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First ever repress of the sought after psychedelic tinged funk rock private press album 'Eclipse of the City' from 1980 New York. Originally recorded between 1975 and 1977 in Manhattan's garment district. Eclipse of the City lay dormant on a reel to reel player whilst frontman Carlos Fire Aguasvivas muddled through life working as a data entry clerk away from his fellow band members. It wasn't till he rediscovered the tapes that a sudden life affirming moment drove him to get the music pressed. Putting pen to paper Carlos created the artwork as a homage to his love of comic art and brought the band to life on the reverse with his spindly characters engrossed in the jam. Only 300 copies were pressed at the time leading to eye-watering prices for a copy. with a recent digital re-release from Indian Summer's Anthology Records, Sticky Buttons stepped up to repress the record with a limited run of 500, lovingly manufactured in the UK in all its vinyl glory.

Arriving in the Bronx from the civil unrest of Santo Domingo in the early 60's Aguasvivas was surrounded by the raucous sounds of rock, jazz and prog. Absorbing the humdrum atmosphere of life in New York, Eclipse of the City came from the minds of close friends Carlos Aguasvivas, Steve Garcia and Eddy Garcia. Meeting at Monroe High School the three of them quickly formed a strong bond over their shared interest in music. It wasn't long after that they began rehearsing in a basement under a neighbourhood cleaners and in the attic of Steve and Eddy's family home piecing together their extended sessions of tripped out cinematic psychedelia.

Recording got off to a rocky start as a car accident left the three band members in A&E after taking an early morning cab ride through Manhattan to watch the sunrise on their way into the studio (a theatrical artistic statement of intent conceived by Steve Garcia) - as Eddy mentioned "Eclipse was forged from a lot of pain". Their recording sessions were postponed but a few weeks later they were back and with the added energy of John Ortega on Bass and Vincent Anderson on electric piano and organ - with just a few microphones and a reel to reel recorder, Eclipse of the City was laid down as the stark bold homage to New York's downtown.

Influences ranged from the cinematic behemoth Jaws to the UK prog rock bands of Genesis, Yes and Emerson Lake & Palmer but only could Eclipse of the City take its unique form in the attics and basements of New York with the full band adding their Puerto Rican and Dominican slanted New York energy. Side one includes 3 fully formed tracks breaking out into eerie moments of calm before diving into well timed jolts of reprise as each element weaves over the top of one another whilst side two presents a 30 minute narrative work following the night adventures of a young group of friends exploring the vibrant nightlife of downtown New York. A rumbling half hour of wobbling guitar, tight drumming and synth organ licks jutting out from the glistening lights of the night before the sun rises down Manhattan's East-West axis as the lilt changes and the organ lulls the friends back home. A truly idiosyncratic take on the heady world of New York in the 70's and one that still resonates with our urban landscapes and love for the nights they bring today.

a 01: Think Positive (Live) feat. Steve Garcia, Edward Garcia & John Ortega
b 02: Jennifer (Live) feat. Steve Garcia, Edward Garcia, Vincent Anderson & John Ortega
c 03: Try It All Again (Live) [feat. Vincent Anderson, John Ortega, Edward Garcia & Steve Garcia]
[d] 04: Eclipse A (Beginnings) [Live] [feat. Vincent Anderson, John Ortega, Edward Garcia & Steve Garcia]
[e] 05: Eclipse B (First Movement) [Live] [feat. John Ortega, Steve Garcia & Edward Garcia]
[f] 06: Eclipse C (Hustle Bustle) [Live] [feat. Vincent Anderson, John Ortega, Steve Garcia & Edward Garcia]
[g] 07: Eclipse D (Funky Side of Town) [Live] [feat. Vincent Anderson, John Ortega, Steve Garcia & Edward Garcia]
[h] 08: Eclipse E (Midnight) [Live] [feat. John Ortega, Steve Garcia & Edward Garcia]
[i] 09: Eclipse F (First Movement Continued) [Live] [feat. Vincent Anderson, John Ortega, Steve Garcia & Edward Garcia]
[j] 10: Eclipse G (Home) [Live] [feat. Vincent Anderson, John Ortega, Steve Garcia & Edward Garcia]

Swedish progg is not to be confused with "prog" as in progressive rock music. When we are talking about progg, we are referring to the Swedish music movement influenced by the political climate of the late 60's, to some extent the hippie movement and in many cases also Swedish folk music. Music highly driven by a political agenda. Blod's Knutna Nävar, originally released in an edition of 150 copies on Förlag För Fri Musik in 2018 and later a small cassette run, is pretty much a lost progg classic from the 70's. This is not a case of copying a certain sound though, far from it, neither are ideas really rehashed nor does the album feel nostalgic in that sense. Rather it feels like if someone has read about the progg movement and all the records but never actually heard it, yet decided to do an album and somehow managed to succeed big time. Further developing the sound palette and ambience initiated with parts of the Leendet Från Helvetet recording, the music feels slightly louder and more in your face. It's like it's more of everything. The melodies are immediate and it's quite impossible to resist the brash catchiness of it all. Albeit mentioning progg music and its importance for this recording, the actual musical side of Knutna Nävar has in reality more in common with soundtrack/library music and Swedish composers like the late Björn Isfält when you attempt to break it down. The crude DIY approach and anything-goes mentality just adds an extra dimension to it all and ultimately places the music somewhere else. There's a rather blunt use of samples throughout the record (sources probably best to leave out, though you don't have to be a Einstein to figure these out), but then again this is made by the same guy that gave the world the ABBA album. Those samples has managed to become an integral part of the music through the few years that has passed and though well familiar with the records those snippets are now to me genuinely Blod and nothing else. It seems like everyone has their own favourite but Knutna Nävar is the Blod album I have returned to the most. It has that extra something that sets it apart and if I would have to pick up a few records that sums up why Gothenburg has been a pretty damn awesome place to be in the last 10 years or so, this would definitely be one of the top picks.

Giallo is the fourth in a series of five double vinyl releases that bring together some of Ennio Morricone’s greatest soundtrack music. Each collection centres on a different movie genre, together they allow the listener to rediscover the unmatched genius of the greatest movie composer of all time. The Maestro. This collection was announced before Ennio Morricone passed away on July 6, 2020. We’ll continue to release the series to honour this great composer.

When we think of 1960’s Italian pulp cinema, the spaghetti western is the genre that comes to mind. However, Italy was responsible for another classic cinematic exploitation movement around the same time, one that is equally as compelling, but less widely recognised. Giallo…

Giallo, meaning ‘yellow’, is the Italian term for crime fiction, it was named after the bright yellow colours of early pulp fiction paperbacks. Film audiences adopted it as the name for a peculiarly Italian sub-genre of thriller cinema that had its heyday in the 1970’s - just as the Spaghetti Western movement was waning. The Giallo can be difficult to define, but essentially it is an Italian crime film that draws from a pool of common themes: stylized murders, amateur sleuths, sleazy glamour, psychological crimes, enigmatic titles and all these themes are underpinned by creepily atmospheric Ennio Morricone music scores. Starting 70 years ago as an arranger for the piece Mamma Bianca, Ennio Morricone is the emperor of scores and soundtracks. Morricone has always been a huge influence for the likes of Hans Zimmer, Danger Mouse, Muse, Metallica and many more musicians. He was one of the most successful composers of all-time, selling over 70 million records and winning dozens of awards.

Giallo is available as a limited edition of 3000 individually numbered copies on “giallo and black marbled” (clear, yellow and black mixed) vinyl. The package includes a 4-page insert with liner notes written by Claudio Fuiano. The gatefold sleeve contains a silver foil spot varnish on the outside and images of iconic movie posters on the inside.

3 Electro Knights are cybernetic synthesizer group from London playing science fiction music for the 21st century. The 4 track Red Admiral EP is their first proper release following a very limited lathe cut single which was available through Norman Records and Rough Trade in very small quantities and sold out immediately, and a limited cassette album, Sketches For Another Future. The single I Move In Another Dimension was described by Rough Trade as “Electro sqwonk and clatter meet Patti Smith style beat poetry on this unbelievably scarce 7”. Destroy/Exist wrote of their cassette album Sketches For Another Future: “Through krautrock, psychedelic, synthpunk, and modern electronica passages, 3 Electro Knights fully realize their analog electronic sound, exposing their warm connection with their synths.”

The trio meld the ‘live-improvisation allied with editing approach’ of Krautrock legends Can to contemporary outboard synth music. Influences and inspiration include Tangerine Dream, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Derrick May, Vangelis, Craven Faults. 3 Electro Knights are Daren Pickles (Supercharger, bushpilot), Nik Clifford (Jesus Licks, bushpilot) and Ross Holloway (bushpilot). The next EP will follow soon and is called Rave One. Red Admiral EP 1. Red Admiral 2. Hidden Intent 2 3. Why Don't You Cry For Me 4. Apparently Peaceful

Lolina project emerged at a time when CDJs became standard in clubs and artists from many disciplines began exploring their possibilities. In Lolina’s records and performances, they are used as a live sampling tool allowing her to move between composition and improvisation. On “Fast Fashion”, discarded vocal takes and phone recordings made while watching videos online or walking down the street are re-sampled across long-form collages. “Mark Ronson’s TED Talk Intro (Using Computer Remix)”, restyles a lecture about sampling and constructed of samples into a track that can’t be contained by any of its elements. Relaxed beats break down into stuttering, jokes turn into abstract situations, and meaning is altered through repetition. With transitions between different parts defining the listening experience, “Fast Fashion” reveals a process by which one thing can be changed into another. “Fast Fashion” is Lolina’s fifth album and first working with Deathbomb Arc. Digital to be released on Oct 27th with vinyl to follow in early 2022 ~ both on pre-sale now. Lolina previously released music as Inga Copeland and was a member of the band Hype Williams between 2009 — 2013.

