Suche:one mic

"Circuit" is a recorded document of improvised music and the inaugural release on Pattern Dissection — an independent record label, radio show and concert organiser from Berlin. Dag Magnus’s down-tuned drum set builds the ground for relentless legwork and hectic wrestling, shaking the floor when confronted with Farida’s high string slaps on the bass guitar, which they occasionally swap for droning vibrations and scorching fingerpicking, neither shying away from a heavy riff nor stripped back momentum. Liz’s synth is an idiosyncratic creature of its own, birthing sounds rarely graspable but utterly fascinating, swift in taking turns and always one step ahead of any expectation.

Recorded on July 28th 2020 in Berlin at their second meeting as a band, that was initiated by a live gig six months earlier. All music was improvised and performed in a room with six microphones.

Mixed by Christoph Berg & mastered by Stephan Mathieu. Lacquer cut by Mike Grinser. Pressed at Pallas on 140g vinyl, wrapped in a 350g reverse-printed cardboard sleeve with A6 photo-card inside, including a download code. Artwork by Talita Santos & design by Espacioblanco. Photography by Stefan Lingg.

What's the connection between one of the rarest and most in-demand gargae rock records of the 1960s and Christina Aguilera, and why is it coming to Acid Jazz?
For many years and many a bootleg the snarling imperious Stones or Yardbirds influenced groove of The Illusions 'City Of People' has been sought after and coveted by garage rock collectors. The Illusions released one single, on the tiny Michelle label and today any copies that appear easily sell for North of £1000.

So far, so typically Garage. However there is a backstory to the release that explains why the record never sold at the time of release. The record was produced by Bobby Marin, a Nuyorican, who at the time was stationed in Michigan on his National Service, and who would later go on to record some of the biggest names in Latin Music, first for the cult Speed label and then for United Artists and various of his own labels. In the early 2000s his 'I'll Be A Happy Man' was sampled by Christina Aguilera on her smash hit 'Ain't No Other Man'.
At the end of 2020 Bobby found the master tape of The Illusions single - including the Byrdsian B-side. This legal reissue a fresh mastering from those tapes, bringing out the intensity of the recording, and we have released it on a look-a-like Michelle label.

Francisco López offers a brand new field recording composition based on the recordings he did in the island of Tenerife whilst visiting for a performance at the Keroxen Festival, 2020.

Internationally recognized as one of the major figures of the sound art and experimental music scene, Francisco has an ear-like gift to point his microphones (and our ears) to the most special and unlikely of sound sources. For almost forty years he has developed an astonishing sonic universe, absolutely personal and iconoclastic, based on a profound listening of the world. Destroying boundaries between industrial sounds and wilderness sound environments, the presentation here is not unlike his most famous and celebrated works whilst still maintaining its unique relevance among a prolific catalogue of sounds.

Entitled Hidden Island Music the work explores its aforementioned ‘hidden sounds’ of Tenerife with a high sensorial mix of environmental and ‘industrial’ recordings taken in and around the Massifs of Teno and Anaga and later composed into a unique sonic journey through the huge sound pits of this rugged region of north Tenerife.

Another masterful work from one of the masters of his craft, shifting from the limits of our perception to the most dreadful abyss of sonic power, a profound and transcendental listening open to sensory and spiritual expansion.

Original environmental sound matter recorded at multiple locations in Macizo de Teno and Macizo de Anaga (Tenerife), November 2020.

Evolved, composed, edited, mixed and mastered at ‘mobile messor’ (Tenerife, Den Haag) and Dune Studio (Loosduinen), 2020-21.

Two classic sides from the Michigan soul singer
with a stash of soul goodies in his repertoire.
 The original pressing of ‘What Good Am I Without
You’ from 1967 on Jacklyn Records goes for just
over £200 and one listen explains why.
 Featuring an emotional, heart-wrenching vocal
soaked with flying strings over an impulsive
rhythm, it’s a lovelorn anthem; an emotional
rollercoaster.
 Backed with ‘That Certain Little Something’ from
the Groovy label 12 months earlier.
 A funky guitar-led scorcher with a bluesy brass
break and a spin and drop chorus aided by a
rampaging drummer.
 Two must-have sides from Fletcher, a child
prodigy, who found success in Chicago in the mid-
1960s which led to shows with Stevie Wonder and
BB King, among others.

HIGHLIGHTS: Objetos Musicais is a collection of 13 sound pieces created by artists from South America and Switzerland, who work in an intermediate zone among the craft of luthiers, visual arts and experimental music. Their works evoke the visionary ideas of Walter Smetak, a Swiss composer who lived in Salvador, Bahia (Brazil) Smetakian spirit tunes in with a new community of contemporary artists, who relate to the work of the so-called "experimental luthiers": artists who build their own instruments, lead them towards radical extended versions or take the exploration towards the building of resonant machines. DESCRIPTION: Objetos Musicais is a collection of 13 sound pieces created by artists from South America and Switzerland, who work in an intermediate zone among the craft of luthiers, visual arts and experimental music. Their works evoke the visionary ideas of Walter Smetak, a Swiss composer who lived in Salvador, Bahia (Brazil). Smetak was a pioneer of musical experimentation in that country and developed, in the 60s and 70s, a musical poetics that was captured in two seminal albums, Smetak (1974) and Interregno (1980), both of which, after being out of print for a long time, have been reissued today, hence the motivation for this tribute. On those two albums, Smetak combined Afro-Brazilian ritual traditions, theosophy, microtonality studies, collective improvisation and the use of unconventional musical instruments, which he called Plasticas Sonoras. Smetak came to build around 150 acoustic instruments, many of which are true sound sculptures of great visual impact. This latter aspect is the most directly evoked one on this album-and it so happens that the Smetakian spirit tunes in with a new community of contemporary artists, who relate to the work of the so-called "experimental luthiers", artists who build their own instruments (Marco Scarassatti, Phillipp Laeng, Maria Anália), lead them towards radical extended versions (Ruben Dhers, Claudio Merlet), develop hybrid projects involving instruments and sound sculpture (Javier Bustos, Alvaro Icaza and Verónica Luyo, Juan Pablo Egúsquiza, Edgardo Rudnitzky) or take the exploration towards the building of resonant machines (Nicole L'Huillier, O Grivo, Zimoun, Cod.Act), without these categories being mutually exclusive, but rather tending to mix, thereby opening up new sonic possibilities. This new community of artists has begun to create a whole new field of research and, in a way, a new discipline, understandable within the context of this new paradigm opened by the maker culture, which has pushed creators and developers from all over the world to conceive alternative-anti-hegemonic and DIY-forms of production. Therefore, this collection allows the artists to evoke Walter Smetak but also to connect his work to this new scene-to which it precedes-a link for this new art that makes its way at some point among the work of experimental luthiers, sound art, experimental music and the DIY ethics. Curated by Luis Alvarado and Chico Dub. Art by René Sánchez. Limited edition of 300 copies on vinyl. This project is part of the experimental music and sound art platform Incidencias Sonoras: COINCIDENCIA, by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.

With sunshine, blue skies and good times on the horizon, Toolroom is ready to usher in the summer in a huge way with the brand new summer hit from Siege – ‘Reach Out’. Making his return to the label, Siege is back with a record that promises to steal the spotlight and your all-time favourite tune. Big favourite of Carl Cox, Alan Fitzpatrick and Adam Beyer, Siege has firmly planted his foot in the scene having released a selection of quality records already this year like, ‘Give It Up’ with Mark Knight, a collab with Eli Brown and a killer remix of Green Velvet and Technasia’s hit ‘Suga’.

Flawlessly proving just why he is one of the most exciting artists and producers out there in Dance Music right now, Siege flexes his talents on ‘Reach Out’. One of his best releases yet, Siege has reworked classic George Duke’s classic 1983 hit ‘Reach Out’ into the feel-good dance track of the summer. The track itself is pure ecstasy, from the sublime vocals and chorus melodies to the solid instrumentation of the record itself. Siege manages to retain every single drop of the feel-good magic that resonated throughout the original, reinvigorating the sound for the clubs of 2021.

The single also features a killer remix from Michael Gray and Dr Packer who bring their signature style and sound to the record, emphasising the Disco elements to a whole new level and an exclusive VIP edit from Siege himself. This is a euphoria laced Disco House record through and through, ‘Reach Out’ is a sure fire summer hit, classic in the making who has brought the infectiously catchy classic record back to life in a completely fresh and new way.

"One turntable, one microphone, a mek we skank it til a morning!" Taking you back to the roots of sound-system culture: when entertainers rocked the dance until morning, with the most basic equipment. The skill and the vibe were all that mattered. "One turntable, One microphone" captures that essence. Sweet, lilting saxophone licks from Jazz futurist Marcus Joseph (Jazz re:freshed) set the scene for the gathering. Ranking Joe bawls out, "forward rub-a-dub style!" as clean, crisp piano chops out the backbeat. A rock-hard rhythm section drops in to put the bassline in your waistline. As the crowd swells, so too does the energy of the performers, with spaced out echoes creating a lush soundscape for the deejay to ride over joyfully. Ranking Joe is a foundation reggae artist from Kingston Jamaica. His first recording was on Coxsone Dodd's legendary Studio One label in 1974. He has cut hits with Sly and Robbie and Easy Star All Stars, enlivening any production with his fast, intricate and sometimes humorous lyrical flows. This latest release shows the endurance of his musical gift and reactivates the essence of golden-era Jamaican dancehall for modern ears.

Diving into the archives of Alter Ego - the Italian experimental ensemble of Manuel Zurria, Paolo Ravaglia, Aldo Campagnari, Francesco Dillon, Oscar Pizzo, and Eugenio Vatta - Die Schachtel is thrilled to present Microwaves, a never before released body of recordings of works composed by Atli Ingólfsson, Giovanni Verrando, Yan Maresz, and Riccardo Nova, made with Pan Sonic (Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen) in 2005. Resting at the outer reaches of avant-garde chamber and electronic music, the LP’s blistering structures, tones, and textures - plowing forward with frenetic energy - remain radical and ahead of their time, more than 15 years after they were first laid to tape.

A modular chamber ensemble with a pointedly anti-academic approach to music, over the course of its activities - running roughly between 1990 and 2010 - Alter Ego developed a devoted following among some of the most forward thinking voices in experimental music, all the while collaborating widely with artists spanning a vast range of practices and disciplines, including Robin Rimbaud, Philip Jeck, Matmos, Gavin Bryars, Andrew Hooker, William Basinski, David Moss, Alvin Curran, Terry Riley, and near countless number of others.

Alter Ego’s diverse activities can be understood as interventions with the disposition toward formality within contemporary chamber music, often pairing themselves with artists working well beyond their own context as a means to develop highly original interpretations of a specific composer’s work. In 2004, this process led them to instigate a collaboration Pan Sonic, the Finnish duo of Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen, pioneers of a remarkably distinct form of rhythmic, experimental electronic music, and regarded by many as one of the most visionary and irreverent projects working in the field during the '90s and 2000s.

Initially conceived with Fausto Romitelli in 2004 before being sidelined by the composer’s untimely passing the following year, Microwaves acts, in part, a remembrance in sound, featuring four works by some of his closest friends, the composers Atli Ingólfsson, Giovanni Verrando, Yan Maresz, and Riccardo Nova. Each composition, Ingólfsson’s Snap, Verrando’s Harmonic Domains #3, Maresz’s Link, and Nova’s Thirteen13x8@Terror Generating Deity, have roots in a pallet of samples and fragments drawn by each composer from existing works by Pan Sonic. Upon completion, these compositions then entered into a collaborative process between Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen (Pan Sonic) and Alter Ego (Manuel Zurria, Paolo Ravaglia, Aldo Campagnari, Francesco Dillon, Oscar Pizzo, and Eugenio Vatta), and were performed collectively by both groups during an extensive tour that year.

Distinct and free-standing, while operating as a seamless whole, the four works encountered across the album’s two sides - built from the sounds of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, electronics, and further treatments - present an engrossing intersection between electronic and acoustic sound that diverges from most standing conceptions of electroacoustic music. Each composer’s carefully rendered structures rise and fall within the startling, conversant interplay between the two groups, finding perfect balance - between the frenetic and restrained - in what can only be regarded as one of the most striking and singularly unique expressions of contemporary chamber music realized during the 2000s.

Vast in scope, visionary in concept and artistry, and sonically engrossing, Die Schachtel is thrilled to present these never before heard recordings from the archives of Alter Ego. Microwaves is available on black vinyl, in a limited edition of 350 copies.

FEATURING REWORKINGS BY YANN TIERSEN, BILL RYDER-JONES, MALIBU, ELUVIUM and
PETER GREGSON.
140g black vinyl with lacquers cut by Alchemy, printed inner sleeve, limited to 500 copies.
Michael Price has announced a new album, The Hope of Better Weather - part reissue, part reworks - due out onThe Control Room on 15 October 2021.
The new album takes his 2012 EP, The Hope of Better Weather, originally recorded by Price alone in a room with a
piano improvising, and brings it fully to life with the addition of a series of reworkings by Yann Tiersen, Bill
Ryder-Jones, Malibu, Peter Gregson and Eluvium.
He explains, “I wasn't trying to control what anybody else was doing. Everybody that joined in with the project gives
their own little piece of freedom. I was really interested in what freedom we all give ourselves, as well as being
fascinated to see what a little germ of an idea can mean to somebody else.”
Listen to Yann Tiersen’s rework of ‘The Anatomy of Clouds’: LINK
Listen to the original version of ‘The Anatomy of Clouds’: LINK
The five pieces, alongside these new reworkings capture a stark beauty, tenderness and delicacy in their tone. But
they are also wind-like in their shifting, expansive and elemental essence - capturing an exploration of the natural
world. “Nearly 10 years ago when I recorded these improvisations, I felt like I was missing the natural world - things
like the weather, the beach at Scarborough and all those kinds of visceral things.”
When Price revisited the work in recent months - at a time when many of us found ourselves more aware of the
natural world - he reconnected with it in a way that looks to connect with his next artistic steps. “You start off with
listening to 10 year old piano recordings and then you go through the reinterpretations of people looking at that
material now through their own lens. The fixation with weather, coastlines and with people connected with nature, is
really strong all the way through this project. Coming out the other side of it, it's kind of like a Northern weather feeling
- coming out with your collar turned up with a hat on, a bit drizzly and shit outside, but with a kind of determination
that is the route forward.”
Most musicians, if they are lucky, will master one craft or field within their career. For Michael Price, he’s managed
three, with his music spanning across piano, orchestral and soundtrack work. The soundtrack work - for TV shows
such as Sherlock, Dracula, and Unforgotten, and films such as Eternal Beauty, Cheerful Weather and Just Jim - has
seen Price win an Emmy, as well as receive countless nominations (including a BAFTA nomination). His work as a
solo artist takes the form of beautiful improvised piano works, such as Diary (2017), or via lush, grand, hyper-detailed
orchestral work, as heard on critically acclaimed releases via Erased Tapes such as Entanglement (2015) and Tender
Symmetry (2018). His latest release, The Hope of Better Weather, is rooted in the piano world but also exists as a
bridge crossing into new terrain..
The process of putting together the release has been an emboldening and liberating one for Price, and he finds
himself feeling buoyant about the possibilities of what lies ahead – which includes a new solo orchestral album. “It is
super freeing and liberating,” he says. “There's these little green shoots of a freedom emerging.”

“Einsteigen Bitte!”

After more than six years of collaboration between label and artist, Feines Tier and Luca Musto bring to you the highly anticipated first full length LP “Nice Place, Bad Intentions”.

Musto’s first LP “Nice Place Bad Intentions” departs from the conventional 4/4 time signature. Instead, the album’s structure and the tracks themselves are reminiscent of a 1990s/2000s Hip Hop long play release. This becomes evident in the fact that the LP not only features 17 tracks, including skits and interludes, but also that they make up the framework of a conceptual album. Here, listeners will be encouraged to follow the track list and listen to “Nice Place, Bad Intentions” in one go.

“Nice Place, Bad Intentions” was produced over a period of 1,5 years. Besides the majority being original samples and vocals from Luca Musto, the LP also features a number of studio musicians, including bass players, trumpeters and guitarists. Cologne-based guitarist Simon Bahr can be found on several tracks, including the three singles “Infiltrate”, “Boogie Angst” and “Real Name, No Gimmicks”. Moreover, the skits and interludes are spoken by professional voice actors from the US and Canada.

