House News

A decade is a long time in music, but it feels less epic when the music in question is timeless, picturesque, and immersive. Founded in London, run from Bali for a period, and now based in Ibiza, NuNorthern Soul has grown from humble roots to become one of the most popular outlets for Balearic music on the planet.

NuNorthern Soul started in the late 1990s, long before the label launched, NuNorthern Soul was a regular Sunday session in a bar in Chester, UK where label founder Phat Phil Cooper and school friend Jim Baron (Ron Basejam, Crazy P, JIM) sat behind the decks and played laidback, eclectic musical selections to wind down the weekend. The name was suggested by one of the event’s regular punters, who likened the community feel of the event to his experiences as a Northern Soul dancer.

Fast forward to 2011. Following a move to London, Cooper was introduced to Ben Smith, a singer-songwriter and producer whose music he’d long admired. After bonding over a few pints of Guinness, Smith offered to hand over a hard drive full of unreleased tracks; together, the pair put together what would become the NuNorthern Soul label’s first ever release: a fine album of beautiful, boundary-free music entitled The Movedrill Projects.

Another EP from Smith, Dedications to the Greats, followed in early 2013, with the sometime Fug and Akwaaba band-member recording emotive, life-affirming cover versions in his signature style. It was followed by an EP of opaque, sunset-ready songs from Ragz Nordset, and NuNorthern Soul was on its way. While the label has subtly moved around musically since, offering up EPs and albums that incorporate elements from a multitude of becalmed and blissful styles, the core ethos remains the same. Significantly, those early Ben Smith and Ragz Nordset releases still stand up to scrutiny all these years on.

Smith has remained a big part of the NuNorthern Soul family ever since, and it’s fitting that two of his tracks – the stunning, undulating downtempo epic ‘Over Land & Sea’, from improvised 2019 album From The Ash, and Jonny Nash’s glistening, shuffling 2015 rework of ‘Hold On To It’ – are featured on this 10th birthday celebration of the NuNorthern Soul story so far.

It’s right, too, that Jim Baron, whose stints behind the decks with Cooper in Chester began the NuNorthern Soul story, also makes two appearances. His chugging, jangling, wide-eyed 2014 Ron Basejam rework of Ragz Nordset’s ‘You Started It All’ – a track that has so far racked up over three million streams on Spotify – was an early label hit, while his fragile, softly spun masterpiece as JIM, ‘Whisper in the Wind’ (featuring none other than Ben Smith on guitar), features here via a deliciously stretched-out, sunrise-ready remix from James Holroyd under his Balearic-friendly BEGIN guise.

Sentimentality aside, the success of NuNorthern Soul is rooted in Cooper’s ability to pick music to release from a wide variety of artists that fits the label’s colourful, atmospheric, and tactile sonic vision. This lovingly curated box set is testament to that, with immersive, yearning efforts from veteran musicians such as Jon Tye (here appearing as Captain Sunshine, via the breath-taking ‘The Oceans Inside’) and the late, great Ryo Kawasaki (remixed by Mancunian, former Body & Soul NYC resident DJ Andi Hanley) being joined by wonderfully on-point productions from relatively recent signings such as Torn Sail (the Balearic folk swell of ‘Disconnected’), George Koultalieris, My Friend Dario and Tambores En Benirras.

10 Years, 5 EPs, 10 tracks, exclusives, previously unreleased and hard to find NuNorthern Soul treasures. Packaged in a full colour commemorative designed box with full colour inner sleeves. 1 track per side of vinyl for maximum audio pleasure. Comes with 4 page NuNorthern Soul insert. Limited edition.

The duo drop Dust + announce EP, Icons. The next level of their futuristic club sound, that zaps and screams with quick-paced, peak-time energy before giving way to an AI guitar hero solo. “The duo are responsible for some of the most exciting underground club music in the UK right now” The Face. Previous release ‘Pods’, featured on The Guardian and Pitchfork , ‘Best New Music’. Previous support from BBC Radio’s; Pete Tong, Jack Saunders, Mary Anne Hobbs and plays from Jamie xx & Four Tet

After the success of his latest works, Moderator comes back with the EP In The Garden, a refined jazzy blend of genres so typical of the producer, as shows the track ‘Half Light’. A sweet and sour instrumental that takes the listener on a sensitive and introspective journey through melancholic chords.

