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From Berlin to Lagos: Jembaa Groove expand their sound on "Be A Lover"

Berlin-based outfit Jembaa Groove return with "Be A Lover", a four-track EP set for full release on 18 September via global soul imprint Agogo Records. Following two critically acclaimed albums and an intensive period of touring across Europe and the US — including a SXSW showcase and a widely acclaimed KEXP session — this latest release marks a new chapter in the band’s trajectory. Built around highlife rhythms and shaped by Afro-jazz and the more organic edges of Afrobeats, "Be A Lover" unfolds with a warm, languid and deeply soulful feel, capturing different strands of today’s multifaceted Afrofusion scene.

Here, the band strips back from a seven-piece ensemble to its two founding members, while at the same time opening outward into a deeply collaborative space. At its centre is a close creative partnership with celebrated Nigerian highlife revivalists The Cavemen., alongside contributions from London-based, Nigerian born soul artist Azekel, Lagos vocalist Tim Lyre, and Malian icon Fatoumata Diawara.

“This record has a different flavour,” says Owusu. “It’s really about collaboration — different feelings, different thoughts, different energies coming together.” While centred around the Lagos contemporary scene, the record is shaped by a wider diasporic network stretching across London, Lagos, Berlin and Amsterdam, cities producer and bass player Yannick Nolting describes as “the pillars where everything that is happening in today’s highlife and Afro-fusion scene.”

Formed in Berlin in 2020, Jembaa Groove began after a chance meeting between bassist, producer and composer Yannick Nolting and percussionist, vocalist and songwriter Eric Owusu. Drawing on their respective musical journeys — Nolting’s years working with Lusophone artists in Lisbon and Owusu’s deep roots in Ghana’s highlife tradition, including work with Pat Thomas and late highlife legend Ebo Taylor — the project quickly took shape: their debut album Susuma established a powerful, poly-rhythmic sound grounded in highlife, jazz and soul, while 2024’s "Ye Ankasa | We Ourselves" expanded that vision through collaborations with artists across Ghana and its diaspora, including UK based Ghanaian singer, rapper, percussionist, and arranger K.O.G and legendary Ghanaian highlife musician Gyedu-Blay Ambolley.

The collaborative spirit continues on "Be A Lover", most of which grew out of a meeting with sibling duo The Cavemen. at Supersonic Jazz Festival in Amsterdam in 2023, leading to a sustained exchange of ideas between Berlin and Lagos. With two acclaimed albums behind them, The Cavemen. have emerged as central figures in both Lagos’ alternative music scene and the wider contemporary highlife revival, bringing the genre to a new generation through a stripped-back, melody-driven sound. “There was some kind of magnetism towards Lagos,” says Nolting; for Owusu, who is Ghanaian but spent much of his life in Nigeria, the connection runs even deeper. “I feel lucky to be able to bring different cultures together and make something really beautiful,” he says. A key part of that process was a close working exchange between Nolting and The Cavemen.’s Kingsley Okorie, who effectively stepped into a co-producing role on three out of four of the tracks.

The one exception is opener No Pain No Gain, which features Nigerian-born, East London-based Azekel, whose smooth, R&B-leaning vocal moves through a slow-burning arrangement of bright keys, gently rising horns and atmospheric synths, anchored by Owusu’s organic percussion.

The title track Be A Lover, featuring Afro-fusion Lagos artist Tim Lyre, distills the EP’s central message into its most immediate form. Backed by syncopated percussion and a gently smouldering arrangement, Lyre’s voice moves with a laid-back, melodic ease, delivering a simple refrain: “be a lover, not a fighter.” “It’s a very simple message,” says Nolting, “It’s about showing more love, on a personal level but also more broadly… just show love.” That same sense of warmth runs throughout the record, reflecting its core idea.

On Obi, The Cavemen. take centre stage, with Kingsley Okorie leading through melancholic, plaintive vocals rooted in classic highlife. In contrast, his brother Benjamin James punctuates the track with high-pitched vocal interjections, heightening the emotional tension against a backdrop of slow, restrained instrumentation.

Waka follows with a more melodic, hook-led refrain from Eric Owusu, whose loose, almost conversational delivery creates a striking contrast with Fatoumata Diawara’s unmistakably powerful, raspy vocal. The collaboration grew out of a chance meeting while Owusu was on tour, with ideas exchanged quickly and Diawara returning a finished vocal within days. “We are so proud to have her. It’s a privilege” says Owusu. "Be A Lover" is a record shaped by connections like these — between people, scenes, and cities. “It was partly intention, partly destiny,” says Nolting. “We met these people along the way, and somehow Lagos was meant to come into our path.”

Moving between lo-fi experimental songwriting, sparse post-punk textures and intimate recordings; Ukrainian artist Regina Collage’s new album ‘Horizont’ is a personal and honest document of rebuilding a life and creative voice in Bristol. The record holds space for themes of burnout, quiet shame, tenderness and the courage of staying emotionally open when the world feels unstable. Sung entirely in Ukrainian, ‘Horizont’ does not ask the listener to understand every word. Feeling carries the songs forward. Across bedroom recordings and borrowed studios, Regina moves between cloudy dissonance and stark minimal arrangements built around bass, fragments of guitar, and an exposed voice. The recordings hold onto their rough edges. Mistakes remain and imperfection becomes part of the story. “Music for me is about not being scared to be vulnerable,” Regina says. “Almost every song I have is about what it means to be open and emotional. I really do not think it is a weakness. I hope people can listen and feel welcome to take a break and just let their emotions exist.” The album takes its name from the Ukrainian word for “horizon,” that unreachable line where sky meets earth. For Regina, the horizon became a quiet metaphor for living with distance and uncertainty. Inspired by one of her collage artworks showing a figure lying in grass and staring toward that far line, the title track reflects a feeling of moving toward something that never quite comes closer. Even without understanding the lyrics, the song carries a slow sense of longing and suspended arrival. m‘Vpiznavaty’, by contrast, initially feels almost light. Beneath that surface is a candid portrait of burnout and depressive exhaustion. The song looks at those moments when even greeting friends feels overwhelming. It captures the quiet embarrassment of withdrawing from people you care about, and the slow recognition that sometimes stepping away is simply how you survive. Other songs reveal different sides of the same emotional landscape. ‘Weak’ strips everything back to bass, a hint of guitar, and a bare vocal. Written and recorded in a single instinctive session, the track circles around the idea that softness might be its own kind of strength. Repetitive and intentionally unpolished, it quietly sets the tone for the whole record. Running through ‘Horizont’ is the reality of Regina’s life between Ukraine and the UK. Her hometown Kharkiv continues to face attacks, and many of her friends remain on the front line.

"Psicofásicos" by The Silver Pumpkins is a unique document: an EP that is virtually impossible to find in its original edition, offering an essential glimpse into Bolivia's thrilling 1960s rock scene-raw, wild, and unlike almost anything else. Beyond the ubiquitous covers of Cream and Jimi Hendrix recorded by countless South American bands, this EP features the far less common 'Pushing Too Hard' by The Seeds and, most notably, the dark, powerful 'You're Gonna Miss Me' by the 13th Floor Elevators. Bolivia boasts an extraordinary musical legacy of raw, garage-driven '60s sounds. Alongside Peru, it was one of the South American countries where the greatest number of recordings in this style were released-captured with limited resources but overflowing with spontaneity, energy, and attitude. The difficulty of obtaining the records that were shaping the latest Anglo-American rock trends of the 1960s in many Spanish-speaking Latin American countries led to a proliferation of local bands covering their musical heroes. Well-known artists such as Cream, Jimi Hendrix, and Iron Butterfly were reinterpreted by countless groups, making these songs available to local audiences without having to rely on imported records reaching their countries. By doing so, these bands helped spread the cutting-edge rock music already making waves elsewhere in the world. What makes this release particularly unusual is that the band chose to cover second-tier cult acts rather than the obvious classics-groups that only briefly cracked the U.S. Top 50 in the late '60s, such as The Seeds and 13th Floor Elevators. Originally released on the Bolivian Psicofásico label, this exceptionally rare EP pairs The Seeds' garage anthem 'Pushing Too Hard' with the ferocious, immortal 'You're Gonna Miss Me' by Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators. The raw power of the original songs is pushed even further here by the rudimentary recording techniques and the limited instrumental skills of the very young members of The Silver Pumpkins. The result is a one-of-a-kind document-virtually impossible to find in its original pressing-that helps complete the picture of Bolivia's fascinating '60s rock scene. First-ever reissue.

There is a pivotal scene in “August in the Water” (dir. Sōgo Ishii, 1995) where the surface of a pool turns into a stone wall. The water that gave the protagonist's life its meaning becomes a threat. As you fall through this stone wall, you appear in a set of underwater coral-reef corridors, and one of the most beautiful musical themes begins to play: Aquatic Ambience, composed by David Wise for Donkey Kong Country (1994). It's a theme that represents the weightless vibe of your new deep-sea life, where you go about your mundane errands, collecting bananas while driving on a swordfish, or, as HerzMayhem put it: "Poor monkey... always swimming, never going anywhere..."

Synthetic Water Music is the second of three compilations, following Synthetic Bird Music and timed to mappa's 10th anniversary. As with the birds, it gathers friends of the label, artists who have released with mappa or played our shows. Most of the music is new, made to measure for this compilation, much of it from Central and Eastern European hands. Birds and water mix well, so please feel invited to play them together, creating your own environments.

