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Rebellion ist aktuell in aller Munde, aber DYMNA LOTVA haben dafür gewichtige persönliche Gründe: Das Duo musste aus seinem Heimatland Belarus aufgrund politischer Verfolgung fliehen. Die Kunst der Metal-Band wird von der Lukaschenka-Diktatur aktuell zensiert und unterdrückt. Doch auch auf ihrem dritten Album, "The Land under the Black Wings: Blood" singen DYMNA LOTVA weiterhin von Trauer und Schmerz. Dabei haben die Belarussen hörbar ihren markanten Stil dynamisch weiterentwickelt. Über einem soliden Black Metal Fundament, das auch Bausteine aus dem Doom und traditioneller Musik enthält, baut das Duo mit Hilfe von melancholischen, eindringlichen Melodien emotionalere und gewaltigere musikalische Strukturen auf. Die Texte von DYMNA LOTVA basieren auf wahren Geschichten aus ihrer Heimat. Diese stammen aus Berichten voller Leid, die das Duo in historischen Archiven und in der Folklore findet - während in ihrem Land an jedem Tag neue Schreckenstaten hinzukommen. Komponist und Multiinstrumentalist Jauhien Charkasau sowie Sängerin Katsiaryna "Nokt Aeon" Mankevich datieren die Gründung von DYMNA LOTVA präzise auf den 8. November 2015. Am diesen Tag entzündete die Nachricht, dass die belarussische Schriftstellerin Swetlana Alexandrowna Alexijewitsch den Literaturnobelpreis erhalten hat, das musikalische Feuer der Band. Noch am gleichen Tag schuf das Duo seinen ersten Song, der von der Nuklearkatastrophe von Tschernobyl inspiriert wurde. Dieser erschien im Jahr 2016 als Single unter dem Titel ("A Solitary Human Voice"). DYMNA LOTVAs erstes Album "The Land under the Black Wings: Swamp" kam noch im gleichen Jahr heraus. Das Debüt stellt auch den ersten Teil einer konzeptionellen Trilogie über Belarus dar. Mit dem Nachfolger, "Wormwood" der nicht zur geplanten Album-Trilogie zählt, kehren DYMNA LOTVA im Jahr 2017 zum Thema Tschernobyl zurück. Nach den gefälschten Wahlen im Jahr 2020 unterstützte DYMNA LOTVA offen die Proteste gegen den Diktator Lukaschenka. Nach einem politisch motivierten Prozess gegen den Metal-Sänger Lesley Knife, der auch als Gast auf der Single 'To Freedom' zu hören ist, werden alle geplanten Konzerte von DYMNA LOTVA offiziell verboten und die Live-Besetzung der Band ist zur Auflösung gezwungen. Sängerin Nokt Aeon kann ihrer politisch motivierten Verhaftung nur durch Flucht außer Landes entgehen. Das Duo will sich in der Ukraine treffen, als der russische Überfall den Plan zunichte macht. Nach zwei Wochen schweren Bombardements durch Russland und harten Kämpfen um Irpin gelingt Nokt Aeon die Flucht aus der Stadt. Beide Musiker finden schließlich Aufnahme in Polen. Für DYMNA LOTVA ist die Veröffentlichung von "The Land under the Black Wings: Blood" daher auch ein Akt des Widerstands. Ihre Musik kann auf mehr als eine Weise gehört werden: Es handelt sich zunächst, nur für sich genommen, um ein wundervoll melancholisches, zeitgenössisches Metal-Album auf der dunklen Seite des Genres; mit einem hörbar belarussischen Einschlag. Doch aus einer erweiterten künstlerischen Perspektive betrachtet, ist DYMNA LOTVAs "The Land under the Black Wings": Blood" ein klagender, wütender Schrei nach Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit!

Bekannt für seine ultrapersönlichen Texte und umwerfendes Songwriting auf der Schnittstelle zwischen tiefschürfenden Balladen und stadiongroßem Pop, ist Cian Ducrot aus Irland in den letzten zwei Jahren zu einem der wichtigsten UK-Newcomer avanciert, indem er erst TikTok, Insta & Co. und dann auch noch die offiziellen Charts auf den Kopf gestellt hat. Ein überraschend nahbares Songwriting-Genie, das nicht nur musikalisch kein Blatt vor den Mund nimmt – und in seinen Socials auch mal mit Chorverstärkung die Londoner U-Bahn per Flashmob zum Implodieren bringt: Jetzt steht der für seine „erfrischende Ehrlichkeit“ (Clash) gefeierte Singer-Songwriter mit dem ersten offiziellen Albumstatement in den Startlöchern: „Victory“ erscheint auf Vinyl und CD am 04. August. Darauf vertreten sind auch die jüngsten Singlehits „I’ll Be Waiting“, „All For You“, ”Part Of Me” und die aktuelle Single „Heaven“.

