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Fused around saxophonist Ornella Noulet and a shared devotion to the spiritual jazz of John Coltrane, OLA TUNJI is a Brussels-based quartet whose music channels the intensity and openness of the 1960s “New Thing” movement.

Deeply inspired by John and Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, and Albert Ayler, the group embraces improvisation as a political and spiritual act. On stage, their performances often take on a trance-like intensity, carrying musicians and audience alike toward a sense of shared elevation. The music becomes a reminder that it can still be a medium for love, sister and brotherhood, and collective uplift.

Debut album ‘TRUST’ was born from a long artistic and spiritual journey, with music playing a central role as a space for inner exploration. Trust, a key concept for the group, lies at the foundation of this journey. The album’s title embodies an approach rooted in self-awareness, connection, and the sharing of love.

‘TRUST’ presents itself as a cohesive body of work, moving through moments of intensity, calm, spirituality and joy, each track contributes to a shared intention: to remind us that personal transformation is the starting point for a more authentic relationship with ourselves, with others and with the world around us.

Compositions such as ‘DEVOTION,’ WE CHOOSE LOVE’ and ‘SPEAK UP! (YOUR VOICE IS YOUR STRENGTH)’ reveal the album’s guiding thread: self-knowledge, resilience and the awakening of consciousness. Each track invites the listener to reconnect with their inner voice, cultivating a deeper sense of awareness and view of the world through a lens of reflection and humanity. Modal and physical, the album is built on long-form playing and moves between a deeply meditative and ecstatic sound.

"Spiritual Jazz 19" besteht aus zwei Doppel-LP-Sets, die den Einfluss und die Ausdrucksformen jenes Underground-Jazz beleuchten, der sich in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts in Kalifornien und den angrenzenden Bundesstaaten entwickelte. Die insgesamt 24 Titel erscheinen in Gatefolds und enthalten Liner Notes, Fotos und Download-Codes.

Die US-Westküste wird oft mit dem Boom des Cool Jazz in den 1950er Jahren in Verbindung gebracht; doch überall dort, wo Jazz gespielt wurde, florierten auch modale, afrozentrische und spirituell geprägte Strömungen – und die Westküste bildete da keine Ausnahme. In der Nachkriegszeit rangierte die Central Avenue in L.A. als bedeutendstes Jazz-Viertel Amerikas direkt hinter Manhattan. Auch wenn Manhattan in jenen Jahren das faktische Zentrum des Jazz-Universums war, übte Kalifornien eine stärkere Anziehungskraft auf die Kultur im Allgemeinen aus und zog Menschen aus dem ganzen Land in den Bann seiner aufkeimenden Gegenkultur der 1960er Jahre.

Hier untersuchen wir die Auswirkungen dieser Gegenkultur auf den Jazz. Wir beleuchten den Einfluss der Black Panthers – der prägendsten Kraft innerhalb der schwarzen politischen Bewegung nach der Ära der Bürgerrechte – und widmen uns den neuartigen spirituellen Praktiken und Religionen des aufkommenden New Age. In Kalifornien waren zahlreiche eigenwillige Independent-Labels wie Arhoolie, Theresa und Nimbus sowie viele weitere private Unternehmungen ansässig; wir präsentieren die Ergebnisse ihres Strebens nach musikalischer Freiheit. All diese Faktoren beeinflussten die Entwicklung und Blütezeit des Jazz und der Jazzmusiker an der Westküste – und die Evolution des Spiritual Jazz in dieser Region wird hier eingehend betrachtet.

Takashi Mizuhashi’s first leader album, popular for its melancholy title track and the epic, over-15-minute version of "So What." This 1974 live recording also captures the vibrant performances of the young Yoshio Otomo and Fumio Karashima. Series supervised by Koki Hanawa.

Das aufstrebende Stockholmer Quartett Clutter ist zurück mit seinem mit Spannung erwarteten Debütalbum ,Sugar Rush", das am 2. Oktober über das schwedische Indie-Label PNKSLM Recordings (ShitKid, Vegas Water Taxi, 7ebra usw.) erscheinen soll. Als eine der spannendsten Bands, die seit langem aus den nordischen Ländern hervorgegangen sind , hat Clutter mit ihren rauen Live-Shows für Aufsehen gesorgt, und ,Sugar Rush" knüpft an die bahnbrechende Debüt-EP ,Loves You" aus dem Jahr 2025 an. Nachdem sie bereits mit Hinds durch Großbritannien getourt sind, auf Festivals wie Pitchfork London und ESNS gespielt haben und Beifall von Medien wie Stereogum, BBC 6Music, DIY, Dork und NME (die die Band als einzigen skandinavischen Act in ihre NME 100 für 2026 aufnahmen), wird 2026 ein großes Jahr für Clutter, mit Tourneen durch Großbritannien und die EU im Anschluss an die Veröffentlichung von ,Sugar Rush".

Das aufstrebende Stockholmer Quartett Clutter ist zurück mit seinem mit Spannung erwarteten Debütalbum ,Sugar Rush", das am 2. Oktober über das schwedische Indie-Label PNKSLM Recordings (ShitKid, Vegas Water Taxi, 7ebra usw.) erscheinen soll. Als eine der spannendsten Bands, die seit langem aus den nordischen Ländern hervorgegangen sind , hat Clutter mit ihren rauen Live-Shows für Aufsehen gesorgt, und ,Sugar Rush" knüpft an die bahnbrechende Debüt-EP ,Loves You" aus dem Jahr 2025 an. Nachdem sie bereits mit Hinds durch Großbritannien getourt sind, auf Festivals wie Pitchfork London und ESNS gespielt haben und Beifall von Medien wie Stereogum, BBC 6Music, DIY, Dork und NME (die die Band als einzigen skandinavischen Act in ihre NME 100 für 2026 aufnahmen), wird 2026 ein großes Jahr für Clutter, mit Tourneen durch Großbritannien und die EU im Anschluss an die Veröffentlichung von ,Sugar Rush".

The scent of fresh greenery rising into the air. A youthful Hidefumi Toki weaves a vivid and beautiful story through a one-horn quartet.



Making his professional debut while still in high school, Hidefumi Toki went on to perform with groups led by New Herd, Isao Suzuki, Terumasa Hino, Ryo Kawasaki, and Fumio Itabashi. From the late 1970s onward, he also collaborated with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Tatsuro Yamashita, contributing broadly to Japan’s music scene across jazz, fusion, and pop.



This album, recorded in 1976, is his third release, following Toki and Lover Man, a dual-leader project with Yoshio Otomo. It features a lineup of dazzling performances and compositions, including “Sky View”, where his soaring saxophone shines over delicate arrangements, and “Let’s Get Together”, evoking the uplifting fragrance of fresh greenery.



With outstanding support from Mikio Masuda—who also contributes compositions—alongside Yoshio Ikeda and Steve Jackson, the ensemble achieves a remarkable balance.



Defined by a gentle perspective and refined, youthful playing, this is a masterpiece filled with the charm of Hidefumi Toki in his early years.

