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For his new album, Irreparable Parables, Andrew Wasylyk felt a strong desire to write a set of songs featuring an element hitherto rare in his work: the human voice. Equally strong was the conviction that he did not want to sing them himself.

The Scottish multi-instrumentalist and composer set about assembling a group of guest singers, sending out the songs to wherever they were in the world. The vocals were recorded remotely and then, like migrating birds, winged their way back to Scotland. The result is an album of great beauty which, perhaps preeminently in Wasylyk’s work, expresses the vulnerability and resilience of the human spirit.

Six singers appear on the record, represented by six songbirds illustrated on the sleeve by Clay Pipe Music’s Frances Castle. The cuckoo is a nod to Belle and Sebastian’s 2004 single ‘I’m A Cuckoo’, that band’s Stuart Murdoch being the first voice you hear on the new album. When the vocal for ‘Private Symphony #2’ arrived, says Wasylyk, “it was everything that I was looking for and more. But this is Stuart Murdoch. Of course he’s going to make something incredibly beautiful and thoughtful.”

The song lyrics were, for the most part, written by the singers. The music is Wasylyk’s creation. He navigates a sound world that lies somewhere beyond the borders of classical and jazz, ambient and abstract. It is difficult to describe, but easy to understand, which is to say to feel. That is the way Wasylyk’s work is experienced: as a feeling. It takes you back to childhood, perhaps, to feelings of comfort and safety, or to memories of walks at sunrise and sunset, or to the way a shadow falls on a particular field in a particular place at a particular time in your life. This is consoling music. That is why, though pretty, it is not merely pretty. These are songs to shore up the soul.

Wasylyk writes in a room, in his native Dundee, full of “half broken” instruments. He picks these up, plays a little, seeking an idea, a feeling, a door that lies ajar. The musical palette of Irreparable Parables includes brass and woodwind, a six-piece string section, guitar, bass, drums, vibraphone, Mellotron, Fender Rhodes, tape loops, synthesisers and percussion. The strings were arranged by the cellist Pete Harvey, a long-term collaborator.

Among the other guest vocalists are Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals, Saya Ueno from Japan’s Tenniscoats and Peter Brewis from Field Music. Wasylyk himself takes the lead vocal on the title track, though a throat infection and touch of pitch-shifting have altered his singing in a way that even he, having fallen out of love with his own voice, finds acceptable.

The heart of the record can, arguably, be found in two tracks, ‘Love Is A Life That Lasts Forever’ and ‘Spectators In The Absence of God’, sung respectively by Molly Linen and Kathryn Joseph. The former, bright with trumpets, was inspired by the writing of Derek Jarman. “I was feeling deeply upset about the world and wanted to try and write some- thing that was obviously hopeful,” Wasylyk says.

‘Spectators …’ offers an emotional counterpoint. It is an “apocalyptic hymn” that seems to grapple with watching human suffering from afar, too distant to be at physical risk, but experiencing the psychological wounding, and feelings of helplessness, even complicity, that come with constant awareness of other people’s pain. “Kathryn’s a pal, I love her dearly, and she’s a brilliant artist who really feels what she writes,” Wasylyk says. “The cracked tenderness of her voice is spellbinding.”

The album closes with an instrumental piece, ‘Soul Enters The Ocean Sun Climbs Out Of The Sea’, all piano and strings, that offers a sense of resolution and ascension. A good moment, too, for Wasylyk to reflect upon the artistic companionship that he enjoyed while making this record – the songbirds that answered his call: “These humans are incredible at what they do. I’m deeply grateful and feel so lucky. It blows my mind.”

From deep within the astral planes of all that is cosmic in the Northwest and through a fog of kaleidoscopic haze emerges the latest mind-expanding music makers to arrive on Sprechen in the form of the Todmorden based Lines Of Silence.
Living amongst a hotbed of UFO activity and home to the UK's highest ever beach they combine experimental analogue and digital electronics, motorik beats, polyrhythmic improvisation and drone rock guitar explosions to create an immersive, expansive and contemporary take on psychedelia.

Their long player on Sprechen: 'Lines In Opposition !' takes the listener on a visionary aural journey across 8 tracks of electronic, shamanic soundscapes where the sounds of Krautrock exist in harmony alongside drone-esque ambient excursions through an array of synths, guitars & sequenced patterns that draw heavily on the stylings of NEU!, Aphex Twin, Kraftwerk and the musical pickings of the more esoteric sets and radio shows by Andrew Weatherall.

A truly universal listening experience to take you into a higher state of electronic music consciousness...