The Berlin-themed album follows the characters Mick and Richie, who are all about partying and come to the city for one weekend in hopes to have the time of their lives. When the characters’ expectations meet reality, their naiveté (or bad intentions) lead them to getting screwed, robbed and even arrested. These stories about their journey through Germany’s capital are found in the interludes and skits. Listeners can follow them passing infamous places and metro stations in the city based on sampled BVG announcements, which gives the album a radio play vibe.

Sound-wise, Luca Musto’s unique sounds include scratched hooks that meet original lyrics and melodies, resulting in distinctive genre-bending tunes. As Mick and Richie stumble through some of Berlin’s most in-famous places, their expectations repeatedly clash with the reality of the capital’s nightlife. Similarly the liste-ners’ expectations are twisted and turned. Yet, the soundtrack underlining the characters’ journey never disappoints and brings its listeners on a rhythmic trip of old and new sounds. From rapping on downtempo as in “City of Grind” to merging the classic structure of electronic music with funky guitar licks and unconventional chord transitions as in “Infiltrate”, the LP feels at once like a daring experiment and like the beginning of a developing new genre.

Welcome to the world of Spöön Fazer!

This lost cold wave artist self-released a sought after 7” single in 1980 - Music 2 Dance 2 - and a 12” EP Sunset on Illuminated Records in 1982. In 2008 German label Anna Logue released an EP of unreleased songs that quickly sold out. Spöön featured on Cherry Reds Close To The Noise Floor compilation (2016) examining innovative U.K. electronica released between 1975 and 1984.

The music on these releases showcase Spöön's unique style that blended together art rock, drum machines, guitar, bass, washes of synthesisers and a compelling vocal style.
Spöön Fazer took to the stage over 30 times between 1980 and 1982 at venues ranging from the famous New Romantic haunt the Blitz Club to the Mind, Body and Spirit Festival at Olympia. He either appeared solo singing to pre-recorded music or with his backing band the In-Sect.

OM Swagger brings you a collection of material collated from Spööns personal tape archive. As well as tracks like Do Different Dances and Beat Dance Drumming that appeared on those hard to find recordings, we serve up unreleased tracks recorded between 1980 and 1982. Songs like Fall In Love With The East, Dancing In London, Samurai Dancing Party, Wish, Chan and Birthday show a more commercial side that never made it onto vinyl. These tracks are on a par with music released at the time by artists like Blancmange and John Foxx.

Aptly named Alternative Regression Therapy this 17-track compilation gives an insight into the lost world of Spöön Fazer detailing a career that started on a drum stool for punk band Whippets From Nowhere to a one-man crusade to enrich the cosmos with electronic music! Tracks like Michael, Row The Boat Ashore show that with the right backing Spöön might have
Continued over…
even hit the charts. Spöön even turned down the opportunity to become the drummer for the Thompson Twins just before they hit the big time.

It’s time to fall in love with Spöön Fazer.

If one always looks at the sky, he will end up with wings, a wise French man once declared. Halifax, Nova Scotia based musician Jeremy Costello had wings, long before he looked up. Wings of imagination. Brandishing in his head, transforming deep-rooted emotions into poetry and sound. Since 2012 the Canadian self-releases music as Special Costello, a moniker under which he records solo or with local friends like Saxophone player Nick Dourado or guitarist Dave Burns. His lyrics are sincerely woven poetic enunciations that balance between introspective emotions and existential philosophical demands. Lyrics from a spirit that is in love without an object, unconditional, mirroring his very own subconscious inner being. The music reflects his tempers in many colours. Glimpses of Synth-Pop, psychedelic rock nuances, traces of new romantic utopia, infantile Casio minimalism, Shoegaze haze, drama wave: Special Costello blends many styles, uniting all in his very own musing grandeur of pop music.

After an array of digital releases, Berlin based label Marmo Music now publishes the Special Costello touch for the first time physically fabricated on vinyl. Seven songs featuring the longing voice of Jeremy Costello, sometimes in correlation with spoken words and dialogues by noted artists, poets, and scientists. All creations have been recorded by himself between Spring 2017 and winter 2020, using the extrasomatic help of instruments and machines like Farfisa Combo Compact transistor organ, Roland JX3P polyphonic analog synthesizer, Roland D50 linear synthesizer, Roland Rhythm Composer TR-08, Arturia Microbrute monophonic analog synthesizer or a Gibson Thunderbird IV bass guitar. In communication with his sensitive inner blues, they created an atmospheric voyage into the heart of Special Costello, that fulfils Arthur Russel’s sapient declaration: being sad is not a crime! Seven musical paintings full of intimate, vibrant feelings and existential thoughts, veiled in an antidepressant neo new romantic glam. An epic tune like “The Next Day”, in which Costello’s singing links with thought-provoking spoken word samples, sounds like Robert Ashley is meeting Hans-Joachim Roedelius in a psychic séance with Brian Ferry. In comparison, a song like “If Not Depression, Then What?” grooves with a pulsating wave bass figure and an overall gently floating electronic majesty, while Costello’s voice takes deep listeners to an unknown higher ground. On the other hand, a composition like “Unsetting” offers a nonchalant graceful funk drift with reverberant hand claps, minimal guitar strains and a chromatic synth pop grace. Above all the music Costello’s voice cries, screams, whispers, and weeps with a compelling introspective elegancy, that invites to associate intensely with the nonpareil Special Costello touch.

Written, composed, and recorded by Jeremy Costello between 2016 to 2020 in Halifax, Scotch Village and Toronto (Canada).

Instruments used by the artist: Farfisa Combo Compact transistor organ, Roland JX3P Programmable Preset Polyphonic Synthesizer, Roland D50 linear synthesizer, Yamaha DX7 Frequency Modulation/Programmable Algorithm Synthesizer and TX7 FM Expander, Roland Computer Controlled Rhythm Composer TR-08, Arturia Microbrute Analog Synthesizer, Gibson Thunderbird IV bass guitar, MicroKorg Synthesizer/Vocoder, Electro Harmonix Small Stone Phaser, Memory Boy Analog Delay, Alesis Quadraverb, and finally, their voice was recorded using Shure Beta57A and AKG D 330 BT dynamic microphones.

Trees Speak is an experimental rock band that transcend mainstream influences by incorporating elements of Avant-garde, Neo-psychedelic, Minimalism, art and electronic - along with violin-bowed guitar, Theremin and a glut of effects pedals, and it's an ear-bending rush of lush soundscapes.

Trees Speak - as much a sound laboratory as a rock and roll band - is the musical venture of acclaimed visual artist and musician Daniel Martin Diaz (formerly of Blind Divine and Crystal Radio). For the debut double-LP Trees Speak is joined by Michael Glidewell (Black Sun Ensemble), Gabriel Sullivan (XIXA, Giant Sand), Connor Gallaher (Myrrors & Cobra Family Picnic), Damian Diaz (Human Error), and Julius Schlosburg (Jeron White Acoustic Trio). The studio itself should also take top billing, because in the tradition of krautrockers Can and Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis, the band takes its winding, incandescent motoric rock and roll improvisations and edits them into coherent compositions using the mixing desk after recording. And that's where the sound lab half of the equation appears. The end result is flowing and droning ambient proto-punk reminiscent of fellow travelers NEU!, Stereolab, - Joshua Levine

Our intention is to create music with an unrehearsed minimalist approach performing simple beats, riffs, and sequences that take one inward. We attempt to create a sonic environment to set one's mind free and to become aware of the nuances of tone, melody, and structure. We organize our recording equipment with the same approach, in a transparent manner. Our recorded performances are never rehearsed. Our belief is that a brilliant rehearsal is a lost opportunity to capture a magical moment. We are chasing the mystery of music and tone. We let the musical performance sculpt its own destiny and create imperfect perfection. Our tool of creation is the anxiety one feels when they are unrehearsed or prepared for a performance. We believe this approach brings us closer to the authentic self. The result is genuine music without an agenda that captures the unfiltered spirit.
- Trees Speak


The music was recorded live in one room with no overdubs or repairs, only using edits to create arrangements. All tracks were written over a 5 day period at Sacred Machine Studio and Dust & Stone Studio.

The Fabulous Counts were originally a teenage instrumental group of five musicians, Mose Davis (Organ and Piano), Demetrius ‘Demo’ Gates (Alto Saxophone and vocals), Jim White (Tenor Sax), Andrew T. Gibson (Drums) and Raoul Keith Mangrum (Percussion and Flute) who were later joined by the older, more experience Leroy Emanuel (Guitar and vocals). Emmanuel was invited into the group as it’s band leader by the groups manager Fred McClure, a former Detroit boxing champion who also happened to be the manager of another popular Detroit group the singing Metro’s of the hit recording “Sweetest One” fame and their subsequent respected RCA album of the same name. The Fabulous Counts would often perform at shows as the Metro’s backing band.

The Fabulous Counts first big break came after knocking several Detroit Record labels doors. They were eventually invited in by Ollie McLaughlin’s Moira studio to record, under the tutelage of Popcorn Wylie the one take hit “Jan, Jan (Moira-103). A further two Moira 45’s followed of which “Get Down People/Lunar Funk “(Moira-108) also scored high on the R&B charts. Through a deal arranged by McLaughlin The Counts released their respected “Jan, Jan” album on the Atlantic distributed Cotillion label in 1969. Moving on to Armen Boladian’s Westbound label, during 1970 the group simply changed their name to The Counts and charted with their 1971 “What’s Up Front” Westbound album, also releasing a solitary 45 “Thinking Single/Why Not Start All Over Again”. In 1972 while still part of the Westbound set up The Counts recorded two major label 45’s under the pseudonyms of Bad Smoke “Crawl Ya’ll Part 1&2” (Chess-2124) and Lunar Funk “Mr Penguin Part 1&2” (Bell 45-172), the latter being thier biggest hit. A subsequent move to Atlanta, GA saw The Counts sign with Michael Thevis’s Aware records where they recorded a further two successful albums “Love Sign” (1973) and “Funk Pump” (1975), plus a string of 45’s. In 1976 although officially never breaking up The Counts members went their separate ways to explore different life opportunity’s.



During 1978 and while still in Atlanta Leroy Emanuel borrowed money from his family and reuniting with his fellow Counts, Mose, Demo, and Jimmy Jackson Jr, they, accompanied by a local strings section recorded a session of material that spawned two songs “What’s It All About” and “Motorcity”. Which Leroy later made a deal with Terry Mendelson to release on a 45 on his TM label. The Counts had previously known Mendelson through his brother Bernie at Westbound. The TM 45 made very little noise with many of the copies having mispressed labels. Although later reissued and mistakenly credited as two previously unissued Westbound recordings on several latter Cd compilations it came to light that quite a few avid European soul collectors actually owned copies of this high quality, very elusive and desirable 45! With demand still seemingly high it seems a good time for Soul Junction to reissue it. The A-side, “What’s It All About” features its composer Leroy Emanuel on lead vocals with the other Counts adding to the backing chorus. The flipside of this 45 from the same session is the previously unreleased Mose Davis penned “Watch The Clock” which is more in keeping with the Counts traditional funk groove, enjoy.

But Only After You Have Suffered is a densely layered and deeply personal new work from multidisciplinary artist, composer, percussionist & producer Jamire Williams. Conceived as a spiritual, autobiographical artistic statement, Jamire applies sound collage practice to modern jazz composition, beat production, MC/vocalist features, and his uniquely impressionistic drumming style - making an album as akin to minimalist painting as an art-house film soundtrack or a classic hip-hop mixtape. A "self-reflective, almost testimonial work" that swiftly cycles across a vast spectrum of styles, it's the culmination of his five-year musical journey to the outer reaches of his own sound. It's the album he has always wanted to make.

12” gatefold jacket w/ full color matte UV print, 1x translucent purple cloudy effect vinyl, black dust sleeve, printed LP labels, marketing sticker and free digital download card

Gregory Keltgen (aka DJ Abilities) gravitated toward the turntables at a young age, becoming a DJ at only 17, before going on to compete in the legendary DMC DJ competitions only 2 years later in 1999. He won the regional title and advanced to the U.S. finals that year, before doing it again in 2001. Soon after, Abilities was also garnering attention for performing all the scratches on indie classic, Fantastic Damage, the debut album by El-P of Run The Jewels’ fame, as well as contributing his turntable talents and production skills to other Hip-Hop cult favorites like The Anti-Album by Semi.Official, and The Taste of Rain... Why Kneel? by Deep Puddle Dynamics. But above all, his name would become most celebrated throughout the 2000’s as one-half of the dynamic Hip-Hop duo Eyedea & Abilities.

DJ Abilities had first met Micheal “Eyedea” Larsen in the mid-90’s, and the two soon began a working relationship that would eventually play a prominent role in the burgeoning Indie-Rap movement of the time. Together, the pair developed a near symbiotic

creative union that produced three albums—First Born; E&A; and By The Throat—a catalog animated by the burning fusion of Eyedea’s introspective and technically adept rhymes with Abilities’ precise scratches and versatile production. Tragically, his partner Eyedea passed away in 2010 leaving Abilities to soldier on by himself, but the influence of their partnership continues to shape DJ Abilities’ music to this day.

His latest project, Phonograph Phoenix, finds the DJ/Producer returning to the forefront and embracing an entirely new approach to making music. A departure from previous work that was primarily sample-based, Phonograph Phoenix finds Abilities opting to build the album’s compositions from the ground up, creating his own sound through Ableton Live and various soft synths, with razor sharp cuts and select vocal chops providing a voice where his fallen partner may have once stood.

Rhapsodia (2018), 17'

(2 movements and 1 interlude)

Dedicated to Marceline Lartigue

Created in the composer's own studio. T

echnical collaboration: Jonathan Prager


Battements solaires (2008), 17'35

Music for Patrick Bokanowski's film.

Produced in the Kira BM Films studios

Production: Kira BM Films with ARTE France and CNC contributions

Best Film Award, 2009 EXiS Festival Seoul (South Korea)

Michèle Bokanowski's art is one of densities, much like the density of a given colour, a given depth. Her sound textures are, indeed, profound, both in the space occupied by their frequencies and the sharp temporal trail they leave behind. Here lies the composer's immense talent that finds the right development for each sound, letting it blossom before altering it, adapting the musical structure to let the sounds "be", even if it sometimes means returning to the most basic form, such as a loop. This is a sign of great honesty and artistic sensitivity; able to stand back and let the music become music. It is the most radical, the most accurate gesture of composition. The two pieces on this record, dissociated in time, both in their approach and destination, nevertheless reflect, each in its own way, Michèle Bokanowski's highly singular and insightful musical intuition.

François Bonnet, Paris, 2020

In the afterglow of her acclaimed 2020 album Silver Ladders, Los Angeles-based harpist Mary Lattimore returns with a culminating counterpart release, Collected Pieces: 2015- 2020. The limited-edition LP features new and previously unreleased material, Bandcamp-only singles, and other obscurities alongside standouts from her 2017 tape Collected Pieces. Beyond the vinyl compendium, an expanded tracklist on the cassette/digital version brings more of Lattimore's archives together for the first time. Lattimore has described the process of arranging these releases as akin to "opening a box filled with memories," and here that box continues to populate, accessible for both the artist and fans. Evocative material separated by years, framed as a portrait of an instrumental storyteller who rarely pauses, recording and often sharing music as soon as it strikes her. Seemingly in constant forward motion for the last five years since her Ghostly debut, Lattimore glances back for a breath, inviting new chances to live in these fleeting moments and emotions; all the beauty, sorrow, sunshine, and darkness housed within. Opening the cassette version is "Mary, You Were Wrong," which mirrors an author's bout with a broken heart. "It's about how you have to keep on going even if you make some mistakes," she says. The bittersweet refrain cycles throughout, a little brighter every time, slowly, like the way time tends to heal. Unreleased track "Sleeping Deer" came together during Lattimore's artist residency on a cattle ranch in Wyoming. She remembers, "a small deer whose mother I think had been run over by a car would hang out in the yard. I called him Lollipop and would leave vegetable scraps out." Lollipop returned daily to eat, rest, and wait for more. The music this vision inspired is patient and droning, with light plucks giving way to deeper, vibrating tones, permeating with a sense of anticipation. Next is a newer single, "We Wave From Our Boats," which she improvised after walking her neighborhood during the early days of lockdown in 2020, and shared on her Bandcamp. "I would just wave at neighbors I didn't know in a gesture of solidarity and it reminded me of how you're compelled to wave at people on the other boat when you're on a boat yourself, or on a bridge or something. The pull to wave feels very innate and natural." The heart of the track is a somber loop, over top which Lattimore's synth notes ruminate, each a gentle shimmer of optimism in the most anxious and absurd of days. Also recorded in 2020, "What The Living Do" is inspired by Marie Howe's poem of the same name, which reflects on loss through an appreciation for the mundane messiness of being human. The echoed, slow-marching track has a distant feel to it, as if the listener is outside of it, watching life play out as a film. "Princess Nicotine (1909)" scores actual footage, a dream sequence Lattimore imagined for J. Stuart Blackton's surreal silent film Princess Nicotine; or, the Smoke Fairy. She adopted the same approach for "Polly of the Circus," explaining it was the name of one of the old silent films discovered in permafrost in the Yukon featured in the documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time, "the only copy that survived and it kind of warped in the aging process." A trove of pieces are collected here, most recorded in the moment, just Lattimore and her Lyon and Healy Concert Grand Harp, contact mics, and pedals. Like her most affecting work, these songs showcase Lattimore's gifts as an observer, able to shape her craft around emotional frequencies and scenes. Her power as a musician is rooted in how she sees the world: in vivid detail, profoundly empathic, with deep gratitude for nature and nuance.

