Search:one touch

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

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

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

Joshua is the follow-up album to Olympic. While the second album, typically, often shows what critics call “maturity”, here Simon has released instead an album of adolescence. The musician opened up his own memory box to contemplate his childhood souvenirs, and dust them off of all nostalgia. At that time, he would VHS-record movies from TV and tape record soundtracks directly from the TV speaker, so he could listen to them in his bedroom. This is when he “discovered the power of music, the way it makes you enter another world, far from reality. I wanted to pay tribute to the era I shaped myself in – the ’80s and ’90s”. Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and Soft Machine. Logically, these are the sonic signatures that seem to haunt the album. The timeless pioneers of synthetic music constitute the sound references, without any established chronological timeline, that blend with the atmosphere of typically “French Touch” movie soundtracks – long before the term was even coined. “I use a musical palette that acts as a flashback to my favourite teenage movies: the synth sounds of Close Encounters of the Third Kind; the synth pads in Jean-Jacques Cousteau’s fascinating documentaries about the sea world; the melodies in the manner of François De Roubaix; the themes that evoke the soundtracks of late-night TV sessions (those by Verneuil, those with Belmondo, Depardieu, etc.); and the sci-fi ambiences like in Blade Runner.” In short, an aesthetic was decided on by Simon very early on: French analog synths instead of North American symphonic orchestras.

The name Joshua has two meanings for French 79: one is linked to the idea of nostalgia, the other to adventure. On the one hand, the computer in the 1983 movie Wargames, and on the other, the boat of French sailor Bernard Moitessier.

The track titled Joshua synthesizes the spirit of the album – an odyssey, a neverending crossing of the world in search of oneself, a spontaneous escape into the future, under the benevolent eye of the past. This epic invites everyone of us to a specific place in our imagination, which is also the source of an indescribable pleasure for French 79: a gust of wind, a sailboat ride, a skateboarding trick, the smell of freshly fallen snow, or the dull roar of an impatient audience.

The same aesthetic preferences are found in the videos that illustrate Joshua’s first tracks: for Hold On, the skateboarder chose to recall the cult ’90s skate videos that he would watch on repeat as a teenager, while Hometown hints at Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Although he now calls Marseille home, Simon continuously draws with passion from the anachronic contemporaneity of his childhood in the Eastern French region.

“I need escape to be able to create. A two or three-day sailing trip gives me enough inspiration to lock myself in the studio for a week when I’m back on dry land.” His boat takes him far away from everything, far from the Old Port where she moors, the rest of the time Simon would escape by walking the streets of his city or climbing the Alpine mountains.

Not only does the new version French 79 reveal a few biographical pieces of Simon henner's history, but it also inaugurates the first vocal track for the musician. One feels a guilty pleasure when hearing him take the lead on the first track, The Remedy. The electronic fugue that opens the album sets the tone: Simon has found the cure for his inner turmoil and wants us to discover our own treatment too. Hold On is a sonic explosion that celebrates the feeling of freedom - what's more of a teenage dream than this feeling - and it eventually command one to feel the same way too. Echoing Olympic, the electronic argonaut invites his muse again, singer Sarah Rebecca. On By Your Side and Touch The Stars, the native of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, now based in Paris, hoisted the mainsail of dream pop. First, though a dialogue that surfaced their unfailing attachment to the bonds of friendship, then through the light hearted atmosphere that leaves us with no choice but to believe in our own dreams and do anything possible to fulfill them. The quest for peace in the midst of the daily din is heard in both Code Zero and the title track Joshua, two majestic journeys in search of hedonism, combined with introspection.

