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Orphax & PONI (person of no importance) is a collaboration between the two Dutch brothers, Sietse (Orphax) and Tjeerd (PONI) van Erve. Since their early years they share a broad interest in music, fed mostly from their fathers’ record collection, ranging from early blues to Pink Floyd or Beethoven. But also listening to Belgian radio channel Studio Brussels (which during the late 80s and early 90s was a common listening close to the borders between The Netherlands and Belgium), and the late night Dutch radio inspired them in exploring the rough edges of underground music.

An exploration that gave them a common interest in indie and noise rock, but soon enough both followed their own path in music. Tjeerd moving more into underground guitar music, whilst Sietse developed a wider interest in (experimental) electronic and contemporary music. Both as listeners, but also exploring their own interests as musicians.

Now many years later these musical paths cross again in this album Inheritance (with a slight imagination, a translation of their last name van Erve). An album where Tjeerd brings in his dark and noisy lo-fi guitar songs and Sietse brings in his drones and electro-acoustic composition styles.

The album opens with its longest track, “As Received”. This combination results in a slow developing drone, with the intensity and tension of a well build-up post-rock track, that slowly unfolds Tjeerd his guitar layers and vocals. The title of the song refers to one of the PONI projects, where Tjeerd would send rough recordings to befriended musicians who than would rework those recordings without any restrictions which then would be released side by side with the original rough recordings. A project which actually sparked the idea of this collaboration (and that can still be listened to on PONI’s bandcamp-page).

On the flip side of the record, three shorter works give more room for regular song structures. In “Sunburns” this results in slowcore with subdued vocals, melancholic guitars and nasty synth and organ drones. When Tjeerd wrote the basis for the song, he actually had been listening to a lot of Codeine and Bedhead. One does not need much fantasy to recognize the influences of these bands.

“The Tears Are Necessary” is build up around various broken up piano tracks accompanied by moody drones to develop a fragile song.

The album closes with “Lockdown”, opening with silence as a moment of contemplation after the previous work but then quickly develops in a playful song where improvised play on piano, guitar and modular synthesizer create a lo-fi gem that clearly shows that both brothers still haven’t lost their love for Sentridoh or Guided By Voices.
All together resulting in an album that is an ode to the love of music, experiment, and creativity and a celebration of brotherhood.

2023 Repress

It's the quiet ones we should watch, they always say. Which is particularly astute advice right now, when loud, constant self-declaration and saturated 'brand' visibility have become the norm. But above the babble and brightness, some voices will always speak quiet volumes ­- with calm eloquence and the kind of certitude that comes from valuing the playing out, not just the prize.

Sweden's José González is just such a voice. He first charmed his way into the UK's earshot via the murmurous and elegant, classically finger-picked folk pop of his 2005 album, Veneer, which has since sold over a staggering 430, 000 copies in UK alone. Two years later came In Our Nature, a further exploration of José's influences (Argentinian Folklore, the '60s US folk tradition and the British pastoral folk-pop style of the same era), on which he resisted the temptation to beef up his alluringly introvert aesthetic. The albums made the UK Top 10 and Top 20 respectively.

Conceived as the natural third part in an acoustic trilogy, Vestiges & Claws is a(nother) hushed and delicate solo set that forefronts the artist and guitarist's compellingly intimate vocal style and intricate playing technique, but it's often strikingly rhythmic in nature and cohere's perfectly, with hand claps and taps on the body of his instrument underlining the songs' mantric rise-and-fall pattern, while elsewhere, over-dubbed guitar parts and multi-tracked vocal harmonies entwine to sweetly immersive effect.

The title refers to both cultural practices and biological features that survive despite having lost their original function, and to currently useful tools, ie the 'claws' of modern life.

Vestiges & Claws was recorded almost entirely by José and self-produced, mostly in his Gothenburg home, using computer plug-ins to achieve a warm, analogue sound. He prefers working alone, mainly for artistic reasons. 'There were a couple of things that enabled me to complete this record: one was curiosity, to be able to play percussion and do a lot of harmonies and also to produce and mix the album; the other was aesthetics. I love to listen to Arthur Russell and Shuggie Otis, to music that has been done mostly by one person in their solitary state.'

As José sees it, the record is his personal, 'zoomed-out eye on humanity on a small, pale blue dot in a cold, sparse and unfriendly space. The amazing fact that we are all here, an attempt at encouraging us to understand ourselves and to make the best of the one life we know we have - after birth and before death.

