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Produced by Prince, this is one of the best albums that came out of the Purple One's Minneapolis funk-rock empire in the 1980s. Featuring the hit title track and “The Belle of St. Mark” (two Prince penned classics), this is another opportunity to celebrate the deeper fabrics within the purple quilt Prince laid across the 80’s pop scene.

PRONTO are back, this time seeing Greenskeepers don James Curd team up with Grammy award-winning Marius De Vries. Alongside composing the scores for a whole host of big films, De Vries has produced for the likes of Massive Attack, Madonna, David Bowie, Bjork, Pet Shop Boys to name but a few. So you know a matchup with Chicago house head Curd is going to hit with something special.

A disco-infused house bomb with a very special guest on those sweet vocals, ‘Auditory Gates’ gets the remix treatment from two producers at the top of their game, Jacques Renault and Oliver Dollar, who each put their trademark spin on it.

Oliver Ho under his Broken English Club Moniker - EBM Techno Industrial Cut Up Vocals Noise,

'Body Riddle', ein Highlight des frühen Clark-Katalogs, von Produzenten wie Arca, Rustie und Hudson Mohawke als massgeblicher Einfluß bezeichnet, wurde unter persönlicher Betreuung von Clark neu für mehr Dynamik remastered und erscheint erstmals wieder seit 16 Jahren.

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BIO: Chris Clark arbeitet seit 20 Jahren mit Musik und Ton. Schon in jungen Jahren wurde er von Warp Records gesignt und veröffentlichte bis dato 13 Alben und eine Vielzahl an EPs und Singles. Sein jüngstes Studioalbum 'Playground In A Lake' für das Klassik-Label Deutsche Grammophon verschmolz sein Markenzeichen, die elektronische Musik, mit den Streichertönen des Cellisten Oliver Coates, der Geigerin Rakhi Singh und des Budapest Art Orchestra.

Nach seiner ersten Filmmusik für die Sky/Canal+ TV-Serie 'The Last Panthers' schrieb Clark die Scores zu 'Rellik' (BBC1/HBO) und das Drama 'Kiri' (Channel 4/Hulu). Kürzlich lieferte er die Filmmusik für Apple TV+ 'Lisey's Story', basierend auf Stephen Kings gleichnamigem Roman, sowie für 'Daniel Isn't Real', einem psychologischen Horrorfilm von Spectre Vision, der Produktionsfirma des Nicolas Cage-Kultfilms 'Mandy'. Dieser OST wurde ebenfalls von der Deutschen Grammophon veröffentlicht.

Chris arbeitete mit der Choreografin Melanie Lane zusammen und vertonte 12 zeitgenössische Tanzprojekte, darunter die Aufführung ihres Soloprojekts 'Tilted Fawn' im Sydney Opera House und zuletzt 'Personal Effigies', das im März 2018 mit dem Kier Choreographic Prize ausgezeichnet wurde, sowie 'WOOF' für die renommierte Sydney Dance Company.

Chris' umfangreiches Verzeichnis an Remixen für Künstler wie Thom Yorke, Massive Attack, Depeche Mode, Max Richter, Battles und Nils Frahm wurde 2013 als Doppelalbum 'Feast / Beast' veröffentlicht.

'What's always set Clark apart is his eclecticism, dynamism, and flair for the dramatic... His tracks don't drop as much as they slip or swerve... He'll end a techno album with eight minutes of beatless, sky-cracking ecstasy and it will make sense. He's allergic to the idea of standard sounds and presets. And unlike many of his more insular peers, Clark can be open to sentimentality — not schmaltz — as much as a belief in humanness and all its inexact wonder. In electronic music's never-ending battle between man and machine, he's seeking a third way.' - Pitchfork

"Saturday Love's timeless disco anthem "2 B Free" is remix catnip, and every producer knocked this one out of the park. The piano-soaked collaboration between Boston beatsmith Kon and New York vocalist Fiorious gets masterfully reinvented by heavyweights Oliver Dollar and Baltra. With Kon's extended disco mix on this record, the question now is how can you only pick one of these for your set?"