**LONG OVERDUE REPRESS - CLEAR VINYL 300 COPIES ONLY** “With Ela’s music I feel emotional, engaged… I can’t help but feel she’s always looking for a sense of belonging and it
seems to inform all the music that she makes. Glasgow must have more of that belonging feeling than most
cities because she’s spent the most time here, an exotic bird in a rainy city she maybe finds a lttle bit of comfort in. It’s
a pleasure to have her here, in this awful time to be living in Britain, her illuminations feel important and hopeful. A
stubborn light; someone making great timeless music out of the humdrum of the everyday.” - Stephen Pastel
Movies For Ears is a retrospective collection of works by Polish-born, Glasgow-based artist Ela Orleans which
navigates almost two decades of songwriting in the heart of the global pop underground. This remastered collection casts
an ear over what Orleans might call the ‘pop sensibility’ within her back catalogue. Released previously on a number of
small DIY labels, Orleans’ music coincided with the explosion of auto-didactic musicians finding their voice in the age of
the blogosphere, artists emboldened by the democratisation of music-making afforded by the internet. From the outset,
Orleans’ childhood studying formal music mixed with cut-up techniques, sampling, sound-art and experimentation to
create a distinctive signature cloaked in an innate melancholy and playfulness. Fully remastered by James Plotkin,
featuring extensive sleeve-notes and rare photos from Orleans’ archive, Movies For Ears presents an appraisal of the
musician’s work, painting a portrait of an artist with an uncanny ability to evoke emotions and ghosts of memories in the
listener.
Each song pulls sunshine from its surroundings, moments of pleasure plucked from eulogies. The Season employs a
hypnotic loop with Orleans’s prophetic voice heralding the season we’re doomed to repeat. In fact the singer is often cast
as the changing protagonist in her songs: on Walkingman, a hazy ballad heavy with ennui, the narrator is laden with the
world’s weight, forever pacing a groundhog day world blank, a pissed-off actor in a Kafka-esque melodrama. On Light At
Dawn we’re in a seedy kitsch bar-room go-go scene, a ghostly rock’roll romance with shimmering percussion, poledancing
in a Lynchian half-dream. Movies For Ears’ moods straddle memory and fantasy: scratchily invoking halfremembered
exotica, the flickering shadows of europhile cinemas screens, a delicately woven world anchored in Orleans
existential meditations on longing, intimacy, solitude and the search for love. These rich textures in every song don’t
overpower some crystalised moments of emotion however: on In Spring Orleans sings simply “I have been happy two
weeks together,” summarizing that feeling of elation when emerging from a depression, a long winter. It’s a moment that
perfectly illustrates the lightness of touch and clarity in the singer’s voice.
The power of the loop and Orleans’ weaving songwriting that breaks its spell is illustrated perfectly by I Know. Over an
aching chord progression, the vocal takes flight into bittersweet loneliness, Pachelbel’s Canon played at a wedding where
only one person shows up. The repeated refrain “I know, I know” ascends to the heavens as the chords descend to the
dumps and the listener is left in the middle, happy but not knowing why, maybe a little changed, two weeks together. On
Movies For Ears, Ela Orleans lets us into a secret: the rare moments of joy to be found in the joins of the loop, the spaces
between things, the spring after the winter are the moments that last after the day has faded.

Repress !

Where We're Calling From
The Liminal Zone: Reflections on Duval Timothy’s Sen Am
Lamin Fofana

Sen Am is an enduring and tender album, rich and beguiling and generous in a quiet way. Over the last few years, I find myself returning to it, listening and absorbing, reflecting on the voices and working through the multiple layers of feelings and themes it announces with confidence and equanimity. Notions of care and contradiction, expressions of joy and desire and the underlying feeling of unease and turmoil; there is an urgent appeal to the listener for generosity, to strengthen our capacity to hear multiple voices simultaneously, to exist in multiple places at once.

Duval Timothy’s music was dropped into our world from another realm sometime in the spring of 2017. We received the call and we answered it. The rhythm and spirit was transmitted via London’s NTS Radio on the Do!! You!!! Breakfast Show with Charlie Bones and a short while later we were listening to the first vinyl edition of Sen Am in our living room in Berlin. The record got a lot of plays (at home and at some shows, before and after performances). It was like sunlight filtering through a cracked window and remaining there for a moment, dancing. Blue music emanating from a liminal zone, an in-between space, somewhere on the outskirts of Freetown, or rural Sierra Leone, or the outer edges of South London, or Bath, UK, or some undisclosed orbit, unfixed location. The music is soaked in diasporic experiences. It refuses to settle but still invites us to enter and stay awhile in that zone, where multiple forms exist (all) together with jazz, hip-hop, various strands of expressive electronics and experimental music all breathing together and moving around. It is a portal to a place of possibilities, a space for building and repairing possible and lost connections. But life in that liminal zone is precarious; it is life under duress; under pressure – not merely the pressure to produce a presentable, categorizable, and salable body of work, but the pressure that compels us to experiment and create new concepts and things that will help us imagine a different existence, a way out of the turbulence.