Experimental and improvisational psychedelic rock, for fans of White Heaven, Les Rallizes Denudes, Headroom, Düngen, Heron Oblivion, Comets On Fire, The Renderers, Bardo Pond. Mountain Movers arguably are the perfect band for all the true "heads" out there. The New Haven quartet have been at it for 15 years, and the "newest" lineup (now at it for well over a decade; vocalist/guitarist Dan Greene, bassist Rick Omonte, guitarist Kryssi Battalene and drummer Ross Menze) have firmly grasped what it takes to fry brains; achingly beautiful melodies buoyed by a life raft of white-hot guitar scree and mind-melting feedback. "World What World" is the band's eighth album and third for Trouble In Mind Records. "World What World" is the newest chapter of the group's continued explorations and efforts to refine their sound. The lyrics of "World What World"s songs all imply a protagonist on a quest; the title itself is an implied query with no question mark; is it a question, or a statement?. The one-two punch of opener "I Wanna See The Sun" and "Final Sunset" lay out what's in store; Crazy Horse-inspired sandpaper melodies sit comfortably next to improvised, PSF-influenced six-string ragers. The group performs together effortlessly and telepathically, subverting the loud/quiet/loud dynamic that has saturated independent music since the late-Eighties. The loud parts and quiet parts are like waves; indistinguishable from each other, creating a fluid dynamism and intensity that swallows the listener up in its current, sweeping it toward oblivion. Hyperbole, you say? Watch out for midway through "Then The Moon" when the tune's lilting waltz pivots into a casually blistering solo by Battalene before fading into the melancholic "Haunted Eyes" - beckoning you with a mournful sidelong glance. Side Two opens with "Staggering With A Lantern", an elegant, lumbering instrumental improvisation again showcasing the synergistic shredding of the group's guitarists. The sticky lyrical hooks and sideways jangle of "Way Back To The World" and "The Last City"s midnight-hour, mellow singe come next, before concluding "World What World"s journey with "Flock of Swans". The song is the perfect closer and culmination of the album's mission statement. The subjects that populate Greene's songs and visual imagery augment his elegiac lyrics, awash in magical realism and fantastic symbolism; knights, fighters, dragons, masks. Poetic missives are launched from the heart straight into the neural pathways, guided by the rhythm section's otherworldly chemistry and Battalene's masterful control over her instrument. Mountain Movers have been at it too long to care about acclaim. They do it because the music calls out to them, and they let it carry them away.

Two years after his Debut EP Bloodline OTN 01, Umo returns to OpenTheNext with another 5 #neodancefloor killer tracks.

The sound of Umo is the result of almost two decades of studying frequencies, vibrations, sequences of movements, plants and ascetic substances, seeking to recover the Music & Dance´s sacred and transcendental vision to ascend and sustain higher states of consciousness.

His new EP is a slow motion rework of the Raves in the 90s´ original sounds & vibrations. Traveling to a time when the dancefloors were true places of healing , authentic liturgies where people danced in community for days with eyes closed – before the internet, smartphones and globalization would corrupt everything.

#slowravers is a sonic journey that encourages conscious breathing and movement, and allows you to empty, dilute and connect in perfect resonance with the void that binds everything together.

Naomi Alligator is fed up. She’s sick of trying to make relationships work that have already run their course, and tired of sitting in a wintry apartment waiting for her life to kick into gear. On »Double Knot«, the modern folk singer/songwriter from Virginia attempts to unwind her life from all that is holding her back. In a way, it’s a coming-of-age record about shedding what no longer serves you and, ultimately, finding something like deliverance.

On the opening track, “Seasick,” Naomi Alligator is already in the midst of a sort of awakening. Right off the bat, she sings, “I don’t know what’s happened to me / It’s like I turned 16 / It’s like I grew to be 6-feet tall.” This is the announcement of a wide-eyed artist coming out of hibernation and into their own. Still, Naomi’s vocals ache with guilt and longing, belying the track’s playful catchiness. Longing for what? Maybe attention from a crush, but mostly a sunnier place to call home.

Naomi Alligator began writing Double Knot while living in Philadelphia during the height of the pandemic and the deterioration of a longterm romance. “I scream: How’d the hell I end up here? / I’m 1-inch tall, it’s crystal clear,” she chants on “Neighborhood Freak,” returning to height and size as an emotional barometer. When asked though, Naomi rejects the notion that Double Knot is a breakup album, or autobiographical at all. Moreso, she says, it’s a personal reckoning in which, “the minute before you make a big decision, you tally up the reasons why you don’t want to do what you’re doing anymore.”

That desire to turn the page expands to the production of the album as well. Naomi Alligator generally houses her narratives in beds of minimal, home-tracked instrumentation—influenced by the stripped-down poeticism of Joan Baez and Liz Phair’s Girly-Sound tapes. Double Knot finds Naomi continuing to hone the winning combination of guitar and banjo she established on 2021’s Concession Stand Girl EP. For Double Knot though, Naomi wanted a fuller, more dynamic sound: more instruments, more harmonies, more layering, more, more, more. Inspired by the impressionistic melodies of Animal Collective and MGMT, Naomi peppers in computer-generated synths throughout the album, most notably on the song “Burn Out.” These electronic flourishes augment the more grounding string instruments, arriving somewhere more ethereal than Naomi’s earlier work while still maintaining her warm songwriting.

If anything, Double Knot is a reminder that you can always pack up your bags, try something new, and change your life. As for Naomi Alligator herself? She moved west, to California.

North London-by-way-of-Suffolk soundsmith Gerry Read delivers his first release for Circus Company with the Lean on Something EP. After countless examples of his bold production moves on many of our brother and sister labels including Herbert’s Accidental Jr to more recently on Koze’s Pampa Records, Read has always displayed a kindred spirit mindset to ours in his adventurous musical angles, and we are very happy to present this particular set of rock-solid and uniquely diverse pieces.
The title track “Lean on Something” starts things off in fine and classic Read form, with knocking found-sound percussion, fizzing textures and slick use of chopped and disorienting vocal sample
bits, as the track layers unfold into a whimsical and wondrous melodic stargazing anthem. “Wooer at the Well” then follows and picks up the tempo with those fly live acoustic drum lines that gives
Gerry’s tracks that special beyond-electronic feeling, while once again the deft layering of such a rich sound palette builds and builds giving other mavericks like Four Tet a sincere run for their money. The mood then brilliantly shifts on the next track “Paramol”, where Read treats us to an almost Robotnik-era Italo sprinkling amidst his otherwise forward-thinking club floor-filling tendencies, with an amazing array of synth sections and an arrangement that should satisfy even the neo-purists out there amongst us. Finally, “Risotto” wraps up the proceedings with a warm, jazzy bouncer reminiscent of both Read’s as well as our own catalog’s charming early offerings, and a kind of landing-at-home-base sensation with smoky cubist funk feelings and an equal parts rough-yet-undeniably cool effervescent groove.

“Babygirl” is the new album by CTM out on Posh Isolation. In its composition channels a sensuous consciousness. The music is like a prism reflecting tactile perceptions, light, movements and memories. Relations between the composed structures and the undetermined of the improvisations, the cracks in the form and the digital glitches, create a poetic and open elsewhere. With a sensibility of pop, the musical landscape moves from nostalgic popballads through the austere pomp of a deconstructed baroque menuet for solo cello, to lingering piano ornamentations and distorted guitars. There is a soft and wild intimacy to the music. Common collective musical languages are weaved effortlessly into the musical canvas, while the form and perspective change and move. With a profound emotional resonance in the music, tenderness and devotion are reflected in the narrative. The sense of nostalgia comes like glimpses of pastimes revisited, when life cycles reveal themselves repeating in the now. Babygirl continues in the track of her latest album “Red dragon”, exploring feverish dreams and personal material through a digital ephemera. Digital effects splinter the intimacy and transform into something more than human, shaking the balance between the codes of the popsong and the unexpected digressions, guided by the voice of CTM that is central throughout the album. The album is produced by Holger Hartvig, Malthe Fischer and Cæcilie Trier. It features vocal and instrumental contributions by Ydegirl, Coco O., Johan S. Wieth (Iceage), ML Buch, Jakob Littauer (Yangze), Emil Elg, Claus Haxholm among others. The album, containing bits and pieces of recordings and compositions made over several years, is like a musical platform with expressions of many voices, and with relations and time weaved into the compositions. Trier is a Copenhagen based cellist, singer, and composer, with her classical training apparent across her many and varied projects and collaborations. Having received critical acclaim from the earliest moments of her career, Trier's previous album 'Suite For A Young Girl' was nominated for the prestigious Nordic Music Prize in 2017.

