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'Welcome to Hotel Heaven' is a fresh start for is George van den Broek, a young man with an old soul and the voice to match. His music as Yellow Days fittingly, feels both of his era and completely other: a woozy mixture of soul, blues, psych, and groove leaking through the walls of a jazz lounge that's come unstuck in time. A self-taught multi-instrumentalist, George has never fit into one style or space. Despite George being an old soul — he hates social media, loves vinyl, and collects old cameras — Yellow Days really is a project about youth and modernity: “Hotel Heaven represents fake comfort in all its forms, this whole bullshit idea of luxury where nothing is real,” explains George. “There are so many young people who are living that kind of life. Because of the cost of living crisis, people are spending all they’ve got on a bag of white powder just to make them feel nice. Their jaws are still swinging at four o’clock in the morning, but they’re not saying anything. I wanted to write about these people and everything that is happening right now. This TikTok age where everyone wants to be famous. It’s also a big 360 of my life and career to date. I wanted to get away from everything I’d done before, wash my face and start afresh.” - Yellow Days

Ever since their auspicious beginnings, more than a decade ago, Laughing Bastards have giddily delighted in impurity. Initially a reeds-guitar-bass trio modeled after the classic Jimmy Giuffre 3, the band has remained truthful to its original spirit. Saxophone player Michel Mast and guitarist Jan-Sebastiaan Degeyter have remained its core, but the band went through several permutations, first welcoming Eline Duerinck (cello) and Marcos Della Rocha (for Unanimal in 2019) and solidifying its present-day line-up with bassist Cyrille Obermüller.

Bastards. It's kind of a rude word to throw around carelessly, but there has always been that element of being irregular, being too stubborn to comply with what is expected, that has set them apart. This is nowhere more evident than in the material contributed by Degeyter, who wrote more than half of the album's compositions. A talented illustrator and designer (he created a few of their striking album covers) as well as a versatile guitarist, Degeyter always manages to add a strong visual component to his material. In combination with his knack for pulling exotic influences into the band's overall sound, it leads to a playful, cinematic eccentricity.

"Tigraman" and "Black Spoon" are examples of this. Both are infused with an Ethiopian-tinged sound, but while the first one develops the catchy throbbing of a trance-like soul/rock tune, the second exudes the lush cadence of Golden Age Ethio jazz, the kind that gets under your skin with those sensual, irrepressible rhythms. They are a nice match with the increasing drama of the Slavic-tinged "Red Lemon", the slow, dreamy flow of the Jamaican dance hall-inspired "Sand", a strong feature for Duerinck, and "Dosi", that shows Obermüller's knack for propulsive melody.

The synesthete in Degeyter gets free reign in "Calliope", chamber jazz in which sweeping sax and cello are kept grounded by guitar, bass and drums. Mast's odd meter-song "Fetish" is another showcase for the band's effortless dancing and some gorgeous tenor schmooze. Della Rocha's "Turquoise" starts off in brooding, contemplative way and keeps simmering on a low, glowing fire. To top it off, there are a few covers that remind you of the band's origins. A new take on Giuffre's rootsy "The Train and the River" stresses their loose flexibility with an Americana style somewhat reminiscent of Charlie Haden, while Carla Bley's evergreen "Vashkar" gets a carefully constructed makeover to close out the album with grace.

On their latest album, Laughing Bastards prove they are a quintessential Belgian band - soaking up sounds and influences from all over the place while maintaining a tight unity - with an international appeal. Combining jazz and chamber music with ideas from pop music and multi-colored strains does not only give their music an iridescent edge, but also keeps the interplay fresh and inspired, something to return to while waiting to see them live on stage.

Party Pest features ex-The Reprobettes members Jemma Jives (drums & vox) and Sally Balhorn (guitar & vox) alongside bass player Julia Watt (Moody Beaches, La Bastard, Hot Wings) and Kate Alexander on synth (Ute Root, The Hot Blood). Unpredictable and chaotic, Party Pest is influenced by artists such as The Slits, ESG, Kleenex, The Cure and The B52's. On Uninvited, Party Pest channel post-punk irreverence, blending discordant melodies, jangly guitar hooks, wild primal drumbeats, big bold bass grooves and synthesised sonic mayhem into a celebration of life as they know it. Anything can and does happen when Party Pest play so strap in for a wild ride whether you're invited or not. When the glitter settles, the Ajax's been snorted and your Mum's been pashed, wipe the love dust from your eyes and check your bathtub.

Julion De’Angelo’s music is always moving forward and evolving, an experimental and thought provoking yet soulful modern black sound, with strong focus on the drums! And here on his debut EP for Mother Tongue is no exception. From the percussive opus ‘NOWnormal’’, passing through ‘NotAnotherCafe’ an hipnotic collaboration with fellow artist Deon Jamar, until the almost electronica beat down piece ‘MyzticBounz’ this is another step into Julion’s rich and expressive musical world!

TLM034 will be our 45th release since 1996 and 25th since reforrning the label in 2019. It seemed inevitable that this release would be one of our Best Of Various EPs featuring new and established artists as we have done previously. Starting off this milestone release we have the ever growing Cumulative Collective with AskaFara.

An Epic 10 minute track pushing all the right buttons for listening and the dancefloor alike. Featuring Cormac Fulton, Stefano De Santis, Takashi Nakazato, Ayumi Suzuki and Mitsuru Tanaka, musicians from England, Italy and Japan respectively. All brought together by head of the label Steve Conry who also produced and mixed the track with Stefano De Santis. Track 2 on the A side is by a new name to most, Takahiro Fuchigami with Strange Acquaintance. A beautiful broken beat track with a distinctively Japanese sound.

Onto side AA and that kicks off with Melchior Sultana and The Playground. Melchior has previously released on TLM in 2022 and 2023. For 2024 he delivers a superb jazzy deep house track in his own particular Mediterranean style. Next up is Brazilian multi instrumentalist Fabio Santanna with Melô Da Cuíca, a fantastic Brazilian Boogie track. Fabio came to our attention from his release Chega Mais Lincoln on Joutro Mundo’s superb Brazilian label Onda Boa. Finally rounding off the AA side is The Robinson from Italy with Song 1. A brilliant blues tinged broken beat track that gets better every time you hear it.

Back in 2004 a 4 track 12'' EP appeared from Omar's own label to wide acclaim with one track in particular, a driving heady slice of peak time broken beat soul receiving global appeal and mass attention. Championed by the likes of Gilles Peterson, Patrick Forge & IG Culture 'It's So' went on to become a highlight in the live sets and remains as fresh today as it did over 20 years ago. An instrumental version was never released so this completes the package on the flip as a Mukatsuku exclusive. 'It's So ' featured on the Mukatsuku Records feature on Gilles Peterson's Worldwide show in January of this year. 500 hand-numbered copies. Strictly no repress. As played by DJ Koco, Dom Servini, Rob Luis, Kevin Beadle, Shuya Okino, Smoove & more...

Feines Tier is entering its 60s together with Lithuanian lad Liudas Lazauskas aka Roe Deers and his „Landscape“ EP. We’re not exactly sure if those titular landscapes are to be understood literally, figuratively, metaphorically or all at once, nevertheless they are fascinating and a marvel to take in. Where and how do we start? With an (un)healthy dose of acid of course! „I’m very sorry (Acid)“ takes care of that, with the tune delivering everything the title promises, experience report included. Better make sure set and setting are right for this one! After that we’re taking a thrilling „Helicopter“ ride to „Glory“ and try not to loose our „Shoes“. Ok, that was a little cheap, I’m Very Sorry (Acid)! (Sorry again!) Anyway, to speak in strictly musical terms, „Helicopter“ is a banger. And „Glory“ is just beautiful with its gorgeous addictive swirling arps, while „Shoes“ keeps it cool tempo-wise and also mood-wise, creeping through some dark back-alleys with moody breakbeat drums and brooding synth chords. The penultimate „Silent Stories“ picks up the pace again a little bit, but gets even more grubby, hypnotic and seductive vocals included, before we get another face-melter with the closer „Sash“, which goes hard on the electric bass in your face, pitched-down vocals and some cowbells for good measure. Thank you Roe Deers for guiding us through these Landscapes for our 60th, the fresh air makes us feel like teenagers again.

Tara Nome Doyle's latest EP »Agape« marks her return to the music scene after a two-year hiatus following the success of her acclaimed sophomore album »Værmin« (Modern Recordings, BMG, 2022).

»Agape« is a profoundly intimate collection of songs documenting TND's emotional journey through grief, commemorating the passing of a loved one. Each track explores different facets of this emotional landscape, showcasing TND's otherworldly performances and unique approach to songwriting.

This self-produced EP represents an artistic leap for the Norwegian-Irish songwriter. Skill-fully capturing the arresting beauty of her compositions, TNDs minimalistic arrangements feature the haunting melodies of Norwegian-Scottish cellist Sunniva Shaw of Tordarroch (known for her work with Fay Wildhagen, Liv Jakobsen and Juni Habel). The ethereal atmosphere they create together evokes a distinctly Scandinavian eeriness while TND's dedication to crafting poetic lyrics and vivid storytelling pays tribute to her Irish singer-songwriter roots.

The EP's title »Agape« translates to unconditional, selfless love - a sentiment that permeates each of the six tracks. This timeless collection of songs aims to be a comforting and cathartic companion for anyone caught in the throes of grief. 1

Surface Noise, a brand new LP of well-turned guitar pop, complete with roaring chords and propulsive rhythms behind Dunlap's clever and cultured lyrics. Austin, Texas quartet Gentlemen Rogues celebrate aggressive guitar pop anthems _ bearing the influences of The Replacements, Superdrag, Jawbreaker, and similar visionaries _ and have been gaining momentum and increased attention. Since their debut in 2011, the band _ Danny Dunlap (guitar/vocals), Josh Power (drums), John Christoffel (guitar), and Dave Hawkins (bass, vocals) _ have honed their hooks over numerous singles, EPs, and the 2022 full-length collection, A History of Fatalism. Gentlemen Rogues have supported diverse acts like the Lemonheads, Smoking Popes, the Dandy Warhols, Mrs Magician, and Riverboat Gamblers on stages across the U.S. and the UK. In 2021 Gentlemen Rogues opened for both indie-punk icons Superchunk and Bob Mould, who personally selected the band to provide sole support on the Texas leg of his Distortion and Blue Hearts tour. Little Steve Van Zandt, Springsteen's steady side-kick, has been strong supporter, Pressed on Transparent Electric Blue vinyl! Includes hand-numbered obi-strip and download card.

Deicide ist eine der drei großen US-Death-Metal-Bands, zusammen mit Cannibal Corpse und Morbid Angel. Nach ihrem letzten Album "Overtures of Blasphemy", das 2018 erschienen ist, kehren Deicide nun mit ihrem neuen Werk "Banished By Sin" zurück.

Deicide sind bekannt für ihre kompromisslose Musik, und dafür, dass sie in den mehr als drei Jahrzehnten ihres Bestehens einige der esten und härtesten Death Metal-Songs hervorgebracht haben. Erwartet die intensivste, brutalste und einprägsamste Florida Death Metal-Platte!

New album by Floridian death metal legends. Deicide is one of the 'big three" US Death metal bands, along with Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel

If blue is the color of sadness, or the best color to reach authenticity, R.Y.F. – the project of the Italian singer-songwriter and musician Francesca Morello, based in Ravenna – goes even further with the new album Deep Dark Blue. Deep Dark Blue is an underwater album, maybe it is even a deep-sea album. The sound is dark and muffled, as if we were in a sort of cradle, a blue bubble, a sea cocoon in which to wrap ourself ves to regenerate and achieve peace, but whose casing also conveys energy. Born following a dazzling baptism in the mesmerizing sea of Stromboli, in Sicily, Deep Dark Blue is an album of suffering and healing which confirms R.Y.F.‘s destabilizing power. According to her: ”Sometimes I experience moments of great suffering, in the last two years caused by my wife’s health problems. I was “broken inside” and I didn’t know if I would be able to go back to the way I was before. Deep Dark Blue tells how I felt and how I would like to rebuild myself. I still talk about the freedom to love, but I also felt the need to talk about suffering, and I tried to do all this with irony, in the most joyful way possible. And it worked. That’s why this is also a healing album”. In Deep Dark Blue there are also some important guests, underlining R.Y.F.’s rise in her international career. They are Moor Mother, Skin (Skunk Anansie) and Alos (aka Stefania Pedretti, formerly OvO and Allun), united by feminism, queerness and political activism, to get precious artistic affinities stronger in these hard times of new repression that we are experiencing. Deep Dark Blue arose from software and analog instruments and was then developed with Maurizio “Icio” Baggio (The Soft Moon, Boy Harsher), who also took care of recording, production, mixing and mastering at the music studio La Distilleria in Bassano del Grappa. Matteo Vallicelli (The Soft Moon, Death Index) participated in the production of some tracks. Although it flows with compact fluidity, the album highlights R.Y.F.‘s mastery in expressing herself through different stylistic genres. There is a dark electro-punk common thread, but there are also blackness (Run Run Run), alt-metal guitars on dance house structures (Can I Can U feat. Skin), industrial doom (Deep Dark feat. Alos) and other experiments (the instrumental interludes Droplets and Sirene). The variety of sounds corresponds to a spontaneous variety of topics. The theme of suffering opens and closes the tracklist with Blue and Deep Dark feat. Alos, almost as if to represent a first contact with the water and the culmination reaching the bottom of the abyss, and is approached both with a smile on the lips in the sexy Lies and from a more authorial perspective in the heartfelt Violent Hopes and December 25th, the first songs on the album to have been written. Deep Dark Blue by R.Y.F. is an immersion from which you emerge different from your old self, some kind of magical creature in a new form, but it is first of all an electric shock from which one is violently happy to be struck.

