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This year marks the tenth anniversary of the theatrical release of Universal Pictures’ Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The film adaptation by director Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Baby Driver) of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel series stars Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Kieran Culkin and has since become a cult classic due in no small part to the use of music in its storytelling. The soundtrack album and score were originally released in 2010 by ABKCO Records.

Each side of each LP is graced with an image of one of the “Seven Evil Exes” characters from the film, with an image of Scott Pilgrim with Ramona Flowers on the eighth side. This marks the first time ever that Godrich’s score will get a vinyl release, which will also be available separately on a blue vinyl 2-LP set, also on March 26. On the same day, the original single LP version of the soundtrack will be reissued as the Ramona Flowers Edition on blue, green and magenta vinyl, representing the colors of the character’s hair throughout the film.

Now ABKCO, with Edgar Wright and Nigel Godrich’s oversight, has curated an expanded, four LP picture disc Seven Evil Exes Edition offering of the soundtrack/score, including more performances by Sex Bob-Omb and demos from Beck, as well as fan favourite “Black Sheep” by Metric and sung by actress Brie Larson.

Since its release, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) has received many accolades. UK’s The Independent ranked it at number 4 out of “the 40 greatest film soundtracks of all time,” declaring that Wright “found a way to seamlessly integrate his soundtrack into Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’s narrative.” It was also included on Alternative Press’ list of “16 Fantastic Movie Soundtracks You Need To Hear.” “We Are Sex Bob-Omb” won the 2010 Houston Film Critics Society Award for Best Original Song.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (Seven Evil Exes Limited Edition)
• 4x LP picture discs
• Limited Edition Set
• Exclusive bonus tracks not included on original soundtrack by Sex Bob-omb, Beck, plus highly sought- after Brie Larson w/ Metric
• Social support from Edgar Wright + Beck
Bonus ephemera: 
 • Full colour film poster
 • Exclusive Colouring Page by Bryan O’Malley
• Printed note from Edgar Wright, Director

They Say: “New directions in contemporary scoring”.

We say: Contempo is one of the best full album listens in the KPM 1000 library. Succinct smoking soul, super tight breaks and string-drenched sleaze composed by the library master, Keith Mansfield.

The creator of the romping tunes that became the iconic themes to the BBC’s Grandstand programme and their televised Wimbledon Tennis Championship coverage, Keith Mansfield was perhaps KPM’s most prolific artist from the mid 1960s right the way through the 1980s. As well as the sort of pop orchestral sound that is all over these classic library records, he could also turn his hand to raw, edgy rock and funk. Quentin Tarantino is a big fan, going as far as including some of Keith’s work on the soundtracks to Kill Bill and Grindhouse.

Many library records are a game of two halves and Contempo is certainly one of those. The first side cooks on a high funk breaks flame whilst the flip is something altogether more tranquil, yet no less groovy. It lays back with dreamier, post-coital grooves.

Rugged funk opener “The Fix” confidently displays its low slung languid grooves with heavy drums, horns and bass. Smokin’ in slow motion. The punchy “What’s Cooking” follows and has a lighter, more whimsical touch. But the drums still roll and the clavs wiggle in fascinating opposition to those horns. The dark and moody intro to “Cut To Music” gives way to a more inclusive, relaxed funk that’s all irresistible bass and stabbing horns. The mid-tempo “Man Alive” signals the time to really get down. A percussive monster jam. If you can’t strut to this then we really can’t help you! Closing out the A side, fresh guitar licks drip all over the slick drums of “Funky Footage”, with a New Orleans piano vibe coming on to really light a fire.

Whilst the dramatic crime funk of the A side is enough on its own to have earned this record its place in the great library record canon, it’s undoubtedly the more smoothed out B side for which Contempo is rightfully adored and celebrated. It’s so chilled and mellow, with beautifully arranged, sweeping strings, sax solos aplenty and a real 70s soundtrack feel. Think Love Boat, CTI label, Bob James, Grover Washington Jr.-type jams.

The super sleek and sexy jazz funk of “Breezin’” is as light and magical as you’d hope. An open-air masterpiece, its indulgent sound is just a taster of the sophisticated funk to follow. The elegant, romantic feels of “Good Vibrations” (used brilliantly by Odd Future’s Mike G for “Swiss Army”) is a string-drenched, wah-wah fuelled ode to living your best life. Nonchalantly. Whilst it keeps a very West Coast feel, the blaxploitation strut is certainly more Blackbyrds than Brian Wilson. “Sun Goddess” will blow your mind with the sensuous sound of glorious horns and beautiful keys. The luxurious “Love De Luxe” and its horizontal grooves have been much sampled, but here it proves that it doesn’t need any help to get you in an intimate mood. Closer “Snake Hips” is a cool mid-pace slouch. Just divine.

Originally released in 1976 but, like the very best KPM records, wonderfully timeless, Contempo is also no mere LP-length collection of loosely related tracks. This is a rare example of a library record that is a genuinely great listen from start to finish.

As with all of our KPM re-issues, the audio for Contempo comes from the original analogue tapes and has been remastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis. And as usual, the sleeve reproduction duties were handed over to Richard Robinson, the current custodian of KPM’s brand identity.
: Contempo (KPM) (LP)

They Say: “Contemporary scores for visual effect”.

We say: Synth-heavy, low-slung space-funk masterpiece.

The creator of the romping tunes that became the iconic themes to the BBC’s Grandstand programme and their televised Wimbledon Tennis Championship coverage, Keith Mansfield was perhaps KPM’s most prolific artist from the mid 1960s right the way through the 1980s. As well as the sort of pop orchestral sound that is all over these classic library records, he could also turn his hand to raw, edgy rock and funk. Quentin Tarantino is a big fan, going as far as including some of Keith’s work on the soundtracks to Kill Bill and Grindhouse.

This is it. This is THE ONE for us: Keith “The Man” Mansfield’s Vivid Underscores from 1977. A sample freak’s wet dream and one of Be With Rob’s favourite ever KPM records. A must for fans of Brian Bennett’s Voyage (yes, THAT good). And no, we’ve no idea either why it took us this long to get round to tackling this monster of a record. But then again some things are worth waiting for.

Attention! Calling all crate diggers, DJs, beat heads, Hip Hop junkies, MF DOOM fans! Behold! Vivid Underscores makes sampling easy. Prepare to be up all night, every night, chopping, looping and splicing these endless grooves and spacey synths. The highlights are too many and too mind-blowing so we’ll pull out a few particular highlights. Trust us, this library LP is just jaw-dropping.

“High Velocity” sets the tone with its aggressive horns, wah-wah guitars, funky baseline and wobbly synth refrain. So good and so hypnotic that Memphis Bleek just had to swipe the ominous, frazzled intro for “What You Think of That” featuring Jay-Z. Also, for real drama, the 1985 Lakers retrospective “Return to Glory” used it to soundtrack the footage from the legendary game five of the NBA finals at the Forum. Heady days. “Crash Course” - Stetsasonic horn refrain? Beautiful - jazzy chase-funk, amazing warm keys, percussion and funky horns - all action.

The more restrained “Matter Of Urgency” is an utterly amazing, brass-heavy underscore. The grandiose, uplifting “Dawn Of Aquarius” still sounds like the future with its tense, thundering drums, killer bassline and swirling synths. Version II loses the drums and percussion but is no less startling. “Staying Power” closes the first side with a relentless, pounding groove which *will* snap your neck. Be warned.

“Trucking Company” is a pacey, synth-and-string masterpiece and its accompanying parts (a–c) mess with the formula to great effect. Part (a) adds echo delay to really dazzle and part (c) plays the breezy, beautiful middle section without the tension. “Hot Cargo” and “Espionage” are both tense spy-funk themes par excellence. “Interplay” is a quiet killer, with flutes over a glistening piano refrain just waiting to be looped. The intro to the menacing “Omen” might’ve been sampled by 7L & Esoteric for their classic “So Glorious” but the entire 5 minute track is a mini-drama masterpiece, one only Mansfield could create.

Even though its a mix of short themes in-and-amongst longer, full-length tracks, Vivid Underscores is still thoroughly listenable from start to finish. That’s not something that can be said of all library records and it still manages to serve as rich resource to keep even the keenest samplers busy for a while.

As with all of our KPM re-issues, the audio for Vivid Underscores comes from the original analogue tapes and has been remastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis. And as usual, the sleeve reproduction duties were handed over to Richard Robinson, the current custodian of KPM’s brand ident

Lost Horizons release their new album ‘In Quiet Moments’ via Bella Union. The album features a stellar array of musical guests including John Grant, C Duncan, Marissa Nadler, Porridge Radio, Penelope Isles, Karen Peris (the innocence mission), Tim Smith (Midlake), Ren Harvieu and many more.
In 2017, Simon Raymonde and Richie Thomas had both abstained from making music for 20 years until they united as Lost Horizons and released a stunning debut album, ‘Ojalá’ - the Spanish word for ‘hopefully’ or ‘God willing.’
“These days, we need hope more than ever, for a better world.” Thomas said at the time. “And this album has given me a lot of hope. To reconnect with music.... And the hope for another Lost Horizons record!” Thomas’ hopes had a mixed response.
On the plus side, the new Lost Horizons album ‘In Quiet Moments’ is an even stronger successor to ‘Ojalá’ with another distinguished cast of guest singers and a handful of supporting instrumentalists embellishing the core duo’s gorgeously freeflowing and loose-limbed blueprint that one writer astutely labelled, “melancholydelia.”
On the minus side, any hope for a better world, as Earth continues to freefall toward political and social meltdown. Then, to make matters worse, as Raymonde and Thomas buckled down to create the improvised bedrock that Lost Horizons is built on, the former’s mother died. At least Raymonde had a way to channel his grief.
“The way improvisation works,” he says, “it’s just what’s going on with your body at the time, to let it out.”
Raymonde (bass, guitar, keyboards, production) and Thomas (drums, occasional keys and guitar) forged ahead, creating 16 instrumental tracks to send to prospective guests. When he did, Raymonde suggested a guiding theme for their lyrics: “death and rebirth. Of loved ones, of ideals, at an age when many artists that have inspired us are also dead, and the planet isn’t far behind. But I also said, ‘The most important part is to just do your own thing, and have fun.’”
Lost Horizons’ melancholy-delia also feels buoyed aloft by airy currents, informed in part by Raymonde and Thomas’ former respective bands: the legendary Cocteau Twins and Dif Juz. Their former bands were labelmates on 4AD in the mid-80s, which is how they first met.
“I think ‘In Quiet Moments’ is more in the direction of where we’re going,” Thomas concludes. “People have retreated into their lives and, in those quiet moments, reflected on the world, how we fit in and who we and trust. Maybe the next album will be about rebellion! But the road is long and winding. We just need to express ourselves in how we feel at the time.”
Coloured vinyl 2LP (disc one green, disc two blue) in PVC outer sleeve with printed text, 350gsm wide spined sleeve on uncoated/reverse board, 16pg booklet on standard paper with contributions from all featured artists and digital download code.

