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Reissue of their 1983 album..

Parallel zu seinem Mini-Album "Night Melody" veröffentlicht der Londoner Elektronik-Songwriter Ryan Lee West aka Rival Consoles eine limitierte Neuauflage seiner EP "Sonne" auf gelbem Vinyl.

Die 12'' war erstmals 2014 in die Läden gekommen. Der Titelsong beginnt mit einem "sehr subtilen Set von Melodien, welches sich fast gänzlich ohne Überzeugung wiederholt, um dann schrittweise einer riesigen Collage an Farbe und Kraft Platz zu machen", um es mit Wests Worten auszudrücken. Indem es sich nicht auf einen konventionellen Beat verlässt, ist dieses Stück ein erstklassiges Beispiel dafür, wie ein analoger Synthesizer die Kraft und das Moment einer ganzen Rhythmusgruppe erschaffen kann.

Von den verzerrten Wellen in "3 Chords", gleichermaßen wachsend und schrumpfend, bis hin zu den sich kontinuierlich beschleunigenden und verlangsamenden, rhythmischen Wellen in "Recovery", bilden der Moog Voyager, Prophet und ein altes Bandverzögerungsgerät den Kernsound der EP. In Songs wie "Helios", "Haunt' und "Think Tank" ist West wiederum live an der Akustik-Gitarre oder dem Schlagzeug zu hören

Seven Swiss artists & collectives sharing the same passion for music came together for a unique collaboration. The result is a sequence that evolves through rhythm and each contributor‘s colour of sound. Artists involved: Melodiesinfonie, Jack Pattern, Lexx, Look Like, Alma Negra, Manuel Fischer, Les Points.

If you draw a map of electronic music today, you will come to realise that Switzerland still represents a blind spot for many people. Even if you see from the inside the many talented artists romping about in such a small space, you have to admit that interest from the outside is virtually non-existent. Therefore there is only one way: Teamwork! The MEGAMIX is a statement for it.

From the city that brought you LSD comes a new album by Marco Papiro, a Swiss-Italian musician and graphic designer who has gained some notoriety with his album covers for the likes of Panda Bear and Sun Araw. 'Automare' is Papiro's seventh solo album, recorded on 4-track cassette, on hard-disk, in public and in private, entirely self-produced and now released on Nikolaienko's Muscut label.The five hauntingly evocative tracks offer a variety of atmospheres from surreal to arcane, from celestial to subaqueous. Synthetic sounds (some mature EMS, Moog and Roland) are combined with other assorted instruments (organ, shehnai, electric guitar and bass,) and emulsified through various time-and-space-bending devices. There are no percussions, with one surprisingly groovy exception, in which a drum machine is being generously treated with phaser and envelope filters - think of early Cabaret Voltaire with a North Saharan touch.



Papiro's handcrafted artificial vocals are anything but human, but all the more compelling: out of the fluorescent Plankton of the side-long opening track 'Rhenus Rebus' rises a siren's voice, reminiscent of Alide Maria Salvetta in Battiato's 'Campane', joined in a final mantra by an oboe borrowed from an inebriated Third Ear Band. Entering a chimeric karaoke bar, the title track 'Automare' makes the album even more bizarre by introducing a distinctive pop feel. Back to the abstract world, the following 'Polmonella' - a live recording with additional musicians Anthony Glass (aka Antenna Tony Monorail) and Markus Stähli (of Roy & the Devil's Motorcycle) - is a fevery exploration of cosmic territories in the manner of Harmonia, while the alien articulation of 'Incom' sounds unlike anything else ever recorded.

Formed in '92 with voice, distorted bass and drums. Band's symbol comes from a sign placed on witches graves, which is jolly. The assurance of the old sound sustained through energetic expression rather than shallow noise. Two MC's through Energeia, 'Simon Dreams In Violet' ('93), 'Dreaming The Lost' ('94).' Had Mick Mercer's 'Hex Files: The Goth Bible' been published a year later he would have added: 'and the self-released MC 'Follia' ('95) on their own label Interior Deus.'
25th anniversary limited edition vinyl of 341 numbered copies. Comes with a 16 pages insert also including digital album + bonus track.

Tim Gick's already-warped patchwork editing of the entire Crazy Doberman output thus far turns increasingly glitched out across the splattered quiltwork of a nine track LP on Aguirre. Any coherent sense of time departs early on the A-side; kicked off with the familiar sound of the Dobes' synth throb and Love-cry woodwinds on top of completely fried electric guitar squiggling, all suspended in spiritual foam; then battered to bits on the greasy flat top of the record's b-side.

