Search:maybe d

2 Lp in red-black smoke farbigem Vinyl

In seinem neuen Buch "The First 21" blickt Mötley Crüe-Legende und Sixx:A.M.-Mastermind Nikki Sixx in den Rückspiegel. "HITS" fasst die musikalische Karriere von Sixx:A.M. auf bemerkenswerte Weise zusammen. Sie enthält alle Hits der Band sowie drei unveröffentlichte Titel, darunter die neue Single "The First 21".

Beautiful, soulful jazz record by Jimetta Rose and The Voices of Creation, a Los Angeles-based community choir, a mainstay of the local scene. Highly recommended!!

The Voices of Creation are a community-based choir led by vocalist, songwriter, arranger, producer and mainstay of the Los Angeles scene Jimetta Rose. Made up of a multigenerational group of mainly non-professional singers backed by some of the city’s finest musicians,their music marries hip strains of gospel with layers of jazz, soul and funk. While aspects of their music might recall Kamasi Washington, The Staple Singers or Sly Stone, Jimetta’s unique vision has resulted in new spiritually-charged forms of music whose whole-hearted embrace of love, joy and peace act as sonic healing balms for the soul.

For Jimetta - whose resume includes collaborations with Miguel Atwood Ferguson, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Sa-Ra Creative Partners, Angel Bat Dawid, Shafiq Husayn, MED and Blu - the very act of creation was part of a healing process: “I was very low at the time and I wrote most of the songs going through hardship. But I found comfort in the songs and a way to adjust my mindset to where things got better. So I thought ‘if this music works for me, maybe it will work for other people’ I believe that every person has their own voice and their own note and that we can use our voices to heal ourselves. That’s the intention behind creating the project.”

After putting out a call on social media for people interested in joining her choir she was met with a sea of replies. Members were chosen in less-than conventional fashion: “I recruited people based on their interest in healing themselves and others, not necessarily on their musical experience or being seasoned performers” she says. Among those accepted into the ever-evolving collective, which was begun initially as a community choir, were the likes of Sly Stone’s daughter Novena Carmel, better known as a radio DJ for KCRW’s flagship breakfast show. Jimetta’s upbringing in the Pentecostal church, where she was a youth choir director, fed into her otherwise intuitive teachings of her songs and arrangements to the inexperienced members with help from the group’s seasoned organ player/co-musical director Jack Maeby.

Produced by Mario Caldato Jr. (Beastie Boys, Seu Jorge) and his wife Samantha Caldato the results show the incredible sense of togetherness and communal spirit that the group had built up over time in the rehearsal sessions. The six tracks of their debut album, a mixture of originals and rearranged covers, are performed in a wide-eyed mix of styles that reflect Jimetta’s vision for borderless music: “It’s new black classical music,” she explains. “It’s all the hodgepodge of being an African American but also with creativity and vision for the future. It has a taste of what is to come and what we can do. What we have gone through and who we are now.”

The group’s propensity for warm and buoyant sonics finds representation on album opener Let The Sunshine In, a sparkling rework of the Sons and Daughters of Lite’s deep jazz classic. Their version finds the group’s dynamic group harmonies offset with Allakoi Peete’s nimble afro-percussive touches and plenty of soul- drenched keys courtesy of pianist Quran Shaheed and organ player Jack Maeby. A similarly uplifting take on Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s choral jazz classic Spirits Up Above follows, with Maeby’s groove-laden organ lines inspiring some gorgeous group harmonies as well as prime solo turns from the likes of Kellye Hawkins, Zavier Wise, Tamara Blue, and Khalila Gardner.

Another Sons and Daughters of Lite cover follows as Jimetta leads the choir in the groove-drenched ode to self-affirmation Operation Feed Yourself. Written as a series of mantras for everyday living, the Jimetta-penned composition How Good It Is harnesses the full transformative power of music to generate a stirring and joyful ode to positivity - it’s chanted declarations bringing out some of the group’s most deeply-felt and affecting vocal performances over some superlative piano and organ accompaniment with a surprise feature vocal from Novena Carmel.

Jimetta’s talent for re-imagining songs in her own light is highlighted in Answer The Call, her vivid re-telling of Funkadelic’s Cosmic Slop: “When I listened to the original song, the Mom in the story was really going through it. I thought of how I could turn this into a song that can encompass the glorification of all mothers and I thought of the Egyptian cosmic goddess Nut. To that mother we’re all the seeds planted in the garden. Answering the call in your life is literally that. Finding out exactly what you’re here for through your heart.”

The album finishes with the standout original gospel number Ain’t Life Grand. Over swaying organs and clapped percussion Jimetta’s lyrical mantras serve to emphasise the good feelings that come to those with a grateful heart. Good feeling is an apt descriptor for the mood of the album as a whole. Its shining positivity provides a welcome ray of light in an increasingly dark world. “It’s a shortcut if you will to the better feelings” Jimetta says. “The hope that we need to keep pressing forward. We are saturated and inundated with images of chaos and destruction, death and hatred. There’s so much we can witness. So, I want to make sure that there is a representation sonically of the other parts that are still there to witness so that we can continue to build those things. So that the systems we support actually reflect what we want to experience. So it’s like: “Don’t give up and Let The Sunshine Into You” and then find out what your purpose is and answer the call.”

Limited Edition Blue Cyan Vinyl - 100 Units Hand numbered

Surface records presents you with a production that lets you react to old and present emotions. Impossible to locate in time, maybe the future ? ....... A cybernetic sensation by this duo.

Don't listen, live it.

Wandalhouz

The sounds across these four tracks were made by SIM and NAP from 2021 to 2023 with lots of love and bass... the sessions started from the first time they met at NAP's studio, point always to kick it, jam and see what happens. After a couple months of that of course a sound develops, a process shines and a friendship grows. After a year or so trust built and a language made present. Transcending the spoken word and feeling unique to both...things start to really go off and the jams turn to songs. Two years pass and it’s time to celebrate with the marker and archive of all those deep sessions, now in edited form to be shared with all. And yeah, you can have all in common with someone when it comes to digging wubs, riddims and drum machines but add vulnerable earnest meetings with meals in between and good conversation about things other than music (or maybe how other things relate to it) and then you get something really special, something like SINNAZ. SIM and NAP journeying into collaboration with a debut EP of rhythmic noise, driving bog beats, swampy dembows, radioactive Dancehall and unhinged experimentalia.

Alternative Hip Hop Artist Rebel ACA Channels his Pain in "Migraine" ft. Spragga Benz, Rodney P

LONDON - The word "migraine" can make you twinge, especially if you experience the pounding head, vertigo, and tinnitus associated with migraines. Imagine if you put all those feelings into music - that is what Rebel ACA did with his latest single, "Migraine."

Rebel ACA's new single flows through his twenty-year journey of advising on international tax by day and rapping and producing by night. Perhaps, the ACA stands for his accounting qualification.

Dropping in April, there will be two versions, an original version and a DJ Phantasy Remix of "Migraine" on streaming platforms. Depending on the version, "Migraine" is a musical representation of a severe headache. The drum and bass mix features a funky, constant drone throughout the track, while the original version is a funk-latent hip-hop song.

"I suffer very badly from migraines every week," said Rebel ACA. "To me, it was logical to write a song about migraines. The lyrics talk about what it feels like by using synthesizers to bring out the feeling of a migraine."

Joining Rebel ACA on the single is Spragga Benz and Rodney P. The duo shares their thoughts on using marijuana to cure a migraine. While Rebel ACA acknowledges he is not a medical doctor, studies have shown that smoking weed can reduce migraine pain.

"We talk about smoking weed to fight the migraine," he said. "The lyrics revolve around what it feels like to have one in your head. Doctors have told me that migraines are caused by triggers like alcohol and getting f*cked up. Then you get a migraine and now you get more f*cked up on pills or weed to feel better." This revolving cycle spirals throughout the single.

Born and raised in the UK, Rebel ACA experienced London's musical melting pot from birth. Hailing from northwest London, he was exposed to the rich Caribbean influence and massive underground music scene.