Hailing from Athens, Greece, Moderator has been producing his brand of cinematic beats since 2012. His debut album The World Within (2015) established him as a serious player on the downtempo/trip-hop scene. His latest works, Sinner’s Syndrome and Midnight Madness hit the #1 best-selling album on the Bandcamp music platform selling thousands of records. Dazzling with a distinctive production style that leaps across genre boundaries like psychedelic, lounge, horror film soundtracks, surf, Memphis soul, and rockabilly, his influences phase in-and-out. His music is similar to calmly turning the radio dial to a random station, yielding a surprising but pleasant discovery.

The third release in the series of 12" EPs featuring reinterpretations of tracks from the Nicola Conte & Gianluca Petrella's album "People Need People" features the excellent collaboration of two American artists coming from the Detroit scene, Tall Black Guy (with the help of longtime friend DJ, producer, vocalist and multi-Instrumentalist Tall Black Guy) and Andrès, the first being a standard-bearer of the current hip hop beat scene raised on bread, Motown, jazz and early hip hop, while the second - now a revered figure of the Detroit scene praised by Moodyman and Carl Graig among others - delivers a house version of "African Tribes" worthy of the most important dancefloors that mixes soul-jazz with fragments of vocal samples and spoken words.



a 01: Nigeria (Tall Black Guy Boogie Love Remix) feat. Broken Keys

Lys, Christian Löffler's newest album, serves as a contrast to Graal, its predecessor. Whereas the latter is the result of a six-month period spent largely on the road in between live shows, the former is a studio release in the truest sense, recorded and compiled in the serenity of Löffler home studio, immersed in the woodland nature that formed the basis for A Forest, his first attempt at the long-player format back in 2012.
Rather than capturing a specific moment in time or emotion, Lys is a selection of Löffler's favorite productions from the past three years, carefully compiled into one enchanting and deeply moving listening experience.

Floating Points veröffentlicht eine neue 12" EP auf Ninja Tune! Sam Shepherd aka Floating Points veröffentlicht mit seiner neuen 12" "LesAlpx / Coorabell" seine ersten neuen Tracks seit 2017! "LesAlpx" ist der nächste Schritt in einer Karriere, die Shepherd im Laufe der Jahre als einen der überraschendsten, innovativsten und kompromisslosesten Künstler der elektronischen Musik etabliert hat. Der unbestreitbare Groove des Tracks erinnert an Breakout-Tracks wie "Nuits Sonores", die die Tanzflächen auf der ganzen Welt eroberten und gleichzeitig mit der anspruchsvollen Handwerkskunst und Produktionstiefe voranschritten, die Floating Points weit über die Clubbing-Community hinaus Anerkennung verschafft hat.

Walter Astral is a celestial explorer, roaming through parallel universes, and diving down wormholes hidden in gigantic sequoias. Stars living in the trees, candle-shaped men, witches and druids, these and other creatures accompany Walter Astral on his transcendental journey.

Hyperdruide is Walter Astral's first EP to be released. It combines French pop, psychedelic rock with the world of techno, acid and house. Tristan's drum machines and acid bass mix with the retro sound of Tino's guitar and a banjo so old it provides quarter tones, like a saz.

Die legendären Visionäre der elektronischen Musik CoH & Abul Mogard bilden in ihrem außergewöhnlichen Debüt für Houndstooth eine übernatürliche Alchemie aus diskretem analogem Material und digitalen Energien. Die erste Zusammenarbeit von CoH & Abul Mogard, die aus einem zufälligen Treffen bei einem Festival im Jahr 2019 hervorgegangen ist, zeigt verblüffende neue Perspektiven auf die jeweiligen, äußerst einzigartigen und weithin bewunderten Werke der Künstler. Ivan Pavlovs CoH, der für seine äußerst kuriosen Soloarbeiten und SoiSong mit Peter Christophersen von Psychic TV/Coil sehr geschätzt wird, gibt hier eine vitale, graustufige Fluoreszenz von Guido Zens üppig romantischen Buchla 200- und Serge Modular-Scapes wieder, die er im Stockholmer EMS-Studio und zu Hause unter seinem Abul Mogard-Synthesizernamen auf Band gemalt hat.