Best known as Hot Chip's clear-voiced frontman, Alexis Taylor also pursues a solo career as an introspective singer/songwriter, exploring distinct themes and ideas with each record. Today Alexis announces the release of his sixth and strongest solo album to date, Silence,

Partly about silence - and how we intersect with it, observe it, try to record it, and how we feel about it when it’s gone, as we remember it - the record is also about religion, transcendence, giving oneself over to something bigger than you, or beyond this world. “I’m not religious myself,” adds Alexis, “but the songs which deal with the idea of gospel music or religion, look at it from a distance (rather like the shaky hand-held lens through which we follow the action in Pasolini’s ‘Gospel According To Matthew’) and try to uncover its influence on music and on people in desperate circumstances.”
The genesis behind Silence started a few years ago with Alexis ruminating on silence as a subject and making plans to make a record of the sounds you hear in public spaces as people observe moments of silence. He then lost his own personal access to silence as tinnitus began in his right ear in 2019 at a Hot Chip show. As Alexis explains, “I started to think about what it meant to me to lose quietness, solitude, meditative head space - as that was no longer available to me.”
Mostly composed in enforced isolation, Silence is a beautifully rich and unexpected conceptual album that is also Alexis’ most accomplished solo record and one that has seen early comparisons with a notably eclectic range of artists including Mark Hollis, George Michael, Big Star, Epic Soundtracks and Maher Shalal Hash Baz. This record sees the first time Alexis has collaborated with Sam Becker (double bass), Kenichi Iwasa (horn, trumpet) and Rachel Horton-Kitchlew (harp), who due to lockdown had to work in isolation from Alexis. In one case Kenichi recorded musical passages which were then superimposed on songs he had never heard - in effect keeping the songs themselves silent from the playing until the mixes were played to him.

M_SESSIONS - THE PROCESS

"M_Sessions" is offering a contemporary version of Mania D., Malaria and Matador’s music for the 40th anniversary plus the rare originals. Bringing the past into the now and into the future.
Monika Werkstatt seemed the perfect choice for new interpretations. Founded in 2015, comprising female electronic musicians and producers from the entourage of Monika Enterprise and Moabit Musik. The loose collective played dozens of improvised concerts around Europe and released a studio album and live recordings in everchanging artist constellations.

The M_Sessions involved Pilocka Krach, Beate Bartel, Midori Hirano, Mommo G, Lucrecia Dalt, Antye Greie-Ripatti, Natalie Beridze, Annika Henderson and myself. Here the form of interpretation is focussing on keeping the freedom of their improvised work and adapting it to the collective appropriation of songs. I cannot imagine a better reinterpretation of the material with its real life ups and downs and with its enthusiasm.
The original core team of Beate Bartel, Bettina Köster, Manon P. Duursma and myself selected "Rare Originals" from the repertoire of the 3 bands where we saw special relevance and beauty - these tracks are on LP2. We rediscovered live tracks, living room recordings and demo versions from our times long gone. (G.Gut)

M_DOKUMENTE // THE BOOK - THE RECORDS - THE EXHIBITION

The project M_Dokumente focuses on the All Female bands Mania D., Malaria! and Matador in the West Berlin music and art scene of the late 1970s and 1980s. We celebrate this 40 years retrospetive with a big festival weekend from 21.-24.10.2021 at Silent Green from a explicitly female perspective.
The three bands around their members Beate Bartel, Bettina Köster and Gudrun Gut played concerts in different formations from 1979 on, released records and toured around the world. The self-determined appearance of the musicians was new, raised some eyebrows and was reflected both in the music and the lyrics, but also in their unique style and the genre-crossing approach of "more art in the music, more music in the art". To this day, the bands are considered visionary, they shaped a new image of women in pop culture and are pioneers and role models for the still important and necessary emancipatory movement in the music industry. Far beyond the borders of Berlin.

3Ms

The three, reunited: Malaria, Matador and Mania D, unter einem Dach, but gutted, replaced with electronic hearts, new beats, new beasts, the time has changed, yet the politics, the problems, the heartache remains the same. 2021 sees the anniversary of the 3 M’s and therewith the production of an album of songs, covering a selection of the bands’ finest output, this time assembled by a new set of feminist misfits; producers, fangirls, instrumentalists, under the strict guidance of original members Gudrun Gut and Beate Bartel. M-Sessions features: AGF, Lucrecia Dalt, Sonae, Midori Hirano, Islaja, Natalie Beridze, Pilocka Krach, Annika Henderson (Anika), Lupe, Gudrun Gut and Beate Bartel. Beginning in West Berlin, in 1979, with the inception of Mania D, spawning Malaria! and later Matador; in a time when music was essential to movement, to escape, to space, to the scene and to the rebellion of the people; three bands stood for trial and error, trial and terror, anti- conformity, and anti-consumerism, for girl power and sticking it to the man, and for just doing whatever the hell they wanted. The three, their existence slightly staggered, with different members, different grudges, different heartbreaks, different instrumental expressions, were joined by a string of barbed wire, piecing pigeon hearts, within the playground that was the desolate ex-capital, now again capital, Berlin; a place where artists and freaks could run free amongst the wrinklies and army dodgers; no microscopes, no rules, no property developers. (ANNIKA HENDERSON)

Vivian Jones' debut album, released in 1983 and backed by Undivided Roots. Heavy slow sparse rhythms (in a Roots Radics style) and floating keyboards. Superb roots by this inspired UK singer, including the well-known tunes Flash It And Gwan and Third World Man.

Born in Jamaica but raised in the UK, Vivian Jones is an important voice in the UK Roots scene. Started in the 70’s as deejay on local sound systems but also as a member of several UK Roots bands. Disillusioned with the music industry he returned to Jamaica in 1982 and recorded some material there. He returned to London, began recording again in his spare time and released his debut album Bank Robbery on Ruff Cut. He went on to work with Jah Shaka, Bobby Digital, Junior Reid and many others. In the 90’s he started his own ‘Imperial House’ label. Nowadays a welcome guest on every reggae festival in Europe, Vivian still plays live shows and even with more than 130 single releases under his belt, he keeps on recording new and uplifting tunes.

Vivian on the creation of the album: At that time I never had a band to work with or anything so I spoke to Crucial Tony Phillips and he said I must come in. I went down to Ruff Cutt and they had some rhythms down there that they didn't know what to do with and I think they were even going to wipe some of them off the tape. They played me a few of them and I said, "What? You gwaan wipe off this?? A me tek this!" so they say "Alright, come voice it..." and the tune was Flash It And Gwaan. When I heard that rhythm I said, "Bwoy you mad???" and they said, "we cyaan get nobody to sing 'pon this riddim" so I said, "gimme the riddim". And, in fact, before I sang it, when I heard the rhythm I went to a sound party. I went there and they gave me the mic and I started singing Flash It And Gwaan right there and then. Then I went to the studio and sang it for Ruff Cutt.

After Flash It And Gwaan I sang about three more tunes that night and then they decided to make an album so they started giving me different rhythms and I kept voicing them until we had an album. That was the album Bank Robbery, because at the time the bank robbery was a real thing that happened on my birthday, 1st April, when they robbed some gold bullion or something like that. Whole heap of millions. And because it was on my birthday, I remembered that and then one day they gave me a rhythm and so I sang Bank Robbery on it for the album title track.

Quentin Tarantino’s WWII film “Inglourious Basterds” was released in 2009 to both critical and commercial acclaim. The movie won multiple awards including an Academy Award, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe and, like all of Tarantino’s movies the soundtrack played a pivotal role. QUENTIN TARANTINO'S INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS: MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK – which itself was nominated for a Grammy Award – is a mixture of score from legendary Hollywood composer Ennio Morricone and a selection of quirky rare tracks, amongst them David Bowie’s theme from the 1982 film Cat People. It will be available on blood red translucent vinyl.

Grey Marbled Vinyl

VARIÁT is the new experimental metal one-man band of Ukrainian artist Dmytro Fedorenko. Through dissonant noise poetry, corrosive synthesis, and subtle seeds of interiority and folk song, VARIÁT creates a sound world of austere urban psychedelia, invoking themes of primitivism and mysticism within the volatile currents of a contemporary digital era.

Conceived in 2020 as a provocative creative outlet, VARIÁT is founded on ideas of transgression, reinvention, and liberation, the consequence of observing prescribed artistic boundaries and pursuing new depths of aesthetic freedom. The project began as an exploration of new recording techniques: metallic materials used as percussion and channelled through blown amps, toms played with a hammer, drilled cymbals, raw, dimensional textures produced from found objects.

For the project’s debut album ‘I Can See Everything From Here’ a library of recordings rooted in musique concrète initiated countless sessions of seismic, discordant guitar noise and overloaded detonations of low end. Synthesizers calibrated and treated to sound like traditional instrumentation, rhythms of deluge and disarray. Compositions constructed with an intent to preserve their original modality; the chaotic spark of their inception.

The artwork created for ‘I Can See Everything From Here’ is an aquarelle (watercolour) painting, an ink-based projection which mirrors the sound of the album with dense, fragmentary shades of black and extensive tendrils of detail. A microcosmic depiction of the graphic power that defines ‘I Can See Everything From Here’.

First time on vinyl
10th Anniversary of the Breaking Bad TV Series
5 x 10' vinyl in 5 different jackets, 1 relating to each season
Each 10' is the same colour, Strictly Limited Edition Albuquerque Crystal Coloured (transparent with a hint of turquoise) Vinyl!
Lift off box-set with Breaking Bad logo on front with special drip-off varnish
Exclusive Breaking Bad Poster & Pollos Hermanos plastic ID badge
Booklet with exclusive pictures and extensive liner notes by Thomas, the musical supervisor of Breaking Bad
One run only of this very exclusive BOX-SET
Individually numbered the manufacturing qty for Worldwide is est 4000 with 800 for the UK - we could get some more
PLEASE ORDER BY 12.00 TUESDAY 25 SEPT TO BE GUARANTEED YOUR QTY
Available worldwide
Weight ESTIMATED 950g
All the essential Breaking Bad songs by Badfinger, Calexico, Far East Movement, America, Fever Ray, Apparat, Whitey, Knife Party, The Peddlers and others
Various dialogies by Walter, Jesse, Skyler, Mike, Gus, Saul and many more
This release will be heavily promoted on social media, including the social media accounts of Breaking Bad (facebook, over 11 million followers!!!).

MOV proudly presents the OST - BREAKING BAD (MUSIC FROM THE ORIGINAL SERIES) 5 x 10' BOX-SET!

A TOP PRIORITY RELEASE with WORLDWIDE RIGHTS!

So far only the score music has been released on vinyl and now finally, for the very very first time, the original soundtrack music is released on vinyl!

Breaking Bad is widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time and celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2018.

The legion of fans have been waiting for this to be released for a long time. There will be a huge demand for this exclusive BOX-SET!

This release was never released in any other format (CD, vinyl, digital) before and will only be available on vinyl!

OST - BREAKING BAD (MUSIC FROM THE ORIGINAL SERIES) is presented in a beautiful Lift off box-set with Breaking Bad logo on front with special drip-off varnish. The box-set includes a selection of defining songs, devided in five 10' records on coloured vinyl, each representing a season with accessory artwork. The numbered box-set also includes a booklet, poster and Pollos Hermanos plastic ID Badge. Next to all essential Breaking Bad songs by Badfinger, Calexico, Far East Movement, America, Fever Ray, Apparat, Whitey, Knife Party, The Peddlers and others, the 10' records also include various dialogies by Walter, Jesse, Skyler, Mike, Gus, Saul and many more. The box-set is a ONE-RUN-ONLY and is STRICTLY LIMITED!

Breaking Bad is an American neo-western crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. The show originally aired on the AMC network for five seasons, from January 20, 2008 to September 29, 2013. The series tells the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling and depressed high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with lung cancer. Together with his former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), White turns to a life of crime by producing and selling crystallized methamphetamine to secure his family's financial future before he dies, while navigating the dangers of the criminal world. The title comes from the Southern colloquialism "breaking bad", meaning to "raise hell" or turn toward crime. Breaking Bad is set and filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Walter's family consists of his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) and children, Walter, Jr. (RJ Mitte) and Holly (Elanor Anne Wenrich). The show also features Skyler's sister Marie Schrader (Betsy Brandt), and her husband Hank (Dean Norris), a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent. Walter hires lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), who connects him with private investigator and fixer Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) and in turn Mike's employer, drug kingpin Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito). The final season introduces the characters Todd Alquist (Jesse Plemons) and Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (Laura Fraser).

Breaking Bad is widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time. By the time the series finale aired, it was among the most-watched cable shows on American television. The show received numerous awards, including 16 Primetime Emmy Awards, eight Satellite Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, two Peabody Awards, two Critics' Choice Awards and four Television Critics Association Awards. For his leading performance, Cranston won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series four times, while Aaron Paul won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series three times; Anna Gunn won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series twice. In 2013, Breaking Bad entered the Guinness World Records as the most critically acclaimed show of all time.

ArtPlay and Brave Wave Productions are proud to unveil their first soundtrack collaboration : GS-011: Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night The Definitive Soundtrack for vinyl.

Contains 4x 12” 150g black vinyl discs, art-decorated sleeves, a full color booklet, and download code for high-fidelity digital versions all 46 tracks.

Originally funded via Kickstarter in 2015, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, spearheaded by legendary game creator Koji Igarashi, was released in June 2019 to critical success. One highly rated element of the game was its melodic, moody and catchy music, composed by Michiru Yamane, along with Keisuke Ito, Ryusuke Fujioka, Atsuhiro Ishizuna and Ippo Yamada.

GS-011: Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night The Definitive Soundtrack will come in a 4-LP box set containing all 46 tracks. The set will come with a booklet containing liner notes (in English and Japanese) from Michiru Yamane and Koji Igarashi.

Starring James Fox as a British gangster on the run who finds refuge in the home of reclusive ex-rock star Mick Jagger, Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's PERFORMANCE is one of the great cult movies of the 1970s. The film's soundtrack, produced by Jack Nitzsche for Warner Bros., is equally noteworthy. Needless to say, the Rolling Stones connection is strong; the Jagger-sung single "Memo From Turner" was co-written with Keith Richards, and vocalist Merry Clayton (famous as the duet partner on "Gimme Shelter") appears on three tracks. Several up-and-coming WB artists also make key contributions, including Randy Newman (the raucous "Gone Dead Train"), slide guitar virtuoso Ry Cooder and Little Feat leader Lowell George. Like the film itself, the PERFORMANCE original motion picture soundtrack offers a fascinating glimpse at one of the most exciting eras in rock.

After a successful first release on his own label imprint, Kmyle decided to drive the point home with this second opus named "Catharsis EP". A concentrated energy of 3 powerful tracks who give us a hypnotic dancefloor trip and one remix from the imposing veteran Drumcell, which brings us back to the roots of techno with its own dark groove vision, made for the wet and warm atmosphere of long rave nights.

Eleven groups in eight days. A marathon recording session in a makeshift storefront studio in a 100-year-old building in the tiny Eastern North Carolina town of Fountain. Once the idea for the project was in place, Alice Vines of the Glorifying Vines Sisters started calling local musicians. It didn’t take her long to line up almost a dozen groups to come lift their voices and represent the region’s unique Sacred Soul traditions. When the groups on this record gathered to record in February of 2020, they couldn’t have known that the world was on the heels of a global pandemic, or that the year would bring great turmoil and social upheavals. But in the reality created by gospel songs even the greatest of trials are not surprising, nor can they be ultimately devastating. Every time singers stepped up to the mic during these sessions, they created a sonic world where no amount of bad news can undermine the truth of The Good News. Even when “you can’t really see a solution to what you’re dealing with at the moment,” says Kiamber Daniels of Faith and Harmony, singing gospel music will remind you, “hey, I’m still here; I got what it takes to make it through this. It will give you a sense of peace.” Produced by Bruce Watson (Fat Possum/Big Legal Mess/Bible & Tire), this collection of sacred soul recordings of Eastern North Carolinian gospel groups is a one of a kind exploration. With a rich heritage of family gospel music, the artists in this area have been honing their craft over generations and have their own way of making the material original and unique. This is Sacred Soul of North Carolina.

