Cerca:lon

From Ace Records’ early days, there’s always been a place in our hearts for music’s feminine side. A year having flown by since the release of our last compilation spotlighting the US girl group sound of the 60s – think castanets, anguished teen sirens, Svengali-esque producers and mini-sonatas about dreaming, dancing and moody boyfriends (sometimes deceased) – means the time has come for a new vinyl-only volume.

As 1968 drew to a close, the golden age of girl groups had seemingly been and gone: the Shangri-Las, Ronettes and Chiffons, for example, hadn’t had a hit record of note since 1966. Then along came ‘Condition Red’, a cleverly produced psychodrama performed by the Goodees, who grace the front cover and open the top side of this new comp in dramatic style. Over on the generally more soulful second side, Les Chansonettes are first up with ‘Don’t Let Him Hurt You’, a big production stomper written with Martha & the Vandellas in mind.

Elsewhere, Beverly Williams performs the very Lesley Gore-like ‘One Way Street’; ‘Go Away’ by the Murmaids (of ’66) is a lavishly produced number with a chamber pop vibe; ‘What Did You Do Last Night’ by the Drake Sisters was recorded in Phase-O-Phonic Sound; the lyrics of Denita James’ ‘Wild Side’ call to mind genre classics such as ‘He’s A Rebel’, ‘Out In The Streets’ and ‘Chico’s Girl’; and the Sweathearts close the show with a gorgeous harmony-filled update of the mid-50s oldie ‘Eddie My Love’. As usual in this series, the inner sleeve features a picture-packed 4,000-word track commentary by long-serving compiler Mick Patrick.

In 1991, Chris Whitley made his debut with the beautiful album Living with the Law, which immediately showcased his brilliant songwriting and unique guitar playing. Blending blues, roots and folk, the debut was positively received by critics and aficionados of these more traditional genres. Growing up, Whitley listened to Southern radio, which played artists such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. His career started by playing with artists like Arto Lindsay and Michael Beinhorn. Interestingly, Whitley lived in Belgium for a short time in the 1980s, where he started his career playing guitar for 2 Belgen and Nacht und Nebel. In the 1990s, he started his solo career at Kingsway Studio in New Orleans, owned by none other than Daniel Lanois. The result was an album characterized by the use of traditional instruments such as the slide guitar and banjo. All of this is accompanied by his splendidly timbred voice and honest lyrics exploring themes such as freedom, desire and human struggle. Sadly Chris Whitley passed away in 2005, but his influence on contemporary songwriters and blues artists remains strong. a_Living with the Law is available as a 35th anniversary edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on gold coloured vinyl and includes an insert.

