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Cassandra Jenkins' An Overview on Phenomenal Nature emerged from the blue earlier this year. With pandemic unknowns and political upheaval leaving most at frayed ends, the New York-born musician’s assuring voice and expansive fresh take on songwriting created a much needed reflective space for listeners worldwide. As 2021 comes to a close, Jenkins revisits those flowing textures and refrains with (An Overview On) An Overview On Phenomenal Nature, a collection of previously unreleased sonic sketches, initial run-throughs, demos, and sound recordings from the cutting room floor that provided the scaffolding for what became one of this year’s most critically acclaimed albums.

When Jenkins visited Josh Kaufman’s studio this summer, they opened up their original sessions to uncover the ideas that were shed in the creative process. The new collection, (An Overview On) An Overview On Phenomenal Nature, isn’t merely a retrospective; it acts as a clear-eyed addendum as well as a compelling origin story, coming to life as a subconscious companion to the original album.

First takes of “New Bikini” and “Hailey” are born from opposite starting points; while “New Bikini” began as an airy alto meander, “Hailey”’s origins lie in an upbeat dance track. On “Crosshairs (Interlude),” Jenkins’ pitched vocal delivers a straight monotone, recasting the format as poetry with music highlighting her words, and “Ambiguous Norway (Instrumental)” lifts the ambient nature of the mournful song into glimmering waves. The demo version of “Michelangelo” contains alternate lyrics “I’m Michelangelo, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle,” a lost contrast to the later verse where Jenkins’ likens herself to the sculptor. On “Hard Drive (Security Guard),” we join Jenkins as she listens to a passionate museum guard whose promised “overview” of the exhibit on view builds into a monologue of observations on art, politics, feminism and the human condition. This candid interaction evolved into the cornerstone and title of Jenkins’ album.

Before they decided to make an album together, Jenkins brought Kaufman a song called “American Spirits.”The dusky ballad takes us to the Texas plains via a voicemail from the payphone of a county jail (“Miss Cassandra”). Cassandra sings, “Time here burns through the sunsets / Like you and a pack of American Spirits” over warm instrumentation with a vocal delivery that reinforces Jenkins’ unwavering tenderness towards her subjects.

(An Overview On) An Overview On Phenomenal Nature bookends Cassandra Jenkins' musical output this year with nuance, coloring in the corners, and giving us another window into her ever-expanding world of chance encounters, experiences, and sonic textures. They glimmer like the sun’s changing patterns on the wall as a new day gets going.

With Plum, the songwriting partnership rooted in the creative rapport between bandleader Molly Hamilton and guitarist Robert Earl Thomas continues to expand on shared visions, delving deeper into what was always there: dusty guitars, ear-worm melodies, warm expansive arrangements. Each entry to their catalog has marked a subtle reimagining of Widowspeak's sound, though perennial points of reference remain the same: 90's dream pop, 60's psych rock, a certain unshakeable Pacific-Northwestness. Speaking to the timeless feeling of each, the albums continue to be discovered well beyond their respective PR cycles, made beloved by new listeners through word of mouth. The band's fifth album feels comfortable and lived-in: humble in structure, heavy on mood. Perhaps that came taking time off from the touring grind, instead working full-time jobs and settling into the rhythm of daily life in a small upstate New York town. Plum was recorded over a handful of weekends last winter by Sam Evian (Cass McCombs, Kazu Makino, Hannah Cohen) at his Flying Cloud studio in the Catskills, and was mixed by Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding, Perfume Genius). In addition to Hamilton (vocals, guitar) and Thomas (guitars, bass, synth), it features instrumental contributions by Andy Weaver (drums), Michael Hess (piano), and Sam himself (bass, synth). Plum nestles into the band's canon like it was always there, but with new textures coming to the fore, like the polyrhythmic pulse of "Amy" and "The Good Ones", or the watery, Terry Riley-influenced track "Jeanie" Plum navigates the spaces between the lesser emotions of modern life. Hamilton's lyrics speak to the unique turmoil of anyone who creates as their work, who must somehow survive off such "fruits of their labor." Yet, Widowspeak have always made a bitter pill much easier to swallow. The majestic "Breadwinner", the luminous "Even True Love" - these songs here were made to be listened to, enjoyed. "Money" is particularly hypnotic, built around a repeating, cyclical motif that serves as both skeleton and body. "Will you get back what you put in?" Hamilton asks over an insistent guitar riff. The line is delivered with a knowingness that transcends its surface critiques of late-stage capitalism, asking both herself and the listener whether this is, in fact, the world we want to live in. Through Plum, Widowspeak have brought something into the world that seems to know its own worth, even as it wonders aloud about what is to come. What value and meaning do we assign ourselves, our time, and how do we spend it?

First vinyl pressing is Limited to 1500 copies in 2 Colour variants. Transparent Aquamarine and green twisted stripe and transparent blue and cherry twisted stripe vinyl (Indies Only). Gatefold sleeve. Full download included as well. CD package is a 4 panel digipack, with a 4 page booklet. New Heavy Sounds is proud to present the new album by Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard. now known simply as MWWB. There has been some speculation amongst fan circles that the final part of the trilogy of albums that preceded this, marked the end of Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard’s five-year mission. Not so. We can categorically confirm that having officially slimmed their name down to the acronym, MWWB are continuing their voyage through the far reaches of the galaxy. The first phase of that journey is their new album ‘The Harvest’. ‘The Harvest’ is the band’s fourth album, and of course it is a record shot through with the trademark heavy MWWB sound, and their unique blend of metal and shoegaze. However it also sees the band adding more experimentation, a progressive approach, and going a bit more left field conceptually. To some extent, it shares similarities with Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’. Not only by having the mix of experimentation and melodicism as that seminal record, but also in the way that it has been engineered and constructed as a seamless piece. Nine tracks flowing into one another. Space age riff monsters segueing into shorter musical interludes, where John Carpenter, rubs shoulders with Pink Floyd and a maelstrom of moog and mellotron. There are surprises, and of course a bucketload of heavy shit. With ‘The Harvest’ MWWB have refined and honed their sound, it’s a carefully crafted distillation of ideas, written, conceived and sequenced to be listened to in its entirety (preferably in one sitting). MWWB have always loved film scores and this new album is in many ways, the soundtrack to a film. MWWB provides the musical narrative (the song titles also provide a pointer) and the listener's imagination does the rest. ‘Oblok Magellana’ and its spooky atmospherics set the scene. before things really kick in with the riffs of title track ‘The Harvest’. A grooving Sabbathian chug intro’s Jessica Ball, who at the top of her game throughout. Her voice simultaneously sweet yet dark; almost neofolk; which when put against those riffs, is always a startling juxtaposition, nevertheless it perfectly crystallises MWWB’s distinctive dynamic. ‘Interstellar Wrecking’ is a succinctly crafted nugget of John Carpenter-esque drama, you can imagine the thundering mothership forging its way through the universe on some nameless quest before encountering ‘Logic Bomb’ and its fat fuzzed-up ride through light and shade guitar/vocal interplay. Ball’s voice soaring and shimmering throughout. ‘Betrayal’ gives a nod to Pink Floyd’s ‘On The Run’ but with its freaky spoken word and four on the floor kick it’s almost a dance track, yet there’s no incongruity here. ‘Altamira’ is epic MWWB, adding large doses of psych into a melodic concoction of dreampop and metal. Ball’s vocals here are many layered and textured effortlessly gliding through the weight of the backing. ‘Let’s Send The Bastards Whence They Came’ is another little gem. A plaintive repeating synth figure that builds with bass, drums, mellotrons and synths into ‘Strontium’ which rounds off the album’s ‘heavy’ numbers, a blend of monster grooves, and Ball’s swooning vocals. Finally, and outstandingly, Jessica strips things back to a distorted guitar and voice on ‘Moonrise’. Shorn of the layers of fuzz, it is a simple, beautiful and fitting catharsis to an epic voyage. MWWB are a thrilling proposition. They demonstrate that you can seamlessly mix crushing power, experimentation and delicate vulnerability into something that transcends any genre. MWWB are Jessica Ball, vocals and synths. Paul Michael Davies, guitar and synths. Stuart Sinclair, bass and Dom McCready, drums.

