Cerca:music works

Limited edition vinyl set featuring eight live installations from the ISM Hexadome, recorded in binaural sound at MASS MoCA (Museum of Contemporary Art, Massachusetts) in December 2019. Listening to the recordings on headphones recreates the detailed sense of spatialisation and movement of the ISM Hexadome's immersive 52-channel sound system that these works were exclusively composed for. The album also includes artwork prints of 10 still images excerpted from the installations created by visual artists in collaboration with the sound artist. The prints by Holly Herndon & Mathew Dryhurst and Tarik Barri are bonus visual material, as it was not possible to use the tracks for the record.

'The Works and Days: The Black Sections' is a sound collage album that emerged out of the production material of the film, The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin). The film — winner of the Encounters Golden Bear for Best Film at the 2020 Berlinale — is the second feature of C.W. Winter & Anders Edström. It is an eight-hour fiction shot for a total of twenty-seven weeks, over a period of fourteen months, in a village population forty-seven in the mountains of Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. It is a geographic description of the work and non-work of a farmer. A portrait, over five seasons, of a family, of a terrain, of a sound space, and of a duration. The film was named one of the Ten Best Films of the Year by critics at: Artforum, Cargo, Cinema Scope, Desistfilm, Filo, La Internacional Cinéfila, Mubi, Nobody, Senses of Cinema, and Sight & Sound.

The film is accompanied by this LP, TheWorks and Days: The Black Sections, by C.W. Winter, and the photo book, Shiotani, by Anders Edström. The album features musical excerpts from Tim Berne & Bill Frisell, Tony Conrad, Graham Lambkin, Mary Jane Leach, Alvin Lucier, Phill Niblock, Folke Rabe, Éliane Radigue, and Akio Suzuki. Producing, editing, and recordings by C.W. Winter. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu.

Winter & Edström’s first feature, The Anchorage, won a Golden Leopard at Locarno Film Festival and won the Douglas E. Edwards Independent/Experimental Film/Video Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. It was named one of the Ten Best Films of the Year by critics at Cinema Scope, Film Comment, Senses of Cinema, Variety, and Indie Wire and was named Best First Film of the Year by The New York Times. Their first film, a documentary short called One Plus One 2 was made in collaboration with the late British guitarist, Derek Bailey. Their film/video work has shown at such venues as the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), Centre national de la photographie (Paris), Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Fotomuseum Winterthur, NRW-Forum (Düsseldorf), the Harvard Film Archive, Anthology Film Archives, the Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus), Centre de cultura contemporània de Barcelona, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, and the National Museum of Modern Art (Kyoto).

C.W. Winter was born in California. In 2020, he completed his DPhil in Art Practice & Theory at The Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford. He received his MFA from California Institute of the Arts where he studied closely under Thom Andersen, James Benning, and Allan Sekula. His writing has appeared in Cinema Scope, Moving Image Source, Purple, and Too Much. He lives in the United Kingdom where he is currently a Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Art and a Lecturer at the University of Oxford.

Side A excerpts:
“Thursday, May 5, 1977 & Friday, May 6, 1977: Part 4” Performed by Tony Conrad. Used by arrangement with The Tony Conrad Estate
“Sethwork” Performed by Phill Niblock. Used by arrangement with Phill Niblock
“What?? (Second Version)” Performed by Folke Rabe. Used by arrangement with the Folke Rabe Estate
“Pipe Dreams” Performed by Mary Jane Leach. Used by arrangement with Mary Jane Leach
“What?? (Second Version)” Performed by Folke Rabe. Used by arrangement with the Folke Rabe Estate
“2011” Performed by Tim Berne & Bill Frisell. Written by Tim Berne. Published by Party Time Music BMI. Recording courtesy of Minor Music Records/Screwgun Records

Side B excerpts:
“Ceremoniolose” Recorded by Graham Lambkin. Used by arrangement with Graham Lambkin
“Kugiuchi” Performed by Akio Suzuki. Recorded live for TheWorks and Days Used by arrangement with Akio Suzuki
“Music on a Long Thin Wire (Side A)” Performed by Alvin Lucier. Used by arrangement with Alvin Lucier
“A Third Trombone” Performed by Phill Niblock. Used by arrangement with Phill Niblock
“Triptych: Part 1” Performed by Éliane Radigue. Used by arrangement with Éliane Radigue

The Alice Comedies are a series of Animated/live-action shorts created by Walt Disney in the 1920s, in which a live action little girl named Alice (originally played by Virginia Davis) and an animated cat named Julius have adventures in an animated landscape.

The Magic Clock is a whirlwind mishmash of motifs that 1 draws on an unusually wide range of sources: Hoffman’s The Nutcracker and medieval romances working cheek by jowl with Arabian Nights, Ovid, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Peter Pan, Mallarme’s “Afternoon of a Faun,” and Novalis’ blue flower.

Paul Dessau was a German composer and conductor. He composed operas, scenic plays, incidental music, ballets, symphonies and other works for orchestra, and pieces for solo instruments as well as vocal music.

The music is conducted and produced by Hans E. Zimmer, who conducted an extensive repertoire including Die Zauberflöte, Le Nozze di Figaro, Euryanthe, Jenufa, Ariadne auf Naxos, Salome, Der Rosenkavalier, Der Friedenstag, Die Meister-singer von Nürnberg, Lohengrin.

A deep dive into the one of most collectable jazz catalogues in the world, a selection of some of the rarest and most sought-after recordings from the 60s and 70s, a time when British jazz began to find its own identity. Drawn from the iconic labels of Decca, Deram, Argo, EMI Columbia/Lansdowne Series, Fontana, Mercury, & Philips. If one were asked to pick an album that represented the best of British jazz in the 1960s, Le Déjeuner Sur l’Herbe by the New Jazz Orchestra would be a serious contender. Recorded in September 1968, it draws together many of the key streams that had developed in British jazz in the preceding years, and also presages much of what was to come. Notwithstanding the line-up, which includes some of the very best British jazz musicians directed by an inventive and ingenious leader in Neil Ardley, the session features pieces written by the most distinctive jazz composers active in Britain at that time alongside idiosyncratic interpretations of works by John Coltrane and Miles Davis. And it’s all captured beautifully by engineer Howard Barrow and producer Tony Reeves and it features a stella cast of some of the greatest musicians, not just from that era or genre but beyond; Jack Bruce, who would become one of the founding members of Cream, Barbara Thompson, Ian Carr, Michael Gibbs, Dave Gelly, Dick Heckstall-Smith and Jon Hiseman, who went on to form one of the greatest jazz/progressive/rock bands – Colosseum.

‘K Bay’, out on Domino Recordings, is the first new solo
material from Matthew E. White in six years.
Matthew E. White describes the album as a “love affair
with music.” It’s a record thrillingly engaged with an
eclectic range of contemporary and 20th Century popular
music. The daring production mines and foregrounds longsimmering but previously veiled influences from the realms
of hip-hop, electronic pop and dancehall but all filtered
through White’s self-described outsider perspective.
‘K Bay’ is an homage to Kensington Bay, his home studio
where he records his personal projects and is his
sanctuary of creativity (White’s second studio,
Spacebomb, is where he works on collaborative projects
and has recorded and produced records by Foxygen,
Natalie Prass and Flo Morrissey).
More than love, romance, or self-reliance, this is the
animating ideal of ‘K Bay’ - that we can forever strive for
something better, no matter how flawed or blessed we
have already been. A decade ago, Matthew E. White made
a classic beauty no one expected; on ‘K Bay’, he has
made a masterpiece by harnessing what he’s learned from
that community and life itself in entirely unexpected,
electrifying, and reaffirming ways.

Italian experimental music is notoriously resistant to definition and location. If ever there was an object to encapsulate the spirit of that movement, it is the composer and musician Roberto Musci’s debut album from 1984 - The Loa Of Music. Recorded after a decade travelling the world - drifting between African, Indian, and the Near & Far East - studying music, making field recordings, and collecting instruments, not only is it a perfect culmination of such an experience, but a lens into the rigorously democratic and international spirit of the generation of artists to which Musci belongs. Phenomenally ambitious,The Loa Of Music entirely refuses the well trod path - distilling a remarkable range of sonic reference and reality. A work of field recording, musique concrète, electronics, synthesis, and instrumentation, pulling from countless musics from across the globe, the result is nothing short of brilliant and stunningly beautiful. A near perfect work - an egoless gesture, which rather than attempting to find consensus, offers every voice equity and cohabitation - harnessing the history music, with all of its cultural diversity, as a vision for a more ideal future. Geographies and their sounds intertwine, while Musci’s interventions and instrumentation thread a path. Ambiences ripple, sounds and voices converse in a vision of unity that may only exist within sonic realms. Unquestionably seminal, and one of the most important works to emerge from Italy in the last 50 years. Never before issued on vinyl since it’s original release, and surely not to be around for long, this is one not to miss.

‘Concordance’ is Susan Howe’s and David Grubbs’s fifth album in the
fifteen years of their unexpected and richly satisfying collaboration. Here
they’ve pared down their materials to voice and piano, aspiring to the
hushed intensity of their live performances. What had previously resulted
from Grubbs’s recomposition of recorded materials now arrives as
unadorned duo performance.
“Howe is a poet who has spent her career reminding us that our
experiences of meaning and sound are synchronous.” - Tess Taylor, The
New York Times
‘Concordance’ is Susan Howe’s and David Grubbs’s fifth album in the
unexpected and richly satisfying collaboration that began with ‘Thiefth’
and includes ‘Souls of the Labadie Tract’, ‘Frolic Architecture’ and
‘WOODSLIPPERCOUNTERCLATTER’. Where these works feature the
fragmentation and multiplication of Howe’s recorded voice - in a style
akin to her celebrated text collages - with ‘Concordance’ they’ve pared
down their materials to voice and piano, aspiring to the hushed intensity
of their live performances. After fifteen years of working together, the
subtleties of inflection and interaction that previously resulted from
Howe’s nuanced delivery and Grubbs’s composition using recorded
materials now arrives as unadorned duo performance.
One of America's greatest living artists, Bollingen Prize-winning poet
Susan Howe’s text for ‘Concordance’ originates in a collage poem of the
same name published by Grenfell Press, which then became the title
work in her most recent book, published to acclaim by New Directions in
2020. She has continued to rework the text for this performed version,
incorporating material from her 2015 book of essays, ‘The Quarry’. Her
source material is scissored from print concordances of the poetry of
Milton, Herbert, Arnold, Browning, Dickinson and Coleridge, as well as
old field guides to birds, rocks, trees, moths and mushrooms; Howe’s
fiery commitment to placing these echoes of the past in dialogue with the
present speaks to her position as one of America’s essential artists.
David Grubbs is Professor Of Music at Brooklyn College and The
Graduate Center, CUNY. He is the author of ‘The Voice in the
Headphones’, ‘Now that the audience is assembled’ and ‘Records Ruin
the Landscape: John Cage, the Sixties, and Sound Recording’ (all
published by Duke University Press) and, with Anthony McCall,
Simultaneous Soloists (Pioneer Works Press). Grubbs has played in
Gastr del Sol, The Red Krayola and Squirrel Bait and performed with
Tony Conrad, Pauline Oliveros and Will Oldham, among many others.

180g vinyl record. only 300 copies - all hand numbered.

pressed in two verison - 200 black and 100 transparet with one white line ("crack" as the name of the TV series).

The first 100 copies have the Urbanski signature on the back cover.

This is another, after "Ultraviolet" collaboration project of the AXN Polska, U Know Me Records and the artist - Wojtek Urbański. The soundtrack for the Rysa series with Wojtek's original music will premiere on the 9th April.

"The music for the Rysa series is a combination of the world of electronics, modernity with traditional instruments and folk accents. On one side we have synthesizers, deep bass and wide spaces, characteristic of electronic music and close to my musical style. In opposition to these elements, however, I used traditional instruments such as hurdy-gurdy, pipes, flutes and strings" says Wojtek Urbański.

"I wanted the duality of this music to reflect the struggles and double life of the main character of the series. She lives in a certain suspension, between the 'day' world which she knows and remembers, but also the 'night' world which happens beyond her consciousness. Through music, I tried to convey the character of both these worlds, touching very dark and heavy emotions in one of them. I have invited an expert of traditional music, Sebastian Wielądek (hurdy-gurdy, pipes, flutes) and the outstanding violinists Stanisław Słowiński and Agnieszka Świgut to record these works. " adds Urbański

180g vinyl record. only 300 copies - all hand numbered.

pressed in two verison - 200 black and 100 transparet with one white line ("crack" as the name of the TV series).

The first 100 copies have the Urbanski signature on the back cover.

This is another, after "Ultraviolet" collaboration project of the AXN Polska, U Know Me Records and the artist - Wojtek Urbański. The soundtrack for the Rysa series with Wojtek's original music will premiere on the 9th April.

"The music for the Rysa series is a combination of the world of electronics, modernity with traditional instruments and folk accents. On one side we have synthesizers, deep bass and wide spaces, characteristic of electronic music and close to my musical style. In opposition to these elements, however, I used traditional instruments such as hurdy-gurdy, pipes, flutes and strings" says Wojtek Urbański.

"I wanted the duality of this music to reflect the struggles and double life of the main character of the series. She lives in a certain suspension, between the 'day' world which she knows and remembers, but also the 'night' world which happens beyond her consciousness. Through music, I tried to convey the character of both these worlds, touching very dark and heavy emotions in one of them. I have invited an expert of traditional music, Sebastian Wielądek (hurdy-gurdy, pipes, flutes) and the outstanding violinists Stanisław Słowiński and Agnieszka Świgut to record these works. " adds Urbański

Jimmy Tamborello returns with a collection of 10 pop-infused vocal hymns – simultaneously perfect dance floor fillers and lullabies. "Away" is the second of two Dntel albums to be released in 2021 by Morr Music in collaboration with Les Albums Claus. While "The Seas Trees See" showcased Tamborello's more intricate and quiet side, "Away" embraces his love for pop music. A genre which like no other has been resonating the advancements of technology from the very beginning. Songwriting was sequenced and computerized on such a large scale that it would change the sonic aesthetics of the charts forever.

Dntel is a musician who changed pop music forever – and still works in this never-ending labour of love, both effortless and highly focused, constantly tweaking the universe of our musical perception. Whether beatless or uncompromisingly embracing the limelight of collective ecstasy with one of his most remembered tunes "(This Is) The Dream Of Evan And Chan", his almost forgotten anthem "Don’t Get Your Hopes Up" or his work as James Figurine. "Away" features 10 of these extravaganzas – uniting his audience once more in hope and future-bound optimism.

"I grew up with 80s techno-pop – these influences always come through in my music", Jimmy writes from Los Angeles. For this album, though, "I was thinking more of 80s indie pop or labels like 4AD. It is a mix of those influences along with trying to figure out what elements of my own discography I still connect with. I wanted it to reflect old Dntel records as well as the techno-pop band Figurine I used to be in. I have always considered my music basically being techno-pop, but not referring to pop as popular music – I just like pretty melodies. But with the Dntel moniker, I never had the ambition to produce music for a really big audience.”

It is exactly that looseness in approaching music which makes Tamborello’s style of composing so unique. On "Away" he combines a healthy dose of distortion with the most-sticking melodies, vocals and bitter-sweet lyrics he ever came up with – performing all vocals himself, with the help of technology. "My voice has a limited range. When I applied this vocal processing it seemed to bring out the emotions more. I don’t see it as the same as the more artificial, autotuned style of modern pop music. I think it still sounds like it could be a real person singing, just not me."

Using this technique, Dntel disembodies himself from his own art, welcoming all kinds of interpretations re. his current state as an artist. "Somehow this processed voice feels closer to how I see myself than my normal voice, for better or worse…", he writes. Pop music is a fragile entity, making its kingpins vulnerable. Many emotions reveal a lot of the originator’s personality –this is something one has to be prepared for. On "Away", Jimmy Tamborello finds the perfect way of marrying his unique musical personality with both the demands and possibilities of pop music. Just listen to "Connect" and you’ll know what we’re talking about. A perfect, yet timeless album for less than perfect times.

Ramona Córdova is a sound artist — passionate about writing, communicating, linguistics, behavioural & social psychology, observation & investigative research, photography, sound recording, and design. Their artist focus is on project-based sound and visual media, public engagement and live performance — although they are best known for their music and are typical regarded as a singer songwriter. Ramona Córdova intends to speak to the challenges of living under systems of oppression while inspiring introspection and personal growth toward the maturing of our societies. Ramona is Haitian-Filipina, Puerto Rican, born in Kingman, Arizona, USA and is inter-feminine trans non-binary.

"When I first started working on Naïve I was completely consumed by all of the technical details involved in making a 'professional studio recording' on my own - one which could not be refuted or disregarded as subpar. My only other hope was to tell some sort of story with whichever songs i could piece together. The content and message of which were much less important to me.

The story that Naïve ended up telling comes from a cohesion of themes, ceaseless in my personal experiences living day to day in the world. Although the album dares to tread on tact while speaking poetically and lyrically about issues such as systemic oppression, racism, misogyny, policing and patriarchy - I think the album really just wants to reflect - to serve as a reflection - in order to foster healing and healthy growth towards maturing. I feel it commanding a kind of firm kindness as a reminder to love yourself enough to accept others, by way of accepting yourself.

