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Thomas Fehlmann steps away as co-member of The Orb following two acclaimed full lengths on Kompakt (COW - 2016, Moonbuilding 2703 AD - 2015) and embarks back on his solo career with a career defining album 'Los Lagos' - from Detroit to Schaffel techno he conducts a broad spectrum of electronic music into a seamless flow.

Thomas Fehlmann has been active since the late 1970's from Palais Schaumburg, the Tresor defnining trio 3MB (with Moritz von Oswald and Juan Atkins), Ocean Club (together with Gudrun Gut) and of course The Orb.

Artwork direction and design by DESIGNERS REPUBLIC.

'Los Lagos' is Thomas Fehlmann's seventh solo full-length, his 4th for Kompakt following his Berlin inspired 2010 full length 'Gute Luft'. in the musician's own words it's about "checking the juice".

Establishing a picture of his current artistic condition, as suggested by the title - los lagos / die lage / the situation (literally translating to 'the lakes' but taking the meaning of 'wassup' in the context of a relaxed discussion between friends), the album refers to Fehlmann's "musical motivation, dreams and wishes" through the language of music exclusively: a way to "allow myself to techno" he says, "to techno as a means to deconstruct and rebuild again. Set up an area of tension, loose it in the flow of the grooves. Magnifying some detail out of proportion, regroup around that and slowly knit a texture. Expand."

"It was time to take a bend and head where the sun rises or sets, wherever my heart drives me." This is pretty much the kind of decision Thomas Fehlmann has made. 61 and shining, longstanding member of The Orb, multi-talented composer and boundless experimentalist, had to make in the twilight of his collaboration with Alex Paterson, eager to taste the flavours of the unknown on his own again. "It was the moment when felxibility would have become compromise'. Far from being the demise of their joint dream, this was bound to split it in two distinct, parallel fantasies - rich of their own singularity.

As goes with that essential love of his for the free-flowing nature of electronic music, a fascination born out of its "lack of borders", capable of "inventing, changing the emphasis, experimenting with an unpredictable outcome", 'Los Lagos' "freely connects disparate extremes. Art, disco, minimalism, schmalz, jazz and funk". As he likes to say, Fehlmann's head functions as a sampler, capturing elements and re-assembling them under his own embracing perspective ; not afraid to leap from a deep, dubbed-out hypnotism ('Window', 'Morrislouis', 'Freiluft') to the playfulness of '90s-style bleepy schaffel ('Tempelhof' featuring Max Loderbauer), through out-there, muscle-flexing dancefloor cuts ('Triggerism') onto the calmness of ambient ('Geworden').

In need to keep his inner balance in check, Fehlmann committed himself to "switch off the control" and follow his intuition, which isn't so much of an easy process as he also wanted to incorporate the side disturbances experienced: "it's a complex process of search and destroy to bring out a new beauty trying to expand my vocabulary". With 'Los Lagos', Fehlmann looked at finding "the structure that's surprising, disturbing and rewarding". The artwork for the record, courtesy of contemporary artist and friend Albert Oehlen whom he shares lots of artistic ambitions with, echoes the producer's "funky use of shape and space, sludge and clarity" like a second skin. A search for light and harmony that Fehlmann sums up eloquently: "Does your inner musical voice respond", that is the question. Then "doors open up in unexpected corners, rays of light appear; you follow through and you're in - in your oasis."

Detroit's Javonntte steps up for the next installment from Earl Jeffers' MELANGE label. "I've been a big fan of this mans music for a few years now, so it's an honour to have him bless the label with some gems, and be the first artist to be on the label other than myself"

Fresh from touring with Hugh Masekela ( The Boy's Doin' It'), Gboyega Adelaja goes into the lab to drop heavy keyboard science on his Moog and Fender Rhodes. Its Joe Sample meets the Afro Funk of BLO. With names like Jake Sollo on guitars, Mike Odumusu (BLO, Osibisa) on bass guitar and Gasper Lawal on percussion. This is a top quality, Afro-Funk, all-stars affair that shines from the inspired interventions, masterly arrangements to the sublime production.
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Additional Notes:

I was already following Hugh Masekela when I met him, he was an outstanding musician and I knew of his collaboration with
Hedzoleh, that band brought him nearer to many of us, because he was playing authentic African melodies with the Hedzoleh
sound which was mostly percussion oriented. Yes I knew about Hugh's music before I met him. Infact when we started playing
together, he insisted that I stay with him in our three bedroom apartment, other members of the band had their own apartments,
but Hugh and myself shared the same 3 bedroom apartment'.

We were touring, under Casablanca owned by Neil Boggart, we toured as professional musicians, flying to our gigs. There was
a time when we were touring with George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic we had two luxury buses deployed for our use.
We made many friends where ever we went to play, we met many big and popular musicians who came to watch our shows, the
Spinners came to see us in Detroit, we met Wayne Shorter of Weather Report, Freddie Hubbard, we played a gig with Herbie
Hancock at the Carnegie Hall New York City, we toured almost all the 50 States of the US.'

The music on this EP was conceived in China, between 1989 and 1993. The original tracks were mixed to DAT in real time, in a small neighbour-proof studio inside my apartment in Macau, a 19th floor with a view to the hurricanes. There's a small, unexpected or improbable story behind each track, some little magic fused with the local atmosphere, certainly guaranteeing their lasting authenticity 25 years later.

TAIPEI DISCO
Late 80s Guangzhou was an exotic city where the traditional past coexisted in harmony with the present and even already with the future.
I'd rather spend my weekends in Guangzhou than diving into Hong Kong consumerism - as most ex-pats in Macau did. I took a cab at the border and travelled 150 Km through chaotic roads with family and friends until reaching the hot, humid, mega South China metropolis.
We ate on street joints in the evenings, went on to a karaoke bar and ended up at Taipei Disco, the only proper club in town. All the others were inside hotels and played generic music or they were seedy, sleazy, smoky cabarets.
Taipei Disco used to be a cinema and played cantonese pop music and anglo-saxon pop/rock (that was new). The spacious dance floor was generously lighted, the atmosphere was airy and modern. Boys and girls were in the habit of dancing in pairs, one in front of the other, observing a respectful yet sensual distance. When the girl took a few steps back, the boy went along and vice versa. With legs and feet (more than the upper bodies) synchronized with the music, they never exceeded in extroversion. Cool.
I always carried a MicroComposer and a portable DAT recorder in my travels through China and weekends in Canton. Any spontaneous musical idea was imediately recorded and memorized. The MicroComposer allowed multitrack recording, which was very handy on the road. Based on the emphatic choreography of Taipei Disco's dancers, i started to compose a rhythm track while sitting at a table, with headphones, listening to Cantopop in the background. As if by magic - not a rare occasion in music - everything began fitting together. Odd as it may seem, the track ended up sounding more germanic (Kraftwerkian) than Cantonese pop.

The story ends in a circle: the cantonese DJ at Taipei Disco, whom i used to ask to play certain records, wanted to play my music at the disco when it was basically only just a rhythm track and little else. From a cupboard under his set up he took out a battered keyboard (unrecognizable brand) and invited me to play over the track with the available sounds on the keyboard. The circle was complete, with Cantonese clubbers happily dancing forwards and backwards, as if it were another Cantopop hit.
I didn't get payed but the house offered us free ice cream cups in which little Portuguese flags were sticked.
The track would be finished later, in studio, with vocoder strings ensemble and synth solos.

TAIPEI DISCO (LIVE)
The live version of 'Taipei Disco' was recorded during a live set at the China Pop venue, in Macau, 1993. China Pop was a rock club built in the ample space of an old fishing warehouse, located in the labyrinthic Inner Harbour area. It was decorated with large Mao Zedong and Cultural Revolution posters and memorabilia and had a unique atmosphere, fusing Pop Art with film noir. We began our performance at 1AM, pretty early for Macau's nightlife standards. We were lucky. An audience showed up. And in Macau there were always several friends among the audience, which tranformed a musical performance into a relaxed party.
The atmosphere was particularly surreal on that night. The front row was dominated by French Crazy Horse dancers, a sort of Oriental Moulin Rouge. The girls had finished their last performance of the evening at the Crazy Horse and were still energized from their show. During our performance, right in front of us and perfectly synched, we could hear the famous irreverent screams of can-can dancers. You always had to expect the unexpected in Macau.

RED MAMBO (IMPROMPTU)
I was familiar with the Portuguese-speaking African countries well before having lived in China. I found myself returning several times to one in particular, always attracted by its magic and very distinct, identitary culture and music: Cape Verde.
During the early years of DWART a lot of the inspiration for drum machine rhythms (Roland's TR series) came from African music, especially from new musical trends that gained full autonomy with Cape Verde's independence from Portugal, as was the case with funaná.
I had the privilege of having known and befriended some of the greatest Capeverdian composers, musicians and singers during the 70s and 80s, such as Bana, Luís Morais, Cesária Évora, Paulino Vieira, Chico Serra, Tito Paris, and historical bands such as Bulimundo (ambassadors of funaná) and Os Tubarões (great innovators of morna, coladera and funaná, with the sonic impact of an afro-beat big band).
When Luís Filipe de Barros began playing Os Tubarões for the first time on Portuguese radio, that was the turning point for African music in Portugal. The 'Tabanca' album was so widely heard and talked about that it quickly got a Portuguese release through one of the big labels of the time.
The mystic of this band from the Santiago Island would reach the East. Os Tubarões played to a packed room in Macau in 1992, and after the bombastic gig we arranged a dinner and party at my place.
We ate and drank generously and the moment came for a jam session at the small studio on the 19th floor. Because Os Tubarões didn't all fit in the studio, we recorded an impromptu with only three of the musicians: Tótó Silva (electric guitar), Mário Russo Bettencourt (bass) and Zeca Couto (piano). And there we were improvising without barriers, suddenly detached from cultural roots, labels and constraints, a truly unique moment. The track is now being released exactly as it was recorded, imbued with the real communion between the musicians. And it could only be titled 'Red Mambo'. I wish to dedicate it to the memory of Ildo Lobo and Jaime do Rosário, founders of Os Tubarões, sadly and too soon departed from the land of music.

