Buscar:mad work

XL Recordings is proud to mark the 10th anniversary of Archy Marshall’s (aka King Krule) A New Place 2 Drown with the release of a newly remastered instrumental edition.
Originally released on 10 December 2015, A New Place 2 Drown remains a singular entry in the Archy Marshall catalogue. Known to many for his work as King Krule, Marshall released A New Place 2 Drown under his own name, highlighting a different facet of his creative identity. An atmospheric blend of submerged beats, woozy textures, and diaristic storytelling, the project earned widespread acclaim upon release, including Pitchfork’s Best New Music.
Developed in parallel with a visual world shaped with his brother and longtime collaborator Jack Marshall, the quietly influential project stands as a multidisciplinary love letter to their home of South London, originally released alongside a Will Robson-Scott–directed short film and a book of artworks, photography, and poetry by the Marshall brothers.
The 2025 instrumental edition offers a newly illuminated perspective on the record’s sonic core, drawing fresh attention to the production craft that underpins the project. By stripping the songs back to their foundations, the release highlights the intricate textures, rhythmic detail, and atmospheric depth that have helped A New Place 2 Drown grow into a cult favourite over the past decade.
“A New Place 2 Drown evokes a septic world filled with flickering halogen bulbs, sticky synth keys, and corroded outputs. Marshall has made tremendous strides as a producer, gorgeously reproducing the gloom and loneliness of early '90s hip-hop and finding a way to integrate it into his own style.” - PITCHFORK

Peter Rehberg is known for his pioneering electronic work with computer software which over time evolved into a modular set up alongside running MEGO and then Editions Mego labels.

Rehberg was a prolific collaborator, with other musicians and with contemporary dance and theatre productions, most notably with French artist and choreographer, Gisèle Vienne with whom he created a series of soundtracks from Showroomdummies, released under the name DACM in 2002 (Showroomdummies MEGO 056), to Crowd in 2017. A collection of Rehberg’s solo works for Vienne was released in 2008 (Work for GV 2004-2008 EMEGO 092). The outfit KTL, with Stephen O’Malley, was initiated by Gisèle Vienne for her work Kindertotenlieder and subsequently made a series of soundtracks for Vienne’s works branching off into a prolific series of live shows. The work Rehberg did for theatre and performance teased out aspects of his practice one may not have encountered in his own solo work as PITA or that of collaborations with other musicians.

Editions Mego is proud to present a previously unreleased theatre soundtrack made for Icelandic choreographer Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir, whom Rehberg had a decade long collaboration with until his untimely passing in 2021. The original composition for Liminal States was created by Rehberg for the performance Pervasive Magnetic Stimuli in 2018 and then revisited as a catalyst for the concepts behind Liminal States. This work is based on an ongoing artistic research conducted by the choreographer into altered states of perception through phenomenological embodiment. It is the last in a trilogy dealing with the notion of larger forces that act on us beyond our conscious mind. The trilogy consists of Pervasive Magnetic Stimuli (2018), Boundless Ominous Fields (2024) and now Liminal States (2024).

Rehberg's score for Liminal States is a vast canvas of spectral ambience at once tangible and unfathomable in its constantly shapeshifting lysergic dread. The results are a psychological journey through the mental effects of sound on space and subsequently the mind. The first part presents cascading waves of shimmering electronics laying the groundwork for the second part where the psychological illusion splinters into all manner of sonic effects taking the listener on a deep mental voyage. If references are witnessed the late period long form hallucinatory works of Coil, such as Time Machines and Constant shallowness leads to evil, are amongst a similar mind message delivered here. Unlike any other release in Rehberg’s output Liminal States is a single long form work which, despite the form, retains Rehberg’s idiosyncratic sound vision.

Guðjónsdóttir and Rehberg’s collaboration blurs that relationship into a greater force which truly enables the theme of liminal states to unfold in a brave new fashion. Rich in timbre and sonic invention this is powerful work easily holding its own outside of the intended performance whilst still complimenting the missions statement entirely. This profound collaboration has the cumulative effect where the concept and soundtrack are one and may be one of the strongest works in the entire Rehberg canon.

NPVR is the avant garde duo made up of the late Peter Rehberg and Nik Void. Editions Mego is proud to present their second and final release. No this is not some kind of Beatles synthetic AI that raises the dead reconstructed recordings but rather a new album made by the humans and their machines.

The initial meeting of Rehberg and Void was in London in 2016 and despite or due to their mutual awkwardness found solace and compatibility in the fact that they both had a similar electronic modular set up, along with matching cases to transport all. The idea to collaborate was an obvious and organic process as a means to connect their individual gear together and observe the outcome. The fruits of these initial experiments, recorded in London, resulted in the playful experimentation of their acclaimed 2017 release 33 33 (eMego 251).

Now in 2024 Editions Mego presents the logically titled follow up, 33 34. These sessions were recorded six months after the initial recordings at Peter’s home in Vienna. This was planned out as a mirror city release to the original London recordings. With Peter having access to his full studio set up this time around we encounter a rich audio landscape which organically folds together a variety of musical genres blurring any distinction between these forms so the resulting music hovers as a new cloud of sound. Any musical form, be it industrial, electro-acoustic, ambient, drone and techno all coexist and melt into the other as the ensuing result unveils a hypnotic swarm of divergent sounds (music). When active there were no lines or contexts with NPVR, either between sound or genre within these recordings or live where NPVR were at home playing at a techno club one night and an avant garde venue the next.