Pressed onto this 180-gram vinyl are 10 songs I wrote while living in many different places around the world. Spontaneous recordings of inspired notions of song, written one rainy evening up high above the vineyards in Banyuls-sur-Mer became Men on the Mountain. A Scrap of paper holding jots about a sudden storm on a hot day in August while helping friends on their farm in Puglia became Mouth of Autumn and Peace Through Violence. As I dressed myself into the fragile reality of the United States, I became flooded by its manipulative social governing systems. As the monuments of slave-owners, colonisers, and white supremacists came crashing down in the name of responsibility and accountability, The Bridge Works was built, a song about crossing bridges towards empathy and equality. Civil rights activist and American-Football quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, taking the knee during the United States national anthem pre-game ceremony, brought about So Long. The incessant murdering of black, brown, and transgender citizens brought Woke, Scared I'll Bite You, and The End. The murder of Eric Garner and the feeling of being choked-out and suffocated under the weight of systemic oppression brought about Still.

From all of this birthed the collection of songs that is Naïve, a title given to the album by French Ghanian artist Eden Tinto Collins. Although written both in Europe and the U.S., most of the songs were performed and recorded at the end of the year 2018 in Philadelphia, during the American-Holidays season. Still, Loving Him, and The End were written in Philadelphia, but produced in Vlorë, Albania. This helped serve as a reminder that the issues these songs speak of are not isolated to the United States of America." - Ramona Córdova

Boy Golden has a purpose: enjoy each day and make good music. Founder and minister of The Church of Better Daze, he wants to help people seeking to improve on yesterday’s themes. His songs, like hymns, are hopeful, fresh and upbeat. KD & Lunch Meat is fluorescent and fun, like its namesake, and easily ingested. Something to Work Towards searches for the meaning in life, while Smoke on the Breeze and Any Way It Works are warm, tender and linger like perfume. Church of Better Daze is the inspirational, musical manifesto. The harmonies are the collective idea of working together, the mellow melodies keep our hopes alive and the lyrics are golden rules to live by: Follow your heart / Make good art / Call your momma / Work real hard. Redefining jam band and stoner cultures by turning dead heads into lively brains, Boy Golden wants to unite us all in a hazy dream under one roof. “We’re all the same at the Church of Better Daze,” he sings. Find unity in the congregation of these 11 tracks, which redefine the precedent for collaboration, common goals and cannabis. If you’re open to learn, and can speak your truth, you can blaze and still get paid in Boy Golden’s Church of Better Daze.

Vanguard captures the iconic Bristol Sound.

The early days of the iconic Bristol Sound are captured in a new album including an exclusive re-release of the very first track from Massive Attack and tracks from Smith & Mighty, Purple Penguin and more.

The curated tracks are also linked in that all were originally released with bespoke original covers from legendary Bristol street artists, including Banksy and Will Barras, tying its release toVanguard’s current exhibition Bristol Street Art: The Evolution of a Global Movement at M Shed, Bristol, running until October.
Compiled by DJ Boca 45 (Scott Hendy), Vanguard brings together the seminal tracks that defined the rebellious era which saw the birth of the Bristol Sound for the first time. Featured tracks include an exclusive re-release of Any Love - the first ever track by Massive Attack released on Massive Attack Records in 1988, Smith & Mighty’s breakout hit Walk On, Purple Penguin’s downtempo classic Memphis and other trip hop classics.

The LP celebrates the globally recognised Bristol Sound whose experimental breakbeat rhythms and influence still dominate the scene today. Along with classic tracks from the ‘90’s into the ‘00’s and beyond, the album uncovers lesser known cuts by some of Bristol’s pioneering musicians such as One Cut and West Country hip hop’s finest Aspects.

The explosion of the Bristol Sound coincided with the boom in UK street art which led to fruitful collaborations between artists and musicians. Finding inspiration in each other’s work, street artists frequently designed rave posters, logos and cover art while DJs provided the beats to accompany street artists’ clandestine painting.
Vanguard The Album pays homage to these relationships with a beautifully put together gatefold LP featuring iconic cover art designed by some of the biggest names in street art such as Inkie, Dicy, Will Barras and Nick Walker. These early works capture the boisterous energy of the era and confirm Bristol’s status as an extraordinary cultural melting pot.

The double vinyl record also features extensive sleeve notes written by Bristolian writer and curator Jamie Hombre as he reflects on these ground breaking cover art collaborations.

After the release of ‘Kuarahy’ concurred with the blast of the worldwide pandemic and all the consequences it has generated, WHITE STONES - Martín Mendez’s project (OPETH’s bass player) - are ready to launch their second record.

When WHITE STONES released ‘Kuarahy’ they became the first Spanish band signed to Nuclear Blast Records, cementing their first album as an unprecedented milestone. Now, with ‘Dancing Into Oblivion’, the band returns with a more compact sound, having been hard at work ensuring the utmost attention to every detail for a result that is even better than the first record.

The topics covered on this second album draw on the feelings that Martín himself affirms he has lived through during the lockdown imposed by the covid-19 pandemic. “I started it very calmed in March when »Kuarahy« was released and the lockdown started. I wrote the new record and it just flowed so well. It’s my point of view, of the feelings I had during the lockdown period, in this weird year. I took advantage of the moment and I feel excited about it”, reveals the musician.

The most outstanding musical elements on this new record are the disparate genres that manage to co-exist. There is an element of aggression, that can be seen rearing its head in an instrumental frenzy, as well as soft and delicate intricacies that develop an atmosphere which surrounds the listener. There are distinct dynamics among the songs, with interludes allowing the listening to take a breath and appreciate what they’re hearing.

The writing process of ‘Dancing Into Oblivion’ has been pretty similar to the previous ‘Kuarahy’ but with some clear changes. Martín composed all of the instrumentals for the album but, as he says, “I’ve left sections open to the interpretation of each of the other musicians, both in the drums and in the vocals. Eloi wrote the lyrics this time and we then workshopped them together whilst working out the vocal parts to get the final result in the studio”.

WHITE STONES once again recorded at Farm Of Sounds Studios (Barcelona), owned by their singer Eloi. They were satisfied with the sound of ‘Kuarahy’ and the experience of the recording of that album and the comfort of making everything with their own tools made it all easier. “Everything has been ‘homemade’ because it’s a way of working and a philosophy I like. You have more control and you can better enforce your ideas”, Méndez explains -who also created the cover for ‘Dancing Into Oblivion’ together with Sandra, his partner for many years.

The final mix and mastering of this second album was done by Jaime Gómez Arellano at Orgone Studios (UK) because the band were more than satisfied with the work he did on ‘Kuarahy’ and they wanted to repeat that great experience. Eloi, as the singer and also the guy who recorded the music sent to Orgone Studios, acknowledges “the recording had more experience and a better sound quality because we made better decisions during the pre-production thanks to a higher level of self-awareness of ourselves as a band. Jaime knew us better too, so that simplified the process and in turn helped to make »Dancing Into Oblivion« as good as it can be”.

The line-up has been enhanced with the participation of the multifaceted Joan Carles Marí Tur on drums (who also plays in other bands like FACE THE MAYBE). The guitar solos were the job of Joao Sassetti (who was already a member of the touring line-up of WHITE STONES). Sassetti lives in Portugal and he couldn’t be in the studio in Barcelona, so he recorded his solos and digitally sent them over for integration into the final songs. The recording of the instruments has been more organic and as Boucherie says. “The original sound has been retained as much as posible in each and every element” and it has brought a natural/raw touch for ‘Dancing Into Oblivion’ just as the band had hoped and expected.

Demon Records presents the narrated TV soundtrack of a ‘lost’ four-part adventure set in ancient
Greece, starring William Hartnell as the Doctor.
When the TARDIS lands on the plains of Asia Minor, not far from the walled city of Troy, the
Doctor is hailed as the great god Zeus. He’s enlisted by the Greek army – led by Odysseus and
Agamemnon – to come up with a strategy for defeating the Trojans. With his companions already
prisoners of the opposing side, the Doctor draws his inspiration from the legend of a certain
wooden horse…
Presented across two 140g vinyl Trojan Sunset splatter discs, this 1965 TV soundtrack – no
episodes of which survive as film recordings - is narrated by Peter Purves, who co-stars as the
Doctor’s companion Steven, with Maureen O’Brien making her final appearance as Vicki. The
guest cast includes Max Adrian as King Priam, Barrie Ingham as Paris, Frances White as Cassandra
and Ivor Salter as Odysseus. Incidental music is by Humphrey Searle, and the familiar strains of
the Doctor Who theme are courtesy of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
The coloured LPs are presented in a gatefold sleeve with fully illustrated inner sleeves. Original
episode billings, and full cast and credits, are included.
Dummedy-dum, Dummedy-dum, Dummedy-dum, Dum-dum…

Concentric Records presents Radiant, the third compilation of its introductory release trilogy. Featuring music by ASWA, HOLOVR, Max Loderbauer, Petre Inspirescu, Supply, The Waves, William Selman, the album evokes luminous, iridescent and ethereal sonic spaces - a journey that overcomes struggles, spinning upward towards the light.

The album opens with calm, bright and assertive tonalities, evoking mental spaces prone to exploration and wondering. Molecular textures and real-world sounds bring us closer to an intimate and physical sphere, a voice. Ultimately everything dissolves into a synthetic domain of acid-like washes, in a cinematic sense of departure.

MAX LODERBAUER has been an active engineer, producer, and musician across four decades. He first came to notice in the late ‘80s as a member of Fischerman’s Friend. Known then as Daimler Max, Loderbauer’s associates included Stephan Fischer and Tom Thiel, as well as producer Thomas Fehlmann. Once the group went dormant, Loderbauer and Thiel established Sun Electric; one of the leading sources of entrancing downtempo and ambient techno through the ‘90s. During the 2000s and 2010s, Loderbauer collaborated in numerous settings, including NSI with Tobias Freund, Chica & the Folder with Paula Schopf, and Moritz von Oswald Trio with Vladislav Delay and Moritz von Oswald. Loderbauer was partly responsible for some of the most progressive and experimental electronic music released during these years. In 2011, he and contemporary Ricardo Villalobos assembled Re: ECM, a project that involved radical transformations of ECM label recordings by the likes of Bennie Maupin, Christian Wallumrød, John Abercrombie, and Arvo Pärt. More recently he consolidated the collaboration with Ricardo Villalobos via the Vilod project, and with Samuel Rohrer and Claudio Puntin as Ambiq - both described as ‘a fertile patch of inspiration, shaking up the principles of minimal techno with the loose, expressive qualities of jazz’. The album opening track - ‘Harmonic’ - feels like a glowing dream. Composed of stunning electronics in a polychromatic, blinding and shimmering light; harmonious interwoven melodies calmly wind down invoking a serene mental state and grounding peace.

WILLIAM SELMAN was the very first artist ever approached by Concentric Records prior to the label’s birth, back in 2018, following his defining release ‘Musica Enterrada’. A musician and multimedia artist currently based in Portland, Oregon, his work employs analogue and digital synthesis techniques, live percussion and instrumentation, and his own rich field recordings to create compositions and sound art focused on the ideas of place and environment. Selman's recent works have been released on Mysteries of the Deep and Hausu Mountain.

PETRE INSPIRESCU is an extremely versatile composer. As co-founder of the legendary RPR Soundsystem together with Rhadoo and Raresh, he mostly produced club-ready, heavily textured takes on tech-house and minimal techno. In 2015 he released his first album on Mule Musiq, considered a significant departure from his previous work, scoring piano, strings and woodwind instruments for the first time, resulting in a set that sat somewhere between ambient and neo-classical. Since then, he continued to explore further sonic territories, adding in vintage synthesizers and occasional nods to dub techno, resulting in melodious sequences of musical movements that relate to the work of classical composers, American minimalists and ambient legends. ‘The Garden’ is a dreamy, intimate and nature inspired composition, recorded in his home studio in Ibiza sometime in the Summer.

DJ and producer SUPPLY (youngest so far on the label) was born and raised in Gießen, within sight of the skyscrapers of Frankfurt am Main, and has been living in Berlin since 2017. Musically socialised through hip hop, he found his connection to electronic music produced in Chicago and Detroit in the 90s by moving to FFM in 2013. For almost 6 years he has hosted his own events in his hometown. His productions connect the dots between hip hop, retro futuristic movie soundtracks and techno, he recently released on YAY Recordings. ‘Inhale / Exhale’ was created during a time of stress and mental tension, partly self-inflicted, partly result of my surroundings, as it turned out in retrospect. The track tries to capture a moment of taking a deep breath by releasing that tension for a moment. I came up with the first sketch one night around 4am, the final arrangement found its way onto a C60 Chromoxid Cassette - inhale - exhale.’ - Supply

THE WAVES is a post-punk and synthwave-inspired project led by Maayan Nidam, that places her vocals at its front and centre. As a musician obsessed with sound and the technology behind its creation, her workflow places a strong focus on the studio environment. Triggering chain reactions between guitar pedals, drum machines, modular synths and acoustic instruments, generating sounds in unpredictable ways. Drum machines keep a steady groove as to give support to an array of guitars and synthesisers, all topped with The Waves own, mostly unmasked, lyrics and voice. ‘Hold On’ was written by Maayan during the 2020 pandemic as she dived deeply in studio work in Berlin. Her lyrics are featured as part of the art print insert, and have became a central statement to the LP and its narrative - the power to hold on and break through.

Jimmy Billingham's HOLOVR project has racked up various releases on some of the most forward-thinking electronic music labels over the past few years, including Firecracker Recordings, Likemind, Further Records, Opal Tapes and his own Indole Records. Though best known for melodic, drifting acid techno and electronica, he's equally at home crafting textured ambient soundscapes. HOLOVR's deeply emotional synth passages and pads will take you on a journey into the outer. 'Melancholy of Time came out of a period exploring ways of producing and recording outside of the grid-based structures that I was previously working with. I wanted to strip it back to what I often find to be the emotional core of a piece of electronic music - ebbing and flowing synth pads - but to push and pull it a bit to create a slight disjointedness, unpredictability and shop-worn texture, as if it's coming apart and fraying, yet retaining a sonic clarity. I recorded it live using looped and layered synth phrases, underpinned by a layer of hiss and pin-prick textures. I find reflections on time and its passing to be a recurrent feature of my work, both in a more straightforward way of harking back to music of a certain period or pieces of equipment but also in a more abstract sense of creating a feeling where time doesn't matter - a deep feeling of now; that escape that you find in music and other ecstatic experiences. Though of course we’re always in - and running out of - time, and hence the melancholy.’ - Jimmy Billingham

Hailing from the German underground scene, ASWA aka Attila Fidan has an intricate, hypnotic style of electro, techno and ambient. Coming from visual arts and not primarily a trained musician, Attila produces under various and multiple monikers: ‘I never really start out knowing which moniker the track will be made under’. Since 2017 he runs a boutique Berlin label named ‘Tape Archive’. ‘Dust Palace’ is a synthetic piece that resonates with a cinematic vastness, closing the LP in an uplifting tone that evokes new departures and new beginnings.

Schneider TM is the multidimensional music project of Dirk Dresselhaus which has been operating since the mid 90's. His latest opus is also his first for release for Editions Mego.

With an extensive catalogue under his belt, one may wonder where this one takes us? The 8 of Space orbits the realm of "pop" more overtly than the project has done for 14 years, residing in the line of works that temporarily ended with "Skoda Mluvit" from 2006. In the age of scattered streaming listening habits The 8 Of Space champions the classic album format with connected tracks that act like chapters adding up to what could be framed as an 'audio-movie'. The 'plot' revolves around a post-dystopian landscape which posits the make up of reality in the future.

The vessel is electronic pop music but one which takes inspiration from the spirit of a multitude of musical forms absorbed into a trans human sound world where biological & technological elements complement each other (We are NOT The Robots!). The music unifies the analog world of acoustic and electric instruments with electronic & digital possibilities that range from heavily processed acoustic & electric guitars and bass, tube organ, analog modular synth units, acoustic drums and percussion, analog & digital drum machines & effect units, hardware and software processing. Experimental & extended musical techniques build a world of musical elements that is sometimes upside down and mirrored. Electric guitar becomes rhythm machine & modular system, voice becomes sound object & synthesizer, effects are used as instruments, acoustic guitars are being modulated by voices etc. Reality and illusion are getting mixed up. One can hear short moments of longer recordings in the tracks which are snapshots of bigger musical pictures that lurk behind what's actually audible. Generative music, audio spirals like clockworks create ever changing musical combinations; thrown-in sounds, polyrhythms & cascades based on the concept of chance attributed to the service of the SONG.

The lyrics are a key component. Holistic, associative poetry acts as interactive trigger points for the mechanisms of existence in times of a paradigm shift that are open to the listeners discretion. Autobiographical elements combine with science fiction and dreams, protagonists shift where the 'I' or 'me' is not necessarily the voice of the artist, nor even the same person. Alongside a more naturalised voice another protagonist appears represented by a processed voice. This character, named iBot, evolved around the start of the millennium and has appeared on some previous Schneider TM recordings. It can be seen as a post-human, or even a trans-human character, a combination of human & technology, uncertain of the future, which lends iBot it's melancholic tone.

