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Sieben lange Jahre nach der letzten Platte ist „The God Machine“ der sehnsüchtig erwartete Schulterschluss zwischen den frühen Neunzigern und der ausgebufften Raffinesse der Gegenwart. Ein beeindruckendes Album, das die letzten Werke keineswegs ignoriert, aber Komplexität und, Orchesterwucht bewusst in den Hintergrund rückt. „The God Machine“ ist das „Imaginations From The Other Side“ des Jahres 2022, komponiert, arrangiert und vor allem entfesselt von einer Band, die 27 Jahre Zeit hatte, ihren Stil zu perfektionieren. Dieser Spagat ist durchaus als Marschrichtung zu verstehen. „Wir wollten nicht einfach unsere Qualitäten von 1995 herausstellen, aber wir wollten diesen komplexen Weg definitiv nicht auf ewig weitergehen. ‚The God Machine‘ ist ein Neuanfang für uns. Wir haben die Weichen neu gestellt und uns auf gewisse Dinge besonnen, die wir auf den letzten Alben ein wenig vernachlässigt haben.“

„The God Machine“ ist, das wird schnell offenbar, die mühelose Spitze ihres bisherigen Schaffens. Ein Album, das gar nicht erst versucht so zu tun, als wären es noch die Neunziger, und sich stattdessen auf die Muskelerinnerung der damaligen Zeit verlässt. Hochgradig infektiös, beseelt von den Frodos, Peter Pans und Kapitän Nemos der Vergangenheit, ein packendes, aggressives, hochmelodisches und bei aller Zugänglichkeit brillant arrangiertes Album, beseelt von Magie und dennoch kein reiner Eskapismus. Ein modernes Meisterwerk in der Tradition jener Werke, mit denen BLIND GUARDIAN in den Neunzigern nach den Sternen griffen.

Picture Vinyl

Sieben lange Jahre nach der letzten Platte ist „The God Machine“ der sehnsüchtig erwartete Schulterschluss zwischen den frühen Neunzigern und der ausgebufften Raffinesse der Gegenwart. Ein beeindruckendes Album, das die letzten Werke keineswegs ignoriert, aber Komplexität und, Orchesterwucht bewusst in den Hintergrund rückt. „The God Machine“ ist das „Imaginations From The Other Side“ des Jahres 2022, komponiert, arrangiert und vor allem entfesselt von einer Band, die 27 Jahre Zeit hatte, ihren Stil zu perfektionieren. Dieser Spagat ist durchaus als Marschrichtung zu verstehen. „Wir wollten nicht einfach unsere Qualitäten von 1995 herausstellen, aber wir wollten diesen komplexen Weg definitiv nicht auf ewig weitergehen. ‚The God Machine‘ ist ein Neuanfang für uns. Wir haben die Weichen neu gestellt und uns auf gewisse Dinge besonnen, die wir auf den letzten Alben ein wenig vernachlässigt haben.“

„The God Machine“ ist, das wird schnell offenbar, die mühelose Spitze ihres bisherigen Schaffens. Ein Album, das gar nicht erst versucht so zu tun, als wären es noch die Neunziger, und sich stattdessen auf die Muskelerinnerung der damaligen Zeit verlässt. Hochgradig infektiös, beseelt von den Frodos, Peter Pans und Kapitän Nemos der Vergangenheit, ein packendes, aggressives, hochmelodisches und bei aller Zugänglichkeit brillant arrangiertes Album, beseelt von Magie und dennoch kein reiner Eskapismus. Ein modernes Meisterwerk in der Tradition jener Werke, mit denen BLIND GUARDIAN in den Neunzigern nach den Sternen griffen.

