Cerca:not was

If – in some parallel universe (or perhaps a not-so-distant-future version of the one we’re already sentenced to living in) – the evil overloads of artificial intelligence were actually successful in their attempts to create convincingly enjoyable “original music,” more specifically tasked with wholly encapsulating my own personal tastes by data-chugging some cocktail of – oh, I don’t know – the posters on my wall, the records in my “most listened to” pile, the mixtapes I made for others, intensive physical scans of my auditory cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, heart strings, whatever else they have splayed out on their autopsy table with the intention of generating one all-encompassing “perfect band” based on the fruitful sum of their findings – that band, for me, would be (or would at least sound exactly like) the Tara Clerkin Trio. It is, quite simply, without exception, the music I wish to hear.

Formed in Bristol UK (where none of them are from yet all of whom are deeply engrained) in 2020, the Tara Clerkin Trio – as it somewhat democratically exists today, despite the singular authority implied by its name – consists of the titular Tara Clerkin, her partner Sunny Joe Paradisos, and Sunny’s brother, Patrick Benjamin. I’ll confess, I don’t know what their respective roles are within the operation and there’s only a very small part of me that cares to learn, as one of my favorite qualities in an objective listening experience is the mystery of who is playing what, which sounds are “authentic” versus synthesized, which chunks are performed “live” in a room together versus meticulously Frankenstein’ed from measure to measure, or how exactly the overall sound is so (seemingly) effortlessly achieved. Though, I suspect, if and when I do witness a live performance by this band at any point, my enjoyment of the music will not be lost in my better understanding of it.

With two extraordinary mini-albums – In Spring (2021) and On The Turning Ground (2023) – making a splash on London’s formidable World of Echo label in wake of their self-titled 2020 debut, this upcoming Somewhere Good LP is, in many ways, the band’s most realised work. In running their usual gauntlet of idiosyncratic (*an overused adjective for which here there is regrettably no sufficient alternative) approaches, Clerkin & co. colour in and outside of compositional lines over the course of 40+ celebratory minutes - never wallowing, despite inherently somber subject matters of self-defeat, disease, displacement, restlessness, gentrification - allowing their arrangements and improvisations ample space and time to situate, stretch out, breathe, cross-pollinate, and ultimately take deeper hold on the listener’s imagination – all while somehow sounding more like themselves than ever before.

Of course, there are traceable influences herein, if one felt that such comparisons were necessary to properly examine and enjoy this music (they aren’t)… Being the big dumb American from the small boring town that I am, cornfed on ‘90s alternative radio with the enchantingly exotic sounds of Maxinquaye and Mezzanine emanating from my chunky tube television, I can’t help but to make a blatantly obvious reference to a “Bristol sound”, ie the whole trip-hop trip, the pastoral crooning over the suggestive urban grime of cracked electro/piano treatments, the digitally-yet-primitively reconstructed James Bond soundtrack string-beats, etc.. But the Tara Clerkin Trio is so infinitely much more than that. There are elements of avant-pop, modern classical, kraut-folk, audio verité, dare I say indie rock (and not of the beer guzzling, masturbatory fuzz-flex variety but perhaps more like a Trish Keenan-fronted Faust, Adrian Sherwood at the mixing desk of If You’re Feeling Sinister, or – in expanding on our alternate reality – a world in which High Llamas cut a full-length for Warp Records with Andrew Weatherall on coffee duty).

The hazy, unmappable skyline-mirage of droning harmonium, upright bass, peculiarly accentuated wind instruments, acoustic guitar, hushed yet literally mighty keys combine to hypnotizing effect. The band may make underlying nods to jazz, sure, but it’s not appropriation, it’s that they have the actual chops to build it out. Beneath the janky samples and oddball percussive embellishment lies actually great drumming. Beyond the manipulated vocal witchery and woefully reflective plain-spoke moments are Tara’s subtly inspired melodies, sung with what might honestly be the glue to the whole crazy equation. A calming consistency throughout the otherwise unpredictably dynamic, boldly intuitive, uniquely British exploration of this (their own) universe in song. – Ryan Davis (Chicago, February 2026)

After years out of print, we are pleased to present this much-needed vinyl reissue of an essential album in Roy Ayers’ career. Pressed on 180g vinyl.



