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Recommended if you like: Chet Baker, Norah Jones, Kamasi Washington, BADBADNOTGOOD, Wild Nothing, DIIV, Kevin Krauter. "improvisational jazz, classical music, and Stereolab... his songwriting owes more to loop-based composition than garage-bound woodshedding." – Pitchfork // Inspired by a love of artists such as Bill Evans, Lester Young, Chet Baker and Vince Guaraldi, Dustin Payseur reimagines some of his greatest hits from the Beach Fossils catalog alongside a group of formally trained jazz musicians. A rich and mellow mix of piano, saxophone, upright bass and brushed drums explore the contours of familiar songs, soaring Payseur’s melancholic harmonies to new heights.

Recommended if you like: Chet Baker, Norah Jones, Kamasi Washington, BADBADNOTGOOD, Wild Nothing, DIIV, Kevin Krauter. "improvisational jazz, classical music, and Stereolab... his songwriting owes more to loop-based composition than garage-bound woodshedding." – Pitchfork // Inspired by a love of artists such as Bill Evans, Lester Young, Chet Baker and Vince Guaraldi, Dustin Payseur reimagines some of his greatest hits from the Beach Fossils catalog alongside a group of formally trained jazz musicians. A rich and mellow mix of piano, saxophone, upright bass and brushed drums explore the contours of familiar songs, soaring Payseur’s melancholic harmonies to new heights.

GENRE: Modern Classical, Experimental, Ambient Metal. RIYL: György Ligeti, Sarah Davachi, Stars Of The Lid. 180g LP pressed at Optimal, 350gsm jacket, inner & DL card. Jessica Moss Also Known For Her Tenure In Thee Silver Mt. Zion (2002-2015), Black Ox Orkestar (2002-2007), Recordings By Vic Chesnutt, Carla Bozulich, Arcade Fire, Basia Bulat, Roy Montgomery, Sarah Davachi, Big Brave & More. A phosphene is “the phenomenon of seeing light without light entering the eye.” The title of the heart-rending and resolute new album by composer/violinist Jessica Moss could not be better chosen. Moss is by now a seasoned practitioner of immersive isolation music; across three previously acclaimed solo records of minimal and maximal post-classicism, her acoustic, amplified, and electronically-shifted violin is the raw material for deeply expressive, palpably haunted, wholly committed compositions. But Phosphenes inscribes fleeting halos of refracted ghostly light out of a prevailing darkness with especially plangent determination and intensity. This is the most overtly searching, mournful and inexorable music Moss has made to date. The pieces on Phosphenes exquisitely navigate consonance and dissonance, building patiently from single notes to multiple voicings, harmonic stacks and clusters. These compositions channel themselves like slow-moving water in a dark cave, finding small eddies and catching glints of luminescence from within. Signal processing is kept to a minimum in the three-movement “Contemplation” suite on Side One, where Moss deploys amplification chiefly in the service of activating overtones and pitch-shifts, thickening and widening the sonics, carving out her unique timbral space. Based on a four-note sequence that sets whole tones against one another, “Contemplation” is a bona fide requiem that finds Moss at her most instrumentally naturalistic, measured, and modern. Side Two unfolds in a more foreboding vein: “Let Down” is marked by cavernous octave-dropped arco and pizzicato, providing a gothically-inflected substratum upon which hauntingly wordless vocal invocations and cumulative gyres of violin melody unfurl. “Distortion Harbour” grinds with noisier grit and a more harrowing complexion, highlighting Moss’s ambient-metal sensibility and her distinctive palette of industrial-inflected power electronics a reminder of why she’s also been a go-to player on albums by the likes of Big Brave, Oiseaux-Tempête and Zu in recent years. These two songs also feature upright bass from old friend and former bandmate Thierry Amar (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mt. Zion, Black Ox Orkestar). Album closer “Memorizing & Forgetting” is inarguably the most tender and beautiful song in Jessica’s oeuvre: a keening lullabye of sorts, on which she plays piano, violin and guitar, joined by her partner Julius Levy in a lustrous ambient vocal duet. Everyone has been trying to find a way through and out of pandemic, lockdown, social isolation and often darkened hope and for many musicians, the absence of touring, of live performance, live sound, live audiences, and a living. For Moss, it’s also been “like when you press your fists hard against your eyes and eventually there is fireworks.” The light gets in where it can, even or maybe especially as imaginative sensory simulacra (if/when we shut down our screens and are left to our own devices). Phosphenes is a stoic, acutely sensitive, superlative musical statement from Moss

