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Pain Management welcomes London cult favourite DJ ojo, who arrives on the label with a hazy three tracker of trademark nether zone system music. On his most dubbed out full length to date, ojo span’s the full emotive spectrum of dub sonics with a range of both the eerie and more tender expansions of low end atmospherics, the resulting 12” equally suited for the club and the journey home alike.

‘Tongue Tied’ opens the record, a lysergic offering from the darker edges of dub music. A slippery fugue-state hit of narco-ambience built around a crooning, intelligible vocal refrain and chest shot sub weight. A real nightfall system pusher built to simmer in the early hours. It kicks off the EP on an amorphous, hypnotic note that sustains throughout.‘Oil Dub’ sinks deeper into the fog, melodic kinesis and expansive delays upholding an underworld of feedbacked percussion and tongue in cheek sub motion; a seven minute sound bath of ambiguous dub ASMR.

The B-side balances out the darker strains found on its counterpart with an overtly tender digidub closer. Clocking in at almost ten minutes long ‘Cloud Suck’ is a nebulous bliss of perpetually ascending late-summer warmth. The kind of liminal dream-state embrace that you wish would never end. True to the name, it evokes tender, dusk and dawn hued moments, a quiet ride-home flash of introspection on the way to or from some pursuit of meaning. Pain Management essential right here.

Limited run of 200 hand-stamped 12” records available now.

The hypnagogic haze of purling, refractive dub is strong on Sleepdial’s debut for West Mineral, introducing a crafty new name to the scene after a teasing preview on that Peak Oil x NWAQ radio show, delivering a heavy-lidded dose of tattered ambient dub inversions.

Sleepdial chases a frayed thread of thought thru the fractal echo chambers of ‘RV Lights’, only their 2nd full-length under this alias, and first on vinyl. The 9-part album is optimised for getting smudged on sunny daze with its pursuit of elusive dub sprites that connote subaquatic or vaporous etheric themes in their elemental diffusions and world-building ecologies.

In equilibrium of ambient and dub-as-method, they tenderly tease the senses with a fine grasp of deferred gratification, oscillating abstract spatial navigations and ephemeral moments of heart-in-mouth euphoria. Where sometimes this stuff can err to a pleasant mess, the dub ballast here anchors proceedings in a rugged groove that really pushes the right buttons and elevates the whole thing in its own air.

Blessed with a compelling sensuality, tracks follow a course from the compressed contrails of ‘Purview’ to the helical shapes of ‘Dovetailing’ and thru beautifully pill-bellied sensations on ‘Icarus Rising’, into ruggeder, insectoid dub in ‘Blue August’ to short circuit agitated and soothing feels. That fractured sort of duality manifests at its most anxious yet enchanted in the unpicked strings and astral scree of ‘Lightplay’, and in the title and feel of ‘Lean Angst’, gently keeping heads on toes into the swirling pressure system of album sign-off ‘Airtank’.

More and more into an Aesthetic way, Hashtek23 bring here 32 long tunes, full of vibes and changes and radiation of acid industrial moments...
Beautiful !

Reissued vinyl of 2023 album HELLMODE.Jeff Rosenstock makes increasingly chaotic albums for an increasingly chaotic world. With each passing year, it feels like the temperature of the universe boils five degrees hotter, and with each new album, Rosenstock's music grows more unwieldy and lawless. Louder, faster, more feral. Which brings us to 2023_a planet on fire, a mere 90 seconds to midnight on the doomsday clock, and the release of Rosenstock's appropriately titled, anarchic record, HELLMODE. "To me, the album feels like the chaos of being alive right now," Rosenstock says of HELLMODE. "We're experiencing all these things at the same time that trigger our senses, and emotions that make us feel terrible. We're just feeling way too much all at once!" But for all its textured turmoil, there are also surprising glimpses of clarity and grace to be found in HELLMODE, when Rosenstock deliberately slows things down in places that are prettier and more delicate, rare moments of shelter in the storm. Which only makes it more rewarding when these moments unexpectedly unravel and spiral back into extreme, manic chaos, like abruptly being flung into a Nintendo game on level 99. Vinyl is transparent black ice coloured!