'This compilation Pas Un Pas Sans… The Boleros of O.K. Jazz 1957-77 is a selection of songs from what is one of the most unique and passionate music genres on earth, the Congolese bolero.
'Of all Congolese bands venturing into the bolero, the O.K. Jazz orchestra is by far the king of this musical style which originated in the late 19th century in Cuba. In its nearly forty years of existence, the illustrious band released dozens of boleros, with beautiful compositions, mainly by Franco and Vicky, and occasionally from Kwamy, Edo, Simaro and Mujos among others. The slow form of the bolero allowed Franco, who said in various interviews that he loved all forms of ‘slow music’, to express his most profound soul stirrings and create a style of his own. With the suave voice of Vicky and the breathtaking and dramatic guitar touch of Franco, O.K. Jazz was able to capture the true essence of the bolero.
'The favorite theme in the bolero songs of O.K. Jazz was, without doubt, the joy and pain of love, but it also touches on friendship, city life in Kinshasa, laments, politics and even advertising for a shoe brand like the remarkable song ‘Pas Un Pas Sans Bata’ featured on this compilation.
'All of the songs, except one, were restored and remastered from the original 45 rpm or 78 rpm release. The selection chronologically presented here consists – as always – for a good part of songs never reproduced after their original release.'

7 Inch Blue Ice Dinked Vinyl in Picture Sleeve

Cold Crush Blue Ice vinyl… what other colour could Tuff City possibly give fans for this seminal early Hip Hop masterpiece on RSD?! The Cold Crush Brothers hold the distinction of being the first-ever Hip Hop group, blazing the trail in the culture’s formative years and opening the door for countless acts to follow. Fresh, wild, fly, and bold, this is true old-school rap at its finest — a nod to the scene’s earliest days, recorded not long after their appearance in the now-cult-classic Wild Style movie. Newly remastered and pressed on a dinked 7” in an original Tuff City branded sleeve, this special-edition colourway brings a legendary moment in Hip Hop history back to life.

Once I Was Young and The Airplane Album find the producer taking yet another sonic right turn. "These records were made in the same year with a very similar creative process. I moved almost completely away from sampling, experimented more than ever with ambient and techno elements and used the album format as a way to tell a story about moments in my life." Once I Was Young is a storytelling work that journeys through analogue synth-pop, modulated techno and raw, dusty drums with otherworldly melodies. Moments of beauty come through escapist, naturalistic ambient tracks and fusions of Kraftwerkian sequencing with more classical piano, while stark, clubready grooves keep things moving. Airplane contrasts similar shades of light and dark, synthetic and organic, rough and smooth. Glitchy, imperfect analogue sounds, knackered drum machine grooves and eerie synth phrasing evoke a post-human world with icy atmospheres. Elsewhere, warmth comes from bittersweet melodies and loose, funky drums that ooze retro-future charm.
Once I Was Young and The Airplane Album show a diff erent side to Escobar, one that embraces introspection and experimentation while exploring a whole other world of meaningful machine soul

2026 Repress

Laurie Torres is a Canadian musician and composer raised in Montréal, Québec by Haitian parents. Since 2008, she has been a trusted stage and studio performer for Julia Jacklin, Pomme, and Land of Talk, as well as being a founding member of Folly & The Hunter, with whom she recorded four studio albums and toured Canada, Europe and the UK.

In 2023, Laurie shifted focus to work on her own creations, a process of making time - the will and the need becoming omnipresent. Drawing creative inspiration from contemporary artists like Tirzah, Gia Margaret, Valentina Magaletti, Tara Clerkin Trio and ML Buch, 'Après coup' finds Torres intersecting at a pivotal moment where artists whose marginalized identities are at the forefront in creating a beautiful array of "other options".

"Being othered and tokenized as a woman who plays music, as well as a queer and black person, takes a toll, while also positively feeding a strong urge to push and be seen."

Centering around piano, drums and synthesizer with interweaving field recordings, 'Après coup' follows the precursor ep 'Correspondances' in the form of a sprawling 11-track album. Translating directly from French - afterwards, after the event - its title subliminally points at something deeper between the lines. Recorded in 2023 between tours in a small window of time where 'normal' life hadn't quite recommenced, Torres meticulously crafted her debut solo material in view of surrounding nature, all providing the perfect nourishment for long streams of improvisation. Built right up to the edge of a lake, Studio Wild in St-Zénon, Québec offered an unparalleled location and set up for her freeform creativity.

Instrumental music seemed like a natural response and evolution for Torres who had long basked in the world of "pop music" as she elaborates: "I had an urge to use creativity as a sort of resting place, a place where things can unfold slowly and take time to reveal themselves. In other worlds words, I felt the need to make something slower, more elusive"

The immediacy of Torres' recorded takes doubled with minimal overdubs create a fiercely direct, intimate and unpolished lo-fi beauty. 'Après coup' then is self-reflective, open and inclusive with Torres allowing herself to be fully seen. An album to be felt at close distance with unrivalled authenticity. This album stands as a testament to Laurie's artistic evolution and serves as a beacon, inspiring her to continue nurturing her own creative pursuits and finding exhilarating freedom.