Lunatic Harness, µ-Ziq's rare and sought-after fourth album, was originally released in July 1997 on Virgin's Hut Recordings label. It is generally considered to be Mike Paradinas's best work of the nineties. An Apple Music review describes Lunatic Harness as "the prettiest album to come out of the mid-'90s "drill'n'bass movement", noting that Paradinas eschewed the abrasiveness of similar works by Squarepusher and Aphex Twin in favour of "atmospheres of ethereal color and shimmering melody", bringing the album "closer to pop music than anything Paradinas had previously attempted". Planet Mu has compiled a special 256th anniversary edition 4xLP boxset bringing together the My Little Beautiful EP, the Lunatic Harness album and May 1998's Brace Yourself EP (released by USA's Astralwerks label) with the addition of four rare tracks. Discs one and two of the vinyl are the original Lunatic Harness album, disc three compiles the My Little Beautiful b-sides with three unreleased cuts from the period and a remix of Mr.Angry from 1997's Mealtime compilation, while disc four is the 8-track Brace Yourself EP which hasn't been re-issued since 1998. This all comes in individual printed sleeves housed in a rigid box with an insert collage of some of the press Mike received at the time. There is also a 2xCD edition with the same tracklisting.

Eighteen sacred psychedelic suppositories from the laboratory of mad scientist and scalpel-happy pop mutilator Jean-Pierre Massiera. Includes
the rarest and most sought after fuzz funk, spooked surf and
interplanetary prog from ‘The French Joe Meek’ and all his schizoid splitpersonalities and freakish friends - The Maledictus Sound, Chico
Magnetic Band, Visitors, Human Egg, The Pirhana Sound and Jesus
himself.

 Let Finders Keepers introduce you to some old friends of theirs - Charlie Mike Sierra, Jean-Pierre Areisam, JPM and Co. Erik, The Horrific Child, Jesus, Les Maledictus Sound, Human Egg... This might sound like they’re flicking through the imaginary LP racks in the record shop from ‘A Clockwork Orange’ or perhaps congratulating the runners up in a
Halloween fancy dress competition but for the previously uninitiated you
have just been ordained into the congregation of the many split
personalities of one Mr. Jean-Pierre Bernard Massiera. Bow down to the
nine-headed monster as he mutates and shape-shifts back through time
to his humble beginnings in a Buenos Aires province ravaging and
pillaging the music of the European people for his own twisted
benediction along the way.

 This might, as intended, sound a little bit dramatic but if there is one
single ingredient that gives the eccentric Jean-Pierre Massiera his
distinct flavour it’s a large dollop of drama. Add sprinklings of
schizophrenia, shock, myth and macabre and you are on the way to a Bmovie broth with an acquired taste that has, like all the best cheese,
taken over thirty years to mature to perfection. Like all the best monsters,
his split personality is the key to his infamy and the secret of his blood
sucking success.

 This is why Jean-Pierre Massiera is (un)commonly known for two key
periods in his career which, like a worm, can be split down the middle to
thrive and flourish independently. To cut a long story short, Massiera is,
above all, a lover and purveyor of musique fantastique, and is willing and
able to hijack whichever stylistic vehicle that passes him buy in order to
do feed his lust. In the earlier part of his career he honed his sordid craft
amongst psychedelic circles in Nice and Quebec. From late 1972
onwards he moved to Antibes and started a disco revolution and
became an in demand cosmic record producer. For years, prog rock
obsessives and disco aficionados have wondered if there was two
unrelated freak merchants called Jean-Pierre Massiera but, in this rare
instance, exploito-maniacs from both sides of the cosmic coin are united
by the work of this singular, single-handed monstrous music
manufactory.

 Remastered and available once again on deluxe black vinyl since the
initial Finders Keepers limited edition 2009 pressing

Lee X-plode is one of our artists from Vinyl Fanatiks who released an EP back in 1992 that was HUGE! Over the years this self-funded white label grew in popularity, with copies fetching over £200. He joined the family in 2020 when we re-released this monster, selling out instantly.

Lee is back on the hardcore hustle once again, bringing his 3rd EP onto Amen Brother, this time incorporating a more melodic piano vibe into his raw to the core 91 hardcore sounds. You will find yourself raising your hands in the breakdowns before going straight into the pumping 4/4 breakbeat roll outs. Music to move to!

2022 repress of this highly sought-after neo-soul / boogie LP from Lynda Dawn.

The Woggles are proud to announce the release of “The Wicked Coolest Songs” which compiles “Coolest Songs of the Week” the Woggles have had on Little Steven’s Underground Garage, while on Wicked Cool Records. These tracks also coincide with the years that Flesh Hammer aka Jeff Walls was the guitar player in band. It has 12 tracks, with an insert featuring the Woggles pictured as 8" Mego styled dolls. Layout and design by Scott Sugiuchi and doll concept by by Austin Hough. All proceeds benefit the “Flesh Hammer Family Fund.” Jeff Walls passed away on May 29, 2019 from pancreatic cancer. As a member of the Woggles, he spread joy to people all over the planet. Let's join together to honor him by raising funds to help his family with the overwhelming medical expenses.

Something's happening in country music. Newer artists and younger audiences are embracing instrumentation, vocal stylings and song structures long thought drowned in the ocean of slick, snap-track productions. Not easily dismissed as merely regional or a novelty throwback, the trend could be on its way to full-blown movement. If so, Kimberly Kelly's Show Dog Nashville debut album may prove to be the clarion call. Either way ... she's not asking. I'll Tell You What's Gonna Happen is more than her (abbreviated) album title, more than a reference to her connection with a Country Music Hall of Famer, and much more than a historical footnote. Rather, it's a statement of musical confidence earned the only way that happens: talent, work ethic, experience, vulnerability, and courage. For Kelly, it's all of a piece. "I like to think of it as a sub-genre of country music called 'country music,'" she says with a wink. A native of Lorena, Texas, Kelly has multiple connections to the Nashville industry. She has also been unafraid to defy convention. "This is not my first rodeo," she says of her label debut. "I worked really hard in Texas before I came to Nashville. I wrote songs, put out records, did a radio tour, and played every weekend while earning a Master's degree. They say don't have a 'plan B,' but I watched my mom struggle to get that next level of pay. My mom earned her bachelor's degree when she was 60, so school was important to me to know I could take care of myself.

The first fully electronic album by the italian DJ/producer becomes physical in a very special vinyl containing 7 tracks of the "WAXTAPE" selected by the artist himself Ceri, alias Stefano Ceri, is currently one of the most influential personalities in the Italian music scenario: an eclectic musician and producer that redefined and “refreshed” the sound of the most recent years through his artistic
sensibility and innovative spirit.

He collaborated with some of the biggest Italian music icons such as Mahmood, Alan Sorrenti, Marco Mengoni, Salmo, Coez, Calcutta, Franco126, Frah Quintale, Crookers, Joan Thiele and many others:

If working as a producer gave him the chance to define the sound of the new urban/pop environment, his solo project got him to explore
more personal and deeper aspects while searching for his own original dimension.

His 2022 new project is named “WAXTAPE”: it’s an album published with a “4 movements structure” where new tracks have been added
each “movement” release, reaching a total number of 29 tracks.

In the 33rpm vinyl version he selected 7 tracks which, according to his vision, represented best the deepest soul of "WAXTAPE". A real journey from light to dark, from intimacy to community.

