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Kapingbdi came together in Liberia, West Africa, during the late 1970’s and had their own unique style. This six to seven-piece band played original compositions in a vibrant mix of African Rhythms, Soul, Spiritual Jazz, Funk and Rock. Led by Kojo Samuels on sax, flute and vocals “Born in The Night” presents the essential tracks from their rare studio LPs produced between 1978-1981. The work has been carefully edited and remastered in 2019 for vinyl LP and a 6-Page Digipack CD, which includes two additional recordings. Kapingbdi toured through Europe and the U.S. and were the only Afro funk band to ever come out of Liberia.

Kapingbdi hail from Liberia, West Africa and have their own imitable style. They effortlessly combine traditional African music in a modern mix of Jazz, Funk, Soul and Rock. The band is a fusion of the old and the new.

The word "Kapingbdi" is taken from the Sierra Leone language Mende and means "born in the night". Kojo Samuels was given the name by his Latin teacher whilst attending high school in Freetown, They often meet and debate at night in the city and soon after Kojo is called Kapingbdi. The name serves as a description of his origin. Born In Lagos, Nigeria in 1943. The son of slave children. His mother from Nigeria and father from Sierra Leone who moved the family to Liberia, during the 1950’s.

Kojo has played music for as long as he can remember. He starts with the harmonica and later becomes a drummer and percussionist in his first band at school. During his art studies 1965-1972, he tours Germany and works as an art teacher in the USA. His band Kapingbdi is reorganized five times and consists of up to seven musicians. In a VW-Bulli he drives the group from concert to concert and if the drummer fails, he jumps in himself. Between 1978 and 1981 three Kapingbdi LPs are produced for the independent label Trikont, recorded in Hamburg and Munich. During this creative period, the band plays at festivals in Africa and Europe. In 1984, the band tours the United States and shortly after, they came to an end.

At their best, Kapingbdi would rouse the audience with original compositions like "Human Rights", justice for all, especially for South Africans, and "You Go Go You Go Come". The officials and employees in the government departments have no time for the common man, for any questions such as job search, scholarship or similar, he receives the answer "go, come back tomorrow" and the same thing the following day. Or "Now Is The Time For Cry For Love." Now it is time to scream for love and finally, time for humanity and justice. Despite immense difficulties, the musicians consciously live and work in Africa and are at home in Liberia.

On April 12, 1980, ordinary soldiers and non-commissioned officers organize a coup against the government. This is an attempt to put an end to a policy of exploitation of the Liberian people. Whilst efforts to eradicate poverty, lawlessness and illiteracy are obvious throughout the country, Liberia is still Americanized to a high degree. This is evident, as the radio programs of that time almost exclusively played American disco music. Under these conditions, the people seek a reconnection to their folk music, and Kapingbdi were aware of this. Kojo tried many times to come together with traditional Liberian musicians. This passion takes him north of the country. Meeting and playing with the old hornblowers and playing music on traditional instruments, such as the elephant tusk.

Kapingbdi make high quality tape copies of their own vinyl LPs and patiently try to displace all unauthorized tapes from the domestic "market". Nevertheless, it is hard to make a living through music in Liberia. Kapingbdi, is now celebrated. The radio plays are in abundance, but royalties are not forthcoming. Their musical link is the feeling of Afrobeat and Highlife, which is found in each of the many Kapingbdi pieces. They embody Jazz, which is understood to be the most refined example of black music outside of Africa. In Liberia, Jazz is virtually impossible to hear. Bright shining names such as John Coltrane, Charlie Parker or Miles Davis were widely unknown. Thus, the Black Jazz, including its Back-To-Africa movement of the 60’s and 70‘s, passes by without leaving a trace in Africa itself.

Kojo's claim at the time, was to make African music with the depth, sensitivity and the freedom of the technical level of Jazz. This makes Kapingbdi the torchbeares. The underpaid prophets in small Liberia. It is the passion with which the founder of the band continues to work on their music for years. Tirelessly, stimulating and encouraging his fellow musicians. This is ultimately responsible for the success of Kapingbdi in Liberia itself. The local audience seems to listen to the band in fascinated astonishment. One wonders about the ability to develop as demonstrated by Kapingbdi on the basis of their music. It is African and unusually jazzy, danceable and better than the American disco music heard on the radio.

Rather than chase the money and the job opportunities in Europe, Kapingbdi are firmly rooted in Africa. The musicians live in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, at the Kabingbdi workshop, located in the Congotown area on the eastern edge of the sprawling city. Kojo works here as a sculptor, painter, batik artist and musician. The sales revenue that his activities generate, gives him the opportunity to support the development of African Jazz music. The highest percentage of funds are from Germany and Kojo’s work ethic is “to work on your own thing“. The stance taken aims to support the welfare of Liberians and Africans. The other musicians of the group live in a second house that is nearby.

For the sake of consistency, Kapingbdi is a full-time band. However, the revenue, from all of the sources, could not keep them afloat. Equally, as important to the group are Kojos's knowledge of traditional African music and his sculpting skills. His knowledge is shared with others at the afternoon workshops. It is here that they discuss new lyrics, engage in political debate and the self-imposed task of improving conditions in Africa. At times the debate became heated, especially during rehearsals. This was regarded as good and integrative, sowing the seeds of innitiative to keep the band together.

From 1980 to 1985 Kojo also opened and ran the club "Panjebota", located on the grounds of the U.S. Consulate in Monrovia. Almost every evening Kapingbdi perform the song "Wrong Curfew Walk", whose lyrics lament the killing of citizens during the curfew imposed by the Liberian government. When the head of state Samuel Doe hears the song, he behaves agressively and forces Kojo to close the "Panjebota". Kojo had already moved on. Soonafter he meets Fela Kuti at the Africa-Festival and plays concerts in Germany with Cecil Taylor's workshop band.

Kapingbdi is for thinking, dreaming, dancing. What they sing about is what they have experienced. Kojo Samuels is 76 years old today and still follows his vocation as a critical musician, artist and activist.

Ekkehart Fleischhammer / Sonorama 2019 (with the help of original press sheets and the memories of Kojo Samuels)

Here’s a split vinyl of quarantine protest jams from two Seattle heavy-hitters: AJ Suede & Specswizard. Both artists were inspired by 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests, mask-wearing, and stay-at-home orders to produce boom-bap tunes that could only exist in the 21st Century. Insomniac magazine praises the pair’s “next level lyricism.” The Seattle Times picked AJ Suede’s brilliant “Long May We Rain” as one of the best albums of 2020. On the flip side of this cross-generational split LP, you’ll find the vinyl-only “Lost Gems” project from Specswizard. He’s a veteran of Seattle’s scene, releasing dozens of self-produced cassettes and EPs since his start way back in 1988. Here, the familiar sound of buzzing amps and tape hiss makes way for major-key soul turned into pensive bangers. Each artist’s low, late-night-in-the-living-room baritone conjures the feeling of recording in a cramped apartment while the neighbors are sleeping. Still, the beats knock like side doors and narratives hover like heavy rain from cumulus clouds of weed smoke. Together, these two records provide a powerhouse portrait of Black life in the American Northwest today. Only 500 individually numbered copies have been pressed.

Following hot on the heels of lead single and recent mind-body tantalizer “I Feel Stronger Now,” we are now truly proud to present you with Portable’s latest full-length My Sentient Shadow. Filled to the brim with all of the inventiveness the sonic auteur has commanded we expect from his sizable and consistent body of work on worldrenown labels such as Perlon, ~scape, !K7, and his own Süd Electronic and Khoikhoi imprints, and dare we say offering us perhaps the most cohesive, emotive, and balanced of his highly-admirable catalog here to date. By using the analogy of a shadow that possesses its own consciousness, the theme of light and its distortion vs balance with the inherent and necessary darkness that surrounds it is in clear vision.
Immediately from the warmly bizarre vibes of opening cut “The Simulacrum”, it’s clear Portable is requesting clearance to other worlds of funk and ingenuity. The delightfully trippy, smoky, back-room of the Tattooine Cantina feel sets the stage just right to curb expectations and let the carefully constructed noise movements wash over us.
Elsewhere amongst the generous set we find tracks like “Cages” and “Ripple Effect” continue in the direction of horizontally-maximized aural tapestries oozing with texture, while at the other end of the energy spectrum pieces such as “The Self-Assembling” and “We Exist..” roll and bounce with all the sci-fi gyrations and slick synth layers hinting at a hypnotic halfway rendezvous point to his Bodycode moniker. And of course, no proper Portable outing would be complete without his own robust tenor vocal tone, which feels right at home front-and-center on the space travel anthem “The Spacetime Curvature” and used in more calculated micro-doses on “Analogue World”, as well as the gorgeous “Foreign to You” whose meta-title features a rare guest starring vocalist NiQ.E, and brings to hearts some of Herbert’s finer moments with dear friend Dani Siciliano, albeit done-up entirely in some distant yet alluring parallel dimension. The LP journey finishes with the frenetically-charged closer “Fractal Distortion” which will no doubt please many-a cosmic techno purist while making percussion masters from the afterlife such as Jaki Liebezeit and Tony Allen proud, and is quite possibly the closest thing to a danceable musical take on the current state of cognitive dissonance in the world that surrounds us, offering us a one-way
ticket out from the not-too-distant future. Please join us in welcoming and celebrating this wonderful album from Portable on Circus Company.