In the opening song "Light & Grace" iBot appears in an advanced form of AI, which managed to hack & hijack a commercial space travel program (eg, Virgin Galactic) to invite those rich, who profited most from the destruction of planet earth, for a holiday trip into space to unknowingly fly them directly into the middle of the sun. In this episode it seems to have developed higher ethics than humanity itself with ambition to save the planet with as much of its cooperative life as possible."Light & Grace" serves as an intro / opener for this album to be followed by 7 other tracks featuring different windows of consciousness represented by diverse characters & protagonists.

All the elements on The 8 of Space, the music, sounds, vocals and artwork fit together as a whole, creating a dazzling electro pop future questioning it's own certainty. This is experimental electroacoustic pop music featuring glorious melodies dancing along human/machine voices, each track is a small universe that triggers the physical mind and tickles the subconsciousness.

An unexpected musical combination of two masterpieces of modern music rethought through the use of contemporary electronic instruments that marvels at lively and innovative sounds, in the version with keyboards and electronics presented at Terraforma Festival 2019.
Ricciarda Belgiojoso and Walter Prati have created several musical projects were piano, keyboards, and electronics interact in a dynamic and unusual way. Together they have participated in contemporary and experimental music reviews and festivals such as Parade Électronique 2018, Piano City Milano, Musica per Slight Agitation 3/4: Gelitin at Fondazione Prada, Festival Aperto di Reggio Emilia 2019, Città Sonora 2019, Terraforma 2019 and NU 2020. They have recorded some of their works for DaVinciClassic.

Susanna is now releasing a live album of covers with a unique history. Recorded in Oslo and Asker (Norway) in 2019 and 2020
right before the pandemic hit, Live by Susanna and David Wallumrød is a collaboration by the Norwegian and her cousin David, also a prolific musician, whose seeds were unknowingly sown over 20 years ago.“We played a lot together in our childhood and youth, being cousins, growing up in the same small town Kongsberg,” says Susanna. After being highly active musicians for many years, they decided to do a concert together in 2017, at a tiny cocktail-bar concert series in Oslo. It was so much fun they decided to do some more shows. They did, and out of this came Live. The songs on Live are the same covers Susanna and David played together 20 years ago, with a few new additions. They are instantly recognisable classics by Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris and Tom
Waits, played in the way Susanna and David know best - voice and keys. Pure, simple, and stunning. David Wallumrød is one of Norway’s most used piano/keyboard-players, he has participated on over 150 albums and been a regular member in the bands of artists like Knut Reiersrud, Odd Nordstoga, Jonas Alaska, Band of Gold and Torun Eriksen. He has his own band called Spirit in the Dark. Susanna is the woman behind Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, a creator of bold, original and enrapturing music, capable of
building worlds to lose yourself in and collaborator with artists such as Jenny Hval and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. Alongside this Susanna has also long been an interpreter of other people’s works, from AC/DC to Dolly Parton, Joy Division to Henry Purcell. Susanna has an ability to transform these works into music that sits comfortably next to her own work while never losing what made the original - and the original composer of the song - so special.

Conceived as a form of sonic road movie, beginning at dusk and ending at dawn the following day, Rupert Lally’s aural accompaniment to the hours of darkness effortlessly combines electronica, industrial, contemporary classical and jazz, with the resulting mix sounding akin to a soundtrack to a Wim Wenders film if composed by Jan Garbarek, Carl Craig and Max Richter. Hailing originally from England but now based in Switzerland, guitarist, percussionist and electronic musician Rupert Lally began his career as a sound designer and composer for theatre and TV, before launching his solo career in 2005. Since then his releases have blurred the boundaries between electronic and acoustic music. Lally's consistently brilliant work is always a highlight of the electronic music calendar, including recent stellar works across many labels such as Spun Out Of Control, Third Kind, Woodford Halse, and Modern Aviation.

The debut album from LIMINA, the new project from film and game score composer Tyler Durham, comprises six pieces that, taken together, reflect on the ways in which inspiration eases into existence and, through collaboration among muse, body and technology, wrangles its way into being. Combining ideas drawn from ambient electronic music, contemporary classical, and new age, the album openly explores transitive passages and the very nature of the creative process. Crafted for single-sitting immersion with each of the six works building on musical ideas expressed in earlier movements and seamlessly flowing from one track to the next without interruption.

Since Grazed is either the 14th or 16th record depending on how you count them (but who’s counting?) by Eleventh Dream Day, a Chicago band with Kentucky roots.
After 2015’s blistering guitar blast Works For Tomorrow, Janet Beveridge Bean, Rick Rizzo, and Douglas McCombs return alongside James Elkington and Mark Greenberg.
The hour of music on this 2xLP takes the long road home, spacing out at the wheel and reveling in the journey - celebrating those along for the ride. This is not a record about what is lost, but what is still there, however nicked up and grazed it may be. Built from the bottom up, the 12 songs here start simply with acoustic guitar and a voice and layer a lush symphony of sound over the band’s most melodic tunes to-date.

First ever vinyl reissue of rare private pressed Florida Funk/Soul from 1980. Featuring founding members of 'The Winstons' (the 'Amen Break', most sampled track in electronic/hip hop music). 180g Black Vinyl Edition limited to 500 copies, comes with obi strip and insert featuring unseen pics & liner notes. Streetlife was a short-lived soul-funk band from the Tampa Bay area and released just one album in 1980. The group was composed out of several dynamic musicians (ranging from street players to college professors) but at that time nobody knew (yet) that their Nite Songs LP would become such a much sought-after private pressed holy grail within the record collecting community! Streetlife was founded in 1979 by Sonny Pekerol and Phil Tolotta who were both members of the top-selling 1960s Washington DC Grammy Award-winning hit band 'The Winstons'. Their track Amen, Brother is the most widely sampled instrumental in the history of the electronic music & hip hop genres_it would become known as the Amen Break. When `The Wintstons' story came to an end, Sonny Pekerol (founding member and originally playing the bass - then successfully evolving into the manager and promoter) and pianist/vocalist extraordinaire Phil Tolotta would continue their musical friendship/collaboration under the name `Streetlife'. Their high-energy sound got the attention of local crowds in no time_so the decision to record and cut a vinyl album came as a natural thing. Nite Songs (produced by Sonny & Phil, who also wrote the bulk of the songs) saw the light in 1980 and quickly gained attention and airplay (receiving radio & television coverage nation-wide). Described as the hottest band from the state of Florida, `Streetlife' had the magnetism to captivate you, be it on concerts, nightclubs or on vinyl. Other members included: Octavia (responsible for the amazing lead & backing vocals on the album), Mark Halisky (on keyboards & the writer of two songs on Nite Songs), Ray Butler (on drums), Mike Milhoan (on trumpet), Bryan Mann (on the guitar) and Stephen Nathan (playing the trombone, flugelhorn & doing the arrangements). Charles Davis also played bass in the band for a while (he and bandmate-drummer Ray Butler were members of the `Washington Jamb Band' back in 1977). Mike Flore (Sax) and Ramon Lopez (from the well-known `Stan Kenton Orchestra') would also join them on the Nite Songs recordings. Collectively `Streetlife' had more than 75 years of experience_and these extraordinary talents (with almost as many varying backgrounds) are meticulously coming together on the album we are presenting you today. The entire album is filled with sexy (yet strong) unique vocals that make the listener experience a lot of emotions, aggressive `slap & thumb' bass lines & small yet groovy horn sections _one can clearly hear the influences of artists like Otis Redding, Curtis Mayfield, as well as several Motown, acts like Marvin Gaye softly slipping in. If you like your songs either slow, sexy and groovy or prefer them fast-paced and more experimental & cosmic_look no further, Nite Songs has it all. This is THE perfect combination of slick soul, blasting Hammond B-3 organ funk, smooth jazz and melancholic R&B piano works. This album just begs for a prominent space in record collections fans and crate diggers worldwide!

**LONG OVERDUE REPRESS - CLEAR VINYL 300 COPIES ONLY** “With Ela’s music I feel emotional, engaged… I can’t help but feel she’s always looking for a sense of belonging and it
seems to inform all the music that she makes. Glasgow must have more of that belonging feeling than most
cities because she’s spent the most time here, an exotic bird in a rainy city she maybe finds a lttle bit of comfort in. It’s
a pleasure to have her here, in this awful time to be living in Britain, her illuminations feel important and hopeful. A
stubborn light; someone making great timeless music out of the humdrum of the everyday.” - Stephen Pastel
Movies For Ears is a retrospective collection of works by Polish-born, Glasgow-based artist Ela Orleans which
navigates almost two decades of songwriting in the heart of the global pop underground. This remastered collection casts
an ear over what Orleans might call the ‘pop sensibility’ within her back catalogue. Released previously on a number of
small DIY labels, Orleans’ music coincided with the explosion of auto-didactic musicians finding their voice in the age of
the blogosphere, artists emboldened by the democratisation of music-making afforded by the internet. From the outset,
Orleans’ childhood studying formal music mixed with cut-up techniques, sampling, sound-art and experimentation to
create a distinctive signature cloaked in an innate melancholy and playfulness. Fully remastered by James Plotkin,
featuring extensive sleeve-notes and rare photos from Orleans’ archive, Movies For Ears presents an appraisal of the
musician’s work, painting a portrait of an artist with an uncanny ability to evoke emotions and ghosts of memories in the
listener.
Each song pulls sunshine from its surroundings, moments of pleasure plucked from eulogies. The Season employs a
hypnotic loop with Orleans’s prophetic voice heralding the season we’re doomed to repeat. In fact the singer is often cast
as the changing protagonist in her songs: on Walkingman, a hazy ballad heavy with ennui, the narrator is laden with the
world’s weight, forever pacing a groundhog day world blank, a pissed-off actor in a Kafka-esque melodrama. On Light At
Dawn we’re in a seedy kitsch bar-room go-go scene, a ghostly rock’roll romance with shimmering percussion, poledancing
in a Lynchian half-dream. Movies For Ears’ moods straddle memory and fantasy: scratchily invoking halfremembered
exotica, the flickering shadows of europhile cinemas screens, a delicately woven world anchored in Orleans
existential meditations on longing, intimacy, solitude and the search for love. These rich textures in every song don’t
overpower some crystalised moments of emotion however: on In Spring Orleans sings simply “I have been happy two
weeks together,” summarizing that feeling of elation when emerging from a depression, a long winter. It’s a moment that
perfectly illustrates the lightness of touch and clarity in the singer’s voice.
The power of the loop and Orleans’ weaving songwriting that breaks its spell is illustrated perfectly by I Know. Over an
aching chord progression, the vocal takes flight into bittersweet loneliness, Pachelbel’s Canon played at a wedding where
only one person shows up. The repeated refrain “I know, I know” ascends to the heavens as the chords descend to the
dumps and the listener is left in the middle, happy but not knowing why, maybe a little changed, two weeks together. On
Movies For Ears, Ela Orleans lets us into a secret: the rare moments of joy to be found in the joins of the loop, the spaces
between things, the spring after the winter are the moments that last after the day has faded.

Cindytalk is the mercurial, expressionist outlet of Scottish artist Cinder. An evolution of her early 1980's Edinburgh-based punk band The Freeze, she launched the project upon moving to London, inspired by the crossroads of exploratory UK post-punk and early European industrial. Her work thrives on chance and transformation, collaging elements of noise, balladry, soundtrack, catharsis, and improvisation. After a series of celebrated albums for the Midnight Music label as well as collaborations with This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins, Cinder migrated to the United States, becoming involved with various underground techno collectives around the Midwest and West Coast. Subsequent relocations to Hong Kong and Japan further expanded Cindytalk's horizons, resulting in a fruitful partnership with Viennese experimental institution Editions Mego, for whom she released five full-lengths of swooning, granular atmosphere. 2021 finds her as engaged as ever, at the precipice of long-awaited back catalog reissues alongside multiple new works, guided by her lasting love of discovery and deviation: “new pathways always being uncovered.”

The 3rd album by Scottish industrial enigma Cinder aka Cindytalk began life as the soundtrack to an experimental film by English director Ivan Unnwin entitled Eclipse (The Amateur Enthusiast's Guide To Virus Deployment), and was originally slated for release via Factory Records' video division, Ikon. Inspired heavily by Alan Splet's eerily disembodied sound design in David Lynch's Eraserhead, the collection's 15 pieces seethe between field recordings, wistful piano vignettes, and lurking metallic haze – a hybrid palette Cinder characterized at the time as “ambi-dustrial.” Unfortunately Ikon collapsed on the eve of the project's completion so the film was never distributed, but the Midnight Music imprint repackaged Cindytalk's score as an LP in 1990 under the name The Wind Is Strong... (full title: The Wind Is Strong - A Sparrow Dances, Piercing Holes in Our Sky).

Cindytalk is the mercurial, expressionist outlet of Scottish artist Cinder. An evolution of her early 1980's Edinburgh-based punk band The Freeze, she launched the project upon moving to London, inspired by the crossroads of exploratory UK post-punk and early European industrial. Her work thrives on chance and transformation, collaging elements of noise, balladry, soundtrack, catharsis, and improvisation. After a series of celebrated albums for the Midnight Music label as well as collaborations with This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins, Cinder migrated to the United States, becoming involved with various underground techno collectives around the Midwest and West Coast. Subsequent relocations to Hong Kong and Japan further expanded Cindytalk's horizons, resulting in a fruitful partnership with Viennese experimental institution Editions Mego, for whom she released five full-lengths of swooning, granular atmosphere. 2021 finds her as engaged as ever, at the precipice of long-awaited back catalog reissues alongside multiple new works, guided by her lasting love of discovery and deviation: “new pathways always being uncovered.”

The 3rd album by Scottish industrial enigma Cinder aka Cindytalk began life as the soundtrack to an experimental film by English director Ivan Unnwin entitled Eclipse (The Amateur Enthusiast's Guide To Virus Deployment), and was originally slated for release via Factory Records' video division, Ikon. Inspired heavily by Alan Splet's eerily disembodied sound design in David Lynch's Eraserhead, the collection's 15 pieces seethe between field recordings, wistful piano vignettes, and lurking metallic haze – a hybrid palette Cinder characterized at the time as “ambi-dustrial.” Unfortunately Ikon collapsed on the eve of the project's completion so the film was never distributed, but the Midnight Music imprint repackaged Cindytalk's score as an LP in 1990 under the name The Wind Is Strong... (full title: The Wind Is Strong - A Sparrow Dances, Piercing Holes in Our Sky).

Cindytalk is the mercurial, expressionist outlet of Scottish artist Cinder. An evolution of her early 1980's Edinburgh-based punk band The Freeze, she launched the project upon moving to London, inspired by the crossroads of exploratory UK post-punk and early European industrial. Her work thrives on chance and transformation, collaging elements of noise, balladry, soundtrack, catharsis, and improvisation. After a series of celebrated albums for the Midnight Music label as well as collaborations with This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins, Cinder migrated to the United States, becoming involved with various underground techno collectives around the Midwest and West Coast. Subsequent relocations to Hong Kong and Japan further expanded Cindytalk's horizons, resulting in a fruitful partnership with Viennese experimental institution Editions Mego, for whom she released five albums of swooning, granular atmosphere. 2021 finds her as engaged as ever, at the precipice of long-awaited back catalog reissues alongside multiple new works, guided by her lasting love of discovery and deviation: “new pathways always being uncovered.”

Across decades of activity Cinder’s body of work has forever followed its own elusive muse but nowhere is this restless spirit more apparent and ambitious than the 4th Cindytalk LP, Wappinschaw. Conceived as “a call to arms” inspired by Scotland and its struggle for independence, the title refers to an archaic Scottish battle inspection during which clan chieftains surveyed their group's weapons to ensure they were combat ready. A mindset of reflective preparation threads throughout the record, manifested in forms both naked and noisy, ancient and anguished.

Opening with an aching solo vocal rendition of the British folk standard “The First Time Ever (I Saw Your Face),” the album then surges into the Cindytalk classic, “A Song Of Changes,” sparkling and spiraling in strange waves of sorrow and joy. From there the mood fragments, tracing asymmetrical paths of feverish dirge, pensive spirituals, noir abstraction, spoken word (landmark Glaswegian writer Alasdair Gray guests on “Wheesht”), bagpipe drone, and apocalyptic post-punk. Given its aggressive eclecticism, it's not surprising that Cinder describes the creation of Wappinschaw as a “precarious” process, composed from “scraps” with abruptly shifting personnel – a situation only compounded by the impending dissolution of their label at the time, Midnight Music.

Cindytalk is the mercurial, expressionist outlet of Scottish artist Cinder. An evolution of her early 1980's Edinburgh-based punk band The Freeze, she launched the project upon moving to London, inspired by the crossroads of exploratory UK post-punk and early European industrial. Her work thrives on chance and transformation, collaging elements of noise, balladry, soundtrack, catharsis, and improvisation. After a series of celebrated albums for the Midnight Music label as well as collaborations with This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins, Cinder migrated to the United States, becoming involved with various underground techno collectives around the Midwest and West Coast. Subsequent relocations to Hong Kong and Japan further expanded Cindytalk's horizons, resulting in a fruitful partnership with Viennese experimental institution Editions Mego, for whom she released five albums of swooning, granular atmosphere. 2021 finds her as engaged as ever, at the precipice of long-awaited back catalog reissues alongside multiple new works, guided by her lasting love of discovery and deviation: “new pathways always being uncovered.”

