Born in Madrid and now entrenched deep in Boston's underground, Ketzaal operates at the darker more, textural end of the techno spectrum. He shows off that signature again here with a tightly wound four-tracker. Opener 'Placed Upon Thee' lands with great tension, all driving stabs and forward thrust, while 'Final Ritual' dips into a rolling, bass-heavy stride that loosens the grip without losing pace. On the flip, 'The Throne' locks into a head-down groove before 'In Bloom' stretches into something more elusive and shapeshifting. Purposeful construction and a clear sense of function don't mean there isn't plenty of character in these dance floor bombs.
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As The Vision, Robert Hood provided Detroit techno a pinnacle of the artform. It may be justifiably best known for the lip-bitingly strong minimalist transport of Detroit: One Circle with its sparing central refrain "Detroit" and spine-playing riffage, or for the killer Explain The Style variant, but for us the EP's shortest and freakiest number Modern And Ancient is also one of its strongest, a mad, half-stepping slice of Afro-futurist electro encryption that still blows our mind today.
Restock
Collateral Intelligence's Butterflies in Funerals is widescreen, sometimes dark, often hopeful electronica with one eye on the stars, but grounded in the sheer cathartic necessity of its creation.
The new moniker from Maltese wunderkind Neil "Acidulant" Hales, the album was formed during a turbulent period in the artist's life, when his father was seriously ill in hospital. Butterflies in Funerals is his way of expressing the complexity of emotion he was going through at the time.
"To me it all looked like a very dark movie," he says. "That's why the tracks are are at times cold or have a sad, emotional, or hopeful feeling."
Drawing on his impressive background in acid house and electro – with releases on Balkan Vinyl and Jack Trax – the album takes in mutant breakbeat, battle-scarred ambient, and tripped out 303 grooves, but pushes his sound further and deeper than ever before.
The album cover features specially designed artwork by rising star Fei Meng, who will be exhibiting at the Royal Society of British Artists later this year.
So in 2021 join Collateral Intelligence on a journey into the recesses of the soul, and emerge, purified, and ready for the rest of the trip.
As with the band’s 2023 release of the same name, Refreshing Part 2 is a decisive and fierce collection of percussive techno that nonetheless travels its path with a heightened level of funkiness.
The Italian duo describe the concept behind this collection as being “not about resetting, but about balancing. Refreshing means reconnecting with the present and with the future…focusing on one’s own way in order to prevent the flow from becoming automatic, uncontrolled, and
without orientation. It is more a direction than a path.”
The four tracks on the 12” are hypnotic dives into a full spectrum of club music: the rhythms and sound design guiding the subconscious into visions of past, present and future intermingled, a reminder that all moments co-exist simultaneously.
Side A passes from the stripped-down intensity of The Way through to Elisir (Elixir), which manages to pull off a trick of feeling light and floaty while maintaining the power of its predecessor. The flip side opens with the forceful drive of Activate before making way to the
percussive elasticity of Family Tree, a track which closes out the EP by recalling, in both name and sound, how that which came before deeply affects the now, though often in ways only subliminally perceived.
Digital-only track Fixed in Flux continues this concept, and the overall themes of Refreshing Part 2, with further evocations of intent and movement; remaining present in change, without resisting it, yet without dissolving into it.
Depth.Request returns with False Vacuum, a high-impact split EP that brings together two distinct but complementary forces: Swarm Intelligence and Neuroclash. Pressed as a vinyl-focused release, the EP is structured as a cleardialectic - three tracks per side - each artist fully inhabiting their own sound terrain while contributing to a shared atmosphere of tension, futurism, and unease.
On the A-side, Swarm Intelligence delivers a conceptually driven triptych rooted in speculative futures, technological threat, and sound as psychological pressure.
The mysterious Gluten People return to the fold, handing over their next vinyl-only transmission. For this second helping of "glutenous" dancefloor heat, the duo has paired up with Giacomo XL, following the massive demand for their debut EP.