Brief Encounter, THE soul band from North Wilkesboro, N.C., formed the 1970's and recorded through the the 90s with various labels as well as self releasing. We have been working with band members Montie & Gary Bailey (who has actually visited me in Scotland) to bring you a few releases over the last few years, culminating in this final release alongside their rarest and unknown single when they were known as Sounds of Soul. Never a step wrong, not a bad track to be seen, one of America's finest 70s soul bands.

First Word Records is very pleased to present a brand new full-length album from Sarah Williams White! Emanating from the "hilly fields of Lewisham" in South London, Sarah Williams White is a singer songwriter, multi-

instrumentalist and producer. Her sound is a unique blend of psych-soul, folktronica and experimental synth-pop.

Sarah released her acclaimed debut album 'Of The New World' on First Word in 2015, which was written, produced and performed by Sarah from her home studio, with the assistance of drummer, engineer & husband, Timmy Rickard. Her projects have seen support from the likes of Lauren Laverne, Tom Ravenscroft, Nemone & Chris Hawkins (BBC 6 Music), Jamie Cullum (BBC Radio 2), FIP Radio, Clash & The Guardian, to name a few, and she's toured the UK with Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip and Golden Rules (Lex). There have been additional collaborations with label-mate Quiet Dawn (on the 2021 compilation / EP 'A Family Affair') and with her brother, Paul White - a revered producer in his own right, with credits including Danny Brown and Sudan Archives.

Following a hiatus, Sarah now brings us her sophomore album, 'Unfathomable'. A project that offers up escapism from the mundane, enticing us to connect with our natural planet in this prevalent time, via the eyes of a new mother.

In her words, Sarah states that the album is "about escape. It's about deflating the ego by looking up to the endlessness of outer space, connecting with the greatness of mother nature, and loving how unfathomable the universe and life itself is".

11-tracks in all, including the recent singles 'Nebula', 'Green' and 'Monsters', this opus sees Sarah's buttery lathing of vocals merged with cutting beats and atypical pop sensibilities across the project, again entirely self-produced from home, defining her as one of the UK's most irresistible DIY psych-soul talents.

With a voice reminiscent of Peggy Lee, tapestried harmony akin to Hiatus Kaiyote, beats fit for Little Dragon, and experimental production evocative of Kate Bush, Sarah Williams White's signature genre-defying sound invites us into a world uniquely hers.

'Unfathomable' is released on vinyl and digital in late January 2022.

Produced by Jonathan Wilson (Dawes, Father John Misty, Conor Oberst), Erin Rae's highly anticipated new album Lighten Up is a timeless amalgam of classic pop, cosmic country and indie rock, recorded earlier this year in California’s Topanga Canyon. Three years have passed since the release of her critically acclaimed debut Putting On Airs, which drew high praise from publications from Rolling Stone to NPR Music. She mostly spent her time on the road, performing at Newport Folk and Red Rocks, sharing stages with Iron & Wine, Jason Isbell, Jenny Lewis, Hiss Golden Messenger and Father John Misty, before her touring came to a sharp halt at the start of the pandemic. The solitude of the road and then the pandemic created space for Rae to undergo a sonic and philosophical shift where she found personal catharsis in creating an album that reflected on her newfound lessons of self acceptance, alongside finding the confidence to offer social commentary on the environment, gender identity and equality. “My last record was a lot of self-assessment and criticism, and trying to kick old habits and ways of relating and not relating to people,” Rae acknowledges. “This one is about blossoming, opening up, and living a little more in the present moment. Fully experiencing what it is to be human.” With a renewed sense of agency, Rae also took a more active role in creating the kaleidoscopic soundscape that became Lighten Up, setting out to reflect a sound she calls, “an emotional pallet, I could get lost in.” Alongside Erin and Jonathan Wilson, who contributed various instruments, the album also features guest appearances from fellow rising star singer songwriters, Meg Duffy, Ny Oh, and Kevin Morby.

As the world continues to plunge into a fiery blaze of calamity, the Southern Hemisphere's air warms, its leaves glow green, and the damp earth jolts awake. Springtime is coming to Australia, and it will be ushered in by three sonic shamans who are no strangers to our ears. Gareth Liddiard (Tropical Fuck Storm / The Drones), Jim White (Dirty Three / Xylouris White) and Chris Abrahams (The Necks) are Springtime _ a new endeavor that is as much a tonal experiment as it is a meditation on modern-day absurdity. Springtime's self-titled debut combines free jazz, poignant lyricism crafted alongside renowned Irish poet Ian Duhig -- aka Gareth Liddiard's uncle - and improvisation to craft austere portraits of a world paralyzed by shellshock. It's as monstrously ravishing as it is clumsy in its elegance. Words run into each other with little regard for one another's injuries. There are sounds which come out of nothingness to wallop and brutalize their fellow sounds. The live recording of Will Oldham's "West Palm Beach" is treated with love and respect and would certainly be met with open arms by its author. Across the span of seven tracks, Liddiard incants with wild-eyed fury as White and Abrahams lay down stuttering strings, fizzling electronics, and feathery piano melodies. It is within these raving abstractions that one may find an answer to the enduring question, "What fresh hell will this new season bring?"

Fraxinus emerges from temporary suspension with a monolithic 6-track offering on his new self-release label Powerplant. This is his debut EP Position Displacement, carved from a solid block of Devonian granite. After a 4-year dormancy, the Amsterdam-based artist returns with a 30 minute transmission of earth-shaking kick drums, thunderous percussion and razor-sharp sound design. The label’s inaugural release simultaneously marks the first proper outing for the artist, following a run of compilation features & special edition vinyl excursions dating back to 2014. Position Displacement is a journey of divergent moods & cadences, from the wistful flutes of opener Overland to final track Laced’s uncompromising arpeggios. Billowing melodies & piercing stabs run in tandem with a pummelling & steppy rhythm section; Source Code builds steadily, paving the way for Pass One’s warehouse-ready assault. The blooming, fluorescent synths of 115 (Kondo) - named for the mythical Amsterdam club - create a mid-way moment of euphoria, before Larch marches on with its clattering drums. The tracks clearly contain DNA from Fraxinus' foundations with the Her Records cohort – lean, direct & forward-thinking. This time around the aesthetic is more focused, transferred to techno schematics but veering away from 4/4 fare. The sonics have been compacted into dense slabs of energy, primed for soundsystem dispatch. Wholly original, crafted with precision; the EP serves as a powerful statement of intent for both artist & label. Position Displacement will be released 05/11/2021 on 12” vinyl and digital download, presented with full sleeve artwork. The record is followed by a further 2 EPs on Powerplant as we enter 2022.

Summer at Land’s End is not an interlude or tangent for The Reds, Pinks & Purples but rather a perfect fourth movement following the albums Anxiety Art, You Might Be Happy Someday, and Uncommon Weather. As with these self-recorded records (the primary work of songwriter Glenn Donaldson), the songs on Summer at Land’s End were crafted slowly and then drawn together to make a unified statement. But here, and more than before, Summer at Land’s End combines Donaldson’s rueful pop sensibility with a parallel musical universe, one composed of pictures, dreams, and feelings without words. Even if the underlying theme of this collection is one of conflict or unhappiness, the vision of the music presents an escape to a new world, always fading in and out of sight.

For listeners who may not be familiar with Donaldson’s corner of San Francisco––the Richmond district––or the current wave of hazy, melodic DIY pop groups performing in the city, Summer at Land’s End pulls in images and scenes that feel like a collision of the mundane and the sublime of this present landscape. But settings such as these are the backdrop for personal narratives, expressed as a struggle with love, with companionship and the conflicts of home. With this record, The Reds, Pinks & Purples give less focus to the vanities of a subculture and more to the challenge of connecting with someone, to the ordinary goals of being human and finding harmony with others.

This deliberate saturation in drama and ambiance, along with some of Donaldson’s best songwriting to date, is what gives Summer at Land’s End its special class in the project’s discography. Of the album’s cinematic mood, Donaldson refers to films like Summer of ‘42 and the influence of the classic 4AD catalogue of the 1990s. This style informs much of Donaldson’s prior and current ventures of course (The Ivytree, Vacant Gardens, and a dozen projects in between) but now The Reds, Pinks & Purples have taken the mantle, embracing this instinct for instrumental or dreamier modes of pop songwriting. It’s a pleasure to experience Summer at Land’s End, as this record finds a thrilling balance between songs and sounds, instruments and voices, and the ironic twin poles of art and life.

Gratitude is the eagerly anticipated new solo album from Abiodun Oyewole, the poet, teacher and founding member of The Last Poets. The album liner notes include an extensive new interview with Abiodun himself, detailing the writing process of the album.