Oliver Hartmann zählt mit seiner Band Hartmann schon seit dem ersten Album 'Out in the cold' zu den besten deutschen Hardrock-Acts und ist seit fast zwei Jahrzehnten weltweit als gefragter Sänger und Gitarrist bekannt. Man kennt ihn auch als festen Bestandteil des Megasellers Avanatsia, als Kopf des erfolgreichen Pink Floyd-Tributes Echoes, sowie als Ex-Frontmann der Neo-Classic Metaller At Vance. Hartmann spielte mit Größen wie Toto, Uriah Heep, Edguy, Hooters, Mother's Finest, House of Lords und feierte 2020 ihr 15-jähriges Bestehen. Nun erscheint ihr 10.Album'Get Over It', das erneut von Oliver Hartmann in Zusammenarbeit mit Sascha Paeth (Avantasia, Kamelot, Beyond The Black, Edguy u.v.m.) produziert wurde. Als Gastmusiker wurden erneut Jimmy Kresic (Keyboards) und Ina Morgan (Chorgesang) einbezogen. Musikalisch bewegt sich diese Veröffentlichung im modernen AOR- und Melodic Rock-Genre und richtet sich an Fans von Foreigner, Gary Moore, Thunder oder auch Bryan Adams. Es bietet neben Midtempo-Rockern wie ‚Remedy', ‚One step behind' oder ‚What you give is what you get' auch die Rockballaden ‚Just drive', ‚Can't keep away from you' sowie ‚In another life'.Neben einigen Sommerfestivals wird Hartmann im Herbst dieses Jahres wieder auf Tour unterwegs sein. Die Shows in Deutschland und der Schweiz werden um Shows in Spanien ergänzt - unterstützt und präsentiert von Guitar-Magazin, Eclipsed, FGN-Guitars und ROCKANTENNE.

Oliver Sim hatte eigentlich nicht den Wunsch, es seinen The xx-Bandkollegen Romy Madley Croft und Jamie Smith gleichzutun und ein Soloprojekt zu starten. Er dachte auch nicht, dass er wirklich den Mut dazu hätte. Als er mit Jamie xx an einem Stück namens "Romance with a Memory" arbeitete, sagte dieser jedoch: "Ich denke, du solltest eine komplette Platte machen". Und das war der Beginn der langen und schmerzhaften Geburt von "Hideous Bastard", Oliver Sims Solo-Debütalbum, das am 09.09.22 auf Young erscheinen wird. "Fast drei Jahre lang habe ich mir Fragen gestellt und war beim Schreiben auf der Suche nach Antworten", beschreibt Sim den Entstehungsprozess des Albums. Die Enthüllung seiner HIV-Erkrankung verfolgt die Platte thematisch, so wie sie sein Leben stets überschattet hat. In diesem ersten Song "Hideous" fragt sich Sim, ob seine entwaffnende Ehrlichkeit ihn wohl befreien wird. Die Hoffnung und die Spannung spiegeln sich in der musikalischen Umgebung wider, die er zusammen mit seinem Freund Jamie xx geschaffen hat. Oliver begann zu Hause in London mit dem Schreiben und Aufnehmen von Songs, inspiriert von seiner Vorliebe für Horrorfilme und seinem eigenen Leben, wobei er Themen wie Angst und Scham durch die Brille eines queeren Mannes in den Dreißigern anpackte. Einige Monate später kehrte er mit einer Sammlung von Demos zu Jamie zurück, und die beiden begannen, sie gemeinsam zu produzieren. Er holte sich unter anderem die Hilfe seines lebenslangen Helden und jetzigen Freundes Jimmy Somerville, um dem Album den letzten Schliff zu geben und sprach zudem mit Elton John über seine Musik. Anschließend war es an dem französischen Regisseure Yann Gonzales eine visuelle Welt mit dem Kurzfilm "Hideous" zu erschaffen. Der Film feiert seine Premiere bei den diesjährigen Filmfestspielen von Cannes. "Hideous Bastard" ist ein audiovisuelles Ereignis geworden, wie es sich Oliver Sim anfangs selber nie zugetraut hätte, umso beeindruckender ist nun das Ergebnis.