Gilla Band are happy to announce their brand new album ‘Pugnello’ released on the 25th September 2026 on Rough Trade Records. The album was recorded from 2022 - 2026 across three studios, Hellfire, Yellow Door Music Studio, & Sonic Studios in Dublin, the album was produced by Gilla Band & it was recorded and mixed by Daniel Fox.


Gilla Band never know where they’re going next. For over ten years now, the Dublin quartet (vocalist Dara Kiely, guitarist Alan Duggan Borges, bassist Daniel Fox, and drummer Adam Faulkner) have been redefining what you could loosely call “rock music” in the 21st century, influencing a wide swath of similarly forward-thinking guitar acts along the way. Across 2015’s Holding Hands With Jamie, 2019’s The Talkies, and 2022’s Most Normal, the band perfected a vision that wasn’t quite post-punk, wasn’t quite noise-rock, wasn’t quite anything besides an idiosyncratic, ground-breaking hybrid that could only come from the four of them.


In the four years since Most Normal, each member embarked on other artistic endeavors. Kiely fostered a newfound love of painting, Faulkner played drums for Lankum on the road, Fox became an increasingly in-demand producer guiding ascendant acts like Sprints, Lambrini Girls, and Mandy, Indiana, while Duggan Borges launched his solo project the Null Club with collaborations featuring Mandy, Indiana’s Valentine Caulfield, the Horrors’ Faris Badwan, Miss Grit, and Brooklyn MC Elucid. All their extracurricular activity existed in parallel with the exploratory route towards Pugnello, but also informed the band as they reconvened to crystallize the album’s vision.

A clerestory - a bright or "clear" level or "story" - is an upper section of wall, most often in a church punctuated by windows. It is a powerful image for grasping this luminous new music from Jules Reidy. Light casts shadows, of course, and logics of shadowing, mirroring, and distorted reflection - of key importance for Reidy"s work as a whole - inform the sumptuous surfaces of Clerestory. "Shadow Symmetric" is a string quartet commissioned and performed by the JACK Quartet as part of their JACK Studio program. The piece makes simultaneous use of two pitch sets, beginning from the same starting point but expanded using different scaling to produce what Reidy describes as "two offset spectral layers." "Clerestory Windows" offers up a distorted mirror image of the string quartet, arranged as a series of episodes that each remake the material in their own way. It begins with an arrangement of the string quartet material for MIDI strings and voices, repositioning its rigorous harmonic exploration somewhere between the Lovely Music Ltd universe and a 90s RPG soundtrack. This episode derives from Reidy"s installation Inside, Crystals and Circuitry, held in Stockholm in 2025. The piece moves into a lyrical 12-string acoustic guitar air performed at the installation opening, before the strings from the first side reappear. From this emerge flickering arpeggios, achieved by arranging the string quartet material for the RMI, an early digital synthesizer. Clerestory is a meditation on fundamental dynamics of human experience: orientation and disorientation, the hazy borders the hazy borders between the material and the spiritual, and the instability of identity.

Gilla Band are happy to announce their brand new album ‘Pugnello’ released on the 25th September 2026 on Rough Trade Records. The album was recorded from 2022 - 2026 across three studios, Hellfire, Yellow Door Music Studio, & Sonic Studios in Dublin, the album was produced by Gilla Band & it was recorded and mixed by Daniel Fox.


Gilla Band never know where they’re going next. For over ten years now, the Dublin quartet (vocalist Dara Kiely, guitarist Alan Duggan Borges, bassist Daniel Fox, and drummer Adam Faulkner) have been redefining what you could loosely call “rock music” in the 21st century, influencing a wide swath of similarly forward-thinking guitar acts along the way. Across 2015’s Holding Hands With Jamie, 2019’s The Talkies, and 2022’s Most Normal, the band perfected a vision that wasn’t quite post-punk, wasn’t quite noise-rock, wasn’t quite anything besides an idiosyncratic, ground-breaking hybrid that could only come from the four of them.


In the four years since Most Normal, each member embarked on other artistic endeavors. Kiely fostered a newfound love of painting, Faulkner played drums for Lankum on the road, Fox became an increasingly in-demand producer guiding ascendant acts like Sprints, Lambrini Girls, and Mandy, Indiana, while Duggan Borges launched his solo project the Null Club with collaborations featuring Mandy, Indiana’s Valentine Caulfield, the Horrors’ Faris Badwan, Miss Grit, and Brooklyn MC Elucid. All their extracurricular activity existed in parallel with the exploratory route towards Pugnello, but also informed the band as they reconvened to crystallize the album’s vision.

Gilla Band are happy to announce their brand new album ‘Pugnello’ released on the 25th September 2026 on Rough Trade Records. The album was recorded from 2022 - 2026 across three studios, Hellfire, Yellow Door Music Studio, & Sonic Studios in Dublin, the album was produced by Gilla Band & it was recorded and mixed by Daniel Fox.


Gilla Band never know where they’re going next. For over ten years now, the Dublin quartet (vocalist Dara Kiely, guitarist Alan Duggan Borges, bassist Daniel Fox, and drummer Adam Faulkner) have been redefining what you could loosely call “rock music” in the 21st century, influencing a wide swath of similarly forward-thinking guitar acts along the way. Across 2015’s Holding Hands With Jamie, 2019’s The Talkies, and 2022’s Most Normal, the band perfected a vision that wasn’t quite post-punk, wasn’t quite noise-rock, wasn’t quite anything besides an idiosyncratic, ground-breaking hybrid that could only come from the four of them.


In the four years since Most Normal, each member embarked on other artistic endeavors. Kiely fostered a newfound love of painting, Faulkner played drums for Lankum on the road, Fox became an increasingly in-demand producer guiding ascendant acts like Sprints, Lambrini Girls, and Mandy, Indiana, while Duggan Borges launched his solo project the Null Club with collaborations featuring Mandy, Indiana’s Valentine Caulfield, the Horrors’ Faris Badwan, Miss Grit, and Brooklyn MC Elucid. All their extracurricular activity existed in parallel with the exploratory route towards Pugnello, but also informed the band as they reconvened to crystallize the album’s vision.

You have to wonder why Railcard took so long to be born: their debut album feels like it should have been in your collection for years.


But it wasn’t until 2025 that Rachel Love (Dolly Mixture), Ian Button and Peter Momtchiloff (both Heavenly) met at a gig, realised that they were exactly the same age, and decided that this was an excellent reason to form a new band. The shared history, the same pop references, the parallel lives… Railcard had to happen, and there was no time to lose. Two Steps At A Time - the album title and theme song - express exactly how quickly Railcard have worked since then - jumping over pavement cracks and whistling past graveyards to get these songs written, recorded and released while they are still sweet and fresh.


The band released three digital EPs in early 2026, which were then gathered onto a CD and released by Skep Wax and Slumberland. They sold out very quickly. The critical response to a mail-order-only CD was far greater than anyone expected.


