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The Good the Bad and the Zugly have been delivering premium class, antiquated rock for almost 15 years straight. They’ve always been the real deal. True heroes of the Armageddon. Whenever responsibility came knocking at the door they stuck to their guns and kept living the rock life to the fullest. Their contemptuous look at everything and
everyone who doesn’t fit into their world view has always been prominent in their sound, and their musical and lyrical expression has stayed uncompromised.

No one has yet dared to confront their satirical know-it-all attitude, but recently water has started to seep through their seemingly waterproof façade. Band members have on several occasions been observed at the Oslo’s local shopping malls wearing reading glasses, down jackets, and sensible footwear, pushing strollers filled with blaring,
chocolate devouring children. With wistful eyes they’re seen pushing strollers through to the suburbs, far away from dirty dens credible dark nooks and shitty toilets.

To mend this rapidly declining rock image they´ve decided to release what they consider to be their worst album so far: A collection of B-songs that have never made the list when assembling the list of Norwegian Grammy nominated classics. This upcoming album is
nothing less of a wonderful bouquet of contemptuous elegies who haven't yet found a place on the big, dark web. Truth be told the opinionated armor GBZ has been hiding behind was mostly for show, they’ve always beat around the bush – or as we say in Norwegian: had a walk around the porrid

Mancunians Aerial Salad describe their cross-genre sound as “Madchester Punk,” a nod to their heroes in Happy Mondays, XTC, and Carter USM, spiced with the current furore spearheaded by burgeoning Brit-wave bands like Yard Act, Shame, and High Vis. Their second album ‘R.O.I’ leans on these influences, driven forward by pure rock’n’roll swagger while conjuring a late stage, capitalist hell scape through brutalist lyrical narratives. To put it mildly, Aerial Salad is the band you want to see play the breakdown of establishment’s after party, and you already know you’re gonna love it! This is an album that moves seamlessly from pulsing post-punk beats to unstoppable stadium rock anthems. ‘The Same 24 Hours (As Beyoncé)’ is Britpop rallying against the fake facade of influencer culture, ‘All Yer Dreamin’ is Mark E Smith at the Hacienda, ‘Chances’ is Oasis taking on Talking Heads. Aerial Salad find space to explore new genres without losing the sense that this is a band born out of the hard touring, DIY punk scene, a community that continues to be close to their heart. The northern three piece want us to know they’re as authentic as it gets. Injecting that raw chaos and violent charm from the stage straight into their recordings. Their goal is to make themselves known to everyone and anyone, from rave heads to indie kids, poets to rockers. ‘R.O.I’ is fantastical while acutely bedded in modern post-Brexit, Un-united Kingdom canon. We’re all trying to find our places in this new world, let Aerial Salad be the soundtrack.

Poly Dance Theatre presents its new show: Warning: killer track! Let's start with side A: an international adventure. Backstage, we meet up with rico OBF, who has recorded MC Waraba, the Malian singer and pioneer of the "Balani show" for his forthcoming album on Blanc Manioc Records, at the dubquake studio. Still backstage, we come across androo, the little pictureditor hanging around, who offers to do a re-interpretation by re-creating a riddim from the vocal.

So here's poet rapper MC Waraba, singing in Bambara and French, telling us a story about a girl's difficult choices over a riddim made in androo.
The result is a strange, solid, bewitching and melancholy blend of dub, wave and drill trap music. The references are many and scattered, as always with androo (just take a look at his bedroom). After the pop-epic poem, dub mix versions unfold, from dub vocal, with reminiscence of the delay-cut poem, to deep, robust instrumental straight.

B side: Warning: killer track again! Warning: another kind of Wave-dub-trap. Warning: Identity is theft. Warning: Sound system style: 4 parts! Here, starting with a badly cut sample (against American transparency! long live Brecht!), we wander through a heavy chorus-stepper-weird-club-dub, ranging from the most pop to the most ruff, via the most experimental to the deepest. 4 episodes. One season. To see again and again. To play again and again (if need be).
4 episodes (Warning again: Sound system style: 4 parts!)
A series of versions in which the dub mix experiments and pushes the track to its limits.

Translated with deepl

Deep Hardcore Dub accompanied by the sweet sobering sounds of Kyla.
The voice behind UK Funky hit ‘Do You Mind’.

Kyla lends her vocals to the Soundsystem classic ‘Bengali Skank’,
originally composed by Mad Professor for Sister Audrey’s – ‘Children of the Ghetto’.
‘Dub You Mind’ is revamped & redubbed by Joe Ariwa & Paleface.