Noir Brésil is the debut album from Franco-Brazilian artist, composer and producer Yndi. Formerly known as Dream Koala, she decided to retire the moniker back in 2017 and began writing what ultimately became Noir Brésil, a modern pop album where afro-Brazilian percussion meets French and Portuguese poetry to create an immersive soundscape. As Dream Koala, Yndi released EPs Odyssey (2013,) Earth. Home. Destroyed. (2014,) and Exodus (2015,) as well as popular single "We Can't Be Friends", gaining her international success and garnering multi-millions of streams across platforms. In 2020, there were so many images of black people suffering on social media. After that traumatizing year, Yndi needed images showing that being black wasn't only about suffering, she wanted healing images. It's exactly what the Afro-Brazilian culture has been doing for centuries, it conveys a strength that keeps us alive in a dehumanizing society. The title track "Noir Brésil" is a poem for her ancestors. Yndi wrote "Amazona" on an atabaque (Afro-Brazilian percussion) rhythm inspired by the myth of the Amazons, warrior women, and Douanier Rousseau's painting La Guerre. The violence of the lyrics contrasts with the melancholic harmonies. The song pays tribute to the anger and strength required by women to live in the contemporary world. The song "Novo Mundo" and its animated video directed by Nina-Lou Giachettia are a reflection of Brazil, through luminous and colorful landscapes. Here the evocation of the divine, the beauty and the violence of nature reflects perfectly the essence of Yndi'sdebut album.

The music from LES TONTONS FLINGUEURS (aka Crooks in Clover aka Monsieur Gangster) is as instantaneously recognizable as the James Bond theme thanks to a short and recurring melodic motif that can still stick in the heads of 21th century kids. Monothematism is a word used by musicologists to refer to the use of stylistic variations based on a single musical theme as can be heard in the Tontons : on the banjo, during the nose punch sequences, played jazz, blues, gloria or Hully Gally style. Though the Tontons music may on first listen sound nothing different than a straightforward yet catchy soundtrack, it turns out to be a real exercise in style. When reading Michel Magne's autobiography " L'amour de vivre " it clearly appears that mixing folk music and sound experiments was a mindful artistic choice. In the movie, Antoine Delafoy (Claude Rich) who is engaged to Patricia (the Mexican's daughter) is merely a Michel Magne caricature. He embodies a contemporary music composer in search of the " absolute anti-chord " by using a water tap. " We don't really know what it is but it's amusing ". In reality and despite his classical musical education, Michel Magne has indeed had a venture into avant-garde music, going as far as organizing an infrasounds concert at the Salle Gaveau venue (Paris) on July 15th, 1954. Infrasonic frequencies which quickly made the audience run for the toilets. On December 3rd,² 1956 his low-frequency sounds contributed to an " empirique " show at the Théâtre des Trois Baudets (Paris) with Alexandro Jodorowsky, Jean Michel Rankovitch and Tinguely. At the same time he wrote music on words by Françoise Sagan for Mouloudji. Again with this desire to cross the boundaries of musical genres. He recorded in 1959 an album of " musiques tachistes " from which a show with dances was staged by Michel Descombey. His taste for provocation and avant-garde did not prevent Michel Magne from composing and arranging popular music. He hence wrote the music for six Georges Lautner movies including the famous Tontons Flingueurs in 1963.Being part of the avant-garde long-haired world what could Michel Magne think of Michel Audiard ? A most kind character who had nevertheless been burned by supporters of the " nouvelle vague " including journalist Henry Chapier who described Les Tontons Flingueurs as being " chansonnier " cinema (in Combat 1963), meant for disenchanted quinquagenarians. Audiard had responded to Truffaut, another of his dispisers : " Dad's movies filled theaters, son's movies empty them. We should have been warned : with its seaside sounding name the Nouvelle Vague (new wave) drove millions of viewers out on the countryside ". In between melodic effectiveness and daring arrangements and tonality, Michel Magne's work is worth being listened to with fresh ears, cleared of clichés !

FOR FANS OF: IRON MAIDEN, SAXON, THIN LIZZY Mighty Music sind stolz darauf, die Veröffentlichung eines Live-Albums der TYGERS OF PAN TANG mit dem Titel "Live Blood" anzukündigen. Die Veteranen der NWOBHM, die Tygers, feiern derzeit ihr achtjähriges Bestehen bei Mighty Music. In dieser Zeit haben sie drei gut aufgenommene neue Alben veröffentlicht, von denen das letzte, "Bloodlines", im Jahr 2023 von der Kritik durchweg positiv aufgenommen wurde. Die Band, mit Gitarrist Robb Weir an der Spitze, zusammen mit den langjährigen Mitgliedern Jack Meille (Gesang) und Craig Ellis (Schlagzeug), hat für "Bloodlines" zwei neue Mitglieder aufgenommen: Gitarrist Francesco Marras und Bassist Huw Holding. "Live Blood" enthält Material aus der gesamten Bandkarriere, darunter Songs aus den ersten vier Alben bei MCA Records sowie aus den letzten vier Alben mit neuem Material. Jack Meille kommentiert: "Nach all der Zeit mit den Tygers ein Live-Album aufzunehmen? Ich hätte nie gedacht, dass ich das erleben würde, aber mit den Tygers Of Pan Tang habe ich gelernt, dass das "Unmögliche" möglich ist. "Live Blood" fängt die ganze Energie ein, die wir liefern, wenn wir unsere Lieblingssongs live und roh spielen!".
Die Aufnahmen wurden im Sommer 2023 im The Patriot in Wales (UK) gemacht und werden als Einzel-CD und als Doppel-Vinyl mit zusätzlichen Tracks erscheinen. Vor dem Album werden zwei Singles veröffentlicht: der Live-Favorit "Gangland" von ihrem legendären "Spellbound"-Album und das versteckte Juwel "Keeping Me Alive" von "Ambush".

UK mainstay Subb-An makes a welcome return with this fresh new EP on Aesthetic. It finds him in great form with opener 'Seeing Colours' heading off down a nice liquid minimal route with crisp tech drums and twinkling synths up top to bring the magic. On the flip side is 'Plants', a rather serene and sublime cut with more rolling drums and plenty of deft synth designs that bring a certain celestial charm to the fizzing leads. Snad's remix then shuts things down with a more driving sense of tech house rhythm to complete a tasteful EP of heady sounds.

Repress.

In dialogue with both past and future, Slapfunk protégé Julian Anthony touches down with a 4-track invocation of classic deep house templates.

Tripped out sensibility meets sci-fi tendency as ‘Full Moon Fever’ and ‘Open Minded’ deliver full-bodied exercises in total dance floor immersion. Fractal fuel for the vision quest, they’re sophisticated like the finest dream house while channelling the buoyant, jacking heft of timeless Chi-town material.

Wide eyed but tuff, ‘Stormy Tuesday’ rolls in with more of the groove-forward drive that typifies Anthony’s best work. It’s just the kind of immaculate gear we've come to expect from the Dutchman, and evoking golden era Dream 2 Science, ‘Virtual Reality’ ploughs the same furrow of propulsive, ‘90s-indebted house. Deep space projections radiating togetherness and warmth from the start.

Amadis and The Ambassadors" are a music group who came together in London, through front man Amadis Ferreira; cooking up a blend of music with flavours of Afro, Funk, Reggae and Soul on the menu. Rich in melody and groove, it will take you on a journey of rhythm and conscious vibration.

I want to express my unconditional gratitude to my mother and my father for all the love they have given me, all the guidance and for showing me how to share the same with all peoples in the most prosperous manner. I would like to thank my musical family, The Ambassadors, for their courage, advice, musicianship and having believed in this vision, without visionaries beside me the journey would be much harder and dimmer to see. Words alone cannot describe the joy in my heart, this is why we play music. You are blessed. My infinite gratitude also spreads to my beautiful sisters and nieces along with family dotted around various parts of the world, Angola, Portugal, India, Switzerland, Spain, Luxemburg, France, England; and to my spiritual family of dear friends, cousins, uncles and aunties spread throughout this planet all under one firmament. You are loved. Last but not least, I would like to praise my brother and friend Jonathan Rogers for opening up his studio and being the binding cord that enabled the possibility of this album to come to fruition along with the love that only true higher spirituality brings.

South African Warrick Sony is a ground breaking composer who was behind the Kalahari Surfers project which now gets a vital spotlight courtesy of Emotional Rescue. This compilation shows how effortlessly eclectic his sound was - from jive rhythms to jazz, tabla to political speeches and much more in between. A Hindu pacifist who was once conscripted into the South African Defense Force, he founded this group as a way out getting his ides out there, calling on other musicians as and when he needed them. It was the first radical white anti-apartheid pop in South Africa and as this vital collection shows it explored polyrhythms, slow motorik, dub sound collage and even a goofy cover of Nancy Sinatra.

Especial Specials always deal in releases with a story often as interesting as the music itself. This time out they enlist DJ and producer Dreems for a fine collection of limited-edition 12"s. Angus Gruzman aka Dreems is the man behind the vital Multi Culti label and has dropped his own wares on the likes of Kompakt, Pinchy & Friends and Futureboogie but somehow remains rather in the shadows. This deep dive into his vaults should change that - these are edits and dubs that come doused in psychedelia as they trip through several genres. There is off-kilter dub, melon-twisting dub, intensely percussive and tribal dub, and more besides across the five fantastic tracks.

After putting down the saxophone, the instrument he has become synonymous with, Shabaka returns with his first full length album under his own name. Expanding off the meditative 2022 EP Afrikan Culture, his new album Perceive its beauty, Acknowledge its Grace is a deeply moving suite of primarily instrumental music. The listening experience is reflective and contemplative, with passages flowering from one musical concept to the next, encouraging deep attention that rewards the listener with throughlines and motifs throughout the record. Shabaka is found playing the flute on this album, and has enlisted key artists such as Andre 3000, Lianne La Havas, Moses Sumney, Floating Points, and more to help build this all-encompassing aural landscape.

The legendary Horsepower Productions return to Sneaker for a thematically charged trip into future zones, driven by dexterous breakbeat science and ruffneck soundboy wisdom.

The UK dubplate heavyweights are no stranger to a loaded sample, and they’ve got a message to impart on this double-edged record. They kick off with a rumination on the planet’s fragile ecosystem on ‘Tropic’, which looks to a possible future with an ominous fate for the foliage we hold dear. Production-wise, Horsepower set electric drum loops off against lurid daubs of synth without derailing the motion, but a huge amount of the track’s impact arrives in the sampling from a cult classic slice of sci-fi. The premise is that the last remaining trees and plants from earth are adrift in space in a bio-dome, and have been condemned for demolition - a depressingly feasible scenario with an aggravated soundtrack to boot.

On the flip, ‘Computer Rock’ rides a tough break slow and hard and injects dystopian electro synth licks into the mix for a darkside roller that celebrates the visionary talent of Jeff Brown, aka Kase 2. Brown pioneered graffiti in the 70s with futuristic styles that still hold sway today, leaning into his own sci-fi imaginings about computer worlds inhabited by extra-terrestrial beings, Brown passed away in 2011, and this track and the attendant B2 cut ‘Kase - Reprise’ pay tribute to a forefather of hip-hop culture by channeling the future shock styles of Bambaataa et al without ever sounding throwback.

The concept on this record gets taken out further with the additional digi-only tracks, which take in the low-slung, skunked up funk of ‘Blaque Gras’ and the amped up rave damage of ‘Kase 2-Part 2’. Throughout, on-point samples and a clear-eyed focus bring out the best in the Horsepower approach, offering up next level dance wreckers with something to say.

