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"Way back in the 1990s, Mark Hand, Neil Iceton & Jez Nicholl channelled their love of sci-fi-fired Motor City techno into a string of inspired releases under the alias Cubic Space Collective.

After reuniting for a memorable machine jam at Freerotation festival in 2016, Hand & Iceton headed back into the studio for a one-off session and recorded 'Holiday in Beta Centauri', a musical love letter to Mad Mike and the rest of Detroit's most militant futurist techno crew.

Sending us surging skywards via 'Binary System', where lilting lead lines, fizzing electronics and enveloping chords dance atop a snappy, cymbal-heavy drum machine rhythm, before 'Arps in Hyperspace' sees them step things up a notch via layered waves of synths, sparkling melodies and a driving, hyper-speed groove.

The North-East-based twosome then attempt to warm us to the core in the shape of 'Rigil': restless organ stabs, undulating Michigan bass, alien electronics, psychedelic acid lines and Galaxy 2 Galaxy style chords catching the ear. Bringing us gently back down to earth, they complete their deep space mission with 'Beyond The Nebula (Holiday in Beta Centauri)', a bustling electro number full of stabbing analogue bass, star-burst electronics, meditative ambient chords that shimmer full of night-sky melodies.

A fine return to action for this Teesside UR-loving techno twosome... 3,167 miles away in Detroit, their achievement will be noted."

From the UK, South Africa, France and Australia, Inner Shift Music presents their Collective Continents II release, with Mark Hand, Platform 001, G-Prod and Leo Gunn. The Ep starts with Take Some Chances which has Jazz influenced pads, chords and changes with an addictive hook, by Mark Hand who has recent releases on Soul Print and Apollo. Next comes The Last Letter by newcomer Platform 001 - a deep house track with some funk style house chords and an inspiring spoken word poem, which holds the listener's attention throughout.

On the B side we have the Gaugain brothers G-Prod (who have releases on R&S and Nightflight), with their track Horizon which has a more techy feel with its moody pads, melodic lead and subtle but driving bassline.AAThe EP is complete with a whole other level of head-nodding deepness and warmth, with Aheeoo which you would come to expect from Leo Gunn, who is noted for his multiple appearances on Deep Explorer.

Deep, jazzy, techy, warm and diverse, this EP is everything there is to love about deep house.

Apollo are delighted to welcome Steve Legget & Mark Hand to the fold with their lush new single ‘If You Cannot Try’ featuring the dulcet vocals of Greg Blackman. Originally released as an uplifting bumping house track on Ramrock Records Blackman sent the stems of the release to longtime collaborator Steve Legget for a rework. Legget tore the original to pieces, deconstructing it into a much more ambiguous form. ”I’ve never been a fan of a chorus in a song,” Legget muses. "I like songs that are not direct that leave room for your imagination - Mark and I ended up building a new song around the texture of the original.”

Hand and Legget met in the early 90s at the Northern College of Art in Middlesbrough, and have collaborated at various times in the intervening years, through a shared love of Detroit techno, experimental electronic music, jazz and funk. Their creative process involves sending audio files back and forth - “The release was written in collaboration over the internet Greg in Colchester, Mark in Hartlepool, and me in St Albans."

Hand added spaced out textures and riffs from his collection of vintage Fender Rhodes and classic synths - taking the track into sunny space funk realms that comes on like a lost release from joe Claussell’s Spiritual Life label or Basic Channel jamming with Herbie Hancock.

Using their new version as the seed - Hand decided to try his own ’Teesside Techno’ version - "I wanted to give the track more of a 'machine funk' vibe with my rework” he explains. “I generally like to work by jamming with hardware - the bass line is generated by triggering the arp on my Juno 6..using triggers from a TR606 kick drum and hats replaced by a TR909.. the result being more of a jackin' electronic funk mutation!"

This continuing game of musical pass the parcel has indeed born some juicy fruit -

Serbia's Soul Print Recordings returns after a year away, this time with Englishman Mark Hand at the helm. Four pieces of beautiful and emotive deep house from Mark, fresh from his Cobwebs EP on Uzuri earlier this year. The record kicks off with Midnight, a beautiful track with it's floaty pads and gently rippling bass tones, coupled with the great soulful voice of Greg Blackman. False Leads is a percussive number, drenched in machine soul, with on the flip, Sio's voice sits effortlessly above a downtempo beat, while Mark adds his late father's saxophone to the mix on the final jazz enfused Mountains. Complementing the wonderful music is the design, with the label art handled once again by the talented Bratislav Milenkovic, and vinyl coming in a beautiful light pink colour, making a Soul Print Recordings release both an aural and visual thing of beauty.

Omena label boss Tooli delivers three tracks all inspired and dedicated to Tompkins Square Park.

Two of the UK's unsung heroes NY*AK and Mark Hand transform the title track into a 15 minute journey with plenty twists and turns.

Deep, raw and real Then NY*AK is the man! Andrew Scott has been releasing superb bottom heavy deep house groovers for many years on various top labels (like Local Talk, Paper or Ninja Tunes Technicolor). Now its time for Quintessentials! The A-side features after the sun, a deep, minimalistic and sexy groover, and mind, a blissfull and rich low BPM tune for an early morning come down. The B-side starts with vice, a proper Detroit track bassline, strings, rims and snares - and finishes off with the funky and mellow onions. Deep, raw and real NY*AK anytime!

Apartment returns with a release exploring 3 facets of house music all inter-connected by the vocals of UK Soul & R'n'B singer, Greg Blackman (BBE Music). Steve Legget's (Four Hands, Claremont 56) original Believe Mix, the catalyst for the project, is an expansive 10 minute-plus journey through wistful dub lead by Blackman's soaring vocals. On the flip Mark Hand (Signals From The North) delivers a re-working; sculpting a beautiful, sun-kissed masterpiece featuring drums and percussion by Darren Moore alongside Hand's inspired playing on the Rhodes and Moog. To close out the release NCW finally makes a return to APT and subsequently gets lost in the DMZ pitching and twisting Blackman's vocals over a pulsating, bumping house banger.

One of the most unique albums on the Strata East label - and that's saying a heck of a lot, given the creative energies flowing through that legendary jazz outlet! Descendents Of Mike & Phoebe is a righteous little project put together by Spike Lee's father, Bill Lee, and his brothers and sisters (Cliff Lee, Grace Lee Mims, and Consuela Lee Moorhead) - working here in a group named after their slave ancestors, who are paid tribute in a beautifully flowing batch of tunes! Lee's round, warm bass tones are firmly at the head of the group on most numbers - recorded at a similar level to his excellent work with Clifford Jordan on Strata East during the same time - and other instrumentation includes piano from Consuela, flugelhorn from Cliff, and percussion from Sonny Brown and Billy Higgins - all used in a wonderfully evocative style that's even better than some of Lee's later soundtrack work. A few numbers feature vocals from Grace - singing wordlessly and with a really heavenly sort of quality - and together, the whole group have an undeniable sense of power and majesty, yet also one that's touched by a really personal sense of poetry too. Titles include a great version of Lee's "Coltrane", which was more famously recorded with Clifford Jordan.

By Drago Museveni

Passages in Time, the third album from Kasper Bjørke Quartet, traces the contours of a blend of spiritual jazz reverence and the calming grandeur of '80s ambient. Inspired by Christopher Nolan's observation that "time is the most fundamental part of our human experience," the compositions are approached as fragments of time and memory. Meditations on the elusive nature of time form the heart of the work, merging freeform jazz improvisations with cyclical synthesizer patterns that mirror its quiet undulations.
Dreamy synths intertwine with guitar, harp, trumpet, flugelhorn, saxophone, and flute, creating a spacious environment for contemplation. The music invites reflection on the choices that shape our lives and the lives of those closest to us, and on the quiet weight of our priorities within the brief span we call life on this planet. Each passage unfolds as a fleeting moment suspended in time. The subtitles hint at fragments from someone's diary, tender observations of love, parenthood, and connection. Together, the passages form a musical memoir of sorts, where memory and emotion are gently woven into the compositions.
Passages in Time does not impose structure or meaning, it reflects them, offering an open space as the instruments drift in and out of focus, tracing time's subtle rhythms and inviting the listener to infuse their own memories and meaning into these passages.
The album also marks a transformation for the Quartet project itself. Langstrakt (Claus Noreen), part of the original ensemble, continues to operate the synthesizers alongside Bjørke, while the wider constellation of contributing musicians has evolved. Strings and piano give way to flute and saxophone by Oilly Wallace, guitars by Danish ambient composer Anna Roemer, trumpet and flugelhorn by Malthe Kaptain, and cascading orchestral harp by Katie Buckley, principal harpist with the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra.
The cover painting is by American artist Marcus Leslie Singleton, courtesy of V1 Gallery, and reflects the meditative and timeless atmosphere of the music.
Passages in Time is released on Bjørke's own imprint, Sensitive Records, following the two previous Quartet albums released on Kompakt Records: The Fifty Eleven Project (2018), a debut that introduced Bjørke's ambient and neoclassical explorations, and Mother (2022), which expanded the ensemble's sound with emotive choir compositions and guest appearance by Sofie Birch (Unsound / Stroom). Together, these three albums trace a journey of artistic growth, from introspective experimentation to a fully realized, contemplative expression of time, memory, and human connection.

For the first time in more than a decade, Paul St. Hilaire (AKA Tikiman) presents a solo album – 100% Tiki.

Over his 30-plus year career, St. Hilaire has become one of dance music’s quietly legendary figures. Born and raised in Dominica, he moved to Berlin in 1994 and has lent both his voice and his musicianship to some of the most iconic electronic music from the German capital – and beyond. Renowned for his collaborations with Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus (AKA Rhythm & Sound), he has also appeared on records with Deadbeat, Rhauder, Larry Heard aka Mr. Fingers and Stereotyp (G-Stone Recordings), amongst others.

However, few know the extent of St. Hilaire’s compositional and technical mastery. From his home studio in Kreuzberg, which includes an extensive collection of vintage hardware, self-built instruments and notebooks scribbled with endless lyrics, he has created a vast archive of material spanning ambient dub, avant-jazz, lush techno and lovers rock.

Tikiman Vol. 1 is a heady, downtempo tour de force of patois metaphors on education, displacement and personal vs. global histories, as is evident on slippy album opener “Bedroom in My Bag”: Mister, mister / Where are you going? / I’m heading for a faraway land / What are you having in the bag in your hand? / Help us to understand / He said, I’ve got my bedroom in my bag.

Overall, the album’s lyrics reflect on life between Berlin and Dominica, specifically St. Hilaire’s hometown of Grand Bay, where he has worked with various musicians famous for the island’s different genres of carnival music. St. Hilaire himself always favoured the island’s more “discrete” music, developing a sonic synergy between two different geographical strains of groove and minimalism, and combining them with foundational Caribbean mixing techniques, which provide the basis for his songwriting and distinct
baritone.

Tikiman Vol.1 offers a rare insight into St. Hilaire’s complex artistry, from the eyes-down grooves of “Little Way” and the guitar-heavy digi dancehall experiment “Keep Safe,” to the subtle hypnosis of “Ten to One” and the softly crashing synth waves of closer “Three And A Half”, evoking not only beaches but also coasts and borders. It’s a fitting expression of both the breadth of St. Hilaire’s work, as well as his history as one of the few black, Berlin-based artists who, despite remaining largely overlooked, has influenced the city’s electronic music culture since its beginnings.


Credits
Written & Produced by Paul St. Hilaire
Mastered by Stefan Betke
Artwork by Grant Gibson

Kynant Records was founded in 2015 by Richard Akingbehin, a British-Nigerian radio programmer (Refuge Worldwide), music writer and DJ. Originally specialising in deep techno and featuring artists such as Cio D’Or, Terrence Dixon and Donato Dozzy, Kynant has since launched a sub-label Kynant EX which focuses on ambient, dub and experimental electronics.

Still Music are proud to present the reissue of “A Message For The DJ” by one of Detroit’s finest, Delano Smith featuring the distinct vocals of Diamondancer. Featuring the now legendary remix by Jimpster, that has constantly been played since it’s initial release in 2005 by DJ’s across all scenes within the House spectrum.

Original copies of this Deep House classic are hard to come by on the second-hand market, regularly changing hands for close to £70, if you’re lucky enough to find one! Here’s your chance to get one over on those pesky Discogs sharks. Don’t delay!

"I think I have never met anybody, with the exception of Brazilian guitarists Baden Powell and Toquinho, as connected to his instrument as Agustín Pereyra Lucena" – Vinicius de Moraes

Far Out continues its exploration into the singular catalogue of Argentine guitarist and songwriter Agustin Pereyra Lucena with a special Record Store Day edition of his most celebrated album Ese Dia Va A Llegar.

Agustín Pereyra Lucena was one of South America’s outstanding guitarists. Hailing from Buenos Aires but obsessed with the music of neighbouring Brazil, Agustin abandoned his architecture studies to pursue music full-time, earning friendship and collaborations with Brazilian music's greatest figures including Vinicius de Moraes, Baden Powell, Toquinho, Dorival Caymmi, Maria Bethania and Chico Buarque.

Originally released in 1975, the album has been better known in some parts of the world as Brasiliana – a title repurposed by Agustín's European record label in the 70s to exoticize the sounds of South America for the continental market. It finds Agustin and band—which includes key collaborators Guillermo Reuter on contrabass, and Carlos Carli on drums and percussion— at their most blissfully laid back. The album features idiosyncratic renditions of classics by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes, João Donato and Agustin’s personal hero and friend Baden Powell, alongside Agustín's own works which ooze with captivating mystical wonder.

The analog warmth of the recording is such that it feels like you’re there in mid-seventies Buenos Aires, on a balmy late night session at Estudios Audión, with a group of phenomenally impressive musicians. The heat generated is offset only by the cool temperament of everyone involved. On the handful of vocal tracks on the album, Agustin’s gentle voice is responded to by the liquid smooth vocals of Laura Hatton, Luis Maria Cosenza and Patricia Scheuer.

Agustin’s unique position in the annals of his continent’s musical history has been lovingly maintained by Agustin’s nephew Jose Luis Pereyra Lucena, who has entrusted Far Out Recordings to preserve and re-release Agustin’s works. The music has been professionally remastered at London’s Metropolis Studios, using multiple copies of well kept original vinyl.

Reissued worldwide for the first time under its original title and cover as Agustin originally intended, Ese Dia Va A Llegar will be presented in a limited edition obi-stripped gatefold replica sleeve.

To mark 15 years of Butter Side Up, the label presents a special 2×vinyl compilation featuring eight brand-new cuts from artists who have been part of the BSU story over the years - a true family affair.

Contributions from Ron Obvious, Garrett David, DJ Pipe and a host of newer collaborators reflect the breadth of the label’s community. Each artist bringing their own flavour but all carrying the BSU spirit.

The first record leans into club‑focused cuts, while the second drifts deeper into housier, after‑hours territory. Something for everyone.

Featuring original illustrations and artwork by Yideah.

2026 Repress

Inner City Sound Archives is the work of a small crew of obsessive DJs, diggers, and archivists. For years, they hunted lost reels — digging through basements, flea markets, forgotten storage rooms — until they uncovered a batch of mysterious acetate tapes. No credits, no labels. Just cryptic handwriting and the hiss of time. What they found were raw, extended disco cuts — played once or twice at underground NYC loft parties in the late '70s, passed hand to hand among a tight circle of selectors, then lost to history. Now, after painstaking transfers and full analog remastering, these tracks are back. Unpolished, hypnotic, physical. Restored with love. Cut loud. Pressed right. For our debut release: six unreleased NYC disco bombs, presented in their original long versions across Sides A & B. Once championed behind closed doors by the likes of Larry Levan, Francis Grasso, Steve D’Acquisto, Walter Gibbons, and Richie Kaczor.

Laurant Webb, Dave Coker, Justin Bailey and Dave Pine were the driving forces behind Strange Weather Studios. Based in Southeast London, the studio served as a creative hub, playing a pivotal role in shaping the sound of a groundbreaking genre. Alongside close friends and collaborators, they produced a series of influential records that have left an indelible mark on the music landscape.

This release is a heartfelt tribute to Strange Weather Studios and the talented individuals who brought its magic to life. It also honours the studio’s production partners though iconic projects such as Housey Doingz, 7th Voyage, Space Bunny, Get Fucked and Green Eyed Monster. These projects that were instrumental in forging the signature, original London Tech House sound.

