Evolving from a performance lecture by philosopher and Jonna Bornemark at Orionteatern in Stockholm, ‘Hyperit’ (Swedish for a volcanic stone; hypersthenite in English) is inspired by Jennefelt’s performances alongside Bornemark. Before each performance, Jennefelt would plant a lawn on stage, with dirt, sand, gravel, rocks, weeds, and a body of water placed underneath. During the performance, Jennefelt would dig a hole in this lawn, delving progressively deeper and recording soundscapes in the process, with microphones attached to her tools of excavation.
With ‘Hyperit’, Jennefelt expands these ideas into a distinct incarnation of experimental world building, reenvisioning the lecture composition project with new sounds, vocals and field recordings. Using the performance lecture as a springboard, she explores the interior geological matter on ‘Hyperit’, sculpting electronic music inspired by the terrain of meteorites, magma and the Earth’s innermost composition. In this Jennefelt aims to capture a sense of being ‘inside’ the eponymous volcanic stone, or, as it’s known in her native Swedish, of being ‘inside the mountain’.
Recorded and composed at Stranden Ateljéer, EMS and Palazzo Stabile 2023. Mastered by Giovanni Conti at Artefacts Mastering, Berlin. To Bruno. Front cover art by Sara Melin. Graphic design by Oskar Laurin.
A rich musical journey comprising eleven songs, Madrid channels the chaotic charms of the Spanish capital where Nev has recently relocated.
"I love the way life works here. It's organised chaos. Walking
the neighbourhoods of Lavapiez and La Latina you begin to see how everything is perfectly balanced...how to eat, how to party and then how to relax! It's perfection. When it all gets too much I run away to
the English countryside"
Side A cut 'The Ring' calls to mind Cowboy In Sweden era Hazlewood while that Mustang bass, scratchy guitars and cool 60's drum fills invoke Serge and Vannier for ' Silver Screen' and title track 'Madrid'. Scott 4 is obviously a touchstone and Nev has never been one to hide his reverence for one of the greatest albums of all time. Seven minute wonder 'Under The Skin' channels Walker's
RAWAX welcomes Moreno Ácido to the artist family!
Big first release from the portuguese producer.
Presenting the full range from powerfull, groovy, deep to soulful House.
Don't miss this great record!
Omasta step into their own voice with “Hits Different”, marking a new stage in their evolution as musicians and storytellers.
Following their debut “Jazz Report From The Hood", which proved a major success and brought attention to Omasta as one of the most distinctive groups emerging from the contemporary jazz scene, the musicians return with their second album, “Hits Different”. The record develops the language established on their debut, pushing it into new territory and shifting the perspective from that of the protagonists themselves to that of a narrator telling the story.
While the debut album was a story about the lives and emotions of the band’s members, “Hits Different” adopts the perspective of a narrator, giving the album a more cinematic structure. As on the first record, the story is never told explicitly. The track titles merely point the way, leaving space for listeners to bring their own emotions, imagination, and experiences to the music. Each track becomes another scene in a story that moves through a broad spectrum of emotions, from happiness and excitement to anxiety, tension, and disorientation. It is a story that allows everyone to create their own interpretation, but its ending leaves no room for doubt. There is no happy ending here.
Featuring some of the best female vocal singles released over the years, most of which have never before appeared in LP format, plus a genuinely rare Sharon Liltle cut, previously only available on a very elusive Gorgon 7" ("Jah Love Is Gold").
FIRST TIME ON VINYL! “Instalação Do Samba”, originally released in 2004, has become one of the defining albums in the history of Schema Records. With producer Stefano “S-Tone Inc.” Tirone, Toco created an album that embraced the essence of samba and bossa nova while allowing them to breathe naturally within a contemporary musical landscape, blending Jazz, soul, understated electronics and sophisticated arrangements. Released only on CD at the time, “Instalação Do Samba” is finally given the analogue home it always deserved. This first-ever vinyl edition also includes “Qui C’Est Celui-Là”, previously included in the French CD edition. Over the years, Toco has become the most streamed artist in the entire Schema catalogue, introducing his music to audiences beyond the traditional boundaries of Brazilian jazz and contemporary bossa nova. His songs continue to resonate with listeners around the world, proving that authenticity never goes out of style.
Bali-based producer/DJ STAY GOLDEN makes his debut on All Day I Dream with Silent Covenant, a seven-track album exploring unseen connections, out now.