Expect more of the same raw, rhythmic energy that made their first outing a must-have for heads and selectors alike. This is essential, no-nonsense club material built specifically for the wax-only connoisseur.
Early Support from: Archie Hamilton, Liquid Earth, Enzo Siragusa, Huxley, La Fleur, Sean Johnston, Make A Dance, Baby Rollen, Ysanne, Eliza Rose, Bartolomeo, Ryan Clover, AGELESS, Alec Falconer, Call Super, Bas Ibellini, ADMNTi, Gearmaster (fka Abdul Raeva), Timo Maas, Christopher Ledger, Moodymanc, Nathan Colinet, Gabski, Greogorio Soave, and many more.
Macclesfield 3-piece Cassia make their extremely welcome return with the announcement of their most ambitious release yet in new studio album everyone, outside - out April 11th.
The album marks a bold new chapter, and recently served up a tropical-tinged first offering in ‘heat’ - with today serving a superb Round Two with the stomping, insatiable, hook-laden new single ‘friends’.
everyone, outside takes Cassia’s sound to new heights. Written fresh off the back of two years of relentless touring, the band channelled every ounce of their renowned live energy into the album, returning to a studio they built themselves in Macclesfield, after creating their previous album in Berlin. The journey provided an added twist, recording the majority of tracks live on TikTok, giving fans a unique, inclusive experience to be part of the process.
The album’s title is a metaphor for embracing your truest self and reflection of a band who are at their happiest outside. It’s a message that speaks to the idea of reconnecting with nature and Britain’s finest summers. As frontman Rob explains, “That title, ‘everyone, outside’ started as a song about how weird it is that we stay inside all the time when being out in nature always makes us feel better. Over time, it came to mean more than that - like a metaphor for being your truest, most natural self, unburdened, like when no one’s watching.”
Drawing influences from a host of genres and cultures, everyone, outside reveals Cassia’s venn diagram of global sounds and intimate storytelling. A trip to Mexico during the writing process injected the record with a new energy, while their time spent in their new space back home gave the band a freedom to try new instruments, new sounds, acquire new tools to hone their production skills - and to simply have fun and explore. “The time we spent in Berlin taught us so much, but coming back home to Macclesfield allowed us to really focus on making something that felt like it came from us. No distractions, just pure creativity,” says drummer Jacob Leff.
Cassia’s rise has been impressive. From their early days busking the streets of Cornwall to playing major festivals, touring the world and receiving critical acclaim from BBC Radio 1, Radio X, The Independent, Rolling Stone UK, Clash & many more, the band has carved out a unique niche. Their sound, influenced by the African music Rob’s father introduced him to, combined with the indie heritage of nearby Manchester, combines the positivity of bands like Foals and Vampire Weekend, with the jazz-tinged afrobeats of Fela Kuti and Ebo Taylor.
After signing to Distiller Records in 2018, the band gave up their full-time jobs and ventured to Bath to record their debut album, Replica. Tracks such as ‘Right There’, ‘Drifting’ & ‘100 Times Over’ have amassed millions of streams, seeing the band sell out multiple headline Tours both in the UK and Europe. Playing to a homecoming capacity crowd at Manchester’s O2 Ritz, as well as sold out headline shows at London’s KOKO & The Garage, the band have accrued a huge, loyal following and their live shows earned them a nomination for Best Live Act at the AIM Awards alongside Idles and DMA’s, as well as making them the winners of Reeperbahn’s Anchor Award in 2022.
Cassia will tour the UK in May 2025, playing songs from the new album and some of their biggest tracks - headlining Leeds, Bristol, a newly added night in Southampton, a special Manchester homecoming, Glasgow, Birmingham, & a huge show at London’s HERE @ Outernet - dates below & Tickets Here. The band will also take things Stateside this year for their first ever run of headline shows in the US & Mexico.
DISPLACES represents Fabris' most personal musical journey to date, inspired by the concept of hyperobjects and cartographic practices. The album sculpts a high-dimensional phased time-space composed of concrete materials and digital archetypes in a state of constant displacement. It delves into the symbolic and philosophical realms of mapping as one of the greatest sense-making mechanisms for life, in dialogue with object-oriented environments, superimposition and non-locality applied to cosmic, temporal, and emotional memory.