The initial session of these recordings was edited by Rehberg and sent to Void to further develop. Over time the final versions were agreed on and then shelved as other outside projects took over. The awkwardness had been surmounted and the two had become close friends. NPVR performed at a range of venues such as Tresor, Sutton House, Corsica, Blitz, Paris GRM #Focus2, LEV Festival and Rigas Skanumezs Festival. Following Rehberg’s untimely passing Void had difficulty listening back to the sessions but eventually thought it fit to complete and release this album, of which even the artwork (like 33 33, an image from Zurich photographer, Georg Gatsas) had been decided upon prior to Rehberg parting ways.

There is an unmistakable joy to these recordings. One encounters an enthralling exploration of their chosen machines which conveys the excitement of what can be randomly conjured when people speak through such devices. There is no grand statement or argument here, just the sheer thrill of creation and the recorded results of random encounters. The art of collaboration was always a mainstay of Rehberg’s practice from the advent of the MEGO adventure. Rehberg & Bauer was an initial collaboration with former business partner Ramon Bauer. Even at this stage one can hear a relaxed sense of delight in the sheer discovery of sound.

A mix made for the Wire magazine following the release of 33 33 hints at the freedom that comes with endless urge for exploration and discovery. Abstract tracks from Z'EV. Jérôme Noetinger and Jung An Tagen are included alongside British stalwarts The Fall and New Order. There were no lines between pop / academic / underground or mainstream in Rehberg’s world. All of it sat at the same table. It is just matter in the atmosphere, like the diverse exploration found in these recordings that comprise 33 34.

Towards the end of his life Rehberg was obsessing over the immense output of the German ambient musician Pete Namlook. An artist renowned for not only his sprawling catalogue of ambient masterpieces but one who often said his main inspiration was nature. This is apt with regards to the work of NPVR which also aligns with such thought as the intertwining of the two individual artists and their machines results in a natural symbiotic flow, as it happens, just like in the world around us.

Roughly three years after the release of Balts, Schreel Van De Velde’s debut album on Blickwinkel, the guitar and drums improv-centered duo is happy to present their sophomore album A One And A Two.

The Brussels-based musicians sound more decisive than ever: the loud became louder, the quiet became quieter, the weird became weirder and the nostalgic became more nostalgic. The fruit peeled off one of its own shells, getting closer to its heart.

The album came about as a result of 2 separate studio sessions. For a first one, they restricted themself to solely electric guitar and drums, without overdubs, and with most songs ending up as one-takers. A second one took place some months later in a different recording space, using classical guitar with a matching small, cute drum set-up.

On both sessions, the duo played the same compositions, with some additional improvisations. Afterwards they made a blend of both sessions, mixing both energies: A One And A Two. A new language, organic and well-considered, was found.

Throughout the album, touches of minimalism, American primitivism, free-improv, and 90s indie rock can be found, but always within the limits of Schreel Van De Veldes freshly found voice: one that combines sentiment and cerebrality, overview, playfulness and mystery.

Lucas Schreel is a classically trained guitarist based in Brussels. His first solo album We're Never Afraid of Getting Up Every Morning was released through Sentimental Records in 2019 and was well-received both in written-press (Humo, Enola & Indiestyle) and radio (Duyster, Radio 1 & Klara). Besides his solo work, Schreel is also a member of the lo-fi indierockband Kloothommel.
Acclaimed Brussels percussionist Casper Van De Velde made quite a name for himself through his bands like SCHNTZL, Bombataz, Donder among others. His work received prices at International Jazz Contest d’Avignon and Storm! Contest (Jazzlab). Casper is currently also a member of the recently formed An Pierlé Quartet.

»Hug of Gravity« is the second solo album by Raphael Loher and his first for Hallow Ground. The Swiss pianist and composer uses piano preparations, tape machines, and digital means to forge an aesthetic of playful reduction and rhythmic abstraction. The source material for these four sprawling pieces was culled from recordings of the artist performing the album’s predecessor, 2022’s »Keemuun.« Loher used them in a painstaking two-part working process to create an album that is both a product of and an ode to transformation, exploring themes of alternative temporalities and spatialities. »Hug of Gravity« oscillates between experimental electronic music, ambient, and minimal music and calls to mind the work of artists like William Basinski, Linda Catlin Smith, or label mate Andrius Arutiunian.

Loher laid the foundation for »Hug of Gravity« in 2020 with ten solo performances at his studio, during which he presented the pieces from his debut album. For these intimate concerts, he prepared the piano with modelling clay in order to move beyond the well-tempered tuning that dominates most of Western music. He then used a consecutive three-month residency in the Blenio Valley to refine the recordings. »I cut up and rearranged the material, then transferred the results—around 30 pieces—to a varispeed tape machine and then back to the computer. After that was done, I cut them up and rearranged them again,« he laughs. By radically reworking the material, he created an album that eschews traditional notions of time and space.

Loher points out the influence that his surroundings had on him. »The process created the music—and the place was essential to the process.« he says. He wandered through the mountains for up to nine or ten hours a day, which gave him a sense of what he calls expanded temporality. »Time just felt longer, my experiences seemed more diverse and nuanced, and it was as if I perceived my environment more clearly,« he explains. This shift in Loher’s perception of time and space—the latter also expressed in the album’s title—influenced his work with the varispeed tape machine. It allowed him to change the pitch of different recordings while layering them to let interference patterns emerge and emphasise the emotional qualities of the unconventional tunings he had used.