Drumcode returns with its flagship A-Sides series, led by a huge new Adam Beyer single that highlights the 20-track compilation.

If you want a snapshot of techno in any given year, look no further than Drumcode’s annual A-Sides compilation. The release broadly charts the evolution of the genre, while giving a platform to standout demo’s Adam Beyer has received across the course of the year with many emerging artists finding their music on Drumcode for the first time. Case in point – Wehbba, Charles D and Raxon who all debuted on the label via a track on the A-Sides series and have gone on to become regular contributors to Beyer’s influential labels.

This year’s compilation features an exciting mix of established heavy-hitters, alongside a slew of new faces set to make their mark on the genre. ‘We Don’t Say Please’ – is emblematic of Adam Beyer’s sound in 2025 – fresh, experimental and thriving on cross-genre pollinations, as elements of bass music, rap and techno collide, underpinned by a distinctive UK vocal. The results are inspiring.

Elsewhere, the 20-track compilation brims with highlights. HI-LO’s ‘NYC to Amsterdam’ has inflections of New York house fused with driving techno elements. Nicole Moudaber returns to DC in cahoots with the rising ZLATA for the super-charged ‘Report to the Dancefloor’. Oscar L & Charles D mint a new collaborative partnership with the immersive, spacey cut ‘Lift Me Up’. LUSU continue their red-hot run following the recent ‘Move 2 the Groove’ EP, and craft a straight-up mind-mashing single ‘LIKE THIS’. Mark Reeve is in trademark strong form with hypnotic ‘My Mind’, which comes to life via a massive synth led. The fantastic Kaufmann shares her ‘People are Strange’, a nod to a classic vox, re-contextualised for a modern techno audience.

As is tradition, a troupe of ascendant producers land on Drumcode for the first time. They include Uruguay’s Enzo Monza, who delivers the crisp ‘Late Night’ – a favourite of Beyer’s; Mattia Saviola, whose ‘Parallel Dimension’ is a powerful cut with fantastic sound design; Romanian artist Tao Andra, who shares the celestial ‘Unity’; and long-time industry stalwart AdamK, who makes a richly deserved Drumcode debut in partnership with Vikthor feat. MC Stretch on the stunning ‘Silence + The Sound’.

LS002 marks the first vinyl chapter of 20, Eitan Reiter's two-decade retrospective, distilled through key collaborations and remixes. Featuring Patrice Bäumel, Infected Mushroom, Shpongle, Red Axes, and Echo, this six-track release connects psychedelic heritage with contemporary indie dance and deep electronic aesthetics.
20 (Part 1) is a 12-inch vinyl edition featuring exclusive vinyl cuts, available only on this pressing. The selection reflects Reiter's ability to honor his roots while maintaining a distinctly modern sound,blending psychedelic foundations with cluboriented precision.

A1 - Eitan Reiter - Blue Planet (Remix) Vinyl Cut
The A-side opens with a spacious, atmospheric rework of Blue Planet, balancing restrained tension with melodic clarity.
A2 - Eitan Reiter - X-Vision feat. Echo Vinyl Cut
Echo's vocal performance anchors the track, presented here in a refined vinyl cut that enhances its emotional depth.
A3 - Eitan Reiter & A. Balter - E0E (Eitan Reiter Remix) Vinyl Cut
A driving, hypnotic groove where rhythmic focus meets evolving textures.
A4 - Infected Mushroom & Yahel - Electro Panic (Eitan Reiter Remix) [Vinyl Cut]
A confident reworking of a psytrance classic, reshaped into an 80s-leaning indie dance format.
B1 - Eitan Reiter - Eat You (Patrice Bäumel Remix)
Patrice Bäumel heightens the track's underlying tension with a slow-building, immersive reinterpretation.
B2 - Out of Orbit & Shpongle - No Disco (Red Axes Remix)
Red Axes flip the original into a dark disco framework, adding weight, swing, and late-night character.

LS002 presents a vinyl-focused snapshot of Eitan Reiter's collaborative output, with each track adapted for turntable playback.

(Extrawelt Remix) The second vinyl installment of 20 shifts focus toward cinematic structure, melodic depth, and genre-crossing reinterpretations. Collaborations and remixes involving Extrawelt, Noga Erez, Perfect Stranger, PRZ, and A. Balter underline Eitan Reiter's refined and flexible production approach.



20 (Part 2) is a 12-inch vinyl release featuring exclusive vinyl cuts that are not available digitally, offering collectors insight into Reiter's evolving sonic language.



LS003 completes the vinyl-only snapshot of 20, presenting carefully selected collaborations adapted for the physical format.