In der Evolutionsbiologie beschreibt der Begriff ,Spandrel" die Merkmale eines Organismus, die nicht fürs Überleben wichtig sind und keinen offensichtlichen Zweck haben. Das Wort kommt aus der Architektur und bezeichnet die dreieckigen Räume in den Ecken eines Bogens: kleine ästhetische Elemente, die für Symmetrie sorgen und Grenzen markieren. Die Musikerin und Sängerin Evita Manji stellt auf ihrem Debütalbum eine undurchsichtige Frage und fragt sich angesichts eines großen Verlusts, welche Teile von uns zum Durchhalten beitragen und welche vielleicht nur Deko sind. Ihre Tracks, die aus den Dämpfen zeitgenössischer Clubmusik, Barock-Pop und experimentellem Sounddesign zusammengesetzt sind, sind für Manji eine Möglichkeit, ihre Beziehung zur Welt im Allgemeinen und zu sich selbst im Besonderen zu untersuchen, Kontrollsysteme zu zerlegen und die Vernetzung hervorzuheben. Manji ist seit einigen Jahren eine ätherische Präsenz in der Szene und arbeitet als Soundkünstler und Kreativdirektor mit zahlreichen Künstlern zusammen. Letztes Jahr starteten sie ihre eigene Plattform myxoxym, wo sie zwei Singles aus ,Spandrel?" veröffentlichten und eine ambitionierte Fundraiser-Compilation mit Rainy Miller, Palmistry, Cecile Believe und anderen zusammenstellten, um Geld für den griechischen Tierschutzfonds ANIMA zu sammeln. Manji trat weltweit auf Festivals wie Unsound, Lunchmeat und Rhizom auf, spielte in Clubs in Berlin und London und wurde ausgewählt, die Plattform Shape+ im Jahr 2022 zu vertreten. Diese Erfahrungen fließen in ,Spandrel?" ein und helfen ihnen, ein komplexes künstlerisches Gewebe zu weben, das weit unter die Oberfläche des Daseins blickt und versucht, das Unheil des globalen Klimawandels mit Themen wie Selbstverwirklichung, Liebe und körperlicher Autonomie in Einklang zu bringen. Das Album beginnt mit dem Titeltrack, einer einleitenden Zusammenfassung, die die Zuhörer auf das vorbereitet, was sie gleich hören werden. Manjis Gesang schwingt mit einem eingestöpselten Gefühl kybernetischer Melancholie und filtert die Flut von Rhythmen und harmonischen Themen der Welt zu geschmeidigem, clubtauglichem Pop, der von ihrer fortschrittlichen Klangwelt getragen wird. Von dort aus werden wir in die Traurigkeit des atmosphärischen Klagelieds ,Pitch Black" hineingezogen, einer Meditation über den Tod, die tiefe Bässe unter Schichten von choraler Glückseligkeit versinken lässt und an die Kirche und die Tanzfläche erinnert, ohne die Kraft der beiden gegensätzlichen Elemente zu opfern. Ihre Dunkelheit wird in ,Oil Too Much" von innen nach außen gedrängt, einem Kommentar zur Ölindustrie aus der Perspektive des Tierreichs, der gleichzeitig als neonfarbener Ausdruck der zeitgenössischen Depression dient. Aber in ,Body/Prison" klingt Manji am offensten, spricht ehrlich über die dunkelsten Momente ihres Lebens und gesteht ihre tiefsten Gefühle über sengende, von Trance inspirierte Synthesizer und groteske Percussion. ,Spandrel?" ist ein Album, das Zeit braucht, um sich zu entfalten, und Manjis Themen hallen durch eine Geschichte wider, die älter ist als die Popmusik. Es ist tragisch, romantisch und poetisch und weigert sich entschieden, sich von den drängendsten Themen unserer Zeit abzuwenden.

On her debut LP 'Memoria', songwriter/producer Lilian Mikorey aka PILLBERT contemplates themes of identity and belonging, hardships and heartbreak in her signature blend of bendy folk guitars, field recordings and intimate vocals.
Moving to London from Munich, not yet 20 years old, Mikorey realized she was leaving her home behind for good. The subsequent state of being lost and alone in a place too temporary to start building the foundation for a new one led her to question the concept of home itself.
Is it friends? Family? A house?
"I started collecting objects, bones, sticks, stones and kept them close", she says, as to create a cosmos traveling with her.
"I was tracing the actual feeling of being home to the point where I built a dreamhouse in my head, as an idea, just to evoke that feeling." Soon enough she would learn that yielding to the yearning of actually going to that house, must be an inevitably sad experience.
A photo she took on a family visit to East-Munich became a reference and starting point for Memoria. It was a small house in her neighbourhood, the windows lit as dusk sets in. To Mikorey, it looked haunting, radiating warmth but somehow looking abandoned at the some time.
"I wanted to make music that sounds like this photo"
She started recording the sounds of the objects she had gathered and of her surroundings, building an archive and sonic material to work with.
From her mid-teens she had learned to produce with Ableton and now she picked up the guitar, too, learning it autodidactically by playing around, creating sounds.
At some point in the process, she realized it's okay to be lost for a while and by enduring the feeling, there's room for something new to grow, far off from any general idea of what home should mean.

The album, over the course of 10 tracks, traces these three phases of building a home in your head, realizing it's not a remedy, nor forever and coming to terms with it. You've grown in the process and the album is a guiding light for everyone who strives to do so, too.

After Differently (released in 2024), The Tighters (Roots Reggae) are back with a
new showcase album: Lovely Love — a celebration of unity, spirituality, love, and
freedom.

Side A brings together the vocal versions, while Side B features the dubs. The album was mixed and dubbed by Roberto Sánchez at A-Lone Ark Muzik Studio (Spain) and mastered on tape by Dr Charty at Bat Records Studio (France).
Recorded at Jah Jazz Studio with Julien “Yout” Barker, Lovely Love captures all
the spontaneity and strength of the band.

The album unfolds like a spiritual and emotional journey: from the meditative
Countryside to the love song Lovely Love, and the radiant Worship the Sun. The high point comes with Africa Will Rise, a true freedom anthem performed by the legendary Jamaican duo Keith & Tex (on the Lovely Love riddim).

