Machine's self-titled album is shrouded in mystery. Supposedly released in 1972 on All Platinum Records, it completely disappeared without a trace and only a few copies seem to have survived, making it one of the rarest Funk albums on the planet. The album, only known to a handful of hardcore collectors, fetches prices in excess of $5000 whenever one turns up on the auction market, which happened four times in the last twenty years. Consisting of three young session musicians backing their label mates The Whatnauts, the group display a superb mix of socially-conscious hard-hitting funk and earthy soul, the album is reissued here in its original artwork and remastered by Colorsound Studio in Paris. It includes a 2-page insert with new liner notes by Charles Waring. Masterminded by singer and guitarist Michael Watson accompanied by bass player Curtis McTeer and drummer Donald McCoy, the album Machine came straight out of the New Jersey-based All Platinum studios where the label was based. The musicians had been active as session musicians for the label since the late 60s, mainly backing such label acts as The Whatnauts. As a matter of fact, the Whatnauts' manager, Bunch Herndon, makes guest appearance on the album as percussionist. Beside the core group of Watson, McTeer and McCoy, the album's line-up features several other cult musicians and also the orchestrator Sammy Lowe, a seasoned professional who had been arranging for Sam Cooke, James Brown and Nina Simone to name just a few. âÇ
Suche:mach 2
Fatalism (Ltd. LP/Black w/Red Inkspot+White Splatter)
Angst: der große Spalter der Menschheit, aber auch ihr stärkster Vereiniger.
Es ist genau dieser Gedanke, der den Kern von POLARIS' drittem Album "Fatalism" ausmacht; eine Platte, die von dem Gefühl der Verzweiflung und Dystopie geprägt ist, das die Welt in den letzten Jahren erfasst hat, und von dem überwältigenden Gefühl, dass wir machtlos sind, den Kurs zu ändern.
Während der Vorgänger "The Death Of Me" aus dem Jahr 2020 eine ausgewogene Balance zwischen Licht und Schatten bot, stürzt sich "Fatalism" kopfüber in viel dunklere und schwerere Tendenzen und zeigt POLARIS in einem neuen, entschlossenen und aggressiven Licht, was zum großen Teil der akribischen Herangehensweise der Band bei der Gestaltung der Gitarrenarbeit und des Gesangs zu verdanken ist.
Fatalism (Ltd. LP/Black w/Red Inkspot+White Splatter)
Angst: der große Spalter der Menschheit, aber auch ihr stärkster Vereiniger.
Es ist genau dieser Gedanke, der den Kern von POLARIS' drittem Album "Fatalism" ausmacht; eine Platte, die von dem Gefühl der Verzweiflung und Dystopie geprägt ist, das die Welt in den letzten Jahren erfasst hat, und von dem überwältigenden Gefühl, dass wir machtlos sind, den Kurs zu ändern.
Während der Vorgänger "The Death Of Me" aus dem Jahr 2020 eine ausgewogene Balance zwischen Licht und Schatten bot, stürzt sich "Fatalism" kopfüber in viel dunklere und schwerere Tendenzen und zeigt POLARIS in einem neuen, entschlossenen und aggressiven Licht, was zum großen Teil der akribischen Herangehensweise der Band bei der Gestaltung der Gitarrenarbeit und des Gesangs zu verdanken ist.
- A1: Fred Und Luna "Intro (Future Sounds Of Kraut)
- A2: Baikonour "Oben Beg (Mk2)
- A3: Musiccargo "Ich Geh Den Weg Mit Dir
- A4: Abrão "Intensidade (Rina Remix)
- B1: Listening Center "Portable Electronic Musical Instrument
- B2: Higamos Hogamos Presents Spacerocks "Elkamonious Split
- B3: Gilgamesh Mata Hari Duo "Florian Schneider-Esleben
- B4: Kosmischer Läufer "In Der Stadt Und Auf Dem Land
- B5: Sankt Otten "Hymne Der Melancholischen Programmierer
- C1: Pyrolator "Die Geschichte Vom Heißgelaufenen Reißwolf
- C2: I Cube "Vantableu
- C3: Organza Ray "Preen Scene
- D1: Sula Bassana "Tropfsteinhöhle
- D2: Halwa "Drehwurm
- D3: Lionel, Julien, Marceau Et Rainer "Reise
- D4: Fred Und Luna "Outro (Auf Wiederhören)
16 moderne krautige elektronische Tracks inspiriert von Kraftwerk, CAN, Neu, Rother Klaus Schulze und Konsorten. Kuratiert und kompiliert von Compost Künstler Fred und Luna. Seine Auswahl (mit sechs exklusiven Stücken!) zeigt, wie gut jüngere Künstler die Kraut-Szene beleben. Die langjährig Bekannteren wie Pyrolator, Sankt Otten, I:Cube, sowieso. Und Vol. 2 ist auch schon in der Mache, folgt im Winter 2023. Die Collage auf dem Cover ist von der fantastischen Künstlerin Norika Nienstedt extra für die FSOK angefertigt worden. Sie lebt in der Kraut Metropole Düsseldorf.