From its founding in the late 14th century, the kingdom of Buganda has been celebrated through sound and nurtured a rich musical tradition in its royal court. Coming from across the kingdom, musicians would take turns in the palace to sound drums, xylophones, flutes, lyres, and more to praise and honour the existence of the kingship. In recent years however, the tradition has been more difficult to maintain, especially since 1966 where there was a violent attack on the palace that abruptly abolished the kingdom and during which royal musicians fled or were killed. And while the kingdom was re-established in 1993 as a cultural institution, many of the remaining musicians had since chosen to sideline their skills to deal with the issues of their day to day lives, the practice of the royal tradition waning in popularity, especially with younger listeners and players. But all is not lost. Scattered across the kingdom, a motivated team of older veterans and attentive young players are still keeping the tradition alive. Offering a transversal glimpse into the past and the present, "Buganda Royal Music Revival" collects recordings made in between the late 1940s and 1966 illustrating the older generation's skills, and presents them alongside recent recordings featuring old and young musicians who still carry on this musical tradition, some even performing for the current king, Muwenda Mutebi II. The later were made during the shooting of the 2019 documentary "Buganda Royal Music Revival" that presents through a film what this album conveys through sounds: a packed dive into a century-old tradition. The music displayed here is diverse and vibrant, presenting a variety of styles and highlighting instruments that illustrate the depth and sophistication that stemmed from the royal court experience of Buganda. As a starter, the album opens with 'Mujaguzo'. Often translated as 'The Drums of the Kingship', the mujaguzo is a crucial ensemble for the cultural tradition, made from drums collected by the kingdom throughout its long history and numbering around 100 drums (historical records suggest there were at some point over 300). They are the vitality of the kingship packaged into sound. From here, we're introduced deeper to an array of instruments and textures, like the buzzing Bugandan lyre (endongo) by contemporary royal player Albert Bisaso Ssempeke, the resonant akadinda xylophone with its 21 large wooden keys, Temutewo Mukasa's restless praise sung with his harp (ennanga), the hand-made gourd trumpet (amakondere), the entenga "drum-chime" and its core set of 12 drums tuned like the amadinda xylophone, or the tightly intertwined melodies of the flutes ensemble (abalere). With the music, the hissing and swishing sounds of old tapes reminds at times the listener of the long process, from the original recording to its archival digitization, that allows the talent of past musicians to still vibrate nowadays. This rousing selection of music and moods is a unique and all too rare exploration of sounds that celebrates the common history of generations of musicians, and the question remains open as to how this rich cultural tradition will shape and be shaped by the upcoming Bugandan future, and what engagement it will trigger among audiences within, but also beyond, the kingdom of Buganda.