Where the birds were in one flock, water is dispersed across four chapters. You live your life as a droppity drop: vapour in the heavens, condensing in clouds, falling into a swamp, trickling into the deepest sea.

Tlālōcān (Cassette 1, Side A)
A place of eternal spring, of aquatic energy that nourishes everything and allows all things to bloom. Bubbly and splishy-sploshy, it is full of dripping sounds and moist caverns (“Emerald Pool” by Pauline Anna Strom), a landscape filled with living fountains (“Oh, to be a Fountain” by Eva Sajanová) and winding streams that flow through the area, forming part of its organic architecture. It is also a paradise reserved for those whose deaths were water-related, where the aquatic and terrestrial beings live in symbiosis and perspectives shift rapidly, from observing a single droplet (Shakali, Lau Nau) to dew (Feronia Wennborg & Lucy Duncombe) and on to flowing currents (Visible Cloaks) that gradually transform into river music (Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton).

Nephelora (Cassette 1, Side B)
A celestial anti-gravity sound world made of evaporation, steam and the formation of clouds, as if looking at “The Sky At The Bottom of the Well” (by Natalia Beylis) or at “The Cloud That Never Rains” (by Henrique Vaz).

If a cloud never rains,
it is not a cloud at all, but a veil that parches the earth with its gaze.
It generates only its own shadow —
a looming mass of suspended longing,
a sky that hoards but never yields,
a reservoir that swallows every river and returns nothing but echoes.

The water in this world is often invisible but sometimes all the more present, as Bint Mbareh describes it: “Recently been obsessed with invisible waters because I come from a place where you have to imagine the water is there even though you cannot see a river, a sea, usually no rain, so water is in the air, the voice and the imaginal realm, drought is imagined to be negotiable.”

Žaboglach Zha-bo-glahch (Cassette 2, Side A)
A fusion of Scottish lochs and Slovak ponds: a misty, foul-smelling, swampy realm, the kind of place that swallowed Artax from The NeverEnding Story. Stagnant waters full of decay become a blooming habitat for sirens (“thereby losing the weightless delight of being swept along with it” by Adam Badí Donoval) and beings straddling the line between fauna and flora, inventing their own communication systems (“Water-lily phase” by Action Pyramid).

R'lyeh (Cassette 2, Side B)
A brooding sunken city at the bottom of the ocean. It’s a journey to get there. Let this chapter guide you, from the shore down to the depths, to the gates of an unexplored world that is inherently dark, unfathomable, and beyond the limits of human perception: starting with seasickness ("Seasick" by Nikolaienko), passing through a classic Poe-esque maelstrom ("Flurry at the Whirl-pull" by Atte Elias Kantonen), a gateway into the darkness and emptiness of the ocean floor, and finally traversing the city itself (“last waves of 2025” by Jules Reidy).
But what is pulling you to a place like this that only a few explore and even fewer leave? Maybe “the darkness that water can contain, the expanse of things we don't know and that can trigger fear instincts even as we try to rationalise them and think we are in control of the rest of nature” (“supercritical fluids” by Diane Barbé).

Dive in and surface wherever you like. Always swimming, never going anywhere. Just don’t forget to take water breaks.

P.S. Birds, then water, can you guess what comes next? Synthetic Soil Music, an elegy for insects and worms? Synthetic Glaciers, or maybe Pollinators? Which sounds would you miss the most if they disappeared? Or what if the third one never comes at all, and somebody, or something, makes Synthetic mappa Music instead. Don't you worry, with the right training data, it can all be replicated, better than the real thing.

WRWTFWW Records is very excited to announce the first ever release for the Cyberpunk 2077: Future Sound of Night City soundtrack - atmospheric music from one of the most celebrated video games of the decade! The compilation, showcasing a who's who of Polish electronic underground, is available as a limited edition 45rpm-cut yellow vinyl 3LP in heavyweight 3-panel gatefold with a sticker sheet. The album is also available on CD with super jewel case, and in digital formats.

Dive deep into the pulsating world of Cyberpunk 2077 with an immersive soundscape perfectly capturing the gritty and neon-soaked streets of Night City. Curated by Rafa? Grobel and Wojtek Sokó? of Most Records, the epic 15-track compilation features a diverse offering of electrifying Polish beats, cohesively flowing between techno, ambient, synthwave, bass music, industrial, and IDM. Ominous, powerful, evocative, and filled with futuristic nostalgia, the music of Night City is a thrill ride in a dystopian urban landscape, heavy hearts riding through the night, menacing streets surrounded by infinite skyscrapers. The music transports you, soul-stirring, cinematic, and timeless, the most beautiful kind of escapism.

The award-winning Cyberpunk 2077 action role-playing game was developed by CD Projekt Red and published in 2020 and has since become one of the most recognized and best selling video games of all time. With a cast including Keanu Reeves and Idris Elba, unmistakable visuals, music, and atmosphere, CP77 has earned a spot in the pantheon of 2020s pop culture.


Points of interests

- For fans of video game soundtracks, ambient, techno, synthwave, vaporwave, industrial, dark electronic music, retro-futuristic moods, neon lights, Tech Noir, Keanu Reeves, bass music, All Foods, cities by night, skycrapers, urban adventures, dystopian universes.

- The soundtrack for Cyberpunk 2077: Future Sound of Night City available for the first time everrrr !

Jess By The Lake’s fully analog sophomore album out in September Jess By The Lake’s highly anticipated second full-length album, HUMAN, will be released on September 11th via Svart Records. Jasmin Lempinen, the former vocalist of Jess And The Ancient Ones, is now focusing on her solo career and has this to say about the upcoming album. “This album is an analog counterattack and a celebration of live band music. It’s a statement against everything that modern society seems to be churning out from every nook and cranny: disposable, soulless, plastic, mindless output meant to be swallowed without question. The album is a carefully crafted work of art from start to finish and a tribute to both its creators and its listeners. In making it, we’ve strived for the best possible performance and sound quality that we were capable of at the moment of recording. And in that moment, we truly lived and channelled all our energy into it, which we hope will also reach the listeners. It unashamedly pays homage to the past, to the traditions of rock music.” The band began working on the album in 2019, when the first songs were written, and it was recorded live on magnetic tape in the summer of 2023 at the legendary Höyrybaari in Lapinlahti, Finland. The recording was handled by Tommi Saikkonen and the band’s guitarist Sampo Leksis, who also mixed the album. The old railway company’s log warehouse resonated beautifully, and at times the tape also picked up the rumbling of a train on the tracks right behind where the band was playing. However, making the album took time due to changing life circumstances and new additions to the family. Keeping the album entirely analog has also delayed the process

Jess By The Lake’s fully analog sophomore album out in September Jess By The Lake’s highly anticipated second full-length album, HUMAN, will be released on September 11th via Svart Records. Jasmin Lempinen, the former vocalist of Jess And The Ancient Ones, is now focusing on her solo career and has this to say about the upcoming album. “This album is an analog counterattack and a celebration of live band music. It’s a statement against everything that modern society seems to be churning out from every nook and cranny: disposable, soulless, plastic, mindless output meant to be swallowed without question. The album is a carefully crafted work of art from start to finish and a tribute to both its creators and its listeners. In making it, we’ve strived for the best possible performance and sound quality that we were capable of at the moment of recording. And in that moment, we truly lived and channelled all our energy into it, which we hope will also reach the listeners. It unashamedly pays homage to the past, to the traditions of rock music.” The band began working on the album in 2019, when the first songs were written, and it was recorded live on magnetic tape in the summer of 2023 at the legendary Höyrybaari in Lapinlahti, Finland. The recording was handled by Tommi Saikkonen and the band’s guitarist Sampo Leksis, who also mixed the album. The old railway company’s log warehouse resonated beautifully, and at times the tape also picked up the rumbling of a train on the tracks right behind where the band was playing. However, making the album took time due to changing life circumstances and new additions to the family. Keeping the album entirely analog has also delayed the process

There is an important difference between "mature" club vibes (leather porkpie hats) and "adult" club vibes (a post-ego-death experience of the world through the eyes of an Eames chair). Extrawelt's Jamborghini EP exemplifies the latter in ways that extend beyond sophisticated wordplay*. Well beyond.

Sophisticated electro-techno hybrids occupy an incredibly dangerous space. One false move and you corner listeners into an unsolicited conversation about "gain staging." The four tracks on the vinyl EP thread the needle in thrilling fashion, and then use that needle to stab at the sweet spot between sentient cell tower admin software vibes and the kind of architecture hot people like.

And with the digital exclusives, we've once again saved you from the depths of "bonus beats" hell by supplying three tracks that are as good as anything that has ever been pressed to vinyl. If your knee-jerk reaction is to doubt this, we would simply point out you haven't even heard them yet, and here you are talking shit. Go push your hateful agenda somewhere else.

Extrawelt are fast becoming a Turbo Recordings staple, and don't think the globalist EDM cabal hasn't taken notice. Jamborghini has already received heavy DJ support from Jumpin' Josh Junior, Monoburglar, Now or Never, Tiga, Never Say Never, Rumpled Glory, Moment of Truth, and the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce.

*Our best guess is that the title is meant to evoke a Lamborghini you can have a musical "jam session" in, and not the striking metallic purple Diablo SE30 driven by Jamiroquai frontman Jay Kay in the 1996 video for "Cosmic Girl."

