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With $10 Cowboy, Charley Crockett didn’t set out to make a themed record. He had released a concept album in 2022, the critically acclaimed Man From Waco, propelling Crockett to new heights and establishing him as one of the leaders of a sparkling revival of traditional country and folk music. For the follow up album, Crockett wrote freely, over a two-month period, as he wound his way across the United States on the back of a tour bus. The resulting songs—raw, personal, vivid portraits of a country in transition—ended up being connected after all. “This material is written at truck stops, it’s written at casinos, it’s written in the alleys behind the venues, it’s written in my truck parked up on South Congress in Austin,” explains Crockett. “A ramblin’ man like me, a genuine transient, is in a pretty damn good position to have something to say about America.” As the album unfolds, you begin to understand that a $10 Cowboy is anyone who has hustled to get by, who didn’t fit in, who has slept on other people’s couches, or the street, who has fallen down, gotten up, and ventured from home chasing a paying gig, or a new start. “Being out on the road gives you a first-hand experience of how different kinds of Americans see themselves as going through some kind of great struggle,” Crockett says. “The roughneck working the oil and natural gas fields in West Texas. The single mother raising kids by herself. The young man working a street corner because he thinks it's his only option. I would be dishonest if I said I couldn’t see the thread. Each of ‘em feel invisible. I am struck by the battles they are fighting internally, and the ways they have been entrapped by what America says they are.” The album was recorded at Arlyn Studios in Austin, produced by Crockett and his long-time collaborator Billy Horton. It was recorded live to tape, with anywhere from 6-12 musicians and backup singers on each track, giving the songs the feel of a live performance. It’s a sound Crockett has been after for years. “Reason I cut it on tape is because when you got the right people in the room, and the great players rise to the occasion when that red light is on and the tape is rolling, you get the magic of a great performance.” It's exactly what he achieved with $10 Cowboy. Regular bandmates Fox, Nathan Fleming, and Mayo Valdez are joined by some of the genre’s most talented players—Rich Brotherton, Kevin Smith, Dave LeRoy Biller, T. Jarrod Bonta and others, including a string quartet. Lauren Cervantes and Angela Miller sing on the album. While the musicianship and accompaniment are exquisite, they are also subtle, placed joyously, yet judiciously across the album. No, Crockett didn’t set out to write a themed record. Or, through his studied eye, to find America. But with $10 Cowboy, he might have done both.

Spanning more than two decades, Mike Kinsella's widely influential songwriting has steadily sharpened and evolved with each new chapter. In his solo vehicle as Owen (in addition to his roles along the way with American Football, Cap'n Jazz, the more recent LIES, and other collaborative ventures), Kinsella’s ability to seamlessly stitch jagged emotional currents into crushingly beautiful songs has remained at the forefront of his art. The Falls of Sioux, Mike Kinsella’s newest Owen full-length, represent a type of reinvention; feeling like the natural next step in Kinsella’s growth, both artistic and personal. The album perforates an established sound to explore unlikely musical ideas, while the songs document a time of moving through life-altering turmoil into brighter days. Heavy themes are turned over with a gentle hand, and Kinsella inhabits the deeper perspectives that come with hard-earned life experience. This contrast has become more distinct as Owen expanded from unassuming acoustic beginnings into more ornate production, reaching new levels of complexity and clarity by the release of 2020’s The Avalanche.

Keep It Simple!

That's what Tony Allen told me, whether on stage, in the recording studio or when we were working together on the album "The Source"(Blue Note 2017) in my studio. Obviously, if he repeated it at will, it's because it's so difficult, to express the essential, not to scatter, over-play, over-arrange. So natural for him, so constraining for others! For years he pushed us, the members of his group to develop our projects. I had something in mind, necessarily with him, unfortunately his unexpected demise decided otherwise.
It took a moment to accept his departure, to accept being a voice, to find a new path. The desire to continue the work started together, that of mixing styles, sounds to appropriate them and create new, authentic. The desire also to meet new people, another energy.
After composing music for this project, I asked my friend Ben Rubin, musician and producer to help me record it. I found in NYC what I was looking for, a sense of urgency, that of doing, generous and committed musicians. I knew Jason Lindner, a musician that I have been following for a long time and he was the first person I thought of for pianos and synthesizers. He has this ability to find new and powerful sounds, with a direct and unadorned playing. For the drums, I didn't especially thought about a musician whose playing could come close or far to Tony's. Ben suggested Josh Dion to me, I've been following him since his "Paris Monster" project, I love his ability to make his drums sound like a new instrument by playing the bass synth with his right hand, that forces him to keep it simple! He also plays 2 tracks in drum/synth mode on the album.
I'm also happy that he agreed to sing a song on this album.
So we recorded at the Figure8 recording studio in Brooklyn, Eli Crews providing the sound recording, we decided with Ben to create a powerful and assumed sound from the take. Many biases on the tones, whether on the drums and the keyboards. Back in my studio in Paris, I continued to search, to dig while recording additional saxophones, percussions and keyboards.

I met Tchad Blake during a week-long mixing seminar. His work on the album on is radical.
Keep it simple?
Difficult but I try to remain so on all the phases of evolution of this project, from writing to production, in the improvisation parts. Where I feel it the most is in the immediate joy of playing with Jason and Josh, of tweaking a few sounds in my studio to create the unexpected, surprise in the structures, authenticity. Simple as the desire to go towards something essential, to seek oneself, to find oneself, to doubt but also to invent oneself.

Malegra, Reyna Tropical's long-anticipated debut full-length album, is at once a vibrant arrival and an electrifying bridge. The album is a contemporary celebration and continuation of wide-reaching cultural traditions - from Congolese, Peruvian, and cumbia rhythms to revolutionary artists like lesbian Mexican guitarist-singer Chavela Vargas - these influences meld and are remixed through the distinctive lens of trailblazing guitarist and songwriter Fabi Reyna. Traversing themes including queer love, feminine sensuality, and the transformative power of intentional relations to the earth, Malegría spotlights narratives often pushed to the margins and offers them a sonic homeland. The portmanteau, born from a 1998 Manu Chao song by the same name, is akin to bittersweet and blends the Spanish "mal" which means "bad" and "alegria" which means "happiness." Malegria marks Reyna Tropical's return to centering creative joy and movement through music. Whether enjoyed during listening parties or infectious live sets, the music will move listeners and irresistibly command a jump - into action in protection of the land, into the arms of a crush, into your own power and fearlessness, into steady body rolls along to the beat. Malegria offers us all a chance to witness history in the making.

Das vierte Album Forgiveness Is Yours der Fat White Family um die Brüder Lias und Nathan Saoudi ist ein eklektisches, chaotisches und doch immer kohärentes Album, das keine Gefangenen macht.

Fat White Family sind zurück. Das lang erwartete vierte Album der Kultband aus dem Süden Londons, Forgiveness Is Yours, hat sie, wie alles, was sie bisher gemacht haben, noch mehr an die Grenzen ihres kreativen Talents, hrer Gesundheit, ihres Verstandes und ihrer eigenen Existenz gebracht. Die äußeren Feinde haben sich aufgelöst - vielleicht waren sie die ganze Zeit nur Halluzinationen. Nach der Veröffentlichung von "Serfs Up!" zementierten Fat White Family ihren Ruf als archetypische britische Post-Punk-Band des 21. Jahrhunderts - und brachten eine ganze Generation von Außenseiter-Punkrock-Gruppen hervor, von Shame und Black Country über New Road bis hin zu Black Midi und Fontaines DC, ganz zu schweigen von ihrer berüchtigten Live-Show, die es irgendwie schafft, Empörung und Chaos mit Gelassenheit und Schönheit zu verbinden. Das vierte Album Forgiveness Is Yours der Fat White Family um die Brüder Lias und Nathan Saoudi ist ein eklektisches, chaotisches und doch immer kohärentes Album, das keine Gefangenen macht.

Das vierte Album Forgiveness Is Yours der Fat White Family um die Brüder Lias und Nathan Saoudi ist ein eklektisches, chaotisches und doch immer kohärentes Album, das keine Gefangenen macht.

Fat White Family sind zurück. Das lang erwartete vierte Album der Kultband aus dem Süden Londons, Forgiveness Is Yours, hat sie, wie alles, was sie bisher gemacht haben, noch mehr an die Grenzen ihres kreativen Talents, hrer Gesundheit, ihres Verstandes und ihrer eigenen Existenz gebracht. Die äußeren Feinde haben sich aufgelöst - vielleicht waren sie die ganze Zeit nur Halluzinationen. Nach der Veröffentlichung von "Serfs Up!" zementierten Fat White Family ihren Ruf als archetypische britische Post-Punk-Band des 21. Jahrhunderts - und brachten eine ganze Generation von Außenseiter-Punkrock-Gruppen hervor, von Shame und Black Country über New Road bis hin zu Black Midi und Fontaines DC, ganz zu schweigen von ihrer berüchtigten Live-Show, die es irgendwie schafft, Empörung und Chaos mit Gelassenheit und Schönheit zu verbinden. Das vierte Album Forgiveness Is Yours der Fat White Family um die Brüder Lias und Nathan Saoudi ist ein eklektisches, chaotisches und doch immer kohärentes Album, das keine Gefangenen macht.