Intro: Future sounds of Kraut, what’s it all about? Keine Ahnung, I don’t know. Überraschung, where we go...Alles andere als einfach oder im Grunde unmöglich, die Begriffe „Krautrock“ oder „Kraut“ zu definieren. Dennoch begeben sich Compost Records und Fred und Luna auf eine Zeitreise, um die unterschiedlichen Elemente deutscher elektronischer Musik der 1970er und 1980er Jahre und ihre Auswirkungen auf die neuere deutsche und weltweite Musikszene zu entdecken. Auf „Future Sounds Of Kraut, Vol. 1“ präsentieren die beiden Kuratoren Fred und Luna als erste „Forschungsergebnisse“ hauptsächlich Bands, die vom repetitiven Charakter vergangener deutscher Elektronika à la Kraftwerk, Can, Neu!, Harmonia und Cluster, beeinflusst sind.
Viel Vergnügen und erfolgreiches Krautifizieren!
Ocela can be a dance album if you want it to be, but above that, it is an album about dancing. The second instalment in a planned trilogy, it regards dance as a form of pathmaking, a physical chronology of a journey. Its voyager is the eponymous Ocela // an invented feminine form of the word steel // who wields both strength and brittleness. While the first album (Spojky Čiary) focused on Ocela's inception and youth, here she is mature // on a resolute trajectory between birth and passing away.
Ocela is not a concept album // unless you want it to be // but it is an album built around beats. While there is a loose precedent for rhythms in the two-piece project Jamka, the trilogy also marks Daniel Kordik's solo return to melodical composition. On this record, Ocela dances on her orbits in patterns that are harmonious but always slightly elliptic. Each song on the album travels with its own varying velocity, before it abruptly finds itself at the subjective beginning. Then it goes through further revolutions, with determination bordering on a lack of choice.
Recorded live onto a 4-track before mixing, Ocela is unlike its predecessor in that it shuns any form of field recording, and was instead made using only hardware (Elektron Octatrack MK1, Elektron Digitone, Jomox Mbase01).
Daniel Kordik, also known as Iskra, is one half of Jamka, member of the Urbsounds Collective, co-founder of Earshots Recordings and Ocela is his second release on the melodramatic label Weltschmerzen.
Pink Vinyl[26,26 €]
Östro 430 waren schon immer eine sehr besondere Band. Eine kurze Zeitreise: Es sind die späten 70er- und frühen 80er-Jahre, und in Düsseldorf proben Dutzende junger Gruppen die Revolution: Male, Mittagspause (später Fehlfarben), ZK (später Tote Hosen), S.Y.P.H., Der Plan, DAF. Ihre Barrikade, Bühne und Biertresen ist der Ratinger Hof, der schnell zum deutschen "Mekka des Punk" wird. Doch selbst hier verstoßen Östro 430 gegen jedes Gesetz. Ihre Musik ist aufgedreht, melodiös, brachial und Do-it-Yourself. Die Krönung sind die Songtexte: Lieder wie "Sexueller Notstand", "S-Bahn" und "Zu cool" werden zu Klassikern. Sie schaffen es ins Fernsehen, den britischen NME und sogar in die BRAVO. Die Welt braucht die Östros, aber sie verpasst ihre Chance: 1984 lösen sich Östro 430. 