First vinyl pressing is Limited to 1500 copies in 2 Colour variants. Transparent Aquamarine and green twisted stripe and transparent blue and cherry twisted stripe vinyl (Indies Only). Gatefold sleeve. Full download included as well. CD package is a 4 panel digipack, with a 4 page booklet. New Heavy Sounds is proud to present the new album by Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard. now known simply as MWWB. There has been some speculation amongst fan circles that the final part of the trilogy of albums that preceded this, marked the end of Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard’s five-year mission. Not so. We can categorically confirm that having officially slimmed their name down to the acronym, MWWB are continuing their voyage through the far reaches of the galaxy. The first phase of that journey is their new album ‘The Harvest’. ‘The Harvest’ is the band’s fourth album, and of course it is a record shot through with the trademark heavy MWWB sound, and their unique blend of metal and shoegaze. However it also sees the band adding more experimentation, a progressive approach, and going a bit more left field conceptually. To some extent, it shares similarities with Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’. Not only by having the mix of experimentation and melodicism as that seminal record, but also in the way that it has been engineered and constructed as a seamless piece. Nine tracks flowing into one another. Space age riff monsters segueing into shorter musical interludes, where John Carpenter, rubs shoulders with Pink Floyd and a maelstrom of moog and mellotron. There are surprises, and of course a bucketload of heavy shit. With ‘The Harvest’ MWWB have refined and honed their sound, it’s a carefully crafted distillation of ideas, written, conceived and sequenced to be listened to in its entirety (preferably in one sitting). MWWB have always loved film scores and this new album is in many ways, the soundtrack to a film. MWWB provides the musical narrative (the song titles also provide a pointer) and the listener's imagination does the rest. ‘Oblok Magellana’ and its spooky atmospherics set the scene. before things really kick in with the riffs of title track ‘The Harvest’. A grooving Sabbathian chug intro’s Jessica Ball, who at the top of her game throughout. Her voice simultaneously sweet yet dark; almost neofolk; which when put against those riffs, is always a startling juxtaposition, nevertheless it perfectly crystallises MWWB’s distinctive dynamic. ‘Interstellar Wrecking’ is a succinctly crafted nugget of John Carpenter-esque drama, you can imagine the thundering mothership forging its way through the universe on some nameless quest before encountering ‘Logic Bomb’ and its fat fuzzed-up ride through light and shade guitar/vocal interplay. Ball’s voice soaring and shimmering throughout. ‘Betrayal’ gives a nod to Pink Floyd’s ‘On The Run’ but with its freaky spoken word and four on the floor kick it’s almost a dance track, yet there’s no incongruity here. ‘Altamira’ is epic MWWB, adding large doses of psych into a melodic concoction of dreampop and metal. Ball’s vocals here are many layered and textured effortlessly gliding through the weight of the backing. ‘Let’s Send The Bastards Whence They Came’ is another little gem. A plaintive repeating synth figure that builds with bass, drums, mellotrons and synths into ‘Strontium’ which rounds off the album’s ‘heavy’ numbers, a blend of monster grooves, and Ball’s swooning vocals. Finally, and outstandingly, Jessica strips things back to a distorted guitar and voice on ‘Moonrise’. Shorn of the layers of fuzz, it is a simple, beautiful and fitting catharsis to an epic voyage. MWWB are a thrilling proposition. They demonstrate that you can seamlessly mix crushing power, experimentation and delicate vulnerability into something that transcends any genre. MWWB are Jessica Ball, vocals and synths. Paul Michael Davies, guitar and synths. Stuart Sinclair, bass and Dom McCready, drums.

Desiderii Marginis, Troum, Martin Bladh & Karolina Urbaniak and Anemone Tube, who have gathered to pay homage to the first four novels of British writer J.G. Ballard: »The Wind from Nowhere«, »The Drowned World«, »The Drought and The Crystal World«, which are often seen as disaster novels. Each of the four projects presents a very unique take on the chosen work, using the respective text as a starting point to offer sonic representations of and (further) perspectives on these books, using drones, field recordings, words and much more to create evocative and richly layered soundscapes.

Adorned by a painting of German artist Alex Tennigkeit depicting a sphinx-like hybrid creature, a phoenix rising from the ashes of our civilization, the double album also includes an in-depth essay by Michael Göttert (African Paper) on Ballard's works in which he argues that the novels can best be understood as texts of transformation, as well as texts by the sound artists.

The double album starts with Desiderii Marginis' track “The Wind From Nowhere”, on which field recordings and intense drones suck the listener into a stormy vortex. Troum interpret The Drowned World, and their two dynamic tracks illustrate both the changes happening to the (outer) landscape and the (inner) world of the protagonists. Martin Bladh & Karolina Urbaniak make use of sound and words on “The Poisoned Well”, their interpretation of The Drought, referring to Shakespeare, the Bible and scorched earth policy amongst other points of reference. The album closes with Anemone Tube's take on The Crystal World, using field recordings made in Japan’s Mount Fuji forest. “Sea Of Trees” aims to show a devolutionary process, in which man gains access to his actual spiritual home – a primordial wisdom, which lets him discover an internal non-dual space, allowing to ultimately becoming one with the earth as body-being consciousness – the ‘perfect dream’ landscape.

Legendary Italian musician Sergio Messina serves up his 13 track Sensual Musicology on Hell Yeah this March. It comes a couple of years after he first released on the label's Buena Onda compilation and takes in everything from demented waltz to grown-up jazz, groovy beach music to heart-aching melancholia with artwork by virtuoso Italian AD DeeMo.