The tracks on this record have been handpicked by Laurant Webb and Yossi Amoyal, meticulously restored and remastered from the rare original DATs.

This release marks a significant milestone for London Tech House, symbolising a collaboration between its key pioneers and a label that evolved alongside the genre. It’s an organic partnership that celebrates the past and looks towards the future. A project we’re incredibly proud to share with you

Steig ein in die neueste Mega-Firma von Seattle, Telehealth. Sind sie Rebellen, die mit Synth-Punk/New Wave die Grundlagen unserer techno-kapitalistischen Hölle untergraben wollen? Oder sind sie Unternehmer, die Marken aufbauen, um die Märkte zu stören und die Massen auszunehmen? Der einzige Weg, das rauszufinden, ist, ihr Debütalbum für Seattles älteste Mega-Firma, Sub Pop Records, zu kaufen. Green World Image folgt auf eine ausgedehnte US-Tournee, ein selbst veröffentlichtes Album und eine knackige 7"-Single aus dem Sub Pop Singles Club aus dem Jahr 2023. Für Fans von B-52s, Water From Your Eyes, Devo und Snooper. Die Kalshi-App ist ein ,Prognosemarkt für den Handel mit der Zukunft", eine Plattform, auf der Leute auf das Ergebnis von fast jedem realen Ereignis wetten können - von der Genauigkeit der Wettervorhersage bis hin zur Frage, ob in Gaza offiziell eine Hungersnot ausgerufen wird oder nicht. Als der Mitbegründer der Plattform, Tarek Mansour, Ende 2025 als offizieller Wett-Partner zu CNN kam, meinte er nach dem Deal: ,Die langfristige Vision ist, alles zu finanzieren und aus jeder Meinungsverschiedenheit einen handelbaren Vermögenswert zu machen." Telehealth wurde in dem chancenreichen Umfeld des Post-COVID-Seattle als skalierbares Musik-Startup mit ähnlichen Zielen gegründet. Das Unternehmen wurde 2022 von dem Ehepaar und Glücksspielbegeisterten Alexander Attitude (Synthesizer/Gesang/Gitarre) und Kendra Cox (Synthesizer/Gesang) gegründet, zu denen sich die langjährigen Mitarbeiter Ian McCutcheon (Schlagzeug), John O'Connor (Bass) und Dillon Sturtevant (Gitarre) gegründet. Die Gruppe will alle Meinungsverschiedenheiten darüber, wie die chaotische lokale ,Musikszene" weitergehen soll, zu Geld machen. Kann man DIY sein und gleichzeitig eine gute Suchmaschinenoptimierung haben? Kann man progressives kulturelles Ansehen und bares Geld gleichzeitig verdienen? Ist Kunst, die durch ,Kulturförderungen" der Tech-Industrie finanziert wird, irgendwie langweilig, authentisch gorpcore (junge Männer leben laut der New York Times den ,Quarter-Zip-Lifestyle") oder ironischerweise punkig? Für Telehealth ist die Antwort auf diese Fragen nicht ja oder nein, sondern eher eine unerschlossene Lücke im Musikmarkt, die auf eine Band wartet, die visionär und verrückt genug ist, auf die Verbreitung zu setzen. Produziert von Trevor Spencer, Green World Image, ist das zweite Album von Telehealth (nach dem Debütalbum Content Oscillator und einer Veröffentlichung des Sub Pop Singles Club, beide aus dem Jahr 2023) und sein Börsengang mit den Angel-Investoren Sub Pop ein vertikal integriertes Kunstwerk für die Post-Grunge-, Post-Flanell-Seattleiter und Konsumenten auf der ganzen Welt, die ebenfalls bereit sind, ihre eigene Leidenschaft für Musik zu finanzieren. Das traumainformierte, ergebnisorientierte und äußerst tanzbare Weirdo-Punk-Album ist inspiriert von Attitudes Zeit als ehemaliger Architekt in einer Climate PledgedÖ-Stadt, die mit ihrem Netzwerk aus effizient zonierten 5-über-1-Gebäuden die Kunst der ,Green World"-Architektur perfektioniert hat. Der PNW-Post-Punk von Telehealth schafft ähnliche architektonische Räume, in denen sich die glänzenden, futuristischen, techno-industriellen Rhythmen und Synthesizer des Seattle der Bezos-Ära mit dem rohen, unabhängigen Underground-Sound vermischen, den die Stadt aus kulturellen und Marketinggründen liebevoll bewahrt. Das Ergebnis? Stell dir XTC, REM und YMO vor, mit einem stärkeren Fokus auf ROI. Stell dir The B-52s vor, aber B2B. Stell dir einen intelligenteren Brainiac, einen transhumanen Gary Numan oder einen terminalen Online-Pylon vor. Endlich eine Band mit so vielfältigen Talenten, dass sie sowohl in deinem Keller als auch in den Amazon Spheres spielen kann.

[a] 1[USER ONBOARDING SEQUENCE]

REPRESS ALERT! Long out of press and with copies regularly changing hands for close to £100 on the second-hand market, Air Miles are proud to present a limited repress of their inaugural release, “An Ode To Midnight EP’ by Jeigo.

The tone is set from the off with the eponymously named first track of the release ‘an Ode to midnight’. The tracks mellow break beat feel is met by warm rushing pads, ebbing and flowing between textures of the night before last.

Floor focussed, zero fussing ‘Wing Systems’ carries the front side at an orbital trajectory. No time for an intro, the drums jolt you into alertness, the wobbly bass perfectly counterpointed by gated, washing keys.

‘Lime Hawk’, melancholic euphoria brings the release back to the conscious. It’s structure toy-fully crescendos and builds, all while the Balearic synth peaks with the sub line keeping you grounded throughout.

Rounding off the record is ‘By My Side’ meandering the record into slightly darker territories. The shifting keys wash over, the siren call vocals penetrate and the thudding kick punches through, anchoring the track as an emotionally driven, cerebral affair.

Solid Red Vinyl Edition - 10@ Mini album. Originally release in 2025 in a painfully limited 2x7" + Book edition.

"Dream of the Egg" is the debut solo album by Tomo Katsurada, known for his work with the Japanese psychedelic band Kikagaku Moyo. This project is a unique fusion of music and visual art, inspired by the Japanese 1920s children's book “Yume No Tamago (Dream of the Egg)”. It reveals a deeply personal journey, reflecting Tomo's dreams and the numerous rebirths experienced in 2024—a year marked by profound new beginnings in every facet of his life.

This mini album was driven by a passion for raw and immediate expression. Every song was crafted and recorded with only the materials available to him at the time, embracing an organic and handmade atmosphere. By eschewing rhythm clicks and standard instrumental tunings, a spontaneous sound emerged, capturing the essence of both uncertainty and immediacy. Adding to this distinctive sonic landscape, guest musician Jonny Nash (UK) contributed ethereal guitar sounds on the first and final tracks, enriching the record's dream-like quality.

The journey begins with the opening track, "Moshimo," which means "If..." in Japanese. Here, Jonny's guitar weaves seamlessly with the vocal melody, creating a harmonious dialogue. The first half of the album concludes with "Zen Bungalow" a cover of Gabriel Yared's “Bungalow Zen” from the soundtrack of the film “Betty Blue 37°2 Le Matin”. This particular track is his partner’s favourite song to listen to every morning and left a profound impression on him. One day, he heard a song in his dream that combined both of these tracks and loved how they blended together. This experience inspired him to create a new arrangement, "Zen Bungalow," which has become a central piece of the “Dream of the Egg” album.

The third track serves as an interlude, printed on a flexi disk attached to the middle of a picture book. This interlude transitions the listener into"Inner Garden," a bittersweet folk song that explores themes of love. The EP's narrative spans 20 minutes, culminating in the final title track “Dream of the Egg”. This piece features a delicate session between Tomo & Jonny, combining cello and guitar to create a spectrum of tones that evoke the imagery of a rainbow. The focus on smooth dynamics and meticulous play reflects an intent to convey a sense of physical trembling. This track sounds like the beginning of a new dream; as if the egg of one’s dream is about to hatch, bringing a sense of anticipation and wonder to the listener. Throughout the album, a variety of instruments come into play, drifting between notes and embracing the beauty of imperfection. By incorporating free-form sounds in a highly technological age, the record aims to reconnect listeners with the tangible, human-made quality of sound.

Special Thanks
Jonny Nash – Guitar

‘An Undying Love For A Burning World follows Converge’s Love Is Not Enough this year as a pivotal metal album about acknowledging the darkness for what it is and trying to accept it.’ - the QUIETUS

‘Neurosis Know You’re Hurting. Their Stunning New Album Is a Life Preserver.
An Undying Love for a Burning World, the band’s first album with new member Aaron Turner, is a reminder of how even the darkest music can be a guiding light’ - 9/10 ROLLING STONE

Evolution can be ugly and beautiful, painful and euphoric. An Undying Love For A Burning World is the first new release from Neurosis in a decade, and a potent statement of intent and rebirth - one that marks the first new steps of resolve and resilience.

An Undying Love For A Burning World is an epic album of colossal hypnotism - beautiful, fearsome and utterly compelling in a way that only Neurosis can be. Aaron Turner (Sumac, Isis) joins the band on vocals and guitar, a name whose legacy is intertwined with the band’s own and a true kindred spirit.

“From the moment I first heard Neurosis over 30 years ago, I felt this was the music my heart and mind had been seeking but not yet heard. Now after many years travelling along various musical paths of my own, the singular sound and spirit embodied by Neurosis continues to speak to the depths of my being. It is an honor and a true pleasure to have been welcomed so warmly into a band that not only shaped my perspective on the limitless possibilities of music - but has lived and exemplified the necessity of upholding creative integrity and camaraderie above all else.” - AARON TURNER

Neurosis have never been afraid of change, and here they embrace endless regeneration, surrendering to the emotional exorcism through heaviness and distortion that their music incites. Just as the universe tends towards balance, Neurosis’cacophony of noise, rhythm and dissonance always resolves towards moments of beauty. The addition of Turner's powerful vocals and wildly creative and unhinged approach to guitar proves to be a vital force as Neurosis find themselves again at the mercy of evolution and expression.

On every song in the band’s history, Neurosis shifts restlessly between tension and relief, invoking a feeling both feral and transcendent in listeners. The band describe their songwriting process as an inescapable impulse to create with each other - a need rather than a choice. Indeed, the band insist that their return is “not a reunion - we never broke up.”

The album was recorded by Scott Evans (Kowloon Walled City, Sumac, and Great Falls) at Studio Litho in Seattle during three weekends this winter, and mixed in three days just six weeks before release at Evan's Antisleep Audio in Oakland.

Neurosis will play their first show in seven years on the traditional lands of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana as part of Fire in the Mountains festival by special invitation of Firekeeper Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to reducing youth suicide in Indian Country.

FITM, is a unique festival known for bringing epic music to epic landscapes with the intent of reconnecting and immersing oneself with the natural world, and strengthening our ancestral roots as human beings - an aim which aligns directly with Neurosis’ deep-rooted power.

Stay tuned for further news over the coming months.

PREVIOUS PRESS:

‘In less skilful hands, this relentless sonic oppression would be gruelling, but by expressing human frailty with such visceral abandon, Neurosis have once again turned darkness into euphoria.’ - 4/5 THE GUARDIAN

‘The Oakland band has evolved from gritty metallic punk to harrowing post-hardcore prog to the majestic doom of their current phase’ - 7.9 PITCHFORK

‘It’s not often an album of such stature exceeds one’s anticipations, but Honor is too astounding to not be revered.’ - The QUIETUS

“Fires Within Fires is the summation of thirty years of experimentation in tonality and texture. Yes, NEUROSIS are firmly positioned within the extreme metal underground yet their music, with its ability to generate images of beauty akin to those many of us have experienced in our own lives – not to mention the loss that accompanies them – challenges this categorization. ‘’ - WIRE MAGAZINE - FULL PAGE REVIEW.

"Their intensity remains undimmed on Fires Within Fires...The already converted will take heart from the evidence that age is unable to wither the fury of this heaviest of bands." - KERRANG! 4K REVIEW

"Every monstrous sludge riff gnashes menacingly for the right amount of time and every delicate moment of folk-inspired drift is emotionally exacting. Neurosis continue to create art without equal, and Fires Within Fires is another worthy addition to an awe-inspiring canon containing a number of truly pioneering and timeless albums." - METAL HAMMER - 8/10 LEAD REVIEW

‘An Undying Love For A Burning World follows Converge’s Love Is Not Enough this year as a pivotal metal album about acknowledging the darkness for what it is and trying to accept it.’ - the QUIETUS

‘Neurosis Know You’re Hurting. Their Stunning New Album Is a Life Preserver.
An Undying Love for a Burning World, the band’s first album with new member Aaron Turner, is a reminder of how even the darkest music can be a guiding light’ - 9/10 ROLLING STONE

Evolution can be ugly and beautiful, painful and euphoric. An Undying Love For A Burning World is the first new release from Neurosis in a decade, and a potent statement of intent and rebirth - one that marks the first new steps of resolve and resilience.

An Undying Love For A Burning World is an epic album of colossal hypnotism - beautiful, fearsome and utterly compelling in a way that only Neurosis can be. Aaron Turner (Sumac, Isis) joins the band on vocals and guitar, a name whose legacy is intertwined with the band’s own and a true kindred spirit.

“From the moment I first heard Neurosis over 30 years ago, I felt this was the music my heart and mind had been seeking but not yet heard. Now after many years travelling along various musical paths of my own, the singular sound and spirit embodied by Neurosis continues to speak to the depths of my being. It is an honor and a true pleasure to have been welcomed so warmly into a band that not only shaped my perspective on the limitless possibilities of music - but has lived and exemplified the necessity of upholding creative integrity and camaraderie above all else.” - AARON TURNER

Neurosis have never been afraid of change, and here they embrace endless regeneration, surrendering to the emotional exorcism through heaviness and distortion that their music incites. Just as the universe tends towards balance, Neurosis’cacophony of noise, rhythm and dissonance always resolves towards moments of beauty. The addition of Turner's powerful vocals and wildly creative and unhinged approach to guitar proves to be a vital force as Neurosis find themselves again at the mercy of evolution and expression.

On every song in the band’s history, Neurosis shifts restlessly between tension and relief, invoking a feeling both feral and transcendent in listeners. The band describe their songwriting process as an inescapable impulse to create with each other - a need rather than a choice. Indeed, the band insist that their return is “not a reunion - we never broke up.”

The album was recorded by Scott Evans (Kowloon Walled City, Sumac, and Great Falls) at Studio Litho in Seattle during three weekends this winter, and mixed in three days just six weeks before release at Evan's Antisleep Audio in Oakland.

Neurosis will play their first show in seven years on the traditional lands of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana as part of Fire in the Mountains festival by special invitation of Firekeeper Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to reducing youth suicide in Indian Country.

FITM, is a unique festival known for bringing epic music to epic landscapes with the intent of reconnecting and immersing oneself with the natural world, and strengthening our ancestral roots as human beings - an aim which aligns directly with Neurosis’ deep-rooted power.

Stay tuned for further news over the coming months.

PREVIOUS PRESS:

‘In less skilful hands, this relentless sonic oppression would be gruelling, but by expressing human frailty with such visceral abandon, Neurosis have once again turned darkness into euphoria.’ - 4/5 THE GUARDIAN

‘The Oakland band has evolved from gritty metallic punk to harrowing post-hardcore prog to the majestic doom of their current phase’ - 7.9 PITCHFORK

‘It’s not often an album of such stature exceeds one’s anticipations, but Honor is too astounding to not be revered.’ - The QUIETUS

“Fires Within Fires is the summation of thirty years of experimentation in tonality and texture. Yes, NEUROSIS are firmly positioned within the extreme metal underground yet their music, with its ability to generate images of beauty akin to those many of us have experienced in our own lives – not to mention the loss that accompanies them – challenges this categorization. ‘’ - WIRE MAGAZINE - FULL PAGE REVIEW.