ANNA LEONE will release her first album, ‘I’VE FELT ALL THESE THINGS’,
produced by Paul Butler (Michael Kiwanuka, Hurray For The Riff Raff).
The debut follows Stockholm native Anna’s widely applauded debut EP ‘Wandered Away’, drawing fans at 6Music including Lauren Laverne & Guy Garvey,
alongside Ones To Watch tips from Spotify and Youtube, and over 18 million
streams online.
‘I’VE FELT ALL THESE THINGS’ is an album that explores how we close ourselves
off to the world, a feeling that has become ever-present in the sad, surreal climate of 2020, in more expansive ways. It’s also an album about how we try and
get beyond those inclinations, and how we make it through

Toolroom founder and Grammy-nominated producer Mark Knight announces his new album Untold Business: 13-track collection of vocal house music which aims to inject a much-needed dose of meaning and longevity into the world of dance music.

Mark Knight has gone back to his roots on his new album Untold Business, reprising the sounds and records that made him the artist he is today. Diving through his extensive collection of classic Funk, House, Soul and Disco records from the 1970s and 80s has provided the bedrock for the album, which is an homage to the soulful, vocal-led house music that Mark first fell in love with in the 90s.

Step forward Mark Knight with a collection of meticulously crafted, positive, life-affirming records with a focus on real instrumentation and properly crafted songs that will stand the test of time. Untold Business is the antithesis of the functional, cookie-cutter dance music that has become increasingly ubiquitous over the years, and it sounds absolutely glorious.

Lead single ‘Everything’s Gonna Be Alright’ features vocals from Beverley Knight as well as the London Community Gospel Choir, who together bring a powerful message of positivity, solidarity and hope: themes that echo throughout the rest of the album.

“I wanted to write a song of hope as we come out of this incredibly tough time. I feel that musicians and producers have a responsibility to provide the soundtrack to people’s lives, and with this glimmer of hope on the horizon, I wanted this song to be a moment of positivity for the future ahead.” Mark Knight

From the string section, to the 14-piece London Community Gospel Choir, to the incomparably brilliant Beverley Knight on lead vocals – Mark worked with some incredible musicians on the single: an approach that informs his approach for the entire album. Untold Business features further collaborations with the likes of Shingai (Noisettes), Michael Gray, Robert Owens and many more.

In addition to the 10 new tracks recorded especially for the album, Untold Business also includes three of Mark’s singles from 2020, including one of the biggest releases of his career to date. All 4 Love was a collaboration with Rene Amesz and Tasty Lopez which became firmly lodged on the Radio 1 A list for six weeks with worldwide success following soon after. Picking up more than 10 million streams on Spotify it was without doubt one of the biggest house records of the year. Also included here are ‘If It’s Love’ - a joyous celebration of a soulful house sound that came to prominence in the 90s – and ‘Tonight’, which took inspiration from the brisk, looping, filtered house music of the early 00s.

Saxophonist Wendell Harrison has lived by a standard philosophy for his 50-plus-year career: One must have complete self-autonomy. Both his music and business dealings reflect this. Besides being a legend on the Detroit jazz scene and mentoring up-and-coming musicians through his non-profit organization Rebirth Inc., he co-founded the Tribe Records label in the 1970s, which produced a magazine and many classic albums.

Harrison is continuing Tribe’s legacy—this time around with a group of rising jazz musicians from the Motor City such as drummer Louis M. Jones III, trumpeter Trunino Lowe, and guitarist Jacob Schwantz—on his new recording Get Up Off Your Knees.

There’s a lot to digest here because the original compositions encompass R&B, soul, spoken word, and “world” music, all seen through the lens of jazz. Harrison tends to weave elements of African music into many of his compositions. On “Siera” and “Samoulén Khalé Yi,” both written by vocalist and bassist Pathe Jassi, he pays tribute to Guinea-Bissau and Senegalese culture. “Educators” also has African nuances in its hardcore drumming and Harrison’s sublime blowing on bass clarinet and clarinet.

Any discriminating jazz listener will be consumed by Get Up Off Your Knees, but it seems Harrison’s primary purpose for making this album is to encourage the current generation to put education first and build social awareness. On the title track, vocalist Miche Braden pushes the self-determination angle, which is again highlighted on “Revolution,” a reimagined take on Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” delivered with an adherence to contemporary events by the poet Rev. Mbiyu Chui. By Veronica Johnson from Jazz Times.

No less than 12 months later arrives ‘Deep Blue View’ – not so much of a follow-up, as a mini-flipside moving the Jazz from AM to PM, between city and sea.
“I originally had AM Jazz down as walking around some New York backstreet at 4am, smoking in a fedora, looking for crimes to solve but it now ends as night begins,” reveals Al, of his latest tale’s gradual evolution. “Deep Blue View is the night-time album now… like losing yourself deeper in the fog, or disappearing in the sea… would someone, or some 'thing' come to save you or would they , or it , come along for the ride?”
Usually by now, Daveyhulme’s own could-be John Barry would have left distractions of success for suburban side-projects and writing with his fellow Mancunian musicians, but AM Jazz left unfinished business - and, with 50 or so session recordings leaving a litter of sonic debris strewn about the cutting room floor, one major clean-up. Deep Blue View is 6 brand new tracks crafted from its reconstructed and revived remnants, unfurling like Sinatra’s Wee Small Hours to reinforce the strangely beautiful atmosphere of Al’s now revered repertoire. “I had the urge to create something new and started playing around with different EPs and pseudonyms but when I sequenced these tracks, I was really happy how smoothly they flowed; it just needed an opener. I quickly wrote ‘Deep Blue View’ and it fell into place. It’s great, so I carried on, knowing it was time to save the best stuff for myself,” Al grins.
Just as AM Jazz was created in the spirit of his earlier working style on debut album Tower of Love, Deep Blue View fuses Al’s love of finding the ‘right’ in the odd, weird, back-to-front and everything in between, with the hi-fi meets lo-fi sounds of his crate-digging curiosity and empathy for TV themes and movie soundtracks. Guided by melody, his home-based sorcery of working with analog, tape and field recordings opposed to the lure of studio mechanics allowed his inner subconscious to tap at the door and reveal itself in new musical forms. “In the studio it’s tempting to turn everything up loud but I’ve got bad tinnitus and don’t want to write anything else in a Beatles style. I have done all that now… at home I have a computer, a microphone and just go crazy and lose myself staring at the screen. Then suddenly loads of music is written.”
Setting his inner autopilot to flight mode, ‘Peppergone’ adds to the tracks’ nocturnal narrative and appears reborn after a last-minute culling from AM Jazz’s initial tracklist. Like a beautifully romantic ode to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, it is a fitting tribute to dearly departed best friend 'Batfinks', written in the middle of a tough night. “I have no idea why or how the song came about because I was so upset to do anything, let alone record any music. But there you go. Somehow I did and it’s a really special thing. I know he would have dug me using his chords; growing up we’d both try to create the perfect chord sequence. This is his idea of that. I hope he doesn’t think it’s shit,” Al jests.
Also revived from AM Jazz’s archive is the simmering groove of ‘Night Talk Late Street’ and instrumental ‘Star Six Seven’, whilst ‘Have Another Cigar’ weaves its own semi-autobiographical fairy-tale with lyrics written and sung by long-time pal and former housemate Aidan Smith. Transformed from backing track into a cool morsel of story pop, it recalls the drunken joy of when the pair would make recordings together between singing the Everly Brothers at full volume. “I’m sure it’s about not wanting the musical party to stop and having to get on with real life,” Al says.
‘String Beat’ meanwhile, soars like a beautiful Bond theme with the shimmer of Lee Hazlewood holidaying in Palm Springs, alongside perhaps, the waltzing string-like synthonies of some long-lost rhythm and blues orchestra of Davyhulme (whose real-life origins reside with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra), introduced to him by Super Furry Animals’ Cian Ciaran. “I’ve never created anything this moody before and have always threatened to do something John Barry-esque with some slightly dark and spooky musical changes.”

This magnificent project was born in 2006 on one of the most famous labels in the world Mille plateaux . It was in 2006 and just in CD. It was important that a vinyl version existed.
Edith Progue is the project of Paris-based musician, Bernie Swell. After having formed izdatso as a gathering of musicians and visual artists in 1999, Bernie Swell has slowly but surely moved to a more minimal approach towards digital composing. Timeline consists of a chronological report of the different moods experienced by the composer over a 24-hour period of time spent in an apartment overlooking the dark waters of Canal St. Martin in Paris. The dreamy environment created by the melodic sound of an acoustic piano is only troubled by the intrusion of a few micro-electronic beats and sounds. The music was created as an attempt to reconcile the noisy environment that surrounds day-to-day modern urban life with the inner peace that can eventually be found through meditation. While listening to these pieces, you might leave the TV or radio on, or hear a cell phone's new message alert, a fridge sub-bass might rumble or, more simply, an opened window on a busy street would constructively mix with these hypnosonic soundscapes, revealing the hidden art behind any intruding noise/sound manifestation.

Dark Star Safari is a musical entity comprised of Jan Bang, Erik Honoré, Eivind Aarset, Samuel Rohrer and John Derek Bishop. Their second fulllength offering Walk Through Lightly is the first to feature all five musicians together in the studio from the outset, making for a more organic refinement upon their already established methodology: gradually sculpting distinct songs out of collective improvisations, or using the raw material from initial recordings as the basis for more carefully articulated compositions. The final mix is one that invites few stylistic comparisons to other musical peers, and in fact few comparisons to existing genres. Though this second offering from the project is frosted over with a Scandinavian sense of spatiality and
melancholy, it’s best listened to without considering any origin points, geographic or otherwise: from the opening moments of “Walk Through Lightly,” listeners will feel as if teleported directly into the middle of an enigmatic film-in-progress.
The album opener immediately and successfully sets the table for what is to follow. The electronic and acoustic instrumentation is pensive, but not passive, with restrained scrapes and stridulations in the background combining with backwards-looped passages and perlescent or granulated sound effects to better emphasize the carefully arranged latticework of guitar, percussion, strings, and bass. In some places, such as on “Father’s Day” and “Measured Response,” the silences or breaths between passages are pronounced enough to be an instrument in their own right (and an elegant confirmation of the fact that silence is also a conveyor of information). This nuanced production, which wisely opts for intimacy instead of relying on overdone "instant atmosphere generators" like lengthy reverb, provides just enough tension to contrast with the sense of elevation provided by Bang’s vocal contributions: smoky, evanescent, and impressionistic recitations offering not snapshots of specific events, but rather complete emotional environments for the listener to hover through and explore.
Within these environments, the lyrical imagery focuses upon coming to grips with sudden transformations on both micro and macro levels (the opening “this was a perfect place / till we lost our way” from “Patria” or the foreboding “Poems that explore / Their silence / Crush their violence / Now their time ends” from “Measured Response.”) It focuses as well upon coming to thresholds or crossings, be they physical crossroads or internal states of mind, or both (see especially the striking turns of phrase from “Murmuration.”) With such things in mind, it’s only natural that there would be consideration of dreaming as well, and indeed four different titles on the LP make different reference to a dream or dream state, seemingly valuing dreams as part of the continuum of consciousness rather than something totally cut off from waking experience.
Given the sense of foreboding, anticipation, and even unease that these kinds of subjects often bring with them, the spare and un-hurried music is all the more intriguing, especially when the eponymous finale arrives and the percolating sound bed seems to hint at a coming resolution, but then leaves the listener with more questions than answers. By competently fusing a mature, economical approach to sincerely romantic lyrical themes, Walk Through Lightly is a rare accomplishment.

Already renowned for a ball-tearing live show, The Sniffers
made their international debut as one of the hottest tipped
acts at The Great Escape in 2018. Soon afterwards, they
signed deals with both Rough Trade Records and ATO
Records, made a massively hyped appearance at SXSW,
and finally released their self-titled debut album in 2019,
landing them an ARIA (Australian Recording Industry
Association) Award for Best Rock Album, capping off a wild
year for the lunatic, likeable punks.
Late in 2020, Amyl and The Sniffers went into the studio with
producer Dan Luscombe to record their sophomore album,
‘Comfort To Me’. Written over a long year of lockdown, the
album was influenced by and expanded on a heavier pool of
references - old-school rock’n’roll (AC/DC, Rose Tattoo,
Motörhead and Wendy O Williams), modern hardcore
(Warthog and Power Trip) and the steady homeland heroes
(Coloured Balls and Cosmic Psychos).
Lyrically, the album was influenced by Taylor’s rap idols and
countless garage bands and, in her words, “I had all this
energy inside of me and nowhere to put it, because I couldn’t
perform, and it had a hectic effect on my brain. My brain
evolved and warped and my way of thinking about the world
completely changed.”
Seventeen songs were recorded in the ‘Comfort To Me’
sessions and the top thirteen made the cut. They were mixed
long distance by Nick Launay (Nick Cave, IDLES, Yeah Yeah
Yeahs) and mastered by Bernie Grundman (Michael
Jackson, Prince, Dr Dre).
‘Comfort To Me’ demonstrates the same irrepressible smarts,
integrity and fearless candour as their debut but, as you’d
expect of any young band five years on, their sound has
evolved - in Amy’s words, it’s “raw self-expression, defiant
energy and unapologetic vulnerability.”

TOTAL turns 21 this year, and Kompakt’s venerable compilation series couldn’t have asked for a more auspicious coming-of-age collection. If TOTAL 20 was consolidation against the odds, the Kompakt crew producing for a dreamt-of dancefloor in an uncertain future, then TOTAL 21 feels abuzz and alive with possibilities. Significantly, it’s the first TOTAL in some time that’s streamlined down to a single disc; this makes TOTAL 21 even punchier than usual, a joyous, reflective, and always thrilling 75-minute audio scan of the world according to Kompakt.

As with every instalment of TOTAL, there’s a deft balancing here of Kompakt regulars and new blood. Of the latter, there’s a first appearance by KOLLMORGEN, remixed by PATRICE BÄUMEL into an astral torch song; Amsterdam’s NICKY ELISABETH, offering up ROMAN FLÜGEL’s pulsating, arpeggiated remix of “Celeste”; and CAPTAIN MUSTACHE swoops down into view, PLAY PAUL in tow, with the dream-like electro lift-off that is “Everything”. JONATHAN KASPAR also drops by with a new track, “Von Draussen”, a stealthy and lethal floor-hugger with prowling bass.

Elsewhere, there’s the lead track to MICHAEL MAYER’s astonishing recent EP, “Brainwave Technology”, which not-so-gently spears the tech-futurist babble of AI, transhumanism and posthumanism, soundtracked by one of Mayer’s typically lush, glimmering soundscapes. JOHN TEJADA reaches back to the heyday of glitch and dub techno with the gorgeous “Spectral Progressions”, while the brothers VOIGT & VOIGT, on “Nicht Mein Job”, seem reinvigorated by the interwoven patterns and funky minimalism of the Profan days. Not to be outdone, JÜRGEN PAAPE kicks TOTAL 21 with “La Guittara Romantica”, a chiming and lilting lullaby for woozy late-night reflection.

Throughout, it feels as though Kompakt are taking a moment to both breathe in the dust of the past and look forward to a bright future. Perhaps that’s why, on “Fasson”, SASCHA FUNKE seems so confident, with pinprick melodies bouncing around a hall of audio mirrors, or why THE BIONAUT returns with “Blue Sky Motor Lodge”, a song so moistly melancholy, so enduringly lovely, it’ll make you weep tears of joy. ROBAG WRUHME gets a little delirious on the ticking, twisting “No”, and then GUI BORATTO mops everything up with the bubbling, bumping glam-stomp “Wake Up”.

