Suche:no use for a name

RAWAX welcomes Maartenvan der Vleuten to the family!

We have the honour to present you some unreleased tracks from the 90'!

The Dutch producer, composer and recording artist born in Vught, The Netherlands in 1967.

From 1987 to 2007 he has used over two dozen aliases producing Detroit techno, electro, house, experimental and ambient tracks and remixes.
Early 2008 he announced to only use his real name (or his initials MVDV) for future releases.

During the 90's he recorded mainly dance/techno for R&S Records, Outrage Recordings, Apollo Records (Belgium), Djax-Up-Beats, See Saw, ESP and Klang Elektronik and several other labels. Since 1996 he is also releasing music on his own label Signum Recordings. The two sublabels of Signum; Passiflora and Glam, are now both defunct.

He is the founder of Signum Recordings, Passiflora Records and Glam Records.

Exactly one year after Developer's 5 year anniversary release on Modularz which also was also celebrated in a special label night at Berlin's premiere techno club Berghain back in November 2015. He returns for is next ep named "Dispatches from LA" Developer went to his home city of LA over the summer 2016 to play a calendar of shows in the US and to record this ep from his 2nd studio in Los Angeles. Its more of his trademark sequenced based yet hypnotic sound with a bit more of analog gear used for this one.

2026 Repress

Un-American Activities is the 11th Studio album by Molly Nilsson. Written and recorded entirely on location in California at the former home of writer, poet and early opponent of the National Socialist regime in 1930s Germany, Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife Marta. An album of experimentation, genre-mashing and, above it all, Nilsson’s instantly recognisable melodic skill and empathy, it continues the songwriter’s explorations of power, freedom, oppression and its opposing force, a love unbound.
After accepting an artist residency as part of the Villa Aurora program, Nilsson began work crafting a new album from scratch in a new environment, afforded the freedom, space and time to challenge her practice and take her music into new territory. The resulting work, Un American Activities, is a love note not only to the artist who was among the very first to be declared an “enemy of the state” by the Nazi regime but also to both the eternal struggle he fought and the human spirit that pervades all of Nilsson’s best work. It is also a double-pointed poison pen letter: a critique of the new forms of oppression wielded by her temporary adopted country of the USA but also an acknowledgement of the promise it always offers but never fulfils.
Along with the novel use of colour and photography in the artwork for Un-American Activities, there are swathes of new techniques, genres and timbres new to Molly Nilsson’s music in evidence, 16 years into her music career. On Jackboots Return is an icicle-cold New Beat track that deals directly with the current situation in Germany and the resurgent Nazi-affiliated AfD. The question the song asks is, what’s the timeframe we’re talking about? Is this the 30s, or somewhere a lot closer to home? The beat is picked up on The Communist Party, Nilsson’s deepest bow to House music, evoking the early 90s Rave pioneers, Belgian 80s music and Vogue-era Madonna. Here the lyrics are direct quotes from the McCarthy-era, anti-Communist pamphlet 100 Things You Should Know About Communism in the U.S.A. The Beauty Of The Duty does to pounding Electro what Nilsson’s last album Extreme did to Metal: subsume it into the Molly Nilsson aesthetic. It goes hard.
While Un-American Activities finds Nilsson experimenting, creating instinctive music on a first-thought-bestthought basis there are still “classic” Molly moments liberally spread throughout. Excalibur feels like the Molly of old, an absolute star of a chorus refrain smudged with the vaseline of fuzz and hope, Red Telephone is wide-eyed, slathered in reverb and chorus effects, distorted with soaring melody, a heart-tugger that tugs the body upwards to the heavens with each evolving wave. Glistening digital tones wash through the album, providing a Y2K etherealness to Nilsson’s audacious Stars and Stripes reference to Wetcheeks. Perhaps the album’s standout, however, is Palestine (Somewhere Over The Rainbow), which is suffuse with empathy, solidarity and, in referencing the classic socialist-penned canon song from The Wizard Of Oz, speaks directly to the tradition of fighting oppression with full hearts of hope.

To celebrate the 20-year anniversary of our label Jamaican Recordings and to mark the sad one year passing of the musical maestro reggae producer Bunny `Striker’ Lee, we have pulled together a brand new collection of some great Bunny Lee rhythms.

Our label started way back with initial meetings with Bunny Lee and a promise to keep his music available, out on the streets. He will be sorely missed but will live on through his extraordinary musical legacy and we hope to add to this by including this release to the stable of an unbeatable catalogue.

Legendary record producer Bunny `Striker’ Lee’s vast selection of rhythms were ever present at any Sound Clash or Dance worth talking about in the early to mid-1970’s.
Where the version found on the b-side of a single or special dub cut on acetates, would be played to win over the people and conquer the dance. Bunny Lee was the undisputed rhythm master and on this special release he is also the MC telling the crowd how it is and that any rival sound system should watch out as he has the rhythms that can reign supreme. The band cutting these timeless rhythms were a group of top Jamaican musicians Bunny had put together called The Aggrovators.

The Aggrovators were a group of reggae musicians that usually featured Carlton `Santa’ Davis on drums playing alongside Robbie Shakespeare on bass, with other musicians added like Earl `Chinna’ Smith on guitar and Tommy McCook and Vin Gordon and Lennox Brown added for horn arrangements. Keyboards and organ duties normally fell
to musicians Ansel Collins and Bernard ‘Touter’ Harvey. The band was named after singer Eddie Grant had repeated the phrase to Bunny Lee on one of his many trips to England, that such and such artist was giving him `Aggro’. This was a term used in England in the 1970’s by the Skinhead followers of reggae music. A term shortened
from the word `Aggrovation’, meaning trouble, fighting or making the situation worse. Bunny Lee was so taken with this term that on returning to Jamaica, not only did he name his group of musicians the `Aggrovators’ but he also named his record shop situated at 101 Orange Street `Agro Records’.