This is not the end of a dark alleyway in some US city, this is not the bottom of a platform heel in England, this is not the back corner of some dusty drawer at a record fair in Holland. These are not the places you’ll find rock and roll. This is Quebec: A different sensory perception of rock and roll. A heightened awareness of the highest highs and the lowest lows. This is Belgium with snowmobiles, Catholic Texas, Ugly France. All the crumbling highways, the coldest beers, and the loudest joints. Guitars do different things in Quebec. PUFFER shimmy across the invisible barricade between Montreal and the rest of the world not just as another crop of punks but as the great descendants and inheritors of modern greats like INEPSY’s “Rock and Roll Babylon” and ANNIHILATION TIME's “II.” Loud, brash, unrelenting. You’ll go deaf before you get bored of it.
Self produced, self recorded, and mixed by the band, this is the vanguard of punk that has lived long beyond it’s moments of origin. This pure blast of 1979 by way of the hellish weimar end-times of 2025 never made the necessity of punk rock feel so real.
FFO SLAUGHTER AND THE DOGS, the 222s, THE DISCORDS, MOTORHEAD, INEPSY, AA Restaurant, Montreal pool room, Katacombes, and the eternal flame of punk in La Belle Provence.

Available 13 June 2025 on double translucent orange vinyl, Trios captures the magic of Buddy Rich's legendary three- man jam sessions-- performances that have never been officially released until now. Recorded live during international concerts in 1976 and 1977, Trios showcases Rich alongside extraordinary talents: bassists Jon Burr and Tom Warrington, and young piano prodigy Barry Kiener. These trio interludes--recorded by Rich's alto saxophonist Alan Gauvin--feature Rich playing with brushes in an intimate setting, spotlighting his dynamic range and nuance. "These trio sets were often played to give the brass section a break," says Gauvin. "But what Buddy did with those moments was extraordinary. It was a masterclass in restraint, creativity, and musical interplay." Among the album's ten tracks are beautifully reimagined standards such as "Just Friends," "Stella by Starlight," and "My Romance." Each performance highlights Rich's desire to step back and allow the piano and bass to shine--something unheard of for a drummer of his stature. The release also serves as a tribute to Barry Kiener, the immensely gifted pianist who tragically passed away at 30. "Barry had been like a son to him," remembers Buddy's daughter Cathy Rich, who serves as an Executive Producer. "This album is a rare glimpse into Barry's brilliance and the deep musical bond he shared with my father." Trios was recorded and produced by Alan Gauvin, mastered by Tom Swift, with cover art by Michael Patterson, the award-winning visual artist and USC professor known for his work on a-ha's iconic "Take on Me" video.

Having spent the last half decade building up a name as a jazz and soul singer of rare distinction, Ada Morghe now presents her fourth album, 'Pure Good Vibes', which features the British reggae icon Maxi Priest A trip to Jamaica in January 2024 set 'Pure Good Vibes' in motion. Ada headed to th island after hearing that her bassist and producer Livingstone Brown, was flying the to work with Maxi Priest. It was an idea that was underlined by her desire to explo the music, culture and Jamaican heritage that had also shaped the lives of her oth band members Luke Smith (keyboard) and Josh McNasty (drums). The resulting album is a beautiful, intimate reflection on adult themes, such a keeping the passion alive, making the most of life's sweet moments and capturing th closeness of two people in love, which is underpinned by a sound that, though n beholden to Jamaica's musical traditions, certainly shares a spirit with them. The are other influences - such as Michael Kiwanuka's soulful fervour, the vibrancy of '60 R&B, and a love of Sade's 'Diamond Life'. Before stepping whole- heartedly into music, Ada Morghe was already a renowne actress and an award-winning author in her homeland of Germany. Having written an starred in the play-turned-film 'Frau Mutter Tier' and been asked to write songs for i soundtrack, she found herself working with former Prince sound engineer Han Martin Buff. That led her to Abbey Road studios in London, her debut album 'Picture and 2020's 'Box', an expression of her refusal to be tied down to any one genre o profession. From there came 2023's 'Lost', a free-flowing vocal jazz suite based on th four elements. 'Pure Good Vibes', however, pulls her toward what sounds like her most natural albu yet: sophisticated jazz and soul that deals with both the romance and reality o matters of the heart.