On A side, electronic music wizards Kompozyt team up with a Dub Legend Lee 'Scratch' Perry to bring you a heavy-hitting and instant bounce-inducing Dub Techno track 'Hidden Force'. Lee Scratch Perry's amazing and charismatic Dub poetry blends superbly with the neat fusion of spacey and subterranean sounds of Kompozyt productions. The single is not to be missed this summer.

On B side, Kompozyt brings you a 7' version of 'Homesick' - Dub and Trip-hop inspired Experimental Electronica with Olgierd Dokalski on the trumpet. Olgierd's incredible performances of real haunting beauty further reinforce the analog, live and improvisational aspect of Kompozyt's music.

Both tracks come from Kompozyt's debut album: 'Synchronicity' - out everywhere now on CD and DL.


Selected Reviews of Kompozyt's Debut Album and the Single

5/5 Decoded Magazine: 'Incredible album 10/10'

4/5 Lars Berhenrot (Deepershades): 'LOVE THIS .. never-ending deepness ..'

5/5 Pierre Ravan: 'Amazing work from the heart'

5/5 Queensradio.org: 'I'll definitely be playing these guys on air'

4/5 Garth Trinidad (KSRW Radio) 'Exquisite score without a film'

5/5 Hoxton FM (London): 'Incredible release!'

4/5 Stereo MCs: 'Nice vibes refreshing'

4/5 Robert Babicz: 'I love dub. in all forms'
5/5 Adam Hannibal (Balanced) : 'Neat fusion of spacey and subterranean sounds. Reminiscent of the Beyond Recs Ambient Dub compilations with some freshness... Well done'
5/5 Al Bradley (3amrecordings): 'This needs full love because it's excellent :) I can really picture myself just letting this play from the first sound to the last & becoming utterly immersed as it flows through! Gorgeous.'
5/5 Bartlomiej Blesznowski- 'One of the best electronic music albums this year'
4/5 Neil Brown (RMFM; Pro Mobile Magazine): 'Some nice tunes to get your head in gear to.'

5/5 Jorn Kirk (DJ Jay Kay) (Faith Sundays): 'very nice album !!! a joy to listen to'

Joe Powers is from Edinburgh, far outside the network of the Grime capital of London. His caffeinated productions as Proc Fiskal are faster than usual, with many clocking in at 160bpm. 'The Highland Mob', his 2017 debut EP, opened up his music to open-eared footwork and drum'n'bass fans as well as the grime crowd. After following that up with a jungle-inflected EP on Cosmic Bridge, 'Insula' switches the feel and intention towards a personal, and melodic music with one foot in Grime, infused with often comic, often wistful recorded moments from his environment. He says 'I wanted to be aware of where the music is coming from, referencing things I'm presently experiencing, like making Grime, my Radar radio show, phone addiction, alcohol, my surroundings, girls, depression, positivity, being unemployed, being employed and hating it, my friends etc. Trying to be true to myself instead of relying on other peoples' nostalgia, and focusing on now.'

The record is a huge leap in vision, with delicate, pointillist melodies and intricate edits reminiscent of Grime producers such as Terror Danjah. It also resonates with Japanese video game music like that recently explored on the 'Diggin' In The Carts' compilation.

'I think I probably make tunes to get out emotions I don't express in day-to-day life. I used clips of my friends talking, drunk folk, and general Scottish life to preserve and represent what my experience is like right now, like a time capsule. Social media notification sounds are designed to release serotonin, which is what I'd like my music to do, to make me, and other people happy, and in using these manipulative noises in a positive way, I like to think I'm taking back the power of the manipulation.'

Proc Fiskal is adventurous and thoughtful as a producer, and at the young age of 21, his debut album is very advanced in its ideas and execution.

Dark Matters label head Amirali returns with the expertly crafted Odyssey EP, employing his vital understanding of
space and texture to construct a highly emotive release featuring a remix from Fort Romeau. The three track
package is out digitally on May 14th followed by the vinyl release a few weeks later.
Leading on from his critically acclaimed discography and curatorial work with the inimitable Dark Matters imprint,
Amirali enters 2018 with grand plans for the future. He is currently conceptualising a live stage show whilst
continuing to provide a platform for all manner of weird and wonderful music.
'Odyssey' is a striking example of Amirali's penchant for songwriting, as well as a testament to his sonic identity,
merging memorable harmonies with heartfelt vocals and complex soundscapes. 'Hidden Past' veers more towards
the dancefloor, brandishing vast sonic explorations and levitating pads amongst detailed drum patterns. For the
'Hidden Past' remix, Fort Romeau mutates the delicacy of the original into a spaced out dose of peak time house,
gradually building rich harmonies around a fierce rhythmic motif.
On the creation of this forthcoming EP, Amirali states:
"Nothing is more important than my craft which is the main reason I'm here. There's no better satisfaction than to
create an amazing piece of music, that's my happiest point in life. I don't want my work to just be good or ok and that
takes a lot of effort and sacrifice in life. I got to a point where I said to myself I have to go and disappear for a while,
go be normal and do normal things. Instead of being on the road all the time, stay home, create an environment I
like to write music. There have been many experimentations involved in my upcoming material. I wanted to try and
push myself to the limit and I believe I've succeeded. For me, it's all about evolving and exploring areas I haven't
touched. That's why sometimes it takes a bit longer than expected, I don't just want to meet people's expectations,
sometimes I want to blow them away. There is so much music coming out week in and week out, the music is
evidently becoming more disposable and I would like to stay out of that chaos. When you stay true to your heart and
try to do something different you put yourself in an uncomfortable situation, that's when you grow as an artist and
also as a person, but the satisfaction you get when you finish a work cannot be put into words.

Fresh on Francis Harris' Kingdoms imprint comes Rasmus Juncker's 'Ophold' - six tracks of sublime atmospheres and textures. The Danish musician, sound composer and DJ fits perfectly with the label's aesthetic, joining the dots between ambient, leftfield electronica and modern classical.

Juncker has a background in studying jazz drumming and has been playing improvised music within the jazz domain for many years. He also started to DJ at the age of 14 and was introduced to the world of electronic music production at the same time.

When Rasmus started to think about his debut album he spent several months trying to find his own way to combine his favourite musical influences, improvisation, electronics and classical music. 'Almost a year later', Juncker says, "I went to a sensory deprivation floating tank in Copenhagen while researching for another performance and while I was lying there, floating in the water, deprived from most of my senses, I got the idea to do something drastic in my musical process. Philosophers like Immanuel Kant describe this deprived state as a mental 'Cesura', which became some sort of guideline for the album."

So Juncker decided to start working on the album by leaving the process as well as the final result completely open. 'I wanted to create sounds and music that I had no idea what they would sound like, but would feel like a mental 'Cesura', an 'Ophold' (in Danish)' he states.

He invited musicians, one after the other, to his studio. "I had an electronic musician to improvise patterns and new interesting sounds based on my experience in the deprivation tank. I chose some of the takes and some weeks later I invited a jazz guitarist to listen and improvise on top of what he heard. Then a classical string quartet and a double bass player came to my studio months later, and finally I recorded myself on percussion and drums.

Throughout the recording process I've been experimenting with special microphones in various setups, used noises from the recordings and the room became absolutely essential for the pieces." Juncker states.

"The material I used was all first take improvision which I arranged, layered and edited into compositions. The final pieces were mixed by Andreas Pallisgaard with the same improvised and experimental approach of the recording and the production. None of the musician met each other, but their sounds developed into something completely fantastic I think. The presence of the acoustic instruments and the depth and complexity of the synthesized layers gave some kind of an indescribable sounding music from another galaxy.

Track by track:

'Norddrum' starts proceedings - ethereal, grainy sounds merge and disassociate, as a distant rhythm gradually finds its way to the fore.

The second track, 'Sora' , clocking in at under 2 minutes, is an interlude full of strings, pads, and percussive hits, rich in feeling. This strong sense of sound design and seemingly disparate sounds woven together into a whole carries through into 'Eksotisk Tirsdag' - the strings, plucked instruments and electronics harking back to 4th world adventurers like Jon Hassel and Brian Eno.

'Cyklus' dives into drone textures, pulsing and modulating to create an unearthly soundtrack.

'Havekunst' is another 2 minutes interlude, this time bringing a fully charged rhythmic barrage to the front.

'Cesura', the final track is in essence the EP's centerpiece - a sprawling 8 minute journey that traverses tense, fibrous sections and on into pulsing modular passages, before opening up into glorious moments of wonder and brightness. It's a hugely bold yet fragile endeavour, in line with the whole release.

After releasing his SAYS HI' EP in June, swedish producer 'sir Was' put finishing touches on his debut album DIGGING A TUNNEL'. Out via City Slang on March 10th 2017.

It took me 15 years to feel brave enough to do this!' confesses Gothenburg native Joel Wästberg, the guy behind the 'sir Was' alias. To reach the point where I could let myself do this was a long struggle. But once I felt less scared, it was kind of easy. It just came out, like: 'This is the sound!'' The sir Was sound' is built around supple grooves, is strangely haunting and yet inexplicably exhilarating, voices ricocheting off one another as they address loneliness, its solution and the requisite compromises. A jam session of Beck, David Crosby, J Dilla and D'Angelo might not sound much different to this yet unheard style. The unorthodox and exceptional approach of the recluse Swedish producer delivers one of the most exciting debut records of the spring.

Limited Edition Clear Vinyl

Includes 12' Vinyl and Deluxe CD album, 30 page hard back book

Now that I've been to Nashville,' Kylie Minogue says with audible affection, I understand. It's like some sort of musical ley-line...'