Ringing modular synth sirens evoke alarmingly huge Southern watersnakes swimming on top of Oconee river. Total trip zone across two sides: brownouts in the sequence of events, dubby fadeouts, and bright jump cuts in space. Teases of cartoon barrlehouse tickling on the keys of a farmhouse piano and tape melt psychedelia. The recording session in Athens, Georgia was a total "CHUGFEST" recalls Frank Hurricane, the Appalachian juggalo folkie king, who joined the session with the Lafayette, Indiana crew. The presence of Hurricane's own "Life is Spiritual" mirth bulworks the record with a muddy, barefoot hippy hopefullness, steadying the log flume through the notcturnal psychic murk toward the holy morning dew. (J. Russ)

More heat from Berlin! (warehouse find)

The ambient/cross-genres record label Concentric Records (Simone Merli / Soundwalk Collective & Luca Calo / Born In 1986) - launches Colliding Wind, the second compilation of its introductory release trilogy. Featuring music by Christina Vantzou, Echium, Etapp Kyle, Jana Winderen, Kareem Lotfy, Soundwalk Collective, Tragic Selector (Daisuke Tadokoro & Terre Thaemlitz), the album is composed of a wide spectrum of ambient, field recording-based and experimental works, exploring unexpected sonic spaces and evocative landscapes.

COLLIDING WIND is inspired by the powerful force that is produced when a minimum of two beings or elements are combined and acting together. Science explains us that a colliding-wind binary is a binary star system in which the two members are massive stars that emit powerful, radiatively-driven stellar winds. The location where these two winds collide produces a strong shock. As we reference the state of world chaos today, a colliding-wind is a reassuring reminder of the inspiring thought that the act of coming together as one produces exponentially powerful results.

The opening track is SOUNDWALK COLLECTIVE’s ‘Running On Emptiness’. Commissioned by Sasha Waltz for her 3-hour epic choreography ‘EΞΟΔΟΣ I Exodos’, the piece is composed out of moving architectural structures and their echoing resonances. Back in 2012, the Collective has placed 147 contact sensors on all surfaces inside and outside of the Berghain club: concrete walls, steel staircases, water pipes, ventilation tunnels, air ducts, metal frames, ... mapping out the whole structure and progressively recording the entire movement of the building under the impact of the music, with the intention of exposing the silent voice of the building. This composition reflects the sense of a space that is left behind in between the margins.

Raised in a small town in western Ukraine, ETAPP KYLE was trained as a classical musician before his first teenage club permanently changed his musical trajectory. Over the past few years, his cavernous and often hallucinatory techno has dovetailed into an obsession with spatial qualities of sound. “10K was originally recorded in 2017 as a simple piano-leading ambient track during a home studio session. It was developed further only in 2020 after Simone & Luca invited me to contribute to the project. A sudden burst of inspiration came during a mix-down session when I tried to re-record the original timbre of the piano. Eventually, while experimenting, it went a completely different direction and the track turned into its present form. Thanks to Simone for an encouraging word while I was working on the track.” - Etapp Kyle

TRAGIC SELECTOR is the duo comprised of Daisuke Tadokoro and Terre Thaemlitz. “This piano piece was originally composed for an event with the Japanese Butoh dance ensemble Dairakudakan. The focus of Butoh seems to be stopping and holding the body in place. Globally speaking, from classical ballet to dance parties, most forms of dance emphasize movement. Perhaps the core of Butoh is more akin to learning to sit in a chair. In that sense, there are similarities to some forms of Western contemporary dance. But most contemporary dance still emphasizes movement. Butoh has a lot of stillness. In order to be still - to stop the body - a dialogue with gravity becomes necessary, which is how this piece gets its title. Pianos create sound by hitting strings with hammers. The hammers of a grand piano strike in conversation with gravity. The vertical hammers of an upright piano resist speaking with gravity. The high- grade electric piano used for this particular recording has a hammerlike mechanism. Whether or not it is in dialogue with gravity, I am uncertain." - Daisuke Tadokoro

KAREEM LOTFY (Arabic: كريم لطفي) is an electronic music producer, graphic designer and visual artist from Egypt, who lives and works in Cairo. Lofty’s work engages critically with current political and social issues. Influenced by Internet culture, he is fascinated by the intercultural mix in his native Egypt. ‘Molten Tactics’ offers a palpable departure from his usually lush and visceral ambiance, notably heard on Kelela’s AQUAPHORIA mixtape and PAN’s mono no aware compilation (the latter was sampled in Kanye West’s ‘I Thought About Killing You’). The track’s obscured granular synthesis creates a vacuum of feeling, leaving remnants of field recordings to guide the rest of the composition. It teases Lofty’s classically soulful and foreboding style – but only for a second before trailing off into the abyss.

CHRISTINA VANTZOU’s ‘Dvorjacked’ is a rework of Dvořák's "American" Quartet - Movement II (Lento). “It’s a fragment of the piece, one phrase really, and it's just old enough to be in the public domain which is of interest to me. I used a modular synthesizer called the Morphagene to loop and process the recording. I wanted to work with a piece of existing chamber music and I was especially looking for something that sounded like a love song. The process I used to decompose and recompose is modelled after mid 20th Century tape experiments so the piece points to early sound sculpting. The vague familiarity of the work is an important element. All of my work deals in some way with deconstructing existing musical forms and re-thinking them while considering how memory operates and how the brain deals with familiarity and abstraction.” - Christina Vantzou