That’s not all – spring for the digital and/or vinyl edition and you’ll get a new cut, “Happy”, from MICHAEL MAYER, and MARC ROMBOY & C.A.R.’s “I Am A Dancer”. But however you choose to play it, now TOTAL’s turned 21, it’s your duty to throw it the celebration to end all celebrations. Let the party begin, and don’t forget to bring a party favor…

Rediscover in this beautiful 3CD, the Greatest Hits of Michel Sardou on 2 CD and for the very first time, the original instrumental versions on CD3 along with lyrics booklet, never released until now. Take the opportunity to sing your favourite hits to the original backing music and become Michel for one song! Reviews and Ads in London Macadam, and L’Echo

The Men’s hugely influential album Leave Home came out during an exciting time in New York City. DIY lofts and shitty bars littered downtown Manhattan and North Brooklyn. The Acheron had just opened its doors. Kill Your Idols had broken up. Toxic State Records was just getting started with Crazy Spirit, Dawn of Humans, Hank Wood and Perdition EP’s. The city was alive with punk and noise and filth. And right at that time, The Men were the show to be at.

Every gig was dripping with sweat. Hallways and sidewalks were packed between sets. Chaos reigned in the pit. The Men hit like a bag of hard cement, a hardcore band with a familiar sound but with an aura of absolute chaos and intensity, like everything was on the brink of going off the rails at every moment of their set, a downhill freight train with no brakes. During these shows one’s focus could shoot back and forth between the intimidatingly angry-eyed, bald-headed Chris Hansell (who went on to front Warthog) and the long haired hippie punks Mark Perro, Nick Chiericozzi and Rich Samis, that made up the surrounding band.

Just one of the many juxtapositions the band embraced. If The Men were a chapter in Michael Azzerad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life, the early EP’s and cassettes would obviously be Minor Threat and Black Flag, while Leave Home would likely be… Sonic Youth. It was just before they made the full jump into each record being a smorgasbord of underground genres, from dream pop to folk;

before they had tracks called “Country Song,” for example. But it was a preview of what was to come. Leave Home was a pivot from pure hardcore punk (some might even call it mysterious guy hardcore), as the band got lost in the groove in a way one couldn’t on a straight up punk record. That groove was so strong on “If You Leave…,” “(),” and “Bataille,” while they spaced out on “Shitting With The Shaw,” and stayed as aggro as ever on “LADOCH.” But of course, Leave Home had a re-recording of their hardest track to date, “Think,” making it clear that they were still the moshers we all had come to know and love. If The Men raised their flag as an important New York punk band with Immaculada, they started waving it in the freakiest way with Leave Home.There is no doubt that Leave Home was one of the most influential records of the last decade.

You can hear their mark everywhere from Ty Segal and The Oh Sees to Milk Music and Hank Wood. Few bands have traversed as many genres as The Men and even fewer have done it so well. It is a testament to the band’s undying authenticity and adventurism that the record sounds as timeless and urgent now as it did when it blew the doors of New York punk off its hinges ten years ago, leaving a giant hole for bands of all kinds to come racing through.

Lava Love is the new album by Zoe’s Shanghai. Led by singer Zoé Renié Harris, the band has
made a splash into the crowded neo-soul scene with their debut EP A Mirage (Meant To Last
Forever) released in 2019 - a deeply evocative sound and Zoe’s extraordinary voice gained them
immediately the spotlight as ones to watch (“a worthy torchbearer for heady and hearty soul music”-
Earmilk).
Following a successful string of EPs and singles, the Barcelona & Paris-based four-piece band is
now ready to share with the world their first full-length album.
Lava Love was recorded in an old stable in the French region of Auvergne - known for its mountain
ranges and dormant volcanoes, this region could not have been a more apt setting.
Lava and love portray in fact a dynamic flow of memory and meaning pouring out of Zoe’s
Shanghai’s heart. In and out of the metaphor, Lava and love can be powerful, frightening, beautiful,
dangerous and at the same time are essential elements that create fertile change and growth.
Through the 11 songs, the band evoke memories and pose questions - inner dialogues, life stories,
encounters and relationships – the album depicts a kaleidoscope of moods and feelings, prompting
the listener to open to the conversation: while each song presents a microcosm on its own, the album
manifests itself in the shared musical experience - immersive music to listen to and enjoy with your
loved ones.
Produced with Oli Barton-Wood (Nubiyan Twist, Joe Armon-Jones, Nilufer Yanya), the sound of
Lava Love brings together hypnotic melodies, groovy rhythms and thoughtful lyrics - fusing the
essence of multiple music styles and forging Zoe’s Shanghai unique contemporary soul.
The album follows the critically acclaimed EP ‘A Mirage’, which garnered the support of Gilles
Peterson & Huey Morgan (BBC 6 Music), Jamz Supernova (BBC Radio 1Xtra), Worldwide FM and
Earmilk to name a few.

The Velvet Underground is regarded as one of the most influential bands in rock history.

Their first 4 albums were included in Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Ranked 19th greatest artist by the same magazine and the 24th greatest artist in a poll by VH1.

Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

Critic Robert Christgau considers them "the number three band of the '60s, after the Beatles and James Brown and His Famous Flames".

AllMusic wrote that "Few rock groups can claim to have broken so much new territory, and maintain such consistent brilliance on record, as the Velvet Underground during their brief lifespan ... the Velvets' innovations – which blended the energy of rock with the sonic adventurism of the avant-garde, and introduced a new degree of social realism and sexual kinkiness into rock lyrics – were too abrasive for the mainstream to handle."

Andy Compton is undisputedly one of the hardest working producers in dance music. With over 40 albums and 150 EPs released either solo or as part of deep house legends The Rurals, the Bristol-based producer just can't stop creating profoundly funky and vibey music that works on loose-limbed dancefloors, beach bars and shag carpets alike.
He has appeared regularly on quality labels as diverse as Lumberjacks In Hell, Hed Kandi, LARGE and naturally, his own vital imprint Peng.

Andy's latest long player for Tangential Music is a collaboration with LA artists Irantzu Pujadas and Brad Kent under the name Blue Dream.
Aptly titled: 'A Trip To LA' the album is a deliciously louche and laidback twelve tracker of pure LA heat. The project began as many great ones do, without a plan. Visiting Brad's studio to check out his huge vintage analogue synth collection in search of new sounds for The Rurals, they got to thinking...and jamming. With Brad on the dusty old drum machines, Irantzu on the microphone and Andy in synthesiser heaven, Blue Dream was born.

Their first and equally good album 'California Dreaming' was released on Peng in early 2019 and now we are here with a second round of perfectly realised dream-like grooves. Think of the sun-facing vibes of Shuggie Otis, Eddie Chacon, Bobby Caldwell or Roy Ayers at his most relaxed and add a passionate knowledge and experienced grasp of electronic forms. They make this seem easy goddammit.

'I Wanted To See You' sounds like Khruangbin with a 303, 'You Want Me Back' with its mid-tempo shuffling groove, saucy squidge bass line and seductive soul house vocal is pure daytime at Houghton Festival happiness, like Crazy P in the hot tub.

At no point are we required to sweat. Lie down if you must, stand up and sway if you're ready. This could be lovers music or just for you alone. Irantzu's vocals throughout are whispers and purrs, evocations of humid love drenched in reverb and easy living. Sunset music.

The singles 'I Wanna Go Home' and 'Sandwich Dub' don't deviate far from the endless feeling of hazy cinematic sunshine, one a sultry plea for intimacy, the other a heavily dubbed-out slice of musique française amour.
'Trip To LA' with a vocal more than suggestive of the Balearic classic 'Sueno Latino', spare guitar chords and a prodding repetitive bass line creates a feeling of slinky bliss.

Every track is full of sensual melodies and the space required to be truly funky. Press play and invite a bit of California magic in...

Early support by: Laurent Garnier, AME, Marco Bailey, Jennifer Cardini, Terrence Fixmer, Kyle Geiger, Marcel Dettmann, Apparat, Richie Hawtin, Vril, Charlotte De Witte, Sasha, Benjamin Demage any many more..



Fresh off of a remix for Grimes’ “My Name is Dark”, producer Julien Bracht has been powering through CV19 studio seclusion on full-power, with a distinct vision for brighter days ahead. Bracht’s new album, “Now Forever One,” an emblem of dark analog synthwave, is set to drop June 11. Bracht’s first solo album under his own namesake is cut with surgical precision for the shoegazing astral sound travellers who long to break out of their pandemic quarantines, and reconvene for techno-induced ascension. The album’s first single, “Melancholia,” and it’s accompanying video, is already breaking hearts and charts. An exquisite sonic hybrid of communal revelry and profound introspection, “Now Forever One,” focuses Bracht’s multilayered craftsmanship on resolving this era’s angst with sensory exploration and optimism.



As a lifelong drummer, Bracht’s insatiable musical energy lead him to bang out his first 3 EPs within one year of first being signed in 2011-12. In 2015 he founded the band Lea Porcelain with Markus Nikolaus in London. Their hypnotic post-rock debut release in 2017, “Hymns to the Night,” gained instant acclaim from UK tastemakers Lauren Laverne, Steve Lamacq and Zane Lowe, to name a few. The lads broke back onto the international stage with dates on several major festivals around Europe, including the Leeds/Reading Festival, Great Escape Brighton and Latitude. Rich output combined with the inclusion of live drums in his solo live sets quickly gained Bracht recognition and slots on the global tour circuit.

“Now Forever One” forges Julien Bracht’s transition from techno djing, while continuing the explorations of texture and timbre over functional song structures from Lea Porcelain, to a more open-ended search for the aural sublime — the substrate on which music, life and light glide to create momentary nodes of meaning in an increasingly meaningless sociopolitical atmosphere. These are crucial themes to Bracht’s process and approach. “The intention in my music is to strengthen people’s awareness and minds… I want us all to gather in spirit and stick together.”

The album exemplifies Bracht’s hunt for elemental juxtaposition with the warm Prophet 6’s sawtooth howls and bright pads against chillingly indifferent pulsing basslines and percussion. Clocking in at just under 65 minutes, “Now Forever One’s” tracks are sequenced to take the listener through the full emotional arch of a 15-hour rave, with an emphasis on those moments of collective epiphany where heaving techno floors become the perfect microcosm for an idealistic and interconnected future. Interspersed with improvisational one-takes, the album submerges the listener in polyrhythmic meditations, of which “Streets” and “Nocturne” are standout examples, and soars on the vaulted synth melodies of future dance floor favourites “Melancholia” and “Dreams of Euphoria.” Sascha Ring of Apparat & Moderat puts it perfectly: “I played “Melancholia” the night I got it at Mutek Festival in Mexico City, and instantly knew it’ll shine on a big floor at the right time. It’s just the right balance of majestic melodic deepness.” The sounds are both triumphant and exploratory.

Greater than the sum of its parts, Bracht’s latest release hints at the artist’s emerging potential for nailing our moment’s zeitgeist; learning to live smaller while constantly seeking higher heights. Inhabiting the fertile ground between solitary rumination and dance-floor convenance, the launch of “Now Forever One’s” lunar expedition into the techno oblivion of pandemic lockdown is oddly fitting.

Born in Brixton, a child of the Windrush Generation, Letts’ slippery and unorthodox career is somewhat hard to define, without taking a few detours around London, New York and Jamaica. He began his working life managing the dauntingly hip Acme Attractions on Chelsea’s Kings Road, where he made a mark with his attitude, dress and, especially, the pounding dub reggae that vibrated the shop’s walls. His first gig as a DJ at the short-lived Roxy in Neal Street, became mythical for turning a generation of punks on to reggae. They in turn hipped him to their DIY ethos resulting in his reinvention as a filmmaker. This led to a shed-load of music videos (Linton Kwesi Johnson, The Clash, Bob Marley) not

to mention documentaries on the likes of Gil Scott-Heron, George Clinton and Sun Ra.



In the ’80s, he was part of Mick Jones’ new venture, Big Audio Dynamite and his innovative use of samples were a core part of their sound. Listeners of his weekly 6 Music radio show are taken on a musical safari that moves seamlessly between time, space and genre. It’s not called Culture Clash Radio for nothing. So this latest bulletin from Letts HQ is merely one angle of a multifaceted personality, his take on the JA tradition of the cover version.



The history of Caribbean music owes a debt to R&B as many of the early island releases were cover versions of US 45s. Ska’s breakthrough commercially, Millie Small’s ‘My Boy Lollipop’, was originally recorded by Barbie Gaye in ’50s New York. Cover versions became quite a thing in Jamaica and Don, following in that tradition, has dug deep with a selection of interesting dubbed out covers including thirteen exclusives.



“A disciple of sound system, raised on reggae n’ bass culture my go to sound was dub. Besides being spacious and sonically adventurous at the same time, its most appealing aspect was the space it left to put yourself ‘in the mix’ underpinned by Jamaica’s gift to the world - bass. But that’s only half the story as the duality of my existence meant I was also checking what the Caucasian crew were up to not to mention the explosion of black music coming in from the States. That’s why this version excursion crosses time space and genre, from The Beach Boys to The Beatles, Nina Simone to Marvin Gaye, The Bee Gees to Kool & The Gang, The Clash to Joy Division and beyond. You’d think it impossible to draw a line between ‘em but not in my world. Fortunately, the ‘cover version’ has played an integral part in the evolution of Jamaican music and dub covers were just a natural extension.”



There’s a diverse mix of classic and new, with legendary figures like John Holt, The Tamlins and Cornell Campbell, mixed in with British veterans Mad Professor and the irrepressible Dennis Bovell, while (relatively) young striplings Kiko Bun, Emily Capell and Prince Fatty deliver the goods, with laidback Texan groovers Khruangbin also offering an exclusive bass heavy-delight.



The song choices are diverse, from French dubsters’ OBF’s renditions of ‘Sixteen Tons’, the miners’ paean popularised by Tennessee Ernie Ford in the 1950s, to Ash Walker’s refix of Omar’s ‘There’s Nothing Like This’ and ‘All I Do Is Think About You’, immortalised by the ill-fated Tammi Terrell and preserved here by Quantic (the latter two both exclusives). Being a Rebel Dread compilation, there’s a cover (by Wrongtom Meets The Rockers) of The Clash’s ‘Lost In The Supermarket’ while Don’s exclusive, naturally, is a rendition of Big Audio Dynamite’s debut hit, ‘E = MC2’.



“Truth be told I’ve wanted to work with the Late Night Tales crew from the get go. We’re talking nearly two decades such was the allure of their musical aesthetic typified by curators like Nightmares on Wax, The Flaming Lips, MGMT, Trentemoller, Khruangbin and countless others. Now being as old as rock n’ roll (born in ‘56) and having nearly 20 years of Culture Clash Radio under my belt I figured I was tooled up to musically juggle with the best of ‘em. But I wanted to carve out a space that was distinctly my own - something that reflected my musical journey and the culture clash that’s made me the man I am today.”

Could the missing link between Eric Dolphy and Albert Ayler be the Michel Portal of 1970? After having worked alongside François Tusques defending a free jazz “made in France”, we find him here, heading up an international quintet of which each member is on fire: John Surman, Barre Phillips, Stu Martin and Jean-Pierre Drouet. The quintet had full leeway to break out the free-form in long ambient tracks to compose this Alors!!! which leaves listeners with just one word to say: More!

Do we still need to present Michel Portal?... Clarinetist destined for the classical and contemporary world after his passage in the Paris Conservatory, he decided to try his hand at jazz, with an incendiary flamboyance! After his first experience with André Hodeir and Pierre Michelot, he would break all the codes with François Tusques (Free Jazz, in 1965) before starting the emblematic Michel Portal Unit. It is the Portal of those years that Alors!!! offers us the chance to listen to again.

“There are periods of insolence”, the musician declared and the year 1970 was one all on its own. Heading up an impetuous international troupe, a quintet consisting of John Surman (saxophones, bass clarinet), Barre Phillips (double-bass), Stu Martin (drums) and Jean-Pierre Drouet (percussion), Portal moves from alto sax to clarinet in the compositions shared with his partners.

From the off, the group sparks an explosion with the sound of “OO Bam Ba Deep” battered by the horns and percussion. Next up is the fabulous free jazz of “Yes, Oh Yes, You Wonderous Sun Kissed Maiden!” and the fantastic disjointed march of “Ça Boom?” which shakes up the musicians every which way. The quintet imagined that listeners would need to catch their breath, and thoughtfully added: “Billie the Kid” and “Undercurrent”, marvelous moments of ambient mystery.

Audacious from beginning to end, including the sleeve – the bird-man and his quintet brain designed by Avoine, –, the album is a fabulous object, to which the label Futura gave wings at the time. And as it is being reissued today there is just one word to use: the French translation of the title, So!!!