Golden, Kylie's fourteenth studio album, is the result of an intensive working trip to the home of Country music, a city whose influence lingered on long after the pop legend and her team returned to London to finish the record: We definitely brought a bit of Nashville back with us,' she states. The album is a vibrant hybrid, blending Kylie's familiar pop-dance sound with an unmistakeable Tennessee twang. It was Jamie Nelson, Kylie's long-serving A&R man, who first came up with the concept of incorporating a Country element' into Kylie's tried-and-trusted style. That idea sat there for a little while, with Minogue and her team initially unsure about how to bring it to life. Then, when Grammy-winning songwriter Amy Wadge's publisher suggested Kylie should come over to collaborate in Nashville, a city Kylie had previously never visited, something clicked. You know when you're so excited about something,' she recalls, that you repeat it an octave higher and double the decibels I was like that. 'Nashville! Yes! Of course I would!'. I hoped it would help the album to reveal itself. I thought 'If I don't get it in Nashville, I'm not going to get it anywhere.''

Kylie's Nashville trip involved working alongside two key writers, both with homes in the city. One was British-born songwriter Steve McEwan (whose credits include huge Country hits for Keith Urban, Kenny Chesney and Carrie Underwood), and the other was the aforementioned Amy Wadge, another Brit (best known for her mega-selling work with Ed Sheeran). It was then a truly international project: Golden was mainly created with African-German producer Sky Adams and a list of contributors including Jesse Frasure, Eg White, Jon Green, Biff Stannard, Samuel Dixon, Danny Shah and Lindsay Rimes, and there's a duet with English singer Jack Savoretti.

However, the album's agenda-setting lead single Dancing was, significantly, first demoed with Nathan Chapman, the man who guided Taylor Swift's transition from Country starlet to Pop megastar. If anyone knows how to mix those two genres, Chapman does. Nathan was the only actual Nashvillean I worked with. He's got a huge studio in his house, which is probably due to his success with Taylor... there's plenty of platinum discs of her, and others on his walls.' There's something of the spirit of Peggy Lee's Is That All There Is, of Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, even of Liza Minnelli's Cabaret about Dancing, a song which not only opens the album but sets out its stall, providing a microcosm of what is to come. You've got the lyrical edge, that Country feel, mixed with some sampling of the voice and electronic elements, so it does what it says on the label. And I love that it's called 'Dancing', it's immediately accessible and seemingly so obvious, but there's depth within the song.'

The experience of simply being in Nashville was an overwhelming one, before Kylie had even arrived. Once I knew I was going to Nashville, people talked about the place with such enthusiasm. They said without doubt I would love it and, I would come back with songs. They were sending lists of restaurants, coffee shops and bars. It really was a beautiful and genuine response and it felt like I was about to have a life changing experience and in a way, I did.' The reality came as something of a surprise, when she found a far more modern metropolis than the vintage one she'd envisaged. I thought it would be like New Orleans: little houses and bars, with music spilling out onto the street. It reminded me more of Melbourne: apartment blocks going up everywhere! The main strip, Broadway, where the honky tonk bars are, that's where the street was filled with music and it was just amazing.' Mainly, Minogue remembers the heat and humidity. It was 100 degrees. It was like it was raining with no rain.' She also relished the chance to wander around unrecognised, visit a few venerable music bars and soak in the atmosphere. I didn't get to the Grand Ole Opry or the music museums but I managed to go to a couple of the institutions there like The Bluebird Cafe and The Listening Room, and just by being there, through some kind of osmosis, you get this rejuvenated respect for The Song, and the writing of The Song. There's no hoo-hah around it. There's a singer-songwriter there, talking about the song and singing the song, to an audience who are there to listen. Although, I have to confess I was guilty of starting to clap too soon during a long pause at the end of one of the songs. The guy made a bit of a joke out of it and got a laugh from it, but I thought 'Of all people in the audience, no...''

It's probably no coincidence, therefore, that every track on Golden is a Kylie co-write, making it arguably her most personal album to date. The end of 2016 was not a good time for me,' she says, referring to well-documented personal upheavals, so when I started working on the album in 2017, it was, in many ways, a great escape. Making this album was a kind of saviour. I'd been through some turmoil and was quite fragile when I started work on it, but being able to express myself in the studio made quick work of regaining my sense of self. Writing about various aspects of my life, the highs and lows, with a real sense of knowing and of truth. And irony. And joy!'

The songwriting process allowed Kylie to get a few things out of her system. Initially, she admits, it was cathartic, but it also wasn't very good. I think I was writing too literally. But I reached a point where I was writing about the bigger-picture, and that was a breakthrough. It made way for songs like Stop Me From Falling and One Last Kiss. It also meant I had enough distance to write an autobiographical song, like A Lifetime To Repair, with a certain amount of humour. The countdown in that song: 'Six-five-four-three, too many times...'. I don't know if that will be a single, but I can just imagine a girl with framed pictures of past boyfriends, and kind of going 'Oh god, when am I going to get this right'' When she listens back to Golden, Kylie can vividly hear the Nashville in it. It is, she'll agree, probably the first time that a Kylie album has sounded like the place it was made. You wouldn't normally relate my songs to the cities. Can't Get You Out Of My Head sounds more like Outer Space than London. But Shelby '68, for example, was written in London but it was done with Nashville in mind. It's about my Dad's car, and my brother recorded Dad driving it! I don't think I'd have written a number of the songs, including Shelby '68 and Radio On without having had that Nashville experience.'

The latter, she says, is about music being the one to save you.' Throwing herself into the making of the record, she says, crystallised that idea. If there's one love that will always be there for you, it's music. Well, it is for me, anyway.' That song, in particular, carries nostalgic echoes of the golden age of Country, as heard through Medium Wave transistors and tinny home stereos in the distant past. Like any child of the Seventies, Kylie had a basic grounding in Country music, mainly absorbed from older family members. My Step-Grandfather was born in Kentucky and though he lived most of his adult life in Australia, he never stopped listening to his beloved Country artists.' If there's any classic Country singer whose imprint can be heard on Golden, it's Dolly Parton.

Kylie saw Dolly live for the first time at the end of 2016, at the Hollywood Bowl. It was like seeing the light,' she beams. It was incredible. Everyone, whether they know it or not, is a Dolly Parton fan. When I was in Nashville, I did pick up a T-shirt that said 'What Would Dolly Do' Maybe that should be my mantra.' And, whether consciously or otherwise, there's a timbre and trill to Kylie's vocals on Radio On that is distinctly Parton-esque. My delivery is quite different on this album,' she says. A lot of things are 'sung' less. The first time I did that was with Where The Wild Roses Grow. On the day I met Nick Cave, when I recorded my vocals, he said 'Just sing it less. Talk it through, tell the story.' This album wasn't quite to that extreme, but a lot of the songs were done in fewer takes, to just capture the moment and keep imperfections that add to the song. I remember on my last album, a lot of producers were trying to take out literally every vibrato they heard. And that's not natural to my voice. I mean, I can make myself sound like a robot, but it's nice to sound like a human!' Working within the Country genre also gave Kylie permission to write in the Nashville vernacular. Because we were going there, I wasn't afraid to have lines like 'When he's fallen off the wagon we'd still dance to our favourite slow song', 'Ten sheets to the wind, I was all confused', 'I'll take the ride if it's your rodeo'. The challenge of bringing a Country element to the album made the process feel very fresh to me, kind of like starting over. I started to look at writing a different way, singing a different way.'

If ever Kylie lost confidence in the Country-Pop concept, and found herself pondering This is great, but back in the real world - my real world - how will this work', Jamie Nelson was there to badger her into sticking to the path. We found a way to make it a hybrid with what we'll call my 'usual' sound. It had to stay 'pop' enough to stay authentic to me, but country enough to be a new sound for this album. The closer we zoomed in, and the more we honed it, I knew Jamie was right. We sacrificed good songs that weren't right for this album, because we wanted it to be as cohesive as possible. The songs that were hitting the mark were these ones, so we decided to be strong, and that's how we wrapped up the album. What he said, that stuck with me, was that 'I'd hate to get to the end of this and really wish we'd gone for it.'' Having worked with Kylie for so long, Nelson was able to put this latest shift of direction into perspective. He said 'You've traditionally done it throughout your career. You had your PWL time, then you did a complete turn when you went to deConstruction, then another complete turn with Spinning Around, and R&B dance-pop, and then another turn with Can't Get You Out Of My Head, icy synth-pop, and this is another one.' He was right. It felt like the right time to have a change sonically. New label, new stories to tell, and a new decade almost upon me.'

Kylie Minogue will, it's scarcely believable, turn 50 this year. This looming milestone is partly behind the album's title, and title track. I had this line that I wanted to use: 'We're not young, we're not old, we're golden' because I'm asked so often about being my age in this industry. This year, I'll be 50. And I get it, I get the interest, but I don't know how to answer it. And that line, for my personal satisfaction, says it as succinctly as possible. We can't be anyone else, we can't be younger or older than we are, we can only be ourselves. We're golden. And the album title, Golden, reflects all of this. I liked the idea of everyone being golden, shining in their own way. The sun shines in daylight, the moon shines in darkness. Wherever we are in life, we are still golden.' One of the album's shiniest moments is Raining Glitter, an exuberant banger which ventures closest to Kylie's traditional dance-pop comfort zone. Eg White, who is one of the producers and writers and a great character, was talking about disco one day. I said 'I love disco, but you know the brief.' We needed to be going down the Country lane, so to speak. But we managed to bring them both together. When I wrote it, I was thinking about the Jacksons video for Can You Feel It where they're sprinkling glitter over everyone. And I think there's a Donna Summer record that's got that feel to it. I think that's my job: I basically leave a trail of glitter after every show I do anyway.'

Kylie is looking forward to the challenge of incorporating the Golden material into her live shows. Mixing these songs in with my existing catalogue is going to be fun. And it could be fun to do some of those songs with just a guitar. It'll make my acoustic set interesting...'Her incredibly loyal fans - to whom one Golden song, Sincerely Yours, is intended as a love letter' - will, she believes, have no problem with her latest stylistic shift. My audience have been with me on the journey, so I shouldn't be afraid that they won't come with me on this part. I've had fun with it, and I'm sure they will too.'

The time spent making Golden has, Kylie says, been a time of creative and personal renewal. I've met some amazing people, truly inspiring writers and musicians. My passion for music has never gone away, but it's got bigger and stronger.' And if there's an overriding theme to the record, it is one of acceptance. We're all human and it's OK to make mistakes, get it wrong, to want to run, to want to belong, to love, to dream. To be ourselves.'