Now based in Lombardy, Sergio was there at the birth of pirate radio in the mid-seventies and eventually produced Radio art for national broadcaster Rai. At the same time, his DJ career took off and he helped establish Hip hop in Rome before taking his own live show to the stage with a mix of PCs, samplers and tape recorders as early as 1989. Frank Zappa declared himself a fan and in the years since Sergio has done everything from radio art to producing Neapolitan reggae and hip hop band 99 Posse, producing his own solo albums and writing for monthly music magazine Rumore. On top of this, he has both written books about and delivered lectures on the digital porno revolution, as well as teaching History of Pop Culture at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Milan. All this makes him a truly original creative thinking who has long been immersed in many niche facets of popular culture.

Sensual Musicology took several years and four different locations to happen. Its release has been delayed by the pandemic, during which Sergio lost many friends and relatives close to him. As a result, the album is dedicated to all of them. It is a record that addresses many topics from economic migration to jazz piano, 60s blues motifs to corruption, pollution and racism via Michael Jackson covers, odes to West Coast guitar albums and spaced-out pieces of electronica.

Opening with the beautifully delicate Mingus melodies of 'Goodbye Porkpie Hat' the album roams through the bluesy Italo-American-Jamaican groove of 'Amara,' slow melancholy of 'Sometimes Remember' with classy vocals from chanteuse Valeria Rossi and 'The Way You Make Me Feel', an acoustic rebuild of Michael Jackson's hit song. Then comes the serenade that is 'Just Because You're Dead,' and ‘Sono Stufa di Tutto’ which is based around a protest speech recorded from the radio in the 1980s. Jon Hassell Beach Bar' is a musical hybridisation for dancing pleasure.

The second half of the album takes in 'Ouana Di lambo' which is the Four Twenties taking you to a cocktail bar in the tropics, 'Benjamino Placido' which is a melody for a man who inspired Sergio to start writing his columns, and 'Nowhere Special' which is a tribute to West Coast guitar albums. Closer ‘Switchblade Bolero' has a Zappaesque theme.

Sensual Musicology is a rich and diverse musical world that is as thought-provoking and deep as it is emotionally rewarding.


Early DJ Support:
Leo Mas, Phat Phil Cooper, Calm, Chris Coco, Andy (We are The Sunset), Severino (Horse Meat Disco)

Spaceship is Mark S. Williamson, a musician, sound artist and educator based in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. His work is often made in response to his environment, working on location, combining field recordings with electronic and acoustic instrumentation, usually recorded outside, amid the landscape and weather. Mark has recorded for wiaiwya, Apollolaan, the Dark Outside and his own Forged River Recordings. His work has been reviewed by The Wire, Electronic Sound, Shindig and The Quietus and he was recently one of the fourteen artists featured in Electronic Sound Magazine’s ‘field recording special’. His collaboration with Luke Turner on series of readings from Luke’s book ‘Out of the Woods’ has seen performances at Cecil Sharp House, Port Eliot Festival, The Trades Club in Hebden Bridge, Krankenhaus Festival and the Horse Hospital and he recently collaborated with the artist Michael Powell on his Calderfolk project. A direct sequel to 2019’s Outcrops (also on wiaiwya), Ravines moves its focus from the uplands above Todmorden to the narrow, steep sided ravines, known as cloughs, that contain the streams that flow down the valley sides to feed the River Calder. These valleys, formed over hundreds, if not thousands of years can be peaceful sanctuaries, their stepped pools and waterfalls a shelter from the windswept moors. In time of heavy rainfall though, they become the conduits for the rapidly descending overland flows which reach the Calder and, in extreme circumstances, cause the floods which remain a part of valley life. These cloughs also saw the beginnings of industry in the area. Colden Clough and Jumble Hole Clough contain the ruin of small water fed mills which would evolve into the much larger steam powered facilities in Todmorden and Hebden Bridge. Mostly recorded in the field using portable equipment, these pieces are intended to reflect all three of these aspects; the peace, the violence and the beginnings of humankind’s ultimate separation from the landscape brought on by the industrial revolution. The sleeve is by Maxim Peter Griffin, an artist, illustrator and writer based in Lincolnshire. A fine art graduate and former stonemason, over the past few years he has been building a body of work that echo his experiences on foot between the North Sea and the hills. "...a luminous soundtrack to the passage of geological time." Shindig // "Williamson is building desire tunnels, churning through the layers of rock and soil to find his conclusions." The Wire // "These rumbling synth drifts and ominous drones transport you to entirely different places-like being cast adrift in a cosmic void" Electronic Sound // "...the droning synthesizer waves conjure up something spectral and eerie, stretching out like the wide horizon..." The Quietus // "Beautiful." Hannah Peel

Heiko Voss has earned near mythical status as a torchbearer for the emotional, deeply felt and quietly radical style of electronic music. The blissed-out radiance of his Kompakt Pop single, “I Think About You” remains one of the label catalog highlights and a stellar run of collaborative singles as Schaeben & Voss; others might know him for his stewardship of the excellent, much-underrated Firm imprint. But with his new album, 3:30 Minutes To Live, released by Michael Mayer’s label Imara, Voss returns after a long silence with a beautiful collection of songs that hymn heartbreak with a lusciously melodic touch.

There is something definitive and newly confident in 3:30 Minutes To Live that has it feeling like a real statement of intent if compared to his earlier releases. “Although it’s not, 3:30 Minutes To Live feels like my debut album,” Voss reflects. “All releases before were more song sketches or electronic dance tracks.” Bunkering down in Teary Eyes Studio, Voss worked up somewhere between thirty and forty sketches of songs, which he whittled down to the twelve collected here, all of them situated in a unique space, but very much in accord with Voss’s defining aesthetic, which he describes as “indie pop music with a lot of guitar, electronic elements and a great love for melancholic ‘80s synth-lines.”

Voss is sensitive to both variety and consistency – 3:30 Minutes To Live sits together as an assured, vibrant collection of pop songs, but it’s marked by all kinds of surprising incident, like the guitar solo that erupts out of “This Is My Life”, or the acoustic guitar-led melancholy of the closing “This Summer”. It’s all borne of the alchemy of the studio process and the intimate romance of music-making. “If you constantly feel a little bit like you’re in love while writing and producing your music – simply because of the sound of the synth flowing warmly and gently through the room, or because the sequence of notes awakens something in you, or even a randomly arising groove in the loop of a guitar lick makes you shout, ‘Ha!!’ – then it usually becomes a beautiful song,” Voss nods. “Those moments make me happy.”