In this way, Loher constructed numerous interlocking narrative arcs throughout »Hug of Gravity,« an album that is ever-changing; an exercise in calm ecstasy that provides its audience with the feeling of being removed from conventional time and space. This approach is also reflected in the artwork for »Hug of Gravity,« which is based on drawings Loher made during his residency at Blenio Valley. Their fine hand-drawn lines run in parallel and let incidental patterns emerge, an effect that is only multiplied when the six different drawings that accompany each vinyl copy of the album are overlapping, forming ever-new visual constellations.

In spring 2022, Sankt Otten released their album “Symmetrie und Wahnsinn”, and now the next record is ready to enlighten our maltreated minds. “Tote Winkel” (Blind spots) is once again part of an album series with a geometric context, both creatively and musically.

Stephan Otten and Oliver Klemm made productive use of 2021, which has been decelerated to the maximum by Corona. For the first time, an external studio was booked (Mühle der Freundschaft, Bad Iburg) and the pool of analog synthesizers and other sound generators there was dusted off. Sankt Otten came up with the master plan to first free the spirit of 50 years of German electronic music trapped in the antiquated keyboards and oscillator housings, then to dismantle it, turn it inside out and reinterpret it. Echoes of music from Düssel- dorf are joined by sounds familiar from the Weserbergland, or mystical, sublime arcs of sound and, of course, the sequences typical of the Berlin School - whether side by side or interwoven. In a departure from the usual way of working, the majority of the tracks were created in the studio and in part from improvisations, which makes “Tote Winkel “ the most organic material we have heard from Sankt Otten to date.

New York-based Rafael Anton Irisarri mastered “Tote Winkel”, as he has done on productions by Biosphere, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tycho, Terry Riley, Fennesz and many more. As part of the series of graphic covers, this extraordinary die-cut artwork was also designed by Daniel Castrejon. The vinyl version comes in a die-cut cover and colored vinyl, the CD in an elegant cardboard slipcase.

The Osnabrück duo Sankt Otten, founded in 1999, have been releasing on DENOVALI since 2009. “Tote Winkel” is their 14th album of timeless (instrumental) music. The band has dedicated itself to the holy trinity of Krautrock, Ambient and contemporary Elecronics.

Opeth’s fifth album is widely considered to be not only the Swedish group’s best work but also simultaneously one of the greatest metal albums and one of the best progressive rock albums ever made. Issued in March 2001, it was the first of several collaborations with co-producer Steven Wilson and something of a commercial breakthrough for the band as well as a critical success. This vinyl pressing is based on the definitive 20th anniversary version, which was issued on seven different vinyl colours, but not on ‘classic’ black.

Swan Song

The vinyl LP at the heart of this éthiopiques 31 tracks 2 to 11 was one of the very last vinyl records ever released in Ethiopia. But above all it represents, we felt, the absolute masterpiece of the Ethiopian Groove – the Swan Song of Swinging Addis. The album leaves a clear idea for posterity of the level of sophistication and mastery that modern Ethiopian music had achieved, before being crushed under the Stalino-military heel of the Derg – as the bloody revolution that was unfolding came to be called.

Ethiopia1976.

The Revolution that broke out in February 1974 rolled on in a ruthless march. The whole of Ethiopian society was utterly stunned. The bouquets of flowers handed joyfully to the first tanks of the coup d'état were to wilt very rapidly. From September 1976 to February 1978, 18 months of Red Terror (the name given by the junta itself) spilled blood throughout the country. This fratricidal conflict took its heaviest toll among students and youth. The shift from feudalism to a cruel and primitive Stalinism left the country's citizens deeply traumatised, and snuffed out any pretence of activism, whatever the sector of society. This ice age was to last for seventeen long years.

ሙሉቀን፡መለሰ Mulukèn Mellèssè Muluqän Mälläsä

It was three tracks by Muluken that served as the opener for éthiopiques-1 more than 25 years ago. Seven more tracks appeared on éthiopiques-3 and 13, all accompanied by The Equators, which was soon to become the Dahlak Band.

The first track, Hédètch alu, also the very first piece that Muluken ever recorded, left audiences both unsettled and amazed. Reflecting the singer's extremely young age (he was just 17 at the time), this angelic voice mystified many, who thought they were in fact listening to a feminine voice. He was not yet 22 when he released his last vinyl record in 1976 with Kaifa Records (KF 39LP), one of the very last to be issued in Ethiopia, before the cassette tape became the dominant medium for music distribution – and before the new revolutionary regime put a stop to all independent musical life, via an unspeakable barrage of prohibitions and other persecutions.

Mulu qèn, literally, “A well filled day”. This tender maternal intention wasn't enough to ward off the cruelty of fate. His mother's premature death drove Muluken to leave his native Godjam, in northeast Ethiopia, to live with an uncle in Addis Ababa. Born Muluken Tamer, he took his uncle's last name – Mèllèssè.

The spelling Muluken appeared in his administrative records. Transcription of Amharic to the Latin alphabet, both in Ethiopia and for scholars, gives rise to controversies and quibbles that can never be neatly settled. French allows for a closer approximation of the original pronunciation, thanks to its battery of accent marks, confusing as they may be to anglophones.