Looking back, the Last Poets are often referred to as the godfathers of rap, and by listening to their early recordings; it’s easy to hear why. Their words encompass revolution, sex, death, drugs, and Black Power - they own their words. From their mouths – words are a sense of pride, a statement, and a feeling of empowerment. There’s no self-conscious hang-up with the Last Poets using words as an art form. On May 19th, 1968 (in celebration of Malcolm X’s birthday), The Last Poets performed their first ever concert in Mount Morris Park (in Harlem), now called Marcus Garvey Park. Their debut album was released in 1970 including poet/singer Abiodun Oyewole.

Now AFAR is proud to present a whole new way of thinking socially, politically, emotionally, and humanly – via the perspective of Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets with his new solo album ‘Gratitude’ - it's not a protest album, it's an inspirational LP/CD via the inclusive words and God-like voice of Abiodun - this is not an angry man, but an older wiser man - reflecting on his life and spiritual quests. Rappers love him for coining the phrase "Party and Bullshit" decades ago - but this is not that - this is a sacred journey with a universal message for all people regardless of their background and nationality.

“ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL SPOKEN-WORD GROUPS THAT PIONEERED HIP-HOP” NPR

“EXPERIMENTING WITH STREET POETRY AND PERCUSSIVE SOUND, THE MUSIC OF HARLEM’S LAST POETS HELPED LAY THE GROUNDWORK FOR HIP-HOP” ROLLING STONE

'PULSE 01' is the first release in PITP's new series, which is an ongoing exploration of ambient tech, while offering a more structured display of beat-driven ambient music. Pulse 01 features brand new tracks by SYNE and Influx. SYNE is Dennis Huddleston from the UK, who is most recognized for his ambient work as 36. He returns to his SYNE alias for the first time in nearly 5 years, with only his second record since his 2017 self-titled debut LP. 'Dystalgia' is a 12 minute opus, spread over 3 movements. Soaring pads and razor sharp percussion combine for a dynamic, emotionally charged journey in sound. Showing love to the Detroit greats, but recognising the distinct UK influence which made him fall in love with Techno in the early 90's, it's a surprising pivot in Dennis' sound and one which all lovers of beautiful, melodic ambient techno should enjoy. Influx is James Bernard from the US, who is most recognized for his solo work in recent years. Influx was his trance/techno alias for much of the early to late 90's and released his work with well-respected UK and US labels.

'PULSE 01' is the first release in PITP's new series, which is an ongoing exploration of ambient tech, while offering a more structured display of beat-driven ambient music. Pulse 01 features brand new tracks by SYNE and Influx. SYNE is Dennis Huddleston from the UK, who is most recognized for his ambient work as 36. He returns to his SYNE alias for the first time in nearly 5 years, with only his second record since his 2017 self-titled debut LP. 'Dystalgia' is a 12 minute opus, spread over 3 movements. Soaring pads and razor sharp percussion combine for a dynamic, emotionally charged journey in sound. Showing love to the Detroit greats, but recognising the distinct UK influence which made him fall in love with Techno in the early 90's, it's a surprising pivot in Dennis' sound and one which all lovers of beautiful, melodic ambient techno should enjoy. Influx is James Bernard from the US, who is most recognized for his solo work in recent years. Influx was his trance/techno alias for much of the early to late 90's and released his work with well-respected UK and US labels.

Lake Havasu is a community of winding hillside roads, launched in the 1960s alongside a brick-for-brick rebuild of the original London Bridge. “It’s this very synthetic, gimmicky place set in this soulful, desolate landscape,” laughs Pedro the Lion’s David Bazan, who moved to the Arizona city for one year in seventh grade. Bazan collected his earliest childhood experiences for 2019’s Phoenix, the prolific artist’s celebrated return to the Pedro moniker and the first in a planned series of five records chronicling his past homes. To write its sequel, Bazan traveled to Havasu four times over several years, driving past his junior high campus, a magical skating rink, and other nostalgic locations that evoked feelings long suppressed. “An intersection I hadn’t remembered for 30 years would trigger a flood of hidden memories,” he says. “I was there to soak in it as much as possible.” Driving the inscrutable loops of Havasu’s lakeside, Bazan listened through an audiobook of Tom Petty’s biography, eventually dialoguing with Petty’s voice in his mind. A revelation from the book—that Petty subconsciously wrote the song “Wildflowers” as an act of kindness toward himself—inspired Bazan to approach his own work with radical generosity toward his young self. “I wanted to be there for that kid,” he offers. “That twelve year old still needs parenting, and still needs to process.” To revisit his past with openness, Bazan modified harmful work habits he’d accepted as necessary. That meant doing away with deadlines, and accumulating moments of play as he felt moved to—“Rather than squeezing stones every single time. I’m on a slow journey away from that,” he clarifies. As he worked through the music that became Havasu, flexibility and curiosity informed the arrangements. Bazan began writing on a simple synthesizer and drum machine setup. He detoured to a more elaborate assortment of analog electronic equipment, then woodshed his original two-handed keyboard arrangements on fingerpicked acoustic guitar. Concurrently relearning his catalog for a weekly series of livestream concerts also renewed his gratitude toward songwriting. “I was trying to evaluate what I have to show for 20 years of kicking my own ass,” Bazan quips about the strenuousness of full-time touring. “But the garden of my songs is what I’ve been building. It doesn’t have to be an ego test.”

Anteloper is the electric brain child of jaimie branch (fly or die, high life) and Jason Nazary (little women, helado negro, bear in heaven). Branch and Nazary have been playing together as trumpeter and drummer for years, since meeting at the New England Conservatory of Music in 2002, but in this duo both musicians include synthesizers to push further into the spectral space ship ether. With deep rhythmic passages, telepathic improvisations and effortless melodic negotiations, Anteloper pushes forward, swinging its horns all the while. Originally released on cassette only, Anteloper's debut album Kudu was named one of the 'Best Albums of 2018' by Rolling Stone, Pop Matters, Nextbop, and Bandcamp. In his piece for Rolling Stone, Hank Shteamer said: "The album's collision of fractured beats and pealing, effects-heavy brass suggests a punk-minded update of Miles Davis' most thrillingly weird Seventies explorations, heard on albums like Get Up With It. This is music for serious immersion."

Matasuna's latest tidbit takes us back to the South American continent once again - to Venezuela to be exact. The song "Zambo" by the band "La Retreta Mayor", which was released in 1976 on the self-titled LP, is now available as an official reissue and the very first time ever on a 7inch vinyl single! The 45 is complemented by an excellent rework of the American producer & DJ "King Most" from San Francisco.

The A-side features the original of the song. "Zambo" is a furious mix with versatile influences of Latin, Jazz & Funk. The rich horn section and percussion of the guest quartet bring pure heat to the track - the drums, bass and piano intensify this even more. An absolute heater for any dance floor!

The B-side features the "King Most" Redirection. The talented producer gently takes on the song, keeping the organic vibe of the original but still giving it a different, new side. His re-arrangement and additional in/outro and a new passage in the middle of the song fit exquisitely. Also his crunchy drums and own piano passages are very tasty and give the song an own flavour!

"Alexandro Rodríguez" was born in Caracas in 1952 and is considered one of Venezuela's most important jazz guitarists of the seventies. He studied classical guitar in his early years, played electric guitar in various rock groups and performed at various national music festivals. He also had the opportunity to play as a musician for renowned orchestras such as "Onda Nueva", "Renny Show's Orchestra" on Venezuelan Television and "Radio Caracas TV's Orchestra".

In the late 1970's he recorded two significant works that may be considered a reference in Venezuelan music history. He formed the short-lived band "La Retreta Mayor" to record a self-titled album, which was released as an LP on the Venezuelan label "Discomoda" in 1976. The 10-piece band and numerous guest musicians created a jazz-funk & fusion gem. The band unfortunately broke up right after the recording and did not play live or record any more music.

His self-released album "Busqueda", released in 1978 under his name, was recorded between New York and Caracas and has an excellent reputation not only in connoisseur circles. In 2012, the album was reissued on CD by a Japanese label, proving the influence Alexandro's music still has in the jazz scene today.

Between 1979 and 1982, Alexandro lived in "New York", where he worked as a composer, arranger, performer and orchestrator in the jazz scene with renowned orchestras before returning to Venezuela. Subsequently, his musical career turned to the classical guitar, both as a composer and performer. In 2013, he settled in "Pittsburgh", Pennsylvania (USA), where he continues his activity as composer, arranger, guitarist, bassist and teacher to the present time.

Today New York based singer, songwriter and producer Amber Mark announces details of her long-awaited debut album ‘Three Dimensions Deep’, out January 28th via EMI/PMR Records. The announcement of the album is accompanied by a sultry R&B instant-grat track ‘What It Is’ as well as a huge UK, EU and US spring tour announcement including London’s O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire in March

Amber’s debut album arrives almost 4 years after the release of her second EP ‘Conexão’, an extended process that has proved central to its thematic development. The 17 track album can be divided into three main acts that follow the arc of Amber’s personal and musical development; WITHOUT, WITHHELD and WITHIN. Beginning by acknowledging her insecurities and anxieties before reflecting on her time in denial and spent processing them in all the wrong ways, Amber eventually widens her focus by seeking answers to the world’s negativity and trauma on a cosmic scale. Finding peace and a form of inherent spirituality in the world of astrophysics while writing the album led to a fresh perspective on life and a renewed sense of self. Amber’s debut album is simultaneously a profound concept album and a love letter to herself, richly intertwining messages of self-worth and reflections on the universe beneath a veneer of shimmering pop. In true Amber Mark style, ‘Three Dimensions Deep’ is a kaleidoscopic melting pot of influences and genres, drawing from funk and R&B, soul and hip-hop with international accents influenced by a nomadic childhood spent travelling the world with her late mother.