After their acclaimed collaborations with Oku Onuora (Balance) and Jah Myhrakle
(He is Haile) in 2025, The Tighters continue their path with this new opus, asserting
their identity within the international reggae scene.

A sincere album, blending rich musicality with a powerful, deeply relevant message.

Berlin-based composer and vocalist FRANKIE, also known as Franziska Aigner, and Dominican-American producer Kelman Duran meet at the Twelve Apostles Church, in the Berlin district of Schöneberg, sometime in 2022, at the beginning of the spring season. They were each asked to engage the space’s solemnity, and its reverence, through distinct performances. Their chance encounter, abounding with mutual curiosity towards each other’s practices, smoothened the path for a years-long collaboration, culminating in McArthur, their first joint album. Following a period of exchanging musical fragments and prompts at a distance, Aigner and Duran come together in Athens, and later in Los Angeles, to prepare the stuff and material for the album, slowly developing a body of work informed by shared hauntings, and a commitment towards the disjointed and the residual. Aigner describes her process as writing “into the negative space” of Duran’s beats—filling in, if not invigorating, their thudding and inflections, but without rearranging the integrity of the whole. The result is an album where time and geography are made elastic, and where sonic improvisations become a site for quiet, and cryptic, articulations of intimacy.

As everything in life changes, one thing is consistently true:
everyone is alone, but loneliness results when there is no self love, reliance, or understanding I hope that this album can encourage whoever listens to reflect introspectively and feel ok being:
alone, and not lonely

Having taken their name from a line in Hooray For Hollywood – inspired by the song’s jarring use in Robert Altman’s Philip Marlowe detective movie The Long Goodbye – there is an aptly cinematic quality to Any Young Mechanic’s music.
With intricate scenes, enthralling narratives and unique characters cropping up across the lyrics, and a kaleidoscopic yet coherently interwoven spectrum of moods and emotions stretching through the music, the Adelaide five-piece bring a fresh language to folk music’s natural propensity to spin a good yarn.
So rather than offering borrowed references illuminated by the cosy flickers of campfire flames, on their debut album The Modern Shoe Is Ruining The Foot, the Australian band’s urgent songs conjure up vivid, widescreen vistas that blend the genre’s enduring charms with a musical dexterity and sharp vision reaching beyond folk’s usual corners.
“We are trying to make folk music for now,” suggests frontman Sam Wilson. “Turning it on its head in a new, sometimes uncanny way, because we don't want to just do the old thing again. I don't think it’s interesting to make things again, so we’re searching for a contemporary edge.”
The roots of this original yet inclusive approach, in part, go back to the Adelaide music scene that helped to forge Any Young Mechanic.

Sweatmaster releases a new full-length album after a 15-year hiatus via Svart Records Sweatmaster, one of the aristocrats of Finnish garage rock, is making a big comeback with the release of their fifth album More! in January 2026. After the release of their 2010 album Dig Up the Knife, the band took a long break, which ended a few years ago with live performances both domestic and abroad. At the same time, new material began to emerge in the rehearsal room, and the band quickly found a common strategy for working on it. "We were unanimous about the strengths of our band and decided to get to the heart of the matter. The main idea was to make straightforward songs carried by the vocals. The kind that would work well live with our aggressive playing style," says the band's drummer Matti Kallio. Svart Records will release Sweatmaster's fifth album early next year. More! is a sharp package of fourteen songs that has not been polished to death. "We wanted a raw and electric sound for the new album, built tightly around the three of us playing. The aim was to stick to Sweatmaster's original energy and not spread ourselves too thin. However, despite our efforts, the intervening years brought some new tones with them," guitarist Mikko Luukko explains the background of the new album. The album's first single will be released on Friday, September 19th, and according to singer-bassist Sasu Mykkänen, Destroyer is the essence of Sweatmaster. "The drum fill draws you into the pull of the electric triangle. The guitar taps at the ballads and wants nothing more than to drive the rhythm until the passionate vocals take over. The song doesn't lead anywhere, it's already there. 2 minutes, 37 seconds. Wham bam. Here you go." More! is available for pre-order now at Svart’s webstore on Svart exclusive vinyl, limited coloured vinyl, classic black vinyl, and CD. Release date January 30th, 2026.

Another previously unreleased gem from Jah Life's mid 80s sessions at Channel 1 with the Gifted Roots Band, which we return to after a long while. Absolutely killer rhythm with brilliant added melodica, and youthman Patrick Cool at the mic. This rhythm is truly one of our favorite unreleased finds to date. The other cut with Nathan Skyers and this one by Patrick Cool are each backed with different dub mixes.