The sonic ecosystem expands on the image of navigating a path through a set of places, from the microcosm of quanta to the macro force of dark matter, from underwater depths to overland terrains, encapsulating the cyclical flow between birth and death, both in ecological and anthropological sense. The intersection of these shifting states is explored through the extensive processing of the langspil, Iceland's only traditional instrument, intertwined with manipulated field recordings of biophonies and geophonies captured across Icelandic and Venetian territories. These recordings form the backdrop for a meditative process that relocate familiar objects into unfamiliar realms, reflecting on the transformative power of self-reflection while encapsulating the fragmentation and entanglement found in nature and the human state. The record plunges the listener into a disconcerting and physical soundscape, as a “ghostly spectrality that comes in and out of phase with normalized human spacetime,” evoking sensations of suffocation and release as each layer continuously unfolds the palimpsest of the enclosed labyrinth.
“Extraction of the I” embodies a subatomic reaction—erupting as a molecular force that rises, only to re-submerge with a solitary exhale underwater. In this mutated dark space, beluga whales breathe into "Xanadu Phasing," creating a pulsating tension that releases only to unveil a frozen landscape.
In “Barricading the Ice Sheets” the glacial material morphs into a liquid tunnel of digital artifacts, building a wall of noise that shatters into scattered fragments of ice, resembling bird calls from another world.
A moment of stasis is offered with the appearance of an asymmetrical loop in Monolith I, evoking a primitive rite before an unknown force emerges.
The physical intensity of subsonic material in "A Quake in Being" interrupts the hieratic tone, detuning into polluted sonic matter sourced from relics of the First World War in the Venetian Prealps. The geography of this place reconciles with the original homeland in "The Map is the Territory," blending negative space with anthropogenic elements and exploited sounds of the langspil.
The burning density of "Wolf-Rayet" projects into the void, echoing the residual sounds of a local church as relics of fossilized religions. Wolf tones are the remains in Monolith II, introducing the final track, "Topography of Extinction," where evolving psilocin textures invite the listener to uncover deeper layers of meaning and dislocation.
Sushitech's first release for 2026 marks a landmark project from London based tech house pioneer Gideon Jackson.
Tokinowa : Seven, from the Japanese meaning “a circle of time” reflects the seven year period which these tracks were produced, 1999 – 2005. The release is a retrospective journey into the raw and warm sound of a producer who helped shape the London underground sound in the early 2000's and went on inspire generations that followed.
Pressed as a special triple 180g gatefold collectors edition, Tokinowa : Seven welcomes us into Gideon Jackson's world of art and vision, featuring original photography by Gideon himself paired with artwork by Sushitech's in-house designer Jeremy.
Sushitech's first release for 2026 marks a landmark project from London based tech house pioneer Gideon Jackson.
Tokinowa : Seven, from the Japanese meaning “a circle of time” reflects the seven year period which these tracks were produced, 1999 – 2005. The release is a retrospective journey into the raw and warm sound of a producer who helped shape the London underground sound in the early 2000's and went on inspire generations that followed.
Pressed as a special triple 180g gatefold collectors edition, Tokinowa : Seven welcomes us into Gideon Jackson's world of art and vision, featuring original photography by Gideon himself paired with artwork by Sushitech's in-house designer Jeremy.
On the cover: The Body & Dis Fig. Inside: Farida Amadou, Steve Beresford, Pavel Richter, Dialect, petals, Erica Dawn Lyle, H-Fusion, Invisible Jukebox: Melt-Banana, The Inner Sleeve: Eve Libertine, Epiphanies: Roy Claire Potter, Global Ear: Barcelona, Unlimited Editions: YOUTH, plus in the review sections: Laurie Anderson, Belong, Seefeel, Three Quarter Skies, Dhangsha, NicoNote, Laura Cannell, Primitive Percussion Youth Orchestra, Endon, Bobby Hutcherson, Harold Land, Red Kross, David Corio’s images of Black musicians, the Gnaoua & World Music Festival, Gary Stewart, Lonnie Holley, specialist columnists, and more.