JANA WINDEREN is an artist who currently lives and works in Norway. Her practice pays particular attention to audio environments and to creatures which are hard for humans to access, both physically and aurally – deep under water, inside ice or in frequency ranges inaudible to the human ear. ‘The Listener’ is a sound composition created from hydrophones and Sound Field recordings in and by the River Orne in Normandy. Freshwater biologists count underwater insects and use this data as an indicator of the water's health. If one identifies the sound of the specific underwater insects with their varying ability to survive forms of pollution, one can possibly, through focused listening, reach an understanding of the health of the river. «The Listener» (6 channel audio installation) was part of the exhibition Second Nature and the project Nature and Renaturation: A Sensory Overview of a History of Changing Watercourses. A three-year-long project which started in 2014 by Thierry Weyd, Esam Caen-Cherbourg (Art Academy) and Camille Prunet, Research Coordinator chez École Supérieure d’Arts et Médias Caen/Cherbourg

As part of the next wave of artists innovating within dub techno and experimental ambient zones, ECHIUM looks to loosen up its strictures while playing deep within its unfathomable dimensions, literally urging a dematerialisation of mindsets and musical structures with literal titles such as ‘Collapsed Senses’ and ‘Glacial Rust’ matched by meticulous sound design that connotes and evokes their meaning in the most elusively abstract, lushly sensorial terms. The result is the creation of imaginary spaces that smudge the listener’s perceptions of artificial and organic texture, tone and spatial dynamics. ‘Compulsions of Reality’, explores the emotions built into daily existence. A divergent semblance, exhaled through the sonic process. Locking sections of minute particulars, in time. This personally represents a gateway to the symbiotic understanding of how I no longer depend nor want, and why I had to stop, to become.” - Echium

Lucas Croon half of Bar and also known for his work with Duesseldorf projects like Stabil Elite and our uncle Themes For Great Cities delivers a four track EP full of downtempo synth and rhythm excursions. It's starting slow with a travel through the human spinal chord shaking it at a Suzuka Grandprix After Party in 1984 where you were praying on your knees in front of the Spiritus Sanctus because of too much champaign. You got me All tracks recorded at Pferdestrken Studio Dsseldorf. Cover artwork by Holger Kurt Jaeger, Layout by Jannes Becherer.

This double LP brings to light the music of Robert ÆOLUS Myers, featuring recordings from 1982 to 2006 that were previously available only on cassette or CD.
The music within A Retrospective tells the story of a man whose music elevates its listeners to a place of inspiration and enlightenment. Often ethereal, ÆOLUS' music is driven by synthesizers, melodic flutes, sweeping patterns, and subtle rhythms to seed inspiration from deep within the listener.

One might assume that ÆOLUS carved a new path for electronic music in Hawai'i, but the islands never quite fully embraced the burgeoning New Age scene that ÆOLUS found himself a part of during the 1980s and the early 1990s.

Few artists in Hawaii have produced a body of work, let alone embarked on a musical journey, such as the one that ÆOLUS has created.

For Aloha Got Soul, this release marks a new chapter of bringing rare and relatively unknown music of Hawai'i to the surface.

Trancemission over; Transmission begins. Delta Rain Dance is an experimental artist and label project delving into contemplative, and melancholic states, with a record that blissfully glides between ambient, and delicate-percussive, electronic states. A hybrid puzzle of melodic cuts, DJ tools and drum tracks, that can be mixed together to create new amalgamations of the source material.

'Trancemission/Transmission' showcases a musical narrative that transcends genres and moods, switching between flashes of dubbed techno, abstract percussive electronica, and stark downtempo vibes.

'Trancemission/Transmission' is a record structured around progressions, heavy on sound design and imagination. It takes the listener into different astral planes, from tranquil moments of temperate melodies, to off-kilter periods of electro. Ghostly radio transmissions, dubbed out Rhodes, underwater frequencies, and broadcasts from beyond the digital ether. It is a modern take on 'Music for Airports', albeit written for a post-millennial audience, one that grew up on Dilla, Vatican Shadow, Grouper and Digital Mystikz. Drum tracks, locked grooves, and sparse sketches of melody and reverb soaked harmonies. Delta Rain Dance has produced a body of work that exists in two halves; the trancemissions operating as celestial, ambient skits; moments of dreamlike serenity, while on the flip, carefully programmed beats infer moments of Detroit, dubstep, and IDM, gently providing the framework to the album's intricate, grainy basslines, and saturated overtones. The two halves of the record can be mixed together, and like a puzzle that needs to be solved, tracks fit together perfectly, creating an interactive musical game, in which the DJ can create new sonic interpretations of the album.

The 5th entry on the DDQ series continues to rake the kerbside muck of 'club music', presenting 2 disparate visions from 2 label heads.

KUMP's mastermind Gil.barte opens proceedings with the stuttering bodysludge of Guédé and Egareur. Two kleine nightmusiks to drag you out of meatspace, with the Kyuss-ala-PCP throb of Guédé especially sure to find favour on fog-bothering 8 AM+ floors worldwide.

Tempos pick up and lights turn down on the B-side, with Lostsoundbytes (Vastechoses label head), driving disintegrating delays and snares into 3 Belgiqué-nouveau tools, keeping the rhythm & textures bumping throughout.