Mit der auf Metalville erschienenen LP "Godslave Limited Clear W Orangegreen Marble Vinyl Edition" präsentiert Godslave das nächste Level seiner Kreativität, bleibt aber im Großen und Ganzen seinem Stil treu. Godslave sind eine deutsche Thrash‑Metal‑Band, die sich durch geradlinige, riffgetriebene Kompositionen und eine ausgeprägte Nähe zur klassischen Teutonen‑Thrash‑Tradition auszeichnet; prägnante Lead‑Parts, treibende Rhythmusgitarren und rauer Gesang prägen das Klangbild. Die Arrangements setzen auf klare Strukturen, schnelle Tempiwechsel und gezielte melodische Einsprengsel, wodurch die Stücke zugleich eingängig und kraftvoll wirken. Live hat die Gruppe einen Ruf für energetische Auftritte, die die rohe Aggressivität der Studioaufnahmen unmittelbar transportieren. Auf ihren Veröffentlichungen bei Metalville zeigt die Band immer wieder, wie sich traditioneller Thrashsound mit moderner Produktion verbinden lässt, ohne die ursprüngliche Direktheit zu verwässern. Diese Edition wendet sich an Hörer/innen, die Wert auf handfeste Gitarrenarbeit und unverblümte Songstruktur legen.

The late Matt Watts was an American songwriter/storyteller and performer from Montana residing in Antwerp and Brussels, Belgium. He ws the son of a catholic priest and mother with Cherokee roots in the Carolinas.

He first began using the electric organ to write songs and also recording them on cassettes when he was 11 years old. When he was 13 his mother bought him an electric guitar from a pawn shop in South Carolina. Using a karaoke machine as an amplifier, he began writing and performing and recorded his first album at age 15 in a small studio in Great Falls, Montana.In addition to writing and performing his own music, he began performing and touring with various local Punk & Noise bands.

In 2007 when he was 19, he moved to Antwerp, Belgium. Since his arrival he has worked and performed with Zita Swoon Group, become a member of Rudy Trouvé's I H8 Camera, translated Simon Allemeersch and Rudy Trouvé’s critically acclaimed piece SCREEN into English, formed The Calicos (now Humo’s Rock Rally winners under Quinten Vermaelen) as a one time backing band, worked with many artists and songwriters (including Emillina Torini & The Colorist, The Love Substitutes, ..) and toured and released various widely acclaimed solo albums and a duo album with Nicolas Rombouts on Starman Records.

Highlights for sure were “How Different It Was When You Were There” (2017 - **** De Standaard), produced by Nicolas Rombouts (ex-Dez Mona) and featured guest performances by Nathalie Delcroix and Bjorn Eriksson (Eriksson Delcroix) and Stef Kamil Carlens. Its excellent successor “Queens” (produced by Stef Kamil Carlens and Nicolas Rombouts) featured a.o. the late Sandy Dillon and Jim White.

Sadly Matt Watts passed away too soon in June 2024. “Restless Kind” is the final album readied shortly before his death in a production by Bai Kamara Jr. Another astonishing collection of intimate Americana songs with lyrics as fascinating miniature novels.

While the sterile “professionalism” of some heavy bands can be like a clinical drone strike, Texas-based Judiciary feels personal. Like close combat with a knife. And it’s all in their chemistry. Judiciary is an amalgamation of four guys raised in the intersection of metal and hardcore—all devoted to pushing their craft further. Across two esteemed LPs, the band has proven their worth as a crucial entity in the crowded heavy music scene by evolving their sound further and further with each release. And now with the band’s latest Stalagmite Angels, due on September 4th via the venerable Closed Casket Activities, Judiciary can further showcase their status as a crucial, one-of-a-kind part of the evolution of hardcore in 2026. Life changes can bring about chaos and seismic shifts, but if Stalagmite Angels is any indication, then it’s all for the better. In the wake of the release of Judiciary’s second LP Flesh + Blood, the band called upon Juan Vazquez to pick up guitar duties, thereby changing the internal framework of the band for good, and unknowingly for the better. It’s this pivot in personnel that resulted in the band’s latest EP. “The goal with this EP was a hard reset, but we also wanted to chill the f— out a bit, have fun, and do something that felt true to the four of us,” recalls drummer Austin Looney. “We wanted time to reconfigure things and let the music come naturally–temper this new mindset that we've adopted post-Flesh + Blood.” Judiciary’s greatest strength lies in their musical singularity. Though Stalagmite Angels represents the collision of influences from across well-worn territories like metallic hardcore, death metal, black metal, d-beat and more, it’s the Lubbock-born band’s approach that makes it distinctly their own. Stalagmite Angels is a wholly new document that resembles a horde of bands ranging from Hatebreed to Carcass to Slayer to Iron Age, yet never aping any single band nor even revealing any single influence. It’s all familiar but none of it is specific. “90s hardcore and hardcore in general is always gonna be our natural inclination, but it manifests with different elements not only from song to song but within each song,” says vocalist Jake Collinson emphatically, who learned guitar specifically to help with writing new material. “Whether that’s Dying Breed or Cannibal Corpse or Crowbar or Machine Head or any number of other influences that any one of us may have, it all manifests in our work, and through our individual and collective lenses. With this EP, we transformed those ideas into the Judiciary approach.” Stalagmite Angels is an EP about anger at the world, belief in yourself, and how harnessing both in the pursuit of growth is necessary to achieve. But furthermore, it’s a concept record that envisions a subterranean world in both a literal and metaphorical sense—where hidden beauty lurks in the shadows (and in the eye of the beholder) and where triumph manifests in the ability to rise from the depths and into the world above.

The second volume of this (already) cult series of British proto-metal compilation albums. Every artist on here was a regional band in their local underground scene of the late 1960s/early 1970s. The main thing that differentiates this series to any other, is the fact that none of the artists included had any kind of commercial release during their existence (apart from Fusion Farm, who self-released an extremely rare private press LP titled 'Rush Job' in 1971). All the artists were discovered after extremely lengthy searches of old music magazines, local newspapers, concert posters, government agencies.... By any means possible! It was a lot of work, but the results speak for themselves. The one thing that joins all these bands together (apart from being exclusively British), was their desire to play as loud and heavy as possible. This was a magical era in rock music, where Black Sabbath were the undisputed kings, but the industry simply didn't want to recognise the countless other band that existed in their gloomy wake. All of the recordings on Yeah Man, It's Bloody Heavy! are taken from demos, whether originating from crusty old 1/4 inch tapes, dusty acetate discs or third generation cassette tapes. Basically, whatever format was available. As a result, sound quality varies, though we did our utmost to get these precious artefacts sounding as killer as possible. For instance, Bonehead were close friends of Led Zeppelin. Their guitarist/vocalist Paul Lockey had previously played with Robert Plant and John Bonham in the Band Of Joy. Their track, 'Free To Escape', was actually an audition tape for Atlantic Records, which had been instigated by Robert himself. Unfortunately, the band broke up not long after the recording. So, their recording is top notch, whereas others were taken from rehearsal tapes (such as Fusion Farms' - Keys To Hell). But the main thing is, there's a spirit that unites them all. Sit back, roll up a fat one and let your mind be blown by the obnoxious sounds and sheer weight of vintage gravity that is: 'Yeah Man, It's Bloody Heavy! Vol 2'.

Die schwedische Künstlerin Sibille Attar kehrt mit ,Amor Fati" zurück, ihrem ersten englischsprachigen Album seit fünf Jahren. Attar, die bereits von Pitchfork, Stereogum, The Line of Best Fit, Clash und BrooklynVegan gelobt wurde, hat sich als eine der faszinierendsten und von Kritikern am meisten gefeierten Stimmen des alternativen Pop in Schweden etabliert. ,Amor Fati" - äußerst unabhängig und komplett in Eigenregie produziert - begann als Versuch, ein reines Liebesalbum zu schaffen - offenherzig, euphorisch und ungekünstelt. Doch während sich die Songs entfalten, beginnen sich emotionale Gewissheiten zu verschieben. Das Album, das in Schweden, Belgien, Deutschland und den Vereinigten Staaten entstanden ist, beschäftigt sich mit Intimität, Sehnsucht, Vertrauen und den seltsamen Wegen, auf denen sich Liebe im Laufe der Zeit neu formt. Es beginnt euphorisch, wird schnell kompliziert und weigert sich, sich für irgendjemanden der Einfachheit halber zu vereinfachen - vielleicht weniger beruhigend, aber dafür umso lebendiger. "madly wide-eyed, swooning songs" - Pitchfork "leaps out of the speakers so vibrantly that the band seems to be playing in the same room with you" - Stereogum "a masterpiece in artistic misery" - The Line of Best Fit "mournful and absolutely gorgeous" - BrooklynVegan ENG Swedish artist Sibille Attar returns with Amor Fati, her first album in English in five years. Previously praised by Pitchfork, Stereogum, The Line of Best Fit, Clash, and BrooklynVegan, Attar has established herself as one of Sweden's most fascinating and critically acclaimed voices in alternative pop. Fiercely independent and entirely self-produced, Amor Fati began as an attempt to make a pure love album -open-hearted, euphoric, and unguarded. But as the songs unfold, emotional certainties begin to shift. Written across Sweden, Belgium, Germany, and the United States, the album explores intimacy, longing, trust, and the strange ways love reshapes itself over time. It begins in euphoria, gets complicated fast, and refuses to simplify itself for anyone's convenience - less reassuring, perhaps, but far more alive. "madly wide-eyed, swooning songs" - Pitchfork "leaps out of the speakers so vibrantly that the band seems to be playing in the same room with you" - Stereogum "a masterpiece in artistic misery" - The Line of Best Fit "mournful and absolutely gorgeous" - BrooklynVegan