Across decades of activity Cinder’s body of work has forever followed its own elusive muse but nowhere is this restless spirit more apparent and ambitious than the 4th Cindytalk LP, Wappinschaw. Conceived as “a call to arms” inspired by Scotland and its struggle for independence, the title refers to an archaic Scottish battle inspection during which clan chieftains surveyed their group's weapons to ensure they were combat ready. A mindset of reflective preparation threads throughout the record, manifested in forms both naked and noisy, ancient and anguished.

Opening with an aching solo vocal rendition of the British folk standard “The First Time Ever (I Saw Your Face),” the album then surges into the Cindytalk classic, “A Song Of Changes,” sparkling and spiraling in strange waves of sorrow and joy. From there the mood fragments, tracing asymmetrical paths of feverish dirge, pensive spirituals, noir abstraction, spoken word (landmark Glaswegian writer Alasdair Gray guests on “Wheesht”), bagpipe drone, and apocalyptic post-punk. Given its aggressive eclecticism, it's not surprising that Cinder describes the creation of Wappinschaw as a “precarious” process, composed from “scraps” with abruptly shifting personnel – a situation only compounded by the impending dissolution of their label at the time, Midnight Music.

Previously known for his progressive trance works, van Wyk has spent a lot of his time as of late composing for the film industry. In 2013, his solo output switched to more pastoral forms of neo-classical leaning ambient with his first full-length Days You Remember, before moving into more piano-based composition for Attachment (2016) and Opacity (2017).

Threads does reflect some of his previous ambient works; however, the album shows van Wyk composing music for (and of) current times. There is a much-welcomed underlying beauty to Threads, but there are also threads of anxious- ness and unwavering intensity throughout its forty-minute run-time. It's an engaging listen full of texture where each piece takes you on an engrossingly escapist journey.

A first-time replica re-issue of a highly sought-after, rare Brazilian MPB / Funk nugget from 1974.

Brazilian 7" singles or compacts sometimes get a bit overlooked outside of the world of avid Brazilian collectors and DJs, but here are where some of the most exquisite jewels of Brazil's rich musical tapestry lie.

This release has been a long time in the works, but now finally we are thrilled to present a replica version of one of our favourite Brazilian 7”s - the outstanding 'Morro Do Barraco Sem Água' by Lemos E Debétio (aka Toninho Lemos & Paulo Debétio). Discovering tracks like 'Morro Do Barraco Sem Água' makes you want to go the extra mile. You spend that little bit more time than is rational examining and dusting off a stack of 7”s hunting for an elusive gem, or end up disappearing down an Internet wormhole eating into time you don’t have before you need to be up for work again in the morning. This is a calculated effort, as the reward of the revitalising musical vitamins that you've stumbled upon are the big pay off.

'Morro Do Barraco Sem Água’ was originally released on Odeon Records in 1974, and even though this was a major record label it remains extremely hard to find. From the first moment the needle hits the groove with its guitar and drum break intro you know the song is special. A feel-good addictive melody with fantastic swooping arrangements and a pulsating funk backbeat, which is over all too soon. We hope you enjoy this audio treasure as much as we do!!!

Soul Jazz Records’ CD / LP (plus digital download code)
reissue of this very rare album, first released as a private-press
LP in 1978 on flautist Lloyd McNeill’s own Baobab Record label
in Washington, DC. The album has been out-of-print for 43
years and is lovingly remastered by Soul Jazz Records.
‘Tori’ is a stunning album that blends Brazilian and Latin flavours
with deep Spiritual Jazz. The album features a strong line up
which includes legendary Brazilian figures like Dom Um Romao,
Nana Vasconcelos and Dom Salvador alongside jazz
heavyweights such as Buster Williams, Howard Johnson, John
La Barbera and more. These A-team musicians were all
regulars in McNeill’s long-running and highly successful resident
live group in New York, all set up to blend deep jazz, Brazilian
and Latin music together.
Lloyd McNeill is an African-American flautist, painter, poet, and
photographer born in Washington, D.C. in 1935. His multidisciplinary creative life led to encounters and friendships with
Nina Simone, Picasso, Eric Dolphy, Nana Vasconceles and
other legendary cultural figures.
Lloyd McNeill’s hypnotic ‘Washington Suite’ was originally
commissioned as a piece of music for the Capital Ballet
Company, in Washington DC.
McNeill grew up through the era of the Civil Rights Movement in
the 1960s and his life and work is a reflection of those ideals. In
the mid-1960s he moved to France where he became friends
with Picasso, working with a number of émigré-jazz musicians
whilst living in Paris. In the late 1960s he taught jazz and
painting workshops at the New Thing Art and Architecture
Center in Washington. In the 1970s he travelled throughout
Brazil and West Africa studying music and taught music
anthropology in the US.

The third release from Fred Laird was recorded during the period June 2020 and January 2021 on 24trk home studio recording. It is also the first album recorded purely as a solo artist with the occasional guest and draws more from a roots style music (trad it isn’t) than previous more psychedelic releases.
‘Inspiration for the album came from listening to the self-recorded primal music of Hasil Adkins and the first solo Link Wray album for Polydor. The idea of these guys just doing what they wanted back of beyond seemed more akin to me sat in a box room during lockdown feeding off a diet of Billy Chong Kung Fu horror flicks, David Lynch, Noir crime movies, Jean Cocteau and the works of Yukio Mishima.
Musically the sound draws from early Bad Seeds or Crime and the City Solution, Gallon Drunk, Bohren and Der Club of Gore, The Cramps, Hasil Adkins and various other trash inspired twilight creatures. I also wanted to try and create that spooky organ sound that dominates the midnight movie classic ‘Carnival Of Souls’, so there’s quite a lot of organ and piano going on. I also got my hands on a baritone guitar to give the songs more of a deep growly twang!
Vocals are provided by Daisy Atkinson for the Jean Cocteau dedication ‘Orphee’ which is the nearest thing to a pop song on the album and the echoey almost Sister Lover’s sound of the title track. I got sick of my own shit voice and I just thought a female voice would give it a more fragile ethereal vibe.
Mike Blatchford provides formidable saxophone to the album’s last three tracks which were recorded on his mobile phone 300 miles away and synched into the music. The big blasted swing blues of ‘The Big Duvall’ is a dedication to Andy Duvall of Carlton Melton – a big guy who needed a big song. Who knows how big the song could have been in a proper studio. I could have dedicated it to John Wayne but Wayne couldn’t chop down trees with his bare hands like Andy can….’

Soul Jazz Records’ new oxblood red coloured vinyl
LP (plus download code) issue of this very rare
deep spiritual jazz album, first released as a
private-press album in 1970 on flautist Lloyd
McNeill’s own Asha Record label in Washington
DC.
Lloyd McNeill is an African-American flautist,
painter, poet and photographer born in Washington
D.C., in 1935. His multi-disciplinary creative life led
to encounters and friendships with Nina Simone,
Picasso, Eric Dolphy, Nana Vasconceles and other
legendary cultural figures. Lloyd McNeill’s hypnotic
‘Washington Suite’ was originally commissioned as
a piece of music for the Capital Ballet Company, in
Washington.
McNeill grew up through the era of the Civil Rights
Movement in the 1960s and his life and work is a
reflection of those ideals. In the mid-1960s he
moved to France where he became friends with
Picasso, working with a number of émigré-jazz
musicians whilst living in Paris. In the late 1960s
he taught jazz and painting workshops at the New
Thing Art and Architecture Center in Washington.
In the 1970s he travelled throughout Brazil and
West Africa studying music and taught music
anthropology in the US.

oracle and audioMER. are honoured to announce the release of a new LP; Reading the City with music by oracle, Laszlo Umbreit & Mira Sanders.

In 2019 oracle invited artist Mira Sanders to interact with their practice through her writing. Due to the corona crisis, their shared working time couldn’t happen in the planned way:

“The writing project was originally planned as an exchange while travelling together one week on the Buratinas boat, navigating on the canals and rivers starting from Brussels. Due to the sanitary conditions with the Covid19, the trip together could not be realised or at least was complicated.

Instead of seeing the situation as an obstacle, I saw it as an opportunity to travel with them from afar. Me, living outside the city and them, inside. My question was ‘how, through their voices echoing with the urban spaces, will I imagine the city’s everyday life?’. Because one of the things that oracle’s practice does is to offer ways to perceive and encounter the city and its inhabitants.

For the texts I was inspired by the recordings oracle sent me every day during one week. Besides that, the book Invisible Cities written by Italo Calvino gave me a way of structuring my imagination.” – Mira Sanders

Following this artistic exchange and during a collaboration with sound artist Laszlo Umbreit, the idea of the record Reading the City was born. The existing recordings and the written sci-fi episodes by Mira Sanders functioned as a source of inspiration for the electronic sound composition Places, infiltrated by the original voices and city soundscapes. The recordings of the texts From Afar reflect oracle’s playful and spontaneous way of interacting with their given environment. From Afar is an invitation for the reader to immerse in the city while being in movement. Each track on this side has its own identity or colour, often in relation to what Mira’s text evoked, but this also happened in an empirical way, by trial and error.

Places is a composition in movement, following the idea of interaction with imaginary cities but regularly coming back to a presence of the workshop’s raw documentary sound. While being a carefully edited piece, it tries to keep a certain sense of immediacy and improvisation through semi-random dropping of heterogeneous sound materials in the timeline. Accidents are welcome. The arc drawn by the journey through different “places” is an interpretation of what can happen inside (and outside) when experiencing the oracle practice: being around them, imagining what was felt at different moments in the street, from a distance, preparing the itinerary in the city beforehand, talking about what oracle could be as a record and if it can exist outside the moment it happens.

"Gaspard Auge is releasing his Debut Album “Escapades”, out in June 25th
He is best known as one half of Justice, the duo that united rock and rave and whose dancefloor smashes defined a generation.
Gaspard made an instrumental album whose sound will be familiar to Justice ’s fanbase , echoing some previous works & inspirations of the cult duet.
Escapades sounds like a UFO landing from another galaxy, or time, a baroque masterpiece that reimagines European classical music for this century. OFFICIAL BBC THEME FOR THEIR COVERAGE OF THE EUROS."

Orange Vinyl

Vertigo is a 1958 American film noir psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The story was based on the 1954 novel D'entre les morts (From Among the Dead) by Boileau-Narcejac. The film was shot on location in San Francisco, California, and at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. It is the first film to use the dolly zoom, an in-camera effect that distorts perspective to create disorientation, to convey Scottie's acrophobia. As a result of its use in this film, the effect is often referred to as the Vertigo effect'. Vertigo received mixed reviews upon initial release, but is now often cited as a classic Hitchcock film and one of the defining works of his career.

Reissue for John Joseph’s own all-star group 2017 debut album

At its purest, there is little that can match the visceral thrill and empowering spirit of hardcore. As front-man of New York City hardcore kings Cro-Mags, this is something John Joseph knows very well, and with Up In Arms, he and his Bloodclot compatriots deliver a furious collection that hits hard on every level. "In this band we're doing what each of us have always done: give it our all," he states plainly. "We work hard, and we have a lot to say. Look around the planet - people are fed up with the corrupt ruling class. They destroy the planet and kill millions for profit, and the formula for our response is simple: Anger + applied knowledge = results. Don't just bitch. Change it."

The results reflect the roots and passions of the individual members. Danzig/Murphy's Law guitarist Todd Youth was the first piece of the puzzle. "We've always talked about doing this record together, Todd had songs written and I had notebooks full of lyrics. In late September 2015, I went out to LA to do a triathlon and injured my calf muscle, so I couldn't race, and Todd said he could get some studio time. So, we went in and cut the demo. While there are things we may perceive as a negative in our lives, in fact the universe has a bigger plan, and that experience ultimately resulted in the record." Having been friends with Queens Of The Stone Age and Danzig powerhouse drummer Joey Castillo for three decades, the two musicians had long admired each other's work, and their collaboration has been a long time coming. Following Castillo's suggestion of bringing in Nick Oliveri (Queens Of The Stone Age/The Dwarves) to handle bass duties, the lineup was complete. The songs that comprise Up In Arms manifested after the quartet plugged in and let the music speak for them. "We didn't decide to try to play anything, these are the songs that happened when we started jamming, and I love this band because there are no egos involved. Our goal is to make the best music possible, period. I love it when those guys contribute with melodies, etc., and I've even helped with some of the arrangements. Because we all think alike, our lyrics deal with the issues of the day, and that makes for better songs."

Every track on Up In Arms lives up to the rallying cry of the album's title - the bursts of high energy hardcore act as the perfect accompaniment to Joseph setting his sights on injustice and the seemingly endless flaws of the contemporary world. The breakneck thrashing of "Slow Kill Genocide" is an anthem for everyone sickened by those responsible for "killing the planet and all its inhabitants through industry and war. They're fucking maniacs and must be stopped." The suitably titled "Manic" attacks with bared fangs, Joseph making it clear that you can only push someone so far before they will react with violence - a call to arms for the disenfranchised who want tomorrow's world to be better than today's. Tracked at NRG in Los Angeles, the raw, old-school production that leaps out from the speaker comes courtesy of producer Zeuss (Hatebreed, Revocation), and the record was mixed by Kyle McAulay at NRG. From the moment the opening title track explodes to life, it's clear that everyone involved is having a blast and playing from the heart, and that this is no frills / no bullshit music at its most passionate - every song evoking mental images of utter chaos in a heaving mosh pit.

For anyone approaching the album for the first time, Joseph has only this to say: "Turn the volume way the fuck up!" And with plans to tour everywhere, Bloodclot will be getting in a lot of faces in 2017 and beyond. "We are already writing material and the next album is in the works. But, for now, all we want is to hit the stage to support 'Up in Arms', and every single night leave every ounce of ourselves up there."

Tonnon produced the album with longtime collaborator, and The Beths’ guitarist and producer, Jonathan Pearce. Tonnon wrote the bulk of the songs during an extensive period of touring after the release of Successor - a period where Tonnon performed with Nadia Reid in Europe, The Veils in the USA, and The Chills, The Phoenix Foundation and Don McGlashan in New Zealand. The pair workshopped songs between tours, often recording new parts as the live versions developed.

Tonnon and Pearce recorded between 2017 and 2020, and in that time, Tonnon’s practise evolved heavily. He incorporated new technology into his set, including the Wellington-designed Synthstrom Deluge, which allowed him to adapt his set for new performance environments;Art Galleries, Museums, even New Zealand Fashion Week. He took that technology further when he collaborated with the Otago Museum on the immersive show for Planetariums, A Synthesized Universe, which travelled to Arts Festivals around New Zealand in 2019.

Creating a music video for ‘Old Images,’ which explored a lost passenger train network, Tonnon came to the idea for a new experience-based show called Rail Land. It took audiences on railways to reach distant community halls around Aotearoa. The show saw Tonnon combine historical research and spoken word narrative, with the immersive lighting and musical technology he developed for A Synthesized Universe. In March, Rail Land finished a three-night run at Auckland Arts Festival, cementing Tonnon’s move to the concept show.

Over time, Tonnon and Pearce’s production moved further from the traditional rhythm sections that powered songs like Successor’s ‘Water Underground.’ In their place came off kilter electronic rhythms, like the beat in ‘Two Free Hands,’ and textures that blur lines between organic and synthesized sound. Guitars are set against synthesizers, and drums against drum machines in ‘Entertainment’ and ‘Peacetime Orders,’ which Tonnon also used in his soundtrack for RNZ’s 80s spy-themed podcast The Service. In ‘Leave Love Out Of This,’ a ballad starts with a piano and a string quartet, but ends in a wall of electronic sound.

The constant has been Tonnon’s lyrics. Whether singing about evolution and the future of work in ‘Two Free Hands,’ the television industry in ‘Entertainment,’ or environmental disaster and regulatory failure in ‘Mataura Paper Mill,’ Tonnon has followed a distinct approach to subject matter, description and phrasing that have seen him longlisted for the APRA Silver Scroll three times.

Tonnon’s explorations of local government and civic infrastructure in his work - an unusual preoccupation for a songwriter, have taken new meaning in his adopted home of Whanganui, where last year, he was elected by councillors as Whanganui District Council’s representative for public transport.

After Tonnon moved to Whanganui, and Pearce toured almost constantly after the success of The Beths’ first album, the pair conducted their collaboration over distance, but with key sessions at Pearce’s Karangahape Road studio, including drums and bass with long time band members Stuart Harwood and David Flyger, a string quartet led by Charmian Keay and arranged by Matthew Bodman, and additional drums with The Beths’ Tristan Deck.

As Leave Love Out Of This is released, Tonnon and Pearce find themselves in very different places to where they started, working on Auckland’s Karangahape Road, close to the venues like Wine Cellar and Whammy Bar where they regularly performed. Back in New Zealand since Covid, Pearce has had to adjust to being in one of Aotearoa’s best-known bands, while Tonnon, when not working on conceptual shows, wrestles with how to restore civic infrastructure to a post industrial city in the regions.