If you ever thought Debris was Oklahoma's only entry into the bloodstream of feral, batshit rock, guess again. Mag Amplitude's, Wizards Of Today appeared in a miniscule, self released edition of 100 in 1983 & was the brainchild of a blind, guitarist-vocalist by the name of Matt Muncil. On Wizards Of Today, Muncil-considered by the psychedelic mafia to be the 'Higney of Heavy Rock'—& drummer Scott Roher proceed to lay down over 7 tracks an incredible wall of wildly fuzzed & primitive bash that is a singular testament to loner, outsider brilliance. Heavy on double tracked guitar riffs & growling, incomprehensible vocals concerning outer space, rocket ships & rock, Mag Amplitude's Wizards Of Today is a half hour slab of muzzed disorder of the highest possible recommendation. This Zaius Tapes reissue is in a one time pressing of 292 copies. Our first foray into (re) introducing fans & collectors into the cimmerian forest of American real people/outsider psych rock."—Johan Klepp, for Zaius Tapes

Portsmouth quartet Hallan release the brand new
EP, ‘The Noise of a Firing Gun’, via Nice Swan
Records (English Teacher, Sports Team, Courting).
 Spearheaded by lead singles ‘Unwomanly Face Of
War’ and the BBC 6 Music playlisted ‘The Colline
Gate’, the group’s record sees them leave the
mundanity of the 21st century behind and turn to
real life events of the past, bringing attention to the
stories of historical individuals, from the vestals of
Ancient Rome to the art scenes of Berlin.
 ‘The Noise of a Firing Gun’ debuts a new direction
in songwriting and composition for the band.
Experimenting with new production elements,
Hallan shift their gaze towards synthesised sounds
of the 1980s whilst retaining their post-punk edge.

Five years after the release of ‘Luyando’, Zimbabwe’s most celebrated music export returns with their long-awaited follow-up album ‘Tusona: Tracings in the Sand’. The six musicians from Victoria Falls are refining their unique sound: infectious Afro grooves deeply connected to Zimbabwe’s cultural DNA. ‘Tusana’ is their most danceable album to date, a DIY production recorded in Zimbabwe. It features horns by Ghanaian highlife outfit Santrofi.

Every Sunday, there is a gathering in the sweltering heat on grounds of an old local beer hall in the Chinotimba township in Mosi-o-Tunya (Victoria Falls). Entertainment is provided by various traditional groups including the Luvale Makisi masquerade. It is a day full of singing, drumming, dancing and storytelling. Mokoomba’s lead vocalist Mathias Muzaza can often be found here singing with a voice both soaring and vulnerable. In the course of the afternoon the other band members - guitarist Trustworth Samende, bass player Abundance Mutori, keyboard player Phathisani Moyo, percussionist Miti Mugande and drummer Ndaba Coster Moyo - often join in with singing. The drum driven song “Bakalubale” featured on their new album invites you to this gathering.

Mokoomba recorded ‘Tusona: Tracings in the Sand’, the follow-up album to ‘Luyando’ (2017, Outhere), in Zimbabwe during the pandemic. Instead of working with outside producers like Manou Gallo or Steve Dyer as they have in the past, this album was entirely recorded in a DIY fashion by Mokoomba. The collective from Zimbabwe put in all the experiences made over the previous years and have forged their music into a unique Zimbabwean sound. On popular demand from their fans in Zimbabwe they have even re-recorded three songs from their last more acoustic album ‘Luyando’ turning them into dancehall bangers (featured on the CD and digital versions of the album). In short, this album is more Mokoomba than any of the ones before.

On the album Mokoomba are singing about love, loss, courage in a changing society. The first single “Nzara Hapana” means “no money” in Shona. The song talks about a man who wants to ensure the future of his wife and family and is trying to protect them against the greed of his relatives. The danceable up-tempo song “Nyansola” praises the goddess of harvest and asks her for rain. “Makisi” is sung in Luvale. It celebrates the beauty of the initiation ceremony for which the whole community comes together. “Manina” is a song about losing a loved one. It was written during the pandemic and features the young singer Ulethu from Harare. Mokoomba sing in many different local languages. Their songs are in Tonga, Luvale, Shona, Nyanja and even Lingala used in “Makolo” when they team up with Congolese singer Desolo B. (The album also features horns by Nobert Wonkyi Arthur (trumpet), Bernard Gyamfi (trombone) and Emmanuel Arthur (sax) from Ghanaian highlife outfit Santrofi.)

The title of the album is a nod towards their immense respect for tradition. ‘Tusona’ refers to an ancient system of signs and symbols, drawn in the sand and used for instruction during initiation ceremonies by the Luvale in Southern Africa. Another important part of the Mukanda initiation ceremony is the incredible Makisi masquerade. Since 2008 the Makisi dances are on the UNESCO list of intangible heritage. The Makisi are masked characters, representing the spirit of deceased ancestors. During the yearly initiation ceremony the Makisi return to the living world to teach the young children to become responsible adults among the Lubale people of Southern Africa. In the last decade the interest - especially among the young people – has faded and the Makisi dances have nearly died out.