Spoken word recordings from Gregory Corso, Tina May Hall, Sam Lipsyte, Christine Schutt, Gary Lutz, Allen Ginsberg, Dawn Raffel, Jason Schwartz, Kathryn Scanlan, Scott McClanahan, & Terry Southern. About 40 years ago, in a record shop on Long Island during a weekend visit there to see my parents, i found a double-LP that looked like something i should definitely buy. It was called "BIG EGO", by the The DIAL-a-POEM POETS. On the cover was a picture of John Giorno (a great poet Ed Sanders had turned me on to) on a NYC rooftop with Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, and two kids. It cost $2. I bought it and rushed back to my parents house, where i still had my old turntable in the basement, not far from my Jimi Hendrix and Zappa Crappa posters, and my framed portrait of John Cage. My copy of Eno's "Discreet Music" was still on the turntable, having been left there years before, when i'd fled Long Island for good. I lifted it from the platter, gently slid it back into its sleeve, like a priceless religious artifact, and put Side A of the Dial-a-Poem LP on. I almost lost my mind while listening to it. The next day i went back to the same record shop looking for more DIAL-A-POEM LP's. i found two. One had a long list of names on the back, some famous, and some i'd never heard of before. I bought both LP's, and an hour later, for the first time in my life, i was exposed to the art of Laurie Anderson, whom i'd never heard of before. This was 1978. Her contribution was a piece called "Time To Go". It changed my life. Or at least, that’s how I remember it. I was just a kid, so there were a lot of moments like that, around then. Nowadays, these moments can be had in seconds, with a click of the cursor. That evening, as i sat alone by my imaginary campfire (ie; that record player in my parents basement), i promised myself that someday, somehow, i would embark upon a WORDS & MUSIC project that might move people the same way i was moved when i first heard Laurie, and Robert Wilson & Christopher Knowles, and Burroughs, and Ginsberg, and Corso, and Anne Waldman, and John Ashbery, and the great Charles Olson, and so many others. Words, for the very first time, had wielded the same power as music. And it was visceral. Just like music. It ran deep. It was a FEELING. John Giorno died in 2019, but he kept poetry alive like nobody's business. I was lucky enough to have spent some time with him in the early 1980's, when i was briefly a member of The Fugs, and often found myself surrounded by those Ginsberg called, "...the greatest minds of my generation". Ed Sanders (who'd ushered me into that scene) once told me that when he came to NYC, it was easy to go to a cafe, or to St Marks Church, and hear Burroughs, Corso, Ginsberg, and all the greats, reading their poetry. He said that even if you were just a bum on the street, you could just walk right up to them, and start a conversation. They were totally accessible, if they were in the right mood at that particular moment. So i was shocked when Sanders told me he didn't approach any of them, not even once, til he'd been going to their readings for nearly ten years. "For almost a decade, I went to every reading, every lecture, every panel discussion. But I never went near them. Never approached them. Not even once", Sanders told me. "For ten years, all I did, was listen." It took me four decades, but ... better late than never. I finally made WORDS & MUSIC, Book One.

DJ Cam & sommelier Frédéric Beneix present Wine4Melomanes, an eclectic and unique
compilation album concept, matching fine wines with rare pieces of music produced in the
same year.
Connecting the complexity, sensuality, liveliness of a drink with the harmony, arrangements,
voice, orchestration, rhythm and melody of a song, Wine4Melomanes tours France,
Germany, Holland, the USA and even Slovakia in search of only the finest musical flavours.
Ranging from jazz, to pop-rock, to blue-eyed soul from the early 70s right through to 2016,
Wine4Melomanes is defined by its sense of musical opulence, with warm rich tones and
understated quality evident throughout. DJ Cam is known for his pioneering abstract hip-hop musical
compositions, his virtuoso use of technology and his fascination for acoustic jazz gaining him
international acclaim.

No other pairing in the history of Darkwave ever matched the unfettered creativity, resolve, and DIY attitude from the collaboration between the two creative minds that compromise Lebanon Hanover.

The meeting of the Swiss musician Larissa Georgiou, aka Larissa Iceglass and British artist William Maybelline a decade ago in the latter’s hometown of Sunderland in the UK, was a monumental occasion, reverberating throughout the European music scene and even across the Atlantic.

Lebanon Hanover would emerge from the peak of the world-wide minimal wave revival, with their 2011 split 7-inch record with La Fete Triste issued as the catalog debut of Europe’s most ubiquitous Techno-Industrial EBM labels, Aufnahme + Wiedergabe

With Berlin as their new physical home, William and Larissa would soon, however, join the Fabrika Records family. From here, they would go on to release two full-length albums through the Athens based label, starting in early 2012 with their winter debut LP The World Is Getting Colder, and it’s All Hallows Eve follow up Why Not Just Be Solo.

It was Lebanon Hanover’s 2013 third studio outing Tomb for Two that would go on to cement the duo’s legacy, with the album’s single “Gallow Dance” becoming a post-punk anthem for the times, with artwork became the band’s defacto logo. Not only that, the song “Sadness is Rebellion”, also featured on the album, became the band’s official Mantra.

Two years would pass before the release of 2015’s critically acclaimed fourth record, “Besides the Abyss”. In the intervening years, William and Larissa, initially a couple, would find other partners, and relocate to Athens.

Meanwhile, Lebanon Hanover as a live act would expand rapidly in popularity, exceeding capacity during their performances at Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig, and performing sold-out shows across Europe and the UK.

With the playful Babes of the 80s maxi-single released in the interim, three years would pass before the next record from Lebanon Hanover, with 2018’s Let Them Be Alien, the band’s fifth studio album.