Artwork by Thibaut de Wolf

Manchester club lynchpin Henzo smashes the debut platter on DJ Python’s Worldwide Unlimited with a bevy of dembow and garage-bred bangers that speak directly to the city’s transnational
dancehall links As the story goes, Henzo heard DJ Python plays his beats at the club he was managing in MCR’s hipster warzone - the NQ - and the pair soon hit it off, leading to Henzo now giving Python’s brand new label, Worldwide Unlimited, a killer starting point with ‘Not Like That, Not Like You’; four variations on a hyper-tropic sound that Henzo has been pushing for the last half decade and more with his Strange Riddims raves, whose upfront policy of dancehall modernism - from grime to reggaeton, hard drum and anything-goes Manc pressure - supremely informs his debut EP, proper.
Version for version Henzo confidently fires himself into the forward tier of Manchester producers, striking a heavy vein of mutant dembow-meets-Mahraganat pressure in the acidic bashment of the title tune, before stepping up the ghosted dub dynamic on a driving ‘Less Of That Mix’.
The other slow banger ‘For Your Consideration’ revolves a vocal snippet saying “speak to me” - one of Python’s often-used phrases - so was naturally elected to the EP, rolling out a bubbling,
sticky dembow-electro groove in the ‘Sauna Mix’, and a ruder UK-styled 2-stepper pivoting off woodblock snares in a screwfaced ‘Gym Mix’ Worldwide Unlimited is envisioned not only as a label, but a small gesture towards community uplift. 100% of label-side proceeds will be split between the artist and a local charity. Proceeds from WWUNLTD022 will go towards The Rec. Centre in Manchester,
org) a casual space in which artists, DJs, interviewers and teachers can create, record & hang out. Members of the BAME & LGBTQIA+ communities, as well as people on universal credit and/or benefits, are offered free usage of the space.

Astonishing rhythmic inventions from Mark Fell and percussionist Will Guthrie, messing with meter and space in a pair of ingenious, boundary-probing pieces arriving as Japan’s Nakid label’s debut release. ‘Infoldings’ combines synthesis and sinew in unpredictable, pointillist arrangements where Guthrie plays against patterns derived from Max MSP patches by Fell. The album’s two tracks are in this sense different to the man-machine concept of Fell’s acclaimed ‘Intra’ album, where he triggered performances by Portugal’s Drumming Grupo De Percussão to play a metallophone designed by Iannis Xenakis. Here, the pair find common/contrasting purpose in a probing of the rhythmic signatures of Gamelan and South Indian Carnatic musics, with groundbreaking, unusual results. Recorded at HFG, Karlsruhe (where Fell is guest professor), and finished later in respective isolation, the two pieces were edited from iterations of call-and-response between Fell’s rhythmic patterns and Guthrie’s overdubs. They effectively propose beguiling and convincing solutions to electronic music’s problems with grid-lock, using illusive generative processing that appears to make physical actions seem unfeasibly effortless, while melting the computer’s clock to a realtime, free-hand syncopation. On the taut, snapping structures of these two pieces they enact a form of quantum origami that sounds like an MIT-designed robot playing cubist jazz with a sense of mischief and complexity that recalls Fell’s studies of brownian motion on ‘Scale-Structure-Synthesis’ (2011), and strikingly builds on his creative relationship with Guthrie that started with their ‘Oglon Day’ (2019) album alongside Oren Ambarchi and Sam Shalabi. In all, it’s one of the most liquid, forward iterations of computer music you’ll likely hear this - or any other - year

FILM Recordings will release the debut LP from Denial of Service.

The album follows up EP's Sensou (2015), and more recently Contour & Shape (2017) - but marks the producer's most expansive release on the label thus far by some margin. Clocking in at 15 tracks, the lengthy opus draws from the same palette found on previous work - drum machine driven, heavily mutated Electro and IDM sit alongside low slung Techno cuts and arpeggiated EBM references. As ever, the production is stunning - crisp and plosive, as much a record for the club as it is a tempered headphone experience; whilst the mood channels that same dank, claustrophobic energy found on previous missives.

As a body of work, the LP displays the distinctive touch of a production veteran. The transformative shifts in structure on opener A Fine, New Mother Now belie a kind of boldness found less often across the contemporary electronic music landscape; and the drum programming on IDM-leaning explorations Autoimmune & Supercell bear the hallmarks of a perfectionist with time on his hands and in full control of his art. Space and the placement of sonic components plays a huge role in the artist's work and the 3 Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch displays this canny knack for generating both textural, wide angle soundscapes whilst maintaining that wrought-iron edge to drums and percussive elements - even more fervent, noisy compositions like Dr Manahattan manage to keep hold of this remarkable balance. It's impressive stuff, a fine and well worked meeting point between artistic vision and engineering prowess.

An elongated discussion, no doubt - but worth hearing every word. Each twist and bend, however sharp, remains carefully placed and beautifully recorded. Dryer works Slither & Junkie Foxtrot towards the LP finish offer a less introspective, more hard hitting angle to the work, and by the time the listener arrives at dual closer the Daisy Chain - Adults - they're ready for its heady catharsis.

The debut album from Denial of Service is a trip, and the line between club space and home listening environment is decidedly blurred - an emotive exploration of true psychedelic Electronica, delivered direct from the source.