Coloured Vinyl

WRWTFWW Records is absolutely honored to announce the release of Kenji Kawai’s complete soundtrack to Mamoru Oshii's 1993 superb political thriller science-fiction mecha anime PATLABOR 2: The Movie, available on vinyl for the first time ever and housed in a beautiful heavy gatefold sleeve with obi, as well as on digipack CD. Both versions come with liner notes by the great Masaaki Hara.
A true soundtrack maestro, Kenji Kawai is behind the legendary soundscapes of cult animes and movies such as Ghost in the Shell, Avalon, Ring, Ip Man, and Seven Swords among numerous others. PATLABOR 2: The Movie (Original Soundtrack) is one of his most experimental offerings, an outstanding palette of emotion-filled ambient atmospherics and percussion mastery breathing beautifully through Kawai’s minimalism meets modern classical approach. His symphony of moods paints a delicate picture of urban isolation, a central theme in the movie, but doesn’t hide hints of hope for a joyful future.
PATLABOR 2: The Movie (Original Soundtrack) is an ideal companion to Kenji Kawai’s Ghost in the Shell soundtrack, already available on WRWTFWW Records.

Tansparent Red Vinyl

Sieben lange Jahre nach der letzten Platte ist „The God Machine“ der sehnsüchtig erwartete Schulterschluss zwischen den frühen Neunzigern und der ausgebufften Raffinesse der Gegenwart. Ein beeindruckendes Album, das die letzten Werke keineswegs ignoriert, aber Komplexität und, Orchesterwucht bewusst in den Hintergrund rückt. „The God Machine“ ist das „Imaginations From The Other Side“ des Jahres 2022, komponiert, arrangiert und vor allem entfesselt von einer Band, die 27 Jahre Zeit hatte, ihren Stil zu perfektionieren. Dieser Spagat ist durchaus als Marschrichtung zu verstehen. „Wir wollten nicht einfach unsere Qualitäten von 1995 herausstellen, aber wir wollten diesen komplexen Weg definitiv nicht auf ewig weitergehen. ‚The God Machine‘ ist ein Neuanfang für uns. Wir haben die Weichen neu gestellt und uns auf gewisse Dinge besonnen, die wir auf den letzten Alben ein wenig vernachlässigt haben.“

„The God Machine“ ist, das wird schnell offenbar, die mühelose Spitze ihres bisherigen Schaffens. Ein Album, das gar nicht erst versucht so zu tun, als wären es noch die Neunziger, und sich stattdessen auf die Muskelerinnerung der damaligen Zeit verlässt. Hochgradig infektiös, beseelt von den Frodos, Peter Pans und Kapitän Nemos der Vergangenheit, ein packendes, aggressives, hochmelodisches und bei aller Zugänglichkeit brillant arrangiertes Album, beseelt von Magie und dennoch kein reiner Eskapismus. Ein modernes Meisterwerk in der Tradition jener Werke, mit denen BLIND GUARDIAN in den Neunzigern nach den Sternen griffen.

Sababa 5 sharpens their euphoric Middle Eastern psych sound into an infectious four-track EP, featuring vocal revelation Shiran Tzfira, recorded here for the very first time. Together they reinterpret the traditional Yemenite songs of Shiran’s childhood into modern and irresistible blends of disco, funk, boogie, pop, and rock.

Tel Aviv based four-piece Sababa 5 is a supergroup of musicians from the local scene, steeped in psych rock, funk, the traditional Yemenite music that gave birth to popular Mizrahi Israeli music, and traditions from across the Mediterranean and the Middle East that have long blended into one another. Between them, they have played with everyone from the Hoodna Orchestra, Tigris, and Kutiman Orchestra to widely known vocalists such as Gili Yalo, Ester Rada, and Liraz Charhi.

Sababa 5’s catchy instrumentals and popular songs such as “Tokyo Midnight” have gained attention from the likes of BBC 6 Radio Music’s Gilles Peterson, Cerys Mathews, and Gideon Coe, Rashad “Ringo” Smith, and France’s leading purveyor of alternative sounds, Radio Nova.

Growing up in a traditional Yemenite Jewish household, Shiran Tzfira was heavily influenced by both the Jewish and Arabic traditional songs that play a major role in Yemenite culture. But her soulful, soft, yet powerful voice betrays a love of not only singers of Yemenite heritage, such as Ofra Haza and Balqees but also Western artists such as Stevie Wonder and Erykah Badu. Subsequently, Shiran has gained many fans in the Arab world, especially in Yemen, where she has been dubbed the Israeli Balqees”.