Created over a life-altering period of, Leave Love Out Of This is the culmination of years of experimentation and development - with new technology, new sounds, and new ways of creating, and performing music.

A little over a year ago, Nathan Williams found himself back in San Diego, writing what would eventually become Hideaway, his seventh album as Wavves, in a little shed behind his parents’ house. It was also the place where he made some of his earliest albums, before he became known for his uncanny ability to write songs that sneered at the world while evoking pathos, sympathy, and a deep understanding of how sometimes we’re our own worst enemies, and that can be okay. Williams’ return to his childhood home was not just a symbolic attempt at jumpstarting creativity. It came as a result of a series of major life changes. A decade ago, Williams released King of the Beach on the maverick indie label Fat Possum. The album was a cocky collection of pop punk gems that catapulted him into the public consciousness, eventually prompting a jump from Fat Possum into the major label system, where he released two albums before becoming disillusioned by the lack of creative agency available to him. In 2017, Williams self-released You’re Welcome on his label, Ghost Ramp. Now, Williams has returned to Fat Possum with a barbed collection of anxious anthems that grapple with the looming sense of doom and despair that comes with getting older in an increasingly chaotic world. “He’ll always skew toward the Bart Simpson character,” says Matthew Johnson, founder of Fat Possum. “But that does not mean that he doesn’t have some commentary, and once in awhile, it’s totally spot on.” Across its brief but impactful nine tracks, Hideaway is about what happens when you get old enough to take stock of the world around you and realize that no one is going to save you but yourself, and even that might be a tall order. The album features Williams’ most universal and urgent songs yet. “Honeycomb” lopes along sunnily, as Williams sings affecting lines like “I feel like I’m dying, it’s cool, it’s great, just pretend I’m okay.” His directness is shocking, and proof that Williams is the kind of songwriter who can capture pain and uncertainty with resonant brutal force. “It’s real peaks and valleys with me,” Williams says. “I can be super optimistic and I can feel really good, and then I can hit a skid and it’s like an earthquake hits my life, and everything just falls apart. Some of it is my own doing, of course.” It’s this self awareness that permeates each of Hideaway’s songs, marking them each as mature reckonings with who he is. After realizing the material he’d been working on in the hideaway was starting to take shape, Williams, along with bandmates Stephen Pope and Alex Gates workshopped the songs in a series of now-abandoned studio sessions, before linking up with musician and producer Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio to help fully realize their new songs.

Three years ago Danish guitar player and highly acclaimed session musician Jacob Gurevitsch made his solo debut with 'Lovers In Paris', a sweetly melancholic single which conquered sunsets worldwide and earned a place in many quality compilations and has over 10 million views on Youtube. Roll forward to 2018 and this stunning track now heads up the Danish guitarist's first vinyl album, on Kenneth Bager's renowned Music For Dreams label. The original album of 'Lovers In Paris' album entered the iTunes chart at #1 position in Denmark and was (back then) being hailed as one of the Records of the Year by the Balearic Community. And the success story continues. With over 2 million monthly streams Jacob Gurevitsch is a name to watch.

This vinyl debut album 'An Introduction' consists of selected works from the 'Lovers In Paris album, a few from his 'Cinematica' Ep and some from his forthcoming album 'In Search Of Lost Time.'

One could say A kind of Greatest Hits.!

10 melodic and beautiful originals.

'Mexican Margarita' is a truly impressive piece of guitar work with superb bongos and bass - already an essential tune for any Balearic collector - and the recently released single 'Spanish Inquisition' a current DJ Harvey fave, shows his technical and compositional ante into the world of Flamenco. 'Mapa De Soledad' and 'Poesia Del Mar' both gorgeous and moving Mediterranean-flavoured ballads full of emotional keyboards, soulful strings and accordions. The indelible upbeat of 'Motive Loco' and elegiac cinematic 'In Search Of Lost Time' remains memorable long after listening and this hits the nail on the head.

Jacob Gurevitsch the guitar player and composer has a unique sensibility to write themes and melodies that transcend time and sound like divine interventions.

Bertrand Burgalat's first album 'The Sssound of Mmmusic', also known as TSOM, is released in an expanded reissue, twenty-one years after its first publication, on June 12th 2021 for the Record Store Day. Bertrand Burgalat combines lush arrangements, dreamy atmospheres and pop culture with class and humor.



In 2000, Bertrand Burgalat decided to evolve openly by releasing his first solo album 'The Sssound of Mmmusic' which had been in the works since the creation of the label 5 years earlier. This album, a true melancholic and sensual sonorama, reveals the very essence of Burgalat's art, fragile, nuanced, with a rare humility. Dotted with banjos and club bass, cascades of synthetic strings and soprano saxophone, geisha choirs and unblocked beats, 'The Sssound of Mmmusic' appears as a contrasting work where opposites unite in perfect alchemy.



Accompanied by previously unreleased tracks for the first time on vinyl, the album features songs like 'Gris métal' with a text by Michel Houellebecq, 'Vision of Love' his cover of Mariah Carey, or 'Kim' five minutes of intoxicating music.

Jazz Montez is a music collective from Frankfurt, Germany dedicated to spreading the gospel of jazz throughout the universe. To them, jazz does not describe a particular style of music but an attitude, mindset and an approach to art and life that can manifest itself in a variety of ways. For their first vinyl release, they invited seven of the most talented and ambitious young groups from all over Germany to Frankfurt to record a track in the renowned studio Lotte Lindenberg. Despite the band's various influences, ranging from classic jazz, afrobeat and funk to hip hop, electronic music and rock, "Jazz Montez Presents Vol. I", mixed in its entirety by Drum&Bass legend Kabuki, works as a cohesive album. Pressed on high quality 180g vinyl, the record comes packaged in a beautiful and eco-friendly bagasse gatefold cover, designed by artist Clara Sipf. It features a 20 page booklet that includes a comic on the making of the album, texts by and information on the participating musicians, an interview with the sound engineers and an essay on the contemporary relevance of jazz. May this record inspire us to go through life guided by a spirit of open-mindedness and collaboration so that we may create a better, healthier and more beautiful world.

LIMITED UCKE YELLOW VINYL.

Xardinal Coffee is a debut album that is a strikingly contemporary record of slick hip hop, rich textures, idiosyncratic grooves and electronic-tinged wonky R&B. It’s an album that feels intricate and busy but also manages to retain a sense of space and looseness, allowing hypnotic rhythms to unfurl with grace. EXUM, aka Antone Chavez Exum Jr. credits the 'genius' of his two producers, Erik Samkopf and Dex Barstad, who he works closely with.

Samkopf being the producer responsible for Xardinal Coffee respectively. 'Sam and I don’t really like doing anything that doesn’t have an ückean effect. We’re not from here you know, we’re just getting adjusted’, says EXUM of the album’s eclectic sonic palate. 'We love to push the envelope on what is considered quirky, but try not to think about it too much. If me and another are walking down a street, who's going to be first to try something spectacular? Them. My walk will speak.’

However, any sense of weirdness is also married with an infectious and accessible quality. Tracks such as Arrest the Dancer - 'a David Bowie/Lady Gaga-type beat we got from YouTube by a producer named Raixsa' - comes alive with an irresistible funk strut, almost recalling Prince in the swaggering bounce of it. On top of this, EXUM’s vocals offer versatility and flexibility, moving from caramel smooth croons to tight rap flows and to enthusiastic bursts of singing.

A sense of texture is palpable throughout too. Portabella Mushroom was recorded on a rare magic mushrooms trip and retains a lysergic and psychedelic quality, sucking the listener up into its swirling atmospheres. Whereas the sparse, minimal and slightly eerie beats of Wolves Eat Wolves was recorded in pitch black and the song takes on that kind of crepuscular vibe, which interspersed with the song’s dark lyrical content - touching upon sex trafficking - further cements this. ‘I take no form’, the artist says, and his formless nature speaks to his willingness to constantly recreate himself as an artist.

A love of words is also clear in EXUM’s delivery, with them being carefully placed and sequenced amidst the ambitious soundscapes of the record. 'Writing is precious to me', he says. 'The vulnerability to bleed on paper. While playing with words, styling the same outfit for the 7th day in a row.'

Initially EXUM looked up producer Erik Samkopf to work with when he’d had a temporary falling out with his previous producer Barstad. In love with Samkopf’s work with Pen Gutt, EXUM took a punt and flew from his hometown of Richmond, Virginia to Oslo, Norway to work with him. As EXUM and Barstad patched things up, EXUM and Samkopf were building chemistry, creating something truly unique. 'Dex and Sam never cease to amaze me', he says. 'They’re versed and creative beyond measure, they both have an immense amount of musicality, and most of all, their love for music is sweaty.’

However adding to the legend, EXUM took a little detour on his musical journey, spending years as a professional footballer in the NFL, for teams such as the San Francisco 49ers and the Minnesota Vikings. Now leaving that chapter of his life behind, EXUM has returned to the true love held dear to him ever since he can remember: music.

EXUM is not simply trying his hand at music though; he is crafting every part of his artistic journey, from carefully selected contributors (such as string composer Christian Balvig) and overseas producers, to shaping his own brilliant music videos with directors such as Allison Bunce and Rosabel Ferber. Both of whom occupy creative space in his art world, which goes by the name of ücke. He has effectively created his own musical ecosystem. 'You’ve got to create your own world and live highly in that first', he says. 'Making it inevitable for other worlds to not be touched by what’s vibrating through you. In my world I’m already a massively iconic artist.'

Two artists that have previously released works on Past Inside the Present come together for this anonymous split album. With this record we want listeners to go in blind, without ego or expectation, with the sole focus on what truly matters: the music. The artists will remain anonymous until the vinyl sells out and then we will reveal all.

Hand-numbered vinyl edition of 500 copies is 180gramLP in window-cut artboard jacket that frames eight different images from Magid's The Barragan Archives project, printed on four 12"x12" art card inserts including an artworked inner sleeve. The original score for the acclaimed feature-length artworld documentary by multi-disciplinary artist Jill Magid: an exploration of the contested legacy of the Mexican architect Luis Barragan and an art intervention in its own right. Griffin wrote, performed and recorded The Proposal soundtrack with an understated but wide-ranging electro-acoustic sensibility that organically compliments the film's enigmatic narrative and the discreet beauty of Barragan's architectural spaces. Various acoustic instruments combine with electronics, sampling and ambient treatments for an ever-shifting suite of musical vignettes across the album's thirteen tracks. Guest musicians include Matana Roberts, Reut Regev, Jim White (Xylouris White, The Dirty Three), Jason Ajemian (Helado Negro), and Sophie Trudeau and Timothy Herzog (Godspeed You! Black Emperor) alongside Griffin's own contributions on multiple instruments, field recordings and production. Griffin weaves an iridescent musical tapestry, threading various genres with sublime thematic and atmospheric coherence, echoing Magid's contemplative, cerebral journey. The music also works enchantingly on its own as a subtly haunted, evocative and meditative album.

Originally composed around 1994-1999, James Bernard's Unreleased Works have lie dormant bar a select group of friends who were lucky enough to experience the release through an extremely limited CDr. Over 25 years later, James and A Strangely Isolated Place have repackaged this deeply personal collection of acid-infused ambient-breaks into two LPs and one extended digital album: Volume 1 (Acid Dreams) and Volume 2 (Elemental Dreams). Arriving at a time when James was primarily producing Trance and Acid under his Influx or Cybertrax aliases on Rising High Records, these compositions came to life when James felt most vulnerable and his style most malleable. The music was never intended to be heard by the outside world and was a remedy for his own private centering - a personal journal through tough times. Encouraged by close friends to rip copies to CDr after a few tracks were posted online, the album has since been long-sought-after and confined to the Discogs want lists. Originally spanning 3 CDs and themed in styles ranging from 'Beatless', to 'Beats' and finally 'Beats and Modular', it was a descriptive yet humble description for the tantalizing journey that lies within. The recordings combined elements of what is only now (over twenty years later) evident within James' extensive production arsenal over the years. Be it pure melodic modular synthesizer work, emotional chords, chugging trip-hop basslines, euphoric acid-lines, ambient-leaning trance, or a simple combination of all of the above; trying to further categorize the extensive work at play here is ultimately irrelevant past these notes.To help present the album in an updated and digestible concept, the full 28 tracks were reduced to 20 and further sequenced between two thematic vinyl editions. Volume 1 (Acid Dreams) on transparent yellow vinyl, takes its cues from the 303 with acid-soaked basslines, epic breaks, and more futuristic-leaning escapism. Whereas Volume 2 (Elemental Dreams) on transparent orange vinyl, brings more organic elements to the trip, with samples from unexplored fantasy worlds, deeper dives down the rabbit hole, and a nod to the chill-out rooms of the '90s. Featuring artwork by Steve Hyland (Geometric Love) and fully remastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri, James Bernard's Unreleased Works is available as an extended Pre-order in two Gatefold 2LP editions and one full digital album.

If you don't yet know, Flexi is a record store and music label based in Italy and run by Simone and Lorenzo.

Over the years, Flexi have gained both the respect and recognition of the music scene, earned by almost forty years of experience in the world of music and with the support of many DJs, artists and fans

Finally Flexi Cuts returns with a brand new release pressed on a “raw transparent" vinyl called “Velvet Series” no 2 – six quality tracks from six superb artists for an electronic journey that makes you fly over “velvet”.

Selection of the works wasn't easy; the tracks were chosen tryin' to maintain a high quality level, such as the oldest (v. series part 1) which have been so appreciated out there.

The A side opening is by Bologna-based Brine, with “YR Body” that provides a Juno-ish bassline with a catchy vocal and a jazzy mood.

Then we have “Benerice" from Daughters and Sons (aka the master Luca Fronza) who throws us into a beautiful Detroit-inspired analog jam.

This side ends with our very own Sicily man Manuold with fresh Italo-House vibes absolutely made for the dance floor.

On the B side, welcome back the veterans Tengrams (formerly the Piatto brothers from N.O.I.A Records) with the outstanding "Rapid Eye Movement"… travelling across retro-future influences and 808 patterns… under a dystopian-sci-fi movie theme.

B2 track is by the Calma duo who plays with a few elements to build a neverending techno climax...did you recognise the sample?

The last track is a sort of relaxing downtempo sunset closure complete with bells, from the California producer Gloved Hands, a name that speaks for itself.

Fantas is the epic opening track on Caterina Barbieri’s acclaimed 2019 release Ecstatic Computation. The original Fantas laid out a magical path of patterns leading the listener on a journey into the sound itself. Fantas Variations maps out eight new potentials sprung from this initial path as constructed by a diverse mix of artists lending to a wide spectrum of new works extrapolated from the original work. For this project Barbieri invited friends and long time collaborators from a variety of musical backgrounds to create a more sustainable and inclusive landscape in terms of stylistic, geographical, gender and generational balance. The results are a diverse array of approaches and instrumentation which blur the boundaries between the acoustic and electronic.

Fantas Variations embraces a platform for mutual exchange and support between like-minded artists, where active and collective re-imagination is prioritised over the traditional model of remixes, which is often strategic, functional and more passive.

Longtime friend and collaborator Kali Malone rearranged Fantas to a slowed-down, austere and eerie version for two Organs. Evelyn Saylor created a piece for a vocal ensemble consisting of her, Lyra Pramuk, Stine Janvin and Annie Garlid, joining forces to express the choral, psychedelic and vitalistic nature of the piece. Barbieri’s former guitar professor at the Conservatory in Bologna, Walter Zanetti, composes Fantas for electric guitar, by translating every single gesture of the original electronic piece into a personal, nuanced and detailed interpretation. Bendik Giske’s reinterpretation for Saxophone and Voice captures the atmospheric essence of Fantas and its psychic meteorology. Longtime collaborator and along with Barbieri the other half of the outfit Punctum, Carlo Maria, resynthesizes Fantas for TR808 and MC202, bringing a more club-oriented dimension of the piece to life whilst unveiling the sonic continuum between rhythm and pitch through a sensitive timbral approach. Jay Mitta’s Singeli reinterpretation of Fantas transpires with pitched-up percussion and turbo-fast polyrhythmic patterns unleashing the frenetic, shifting, transformative matter within the piece to a higher plain of euphoric dance. Baseck’s variation is a rave fantasia, where the prismatic trance of the original is channeled into fierce, uncompromising hardcore, whilst Kara-Lis Coverdale’s take is a phantasmagoria for piano that gently, yet inexorably, captures the relentlessness chimerical qualities of the original, unveiling its spectral backbone.

Evelyn Saylor (feat. Lyra Pramuk, Annie Garlid & Stine Janvin) - Fantas Variation for Voices (7’38’’)
Composed by Evelyn Saylor. Performed by Evelyn Saylor, Lyra Pramuk, Stine Janvin and Annie Garlid. Recording, mix and additional production by Bridget Ferrill at Real Surreal Studio, Berlin 2021.

Bendik Giske - Fantas for Saxophone and Voice (7'31'')
Adapted and performed by Bendik Giske. Recorded, mixed, and produced by Bendik Giske in Funkhaus, Berlin 2020.