Between rather accommodating administrative record-keepers and the various versions that pop up in interviews given by the artist, Muluken's year of birth oscillates between 1953 and 1955…

1954? One thing is certain: the artist's talent made itself known very early indeed, because he got his start in 1966-67, at the age of 13 or 14. Photos from the period attest to his extreme youth. It's a strange sort of initiation for a very young teenager to become a sensation in the heart of Addis's nightlife at the time, Woubé Bèrèha – the Wilds of Woubé. And what's more, in the club of the Queen of the Night, the Godjamé Assègèdètch Alamrèw herself, the very same that was portrayed by Sebhat Guèbrè-Egziabhér in his novel-memoir Les Nuits d’Addis Abeba2… The legendary female club owner who is remembered to this day by the capital's ageing boomers.

Muluken first tried his hand at the drums, before he grabbed the microphone. He emigrated briefly to the Zula Club, across the street from the old Addis Post Office, one of the ground-breaking bars of the burgeoning musical scene, before joining the Second Police Band in 1968, for around three years. He spent a few months with the short-lived Blue Nile Band founded by saxophonist Besrat Tammènè. As the musical scene grew increasingly successful, and pulled slowly but decisively away from its institutional ties, Muluken released his first 45rpm single in February 1972 (Amha Records AE 440). It was included in two LP Ethiopian Hit Parade compilation albums in September of the same year. All in all, Muluken released eight two-track 45s and the same number of original cassette tapes between February 1972 and 1984, the year that he departed for permanent exile in the USA. After converting to Pentecostalism in 1980, Muluken gradually abandoned all secular musical activity. In 1985, at the end of a concert in Philadelphia, he decided to quit concerts and recording for good. Mèlakè Gèbré, the historic bass player from the Walias band who was playing with him that night, recalls that everything appeared so irredeemably diabolical in Muluken's eyes, that it was to be the end of his contribution to Ethiopian Groove.

The end of the story, the beginning of a legend.

Dahlak Band, forgotten by History

Aside from his personal history and vocal talents, it must be remembered that Muluken Mèllèssè was one of the biggest names in the musical innovations that marked the end of the imperial period. These éthiopiques aim to convince those who are just discovering this hidden gem... As for Ethiopians themselves, they are to this day captivated by this singular and atypical figure in the Abyssinian pop landscape – even though he withdrew from public life some 40 years ago. Incorrigible devotees of poetic twists, of more or less hidden meanings, Ethiopians appreciate above all the care Muluken took in choosing his lyrics and the writers who penned them, such as Feqerte Haylou, Alemtsehay Wodajo and, here, Shewalul Mengistu (1944-1977). Love songs, written by women, a far cry from the conventional drivel that pleases sappy sentimentalists.

Muluken is equally acclaimed for his perfectionism when it came to music, the opposite of the overly casual approach that is all too common. He remained a faithful partner of musicians who came from a lineage that borrowed from several inventive and pioneering bands (Venus, Equators, Dahlak). Amongst them were certain artists who began their musical lives with Nersès Nalbandian at the Haile Sellassie Theatre and who come of age in around 1973 – at just the wrong time, you might say. Among them were the pillars Shimèlis Bèyènè (trumpet), Dawit Yifru (keyboards) and Tilayé Gèbrè (sax & flute). Most notably Tilayé Gèbrè, certainly one of the most important musicians, composers and arrangers of his generation, of the end of the imperial era, and of the early years of the Derg.

It was only in 1981 that a miraculous opportunity arose for Tilayé to escape the Stalinist paradise of the dictator Menguistou Haylè-Maryam. Once again it was Amha Eshèté (1946-2021) who provided a solution. The spirited and courageous producer, who had been in exile in Washington since 1975, succeeded, thanks to his incredible perseverence, in bringing the Walias Band to the USA. It was, in fact an extended Walias Band comprising ten musicians3, six of whom chose to slip away after a few concerts and the recording of an LP (The Best of Walias, WRS 100). Tilayé Gèbrè was one of these. He has been living in the USA ever since. There he joined the then-nascent Ethiopian diaspora, which lived largely unto itself, and was making only very modest headway in the American musical market. It seems unfair that Tilayé Gèbrè and the Dahlak Band were not able to benefit earlier from the public recognition that they do deserve.

A similar draining away of the top-rate talents would lead to the reorganization of the major groups of the “Derg Time”. The remaining artists spread themselves around between Ibex Band (renamed Roha Band), Ethio Star Band and a remodeled Walias Band. That spelled the end of the Dahlak Band.

With this record, produced by the essential Ali Abdella Kaifa a.k.a. Ali Tango, we can appreciate everything that the Derg not only destroyed, but also prevented from flourishing. This gem of Ethiopian-style afrobeat came out in 1976 (and, by way of a parenthesis, before the FESTAC 1977 in Lagos, which was attended by an impressive delegation of Ethiopian musicians — although Fela was already personna non grata in his own country). Despite everything that might distinguish this ethio-groove from Fela’s music – no colonial axe to grind, no question of political confrontation with the authorities, no claims to negritude or Africanism for the Ethiopian musicians, and less extrovertion! –, this LP fits beautifully into the saga of intense and electrified soul of the new “African” groove that Fela and Manu Dibango embodied so well from that point onwards.