“Our inspiration comes from these gatherings”, Trustworth Samende explains, “from listening to and playing pure traditional music with everyone in the township. We then add influences from music that we listened to in our homes growing up and the sounds we experience travelling around the world.” It is the connection with the cultures around them that gives Mokoomba’s music its spiritual power. When you hear Mathias Muzaza singing and you watch closely, you will see the music carrying him away to a different sphere, a place where he is singing with the ancestors. Only a split second later though Trust Samende’s sparkling guitar riffs kick in, blending Congolese influences from neighbouring Kasai with Zamrock and Mbira inspired Chimurenga music, making you want to hit the dancefloor. It is this unique blend of local musical styles with contemporary dance music that is at the heart of Mokoomba’s music. The strong reference to tradition is also reflected in the cover illustration by young Zimbabwean visual artist Lomedy Mhako.

It has been nearly 10 years since this young energetic band from Zimbabwe has exploded onto the international music scene. Since then they have shared their music with fans all over the world: Mokoomba have performed in over 40 countries, rocking audiences in places like Roskilde festival (Denmark), WOMAD festival (UK), Sziget festival (Hungary), SXSW (USA), Apollo Theatre (New York) to name but a few.

Like anywhere in the world Africa’s musical output has become more and more producer based. Mokoomba are the living proof that Africa’s great guitar band heritage is well alive and ready to set any dancefloor on fire. Most important though is that deep below the surface of Mokoomba’s sound - flowing like the Zambezi River - you can still hear the heartbeat and the rhythm of a community connected by its music. Like ‘Tusona’, it is a source of rejuvenation, resilience and strength in these changing times. May the tracings in the sand not fade.

Spaceman, otherwise known as Stephen Munson or Stephan James, is the former lead singer of English cult glam punk band Living In Texas, one of the very first bands to play an MTV Europe session when MTV was in its infancy, one of the last bands to play at the legendary Elixir Festival in France, once #3 in the Italian charts (1985.),...

At the end of Living In Texas, Munson continued to form other projects without such conviction and to write songs, until meeting Christelle Canot aka Confused, a moment which he describes as his epiphany. He entrusted her with the production of his first (double) solo album.

This follows during the pandemic by the production of a double album featuring 9 songs already recorded in 2000 and the composition of 16 others with musicians from all over the world, carried by the same punk and DIY spirit that has always lived with him.

Poet, director, an artist touching everything and a great lyricist, his songs are personal and universal, love letters to his children, to nature, to our addictions, confessions of weakness, regrets, his life passes through these 25 songs that range from the folk lo-fi masterpiece "frEND" to pure postpunk sound straight out of the 80s "Everybody's Hooked On Something", to folk-rock ballads like Martin's Garden, eternal songs with "Loving Ways" or ballads of Lynchian love... As many universes as eras crossed with the greatest sincerity through the eyes of an eternal child.

With a voice that seems to speak from the heart of
the Estonian forest, Mari Kalkun’s music is at once
of a place and deeply personal.
 Rooted in ancient Estonian and Võru traditions, but
beautifully fresh and contemporary, ‘Stories of
Stonia’ reaches back to very old layers of tradition
to imagine what Mari’s ancestors would have
thought and sung about the world in an era of
skyscraper, steel and metal.
 Throughout the album’s nine songs, Mari explores
humanity’s controversial relationship with nature
with powerfully emotive musical backdrops.
 One of Northern Europe’s most important folk
singers, Mari has created a mysterious and
magical album

Mungo’s Hi Fi return with their exciting new vocal project Past And Present. Released on their Dumbarton Rock label, it’s the eagerly awaited vocal companion piece to 2021 dub album Antidote. Past And Present is unique for Mungo’s in being devoted to the Rub A Dub reggae style that arose in late 70s and early 80s Jamaica. The record has its roots in both past and present. Back in 2021, Mungo’s responded to the pandemic with the dub project Antidote, an album of reflection among wide spaces and nature. As the world has reopened, Past And Present celebrates the return of verbal communication and dancing to hypnotic basslines, with the original vocal cuts by veteran and rising microphone talent. The haunting voice of French pure singjay Pupajim encourages us to face living in the now, on title track Past and Present. Pioneering Jamaican female deejay Lady Ann toasts the importance of Good Lovin’ over a sensual, waist-winding rhythm. Ethereal UK neo lovers rock singer Hollie Cook revisits her classic Sugar Water, floating above a sparse and eerie future Rub A Dub soundscape. Honey-toned Londoner Kiko Bun exudes confidence and humility as a Riddim General while veteran talker Solo Banton shakes up the dance on his seismic, much requested, We Pulsating. The biblical voice of Jamaican legend Prince Alla sounds fresh on a revisit to his immortal Only Love Can Conquer. Fellow elder statesman of reggae Johnny Clarke contributes the sole non Rub A Dub offering with the “Flying Cymbals” driven, deep roots track Rain Keeps On Falling. French singjay Shanti D and Israeli chanter Ranking Levy pair up on the mighty Jaqueline rhythm for a warning against Total Disaster. The prodigious Charlie P joins Godfather of UK emcee-ing, Daddy Freddy, to request freer movement on Control The Border. The final statement is without words or vocals: as Mungo’s production team take centre stage for the soaring Birds Of Vice – the A side to Antidote’s closing dub, Birds Of Pleasure. In reggae, the vocal traditionally precedes the dub. By completing their pairing of Antidote with Past and Present, Mungo’s have flipped the script and reversed the process – crafting a loving tribute to Rub A Dub’s rolling basslines and upward vibes in a modern style