From squat parties to illegal raves, London's music was all mashed up, and Rebel ACA soaked up every genre and cultural influence. As a result, he is a successful singer/songwriter/producer who fuses hip hop, reggae, and indie sounds to create his unique style.

"Where I come from, the UK hip hop is like the 90s hip hop in America," he stated. "There is a hip hop scene that talks about poetry. I'm trying to keep it real with my lyrics and talk about things that are important other than guns, money, and bitches."

Rebel ACA's music is versatile but uniquely his own by utilizing numerous live instruments and coming in hard with a big boom-bap sound. The Rebel ACA sound is born by adding a funk influence on his tracks aligned with funky bass. On "Migraine," he uses some vintage 70s French influence vibes to give the single a flavor of its own. There is nothing out there like "Migraine."

Rebel ACA records under Buttercuts Records, a company he owns and operates. The London-based production company has been "bashing out buttery beats" since 2000. Buttercuts Records is the go-to place for releasing hip hop, reggae, breaks, funk, soul, and folk records with a tongue-in-cheek attitude and marketing that surpasses witty wordplay.

As "Migraine" gains international attention, it is easy to understand how Rebel ACA combines old and new hip hop with effortless flows and brilliant lyrics. Maybe the world is ready for an international tax advisor who drops bars and vibes out to some wicked rhymes.

Make sure to stay connected to Rebel ACA on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.

a A1. DJ PHANTASY VOCAL MIXfeat. Rebel ACA
b A2. DJ PHANTASY DUB MIXfeat. Rebel ACA
[c] A3. DJ PHANTASY INSTRUMENTAL MIX [feat. Rebel ACA]
[d] B1. OLD KOOL F U NKY MIX [feat. Rebel ACA]
[e] B2. OLD KOOL F U NKY INSTRUMENTAL [feat. Rebel ACA]
[feat. Rebel ACA]

REPRESS

Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails/How To Destroy Angels) composed the Forse series using a Buchla Music Easel. Forse, meaning "maybe" In Italian, is a series of 3 double LP releases Cortini recorded for Imprec to release in 2013.

"All pieces were written and performed live on a Buchla Music Easel, in the span of one month. I found that the limited array of modules that the instrument offers sparked my creativity. Most pieces consist of a repeating chord progression, where the real change happens at a spectral/dynamic level, as opposed to the harmonic/chordal one. I believe that the former are just as effective as the latter, in the sense that the sonic presentation (distortion , filtering, wave shaping, etc) are just as expressive as a chord change or chord type, and often reinforce said chord progressions.

Of all the years with Nine Inch Nails the period spent writing and recording the instrumental record Ghosts I-IV is probably the one which changed my approach to music making the most. After that record I started getting more into instrumental composition, although I tried to approach it in a different way. While we had a vast array of tools and instruments at our disposal then, I decided to approach my pieces limiting myself to one instrument only, as I found myself being more decisive when faced with a limited creative environment."

Pink Blue Marbled Vinyl

Angelo is an EP, named after a car, featuring nine songs Brijean have crafted and carried with them through a period of profound change, loss, and relocation. It finds percussionist and singer Brijean Murphy and multi-instrumentalist/producer Doug Stuart processing the impossible the only way they know how: through rhythm and movement. The months surrounding the acclaimed release of Feelings, their full-length Ghostly International debut in 2021 which celebrated tender self-reflection and new possibilities, rang bittersweet with the absence of touring and the sudden passing of Murphy's father and both of Stuart's parents. In a haze of heartache, the duo left the Bay Area to be near family, resetting in four cities in under two years. Their to-go rig became their traveling studio and these tracks, along with Angelo, became their few constants. Whereas Feelings formed over collaborative jams with friends, Angelo's sessions presented Murphy and Stuart a chance to record at their most intimate, "to get us out of our grief and into our bodies," says Murphy. They explored new moods and styles, reaching for effervescent dance tempos and technicolor backdrops, vibrant hues in contrast to their more somber human experiences. Angelo beams with positivity and creative renewal _ a resourceful, collective answer to "what happens now?". Angelo the car is a 1981 Toyota Celica they got off Craigslist during their first stint in Los Angeles, where Murphy and Stuart have since settled. "Such a bro-y, `80s dude car, it's been super fun to drive around in a new town," Murphy says. "He's older than us, he's a classic, he's got a story." It is a spiritual vehicle with a cinematic appeal, first dropping them off in an alleyway for the scene-setting intro, "Which Way To The Club." The question is quickly resolved by "Take A Trip" as a cruising bassline mingles with crowd sounds, hand-claps, cuíca hiccups, whip-cracks, even a horse neigh. Brijean have found some club on this cross-dimensional trip - the kind of imagined space or chamber within one's self capable of "shifting a fraction of who you are," says Murphy. They wrote the track with the simple intention to be "as free as we could be," adds Stuart, likening the flip on the B section to a realm unlocked: "What if the world changed completely? You open the door to a new room." Next is "Shy Guy," a motivational anthem for the wallflowers among us. Murphy sets up the daydream: "We are in junior high, we're on the dance floor, what's going down, who is dancing, who is not, how are we gonna make them dance?" The narrator, the MC, hypes up the room as conga-driven rhythms bounce between languid synth and guitar lines. "Show me how to move...I feel something...I know you feel it too," Murphy sings sweetly, calling back to the opening lines of Feelings, and this time the audience chants it back. It is easy to picture Brijean performing this one - something they only got to do a handful of times until more recently, opening shows for Khruangbin and Washed Out, an experience they found informative. Murphy explains, "It was inspiring to be out there and let loose more. To see how people can expand their expression on stage gave me more liberty with how I viewed my musicianship. My role for so long was to be a backup percussionist, so why would I ever leave the drums, you know? But then after playing all these runs, you see these artists and realize you can, you have permission." "Angelo" and "Ooo La La" deliver the danciest stretch in Brijean's catalog to date. The title track adopts a deep house pulse replete with strings, hi-hats, and kicks. The latter opts for a funkier groove that foregoes verses in favor of warbled hums and extended breakdowns. What follows is perhaps the duo's dreamiest run, a comedown initiated with the honey-hued interlude "Colors" drifting into "Where Do We Go?", a tropicália reverie where Murphy contemplates the passage of time and space. It all culminates in "Caldwell's Way," a fond farewell to their Bay Area community - "a part of my life that I knew couldn't come back," says Murphy. Above shimmering organ sounds, lush strings, and the birdcall of their former neighborhood, she wistfully articulates the uncertainty of moving on by remembering the characters dear to them. There's the wisdom of their neighbor, Santos, who refused payment when helping them move out: "I'd rather have 100 friends than 100 dollars." And the song's namesake, Benjamin Caldwell Brown, a friend and club night cohort for many years. "I'm only miles away, maybe I'm just feeling lonely," the line resigns to warm nostalgia, and "Nostalgia" runs the closing credits to this healing and transportive collection.