The term 'tourbillon' has two meanings - it is the French word for "whirlwind" and also a device used in watchmaking to improve the accuracy of a timepiece. Both definitions feel apt when listening to Tourbillon, the latest release on Central Processing Unit from Australian producer Tim Koch. Following on from Koch's CPU debut Spinifex back in 2018 - an album that initially emerged via minidisc - Tourbillon is a four-track EP which dazzles with its perpetual-motion post-IDM productions.

These tracks draw you into their webs by forming dense interlocking sonic patterns over the course of several minutes. While the rhythmic programming and lattice of alien percussion tones can appear discombobulating at first, Koch also bewitches the listener with the slyly melodic synth work that he laces throughout Tourbillon.

Opening track 'Estranger' is a fine example of this combination. The first section here is a blend of blown-out drum sounds which comes off like an industrial electro tune run through a meat grinder. However, the track soon blossoms with the introduction of some amazingly atmospheric synth pads, and the two contrasting elements come together for a strange and rather beautiful whole.

'Estranger' finds a mirror-image in Tourbillon's final cut 'Hankert', a track in which more of those gurgling percussive tones play off the rich chord progressions that chirrup away in the background. Between 'Estranger' and 'Hankert' we get two propulsive grooves in the form of 'Disfugue' and 'Dreitark'.

How, then, to contextualize such unique material? Calum Gunn's recent outing for CPU is a good point of comparison, and the electronics here bang and whirr in a manner which nods to the post-IDM innovations of artists like μ-Ziq. One can also see Tourbillon as descended from acts like Cabaret Voltaire, the industrial electronics innovators from CPU's home city of Sheffield. However, Tourbillon is ultimately an EP which exists in its own lane, an open-minded and open-hearted set which runs with the futurist spirit of CPU and Koch's previous home of Merck Records.

Australian producer Tim Koch returns to Sheffield's Central Processing Unit with Tourbillon, an EP of otherworldly post-IDM productions.

RIYL: μ-Ziq, Calum Gunn, Proswell, Modeselektor

Horace Andy's voice is an instrument that once heard is never forgotten, regardless of whether you first hear it on one of the numerous Jamaican reggae singles that he recorded during the 70s or - like most people - on one of the Massive Attack albums he collaborated on as a vocalist. His falsetto and his characteristic slow-motion vibrato breathed life into tracks like "Spying Glass", "Cuss Cuss", "In The Light", "Skylarking" or "(You are My) Angel", ensuring that they still continue to resonate deeply with listeners. His vocal style influenced countless root singers and the combination of his timbre with Massive Attack's spartan hip hop beats still inspires legions of fans and copyists all over the world. Echo Beach has now picked up on this tradition - and the much older tradition of versioning - by asking friends of the label to rework Horace Andy's classic tracks in their own sound outfit. But this time the label hasn't trawled old Studio One tapes for historic vocal snippets - that would sooo nineties; no, Horace Andy personally put in an appearance to sing new versions of his classic tracks on top of timeless and contemporary riddims. Age may have deepened his voice, but it is by no means weaker, as can be heard on this album, on which Echo Beach welcomes old friends and new faces: there's Rob Smith, who as part of More Rockers and Smith & Mighty was just as crucial for Bristol's musical reputation as Massive Attack or DJ Krust & Roni Size. Today, he ensures continuity by working under the label and producer name.

Digging deep through old and new, Basso captures arcane woodland fusion, serene electronic suites and wide eyed Balearic bliss on this first Growing Bin compilation.

This collection celebrates those precious records which land in your life on their own terms. Even the most advanced digger will admit that chance is the secret ingredient in any successful haul. Sure, it helps if you know where to look, but if you arrive a day early at that secluded second hand shop, or an hour late at the convention, you might miss out on a rare sight of sound. But there are still ways to skew the odds in your favour. Even in the most crowded urban environment, a solitary tree soon becomes a nest, and Basso's fostered an abundant garden in his Hamburg hometown. A decade on and the Growing Bin is a safe haven for those exquisite sounds crowded out of the mainstream, the rare birds with the most striking song.

'Coffee' comes right after cocoa in the bin's headquarter, though start your morning with One Tongue and be prepared for a different kind of day. A witch's brew spiced with a hint of Durian and the early bird, this 1990 composition could be the blueprint for the Teutonic trance dancers beloved by the Salon set. A more meditative magic flows through the A2, a smooth blend of fusion guitar, softly syncopated drums and counterpoint keys from one time art-rockers Inandout. This Growing Bin favourite from their '93-95' LP sounds right at home beside the majestic melodies and spheric bass of Matthias Raue's 'Brücke am schwarzen Fluss 2'. Taken from the soundtrack to a TV drama filmed in Mali, this digital homage to African rhythm shimmies in step with New Age dancers from Mkwaju Ensemble and Louis Crelier. The A-side ends with the unbridled optimism of Kosmische maverick Hardy Kukuk. The synthesist hit the studio with friends Karsten Raecke and Andreas Schneider in 86, coalescing crystalline electronics and gentle guitar into tender chord progressions suited for sun bathing beside the Sea of Tranquility.

The second side slinks into motion with the deep beauty and sincere spoken word of Frank Suchland's 'Schnee', a subtle body in a cocoon of reverb which takes Sade's 'I Never Thought I'd See The Day' to another level of placidness. Melancholic Germans Die Fische met in Cairo for the first time, and 'Conversation Of Everyday Lovers' could be the theme for that great city. Underpinned by primal percussion and a restrained groove, the track twists and turns between a trio of ineffable motifs, eternal combinations to the catacombs of Abusir. From there we go sublime, soaring skywards with a ten minute triumph from Hugh Mane. Balancing concentric sequences and space age synth riffs atop an irresistible breakbeat and bubbling bassline, the British producer finds a sensuous sweet-spot between fellow Growing Bin affiliates Krakatau and Singu.

Lucky are we who hear the Bin's sounds.
Patrick Ryder

Rolling through life, an open mind like an ocean, an infinite ride that comes furiously crashing to a halt. This is Whitney K’s ‘Two Years’, a deep dive into the Canadian songwriter’s journey through vulnerability, change and ultimately letting his guard down. Whitney K is the wandering stalwart Konner Whitney, a White- horse Yukon resident who has spent time in Vancouver, Montreal, Burnaby and Los Angeles. We met the character in 2016 through his intoxicating 4-track recorded manifesto ‘Goodnight’, a head on collision into 24 hours of illusioned romance and modern day escapism.

Fast forward to 2021, lift those curtains, aptly titled ‘Good Morning’ is the opening track on ‘Two Years’, a different cracker, a deliberate record about transformation, where to put it simply, Whitney K has arrived. Enlisting the aid of main collaborator and bandmate Josh Boguski, the focus has been shifted, folklore and realism becoming reckoning and truthfulness, what was outsider folk is now political poetry, life in motion delivered through a freeway ridden baritone voice that transforms the mundane into extraordinary.

Hunt & Gather’s debut vinyl release comes by way of Pezzner’s cryptic moniker “The Native Language”. Written as a quasi-homeless man living off the rich in the San Juan Islands who writes music once per year to suffice his own delusions.

Walking the streets in these damp, anxious days that all run together lately, I was approached by a man who would blend right into the neighborhood, layered in flannel and sweatshirts for sleeping.

Rough, but for his shoes. (Never cheap out on anything that separates you from the ground.) “Pezzner,” he called out, from a safe distance. “What did the mangrove say to the marauding hordes.” My soul left my body for a moment and my voice responded on its own. “Petrichor.”

He caught my eye, nodded, left a padded envelope on the ground and vanished. The envelope had passed through many hands, slipped into the bed of a ferry-bound truck, passed from one fellow traveler to another, stashed under the counters of anarchist bookstores, left tucked between books at Little Free Libraries. The greenish stains suggested that at one point it had been swum across a lake. Another DAT, contents encoded here unabridged, and a letter from someone who called himself The Sentinel.

The Vessel lived out his days on Shaw Island, under a canopy of trees that gets smaller and smaller every season. His condition the same, any electricity lit his brain on fire, could only bring himself to compose one day a year, only at night, out of sight. Until he met The Angel, an eccentric with means, who built for him a device.

A Faraday Cage to block all electromagnetic emissions. Burlap walls, for atmosphere. A system of pulleys and levers, wood and rope, all running into a box that sat outside. An entirely mechanical control surface. No electrons in here. The Vessel lit fires, watched the shadows dance, closed his eyes and disappeared into the motion for hours at a time. The Sentinel came every morning to change the tapes. The Angel watched and pondered, his plans unknown.

The box sat sealed, bare except for another set of ideograms, scratched in day by day over time. Inside, the usual bedroom-producer shit. Outside, the ideograms told a story, passed from the Vessel to the Sentinel and drawn by the Angel, of a man who became another creature. Alert to the lowest frequencies, feeling music deep in the soil below their feet. Music that brings messages, from distant friends, warning of new creatures and the danger they brought. Skin alive to the world, so sensitive it can detect the landing of a single fly. A mind capable of keeping a map of the world inside. A mind that can look in a mirror and see a soul it knows well. A mind that can grieve.