Freetown is a marvellous and sometimes sad place. It is one of those unmistakable locations inscribed diasporic memory; a place that touches you, a place that holds you and demands you bear witness: witness to pain, poverty, joy and desire. You remember the voices and the eyes of people even in momentary encounters. In Sen Am, you hear not only Duval’s recollections and sounds of Freetown, you hear family and friendship, people coming together and forming bonds, creating surrogate families. Forging community wherever you go is a practice, and community is at the core of this music. It’s in all the voices, from Emmerson and 6pac to Aminata and Aruna. It opens up a space for Black voices, for Sierra Leonean voices, and those voices extend through the succeeding projects, the 2 Sim EP and the album Help, and all that radiates from Duval’s Carrying Colour imprint.

Thank you for the invitation to write about the album Sen Am, on the occasion of its re-release which also coincides with the release of the exquisite double 7” Smɔl Smɔl with cktrl — a wonderful piece which calls on the listener to play both records at the same time to hear the music or play them separately and hear different versions. Duval is strengthening us, encouraging us to feel comfortable with discomfort, with incompleteness, with the hard-to-understand. This is a beautiful thing.

The prolific, Grammy Award winner, Jim Lauderdale has delivered another
batch of songs that further define him as one of the leading voices of
Americana music.
With his new album, Hope, Lauderdale has written 13 songs intended to inspire. Instead of pondering the sadness, fear and isolation the pandemic has
caused with so many around the world, he has instead focused on the optimism of the human spirit and highlighted that, as we always have, mankind will
get through this difficult time.
He has done this within a collection of songs that touch on country, rock, boogie rock, bluegrass and Jim’s own blend of far out space music.

Another Time, Another Place was Bryan Ferry’s second studio album as a solo artist. The album reached #4 in the UK charts in 1974. Essentially a cover album, with the exception of the last song, which gave its title to the album and was written by Ferry. While These Foolish Things emphasized an early-’60s girl-group repertoire, Another Time, Another Place turned to soul music (Sam Cooke, Ike & Tina Turner) and country music (Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Joe South). “The album as a whole feels a touch more formal than its predecessor, but Ferry and company, plus various brass and string sections, turn on the showiness enough to make it all fun. Lovingly Re-Mastered from the original tapes by Frank Arkwright at Abbey Road Studios. London. Featuring artwork that has been faithfully restored to reflect its original first press “Another Time, Another Place” is presented on 180g heavy weight vinyl and is one of those classic albums that would not look out of place in any record collection.

Double vinyl on blue and orange transparent vinyl in gatefold sleeve with download code.

 Former bIG*fLAME singer and bassist Alan Brown returns with his long term solo project The Great Leap Forward, releasing a powerful and trademark new album ‘Revolt Against An Age Of Plenty’. 

Vigorous, scintillating and life-affirming, this 13-song album sees Brown reach a milestone birthday, as explored in 'Can You Kanreki?’ - the Japanese concept of second childhood and re-birth. Then there are the trademark political and social vignettes, such as the title song of the album 'Revolt Against An Age Of Plenty' – railing against mass consumerism and media control; the wistful 'dEBRA 2021' (a re-working of the bIG*fLAME classic 'Debra'); and the ascerbic 'It's A Wonderful Lie' – a scathing attack on the lack of openness, honesty and humility of our political leaders.

Brown featured on the legendary and influential C86 NME cassette as singer and bassist with Manchester agit-post-punk trio bIG*fLAME, and recorded nine John Peel sessions for BBC Radio One in the 1980’s with bIG*fLAME (4), The Great Leap Forward (2), A Witness (2) and Inca Babies (1). 

Formed by Brown following the disbandment of bIG*fLAME in 1986, The Great Leap Forward is essentially a solo project in which Brown writes all songs and lyrics, and plays / programs all instruments on recordings.