Sie haben richtig gelesen - dies ist die erste Abul Mogard-Veröffentlichung, die als das Werk des italienischen Künstlers Guido Zen offengelegt wird. Der Electronica-Pionier der späten 90er Jahre ist bekannt für seine Arbeit mit Gamers In Exile und Goodiepal um die Jahrtausendwende und in jüngerer Zeit für die Kosmik-Einheit Brain Machine sowie das parallele Club-Projekt Vactrol Park und das Trio mit NWW-Dynamiker Colin Potter und Alessio Natalizia (Not Waving). CoH Meets Abul Mogard" lässt nach einem Jahrzehnt der Spekulationen den Schleier der fiktionalen Verstellung fallen, um Mogards Musik in ihrer größten metaphysischen Kraft zu enthüllen. Ihre anspielungsreiche Majestät wird durch CoHs computergestützte Zauberei erhöht und veredelt und allegorisch in der handgezeichneten Besonderheit des Album-Artworks verschlüsselt, das von Nick Blinko (Besitzer von Outer Himalayan Records und Mitbegründer der legendären Deathrock-Katalysatoren Rudimentary Peni) lizenziert wurde.

For their 18th vinyl release, Hard Fist welcomes Guadalajara-based producers Vongold and Fargo Devianti in the family, including an impressive remix by Jennifer Cardini and Damon Jee.

Dj, producers and performers, the Mexican duo releases collabs on Correspondant, Hard Fist, Rotten City, Her Majesty’s Ship and more. Vongold is all about low-tempo dark disco, anxious lyrics over bass lines and hundred vocal gems ; while Fargo Devianti is a magician mixing guitars, synthesizers, drums and voodoo percussion.

“Taste of Butter” is their first full EP together. Vongold’s haunted vocals stress Fargo Devianti hypnotic percussion. Together they create a psychedelic journey into mind landscapes with eclectic influences like avant-garde rock, post-punk, krautrock and darkwave sprinkled by psych folk eastern melodies and ritual percussions. This EP is probably the most rock and new-wave oriented ever released on Hard Fist.

To conclude, Jennifer Cardini and Damon Jee brought a powerful remix influenced by Detroit’s electro and breakbeat roots. Once mixed with the trippy sounds of the original version, it opens a fresh new door into the field of “dancefloor killer” music.

Born in 1989, Daniele Tomassini aka Feel Fly, dj, producer, sound composer (he recently completed the soundtrack for the movie I
Santi by Giacomo Abbruzzese, awarded at the prestigious CineMed festival in Montpellier), co-founder of the Afro Templum party, already
known for his previous works for labels such as Prins Thomas’ Norwegian Internasjonal or the Ibizenca International Feel, lands on
Simona Faraone’s label, New Interplanetary Melodies, with his first EP, after having made his debut on the same label as remixer on
the EP signed by Leo Young (NIM005).

The entire EP is inspired by the ancient and mysterious Etruscan culture, whose peoples inhabited the historical-geographical region of
central Italy: all the tracks that compose it were in fact conceived under the cloister of MANU (National Archaeological Museum of Umbria) in Perugia.

The title track, Sacrificio (A1) opens the album with an ecstatic drum-break on which powerful subs stand out, catapulting you directly
into the obscure rituals of the haruspices, intent on interpreting the signs of the divine, with the help of mysterious pads and shimmering
synths like fires in the night.

Side A continues with Hypnopedia (A2), House music characterised by pressing rhythms and sharp rides that transport us into a dreamy
dimension, a nostalgic, evocative dream of worlds that now belong only to the sphere of memory. While in Aisna (A3), which closes the
first side, the atmosphere changes decidedly towards progressive house, a sound that has become topical again in recent years, after
having raged in the second half of the 90s in those lands that were once called Etruria. And just as the Aisna was an early morning ritual
held in a field or a sacred wood, this track has all the makings of a rave at the crack of dawn.