In the early 1970s, Roy Ayers formed his own band: Roy Ayers Ubiquity. Its lineup included artists well known to funk and soul fans such as Bernard Purdie, James Mason, and Edwin Birdsong.



This 1973 album presents Roy Ayers in the midst of a creative evolution toward a sound increasingly influenced by soul and funk, moving beyond the early phase of his musical career, which was more rooted in orthodox jazz.

On “Red Black & Green”, he teams up with highly accomplished collaborators such as keyboardist Harry Whitaker, arranger and producer William S. Fischer, and Strata-East musicians Charles Tolliver and Sonny Fortune. Here, however, the latter two do not venture into the spiritual jazz sounds so characteristic of their own recordings; instead, together they embrace a sophisticated funk groove where Ayers showcases his extraordinary vibraphone talent.

The album includes outstanding versions of ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ and ‘Day Dreaming,’ as well as original compositions such as ‘Cocoa Butter,’ ‘Rhythms of Your Mind,’ and the superb title track, ‘Red Black & Green.’

Each volume in this series dedicated to House influenced by Jazz has been a bestseller.
This volume was previously released only as a double CD, which was long out of print, and now, by popular demand, it has
been released for the first time as a double vinyl.
The sounds here explore not only Jazz but also Soul and Minimal.
All the tracks have never been released on vinyl except the first, a remix by LTJ Xperience, which has long been out of print.
Tracks by Don Carlos, J Boogie, Interanima, Riccicomoto, Guido Nemola, Belladonna, From P60, and Paolo Faz, among others,
are also included.

Mike Cooper returns to Discrepant with The Dream Island of Birds, a release that blurs the lines between memory, field recording, and reimagined sound.

In the early 1990s, Cooper met illustrator and writer Charles van Sandwyk while walking on a small island in Fiji. Van Sandwyk was living there quietly, working from a modest bamboo house near the beach. Years later, Cooper learned that following a serious car accident, van Sandwyk experienced vivid dreams during his recovery — one of which became a small illustrated book titled The Dream Island of Birds. A signed postcard from that book still hangs in Cooper’s studio.

In 2012, Cooper spent a month as artist-in-residence on Pulau Ubin, a small island between Singapore and Malaysia, recording birds and insects across the island. Home to more than 300 resident and migratory bird species, Pulau Ubin provided the source material for this album, later combined with electronics and digital processing. The track titles reference some of the island’s more evocatively named birds, though the sounds themselves are not literal representations. One piece is not derived from live birds at all, but imagined entirely through electronic means.

Neither documentary nor abstraction, The Dream Island of Birds sits between field recording, memory, and invention — an island heard through time and circuitry.

In 1955 Miles Davis played an all-star jam session at the Newport Jazz Festival with Thelonious Monk on piano, Gerry Mulligan on baritone sax and Zoot Sims on tenor sax. This performance immediately drew the attention of Columbia Records' George Avakian, who was so impressed that he immediately offered Davis a contract if he could form a regular band. The group he then assembled would go down in history as Davis' so-called "First Great Quintet", consisting of John Coltrane on tenor sax, Red Garland on piano, Philly Joe Jones on drums, Paul Chambers on bass and of course Miles himself on trumpet. 'Round Midnight is Miles Davis' first record for Columbia and also the first studio recording of the First Great Quintet. The recording sessions began on October 26 1955 but the album wasn't released until 1957 as Davis was still under contract at Prestige at the time. These respective sessions yielded Steamin', Workin', Cookin' and Relaxin'; albums that would go down in history as quintessential blueprints of late 1950s hard bop.