Temple, Bassey, MacLaine and now, Hurt; in a world of Shirleys, the name Sophia Ruby Katz has chosen for her music is perhaps prophetic as it captures her stunningly emotive vocal approach. And whilst Shirley Hurt might be the perfect nom de plume for the creative Toronto-based artist, it’s her self-titled debut album which positions her as protagonist of her own universe.

Traversing sonic landscapes, Shirley Hurt’s vocals ebb and flow like lyrical Ley lines tracking the contours of her own well-travelled map. By the age of 18, Hurt had travelled extensively, having lived in upwards of 20 different apartments and houses, as a result never really feeling “at home” anywhere. At this age was when Hurt found herself in New York, dipping her toes into various scenes and musical realms. The first and only place she ever felt at home, and a partial home-base for her, she travelled between Toronto and New York until the age of 26.When the project she was working on in New York reached a dead-end she returned West, moving in with musicians Harrison Forman (Hieronymus Harry, Zones) and Patrick Lefler (Roy, Possum). Being surrounded by their improvising at all hours, a new approach emerged. “Harrison is a virtuosic guitar player, and I hadn't picked up a guitar in any serious way since I was 16,” she says, “by osmosis I started playing again for fun.” Without agenda, the process grew organically from there.

Hurt and Forman decided to travel across the US and Canada in a trailer for half a year, with the entire album written in the final months of their trip. Hurt had been writing loose ideas here and there but felt blocked creatively. When the pair reached Berkley, they wound up house-sitting for a tuned-in friend who recommended she pray, in a very direct way, to remove the block. “I took her advice and to my surprise it worked. The album was conceptualized and finished within a couple of months.” Shapeshifting in tone and phrasing, Hurt’s music alchemizes the furthest corners of experimental indie folk, pop, and country into a singular sound with elegant unpredictability.

Whilst Shirley Hurt’s lyrical and structural ideas may have emerged on the road, the album was self-produced and recorded at Joseph Shabason (The War on Drugs)’s Aytche studio in Toronto’s West End. It was engineered by Nathan Vanderwielen and Chris Shannon (Bart), and Hurt enlisted collaborators Jason Bhattacharya, Nick Dourado, Patrick Lefler, and Harrison Forman to hone her vision. “I wasn’t sure what was going to happen with the songs until we returned to Toronto,” she recalls. “Joseph and I had been talking about working together after sending across some demos and Jason happened to recommend his studio at the exact same time, so everything came together naturally at that point.”

Whilst her most recent adventures may have seen Shirley Hurt bound for Texas as an official SXSW artist (hand-picked by Gorilla Vs Bear to perform at their own showcase), she currently resides in her native Canada, more specifically rural Ontario, close to friends and family, and is already working on her second album. The ties to lineage are interwoven in the fabric of the music. Hurt’s mother, artist Leala Hewak, instilled a lust for life and innate value of creativity in her from a young age as she explored the role of gallery owner, vintage jewellery show host, mid-century modern furniture expert, real estate agent, painter. Hurt’s father, a civil litigation lawyer and new-wave obsessed music lover with an extensive vinyl collection, introduced Hurt to a wide-range of artists at a young age such as Nina Hagen, Laurie Anderson, Tom Tom Club, and endless others.

In her video for ‘Problem Child’ Hurt’s grandmother walks her through a generationally revered pie-making process. One would be tempted to hear this, and other songs, as autobiographical. Yet, Hurt’s lyrics are rarely pulled from her relationships or personal history––at least not consciously. Rather, they arise from somewhere less tangible or defined. “Lyrics tend to come to me when I am doing non-musical things - washing dishes, brushing my dogs, walking to the grocery store. I have a lot of voice memos on my phone and half-filled notebooks and when I hear something, I have to stop what I'm doing to get the idea down. Usually it’s bits and pieces. It's rare a full song comes to me in one go, but it's great when they do, and those are often my favourites.”

