Suche:no made

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Motown Collected brings together the biggest names in the rich history of this legendary label. From very early singles to the artists that made Motown a household name for decades to come and the cross-over pop success of the late 70’s and 80’s. Featuring legendary artists like Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, Jackson Five, Smokey Robinson and The Commodores, as well as gems from the likes of Marv Johnson, Barrett Strong, The Marvelettes and Tom Clay and pop superstars Rick James, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Lionel Richie and Debarge: just a selection of the 33 incredible tracks featured on Motown Collected.

The documentary Hitsville: The Making Of Motown’, featuring Motown founder Berry Gordy and many of this artists, will premiere in cinemas across Europe this summer as well.






RELEASE: 23-7-2021

MOV proudly presents new Collected compilation albums in collaboration with Universal Music. Motown Collected is the first one, available as a limited edition of 3000 numbered copies on white vinyl. It includes an insert with photos and credits.

Bjarki’s bbbbbb records welcomes its first-ever non-electronic project as Icelandic rock band Skrattar joins the label to unveil their thirteen-track album, ‘Hellraiser IV’.

Four-piece outfit Skrattar can be described as cigarette rock with an electronic vibe that makes your upper lip sweat. Having already developed a loyal fanbase in Iceland as a powerful live act with an energetic and provocative stage presence, the band now look further afield to global horizons as they reveal their latest album, ‘Hellraiser IV’.

With the release of ‘Hellraiser IV’, bbbbbb broadens its catalogue beyond dance and electronic music. While the label’s primary focus will remain electronic, several other genres will also feature - the connecting factor being that the music is Icelandic, experimental and fresh... the best that grassroots has to offer.

‘Good music should be heard, and this is my take on delivering probably the best music coming from Iceland at the moment. It’s an honest, wild love story of true friendship and creativity coming together in one album’ - Bjarki

‘Hellraiser IV’ contains thirteen tracks written over three years, with the oldest songs composed the year the band was founded, 2016. In 2019, when a good foundation for an LP had been laid as the band gained followers and honed its sound, they locked themselves in the studio until they completed the album. With many of the tracks composed in the dead of night, containing both lyrics written over a long period as well as improvisation, the final product is a record made by them from A to Z, in line with the band’s endearing DIY ethos.

‘Skrattar’ is Icelandic for a specific type of demon that you can’t control, but in Swedish, it means ‘to laugh’ - with laughter involved across many of the tracks on ‘Hellraiser IV’ as if to mock the dualism of seriousness. Their subject matter is chaos and anarchism - but their humour and satire are never far away. The music is an ode to the eternal void, while at the same time laughing in its face.

In addition, a remix album will be released digitally alongside Hellraiser IV, reimagined and reworked by a host of fellow musicians, producers, and artists. Among them, label regular Kuldaboli, bbbbbb boss Bjarki, DJ Flugvél og Geimskip, russian.girls, KGB and Anton Newcombe - the founder of The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

LTD. BLUE SEAGLASS WAVE TRANSLUCENT VINYL

Last spring, Devendra Banhart and Noah Georgeson started to make a record that was like nothing they had made before _ an ambient album that would be both a haven from a suddenly terrified world and a heartfelt musical dialogue between two artists who have been friends and collaborators for over two decades. Refuge is an album of profound meditative beauty which offers the listener a much-needed sense of peace and renewal. But while it was recorded in 2020 its roots go back much further _ all the way to the start of their friendship and, beyond that, to the shared sounds and ethics of their childhoods. Devendra grew up in Venezuela while Noah, six years older, is a native of Nevada City, California. But as they got to know each other, they realised that they had a similar history in the New Age subculture of the 1980s: a world of meditation, Eastern music, the Bhagavad Gita and The Whole Earth Catalog. Childhood memories were coloured by the aromas of health food stores and the sound of New Age labels like Windham Hill Records. Noah, whose production and mixing credits include Joanna Newsom and the Strokes, came on board as co-producer of Devendra's 2005 album Cripple Crow and they have been working together ever since. It was while making Devendra's 2019 album Ma that the pair finally decided to make their ambient record. Despite complicating logistics, 2020 created an emotional craving for music with this contemplative, therapeutic quality. Inspired by both memories of the past and the needs of the present, Refuge is an act of companionship and generosity which gives the listener room to breathe. "We're hoping to create a sense of comfort and coming back to the moment," Devendra says. "It's really important to have a little bit of space between us and our anxieties and impulses. What you do with that space is up to you." Dorian Lynskey May 2021