39 Jahre später bekommt die Welt eine zweite Chance. Östro 430 können nicht anders, als anders zu sein als alle anderen. Punkrock, aber nach Hausfrauenart: keine Gitarren - und trotzdem straight. Dazu Texte, die das Reimlexikon neu erfinden: Sie dichten "Diktator" auf "Vibrator" und "Hintern" auf "Pimpern". Sie teilen aus gegen jede Art von Spießertum: machtgeile Populisten, konservative Alt-Punks, ignorante Umweltschweine und politisch Überkorrekte, die Shitstorms diktieren. Und die Östros können sogar anders als anders, nämlich verletzlich sein. In "Bleib hier" heißt es: "Du sagst, ich lieb aus Angst vor dem Alleinesein und jedes Wort tritt meine Zukunft ein". Östro 430, die ungewollten Role-Models der Ü50-PunkerInnen, teilen wieder aus & prangern an - schmackhaft, nachhaltig & wohl bekömmlich. Auf "Punkrock nach Hausfrauenart" sagen nun auch Bela B. von den Ärzten, Bärchen & die Milchbubis und Stefan Stoppok mit ihren musikalischen Gastbeiträgen als Kronzeugen für die Gruppe aus. Einst waren Östro 430 Vorbilder, als es Bezeichnungen wie Rrriot Girls und Role Models noch nicht gab. Und auch heute sind sie wieder Wegbereiter. Wegbereiter wofür? Bis die Welt das passende Wort gefunden hat, nennen wir"s einfach "Punkrock nach Hausfrauenart".
Black Vinyl[26,26 €]
Östro 430 waren schon immer eine sehr besondere Band. Eine kurze Zeitreise: Es sind die späten 70er- und frühen 80er-Jahre, und in Düsseldorf proben Dutzende junger Gruppen die Revolution: Male, Mittagspause (später Fehlfarben), ZK (später Tote Hosen), S.Y.P.H., Der Plan, DAF. Ihre Barrikade, Bühne und Biertresen ist der Ratinger Hof, der schnell zum deutschen "Mekka des Punk" wird. Doch selbst hier verstoßen Östro 430 gegen jedes Gesetz. Ihre Musik ist aufgedreht, melodiös, brachial und Do-it-Yourself. Die Krönung sind die Songtexte: Lieder wie "Sexueller Notstand", "S-Bahn" und "Zu cool" werden zu Klassikern. Sie schaffen es ins Fernsehen, den britischen NME und sogar in die BRAVO. Die Welt braucht die Östros, aber sie verpasst ihre Chance: 1984 lösen sich Östro 430. 39 Jahre später bekommt die Welt eine zweite Chance. Östro 430 können nicht anders, als anders zu sein als alle anderen. Punkrock, aber nach Hausfrauenart: keine Gitarren - und trotzdem straight. Dazu Texte, die das Reimlexikon neu erfinden: Sie dichten "Diktator" auf "Vibrator" und "Hintern" auf "Pimpern". Sie teilen aus gegen jede Art von Spießertum: machtgeile Populisten, konservative Alt-Punks, ignorante Umweltschweine und politisch Überkorrekte, die Shitstorms diktieren. Und die Östros können sogar anders als anders, nämlich verletzlich sein. In "Bleib hier" heißt es: "Du sagst, ich lieb aus Angst vor dem Alleinesein und jedes Wort tritt meine Zukunft ein". Östro 430, die ungewollten Role-Models der Ü50-PunkerInnen, teilen wieder aus & prangern an - schmackhaft, nachhaltig & wohl bekömmlich. Auf "Punkrock nach Hausfrauenart" sagen nun auch Bela B. von den Ärzten, Bärchen & die Milchbubis und Stefan Stoppok mit ihren musikalischen Gastbeiträgen als Kronzeugen für die Gruppe aus. Einst waren Östro 430 Vorbilder, als es Bezeichnungen wie Rrriot Girls und Role Models noch nicht gab. Und auch heute sind sie wieder Wegbereiter. Wegbereiter wofür? Bis die Welt das passende Wort gefunden hat, nennen wir"s einfach "Punkrock nach Hausfrauenart".
Toying with the familiar but not afraid to break with expectations, AVEM presents a versatile range of works that make up his debut album.
Dream State was largely written and produced in times of the pandemic, specifically during lockdown periods — a context that grants the album an air of melancholic isolation. Offering seven songs on a double LP, it marks the collective imprint LOKD’s vinyl premiere. Merging sounds of Electronica, House and Techno, LOKDLP001 finds its place neatly outside of common categories.