I was able to both lose and find myself whilst making this album.'

There are some records that manage to sound both of a time and utterly timeless and Bon Voyage Organisation's Jungle Quelle Jungle (a nod to Supertramp's Crisis What Crisis) is one of those albums. Its silken-smooth production, irresistible grooves, funk-tinged guitars, lush soundscapes and general glowing presence could easily lead one to believe that have dug up a lost disco gem from the 1970s. However, behind the disco-pop gleam lies eerie dystopian sci-fi ruminations of a futuristic bent and tones that can often feel as French as they do Asian or African.

This sort of cross-continental exploration is an expansion on BVO's previous two EPs, the man behind the Organisation, Adrien Durand, says. 'I tried to continue the musical expedition between dystopian Science-Fiction Haunted Africa - plus Haitian Vaudou on 'Soleil Dieu' - and futuristic Asia. Addressing, in a double entendre manner, some of the political issues that I am sensitive to.' In fact the jungle in question in the album's title is a metaphorical one and one that creates a vast series of environments for Durand to explore such subjects as world trade, utopian ideals and themes of idols, as well as of time and communication. However, one will need to speak French to decipher such explorations, as well as shake off the natural impulse to move with every glorious beat on its 13 tracks, of which are moved along by Maud Nadal and Agathe Bonitzer's golden vocals.

Durand is a full-time producer based in Paris, working with the likes of Amadou & Mariam, so it makes sense that this record would absolutely sparkle in this department. Durand feeds off the variety of musicians coming and going during recording sessions as well as the rotating members and numbers of people involved with the band but fundamentally he writes all songs on piano first before bringing them to record live. 'We recorded a rhythm section of five - drums, percussion, guitar and myself on bass/synth bass and keyboards - at La Frette which is a studio located in a mansion outside of Paris and fitted with a beautiful 1973 NEVE desk. We only used analogue gear, by taste really, and found it a pretty reliable way of doing things. This simply consists of putting good players together in a room and waiting for the right take to happen.' Two four-day sessions and a 'cooling off' period (to let the recordings settle) soon followed before Durand picked the material back up to give it a final polish.

The resulting album is one loaded with intricacies and idiosyncrasies, something that Durand puts down to his own unique approach. 'I don't consider myself much of a songwriter but I love arranging rhythm sections and I'm pretty proud of the ones on this record.' This applies when it comes to working with such musicians as Inor Sotolongo Zapata, who with Durand used traditional Cuban percussive instruments and explored Haitian rhythms. When Durand expands on some of the ideas and influences that were funnelled into the record, you begin to get a sense of the vastness of the sounds that fill his world, from Trevor Horn's production work on ABC's Lexicon of Love, to the literary work of JG Ballard to the visual flair of the original Blade Runner and even the Tuareg sounds of Tinariwen, due to the fact that his studio neighbours their manager's and he would hear their rhythms bleeding through the walls. You therefore end up with an album that offers tracks such as 'GOMA' that fuses Chinese and African rhythms as well as 'SI D'Adventure' a piece of pop music that is dazzlingly hook-laden.

As a result of this cooking pot of sounds, influences, thoughts and creations, Durand has more of a gumbo approach to making this music than a set-out scientific formula. 'There is no definite recipe for me to like the production of a record,' he says. 'Of course it really sticks out that my work is really influenced by the 1978-1983 period, the golden age and last stand of analogue studios and session musicians.' Whilst Durand adores the traditional and conventional music, he really views this as something bigger and wider. 'I have a taste for the otherworldly vibe from records coming from less sought-after musical scenes, particularly Poland, Haiti, Ethiopia, Somalia, Congo and early Cantonese pop. Languages and the rapport of the people involved in the making of those records really inspires me. I particularly hate the use of the word 'World Music' as a potpourri for everything that doesn't sound quite western enough.'

Nat Birchall charts new paths toward spiritual communion, connecting jazz with classical Indian influences guided by the wistful flow of the harmonium.

Cosmic Language sees the UK-based saxophonist, composer and arranger return to Jazzman Records with a cross-cultural approach: an exploration of the parallel musical paths of jazz and Indian ragas. Here he takes influence from spiritual jazz forebears such as Alice Coltrane and Yusef Lateef and introduces the Indian harmonium to his band, where it takes the place of the piano. Making new connections to realise his transcendental ambitions, it's a logical next step in making music as spiritual cleanser.

The idea for the album was spawned from a one-off performance at a meditation centre, the Maharishi Golden Dome in West Lancashire. Seeking to bring a band set-up that was fitting to the quiet-minded setting, Birchall brought the harmonium with him. A small pump organ, it's an instrument he'd been in possession of for many years but hadn't previously used in his music. Building on the spiritual context of that show, and the associations of that instrument, it led naturally to the musical approach undertaken on the album.

Both the album and the show which preceded it were recorded with the same tight-knit group of players which have featured on Birchall's previous albums. All members of the group are part of the same like minded circle of Manchester-oriented jazz musicians, sharing stages and acquaintances with the likes of Matthew Halsall (a longtime collaborator with Birchall) and GoGo Penguin.

Birchall has always channeled wide-ranging ideas into music that's simple to understand, and this album is no exception. Album opener 'Man From Varanasi' is an ode to Bismillah Khan, one of Birchall's heroes of Indian music who hailed from the northern Indian city named in the title. It also sees him taking cues from the Indian raga tradition which, as with most other traditional Indian music, is a foundation which underpinned Khan's music.

Crucially, the ragas tap into the idea of of music as a means of spiritual release. As Birchall explains, "The whole act of making music is a spiritual experience. It's during performance and when playing music that I look for a kind of truth. It's with music where I find myself feel closest to attaining that 'enlightened' kind of feeling." "On rare occasions I've actually felt as though I was listening to the music being played rather than being involved in making it, almost like an out-of-body experience."

This natural feeling comes from Birchall's attitude toward jazz music. He sees it as an essential part of day-to-day life: instead of brightly-lit, occasional entertainment in lugubrious concert halls, he considers it an everyday, vital source of inspiration. At a moment where jazz-influenced music is undergoing creative renewal and wider appreciation, it's an important perspective that's found resonance elsewhere. His experiences and the world around him are filtered through his music, and he looks to have his music - be it live or on record - absorbed in the same quotidian way. "To me, it's an integral part of society, an everyday thing," he says. "You should hear the music every day."

Two New York latin soul bangers from legendary band leader Hector Rivera and Vocalist David Coleman.. Hector wrote and arranged for many famous latin Ray Barretto, Machito, and Tito Puente as well as releasing several Lps himself , these cuts come from his successful LP "At the party". Both sides have been spun by myself for years so happy to finally license them for the AOTN stable.

"I've been a massive fan of Klute since bagging Commercial Suicide 001 back in 2001. Then to release on Commercial Suicide myself in 2012 was a massive personal goal, so to now be releasing a remix he's done of one of my tracks, and be releasing it on my own label is a massive buzz and a proud moment for my little label." - Soul Intent

Album includes the singles Drew Barrymore' and Love Galore' featuring Travis Scott.

The recent release of the Love Galore' single and video were met with rave reviews from fans and critics alike, including Pitchfork, Stereogum, Billboard, Vibe and more. The Fader calls the track a smooth collaboration... SZA and Travis Scott display a magnetic chemistry (in the video)...,' while Paper summarizes the song as a perfect breezy springtime jam for your Carrie-Bradshaw-at-her-MacBook moods, and if you haven't caught major feelings for SZA by the time the song is over then we really have nothing further to discuss.'

SZA, one of the redefining voices of today's contemporary music era, entered the music scene in 2012 with her first critically acclaimed EP, See.SZA.Run. Following that, she released S in 2013 and Z in 2014, both to rave reviews. In 2013, SZA signed to Top Dawg Entertainment, being the first female artist to join the label. SZA wrote and performed on Rihanna's Anti Single Consideration' in 2016 and helped write Nicki Minaj and Beyonce's Feelin Myself' in 2014.

Born in Maplewood, New Jersey as Solána Rowe, SZA grew up listening to classic and avant-garde jazz, alternative, and rap. She renamed herself finding inspiration within the Supreme Alphabet: the 'S' stands for savior or sovereign, the 'Z' for zig-zag, and the 'A' for Allah.

Keysound Recordings presents a weightless album from label boss Blackdown. 'Those Moments' is his first solo LP, features fellow 'Margins Music' contributors Trim, Dusk & Farrah and, like the imprint's Rollage sub series, is centered at 130 bpm. Each of the tracks is a distillation of a fleeting moment. The tracks and LP itself are short and constrained, relying on only voices, synths and sub bass. The album came about in a quick intense burst and many of the tracks represent snapshots of brief instances - a bitter-sweet moment of inflection, a moment of positivity, digital over stimulation, awe, loss, intensity, anger, nostalgia, regret, honesty, relief and joy. 'I'd had a tough 6 months...' explains Blackdown. 'I'd had to hold it together and not lose my nerve. Early on in the months I'd so nearly had a massive, positive life change but... it slipped out of my grasp. I was so focused on holding it together, I couldn't allow myself to really write music. Then, when things resolved themselves, and I'd figured out this new weightless way of working, 'Those Moments' just came flooding out. I'd heard other musicians talk about this - but that had never happened to me.' Recent releases from Rinse FM's Blackdown include a contribution to the #SaveFabric CD, three 4 track 12's of the new Rollage sub series ('WDYM!', 'Keysound Sessions Anthem' and the 'C-Troit' EP) and a remix of Jamakabi & Terror Danjah's 'Juicy Patty.'

'Less thought, more direction and purpose, less catering, more expression...'

This was Savile's mantra as he sculpted his 'Compersion' EP for Mike Simonetti's 2MR and it's a mantra we should all subscribe to. It's come about through his introspective analysis during the creation of his most succinct and starkest exploration date.