Limited Coke Bottle Green vinyl, 250 copies only for the UK. Any future pressing will be on black vinyl. Massage feature Alex Naidus from Pains At Being Pure At Heart. Recorded by Lewis Pesacov (Fool’s Gold, Foreign Born, Peel’d). Massage was supposed to be low-stakes, no big deal "anti-ambition," as Andrew Romano, guitarist and vocalist, put it. The L.A.based jangle-pop group's first album, 2018's Oh Boy, was a sweet and simple weekend warrior's affair, or more specifically, an every-other-Monday one, as the band members gathered to bash out songs that offered messy but heartfelt tribute to their chosen heroes: The Feelies, the Go-Betweens, Twerps, Flying Nun. For Romano, not taking things too seriously is a dead-serious affair: “Nothing kills the kind of music we want to make faster than the sense that a band is trying too hard,” he says. The kind of music Massage makes sunny, bittersweet, tender is less a proper genre than a minor zip code nested within guitar pop. Take a little "There She Goes" by the La's, some "If You Need Someone" by the Field Mice; the honey-drizzled guitars from The Cure's "Friday I'm In Love," a Jesus & Mary Chain backbeat, and you're almost all the way there. Indie pop, jangle pop, power pop whatever you call it, pushing too hard scares the spirit right out of this sweet, diffident music, and Massage have a touch so light the songs seem to form spontaneously, like wry smiles. Still, on their sophomore effort, Still Life, they manage to take a quantum leap forward in songwriting, production, and depth, all somehow without seeming to try. These 12 deft songs are full of late-summer sunlight and deep shadows, pained grins and shared jokes, shy declarations of love and quietly nursed heartbreak. Still Life resurrects a brief, romantic moment in the late-'80s, right after post-punk and immediately before alt-rock, when it seemed like any scrappy indie band might stumble across a hit. When Andrew Romano and Alex Naidus first met in 2007, Naidus had just joined a band with his friends Kip Berman and Peggy Wang that was about to stumble into many of them. When Naidus finally left Pains for L.A. in 2013, two hit albums and a few world tours later, he started playing with Romano to recapture the no-stakes, suburban-garage joy of making music for its own sake. It was "friendship incarnate," Naidus remembers. The other members came from within the friend circle Gabrielle Ferrer (keyboard/vocals) is Romano's sister-in-law, Michael Felix (drums) is one of Naidus’ best friends, and David Rager (bass) is a childhood friend of Felix’s. When Felix moved to Mexico City in early 2020, Naidus’ wife, Natalie de Almeida, stepped in. The result is the finest batch of songs they've ever produced. From Naidus' velvet-lined JAMC tribute "Half A Feeling" to Ferrer's Let It Be-era Replacements-tinged lament "The Double" to Romano's "In Gray & Blue," these are gold-standard indie-pop gems from emerging masters of the form. Still Life glows with the sincerity and unfakeable warmth of the era they so lovingly channel. Like the best Gin Blossoms chorus you still remember, the songs on Still Life stir big, pure emotions, but beneath them, uneasy truths about adulthood linger, just below the surface. Maybe the exact mix of ringing guitars and two-part harmonies can chase those feelings away, or redeem them, for at least a minute or three. Massage won't stop trying.

While the pandemic paralyzed the entire world and prevented bands from touring, Latin America's biggest metal export SEPULTURA refused to sit back and act like an animal trapped in a cage. Like the flowers growing out of the deceased bird’s body depicted on the stunning colourful cover artwork by Eduardo Recife, the thrash metal pioneers from Belo Horizonte made good use of their unexpected free time to start a project that kept them busy throughout the entirety of 2020:

‘SepulQuarta’ was born at the very beginning of the pandemic when everything was halted”, guitarist Andreas Kisser remembers. “We had a new album out, but we couldn’t tour for it. Therefore, we created this recurring event where we could talk with our fans around the world, play our music and exchange ideas, it was a blast! »SepulQuarta« kept us alive and strong throughout one of the most difficult times in human history.”