There’s also a delicious tension between the push of the music, its melodic lushness and gliding, ballerina-like movement, and the darker currents that pull through Voss’s lyrics, inspired by a “short, dramatic and toxic love affair.” This may read like familiar terrain for a pop album, but the way Voss weaves language through both the extra-linguistic joys of music and the inarticulate speech of the heart somehow allows for direct communication that is simultaneously plain-spoken and deeply profound. “Say It” is a simple, devastatingly effective plaint of alienation; “She Wasn’t Lonely” a simple portrait of everyday living set to chiming, clacking guitars, the music in the bridge taking astral flight as the titular character ‘lets herself go.’

A smart and sharp collection of songs that captures you with its gorgeous melodicism just as it blindsides you with its aching heart, 3:30 Minutes To Live is Heiko Voss at his most assured and open-hearted best.

Heiko Voss hat sich als Fackelträger einer emotionalen, von ganzem Herzen kommenden und nicht auf den ersten Blick radikalen Spielart von elektronischer Musik einen nahezu mythischen Status erarbeitet. Das schiere Glück, welches seine Kompakt Pop-Single "I Think About You" aus dem Jahr 2003 immer noch ausstrahlt, macht sie nach wie vor zu einem der Highlights des Label-Katalogs, wo sie neben einer ganzen Reihe hervorragender Singles als Schaeben & Voss steht; andere kennen Heiko vielleicht durch das tolle und vielfach unterschätzte Label Firm, für das er zusammen mit Thomas Schaeben verantwortlich war. Mit seinem neuen Album “3:30 Minutes To Live”, das am 4. März 2022 auf Michael Mayers Label Imara erscheint, kehrt Voss nun nach einer langen Pause mit einer wunderschönen Sammlung von Songs zurück, die den Herzschmerz – getragen auf den Schwingen unwiderstehlicher Melodien – ausgiebig besingen.

“3:30 Minutes To Live” kommt mit einer gehörigen Portion Überzeugung und Selbstbewusstsein daher, was im Vergleich zu seinen früheren Veröffentlichungen wie ein bewusstes Statement wirkt. "Obwohl es das nicht ist, fühlt sich ‘3:30 Minutes To Live’ wie mein Debütalbum an", meint Voss. "Alle meine vorherigen Veröffentlichungen waren eher Song-Skizzen oder elektronische Dance-Tracks."

Im Teary Eyes Studio arbeitete Voss zwischen dreißig und vierzig Songskizzen aus, die er auf die zwölf hier versammelten Songs reduzierte, die alle ihren eigenen Raum einnehmen, dabei aber sehr gut mit Voss' übergeordneter Ästhetik harmonieren, die er als "Indie-Pop-Musik mit viel Gitarre, elektronischen Elementen und einer großen Liebe für melancholische 80er-Jahre-Synthies" beschreibt.

Voss ist sowohl für Abwechslung als auch für Konsistenz empfänglich - “3:30 Minutes To Live“ ist eine selbstsichere, lebendige Sammlung von Popsongs, die aber auch von allerlei Überraschungen geprägt ist, wie dem Gitarrensolo, das aus “This Is My Life” herausbricht, oder die von einer Akustikgitarre getragene Melancholie des abschließenden “This Summer”.

Das alles ist entstanden aus der besonderen Alchemie des Studioprozesses und der intimen Romantik des Musikmachens. "Wenn du beim Schreiben und Produzieren deiner Musik ständig das Gefühl hast, ein bisschen verliebt zu sein – einfach weil der Klang des Synthesizers warm und sanft durch den Raum fließt, oder weil die Notenfolge etwas in dir weckt, oder sogar ein zufällig auftauchender Groove im Loop eines Gitarren-Licks dich ein 'Ha!' ausrufen lässt – dann wird daraus meist ein schöner Song", nickt Voss. "Diese Momente machen mich glücklich."

Es entsteht eine besondere Spannung zwischen dem positiven Elan der Musik, ihrer melodischen Verschwendungssucht, den gleitenden, Ballerina-artigen Bewegungen und den dunkleren Strömungen, die durch Voss' Texte ziehen, die von einer "kurzen, dramatischen und giftigen Liebesaffäre" inspiriert sind. Das mag sich wie ein vertrautes Terrain für ein Pop-Album anhören, aber die Art und Weise, wie Voss die Sprache sowohl durch die nonverbalen Elemente der Musik als auch durch den nicht artikulierten Ausdruck des Herzens verwebt, ermöglicht eine Art direkte Kommunikation, die gleichzeitig ausgesprochen klar und trotzdem tiefgründig ist. “Say It" ist eine erschütternd einprägsame Anklage von Entfremdung; "She Wasn't Lonely" ist ein einfaches Porträt des alltäglichen Lebens, untermalt von klappernden Gitarren, in dem die Musik einen astralen Flug unternimmt, während die Titelfigur sich "gehen lässt".

“3:30 Minutes To Live“ ist eine kluge und scharfsinnige Sammlung von Songs, die den Zuhörenden mit ihren wunderschönen Melodien fesseln, aber auch mit einer Menge schmerzenden Gefühlen konfrontiert. Ein Album, auf dem Heiko Voss ganz bei sich ist und Euch dabei mehr als nur sein Herz öffnet.

By All Means (Feat. Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard,
Lee Ritenour, Seawind Horns)
Reissue of Alphonse Mouzon's killer 1981 album 'By All Means', featuring
Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard and Lee Ritenour - the album is a
classic of the period, blending funk, disco, and improvisational creativity
At the time of his death in 2016 at the age of 68, drummer, composer and multiinstrumentalist Alphonse Mouzon had for decades been a major force within the
jazz, fusion, R&B and pop arenas. The early eighties was a time when Mouzon
toyed with disco and channelled funk. His musical amalgam was a far cry from
the Saturday Night Fever brand – he brought more funk, more soul, more
spontaneous creativity into the mix.
For 'By All Means', Mouzon brought together musicians who were masters in
virtually any musical style. The rhythm section belonged to the who's who of the
LA studio scene. Electric bassist Scott Edwards had worked with such stars as
Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson & Aretha Franklin. 21- year- old guitarist Paul
Jackson Jr. was just beginning his stellar career, had recorded with Aretha
Franklin and within a few years he would participate in Michael Jackson's Thriller
and Bad and would go on to work with the likes of Elton John, George Duke, Al
Jarreau, and Marcus Miller. Lee Ritenour began playing and recording with
Mouzon in 1974. At the age of 17, Ritenour first worked with Tony Bennett. He
was also brought in to put a little more rock in the rock 'n roll of a couple of takes
on Pink Floyd's seminal "The Wall". Over the years he has recorded with many of
the giants of pop, rock, and jazz, and his own recordings have had a slew of
Grammy nominations.
Herbie Hancock stands beside Mouzon as the other major presence on the
recording. Like Mouzon, at the beginning of the eighties he delved into disco,
adding danceable grooves to the mix. During this period Mouzon was Herbie's
drummer on four of Hancock's albums, so it seems appropriate that these two
like- minded musicians came together for this recording. The Seawind Horns
provide the last needed ingredient in this tasty musical concoction. Guesting on
the title track, trumpet great Freddie Hubbard's contributes a flashy solo.
By All Means, get out on your private dance floor and get up with it.