Railcard made their live debut in December 2025 and had by then recruited their fourth member: Allison Thomson (Trash Can Sinatras, The Love Band), whose flawless trumpet and swirly keyboard-playing complete the Railcard sound, allowing the band to fulfil the significant ambition and range of the songs, which are mostly co-written and often co-sung by Love and Button. “Flannelette” and “Sunday Sun”, delicate and swoony, could almost be Slapp Happy at their most Bacharach. “Foxy”, mysterious and charming, has more than a hint of Kate Bush December magic. The raucous duet “I’m A Disaster” is The Kinks meets deadpan Shangri-Las. The title track could have been an alternative theme tune for Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads. “Runaround” is like a school choir doing The Raincoats. “Unstable Neighbour” is mesmerising and insistent: it might make you think of Stereolab; we might imagine an indiepop Hawkwind. Peter Momtchiloff also contributes two wonderful songs on the album: the fragile and hallucinatory “Paper Thin” and the Love-meets-Undertones rush of “Hillman Minx”.


As with the first EPs, Railcard enlisted the sonic services of Medway psych expert Allan Crockford (of The Prisoners, James Taylor Quartet and many more) who has delivered mixes that pump with vintage valve energy and reverby depth.


Railcard have a string of UK dates through the summer and Autumn.

Brought together by Antoine Rajon through their shared love of modal and free jazz, the four musicians of KOMA embraced the high-wire act of a ""Jazz on the Moment,"" a hallmark of the KOMOS label's Analog Home Session series. These friends, both on and off stage, already play together in other groups, such as AMG for Keïta Janota and Anthony Jouravsky, and OLA TUNJI for Ornella Noulet and Anthony.


For this recording, the new group set up in the living room of a Burgundy home, equipped for the occasion with the finest vintage analog equipment by Christian Hierro, engineer at the ""Back To Mono"" studio in the Drôme region.

With no preparation other than the few hours before starting the tape recorder, KOMA recorded the tracks in the order they appear on the album. Two pure improvisations sit alongside a composition (in two versions) by Keïta Janota, and a composition by vibraphonist Martin Blouet, who was experiencing his first professional recording.


The iconic piece ‘John Coltrane’, composed by bassist Bill Lee, father of Spike Lee, is the only cover on the album. The quartet offers a surprising, almost ambient version, without the rhythm section and epic solos of other recordings. The musicians' love for the music of the ‘supreme saxophonist’ is nonetheless intense.

As a birth certificate on the very day of the group's formation, this ‘no-nonsense’ album allowed this unusual lineup (two saxophonists, a vibraphonist, and a bassist) to present its lyrical and meditative music on numerous stages.

Jack Wyllie, a composer, multiâÇ`instrumentalist, and co-founder of the Mercury Prize nominated Portico Quartet, debuts under his own name. The album radiates hope, mirroring nature s beauty and cyclical rhythms while weaving through contemporary jazz, ambient, classical, and postâÇ`rock. Collaborators include Hania Rani and Duncan Bellamy.

In a world increasingly shaped by disposable content, Chat Pile answer with something defiantly real and organic, a mentality that permeates Who Loves The Sun, their third full-length record. Since the band’s formation just over six years ago, the Oklahoma City-based quartet Chat Pile has grown from a scrappy passion project into one of the defining heavy acts to emerge from the 2020s underground. Ray B. (vocals), L. Manhole (guitar), Stin (bass), and Cap’n Ron (drums) create a crushing, crass, and cathartic take on noise rock that captures a raw, undeniably human essence in an age marked by technological overreach and the cold state of society. Nothing about Who Loves The Sun feels synthetic.

Whereas their debut album God’s Country depicted a particularly American flavor of dread, and the follow up Cool World showed a cruel planet defined by global systemic violence, Who Loves The Sun peels the skin back on how collective indifference defines this new century. Spanning imagery of coastlines devouring cities, dead-end jobs, and submission to data-driven inauthenticity, the album dissects the apathy-bloated state of 21st-century existence as a slow-motion apocalypse. As with much of Chat Pile’s work, Oklahoma City itself looms over the album like a character, its sprawling isolation, economic contradictions, and underlying sense of decay embedded in the fabric of the record. The perfect allegory for the thematic essence of Who Loves The Sun is the photo embossed on the record’s cover, where Devon Tower, a glassy, largely vacant monolith, looms high above the Oklahoma City skyline while a burnt-out home or storefront envelops the foreground. The album remains lyrically and sonically confrontational, but Chat Pile approached the songwriting with hooks in mind, drawing on melodic tones of pre-2000s indie rock, alt-rock, and new wave. From the blood-soaked vocal passages of “Christabel ’26” to the eerie trip-hop pulse of “Same Rules,” Who Loves The Sun is deeply human despite its allusions to a dying, divided .

In a world increasingly shaped by disposable content, Chat Pile answer with something defiantly real and organic, a mentality that permeates Who Loves The Sun, their third full-length record. Since the band’s formation just over six years ago, the Oklahoma City-based quartet Chat Pile has grown from a scrappy passion project into one of the defining heavy acts to emerge from the 2020s underground. Ray B. (vocals), L. Manhole (guitar), Stin (bass), and Cap’n Ron (drums) create a crushing, crass, and cathartic take on noise rock that captures a raw, undeniably human essence in an age marked by technological overreach and the cold state of society. Nothing about Who Loves The Sun feels synthetic.

Whereas their debut album God’s Country depicted a particularly American flavor of dread, and the follow up Cool World showed a cruel planet defined by global systemic violence, Who Loves The Sun peels the skin back on how collective indifference defines this new century. Spanning imagery of coastlines devouring cities, dead-end jobs, and submission to data-driven inauthenticity, the album dissects the apathy-bloated state of 21st-century existence as a slow-motion apocalypse. As with much of Chat Pile’s work, Oklahoma City itself looms over the album like a character, its sprawling isolation, economic contradictions, and underlying sense of decay embedded in the fabric of the record. The perfect allegory for the thematic essence of Who Loves The Sun is the photo embossed on the record’s cover, where Devon Tower, a glassy, largely vacant monolith, looms high above the Oklahoma City skyline while a burnt-out home or storefront envelops the foreground. The album remains lyrically and sonically confrontational, but Chat Pile approached the songwriting with hooks in mind, drawing on melodic tones of pre-2000s indie rock, alt-rock, and new wave. From the blood-soaked vocal passages of “Christabel ’26” to the eerie trip-hop pulse of “Same Rules,” Who Loves The Sun is deeply human despite its allusions to a dying, divided .

In a world increasingly shaped by disposable content, Chat Pile answer with something defiantly real and organic, a mentality that permeates Who Loves The Sun, their third full-length record. Since the band’s formation just over six years ago, the Oklahoma City-based quartet Chat Pile has grown from a scrappy passion project into one of the defining heavy acts to emerge from the 2020s underground. Ray B. (vocals), L. Manhole (guitar), Stin (bass), and Cap’n Ron (drums) create a crushing, crass, and cathartic take on noise rock that captures a raw, undeniably human essence in an age marked by technological overreach and the cold state of society. Nothing about Who Loves The Sun feels synthetic.