Shell Company & Older Brother tap into the Mancunian continuum to deliver heavy sounds for heavy times on 'Shards', their debut release on Numbers.

Born from voice notes sent between Manchester, London and Lisbon, the release took shape remotely before being recorded inside Manchester’s The White Hotel, then refined in the sonic labs of Numbers and La Chunky in Glasgow.

Set across one night, 'Shards' is the fragments of the never ending process of breakdown and placing pieces back together. Along four tracks, the voices of Shell Company (Rosabella Allen) and Older Brother begin far apart, then argue, reflect and collide, trying to find the ground they stand on, with the music laid by brothers Rob and Chris Banks. The two voices work both together and against each other, rendering images that could only exist in limbo: running taps, cans on the floor, and crumbling walls.

Shell Company & Older Brother say of the release —

“Shards is a scream that sings softly. A record that shifts between confusion and sense, hopelessness and hope. Despite moments of intense and perfect connection, the shards rarely fit. Shards is a record not about giving up, but giving in. A recording of the victory that comes from surrendering to float, all because 'it will all make sense one day'. Shards is about love that begins and ends with broken pieces."

With their EP triptych "Thee Church Ov Acid House Volume 1–3," Oliver Bradford and Jörn Elling Wuttke created a holy trinity of diverse dancefloor variations, a self-contained circle of rave history.

In itself already a heavyweight statement, which they now crowned with “Bells & Whistles - Thee Remixes”. So to speak the quadrature of the circle And as with their original material, this release also reveals a profound knowledge of dance history in the selection of remixers - combined with the best of the here and now.

A1:
The trip begins with Jamie Hodges' ( Born Under A Rhyming Planet ) version of “Acid House Planet”. Hodge was responsible for a number of legendary EPs on Richie Hawtin's Plus 8 label in the early 90s, which explored the deep poetry of techno music. In this sense his remix is also a delicate affair of rarely heard beauty.

A2:
There's Thee Church Ov Acid House themselves, who stretch the swinging groove of Tyson's “G Phunk”, far too short in the original, to almost six minutes. A groove that won't stop.

B1:
And that brings us to the next two legends, this time from the local area. D-Man and Move-D have had a significant influence on dancefloor culture between Heidelberg and Mannheim since its inception. Their lysergic “Theme” remix, with Terrence McKenna vocals and acid twist in the middle, is an epic open air classic to come.

B2:
Lennard Poschmann's aka O-Wells' version of “Rave Mantra”, on the other hand, is deep, digging bass techno for the darkest moments of the night.

Vinyl EP2 featuring remixes of Man Power, As One ( Kirk Degiorgio ), HRDVSION ( Nathan Jonson ), Cosmic Cars ( Pudel Produkte, Smallville, Bureau B )

On her debut album, Lucy Gooch stays true to her electronic foundations, while incorporating more acoustic instrumentation and digging deeper into her folk roots through songwriting. But at the heart of Lucy's music is her rapturous vocal, with which she has experimented more than ever over the course of her first full-length. Many of the pieces on 'Desert Window' started out as vocal improvisations from which she pulled a narrative. Taking cues from the incantatory chanting found in middle English poetry such as 'The Names of the Hare', as well as the prescient imagery in contemporary works like 'The Hearing Trumpet' by Leonora Carrington (1974). "To a larger extent, this became an experiment in placing my voice in a more narrative way, while remaining oblique," Gooch explains. While her previous work could be compared to drawn-out landscapes punctuated with moments of romance and radiance, this album feels grounded in materiality and the everyday. Gooch's voice is at times strident, while elsewhere restrained and broken. "I lost connection to my voice and then had to rediscover it, which was exhilarating. There were these bursts of energy where I'd be messing around and occasionally stumble upon something". There are hushed melodies and exhausted squalls, creating dissonance and space. The result is an atmospheric balance between Kate Bush and Cocteau Twins harmonies, Vangelis major chords, and a juxtaposition of folk ambience reminiscent of the offset madrigals of The Third Ear Band and Italian cult film composers Goblin. It is a complex and elegant album, an all-consuming series of songs that reach into jazz, electronica and classical song construction.