Doublepack of thumpin' repetetive soulful housejams from 1997 by the team of Woody Mcbride and Dave Stevens, Re-mastered re-issue

The Hammond Organ is lead singer on this soulful and orchestral journey about industrial decay and the death of the steel town. Deep from the rusted steel mills of Youngstown Ohio, we bring you the much-anticipated reissue of the melting debut from the Scone Cash Players. It's the same organist that brought you the screaming organ on all those Daptone favorites from The Sugarman Three. Scone was behind that organ bench on the modern classics as follows. "Sugar's Boogaloo", "Soul Donkey", "Pure Cane Sugar", and "What the World Needs Now." Adam Scone entered the studio on Dunham Street in Brooklyn. He was wearing a blue Adidas jump suit. The studio had just opened. At the helm were his old compadres from The Dap-Kings. Namely Thomas Brenneck, Eric Kalb, Homer Steinweiss and lan Hendrickson-Smith. They make up the "Bliss Machine" behind Scones's groove. It was a truly rare moment to catch these masters of music and taste in between tours of Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley. Tommy put the mics around. Scone powered up the organ. The analog tape machine turned and turned until they couldn't turn any more. These songs were recorded. We worked all day and all night. Tears were shed. Espresso was made. There was beer on tap. 3 days of life were taken to make this album. We will never get them back. They were distilled to 40 minutes of pure emotion. It's a tale of woe. It's a tale of leaving art for responsibility. It's a farewell to an era. It's a journey that the Hammond B3 organ wasn't accustomed to. You can't compare this album to any other organ record. Don't expect to hear what you want. Free your mind. Be open. Your world is going to feel the heat of the BLAST FURNACE! It never quite feels how you want it to. Don't get burned... FOR FANS OF: Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble, New Mastersounds, Soulive, Jimmy Smith, Khruangbin

Hudson Mohawke ist für viele ein Produzent, der neben Leuten wie Flying Lotus und Oneohtrix Point Never die moderne Ära von Warp definiert hat. Seine Talente als Klangkünstler und Clubagitator kommen auf 'Cry Sugar' voll zur Geltung, was sich wie das kompromisslose Hudson Mohawke-Album anfühlt, auf das wir alle gewartet haben, auf dem er seine Faszination der Verschmelzung von Hoch- und Trivialkultur auslebt. Schließlich ist er der Architekt der hochauflösenden Trap-Produktion, die sich in den 2010er Jahren zu einem Stil entwickelt hat, der überall - von mit Bierdosen übersäten College-Partys bis hin zu Arby's-Werbespots - Verwendung findet. Amerikanische Dekadenz wird so zu einer Bühne, auf der seine Musik gedeihen kann - der DJ-Pult wird für ihn zum Komponistenpodium, auf dem er das spannungsgeladene Drama zwischen Ausschweifung und Apokalypse inszeniert, die 'mise-en-scene' der Clubkultur 2022.

Experimental electronic instrumentals reminiscent of early Eno, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, euro and west coast synth wave. Haunting gatefold computer graphics by SF artist Ruby Ray

JON GOMM'S 'THE FAINTEST IDEA' WILL BE REISSUED ON VINYL FOR
THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2020.Jon Gomm, the UK based acoustic guitar
virtuoso, finds new emotional depths in immense melodic pop
landscapes, with his 'The Faintest Idea'
As one of the pioneers of the modern fingerstyle sound, Jon Gomm has a rare gift
for turning one instrument into what feels like an entire orchestra. The singersongwriter's 2003 home- recorded debut, 'Hypertension', was nothing short of a
musical revelation. Things changed for Jon when landmark single 'Passionflower'
racked up millions of views on YouTube & other media platforms in 2012 – with
British legend Stephen Fry describing him on mainstream television as someone
"playing the guitar in a way I'd never seen it played before" & "an all-round genius".
The Faintest Idea's title is based on the notion that all of us, to some extent, are
just 'The Faintest Idea', "It's an enigmatic title," says Gomm. "There's a fine line
between a metaphor & a pun, so I guess it dances on that" & explores the
contrasts between the warmth of Gomm's acoustic articulation with more icy
affairs, thanks to the synth parts & production work from Australian musician
Andy Sorenson, together they have created a contemporary masterpiece.
The Faintest Idea's immersive & emotional 11 tracks see a musician coming to
terms with the talents that got him recognised & choosing to evolve into the
unexpected. This album just boils down to the magic of one man with his guitar &
voice. And what a powerful magic it is.
The album is complemented by the delicate hand drawn pen & ink cover art
created by Lee Zimmerman. 'The Faintest Idea' is issued via Kscope on Black LP.