2026 Repress
Chlar delivers his debut record for SHDW & Obscure Shapes' Mutual Rytm imprint.
Emerging as artist of note for both now and the future, Chlar continues to craft and shape his sound as he curates his own high-octane approach to techno. Combining dynamic performances taking in three and four deck mixes with his own up front productions and his talents as a former mastering engineer, the Swiss talent has become a respected name amongst his peers. After releases on Lobster Theremin and his own Bipolar Disorder imprint, the Berlin-based DJ, producer and label boss heads to SHDW & Obscure Shape's blooming label Mutual Rytm to deliver six precise and powerful cuts across his 'Optimized Groove' EP.
"As the names states, 'Optimized grooves' is a collection of tracks designed to match specific parts of the event/night. From 'Night Genesis' at the origin of the night through to tracks like 'Maximum Performance', a peak time bomb, and 'Spirit Enhancer' - an uplifting and warm production elevating individuals to higher labels after hours of spiritual connection'" - Chlar
Opener 'Early Morning Acceleration' sets the tone early and dives into a looping ride through slinking hats and bustling arrangements - combining classic influences with forward thinking touches to reveal a dynamic slice of techno. Next, 'Maximum Performance' fuses swelling low-ends, sharp percussion and vibrant leads, while 'Love Blaster' delivers an all out fiesta armed with rolling drums, sharp whistles and rich chords. On the flip, B1 'Night Genesis' sees hypnotic loopy vocals balanced by tough kicks and luminous synths, before 'Spirit Enhancer' showcases a soulful trip as resonant electronics work around the track's tunnelling groove. The digital EP comes with a bonus exclusive production in 'Synaptic Discussion', a euphoric and impactful closer which brings things to a close firmly in the peak time hours.
Chlar 'Optimized Grooves' drops via Mutual Rytm on 9th September 2022.
- 1: Lysergic Library
- 2: Kaiser-Panorama
- 3: Flying And Falling
- 4: That River Ain’t For Swimming
- 5: Xan With Red
- 6: Back To Atoms
- 7: Another Vintage Phase
- 8: Precursor
- 9: Optokinetic Response
Brown Spirits are a super-heavy psychedelic three-piece band who play raw energetic super-charged psych rock heavily influenced by krautrock, freejazz and deep funk music from the 1970s that gives them a truly unique and highly addictive sound. The group record and mix their own music to ¼-
inch analogue tape at home maintaining a strictly DIY-ethic.
Brown Spirits are Tim Wold, Agostino Soldati and Ash Buscombe. The group are from the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, home to an ever-growing
music scene that includes Amyl and the Sniffers, King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard, Surprise Chef, Tropical Fuck Storm and more.
The group have already released two superb critically-acclaimed album on Soul Jazz Records – ‘Cosmic Seeds’ and Solitary Transmissions’.
Soul Jazz Records are releasing three new albums from the Australian group on one day. All three albums are super-limited one-off special coloured
vinyl pressings of just 500 copies each that will all be deleted on the day of release.
These three albums were originally released (between 2017-2020) in long-deleted very short run-editions - either self-released in Australia or on an
indie German psych label. No copies of Brown Spirits #2 or Brown Spirits #3 are currently available anywhere in the world. Both of Brown Spirits two
earlier releases for Soul Jazz Records are also sold out on vinyl and these three super-limited special edition LPs will also sell out.
Brown Spirits are a super-heavy psychedelic three-piece band who play raw energetic super-charged psych rock heavily influenced by krautrock, freejazz and deep funk music from the 1970s that gives them a truly unique and highly addictive sound. The group record and mix their own music to ¼-
inch analogue tape at home maintaining a strictly DIY-ethic.
Brown Spirits are Tim Wold, Agostino Soldati and Ash Buscombe. The group are from the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, home to an ever-growing
music scene that includes Amyl and the Sniffers, King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard, Surprise Chef, Tropical Fuck Storm and more.