The record is made up of a collection of standards and one traditional song ("Dear Old Stockholm", from the 19th century). Notably, it features what may be considered the most well-known versions of Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight" and "Bye Bye Blackbird". That Avakian made a golden signing was sufficiently clear from the start, but no one could foresee that it would be this quintet on Columbia that would go on to change the course of modern jazz forever with Kind of Blue. 'Round Midnight is available as a limited edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on crystal clear vinyl.

Taking place in the Paras district, Cangallo province, in the Ayacucho region of the Central-South Sierra of Peru - this is a recording of a ritual held on February 5th 2020 for the one year anniversary of the death of Mrs. Sofía Miranda de Bellido, recorded by her grandson Hánkel Bellido.

At noon the coffin of "Mamay Sofía" was presented, so that her relatives could say goodbye for the last time. Following tributes from family members, these songs dedicated to her life and her passing were sung.

The townspeople were notified of the events by the sound of bells that produce a peculiar and powerful sound, and that can be heard in the other nearby towns of Paras. It is said that these bells were greased with human fat, and brought from the Cerro de Pasco region during colonial times. The bells must be played all morning until the change of mourning takes place.

At midnight the songs of the Almakunapaq (also known as San Gregorios) mass began. These are unique to the Andean peoples - a fusion of Andean and Christian syncretic traditions - and are said to help the dead to enter the eternal Kingdom.

It was 4am when the change of mourning took place, and in accordance with traditions, the friends & family announce the presence of harp and violin players, to liven up the proceedings with songs of joy and merriment until the next day.

"Mamay Sofia, manan wañukunkichu, kawsakuchkankim sunquykupi; sichus qunqarusqaykiku, chaymi ichaqa wañukunki!"

"I have not died, I will die on the day that you forget me!"

Devoting an album entirely to the Persian poetry of Jami, aluminary of the Sufi tradition, was one of Haji Ghulam Farid Sabri"s cherished ambitions for a long time. This dream came true for the Qawwali icon when he visited Berlin in July 1991 at the invitation of the Heimatklänge ("Home Soundsfrom Home Planet Earth") festival, accompanied by his 14-year-old son Amjad. After Ghulam Sabri"s untimely death on the 5th of April 1994, Amjad Sabri became his musical successor, thereby passing on the Sufi Qawwali mastership of the Sabri family to the next generation. This all came to an end when Amjad was murdered for his Sufi beliefs in the streets of Karachi on the 22nd of June 2016. Thus, Jami is not only a memorial to the Sufi Muslim tradition and the Persian poet but also to Ghulam Farid Sabri and Amjad Sabri. It remains their only record in Farsi.

ANORAX lives up to its #eatsleepcollect mantra with this limited edition one side only plays special 7”.

Making a cover version of Mezzoforte’s Icelandic jazz funk classic GARDEN PARTY is not a task for the feint hearted.

Phil Hooton and fellow producer Mark Gambe pull it off with aplomb.

The duo are enjoying success with their single GARDEN OF EDEN by Phil Hooton Featuring Pete Simpson. That involved a new song being written and sung over their instrumental remake of GARDEN PARTY.

The original idea was to only release the new vocal creation but the instrumental version - featuring virtuoso playing by some of the UK’s top session musicans - was simply too good to be left on the shelf.

Only 200 copies of this one sided 7” have been manufactured.

Death Is Not The End follow up their early 2020 tape The Sun Is Setting on the World with a further collection of hardcore rebetika recordings from the 1930s through to late '50s. More songs of sorrow, poverty, loss and the end of the world.