Silent Covenant traces a near 40-minute path through hypnotic indie-dance textures, melodic techno tones, and deep house grooves. The title track opens with funky drive and a quick-tongued topline before ‘Fragments of a Dream’ pushes into darker territory. From there, ‘RITUAL PAUSE’ and ‘Stay With Me’ return to organic rhythms and deep vocals, balancing cohesion and contrast across the project.
“A seven-track journey through emotions and the invisible connections that shape our lives. Each track is another step in the same journey. The strongest connections are often the ones that never need to be spoken. They live in shared moments and the memories we carry with us. Silent Covenant is my way of translating those invisible bonds into music.” – STAY GOLDEN
Collaborations with Alexey Union, Broken Hill, Kinky Sound, ÜNAM, ANTICALM, and David LeSal broaden the project's sound throughout its second half. ‘Synth Lines’ adds a deeper edge, while ‘In Your Heart’ turns toward airy melodies. Closing with ‘Everything Sacred,’ Silent Covenant brings its themes of memory, connection, and shared experience full circle.
The exclusive Soul Jones Records debut release SJR101, "I Never Had It So Good (Uncut)."
Produced by Elijah Baker (ex-Tony! Toni! Toné! bassist) and Oakland studio maestro BJ Kemp (Ms. Monét / Raphael Saadiq), the record channels early-'70s sweet soul with a contemporary nous that keeps it fresh.
Inspired by a gospel recording by Elijah's father, Reverend Elijah Baker Sr., this romantic serenade brings together an all-star Bay Area line-up: Otis Cooper (Otis & Shugg – "Journey" / "Thank You For My Baby"), R&B hotshot Adrian Marcel and vintage soul specialist Mario Corbino, once part of The Temptations.
For the 10 year anniversary of La Luna, we are excited to share with you this special 007 from Akasha Chronicles, an alias of Silat Beksi.
Akasha Chronicles released his first EP on the Wex sub-label, AHAAD, back in 2018.
After 8 years, he returns with this sentimental mini LP dedicated to his home country, Ukraine.
This release holds a special place in his heart, as he transformed his pain and dealings with the ongoing war into these six tracks which make up History of Great People.
He also wrote a manifesto about the album, his feelings, and the process behind the creation of the album.
Berlin-based artist Memo, who also did the artwork on the first La Luna, returns after 10 years to gift us with another one of his trippy and complex paintings, filled with different worlds the more you observe.
A portion of the sales will be donated to the Ukrainian NGO Repair Together, which focuses on dancing and raving to electronic music while they repair houses destroyed by the war in Ukraine.
Written and produced by: Anatolii Antipin Artwork by Memo Mastered & Cut by Analogcut, Berlin
Limited 200 copy press.
Charlotte de Witte now unleashes her slamming three-track EP ‘The Resistance’, featuring Theo Nasa and XSALT, out on KNTXT. It follows the astonishing summer tour of her new audiovisual show ‘The Resistance’, including a spectacular ‘XXL’ version at Belgium’s Rock Werchter in July, for a 40,000 audience watching from inside and outside the tent.
World #1 techno artist Charlotte de Witte’s new show continues a standout year of experimental ventures and celebrations, global pop-up shows, monster street parties, incredible new music (EPs and Deluxe LP)… and most recently ‘The Resistance’ AV show world premier at UNVRS Ibiza and the EU tour. The new ‘The Resistance’ EP is hard, fast, and uncompromising. It features Theo Nasa, whose raw, deep techno EP ‘Lifeline’ was released on her KNTXT label; vocal artist / longtime collaborator XSALT, (previously on ‘No Division’, ‘Overdrive’, ‘Roar’, ‘How You Move’); and Charlotte’s own vocals on a personal track ten years in the making.
‘The Resistance’ EP title track feat. Theo Nasa is urgent, demanding, unapologetic. Juddering main theme, rattling hyperspeed beat, spacey hoover swoops form a matrix for the deep, amused authoritative voice of Nasa – ‘we are unity, we are techno’. The brief ‘The Resistance (Intro Version)’ opens with futuristic FX and Nasa’s voice to the fore introducing the techno credo.
‘Never have I ever teased a track this much as I teased ‘The Resistance’. From the moment the track was being made in the studio, I knew this was going to be a special one. Theo Nasa captures the spirit of the underground and guides you through the essence of club culture like no one did before. An entire A/V show grew out of this feeling, this philosophy. It’s one of the biggest tracks I’ve ever made.’ Charlotte de Witte
‘See Through The Lies’ feat. XSALT: futuristic FX, fast stabby synth theme, and XSALT intoning ‘see through the lies. It’s time to take control’. A message of defiance. ‘XSALT delivers again on ‘See Through The Lies’, offering his own take on the EP's theme. Open your eyes. Break the illusion, see through the lies. Release the pressure. It’s time to take control!’ de Witte says.