Fust’s first record "Evil Joy" was a bitter domestic drama obsessed with the kitchen-sink passage of time measured by moments of leaving and returning. With "Genevieve", we find a different kind of leaving: leaving behind, leaving one’s old ways, starting anew, a small life together, in “Family Country.” Thus, Genevieve: an historical name for both the saintly and the ordinary, the peasantry and the family, the community and the wife, extreme devotion and absolute forbearance. While sonically and instrumentally louder than Evil Joy, Genevieve is thematically more quiet about its pains—more settled in its ways. It is a collection of pathetic love stories written in dedication to “small life,” moving from gentle exceptions (“I can take the late hours if you’re with me”) to pitiful admissions (“I’m never going to change when I leave…”). What comes with a quiet life? The highest forms of beauty, but we also find here songs of unspeaking companions, the sublime dread of having children, the balance of humility and humiliation, playing the fool for the greater good, and… budget birthday parties. With these stories of possible growth, "Genevieve" can’t help but also feature tried and true examples of crisis and repression: seeking a bygone lifestyle in an old friend who hasn’t changed much over the years, pissing contests, search parties as the form of community for melancholics with no clue what they’ve lost, old flames you won't let go and dying flames you won’t admit. "Genevieve" was recorded throughout 2021-2022 (mostly) at Drop of Sun studio in Asheville NC by Alex Farrar. The painting by Sasha Popovici is exactly right: a domestic scene yet unfinished. Many friends helped to make it much better than it was without them—Xandy Chelmis, Michael Cormier-O’Leary, Indigo De Souza, MJ Lenderman, Courtney Werner.

These days – on the new, ninth Fink album – Greenall is operating within a lineage of authentic, quietly revolutionary artists from England’s verdant southwestern toe. Artists like Michael Chapman. In 1970, the elusive acoustic guitar wizard released an album called Fully Qualified Survivor. The cult-classic served as a lodestar for Greenall – along with bandmates Tim Thornton and Guy Whittaker – as he began jigsawing together The City Is Coming to Erase it All, the follow-up to 2024’s Beauty In Your Wake. He even considered covering a song from it, but in the process, inadvertently stumbled into what became the album’s opener. ‘Wishing For Blue Sky’ circles a universal teenage ache: waiting for life to start. “No point dying of patience” goes the first lyric as crunching footsteps cue a resonant, open-tuned acoustic swaying into view. By 18, Greenall was fed up with waiting, so he left suburban Bristol and saw the world, sending postcards from the edge, waiting tables, squirreling away tips for the next flight. Thornton had similar experiences when the guitarist/drummer busked across Eur

This is nowstalgia more than nostalgia, though; there’s a parallel between these 18-year-olds and Fink’s autumn-aged family men. “You’re expected to be boring and settling down at this age,” Thornton says. “But we’ve still got this tremendous wanderlust. We want to go and discover, and also achieve things. It’s a nice life – home and family – but fuck, I can’t wait to get back out there.” City is a product of this hunger for discovery, and idolatry of the album as a form – like we had in 1974. City’s cover mirrors its interior, the first song is the greeting, the instrumental closer the conclusion. It’s a story. It’s a record for people who, like its creators, are curious. People who happily face a little cold for music, who light a crackling fire back home, who sit with these songs until they’re ready to chase after their own blue sky

These days – on the new, ninth Fink album – Greenall is operating within a lineage of authentic, quietly revolutionary artists from England’s verdant southwestern toe. Artists like Michael Chapman. In 1970, the elusive acoustic guitar wizard released an album called Fully Qualified Survivor. The cult-classic served as a lodestar for Greenall – along with bandmates Tim Thornton and Guy Whittaker – as he began jigsawing together The City Is Coming to Erase it All, the follow-up to 2024’s Beauty In Your Wake. He even considered covering a song from it, but in the process, inadvertently stumbled into what became the album’s opener. ‘Wishing For Blue Sky’ circles a universal teenage ache: waiting for life to start. “No point dying of patience” goes the first lyric as crunching footsteps cue a resonant, open-tuned acoustic swaying into view. By 18, Greenall was fed up with waiting, so he left suburban Bristol and saw the world, sending postcards from the edge, waiting tables, squirreling away tips for the next flight. Thornton had similar experiences when the guitarist/drummer busked across Eur

This is nowstalgia more than nostalgia, though; there’s a parallel between these 18-year-olds and Fink’s autumn-aged family men. “You’re expected to be boring and settling down at this age,” Thornton says. “But we’ve still got this tremendous wanderlust. We want to go and discover, and also achieve things. It’s a nice life – home and family – but fuck, I can’t wait to get back out there.” City is a product of this hunger for discovery, and idolatry of the album as a form – like we had in 1974. City’s cover mirrors its interior, the first song is the greeting, the instrumental closer the conclusion. It’s a story. It’s a record for people who, like its creators, are curious. People who happily face a little cold for music, who light a crackling fire back home, who sit with these songs until they’re ready to chase after their own blue sky

