening on solo terms, his innocent uploads of ‘Without You’ and ‘F-Song’ comfort 2 million Spotify listeners a month. ‘Mrs Magic’ has received 40 million streams, landing at #13 in its chart and countless fan-created videos have appeared on YouTube. “Throughout history composers have tried to capture emotion, painting their own impressionist pictures with musical brush strokes… I guess I’m just trying to do the same and people enjoy that,” he suggests modestly.
Named by musical friends Her’s after his impeccable taste in milkshakes, Strawberry Guy upturns ‘bedroom artist’ perception, as each idea is crafted into a widescreen wonder where vocals tag-team instrumentals and countermelodies flourish within the Georgian walls of his Liverpool flat’s small space. “I want it to sound like I’ve squeezed an 80-piece orchestra into my room, and for listeners to wonder how all those strings got there,” he says. “Working on the 4-part harmonies, the orchestra became real; I began believing in myself.”
Imitating nature’s effect on emotion, like 70s songwriters, or the fantastical soundtracks accompanying vibrant scenes in the Japanese animated Studio Ghibli films and video games, landscape is brought to the fore. Monet’s picturesque Meadow at Giverny features as the album’s accompanying artwork – perhaps a reminder of the rural Welsh countryside views through his childhood home’s window; “I was inspired by how calm and peaceful the image felt. Its painted lines show real-life scenes in a magical way, which to me reflects my music.”
Just as the first Strawberry Guy EP Taking My Time To Be offered a slowing down for the soul, Sun Outside My Window is musically unhurried, written and recorded over 2 years. “Recording as a lone berry meant I could run with my emotions in the moment and deliver something true; it would have been an entirely different album had it been recorded in a studio,” he says.
Modern Classic? Only time will tell. For now this Guy’s happy-sad world is here to get the juices flowing and with, pandemic permitting, a US tour in 2022, life looks a whole lot sweeter. Until then, take it slow, be at one with the wilderness and remember, when life gives you lemons, swap them for Strawberries.

CLEAR VINYL 2XLP SET IN GATEFOLD SLEEVE

First time on vinyl. Originally released as a CD only album on Riot Season back in 2008 and out of print ever since. Fourteen years later it's finally getting the double vinyl release it fully deserves.
Now expanded, and with new artwork 'Pink Lady Lemonade - You're From Outer Space' really could be Acid Mothers Temple’s first 'summer album'.
Here, Acid Mothers Temple's most representative song 'Pink Lady Lemonade' is dismantled and reconstructed as a blissful ecstatic psychedelic trip where chaos and silence intersect.
These were the first Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno studio recordings since the addition of Pikachu, drummer and vocalist with Osaka grenade-girl duo Afrirampo. The popular AMT standard "Pink Lady Lemonade" showcases a 21st century acid rock update on the 60s San Francisco psychedelic sound.
This one doesn't reach in the red status often - it’s a more out-there trippy ride. But when it does finally soar, Kawabata's guitar has never sounded more alive.
"Pink Lady Lemonade, You're soooooooooo sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!"
Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno :Pikacyu : drums, voice, cosmic shaman Tabata Mitsuru : bass, voice, malatab Higashi Hiroshi : synthesizer, dancin'king Shimura Koji : drums, latino cool Kawabata Makoto : guitar, voice, electronics, speed guru Audrey Ginestet : voice, cosmos

An absolutely legendary album from Lebanon by Issam Hajali’s group Ferkat Al Ard, “Oghneya” stands out as one of the great musical gems of the Arab world. A groundbreaking release from 1978 that represents the meeting point of Arab, jazz, folk and Brazilian styles with the talent of Ziad Rahbani, who did the albums arrangements. Filled with a variety of sounds and genres, from Baroque Pop to Psych-Folk to flashes of Bossa Nova, Tropicalia and MPB, “Oghneya” is like if Arthur Verocai took a trip to Beirut in the 70’s to record an album.

In 2015 we heard Ferkat Al Ard’s music for the first time, a Lebanese trio compromised of Issam Hajali, Toufic Farroukh and Elia Saba. It was a stunningly unique release that blends traditional Arabic elements, jazz and Brazilian rhythms hand in hand with poetic-yet-politically engaged lyrics. The band was active in the left-wing movement of Lebanon of the time and they communicated their political ideas candidly through their songwriting.