Gravity Pleasure's inaugural release is a rippling compilation of womxn, trans, and non-binary artists and
collaborators that invites listeners into an aqueous paraworld of fluid resistance and sonic kinship. Across 21 tracks from the likes of Yetsuby, Flora Yin Wong, Felisha Ledesma, Ursula Sereghy, tibslc, and more, Water Bodies spans a post-genre miasma of ethereal mermaid music, cathartic flows, and glistening sibilants. Inspired by a poetic prompt from Lou Croff Blake, each track is an exquisite message in a bottle of deep diving emotionality. Pulling from a wide range of musical perspectives – field recording, lovesick ballads, shimmering downtempo, post-party comedown, and percolating ambient – the compilation contains multitudes yet maintains deep sentimental coherence. Like a wave crashing in slow motion, each artist sonifies possible ways of being, insisting on the porous, the interdependent, and the deep and unruly. Water Bodies reminds us that home is a body made of water, to which we all belong.


Credits Curated by Ashlynn White & Madelyn Byrd
Artwork by Dre Roelandt
Layout by Madelyn Byrd Mastered by Estle
Distributed by Rubadub
Published by Gravity Pleasure ❊ GP01 ❊ 2025

In 1979, the Soviet label Melodiya released a record that immediately stood apart from most Soviet jazz of its time and perhaps for that very reason never became widely known. Oriental Suite by Oleg Gotskosik Quintet is a rare example of jazz, Eastern musical tradition, and compositional thinking coming together not as an exotic stylization but as a fully formed artistic statement.

This is not “Oriental colour” used as decoration, nor folklore treated as an ornament. Oriental Suite grows from within another musical tradition, with its monody, modal logic, slow unfolding of form, and focus on inner states rather than outward effect. The music is calm and concentrated. It does not try to impress, but gradually draws the listener into its own space.
Oleg Gotskozik was born in Tashkent in 1951, a city where Eastern music was part of everyday life rather than something distant or exotic. That may explain why his engagement with traditional material sounds so natural. He does not quote or stylize; he thinks in the same musical categories. By temperament, he was closer to a composer than to a jazz musician in the conventional sense. For him, jazz was not a style but a way of working with form and improvisation.There is no standard “theme and solos” logic in Oriental Suite. Improvisation is woven into the fabric of the music itself and unfolds in the same way as in oral traditions, gradually, with rising tension and a clear sense of arrival. Individual sections refer to traditional Uzbek genres such as lullabies, lyrical songs, and funeral laments, but these are not genre sketches. They are states of being. The music unfolds slowly, avoiding familiar harmonic drama and relying instead on modal scales and subtle internal movement.

A special role is played by trumpeter Yuri Parfyonov. His approach, with delayed vibrato, micro-glissandi, and melismatic phrasing, sounded unexpected at the end of the 1970s and still feels remarkably fresh today. This is not expressive jazz virtuosity but a focused, almost meditative voice, where improvisation becomes a form of inner speech.
It is also important to note that the original recording was not without technical flaws. Like many Soviet jazz releases of the time, Oriental Suite was captured under far from ideal conditions, and the master contained audible imperfections that were never part of the music itself. For this edition, the restoration was approached with great care and respect, working through the recording moment by moment to remove unwanted artifacts while preserving the character and atmosphere of the original. The aim was simple: to make sure nothing stands in the way of fully experiencing the music.

In the early 1980s, Oleg Gotskozik left the Soviet Union, and after that his name virtually disappeared from Soviet music journalism and literature. There were no official bans or public statements. He was simply no longer mentioned. Oriental Suite continued to exist on its own, without an author and without context. The record never entered the canon, received no continuation, and was never officially reissued. It seemed to fall out of time.
The original vinyl pressing was released in a run of around 32,000 copies, but most of them remained within the republic and never reached wide circulation. Today, original copies are hard to find and have long become objects of interest for collectors. There have been no official reissues, only attempts that never went beyond test pressings.
Today, Oriental Suite sounds surprisingly contemporary. It is music that can be described as deep ethno-jazz and even, in a certain sense, spiritual jazz. There is no exoticism here, no decorative borrowing, only a complete immersion in another musical way of thinking. It does not require explanations and does not need to be justified by its time.
This is not a forgotten curiosity revived for collectors’ sake. It is music that simply waited for the moment when it could be heard without ideological filters or genre expectations. Now it is returning quietly, without noise or hype, but with the clear sense that this is not an artifact of an era, but a living and genuinely rare artistic statement.