We have compiled some great tracks recorded by this fantastic group of musicians. With the added extra magic of Mr Bunny Lee calling it out as only he can on the microphone.
Yes Run Sound Boy Run the version master is here…Respect

Caterina Barbieri & Bendik Giske's At Source resounds music as wellspring, that which is essential and unknowable, and yet utterly primary. It finds two acclaimed composer-musicians building a world together in self-contained collaboration between analogue synthesis and an extended approach to the saxophone that conjures its own universe of sound. It is at once intimate and cosmic, drawing on the challenges and possibilities of their artistic exchange, tearing down technique to access all the expansive possibilities of their sonic meeting point.



At Source is a document of the world of sound to be conjured when two artists strive for something together, discovering the expansions and limitations of performance by bodies and machines. It is not an exercise in assimilation, but in productive exchange and creative confrontation. It does not draw on outside energies or influences, but grapples with what there is to find in their respective playing. "It also reflects how natural the collaboration was," says Barbieri, "a meeting at the source which was spontaneous, graceful and natural".



Barbieri and Giske first met and were enthralled by one another's performances at Kunsthaus Glarus in 2019, a meeting that spurred conversations on the power of transitions as a compositional force. Giske later contributed a rework of Fantas for Fantas Variations (Editions Mego, 2021), an ambitious undertaking to rescore Barbieri’s work for his saxophone and voice, a challenge Giske had started undertaking two years prior as an ongoing practice of transcription. “The request came as a proof of aligned ideas”, says Giske.



Their new collaborative project then started during an artistic residency in Milan’s ICA in 2021, by invitation of swiss artist and curator Jan Vorisek, as the world was emerging from lockdown. This meeting, and the preceding closure of sites for cultural exchange, made their work together 'feel like springtime' says Barbieri. Giske, who was on the brink of releasing his sophomore album, Cracks, then joined Barbieri's light-years tour, which functioned as an inaugural incarnation of her newborn label and platform through a series of multi-artist curated shows with appearances of Lyra Pramuk, Nkisi, MFO, among other artists.



Through the tour, they continued to develop material live, and this release, laid down in the studio, is true to that ever-evolving process of creation, where live feedback stays essential to the vitality of this collaborative effort. The tracks are each named with two evocative words that contain the two poles of their sound. Theirs is both abstract and cosmic, in the synth as machine undermined by Barbieri's naturalistic playing, and in Giske's continuous exploration of the symbiosis between his instrument, voice, and body. These binaries, of body and machine, posed various challenges, notably in how the stepped patterns Barbieri uses were near-impossible to translate for Giske's body to perform, and other times where mathematical resolutions were needed to sync their playing. Explains Giske: "It forced me to go to the core of what I am and what I have to offer”. Barbieri says that it "explores the liminality between the machine and the human, and the vulnerability in this process".



At Source is testament to two divergent practices finding a whole cosmos in which to convene; music is crystalised and made utterly enveloping through the focused and critical work of two musicians working at their peak. The versions here are, temptingly, "just one of many versions" of this abundant source material Giske explains. Like the best collaborations, At Source is more than the sum of its parts – bringing more to the feast than the simple combination of two musicians, promising versions upon versions of the exquisite material captured here.

Some words from Nat about the music – “For this recording I composed some songs using more “exotic” (for want of a better word) modes,
which I have always meant to explore in more depth but never really got around to very much. The first song for instance, Red, Gold & Green, uses an Ethiopian scale.
The title comes from the colours of the Ethiopian flag, which is also symbolic in Rastafari so has a kind of double meaning, like a lot of my songs.The title track, Path of Enlightenment, uses several modes,
starting in a major key then moving to the Phrygian mode, then to a minor key. The piano solo is in a 28 bar minor blues form. Menat is based on a mode of the Byzantine scale,
I’m not sure if it has a particular name or not. Amenhotep was the name of several Egyptian pharaohs,
Amenhotep IV being the original given name of Akhenaten.When I was writing this song it put me in mind of my song, Akhenaten, simply because they are both in 5/4 time,
so I decided to give this one a pharaonic name too. Spheshile is a Zulu word (and sometimes name) that means “beautiful gift”, the title was suggested by a friend from South Africa.
All this means nothing of course if the music doesn’t tell a story, I think the unfamiliar modes allowed us to speak of interesting things that may not have come to us otherwise.
Finally, I chose to use the quartet format for this recording because it occurred to me that it tends to make for a more cohesive group sound, and it had been a while since we recorded this way.”

In the late 70s/early 80s, songwriter Wim van der Stelt composed an instrumental track that he later recorded during leftover studio time after a long recording session as a studio musician.

A special and strange piece of music that is difficult to name precisely in terms of style. You could think of it as a piece of soundtrack or library music, but it's not quite that either. It's just a beautifully written tune that hooks you as a listener. The melody sticks with – and grows on – you. He eventually sold the song for a flat fee and lost track of what had happened with it. In 1982 it was released as a 7” single on the Dutch record label "Friends Records".

For the A-side, the instrumental version was supplemented with English/French vocals and this version was entitled ‘Qui, Mon Amour’. Van der Stelt knew nothing about it until recently, and he has no idea who the singer is, who produced the vocal version or why the name Anoux was used. His original first recorded instrumental ended up on the B-side of this single and was titled 'The Unknown Song'. After the record was released, it failed to chart and was quickly forgotten. Until now! Regrooved is re-releasing the 7” with the original instrumental version as the a-side and the vocal on the back. Hopefully this great song with its melancholy melody now reaches the audience it deserves.
(The original release is credited under the name of the composer, his then-wife, B. Onderstal - for love reasons.)