Somehow Klasse Wrecks has made it to 50 official releases, not bad for a label that wears its ignorance for others and 'the norm' proudly on its dirty sleeve. Over the years the label has released a multitude of various sounds, spanning bleep, rave, deep house, down tempo and the 50th release does well to encapsulate that free spirit and openess. Without much planning and totally by way of coincidence the responsibility lies with label co-owner Luca Lozano and its sonically a typical mixed bag as to be expected. Kicking off with restless acid stomping, the title track barges through the door...knocks over a few drinks before blossoming into a breakdown that propels the 303 deep into space and back again. On the A2, Lozano shows off his love for creaky breakbeats and DX donks on a track called 'Re-Mix'...which as far as we know isnt a remix of anything at all. The flip contains more raving beauties, 'Save Me From The Rave' might be a desperate plea but by the sounds of it he's still enjoying the madness, the producer makes an epic breakdown that might well signify the end of all Trance homages. Then the final track of the EP sounds like it could be played in a field in Glastonbury in 1993, its haunting vocal harmonies signify the sun is coming up soon and likely that we're about to start Chapter 2 of the Wrecks Wrebellion. The special edition sleeve artwork features examples of previous artwork from the last 50 records, overlaid in a typically chaotic manner by the label's designer

Billy Reeves returns with new album Steve, released by Last Night From Glasgow in April 2024 - This new album follows his solo debut Nostalgia of the Future released in early 2023.

Released back in 1988, Godflesh’s self-titled EP is still one of the most powerful and dark recordings the duo ever caught on tape. The slow, pummeling grind of ‘Avalanche Master Song’ is as iconic as the record’s immediately recognisable monochrome cover, laying down the blueprint for their seminal ‘Streetcleaner’ album, whilst tracks like the driving ‘Veins’ prove that guitarist/vocalist Justin Broadrick’s unique melodic sensibility was in full effect right from day one.

The collaborative project from Vincent Lemieux and Guillaume Coutu-Dumont, Flabbergast, returns this March with a new EP, entitled ‘Default Mode Network’ and coming via Swiss imprint Adam’s Bite.

Vincent Lemieux is a staple of the Montreal, Canada underground and a widely beloved DJ for his impeccable technique and selections, he’s also offered up productions on the Studio Club and DISDAT labels and a collaborative EP alongside Ohm Hourani for Jigit and co-founding the Musique Risquée alongside Akufen, Deadbeat and Stephen Beaupré.

Guillaume Coutu-Dumont, a fellow Montrealer has long been a prized producer for his unique spin on micro house and
deep house music with his music finding a home on the likes of Mule Musiq, Meander and Dokutoku among others. In 2015 the two joined forces for their Flabbergast debut on Circus Company, have gone on to release with Yoyaku and Copier/Coller, and here makes a triumphant return for Switzerland’s Adam’s Bite with four fresh original cuts.

Opening the EP is the playful ‘Peppermint Poddle’, fuelled by oscillating synth tones, twitchy percussion and saturated bass alongside a spoken word vocal. ‘Manger Du Bon Manger’ then
shifts focus to cinematic organ lines, jazzy drums and a snaking bass groove throughout.

‘Mou D’état’ kicks off the B-side and sees the duo dive deeper via ethereal atmospherics, their signature wonky, mind bending synths and an amalgamation of processed vocal murmurs. Lastly
‘Dans L’oeil’ sees César Merveille join the party, the trio working collectively to create a unique slice of percussion fueled microhouse with intricately intertwined organic percussion, dubby
synth flutters, cinematic pads and pulsating subs.

Repress

CRG020V1 and CRG020V2 are the vinyl samplers of the mix Cleric made for its 20th release.

To celebrate hitting their 20th release, Cleric's imprint pulls together 23 talents for a various artist mix compilation including tracks from the likes of Rebekah, Cleric, Stef Mendesidis, Remco Beekwilder & Stranger, Endlec, Kwartz, Setaoc Mass, Roman Poncet, Slam and many more.

Clergy has become synonymous with a balance of atmospheric and hard hitting brand of techno ever since 2014. The boss's own music has been key to that, with carefully curated releases from guests such as Dax J, Kwartz, Reflec and Cleric himself. Helping to make the label an underground favourite. "Clergy Visions 01" sees Cleric invite an array on techno heavyweights to contribute to this compilation that's mixed by the label boss himself.

The mix opens up with the bleak ambience and fizzing electric cables of Jokasti & Nek's "Grained" then Sept's "Artifical" lays down a tunnelling techno groove that immediately locks you in. The mysterious alias, Reizemann heads off to a cosmic realm with its deep space pads slowly building the momentum throughout the drums. The energy levels then stay high throughout tracks from Roman Poncet, Kwartz and Setaoc Mass, then leading onto the groove of Stef Mendesidis.

Testament to Cleric's skills as a DJ and sequencer is the fact this journey is constantly evolving while remaining coherent. A mid-section featuring the likes of Endlec, Sleeparchive and EAS keeps you on your toes with perfectly stripped back but hard dynamic drum programming and intense melody work. Remco Beekwilder & Stranger bring a more hard hitting and industrial style before Slam calm the fires once more allowing you to sink into a smooth, elongated roller. It's left to the dystopian darkness of Rebekah and atmospheric techno brilliance of Lerias to close out this most adventurous mix in real style

2024 Repress

CRG020V1 and CRG020V2 are the vinyl samplers of the mix Cleric made for its 20th release.

To celebrate hitting their 20th release, Cleric's imprint pulls together 23 talents for a various artist mix compilation including tracks from the likes of Rebekah, Cleric, Stef Mendesidis, Remco Beekwilder & Stranger, Endlec, Kwartz, Setaoc Mass, Roman Poncet, Slam and many more.

Clergy has become synonymous with a balance of atmospheric and hard hitting brand of techno ever since 2014. The boss's own music has been key to that, with carefully curated releases from guests such as Dax J, Kwartz, Reflec and Cleric himself. Helping to make the label an underground favourite. "Clergy Visions 01" sees Cleric invite an array on techno heavyweights to contribute to this compilation that's mixed by the label boss himself.

The mix opens up with the bleak ambience and fizzing electric cables of Jokasti & Nek's "Grained" then Sept's "Artifical" lays down a tunnelling techno groove that immediately locks you in. The mysterious alias, Reizemann heads off to a cosmic realm with its deep space pads slowly building the momentum throughout the drums. The energy levels then stay high throughout tracks from Roman Poncet, Kwartz and Setaoc Mass, then leading onto the groove of Stef Mendesidis.

Testament to Cleric's skills as a DJ and sequencer is the fact this journey is constantly evolving while remaining coherent. A mid-section featuring the likes of Endlec, Sleeparchive and EAS keeps you on your toes with perfectly stripped back but hard dynamic drum programming and intense melody work. Remco Beekwilder & Stranger bring a more hard hitting and industrial style before Slam calm the fires once more allowing you to sink into a smooth, elongated roller. It's left to the dystopian darkness of Rebekah and atmospheric techno brilliance of Lerias to close out this most adventurous mix in real style.

The Surface Label based in the south of France offers you a catalog of new references limited to a few copies.
A kind of rebirth is being launched this year.

The versions are specially long and adapted to enthusiasts but also to collectors.

We hope that our selection gives you an emotion such as we have tried to convey to you since the beginning, more than 25 years ago.

The vinyl will be transmitted to the future generation who will be able to attest that the human being was still in the creativity despite the technology.

We want to be human markers unlike machine man. Don’t listen to the machine. Listen to the human emotions.
A new page opens ….. the story continues …

WandalHouz

Zehn energiegeladene, klassische Metal-Songs mit 70er-Rock-Attitüde aus den Straßen von New York City! Auf ihrem ersten Studioalbum seit fünf Jahren hauen New York Citys Tower mit Vintage-Metal-Appeal und klassischer Rockattitüde die Jams raus, die die Old-School in die Gegenwart bringen!
Der freie Charakter des Schreib- und Aufnahmeprozesses hat zu mehreren Neuerungen für Tower geführt: Während ihr typischer Vintage-Metal-trifft-70er-Rock Sound immer noch dominant ist, sind dieses mal Elemente wie Thrash und Doom in die Gleichung eingetreten.
Textlich befasst sich "Shock to the System" mit politischen Themen, persönlichen Verlusten und der Volatilität von Beziehungen und dem Leben im Allgemeinen. Das Cover-Artwork stammt von Morgan Jesse Lappin. Die Gefühle der Isolation, die die Pandemie hervorgerufen hat; die vergeblichen Versuche, einer klaustrophobischen und unangenehmen Umgebung zu entkommen, nur um festzustellen, dass sich die reale Welt drastisch verändert hat - werden hierbei perfekt abgebildet.
Hier gibt es nur noch eines zu tun - Shock to the System einschalten und auf 11 aufdrehen!
Endlich erscheint die LP im Gatefold und auf schwarzem Vinyl!

Keplar presents the first-ever vinyl edition of the 2003 album »From Tokyo to Naiagara« by Tujiko Noriko. This reissue with new artwork by Joji Koyama is an abridged version of the album as Tomlab label owner Tom Steinle and producer Aki Onda had originally intended to publish it alongside the original CD version. Written by the France-based Tujiko while she still lived in Japan, »From Tokyo to Naiagara« followed up on her two seminal Mego albums and marked a turning point in both the artist’s career and personal life: While she was preparing to leave Japan behind, she succinctly connected the dots between her experiments in pop music and her interest for more abstract sounds. Tujiko worked primarily with a Yamaha synthesizer and an MPC sampler while also incorporating contributions by other musicians such as Onda, Riow Arai and Sakana Hosomi into the pieces. Sometimes approaching an IDM and clicks’n’cuts-style production or working with trip-hop and hip-hop beats while using conventional song structures in the most unconventional of ways, the album showcases her multifaceted influences and skills as a singer and musician to full effect.

Tujiko fondly remembers the time when she made the album. »I had a lot of time for myself back then and I didn’t even feel like I was very busy,« she says today. She describes producing it in close collaboration with Onda, who would relocate to New York City shortly after, as »quite Tokyo and very local.« They explored parts of the city that they hadn’t yet been to for a photography project (finding, among other things, a coin laundry called Naiagara—a transliteration of Niagara). This left its mark on a record that mixes melancholia with joy. The driving opener »Narita Made,« named after one of Tokyo’s airports, already makes this clear: Tujiko’s wistful vocals and lyrics like »I miss you terribly« emphasises the sense of bittersweetness that forms the common thread for a sonically diverse and stylistically open-ended album—this music is looking back while moving forward. It is probably no surprise that its reissue too evokes tender memories of Onda and Steinle in Tujiko, while also reminding her of what lies ahead. »I have so much more to do and not enough time for that,« she muses, before quickly adding: »But I also feel less alone having that album again.«

Influenced in equal parts by the experience of strolling through previously unknown Tokyoite back alleys and thinking about the paths not (yet) taken, »From Tokyo to Naiagara« is precisely that: the perfect travel companion for a journey that leads its listeners from past to future.

Repress!

The soundtrack for Le Hasard et la Violence, a strange French-Italian
movie which came out in 1974 and was directed by Philippe Labro and
written by Jacques Lanzmann
It was a time of thesis films on ultra- violence such as Stanley Kubrick's A
Clockwork Orange (1971) and John Boorman's Deliverance (1972). Labro's
feature film differs from those of his American counterparts by an almost
dreamlike approach and a soft psychedelia. A sort of lysergic atmosphere that
has more to do with the idea of an LSD trip at Castel's than with Californian
counterculture.
Michel Colombier, is a musician of classical formation, who went to the
Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique in Paris. His music for Le Hasard et la
Violence reflects his career: from Gainsbourg to the Beach Boys, via Paul
Williams. A soundtrack that goes from neoclassical to contemporary, via groovy
pop and slow music along with the main theme, a killer ballad with timeless
lyrics. a kind of romanticism specific to Colombier. Let's forget our post- post
modern irony that is no substitute for intelligence and let us be caught by the
emotional power of this soundtrack.

Limited edition double vinyl release of Jezebell’s debut new-Balearic epic, which stylishly weaves the history of eclectic club classics through 16 tracks of downtempo, dub, and acid chug.

Support from Trevor Fung, Luke Una, Justin Robertson, Leo Elstob, Bill Brewster, Danielle Moore, Sean Johnston, Duncan Gray, Nathan Gregory Wilkins, Tech Support, Lebollet …

TIPP!

Moisk aka Pletnev & Fourmi Rouz delve into the depths of psychedelia soundscapes with their latest release “Tetris Life’’ on Terra Magica Rec. The duo skillfully balances modular sounds and shimmers through acid synthesizers with a wide range of psychedelic soundscapes from uptempo half-beat to raw, energetic techno trance, inviting you into a mesmerizing sci-fi universe.

The EP features tracks like “Tetris Life” and “A Glass of Coke with Ice”, that explore underground ambient deserts and immersive jungle improvisations. This is followed by dark and slow breakbeat cuts that transition into faster-paced, floating atmospheric IDM tunes. The 12’’ contains many choppy old-school loops and uptempo trance breakdowns, as in “Orange Button’’ and “Wrong Stability”. Featuring two weird dub/IDM/breaks remixes by Anatolian Weapons and HSDJs X Listensport to round off the wax. Don’t sleep on it!

Smalltown Supersound’s Le Jazz Non Series returns with a collection of pure, emotional club bangers, on a tip somewhere between Aphex Twin’s first Analogue Bubblebath and Drexciya’s most direct The Other People Place romancers.