In August 2020, following some typical delays at the plant, Fourth Dimension Records released the limited edition 2LP (and now sold out) set of Kleistwahr's This World Is Not My Home and Over Your Heads Forever albums, originally released by the same label in 2014 and 2016 respectively. Packaged together in a single sleeve with printed inners reproducing all the artwork found on the original CDs, the 2LP was always designed to represent the first volume in a series of them. This next volume gathers everything on the next two albums, Down But Defiant Yet and Acceptance is Not Respect, both also initially released on CD in, respectively, 2017 and 2018, and presented in the exact same way. 2017's long sold out at source album, Down But Defiant Yet, collects four lengthy cuts which catch Gary Mundy (also known for Ramleh, Breathless and Broken Flag Records) furrowing his distinct and recognisable take on a kinda contemporary psychedelia with dystopian leanings. Each piece nods towards the fug generated by certain ‘krautrock’ groups whilst retaining threads of those uncompromising power-noise surges he built his reputation on, this is music guaranteed to take you to new spaces before forcing you to nervously look over your shoulder. 2018's Acceptance is Not Respect collects two lengthy pieces themselves broken down into seven parts often tempered to the point restraint assumes new, often disturbed (and disturbing) psychedelic or even filmic, properties, this music arrives like a spitting and foaming scream into the insanity of the void and the myriad challenges and questions it inexorably keeps hurling at us. Whereas Ramleh captures the sound of at least two people dealing as best they know how with the constantly rising rivers of shit around us, Kleistwahr is akin to one man having scaled a great height poking out of an infinite chasm and wondering why he bothered. This is uneasy listening sometimes renderedvirtually elegiac by dint of a prowess rarely found in such realms. Of this, Gary himself quite prophetically, in light of how events have shaped the world since said, “I was trying to make the music more spiritual sounding this time as the album is about belief. The first half is about personal and political belief and the second half about religious belief. I was wondering about whether in the 21st Century, you can seriously get anyone to completely change their beliefs and [am] asking is there anything you believe that you would be willing to die for, and the difference between the way that most beliefs have been accepted/tolerated and [are] supposedly respected in recent times in [the UK]. Now our society is starting to break down, it becomes clear that that acceptance tends not to actually be the same thing as respect at all.”

BRIT Award & Ivor Novello Award Gewinner Ben Howard veröffentlichte bereits die erste Single „Couldn’t Make It Up” aus seinem kommenden Album “Is It?”. Nun legt er mit seiner zweiten Single „Walking Backwards“ nach und bietet seinen Fans damit einen weiteren vielversprechenden Vorgeschmack auf sein bald erscheinendes Album.

„Is It?“ wird sein fünftes Studioalbum sein, welches insgesamt 10 Songs umfasst. Es entstand in der Zeit, als der Brite ganz unerwartet zwei kleine Schlaganfälle erlitt. Ben Howard selbst beschreibt diese Zeit als „verwirrend“. Diese Verwirrung schlägt sich in den unterschiedlichen Nuancen nieder, die auf dem Album zu finden sind.

Howard sagt dazu: ”Ich fand es unmöglich, nicht über die Absurdität nachzudenken, dass man mit einem winzigen Klumpen alle Fähigkeiten verlieren kann. Das hat sich wirklich in das Schreiben der Platte eingebrannt”. Der englische Singer-Songwriter kann bis heute beeindruckende 800 Millionen Streams (über alle DSPs) verzeichnen. Ben wird diesen Sommer auf mehreren Festivals in der EU und Großbritannien auftreten und hat kürzlich seine großen Shows im Londoner Alexandra Palace Park für Juli angekündigt. Im Juli dieses
Jahres wird er außerdem auch drei Shows in Berlin, Hamburg und München spielen.

BRIT Award & Ivor Novello Award Gewinner Ben Howard veröffentlichte bereits die erste Single „Couldn’t Make It Up” aus seinem kommenden Album “Is It?”. Nun legt er mit seiner zweiten Single „Walking Backwards“ nach und bietet seinen Fans damit einen weiteren vielversprechenden Vorgeschmack auf sein bald erscheinendes Album.

„Is It?“ wird sein fünftes Studioalbum sein, welches insgesamt 10 Songs umfasst. Es entstand in der Zeit, als der Brite ganz unerwartet zwei kleine Schlaganfälle erlitt. Ben Howard selbst beschreibt diese Zeit als „verwirrend“. Diese Verwirrung schlägt sich in den unterschiedlichen Nuancen nieder, die auf dem Album zu finden sind.

Howard sagt dazu: ”Ich fand es unmöglich, nicht über die Absurdität nachzudenken, dass man mit einem winzigen Klumpen alle Fähigkeiten verlieren kann. Das hat sich wirklich in das Schreiben der Platte eingebrannt”. Der englische Singer-Songwriter kann bis heute beeindruckende 800 Millionen Streams (über alle DSPs) verzeichnen. Ben wird diesen Sommer auf mehreren Festivals in der EU und Großbritannien auftreten und hat kürzlich seine großen Shows im Londoner Alexandra Palace Park für Juli angekündigt. Im Juli dieses
Jahres wird er außerdem auch drei Shows in Berlin, Hamburg und München spielen.