“Twee” is Tsepo’s debut mini-album. The beautiful 6-tracker strikes a balance between breaks, percussive house, and glitchy ambient. Tsepo has been around as a DJ for over 8 years. He played Trouw, Heidegluhen, Lowlands, Shelter, DGTL, Wildeburg, and more. On “Twee”, he combines emotive melodies with expertly produced beats. The diversity of the music is perhaps best expressed in how easily the glitchy ambient works "Dough" and "Max" go together with the resonating techno track "La Vaca Vega" and the uplifting title track "Twee". "Extebarri" (where a hard snare is the basis of a driving melody) and the downtempo "Tribeca" round off the release effortlessly. Tsepo knows what he's doing and his years of experience in the DJ booth echo on this wonderful, well-crafted debut.

Dutch High Fashion Music unleashes another crown-jewel. ‘Maestro’ Celso Valli (known from his productions with o.a. Matia Bazar, Andrea Bocelli, Jovanotti, Laura Pausini, Eros Ramazzotti) produced ‘Hava Nagilah’ back in 1979, as part of the classic Azoto “Musicmakers” album- and Norwegian Prins Thomas gave it an epic 10 minutes rework – second to none!

‘Mix and Fairbanks’ re-edited “Anytime Or Place” and the 1980 smash summerhit “San Salvador” into really up-to-date versions ready for the summer! Artwork by former Memory Records sleeve designer Emilio Tremolada, making this one a must have.

Continuing on the thematic thread of soundtracking an imaginary short movie, label founder DJ Tennis aka Manfredi Romano, asks some of the greatest contemporary club producers to take on the task of interpreting this idea in their own unique style. Romano explains that 'the score is a translation of our imagination, memories and emotions into music, with no protocols.' Opening the soundtrack, Vatican Shadow swaps his thunderous techno for a more cosmic and gentle approach, setting the tone for an equally serene soundscape from London based DJ and producer Midland. Japanese Future Terror head honcho, DJ Nobu, layers dense cerebral textures exuding the punk spirit of Life and Death. A similar rule defying energy can be heard by Ninos De Brazil who fuse carnival percussions with straight up old school techno. Both Scuba and Uchi bring the futuristic synths of a space age tomorrow we've all been waiting for. German producer Isolee interprets the task with his minimal productions and Italian producer Cosmo closes the compilation with Psychedelic Soundscapes turning into a distorted gabber missile. As the decade edges closer to it's decade anniversary, Romano proves yet again that Life and Death is a label which evolves through each reincarnation of itself, never failing to impress.

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Private Parts: The Park
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Private Parts: The Backyard
Lovely Music presents a reissue of Robert Ashley's Private Parts, originally issued in 1978. This newly mastered LP release is a must-have for aficionados as well as a perfect introductory work to Ashley's oeuvre. Among Lovely Music's first six releases, it came to be known as "the yellow record". No one had ever heard anything like it; Ashley presented an unvarnished exposition of the inner workings of a man's mind. And on the other side, those of a woman. These two episodes were the foundation for Ashley's seven-part opera, Perfect Lives (LCD 4917CD, 2017), which was performed by his ensemble throughout the 1980s and was completed for television broadcast by Britain's Channel Four. New arrangements of Perfect Lives, notably Varispeed's site-specific version, continue to intrigue and enchant.

Recorded at the Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College, Oakland, California, July 1977, produced by Ashley. Personnel: Robert Ashley - voice; "Blue" Gene Tyranny - keyboards; Kris - tablas. 180 gram vinyl, Stoughton Old Style sleeve, includes libretto.

The genre, electro (or electro-funk), is sometimes perceived to have a separate identity to hip-hop; however, this electronic cousin was integral to the early development of the hip-hop sound. Drawing on drum machines, such as the Roland TR-808, and influenced by funk, these two genres were intertwined and rode a parallel axis for a while, with rap, breakdance, and graffiti as pillars of the culture and community. The mechanical sound of electro would later go on to inspire a different set of producers and played its part in influencing contemporary electronic dance music. For this 7" release we are taking things back to 1984 and 1985 with a split single from The Egyptian Lover and Jamie Jupitor.

First up is a track from The Egyptian Lover, AKA Greg J. Broussard, the cult Los Angeles-based producer, vocalist and DJ, who is a true hip-hop / electro-fusion pioneer. 'Computer Love (Sweet Dreams)' is a seminal electro-fusion / machine-funk classic that saw a release on the iconic label Freak Beat Records (owned by Greg himself). The original 7" release is now very sought-after by collectors.

On the flip we have another electro jam from The Egyptian Lover disciple, Jamie Jupitor. 'Computer Power’ was additionally produced and arranged by The Egyptian Lover, and was released on Egyptian Empire Records (the label that evolved from Freak Beat Records). For this release we have opted for a special 7" unreleased radio edit, that has Greg kindly provided us with, which differs slightly in composition from the previously released versions. One for fans of Dãm Funk, electro and 80s funk.

Radio play confirmed on Radio 6 Music, RTE Ireland, NTS

Support from:
Hot Chip/LCD Soundsystem’s Al Doyle - “This record but a big old smile on my face and kept it there.”
Cian Ó Cíobháin - “Onward Forward is like a bittersweet ‘
Fantastic Man. It’s such lovely LP’”

Automatic Tasty departs slightly from his pastoral acid sound and picks up the microphone for a collection of melancholic pop songs entitled 'A Farewell To Reason'.