’Slay Tracks’ is Bratten’s 6th album and perhaps the closest to Smalltown’s heart, personally selected from his swelling hard drive by label bossman Joakim Haugland. You can see the tip he’s on too, opting for a sort of refracted view of ‘90s electronics, propulsive but always emotionally driven.

‘Res’ hits most closely to classic Richard D James with its doe-eyed, single note bassline, while screwed acid vignette ‘Tunnel’, reminds us of Sockethead and Michael J. Blood with its slow, square bass grind. ‘Repair’ gives it all gossebump-inducing melodies in a mode not far from classic Titonton Duvanté or even The Black Dog’s earliest, many-monikered excursions, while ‘A Fog’ craftily dices with a vibe redolent of Phoenicia or the Miami lot, and the closing couplet of ‘The Returner’ and ’Strayed’ smartly extend that analogue on a low- down, offbeat bent like some classic Push Button Objects.

A globally-renowned selector whose ‘Mastermix’ series and impactful, diverse DJ sets have garnered a cult following for the past decade, Numbers co-founder Jackmaster has seen his focus shifted towards his blossoming discography of late, releasing material via Seth Troxler’s Slacker 85, The Martinez Brothers’ Cuttin’ Headz and CircoLoco Records, plus his own TDSR imprint. Here, he continues to showcase his studio nouse with an impressive label debut on Damian Lazarus’ Crosstown Rebels, unveiling two new original productions across his latest EP, ‘Don’t You Want My Lovin’.

Vibrant, deep and jackin’, featuring resonant stabs, skippy drums and soulful vocals at its core, the bubbly ‘Don’t You Want My Lovin’ is a punchy slice of house crafted for bustling dancefloors, while the airy and trippy ‘Ode 2 U’ takes things into more paired back territories and journeys through vast textures to unveil a wormhole of a production.

Needing little introduction, Chicago’s finest and house music icon, Mike Dunn, steps up on remix duties as he makes his first outing on the renowned imprint. His aptly titled ‘Blackball 303’ interpretation is precisely that: a wicked, acid-laced trip harnessing the original’s infectious vocal while offering an instrumental for those looking to keep things darker.

Don't judge a book by its cover. Judge a record by its cover.

And, perhaps, its title.

Cedar Walton's Mobius is as outrageously, disorientatingly brilliant as the stunning jacket design, featuring the legendary jazz pianist morphing into a mobius strip, set against a beautiful sky filled with cumulus clouds. A proper jazz-funk fusion slapfest, Mobius is a stellar electric set from - essentially - one *hell* of a SUPERBAND.

Yes, in addition to Walton's Fender Rhodes wizardry, Mobius is elevated by Ryo Kawasaki's stinging electric guitar, pristinely clear vocals by Adrienne Albert and Lani Groves, rootsy percussion by Ray Mantilla and Omar Clay, alto and baritone from Charles Davis, trumpet from Roy Burrowes, Gordon Edwards on bass and Frank Foster's tenor sax. Oh and did we mention STEVE GADD ON DRUMS?!?!

Gem after gem of looping, bliss-inducing gold, it's an incredibly revelatory album. It presents a thrilling synthesis of R&B, funk, blues and hard bop (with a hint of rock), all driven by an idiosyncratic electronic keyboard. Walton, a giant in the jazz world, got quite the workout every time he played, from piano to arp synthesizer to clarinet to electric piano to mini-moog and back again.

Mobius was Cedar Walton's debut for RCA in 1975. The versatile artist confirmed his abilities as a player, composer, interpreter and arranger with this stunning record, and his own bright compositions offered a springboard for the improvisations of the different soloists. Coltrane's "Blue Trane" is the first classic to be given the funkafied Mobius treatment, Ryo Kawasaki let loose all over neck-snapping Gadd-drum gold before the horns take a fiery turn and subsequently give way to Cedar's virtuosity. A sparkling b-boy break version of Thelonious Monk's "Off Minor" (featuring an absolutely *fire* solo from Walton) really sets proceedings alight. Of the three original pieces, the shuffling, percussive power of "Soho" is just absolutely mind bending Latin-influenced jazzy soul whilst the mellow vibes of "The Maestro" bring elegant, sumptuous soul. And then there's the effortlessly funky "Road Island Red". Just too, too good.

Cedar Walton was born in Dallas, Texas, on January 17, 1934 and began his professional career in 1959 when he began touring for several years with the J.J. Johnson Quintet. He later joined the Art Farmer-Benny Golson Jazztet and then Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Pretty solid credentials, right? While based in New York City, Cedar played with such luminaries as Donald Byrd, Eddie Harris, Blue Mitchell, Kenny Dorham, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Jimmy Heath and Milt Jackson. Without question, he was one of the most complete and gifted musicians of his time and Mobius provides proof of that. The fresh, danceable tracks, all firmly rooted in the living tradition of blues and gospel, are skilfully presented by a master who enjoyed keeping abreast of contemporary tastes and was always keen to renew his language.

As the album notes state: “Mobius, which is the theoretical shape of the infinite universe, makes use of the most modern recording techniques and synthesizers. We mastered and mixed so that it’s hotter than the competition, which should help radio play and in-store demonstration.” Indeed. Mobius is really gorgeous mid-70s fusion, ranging from the funky to the ecstatic. It's an absolute MONSTER that will completely blow you away; and, yes, it's as wild and hypnotic as the cover. The audio for Mobius has been carefully remastered by Be With regular Simon Francis, ensuring it sounds better than ever. Cicely Balston's expert skills have made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the records have been pressed to the highest possible standard at Record Industry in Holland. The original, iconic sleeve has been restored here at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to this long overdue re-issue.

Until now, Art Feynman _ the eccentric alter ego of accomplished producer Luke Temple _ has strictly been a solo act, a way for the artist to explore surprising sonic landscapes without the burdens of identity. Slightly twisted takes on Kosmische Musik, worldbeat, and art pop can all be found scattered across the Art Feynman discography, but with his new album Be Good The Crazy Boys, Feynman fully immerses himself into pools of collective madness Unlike his first two albums, Crazy Boys was recorded live in the studio with a full band, a first for Feynman, capturing a spirit of restless anxiety that recalls the most frenetic work by Talking Heads, or Oingo Boingo at their darkest. Despite these callbacks, the collection remains firmly rooted in modern concerns, with songs about fearing the end of the world and struggling with FOMO _ narratives that would be relatable if they didn't sound so completely unhinged. With Be Good The Crazy Boys, Art Feynman proves to be more than just a character. He represents the part of the modern collective consciousness that's struggling to maintain balance in a toxic, chaotic world. In less skilled hands, that concept could result in a very somber listen. Fortunately, when Art Feynman gets his hands on the chaos of the modern age, it simply makes you want to dance.

My Proud Mountain is proud to announce third volume of the series "Songs of Townes Van Zandt", that was started in 2012 and features various artists covering Townes Van Zandt songs. Songs of Townes Van Zandt Vol. III featuring Amenra, Cave In & Marissa Nadler and will be released on April 22, 2022. Steve Brodsky of Cave In about being part of the record: "In the winter of 2010, I did a solo tour with Scott Kelly of Neurosis and Bob Wayne. It was the 3 of us and Ansgar Glade traveling in Bob's "green machine" van around the UK and Ireland. At every show, Scott played the song "Caroline" and each time I heard it, I found myself enraptured. This was my introduction to Townes Van Zandt. Pretty cool that 10 years later, Ansgar has given me and Cave In this great opportunity to show our love for TVZ's music." Lennart Bossu of Amenra says: "Being Belgians, the very American folk and country of Townes Van Zandt is not exactly the music we grew up listening to, but upon discovering his songs in our early twenties, they immediately struck a chord with us. Even people who do not understand the lyrics can probably tell that they are listening to someone who has lived and suffered, and, oddly enough, at the same time find deep comfort in his soothing voice. It is the kind of comfort that often defines great music or art in general, and it made the prospect of trying our own hand at a few of his songs no less daunting. Nonetheless, when we were asked to be part of this collection of Townes Van Zandt cover songs, we felt excited and compelled to be part of it, as, in a way, it offered us a chance to do something in return for the great songs he has given us, and also be a part of a series of albums that are almost exclusively comprised of artists we deeply respect." Marissa Nadler about Townes Van Zandt: "I've been a fan of Townes Van Zandt's music for nearly as long as I've been writing songs. When I was starting out, a friend introduced me to Townes's music and I pretty much instantly fell in love with both the rawness of his songs as well as the intense sense of longing expressed within them. His lyrics are haunting and evocative and have inspired me endlessly. These melodies will linger with you, year after year, and hopefully keep you company along the way." Ltd red vinyl LP!

Jon Langford's been in more bands than you have digits and that's true even if you were born with a few extras! From his early days in Mekons, Delta 5, Three Johns and even Sisters Of Mercy (booted for not wearing black) to a veritable explosion of one-off recordings and performances with more names than we could ever hope to list in full. A Wikipedia description for this group, The Bright Shiners (described therein as 'circa 2022 through at least 2023, in Northern California') provides some sense of the complex taxonomy needed just to keep track of Jon's massive oeuvre. Happily, that's an understated description of a serious new outlet for his endless creativity, and The Bright Shiners' recording activities have produced a full album, Where It Really Starts, the first recording in a collaboration with Tamineh Gueramy, Alice Spencer, and Jon's frequent musical partner, John Szymanski. Jon's never sung or written better, and the sense that the band realised they were onto something great is palpable in an instant. Each song is a minimalistic jewel - there's nothing here that doesn't need to be - yet the album is unsparing of aptly astonishing adornment - wonderful harmonies, horns, mellotron, bowed guitar, piano. looped percussion and more), by our reckoning this is one of Jon's finest works of art and his best outfit outside The Mekons themselves Jon Langford & the Bright Shiners will tour mercilessly throughout 2024.

repressed !

● Essential 14 track collection of "WaJazz" music selected and compiled by renowned Japanese jazz expert Yusuke Ogawa, owner of the Universounds record store in Tokyo.

● Gatefold 180g heavy double vinyl LP. Comes with extensive track-by-track liner notes by Yusuke Ogawa.

● All tracks licensed by Nippon Columbia, Tokyo, Japan.

● Mastering and lacquer cut by Jukka Sarapää at Timmion Cutting Lab, Helsinki, Finland.

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Universounds, HMV Record Shop and 180g team up for an exceptional release: from blazing hard bop to free jazz, to introspective saxophone solos and massive big band sounds, renowned Japanese jazz expert Yusuke Ogawa presents an essential 14 track collection of "WaJazz" music taken from the Nippon Columbia vaults. Featuring Jiro Inagaki, Minoru Muraoka, Hiroshi Suzuki, Hozan Yamamoto, Count Buffalo, Takeshi Inomata, and much more!

"Japanese jazz has been recognized and celebrated by music lovers worldwide for decades. The origins of this trend may be traced back to the rare groove movement that flourished in the 1990s, but its current deep and wide popularity seems to be connected to the fact that Japanese people have been reevaluating their own jazz since the mid-2000s, locally referred to as WaJazz ("Wa" meaning Japan but also theShōwa emperor period, from 1926 to 1989). Since the beginning of the 2000s, there has been a growing trend to move away from the DJ-focused perspective and to appreciate jazz with a deeper understanding. Nowadays, there is more and more interest in the background and roots in which jazz has developed in Japan, with Japanese jazz as a whole now considered as its own distinctive genre.

Of course, even if we speak about "WaJazz" as one genre, there is a truly wide variety of styles within it. However, when Japanese musicians play, there is something uniquely Japanese flowing through that creates a kind of synergy. It may be the melody, the rhythm, or even something deeper, like an inexpressible flicker. I would be happy if some of its charms and secrets emerge from the fourteen tracks included in this collection." (Yusuke Ogawa)

Yusuke Ogawa has been running the Universounds store in Tokyo since 2001, specializing in jazz and second-hand, rare, and collector records. He is also a reissue supervisor, label manager, DJ, and music writer. Known for his vast musical knowledge, eye for detail, and archival skills, Ogawa has worked on more than 250 reissues and compilations – including the highly praised Deep Jazz Reality and Project Re:Vinyl series. He is the co-author of the Wa-Jazz Disc Guide and the Independent Black Jazz of America books.

Take a trip to Jamaïca with this selection of the finest tunes played by the masters of Reggae. A nice 5 LP vinyl boxsett with Bob Marley, Lee " Scratch " Perry, Max Romeo, Black Uhuru....