A deep dive into the one of most collectable jazz catalogues in the world, a selection of some of the rarest and most sought-after recordings from the 60s and 70s, a time when British jazz began to find its own identity. Drawn from the iconic labels of Decca, Deram, Argo, EMI Columbia/Lansdowne Series, Fontana, Mercury, & Philips. If one were asked to pick an album that represented the best of British jazz in the 1960s, Le Déjeuner Sur l’Herbe by the New Jazz Orchestra would be a serious contender. Recorded in September 1968, it draws together many of the key streams that had developed in British jazz in the preceding years, and also presages much of what was to come. Notwithstanding the line-up, which includes some of the very best British jazz musicians directed by an inventive and ingenious leader in Neil Ardley, the session features pieces written by the most distinctive jazz composers active in Britain at that time alongside idiosyncratic interpretations of works by John Coltrane and Miles Davis. And it’s all captured beautifully by engineer Howard Barrow and producer Tony Reeves and it features a stella cast of some of the greatest musicians, not just from that era or genre but beyond; Jack Bruce, who would become one of the founding members of Cream, Barbara Thompson, Ian Carr, Michael Gibbs, Dave Gelly, Dick Heckstall-Smith and Jon Hiseman, who went on to form one of the greatest jazz/progressive/rock bands – Colosseum.

The greatest diva of the Netherlands, Fay Claassen, joins forces with gifted
Belgian singer-composer-lyricist and longtime Parisian David Linx on ‘And
Still We Sing’, a magnificent collaboration with the WDR Big Band,
conducted by Magnus Lindgren.
The title of this reunion of Claassen and Linx (they sang together on 2005’s
‘One Heart, Three Voices’) is a paraphrase of one of Maya Angelou’s most famous poems: “...And Still I Rise.” Claassen brings her crystal clear delivery and
adventurous scatting chops to the program, blending beautifully and organically with Linx, a singular talent who has gained notoriety throughout Europe
while still flying under the radar on the United States jazz scene.
Produced by WDR tenor saxophonist (and Claassen’s husband) Paul Heller, ‘And
Still We Sing’ features stellar big band arrangements by Heller, Lindgren, Bob
Mintzer and Michael Abene.

The edition that marks the start of the brand-new Comets Coming could not be more suitable: it is that Rodrigo Brandão, like his grandfather Herman Poole Blount, dust of stars that the world knows as Sun Ra, may have his feet on the Earth, but he has definitely a sidereal head.

Brandão arrived recently to Portugal, but already left a strong mark in the most adventurous Lisbon scene, having performed several concerts in which his language has been wrapped in the exploratory sounds of musicians such as Rodrigo Amado, João Valinho, and Hernâni Faustino. The agitator, poet and spoken word artist, brought a vast experience that over the years saw him collaborate with artists as distinct as the members of Metá Metá or Prince Paul (that one!) on BROOKZILL!.

This work, however, came in his luggage, across the ocean, on the rediscovery trip that brought him from Brazil to Lisbon. OUTROS ESPAÇO was recorded in São Paulo in late 2019 with a luxury crew: Tulipa Ruiz and Juçara Marçal added to the microphone, Thiago França played flute and alto & tenor saxophones, Guilherme Granado dealt with the synthesizers and effects, Marcos Gerez measured the overall pulse with his electric bass, Thomas Rohrer played soprano and 'rabeca' (fiddle), and Paulo Santos dealt with the percussion. In addition to the base band, OUTROS ESPAÇO also features some members of Sun Ra Arkestra's current incarnation. Respectively: Danny Thompson (RIP) on baritone and bongo, Elson Nascimento on 'surdo' (tom drum), Knoel Scott on tenor and soprano, with the giant Marshall Allen in a prominent role leading the collective towards the unknown, while playing the alto sax and synthesizer.

In OUTROS ESPAÇO, Brandão reaches for words from different origins, from contrasting times and cultures, all with magnetic resonance imaging: what is not from his furrow comes to him from Candomblé (“Quando Os Orixás Desfilam Sobre A Cracolândia”), from his readings of Sun Ra (“Eu Sou 1 Instrumento” is an adaptation of the poem I Am An Instrument), or from the school's playgrounds (“Jamais Nos Esqueceremos”). And in these words there are teeth and nails ingrained in injustice (“Quantos Coltrane...?, “Todo o Dia Tem +”) and kaleidoscopic delusions that result from the speed of light (“Sol da Meia Noite”).

The crew that travels through these OUTROS ESPAÇO (PT for "Other Spaces") has freedom as the main fuel, jazz as a measure of their reach, and all swings in the world as maps, so they can lose themselves at the end of the cosmos. There is urgency and reflection, craziness and precision, surprise and well-known ancestral raw material, that makes us vibrate inwardly with the same trembling as the comets that are coming.

The visionary and veteran Scotty Hard was responsible for making everything sound like the music of the spheres, dealing with the mixing from his INGUASONIC SOUND studio in Brooklyn, NY.

And lastly, in January, Rob Mazurek, another frequent ally of Brandão, another notorious space traveler, offered a poem that frames this project. Among other things, he writes:

Make this place sing

Make this place thunder

Make this place shake

It couldn't be in any other way.

Life Model are a 5-piece dream pop band from Glasgow, made up of Sophie Evans (vocals and guitar), Chris Smith (guitar), Helen Farrow-Thoms (keys and backing vocals), Cameron McDougall (bass) and
Michael McDonald (drums).
Named as one of Vic Galloway’s ‘Ones to Watch in 2018’, the band mixes classic indie and pop of the likes of The Sundays and Belle and Sebastian with the noisier leanings of bands like Sonic Youth.
Their sound has been described as pop-drenched melody, supplemented with layers of reverberating noise - “like they’ve taken Harriet Wheeler from The Sundays and asked her to sing on the kind of song Ride used to write.” - For The Rabbits.

In the most literal sense, globally renowned whistler Molly Lewis makes her gorgeous
and curious compositions out of thin air.
New entrees into the Exotica canon; sprawling, would-be Spaghetti Western scores;
and a dash of Old Hollywood glamour - the whistle-led songs on her debut EP ‘The
Forgotten Edge’ are as complex, delicate and indelible as anything performed with
viola or piano.
“Whistling is like a human theremin,” said Lewis, an Australian native who’s spent the
last several years in LA and whose performances there and around the world are
changing any preconceived notions of whistling by the room-full.
That’s not to say Lewis is all serious and snooty about the craft. Quite the contrary.
Her sense of humour is witty, self-deprecating and zany. She’s as likely to reference
the slapstick Leslie Nielsen film series ‘Naked Gun’ for music video concepts as she
is a classic piece of noir cinema.
Look no further than the equatorial and breezy opening cut ‘Oceanic Feeling’, a
lovely walk across the flotsam-sprinkled sands in the rum-pumping vein of Les
Baxter. Meanwhile, the title track - and really, the entire collection here - is a loving,
albeit rather haunting, salute to one of Lewis’s heroes, the Italian composer and
musician Alessandro Alessandroni, whose whistle and guitar you hear on the title
theme of Ennio Morricone’s ‘A Fistful of Dollars’. Lewis and her ensemble create
classic cinema for your mind.
Her own love for the artform began when, around the age of twelve she was given
the CD ‘Steve ‘The Whistler’ Herbst Whistles Broadway’. Something contained in it
clicked. “It wasn’t that I was immediately obsessed, but I knew it was something I
could do well,” Lewis said.
The daughter of a musician mother and a documentary filmmaker father who often
focused his films on niche communities and topics, Lewis recalls watching a
television documentary with her parents about The International Whistlers
Convention in Louisburg, North Carolina. “My dad said, ‘If you ever make it into the
competition, I’ll take you there’,” Lewis said. Turns out, there was no bar to entry, just
a small fee. And so, several years later, she and her father travelled to the
convention. New to the form, Lewis didn’t take home one of the bigger prizes but they
were awarded the prize for Whistler Who Traveled The Greatest Distance. “We really
just used the trip to drive around the United States,” she said.
After studying film in Australia, Lewis moved to Los Angeles to be close to the film
industry. There, her circle of artist friends grew naturally and with providence - her
unique talent drawing more and more recognition. And over the last few years,
Lewis’s Café Molly events at LA spots like Zebulon, Non Plus Ultra and The Natural
History Museum have become fabled, elegant happenings with appearances from
guests like John C. Reilly, Karen O and Mac DeMarco.
Recorded with a crack team of friends and musicians during 2020’s quarantine, ‘The
Forgotten Edge’ is rife with incredible performances from Thomas Brenneck (Sharon
Jones & The Dap-Kings / Budos Band), Joe Harrison (Charles Bradley, Lee Fields),
Eric Hagstrom (Brainstory), Abe Rounds (Meshell Ndegeocello, Andrew Bird, Blake
Mills), Leon Michels (El Michels Affair), Gabriel Rowland and Dave Guy.

Un Singe En Hiver (“A Monkey in Winter”) starred the greatest name of the
time in French Cinema, Jean Gabin and a “rising newcomer”,
Jean-Paul Belmondo.
This is popular early 60s mainstream French cinema, with a certain ‘quality’
that would not be to the taste of the nouvelle vague aficionados. In fact this
film is nothing less than the reflection of a certain Gaullist spirit of rebellion,
fiercely individualistic and disabused of all ideologies.
The music of Michel Magne outlines the nostalgic wanders of Albert Quentin
(Jean Gabin) who after an adventurous youth on the Yang-Tse-Kiang now lives
a quiet life with Suzanne (Suzanne Flon) whom he met at the Bourboule and
manages the Stella hotel at Tigreville (actually Villerville in the Normand Calvados) and takes care of Gabriel Fouquet (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a young adman
whose heart was broken in Madrid.
The genius of Magne is found in his evocations of Spain and China not as they
were at the time but as the two main characters picture them with the help
of not just a few drinks. Here is a jolly good record you will want to go back to
every time the right-minded ones try to mess with your basic rights.

Underground rock festered and splintered as it spread through the U.S. in the mid-’90s, the alternative boom giving rise to microcosmic regional scenes singularly focused on feral powerviolence or screamo songs about breakfast. Boston’s Karate emerged as a force that could grip a national youth movement whose disparate tastes still commingled in the inky pages of fanzines overflowing with florid prose and on concert calendars for volunteer-run DIY spaces, community centers, and bowling alleys. In this world, Karate’s music was an enigma, one equally inviting to sneering punks and highfalutin indie-rock aficionados.Their 1996 self-titled debut, issued on Southern Records, set the standard.

Lasooing together white-knuckle posthardcore tension, sharply focused slowcore serenity, and resplendent jazz complexity, Karate eschewed settling in any one definiable style. But they certainly used the language of punk to get their point across; occasionally, guitarist Geoff Farina abandons his warm, hushed cadences for a hoarse shout that made him sound ragged, intensifying an aggression that burst out with every snaggletoothed guitar riff or drum snap that went off like canonfire.

Few followed their path—but who could keep up? Karate could make pensive moods blossom into feverish rollicking (“What Is Sleep?”), gracefully tip-toe around aggressive punk explosions without getting bent out of shape (“Bodies”), and stretch out

slowcore’s quietest reveries till their reflective notes sound ripped from an improvisational jazz session (“Caffeine or Me?”). Karate formally introduced the trio as a vital part of an independent U.S. punk scene stubbornly flowering in the face of the major labels’ ’90s harvest.

The Frank OST LP made its debut on transparent green vinyl for Record Store Day 2015 and quickly sold out.

The album comprises Stephen Rennicks's song based soundtrack to Leonard Abrahamson's fantastical black comedy featuring Michael Fassbender as the masked leader of doomed avant-rock group, The Soronprfbs.

The music press were quick to laud FRANK as one of their top soundtracks of 2014, with Mojo placing it at No.3 in their

Top Ten for the year and Record Collector giving it 5*, while public fascination with its Beefheart-esque sound has ensured cult status. The songs, sung mainly by Fassbender, veer from manic comedy to heart-breaking pathos and the

vinyl release was specially recompiled to feature all the songs, most of the incidental music

and an exclusive for vinyl version of 'Frank's Most Likeable Song.... Ever'.

Batman Forever: Music from the Motion Picture is the soundtrack to the 1995 Tim Burton produced movie Batman Forever. It was nominated for multiple Academy and Golden Globe awards. The soundtrack contains a number of hit singles including; Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose” which won three Grammy Awards, an MTV Movie Award for “Best Song” and charted at number 1 in the Billboard Top 100. Plus U2’s “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” , and songs from The Flaming Lips, the Offspring, Nick Cave, Michael Hutchence (of INXS), PJ Harvey and Massive Attack. It will be pressed on 2LPs of blue and silver vinyl.

Keplar re-issues the fourth album 'Chessa' by Dan Abrams' project Shuttle358 on vinyl for the first time. The double LP edition includes 3 previously unreleased tracks from the same recording sessions back in 2004, as well as an extended artwork with unseen photographs by Dan Abrams.

While undoubtedly associated with the microsound and 'clicks & cuts' movement around the turn of the millennium, on 'Chessa' Shuttle358 left behind the classical rhythmic patterns of the genre and shifted further towards warmer territories, meandering between modern digital minimalism and the soft tones of ambient music. Counter to his microsound synthesis approach on Frame (2000), Abrams created Chessa by writing software that manipulated samples from his unreleased songs, guitar pieces, and vintage japanese films sampled from video tape. In particular, a special granulating technique was written and performed at intentionally low sample rates that gave the uniquely fragile, yet dense sound to the album. Over fourteen tracks Abrams arranges slowly evolving sonic entities of unfading elegance. Strayed and hazy melodies pulse and cascade, elongated but brittle harmonies shimmer and disappear, echoing far-off in the rounded corners of the mind. The patient and detailed way Abrams combines the broken with the beautiful in creating organic collages of sound that retain the euphonic essence of a song, makes this piece of work so powerful and timeless, sounding just as relevant today, as it did 17 years ago.

Under modern scrutiny in Abrams latest studio, he refocused the original recordings to emphasize the elements most important to the original vision. The final mastering and vinyl preparation was done in collaboration with Stephan Mathieu, vinyl was cut by LUPO.

From the original press release in 2004 by Taylor Deupree:

Without a doubt Shuttle358 has become one of the most admired artists to emerge from modern electronic music’s sea of musicians. From the humble beginnings of a demo CD in 12k’s mailbox to 4 critically acclaimed CDs, Dan Abrams is, to some, the one credited for bringing a warmth and human touch back into what has often been considered a very cold, sterile genre. It began with 1999’s Optimal.lp (12k1005), a groundbreaking debut release that immediately defined the Shuttle358 sound; a hybridization of the then-emerging “microsound” genre with Eno’s true ambient explorations. In 2000 Abrams outdid himself with Frame (12k1011) by honing his sound design and exploring production techniques at rates that made his “now” quite brief and creating what was to become one of the most sought-after CDs in the 12k catalog.

Chessa is the third release from Abrams’ Shuttle358 moniker on 12k and he continues to do what he does best: attempt to move microsound away from the world of theory and towards absolute real life. Like his photographs, Chessa is music about, and to be listened to in, unexpected places. It is a narrative, a simple slice of life that plays out through the incidental photography of the cover artwork. To achieve this Abrams fuses irregular granular sound particles, like the movements of everyday life, with a deliberate melodic base that captures emotion and simplicity.

Dublin rising star Sputnik One lands on Facta and K-LONE’s Wisdom Teeth with his most accomplished record yet: a flawless four-tracker of mutant dancefloor gear that draws on broken UK techno, psychedelic tribal, footwork and ravey post-hardcore. Fans of his standout outing on Well Street Recordsearlier this year will have a good idea of what to expect here: uniquely voiced and refreshingly forward-thinking bass-heavy club tracks at a range of tempos, all unified by a distinct sonic palette that pits glossy digital synths against raw organic samples and found sounds. There are echoes of Shackleton and Olof Dreijer in ‘Love From Above’ and ‘Michael Cera’, whilst ‘Microbead’ and ‘Powder’ offer refreshed and refined takes on modern post-dubstep / post-hardcore club styles. Across the record the tempo creeps from 130 to 150, keeping all bases covered as late summer ravers migrate towards darker autumn dancefloors.

Re-mastering by: Cicely Baston at Alchemy/Air Mastering



A great small club date from Ben Webster – different than some of his European concerts of his final years, in that this one was done at a lounge in Rhode Island, and maybe has a bit more bite and focus overall! The tracks are short, and Webster gets superb rhythm accompaniment from the trio of Junior Mance on piano, Bob Cranshaw on bass, and Mickey Roker on drums – who really come out swinging, and push Ben to take some of his boldest solos of the period – plenty of bite throughout, and a fire that you don't always hear on his other 60s recordings. Titles include "Cookin For T", "Sunday", "Pennies From Heaven", "How Long Has This Been Going On", and "Gone With The Wind".