In restoring this record to its place in the afrobeat epic, it can be seen that, if nothing else, the timeline bestows a legitimate pedigree and a historical primacy to works that had no international impact when they were originally released.

Warning! Masterpiece!

US ambient powerhouse and Past Inside the Present label head Zake is one of the most prolific producers in the game. He puts out new music more often than most of us put out wheelie bins. That doesn't stop him from revising what has come before, as he does here. Wash Away was made with Lucy Gooch and Black Brunswicker back in 2020 and now gets a series of subtle edits before being dropped on heavyweight wax. It is a mirage of vocal whispers, soft drones, and mindless (in a good way) musical daydreaming marbled with acoustic strings and backed with signature tape hiss. Yet another crucial work from Zake and co.

Montreal indie rock trio Plants and Animals announce "The Jungle", their fifth studio album set to be released October 23rd via Secret City Records. Their shortest album yet and certainly their boldest, "The Jungle" is eight acts in a world full of noise. The album is auto-produced and was recorded at Mixart, their studio in Montreal. The band explains : "We started working on this a couple of years ago. Warren was afraid for a friend's health. He thought he was self-medicating too much and not taking care of himself. He couldn't let go of this image of an overworked dude swallowing too many sleeping pills and falling asleep with the stove on. So it began as the place next door, sometime before Greta Thunberg turned the expression into a rallying cry, where Earth is the house and the people are sleeping. It's terrifying, and on the whole we're not unlike this friend, are we?" "The Jungle" starts with electronic drums that sound like insects at night. A whole universe comes alive in the dark. It's beautiful, complex and unsettling. Systematic and chaotic. All instinct, no plan. Voices taunt,"yeah yeah yeah." This tangled time in which we find ourselves is reflected back in shadows. Every song is such a landscape. The first one grinds to a halt and you become a kid looking out a car window at the moon, wondering how it's still on your tail as you speed past a steady blur of trees. You watch a house go up in a yellow strobe that echoes the disco weirdness of Giorgio Moroder, Donna Summer and David Bowie. You get pummelled by a rhythm then set free by a sudden change of scenery_the wind stops, clarity returns. You're under a streetlight in Queens, soft-focus, slow motion, falling in love. You speak French now too, in case you didn't already. Bienvenue. These are personal experiences made in a volatile world, and they reflect that world right back at us, even by accident. There's one song Nic sings to his teenage son who was dealing with climate change anxiety and drifting into uncharted independence. The band carries it out slowly together into a sweet blue horizon. Warren wrote the words to another shortly after losing his father. It's about the things we inherit not necessarily being the things we want. In a broader sense, that's where a lot of people find themselves right now.

Twenty years ago, ILL BILL released “What’s Wrong With Bill?”, a raw, unfiltered snapshot of where his mind was at during a dark, creative and transformative time. Chaos and clarity in musical form, a record built from trauma, truth and the New York streets that raised him. He never imagined it would become what it did: a cult classic with a revered mystique that continues to be quoted and debated 20 years later. This album captured ILL BILL at his most urgent, most aggressive and most alert to the madness around him.

For the first time in two decades, “What’s Wrong With Bill?” is being reissued on 2LP vinyl, a complete capsule including an alternate variant cover, 20th anniversary commemorative OBI strip, and, for the first time ever, a cassette edition, alongside a remastered limited edition CD. This is more than nostalgia, it’s encapsulated arcana, proudly representative of an era when Hip Hop was dangerous, fearless and alive. This one is for the true believers who never forgot.

The song titles on Van Halen's aptly titled Fair Warning don't lie. The likes of "Unchained," "Mean Street," "Push Comes to Shove," "One Foot Out the Door," and more indicate the mood the band channels on its double-platinum 1981 record — the nastiest, darkest, and fiercest album of the group's storied career. For the fourth time in four years, Van Halen throws down the gauntlet to all challengers and emerges victorious.


Sourced from the original analog tapes, pressed on MoFi SuperVinyl at Fidelity Record Pressing, and strictly limited to 5,000 numbered copies, Mobile Fidelity's UltraDisc One-Step 180g 45RPM 2LP set plays with unfettered clarity, dynamics, and immediacy. Benefitting from superb groove definition, an ultra-low noise floor, and dead-quiet surfaces, this vinyl edition captures what went down in the studio with tremendous realism and involving presence.

Taking a more controlled approach in the studio and still completing everything in less than two weeks, Van Halen and producer Ted Templeman relied on studio amplifiers to direct the sound. Further diverging from the live-on-the-floor approach of its earlier albums, the ensemble also employed overdubs to great effect. The result: Dense, stacked architecture that underlines the hard-hitting tenor of the songs — and which comes alive like never before on this reference edition that looks as good as it sounds.

The premium packaging and gorgeous presentation befit the reissue's select status. Housed in a deluxe slipcase, it features special foil-stamped jackets and faithful-to-the-original graphics that illuminate the splendor of the recording. Aurally and visually, it is made for listeners who want to immerse themselves in everything involved with the album, including the iconic cover art adopted from William Kurelek's haunting painting, "The Maze."