Sechs Jahre sind seit dem letzten Longplayer "Du bist so symmetrisch" (2018) des Schweizer Duos Klaus Johann Grobe vergangen und man hört, dass sie einen weiten Weg zurückgelegt haben. "io tu il loro", ihr viertes Album für das in Chicago ansässige Label Trouble In Mind Records, wurde innerhalb von zwei Wochen in einer Hütte ganz am Ende eines abgelegenen Schweizer Tals geschrieben, wo - ziemlich genau an der gleichen Stelle - Klaus Johann Grobe im Jahr 2014 ihr komplettes Debütalbum "Im Sinne der Zeit" erdachten. Was damit begann, einfach mal wieder Musik zu machen, wurde schnell zu einer ernsthaften Arbeit an einem neuen Album. Alles, was es brauchte, war eine echte Pause: Dani und Sevi arbeiteten nicht an irgendwelchen Grobe-bezogenen Sachen, bis sie sich 2022 in den Bergen trafen. Einmal beschlossen, wurde das Ganze recht schnell fertiggestellt und Ende 2022 noch einmal in David Langhards Dala Studio aufgenommen. "io tu il loro" ist eine Platte, die nicht durch endloses Herumspielen an hunderten von Ideen und Sounds zustande kam. Es ist ein Album mit einer verschwommenen Vision und weichen Grenzen. Irgendwie spürt man, dass die beiden nachsichtig auf ihre Arbeit zurückblicken und dann zu dem übergehen, was sich richtig anfühlt. Hier sind wir also mit neun Tracks voller umarmender Wärme, so melancholisch einladend, dass man nicht weiß, ob man lächeln oder weinen soll. Manche mögen es zeitlos nennen, manche mögen es Dad-Rock nennen... nun, es ist sicherlich keine Disco für die Massen, es ist mehr wie "Wenn ich mich nach vier Bieren nicht zum Tanzen bringen kann, kann ich genauso gut nach Hause gehen." Also, keine Disco? Keine synkopischen Synthies? Kein Deutsch? Kein Reverb? Wo ist Grobe? Nimm dir die Zeit und du wirst merken, dass Klaus Johann Grobe nicht weg sind, sie haben nur eine Biegung genommen_

Remixes JID020 is the twentieth installment in the Jazz Is Dead catalog. This remix album features London based artists Shabaka Hutchings and Theon Cross, New York tastemaker Melanie Charles, LA based producer Bei Ru, Brazil's Dj Nyack, Detroit based producer Tall Black Guy, Bay Area producer Mophono and the LA based house duo LO & Disko. Remixers sampled the previously released Jazz Is Dead records created by Adrian Younge, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and icons including the following: Lonnie Liston Smith, Jean Carne, Tony Allen, Henry Franklin, Phil Ranelin, Wendell Harrison, Garrett Saracho, and Katalyst.

Available on ltd edition Eco mix vinyl, with only 250 copies pressed. Includes download.

We’re delighted to bring you the latest full length from London psych heads The Confederate Dead.

‘As an artist, one of the most extraordinary gifts is the ability to convert life's experiences and emotions into music, transmuting pain into beauty, tragedy into art. With our latest album, 'Flamingo', we embarked on this creative journey. The inception of this project dates back to 2022, a year marked by a period of separation that was both challenging and transformative. 'Flamingo' is not just an album; it is a voyage through the labyrinth of heartache and healing. Each track resonates with the overarching theme of the album, yet each presents a unique interpretation of it. Every song echoes the same meaning, the same core narrative, but from a different emotional lens.’ Butchy Davy (The Confederate Dead)

‘“Flamingo by London’s psychedelic indie band The Confederate Dead flows by like a strange dream. Each song flows differently, shifting the dreamy images into another direction. Thoughts of The Black Angels, the Fuzz Club catalogue and genres from shoegaze to garage pop and back to good old psych rock fight a confusing fight for my attention. In the end it appears that this struggle will never truly be decided. The Confederate Dead is their own beast, and a great one at that.

Theirs is a sound that oozes confidence and grandeur, presented like a big name would. and there is no reason why The Confederate Dead would not dream big, they have the chops, the songs, the looks, the only thing standing in the way of moving up might be their dark brooding undertones and their refusal to do a cool thing twice.

Because the most powerful thing about Flamingo is its versatility. The album is like a box of assorted chocolates, the one you can’t get enough of because each song is delicious and sweet in its own way. So, indulge yourself, have a chocolate, or ten…before you know it the album is over, and you’ll press play again.’

@weirdoshrineblog 2023.

Schema Records presents “Riviera”, the new album by Toco, one of the Milan-based label’s top artists with over 100 million digital streams, is finally released on 19 April 2024. “Riviera” pays tribute to the places where Toco grew up, and is the aesthetic synthesis of Toco’s varied songwriting, able to create true musical mosaics that mix pop lightness, poetic lyricism, desire, joy and pain. Mainly inspired by the tradition of samba and bossa nova, and contaminated with jazz, funk, pop and rock, the album alternates light and shadow in a balanced chiaroscuro enriched by friend and musical partner Stefano “S-Tone Inc.”


Tirone’s production. Anticipated by a series of singles that outlined its various facets and musical influences, Toco’s new album “Riviera” is finally released on 19 April 2024; ten years have passed since “Memoria”, filled with various collaborations and dedicated to this record itself, carefully curated in production and arrangements down to the smallest detail; this has been made possible thanks also to the presence of a large lineup of guests, including Toco’s labelmate Gianluca Petrella for the first time ever. The album’s title is a tribute to two places very dear to Toco: Riviera is the neighborhood in São Paulo where he spent his childhood, while Riviera Ligure is where he lived for a long time in Italy: two opposite shores and cultures that turned out to be fundamental in the artist’s formation.


“Riviera” is the aesthetic synthesis of Toco’s varied songwriting, able to create true musical mosaics that mix pop lightness, poetic lyricism, desire, joy and pain. Mainly inspired by the tradition of samba and bossa nova, and contaminated with jazz, funk, pop and rock, the al¬bum alternates light and shadow in a balanced chiaroscuro enriched by friend and musical partner Stefano “S-Tone Inc.” Tirone’s production. This collaboration further consolidates the duo’s fellowship that brush¬es magical sonorities on the different themes delivered. An excellent comeback!

Repress!

It's five years since we first released Yosi Horikawa's 'Vapor' album. To commemorate the occassion, we're releasing the album on vinyl for the very first time, also including a previously unreleased bonus track, 'Yoggo'.

The devil is in the details. And Yosi Horikawa understands this perhaps better than most musicians from his generation, crafting compositions with broad appeal that also withstand the most intricate scrutiny. Originality has always been a rare currency in the creative arts, and having honed his voice over the years Yosi has plenty of it to give to those willing to listen.

The RBMA graduate has collaborated with artists such as Jesse Boykins III, Dorian Concept & Daisuke Tanabe, performed at Glastonbury, Sónar, Mutek, Dimensions, Low End Theory, Ninja Tune's Solid Steel & Boiler Room, featured in Time Out Tokyo, XLR8R, Dummy & more, and received acclaim and support from the likes of Benji B, Tom Ravenscroft, Fulgeance, DJ Food and Gilles Peterson, with whom he has worked with on several projects since the release of 'Vapor', for Brownswood, Worldwide Festival & Worldwide FM respectively, producing a regular feature, 'Soundscape with Yosi Horikawa'.

Besides writing and producing music, Yosi is a highly skilled sound engineer, working with prestigious architects, fashion brands, and technology firms as well as designing speakers for bars and clubs. He's also composed numerous jingles and theme songs for radio stations to science exhibitions. Such is his diversity and originality, he was the subject of an RBMA film documentary in 2014, 'Layered Memories'.

Following his debut EP on Eklektik Records, two EPs were released on First Word prior to this, his debut album, 'Vapor'. 17 tracks from the Japanese sound designer and producer that weave together diverse field recordings and sample sources, with rhythms and melodies, creating something that defies stylistic boxing. Echoes of dance music, hip hop and musique concrete can all be found amid the sounds of nature and everyday life that underpin the grooves of the music. 'Vapor' is an album in the old-fashioned sense, a tightly-woven sonic journey that benefits from repeat listens.

'Vapor' was named amongst 2013 Albums of the Year lists in Fact Magazine and The Japan Times.

"A sonic masterpiece and an entirely new pathway in to the matrix of emerging electronic creativity. Every piece on the album sounds boundless and full of texture & colour imaginable"

Earmilk: "A serendipitous mishmash of electronic, hip hop beats, and a litany of genres that fall in that spectrum with a liberal dose of acoustic magic

Following on from his Mesh debut Jinjé returns with Escape from Luna, a four-track EP expanding further on the infinite sonic worlds of his solo production work.

Lead single and opening track ‘BBLO’ launches with a voyage into detailed textural layers, gliding through microscopic ambient-leaning compositions before dropping into a weighty electronic beat with touches of electro and dub.

As a founding member of the Leeds-based experimental band Vessels - an act acclaimed for their ability to defy categorisation - Lee Malcolm is no stranger to breaking the boundaries of genre. With his solo project, Jinjé, he delves into atypical sonic wanderings that navigate between acoustic and electronic, synthetic and organic, employing a learned ear for the fusion of seemingly disparate elements. For this latest release on Mesh, he hones in on these moments of coalescence, fusing various stylistic pieces together with an infectious sense of optimism and an open mind.

Jinjé steers his work across various genres not out of a desire to be referential, but out of a necessity to explore the peculiar spaces that sit between. Implementing this approach with a great understanding of musical production and spatial composition, ‘Escape from Luna’ stands as a crucial documentation of his craft.

Bite Down, the Merge Records debut of Rosali, finds acclaimed songwriter and guitarist Rosali Middleman in the midst of transition. Written after moving to North Carolina from her longtime home of Philadelphia, Bite Down is a searching, hungry record by an artist who is resolved to bite down on life, in all its horror and joy. She is joined here by Mowed Sound_David Nance (bass, guitar), James Schroeder (guitar, synth), Kevin Donahue (drums, percussion)_and in studio by Destroyer collaborator Ted Bois (keys). Bite Down is Rosali's second album working with Mowed Sound, and there is urgency and ambition in their collaboration_a band pushing each other not just to expand on what they've already done together, but to break through into altogether new territory. Among those joining Rosali and her band there is Dan Bejar of Destroyer, who waxes poetically on where she's been, where she's going, and how thrilling Bite Down is to experience: It's hard to talk about Rosali's music. Songs that reach outward like this, but then constantly disarm with their intimacy. What do you call such inner searching that is hellbent on rollicking? Songs that long for a sense of peace and songs that want romance, all on equal footing in the same plot of earth? Performed wild, but always centered around the incredible lyrical calm that is Rosali's voice. Bite Down makes me think about singers and bands that throw themselves hard into the storm, the way the Rosali quartet does. (Jim captures the tone of this perfectly, again!) The calm of her voice over top of the band's raging_it is the emblem of songs that live to put themselves in harm's way. But it's not harm. It's just that you have to play hard to get at these goods. The calm of Rosali's voice, the straight talk of her inner search vs. the wildness of the band, the sonic storm she rides in on. That's their sound. The Mowed Sound. It's hard to talk about these last couple Rosali albums without talking about them. They play free and wild and relentlessly melodious. They rip and create space and fill it up with what seems like reckless abandon, but listen carefully or listen for a while and you'll find them paying real close attention to each other and exactly what the song demands. Maybe Fairport did this, maybe VU. It's a strange telepathic brew. Breezier songs like "On Tonight" and "Rewind" sound like they've fought their way to get to that sense of ease. Maybe that's the Mowed Sound "sound"_hard-won ease. Then add to that Ted Bois' patented Rhodes sleaze (see sinuous title track "Bite Down") steering the record into late-night corners; the incredible "Hills on Fire" (maybe the centerpiece of the album), the guitar-ripping and the singing taking turns in reaching new levels of intimacy. It feels listened-in on, exposed and invented on the spot. It is also simply a staggeringly beautiful song. There are a few of those on the album. In contrast, "My Kind" is a raucous, hand-delivered classic; the band throws tables over. For the most part, this is a moodier record than No Medium. It has the same sound of "I've traveled through fire to deliver you these songs," but it is also quieter, more nocturnal. The quiet dread of staring down an open road, and the excitement of that. By the final track, "May It Be on Offer," it is the prayer uttered as you hand yourself over to the world.

Where does pop start and experimental music end? Instead of drawing lines, Red On keeps on exploring the spaces in between these supposed poles with his latest album Phantom Easy, a record that offers moments of pure beauty as well as unpredictable, uncontrollable wilderness.
The spaces Red On moves in aren’t per se terra incognita, but have been explored in recent years by like-minded musicians such as How To Dress Well, Fever Ray, or Dawuna, as well as artists that are affiliated with Präsenes Editionen, where Red On’s album is published, such as Martina Lussi, Belia Winnewisser, or Magda Drozd. Yet, Phantom Easy is an exploration of its own: The melancholic album, which is informed by pop, electroacoustic music, rhythm-focused jazz, and krautrock, is carried by Red On's voice, which appears in ever-changing stages of alienation. The wistful tone of the twelve tracks is reinforced by single phrases sung by Red On that, through their repetition, develop an urgency that can hardly be escaped. The result is pop music that is brave enough to embrace the adventure; or experimental music that doesn’t shy away from offering catchy hooks and grand melodies.