Every so often in music, we come across voices that achieve a certain timelessness, so naturally do they encapsulate both past and present. Laure Briard is one of these voices, retro in form but contemporary at heart, spanning a career rich in aesthetic twists and turns, never without her signature magic, a special kind of eternal filter. Her first album, Révélation (2015), reveals her yé-yé influences, a testament to her love for ‘60s French pop music. Her second studio album, Sur la piste de danse (2016), follows in this vein and finds Laure accompanied as always by her long-time bandmates who share an affinity for warm, catchy arrangements that never lose their appeal. Her tour of Brazil marks a turning point in her career, introducing her to the local indie scene and thus launching her collaboration with the band Boogarins, as well as inspiring the release of multiple EPs composed and performed in Portuguese. Today, her music is embellished by touches of bossa nova and a folk sensibility, boasting increasingly intricate arrangements, as exemplified by her 2019 release, Un peu plus d'amour s'il vous plaît. Several years later, the Californian desert captures the musician’s imagination with Ne pas trop rester bleue, a poignant musical journey inspired by the rich history of Western legends and the role they play in shaping our collective consciousness.

In Voyage Mental, Laure Briard draws upon an inner energy unearthed during a new stage in her life, where the thrill of spontaneous adventure is not accessible in quite the same way. The result is a collection of sophisticated, introspective songs, narrating a young mother’s quest for balance in the face of routine. The album, nostalgic but always tethered to the present moment, is also the fruit of her collaboration with Gaëtan Nonchalant, a talented musician known for coaxing poetry out of the mundane. The two of them co-wrote and recorded five tracks at Studio Nocturne, accompanied by her long-time sidekick Pieuvre, aka Vincent Guyot, Léo Blomov, Pierre-Louis Vizioz, and Hedi Bensalem. The gentle pop opener “Rocking Chair” sways steadily to the rhythm of dynamic drums, followed by “Train,” a ballad that extends an invitation to set sail and daydream alone. The folk escapade continues with “Golden Sun,” a duet featuring the 1960s cult American musician F.J. McMahon, who Laure contacted via the internet on a whim. “Golden Sun” is an unlikely encounter between two generations and two cultures, giving new life to an old forgotten demo on the other side of the Atlantic. And while Laure sings of wide open spaces, cowboys, and sunsets sinking into the sea, we feel the city surrounding her in “Miroir,” a song composed by Hedi Bensalem that laments the suffocation of living in a crowded metropolis where the sky is a distant gray smudge. This pressing need for air, this search for rest and total disconnection, is one of the album's central themes. It may also explain the ever-present sense of nostalgia that pervades the songs, a welcome respite in our current era of doomscrolling and darkness. Along the way, Laure soothes us with melancholy guitar, delivers poetry set to scattered piano notes, and takes us by the hand during lively, uptempo passages. We climb onto her wings, never straying too far from the ground, soaring joyfully above her moods.

It’s True What They Say is the debut EP from Edinburgh-based, husband-and-wife duo Sarah/Shaun (pronounced simply Sarah Shaun), aka Sarah and Shaun McLachlan (pronounced “McLochlin”).

“Sarah and I both have a love for nostalgia,” explains Shaun. “We watched that amazing old 80’s Sci-Fi, (John) Carpenter movie, Starman, a few months back. Myself and my brother David used to watch it all the time. We must have been, roughly, 5-7 at the time. I remember loving the movie but the end, you know, with the beautiful, atmospheric, synth ending, I love that particular moment the most - best part of the movie, you know, when he goes home… It’s heartbreaking but stunning, all the same. It’s the music that moves you most… It did when I was 5 and it still does to this day. It must have had some form of a (much deeper) impact on me.”

The duo narrates stories across themes of love, hope, family, friends, dreams and sadness - the good that comes with the bad in everyday life, not just on a personal scale but within a community as well.

“Starbed is the first song I have ever written and just came out of the blue really, with Shaun playing a melody and me singing along,” says Sarah. “It’s simple and just about two people in love. Love songs are always the best songs, after all… Music has been a big part of my life from a young age. I was unwillingly dragged to piano and violin lessons, which I’m thankful for now! I’d say the first band I really became obsessed with growing up were the Beatles, and on the back of that a lot of 60s music and fashion. From then on, I had a love for music.”

“Shaun definitely opened my ears to a lot of sounds and got me thinking about soundtracks and all the noises that can be made,” she goes on. “We love just spending time experimenting in the house with instruments, pedals etc and Ali is a real magician to work with, too…”

The recordings took place over the summers of 2022 and 2023, with fellow Delta Mainline member Ali Chisholm (aka Jaguar Eyes) plus long-term friend and collaborator Gavin King. Further collaboration then came via the ‘net from the (international) likes of Chris Dixie Darley (Father John Misty), Darren Coghill (Neon Waltz) and Daniel Land (The Modern Painters), among others (see a full list of credits below).