After processing its contents, I filled the envelope with granola bars and walked it down to the market. The clerk gave me a knowing look as I placed it on the counter behind a stack of pork rinds from the previous century. As I walked out, a young man carrying a plastic bag and wearing impeccable shoes walked in.

Tenet is the new sci-fi action spectacle from acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan, starring John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, and Kenneth Branagh.

The Tenet (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) features music from Academy- and Grammy Award-winning composer Ludwig Göransson (Black Panther, The Mandalorian), & features the new, original song “The Plan” by multi-platinum, Grammy-nominated recording artist Travis Scott, and produced by Göransson, Wondagurl and Scott.

The 3LP soundtrack features the 2 bonus tracks (which appeared on the 2CD), plus liner notes from both Christopher Nolan and Ludwig Göransson.

There are few genres in which German artists play such a central pioneering role as they do in electronic music, be it techno, electropop, trance or rave. At the frontline for many years were Kraftwerk and U96, two absolute trailblazers of this musical direction. While Kraftwerk wrote international music history mainly in the 1970s with cult albums such as Autobahn (1974), Radio-Aktivität (1975), Trans Europa Express (1977) and Die Mensch-Maschine (1978), U96 had a profound influence on the global pop music, rave and techno scene of the 1990s with hits such as ‘Das Boot’, ‘Love Sees No Colour’, ‘Night In Motion’ and ‘Heaven’. Transhuman, scheduled for release on UNLTD Recordings on 30th October 2020, will feature a spectacular collaboration between U96 (Ingo Hauss

& Hayo Lewerentz) and Wolfgang Flür, Kraftwerk’s drummer in the years between 1972 and 1987 and therefore involved in the most seminal albums by the group from Düsseldorf.

This remarkable cooperation was first announced and implemented by two joint numbers on U96’s 2018 offering Reboot. Transhuman sees U96 and Wolfgang Flür develop their creative exchange across a full album, creating fascinating sonic worlds. The title song ‘Transhuman’ and an updated version of ‘Zukunftsmusik (Radiophonique)’ will be released as lead singles, including, as we’ve come to expect from U96, experimental video clips. That New York record label Radikal Records immediately secured the rights to the album for the US and Canada points to major interest in this project, not only on these shores but also across the Atlantic.

“Transhuman is a stylistic mélange of our different histories,” describe Wolfgang Flür and U96 masterminds Hauss and Lewerentz an offering that is spectacular in many respects, featuring, along with typical U96 tracks such as ‘Clone’ and ‘Specimen’, numbers such as ‘Transhuman’, ‘Planet In Fever’ and ‘Sexersizer’ that are inspired by Flür’s past. Notably, the content has been reduced to the sheer basics, in other words: sparingly used associative statements with deep, but at times also playful and mysterious messages that the listener feels rather than consciously registers. The lyrics are about the transformation of people through technology and our massive interference in life on our planet. Hauss: “Pieces like ‘Zukunftsmusik’ and ‘Transhuman’ don’t tell a story in the classic sense, they articulate emotions and associations in very few words, bringing to mind recordings such as Radio-Aktivität, Autobahn and Die Mensch-Maschine. In addition Transhuman, features a number of melodies created on the basis of computer algorithms, in other words fractal music which takes us even further back in history, to Klaus Schulze, Stockhausen, the electronics laboratories of the fifties and sixties and the musique concrete compositional technique.”

As Midnight Sister, multi-disciplinary LA artists Juliana Giraffe and Ari Balouzian make motion pictures. Yes, sometimes with moving images _ but most often only with the music they create together. Balouzian's serpentine, string compositions are movie scenes that allow Giraffe, a brilliant character actor, to cloak herself in a new roles and voices. A bit of Jon Brion's score work; some old Hollywood strings; a solid dose of glam and outsider disco from 70s independent cinema. Any perceived artifice is always matched by an indelible human fingerprint, something perfectly off. Giraffe and Balouzian's respective work in fashion, visual art, video and film scoring _ along with the gang of virtuosos with which they surround themselves _ all wonderfully coalesce as Midnight Sister. And if 2017's `Saturn Over Sunset' was their collection of short films about outcast life in The San Fernando Valley, then their new album `Paining the Roses' is the inventive, meta motion picture that cements them as auteurs. `Painting the Roses' is in many ways a fairy tale -- not so much the sweet-and-happyending kind as something richer, packed with imagination and rooted in the complex human messiness beneath a story's artifice. Frontwoman Giraffe describes it as "this tightrope of being real yet synthetic, organic yet staged, light yet dark, logical yet irrational, beautiful yet dilapidated. Joyful nonsense." Here, disguises like masks and paint are not meant to hide but to liberate, to "set a part of us free", and Midnight Sister often embody this themselves, appearing highly stylized, curious, warm and inviting but a little askew. `Painting the Roses' is a story told through the looking glass, one where we examine ourselves in a funhouse mirror but find clarity in its twists. Giraffe traveled to visit family in Argentina during the making of the album and reconnected greatly with that part of her family history, art and culture. Balouzian created the core album opener "Doctor Says" during a session in the desert outside of LA. The guitar, which reminded Giraffe of South America, has a slow, sweltering surf-tango to it, like Dick Dale doing Carlos Gardel. And even though the song was inspired by Giraffe's reconnection with Argentina, the song is about the fading of some close friendships during the making of the album. "Man, you have changed," Giraffe sings, unclear if tis directed to a friend or to herself. Later on the album, "Wednesday Baby" _ named after Giraffe's rescue dog _ is patient, subtly baroque pop. It follows Giraffe through one of those gloomy days spent in tunnelvision doldrums from which only a sunbathing turtle or your canine companion can pull you out. By the time collaborator Max Whipple's saw comes beaming down from heaven in the song's 3rd part, we're hypnotized by the song's charming ennui. The song lands someplace both familiar and aloof, a little slice of timelessness taken straight from The Cake of Perfect Songcraft.

Ocean Moon is a solo project from Jon Tye of Seahawks. A long time explorer of the sounds of spaciousness, having released the ambient classic LP iO in 1994 as MLO, Crystal Harmonics is a document of Jon’s latest discoveries. An ambient/new age/modern classical library suite for KPM, this is inter-dimensional music for mind, body and spirit.

Island Visions, the recent collection of music from Seahawks for KPM, touched on the deeper, more spatial side of music and led to Jon exploring this territory in greater depth, again for KPM, under his Ocean Moon alter ego. This time he brought along some of today’s most visionary musicians: Jon Brooks (The Advisory Circle / Ghostbox) for his intuitive melodic mastery, Seaming To (Graham Massey’s Toolshed) for her extraordinary vocal talents, Steve Moore (Zombi) for his sophisticated and inventive rhythmic sensibility and Richard Norris (The Grid) for his sensitive and deeply resonant ambience. The initial recordings were made at The Centre Of Sound in Cornwall, with the collaborators various contributions coming from London, Derbyshire and the US.

The supremely serene electronic flute and bells of “Crystal Drift” ease us into our journey and we take our next steps with “Rainbow Ripples” as it gently folds space with arpeggiated synth swells and delicate machine beats. Light vocal tones, bells and breath FX on “And Breathe” keep us going, accompanied by synth drones and billows of electric piano.

We travel through the synth-space-surf haze of “Lost Oceans”, with soft bass and warm ambience, to reach the “New Infinity” of revolving melody, spacious pads and light electronic beats. The celestial tone floats of “White Mirror” close out the first side.

Temple bells ring out to running water flowing together with deep resonant vocal tones as the second side opens with “Peace Bells”. “Revolving and Evolving” follows, a tranquil electronic meadow of lush pastoral synth tones where we rest for a while for “Mountain Dreaming”, a light rhythmic dance of zither and birdsong.

The undulating “Forest Motion” ripples with synth arpeggios, dreamy Solina strings and percussive modular electronics before allowing the crackling ambience and Cantonese whispers of “Sleep Golden” to wash over us. Finally we find ourselves on “The Long Path”, its warm temple ambience of drones and chants guiding us home.

Crystal Harmonics is inspired by four particular albums from KPM’s catalogue. There’s The Electronic Light Orchestra by Adrian Wagner from 1975 and then Temple Of The Stars, Breath Of Life and finally Keith Mansfield’s Circles, these last three coming from KPM’s mid-1980s run of modern classical/New Age gems. For Jon, “making library music can be very liberating. I really enjoyed the additional focus it brought to the music working on different facets of composition with each collaborator”.

But Crystal Harmonics is no mere exercise in vulger pastiche. As the past, present and future sound of paradise, this fresh exploration of mid-90s ambient and original New Age sounds exists outside of our linear experience of time.

The cover started as a collage Jon made a couple of years ago, a different expression of the same impulses that guided the music. As a nod to the records that provided seeds of inspiration, the collage was framed by KPM’s house style of the 1980s for the finished sleeve by Richard Robinson.

Mastered for vinyl by Be With’s sonic shaman Simon Francis, cut by the legendary Pete Norman and pressed in the Netherlands by Record Industry, Ocean Moon’s Crystal Harmonics is the tranquil balm for these turbulent times.

The Fall is a deconstruction of November by Dennis Johnson.

Written for solo piano in 1959, November is the first example of minimalist music composition and was the inspiration for La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned Piano (1964). The 66 minute piece is a collaboration between legendary artist Lustmord and renowned classical pianist Nicolas Horvath, in which they reduces Johnson's original November to its core element and place it in a landscape of complimentary sound. The Fall echo's November but with further resonance.

Recorded in May-June 2019 in Los Angeles, and Misy-sur-Yonne, France.