Synthetic Music From Yugoslavia 1980-1989

"The galloping technical progress in the second half of the last century dominated all spheres of daily life, art and culture. In the music industry machines took over the role of classical instruments and did not stop at RnR, punk nor industrial music. No one could resist the challenge, but also the prevailing trends in the 80s. The music industry was influenced by the electronic virus globally, not sparing even the remotest corners of the planet, producing bands like Depeche Mode, New Order, Soft Cell or lesser known ones like Liquid Liquid, Section 25, The Wake as well as the pioneers of the electronic music Silver Apples, Pierre Henry,etc .
What was going on in the music industry of former Yugoslavia and at Jugoton, the biggest YU music label at that time? The all over answer is given by a new release of Everland Music: Electronic Jugoton - Synthetic music from Yugoslavia 1964. - 1989. Vol. 1

Electronic Jugoton is the first part of two double albums, where the second part will even go back to pre-electronic music from 1964. Both double albums were initially released by Croatia Records (ex-Jugoton) in 2014 on a 2CD set with no less than two and a half hours of material (47 songs, 35 performers), showing the contemporary trend of Jugoton at that time towards avant-garde and provocative directions in electronic music. This untimely compilation is released for the first time on vinyl now on two double LPs, housed in gatefold sleeves by Everland Music, where part 2 will be released in 2023.
The brave and insightful creators of the compilation Electronic Jugoton, veteran crate diggers Višeslav Laboš and Zeljko Luketić, have excelled at reconstructing the musical past of electronic music in Yugoslavia from 1964 – 1989. Jugoton's extensive research included the most exciting and progressive moments of pop and disco music, early rap, electronic responses of new wave, RnR, post punk and industrial bands to the current trend of the 80s, but also pioneers of avant-garde electronic music.

Electronic Jugoton part 1 is officially opened by the band Laboratorija with the song Devica 69, which opens a window to a completely new and experimental world in former Yugoslavia.Laboš and Luketić have boldly chosen the material without reservations, suggesting that for the first time in one place we have a section of forgotten, unique underground bands like Beograd, Data, Brazil, The Master Scratch band, DU DU A and beyond.
Besides the excellent underground bands, we find popular performers of the time performing less well-known songs: Denis & Denis, Oliver Mandić, Slađana & Neutral Design.

Electronic Jugoton part 2 is partly dedicated to unique electronic music in the performance of important Yugoslav punk, new wave, RnR and industrial bands: Zana, Pekinška patka, Električni orgazam and Borghesia, while the second part of the material is focused on avant-garde early electronic music in Yugoslavia, where the works of composers Igor Savin, Branimir Sakac, Igor Kuljerić and Miroslav Miletić were presented. Luketić and Laboš rescued the obscure electronic tune Elektra by Zdenka Kovačiček, who was at that time Jugoslovska Soul and funk diva.

The uniqueness and quality of this compilation are also audio stories for children, which were extremely fertile ground for an experimentation with electronic sounds, as they should be highly imaginative to attract the attention of the childrens. Electronic Jugoton is also the first compilation in which the listener will find fragments of interviews with actors from the time gave for Jugoton Express. This was a series of promo vinyls printed in extremely small quantities in the 80's and intended to be exclusively for radio stations. An average of 30 minutes of promotion material and interviews with musicians were available for the first time through this compilation.

The value of this compilation is time and priceless. The only question is whether you will be fast enough to catch your copy of the limited double vinyl editions!"