Last year's Big Time brought Angel Olsen to a deeper, truer sense of self than ever before. Borne from the twin stars of grief and love, the album delivered beautiful sense of certainty, the sure-footed sound of an artist fully, finally at home with herself. But within that wisdom comes the realization that there is no finish line, no destination or static end point to life while you're living it, and Forever Means collects songs from the Big Time sessions that hold this common theme. They are, in Olsen's words, "in search of something else." "I was somewhere traveling," says Olsen, "stopped for a few days and wandering the city, and I was thinking `what does `forever' really mean? What are the things I'm seeking in friendship or love, and how can `forever' be attainable if we're always changing?'" Sitting with the reality of that entropy, Olsen realized "maybe the secret to ongoing love is to embrace change as part of love itself, that forever must have something to do with playing, looking, constantly searching things out for yourself, never letting yourself think you're finished learning or exploring." `Forever'", says Olsen, "remains curious while trying also to be kind and honest." All this packs into the four precious songs that comprise Forever Means, songs from Olsen's roads traveled and the ones ahead. "Nothing's free / like breaking free" Olsen sings, comfortable with the costs of her clarity, her heart and voice fixed on the present, the future, the not-yet-known and the beautifully unknowable

Last year's Big Time brought Angel Olsen to a deeper, truer sense of self than ever before. Borne from the twin stars of grief and love, the album delivered beautiful sense of certainty, the sure-footed sound of an artist fully, finally at home with herself. But within that wisdom comes the realization that there is no finish line, no destination or static end point to life while you're living it, and Forever Means collects songs from the Big Time sessions that hold this common theme. They are, in Olsen's words, "in search of something else." "I was somewhere traveling," says Olsen, "stopped for a few days and wandering the city, and I was thinking `what does `forever' really mean? What are the things I'm seeking in friendship or love, and how can `forever' be attainable if we're always changing?'" Sitting with the reality of that entropy, Olsen realized "maybe the secret to ongoing love is to embrace change as part of love itself, that forever must have something to do with playing, looking, constantly searching things out for yourself, never letting yourself think you're finished learning or exploring." `Forever'", says Olsen, "remains curious while trying also to be kind and honest." All this packs into the four precious songs that comprise Forever Means, songs from Olsen's roads traveled and the ones ahead. "Nothing's free / like breaking free" Olsen sings, comfortable with the costs of her clarity, her heart and voice fixed on the present, the future, the not-yet-known and the beautifully unknowable

For their debut album, Chappaqua Wrestling knew that they wanted to step above the noise of the concrete everyday. “To match their song about political despondency and social change, Jake Mac and Charlie Woods wanted to create surrealist artwork, teetering on the brink of despair and release.

“We wanted to kind of render ourselves in, jumping off this roof with a beautiful landscape behind it,” says Jake. “Falling gracefully, but also potentially not making this crazy fall.”

“It’s a record about exploring,” nods Charlie. “We just wanted to get something that has us thrusting ourselves into this new place, but get this weird eye-trickery thing going on. You want to start a conversation, like is this real? Maybe that’s for us to know…”"

Nach seiner unerwarteten Rückkehr aus dem 20-jährigen Ruhestand mit dem erfolgreichen Comeback-Album Resurgence im Jahr 2019 meldet sich die Stimme der Hollies - Allan Clarke - mit einem beeindruckenden neuen Album zurück.

I'll Never Forget bringt Allan mit seinem alten Hollies-Bandkollegen Graham Nash von Crosby, Stills And Nash wieder zusammen.
Die beiden alten Freunde aus Manchester begannen während der
Pandemie nach über 40 Jahren gemeinsam zu schreiben, was zu dem mühelos eingängigen Buddy's Back führte, einer Hommage an die Rock & Roll-Größe, nach der die Hollies benannt wurden.

Grahams wunderbare Harmonien sind auf dem gesamten Album zu hören, aber es ist auch Allans Album, das sich mit Spiritualität, Erlösung und Romantik in "The Presence Of You" befasst, dem ersten
Liebeslied, das Allan nach 59 Jahren Ehe für seine Frau Jennifer (die "Jennifer" im Hollies-Klassiker "Jennifer Eccles") geschrieben hat.

ARIA double-platinum six-piece act, Winston Surfshirt, are releasing their third full-length album, Panna Cotta .

A recipe of collaborative dreams, Panna Cotta sees Winston Surfshirt work with a wish-list of his favourite artists, seeing career-defining partnerships produce 15 tracks of accomplished and star-studded material. As Winston sings and swoons to ideas of love and life, a stand-out lineup of players and musicians step into the Winston universe, including Talib Kweli, Kimbra, Genesis Owusu, Dope Lemon, Young Franco, Ramirez, Devin the Dude, Milan Ring, and more, sending the signature Surfshirt sound into uncharted realms.

Winston says on the forthcoming album: “Panna Cotta is the last dessert on the table, something for everyone to try, a bunch of different ingredients mixed together. I’d say it is my dream album that I wanted to hear Winston Surfshirt make.”

Felte Records presents `Glimpse Of Heaven' - a stunning new album by the Hawaii-born, LA-based musician, singer, producer and professional mastering engineer Jess Labrador, AKA Chasms. Labrador's deeply personal work as Chasms has always felt like an unveiling. Following 2019's `The Mirage,' which was a dark, dubby meditation on grief and loss, this new album is both familiar and different. The third full-length under the Chasms name, `Glimpse of Heaven' trades in washes of reverb for starker moments of closeness and intimacy. An exploration of the personal inventory and reckoning necessary to move forward in life, the LP considers not only how we relate to the world, but more importantly how we relate to ourselves. While always distinct, you could previously detect post-punk, shoegaze, and dub sensibilities in the music. Dreamy drift tethered by skittered beats, airy vocals, and melancholic melodies are here like previous efforts too. However, at the same time, Labrador steps into new territory with an expanse of vaporous synths and samples, adding to the project's ethereal electronic pop and dubwise pulse. Lush guitars glisten throughout the album, but this time only in sparse, disciplined embellishments. `Glimpse of Heaven' is a fully realised version of Chasms beyond its influences; to say that this is a seamless evocation of such disparate sounds as Massive Attack, Basic Chanel, Sade, Seefeel and Dif Juz is to say it is wholly unique. While she continues to unfurl her thoughts, there is a shift from opening up to the listener toward allowing the listener to witness her opening to herself. Where the last Chasms record was about various kinds of collapse, `Glimpse of Heaven' is about trying to develop as a whole person. It seems to ultimately be asking whether what we want and what we need align in ways that will get us where we want to be. Can we let go of the comfort of bad habits and steer ourselves toward a less easily obtained but maybe more enduring happiness? `Glimpse of Heaven' is a Chasms record, but really it's a Jess Labrador record. This is the first release operating on her own, and it feels like that's the only way this could have been made. It finds itself in the rare company of those few records that exist within themselves; it's a complete environment. You don't need to know anything to tune in and enjoy the world that she's created. It's a record that feels indebted to itself. It offers premonitions but not directions. It gives us honesty, but doesn't claim to know exactly where that will lead.

Sometimes, a change of view can transform a person’s world. On ‘Don’t Come Down’, the artist formerly known as Matt Pond PA can be found with his “shoulder on the concrete” of a pavement, scoping out the world anew. This granular realignment of perspective serves as an open door to the debut album from The Natural Lines. At once clearly Pond’s work yet a huge leap forward in its measured songcraft, melodic immediacy, collaborative detail and wryly questioning lyrics, the result is a gorgeous album of intimate reflections from a relocated, renamed, revivified talent.

Recorded with close collaborators and friends over a period that saw Pond make vital adjustments to his life, its stealth emergence reflects his desire to set a fresh pace for himself and come from somewhere new, somewhere more open.

Now based in Kingston, New York, with his partner and wild dog Willa, Matt explains the album’s gestation thus. “It was something different from the start. I wanted to write as purely as I could. Instead of getting stuck in the ‘tour, write an album, release an album, tour’ cycle, which is not a natural way of writing or living, I wanted to write an album and when it was done I wanted to make sure it was done. I didn’t want this feeling of, ‘Oh, we didn’t have time’, or, ‘I don’t know whether I believe in the songs but it’s coming out anyway.’ I used to be always racing to the finish line, but I’m not anymore.”

For Matt, the call to ring the changes came with the recognition of “a certain nihilism or narcissism” involved in making music. “In some ways, you have to get in your own head and I think I went too far with that, with drinking and shutting people out. In something that I believe is collaborative, it’s not helpful.”

“I quit lying,” he adds. “I checked my harsher tones. I cut my drinking down. I went to therapy and figured out how to stop shouting at cars.”

Car troubles inspire ‘No More Tragedies’, the album’s standout second track, where he wryly details his desire to dampen his twinned impulses to take pictures of license plates blocking his parking space or take bricks to said car windshields. Warming melodies and harmonies soothe his rage, a balance maintained elsewhere on the album.