Re-mastering by: Kevin Gray

This is a reissue of a now out-of-print album from live trio date by the legendary LA-based pianist, composer and multi-bandleader, Horace Tapscott. Pianist Horace Tapscott is always at his best when he is leading a trio. Born in 1934 in Houston, Texas, Horace came from a musical family centered around his mother, Mary Malone Tapscott, who worked professionally as a singer and pianist. When Horace was nine, the family moved to Los Angeles. As a teenager in the late 1940's, Horace was surrounded by the music of Central Avenue: Art Tatum, Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Dexter Gordon, were among the many cats on the set. Around this time, Horace also began to take music lessons from teachers Dr. Samuel R. Browne and Lloyd Reese, whose other students included Eric Dolphy and Frank Morgan. Horace's musical studies included trombone in addition to piano.

In 1952, Horace graduated from Jefferson High, got married to Cecilia Payne and went into the Air Force. Horace played in an Air Force Band while he was stationed in Wyoming for his term of duty. After mustering out, he returned to Los Angeles where he worked around on various gigs until he joined the Lionel Hampton Big Band as a trombonist.

In 1959, Horace finally went with the Hampton Big Band to New York, where his friend Eric Dolphy introduced him to John Coltrane. A tough winter, a lack of gigs, and too many nights on the floor of a friend's art gallery finally sent Horace packing for sunny Southern California, where a life with wife and family awaited his return.

The sixties saw Horace emerge as a die-hard leader of the Avant Garde. Horace began to gain public notice playing with his own group, that included alto saxophonist Arthur Blythe, bassist David Bryant, and drummer Everett Brown II. Horace also appeared on records for the first time.

Horace was always outspoken about racism, politics, stereotypes, and social ethics. His forward-minded vocal presence on and off the microphone is as much a part of his art as his piano playing. As a result, he was labeled a "dissident," categorized as an "employment risk," and black-listed from the music industry establishment in the early 1970's. None of this slowed Horace down. He began gigging sporadically at Parks and Recreation events and for churches around Watts. This "dark period," with his only regular gig at his friend Doug Weston's Troubadour on Los Angeles' "Restaurant Row", was also a time of intense creativity.

Around 1977, Horace reorganized the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra with the help of several old friends and many new faces. The Arkestra performances involve singing, dancing, and poetry in addition to the music. Soon after the new group's debut, Horace came to the attention of producer Tom Albach who contracted Horace to record a number of albums for Nimbus Records. Albach also helped introduce Horace to an international audience by arranging several European tours.

The 80's saw Horace emerge as one of jazz's premiere solo pianists. He recorded several solo piano albums for Nimbus.

Michael Mayer’s latest EP, Brainwave Technology, comes at you purposeful, stealthy and sly. It’s a glorious left turn for the redoubtable producer, one that sees his typically lean and lithe productions buffed to a metallic, futurist sheen. There’s a gleam in the eyes of tracks like “Brainwave Technology” and “Alpha” that speaks of serious fun, of the intersection of the pleasure zone and the frontal lobe.

“Brainwave Technology” itself is informed by Mayer’s deep dive into the thorny terrain of artificial intelligence, transhumanism and posthumanism. Inspired by reading German philosopher Richard David Precht, Mayer found himself heading down the “proverbial rabbit hole,” as he describes it, “watching hours of YouTube material by self-proclaimed prophets of these ‘inevitable’ changes to come.” Never one to be taken in by the egotist’s dance, Mayer’s cynicism about the whole endeavour is tempered, a little, by the deeper questions that these figures gesture towards: “Is it really an evolutionary step that man and machine become one? Or is it rather a marketing plot by Silicon Valley billionaires?”

On “Brainwave Technology”, Mayer plays the charlatans at their own game, turning their logic against them by exposing the fruitiness of their ‘visions’. “I chose irony as my sword with which I chopped off some quotes from some of those batshit crazy prophets and self-promoters,” he explains of the drooling psychobabble he drops in the track’s lacuna. There’s a sense of humour here – how could you not laugh at these hungover egotists? – but there’s levity too, a sense that Mayer’s using sound to expose the contradictions and double-speak at the heart of these half-formed ideas. It’s a Burroughsian tactic, to slice into the heart of the voice to see what hidden truths surface.

It was Burroughs, too, who once said that “when you cut into the past, the future leaks out”; Brainwave Technology cuts into the logic of the futurologist to leak out the messiness of modern reality. On “Alpha” and “Gamma”, Mayer seems to conjure up the stark, ominous music that’d soundtrack a science fiction reinterpretation – or preinterpretation – of our modern malaise, all funereal wreaths of electronic noise and clatterboxing beats. As the EP resolves with “Device For The Young At Heart”, Mayer’s questions are piling up: “Do we want to become immortal and live on as a download? Do we really give up on Earth and put all our effort into colonising Mars?” There are no answers, of course, but plenty of imaginings-to-be. Brainwave Technology soundtracks both dystopian and utopian possibilities of what could come next.

Runnner's Always Repeating yearns for a sense of place. The project of the now LA-based songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Noah Weinman, Runnner's poignant reflections on the isolation and anxiety caused by a sense of rootlessness radiate with wit and charm. Self-produced and recorded wherever he called home at the time, Always Repeating documents this cycle of looking back and moving forward, of alienation changing to reconciliation. For Weinman, Runnner is primarily a solo endeavor with an ever - expanding musical community of musicians collaborating on his albums and shows, which at times have been known to feature up to a 7-piece live band (he also has a burgeoning career as a producer, notably working on Skullcrusher's critically-acclaimed debut EP for Secretly Canadian). Weinman completed Always Repeating last fall in Western Massachusetts and Woodstock using a mobile studio set-up. He played the majority of the instruments himself, including guitar, bass, trumpet, banjo, piano and synth. The goal was to create the perfect balance of intimate and melancholy songwriting through the lens of hi-fi/lo-fi dynamics, inspired by his favorite artists like Bon Iver, the Microphones, and Julien Baker. The 10-track collection is composed of five re-recorded versions of songs that appeared on Runnner's 2017 debut, Awash, and 2020's One of One EP. Although the songs were written over the course of three years, all find Weinman grappling with the same thing: feelings of uncertainty about his life. Always Repeating ultimately tells the start of Weinman's journey as Runnner, and his cyclical feelings of being connected and then disconnected from the world over and over again.

Mondo is proud to continue its on-going celebration of the DC film universe, with an all-new limited edition pressing of one of the most iconic film soundtracks of all time: John Williams' legendary score for SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE.

The marketing for SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE cleverly described itself as a film that would make you "believe a man could fly," but no one involved in the film could be prepared for how that newfound belief would change the world forever. Now, nearly 43 years later, the superhero film industry shows no signs of slowing, but very few have achieved the visual and sonic miracle that the late Richard Donner and the inimitable John Williams were able to do with their epic origin story.

Featuring all new artwork by DKNG, Produced by, and featuring extensive liner notes by Michael Matessino, and pressed on 2x 180 gram black vinyl.

Runnner’s Always Repeating yearns for a sense of place. The project of the now LA-based songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Noah Weinman, Runnner’s poignant reflections on the isolation and anxiety caused by a sense of rootlessness radiate with wit and charm. Self-produced and recorded wherever he called home at the time, Always Repeating documents this cycle of looking back and moving forward, of alienation changing to reconciliation.

For Weinman, Runnner is primarily a solo endeavor with an ever-expanding musical community of musicians collaborating on his albums and shows, which at times have been known to feature up to a 7-piece live band (he also has a burgeoning career as a

producer, notably working on Skullcrusher’s critically-acclaimed debut EP for Secretly Canadian). Weinman completed Always Repeating last fall in Western Massachusetts and Woodstock using a mobile studio set-up. He played the majority of the instruments himself, including guitar, bass, trumpet, banjo, piano and synth. The goal was to create the perfect balance of intimate and melancholy songwriting through the lens of hi-fi/lo-fi dynamics, inspired by his favorite artists like Bon Iver, the Microphones, and Julien Baker.

The 10-track collection is composed of five re-recorded versions of songs that appeared on Runnner’s 2017 debut, Awash, and 2020’s One of One EP. Although the songs were written over the course of three years, all find Weinman grappling with the same thing: feelings of uncertainty about his life. Always Repeating ultimately tells the start of Weinman’s journey as Runnner, and his cyclical feelings of being connected and then disconnected from the world over and over again.

As the grandson of the late trumpeter Doc Cheatham, and former student of legendary jazz trumpeter Donald Byrd, trumpeter Theo Croker is an artist steeped in jazz tradition and he is rapidly becoming one of the hottest jazz artists of this era.

Croker's own music reveals a love of organic funk, soul, and groove-oriented hip-hop. Helping to raise Croker's musical vibrations is his ensemble, featuring saxophonist Anthony Ware, keyboardist Michael King, guitarist Ben Eunson, bassist Eric Wheeler, and drummer Kassa Overall. Also adding color to the proceedings are guitarist Femi Temowo and saxophonist Irwin Hall. Dee Dee Bridgewater appears on the classic tune 'Love From The Sun'. Croker proves he's got deep ideas about life, spirituality, and how music connects us all. It's an ebullient, groove-conscious message perhaps best expressed on the bass-heavy 'It's Gonna Be Alright.' Trading the song's title phrase back and forth like old friends high-fiving on the street, you can hear Croker and his band smiling.

New York City 4-piece deliver a modern blues rock masterclass on their feisty debut album.

“A timeless classic rock sound that revels in lean riffs and raw emotion.” – Afropunk

In an age where artistic merit is awarded to those who shout the loudest, Dakota Jones pride themselves on an unwavering ability to leave a lasting impression. Spearheaded by Tristan Carter-Jones fierce and unashamedly uncensored songwriting, the band’s fast-growing reputation as formidable live act has stamped Dakota Jones with the hell-hath-no-fury power of Chaka Khan, the wild spontaneity of Janis Joplin, and the honey-dripping sensuality of Marvin Gaye. Their debut album’s message of proud black heritage and triumphant queerness manifests itself in Carter-Jones’ ability to challenge norms of adulthood and femininity as she takes a deep dive into some of life’s most visceral emotions.

Tristan Carter-Jones: “I’m a black, queer woman expressing myself through love and music. Some folks still find that to be a transgressive act in and of itself. I work to fight that idea. I write a lot about my
Continued over…
sexuality and the ways in which I express it. Songs about sex and love bounce back and forth between songs about heartache, hangovers and self-medication, and the pleasure and pain of truly finding yourself. I don’t think we get to hear these things from a woman’s mouth as often as we should.”

Serving as an instant tone setter, the album opens with the line "Stretch marks from growing pains" with Carter-Jones lamenting the woes of adjusting to adulthood on lead single ‘Did It To Myself’ - her husky and commanding vocal instantly asserting its place in the spotlight. The atmosphere soon turns steamy on the flirtatious title track ‘Blacklight,’ whilst fantasising over a modern-day Bonnie & Clyde love affair the funk-laden ‘We Playin Bad Games’ packs a punch with its tale of free spirits entwined in a haze of late-night revelry.

Elsewhere, stories of caustic heartache twist the knife into wounded blues guitar riffs on ‘Like That’ and ‘Black Magic (That Power)’, in which Carter-Jones’s stoical voice never once faulters as she mourns the memories of a previous flame. Personal prayer ‘Lord Please’ recites empowered words of reassurance, and solidarity in the face of injustice erupts into a rallying cry for change on the classic sounding ‘Noise’ – written as a reaction to the 2016 US election. “I woke up after the election feeling pure panic and fear in my body,” remembers Tristan. “I wanted people in a place of privilege to stand up for what I was feeling, stand up for injustice, stand up for all of the things we need to change as a country. I wanted their rage, and I wanted their noise.”

Finally, the band’s tender tropes of togetherness eventually boil into gritty, guitar-slung balladry on hidden bonus track, ‘California,’ where, knees buckling under the weight of past trials and tribulations, Carter-Jones sets out on one final journey of self-discovery, hastily pulling out from reality and leaving only a dust cloud in her wake.

Production comes courtesy of the Grammy-winning John Wooler, ex Virgin Records A+R and founder of the Blues label Pointblank who has worked with everyone from John Lee Hooker and John Hammond to Isaac Hayes and Van Morrison. The album also features a wealth of hugely talented and accomplished musicians, including backing vocalist Kudisan Kai, former backing vocalist for the likes of Elton John, Chaka Khan, Anita Baker, Natalie Cole, Beck, Sting, Mary J. Blige and Jill Scott. Also present; Grammy winning keyboardist Jon Gilutin, who has spent years working with some of the industry’s most respected and iconic artists including Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, Lady Gaga, Willie Nelson, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, Jackson Browne, Celine Dion, Bonnie Rait and Carole King. You’ll also hear the talents of acclaimed guitarist Michael Toles. Most well-known for being a part of the Stax Records group The Bar Kays, and for his contributions on famous records by Issac Hayes, Al Green, BB King, Johnny Taylor, Rufus Thomas, Albert King to name just a few.

Dakota Jones are a rising funk, soul and blues rock band from Brooklyn, New York City. Comprising of Tristan Carter-Jones (vocals), Scott Kramp (bass) Steve Ross (drums), and acclaimed musician Randy Jacobs (guitar) - former member of Was(Not Was) who has recorded for Seal, Bonnie Raitt, Tears for Fears, Elton John and many others. Though Carter-Jones and Ross first met in 1999 whilst at primary school, the band formed years later following a series of home jam sessions in 2016. The band’s collective alias originates from Carter-Jones’s middle name, ‘Dakota’. Dakota Jones have since released a string of acclaimed singles and EPs as well as received international attention for their track, ‘Have Mercy’ after it featured on Netflix’s 2019 film, Always Be My Maybe starring Ali Wong and Randall Park – and now after years of hard work and determination, the band are finally set to reveal their long awaited debut album. “We’d been regularly releasing EPs, waiting for our chance to come, and wondering what that would look like,” says Carter-Jones. “We didn’t realise until we started making this record that we needed to stop waiting for some break to come along, and just do it ourselves, independently.”

“Black Light really dives into a place of funk soul and everything that comes with it. There’s joy and dancing, sleek guitar licks and funky bass slaps. There’s pain and longing, and there’s the feeling of relief when you come out of that place and find your joy and purpose again. Black Light is my story.”

Hassle Hindsight if a new sub label of Hassle Records, created to facilitate the occasional one off re-issues of releases and records from the past that the people at the label have loved and still love. Having already reissued Reef's debut 'Replenish', Kerbdog's self titled and the critically acclaimed 'On The Turn', and Skindred's much loved 2007 album 'Roots Rock Riot' - the latest release comes from UK industrial rockers Pitchshifter, with their fan favourite album 'dot, originally released in 1998.