The B side starts on the same wavelength with which the first side closed, Afro Trance Amnesia (B1), in fact it maintains that feeling
with the most sweaty dancefloors thanks to its epic breaks and vaguely Trancey arrangements that rest on dragging and obsessive
percussions able to smash any kind of dancefloor. With Thi Rie (B2) the groove becomes decidedly more disco thanks to a rolling bass
line interspersed with powerful toms and full of suspense thanks to the skilful use of enigmatic pads.

Étoile Romance (B3) is the title of the beautiful piece of Ambient that closes this first EP by Feel Fly on NIM, 6 minutes and more of
dreamy arpeggios that fit perfectly into the groove of that Italian tradition of soundtracks and library music that has produced so many
masterpieces.

Signature hypnotic organic rhythms recorded in 1996 by Debbie Jones and Robbert Heijnen as an incarnation of eXquisite CORpsE.

These tracks have existed in digital limbo for a number of years and now receive a long overdue remastered vinyl release. Kindred spirit Anatolian Weapons lends his hand on remix duties with a devastating acid rework.

Kieran Hebden’s Text Records is proud to announce Bolts, the debut album from British-Armenian producer Hagop Tchaparian, set for release in autumn 2022.

“Can I say, my friends call me Hagop? I don’t want people to struggle with my long name. I always liked that Eminem introduced himself and said “hi, my name is….” I think I want to be called Hagop so people find it easy to connect.”

Hagop’s debut album Bolts features ten tracks of hyper-personal rhythm music that mixes techno with field recordings of his travels through Armenian and Mediterranean culture. Early DJ support has come from Four Tet, Gilles Peterson and Nikki Nair. The artwork for Bolts was curated by skateboard, music and sports photography legend Atiba Jefferson.
“As a teenager I would make the pilgrimage to Slam City skateboard shop - I couldn't really afford to buy anything other than Thrasher magazine. I would see Atiba’s photos and get super inspired and want to push across the bridge and go skate Southbank. Downstairs was Rough Trade Records where I would be able to find the music from the music section in Thrasher and music i heard in the background of skate videos that I couldn’t really seem to find anywhere else. Atiba was photographing loads of these bands too so it's absolutely a crazy dream to be able to work with someone who provided so much of the inspiration throughout my life.”

Belgian artist Melawati steps up to Ellum Audio with an arresting debut album, Artimia. Produced with an array of modified machines and modular synths, it is a testament to finding beauty in chaos.

Martijn Ravesloot aka Melawati makes music out of mistakes. He comes from an indie background but has always admired Aphex Twin while playing in bands such as The Subs and working in theatre. He has a love of experimenting with soundwaves that gives rise to his complex, experimental and improvised sounds. He first met Maceo Plex while jamming and that session turned into the track 'Daliah' which dropped on Ellum Audio and was remixed by Tale of Us.

After that, Melawati wrote this most absorbing and beautiful album during the pandemic in a dark studio attic in the heart of Brussels. He set about recording live experiments on analog synths and then deconstructed and reconstructed them into the tracks presented here. The angelic tones of guest vocalist Lisa Jane feature on two tracks though the pair have never met, and Melawati is now set to take his impressive live show to Tomorrowland. His life has changed since writing the album, he now has two children and lives on a farm, but the power of this music where organic and alien worlds intersect remains utterly compelling.