In the past years, the Swiss DJ, producer and live act has made a name for himself with a steadily growing catalogue: not only through a handful of EPs, but also by releasing countless singles, remix- es and live recordings. In autumn of 2023, the Basel– based artist now reveals his first studio album.
Instrumentation ranges from studio percussion re- cordings, synthesizer & drum machine classics, all the way to ethereal piano and vocal performances; all performed and recorded by the artist himself.
Familiar structures of House and Techno are introduced, only to be broken again by gleam- ing twists and turns. A focus on percussion is ap- parent throughout the album, be it in the dynamic texture of drum recordings or in the evolving break- beat rhythms of a guiding bass drum.
Dream State tells an ephemeral tale of the uncertain, treading through an unique territory of opposites — from rapid progression to outright hypnosis, from weightless yearning all the way to euphoric catharsis.
The debut album from Nottingham UK’s chaotic metallers, Outergods, is pure intense grind with a hint of experimentation black metal and disgustingly ferocious and absolutely relentless. A Kingdom Built Upon The Wreckage Of Heaven fuses together elements of death metal, black metal and grindcore – blending Outergods’ abrasive early influences such as Morbid Angel and Strapping Young Lad with the intensity of more modern, expansive but intense bands like Full of Hell.
'Ain't Ever Easy' is the best example to date. The muscular, chooglin' beat of the country funk heater "Can't Take Back" opens Ryan Curtis' sophomore album 'Ain't Ever Easy.' Like a steam train gliding into some high desert station, it bears the strong vintage machinery of Curtis' "alt-country from the high country" sound. The song lopes in on oozing guitar and keys over a backbeat that pulses sexier than a
breakup song has the right to be. Regret has rarely sounded this happy, but Curtis is capable of turning love and loss into dripping hot, powerful songs. Over the last decade the various styles of country have become Curtis' stock-in-trade. With a gravelly growl he paints cinematic pictures of picaresque people from the Midwest and the badlands; down and out townies, bar room drifters, forlorn lovers, and resilient loners fill his visionary tales, mournful subject matter he turns into country gold.
- 1: Hörprobe Track : Kuroi Inori
- Kuroi Inori
- 2: Hörprobe Track : Kuroi Kage
- Kuroi Kage
- 3: Hörprobe Track : Shoujahitsumetsu
- Shoujahitsumetsu
- 4: Hörprobe Track : Shikabane
- Shikabane
- 5: Hörprobe Track : Satsui - Geshi No Ato
- Satsui - Geshi No Ato
- 6: Hörprobe Track : Fuyu Ga Kuru
- Fuyu Ga Kuru
- 7: Hörprobe Track : Shouku
- Shouku
- 8: Hörprobe Track : Kuroi Kagami
- Kuroi Kagami
- 9: Hörprobe Track : Mayonaka No Kaii
- Mayonaka No Kaii
- 10: Hörprobe Track : Touji No Asa
- Touji No Asa
Mit ihrem 1993er Debütalbum »Scorn Defeat« machte die Band um Sänger/Bassist Mirai Kawashimi erstmals international auf sich aufmerksam, um sich mittlerweile als eine der erfolgreichsten Metalbands Japans zu etablieren. Einstmals Vorbild für Bands wie Emperor oder Cradle Of Filth, legt Sigh jetzt 10 neue Tracks hin, die Metal-Fans mit ihrer Kreativität, Power und Bandbreite positiv überraschen werden. Psychedelic- und Prog-Elemente werden gekonnt mit den Black Metal-Wurzeln der Band vermählt.
Raised by its streets, Nym Lo has been around long enough to see the city change. His new record with Static Selektah shows promise that there is some music from the new hip-hop genres that remains true to the Bronx culture from which it was born. When asked what New York means to him and his sound, he stated "New York is the epicentre of everything. Then more specifically, Harlem is the centre of that. I'm heavily influenced by it. My look, my talk, my music, everything. My whole lifestyle."
Die gefeierte dänische Singer-Songwriterin eee gee veröffentlicht ihr zweites Albums ”SHE-REX”.
Das elegante Universum von eee gee ist eines der Paradoxe und Kontraste. Ein Ort, an dem sich die komplexe Welt einer jungen Frau, die versucht, ihren Weg im Leben zu finden, in Form von magischen
musikalischen Momenten und fesselnden Geschichten entfaltet. Oder wie eee gee einfach sagt: ”Ich mache Musik für Introvertierte, die ständig in die unbequeme extrovertierte Art, wie die Welt funktioniert, gedrängt werden.”