When Ryan DeRobertis announced the name change of his project from Saint Pepsi to Skylar Spence, there was no indication of any stylistic departure, though the change arrived with a musical shift toward faster tempos and more pristine production. Whereas Saint Pepsi had often used decades-old boogie, disco, and new wave as grist for the sampling mill, Skylar Spence is intent on trafficking more overtly in those genre aesthetics through his own production techniques and vocal contributions. With Prom King, DeRobertis reorients his music for his new full-band live act and winds up with an album full of tight and enveloping dance tunes.

Working with Carpark Records 'gave me the confidence to 'go big' with the new material: to write pop songs with universal messages in the sonic wrapping paper that I've grown accustomed to,' DeRobertis says. 'A few songs on Prom King are about specific events in my life—a party where I got too messed up, watching a friend's life spiral out of control and trying to help—but I tried hard not to be too autobiographical because I want my music to unite, above all else. I'm much more interested in connecting with the listener than mystifying my personality.'

While DeRobertis' previous long-players have been more amorphous collections in the style of beat tapes, Prom King is compact and cohesive, with the album's varied stylistic references (new wave, UK garage, boogie) united through strong guitar melodies and Todd Edwards-ian cobblings-together of tiny vocal samples. 'I slowed some music down and called myself an artist,' DeRobertis sings on lead single 'Can't You See,' acknowledging in his lyrics what is already apparent in the music's tone—he can maintain fidelity to his vision while working in more uptempo, disco-based song structures.

'Ridiculous!' and 'Bounce Is Back' are big groovers that capitalize on jacking hi-hats and hand drumming, respectively, and both have an air of Balearic warmth and smoothness. On the title track, DeRobertis entwines a chorus of unintelligible but expressive samples with his own vocals—what feels like a synthesis of two approaches—and the result is an affecting pattern of build and release. More contemplative sophisti-pop numbers like 'Fall Harder' and 'Affairs' add a realist's breadth of scope: thoughts of past foibles bleed into present-dwelling and dancing.

Prom King is DeRobertis making sense of missed opportunities. His high school did not have a prom king; he has filled the position with an imaginative album of personal and musical revisionism.

"K8A a.k.a. Kaethe Hostetter is a New York–based violinist. composer, and bandleader, whose work grew out of eleven years living and collaborating in Ethiopia. As a founding member of Debo Band and QWANQWA, Hostetter has been performing Ethiopian music for over two decades, and her solo debut, Woradj Alle, builds on this legacy by reimagining Ethiopian songs through live-looped violin and electronics.
"The album unfolds as a hypnotic, ritual-like performance that expands the instrument into an immersive sonic landscape, that refracts Ethiopian classics through dub, psych rock, and avant improvisation. It is not fusion, but transmission - music that blurs memory, place, and time.
"This collection of musical vignettes is based on my time in Ethiopia, the place I called home for 11 years", Kaethe explains. "The phrase 'Woradj Alle' is one of the first colloquial expressions I learned upon arriving in Addis Ababa, used on public transportation, simply meaning 'let me off right around here'. In choosing this name, I invite you to join me on the rickety minibus journey through my time in Ethiopia, and step off 'the bus' into scenarios, atmospheres, and soundscapes that describe moments I experienced, people I met, and other lasting impressions, striking and mundane."

Nevertheless, the latest album from Hammock, exists in a state of awakening. Across 11 ambient guitar string, and piano works, ethereal light crests and contrasts with darkness, giving shape to physical forms and feelings. Amidst sorrow and grief, melodic motifs and refrains echo from the past to reanimate dreams and faded memories. As Nevertheless asks questions of permanence and purpose, beauty takes shape in the intangible_the traceless connections that gave, and give, meaning. "Nevertheless has been one of those words that has outlasted my upbringing," says Hammock's Marc Byrd. "Being from the deep South, I most often heard it said or read at funeral services. It's meant to imply a type of sacred pause . . . a space of in between. Between the grief of being broken by the world and the impossibility of moving into a future that feels more like empty space and less like solid ground. This album is for a friend who lost a daughter and a son to addiction within a couple of years of each other. Requiem for Johan sets up the context for what is to follow throughout the rest of the album. . . a passage through the aftermath of devastation. Unfortunately, and fortunately, these seasons of loss are what we all share in common. Nevertheless . . . we limp on."

KITCHEN. LABEL is proud to present AGATE, the latest album by Japanese artist MEITEI, marking a deepening of the world he first shaped through his Kofū trilogy released between 2020 - 2023.

Named after the mineral agate, a stone formed through slow accumulation, pressure, and time, the album reflects MEITEI’s patient approach to sound. AGATE brings together extended and newly rearranged works from across the Kofū cycle alongside new compositions and passages, refining material developed through years of performance and sustained practice.

The album presents seven tracks:

HAŌ (Previously unreleased track)
SHIN-OIRAN (Remodeled from Oiran I, Kofū 2020)
SHIN-SADAYAKKO (Remodeled from Sadayakko, Kofū 2020)
SHIN-WAROSOKU (Remodeled from Wa-rōsoku, Kofū III 2023)
KYŪGEKI (Remodeled from Shinobi and Akira Kurosawa, Kofū II 2021)
SHIN-OIRAN II (Remodeled from Oiran II, Kofū 2020)
SHIN-EDOGAWARANPO (Remodeled from Edogawa Ranpo, Kofū III 2023)
Across these works, MEITEI expands the musical vocabulary first introduced in Kofū, a sound he once described as “lost Japanese mood.” While Kofū drew from fragments of folklore, theatre, ghost stories, and forgotten urban memory, it was never an act of historical reconstruction. Rather, it reflected a sensibility of the past observed from the present. With AGATE, this worldview is clarified as Shinpu, a process of discovery in which historical awareness becomes a foundation for contemporary creation rather than a constraint.