First time reissue of mega rare 1972 psych-folk album from Venezuela.
180g LP.
One of the most obscure records ever released in Venezuela that was originally distributed in tiny quantities as a promo-only album.

A magic blend of protest songwriting, with a strong environmentalist statement, and folky pop with psych ingredients —such as the use of sitar sounds— recorded by the collective of artists “Una Luz”, and “El Zigui” who was once described as the local Bob Dylan.

The late ‘60s was a short period of time, long enough to turn the world upside down.

Music, paying attention to the ancient Greeks who said that changes in society are also reflected in it, also undergoes violent transformations in its structure. The turbulent joy of rock and roll and twist gives way to the meditative sounds of the waves of the sea contained in surf to finally welcome music of soft and delicate harmonies with songs full of references in their lyrics to the state of society and their relationships with the environment.

On the other hand, in Venezuela, although the expansive wave of May 68 had not reached it, a certain degree of dissatisfaction began to be perceived, especially through the music of a singer-songwriter from the countryside of Venezuela known as Ali Primera, El Cantor del Pueblo. Thanks to a scholarship from the German government, he studied for a few years in that country, and it was there that he recorded his first album, with songs whose lyrics reflect the essence of authors such as Bob Dylan and Atahualpa Yupanqui. And Ali Primera becomes one of the greatest influences of our artist: El Zigui.

Guillermo Sánchez Corao —known as El Zigui for some strange reason— was born in the Venezuelan city of Maracay, capital of the State of Aragua, on January 13, 1948. From a very young age he began to study guitar playing and, already in his teens, we can find him as part of the duo El Zigui & Franklin together with Franklin Laudelino Mejías, another young man with a great musical pedigree.

It is during his bohemian phase as a troubadour, in the surroundings of the Ateneo de Caracas, when his music caught the attention of producer Mario Tepedino, the most important youth music producer at the time. Mario takes him to his TV show “2001 Juvenil”. With the incorporation of other musicians such as Rubén "Micho" Correa —who would later become a great arranger and record producer— he created the group El Zigui y Una Luz, which would later be joined by musicians such as Carlos "Nene" Quintero and Alfredo Padilla, members of the amazing Grupo Pan. Later on, another outstanding singer would also join Una Luz: Guillermo Carrasco.

With this formation they made it into a recording studio in 1972 where they managed to record, in just 30 hours, a long-playing album of which only 60 copies were pressed and has therefore gained cult status among collectors. As expected, the strong content of the lyrics was not supported by the media, making the promotion of the album impossible to accomplish. However, it was with the help of Mario Tepedino that they made it to television, with appearances on “2001 Juvenil” and “Antesala Lunar”, a show that was especially produced for the broadcast of the arrival of man on the Moon.

That was probably one of the main reasons for El Zigui to move to Canada and then France until 1978 when he returns to Venezuela. He would then join bands like Xabañón, Fogón and De Vuelta al Futuro, a 12-member super group. The former members of Una Luz had become well known musicians in the country, especially Guillermo Carrasco who was one of the greatest ballad artists in the ‘80s and targeted by the biggest record companies at the time. El Zigui died in a traffic accident on June 22, 1999. If he had lived through these crazy times... where would he have gone?

You never have to guess what Tink’s thinking. The Chicago-born songstress and rapper says it all in her music. She spits, speaks, and sings straight from the heart without filter or apology. At the same time, she breaks boundaries, dropping off bars with uncontainable charisma and belting out hooks with show-stopping range. She can be romantic in one crescendo before getting raw in a bout of wild wordplay. This versatility consistently affirms her as a force in her own lane. Following her 2011 debut mixtape Winter’s Diary, she dropped projects at a prolific pace, including Alter Ego, Blunts & Ballads, and Boss Up. 2014 saw Winter’s Diary 2: Forever Yours arrive to widespread critical acclaim, landing on year-end R&B album lists from Billboard and Rolling Stone. It also yielded “Treat Me Like Somebody,” which gathered 64 million Spotify streams and counting. A year later, XXL touted her among its coveted “Freshman Class.” Following a stint in the major label system, she embraced independence again with Winter’s Diary 4 2016, Voicemails [2019], Hopeless Romantic [2020], and A Gift And A Curse [2020]. She collaborated with everyone from Sleigh Bells and Pentatonix to Future, G Herbo, 6lack, and K Camp. During 2021, she served up Heat of the Moment powered by “Rebel” [feat. Jeremih] and “Might Let You” [feat. Davido]. After raking in streams in the hundreds of millions and earning acclaim from Pitchfork, The FADER, HYPEBEAST, and more, she opens up like never before on her 2022 album, Pillow Talk.

Golden-voiced Mavericks frontman Raul Malo lets his guitar do the singing in this 10-song collection highlighting his skill as an arranger and instrumentalist. From midnight in Havana to the beaches of California, hear Malo‘s full range of musical influences on display as he explores a wild variety of textures from surf guitar licks, lush earthen tones, spaghetti western to big band jams and more, accompanied occasionally by his Mavericks bandmates. It’s a sonic adventure befitting his time leading music’s most shape-shifting band.