On March 20, 1964, legendary American comedian and harpist Harpo Marx joined the Riverside Symphony on stage at a benefit for the Southern California organization. By then, the comic had been in semi-retirement, and after a series of heart attacks in 1961, he was told to stop working altogether. But to a lifelong performer, nothing compared to the feeling of being on stage. Benefit shows, he slyly argued, were not technically work, since he wasn’t getting paid. For the next few years, Marx’s wife and doctors grudgingly went along with the pitch. Harpo Speaks! The Riverside Symphony Concert, out June 5 from Ramseur Records, captures a considerably remarkable, one-of-a-kind performance: The silent Marx Brother, the one whose trademark persona led many audiences to believe he was actually mute, spoke. As Harpo Marx’s first, and last—recorded just six months before his death—live album, Harpo Speaks! places listeners in the room, immersed in the swell of the Riverside Orchestra as Marx performs alongside the symphony and leads them in a narration of Peter and the Wolf. In another unusual move for Marx, he allowed the recording of the show for posterity, though the tapes seemingly disappeared after his death. Harpo Speaks! is the result of heroic archival work. Recently discovered by longtime Marx Brother archivist John Tefteller, he and Marx biographer and expert Robert Bader set out to restore the long lost recording. “The fact that we have a recording is a miracle,” says Bader. “It was not the most professionally recorded thing.

It was very haphazard. The work that was done to rehabilitate it is stunning. It’s as if you’ve found something covered with layers of mold and dirt, got it all cleaned off, and now are able to see something brand new underneath it.” Across the recording’s near-43 minute runtime, Marx, alongside the Riverside Symphony, takes the cheering audience through the delightfully lighthearted “Toy Symphony” and carries them into the softly romantic “Moon Medley,” (a medley of “Fly Me to the Moon” and “How High the Moon,” arranged by his son Bill, alongside his own composition, “Moon Tune”) and a rare instrumental performance of his composition “Guardian Angels.” And then the concert’s true highlight: the near 22-minute long riveting narration of Peter and the Wolf. For the first time, Harpo reveals his voice: deep, yet soft-spoken, refined, yet still retaining the slightest hint of his New York City origin. And, in speaking, he entertained, getting laughs not just for his physical gags, but for the storytelling itself: the dramatic inflections in moments of suspense, the arch mischievousness, and tongue-in-cheek references to Goldwater, Rockefeller, and Nixon.

Hit the North is a DJs’ movement
Not a label. Not a revival. A discipline.

Over the years, the collective travelled across multiple states in the US and parts of the UK, digging deep into private collections, basements, garages, storage rooms and forgotten boxes.

They weren’t looking for classics.
They weren’t looking for hits.
They were looking for attempts.

Artists chasing something bigger than themselves.
Trying to sound like Motown.
Trying to sound like Detroit.
Trying to sound like the records that saved them.

Many of them dreamed — at best — of becoming a one hit wonder.
Most never got that far.

Some never crossed a state line.
Some never crossed the street at the end of their block.
Some never played outside their hometown.
Some never played at all.

What they left behind were fragments.

Raw versions.
Unfinished recordings.
Alternate takes.
Rejected mixes.
Test pressings.
Acetates passed quietly from hand to hand.

Sometimes with real credits.
Sometimes with fake ones.
Sometimes with handwritten labels leading nowhere.
Titles that didn’t match the music.
Stories that changed every time you asked.

Often, the trail simply disappeared.

What remained was intention.

Energy.
Urgency.
Hope pressed into sound.

So the collective worked on it.

They edited certain parts.
Extended others.
Cut what didn’t serve the floor.

Not to modernise.
Not to rewrite history.
But to unlock the power that was already there.