Imperfect Stranger is the pseudonym of Glasgow based soundtrack composer and producer Kenny Inglis. “Everything Wrong is Right” is his debut solo album for Castles in Space.
Born in 1975, Kenny didn't listen to much music, unless it was the opening credits to a TV show or a film score that had caught his ear. "I loved the pre-title music on a lot of those 80's U.S. TV shows. From the family orientated stuff like The A-Team, to darker dramas such as The Equalizer. My mother would let me stay up to watch the opening sequence of the latter then send me to bed because the story would be too heavy for a kid. That left me with this hanging sense of ambiguity as to what would happen in that hour after the titles came up.”
Exposure to a work colleague’s tiny project studio in a kitchen cupboard was a lightbulb moment for him and the experience of utilising music technology as a way of writing and producing entire tracks stirred a wave of determination to chase a career in music using the opportunities that technology could offer. Kenny figured the best way to move forward was to start a small project studio and learn his craft as a recording engineer. "It was a bit of a shock to the system. I literally had no idea how to work any of the equipment. Kenny focused on learning as much about the craft as he could whilst winging his way through recording and mixing everyone from the likes of singer/songwriters to bands, to voiceovers artists and anything in between. "Eventually, I stopped writing the music I thought people would want to hear, and started writing the music I wanted to make. I didn't come from a music loving background, but I was always obsessed by the way music and film would interact - how music brings this atmosphere and tone to even the most mundane visual stuff. I wanted to capture that. I wanted to grab some of that ambiguity I felt from the TV shows of my childhood and make it into a project of some sort". That project was Spylab. A dark, downtempo project with a cinematic edge. The initial demo consisted of three tracks, with the melancholic 'This Utopia' leading the playlist.
"At the time you did demos on normal cassette tapes. I remember having this endless battle with the bias control to try and get the best sound I could on these little tapes. Ten went in the post one Monday morning, and the following Monday there were three offers from three different labels. Studio K7 were interested in a singles deal, as was Flying Rhino in London. But then there was an offer from a Chicago based label by the name of Guidance Recordings. They wanted an album, and were offering a $15,000 advance. It wasn't a difficult decision to make"
Writing and recording Spylab 'This Utopia' began in 1999. The album took a whole year to produce. The album was to catch the attention of Mary Anne Hobbs at Radio One. At the time Mary Anne was presenting The Breezeblock - a late Sunday night show with an eclectic playlist of alternative electronic music. Picking out the album's title track 'This Utopia', Mary Anne would go on to play it no less than 8 weeks in a row. A request for Spylab to DJ on the show was to follow. "I had never DJ'd before. I think I had a week to figure out how to do that and put a playlist together. I'm not entirely sure how I pulled that off.” In March 2001 the Spylab album was finally released to a hoard of excellent reviews. A North American live tour would follow. From the launch party in Los Angeles, to a sell out show at SXSW in Austin. "I then started a new project under the name Cinephile. It had some of the core elements of the Spylab sound but it was deeper, more cinematic.” Kenny received news that a track from the previous project Spylab had been requested by HBO for the first episode of a new TV drama called Six Feet Under. This was to become a major turning point in Kenny's career. The Spylab track 'Celluloid Hypnotic' dropped during a poignant party scene of the first Six Feet Under episode. Within a couple of days Kenny was getting requests for music from other music supervisors. "It was a chain reaction. The Six Feet Under sync was like the tip of an iceberg. One day I called CBS in America and they put me on to the CSI music supervisor and I managed to get on a call with him. I sent the Cinephile stuff out and within a few months I got this fax through from CBS - a quote request for one of the tracks for a potential use on CSI. It changed my life."
The tone and style of Kenny's music sat perfectly with the CSI score requirements. So much so he found himself part of a pool of incidental writers who worked on all three aspects of the franchise - CSI, CSI: NY, and CSI: Miami. This would continue until 2013, when the last of the series would come to an end.
"I was juggling a bunch of stuff for those ten years. Writing material for CSI, whilst releasing new Cinephile stuff and playing live. As Cinephile continued to gather pace, one of the tracks from Kenny's efforts on CSI was chosen for the Hollywood trailer for the Samuel L. Jackson film 'Lakeview Terrace'. Further trailers would follow, from Gangster Squad to Dead Man Down, Spike Lee's Undisputed Truth, to Fifty Shades Freed.
At the same time, Kenny picked up his first factual commissions in the UK, and this too would be the beginning of a regular run of fully scoring factuals and documentaries. By 2021, six of these had won BAFTAs. He also would find himself soundtracking adverts for the likes of Nike, Audi, and American AirlinesIn early 2020, Kenny made a return to focusing on his own music under the pseudonym Imperfect Stranger. A tweet from Colin Morrison from Castles In Space regarding a charity compilation album 'The Isolation Tapes' caught his eye. Kenny had made a start on his debut album as Imperfect Stranger and submitted the track 'Hymn To The Sun' (which would become the lead track on the album). Further discussions ensued, and the album found a home on CiS. "I had been doing TV and film stuff for almost ten years. It paid the bills and was as close to a 'real job' as I'd had, but I yearned to get back to writing for myself, so doing an album for Castles in Space was a joy.
“The music I write is like a diary. There's an authentic narrative to everything i do. I don't write tracks for the sake of writing. I write tracks to diarise and process the stuff that I've lived through, and the experiences that have come along with the passing years. That's what makes me tick. It's a very public and vulnerable way of expressing myself. If people want to know the real me, all they have to do is listen."

Following up their hugely respected 2 demos (also available as a compilation) and fairly recent 7”, CHAOTIAN are back to release ultimate Death Metal barbarity into the underground in the form of their debut full length. Storming into life with a rotten amalgamation of putrescent riffing and blastbeats, the instrumental unity of this Danish titan is a juggernaut of pure filth. It is telling when a band can have those super groovy pinch harmonic laden riffs and not making them sound like all the others. This may seem a weirdly specific observation (perhaps a guitarist just being a guitarist) but it makes all the difference with heaviness, intensity and also the catchiness on the records. When met with the sewer-spewing vocals and weird dissonant spasms in the music, it doesn’t take long to recognise this will be a truly warped and maniacally brutal experience of Death Metal might. Interlinking primitive hooks that grasp you by the throat then transcend into these weird effects or spacious riffs, there’s nothing predictable about the album yet it has that familiar feeling that all good Death Metal has where it feels a bit daunting, unnerving and yet you cannot escape it. Obviously Denmark and this trio does not let the scene down. Amazingly this small country seems to have so much diversity in their rotten underground movement and CHAOTIAN are a shining example who embody the grotesqueries, masterful songwriting and tight musicianship that has become associated with this otherwise pretty and peaceful nation. It explains that mysterious gurgling from the sewers at least! Bludgeoning, cavernous and ultimately otherworldly, CHAOTIAN masterfully combine the cerebral and cosmic with brutish, old school music that is damned heavy and doesn’t feel pretentious nor directionless. Their debut LP is not just as strong as their previous works, but a more refined and complete vision, showcasing the bands full potential (so far)…

Yet another chapter in the ongoing Alexander Robotnick saga. Electronic wizard Maurizio Dami licensed his second single in 1983 on Materiali Sonori ‘club series’ Fuzz Dance. After the surprising and astonishing success of the debut - Problèmes D'Amour – Robotnick became a sort of cult figure even in the United States and soon was labeled as a forerunner of the electro movement.

Matmos are one of the most prominent experimental electronic artists working today, crafting work by creating new conceptual frameworks & immediately testing those frameworks absolute limits. For Regards / Uklony dla Boguslaw Schaeffer they've focused on another artist known, in large part, for doing the same. Boguslaw Schaeffer was one of the first Polish artists creating electronic music. In step with American contemporaries like John Cage and Morton Feldman, he worked across the boundaries of classical composition, electronic experimentation, and radical theater in playfully form-breaking ways. Matmos are not the first ones to recognize the power of his catalog, from Solo (a 2008 documentary that garnered numerous international awards), to the annual Shaeffer's Era Festival (most recently celebrated simultaneously in Warsaw and Los Angeles) his work continues to inspire. Regards.. however, was not just inspired by his work, Matmos were given access to the entirity of Schaeffer's recorded works to use as they saw fit, commissioned by the prestigious Instytutu Adama Mickiewicza. They re-assembled & re-combined these recorded works with modern instrumentations in a way that only Matmos could, and what emerges is a composite portrait of the utopian 1960s Polish avant-garde and the contemporary dystopian cultural moment regarding each other across a distance. To facilitate the transcultural exchange that is the album's essential premise, all song titles and liner-notes are provided in both English and Polish. The album was mastered by Rashad Becker and features illustration and design by acclaimed artist Robert Beatty (Tame Impala, Osees, Mdou Moctar). Like the anagrams of the letters of Boguslaw Schaeffer's name that were re-assembled to create some of the song titles, the album itself is a musical re-assemblage of component parts into possible but unforeseen new shapes. Adding harp from Irish harpist Una Monaghan, erhu, viola and violin from Turkish multi-instrumentalist Ulas Kurugullu, and electronic processes from Baltimore instrument builder Will Schorre, and Horse Lords wunderkind Max Eilbacher, the resulting arrangements constantly toy with scale as they move from the close-mic-ing of ASMR and the intimacy of chamber music to the immensity of processed drones and oceanic field-recordings that close the album. Offering a "life review" of production styles, Regards / Uklony dla Boguslaw Schaeffer builds temporary shelters out of the panoramic wreckage of modernist composition, sixties tape music, seventies dub, eighties industrial music, nineties postrock and dark ambient, 2000s era glitch fetishism, and contemporary post-everything collage sensibilities.

MOVEMENTS Vol.11 – A bag full of rare rhythm & blues, mod-jazz, soul, and mid 70s funk.

Side A starts with rhythm & blues and jazz from the 1960s. The first three tracks were pulled from hopelessly obscure 7" singles. Macy & Company are responsible for the first 'aha' moment. Their version of "Sixteen Tons" would have certainly astouned even Tennessee Ernie Ford. A truely fantastic version indeed! "Snatchin' It Back" completes the first side with a furious bigband jazz cut.

Side B is all about mod-jazz. "Undun" is just like "Big Boy" a sure-shot for any dancefloor. Rare Groove DJs will have a lot of fun spinning these tunes in a club. Admittedly, the next one is a strange cut. "See How You Are" was recorded on a whim when they two composers were spontaneously pulled into a studio. High time for 'aha' effect #2. Many bands have tried their hands on a cover version of the Lee Morgan jazz classic, one of them being Mr. Palumbo. Listen closely to Dianne Elliott's contribution as it is a highlight for sure despite the fact von Frau Elliott.

Side C begins with 'aha' effect #3 and a fantastic cover version of Gerald Wilson's "Viva Tirado". "Blue Jamaica", is the second track on Movements 11 were a vibraphone is the lead instrument. "Bawana Jinde" is a wild, wailing blast of percussive instrumental explosion while "The Creeper" is the perfect choice to finish this side.