At the dawn of the global pandemic, where dystopian nightmares that were only ever seen before within the pages of books and flashes of silver screen celluloid, has become a daily reality, a new kind of darkness envelops the world. It was at this Lebanon Hanover returned, sharing a glimmer of hope with the single “The Last Thing,” the duo’s first song from their forthcoming sixth studio album Sci-Fi Sky.

Spanning an epic journey across ten tracks that wander through industrial landscapes, and ascend beyond the atmospheric aether, Sci Fi Sky is Lebanon Hanover’s most cohesive artistic statement to date. With their icy hearts on their sleeves, this is the culmination of a decade’s worth of musical creativity radiating from the minds of both Iceglass and Maybelline, and altogether an otherworldly beacon of hope in a time of sheer darkness.

The Groove Chronicles is the second solo album release of Bouklas and his very first on vinyl.

The album is based mainly on Soul and Funk samples, chopped, flipped and pitched up by Bouklas and filled with his characteristic Boom Bap beats, giving an extra funkiness on this particular work. Bouklas has clearly been influenced by Gramatik on this LP and he took it to the next level by having some strong international guests on board.
The album includes the rapper INTeLL, son of U-God from the legendary Wu-Tang Clan, Mic Bles, a respected underground Hip-Hop MC from California, DJ Groove Sparkz from Lyon, the 3xDMC French Champion, IDA Vice World Champion and official tour DJ of L’Entourloop and the French vocalists, Cam & Nelly. Furthermore, there are featurings from talented local Greek artists, the vocalists Martzi and Alida SoulMama and the Turntablist DJ Moya, one of the best Scratch DJs in Greece.
The Groove Chronicles will be released on vinyl by the label Mind The Wax on May 2019 and includes 12 tracks.
Bouklas has been active on the Hip-Hop scene as an MC and a producer since 2002 with more than 10 independent projects to date. As a producer, Bouklas has collaborated with some of the most important names in the Greek Hip-Hop scene as well as with the rap veteran Masta Ace, Freddie Gibbs and the Grind Mode Cypher.
Furthermore, Bouklas has shared the stage with international artists such as the R.A. The Rugged Man, Dead Prez, Afu-Ra, Freestyle (of Arsonists), Foreign Beggars, Dope D.O.D., Killa Kela and DJ Vadim & Yarah Bravo.

Get yo ass in the house, robot-- you cyber-spectre, you outhouse prime minister, you hard-headed mirror ninja, snapping selfies, living in the pixelated seams between bursts the of flashing images, birthed in a pool of TV static and Tik Tok dust. BLACK ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE AIR is here, not to save but to drown you. Heads better learn how to swim cause listen, this record is beat soup, hearty yet still minimal, a sonic mirage of prophetic soul that drop kicks your "chill beats to study to" Youtube playlist and hyper-intellectual rap podcasts into a hadron collider; it's only black matter on the other side-- 13 mesmerizing tracks about memory and imprinting and the future, all of them wafting through untouched space like the ghostly cinders of a world on fire, unbound and uncharted, vast and stretching across the universe. Moor Mother is a holographic figment of an Afrotopian dream, all at once goddess and warrior, mystic and cyborg, griot and future time traveller, etching noisy pieces of reverie into our consciousness for decades now. But check it: on BLACK ENCYCLOPEDIA she's joined by a wide-range of friends, collaborators and co-conspirators on a trip through the murky cosmos, navigating the black universe with stardust as currency. In these times, they'll say, as they click and mash their way through the same inter-webs that seek to strangle them, BLACK ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE AIR is just what we need: a post-everything, 12:01 on the doomsday clock, anti-trip hop type of situation. "We ain't gotta fight no more," they'll say; the rest of us, we'll put this record on and imagine again that it's real.

Driven by support from the likes of Gilles Peterson, Quantic, Nightmares On Wax, The Nextmen, Lauren Laverne, Danny Krivit and most prominently Craig Charles, Sam Redmore has built a name for himself over the last few years for crafting soul-drenched remixes and reworks of both solidified classics and lesser-known material.

Having spent so much time re-working the classics it is no surprise that production values are high when it comes to his own original music.