A need for connection underpins the lilting ‘Alex Bell’, where Matt’s lyrics playfully reference the inventor of the telephone over a plaintive cello and bubbling keyboards – evidence of the album’s carefully nurtured arrangements. With nimble sequencing, ‘My Answer’ follows with a question: do artists really need to get messed-up to create? Matt may not have the answer, he admits, but he articulates the question beautifully, channelling the influence of Blue Öyster Cult’s ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’ into a song of fleet, melodic electric-folk drive.

Featuring 17-year-old MJ Murphy on misty backing vocals, the softly insistent ‘Don’t Come Down’ is an album centrepiece, detailing a need to see things anew. Like The Flaming Lips writing a classicist piano ballad, the twinkling ‘Artificial Moonlight’ finds Matt writing late at night, illuminated by the lights from streetlamps. Finally, ‘Mahwah’ closes the album on a note of arrival. While Matt Pond PA’s albums emerged from the disconnection of touring and living in vans, Pond is now happily – cruel winters aside – ensconced in Kingston. “I have found a place I love. Mercury Rev lives near here. It is a cool place to be, an artistic, mountainous, wild place to live. So – maybe this is it.”

In the case of The Natural Lines, a sense of arrival suggests itself. For Matt, the album follows two decades’ worth of Matt Pond PA records and soundtrack works. In a career he once described as “a series of benign mistakes,” Matt travelled far, moving from his band’s starting point in Philadelphia to Florida, Oakland and beyond while releasing 14 well-received albums. In 2017, he declared his intent to retire the Matt Pond PA name, though it lived on briefly in the reissue of The State Of Gold and EPs such as Free Fall, a tribute to Philadelphia.

Now, the name change honours his collaborators. Among a revolving cast, one constant presence in his work has been Chris Hansen, who plays guitar, bass, keys, saxophone and vocals on The Natural Lines’ debut. Matt’s partner, Anya Marina, contributes vocals. Other band members number Hilary James (cello/vocals), Kyle Kelly-Yahner (drums), Louie Lino (keys), Sarah Hansen (horns), Sean Hansen (drums/bass), Kat Murphy (vocals) and, also on vocals, MJ Murphy, for whom Matt brims with praise: “She can do anything she wants to musically.”

A heartening rebirth for Pond and his friends, the result also pays warming, witty, reflective and infectious testimony to the value of reconfiguring one’s outlook. “Once I took control of my mind, I could see what I wanted to say more clearly,” says Matt. “Instead of random floods of mania and panic, I felt like I was composed and composing. It has become as simple as reading the words of a sentence in the right order. As small as the pause before I hit ‘send’.” A development, you might say, conducted along the most natural of lines.

As the artwork on the EP depicts, "Darkest hour before dawn" is a dusky scenario representing the Dutch environment known as "the polder" in the lower lands. It questions all kinds of actions taken or not taken to protect, restore, conserve, innovate, or modestly leave the landscape to its own more murky outcome. The darkest hour, full of gloom, will be available around the spring equinox?

Portrait of tracks separately:


"Darkest Hour before dawn"

Is this piece supposed to be an ode to the ancient Dutch hardcore movement, that once and probably only then would be experienced to such intensity or is this still maybe just a little near reminder of it? Anyway starts this unlit track slowly and remains that way but maintains a fat-pumping pulse, possibly reminding of a soldier walking a death march. Settling up those launch pads further down the piece, near the bridge for shooting off some drum-fire 909 snares as if it rocketed. Then, suddenly, the extended delay of that snare turns into a psychedelic drone beside, attending to, or paranoidly chasing comrades soul in his journey throughout and above like a trustful partner?

Arp's LFO that is out of sync with the beat and is being outpaced by it seems to slow everything down even more; meantime creating a pulling, buggy-like effect to the due of all this.

The ascending and descending ghost-pad drawing into the grid of the (tone) key, thereafter parking in them for a while and cycling out again, creating a spatial flow of disturbance and anxiety.

Finishes it with a mountain-big reverberation of organized destruction and chaos. What at first sight seems like simply an innocent route appears to actually be a bit more complex one.


"Lovely memories"

The quite monotonous structure of Lovely memories catchy and groovy song is scanning through your brain files; revisiting, memorizing, and purposely lacking these few "dots above the I" that in some cases you'd gladly be feeling like to square fit it in yourself, of course, when necessary. Connecting the puzzling, dazzling flashbacks together to finally wrap up and perpetuate the pictured events for good, leaving traces of melancholy, loveliness, and perhaps even faith to it.


"24 hours"

Dinginess of 24 hours supposes to be felt in the guts.
The beat, steady with that snare on the 4 & 12, might not be one of the greatest inventions. However, the TR-08's drum line here lays a solid and fertile foundation for a reasonable house track.

Slightly detuned synths weave a scarf pattern around your upper body, and the lower layers carry a warm blanket for the underbelly, providing you with that cozy sense of consolation. Acidy pokes wring itself sneaky and penetrable around, slicing through the song's already solid flesh. Therefore, balancing its bitter sweetness throughout with these soft-hard saw-tooth drops of sourness.

"24 hours" conveys a dispatch or intercommunication that there is little time left to take actions/charge to fix and restore. Something big is about to come if it hasn't arrived already...


"At night"

This remarkable story is a bit out of ordinary.
At night appeared in the artist's dream just the night before his sick father was raised from death in the hospital and got just another year to live before actually passing away completely and anyway. ; ))
And thus also dedicated to the man.

It seems like an age since Icelandic producer Adalsteinn Gudmundsson's last album as Yagya, 2020's "Old Dreams and Memories." The first album to be released on his own label Small Plastic Animals it was followed by the four-track "Always Maybe Tomorrow" EP in 2021. "Faded Photographs" is his ninth studio album, the most involved and time-consuming project to date and collaborative on a scale not seen since 2012's "The Inescapable Decay of My Heart." It also marks an exceptionally confident return to the art of song-writing, but where that earlier album was a more upbeat dub techno-pop affair, "Faded Photographs" is nostalgic, wistful, reflective and steeped in poetic romanticism. Gudmundsson's love of the art of the album is also more pronounced here than ever before, almost every single track tied together by the particularly unifying use of triplet rhythms in combination with 4/4 beats, beguiling hushed vocals and enveloping, molten dub bass tones. Combined with a typical dedication to sound design and production, "Faded Photographs" is rendered an utterly seamless experience, demanding to be heard as a whole. Written and produced when we had become more distant and disconnected from one another than ever before, "Faded Photographs" brings together and showcases an ensemble of artists in a spirit of collaboration that flies in the face of adversity, a true product of its time.