After 20 years of living on the road in different places, Six Organs of Admittance had returned home to Humboldt County - a far country, to some, but still part of the world through which creatures of all kinds are moving through and contributing to. And some of them are human. Alone together - forming connection and exchange out of thought and expression - no different from the people on the other side of the Redwood Curtain. It was there, where Six Organs had long ago emerged, in the name of everything cycling, of circles that spiral concentrically and remain unbroken, the new music was conceived. In moments, it was as if the future had somehow wrapped around 360 degrees; elsewhere, the systems and patterns inside the writing and recording only became evident later - like a recognition that cumulus and nimbus clouds which passed through the sky the day before contained familiar shapes. Informing the songs accordingly as he went, Ben picked up on modes both musical and lyrical, threading backward through the time of Six Organs of Admittance. Almost marinating in it as a way of life. Working on the music and the vocals, then spending some time with them while stepping away from them. Walking the dog and coming back to them Time is Glass is made of that kind of time. Alone time. Recorded in the visceral environs of home, Time is Glass is sharply focused, even as misty impressionist mountains float through the background. Sweet and spiny, "The Mission" sings its purpose, before turning abruptly to the orchestral rumble of "Hephaestus": rural industrial psychedelia, ecosystem goth, synths arcing to lift a helplessly earthbound community into the firmament above. Winding almost imperceptibly back into song with "Slip Away", the time of the record becomes clear, moves fluidly, relaxed but aware, from event to event. People and things coming around again. The intuit, passing through wormholes and time, sounding deep then dissolving into the universal. The acoustic sounds ringing, layered suddenly, then clear again. Explosions of a new kind of distortion. Ecstatic melodies. Communing. The space of a day. The space of a season. Time is Glass, and Six Organs of Admittance is here and will be here, again.

If the Chateau Marmont could sing. This would be it. Loren Kramar's voice vibrates with the shameless hum of a room after a celebrity exits Ecstatic aspiration. Doubt. Proximity. Desire. The album "Glovemaker" is about the skins we craft to be seen by the world, and Loren reminds us that we are all in drag. All exposed. No matter what gloves we slip on. "I'm a slut for all my dreams", Loren Kramar sings with Patti Smith brashness, "I'm a whore for them, I've got more of them". Loren's lyrics move like tinsel, shimmering bravely, then just as quickly, curling, fragile under the spotlight. Loren has always been obsessed with fame. Not with famous people, but with the electricity that perverts attention - the crushing desire to be truly seen. And all of Loren, and this obsession, is in this album. He grew up in the Valley, forced to hide his Barbies from his father, so the closet was a gorgeous Spanish ranch house on a gilded cul-de-sac crawling with celebrities. Naturally this gay boy wanted to be a child star so his mother secretly shuttled him to tap and jazz and figure skating lessons. "I've got hands and feet to put in the concrete", Loren croons, in "Hollywood Blvd", a song which clangs with brawny bravado. But "Gay Angels" reminds us that Loren's infatuation with stardom is inextricably linked with his queerness and his own desire to live outside of fear. To be famous is to be out. To be known. To be himself. "Glovemaker has become a kind of code for art making itself. A glove as a covering or mask that follows the contours of the life beneath it. As a song and a symbol, this is an album about studying and tracing a life - and then sharing what's there," Loren says. And his desire to share truth feels urgent. To listen to Loren is to understand there is no choice; the songs must tear through the air right now. This very second. "I see myself tearing and splitting and becoming a trampoline", he belts in "No Man," breaking our hearts right alongside his. Part poet, part theatrical diva, Loren loops together the tragedy of breathing on this planet, because like Eartha Kitt or Cat Stevens, Loren is at his core - an incredible story teller. This whole album is a shrine, a mantle atop a blazing fire of life, spread with the memorabilia of Loren; all of the pain and lust dazzling on unabashed view. This is a songwriter's album. Loren's lyrics are all his, and you feel it with every bright, Maraschino-cherry-like word that falls from his lips. "Like a lover, You scream and I shatter, I hit like a hammer" Loren sings. And we get to feel what Loren feels We live in his brain, riding his genre bending emotions, on a wave of modern pop. And the songs lift, they are anthems of belief, "Hollywood Blvd", "I'm a Slut", "Euphemism", "Gay Angels", are all odes to triumphing over the corroding powers of fear and doubt. And on this ride, Loren's voice is the guard rail, ever eager to stretch and transform, belting, talk-singing, multiplying, keeping us safe. "Glovemaker" slaps and soars. The album is an ecstatic overture to love and loneliness, to dreams and promises, to everything Los Angeles dangles. Buckle up. Loren knows how to craft space, how to move us through darkened bars, strobing arenas, beige carpeted bungalows and yellow lit highways. "How do you like LA?" Loren asks. I hope you love it.

Red Vinyl

If the Chateau Marmont could sing. This would be it. Loren Kramar's voice vibrates with the shameless hum of a room after a celebrity exits Ecstatic aspiration. Doubt. Proximity. Desire. The album "Glovemaker" is about the skins we craft to be seen by the world, and Loren reminds us that we are all in drag. All exposed. No matter what gloves we slip on. "I'm a slut for all my dreams", Loren Kramar sings with Patti Smith brashness, "I'm a whore for them, I've got more of them". Loren's lyrics move like tinsel, shimmering bravely, then just as quickly, curling, fragile under the spotlight. Loren has always been obsessed with fame. Not with famous people, but with the electricity that perverts attention - the crushing desire to be truly seen. And all of Loren, and this obsession, is in this album. He grew up in the Valley, forced to hide his Barbies from his father, so the closet was a gorgeous Spanish ranch house on a gilded cul-de-sac crawling with celebrities. Naturally this gay boy wanted to be a child star so his mother secretly shuttled him to tap and jazz and figure skating lessons. "I've got hands and feet to put in the concrete", Loren croons, in "Hollywood Blvd", a song which clangs with brawny bravado. But "Gay Angels" reminds us that Loren's infatuation with stardom is inextricably linked with his queerness and his own desire to live outside of fear. To be famous is to be out. To be known. To be himself. "Glovemaker has become a kind of code for art making itself. A glove as a covering or mask that follows the contours of the life beneath it. As a song and a symbol, this is an album about studying and tracing a life - and then sharing what's there," Loren says. And his desire to share truth feels urgent. To listen to Loren is to understand there is no choice; the songs must tear through the air right now. This very second. "I see myself tearing and splitting and becoming a trampoline", he belts in "No Man," breaking our hearts right alongside his. Part poet, part theatrical diva, Loren loops together the tragedy of breathing on this planet, because like Eartha Kitt or Cat Stevens, Loren is at his core - an incredible story teller. This whole album is a shrine, a mantle atop a blazing fire of life, spread with the memorabilia of Loren; all of the pain and lust dazzling on unabashed view. This is a songwriter's album. Loren's lyrics are all his, and you feel it with every bright, Maraschino-cherry-like word that falls from his lips. "Like a lover, You scream and I shatter, I hit like a hammer" Loren sings. And we get to feel what Loren feels We live in his brain, riding his genre bending emotions, on a wave of modern pop. And the songs lift, they are anthems of belief, "Hollywood Blvd", "I'm a Slut", "Euphemism", "Gay Angels", are all odes to triumphing over the corroding powers of fear and doubt. And on this ride, Loren's voice is the guard rail, ever eager to stretch and transform, belting, talk-singing, multiplying, keeping us safe. "Glovemaker" slaps and soars. The album is an ecstatic overture to love and loneliness, to dreams and promises, to everything Los Angeles dangles. Buckle up. Loren knows how to craft space, how to move us through darkened bars, strobing arenas, beige carpeted bungalows and yellow lit highways. "How do you like LA?" Loren asks. I hope you love it.

On the surface, Eric Slick's forthcoming LP New Age Rage is a dance record. Further listening reveals that it’s also a statement about our harrowing future - AI, self-driving cars, Twitter rage, mass media manipulation, and ultimately, the sin of perfectionism. It’s sonically influenced by the work of Yellow Magic Orchestra, Talking Heads, Kraftwerk, Todd Rundgren, Prince, The Residents, and DEVO. New Age Rage features many of Eric’s close collaborators: Natalie Prass, Finom (OHMME), Liam Kazar, Antibalas, Butcher Brown, Deep Sea Diver, and many more.