Lustmord
Active since 1980, born of the original 'industrial' scene of the period. With its own distinctive approach, blurring the line between music and sound design Lustmord's work has featured in 45 motion pictures including The Crow and Underworld and also in video games, television and commercials. Recently Lustmord scored the music for Paul Schrader's movie First Reformed. While Lustmord is often credited for creating the 'dark ambient' genre there is much more nuance to its work than what that label implies. The music is not dark, but is a light that shines into and upon the darkness. Notable collaborations amongst many include Tool, Melvins, Jarboe, John Balance of Coil, Clock DVA, Chris & Cosey, Paul Haslinger, Karin Park and Robert Rich.

Nicolas Horvath
An unusual artist with an unconventional résumé, pianist and electroacoustic composer Nicolas Horvath is known for his boundariesless musical explorations. Horvath is both an enthusiastic promoter of contemporary music - he has commissioned numerous works (including no fewer than 120 as part of his Homages to Philip Glass project in 2014) and collaborated with leading contemporary composers from around the world, including Alvin Lucier, Mamoru Fujieda, Jaan Rääts, Alvin Curran and Valentyn Silvestrov - and a rediscoverer of forgotten or neglected composers such as Moondog, Nobuo Uematsu, Germaine Tailleferre, François-Adrien Boieldieu, Hélène de Montgeroult, Jean Catoire, Karl August Hermann.

After being summoned from Ohio to London by Adrian Sherwood, Nick Riggio and Rebecca Magnetic have brought their Midwest musical experience to the South London electronic music scene with a unique creative vision. Fusing elements of techno, post-punk and psychedelic rock they explore spiritual connections and transcendence while Rebecca Magnetic's introspective vocals set against a tough backdrop of Detroit influenced rhythms and vibrations leave you in awe.

Their superb single 'My Future' is a brilliantly cosmic exploration of spaced out and spacious grooves. Crashing hits bring an edgy mood, while lurching drums drag you forwards.
Molten acid synths and the strained and pained vocals from Rebecca add further layers of intrigue to this most adventurous electronic trip.

First to remix is Oosh! man Dan Wainwright, and his version is laced up with sci-fi chords and echoing vocal sounds. The downtempo drum rotations are superbly heavy and trap you in a trance.
Next up, Retroforward is Al Mackenzie's solo remix/music project named after his successful Birmingham night.
Al is one half of Field Of Dreams. His 'No Future' remix is an airy and atmospheric remix that takes the track to the farthest edges of space on smooth, hypnotic grooves and beautifully astral melodies.

Lastly, Richard Sen has already been getting support for his remix from ALFOS man Sean Johnston, and he goes for a superbly rugged yet slow motion chugger that is dubbed out and expansive thanks to the arching guitar riffs that ring out to the heavens above fat-bottomed drums.

Whether experienced on the dance floor or in metaphysical states, this music is medicine for the mind and body.

West coast composer, artist, and producer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has chartered a pioneering career with multiple critically-acclaimed albums since 2015. Following the release of The Kid in 2017, Smith focused her energy in several directions. She founded Touchtheplants, a multidisciplinary creative environment for projects including the first volumes in her instrumental Electronic Series and pocket-sized poetry books on the practice of listening within. She's continued to explore the endless possibilities of electronic instruments as well as the shapes, movements, and expressions found in the physical body's relationship to sound and color. It is this life-guiding interest that forms the foundational frequencies of her most recent full-length, The Mosaic of Transformation, a bright, sensorial glide through unbound wave phenomena and the radiant power discovered within oneself. "I guess in one sentence, this album is my expression of love and appreciation for electricity," says Smith. While writing and recording, she embraced a daily practice of physical movement, passing electricity through her body and into motion, in ways reflecting her audio practice, which sends currents through modular synthesizers and into the air through speakers. Not a dancer by any traditional definition, she taught herself improvisatory movement realizing flexibility, strength, and unexpectedly, a "visual language" stemming from the human body and comprised of vibrational shapes. Understood as cymatics, as Smith says, "as a reference for how frequencies can be visualized," much like a mosaic. Smith describes her first encounters with this mosaic; "the inspiration came to me in a sudden bubble of joy. It was accompanied by a multitude of shapes that were moving seamlessly from one into the other...My movement practice has been a constant transformation piece by piece. I made this album in the same way. Every day I would transform what I did yesterday...into something else. This album has gone through about 12 different versions of itself." As it has arrived, in a completed state, The Mosaic of Transformation is a holistic manifestation of embodied motions. Smith's signature textural curiosity that fans have grown to adore pivots naturally into a proprioceptive study of melody and timbre. Airy organ and voice interweave with burbling Buchla-spawned harmonic bubbles. "The Steady Heart" quivers to life, peppering blasts of wooden organ between winding vocal affirmations. As with a body, moving one portion requires a balance and counterbalance; here, subtle tonal twitchy signals fire in conjunction with coiling arias to create a mesmeric core. When the beat arrives at the midway mark, a swooping and jittery waltz, a sense of stasis in motion, a flow state, is sonically achieved. As soon as it syncs, it disappears back into the swirling ebbs of electric force. Other tracks stray into more ruminative physical realms. "Carrying Gravity" is built around string-like pads that expand and contract like a solar plexus, becoming taught and then loose. If the record could be summarized in a single movement, it is the 10-minute closing suite, a rapturous collage called "Expanding Electricity." Symphonic phrases establish the piece before washes of glittering electric peals and synthesized vibraphone helix into focus. Soon, Smith's voice grounds it all with an intuitive vocal hook, harmonized and augmented by concentric spirals of harp-and-horn-like sounds. Smith's music doesn't capture a specific emotion as much as it captures the joys of possessing a body, and the ability to, with devotion and a steady open heart, maneuver that vessel in space by way of electricity to euphoric degrees.

FAR are excited to bring Chris Coco and DJ Rocca to the label for this release. Both artists need no introduction to Balearic /House and Disco aficionados, the pair have both notched up stunning solo musical releases.

Meeting at La Casella festival in Italy in the summer of 2019, the duo decided to team up in the studio resulting in the ''Discoteca'' EP, a shimmering slice of Balearic, Disco House containing all the right ingredients and forward motion required for maximum sunshine or nightime connection.

On A1 Discoteca (The Heavy Fun Dub Mix), they manage to create a heady cocktail of synth riffs, ARhodes and Guitars all underpinned by a solid bass line, nodding to the Jazz funk of Atmosphere with the edge of Dinosaur L recording in Italy circa 1982. AAntonio prosper turns up on vocals, whispering, and chanting, evoking imagery of a night out in the mid-summer heat somewhere in southern Europe.

Welcome to the curious world of Peter Graf York: a world full of city centre safaris and epic train journeys, Soviet cosmonauts and Oakland rappers, filtered synths and plucked mbiras. It's a wild ride inspired as much by Jamaican dub sorcery as by playful minimalism outta the Pacific Northwest.

Many of these tracks were composed on the hoof - literally en route across sections of the ever-reliable Deutsche Bahn network. As such, there’s a certain travellin-without-moving dynamic across this collection, capturing that cinematic feel of window frames flickering past graffiti'd signal exchanges, morphing into rolling hills and green forests. Expedition Bahn is the sound of ideas being set in motion, each track heralding the arrival of an uncanny destination. Blazed beats give way to acid-fuelled electro, and dub rhythms step aside for 4th world meditations as readily as sleepers on a train track.

We can leave the last word to heroic USSR cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, who spent the final moments of his fateful re-entry giving the administration an earful of righteous proportions (regarding the technical failures of the spacecraft). Taking his place as the first martyr of space travel, Komarov accepted the Soyuz mission despite safety concerns, in order to protect the other cosmonauts. It's an attitude that echoes throughout PGY’s sonic universe - make the most of the trip you're on... ‘cause you never know just which way it will go.

Gear used: Tascam MIDISTUDIO 644, MPC1000, Roland JX-3P, MODE MACHINES DT200, Electro-Harmonix MEMORY BOY analog delay, Nord Drum 3P, MacBook Pro, Logic Pro 9

First up is Nehuen, an Argentinian born but Barcelona based artist who is notorious for his abrasive dance floor workouts on I Love Acid, BNR Trax and the Classicworks label he co-owns with Cardopusher. Cardopusher is, of course, a true electronic legend from Venezuela. His dizzyingly diverse sound takes in rave, acid, electro, techno and house influences and distills them into hugely
Raw and energetic new forms.

Nehuen's Psyops Part One kicks off with the excellent title track, which contorts acid and electro into a writhing monster filled with dark energy. The visceral 'Toxic' is built on slapping hits and spangled basslines that will tie you in knots as the bumping drums drive things forward. The late-night menace continues on 'Bailar', with tight synth arps layered up in robotic forms over clunky drums that are industrial and futuristic in equal measure. Last but not least, the eerie 'Desire' strikes a more twisted note with double kicks juddering beneath echoing hits. It's pure, filthy, brilliant body music.

Cardopusher kicks off Part Two with the fantastic 'Disobedience' (feat. Lbeeze) a slow-motion drum workout that is like dark disco mangled through a psychedelic filter, with robotic vocals and stiff arp
jerking your body. 'Abyss Antidote' is then a flurry of drum breaks and electro bass, frazzled synths and whipping hits that keep you on the edge of your seat. Darkness abounds on the gritty 'Initial Decay' (ft. Lbeeze), which layers up taught drums and hits with spraying synths that come from a dystopian planet.

Closing out this epic mini-series is 'Mutant Brain', a cyborg techno meltdown with manic acid for
company.

These are devilishly distorted tracks from two of the best producers around.

First up is Nehuen, an Argentinian born but Barcelona based artist who is notorious for his abrasive dance floor workouts on I Love Acid, BNR Trax and the Classicworks label he co-owns with Cardopusher. Cardopusher is, of course, a true electronic legend from Venezuela. His dizzyingly diverse sound takes in rave, acid, electro, techno and house influences and distills them into hugely
Raw and energetic new forms.