The style and sound is more melodic and accessible than bIG*fLAME, but still with overtly political lyrics and a socialist / humanist ethos: incisive political and social commentary layered over sharp yet melodic guitar pop – and with a touch of electro and humour thrown in for good measure…
Stuart Maconie, writing for NME, summed up the band's sound: "First there's the jagged guitar melodics, sweet but never tacky. Then there's the ferocious rhythmic drive. But best of all there's the stylish and witty use of found voices...snatches and snippets of speech and propaganda that are integral to the songs."

Little wonder that as with McCarthy, The Great Leap Forward were loved by a young James Dean Bradfield.

Brown writes- “This album is the culmination of four year's writing, and it has a much more varied approach than previous releases. Whereas previously I've concentrated on a political approach, this album takes a wider view of the world. Of course I still provide the trademark political and social vignettes - how could I not - such as the title song of the album 'Revolt Against An Age Of Plenty' – named after a collection of works by the English writer Jack Common in which I rail against mass consumerism and media control; the wistful 'dEBRA 2021' (a re-working of the bIG*fLAME classic 'Debra'); and the ascerbic 'It's A Wonderful Lie' – with what I think is a scathing attack on the lack of openness, honesty and humility of our political leaders.

WOLF Music welcomes Amsterdam’s Retromigration to the family with a five-track summertime sizzler, ready-made for hazy parkside sunsets and beach jaunts alike.

Hotly tipped and rarely skipped, Retromigration has been lighting up the scene with a string of killer releases over the past 18 months on labels like Healthy Scratch, Ltd, W/Lbl, GLBDOM and Ravanelli Disco Club.

Flexin’ that signature chopped and looped style across the EP, the A side is a double dose of house joints via ‘Bloom Street’ and ‘Brining It’, the former a bumpin’ New York nodding cut, the latter an synth heavy roller.

Flip it to find a more jazz-tinged affair but with its feet still firmly in the house domain. ‘Free Spirit’ channels a groove that could last forever, with a bass and keys combo that riffs away any creeping anxieties, before Arthur Dudley joins for ‘One Night With Colin’ a late night, smoked out, jazz joint trip.

‘Slick Walkin’' closes out the EP – a lesson in how to make samples dance any which way you want them to, as piano melodies flicker over a double nice bassline and tasty synth touches.

The System 108 anniversary record sums up the label's five-year work without words. The new collection is an impression of everything that the team has become during its existence. System 108 has matured nominally and stylistically, defining for itself three main directions: post-industrial, techno and break-beat, disco and house. Each of the three parts of the new collection reveals one of the musical trajectories of System 108 development: Part 1 is a dark story that covers the genres of new beat, EBM, acid, new wave, with a light touch in Goa trance by Mashkov.

“They were one of those bands that were a prequel to what the future was becoming. Feminism, human rights, animal rights, environmental
protection, gender issues... Spitboy was singing about these issues
30 fucking years ago.
I’m so grateful to have witnessed it.” - Billie Joe Armstrong “Spitboy are one of the most
important punk bands to have ever existed. To me, an angry 20-year-old in London, discovering them felt like the first time I truly identified with a band’s politics and agenda.
One of my all-time favourite albums (then and now) was Penis Envy by Crass. No lyrics
had ever touched me the way this album had--until Spitboy entered my life. My people. My radical feminists. My punk scene. Where I have lived and belonged for over 30
years.” -Vique Simba

Repress on black vinyl, comes in Flatlfife label sleeve.

The 4th acid compilation is definitely a collectible! With an explicit track from Eat Static which is produced back in the 90s and has that oldschool goa touch and rave breakbeats - we love it!!! 303 Airline has his tribute on Flatlife with an excellent pounding acid techno banger which can be played loud in clubs. Together on the A-side with DJ Wank; a great acid techno producer from Sweden; pounding driving acid techno. Then last but not least; label owners Jack Wax (Flatlife Records) & Sam C. (Dosis Decibel / Cat in the Bag) team up; with this excellent dark acidcore track "Missing" - which is the 1st track they ever created together!! 4 styles of acid again on 1 vinyl! Enjoy this one!!!