- Followup to 2015's Insides. - RIYL: Jacques Greene, Leon Vynehall, DJ Seinfeld, Project Pablo - Features cover art by Salvador Dalí protégé Steven Arnold. - Silver halide (gray + black marble) vinyl limited to 1,500 copies worldwide - Vinyl is housed in a black dust sleeve inserted in to a matte varnish jacket with metallic silver spot color // After a run of critically-acclaimed singles and EPs, British producer Michael Greene, aka Fort Romeau, returns to the full-length format with Beings of Light, the long-awaited follow-up to 2015's Insides and his second LP on Ghostly International. While a prolific DJ who orients many of his productions for the dancefloor, Greene still sees the album as the ultimate statement of intent, "a space to stretch out, to speak in full paragraphs rather than stunted sentences." He has explored several stylistic fragments in recent years (including the summer 2018 anthem "Pablo," hailed a Best New Track by Pitchfork), but when faced with the extended pause to the dance community in 2020, Greene felt compelled to focus on a larger body of work. Embracing a back-to-basics mentality, he amassed over a dozen hours of sounds, asking himself throughout the sessions: "Does the music move you? Is it honest?" He came out the other end with Beings of Light, an expressive collection traversing rainy day ambient, moonlit disco, and dream-like techno in pursuit of the power found within our subconscious. Album opener "Untitled IV" ushers in a sprinting tempo in its exploration of the human voice, a recurring device in the Fort Romeau project. Greene uses it as a compositional layer, disembodied with its context often opaque or reduced to a single phrase. Here the voice is scattered in percussive twitches, colliding with a kick drum to induce a near state of hypnosis as horns sound off in the distance. Propulsive standout "Spotlights'' is Greene's ode to the romanticised New York City that lives in our hearts, nocturnal and carefree. A vocal snippet repeats the title with a breezy poise, reminiscent of classic house cuts. "Ramona'' honors the beloved Robert Johnson club in Offenbach, Germany. Hazy, spacious, and sustained, Greene designed the beat with their system in mind, "also with a strong nod to the more modern lineage of exceptional minimal house music from Frankfurt," he says. Two ambient pieces surround the track, "(In The) Rain" sets the scene and "Porta Coeli" (a Latin phrase which loosely translates to "heaven's gate") soundtracks the comedown. The album's closer, the title track, is an arc constructed with atmospheric textures, euphoric swings of percussion, and a well-placed piano refrain, "Beings of Light" is adaptive; one could imagine it reverberating from a club, scoring the emotional apex of a film, or radiating through the realm of dreams.

Deluxe LP features 140g virgin vinyl; heavy-duty board jacket, artwork by Art Rosenbaum + DL. RIYL: Bob Dylan, John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, Ry Cooder, Michael Chapman, Michael Hurley, The Youngbloods & Bonnie “Prince” Billy. Jake Xerxes Fussell’s 4th album finds the acclaimed folksong interpreter, guitarist, and singer navigating fresh sonic and compositional landscapes on the most conceptually focused, breathtakingly rendered, and enigmatically poignant record of his wondrous catalog. Produced by James Elkington and featuring formidable players both familiar (Casey Toll, Libby Rodenbough) and new (Joe Westerlund, Bonnie “Prince” Billy), it includes Jake’s first original compositions; atmospheric arrangements with pedal steel, horns, and strings. One of the most striking and strangely moving moments on Jake Xerxes Fussell’s gorgeous Good and Green Again an album, his fourth and most recent, replete with such dazzling moments arrives at its very end, with the brief words to the final song “Washington.” “General Washington/Noblest of men/His house, his horse, his cherry tree, and him,” Fussell sings, after a hushed introductory passage in which his trademark percussively fingerpicked Telecaster converses lacily with James Elkington’s parlor piano. That’s the entire lyrical content of the song, which proceeds to float away on orchestral clouds of French horn, trumpet, and strings, until it simply stops, suddenly evaporating, vanishing with no fade or trace, no resolution to its sorrowful minor-key chord progression, just silence and stillness and stark presidential absence. It feels like the end of a film, or the cold departure of a ghost, and is unlike anything else Jake has recorded. In all his work Jake humanizes his material with his own profound curatorial and interpretive gifts, unmooring stories and melodies from their specific eras and origins and setting them adrift in our own waterways. The robust burr of his voice, which periodically melts and catches at a particularly tender turn of phrase, and the swung rhythmic undertow of exquisite, seemingly effortless guitar-playing here he plays more acoustic than ever before pull new valences of meaning from ostensibly antique songs and subjects. On Good and Green Again, Jake not only ventures beyond his established mastery of songcatching and songmaking into songwriting, but likewise navigates fresh sonic and compositional landscapes, going green with lusher, more atmospheric and ambitious arrangements. The result is the most conceptually focused, breathtakingly rendered, and enigmatically poignant record of his wondrous catalog. It’s also his most deliberately premeditated album, representing his fruitful return to a producer partnership after two self-produced projects, What in the Natural World (2017) and Out of Sight (2019) (William Tyler produced his friend’s self-titled 2015 debut.) This time James Elkington produced and played a panoply of instruments, bringing to Jake’s arcane song choices his own peerless sense of harmony and orchestration, balance and dramatic tension. The pair enlisted a group of formidable players including regular bandmembers Casey Toll (Mt. Moriah, Nathan Bowles) on upright bass, Libby Rodenbough (Mipso) on strings, and Nathan Golub on pedal steel. They were joined by welcome newcomers Joe Westerlund (Megafaun, Califone) on drums, Joseph Decosimo on fiddle, Anna Jacobson on brass, and veteran collaborator and avowed Fussell fan Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who contributes additional vocals. Album opener “Love Farewell” (featuring some beautiful singing by Bonnie “Prince” Billy), an elliptical tale of the folly of war, set to the world’s most heartbreaking goodbye march for a lover left behind. “Carriebelle” and “Breast of Glass” each similarly concerns, in its own way, romantic love and leavings. All three songs highlight Jacobson’s diaphanous, understated brass parts, tying them together in a true lover’s knot. “Rolling Mills Are Burning Down,” with its distant keening strings and capacious sense of space, observes and mourns the loss of work and community in the wake of elemental disaster. Nine-minute tour de force “The Golden Willow Tree,” the sole explicitly narrative song herein, is a hypnotic, minimalist rendering of a tragic maritime ballad about scuttling an enemy ship in exchange for wealth and glory and a captain’s inevitable betrayal. “Fussell is creating his own legacy within the long lineage of traditional folk musicians and storytellers that have come before him.” The New York Times // “So elegant … It’s relaxing in the way that pondering a Zen koan is relaxing, and sweet in the way that the wounded, honey-voiced blues of Mississippi John Hurt are sweet.” Pitchfork // “Music that resides at the seams of Appalachia and the cosmos.”