On her debut album, Lucy Gooch stays true to her electronic foundations, while incorporating more acoustic instrumentation and digging deeper into her folk roots through songwriting. But at the heart of Lucy's music is her rapturous vocal, with which she has experimented more than ever over the course of her first full-length. Many of the pieces on 'Desert Window' started out as vocal improvisations from which she pulled a narrative. Taking cues from the incantatory chanting found in middle English poetry such as 'The Names of the Hare', as well as the prescient imagery in contemporary works like 'The Hearing Trumpet' by Leonora Carrington (1974). "To a larger extent, this became an experiment in placing my voice in a more narrative way, while remaining oblique," Gooch explains. While her previous work could be compared to drawn-out landscapes punctuated with moments of romance and radiance, this album feels grounded in materiality and the everyday. Gooch's voice is at times strident, while elsewhere restrained and broken. "I lost connection to my voice and then had to rediscover it, which was exhilarating. There were these bursts of energy where I'd be messing around and occasionally stumble upon something". There are hushed melodies and exhausted squalls, creating dissonance and space. The result is an atmospheric balance between Kate Bush and Cocteau Twins harmonies, Vangelis major chords, and a juxtaposition of folk ambience reminiscent of the offset madrigals of The Third Ear Band and Italian cult film composers Goblin. It is a complex and elegant album, an all-consuming series of songs that reach into jazz, electronica and classical song construction.

o encapsulate the themes. “Aseurai means around you in the atmosphere, hard to reach, fading away,” Choi says. “It’s a poetic expression. You wouldn’t say it in normal conversation, but I like that.”

Following the four-piece band’s 2024 self-titled EP, Aseurai adds disco and city-pop influences while staying true to dream-pop roots. While Phoebe Rings was originally a solo project of Choi’s, Aseurai marks a shift with contributing songwriting credits from the whole band. The four musicians cut their teeth working on other notable NZ projects such as Princess Chelsea, Fazerdaze, Tiny Ruins, AC Freazy,, Sea Views and Lucky Boy.

With a more ambitious collection of instruments, Choi says this album heralds the start of true collaboration: “I feel more precious about this LP because it includes everyone’s gems.” Guitar/synthesist Simeon Kavanagh-Vincent spearheads unexpected arrangements, with bold fuzzy guitar textures, to spice up the mix. Benjamin Locke adds maturity to the lyrics, paired with perfectionist bass lines. And drummer Alex Freer’s slick production soars Aseurai to diverse and synergetic heights. The broth is richer with more cooks in the kitchen, and the brewing of textures creates a distinct ‘Phoebe Rings’ sound.

If the EP was spacey, then Aseurai settles on earth, rooted in tangible moments. “Without getting too gloomy, it’s a weird world out there. A lot has changed in the world since the EP came out,” says Kavanagh-Vincent on this transformation. The album delves into hope and longing across all possibilities, and this exploration of holding on and letting go is organically threaded throughout. Across ten songs, Phoebe Ring’s storytelling ranges from tongue-in-cheek musings on gentrification to tender autobiographical memories.