CLEARxCUT is out there to spread the message of total liberation. (Former) Members of HEAVEN SHALL BURN, IMPLORE, and KING APATHY/THRÄNENKIND started this collective, because they are dedicated to the vegan straight edge (XVX) and want to confront listeners with inconvenient thruths and todays harsh reality. The German band addresses their songs and convictions to all people who are prepared to stand up for a better, fairer future - but especially to all anarchists, anti-fascists, feminists, primitivists and indigenous peoples of the world. Or to put it brief: to all defenders of our earth. The stylistic choice of means falls on metallic hardcore, which is rooted in a strong DIY ethic. Having released their first two albums "For The Wild At Heart Kept In Cages" (2019) and "Songs of Desire Armed" (2022) for Catalyst X Records (Gather, Nueva Ethica, Abnegation, Birthright, Maroon, Point Of No Return, Forward To Eden), "Age Of Grief" now marks CLEARxCUTs debut for LIFEFORCE RECORDS. Started in the mid-1990ies as label with mainly vegan and straight edge bands, the German Label has an impressive history with XVX bands such as ARKANGEL, DAY OF SUFFERING, RANCOR, UNCONQUERED, UNBORN, FAULT, or DEADLOCK. Being a collective that is outspoken in its message and keeps the vegan straight edge banner high, CLEARxCUT continue this tradition. Also besides having switched their label, "Age Of Grief" marks a fresh start for CLEARxCUT. After a big shift in their ranks, before the global pandemic hit, the band moved from two (female) vocalists to one (male) frontman. This is accompanyed by a change of sound. On their third full lenght album, the German band is diving into the realms of metallic hardcore, leaving behind their early hardcore punk influences. Noone should be surprised by this move, as CLEARxCUT was conceived as a collective where members, names, or styles wouldn’t matter, but one and only the final goal of spreading a positive message in defense of animal rights and sober living. "Age Of Grief", in this respect, is extremely consistent.

Für den Nachfolger ihres Debütalbums haben sich die bekannten Rocker Ian Crichton (Saga), Nigel Glockler (Saxon) und Robert Berry (The Greg Kihn Band), auch bekannt als SiX By SiX, in einem Studio in der San Francisco Bay Area zusammengefunden und ihre gemeinsame Alchemie entfesselt. Sie arbeiteten das ganze Jahr 2023 hindurch, um ihre vielfältigen musikalischen Talente zu biegen, zu formen, zu hämmern und zu streicheln und daraus 11 beeindruckende Tracks zu machen. Mit diesem Album setzt das klassische Power-Trio seinen einzigartigen melodischen Raum fort und verschmilzt gitarrengetriebenen Rock, Metal und Prog zu einem einzigartigen und kraftvollen Klangbild. "Beyond Shadowland" wird als limitiertes CD-Digipak, Gatefold 180g 2LP und als digitales Album erhältlich sein. Das Vinyl enthält Bonusmaterial, darunter zwei alternative Instrumentalversionen und ein ganz besonderes Orchester-Medley mit klassisch interpretierten Versionen ausgewählter Stücke von "Beyond Shadowland", gespielt von einem Orchester in Budapest, Ungarn.

Prolific singer-songwriter Kathryn Williams and recently reinvigorated troubadour Dan Willson (aka Withered Hand) have announced a collaboration album, ‘Willson Williams’, out April 26th.

‘Willson Williams’ witnesses the meeting of two likeminded musicians who’ve built their successful, independent careers on inventive folk instrumentation, reflective and sincere lyricism, and not a small amount of self-deprecation. Their modest confessionals, written poetically and over nostalgic and atmospheric melodies, are as relatable as ever, and together they find new ways to unpack their feelings.

One overarching theme on the album is that of grief, when the writing process saw them both, tragically, in mourning for separate loved ones; Dan for his brother Karl and his friend Scott Hutchinson of Frightened Rabbit, and Kathryn for her friend, comedian and BBC Radio 4 presenter Jeremy Hardy. They explain that “the initial premise and starting point for us was discussions and open conversations on bereavement. We’d both recently lost friends who were also in the public eye, and we talked about the strange place between personal loss and the communal grieving of a public figure”. Contrastingly, the music on ‘Willson Williams’ is warm, heartfelt and even cheerful, an opposing nature that is completely in keeping with both their humour and candidness.

In many ways, the music of Writhing Squares could have only originated in Philadelphia; the city itself a microcosm of creatives, go-getters, freaks & weirdos that have coalesced into a supportive & boundary-pushing crew. Former Purling Hiss bassist Daniel Provenzano & Ecstatic Vision sax-player & vocalist Kevin Nickles' first musical missive was shot forth in 2013 (the self-released CDR "Live In Space") & various singles, split releases, albums (and a double-album) later we arrive at the duo's fourth full-length "Mythology", their third for Chicago-based Trouble In Mind Records. "Mythology" picks up the pieces left shattered by their previous double-album "Chart For The Solution" and reconnects the broken shards together like Kintsugi, the ancient Japanese technique for mending broken ceramics, infusing the breaks with powdered gold. The Squares themselves are like mad-scientists, taking the ruined detritus populating junk shops & surplus outlets & constructing their own sonic laboratories in their New Jersey basements to record, mix & tweak "Mythology"s eight tracks. Their new location allowed the band to regroup, reassess & reconstruct their sound from the ground up, shearing away the cosmic excess of 2021's "Chart For The Solution" to a sharper point. Tracks like `Barbarians' & `LEM' are classic Squares; brutal, aggressive, unwavering assault of Motorhead/Stooges-inflected sci-fi punk scree, while others like `Chromatophage's mutant funk & `Cerberus's techno-slink owe a serious debt to electric-era Miles Davis or Herbie Hancock & show that the group has more to offer than bludgeoning you with sonic force. Provenzano's bass & electronics are like a tank rolling across the terrain - a gnarly construct of Hawkwind-ian headiness & `Vincebus Eruptum's snarl - uncaring of what gets in the way. Nickles' brass vacillates between Stooges-influenced sleaze, jazzy no-wave stabs, & cacophonous sonic storms, strafing the listener into oblivion. The duo are joined on "Mythology" by drummer John Schoemaker - who contributed drums to "Chart For The Solution"s epic closing track `Epilogue' - whose percussive pulse adds an organic swing to The Square's sonics, particularly on album closer "The Damned Thing"s cosmic strut. "Mythology" tackles a multitude of themes, from fantastical tales of hellhound `Cerberus' or the comic-inspired "Eternity " to `Chromatophage's colorful/evil yarn about animals that eat colors (or a Magic: The Gathering card) to the true-life influenced `Acid Rain' that deals with the uncertainty of consuming drinking water after a chemical spill in the Delaware River. Elsewhere, `Ferrell' is an homage to the late, great Ferrell "Pharaoh" Sanders & `The Damned Thing' by a short horror story penned by Ambrose Bierce about an animal whose coloring is invisible to the naked eye. Writhing Squares are in a transitional phase, mapping out a new sonic mythology for themselves after crossing the event horizon into unknown space. "Mythology" is streaming on most DSPs & released on black vinyl & limited fluorescent green vinyl (while supplies last) on April 26th, 2024.

In many ways, the music of Writhing Squares could have only originated in Philadelphia; the city itself a microcosm of creatives, go-getters, freaks & weirdos that have coalesced into a supportive & boundary-pushing crew. Former Purling Hiss bassist Daniel Provenzano & Ecstatic Vision sax-player & vocalist Kevin Nickles' first musical missive was shot forth in 2013 (the self-released CDR "Live In Space") & various singles, split releases, albums (and a double-album) later we arrive at the duo's fourth full-length "Mythology", their third for Chicago-based Trouble In Mind Records. "Mythology" picks up the pieces left shattered by their previous double-album "Chart For The Solution" and reconnects the broken shards together like Kintsugi, the ancient Japanese technique for mending broken ceramics, infusing the breaks with powdered gold. The Squares themselves are like mad-scientists, taking the ruined detritus populating junk shops & surplus outlets & constructing their own sonic laboratories in their New Jersey basements to record, mix & tweak "Mythology"s eight tracks. Their new location allowed the band to regroup, reassess & reconstruct their sound from the ground up, shearing away the cosmic excess of 2021's "Chart For The Solution" to a sharper point. Tracks like `Barbarians' & `LEM' are classic Squares; brutal, aggressive, unwavering assault of Motorhead/Stooges-inflected sci-fi punk scree, while others like `Chromatophage's mutant funk & `Cerberus's techno-slink owe a serious debt to electric-era Miles Davis or Herbie Hancock & show that the group has more to offer than bludgeoning you with sonic force. Provenzano's bass & electronics are like a tank rolling across the terrain - a gnarly construct of Hawkwind-ian headiness & `Vincebus Eruptum's snarl - uncaring of what gets in the way. Nickles' brass vacillates between Stooges-influenced sleaze, jazzy no-wave stabs, & cacophonous sonic storms, strafing the listener into oblivion. The duo are joined on "Mythology" by drummer John Schoemaker - who contributed drums to "Chart For The Solution"s epic closing track `Epilogue' - whose percussive pulse adds an organic swing to The Square's sonics, particularly on album closer "The Damned Thing"s cosmic strut. "Mythology" tackles a multitude of themes, from fantastical tales of hellhound `Cerberus' or the comic-inspired "Eternity " to `Chromatophage's colorful/evil yarn about animals that eat colors (or a Magic: The Gathering card) to the true-life influenced `Acid Rain' that deals with the uncertainty of consuming drinking water after a chemical spill in the Delaware River. Elsewhere, `Ferrell' is an homage to the late, great Ferrell "Pharaoh" Sanders & `The Damned Thing' by a short horror story penned by Ambrose Bierce about an animal whose coloring is invisible to the naked eye. Writhing Squares are in a transitional phase, mapping out a new sonic mythology for themselves after crossing the event horizon into unknown space. "Mythology" is streaming on most DSPs & released on black vinyl & limited fluorescent green vinyl (while supplies last) on April 26th, 2024.