As funny as it may sound, Anaïs Mitchell has spent the past 15 years in some kind of hell. OK, not actual hell, but the multi-faceted world of Hadestown, a musical project she began in Vermont in 2006 that has grown into a Tony®- and Grammy®-award-winning Broadway phenomenon with touring editions now delighting audiences as far away as South Korea.

“I experienced so much joy working on Hadestown, but it just kept ramping up and up and requiring more and more attention,” Mitchell admits. “I had to become so single-minded and really put blinders on to my other creative life.” As it did for many artists, the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly offered Mitchell a blank slate to reconnect with her own music. The result is a new self-titled album made with close collaborators from Bon Iver, The National and her own band Bonny Light Horseman, Mitchell’s first collection of all-new material under her own name since 2012’s Young Man in America.

“I was nine months pregnant when the pandemic reached New York, so we made an 11th hour decision to leave and have the baby in Vermont,” Mitchell recalls. “We left the city and had the baby a week later, and then like everyone, we were in the midst of this unprecedented stillness. It felt like I could see behind me: oh, there’s New York City. There’s Hadestown. There’s my life with just one kid. A certain kind of stress and expectations. In Vermont, we moved onto my family farm and lived in my grandparents’ old house, with a new baby. I’d look at pictures on my phone from a few months earlier and wonder, whose life was that? This record, and the songs that are on it, came out of that time. I got into a flow again that I hadn’t felt in a really long time.”

Dubbed by NPR as “one of the greatest songwriters of her generation,” Mitchell is a master of the worlds of narrative folksong, poetry and balladry. Those talents are evident from the first moments of the new album, as Mitchell narrates what she calls “an unbearably romantic” trip over the Brooklyn Bridge colored by Bon Iver member Michael Lewis’ heartstring-tugging saxophone accompaniment. “Having left New York, I was able to write a love letter to it in a way I never could when I was living there,” she says. “It was like, fuck it. This is how I feel. There is nothing more beautiful than riding over one of the New York bridges at night next to someone who inspires you.”

Produced by Mitchell’s Bonny Light Horseman bandmate Josh Kaufman, the album proceeds to chronicle Mitchell’s reconnection with the Vermont roots that have been so formative in her life and music. “Bright Star” finds her making peace with the idea of being at peace in the familiar setting of her grandparents’ house, while “Revenant” was inspired by paging through a box of journals and letters belonging to herself and her grandmother — “a very pandemic activity,” she says. “That house is literally my happy place. I can picture myself as a kid, in this house, laying on the carpet with a sunbeam coming through the sliding glass door. There’s something about it that is really connected in my mind to my childhood and a very free, imaginative, creative time. “Revenant” has a lot to do with that house and reconnecting with my childhood self.”

Mitchell concedes that she tends “to be someone who thinks it has to be hard in order for it to be good or beautiful,” but that feeling has changed, partly thanks to her deep connection with musicians she’s met through the 37d03d collective established by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. During the pandemic, some of those artists participated in a “song a day” writing group — an idea Mitchell says is usually “totally opposite of how I roll. But it really helped me to gain access to some kind of trust and intuition and flow. I began a bunch of these songs while doing that.”

“It unlocked something that allowed me to finish a bunch of songs I’d been sitting on, and feeling a bit paralyzed about how to finish them,” she continues. “Because no one was touring, it’s not like I was playing them for anyone before we were in the studio. In other times, I’ve trotted things out in advance. Here, it was like, here’s all these brand new songs. Let’s discover what they can be. That was really exciting.”

That discovery process took flight at Dreamland Recording Studios outside Woodstock, N.Y., which Mitchell describes as “this weird, janky, beautiful church - it’s my favorite studio in the world.” Kaufman, Lewis and Big Red Machine drummer JT Bates formed a core band around Mitchell, while Aaron Dessner and Thomas Bartlett joined the sessions mid-week on guitar and piano, respectively.

After the appropriate COVID tests came back negative, “it was a pretty extraordinary feeling to hug, kiss and share the same space playing together,” Mitchell says. “We went into that world for a week and didn’t leave the studio for any reason. I felt very safe with all those guys. It was warm and joyful.”

Mitchell says this environment brought out unexpected details in the material, which was recorded almost entirely live together in the room. “Sometimes we tried separating things out, like vocals, but we always ended up back in the room together,” she says. Indeed, after spending the better part of a day recording overdubbed versions of “Little Big Girl” that nobody loved, the musicians gave up and tracked it again live. “We got so frustrated that we went in and I was like, I’m just going to sing this as hard as I fucking can. It felt like that’s what the song wanted to be,” Mitchell says. “It felt like all those songs wanted to be recorded as live as possible.” The exception to the rule was Nico Muhly's arrangements for strings and flute, which were added from New York City afterward.

Mitchell will debut the new material during various headline tours in the U.S. and Europe in 2022, at which she’ll be accompanied by players from the album. On stage, she can’t wait to further hone the sights, sounds and scenes that bring the songs to such vivid life. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to write in the voice of other characters, especially with Hadestown. It’s fun for me, but these songs are not that,” she says. “Weirdly, they’re all me. The narrator is me. That’s why it felt right to self-title the album. It felt like after so many years of working on telling other stories, now here are some of mine.”

As funny as it may sound, Anaïs Mitchell has spent the past 15 years in some kind of hell. OK, not actual hell, but the multi-faceted world of Hadestown, a musical project she began in Vermont in 2006 that has grown into a Tony®- and Grammy®-award-winning Broadway phenomenon with touring editions now delighting audiences as far away as South Korea.

“I experienced so much joy working on Hadestown, but it just kept ramping up and up and requiring more and more attention,” Mitchell admits. “I had to become so single-minded and really put blinders on to my other creative life.” As it did for many artists, the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly offered Mitchell a blank slate to reconnect with her own music. The result is a new self-titled album made with close collaborators from Bon Iver, The National and her own band Bonny Light Horseman, Mitchell’s first collection of all-new material under her own name since 2012’s Young Man in America.

“I was nine months pregnant when the pandemic reached New York, so we made an 11th hour decision to leave and have the baby in Vermont,” Mitchell recalls. “We left the city and had the baby a week later, and then like everyone, we were in the midst of this unprecedented stillness. It felt like I could see behind me: oh, there’s New York City. There’s Hadestown. There’s my life with just one kid. A certain kind of stress and expectations. In Vermont, we moved onto my family farm and lived in my grandparents’ old house, with a new baby. I’d look at pictures on my phone from a few months earlier and wonder, whose life was that? This record, and the songs that are on it, came out of that time. I got into a flow again that I hadn’t felt in a really long time.”