‘Another Place’ has relentless pace, twanging pizzicato synth, and de Witte’s whispered phrases becoming full voice. ‘’Another Place’ has been in the making for over a decade. It saw the light of day in Brussels, where the lyrics took shape together with my friend One Track Brain. The track was forgotten and resurfaced years later, leading to an entirely new track created around that magical vocal from all those years ago. This is an EP very close to my heart.’
At the heart of ‘The Resistance’ EP and AV show is a message central to de Witte’s work: Protect Club Culture and the communities that sustain it. That’s why de Witte is donating all proceeds from The Resistance EP to The Nighttime Foundation, a global nonprofit dedicated to safeguarding and shaping the future of nightlife, empowering grassroots communities and promoting nightlife as a vital form of culture worldwide.
"Memory Remains" A Vinyl Cover Painted by 20 Children Who Believed They Could
A new album where the artwork is as personal as the music, created entirely by first-graders from Croatia.
When it came time to design the cover for Memory Remains, there was only one group of artists who felt right for the job: the first-grade class 1A of Osnovna škola Luka in Sesvete, Croatia.
Every single child in the class took part. Each student was given the chance to draw whatever came to mind: memories, dreams, imaginary worlds, the people and animals they love, and every one of those drawings made it onto the final cover. Nothing was left out, nothing was "corrected." The front and back panels of the vinyl are a patchwork of more than two dozen individual visions, side by side, unfiltered and unmistakably their own.
The idea grew directly out of the album's centrepiece track, "World Child", a song about the simple, often-overlooked truth that every child carries a talent that belongs only to them, and that no two ways of seeing the world are the same. Rather than illustrate that idea with a single artist's interpretation, it felt right to hand the canvas to an entire classroom of six- and seven-year-olds and let them prove the point themselves.
The result is a cover that doesn't try to look polished or professional, because that was never the goal. It looks like a classroom wall covered in a year's worth of drawings, each one different, each one someone's best effort, each one worth keeping. Which is exactly what "World Child" is about.
Memory Remains is out on vinyl.
Track of note: "World Child"
Artwork by: The students of 1A, Osnovna škola Luka, Sesvete, Croatia 2026
Celebrating ten years of independent music, Nerang Recordings returns with its sixteenth vinyl release, A Decade of Nerang Recordings - Mix Selections. Bringing together six artists from across the label’s history and extended community, the compilation showcases the diverse sounds that have shaped Nerang over the last decade. Featuring DJ Swagger, Nasty King Kurl, Subjoi, DOS, Low Tape and Moody McIvor, the release moves effortlessly between UK Garage, House, Tech House, Lo-Fi House, Electro and Synthwave while maintaining a clear identity throughout. Since its inception, Nerang Recordings has never been interested in following a single genre, scene or trend. Instead, the label has always focused on releasing music based on quality, individuality and atmosphere. Over the years that philosophy has resulted in a catalogue that crosses stylistic boundaries while remaining connected by a shared spirit. A Decade of Nerang Recordings - Mix Selections serves as both a celebration of the label’s first ten years and a statement of intent for the future. Each track represents a different corner of the Nerang universe, reflecting the sounds, influences and artists that have helped shape the label’s journey so far.
From rolling UK Garage rhythms and club-focused house cuts through to hazy lo-fi textures, cinematic synth work and darker electronic excursions, the compilation highlights the freedom that has always sat at the heart of the label. Rather than being confined by genre expectations, Nerang continues to embrace music on its own terms, allowing each release to find its own identity and audience. While thisrelease reflects on the past decade, it is equally focused on what comes next. The goal remains the same as it was on day one: support great artists, release music without limitations and continue exploring new territory wherever it may lead. Ten years in, Nerang Recordings remains committed to doing things its own way
For Louis Johnstone, making music has never been about waiting for the right equipment, the right environment or the right moment. Across more than a decade of work as both Wanda Group and A Large Sheet Of Muscle, the Huddersfield-based musician has built one of British experimental music's most singular bodies of work by embracing whatever happens to be within reach, allowing instinct, improvisation and circumstance to shape the outcome as much as conscious composition.
"'Chinese Benefits' was made over a year ago on an iPhone that had a broken microphone and was on its way out," he explains. "I have made many records after this with clearer sounds. Sharper ideas. That is never the point, though. You work with what you hold in your hands."