Bye Bye City Living is a hidden gem from the number 1 album ‘True Born African’ (1991).
Originally released as a solo single ‘Country Living – by Sandra Cross & The Wild Bunch’
Debuting in Spring 1985 -Spent a staggering 10 weeks at Number 1.

Uroy & Sandra in combination at their absolute best.
Produced by Mad Professor

REISSUED ON GLACIAL BLUE VINYL! Papercuts' You Can Have What You Want is the third phase in Jason Quever's ongoing pop investigations. The relatively earthbound happy/sad pop of Mockingbird and Can't Go Back has been launched into the vault of the skies. Here, Quever delves further into epic dream-pop using mostly vintage organs, pulsing bass, and Kraut-via-Ringo-inspired drum rhythms. Intact from those earlier efforts is Quever's sense of arrangement and drama, as well as his soaring vocals, draped in reverb gauze. The words reveal a fascination with mortality and things cosmic, while sonically the voice acts as another instrument. This obsessively all-analog effort (no computer processing here whatsoever!) cuts across several eras of dreamy sound: '80s/'90s Creation and 4AD Records, The Zombies, '60s French pop, even Can's Future Days--and then there's the inevitable connection to former tourmates Beach House and Grizzly Bear. Indeed, Beach House's Alex Scally helped with some of the arrangements, though You Can Have What You Want is its own strain of addictive pop. For many, it will be the blissful/melancholy jam of the spring and summer. Quever was raised on a commune in Humboldt County, orphaned, and moved up and down the West Coast before calling San Francisco home and starting Papercuts, initially as a four-track recording project. When not performing with his own band, he can often be found recording others in his studio and filling in when needed as a multi-instrumentalist in friends' groups. "It takes a few seconds of Papercuts' second album, Can't Go Back, to think that maybe you've stumbled upon something special, a delicate mood piece made to slice through the din and chaos of modern life." --Pitckfork (8.3 rating

18 freshly baked instrumental Hip Hop tracks from the best of the global underground.
To celebrate Volume 10 we've cooked up something special...
Limited edition 12" vinyl will also come with issue 1 of a 3 part Cheeba comic series illustrated by

New year, new stars, same route. The final part of our VA series embodies a futuristic and meticulously crafted production of atmospheric and incessant techno.

Outstanding artists named Hadone, HWRD, Justine Perry and Quelza bringing their unique flair to the table to tell a profound story full of eclipsing soundscapes and eternal width. The four dark and intangible contributions are made to tear down floors whilst maintaining their sophistication and depth.

Out on April 5th - Make sure to grab your limited copy and be ready for the next one!

The Words Don’t Fit The Picture is Willie Nelson’s fourteenth studio album, and one of his last at RCA Records. Originally released in 1972, the album was released not long before he made his big break with Shotgun Willie. Nelson wrote or co-wrote everything here. The album is most notable for containing Nelson’s first solo recording of “Good Hearted

The Words Don’t Fit The Picture is available as a limited edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on translucent blue coloured vinyl.

Belarusian producer Four Walls is back after a seven-year hiatus. The first time around he made some standout cuts for the likes of Traxx Underground and Kolour LTD but this time around he finds himself on the new Ultraworld Records imprint from DJ Craft. This one kicks off with the lush prog house and silky synth arps of 'Mind Charger' which soon takes you to the stars. 'Metamorphosis' is a more raw-edged and acid-laced techno stomper for peak time action and 'Summer Nights' is a bubbling, elastic tapestry of new age overtones, thudding kicks, and trance-tinged pads. A remix by Toronto-based Pletnev adds another dimension to this club-ready EP.

Rich in ancestral flows, between Ghana and Europe, powered by deep, conga led rhythms and seductive warm horn riffs come Jembaa Groove, whose new album and newly rendered sound, reminds us that jazz, in its contemporary, soulful form is not just a London ‘ting’. Highlife is Ghana’s colourful national tradition and is at the heart of Berlin based Jembaa Groove’s groove. And this newly crafted follow up to their debut album. Susuma from 2022, goes even further in provoking new perceptions of jazz and soul music helped by young and senior blood from Ghana and its diaspora. Vocal masterclasses come via Sheffield (UK) based K.O.G and original veteran of the 70s and 80s highlife scene Gyedu Blay Ambolley with Ghanian multi-instrumentalist and producer Kwame Yeboah (Kwashibu Area Band) also providing inspiration.

Yet this is not a breakout moment. For the last 2 years Jembaa Groove have been entertaining discerning dancefloors worldwide. They continue to ratchet up a solid and loyal fanbase buoyed by breakout performances at SXSW (USA), ESNS and Supersonic Jazz Festival (Netherlands). And now looking through the keyhole of 2024, with live headline and album launching dates in April confirmed in London, Paris, Madrid and Berlin and an exciting touring schedule ahead, the future of contemporary, highlife inspired Afro-Jazz is in motion and spreading like gospel.