Dubbed by NPR as “one of the greatest songwriters of her generation,” Mitchell is a master of the worlds of narrative folksong, poetry and balladry. Those talents are evident from the first moments of the new album, as Mitchell narrates what she calls “an unbearably romantic” trip over the Brooklyn Bridge colored by Bon Iver member Michael Lewis’ heartstring-tugging saxophone accompaniment. “Having left New York, I was able to write a love letter to it in a way I never could when I was living there,” she says. “It was like, fuck it. This is how I feel. There is nothing more beautiful than riding over one of the New York bridges at night next to someone who inspires you.”

Produced by Mitchell’s Bonny Light Horseman bandmate Josh Kaufman, the album proceeds to chronicle Mitchell’s reconnection with the Vermont roots that have been so formative in her life and music. “Bright Star” finds her making peace with the idea of being at peace in the familiar setting of her grandparents’ house, while “Revenant” was inspired by paging through a box of journals and letters belonging to herself and her grandmother — “a very pandemic activity,” she says. “That house is literally my happy place. I can picture myself as a kid, in this house, laying on the carpet with a sunbeam coming through the sliding glass door. There’s something about it that is really connected in my mind to my childhood and a very free, imaginative, creative time. “Revenant” has a lot to do with that house and reconnecting with my childhood self.”

Mitchell concedes that she tends “to be someone who thinks it has to be hard in order for it to be good or beautiful,” but that feeling has changed, partly thanks to her deep connection with musicians she’s met through the 37d03d collective established by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. During the pandemic, some of those artists participated in a “song a day” writing group — an idea Mitchell says is usually “totally opposite of how I roll. But it really helped me to gain access to some kind of trust and intuition and flow. I began a bunch of these songs while doing that.”

“It unlocked something that allowed me to finish a bunch of songs I’d been sitting on, and feeling a bit paralyzed about how to finish them,” she continues. “Because no one was touring, it’s not like I was playing them for anyone before we were in the studio. In other times, I’ve trotted things out in advance. Here, it was like, here’s all these brand new songs. Let’s discover what they can be. That was really exciting.”

That discovery process took flight at Dreamland Recording Studios outside Woodstock, N.Y., which Mitchell describes as “this weird, janky, beautiful church - it’s my favorite studio in the world.” Kaufman, Lewis and Big Red Machine drummer JT Bates formed a core band around Mitchell, while Aaron Dessner and Thomas Bartlett joined the sessions mid-week on guitar and piano, respectively.

After the appropriate COVID tests came back negative, “it was a pretty extraordinary feeling to hug, kiss and share the same space playing together,” Mitchell says. “We went into that world for a week and didn’t leave the studio for any reason. I felt very safe with all those guys. It was warm and joyful.”

Mitchell says this environment brought out unexpected details in the material, which was recorded almost entirely live together in the room. “Sometimes we tried separating things out, like vocals, but we always ended up back in the room together,” she says. Indeed, after spending the better part of a day recording overdubbed versions of “Little Big Girl” that nobody loved, the musicians gave up and tracked it again live. “We got so frustrated that we went in and I was like, I’m just going to sing this as hard as I fucking can. It felt like that’s what the song wanted to be,” Mitchell says. “It felt like all those songs wanted to be recorded as live as possible.” The exception to the rule was Nico Muhly's arrangements for strings and flute, which were added from New York City afterward.

Mitchell will debut the new material during various headline tours in the U.S. and Europe in 2022, at which she’ll be accompanied by players from the album. On stage, she can’t wait to further hone the sights, sounds and scenes that bring the songs to such vivid life. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to write in the voice of other characters, especially with Hadestown. It’s fun for me, but these songs are not that,” she says. “Weirdly, they’re all me. The narrator is me. That’s why it felt right to self-title the album. It felt like after so many years of working on telling other stories, now here are some of mine.”

Nate Smith Recruits Special Guests Vernon Reid, Brittany Howard, Kokayi, Joel Ross, Michael Mayo, Stokley, AmmaWhatt and Regina Carter for Kinfolk 2, the successor to his Grammy-nominated debut.
Kinfolk 2: See the Birds is the highly anticipated follow-up to the 2017 Grammy-nominated album Kinfolk: Postcards From Everywhere. Featuring the diverse and all-star talents of Brittany Howard, AmmaWhatt, Joel Ross, Kokayi, Michael Mayo, Regina Carter, Stokley and Vernon Reid, Kinfolk 2: See the Birds is the inspired and emphatic album that exemplifies Nate's artistry as one of the most exciting, dynamic and innovative drummer-composers of his generation, adept across multi-genres and styles. Taking inspiration from his teenage years spent absorbing the diverse and eclectic riches of Prince, Michael Jackson and Living Colour. Kinfolk 2: See the Birds is a multi-faceted jewel and is set to be one of the most significant albums of 2021. Nate is one of the most important artists in the progressive jazz world (Kamasi Washington, Makaya McCraven, Shabaka Hutchings, Robert Glasper, and Nate Smith) He's a torchbearer of progressive music / "one of the faces of progressive jazz" His profile / reach is significantly larger than that of his peers (larger than most successful pop/mainstream artists too) Nate accesses wider audiences by seamlessly operating in the jazz and mainstream/pop worlds. Nate operates in a unique space within the progressive world because of his drumming, his collaborations with Brittany Howard and the Fearless Flyers (Vulfpeck spinoff), his recording work with famed producers Dave Cobb and Mike Elizando, and his talent as a composer/arranger/producer. He also brings a "grown" R&B element to his music the Makaya, for example, does not. Nate Smith is an icon. He represents where jazz as a genre is going and is easily one of the most important artists you can cover in 2021/2022.

‘Eighteen Movements’ is a collection of recordings captured at live performances between 2017 – 2019. The record’s rich textures combine ambient, tribal rhythms, field recordings, ritualistic vibes, and a meditative feeling that runs through the entire LP. Đ.K. is in full flight mode, illustrating the project’s aptitude for deep transcendence.

Đ.K. is a DJ, composer & producer based in Paris, France. A versatile and prolific artist, D.K. has cultivated an eclectic body of work in recent years, with acclaimed output on renowned labels including Antinote, Melody As Truth, 12th Isle, Good Morning Tapes, Music From Memory’s Second Circle imprint, and L.I.E.S. (as 45 ACP).

Luminous and mesmeric, D.K.’s work combines finetuned traces of house, synth pop, ambient, balearic, minimalism, and fourth world music, creating energies and soundscapes which aim to invoke elevated forms of consciousness.

Prismatic tones exchange space with devotional drums on ‘Clarity’ and ‘Echo Chamber’, as Đ.K. hits a hypnotic stride somewhere between Jon Hassell, HTRK & a Folkways percussion ensemble. With ‘Full Consciousness’ meditation bells ring out across a progression of gleaming new age emanations, conjuring an entrancing spell. Movements of pulse and ether.