Side D is reserved for proper 1970s funk. The flip side of Reunion's sole 45rpm single was included on a previous Tramp compilation album. "A Brighter Day" has not been compiled yet. "Real Life", "Syrene" and "Breezy" are all prime examples how mid 70s funk has to sound . A dream for B-Boys and B-Girls.

Those of you who have been enjoying the detective work of the people behind the label over the past 18 years know that the Movements series can be easily considered as the flagship compilation series on Tramp. So, after having listened to the entire selection of this brand new volume we sincerely hope that we will have achieved our aim to surprise, delight, and enlighten you once again!

Petter Eldh's explosive ensemble Koma Saxo continues their adventures with a new album "Koma West", out on We Jazz Records, 18 March 2022. The album sees Koma Saxo expand on their previous sound with the addition of vocalist Sofia Jernberg and a strong cast of featured artists, including cellist Lucy Railton, violinist Maria Reich, pianist Kit Downes and accordionist Kiki Eldh (Petter's mom!). The hard-hitting key quintet remains, including Eldh on bass and assorted instruments, Christian Lillinger on drums, plus saxophonists Otis Sandsjö (of Y-OTIS), Jonas Kullhammar and Mikko Innanen bringing the SAXO to the KOMA operation.

At 14 tracks, "Koma West" is a full menu of monumental compositional ideas that could spawn entire albums. True to his chop & go production style, Eldh relies on continuous movement while presenting another all killer no filler program taking Koma Saxo on a sonic outing not quite like anything that had previously appeared under the band's name. That being said, there's very much the Petter Eldh touch here, one which might be hard to pinpoint and verbalise, but nevertheless a recognisable style of composing, producing and arranging.

Thematically, the album is rooted in the West Coast of Sweden, where Eldh grew up – he's from a tiny town called Lysekil. There's a thread of Swedish folk song tradition that has been part of the Koma Saxo DNA from the get-go and you can hear that here as well, especially on cuts such as "Närhet", beautifully sung by Sofia Jernberg.

Petter Eldh says:

"In a way, it's a concept album and a celebration of the Swedish West Coast. The first single is called 'Koma Kaprifol', and kaprifol is the landscape flower of Bohuslän on the West coast, where I grew up. I'm not too wild about attaching strong narratives to my music but there's no way around it this time. The oysters, a common snack around the coast, are a strong conceptual presence here. Anyway, they seem to pop up here and there quite often already thus far in the Koma Saxo narrative, even though it's not always so obvious. Koma Vocals! Koma Strings! I love the presence of Sofia Jernberg here and I love writing string arrangements, too, although I never thought I would do it for Koma, but of course, Koma should have some strings, why not?. Koma Saxo should and can become anything."

We can't think of many other performers like the singer/songwriter/dancer/actress Asha Puthli who have excelled in such a broad range of genres. From 60s psych, Classical Indian music, Free Jazz, Pop, Soul, Disco, to Rock, the list goes on. A 'best-of' or an 'essential collection' is always going to be a subjective thing, but for what is unbelievably the first official compilation covering the full breadth of Asha's illustrious career, we aimed to provide a snapshot into her ever-evolving musical journey and a tribute to the vast richness of her catalogue.

Some singers want to be famous, others are pop star icons, and some are artists; Asha is the latter. Asha is a true force of nature, regardless of the genre she explores, she fully commits, moves on, and reinvents herself, always progressing. Looking back on Asha's career, it is evident what a trail-blazer she was, opening doors for her contemporaries and those who came later to step through. Whether it was conscious or not, you can recognise Asha’s influence in aspects of Kate Bush's ethereal image and performance, in Donna Summer’s high-smooth vocal sound and disco stylings, and in the gumption and power of Grace Jones.

Kick-starting the compilation is ‘Pain’, the Indian psychedelic garage rock sounds of The Savages featuring Asha. We have to admit, we had to strongarm Asha into letting us include this track at first; also due to its rare nature (and lack of any master tapes) the recording we present here is raw and low-fi. However, we felt its inclusion was important to fully represent the journey of Asha's career, the same consideration was also applied to two of the Asha & The Surfers’ songs that we have included in this collection.

Asha saw a link between jazz and classical Indian music "the improvisation, the minor chords, the free form, the liberalness of the art" we showcase her love of jazz here with seminal works with the legendary Ornette Coleman, taken from the revered 'Science Fiction’ album. Asha's 'CBS years' are represented here, how could we not include 'Space Talk' on this collection, and how these years progressed into her amazing disco offerings such as 'I'm Gonna Dance' & 'Music Machine'. The bizarre 'We're Gonna Bury The Rock With The Roll Tonight' from 1980 has also won us over. A pseudo-50s throw-back song that sounds not un-similar to the post-modern, leftfield, pop of an MIA production to come years later. Rounding off the compilation we have Asha's interpretation of a Michael Jackson classic that sat lost on a cassette-only released in India.

Repress incoming...

Far Out Recordings proudly presents Milton Nascimento's Maria Maria. Recorded in 1974 and unreleased until almost thirty years later, the album was written as the soundtrack to a ballet which dealt with the legacy of slavery in Brazil. Raw, atmospheric and emotionally charged, Maria Maria reveals one of Brazil's greatest ever songwriters at his creative peak. Featuring an all-star cast of fellow Brazilian legends including Nana Vasconcelos, Joao Donato, Paulinho Jobim, and members of Som Imaginario, Maria Maria holds what Milton considers to be the definitive versions of some of his classic songs, including 'Os Escravos De Jó' and 'Maria Maria'.

Originally released in 2003 as a double CD package, with Milton Nascimento's 1984 follow up ballet soundtrack Ultimo Trem, Maria Maria will be available on vinyl for the very first time from December 2019, with Ultimo Trem set for vinyl release early 2020.

Milton Nascimento possesses one of the most immediately recognizable voices in Brazilian music: high and sweet and as breathtakingly sublime as that of any soul singer. It was this voice that the legendary Brazilian singer Elis Regina fell in love with back in 1964, having heard Milton perform his song 'Canção do Sal (Sultry Song)' at a private party in Sao Paulo. Ellis went on to record the song in 1967 -giving Milton his first hit in Brazil and beginning a career that has spanned over 50 years.

Born in Rio on the 26th October 1942, Milton moved with his adoptive parents at the age of 18 months to Tres Pontas, a rural town in the state of Minas Gerais, 500 miles north of Rio. He began his musical career as a young teenager, singing in a crooner style he learnt from listening to Brazilian singers and US groups such as The Platters on the radio. Hungry for more opportunities to perform, Milton moved to Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, at the age of twenty. By the beginning of the 60s Milton had made a name for himself both as an accomplished singer and guitarist.

Milton became part of a local network of musicians, film makers, dancers, theatre directors and writers that included the journalist and song writer Fernando Brant as well as lyricist Marcio Borges and his younger brother Lo Borges. Together these four wrote and produced what would become Milton's milestone album, 'Clube da Esquina (Club on the Corner)'. The originality of 'Club da Esquina' shaped the local scene, and it reflects the essence of 'the Nascimento Sound'. Milton's religious upbringing as an Afro-Brazilian Catholic saw him exposed to church choral music from an early age. His love of this genre of music is apparent in both his celestial falsetto and vocal choral arrangements. This collection also displays his early fascination with evocative, non-verbal, scat-style singing, spare, harmonic guitar work and local folk music, jazz and rock.

In 1976, Milton and Fernando Brant teamed up with a new contemporary dance company called Grupo Corpo, whose Argentinian choreographer Oscar Araiz, would become a collaborator with the two musicians. Together, they conceived a show based on the composite life story of the daughter of a black slave called Maria. Nascimento wrote music to Brant's lyrics and "Maria Maria" was premiered in the main theatre of the Belo Horizonte Palacio das Artes that year. "Fernando wrote the lyrics for the ballet, but there were originally no lyrics for the theme song, "Maria Maria'". Milton and Fernando worked on the lyrics together, basing them on folk stories about black women of the countryside. Adds Milton "These memories are mostly things that we witnessed – Fernando and I – rather than what we experienced ourselves.

Milton's music is impressionistic, emotional and romantic. Relying on songs without lyrics as well as evocative vocalizing and choruses, Milton experimented heavily with Afro-Brazilian percussion and taped jungle sounds. His composing method for these recordings was highly unconventional: "I wrote the music for 'Maria Maria' in a tiny Rio apartment with friends and their kids running around and having fun! I love to be in noisy places, surrounded by people", he says.
The music on 'Maria Maria' was performed by an impressive group of young musicians who are today household names in Brazilian music, including Naná Vasconcelos (percussion and effects), Toninho Horta (guitars) and Paulo Moura (sax). Several vocalist including Naná Caymmi, Fafá de Belém, Beto Guedes, and Milton himself, had hits in years to come with reworkings of these songs.

Milton says his compositions follow his visions "like a movie", and he believes that reflects his long love affair with cinema. "I only began composing because of enjoying the movies so much," he says. "I wrote my first song "Peace for the Coming Love" after seeing 'Jules et Jim' (the cult 60s French film directed by François Truffaut), with my friend Marcio Borges. We went early in the morning and watched it four or five times in a row, then went to Márcio's home and wrote the song."