During five years of Kofū tours across Japan, Europe, and Asia, MEITEI performed this material in a wide range of spaces, from underground live houses and listening rooms to culturally significant sites. These environments influenced pacing, dynamics, and structure, shaping how the material evolved over time. AGATE is therefore not only a studio album, but the result of material refined through repeated performance.

If the Kofū albums were windows into forgotten eras, AGATE explores what lies beneath, sediment and strata formed through time and pressure. MEITEI’s approach to sound mirrors the nature of agate itself. Grains become texture. Texture becomes narrative. Voices drift through decaying layers of sound, while ancient instruments are used in non-traditional ways, forming distinctive percussive rhythms and melodies that appear and vanish without fixed resolution.

The album’s visual materials were developed under MEITEI’s direction through physical art-making processes. The cover artwork originates from a letterpress print created by Kamisoe, a Karakami atelier in Nishijin, Kyoto, using Kyo-karakami paper. The original artwork, produced through traditional woodblock techniques on handmade washi, was subsequently reproduced on print for the album edition. Kamisoe continues to reinterpret this historical Kyoto craft with a contemporary sensibility.

The title calligraphy was created by Bio Xie, whom MEITEI personally invited to participate in the project. During his performances abroad, MEITEI encountered in Taiwan a lingering atmosphere reminiscent of “Shitsunihon” — a sense of old Japanese memory that quietly endures beyond time. He was deeply drawn to Bio Xie’s distinctive use of Chinese characters, which resonated with this experience, and asked him to contribute to the visual expression of AGATE.

In parallel, MEITEI continues to reinterpret Japanese sensibility through his concept of “Shitsunihon,” presenting it as a contemporary musical language. The refined Kyoto motifs envisioned by Kamisoe and the distinctive calligraphic expression by Bio Xie intersect with MEITEI’s singular artistic direction, weaving together a newly articulated worldview.

The accompanying visual imagery, including the liner photographs, was created by photographer Hiroshi Okamoto, who was also responsible for the visual direction of MEITEI’s previous work, “Sen'nyū.” It draws from MEITEI’s lived experiences of winter seas, solitary cliffs, and breaking waves. These scenes symbolize the inner conflicts of the ten years he spent living in Hiroshima, and his confrontation with solitude and the sounds he creates.

AGATE will be released on 17 April 2025 via KITCHEN. LABEL on 180g vinyl, CD, and digital formats. The album is mastered by Kelly Hibbert, known for his work with Flying Lotus, Madlib, and J Dilla.

With AGATE, MEITEI returns to the material of Kofū with greater focus and discipline, continuing an ongoing process of working forward with inherited material.

A magus is a wizard…a sorcerer. Magus, the band, is certainly interested in such things (who isn’t), but the name is especially apt due to the band’s approach to alchemy, the blending of rock, gothic, proto metal, and psychedelic styles to create a sound that is, ultimately, unique. Part of that uniqueness comes from the instrumentation. While guitar is often a dominant instrument of the rock oeuvre, the Fender Rhodes generally plays a supportive role. Not so here, where Jessica Weeks’ deft use of the keyboard dovetails with Greg Weeks’ more standard six-string approach. Not standard is the band’s sound. Doomy yet inspirational, dour yet vibrant, the duo’s tunes map sinister realms whose subjects span metaphysical creatures to enigmatic portals. You know, the typical stuff that rubs elbows with a magus.

Formed in late 2024, Magus sprung from a desire by both artists to experiment with darker, heavier sounds. Long enamored of artists like Flower Travelling Band,, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple, the duo delved deeply into trance like riffs and euphoric solos to create the backbone of what has become their debut album, Music for Mandrax. This thirteenth Language of Stone offering features grounded, metronomic grooves, organic, lugubrious synth lines, and tandem vocals (supplied by both Weekses) that, in total, weave a heavy, trancelike spell sure to entice fans of bands as disparate as Sabbath is to Pink Floyd. Recorded at Weeks’ Hexham Head studio (to analog tape, of course), the band enlisted long-time counterparts Jesse Sparhawk (bass) and Ben McConnell (drums) to round out their sound and lock down the grooves that propel the album.

Mixed by Brian McTear and Amy Morrisey at Miner Street in Philadelphia, the band’s fully realized vision came to fruition, which left only the album art to contemplate. The band, wishing to further the gothic aesthetic of their sound, enlisted fashion designer and artist extraordinaire Hogan McLaughlin (Game of Thrones) to create the starkly beautiful line drawings of the front and back covers. The duo travelled to Salem, MA to complete the package with Courtney Brooke Hall, who shot the moody and evocative photographs that grace the gatefold release’s inner panels.

BCUC – Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness – have been channeling the spirit of Soweto for over twenty years. Indigenous funk, hip-hop consciousness, and punk rock energy fused into something utterly original and deeply rooted. Their mantra: Music for the people, by the people, with the people. From humble beginnings rehearsing in a shipping container, a stone's throw from the church where Desmond Tutu organized the escape of the most wanted anti-Apartheid activists, they kept believing in their dream of self-empowerment. Today they command festival stages worldwide: Glastonbury West Holts, Roskilde, Afropunk Brooklyn, WOMAD, Fusion, Sziget, FMM Sines, Beaches Brew, Boomtown, Colours of Ostrava, Couleur Café – to name just a few. In 2023, BCUC were honoured with the prestigious WOMEX Artist Award, an accolade usually reserved for more established artists, in recognition of their fearless work and transcendent live performances.