“Three Dimensions Deep is a musical journey of what questions you begin to ask yourself when you start looking to the universe for answers.” says Amber; “I can only go as deep as the third dimension as that’s how we see the world, but what about when you start looking to the universe within for answers.”

“‘What It Is’ low key is the title track of the album without it actually being the title track” explains Amber; “It comes from going through negative experiences which end up being the gateway to a question I think I’ll be asking for the rest of my life. What is the meaning of life,the universe and everything?”

The three official singles already released from the album ‘Worth It’, ‘Competition’ and ‘Foreign Things’ marked Amber’s first official singles since 2020’s ‘Generous’, though 2020 was still a hugely productive year for Amber. With her hometown of NYC hit hard in the first wave of the pandemic and placed under strict lockdown, Amber turned to her simple home studio to create an acclaimed series of home-produced covers and originals titled ‘Covered-19’, each accompanied by a homemade video and artworks. The series was followed by a collaboration with longtime friend Empress Of on the protest song ‘You’ve Got To Feel’, earning Annie Mac’s Hottest Record, ‘Tune Of The Week’ and a spot on the Radio 1 playlist. Earlier this year Amber was featured on legendary DJ Paul Woolford’s new piano-house track ‘HEAT’, again snagging Annie Mac’s Hottest Record and a long run across the Radio 1 and 2 playlists. Having already amassed over 300 million streams since the release of her breakout debut EP 3:33AM in 2017, Amber has built a global fanbase eager to hear her debut full length -

As funny as it may sound, Anaïs Mitchell has spent the past 15 years in some kind of hell. OK, not actual hell, but the multi-faceted world of Hadestown, a musical project she began in Vermont in 2006 that has grown into a Tony®- and Grammy®-award-winning Broadway phenomenon with touring editions now delighting audiences as far away as South Korea.

“I experienced so much joy working on Hadestown, but it just kept ramping up and up and requiring more and more attention,” Mitchell admits. “I had to become so single-minded and really put blinders on to my other creative life.” As it did for many artists, the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly offered Mitchell a blank slate to reconnect with her own music. The result is a new self-titled album made with close collaborators from Bon Iver, The National and her own band Bonny Light Horseman, Mitchell’s first collection of all-new material under her own name since 2012’s Young Man in America.

“I was nine months pregnant when the pandemic reached New York, so we made an 11th hour decision to leave and have the baby in Vermont,” Mitchell recalls. “We left the city and had the baby a week later, and then like everyone, we were in the midst of this unprecedented stillness. It felt like I could see behind me: oh, there’s New York City. There’s Hadestown. There’s my life with just one kid. A certain kind of stress and expectations. In Vermont, we moved onto my family farm and lived in my grandparents’ old house, with a new baby. I’d look at pictures on my phone from a few months earlier and wonder, whose life was that? This record, and the songs that are on it, came out of that time. I got into a flow again that I hadn’t felt in a really long time.”

Dubbed by NPR as “one of the greatest songwriters of her generation,” Mitchell is a master of the worlds of narrative folksong, poetry and balladry. Those talents are evident from the first moments of the new album, as Mitchell narrates what she calls “an unbearably romantic” trip over the Brooklyn Bridge colored by Bon Iver member Michael Lewis’ heartstring-tugging saxophone accompaniment. “Having left New York, I was able to write a love letter to it in a way I never could when I was living there,” she says. “It was like, fuck it. This is how I feel. There is nothing more beautiful than riding over one of the New York bridges at night next to someone who inspires you.”

Produced by Mitchell’s Bonny Light Horseman bandmate Josh Kaufman, the album proceeds to chronicle Mitchell’s reconnection with the Vermont roots that have been so formative in her life and music. “Bright Star” finds her making peace with the idea of being at peace in the familiar setting of her grandparents’ house, while “Revenant” was inspired by paging through a box of journals and letters belonging to herself and her grandmother — “a very pandemic activity,” she says. “That house is literally my happy place. I can picture myself as a kid, in this house, laying on the carpet with a sunbeam coming through the sliding glass door. There’s something about it that is really connected in my mind to my childhood and a very free, imaginative, creative time. “Revenant” has a lot to do with that house and reconnecting with my childhood self.”

Mitchell concedes that she tends “to be someone who thinks it has to be hard in order for it to be good or beautiful,” but that feeling has changed, partly thanks to her deep connection with musicians she’s met through the 37d03d collective established by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. During the pandemic, some of those artists participated in a “song a day” writing group — an idea Mitchell says is usually “totally opposite of how I roll. But it really helped me to gain access to some kind of trust and intuition and flow. I began a bunch of these songs while doing that.”

“It unlocked something that allowed me to finish a bunch of songs I’d been sitting on, and feeling a bit paralyzed about how to finish them,” she continues. “Because no one was touring, it’s not like I was playing them for anyone before we were in the studio. In other times, I’ve trotted things out in advance. Here, it was like, here’s all these brand new songs. Let’s discover what they can be. That was really exciting.”

That discovery process took flight at Dreamland Recording Studios outside Woodstock, N.Y., which Mitchell describes as “this weird, janky, beautiful church - it’s my favorite studio in the world.” Kaufman, Lewis and Big Red Machine drummer JT Bates formed a core band around Mitchell, while Aaron Dessner and Thomas Bartlett joined the sessions mid-week on guitar and piano, respectively.

After the appropriate COVID tests came back negative, “it was a pretty extraordinary feeling to hug, kiss and share the same space playing together,” Mitchell says. “We went into that world for a week and didn’t leave the studio for any reason. I felt very safe with all those guys. It was warm and joyful.”

Mitchell says this environment brought out unexpected details in the material, which was recorded almost entirely live together in the room. “Sometimes we tried separating things out, like vocals, but we always ended up back in the room together,” she says. Indeed, after spending the better part of a day recording overdubbed versions of “Little Big Girl” that nobody loved, the musicians gave up and tracked it again live. “We got so frustrated that we went in and I was like, I’m just going to sing this as hard as I fucking can. It felt like that’s what the song wanted to be,” Mitchell says. “It felt like all those songs wanted to be recorded as live as possible.” The exception to the rule was Nico Muhly's arrangements for strings and flute, which were added from New York City afterward.

Mitchell will debut the new material during various headline tours in the U.S. and Europe in 2022, at which she’ll be accompanied by players from the album. On stage, she can’t wait to further hone the sights, sounds and scenes that bring the songs to such vivid life. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to write in the voice of other characters, especially with Hadestown. It’s fun for me, but these songs are not that,” she says. “Weirdly, they’re all me. The narrator is me. That’s why it felt right to self-title the album. It felt like after so many years of working on telling other stories, now here are some of mine.”

As funny as it may sound, Anaïs Mitchell has spent the past 15 years in some kind of hell. OK, not actual hell, but the multi-faceted world of Hadestown, a musical project she began in Vermont in 2006 that has grown into a Tony®- and Grammy®-award-winning Broadway phenomenon with touring editions now delighting audiences as far away as South Korea.

“I experienced so much joy working on Hadestown, but it just kept ramping up and up and requiring more and more attention,” Mitchell admits. “I had to become so single-minded and really put blinders on to my other creative life.” As it did for many artists, the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly offered Mitchell a blank slate to reconnect with her own music. The result is a new self-titled album made with close collaborators from Bon Iver, The National and her own band Bonny Light Horseman, Mitchell’s first collection of all-new material under her own name since 2012’s Young Man in America.

“I was nine months pregnant when the pandemic reached New York, so we made an 11th hour decision to leave and have the baby in Vermont,” Mitchell recalls. “We left the city and had the baby a week later, and then like everyone, we were in the midst of this unprecedented stillness. It felt like I could see behind me: oh, there’s New York City. There’s Hadestown. There’s my life with just one kid. A certain kind of stress and expectations. In Vermont, we moved onto my family farm and lived in my grandparents’ old house, with a new baby. I’d look at pictures on my phone from a few months earlier and wonder, whose life was that? This record, and the songs that are on it, came out of that time. I got into a flow again that I hadn’t felt in a really long time.”

Dubbed by NPR as “one of the greatest songwriters of her generation,” Mitchell is a master of the worlds of narrative folksong, poetry and balladry. Those talents are evident from the first moments of the new album, as Mitchell narrates what she calls “an unbearably romantic” trip over the Brooklyn Bridge colored by Bon Iver member Michael Lewis’ heartstring-tugging saxophone accompaniment. “Having left New York, I was able to write a love letter to it in a way I never could when I was living there,” she says. “It was like, fuck it. This is how I feel. There is nothing more beautiful than riding over one of the New York bridges at night next to someone who inspires you.”