The Schnitzelbeat goes on ..... und wir finden uns am Übergang zweier Jahrzehnte wieder. Woodstock hat gerade das offizielle Ende des Summer Of Love besiegelt, die Beatles befinden sich im Stadium des Zerfalls und The Stooges läuten mit unbarmherzigem Lärm ein neues Zeitalter ein. Zurück in Österreich ... die Stadt Wien dämmert weiterhin selig im bornierten Mief der Nachkriegszeit. Gelegentlich weht der Wind den Klang einer Ziehharmonika und eines Jodlers vom Land in Richtung Stephansdom. Die eingeweihten Hörer der Schnitzelbeat-Serie ahnen es allerdings bereits: da war noch etwas Anderes, etwas Wildes, Ungutes, ein dröhnender Faustschlag in die hornbebrillten Gesichter der Spießbürger. Doch wer hätte gedacht, dass die gelungenste Annäherung an den Proto-Punk der Blue Cheer oder MC5 ausgerechnet auf dem Volksmusiklabel Alpenton erscheint? (Albatross, "I am dead"). Da fährt schon ein Aufschrei des Entsetzens aus der Lederhose. Und ein Lächeln puren Glücks in die Gesichter aufgeklärter Fans obskurer Rockmusik. Auch The Seals erweisen sich 1969 als würdige Kämpfer im Krieg der Generationen: "You know nothing about the new generation / because you live in the U-Bahn-Station" stellen die Psychedelic-Punks aus Wien interessanterweise in ihrer Nummer "Stop this War" fest. Und auch sonst ist der Krieg ein geläufiges Thema: der 2. Weltkrieg (The Cop Stigh, "War History"); der Vietnamkrieg (Maybe Hair, "War"); der Krieg der Geschlechter (Young Society, "It's War"). Doch was wäre die Zeit der Hippies und Kommunarden ohne freie Liebe, Blumenarrangements und von allerlei Substanzen unterstützte Ausnahmezustände? "Nicht auf die Blumen in dem Haar, auf euer Herz kommt es an / denn Liebe nur allein alles ändern kann" singt die Casting-Boyband The Wallflowers, aufs trefflichste begleitet von einem Kinderchor, der leider nicht immer ganz textsicher ist. Die Aussage an sich würden aber sicher auch The V-Rangers unterschreiben ("Make Love"). Oder Hannes, Erich, Peter und Arno von der Salzburger Beatband Les Marquis, die einen Westcoast-Liebestraum an den Stränden des Salzkammerguts lebendig werden lassen ("Sand on the Shore"). Zur Halbzeit von Schnitzelbeat Vol. 3 wird ein unvergesslicher Höhepunkt gereicht. 1973 veröffentlicht Rocky F. Holicke die ultimative psychedelische Hymne aus heimischer Produktion: "Ready for Take Off" ist ein unbeschreibliches Monument eines Songs, eine wahrhaft überirdische Erfahrung musikalischer Transzendenz. Wenn es schon über die Wolken geht, dann bitte so, Herr Reinhard Mey. Und natürlich auf Holickes eigenem Label, Aero-Sound. Wo sonst? Während Hide & Seek auf den Spuren von Cream wandeln und ebenfalls von jeder Flugangst befreit durch den Orbit segeln ("I can fly"), blasen aus den Triebwerken von Karl Ratzers Gitarre längst sengend heiße "White Flames". Der legendäre Musiker und Frontmann der Charles Ryders Corporation ist nicht nur einer der besten Jazzgitarristen die Österreich je hatte - er nimmt es auch mit James Marshall Hendrix auf, wenn alle Effektpedale bis zum Bühnenboden durchgedrückt sind. Etwa zur selben Zeit findet sich eine oberösterreichische Ministrantenband - heimlich, nächtens - am Wochenende im Musikzimmer einer Mühlviertler Volksschule ein. Und nimmt dort eine brandgefährliche Granate hochexplosiven, psychedelischen Garagenpunks auf. Mit mehr Fuzz, Wah-Wah, Echo und Farfisa-Orgel als selbst der Leibhaftige persönlich erlaubt hat (The Hush, "Giny"). Und dies ist nicht die einzige weithin unbekannte Super-Rarität, die der Archivar, Subkulturforscher und Rare-Track-DJ Al Bird Sputnik und sein Team von den Trash Rock Archives zusammengetragen haben: die verschollene erste Single von Novaks Kapelle erscheint hier erstmals in einer komplett restaurierten Version, ohne Nadelhüpfen und mit relativ wenigen lästigen Nebengeräuschen ("Garbage Man"). Von den lediglich 10 angefertigten Exemplaren der einzigen Platte der Austrian Brothers ("Brother") konnte die einzige Kopie ohne Pressfehler aufgetrieben werden. Und um endlich der 7" von The Cop Stigh habhaft zu werden, musste sogar jemand sein letztes Hemd verkaufen und die Hose bis zu den Knöcheln runterlassen. Aber "All right", um es mit den Worten der steirischen Acid-Rocker Generation 2000 zu sagen: es hat sich ausgezahlt. Schnitzelbeat Vol. 3 fügt der vergessenen Frühgeschichte der österreichischen Rockmusik wieder zahlreiche faszinierende Kapitel hinzu. Begeben Sie sich mit Al Bird Sputnik und den Labels Konkord und Digatone auf eine weitere Reise in die Tiefen wohlsortierter Plattenkisten und pilgern Sie vor einem Himmel voller Schwedenbomben und Mannerschnitten über Gebirge verzerrter Gitarren in die entlegensten Regionen der österreichischen Popkultur. NOVAK

CVC (or Church Village Collective in full) hail from a sleepy village 10 miles north of Cardiff, nestling atop a hill in the Welsh valleys.

 CVC is comprised of singer Francesco Orsi, bassist Ben Thorne, drummer Tom Fry, keyboardist Daniel ‘Naniel’ Jones and singing guitarists David Bassey and Elliott Bradfield. (It’s worth noting that the latter two, despite never having met them, are related to Welsh royalty Dame Shirley Bassey and Manic Street Preachers’ James Dean Bradfield.)

 Maybe owing to genetics, Bassey states “I don’t think I’d be able to not do this, I don’t actively choose to, I’m just drawn to it.”

 Their lush three-part harmonies echo the music they grew up on - contemporary pop’s building blocks: the Beatles, Neil Young and the Beach Boys - rich, melodic and pristine music that’s steeped in rock’s history.

 ‘Get Real’, CVC’s 11-track debut album, brings a touch of Laurel Canyon to the valleys. Made over four sun-baked weeks (once their time was up, Ross Orton Arctic Monkeys mixed the finished product), they kept it local by recording it in Bradfields’ living room.

Strawberries ripen in the spring. Or so they used to, in a more reliable world, one that seems to be rapidly receding in our collective rearview mirror. Presently, “spring” is a troubled concept — fraught with anxiety. Our seasons, if they are seasons at all, are paradoxical. Crops fail, or they ripen prematurely, all at once, and into a burst of rot. Impossibly, somehow, the supermarket shelves stay stocked (mostly, for now at least), and there are buckets of strawberries on every corner. But, of course, their nature is suspect. And they don’t taste like they used to. Or maybe that’s just ruinous nostalgia. But somewhere along the way we certainly lost something. Everybody knows.

Strawberry Season (Leaving Records, November 9 2022) responds tenderly to this sorry state of affairs, not with false comfort — nor escapism. Rather, the album conveys, often wordlessly, that there remains an abundance of sweetness amidst our increasing unease. While much of twentieth century American popular and folk music may have dwelt on the beauty and plenitude of the prairie, More Eaze applies a similar Romantic focus to the small bursts of fecundity that now hide in plain sight. Blending found sound, generative music, a knack for elegant, classically-informed melodic arrangement, and a sort of Liz-Fraser-by-way-of-hyperpop approach to vocals, Strawberry Season offers unique solace — providing an occasion for the kind of deep listening that our overstimulated and undernourished spirits require if there is to be any hope at all (and of course there must be hope).

More Eaze (serving as composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and sound artist) guides us incrementally to this locus of attentiveness. Strawberry Season begins with the softly sweeping gentle pets. Early intimations of Velvet Underground give way, indeed, to a string arrangement that John Cale might have saved for Paris 1919. The second track, Suped, features a kaleidoscopic swirl of grocery checkout scanners that eventually coalesce and release with the subtle strumming of a harp. On known, in the midst of a nearly elegiac outflow of feeling, a shower starts to run. Someone steps inside, pulling the curtain back, sending the plastic rings clattering. Moments later, the unmistakable sound of the showerer blowing their nose — an inclusion that is at once light-hearted and jarringly, movingly intimate.

Strawberry Season’s second to last song, low resolution at santikos, serves as a sustained meditation on all that has come before it. Building slowly throughout its nine minutes, teetering, at times, on the edge of danceability, it dissipates suddenly, and Strawberry Season concludes with the rustling of clothes, snippets of distant conversation, creaking floorboards, an exhale and a sniff. There is a feeling of having arrived, of temporary reprieve in the face of uncertainty. A hint of a season yet to come, or one that is perhaps only now accessible in dreams.

This 80's 12 Inch Remixes Collected edition is from the decade when the extended remix was an artform. A remix is usually an alternative, and sometimes longer, version of a previous recorded song.