Ponyland are a psychedelic punk, force of nature, a multi-limbed monster of scuzzed-out riffs and thunderous ritualistic grooves. Combining the grinding onslaught of Lightning Bolt, the ecstatic spectacle of Sun Ra and the irreverent spirit of System of a Down, this unhinged, masked menagerie have to be seen to be believed. Intoxicating rhythms meet hook driven waves of riffage, with ecstatic energy that will make your legs rattle uncontrollably.

Following on from their debut album Mora Mora, this new full length LP HARE BRAINS sees Ponyland embrace a new edge to their visionary sound world. Keeping the trademark, pulverising double drum kit engine and fuzz-drenched psychedelic soundscapes, the band have supercharged their songwriting with focused riff-based hooks and driving punk-edged vigour. Prominent female vocals channel Bikini Kill and Warpaint, whilst gritty, melted electronics flow around a classic thrashing guitar sound. Hare Brains is a celebration of dysfunction, a call to arms against human apathy, a psychotropic odyssey of eroded power structures, post-apocalyptic landscapes and mutant pigeons.

The anarchic pagan ecology of Ponyland’s vision grabs the listener and catapults them into a visceral NOW, full of defiant life, movement, and human connection.

Channeling a love affair with classic '90s hip-hop, an affinity for otherworldly themes and an ear for raw funk, Barclay Crenshaw uses his given birth name to bare his soul and deliver a slowed-down, emotive collection of collaborations and instrumentals. This self-titled debut album is a left-field departure from his better-known alias, Claude VonStroke, but the quality is undeniably the same. The themes of ancient alien abductions and exploration of time and space are discovered and brought to life over ten tracks that sound like a mixture of gold rope chains and new age enlightenment. Modern organic beats mixed with gorgeous melodic moments and underlying grittiness create an experience that is eclectic, expressive and expansive. Coded art furthers the sense of mystery and the unknown, harking back to the past while gazing into the future.

The second in our Mr Bongo series opening the vault on classic recordings from the fabled Groove Merchant Records catalogue. This time the spotlight turns to the Hammond B3 organ maestro Lonnie Smith, as we proudly present a reissue of his cosmic jazz-funk journey, ‘Afro-Desia’.

Originally released in 1975, this much-loved album was produced by Groove Merchant label owner Sonny Lester and features the mysterious 'Compliments Of A Friend' on guitar. Considering Smith was part of George Benson’s quartet in the ‘60s, that not so discreet veil appears to have been lifted on who this ‘friend’ might be. However, presumably due to contractual reasons, Benson had to remain covert for this recording. The lineup doesn’t stop there though, with the likes of legendary bassist Ron Carter and Grammy award winning saxophonist Joe Lavano joining the outfit.

An album of two parts, the first side sees Lonnie Smith in a spaced-out, cosmic jazz funk setting. The opener 'Afrodesia' is a funk flexing, steamy groover. Greg Hopkins and Lavano trading off on trumpet and sax respectively, as that bassline walks its way over fluttering jazz percussion and off-kilter electronics. 'Spirits Free' is an epic 15-minute free-wheeling jazz-funk workout. A mind melting trip that rises and falls, in parts spacey and serene, with Smith’s organ playing complimented by stretched out horns. Before long it opens out into unconstrained fluid sections that do its title proud. Pure ‘70s jazz-funk at its most stellar.

Side B takes a more classic soul-jazz flavour, with touches of Latin spice. 'Straight To The Point' kicks off with a carnival zing, full-frontal horn and organ lines providing a fiery party punch. It’s a swinging jazz cut that used to receive spins by DJs at Russ Dewbury's Jazz Room's sessions in Brighton in the ‘90s.

Finally, 'Favors' and 'The Awakening' close out the release. Two sure shot, quintessential Lonnie Smith firing Hammond grooves. Each conjuring up images of packed out, smokey jazz bar jams, every player letting loose with masterful improv sections to whip the crowd up into a frenzy.

A truly wonderful album, and an archetypal release showcasing the height of jazz musician excellence from this era.

An edit-reissue of this gargantuan double cassette released back in 2014 under the Typhonian Highlife moniker, 'H.R. Giger's Studiolo' finds netherworld voyagerSpencer Clark at a particularlybeguiling conjunction of his labyrinthine-esque soundworld. With complete disregard for linear timelines and trajectories, 'H.R. Giger's Studiolo' finds both inspiration in the swiss master's vision and the Cenobite iconographypreviously exploredby Clark on Fourth World Magazine's 'Pinhead in Fantasia'. The CD Head Cenobite picture adorning the cover makes the connection more than apparent.

A sprawling, two and half hour excursion on the tape version, here properly edited down to the wax container, the first two volumes of 'H.R. Giger's Studiolo' are some of Clark's most mystifying recordings. A baroque odyssey through an hermetic maze of alien voices, warping sound effects, oneiric keyboards and a quasi-orchestral sense of space and dynamics, 'H.R. Giger's Studiolo' feels like an hallucinatory fever dream still unlike everything else, either from before or after. Time doesn't apply here, anyway.

Mastered by Rashad Becker
Artwork by Spencer Clark

The Madlib Invazion Music Library Series Entry #8: Karriem Riggins’ To The Jungle. Riggins is the type of drummer whose power and finesse shakes even Malcolm Catto. If you know what that means, this is the album for you. The Madlib Invazion Music Library Series was created by Madlib and Egon to give their creative friends a chance to stretch out and indulge in whatever type of music they wanted. This music was created for easy, one-stop clearance in film and television synchronization usage and for sampling. You can also enjoy these albums in the way that many do with the best of the best vintage library catalogs – listen, ponder, repeat.

- Iconic UK indie band Flowered Up, seen as London's answer to Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses, reissue their debut album 'A Life With Brian' remastered and ehnhanced via London Records.
- 2 x Vinyl edition also includes the 1992 cult epic 13 minute 'Weekender' song and the much sought after Andrew Weatherall remix, both for the first time added to the LP !
- The reissue follows a BFI documentary on the video of 'Weekender' and it's legendary status in UK club culture of the time
- The album remastering was overseen by Flowered Up keyboard player Tim Dorney.

Available on ltd edition white vinyl, only 300 pressed. Includes extended album download.

Ivan The Tolerable is the alter ego solo project of Middlesbrough based musical wizard Oli Heffernan. Aside from his solo work as ITT, Oli has played in numerous bands over the years including Year Of Birds, King Champion Sounds with members of the Ex, Detective Instinct, and Shrug, and has collaborated with icons like Mike Watts of the Minutemen, and J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr.

On Black Water/Brown Earth, Heff called in the help of his Dutch friends Mees and Elsa in King Champion Sounds again and wrote the album in a long-distance session. The album feels like an excursion in nature, featuring bird song, flowing water, pots and pans percussion, and a genuine feel of wandering about and experiencing the outside world with eyes and ears wide open. It is a band effort too, with organic sounding drums, the characteristic saxophone, and droning synths.

‘Elsewhere, gentle intonations of morning with almost childlike embellishments and rhythmic beats, and more flute, might lull and comfort but nothing ever sits exactly in time which might make this Ivan The Tolerable’s most frustrating album at times but also one of his most interesting to really delve into aurally. ‘Sawdust’ is another sonic interlude, little more than a purge of effects and ideas but in a place where effects and ideas are plentiful. However, it’s centrepieces ‘Seaweed’ and ‘Signs’ that provide the pulsing, grooving dual that makes the second half of Black Water/Brown Earth a sheer delight. The former being simply kind of folky with a bit of sitar but utterly immersive, the latter oddly upbeat with eastern vibes and tubular rhythms, combined it is nearly twenty minutes of serene experimentalism.
The shorter tracks are perhaps designed to temper the mood or counter and reflect the passage of time on an album of mostly structured improvisation, and it may only be closer ‘Memory’ that is truly free to roam musically, its long jazzy segments skipping off into the farthest corners of the left field’.

We are delighted to bring you the first in the Ivan The Tolerable Archive Reissue Series, Autodidact!

Originally released on a 10” lathe cut by Ack Ack Ack Records in February 2018, this has now been remastered and repackaged, and will now be available on ltd edition khaki vinyl, with only 250 copies pressed. Here’s a bit about the record in Oli Heffernan’s aka Ivan The Tolerable own words-

“I recorded the bulk of this record over a weekend in January 2018, in the midst of a very minor breakdown that was to last for pretty much the entire year. I was living in a big house all on my own, smoking too much and not really seeing any people. Happy days indeed.
It was tracked in the back room of 97 Hambledon Road, Middlesbrough using two questionable microphones, a broken HH 100 amp, my friends drums and a Tascam DP08 (that wasn’t to see the year out, RIP 2009-2018) When I was done, Robbie came round and recorded a ton of violin drones through my amp and i remember feeling like I’d gone into a trance a few times, then Ben recorded his parts at home and sent them over. Mixed and mastered the same night - I released it myself a month later as a lathe cut 10”and then promptly moved on. I listened to the album for the first time in years to write this sleeve note and I think it is possibly the closest I’ve ever got to capturing the sound I hear in my head - I love how grubby and cavernous it sounds, claustrophobic and swirling - the track Autodidact I have recorded 4 more times since this version and I’ve never got that sound back. I’II keep trying.’’
“Oli Heffernan, June 2023’’

The latest suite by composer (and Stars Of The Lid co-founder) Adam Wiltzie took shape following a move north from Brussels into the Flemish countryside, although it was initially inspired by a recurring dream wherein “if someone listened to the music I created, then they would die.”
The album uniquely evokes and evades the allure of oblivion, keening between beauty and ruin, forever unresolved. Wiltzie cites the barbiturate of the title as both muse and sacred escape: “When you are sitting face forward on the daily emotional meat grinder of life, I always wished I could have some, so I could just fall asleep automatically and the feeling would not be there anymore.”
Recorded at Wilzie’s home studio, with strings added in Budapest at the old Hungarian National radio facility (Magyar Radio), the tracks feel simultaneously intimate and infinite, unfolding vistas glimpsed in an inner space.
Robert Hampson of English drone rock icons Loop mixed the album, further lending the music a sense of cinematic expanse and oblique hypnosis.
These are fugue states as much as fugues in a literal classical music sense—smeared epiphanies of uncertain memory and spatial dislocation, coaxed from the unconscious and set aloft.

Manchester independent Dark Red Records brings it's 4th instalment in the form of a multi-artist EP from Ego-Free Sequences, rising new French talent Sqimer (also on mastering duties for this release) and label regular Darsk, all coming together to provide a satisfyingly varied selection of dark, meditative Drum & Bass and Jungle tracks which meld together classic breaks and editing with a distinctly modern and experimental approach, all finished in a wholly organic and listenable style. Feedback and support has been very strong across the board with two tracks played by scene legend Klute on his Kool FM show in February.

Over the last couple of decades, Charlie Parr has crisscrossed the world on tour more times than one can count. He also has released over a dozen albums of his songs, acclaimed for their poetic simplicity. Little Sun, his most ambitious album to date, was recorded with Tucker Martine (The Decemberists, Sufjan Stevens, My Morning Jacket) and features Parr augmenting his raw and affecting songs with stunning full-band arrangements. The remarkable backing band here includes Marisa Anderson, Victor Krummenacher, Andrew Borger, and Asher Fulero. Masterfully channeling the philosophical and transcendental qualities of the blues, Parr takes us on a journey through the winding streets of his imagination.

Irresistible Brazilian blues reggae from the heart of the Amazon rainforest. A psychedelic guarana induced trip and ode to the fading indigenous cultures and shifting hegemony in Brazil. This one-off release by Manaus native Natacha Fink was originally written in 1986 as the lead track on NOSSA MUSICA - a compilation celebrating regional music from the Amazon. Emerging out of the dictatorship, Natacha and her fellow artists rejected the aesthetic standards driven by internal colonialism and sought out new ways to express themselves away from the styles of the dominant Rio-São Paulo axis. What surfaced was a melodic blend of genres, with Natacha’s haunting vocals and playful lyrics gliding over an arrangement of guitars and double bass. Vocal backing is led by Torrinho, well known for his layered composition style, whose song ‘Porto de Lenha’ is recognised throughout Amazonas as an unofficial anthem. Hidden within the Amazon, Pirarublue lies in that wonderful space between innocence and honesty. Proudly exploring cultural and ecological spaces through a refreshing, ghostly infectious groove. For fans of Gal Costa, Elis Regina, Chico César, Jorge Ben Jor and Joni Mitchell.

Accompanying Natacha’s beguiling single is the field recording “Unseen Songlines” by artist and academic Nimalan Yoganathan. The composition immerses the listener in the soundscapes of Mamori Lake, a remote village inside the Brazilian Amazon. Nimalan explores the ambiguous perception of sounds emanating from the dense rainforest and deep beneath the Amazon River, where we hear the sounds but cannot see their sources: an acousmatic concert performed by the rainforest itself. Processed field recordings of birds and frogs, as well as underwater hydrophone recordings of dolphins and fish subtly weave throughout electroacoustic textures and beats. The listener is invited to hone in on the musical subtleties hidden throughout the environment. The compositional methods employed in this piece draw on the concepts of sonic rupture, presence, absence and memory found in the dub music tradition.