"Their intensity remains undimmed on Fires Within Fires...The already converted will take heart from the evidence that age is unable to wither the fury of this heaviest of bands." - KERRANG! 4K REVIEW

"Every monstrous sludge riff gnashes menacingly for the right amount of time and every delicate moment of folk-inspired drift is emotionally exacting. Neurosis continue to create art without equal, and Fires Within Fires is another worthy addition to an awe-inspiring canon containing a number of truly pioneering and timeless albums." - METAL HAMMER - 8/10 LEAD REVIEW

New album by french rapper Sheldon, including featurings with Chilly Gonzales, Jazzy Bazz, Tuerie, Asfar Shamsi...



Monsters are never where we expect them to be. They take shape in silences, in vague fears, in the baggage we carry without always understanding it. Sometimes, we also encounter them along the course of a life. On this new album, Sheldon chooses to dance with them, to tame them with wit, grace, and a sense of peace.



Following a powerful return with Grünt 75, an iconic format to which the 75e Session collective brought particularly ambitious visual staging, Sheldon unveils a fourth album that unfolds across fourteen tracks like a chiaroscuro landscape, revealing the full depth of his emotional and musical range. Through intimate narratives, the record explores identity (Être une fille), family and fatherhood (La Fenêtre and Les Monstres, the title track), as well as friendship (Eh le reuf). These are themes that run through all of us, approached here with writing that is vivid, demanding, and deeply sensitive.

Driven by a strong narrative arc, the album features songs like Être une fille, which challenges and questions us. On it, Sheldon reflects on his relationship to gender, his doubts and discomfort with the codes of masculinity, and the idea that he has sometimes imagined himself elsewhere. Tracks like La Fenêtre and Avec ça illuminate the album like moments of communion, sincere, warm, and unifying, carried by a childlike lightness that makes tomorrow disappear.

True to his open minded and ever curious artistic approach, Sheldon draws from a wide range of musical genres while keeping rap as the album’s guiding thread, giving each song its own singular identity and contributing to the balance of the whole. To shape the project, Sheldon surrounded himself with a new generation of musicians and beatmakers whose influences span rap, indie rock, pop, and experimental music. Among them are Johnny Ola, who has notably composed for Zamdane, Jazzy Bazz, and Edge, Rodolphe Babignan, Carbonne’s flamenco guitarist, and Jeune Oji, an artist signed to Friends of Friends Music. Together, they bring melodic and acoustic richness, as well as a collective generosity that deepens the album’s intimacy.

This new album also opens the door to new collaborations.

On L’école primaire, Chilly Gonzales joins Sheldon for an unconventional piano and vocals piece, driven by cinematic, deeply intimate storytelling. Using his primary school as a point of reference, Sheldon retraces his path from childhood to adulthood, somewhere between nostalgia and serenity.

On Cowgirl, Tuerie joins Sheldon for a soft, melodic ballad with an 80s tint, capturing the weightlessness of a sunlit summer.

On Sidequest, Sheldon reunites with Asfar Shamsi, who had already appeared on his Grünt. Over a delicate cloud trap production, the two artists open up about everyday pain, finding in introspection a way to put things into perspective.

Finally, Vol de nuit brings Jazzy Bazz and Sheldon together for an intimate exchange over an ethereal, mysterious production, as both artists look back on their journeys with calm and clarity.

Conceived alongside Sheldon’s closest circle, the project celebrates family, friendship, and love as its founding pillars. Sheldon chooses to step away from the images, allowing his story to be embodied instead through the faces and gestures of those around him. This approach runs through all of the project’s visuals. Rejecting the excess of spectacular image making, he chose instead to hand a camera to his loved ones so they could offer their own vision of a song from the album. By opening a small window onto his intimacy, and that of the people closest to him, Sheldon finds a way to say a great deal with very little, turning deeply personal trajectories into something universal.

Like the music videos, the album cover is rooted in a deliberately simple approach, where the fantasy of childhood disrupts reality. Designed by Tenzin, the graphic designer behind Sheldon’s recent projects, Ptite Sœur, and also work for Jul, it is based on an archival photograph taken during a traditional carnival in Tenzin’s native village. With no staging involved, the image captures children in costume mid parade, caught in a spontaneous burst of movement, embodying the free innocence of childhood.



Les Monstres marks a new chapter in Sheldon’s journey. Like a rainbow after the storm, this fourth album reveals new colours in the artist’s discography, as he delivers a record that is both demanding and accessible, intimate and open, one in which music becomes a love letter to friendship and to love itself. Set for release on April 24, 2026, the album will be followed by a tour culminating at La Cigale in Paris on December 3, 2026.

There’s a song on There’s A Whole World Out There, the second album by Canadian four-piece Arm’s Length, called “Palinopsia”. Derived from the Greek for “again” (palin) and “seeing” (opsia), it’s a visual phenomenon marked by the persistent image of something that’s no longer actually there. Singer and lyricist Allen Steinberg wrote the song wrote about “pure devotion or love towards someone that may no longer be a part of your life”, but it also applies to the record as a whole.

Because throughout this album’s 12 songs, Steinberg wrestles a with the part of life that’s been and gone. Yet there’s a noticeable difference between the person who wrote this record compared to the one who wrote Arm’s Length’s 2022 debut, Never Before Seen, Never Again Found. “This record speaks more to my life at the moment than the past,” he explains, “even though there’s still a good amount of past on it. But it’s how I’m dealing with it now, as opposed to being enveloped in it—there’s more a sense of being on the other side of it, of seeing it with hindsight. The tone has shifted a little. I’m probably just a bit more mature, as my frontal lobe is developing as we speak.” Produced by Anton DeLost—who worked with the band on Never Before Seen, Never Again Found and 2021’s EP, Everything Nice—There’s A Whole World Out There does indeed expand Arm’s Length’s horizons in accordance with Steinberg’s developing frontal lobe, presenting him as more self-reflective contemplative than he was before. He wrote the parts for all the instruments, as well as the vast majority of the lyrics, alone in his room, and then brought those initial sketches, recorded as voice memos, to drummer Jeff Whyte, who added percussion to Steinberg’s song skeletons. While the majority of the creative process was in Steinberg’s hands, it was only when these songs were recorded as a full band with Jeremy Whyte, who played bass on the record, and Ben Greenblatt that their full potential was realized. The result is that the feelings driving these songs burst and bloom with full force, building on the incredible foundations set by the band’s previous recorded output.

For her new and most radical album »Electroacoustic Works for Halldorophone«, Martina Bertoni used the electronic instrument at EMS Stockholm to create four pieces that are massive in scale and incredibly intimate, sonically restrained and emotionally overwhelming—almost ambient and always demanding your full attention.

Martina Bertoni returns to Karlrecords with »Electroacoustic Works for Halldorophone,« her most radical album yet. The foundation for the four electroacoustic pieces was laid during a residency at Stockholm’s legendary Elektronmusikstudion (EMS) that the Berlin-based cellist and composer used to explore the curious instrument, originally designed by Halldór Úlfarsson in 2008, as an algorithmic system in order to examine tunings and the mathematical relationships between Aiming to analyse and understand their interaction beyond the composer’s control, Bertoni sought to engage more deeply with the concepts of time, tuning, and, most importantly, control. Accordingly, her four »Electroacoustic Works for Halldorophone« seem both massive in scale and incredibly intimate, sonically restrained and emotionally overwhelming— almost ambient and always demanding your full attention.

While the halldorophone—famously used by Hildur Guðnadóttir for her »Joker« score—roughly resembles a cello and can be played like one, it is an electronic instrument. The vibration of its strings is being picked up, amplified, and then routed through a speaker. This creates a feedback loop that becomes increasingly complex depending on how much gain is added to individual strings. Úlfarsson gave Bertoni a carte blanche for how to handle the instrument, but she stresses that she relied on »minimal interventions—some string strumming and plucking« that set the interactions of different sounds and frequencies into motion. »I decided to not approach it like a cellist would,« she explains. »Instead I used it as a kind of generative organ by turning it into a feedback machine, with tuned feedback triggering more feedback depending on the tuning, which was based on tetraphonic scales that I could apply on the four main strings as well as the sympathetic group of strings.«

Bertoni recorded the material in the EMS studio, later composing and arranging the four complex pieces in her home in Berlin, after which they were mixed and mastered by Ciaran O’Shea. While this can be considered a compositional abstraction process, traces of her concrete work as a performer are firmly ingrained in the music. »The halldorophone doesn’t have a line output, just a double set of speakers, which is why I recorded all sounds with two microphones in the EMS studio,« she explains. »That’s why there’s plenty of breathing sounds here and there—label owner Thomas Herbst and I jokingly refer to the album as my ›chamber music record‹.« And indeed, there is a striking sense of intimacy to these four pieces throughout which individual sounds, harmonic frequencies, and even subtle rhythmic figures seem to move both on their own accord but also according to a underlying vision that steers their interplay.

Indeed, »Electroacoustic Works for Halldorophone« is an album built on and marked by contrasts. The soothing polylogue of single sounds in the higher register on opener »Omen in G« is counterpointed by massive bass drones, while the second piece, »Nominal in D,« plays a cunning game of repetition and difference by combining thick textures with all kinds of rhythmic elements. »Fades in C«—the longest of the four pieces, clocking in at 17 minutes—unlocks the emotional potentials of the sonic qualities of the halldorophone, sounding at once serene and anthemic, and »Organon in D« closes the album by underscoring how Bertoni’s unconventional approach allows her to seamlessly transform simple, quiet tones into complex, towering walls of sound.

Limited Edition of 1,000 Hand-Numbered Units on Ruby Red Vinyl. Includes never heard before audio and lyrics printed on heavy board inner sleeves!

40 years later - and still no one does it like this. We’re celebrating the unstoppable legacy of one of hip-hop’s most iconic collaborations: Doug E. Fresh and Mc Ricky D (now globally known as Slick Rick) “La Di Da Di" along with the pop dance tune "The Show."

From its very first breath, this track reshaped sound, style, and storytelling — a cultural moment that became a timeless movement. Decades on, its influence is everywhere: sampled, quoted, reimagined — but never duplicated. “La Di Da Di”and “The Show” didn’t just belong to an era — they created one.

To mark this monumental anniversary, the Hip-Hop legends decided to drop a limited 12” 40th Anniversary Edition. The release features the original versions of “La Di Da Di” and “The Show” - plus a rare demo of "The Show" as well as an unreleased street version of "La-Di-Da-Di" recorded live from The Lincoln Projects in Harlem NY) that take you deeper into the sound that started it all with the Get Fresh Crew.

Jorge Gamarra and D’Marc Cantu - two true hardware heavyweights - come together for a split EP, marking the sixth release on Zonate.

Jorge Gamarra takes the A-side with two emotion fuelled productions. Eleven Minute Shrink opens - an instantly memorable, ear-worm melody underpinned by driving electro. A standout production with real versatility. This is followed by Prolonged Grief Disorder, a more textured and immersive piece, with tension conveying a real sense of raw emotion. D’Marc Cantu handles the B-side. Based on the outskirts of Detroit, and with over two decades of stellar releases behind him, he delivers two tracks written between 2019–2020.

Haystack explores the proverbial needle-in-a-haystack - a peak-time weapon that toys with chaos through rising energy and chopped vocals, before pulling itself back into tightly controlled club pressure. Closing the record is Madripoor, a deeper cut built around floating synth lines, capturing the essence of electro’s golden era.

Indian Summer marks the second collaborative release from Satoshi Tomiie and Tomoki Tamura. Co-released via Satoshi’s Abstract Architecture and Tomoki’s Holic Trax, the EP reflects a shared musical language shaped by years behind the decks and in the studio.

Designed with the DJ in mind, the three cuts were jammed and recorded between New York and Berlin, capturing a direct, hands-on process rooted in groove and restraint.

Irish drone-doom-folk act One Leg One Eye, the project of founding Lankum member Ian Lynch and veteran noise monger George Brennan, announce their new album, CRONE, out on 1 May on AD 93.

Today the group share the first track on the album, ‘Many are my Names Besides’, on which they are joined by the elemental force that is legendary actor, performer, writer and director Olwen Fouéré (Operating Theatre) contributing vocals.

Olwen Fouéré comments:

“When Ian and George first approached me to work with them, they were already creating the Crone album as a sonic invocation of the ‘sovereignty goddess’, who personifies the land and the legitimacy to rule it, in her darkest and most terrifying form. As we spoke, the triple goddess figure of the Morrigan entered my mind, reinforced by a marked presence of crows every time we met. The Morrigan is essentially a war goddess, frequently appearing as a crow in a battlefield, a death prophet, a guardian of sovereignty, and a very powerful figure in Irish Mythology.

So I invoked her energy as a starting point, using text extracts that Ian sent me from the Ulster Cycle and other sources. The voice recording was done in one day, improvising the source material while the already composed music occupied my psyche through headphones.

Listening back, at this time in our world, I can only wonder at how much blood and war the Crone/ Crow of sovereignty is preparing to unleash now. Watch out.”

CRONE is the second album from Lynch and Brennan, following on from 2022’s slowburn slab of ambient grit, …And Take The Black Worm With Me. Bewildering, psychedelic and ultimately transcendental, the four tracks of One Leg One Eye’s CRONE shapeshift and morph endlessly in a coarse miasma. Traditional song structures and vocal melody are eschewed, instead the trio directly channel energies from the rich seams of mythological significance submerged below the Irish psyche. The anger, rage and beauty of the sovereignty goddess burn a consistent and deliberate line through the album in the form of obscure incantations and dire pronouncements, the gnarled sinews that bind it all together.

Just as the subject matter of the tracks delve deeper into Irish myth and the remote past, the temporal reality of the album reaches back into the bands prehistory, with the majority of it the material being recorded by Lynch and Brennan in 2021 before One Leg One Eye was conceived of as an entity with Brennan working on the CRONE project while Lynch worked on …And Take The Black Worm With Me.

When they were there they saw a lone woman coming to the door of the Hostel, after sunset, and seeking to be let in. As long as a weaver’s beam was each of her two shins, and they were as dark as the back of a stag-beetle. A greyish, wooly mantle she wore. Her lower hair used to reach as far as her knee. Her lips were on one side of her head.

She came and put one of her shoulders against the door-post of the house, casting the evil eye on the king and the youths who surrounded him in the Hostel. He himself addressed her from within.

"Well, O woman," says Conaire, "if thou art a wizard, what seest thou for us?"

"Truly I see for thee," she answers, "that neither fell nor flesh of thine shall escape from the place into which thou hast come, save what birds will bear away in their claws."

"It was not an evil omen we foreboded, O woman," saith he: "it is not thou that always augurs for us. What is thy name, O woman?"

"Calib," she answers.

"That is not much of a name," says Conaire.

"Lo, many are my names besides."

"Which be they?" asks Conaire.

"Easy to say," quoth she. "Samon, Sinand, Seisclend, Sodb, Caill, Coll, Díchóem, Dichiúil, Díthím, Díchuimne, Dichruidne, Dairne, Dáríne, Déruaine, Egem, Agam, Ethamne, Gním, Cluiche, Cethardam, Níth, Némain, Nóennen, Badb, Blosc, Bloár, Huae, óe Aife la Sruth, Mache, Médé, Mod."

On one foot, and holding up one hand, and breathing one breath she sang all that to them from the door of the house.

Richard Pinhas" Projekt Heldon zählt zu den markantesten Außenseitern des europäischen Undergrounds der 1970er Jahre, eine Verbindung aus den avancierten Spielarten des Progressive Rock und früher elektronischer Musik, die bis heute nichts von ihrer Dringlichkeit verloren hat. 1976 erschienen, markiert Agneta Nilsson einen Moment der Verdichtung: Die ausgedehnten Stücke entfalten sich in Zyklen aus Spannung, Schwebezustand und Entladung. Dabei folgt das Album einer inneren Logik, die zugleich präzise und offen wirkt, kontrolliert und doch jederzeit bereit, in Intensität umzuschlagen. Zum 50-jährigen gibt es nun eine Sonderedition in rotem Vinyl, handnummeriert und limitiert. Ein zentrales Album im Katalog Heldons, hier in einer sorgfältig produzierten Neuausgabe.