아스라이 흩어지는 하늘의 별이 (May the falling light of faraway stars) / 그대의 손 끝에 닿아 숨이 돼주길 (Reach your fingertips and let you breathe),” Choi sings in the title track “Aseurai.” Imagined as a breezy track inspired by a 90’s Korean pop band, Choi discovered, when fleshing out the lyrics, that it was about yearning for people she couldn’t see anymore. In the old-school disco track, “Get Up,” Locke addresses struggles with mental health in a Matrix-inspired driven mantra:  ‘Just get up / Just get up.’ The groove persists with ‘Fading Star,” a quirky ballad filled with steely jazz/rock guitar solos dedicated to a suburban aging musician. Kavanagh-Vincent’s lead single ‘Drifting’ is an unrequited celestial love song with bouncing bass and playful synths.

The band wrote, produced, and engineered the album across studios and band members’ homes in 2023/2024 in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland). It features mixing/mix production by local legend Jeremy Toy (Bic Runga, Aaradnha, Princess Chelsea) and mastering by Kelly Hibbert. With Aseurai, Phoebe Rings mark out a brilliant new constellation in their sky, bringing their individual compositions to the fore whilst seamlessly threading them into one celestial body - launching skyward on Carpark Records in June 2025.

Continuing in a series of studio albums, Serwed (OL & Flaty) present their new release - "V" (Five).

Stylistically, this album further develops the idea of blending aesthetics, operating at the intersection of post-club, downtempo, digital dub, electro-acoustic, neo-classical, score music, and musique concrete, creating a unique sonic space.
Catching the subtle nuances of self-reflection, this chamber-like, intimate work is primarily directed toward the subconscious and intuitive perception. The structure and form are driven by emotion, while aesthetics take a back seat, giving way to pure sense.
The compositions capture moments of insight, spontaneity, and live improvisation. Delicate yet expressive, carefree yet precise, "V" is a deeply immersive and personal experience.

LIMITED VINYL COMES IN CARDBOARD SLEEVE WITH BOOKLET!
OSTRANENIE is a collection of digitally manipulated, impressionistic piano miniatures — each named after blockbuster films and TV series. Improvised late at night as a reaction against passive media consumption, these pieces function as both homage and critique, navigating the space between classical impressionism and contemporary digital manipulation. They don’t just deconstruct traditional piano expression; they interrogate the emotional stakes of sound in an era where immersion culture flattens meaning and algorithmic logic erodes agency.

The album’s title references the Russian formalist Viktor Shklovsky’s concept of “ostranenie” (ɐstrɐˈnjenjɪj, estrangement/defamiliarization), a term he introduced in the early 1920s to describe art’s role in resisting the indifference of habitual perception.

“And so, held accountable for nothing, life fades into nothingness. Automation eats away at things, at clothes, at furniture, at our wives, and at our fear of war.”
—Viktor Shklovsky, Theory of Prose (1925)

Shklovsky saw art as a way to break through the anesthetizing effects of routine, stripping away the layers of habit that dull our senses. By making the familiar strange, art reclaims perception from the mechanical and the automatic. His argument wasn’t just a theoretical exercise — it was a response to a world rapidly consumed by industrialization, war machines, and the alienation of a technologically dominated modern life. In this context, he positioned artistic technique as something autonomous, distinct from mere social criticism or psychological reflection. Art seeks to remove “...the crust that the world of things deposits on our senses, with routine’s unending murder of the real.” Ben Ehrenreich on Serena Vitale’s Making Strange (The Nation, 2013)

This tension—between revolutionary/artistic and industrial technologies—defined the 20th century, and it continues to resonate today. The mechanization and automation that fueled the First World War’s devastation, alongside the social and economic turbulence of the 1920s, became central to the era’s self-conception. But just as technology was a source of alienation, it was also positioned as an agent of radical change. As the shock of modernity disrupted the human condition, it also became the driving force behind an ideological utopia — one that ultimately deformed into political totalitarianism — a paradox that remains unresolved.

OSTRANENIE plays within this contradiction. The music shifts seamlessly between an uncanny black MIDI dismantling of traditional piano virtuosity and moments of raw, fragile intimacy. The result is a work that resists automatic anonymity while questioning what it means to create in an era where the technological mediation of sound — and experience itself — is unavoidable: Art in the age of its technological constructedness.