“Doing Sepulquarta during this period allowed me to stay in contact with music. Playing my instrument was the only thing left to do in this pandemic,” adds drummer Eloy Casagrande, and indeed, music seemed to be a good way of coping with the never-ending lockdown and fear of loss and isolation that haunted people worldwide. Obviously, the Brazilian pioneers were not the only musicians feeling this way, so they started to connect with friends and colleagues worldwide and asked them to not only be part of their weekly podcast, but also join them in playing one of SEPULTURA’s classics tracks. From the safety of their homes, international stars like David Ellefson, Scott Ian, Danko Jones, Devin Townsend, Matt Heafy and many more recorded a SEPULTURA track together with the band, which have now been mixed and mastered by Conrado Ruther.

“We invited our amazingly talented friends to be a part of our project, either jamming with us or as a guest in the many Q&A’s we promoted,” Andreas explains. “We talked about our history, music, politics, sports, philosophy, depression and the environment among other things. We learned a lot with specialist guests and many of the great minds of today. Here you will find unique performances of SEPULTURA’s music from the many phases of our career, with amazing guest musicians that lent us their talent and energy to record these historical versions!”

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

The Room will be Ricky Reed’s first artist album since becoming a house-hold-name producer, and launching his own label with Nice Life Recording Company. The project features Leon Bridges, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Dirty Projectors, Terrace Martin, Duendita, Ayoni, Lido Pimienta, St. Panther & John-Robert and more. The Room is a title that came to him in the wake of the death of George Floyd and the galvanizing of the Black Lives Matter movement across America and the world. He wanted to create a communal place where it’s as necessary to cry as it is to rejuvenate; where it’s as vital to be angry as it is to find joy. The music is an invitation to share experiences, commiserate, rejuvenate, and offer hope. It is upbeat in places, meditative always, and has real soul to it. Ultimately, Reed feels fundamentally changed by quarantine, particularly with his process of creating. All the songs were written via text and voice memos. The Room feels like an offering to the world at a time when Reed was back in the process again. Back at a new start. “When this comes out, whether it is well or not, the only thing that matters is that I made it.”

The Debut Album From The Helicopter Of The Holy Ghost - Mark Morriss
( The Bluetones ) Billy Reeves ( theaudience ) Crayola Lectern ( Lost
Horizons / Departure Lounge ) Mark Peters ( Engineers ) Co-produced by
Richard Archer of Hard-Fi Feat. Simon Raymonde ( The Cocteau Twins ) &
Thomas Anderson ( Gazpacho )
In 2001 Billy Reeves, fresh from introducing the world to Sophie Ellis-Bextor
(via their band theaudience) was smashed to bits by joyriders whilst in his Morris Minor - resulting in a two-week coma and a year in and out of hospital. In
2017 his brother gave him two mini-discs that had been saved from the wreckage, including demos of songs he had forgotten - due to crash-related amnesia.
Mark Morriss of chart-topping Hounslow janglers The Bluetones agreed to sing
them, so with the assistance of Richard Archer (Hard-Fi), along with Crayola
Lectern (Zofff / Departure Lounge), and Mark Peters (Engineers), these songs
would form the debut long player from The Helicopter of The Holy Ghost.
The original concept for the material was probably while Billy was signed to
Sony, which pointed toward a more commercial sound, however Crayola Lectern’s involvement on piano help send the recordings into a more ‘Canterbury’
direction, taking influence from Caravan, Robert Wyatt & the like.
Featuring a groovy guest line-up including Simon Raymonde of Cocteau Twins,
Dale Davis from Amy Winehouse’s band, Andy Lewis from Paul Weller’s group,
Smiley from Joe Strummer’s Mescalaros and Thomas Anderson of fellow Kscope
signees Gazpacho, the wide-ranging influence herein is evident throughout a
very sweet, gentle, calming album of originality and versatility.
The Vinyl LP edition of this album will be especially printed in an eco-friendly
manner, with no shrinkwrap being used, the record itself pressed on 100% recycled records and the board made up of FSC certified climate-friendly recycled
material. The whole package itself will be Climate neutral, having all its carbon
offset with ClimatePartner.

This is the story of two sisters who nurtured a dream for half a century and never let it die. Vicki and Ronni Gossett launched their musical career as teenagers in Whittier, California in 1966. They called themselves the Female Species. Members came and went; their base of operations moved to Las Vegas, back to LA, and over to Nashville. Along the way their sound transformed from garage rock to lounge to country pop, the only constant being an innate mastery of hooks and harmony.