''Compersion' is a record about wrestling my own beliefs, both personal and political. It's about experiencing the anxiety and absurdity of loving a partner and ultimately myself. The sounds, tempos and arrangements found here are the result of further experiments with editing tracks to their absolute minimum. I tried to work these songs like I am working on me. Less thought, more direction and purpose, less catering, more expression.'

And more detail; throughout every stripped back heavily-edited sensation the conceptual EP provides, the meaning and message is palpable. Each track title inspired by Jenny Holzer and Helmut Lang's revolutionary provocative, sexualisation of the art space in Florence Biennale, 1996, there's a tangible physicality felt throughout...

The heavy breathing rhythmic elements of the electroid 'Talk Smile Bite' and its bedrock bedspring funk; the playful switch between breezy broken beats and driving techno coupled with minimal sample craft and literal message of an instantly recognisable vocal on 'Watch Scan Wait'; the much heavier, intense techno pressure of 'Tease Breathe Smell' where the heart is on the sleeve and it's palpitating wildly with direction, purpose and true expression.

A smart concept from a Smart resident, Savile has achieved something special here; a provocative model a deep self-construction and, above all, three damn fine pieces of techno.

You probably don't know this disco banger, I think there is about 4 or 5 known copies on 7", everyone who has a copy has been keeping it quiet. I first heard it from David Haffner about 4 years ago and had been after it since then.
After a lot of research I came to the conclusion the everyone involved had passed away, but months after giving up after I spotted Benita's full name on another related LP credited as a backing singer.
I was then able to track down Benita who was alive, well and surprised and very happy to hear from me. This one is a beast and will fly out
(I find myself saying this far to often).

There is no end to composer Peter Broderick's creative output, and so we present to you his new album titled All Together Again — available worldwide on November 17th 2017 via Erased Tapes.They say music takes you on a journey, and this collection of commissioned work by Peter quite literally does that. From a ferry boat ride in Istanbul, to walking down the aisle at a wedding, these songs were created for particular situations, yet Peter found a way to work without any sort of limitations and on his own erms. The result is an assortment of works from the past ten years, coming together as one: Peter's new album. Words from Peter, October 2017: Ever since I started releasing records in 2007 (10 years ago now!), people have contacted me periodically to ask if I'd be interested in making music to accompany their projects. Most of these projects have been things like films, dance pieces and theatre plays . . . but every so often I get the odd request for something a little different. Peter, would you write a song for my wedding My one year anniversary A ferry boat ride
In early 2015 I was asked to perform 12 minutes of music during a runway show as part of New York Fashion Week. I agreed and began composing a 12-minute piece which I could perform on my own with a few different instruments and some looping pedals. I made a recording of the piece and sent it over to my contacts at the fashion show . . . but a few days before I was to fly out to New York, they wrote back and told me they actually just wanted me to play a few older songs that they were already familiar with. Feeling slightly disappointed, I shelved the other piece, giving it the title If I Were A Runway Model.It is with great pleasure that I now present this piece in a collection of commissioned works spanning the last decade . . . it's All Together Again. This group of oddball works does indeed include a couple pieces written for weddings (Our Future In Wedlock and The Walk), and a song someone asked me to write as a gift for his wife on their first year wedding anniversary (Emily). And indeed, there's a 17-minute piece written to accompany a ferry boat ride in Istanbul (A Ride On The Bosphorus). A few of the pieces were written for films (Robbie's Song, Atlantic and Seeing Things), and one for a kind of interactive installation (Unsung Heroes).In my early days of recording, I took pride in playing all the different instruments myself and doing the recording myself as well. And then at some point I started branching out, working with other musicians and recording engineers. But this record is very dear to me in that it's a return to that original approach . . . playing all the different instruments myself, working with my limits on each one, and my own limits in recording and mixing. I've always held a broad curiosity for all different instruments and all different styles of music, and if nothing else I hope this record will portray that curiosity, and my pure love for this thing we call music. Can you dig it The cover art was made by Peter himself in his hometown of Portland, Oregon, by cutting and sticking different coloured paper fragments to depict the individuality of each track.

The newest 12 on Voodoo Down Records marks the debut appearance of longtime friend of the label Jordan Lieb a.k.a. Black Light Smoke. Jordan played an instrumental part in the NYC label Scissor & Thread, and has spent recent years honing his live set in front of crowds ranging from BPM, Robot Heart, and fabric. The Depression Sleeping EP is a collection of tracks from his archives from the past decade that have been updated and remixed. The theme of the record is his struggle with sleep and insomnia. Per the artist:'Releasing these songs form my past reflects my effort to embrace myself, the good and the bad, and to channel my personal battles into a creative process.

Grammy-winning singing sensation Gregory Porter - one of the most successful jazz artists of his generation - is back with a new album, 'Nat King Cole & Me', to be released on Decca/Blue Note on 27th October. It is a deeply personal tribute to Nat King Cole - the legendary crooner who ignited Gregory's love of music. It's only natural that I go to the root of my inspiration and where I come from. And that root would be my mother and gospel music and Nat King Cole,' he says.

Recorded at London's AIR Studios, the 12-track album features some of Gregory's favourite Nat King Cole tunes including 'Smile', 'L-O-V-E' and 'Nature Boy'. There is also a Nat-inspired arrangement of Gregory's own song 'When Love Was King', originally released on his million-selling hit album, 'Liquid Spirit'.

For Gregory Porter, the influence of Nat King Cole on his life and music runs deep, a through-line that reaches back into some of his earliest childhood memories, and culminates in the release of his new album 'Nat King Cole & Me'. Gregory explains, At five or six years old, Nat's music filled a void in me. My father wasn't in my life and wasn't showing interest in me or raising me and Nat's words were the life lessons, words of wisdom and fatherly advice I needed.'

Gregory's love for Nat's music blossomed so much that he wrote a semi-autobiographical musical, also called 'Nat King Cole & Me', which premiered in 2004. After the play, I felt a lighter feeling about my father and a deeper appreciation for both my mother and the great music of Nat King Cole,' says Gregory. He also found his voice through his own songwriting - It wasn't until I wrote the musical that I was fit to call myself a songwriter. Before that, I would write different poems but they had no music.'

'Nat King Cole & Me' is the follow-up to his Grammy-winning albums 'Liquid Spirit' (2013) and 'Take Me to the Alley' (2016). 'Liquid Spirit' took Gregory from being the biggest name on the jazz scene to being one of the most sought-after singers around today, performing sell-out shows across the UK and being invited to perform on high profile TV programmes including The Graham Norton Show, Strictly Come Dancing and the BBC Music Awards. He has become an adopted national treasure in the UK, having sung for the Queen multiple times, as well as major music festivals including Glastonbury, where he performed on the Pyramid Stage alongside the likes of Muse, Adele and Coldplay. Gregory's ability to transcend genres even extends to his surprise dance hit 'Liquid Spirit Claptone Remix' which became one of the most popular tracks in Ibiza.

After winning over audiences with his rich and soulful voice, there can be no better time for Gregory to return to the music which first inspired him to become a singer. On Nat's legacy and influence Gregory affirms, He was one of a kind. He left such great music - such beautiful things to listen to that you can't help but be influenced by that extraordinary timbre, style, and ultimate cool.'

Cardiff's Chain of Flowers return to Alter with their first new material since 2015's self-titled debut album. A double A sided single, 'Let Your Light In' and 'Flesh, Blood and Bone' are two tracks which see the band moving beyond the dense shoegaze sonics of their debut, bringing forward a more spacious and streamlined sound that emphasises the powerful urgency of their live performances.

Despite 'Let Your Light In' offering a more optimistic tone to what fans of their debut may be used to, the charismatic guitar hooks, hazy vocals and fist-to-the-horizon anthemic qualities of the group are no less present. On this new found optimism, vocalist Josh explains: "Relationships of all kinds keep this world moving. We live in times of profound darkness, though I somehow find myself lucky enough to be surrounded by people that pour some light and inspiration back in to my life and this is not to be taken for granted. This song is an ode to love and companionship around the world, a gratuitous nod to the better aspects of the human race. A thank you for being you."

'Flesh, Blood and Bone' on the other side appears to follow a darker and more pensive path at first with Josh singing at his most baritone and ominous. However when the chorus hits with its searing synthesiser melody, a switch is flipped. Musically it channels perfectly the bombastic new wave ambition of early Simple Minds, alongside the dramatic post-punk melancholy of the Chameleons. With this, Chain of Flowers are evidently making an effort to find a light within the darkness of the world and their own collective souls.

RDV, the new imprint from French DJ & producer Molly, presents its first release, from Prophets of a New Generation (aka Michael Zucker & Pete An).RDV , the abbreviation of« Recits de Voyage » will simply be a meeting with artists that I have crossed paths with during my travels - a platform for my very talented friends, artists I really like, and also music from myself. This project was in my mind for so many years. It was not until now that it felt like the appropriate time to realize it, but I feel ready now to help push new talent & music from people I love.' - Molly

Immer noch unerreicht2001 der Hammer - 2007 ein Klassiker! Der House-Rap-Techno-TripHop-Mix des Londoner DJ-Kollektivs Faithless wird vor allem von den Fans als das Beste bezeichnet, was Faithless in den vergangenen Jahren veröffentlicht haben. Wie wahr: sanfte Grooves, sweet Melodies, wummernde Beats und sphärische Gesänge machen Lust auf mehr. Anspieltipps: "Donny X", "Evergreen", "We Come 1" und "Crazy English Summer".

Critical Music reaches its 100th release in its 15th year, celebrating with the landmark album Fifteen Years Of Underground Sonics. Spanning the broad spectrum of drum & bass that the Critical sound represents, the exceptional 15 album is as bold as it is beautiful and looks to serve the test of time in the D&B history books.