On ‘Mirror’, sonorous, elaborate percussive phrases are interwoven with drifting ambient vapours, while ‘The Other Side’ veers into broad, rolling blasts of dub and Antipodean drone, a cavernous trance evoking the early roots of Ras Michael and Yabby You, pared back to resolute drum sequences and infused with esoteric chimes and sultry synthesis.

The finale of ‘Eighteen Movements’ represents one of Đ.K..’s most ambitious recordings. ‘Awakening’ is an epic tone poem of aqueous, outer planetary resonance that completes this mercurial cycle with a poignant, euphoric fadeout. Chronicled in the moment, alternating between rhythm and repose, momentum and aviation, 'Eighteen Movements' sees Đ.K. voyaging further, into vast, uncharted outskirts of sound. A collection of movements for heightened states and new diversions.

Mastered by Jose Guerrero at Plataforma Continental. Graphic Design by Javi Tortosa.

"60 Years of cult and classic soundtracks presented on 2 x 180g

Featuring Bernard Hermann, John Barry, Thomas Newman, Giorgio Moroder, Isaac Hayes, Lalo Schifrin, Mike Oldfield, Vangelis...

60 Years of cult and classic soundtracks presented on 2 x 180g

Featuring Bernard Hermann, John Barry, Thomas Newman, Giorgio Moroder, Isaac Hayes, Lalo Schifrin, Mike Oldfield, Vangelis...

Best known as Hot Chip's clear-voiced frontman, Alexis Taylor also pursues a solo career as an introspective singer/songwriter, exploring distinct themes and ideas with each record. Today Alexis announces the release of his sixth and strongest solo album to date, Silence,

Partly about silence - and how we intersect with it, observe it, try to record it, and how we feel about it when it’s gone, as we remember it - the record is also about religion, transcendence, giving oneself over to something bigger than you, or beyond this world. “I’m not religious myself,” adds Alexis, “but the songs which deal with the idea of gospel music or religion, look at it from a distance (rather like the shaky hand-held lens through which we follow the action in Pasolini’s ‘Gospel According To Matthew’) and try to uncover its influence on music and on people in desperate circumstances.”
The genesis behind Silence started a few years ago with Alexis ruminating on silence as a subject and making plans to make a record of the sounds you hear in public spaces as people observe moments of silence. He then lost his own personal access to silence as tinnitus began in his right ear in 2019 at a Hot Chip show. As Alexis explains, “I started to think about what it meant to me to lose quietness, solitude, meditative head space - as that was no longer available to me.”
Mostly composed in enforced isolation, Silence is a beautifully rich and unexpected conceptual album that is also Alexis’ most accomplished solo record and one that has seen early comparisons with a notably eclectic range of artists including Mark Hollis, George Michael, Big Star, Epic Soundtracks and Maher Shalal Hash Baz. This record sees the first time Alexis has collaborated with Sam Becker (double bass), Kenichi Iwasa (horn, trumpet) and Rachel Horton-Kitchlew (harp), who due to lockdown had to work in isolation from Alexis. In one case Kenichi recorded musical passages which were then superimposed on songs he had never heard - in effect keeping the songs themselves silent from the playing until the mixes were played to him.

The Men’s hugely influential album Leave Home came out during an exciting time in New York City. DIY lofts and shitty bars littered downtown Manhattan and North Brooklyn. The Acheron had just opened its doors. Kill Your Idols had broken up. Toxic State Records was just getting started with Crazy Spirit, Dawn of Humans, Hank Wood and Perdition EP’s. The city was alive with punk and noise and filth. And right at that time, The Men were the show to be at.

Every gig was dripping with sweat. Hallways and sidewalks were packed between sets. Chaos reigned in the pit. The Men hit like a bag of hard cement, a hardcore band with a familiar sound but with an aura of absolute chaos and intensity, like everything was on the brink of going off the rails at every moment of their set, a downhill freight train with no brakes. During these shows one’s focus could shoot back and forth between the intimidatingly angry-eyed, bald-headed Chris Hansell (who went on to front Warthog) and the long haired hippie punks Mark Perro, Nick Chiericozzi and Rich Samis, that made up the surrounding band.

Just one of the many juxtapositions the band embraced. If The Men were a chapter in Michael Azzerad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life, the early EP’s and cassettes would obviously be Minor Threat and Black Flag, while Leave Home would likely be… Sonic Youth. It was just before they made the full jump into each record being a smorgasbord of underground genres, from dream pop to folk;

before they had tracks called “Country Song,” for example. But it was a preview of what was to come. Leave Home was a pivot from pure hardcore punk (some might even call it mysterious guy hardcore), as the band got lost in the groove in a way one couldn’t on a straight up punk record. That groove was so strong on “If You Leave…,” “(),” and “Bataille,” while they spaced out on “Shitting With The Shaw,” and stayed as aggro as ever on “LADOCH.” But of course, Leave Home had a re-recording of their hardest track to date, “Think,” making it clear that they were still the moshers we all had come to know and love. If The Men raised their flag as an important New York punk band with Immaculada, they started waving it in the freakiest way with Leave Home.There is no doubt that Leave Home was one of the most influential records of the last decade.

You can hear their mark everywhere from Ty Segal and The Oh Sees to Milk Music and Hank Wood. Few bands have traversed as many genres as The Men and even fewer have done it so well. It is a testament to the band’s undying authenticity and adventurism that the record sounds as timeless and urgent now as it did when it blew the doors of New York punk off its hinges ten years ago, leaving a giant hole for bands of all kinds to come racing through.

For RE:WARM 006 we present a collection of music from one of San Francisco’s best kept secrets, Dr Robert Blackman. “The Unimaginable DreamWorks” is a collection of five tracks from three musical masterpieces he put out between 1983-1985 on his own ‘Riverwinds’ imprint. A practising chiropractor by day with his own holistic health centre in San Francisco, these songs became his love, passion and focus. Together with Michael Pluznick, a very accomplished percussionist they painstakingly put together an ensemble of musicians to bring the tracks to life. The melting pot for this body of work was Hyde Street Studios which still today is based in deepest San Francisco and has seen names such as Neil Young, Earth Wind & Fire and John Waters to name a few grace its studio space. Singers and musicians alike came together from all over the world to bring Robert’s vision to reality. This included an Australian didgeridoo player, an electric violin and piano player from Paraguay as well as singers and a choir from the surrounding local churches. Together through Dr Robert Blackman’s eyes they created a fabulous sound of twisted disco punk funk like no other that still sounds relevant today as it did back in the eighties. The energy and the stories are clear to hear throughout the five tracks which make up “The Unimaginable DreamWorks” of Dr. Robert Blackman 1983-1985. Artwork was key to the releases and the “Peace Is Alive” painting incorporated on the label of the release appeared in TIME magazine in 1984 when Dr Robert Blackman was treating combat vets, suffering from PTSD and this was the name of the job fair for veterans he set up. To promote the album at the time Dr Robert Blackman flew up over San Francisco in a single engine prop airplane loaded with 50,000 leaflets