The result sounds like Northern Soul pushed to its breaking point.
Fast. Physical. Emotional.
Built for movement.

Some circulated privately.
Others were never pressed at all.

Recorded in personal studios, borrowed studios, friends’ rooms, temporary spaces.
Always outside the system.

This is not nostalgia.
This is unfinished business.

Definition of spin doctor: a spokesperson employed to give a favorable interpretation of events to the media, especially on behalf of a political party. Spin Doctors weren't part of a political party but spread the word about romance.

The band was formed in New York City, best known for their early 1990s hits "Two Princes" and "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong". Those 2 songs were hits all over the world, and are still big hits in the streaming era. Pocket Full of Kryptonite is the first studio album (and second release) by the Spin Doctors, and originally released in August 1991.

The album was a top 10 hit in many countries, including the UK, Denmark, Germany, Norway and Sweden. It was the band's bestselling album and was certified 5x Platinum in the US. Not to be confused with the 3 Doors Down song 'Kryptonite' from 2000, the Superman theme was all over the Spin Doctors' album, with the title, a song called "Jimmy Olsen's Blues" and the album cover showing a phone booth (referring to Clark Kent frequently ducking into a nearby phone booth to change into his Superman attire).

This pressing of Pocket Full of Kryptonite is a limited 35th anniversary edition of 4,000 individually numbered copies on green vinyl. The jacket has a deluxe leather-texture laminate finish.

Maqom Soul Launches Its Reissue Series with a Cult Classic from Uyghur Ensemble “Yashlik”.
Maqom Soul, a newly founded Uzbek label dedicated to reviving rare and overlooked music from Central Asia, proudly announces its debut release: a vinyl reissue of the seminal album by the Uyghur vocal-instrumental ensemble Yashlik, originally recorded and released in 1978.
Founded in 1973 as part of the Uyghur Music and Drama Theater in Almaty, Yashlik (which translates from Uyghur as Youth) quickly emerged as a groundbreaking force in the regional music scene. Though born out of a theatrical setting, the group transcended those boundaries with a unique blend of Uyghur folk melodies, jazz influences, Soviet estrada, and traces of psychedelic rock.

The ensemble’s founder and artistic director was Murat Akhmadiev, a prominent figure in both the musical and cultural-political life of Kazakhstan. The album being reissued is one of the rare recordings where synthesizers, electric guitars, and drums appear side by side with traditional Uyghur instruments. More than a musical experiment, it stands as a cultural document of its era a creative attempt to preserve identity through the language of modern sound. Originally recorded at the Melodiya studios in the late 1970s, the album’s initial pressing was distributed only within the Soviet Union. Now, over four decades later, listeners finally have the opportunity to experience this music in a lovingly remastered and reimagined edition.
According to the team at Maqom Soul, beginning the label’s journey with Yashlik was a conscious and symbolic choice: “This was a group that embodied youthful energy, deep respect for tradition, and a genuine thirst for innovation. Their music once played at festivals and on television, and then quietly disappeared. We’re bringing it back — not out of nostalgia, but as a living piece of art.”

Maqom Soul is committed not just to reissuing rare records but to restoring the presence of culturally significant music that helped shape the sonic identity of Central Asia. Forgotten music is also part of the future. Maqom Soul brings it back to the stage.

Felipe Gordon is back on Shall Not Fade with his new album Tezeta and f*ck is it special.