THE ROAD IS NEVER EASY

The Road Is Never Easy is BCUC's fifth album and their debut on Outhere Records. On this new offering, BCUC take listeners on another Afro-psychedelic journey into the soul of Soweto. It feels like a gospel sermon colliding with a punk concert, "guaranteed to touch untapped corners of your soul" (OkayAfrica). BCUC's music is deeply rooted in history and echoes the voices of the ones who came before. The road was never easy for the people of Soweto who originally came to work in the mines of Egoli, the City of Gold, Johannesburg. When apartheid finally ended after a long struggle, it was hoped that life would improve. But more than 30 years later, many of those initial hopes and dreams are still waiting to be fulfilled. This album is about that struggle. The album contains 10 brand new songs – a record for BCUC, whose previous albums featured an average of 3 songs. It represents the culmination of more than two decades of performing together and building a reputation as a powerful live act. These ten songs encapsulate that same live energy, each one building gradually and drawing you into BCUC's Afro-psychedelic stream of consciousness. It's a seismic tour de force through life in Soweto today. Songs like Amakhandela (Breaking All the Chains) connect history to daily life: "How is this precious metal inflicting so much pain in us," sing BCUC, "this government has been telling us we are free, but we don't benefit from being free." The album also talks about all the hopes and dreams that remain: "I have too many wishes and dreams in my head," BCUC sing in Um duma khanda, "I think I am losing my mind". The album ends with the soothing Matla a rona ke Bophelo, "our strength is life", praising the spirits and thanking the elders for protection. The Road Is Never Easy is about the harsh reality of life in Soweto, where "people always carry heavy loads". BCUC are street poets trying to deal with that burden: sometimes revolutionary, sometimes soothing, but always hopeful and compassionate. "When you are from Soweto you can't retreat nor surrender." (Sebenzela)

RECORDING

The album was largely recorded in Munich, Germany during tour breaks over two sessions, each three days long. It took place in a small studio located in a German WW II bunker converted into rehearsal spaces. The songs were recorded in one take altogether in one room, with only a few overdubs added, mainly backing vocals, by BCUC at Fourways studio in Johannesburg. BCUC have created their own distinctive way of writing, or rather, finding and creating their songs. The recording process is like an improvised live performance. They bring their ideas into a zone where the music, the rhythm and the spirits take over until the song starts to form. In this Afro-psychedelic zone BCUC create their unique poetry that feeds on the dreams still dreamt, the hopes, the fears and the temptations lingering everywhere. BCUC's songs need to breathe and time to build. The right take was the one when the song took over, and just like their live performances, no one knew beforehand where the song would take them. During the recording, BCUC just let it all flow out: inner turmoil, cries of rebellion, but also resilience and a search for healing, love, unity and compassion. You don't have to be from Soweto to feel the deep meaning and impact of this music. In these times of so much hate and division, BCUC are like a campfire for people to gather around.

PRODUCTION & ARTWORK

"BCUC have a unique magic," says Outhere's Jay Rutledge, who produced the album. "It blew our minds. It's like punk and pure gospel at the same time. Their music can make you dance and it can make you cry, all at the same time. And when the song is over, you feel you're not alone in this world anymore. We felt compelled to do this." The album cover is based on a matchbox design, matches being a common household item in South Africa even today. "These were the matches people used to burn government buildings and cars," explain BCUC. Little messages, addresses, or phone numbers used to be scribbled on the back of these boxes; each one a reminder of the strength, resilience, and resistance that once drove the struggle for freedom in Soweto. BCUC keep this flame burning. The Road Is Never Easy is a heavy spiritual road trip, a deep dive into the subconscious of Soweto and a quest for truth, justice and sanity in this crazy world. BCUC tackle the harsh realities of the voiceless, guided by the spirit world of their ancestors. Rather than reinforcing stereotypes of poverty, BCUC's portrayal of Africa is one rich in tradition, rituals and beliefs. "We bring fun and Afro-psychedelic fire from the hood," says vocalist Kgomotso Mokone.

2025 Reissue.



Münchenbuchsee, a suburb of Bern, Switzerland. Stephan Eicher is the youngest of three children. His father, a radio and TV repairman, is also a jazz violinist and a sound tinkerer in his spare time. In the family home's converted fallout shelter turned studio, Mr. Eicher experiments with homemade sequencers, tortures handcrafted drum machines, and abuses reel-to-reel tape recorders—all under the fascinated gaze of young Stephan.

The boy quickly develops a musical curiosity, exploring sound through various experiments and wanderings. Alongside his younger brother Martin, Stephan crafts audio plays on a homemade multi-track recorder (essentially several cassette decks hooked together!), which they write, record, add sound effects to, and perform for family and friends. Just a couple of nice kids, really...

Then comes 1972, and Lou Reed's Transformer album changes everything for the Eicher kids. For 13-year-old Stephan, it's a revelation—especially "Vicious", the opening track, which he plays on repeat for months. He convinces his father to buy him an electric guitar. Not stopping there, his father also builds him a tube amp using an old radio.

Then comes adolescence. A rough one. Stephan leaves home at 16 and moves to Zurich. With obvious artistic talent, he persuades his art teacher to help him get into F+F, a radical, alternative art school—despite his young age. Accepted, he starts learning video techniques, determined to become a filmmaker.