2x7"
Not so long ago Marlena Shaw was a forgotten figure. The talented vocalist had made several LPs for respected labels such as Cadet and Blue Note, and she'd performed regularly throughout the '60s and '70s. But she hardly had what you might call diva status. Falling into the unfortunate category that slips uneasily between soul and jazz, she was accepted - but not especially admired - by aficionados of either genre. Then came the '90s, and an open-minded enthusiasm for soul and jazz - and more importantly - everything in between - soon changed that. Marlena Shaw became an icon, and the diva status soon blossomed amongst her new-found soul-jazz fans.

Respect is a word that means much to any singer. The artist who stands up in the bright lights before an audience that has handed over their hard-earned cash has only their physical presence and naked voice to rely on. There is no hiding when you're on stage, you're the focus of attention and everybody is gawping at you. The singer yearns to communicate and entertain, and in return not only asks for appreciation and acceptance, but respect. To this end Marlena Shaw has endured decades of singing in the shadows, and she has only recently finally found her niche.

On Disc One we have 'California Soul', probably the most enduring and well-known of her many songs, but just a few seconds listening will tell you that it is much more than that. It's already a classic amongst those who have already seen the light and have danced and swayed to its timeless swing. Upon hearing it all lovers of soul, jazz – or any other kind of good music - will feel an aural glow as warm as the Californian sun. The song 'Liberation Conversation' on the flip was only ever available on her highly revered 1969 LP 'The Spice of Life'. This is where the 'Blues ain't nothing but a good woman gone bad' launches into an irresistible, relentless uptempo funk groove.

Disc Two showcases 'Wade in the Water', an ancient song rumoured to have been developed and popularised by slaves in the American south. The message is to pass on the notion that by fleeing in a bid for freedom through streams and rivers, the scent that bloodhounds use to follow their victims will be obscured. Marlena's version has long been a favourite dancefloor filler since its 45-only release back in 1966.

'Woman of the Ghetto' is one of her best-known songs and ends the set on the other side. The opening number from 'The Spice of Life', it's since been recognised for the classic it is, and as such has been afforded anthemic status. We release the original 45 version here, as used to promote the LP back in the day.

This special 2x7" product from Jazzman is dedicated to the memory of Marlena Shaw, b. 22 September 1939, d. 19 January 2024.

We Release JAZZ is very happy to announce an exciting new body of work by Joseph Deenmamode aka Mo Kolours. The singular musical spirit’s new 21-track album Original Flow is available as a double LP housed in a heavy 350gsm sleeve with original artwork by Mo Kolours himself and the classic WRJ obi strip, as well as in digipack CD and digital formats.

A catalog of critically acclaimed records, including his self-titled debut (2014), ‘Texture Like Like Sun’ (2015), 2018 album ‘Inner Symbols’ and three companion EPs, established Deenmamode as a prodigious musician and vocalist. Pitchfork extolled his “hypnotic, tribal-infused dance grooves”, DJ Mag appreciated the “colourful celebration of soundsystem culture”, and Resident Advisor advocated that “no one sounds quite like Mo Kolours”. Musical analogies were drawn by The Guardian as “The best album Curtis Mayfield never made with A Tribe Called Quest and Lee Perry” and Mojo as “like Marvin Gaye produced by J Dilla”.

Five years ago, Deenmamode moved to the Japanese countryside. Far away from familiarity, he contemplated his place and further questioned his identity. “I had none of my ‘own’ people around. I had time to really find what makes me tick musically. Japan has helped me go back to those subconscious leanings, really go deep, and reflect the aspects that make up my story”.

The tracks on ‘Original Flow’ have been constructed from sessions, improvisations and soundbites captured around the world during this time; collecting contributions from musicians including Deenamode’s brothers Reginald Omas Mamode and Jeen Bassa plus Andrew Ashong, Charles Bullen, Dwaye Kilvington, Eddie Hick, Stefan Asanovic, Myele Manzanza, Ross Hughes, and Tom Dreissler. Deenamode says “I’m proud of this album’s creative process. Coming from a tradition of scouring through hours of records, I wanted to create my own samples, to find that perfect loop that no other producer could put their hands on. I decided to invite a group of friends and acquaintances, who also happen to be incredible musicians, to a studio in Crystal Palace to improvise based on some loose ideas I had. We spent all day, and recorded everything”.

‘Original Flow’ is an album of UK street-soul nouveau, future indigenous jazz fusion, Rasta Segga, Nyahbinghi jazz, Malagasy Hebrew hip hop. While retaining a spirit of exploration and improvisation, it sees Deenmamode grow and flex beyond beat tape brevity, expanding composition and stretching his musical muscle to play live with other musicians. Themes of empowerment, overcoming adversity, and mental liberation coexist with notes from ancient history, futurism, and science, as well as musings on family and togetherness.

‘Magik Momentum’ springs from a discussion that features at the start of the song, an inspiring mentor answering a question from Deenmamode about improvisation and what role it plays in life when planning and manifesting the future. ‘Rockets to Mars’ questions the lack of care for the billions of people with nothing, while governments plan to explore space. “This sparked a comparison in my mind to a Sonny Okuson song that I would reference when performing. Okuson’s song talked of the lack of resources in many communities in the world, while governments go to the moon”.

He says the music behind ‘The News These Days’ is “possibly my favourite on the album”. Looped like he would a late sixty jazz-fusion sample, there was nothing added and the track was complete within a matter of minutes. “It was the first and best moment from the entire Crystal Palace session”, he adds. The album’s contrasting title track with minimal instrumentation played solo by Deenamode. While frustratingly searching for gems in past recordings, he thought in a burst of ego, “I don’t need no-one else to make a dope beat!” picked up his ravanne, (the traditional frame drum of his fathers home-land of Mauritius), pressed record, and started to play. He says, “In my thoughts were the rhythms of the Nubians in Upper-Egypt and Sudan, the swing of the huge drums played by Mauritanian women, of-course the Sega beat of Mauritius, and the ever inspiring beat of James Yancey”.

Driven by UK broken beat, Cuban congas, Nigerian and Mauritian inflections, ‘Love Vibration’ follows the concept that all emotions carry a vibratory frequency and pays homage to the frequency of creation and the power of love. The two part ‘Tatamaka’ tells of the history of Deenmamode’s ancestors, the maroons of Mauritius. “We are people who managed to run from our oppressors and find refuge in a corner of the island called ‘Le Morne’ where they could not reach us. One bloody day they came in numbers to re-capture, to revenge. Many of us chose to jump to our deaths, rather than be taken back into subjugation. The poem by Creole Richard Sedley Assonne says; “there were hundreds of them, but my people, the maroons chose the kiss of death over the chains of slavery”. Tatamaka was the name of a famed maroon leader who was murdered for claiming his, and our people’s freedom. The song is the imagined journey of escape and freedom by an ancestor of the maroons of Le Morne”.

Born in the west midlands and raised on the traditional sega music of his father’s Indian Ocean homeland of Mauritius alongside records by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Santana and Michael Jackson; his influences expanded with late 90s jungle and drum and bass nights in Bristol, experiments at art college in Camberwell, and the rich culture of Peckham, “at the time we called it the Afro Quarters of London” says Deenmamode, adding hip hop, dub, soul and soundsystem styles to his individual sound.

He explains, “I love drum music, from hand-drums to 808s. I love music from the ancient past, heritage music, indigenous music, traditional music passed down from the beginning of time. Music from the body, hand claps, grunts and foot stomps. Music with audible depth, busy, bustling, highly charged. Music from the soul, the music from beyond. I love music from the islands and the mountains. The music of the streets, hustle music, alleyway beats. Club music”.

He describes the creative process as thinking in images. “The visual world and the world of sound seem to intermingle in my thought process. When I play the drum with my eyes closed, a world of imagery dances and moves with beat. Improvised drumming feels like I am listening to what I want to hear, rather than trying to play what I want to hear. Following the rhythm and finding new pathways to walk within the patterns is what I experience. In this way I often feel I am just a listener, instead of the player”.
Original Flow is pressed on biovinyl, a sustainable alternative to traditional vinyl. Biovinyl replaces petroleum in S-PVC by recycling used cooking oil or industrial waste gases, resulting in 100% CO2 savings in bio-based S-PVC production. Furthermore, it is 100% recyclable and reusable, embracing the circular economy ideology.

Wolfgang Tillmans’ latest album, Build from Here, is driven by a desire to explore and to expose. It navigates joy and heartbreak amid ruin and rebuilding, embodying hopeful defiance in uncertain futures. The songs vary in style, from propulsive and catchy to contemplative, featuring lush instrumentals transitioning into danceable beats. Tillmans’ voice, whether growling and confrontational or tender and stripped down, maintains its prominence throughout, serving as the album's core.