Whereas their debut album God’s Country depicted a particularly American flavor of dread, and the follow up Cool World showed a cruel planet defined by global systemic violence, Who Loves The Sun peels the skin back on how collective indifference defines this new century. Spanning imagery of coastlines devouring cities, dead-end jobs, and submission to data-driven inauthenticity, the album dissects the apathy-bloated state of 21st-century existence as a slow-motion apocalypse. As with much of Chat Pile’s work, Oklahoma City itself looms over the album like a character, its sprawling isolation, economic contradictions, and underlying sense of decay embedded in the fabric of the record. The perfect allegory for the thematic essence of Who Loves The Sun is the photo embossed on the record’s cover, where Devon Tower, a glassy, largely vacant monolith, looms high above the Oklahoma City skyline while a burnt-out home or storefront envelops the foreground. The album remains lyrically and sonically confrontational, but Chat Pile approached the songwriting with hooks in mind, drawing on melodic tones of pre-2000s indie rock, alt-rock, and new wave. From the blood-soaked vocal passages of “Christabel ’26” to the eerie trip-hop pulse of “Same Rules,” Who Loves The Sun is deeply human despite its allusions to a dying, divided .

In a world increasingly shaped by disposable content, Chat Pile answer with something defiantly real and organic, a mentality that permeates Who Loves The Sun, their third full-length record. Since the band’s formation just over six years ago, the Oklahoma City-based quartet Chat Pile has grown from a scrappy passion project into one of the defining heavy acts to emerge from the 2020s underground. Ray B. (vocals), L. Manhole (guitar), Stin (bass), and Cap’n Ron (drums) create a crushing, crass, and cathartic take on noise rock that captures a raw, undeniably human essence in an age marked by technological overreach and the cold state of society. Nothing about Who Loves The Sun feels synthetic.

Whereas their debut album God’s Country depicted a particularly American flavor of dread, and the follow up Cool World showed a cruel planet defined by global systemic violence, Who Loves The Sun peels the skin back on how collective indifference defines this new century. Spanning imagery of coastlines devouring cities, dead-end jobs, and submission to data-driven inauthenticity, the album dissects the apathy-bloated state of 21st-century existence as a slow-motion apocalypse. As with much of Chat Pile’s work, Oklahoma City itself looms over the album like a character, its sprawling isolation, economic contradictions, and underlying sense of decay embedded in the fabric of the record. The perfect allegory for the thematic essence of Who Loves The Sun is the photo embossed on the record’s cover, where Devon Tower, a glassy, largely vacant monolith, looms high above the Oklahoma City skyline while a burnt-out home or storefront envelops the foreground. The album remains lyrically and sonically confrontational, but Chat Pile approached the songwriting with hooks in mind, drawing on melodic tones of pre-2000s indie rock, alt-rock, and new wave. From the blood-soaked vocal passages of “Christabel ’26” to the eerie trip-hop pulse of “Same Rules,” Who Loves The Sun is deeply human despite its allusions to a dying, divided .

Der finnische Sänger Bobby Oroza veröffentlicht sein Debütalbum This Love bei Big Crown Records. Das Label aus New York City ist bereits Heimat von Bands wie Lee Fields & The Expressions, The Shacks und El Michels Affair. Bobby ist in Helsinki geboren und in einer Musiker- und Künstlerfamilie aufgewachsen. Zu Bobbys Glück hatten seine Eltern eine große Plattensammlung mit frühem Jazz, Blues, Motown-Hits, Gospelchören und Doo-Wop-Gruppen wie The Drifters und The Clovers, aber auch Alben aus Brasilien und Afrika, Folksongs aus Nord- und Südamerika von Bobbys Mutter und Salsa-Musik aus New York. All diese Einflüsse sind heute in Bobbys Musik hör- und spürbar. Auf Kuba studierte er monatelang intensiv Schlagzeug und Gesang. Mit Cold Diamond & Mink, der Hausband von Timmion Records, bestehend aus Bandleader Jukka Sarapää, Sami Kantelinen und Gitarrist/Komponist Seppo Salmi, bildet er ein brillantes Quartett, mit dem er seine Vision in Musik umsetzt. CD&M liefern mit ihren LoFi-Instrumentals die perfekte Untermalung für Bobbys verrauchte Tenorstimme, die Herzen brechen und schmelzen lässt. Der bereits 2016 als 7" Single veröffentlichte Titelsong "This Love" ist längst zum Hit in Lowrider-Kreisen geworden und wurde auf "Hat Trick" von Odd Future Rapper Earl Sweatshirt gesamplet. Der Song ist mit seinen harten Drums, den wilden Riffs, dem vergrabenen Bass und Bobbys verhaltenem, aber intensivem Gesang ein Muss für Soul-Sammler und hat sich als 7? mehr als 3.000 Mal verkauft. Der Song "Your Love Is Too Cold" ist ein Stomper, der Soul-Grooves früher Motown-Stücke mit Gitarrenriffs aus einem Funk-Soundtrack von James Brown mischt und schon jetzt weltweit auf allen Soul-Partys schwer angesagt ist. Bobby hat einiges für die Tänzer im Publikum in petto: Stücke wie "Lonely Girl" und "Falling in Love" sind Verneigungen vor dem Northern Soul, "Keep On Believing" liefert Jazz-Funk wie aus den Siebzigern. Aber "This Love" wendet sich vor allem an die Balladenliebhaber, die voller Sehnsucht in die Nacht schauen. Mit Songs wie "Alone Again", "Down On My Knees" und "Deja Vu" beschwört er eine intensive, leicht abgründige Sinnlichkeit. Eine einzigartige Spielart von Soul, made in Finland.

Salt N Pepper Vinyl. New pressing of Mom Jeans. 2018 album, Puppy Love. The Berkeley, CA quartet is lauded for stream-of-consciousness lyrics and energetic performances that prompt audiences to shred their worries and simply bounce along. By trading the sappy for heartfelt and the melodramic for truthful, Mom Jeans have created a brand of emo that's self-aware but not self-indulgent. 2018's Puppy Love follows up 2016's Best Buds and oers up more of that sweet noise that fans of bands like Modern Baseball and The Front Bottoms, will love. Recorded by Ryan Ellery. Mastered by James Trevascus.

Salt N Pepper Vinyl. New pressing of Mom Jeans. 2018 album, Puppy Love. The Berkeley, CA quartet is lauded for stream-of-consciousness lyrics and energetic performances that prompt audiences to shred their worries and simply bounce along. By trading the sappy for heartfelt and the melodramic for truthful, Mom Jeans have created a brand of emo that's self-aware but not self-indulgent. 2018's Puppy Love follows up 2016's Best Buds and oers up more of that sweet noise that fans of bands like Modern Baseball and The Front Bottoms, will love. Recorded by Ryan Ellery. Mastered by James Trevascus.

The Seeds stand tall amongst the handful of mid-60s American garage bands whose influence is palpable in rock to this day. Led by charismatic frontman Sky Saxon, the original Hollywood-based quartet’s unique and exciting brand of minimalist rock’n’roll still sounds contemporary and is perfectly encapsulated on this first album. If second album “A Web Of Sound” was pop-art flash, and 1967’s “Future” a florid take on psychedelia, then the July 1966 debut remains The Seeds’ grand statement; an all-original programme of rock and R&B-inflected garage punk that buzzed with a peculiar-yet-riveting energy that was the ensemble’s very own.