Zeitgleich mit der Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft 2026 veröffentlicht das Label 4AD eine besondere Double-A-Side-7-Inch-Single mit zwei alternativen WM-Hymnen von Air Miami und Colourbox. Die Single trägt den Titel "Complicated Opposition". Das Artwork stammt von Chris Bigg und verwendet Fotografien von The Douglas Brothers. Der Song "World Cup Fever" von Air Miami erschien ursprünglich 1995 auf dem Album "Me. Me. Me.". Er entstand im Sommer 1994, als Mark Robinson mit Blast Off Country Style auf Tour war - während die USA erstmals Gastgeber der Fußball-WM waren. Robinson erinnerte sich, dass er sich damals Fußballschuhe und grellorange Trainer-Shorts aus einem Second-Hand-Laden kaufte. Seine Bandkollegen nannten ihn daraufhin "Coach". Bei einem Konzert in North Carolina meinte Esther Oliver zu ihm: "Du hast World-Cup-Fieber" - eine Bemerkung, die schließlich den Song inspirierte. Der Titel wurde von Pete Weiss neu gemastert. Der zweite Track, "The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme", erschien ursprünglich 1986 als Bonustrack einer CD-Neuauflage des Debüt-Mini-Albums von Colourbox. Das Stück war als Fußball-Thema gedacht und wurde sogar für die BBC-Sendung während der 1986 FIFA World Cup in Betracht gezogen, jedoch letztlich nicht verwendet. Das Remaster stammt von Kevin Vanbergen. Auch darüber hinaus gibt es Verbindungen zwischen 4AD und Fußball. Designer Vaughan Oliver war leidenschaftlicher Fußballfan und gestaltete unter anderem Artwork für Sunderland AFC. Die Indie-Supergroup The Lillies veröffentlichte zudem den Song "And David Seaman Will Be Very Disappointed About That...", der 1991 einem Fanzine von Tottenham Hotspur beilag.

Die hochgeschätzten Euro-Metal-Pioniere Oz wurden ursprünglich 1977 in der kleinen finnischen Stadt Nakilla gegründet. Die Band bestand aus Mark Ruffneck (bürgerlicher Name Pekka Mark) am Schlagzeug, Sänger Ape De Martini (Eero Hämäläinen), Bassist Tauno Vajavaara sowie Kario Elo an der Gitarre.

Fünf Jahre nach ihrer Gründung legten Oz ihr Debütalbum vor. Mit Krachern wie “Saturday Night”, “Capricorn Man” oder dem schlüpfrigen “Second-Hand Lady” avancierten Oz schnell zur HM-Band Nummer eins in Skandinavien.

In der Folge zog man nach Stockholm um, wo 1983 der gefeierte Zweitling »Fire In The Brain« entstand. Die Platte enthielt höchst energetische Heavy-Metal-Hymnen wie “Fortune”, “Megalomaniac” oder “Gambler”. Der kanadische Journalist Martin Popoff verteilte in seinem »Collector’s Guide To Heavy Metal« 9 von 10 Punkten und schrieb: »Fire In The Brain« ist eine düstere, fast depressiv wirkende Platte, die den Hörer wie ein Güterzug trifft. Es ist ein sehr europäisch klingendes Werk – vom apokalyptisch anmutenden ‘Searchlights’ über das zähflüssige ‘Black Candles’ bis hin zum gewaltigen Titelsong werden absolut keine Gefangenen genommen.“

High Roller Records, silver vinyl, ltd 450, 425gsm heavy cardboard cover with 5mm spine, lyric sheet, 12 page booklet, poster

More Modern Soul madness from the team at Celestial Echo. No Stranger To Love is one of those rare tracks that crosses over both Modern and Northern scenes & has long been a favourite of collectors and selectors with original copies regularly changing hands for £100 + on the second hand market.

This lead to the synth laden funk track being picked up by Dam Funk & the Stones Throw crew, who shone a new light on the track via online mixes which has only increased the demand.

Officially reissued for the first time in 40 years and as always, officially licenced and remastered by Celestial Echo Records. Needless to say, buy or cry.

Repress on Transparent Red Vinyl

Ramping up the intensity from his 2025 debut, Joe Milli returns to Livity Sound with a spring-loaded EP of upfront club workouts that once again split the difference between techno propulsion and UK Funky swagger.

Milli's previous release, Deep Forest, carried a dubby atmosphere on top of its bassweight rhythms. On this new four-track EP, the shroud lifts and he leans in on raw, impactful drums and sparse sound fields.

'Retreat' piles percussion into an uptempo stomper with a looped intensity and carnival accents on top, and 'Mantra' offers a similar 4/4 thrust around the 140 mark. Meanwhile, 'Revival' locks down low into a heavy dembow-informed groove and 'The Less You Know' prizes tense, precisely arranged hand drums with a minimal finish primed for creative blends.

Zeroing in on stark, heads-down production for the club, the Repetitions EP offers a different slant on Milli's emergent, sharply executed sound.

Roots & Wings marks the electrifying debut of 20-year-old blues-rock sensation Amani Burnham, who has captivated millions on social media with his raw talent and magnetic presence. Released on the acclaimed Blind Pig Records, this 12-track collection showcases Amani's remarkable guitar work—played uniquely with his right-hand thumb rather than a pick—alongside soulful vocals and introspective songwriting. From the turbo-charged instrumental "Fastlane" to the deeply personal title track reflecting on his Ethiopian roots, the album crackles with groovy blues-rock riffs, cosmic solos, and stinging vibrato. Recorded at the renowned Carriage House Studios with a classic power-trio setup, Roots & Wings honors the legacy of blues-rock giants while heralding a bold new voice for a new generation.

Underneath his mysterious metal mask, MF DOOM hides the cachet underground legends are made of. After his first group KMD’s sophomore album Black Bastards was shelved by Elektra in 1994, and his blood brother Subroc — one half of the sibling rap duo — passed away, surviving frontman Zev Love X slowly mutated into the supervillain MC known as MF DOOM, and the rap world is better for it.

The 1999 release of Operation: Doomsday marked MF DOOM’s official debut, reintroducing a mysterious figure who would soon become one of underground rap’s greatest voices. Within its 19 tracks, Operation: Doomsday reveals the confluence of DOOM’s tragic past, personal interests and daring creativity. His clever rhymes and remarkable schemes stood out against the landscape, and every sound he touched — from cartoon theme songs, to ‘80s soul, to rap classics and more — got reinterpreted into something brand new and surreal.

Decades later, MF DOOM is still celebrated for all facets of his work and influence. In the face of tragedy, DOOM re-infiltrated the rap game on his own terms, and crafted an instant cult classic. Operation: Doomsday stands as a testament to the power of betting on yourself against all odds.

Inner City Sound Archives returns with its second chapter — digging deeper into the forgotten vaults of New York’s underground disco culture.

This new volume brings to light another cache of mysterious acetate recordings: no titles, no credits, just cryptic handwriting, tape hiss, and the unmistakable pulse of a bygone era. Painstakingly transferred and fully remastered through analog processes, these raw and extended cuts preserve the full emotional weight of the original sessions — dusty, physical, and made to move bodies in the dark.

These are tracks that once passed hand-to-hand among a tight circle of selectors, whispered about and played just once or twice at legendary loft parties between 1978 and 1983. Then, silence. Until now. Once championed in the shadows by the likes of Larry Levan, Francis Grasso, Steve D’Acquisto, but also by more elusive selectors like Bobby Guttadaro, Michael Cappello, Roy Thode, and Mark Paul Simon — these grooves return to tell their story, the way they were meant to be heard. Each piece is a sonic time capsule — hypnotic, unpolished, and intimate. Pressed loud and with care, for those who still believe in the ritual of vinyl.

2 x LP Purple Vinyl in Picture Sleeve

Reissue of the legendary Deep House album While You Wait by Nottingham group, Schmoov! celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the release. Available for the first time since its initial release in 2001 & highly sought after on the second-hand market, with the only copies available selling for £70+. Presented here on special purple vinyl, giving a new generation of vinyl collectors an opportunity to own a piece of UK Deep House history.

The Fuga compilation returns to Token with its seventh installment by a fresh batch of artists emphasizing the cryptic sound of the Belgian record label. The V/A displays urgency as its focal point, expanding and contracting its acoustic space throughout to channel instability. With eight contributions, Fuga VII sifts through nail biting arpeggios, frenzied percussion, and obscure ambiance to recalibrate techno's current soundscape.

Opening the compilation is contemporary techno mainstay Rene Wise with his debut contribution to the record label 'Rough Rider'. In this A1, Wise plays to his strengths by blending deep techno influences with hyper-focused rhythmic work. With a hint of tribalism, he conjures up synthwork from far off to whip motion into heavy drum patterns. Following this first track, STIPP and Sandrien take control in presenting 'Corrie', a sequence-forward groover that slides through drum programing to streamline rhythm. A shrill pad comes in at the halfway mark, completely lifting the energy of 'Corrie' to strain the track's obscurity with an ethereal counterweight. The brief passage of these kinds of elements provides a lot of dynamic to what would otherwise be a powerfully straightforward piece. Diving deeper, Red Rooms unveils 'Limited Sensory' as the next chapter of the compilation. Always swift and exact, the German artist continues to push into the ultra immersive with a web of elements that whiz by for a peaktime lock in. Cold in attitude, Red Rooms tunnels through 'Limited Sensory' with quick drumsand far-off percussive hits that rumble through the track. Stepping up afterwards is Lindsey Herbert with 'Oscillations in Space' - an appropriately named recording that experiments with mania as a tool for the dancefloor. Fast and spiraling, Herbert keeps her hands on the arpeggio's filter to contain tension through thunderous reverb transitions, balancing panic with pace. AgainstMe then stretches out the followup with the commanding 'Phase Shift' to double down on weight. Textural intimidation and stomping percussion is given the space it needs to perform on heavy weight sound systems, making it an austere middle point for Fuga. MAL HOMBRE then guides the listener to more elastic sound design in 'Critical Velocity', in a most appropriate Token fashion. Snowballing in intensity halfway through, MAL HOMBRE pushes the cutoff of his melody and programs snare rolls for vintage craze through the second section. Bells clash with ringing hats to fly the track along its course without looking back or letting go. Conor Wall takes control with 'The Strategy' that focuses on pace rather than melody, weaponizing metallic texture for a deep dancefloor experience. The ambiance does a lot of story telling here, marking breaks and riding through drops to provide grit to an already substantial record. This leads us to the final contribution in Fuga VII - 'Ad Libitum'. Here, Porteix emphasizes the conclusion of the compilation with mystery. The synths slither around pulsating rhythm, creating uninterrupted motion throughout the track's entirety. Porteix draws the curtains on an inquisitive note, keeping the suspense high until the next Fuga compilation comes around.

Acclaimed producer, DJ, and dancefloor healer Octo Octa (Maya Bouldry-Morrison) announces her fourth full-length album, Sigils For Survival. Following 2013's Between Two Selves, 2017's Where Are We Going?, and 2019's Resonant Body, the new record marks a decade since Maya publicly came out as transgender in November 2015. ''As an autobiographical artist, I set out to write an album that would be a milestone for this past decade of joy and sorrow,'' Maya explains. ''Sigils For Survival is my attempt to encapsulate the intentions and techniques that I used to move through life into a spell.'' For each of the record's eight tracks, Maya drew a sigil. Each is a personal symbol intended to ''bind magic to the song and seal its intention.'' These drawings appear throughout the physical edition's design. Maya's sister, New York artist Hope Morrison, incorporated each sigil into her original paintings, which comprise the album's vivid artwork. Hope Morrison, whose imagery translates the sigils' energy into vivid form; the layout was designed by Jo?o Ervedosa. Created entirely on hardware instruments and later mixed in Logic, Sigils For Survival captures the tactile immediacy of live performance. Maya preserved the feel of MIDI-clock drift and off-grid recording, letting her machines interact in the rhythmic pocket, rather than confirming them to a click. Alongside her signature deep, ecstatic electronics, the album features hand-played dulcimer, hand-pan, and recorder. Her voice also returns, carrying spells of love, protection, and transformation. Across Sigils For Survival, Octo Octa channels the ecstatic house lineage into an intimate ritual space. The music speaks of immediacy, play, and communion -- of magic as method, love as survival, and sound as spellcraft. Sigils For Survival is both a document of ten years lived fully and an invocation for the next chapter -- a glowing testament to music's power to protect, transform, and set the spirit free.

Real heads with good memories and a lifelong love of good grooves might remember that the original mixes of 'Disco Glory' first appeared on DJ Garth's Wicked imprint in 1996. Top DJ dogs like Danny Tenaglia, Francois K and Doc Martin all used to drop them on the regular and ensuing remixes even made their way onto Sony Pictures' 'Groove' soundtrack. The DJ Garth & ETI mixes have long been out of print, so fetch a pretty penny on the second-hand market, which means it's great news that the 30th anniversary is marked with a fresh return to wax. The Acid Rock mix is psychedelic and trippy, the Look To The Moon dub is a dark and dubby tech sound that could be brand new, and the Ye Olde Organ Grinder mix has a moody and retro house charm.

Every so often in music, we come across voices that achieve a certain timelessness, so naturally do they encapsulate both past and present. Laure Briard is one of these voices, retro in form but contemporary at heart, spanning a career rich in aesthetic twists and turns, never without her signature magic, a special kind of eternal filter. Her first album, Révélation (2015), reveals her yé-yé influences, a testament to her love for ‘60s French pop music. Her second studio album, Sur la piste de danse (2016), follows in this vein and finds Laure accompanied as always by her long-time bandmates who share an affinity for warm, catchy arrangements that never lose their appeal. Her tour of Brazil marks a turning point in her career, introducing her to the local indie scene and thus launching her collaboration with the band Boogarins, as well as inspiring the release of multiple EPs composed and performed in Portuguese. Today, her music is embellished by touches of bossa nova and a folk sensibility, boasting increasingly intricate arrangements, as exemplified by her 2019 release, Un peu plus d'amour s'il vous plaît. Several years later, the Californian desert captures the musician’s imagination with Ne pas trop rester bleue, a poignant musical journey inspired by the rich history of Western legends and the role they play in shaping our collective consciousness.

In Voyage Mental, Laure Briard draws upon an inner energy unearthed during a new stage in her life, where the thrill of spontaneous adventure is not accessible in quite the same way. The result is a collection of sophisticated, introspective songs, narrating a young mother’s quest for balance in the face of routine. The album, nostalgic but always tethered to the present moment, is also the fruit of her collaboration with Gaëtan Nonchalant, a talented musician known for coaxing poetry out of the mundane. The two of them co-wrote and recorded five tracks at Studio Nocturne, accompanied by her long-time sidekick Pieuvre, aka Vincent Guyot, Léo Blomov, Pierre-Louis Vizioz, and Hedi Bensalem. The gentle pop opener “Rocking Chair” sways steadily to the rhythm of dynamic drums, followed by “Train,” a ballad that extends an invitation to set sail and daydream alone. The folk escapade continues with “Golden Sun,” a duet featuring the 1960s cult American musician F.J. McMahon, who Laure contacted via the internet on a whim. “Golden Sun” is an unlikely encounter between two generations and two cultures, giving new life to an old forgotten demo on the other side of the Atlantic. And while Laure sings of wide open spaces, cowboys, and sunsets sinking into the sea, we feel the city surrounding her in “Miroir,” a song composed by Hedi Bensalem that laments the suffocation of living in a crowded metropolis where the sky is a distant gray smudge. This pressing need for air, this search for rest and total disconnection, is one of the album's central themes. It may also explain the ever-present sense of nostalgia that pervades the songs, a welcome respite in our current era of doomscrolling and darkness. Along the way, Laure soothes us with melancholy guitar, delivers poetry set to scattered piano notes, and takes us by the hand during lively, uptempo passages. We climb onto her wings, never straying too far from the ground, soaring joyfully above her moods.

To mark its 20th birthday, Lisbon-born label Enchufada is releasing A Lisbon Club Story - 20 hand-picked tracks bridging bass, trap, grime and rave with baile funk, kuduro, batida, Afro-house and more dance-oriented styles. A mix of 12 archive selections and eight fresh cuts, the LP unites some of the boldest champions of Afro-diasporic and global bass music today, from household names in Portugal such as Buraka Som Sistema - back with their first track in 12 years, DJ Marfox and Shaka Lion to newgen dynamos like Vanyfox and international stars like Dengue Dengue Dengue and Mina.

Originally released in the height of the underground disco revival, The Sounds Of Revolution EP has since become a sought-after modern classic. After years out of circulation — and with original copies now trading hands for €80-100 on the second-hand market — this long-requested EP finally returns to vinyl.