Oliver Sim hatte eigentlich nicht den Wunsch, es seinen The xx-Bandkollegen Romy Madley Croft und Jamie Smith gleichzutun und ein Soloprojekt zu starten. Er dachte auch nicht, dass er wirklich den Mut dazu hätte. Als er mit Jamie xx an einem Stück namens "Romance with a Memory" arbeitete, sagte dieser jedoch: "Ich denke, du solltest eine komplette Platte machen". Und das war der Beginn der langen und schmerzhaften Geburt von "Hideous Bastard", Oliver Sims Solo-Debütalbum, das am 09.09.22 auf Young erscheinen wird. "Fast drei Jahre lang habe ich mir Fragen gestellt und war beim Schreiben auf der Suche nach Antworten", beschreibt Sim den Entstehungsprozess des Albums. Die Enthüllung seiner HIV-Erkrankung verfolgt die Platte thematisch, so wie sie sein Leben stets überschattet hat. In diesem ersten Song "Hideous" fragt sich Sim, ob seine entwaffnende Ehrlichkeit ihn wohl befreien wird. Die Hoffnung und die Spannung spiegeln sich in der musikalischen Umgebung wider, die er zusammen mit seinem Freund Jamie xx geschaffen hat. Oliver begann zu Hause in London mit dem Schreiben und Aufnehmen von Songs, inspiriert von seiner Vorliebe für Horrorfilme und seinem eigenen Leben, wobei er Themen wie Angst und Scham durch die Brille eines queeren Mannes in den Dreißigern anpackte. Einige Monate später kehrte er mit einer Sammlung von Demos zu Jamie zurück, und die beiden begannen, sie gemeinsam zu produzieren. Er holte sich unter anderem die Hilfe seines lebenslangen Helden und jetzigen Freundes Jimmy Somerville, um dem Album den letzten Schliff zu geben und sprach zudem mit Elton John über seine Musik. Anschließend war es an dem französischen Regisseure Yann Gonzales eine visuelle Welt mit dem Kurzfilm "Hideous" zu erschaffen. Der Film feiert seine Premiere bei den diesjährigen Filmfestspielen von Cannes. "Hideous Bastard" ist ein audiovisuelles Ereignis geworden, wie es sich Oliver Sim anfangs selber nie zugetraut hätte, umso beeindruckender ist nun das Ergebnis.

'Images And Words Demos (1989-1991)' wurde ursprünglich 2005 auf Ytsejam Records veröffentlicht und dokumentiert eine besondere Zeit für die Band, als sie sich auf die Veröffentlichung ihres bahnbrechenden Albums 'Images and Words' vorbereitete. Diese Sammlung enthält Instrumentalversionen von Dream Theater -Klassikern wie 'Take The Time' und 'Learning to Live'. Außerdem sind seltene frühe Versionen einiger der bekanntesten Songs der Band zu hören, wie z.B. 'Oliver's Twist', der später zum Fan-Favoriten 'Pull Me Under' werden sollte. Außerdem sind die Originalaufnahmen der Probeaufnahmen zu hören, bei denen Dream Theater James LaBrie als ihren neuen Sänger verpflichteten. Remastered und zum ersten Mal auf Vinyl erhältlich, ist dies ein faszinierender Blick auf die ersten gemeinsamen Tage der Band. Diese neueste Ergänzung zu den 'Lost Not Forgotten Archives' ist als 2CD Digipak, Gatefold 180g 3LP+2CD und als Digitales Album erhältlich.

The hotly tipped rising producer ED1999 is releasing his fifth 12" on his own label Porpax. On "Body Fluid", the Belgium-based artist unleashes four slices of high octane big room techno. "Indigo Blood", the second track, after the EP's bitter-sweet Carl Craig circa "Landcruising" reminiscent ambient opener "Blurry Blue Eyes", primes you for "Body Fluid"'s overall energy level. Balls-to-the wall techno with more than a hint of ED1999's love for Detroit techno. How deep this influences run in ED1999 is nowhere more audible than in "Abyssal Terror" with its jubilant chords and arpeggios. Another fast-paced whirlwind of a track is "Deep Sea Hunter", which has a loopy vibe to it, that is trance-inducing in the best possible way. The bleepy "Azura Sequence" rounds the EP off with another perfectly balanced execution of tracky forward drive and deepness. Visually, the collaboration with Berlin-based graphic artist Oliver Sperl continues. The cover of "Body Fluid" is one of Sperl's artworks that the Porpax team purchased at an exhibition in Berlin a while back.