In our mind the idea was to see whether Issam was interested in re-releasing “Oghneya.” He was not opposed to it, but also made it clear that it was not his priority for a first project. He suggested we start with his first album, before Ferkat Al Ard was formed, “Mouasalat Ila Jacad El Ard,” which was recorded in 1977 in Paris together with his friend Roger Fakhr (whose work we have been privileged to re-release in the meantime as well.) “Mouasalat Ila Jacad El Ard” is melancholic, stripped-down, guitar-based folk intertwined with jazz-fused breaks, and the unique sound of the santour glistens through. While the music is very accessible, some song structures are rather atypical, neglecting common patterns of verse, hook, verse, hook. The lyrics mostly trace back to the poetic work of Palestinian author Samih El Kasem, with one song also written by Issam, who composed the music for the whole album.

We re-released Issam’s “Mouasalat Ila Jacad El Ard” in 2019 to a great reception, with positive reviews all over the place and an ongoing appreciation for the album. This meant it was time for us to undertake an “Oghneya” re-release again!

If you compare “Mouasalat Ila Jacad El Ard” and “Oghneya,” one apparent distinction is the strong Brazilian influence in the music. Issam Hajali explained that you can already hear traces of this influence on his debut, but it’s “Oghneya” where this musical relationship really peaks. Lebanon and Brazil have had a strong connection for nearly a century due to the continuous flow of immigrants from one country to the other. Today, Brazil has the largest Lebanese diaspora in the world, the “Brasilibanês”. The migratory route was not a one-way street, however, and some Lebanese returned to their home country, taking recordings of the music they learned to love in Brazil with them. They were followed by Brazilian musicians who visited primarily Beirut during the 1960’s and the first half of the 1970’s, just like many other musicians from around the world. In these years between the independence and the beginning of the civil war, Beirut became even more of a cultural center and regional hub than it already was.

Bossa Nova, at that time, was one of the defining sounds of Brazilian popular music. Issam Hajali remembers hearing it at a bar in Beirut’s Hamra district in 1974, which hosted musicians from Brazil playing the occasional gig. When Issam had returned from Paris in 1976 he got to know Ziad Rahbani, son of Fairouz, who had a shared passion with Issam for a lot of things, among them Brazilian music. Issam showed him some of the tracks he was working on, and Ziad agreed to help with arranging. The music that evolved from this cooperation between Ferkat Al Ard and Ziad Rahbani’s arrangement is, to put it lightly, outstanding. Issam’s singing is embedded into the uniquely beautiful string arrangements backed by the band’s poignant, swinging groove. The lyrics of the songs on “Oghneya” are based on poems by Mahmoud Darwish, Samih Al Qasem and Tawfiq Ziad, three pillars of Palestinian poetry within the last century, and their influence on “Oghneya” was itself a strong political statement during the Lebanese war.

“Oghneya” was eventually released in 1978 by the band themselves on cassette tapes. Finding a blank tape that fit the playing time proved to be impossible during the war so they needed to open up the case of each cassette to physically cut down the tape and customize it to the playing time. The album was well received, though some cultural critics deemed it too “occidental” in its sound. While the cassette was circulating, Ziad Rahbani started a label called Zida, together with Khatchik Mardirian. They decided to help the band with a re-release on vinyl in 1979, a year after “Oghneya” was originally released on cassette.

Sadly, there are two tracks from the original release of “Oghneya” that did not make it onto the reissue. “Ghfyara Ghaza” was replaced by the song “Juma’a 6 Hziran.” while “Huloul” was taken off without a replacement. This happened as a precondition from the band for this reissue to happen. We would have loved to include all tracks, but the decision ranged between having either a reissue like the one we put out or no reissue at all. Thus, an easy choice for us.

As always both vinyl and CD come with an extensive booklet with an interview with Issam as well as unseen photos from the recording sessions.

The movements of KUNZITE’s Mike Stroud and Agustin White have seen them orbiting around each other, occasionally crossing paths yet consistently admiring each other’s work. The pair traversed the globe separately with their different projects and personal adventures -- Mike touring with his band Ratatat and Agustin on a spiritual journey exploring yoga, meditation and psychedelics -- while looking to one day do something together. The formation of KUNZITE saw them finally able to merge their minds and mission, with a sound that blends psychedelia with electronic, beat-heavy production and live instrumentation. Most of the recording process for their new album, VISUALS, started while at Agustin’s stripped back studio in Hawaii, and finished at Mike’s barn studio in upstate New York, with instrumentation including acoustic, electric and lap steel guitars, organ, synthesizers and the charango.