Violent Delights is an anthology of stories that meanders through themes of grief, rage, desire and identity. There are stories of the toxicity of addiction, and growing up around religion; stories of overwhelming obsession, isolating abandonment, and empowering anthems of identity, and stark laments about sexual violence. They are each lived experiences, laid bare, reclaimed with every syllable whether dripping in spite or swagger, anger or anxiety. "Loss is a central theme of the album," explains vocalist Kate Price. "For us, we have our own specific version of what that is in these songs, but for anyone listening, it could be the loss of something else - a loved one, a relationship. But we're never mourning loss. We're celebrating it. Loss is almost universally looked at as a negative, but we're finding the positives in those moments. We had to go through hell to get to heaven. Violent Delights is about looking back with gratitude, and even fondness, the closing of one chapter and beginning of another." Jools - comprised of Kate Price, Mitch Gordon, Chris Johnston and Callum Connachie, Joe Dodd, and Chelsea Wrones - has been a name on the lips of clued-up fans and tastemakers since its collective of musicians found each other in the earliest days of 2023. Quickly gaining a reputation for their cathartic, unpredictable and specular live performances, the band have been consistently championed by BBC Radio One, including two `Tune of the Week' placements on Daniel P Carter's esteemed Rock Show. Violent Delights was recorded across two week-long stints at Southampton's The Ranch studio in August and December of 2024, with Lewis Johns helming production and mixing duties. When pressed, Jools may identify as a punk band - in its truest sense that punk is a mentality, rather than a sound - but Violent Delights equally lends from the worlds of metal, rap, post-hardcore and hip-hop as much as it does the post-punk of its surface layer. Gordon and Price are as likely to point to Turnstile, Mannequin Pussy and Amyl & The Sniffers as influences on the record as they are to Little Simz and The Streets' Mike Skinner. "We don't necessarily look at music in sounds or structures," nods Gordon. "Instead we look for attitudes."

Das viel gesuchte klassische Orchester-Breakcore-Album "Rossz Csillag Allat Született" von Venetian Snares aus dem Jahr 2005 wird anlässlich seines 20-jährigen Jubiläums auf schwarzem Vinyl neu aufgelegt. Was wäre, wenn wir beide nur einen Tag lang Tauben sein könnten? Manchmal kann ein Moment in der Zeit eine so große Bedeutung erlangen, dass er zu einer endlosen Welt für sich wird und alles außerhalb dieses Moments, vergangene und zukünftige Zeitpunkte, zur Folklore dieser Welt werden. Was wäre, wenn wir beide die Királyi Palota überfliegen und sie so sehen könnten wie diese Tauben? Eine schöne Kultur von ungleichen Winkeln als Eselsengel über dieser Stadt. Aber auch in der Welt des unendlichen Augenblicks können wir uns die Feder unseres Vogels nicht aussuchen, und die Taube mag sich danach sehnen, die Gans zu sein, der Esel die Taube und so weiter. Und während unsere Welt aus diesem einen Tick in der Zeit erblüht, ist sie für die eine Taube eine wirbelnde romantische Flut euphorischer Möglichkeiten und Faszination, für die andere ein minderwertiges Leben, in dem sie auf jeden vom Himmel aus scheißt, unbeholfen und beschämt, und sich damit abfindet, die elende Plage zu sein, als die sie von denen, auf die sie scheißen, dargestellt wird. So schnell wie unsere Welt blüht, so schnell ist sie auch wieder im Unfrieden und unsere Tauben sind verwundet, und wenn unsere Welt stirbt, sterben auch wir, und wir sind ausgestorben. Wenn wir uns doch nur immer wieder umbringen könnten, bis wir es richtig machen. So wie ein ganzes Musikgenre aus einem einzigen beschleunigten Zehn-Sekunden-Breakbeat geboren werden kann, so kann ein komplettes Symphonieorchester in harmonischem Einklang zusammenkommen, um diesen perfekten Moment in der Zeit zu erschaffen, so kann jeder Moment eine völlig neue Welt hervorbringen, und jede Welt kann den perfekten Moment beherbergen, und so wie dieser Breakbeat bis zur Unkenntlichkeit gebrochen werden kann, so kann sich das Orchester zusammenschließen, um ein dissonantes Sperrfeuer kolossalen Kummers hervorzubringen, und so löst der Moment seine Welt auf, und diese Welt erstickt den Moment unter ihrem Zusammenbruch.