London-born-and-raised DJ and producer Parris has announced his new EP Passionfruit, which is to be released on 22nd March 2024 via his own co-founded label can you feel the sun. Following his stand-out 2021 album Soaked In Indigo Moonlight, described as a “masterful” take on the pop genre (Crack Magazine), Passionfruit continues Parris’ affinity for polyrhythms and bouncing synths, but diving deeper into his love for clubbing and UK soundsystems, the result is a heady house compilation.

Each track on the EP is in contention with the one before it, a counterpoint to a sonic argument; melodic bubbly pop against heavy drum and bass, morning rays of sunlight against dark and swampy rhythms. Where the title track “Passionfruit” was described by Parris as imagining the “early morning of a set with the sunrise coming through the shutters”, the very next track “Slipping, Falling, Crawling” is much like the title suggests: a sludgy, percussion-heavy track which has fun with creating melody from the beat itself, stripped back and raw intent.

“Why Can’t Rabbits Wear Cowboy Boots” and “Underwater Fantasy” are almost alternate universe club classics. “WCRWCB” takes a club-formed structure, and uses it to explore the limits polyrhythms, layering chaotically over eachother, and building through the first half of the track, until it peaks with the introduction of an explosive bassline. “Underwater Fantasy” on the surface is the straightest-sounding track to come from Parris, but the disco-style vocals fight with the beat, pushing and pulling at eachother.

Parris (aka Dwayne Parris-Robinson) has dedicated himself to club culture from an early age, never missing a week at FWD>> (the club night where a generation of bass and techno DJs made their names), and was constantly tuning into Rinse FM. Immersing himself into the distinct sound of London built the foundations of the productions we hear today, with grime and drum & bass bubbling alongside slick pop references.

The making of Congo Funk!, our long-awaited journey to the musical heart of the African continent, took the Analog Africa Team on two journeys to Kinshasa and one to Brazzaville. Selected meticulously from around 2000 songs and boiled down to 14, this compilation aims to showcase the many facets of the funky, hypnotic and schizophrenic tunes emanating from the two Congolese capitals nestled on the banks of the Congo River.

On its south shore, the city of Kinshasa – capital of Democratic Republic of the Congo, the country formerly known as Zaïre – is often seen as Africa’s musical Mecca, the city that spawned such immortal bands as African Jazz, O.K. Jazz and African Fiesta, and the place to which aspiring musicians from throughout the continent would go to make a name for themselves.

But the city of Brazzaville on the north shore of the river – capital of the Congo Republic – played an equally important role in spreading Congolese sounds continentally. In addition to producing legendary bands such as Les Bantous de la Capital, it was the powerful transmitters of Radio Brazzaville that allowed the unmistakable groove of Congolese Rumba to be heard as far away as Nairobi, Yaoundé, Luanda and Lusaka thus turning the electric guitar into the continent’s most important instrument!

Although the musical landscape of these cities had been defined by a core group of bands in the late 1950s, the modernisation of Congolese music has been steadily evolving until the events surrounding the Muhammad Ali vs George Foreman boxing match marked a turning point. The promoter of that event known as “Rumble In The Jungle” was none other than the notorious Don King who needed 10 millions dollars to get Ali and Foreman into a boxing ring. The only candidate willing to put this kind of cash on the table was Mobutu Sese Seko, President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Mobutu - the megalomaniac dictator who got to power with the support of the United States and Belgium in exchange for unlimited and affordable access to the riches of the country - had a soft spot for music and it doesn’t come as a surprise that he agreed to a three-day live music festival being organised prior to the “Rumble”. Zaïre 74 - as the festival was dubbed - was meant to hype the boxing match and many stars were invited.

Although a myriads of artists flocked in for the occasion, it was the performance of James Brown on Zairian soil that caused havoc among the younger generation, inspiring hundreds of would-be musicians to take up their electric guitars and reverbs cranked to the max in search of a new sound in which hyperactive Rumba was blended with elements of psych and funk. While the results were very different from the popular music of the three Musketeers - as Tabu Ley, Franco and Verckys were known - they weren’t a complete break with tradition.

These new sounds emerged at a time when the Congolese record industry – previously dominated by European major labels – was experiencing a period of decline due to rising production costs and needed a radical change. The void was filled by dozens of entrepreneurs willing to take chances on smaller scale releases. It was the beginning of a golden age for Congolese independent record labels, and the best of them – Cover N°1, Mondenge, Editions Moninga, Super Contact – preserved the work of some of the region’s finest artists, while launching a generation of younger musicians into the spotlight.