The group have already released two superb critically-acclaimed album on Soul Jazz Records – ‘Cosmic Seeds’ and Solitary Transmissions’.
Soul Jazz Records are releasing three new albums from the Australian group on one day. All three albums are super-limited one-off special coloured
vinyl pressings of just 500 copies each that will all be deleted on the day of release.
These three albums were originally released (between 2017-2020) in long-deleted very short run-editions - either self-released in Australia or on an
indie German psych label. No copies of Brown Spirits #2 or Brown Spirits #3 are currently available anywhere in the world. Both of Brown Spirits two
earlier releases for Soul Jazz Records are also sold out on vinyl and these three super-limited special edition LPs will also sell out.
- 1: Converge Collide
- 2: Bakelite Dashboard
- 3: Montage Homage
- 4: Express Train To Jupiter
- 5: Vanishing Exits
- 6: Tumultuous Clouds
- 7: Flawed Optimist
- 8: Hats Off To Pojama
- 9: Chemical Miscalculation
Brown Spirits are a super-heavy psychedelic three-piece band who play raw energetic super-charged psych rock heavily influenced by krautrock, freejazz and deep funk music from the 1970s that gives them a truly unique and highly addictive sound. The group record and mix their own music to ¼-
inch analogue tape at home maintaining a strictly DIY-ethic.
Brown Spirits are Tim Wold, Agostino Soldati and Ash Buscombe. The group are from the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, home to an ever-growing
music scene that includes Amyl and the Sniffers, King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard, Surprise Chef, Tropical Fuck Storm and more.
The group have already released two superb critically-acclaimed album on Soul Jazz Records – ‘Cosmic Seeds’ and Solitary Transmissions’.
Soul Jazz Records are releasing three new albums from the Australian group on one day. All three albums are super-limited one-off special coloured
vinyl pressings of just 500 copies each that will all be deleted on the day of release.
These three albums were originally released (between 2017-2020) in long-deleted very short run-editions - either self-released in Australia or on an
indie German psych label. No copies of Brown Spirits #2 or Brown Spirits #3 are currently available anywhere in the world. Both of Brown Spirits two
earlier releases for Soul Jazz Records are also sold out on vinyl and these three super-limited special edition LPs will also sell out.
- A1: Kuniyuki Takahashi - Asia
- A2: Brian Eno, Moebius, Roedelius - The Belldog
- A3: Anchorsong - Windmills
- A4: Monde Ufo - Vallee
- B1: Mariah - Sokokara
- B2: Mytron, Zongamin - 08932168
- B3: Liquid Liquid - Scraper
- B4: Five Green Moons - Spider Dub
- C1: Fun Boy Three - Faith, Hope & Charity
- C2: Meat Beat Manifesto - Drop
- C3: African Head Charge - Orderliness, Godliness, Discipline And Dignity
- C4: Cristina - You Rented A Space
- C5: The Cramps - Garbageman
- D1: The Durutti Column - Sketches For Summer
- D2: The Third Bardo - I’m Five Years Ahead Of My Time
- D3: Sordid Sound System - Inanna
- D4: Daniel Avery - Drone Logic
- D5: Spectrum - True Love Will Find You In The End
Two Piers proudly announces the upcoming release of Bridges Towards Open Spaces: Circadian Rhythms 1967–2025.
This new collection brings together a wide range of artists and styles, weaving immersive sonic landscapes that explore a connection between natural cycles and the rhythms within.
Featuring artists such as Brian Eno, Moebius, Roedelius, Meat Beat Manifesto, Fun Boy Three, Daniel Avery, and Spectrum, the compilation moves fluidly between shimmering ambient textures and raw, straight-ahead garage rock.
Bridges Towards Open Spaces: Circadian Rhythms 1967–2025 follows in the footsteps of Two Piers acclaimed previous releases, Night Train: Transcontinental Landscapes 1968–2019 and Music for the Stars: Celestial Music 1960–1979, continuing the label’s exploration of expansive, time-spanning musical journeys.