Italian producer Giovanni Damico (aka G-Machine / Ron Juan) delivers four timeless boogie cuts that perfectly bridge vintage Italo, cosmic disco and modern club energy. From the euphoric synth hooks of the title track to the robotic funk of “Italians In A Line”, this EP captures everything that made Damico a staple in DJ bags across Europe.

Carefully reissued for a new generation of selectors, this release is equal parts heritage and dancefloor weapon — essential for fans of Italo, nu-disco, boogie and anyone building a serious disco collection. Expected shipping: End of May/begin of June 26.

2026 Repress

Two formidable producers deliver an absolute weapon of a release, each taking charge of one side of the vinyl.

Already on his second release with the Time Passages family, Tal Fussman needs no introduction.
For Skatman, this marks his first appearance on the label, though he has been on the radar of the label boss for quite some time.
His music is hypnotic, subtle, and deeply rooted in the dance floor — perfectly aligned with the timeless aesthetic of Time Passages X.

As sublabel of Time Passages, TPX continues its strictly limited approach: only 300 copies, untitled, and with no digital release.
Two tracks that speak louder than words.

On his new album, Micha Acher rearranged compositions for bands such as Tied & Tickled Trio and Ms. John Soda from previous years.

Why are we interested in ghosts? What fascinates us about the eerie? According to cultural theorist Mark Fisher, the allure that the eerie possesses is not captured by the idea that we „enjoy what scares us“. It has, rather, to do with a fascination for the outside. For that which lies beyond standard perception, cognition or experience, as he writes in his book „The Weird and the Eerie“.

In fact, also none of the 15 pieces from Henry and the Ghost is really scary. On the contrary, they all feel strangely familiar. Like revenants or doppelgängers, which in fact they are. They have all been released before. But in a different form. In different line-ups. With different band projects such as Tied & Tickled Trio, The Notwist or the Alien Ensemble.

With the „Songbook“, Micha Acher's aim was, as he says, to find out how the familiar pieces sound in a chamber music instrumentation. Therefore he met with Theresa Loibl (bass clarinet, piano), Timm Kornelius (bassoon), Markus Rom (guitar, banjo, electronics) and Simon Popp (drums, percussion) in his living room for a musical séance in the summer of 2022. The séance lasted two days. Afterwards, Markus Rom (Oh No Noh), added some haunting electronical ideas.

The mood of most of the pieces is melancholic. There are surprising twists and siren-like melodies. Just as ghost stories should be. However, most of the songs sound very light-footed. With their feet in pop, folk, jazz and classical music. Pieces such as „Johanna“ with its wheezing harmonium and spooky piano, or the dreamy „Modest Farewell“ on the other hand have a cinematic flair. Immediately faces and scenes arise in the mind. But at the beginning, there is „Hamlet“. It starts with ghostly electronics and merges into a calm, almost classical guitar piece. Could it be that the ghost of Hamlet's father is hiding between the strings?

„34E“ begins with a banjo. Then the deep humming of Micha Achers sousaphone and the other brass instruments kick in. In the slow, solemn „Aelita“, the sousaphone starts a dialogue with a children's piano. With the banjo and the other wind instruments acting as mediators. The title of „All Tomorrow's Past“ brings Velvet Undergrounds „All Tomorrow's Parties“ to mind. Another ghost from the past. What connects the two pieces is free-floating percussion, which accompanies the sumptuous melodies.

„Arc“ takes us on an exhilarating voyage at sea, with the sousaphone providing powerful propulsion. Towards the end, things get quite turbulent. With the clarinet stirring up the water, before the sea calms down again. „Henry and the Ghost“ is characterised by a ghostly mood change between major and minor. In „Radio Four“ the banjo with its stoic chords keeps the lively brass section in check. „Solid Ground“ is imbued with melancholy. „Space Minor“ takes us into outer space, with the power of sousaphone and percussion.

„Tomorrows“ is filled with cautious optimism. And the concluding „Nordlead“ turns out to be a revenant of the instrumental „N.L.“ from The Notwist's legendary album „Shrink“ from 1998. In the new version, the piece sounds like a distant echo. One that also brings to mind how Micha Acher's music has evolved. Which new worlds he explored and opened up since the nineties. And yet Acher's signature is recognisable in every single note of this fascinating „Songbook“.

Various Artists - Collector IV (FURV4)

Future Romance returns with another V/A EP called „Collector IV“, the next chapter in its vinyl-only series dedicated to the label’s most in-demand releases. This edition brings together four standout tracks that move effortlessly between melodic house and techno, crafted by a handpicked selection of distinctive artists. Each track has already made its mark on dancefloors worldwide, earning strong DJ support and international recognition. Collector IV underlines Future Romance’s ongoing passion for curating timeless club music, pressed with care for true vinyl lovers. Featuring tracks by Solee, Microtrauma, SNYL & Berny, and Cyantist.

Reissue of a lost hit by the British composer Kevan Frost, now championed and given a brand-new Dub Mix by Mark Grusane. Up for pre-order now and due late-March on our RSS series!

Kevan Frost grew up in Jos, Nigeria where he became a self-taught musician and developed a deep understanding of rhythm and melody. In the 90's, Frost was a session musician for many studios in London, one of these was unable to pay him so they gave him a few free days in the studio and the result was "Give It Up" as he explains:

"I went in and recorded all the music in a day, and the vocals and mix on day two. This was the days of only having 24 tracks available on tape so I programmed the drums, bass and keyboard parts on C-Lab which was only available on the Atari computer and the samples I made on my Akai S-1000 sampler. Full of floppy disks I went in early on day one and printed all of this on tape. I then recorded the guitar parts. Day two was me layering the lead vocals and Backing vocal parts as quick as I could before starting to mix."

However, the track fell into obscurity with no major label backing or marketing budget. A friend of Mark Grusane’s came across it in Brooklyn at the African Record Centre and it eventually ended up in Mark's hands and from there he edited the original track to a more stripped-back dub mix and began playing it out to great effect on dancefloors.

After a bit of digging, we tracked down Kevan and a fully licensed reissue is due on Rush Hour in late March 2026, including a brand new ‘Dub Mix’ from Mark Grusane.

Always lurking amidst the underground Porto music scene is Spitbender, the most stable moniker of the ever-morphing Francisco Antão. Spin gathers a collection of tracks that demonstrate his experimentalism & coy sonic precision. Spitbender takes cues from Jungle & Hip Hop producers to create his own unique blend of Downtempo. What becomes clear throughout the album is the attention to detail: it is infused as much by Industrial's red-line spectra as it is by the dubplate logic of the Darkside Continuum, yet it does so at its own tripped out speed.

Spin begins with the laid-back but constantly shifting 'Global Overgroove'. Its breakbeat science moves in & out of DSP glitch-work & dub reflections. When its slinky bassline melody arrives, a certain dread sets in.

'Weyward Fold' drops into a driving, hard-edged chug, threaded with snippets of Malcolm X's disobedient pedagogy. The momentum carries into 'Headnod Doctor', where the bass distortion thickens & the cymbal circuit is overloaded, landing somewhere between Hip‑Hop grit & metal weight.

Side A ends with the downtempo roller 'Dogs and Moles (Skylurk Mix)'. The familiar break drifts into new territory, pulled along & wrapped in a slap-back echo. A quirky melody cuts through the haze, giving the track a fresh tilt. The mulch of the track forms a steady, unhurried pulse.

Spitbender's spacious atmospherics & groove-focused approach comes further into focus on 'Nothing Here But the Recordings'. Creating his own chapter in the book of Trip Hop, his minimalist touch is laid out in full.

'Force the Hand Ov Chance' pulls Boom Bap gently into dub mechanics, letting space do the heavy lifting. Its simplicity hides a deep pocket.

Returning to broken-up distortion, 'Mirrors of Flesh (Dub Mix)' finds Spitbender using the mixer as an instrument to push & pull the heavy drums of Benjamin Brejon of Méchanosphere alongside the voice of Rui intoning the title phrase.

Sitting between the album's two poles, 'Out Take Dub' fuses the clipped‑obsession timbres of Spin's heavier moments with its blissed out flow. Feedback & distortion are welcomed & drawn long.

In the end, Spin hits like a fully formed statement—lean, focused, & unmistakably Spitbender. Every track pushes its own angle, but together they land with a clarity that feels earned. It's a sharp marker in his trajectory, & it leaves a charge in the air.

The Diary by Scarface returns to vinyl for the first time since 2014, now expanded to a 2xLP and featuring the never-before-released bonus track “Ease Up Now.” Newly remastered, this definitive edition includes the original 1994 artwork, carefully restored for vinyl by acclaimed designer Mr. Krum. Featuring fan favorites like “No Tears” and “I Seen a Man Die,” this platinum-certified classic is presented with upgraded audio and an expanded format, making it the most comprehensive edition to date.

The Diary by Scarface returns to vinyl for the first time since 2014, now expanded to a 2xLP for the very first time, including a previously unreleased B-Side!
Newly remastered, this definitive edition features the original 1994 artwork, carefully restored for vinyl by acclaimed designer Mr. Krum
Originally released October 18, 1994, The Diary debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, marking one of Scarface’s most commercially successful releases.

The Diary by Scarface returns to vinyl for the first time since 2014, now expanded to a 2xLP and featuring the never-before-released bonus track “Ease Up Now.” Newly remastered, this definitive edition includes the original 1994 artwork, carefully restored for vinyl by acclaimed designer Mr. Krum. Featuring fan favorites like “No Tears” and “I Seen a Man Die,” this platinum-certified classic is presented with upgraded audio and an expanded format, making it the most comprehensive edition to date.

The Diary by Scarface returns to vinyl for the first time since 2014, now expanded to a 2xLP for the very first time, including a previously unreleased B-Side!
Newly remastered, this definitive edition features the original 1994 artwork, carefully restored for vinyl by acclaimed designer Mr. Krum
Originally released October 18, 1994, The Diary debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, marking one of Scarface’s most commercially successful releases.

Indie Exclusive 2xLP on Opaque Red Vinyl with 8x10 Glossy Insert. Contains Bonus Track "Ease Up Now"

Rocksteady Disco returns with more heat for the heads, this time from Glenn Echo & Daniel Meinecke delivering a stunning 7" that bridges various eras of dancefloor magic. Their take on Sylvester and Patrick Cowley's 'I Need Somebody To Love Tonight' is pure cosmic seduction with New Orleans vocalist Mark-Anthony Thomas channelling Sylvester's spirit while Meinecke's synth work and Glenn's rich production elevate the classic into a shimmering modern anthem. Flip it and Lucky 7s takes a left turn into dub-funk psychedelia with chunky drums, low-slung bass, wild time signatures and futuristic vocoder texture. Red hot so handle with care.

2026 Repress

Glaskin is the alias of two brothers, Jonathan and Ferdinand, based in Munich. The pair have emerged as key figures in the citys electronic music scene as longtime residents of the renowned Blitz Club, standing out a homegrown talents amongst its vibrant electronic landscape. Bringing a unique, forward-thinking techno style, as evidenced by their contributions to Mutual Rytms Federation Of Rytm II and III compilations in previous years, they now mark a new chapter and open 2025 in style with their debut 12 on the label, Inertia Of Motion. Each cut on the EP has been handcrafted with analogue gear, reflecting their distinctive artistic and sonic vision. The release is a direct outcome of the creative process behind their live set, which has become an integral part of the duos identity and shows a natural evolution of their singular sound.

Hush Up kicks things off with deep, rubbery and rolling techno rhythms. The drums are stripped back and laced with pulsing synth patterns and spoken word snippets that add a freaky edge. Double Tap ups the anti with classic, pumping deep techno with smart filters adding movement to the track as urgent leads hurry onwards. Inertia bring a more anxious atmosphere with tightly coiled drums and perc and eerie bell sounds ring out over the fat, twisted bassline. The brilliant Tank brings mind-melting loopy techno with dubby chords and textured leads warming their way between the beats to great effect, while Motion is suspenseful techno that locks you into a high speed groove peppered with thumping hits and kicks. Last of all, digital bonus Blushed Blue explores a moody, minimal, late night techno sound that is warm, stylish and hypnotic to close the show

Now marking eight years in the underground, Blur Records delivers a various artist collection that reflects its sound across always floor-facing cuts across a house and disco spectrum tinged with retro flair. 'Back To The Disco' by Hotmood opens with big loops and a hands in the air grove that is high on funky-disco vibes, while Delfonic keeps things tight on 'Let's Do The Magic' which centres a vocal hook and busy chords. Elsewhere, Crackazat's sultry rework of Scruscru's 'Just House' adds a jazz-leaning touch and 'Touch Me' shifts into a more restrained, late-night mood. Closing with the deep, plump drums of Sven Wegner's sexy, sax-laced 'Chuck The Boom', the collection stays consistently accessible and groovy throughout.

Mark Jenkin, the BAFTA Award winning director, editor, screenwriter, cinematographer and musician, presents the score to his new film, Rose of Nevada on Invada Records. Unique among British feature filmmakers for the analogue way in which he crafts his films - all three feature films have been shot on 16mm using a Bolex clockwork camera – as well as his multifaceted roles as the writer, director, director of photography and editor of the film, once more he is responsible for handling the sound design and composing the original score.

The new score mirrors the techniques employed in the film, with analogue synthesisers drawing the listener into nebulous hypnotic tones and delicate movements.
Composed, produced, engineered and performed by Mark Jenkin using synthesiser, guitar, percussion and loops & effects, the environmental recordings remind us of the context in which the music was originally borne, but as the score ebbs and flows between ambient tranquil seas and crashing storms, it affirms its presence as a powerful stand-alone piece of work.
The score’s physical release follows the Cornish director’s third feature film: the time-travelling Rose of Nevada cinematic release in UK and Irish cinemas on 24 April, with a BFI Blu-ray and BFI Player release in the summer.

The album Greatest Hits - Wonder is more than a collection - it is a musical journey, bringing together the 10 most treasured songs Invisible Hands Music releases that have touched hearts worldwide. Invisible Hands Music is proud to have enjoyed a dynamic and enduring partnership with Libera, spanning six acclaimed studio albums distributed across more than 200 territories. Each song on embodies the passion, artistry, and collaboration that have driven remarkable achievements - from multiple No.1 chart positions to "Album of the Week" features in major markets including the UK, Japan, and the USA. This definitive collection celebrates Libera's most beloved recordings and offers longtime fans and new listeners a memorable one-stop experience.

Zuerst das Wichtigste: Ja, Your Day Will Come an, das zweite Album von Chanel Beads trägt denselben Namen wie sein Debüt aus dem Jahr 2024. Aber es handelt sich um ein völlig neues Werk, nicht um einen zweiten Teil oder eine Neuauflage. Der Titel des neuen Albums ist derselbe wie der des Vorgängers - eine perfekte Zusammenfassung der Zweideutigkeit von Chanel Beads: zu gleichen Teilen ein augenzwinkernder Scherz und eine zutiefst ernste Aussage. Während sich die Songs entwickelten, entdeckte Lavers, dass der Satz eine tiefere Nuance hatte und eine Spannung zwischen Gewissheit und Zweifel hervorrief, die seine Psyche beschäftigte. Wird dein Tag kommen? Wie wird er sein? Wie kannst du dir sicher sein? Während er das Album schrieb, hatten Lavers' Gedanken mehr Raum, um in seinem Kopf herumzuschwirren und sich zu verdrehen, und er fühlte sich oft abgestumpft von einer Welt, die sich absurd grausam anfühlen kann. Die zweite Inkarnation von Your Day Will Come dokumentiert eine klangliche Verschiebung und Weiterentwicklung des Chanel-Beads-Sounds. Dieses Mal ist alles stärker geschichtet, mit mehr eigenständigen Parts und Mitwirkenden. Es entstand in seinem kleinen, spärlich eingerichteten Studio in Brooklyn, wo die Lautsprecher so nah an seinem Gesicht standen, dass er bei jedem Schlag der Bassdrum die Luftwelle spüren konnte. Geiger Zachary Paul tritt präsenter in Erscheinung, während Lavers weiterhin mit der semiotischen Bedeutung von Plug-ins spielt. Auch die ätherische Stimme von Maya McGrory ist erneut auf dem Album zu hören; sie schrieb zudem am majestätischen ,Silver Cup" mit. Die 14 Songs sind ausgearbeiteter und strukturierter - Ergebnis eines kollaborativeren Ansatzes, der Spontaneität und Unvollkommenheit bewusst zulässt. Er folgt der Devise "Wenn es funktioniert, lass es so", nimmt einfach mit dem Mikrofon auf, das gerade zur Hand ist, und baut den Song auf dieser Aufnahme auf. Aus lockeren Treffen ergaben sich Beiträge von Freund*innen wie Tchad Cousins (Urika's Bedroom), Mari Maurice (More Eaze), Anastasia Coope und Bella Litsa. "Dust in the Wind" entstand gemeinsam mit Isaac Eiger von Strange Ranger und Threshold und markiert die erste Co-Autorenschaft außerhalb des Kerntrios aus Lavers, McGrory und Paul. Lavers' fragmentierte Texte sind voller offener Fragen. Er war besonders von der Koexistenz von Nihilismus und Liebe eingenommen und sagte: "Es fühlt sich an, als müsste das eine das andere auslöschen, aber das tut es nicht." Emotionale Sublimierung steht im Mittelpunkt von Chanel Beads, als könne man etwas so fest umklammern, dass es transzendent wird. Your Day Will Come nutzt Traumlogik, um sich mit Liminalität und prekären Erinnerungen auseinanderzusetzen. Es ist geprägt von den Schatten bestimmter Verluste, aber auch davon, wie man sich selbst heimsuchen kann, indem man in alte Gewohnheiten zurückfällt.