Apt title for this previously unreleased diamond from Jah Life's mid 80s sessions at Channel 1 with the Gifted Roots Band, which we return to after a long while. Absolutely killer rhythm with brilliant added melodica, the late Nathan Skyers in top form, a really underrated singer. Truly one of our favorite unreleased finds to date. The Nathan Skyers and the next cut by Patrick Cool are each backed with different dub mixes.

Joe Morgan's "Basement Session" has the trademark Wackie's sound, deep and deeper. Its got great lyrics about the runnings of NYC basement sessions in the 1970's, a wicked dub to match, and a tough rhythm laid by the Reckless Breed band. Released on the "Bullwackie" label using the stock font and layout of one of NYC's long-shuttered pressing plants, according to Mr. Barnes this one was released "right before I got my logo."

Adventure's self-titled 2000 debut is finally getting the reissue treatment, remastered by Jacob Holm-Lupo. This album got great reviews at the time, and helped kickstart a new Norwegian prog scene. The music was inspired by bands like Kansas, Uriah Heep and Camel, with an added touch of folk music. ADVENTURE is the brainchild of the Norwegian multi-instrumentalist Odd Roar Bakken, who had 23 years of experience in Rock bands playing guitars & mandolins, and singing in bands like Tammatoys and Nordagust until 1990, when he met Nils Larsen, Torkel Aune and eventually the talented guitar player Terje Flessen. They started working together, each time getting closer to the Symphonic sound they aimed for But they still had a hard time finding a singer that could fit their style - until 1995 when they finally met Verbjorn Moen. They soon started work on their self-produced and self-released, self-titled debut album, a process lasting all the way until November 1999, with a release in the year 2000. The album is a great expression of Symphonic Prog - inspired mostly by Camel, but with an added hard rock influence from bands as Ayreon and Uriah Heep. The lineup of their debut album is consists of Odd-Roar Bakken (Keyboards, Acoustic Guitar, Mandolin, Lead Guitar and Backing Vocals), Terje Flessen (Lead Guitars, Rhythm Guitars, Acoustic Guitars and Bass Guitars), Vebjorn Moen (Lead Vocals and Backing Vocals) with some guests like Elisabeth Nilssen and Stine Mostervik on flute and Stein Egil Bratland on drums and backing vocals. ADVENTURE is a rare example of a band that didn't played Progressive Rock by nature: They set out to perform music in the vein of the classic symphonic prog genre - but adding some Norwegian Hard Rock, inspired by the Byron & Thain Uriah Heep line-up, something entirely different manifested itself.

This release resurrects a long-lost cornerstone of Seattle's early grunge history, showcasing Bundle of Hiss, featuring future Mudhoney and TAD guys and singer Jamie lane, one of the genre's missing links. Between 1986 and 1988, when Seattle was still a circuit of small clubs, four-track tapes and bands sharing drummers and singers, Jack Endino went in to record one of the most solid - and most unfairly invisible - outfits of that scene: BUNDLE OF HISS. Two sessions (1986 at Reciprocal and 1987/88 at Audio Design) fell into limbo, stored in the basement of Mudhoney-Drummer Dan Peters and for years they were a kind of pre-grunge legend, everyone knew they existed, but there was no record, until Loveless Records from NYC released both on CD. The second one, Audio Design Sessions, now sees the light of vinyl for the first time, just as it should have come out in the late '80s: a basement document turned into a collectible artifact. For those who want real grunge, not the domesticated version. It gathers the core of those 1987-1988 recordings done by Endino: the moment when the band is tighter, darker and closer to what the press would later call the "Seattle sound": minor-key melodies, thick fuzz, vocals on the edge, and that mix of hard rock, punk and Sabbath-like heaviness we'd later hear in Mudhoney, TAD or early Soundgarden. And Jack Endino himself summed up these sessions: "Vintage Seattle grunge from one of the original practitioners_ I always felt sad that this hard-working band never managed to get a record out and was almost lost to history. It was a pleasure -and a technical pain!- to resurrect all this." Kinda key release of the early grunge days, first-generation material, recorded by the scene's producer, at the exact moment Seattle was shifting from noisy punk to that heavy, shadowy rock that later blew up. It sounds raw, young and dangerous: this is not a polished compilation, it's a snapshot of the scene.