The fourth full-length record from Atlanta’s Microwave is a trip. It all begins with the misty synth strikes and cosmic transmission warbles of “Portals,” before hazy, dripping-wet guitar chords settle in. The song, an adaptation of the traditional Christian hymn “Softly and Tenderly,” is true to its new name, as liminal and fleeting as it is gripping and emotional. It’s an enormous, gentle, enveloping introduction to what will be explored: life and death, happiness and freedom, the real and unreal. This is Let’s Start Degeneracy, the long-awaited new album from Microwave, releasing on April 26 via Pure Noise. It's an emo record, but perhaps only categorically speaking. It contains multitudes: ambient, pop, R&B, punk, and experimental sounds float in and out of one another as the record moves through scenes, experiences, and feelings, all of them rippling with a purity of intention and translation that mark the best artistic works of “psychedelia.” Vocalist/guitarist/producer Nathan Hardy, bassist Tyler Hill, and drummer Timothy Pittard have created something that resembles a concept record, but it’s the sort of concept that’s impossible to contain in just one phrase or word or sound. The record’s title, taken from a conservative politician’s take on drugs in 1970, captures this liberated spirit. There are no rules, and there is nothing to be ashamed of. “It’s about letting go of attachments and behaviors that aren’t serving you, and trying to shake off your programming and not be motivated by fear and guilt and shame,” says Hardy.

Greg Foats griechisches Jazzquartett mit Sokratis Votskos, Warren Hampshire und Ayo Salawu nahm live auf Mykonos auf. Es entstanden große, fette Synth-Basslines mit psychedelischer Gitarre, hypnotischer Bassklarinette, mystischer Flöte und Killer-Drums. File under: Live Cosmic Synth Jazz. Limitierte Auflage.

Heavy Metal hat eine lange Geschichte und eine tiefe Verbindung mit Teufelei, Devianz und der dunklen Seite allgemein. Die Rückkehr der Friends Of Hell kann diese Bindung nur stärken. Durchdrungen von reinstem Old-School-Metal und dreckigem Doom ist das neue Album 'God Damned You To Hell' ein rostiger Dorn in den Augen von Ungläubigen. Der lang erwartete Nachfolger des dämonisch spannenden Debüts, hinterlässt verbrannte Erde auf allem, was heilig ist. Noch trotziger altmodisch und düsterer als sein Vorgänger zollt sein primitives Sperrfeuer entsetzlicher Härte den Heavy Metal und Doom-Größen gruseligen Respekt, während es gleichzeitig neue, Dämonen beschwört. Zusammen mit Hellbutcher (Nifelheim) am Mikro und Bassist Beelzeebubth (Mystifier) sind Friends Of Hell nun bereit ein musikalisches Höllenfeuer auf die Metal-Gemeinde loszulassen. Sie tun dies auf Lee Dorrian's (Cathedral) Kult-Label Rise Above mit den drei Formaten CD, LP und Limited Red LP!

Returning after three years with their second studio album, Double Dog Dare, WHITE DOG have been revelling in a state of creative flux and are poised to share their revelations with the world. Formed in 2015 in Austin, Texas, White Dog began with a shared vision of blazing, fuzzed-out rock that drew gleefully from their home city's rich cultural melting pot. Emboldened by an us-against-the-world gang mentality and inspired by everything from dusty roots rock to explosive old school prog, the band's self-titled album emerged in 2021, courtesy of natural home Rise Above Records, and immediately stood out as a sophisticated, earthy and characterful new strain of retro rambunctiousness.
Recorded over a period of eight days at Stuart Sikes Audio (with engineer Andrew McCalla) in Austin, Double Dog Dare takes all of the debut album's deftly assembled ingredients and allows them to fly free, liberated from expectation. At times mellower than its predecessor, at others strident and ferocious, these new songs showcase White Dog's organic development, with elements of everything from wistful southern rock to crusty-eyed jazz rock finding a place. Somehow even more fluid and fiery than before, this band are growing and expanding before our ears.
Now free to peddle their incendiary wares, they return to the stage with their strongest material to date, and a newfound enthusiasm for giving The Riff the respect and imagination it deserves.

Returning after three years with their second studio album, Double Dog Dare, WHITE DOG have been revelling in a state of creative flux and are poised to share their revelations with the world. Formed in 2015 in Austin, Texas, White Dog began with a shared vision of blazing, fuzzed-out rock that drew gleefully from their home city's rich cultural melting pot. Emboldened by an us-against-the-world gang mentality and inspired by everything from dusty roots rock to explosive old school prog, the band's self-titled album emerged in 2021, courtesy of natural home Rise Above Records, and immediately stood out as a sophisticated, earthy and characterful new strain of retro rambunctiousness.
Recorded over a period of eight days at Stuart Sikes Audio (with engineer Andrew McCalla) in Austin, Double Dog Dare takes all of the debut album's deftly assembled ingredients and allows them to fly free, liberated from expectation. At times mellower than its predecessor, at others strident and ferocious, these new songs showcase White Dog's organic development, with elements of everything from wistful southern rock to crusty-eyed jazz rock finding a place. Somehow even more fluid and fiery than before, this band are growing and expanding before our ears.
Now free to peddle their incendiary wares, they return to the stage with their strongest material to date, and a newfound enthusiasm for giving The Riff the respect and imagination it deserves.

Schwerer, auf Blues basierender Rock, zu dem man sogar tanzen kann! Die Quebecer Rocker Tonnerre spielen kräftigen, von den 1970ern inspirierten Rock, der sich an AC/DC und Blue Öyster Cult orientiert - komplett mit französisch gesungenen Texten! Das Album wurde bemerkenswerte sechs Monate nach der ersten Jam-Session der Band aufgenommen und vermittelt die Art von unbestreitbarem, lockeren Hardrock, der erstmals in den 1970er Jahren aufkam. Und hinter Sängerin Annick französischem Gesang fängt das Album perfekt das Gefühl und den Geist von 'eine Nacht in der Wildnis' ein, denn das ist die Titel-Übersetzung. Es symbolisiert Nächte, wilde Geister, Tiere, die nachts jagen, die Nordlichter, die Sterne und die langen Schatten, die das Feuer wirft.

Rock Hard:
"Die Kanadier fingen erst richtig an, als Arnaud Geoffroy sich hinters Schlagzeug klemmte, ein Bierbrauer im Brotberuf. Die Einstellung stimmt also. Und ihre Musik passt dazu. Die Gitarristen spielen trockene AC/DC-Riffs, aber nicht mit der wilden Unbedingtheit der Australier, sondern eher mit der Contenance und harmonischen Akribie des Siebziger-AOR. Sie selbst zählen noch Blue Öyster Cult zu ihre Vorbildern, und tatsächlich besitzt die Melodieführung von Sängerin Annick mitunter einen leichten BÖC-Vibe (etwa bei ´Ceux Qui Sommeillent´). TONNERRE gehören zur französischsprachigen Minderheit Torontos, und so kommen auch noch ein paar Trust-Reminiszenzen hinzu. Ganz schöne Mischung. Etwas energischer könnten sie hin und wieder zur Sache gehen, aber sie wollen sich wohl ihren Pegel nicht wegschwitzen."

Als eine der frühen Bastionen des US-Metals sind Attacker aus New Jersey zurück, um ihr 40-jähriges Jubiläum mit einem neuen Album zu feiern, einem triumphal, klassischem Metal-Album mit acht Songs! Bekannt wurde die Band durch ihr einflussreiches Debüt von 1985 und ihr zweites Album 'The Second Coming' drei Jahre später, sowie durch Alben nach der Reformation 2001. 'The God Particle' ist wieder die bewährte Dosis reinen, ungezügelten Heavy Metals mit reichlich Aggression und Melodie - beides dauerhafte Elemente des Attacker-Sounds, der auch von Marc Sassos (Dio, Halford, Marvel) packendem Cover-Artwork unterstrichen wird. Die Band würdigt mit dem neuen Album ihr geschichtsträchtiges Erbe und schafft neue, fesselnde Musik, um eine ihre Fangemeinde zufrieden zu stellen.

Vintage Hardrock der 1970er Jahre direkt aus Down Under! Das lang erwartete zweite Album der australischen Band Tarot besticht mit Hardrock inkl. Hammond-B3 für eine neue Generation von Fans! Als geschlossene Formation haben Tarot mit 'Glimpse Of The Dawn' ein lebendiges, weitläufiges Album zusammengestellt, das seinen Kerneinflüssen Uriah Heep, Rainbow und Deep Purple ernsthaft Tribut zollt und gleichzeitig eine eigene Identität hervorbringt. Dabei ließ die Band Freiräume, um Improvisation zu ermöglichen. Viele der Leadgitarren des Albums wurden spontan im Studio geschrieben und anschließend beibehalten, sodass Tarot "den Blitz in einer Flasche einfangen" konnte. Dieser Ansatz wird vielleicht am besten im Titeltrack veranschaulicht, der das Album mit ausgelassenen Hammond-Keyboards und Stimmengewalt auf großartige Weise eröffnet.
Artwork von Lena Richter, Mastering von Patrick Engel (Temple of Noise).