Kali Malone - Fantas for two Organs (10'21'')
Arranged for The Utopa Baroque Organ, The Sauer Organ and tuned sine waves. Recorded by Benny Nilsen at Orgelpark, Amsterdam 2020.

Walter Zanetti - Fantas for Electric Guitar (7'27'')
Recorded by Walter Zanetti, Bologna 2020.

Jay Mitta - Singeli Fantas (12'03'')
Recorded by Jay Mitta in Sisso Studios, Dar Es Salaam 2020.

Baseck - Fantas Hardcore (4'44'')
Mixed by Anthony Baldino, Los Angeles 2020.

Carlo Maria - Fantas resynthesized for 808 and 202 (4'29'')
Recorded by Carlo Maria, Milano 2020.

Kara-Lis Coverdale - Fantas Morbida (3'04'')
Performed, recorded and mixed at The Shop in Valens, Ontario by Kara-Lis Coverdale, January 2021. Engineering assistance from Robert Coverdale and Adam Feingold.

This album was originally composed in October 2017, performed and recorded live in Kasteliotissa Medieval Hall, Nicosia, on the 19th of November 2017 as an accompanying soundtrack to Fritz Lang's two hour-long edit of the film Metropolis (1927). Commissioned by the the curators of the 'German expressionism in Cinema exhibition' to compose and perform a live soundtrack, Panagiotis and Yiannis employed a hardware heavy arsenal to produce one of their longest pieces. modular synthesizers, guitars, drum samplers and drum machines are all protagonists. The performance lasted for two hours and was recorded in its entirety. It was later edited down to preserve all sound design qualities and a somewhat live feel. The title is an homage to the main actress of the film.


Panagiotis Mina and Yiannis Eliades, longstanding members of 'do it together' collective Honest Electronics and producers of their own material as Panayotis and Isel respectively, often collaborate on projects such as Brigitte. Panagiotis Mina is a producer, musician and visual artist. He lives and works in Cyprus from Pyrgatory studios, his out in the country home diy studio project. Yiannis Eliades produces and performs music using a blend of analog and digital synthesizers, drum machines and twisted recordings, on his own or as part of duos (MYHN, Carnal Throes).

Psychedelic Percussion definitely sticks to his title. With the help from Paul Beaver of Beaver & Krause (famous keyboard wizard and sound engineer for the likes of Stevie Wonder), vibe master Emil Richards (check is two fantastic album on Impulse! with The Microtonal Blues Band featuring Joe Porcaro, father of the famed Toto brothers) and Gary Coleman (percussionist in the famous Wrecking Crew), Blaine goes wild in the studio with drums, gong, xylophone, organ, bongos, congas and timpani. Unusual textures and tones lead the way to 12 instrumental exotic numbers similar in a way to Raymond Scott most visionary experiments. This is pure madness, a record full of breaks and still unsurpassed in many ways. Blaine was an American drummer and session musician, estimated to be among the most recorded studio drummers in the history of the music industry, claiming over 35,000 sessions and 6,000 singles. His drumming is featured on 150 US top 10 hits, 40 of which went to number one, as well as many film and television soundtracks. He became one of the regular players in Phil Spector's de facto house band, which Blaine nicknamed "the Wrecking Crew". Some of the records Blaine played on include the Ronettes' single "Be My Baby" (1963), which contained a drum beat that became widely imitated, as well as works by popular artists such as Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, the Carpenters, Neil Diamond and the Byrds.

Robert Schwarz’s background lies in both architecture and computer music. Across a handful of labels, he’s presented field recordings and experimental works, and he’s participated in exhibitions with some of Europe’s most prominent institutions for adventurous art practices. He is also the co-founder and curator of the Viennese festival ”PARKEN; Or, Live in the Park”, which aims to mediate experimental forms of music in public spaces and co-author of the works ”Los Bar”, ”Strookoffer” and ”Lax Bar”, a series of artist run spaces in Los Angeles, Brussels and Vienna.

Recently he presented a row of debut releases with new side projects like She Was A Visitor, Privat and Ausgsburger Messer.

In Post-Heretic Dracula X Chronicles II the Dracula figure functions as a part fictive and part autobiographical metaphor. Dracula mirrors certain systematic (therefore also internal) conditionings and attributes in its whole ambivalent fluctuations. This character represents the complex relationships of a loving/living person in a neo-liberal capitalist system while oscillating between melancholia & rage, facing the preservation or loss of his love and standing in an alienated position towards the ruling order. The eleven featured compositions and their respective song names (both of them are riddled with references) playfully touch on conflicts between love, life and system-critique, without being too upfront about the subject-matter.

Nicola Kazimir (*28.05.1990 in Zürich, Schweiz)

A DJ, producer, musician, artist, space-owner, record label owner and party organizer, Nicola Kazimir works freely across platforms and communities. For Kazimir, these numerous positions are not static, and they can actfluidly and reciprocally as a whole, or as separate entities. His artistic and acoustic productions are mostly based on topics that include the institutionalization of techno, copyright, dividualism and the human perception of repetitive rhythm patterns mixed with aesthetic codes of b-movie horror movies or occultism. He is one of the founders and still part of the labels Les Points/ Gentrified Underground / Infoline and the offspace Mikro Zürich. Other projects include a supporting role in the organization of Zentralwäscherei Zürich and being part of the Clubbüro-team at Rote Fabrik.

A sonic clash of Tropical, On-U and Eastern proportions, t-woc drops 6 tracks of dope sound system bashment for Strangelove. Informed by Mick's musical wanderlust and prolific digging, Pentangle deftly blends a mélange of influences where Caribbean steel drum, Anatolian melodies and the sounds of the Maghreb all float through the mix.

Like his work for Macadam Mambo/ Emotional Response- its a sound hard to pin down and all woven into a heady brew percolating somewhere in the dance-floor twilight zone. With early works created pre-lockdown at an artist residency in The Dock in County Leitrim, the heads down groove of 'Crazy Bronco' & 'Goddy' don't sound out of place with an early 90's Uk bass culture. Elsewhere the deeper cuts rub against a little sunshine as the late night swing of Midnight Magic riffs off Junior Delgado's roots classic.

With killer artwork c/o Marius Houschyar Strangelove is super stoked to release this collection of outernational rhythms from the Irish vinyl wallah, mix engineer and producer

Vital Sales Points:
Follow up to the labels previous exotic waves of Scribble & Sjunne Ferger,

Nonesuch Records releases an album of songs written and performed by Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion, Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part. The musicians, who have known each other since their student days, were presented with three days of gratis studio time and decided to experiment with ideas they had begun putting to tape during the sessions for their January 2021 Nonesuch release Narrow Sea. With Shaw on vocals and Sō – Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting – filling out this new band, they developed songs in the studio, with lyrics inspired by their own wide-ranging interests: James Joyce, the Sacred Harp hymn book, a poem by Anne Carson, the Bible’s Book of Ruth, the American roots tune ‘I’ll Fly Away’, and the pop perfection of ABBA, among others. The album is co-produced by Shaw, Sō Percussion, and the Grammy Award–winning engineer Jonathan Low (The National, Taylor Swift).

Shaw, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her vocal composition Partita for 8 Voices, written for and performed with Roomful of Teeth, makes her solo vocal debut with Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part. The album’s first track, ‘To the Sky’, from the Sacred Harp, takes its lyrics from Anne Steele. “I love the songs about death, and going home, and looking toward a time that is better or brighter, which, if there’s one thing to think about in the world, maybe that’s the thing,” Shaw says. “This one I love in particular. There’s a line, ‘Frail solace of an hour / So soon our transient comforts fly / And pleasure blooms to die.’ It’s meditation on the ephemeral, and I love it.”

“I hadn’t written very many songs, but I have certainly loved many in my life. I’ve been thinking of making a solo album for seven or eight years, but it takes having the right friends and community in the room,” Shaw says. “The prompt for all of us was: What would we make in the room together with no one person in charge, like a band writes in the studio?”

Cha-Beach recalls of the early test run during the Narrow Sea session: “It had that capturing-lightning-in-a bottle feeling.” When the opportunity to have three days in their friends’ studio, Guilford Sound, came up, the five musicians decamped for Vermont with engineer/co-producer Jonathan Low. “Jon is an amazing editor,” Cha-Beach says. “He is so helpful in thinking about: ‘We have these ideas: how do we shrink those and make them come across on an album?’”

One such idea was for Shaw to do a duet with each member of Sō. She sings with Josh Quillen on steel drums on the title track, which she wrote in under an hour in a “free-writing zone, very inspired by James Joyce, taking on that brain space,” she says. Lyrically, the song is “related to some math bits that I love, but also memory, and love songs of somebody who’s gone or passed away, or that you’re no longer with: what is the sound of that kind of devastation or confusion or love?” They recorded the song only twice, and the first take is on the album. “It’s very spare. The playing is very Josh; it’s so sensitive,” Shaw says.

Adam Sliwinski’s marimba duet with Shaw is an interpretation of the ABBA song ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’. She explains, “It’s really a Bach chorale. Also, the idea of someone singing ‘Don’t go wasting your emotion / Lay all your love on me / Don’t go sharing your devotion / Lay all your love on me,’ over and over again very slowly, there’s a certain tragedy in it. And then Adam did some absolutely exquisite layering that built this stunning world from the marimba.”

Jason Treuting on the drum kit joined Shaw for ‘Long Ago We Counted’. She suggested, “Why don’t we start with the voice and the kit having a weird conversation, sort of like two babies talking to each other? And then we built this loop, and we go from this place that’s totally uncomfortable and nonsensical to something that’s rich and rolling and satisfying.” For ‘Some Bright Morning’, the duet with Cha-Beach – who here plays electronics, piano, and Hammond organ – Shaw drew upon a twelfth century liturgical hymn she had sung regularly in church during her college years: ‘Salve Regina’.

“Some songs on Let the Soil… were very specifically composed by Caroline,” Cha-Beach says. “But others were this assemblage of ideas: finding words, an idea for how a melody could work, a harmony, and then tossing it in a blender and trusting each other.” Shaw adds, “What I love about Sō is the curiosity about how objects make sounds and how they speak to each other. There was an underlying thread of thinking about what goes into soil, how we take care of it, how we allow it to be itself, how we contain it, and what can come out of it if you cultivate the right environment, which for me is always this wonderful metaphor for creativity and collaboration: let people be themselves and see what happens,” she concludes.

Caroline Shaw is a New York–based musician – vocalist, violinist, composer, and producer – who performs in solo and collaborative projects. She was the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013 for Partita for 8 Voices, written for the Grammy–winning Roomful of Teeth, of which she is a member. Shaw’s film scores include Erica Fae’s To Keep the Light and Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline as well as the upcoming short 8th Year of the Emergency by Maureen Towey. Hailed for ‘astonishing both the pop and classical music worlds’ (Guardian), she has produced for Kanye West (The Life of Pablo; Ye) and Nas (NASIR), and has contributed to records by The National and by Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry. Shaw currently teaches at NYU and is a Creative Associate at The Juilliard School. Her 2019 Nonesuch/New Amsterdam album Orange won a Grammy Award.

Through its interpretations of modern classics, innovative multi-genre original productions, and ‘exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam’ (New Yorker), Sō Percussion has redefined the scope and role of the modern percussion ensemble. Sō’s repertoire ranges from twentieth century works by John Cage, Steve Reich, and Iannis Xenakis, to commissioning and advocating works by contemporary composers such as David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and Steven Mackey, to collaborations with artists who work outside the classical concert hall, including Shara Nova, choreographer Susan Marshall, The National, Bryce Dessner, and many others. Sō has recorded more than twenty albums, including a performance of Reich’s Mallet Quartet on the Nonesuch record WTC 9/11; appeared at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Walt Disney Hall, the Barbican, the Eaux Claires Festival, MassMoCA, and TED 2016; and performed with Jad Abumrad, JACK Quartet, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and the LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel, among others.

Tape

It might be easy to assume that the distinctly focused compositional voice unveiled on Rose Bolton's The Lost Clock is the product of its creator's rigorous, almost hermetic dedication to her own particular aesthetic universe. A quick survey of Bolton's artistic career, however, reveals that her carefully sculpted approach to abstract electronica has been forged through a longstanding engagement with a wide range of intertwining creative activities.

This album—coming out on Important Records' cassette imprint, Cassauna—demonstrates both the Toronto-based composer's unique mastery of colour and her gift for breathing a tactile, organic quality into synthetic landscapes. Bolton's distinctive sensibility is akin to that of a painter—every hue has been carefully mixed so as to imbue its accompanying gesture with its own life and personality. This tangible dimensionality her electronic work assumes, however, can be traced back to the work Bolton has been doing since the 1990's. She has produced a large and varied catalogue of work that includes pieces for solo performers, chamber ensembles, orchestra, electronics, voice, and to accompany installations and films. A number of her works reside in several of these zones simultaneously, such as Song of Extinction, an ambitious collaboration between herself, filmmaker Marc de Guerre, poet Don McKay, and multiple live ensembles, that was mounted in an abandoned power station for Toronto's Luminato Festival.

This quasi-instrumental vitality isn't the only feature of The Lost Clock that reflects Bolton's diverse artistic practice. It can also be heard within the structural realm. Each of the collection's four tracks trace a patient unfolding and favour a certain roundness of timbre, even as finer details begin to fidget along the perimeter of the music. As with her writing for the concert hall, Bolton doesn't shy away from the evocative here, yet she doesn't pursue this poignancy through conventional, direct or quasi-narrative means. Her compositions lead the listener gradually through their impressionistic sonic scenery, but neither the path they take nor their ultimate destination are at all predictable. The ostensible gentleness each piece exudes dissolves as dissonances slowly insinuate themselves, obscure textures writhe just out of earshot, percussive lattice work materializes, or as the overall blend begins to exert a heavier weight. Her lucid-dream vision of form functions in tandem with her acute micro-level attentiveness to engender a vivid and elusive soundworld that resists classification.

Over more than two decades Rose Bolton has been garnering acclaim and enthusiasm from audiences and major collaborators alike. Last year, her brooding string quartet The Coming Of Sobs was nominated for Classical Composition of the Year at the JUNO Awards, following earlier accolades such as SOCAN Awards for Young Composers, and the Canadian Music Centre's Norman Burgess Fund. Her music has been commissioned by the likes of the CBC, stalwart experimental music festival the Sound Symposium, as well as key interpreters and ensembles such as percussionist David Schotzko, accordionist Joseph Petric the Esprit Orchestra, Continuum, Arraymusic, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, and guitar quartet Instruments of Happiness (led by Tim Brady). Together with Marc de Guerre, she produced an 8-speaker sound and video installation for Toronto's Nuit Blanche Festival. She's also been featured by the likes of revered pianist Eve Egoyan, The Vancouver Symphony, L'ensemble contemporain de Montréal, The Music Gallery, and AKOUSMA, while appearing in concert alongside the likes of Jerusalem in My Heart (Constellation Records), Tanya Tagaq, and Francis Dhomont. Bolton is also a respected film composer, notably contributing music to the highly regarded documentary Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (co-directed by Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky).

As a performer, she variously employs electronics, violin, and viola. Parallel to her engagement with exploratory approaches, she's invested in the fiddle traditions of the British Isles, and various Canadian regions. She teaches this repertoire at the Royal Conservatory of Music. Bolton has also performed with Rhys Chatham, Owen Pallett, opened for Charlemagne Palestine, and appears on recordings by the likes of Chatham and Aidan Baker. In 1999 she joined the Canadian Electronic Ensemble, whose fifty-years together make them the world's longest-running live-electronic music group. In February 2020, the CEE held a residency and provided guest lectures at Carnegie Mellon University's music department. Bolton has also led workshops at the Banff Centre, also founded the SOCAN/ Moog Audio-sponsored program EQ: Women in Electronic Music, which worked to foster community and mentorship among (trans/cis) women and non-binary individuals.

Bring Me The Head of Kyle Bobby Dunn is a full length triple vinyl reissue of the original 2012 double compact disc album from Canadian composer Kyle Bobby Dunn. It was recorded at Bunce Cake studios in Brooklyn and remote parts of Ontario. The compositions are mostly long, slowly evolving minimal ambient and drone based works created from electric guitar processing. Perhaps more cinematic than previous albums, some pieces have since appeared in BBC documentaries and independent films over the years since its release. The original recordings on this Diggers Factory vinyl edition, however, have been remastered and practically rebuilt from the fog of their initial masters which have often been considered the composer's most quiet and even translucent works. Iranian composers and engineers, Milad Bagheri and Maryam Sirvan have brought out a certain clarity and freshness to the music and Dunn has considered it an almost completely different listening experience from the originals.
The album was critically praised and became a favourite of most fans and even after several subsequent albums later it remains a favourite and of the composer's as well.