Since his introduction in the 60’s, Roger Damawuzan has lit stages on fire, whether it be with The Rickers Orchestra or with The Melo-Togo Orchestra (taking home 2nd place for the first National Festival of Tologese Music). His first 7" vinyl Wait For Me is a holy grail for diggers all around the world. It was such a hit that Togolese music is and will forever be stamped by Roger Damawuzan. He was principal in introducing Gazo, Akpesse and Kamou rhythms to modern day soul music. Relentless and unstoppable, Roger Damawuzan is now making a comeback with a heavy funk 7 inch!

This release contains an unreleased single from the album Seda , which will be available on October 14th 2022. Such a force of nature, this album could have been only captured, if not mastered, by one studio. Such mission was accomplished by the legendary studio OTODI (Office Togolese of Disks) by utilizing solely analog equipment to translate and to breath all of Damawuzan’s soul into this album. Roger Damawuzan could have been supported by only one group. Led by Peter Solo, the members of the Vaudou Game and Lomé’s most talented musicians are at Damawuzan’s disposal for this new soul DJ friendly vinyl.

When you talk about the origins of jungle music, DJ Dextrous is most definitely cited as a name that helped define the genre. His tracks were always on heavy rotation on the mighty Kool FM and every Jungle/DnB radio station across the country. Dextrous VIP dubplate specials were weapons in the record bags of Micky Finn, DJ Ron, Kenny Ken and his old mate from school DJ Hype!

The 1994 Jungle anthem Charged was released on the ground-breaking Suburban Base Records imprint as part of a ‘King Of The Jungle’ Trilogy. Now updated for 2022 Charged gets a couple of fresh licks from two modern day jungle specialists, backed up with original and VIP exclusive versions, all packaged on a beautiful 12” vinyl picture disc.

First up are the mighty Serial Killaz who’ve taken the original track and applied their trademark, award winning sound which has seen them releasing on Congo Natty, Philly Blunt, Souped Up and their own self-titled Serial Killaz label.

Next up is AKAS who’s recent Old Skool New Skool track on DeVice spend almost 3 months in the Beatport Top 10!! AKAS keeps things jungle for his Charged remix but tweaks the elements and pushes the genre to have the maximum impact on any dancefloor across clubs or festivals.

On the flip is an original unreleased VIP dubplate version, sourced from the archives or Da Kings Of The Jungle studio DAT recordings, which DJ Dextrous was playing in his sets exclusively.
Finally we have the classic original mix of Charged which has been beautifully remastered from the original source recording to make this picture disc release sound as good as it possibly can.
This is an extremely limited pressing & will never be re-issued so we’d advise jungle aficionados, both new & old, to buy on sight!!