Carving out a space of her own in an all-encompassing universe, Shirley Hurt is the introduction to a long artistic story, and if the journey so far is anything to go by, it will be stippled with evermore unpredictable chapters.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce the first LP documenting master khene player Sombat Simla, the label’s first collaboration with Japanese sound artist, field recordist, and researcher Yasuhiro Morinaga. Simla is known in Thailand as one of the greatest living players of the khene, the ancient bamboo mouth organ particularly associated with Laos but found throughout East and Southeast Asia. His virtuosic and endlessly inventive renditions of traditional and popular songs have earned him the title ‘the god of khene’, and he is known for his innovative techniques and ability to mimic other instruments and non-musical sound, including, as a writer for the Bangkok Post describes, ‘the sound of a train journey, complete with traffic crossings and the call of barbecue chicken vendors’. Aided by a group of Thai friends, in 2018 Morinaga travelled to the Maha Sarakham province in the Isan region, arranging to meet Simla in a remote spot surrounded by rice fields. Then and there, Morinaga recorded the solo performances heard on the LP’s first side. At Morinaga’s request, Simla began with a rendition of the train song ‘Lot Fay Tay Lang’. Beginning with long tones that seem to mimic a train horn, the performance soon moves into a rapid chugging rhythm, interrupted at points by vocal exclamations and the remarkable timbre Simla produces by singing through the khene. To listeners unfamiliar with Thai music, the pentatonic scales and rhythmic chug of many of the pieces can have surprising echoes of the rawest American blues. The range of Simla’s performance is astonishing, moving from compulsive rhythmic workouts on single chords and rapid-fire runs of single notes to gentle sing-song melodies, and using a fascinating array of techniques, including a rapid tremolo that sometimes sounds almost electronic. Later the same day, Morinaga followed Simla to a cattle shed where he met percussionist Mali Moodsansee to play some molam (folk songs found in Isan and neighbouring Laos), with Pattardon Ekchatree joining in on cymbal. At times, these molam songs have a wistful, romantic character quite different from the solo pieces. Backed up by the propulsive hand drums, Simla again dazzles with his melodic fluidity, rhythmic drive, and wild displays of unorthodox technique. As Morinaga writes, ‘It felt like they had been playing together so long that their breathing was perfectly in sync, and it was like listening to the precision of James Brown’s funk’. Accompanied by extensive liner notes by Morinaga detailing the day of recording, this is a stunning document of a master musician, seamlessly integrating tradition and innovation.

Last year's superb Pura Lempuyang album has been pulled apart and served up on a couple of separate 12"s and this is the second one. It comes on limited turquoise vinyl and offers four cuts of stylish deep dub and techno. Fletcher's 'It's A Virtue' goes first with taught, twanging bass and grubby basslines then Mike Schommer's 'Kingmaker' offers liquid dub funk with watery pads and hissing static. Nicolas Barnes picks it up a little with a darker but still warm dub techno roller in 'Sonic Dial' and Redrop's 'Genesis' is the more driving of the lot but again exists right on the ocean floor.

In the collection 'I Got Soul', this new release, 'Groove Wash', is a reference to the movie 'Car Wash'. Same ingredients as the the previous volume : a bit of Blaxploitation, some seventies Soul mood, wah wah guitar and lots of groove !


Dope Plates is back with an sinister 4 track EP from label boss Soul Intent and German beat-maker dreadmaul. This collaborative EP sees the pair join forces for the first time and the result is eerie atmospherics, gnarly distorted bass and deadly sub-bass.

EVERGREY läuten mit A Heartless Portrait (The Orphean Testament) eine neue Ära ein! Ein Schleier der Dunkelheit legt sich von Göteborg aus über die Welt: EVERGREY schreiben mit ihrem 13.

Studioalbum A Heartless Portrait (The Orphean Testament), 20. Mai 2022 via Napalm Records, ein neues Kapitel der Bandgeschichte. Klangliche Melancholie und ergreifende Texte gehen einher mit progressiver Härte und brennender Emotionalität und lassen den Hörer sprachlos zurück. Ganz ohne Zweifel zementieren
EVERGREY erneut ihren Stand an der Spitze der Szene eindrucksvoller als je zuvor!

Angeführt von Gründer, Sänger und Gitarrist Tom S. Englund, loten die Schweden seit 25 Jahren die Gefilde des Progressive Metal aus, kombinieren diese mit schwerem Melodic Metal und malen so mit bis dato zwölf veröffentlichten Studioalben unverkennbare Klangbilder. A Heartless Portrait (The Orphean Testament), der Nachfolger des erfolgreichen 2021er-Albums Escape of the Phoenix, ist eine 10-Track-Melange, bei der jede Note, jedes Riff und jedes Wort pure Poesie versprüht und eine Intensität erzeugt, die von der ersten Sekunde an fesselt. Tosende instrumentale Kräfte verweben EVERGREY mit der tiefgehenden Gesangsdarbietung von Mastermind Englund - einer der markantesten Stimmen im Metal.