Beautiful orange & yellow sunburst vinyl - Solstice '21 sees twelve bright lights of independent electronic music mark the coming Summer Solstice. In such dark days, the age-old practice of celebrating the move from shadow to light, feels steeped in a renewed symbolic power. Solstice '21 marks this significant moment with a rich array of musical offerings. Reflective, lively, and always powerful, this collection is spun with modern twists of an ancient thread. Rotator - This is the first outing under this moniker from Justin Owen, also known under the alias Licit, as well as being a protagonist in the world of modular synthesis as the man behind the Abstract Data modules; Letters from Mouse - "Bubbling analogue synthesis from Scotland." This analogue synth maestro and inimitable broadcaster (aka The Magic Window), boasts a string of quality releases, including the recent highly acclaimed album An gàrradh, also on Subexotic; Cub/cub - "Cub/cub explores the world in-between nostalgia and nihilism, analogue and digital, real and false; creating evocative and mournful musical collages." First discovered on Boards of Canada forum Twoism, Cub/cub's two debut releases with Subexotic demonstrated his considerable talent to mix fascinating texture with beguiling melody. With an astonishing follow-up album coming soon, his rising star feels unstoppable; Orbury Common - "aural ephemera from the home of the orbs." This mysterious duo from the West of England are blessed with delightful musical cunning; their brilliant debut on Subexotic lifted the lid, and this offering reaffirms exciting times lie ahead; Onepointwo - "Minimal electronics, abstract radio signals and dystopian soundscapes are proceeded from both digital and analogue sources." A creator of intricate yet powerful collage, with finely wrought motifs that repeat and build to create a shimmering psychedelic impact. This is Onepointwo's glorious trademark. Spell-binding releases already exist on Woodford Halse, Poeta Negra, Lotus, as well as an imminent powerhouse album forthcoming on Subexotic; Giants of Discovery - "Experimental electronica with the occasional noisy guitar thrown in." Giants of Discovery's ability to get to grips with the musicality of his subject, has lead to previous exquisite sojourns into realms such as Victorian cosmic horror and Greek mythology, as well as an equally fantastical, towering follow up album on Woodford Halse; Wonderful Beasts - "A Wonderful collaboration between boycalledcrow and Xqui." Their playful interaction finds ways of crafting acoustic fragments into unexpected kaleidoscopes of sound. With beguiling debuts on cult label Wormhole World (soon to be followed up by an extraordinary new album on Subexotic), there is a kind of breathless magic about everything they do; Dogs versus Shadows - Electronic Sound Magazine says "A rare example of gamekeeper turned poacher...a welter of impressive electronica." Lee Pylon's ability to straddle a wealth of uncompromisingly inventive creations, and his broadcasting prowess as the much loved Kites & Pylons, is already the stuff of legend. A multitude of releases across many labels including Subexotic, Woodford Halse, Miracle Pond, Third Kind, Submarine Broadcasting, Sensory Leakage, provide a glittering treasure trove of work; Counter Silence - A stalwart of Subexotic, Counter Silence's sparkling and wistful musical work very much stands alone in temperament and style. 2020's Pathways EP on Subexotic remains a precious oasis, imbued with a haunting solitude that lives on in the memory; Transient Visitor - "All music unlocked by Alex Cargill (C.O.I. Central Office of Information) and Martin Jensen (The Home Current)." These two intercontinental maestros (well Sidcup & Luxembourg) boast impressive solo back catalogues across many labels (including Castles in Space, Polytechnic Youth, Woodford Halse). Their newly conceived collaborative Transient Visitor project, brought about the superb TV1 album in 2020 - we can see the sparks fly again in this welcome 2021 return; Simon Klee - "Natural, Electric, Organic Psychedelic - Sounds, noise and psychedelic beats." Klee's playful alchemy engages the mind and spirit, as witnessed in a flurry of top quality releases in recent times (e.g. Subexotic, ANR, Woodford Halse), and there is a visceral joy in his work that is perfectly placed for a midsummer celebration. Klee also produces a truly excellent mixcast and increasingly essential tape label, both under the guise of Anticipating Nowhere; Rupert Lally - "Hailing originally from England but now based in Switzerland, Guitarist, Percussionist and Electronic Musician Rupert Lally began his career as a Sound Designer and Composer for Theatre and TV, before launching his solo career in 2005. Since then his releases have blurred the boundaries between electronic and acoustic music." Lally's consistently brilliant work is always a highlight of the electronic music calendar, including recent stellar works across many labels such as Spun Out Of Control, Third Kind, Woodford Halse, and Modern Aviation.

Scissor Tail presents the first vinyl issue of Marc Barreca’s
1986 album The Sleeper Wakes, originally only released on
cassette by the Seattle electronic ambient label Intrepid.
Marc Barreca has been creating and performing electronic
music since the mid-1970s. His 1980 album, Twilight,
reissued on vinyl in 2016, was one of the earliest releases
on Palace Of Lights. Recent releases include Shadow
Aesthetics (2018) and three collaborations with K. Leimer.
Previous reissues include work on the acclaimed VOD box
set American Cassette Culture, the Cherry Red compilation
of seminal U.S. electronic music and the 1983 cassette
Music Works For Industry. His work is also included in the
collection of The British Library.”
The Sleeper Wakes has been out of print for many years
and Scissor Tail is very happy to remaster and reissue this
great work that was ahead of it’s time, employing analog
treatments of sampled sounds arranged in a very interesting
and intuitive way.

JP Harris has a secret: his name is actually “Squash.” Long before Harris
became a well regarded honky-tonker, he used his childhood nickname
while playing archaic “old-time” American tunes at underground fiddlers’
gatherings, engrossed in this punkish folk music world.
‘Don’t You Marry No Railroad Man’, his debut recording of traditional music
under the moniker JP Harris’ Dreadful Wind and Rain, features ten tracks spanning the breadth of American old-time repertoire. Harris wades between ancient ballads that traveled from the British Isles to Appalachia like “Barbry Ellen,” to droning banjo ditties such as Hobart Smith’s entrancing “Last Chance,”
here played on one of Harris’ coveted homemade banjos. Harris also works as a
serious carpenter which adds a unique authenticity to his versions of the classic
“House Carpenter” and lesser known “The Little Carpenter.”
Alongside Harris’ haunting vocals, the album prominently features the lowtuned fiddle and harmony singing of his longtime friend and Old Crow Medicine Show member Chance McCoy, who produced the record at his West Virginia studio in an old barn. On this sparse and arresting recording, Harris isn’t
mining his roots as a marketing pitch, he has the chops to back it up. In fact,
this collection of songs made him who he is today. Welcome home “Squash.”

Factory Benelux presents an expanded double vinyl edition of Sex and Death, the 11th studio album by lauded Factory Records ensemble The Durutti Column.

Originally released in 1994 on CD only, the album has now been re-mastered with 5 bonus tracks and appears on vinyl for the VERY FIRST TIME in a coloured vinyl edition limited to 1500 copies.

The vinyl edition is housed in a gatefold sleeve . Disc 1 is pressed in blue vinyl, and disc 2 in silver. A 2xCD edition is also available (FBN 201 CD).

The writing and recording of Sex and Death closed an uncertain period for Vini Reilly and the group following the collapse of Factory Records in 1992. Factory founder Tony Wilson remained in post as manager of the band, but Sex and Death would be their last album with producer Stephen Street, famed for his work with Morrissey, The Smiths and Blur.

Writer and master guitarist Vini Reilly remained philosophical. “People say the Durutti Column is this or that. I don’t care, so long as we make good music. There’s screaming feedback on some tracks, heavy metal guitar, Spanish picking. It’s not just this ethereal trip. Don’t listen to the form, never listen to the form. Listen to the content.”

Stand-out tracks include Anthony (dedicated to Wilson), The Rest of My Life, and Believe In Me. Guest musicians include viola player John Metcalfe, vocalist Ruth-Ann Boyle (later to form hitmakers Olive with Tim Kellett), programmer Martin Jackson (Magazine, Swing Out Sister) and bassist Peter Hook, then on furlough from New Order post-Republic.

All 5 bonus tracks are previously unreleased, having been retrieved from a long-lost DAT tape located in Tony Wilson’s personal archive. All tracks on the album have been newly re-mastered in 2020 by Peter Beckmann and Technology Works.

Sasha introduces LUZoSCURA, a new compilation that hasevolved from the thriving eponymous playlist. Featuring adiverse package of original works from a host of fresh talent, aswell as established artists and Sasha himself, it traverse selectronica, ambient, breaks and techno. Meaning light and dark, LUZoSCURA began on Spotify as a stash of tracks sent to Sasha which didn't meet the pace of his clubsets nor suit his venerated label LNOE, LUZoSCURA came into itsown through 2020 as Sasha gravitated toward more mellowed sounds while being off the road, and clubbers diverted their ears to home listening. Gaining a renewed source of energy inconnecting with more gifted, budding producers and seeing the project blossom, the idea for the compilation came off the back of doing a live stream solely featuring tracks from the playlist. Meticulously compiled to flow like a DJ mix for home listening, Sasha kicks it off with the buoyant, breaks-influenced 'Corner Shop', the first of his three tracks on the compilation. MJ Cole is among the established artists to feature with blissed out track 'Maestro', while The Micronaut, a multi-instrumentalist whose back catalogue was a favourite of Sasha's through lockdown, offers an immersive trip in 'Koelsa'. Lau.ra, lead singer from British experimental rock band Ultraísta, evokes a sense of spiritedness in 'I'll Wait' before we hear again from Sasha with another breaks-loaded trip in 'HNDI' and a collaboration withB ritish producer Franky Wah. Closing the odyssey with a stirring, expansive soundscape is synth duo Felsmann + Tiley.

In March 2020, right as the whole world was entering into a transitional phase, Evidence released a single titled "Unlearning". Now, a year later, Evidence launches the campaign for his upcoming album, Unlearning Vol. 1, picking up where the single of the same name left off, and going beyond. Throughout his career, Evidence has always been adept at both staying true to his roots and evolving as he grows and learns from life experiences, including recognizing when the time comes to unlearn. During the campaign for his last album, Weather or Not (2018), he expressed a desire to close the chapter on the weather-related theme that had been a staple of his solo career to that point. Unlearning Vol. 1 not only sees that vision come to life, but shines brilliantly in the process. Unlearning Vol. 1 pairs Evidence's own production with works from The Alchemist, Nottz, Sebb Bash, Animoss, Mr. Green, V Don, Daringer and EARDRUM (QThree). This highlights perhaps an undervalued skill of Ev's - his ability to collaborate with a multitude of producers on a project, while still creating an album with a cohesion and consistency rarely found in such extensive collaboration. While the album's musical soundscape sets the scene, it's Ev's gift for relatable yet inventively clever writing that really paints the picture, continually pulling the listener in. That said, a small but powerful cast of guest appearances also decorate the landscape, courtesy of stellar performances from Boldy James, Conway The Machine, Fly Anakin, Navy Blue, and Murkage Dave. Unlearning Vol. 1 embodies the sound and feeling of pure artistic expression, capturing a moment in time where marketability, album sales & streaming potential, and the desire to please anyone other than the artist themselves, are all just an afterthought. As one could expect, such freedoms allowed Evidence to tap into something special that sounds engaging and unique, and also remains true to his foundation. In essence, Unlearning Vol. 1 finds Evidence at yet another creative peak, creating a listening experience poised to catch the attention of new listeners while strengthening his core fanbase.

Heavenly Recordings announce the debut solo album from
acclaimed Bay Area multi-instrumentalist, producer and
composer Dougie Stu.
Dougie grew up outside of Chicago and his early education
began in jazz clubs and festivals as a teenager - frequenting
sessions with Jeff Parker, Fred Anderson, Nicole Mitchell and
other members of the AACM. Left exceedingly inspired, he
continued on to the University of Michigan, studying bass
under Detroit jazz royalty Robert Hurst and Geri Allen, where
he deepened his practice in Jazz and Contemplative
Studies.
Now, based out of Oakland and Los Angeles, Stuart
collaborates within many Jazz, Hip-Hop, and Experimental
music scenes. His works include compositions for the NPR
podcast Snap Judgement, along with co-writes and
production with various groups including: Brijean, Bells Atlas,
Meernaa, Luke Temple and Jay Stone.
Dougie Stu’s ‘Familiar Future’ is a uniquely jazz-attuned
album that is soulful and ethereal. It draws inspiration from
artists and producers like Lonnie Liston Smith, Charles
Stepney, David Axelrod and Alice Coltrane. Stuart has
arrived at a sound that harkens back to the golden era of
soul jazz and R&B, while still sounding contemporary.
The band feature the immediately recognizable guitar
stylings of Jeff Parker (Tortoise), who was one of Stuart’s
biggest influences growing up in Chicago, Maya Kronfeld
(Georgia Anne Muldrow, NYEUSI) on Fender Rhodes, Steve
Blum (Bells Atlas) on synthesizer, percussionists Brijean
Murphy (Toro Y Moi, Poolside), John Santos (Tito Puente,
Dizzy Gillespie) and drummer Hamir Atwal (tune-yards).
Special guests include Marcus Stephans on flute, Shaina
Evoniuk on violin and Crystal Pascucci on cello. The album
was engineered and mixed by Rob Shelton at Tiny
Telephone and he also appears on synthesizer on one song.

London-based musician Harriet Zoe Pittard aka Zoee has been described as an artist who writes 'personal pop for people who don't fit in' (Huck Magazine). Previously, Zoee has released singles through Ryan Hemworth's 'Secret Songs' imprint and Vegyn's label Plz Make It Ruins, as well as guesting as a vocalist on tracks with Hot Chip's Joe Goddard and with hyper-pop collective PC Music.Over the past two years Zoee has taken some time to nurture her voice and her sound. Her debut album 'Flaw Flower' is due on June 25th. 'Flaw Flower' is an honest and vulnerable glimpse into Zoee's interior world, a world she creates through marrying her real-life phone notes with imagery taken from modern works of literature such as "The Flowering Corpse" by Djuna Barnes, Sylvia Plath's "A Winter Ship" and Maggie Nelson's "Bluets". Through these 11 new songs, Zoee delves deep into her own emotional life, combining aspects of the everyday with the surreal in order to uncover the beauty found in being flawed. The record nods to the avant pop of the 80s, an era that Zoee has always been drawn to thanks to the expressive and trailblazing music of women including Anne Clark, Joan Armatrading, Cyndi Lauper, Rose McDowall and Anna Domino. The album is characterised by a mix of hi-fi and lo-fi instrumentation. 'The Loft' features a free jazz solo from acclaimed experimental saxophonist Ben Vince alongside stock GarageBand synths. 'Host' combines home demo backing vocals with an elaborate baby grand piano solo. Zoee sources foley sounds from YouTube and pulls from her own domestic field recordings, such as a microwave buzzing in 'Microwave' and a shower running in 'Evening Primrose', often using these sounds as the starting point for the songs. Maintaining intimate bedroom elements whilst developing a more expansive band sound, felt integral to the project, since that's where Zoee's writing process often starts, sat on her bed with her laptop and midi keyboard. Writing for the album began in October 2018 when Zoee started working closely again with friend and long-term musical collaborator Rowan Martin. As the material for the record began to take shape the writing and recording process also evolved with the addition of bassist Kyrone Oak and keys player Laura Norman, as well as contributions from Ben Vince and London pop artist Saint Torrente. "I feel like the songs on this album took me deeper into myself, the sad song that I thought was about a boy is still about that but it's also about loss, about self-determination, about not losing hope, about memory, about domesticity, about detachment, about my dad, about my mum, about change, about feeling incredibly alone, about growing up."

JANA IRMERT – THE SOFT BIT

"The compositions for this album were shaped over the course of one year, at first without a concept or storyline as a starting point. Yet what I became increasingly interested in was a kind of sensory aspect of sounds. I felt I wanted to get closer so the sounds, feel their structure and surface and how they contrast each other."

stick your hands into the sand and feel the grains against your skin.

"Throughout the musical process, I used materials like metal, water, sand and air in a very direct and maybe more raw way to create and record sounds than I did in previous works, where I had often manipulated field recordings that had a more ambient character and thus strongly carried the location of origin in them.So in a sense, for the compositions of this album, I used sounds without a place, or just an expression of the sound of the particular material itself."

submerge yourself in water and listen to the sounds you hear.

"It turned out the processed sounds resulting from hard materials would often have soft and tonal qualities whereas those made from "soft" materials like water or air would ultimately be of percussive or harsh and noisy character. Finishing the compositions was like feeling along the surfaces of the single pieces with closed eyes, making out their shape and outline inch by inch. Maybe this is why to me, some of the compositions feel solidified like pieces of rock, while others seem to be ready to evaporate into air."

stand as still as you can and feel the air moving against your face.

Since first emerging in the latter half of the noughties, Guillaume Metenier’s Soul Sugar project has evolved considerably. Initially a trio built around the virtuoso organist’s love of ‘60s and ‘70s soul-jazz and Hammond funk – Metenier studied under jazz organ legend Dr Lonnie Smith – Soul Sugar is now a collaborative collective that draws just as much influence from classic Jamaican dub and reggae as the works of Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff.

The outfit’s musical evolution comes into sharp focus on Excursions in Soul, Reggae, Funk & Dub, a collection of hard-to-find tracks that have been released at different points, and on different vinyl formats, over the last three years. Taken as a whole, the set offers a stunning snapshot of Soul Sugar’s rapidly expanding catalogue of classics. Metenier is once again at the controls but this time round Soul Sugar’s cast list of contributing musicians includes Sly & Robbie, Blundetto, Lone Ark, Slikk Tim, Thomas Naim and honey-voiced soul singer Leo Carmichael. Metenier also stars as a musician, providing lively and ear-catching organ solos under his now familiar Booker Gee alias.

