Anna Almani might be your new favourite producer. IFYKYK.. If you don't, then let's get to know..
Anna Almani is a Berlin based “Drag-DJ & Fun-House-Queen”. She is “Big Sister” at ‘Love Letter’ an imprint “for flinta & queer sonic goodness” and she is the alter ego of deep house producer and Poker Flat & Watergate artist ‘Iorie’.
Anna says “This EP is part of my queer expression. It’s all about the attitude to resist, it’s about being yourself unapologetically. It’s a big hug to the queer community and a love letter to resistance on the dancefloor. Be radical, have an attitude and lose yourself.”
When we picked the tracks for this EP we were completely spoiled for choice. There’s so much personality in Anna’s music that every track list made sense. And that’s because there’s a common thread that runs through all of Anna’s music - Balance. Ying & Yang. Dark & Bright, Passive & Assertive, Masculine & Feminine, Fun & Depth all in kept in amazing dynamic balance.
This is Share Now & Save for Later… Gratification immediate and delayed. .. . four tracks to take you through from open to close. From Berlin to NYC and round again
‘See Me Walk’ is gonna be the track that grabs the attention and connects with dancers everywhere. Fast, fun and full of attitude it’s a 909 workout with the energy and syncopation of Ballroom Vogue aaaaand a fabulous diva vocal to match. ’Tender T’ counters the audaciousness with some tenderness. Energetic yet embracing, this introspective proggy, dubby afterhours roller is a proper trip! Full of colour but hazy af.
On the flip ‘Gimme Some’ ramps up the tempo. Fast, urgent and cyclic grooving techno - with a strut - that’s both dubbed out and in your face. ‘Anladın mı’ is a collaboration between Anna and German/Turkish producer Zettka. Low slung house that both jacks and grooves. Rolling basses balanced with playful chords. “Anladın mı” it translates as “Do you understand? or “Got it?”. By now I think we do understand.. That certain je ne sais quoi… Anna Almani has definitely got it.
Originally recorded and released in 1970, the Joe Henderson Quintet, At The Lighthouse: If You're Not Part Of The Solution, You're Part Of The Problem sees the influential jazz fusion sax player performing at the legendary venue in Hermosa Beach, California. Joined by George Cables, Ron McClure, Woody Shaw, Tony Waters and Lenny White the original album contained 6 live cuts. This 180-gram 3-LP Deluxe Edition, adds 5 unreleased tracks along with new liner notes from author Eugene Holley Jr.
xy Mode for Joe [Alternate Take]*
[ya] If You're Not Part of the Solution, You're Part of the Problem [Alternate Take]*
[o] F1 Mode for Joe [Alternate Take]*
[p] F2 If You're Not Part of the Solution, You're Part of the Problem [Alternate Take]*
"Thank Goodness brings together an overdubbed ‘chamber band’ of bass guitar, viola, piano, harpsichord, voice and drums. Made on my own in London and Ireland between 2023-26 as a slow channelling inward of a lot of social energy.”
Seán Being is a committed figure at the sharp edges of Irish music, including being the key instigator of the band Princ€ss, touring bass player with Maria Somerville, and a long-time affiliate of Dublin label wherethetimegoes. Their various collaborations include contributions to live and recorded projects with the likes of Spellcaster, Nashpaints, Florian TM Zeizig, Jennifer Moore, Olan Monk, Dylan Kerr, Asa Nisi Masa, Life is Beautiful, Polido, Adriana João and Usof.
Not always in the business of ‘popular music’, Seán also has Gregorian Chant and car horn performances in their repertoire.
Aspects of all of this activity have made their way, directly or otherwise, into this first full-length album.
Initially recorded in 1996 and officially released February 1997, 2nd Family's Killaz from the Blackside tape is one of the most distinctive examples of unpolished, stripped-back & paranoid mid-90s Memphis rap. Recorded by King JC together with 2nd Family MCs Pistol Grip & Killa Chrome in a home-studio set up at the group's base in Southern Hills Apartments in Whitehaven, South Memphis (known locally as Blackhaven or the Blackside, a short trip from Graceland) the sparse, brooding and somewhat introspective production sets the record apart from the more raucous, overdriven precedent of the period. Pressed on vinyl for the first time via Death Is Not The End in an edition of 300 copies.