Felipe Gordon is SNF label mainstay... (we released his triple repressed debut album "A Landscape Onomatopeya" in 2022 as well as 7 x 12" EPs on SNF over the years plus an extra 12" on Lost Palms)... so given his consistent and exceptional output on our record label you'd probably forgive some complacency with this write up, you might even afford us license to assume we're preaching to the choir and allow us to rest easy knowing that at this stage Felipe Gordon's records sell themselves.... Well none of those things are happening here because when an artist makes a record this complete, this good, you have to try to find the words. You use words like "timeless", "complete and "special". Words that can carry the weight. Because when you've listened to an album dozens of times, and not once, in any part, on any listen in any way has it fatigued you, you need to say. When a record felt so wonderfully familiar from the first listen and just kept on giving you the same feels ever since, you need to say. When a record makes you think about you how you feel about certain Air & St Germain albums (even when you know what it means to put that in a press release), you need to say. So here we are, saying these things.. Tezeta is a special record, one that exists in the rarefied air. A proper album. A record that every time you press play you will immediately remember why you own it and why you love it. A record that your subconscious will know so well that if shuffle is on you will know in an instant. An album that when it's in your collection and the first track starts you get a twinge of annoyance because you didn't listen again sooner and when the final track stops you stop too.

Given paint and a canvas we can most of us paint a picture, but only those that are gifted can paint something that makes us feel. Tezeta makes you feel. Feel familiarity when it's playing, yearning when its not, and absence when it ends. This alone would be enough to make the argument as to why this album is special and justify the gushing opening paragraph of this press release. But we're not done yet.

We don't really have a word in english for what Felipe Gordon has created with this album and how it makes you feel. "Tezeta" that word.

Tezeta is a one of four musical modes within the traditional Ethiopian modal music system known as Qiñit. Mulatu Astatke, the father of Ethio-jazz, frequently uses this mode, often translating it as "nostalgia" or "longing". Gordon says Mulatu's own tezeta recordings convey to him "feelings of melancholy and longing from a point of affection". This is exactly the feeling Gordon has captured. It is what he has woven through every recording on this album. Tezeta is the prime ingredient. It's the base note in recipe, it's sprinkled over the signature jazz-sampled house tracks. It powers the vast array of synthesizers Gordon deploys. It underpins the explorations into trip-hop. It's present in Gordon's varied vocal deliveries and it tunes his guitar. It's in the running order. It's the flow. Tezeta is tezeta in electronic music form, with 4/4, breakbeats, samples and synths.

Gordon says a big part of what differentiates this album from from his previous albums is that is was recorded in a period where he allowed himself to create music without the constraints of time or self-pressure which coincided with a moment of heavy personal growth which allowed him to reflect deeply on his work.

There is a word in Portuguese "Saudade" that Gordon says has a similar meaning to Tezeta - Saudade is defined as a deep, sometimes bittersweet, longing or nostalgia for someone or something that is absent or lost. But here at SNF we think that in Tezeta nothing has been lost. Quite the opposite. Through Felipe Gordon's artistic explorations we have all gained something very special indeed.

"Remnants" is an album marked by the ambiguity of presence and absence. The pieces, recorded using minimal equipment in what Suzuki describes as a ritual-like atmosphere, began as a way of processing the loss of her father in 2019. But beyond this, they also come to speak to the ways in which loss changes our relationship with someone, and our experiences of the world. Indeed, the experience of loss is not marked merely by a single event, but is instead a process that unfolds over time. Despite the other's absence, a particular location, the smell of a certain brand of tobacco, a look on a friend's face - traces such as these are enough to bring about a renewed presence.

It is through these subtle traces and remnants, encountered over time, that we come to understand loss as not only the acceptance of absence, but the recognition of a continued presence. As Suzuki says, "this is not a solo album." Its creation was instead shaped by an ongoing dialogue, the continued elaboration of a complex and ambivalent relationship. At once melancholic, warm, and embracing, it is this ambiguity, these subtle traces, that Suzuki’s compositions speak to. These are not merely the sounds of mourning, but instead have been shaped by the evolving dialectic of presence and absence into something far more subtle and haunting. (Zefan Sramek, 2026)