Produced by Mitchell’s Bonny Light Horseman bandmate Josh Kaufman, the album proceeds to chronicle Mitchell’s reconnection with the Vermont roots that have been so formative in her life and music. “Bright Star” finds her making peace with the idea of being at peace in the familiar setting of her grandparents’ house, while “Revenant” was inspired by paging through a box of journals and letters belonging to herself and her grandmother — “a very pandemic activity,” she says. “That house is literally my happy place. I can picture myself as a kid, in this house, laying on the carpet with a sunbeam coming through the sliding glass door. There’s something about it that is really connected in my mind to my childhood and a very free, imaginative, creative time. “Revenant” has a lot to do with that house and reconnecting with my childhood self.”

Mitchell concedes that she tends “to be someone who thinks it has to be hard in order for it to be good or beautiful,” but that feeling has changed, partly thanks to her deep connection with musicians she’s met through the 37d03d collective established by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. During the pandemic, some of those artists participated in a “song a day” writing group — an idea Mitchell says is usually “totally opposite of how I roll. But it really helped me to gain access to some kind of trust and intuition and flow. I began a bunch of these songs while doing that.”

“It unlocked something that allowed me to finish a bunch of songs I’d been sitting on, and feeling a bit paralyzed about how to finish them,” she continues. “Because no one was touring, it’s not like I was playing them for anyone before we were in the studio. In other times, I’ve trotted things out in advance. Here, it was like, here’s all these brand new songs. Let’s discover what they can be. That was really exciting.”

That discovery process took flight at Dreamland Recording Studios outside Woodstock, N.Y., which Mitchell describes as “this weird, janky, beautiful church - it’s my favorite studio in the world.” Kaufman, Lewis and Big Red Machine drummer JT Bates formed a core band around Mitchell, while Aaron Dessner and Thomas Bartlett joined the sessions mid-week on guitar and piano, respectively.

After the appropriate COVID tests came back negative, “it was a pretty extraordinary feeling to hug, kiss and share the same space playing together,” Mitchell says. “We went into that world for a week and didn’t leave the studio for any reason. I felt very safe with all those guys. It was warm and joyful.”

Mitchell says this environment brought out unexpected details in the material, which was recorded almost entirely live together in the room. “Sometimes we tried separating things out, like vocals, but we always ended up back in the room together,” she says. Indeed, after spending the better part of a day recording overdubbed versions of “Little Big Girl” that nobody loved, the musicians gave up and tracked it again live. “We got so frustrated that we went in and I was like, I’m just going to sing this as hard as I fucking can. It felt like that’s what the song wanted to be,” Mitchell says. “It felt like all those songs wanted to be recorded as live as possible.” The exception to the rule was Nico Muhly's arrangements for strings and flute, which were added from New York City afterward.

Mitchell will debut the new material during various headline tours in the U.S. and Europe in 2022, at which she’ll be accompanied by players from the album. On stage, she can’t wait to further hone the sights, sounds and scenes that bring the songs to such vivid life. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to write in the voice of other characters, especially with Hadestown. It’s fun for me, but these songs are not that,” she says. “Weirdly, they’re all me. The narrator is me. That’s why it felt right to self-title the album. It felt like after so many years of working on telling other stories, now here are some of mine.”

Deluxe LP features 140g virgin vinyl; heavy-duty board jacket, artwork by Art Rosenbaum + DL. RIYL: Bob Dylan, John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, Ry Cooder, Michael Chapman, Michael Hurley, The Youngbloods & Bonnie “Prince” Billy. Jake Xerxes Fussell’s 4th album finds the acclaimed folksong interpreter, guitarist, and singer navigating fresh sonic and compositional landscapes on the most conceptually focused, breathtakingly rendered, and enigmatically poignant record of his wondrous catalog. Produced by James Elkington and featuring formidable players both familiar (Casey Toll, Libby Rodenbough) and new (Joe Westerlund, Bonnie “Prince” Billy), it includes Jake’s first original compositions; atmospheric arrangements with pedal steel, horns, and strings. One of the most striking and strangely moving moments on Jake Xerxes Fussell’s gorgeous Good and Green Again an album, his fourth and most recent, replete with such dazzling moments arrives at its very end, with the brief words to the final song “Washington.” “General Washington/Noblest of men/His house, his horse, his cherry tree, and him,” Fussell sings, after a hushed introductory passage in which his trademark percussively fingerpicked Telecaster converses lacily with James Elkington’s parlor piano. That’s the entire lyrical content of the song, which proceeds to float away on orchestral clouds of French horn, trumpet, and strings, until it simply stops, suddenly evaporating, vanishing with no fade or trace, no resolution to its sorrowful minor-key chord progression, just silence and stillness and stark presidential absence. It feels like the end of a film, or the cold departure of a ghost, and is unlike anything else Jake has recorded. In all his work Jake humanizes his material with his own profound curatorial and interpretive gifts, unmooring stories and melodies from their specific eras and origins and setting them adrift in our own waterways. The robust burr of his voice, which periodically melts and catches at a particularly tender turn of phrase, and the swung rhythmic undertow of exquisite, seemingly effortless guitar-playing here he plays more acoustic than ever before pull new valences of meaning from ostensibly antique songs and subjects. On Good and Green Again, Jake not only ventures beyond his established mastery of songcatching and songmaking into songwriting, but likewise navigates fresh sonic and compositional landscapes, going green with lusher, more atmospheric and ambitious arrangements. The result is the most conceptually focused, breathtakingly rendered, and enigmatically poignant record of his wondrous catalog. It’s also his most deliberately premeditated album, representing his fruitful return to a producer partnership after two self-produced projects, What in the Natural World (2017) and Out of Sight (2019) (William Tyler produced his friend’s self-titled 2015 debut.) This time James Elkington produced and played a panoply of instruments, bringing to Jake’s arcane song choices his own peerless sense of harmony and orchestration, balance and dramatic tension. The pair enlisted a group of formidable players including regular bandmembers Casey Toll (Mt. Moriah, Nathan Bowles) on upright bass, Libby Rodenbough (Mipso) on strings, and Nathan Golub on pedal steel. They were joined by welcome newcomers Joe Westerlund (Megafaun, Califone) on drums, Joseph Decosimo on fiddle, Anna Jacobson on brass, and veteran collaborator and avowed Fussell fan Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who contributes additional vocals. Album opener “Love Farewell” (featuring some beautiful singing by Bonnie “Prince” Billy), an elliptical tale of the folly of war, set to the world’s most heartbreaking goodbye march for a lover left behind. “Carriebelle” and “Breast of Glass” each similarly concerns, in its own way, romantic love and leavings. All three songs highlight Jacobson’s diaphanous, understated brass parts, tying them together in a true lover’s knot. “Rolling Mills Are Burning Down,” with its distant keening strings and capacious sense of space, observes and mourns the loss of work and community in the wake of elemental disaster. Nine-minute tour de force “The Golden Willow Tree,” the sole explicitly narrative song herein, is a hypnotic, minimalist rendering of a tragic maritime ballad about scuttling an enemy ship in exchange for wealth and glory and a captain’s inevitable betrayal. “Fussell is creating his own legacy within the long lineage of traditional folk musicians and storytellers that have come before him.” The New York Times // “So elegant … It’s relaxing in the way that pondering a Zen koan is relaxing, and sweet in the way that the wounded, honey-voiced blues of Mississippi John Hurt are sweet.” Pitchfork // “Music that resides at the seams of Appalachia and the cosmos.”

On August 27th 2021 The Third Sound released their fifth album ‘First Light’ on Fuzz Club Records and it is now being given a second pressing after selling out upon release the first time aorund. Dealing in a hypnotic blend of neo-psychedelia, post-punk and new wave, The Third Sound is a Berlin-based band led by the Icelandic musician Hákon Aðalsteinsson, who is the guitarist in Brian Jonestown Massacre and formerly played in the cult rock’n’roll outfit Singapore Sling. A mainstay of the European psych underground in his own right, not just through his collaborations with the likes of Anton Newcombe and Tess Parks, The Third Sound has been Hakon’s primary solo endeavor since the release of his self-titled debut on Newcombe’s A Recordings a decade ago. Arriving following 2018’s ‘All Tomorrow’s Shadows’ LP, ‘First Light’ marks an evolution into a brighter and at times uplifting sound. Marrying moments of light and dark, the result is The Third Sound’s most dynamic full-length to date. Talking about the album, Hakon said: “This album is definitely less gloomy than the previous one, although some ghosts from the past are lurking in the background. We always try to make something new on each album and never make the same album over again, but this feels like an even bigger change than usual, especially regarding the mood. Something new is beginning although the past is not forgotten. I think the title, First Light, describes the overall feel of the record pretty well.” ‘First Light’ is the fifth full-length from The Third Sound and arrives off the back of 2018’s ‘All Tomorrow’s Shadows’, 2016’s ‘Gospels of Degeneration’, 2013’s ‘The Third Sound of Destruction and Creation’ and their 2011 self-titled debut. With Hakon Aðalsteinsson leading the group on vocals and guitar, the rest of the band is currently comprised of Robin Hughes (Guitar / Organ), Fred Sunesen (Drums) and Andreas Miranda (Bass). With a number of European tours in tow, the band have previously shared the stage with the likes of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Warlocks, Singapore Sling, Crocodiles, Clinic, Tess Parks and more.