Rock Hard:
"Achtung: Bei "Glimpse Of The Dawn" handelt es sich mitnichten um einen weiteren Output der finnischen Hardrocker Tarot, bei denen sich Ex-Nightwish-Bassist Marco Hietala zurzeit (mal wieder) austobt, sondern um einen Eintrag in der noch vergleichsweise kurzen Diskografie der gleichnamigen australischen Band, die mit ihrem Full-length-Debüt von 2016 erstmals in weiteren Kreisen von sich hören machte. Diesem famosen Scheibchen stellt das Quintett aus dem tasmanischen Hobart nun nach schlappen acht Jahren einen Nachfolger zur Seite, der den Herrschaften nicht minder exzellent geraten ist. TAROT zocken entspannten, von Siebziger-Größen wie Deep Purple inspirierten Hardrock mit Metal-Schlagseite. Die Hammondorgel ist nicht von dieser Welt, und Frontmann Will Spectre verfügt über ein gefühlvolles, warmes, kräftiges Organ, das den Hörer im Zusammenspiel mit den verträumten Gitarrenmelodien in mystische Welten entführt. Wunderschön!"

Die Debüt-Solo-EP CA von Canaan Amber wurde in dem Jahrzehnt aufgenommen, nachdem Duster sich in ihre Pause verabschiedet hatten, und zeigt die Vorliebe des in Kalifornien geborenen Gitarristen für San Francisco Jangle und Santa Cruz Surf. Mit dem Tempo einer Bananenschnecke verpackt Canaan Amber die einsamsten einsaitigen Gitarrensoli um eine Ansammlung hohler Rhythmen und geisterhaften Gemurmels. Für diese Wiederveröffentlichung wurde die ursprüngliche Fünf-Song-CD von 2012 um sechs weitere Demos erweitert, die aus dem Fundus des produktiven Songwriters geplündert wurden. Mehr Wolf Moon als Black Moon, erforscht und kartographiert CA weiterhin die versteckten Galaxien, die das Duster-Universum ausmachen.

Die Debüt-Solo-EP CA von Canaan Amber wurde in dem Jahrzehnt aufgenommen, nachdem Duster sich in ihre Pause verabschiedet hatten, und zeigt die Vorliebe des in Kalifornien geborenen Gitarristen für San Francisco Jangle und Santa Cruz Surf. Mit dem Tempo einer Bananenschnecke verpackt Canaan Amber die einsamsten einsaitigen Gitarrensoli um eine Ansammlung hohler Rhythmen und geisterhaften Gemurmels. Für diese Wiederveröffentlichung wurde die ursprüngliche Fünf-Song-CD von 2012 um sechs weitere Demos erweitert, die aus dem Fundus des produktiven Songwriters geplündert wurden. Mehr Wolf Moon als Black Moon, erforscht und kartographiert CA weiterhin die versteckten Galaxien, die das Duster-Universum ausmachen.

Disco Segreta breathes new life into two of the most elusive and coveted italo disco tracks of all time!

Originating from the paradisiac island of Sardinia, Italy, Susy Pintus embarked on her musical journey alongside her brother at Radio Cagliari Centrale, one of Sardinia’s very first “free radios,” which opened its doors in 1977. Her singing career took flight in 1978, and by 1979, she attained national acclaim with her single “C’Est Magnifique,” a disco reinterpretation of the renowned Cole Porter track.

However, Susy’s most sought-after single undoubtedly remains her 1986 italo-disco 45 featuring the tracks “Fragile” and “Live for Your Love”. These compositions, expertly arranged by Italian jazz piano virtuoso Danilo Rea and superstar musician Aldo Tamborrelli, weave a captivating tapestry of sound using instruments like Yamaha DX7 and CP80, Roland Juno 60 and JX 8P, as well as the omnipresent Linn 9000. The result is a distinctive blend of italo-disco, synth-pop, and a touch of the “balearic” vibe.

Originally released in a limited run of 1500 copies on a 45, these tracks have become exceedingly rare over time, finding their way into the wishlists and collections of discerning italo-disco enthusiasts.

Now, Disco Segreta proudly reissues these two exceptional italo disco gems, granting them the expanded 12” treatment they rightfully deserve.

This deluxe edition includes the original tracks, meticulously remastered to meet contemporary standards without destroying the feel of the originals, along with two remixes of “Fragile” and “Live For Your Love” by Italian wonder Cosimo Mandorino aka Cosmo Dance.

Mit "Under a timeless spell" hat sich Adrian Hates einen Traum erfüllt ... einmal ein Album mit einem Orchester aufnehmen! 35 Jahre nach der Gründung des Tagebuchs der Träume ist es nun also soweit: 9 Diary of Dreams Klassiker erklingen in völlig neuem akustischem Gewand, gemeinsam realisiert mit der Philharmonie Leipzig. Kein Keyboard und auch keine Gitarre hat hier Platz gefunden, dafür aber unglaublich überwältigende orchestrale Klangwelten, die Songs wie zum Beispiel "Malum" und "the Valley" eine völlig neue Tiefe und Tragweite verleihen. Überwältigt von dieser emotionalen Reise endet das Album ganz persönlich und ruhig mit einer Klavierversion von "the Secret". Nachdem dann der letzte Ton verklungen ist, fühlt man sich berührt, aufgefangen und umarmt und hofft leise auf eine Fortsetzung dieser neuen Welt.

Deicide ist eine der drei großen US-Death-Metal-Bands, zusammen mit Cannibal Corpse und Morbid Angel. Nach ihrem letzten Album "Overtures of Blasphemy", das 2018 erschienen ist, kehren Deicide nun mit ihrem neuen Werk "Banished By Sin" zurück.

Deicide sind bekannt für ihre kompromisslose Musik, und dafür, dass sie in den mehr als drei Jahrzehnten ihres Bestehens einige der esten und härtesten Death Metal-Songs hervorgebracht haben. Erwartet die intensivste, brutalste und einprägsamste Florida Death Metal-Platte!

New Heaven, INTER ARMA’s latest album, is a compelling testament to perseverance, top to bottom. Its thicket of ever-dense layers of doom, death, and black metal occasionally let bits of light slip in, fleeting reminders to keep going amid the tumult. New Heaven marks a sharp turn for the band, showcasing some of the most extreme and angular songwriting INTER ARMA has ever laid bare. Known for their cinematic take on sludgy, extremely cavernous, and borderline psychedelic Metal, the Richmond band broadens their dynamics by seesawing between piledriving momentum and swirling oblivion. New Heaven crushers and conquers, and illustrates what INTER ARMA can truly be. Take the title track, with its hair-raising lead riff stemming from drummer/songwriter TJ Childers’ challenge to himself to write a nonsensically dissonant part that he ended up loving. The song spirals upward into a punishing Death-Metal march, Meanwhile, vocalist Mike Paparo’s stentorian bellows the bludgeon, above an impossibly complicated web of riffs and rhythms. From the get go, New Heaven and the opening title track eschews any restraint - INTER ARMA is completely unchained. Paparo’s keen and empathetic lyrics about innocent victims of war, addiction, and social apathy affirm that feeling, as a survivor grimaces at the carnage behind him and presses ahead best he can. “You stared into the brutish jaws of strife’s heartless device,” he growls into a chthonic blitz during “The Children the Bombs Overlooked,” a late-album powerhouse. “And you turned your back to hell.” That forward march out of madness is New Heaven in an armor-plated nutshell. Though this is indeed another INTER ARMA triumph, it is not a triumphant album, meant to offer some glib or naïve assurance that everything will be fine. What evidence is there for that, really, either on a record where friends are forced into submission, addiction, suicide, or retreat to a world where suffering remains the lingua franca? No, INTER ARMA and New Heaven are too realistic and experienced for that. This is, instead, a record about enduring brambles and curses and lasting long enough to make something profound, honest, and even affirming about it all every now and again—exactly as INTER ARMA has on New Heaven. FFO: Amenra, Neurosis, Full of Hell, Cult of Luna, Yob, Primitive Man, Thou, Ulcerate, Mastodon, The Body, Panopticon