The songs also include solo spoken passages set to music, clearly influenced by this style of French art cinema. On the title track, Maria's story is narrated and translated to music through the use of African Percussion, drums and metal signifying the field slave tools of the day. 'Trabalhos (Works)' runs to work rhythms and whipcracks: no words, just pain. 'Lília' documents the beating of the slave woman. After 'A Chamada (The call)' and the triumphant 'Era Rei e Sou Escravo (I was a king now I am a slave' things begin to turn and Milton employs tropical jungle cries to symbolize freedom. 'Santos Catholicos x Candomble (Catholic Saints vs Candomble)' represents the battle between African and European religions through the music of both sides. Milton's heavenly falsetto pours into 'Francisco' and 'Pai Grande (Great Father)' and the outstanding 'Eu Sou Uma Preta Velha Aqui Sentada no Sol (I'm an old black lady, sitting under the sun)' conjures images of an old woman sitting deep in the forest, her memories painted in drums, piano and voices.

Tiptoe between the toadstools of Liverpool’s city parks, and amongst the foliage you might find a Strawberry Guy, contemplating his next chord-progression. Composing hi-fi symphonies from within his humble abode, the Welsh-born songwriter is ready to share the fruits of his labour with debut album Sun Outside My Window. A timeless vista of ethereal balladry looking towards 19th Century musical maestros and works of art, it brings new meaning to the term ‘Modern Classic’ and is the most optimistic of lockdown records yet.
“It’s about seeing the simple things in life and them making you happy,” tells Alex Stephens, the Guy behind the Strawberry. “I remember this day when I was really down… looking out the window, the sun beaming in was beautiful, it made me want to go outside – it was simple but made me so happy in that instance.”
A one-man impressionist, painting majestic soundscapes, Strawberry Guy blends truthful lyrics with lush arrangements to conjure new emotive worlds. Inspired by composers of the Romantic period, or Debussy, Ravel, and other classical artists of the 1800s, his wonderland moves like a Monet painting where arpeggios dance between meadows of dazzling dynamics and dramatic key changes. As former keyboard player of The Orielles and Trudy and The Romance, the light through his floor to ceiling windows has caused a dramatic Greenhouse Effect and now ripening on solo terms, his innocent uploads of ‘Without You’ and ‘F-Song’ comfort 2 million Spotify listeners a month. ‘Mrs Magic’ has received 40 million streams, landing at #13 in its chart and countless fan-created videos have appeared on YouTube. “Throughout history composers have tried to capture emotion, painting their own impressionist pictures with musical brush strokes… I guess I’m just trying to do the same and people enjoy that,” he suggests modestly.
Named by musical friends Her’s after his impeccable taste in milkshakes, Strawberry Guy upturns ‘bedroom artist’ perception, as each idea is crafted into a widescreen wonder where vocals tag-team instrumentals and countermelodies flourish within the Georgian walls of his Liverpool flat’s small space. “I want it to sound like I’ve squeezed an 80-piece orchestra into my room, and for listeners to wonder how all those strings got there,” he says. “Working on the 4-part harmonies, the orchestra became real; I began believing in myself.”
Imitating nature’s effect on emotion, like 70s songwriters, or the fantastical soundtracks accompanying vibrant scenes in the Japanese animated Studio Ghibli films and video games, landscape is brought to the fore. Monet’s picturesque Meadow at Giverny features as the album’s accompanying artwork – perhaps a reminder of the rural Welsh countryside views through his childhood home’s window; “I was inspired by how calm and peaceful the image felt. Its painted lines show real-life scenes in a magical way, which to me reflects my music.”
Just as the first Strawberry Guy EP Taking My Time To Be offered a slowing down for the soul, Sun Outside My Window is musically unhurried, written and recorded over 2 years. “Recording as a lone berry meant I could run with my emotions in the moment and deliver something true; it would have been an entirely different album had it been recorded in a studio,” he says.
Modern Classic? Only time will tell. For now this Guy’s happy-sad world is here to get the juices flowing and with, pandemic permitting, a US tour in 2022, life looks a whole lot sweeter. Until then, take it slow, be at one with the wilderness and remember, when life gives you lemons, swap them for Strawberries.

White Vinyl

Remastered reissue of Het Zweet's 1987 self-titled LP + a bonus LP, consisting of previously unreleased material.

Marien Van Oers work under the name Het Zweet (“The Sweat” in English) originally came out in the 1980s (specifically 1983-1988), but listening to the new reissue of this self-titled album from 1987 can feel like one is listening to something that’s both much more current and also much, much older than that. Van Oers, who passed away in 2013, made music that tended to get classed as “industrial”, and tracks here like the steady, clanging churn of “From the Lowland” or “On Earth” show why, but he was as or more inspired by tribal music intended to produce trance-like effects via rhythm and (percussive and vocal) repetition. Using instruments made by himself out of anything from shopping carts to cardboard tubes, the music of Het Zweet locks into grooves that somehow feel more elemental and physical than many of his contemporaries. It never quite feels like Van Oers is emulating or echoing the music of any particular region or tradition so much as trying to synthesize all the ones he’s heard into some sort of ur-pulse, an overtone so powerful as to compel the “Massive Trance” the title of the last song on the record evokes.

While the 1987 Het Zweet has four track titles per side, and on listening you can discern some segues and places where it feels like new movements do shift into place, it’s fitting to have this record on vinyl where the listener is encouraged to experience each side as one uninterrupted piece. The bonus material included on this reissue expands Het Zweet from one LP to two, the second LP consisting entirely of previously unreleased material. This bonus LP is sequenced similarly, with three untitled tracks and two live excerpts presented as side-long experiences that belie their disparate origins with a unity of sound and purpose. Van Oers’ percussive nous and distantly yelled chants certainly sound capable of working up a sweat in both the performer and any movement- minded listeners, but maybe the most striking thing about Het Zweet is how vital it still sounds, despite its age and relative obscurity.

When words trail off at the beginning of claire rousay’s »everything perfect is already here«, ornate instrumentation is waiting to fill a void left by the breakdown of language. Yet it becomes clear as we trace rousay’s collaged sonic pathway that breakdown, of meaning and also of melody, is also a place to rest. everything perfect… is made up of two extended compositions that cycle between familiarity and unknowing. There are seemingly infinite ways to feel in response to these pieces of music, which shift tone across their languid duration, earnest like a familiar song but unbound from the emotional didacticisms of lyrical voice and pop form.

rousay builds a fluid landscape around the acoustic contributions of Alex Cunningham (violin), Mari Maurice (electronics and violin), Marilu Donovan (harp), and Theodore Cale Schafer (piano), whose respective melodies weave gently in and out, sometimes steady, sometimes aching, sometimes receding altogether in deference to less overtly musical sounds. That is, percussive texture in the form of unvarnished samples and field recordings: the rattle and rustle and the stops and starts of life unfurling, voices sharing memories nearly out of reach, doors closing, wind against a microphone. Everything comes from somewhere in particular, possessing the veneer of the diaristic, but sound’s provenance is secondary here and so these details become tangled and fused. On this release I hear such details not as individual ornaments or stories but the collective architecture of the greater composition. It’s an architecture that is not quite formed and thus full of openings out to the world unfolding.

“The world unfolding,” that’s a kind way of saying change, movement, loss, transformation. Things rousay here indexes, not without shards of desire or pain, still somehow what I hear is coarse peace in the in-between. These two pieces sweep you away and then bring you to earth, but which is which, anyway? Where am I now? What is different outside of me? What is different inside of me? Um. I think. everything is perfect is already here, like the answers to these questions, is loose and beautiful in surprising ways.

The music guides a certain experience of the world around. In claire’s music there is this marriage—not just a pairing or juxtaposition but an interrelationship, an eventual confusion—of song/texture, narrative/abstraction, figure/ground. Everything comes from somewhere in particular but not just the voices, the field recordings, the what is being said or meant, what matters is the where you are now. There are so many ways of anchoring oneself in the present, some have to do with fantasy or storytelling and some with accepting what is.

These two compositions find peace between these modes. They sweep you away and then bring you to earth, but which is which, anyway? Their mode of feeling is inquisitive. Where am I now? What has changed outside of me? What has changed inside of me? The music, like the answers to these questions, is loose and beautiful in surprising ways.

Minru is the project of Caroline Blomqvist, a Swedish musician based in Berlin. Woven from light and shadow, the interplay of her folk and indie-rock blend appears from a personal space of finding life after death. On her debut LP »Liminality« she paints melody in soft tones, whispering secrets to navigate feelings of loss.

Built around winding layers of acoustic guitar, piano, and strings, Minru is a surprisingly uplifting and stirring testament to Blomqvist’s own suffering from the passing of someone close to her. Returning to Berlin from Sweden feelings of grief, confusion, and pain travelled with her, and these emotions prompted the journey both of and within the album, heard as a dreamlike actualisation of wandering lost between them. "I read that Carl Jung used the word "»Liminality«” to describe the psychological process of transitioning. I instantly felt seen; it reflected my own experience and the feelings I carried whilst making the album – a sense of the old certainties being gone, but the new not being quite there yet,” she says.