At F+F, Stephan organizes Dada-style happenings and concerts with a group of friends known as the Noise Boys. Among them: one of his teachers on bass, Veit Stauffer on drums (who would later found ReR/Recommended Records), his girlfriend Sacha on vocals, and Stephan on guitar. In one of their early performances, they release a remote-controlled mouse covered in dull razor blades into the audience to create panic and chaos. Keeping with this aggressive, confrontational spirit, they once played a concert while wearing headphones blasting Tristan and Isolde, trying to perform their own songs simultaneously—to maximize the cacophony. The goal was always the same: clear the room.

Their “songs,” if you can call them that, followed suit. Take "Hungeriges Afrika", for instance—performed entirely with power drills and some drum feedback.

To make ends meet, Stephan returns to Bern on weekends to work as a waiter at the Spex Club, the city’s main punk venue. On September 16, 1980, during a show by proto-electro group Starter, the police raid the club and arrest everyone. Stephan, who manages to avoid arrest, seizes the opportunity to “borrow” Starter’s gear left behind. He suddenly finds himself in possession of a Roland Promars synth, a Korg MS20, and a gorgeous CR78 drum machine, which he runs through a Big Muff distortion pedal to get that perfect gritty sound.

He then sets out to reinterpret some Noise Boys tracks, reworking them during impromptu sessions recorded on a dictaphone (yes, a dictaphone—now the lo-fi sound makes more sense, doesn’t it?). He ironically titles the resulting cassette "Stephan Eicher spielt Noise Boys" ("Stephan Eicher plays Noise Boys"). This gem features seven tracks, which are the ones reissued here.

Back in Zurich, he visits his friends Andrew Moore and Robert Vogel, who have a DIY cassette duplication setup. They make 25 copies of Stephan Eicher spielt Noise Boys for Stephan and his friends. Robert encourages him to visit Urs Steiger of Off Course Records and play him the tape.

Without much hope, Stephan shows up at Urs’s office. But Urs is instantly hooked and suggests releasing a 7” single. Due to space constraints, they reluctantly drop two of the seven tracks ("Hungeriges Afrika" and "One Second"). As for the musical score featured on the cover—it was randomly chosen and remains a mystery to this day. Calling all music theory nerds!

The 7-inch is pressed in 750 copies and released in the first week of December 1980—a date Stephan remembers well, as it’s the same week John Lennon was killed. Smartly, Urs sends a promo copy to François Murner, Switzerland’s answer to John Peel, who hosts a show on alternative station Sounds. Murner falls in love with the record and starts giving it airtime. To Stephan’s surprise, sales follow—and people actually seem interested in his music.

Even this modest underground success scares Stephan a bit. He stops making music for a year and moves to Bologna, where he works as a programmer at Radio Città, a feminist radio station.

Meanwhile, Stephan’s younger brother Martin, who’s also involved in the punk scene, joins the band Glueams as a singer and guitarist. Glueams, named after the fanzine run by two of its members (drummer Marco Repetto and bassist GT), eventually rebrands as Grauzone. Stephan is invited to their shows to project hacked Super 8 visuals live on stage.

Urs Steiger, now working on a compilation titled Swiss Wave – The Album, asks Grauzone to contribute alongside bands like Liliput, Jack and the Rippers, The Sick, and Ladyshave (Fall 1980).

For the album, Martin tasks Stephan with producing their recording sessions. Under Stephan's artistic direction, two tracks emerge: "Raum" and "Eisbär". During "Eisbär", Martin plays a minimalist bass line borrowed from post-punk band The Feelies (just an open string). Drummer Marco Repetto struggles to keep time. Later that evening, unhappy with the takes, Stephan builds a four-bar drum loop from a ¼-inch tape and uses it instead of the flawed original. He then adds bleepy synths and wind sounds to complete the track’s icy vibe before handing it over to Urs.

The Swiss Wave – The Album compilation is released quietly at first, but things snowball thanks to "Eisbär", which eventually becomes a smash hit—selling over 600,000 singles.

Meanwhile, Stephan plays in a rockabilly band called SMUV (named after Switzerland’s social security agency) and begins producing artists, including the debut album of Starter (1981), which includes a more pop-oriented version of "Minijupe".

By early 1982, Stephan starts spending time with the post-punk girl band Liliput (formerly Kleenex). They’re older than him, and he happily drives them around in his Renault Major, acting as their roadie.

By 1983, Grauzone—signed to the major label EMI, which turned out to be a misstep—is falling apart. Stephan begins to pivot toward a more mainstream pop sound with his debut solo album Les Chansons Bleues.

But that... is already another story.

There's a tendency in metal to mistake aggression for honesty, volume for depth. To confuse the performance of darkness with its actual weight. Hidden Fires Burn Hottest, the new album from San Francisco-based post-black metal band Bosse-de-Nage, sidesteps this entirely. It’s the group’s most fully realized work yet, precisely because it refuses to be pinned down.

Bosse-de-Nage have been working with The Flenser for over fifteen years. They were one of the first bands the label ever partnered with and have the longest active relationship in the label's history. But unlike most bands who build momentum through constant touring and visibility, Bosse-de-Nage has largely existed apart from the music world's usual machinery. They've evolved on their own terms, in relative isolation, allowing the work to develop without outside pressure or influence. What began rooted in black metal anonymity has mutated into something that actively defies categorization. The aggression is still there, but it's no longer the point. Hidden Fires Burn Hottest finds the band treating emotions like physical objects, feelings with spatial properties. “No Such Place"" describes a space that can't exist but does anyway, somewhere between thought and location. ""Immortality Project"" examines infinite possibility not as promise but as problem, endless options collapsing under their own weight. These songs don't use metaphor to describe emotion. They make emotion into something you could theoretically touch.
Tracked by Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Oathbreaker) at Atomic Garden East and mixed and mastered by Richard Chowenhill of Agriculture, Hidden Fires Burn Hottest was years in development, with some tracks beginning in 2018.