Barry Walker Jr. is a pedal steel player and guitarist whose roots in Americana, Country and Folk traditions influence his melding of minimalism, ambient and spiritual music. The Portland-based instrumentalist is also a member of the Rose City Band, known for his gorgeous phrasing and deft interplay with guitarist Ripley Johnson. On Paleo Sol, Walker demonstrates his singular voice as a pedal steel player and composer. Evoking the American western ranges and basins, the album embodies a longer, geologic view of time that patiently marvels at the ripples of change throughout lifetimes and ages. Walker is joined on Paleo Sol by drummer Rob Smith (Rhytion, Pigeons) and bassist and Mouth Painter bandmate Jason Willmon (Fruited Planes). Paleo Sol"s tranquil landscapes glide, built on warm finger-picked guitar figures and pedal steel swells coupled with deft percussion and bass touches by Smith and Willmon respectively. The trio plays with exceptional fluidity either completing each others phrasing or working together to build momentum. Smith notes: "The drums are not keeping time as much as evidencing its elasticity, mixing into the other instruments, changing phase states." Every gesture on the album is rich with intention, moving with grace and playing with timbre and time.

Forked tongue stuffed deep in their cheek and rubber baby masks stretched over their heads, Ty & the Muggers bottle the free spirits of the Emotional Mugger tour, then heave them into the audience on this stomping BBC performance from 2016. Gloriously guttural and blown-out sonics support Ty"s all-to-the-wall vocal performances on every song. "LIVE" "AT" "THE" "BBC" puts the "sick" back into "satiric" and the "the fuh!?!" back into "FUN!". One side has all the music, the other side"s got a rendering of the babyman mask that"s haunted so many punters over long nights of the soul since then.

Released in partnership with our friends at Neon and Filmtrax to release Edo Van Breemen’s score to Osgood Perkin’s latest horror hit The Monkey. Based on the Stephen King short story produced by James Wan (The Conjuring, Saw), The Monkey is a new trip by Longlegs writer/director Osgood Perkins. When twin brothers find a mysterious wind-up monkey, a series of outrageous deaths tear their family apart.

Twenty-five years later, the monkey begins a new killing spree, forcing the estranged brothers to confront the cursed toy. The score is as playful as the movie itself, whimsical when it needs to be, but also managing to be terrifying and tense.

Lenticular edition strictly limited to 1000 copies pressed on brown & green split vinyl, housed in a printed outer O-Card. Composer Edo Van Breeman told us that when they were recording the score, "Mr. King’s Monkey haunted our process for the entire duration of post-production on this film while Mr. Perkins possessed us to mutilate sounds and arrangements in a manner beyond our control. We hope you enjoy this record, and if not... shit, man, that sucks.”

Hello Spiral returns to the same North London block, the same triangulated geometry of balconies and courtyard, but with a shift of orientation. His previous record looked outward from the eighth floor, these four new recordings move inside, into the building’s arteries. Joe explores the hallways of the complex where he has lived and listened for years, using the same tool as before, an iPhone and its voice memo app. The recordings were made in situ, each exactly eleven minutes, captured without ceremony.

The hallways feel different. Less private, less scenic, more neutral. They are the connective tissue between hundreds of domestic units, a space of transit rather than rest. The carpet absorbs certain frequencies. The fire doors catch and release pockets of air. The lights hum. Elevators drone in soft cycles of arrival and departure. These are the institutional sounds of shared living, yet once recorded they begin to behave strangely. A kind of internal weather appears.

As with the previous album, Joe remains attentive to what is often overlooked, irrelevant or discarded. The hallways, with their scuffs and signage, their coded access and polite functionalism, provide an unexpectedly rich field. The ambience is not shaped by storms or scaffolding, not by birds or street spill. Instead the material is the building’s own breath, its mechanical rhythms, the low frequency traces of neighbours, the occasional shuffle of footsteps that pass but do not return.

Joe talks about this record as a possible middle chapter in a trilogy. If so, it sits between the exposed openness of the balcony and whatever comes next. A hinge point. These recordings continue Joe’s long practice of defamiliarization, sharpening attention to the unnoticed while withholding narrative. They invite repeated listening, not for revelation, but for the subtle shifts that occur when a familiar space is treated as an instrument.

Big mental growing sound, from the deep acid to the acidcore... Twirling and totaly trippy. With a long mental middle-of-the-night grower and 2 techno pumpin acid starters. Sweet and dancefloor !