Defined as "the threshold separating one space from another" »Liminality« moves between feeling the ground beneath your feet fall away, fighting through the darkness and the doubt, and the emerging shades of hope and light as you painstakingly make peace with mortality and find yourself as a person again. "I am happy to have encapsulated this moment of time in sound," Blomqvist says, "it will always be there as a memory."

Flourishing from a preferred position of solitude, »Liminality« sees Blomqvist’s vision radiate with intensity from her home-based studio in Neukölln - a small, 2-room apartment with squeaky old wooden floors. Capturing the intimacy of the space, she recorded vocals and synth on gear partly borrowed from friends (to swiftly reunite it with its owners), and the songs flow with a stream of consciousness as feelings become entwined with melody. Time-restraint drew the process to a natural close, preventing Blomqvist from losing herself to experimentation. “Maybe I would have been stuck in »Liminality«, trying out sounds forever,” she suggests of the way ‘Into the well’s instrumental swims into a warm stream of synth pads. "It’s the cosiest moment on the album,” she says, “Cosy is a feeling I always strive for in life."

Finished and self-produced at a Berlin-Lichtenberg recording studio alongside musical friends (Povel Widestrand, Tobias Blessing, Sunniva Lilian Shaw Of-Tordarroch, Marlene Becher and Liv Solveig Wagner), the result is beautifully detailed and rich like the folk of her Swedish roots. First picking up a guitar as a kid and becoming obsessed with it, she would skip school to spend extra hours mastering the instrument, grappling to perfect the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ intro. “As a child I was fascinated by my dad’s acoustic guitars around the house and would hit the strings to make them sound,” she recalls. After attending music high school in Gothenburg and playing in bands during her teens, Blomqvist later moved to Germany. As well as enjoying walks at Tempelhofer Feld and coffee at Leuchtstoff café, she performed with Tuvaband, Adna, and Tara Nome Doyle and played in Berlin venues Loophole and Schokoladen, where music became her world. With the passing of time she felt a growing urge to find an outlet for her own songs; Minru was the answer along with her first »Yearnings« EP.

Now writing whenever she returns to Sweden, within the calm and stillness of her family’s mountainside cabin, her skilfully constructed arrangements summon the comforting atmosphere of home. “I hope listeners will feel inspired to slow down a bit, create, draw, cook something. Just be in the moment that is now.” »Liminality« is the kind of record that rewards attention. Give this album your time, it will give you its soul.

Die Geschichte von The Boppers begann wie ein Märchen über ein paar Teenager aus Stockholm, die zur falschen Zeit am richtigen Ort waren.
Sie gründeten die Band 1977, als der Punkrock auf der ganzen Welt explodierte, und ihre Interpretation des Doo Wop und Rock n Roll der 50er Jahre hätte nicht unpassender sein können, aber sie weigerten sich, sich anzupassen und machten daraus einen Erfolg.
Ihr Debütalbum 'Number One', das hauptsächlich Coverversionen ihrer 50er-Jahre-Lieblingslieder von Roy Orbison, Dion & Belmonts usw. enthielt, verkaufte sich in Schweden über 450 000 Mal! Eine Empfehlung für Fans von Bands wie Rockpile, Drifters, Darts, Dion, Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, Marcels, Blasters, Stray Cats oder Coasters!

Clear Vinyl

sferic venture a new set of plasmic ambient entertainment systems by Jonas Wiese’s TIBSLC, mining that slender but heady sweetspot between the earliest Vladislav Delay productions for Chain Reaction, Japanese environmental x architectural recordings and the sort of gear you’d hear from Move D & Jonas Grossmann at the late 90’s Source Recordings heyday.

sferic pick up the mantle of late ‘90s-into-‘00s ambient with a new variant primed for the times. Following the themes of their ‘Decisive Tongue Shifts - Situation Based Compositions’ album of 2021, TIBSLC (The International Billionaire’s Secret Love Child) distills their sferic debut into a crystal clear, hypersensitive set of eight tracks that slip seamlessly into each other’s space, recalling the amorphous end of Jan Jelinek’s ambient shimmers.

Where TIBSLC’s first album sprawled over two discs, this one relates to the same recording sessions, but glimpsed via more succinct windows of opportunity. In effect they’re like Hitchcockian, voyeurist snapshots of other lives in the urban complex woven into a melting emulation of the city at dusk, replete with infrasonic bass from streets below, and streaked with the wistful dream energy and fizzy optimism of a certain city life. In fleeting rounds of ephemeral shrapnel and synth pad washes, the eight parts evoke a sense of mental discombobulation, lending itself to ruminating on the unbearable lightness of being.

The wiggy wanderings of Oog Bogo wind up on the same island of lost joys all at once, manufacturing a virtual jukebox of singles and side flips that won’t unplug, and just keeps reeling and raging on instead. A bright metallurgy of guitar pop, psych, post-punk and apocalypse disco embosses the sleek, multicoloured flash of ‘Plastic’.

 Oog Bogo are a four-piece rock band from Los Angeles and their new album is ‘Plastic’, an electrifying set of songs and sounds that just don’t stop, working like a machine that makes joy and endless flips and repetitions, whether in front of the turntable or out in the real world.
 In the past several years, Oog Bogo dropped two records that previewed this explosion in wildly divergent ways: 2019’s ‘Oogbogo’ EP, with wigged-out production, its contorted fun house mirror images pulling punk, psych and new wave in and out of focus in a chaotic procession of mutant tunes. 2021’s ‘EP2’ radiates a starkly different vibe, as chilled-out guitar-pop tunes conjure a flowing medley of plaintive echoes and atmospheres in a mellow mist of hiss.

 Kevin Boog recorded these records in a largely hermetic state: at home on 4-track, playing all the parts, slowly drawing out the sounds. The songs for ‘Plastic’ were demoed this way too, as a starting point for a group interpretation - but when, for obvious reasons, logistics prevented everyone from getting in the same room to even rehearse, the planned recording session at Ty Segall’s Harmonizer Studios took on a different shape.

 Starting off with only drummer Thomas Alvarez (Audacity) to accompany him, Kevin
realized that any obstacles to getting the record made were also opportunities, for
something else that was also right to happen. Rather than reach for the design of the
demos, he kept himself in the present moment, approaching every passage as fluidly
as possible, playing what he needed to play, staying open to what he needed to
know. It didn’t hurt that the laptop with all his songs crashed right after he walked into
the studio! There was no way possible but forward.
 The direction was right on with the guys at Harmonizer - Ty Segall’s sense of
imagination made him the ideal production counterpart to walk together with Kevin
into this world, psyched to experiment and ready to get weird at any time. Ty and
engineer Matt Littlejohn met all requests and requirements in the form of sounds, with
gear and approaches that amazed and delighted, and an eternally ebullient spirit.
 As this was Oog Bogo’s first time recording away from home, Kevin was a kid in a
candy store - where the store owner turns out to be a Wonka-esque philanthropist.
As band members Mike Kreibel (Dirty & His Fists) and Shelby Jacobson (Shannon
Lay) joined the session, there was a synchronicity and community with everyone
involved, finding an unexpected road to realizing the songs, with all the colours and
hues they added making everything pop that much harder.
 Fluidity was key: ‘Plastic’’s tunes depict a polymorphic cast of characters. As in life,
they leap avidly from style to style; from pretty psych rock to new wave apocalypse
disco and harsh post punk bleakness, sometimes in a verse and a half. Corkscrewing
over and over like a riff-driven space-coaster, morphing in and out of each
successive moment with increasing momentum and gravity, ‘Plastic’ defines and
redefines Oog Bogo, with sweet tunes, barely-controlled intensity and sharp
production moves - a killer first album and an equally killer evolving state of mind.

The wiggy wanderings of Oog Bogo wind up on the same island of lost joys all at once, manufacturing a virtual jukebox of singles and side flips that won’t unplug, and just keeps reeling and raging on instead. A bright metallurgy of guitar pop, psych, post-punk and apocalypse disco embosses the sleek, multicoloured flash of ‘Plastic’.

 Oog Bogo are a four-piece rock band from Los Angeles and their new album is ‘Plastic’, an electrifying set of songs and sounds that just don’t stop, working like a machine that makes joy and endless flips and repetitions, whether in front of the turntable or out in the real world.
 In the past several years, Oog Bogo dropped two records that previewed this explosion in wildly divergent ways: 2019’s ‘Oogbogo’ EP, with wigged-out production, its contorted fun house mirror images pulling punk, psych and new wave in and out of focus in a chaotic procession of mutant tunes. 2021’s ‘EP2’ radiates a starkly different vibe, as chilled-out guitar-pop tunes conjure a flowing medley of plaintive echoes and atmospheres in a mellow mist of hiss.

 Kevin Boog recorded these records in a largely hermetic state: at home on 4-track, playing all the parts, slowly drawing out the sounds. The songs for ‘Plastic’ were demoed this way too, as a starting point for a group interpretation - but when, for obvious reasons, logistics prevented everyone from getting in the same room to even rehearse, the planned recording session at Ty Segall’s Harmonizer Studios took on a different shape.