A Heartless Portrait (The Orphean Testament) ist der Beweis, dass EVERGREY müssen niemandem mehr etwas beweisen, zeigen aber dennoch eindrucksvoll, dass der Kreativität auch nach über 25 Jahren keine Grenzen gesetzt sind.

2023 REPRESS - Rare Brazilian Bossa Nova - Latin album - Comes with insert/liner notes & packaged in a gatefold jacket - 180g TANGERINE COLORED vinyl limited to 500 copies w/obi strip // Marcos Valle needs little introduction, born in Rio de Janeiro in 1943, Mr. Valle is an award-winning/chart-hitting Brazilian singer, songwriter and record producer. He was raised on a staple diet of classical, Brazilian popular music and North American jazz. Marcos Valle grew up to be one of the most influential & innovating musicians of the Bossa nova period and is regarded as one of the greatest Brazilian artists of all time. He has recorded albums for North American labels such as EMI, Warner Brothers & Verve_cementing his career with a series of tight musical workouts moving seamlessly between funk, samba, soundtracks, soul, jazz, dance and rock. Valle contributed to some of the most important recordings by artists including Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra, Sergio Mendes, Leon Ware, Chicago and Airto Moreira. Mr. Valle's work has been sampled/remixed by major artists from the likes of Jay-Z, Kanye West & Madlib.One of Valle's favorite bands to frequently collaborate with was no doubt Azymuth, who took their name from a Valle song!Azymuth (Bertrami-Malheiros-Conti) started their individual careers in the 1960s in the emergent Bossa nova and jazz scene of Rio, living in the same bohemian block in Copacabana and playing in small bars as session musicians under various other names.It was the early 1970s when Azymuth really began to cause a stir and Marcos Valle invited them to record on a soundtrack LP he was doing. The unique Azymuth sound was now born: a mix of electronic music, samba, funk and jazz that they defined as MPB-jazz (MPB stands for Musica Popular Brasileira). Over the decades Azymuth released extremely successful albums (selling millions of copies) on labels such as Polydor, Som Livre and Atlantic. Hitting the charts on multiple occasions, Azymuth played at the Monterrey and Montreux jazz festivals and at venues around the globe.The band has worked with legendary musicians from Joe Henderson to Stevie Wonder and they've also been remixed/sampled by artists such as Flying Lotus, will.i.am, MF DOOM and Peanut Butter Wolf. Their unique brand of fusion-music has influenced three generations of musicians, DJs, and producers. Music journalists across the spectrum from mainstream to underground, celebrated these raw yet wildly imaginative and musically accomplished tracks that were a revelation of jazz, funk and disco, with some even stating that the roots of EDM were on display in their early recordings.On the album we are presenting you (Brazil by Music - Fly Cruzeiro) the listener is getting yet another fantastic early Valle/Azymuth collaboration. Released in 1972, this rare album was pressed and gifted to customers of the `Cruzeiro' airline company. This promotional record came as no surprise because the connection between Cruzeiro Airlines and Valle was very tight (Valle's father was the manager and his brother was a co-pilot there).Next to the Valle/Azymuth material present, other songs include some of the all-time best Brazilian standards originally written by renowned artists such as Jorge Ben & Antonio Carlos Jobim. Take a flight with us through this fantastic album and into some of the best Jazz, Funk & Bossa Nova the Brazilian musical landscape has to offer.Tidal Waves Music now proudly presents the first ever vinyl reissue of `Fly Cruzeiro' since its release in 1972 (only 500 copies were pressed upon its original release in 1972).

Ultra limited edition release from Taiwan’s psych-rock heroes Dope Purple, joined here by fellow Taipei resident, noise musician Bei San Q Nan.

250 copies all pressed on transparent purple coloured vinyl, and housed in a gloss finished full colour outer sleeve with polylined inner bags and download code. Non-Returnable.

What we have here is a one off pressing of the bands self released 2019 cassette only release ‘Psychedelic Scum Freaks’

“Dope Purple's most ferocious noise psychedelic live album with a whole lot of harsh noise and amphetamines added to the music of "Grateful End".