The long writing process offered time that most records don't get. Time to live with ideas, revise endlessly, to let structures settle. For the first time, lyricist Bryan Manning wrote everything in advance, creating a surplus to pull from rather than working under deadline pressure. The difference shows.
Coming off Further Still, an album built on constraint and economy, Bosse-de-Nage sought the opposite: sprawl, strangeness, fewer rules. Space for ideas to develop without rushing them. Dynamics that move through quiet as much as noise. Presence earned through atmosphere instead of volume. The record even includes ""Mementos,"" which might be considered the first love song the band has ever written.

Nothing here coheres into a theme. These are pieces pulled from low moments and private feelings made public through sound. The band has never been interested in positivity, in music that resolves cleanly or offers comfort. But bleakness doesn't mean humorlessness. There's something darkly funny running through much of it, even when it shouldn't be.
Hidden Fires Burn Hottest doesn't explain itself. It just insists: what you feel is as real as what you can see."

There's a tendency in metal to mistake aggression for honesty, volume for depth. To confuse the performance of darkness with its actual weight. Hidden Fires Burn Hottest, the new album from San Francisco-based post-black metal band Bosse-de-Nage, sidesteps this entirely. It’s the group’s most fully realized work yet, precisely because it refuses to be pinned down.

Bosse-de-Nage have been working with The Flenser for over fifteen years. They were one of the first bands the label ever partnered with and have the longest active relationship in the label's history. But unlike most bands who build momentum through constant touring and visibility, Bosse-de-Nage has largely existed apart from the music world's usual machinery. They've evolved on their own terms, in relative isolation, allowing the work to develop without outside pressure or influence. What began rooted in black metal anonymity has mutated into something that actively defies categorization. The aggression is still there, but it's no longer the point. Hidden Fires Burn Hottest finds the band treating emotions like physical objects, feelings with spatial properties. “No Such Place"" describes a space that can't exist but does anyway, somewhere between thought and location. ""Immortality Project"" examines infinite possibility not as promise but as problem, endless options collapsing under their own weight. These songs don't use metaphor to describe emotion. They make emotion into something you could theoretically touch.
Tracked by Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Oathbreaker) at Atomic Garden East and mixed and mastered by Richard Chowenhill of Agriculture, Hidden Fires Burn Hottest was years in development, with some tracks beginning in 2018.

The long writing process offered time that most records don't get. Time to live with ideas, revise endlessly, to let structures settle. For the first time, lyricist Bryan Manning wrote everything in advance, creating a surplus to pull from rather than working under deadline pressure. The difference shows.
Coming off Further Still, an album built on constraint and economy, Bosse-de-Nage sought the opposite: sprawl, strangeness, fewer rules. Space for ideas to develop without rushing them. Dynamics that move through quiet as much as noise. Presence earned through atmosphere instead of volume. The record even includes ""Mementos,"" which might be considered the first love song the band has ever written.

Nothing here coheres into a theme. These are pieces pulled from low moments and private feelings made public through sound. The band has never been interested in positivity, in music that resolves cleanly or offers comfort. But bleakness doesn't mean humorlessness. There's something darkly funny running through much of it, even when it shouldn't be.
Hidden Fires Burn Hottest doesn't explain itself. It just insists: what you feel is as real as what you can see."

Walter Thomas’s “Chicago Knights” LP features a retrospective of songs written and released between 1987 and 2009, primarily with the Roland 1824 and the Fostex 8 track reel to reel. Channeling the spirit of underground soul and dance music specifically rooted within the greater area of Chicago, Illinois–a city known for its deep and healthy soul and r&b roots–this compilation features 8 of its 9 tracks on vinyl for the very first time.

The intro track “I Wanna Get Witcha” dates back to 1987, holds a proven track record of kicking off many a dance floor, rocking clubs worldwide in a blur of boogie-funk, disco, and soul. “Immaturity” and both versions of “Fed Up” echo the emotional differences and tensions between lovers in a spat. “Magic City” served as the anthem and homage to its namesake roller skating rink in 90s-era Waukegan, IL. While “Chicago Knights” is a relentless mid-tempo groove inspired by the aggressive motorists that dominate Chicago roadways, “2nd Chance” drops the tempo to a slow r&b roll, preaching the ethos of love, peace, and forgiveness.

Last but certainly not least, “E&J’s” was a real commercial jingle used for a once legendary BBQ joint “E&J’s” in Illinois: a short bonus track to close out the LP. These 9 tracks are just a touch of Walter’s expansive body of work, and we’re stoked to bring them to you on wax.


Walter Thomas is a singer, songwriter, producer, arranger, and composer from North Chicago, IL known for his soulfully smooth arrangements and vocals. Walter has toured internationally with quintessential soul groups like the Temptations and Friends of Distinction, as well as opening for performers including the Floaters, Bette Wright, The Emotions, and The Drifters. His decades of touring with nightclub and concert performances have honed this gifted artist into a seasoned and refined live act.

Igor Tamerlan is a stranger in his own land. Born in 1954 the Hague and spent most formative years in Paris, Igor suddenly had the urge to relocate to Bali in 1986. “I want to settle in Indonesia and marry a local girl,” he told his sister shortly before flying out.

His next journey would be as audacious as his time in the Fifth Republic. Born from a prominent Indonesian expatriate family in Paris with ties to Indonesia’s first prime minister Sutan Sjahrir, Igor earned a degree in architecture at Ecole nationale supe´rieure d’architecture de Paris-La Villette.