From the side-eyed sarcasm of 'A Happy Town' to the reflective urgency of 'Wake Up Dead', the album traverses landscapes of sorrow and good humour - representing a stoic acceptance of the problems of modern life and a yearning for something different.

'Something special happened with these songs - I've never had a desire to sing or anything, but the words and melodies all kind of fell out of the cosmos fully formed'. While some pieces such as 'Ballad For A Modern Man' convey a certain urban sense of loneliness and isolation, others like 'Onward Forward' are more optimistic. 'These songs are my own attempt at navigating a certain melancholy which was hanging around me at the time I think. They're very dear to me'.

Repress

Peter Michael Hamel emerged from the 70s Krautrock scene dreaming of 'the blue flower growing between the milestones on the road to a future world-music'. A truly visionary artist who worked and studied with John Cage, Morton Feldman and Terry Riley, his 1980 Colours of Time LP - an epic, sprawling, 22-minute saga - was hailed by The Guardian's Rob Fitzpatrick as 'an absolute masterpiece of skull-bursting, synth-led ambient minimalism'. Thirty six years on, Astral Industries reinterpret Hamel's original vision with remixes from two contemporary heavyweights - Wolfgang Voigt and Rod Modell (aka Deepchord). Each expansive interpretation invites you to step outside of reality and into an alternative imagination of Hamel's future world, spiralling into the colours and slowly out of time itself. Original artwork by Theo Ellsworth and a massive thanks to Peter Michael Hamel & Eckart Rahn.

This latest work from Vanity Productions is a turbulence steadied to rest with care, and marks a critical high point in the project's evolution.As the nom de plume of Posh Isolation's co-founder Christian Stadsgaard, there is a deeply private yet fiercely empathic quality to 'Only the Grains of Love Remain.' Pirouetting between his collaborative work with Loke Rahbek as Damien Dubrovnik, as well as The Empire Line with Varg and Iron Sight, to name just Stadsgaard's most recent activity, the inwardness reserved for Vanity Productions is perhaps a necessary step. That the emotive experimentation should generate such a touching soliloquy is an arresting watermark, presenting 'Only the Grains of Love Remain' as the most eloquent work of the project to date.Following on from 'Mardini' last year, 'Only the Grains of Love Remain' takes a delicate and determined route through the terrain of Vanity Productions. Mapped with musique concrète's metrics, there is an uneasy sensation between guilty revulsion and cosmic longing captured in the moments of harmony. Dissolving these small bursts of clarity-through-agony is however not a matter of exploring intensity with volume, or other such devices and motifs. With an almost bitter precision, Stadsgaard continually spikes the grounding compositional elements with unnervingly distant patterns of crisp synthetic alloys. Where weighted, gothic passages are undone into peaceful plateaus, and there is a sense of coveted respite from the body's adrenal chemistry. Temporality is suspended, enough to solicit reflection.As the work coasts the mesh of decision/indecision, witness/actor, falling/flying, however it strikes, one gets the sense that the after-image of noise being articulated is in the end giving way to a greater cathartic broadcast that 'Only the Grains of Love Remain' documents: life, love, and thought.

With The Sound of Graz, the springfestival graz made it possible for local talents to fulfill the dream of their own vinyl record. Styrian artists could submit their club tracks in a competition. An expert jury consisting of the Elevate Festival, FAZEmag, Radio FM4, Radio Soundportal and GROOVE magazine, chaired by initiator Thomas Mussbacher, decided who would be featured on the album. Of a total of around 80 entries, twelve made it onto the album. In October the records were released in a limited edition of 1.000 copies. The proceeds go to the Styrian Children's Cancer Aid.

Jonny Drop's debut, Sub Plot, was the very first album release on the fledgling Albert's Favourites label at the beginning of 2016. The initial offering, a 7" of album favourites Mind Field and This Is The One had quickly been picked up on by the good people at BBC Radio 6 Music as well as some of Drop's personal heroes including Kenny Dope, Mr. Thing and Nightmares On Wax.

But when the infectious rhythms and warm production of the beat tape landed, its impact was greater than anyone at the label could have hoped.

Although Jonny never stopped producing beats in the following years, he was also kept busy as a drummer, playing live for Andrew Ashong, The Bongolian and Connie Constance, whose Boring Connie EP he also laid down beats for.

Then in early 2018 his band The Expansions delivered their celebrated Murmuration LP. All the while, with the support of his label family, Drop had been evolving his solo sound too.

'The Only Sound sees a huge progression in my writing direction, as I collaborated with multiple vocalists and musicians, instead of the usual 'one-man band' approach.

The development of these processes make this LP a steady departure from the beat-tape influence of my past releases, and hopefully, showcase the more original sound I've been working to achieve over the past few years.'

The new album is more atmospheric, emotional and expressive. It is filled with beautiful vocal performances, musical contributions from label partners and close friends Deoke and James O'Keefe, and inspirational London jazz composer, flautist and master saxophonist Tamar Osborn (Collocutor/On The Corner).