Recorded in September 2018. Taipei's noise musician Bei San Q Nan joined Dope Purple to begin the album with over 10 minutes of harsh noise and continued to bring the noise psychedelic tinnitus hell”

This double vinyl set includes the remastered version of the cassette album, in addition to a super-heavyweight drone song recorded in 2022.

One for the die-hards.

2LP, comes in a single sleeve, 5mm spine. Printed inner bags, insert card. Bror Gunnar Jansson's second album "Moan Snake Moan" celebrates a decade with a special anniversary double 12" vinyl edition with lots of extra and previously unreleased material plus a new design. The original album has sold more than 10 000 physical copies, millions of streams and several songs have been featured in various TV series and movies.

Como Asesinar a Felipes (CAF) from Santiago, Chile, displays their rhythmic existential poetry over a grounding produced by organic instruments. On the same platform elements of jazz, hip-hop, rock, classical and electronic music meet, creating a mix that has stood out for its originality, atmosphere and a lot of energy during its live performances interpreted through a signature that is uniquely their own: saturated, technicolor hues of sound painted on a dark psychedelic canvas. In 2008 their self-titled debut record was released which gained remarkable attention throughout Latin America and especially their home country Chile. Now, 15 years later, it was time for a fresh sound and a remaster. Soon after the digital release of the remastered album, the record will be released on vinyl for the first time ever!

"Andy Grammar released his self-titled album Andy Grammar in 2011. It featured his single “Keep Your Head Up”, which stormed the U.S. AC and Adult Top 40 charts. Grammar is nothing if not ingratiating, constructing infectious pop/rock arrangements, and singing lyrics of love in his bouncy tenor. He borrows lightly from hip-hop in the music and reveals the influence of rap in the vocals, producing lots of lyrics and internal rhymes.

This is the first time that this album will be available on vinyl!"

40 years after their last album ‘Secret’ was released in 1983, Classix Nouveaux are back with a brand new album entitled ‘Battle Cry’. Containing nine tracks including seven brand new compositions plus ‘Never Never Comes’ and ‘Interlude/Inside Outside’ which have been re-imagined for the 21st century. Featuring a very guitar-rock sound and also contains a couple of instrumentals which is something that the band used to do on their early albums. In the words of lead singer Sal Solo, this is how the album came about: “The reason this project came about after 40 years is really because of the fans. About 10 years ago, some of the Classix fans were making Facebook pages but it didn’t really come to our attention until a couple of years back. We realised these people are really dedicated and decided to give them a kind of birthday present. I said to the guys ‘Why don't we do a recording together and surprise the fans?’ Everybody said yes and so we did a quick remake of one of our old songs “Inside Outside” and to our surprise everyone's immediately talking about new material! We’d never thought about doing new Classix material - we thought it was over years ago. After a few weeks of agonising, we suddenly realised we could be as we are now. In the light of our increased experience and the fact that our fans are mature as well, we decided we would just make the music that we like today. It didn’t take a lot of persuasion to get everyone on board. It's the original line-up from the first two albums - what people consider the ‘classic’ line-up. We've all been in other bands, but somehow, we've all just seemed to gravitate back to Classix Nouveaux. It feels like a natural home. We hadn’t been in touch for many, many years and so this album is really what’s brought us back together.”

This EP is 6 unreleased tracks in the Thomas Brinkmann celebrated Max Ernst series of 12", all with female names, released with names ordered alphabetically. Starting with. 1. Anna Beate, the series ran for 12 releases over the 2 years from 1998 to 2000. 2. Clara Doris 3. Erika Frauke 4. Gisela Heidi 5. Inge Jutta 6. Karin Lotte 7. Monika Nikola 8. Olga Petra 9. Susie Trixi 10. Ulla Vera 11. Wanda Xenia 12. Yvette Zara, followed. There was never an ep with Q and R. Number 9 is Susie and Trixie. The tapes were lost. But have come to light nearly 25 years later. So now, here is Q/R; Quila 1-3 and Romy 1-3. What we have here are the original tracks as intended for release, with some minor editing and rearranging for release now. The original series was very successful. The first 3 12", released at the same time were a sensation on release. Suddenly, Thomas Brinkmann was the name to check. Today, these Quila/Romy tracks may well have the same impact as the other tracks in the series had when they were released. There is still nothing that sounds like this music. It seems to be an example of a perfect melding of soul and machine. 25 five years later... a annniversary of sorts, offered up by the machines.