Opener 'I Just Want To Go Walking' pairs a heavenly vocal with celestial chords and a bustling broken beat that strikes a powerful emotional note right from the off. The excellent 'Riddles' showcases more majestic synth work and molten melodies that suspend you in mid-air while 'Slow Pulse' is an intense layering of drones and heavy drum tumbles that again offsets light and dark, tension and release. 'Red Herring' rests with beautifully pensive synth patterns that twinkle, warp and melt before your very ears and 'You And I' takes off on a rubbery groove overlaid with heart-aching keys and shimmering, wordless vocals. 'Somebody' is brain-soothing synth bliss with lush patterns and icy drums that gently unfold to get you in a trance and the gorgeous 'Radiate' then offers a widescreen and cosmic ambient interlude. The heartbroken synths of 'Let Your Love Wash Over Me' speak of the end of a cosmic love affair and 'Violent Thoughts' rebuilds on smooth arps and smeared pads over downtempo drums. The final trio of tracks offers rousing breakbeats on 'New White Noise', uplifting synth catharsis on 'Pain And Pressure' and a melancholic lullaby on 'Stellar'.

Artimia is a beautiful mix of harmony and dissonance, of real emotional power and improvised musical elegance.

Each of the three hundred covers is different! All are numbered.

After two well-received albums of Normal Bias, the time has come for a solo debut in U Know Me of the half of this valued dub dub, i.e. Piotr Krupiński, better known as YAC.

The starting point for "We Have Much More In Common Than What Divides Us" was the rhythm, and on the one hand synthetic sounds of classic analog synthesizers with the legendary EMS VCS3 at the forefront, and on the other hand the organic hypnotic sound of Tibetan bowls and tubular bells. All together strongly processed and traditionally ground with dub techniques and marked by the tape's noise.

The amazing graphic design was created by Bartosz Szymkiewicz.

The cover design is the result of an attempt to graphically represent the album's minimalist but full of lively nuances music. Each of the forms on the cover corresponds with its surface area to the length of the work it depicts. The composition was procedurally generated by a computer program, resulting in 300 unique covers. Interestingly, the program definitely preferred to arrange the forms close together, which is an unforeseen reference to the title of the album.

Stefan Schwander aka A ROCKET IN DUB has been producing electronic music in Düsseldorf since the mid-1990s. He releases under a variety of pseudonyms such as Antonelli, Repeat Orchestra, Rhythm Maker, Harmonious Thelonious and While My Sequencer Gently Weeps. His music draws influences from techno, disco music (especially Giorgio Moroder), new wave, dub, abstract electronica and African music. In 2002, he released "Rocket No. 3", an old-school dub house classic with a distinctive vocoder voice. 20 years later, he has re-recorded the track together with JAN DELAY on vocals. Both musicians share a great passion for dub music. Jan's great voice is just as distinctive as the vocoder 20 years ago and adds a touch of humanity to the original. The collaboration is released as a limited 7" single with artwork by Hendrik Krawen.

Clear vinyl LP. The Missing Brazilians, a project helmed by Adrian Sherwood, released Warzone in 1984, it's a
collection of spaced-out dub, on which Sherwood is not afraid to make things noisy and heavy. Includes vocals
from Shara Nelson, known for her work with Massive Attack.

Heavenly Recording’s final long player release of 2022 is set to close the year on the dancefloor at home or in the clubs. More classic Heavenly remixes on wax and CD formats for your collection. Artwork by Luke Insect.

Released on Friday November 25th, these compilations follow Heavenly Remixes Volume 1 & 2 and Heavenly Remixes Volumes 3 & 4 (Andrew Weatherall Remixes).

Since the first Heavenly recording, there have been striking remixes that reframe the original track. These remakes offer a parallel reading of the last four decades of releases; they take the music to places where genres can be pulled inside out before being reassembled for different dancefloors, or for a different state of mind.

It’s a selection of those secret sounds that make up the latest in this series of flawless compilations. Each presents a parallel reading of the Heavenly Recordings story, a version that’s best heard as the light fades and the furniture gets shoved to one side of the room in decent work places the world over.

(2022 REMASTER)

Murcof"s first three albums are to be reissued on vinyl to mark the 20th anniversary of the release of his seminal debut album, Martes. Out of print for many years, these albums have been hugely influential in the worlds of minimal and ambient electronic music in their use of modern classical instrumentation, and are significant landmarks in the history of The Leaf Label. Each of the reissues is presented in a new gatefold sleeve featuring updated artwork, with Remembranza and Cosmos featuring fully remastered audio, and Cosmos including a previously unreleased bonus track.