What’s most noticeable from the off is the richness of the reggae riddims, the warmness of the instrumentation and the effortlessly soulful nature of the music. This is particularly evident on the collective’s stunning covers of Luther Vandross’s "Never Too Much" and Marvin Gaye’s "I Want You": effortlessly sunny and life-affirming interpretations that re-imagine the tracks as sumptuous slabs of reggae-soul and provide a platform for Leo Carmichael’s inspiring and comforting voice. Metenier and friends’ take on dub reggae – toasty, authentically bass-heavy and seeped in analogue effects – can also be admired on "Matumbee" and "Cool Down", the latter a digi-dub influenced affair rich in colourful synths sounds, echoing delay trails and sub-bass so deep it will rattle your teeth. Both also contain lusciously jazzy guitar licks and some incredible keys-work from Metenier.The guiding hand of Spanish multi-instrumentalist and producer Lone Ark can be heard on album opener "Aximites" – think Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry producing Jimmy Smith – and "Faith", an expertly breezy concoction that sports Jackie Mittoo-esque Hammond B3 solos from Metenier over a luscious backing track that sounds like something that may have emerged from Studio One in the mid 1970s. The collective’s love of Studio One is explored further on a sweaty, reggae-funk cover of "Greedy" that features fabulous drums, bass and guitar from Slikk Tim, while "Out In The Rain" is an authentically sparse, spaced-out dub number laden with fluid instrument solos and devilishly heavy riddim.
Part compilation, part artist album, part collaborative celebration of dub-soul fusion, Excursions in Soul, Reggae, Funk & Dub is the strongest statement yet of who Soul Sugar are, and where they’re going.

This journey, this slowly drifting sonic meditation, is an 'inner soundscape', a dialogue between the senses, the conscience and the world, inside / outside, interconnected. Like waking up from a long dream, and being stuck into its echo. The April Sessions immerges the listener into a drone-ish universe, full of random acousmatic events, inner monologues and a vast and unwritten subjective map to be drawn.

The April Sessions has been living in a seedy hotel in Brussels for a few months. She listens to the sparse traffic outside her window, locked in and locked down. 'Everything is constructed', she says to herself, 'even the sound of a solitary aircraft at 25,000 feet traverses the sky no further out than the inside of my skull'. Other weird sonic phenomena criss-cross the inner cosmos of her brain and streak across her private sky like comets. And then there is the unshakeable presence of that inner monologue, known to her variously as the Tacit Dictator, the Subvocaliser and, nightmarishly enough, the voice of the Merlucid Hake. (Anthony Moore, St Leonards, 10th of March 2021)

Anthony Moore, Dirk Specht and Tobias Grewenig have known each other and worked together since the early 2000s. They have collectively participated in a number of projects including live performances and recordings. In 2016, as part of The Missing Present Band, they released the live LP 'The Present Is Missing' on A-Musik. The following year they released 'Ore Talks', a double LP, realised in collaboration with Therapeutische Hörgruppe Köln.

Anthony Moore was born in 1948, founded the band Slapp Happy (circa 1972) with Peter Blegvad and Dagmar Krause, then worked alongside a.o. Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson in the unclassifiable band Henry Cow. He released several solo albums, composed soundtracks for experimental movies. His path also crossed Kevin Ayers's, Pink Floyd's, Richard Wright's. He was appointed professor for research into sound and music in the context of new media at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Germany. He still continues to write and perform.

Dirk Specht is a sound artist, musician and curator. He studied architecture and media art and is active in the fields of sound works for choreography, radio drama, sound art, film and video art soundtracks. He published releases with several bands and projects. He has been an assistant for research into sound from 2011 to 2016 at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, and is a founding member of Therapeutische Hörgruppe Köln.

Tobias Grewenig studied at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. He primarily deals with non-linearity in his audiovisual installative works and performances, including projects with the artist group 'Therapeutische Hörgruppe Köln', the ensemble 'The Knob, The Finger & The It' and the improvisation collective "Frequenzwechsel". The conception and development of electronic instruments and code is a key component of his artistic work. He lives and works in Cologne.

A HANDPICKED COLLECTION OF HIS GREATEST MUSICAL WORKS FROM FILM & TELEVISION, FEATURING MUSIC FROM NOMADLAND, THE FATHER, INSIDIOUS, THIS IS ENGLAND & MANY MORE

"The most syncable modern composer" Synchtank

The new collection Cinema features 28 breath-taking pieces that take the listener through Ludovico's incredible musical journey working in film & television, and includes two previously unreleased tracks** (see tracklist below)
Includes music from films and series such as the Golden Globe & BAFTA Award-winning and Oscar favourite Nomadland, another BAFTA Award-winning and Oscar favourite The Father, This Is England, I'm Still Here, Insidious, Dr Foster, Sense8 & many more
"I felt like he Ludovico and the character of Fern were walking in parallel; their shared love of nature connects them, and I knew then his music would fit perfectly with our movie" Chloé Zhao on Nomadland
Award-winning scores such as Fuori Dal Mondo (Oscar nominated, Echo Klassik award) and Sotto falso nome (Avignon Film Festival) are also included
Einaudi has become the biggest streamed classical artist of all time. His beautifully evocative music lends itself so perfectly to use in films, tv & advertising and has the incredible ability to provoke and enhance emotion.
This is why for many years directors have been using it to complement their images and continue to do so.
Famous fans & collaborators include Shane Meadows (This Is England, Dead Man's Shoes), Russell Crowe (The Water Diviner, Gladiator, Les Miserables), Chloé Zhao (Nomadland), Ricky Gervais (Derek), Eric Toldedano (The Intouchables), Clint Eastwood (J Edgar), Casey Affleck (I'm Still Here) & Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan).

遠き火、遠き雲 (Tōki Hi, Tōki Kumo / A Distant Fire, A Distant Cloud) is the second collaboration by Tomoyoshi Date and Stijn Hüwels. The album was commissioned by Laaps.

Tomoyoshi Date and Stijn Hüwels met for the first time in 2015 in Tokyo, being introduced to each other by Chihei Hatakeyama. That same evening, they recorded what would later become Hochu-Ekki-Tou, their first album, released on Home Normal in 2019. For "Tōki hi, tōki kumo", they teamed up again to create a slow and bright album, using field recordings, processed guitar, piano and synth. The title refers to a poem by Tadahito Ichinoseko, recited by the poet on the album as well.

Tomoyoshi Date creates acoustic and organic sounds with a little touch of digital processing. He began to create electronic music in 1998. In 2003, he forms the group Opitope with Chihei Hatakeyama (released by SPEKK), in 2012 the group ILLUHA with Corey Fuller (released by 12k), and the group Melodia with Federico Durand (Home Normal). His solo albums were released from Flyrec (2009, Japan) and Own Records (2011, Luxembourg). Also he worked as emergency doctor until 2014, and started his ambient oriental medical clinic "Tsuyukusa Clinic" in Tokyo since 2014. Tomoyoshi currently resides in Narita, close to Tokyo.

Stijn Hüwels has a profound fascination for minimalism. He's using mainly layers of processed guitar and field recordings. He released on Dauw, mAtter, Eilean Rec., Home Normal, White Paddy Mountain and Slowcraft/Lifelines. He released albums in collaboration with Chihei Hatakeyama, Norihito Suda, An Moku and Ian Hawgood. Together with James Murray he forms Silent Vigils. Stijn lives and works in Leuven and Brussels, Belgium. He's also curating Slaapwel Records since 2014, a label dedicated to music to fall asleep with.

Lee 'Scratch' Perry's Black Ark Studio opened its doors in 1974. Situated in his backyard at 5 Washington Gardens, Kingston, Jamaica. Using only basic
equipment, a Teac Four-Track Recorder, a Sound craft mixing desk, an Echoplex delay unit and later adding a Phaser effects unit that he used in conjunction with his Roland RE201 Space Echo. He managed mixing down the tracks from Four track to Two track to make his distinctive whirling sound that sets apart the Black Ark Sound from the other Jamaican Studios.

Born Rainford Hugh Perry, 28 March 1936, Hanover, Jamaica. He began his career at the grand age of 16, working for Clement ‘Coxsone’ Dodd’s sound
system, rising quickly to the position of record scout and organising recording sessions during his 3-year period 1963-1966. Restlessness and unsatisfied with credit he felt due to him he moved on to work with Producers J.J. Johnson and Clancy Eccles, the latter of which would help him set up his ‘Upsetter’ label in 1968, which would see his first of many recordings telling the injustices done to him by previous employers. ‘The Upsetter’ track itself pointed at Mr Dodd but reflected to Perry when he inherited it as a nick name alongside many others during the course of his career, including ‘Scratch’, again taken from one of his recordings ‘Chicken Scratch’ recorded in 1965/1966. Perrys work in 1968 with producer Joe Gibbs was fruitful and resulted in many successful releases, but again feeling a lack of credit and itchy feet, it was time to move on. Still not having a studio of his own, Perry recorded at the various Kingston establishments at the time, Randy’s Studio 17 on North Parade, Dynamics on Bell Road and Harry J’s on Roosevelt Avenue where the bulk of the aforementioned recordings with The Wailers were carried out. His dream was always to build his own studio and not to have to work to the constraints of the other studios and producers.

On opening the Black Ark studios, the hits seemed to come immediately. Firstly with Junior Byles' 'Curly Locks' and in 1975 the massive crossover hit Susan Cadogans' 'Hurt So Good' that reached No 4 in the UK charts.1976 saw Island Records releasing Perrys vast output, timeless material like the Heptones 'Party Time', Max Romeo's 'War Inna Babylon' Bob Marley and the Wailers 'Jah Live', 'Punky Reggae Party' and Junior Murvins 'Police and Thieves' to name but a few.But sometimes missing out on a few classics like Perrys own 'Roast Fish, Collie Weed & Corn Bread' and possibly one of the best reggae albums of all time The Congos 'Heart of the Congos'. Dub releases like 'Revolution Dub' (1975) showed a way forward for his production skills in this formidable arena. Having his own studio allowed him to build up a vast catalogue of tracks to work on. We have culled together some lost productions that Lee Perry carried out with singer Mike Brookes, a fine singer, arranger from that special time in the Black Arks history. Sounding like Junior Marvin in parts and Max Romeo in others but still carrying a distinctive Falsetto voice. Some classic tracks as you can see recorded with the cream of musicians at Lee Perrys disposal. Mr Perry works his magic that gives these songs that distinctive feel that his output.
carried around the mid 1970's.

So we hope you enjoy some more lost treasures from the Black Ark that we feel should be added to that mighty cannon of material that still sound so fresh and strong today.

Maurice Ravel is a French composer born March 7, 1875 in Ciboure and died December 28, 1937 in Paris. The greatest French composer during his lifetime after the death of Claude Debussy, he was one of the main representatives of Impressionist music at the start of the 20th century. Known worldwide for his Bolero, his most famous works also include the ballet Daphnis and Chloé, the Concerto pour la main gauche or even the orchestration of Pictures at an exhibition by Modeste Moussorgsky.

Following a limited 7” vinyl release of SunPalace edits in 2020, BBE Music finally delivers the full-length versions of Moodymann and Kenny Dope’s ‘Rude Movements’ remixes, alongside brand new interpretations by François K, Frankie Feliciano and OPOLOPO, plus a special edit by Phil Asher.
François Kevorkian needs no introduction to fans of House and electronic music. Featuring keys by Eric Kupper, his ‘SATS Dub’ and ‘TradMix’ versions of ‘Rude Movements’ are simply classic works, summoning House music’s golden era forward in time, to the here and now.
Bonus spaced-out ‘Flerken Space Bubbles’ and beat-less ‘Atmosphere’ revisions are also included in the digital version: both invaluable tools for DJs. Ricanstruction label founder and
long-time champion of the good groove, Frankie Feliciano delivers a slick and faithful update of ‘Rude Movements’, with a slight Latin soul twist. Swedish mix-king OPOLOPO turns in a typically live-sounding, funky and dancefloor-ready jam (ready whenever the dancefloor is,
anyway) The full, extended version of Moodymann’s remix retains the original ‘jammed’ feel of Rude Movements, adding stellar flute, sax and piano solos to that hypnotic vibe. Kenny Dope’s Afro-Latin inspired ‘Dancefloor Powder’ version is joined this time by a rough’n’ready, street tough ‘O'Gutta’ mix; calling all b-boys and b-girls! For the expanded digital package, we are also including a special edit by our sorely missed brother Phil Asher, created for his
own DJ sets and now available to all.
Made famous by David Mancuso at his New York Loft Parties, ‘Rude Movements’ was an obscure Brit-funk b-side recorded in the home studio of Mike Collins. The track’s unique sound, coupled with pristine sonics and production values caught the audiophile ears of
Mancuso, and the rest is history. Soon the track found its way into the hands of Loft Party denizens Larry Levan, Nicky Siano, Frankie Knuckles and Danny Krivit and continues to influence House and electronic producers through to this day.

May 28 will see prolific Japanese vibraphonist, multi-percussionist and composer Masayoshi Fujita mark a new sonic direction with his forthcoming album Bird Ambience on Erased Tapes.

Bird Ambience brings several fresh changes for the artist. Until now, Fujita would separate his acoustic solo recordings from the electronic dub under his El Fog alias and experimental improvisations with contemporaries such as Jan Jelinek, Bird Ambience sees him unite all of these different sides to his work for the first time, into one singular vision. He also makes a lateral leap from his signature instrument the vibraphone, on which he created his acclaimed triptych Stories (2012), Apologues (2015) and Book of Life (2018), to the marimba, which takes centre stage on his new album alongside drums, percussion, synths, effectors and tape recorder.

“The way of playing the marimba is similar to the vibraphone, so it was kind of a natural development for me and easier to start with, yet it sounds very different”, explains Masayoshi. “The marimba bars are made with wood and it has a wider range than the vibraphone, which gives me a bigger sound palette with more possibilities. I play the instrument with bows and mallets, and sometimes manipulate it with effects.”

Bird Ambience also marks his liberation from fastidious preparation for past solo releases to new endeavours in improvisation. “I prioritised trying to capture the wonder which happens during those occasional magic improv moments. Sometimes the mic-ing and placement of instruments was pretty rough; things weren’t perfect and everything was done quickly, but it turned out as the final recording. Overall when I
couldn’t decide between two takes, I told myself to go with the first”, Masayoshi recalls.

Arranged with a perfect Kanso-like balance, the unhurried pace of Bird Ambience allows each sound and phrase enough time to be mindfully absorbed and savoured. This subtle but affective work carries ethereal remnants of Midori Takada’s minimalism, the static atmospheres of Mika Vainio, To Rococo Rot’s organics and the bucolic electronics of Minotaur Shock. Fujita vaporises contemporary and classical, ambient and dismantled dub, controlled noise and fragments of jazz into an atmospheric, static mist, which he skilfully coerces into new forms.

After 13 years in Berlin, Masayoshi recently relocated to a new home and studio in the rural Japanese mountain village of Kami-cho, Hyogo, following his life-long dream of creating music in nature. Even though the album was entirely recorded in Germany before he left, it has this palpable sense of reverie found in the natural world. From there we can only imagine the kind of impact his new life in rural West Japan will have on future works.

Ian McDonnell is an Irish producer living in Wicklow near Dublin. Alongside his solo releases as Eomac he's also one half of the duos Lakker, noeverything and Lena Andersson. 'Cracks' represents a change of scenery and a change of practice from his previous two albums which were both conceptualised from the outset and recorded while living in Berlin. In contrast 'Cracks' was made in a beautiful rural part of Ireland without any outside pressure. These circumstances allowed Ian to wipe the slate clean and make an album guided by his mood on any particular day, connecting into the subtle power of his new environment and reflecting it, rather than working to please the suffocating demands of clublife. The title 'Cracks' comes from the idea that, to quote Leonard Cohen, a crack is "how the light gets in", but also of course it's a title that bears witness to the cracks fomenting in the world right now. The music comes across with depth and passion, sounding deep and mossy with Eomac's penchant for punchy, shuffling drums underpinning the emotive tracks. From the off, the furious 'Mandate For Murder' flips and repeats Akala's protest about systemic racism, rushing deep into the panicked sirens of 'Portuguese Man O' War'. The album settles into a sense of mystery, wildness and dark otherworldliness with the foggy drone and timber kick of 'Ancient Self' reflecting the awe and spiritual connections to his new environment, much like the gorgeous strings and aqueous bleeps of 'Seashells' or the pitch-shifted shoegaze of 'Prophetess'. At other points it responds to the human condition, for instance the cathartic 'Falling Through the Cracks' where a broken scream is pitted against clattering drums. At other moments it simply reaches out; 'Reasons to Live's' whispered mantra of "I know you are loved by somebody" is gently insistent. It ends with a reference to a place he's left behind, seen through the lens of nature. 'All the Rabbits in the Tiergarten' could be a missing track from Aphex's Ambient Works, albeit with cut-up scissoring drums. The album is a fruitful move, inwards and forwards.