As a prominent R&B/Soul singer, songwriter, and producer In the realms of House Music, Angela has established a well-respected career collaborating and penning songs for some of the most notable DJs and producers in the industry: Roger Sanchez, Reel People, Dave Lee & the Sunburst Band, Josh Milan, DJ Spinna, Micky More & Andy Tee to name a few. In 2020, Johnson placed fourth on Traxsource’s “Top Vocalists of 2020,” an honor that Angela does not take lightly. Her successful collaboration with OPOLOPO on the remake of The Brand New Heavies classic, “Stay This Way” has opened more doors for Ms. Johnson. With this boost, she’s ready to take things to the next level whether it’s another vocal feature or a self-produced release. The title song Inclusion, which was also written, produced, and performed by Angela Johnson; caught the attention of prolific producer, Grammy wining-one and only Brian Bacchus. Brian brought the song to Joaquin Joe Claussell and the rest is history… There are many great things that we would love to share about what became of this the powerful collaboration, but we will let the music speak on it for itself. Music Always! Purpose Music Group Soul feast Productions Sacred Rhythm Music & Cosmic Arts

For RE:WARM 006 we present a collection of music from one of San Francisco’s best kept secrets, Dr Robert Blackman. “The Unimaginable DreamWorks” is a collection of five tracks from three musical masterpieces he put out between 1983-1985 on his own ‘Riverwinds’ imprint. A practising chiropractor by day with his own holistic health centre in San Francisco, these songs became his love, passion and focus. Together with Michael Pluznick, a very accomplished percussionist they painstakingly put together an ensemble of musicians to bring the tracks to life. The melting pot for this body of work was Hyde Street Studios which still today is based in deepest San Francisco and has seen names such as Neil Young, Earth Wind & Fire and John Waters to name a few grace its studio space. Singers and musicians alike came together from all over the world to bring Robert’s vision to reality. This included an Australian didgeridoo player, an electric violin and piano player from Paraguay as well as singers and a choir from the surrounding local churches. Together through Dr Robert Blackman’s eyes they created a fabulous sound of twisted disco punk funk like no other that still sounds relevant today as it did back in the eighties. The energy and the stories are clear to hear throughout the five tracks which make up “The Unimaginable DreamWorks” of Dr. Robert Blackman 1983-1985. Artwork was key to the releases and the “Peace Is Alive” painting incorporated on the label of the release appeared in TIME magazine in 1984 when Dr Robert Blackman was treating combat vets, suffering from PTSD and this was the name of the job fair for veterans he set up. To promote the album at the time Dr Robert Blackman flew up over San Francisco in a single engine prop airplane loaded with 50,000 leaflets

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

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






RELEASE: 23-7-2021

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

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

There has always been a Reggae inuence in the music of El Michels Affair. From their cover of "Hung Up On My Baby" done in a Reggae style, to the general sound and approach that permeates Leon's production style. While recording Bailey's 2020 Ekundayo album, they did some straight forward reggae tunes inspired by different eras alongside some modern R&B tracks that would t more comfortably next to Frank Ocean than Jacob Miller. It is this same notion that old and new can live so comfortably together that birthed the idea of Ekundayo Inversions. Traditional dub came out of reggae in the late 60s and early 70s when pioneers like King Tubby and Lee Perry started taking the multi track recordings of songs and running them back through the board adding effects and additional instrumentation. These recordings are called "dubs" or "versions" and are typically instrumentals with ourishes of vocals from the original tracks. El Michels decided to use the blueprints left behind and make something using the inuences of today. He wound up straying so far from the traditional format that it didn't seem right to use the word `Dub', hence Ekundayo Inversions. All the songs are tied together by WhatsApp messages between Leon and Liam that perfectly narrate the story of this record and their working relationship. One of the highlights on Ekundayo Inversions is a guest appearance from the legendary Lee "Scratch" Perry on the "Ugly Truth" version. L$P switches between singing and talking, proclaiming his powers one minute and playing with the track's title the next. On "Awkward take. 2" Leon takes one of the most experimental songs from Ekundayo and actually straightens it out. A track that once seemed to be oating in space has now been anchored by the addition of drums and bass. "Faded", a version of "Paper Tiger", is given the full EMA treatment with the addition of emotive horns over an uncomfortably sparse rhythm track peppered with Liam's voice drenched in delay and echo. "Champions" features a verse from Black Thought of The Roots and halfway through, El Michels sends the rhythm section 50 years back. At the end of the day, Ekundayo Inversions is a testament to how strong the original songs are. Whether they're in a R&B style, reggae style, stripped down to their bare bones, or loaded with production, the songs will move you.

Hospital Records are extremely proud to present ‘Smile & Wave’, the
second studio album from drum & bass’ friendliest MC, Inja.
With the biggest smile on his face, the lyricist, vocalist, poet, artist and storyteller delivers
16 tracks, seamlessly weaved together through Inja’s infectiously feel-good flow and sincere
wordsmithery. The entire album was produced by Whiney, further cementing their relationship as one of the most untestable dance music pairings. Also featuring Charlotte Haining,
Eva Lazarus, DRS, Fox, Cleveland Watkiss, Singing Fats, and DJ Marky.
Album title track ‘Smile & Wave’ is the musical embodiment of Inja’s playful demeanour.
Known for being the world’s smiliest artist, Inja wrote and recorded this feel-good bouncer
alongside his daughter who is “pretty much the first person to hear anything” he’s up to
musically. Expect a rude bassline and infectious wordplay.
Teaming up with superstar singer-songwriter Charlotte Haining, ‘Reach Out’ sees two of the
most distinct voices in dance music come together over a bittersweet wobbler written about
times when you feel “so out of place, out of reach” in the words of Inja. Having worked
alongside an impressive array of electronic artists including Hybrid Minds, Sub Focus, My Nu
Leng and Friction, Charlotte’s delicately powerful hooks are the perfect counterpart to Inja’s
heartfelt flows.
Luscious pads and dubbed out pianos and guitars set the scene on ‘Baby Angel’ featuring the
worldwide wave-maker Eva Lazarus who returns to Hospital Records for the first time since
featuring on Etherwood’s ‘Light My Way Home’ back in 2015. Having worked alongside staple
figures including Mungo’s Hi-Fi, Zed Bias and Gentlemen’s Dub Club, Eva infuses her reggae,
hip-hop and jungle flavours alongside Inja’s humbling storytellings.
Inja’s “personal favourite to perform live as it smashes every and any system”, ‘Explode’, is a
140BPM anthem featuring flows that will ignite any room and a killer instrumental that will
have you bobbing no questions asked. Proving himself to be a versatile and skillful microphone controller, Inja’s ability to shell down any tempo is ever more apparent on this upfront
banger.
Three legendary MCs unite on ‘Hands, Lights, Flames, Phones’ where Inja joins forces with
two of Manchester’s very finest - DRS and Fox. Sharp lyricism is rife as the triple threat of
three titan wordsmiths link up, seeing energetic bars bouncing off each other over a cold-cut
drum & bass roller. This is a combination not to be tested.
Inja has established himself as a pinnacle figure within the realms of drum & bass. Loved for
his ability to express his thoughts into honest, relatable lyrics in ‘She Just Wanna Dance’, a
spoken word piece for Amnesty International that was a viral online hit in 2017, and more
recently switching it up to ‘We Just Wanna Dance’ during the UK lockdown, expressing his
desire to be reconnected with ravers again. Then picked up by BBC News and Sky News.
On top of being the MC of choice for drum & bass powerhouse group Kings Of The Rollers,
Inja is no stranger to tearing things up on the airwaves with support from the likes of DJ
Target, Rene LaVice and Danny Byrd on BBC Radio 1 over the years. Since his debut ‘Blank
Pages’ album on Hospital Records in 2018, Inja has flourished as a multi-talented MC, vocalist, singer and songwriter with a series of singles including the Beatport Drum & Bass charttopper ‘Game Face (Stay Alert)’ alongside Whiney, as well as the infamous ‘Lumberjackin’’ on
Serum’s Souped Up.
"To all the supporters that enjoy anything I’m a part of, I would never have had the opportunities to see as much of the world as I have without you. My gratitude has no bounds and I’d
love to share a smile with you all one day.” - Inja

Oneknowing is the debut artist album by acclaimed composer and producer Lena Raine, most recently known for her multiple award-winning soundtrack for the video game Celeste. Based in Seattle, Raine has been composing soundtracks for games and media for 12 years, her breakout momentcoming with her work on the classic PC game Guild Wars 2. Her most celebrated work, however, has come in the form of 2018’s Celeste soundtrack. A game based around themes of anxiety, self-examination and more, Celeste is considered by many to be the key indie game of 2018, and has won multiple awards for both game and soundtrack – something which Raine painstakingly developed in tandem with the game’s design since its first steps. A flagship year for Raine was capped off in December, where she performed live with soundtrack legend Hans Zimmer at The Game Awards, the video game industry’s flagship annual award show (Celeste was nominated for fourawards, and won two). Although she’s released several nonsoundtrack releases, both under her real name and her Kuraine alias, Raine considers Oneknowing her debut artist album - a 10 track set that ranges from distorted paranoia to ambient pop, brought together by the shimmering melodies that make her soundtracks so memorable. An album that draws from “personal experiences, important places, dreams and the lack of dreams”, Oneknowing’s tracks are also threaded together by Raine’s own vocals, sung in a language unique to the album and manipulated by the software Vocaloid. In Raine’s words, “I have nostalgia for my voice as it sounded when I was younger. I can't de-age my voice, but I was able to use software and tweak its settings to a point that it has a similar quality to my voice from backthen”. At times (‘Tsukuyomi’, ‘Light Rail’) her vocals lean towards traditional pop structures, while on tracks such as ‘Wake Up’, they’re repeated, chant-like, to create a hypnotic effect. As well as vocals and software, Raine plays rhodes piano, zither and various hardware synthesizers on Oneknowing, while Michaela Nachtigall contributes violin and viola to various tracks. A succinct but expansive record full of detail, Oneknowing represents Raine’s most personal and realised original material yet, while showing a different side to one of the most unique and accomplished composers of the modern era.

What a relief to escape the humdrum, to conquer one’s ennui, to spice up the too-long evenings stuck at home... Here’s a proposition: SEX-O-RAMA!!! Oh la la, such an aptly named compilation! Rascally El Vidocq this time dares to sway outside his comfort zone. Here humanity’s oldest obsession is tackled tastefully, with class. The selection is amusing, but ever well-meaning, for these songs are as stimulating to listen to as they are to dance to! Naturally, our intrepid collector had to roam beyond his habitual ‘50s and ‘60s, for the real sexual revolution did occur a tad later... A few seductive caresses of varying insistence (Michele Mercier, Geraldine), a few advances “in due and proper form” (naughty Prince Buster!), an eloquent series of moans and groans (Rita, Armando Travaioli, Noelia Noel), chance encounters (intransigent Jean Yanne)... not to mention a few exquisite parodies (Jacqueline Mayand and Bourvil, as drole as they are tender)... So hesitate no longer! Stop biting your lip! The sap is rising, as they say, so time for a change of ambiance... Time to slip on some SEX-O-RAMA!

Che Noir has been gaining momentum with each new release. Critics have hailed her as one of the best emcees of the new generation. However, her latest drop "After 12" announces her arrival as a producer. She provides the beats for all seven tracks, proving she's just as nice on the boards as she is on the mic. With the help of 38 Spesh, Ransom, RJ Payne, Sa-Roc, The Musalini, Jynx716, and Amber Simone, Che delivers a project that conveys what life is like after midnight on the block.

Release Me 2 is a new collection of ten previously unreleased studio performances from the legendary Barbra Streisand, spanning 1962 to 2014. The album showcases exquisite songs and sublime studio performances recorded over the course of Barbra's astounding career, but shelved for various reasons. In her notes for the album, Barbra says, "For me, the studio is a combination musical playground and laboratory…a private sanctuary, where the possibility of catching lightning in a bottle always exists. Whenever that kind of magic happens, it's extremely satisfying. Sometimes though, when the arrangement doesn't quite gel or the song no longer fits the tone of the album it was meant for, the tapes go into the vault for safekeeping. Working on this 2nd volume of Release Me has been a lovely walk down memory lane…a chance to revisit, and in some cases, add a finishing instrumental touch to songs that still resonate for me in meaningful ways.

Release Me 2 features songs penned by celebrated writers and tunesmiths including Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Barry Gibb, Randy Newman, Michel Legrand/Alan Bergman/Marilyn Bergman, Harold Arlen and "Yip" Harburg, Carole King, Steve Dorff, Paul Williams/Kenny Ascher, and Walter Afanasieff/John Bettis.

Widely recognized as an icon in multiple entertainment fields, Barbra Streisand has attained unprecedented achievements as a recording artist, actor, director, producer, screenwriter, author, songwriter and concert performer. Streisand has been awarded two Oscars, five Emmys, ten Grammys including the Legend Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award, a Tony Award, eleven Golden Globes including the Cecil B. DeMille Award, three Peabodys, and the Director's Guild Award for her concert special -- the only artist to receive honours in all of those areas.

Erased Tapes debut. Wait, what? How? Anyone who has seen
the trail blazing sonic pioneer live will know Nils likes to
deadpan a joke. Graz is in fact the first studio album he
recorded for the label back in 2009, that somehow remained a
secret… until now.

Nils Frahm has quietly changed the musical landscape,
reincarnating the centuries old figure of a pianist-composer for a
new generation of music fans. As Nils’ word-of-mouth popularity
grew and grew, so did the pop-culture profile of his instrument. He
founded Piano Day with a team of like-minded friends in 2015 to
help that process, some years releasing an album of piano
recordings to celebrate one of humankind’s greatest inventions.
Graz is one such record; an unheard snapshot of a young Nils
recorded at Mumuth, the University of Music and Performing Arts
Graz, in 2009 as part of the thesis Conversations for Piano and
Room produced by Thomas Geiger, which received an award in
the Classical Surround Recording category at the 127th AES
Convention in New York.
Whilst at the time it was decided to keep the grand piano
recordings from the Graz sessions locked away and instead focus
on his close mic’ed, dampened piano explorations which would
become his acclaimed studio album Felt in 2011, two of the pieces
— most notably Hammers — lived on as part of his live set, and
were expanded on and re-recorded as part of his breakthrough
2013 record Spaces (a collage of field recordings from concerts
which broke the Fourth Wall and included audience coughs). Over
his mercurial career, Nils has pushed and pulled at the boundaries
and parameters of his prolific work like that. He’s physically
changed his piano (the softened prepared strings of Felt) played
with a modified body (Screws recorded with 9 fingers and a broken
thumb) played with scale (Solo recorded on the 3.7 metre high
Klavins M370) and with the different layers of formats (last year’s
Tripping with Nils Frahm nested his studio setup inside a live
performance, concert film and live album). Now with Graz he has
found the final frontier for play: time itself and his own discography.
Graz is a moment of time at the very beginning of Nils’ quiet
revolution. The essential genius is already evident; the harmonic
language of classical, and the immediacy of jazz. Nils seems to
pull down each idea moment by moment, gently, to not scare away
the muse. He describes: “sometimes when you hear a piano, you
might think it’s a conversation between a woman and a man. At
the same time, it can hint at shapes of the universe and describe
how a black hole looks. You can make sounds that have no relation
to anything we can measure.”

After enduring a year like 2020, no one could have possibly expected Al Jourgensen to stay silent on the maelstrom of the past 12 months. As the mastermind behind pioneering industrial outfit Ministry, Jourgensen has spent the last four decades using music as a megaphone to rally listeners to the fight for equal rights, restoring American liberties, exposing exploitation and putting crooked politicians in their rightful place—set to a background of aggressive riffs, searing vocals and manipulated sounds to drive it home.
As Jourgensen watched the chaos that befell the world during the height of a global pandemic and the tensions rising from one of the most important elections in American history, he seized on the opportunity to write, spending quarantine holed up in his self-built home studio—Scheisse Dog Studio— along with engineer Michael Rozon and girlfriend Liz Walton to create Ministry’s latest masterpiece, Moral Hygiene (out October 1 on Nuclear Blast Records). Anchored by last year’s leadoff track “Alert Level”—which asks listeners to internalize the question “How concerned are you?”—the 10 songs on this upcoming 15th studio album cover the breadth of the current dilemmas facing humanity, while ruminating on the sizable impact of COVID-19, the inevitable effects of climate change, consequences of misinformed conspiracies and the stakes in the fight for racial equality. And most importantly doing so with the lens of what we as a society are going to do about it all.
Moral Hygiene comes on the heels of Ministry’s acclaimed 2018 album AmeriKKKant (hailed by Loudwire as Jourgensen’s own “state of the union” address) that was written as a reaction to Donald J. Trump being elected president—though Jourgensen says this new album is more informational and reflective in tone. “With AmeriKKKant I was in shock that Trump won. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I had to do something. Because I believe if you are a musician or an artist you should be expressing what’s going on around you through your art. It’s going to happen whether you do it consciously or unconsciously. Moral Hygiene however has progressed even further into a cautionary tale of what will happen if we don’t act. There’s less rage, but there’s more reflection and I bring in some guests to help cement that narrative.”
In addition to recruiting long-time cohort Jello Biafra (Jourgensen’s partner in the side project Lard) for the quirky earworm “Sabotage Is Sex,” other guest appearances include guitarist Billy Morrison (Billy Idol/Royal Machines) on a rendition of The Stooges hit “Search & Destroy.”
Another standout track is “Believe Me,” featuring a throwback vocal style from Jourgensen that harkens back to his singing on Twitch and cult classic “(Every Day Is) Halloween.” The song came out of a jam session with Morrison, Cesar Soto and sampling from Liz Walton, and reminded Jourgensen of his formative days at Chicago Trax Studios where communal ideas were constantly informing early Ministry records. “’Believe Me’ had such an old school vibe I wanted to bring back old school vocals. …It’s funny how things come back to you,” says Jourgensen, also reflecting on Ministry turning 40 in 2021.

With the release of Moral Hygiene, Jourgensen is more positive than before. “This may sound crazy but I’m more hopeful about 2021 than I have been in two decades at least,” he says. “Because I do see things changing; people are starting to see through all the bullshit and want to get back to actual decorum in society. We could just treat each other nicely and be treated nicely in return. I never thought Ministry would be in the position of preaching traditional values, but this is the rebellion now.”