These ladies had it. Along the way, they crossed paths with The Carpenters, Paul Revere & The Raiders, The Judds, and seemingly half of the industry’s power players, rebuffing all untoward advances, focused always on their craft. In the 1980s they became staff songwriters for music publishing companies in the hit-making business. Relentless pushing landed them a once in a lifetime audition before the court of RCA’s top executives — the kind of new talent showcase that almost never happens after 30.

Vicki and Ronni were by then in their 40s. Tale of My Lost Love is the whole story from beginning to end of two sisters who gave everything to their dream, yet never made a single record... until now. Sometimes great music just isn’t enough to break through — until it is. Numero Group is thrilled and proud, at long last, to introduce Female Species.

Jerry wrote and/or co-wrote 21 songs that Ricky recorded from 1961 to 1985, certainly the longest time of any composer from Ricky’s musical associations. Born in 1938, Jerry will turn 83 years old on November 19th, 2021 and is still active musically. He continues to compose and issue records that are enjoyed by his many fans.



Little doubt that Jerry’s biggest hit was “Travelin’ Man” that Ricky first recorded during the March, 1961 sessions at United Recording Association studio located on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood, CA. It was Ricky’s second number 1 hit on the Billboard Charts, with the flip-side being “Hello Mary Lou” penned by the great Gene Pitney.

It’s an important statistic to note that Ricky carried 11 double-side hits into Billboard’s Top 40. Certainly was not easy to have material strong enough to carry 22 songs into these chart achievements which was extremely impressive musically, then and now. The only other single rock n’ roll performer to eclipse that level of success, was Elvis Presley. And they were good friends.

One of the reasons for Ricky’s longevity in music was made possible by his abilities to reinvent himself during phases of time through many genres of music. He was an artist, a song-writer, a poet, and a real inspiration creatively, to countless musicians that stood on his shoulders and benefitted from Ricky’s musical experiences.

Jerry’s contribution was certainly a factor in that success that Ricky accomplished. Only five tracks composed by Jerry that Ricky recorded were never officially released from his session catalog. This includes what is believed to be released as the follow-up song to “Travelin’ Man” – a song called “Window on the World” recorded during the November, 1961 sessions at Master Recorders on Fairfax Ave in Hollywood, CA. A beautiful and stunning song that would have stood the test of time.

The songs chosen for this LP vinyl record provide a great example of Jerry’s contribution to Ricky’s success. The bonus track (Desire, by The Trophies) has Ricky singing back-up which was well-mixed into the background harmony

While most fans know that Che Noir, Ransom, and Klass Murda all fall under the TCF Music Group umbrella, many were unaware of Street Justice’s long-standing affiliation with the label until he appeared on two cuts on 38 Spesh x Big Ghost Ltd’s album A Bullet For Every Heathen. His standout contributions to that lauded project made a strong impression on listeners, which led to high anticipation for his solo debut, Community Service. So, with Spesh providing guaranteed fire on the production side of things, Street was free to focus on giving heads the kind of introspective, gritty poetry the game needs right now. Guests spots from Eto, Planet Asia, Che, and Spesh himself all help insure Street’s initial offering is a must-hear.

Good Dog, Bad Dream is the new EP from Hippo Campus, and the St. Paul, Minnesota five-piece's first new music since their 2018 sophomore album Bambi. It finds the band at their most honest and vulnerable to date, with five new intensely cathartic tracks tinged with confessions and dark humor. It's a collection of songs that came together with ease, and without pressure -- a wildly different experience than the typical Hippo Campus recording process. The band - made up of vocalist/guitarists Jake Luppen and Nathan Stocker, drummer Whistler Allen, bassist Zach Sutton, and trumpeter DeCarlo Jackson -- assembled Good Dog, Bad Dream with a genuine sense of freedom and enjoyment as part of their first sessions in their new Minneapolis studio space. It’s a celebration of brotherhood, and the “all for one, one for all” mentality that has permeated Hippo Campus’ work since the very beginning.

Good Dog, Bad Dream is the new EP from Hippo Campus, and the St. Paul, Minnesota five-piece's first new music since their 2018 sophomore album Bambi. It finds the band at their most honest and vulnerable to date, with five new intensely cathartic tracks tinged with confessions and dark humor. It's a collection of songs that came together with ease, and without pressure -- a wildly different experience than the typical Hippo Campus recording process. The band - made up of vocalist/guitarists Jake Luppen and Nathan Stocker, drummer Whistler Allen, bassist Zach Sutton, and trumpeter DeCarlo Jackson -- assembled Good Dog, Bad Dream with a genuine sense of freedom and enjoyment as part of their first sessions in their new Minneapolis studio space. It’s a celebration of brotherhood, and the “all for one, one for all” mentality that has permeated Hippo Campus’ work since the very beginning.