One concerned with illness (no, not that one) and recovery. Inside to outside. Darkness into light. A way through the woods. The Doozer aka Simon Loynes is now seven LPs into a subterranean solo voyage begun in 2007, and to those of us who have followed it, the songs that make up Convalescence could be seen to embody a kind of late style - ultra-lucid, pared-down, precise; seemingly simple in form, richly complex in effect. Where The Doozer’s last outing, 2018’s Figurines (FTR360), showcased his songs at their most propulsive and and electrified, Convalescence is a more hushed, hermitic, even claustrophobic affair - dispensing with percussion almost entirely, the focus is tight on Loynes’ voice and plangent acoustic guitar, with occasional daubings and interludes of wheezing keyboard, all recorded to Tascam 246 4-track cassette in Edinburgh, Summer 2019. For a considerable chunk of time, health issues had left Loynes unable to sing. On this record you can hear him rediscovering his voice: its unique grain, its responsiveness, its capacity for creating and sustaining emotional ambiguity, for oscillating elegantly between whimsy and woundedness. As with previous Doozer albums, there’s an arcadian impulse at the heart of Convalescence: a sense of exile, or withdrawal, from ‘The Garden’ - and the need to return. The idea that, in your lowest ebb, you might recover your sense of self somewhere in the pastoral landscape of your memories. We're told the shadow of Malcolm Lowry looms large over the record – Lowry the void-chaser, the great misadventurer. Does Convalescence report from the abyss? If so then it's with a coolness and control, a lightness of touch, that conceals as much as it reveals. But beyond the neurosis, the ironic deflections, the flashes of matter-of-fact bleakness (“there isn’t time / there isn’t love”), there lies a deep, Lowry-ish romanticism, and a rejection of pessimism: even at its lowest ebb, Convalescence gestures towards an immense and loving truth – and knows that the possibility of that truth is far more interesting than the numerous ways in which it might be denied. A co-release with Feeding Tube Records USA.

Gonzalo Benitez and Luis Alberto Valencia were kingpins of the musica nacional movement in Ecuador. Check them out on the cover, on a rooftop in Quito’s Old Town, surveying their dominion. In 1970, when Valencia collapsed onstage during a performance of the yaravi Desesperacion — ‘My heart is already in ashes’ — and died four days later, aged 52, his coffin was carried through those city streets on the shoulders of his fans.

They began singing as a duo in their mid-teens. During twenty-eight years together they recorded more than six hundred songs, for Discos Ecuador, Nacional, Granja, Ortiz, Rondador, Onix, Fuente, Real, Tropical, Fadisa, RCA Victor — and of course CAIFE.

Their exquisitely romantic harmonising is a sublime blend of collected forbearance and abject self-annihilation, underpinned and elaborated by the heart-piercing, improvisatory guitar-playing of Bolivar Ortiz. Effectively the third member of the group. ‘El Pollo’ sets the tone and intensity for everything that follows: listen to his soloing at the start of our opener, Lamparilla.

Musically a pasillo — a cross between a Viennese waltz and the indigenous yaravi rhythm — Lamparilla draws its verses from a poem by Luz Martinez from Riobamba, written in 1918 when she was 15, under the influence of Baudelaire and Mallarme. Another pasillo here, Sombras is one of the best-loved songs in the musica nacional canon, setting lines about undercover sex and loss by the Mexican poet Maria Pren, which were considered pornographic on publication in 1911.

And Benitez & Valencia looked back still further, to the indigenous roots of Ecuadorian music, as the key to its future. Carnaval de Guaranda is their take on a song dating back to the era of the Mitimaes, a broad group of Bolivian tribes conquered by the Incas and displaced to Ecuador. ‘Impossible love of mine / I love you for being impossible / Who loves what is impossible / Is the truest lover.’

Lovingly presented in a gatefold sleeve with spot-gloss, and printed inners, with stunning photos and expert notes. Excellent sound, drawn from original tapes, by way of Abbey Road, D&M and Pallas.

Anteloper is the electric brain child of jaimie branch (fly or die, high life) and Jason Nazary (little women, helado negro, bear in heaven). Branch and Nazary have been playing together as trumpeter and drummer for years, since meeting at the New England Conservatory of Music in 2002, but in this duo both musicians include synthesizers to push further into the spectral space ship ether. With deep rhythmic passages, telepathic improvisations and effortless melodic negotiations, Anteloper pushes forward, swinging its horns all the while. Originally released on cassette only, Anteloper's debut album Kudu was named one of the 'Best Albums of 2018' by Rolling Stone, Pop Matters, Nextbop, and Bandcamp. In his piece for Rolling Stone, Hank Shteamer said: "The album's collision of fractured beats and pealing, effects-heavy brass suggests a punk-minded update of Miles Davis' most thrillingly weird Seventies explorations, heard on albums like Get Up With It. This is music for serious immersion."

“For me music is not a calculation, when I play I follow my intuition.
The creative impulse always comes from within me. Me and my
piano, they’re at the centre of my musical world.” - Joel Lyssarides
 For Joel Lyssarides, jazz is above all a language, a tool for
uniquely personal expression. He composed the pieces for ‘Stay
Now’ in a remote house in the forest, a good half-hour outside
Stockholm. And by preference at night, in silence, darkness and
deep concentration.
 The atmosphere of this place is audibly reflected in the music,
which is strongly influenced by space, sound and mood -
reinforced by the highly concentrated, differentiated, subtle
interplay of pianist Lyssarides with bassist Niklas Fernqvist and
drummer Rasmus Blixt.
 What these three young musicians have in common is their
capacity for great sensitivity and expressiveness. Their music is
based on a vocabulary that draws equally from European classical
music, jazz from both sides of the Atlantic and great songwriting,
with all its depth and accessibility.
 And yet this has nothing to do with crossover. Everything flows
and swings, nothing seems deliberate or contrived, one can hear a
natural understanding for the infinite possibilities of every note.
 This trio has the self-confidence to put the entirety of their efforts
into enhancing the expressiveness of the music. And it is in the
most intimate, quiet, focused and concentrated moments that the
most spectacular things happen.
 The album title ‘Stay Now’, therefore, is above all an
acknowledgement of quite how precious the here and now is.
These are the moments when we start to understand the true
value of present and past encounters. As we listen, we can let the
moment linger… and allow ourselves to sink blissfully and
unforgettably into it.

South Africa is in fact the only country in the whole African continent that has developed a strong Jazz tradition. Initially influenced by the great American stylists, (Ellington, Gillespie...) South Africa gradually developed its own soulful style based on a distinctive taste for melody and a deep sense of groove. Masterfully selected from the so-called Golden Age of the genre, (late Fifties / early Sixties), this compilation represents the best introduction to the work of a large and varied body of musicians and composers who inevitably developed their music as part of the historical Anti-Apartheid struggle, and as means of self expression in the dark times of exile. Kippie Moeketsi, Hugh Masekela, Dollar Brand, Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana, Mongesi Feza, Barney Rabachan, Nick Moyake and of course the queen Miriam Makeba are just some of the main voices represented here. A bunch of true warriors. in one word: A must!

Looking at Dan Andriano's catalog, one might assume that making new music is old hat for the veteran vocalist, songwriter, bassist and primary member of the beloved Chicago punk outft Alkaline Trio
Decades into his prolifc career, though, Andriano is just as in love with the process as he was in those early days of sweaty clubs and cramped vans.

On Andriano's new Epitaph Records album, Dear Darkness, that unceasing passion is evident on this solo, self- produced project, which follows his 2015 release (as Dan Andriano in the Emergency Room) Party Adjacent, fnds Andriano venturing into deeply personal lyrical territory while also pushing the limits of just what his unclassifable sound can be.

"We all know what teenagers are like. Bratty little gobshites. Moody shits. Forever toeing the line between cocky arrogance and whiny self-doubt, and to hell with anyone who gets caught in the crossfire. And this old fucker should know; he was really good at all of the above (still keeping on top of the ‘gobshite’ part, you’ll notice). For some reason, the entirety of rock’n’roll is predicated on music made for and about these states of mind - well, I guess if you mix ‘em all together, they can make for one helluva sense of reckless abandon. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Melbourne quartet Mr Teenage sound exactly like their name suggests: chaotic, raw, emotionally volatile… and of course they bind all this together with their own brand of heroically melodic garage rock. Produced by Billy Gardener (of Ausmuteants, Smarts, Cereal Killer and god knows how many other vital Aus-punx), this debut EP snarls, spits and swaggers with all the glorious self-belief of a drunken 4am stumble to the petrol station to buy a pack of skins. And the songs are fucking great too. Title track ‘Automatic Love’ expertly showcases the combined sounds of their cited influences (Thin Lizzy, Dictators, Martha Reeves, etc), with frontman Nic Imfeld’s voice at times edging close to the sandpaper soul of their countryman Shogun (ex-Royal Headache). Meanwhile ‘Waste Of Time’ sees him blending their garage licks with Joey Ramone bubblegum, just as ‘The Loser’ fashions a delightfully adolescent chorus of ‘the loser says what?’ from an airy melody that either The Shangri-Las or Del Shannon would be proud of. They wrap things up with another slab of pure punk/pub rock genius called ‘Kids’ that’ll get the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end, as you fight the urge to crank-call your former school teachers and blame the kid who used to take your lunch money. Of course, singing about ‘kids these days’ marks Mr Teenage out as being older than their name suggests, and sure enough their name comes from an old wrestler rather than identifying with an age bracket they’ve outgrown. But with tunes like this… honestly, who gives a fuck what they’re called? This record is perfect." Will Fitzpatrick.