REMASTERED

Grönland Records announce a revised, remastered reissue of “Sleepwalkers” by DAVID SYLVIAN. Available as a gatefold 2LP with exclusive art print and as a gatefold digipack CD, this new edition also features the previously unreleased track “Modern Interiors”.

in the 00s, DAVID SYLVIAN produced two of his strongest and most solitary statements, BLEMISH and MANAFON. but those records don’t tell the whole story. during that the same period, SYLVIAN created an alternate body of work: a series of collaborations and side projects with leading talents of pop and improv, electronic and contemporary classical music. the best of these recordings are gathered here on SLEEPWALKERS, meticulously sequenced and remixed: the fruits of one-off meetings and lifelong partnerships, they jump from bliss to intrigue, romance to sensuality, as arch experiments lead into the lushest pop.

the single ‘world citizen – i won’t be disappointed,’ written with RYUICHI SAKAMOTO, is a sublime example, with an impeccable melody and lyric warmed by SYLVIAN’S gorgeous tenor. SYLVIAN has worked with SAKAMOTO for close to three decades. by contrast, on ‘pure genius,’ a collaboration with CHRIS VRENNA aka tweaker, he sounds like he’s walked into a heist flick, singing the part of a delusional, dangerous bedroom genius. as sylvian explains, tracks like this ‘give me a chance to write in a way that’s completely non-personal, playful. it’s an exercise of some kind, working within the parameters of a given assignment.’

intrigue of a different kind drives ‘sugarfuel,’ with music by JEAN-PHILIPPE VERDIN, aka READYMADE FC. the lyrics offered ‘an opportunity to grapple with a more overt sexual theme than anything i’d previously attempted, as suggested by a vocal sample in the original track provided, a threateningly insistent ‘i’m on your side.’ so i took that as my point of entry and ran with it. i would love to write more on this subject should i find the right context. you’re always aware of walking a thin line exploring sexuality with language alone. the failings of the great and the good are strewn all around.’

NINE HORSES’ ‘wonderful world’ strolls in on a black tie bassline and the echoing coos of swedish chanteuse STINA NORDENSTAM, whose high chirps brush hands with SYLVIAN’S lead; there’s the blistering ‘money for all’ by FRIEDMAN and SYLVIAN, an oblique response to the fallout of 9/11 and the war on iraq. this is followed by the last known recording of SYLVIAN’S singing voice in over a decade, ‘do you know me now?’, a live studio recording later augmented by JAN BANG, EIVIND AARSET and ERIK HONORÉ. it’s certainly a title that’s become more relevant over time as SYLVIAN, in the latter stages of his career, repeatedly comes face to face with a new generation of admirers fixated on the life and times of the band formed by his younger self. SYLVIAN is one of only a handful of musicians to have successfully moved on from overt pop beginnings into a domain all his own but is consistently plagued by the misguided desires or expectations of some unfamiliar with his evolution to do a u-turn, pick up where he left off in the late 90s. although this compilation, as well as his writing for NINE HORSES, adequately shows SYLVIAN’S traditional love of melody is
intact, that it’s consistently remained part of his output, there’s no denying his focus has shifted, evolved.
the refusal to embrace complacency, the need to cover new ground ‘as older generations of popular musicians have a moral duty to explore despite, or because of, the greater possibility of failure’ will, i believe, lead to a reassessment of his later work that embraces a sightly more complex relationship with what we’re referring to as ‘melodic’, accompanied by an exploration of improvisation without dogma or beholden to any ‘givens’ for which he’s not infrequently been castigated. for SYLVIAN, there are no such boundaries. it’s obvious that different facets of his work co-exist without conflict but not necessarily for the majority of his audience. again, this places SYLVIAN in the odd, rare, unenviable(?) position of moving forwards leaving many in his devoted audience behind as, should he decide to return to music, it’s unlikely he’ll be aiming to placate an audience in love with work that preceded the 00s. in fact we’ve no idea where new work, should it surface, may lead.

SLEEPWALKERS also spotlights the innovators who contributed to MANAFON and BLEMISH. CHRISTIAN FENNESZ hangs a crackling, shimmering curtain behind the vocal on ‘transit,’ matching his signature mass of sui generis sounds to sylvian’s stately performance. and the title track began with an instrumental handed to SYLVIAN by MARTIN BRANDLMAYR of POLWECHSEL, soon after the first recording session for MANAFON. spite crackles in the gaps between the percussion, and onkyo artists TOSHIMARU NAKAMURA and SACHIKO M set the stage for the scathing lyrics in the chorus.