Alexandra Sauser-Monnig and Amelia Meath have been yodeling together for upwards of fifteen years – in the backseat of a Prius while on their first cross-country tour, on back porches and backstages. It’s what led them to Fruit, their debut release as The A’s – a joyous ten-song collection spanning genre and decades, with interpretations of traditionals, lullabies, and an original song, it weaves between the weird and the wonderful. “Why I’m Grieving,” originally recorded by the DeZurik Sisters, was the inspiration for the A’s existence. The A’s reach into the past to hold hands with the DeZurik Sisters, two farm girls from rural Minnesota who taught themselves to yodel amongst all their animals, in a continuing celebration of the tradition of folk eccentricity and whimsy. The A’s played their first show together in 2013 after Sauser-Monnig first moved to North Carolina, where Meath had been living at the time, but it wasn’t until summer 2021 that they thought seriously about making Fruit. They decamped to Sylvan Esso’s Chapel Hill studio, Betty’s, for two weeks in the midst of a balmy and blooming Carolinian summer. They rehearsed during the day, deconstructing yodeling parts phonetically and staring absurdly into each other’s eyes as they practiced tongue twisting harmonies - and recorded in the nighttime, candles lit, a flickering glow against the windows framing the violet twilight outside. “There was a lot of giggling during the session,” Sauser-Monnig explains. “At one point I was getting a tangle out of my hair and was like, oh, my God, that sounds really cool – the sound of my hands in my hair. And then I thought, what if we recorded hair for a percussion track? And then it just sort of snowballed.” Across the record, the A’s employ a bizarre-o ghost orchestra of strange noises that are percussive and melodic. The credits include nylon shorts, string (singular), hair, shoes, ice chunk, gravel, frog sample, and shoelace, among other unexpected makeshift instrumentation. The backing band is built out by a more traditional group of players: saxophone from Sam Gendel on “Copper Kettle,” backing vocals from Jenn Wasner (Flock of Dimes, Wye Oak) on “When I Die,” string arrangements from Gabriel Kahane on “He Needs Me,” and more. Fruit is made up simply of songs the A’s love to sing – there are lullabies and love songs; “He Needs Me,” written by Harry Nilsson and first released by Shelley Duvall in the 1980 Popeye film; traditional ballads like “Swing and Turn Jubilee,” “Copper Kettle” and closer “Buckeye Jim,” a multiplying song about frogs and nature. The sole original track to appear on the album is the penultimate “When I Die,” written by Meath. It contains both wishes and instructions for the celebration of her death, a low synth bubbling beneath Sauser-Monnig and Meath’s voices. It’s a collection of ten seemingly incongruous songs, but with the throughline of Sauser-Monnig and Meath’s vocals and sense of humor working in tandem, they fit together into a cosmic yodeling-folk masterpiece. Fruit feels like blowing the dust off a precious artifact of decades past, but also winking and modern. Sauser-Monnig sums up their ethos on the project succinctly: “If it doesn’t make you cackle or cry, it doesn’t belong.”

Lonely Robot kehrt mit 'A Model Life' zurück. John Mitchell erkundet auf diesem Album neues Territorium, indem er einen weitläufigeren Sound kreiert, ohne dabei sein angeborenes Gespür für große Melodien und noch größere Refrains zu vernachlässigen.

Auf dem zweiten Album von Oehl wird geweint, gestorben und gescheitert. Vor allem aber wird auf 'Keine Blumen' unverblümt gelebt. Deutsch-Pop hat noch nie archaischer und gleichzeitig moderner geklungen, neue Empfindsamkeit noch nie so viel Spaß gemacht. Produziert wurde das Werk, das voller außergewöhnlicher Melodien steckt, von Marco Kleebauer (Bilderbuch, Sharktank) und Niklas Apfel (Kaltenkirchen). Bis Ende 2021 war Oehl ein Duo des Wiener Liedermachers Ariel Oehl mit dem isländischen Multiinstrumentalisten Hjörtur Hjörleifsson. Seit Beginn 2022 tritt Oehl als Soloprojekt auf. Ariel Oehl, der namensgebende Sänger, bleibt dabei den poetischen Miniaturen treu, die er auf trockenen Beats und eingängigen Bass-Riffs á la Tame Impala mit seiner sanften Stimme serviert und die im deutschen Sprachraum unvergleichlich sind. Ergänzt wird der Sound um crunchige E-Gitarren, die auch auf die Live-Umsetzung in 2022 neugierig machen.