Both Sarah and Shaun have a love for uber-soundtrack producers such as Hanz Zimmer, Max Richter, Cliff Martinez plus live acts such as Beach House, Spiritualized, M83, Suicide, Moby and OMD (to name a few). Shaun also credits the work of Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein (from Survive) on the Stranger Things score… “Even a moment in a movie, whether it be just 30 seconds during a particular scene, it grips you,” he says. But there’s something much deeper at play as well. “Music is a healer,” he goes on, “and I write from my own perspective but more so for others. Once I've done my bit, it doesn't belong to me any longer. It belongs to whoever wants it or needs it.”

The result is a cinematic, synth-wavey, dream poppy and downright beguilingly beautiful body of work. And they’re just getting started…

REVIEWS/RADIO/FEEDBACK:

“Starbed is folky, flavoured by pedal steel, cello, and brass. Dust Tears, in stark contrast, is a mini synth-pop rave epic. Part Bicep. Part Human League. Keep Your Eyes Closed summons a mood that’s romantic, but also dark and potentially doomed – like David Lynch’s Twin Peaks meets Cliff Martinez’s Drive score. My pick though is It’s True What They Say, whose interwoven jangle and picking recalls New Order’s more introspective moments (Love Vigilantes, Love Less… ). Drums crashing, cathartic. Guitar raising dramatic arcs. Its chorus a rush, like a reprise of Pains Of Being Pure Of Heart’s ‘Higher Than The Stars’.” BAN BAN TON TON
"Dust Tears sees them sharing vocal duties over a synth foundation reminiscent of Moby’s Go - Artist Of The Week” THE SCOTSMAN
"Woozy pop" NEMONE (Mary Anne Hobbs Morning Show, BBC 6Music)
"Nice one, very David Lynch meets Euro dream pop" YOUTH (Killing Joke, Paul McCartney, U2, The Orb, Spiritualized etc)
"Music sounds killer! Real emotion” DAVID HOLMES
"I’m enjoying it” TIM BRINKHURST aka LONDON (IKLAN, Young Fathers, Callum Easter)
“Oh, this is lovely!” SEAN JOHNSTON (A Love From Outer Space)
"It’s totally my cup of tea with milk and biscuit" BRENT RADEMAKER (Beachwood Sparks/GospelBeach)
"Beautiful, ecstatic electronica! Short and to the point" KEVIN BALES (Spiritualized, Julian Cope, Soulsavers, BE)
"Makes me wanna sit in the sun and sip an Arnold Palmer" CHRIS DIXIE DARLEY (Father John Misty)
“Really beautiful - Cocteau Twins / Spiritualized vibes but has its own thing going on, too - worth checking out!” JULIAN CORRIE (Franz Ferdinand, Miaoux Miaoux)
‘Sounded nice on a sunny day, makes me think of Twin Peaks, nice moods’ EAMON HAMILTON (Sea Power)
"Dealing in nostalgia, no bad thing at all, great to play that (Dust Tears) for you” RODDY HART (BBC Radio Scotland)
“I'll give the vocal tracks a spin before the release." VIC GALLOWAY (BBC Radio Scotland)
"Rather good!" IAIN ANDERSON (BBC Radio Scotland)

CREDITS:

Lyrics, Guitars, Keys, Synths, Drums, Drum Programming, Percussion, Mandolin, Glockenspiel: Shaun McLachlan
Lyrics, Vocals, Keys by Sarah McLachlan
Guitars, Synths, String Arrangements, Drum Programming, Engineering: Jaguar Eyes Percussion/Drums/Effects, Fire Extinguisher: Darren Coghill (Neon Waltz)
Guitars by Daniel Land
Slide Guitar by Chris Dixie Darley (Father John Misty)
Brass by Bruce Michie
Keys, pre-production & engineering on “It’s true what they say”: Gavin King
All produced by Jaguar Eyes and Shaun McLachlan and then mixed at Glasgow’s Chem19 Studios by David McCaulay (From Scotland With Love, Rick Redbeard, BBC TV’s Attenborough and The Mammoth Graveyard score).
Artwork: Jamie Walman (Fourteen Admirals)

MORE INFO:

Although Shaun released a pair of solo singles (When We Dance and Give Your Love To Me) during Lockdown, he will be better known to many via his work as the multi-instrumentalist in Edinburgh band Delta Mainline. With two albums released to date, Oh! Enlightened and Bel Avenir, both rapturously received by fans and critics alike, Delta Mainline have developed an international, cult following. Oh Enlightened (2013) achieved widespread critical acclaim on release, earning the band comparisons to Arcade Fire and Echo & The Bunnymen, while 2019’s Bel Avenir pulled in references to The Flaming Lips, Pink Floyd, David Bowie and krautrock. A third DM album is currently being mixed and due for release later this year…