 Starting off with only drummer Thomas Alvarez (Audacity) to accompany him, Kevin
realized that any obstacles to getting the record made were also opportunities, for
something else that was also right to happen. Rather than reach for the design of the
demos, he kept himself in the present moment, approaching every passage as fluidly
as possible, playing what he needed to play, staying open to what he needed to
know. It didn’t hurt that the laptop with all his songs crashed right after he walked into
the studio! There was no way possible but forward.
 The direction was right on with the guys at Harmonizer - Ty Segall’s sense of
imagination made him the ideal production counterpart to walk together with Kevin
into this world, psyched to experiment and ready to get weird at any time. Ty and
engineer Matt Littlejohn met all requests and requirements in the form of sounds, with
gear and approaches that amazed and delighted, and an eternally ebullient spirit.
 As this was Oog Bogo’s first time recording away from home, Kevin was a kid in a
candy store - where the store owner turns out to be a Wonka-esque philanthropist.
As band members Mike Kreibel (Dirty & His Fists) and Shelby Jacobson (Shannon
Lay) joined the session, there was a synchronicity and community with everyone
involved, finding an unexpected road to realizing the songs, with all the colours and
hues they added making everything pop that much harder.
 Fluidity was key: ‘Plastic’’s tunes depict a polymorphic cast of characters. As in life,
they leap avidly from style to style; from pretty psych rock to new wave apocalypse
disco and harsh post punk bleakness, sometimes in a verse and a half. Corkscrewing
over and over like a riff-driven space-coaster, morphing in and out of each
successive moment with increasing momentum and gravity, ‘Plastic’ defines and
redefines Oog Bogo, with sweet tunes, barely-controlled intensity and sharp
production moves - a killer first album and an equally killer evolving state of mind.

20th Anniversary edition pressed on Californian Sunburst vinyl with
newly designed artwork and bonus 7” featuring ‘Brown Eyes’ and the
previously unreleased ‘The Earth From Above’.
 ‘California’ was released in 2002 to massive critical acclaim and reached
a much wider audience across Europe. Features the hit singles ‘This
Life’ and ‘Ordinary Day’.
 The album features Glenn Garrett on bass, Neil Conti (David Bowie /
Prefab Sprout) on drums and Dickon Hinchcliffe (Tindersticks ) and Rick
Carter (The Sisters of Mercy) on keyboards.
 ‘California’ was mostly co-written with Italian composer Marco Sabiu,
who collaborated with and was mentored by the late, great Ennio
Morricone.
 Perry Blake, Sligo-born singer / songwriter, is one of music’s great
untapped resources. After his first three singles - taken from his debut
album - received Single Of The Week on Jo Wiley BBC Radio 1, Blake
moved to France, where he was met with critical acclaim with his next
four albums, touring Europe with Carla Bruni and writing two songs for
Francoise Hardy’s Platinum-selling album ‘Tant de belles choses’,
appearing on various TV shows in France as her special guest.
 You may very well wonder what to expect of an album with American
West Coast orientations from an Irishman who happens to be critically
acclaimed on the Continent but is largely ignored in Britain. Thankfully,
Blake lives up to his billing with apparent ease. His song writing is
evidently mature and melodic; he incorporates lush orchestral
arrangements with tender vocals; and combines pop-like hooks with a
deep sonic texture.
 ‘California’ is a thriving and absorbing collection of songs in which
orchestral arrangements strain with emotion, melodies thrive and bloom,
like The Verve at their peak, though far more fragile and balmy.
 ‘California’ is ether for the soul - a truly magnificent and touching
collection of frankly beautiful songs, which is up there with class of Bryan
Ferry, The Blue Nile and anyone else who can turn a night around.
 Blake’s glimpses of people living a state of mind is one of those great
escapes it’s very hard to get away from. His gift here is to take a
subdued, grown-up collection of songs but make them sound like they
deserve daytime radio.
 Radio - Radio 2 Jo Whiley session.

Saltern’s latest offering marks the first-ever release of “lost minimalist” Terry Jennings’ visionary 1960 composition, Piece for Cello and Saxophone, as arranged in just intonation by legendary composer La Monte Young for renowned cellist Charles Curtis. Born in Los Angeles in 1940, Jennings was a close associate of Young, Terry Riley, and Dennis Johnson, and an early adopter of minimalist tendencies, creating slow, sustained music, influenced by jazz, modalism, and late romantic classical music. Jennings died tragically in his early forties, most of his work lost to a chaotic life; however, his forward-looking music quietly exerted a lasting influence on composers including Young and Harold Budd. Composed over sixty years ago, Piece for Cello and Saxophone, foreshadows a number of movements in postwar avant-garde music.

Despite the title, there is no saxophone on this album. At over eighty minutes, La Monte Young’s justly tuned realization of Piece for Cello and Saxophone for cello alone unifies and extrapolates Terry Jennings’ dense harmonies, creating an extended field of complex sonorities in motion, all brought to life by the immaculate playing of Charles Curtis. The recording captures Curtis in a performance from 2016 reflecting more than twenty-five years of dedication to the piece.

Highlights:
• Saltern latest offering marks the first-ever release of “lost minimalist” Terry Jennings’ visionary 1960 composition, Piece for Cello and Saxophone, as arranged in just intonation by legendary composer La Monte Young for renowned cellist Charles Curtis.

"Born in Crystal Palace in 1995, Max moved to Brighton aged five and following his parents’ separation much of his youth was spent travelling between his parent’s homes on the coast and his nan in South East London.
A constant in his world of uncertainty was music. In part, this was thanks to his music obsessive father, who would expose him to an abundance of genres whenever he visited. Max soon developed an insatiable musical appetite of his own. The urgent poetry of Gil Scott-Heron resonated, as did Nick Drake’s intricate folk and the Beatles’ pristine pop. Bill Withers, Graham Coxon, Donny Hathaway and Jimi Hendrix also hit home. Max’s musical church has always been startlingly broad, counting funk, bossa nova, blues, jazz and rock and roll amongst its number and explains why many of these styles surface in his own material."

The second single from the Nicole Willis album Happiness in Every Style opens up the promised spectrum of joy into new ecstatic states. One In A Million is an unapologetic love song, which while connecting to this most traditional mode in soul music, also makes it correct for the dancefloor. Connoisseur terms such as 'crossover' or 'modern soul' might prove to be accurate here, but a membership in the soul scene is not mandatory to get down.

The main thing is that this up-tempo horn-driven groover, propelled by The Soul Investigators (as the usual suspects), should make things move inside, tickling nerves in scenesters as well as the layman, as their breakthrough hit If This Ain't Love did back in the day.

The world and the music business is different for Nicole Willis and the boys from up north. Nevertheless, One In A Million might be the underground hit that nobody saw coming. Or it just as well might not, but this is no excuse for not making quality music. This and more can be anticipated from the new album, dropping on Timmion Records in autumn 2015.

Samantha Togni makes her TITDM debut with five uncompromising cuts, exploring the darkest corners of techno and channeling her artistic expression in a flurry of controlled yet innovative directions. This compulsion to work without boundaries isn't new to Samantha, having always leaned toward a 'do it your own way' attitude, leading to Samantha founding Boudica in 2017; a collective aiming to give visibility to women and non binary artists through their events, conference, radio show and podcast.

'Trust The Heat' rattles through the speakers with its bone twitching bass, spilling out from its kickdrums and marching forward at an unnerving pace. The accompanying grooves give way to primal movements and an added layer of welcomed spice. There's no sing-songy samples here, just a vocal phrase with the energy of a megaphone edging through a busy club; guiding dancers to keep moving. 'No Pressure to Fit In' follows up with its spiraling basslines opening and closing, providing the movement against a backdrop of percussive power. Togni brings back the vocal snippets. this time to greater hypnotic effect.

'Sensible Social Lies' sounds like the type of techno you'd expect to hear on a planet from Dune; shapeshifting its way through sand with a heavy onslaught of newly discovered sounds. 'Cockroaches' scales back, remaining functional and still packing a serious punch, before the record comes to a pupil dilating close with 'In Vivo' a melodic, left-leaning piece honoring what makes techno so great, while remaining fiercely contemporary and unique to the artist who created it.

Obscure Mid 70's Mid Tempo Killer

Producer: Melvin Seals / 1976

Money Mountain BMI / Oakland: California

About Jerone Roy:

Jerone is a highly-skilled singer and entertainer who has been entertaining the audience by putting smiles on faces, warming people’s hearts, igniting song in the soul, and inspiring people to get up and move! His background in music takes him deep from Texas to the Hollywood music industry and back again.

Along the journey, he has developed skills in event management, event planning, singing, television, music production, theatre production, songwriting, recording, festivals, interpersonal skills, acting, and voice-overs.

Leicester born Kevin Hewick is still considered a truly representative force of the post-punk counterculture. His first ‘proper’ gig was on a bill with Joy Division, A Certain Ratio and Section 25. He released a couple of records on Factory in the early 80's, then moving to Cherry Red in 1982. His collaboration with The Sound stands truly as his own masterwork. Recorded and mixed at Elephant Studios, Wapping, London on November 3rd, 4th & 5th 1983, this EP still is a refreshing example of their combined effort. The four tracks move along a sort of outsider folkish post-punk, being perhaps his most accessible work ever.