This limited edition 7” by Sticky Buttons puts these two outlying works together for a unique listening experience, combining the human and more-than-human experience of life at the heart of Brazil. Both uniquely Amazonian but with a universal appeal.

This is Fugazi's fifth full-length record, released in 1998.
The 12" LP format was re-cut and re-issued in September 2009.

Ian MacKaye vocals & guitar Guy Picciotto vocals & guitar Joe Lally bass Brendan Canty drums

Music is a form of world building. I love to develop sonic characters and set them into fictional ecosystems with unique textures, acoustics and atmospheres. Each song forms a different landscape, through which a vocal character guides us and tries to tell us its stories." — Ludwig Berger

Ludwig Berger's 'fictional' debut album "Garden Ediacara" unfolds as a musical eco-fiction, guiding listeners through a speculative ecosystem with synthesized vocals. Infused with storytelling techniques from sci-fi and fantasy, the album intertwines melodic songwriting with electroacoustic sound design. Inspired by hydrofeminism and eco-fiction novels, such as "A Door Into Ocean" by Joan Slonczewski, the album delves into the geological period of Ediacara around 600 million years ago — an era so remote it resonates as a glimpse into a possible future. The Ediacaran period was characterised by a peaceful and thriving ecosystem inhabited by soft-bodied creatures without eyes and bones, which were completely wiped out through the appearance of a new species. "Garden of Ediacara" alludes to this period, celebrating both the pleasures of biodiversity as well as mourning its inevitable loss. The narrative unfolds as an exploration of growth and interconnection in the shadow of a coming extinction. The track titles, written by Daisy Lafarge, reveal themselves as a cohesive poem and contribute to the album's narrative.

Informed by his practice of field recording that focusses on intimate encounters with plants, animals and geological phenomena, as well as his studies in electroacoustic composition, Berger expands his palette for his debut in 'fictional' music. The album prominently features a post-human, non-binary death metal voice synthesizer, physical modeling instruments, and microscopic field recordings of plants, insects, as well as aquatic and geological life. With impressionistic strokes, Ludwig Berger crafts vibrant worlds using glassy timbres and more-than-human voices, guiding listeners through emotionally ambiguous terrain, seamlessly oscillating between moments of intimacy and irritation, melancholy and playfulness.

Ludwig Berger is a landscape sound artist, educator and musician. In his compositions, installations and performances, he enables intimate and playful sonic encounters with plants, animals, buildings and geological entities. He is founder and curator of the label Vertical Music, which releases field recordings and experimental music. Berger holds degrees in electroacoustic composition, as well as musicology, art history and literature. As a sound researcher and teacher at the Institute for Landscape Architecture at ETH Zurich from 2015-2022, he studied the sonic dimension of Japanese gardens, alpine glaciers and urban landscapes, which among other things led to the release of the acclaimed album trilogy 'Melting Landscapes', 'Dammed Landscapes' and 'Buried Landscapes'.

The Morning Papers Have Given Us the Vapours was made with the black watch bandmates and producers/engineers Rob Campanella (Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Tyde, The Warlocks) and Andy Creighton (The World Record, Parson Red Heads). Ben Eshbach, formerly of The Sugarplastic, arranged the strings. Kesha Rose guests on lead vocals on the second single, Oh Do Shut Up. And the great Lindsay Murray once again lends her beautiful backing vox to a number of tracks.

the black watch songwriter/frontman John Andrew Fredrick wrote the ten songs on this, his Los Angeles-based band's latest album, entirely unselfconsciously, with no set goal in mind other than to revel in the joy of songwriting, and, eventually, the luxury of recording his music with his more-than-accomplished band. The Morning Papers Have Given Us the Vapours, produced separately and together by Rob Campanella and Andy Creighton evinces the black watch's often stunning ability to, as Andy Gill once observed in The Independent, "find chaos in the calm, melody in the miasma."

Fredrick, who has also published four comedic novels and a book on the early films of Wes Anderson, jovially describes himself as "a recovering Anglophile--one who'll never, one hopes, fully recover." From his home studio in the Angeleno Heights district of L.A., he waxes eloquent about how being branded, as it were, as a too-ardent lover of British music, film, and literature has left him as bemused as has the tag "prolific" that is often affixed to reviews of his work.

"I just don't think it's all that interesting to note that we've made so many records. Looked at one way, it's a sort of deflection from talking about the timbre if not the quality of the individual songs. Though I know it can be intimidating for fans who've just discovered us--a sort of 'My goodness, where do I start with this band that has put out LPs since 1988?' I get it. I do. I picture someone standing at our slot at a bin at a record store becoming overwhelmed at the prospect of picking the 'wrong' title. And then walking away and not picking up anything from us!" Fredrick laughs. "What can you do indeed?"

He started his career as a songwriter as a result of an American Football injury that left him bedridden in the home he grew up in in Santa Barbara, California. The year The Beatles immortal double-album came out at Christmastime he broke his leg so badly that he had to be home-schooled for an entire year. His parents, ex-teachers themselves, refused to let him watch telly for more than an hour a day. He propped a Silvertone acoustic on top of the massive cast that screamed all the way up to his thigh from his toes, and began to write little melodies and lyrics that, doubtless, did not in the least mask his love for the Fabs, The White Album in especial.

And he read and read and read--histories of the American Revolution and Civil War, mostly, and as many Dickens novels as his mum and dad could bring him. "That year," Fredrick observes, "surely made me who I am today. Proof that intensely unfortunate-seeming events can prove most fortunate. As a sport-mad kid, it made me absolutely mental that I was exiled from the activities I loved most and the school teams I played on. What a blessing undisguised that injury was! Not that I'd like to experience anything like it ever again, mind you."

Fredrick can even recall a few of the melodies he wrote as boy ("Utterly trite, of course, completely jejune"); and in a way, The Morning Papers Have Given Us the Vapours showcases a kind of get-back-to-where-you-once-belonged sensibility. "I didn't intend, this time, to make an album per se. I write both songs and fiction in order to find out what happens, to find out what I might want to say," he notes. "Rob often asks me what a particular song is about; and I often reply that I either don't know, or would prefer that others say. Same thing goes for when people ask me where they should start with our discography. I never know what to say. Our LP from 2011, Led Zeppelin Five (remastered in 2021 for its tenth anniversary), has been our best seller, I think--but that may be because some stoned Zepheads thought their gods had perhaps put out a record they'd missed!"

Despite being deadly serious about music-making, TBW's been known to either whimsically or perversely title their albums. Examples: Jiggery-Pokery (an allusion to John Lennon assessing George Martin's productions), After the Gold Room (a pun on the Neil Young classic plus a local eastside L.A. watering hole), Sugarplum Fairy, Sugarplum Fairy (echoing Lennon's famous count-off to A Day in the Life), Fromthing Somethat (a garbled spoonerism/lyric while doing a vocal), Brilliant Failures (the 2020 release that, along with Fromthing Somethat, was named Album of the Year by venerable indie rock magazine The Big Takeover), and the aforementioned LZ5.

For the new LP, the band recruited longtime friends and allies Ben Eshbach (the Emmy-Award-winning frontman of The Sugarplastic) and Lindsay Murray (Gretchens Wheel) to compose and arrange strings and sing heaps of lovely backing vocals, respectively.

And the result? A collection of songs that Fredrick, in his quite-but-not-quite self-deprecatory way, might call another set of brilliant failures. "Every song, every LP we do, is a failure of sorts--no matter how powerful or beautiful or pleasing-to-us it turns out," John concludes. "I have often said that my aim is to write songs as good as anything on The Beatles... and I will never achieve my goal. And thus I'll have to keep at it, keep trying. And chin-chin to that!"

And now your attention's been brought to a band (or you've heard of them or heard a track or two down the years) that has been pegged by The L.A. Weekly as "a national treasure" as well as "the most criminally-neglected indie pop group imaginable."

So here's to the prospect of that ostensible neglect becoming as much of a thing of the past as John Andrew Fredrick's year-long stint in bed.

2024 RSD Release

The ascending soul sensation Fat Generous embarks on a heavenly collaboration Wai Wan. This record is an invitation to their soulful world of jazz influenced funk and R&B, Fat Generous have been making waves in their hometown playing alongside the likes of Fatboy Slim and Sister Sledge, and their raw onstage energy has gained the stamp of approval from the godfather funk himself, George Clinton. Recorded at the height of a record breaking heatwave, Fat Generous have captured the blissful respite of a 'NightTime Cool Breeze' in a silky laid back groover that formed their debut single back in September. Amassing over 30,000 streams in the first month, alongside radio play and feedback from the likes of Craig Charles & Giles Peterson. Channeling carefree vibes reminiscent of Roy Ayers’ 'Everybody Loves The Sunshine'. On the second side a Record Store Day exclusive track 'Shake Your Body Down' 'Shake Your Body Down' is an unparalleled journey through the funk filled cosmos, a collector's dream that pays homage to the pioneers of funk while paving the way for a new era of groove. This release is the precursor to a bigger release schedule for the band a good vibes only DIY recording project that has been produced by legendary nujazz producer, Wai Wan, whose fingerprints can be found all over releases on Chrysalis Records and Virgin Records. This record is a scene setter that introduces you to the groovy rhythms that Fat Generous deliver in excess at each of their live shows unique performances that lean on the group’s tight knit ability to improvise and reimagine their own music. Limited edition heavyweight 7 inch vinyl in a picture sleeve. Get the debut release and you're ahead of the curve.

For our 50th release on Delusions Of Grandeur we're pleased to bring you seven exclusive tracks from a mighty-fine collection of both existing DOG artists and veritable newcomers alike.
Part Two opens with Underground Quality key player Son Of Sound who brings a bucketful of attitude on Under The Son, laying down a rough-edged groove and getting on one with his vintage keys.
Up next we have Sebastien Vorhaus & Ponty Mython who bring us the beast that is I'm The Slime. Easing us into things with gentle rhodes samples and a skippy groove, Vorhaus (of Soul Of Hex fame) and Mython soon develop things with hints of acid before unleashing a jazz piano riff that can be best described as unhinged.
Flipping over the mysterious Zepp001 hunt and gatherer brings us Enemy. There's elements of disco with bouncing syndrum fills and a mysterious mood prevails as shakers rattle, bells chime and congas slap but when the bassline drops it's clear we're into some serious future s**t here.
Finally, we have our very own Norm De Plume who lays down a bad-boy groove with a rocking bassline, clattering cowbells and tension-building pads bringing an intense build and rounding off our 50th release in fine fashion, we hope you agree.

Honk driven throb with Thin Lizzy styled melodies overlaying supreme HARD ROCK prowess...
This is HEAVY ROCK for now!!
Spidergawd is Per Borten (guitar, vocals), Kenneth Kapstad (drums), Rolf Martin Snustad (baritone sax) and Bent Sæther (bass). Depending on how well versed you are in Norwegian rock music (or how big the rock you live under is), these names will mean a lot to you, or possibly nothing at all. Whatever the case, with three very strong albums now under its belt, this band has the right to stand on its own merits.
Spidergawd III is, logically enough, Spidergawd's third album, one of a trio - so far - of LPs that seem to appear with alarming regularity at least once a year in between numerous 7's and what feels like constant touring. These guys are on fire, and you can hear it in every song and see it at every concert. A band that is self-confident enough to record their debut album during their fifth-ever rehearsal, and who have since evolved even further and found their voice, which is adventurous, energetic and very immediate.
Since the release of Spidergawd II, the band has toured Europe several times, played Roadburn, Roskilde and the Reeperbahn Festival, and Per finished building his recording studio, which Spidergawd III was then promptly recorded in. Spending more time on the recording of III than they did on its predecessors, Per and Kenneth worked on the songs together in advance, focusing in particular on what Per describes as expanding his guitar vocabulary.
And you can hear it. Still in-your-face rock, this album is a touch more complex, with more depth and even more color. No fear, the band has not sacrificed melody to the god of noodling - the melodies are strong and the songs (still) boogie their asses off. And if the sax at the beginning of The Best Kept Secrets doesn't make you do the same, then there is no help for you.
Crispin Glover Records in cooperation with Stickman Records is proud to present Spidergawd's third album to the world. In finest Spidergawd tradition, the album once again comes on black180 gr vinyl with an absolutely stunning cover and a CD included. Tour to follow, of course!

Warehouse Find!

Time to welcome Soul 223 to the label with his debut Delusions EP entitled Fear Of Stopping. Something of a complete legend in our eyes and ears, Steve Pickton has been releasing top drawer tuneage for over two decades both as Stasis on influential labels such as B12 and Peacefrog and more recently as Soul 223 on equally well regarded imprints like Delsin, Soul Jazz and Neroli. Always one to shy away from any limelight or self promotion it's true to say that this underrated British producer remains something of an anomaly, staying true to his underground roots where faceless, shadowy and obscure reigns supreme over the latest over-exposed cover star. This ethos naturally carries through into his music where you will always find both expansive beauty and unrefined rawness in equal measures ensuring his tracks always sound fresh rather than over produced or contrived.