In collaboration with Telekom Electronic Beats, HOMEAGAIN005 captures the spirit of this year's Home Again Club Festival 2025 with a forward-thinking selection of tracks from artists across the festival roster.
Spanning house, tech house, breaks, ambient, and progressive sounds, this 7-track VA is a deep dive into late-night euphoria, sunrise moments, and everything in between.
Side A opens with Thabo's "Cheza Mwili" featuring Nairobi's Brian Msafiri-a high-octane Afro-electronic anthem with Swahili vocals and dancefloor urgency. Miura follows with the punchy and introspective "Home Alone," while Meggy delivers pure Berlin house warmth on "Around." Soela & Module One close the side with "Obsidian," a deep, shimmering journey built for long-form sets.
On the flip, "Pull Me Back" by LUV ATTACK pushes progressive, fast-paced house to an emotional edge. Thalo Santana & Oran Ray shift gears into breaksy territory with the playful, rhythm-heavy "Sweet Potato," before All Shade rounds things out with "Something Like This"-a sleek, driving tech house roller built for peak-time sets.
Mixed and mastered by Matthias Millhoff, and adorned with artwork by Ken Hanamura, HOMEAGAIN005 is a celebration of the diverse sonic threads running through Home Again's dancefloor community.

Viktor Ori's debut solo album LEPSIE NEBOLO NIKDY DOBRE NEBUDE is an album all over the place. in the most complimentary of senses.

Coming from one of the deepest and most uncompromising projects on the Slovak contemporary music scene, it is an album of profound weltschmerzen.

The music and themes are acute, harrowing, and deeply radical. LEPSIE NEBOLO NIKDY DOBRE NEBUDE paints a bleak picture. exactly as the time we're living in.

It is a statement at times subjective and personal, at other times universal, general, generational. at all times deeply honest and political.

It is not hopeful but at least, it feels sincere.

LEPSIE NEBOLO NIKDY DOBRE NEBUDE is Viktor Ori's debut solo album. thematically and compositionally, it marks a departure from Viktor's band Shallov, but still features his closest collaborators - brother Dusan Ori on bass and Antonin Kropacek on drums. additionally, the album is heavy on collaborations with various, yet likeminded artists.

The songs are simpler and shorter and perhaps more straigh-forward, but as intense and heavy as ever. layered, surprising, full of odd time signatures, sublime harmonies and sudden sonic changes. you can still feel the grandeur, monumentality, and mayhem of Shallov. many moments are cathedral, cathartic and the music leaves you in awe.

Viktor has somehow // unfathomably managed to compress Shallov's eposes into almost-radio-friendly almost-popsongs (had the "common" radio-listener been slightly more openminded and keen on social awareness) and for the first time, his songs feature Slovak lyrics. these are not only hopeless and unsettling, but also astute, sardonic,almostcynical. yet, it is perhaps thisdetachedand more realistic way of experiencing the world that allows for some relief and reconciliation. and at the same time, encourages action.

Welcome to the world of Vinterhagen. A sphere where songs grow, sounds expand, and ideas branch into a musical ecosystem where one can dream away into infinity, a world filled with moments of contemplation, whimsy, lazy day shuffling, mercurial abstraction and manic interplay, driving groove, moody atmosphere, chaingang stomps, and happy resignation. Liv Andrea Hauge, Fredrik Luhr Dietrichson, and Andreas Skår Winther have developed a fruitful and dynamic interplay where strong songs and good melodies are underpinned by solid craftsmanship, exploratory improvisations, and creative arrangements.