Includes A3 poster print by Frank West . . .

Welcome denizens of disaster, one and all - please make yourselves uncomfortable.

Did anyone ever tap you on the shoulder as you were walking through an unfamiliar land, just to tell you to watch where you’re going? In this interlinked age of protocol-onies and networked nations, the only territory you can’t rely on is your own state of mind.

Mapped-out by a series of second guesses and double takes, Catastropheland is the one place you’re welcome to try and expand your diminished reality. In Catastropheland, the road signs are all traps, the charts are the wrong way round, the jokes fall flat, and it always rains upwards.

Meanwhile, nine tracks of virtual shapes are bounced off the dishes of an orbiting Syncom 7 and beamed straight into your personal space. The quest for the augmented self might not lead to the results you expect, but as a citizen of Catastropheland, your residency permit is never up for review, and you’re only a shipwreck away from being washed-up on a melting shoreline.

The music was performed by Montel Palmer in Cologne during summer 2018

Mastered by The Bastard

2022 re-press, 180g vinyl

A monumental force firmly rooted in the soul canon, Willie Hutch is most notable for recording two of the best Blaxploitation soundtracks, The Mack and Foxy Brown. Yet his legacy is much greater. Outside of Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson, Hutch was arguably Motown's top male solo artist of the 70s. Prior to his association with Gordy et al, Hutch crafted his opening statements for RCA, two vital LPs that Be With Records is honoured to present today.His debut, Soul Portrait (1969), is an incredible slice of gritty, Southern-fried soul. Think Stax with a touch of Detroit sparkle. As a whole, the album demonstrates the self-contained act Hutch was, he wrote every tune on the album while also arranging and conducting for it. It features 11 timeless grooves, with a blend of beat ballads and undeniable dancers.
The album's centrepiece is undoubtedly the iconic, brooding minor-key masterpiece "A Love That's Worth Having". The album's most recognisable track, it's a towering ballad drenched in stylish, sliding horns and elevated by its stunning backing vocalists. It was famously sampled by Madlib to augment his soundtrack for Stones Throw's Our Vinyl Weighs A Ton as well as 9th Wonder for the Murs classic "Dreamchaser". Whilst one can understand these iconic beatmakers for leaning on the work of a master, you really need to own the track in its full, unedited glory.
Horn-heavy opener "Ain't Gonna Stop" is a funk-fuelled monster, Hutch's fatback vocal aided by a vicious drum 'n' conga rhythm whilst the bumping uptown soul of "You Can't Miss Something That You Never Had" anticipates the Motown-vibe that Hutch went on to create. Supple guitar licks propel the loping, head-nod breaks of "Good To The Last Drop" whilst "That's What I Call Lovin' You" features gospel piano and plaintive, tender vocal turn. Rounding out Side A, the blazing horns of "You Gotta Try" hints at the Blaxploitation that was to come.Ushering in the flipside, the thundering proto-70s-Motown rhythm of "Let Me Give You The Love You Need" segues neatly into the bouncing Northern Soul favourite "Lucky To Be Loved By You" whilst Hutch's gutbucket guitar stylings are all over the smouldering "Keep On Doin' What You Do". "Your Love Keeps Liftin' Me Higher" is not a rendition of the Jackie Wilson classic, rather, it's a powerhouse original that indicates where Hutch would take his sound on The Mack. Closing the album, the anthemic "Do What You Wanna Do" name-checks contemporary dance fads before instructing the listener to just get up and dance.Brilliantly supported by a heavy roster of studio cats who combined to create a winning combination of horns, strings, and gorgeous female background vocalists, Soul Portrait is as complete a soul album as the decade's very best. Tricky to find for a number of years, this lovingly produced reissue is certainly welcome. Paired with the soaring follow-up, Season For Love, these recordings shine a new light on the early work of a soul legend. Officially licensed and remastered for vinyl by Simon Francis, it has been pressed on audiophile 180g vinyl for the first time and features the original artwork and liner notes.

"""Riding SCORCHING hot on the heels of their recent self-titled debut, fans could be forgiven for expecting more of the same from Champyun Clouds’ second long player of
2021. A hodgepodge of cutting-room-floor-fodder and experiments that would’ve been b-sides or Japan-exclusive CD bonus tracks in those halcyon days of physical formats’ golden ages is not what we’re getting. Let’s save those for a deluxe anniversary reissue
one day. Nah - sheer, unabashed creativity fuels this album; and weirdly enough, they’ve managed to branch out in interesting ways while also creating an album that is more immediate and banger-centric. Although Nail’s eclectic psych-lounge tendencies and
Asa’s irreverent poetry and broad Nottingham lilt remain the key touchstones of CC’s sound, opener “Check For Silt”s rough drum’n’bass beats offer an immediate and clear sonic progression for the Nottingham duo. The LP ultimately plays a bit like a haunted
jukebox in outer space - with elements of dub, britpop, early house, trippy, blissed-out sunshine pop (reminiscent of mid-90s His Name Is Alive at their most Beach Boys-aping), William Orbit-esque 90s psych-pop electronica, distorted glam rock shuffles and
garage-y funk. There’s a particularly great moment of sequencing at the end of the first half where I got lulled into a state of near-euphoria with the Air-like “The Flowered Crown” before getting slapped ‘round the face by “I’m Not Right For You”, which sounds
like Nile Rogers producing a demo for Sheila & B. Devotion, except he recorded it at the bottom of a well. Sophomore slump? Never heard of him, mate."""

Parcels have always been a band of extreme light and shade: they’re from surf hotspot Byron Bay in Australia but they’ve been holed up in grimy nightlife utopia Berlin for years; their sweet-as-honey vocal harmonies rival the Beach Boys but they can also turn their live shows into slamming techno rave-ups. The twentysomethings stand out amid the current musical landscape: a soulful rock band that looks like it’s stepped out of a postcard from 1970s California, all flares, moustaches and shaggy hair. They’re a classic band for atypical times.

Since Crommelin, keyboardist Louie Swain, keyboardist/guitarist Patrick Hetherington, bassist Noah Hill and drummer Anatole ‘Toto’ Serret formed in 2014, fresh out of school, they’ve struck upon a singular sound, weaving together gossamer disco and exotica, soft rock and Sixties pop with a focus on uplifting grooves. Their seductive style has translated into 100,000 album sales worldwide, over 200 million streams, cross-continental tours, shows with French royalty Phoenix and Air, a US TV debut on Conan O’Brien, a Coachella slot and a debut single that was produced by none other than Daft Punk, who saw them live in Paris and ushered them into their studio.

After two EPs, 2015’s Clockscared and 2017’s Hideout (the band’s penchant for smooshing words together is a result of a broken keyboard when they submitted their first demo), Parcels’ acclaimed self-titled debut album came in 2018 and was called “timeless and devilishly fun'' in a five-star NME review. They followed it in 2020 with an impressive live album, Live Vol.1, recorded at Hansa Studios, the legendary studio where Iggy Pop and David Berlin hung out during their Berlin years.

The band returns for summer 2021 with an ambitious third studio album,
Day/Night, a double record that spans impossibly catchy disco-soul, prog, pastoral folk, Laurel Canyon-era classic songwriting and cinematic strings. Made over the course of 2020, when the world was at a standstill, it’s the sound of a band growing up; five guys who’ve known each other since childhood and are finding their way together, in spite of all the major obstacles the last 18 months have thrown at them, when they were unable to return home to Australia and see their loved ones. Day/Night is huge in scope and sound, and its hopeful messages of perseverance through difficult times are a balm for these uncertain times.

2 LP Boxset. 2 vinyls packaged together in a clear PVC wallet (in order to display each vinyl cover). 2 x : 140 G black vinyl ( 33 rpm)+ 3mm spine printed sleeve + printed inner sleeve + cmyk vinyl label.
Cello. Marketing Front sticker 5 cm x 7 cm , back cover sticker (upc + tracklisting) 5 cm x 7 cm

Karma Sutra were an anarcho pacifist band from Luton, Bedfordshire who formed in the early 80’s after the demise of the legendary the Phallic Symbols. Karma Sutra only had one release at the time - an album self released in 1987 called Daydreams of a Production Line Worker which came towards the end of their lifetime. Sealed Records now release the earlier years of demos and compilation tracks on a 15 track round up. Be Cruel with Your Past and all Who Seek to Keep you There includes their first and primitive demo The New Economy Roast from 1983. It’s very basic and has a Bullshit Detector Compilation quality to it. A few years later came the second demo Shoppers Paradise which is the best material Karma Sutra recorded. Six tracks of well produced classic 80’s Anarcho punk with a driving sound. It’s passionate, tuneful and politically aware. How this wasn’t released at the time on vinyl, is a travesty. Also included is two tracks from the Mortarhate Compilations Who? What? Why? When? Where? and We Don't Want Your Fucking Law!. Finally the last three tracks were from the final line up of the band and were recorded with Spon from UK Decay adding more post punk elements to the sound. The LP comes with a 40 page booklet of Lyrics, handouts, fanzine interviews and statements. FFO: OMEGA TRIBE, CRASS, EXIT STANCE, ALTERNATIVE

Burying '60s sing-alongs and dance crazes beneath waves of reverb and giddy thud, Ty Segall has carved out his own shelf in the San Francisco neo-psych garage alongside local compatriots and collaborators Sic Alps and Thee Oh Sees. After shattering the Bay Area underground as a frantic one-man band that was devoured by the local press, Segall has now given up the solo act for a three-piece group that destroys sonic and melodic boundaries with manic glee. This new live setup is a better reflection of his studio work. As an exploration of the space between Cro-Magnon fuzz and atmospheric acoustic psych, Lemons is the natural next step after his celebrated self-titled 2008 debut on Castle Face.