it cuts close to the bone and so do the two spoken word cuts, ‘angel’ and ‘thermal,’ produced by SAMADHISOUND recording artists JAN BANG and ERIK HONORÉ (and featuring ARVE HENRIKSEN on trumpet). SYLVIAN describes the latter work as a ‘love poem’ to his daughter. ‘‘thermal’ reflects on a period when our time in sonoma, ca was coming to an end. we’d stayed in temporary accommodation which had lulled us into a false sense of security. we had pear, apple, lemon, and figs trees growing in the yard. a small but exotic paradise. a cocoon. but the cracks were beginning to show in the relationship between ex-wife INGRID CHAVEZ and i which is where i think this underlying sense of anxiety, which runs throughout the poem, is derived from, coupled with the need to provide physical and spiritual stability to the children, the youngest of whom was just under two at the time. the poem is addressed to her. our world was dissipating, coming apart at the seams, but we were an island unto ourselves.’

‘five lines’ marked the start of a new partnership with acclaimed young composer DAI FUJIKURA, who at the time of recording was also working on remixes of MANAFON for what became DIED IN THE WOOL. the string quartet was performed by the celebrated ICE ENSEMBLE and written for SYLVIAN, who FUJIKURA cites as an early influence. says SYLVIAN, ‘the composition moves through numerous changes in time signature but as i had no knowledge of what these were i just relied on my gut instinct, and responded, as i always do, with what felt right to me, composing an entirely new melody in the process. some months later i was working in a studio in london and dai dropped by. i rather tentatively asked if he’d like to hear a rough mix of the song as it stood, painfully aware that my contribution might make no sense to him at all but, to my relief he loved the result.’

there’s one further new addition to this collection, the first official release of a track composed in response to the tsunami in fukushma, ‘modern interiors’, featuring SYLVIAN once again in collaboration with BANG and AARSET.

like 2000s EVERYTHING AND NOTHING, SLEEPWALKERS is a retrospective of a particular decade when SYLVIAN was free of major label interference and could follow his own instincts without having to explaining himself – but it’s also an eye-opening complement to his solo releases. as SYLVIAN explains, ‘some collaborations seem to be a one-off exchange but you can never be too certain of that fact. others have been long term. in this respect, RYUICHI comes to mind. there’s others with whom you hope to continue working as you feel you’ve barely scratched the surface. other times offers come out of the blue, welcome, inspired. regardless, it’s wonderfully explorative to have so many possibilities to juggle with. each collaboration seems timely. it’s as if there’s a rightness to the exchange at a given moment in time.’

in the meantime, we hope you enjoy the work presented here, personally selected, remixed and sequenced and entirely remastered. these are the orphans, abused, estranged, exotic, migrating from diverse corners of the globe, brought together under one roof which they're learning to share despite their differences.

‘as many of you will already be aware, despite relatively continuous work on solo albums, i’ve maintained strong ties with a number of musicians throughout my life in one context or another. on this new collection, let’s call it SLEEPWALKERS 2.0, a selection of collaborative work produced over the period encompassing blemish through to manafon, i’ve included compositions by nine horses as well as more fleeting flirtations and one-offs. neglected offspring. represented also is long term friend and writing partner, RYUICHI SAKAMOTO, as well as more recent but potentially equally productive partnerships such as CHRISTIAN FENNESZ, ARVE HENRIKSEN and contemporary classical composer DAI FUJIKURA.
i hope you enjoy the work presented here, personally selected, remixed and sequenced and entirely remastered. these are the orphans, abused, estranged, exotic, migrating from diverse corners of the globe, brought together under one roof which they're learning to share despite their differences.

we contain multitudes. we’re nothing if not contradictory.’

DAVID SYLVIAN, 2010

(consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life: aldous huxley)

Nectar’s Kamila Glowacki spent four months painstakingly painting the album cover for No Shadow on canvas. A pink mirror re­ects the image of lemons posed directly in front of it as well as the unseen, empty space beyond. Flip over the record and you’ll ‑nd the tracklist printed on the back of the canvas, revealing the physical record itself to be a facsimile of Glowacki’s painting. Inspired by Dutch still life paintings, Glowacki describes the process as a meticulous labor of love that required her to “wring out every possible drop” of herself into the band’s latest release. No Shadow is two works in one, then: an album and a painting created in separate but parallel artistic processes, two mirror images in constant conversation with one another. No Shadow follows up Nectar’s 2018 full-length debut Knocking at the Door with ten tracks co-produced by Glowacki and Champaign-based composer and producer Andrew M Rodriguez. Recorded over the course of a year, No Shadow finds Glowacki at her most self-assured as a songwriter and vocalist. No Shadow’s title references the dual concepts of certainty and enlightenment. Evoking Plato’s allegory of the cave, Glowacki describes turning to face the sun and rejecting the false illusion of reality created by the darkness of depression.