Whilst ”The Seeds” contains a pair of familiar classics in ‘Can’t Seem To Make You Mine’ and ‘Pushin’ Too Hard’,’ it is instructive to remember that it was recorded and released some time before either tune became a hit. Unlike so many albums of that era, the Seeds’ debut was not a quickie thrown to together to take advantage of singles chart success. Instead, the record constitutes a sharp definition of their unique and aberrant style, featuring several key items within their canon, be they the rough-hewn rockers ‘Girl I Want You’ and ‘No Escape’, the pot-boiling blues ‘Nobody Spoil My Fun’,’ or the lengthy and downright sinister ‘Evil Hoodoo’.’

LIMITED EDITION FIRST PRESS OF 300 COPIES ON TRANSPARENT RED VINYL WITH JAPANESE STYLE OBI. NON-RETURNABLE.
Osaka quartet HIBUSHIBIRE return this August with their fifth studio album ‘Phantom Fuzzy Exotica‘.
Phantom Fuzzy Exotica continues to find the band exploring their own little universe, where psychedelia, 70’s hard rock and folk rock influences collide. You’ve got the short punchy riff heavy songs, the mellow time-out bits, and of course the epic psych jams and more vocals then previously. It’s all here, and as always they deliver the goods.
Phantom Fuzzy Exotica … in the bands own words
The initial image behind this album was “phantoms”- things that seem to exist, yet somehow don’t. Another thing that sets this album apart from our previous releases is that four of the five tracks feature vocals. The only instrumental is “Invocation and Ritual Dance of the Electric Nonsense.” We didn’t consciously plan it that way; it just happened naturally. After finishing last year’s tour, we didn’t have much time, but everyone’s ideas came together, and I think we’ve created an album we’re truly satisfied with.
Mandrake Oracle: The opening track of the album.Built around a single guitar riff by changchang, while the other instruments and electronics keep pushing the music forward. Personally, I imagined Deep Purple playing a Pink Floyd song while writing this one.
Minagoroshi Western: Imagined as the soundtrack to a fictional spaghetti western. In the end … everybody dies.
Daydream Rendezvous: A piece of daydream acid psychedelic folk.
Invocation and Ritual Dance of the Electric Nonsense: Hard psychedelic jazz rock. The title is a little nod to Frank Zappa.
Ai Vist Lo Lop (Cover): I’ve always loved Ai Vist Lo Lop by the wonderful Occitan traditional band Mont-Jòia, and I’d wanted to cover it someday. We especially enjoyed creating the a cappella section and finding the right sound for the main melody.
We sincerely hope you enjoy listening to this album as much as we enjoyed making it. — changchang
The Phantom Fuzzy Exotica European Tour 2026
AUGUST
19th Archive, Liverpool (UK) , 20th Ivory Blacks, Glasgow (UK), 21st The Golden Lion, Todmorden (UK), 22nd The Bunkhouse, Swansea (UK), 23rd Beautiful Days, Devon (UK), 25th The Peer Hat, Manchester (UK), 26th Le Pub, Newport (UK), 27th Strongroom Bar, London (UK) with Black Helium, 28th The Holloway, Norwich (UK), 29th The Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham (UK), 30th The Piper, St Leonards (UK) with Black Helium
SEPTEMBER
1st DND, Dunkirk (FR), 3rd Pilsen Busking Fest, Pilsen (CZ), 4th Pilsen Busking Fest, Pilsen (CZ), 6th Riff, Budapest (HU), 7th Végállomás Klub, Szombathely (HU), 8th A Beton, Győr (HU), 9th Chemiefabrik, Dresden (DE), 10th Bar Neun, Berlin (DE), 11th Subsol, Dusseldorf (DE), 12th Magasin 4, Brussels (BE), 13th De Onderbroek, Nijmegen (NL), 14th La Bulle Café, Lille (FR)
HIBUSHIBIRE are
Changchang (Guitar/Vocal/Bouzouki/Electronics/Melting Eye Spectacle), Tetsuji Toyoda (Bass/Vocal/Mermaid Mountain), AOI HAMA (Drums/Vocal/Cat Tongue Queen), Kohei Katsuma (Conga/Vocal/Theremin/Percussion/God Dog Family)

Baby You’re A Winner’ is a perfect illustration of the elevated musicality of the album that bears its name. Linking up across the record’s twelve tracks with producer Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Perfume Genius, Yard Act), Baby You’re A Winner showcases a real levelling up for Grandmas House: more layered and involved than their trio of previous EPs - Grandmas House (2021), Who Am I (2023), Anything For You (2025) - with a greater focus on the use of vocals and harmonies to embolden the meticulously crafted arrangements.

It’s the sound of the quartet - Yasmin Berndt (guitar, vocals), Poppy Dodgson (vocal, drums), Zoë Zinsmeister (bass, vocals) and Polly Jessett (guitar) - bringing a greater sense of nuance and space to their music, while deploying myriad genres to maximum effect. From the righteous, elasticated rock of recent single ‘DOG’ to the syncopated post-punk and brass blasts of ‘Dance’ and on to the chamber folk ambiance of closer ‘Spring’, Baby You’re A Winner is the most authentic, realised portrait of Grandmas House to date.

The songs here navigate a precarious balancing act between sadness and catharsis, ultimately landing in a place of salvation - the product of the band’s tight-knit friendship, this album is their gift to the world, born from a period of grief and hardship but emerging from the other side with profound love and strength. It’s a testament that even when the odds are against you, anyone can be a winner.

Auf der sechsten LP von Radiator Hospital, ,Distorting Time", spielt Sam Cook-Parrott nicht mit Nostalgie - er geht ihr aktiv aus dem Weg. Im Laufe von fünfzehn Jahren hat er RH von einem Solo-Projekt, das er in seinem Schlafzimmer aufnahm, zu einem vollwertigen Rock-'n'-Roll-Quartett ausgebaut, wobei er am Rande des Mainstream-Erfolgs blieb und sich gleichzeitig einen Ruf als echter Außenseiter der DIY-Szene erarbeitete. Die Veröffentlichung von ,Can't Make Any Promises" im Jahr 2023 brachte Sam an eine Art Scheideweg - doch er war entschlossen, keine Zeit mit Rückblicken zu verschwenden, sondern stattdessen nur auf das zu blicken, was vor ihm lag. Aus heiterem Himmel wurde Radiator Hospital Ende 2025 eine Tour angeboten, was Sam dazu veranlasste, seinen Ansatz zu überdenken und das Gewebe seiner bisherigen Arbeit in eine völlig neue Form zu verwandeln. ,Ich beschloss, etwas Neues live zu probieren, was ich noch nie zuvor gemacht hatte: Ich nahm meine Begleitmusik auf einem 4-Spur-Kassettenrekorder auf und sang dann einfach dazu", erklärt Cook-Parrott. ,Distorting Time" - seine erste Veröffentlichung bei Lame-O Records - besteht aus 13 Songs, die bei Sam zu Hause auf einem 4-Spur-Kassettenrekorder aufgenommen wurden, mit zusätzlichen Elementen, die im Uniform Recording Studio von Jeff Zeigler in Philadelphia eingefangen wurden. Die Songs wirken gleichzeitig sanft vertraut und doch auffallend eigenständig; sie nutzen die Grenzen des 4-Spur-Setups aus und lassen sich gleichzeitig von Bands wie Young Marble Giants und Tall Dwarfs inspirieren. Thematisch beschäftigen sich die Songs mit dem seltsamen Gefühl des Vergehens der Zeit, insbesondere aus der Perspektive eines Künstlers und seines Schaffens.