Remix EP 1 (incl. Remixes by Acid Pauli, Coldcut, DMX Krew, Shahrokh Dini, Frivolous)

After the release of Felix Laband’s highly acclaimed 5th album “The Soft White Hand” in November 2022, it’s about time to give it some extra class remix treatment. So here comes a massive package with remixes by living legends Coldcut, Acid Pauli, DMX Krew, Frivolous and Shahrokh Dini.

Felix Laband’s The Soft White Hand is the masterwork of an artist who expresses himself through musical and artistic collage acting together to reinterpret his sources and to express significant elements of his own personal story.

Released by Munich-based Compost Records, the 14-track album is Laband’s first full-length offering since the critically acclaimed Deaf Safari in 2015. It is heralded by the single “Derek and Me”, and is being pressed on vinyl for distribution globally.

In The Soft White Hand Laband works with source materials that will be familiar to those who know his previous four records – Thin Shoes in June (2001), 4/4 Down the Stairs (2002), Dark Days Exit (2005) and especially Deaf Safari which reached deep into the South Africa scene and its political culture to inspire its vocal and music sampling. However, the disengagement he felt from his homeland during his latest album’s creation – an abiding sense of untethered-ness to place and space, exquisitely rendered in tracks like “Death of a Migrant” – is perceptible in Laband’s desire to illuminate instead aspects of his own life.

Welcome to the "Consume Land Flea Market". This is the atmospheric setting and at the same time the luminous title of the debut album of young producer Noayama. "It centers on the contradiction between turbo-capitalist consumerism and the desire for vintage stuff in all kinds of shapes and colors to escape reality for a bit. I think it's quite a nice and suitable metaphor for the position my generation is in right now" says the 21-year-old producer, musician and interdisciplinary artist.

On about 40 minutes, Noah Berger, who grew up near Munich, spans a wide musical arc with his alter ego Noayama. He combines Hip Hop aesthetics with playful Electronica and acts skillfully in the interstices of Pop. Hints of 70s Funk hedonism, Old-School House vibes and modern J-pop sensibilities can also be found on "Consume Land Flea Market." The binding agent of the album is Noayama's "Punk Attitude" which comes through clearly on his tracks and beats and is an elementary part of his producer DNA. "I just like to drift, it's very central to the way I work" adds Noah.

Just as important for him are intergenerational collaborations, which adorn his debut work in numerous ways. An illustrious round of artists is therefore represented on CLFM. It starts with young female rap artist Maassai from the New York underground scene who can be heard on the pulsating opener "Get You Back". Also from N.Y.C is Hprizm, a member of the legendary avant-garde rap group Anti-Pop Consortium, who is featured on the dark and gritty "I Went Left" and the bouncer "War." Funkstörung is also involved here. Not too much of a coincidence as Noah has been encouraged since his teenage days by his father Michael Fakesch, one half of the Glitch-hop pioneers who became famous in the late 90s. With "The Legendary Godmother of Japanese Electronica" Coppe' on "Majesty" and the German singer-songwriter her tree on the song "Flâner", introverted pieces have also found their place on CLFM. In addition multilingual verses with Silo Inf3rnx from the townships in Gugulethu on "Ingozi" and on top "the homies from the neighborhood" Anothr and Taprikk Sweezee who give the album further facets through their contribution.

Noayama combines elements and working methods of the last five decades in a relaxed manner and bundles them into a genuine piece of work. Emblematic of this approach is the choice of features. So is the gear he uses. He incorporates old synths (Roland Jupiter 8, Nordlead) and drum machines (Roland 808, Roland 909) with playful ease with common software tools. It's also pretty convenient that he's currently studying Digital Arts at the Kunstuni Linz. In fact, his semester project is the visualization of his own album which means that every single track and every interlude gets its own video. Well, Noayama is just a gambler.