Acid Pauli returns to the curious world of Gwar Is Not The Answer (originally released 2006 on Smaul) with a carefully remastered re-release that includes two new remixes from Jonathan Kaspar and Acid Pauli. The title track unfolds at an unhurried pace, weaving loose acid traces through warm percussion and off-centre melodic fragments that seem to appear and dissolve before settling into place. It drifts forward with a quiet sense of momentum, balancing eccentric textures with a groove that remains firmly grounded throughout. With his new remix Jonathan Kaspar takes the original into leaner territory, sharpening its contours and drawing out its tension while preserving the peculiar character at its core. His remix stretches the track into a more focused club framework where rolling low-end pressure meets finely tuned rhythmic movement, allowing small details to carry unexpected weight. On the flip Acid Pauli revisits the track from a different angle. The remix opens up the source material into a spacious and fluid arrangement where shimmering tones circle around a deep pulse and subtle harmonic shifts gradually reveal themselves over time. Together the three versions explore different dimensions of the same musical language, moving between psychedelic house, understated dancefloor functionality and the kind of idiosyncratic storytelling that has long defined Acid Pauli's work.
A cassette-only collection of scratchy one-away dubplates and 45s from the vaults of Jah Massagan Sound, featuring plates cut at the studios of legendary producers and engineers such as King Tubby, Lee Perry, JoJo Hoo Kim, and Joe Gibbs among others during the peak of the roots sound in the mid 1970s through to the early 1980s.
Beginning in Leyton in 1972, owner-operator Lloyd alongside childhood friend and amp builder Tony Mass were part of a wave of reggae soundsystems formed in London and across the UK immediately after the Windrush generation. Focused on preserving and promoting the authentic Jamaican roots, Jah Massagan has remained a small but steadfast cornerstone in the East London scene more than 50 years later. Eljay Mass, the son of owner Lloyd, takes the reins for this cassette-only document, as the torch is passed on inter-generationally to continue the sound’s work.
Please can someone please give me a better word for Sexy? Because the thesaurus is giving me ick...Send help because this is a SEXY record – and (football analogy incoming) – a sexy summer signing....
Yes, that’s right ODF’s summer transfer to the Shall Not Fade main label is complete. ‘The Rhythm Grooves’ makes a hat trick of 12”s for us after the UK OTW producer’s double sell out EPs ‘Deep Step’& ‘Rock With Me’ on our Time is Now imprint. The UKG and grooving breaks specialist has been developing his game and steps into House territory for something of a statement EP and we’re (hot and) here for it. Since launching his own On Da Floor label last year ODF has been on a tear and this record perfectly encapsulates why. Four double threat tracks that can be weaponised both as main stage WMDs or as deadly 3am tickets to another place....
This invisible dichotomy is most clearly on show in title track & A side opener ‘The Rhythm Grooves’ is equal parts hot under the collar and hands in the air. Deep and sexy house but with a stepping baseline and a big vocal. ‘Free Your Soul’ stays deep, a swung jacking house cut with big M1 stabs and piano riffs and cheeky breakbeat breakdowns. That palette is timeless and there’s every reason this track will be too.
The B-side leans more into sweaty room & heads down territory but just like before there’s that double threat and we’ve seen both these tracks go off in big rooms at peak time. ‘Back to Mine’ calls back to that sweet spot in the early 2000s with French Touch inspired tech house was dominating Ibiza...Sleazy and sunbaked? Check. But what we didn't realise was missing w as some Accieeeed. Big shout from ODF there.. ‘Do You Feel Me?’ closes out in celebratory style. A proper tech house tool complete
with chugging bassline and more sexy breathy vocals. It’s the after hours roller.
A serious note to close, because I don’t want the playfulness of this press release to make you overlook this (sexy) EP as it’s appeal is more than skin deep. Having sat with – and lusted over –these tracks for a while I can tell you that they just get better (and hotter) with every outing. The Rhythm Grooves is out 28th August 2026 on Shall Not Fade.
Often credited as the father of multi-media theatre, Alwin Nikolais (1910-1993) took complete creative control over his productions - including cutting-edge approaches to lighting and costume that transformed human bodies into shifting sculptural shapes, while also composing wildly innovative electro-acoustic and synth-based audio as accompaniment.
After initially experimenting with musique concrète and tape manipulation (as demonstrated on the 1959 LP Choreosonic Music of the New Dance Theatre of Alwin Nikolais) Nikolais became the first owner of Robert Moog's synthesizer at the Audio Engineering Society convention in New York in late 1964. Relying heavily on the Moog and later the Synclavier synth/sampler, these 21 tracks document Nikolais' highly-prescient compositions across the mid 1960s through to the late 1980s - existing not only as extensions of his other-worldly choreographic productions, but standalone pieces of foundational mid-century American electronic and experimental music.