Für Lacrimas Profundere, eine der innovativsten und erfolgreichsten deutschen Dark Metal-Bands der Gegenwart, ging es im Falle des neuen Studioalbums ‚How To Shroud Yourself With Night’ (VÖ. 26. August 2022, Steamhammer/SPV) vor allem um die vermeintliche Bürde ihrer 2019er Erfolgsscheibe ‚Bleeding The Stars‘. Denn deren Bilanz hatte indirekt riesige Erwartungen geweckt: „Album des Monats“ im ‚Metal Hammer‘, ‚Orkus‘ und ‚Dead Rhetoric‘, Top-10-Platzierungen in den anderen wichtigen Magazinen, dazu Charts-Einstieg sowie die bis dato erfolgreichste Headlinertour der Gruppe. Wer würde da nicht automatisch mit einer Fortsetzungsgeschichte liebäugeln? „Für mich ging es darum, sich vom Druck des Erfolges zu befreien und zu versuchen, die Messlatte höher zu hängen, dem Spiel voraus zu sein, sich selbst zu fordern und originell zu bleiben, anstatt auf Nummer-Sicher zu gehen und eine Art ‚Bleeding Part II‘ zu schreiben“, erklärt Gitarrist, Bandgründer und Hauptkomponist
Oliver Nikolas Schmid, der mit seinem Bruder und Texter Christopher Schmid erneut eine unverzichtbare Unterstützung fand. „Die neuen Songs klingen frisch, böse, überraschend und leidenschaftlicher als jemals zuvor. Zudem ist es das zweite Kapitel mit unserem Sänger Julian, der uns inspiriert und sich wundervoll eingebracht hat“, so Schmid weiter. „Wir haben verstanden, was ihm gefällt, und haben uns von alten Denk- und Vorgehensweisen gelöst. Noch nie waren wir eine solch eingeschworene Einheit und bereit, unseren eigenen Sound zu erweitern. Gerade deshalb ist ‚How To Shroud Yourself With Night’ unser mit Abstand mutigstes Werk geworden.“

Early fans, nostalgic, lounge-chill-world or deep house lovers... this new compilation is made for you! Relive the history of the Buddha-Bar through the titles that create the birth of the Lounge & Chill, melodic house and ethnic house movement. Among them are many forgotten tracks. A magic and captivating selection mixed by Ravin

NEW 45 BY DEEP-FUNK PIONEER LUCKY BROWN RECORDED DURING THE MYSTERY ROAD SESSIONS!

"Funk is a living, breathing, creative and generative entity and The New Lucky Seven celebrate its life with a mysterious and authentic sonic snapshot from the iconic Mystery Road sessions: WOODHEAD!"

Woodhead is a steady medium groover built around an acute chanky guitar part that Joel Ricci aka Lucky Brown composed while living in the "Woodhood" district of Bellingham Washington, USA in the fallout shadow of an industrial area on the outskirts of town. The Woodhood was so named because the streets were all named after different kinds of trees; Cottonwood, Alderwood, Birchwood, etc. Though members of the band had been performing Woodhead since as early as 2004, it had never been officially committed to tape. So during the 2013-2014 span of living room "Magik Carpet" sessions at drummer, Oliver Klomp's house in West Seattle, the combo dubbed by Lucky as "The New Lucky Seven" casually hit the head a couple times before calling it a night as Lucky rolled tape.