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Kasra Critical

Planet Mu are very excited to announce Jlin's long awaited second album Black Origami'. A percussion-led tour de force, it's a creation that seals her reputation as a unique producer with an exceptional ability to make riveting rhythmic music. Black Origami' is driven by a deep creative thirst which she describes as this driving feeling that I wanted to do something different, something that challenged me to my core. Black Origami for me, comes from letting go creatively, creating with no boundaries. The simple definition of origami is the art of folding and constructing paper into a beautiful, yet complex design. Composing music for me is like origami, only I'm replacing paper with sound. I chose to title the album "Black Origami" because like "Dark Energy" I still create from the beauty of darkness and blackness. The willingness to go into the hardest places within myself to create for me means that I can touch the Infinity.' Spirituality and movement are both at the core of Black Origami', inspired largely by her ongoing collaborations with Indian dancer/movement artist Avril Stormy Unger whom she met and collaborated with at her debut performance for the Unsound festival - 'There is a fine line between me entertaining a person and my spirituality. Avril, who collaborates with me by means of dance, feels the exact same way. Movement played a great role in Black Origami. The track "Carbon 7" is very inspired by the way Avril moves and dances. Our rhythms are so in sync at times it kind of scares us. When there is something I can't quite figure out when it comes to my production, it's like she senses it. Her response to me is always "You'll figure it out". Once I figure it out it's like time and space no longer exist.' Similar time shifting/folding/disrupting effects can be heard throughout the record - especially on Holy Child' an unlikely collaboration with minimalist legend William Basinski. She also collaborates again with Holly Herndon on 1%', while Halcyon Veil producer Fawkes' voice is on Calcination and Cape Town rapper Dope Saint Jude provides vocals for Never Created, Never Destroyed . Jlin will be touring extensively this year and is currently lining up appearances including Sonar festival. Later this year she will be collaborating in London with acclaimed UK choreographer Wayne McGregor who played her music recently on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs and described her music as quite rare and so exciting".

Al Massrieen: Disco, Funk and modernized Arabic Pop from Egypt

In the beginning of Habibi Funk, our search was focussed on vinyl records. Around a year ago though, we got to the point where we realized that it became substantially harder to discover music, that we enjoyed and hadn't heard before. It became apparent that it was time to start looking for other formats. Cassette tapes were the obvious alternative. These were introduced in the arabic world around the late 1970s. In some countries they took over a bit earlier, in others a bit later, but eventually they pushed the vinyl format out of the market in the 1980s. In Egypt this trend already even started in the late 1970s.

Al Massrieen was one of the first bands I learned about once I discovered the tape format for myself. They were really popular in Egypt in the 1970s and the more of their music I found on either tapes or Arabic pirate mp3 sites, the more I was becoming a fan. Only very few bands from the region can match the band's versatility as well as their strive for innovation. Hany Shenoda is the man behind the Al Massrieen band. He is a reknown figure of the Egyptian music scene and has worked with everyone from Abdel Halim Hafez to Mohamed Mounir. Al Massrieen was his attempt to introduce his ideas of modernizing Egyptian music, heavily encouraged by Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt's only winner of the Nobel Price for literature) after discussing his ideas with him.
Al Massrieen's sound goes from lush disco like 'Sah' to psych rock like 'Horreya' or incredible jazz fused pop on songs such as 'Edba Mn Gded'. I was shocked to realize the band seemed to be hardly known outside Egypt, even though I feel they're at least on the same level as Ahmed Fakroun. An relative obscurity which I largely attribute to the fact that their releases never have been pressed on vinyl (apart from a Greece best of LP which wasn't a strong compilation of the group's songs). One way or another it felt like this band and especially their composer, band leader and overall brain Hany Shenoda was in need to get some recognition outside of Egypt. The release is fully licensed from the band and comes with an extensive booklet with liner notes, interviews and unseen photos.

'This is a journey into sound...,' These familiar words, accompanied by the rumble of a distant train, signal the opening of 'Let's Take A Trip', the sophomore album from Terrel Wallace aka Tall Black Guy. Since 2013's '8 Miles To Moenart' TBG has cemented his position as a standard bearer for the current hip-hop / beats scene. Born in Detroit and now residing in the UK, Wallace's signature style of incredibly clever sample flips and deft production chops has won fans across the globe including Gilles Peterson, Lefto, Jazzy Jeff and House Shoes.

Since his debut release in 2011 (a daring and addictive flip of Fela Kuti), TBG has become revered for his unique take on soulful hip-hop production. The swing of the drums, the textures of the instrumentation as well as a fearlessness in taking on the classics (his Soundcloud page includes flips and chops of tracks from James Brown, De La Soul and Michael Jackson) have marked him out from the crowd. One of the best-kept secrets in the scene, his singular talent is now beginning to get the recognition it deserves. In the last 12 months he has remixed Little Dragon and been invited to take part in Jazzy Jeff's Playlist Retreat alongside the likes of Eric Lau, James Poyser, Ali Shaheed Muhammed, Questlove and countless others.

For this album Wallace had a simple inspiration: 'This album is all about taking a journey. As simple as that. Be it physical, emotional or spiritual. It's asking and answering personal questions from myself within some of the tracks and also touching on social issues i.e. racism, inequality and privilege...that have been at the forefront of my mind over last three years.' Sonically there is also a shift: 'Jazz has definitely been more of an influence in this project, as I have been really inspired by so many up and coming musicians who I've been blessed to connect with'. Some of these musicians, including Kenny Keys, Miles Bonny, Diggs Duke and Dee Jackson feature on the project as well as regular collaborators Ozay Moore and Mario Sweet and fellow Playlist alumni Daniel Crawford and Masego. But this is one man's vision, and for Tall Black Guy this trip is just the beginning...,.

Phonica Records is extremely proud to unveil the next release on its Special Editions imprint; the stunning debut album 'Vuduwave' by Niños Indigo.Niños Indigo is the alias of audiovisual artist Valeria Hernandez. Developed over the course of a month, the album was recorded in Hernandez's home country of Chile and recorded in a single week, resulting in a flowing, organic yet otherwordly listening experience. Valeria explains; 'This record is a compilation of influences that have been inside me a long time... they keep coming back; Afro drums, Hindu instruments, Candombe, Psychedelia in South America. The rhythm of what surrounds me; the lake, the forest near where I live, the calm that surrounds it, the love of my friends and daughter. All of these feelings are what I like to put in my songs, a reminder to value the simple, to seize the resources that I have and to try and free myself of what's on my mind.'Originally released on digital and cassette label Discos Cetaceos in 2014, it's a recording that truly deserves to be given a new lease of life on vinyl.

'I take my guitar and strum and sing some tings and blow people's mind. But I ain't trying to do anybody's music. I'm doing what I feel' - Shadow

When it came out in 1984 the far-out album Sweet Sweet Dreams by Trinidad & Tobago's Shadow (aka Winston Bailey) was described as 'way ahead of its time'. Undeservedly it was panned by critics and, unable to reach markets, disappeared into the dusty record collections of a few music aficionados. Now, more than three decades later that cosmic dance-floor UFO is about to take off again, change all that and set the record straight. Remastered and cut by Frank Meritt at The Carvery the album is truly a masterpiece.

But who is this Shadow behind Sweet Sweet Dreams Shadow is a man of understated magnitude. A truly enigmatic artist, he first emerged in Trinidad and Tobago during the 1970s, becoming a part of the tapestry of Caribbean music and reinvigorating calypso at the time. Calypso, the indigenous folk music of Trinidad and Tobago, has roots in West African kaiso rhythms, French Creole influences, and the hardships endured by the African slaves brought to Trinbago, whose descendants still use it as a tool for satire, self-expression, and social commentary. Calypso has also given birth to several other music genres, including soca, with its uptempo beats and festival context. Shadow effortlessly moves between both.

Shadow came from a humble but musical family and started writing songs as a youth while tending cattle in the fields. To his family's initial chagrin he chose calypso over church music but his talent and drive were undeniable. In the early days of his career Shadow's style was cramped when working with some of the more conservative music arrangers who felt that calypso and soca should fit a mould. But after a while Shadow teamed up with more innovative arrangers, including Arthur 'Art'de Coteau, who followed their and Shadow's intuitions resulting in a long line of hits.

'The first time we met for me to arrange his music we had a heated argument on the arrangement for one of his songs, I was theoretically correct but Shadow was musically right. Shadow broke all the traditional musical rules and made his own and that made him a musical giant. He changed the face of Calypso music in 1974 with the release of "Bassman" a tune in which Bass and magnificent horn line took central stage changing Soca music for ever. What Shadow did with his music was to put calypso on the International Dance circuit, giving it a totally different groove. You could take his music and swing it in any direction, Disco, Pop, Calypso, you name it. His music was different from anything that existed before'. - Carl "Beaver" Henderson, one of Trinidad's veteran producers.

This inert creativeness culminated in Sweet Sweet Dreams which was arranged by Shadow and deals with burning and ever-relevant themes like love and the ups and downs of relationships. a surprising fact for someone mainly known for his satirical and political lyrics. It prompted his manager to wonder if Shadow had written the lyrics while in a state of 'tabanca' (a word used in Trinidad and Tobago to describe lovesickness).

Sweet Sweet Dreams was recorded at the legendary SHARC studios, located on a hill in Chaguaramas (near Port of Spain) and despite a fantastic sound and monster Soca-boogie tunes like 'Lets get it together', 'Lets Make it Up' and 'Way, Way Out' the album was a commercial flop, probably due to the fact that it didn't sound like anything else coming out of Trinidad & Tobago at the time: It fused a range of different rhythms and new sounds, primarily heavy synth riffs.

Shadow took the album's lack of success in his stride with usual aplomb:
'When I did Sweet Dreams I expect something could happen. But nothing big happen because I have no big market and no distribution and all this thing now. So I just cool myself and move on to another song. I wasn't doing just one song. I used to always have plenty songs at the one time. And be writing music'.

What Shadow didn't realise back then was that the proto-electronic cocktail he had mixed in 1984 would only find the recognition it deserved three decades later. Life has swung full circle: Sweet Sweet Dreams has come true and been elevated to holy grail status becoming one of the most sought-after Caribbean disco records in existence.

For this re-release we carried out extensive interviews with Shadow and the musicians and have included as bonuses exclusive photos from Shadow's personal collection and the dancefloor filler tune 'D'Hardest' was added as a bonus track.