He could have been a brilliant architect or a political scientist (he was accepted to Sciences Po), but his passion for music distracted him from his academic works. He was after all named after Russian composer Igor Stravinsky.

During his brief stint at Sciences Po, Igor spent most of times hanging out at recording studios and rub shoulders with the likes of singer-songwriter Jean-Jacques Goldman and Michel Polnaref. He had a brief encounter with The Rolling Stones at the Cha^teau de Thoiry studio in the early 1970s.

But Igor’s musical education and his occidental eyes appeared to be ill-suited for Indonesia. His first record, titled Langkah Pertama (First Step) on the mainstream label Musica was met with a shrug and was a commercial dud. An experimental record blending the influence of Spanish motifs, Francophile production and a whiff of hip hop and ska was seen by critics as being too alien. His sarcasm-laden lyrics and his biting critique of excessive materialism among the upper tier of Indonesia’s nouveau riche in the album was met with confusion from the audience. He was just too far ahead of his time.

He left the label Musica – or may had been dropped – soon after Langkah Pertama and decided to go independent. He then relocated to Bali and set up a state-of-the-art recording studio in Sanur, across the street from Southeast Asia’s first boutique hotel where luminaries like Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Sting, Yoko Ono and Ringo Starr stayed for their holiday.

From the studio, Igor recording everything from the sounds waterfalls, geckos, minibuses to motorized rickshaw and mix them with hip hop, jazz, electronica, dub and Balinese gamelan. A visionary, Igor was the first musician to use MIDI, which started to be available globally in the early 1980s.

On paper, songs like “Bali Vanilli” should not work, a mish mash of disparate elements mentioned above, sung in three languages, Balinese, English and Bahasa Indonesia while tackling the subject of overtourism. The song was also the first to introduce rap to an unsuspecting audience. But for some strange reason “Bali Vanilli” became a sensation and overnight Igor became household name. And in 1987, long before overtourism was an issue, Igor broached the subject to a national audience in Indonesia on the possible destruction of nature and culture from tourism.

Ever an iconoclast, Igor decided to step out of the limelight following the success of “Bali Vanilli” and in early 1990s he relocated to Indonesia’s cultural capital, Yogyakarta. Here, he worked on some more experimental music while juggling as music video director. He passed away in 2018 at the age of 64.

The 10 songs in this compilation, Bali Vanilli: Experimental Pop from Paradise Island (1987-1991), are some of Igor’s best works, music that would have gone into obscurity had it not been for the diligent work of film director Alfred Pasifico Ginting, who managed to track down some of the master tapes while researching on a documentary on the musician.

These recordings have never before been released outside of Indonesia. Igor would have been proud with this reissue project.

Devotional music most often gets distilled into earthy chants and ancient folklore, it doesn't always ascend to the sky like Julinko’s ‘Naebula’ an album that from the first organ note clearly trades in terrestrial dreams for ethereal visions. A feverish quality permeates the whole record, as if a ritualistic performance was being captured from start to finish, a collection of hallucinatory doom, synthetic neo-folk hymns and ghostly art-rock.

Julinko, stage name for Giulia Parin Zecchin, has long been one of the best kept secrets of the experimental community in North-East Italy, with three records that helped define her unique blend of heavy psychedelia, slowcore and dark ambient. On ‘Naebula’ what really stands out is how powerful and soaring her voice is, a weapon of undeniable force that can transform into a vessel of raw fervour or glide effortlessly as a delicate lament. Her unconventional approach shines through on tracks like ‘Jeanne De Rien’, where a marching pulse acts as a pillar for an extended mantra, almost verging into powwow territory. ‘Peace Of The Unsaid’ uses its arrhythmical structure to create space, a crepuscular night ode that reaches the heights of Sinead O’Connor’s most intimate force-fulness while retaining a sweet composure. Whether it’s glacial murderous shrieks or gospel-esque vitality, songs like ‘Cloudmachine’ or ‘Kiss The Lion’s Tongue’ seem to draw as much from a tradition of European minimalism, the use of drones and repetition, to the tradition of folksongs as hymns, where modal harmonies make way for an apparent stasis. Another key element in Julinko’s songwriting is the seamless blend of her minimalistic approach with these dense textures borrowed from a distant outsider metal heritage, Lynchean noir on steroids or wordless exorcisms with deep undercurrents.

Inspired by the concept of the city as a living, complex entity - a feeling Youniss describes as the difference between "living in a city and just being in that city" - Good Effort! is an open-ended narrative drawn from the artist's own experiences, including growing up on the outskirts of Antwerp.

Like a vibrant city itself, the album is a culmination of organic interactions, layered with diverse perspectives from a collective of artists. Good Effort! features a dynamic cast of collaborators, including international heavyweights like Pink Siifu, Petite Noir, and Quelle Chris, alongside celebrated names from the Belgian underground such as Dienne and Porcelain id.

While retaining his critical edge - especially on themes like gentrification, an acute problem in his home city - Youniss explores the full range of his voice across the album's tracks, resulting in a warmer, more texturally diverse sound.

Tracks like “Notice,” “Glass Ceilings,” and “The Sun Is Falling” expand his textural use of distortion, while others, such as “At the Still Point of the World” and “Why Don’t You?”, float at a more tranquil register. The record's energy peaks on “TakeThat” where Pink Siifu and Youniss trade frenetic bars atop jazzy drum freakouts.

Despite the cynicism forged by witnessing his environment change - like the flattening of the beloved venue Onder Stroom for a parking space - Youniss offers a crucial message of perseverance. The album's title, Good Effort!, is a defiant embrace of trying again.