Critically-acclaimed, criminally-overachieving Glasgow-based singer and guitarist Alasdair Roberts is known as a superlative original songwriter as well as an interpreter of traditional songs from Scotland and beyond. For the past twenty years, his recordings have alternated between these two complimentary poles, with "pop" records such as The Amber Gatherers and A Wonder Working Stone nestling in his expansive back catalogue alongside "folk" albums such as No Earthly Man and What News (with Amble Skuse and David McGuinness). Additionally, all of these records possess a further dimension, derived from their collation of songs together into one album-length statement. This is part of Alasdair"s great achievement in his career - for him, this thing of music and song hasn"t come the eons it"s travelled to simply entertain. These impulses fully present and well honed, Alasdair returns to his roots with Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall, his fifth full-length collection of traditional song. Recorded live in the studio, it is an entirely solo collection of twelve traditional ballads and songs sparsely arranged for acoustic guitar, piano and voice. The majority of the songs originate in Alasdair"s homeland of Scotland, with a couple from Ireland and one from Prince Edward Island on Canada"s eastern seaboard too. The record takes its title from a line in the final verse of one of its songs, "The Baron o" Brackley" - a ballad of feuding clans and matrimonial betrayal from the north-east of Scotland. Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall: it"s a title which goes some way towards encapsulating many of the record"s themes. Collectively the songs treat of various conflicts and tensions - those of gender; of class, status and position; and of geography and tribal belonging - and the roles and responsibilities expected at the various intersections of these constructs. That we should never forget! As with many of Alasdair"s recordings, Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall contains ballads aplenty: tragic ("Bob Norris"), supernatural ("The Holland Handkerchief") and dramatic ("Eppie Morrie"). There are love songs ("The Lichtbob"s Lassie") and anti-love songs ("Kilbogie"). There are rare, seldom-heard pieces ("Young Airly") and much more well-known ones ("Mary Mild," a version of "The Queen"s Four Maries"). Woven through all of this - a thread of levity, perhaps - is a triptych of zoological allegories - a panegyric to a mystical steed ("The Wonderful Grey Horse"), a lament for a lost cow ("Drimindown") and a paean to a regal waterbird ("The Bonny Moorhen"), which serves to highlight the intersection of the mythic, the eternal and the mundane at which we all find ourselves in every day of our life on Earth. Grief In the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall was masterfully recorded by Sam Smith at Green Door Studios, Glasgow over an economical two days, and mixed in one day. Its brevity on all levels is an aspect of its expression. Alasdair"s renowned acoustic fingerstyle guitar is understated yet questing, ever in service to the needs of the song, underpinning his soulful tenor voice. Three songs eschew his habitual acoustic guitar in favour of simple piano arrangements. The spare setting and Alasdair"s deeply committed performance gently reminds of the meanings and melodies of these old songs, chosen instinctively and with care, for all to hear and sing in 2023, and the world beyond that is ever coming.

Let's go back to Italy with the dynamic duo Marvin & Guy aka Alessandro Parlatore and Marcello Giordani.

On their first release for Live At Robert Johnson they team up with another dynamic duo: Hard Ton - and you guessed right, they're Italian too.

So what else to expect than some real cool contemporary Italo Disco just in time for summer? »Save Me« comes in two different mixes: The »Disco Mix« and the »Club Mix« - both featuring the marvelous falsetto voice of Hard Ton's singer Max - himself quite a passionate singer in the field of Heavy Metal - AND Disco - yes, you heard right. But fear not, the Heavy Metal part isn't audible at all. We're talking Hi-NRG sounds galore and of course D.I.S.C.O. - the Munich style disco of someone like Giorgio Moroder doing his thing with Donna Summer or Harvey Fuqua's and Patrick Cowley's work with LGBT legend Sylvester - yes, the »You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)« Sylvester. Not a bad company to get name-dropped, right?

Especially the »Disco Mix« of »Save Me« features many of those typical sounds of said producers and is a beautiful tribute to the golden disco era. The slightly darker »Club Mix« does a great job too by pulling all dancers straight onto the floor with its drum machine generated bass drum and its euphoric claps.

Marvin & Guy's solo track, the aptly named »Supported By Your Favourite DJ« will surely be supported by everyone of our favourite DJs: It's a happy and positive track which definitely will not fail as a secret weapon in everybody's DJ bag.

Now let's get saved by Marvin & Guy - and let's support the Italian scene - it's mighty real!

Kate NV's WOW offers listeners a prismatic shift in perspective and scale, a parallel dimension in which the mundane becomes funny, unfamiliar, and altogether sensational. Turning the contents of her 2020 album Room for the Moon upside down and spilling them across a floor checkered with intrigue and surprise, Kate places sound, object, and ritual under the microscope to magnify the delight hidden in plain sight of everyday life. WOW is Kate Shilonosova's fourth full-length release as Kate NV in six years, and third for RVNG Intl. Her prolific musical output aligns with a highly attuned aesthetic and a deep commitment to visual world building. WOW is one of many of these worlds in which music is fully saturated with color, deeply tactile and textural. Shiny, sproingy, plastic. Where Room for the Moon embraced structure (abstractly speaking) and veered pop, WOW happily abandons conventional song shapes, parsing the experience of musical time into ecstatic fragments. It's difficult to imagine a more fitting album title: pure exclamation, an organic pitch of delight leaving the mouth, with no clear etymological links. On Room for the Moon, Shilonosova's voice was layered and lyrical, with sweeping and urgent melodies. WOW finds her as a peripheral purveyor of high jinks, peeking out from the corners, commenting on her surroundings in non-verbal, and arguably non-human, utterances. Instead of employing lyricism, Shilonosova steps outside of language, and rewards us with a gum ball machine of textures: soda fizz and wind-up teeth and scraps of bubble wrap become comically huge, as if heard from an insect's perspective. Words are tasty plosives, onomatopoeias, percussive chirps and one-liners, and singing serves as another form of what Shilonosova refers to as "funny tiny sounds." WOW skews and skitters, trips over its own feet and laughs about it, plays out of tune on purpose, tilts and leans like a top-heavy flower. Shilonosova is a longtime user of Found Sound Nation's Broken Orchestra sample pack, a sound catalog of over one thousand dilapidated instruments sourced from Philadelphia public schools. These perfectly imperfect instruments are tightly spliced into WOW's patchwork of synthesizer and reworked snippets of Shilonosova's friends playing clarinet, flute, and marimba. It's central to the record's internal logic: a disregard for what is, and isn't, broken, what is, and isn't, a sentence or a song. A commingling of subject and object, with a firmly new wave sensibility. Shilonosova has long had an unusual relationship with inanimate objects (citing her bicycle as her best friend), as if the joys they evoke for her are personality traits of the objects themselves. On WOW, she evinces a kind of inverted anthropomorphism: she shrinks her voice and becomes an object among multitudes, toylike in size and perspective, cohabitating with sedentary, indifferent roommates. This pursuit of childlike perspectives is a thread that runs through much of her catalog, and places her work on a plane with that of her personal hero Nobukazu Takemura, who for decades has treated his music as a portal to childlike curiosity, both in subject matter and tone. With an invitation to pursue this curiosity, WOW further confirms Kate NV's deeply inventive, fluid and technically dizzying artistry. By refusing constraints and rules, Shilonosova embodies a profound freedom, allowing objects, sounds, and processes to unfold organically; or, as she puts it, a commitment to "accepting randomness." She succeeds terrifically at a breed of auditory defamiliarization that is all her own, and the rewards for listeners are many: through her lens, the small becomes monstrous, the abstract becomes sensorial, and the old becomes new. Kate NV's WOW will be released on February 10, 2023 on vinyl and digital formats. On behalf of Kate NV and RVNG, a portion of the proceeds from this release will benefit War Child, an organization that supports children and their families impacted by conflict, and working to build sustainable peace for generations to come.