CUT THE ENGINES is the third album by All Structures Align, following the critically acclaimed Details And Drawings and Distance And Departure (both released on Wrong Speed Records in 2022). All Structures Align began as a studio project reuniting brothers Tim and Adam Ineson of 90s underground rock heroes Nub. Their debut album Details And Drawings took everyone by surprise.

Rather than sounding like a tentative bedroom project, it arrived fully formed and with its own identity. It was an album of unhurried patience, of mounting tension (and eventual release) and it possessed a depth that rewarded repeated listens as irresistible hooks revealed themselves almost casually to the listener.

It also felt slightly out of time: no rush to the chorus, no gimmicks, no desire to pack out every second of space with sound. Lots of people agreed and the limited vinyl pressing sold out almost instantly. The follow-up came within the same year with the brothers recruiting drummer extraordinaire Neil Turpin (Objections, Bilge Pump, Polaris) to bring swing and pulse to their songs.

Distance And Departure was the result and widened their audience and acclaim further. So much so that the brothers decided to venture out and play live. To do so they brought in Oli Heffernan (Ivan The Tolerable, King Champion Sounds) on bass and Andrew Pollard (Polaris) on guitar and additional vocals.

If you’ve been lucky enough to see All Structures Align live over the last year, you’ll know this expanded band bring the songs to life beyond simple recitation. Those dynamic shifts in the music are now larger than life and fully multi-dimensional. Cut The Engines is the first All Structures Align release to capture the five-piece live band in the studio. Eight songs as spacious and measured as their previous work but with an increased directness and drama that seems to come from the interplay between people in a room.

Whilst never getting down to Ramones levels of brevity, the songs are compact and sharper than before, as though the addition of extra personnel has allowed their musical language to become more concise and effective. The songs still feel like rich novels condensed into short stories, but the band format has brought a confidence and ease to the telling that increases their impact. The resulting record is their most accessible yet, a slow-core indie-rock masterpiece that will intrigue and delight existing fans and newcomers alike for decades to come.