Voices here include Shea Soul, Grace Walker, former Myron and E soul man Eric Boss with his Lucid Paradise and Pendletons partner Ishtar, plus First Word Records producer/Golden Rules collaborator Sarah Williams White.

While there are thoughtful, down-tempo moments of electronica in abundance here, Drop brings his favourite elements of disco and soul into the picture too.

And there's no shortage of low end throughout. The Only Sound is a welcome next step from Jonny Drop, the sound of a beat maker not just finding his feet as a composer, but thriving in new territory.

Huey Morgan (BBC Radio 6 Music),

Music Is My Sanctuary premiere for All This Trouble, Bonafide Magazine premiere for Looking Glass
'A really talented musician, absolutely loving that" Lauren Laverne on This Is The One, BBC Radio 6 Music

Damon " D_m-Funk" Riddick is the epitome of funk. Ever since
debuting on Stones Throw in 2008, D_m-Funk has become one of the genre's most passionate proselytisers. In 2013, he released a celebrated album in partnership with hip-hop's Snoop Dogg, 7 Days of Funk. Fresh for '15, D_m returns with a solo project nearly six years in the making: Invite the Light. D_m's partnership with Stones Throw includes everything from his 2009 LP Toeachizown and Adolescent Funk, a 2010 anthology of early productions, to 2013's 7 Days of Funk. As always, D_m flexes his multi-instrumentalist talents by handling all the production but still makes time for guests including rapper Q-Tip, the father-son duo of Leon Sylvers III & IV, and funk giant Junie Morrison of the Ohio Players, who opens and closes the album with dire warnings of what could happen in a world without funk. Rest assured, D_m is here to make sure that never comes to pass. As he puts it, "funk is the underdog, the black sheep of black music," and if that's true, D_m-Funk is its shepherd.

Ginno Russo follows up summery sizzler She Is On Fire with his full debut vinyl 12' for MOM. The Valencia based DJ and producer presents a stylish four track EP. It is entitled Travelling Around Zambia and features rhythms and beats inspired by Africa. Russo has been an active DJ since he was 17, with DJ residencies in Valencia and the surrounding region, as well as frequent trips to the Balearic Islands. Due to this experience, Russo knows what works on the dancefloor. Therefore it is no surprise that all four tracks on this EP are built for club play. However, the fun rhythms and ear catching grooves also make them suited to other occasions. Lio is a powerful and uplifting opener. It features steady textured beats, a stylish keyed groove and rising strings. Dubby is a relentless follow-up. Exploding chords and a live bass take centre stage over not stopping beats. Rosas is a funky number for the dancefloor. Textured percussion and powerful synths work the groove here alongside looped vocal fragments. Poble finishes off the EP with a vocal winner. Call and response sung vocals are laid over a powerful bassline and strong beats. This is a fine debut EP from Russo.

One of the most influential bands in the last five decades, Kraftwerk virtually established the blueprint, the source code even for electronic music. Founded by classically trained musicians Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider-Esleban in Dusseldorf in 1970, the band has informed and inspired a diverse range of genres and artists including David Bowie, Björk, Afrika Bambaataa, and Joy Division. This early live performance, in Soest, Germany in Winter 1970, broadcast on WDR-TV displays the band in superb form. Arguably, the future of electronic music, trance, techno, ambient - started right here.

First release on the freshly launched label Anomalies comes from one of its co-founders Ramon Babot aka La Màquina Corrupta. Lead track “Dilluns Blau” – which stands for Blue Monday in Catalan – is a techno track not specifically built for the dancefloor but that can also work on it. A rather moody pad appearing at mid-length of the track reminds us that our serotonin will not last forever and that Monday might come soon. Second track “Gent de Poble”, which means “Village People”, features a relentless bassline that can be as intense as some of those people who live in a small town. On the B side, “Concepte Innecessari” provides the perfect soundtrack for self-introspection in the form of a not so conventional groove. The last track on this EP is “Consells de Mare”, a beautiful electronic lullaby that your mother would sing for you if she were a synthesizer.

Worldwide Award winners First Word Records are pleased to welcome back Souleance; a duo that have been releasing music with us for a decade now, and triumphantly returning to the fold with some brand new music for 2020.

This vinyl / digital EP, 'Les Mouches', is their first release for First Word since the acclaimed beat-tape 'French Cassette' from early last year.

Expanding on the original Normand-Parisian super-duo of Fulgeance and Soulist, the Souleance crew now includes Vincent Choquet on synths and Guillaume Rossel on drums as part of their live outfit. Whilst sonically their style remains unchanged, the formation into a full band sees the Souleance sound become bigger, more realised and more formidable than ever.

The title track 'Les Mouches' sets off the EP in a playful disco manner - a chugging bassline, assorted synthesisers, disco claps and a four-to-the-floor drum track, inspired by the likes of Larry Levan and Candido. Meaning "flies", Les Mouches was a legendary Manhattan club that existed around the era of Studio 54, and was infamously a hangout spot for Imelda Marcos. The club itself was named after a play by Jean-Paul Sartre.