Isolated frames from Kurelek's childhood-inspired work — including a man bashing his head into a brick wall, a guy pinning down an adversary as he delivers bare-fist blows to his face and others watch with apparent glee, a boy tied down on a conveyer belt and being sent through the equivalent of a meat saw — adorn the front and back covers. The sunnier visual disposition of Van Halen's prior efforts gives way to something sinister and tortured, traits reflective of the music within. The band members, too, are visually depicted not in glamorous shots but in a serious black-and-white portrait in which the quartet is clad in black leather jackets.

Tough, aggressive, stark: Fair Warning comes on like a series of bare-knuckled punches to the solar plexus and boasts lyrical narratives to match. Though not a concept record, the concise album revolves around themes of roughing it on the streets and struggling to survive amid dim prospects. Singer David Lee Roth reportedly penned many of the initial lyrics after traveling to Haiti and observing extreme poverty. The characters and situations populating Fair Warning reflect hardscrabble existence, last-chance desperation, and underlying danger.

Witness the crazies, poor folks, and hunters of “Mean Street”; the former prom queen turned pornographic actress on “Dirty Movies”; the menace and vice of “Sinners Swing!”; the streetwise hustle of “Unchained”; the isolation and alienation of “Push Comes to Shove”; the desire for escape on “One Foot Out the Door”: A carefree California beach party Fair Warning is not.

Having said he felt angry and frustrated during the sessions, guitarist Eddie Van Halen uses the forceful arrangements as a playground for his seemingly unlimited arsenal. Supported by a crack rhythm section and a hyped-up Roth, he performs with an almost impossible combination of punk-like intensity, technical finesse, lyrical fluidity, and unbridled emotion. The virtuoso was increasingly butting heads with Templeton and seeking a freedom in the studio he believed denied him.

No wonder he plays like a bat out of hell. Listen to the rapid-fire manner in which he slaps the high and low E strings on the 12th fret of his instrument on “Mean Street,” instilling the tune with funk flair and metal-spiked sharpness. For the pouty strut of “Dirty Movies,” Eddie Van Halen contributes slide guitar magic made possible after he sawed off the lower portion of a Gibson SG so he could reach further down the fretboard.

Related intensity, urgency, and daredevil momentum punctuate the surging “Sinner’s Swing!” A heavily flanged, delicately melodic introduction frames the attitudinal “Hear About It Later,” among the most creative arrangements of Van Halen’s career. And do riffs come any bigger or magnetic than those on the high-wire kick of “Unchained”? As for the out-of-left-field “Sunday in the Park,” an instrumental composed on an Electro-Harmonix micro-synthesizer: Who but Eddie Van Halen to supply creep factor in such an ingenious way?

Despite selling fewer quantities than Van Halen’s prior efforts, Fair Warning remains for many diehards the record that epitomizes all of the band’s immense strengths —Roth’s manic energy and tongue-wagging humor, Alex Van Halen’s rhythmic heartbeat-in-your-chest bombast, and Michael Anthony’s lucid bass lines included. Arriving when the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and new-wave movements were taking flight, it signaled a shot across the bow from a band determined to stay a step ahead and provide proof nobody could touch what it delivered.

More than four decades later, Fair Warning still sounds that alarm.

Here are 4/5 of the early work of Dj Ultramars, before he created his own label, Mars Assault Records.

Dj Ultramars drew inspiration from records from the begining of Hard Techno; from some work of the Spiral Tribe, but also just from the musical impression he had after attending his my first free parties.
Those tracks corresponds to a certain moment in the history of the free party movement, so a release on Toolbox Killerz was logical.

The tracks have been edited so that the arrangements would be more relevant to nowadays standards, and to alow a better sound quality on vinyl. Back in 1997, we didn't know better about vinyl cutting & premastering, so we went to a legacy cutting studio that had made all the cuts for Rock & Pop for decades, and they didn't understand the specifics of such Tekno music. Therefore on their first release, those tracks didn't make much sense without the highest frequencies... This time we have their ultimate cuts, the way they should always have been cut on vinyl, thanks to the legendary Hervé @ DK mastering studio.

The capstone of Miles Davis’ electric period, Agharta reigns as a funk-rock fireball — a blazing comet streaked energy and elan, a fearless organism feasting on adventure and freedom, a seven-headed Godzilla stomping its way through Osaka, Japan. Recorded on February 1, 1975 at Osaka Festival Hall at the first of a two-show stand, the double album offers an endless abundance of surprises and shifts — as well as a road-proven ensemble whose chemistry and abilities equal that of any of Davis’ celebrated bands. If the true measure of jazz is the capacity to adapt to the moment and challenge perception, Agharta is consummate.

Sourced from the original master tapes, housed in a Stoughton gatefold jacket, and pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing in California, Mobile Fidelity’s numbered-edition 180g 33RPM 2LP set of this epic live release presents it in audiophile sound on a domestic pressing for the first time. Offering greater degrees of separation, detail, and richness than the compressed CD editions and more clarity, openness, and presence than older vinyl copies, this version of the 1975 release helps bring the concert stage to your home. Just make sure your turntable and speakers are up to the challenge of Davis and Co.’s explosive performances — and producing the decibels they demand.

Teeming with vibrant colors, tones, and pace, Mobile Fidelity’s reissue captures the hear-it-to-believe-it flow, sweep, and moodiness of the music. Though the group honors looseness and freedom with religious verve, the specificity and scale rendered by this remaster allows you to detect methods behind the alleged madness that are often otherwise harder to discern. This insight extends to the understated changes in volume, harmonics, and phrasings. In many ways, you can listen as Davis himself did that early February evening as he helped coordinate the overall direction and decided on whether to blow his wah-wah-wired trumpet or take a turn on the organ.