Nachdem eee gee sich 2022 in ihrem Heimatland als eine der besten jungen dänischen Songwriterinnen etabliert hatte, legte die Künstlerin 2023 mit einem atemberaubenden Auftritt beim Eurosonic richtig los -
gefolgt von einem Auftritt bei The Great Escape (UK), wo sie als Support von Arlo Parks spielte. Diesen Sommer stehen noch eine Reihe von Festivals in ganz Europa an, darunter das Lollapalooza in Berlin, das Roskilde Festival in Dänemark und das BBK Festival in Bilbao sowie das Pitchfork Festival in Paris und London.
You have said too much to a stranger in a bar bathroom; your back is killing you because of everything you haven’t said; you’ve overwatered your houseplants again. Small Million is here for you. Flowing from the collaboration of longtime creative partners Ryan Linder and Malachi Graham, the Portland-based indie pop outfit welds deeply affecting sonic production to smart lyrics about intuition and inhibition, losing control and ending up in unexpected places, being willing to fuck up, bodies hurt and bodies joyful.
The effect is both intimate and epic, delicate and fierce. Listen to it to ache, dance to it to heal. In the time since Small Million's last release, years of chronic pain have led lead vocalist and lyricist Malachi Graham to deep explorations of embodiment that have changed everything from her singing voice to her dance moves to her observation of human frailty. “There’s one side of chronic pain that leads you towards intuition, self-discovery, and listening closely to yourself. But it also means you end up sitting on the side of the room a lot, watching people and paying attention. Also you’re pissed,” notes Graham. Producer and instrumentalist Ryan Linder’s background as a filmmaker informs the textured richness and intelligent restraint of his song building. He approaches production with obsessive technical rigor that’s always in service of centering intense emotion.
Graham’s clear, unadulterated vocals breathe at the heart of Linder’s rich sonic terrain, drawing comparisons to The Cranberries and Florence + the Machine. Linder and Graham have been writing as a duo for a decade, but for their newest chapter they've expanded the band, enlisting Ben Tyler (Small Skies) on drums and Kale Chesney (Lo Pony) on bass and harmonies.
Small Million's evolution into a four-piece has expanded the band’s sound from their synth pop origins to encompass more organic, raw indie rock energy. Small Million has played with artists like Fakear, IDER, Hatchie, HÆLOS, Lo Moon, and Loch Lomond, and their tracks have been featured on compilations by Tender Loving Empire, PDX Pop Now!, and Vortex Music Magazine. They released their debut EP Before the Fall in June 2016, their follow-up, Young Fools, in Fall 2018, and singles “Saintly” and “Tarot” in 2019. Their newest music is dropping throughout 2022.
- The Scum Always Rises To The Top
- Morbid Bails
- Les Mufflers Du Mal
- Ride Into The Rot (Everything Lewder Than Everything Else)
- Triple D (Dead, Drunk, Depraved)
- Lucifer?S Bend
- Brain Bucket
- Open Road X Open Casket
- Motortician
- Interquaalude
- Sissy Bar Strut (Nymphony 69)
- Cycling For Satan Part Ii
Cursed to ride forever on this mortal plane after partaking in a satanic drug ritual, the Death Wheelers pledge allegiance to the god of hell and fire. However, in order to prove themselves to their newly anointed leader and for the spell to take effect, the club Will need to engage in a series of lewd acts of sex and violence across the country.Immortality comes at a price and you’re about to pay for it… The beating heart of The Death Wheelers is a rumbling engine. Since their self-titled debut in 2015 and in 2020’s cinematic-storytelling breakout, Divine Filth, the Canadian outfit have tapped into wind-through-hair freedom and careened down open roads of groove, not a cop in sight. Their third record, Chaos and the Art of Motorcycle Madness, more than lives up to its name on all fronts. With songs like “Morbid Bails” and “Lucifer’s Bend,” the in-the-know references abound, and The Death Wheelers draw from classic underground metal, scummer heavy rock and cast themselves into a cauldron of cultish biker devil worship, reveling in any and all post-apocalyptic dystopias with genuine glee at having just seen the world eat itself. You might hear some surf guitar. Crazy things can happen. A sample in “Triple D (Dead, Drunk and Depraved)” underscores the message: “We want to be free to ride our machines without being hassled by the man. And we want to get loaded.” That line, from Roger Corman’s 1966 film The Wild Angels, serves as a mission statement, and as “Lucifer’s Bend” starts by laughing about how you can’t get away from Satan, they might as well carve it into their forearms to be ready when the blast of distortion hits, as much Entombed as Motörhead, galloping and sinister, coated in road dust and blood. The band tells the story like this: “Cursed to ride forever on this mortal plane after partaking in a satanic drug ritual, the Death Wheelers pledge allegiance to the god of hell and fire. However, in order to prove themselves to their newly anointed leader and for the spell to take effect, the club will need to engage in a series of lewd acts of sex and violence across the country. Immortality comes at a price and you’re about to pay for it…” While forging songs adherent more to ideology than style, The Death Wheelers cast their biker cult in their own image, and on Chaos and the Art of Motorcycle Madness, they challenge death head-on as only those with no fear of it could hope to do.