The Flaming Sideburns' debut album remastered 25th anniversary edition out in June via Svart Records In the beginning of the new Millennium, The Flaming Sideburns were getting ready to record our first proper album. First we rented Ismo Alanko’s old rehearsal room in Otaniemi, Espoo, and turned it into a recording facility. Old analog tape recorders, vintage microphones, a Space Echo unit, and other top equipment were brought in directly from Berlin, Germany by the album’s producer, Jürgen Hendlmeier. As producer Jürgen Hendlmeier recalls the final steps of the sessions: “Fact is, when we mastered the record at Seawolf Studios we had no real idea what to do with this equipment. We just wanted to make it louder and louder – that was all we wanted. We wanted to go to twelve instead of eleven.” When Hallelujah Rock’n’Rollah was first released, it did not sound as “natural” as it had originally been planned to be – but the album was a huge success for the band nevertheless. For this remastered edition, Hendlmeier dug deep enough to finally find the files containing all the original mixes. The album’s producer then remastered the album himself, and the end result is far more convincing. Compared to the original version—which is already very good—the album now feels as if it has been completely remixed for the better. As a bonus, on the original album some of the songs were edited shorter, but now all of them appear in their original length. -Eduardo Martinez

The Flaming Sideburns' debut album remastered 25th anniversary edition out in June via Svart Records In the beginning of the new Millennium, The Flaming Sideburns were getting ready to record our first proper album. First we rented Ismo Alanko’s old rehearsal room in Otaniemi, Espoo, and turned it into a recording facility. Old analog tape recorders, vintage microphones, a Space Echo unit, and other top equipment were brought in directly from Berlin, Germany by the album’s producer, Jürgen Hendlmeier. As producer Jürgen Hendlmeier recalls the final steps of the sessions: “Fact is, when we mastered the record at Seawolf Studios we had no real idea what to do with this equipment. We just wanted to make it louder and louder – that was all we wanted. We wanted to go to twelve instead of eleven.” When Hallelujah Rock’n’Rollah was first released, it did not sound as “natural” as it had originally been planned to be – but the album was a huge success for the band nevertheless. For this remastered edition, Hendlmeier dug deep enough to finally find the files containing all the original mixes. The album’s producer then remastered the album himself, and the end result is far more convincing. Compared to the original version—which is already very good—the album now feels as if it has been completely remixed for the better. As a bonus, on the original album some of the songs were edited shorter, but now all of them appear in their original length. -Eduardo Martinez

Double vinyl reissue of Skullflower’s epochal “IIRD GATEKEEPER” album - the first time that this album has been available on vinyl for 30 years. In addition to the original LP this definitive and expanded edition includes extra and unreleased tracks taken from the recording sessions. For the first time all the tracks recorded by the band during this period can be heard together giving fans unprecedented access to material previously only available in the bands’ archives. Recorded in London in 1991 and released in 1992 on Justin “Godflesh” Broadrick’s HeadDirt label in 1992, IIRD GATEKEEPER established a worldwide reputation and following for Skullflower and convinced many who heard it that they had encountered nothing less than the best band on the planet. Arriving at the height of the “grunge” and the expansion of underground guitar “rock” into corporate America, IIRD GATEKEEPER had its roots deep in the UK noise and power-electronics scene. Guitarist Matthew Bower and bassist Anthony Di Franco were both graduates of the Broken Flag school of British noise making with their respective projects PURE, TOTAL and JFK. IIRD GATEKEEPER was Skullflower’s third album and was the first of the band’s albums to feature a consistent line-up throughout its production: Matthew Bower (guitar), Anthony Di Franco on (bass) and Stuart Dennison (drums). Recorded and mixed in four sessions between January and June 1991the tracks on this edition of IIRD GATEKEEPER shows the band’s new line up developing their sound, warping and evolving in real time. As such this edition of IIRD GATEKEEPER provides a unique document of the band in a state of transition, with the chemistry of the individual playing combusting in the studio to create a wave of astonishing creativity. IIRD GATEKEEPER is perhaps the definitive British underground rock album of the 1990’s – unique and never equalled. With this new edition Dirter Promotions allows Skullflower fans old and new to listen to this classic album as it was intended: spark up, crank it up and prepare to have your ears and mind blown