Tellingly, Agharta would likely never have been made if not for Davis’ ventures overseas and, specifically, to the Land of the Rising Sun. Having for years faced a backlash on his native soil for his choices to experiment and blow past all known borders, Davis was welcomed with open arms in Japan. The concert documented on Agharta — as well as the day’s later show, captured on the equally exciting Pangea — stemmed from a sold-out three-week tour that would ultimately mark Davis’ final public appearances for years, as he soon settled into semi-retirement and nursed the wounds connected to an unprecedented stretch of restless and relentless output.

For all the band-fueled merit of Agharta — and there’s plenty, given the cast of saxophonist Sonny Fortune, bassist Michael Henderson, drummer Al Foster, percussionist James Mtume, and guitarists Reggie Lucas and Pete Cosey seemingly blasts off to outer space and travels distant galaxies by the time this minimally edited record runs its course — Davis’ own playing often remains overlooked. As critics Richard Cook and Brian Morton observed, it is “often fantastically subtle, creating surges and ebbs in a harmonically static line, allowing him to build huge melismatic variations on a single note.” He attacks like a man on a mission, out to prove naysayers wrong and bent on trailblazing another new path forward. Convention and skeptics be damned.

Noisy and furious, dark and discordant, abstract and off-balance, radical and intense, abrasive and atmospheric, strangely beautiful and hypnotically eccentric: Agharta evades simple description, and refuses to be pinned down in any established category — rock, jazz, punk, ambient, prog, avante-garde, or otherwise. Shot through with trench-deep grooves, screaming riffs, scalding solos, and free-improv leads, its cosmic thrust comes on as the equivalent of an animated pointillist painting comprised of millions of textured dots, dashes, and dabs that hold your attention so raptly you want to revisit the ideas again and again.

Always steps ahead of everyone else, Davis knew what he was doing even when Agharta debuted in Japan before later hitting U.S. markets. Though “Maiysha” and “Theme from Jack Johnson” are identified in the track listing, the record contains a number of uncredited references to other Davis works, including a nod to “So What.” This decision to bypass labels only adds to the art of the reveal — the rare black magic in which Agharta expertly deals.

Hamburg’s very own Madison returns to his home base wanted BEATZ with a stripped-back, floor-driven 4-tracker that keeps things raw, warm and strictly about the groove. Get 2gether is pressed on 140g wax and built for dark basements, low ceilings and sweat on the walls, no gimmicks, just rolling tech house for DJs who still like to work the mixer.
WBZ024 – “Get 2gether” is Madison in pure DJ mode: four functional, characterful tracks that slide into any proper tech house or stripped techno set and stay there for a long time.

Deey, a native of Futenma, Okinawa, is one of the most popular artists today, known for his collaboration with Leo Iwamura on "Deep Blue," and EVO, who has
made a name for himself with The Anthem, hosted by IMUHA BLACK, and is attracting attention. This LP features a remarkable album by three artists at the forefront
of Japan's underground hip-hop scene, all produced by MrRn, whose popularity is rapidly rising in the Kansai region.

"Working with these three artists, I was able to bring out the best in myself and express my passion for swaying, nodding, and communicating. "Sunshin" in particular
is a song I want everyone to listen to and feel for its vibe and message!" -- Deey

"The album title, 'Amon', literally means 'Gate of Asia.' When we listen to music, we're usually drawn to the sound and groove first, so we created a record that
will resonate worldwide, regardless of the current domestic scene. I'm not really into forming and organizing a crew, so I'd like to continue working with friends
who share Amon's concept, not just in music, but in other areas as well." -- EVO

"When you hear it, it'll hit you like lightning. Creating it with my friends, supporting each other, learning from each other, I've managed to express myself more

authentically than any other production I've ever done." – MrRn

Essential repress of the perennial DJ favorite now available on wax again for the first time since the original press in 2021!

The music is compiled from two rare 12" releases dating back to the early 90s produced by Jason Adkins (who we sadly lost in 2024), and co-produced by Tony Boninsegna (whose work the labels covered extensively in the 4xLP anthology Notes From Underground), and finally remastered by Thomas P. Heckmann.

The production team shared many musical inspirations, most notably Detroit techno, jacking Chicago house, EBM, the industrial funk of Cabaret Voltaire and the pioneering bleep sounds of Warp Records' earliest releases. As a result, the tracks they made brilliantly blurred the boundaries between contemporaneous electronic music styles while also adding layers of technical polish so often missing from British club tracks of the period.

The completed, released version of 'Tone Float' remains an overlooked UK classic – a gorgeous mixture of squelchy acid bass, sharp TB-303 lines, ethereal chords and whispered spoken word snippets – while the accompanying remix, which is also featured on Garden of Eden, brilliantly re-imagines the cut as a funk-fuelled, deep electro beast.

House of Harm are proud to announce the forthcoming release of their new album Playground, out December 1st, 2023. The new record builds and expands upon the three-piece’s enthralling shadow-pop sound, a mix of midnight atmospherics, 90s era jangle pop, and contagious synth drenched hooks that further elevate the transcendent vocals of lead singer Michael Rocheford. Rounded out by Cooper Leardi (guitar / synths) and Tyler Kershaw (guitar / synth), House of Harm have amassed an impressive following as something of a best kept secret among their growing fanbase, leading to sold out shows on both coasts by the power of word of mouth alone.