Gwendoline, is a duo-antihero of the Rennes indie scene. Sensitive loosers and jaded start-up nation greats, Micka and Pierre shape their own style, a dark shlag wave in a percussive and poetic spoken-word style, with counter discussions as their primary source of inspiration, looking at those around them. Between fatalistic lyrics, self-deprecation, sarcasm and bitterness of the world's mediocrity, their sincere cold-wave is the symbol of a disenchanted youth and the perfect soundtrack to protest.

In 2017, they recorded their first album by locking themselves up for a fortnight to compose everything in one go, feeding off their daily environment in Rennes, numerous evenings spent at the bar and the anxieties of our time. At first self-produced on Bandcamp, this album "Après c'est Gobelet!" is pressed in confidence on vinyl in June 2020 on the Spanish indie label Dead Wax Records, whose stocks run out before the end of the year and which is now unavailable in France.

At the end of 2020, Gwendoline has also seen the doors of the Trans Musicales open to her, a favourite of Jean-Louis Brossard, for a live show at the Ubu, captured by FIP & Culturebox and accompanied by Maëlan and Romain, their stage accomplices.

Written without pretension and ambition, the duo is surprised by the interest shown in the project, between their programming at the Transmusicales, and the feedback from the press including major international media (KEXP, France TV, Les Inrocks, Post Punk Magazine...).

A video clip was released in April 2021 to illustrate one of their flagship tracks, the heady and heady "Chevalier Ricard", which was also a favourite of Franck Vergeade, music editor of Les Inrockuptibles (January 2021).

Gwendoline is the project from Micka (a.k.a. Mikoune) and Pierre (a.k.a. Daniel).

Based in Rennes, musically influenced by the classic cold wave which originated in their country, precarious and aimless, they shape Gwendoline to their own image.

Pure DIY ethics, quick recordings at their home studio.

Dark lyrics, self-mockery, criticism, sarcasm derived from the world’s mediocrity.

To start the year 2014, Stroboscopic Artefacts bring you SA021 - a remixes selection of tracks from Lucy's forthcoming LP Churches Schools and Guns. In presenting four of the album cuts in altered impressions, SA021 helps the label keep on re-examining the timbres, tones and textures of techno.

First up is the unsettled edit of 'Catch Twenty Two' by the young Italian producer Shapednoise. The infamous Heller novel of the same name (though in numerals rather than letters) was a satirical rampage through the futility and tragedy of conflict; this is also a rampage, littered with opaque utterances of sonic thrust, stood stoutly on an unpredictable and emotional structure of aural dissonance. Following this is the Italian maestro Donato Dozzy and his presentation of 'The Illusion of Choice'. The track bounds along like a train through the jungle, powered by a distant rumble and purring synths. Skittering and melodic percussion sounds a little like birds; the drums are made of rawhide, strong, insistent, controlled. Third in line is the remix of 'Laws and Habits' by Milton Bradley. This cut is hypnosis with little regard - not an accident, but effortless. Metallic distortion buzzes like bees across your head, zipping across the top of delicate hi-hats and an elastic groove. This is a walk through the 4am night, appreciative of the glimmering streetlamps, and fearful of nothing. Last is Eomac's rework of 'The Self As Another', bringing the record to a resonant conclusion. One half of label favourite Lakker, the Irish producer begins with a melody line cut from razor-sharp cloth. The pulsating beat is dressed in metallic shimmer, confidently pursuing a dangerous course. And yet there is a pause amid this brief insistence, a moment of perspective, perspicacity. The record considers its place, and asks for contemplation.

With a selection this strong, and of such ideas and identities, this contemplation is surely a worthy vice. This may be a prelude to the full record, but it is a cut made of vehement conviction.

The third entry in Lucy's trio of adventurous full-lengths is visually introduced by artwork of a pearl-bearing shell, designed by Stroboscopic Artefacts' resident visual artist (and Lucy's brother) Ignazio Mortellaro. This drops a subtle hint as to the nature of its contents: just as a pearl slowly forms within its enclosing body in response to organic challenges, Lucy's work is also a kind of crystallization of memory and experience into an artifact of great value.

Listeners to this album will be struck immediately by how different it sounds from past Lucy productions, while still retaining the feel of relentless questing that defined his previous two solo LPs Wordplay for Working Bees and Churches, Schools, and Guns (or, as Lucy himself defines the feeling, the equal valuation of precision and exploration'). Initially feeling like Lucy is guiding his listeners on a slow and slightly apprehensive down-river trip through the Amazon, or some similarly thriving but as-of-yet undiscovered terrain, the album is enriched by several layers of ambience and by the wordless, improvisational (yet still somehow narrative) vocals and flute of Jon Jacobs. Without a doubt, it's an album with an initiatory' atmosphere that listeners should commit themselves to hearing in one sitting, with as little interruption as possible. However, unlike many initiatory rites, this is no arduous ordeal at all: great care has gone into connecting each chapter of the album with the same silver thread of entrancing story-telling. On standout pieces like She-Wolf Night Mourning,' electronic arpeggiation and persistent synthetic flutters perfectly merge with the unique tone colors of resonant acoustic percussion and pensive woodwind. Elsewhere, pieces like A Selfless Act' reconcile technoid pulses with melancholic, yet intoxicating echoes of Mediterranean musical traditions.

Interestingly, many of the tracks on Self-Mythology refer to old legends and well-known fairytales (e.g. the opening track which references Baba Yaga's magical hut), or to more broadly defined states of consciousness ( Samsara,' which features an especially strong, sustained choral interplay between glassy synth sequences and earthy flute sonorities). This is where the album is truly unique and relevant in its ambition. The interplay between the graphic design, the vocal and flute performances of Jacobs, and the sound design chosen by Lucy aims to be an intimate audio autobiography of its creators while also referring back to the stories that have shaped human destiny for millennia. This work is a meditation upon the reciprocity between personal hopes and fears and collective dreams and nightmares, an exploration of the endless interplay between the universal and the deeply individual. It is the tale of that uncanny process by which our own conscious experience draws from the pool of archetypal information, while also contributing to it.

On January 14th, 2022, Elvis Costello and The Imposters release, ‘The Boy Named If,’ a new album of urgent, immediate songs with bright melodies, guitar solos that sting and a quick step to the rhythm. Costello tell us, ”The full title of this record is 'The Boy Named If (And Other Children’s Stories).’ ‘IF,’ is a nickname for your imaginary friend; your secret self, the one who knows everything you deny, the one you blame for the shattered crockery and the hearts you break, even your own." Produced by Sebastian Krys & Elvis Costello - the album is a collection of thirteen snapshots, “That take us from the last days of a bewildered boyhood to that mortifying moment when you are told to stop acting like a child - which for most men (and perhaps a few gals too) can be any time in the next fifty years," as Costello put it.

At the center of Dadub's SA020 lie the myths of the ancient Greek goddess Demeter - her search for daughter Persephone, the drink at the Eleusinian Mysteries ceremonies in her honour, and the fungus which gave the drink its psychoactive properties. The opening track is 'Mistresses March', a thumping narrative of Demeter's search for her abducted daughter Persephone. At the fundament lies a test of a new generation VST - 'Diachronic' - which is used to manage audio samples. The textures which merge during the near 12-minute march scrape and plummet, raining down upon the ominous marching band beat. This is an odyssey, unhappy and unflinching. Based on the handmade modular synth system from Nicola Buono and Lino Monaco, the representation of ceremony drink 'Kykeon' is on one hand a flowing narrative and on the other a demonstration of intense artistic scrutiny: a perfect, unremitting thud. There is, at five minutes, a subtle key pattern, light but not impermanent under the cacophony of chaos. This is indicative of the ceaseless self-examination. Little details, significant differences. Powered by a sound and groove generator invented by Daniele de Santis (Grün), 'Ergot Kernel' is a chemical cauldron. It's a beat continuously emerging from the undergrowth; an imperious column rising; a train ploughing on, coursing through an arid landscape. Conversely, the atmosphere is bright, full of electricity and warmth, with moisture descending. Dadub's SA020 is a journey through a Greek myth, with textural magnificence and technological innovation.