Housed in a label sleeve and comes on solid blue and yellow mixed vinyl.

CRESCENT was formed in 1998 by Ismaeel Attallah and Amr Mokhtar in Cairo, Egypt. It started as a Black Metal band influenced by the Swedish Black Metal scene. In 2014, the band released their full-length debut ‘Pyramid Slaves’, focusing on Ancient Egyptian history/mythology, which marked the band’s complete transformation towards Black/Death Metal infused with Egyptian elements. In the following years, CRESCENT was booked to major Metal festivals such as Wacken Open Air, Inferno Metal Festival, Fall of Summer festival among others . 2017 CRESCENT ’s much anticipated second full-length ‘The Order of Amenti’,a tribute to the Ancient Egyptian gods, showed more emphasis on the blackened death Metal epic soundscapes and thematic atmospheres while maintaining its primordial Egyptian Death Metal essence. CRESCENT’s new album 'Carving the Fires of Akhet' was mixed/mastered by Victor ‘Santura’ Bullok (Triptykon, Dark Fortress) at Woodshed studio. The artwork was done by Khaos Diktator (Thron) , which is a Baroque-style recreation of one of the most influential and ancient Egyptian relics. The album title acts as the thread that holds all tracks together. The Fires of Akhet represents the great divine will that was carved into humanity's history and future. A value that brought nations to their apex and brought others to their knees, and the cycle goes on. Lyrically, the album touches upon a primeval epic story that is full of struggle and blood. It also reflects drunkenness with divine power, and pure evil in its religious and historic form (and beyond). Finally, the album lays a dark path of philosophical and material decay. The themes will not only be represented by the sound, but also by artworks that relays the sub-themes. It manifests CRESCENT's growing identity and beyond any of its previous works, starting a new era for the band.

Token celebrates its 100th release with Luke Slater, a legend of the genre, releasing under one of his most iconic aliases: Planetary Assault Systems. For over 25 years, Slater has delivered unparalleled quality in his music - a formative figure in Techno and instrumental in defining the sound globally, few can touch the Brit for depth, urgency and hit rate.

Exhibiting near enough perfect renditions of classic dance-floor moods, the four track EP is a wrought iron rollercoaster through some of the artist's most exacting work. Booming opener Bang Wap chugs unrelentingly while a lithe FX line does the bulk of the movement in the high mid range - building tension before a satisfying release in the last quarter. A2 Bolt is classic Planetary Assault Systems - hypnotic and driving with a single sequence dipping in and out of view. On the flip, Say It Loud could be an idiosyncratic hit waiting to happen - dry and tight in the drum department for maximum effect, and featuring a recurring vocal sample chopped and skewed for tension. Closer Shine takes a deeper, more psychedelic route with shades of the classic, jacking Detroit sound in the pitch bent lead line, but maintains the energy throughout with stylish delay sends upping the ante where required, all in all delivering a neat finish to the EP.

Techno isn't a genre that has birthed many consistent albums, and the dub techno subgenre even less so, but one indisputable classic is Porter Ricks' debut 'Biokinetics'. Originally issued on the legendary Basic Channel sub-label Chain Reaction in 1996 following a trio of 12"s, 'Biokinetics' was the first of the label's album releases, and still stands as its crowning achievement. Porter Ricks are Thomas Köner and Andy Mellwig, and between them they re-framed the techno sound, imbuing the spacious ambience pioneered by label bosses Mark Ernestus and Moritz Von Oswald with a frosty, isolated experimental bent, and combining it with the sort of haunted minimalism of early Plastikman.
What separated 'Biokinetics' from other albums at the time was its unwavering narrative - the exact sound has been interpreted countless times since, but the immersive qualities of this singular record have rarely been touched. Maybe it is down to the silvery underwater concept that ties each track together - the bubbling pads, sub-aquatic basses and muffled kick drums. But as with any great album, it's hard to exactly put your finger on what makes it a classic. Simply put 'Biokinetics' is one of the most important records in the genre and one of techno's finest albums. It has been re-released ten years ago by Type Records, and now Mille Plateaux is celebrating Porter Ricks' and Biokinetics' 25th anniversary with this sumptuous double viny edition.