The band members have been drawn to music for as long as any of them can remember, and the drive to be around like-minded artists and make their own noise drew them all to Boston after high school. There they all quickly enmeshed themselves, playing in other bands before meeting each other. Ever since, House of Harm have been quietly making a name for themselves among music fans with darker pop persuasions via a steady stream of releases in single, ep and album form.

That attention to detail and workmanlike approach at the expense of chasing instant gratification seems to be paying dividends after years of steady effort. The journey of their new album Playground saw House of Harm stay true to that ethos. The band painstakingly narrowed the record down to an efficient 10 tracks that they felt made the most sense, both standing on their own as well as fitting into an LP that built a cohesive world for the listener to get lost in. The album’s name also reflects the experimentation and happy accidents that came about during the writing and recording process.

On “The Face of Grace” they set out to explore different dynamics by writing a song entirely without drums, but couldn’t help themselves from putting emphasis on the song’s 6/8 waltz time signature. “Two Kinds” is another first for House Of Harm in that it’s predominantly driven by acoustic guitar. That aforementioned vulnerability shows up in other areas of the songwriting process as well with “Two Kinds”, one of their most revealing songs to date from a lyrical standpoint, written from a place of reflection and weakness and tackling feelings uneasy to be put on display for public consumption.

Taken as a whole, the end result is an album representing a collection of the band’s most raw and expressive songs yet.

Alvorada is Montanha’s first long play: an ambient-leaning work, nocturnal in mood yet touched by electricity, tracing a journey from waking activity into dream logic. Recorded mostly in the late hours of the evening with windows open to the city, letting its air and sounds influence the music, it sometimes reached the early moments of sunrise. The title, meaning “dawn,” reflects both the liminal hours of its making and the band’s own renewal. These tracks are closer to drawings than songs: narratives written between instruments, moments of tension and release, fragments of memory and dream. The tracklist follows this nocturnal voyage with the patience of Eno, the disquiet of Uematsu, and the madness of Miles Davis’ Decoy, oscillating between streets and sleep, routine and reverie.

Montanha was formed in 2010 by André Azevedo, Nuno Oliveira, João Sarnadas, and Tito Silva, bonding over architecture school all-nighters on videogame soundtracks (Age of Empires, Super Mario). They began as a psychedelic rock combo and in 2013 released their self-titled EP which introduced a raw, improvised energy. But the album that was meant to follow was abandoned as the band entered hiatus. The four members turned their creative drive towards co-founding Favela Discos, where experimentation with media and form reshaped their ideas of music, and developed their taste, their way of playing, and a more personal sound that was more open and disconnected from a defined genre.

By 2017, Montanha had returned to the studio with new experience, no longer a rock band in the traditional sense but a project devoted to improvisation and electronic soundscapes. An ever gentrifying city forced them to abandon acoustic drums, and they embraced electronic beats instead, and became mobile; one guitar dissolved into full synths, leaving the other to converse with bass. Improvisation remained their compass. In improvisation there are no mistakes, only missed opportunities. Montanha found their opportunity in the routine of the studio to break routines of pop and experimental. The result is a body of nearly fifty hours of recordings, sculpted into an album.

Alvorada is not only Montanha’s first LP but also the dawn of their new phase. Improvised yet carefully sculpted, the record expands the territory of the song into nonlinear narratives, letting the language of night, dream, and city seep into its form.

This is the ultimate mini-album that can proudly be called LIP CREAM! “9 SHOCKS TERROR” has remained timeless since its original release in 1986, embodying incomparable speed and a level of perfection that defines Japanese hardcore. Opening with ‘TERROR,’ which goes straight into reverse audio and needle skips, the song structure charges forward relentlessly, shaking off the catchy, humorous, and approachable vibe that had previously defined LIP CREAM. Naoki's noisy yet melodic guitar, Pill's wild drums, Minoru's heavy yet high-speed bass, and JhaJha's intense shouts that still allow the lyrics to be clearly heard—all these elements fuse together to create powerful tracks that have reached an unprecedented sound. Recorded at Shinjuku JAM Studio, ‘9 SHOCKS TERROR’ was composed primarily by Minoru and Naoki, with lyrics and artwork by JhaJha. JhaJha's hand-drawn jacket illustration was a parody of THE FUZZTONES' album “Cinderella”. Additionally, an English translation of the lyrics is included for this RELAPSE release, helping English-speaking listeners understand the unique world of LIP CREAM. Interestingly, the title “9 SHOCKS TERROR” was revised to “9 SHOCKING TERROR” on the 2007 CD reissue by ONI Label. This revision was made after illustrator PUSHEAD, who has a long-standing relationship with LIP CREAM, pointed out a grammar error. However, the original title has been restored out of respect for the original work for this RELAPSE reissue. Following the release of this album, LIP CREAM launched their self-managed national tour “BLOODY SUMMER TOUR,” and fans who bought the album rushed to the gig. Additionally, during a show at Doshisha University in Kansai in the autumn of the same year, torches were brought onto the stage and Jha Jha set them ablaze, causing absolute chaos (footage of this incident can be viewed in the video “LIP CREAM ONLY”).