DESCRIPTION
Lone Bison / Nick Bonell lives by the sea in Ramsgate. Mainly a guitar player and pedal freak, Nick bought a used Korg MS20 and fell in love with synths. As one half of Stuntmen, Nick released the sample-heavy single 'You're the Beat Find' on the groovy Tummy Touch label, which led to him scoring three Ford adverts in the U.S and a few pieces of well-used production music - which paid for more synths and pedals!
An album, 'Transistor Memory' and single 'Drugs' came out via Dom Martin's brilliant Polytechnic Youth records in 2021. "Wave Construction" was released by Castles in Space in Autumn 2023. An album for the CiS Subscription Library entitled "Mechanical and Electrical" was released in late 2024.
Nick Explains: "After recording "Transistor Memory", "Wave Construction" and "Mechanical and Electrical" pretty much back-to-back, I wanted to change my sound palette a little. I started programming my Hydrasynth Explorer in obsessive detail and was also drawn to using my voice, in a sampling kind of way at first. Sampling my voice then shifted into recording more straightforward vocals and writing proper songs again. "Rise Up" started as a field recording in my local park and then some wonky piano loops with a cheap mic – somehow a song arrived. I’ve always really liked really concise records, so I got interested in packing lots of synth textures into a three-minute pop song. As the record progressed, I did less leaning on vocoders and harmonisers and developed the courage to just do more up-front vocal mixes. Things like Maths and Minimal / Maximal are more groove-based and came from recording 20 minute drum tracks then jamming bass guitar over it then editing it all down and adding loads of synths. Oh, and there’s a bit of James Williamson era Stooges at the end of Minimal / Maximal – I was a bit nervous about playing garage rock guitar on a Castles in Space record but Colin told me I would be ‘fucking mental’ if I didn’t end the record with it."
Lone Bison's music is influenced by Krautrock, electronica, post-punk, soundtracks, a splosh of modern classical/minimalism and post-rock. He's a hot genius.
The album is preceded with "The Power" which will be available on streaming platforms as well as on our Bandcamp for those who want to listen or pre-order the album. There's a fantastic remix from MAPS included as well.

Ghetto House music is one of Chicago’s most unapologetic cultural exports. Born from the city’s underground party scenes in the late ’80s and ’90s, it carried a different kind of energy than traditional house music. While Chicago house was known globally for soulful grooves and club elegance, Ghetto House came from the basements, the neighborhood parties, the dance circles, and the DJs who pushed the tempo and the attitude. The sound was simple but powerful—heavy drums, bold chants, and rhythms designed to move bodies instantly. It wasn’t about perfection; it was about impact. The music reflected the creativity and resilience of young people across Chicago who turned turntables, drum machines, and neighborhood culture into a movement. With “Ghetto House Music 3,” DJ Slugo continues that legacy, reminding listeners that this sound isn’t just history—it’s still alive, evolving, and moving the culture forward. credits released April 24, 2026 license all rights reserved

Fresh off of their 2020 offering Adult Themes, El Michels Affair is back with a new full-length release. Titled Yeti Season, this newest album has everything we've come to expect from EMA's patented cinematic style of instrumental soul music. Where Adult Themes inspired a soundtrack to an imaginary film, Yeti Season brings us to a different place in time_with new inspirations. Taken with Turkish-styled funk and an almost Mumbai-esque take on soul, El Michels Affair offers us a different kind of drama and imagination with Yeti Season. If you've been following along, this shouldn't be viewed as too far a departure for El Michels Affair. The first single off of Yeti Season showed their hand back in 2018. A double-sided banger, that release brought the musical textures to the fore that dominate this record. The first song, titled "Unathi," is fully realized with the beautifully haunting-yet-hopeful vocals of Piya Malik, formally of 79.5_another Big Crown artist. Singing in Hindi, Piya's ethereal voice is telling us to work and strive together toward progress. Even if you don't understand her language, you can still hear the urgency of purpose, creating a lasting vibe that sits on top of it all. Leon Michels explains that Piya had a vital influence on this record: "When Piya started singing in Hindi, she had a different voice, a different tone. I knew we had to do something together." And so Piya appears on three other songs on Yeti Season: "Zaharila," "Murkit Gem," and "Dhuaan." Each providing particular signatures to the album. "Zaharila" is a building and changing love song punctuated by blaring trumpets, driving drums, and Piya's pleading lyrics. While the more upbeat "Murkit Gem" opens with a fuzzed out, Wu-Tang-esque baseline that buoys Piya's stylings. The psychedelic guitar and Piya's changing tones and textures singing about an all-consuming love are what pushed "Dhuaan" on to the second single from Yeti Season. There is also a vocal appearance from Shannon Wise of The Shacks, yet another Big Crown artist. Her song called "Sha Na Na," lies more in the familiar EMA vein: melodic, hypnotic, soulfully visual. But between Shannon's airy singing, the jumpy baseline, moody vibes, the active drum lines, it sounds like a pensive walk home after a strangely dramatic night. So what is Yeti Season? It could be more of a feeling than an actual place or time of year. It's a heavy album_as evidenced by the signature musicianship and dramatic vocal expressions. But it's also a hopeful record, with phrasings, textures, and chord changes that hint at something better_or fuller_coming our way. You hear it in songs like "Ala Vida," with its stabby, pulsing chords laying a bedrock for EMA's bright, atmospheric horn lines. Or even in "Fazed Out," which leaves you with a feeling of determination, a striving for resolution even though the driving, march-like song structure should accompany some conquering army. This persistence has to come from the fact that Leon Michels and company finished this record during the lockdown. It was a tough and troublesome time. But look at what has come of it: Yeti Season_a record of high and heavy drama, but also one of hope and promise. It may take a year like 2020 behind us to find hope in a winter big footed creature like a Yeti, but that's where we are.

Some people change your life in every way that a life can be changed. David Lynch is one of those people. When Alicia Witt first worked with him at age 7 in his classic Dune (1984) she had no idea what he meant to anyone as a filmmaker, nor that she would work with him 3 more times over the course of his life and that he would become one of her greatest influences. She only knew that she had found a kindred spirit and that she loved him. Between Heaven & Earth is a tribute to his energy, his legacy, and most of all, his love. When Alicia attended his memorial gathering shortly after his passing in 2025, she was struck by the depth of the relationships in that space. The knowing that if you were loved by David, you stayed loved. As those in the room spoke of their shared experience that David was still among them - directing from beyond - Alicia became ever more aware that she was being encouraged to create an album from this space of eternal unconditional love. ‘Use my name,’ David whispered. And so it was. Produced by renowned producer and singer-songwriter Joe Henry (Emmylou Harris; Milk Carton Kids; Bonnie Raitt; Rodney Crowell), this album was recorded live in studio in 5 days in New York City in January 2026. Alicia Witt on piano and vocals, accompanied by a band of 5 musicians, take you on a sonic journey that could never be recreated, channeling the energy that was brought together in this moment to honor the immeasurable effect that David Lynch had and still has on the world. He was palpably present in every moment of the making of this album. The 13 songs that were chosen reflect everything Alicia feels she learned about love from David - the acceptance, the insistent optimism, the curiosity, and the permanence. The final song, The Director, recounts messages he has sent to her from beyond over the year since he passed away.

Illusive Bristolian beatmaker Claude Cooper returns with a visceral blast of psychedelic-hip-hop, enlisting IDLES frontman Joe Talbot and BEAK> bassist Billy Fuller for ‘Perfect Execution’, a limited edition 7" single in aid of War Child UK.

Claude Cooper has found a kindred spirit in Joe Talbot. The IDLES frontman has long worn his hip-hop influences as openly as his post-punk ones, and on ‘Perfect Execution’ that affinity finds its fullest expression yet. Cooper's raw, dissonant production collides with Talbot's breathless, confrontational lyricism in a track that draws its lineage from Public Enemy as readily as it does from Bristol's own bruised musical history.

The lyrics pull no punches. Talbot inhabits a landscape of public spectacle and private suffering, circling images of crowds, chains, hanging and the hollow comfort of slogans. The repeated refrain of “No pain no gain” hits differently when set against the track's subject matter, its bludgeoning repetition somewhere between protest chant and bitter irony.

Joe says, “It’s an honour to work with some beautiful Bristol heads on this track for Warchild. All is love”.