Recorded entirely on a failing iPhone 6 that stopped working shortly afterwards, 'Chinese Benefits' isn't a record about damaged technology. It is a record shaped by it. Rather than resisting the limitations of the device, Johnstone allows them to become part of the music itself, where distortion, interference and deteriorating fidelity are inseparable from the recording process.
Across twenty brief but disquieting pieces, corroded spoken word, environmental recordings, abrasive noise and fractured electronics continually emerge and dissolve. Voices drift in and out of range, reverberation stretches everyday sounds beyond recognition, and bursts of white noise interrupt moments of uneasy calm. There are echoes of radio transmissions, field recordings and musique concrète throughout, yet 'Chinese Benefits' never settles comfortably into any one tradition. Instead, it inhabits a space where accident and intention become almost impossible to separate.
That philosophy has long defined Johnstone's work. Through a vast catalogue of self-released recordings on his Umbro G imprint, alongside releases for labels including The Trilogy Tapes, he has consistently favoured immediacy over refinement, embracing imperfection not as an aesthetic but as a practical reality. His recordings are less concerned with perfection than with capturing the conditions in which they were made.
Looking back on 'Chinese Benefits', however, Johnstone's own assessment is characteristically understated.
"Listening back fully, it's quite a nice record actually. Fair enough, I make them and never really listen again TBH. Even better, it was the last Large Sheet Of Muscle record made on that phone with grit and damaged guts."
Like much of his work, 'Chinese Benefits' offers few fixed meanings. Its titles remain cryptic, its voices partially obscured and its structures deliberately unstable. What emerges instead is a deeply personal document of process over perfection, where the limitations of the tools become inseparable from the music they produce, and where the act of making something matters far more than the conditions in which it was made.
Sadurn’s sophomore album The Underworld is a collection of heart-rendingly personal and instantly relatable songs, due out this fall on Run For Cover Records. Following years of lingering vocal issues for guitarist G DeGroot, the album is the culmination of an emotion- al and spiritual journey and a a deeply personal meditation on loss, healing, and transformation.
Sadurn began in 2017 as a solo project for G DeGroot, and from the start their approach to songwriting was informed more by emotional intuition than any kind of real ambitions to be heard. “I discovered songwriting as an outlet for processing my reality,” they explain. “A lot of times when something is hard to say, it flows more easily in songwriting. It’s a place where you can circle back to your own truth.” After moving to Philadelphia, DeGroot was joined by gui- tarist Jon Cox, drummer Amelia Swain, and bassist Tabitha Ahnert. The group recorded Radiator, a debut that immediately connected with listeners and was met with critical acclaim.
Throughout The Underworld, the rawness of DeGroot’s lyrics are matched by Cox, Ahnert, and Swain’s evocative playing. Stunning opener “the weight” describes the early stages of a relationship deteriorating, with brilliant soloing from Cox and DeGroot’s warm voice intertwining through its widescreen outro. Highlights like “mess,” “never tell me,” or “whole thing” strike a perfect balance be- tween lush arrangements and intimate performances, while tracks like “why does my heart” or “can’t stop” add unvarnished, single take moments of spontaneity, or GarageBand demo looseness that perfectly compliment the unabashed longing in the songwriting.
Sadurn’s sophomore album The Underworld is a collection of heart-rendingly personal and instantly relatable songs, due out this fall on Run For Cover Records. Following years of lingering vocal issues for guitarist G DeGroot, the album is the culmination of an emotion- al and spiritual journey and a a deeply personal meditation on loss, healing, and transformation.
Sadurn began in 2017 as a solo project for G DeGroot, and from the start their approach to songwriting was informed more by emotional intuition than any kind of real ambitions to be heard. “I discovered songwriting as an outlet for processing my reality,” they explain. “A lot of times when something is hard to say, it flows more easily in songwriting. It’s a place where you can circle back to your own truth.” After moving to Philadelphia, DeGroot was joined by gui- tarist Jon Cox, drummer Amelia Swain, and bassist Tabitha Ahnert. The group recorded Radiator, a debut that immediately connected with listeners and was met with critical acclaim.