“I wanted once again to shape a compilation around a time period, this collection is a nod to my days behind the counter of a record shop, the people I met and the styles of music that was played and I was introduced to. Some are from that time, some are of the style/feeling, that I can associate & with the friends I met there; from the early shift to the late shifts as the tempo rose throughout the day and the neons of London started to buzz”
The album will be available on Limited Vinyl and CD in May, arriving just in time for the longer, warmer days and the shifting light of the Seasons Sun.
- A1: Kuniyuki Takahashi - Asia
- A2: Brian Eno, Moebius, Roedelius - The Belldog
- A3: Anchorsong - Windmills
- A4: Monde Ufo - Vallee
- B1: Mariah - Sokokara
- B2: Mytron, Zongamin - 08932168
- B3: Liquid Liquid - Scraper
- B4: Five Green Moons - Spider Dub
- C1: Fun Boy Three - Faith, Hope & Charity
- C2: Meat Beat Manifesto - Drop
- C3: African Head Charge - Orderliness, Godliness, Discipline And Dignity
- C4: Cristina - You Rented A Space
- C5: The Cramps - Garbageman
- D1: The Durutti Column - Sketches For Summer
- D2: The Third Bardo - I’m Five Years Ahead Of My Time
- D3: Sordid Sound System - Inanna
- D4: Daniel Avery - Drone Logic
- D5: Spectrum - True Love Will Find You In The End
Limited Glacier Green[42,23 €]
Two Piers proudly announces the upcoming release of Bridges Towards Open Spaces: Circadian Rhythms 1967–2025.
This new collection brings together a wide range of artists and styles, weaving immersive sonic landscapes that explore a connection between natural cycles and the rhythms within.
Featuring artists such as Brian Eno, Moebius, Roedelius, Meat Beat Manifesto, Fun Boy Three, Daniel Avery, and Spectrum, the compilation moves fluidly between shimmering ambient textures and raw, straight-ahead garage rock.
Bridges Towards Open Spaces: Circadian Rhythms 1967–2025 follows in the footsteps of Two Piers acclaimed previous releases, Night Train: Transcontinental Landscapes 1968–2019 and Music for the Stars: Celestial Music 1960–1979, continuing the label’s exploration of expansive, time-spanning musical journeys.
“I wanted once again to shape a compilation around a time period, this collection is a nod to my days behind the counter of a record shop, the people I met and the styles of music that was played and I was introduced to. Some are from that time, some are of the style/feeling, that I can associate & with the friends I met there; from the early shift to the late shifts as the tempo rose throughout the day and the neons of London started to buzz”
The album will be available on Limited Vinyl and CD in May, arriving just in time for the longer, warmer days and the shifting light of the Seasons Sun.
- 1: (I’m Afraid) The Masquerade Is Over
- 2: Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide
- 3: Hitch Hike
- 4: Pride And Joy
- 5: Can I Get A Witness
- 6: Once Upon A Time (With Mary Wells)
- 7: Stubborn Kind Of Fellow
- 8: How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)
- 1: It Takes Two (With Kim Weston)
- 2: I’ll Be Doggone
- 3: Ain’t That Peculiar
- 4: Ain’t No Mountain High Enough (With Tammi Terrell)
- 5: I Heard It Through The Grapevine
- 6: Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing (With Tammi Terrell)
- 7: You’re All I Need To Get By (With Tammi Terrell)
- 8: Too Busy Thinking About My Baby
- 1: What’s Going On
- 2: Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)
- 3: Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)
- 4: Trouble Man
- 5: Let’s Get It On
- 6: You Are Everything (With Diana Ross)
- 1: Distant Lover
- 2: I Want You
- 3: Got To Give It Up
- 4: Heavy Love Affair
- 5: Sexual Healing
- 6: Sanctified Lady
Marvin Gaye always dreamed of being a smooth crooner, “sitting on a stool, possibly behind a piano,” delivering velvety songs like Nat King Cole. But Motown had other plans. Pushed between raw R&B and polished pop, Gaye fought to find his own voice, eventually rising to become one of the greatest soul singers in history.