‘Demos/sketches/interludes from the hinterland between records. Drum machines and single take vocal sketches tied together with downtime synth experiments and recordings of local disappearing areas.’ True as it is, Jabu’s strap-line is a somewhat understated take on what also proved to be a transformative experience for them. The follow-up record to their 2020 sophomore LP ‘Sweet Company’ (and the ensuing ‘Versions’), ‘Boiling Wells’ weaves a smudged, group -mind spell. Originally released earlier this year without fanfare as a digital-only release, it now receives the proper release attention it deserves, issued in a neatly packaged vinyl edition of 300 copies. Dreamlike, woozy, raw and in dub, the album documents a blossoming process, and encapsulates a fragment in time - holed up in the country, soaking up the atmosphere in collective isolation, creatively embracing the limitations of a small recording set-up, and finding a new way to work as a band. “My mum had gone away so we’d decided to take the mixing desk and a couple of drum machines out to her house and set it up in the front room. We did it a couple of times to get the bulk of the tunes on 'Boiling Wells' done, one in summer and one boozy one around Christmas. I think we all immediately enjoyed working that way, sat around all together, more of an immediate thing. Jas started to play a lot more guitar, her and Al would write lyrics on the fly or be programming a drum beat in or something. We were all switching around and getting ideas down really quickly, not worrying too much if they were good or not. The music was limited by the stuff we had there, I didn’t bring a big desk so we only had six channels or so, and everything was basically just recorded in as a stereo take so we were more or less stuck with it after we’d laid it down - which was nice too. I don’t think we would’ve changed them anyway; it was the sound of the room and of us doing it together in the moment that was really important.” There has always been a collaborative heart to Jabu, though its nature has shifted and morphed over time. In their earliest incarnation, in after-school jams, Alex Rendall would rap over Amos Childs’ beats, but by the time they began releasing music in 2012, Al had found his singing voice – a sweet, soulful counterpoint to Amos’ increasingly dub-wise, experimental backing. Both are founder members of Bristol’s Young Echo, a collective of friends and musicians first operating loosely together on radio shows, artistic collaborations and events, and later on, running a record label. As expansive as their original remit was, Young Echo has steadily evolved since featuring in The Wire’s 2013 cover feature on Bristol’s new school of post-dubstep bass music. Of late, Seb (aka Vessel) has been working with violinist Rakhi Singh on string arrangements for Jabu, and the upcoming residency at Bermondsey’s MOT will showcase relative newcomers Birthmark and Intel Mercenary alongside the regular crew. Jabu’s debut album proper, ‘Sleep Heavy’, arrived in 2017 courtesy of Blackest Ever Black. A sublime, focused meditation on grief and loss written largely by Amos and Al, it marked the debut of Jasmine Butt (aka Guest), adding a further layer of vocal texture to their palette. ‘Sweet Company’, their first album written as a trio (released via their own do you have peace? label), drifted into lighter, more ethereal introspection. Featuring guest appearances by Sunun and Daniela Dyson, remixes by Equiknoxx’s Time Cow and Young Echo ‘s Ossia teased out the inherent pop and dub sensibilities respectively. Recent times have also seen remixes by kindred spirits Seekers International and Jay Glass Dubs, and a collaboration with the renowned T.S. Eliot Prize-winning dub Poet and musician Roger Robinson on a pair of plaintive, aching 7” singles. Jabu’s broad raft of inspirations can be experienced first -hand on their monthly NTS Radio show ‘Music 4 Lovers’, co -hosted by long-time friend and soul afficionado Andy Payback. A celebration of the endless tapestry of interrelated musical connections, it runs parallel to Jabu’s own reinterpretation of their influences. For ‘Boiling Wells’, Amos remembers a diet of “A.R. Kane, Cocteau Twins, DJ Screw, Southern/Memphis rap mixtapes, early 90’s jungle, Karen Dalton, Sybille Baier, Vashti Bunyan, Svitlana Nianio, a lot of soul, Armand Hammer & Alchemist, Grouper, Bobby Caldwell. Jazz was a constant, Japanese, Polish, Latin, American…”. And from those diverse strands, something new and singular has formed, to line up alongside them. ‘Boiling Wells (Demos ‘19-’22)’ is released by UK newcomer Six of Swords in a limited vinyl edition of 300 copies, pressed on black vinyl housed in full colour 270 gsm matt varnish sleeve and black paper inner, with full download coupon

4LP is four black vinyl discs in two gatefold jackets + two 18 x 24 folded posters in a side-load slipcase + a printed insert for full album download. This is strictly for Indies only. 2CD is two discs in a six panel wallet + a 28 page booklet + printed insert. Misfits & Mistakes: Singles, B-sides & Strays 2007–2023 is Superchunk’s fourth singles compilation, a massive, 4-LP (or 2-CD) collection covering their triumphant return from hiatus. The amount of ground covered within its gorgeous packaging is staggering: 50 songs, 16 of which are on physical media for the first time, sourced from out-of-print releases, digital singles, compilations, and more, a vital piece of the Superchunk canon. Featuring extensive liner notes by Mac McCaughan (with additional notes from Laura Ballance), Misfits & Mistakes tells the story of each release, from why they chose to cover songs by The Misfits, The Cure, Destiny’s Child, and Bananarama, to working with collaborators like Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee), Jane Wiedlin (The Go-Go’s), Eleanor Friedberger, Damian Abraham (Fucked Up), Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley (Teenage Fanclub), and more! Mac writes: Who knew it would take a cartoon hamburger to kick off a new period of activity for Superchunk? When we recorded “Misfits and Mistakes” for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force soundtrack at Overdub Lane in Durham, we also recorded the first version of “Learned to Surf” which gave us an on-ramp for making new music after 8 years of playing sporadic gigs. It also reminded us what we liked about playing Superchunk songs, whether they’re our own or written by our musical heroes. This collection covers a lot of ground, from heavy touring years to a pandemic where we made singles and an album at home. One difference between this comp and our first three is that this time span completely falls in the digital age; the distance from a final mix to everyone hearing it is shorter than ever. I’ve always liked artists that were prolific—throwing out singles in between albums when you least expect it. A surprise release from your favorite band is one of the few things that can still bring a little excitement to what can seem like an endless deluge of “content” (puke). Hopefully the wild swings between lo & hi fi and originals and covers on this comp still allow for some coherence and, more
importantly, convey what’s FUN about this punk rock thing.