Das 1966 bei Impulse! Records erschienene Album “Meditations“ fing John Coltrane in einer Umbruchphase
ein. Einerseits enthielt es die letzten Aufnahmen, die der Saxofonist mit der kompletten Besetzung seines
legendären Quartetts einspielte. Zum anderen präsentierte er auf dem Album mit dem Tenorsaxofonisten
Pharoah Sanders und dem zweiten Schlagzeuger Rashied Ali zusätzlich neue musikalische Weggefährten,
die Coltranes letzte Schaffensphase mitprägen sollten. In dem suiteartigen Programm fließt die Musik als
fortwährende Meditation über Transzendenz und kollektiven Ausdruck. “Meditations” hebt Coltranes Spiritual Jazz in höhere Sphären der Energie und Abstraktion. Das Album, das oft als spiritueller Nachfolger
von “A Love Supreme” bezeichnet wird, bleibt ein kraftvolles Dokument der Transformation, Intensität und
Hingabe in Coltranes musikalischem Vermächtnis

Originally released in 1989 as an early milestone for the label, this landmark session teams the legendary alto saxophonist - then at the absolute peak of his powers at age 57 - with the incomparable Tommy Flanagan Trio . A titan of the genre for over 60 years, Woods masterfully combined a lush, beautiful tone with a complete command of the bebop vocabulary. Backed by veteran pianist Tommy Flanagan, former Oscar Peterson Trio bassist George Mraz, and a young, up-and-coming Kenny Washington on drums, the quartet delivers a timeless set of acoustic jazz that sounds as vital and vibrant today as it did nearly four decades ago.

With their ever-mutating brand of jazz-and-country-laced punk, Opus Kink have always cut a singular figure in a saturated landscape. Making their name with incendiary, cult-like live shows, the band - formed in Brighton (UK) in 2017 — has developed a sound as elusive as it is recognisable. Underscored by a formidable horn section and ragged, sardonic delivery, the band bear passing resemblance to post-punk and no-wave acts like The Pop Group, Birthday Party and Lounge Lizards, but it’s the weaving of older, more traditional influences - choral, folk, country, Latin, Weimar cabaret, cruise-ship-crooning - into the fabric of their music that sets them apart. Their highly anticipated debut album 'The Sweet Goodbye' is set for release on 31st July 2026 via So Recordings and follows a series of EPs and singles which have earned acclaim from NME, DORK, DIY, CLASH, SO YOUNG, BBC Radio 1 and playlisting on BBC Radio 6 Music. The album is produced by Grammy award-winning producer and mixer Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, Florence & The Machine, Baxter Dury, REM, Kronos Quartet, Sam Fender), with album track 'The Head Tree' featuring The New Eves (No.1 Independent album in 2025). Opus Kink brings their alluring live show to audiences around the UK and Europe later this year, including a headline show at London's 2,300-cap venue o2 Kentish Town Forum, while the Summer sees them supporting The Libertines at Rochester Castle, Kent. TRACKLISTING A1. Come Over, Do Me Wrong A2. Will It Come For You? A3. I'm A Pretty Showboy A4. The Sweet Goodbye A5. Peckham Nocturne B1. I Have To Shine My Sunday Shoes B2. The Head Tree (ft. The New Eves) B3. 448C (The Colour of Love) B4. Crucify! B5. Oh, Irony QUOTES - ?"Horn-fuelled filth-funk, where punk and jazz combine in grimy circumstances." - NME - "One of the UK’s most exciting new bands?...A raucous, intense blast of guitar pop...as equally anxiety-inducing as it is sublime." - C?LASH - "Barnstorming, infectious" - Steve Lamacq, BBC 6 Music - "One of the most enjoyable genre fusions I've ever seen." - Nels Hylton, BBC Radio 1 - "(Their) ferocious live performances have earned them a reputation as? one of the best live bands in the country?." - So Young

With their ever-mutating brand of jazz-and-country-laced punk, Opus Kink have always cut a singular figure in a saturated landscape. Making their name with incendiary, cult-like live shows, the band - formed in Brighton (UK) in 2017 — has developed a sound as elusive as it is recognisable. Underscored by a formidable horn section and ragged, sardonic delivery, the band bear passing resemblance to post-punk and no-wave acts like The Pop Group, Birthday Party and Lounge Lizards, but it’s the weaving of older, more traditional influences - choral, folk, country, Latin, Weimar cabaret, cruise-ship-crooning - into the fabric of their music that sets them apart. Their highly anticipated debut album 'The Sweet Goodbye' is set for release on 31st July 2026 via So Recordings and follows a series of EPs and singles which have earned acclaim from NME, DORK, DIY, CLASH, SO YOUNG, BBC Radio 1 and playlisting on BBC Radio 6 Music. The album is produced by Grammy award-winning producer and mixer Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, Florence & The Machine, Baxter Dury, REM, Kronos Quartet, Sam Fender), with album track 'The Head Tree' featuring The New Eves (No.1 Independent album in 2025). Opus Kink brings their alluring live show to audiences around the UK and Europe later this year, including a headline show at London's 2,300-cap venue o2 Kentish Town Forum, while the Summer sees them supporting The Libertines at Rochester Castle, Kent."Horn-fuelled filth-funk, where punk and jazz combine in grimy circumstances." - NME - "One of the UK’s most exciting new bands?...A raucous, intense blast of guitar pop...as equally anxiety-inducing as it is sublime." - C?LASH - "Barnstorming, infectious" - Steve Lamacq, BBC 6 Music - "One of the most enjoyable genre fusions I've ever seen." - Nels Hylton, BBC Radio 1 - "(Their) ferocious live performances have earned them a reputation as? one of the best live bands in the country?." - So Young

Following the genre-redefining revelations of A Love Supreme in 1965, John Coltrane began a dramatic shift toward spiritual free jazz, abandoning familiar forms in favor of a more abstract sonic palette and bold questions he'd spend the rest of his life and career pursuing. Meditations, released by Impulse! in 1966, continues that emotional throughline while retaining, for the last time in full, the classic quartet that propelled Trane to greatness: pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones. (They're further augmented by Pharoah Sanders on tenor sax and additional drummer Rashied Ali.) Meditations pushes Coltrane’s spiritual jazz into heightened realms of energy and abstraction — a powerful document of transformation, intensity, and devotion in Coltrane’s recorded legacy.

The complete album + 4 bonus tracks - limited edition pressing on 180g red coloured vinyl, contains new specially prepared liner notes by Penguin Guide to Jazz's writer Brian Morton and by Paris' prestigious Jazz Magazine Besides achieving a very personal and characteristic sound, John Coltrane opened the way to free jazz, allowing himself to play long and complex improvisations that increasingly strayed from the tunes in which they were based. By the time he recorded Ballads, He had already delved into freer and longer solos and compositions, and as a result he had his devoted followers as well as his detractors.