Die chinesische Progressive-Metal-Band OU wird auf ihrem kommenden zweiten Album "II: Frailty" ihren hypnotischen Sound entfesseln. "II: Frailty" beschäftigt sich mit der volatilen Natur des Lebens und fängt Momente ein, die so flüchtig sind wie ein verwelktes Blatt, das aus dem Fluss der Zeit geboren wird. Produziert und abgemischt von Devin Townsend, der auch im hypnotischen Song Purge" zu hören ist, verspricht "II: Frailty" ein klangliches Meisterwerk, das Dich auf eine transformative Erfahrung vorbereitet, während OU durch die Tiefen des Progressive Metal navigieren und eine einzigartige Perspektive auf die Zerbrechlichkeit und Schönheit unserer Existenz bieten.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce The Mountains Pass, a major new work from Olivia Block. A key player in Chicago’s vibrant experimental music scene since the late 1990s, Block has developed an extensive body of work grounded in a personalised, at times emotive approach to the studio-based practices of the musique concrète tradition, while also encompassing improvisation, orchestral pieces, sound installations, and a sustained engagement with the piano. On The Mountains Pass, recorded by Greg Norman at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio and meticulously edited and constructed over the course of three years, Block pushes into new terrain, introducing her singing voice and drums played by Jon Mueller into flowing assemblages that move seamlessly from ruminative organ tones and fragmented piano airs to explosions of sizzling synths and thundering percussion. Like many of Block’s past works, which include, for example, a sculptural installation using the sound of oyster beds, The Mountains Pass draws inspiration from nature and the animal world. Time spent in a particular mountain range in Northern New Mexico informs this suite of pieces, whose lyrics and titles refer particularly to animal life in the area. Beginning with bursts of white noise and delicate synthetic pops and squeaks, opener ‘Northward’ very soon reveals the special direction the album will take, as lyrical piano lines are joined by Block’s fragile voice, singing words written from the perspective of f2754, an endangered Mexican gray wolf who wandered more than five hundred miles from Arizona to New Mexico in 2022. The fragment of song quickly breaks off, leaving us with a ghostly electronic hum. ‘The Hermit’s Peak’ follows, one of two epic pieces at the album’s core. Beginning with chiming, almost harpsichord-like tones, it moves through episodes of spacious, ruminative piano, Jon Mueller’s sparkling cymbals, stuttering cut-up piano sounds, and a climax of keening organ and trumpet tones (performed by Thomas Madeja). Continuing the exploration of vintage keyboard and synth tones heard on Block’s Innocent Passage in the Territorial Sea (Room 40, 2021), the music sometimes suggests the great outer-limits works of 70s Italian prog figures like Franco Battiato or Arturo Stalteri in the languorous drift of synthesizer, organ, and piano tones and the meticulous yet organic flow of its construction. ‘Violet-Green’ opens the second side with another epic journey, its lyrical content concerning ‘a mysterious bird die-off and a forest fire’. Block’s crystalline voice and rich piano chords at times call up the restrained chamber songs of Janet Sherbourne, but fragmented and threaded through passages of woozy pitch-bent keyboards, hypnotic distant thuds, tinkling bells, and searing distorted synth tones. On ‘f2754’, the freedom of the roaming wolf surges through dense layers of rapid keyboard attacks and long organ tones over a propulsive drum performance straight out of Animal Magnetism-era Arnold Dreyblatt. This distinctive sound world is then reencountered in a darkened mirror image in the uneasy, metallic shimmer of the closing ‘Ungulates’, named in reference to a heard of elk roaming through the mountains. Like Battiato’s Clic or Gastr del Sol’s Upgrade & Afterlife, The Mountains Pass inhabits the underexplored terrain where the beauty of song coexists with a radical formal openness, illuminating the deep musicality and warmth that have been present in Block’s work all along.

About 20 years ago, Carlos Giffoni quickly made a name for himself both as a noise guitarist and a laptop noisician upon arriving in New York (via Florida and Venezuela). His expertly curated annual No Fun Festival, as well as his No Fun label, further solidified him as a key figure in the international noise scene. The festival's success proved the formula for experimental and improvised music fests could work with the noise underground as well, but it also capitalized on the faster rate of connections being made between geographically disparate artists as a result of the (still relatively nascent) internet. Back then Carlos would play his laptop like a pinball machine, in contrast to the static stage presence of most laptop performers, and his solo music, like many others' at that time, expressed a less dark and dour vision of the implications of harsh noise. By the close of the 2000s, he had stopped doing the festival, switched gears musically to playing the lighter No Fun Acid sets, and moved to LA. Now he has re-emerged in a big way with Dream Walker, his first full-length since 2018's Vain (and only his second since 2010). Inspired by the masterful performances and diffusions he heard at the February 2023 GRM electronic music festival in Paris, particularly sets by old friends Lasse Marhaug, Jim O'Rourke, and Eiko Ishibashi, he began conceptualizing new music of his own in response, turning to synthesizers and other hardware to produce a work more firmly in the tradition of European electronic music than anything else he's done. Intended as a late night listen that evokes the edge of consciousness, with Carlos getting as close as possible to a trance state during the actual recording and mixing, each of the eleven tracks transition into one another rather than being standalone discrete pieces, forming two side-long suites that proceed like stages of a dream. Unabashedly tonal and repetitive, the glistening opener "Now Dream," the droning "Sleep Walker," and the closing triptych of "Lost in Descanso," "Sunrise," and "The Hidden Path" occupy a power electronics-ambient nexus that feels spiritually close to the Mego label. Elsewhere, "Ticking Clock" is reminiscent of Stereolab's non-easy listening vintage electronic side, while the two-part arpeggiated "Euphoria" recalls early Oneohtrix Point Never (which Carlos released on No Fun). The contrast between "One Breath"'s crackling opening and its remarkably fluid and soaring sustained synthesized chords is a distillation of the album's lingering tension between electronics' ability to project mechanical rupture as well as the organic and the infinite _or "walking between dreams," as Carlos himself puts it. Produced by Lasse Marhaug (who also mastered Carlos' first solo album, Welcome Home, back in 2005), released by Stephen O'Malley (who I remember DJing at the No Fun fest), with cover art and photos by personal friends, Carlos considers the album a family affair. But Dream Walker most of all heralds a maturation of the artist, and stands as a record that exists out of pure desire, rather than obligation or force of habit; a statement of reconnecting with music not by merely revisiting it, but by building on what's come before, both in his own work and in the music he loves. -Alan Licht, New York, December 2023

Francis Lai is France's best-selling international film composer, with hits such as "Love Story", "Bilitis" and "Un Homme et une Femme".

International hits in the USA, Germany, the UK and South America, as well as in Korea and Japan, where the Francis Lai Orchestra recorded the tribute album "13 Jours au Japon" just a few months ago, during a tour that took them to Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and elsewhere.

A limited-edition Vinyl featuring the composer's cult tracks, including the 100 million-stream digital hit "La Leçon Particulière", "Concerto Pour la Fin d'Amour", five songs and, for the first time, his unpublished posthumous work "The Final Dot".


"13 Jours au Japon" (13 Days in Japan) is the ultimate vinyl tribute, featuring 25 musicians and singers covering the multi-award-winning works of the man nicknamed in the USA: "the artistocrat of melody"!

GOTHIC SUMMER ist das neueste Album der australischen Pop-Rock-Legenden The Veronicas! Nach einem aufregenden Jahr 2023 mit Auftritten auf der ganzen Welt hat die Band erneut ein Album geliefert, das eine klare künstlerische Vision vermittelt. Auch 2024 wird die Band das ganze Jahr über auf Tour sein - mit GOTHIC SUMMER im Gepäck.

Entering a decade of existence since the first release back in 2015, Imogen Recordings has a constant flow of hi-quality releases. Based on an inhouse sound and artists that perfectly fits to that sound, Imogen label gained small but finger picked releases catalog and artists repertoire. Among those few Label released music from Darshan Jesrani ( Metro Area, Startree ), Charles Webster - Presence, Don Carlos, Ian Pooley, Ilija Rudman, Kai Alce to name a few and most recently Antonio Zuza.

New Catalog Number 19, brings Antonio Zuza and a duo Project between Ilija and Antonio - Imogen Soundsystem on the table. It's a "never leave my bag" material.
Antonio's "Palmizana" or Imogen Soundsystem's " Paloma" are both strong munition for any dancefloor request by simply delivering that vibe that we all love.
Powered by pristine production as Imogen's standard signature Darshan Jesrani and Ilija Rudman brought 2 sublime remixes to wrap this beautiful 12" Vinyl.
If we are talking about modern house approach with all the respect to it roots, we are talking about this record. It is here to satisfy old diggers and new people on the scene.

Dettinger’s Intershop and Oasis have long been held, by many fans of ambient and electronic music, to be some of the finest albums in their field. Produced by the mysterious Olaf Dettinger, about whom not much is publicly known, they were some of the earliest full-lengths released by the then-nascent Kompakt, and in many ways, they both articulated and defined the sound that would come to be known as Pop Ambient, while also existing, somehow, to the leftfield of any clearly recognisable genre.

Beautiful, sui generis works, it is a rare pleasure to see them being reissued on vinyl for a new generation of listeners to embrace. Originally released on CD only in 1999, Intershop was Kompakt’s first artist full-length. The music here simmers and broods, with opulent banks of tone marking out territory for rhythms that seem to be built from the clacking detritus of technology – hisses, thunks, knocks. Bass is deployed carefully, each drop a dubbed-out depth charge; drones spin and spiral, warping and weaving between the beats.