At the start of 2021 Sam signed to Jalapeno Records, giving everyone involved cause for celebration after a difficult year and his debut album is slated for May 22.

Many of the album tracks were purpose-built for inclusion in his DJ sets - which can range from cumbia, afrobeat, samba, funk and reggae through to house, broken beat, disco and everything in between…

On The One will be the first single to drop from the album and features the inimitable vocals of poet and rapper Mr. Auden Allen as well as the soul drenched horns of Renegade Brass Band. Debuted on BBC 6 Music when Sam performed a guest mix in April this year, it seemed the perfect track to debut from Sam's new record.

Bill Withers created mellow, downhome-style soul for barely more than a decade before electively retreating from the industry to pursue craftsman interests. Yet over the course of the handful of albums he made for Sussex and CBS, the Appalachian native struck lasting emotional chords in legends ranging from Booker T. Jones to Stephen Stills—not to mention the millions of listeners that fell under the spell of now-standard tracks such as “Lean on Me,” “Use Me,” and “Ain’t No Sunshine.” The antithesis of the sweaty R&B shouter that prowled the edge of stages, Withers dealt in calm and vulnerability. Serving as a template for modern British soul contemporaries like Sam Smith and an extension of the timeless fare explored by Van Morrison, Curtis Mayfield, and Al Green, Bill Withers’ Greatest Hits belongs in every music lover’s library.



Mobile Fidelity’s reissues of the 1981 compilation provide a transparent view of Withers’ relaxing timbre and the subtle grooves underlining his arrangements. Characteristics ranging from the tension of the guitars, funky bends of the bass, whisper-soft coo of the formal strings, airiness of the backing harmonies, and sharpness of the snare drum emerge with utmost clarity and lifelike presence. Always prized for its naked honesty and pure conviction, Withers’ music positively caresses the senses on this LP and SACD, the unadulterated production and beautiful soundscapes revealed anew with each listen. You won’t find a better-sounding roots R&B collection.

Das Brüsseler Duo CCCVVV (Clara Vellin & soFa elsewhere) releast mit 'Curriculum Vitae' eine Sammlung intimer Avant-Pop-Oddities mit Anklängen an 60er Chansons und ausgeflippt-verspielter Akkorde. Zu den Höhepunkten gehört die verträumte Version von Nancy & Lees 'Some Velvet Morning' und die säurehaltige Slow-Mo-Hypnose 'Ritmo Denso'. Clara Vellin ist eine klassische Harfenspielerin, aktiv in diversen eklektischen Musikprojekten. soFa ist bekannt für seine eklektische 'elsewhere' Compilationserie, Produktionen wie Mameen 3, Nyati Mayi und der Zusammenarbeit mit der türkischen Schlagzeuglegende Okay Temiz & Houschyar auf Music From Memory/Second Circle.

In pairing words with art, the ESP Institute often does everything journalists hate. We drown the reader in hyperbole, abstractions as opposed to didactic or literal depictions, and paint the press release with superlatives that construct an existential struggle around the art and its conditions. To articulate our reasoning behind collaborating with the artist, or the synergy between their work and our catalogue, is sometimes so challenging that crossing that finish line is achingly delayed. Patrick Conway’s 2xLP 'Cellular Housekeeping', his fourth release with the label, is one of these works so monumentally exciting for us that we’ve strained over how to deliver with honor his art unto the masses. After the initial hurdle of visual representation (in this case handled with gusto by artist Hassan Rahim), how do we directly and intentionally talk about the art we deeply love, when in reality we’re largely guided by instinct? We explore many angles, often failing along the way, until finding a final click in the combination that unlocks the floodgates. With Patrick’s album, that elusive impetus revealed itself in a literary gem that both symbolized his aggressive, melancholic, romantic, and bleak overtones, as well as synchronized his work and our task with a metaphor so grand it justified putting these words to paper. In the deeply British poem of despair and hope, 'Comus: A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle', John Milton immortalized the classic idiom of the “silver lining”, and we find comfort in this transaction between struggle and what the poet considered divine intervention. Our bout of procrastination that brewed a cloud over the art may too tout a silver lining, the time that’s elapsed clearing a path for the album to exist in its rightful place, as opposed to fighting for a voice at an overcrowded table. In hindsight, this final hurdle might have only existed because without it, there is no glory, no resolution, but as all the pieces click and we collectively cross the finish line, Patrick Conway’s once captive 'Cellular Housekeeping' is now truly released.