Next up is the single 'Aquarelle' (meaning watercolours), which contains more layers than a Bob Ross painting. With its various elements splayed across its aural canvas, sprinkled with some subtle scratches, it's four minutes of funk presented in Souleance's inimitable way.

'The Bounce' follows and enters a more soulful side of the dance, dropping the tempo a touch and inviting in a huge bassline, squelchy keys and intermittent vocal hooks.

'Mont Maudit' takes more of a latin jazz direction with big drums and cymbals rocking throughout, whilst an infectious piano hook cruises throughout, and an ethereal gospel choir switches up the proceedings mid-way.

Things get deeper still with the epic broken beat-esque 'Maneuevers'. Crunchy rhodes dominate this slightly tweaked-out rhythm, a delectable piece of heads-down nujazz fused with Souleance's unmistakable funk once again.

'L'Opuleance' closes out this EP with some more traditional Souleance fare - the tempo a little more head-nod, this one is comprised of some deliciously wobbly bass, chopped samples and hefty breaks.

This EP is essentially a set of grooves marinated in nostalgia whilst managing to sound entirely current. Analogue synths, live bass, sleek cuts and intoxicating drums. This is another round of sure-shot dancefloor fire from our favourite French family.

Previous support has come from OkayPlayer, Bill Brewster, BBC 6 Music's Gilles Peterson, Tom Ravenscroft & Huey Morgan, and various DJs on Worldwide FM, NTS & Le Mellotron,

A Colourful Storm presents a piece of the contemporary Australian underground. Suburban Cracked Collective is the project of Shaun Leacy, a figure with ties to Hour House, Castings and Altered States Tapes but otherwise shrouded in mystery. His private-pressed album, Private Failings was a cult hit of 2019, nabbing the attention of The Trilogy Tapes, Free Form Freakout and the WFMU freaks. Swimming Amongst The Dregs is the follow up and is an unbelievable mesh of concrète, electronics and un-pop overtones. Future classic for those into Dean Blunt, Kallista Kult and the subdued projects of James Ferraro. Edition of 250 with full-colour artwork.

''Ruyzdael presents Writers on Wax Volume 1: The Sound of Graffiti, a compilation album with 8 exclusive, primarily electronic tracks by producers from four different countries who are more (in)famous as graffiti writers than as musicians.''Letters on a wall, letters on a train. When you take it back to that essence, it?s really not so strange that graffiti writers call themselves and each other writers. With just a few letters ? a word, a name ? they write their mythology for a general audience. No huge vocabulary needed, just imagination and a need for expression. It can come as no surprise that those qualities extend to other disciplines as well. Graffiti has long been associated with musical styles (hip-hop, punk) that contain an abundance of imagination and expression. Less well known is the fact that graffiti writers have embraced the DIY approach of electronic music. Writers on Wax Volume 1 is a group exposition of beats and basslines, imagination and expression. Sometimes using a lot of words, usually none or very few. The dance floor has its own myths.

Demdike Stare and guitarist Jon Collin drift high plains ambient scapes in a dub-strung cooperation castsomewhere between Bruce Langhorne’s Hired Hand soundtrack and a screwed Prince Jazzbo - proper stoner vistas, trust!

Technically Demdike Stare’s first official musical collaboration, ‘Sketches Of Everything’ was recorded between Stockholm and Manchester during Winter 2019 and Spring 2020 and finds the duo’s Miles Whittaker & Sean Canty inspired by guitarist Jon Collin to create some of the most evocative scapes of their career’ Demdike match Collin’s strung-out train of thought with a mix of layered and smudged backdrops that turn the trip toward unexpected midnight hallucinations, stoner sludge and ravines of feedback. Across two long, elliptical sides the results draw spectral parallels between the Pennine moors and ruined industry of Demdike’s native Lancashire, and the kind of moody Western Americana best described in Bruce
Langhorne’s soundtrack for Peter Fonda’s ‘The Hired Hand’. Collin acts as lead protagonist with a lyrical form of guitar that sometimes takes the lead, and at others fades into mystic swirl, rendering naked strums into vapours redolent of Loren Mazzacane Connors or the loner Norwegian blues vistas of Terje Rypdal. While playing into Demdike Stare’s core cinematic inspirations, ‘Sketches of Everything’ is still bound to surprise the group’s legion fiends and duly expand expectations of their sound, lending an absorbing new aspect to both their catalogue and Jon Collin’s singular, cranky blues aesthetic:

Midnight Sun drew his imagination from trips to Iceland and elsewhere, from experiences. Everything has grown, some dates in New York for the CMJ Festival, Berlin, Barcelona or Warsaw, the Pitchfork Festival, Radio Nova, vinyl, meetings.

"Early Morning" extends this first EP and dreams of traveling at the end of the world.

The group is apart, it wanders while preserving its identity - the spirit of Cracki hovers over the project.
First discovery of the label in 2012, the duo barely existed, it is a quator today who just returned from a world tour (more than 100 dates).

The dream sticks to their skin, in fact. Just as when trying to catch one, it flies away, their music is elusive. The first disc spoke of a sun at midnight, the second is dawn.

The chosen horizon is not defined, the four artists are still searching for each other and continue their path with candor.