Opening with the now world-famous guitar player, Jabrille "Jimmy James" Williams dropping deftly into his rhythmic part, Lucky chants in the background the words "don't stop" as the tension builds up into the moment the whole band comes in. With Bob Heinemann on bass, Marc Hager on Rhodes and Oliver Klomp on drums, the thick but honest groove is instantly palpable. Trombone player Mars Lindgren and Sax player Thomas Deakin, along with Lucky on Trumpet lay down the 'head' to the tune right off the bat with everyone in the band giving that hard hit on the 4 count of the last bar of the repeated figure. This 'hit' returns again to form the breakpoint between soloists Jimmy James, Marc Hager, and on side B, Thomas Deakin, and Lucky Brown on the flute. The horn section microphone was situated on the dining room table and Lucky just had to lean over to reach it with his instrument! Michael Iris of Bell Creek Studio transferred and mixed these two tunes from Lucky Brown's cassette machine.

This tune was left off of the Mystery Road compilation album but comprises one of the last tracks created during those sessions therefore the concept, vibe, style, and intention should resonate and be interchangeable with the rest of the 45s from that epic Box Set TR-9043 released by Tramp Records on May 4, 2015.

As you spin and interact with the Mystery Road recordings, you are invited to allow Woodhead to take its rightful place specifically alongside the other "The New Lucky Seven" recordings and generally as a part of the suite of crude and naive living-room "Magik Carpet" funk of the rest of the Mystery Road.

As illuminated before in Lucky's artist statement regarding the Mystery Road sessions, the music contained therein was always intended to put emotion, vibe, feeling, and spirit before technical, spatial, or even performance constraints and to serve as a gift of discovery to lovers and aficionados of the deep funk idiom and the rare 45rpm format. Funk is a living, breathing, creative and generative entity and The New Lucky Seven celebrate its life with a mysterious and authentic sonic snapshot from the iconic Mystery Road sessions: WOODHEAD!

Volume 1 of the new TSF JAZZ collection dedicated to Jazz Rare Groove A Fine Selection of Rare Jazz Tracks with a Funky Flavor. Original versions entirely remastered

Nicki Bluhm's creative confidence and authentic vocals are front and
center on 'Avondale Drive', her sophomore solo album and the follow up
to her critically-acclaimed 2018 release 'To Rise You Gotta Fall'
The native San Franciscan who now calls Tennessee home possesses a
gorgeously emotive voice and her clear-eyed perspective on life informs the 10
tracks on the new release.
Produced by Jesse Noah Wilson and recorded in East Nashville, the new album
features a cast of musical luminaries including Oliver Wood, James Pennebaker,
Jay Bellerose, Jen Condos, Erik Slick, Erin Rae, Karl Denson and AJ Croce. The
album combines nostalgic country- rock with distinctly modern lyricism– an apt
contrast for the process of studying one's past in order to make a better future.
Stand out tracks include a duet with Oliver Wood on "Friends", the folksy "Juniper
Woodsmoke, the reflective "Learn to Love Myself and "Wheels Rolling," a
windows-down, hit-the-gas banger that ends the album.

Katy J Pearson shares details of her stunning new album,
‘Sound of the Morning’, released on Heavenly Recordings.

 Written and recorded in late 2021, Katy’s latest effort is coproduced by Ali Chant (Yard Act and the helm of Katy’s debut,
‘Return’) and Speedy Wunderground head-honcho Dan Carey
(Fontaines D.C.).

 Katy’s recent extracurricular activities have shown that she can
dip a toe into a multitude of genres - providing guest vocals on
Orlando Weeks’ recent album ‘Hop Up’; popping up with Yard
Act for a collaboration at End of the Road festival; singing on
trad-folk collective Broadside Hacks’ 2021 project ‘Songs
Without Authors’. ‘Sound of the Morning’ takes that spirit and
runs with it.

 ‘Sound of the Morning’ is an album that’s as comfortable
revelling in the more laid-back, Real Estate-esque melodies of
lead single ‘Talk Over Town’ - a track that attempts to make
sense of her recent experiences, of “being Katy from
Gloucester, but then being Katy J Pearson who’s this buzzy
new artist” - as it is basking in the American indie pop of ‘Float’,
penned with long-time pal Oliver Wilde of Pet Shimmers, or
experimenting with the buoyant brass of ‘Howl’, in which
Orlando repays the favour with a vocal guest spot.