Sing Forever (Singing Is Free): Songs from 2021-2023 meets us as a foreword to A Profound Non-Event, Daily Toll's debut album from 2025. Offering an earlier chapter in the ever-growing songbook of the Sydney/Gadigal-based group, Sing Forever... is a collection in demo-form that maps their initial formative period as a duo, largely marked by Covid-era isolation, diabolical housemates, sonic experiments and copious amounts of wine sourced from Kata's job at the time. As bowerbirds of song, Kata and Jasper are making sounds from their own pocket - their world! - singing from nowhere to no-one from (in) a context of global upheaval, loss and mass confusion. Here we find the urge to sing forever, to share a morsel of spirit, and with it a mode of grounding one's humanity. The songs are loose, off-beat and textural, a period of "first thought, best thought" in boundless practice that finds inspiration from all over: a bracelet and a solo afternoon in Budapest; lyrics formed via a black-out poem scrawled across the page of a Neil Young biography; the scratch of paper daisies, toy drums, typewriters, and pots and pans all welcome melodies repeating and fumbling unto themselves until ultimately falling apart and into something else. These songs were never initially intended to find a physical release or to even be distributed further than the Bandcamp void, and yet here we arrive at a kind of essence of Daily Toll, or at least one iteration thereof, before the studio, before the additional band members, and before being known (perhaps, even loved) by more beyond. Sing Forever (Singing Is Free): Songs from 2021-2023 was initially released as a seven song cassette that came with early copies of A Profound Non-Event. Now with the addition of an extra song and a remastering by Mikey Young, it is now released as a limited 12" LP via Tough Love in a ww ltd edition of 275 copies.

¡Hola amigos! ¡Dieciséis guarniciones de chile picante, peyote loco y tequila helado! ¡Hermoso!
If there's one thing I'm good at it's finding records. It doesn't matter where in the world I am, I find records, the best records, the rarest records. And always in Mint condition. I have a knack for it. One place I like to hunt for records is South of the Border, in Mexico. You can find great records there, way out in those pequeños pueblos del desierto. Another great thing you can find is cactus.
Mexico is famous for cactus. You got your Ariocarpus, your Turbinicarpus, your Mammillaria. You got cactus of all kinds, big and small. Little ones like Eplithelantha, psychedelic ones like the peyote Lophophora, and rare ones like Aztekium. But my favourite is Mammillaria humboldtii. Now this one is very hard to find. The villagers over in Hidalgo know where it is, and they go high up in the mountains to look for it.

Now these guys, they take their time. But when they come down from those mountains, they bring back the most beautiful specimens. I really mean it, they're beautiful. They're like clumps of fluffy white golf balls, and they have these cute little pink flowers. Beautiful I tell ya. I pay precio alto for a good specimen of Mammillaria humboldtii.

There's a confidence in calling something 'cheesy' before anyone else gets the chance to. The Lazy Eyes lean into it, they have an understanding that sincerity, when left out in the open long enough, will always risks ridicule. But what's remarkable on Cheesy Love Songs is how little they flinch for a young band dropping a sophomore album.
This is a record that understands its inheritance. You can hear the ghosts of bedroom psych, of records made by young people who discovered that distortion could double as a shield, that reverb could make even the most fragile confession feel infinite. But Cheesy Love Songs doesn't hide inside those textures, it lets them bloom until they almost overwhelm the room, like a feeling you tried to downplay that instead insists on becoming the only thing you can hear.

The kaleidoscopic guitars, the melodies that feel like they've been unearthed rather than written, the way it treats love as both spectacle and small disaster. These are songs that circle the same emotional drain: wanting too much, too quickly, and then sitting in the quiet aftermath of having said it out loud. The band doesn't pretend that intensity is sustainable; instead, they document the crash with the same care as the ascent.

In that way, Cheesy Love Songs feels like a document of early belief — the kind that arrives before irony calcifies, before restraint feels like wisdom. It's a record made by a band still willing to risk the embarrassment of being 'cheesy' in pursuit of something louder, brighter, and more honest than cool. And maybe that's what makes it an iconic modern Australian sophomore album: not just that it captures a moment in time for the band, but that it refuses to outgrow it.

London's Spearmint follow-up their acclaimed 2023 record `This Candle Is For You' with the ambitious new concept album `Chase Me' New single "1986" evokes a time when the world wasn't connected by technology, but there was still a strong connection across the globe: music. Specifically in the song, it's folk in Newcastle and Madrid who are dancing to the same music. The vinyl version also features an exclusive track "Is It Just Nostalgia?" which sees the band time-travelling past `The Tube' and `Soul Train` to Friday nights of the past. Standby for the follow-up single in July_ Spearmint have been making great records since debut `A Week Away' in 1999 (`Sweeping The Nation', `A Trip Into Space', `We're Going Out'). Still the same line-up: Shirley Lee (singing, guitar), Simon Calnan (singing, keyboards), James Parsons (guitar) and Ronan Larvor (drums). This will be their eleventh album proper and the 65th release on their own hitBACK label. Re-united with producer Rhodri Marsden (Scritti Politti, Cardiacs), the `Chase Me' album tells a story of success, disillusionment, disconnection, peril, and resurrection. Anchored by three chases across a city at night, book-ended by two out-of-body experiences, and working towards a suite of uplifting love songs, it's a thriller, it's a horror, it's an allegory. Song-writer Shirley explains "The story would make a good movie I think_ but we don't know how to do that, so we did this." `Chase Me' will be available digitally, and on limited edition CD and vinyl. The vinyl version will be released on WIAIWYA records, and will include an exclusive 24 page full-colour lyric book, including photos and illustrations. Spearmint will premiere songs from the album alongside tracks from their catalogue that haven't been played for years, or ever in one instance, live at Colours in Hoxton, London, on Tuesday 29th September 2026.

a1 One Vision 5:50
a2 Tie Your Mother Down 3:52
a3 In the Lap of the Gods...Revisited 2:43
a4 Seven Seas Of Rhye 1:18
a5 Tear It Up 2:12
a6 A Kind Of Magic 8:41
b1 Under Pressure 3:41
b2 Another One Bites The Dust 4:53
b3 Who Wants to Live Forever 5:16
c1 I Want To Break Free 3:34
c2 Impromptu 2:57
c3 Brighton Rock Solo 9:11
c4 Now I'm Here 6:20
d1 Love of My Life 4:49
d2 Is This the World We Created? 2:58
d3 (You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care 1:36
d4 Hello Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart) 1:51
d5 Tutti Frutti 3:24
e1 Gimme Some Lovin' 0:55
e2 Bohemian Rhapsody 5:51
e3 Hammer to Fall 6:04
e4 Crazy Little Thing Called Love 5:59
f1 Big Spender 1:06
f2 Radio Ga Ga 5:57
f3 We Will Rock You 2:48
f4 Friends Will Be Friends 2:06
f5 We Are The Champions 4:01
f6 God Save the Queen 1:32

Studio Barnhus presents Fold, the first full-length release on the label from Stockholm-born, Berlin-based DJ and producer MOLØ: a patiently unfolding album of club-adjacent lullabies, soft-focus breakbeats and open-window electronics. Following 2024’s Aqua Lull and 2025’s Don’t Change EP with Slackin Beats, MOLØ returns to Barnhusgatan with her most fully realised work yet – an album built like a night slowly finding its shape, starting somewhere quiet and letting the music grow and shift. The result is Fold: eight tracks moving freely between rooms and tempos, held together by MOLØ’s sense of atmosphere, melody and pace. There are pads with endless skies in them, field recordings whispering from the corners, melodies suddenly appearing, having been waiting patiently for the right light.
As often with Studio Barnhus, friends old and new are invited in. Swedish jazz pianist Albin Söderbäck leaves his mark on Cloud and Sväva, bringing a warm, searching musicality that nods gently towards MOLØ’s favourite jazz-fusion records. On Le, Diane Emerita’s fragile voice slips in between the breaks, making the track feel at once human and unreal. Off The Meds frontman Kamohelo keeps it cool as ever on the dynamic stepper Bump.
Then there is Malmö, featuring Norwegian songwriter and vocalist Ane Brun. MOLØ sent Brun the instrumental because she could already hear her voice inside the music – what came back felt so natural, it was as if the whole track had been written around it from the start.
Elsewhere, DJ favourite Fluff captures a different kind of magic: made in MOLØ’s Berlin apartment one spring evening, barely changed since its first draft, then road-tested immediately on a late-night walk through the city with the demo on repeat, strangers moving through the frame.
Fold is a record about trusting the long way round. In a time of shrinking attention spans and growing impatience, MOLØ chooses the scenic route, with curiosity, generosity and enough confidence to let the listener get a little lost

There is a kinetic energy that binds drummer and producer Karriem Riggins and singer-songwriter, rapper, and producer Liv.e, the spark that happens when instinct meets flow and spirit finds rhythm.

Their collaborative debut as GENA (short for “God Energy, Naturally Amazing,” and loosely inspired by Gina from Martin), The Pleasure Is Yours feels like a playful, soulful conversation between two kindred improvisers: Liv.e’s smoky, unpolished vocals glide through Riggins’ warm, percussive universe. Rooted in jazz, soul, and hip-hop, Liv.e brings a raw, experimental approach to R&B, while Riggins known for his work with Common, Erykah Badu, The Roots, Madlib, and his close kinship with J Dilla, extends his lifelong dialogue between jazz improvisation and beat science.

Together they create a world that’s analog and ethereal, percussive and poetic, bridging eras without settling in one, the sound of two artists finding a new shared language rooted in rhythm, vulnerability, and exuberance.

Pressed on 180g vinyl, the album comes in an embossed sleeve and is avaible in red and black splatter.