Nehuen's Psyops Part One kicks off with the excellent title track, which contorts acid and electro into a writhing monster filled with dark energy. The visceral 'Toxic' is built on slapping hits and spangled basslines that will tie you in knots as the bumping drums drive things forward. The late-night menace continues on 'Bailar', with tight synth arps layered up in robotic forms over clunky drums that are industrial and futuristic in equal measure. Last but not least, the eerie 'Desire' strikes a more twisted note with double kicks juddering beneath echoing hits. It's pure, filthy, brilliant body music.

Cardopusher kicks off Part Two with the fantastic 'Disobedience' (feat. Lbeeze) a slow-motion drum
workout that is like dark disco mangled through a psychedelic filter, with robotic vocals and stiff arp
jerking your body. 'Abyss Antidote' is then a flurry of drum breaks and electro bass, frazzled synths and whipping hits that keep you on the edge of your seat. Darkness abounds on the gritty 'Initial Decay' (ft. Lbeeze), which layers up taught drums and hits with spraying synths that come from a dystopian planet.

Closing out this epic mini-series is 'Mutant Brain', a cyborg techno meltdown with manic acid for
company.

These are devilishly distorted tracks from two of the best producers around.

Fusing dexterous hand-percussion, hypnotic guitar riffs & soaring melodies, Waaju rise from London’s rich cultural palette with their latest album ‘Grown’, proving UK Jazz doesn’t have to sound the way we expect it to. Led by drummer and percussionist Ben Brown (Alfa Mist, Dizraeli, Ashley Henry), the band comprises percussionist Ernesto Marichales (Jordan Rakei, Sigala), guitarist Tal Janes (Nubiyan Twist, Bahla), Sam Rapley (Fabled, Maria Chiara Argiro) and Joe Downard (China Moses, Judi Jackson), each with their own strong presence on the UK’s extensive music scene. Waaju’s refined and divergent sound connects the dots between the likes of Ali Farka Touré, Alain Peters, Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, Oscar D’Leon and Beth Carvalho. Waaju formed as a means of exploring music’s hidden connections, from trance-inducing Moroccan Gnawa to Caribbean carnival music, and embracing them to reflect different shades of London’s own musical culture. It was the band’s love for Mali’s folk music – and Ali Farka Touré’s stylistic prowess in particular – that first set the project in motion. London’s Jazz Cafe invited Waaju to reinterpret classic tracks from Farka Touré’s catalogue to sold-out audiences in 2018 and 2019. According to Brown: “Ali’s one of the best. He has such a unique sound. His playing is so gnarly. His spirit and attitude are things I always think of when making music.” Waaju (meaning ‘to urge, inspire or influence to take action’ in Malian language Bambara) blends pulsing Latin polyrhythms, psychedelic Malian blues licks and cinematic textures. Following the group’s 2018 self-titled debut record, Grown presents a group more unified and distinctive-sounding than ever with six fresh, bold compositions. The record begins with Moleman, a potent reminder of the intricacy and energy Waaju’s become known for. Gritty, clattering metal defines the landscape for sizzling builds, hinting at rave culture styles like Bashment and Jungle. Listening Glasses follows and it’s clear why this is the album’s lead single – its Afrobeat-like energy and joyful interplay between guitar and tenor sax lies somewhere between Tony Allen’s grooves, Chimurenga guitar and Headhunters’ funk. On late night jam Rollando, Joe Downard’s skulking bass frequencies rule and wonkiness reaches new heights as heavy dub grooves almost tear themselves apart. Time’s Got a Hold was co-written by Waaju and Jordan Rakei for a show together in November 2018. Kicking off side B, this version features special guest vocalist Will Heard over bouncing triplets evocative of 1970’s Sega from La Reunion. A kind of looseness found only at night, the quiet drive of Wassoulou is sparse yet purposeful. Pulling back the tempo and dimming the lights, cavernous percussion fills each corner of the room, springing back as spectral reverbs. The title and final track shows the many dynamic sides of the outfit’s far-reaching sound, with its expansive harmonies and explosive psychedelia, spanning Yoruba Andabo to Hendrix, signing off an exciting and energetic second LP from Waaju at their most scintillating.

Once more we're ready to take flight on Africa Airways, for this sixth journey we're taking you above 5280 feet and laying on the funk.

The flight opens with the punchy horns, afro rhythms & groovy bass of Eko Roosevelt's "Ndolo Embe Mulema". Keeping the tempo high we usher in fellow Cameroonians JM Tim & Foty for another punch of brass with the funky "More And More (Ye-Male)". We stay in Cameroon with Ngalle Jojo, here he lays down another funktastic bass heavy stomper with "Ngigna Loko". Jude Bondeze hails from Bangui, Central African Republic and is probably best known for his more traditional Tene Sango album... but his debut 1981 release saw him in a very funky mood indeed!

Next up, Nigerian Vicky Edimo gets his thumb out and lays down some glorious slabs of deep funk... along with a rather splendid bass solo! JK Mandengue played bass off & on for the British Afrobeat band "Osibisa", playing on the uber funky "Super Fly TNT" Motion Picture Soundtrack album.. Certainly putting him on a path to the Wahahwah'tastic "Kosa Mba" taken from his 1979 self-titled album.

Slow percussive classic raw street funk from Nigeria's Akwassa, who's line up is the same as "Heads Funk Band", are up next. Another outing for Vicky Edimo on this 1978 beauty from Mike Kounou. Also on guitar duties for Mike Kounou is Francois Amadou Corea, who's funky chops can be heard on "Ngigna Loko" & "Njonjo Mukambe".

Hi-Octane funk from Airto Fogo, percussion, rhodes & horns aplenty on this 1974 instrumental cut "Black Soul". As we prepare to start our decent Francois Misse Ngoh drops in some filth with this 1980 bass face monster "Njonjo Mukambe"... head nodding isn't essential, but it's best to brace yourself for impact.

Your next Africa Airways departure will be ready for boarding soon,
so keep your passports at the ready!

Studio Mule drops “Anthologia”, the final chapter of a close look on the work of the Tokyo born DJ and producer Takayuki Shiraishi, a jack of all trades, that sways through Tokyo’s vast music scene since the late 70’s, a time when post punk grooves called the tune. As part of the band BGM he released in 1980 the album “Back Ground Music” on the legendary Osaka based underground label Vanity. Last October Studio Mule reissued BGM’s no wave, free funk mini-mal treasure. A few Month earlier Studio Mule already published “Missing Link”, a thrilling retrospect on Takayuki Shiraishi's unreleased material from the late 1980s, a creative period of which only a little ever saw the light of the day.

And now “Anthologia”, a record that is dedicated to his work during the years 1990 to 1996, a time span, in which Shiraishi moved on to produce house, downbeat and playful electronica. In 1995 he released the ambient/techno 12inch “Spectral Colours” on the R&S sublabel Apollo under the alias Planetoid. Two years later he manifested his techno leaning creativity under his given name on the album “Photon”, a record that helped launching Japan’s techno scene. It was followed by two more long players, that display his wide musical taste with ambient, house, breakbeat and other genre blending styles. Besides producing, Shiraishi was also a prominent figure of Tokyo’s club nightlife, DJing alongside Jeff Mills as well as Krautrock icons like Holger Czukay.

“Anthologia” features three unreleased tunes of this lapse of time, as well as highlights some work Shiraishi produced together with his friend Jun Sonohara as Musica Nova and a hidden gem he tuned in for the “Isolated Audio Players 1” compilation, published by the Tokyo based Pickin' Mushroom Recordings label in 2000.

The three unreleased tracks display his love for diversification. “Distant Thunder” is a drone driven ambient voyage, that slowly melds into a gentle rhythmic sensation driven by loose hi-hat patterns and a soft chord crescendo. On the opposite, “Lapis Lazuli” comes around as a mellow melodic downbeat trip enlarged with twisted rhythms and cosmic infiniteness. “A Voy-age” shows his love for house music with a grooving arrangement that comes close to the kinky house gems of contemporary producers like Lowtec. Also, the already known “Isolated Audio Players 1” compilation tune “Flicker” is located in the house spheres, delivering nervous jacking minimal vibes emerging from a precise produced dance of melodies, grooves and sound effects.

In comparison, the four Musica Nova tracks show again another side of Takayuki Shiraishi’s many musical talents. “Birds in Paradise” is an elegant triphop tranquilizer, while tunes like “Nocturnal Tribes” and “Green on Green” express his passion for electronic arrangements that think out of the box with airy melodies, slow-motion big beat rhythms, jazz particles and an overall cosmic sound complexion. The tune “Shifting Sand” goes the same direction, while adding esoteric reverberations and a touch of Drum and bass.

Together the eight tracks turn “Anthologia” into something more than just an anthology of Takayuki Shiraishi’s work. In association, all compositions work like an album that overwhelms with a reasoned story-arc, who slowly rises to a hypnotizing peak, from where all downswings to a calm finish, that makes you want to start all over again.

Impromptu muscovite supergroup Lilipulu turn the needle neon with a quartet of unexpected killers for club cosmonauts, rainforest ravers, anxious insomniacs and giddy punks.

Unplanned, inspired and all the way live – the pin is glowing! Ever wondered why the Growing Bin releases sound so damn good? Well, it has more than a little to do with mastering magician Sergey Luginin, whose eagle-ears and technical know how have been a part of the process since GBR002. For the latest Glowing Pin powerplay, our man in Moscow joins some close friends on the other side of the console, letting the creative juices flow for ‘Four Amazing Tracks’. Luring Simple Symmetry brothers Sasha & Sergey and DJ & photographer Ivan Pustovalov into his studio with the promise of an afternoon stroll through the nearby Elk Forest, Sergey set the circuitry in motion and the quartet got lost in music. What begin with a plan for some simple edits and a woodland walk quickly became a full scale studio throw down, reimagining forgotten favourites amid a multi-instrumental stew of propulsive polyrhythms, low slung bass, cosmic synths and frazzled guitars. There’s techno-tribal hypnosis on the mind bending, brain blending A1, poetic post punk on the angular, janglier A2, outrageous Afro-cosmic on the freaky Floyd-in-Lagos B1 and languid ambience on the lysergic lullaby which closes the set. Recorded as they worked and presented in chronological order, this EP is a triumph of inspiration over perspiration - a snapshot of a moment which will last forever.
Patrick Ryder

Spencer Clark is back with a futuristic eco-friendly record. It’s life on earth as you never heard it.