 ‘Sound of the Morning’ is available on CD and on clear vinyl in
‘Tip on’ sleeve with folded poster insert and digital download
code. (Once the above vinyl format has sold out, a standard
black vinyl version - HVNLP204 - will be made available.)

 Katy heads out in September for a headline UK tour, before
which she plays a number of summer festivals across the
country.

 Tourdates - August 19 Green Man, 21 Beautiful Days Devon,
September 8 Trinity Bristol, 9 Cornish Bank Falmouth, 10 Cavern
Exeter, 11 Joiners Southampton, 13 Chalk Brighton, 14 Olby’s
Margate, 15 Electric Ballroom London, 17 Brudenell Social Club
Leeds, 18 The Cluny Newcastle, 20 Voodoo Rooms Edinburgh, 21
Mono Glasgow, 22 Gorilla Manchester, 24 Float Along Sheffield, 25
Rescue Rooms Nottingham, 27 Clwb Ifor Bach Cardiff, 28 Hare &
Hounds Birmingham, 30 The Bullingdon Oxford.

LIMITED EDITION CLEAR VINYL

Having initially met more than a decade ago at a local community radio station, sometimes doing guest slots on each other’s live, improvised noise shows, Cormac Culkeen and Dave Grenon knew they had a mutual interest in working with sonic textures. They listened to each other’s bands for a handful of years, and in 2017, “made good on a threat” that they’d been making for quite a long time: to start a band. At Cormac’s gentle but clear urging—declaring that they’d gone ahead and booked a space in which to record a video—the two wrote their first song, “Sebaldus,” an ambitious 12-minute trip, which also serves as the fireworks finale to their self-titled debut album. With surges of pathos that smooth out into something more soothing in turn, Cormac goes: “The hunter, you’ve seen him / The archer, his arrows are strong / And hunger, you’ve known her / I know the winter is long.” The track is as much about enduring a Canadian winter as it is about the eponymous 8th century hermit, shot through with sublimated desire. As Cormac put it, Joyful Joyful’s songs are “a little bit outside of time.” But while the lyrics beg close, oblique reading unto themselves, there’s also a distinct sense that they’re only one of many more ways that the duo shapes sound. Cormac, whose voice is like a sea with irregular tides, lights up about an idea in traditional sean-nós Irish music that songs already exist and are out there; it’s up to the singer to become the conduit. This belief in music as something to be channelled, and something more than sound, resonates with the singer’s fundamentalist religious past. To paraphrase: lots of group singing, harmonies, no instrumentation, totally unmediated, no priest, congregational—not choral, not a performance, not about talent, the spirit moves through people. “Of course that informs how I think about singing,” Cormac says. So, when they were exiled from the church because of their queerness, they took the music with them, dislocating it from its dogmatic bounds but not from its transcendent potential. This record might be thought of, then, as a kind of queering of sacred, devotional traditions—or at the very least, a space where all of these things can be held at once. Perhaps perceivable by some as contradictions, these intersecting influences create the conditions for an incredibly singular sound. Dave is steady and exploratory in his handling of this multiplicity, arranging sounds as they’re revealed, corralling them, coaxing them into form. “Because Dave is there,” Cormac says, “I get to sing three times higher, and three times lower, and faster, and backwards, and all of these sounds! That are there. They’re all there.” When asked about early musical memories, Cormac recalled an immediate fascination with harmony: from demanding that the first person they ever heard singing it explain what they were doing, to always (still, to this day) singing in harmony with their twin sister around the house, to being part of a children’s choir that sang soprano in Handel’s Messiah—not realizing until they entered the room with all the other ranges that their learned melody was but one part of the whole. Just as tellingly, Dave reflects on his early attraction to “abstraction and becoming abstract,” describing childhood afternoons messing with microphone and speaker feedback loops, producing long, enduring sounds with almost undetectable variations. In a way unique to the coalescing of these two listeners, notions of harmony are central to their output. Dave samples field recordings, old keyboards and synths, and vocal drones, running the live singing through four or five parallel effects chains, sampling and treating everything again in the moment. “Another way to put it is that Cormac’s voice comes into the board and then comes back out shifted, delayed, and shattered; Cormac and I hear it, live with it, and respond,” Dave says. This work is contingent not only on a deep intuition (neither of them read sheet music) of polyphony and due proportion (something St Thomas Aquinas famously listed as an attribute of beauty) but also on their connection to each other and ability to read subtle cues. Dave says they’d hold each other’s hands while performing if it was more convenient to do so, riffing on something else Cormac mentioned about traditional Irish singing: that someone would always hold the singer’s hand, for fear that without a tether to the ground they might find themselves utterly lost, unsure how to return. Joyful Joyful doesn’t shy away from offering such experiences of departure; they’re willing to unsettle their audiences because they themselves are unsettled. Their shared penchant for spooky, heavy music, and self-described “omnivorous” listening practices equip them with an array of sonic concepts that support this effort; Diamanda Galás, The Rankin Family, Pan Sonic, Pauline Oliveros, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Yma Sumac, and Catholic hymnody were just a few that came up. Observing their audience gives them insight about the effect of each song—something they considered while arranging the album. Its arc is marked by soft, sometimes sudden oscillations between cacophony and euphony, day and night (listen for insects), and from sexual, visceral entanglements to more ephemeral, celestial ones. Front to back, it arouses expansion, unraveling. Of lightning, Vicki Kirby writes: “quite curious initiation rites precede these electrical encounters. An intriguing communication, a sort of stuttering chatter between the ground and the sky, appears to anticipate the actual stroke.” By all accounts, something similar seems to happen at Joyful Joyful shows, between those on the stage and those off it, between what’s earthly and what’s beyond. “A lightning bolt is not a straightforward resolution of the buildup of a charge difference between the earth and a cloud … there is, as it were, some kind of nonlocal communication effected between the two,” writes Karen Barad, extrapolating on Kirby’s thought. Cormac acknowledges that while they and Dave play a role in this mysterious charge that comes about, they’re not solely responsible. However ineffable it may be, it’s undoubtedly a form of communion—and a sensuously shocking one at that