At the Moers Festival 2018, OXBOW got together with Peter Brötzmann to deliver a memorable performance, bringing out the best of two legends in their very own genres while playing old and new Oxbow songs together. Oxbow, formed in 1988 in San Francisco, plays a blend of noise rock, avant garde jazz, musique concrè te and blues, creating intimate soundscapes, with overtones of paranoia, revulsion and exaltation. They released a couple of cult albums, eg. on. Neurot, Hydra Head. Peter Brötzmann , active since the 60s with his distinct saxophone sound, is one of the key musicians in European Free Jazz. ,I think we have at least one thing in common: a certain kind of energy, which we could share and where we will meet." Peter Brötzmann *** Peter Brötzmann -saxophone / Eugene S. Robinson - vocals / Niko Wenner - guitars, piano / Dan Adams - bass guitar / Greg Davis - drums

After Diogo’s hit record, we are following it up with another set of swinging dance floor detonators! Arriving directly from Brasil, Sérgio presents itself as another moniker from one of the greatest creative minds in all South America, Gabriel Guerra. With dozens of releases scattered over Future Times, Superconscious Records, LAMA, Got Tun, Balaclava Records, or his own 40% Foda/Maneiríssimo, he lands on our lap with a couple of highly effective, UK infused, and slightly nostalgic dance tracks. We’ve allways neutered a profound sense admiration for everything that Guerrinha was releasing under his 40% Foda/Maneiríssimo label, and had the feeling that his vibe was definitely one that we could relate to. Happy, a little wacky, and truly unpretentious dance floor madness! From acknowledging that, to reaching out was just a step. He was super available to work with us, and after the first talks he promptly provided us with a google drive folder with more of 100 unreleased tracks… Yes! You heard it! More than 100 gems of pure creativity ranging from all kinds of genres and across a fucking multiverse of alias and alter egos! So yes, that’s the kind of creative genius we are talking about… Moving from this “garagy” universe, Guerrinha presents us with a set of super fun tracks, which both leans over this infamous side of dance music, as well as it keeps an eye open for the most blatant forms of pop culture. Pure and simple dance floor tracks, to be enjoyed with a smile on your face.

"Is this the sound Sérgio?" or "Is this Sergio's sound?". The question of the questions seems silly, but it was postulated in 2019 to answer Guerrinha a new sound idea: A super appealing garage sound, so that any kind of doubt about the fact that Guerrinha's sets being fun, and that he himself would be able to mix swinging rhythms, would be eliminated. Sérgio is Guerrinha’s pseudonym for this, and since its first release in 2019 with the album “Utensílios” it has strangely become his most played alias, with a few small hits in the small Brazilian scene. After the pandemic drama, he returned in 2022 with the album "Mais Utensílios" and the single "Fantabobi / Riquititas", two releases that again grew the good problem of other djs constantly asking Guerrinha for these tracks. Now he releases the 12'' "Pelo da Churreia" via Discos Extendes, made in 2020 and containing small garage hits from that time. All this information raises the initial questions, since Sérgio is not just a pseudonym, but the curse that grew inside Guerrinha himself, sometimes it's in the appeal that “the bug catches on”.

There are two version of the LP - limited to 100 numbered copies with transparent wax and classic black wax edition. Both 180g with special OBI strip.

Maciej Envee Goliński is an artist who probably needs no introduction. He has been working with U Know Me practically since the label's inception. His last album ("Time & Light") made a huge impact worldwide, but we had to wait eight years for the next vinyl release. In the meantime, Maciej has certainly been busy – he has released numerous club singles under several aliases, and has helped record and mix numerous albums from the world of jazz, soul, and electronica. "Wyszymory" is a carefully crafted concept album, inspired by our roots. "Wyszymory" is an album on which every open-minded listener will find something that has been playing in their soul for a long time...


"Of all things visible and invisible, my life is most filled with music and a fascination with sound. It matters not whether they are natural or artificial, isolated or resonating through space. Sounds that evoke
memories, as well as those entirely new. Some of them have resonated unchanged for thousands of years. Certain resonances and rhythms have remained unaltered for generations so distant that they have left no other trace in human civilization.

This bond with our ancestors truly fascinates me. Ever since I realized it, I have become more attuned to inspiration. Listening to traditional and classical music, I kept finding new anchor points. I was constantly surprised by new invitations to ponder what connects – or divides – the pulse of our region’s traditional music with the rhythms of Africa, the tribes of the vast East, or the frozen North. My great authority, Tomasz Stańko, in interviews conducted by Tomek Michałowski, used beautiful parables of love and creativity to bring me closer to the ­Cro-Magnon cave artists. The Icelandic literary magician Andri Snær ­Magnason, in his book On Time and Water, captivated me with the fascinating observation that through emotional contact, words, ideas, or memory, we reach back and forward two or even three generations – spanning a period of about 270 years. Then there is Sam Kowalski, who with his wonderful obereks played on the gitalele, took me on a hypnotic journey, from which one returns with a deep admiration for the art of musical storytelling, passed down from generation to generation. Finally, my own children surprise me with talents, behaviors, and increasingly distinct features of those generations that now dwell only in my hazy memory and on old photographs.

I wanted the protagonists of this album to be the very phenomena that modern humans share with their ancestors, ­regardless of the level of civilization. Most vital among them is the relationship between humans, nature, and their own emotions. Wyszymory has nothing to do with an academic study, though I did delve into Slavic mythology, archaeology, and history in search of inspiration. Nor is it an album of traditional music, even if such music is present thanks to wonderful instrumentalists. I managed to invite artists who cross boundaries daily, working not only with Polish music but also with Hindu and African traditions, and even jazz, with its long history of blending influences. Naturally, the album became a kind of sonic comic book, where individual scenes and stories – the sounds, pulsations, and ideas on how to use them – came to me over time, often under unique circumstances and in inspiring contexts."
Envee

ome songs are simply too good to leave alone.

Original Gravity Records returns with a fresh take on one of the most enduring songs in Jamaican music as Donnoya Drake breathes new life into "You Don't Love Me (No No No)."

The song's remarkable journey begins with Bo Diddley's 1955 recording "She's Fine, She's Mine," before evolving into Willie Cobbs' blues classic "You Don't Love Me." It was then embraced in Jamaica, where it became a foundation stone of the island's musical heritage through Dawn Penn's original Studio One recording.

Rather than recreating any single version, Donnoya Drake's recording draws together the defining moments in the song's evolution. The unmistakable Bo Diddley-inspired riff, popularised by Willie Cobbs, is reimagined by the horn section, while the middle eight pays tribute to Dawn Penn's original Jamaican arrangement. The result is an infectious ska recording that honours every chapter of the song's evolution while bringing a fresh energy of its own.

On the flip, Prince Alphonso & The Fever present "You Don't Love Me Pt.2", an instrumental version that proved far too good to keep in the vault. Stripping away the vocals allows the arrangement to shine in its own right, creating the kind of infectious ska instrumental that selectors and DJs are always searching for.

Produced by Original Gravity Records founder Neil Anderson, the single continues the label's tradition of creating new recordings inspired by the golden era of Jamaican music—not as museum pieces, but as vibrant records made for today's dancefloors. Respectful of the past while unmistakably original, this is another release that bridges the gap between vintage authenticity and fresh interpretation.

Longform: Across two decades, the California-born hardcore outfit CEREMONY has earned its standing as one of punk’s most adaptable and unflinching bands, always ready to meet the moment without surrendering its principles. True to form, CEREMONY's seventh album, Tell Me Your Dream pushes the group’s punk-forged intensity all the way to the fore, capturing the quintet at its most expressive, expansive, and timely. “We’re living in an era of mass uncertainty,” says CEREMONY vocalist Ross Farrar. “In punk, I don’t see how you can’t respond. It’s taken over our lives in so many different ways — economically, politically, spiritually. We want people to wake up and get into what’s happening.”  Ferociously alert, Tell Me Your Dream reunites CEREMONY — Farrar, guitarist-keyboardist Anthony Anzaldo, guitarist Andy Nelson, bassist Justin Davis and drummer Jake Casarotti — with producer John Reis for ten songs of searing breadth. That means everything from bristling hardcore to moody post-punk — all while taking fundamental inspiration from Discharge, Crass, and other anarcho-punk troupes that first helped certain members of CEREMONY find their own political voices back when they were teenagers. The result is a culmination of the band’s 21 years together, if not some kind of riddle: CEREMONY knows how to make a return-to-form sound like evolution — and vice versa.

White Scar returns with its fourth instalment, drawing together four producers from across South America and Eastern Europe for a peak-time statement built for the club.

Uruguayan artist Alejo opens the A-side with Pain or Pleasure, a driving cut that sets the tone early — tense, purposeful, and locked in. Romanian talent Mar.c follows with Tears Aside, carrying emotional weight without losing momentum on the floor.

Flipping to the B-side, we return to Uruguay with Muten delivers Osiris — a club banger with the kind of mythic, expansive feel its name suggests. Paraguay's R.E.S.S closes out the record with Necromancy, a suitably melodic and hypnotic finale that leaves a lasting impression.

Four producers, one cohesive vision. The Squeeze EP is peak-time techno at its most focused.

Soul Music legend Candi Staton returns to her down-home Alabama roots on her 32nd album, Back to My Roots. The twelve-track Americana set features an array of Staton-penned originals and some well-chosen covers.