The story goes like this: Spencer wanted to do a soundtrack for the yet to be made “Avatar 2”. And if you know Spencer’s work, you’ll know that he engaged on this mission reading material that influenced the rich and crazy imaginary world of “Avatar”. If you think about it a little bit, something like “Avatar” could have really come out from the mind of Spencer Clark.

But it didn’t. So, he dwelled around the idea of that soundtrack, working on what is now known as “Avatar Blue”. The record we now release is a selection he made from the 2CD released last year on his own Pacific City Sound Visions.*

Like many of Spencer’s other alias or incarnations, Star Searchers introduces the listener to a new world. Besides making sounds/soundtracks for alternative realities he cares about making a world for his music to live in. It’s never superficial or dedicated just to the act of imagination, Spencer creates sounds that sustain the reality he imagined. That’s why they’re so rich and consequential in the realization of music as a medium.

“Avatar Blue” is music but also literature. And cinema. Star Searchers’ sound creates an absorbent sound about what’s happening in aquatic life. It goes beyond the perception of what we’ve seen or what we’ve known, it’s a neo-future aquatic life, with a world building structure and sounds and narratives that go along with it.

All done with a sound-aesthetics that could be described as slowed-down-trance, that fits 1980s synth nostalgia and dreams of sci-fi to come.
*Note: The 2CD version is available as a digital download with a purchase of the album on selected stores.

Another win for the Glowing Pin as Müller & Wandt drop a fresh new age groover on a killer club dub tip. Elsewhere Phazer Boys, Suzanne Kraft, Philipp Otterbach and River Yarra remix the pscht out of their favourite tracks from ‘Instrumentalmusik..’. Expect Goan hits, cosmic trips, loved up rave and chilled out wave on this flawless five tracker.

Growing Bin becomes Glowing Pin for the most anticipated rematch of the century. Back at the beginning of 2018, Wolf Müller and Niklas Wandt went head to head for a box office smash, throwing a high school percussion tray, wall of hardware and voodoo skull into the ring for the tribal trip of ‘Instrumentalmusik Von Der Mitte Der World’. Now the multi-instrumental duo face off once again, but this time it’s a royal rumble with Phazer Boys, Suzanne Kraft, Phillip Otterbach and River Yarra all bringing the noise to the Glowing Pin.

Müller and Wandt dominate the action on the A1, playing loose with sampler vox, serene pads and future primitive rhythms on the unreleased ‘Fun Dub’ of the also unreleased ‘Dub Dub’. Imagine Ferris Bueller’s trampoline tumble trading Chicago to the Weissenhof and you’ll sense the mood of this New Age groove. Germany’s number one party dudes, those freaky Phazer Boys take a break from dropping killer Candomblé cuts to reach for the lasers on the A2, taking ‘Ahu’ to another dimension. Dripping in neon body paint and armed with fire poi, the Düsseldorf duo power up progressive house sequences, didgeridoo bass and thumping tribal house percussion for a wall-shaking, speaker-breaking remix.

The B1 belongs to synth whiz Suzanne Kraft who revels in glistening, gliding glory on an expansive remix of ‘Auflösung’. Sleek, serene and futuristic, the track shimmers like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, free from inequality and rendered with the 5D(ub?) majesty of a DMT breakthrough.
B2 hears Salon associate and serious talent Philipp Otterbach take over on a stripped back and psychedelic post punk dub of ‘Expedition’. Angular bass by Süne Große and a stuttering rhythm underpin astral flourishes and the hazy vocals of Lucas Croon before the African elements begin to move to the forefront.
Last man standing is Australian outlier River Yarra, who leads us into the Krautback with a chugging dub of ‘Weltraumsandalen’. Lent a lysergic sparkle by a percolating one-note bassline, this slow motion stunner masters perpetual motion amid the eerie echoes of the bush, organic percussion and electronic animal cries fading into the night. Let the pins glow again.

Patrick Ryder

Collocutor enter a new decade with the timeless, introspective Continuation. Continuation is a remarkable work in which the interplay of emotional experience and life motion experienced by band leader Tamar Osborn AKA Tamar Collocutor is channelled and explored by Collocutor.
The band's third LP assuredly strides forward following the critical acclaim awarded to 'The Search' from 2017 from the likes of The Wire, Vinyl Factory and Gilles Peterson. Continuation is an album about coping with grief and loss/bereavement: The music charts the many (and sometimes surprising) emotional states encountered, moving from acknowledgement, trying to keep 'normal' life going, the need to sometimes put a pause button on the world/existence and let the waves of feelings crash and roll, sudden anger & confusion, finally to moving (perhaps with uncertainty) forward.
Tamar Osborn has led Collocutor through a line-up shift from septet to quintet for Continuation. The modified line-up creates space for the musicians to express themselves through the shadows of Continuation's movement. The quintet allows for more group improvisation, based on just a few motifs and thereby giving the musicians more space to converse. The tracks Lost & Found and in particular the album's title track, Continuation (the only piece with 3 horns) hark back to the intricate arrangements of 'The Search'. It's a deeply personal album, the writing of which acted as Tamar's way of processing and understanding experience and the need to channel feeling.
In listening truly 'Continuation' bares that rare and precious gift of a morsel of the human experience being illuminated by artistic genius.

Completing a red hot trio of remix EPs of Calm’s By Your Side album is this final part with Lucas Croon, Cantoma and Gallo and Yuri Shulgin all serving up expansive and mind altering new versions.

He doesn’t release often but when he does you need to listen to Lucas Croon. His unique take on ‘Before Landing’ is a proper dance floor heater to get you on your toes. Once you're there, a gentle rush of rave euphoria tases over you and sends shivers down your spine as old school breakbeats and glowing pads complete the trip.

Elsewhere, long time Balearic pin up, scene hero and all round blissed out boss man Phil Mison has a new album corn gin the spring. Before that, he becomes Cantoma for a timeless version of ‘You Can See The Sunrise Again’ that has bright blue skies and jaunty chords making you move.

Regular label artist homie Gallo is in the form of his life right now - he's resident DJ at Hell Yeah's weekly Balearic night Buena Onda in Berlin, has a growing reputation for being one of the best eclectic selectors in the game and is currently working on compiling the forthcoming BUENA ONDA comp with label head Marco. He gets long legged on his deep cut remix of ‘Sky Color Passing’ which is another killer that slowly but surely works you in a slow motion acid trance.

Completing this most exquisite outing is Yuri Shulgin, a multi-instrumentalist music producer from Tajikistan with credits on Cocktail d'Amore Music. His spellbinding take on 'Ending of Summer, Beginning of Autumn' is a fusion of jazz, leftfield and electronica will have you in a spin and your head lost in the clouds amongst the twinkling stars and cosmic pads.

From the people who brought you Disques Sinthomme and Ghost Town comes a new imprint LESDK.

Bringing back that NYC Lower East Side grime, LESDK will feature edits as well as new work from Dennis Kane and his circle of proper low-lifes...

Ghost Town and Disques Sinthomme featured contributions from Brennan Green, Richard Sen, The Beat Broker, Bicep, Jose Manuel, and Cosmic Metal Mother, as well as edit monsters like Jeff 'The Drunk' Overton and Cazbee. Kane will be helming this label, curating work and providing his own productions and remixes.

LESDK

Starts off side A with 'Real' - A soulful disco romp that has a gospel force as well as a powerful vocal performance. The song grooves from its first beat, and pushes the energy as it builds. "Now it's time to be real..." Edit as manifesto - Pure heat! The edit work here comes from one of the OG's of serious digging, Senior Reyes aka Jersey Pete.

Side B brings 'Action' as its first track, complementing the A Side, this is some dirty late night Philadelphia bar nastiness, mentholated disco with a humid female vocal, "I like to party, I like to flirt..."

Side B closes out with 'Motion', a slice of cosmic funkiness that laments a love that is not happening while a thick bassline moves the proceedings along.
This song has heartbreak and the haze of an early morning on the dancefloor.

Three essential edits for the DJ to bless the party people with.

Dennis Kane is a DJ and producer based in NYC, he has run the Disques Sinthomme and Ghost Town labels and is also a partner in the recording group SIREN, (with Darshan Jesrani) on Compost records.
Kane has produced numerous tracks and done remix work for Cantoma, Liz Torres, The Phenomenal Handclap Band, and Hokis Pokis among others.
He has been a DJ in NYC since the mid 90's holding down numerous residencies and touring worldwide.

‘Synth Expressionism/Rhythmic Cubism’ LP from Chicago’s Jamal Moss aka Hieroglyphic Being is a collection of idioms that have no past and no future, his jarring use of polyrhythmic polyphony imbues a sense of timelessness.

The prolific catalog of Moss’ covers many musical dialects from his hometown and beyond. Never standing in one artistic sphere for too long, this adventure for On the Corner Records sees Hieroglyphic Being exploring a multitude of expressions of the American Avant-garde.

Abstractions Of The Future Past — Afro-Cubism: The Designation, conceived by an African With A Mainframe — An Etude Of Effigy — A Hieroglyphic Being.

Rhythmic Cubism: In this ‘Dissertation Of Disorientation’ Neal Andrew Emil Gustafson temporal considerations are put aside as polyrhythmic propulsion is the current flowing through the work. As prelude the fastidious ‘Rhythmic Cubism’, Moss enacts a flurry of white noise and musical coda as it phases in-and-out of synchronicity.