Motown Records released the first Marvin Gaye record in 1961 "(I'm Afraid) The Masquerade Is Over", a single intended for (radio) promotion from the singer's debut album. This was followed up by the officially released "Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide" a week later. Gaye scored his first real hit with "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" in 1962, which he had co-written himself, joking about his alleged stubbornness. He found his own unique style with the single released at the end of the year: "Hitch Hike". The foundations were now laid for an enormous series of chart successes: "Pride And Joy", "Can I Get A Witness", "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" and "Ain't That Peculiar" are all Motown classics from 1963-1965 which are still being regularly played today after all these years. The duets he recorded with Kim Weston ("It Takes Two"), especially Tammi Terrell and Diana Ross were certainly at least as good.
He scored his biggest ever hit with "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" in 1968. "What's Going On" from the same titled album became a number 1 hit in the USA. The album was received as a masterpiece and is regarded as one of the most important records in pop history. In 1973, the artistically and commercially very successful, "Let's Get It On" album was mainly a musical ode to Marvin's love for his new muse Janis Hunter. His journey continued after a turbulent relationship, addiction and a dramatic creative rebirth in Belgium, where he crafted the global hit “Sexual Healing in 1982.
Marvin Gaye left behind timeless hits, groundbreaking albums, and a legacy that shaped the sound of modern soul. His story, from ambition to artistry, from struggle to brilliance, remains as powerful as the music he created.
Music On Vinyl proudly presents a special coloured vinyl edition of the Marvin Gaye Collected album which is available as a limited edition of 10.000 individually numbered copies on white (LP1) and silver coloured vinyl (LP2) and includes a booklet with liner notes.
Time To Get On Board A New Black Universal Express.
With each new recording Anthony Joseph presents an imaginative, personal vision of contemporary black culture, and The Ark is yet another compelling album by the award-winning Trinidadian poet and musician. This second part of a sequence of two albums launched with last year’s Rowing Up River To Get Our Names Back, finds Joseph giving full vent to his desire to explore many thought-provoking themes. However, there is a specific thread running through the glorious offering of sounds.
”I was especially interested in the idea of using Afrofuturism as a means of using the future in order to correct the wrongs of the past,” explains Joseph. “And so a lot of lyrics reimage or imagine an alternate black history. At the same time there are elements of autobiography.” The aforesaid cultural phenomenon, a view of the black experience through the prism of science fiction and ancient Egypt and Africa, as mapped out by visionaries from music and literature such as Sun Ra, Parliament-Funkadelic and Octavia E. Butler, has previously inspired Joseph. His 2006 novel The African Origins Of UFOs was a multi-hued work, and the new music shows how Joseph
has, much like all significant artists, gone on to broaden his conceptual palette, creating beguiling new stories and images set to startling rhythms and tones. Tracks such as ‘James’, with its taut, crisp bass and dubbed-up brass, and ‘Transposition Of Space (Glissant)’, a potent evocation of the influential Martiniquan theorist set in a haze of jazz guitar and ambient synthesizers, are marvels of text-sound painting.
As for ‘Baron Samedi’, shaped by a languid, almost wounded guitar line and slow rise of horns that frame Joseph’s journey to the ‘mountain of fire, almost touching the sky’ it is an epic blend of commanding vocal delivery and dramatic sonic tapestry.
Joseph led the Spasm band in the early 2000s and recorded well-received albums such as Bird Head Son and Time, in which songs were largely based on spirituals or chants enhanced by improvisation. But his musical curiosity has naturally led to collaborations, and the new work is produced by Dave Okumu, the prodigiously talented guitarist-vocalist-composer known as the leader of Mercury Music Prize-nominated The Invisible, and who was also a member of the seminal band Jade Fox.