- A1: Manifest
- A2: Everything Was Set On Fire
- A3: Doba Extazy
- A4: Plague Remedy
- A5: Zmrzli
- A6: Odovzdat
- A7: Dialogicke Vyvolavania
- A8: Goddess Disappears In The Sky
- A9: Puhpowee
- A10: Artemisia
- A11: It Felt Like I Was Supposed To Follow It
- A12: Septat
- A13: Otvorit Zilu
- A14: Doba Odriekania
- A15: Devat Mien
- A16: Ked Si Pan, Zaplat Dzban
- A17: Pohar Viny
- A18: Crash It To Dust
- A19: The Catharsis Of Human Sorrow
- A20: Death Comes When You Stop Counting On It
- A21: A Goddess Comes From Within The Earth
- A22: Chytat Sa
- A23: 13Th Month
In 2020, electronic musician Nina Pixel was offered a track on a compilation album of songs from the Liptov region. What started as a rearrangement of a single folk song eventually grew in scope and size, eventually becoming a series of releases. Titled Ancestral Archaeology, the series counts two self-released EPs, an audiovisual show in co-operation with Adrián Kriška, and now, after two years, a double LP published by Weltschmerzen. In this definitive form of an album, Ancestral Archaeology reveals itself as a musical reimagination of traditional historical Slovak culture at large.
Nina Pixel averts the perils of lapsing into inauthentic fakelore by building her music with, rather than on, the ethnographic riches of Slovakia. With the eagerness of a genuine archeological prospector, Ancestral Archaeology invokes the always present but seldom perceived linchpins of folklore culture: the desperate clinging to the memory of pre-Christian paganism and witchcraft, songs with narratives of beautiful innate wyrdness that is utterly unfit for mass culture, and superstition as the most serious longing for the balance between sense and irrationality.
If we acknowledge the truism of folklore as the shared way of expression in rural society, the techno music on Ancestral Archeology proposes that, in the urban society of ours, this role is served by raves. The argument isn't as much declared as it's implied // in music and in the spoken-word lyrics that are rife with historical and contemporary sources. An 18th-century recipe by the writer and priest Juraj Fándly proposes snorting the grounded flowers of the medicinal weed Valerian as a way of curing bad vision. "It is a proven remedy!" we are repeatedly assured, and it's not hard imagining Fándly and his parishioners, strung out on Valerian, moving almost involuntarily to the rhythms of their era just as we can move to Ancestral Archeology.
Nina Pixel is a Slovak music artist based in Berlin. Lyrics are inspired by Slovak folklore traditions, songs and shared beliefs.
Manifestation tools: cello, overtone flute koncovka, fujara, gong, metal bowls, sheep bell, field recordings of Slovak forests, Andreas's tom and various drum machines.
In the beginning there was FAUVE, cult french rock band with unique on-fire spoken-word singing & epic concerts.
4 out of the 5 former Fauve members decided to resume creation and to change everything. They are back on a new name : MAGENTA & with a totally different global identity, up to the music: new foundations. No more rock, pure electronic music from classic french touch to new electro vibes. But still featuring lyrics & singing reminding their former roots. And electronic played live using a drummer & a guitarist on top of machines & keyboards.