Five years after the release of "Je vous dis" in 2018, Geins't Naït and L.Petitgand's second album from the "Mind Travel" and "Make Dogs Sing" collection on the German label "Offen", the duo are now writing a new chapter in their story with this fascinating poetic tale. The same mysterious and heady atmosphere which characterises the two musicians is present in this new work but clearly they have never ceased refining and polishing their sounds to give their compositions even more power and depth. Geins't Naït and L.Petitgand here offer twelve new tracks with names as enigmatic as the title "Like this maybe or This" itself and the record's whole universe. In reality, these mysterious names lead us to let ourselves be taken to the deep meaning of their creation. The subject matter is certainly difficult to grasp and invites us on an inner journey while leading us to doubt and question ourselves incessantly. There is a perfect alchemy between these two artists though this was far from self-evident as they come from two very different schools. Thierry Merigout, who is now the only representative left from the late 80's experimental project Geins't Naït in Nancy, comes from the post-industrial scene. As for Laurent Petitgand, he is a pure melodist who is best known for his work as a composer of music for films and live shows and has collaborated with Wim Wenders and Paul Auster in particular. "Like this maybe or This" is a fully accomplished symbiosis between Geinst Nait's industrial and experimental tonalities and the celestial melodies of Laurent Petitgand. "Shape of the storie" starts the album with a bewildering atmosphere which mixes a sample of a guttural voice with cavernous resonances thus prefiguring the album's general atmosphere. However, while some tracks like "HAC" fuel our existential anguish, other tracks have a poetic and melancholic tonality which touches our deepest humanity. This is the case of "Dustil" whose subtle piano notes combined with the melancholy violin show us a sublimated world. This fascinating blend of violence and gentleness makes this record an atypical work which enables listeners to lose themselves in an emotional nebula where they can perceive the turbulence and also the intensity of our inner life.

Ltd White vinyl LP w/ printed inner sleeve lyric insert (1000 copies ww)! Emma Ruth Rundle's forthcoming Engine of Hell is stark, intimate, and unflinching. For anyone that's endured trauma and grief, there's a beautiful solace in hearing Rundle articulate and humanize that particular type of pain not only with her words, but with her particular mysterious language of melody and timbre. The album captures a moment where a masterful songwriter strips away all flourishes and embellishments in order to make every note and word hit with maximum impact, leaving little to hide behind. "I really wanted to capture imperfection and the vulnerability of my humanity," Rundle says of the album's sonic approach. "Here are some very personal songs; here are my memories; here is me teetering on the very edge of sanity dipping my toe into the outer reaches of space and I'm taking you with me and it's very fucked up and imperfect.'" Emma Ruth Rundle has always been a multifaceted musician, equally capable of dreamy abstraction (as heard on her album Electric Guitar: One), maximalist textural explorations (see her work in Marriages, Red Sparowes, Nocturnes or collaborations with Chelsea Wolfe and Thou), and the classic singer-songwriter tradition (exemplified by Some Heavy Ocean). But on Engine of Hell, Rundle has opted to forego the full-band arrangements of her previous albums in favor of the austerity of a lone piano or guitar and her voice, which creates a kind of intimacy, as if we're sitting beside Rundle on a bench, or perhaps even playing the songs ourselves. It's an extremely up-close and personal confessional with a focus on the rich subtleties and timbre of Rundle's graceful performances. "For me this album is the end of an era to the end of a decade of making records. Things DO have to change and have changed for me since I finished recording it." In essence, Engine of Hell signifies a major turning point for Rundle as both an artist and as a person. The catharsis of this type of songwriting has effectively served its purpose, and to continue ruminating on the past going forward is less of a healing process and more like picking at a scab and refusing to let it heal. This may help explain why Rundle is less than enthusiastic about divulging the details about her muses, but it doesn't alter the fact that these songs served a purpose in their creation, and that they may continue to bring comfort to others.