Zuerst das Wichtigste: Ja, Your Day Will Come an, das zweite Album von Chanel Beads trägt denselben Namen wie sein Debüt aus dem Jahr 2024. Aber es handelt sich um ein völlig neues Werk, nicht um einen zweiten Teil oder eine Neuauflage. Der Titel des neuen Albums ist derselbe wie der des Vorgängers - eine perfekte Zusammenfassung der Zweideutigkeit von Chanel Beads: zu gleichen Teilen ein augenzwinkernder Scherz und eine zutiefst ernste Aussage. Während sich die Songs entwickelten, entdeckte Lavers, dass der Satz eine tiefere Nuance hatte und eine Spannung zwischen Gewissheit und Zweifel hervorrief, die seine Psyche beschäftigte. Wird dein Tag kommen? Wie wird er sein? Wie kannst du dir sicher sein? Während er das Album schrieb, hatten Lavers' Gedanken mehr Raum, um in seinem Kopf herumzuschwirren und sich zu verdrehen, und er fühlte sich oft abgestumpft von einer Welt, die sich absurd grausam anfühlen kann. Die zweite Inkarnation von Your Day Will Come dokumentiert eine klangliche Verschiebung und Weiterentwicklung des Chanel-Beads-Sounds. Dieses Mal ist alles stärker geschichtet, mit mehr eigenständigen Parts und Mitwirkenden. Es entstand in seinem kleinen, spärlich eingerichteten Studio in Brooklyn, wo die Lautsprecher so nah an seinem Gesicht standen, dass er bei jedem Schlag der Bassdrum die Luftwelle spüren konnte. Geiger Zachary Paul tritt präsenter in Erscheinung, während Lavers weiterhin mit der semiotischen Bedeutung von Plug-ins spielt. Auch die ätherische Stimme von Maya McGrory ist erneut auf dem Album zu hören; sie schrieb zudem am majestätischen ,Silver Cup" mit. Die 14 Songs sind ausgearbeiteter und strukturierter - Ergebnis eines kollaborativeren Ansatzes, der Spontaneität und Unvollkommenheit bewusst zulässt. Er folgt der Devise "Wenn es funktioniert, lass es so", nimmt einfach mit dem Mikrofon auf, das gerade zur Hand ist, und baut den Song auf dieser Aufnahme auf. Aus lockeren Treffen ergaben sich Beiträge von Freund*innen wie Tchad Cousins (Urika's Bedroom), Mari Maurice (More Eaze), Anastasia Coope und Bella Litsa. "Dust in the Wind" entstand gemeinsam mit Isaac Eiger von Strange Ranger und Threshold und markiert die erste Co-Autorenschaft außerhalb des Kerntrios aus Lavers, McGrory und Paul. Lavers' fragmentierte Texte sind voller offener Fragen. Er war besonders von der Koexistenz von Nihilismus und Liebe eingenommen und sagte: "Es fühlt sich an, als müsste das eine das andere auslöschen, aber das tut es nicht." Emotionale Sublimierung steht im Mittelpunkt von Chanel Beads, als könne man etwas so fest umklammern, dass es transzendent wird. Your Day Will Come nutzt Traumlogik, um sich mit Liminalität und prekären Erinnerungen auseinanderzusetzen. Es ist geprägt von den Schatten bestimmter Verluste, aber auch davon, wie man sich selbst heimsuchen kann, indem man in alte Gewohnheiten zurückfällt.

Im Februar 2026 erscheint zum zwanzigjährigen Jubiläum Hard to Love a Man" von Magnolia Electric Co. als erweiterte Edition und zum ersten Mal auf Vinyl. Diese Jubiläumsausgabe der ersten EP der Band enthält drei zusätzliche Tracks: remasterte Demos von 31 Seasons in the Minor Leagues" (zuvor unter dem Titel Tonight I'm So Down" bekannt) und Lonesome Valley", aufgenommen in den Echo Park Studios in Indiana während der Hard to Love a Man"-Sessions, sowie One Thin Dime", aufgenommen während der Black Ram"-Sessions in den Sound of Music Recording Studios in Richmond, Virginia. Working-Class-Rock" ist ein Begriff, der häufig zur Beschreibung von The Magnolia Electric Co. verwendet wurde. Kategorisch hatte sich die Band ihren Platz unter gleichgesinnten Ikonen wie Bob Seger, CCR, Tom Petty und Bruce Springsteen gesichert, doch es handelte sich nicht nur um eine ästhetische Beschreibung, sie untermauerten dies mit ihrer Arbeitsmoral. Im Jahr 2005 waren The Magnolia Electric Co. erstaunlicherweise acht Monate unterwegs. Diese Tatsache wurde den Bandmitgliedern selbst am deutlichsten bewusst, da sie so lange von ihrem Zuhause und ihren Liebsten getrennt waren. Daher die Bedeutung des Titeltracks. Wenn Jason Molina die Perspektive der Person einnimmt, die er zurückgelassen hat, und in Hard To Love A Man" singt: "It was hard to love a man like you / Goodbye was half the words you knew / While you were waiting for me not to call / I sent my love", dann wird die Einsamkeit und Schuld der Trennung schmerzlich deutlich. Jennie Benfords verletzliche Stimme, gepaart mit Jason Groths fließender Gitarre und Mike Kapinus' klagender Orgel, unterstreicht dieses Gefühl eindrucksvoll, unterlegt vom charakteristischen, präzisen und geschmackvollen Rhythmusfundament von Mark Rice und Pete Schreiner, während Nicole Evans eine neue, dynamische Stimme hinzufügt. Hard To Love A Man" und der Live-Favorit Werewolves Of London" wurden mit Steve Albini in seinen Electrical Audio Studios aufgenommen, die übrigen Tracks entstanden während eines kurzen fünftägigen Heimaufenthalts in Indiana bei Echo Park Studios mit Paul Mahern, dessen Engineering-Resume schon damals Projekte wie The Blake Babies, Lisa Germano und John Mellencamp umfasst. Während die Magnolien weiter wuchsen und erblühten, ließ Jason Molina die Insassen das Irrenhaus regieren.

Gatefold Sleeve

M’Bamina – African Roll (1975)
The story of an album born between Africa, Italy, and the nightclub culture of the 1970s
In the heart of 1970s Italy — a country undergoing profound social change and a music scene just beginning to open itself to distant sounds and cultures — an extraordinary, almost improbable story took shape. It is the story of a group of young African musicians who found their way to Europe, of a Turin nightclub that became a crossroads for communities and experimenters, and of an album which, released in small numbers and largely unnoticed at the time, is now considered a rare jewel of Afro-fusion.
The band called themselves M’Bamina — an ensemble of musicians from Congo, Cameroon, and Benin, who arrived in Italy in the early Seventies. Settling between northern Italy and the Pavia area, they began performing in small clubs and community events, bringing with them a vibrant rhythmic heritage: African polyrhythms, call-and-response vocals, funk-infused bass lines, and Caribbean or Afro-Latin colours absorbed along their musical journeys. Their raw, contagious energy on stage quickly drew attention.
Meanwhile, in Turin, another story was unfolding. There was a venue becoming almost legendary: Voom Voom, one of the city’s liveliest nightclubs, run by Ivo Lunardi. The club attracted an eclectic crowd — students, artists, foreigners, night owls — and Lunardi quickly understood that the dancefloor wasn’t just a place for music, but a melting pot for a new kind of cultural energy. Out of this vibrant atmosphere came his idea: to turn the club’s name into a small independent record label, Voom Voom Music, capable of capturing the spirit of those years and giving voice to unconventional projects.

When Lunardi heard M’Bamina, he immediately sensed that this was the sound he had been searching for: fresh, different from anything circulating in Italy at the time, and capable of blending African tradition with funk and European sensibility. He brought them into the studio.
Production was handled by Lunardi along with Christian Carbaza Michel, while the engineering was entrusted to Danilo Pennone, a young sound technician with a sharp, intuitive ear.
The recording sessions — held in Turin in 1975 — produced a remarkably warm and direct sound. The music feels almost live: grooves rooted in African tradition, but open to funk-rock structures and modern arrangements. It is a natural fusion, never forced. Tracks move between tribal rhythms, funk basslines, light electric guitars, congas and Afro-Latin percussion, with call-and-response vocals and melodies that echo both Congolese tradition and the lineage of Latin jazz. Not by chance, one of the album’s most striking tracks, Watchiwara, reinterprets a Latin standard through M’Bamina’s own rhythmic language.

The album was titled African Roll — a name that was already a statement of intention. It is African music that “rolls,” that moves, adapts, transforms within a new geographic and cultural setting. It is not strictly Afrobeat, nor Congolese rumba, nor Western funk: it is a spontaneous, hybrid blend, shaped more by lived experience than by any calculated aesthetic program.
When African Roll was released, the world around it barely noticed. Distribution was limited, and 1970s Italy had yet to develop a cultural framework for receiving such music. The national music press rarely paid attention to African or “world” productions. The album slipped into silence — though the band’s own story did not.

M’Bamina continued performing across Europe and Africa, even sharing a stage in Cameroon with none other than Manu Dibango. By the late Seventies, they moved to Paris, signed with Fiesta/Decca, and recorded a second LP, Experimental (1978). Meanwhile, the peculiar record they had made in Turin began to resurface quietly among vinyl collectors, Afro-funk enthusiasts, and DJs hunting for forgotten grooves.
That is when the album’s fate began to shift.

Over the decades, African Roll emerged as an almost unique document: a snapshot of an intercultural Italy before the word “intercultural” even existed, a fragment of migrant history, a spontaneous experiment in musical fusion born far from major industry circuits but rich in authenticity. Original copies began commanding high prices on the collector’s market, and the album became recognized as one of the hidden classics of European Afro-fusion from the 1970s.
Today, more than fifty years later, this reissue finally restores visibility and dignity to a project that deserves to be heard, studied, and celebrated. It is not simply an album: it is the testimony of a rare cultural encounter, born in an Italy unaware of how fertile such exchanges would one day become.

It is the story of a visionary producer, an extraordinary band, and a fleeting moment in which music, migration, and nightlife came together to create something genuinely new.
African Roll is — now more than ever — the sound of a bridge: between continents, between eras, between cultures. A record that, after rolling far and wide, has finally come home.

Electro as its best! SS001 marks the first transmission from Serpiente Sounds, a debut 12" split that keeps it lean, direct, and floor-focused. Viewtiful Joe handles the A-side with two cuts that balance Electro snap and Detroit discipline: clean drum architecture, crisp low-end, and synth lines that feel both futuristic and functional. On the flip, Subversive brings two late-night weapons with a colder edge and a deeper swing. SS001 is a debut statement with zero filler, a compact toolkit of Electro/Detroit tools for the booth.

'Trying Times' is a record about being in love whilst battling the limits of the self against a backdrop of global uncertainty. James Blake explores the tension between intimacy and isolation, the pressure to curate and perform even as everything, inside and out, feels fragile and precarious. Themes of reflection, both literally and metaphorically, run through the record’s visual presentation, as Blake holds a mirror to the contradictions of modern connection - how we see ourselves, how we’re seen by others, and what gets lost in between. It’s about the disorienting loop of joy and dread: feeling safe in love, yet knowing the bubble could burst at any moment; struggling to stay present while global anxiety and private doubt pull you in different directions. A meditation on love, identity, and fragility in an age where the world feels balanced on a knife edge

13 Track Album is James' seventh studio album and first fully independent release Album features British rapper Dave, and singer-songwriter Monica Martin Marketing plan will support long term growth, audience building and connecting with super fans Strong Content Plan including Single / Focus Track Performance Videos Alternative album versions TBC inducing deluxe, piano version and more

Black Truffle is thrilled to announce Dalbergia Retusa, an extensive double LP selection of the solo guitar music of Hans Reichel, compiled by Oren Ambarchi. Last heard on Black Truffle as one quarter of the joyously anarchic Bergisch-Brandenburgisches Quartett, Hans Reichel (1949-2011) is one of the great figures of experimental guitar music. Though perhaps lesser known than peers like Derek Bailey, Fred Frith and Keith Rowe, Reichel’s rethinking of the instrument was in some ways the most radical of all. Early on, he dispensed with existing guitars to build a series of his own that explored the use of additional strings and fretboards, moveable pickups, extra bridges, special capos, and other innovations documented in the extensive booklet accompanying this release.

Reichel was a long-term resident of Wuppertal, the small Western Germany city that became an unlikely centre of European free jazz in the late 1960s, also home to Peter Brötzmann and Peter Kowald. His solo debut Wichlinghauser Blues was an early entry into the FMP discography and began a relationship with the label that stretched into the 1990s; all the solo performances heard here were first released on FMP. As Reichel says in the charming archival interview with Markus Müller included here, he was ‘always a cuckoo’s egg at FMP’, a label that began as an outlet for roaring European free jazz. What strikes the listener right from the opening selection on Dalbergia Retusa—‘Return of the Knödler show’, from 1987’s The Dawn of Dachsman—is the extraordinary beauty of Reichel’s music, at once alien in the shimmering sonorities and unconventional pitch relationships made possible by his invented instruments, and deeply lyrical, even romantic in its harmonic content. Growing up in West Germany in the 1960s, Reichel’s formative influences were mainly British and American rock bands, a background that shines through in many of the pieces included here: ‘An old friend passes by’ is haunted by the ghost of Hendrix’s rhythm guitar, and the wild closer ‘Heimkehr der Holzböcke’, taken from a rare 1975 7” and the only piece to use overdubbing, layers errant hammer-on and slide tones over a Canned Heat boogie chug.

Reichel was an important source for the development of Oren Ambarchi’s own extended approach to the electric guitar. Appropriately enough, his selection opens with the very first piece by Reichel he ever heard, on a flexidisc included with a 1989 issue of Guitar Player magazine. Though Reichel collaborated with others extensively in many settings and also performed on violin and his other major contribution to instrument invention, the daxophone, his music for solo guitar remains at the core of his oeuvre. Focusing exclusively on solo pieces recorded between 1973 and 1988, the 23 pieces on Dalbergia Retusa showcase the range and consistency of Reichel’s work, allowing the listener to see how his performances developed hand-in-hand with his instrumental inventions. On a piece from his very first LP, played on an 11-string instrument (partly strung with piano strings and using a schnapps glass a slide), we hear his intensive exploration of fret-hammering to create zither-like, chiming tone, which Reichel would hone further in later years with a double fretboard guitar specifically designed to be hammered rather than fretted and picked. On a piece from 1979’s Death of the Rare Bird Ymir, Reichel uses two steel-string acoustic guitars at once, with beautiful results: ‘some even say too beautiful’, he jokes in the interview included here. Many of the pieces from the 1980s make use of varieties of the ‘pick behind the bridge guitar’, instruments of uncanny harmonic richness primarily designed to be played on the ‘wrong’ side of the bridge. At times the unexpected behaviour of attacks, resonance, and decay can almost seem electronic, conjuring up the technology-assisted work of Henry Kaiser or even Fennesz, but realised solely through Reichel’s unorthodox techniques on his invented instruments. Extensively illustrated with photos and Reichel’s own plans and drawings of his instruments, Dalbergia Retusa is an essential introduction to the unique world of Hans Reichel. Rarely has music been at once so strange and so beautiful.