Ondanaconda does not compose with the jaw harp, but through it. For their self-titled debut album, the quartet turns this lamellophone, often perceived as archaic, into the record"s sole sound source. Found for centuries across continents, from Asia to Europe, the jaw harp is played against the teeth, using the mouth as a resonating chamber, shaping sound through breath and bodily movement. Here, amplified, prepared and sometimes pushed to its limits, it becomes percussion, bass, drone and texture - a true mouth synthesizer with vast possibilities. Between performance and trance, Ondanaconda crafts an unidentified sonic object, somewhere between collective ritual and raw electroacoustic experiment. Each piece emerges from specific combinations of instruments, exploring timbral affinities and rhythmic or harmonic potentials, while leaving room for drift and improvisation. Repetition acts as an unstable engine, bending patterns until they morph into something else. Together, Laurent Bruttin, Antoine Läng, John Menoud and Daniel Zea weave a dense, shifting mass where individual voices dissolve into an organic, almost hallucinatory polyphony. Conceived as a continuum, the album unfolds as a hypnotic flow, a physical and immersive music that moves from mouths to bodies, saturating the surrounding space. A radical UFO, at the crossroads of concert, performance and sound installation.

LP edition now available!

Death Is Not The End present a collection of recordings of Sacred Harp singing (a traditional sacred choral music with origins in the American South) taken from the late 1920s through to the late 1930s.

Antal, founder of the Amsterdam-based Rush Hour Records & Store and renowned for his global DJ touring and eclectic sets spanning house, techno, rare funk, soul, and jazz, curates a personal selection from the historic label Timeless Records.

For Timeless Presents From The Archives, he handpicked highlights from 1974–1994 by jazz luminaries such as Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Pharoah Sanders, Carter Jefferson, Gary Bartz, Woody Shaw, and more. “I want to thank the Wigt family for allowing me to dig deeper into their catalog to compile a selection of personal jazz favorites. Their passion for jazz and independent labels has inspired me as a DJ and record store owner. A great song is a great song, no matter when or where it was made,” Antal reflects. For this double album, Antal shares his love for modal and spiritual jazz, celebrating a pivotal era in jazz and creating a must-have for collectors, selectors, and new explorers.

Timeless Presents From The Archives 1974-1994 is packed in a gatefold sleeve, featuring notes by Antal and artwork by Dirk-Jan Deckwitz. Affixed on the protective sleeve is the 50th Anniversary Timeless Jazz sticker.

Roland Kirk was an extremely talented multi-instrumentalist, who lost his sight at a very early age, and played unconventional jazz, which was not entirely free but in which melodic and very beautiful phases alternated with moments of complete dissonance and conjured up his urban background, especially reflecting his view of the world as a handicapped man. Kirk was not only famous for his unique sound achieved through his playing several instruments simultaneously and his innovative approach to music but also for his dynamic live performances.

In November 1967 Kirk left EmArcy for Atlantic Records, leading his quartet through a highly introspective, somewhat melancholy programme, which was based in the blues and groove traditions of the mid-60s. Kirk himself played flutes, the stritch, manzello and tenor saxophones, the whistle, clarinet and more – precisely those instruments that had created his unique sound, particularly when some of these instruments were played simultaneously by him. Jazz critics who had previously criticised Kirk’s sound now praised him once they had heard the restrained and elegantly layered "Black And Crazy Blues", the breathtakingly executed Creole "Love Call", the razor-sharp soul in "The Inflated Tear" and the gyrating lyricism of the winds in "Fly By Night" – and quite rightly so.

Roland Kirk convinced his listenership anyway and sold over 10,000 copies of the present LP in the very first year of its release. This is Roland Kirk in his most competent and visionary form; his reading of jazz harmony and capricious sonances is virtually incomparable.

Soul Jazz Records’ ‘Calypso – Musical Poetry in the Caribbean’ was first issued in 2014 and has been out of print for nearly 10 years. On its release ‘Calypso’ was voted one of the year’s best 50 reissues in Rolling Stone magazine and received glowing reviews in Pitchfork, The Guardian, Songlines and many more. This new edition has been fully remastered and comes as a one-off limited-edition double vinyl pressing on translucent green vinyl, complete with bespoke inners featuring extensive sleevenotes, notes on all the artists and songs featured, and original artwork and photography. The album is also available in a new card-edition CD package, also with complete notes and text.

Featuring Lord Kitchener, The Mighty Viper, Count Zebra, Lord Flea, Lord Hummingbird, King Fighter, Lord Growler, Lord Byron, Lord Ivanhoe and other members of Calypso’s aristocracy and aristocrats, the album features the music of Calypso in its many styles. Calypso is one of the most exciting and enduring forms of musical expression that first emerged at the beginning of the 20th century – swinging, persuasive rhythms, brilliantly expressive melodies, and lyrics of great humour, wisdom and wit. Here you will find music from Trinidad, birthplace of Calypso, other Caribbean islands including Jamaica and the Bahamas, as well as sounds from the style’s subsequent onwards journey including Britain, Panama and the United States. Calypsonian songs play out a role in society similar to the storytelling Griots of West Africa (and the corresponding music of Kaiso); with their own tales about popular and incredible news items, modern life, local politics all mixed up with sexual innuendo, one-upmanship, comedy and more. At its source, Calypso is intricately and inextricably bound to the social history of Trinidad and its myriad of traditions, beliefs, folklore and fables. As the music spread around the world, both from the diaspora of many of its performers as well as its commercial success, the subjects of songs similarly took on local topics.The most notable singer of Calypso in England was the Trinidadian Lord Kitchener, who came to Britain in 1948 on HMS Empire Windrush, along with fellow Calypsonians Lord Beginner and Lord Woodbine.

Legendary DJ, producer, radio host, and founder of the Acid Jazz and Talkin' Loud labels, Gilles Peterson, has curated another exceptional collection of tracks and rare versions from the renowned Dutch Timeless Jazz label, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2025. The Timeless Jazz Classics Vol. 2 double album features tracks and standout performances by Louis Hayes, Machito And His Salsa Big Band, Mike Nock Quartet, George Adams - Don Pullen Quartet amongst others. Notably, it includes two special tracks, the previously unreleased version of "Morning Song" (Live In Bremen 1978) by Eric Kloss & Barry Miles and bonus track "La Placita" (Live In Willisau 1978) by Marion Brown Quartet.

Timeless Jazz Classics Vol. 2 is available on black vinyl, includes an insert with liner notes, track-by-track information by Gilles Peterson and affixed on the protective sleeve is the 50th Anniversary Timeless Jazz sticker.

Forever – Jazz steht für zeitlose Eleganz und die Essenz eines Genres, das Generationen geprägt hat. Diese stilvolle Vinyl-Ausgabe vereint ausgewählte Meisterwerke und schafft eine Atmosphäre zwischen sanfter Melancholie, swingender Leichtigkeit und virtuoser Improvisation.

Mit unvergesslichen Interpretationen von Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong und Ella Fitzgerald uvm, entfaltet sich ein Klangbild, das sowohl entspannt als auch inspirierend wirkt. Instrumentale Höhepunkte von Miles Davis und Dave Brubeck runden das Hörerlebnis ab.