Imbued with the grit of vintage country music and the grace of gospel, Leah Blevins’ debut album is a scrapbook of sorts, a collage of feelings and memories from a decade spent working in the big city of Nashville while missing the small town she left behind. “It’s a timestamp of my twenties,” says the Sandy Hook, Kentucky, native. “Here are all the stories and all the experiences from that decade. Here are all the mixed emotions I’ve felt about things I’ve gone through and people I’ve met along the way.” First Time Feeling turns tribulations into what Blevins calls “bundles of triumphs,” which lend weight to her well-observed lyrics and gravity to her soulful vocals. “It’s about coming into womanhood, but it’s more than just a coming-of-age story. It’s me discovering that I’m capable of writing a song on my own. I’m capable of staying sober. I’m capable of all these things that once felt so far out of reach. Within those walls these songs had to be unapologetically honest.” Or, as she puts it on the bluesy opener “Afraid,” “Have you ever been afraid, with nowhere to hide? Scared of nothing, but you’re running inside?”
. “I want people to find something relatable within these ten songs. But for me they’re a reminder that all the pain that I went through—which isn’t that different from the pain every human goes through—it’s all mine. By making this album, I’ve taken it, I’ve owned that pain, I’ve made it mine, and I’ve wrapped it up with a bow on top.”

After the exploration of snowy mountains of Alpestres, released on Hands in the Dark in 2018, French composer Matthias Puech ventures into new territories, sketching a cartography of the invisible where the journey, in chiaroscuro, is announced as a rite of passage. A Geography of Absence, as introspective as unpredictable, immerses the listener into a unique sensory whirlwind where organic matter becomes almost palpable. A researcher in theoretical computer science and an engineer at GRM, Matthias Puech constructs a dialog between synthetic music and field recording, capturing sounds that surround him and creating his own sonic language with the help of synthesizers he designs and develops; notably the Oscillator Ensemble and the Tapographic Delay, made by the American company 4ms.

Composed during a moment marked by ordeal and mourning, A Geography of Absence retraces an inner journey where the physicality of sound leads the listener into an initiatory tunnel filled with apparitions, ghosts, visions. With sound oscillations as a navigational map, we progress, step by step, through the meanders of an unknown world, dazzled by the prospect of a new synthetic horizon, an electronic biotope teeming with life and incarnations. Playing with time, space and matter in an approach similar to that of musique concrète, Matthias Puech combines ambient and noise, floating sounds and electroacoustic experimentations, thus shaking up our listening perspective, which finds itself walking through a parallel universe, strata after strata, sequence after sequence.

The trip begins with “Hollow”, as if on board a night train travelling at full speed through ghost towns. Or is it a spaceship? Removed from their original habitat, sounds – picked up during walks or moduled by synths – are free to be interpreted differently by everyone, according to the memories that shape us. Granular and metallic, this first piece takes us to an elsewhere in orbit. "Work Song" is built around the pulsation of the void, of space, where strange creatures and liquid emanations abound. We become fetus, cocoon coiled in the placenta, heart beating to the rhythm of the gooey choreography of the human body. "Chrysalis" awakens the racket that lies dormant in us, when the skin changes, when the transition takes place. One seems to recognize certain sounds stemming from nature but they could also be mirages, imitating reality to render the barely perceptible engulfing. “Tunnel Vision” brings out a herd of haunted bells, slowly swelling in a pastoral maelstrom, ending in a deafening buzz. Further on, the chirping of an animatronic bird mixes with the hooting of an owl: "A Faint Beacon" invokes a nocturnal vigil that mixes the crackling of a fire and icy gusts of wind blowing everything away. Like an epic, sucking the listener into the breach of a black hole in the center of the Milky Way, it's up to "Homeostasis" to conclude in the high spheres and contemplative vapors, where the balance of dawn announces a rebirth.