Hotflush Recordings celebrates 20 years in the game this year, with a triple pack vinyl compilation featuring some of the key musical events in the label’s catalogue.

Born in 2003, Hotflush stands as one of electronic music’s most influential labels. A multi-dimensional imprint that helped define the development of bass music throughout the mid-2000s, in the last decade it would evolve towards the liminal spaces between house, techno, and beyond - a journey which has given the dancefloor some of its true underground classics.

This celebratory release covers every era and stylistic area of the Hotflush output. 2005’s proto-dubstep face melter ‘The Knowledge’ by Toasty kicks off Side A, with the key sides of bass music development all covered with tracks from James Blake, Loefah, Sepalcure, and Scuba.

UK techno legend Surgeon appears with his seminal remix of Scuba’s ‘Ruptured’ (2008), while the early Paul Woolford classic ‘MDMA’ reminds us of how ended up working with Diplo.

George FitzGerald and Recondite reprise some of their key formative material, while newer names Lawrence Hart, OR:LA and breakout Seoul artist Closet Yi also make appearances.

Canadian mastermind Jacques Greene rounds off the release with his slamming remix of Kiimi’s Breaking My Mind.

This is a compilation 20 years in the making, containing some of the key tracks from the electronic underground - curated and compiled by label boss Scuba.

By now a regular and esteemed presence among the Discrepant sprawling household via releases with projects such as Alförjs or Jibóia, Mestre André "resurrects" his O Morto alias (bad pun somewhat intended) after 2016 'The Forest, The People And The Spirits'. With a diaristic approach where field recordings function as remnants of his surrounding reality and subsequent memories to be processed and recontextualized into an expressionist whole, O Morto expands that previous Discrepant release sonic palette unto uncharted cartographies. 

Based on a number of field recordings taken during a life-changing trip to Morocco that felt like a fever dream, 'Dans La Gorge D'un Monstre' reenacts that hazy and hallucinatory mindframe through five tracks where no vivid recollection persists, tainted by the extrasensory feeling of not being quite there. A sonic fiction that goes from the processed cymbals and pummelling drums of 'The Gorge' with Andrés' mates in Jibóia, through moroccan Gimbri player Ayoub El Ayady and Khalid Boulhaman’s rattling Krakebs on 'Lila' and the slowed down Eccojams vibes of 'Out of the Atlas' to the dreamy aquatic soundscapes and arpeggios of the appropriately titled ‘Princesas Batráquio'. Comprising the whole of the B side, 'A Desert of Rain' is a slow evolving wonder where gong-like tones drift beneath scrambled transmissions of unknown origin, eventually giving way to synapse inducing drone motifs and scraps of realities collapsing among themselves - fire into water, a jetstream into steps, maybe none of this. 

Along with the LP, the release comes with a companion piece tape titled 'Iffrits Habitent', a more impressionistic and unadulterated account of the same travel that could well be this side of the mirror. Then again, maybe he never made it from the other side. Who's to know?

Along with The Mills Brothers, the Ink Spots blazed the way for
black music groups, creating a path for many to follow. They
proved tremendously influential, with Bill Kenny's lead tenor
inspiring such as Sonny Til (The Orioles), Curtis Mayfield (The
Impressions), Frankie Lymon (The Teenagers) and scores of
others, while Hoppy Jones's trademark talking bass role inspired
an equal number of followers.

Lovesick – everyone knows it, everyone hates it. Everyone feels alone. Everyone questions the previous relationship and what has been said during it. Everyone tries to numb the pain of this all-encompassing suffering with alcohol and drugs. Everyone calls at four in the morning and leaves embarrassing love confessions on the answering machine that will be never heard. Everyone feels alone and tries to find solace in casual acquaintances in bars, only to be turned away for being pushy. Everyone lays up for weeks stalking the likely reason this relationship ended, oh! It didn’t have to end, it was all so nice and this new one can’t be good and he/she won’t be good if the plans I’ve been making here for nights come true…oh how nice would this be! Oh it can’t be, maybe I just can’t be loved… maybe I just should…

Everybody knows it.

But from now on you never have to go through all that heartbreak alone again because we Herzschmerz Versicherungen have the solution! We are a band from Stuttgart, somehow only classified as dilletantic strange in the genre. We are at your side and take care of you when your heart hurts!

Book one of our numerous insurance packages today, or just listen to our songs – that helps too!

“Denn wenn du dir nicht sicher bist und deine Liebe bald zerbricht: Komm, schöner Mensch und kauf doch eine Versicherung bei mir, Bei Herzschmerz bin ich dann immer da, bei dir!”

Iassen Markov & Jannik Haller

Starving Insect did some records with dark Descent... maybe you remember his dark Hardcore sound... He is back with a 6 tunes banger ! From Acid to dark Hardtechno...
Hit combo with Katastrov Indus !

Planet Mu welcomes back Meemo Comma for her third album 'Loverboy'. 'Loverboy' is a shift in gear from Meemo Comma’s previous works, speeding up the tempos and rhythms, it's set in the nineties with trance, breakbeat hardcore and jungle as some of the influences. After playing a club gig in Spain as lockdown rules were loosening, Rix-Martin was reminded of the power music and people coming together creates. ‘Loverboy’ is peppered with influences from friends past and new as well as artists that have transformed the sound of Meemo Comma over the years, including Autechre, Guy Called Gerald, Orbital and Shitmat as well as others. On this journey we follow ‘Loverboy’ through the club as the night builds and different characters are met, from dropping the first pill to a euphoric ‘Cloudscape’ whilst waiting in the queue, to meeting some shady sorts in ‘Loneheath’. The album changes pace throughout with different rooms of the club being explored which add to the brevity of Rix-Martin’s production style on tracks such as 'Kyle' and 'AK47'. What started as a personal joke about Rix-Martin’s background formed a narrative for some darker, cheeky breaks that echo back on title track ‘Loverboy’, a track that Rix-Martin describes as “working class gender euphoria”.Maybe the mask has come off, and the shackles of pseudo-intellectualism have been put to rest for an honest, fun and ‘propa cheeky’ rave album instead.

Serial collaborator and Producer/DJ Regularfantasy rallies long-standing friends Cecile Believe (PC Music) and Priori (NAFF) for a 6-track release on Canada-based imprint Specials.

“As both a collaborator and a solo artist, Regularfantasy has quite the CV, with 12-inches for the likes of Mood Hut and Total Stasis and ongoing collaborations with D. Tiffany as Plush Management Inc and Plush Throw, among other projects. This doesn't even touch on the stream of straight-to-cassette mixtapes she's put out over the years. Still, New Glow feels like a milestone for Regularfantasy, hands down her most accomplished solo release.”

“Cheery house music laced with bona fide vocal hooks for a Vancouver label that focusses on real crossover potential.”

Thaniil Alexandros can’t imagine a life without producing. Under the name of RBCHMBRS, Thaniil has been tinkering with sample based productions for 17 years. In one form or another, RBCHMBRS has mashed inspirations of hip hop instrumentals with the funky, snappy bounce of UKG.

Being half Greek and half Dominican means that Thaniil’s first memories of music were of classic Greek music and his mother’s love of dance and disco. Growing up on the Bronx meant that he was exposed to a mix of genres his entire life. From boomboxes on the street or from the windows of his neighbors home, gave Alexandros exposure to sounds he hadn't heard.

Toe the Line EP was intended to return to stripped down elements of older releases, but something “a little less outer space, a return to earth.” Armed with an SP-404, RBCHMBRS wants to be playful without being reminiscent, always trying to move forward. He believes that nostalgic pain can propel an artist to make their best work.

While noting history teachers as salient inspirations that opened his eyes to cultures unknown to him, as well as a father who is a history buff of his own, Thaniil has inherited some of their reverence for the classics and the importance of learning from the past. Alexandros’ fundamentals are influenced by Madlib, Timbaland (“the early stuff,” he interjects), Q Tip, Havoc, Alchemist, UKG, as well as the culture that surrounded the NBA in the 90s, during his most formative years.