Debut album from Pacific NW rising star, named "Best Electronic Act" in 2015 by the Seattle Weekly. ** Past Press Coverage as included: A NPR Weekend Edition Feature, Spin, Stereogum, KEXP Live in studio performce, CMJ. ** Past performance highlights: Bonarroo Decibel Festical, Bumbershoot, Capitol Hill Block Party, Sasquatch Festival, What The Festival, & Bonnaroo, as well as national tours with acts like Emancipator, Blockhead, Blackbird Blackbird, Chad Valley, Yppah, ** First single from the album "What We've Got" feat. Flint Eastwood passed 500,000 Spotify plays and 135,000 Soundcloud plays in a month's time.

Amidst the lush environs of his northwest roots, Manatee Commune has fermented an organically molded electronic sound that has been teasing the synapses of audiophiles over the last few years. While not a stranger in the Pacific Northwest, Grant Eadie's tracks have grown tentacles that stretch deep into the dance floor, fueled by natural overtones that he extracts from field recordings. Following the head-turning EP 'Thistle' on Brooklyn-based label Bastard Jazz Recordings (Illa J, Lord Echo, & others) from earlier this year, he comes to the label armed with violin arrangements, nuanced programming and pressure-sensitive LED drum breaks peppering the audio-visual experience of his participatory live performances. His debut album Manatee Commune is set for a September 16th release on Bastard Jazz, and displays the elevated confidence and deft touch of a producer truly finding his footing. Already opening for Bonobo, and recently touring with Chad Valley and Blackbird Blackbird, Manatee Commune has been featured on NPR, Stereogum, and Spin, amongst other outlets.

Eadie describes the inspiration behind his approach: "Learning how to share my creative process with my friends completely revolutionized the last of year of music for me. Inviting those I trusted and loved into my studio to spend even just an hour talking or jamming opened fountains of inventive energy for me, especially from the ones who lacked any musical knowledge. I soon found myself incredibly inspired by the originality of even the smallest interactions with people, and so I pointed my field mic at anyone who had a story, a melody, or a stumbling beat they had been absentmindedly drumming, all in the hopes of capturing their individuality and framing it with my ever expanding insight into audio production."

Reimagining his musical approach by opening his studio and microphone to friends, collaborators and loved ones, Eadie was able to release fountains of inventive energy from these deeply personal interactions, inspired by anybody who had a story, a melody or a stumbling beat to share. Key elements are amplified that get Manatee Commune audiences bouncing, while cultivating his warm and textured production aesthetic to further complexity, layer by shimmering layer.

Owner operator of Finale Sessions Music Michael Zucker has brought you a sister label called future sessions music to showcase his own music with close friends and family and we are excited to able to share this label with you. Starting with our first release with the detroit veteren Norm Talley and Finale Sessions veteren Michael Zucker and we will start with Norm Talley's music first with the track called 'power 'it has the sublime detroit deep sound with its sharp chords and that pumping deep kick and claps and it also has additional work from another detroit legend delano smith but what makes this track is the fantastic vocals from the soul. Track two 'lock jaw' is just raw beatdown late night track with deep chicago classic sound with a pumping kicks and mind altering synth. Then next we have Michael Zuckers first track 'parisian nights' with it's classic filtered classic chicago sound with proper pads and chords with a vocal drifting in and out of the spectrum . Track two ' thought process' is just an amazing deep inspired melodic trip with key's and that classic b4 organ that sets the tone for the pads and that lifted filtered sound . We are excited to be able to work together Norm Talley and myself and we hope you enjoy this journey also.

James K is a stranger to obviousness. Over the past few years the New York native has quietly honed her sound and peculiar aesthetic. Equally organic and electronic, her sound is a combination of odd dreams, industrial beats and vocals, both incomprehensible and appealing, with a thick layer of glitter on top of it. James K is a concentrated dose of emotion mixed with sorrowful iciness, which in turn ties together ripped, broken, morphed and enchanted samples. James K stands for a fusion of visual and sonic elements, deeply rooted in conscious art practice and downright freak-out. James K creates a mythology of her own.
'PET,' her first LP due out in early 2016, will be a co-release with Dial and her own label, She Rocks! A special edition of the album with added bonus tracks and interludes with be released on cassette through Canadian label 1080p.
In James K's words: 'The underlying desire of 'PET' divides into two parts: an escape into ethereality and a mischievous denial of my own experience. It narrates my search for honest expression by means of the premature denial- a childish excursion into a world of monstrosity and innocence.
PET reflects my mental state during its production - as a person, I was owned, objectified and hurt by other, and that wound I then unwillingly internalized. I turned to my music as a way to dissect these thoughts. The product became my possession, or 'pet.' In retrospective, this process gives me strength over myself; love—knowledge and wisdom enacted. The arrangement of the music and the PET itself relates to my endless struggle, namely, my attempts to reclaim myself.'
Her 'Sokit' 7' is a double track single for her album, which she released last Spring. James K is featured on the recent compilation released by Dial Records for their 15-year anniversary, and a mini LP of her noise pop project SETH (along with producer Gobby), was also recently released by label 1080p in June, in cassette and digital form. She rocks.

'Escape from Reality' as first track, goes down as a bleeping submarine, deep diving into underwater caves where a slow and hypnotic rhythm reverberates through ears and mind. Second cut 'Alchemy' continues the interdimensional explorations, and after long intro, it gradually detaches from the surface reaching a leaden sky. Drums and claps alternates on a soundscape of constant roars, holding the track in a steady mesmerizing jingle. The B-side opens with 'Found Myself', edgy broken beat with a stronger and more club-oriented dynamism which finds its best shot in the last cut 'Chain Reaction'. A ravishing synthline drives through tribalesque drums, snares and thunderclaps to close the record with a mystic vibe....

Veleno Viola is proud to present the 2nd release by italian artist Mace.

As economic complexity is boosting the financial industry, constantly increasing the demand for financial services, human perception of value changes and so do our reactions and our feelings. I asked myself whether nowadays we are witnessing a financialization of emotions.

Splendore Finanziario wants to reflect on the correlation between human nature and the financial system, considering the intensity and the way in which they're changing and giving a sonourous vision of their future developments

Pink vinyl jacked in gloss printed sleeve.

'My last record was a break up record and if I had to label this one I would call it a make up record. I'm making up with myself. making up for lost time. making up for everything I ever did and never did.'

Adele is set to release '25,' her highly anticipated new album, which will be available globally on Friday November 20th and is the first new music from her since her Oscar winning single 'Skyfall' in 2012. 

'Hello,' the debut single from '25,' will be available to buy and stream on Friday October 23rd. The cinematic video for 'Hello' will also be revealed on Friday October 23rd. It was shot in the countryside surrounding Montreal and is directed by the celebrated young Canadian director Xavier Dolan (Mommy, Tom at the Farm).

* Jon Gurd's Birth Right EP is the first material from the Portsmouth based Techno producer in more than 2
years since his ventures on Octopus recordings, 8 Sided Dice and Quartz. The EP therefore indicates an
audible step change not just in the approach to production but also in the mindset and emotive feeling
behind each texture and layer. Having emerged unscathed from a traumatic family related drama Jon
communicates a tortuous and re-evaluated life message across all 3 tracks, and is dedicated to his brother
with a hidden meaning conveying, Tomorrow Is - Promised - To No One'.

* Dissecting the EP further the educated are blessed with field recordings, analogue rumbling and modular
synthesis exiting from almost 24 months of lab driven experimentation. No real process has been applied or
extant formulae followed and the EP's resounding success is that this now exudes what Jon feels' innately
rather than what the industry wants, therefore the journey, endless noise making and experimentation gives
a balanced and exciting offering. Jon comments seriously my process for producing this has been all over
the place, literally stumbling on shit, slipping over my own creative vomit, workflow went out the studio
window on day one'.

* Having spent two years asking himself why he makes music, I think on first listen of Birth Right EP we will all begin to empathise why. Remixes kindly provided by Messrs Dave Clarke and Ancestral Voices (new project from Liam Blackburn formerly Indigo / Akkord).

* A long time-friend and recording partner of Alan Fitzpatrick, as well as one third of Mister Woo with Dave from Reset Robot, Jon Gurd is best known for his work on the likes of Octopus Recordings, 8 Sided Dice and Quartz. Abundant with field recordings, analogue rumbling and modular synthesis, his latest signing to Derelicht is a result of almost 24 months of lab driven experimentation, and marks an auspicious return from a musical hiatus that stemmed from a personal tragedy. From the off, 'Tomorrow Is' is a driving piece of techno complete with sinister undertones and menacing atmospherics, meanwhile 'Promised' focuses on a low-slung groove as tantalising synths operate on top. The last original, 'To No One', then exhibits a deeper vibe with ebbing pads and spectral chords. Dave Clarke's decadent rendition of 'Promised' ups the tempo whilst demonstrating commanding kicks, until Ancestral Voices, the new project from Liam Blackburn (Indigo / Akkord), strips back the beats of 'To No One' for a subdued subterranean workout.

* Press / Promotion: 3 x Co-ordinated PR Campaigns (In House campaign by Derelicht, Dispersion PR and EPM Music, 100 vinyl hand-distributed to leading editors, artists and tastemakers. Key editorials through Resident Advisor, Inverted Audio, Ran$om Note, Beat Vision, Slate The Disco, Magnetic Magazine, DJ Mag, Noise Porn, Mind Grub Audio, Portals, Elevated Culture. 1 x videos produced to support Dave Clarke remix
Tiefschwarz - 'Just Beautiful!'
Alan Fitzpatrick - Yeah massively into this, will play a lot. Thanks for sending.
Dustin Zahn - Feeling the original of "To No One." the chord/pads are hitting the right spot for me this morning! The remix is also a nice take on the original
Baikal - to no one and Derelicht are dope
Kirk Degiorgio - Dave's mix for me!
Bas Mooy - yep! A1 for me mate!
Ben Sims - a1 is the cut for me, heavy and heady but still has the groove
Benjamin Damage - Thanks for sending this, top work!
Bryan Chapman - really feeling this EP, fav is the Ancestral Voices remix, that downbeat vibe
Bryan Zentz - Wonderful, moody, and emotive...LOVE it
Carlo Lio - Actually feeling all of them. Something for every time of the night. Can see myself playing a few of these for sure
Lo Shea - Tomorrow is sick! Dave Clarke's remix is dope too.