"These songs represent my roots," Staton adds as she reflects on her many trials and triumphs. "Even the new songs on some level represent something I've experienced and that's what real soul music is about." Back to My Roots was produced by Staton with her second eldest son, Marcus Williams, a professional drummer who has toured with the likes of Peabo Bryson, Isaac Hayes, and Tyler Perry. They brought in Mark Nevers of Lambchop fame, who produced three of Staton’s prior Americana albums for Honest Jon’s and Thirty Tigers, to sweeten certain tracks. “Some of the first songs I ever heard were songs like `Peace in the Valley’ and `It’s Gonna Rain,’” says Staton. “The new songs or cover songs are tracks that remind me of that era when I was growing up as a child and evolving as a young woman. That’s why I named the album Back to My Roots because I’m going back to the roots that made me who I am.”

Staton received the Americana Music Association UK’s highest honour, the International Lifetime Achievement Award, at the UK Americana Music Awards ceremony at Hackney Church in London last year for her southern soul work that stretches from her 1969 Muscle Shoals hits to her more recent collaborations with the likes of Americana kings Jason Isbell and John Paul White.
The album opens with a mid-tempo Bonnie Raitt-styled contemporary blues “I Missed the Target Again” that finds Harry Connick Jr.’s longtime guitarist Jonathan DuBose Jr. (aka the Prophesying Guitarist) showing off his skills that set the tone for the song and the album.

Staton’s older sister, Maggie Staton Peebles (who alongside Staton was a member of the Jewel Gospel Trio in the 1950s), joins her for two duets. The first, “It’s Gonna Rain,” features just a drum, steel guitar and vocals. “My mother used to sing that song to us all the time when I was a child,” Staton recalls. “It’s a really soulful kind of song I wanted to revisit.” They then take turns leading Thomas Dorsey 1939 gem “There Will Be Peace in the Valley” that Elvis Presley popularized in the 1950s.

“Hang on in There” is a new, mid-tempo song that has an old school gospel flavour and features vocals from veteran bluesman, Larry McCray.
While in Europe in 2023 for her farewell concert tour that took her to the Glastonbury Festival and Love Supreme, Staton and her British band, PUSH, went into a London studio to record a new version of The Rolling Stones’ 1972 gem, “Shine A Light.” “I love the way that came out,” Staton says. “We put a big choir on it and put our own twist on it.”
From there, Staton revives another Thomas Dorsey classic, “The Lord Will Make a Way Somehow,” with a bluesy vibe. When Al Green started recording gospel in the early 1980s, he re-introduced this song into the culture.

“God’s Gonna Use Me Anyway” is a new mid-tempo blues with subtle Caribbean influences.

The mood takes a turn on “1963.” It’s a poignant, spoken-word reflection on September 15, 1963, when four black girls were killed in the Birmingham Church bombing. “I was in the city that day and I remember the chaos and horror after the bombing,” Staton recalls. “Just thinking of how racism and hatred caused those men to kill those girls was so emotional for me that I could only do it in one take.”

It's a perfect segue into "Reach Down and Touch Heaven," a haunting, plea for divine intervention into the affairs of mankind. "That's straight Baptist," she says. "I used to be a church pianist back in the 1960s. I've never played piano on one of my records before so that's a unique song for me because I’m finally playing on one of my records. The message of that song is about the homeless. It came to me when a homeless person on the street asked me for $5. When God touches your heart to help somebody else that’s heaven to God’s hears. So, when we reach into our purse or wallet to help someone, we’re touching heaven."

Staton offers love as an antidote to hate on the bouncy, Motown-styled, “Love Breakthrough.”

Her publicist brought Aaron Frazer & the Flying Stars of Brooklyn NY’s 2017 cut “My God Has a Telephone” to Staton’s attention. She shifts the track from a retro 1960s groove to more of a 1980s Malaco Records arrangement, a subtle but distinct variation. Staton brought in her longtime friend and STAX Records legend, William Bell (“I Forgot to Be Your Lover” and “Trying to Love Two”), to add raspy seasoning to the track.

The album closes with the wistful, “In God’s Hands We Rest Untroubled,” that was originally written and recorded by the late country star, Lari White, who died in 2017 at the age of 52. “Lari sent me that song to consider at least ten years ago and I always loved it,” Staton says. “The record label didn’t want it on the album or something, so I just held it.”
Staton says, “I grew up hearing a lot of these old songs when they were new songs. I toured with the Jewel Gospel Trio in the 1950s and we got to know people like Mahalia Jackson, Sam Cooke and others who sang these types of songs. So, I’m sort of paying tribute to them and the influence they had on me by refreshing these songs and making new songs in the old style.”’

The recordings on Volume II were captured in Copenhagen, Denmark on January 18, 2020. Guided as much by human instinct as by musical intention, the ensemble moved through the evening with a shared sensitivity…listening, responding, and trusting the moment as it unfolded. Though Morten McCoy admits to having felt quite ill that evening, nothing in the music suggests restraint. Instead, what remains is a vivid, playful exchange, where McCoy and Johannes Wamberg carry both Part I and Part II as a flowing conversation, speaking through sound rather than words.

Part I begins abruptly, almost throwing the listener back in time to the exact moment the improvisation was born. Jonathan Bremer steps to the forefront, providing a solid, melodic bassline as Kristoffer and Eliel, perfectly in sync, lay down a steady foundation for whichever voice chooses to rise above the rhythm.

This is also one of the few I Am An Instrument recordings to feature two guitarists. Johannes Wamberg leads the way, shaping the harmonic direction, while Steven Jess Borth II adds subtle rhythmic textures through muted palm work, deepening the groove without ever stepping into the foreground.

Part II unfolds with Morten McCoy on his Moog One, delivering a beautiful, expansive solo. Using a carefully chosen patch, the sound pulses through the rhythm, moving with the groove rather than above it, riding the beat like a wave through the ocean.
Shaped by trust, presence, and collective improvisation, Volume II captures a group deeply attuned to one another, allowing intuition and momentum to guide the unfolding form.
——
Volume III was recorded in Copenhagen on March 5, 2020. Little did anyone know that only days later, the world would be placed on pause for years. Captured just before that moment of global stillness, this session carries a heightened sense of presence, a final gathering before silence reshaped everything. Recorded in a space more commonly associated with a club atmosphere, the music draws on a different kind of energy and immediacy. With Eliel Lazo unable to attend, the group invited Victor Dybbroe of Girls In Airports to join on percussion, subtly reshaping the ensemble while preserving its core spirit. Part I opens with Steven Jess Borth II calling out on tenor saxophone, answered by Morten McCoy on Wurlitzer electric piano. The piece gradually unfolds into a meditative groove, patient and expansive, carrying the listener through an eight-minute journey of layered rhythm and restraint.

Part II begins with Jonathan Bremer on stand up bass, slowly joined by the rest of the ensemble as each voice enters with intention. Midway through, an unexpected vocal melody from Borth emerges, drenched in reverb and delay, later reappearing as a melodic line on the tenor saxophone.

Part III is led by Morten McCoy on Wurlitzer electric piano. His signature melodic language sets the direction, guiding the ensemble while leaving ample space for the music to breathe and evolve through collective improvisation. Reprise returns to the closing moments of Part II, its title reflecting its origin. The familiar groove reappears, transformed into a distinctly Jamaican-influenced rhythm, over which Borth delivers a final tenor saxophone solo, bringing the conversation to rest.

Any questions about any of these products feel free to get in touch and we'll help you out!

a a1. Part I [Vol.2]
[b] a2. Part II [Vol.2]
[c] a3. Part I [Vol.3]
[d] b1. Part II [Vol.3]
[e] b2. Part III [Vol.3]
[f] b3. Reprise [Vol.3]

Somewhere in the Wind is the third record that Loren Connors and I have made together. Of the three, it’s the first that consists exclusively of electric guitar duos and it’s the first that was recorded live. To me it feels very much like a live record; this music happened in crowded rooms in Brooklyn on two dates in 2025 and there’s an urgency to connect with others and a pleasure in doing so that can be heard on both of these tracks. On the first of our duo records (Arborvitae, 2003) I primarily play piano, and on the second (Evening Air, 2024) we switch off on piano and guitar. Both of those albums bespeak the privacy of the recording studio, where time is suspended and one can explore the quietest of sounds. By contrast, Somewhere in the Wind is the noisiest, most raucous and most free of our duo records. It’s the sound of us taking it to the stage.

I became a fan of Loren’s playing from the moment that I first heard it, after happening upon a beat-up copy of In Pittsburgh circa 1992 in a used bin in the Dr. Wax record store in Chicago where my then-bandmate Bundy K. Brown worked. Everyone has taken a chance on a record because it looked interesting and wouldn’t set you back too much. In that regard In Pittsburgh was the find of a lifetime. I had just switched from playing in a postpunk power trio (Bastro) to making mostly drummerless respect-your-neighbors music (Gastr del Sol), and Loren’s pacing and touch and his lovely, unaffected compositions had me from the first listen. Not long after that, Jim O’Rourke and I reissued In Pittsburgh on our Dexter’s Cigar label, and I fondly remember first meeting Loren in New York’s Grand Central Station—so glamorous for this country mouse—and taking the train upstate with him where he shared a bill with Gastr del Sol. During soundcheck, Jim, Loren, and I played together for a bit and Loren’s approach to the instrument was something that one could instantly sink into, the kind of situation where there are no mistakes. I still feel that when we play together.

David Grubbs

Mr Bongo presents a reissue of the 1619 Bad Ass Band’s self-titled album, originally released in 1976 on the ultra-rare tax-scam imprint TSG Records. Formed by Khalid Abdul Shalid, the record was the only album released by the group, and has since become a mythical, highly sought-after prize for collectors and DJs, ranking among the most coveted albums on the 1970s rare soul scene.