Keeping it in the family, RBCHMBRS works closely with critically acclaimed emcee/producer THERAVADA, who co-produced Sick by Earl Sweatshirt with him, and who is his cousin. Currently, RBCHMBRS is working on a self-proclaimed “sprawling dance album” with Tesh Curry. His audience has a lot to look forward to.

With his Estrella EP, his intention was expressed through the imagined feeling of a time warp, a portal, and maybe coming out the other end of it. He wanted Toe The Line EP to feel more grounded, a down to earth project that he leaned towards as he searched for his life to settle. This EP reminds him that many things in his life have changed for the better, and a lot of that has to do with the structure hes begun to install.

Remastered reissue of “We Are Urusei Yatsura” (originally released in 1996), with bonus vinyl of unreleased demos and B-sides

Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the founding of Glasgow “Geek Rock” band Urusei Yatsura
– Double Clear-Vinyl Reissue of 1996 Album
In the days before “landfill” indie, and in rebellion against a developing Britpop orthodoxy, there were some weird but melodic bands coming of age outside London that drew inspiration from the US underground and the sparkly retro-futurism of Japan. Primitive guitar noise with art rock leanings, post punk DIY and fanzine culture. The best known of these bands was maybe Urusei Yatsura; “noisy stars”, named in honour of Rumiko Takahashi, legendary manga creator.

Back in 1996, after several increasingly well-received 7’s, the band travelled to Leamington Spa to record their debut album with John Rivers, producer of Swell Maps and Glasgow scene godparents, The Pastels. The resulting album won the group legions of new fans and gained them their first Independent #1 chart placing, alongside peers Ash and Super Furry Animals.

“These were fertile years in Glasgow, a scene with no name, no single sound, where the magic thread tying everyone together was words and works so personal, they couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else’s. ‘We Are Urusei Yatsura’ is a cascade of ‘why not?’ thinking. The way ‘Phasers on Stun’ spirals into ‘Sola Kola’; the sunburned 23-second improv at the end of ‘Pachinko’; the slack-echoing strings of the outro to ‘Road Song’ sprayed with the shrapnel of toy electronics. Pure pop magic, Ren & Stimpy on upstairs, ray-guns, Ian’s homemade walkie-talkie speaker, a beatbox, all sealed with a “Talking Tina” doll’s emphatic endorsement: “I love it”” – Nick Soulsby

The vinyl-only double LP set comprises the original 1996 album recorded by John Rivers, accompanied with an extra disk of unreleased demos, rare singles and B-sides which have not been available since the 90’s. It documents the time leading up to the release of the LP and the singles that came from it, capturing the development, lost pop moments and essential experiments from the eccentric and joyful Glasgow band. The cover has been completely remixed using archive
photos and artwork from the time, with new interviews and extensive notes. The release marks 30 years since the official birthday of the band, 9/3/93.

“When I drove the transit van that took them down to Leamington Spa to record their first proper LP, there was a sense of quiet, assured anticipation. I couldn’t wait to hear it and when I came back a couple of weeks later to pick them back up, I remember so clearly when they played it from the van’s tape deck. Fergus and Graham were hunched over, focusing intently on what they wanted to change about the mix. The reverb wasn’t right or something. Maybe they didn’t like how high the vocals were in the mix. I said to them, you’re listening to the details, but missing what is most important–this is a fantastic record! It was. It is. It is a fantastic record. They were a brilliant live band and I am so lucky to have been able to have been there to see their formation.” – Alex Kapranos.

This album features Pharoah Sanders playing some no-nonsense tenor in a quartet with pianist John Hicks, bassist Walter Booker, and drummer Idris Muhammad. Sanders performs "It's Easy to Remember" (in a style very reminiscent of early-'60s John Coltrane), an original blues, and two of his compositions, including the passionate "You've Got to Have Freedom."

The musicianship is at a high level and, although Sanders does not shriek as much as one might hope (the Trane-ish influence was particularly strong during this relatively mellow period), he is in fine form. Review by Scott Yanow/AMG

Beware! This is hot stuff! Wear asbestos clothing while listening. Four world-class musicians at the very pinnacle of their art relating closely to one another in the vortex of a cyclone of jazz music. They're all burning, but listen particularly to John Hicks (R.I.P Mr. Hicks) on "DOKTOR PITT." Is he not the best thing to happen to the keyboard since McCoy Tyner? And when I state John Hicks was burning, if you've ever had the opportunity to view the video of this performance (maybe still on YouTube) recorded at the Great American Music Hall in 1981, you'll see
Mr. Hicks melting with perspiration. That's cookin' brother...
review by James S. Grogan

”Look up, into the light” she said, while the camera shutter clicked. ”Like this? Does it look holy?” His neck felt stiff. Her reply: ”Yes, just like that. What do you mean holy? Like religious? ”No, more like trying to look very far, somewhere beyond what we can see.” ”Okay, stand still, I’m going to come close to you now. The light hits your face great.” *click, click, click.

He noticed her fingernails. They were not polished. Natural. Even somewhat rugged, as if something wore out the fingers slightly. What had these hands held besides the camera? What made the edges of her fingernails drift off?

He thought it’s weird to look straight into the camera. The photographer had closed her left eye, the one not looking into the lens. Then it opened, she looked up, perusing the surroundings, then she closed her eye again, then looked up, closed, looking up, very quickly. It all seemed very professional. Maybe she calculated the light, making sure it’s close to perfect. ”What will these photos look like?” – the thought popped into his head briefly. It was liberating to think it wouldn’t matter.

”What’s that song playing?” he asked. ”Wait a sec, Ol’ Dirty Bastard?” she replied. ”Oh yeah, right. But the sample?” ”Hey, could you look up again, like that. No, lower.”

New directions: ”Look out from the window, turn left.” ”My left or yours?” ”Yours, I always try to think from the direction of my model.” How professional! This is a good shoot, so natural. Should I worry about how the photos look like? No, I don’t want to. His thoughts bounced around. What would the story be like? It’s a big newspaper, everyone will read it. Maybe someone drinks coffee and eats a stroopwafel while they do it. Will they place the waffle on top of the mug for a brief while, so that it gets hot and the syrup melts a little? Then it feels wet, and you can bend the cookie.

She broke his train of thought off midway through: ”Now turn right, but look left, and slightly up, but don’t turn your face right.” ”Umm, like this? Sounds like a set of pilates instructions.” she laughed ”You do pilates?” ”Yeah, it’s hard sometimes. Have you tried?” ”No”, she said. ”I’m not good for sports that are done in groups.” ”Yeah, but in pilates you can just be inside your mind, drowning in your private thoughts.”

”What are you thinking in pilates?” she asked, taking more photos. ”Well, mostly just which way is right. And which left.” *click, click.

“Dandelion” blooms a previously undiscovered and unknown sweet spot between 60’s psychedelia and 70’s power-pop, equally pastoral and street-wise, every note tuned to moving and astounding melody. “Dandelion” offers lush arrangements of unforgettable, legend-making songs, performed entirely by Daniel himself.

Norwegian party boys Human Inferno is like a collision between the rougher parts of drug infected British ragga, 80s industrial harshness, out there synth and their very own sound sickness. Human Inferno does not sound like much in this world. And maybe we are not worthy. Whatever. Just get your fix here, ok.

DG was in Anal Babes and Astroburger and plays with No balls. The other dudes are true underground men but TFW can be experienced while dj'ing jungle and other hot things at bars in Oslo. Bless them.

The inaugural release on Groove Culture’s new Deep imprint comes courtesy of Berlin-based DJ/Producer and fresh-faced talent Luca Olivotto. For his Groove Culture Deep debut ‘Floating Memories’ Olivotto hits with three delectably deep tracks that each have their own distinctive flavour.

Up first, ‘Maybe’ takes the full A side, a groove-laden, energetic old school house track with nods to king Kerri that is certified prime-time dancefloor business. On Side B you’ll find the title track ‘Floating Memories’. As its namesake suggests, melodic synths, luscious pads and groovy stabs sparkle atop a punchy driving beat.