The movement was greatly helped by legendary radio shows but it was the dynamic productions of Télé-Zaïre that set the dynamite on fire. Legend has it that TV shows were so huge that president Mobutu himself ordered RTV du Zaïre to put on daily concerts since it halted criminal activities for the duration of the evening.

Congo Funk! is the story of these sounds and labels, but most of all it is the story of two cities, separated by water but united by an indestructible groove. The fourteen songs on this double LP showcase the many facets of the Congolese capitals, and highlight the bands and artists, famous and obscure, who pushed Rumba to new heights and ultimately influenced the musical landscape of the entire continent and beyond.

Keyboardist and composer Carl Moore originally wrote, recorded and pressed only 100 (!) copies of these tracks, grabbing a quick moment of studio time during a tour of Japan in the early 1980s. Moore’s purple patch saw him becoming peers with artists such as Phyllis Hyman, Jean Carn, Janet Jackson and ‘The King of Gospel’, James Cleveland.

Carter Lake is an energetic 2 minutes 30 second blast of pure dance floor joy, that looks back at carefree days, teenage love and love lost. Moore’s voice soars, and showcases his love for the powerful stylings of jazz and gospel. On the flip, Must Be The Beat sees him explore very different textures and could easily be a long lost Prince recording found in the vaults in Paisley Park. Sounding like something jammed late at night, this one is perfect for the afterhours when there are 30 sweaty dancers left on the floor at 5am that just don’t want to go home!

This is the first release on Sweet Free Association, a new label founded by Sam Don, the DJ and curator responsible for the recent lovers rock and UK soul comps For The Love of You and Just A Touch. Born out of the wish to find another way of sharing ‘the fruits’ from his Free Association radio show and parties, these impossibly rare disco tracks are now available to a wider audience for the first time, as the vast majority of the original copies have been long lost.

Mastered at The Carvery, the lo-fi recordings have been skilfully lifted by Frank Merritt to sound big in the club, while retaining the original charm in the sound that made the tracks stand out to Sam in the first instance.

Early Moods’ sophomore album A Sinner’s Past is the ultimate dosage of classic early 70s proto-metal, 90s grunge riffing and timeless songwriting delivered with an explosive youthful energy. The Los Angeles area quartet burst onto the scene fully formed with a sound that somehow simultaneously merged gritty underground Street Doom with slick “big box” Heavy Metal melodies on their self-titled RidingEasy debut album in 2022. And it’s the band’s highly skilled musicianship paired with exquisite aesthetic taste — in addition to their killer live show — that has made them an immediate popular favorite. A Sinner’s Past takes those elements several steps higher with a nod to Soundgarden’s huge sonic depth, the low-mid fuzz drenched tones of Sabotage and classic 70s melodies and structures of Ulli Roth-era Scorpions. The latter in particular inspiring the album’s intricate tonal shifts and shimmering twin leads. “I’m very proud of these songs,” says guitarist Eddie Andrade. “We did a lot of different things, took a lot of chances and show a lot of growth, and I think people will pick up on it. I was trying to use more open chords, not the typical styles. We came off touring with Candlemass and Pentagram, sharing those shows with our heroes really pumped us up. We went into the studio just hungry to record.” The album was recorded near the band’s home base in Pico Rivera, CA by Allen Falcon of Birdcage Studios, who also mixed their debut album. “He’s a good friend of the band and we wanted to be more comfortable, in a relaxed environment for this,” Andrade says. “He had a lot of input and his ideas made a lot of impact on this recording.” The band started recording in May 2023, then worked on the album on and off for 3 months between tours, which also lends to its very refined sound. Early Moods was founded in 2015 by Andrade and vocalist/keyboardist Alberto Alcaraz after a few years of playing in thrash and death metal projects before the two realized that the classic doom that they’d grown up with was what they really wanted to explore. Going through a few lineup changes while delving deeper into the diverging influences that were calling, Early Moods arrived at the sound and lineup that grew their fanbase locally. The band released their debut EP Spellbound in 2020 on German label Dying Victim Productions, followed by their self-titled debut full length on RidingEasy Records in 2023. Early Moods is Oscar Hernandez on lead guitar, Chris Flores on drums, Elix Felciano on bass, Alcaraz on vocals/synth and Andrade on guitar.

Emotional Rescue dives back into one of its specialties, the formative years of Post Punk and Dub influenced music, presenting the, to date, unheralded Skinbat Scramble. The rarity of the unknown, the discovery of rich, lost music, it is a delight to release a compilation of the band's previously unreleased recordings. A snapshot of time, a journey that covers several decades of friendship but is concentrated here on the fertile 80's scene.