Throughout The Underworld, the rawness of DeGroot’s lyrics are matched by Cox, Ahnert, and Swain’s evocative playing. Stunning opener “the weight” describes the early stages of a relationship deteriorating, with brilliant soloing from Cox and DeGroot’s warm voice intertwining through its widescreen outro. Highlights like “mess,” “never tell me,” or “whole thing” strike a perfect balance be- tween lush arrangements and intimate performances, while tracks like “why does my heart” or “can’t stop” add unvarnished, single take moments of spontaneity, or GarageBand demo looseness that perfectly compliment the unabashed longing in the songwriting.
Sadurn’s sophomore album The Underworld is a collection of heart-rendingly personal and instantly relatable songs, due out this fall on Run For Cover Records. Following years of lingering vocal issues for guitarist G DeGroot, the album is the culmination of an emotion- al and spiritual journey and a a deeply personal meditation on loss, healing, and transformation.
Sadurn began in 2017 as a solo project for G DeGroot, and from the start their approach to songwriting was informed more by emotional intuition than any kind of real ambitions to be heard. “I discovered songwriting as an outlet for processing my reality,” they explain. “A lot of times when something is hard to say, it flows more easily in songwriting. It’s a place where you can circle back to your own truth.” After moving to Philadelphia, DeGroot was joined by gui- tarist Jon Cox, drummer Amelia Swain, and bassist Tabitha Ahnert. The group recorded Radiator, a debut that immediately connected with listeners and was met with critical acclaim.
Throughout The Underworld, the rawness of DeGroot’s lyrics are matched by Cox, Ahnert, and Swain’s evocative playing. Stunning opener “the weight” describes the early stages of a relationship deteriorating, with brilliant soloing from Cox and DeGroot’s warm voice intertwining through its widescreen outro. Highlights like “mess,” “never tell me,” or “whole thing” strike a perfect balance be- tween lush arrangements and intimate performances, while tracks like “why does my heart” or “can’t stop” add unvarnished, single take moments of spontaneity, or GarageBand demo looseness that perfectly compliment the unabashed longing in the songwriting.
2026 Repress
Originally released in South Africa in 1983, In The Music......The Village Never Ends is one of those holy-grail African records that barely needs any introduction. Featuring the enormous 'Nomalizo', it's a record that aficionados around the world have been waiting many years for. Now, Be With Records proudly presents the hugely anticipated vinyl reissue of this bonafied classic.
This release is officially licensed and has been lovingly mastered for vinyl by Simon Francis (Claremont 56 mastering engineer) It has been pressed on audiophile 180gram vinyl for the first time and features the original, rarely seen artwork.
South African singer Letta Mbulu possesses one of the most beautiful voices the world has ever known. Her immaculate voice emits a sweetness that radiates from deep within, brimming with a joy of life and inspiring a spirit of hope and happiness. On this album, her voice soars over a strident musical force that veers between disco, soul and pop music of the most incredible kind. The gleaming guitars recall disco's finest hours while the thump of the beats anticipate 80s British soul.
News of this limited reissue has already been causing a significant stir amongst those in the know so do not sleep on this - you have been warned!
Tiki for the Atomic Age feels like a mid-century transmission intercepted from a parallel timeline—one where hi-fi futurism, Polynesian fantasy, and postwar optimism never lost their sense of wonder. Kava Kon isn’t recreating exotica so much as reviving its original promise: escape, elegance, and possibility, rendered in warm, widescreen stereo.
Built on shimmering vibraphones, reverb-drenched guitars, analog organs, and ritual-leaning percussion, these tracks move at an unhurried pace. This is oceanic music—designed for dim lights, glowing glassware, and time stretched just enough to breathe. The lineage is clear: lounge exotica, bachelor-pad modernism, space-age pop. But this isn’t pastiche or museum work. It’s retro-futurism with intention, imagined from the future looking back.
The “Atomic Age” isn’t just aesthetic shorthand. It speaks to contrast—leisure in the shadow of anxiety, beauty alongside uncertainty, fantasy as a necessary technology. Kava Kon understands that tiki was never about geography; it was about psychology. A constructed elsewhere. A permission slip to slow down.
Pressed on vinyl, Tiki for the Atomic Age comes fully alive: tactile, immersive, and meant to be lived with. For listeners drawn to mid-century dreamscapes and modern exotica that honors the past without freezing it, this is an invitation—step sideways out of the present and into something more elegant.
What an unbelievable record. From the wild cover to the iconic breakbeats, Roots from Ian Carr’s Nucleus is one of the dopest albums we know. This is seriously thick, funky-prog jazz-rock heaven. Originally released on Vertigo in 1973, other than a couple of versions at the time for other territories, Roots was never re-pressed since so it’s gone on to become another one of those impossible to find records.