Zov Zov, a musical project formed by London-based duo Oliver Ho and Tommy Gillard, create a raw soundscape that is very appropriate for the era we are currently living in. The human race depends on destruction, the annihilation of our fellow man and the devastation of our environment, peace and coexistence is just a condition we experience between one war and the next. Songs of Blood And Earth is an EP based on experimentation and the development of intense textures. Blessed Are The Killers opens the A-side of the album with a minimalist first sequence involving only a kind of deep bursts and a tinkling sound that can remind us of hunger queues and the isolation suffered when the aggressor force sweeps over a vast territory. Musically, however, the track intensifies with heart-wrenching textures that hover above a haunting and disturbing vocal. On the next cut, The Maim, a constantly interrupting rhythmic structure reigns, which gives the feeling that at some point it will have a proper continuity, however, and although that continuity never comes, these pauses perfectly define the main idea which is that of the splitting of one or more body parts. The B-side of the EP is entirely religious in nature. Amen 2.5 is an updated version of the atrocities committed in the name of religion, a harsh sonic tale, in which a crushing roar subdues the listener to the point of collapsing his or her capacity for reasoning. The Holy Murder takes a more sinister turn, this time there is an incessant dominance with an unstoppable base that advances without changing its tempo or its form, in which everything that is built on it ends up yielding to its grandeur and ferocity. Godess Of The Hunt, the last track of the album, denotes an enormous cruelty, represented by the terrified screams of the victims who succumb to its exterminating atmosphere.