Closing out proceedings ‘Dark Flow’, the perfect opener to set the atmosphere of a dancefloor... A warm, deep and beautiful journey full to the brim with sweeping chords, subtle vocal snippets and delicate top lines.

An essential EP for any Deep House lover out there that really delves down into the essence of the genre.

„One day I was on a visit sitting in his kitchen and when we decided to change to the sofa in the music room, his girlfriend proposed to listen to these old recordings, as maybe I would be weird enough to like them. „Recorded in my homestudio, low budget style with a cheap microphone, a sampler, drum machines, vinyl and a few borrowed synths. … A commitment to the funk, a raw analogue sound and also a dedication to black music and its architects.“ the artist comments on it.
I immediately dug the rather short demos a lot. As I had to swallow the information that there never were real plans to release them, I later decided on the bus home, I just had to puke out a „label“. Soon I asked him to extend some of the songs and let me do some mixing and here is the album.“ Cid Hohner

An entire long-player on hair, representing the complete Illwig catalogue. Beautifully raw electronic funk. Obscure, bouncy and atmospheric. Right. This is F.B.Illwig with the first official release on Moonwalk X Records after a singlesided promo 12“ sporting the extended version of „Why Do My Hair“.

Steve Moore's Lovelock is back with Washington Park, a gorgeous suite of instrumental lounge music that can only be described as synth exotica. A real departure for Steve, this is a more mellow, soothing sound and can be regarded as Lovelock's response to these dystopian times.

New York-based multi-instrumentalist/producer/film composer Steve Moore is probably best known for his synthesizer and bass guitar work as Zombi, together with Anthony Paterra. Yet his Lovelock alias has been quietly blowing minds and warming hearts for a decade plus now. His latest effort, Washington Park, was not initially meant to be a Lovelock album. But Steve was posting little snippets of his work on Instagram and people started asking him: "is this new Lovelock?" It was at this point that Steve had an epiphany, of sorts. "It occurred to me that Lovelock can be whatever I want it to be. So yeah, maybe this new lounge/exotica record is, in fact, Lovelock."

Washington Park creeped out in a very low-key, early lockdown fashion and there wasn't much of a reaction. Says Steve, "I just self-released it and all my usual suspects were down with it, but it didn't really make it outside of my own circle." Yet many of the Balearic heads in Europe were indeed on it and Be With were most certainly listening. So, when we struck a deal to do the vinyl version of Burning Feeling, we couldn't resist asking about Washington Park.

Gentle opener "It Means Love" grooves along in the laconic style, conjuring carousel innocence and complimented by dreamy, spiritual sax and syrupy synth strings over a digi-soul beats. Title-track "Washington Park" glides smoothly in much the same vein, almost like a slightly more acidic, squelchier version of the preceding track with more insistent organ. Swoon. Closing out Side A, steady ambient gem "We'll See" is all gorgeous, soft pads with plaintive guitar and organ giving way to soaring digital strings over that metronomic drum machine soul.

Flip for the eerily brilliant "Seduction", a track which starts like a minimalist slice of Tommy Guerrero-esque guitar and drum machine soul but soon takes on a more menacing bent as Steve leans into his long-held predilection for horror by creating a slow-mo haunted house jam. The tempo (and temperature) rises with "Center Square", a Latin rhythm section and a sensual sax rubbing up against hot and heavy organ and string action. Steamy! To round things off, the ominous creeping groove of "Rhythm 77" feels like exotica-in-excelsis.

Washington Park was recorded over the first few months of the pandemic, during the spring of 2020, against the backdrop of his kids being out of school which meant daily walks and bike rides through Washington Park in Albany. It was during these moments of family activity and gentle movements, trying to make sense of the chaos engulfing his world, that Steve formed the ideas that led to this album. To make it manifest, he used all his old Roland beat boxes (CR-78, Rhythm 77 and Rhythm 330, Rhythm Arranger) plus a Chamberlin Rhythmate for all the percussion. Basslines were usually performed with his Moog Source or Minitaur and for pads and brass he used his Sequential Prophet 600 and Roland Juno 60. Strings came via a variety of old stringers - Korg Polysix, Elka Rhapsody, Crumar Orchestrator and Solina String Ensemble - and he also used his Fender Strat and Yamaha Custom saxophone.

Steve is a huge fan of exotica and that's clearly where this album is coming from. The likes of Martin Denny, Les Baxter and Henry Mancini can all be discerned here. As Steve explained, "I spent a lot of time listening to that stuff in the 90s and I figured it was time to let those influences show." You're going to be glad he did.

Mastering for the Washington Park vinyl edition was overseen by Be With regular Simon Francis before being cut by Cicely Blaston of Alchemy Mastering at AIR Studios and pressed in the Netherlands by Record Industry.

Ron Sexsmith is one of Canada"s most accomplished singer-songwriters. Born and bred in St Catherine"s near Niagara Falls and currently resident in Stratford, Ontario, he has released 16 albums to date. He has collaborated with the likes of Daniel Lanois, Mitchell Froom, Ane Brun, Tchad Blake, and Bob Rock. His songwriting appears on albums from Rod Stewart, Michael Bublé, k.d. lang, Emmylou Harris and Feist. Film-maker Doug Arrowsmith made an acclaimed documentary about Ron in 2010 called "Love Shines". In 2017 Ron published his first book, a fairy tale entitled "Deer Life". With one exception, these new songs all flowed from Sexsmith"s fertile musical and lyrical imagination in a short period of 2021 during covid. "The songs came out of nowhere," Ron explains. "I wasn"t really writing after the 2020 release of my previous album, Hermitage. The older I get, the more I think "maybe this is it," but then I found myself with new ideas again and got excited."

Welcome to another fine episode of SIRS aka »Sounds in real Stereo«! After last years' arrival on LARJ with his »Arrived EP«, Berlin based versatile DJ & producer Daniel Klein is back with »Travel To HDF.Y3D« - an utopian (or more likely dystopian) ode to space travel:

The last few remaining humans are traveling with 140bpm to the most distant galaxy in the universe on a mission to seek out a new space for mankind to live after many years of exploiting good old Mother Earth. What sounds like a horror scenario if you start thinking about it, SIRS manages to wrap up in quite a positive musical message. Thus »Travel To HDF.Y3D« becomes that hopeful uplifting slightly dreamy tune we all need these days - not unlike Christian Bruhn's theme of a certain Captain called Future back in 1980 …

It's also nice to have two more versions of such a strong tune at hand: The first one is a true first one for »Cocktail D'Amore« DJ BUDINO as she comes up with her first remix and production work ever. Budino's approach is a slightly darker, maybe indeed more dystopian one. The synthesizer bass lines dominate her remix and by getting rid of the original's playful melody she creates a very special melancholic feel.

Leipzig based PANTHERA KRAUSE's take isn't quite that different from Budino's as he too focuses on the darker vibes of this journey in space. It's his added extra dose of punch that surely will keep dancers on the floor for sure.

The former »Space Ibiza« resident SIRS now takes over the controls again with »Summer Desire« which too is destined to rule dancefloors not only in Ibiza but all over the world with its lovely airy vibe.

»Travel To HDF.Y3D« returns for one last time in form of the spoken word prolog - a nice extra tool to play with.

One amp. One mic. One person. Countless hooks. That’s the Dazy formula. Since first releasing the single Bright Lights b/w Accelerate in August 2020, Dazy mastermind James Goodson has been writing, recording, and releasing new music like a man on the hunt to find the best pop hook, and he won’t stop until he’s put all of them into his songs. Show- casing a unique set of influences, Dazy’s sound marries thumping drum machine beats, blasts of feeding back guitar, and sugar-sweet hooks into something that sounds like God- flesh covering Oasis—or maybe the other way around. With lean songwriting that recalls Teenage Fanclub but a home-re- corded production style better suited for Big Black, Goodson builds a constant churn of abrasive, consuming noise and then makes it catchier than anyone else would ever dare to.