This New Jersey soul-funk gem captures the raw energy of mid-‘70s underground funk and soul. Its journey began in relative obscurity having been released on TSG, one of several US “tax-scam” labels operating at the time. These labels exploited loopholes in the tax system by inflating production costs to create write-offs against their tax bills, meaning commercial success was never the objective. Records were often pressed in extremely limited quantities, with little to no promotion or distribution and in many cases, artists were unaware their music had even been released. While this led to the 1619 Bad Ass Band’s album slipping into obscurity upon release, it later cemented its status as a holy grail for diggers and DJs. Unfortunately, like many releases of its kind, it also meant the band never received the recognition they deserved at the time.

Musically, the album is a unique listen with a varied palette that will appeal to fans of a broad range of tastes. From the luscious, dreamy ballad ‘Rain’, which will melt even the stoniest of hearts, to the raw, drum-heavy funk of ‘Love To Love’, it showcases the group’s depth and versatility. Highlights include the string-laden, floaty stepper ‘Just From You’, and ‘Nothing Can Stop My Loving You’, with its spacey synth lines, which will be a joy for modern soul fans. Elsewhere, ‘Step Out’ opens with a heavy drum break (later sampled on Latyrx’s ‘Interlude’ from their 1997 debut) before unfolding into a brilliant male-female vocal exchange.

Every track on here is a winner and it’s criminal that the band never received the publicity or credit they deserved when it was first released. Alongside the TSG Records release in 1976, the album was later released again in 1978 with alternate cover art on another tax-scam label, Graham International. Both versions have since become highly collectable and over time, the album has steadily gained the recognition it always deserved. This reissue by Mr Bongo offers a wider audience the chance to experience a truly special record, one that stands as a testament to the overlooked brilliance of the era’s underground soul and funk scene.

Throughout the 1980s the inimitable Sun City Girls self-released over twenty full-length cassettes . Each of these cassettes were universes unto themselves, each a slice of the one of a kind SCG universe. Three Lobed is honored to help bring some these long out of print titles to vinyl for the first time ever through the continuation of a series of 2xLP releases. Remastered from original sources and packed within heavy gatefolds filled with never-before-seen vintage photos, these titles give fans - long time, long suffering, intrigued by the legend - the first real chance to hear these titles in over thirty years. Presented here are "The Palm Leaves of Victory" (originally released in 1987 as Cloaven Cassettes #13) and "Audio Letter to Mitch Myers" (originally released in 1989 as Cloaven Cassette #19). From a one-time edition of 1000 copies on heavy black vinyl housed within old-style heavy Stoughton gatefolds.

Throughout the 1980s the inimitable Sun City Girls self-released over twenty full-length cassettes . Each of these cassettes were universes unto themselves, each a slice of the one of a kind SCG universe. Three Lobed is honored to help bring some these long out of print titles to vinyl for the first time ever through the continuation of a series of 2xLP releases. Remastered from original sources and packed within heavy gatefolds filled with never-before-seen vintage photos, these titles give fans - long time, long suffering, intrigued by the legend - the first real chance to hear these titles in over thirty years. Presented here are "Cloaven Theatre" (assembled from three titles which were originally released in 1987 and 1989 as Cloaven Cassettes #14, 15 and 18) and "That Old Western Sieve" which was originally released in 1989 as Cloaven Cassette #21. From a one-time edition of 1000 copies on heavy black vinyl housed within old-style heavy Stoughton gatefolds.

Originally released on Art Yard in 2017 finally back in print!

Solo album displaying a collection of foggy electronic dub meditations recorded between 2000 and 2005 by Berliner Ring member Alexander Christou under his Al Chem guise.

In 2009, the label Art Yard sent a probe into the outer regions of contemporary electronic music, releasing Berliner Ring's "Orbital" album, a dub techno hymnal for Berlin’s orbital ring road. Drawing together the disparate elements of invented instruments, modified keyboards, customized rhythm and string machines, it was built around moods and themes drawn from the Berlin landscape.

One member of the Ring, Alexander Christou, also a part of the Berlin electro rock group Elecdrones, recording for Katzensonne. The band were “not interested in the crafting of chunks of music ready to be consumed”. Christou has since been recording under the moniker Al Chem, crossing analogue and digital realms, synthesizing a kind of philosopher’s stone. As Al Chem, he released on Tummy Touch Records, and now follows with a collection of foggy electronic dub meditations recorded between 2000 and 2005 in a full album.

In the battle to harness the elements, ancient mists permeated Chem’s music. A murky, mercurial humidity saturates the project. A distinctly north European descendant of dub, a kind of Seventh Seal that Bergman could have made, if provided enough hydroponic infusions.

No Hopper is a rework of the Ras Michael song No Hoppers, from his legendary album, Rastafari Dub, Chem's version shuffles the pack of electronic percussion with organic, Moondog-like rhythms and hazy atmospheric chords; The Prophet pinpoints Chem's GPS firmly in Berlin, just as The Red Tower blurs that kick-drum parallel between reggae and house music; Baudelaire sputters digital delay, piling on the pressure, a clatter of surgical implements performing an operation out of Dead Ringers, the patient storming out of the theatre with loosely fitted mechanical body parts; the instrumental No Hopper only serves to highlight the distant gathering storm. Ladder of Perfection rounds off the set with a drone, creaking with bubbling digital mud pools

Crackazat returns to Freerange for his latest EP entitled Shine, and sees the artist in his finest form to date! An absolute anthem in the making the title track appears here in Club Mix and Mana’s Dub form, plus an amazing flip of Crouching Tiger from Baltimore legend Karizma Shine is a soulful, jazz-inflicted epic which will have any dance floor worth it’s salt fully locked in. Crackazat’s own vocals bring hints of Jamiroquai whilst his production calls golden era MAW and Blaze to mind. Add an incredible arrangement, live horns, bass and drums to this already heady concoction and you get an idea of why we’re so excited about this release. These kind of club tracks are few and far between these days! Next up we have one of Crackazat’s own Mana’s Dubs of Shine.

A chance for Ben to strip things back, loop things up and dub things out. Keeping the funk intact, we’re treated to a feelgood party-starting house track which has a classic sound that can’t fail to warm the cockles! Flip over for a proper curve-ball from everyone’s favourite Baltimore house hero Karizma who turns Crouching Tiger into the kind of twisted, rolling, jazzy and leftfield workout we love him for. A driving force of the city’s underground, he always comes with the raw energy and fearless creativity. A staple of the dance floor and a leader beyond it, Karizma represents the past, present, and future of Baltimore House and once again proves why he’s such a don.

Drop this one and run for cover whilst the dancers throw crazy shapes! Closing out the EP we have Crackazat’s Mana’s Dub take on previous single Watchu Say. Looping up the killer piano hook and his live bass line, Ben manages to craft the kind of warm, uplifting slice of house music which simply works. And for those who love a big drop, this one should fit the bill with a trademark Mana’s Dub seratonin-boosting build that hits all the right buttons.

Evolution can be ugly and beautiful, painful and euphoric. An Undying Love For A Burning World is the first new release from Neurosis in a decade, and a potent statement of intent and rebirth - one that marks the first new steps of resolve and resilience.

An Undying Love For A Burning World is an epic album of colossal hypnotism - beautiful, fearsome and utterly compelling in a way that only Neurosis can be. Aaron Turner (Sumac, Isis) joins the band on vocals and guitar, a name whose legacy is intertwined with the band’s own and a true kindred spirit.

“From the moment I first heard Neurosis over 30 years ago, I felt this was the music my heart and mind had been seeking but not yet heard. Now after many years travelling along various musical paths of my own, the singular sound and spirit embodied by Neurosis continues to speak to the depths of my being. It is an honor and a true pleasure to have been welcomed so warmly into a band that not only shaped my perspective on the limitless possibilities of music - but has lived and exemplified the necessity of upholding creative integrity and camaraderie above all else.” - AARON TURNER

Neurosis have never been afraid of change, and here they embrace endless regeneration, surrendering to the emotional exorcism through heaviness and distortion that their music incites. Just as the universe tends towards balance, Neurosis’cacophony of noise, rhythm and dissonance always resolves towards moments of beauty. The addition of Turner's powerful vocals and wildly creative and unhinged approach to guitar proves to be a vital force as Neurosis find themselves again at the mercy of evolution and expression.

On every song in the band’s history, Neurosis shifts restlessly between tension and relief, invoking a feeling both feral and transcendent in listeners. The band describe their songwriting process as an inescapable impulse to create with each other - a need rather than a choice. Indeed, the band insist that their return is “not a reunion - we never broke up.”

The album was recorded by Scott Evans (Kowloon Walled City, Sumac, and Great Falls) at Studio Litho in Seattle during three weekends this winter, and mixed in three days just six weeks before release at Evan's Antisleep Audio in Oakland.

Neurosis will play their first show in seven years on the traditional lands of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana as part of Fire in the Mountains festival by special invitation of Firekeeper Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to reducing youth suicide in Indian Country.

FITM, is a unique festival known for bringing epic music to epic landscapes with the intent of reconnecting and immersing oneself with the natural world, and strengthening our ancestral roots as human beings - an aim which aligns directly with Neurosis’ deep-rooted power.