Forged around the friendship of Mark Eason and Fergus Crockford, but with ever changing line-ups, flowing in and out during misspent youths, self-taught playing, falling in and out of bands, travelling that well-worn journey from Home Counties boredom to the excitement of a rough edged London, taking in as music as possible, from Motown on to the The Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones, Bowie, Pink Floyd, Gong and Fripp & Eno, before Dr Feelgood, Eddie & The Hotrods and a dose of John Peel led to discovering Dub and Punk and witnessing that short-lived burst of creativity at the Roxy Club, Marquee or Vortex and exploring back to early Rock'n'Roll, Rockabilly and old Surf'n'Soul, alongside the likes of Wire and Suicide.

As the Post-Punk sounds mixed simultaneously with Two-Tone, local Art College gave way to university and the early struggles of finding a way in the late 70s / early 80s of Thatcher's Britain. Music was central, Skinbat Scramble finally appearing, morphing from numerous teen bands, early studio excursions of tape loops and effects leading to the first recording sessions in 1981.

The slower tempos, introspection, open structures, and shimmering experimentation of Post Punk were pivotal. John Foxx's early Ultravox, Siouxsies' "Lord's Prayer" period and The Electric Chairs seminal "So Many Ways", influenced to a freer future. PIL, ACR, Section 25 and Pink Military let imaginations briefly roam.

'Far out and weird', those first recordings made at Leeds Uni's Fine Arts Dept utilized Revoxes, Tandberg, MiniMoog and even a borrowed drummer. This was followed up with completed sessions at Elephant Studios in London, forming the basis of this compilation.

The tight scattergun rhythms on opener Submit, in both Vocal and short Dub mix, bely an unreleased band. Taught and crisp, it's like a song you've heard propelling open-minded, leftfield dancefloors for years.

The writing, musicianship and studio mastery displayed on North By Northwest and Skiddadle should not be music unreleased for almost 40 years. In North Dub and closer, Pixie Boot Dub their understanding of the opportunities of dub Reggae are clearly apparent, ethereal music wormholes for late night smokers.

However, it is in Basement Voltaire that the band step out time. Recorded in 1986 this is a 9-minute proto-techno wonder that mixes all their psychedelic meets punk youth in a crescendo of crashing claps and rolling toms that is of a time and so far ahead of its time.

And that was that, after 6 gigs, including a couple at the infamous St Martins, to an audience total you can fit on one hand, the band's first incantation closed and the master tapes were stored for several decades, waiting for "The Psychedelic Pirates" to finally surface.

Dwell Time II is the second part of a three-part project on Past Inside The Present from T.R. Jordan. Each of the albums was made using the same material in the same time frame, and they are all part of one overarching and coherent suite that he refers to as "musical composting." This is the cassette tape version and it is full of grainy, fluttering howls, soft warbling pads, pastoral references like flowing streams and mossy rocks and plenty of grand spatial elegance that harks back to the likes of Hiroshi Yoshimura and early Brian Eno experiments. Another immersive offering from this fine label, then.

'starsdust' is an ambient album composed from the fragments of Runnner's 2023 album 'like dying stars, we're reaching out.' singles 'ten' and 'eleven' are glitchy, colorful moments of reflection stretched across a few meditative minutes. Runnner's noah weinman says on the creation of this release: "I made one rule for myself while making this record and it was that I wasn't allowed to record any new audio. Every sound on this album is a repurposed stem from Like Dying Stars, We're Reaching Out. I was allowed to pitch, flip, stretch, and chop anything I wanted, but everything had to begin from something already recorded for the last album. It started out as something fun to do in transit (and to alleviate my flight anxiety). I was doing a lot of solo touring at the time and my affinity for cheap Southwest Airlines flights meant a lot of layovers. I think I made the first three or four sketches either in the air or at the airport. I made the rest of the album during the spring of 2023 when I was mostly stuck in bed recovering from tearing my achilles tendon and the subsequent surgery. A project that seemed to perfectly fit my constraints. The initial process of making these songs was an attempt to remove myself from the process a bit. I'd (sort of) randomly choose stems from songs, like the bass from one track, the drums from another, and maybe find a banjo or piano loop from a third, and then throw them together. It usually made something chaotic at first, but the joy of the album was sifting through that initial cacophony and finding the kernel of the song to keep pursuing. Many attempts were abandoned, but the twelve featured here I consider to be my most fruitful endeavors. It was very exciting, scary, and rewarding to step outside of my wheelhouse on this record and I hope you ennnjoy it."