Haz Mat, hailing from Detroit, may not be a household name YET, but just wait. His VINYL DEBUT is People of Earth's seventh release. A three track EP that is as rounded as it gets. Deep, techy, soulful & a bit of disco for kicks. "My Zania" has lush chords that morph into a tech masterpiece. "Bridge to the Universe" straight deep & techy jam. Lastly "Groove of Life" is just that. Instrumentals & disco riffs, daytime vibes & smiles

Ajo Sunshine (pronounced “Ahh-Ho”) is heralded by
an alarming horn ensemble, stabbing with the dramatic
urgency of a killer’s theme in a midnight movie. It’s a
jarring but appropriate entry point for this brilliantly blasted
listen, an array of exquisitely sharp edges punctuated by
kaleidoscopic respites of throbbing warmth and surprising
tenderness. J.R.C.G. (Justin R. Cruz Gallego)’s previous
work with Seattle’s excellent Dreamdecay may foreground
the broad strokes here, but he’s pushed things way outward
in terms of his sonic palette. Abutting field recordings
captured from rodeos off Ajo Way, a stretch of highway
that leads one westward out of Tucson Arizona directly into
the sun, both acoustic instruments and gleaming walls
of synthetic noise are framed in dour and dissonant chord
shapes, crackling with overdriven drum mics and seasick
waves of distortion. It’s homage that plays out like a
collage, a dream switching from station to station, a series
of dedications broadcast on late night radio. All pin-hole
size images from scenes never seen whole, strung together
in but one version of complete, all making for a dazzling
listen.

“The Death Of Meaning” is the translated rendering of the new Gnod album’s title, and this also reflects its creation. As Paddy Shine of Gnod notes: “I think the title sums it up well because this album was coming together at a time when confusion was king for us all - still is. I think we can all relate to that. This record is a really strange beast because of the big change that happened between mixing and recording. I think the title really does sum up the vibe of ‘What the Fuck’? Maybe we should have called it that! ”Wielding the taut, stripped-down and bludgeoning sound that had evolved on 2017’s ‘Just Say No The Psycho Right-Wing Capitalist Fascist Industrial Death Machine’ and 2018’s ‘Chapel Perilous’, Gnod initially recorded the tracks for ‘La Mort Du Sens’ around the Christmas period of 2019. Nonetheless, the arrival of the pandemic took the record on another course, adding to a turbulent and cathartic vitality that electrifies the likes of the caustic Melvins-in-hell assault of ‘Pink Champagne Blues’ and the post-punk angularity of ‘The Whip And The Tongue’ with a fearsome elemental charge Masters of an approach which manages to be both unmistakeable and unpredictable. Gnod are now well established as prophets of the dispossessed. ‘La Mort Du Sens’ is no less than another relentlessly invigorating stop off on their wild ride to who knows where. “Got No Obvious Destination, innit”