"Born in Southington, Connecticut in 1910, Nikolais’s early years and early career were in acting, music and puppetry. It was not until the late 1930s that he began his work as dancer/choreographer in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was commissioned by the Avery Memorial Theatre, a part of the Wadsworth Atheneum, to create an evening-length work to the music of Ernst Krenek. Previously his work and study as a pianist-organist found him accompanying silent films. This sort of accompaniment required from the musician not only a playing skill but also a versatility in improvisation, matching movement to sound, and evoking mood to situation.
Nik was drawn initially to dance by his involvement with the percussion scores used by the illustrious early twentieth century German dancer Mary Wigman. In trying to learn more about percussion, he was lured into dance class and thus his career began. His development of music and dance occurred simultaneously. His introduction to the twelve-tone technique opened his mind to the expanding areas of atonal music, and his dealing with music as sound per se. In 1948, after being appointed director of the Henry Street Playhouse in New York, Nikolais formed the Playhouse Dance Company, later known as the Nikolais Dance Theater, and began his aesthetic orientation toward dance as a study of motion. By the 1950s, he had ceased creating literal dances and began his explorations and eventual milieu as an abstractionist.
Sound became an important part of his abstract theatre. For his first dances, which involved his new thinking of dance as both a visual and kinetic art, he used live percussion scores in which he directed his dancers to play instruments of all nature. There was a combination of children’s toy instruments as well as harsh and resonant automobile brake drums, and other pitched auto parts which he also used to accompany classes. Once he installed his own tape recording machines, he quickly used the limited range these instruments provided in a new way, slowing and increasing speed and reversing sound. He also made the sounds adhere to the choreographic structure (not the other way around), thereby giving the dance its independence from the musical phrasing. But the real need remained: the search for new sound. Nik made a sound library, recording noises and percussion and vocal sounds, which the French aptly called musique concrète. Needless to say, he became a master at splicing bits and pieces.
From 1956 to 1962 Nikolais composed eleven major scores for his theatre pieces using such techniques. In 1963, James Seawright, who at the time was assisting Nik in his productions and also working at the Columbia-Princeton Center for Electronic Music, recorded a sound bank for the production Imago (1963). With this material, Nikolais created his first synthesizer score. Imago won the Paris Grand Prix in 1968 and launched the Nikolais Dance Theatre towards its national and primarily international acclaim.
During the same period, Seawright came to Nik and told him of a young man who had invented and constructed a simplified synthesizer and insisted that Nik visit the electronic fair currently being held in New York. Nik did so and met Robert Moog. He was completely taken by the new machine and after making some suggestions to Moog, (which Moog made), Nik bought the inventor’s first machine with the aid of a Guggenheim Fellowship. Moog himself was astonished by what his machine could produce for Nik. This machine was later acquired by the Museum of Musical Instruments at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor as the first Moog synthesizer. The Synclavier was Nik’s next source of sound and since the mid-1970s remained the major instrument in the Nikolais soundroom.
Alwin Nikolais has been honored and awarded throughout the world. He has received the French Legion of Honor, the Kennedy Center Honors, National Medal of the Arts, two Guggenheim Fellowships, as well as Mellon, Ford, and Rockefeller grants. He has been a recipient of NEA grants since 1966, been awarded five honorary doctorates, all for his remarkable achievements in Dance Theater. His genius has influenced several generations of artists."
—Murray Louis
Anna Kost on Calder City Development Corp, catalogue CCDC011. Six cuts, techno chassis, electro swing, experimental dust on top. View and Shallows ease you in, Keep Turning is the one that holds a room. Jeanette and Mode 19 go harder, more machine, less song. Trace pulls back at the end, leaves some air. No filler, no obvious single, built to be played as a set. Solid.