Michigan Band EJ & the Echoes: Rediscovering a Soul Legacy

The story of EJ & the Echoes represents a remarkable chapter in Michigan's music history and the early American soul scene. Its origins date back to the late 1950s, when Everett J. "EJ" Gronda was already active as a young musician. While studying at Central Michigan University in the early 1960s, he met the talented vocalist Manuel "Manny" Holcolm. Together with other musicians, they formed vocal groups that soon performed throughout the state and even recorded near Detroit's legendary Motown studios.

In 1963, Gronda founded EJ & the Echoes, a band that quickly gained popularity at dances, clubs, and weddings across Michigan. With Manny Holcolm as lead singer, the group developed a distinctive harmony-driven sound, blending influences ranging from the Beatles to James Brown. The band served as a house band in Traverse City, opened for national acts, and performed regularly at well-known Detroit venues.

Between 1964 and 1967, EJ & the Echoes released several singles on the Diamond Jim Records label. Although major commercial success eluded them at the time, their recordings later found international recognition. Today, their songs remain staples of the British Northern Soul scene.

After the band dissolved, the members pursued different paths. EJ Gronda became a schoolteacher but remained devoted to music throughout his life. In 2006, the musicians reunited for an emotional jam session. EJ Gronda passed away in 2022, followed by Manuel Holcolm in 2024. Their musical legacy endures-on this vinyl release, dance floors, and in the memory of a remarkable era.

Our sincere thanks go to author and blues historian Fred Reif. He wrote the accompanying text and provided all the pictures of the band printed in the gatefold cover. Without him, this project would not have been possible.

GiGi FM is going back to her first love, Jungle. It’s one of the defining genres that shaped her journey into music. The DJ, music producer, dancer and poet is releasing her first jungle EP, Shelter Our Time on her label Sea-rène.



Following her 2025 techno EP Virgo Space Acid, GiGi FM turns inward on these 5 deeply personal, pop-infused liquid drum & bass tracks. It also marks the first time GiGi prominently centers her own lyrics and singing at the emotional core that thread the rhythm and movement of the music.



Written during a period of enforced stillness, the record became a form of transportation to imaginary realms; warm sunsets, liquid horizons and underwater dreamscapes that became portals to spaces where GiGi’s mind could still move freely.



Beyond its warmth, Shelter Our Time became a space of processing. The music acted as a catalyst – transforming experience into rhythm, memory into melody. For GiGi, music has always been a form of therapy, a way to metabolize life in real time. As she puts it, “It’s about learning to hold joy and pain in the same body and choosing to keep dancing anyway.”

Acclaimed producer, DJ, and dancefloor healer Octo Octa (Maya Bouldry-Morrison) announces her fourth full-length album, Sigils For Survival. Following 2013's Between Two Selves, 2017's Where Are We Going?, and 2019's Resonant Body, the new record marks a decade since Maya publicly came out as transgender in November 2015. ''As an autobiographical artist, I set out to write an album that would be a milestone for this past decade of joy and sorrow,'' Maya explains. ''Sigils For Survival is my attempt to encapsulate the intentions and techniques that I used to move through life into a spell.'' For each of the record's eight tracks, Maya drew a sigil. Each is a personal symbol intended to ''bind magic to the song and seal its intention.'' These drawings appear throughout the physical edition's design. Maya's sister, New York artist Hope Morrison, incorporated each sigil into her original paintings, which comprise the album's vivid artwork. Hope Morrison, whose imagery translates the sigils' energy into vivid form; the layout was designed by Jo?o Ervedosa. Created entirely on hardware instruments and later mixed in Logic, Sigils For Survival captures the tactile immediacy of live performance. Maya preserved the feel of MIDI-clock drift and off-grid recording, letting her machines interact in the rhythmic pocket, rather than confirming them to a click. Alongside her signature deep, ecstatic electronics, the album features hand-played dulcimer, hand-pan, and recorder. Her voice also returns, carrying spells of love, protection, and transformation. Across Sigils For Survival, Octo Octa channels the ecstatic house lineage into an intimate ritual space. The music speaks of immediacy, play, and communion -- of magic as method, love as survival, and sound as spellcraft. Sigils For Survival is both a document of ten years lived fully and an invocation for the next chapter -- a glowing testament to music's power to protect, transform, and set the spirit free.

Les Rallizes Dénudés returns with Disque 4 -’76 Studio et Live-, the latest in the ongoing series of official archival releases from the celebrated Japanese underground band.