Odd Nosdam really doesn’t need an introduction, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 20 years then undoubtedly you’ll know what’s up, and what an absolute humbling pleasure it is to now introduce Nosdam to the Where To Now? catalogue with two new cuts that flow from ethereal, meditative contemplation through to downtown abstracted machine damage..
The record opens with ‘End is Important’, A looping, spiritual lament which forces observation, or resolution around the concept of ‘Endings.’ Passages from Tsunetomo Yamamoto’s ‘Hagakure’ seep in and out of the mix throughout, where spiraling and glistening arpeggios dance across a glorious choral mantra, intended to elevate minds towards some kind of plume of awakening. This is a heady and deep cut which finds Odd Nosdam in full introspection mode.
‘Here to Know’ recalls the work of Patrick Cowley in his best downtown ultra slow swinging funk suit, or the more obvious nods to John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 OST. However, this is far from a straight up ode to creeping machine funk - Nosdam’s injection of energetic, pulsing synth stabs move the piece into a more surreal territory, creating a masterful and experimental injection of life and colour into an otherwise smoked out landscape.
“Where I found myself when Where To Now? reached out - asking if I'd consider a vinyl release with the label - was over in Barcelona spending time with loved ones at my family's apartment in the district of Sant Gervasi.
After my initial contact with WTN?, I ventured north to Cadaqués to visit Salvador Dalí's house in Port Lligat, where Gala & Dalí spent some 50 summers. While inspired asf touring the glorious property, I captured recordings from a looping video screening in an open air theater. These recordings became the foundation of Here To Know.
Sometimes there’s a break in the road. End Is Important was realized after re-watching the Jim Jarmusch film, Ghost Dog. Stealthy and evanescent, a familiar voice carries this slow-diver with a message to the world warped cruiser in all of us.” - Odd Nosdam
On its’ release in November 2022, Daniel Stenger’s debut mini-album as Flashbaxx, Take Care My Friend, won plenty of plaudits for its’ enticing blend of jazz-funk instrumentation, audible warmth, effortless musicality, and memorable, sun-soaked songs. Now the set returns in remixed and reworked form, with a sextet of artists taking it in turns to put a new spin on the German producer’s carefully crafted and immaculately executed tracks.
The six-cut vinyl version boasts two revisions that have already made waves on digital download: a genuinely life-affirming hip-hop-soul take on ‘Strangers’ courtesy of East Midlands’ maestro Atjazz, where Katherine Kempf’s smouldering lead vocals rise above head-nodding beats, woozy electric piano chords, yearning horn arrangements and smooth bass guitar, and a sublime Moods mix of ‘Love Boat’ that re-frames the track as a languid, groove-fired shuffle through Balearic jazz-funk territory.
The other four reworks, which are exclusive to this EP, are similarly inspired. Chris Pookah collaboration ‘City Lights’ is given the remix treatment not once, but twice. First NuNorthern Soul regulars Mike Salta and Mortale re-imagine the track as a gently breezy, dusk-ready blend of bouncy, samba-influenced grooves and colourful Balearic nu-disco, before BJ Smith – the first artist to release music on Phil Cooper’s imprint way back in 2012 – takes the track into semi-acoustic, blue-eyed-soul-meets-Balearic jazz-funk territory. Gentle, tactile, and vibrant, it’s a stunning, soul-stirring revision.
To round off the EP, two producers renowned for creating atmospheric, sunrise-ready soundscapes deliver their versions of Stenger’s kaleidoscopic, musically rich aural visions. Marshall Watson handles ‘Alright’, smothering a languid, slow-motion drum machine beat in jazzy double bass, delay-laden electric piano motifs, lazy jazz guitars, rising synth strings and the dreamiest of pads.
Then, to round things off in considerable style, Tambores En Benirras reworks title track ‘Take Care My Friend’, teasing out the track’s inherent musical colour and warmth whilst adding his own distinctive spin. Pleasingly hard to pigeonhole, his remix makes extensive use of deep, dubby bass, Latin-style percussion, leisurely beats, blossoming synth sounds and all manner of effects-laden instrumental flourishes – including guitar solos that recall some of Dave Gilmour’s most laidback, eyes-closed moments. It provides a genuinely brilliant conclusion to an effortlessly impressive set of remixes.




