Fear Of Stopping opens the EP with a low-slung disco groove providing the backbone for intermittent pad washes and reversing stabs. The focus here is firmly on the drums and simple conga riff with thankfully very little else to deter you from this sublime slice of abstract dance music.

Next up we have a remix from another ridiculously talented producer who chooses quality over quantity, having only ever had one release under his own name, albeit for one of the most respected labels in the world; Rush Hour. Maxi Mill came to our attention having released one of the tracks of 2011 namely To The Next. On this, his first ever solo remix he brings a brilliant bump to the EP with a raw, warehousey and bass-heavy workout. Just the right amount of strings and pads keep the deep vibe intact but the filtering bass and jacking drums definitely take this one to the floor.

Flipping over we have Walberswick in it's Hoist Covert Mix incarnation. Almost thirteen minutes of spaced out, deep Detroit house music awaits you, ready to lure you in and cocoon you with it's warm and hypnotizing machine funk. Lovely to hear the old Stasis influence working it's way into this one sounding both decidedly old-school and completely futuristic and otherworldly as only the best tracks ever do.

Closing the EP we have Birdbrook Rain dropping the BPM's for a beautifully sparse track that brings with it an almost desolate and disconnected feeling, echoing synths providing a naive melody while a dusty pad shifts simply beneath. A little slice of magic concluding a fresh and interesting EP, we hope you agree.

Neuauflage von Soulwax bahnbrechenden Album 'Much Against Everyone’s Advice' als Doppel-LP. Die belgischen Electronic-Pioniere haben 1998 durch die Vermischung von Rock, Dance und Electronica eine faszinierende Klanglandschaft geschaffen, die zeitlos ist und eine dynamische Energie hat, die noch heute ihresgleichen sucht. Für langjährige Fans als auch für Neueinsteiger ein Muss!

Clear Vinyl

Since her re-discovery in 2013 via cult favourite The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits, The Space Lady’s mission of galactic peace and celestial harmony has grown into a world-wide underground phenomenon. Recorded in 1990, The Space Lady’s original repertoire is a parallel universe greatest hits: songs familiar are transmogrified into shimmering bliss while new compositions amplify the message. The Space Lady’s Other Hits, released on April 20th for Record Store Day 2024, constitutes the songs recorded by Susan “The Space Lady” Dietrich Schneider as part of that repertoire that never made the original Greatest Hits, save for a limited bonus CD on the first CD pressing. Remastered by Mikey Love for vinyl, The Space Lady’s Other Hits completes the picture.

The Space Lady began her odyssey on the streets of Boston in the late 70s, then San Francisco ten years later, playing versions of contemporary pop music with an accordion and dressed flamboyantly. Following the theft and destruction of her accordion , The Space Lady invested in a then-new Casio keyboard, complete with a phase shifter, delay pedal and headset mic, birthing an otherworldly new dimension to popular song that has captured the imaginations of the underground and its leading exponents ever since.

The Space Lady’s Other Hits were recorded as they were played on the street, live, one-take, with Schneider playing, singing and simultaneously manipulating the various effects. Beginning with Elvis Presley’s iconic All Shook Up, the walking bassline underpinning the vocal, phasing in and out of this dimension, providing a fragile, extraterrestrial shadow to Presley’s original lust-driven performance. Slapback Boomerang is an original composition, written by Schneider’s then-husband Joel Dunsany a Rock ’n’ Roll pounder that could have been performed by The Cramps, its tale of relationship turmoil changed into a meditation on the nature of echo and feedback. There are moments where Schneider performs vocal caesuras, swimming in delay and phase for the pleasure of it, a pantomime drama performance that rings out. Closing Side B, Puttin’ On The Ritz is Irving Berlin’s 20s smash hit manipulated into a sombre ballad with its latent class struggle narrative brought to the fore.

A staple of The Space Lady’s performances to this day, Golden Earring’s 70s global hit Radar Love retains something of the original’s driving gallop but in The Space Lady’s telling it is shorn of the tight-trousered, taut machismo. The Space Lady coos and reaches up into the heavens away from the road, the phaser waves drenching the composition with transcendence.
Schneider’s falsetto performances in the choruses do nothing but lift the spirits ever-arching upwards. Next, The Space Lady emasculated Jim Morrison’s performance in The Doors’ 20th Century Fox. Faithfully playing Ray Manzarek’s keyboard parts on her Casio, Schneider disintegrates Morrison’s lust into waves of echo and delay, creating a Dubbed out version of the song, sounding eroded and decayed in all its ghostly glory. Pioneering Rock ’n’ Roll outfit Pete & The Pirates’ 1960 hot Shakin’ All Over, something of a response to Elvis’ All Shook Up, is blown out in warm fuzz and the celestial hug of The Space Lady’s
spirit.

Reissue of the first three 12” in the record series dedicated to musicians who took part in the Greetings festival. It happened in 1987, it was time for Materiali Sonori 10th anniversary, an historic goal for the label/collective born in the small Tuscany village of San Giovanni Valdarno. The small celebration brought to life a box collecting the first 3 Eps of the Greetings from S.G.V. series. The series was intended as symbolic sound postcard, made with various musicians with whom the collective label shared a path, whether small or long. The Durutti Column, The Stockholm Monsters and Blaine R. Reininger (Tuxedomoon) are among the artist who took part to the project, here collected for the very first time. Lantern is pleased to pay tribute to the work of people whose passion, attitude, commitment and genuineness inspired this adventure still true to these days. "Our presence in this small tuscan town is almost casual... physically we were born and grew up here, while our hearts and our minds were travelling to Paris, Berlin, Brussels, New York or London" (Giampiero Bigazzi of Marteriali Sonori , taken from the original inner sleeves notes).

Reissued for the very first time on vinyl here's Prince Alla's (aka Keith Blake) debut album, under the Ras Allah pseudonym, originally released on Tappa Zukie's Stars Records in 1978. Featuring a who's who of the roots reggae community with top notch contributions from the likes of Sly & Robbie, Earl ‘Chinna’ Smith, Don Drummond Jr., Bingy Bunny (Roots Radics) and more. Recorded at the almighty Black Ark and mixed at Tubby's. Produced and Arranged by Tappa Zukie.

A groundbreaking album, originally released on Belgian label Antler in 1984. Fesobi Olawaiye debut is finally been re-issued, showcasing the incredible talent of the African musician, a longtime Fela Kuti associate in the legendary Afrika 70. Ander the moniker Feso Trombone he just prove an authentically brilliance, moving forward the afro-beat dogma while providing incredible white funk harmonies and contagious rare groove. Remastered from the original tapes!

Silent, Listening ist eine essentielle Ergänzung zu ECMs renommierter Reihe von Solo-Klavieraufnahmen mit einem der herausragendsten improvisierenden Pianisten unserer Zeit: Fred Hersch. Das Album umfasst sieben Eigenkompositionen sowie eine Handvoll Standards, darunter Billy Strayhorns ”Star-Crossed Lovers”, Sigmund Rombergs ”Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise”, Alec Wilders ”Winter Of My Discontent” und Russ Freemans ”The Wind”. Hersch geht die Musik durchweg mit jener seltenen Konzentration, Sensibilität und Eleganz an, für die der Jazz-Doyen bekannt ist. Das Album wurde mit dem Produzenten Manfred Eicher in der besonderen Akustik des Studios in Lugano entwickelt und im Mai 2023 aufgenommen.

2024 RSD Release

Montreal's finest, Dave Allison, returns with a 2xLP packed with disco-funk party flips, deep atmospheric soundscapes, lounging pool vibes, and captivating deep house journeys for the club. His tracks and EPs have consistently dominated the hype charts, earning acclaim from luminaries and trendsetters worldwide, including Dimitri From Paris, Greg Wilson, Jimpster, Soul Clap, Tensnake, Lovebirds, The Revenge & more. Limited edition 2 x LP Purple Vinyl pressing with exclusive vinyl-only tracks.

2024 RSD Release

What we gonna do right here is go back, way back, back into time…and one of the most sampled refrains in dance music history. A 7 inch double header of two of the biggest records from the Jimmy Castor Bunch, the 1 million plus selling ‘Troglodyte’, flipped with ‘It’s Just Begun’. This funk masterpiece lit up the Bronx in the ‘70’s and was the spark from where Hip Hop caught fire. Get in early and go in hard. Funk, Soul, Hip Hop and dance fans all need this beaut. Original RCA labels and sleeve, all remastered for 2024.

The sophomore album from acclaimed US musician Vanderwolf and follow-up to 2022 debut '12 Little Killers' ("Soul, gospel, theatrical rock and more" Mojo), 'The Great Bewilderment' is a major rock record full of big emotions and adventurous songs. Whereas '12 Little Killers' was written and recorded during Vanderwolf's final years in London following the break-up of his semi-legendary band Last Man Standing, 'The Great Bewilderment' was mostly written during the pandemic, during which he relocated from New York to Los Angeles. For the recording, Vanderwolf reached out to an old friend, drummer Angie Scarpa, while a recommendation from John Cale's guitarist, Dusty Meadows, led to bassist H Chris Roy joining the band. Tim Sonnefeld contributes a variety of guitars, including beautiful crying feedback throughout album centrepiece "Gaza", which also features a guitar solo from Portishead's Adrian Utley. The album title itself is drawn from the mood of writing music during the pandemic. "I think we're still in that great bewilderment," insists Vanderwolf. "With threats to democracy, the division of opinion, plus this latest war on top of the war in Ukraine, and the climate crisis becoming acute, there's a looming sense that there's nothing we can do. 14 years of Tory corruption in an alleged democracy...that is bewildering. That a twice impeached President with 91 indictments against him can be the frontrunner in a presidential election...that is bewildering." As a music programmer and concert producer, Max Vanderwolf has worked for some of the worlds' most celebrated clubs and concert venues. These include New York's legendary Knitting Factory and London's internationally renowned Royal Festival Hall, where for 9 years he produced the Meltdown Festival working closely with artists including David Bowie, Patti Smith, Jarvis Cocker, Massive Attack and Ornette Coleman.

Delphine Dora is a prolific composer, improviser and musician who has released on a plethora of labels including Recital, Morc, Sloow Tapes, Feeding Tube, Okraïna and more, and ‘Le Grand Passage’ is her Modern Love debut, a stunning set of songs for piano and voice, recorded in one take without overdubs or edits.

In an act of pure expression, Delphine Dora recorded the 8 songs of ‘The Great Passage’ in a single take, succumbing to a whirlwind of inspiration that transported her beyond the material world. Baroque paradigms bleed into fragile, introspective mantras, expressed through a made up language of existential yearning and channeled through piano and voice. It’s music that caresses the sublime, made without any premeditation.

Delphine was nearing the end of a three-day prepared piano residency when an technician stepped in to tune her grand piano for her final performance. He removed the objects from the strings and fixed the pitch, leaving Dora with a freshly tuned instrument. Mesmerised by its new sound, she proceeded to switch on her recorder and pour out her soul, channeling, in her own words, "something greater than myself".

The result is some of the most unusual but elevated material the prolific composer, improviser and multi-instrumentalist has ever recorded, rooted in a deep understanding of European musical history but willing to push at its boundaries, questioning the earthly logic of life and death, asceticism and impiety. Glistening imperfections lash 'The Great Passage' to the physical world, but Dora - seemingly possessed as she quivers in a fictional dialect - lets her fantasies intensify her spirit, lifting the music towards the heavens. It's not sacred music, per se, but it is unashamedly mystical.

On the luxurious, languid opening, Dora dissolves eerily familiar romantic piano motifs into an attentive ceremony, singing with charged emotion. Her words aren't really decipherable, but their resonance vibrates beyond language; it's striking to hear how confident she is in vulnerability. She lets the piano wrap into her voice, connecting us directly to a unique mode of emotional expression by urging us - the listener - to project our own meaning onto her abstracted words.

Dora refers to the act of improvisation itself as a way to indicate "the fragility of being”, and as her words blur in and out of focus, dipping from a hoarse croak to a choking wail, she places herself at the very edge of musical formality, questioning strictures put in place to suffocate self-expression. Her music has often been labeled "outsider", but here she sounds intimate and interconnected, more self-consciously candid than anything traditional might have allowed. She conjures affecting, plainspoken poetry, like a bedside diary written in a hypnagogic, delirious state: a stream-of-unconsciousness, channelling the beyond.

The album title connects to a book dedicated to French philosopher and activist Simone Weil, who famously pored over global religions to ascertain spiritual truths. To Weil, meditation was a passage to access mystical experience, or a bridge between humanity and divinity. In Dora's hands, this idea is a corridor between herself and the listener, a liminal place where she's able to address feelings without making anything explicit. The title, of course, also refers to life, its impermanence, finitude, and fragility, presenting the complex, multi-dimensionality of being through one of the most undiluted, unbridled set of songs imaginable.