The disjointed dance of an alternative Black Music, ‘The Spiritual Or ‘Electromagnetic Worlds’ takes the meter down a fraction to exonerate a granular groove of visceral refracted complexity. Sonorus static sits alongside spastic shards of synthesis to reveal a melancholic medley before its conclusion.

‘Apocrypha’ collages distinct rhythmic source materials in an entrancing abstraction of ‘Hypersonic Hemiola’. An assertion of Art Blakey proportions. Perpetually pushed forward through the building of distorted percussion, Moss precludes into syncopated synapsis before and end of reductive symmetry.

Evolving into a studdered off-kilter groove, ‘The Redemption Project’ flows as a dissipating organ medley dissolves into a deluge of layered sonic textures, creating an indiscernible metric center before fading to a distant vanishing point.

Departing with a common-time ‘Timbuk2’ takes off like a classic Chicago Acid track, then makes a left turn towards the center as it drives the rhythmic motion into a dystopian dreamland, as the sax line surges forcing the track to break free from it’s charted course.

The Fragmented Fantasy of The Synth Expressionism/Rhythmic Cubism LP is a conclusive work that has no end, a conundrum of conceptual calculated improvisation. Drifting through time, this fragmented abstraction of Afro-Cubism leaves room for posterity, as each listen summons a new perspective on the suite. Something ever so common in the work of Jamal Moss. Charting new sonic directions, the very nature of its precedent makes it a truly Hieroglyphic affair.

Words By Neal Andrew Emil Gustafson

Destiny is made. Realised. Driven by the acts of vision. Hireroglyphic Being is a seer. Atomic resonance echoing from the big bang defies the conceptual reality of purity. The nuclear static of ‘white noise’ is HBs canvas. Channeling poly rhythms into the universe. Experience, repetition and eternal decay. From purity back to the absolute by way of a deluge of slurry across time. Infinite layers of distortion and refracted complexity. This is HBs canvas. Sound of eternity channelled through a bass bin, represented by its own impure reflection and fragments. Always more than it's whole but never as was before.

This album seeks to reach beyond ideas and emotions, beyond the comprehension of a human archetype. Beyond ultimate history, forwards and back. To ends and a singular beginnings. Timbuk2 is the frenetic intersection where the call and response of these ideas lock and dissipate back into the void.

2x12" Repress


January 1981 found Gudrun Gut and Bettina Koster in Christopher Franke’s Berlin-Spandau Studio recording their first Malaria! EP (Zensor Records). Christine Hahn of The Static with Glenn Branca and Barbara Ess, joined in from New York, and Manon P. Duursma fresh from Nina Hagen’s O.U.T. project and Susanne Kuhnke completed the Line-Up.

Malaria! started touring intensively soon after the release of their 12”, commencing with a concert with New Order at Brussel’s Ancienne Belgique, and going on from there to concerts with Siouxsie and the Banshees, Birthday Party, The Slits, The AuPairs, Raincoats, Nina Hagen, John Cale, Einstuerzende Neubauten. They played venues as diverse as the Mudd Club, Peppermint Lounge and Studio 54 in New York, the Documenta in Kassel, the Bat Cave in London, Les Bains Douche in Paris, Milky Way and Paradiso in Amsterdam, ICA in London, the Piazza Santa Maria Novella in Florence and Markthalle in Hamburg and naturally, again and again, at the SO36 in Berlin.

While touring, Malaria! used their time off to record in Studios in New York, London, Brussels, New Orleans, and in Berlin (How Do You Like My New Dog? 7”, Weisses Wasser 12”, New York Passage 12”, Revisited MC, Emotion Album). At the BBC studios in London Maida Vale Malaria recorded an Kit Jensen and a John Peel Session.

Malaria! took a break in 1984 - Bettina and Christine re-located to New York, and Gudrun and Manon stayed in Berlin to form, with Beate Bartel, Matador, but not before they recorded their Mini-Album, Beat the Distance. 1992 Gudrun, Bettina, Christine, and Manon met up in New Orleans with Jim Thirlwell (Foetus) to record Elation 12”. Elation was followed by Cheerio, Album, which again was recorded in Berlin.

Chicks on Speed did their own version of Malaria’s song, Kaltes Klares Wasser in 2001, and the Remix went into the German Top 10.

Malaria has been an instrumental part of Berlin Music History, as recently presented at the „Zurück zum Beton“ at Düsseldorf’s Kunstakademie, Kunsthalle Wien „Punk!“, „Geniale Dilletanten“ Goethe Institut, and in B-Movie.

BIBA KOPF 2019
The theme song for that great German road movie yet to be made, Malaria!’s 1981 single “How Do You Like My New Dog?” etched the E into the motion music of their soon-come debut album Emotion with its trail-out line “Immer vorwärts, nie zurück...”. Always forward, never back: from West Berlin to London, Paris, New York and Tokyo... from here, there and everywhere to eternity, the Autobahn goes on forever, with Malaria! at the wheel, spinning new moves from timelines crossed in records and songs right on the money evoking Zarah Leander, fighting the power, staring down Death, and a whole lot more. In all, one merry hell of a ride, and on the evidence of Compiled 2.0, it’s not over yet.

MARK REEDER 2019
"Even today, their originality in everything from sound to style, has proven just how relevant Malaria! are. In my opinion, their music has stood the test of time. To me, Emotion sounds as good today as it did when it was first released and it was a pleasure to revisit it. They might not have had any zillion selling albums, and their image might have been copied, while their sound could never be. They remain exclusively unique and their influence and legacy will reach far into the future. This band is both an inspiration and a statement and they prove what five very creative girls can achieve, if given the right support to allow them to evolve, and it is exactly that, which has made Malaria! Germany’s most successful and renowned, all-girl band...“

DIEDRICH DIEDERICHSEN 1991
"...Malaria! put across so many clear, manifest, attractive, certain, muscular, and harsh symbols, just as they refused - defying the customs intrinsic to these symbols and the worlds in which they circulate - to weave all these things into a readable, reproducible and manageable, generic text..."

50 years ago, a young Panamanian singer by the name of Ralph Weeks, who a few years prior had cut his teeth in the US music landscape with the group Johnny & The Expressions, self-produced and independently released a record with an absolute monster of a soul ballad called "Something Deep Inside." It was a song that Weeks had come up with on the spot during one of many gigs in the heart of Brooklyn's Prospect Heights, at the time a cultural hub and community for many Panamanians living in the borough. Along with his group, The Telecasters, Weeks often played at a Panamanian-owned club in the neighborhood called 4 Star's (STA4R's) which would independently sponsor the release of the tune on a 7-inch single.

Fast forward to 2019, where a serendipitous meeting between Ralph Weeks and Names You Can Trust turned into a solid formation of musical synchronicity, bonded over a shared belief in musical fusion, a weaving of musical threads that was similarly the foundation of that earlier era in Panama. It's a fusion that has become a constant theme throughout the Names You Can Trust catalog in the last 10 years, connecting the dots from NY, the Caribbean and Latin America. An immediate plan was put into motion: return Weeks to a studio atmosphere that had eluded him in the preceding decades, a vibe and live musical presence that would be reminiscent of his time recording with The Telecasters and The Exciters in Panama.

In the ultimate tribute to Weeks and that foundation, NYCT label mates Combo Lulo unpacked the 50-year old original tune and refashioned it into a timeless rocksteady ballad. It was an opportunity for Weeks to acquaint himself with a new band and a new generation of musical talent. Ultimately, it was an unexpected chance for Weeks to reconnect to the music he wrote one fateful evening in a Brooklyn club. For Combo Lulo, Names You Can Trust, and now the rest of his musical admirers, it's a chance to hear how gracefully Weeks' voice has aged, still silky smooth with those beloved falsetto runs, sweet and rounded like a barrel-aged añejo rum. It's a testament to the timelessness of Weeks' original music, and certainly another reminder of how far and wide even the smallest of musical blips can spread.

Presented as a double-sided bilingual 45 single, both versions of Weeks' classic tune, "Algo Muy Profundo" and "Something Deep Inside," have been formatted in the traditional Jamaican style, skillfully cut live and mixed under the guidance of NYCT and Combo Lulo's talented musicians. It's a tribute to a brilliant record and an unsung architect of Latin American sweet soul, but also a love letter to a very particular NY-Caribbean fusion that theoretically could have happened 50 years ago, depending on the borough you resided in. After all, there was always something deep inside. Comes with NYCT / STA4R'S Company Sleeve & Liner Notes.

Brioski has been redefining his sound and style on a number of labels, Codek, Throne of Blood, Slow Motion, Nang. He is also the mind behind the Boot & Tax and Tamburi Neri projects.

The Mindless Sequence EP is a selection of the industrial post-techno style Brioski iscurrently pioneering. Warm, trippy, synth heavy tracks with a straight beat framed by sentence fragments. The sound signature is there, analog evolving basslines, icy pad stabs and unrelenting beats and the song structure reflects Brioski's art in its constant evolution.

Having broken a decade's silence with 2016's 'System', LA-based electronic musician Joseph Fraioli, a.k.a. Datach’i, returns this summer with his eighth album 'Bones'.
Released on Venetian Snares' Timesig imprint, 'Bones' features 12 tracks of mind expanding electronica, once again recorded on his custom-built Eurorack modular system. Much like its predecessor, 'Bones' manages to make the most of the possibilities modular systems offer, whilst avoiding their many pitfalls that can often turn such music into little more than a dry academic exercise. Indeed 'Bones' is a remarkably intimate album, written and recorded in the time following his father's death, and reflects this intense period of personal change in Joseph's life.

"Creating this music was a therapy of sorts," Joseph recalls. "It was almost like a close friend being there for me, and it's something that I hope others can perhaps utilize in the same way."

The connection to his father is something that is reflected not just in the emotional intensity of 'Bones', but in the actual production itself. "My father and I were very close," he explains. "Whilst he was sick with cancer I bought him a guitar as he wanted to learn how to play, just to have something to do while he was getting treated. After he passed away my mother gave me the guitar to have as a sort of memory of him. I had the idea to record some sounds and music on the guitar and load it onto granular sample players on the modular synth so I could make new music from those sounds as a sort of tribute to my dad. You can hear some of those sounds on a few of the tracks here like 'Arrivals', 'Motion in the Living Room' and 'Undimension'."