Speedy Ortiz is proud to announce their sophomore album, Foil Deer, which will be released via Carpark Records on April 20th.

'Major Arcana' released in 2013 won them glowing reviews , features and several UK tours (highlights below):

- 4 PAGE NME FEATURE

- 9/10 LEAD REVIEW IN NME: 'One of the reasons 'Major Arcana' works so well is because it's addictive and fun. The guitars and bass sound incredible, like the last Deerhunter album without the Yankee Doodle Dandy'

8/10 Drowned In Sound : ' Speedy Ortiz are way too euphoric and glorious to suffer for their artfulness. Stripping away the frills, at heart Major Arcana is a mournful treasure that asks to be celebrated.'

*NME RADAR FEATURE: 'What's miraculous, though, is that Major Arcana doesn't sound at all self-pitying; it's torrid Slint-meets-Pavement rattle bolsters Sadie's relished words so that yelling along is an exercise in gleefully exorcising your own demons'

8.4 ON PITCHFORK: : 'There's the squalling, guitar-on-guitar carnage of Archers of Loaf, the grungy mysticism of Helium (Dupuis lifted the title Major Arcana from a book she was reading on black magic), and of course the deadpan wit of vintage Liz Phair ('I was never the witch that you made me to be,' Dupuis tells a burnt-out old flame on 'Plough', 'Still you picked a virgin over me').

Standard LP is gatefold, single black LP with chapbook, plus digital download card.
Deluxe LP Is as above but with metallic gold coloured vinyl, and sticker.(200 ONLY FOR UK)
CD comes in digipak with a folded poster approximating the chapbook in the LP.

Speedy Ortiz said they would get the flowers themselves. What a lark! What a plunge!

When considering Massachusetts' Speedy Ortiz, that line from Virginia Woolf comes to mind. Not only for the obvious echoes to DIY, a form and function that's characterized the band's nascency, but in the proto-feminist undertones driving much of their sophomore album, Foil Deer. "I'm not bossy, I'm the boss," Sadie Dupuis sings on "Raising the Skate," invoking in spirit one half of the Carter-Knowles clan and echoing the other's wordplay. And wordplay makes sense, considering Dupuis-the band's songwriter, guitarist, and frontwoman-spent the band's first few years teaching writing at UMass Amherst. She's drawn to the dense complexity of Pynchon, the dreamlike geometry of Bolaño, the confounded yearning of Plath-all attributes you could easily apply to the band's 2013 debut Major Arcana, which fans and press alike have invested with a sense of purpose and merit uncommon in contemporary guitar rock.

The group, including Mike Falcone on drums, Darl Ferm on bass, and new addition Devin McKnight of Grass is Green on guitar, have spent the last year on an almost endless cross-continental touring jag, tagging along with the likes of The Breeders, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, and Thurston Moore. That shift into full-time musicianship brought with it an attendant reordering of priorities when it came to songwriting, and the band members' lives in general. They would get the damn flowers themselves.

Dupuis wrote much of Foil Deer at her mother's home in the Connecticut woods, where the songwriter imposed a self-regulated exile and physical cleansing of sorts, finding that many of the songs came to her while running or swimming alone. "I gave up wasting mental energy on people who didn't have my back," she says. "Listening to our old records, I get the sense I was putting myself in horrible situations just to write sad songs. This music isn't coming from a dark place, and without slipping into self-empowerment jargon, it feels stronger." Many of the songs deal with a similar sense of starting over, editing out the unnecessary drama. "Boys be sensitive and girls be, be aggressive," she sings on "Mister Difficult."

And while their debut album was recorded on the fly, Speedy Ortiz spent almost a month in the studio on Foil Deer. Falcone's drums are taut, mechanistic; Ferm's bass ranges from the aggressive rattle of an AmRep classic to smoother, hip-hop inspired lines. McKnight, meanwhile, lends spacier, textural riffs to complement Dupuis' wiry, melody-driven guitar style. "The demos for our songs have always had tons of small details and production experimentation, but we never had any money to pay for more than a couple days in the studio, so the songs came out very live-sounding and guitar heavy," Dupuis says. It was recorded and mixed at Brooklyn's Rare Book Room with Nicolas Vernhes (Silver Jews, Enon, Deerhunter), with the record mastered by Emily Lazar (Sia, Haim, Beauty Pill), lending a more polished sound and a pop sensibility that will stand out to existing fans and new converts alike. For all the lyrical complexity and guitar-based excursions Speedy Ortiz have built their reputation on to this point, Foil Deer has a sense of light-footed fun. What's the point of doing things yourself if you're not going to enjoy the trip

Standard LP is gatefold, single black LP with chapbook, plus digital download card.
CD comes in digipak with a folded poster approximating the chapbook in the LP.

This EP was made during a period where my whole outlook on everything was transforming. The Voidloss project started as an investigation, I was conducting a lot of research and study on the mind, the occult, on different thought modes, and the Voidloss project represented this. The idea was about a leap in to the void. A leap of abandonment into the dark, with total acceptance, total commitment. The idea was to lose myself to the void. This was mainly a spiritual journey for me, and could be best explained by 3 things, the void of Miyamoto Musashi from Go Rin No Sho, The concept of the Tao from the writings of Lao Tzu, and the concept of the abyss from the works of Aleister Crowley. Part of this journey deep inside the self was frightening and horrific, the total loss of self, of all identity and ego, and part of it was beautiful and enlightening. I wanted the music to reflect this, and I wanted the music to change as I changed, as I went to and through all these interesting places. In essence this was about freedom. So fast forward some years and I felt I had sharpened my mind quite effectively, the music had twisted and changed and flowed with me. At the point I began making the music for this EP, I had grown quite angry with the amount of conformity I was perceiving in life. Politically, socially, musically, there was this drive of conformity in the world. I think part of it, and only a part, comes from the prevalence of social media, the need to belong and to be liked, the idea of judging yourself and your works through the perception of others. Musically I felt that within techno there was a tendency for the music to fit within a set of confines dictated by fashion and hype, and this was reducing the diversity of the music, it seemed also that the practices of commercial music were seeping in to techno as the music became more popular. Hype and business driven decisions, brand building and so on. I always felt techno was more about art, and I began to get frustrated. Equally I felt that politically there was less and less choice, as all decisions seemed to lead to the same outcomes. I became more interested in the concept of anarchism, of the idea that government was no longer needed. I have always in my life had a drive to question everything. I've always been 'naughty' and rebellious and done things my way, to my advantage or my disadvantage, I could never accept being anything other than myself all the way. If everyone walks in one direction, I will walk the other way, even if it takes me over the edge of a precipice, just to see what is there. All this stuff influences my music, and during the period of making this EP I was angry, kicking against the things I no longer liked or wanted, screaming dissent. There is a lot of anger and rage, and of course rebellion. I wanted the music to capture that unbridled fury you have when you are in your late teens, when you just start learning about yourself and you start rebelling and questioning things around the time the world is really pushing you to conform. I was soundtracking my own philosophical riot. Previous to this my Voidloss stuff had been more introverted, more pensive and melancholy, more self destructive, more cerebral. For this new music I wanted something more immediate but without being too obvious. In terms of the choices I made I still leaned more towards broken rhythms for beat structure. I find it very difficult to do anything interesting with 4x4 kicks any more, it's too rigid for me, it limits my freedom. I like the looseness you get from more 'drummer' like beats, I guess probably because I have been playing drums all my life. The challenge is to get the same rolling power from broken rhythms as you get from 4 to the floor. It's not easy, there is a ridiculous amount of trial and error and the rejection percentage is high. I also was trying to use less 'synthy' sounds. I wanted to try to take a more acousmatic approach to sound design. With the current modular synth revival in techno I was hearing a lot of 'old' synth sounds re-emerging, and this didn't seem like a progression to me. I wanted to make sounds that were hard to source for the listener, where they weren't sure if it was synth or real world sample, digital or analogue. This involved a lot of experimentation. My process involved a lot of field recording, especially with contact microphones, which open up a whole new world of interesting sounds. You are effectively recording sounds through objects in the environment, 'hearing' the world as these objects hear them, I was using guitars, feedback loops, handmade instruments as well. So I was combining this with different synthesis, granular synthesis, sample synthesis, physical modelling, FM synthesis and of course analogue. Everything was reprocessed and re-synthesised, I tried hard to obscure the source and make something new as much as possible. The stuff on this EP was part of my live PA for some time, so as I learned how the music worked live I could go back and make changes, sometimes the environment I was playing in transformed the sound as well, and so I would try to go back an incorporate this in to the music. For remixes I wanted to choose artists that I respected for their vision as well as for their output, so my list of people I wanted was extremely short. Inigo Kennedy has always been an artist I have respected greatly. His music has always been unique to himself, he remains outside of fashions and trends even though his name has become very big recently. He takes risks with his work, experimenting and exploring, yet remaining relevant to the club, and just tirelessly forging ahead, seemingly for the sake of art above all else. And he's just a really nice guy to deal with. His remix is everything I expected it to be in that it is the unexpected. Regis is another artist who forges his own path in music, you cant really even begin to discuss the avantgarde in techno without including his name, he is one of the foundation stones for artistry and the outsider mentality in techno. His music is always unique to his own vision, and along with it comes an interesting artistic philosophy taking in situationism, post punk and industrial ideology and a good dose of tricksterism ala PT Barnum, all of which comes out in his music and the way it is presented. The man is a truly singular force and it is an honour to have him on this record. Overall the concept here is that of rebellion and dissent. Of asking questions, following your own path, of maintaining some place in yourself that burns like a forest fire.

Whether or not I have succeeded I guess is down to the listener, I'm never happy with my music, I keep wanting to move forwards, or somewhere else, and am constantly trying and failing to capture some essence of perfection. But like Bukowski said
'It's the only good fight there is'