There are records with empathy, records which are your friends and then there's the others... There might be little difference between them, a certain "je ne sais quoi", an "almost nothing but still something" which makes the difference between almost pointless and vital records. Despite, or rather thanks to his cynical despair, Matt Elliott's music never holds up a moralizing mirror to us - on the contrary, it creates a compassionate dialogue with listeners like the rhythm of two steps that synchronize to become as one. In 2016, Matt Elliot brought out his seventh solo album The Calm Before whose obscure title is neither exactly threatening nor comforting... the calm before what? Before the storm for sure but maybe also before the great record, the immediate classic we felt might be coming for a long time in the dual discography of the Bristol-born artist working under his own name and his electronic alias Third Eye Foundation. The elegant details and perspectives of Little Lost Soul (2000) already hinted at the upcoming masterpiece from the English singer-songwriter. The Mess We Made (2003) was Matt Elliott's first solo album and portrayed a universe in a kind of flight towards Balkan horizons made up of visceral despair. With the Songs trilogy, he put aside the electronic side of his work to continue working with a minimalist, stark and lucid style of writing. The Broken Man (2012) was full of tears and long laments sometimes carried by Katia Labèque's piano on a record which painted new shades of grey. On this record Matt began working with the producer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist David Chalmin (La Terre Invisible) who has kept on collaborating with the Bristol-born singer since then. Their partnership continued on Only Myocardial Infection Can Break Your Heart (2013) and The Calm Before (2016). Stéphane Grégoire is the head of the Ici D'Ailleurs label which has accompanied Matt Elliott since 2005 and perhaps he describes this album the best: "This new record by Matt is without a doubt his best album to date, a record that takes him into another dimension where he fully asserts himself as a songwriter and singer of the calibre of artists like Bill Callahan, Leonard Cohen or Johnny Cash." Matt Elliott's other records all seemed like empathic links between each other. Farewell To All We Know is an instant classic based on the sensitive piano and superb arrangements of David Chalmin, the sensitive cello of Gaspar Claus, the subtle bass of Jeff Hallam (who has also played with Dominique A and John Parish). There is a clear form of alchemy in all of this and still we find Matt Elliott's usual atmospheres and scenery, the same Eastern European folk music, long songs that take time to settle over time. Everything is the same but also is transfigured. By making his music stark and purifying and redefining the subject matter, Matt Elliott's work became so much more delicate. However this work is never frail nor really turned in on himself and thus becomes like a vital tune that vibrates and unfolds. The opening song Farewell To All We Know seems torn between the fear of what tomorrow may bring, inevitability and hope for the future in a permanent and progressive dramatic tension expressed by his Spanish guitar, the impressionist style piano and Matt's voice teetering on the edge of whispers. A funereal tribute to endless twilights and the dawns we all dream of seeing. There are touches of Leonard Cohen from Songs from a Room or Thanks For The Dance in The Day After That with Gaspar Claus's counterpoint cello. There is no spirit of resignation in Matt Elliott's work - life's path has to be followed against all odds. We have to follow the river's flow to reach the immense ocean and its infinite freedom. The haunted instrumental Guidance Is Internal harks back to the atmospheres of Howling Songs (2008) with its guitar parts full of scansions and muted threats. The music is transcendental but never seems afraid of the risk of falling. This is also what Bye Now tells us with its quasi-obsolete simplicity and sunburst melancholy reminiscent of the work of Luiz Bonfá, Bill Evans on Peace Piece or laidback crooners of the 50s. In Farewell To All We Know, Matt Elliott incessantly alternates between the dual desires to face up to the world or to protect himself from it. Hating The Player, Hating The Game is a lucid statement about the dullness of our daily lives sometimes, our right to get out of the game and no longer want to be part of it. Matt Elliott is tender but spares no one, particularly himself. Aboulia speaks of the tiredness of living and of looming death while Crisis Apparition says that there is always a time for reconstruction after chaos. This is like initially wearying wandering in the ruins of Aleppo with the slow dilution of the melody into a hallucinated drone. However the smell of great fires always fades and the earth always regenerates. Matt Elliott seems to suggest that the survival instinct is stronger than any cold winds could ever be. Matt Elliott never sings of certainties and prefers possibilities. Possibly the worst is over? Maybe... Maybe the storm has passed and devastated everything, now we just have to rebuild and live again. Farewell To All We Know shows us the distance that still needs to be walked and he walks next to you - right next to you, he is the friend who doesn't spare you the truth like all true friends really do.

WAR’s head-nodding mix of music and message started a revolution 50 years ago that continues to win over the hearts and hips of fans around the world. “Greatest Hits 2.0” will be available 29th October and is a new, career-spanning collection that expands on WAR’s platinum-certified 1976 greatest hits album, featuring the legendary songs “Spill The Wine,” “Low Rider,” “Galaxy,” and “Why Can’t We Be Friends?”

WAR’s “Greatest Hits 2.0” 2LP contains 20 tracks, 2CD contains 24 tracks recorded between 1970 and 1994, including the gold-certified singles “Slipping Into Darkness,” “The World Is A Ghetto,” “The Cisco Kid,” and “Summer.” Another gold single, “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” stayed on the charts for 31 weeks and became the soundtrack to the US-Soviet space mission where astronauts and cosmonauts linked up in the spirit of friendship. In the modern era, it has been streamed more than 100 million times. Also included is the #1 R&B smash “Low Rider,” which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2014.

In the collection’s liner notes, Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano says GREATEST HITS 2.0 does more than capture WAR at its creative and commercial peaks. He writes: “All the big hits are here, of course, in chronological order from the Eric Burdon days up through cuts from 1982’s underrated Outlaw…But what I love about this collection is that it’s a symphonic suite for a perfect Southern California Sunday afternoon, the kind the rest of the world wants to experience but can only dream about. You can envision it by playing these albums from start to finish.”