Oasis, released in 2000, refined the palette that Dettinger had explored on its predecessor. A blurred crusade of ambient texturology, its unassuming patterns, and subtle, incremental dynamics, admit to real beauty, and a kind of abstract sensuality that you don’t often experience with music that is, perhaps, similarly tooled, but not as poetic. Through seemingly simple gestures – whether lushly expansive repetitions, hyper-acute tremolo tones, or ear-tickling rhythms – it builds complex emotional resonance. It’s no surprise to discover Oasis is held in high esteem by artists like Panda Bear of Animal Collective, who once said of Dettinger, “For us, he was the dude.”

There is, of course, other music to know Dettinger by, too – his three excellent EPs for Kompakt, Blond (1998), Puma and Totentanz (1999), the latter of which, Michael Mayer once argued, “invented dubstep.” There is also a small, yet graceful run of compilation contributions, many of which can be found on Kompakt’s Total and Pop Ambient series. All this music has plenty to recommend it, sharing a clarity of purpose, and a rare, human warmth and depth. But Intershop and Oasis are the releases that distil Dettinger’s singular vision, and allow him, should he wish, to claim his place as a modern master of ambient and electronic music.

Dettingers Intershop und Oasis werden von vielen Fans von Ambient und elektronischer Musik seit langem als einige der besten Alben in diesem Bereich angesehen. Produziert von dem mysteriösen Olaf Dettinger, über den nicht viel bekannt ist, gehörten sie zu den ersten Alben, die von der damals aufstrebenden Plattenfirma Kompakt veröffentlicht wurden. In vielerlei Hinsicht formulierten und definierten sie den Sound, der später als Pop-Ambient bekannt werden sollte, während sie gleichzeitig irgendwie links von jedem klar erkennbaren Genre existierten.

Es ist eine seltene Freude zu sehen, dass diese wunderschönen Werke auf Vinyl wiederveröffentlicht werden, um sie einer neuen Generation von Hörern zugänglich zu machen. Ursprünglich wurde Intershop 1999 nur auf CD veröffentlicht und war Kompakts erstes komplettes Künstleralbum. Die Musik hier brodelt und brütet, mit opulenten Klangbänken, die das Territorium für Rhythmen abstecken, die aus dem klappernden Gerümpel der Technik gebaut zu sein scheinen – Zischen, Klopfen, Schaben. Der Bass wird sorgfältig eingesetzt, jeder Drop ist eine synchronisierte Tiefenladung; Drones drehen und winden sich spiralförmig und verflechten sich zwischen den Beats.

Oasis, das im Jahr 2000 erschien, verfeinerte die Palette, die Dettinger auf seinem Vorgänger erkundet hatte. Ein verschwommener Kreuzzug der Ambient-Texturologie, dessen unaufdringliche Muster und subtile, schrittweise Dynamik echte Schönheit und eine Art abstrakter Sinnlichkeit zulassen, die man nicht oft bei Musik erlebt, die vielleicht ähnlich ausgestattet, aber nicht so poetisch ist. Durch scheinbar einfache Gesten – seien es üppig ausladende Wiederholungen, hyperakute Tremolotöne oder ohrenbetäubende Rhythmen – baut sie eine komplexe emotionale Resonanz auf. Es ist keine Überraschung, dass Oasis von Künstlern wie Panda Bear von Animal Collective hoch geschätzt wird, der einmal über Dettinger sagte: “Für uns war er DER Typ”.

Es gibt natürlich auch noch andere Musik, die Dettinger bekannt macht – seine drei ausgezeichneten EPs für Kompakt, Blond (1998), Puma und Totentanz (1999), von denen letztere, wie Michael Mayer einmal kühn behauptete, “den Dubstep erfand”. Es gibt auch eine kleine, aber feine Reihe von Compilation-Beiträgen, von denen viele auf Kompakts Total- und Pop-Ambient-Serien zu finden sind. All diese Musik ist sehr empfehlenswert und zeichnet sich durch eine klare Zielsetzung und eine seltene, menschliche Wärme und Tiefe aus. Aber Intershop und Oasis sind die Veröffentlichungen, die Dettingers einzigartige Vision destillieren und es ihm ermöglichen, seinen Platz als moderner Meister der Ambient- und elektronischen Musik zu behaupten, sollte er dies wünschen.

Dettinger’s Intershop and Oasis have long been held, by many fans of ambient and electronic music, to be some of the finest albums in their field. Produced by the mysterious Olaf Dettinger, about whom not much is publicly known, they were some of the earliest full-lengths released by the then-nascent Kompakt, and in many ways, they both articulated and defined the sound that would come to be known as Pop Ambient, while also existing, somehow, to the leftfield of any clearly recognisable genre.

Beautiful, sui generis works, it is a rare pleasure to see them being reissued on vinyl for a new generation of listeners to embrace. Originally released on CD only in 1999, Intershop was Kompakt’s first artist full-length. The music here simmers and broods, with opulent banks of tone marking out territory for rhythms that seem to be built from the clacking detritus of technology – hisses, thunks, knocks. Bass is deployed carefully, each drop a dubbed-out depth charge; drones spin and spiral, warping and weaving between the beats.

Oasis, released in 2000, refined the palette that Dettinger had explored on its predecessor. A blurred crusade of ambient texturology, its unassuming patterns, and subtle, incremental dynamics, admit to real beauty, and a kind of abstract sensuality that you don’t often experience with music that is, perhaps, similarly tooled, but not as poetic. Through seemingly simple gestures – whether lushly expansive repetitions, hyper-acute tremolo tones, or ear-tickling rhythms – it builds complex emotional resonance. It’s no surprise to discover Oasis is held in high esteem by artists like Panda Bear of Animal Collective, who once said of Dettinger, “For us, he was the dude.”

There is, of course, other music to know Dettinger by, too – his three excellent EPs for Kompakt, Blond (1998), Puma and Totentanz (1999), the latter of which, Michael Mayer once argued, “invented dubstep.” There is also a small, yet graceful run of compilation contributions, many of which can be found on Kompakt’s Total and Pop Ambient series. All this music has plenty to recommend it, sharing a clarity of purpose, and a rare, human warmth and depth. But Intershop and Oasis are the releases that distil Dettinger’s singular vision, and allow him, should he wish, to claim his place as a modern master of ambient and electronic music.
Dettingers Intershop und Oasis werden von vielen Fans von Ambient und elektronischer Musik seit langem als einige der besten Alben in diesem Bereich angesehen. Produziert von dem mysteriösen Olaf Dettinger, über den nicht viel bekannt ist, gehörten sie zu den ersten Alben, die von der damals aufstrebenden Plattenfirma Kompakt veröffentlicht wurden. In vielerlei Hinsicht formulierten und definierten sie den Sound, der später als Pop-Ambient bekannt werden sollte, während sie gleichzeitig irgendwie links von jedem klar erkennbaren Genre existierten.

Es ist eine seltene Freude zu sehen, dass diese wunderschönen Werke auf Vinyl wiederveröffentlicht werden, um sie einer neuen Generation von Hörern zugänglich zu machen. Ursprünglich wurde Intershop 1999 nur auf CD veröffentlicht und war Kompakts erstes komplettes Künstleralbum. Die Musik hier brodelt und brütet, mit opulenten Klangbänken, die das Territorium für Rhythmen abstecken, die aus dem klappernden Gerümpel der Technik gebaut zu sein scheinen – Zischen, Klopfen, Schaben. Der Bass wird sorgfältig eingesetzt, jeder Drop ist eine synchronisierte Tiefenladung; Drones drehen und winden sich spiralförmig und verflechten sich zwischen den Beats.

Oasis, das im Jahr 2000 erschien, verfeinerte die Palette, die Dettinger auf seinem Vorgänger erkundet hatte. Ein verschwommener Kreuzzug der Ambient-Texturologie, dessen unaufdringliche Muster und subtile, schrittweise Dynamik echte Schönheit und eine Art abstrakter Sinnlichkeit zulassen, die man nicht oft bei Musik erlebt, die vielleicht ähnlich ausgestattet, aber nicht so poetisch ist. Durch scheinbar einfache Gesten – seien es üppig ausladende Wiederholungen, hyperakute Tremolotöne oder ohrenbetäubende Rhythmen – baut sie eine komplexe emotionale Resonanz auf. Es ist keine Überraschung, dass Oasis von Künstlern wie Panda Bear von Animal Collective hoch geschätzt wird, der einmal über Dettinger sagte: “Für uns war er DER Typ”.

Es gibt natürlich auch noch andere Musik, die Dettinger bekannt macht – seine drei ausgezeichneten EPs für Kompakt, Blond (1998), Puma und Totentanz (1999), von denen letztere, wie Michael Mayer einmal kühn behauptete, “den Dubstep erfand”. Es gibt auch eine kleine, aber feine Reihe von Compilation-Beiträgen, von denen viele auf Kompakts Total- und Pop-Ambient-Serien zu finden sind. All diese Musik ist sehr empfehlenswert und zeichnet sich durch eine klare Zielsetzung und eine seltene, menschliche Wärme und Tiefe aus. Aber Intershop und Oasis sind die Veröffentlichungen, die Dettingers einzigartige Vision destillieren und es ihm ermöglichen, seinen Platz als moderner Meister der Ambient- und elektronischen Musik zu behaupten, sollte er dies wünschen.