In 1991, Les Rallizes Dénudés released what would become the only official albums issued during the band’s lifetime: ’67-’69 STUDIO et LIVE, MIZUTANI / Les Rallizes Dénudés, and ’77 LIVE. What no one knew at the time was that Takashi Mizutani was already deep into preparing another record.

Disque 4 reconstructs the track list Mizutani had put together for that fourth album. This includes the single “White Awakening," recorded in 1976 at the studio in Takadanobaba BIG BOX as part of the sessions that would become known among collectors as the “Virgin Demos.” Production and mastering of this archival release were handled once again by Makoto Kubota, assembling the album from the masters left behind by Mizutani, utilizing newly discovered tapes as additional sources.

Prepared by Mizutani using a variety of formats, including U-Matic, open reel, and DAT, the tracks were originally labeled with working titles such as “Disque 4” and “Record No. 4,” indicating that Mizutani intended them for inclusion on a possible fourth album. The recordings were taken primarily from studio sessions that all seemed to have taken place around 1976, which aligns with the claim that Mizutani himself once made that “there exists an album of studio recordings made with the same members as ‘77 LIVE.” His notes also suggest an attempt to sequence the tracks as a vinyl LP, splitting them into A and B sides. It's not hard to imagine that in the era of CDs in the early 1990s, an album on analog LP would have been an extremely difficult sell. Thus, the “Fourth Album” had become another lost piece of the intricate Rallizes myth.

Les Rallizes Dénudés may be notorious for the colossal volume and extended song lengths in their live settings. But this work, centered around studio recordings and condensed onto a single LP record, transcends the common impression of the band’s aggressive flood of noise. Instead, the “lyricism” at its core emerges with striking clarity. And needless to say, this is precisely the charm of the Rallizes that continues to captivate fans worldwide today.

Ltd Edition 10"

Budapest based concept label Blue Sun welcomes formerly independent local afrobeat-jazz ensemble to its catalogue with a nuanced 4 tracker EP. The release not only marks the beginning of the collaboration, but a definite new musical direction in the band’s life.

Written in a one week jam session retreat in the Hungarian countryside, and recorded at one of the highest peaks of Hungary after a year of global touring, The Garden becomes an amalgamation of the band's personal and artistic experiences. The material conveys a more jazzier approach, with complex harmonies, and an almost cinematic, dreamlike atmosphere, somewhat distancing from (but not completely forgetting) the previously emphasized, dance-oriented Afro- and Latino roots. Song for Ramon serves as the EP’s emotional climax inspired by the passing of a close friend and local underground chef pioneer.

Formed in 2019 in Budapest, Hakumba is a staple of the Hungarian festival circuit, with a growing international presence (SXSW London, SHIP, PIN Music Showcase). They’ve recently finished a tour in Australia this January.

The groove-driven ensemble blends afrobeat, jazz, and various strands of world music into a sound that is both rhythmically powerful and harmonically adventurous. With an eleven-piece lineup featuring an expansive horn section, multiple vocalists, percussion, and keys, the band moves effortlessly between dancefloor energy and more intricate, jazz-influenced musical ideas.

Like the band’s previous album, the EP was again recorded, mixed, and mastered by András Weil, the producer behind The Qualitons, the only hungarian band ever performed Live at KEXP. This continuity preserves Hakumba’s recognizable sonic identity while giving space for new colors and more complex musical ideas to emerge.

Written & performed by:

Soma Számel – drums
Endre Szép – bass
Imre Hegedűs – guitar
Zalán Bendegúz Huff – guitar, vocals
Csongor Mari – keys
Noel Nagy – percussion, vocals
Dorka Foster – flute, vocals
Kristóf Szabó – alto sax
Alpár Sikó – tenor sax
Gáspár Simon – trumpet
András Téglásy – baritone sax

Produced, recorded, mixed and mastered by Andras Weil
Artwork by Eszter Lukács
Graphic design by Péter Tóth
Manufactured by AD Records
Distributed by Rush Hour

Recorded at Galyatető, Hungary

Released under the Blue Sun

Frankfurt am Main -- Leipzig duo not even noticed deliver their long-awaited debut album space beyond noise - a 12-track journey balancing club functionality with immersive, long-form listening.

Shaped by years of touring and a shared ritual of visiting botanical gardens around the world, the album blends shapely grooves, field recordings and warm melodic textures into a cohesive, lived- in sound. Subtle environmental details run throughout, creating a natural flow between tracks.

Musically, it moves between electro-funk, breakbeat and hip-hop- inflected cuts, with downtempo and dubby excursions. Highlights include the driving “chrone,” the sundown groove of “diras,” the acid-tinged “plune,” and the hazy two-step moment “skum.”

Designed with warmer months in mind, space beyond noise captures the balance between dancefloor energy and home listening depth.