"Art is awe, art is mystery expressed," writes Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. "Art is somatic, even if it is experienced cerebrally. It is felt." The central mysteries of Smith's ninth studio album, Let's Turn it Into Sound, have to do with perception, expression, and communication: How can we communicate when spoken language is inadequate? How do we understand what it is we're feeling? How do we translate our experience of the world into something that someone else can understand? For Smith, a self-described "feeler," the answers are inspired by compound words in non-English languages, translation, sculptural fashion, dance, butoh, wushu shaolin, and other forms of sensory and somatic experience. Just like fashion uses lines, shapes, colors, textures, and silhouettes to communicate on a sensual level separate from the conscious mind, Let's Turn it Into Sound strives to use sound to communicate what words alone cannot. "The album is a puzzle," Smith says. "It is a symbol of receiving a compound of a ton of feelings from going out into a situation, and the song titles are instructions to breaking apart the feelings and understanding them." The energized "Is it Me or is it You" comes from traversing the gaps between how you see yourself and how another might see you, through a filter of their own projections. The hushed sense of revelation that brackets "There is Something" refers to the feeling of walking into a room and being subconsciously aware of the dynamic present. All the while, Smith interprets these feelings through sound. This auditory interpretation process, driven by earnest curiosity, led Smith to record some thoughts and questions that popped up along the journey in Somatic Hearing_a booklet which accompanies the album. Over three frenzied months, recording alone in her home studio, Smith allowed herself to pursue new experiments to accompany her usual toolkit of modular, analogue, and rare synthesizers (including her signature Buchla), orchestral sounds, and the voice. She created a new vocal processing technique, and gave herself permission to pursue a pacing that felt intuitive, rather one that followed typical song structures. She walked around in the windiest season with a subwoofer backpack and an umbrella, listening to the low end of the album amidst 60mph gusts. She listened to herself, and, in doing so, to an inner community which suddenly opened to her. Underlying the album is a dynamic relationship between what Smith describes as six distinct voices, each a multifaceted storyteller. By acknowledging these characters, she was acknowledging her whole being: the woven plurality of self, the complex process of noticing and resolving inner conflicts, and the joy of finding harmony in flux. "I started to feel so embodied by all of these characters. This is all the felt, unsaid stuff my inner community wants to communicate but it doesn't have the English language as its form of communication, and so this album was a form of giving space to let it talk and not judge it and just let it play." By not adhering to expected song structures, each song feels even more like a conversation, with each character getting to express themselves in full.

"Art is awe, art is mystery expressed," writes Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. "Art is somatic, even if it is experienced cerebrally. It is felt." The central mysteries of Smith's ninth studio album, Let's Turn it Into Sound, have to do with perception, expression, and communication: How can we communicate when spoken language is inadequate? How do we understand what it is we're feeling? How do we translate our experience of the world into something that someone else can understand? For Smith, a self-described "feeler," the answers are inspired by compound words in non-English languages, translation, sculptural fashion, dance, butoh, wushu shaolin, and other forms of sensory and somatic experience. Just like fashion uses lines, shapes, colors, textures, and silhouettes to communicate on a sensual level separate from the conscious mind, Let's Turn it Into Sound strives to use sound to communicate what words alone cannot. "The album is a puzzle," Smith says. "It is a symbol of receiving a compound of a ton of feelings from going out into a situation, and the song titles are instructions to breaking apart the feelings and understanding them." The energized "Is it Me or is it You" comes from traversing the gaps between how you see yourself and how another might see you, through a filter of their own projections. The hushed sense of revelation that brackets "There is Something" refers to the feeling of walking into a room and being subconsciously aware of the dynamic present. All the while, Smith interprets these feelings through sound. This auditory interpretation process, driven by earnest curiosity, led Smith to record some thoughts and questions that popped up along the journey in Somatic Hearing_a booklet which accompanies the album. Over three frenzied months, recording alone in her home studio, Smith allowed herself to pursue new experiments to accompany her usual toolkit of modular, analogue, and rare synthesizers (including her signature Buchla), orchestral sounds, and the voice. She created a new vocal processing technique, and gave herself permission to pursue a pacing that felt intuitive, rather one that followed typical song structures. She walked around in the windiest season with a subwoofer backpack and an umbrella, listening to the low end of the album amidst 60mph gusts. She listened to herself, and, in doing so, to an inner community which suddenly opened to her. Underlying the album is a dynamic relationship between what Smith describes as six distinct voices, each a multifaceted storyteller. By acknowledging these characters, she was acknowledging her whole being: the woven plurality of self, the complex process of noticing and resolving inner conflicts, and the joy of finding harmony in flux. "I started to feel so embodied by all of these characters. This is all the felt, unsaid stuff my inner community wants to communicate but it doesn't have the English language as its form of communication, and so this album was a form of giving space to let it talk and not judge it and just let it play." By not adhering to expected song structures, each song feels even more like a conversation, with each character getting to express themselves in full.

coloured vinyl.