Having first performed together at a show curated by influential saxophonist-flautist Shabaka Hutchings at the storied Total Refreshment Centre In London during lockdown, Joseph and Okumu struck up a rapport that further developed when the former guested on he latter’s album. With the connection made Joseph knew Okumu was the ideal producer for this latest project, which has a freewheeling, almost black psychedelic thing. After sifting through demos and loops the guitarist made on pro-tools the poet started to live with the music. Many months later words began to take shape. Joseph then went into the studio with Okumu’s band and set about creating a magnum opus. Boasting a stellar cast such as vocalist Eska Mtungwazi, trumpeter Byron Wallen and keyboardist Nick Ramm, The Ark is a highly intricate musical mosaic framed by simmering funk grooves, wily jazz improvisation and haunting dub effects. Through the use of many genres the music has simply become its own genre.
The Ark can be perceived as a vessel or means of transport to new worlds, along the lines of Sun Ra’s Ark or Funkadelic’s Mothership, and the material it contains is a unique blend of who Anthony Joseph is and how he sees the world and society in these stimulating, challenging times. “It balances the personal with the universal in a much more vulnerable, accessible way than on previous albums,” Joseph explains.
“It has become less about a personal experience and more about a collective, communal experience in which the artist is conduit, messenger, urban griot.”
- A1: Herbaliser – A Mother
- A2: Small World – Livin’ Free (Soundtrack Mix)
- B1: Tango – Spellbound
- B2: The Lab Rats – Give My Soul
- B3: Statik Sound System – Revolutionary Pilot
- C1: Jmj & Flytronix – In Too Deep
- C2: Aquasky – Kauna
- C3: James Bong – Mr. Kiss Kiss Bong Bong (Big Brothers Dubbing You Full On - Dub Tractor Remix)
- D1: Hardfloor Presents Dadamnphreaknoizephunk – Dupdope (Dubdope)
- D2: Thievery Corporation – Shaolin Satellite
- D3: Kruder & Dorfmeister – High Noon
- E1: Beanfield – Keep On Believing
- E2: Sapien – Que Dolor
- E3: Shantel – Bass And Several Cars
- F1: Karma – Look Up Dere
- F2: Showroom Recordings – Radio Burning Chrome
- F3: Kruder & Dorfmeister – Black Baby (Dj-Kicks)
For its 30th anniversary, Kruder & Dorfmeister’s DJ-Kicks is available for the first time in mixed form on 3LP, remastered by Bernie Grundman and packaged in a special box set including original imagery. Kruder & Dorfmeister's rendition of the series created an era defining moment, which tied together a glowing array of musical registers. The Viennese downtempo royalty blended a fusion of slowed down moments across many genres with rolling Drum and Bass from the likes of Aquasky, the melting acid lines of deep Hardfloor and the 90s boom bap sampling, smoked out atmospherics of Thievery Corporation amongst many more.
These masters of mood channeled the sound of a moment with their DJ-Kicks, which still retains a certified cinematic sheen, the patina of the real – curation and mixing at its most playful and refined. It remains to this day one of the most recognizable DJ-Kicks and mixes of all time. Containing two certified cuts from K&D themselves; the wooze is strong on “High Noon” with Dorfmeister's intoxicating jazz flute licks and a trembling harmonica atop a mirage of breaks. Their DJ-Kicks original and legendary tune “Black Baby” closes the mix providing a piece of grandeur, riding off into the distance deep to the vanishing point.
When the mix dropped in 1996, the slo-beat pioneers were among the hottest producers in the dance universe. Even though they only produced two unreleased maxis, names like Count Basie, Bomb The Bass, Alex Reece or United Future Organization had some of their tracks remixed by these exceptional producers. Rumour has it during the work for DJ-Kicks and their debut album they refused doing remixes for U2, Grace Jones, Elvis Costello and the Fantastic Four! ‘DJ-Kicks: Kruder & Dorfmeister’ took its place in the pantheon a long while back, effortless in its ability to traverse sounds, styles and tempos while retaining a selection which remains timelessly recognisable as: Kruder & Dorfmeister.




