"Stand in Your Light" ist eine Herzensangelegenheit. Die Liebe zur Musik und die Leidenschaft für Rock tropft bittersüß aus jeder Honigwabe der getragenen Melodien, die VENUS PRINCIPLE für ihr Debüt geschaffen haben. Obwohl es sich um den Erstling des britisch-schwedischen Kollektivs handelt, lässt sich die Reife und hart erarbeitete Erfahrung der beteiligten Veteranen aus jeder dieser Hymnen für die Geschundenen und Geplagten klar heraushören. Im Zentrum von "Stand in Your Light" steht der klassische Rock, dem VENUS PRINCIPLE jedoch ihren eigenen Stempel aufdrücken. Dabei treten besonders die Elemente Dunkelheit und Schmerz hervor, die eine schreckliche musikalische Schönheit erzeugen. Doch ebenso wie es keinen Schatten ohne Licht gibt, liefern die britisch-schwedischen Musiker als Kontrast auch zarte Momente der Hoffnung und Wärme. Gerade in diesen scheinbaren Widersprüchen schimmert aus "Stand in Your Light" der Metal-Aspekt einiger beteiligter Musiker durch und bietet Balsam für die Wunde, die das Ende von ANATHEMA geschlagen hat. VENUS PRINCIPLE wurden im Herbst 2019 gegründet, nachdem sich mehrere ihrer Mitglieder von CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX getrennt hatten. Da sich trotz der Trennung ihre Liebe zum dunklen, melodischen Art-Rock und zur psychedelische Musik aber keineswegs erkaltet hatte, beschloss die Gruppe enger Freunde noch weitere gute Bekannte zu rekrutieren, unter denen sich aktive und ehemalige Mitglieder von AT THE GATES, ISON, TACOMA NARROWS BRIDGE DISASTER und LOUISE LEMÓN befanden. Damit war die neue Rockband VENUS PRINCIPLE geboren. Obwohl "Stand in Your Light" ganz am Anfang einer langen Karriere steht, liefern VENUS PRINCIPLE bereits ein ausgereiftes Meisterwerk ab. Dieses Album vollbringt das schwierige Kunststück, die Anhänger von Rock und Metal gleichermaßen zu begeistern.

"Stand in Your Light" ist eine Herzensangelegenheit. Die Liebe zur Musik und die Leidenschaft für Rock tropft bittersüß aus jeder Honigwabe der getragenen Melodien, die VENUS PRINCIPLE für ihr Debüt geschaffen haben. Obwohl es sich um den Erstling des britisch-schwedischen Kollektivs handelt, lässt sich die Reife und hart erarbeitete Erfahrung der beteiligten Veteranen aus jeder dieser Hymnen für die Geschundenen und Geplagten klar heraushören. Im Zentrum von "Stand in Your Light" steht der klassische Rock, dem VENUS PRINCIPLE jedoch ihren eigenen Stempel aufdrücken. Dabei treten besonders die Elemente Dunkelheit und Schmerz hervor, die eine schreckliche musikalische Schönheit erzeugen. Doch ebenso wie es keinen Schatten ohne Licht gibt, liefern die britisch-schwedischen Musiker als Kontrast auch zarte Momente der Hoffnung und Wärme. Gerade in diesen scheinbaren Widersprüchen schimmert aus "Stand in Your Light" der Metal-Aspekt einiger beteiligter Musiker durch und bietet Balsam für die Wunde, die das Ende von ANATHEMA geschlagen hat. VENUS PRINCIPLE wurden im Herbst 2019 gegründet, nachdem sich mehrere ihrer Mitglieder von CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX getrennt hatten. Da sich trotz der Trennung ihre Liebe zum dunklen, melodischen Art-Rock und zur psychedelische Musik aber keineswegs erkaltet hatte, beschloss die Gruppe enger Freunde noch weitere gute Bekannte zu rekrutieren, unter denen sich aktive und ehemalige Mitglieder von AT THE GATES, ISON, TACOMA NARROWS BRIDGE DISASTER und LOUISE LEMÓN befanden. Damit war die neue Rockband VENUS PRINCIPLE geboren. Obwohl "Stand in Your Light" ganz am Anfang einer langen Karriere steht, liefern VENUS PRINCIPLE bereits ein ausgereiftes Meisterwerk ab. Dieses Album vollbringt das schwierige Kunststück, die Anhänger von Rock und Metal gleichermaßen zu begeistern.