BEAT'EM ALL is french hip-hop/jazz instrumental trio SHIBUUYA!'s latest LP release. A blend of nu-jazz, fusion, hip-hop and future beats, all in original compisitions from the band's keyboardist and drummer, the album goes against the polished image we usually have of jazz music to deliver a raspy, energic and groovy sound that shakes the listener instead of nurturing him. With prestigious featurings such as CHiLi GiRL aka Shinobu Kawasihma, a Tokyo-raised Shamisen (a traditional japanese guitar) player, Melbourne rapper Nelson Dialect, french virtuoso saxophonist Hugo Afettouche, or the "french problem kid of jazz" trumpetist Daoud, SHIBUUYA! pushes forward its identity with references to japanese pop-culture through anime samples, powerful hip-hop beats, progressive broken-beat grooves and crazy deliveries on all three instruments (keys, drums and bass), all of it served by an original manga-inspired cover art by the band's keyboardist and leader. A reference to the japan-popular videogame genre (Shibuya being a neighborhood of tokyo centered around fashion and pop culture), BEAT'EM ALL tries to beat the odds on what we expect from a jazz album and to make it sound more like a garage-produced LP rather than a million-dollar studio album, to make as authentic and as generational as possible, a true product of today's young jazz scene.
House is the Religion. The DJ is my Deacon. The Music is my God and James Bangura is cool af.
Genuine, passionate, clear, authentic and real…. He isn’t trying, he just is. And his music is the same. It’s fucking cool. It’s real and authentic and it just is James Bangura. So it’s a real honour to add him to the Shall Not Fade roster; from Techno to Jungle to House and everything between the DC native can extract the true essence of a genre and simultaneously make it his own & pay homage to its roots.
So on Jack Sermon there’s no surprise when he flexes a seemingly generationally inherited knack for all things House (and Techno) and delivers four tracks of raw, real, genuine House music. OG shit.
‘House is the Religion, and the DJ is my Deacon, but the music is my God” says the Evangelical vocal on title track ‘Jack Sermon’. Never has there been a more aptly named track…This is a jack sermon… an OG inspired Chi town cut channeling early house music’s soulful beginnings delivered with straight up jacking house beat offset with laidback dusty dub chords….. We don;t say this lightly but we’re calling anthem on this one.
‘Scat Pack’ takes a more percussive and drum forward House motif. Thunderous kicks tease techno but this is still house, NY at heart complete with voguing diva vocals . Blown out and choppy we could say ‘this could have been ripped from a late 90’s club recording on a lost tape’ but that would do disservice to the precise but invisible fusion that's been laid down here..
‘Funk To Berlin’ opens the flip side and in Bangura’s journey to explore classic forms of house and techno, this track may well have taken root from Dub techno pioneers from the past. Deep dub chords and deeper subs lead the track but that jacking percussion makes this more than homage. Machine Funk, Machine soul. AA side business.
‘The Green Line’ closes out the EP in style.. rolling it out with skittering synths that work like percussion, ethereal pads and a faint vocal ‘Chicago’ spiralling into itself making this track one you can get lost in. Some might argue that this one is techno but who cares. It’s the journey not the destination. Two tickets please.
If you don’t know James Bangura’s music already (or even if you do) do some digging.. Look for releases on Mister Saturday Night, K7! and Floorspeed and check his output as part of “Black Rave Culture” with Amal and Nativesun and as a member of Groovedeep with Toronto’s Ciel and fellow DC native Jackson Ryland.
To close, we’ll leave you with this note from James……. told he is cool af.
House music, to me, exists on a wide spectrum. I’m inspired by its many forms: stripped-back minimalism, percussive drive, hypnotic textures, and soulful undertones. Rather than confining myself to one approach, I treat each track as an exploration—testing structure, pushing rhythm, and allowing subtle details to carry emotional weight. The studio becomes a space where groove and atmosphere meet intention. This body of work highlights that process. It reflects how I balance technical precision with feel, tension with release, and tradition with forward motion. Every decision—from drum programming to spatial design—is part of shaping a sound that feels honest and instinctive. - James Bangura
‘Perfect We Are Not’ the latest track from Soulwax, emerges directly from the band’s recent Abbey Road After Hours project - a unique collaboration with the iconic London studio that saw Soulwax take over the building for a series of recording sessions and a landmark live event.
Working across Abbey Road’s historic spaces - from Studio Three, to Studio Two, to Studio One - the band used all three rooms as a continuous creative environment, moving fluidly between them in pursuit of new material. It was within these sessions that ‘Perfect We Are Not’ was written and recorded with their full live band (including three drummers).
The track was cut using the studio’s vast array of analogue equipment before being pressed direct to vinyl and played as the opening moment of their 2manydjs set inside Studio One
Now released as a standalone single, ‘Perfect We Are Not’ carries that immediacy forward — a driving, full-bodied track that reflects the band’s instinctive, performance-led approach in the studio, and will also be released as a limited edition 12” via DEEWEE.