Forever – Jazz ist mehr als eine Sammlung – es ist ein stilvoller Begleiter für besondere Momente und ein Muss für alle, die echten Jazz in seiner schönsten Form genießen möchten.

Toronto’s Ducks Ltd. (formerly Ducks Unlimited), the bright jangle-pop duo of Tom McGreevy (lead vocal, guitar, bass, keyboards) and Evan Lewis (guitar, bass, drum programming), accomplish the impossible. The pair craft songs that play to very specific inspirations without drowning underneath them—immediately evidenced on their critically acclaimed EP, Get Bleak, and sharpened on Modern Fiction, their debut LP. “The Servants, The Clean, The Chills, The Bats, Television Personalities, Felt,” Evan rattles off. “Look Blue Go Purple is one I reference a lot with our production.” Echoes of ‘80s indiepop abound, but they never overwhelm. This is not a nostalgic record, after all, nor is it a derivative one. Instead, across 10 cheery-sounding songs, Ducks Ltd. explore contemporary society in decline, examining large scale human disaster through personal turmoil (hence the title, taken from a university course called Gnosticism and Nihilism in Modern Fiction, influenced by Graham Greene novels. Bookish indie fans, look no further.)

Writing the album was intimate. Tom drafted the nucleus of a song on an unplugged electric guitar and brought it over to Evan’s apartment, where the pair sat in his bedroom, placing percussive beats from a drum machine under nascent melodies, passing a bass back and forth, adding organs and bridges where necessary. “It’s computer music trying extremely hard not to sound like computer music,” Tom jokes. Fearful that limited and expensive studio time would kneecap the project creatively, eroding their charming naivete, the pair re-recorded the album in a storage space owned by Evan’s boss. Ornamentation through collaboration followed: there’s Aaron Goldstein on Pedal Steel in the Go-Betweens’ “Cattle and Cane”-channeling interlude “Patience Wearing Thin,” Eliza Niemi on cello (“18 Cigarettes,” a song loosely inspired by a 1997 Oasis performance of “Don’t Go Away”), and backing harmonies from Carpark labelmates The Beths (on an ode to friendship at a distance, “How Lonely Are You?,” “Always There,” and on the sped-up Syd Barrett stylings of “Under The Rolling Moon.”) While in his native Australia due to covid-19, Evan worked closely with producer James Cecil (The Goon Sax, Architecture in Helsinki) on Modern Fiction’s finishing touches—at one point, in the mountains of the Macedon Ranges in Victoria, recorded a string quartet (featured on “Fit to Burst,” “Always There,” “Sullen Leering Hope,” “Twere Ever Thus,” “Grand Final Day.”)

It’s danceable, depressive fun, with some relief: in “Always There” and “Sullen Leering Hope,” Modern Fiction’s faithful heart. “There’s a tendency in my writing, because of my world view, to be very bleak.” Tom explains. “A quality I don’t always see in myself and really appreciate in others is the courage to go on.” And yet, the record manages resiliency—enough for pop fans to fall in love with.

REPRESS ON SILVER VINYL . COMES WITH 24”x24” POSTER + DOWNLOAD CARD + GATEFOLD JACKET.


On The Beths’ album Expert In A Dying Field, Elizabeth Stokes’ songwriting positions her somewhere between being a novelist and a documentarian. The songs collected here are autobiographical, but they’re also character sketches of relationships – platonic, familial, romantic – and more importantly, their aftermaths. The shapes and ghosts left in absences. The question that hangs in the air: what do you do with how intimately versed you’ve become in a person, once they’re gone from your life?

The third LP from the New Zealand quartet houses 12 jewels of tight, guitar-heavy songs that worm their way into your head, an incandescent collision of power-pop and skuzz. With Expert, The Beths wanted to make an album meant to be experienced live, for both the listeners and themselves. They wanted it to be fun -- to hear, to play -- in spite of the prickling anxiety throughout the lyrics, the fear of change and struggle to cope.

Most of Expert was recorded at guitarist Jonathan Pearce’s studio on Karangahape Road in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa (Auckland, New Zealand) -- and sometimes in the building's cavernous stairwell at 1am -- toward the end of 2021, until they were interrupted by a four-month national lockdown. They traded notes remotely for months, songwriting from afar and fleshing out the arrangements alone, the first time they’d written together in such a way. The following February, The Beths left the country for the first time in more than two years to tour across the US, and simultaneously finish mixing the album on the road. That latter half felt more collaborative, with everyone on-hand to trade notes in real time, until it all culminated in a chaotic three-day studio mad-dash in Los Angeles. There, Expert finally became the record they were hearing in their heads.

Expert is an extension of the same skuzzy palette the band has built across their catalog, pop hooks embedded in incisive indie rock. The album’s title track “Expert In A Dying Field” introduces the thesis for the record: “How does it feel to be an expert in a dying field? How do you know it’s over when you can’t let go?” Stokes asks. “Love is learned over time ‘til you’re an expert in a dying field.”

The rest is a capsule of The Beths’ most electrifying and exciting output, a sonic spectrum: “Your Side” is a forlorn and sincere love song, emotive; while “Silence is Golden,” with its propulsive drum line and stop-start staccato of a guitar line winding up and down, is one of the band’s sharpest and most driving. “When You Know You Know” skews a bit groovier, pure pop and a natural addition to the band’s live set. “Knees Deep” was written last minute, but yields one of the best guitar lines on Expert. There’s a certain chaos across the 12 tracks, the palpable joy of playing music with long-time friends colliding with the raw nerves of pain.

Stokes strings it all together through her singular songwriting lens, earnest and self-effacing, zeroing in on the granules of doubt and how they snowball. Did I do the wrong thing? Or did you? And are we still good people at the end of it? She isn’t interested in villains, but instead interested in just telling the story. That insecurity and thoughtfulness, translated into universality and understanding, has been the guiding light of The Beths’ output since 2016. In the face of pain, there’s no dwelling on internal anguish - instead, through The Beths’ music, our shortcomings are met with acceptance. And Expert In A Dying Field is the most tactile that tenderness has been.

The album Brubeck Digs Disney features the classic Dave Brubeck Quartet with Paul Desmond , Norman Bates , and Joe Morello performing a set of songs from Walt Disney movies. This special edition includes two songs from the same sessions not included on the original LP. This was Norman Bates' last album as the bassist with the quartet before his replacement Eugene Wright took on the role. "Inspired by a trip with his family to Disneyland, Dave Brubeck recorded eight songs taken from Disney movies. The funny part is that while all of these songs were already in the Brubeck Quartet's repertoire, the results are still pleasing." - **** Scott Yanow, AllMusic

[a] Alice In Wonderland [from Alice In Wonderland]
[b] Give A Little Whistle [from Pinocchio]
[c] Heigh-Ho [from Snow White]
[d] So This Is Love [from Cinderella]
[e] When You Wish Upon A Star [from Pinocchio]
[f] Someday My Prince Will Come [from Snow White]
[g] One Song [from Snow White]
[h] Very Good Advice [from Alice In Wonderland]