* A classic and highly influential dub set from 1989, regarded by some as the one of the album’s that kick-started the UK dub scene revival along with the likes of Jah Shaka and Mad Professor.
* Produced by Sound Iration (Nick Manasseh & Scruff) and originally released on Youth’s Mr Modo label.
* 8 Pieces of bass-heavy dub cuts with melodica, flute and vocals floating in and out of the mix.
* This is the dub companion album to Tena St­elin - `Wicked Invention’ (PRTLLP013).

"Ein Tonband mit ihren frühesten Demos, aufgenommen am 11. Mai 1965 und bis heute unter Verschluss gehalten, zeigt Spuren von Dingen, die selten mit The Velvet Underground in Verbindung gebracht werden: Blues und Folk, erdig und traditionell, unsicher und zögerlich - und doch von diesem rostigen, ätzenden Lou Reed-Geist durchdrungen. Es ist eine Offenbarung." - Will Hodgkinson, MOJO. Light in the Attic Records ist stolz darauf, in Zusammenarbeit mit Laurie Anderson den ersten Titel ihrer fortlaufenden Lou Reed Archive Series vorzustellen: "Words & Music, Mai 1965". Das Album, das anlässlich des 80. Geburtstages des verstorbenen Künstlers erscheint, bietet einen außergewöhnlichen, ungeschminkten und ergreifenden Einblick in einen der wahrlich größten amerikanischen Poeten und Songwriter. Diese bisher unveröffentlichte Sammlung von Songs, die der junge Lou Reed mit Hilfe seines späteren Bandkollegen John Cale aufnahm und sich selbst als "Urheberrecht des armen Mannes" mit der Post zuschickte, wurde fast 50 Jahre lang ungeöffnet in einem Originalumschlag aufbewahrt. Der Inhalt verkörpert einige der wichtigsten und bahnbrechendsten Beiträge zur amerikanischen Popmusik im 20. Jahrhundert. Die fest in der Folk-Tradition verwurzelten Songs belegen Lous nachhaltigen Einfluss auf die Entwicklung der modernen amerikanischen Musik deutlich - vom Punk bis zum Art-Rock und allem, was dazwischen liegt. Diese Aufnahmen sind eine wahre Zeitkapsel und halten nicht nur die ersten Funken dessen fest, was die Keimzelle der unglaublich einflussreichen Velvet Underground werden sollte; sie machen Reed auch zu einem echten Beobachter mit einem angeborenen Talent, die Welt um ihn herum zu synthetisieren und in reine Klangpoesie zu verwandeln. Mit Beiträgen von Reeds zukünftigem Bandkollegen John Cale präsentiert "Words & Music, May 1965" die frühesten bekannten Aufnahmen so historischer Songs wie "Heroin", "I'm Waiting for the Man" und "Pale Blue Eyes", die Reed später mit Velvet Underground aufnehmen und unauslöschlich prägen sollte, in ihrer Gesamtheit. Außerdem sind mehrere bisher unveröffentlichte Kompositionen enthalten, die zusätzliche Einblicke in Reeds kreativen Prozess und seine frühen Einflüsse geben. Das Album wurde von Laurie Anderson, Don Fleming, Jason Stern, Hal Willner und Matt Sullivan produziert und enthält neu gemasterte Tonaufnahmen vom Originalband durch den GRAMMY-nominierten Toningenieur John Baldwin. Abgerundet wird das Paket durch neue Linernotes des renommierten Journalisten und Autors Greil Marcus sowie ausführliche Archivnotizen von Don Fleming und Jason Stern, die das Lou Reed Archiv betreuen, während die Veröffentlichung von dem mehrfach GRAMMY-prämierten Künstler Masaki Koike gestaltet wurde.