DJ support: Soul Clap, Walla P (Voyage Funktastique), Moniquea

The first lady of MoFunk Records is also considered by many to be one of the queens of modern funk music. Her latest, “Womp In My Spirit,” fuses a wide range of styles within its ten tracks and shows the true versatility of funk music. On one end, the deep g-funk bounce of songs like “Womp In My Spirit” & “However You Are” show you Moniquea's west coast roots clearly, while uptempo boogie bangers like “Get It Together” sit in the lane that MoFunk is best known for. Tracks like “Red Light” go in a more dancey direction, welcoming the sleekness of house music to mingle with g-funk whistles and rubbery synth bass, a track that recently caught the ear of Soul Clap and was remixed by them on their recent “Soul Clap vs. MoFunk” EP. The majority of production on the album was handled by MoFunk head honcho XL Middleton.

Musical maverick Mark de Clive-Lowe returns to his roots with a new electro-acoustic record ‘Dreamweavers', displaying his talent as a pianist and composer in partnership with creative collaborators bass player Andrea Lombardini and drummer Tommaso Cappellato.
De Clive-Lowe’s stylistic signature is usually found in his role as conductor, producer and manipulator of sounds behind his highly customized, mind-boggling setup of intertwining synths, drum machines and live-remixing technology. With all but a grand piano and a few keyboards stripped away from him, and the production in Lombardini and Cappellato’s hands, ‘Dreamweavers’ is the first non-self-produced MdCL album in 25 years.

For fans of post-punk and new wave, some songs aren’t just classics — they’re emotional landmarks. Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and The Cure’s “A Forest” (both released in 1980) helped define an era, shaping decades of alternative music with their stark honesty, atmosphere, and unmistakable sound. Revisiting them is no small task.

Reimagining them successfully is even rarer. This special, limited 7” release — pressed to just 300 copies — does exactly that, thanks to legendary Dutch electronic producer Maarten van der Vleuten. A joint effort between Maarten’s own Signum Recordings and American chill-out imprint re:discovery records, he brings these two towering songs into new territory through the hands of an artist who understands both history and transformation. On one side, Maarten delivers a striking cover of “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” taking on Ian Curtis’ immortal lyrics himself. Rather than mimicking the original’s desolation, this version reframes the song into something unexpectedly inspirational and equally moving. It’s respectful, deeply personal, and emotional. Flip the record and “A Forest” is reborn as an ambient-electro journey, marking the vocal debut of Melbourne-based Linda Kastanja.
The result is dynamic and powerful, retaining the song’s eerie tension while expanding its atmosphere into something spacious and cinematic. Honoring their legacy while reshaping their form, it offers longtime fans and new listeners a rare opportunity to hear familiar emotions from a completely new perspective. Todocument this release, a music video has been made for “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” directed by Maarten and edited by Tobias Grönvall, aka Unit 21.

Since launching two years ago, Craig White has used the Mister Bear label as a vehicle for quality, musically expansive deep house from a handful of established artists. Chief among these is Chicago great Vick Lavender, who here once more joins forces with trusted multi-instrumentalist Justin Dillard (and on side B, Will Jackson) for a pair of cuts fronted by honeyed vocalist Brian 'Smokey' Williams. A-side 'Experimental' is particularly special, with Williams seemingly improvising atop a chunky, bass-heavy organic house groove marked out by funky Clavinet licks, Ron Trent style percussion, spacey synths and rich organ chords. The collective goes deeper, smoother and even more intricate on flip-side 'Love Times', which is presented in both full vocal and instrumental forms.

DJ Support: Gilles Peterson, Osunlade, Lakuti, Sean McCabe, Craig Smith, Marcia Carr + more

JuJu Muzik presents “Counting Clouds,” the newest work from Chicago house pioneer Harry Dennis, whose poetic influence spans over three decades and legendary projects like Jungle Wonz, The IT, and Fingers Inc. Featuring an exceptional lineup of remixers & producers - Rob Redford & Damian Charles with a contemporary soulful rework that nods to classic Chicago, Rude Boy Rupert delivering a broken-beat-infused UK underground twist, Mark Hand with his warm jazz-rooted depth and Julian Garnett offering a signature JuJu Muzik interpretation—the release bridges Chicago’s foundational spirit with today’s global house movement, celebrating the genre’s past, present, and future.

Mark Funk and Danny Cruz's Cruise Music label continues to offer-up the best of its digital-first EPs via the popular Vinyl Jams sampler series. There's a real sun-splashed, dancing-on-the-terrace feel to much of the music contained on this 14th volume in the series. Mark Funk steps up first with the loopy, filter-rich disco-house release of 'Never Never', which rises and falls in all the right places in search of hands-aloft action, before Makito drops the vibraphone solo-laden deep house-meets-garage-house flex of 'Heavy Vibes' (think Masters at Work collaborating with Roy Ayers and you're close), Over on side B, Danny Cruz serves up 'Sugar', a tooled-up, house-style re-edit of a joyous disco gem, while Filth & Smell's 'Panama Sweet Spot' is an electric piano and sax-loop-fired slab of thickset house funkiness.

First & Last is the debut outing of MC D alongside his partner in rhyme Audio MC. Fresh-faced schoolboy scions of Hijack, The Demon Boyz and Silver Bullet, and peers of the likes of Gunshot, Hardnoise and The Criminal Minds, the pair were taken under the wing of The Powerlords as part of the Powerpack crew (alongside Construction and Trouble), and were given the moniker 2XDEF. Brought to the attention of South London’s fledgling dance label Mendoza Records by producer DJ Fusion, this release would mark the the beginning of a longterm creative partnership between him and MC D, with Mendoza label-mate CSP called in for remix duties. Gritty, explosive and raw, the record stalled at the white label stage with only a handful distributed to radio and club DJs, earning it the status of underground classic. First & Last became exactly that for the short-lived crew.

M.C.’s/How Many Miles? is the follow-up solo single and arrival proper of MC D. With DJ Fusion once again handling production and scratch duties, this extended player is no less uncompromising than its predecessor. Benefitting a full release with the now iconic Mendoza green labels, it cemented the young MC in the annals of UK rap history. MC D (aka Darren James) cut one more record for Mendoza as part of his Silent Eclipse project before moving on to future collaborations with the likes of The Principle (Caveman), Deckwrecka, Rodney P and Skinnyman. M.C.’s/How Many Miles? is ranked amongst Mark McDonald’s Top 100 UK rap records in the essential Megablast book published in 2024.

Cindytalk has remained a majestic proposition over the decades, one marked by a continued process of disintegration and regeneration. Change has been a constant for Cindytalk, as has been the presence of the Scottish musician Cinder, who has fronted the project since the early '80s. The first Cindytalk albums embraced a dark theatricality of post-punk dissonance and abject rock deconstruction that coupled industrial dirges with Cinder's beatific vocals, these same vocals that were once plied to the earliest This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins recordings,forever binding Cinder to the 4AD lore. But even on those albums, Camouflage Heart and In This World, Cinder was pushing the band to embrace the studio as a tool for further abstraction of sodden drones, cobwebbed dark elegance, and decayed textures.

By the early aughts, Cinder had reimagined Cindytalk through the granular processes of digitalia with a handful of equally celebrated works of glitch-born expressionism for Editions Mego. Cinder explains that "those elements were growing roots under our sound and had started to organically change the shape of what we were doing. The fucked-up rock music was in retreat and the electro-acoustic abstractions were becoming apparent. Fast forward to the early part of the 21st Century and my first laptop. It seemed natural where I needed to begin that part of my new sonic journey. To further explore those and new territories. Sunset and Forever is intrinsically connected to what came before."

Sunset and Forever is a labyrinthine opus, one that returns to the themes of the sacred and profane that have rippled through all of Cindytalk's recordings, albeit in various guises. The opening track "Embers of Last Leaves" is a haunted piece of undulated, cyclical tones that entwine into a sorrowful chorale with Cinder's own voice. Thumps of electronic drum kicks and bass drops dot the apocalyptic menace of "Tower of the Sun" but serve not as a rhythmic grid, but as painterly noises that further disrupt and disturb the machined dissonance. A cinematic radioluminescence blooms from the tempered electronics within "For Those Eyes, Shadows Of Flowers." The finale "I See Her in Everywhere" bookends the opening number with a seemingly human chorus build from electronic tones cast in cathedral reverence. Sounds throughout may appear adjacent to those of Fennesz, Holly Herndon, or even Lovesliescrushing from time to time, but Sunset and Forever remains purely Cindytalk.

Cover designed by Chris Bigg, known for his iconic design work for 4AD. Mastered by James Plotkin.

Melbourne / Naarm strongholdButter Sessionsclock 15 years in the game with a trilogy of 12"s, sustaining their uncompromising streak of peak-form electronics. The family-style V/A binds friends, collaborators, former studio neighbours and DJ booth allies, capturing a label that exists as community as much as catalogue.

Disc Three entrantRBIserves up a tweaked-out psy-not-psy cut with a built-in spin-back upending the room, beforeUnsolicited Joints- siblingsCousinandBen Fester- slide in with a deep dub techno shuffler. Tokyo mainstayHarukaseals the side withEventide, a serotonin-tipped house curveball made in collaboration with Rotterdam'sCharlton Bakeliet, one of the last internationals to grace the Mercat X booth.

The B-side blooms withOK EG's zoned, psychoactive techno, handing over toHybrid Manto diffuse the tension with their morphing dubwise excursion.Yuzo Iwatacontinues his uncategorisable strain, self-described as EPM (Electronic Psychedelic Music), marked by Japanese ingenuity and free of genre boundaries. Finally,Sleep Dround out the set with a rogue link-up withPosseshot, a raw and adrenalised raver laced with a vocal that snarls closer to The Prodigy than hip-hop.

Whether taken alone or folded into the three-disc triptych, each instalment stands as a bag-ready constant, charged with Butter Sessions' curatorial finesse.

Soul Music legend Candi Staton returns to her down-home Alabama roots on her 32nd album, Back to My Roots. The twelve-track Americana set features an array of Staton-penned originals and some well-chosen covers.

"These songs represent my roots," Staton adds as she reflects on her many trials and triumphs. "Even the new songs on some level represent something I've experienced and that's what real soul music is about." Back to My Roots was produced by Staton with her second eldest son, Marcus Williams, a professional drummer who has toured with the likes of Peabo Bryson, Isaac Hayes, and Tyler Perry. They brought in Mark Nevers of Lambchop fame, who produced three of Staton’s prior Americana albums for Honest Jon’s and Thirty Tigers, to sweeten certain tracks. “Some of the first songs I ever heard were songs like `Peace in the Valley’ and `It’s Gonna Rain,’” says Staton. “The new songs or cover songs are tracks that remind me of that era when I was growing up as a child and evolving as a young woman. That’s why I named the album Back to My Roots because I’m going back to the roots that made me who I am.”

Staton received the Americana Music Association UK’s highest honour, the International Lifetime Achievement Award, at the UK Americana Music Awards ceremony at Hackney Church in London last year for her southern soul work that stretches from her 1969 Muscle Shoals hits to her more recent collaborations with the likes of Americana kings Jason Isbell and John Paul White.
The album opens with a mid-tempo Bonnie Raitt-styled contemporary blues “I Missed the Target Again” that finds Harry Connick Jr.’s longtime guitarist Jonathan DuBose Jr. (aka the Prophesying Guitarist) showing off his skills that set the tone for the song and the album.

Staton’s older sister, Maggie Staton Peebles (who alongside Staton was a member of the Jewel Gospel Trio in the 1950s), joins her for two duets. The first, “It’s Gonna Rain,” features just a drum, steel guitar and vocals. “My mother used to sing that song to us all the time when I was a child,” Staton recalls. “It’s a really soulful kind of song I wanted to revisit.” They then take turns leading Thomas Dorsey 1939 gem “There Will Be Peace in the Valley” that Elvis Presley popularized in the 1950s.

“Hang on in There” is a new, mid-tempo song that has an old school gospel flavour and features vocals from veteran bluesman, Larry McCray.
While in Europe in 2023 for her farewell concert tour that took her to the Glastonbury Festival and Love Supreme, Staton and her British band, PUSH, went into a London studio to record a new version of The Rolling Stones’ 1972 gem, “Shine A Light.” “I love the way that came out,” Staton says. “We put a big choir on it and put our own twist on it.”
From there, Staton revives another Thomas Dorsey classic, “The Lord Will Make a Way Somehow,” with a bluesy vibe. When Al Green started recording gospel in the early 1980s, he re-introduced this song into the culture.

“God’s Gonna Use Me Anyway” is a new mid-tempo blues with subtle Caribbean influences.

The mood takes a turn on “1963.” It’s a poignant, spoken-word reflection on September 15, 1963, when four black girls were killed in the Birmingham Church bombing. “I was in the city that day and I remember the chaos and horror after the bombing,” Staton recalls. “Just thinking of how racism and hatred caused those men to kill those girls was so emotional for me that I could only do it in one take.”

It's a perfect segue into "Reach Down and Touch Heaven," a haunting, plea for divine intervention into the affairs of mankind. "That's straight Baptist," she says. "I used to be a church pianist back in the 1960s. I've never played piano on one of my records before so that's a unique song for me because I’m finally playing on one of my records. The message of that song is about the homeless. It came to me when a homeless person on the street asked me for $5. When God touches your heart to help somebody else that’s heaven to God’s hears. So, when we reach into our purse or wallet to help someone, we’re touching heaven."

Staton offers love as an antidote to hate on the bouncy, Motown-styled, “Love Breakthrough.”

Her publicist brought Aaron Frazer & the Flying Stars of Brooklyn NY’s 2017 cut “My God Has a Telephone” to Staton’s attention. She shifts the track from a retro 1960s groove to more of a 1980s Malaco Records arrangement, a subtle but distinct variation. Staton brought in her longtime friend and STAX Records legend, William Bell (“I Forgot to Be Your Lover” and “Trying to Love Two”), to add raspy seasoning to the track.

The album closes with the wistful, “In God’s Hands We Rest Untroubled,” that was originally written and recorded by the late country star, Lari White, who died in 2017 at the age of 52. “Lari sent me that song to consider at least ten years ago and I always loved it,” Staton says. “The record label didn’t want it on the album or something, so I just held it.”
Staton says, “I grew up hearing a lot of these old songs when they were new songs. I toured with the Jewel Gospel Trio in the 1950s and we got to know people like Mahalia Jackson, Sam Cooke and others who sang these types of songs. So, I’m sort of paying tribute to them and the influence they had on me by refreshing these songs and making new songs in the old style.”’

To mark 10 years since SOPHIE’s game-changing singles collection PRODUCT, Numbers are celebrating with a special edition featuring 11 songs across Deluxe Vinyl and Compact Disc.

This anniversary release includes bonus tracks, track-by-track slide posters, and a SOPHIE PRODUCT Card. Physical editions are now available for pre-order and released on 11th July 2025.

SOPHIE classics ‘BIPP’, ‘LEMONADE’ and ‘VYZEE’ are joined by two immaculate PRODUCT-era songs ‘OOH’ and ‘GET HIGHER’ recorded and produced at the time, each with colourful single artwork completing the set.

‘OOH’ is one of SOPHIE's earliest productions that has been through several revisions since 2011. It was one of three original tracks that Numbers had signed when SOPHIE uploaded the song alongside 'BIPP' and 'ELLE' to her Soundcloud, and while it had been through several iterations and speed changes, this finalised version was completed by SOPHIE in 2019.

SOPHIE once described ‘OOH’ as “hi tech club dance pop”. Musically speaking, the earworm hook is carved out by her signature portamento-infused synths and candy-coated lyrics, a firm cult classic approved by AG Cook and Charli XCX. Initially titled 'MAKE RESPECT', the track was first performed live by SOPHIE in 2011 to a handful of lucky people at a beach afterparty surrounding Sonar Festival, Barcelona and later that year at Manhattan's New Museum. The vocal was recorded as the first track in the same one-day recording session as SOPHIE's debut single 'NOTHING MORE TO SAY', released on the Huntley & Palmers label, where Sophie's songwriting was performed by the London vocalist Jaide Green.