BAILE & Nuage land on Shall Not Fade with their ‘Back 2 Earth’ EP
Four deeeep timeless tracks on this 12 inch. Sleek, progressive, acidy house & trancey ethereal breaks ‘Back 2 Earth’ is full of that headsy 90’s energy à la Underworld and Orbital…..we’ve been getting very lost in these ones!
Written remotely between Brooklyn, New York (BAILE) and Yerevan, Armenia (Nuage) both producers are more than a decade deep in their craft and it shows. They say “this all began with Nuage sending over a few short demos. BAILE took those pieces and constructed them into more fleshed out tracks, after which the two passed the songs back and forth slowly filling in the blanks.” …and that's the key here - no rush, no agenda just the realest takes expertly hewn.
Same Beat on the A1 is just that.. breakbeats, spoken word vocal chops and repetitive synth lines, but less is more. The percussion, bassline and programming do the work. Sometimes it's more about what you leave out than what you put in.
On ‘TSP’ you Nuage’s signature metallic synths. It’s a definite eyes closed/hands in the air weapon. Hypnotic flow building and ratcheting up the energy.
Flip over to title track’ Back 2 Earth’ and we get a trancey, garage and house blend. Sleek synths & arpeggios and minimal chops that seem to whisper ‘heaven…earth’.. BAILE utilized the Prophet Rev2 for pads and synths and a Moog Little Phatty and Minitaur for the bass but we want to know can a breakbeat soothe?
'Catch Yourself' closes out the EP.. More breaks and arpeggios but this time with an acid lead from the TB-03, grungy bass and warm gated synths underneath. Sample spotters you aren’t scoring any points here, the “I know that sample” vocal here come from Felicia Douglass (a frequent collaborator of BAILE’s who is in The Dirty Projectors and Ava Luna) and makes double the point that this EP is one of those ones that even on first listen you already know it. ‘Back 2 Earth’ has been on the SNF schedule for a minute so big up BAILE & Nuage for the patience but what that extra private time has meant, is that we can say with certainty that this EP keeps sounding better & better & better..
A-side is Bill Withers' Harlem, taken from a rare recording and reworked into a slower, DJ-friendly version that really opens it up.
On the flip is FPI Project's Everybody Around The World, completely rebuilt from scratch, slowed down and driven by the piano. A real Balearic, feel-good summer record.
Discothèque Credits – Forgiveness Not Permission EP 4:
Four, soul-feeding edits drop just in time for sunshine. ‘Harlem’ serves up a light-touch edit approach, preserving the original street-corner poetry of ‘Harlem’ - with two versions supplied: Mix one for DJs with a clean intro and outro, plus an alternative second version with a tempo shift and fade. Backed with unmistakable, loved-up and iconic poolside pianos – ‘Everybody (All Over The World)’ now stripped into a global Balearic pulse: built for sunlit dancefloors & late-night gatherings.
In the evolving landscape of modern Southern hip-hop, the pairing of Starlito and Bandplay stands out as a unique bridge between street-level authenticity and refined, calculated musicality. Their collaborative project, Not The Country You Know, functions less like a standard release and more as a manifesto—a masterclass in the chemistry between a seasoned, introspective lyricist and a producer who possesses an intuitive grasp of the region's pulse. It is an exploration of legacy and adaptation, capturing the tension between where they came from and where the culture is currently headed.
Bandplay, long recognized for sculpting the sonic identity of Memphis icons, brings his signature, trunk-rattling 808s to the project, yet he manages to pivot here. The production feels remarkably expansive, masterfully blending the raw, stripped-back aesthetics of classic Tennessee rap with forward-thinking textures that refuse to be confined to a single sub-genre. Complementing this, Starlito operates with his trademark mix of cynical observation and genuine vulnerability. He navigates these beats with the weary grace of an artist who has weathered the music industry's relentless cycles, treating every bar like a necessary piece of a larger, ongoing story.
The album’s title serves as a direct commentary on these shifting tides. Across the tracklist, the duo investigates the growing disparity between the romanticized South and the cold realities of the streets, alongside the inevitable evolution of the music business itself. There is no frantic chasing of streaming-era trends or algorithmic bait here; instead, the project remains a stubborn, confident assertion of artistic identity. By weaving together Starlito’s "voice-of-reason" flow and Bandplay’s evolving, genre-bending sound, Not The Country You Know challenges the listener to abandon their preconceived notions of the region, offering instead a complex, urgent vision of a South that is as haunting as it is vibrant.