The resulting album grapples with the intensity of these emotions. But for all their weight, tracks like 'Saugerties Road', ‘Rockledge 3A’ and ‘Antumalal’ transform that heaviness into something warm and comforting whilst the aforementioned 'Arrivals' or ‘Wand’ ultimately achieve some kind of escape velocity and soar. Even though 'Bones' is about endings and finding closure, it also looks forward to new beginnings.

"It was something very much on my mind throughout recording this album," he relates, "ends being beginnings and beginnings being the end. Cycles of time and how time works, it's all reflected throughout the album right down to how the tracks are ordered."

Ranging from blissful ambience and guileless, starry eyed melodies, to intricate claustrophobic rhythms that forever sound close to collapsing in on themselves before expanding into bold new patterns, 'Bones' is the work of a producer who, twenty years on from his debut, continues to push the boundaries of electronic music.

Shimza, one of South-Africa’s shining talents, makes his return to Cadenza with ‘Eminence’, a burning compound of profound percussions and late-night rapturing synths. This Gauteng-born artist is one of the most celebrated African electronic musicians and has garnered the reputation of the “Effect Master” and “Vinyl Assassin” for his technical prowess and intricate mixing abilities. The vibrating drums and persistent arpeggios of ‘Eminence’ make for a captivating peak-time anthem, offering the nostalgic essence of Detroit’s late-nineties splendour. As the EP journeys to ‘Dancefloor Keeper’, the slick trance-inspired stabs and permeating bassline expose its ominous nature as it swells to a seismic drop. On the B-side, Shimza expresses his creative flare with ‘Kunye’; a hypnotic cut that blends the spirit of futuristic synthwave with the soul of African tribalism. ‘Warrant For Arrest’ is a charged number, driven by a snappy compressed kick drum and chiming sequences. As its percussive forces fall away to the second break, a monstrous siren and obscure vocal cuts take focus, guiding it to its summit. The penultimate offering ‘MSC’, is a euphoric gem that flows with expressive phrases and evolving synth pads. The EP’s digital-only bonus track ‘Mirrors’ shuffles effortlessly with a funk-tinged riff, maintaining a high voltage pace, closing the EP in an emphatic manner. Shimza has been on a mission to make 2019 his biggest year to date. Launching his One Man Show concept in Soweto in 2009 to help raise funds for underprivileged children, the project has now matured into an annual event that draws in over 25,000 people each year, hosting some of the country’s most in-demand artists, such as AKA, Black Coffee and Black Motion. The show has seen international editions in France, Spain and Portugal and has helped position Shimza as one o

Kate Tempest returns with her third studio album, The Book of Traps and Lessons.

The highly anticipated album was crafted with Rick Rubin and Dan Carey over the course of the past five years. It follows Tempest’s previous releases, 2014’s Everybody Down and 2017’s Let Them Eat Chaos, both of which were shortlisted for Mercury Prize in 2014 and 2017, respectively. Last year, Kate Tempest was nominated at The BRIT Awards for Best Female Solo Performer.

A handful of words often tell you everything you need to know. When asked, who is Kate Tempest? She gives a brief, albeit telling answer. “Kate Tempest is the words,” she responds. You haven’t ever seen, heard, or experienced anyone quite like her. Tempest uncovers the missing link between the Golden Ages of literature and hip-hop. The London-born BRIT Award-nominated spoken word artist, rapper, poet, novelist, and playwright rhymes with a century-turning fury. Since her emergence in 2011, she has redefined what it means to be a wordsmith in the Modern Age. To date, she has published three poetry collections, staged three plays, and released two studio albums. Along the way, she entranced audiences on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, NPR’s “Tiny Desk,” and more. Not to mention, she garnered widespread critical acclaim from The New York Times, The New Yorker, Forbes, and more, to name a few. In the midst of this whirlwind journey, she performed a passage of her popular 75-minute narrative poem, Brand New Ancients, on Charlie Rose. Legendary producer and American Recordings Founder Rick Rubin caught the show, tracked down her phone number, and made a call. This set a series of events in motion that led to her 2019 debut album for American Recordings, The Book of Traps and Lessons, set for release on June 14th.

L’Illustration Musicale, Sonimage, Técipress-In Editions (Timing), Musax, Freesound,
Montparnasse 2000 in France but also De Wolfe and Chappell in England, every of these
sound illustration labels have in common to bring out as a legendary spectre the name of Jacky
Giordano and his aliases. Widespread practice in the library music world, Joachim Sherylee,
chosen for the In Motion album, is one of his plentiful aliases (with José Pharos, Jacky
Nodaro, Gruppo Sounds, Rubba...) used by the french composer, that we regain as well for
Black Devil with Bernard Fèvre or even for the Shifters with Yan Tregger.
For his enthronement on the mythical English label De Wolfe, it's under the obscure name of
the Rubba collective that Jacky Giordano aka Joachim Sherylee sneaked in the londonian De
Wolfe studios with the companionship of British colleagues such as John Hyde (aka John
Saunders, James Harrington, Astral sounds or even Wozo) and his wife Monice Hyde (aka
Monica Beale), Alan Howe (aka John Collins), Robert Poole and Tim Broughton.
Published in 1980, the In Motion: Modern Progressive Group Sounds Played By Rubba LP
and its minimalistic and utilitarian red record cover which contains 13 tracks, mainly composed
by Joachim "Giordano" Sherylee and was never reissued since then. This record became cult
over time; it will have taken that the Hip-Hop world seizes it in order to dig out from the
disregarded and underestimated musical gems graveyard. First of all with beatmaker Madlib
and Freddie Gibbs in 2011 with the track “Thuggin'”, in which he sampled the track “Way Star”,
also used more recently by Mil and the rapper Westside Gunn on his track “Brains Flew” by
(1964 Version).
Nearly 40 years after, the Farfalla Records label, after publishing Timing Archives, presents
another aspect more progressive and psychedelic of the multi-faceted composer Jacky
Giordano by fully reissuing at last this coveted, mysterious and mesmerizing "Rubba". Very
desired by crate-diggers, In Motion appears in the want-list of plenty enthusiasts in this
enigmatic world of the library music. (Erwann Pacaud)

Summer is coming sooner this year, and you can tell from the heat of the two latest releases from Slow Motion: yes ladies and gents, Italian Dance Wave Compilations are back! The first of the two, “Italian Dance Wave Disco Sette”, is here to delight you: starting from a half Italo and half Asian influenced Altieri track, killing it with a dancefloor belter that will make you sweat the night away, raving sensations guaranteed. Lukebox (Fabrizio Mammarella and Umberto Saba from the duo Loudtone) will serve you a slightly more downtempo, modular, weirdo beast that will make your head bang without you even notice: banger. Back on your turntables, is also Robotalco who is providing some proto-house extravaganza and adding some charme to the dirty, chunky beats of the compilation. Last but not least, José Manuel, delivering a touch of biting deep house and electro tribal feels to close the gap, and make us scream “hell yes”.

After a break of some 10 years producer and DJ Mat Carter felt the time was right to wake his imprint from hyper sleep.

It was started as and will continue to be an outlet for both Mat’s own material and that of other like-minded beings and as the name Varial suggests the label is not limited, instead it reflects Mat’s tastes and touches on many styles.

Varial launches with the remaster and re-release of the much sought after cult classic, Zark Time E.P. Written and produced by Mat himself, this E.P. pulls on influences of fractured imagery, fuzzyelectronics and dense soundscapes to form five tracks of warm, funk-fuelled jams that 17 years on still refuses to neatly conform with any one genre. As Mat himself says, “I can’t help my influences.”

During his time away from the music scene Mat’s focus was on raising a family and honing a physical craft but the pull of music never went away.

The fourth AF Trax release is a three-track EP from our long time ally The Fantastic Twins, who has the following to say about her EP:

This EP is a small collection of works I crafted over the past couple of years in the process of working on my live show. I have been performing versions of these tracks countless times and yet never played them twice the same way. To me, they have been material in constant motion, so shaping them into a 'finished' form was a risky challenge. Something I was also wary of - would it mean they would become set in stone Would it mean I'd have to somehow 'rationalise" the music - via the mind - as opposed to letting it run into the wildness of its physical live experiences

Whilst editing these tracks into a format that could be released, I realised that instead of shaping them into the mould my mind first intended to give them, I could in fact use the power they revealed each time I performed them to an audience and inject some of that energy - as much as it is possible to capture and recreate it in the studio - back into this EP. Then of course, it meant letting go on things I usually like to control more, and better.

But isn't it the power of music to let it take you where you didn't plan to go And how incomplete would the music be if our inspiration didn't feed off the collective experience of dancing to music together I've lost myself (and my twins) many times throughout the process - not only on German soil - I have sometimes landed in the wrong place, but I may have found one answer yet in the form of another question. Why are we here if we can't dance

That reminds me of the words of Pina Bausch 'Dance, dance or we are lost'. Lost in our internal struggles as individuals (or imaginary twins). Lost in a society where our relation to the other is often marked by fear, power or violence. We feel the need to resist. Yet nowadays, taking a political stance as an artist is too often being instrumentalised as another tactics or accessory to gather more popularity, reducing the political message to nothing else but a branding attempt. Isn't it anyway the power of capitalism to assimilate everything, even contradictory or once-upon-a-time subversive voices All to end up on a 'Rave' or 'Feminist' H&M t-shirt. Slogans that have been emptied of their initial force and substance, now replaced by their commercial value. I strongly doubt that more empty words poured in vain on social media will help us much. But, like Pina Bausch, like JD Twitch, I have always firmly believed in dancing as a physical, social and fundamental act that leads us to share a common space with others and embrace otherness. Standing together, dancing together when everything else forces us to divide.