The genesis of the ‘OOH’ and ‘NOTHING MORE TO SAY’ recording session is lore-worthy in its own right: after watching Jaide Green perform live with Olly Murs during the sixth series of The X Factor in 2009, SOPHIE reached out and invited Jaide to record in her home bedroom studio.

‘GET HIGHER’ was born during joyous sessions in 2013, when SOPHIE’s beat was introduced to the vocalists Cassie Davis and Sean Mullins. The track feels like a visionary precursor to ‘Vroom Vroom’, and doesn't sound out of place next to the sub-clang intensity of SOPHIE’s ‘HARD’ and ‘MSMSMSM’. Striking a playful balance between blissed-out hyperpop and club-ready Atlanta trap, it showcases SOPHIE’s signature, laser sharp sound design. Originally released as a bonus track on the Japanese CD edition of PRODUCT, ‘GET HIGHER’ has remained a hidden gem.

A groundbreaking producer, songwriter and performer, SOPHIE's visionary approach reshaped the landscape of pop and electronic music. Emerging in the early 2010s, SOPHIE introduced a hyper-detailed, futuristic sound defined by metallic textures, elastic basslines, and an uncanny blend of synthetic and emotional tones. Collaborating with artists including Charli XCX, Madonna, Vince Staples and Arca, SOPHIE helped pioneer a new pop movement while challenging conventions around identity, genre and production. SOPHIE's work continues to resonate deeply, leaving a lasting impact on a generation of artists and listeners alike. Discography: PRODUCT (2015), OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES (2018), SOPHIE (released posthumously, 2024).

For two decades, Hudd Traxx has stood as a pillar of underground house music – a label defined by longevity, taste, and its ability to bridge the old school with the new. To mark its twentieth anniversary, the revered UK imprint presents ‘20 Traxx From The Hudd’, a specially curated, all-new twenty-track compilation handpicked by label founder Eddie Leader.

The compilation brings together a global, star-studded lineup of artists who embody the Hudd Traxx ethos: soulful, inventive, and uncompromisingly underground. Contributions come from Groove Armada, Seven Davis Jr., Chez Damier, Cinthie, Jovonn, Oliver Dollar and others, offering a snapshot of the label’s wide-ranging influence. From the silky deep house depths of Black Loops’ opener ‘Soul to Soul Communication’, to the unmistakable analog warmth across Cinthie’s ‘Hudd House’, to the raw, stripped-back energy of Seven Davis Jr.’s ‘Infrasound’, the collection captures the many deeper shades of house Hudd Traxx has championed for twenty years.

Founded in 2005, Hudd Traxx has served as a trusted home for pioneering artists such as Nightmares On Wax and Matthew Herbert, guided by Eddie Leader’s consistent curatorial vision and unwavering commitment to craft. As a producer, his releases on Classic, Robsoul, and Balance Alliance have been supported by Laurent Garnier, Josh Wink, Disclosure, and many more. ‘20 Traxx From The Hudd’ isn’t just a celebration of the past; it’s a fervent reminder that Hudd Traxx remains as relevant and vital as ever.

The only album by Descendants Of Mike and Phoebe, a family band made up of Bill Lee and his brothers, who are also known as the father of Spike Lee, the director of films such as 'Crooklyn' and 'Do The Right Thing'. A Sprit Speaks. The great song 'Coltrane' by Bill Lee, also famous for his performance of Clifford Jordan, is a miraculous balance of dignified and beautiful piano tones and a heavy waltz beat. M3 'Chick Chick', which seems to have been dedicated to Chick Corea, is an up-tempo, fast-moving song. From there to the last track, 'Too Little, Too Late', a beautiful, tear-jerking piece that conveys the depth and greatness of 70s spiritual jazz!

Mike Shannon drops the ‘Off World Synthetics’ EP on Rekids. The Cynosure label boss follows up his ‘Shadow Moves’ EP on sister imprint RSPX on January 16th, 2026

Canadian DJ and producer Mike Shannon kicks off the year on Radio Slave’s Rekids with the ‘Off World Synthetics’ EP, landing 16th January 2026 and marking his first appearance on the label since 2023’s ‘Shadow Moves’ for sub-label RSPX. A long-standing force in Minimal and House with a discography stretching two decades, collaborations on Richie Hawtin’s Plus 8, and his own Cynosure and Haunt Recordings labels, Shannon has carved out a reputation as a respected staple in the booth and the studio.

Inspired by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Möbius’ INCAL graphic novels, Mike Shannon’s ‘Off World Synthetics’ EP opens with ‘Synthetic Salsateca’, where a static groove drives a playful, squelching synthline. ‘Back To The Hood’ follows with rattling, mechanical energy before the fl ip reveals ‘Off World Sparkle’, its wonky sequences bending around rubbery low-end. Closing cut ‘Only Noodles’ pushes deeper into warped clicks, scratches, and subtly shifting textures, rounding off an EP that’s raw, restrained, and devastating in the right hands and on the right system.

2025 REPRESS ON TRANSPARENT GREEN VINYL


Compiled by Philip King “And then came the rise of synth pop : blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese passing gas in a wind tunnel. Whoopee! This is the way the ‘70s ended : not with a blood-curdling bang bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.” NICK KENT, NME. All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 is a new compilation that charts the underbelly of the epoch-defining sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music. Compiled by Philip King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs, Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop Glam Discotheque), the music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts grappling with new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel Miller’s Mute Records. Featuring rare tracks of auto-didactic progressive pop music, proto-techno punk, shoot-for-the-stars-land-in-the-gutter chart flops and heralded, underground synth classics, School Daze paints a picture of beautiful failure. Complete with extensive sleeve notes written by King and never before seen imagery, all 24 tracks were remastered by RPM in-house engineer Simon Murphy, many from vinyl copies due to lost master tapes. The story told on All The Young Droids is one of the dawning opportunity presented by both the emergence to the market of cheaper analog synthesisers and the distribution networks plus indie labels that exploded with the advent of punk music in 1976. While the music that sprouted out all over the globe in the wake of these factors was decried as fake, plastic, a refutation of punk’s guitar-led revolution, it’s telling that much of the music on All The Young Droids.. was created in bedrooms, ramshackle studios and home-made set ups with often borrowed equipment. In the era of record labels jumping to capitalise on the success of The Sex Pistols, The Clash (both on major labels, of course) these artists struggled to stand out from a new gold-rush with next to no budget or PR team. With radio and labels desperate for the new Yazoo, what resulted was a testament to necessity being the mother of invention. At the time, the synthesiser was the music of the future, a shiny new machine that could paint like an orchestra with a single finger and a 4-track. In the hands of Manchester avant-pranksters Gerry & The Holograms it’s a pulsing, sardonic weapon.. the only instrument on the Messthetics classic lampooning of New Wave fashion. In Hamburg, a 16 year old Andreas Dorau used it to write and record (with his female classmates on vocals) a global smash in Fred Vom Jupiter (later licensed to Mute Records). The hard-to-find English version (Fred From Jupiter, natch) is included here. Many artists with alreadystoried careers caught the bug and recorded synthesiser-fuelled peons to space, computers, the future and, of course, love-interests. Harry Kakoulli, late of Squeeze, recorded a solo album in 1979 that included the incredible power-synth-pop smash-that-never-smashed I’m On A Rocket. Similarly, Ian North of Neo and American Power Pop stalwarts Milk ’n’ Cookies bought a Korg MS20 and used a tape machine to record We’re Not Lonely, an absolute lost-classic of minimal synth pop. We’re Not Lonely also features on the Junkshop Synth Pop sampler 7” twinned with John Howard unreleased track You Will See, released April 12th 2025. There are plenty of compilation debuts in evidence. Sole Sister were a mysterious trio who were featured on the Scaling Triangles compilation of female-fronted, queer-adjacent post-punk / underground music that also featured The Petticoats. Selwin Image were from San Francisco and featured members of the recently defunct power pop/punk group The Pushups. Their stupidly catchy The Unknown fizzes with New Wave energy - think XTC to Sparks but remains unreleased until now. Dream Unit’s A Drop In The Ocean is an early synth wave cut, positively teaming with Joy Division instrumentation, previously only released on a long-forgotten and super rare, self-released EP. Incandescent Luminaire’s Famous Names belies an archetypal struggle of a small-town trying to make it in a cruel industry but is a thrilling New Romantic-Synth Wave cross over with a OMD gloominess that’s a joy to hear. Feminist Minimal Wave track I Am A Time Bomb by performance artist Peta Lilly and Michael Chance is a revelation destined for new found cult status. It was released on 7” and lost until now. The flipside to the subterranean, never-made-it synth pop mentioned above are the ambitious, even fruity attempts at success that have a perennial elegance to their confidence. New Jersey-ite Billy London (real name Ed Barth) tried to cash in on the synth boom with Woman, released by a major label, a lurching new wave track built on the Louie Louie rhythm and a wonderfully camp Lou Reedstyle sleazy vocal before exploding in the synthesised chorus. The song bombed but with a chorus like this, you have to wonder why? Ex-Glitter Band member John Springate’s My Life is truly epic, with doomed chord progressions and massive sounding drums turning into at least 3 different songs in the course of the track. Before you wonder what’s going on the song resolves with a glorious return to the main refrain. The dry-ice-dressed dance floor is well catered for too. Design’s Premonition and Vision’s Lucifer’s Friend are stone-cold minimal synth bangers, well loved but given a new lease of life here. The Warlord’s The Ultimate Warlord was released in 1978, a homespun proto Hi NRG banger that was later re-recorded by The Immortals in Canada who had a club hit with it. One-man- band Disco Volante’s No Motion was re-issued by Synth wave label Medical in 2012 but makes its first vinyl compilation appearance here. Close your eyes and you can imagine what Lawrence of Felt would have sounded like with some cheap Korgs a little earlier in his career. Gibraltar-based trio The Microbes imagined a computer programming people to dance - how prescient - and ended up with a propulsive, robo-funk track with splendid rubbery bass playing over a tectonic drum machine. Previously picked up by Belgian label Stroom TV, Dee Jay Bert & Eagle’s heavily Euro-accented I Am Your Master demands the listener to “come to paradise!” In a frankly terrifying manner. All The Young Droids is the first compilation to peel away from the narrative that dour, Minimal Synth and Cold Wave were the only musical children of the first rush of synth pop. Philip King and School Daze Records describe a much more complicated world: along with the austere, Brutalist children of Daniel Miller (who produced Alan Burnham’s Bowie-Low-influenced Science Fiction here) was a plethora of desperate cash-ins, accidental mainstream hits, ambitious pop dramas and major label punts that went nowhere. Crucially, the compilation blurs the line between junk and treasure. What if the two things are interchangeable. What if it’s all science fiction?

Ninja was a niche Italo disco project formed by Cristina Peri (vocalist, composer and producer) and Enzo Benetti (DJ and producer). Together they managed to compose and produce only a handful of tracks, three of which were released under the Ninja moniker. Their collaboration resulted in a highly distinctive synth-pop sound, marked by a rock-leaning drum approach with a strong, metal-sounding snare, and melodic lines that deliberately avoided obvious, immediate catchiness.

The unique and “super obscure Italo treasure” reissued by Vintage Pleasure Boutique, titled “Mad About Love,” carries an additional point of interest: Pier Michele Bozzetti, better known as Miko Mission, was also involved in the production. “Mad About Love” is a rare and collector-sought track that has never been reissued before. With this new vinyl release, Vintage Pleasure Boutique once again steps forward with an archival initiative, hoping to bring genuine excitement to underground Italo fans and collectors alike.

*Single/Focus Track
Auf Lambchops siebzehntem Album 'Punching the Clown' kehrt Kurt Wagner zu den Ursprüngen zurück. Angeregt durch eine nächtliche Radiobegegnung mit einer unbekannten Gospel-Aufnahme tauchte Wagner tief in die Welt des „Lined-Out-Singing“ ein – einer jahrhundertealten schottisch-appalachischen Call-and-Response-Tradition, bei der ein einzelner Vorsänger einen Chor Wort für Wort und ohne Schnörkel durch Hymnen führt. Dieser Geist roher, gemeinschaftlicher Stimmen prägt jeden Moment von „Punching the Clown“: Wagner verbrachte Jahre damit, große Songwriter zu studieren und sein Handwerk von Grund auf neu zu erlernen, wobei er Dutzende von Songs auf zwölf reduzierte. Aufgenommen in drei Tagen mit dem Gitarristen Andrew Broder, Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) am Banjo und einem sechstimmigen Chor, zusammengestellt von Blake Morgan und unter der Toningenieurschaft von Lambchop-Veteran Mark Nevers, ist das Album anmutig, ironisch und auf stille Weise erschütternd. Erscheint am 21. August 2026 bei City Slang.

Produziert von Ryan Olson und aufgenommen vom 25. bis 27. August 2025 im April Base, Wisconsin. Die Platte wurde in drei Tagen fertiggestellt und präsentiert Kurt Wagner (Gesang), Andrew Broder (Gitarre), Justin Vernon (Banjo) sowie ein sechststimmiges Vokalensemble, ergänzt durch zusätzliche Choraufnahmen in London und Minneapolis.

Real Lies’ new album ‘WE WILL ANNIHILATE OUR ENEMIES’ will arrive on April 16th 2025 via Tonal. The album is about taking the hand of someone you love intensely and running headlong into the chaos and noise and grinding forces that dominate modern life. It follows gilded 2024 collaborations with Mall Grab, Kettama and Drain Gang’s YEAR0001 label. Lyricist Kevin Lee Kharas and producer Patrick King created the record in their studio, hidden away under a railway bridge somewhere in London’s Zone 3. Three pictures stared down at them from the walls throughout, including an image of a young Sasha Shulgin in the relief print style of Che Guevara t-shirts sold at Camden Market, and a photo of an orbiter fairground ride in flight, taken sometime in the early 2000s. Kharas’ lyrical inspiration comes when he steps away from the tsunami of data flooding his consciousness and paces London’s rain-soaked streets late at night. “I wanted the songs on WWAOE to confront modern reality head-on, unflinching,” he explains. “I didn’t want to whine about a lost past. I didn’t want nostalgia. I wanted to learn to love the modern world, with all its horrors and futility.” After a teenhood spent playing in hardcore bands, the duo found ecstasy at a squat party for the first time, and moved to London. Since then, they’ve made music about finding romance and fun when the moon is up, becoming a cult act in the process.

"Drop That Beat," the cult classic by Ixxel that became a staple in clubs and at festivals in the late '90s, is making its return. The iconic track receives a contemporary interpretation by Mosimann, plus a high-energy club remix from NightFunk. Together marking a rebirth that sounds both timeless and hyper-modern.

Mosimann, the French-Swiss DJ-producer, singer and showman, is a leading figure in the French electronic scene, known for his bold, modern and versatile sound. A six-time DJ Mag Top 100 DJ artist, he stands out with explosive live performances in which he not only mixes, but also sings, plays drums, and commands keyboards, a technical virtuosity that makes him a unique live phenomenon, comparable to showmasters like James Hype. His rework of "Drop That Beat" injects the track with that same hybrid energy and performance-driven power.

Mosimann: "This track is very important to me. Fred Rister was much more than an influence: he was the first to truly get me into music production when I was 20 years old. Before he left us, he handed me the stems of Drop That Beat and told me: 'If one day you feel like it, work on a version.' It took me years of reflection, doubts, and memories before I found the strength to do it. Today, with the blessing of the two original composers, I'm finally releasing this version. It's both a tribute to Fred, a nod to Jacky Core and the Captain where I played so many times, and a way to carry on the legacy of that '90s Belgian techno which, to me, still feels very present today."

Belgian house star NightFunk complements this perfectly with a tight, club-ready remix that pushes the track straight onto today's peak-time dancefloors.

With this dual reboot, the essence of "Drop That Beat" remains intact, while both artists inject the track with their own signature touch. The result is an energetic release that resonates with nostalgic fans and a new generation of ravers alike.

This special edition will be released on vinyl via Serious Beats Classics, once again spotlighting the track's timeless character. A must-have for collectors and DJs eager to weave a piece of dance history into their sets.