A Geography of Absence is a meticulous and sensitive piece that constructs a delicate symphony of extremes, between introspection and desire for the unknown. Accompanied by the ink work of the artist Léa Neuville, whose folds of prints sketch this imaginary atlas, Matthias Puech becomes a narrator of mental adventures. And succeeds once again in transcending reality to dig a path to the unspeakable.

London based band Son Yambu are back with their second album full of original son Cubano, continuing the Buena Vista legacy that put Cuban music back on the world map in 1997. Featuring a new line up of the very best of Cuba's musical diaspora, 'Tremendo Ambiente'reflectsthe evolving nature of the music whilst at the same time paying homage to its roots. Recorded in London, 'Tremendo Ambiente' features Son Yambu's traditional 'sonora' sound of two trumpets.Made up entirely of original songs, the album features a varied collection of Cuban and Caribbean rhythms.

Adam Cook aka Tommy Rawson returns to Bergerac with another killer EP of uplifting, tropical deep house, broken beat and Brit funk vibes. Following on from 2018s Gilles Peterson hammered 'Deep Blue' EP, he returns to Red Rack'ems Bergerac label with an absolutely killer 3 tracker which showcases the Watford, England based producers world class musical chops. Surely a contender for THE summer record with a sun kissed Brit funk A side which is tailor made for the WWFM and We Out Here crew. A tropical house and broken beat burner make up an equally strong flip. We are very happy (and relieved) to be presenting to you an absolutely belting EP of UK soulful dance music.

It's nothing short of a miracle that the A side track 'Illusions' has ever made it on to vinyl. Jonna from City Fly remembers 'Adam had this on a CDR at Southport in 2008 and it became our official track of the festival as we all partied together the whole weekend it got played again and again back at our Chalet parties'. But then as these things often sadly go, the funk diamond was lost for a few years in the digital ether. Fast forward to 2014 and Danny Berman aka Red Rack'em is playing a 320 of 'Illusions' everywhere but alas it's just a demo and Adam can't locate the arrangement to complete the track as it's on a broken computer in his Mums attic.

Then finally this year, after many pleading emails and plenty of gentle cajoling, there's some amazing news! Adam has located the broken computer and after a day of digital open heart surgery, and then a re-edit over Zoom (no really) we finally had the killer, classic UK soulful anthem you're listening to today. A voice over from a disco documentary cleverly introduces each instrument on the intro before Tommy pushes the button marked 'biggest bassline of the year' and takes us into boogie heaven.

'Sound Crazy' on the flip is another one of those classic Afrobeat tinged Tommy rollers. Big room vibes but with a lot of soul. Rolling broken drums and a huge bassline combine with plenty of spicy, tropical atmosphere on top. The trademark Rawson uplifting chords begin after an anticipatory vibe filled breakdown, taking you to the stratosphere.

'Ads Mood' is the most 'classical' broken beat track on the record, but they are all playable in multiple environments and transcend mere genres. Heavy bass and extra funky syncopated beats climax into a beautiful almost orchestral feel to close off an exemplary EP of higher quality moods and emotions. Don't sleep.

Let’s Stick Together by Bryan Ferry was his third solo release, his first following the disbanding of Roxy Music earlier in the year of 1976. Unlike Ferry’s two previous solo recordings, Let’s Stick Together was not a dedicated album project, instead being made up of material released as singles, B-sides and an EP. Five of the tracks on the album were re-recordings of Bryan Ferry songs previously recorded with Roxy Music. “Re-Make/Re-Model”, “2HB”, “Chance Meeting” and “Sea Breezes” were from the band’s eponymously titled debut album (1972), while “Casanova” was taken from Country Life (1974). In most cases the re-recordings were smoother and more oriented to jazz and R&B than the original Roxy Music versions. The other six tracks on the album were covers. The sax-driven “Let’s Stick Together” was written and originally recorded by Wilbert Harrison. Other up-tempo numbers were The Everly Brothers’ “The Price of Love” and Jimmy Reed’s “Shame, Shame, Shame” (which includes a counter-vocal by the backing singers which quotes Marvin Gaye’s “Can I Get A Witness”). The remaining covers, which included The Beatles’ “It’s Only Love”, were performed in a mellow cabaret style. Lovingly Re-Mastered from the original tapes by Frank Arkwright at Abbey Road Studios. London. Featuring artwork that has been faithfully restored to reflect its original first press “Let’s Stick Together” is presented on 180g heavy weight vinyl and is one of those classic albums that would not look out of place in any record collection.