Contains new specially prepared liner notes by Penguin Guide To Jazz’s writer Brian Morton and by Paris’ prestigious Jazz Magazine.
6 bonus tracks (Green Vinyl) “The question of whether Etta James became a pop singer, a jazz singer, or a blues singer needn’t detain you long. She was all of those, as At Last bears out, and more besides. James touched on gospel, doo-wop and rhythm’n’blues
with equal facility. “Dance With Me, Henry” was a hit, but renamed “The Wallflower” and covered by Georgia Gibbs. Because James had a composition credit, it made her some money, but she didn’t like to be bested. She made sure that the next time it would be her name on the label.“ Penguin Guide to Jazz “At Last!, her debut LP, made for the celebrated Chicago label Chess, certainly is one of her most memorable. It’s impossible to not be moved by the power of her voice, beginning with the opening notes of “Anything to Say You’re Mine”.
Every phrase, every word is attacked with an energy that commands respect. But beware, this young woman (she was only 22 at the time) could also take on the sweetest forms of a melancholy ballad, such as “Stormy Weather”, and manage to achieve tenderness. At Last! is one of the key soul music albums of the early 1960’s.” Jazz Magazine ETTA JAMES, lead vocals; The Riley Hampton Orchestra. Arranged and conducted by Riley Hampton. Recorded in Chicago, Illinois, 1960 and 1961. Original sessions produced by Phil and Leonard Chess.

Second release of the year already from the party music people of Abstrack. This time, it’s Brussels based artist Strapontin whose original production is on the menu, with re interpretation from several gifted companions. The multitude here is no excuse for genericity or easy recipes, rather a fertile playground for toying around with a wide range of vibes and moods.

Matches is a poetic, sensual spoken-word piece. The song feels like a flower about to blossom, though with plenty of hybrid DNA in it. In the end it leaves the way wide open for further emotions to get through. And they do.

Sasnal Park is the emotion of wander : looking for something forever, but for what? The drums make you believe that you found it but they turn out to be a mirage, and so does every tangible element of the track. A beautiful journey in the end even if you don’t know where you’ve been.

Family Diner … no ambiguity this time : a mystical roller as dark as it is trippy. Or maybe more trippy. Either way, not sure you can resist dancing to this one played out loud. Lose yourself to screaming halfway through, but only to fall back well rooted in those dancing feet afterwards.

On the flip, remixers put it where they’re expected to : A Strange Wedding takes the wandering “Sasnal Park” on the Edge of trancy club music, closer to the roots of Abstrack parties.

Feon turns the belter “Family Diner” into a road roller : sirens and massive subs engage into a memorable fist fight.

And home man Vidock choses the very dreamlike “Matches”, adding quite a touch of dancefloor but not removing one inch of dream.

Oliver Wood is a mainstay of modern-day American roots music. The frontman of the Wood Brothers since 2004, he's spent the 21st century blurring the boundaries between folk, gospel, country-soul, and Americana, earning an international audience and a Grammy Award-nomination along the way. Always Smilin', his debut as a solo artist, continues that tradition while also shining new light on Oliver's sharp songwriting, savvy guitar chops, and a voice that evokes the swagger of a Saturday evening picking party one moment and the solemnity of a Sunday morning gospel service the next. Always Smilin' is an album of bridges, mixing a wide range of collaborations with a uniquely personal touch. Guests include bandmates from Oliver's musical past and present, from mentor and co-writer Chris Long (who performed alongside Oliver in King Johnson, the roots-rock band that dominated Atlanta's music scene around the turn of the millennium) to percussionist Jano Rix (Oliver's partner in The Wood Brothers). Blues heroine Susan Tedeschi, Hiss Golden Messenger's Phil Cook, Medeski Martin & Wood's John Medeski, Tedeschi Trucks Band's Tyler Greenwell, Nashville staple Phil Madeira, and singer/songwriter Carsie Blanton also make appearances, with Rebecca Wood — Oliver's wife — handling the album's handmade linocut cover art. For Oliver, the goal was simple: to collaborate freely with a mix of old friends and new partners, embracing a new level of independence.