Yellow Vinyl

Kate NV's WOW offers listeners a prismatic shift in perspective and scale, a parallel dimension in which the mundane becomes funny, unfamiliar, and altogether sensational. Turning the contents of her 2020 album Room for the Moon upside down and spilling them across a floor checkered with intrigue and surprise, Kate places sound, object, and ritual under the microscope to magnify the delight hidden in plain sight of everyday life. WOW is Kate Shilonosova's fourth full-length release as Kate NV in six years, and third for RVNG Intl. Her prolific musical output aligns with a highly attuned aesthetic and a deep commitment to visual world building. WOW is one of many of these worlds in which music is fully saturated with color, deeply tactile and textural. Shiny, sproingy, plastic. Where Room for the Moon embraced structure (abstractly speaking) and veered pop, WOW happily abandons conventional song shapes, parsing the experience of musical time into ecstatic fragments. It's difficult to imagine a more fitting album title: pure exclamation, an organic pitch of delight leaving the mouth, with no clear etymological links. On Room for the Moon, Shilonosova's voice was layered and lyrical, with sweeping and urgent melodies. WOW finds her as a peripheral purveyor of high jinks, peeking out from the corners, commenting on her surroundings in non-verbal, and arguably non-human, utterances. Instead of employing lyricism, Shilonosova steps outside of language, and rewards us with a gum ball machine of textures: soda fizz and wind-up teeth and scraps of bubble wrap become comically huge, as if heard from an insect's perspective. Words are tasty plosives, onomatopoeias, percussive chirps and one-liners, and singing serves as another form of what Shilonosova refers to as "funny tiny sounds." WOW skews and skitters, trips over its own feet and laughs about it, plays out of tune on purpose, tilts and leans like a top-heavy flower. Shilonosova is a longtime user of Found Sound Nation's Broken Orchestra sample pack, a sound catalog of over one thousand dilapidated instruments sourced from Philadelphia public schools. These perfectly imperfect instruments are tightly spliced into WOW's patchwork of synthesizer and reworked snippets of Shilonosova's friends playing clarinet, flute, and marimba. It's central to the record's internal logic: a disregard for what is, and isn't, broken, what is, and isn't, a sentence or a song. A commingling of subject and object, with a firmly new wave sensibility. Shilonosova has long had an unusual relationship with inanimate objects (citing her bicycle as her best friend), as if the joys they evoke for her are personality traits of the objects themselves. On WOW, she evinces a kind of inverted anthropomorphism: she shrinks her voice and becomes an object among multitudes, toylike in size and perspective, cohabitating with sedentary, indifferent roommates. This pursuit of childlike perspectives is a thread that runs through much of her catalog, and places her work on a plane with that of her personal hero Nobukazu Takemura, who for decades has treated his music as a portal to childlike curiosity, both in subject matter and tone. With an invitation to pursue this curiosity, WOW further confirms Kate NV's deeply inventive, fluid and technically dizzying artistry. By refusing constraints and rules, Shilonosova embodies a profound freedom, allowing objects, sounds, and processes to unfold organically; or, as she puts it, a commitment to "accepting randomness." She succeeds terrifically at a breed of auditory defamiliarization that is all her own, and the rewards for listeners are many: through her lens, the small becomes monstrous, the abstract becomes sensorial, and the old becomes new. Kate NV's WOW will be released on February 10, 2023 on vinyl and digital formats. On behalf of Kate NV and RVNG, a portion of the proceeds from this release will benefit War Child, an organization that supports children and their families impacted by conflict, and working to build sustainable peace for generations to come.