Maybe it was a little too out there for the time, but it’s aged very, very well indeed and this Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press.
Genius trumpeter and visionary composer Ian Carr was one of the most respected British musicians of his era. He was a true pioneer and saw the potential in fusing the worlds of jazz with rock, just as Miles Davis and The Tony Williams Lifetime did in the US. In late 1969, following the demise of the Rendell-Carr quintet, and tiring of British jazz, Carr assembled the legendary Nucleus. Regarding music as a continuous process, Nucleus refused to “recognise rigid boundaries” and worked on delivering what they saw as a “total musical experience”. We can get behind that.
Under bandleader Carr, Nucleus existed as a fluid line-up of inventive, skilled musicians. This constant evolution and revolution was all part of the continuous musical exploration and discovery that took jazz to new levels.
Working together with producer Fritz Fryer and engineer Roger Wake, the seven compositions by Carr, Brian Smith and Dave MacRae that make up Roots flirt with perfection, and Nucleus at that time made up of the cream of 1970s UK jazz with Brian Smith on tenor saxophones and flutes, Dave MacRae on piano and electric piano, Jocelyn Pitchen on guitar, Roger Sutton on bass, both Clive Thacker and Aureo De Souza on drums and percussion, Joy Yates delivering the vocals and of course Carr on trumpet.
The spellbinding title track immediately renders the album indispensable. Riding the illest of loping breakbeats, “Roots” is low-slung, doped-out heist-funk. An absolute monster. If it sounds familiar then that’s likely down to it being sampled by Madlib for Lootpack and Quasimoto’s “Loop Digga”, as well as by a whole host of beat manipulators. “Roots” conjures prime instrumental hip-hop / beat music, only 20 years ahead of its time. Truly, these are the roots. Through sinuous bass, twinkling keys and a hypnotic guitar riff, a smoky brass motif weaves its way into a gloriously deep haze around Carr’s solos. “Roots” is over 9 minutes long, but there’s not a single wasted second, not surprising given that this is a condensed version of an originally 40 minute long commissioned composition.
The soothing vocal fusion delight of “Images” follows. Meticulously constructed, with gorgeous flute work from Brian Smith, with Joy Yates’ silky vocals and Dave MacRae’s Rhodes never sounding better. The cool, driving “Caliban” closes out the first side. Originally the third movement in a four part commission to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday it stands up on its own, all robust rhythms and blended brass. Keyboard colour and Carr’s trumpet are splashed across the funk drums and basslines (and there’s even some bamboo flute). This really is fusion: the elements of jazz and rock coming together in beautifully synthesis.
Side two opens in riotous fashion with the short, thrilling samba of “Wapatiti”. Next up, “Capricorn” forms a smoothed-out, jazzy constellation. Mellow and dreamy, its twinkling percussion and languid horns slowly build the vibe before head-nod drums and a killer bassline enter the fray. With a distinct heaviness that Black Sabbath would’ve envied, “Odokamona” is a venomous slice of riff-soaked jazz metal (yes, you read that right), elevated by Carr’s wah-wah horns.
The album closes with MacRae’s exceptionally cosmic “Southern Roots and Celebration”. Very much in conversation with Weather Report, it opens as a languorous, spiritual jazz of chiming keys and serene guitar that turns slowly, gorgeously into a mid-paced, brass-laced banger. It’s another sure-fire party starter and the sound of the band having a righteous blast, building an ecstatic chaos that ends with Yates screaming.
And of course we need to talk about Keith Davis’ cover for Roots. Perhaps the coolest record cover of all time? Certainly one of the most bonkers. Just your run-of-the-mill high-gloss, acid-tinged airbrush dystopian/utopian living-room party scene. Consider this your chemical flashback trigger warning.
Front-and-centre the hip-to-death green robot holds court with their giant ball of yellow barbwire wool, hooked up to… something(?) being teased out from under the stairs (probably best not to ask). A thoroughly zoned-out, long-legged Pop Art party-goer lounges half-plugged in to the painting behind her as a pair of legs flail into shot from the the top of the stairs opposite. We won’t even begin to guess what the chap’s up to in the middle, but the view out of the windows is rather nice, and someone’s already got the hoover out ready to tidy up. All of the Nucleus sleeves are something special, but this particular one? Crikey.
This Be With edition of Roots has been re-mastered from the original Vertigo master tapes, Simon Francis’ mastering working together with Pete Norman’s cut to weave their usual magic with these wonderful recordings. The crazy cover has been restored at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to this long overdue re-issue.