This, one of the greatest radio shows ever made onto a record as it combines a Radio interview with Roky Erickson in full gloom while he is presenting the demos of tracks that may ended up on the great great The Evil One LP Earlier versions of mine mine mind, two headed dog, and click your fingers applauding the play previously released on vinyl by France's Sponge Records in 1976.. The bonuses (interviews, demos, rarities) are dandy, but the album is treasure enough. Its retro-metal chops have more kaboom than the irony-diluted pap of current poseurs, and its bent lyrics mop the floor with wannabe-kooks like Jad Fair. Some savvy touches- such as Roky's progressive pre-PC designation that the swamp monsters are 'alligator-persons'- hint that Roky was more lucid than he let on.

Blue Vinyl
Lynch protégé and Twin Peaks sound designer Dean Hurley coaxes an incredible puzzlebox of atmospheres and mood pieces on this killer contribution to our Documenting Sound series, now remastered and pressed on vinyl for what is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the most cinematic and neon-lit instalment in the series. Like a
smudged and overdubbed copy of the BoC Maxima tape, with added iridescence.
Across almost 40 minutes we transition from aerosolised synths to romantic chromatics, thru to Nurse WIth Wound-style severed rhythms and fading glimmers of hope, ‘Concrete Feather’ epitomises Dean Hurley’s prized knack for nuanced instrumental story-telling in the finest and most engrossing style we could imagine. Against the backdrop of the Hollywood film industry that has primed us for as long as we can all remember, the music spans a panorama of lush, mirage-like choral pads and starry flickers thru to gloaming
nightmare sequences and screwed drums, while touching on some of the dankest synth tones this side of his ‘Anthology Resource’ volumes or indeed his soundtrack work for Twin Peaks: The Return. It’s full of dread and a slowly unfolding sense of tragedy.
“Having a regular practice of recording is probably the single most important element to my craft. It’s a way of dropping indiscriminate mile markers while constantly moving forward in time without ability to pause.
Over the years, working for David Lynch taught me a great deal about this and the concept and importance of experimentation. I’ve found myself clinging to those lessons during this time and using them as tools for both productivity and balance. His notion of experimentation is a simple one, yet incredibly profound. It was one of the very first words I heard him say during our initial meeting, and I never stopped hearing the term daily over the subsequent 13 years working together. An ‘experiment’ can provide a legitimate mental back-entrance into the act of creation. It can position an approach toward discovery as opposed to effort, and eliminate the thought that one needs to ‘will’ something into existence. It also aids in calming the judgmental
side of a brain from stepping on/interfering with expression…after all, experiments are not about success or failure, they’re simply about learning. In the Lynch school of thought, multiple experiments then become firewood…and with firewood, one can not only build but actually sustain a fire…even turn it into a multipleacre blaze or more.
Dean Hurley

In Post-Heretic Dracula X Chronicles II the Dracula figure functions as a part fictive and part autobiographical metaphor. Dracula mirrors certain systematic (therefore also internal) conditionings and attributes in its whole ambivalent fluctuations. This character represents the complex relationships of a loving/living person in a neo-liberal capitalist system while oscillating between melancholia & rage, facing the preservation or loss of his love and standing in an alienated position towards the ruling order. The eleven featured compositions and their respective song names (both of them are riddled with references) playfully touch on conflicts between love, life and system-critique, without being too upfront about the subject-matter.

Nicola Kazimir (*28.05.1990 in Zürich, Schweiz)

A DJ, producer, musician, artist, space-owner, record label owner and party organizer, Nicola Kazimir works freely across platforms and communities. For Kazimir, these numerous positions are not static, and they can actfluidly and reciprocally as a whole, or as separate entities. His artistic and acoustic productions are mostly based on topics that include the institutionalization of techno, copyright, dividualism and the human perception of repetitive rhythm patterns mixed with aesthetic codes of b-movie horror movies or occultism. He is one of the founders and still part of the labels Les Points/ Gentrified Underground / Infoline and the offspace Mikro Zürich. Other projects include a supporting role in the organization of Zentralwäscherei Zürich and being part of the Clubbüro-team at Rote Fabrik.