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Miles Davis created just one studio album with his original sextet: Milestones. And he made every moment count. Pairing with Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones, Davis not only laid the groundwork for the modalism that immediately followed but tailored a genuine modern-jazz masterwork laden with performances among the most explosive of his distinguished career. Sandwiched between the more famous 'Round About Midnight and the epochal Kind of Blue, Milestones remains a seminal work of art.

Sourced from the original master tapes and pressed on dead-quiet SuperVinyl, Mobile Fidelity's numbered-edition 180g LP grants each musician their own space amid broad soundstages. Afforded the benefits of a nearly non-existent noise floor and supreme groove definition, this vinyl reissue doubles as a time machine back to the February-March 1958 recording sessions.

Colors, shapes, and dimensions appear in the manner that resembles what you'd glean from behind a studio control room's window. Davis' burnished trumpet is rendered in three-dimensional perspective and seemingly coaxes the band to play with unburdened zest. Coltrane's trademark saxophone teems with lifelike tonality and images with specificity; his solos work in tandem with and against the driving rhythms. Garland's swaggering piano lines? Visualize the keys as he hits full stride, the chords and fills slithering around skeletal frameworks.

Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and selected as a "Core Collection" record by the Penguin Guide to Jazz, Milestones is as famous for its title track – widely considered ground zero for modalism and bolstered by Jones' hallmark "Philly Lick" rim shot – as the players that produced it. The launching pad for many of Davis' improvisational flights, the album teases the explorations Coltrane would soon chase. Davis' own solo work broaches territories that far exceed what he had done in his bop-rooted past. Every song is a highlight.

Take the bravado "Dr. Jackle," featuring a hot-foot pace and bebop strains, or "Sid's Ahead," which continues the album's blues theme while juggling edgy harmonics and inside-out structures. On "Billy Boy," distinguished with an arco bass solo from Chambers, Garland gets a turn in the spotlight and channels the openness practised by one of his heroes, Ahmad Jamal. Even more instructive is the band's reading of Dizzy Gillespie's "Two Bass Hit." Three years removed from the version Davis and company recorded for the trumpeter's Columbia debut, this interpretation demonstrates the extent to which the group had jelled in a relatively short amount of time.



Then there's "Straight, No Chaser," the definitive rendition of Thelonious Monk's signature piece. Coltrane's marbled playing pulls at the tune's borders, Adderley takes liberty with solos, and Davis dances around his mates, at one point quoting "When the Saints Go Marching In" while demonstrating his knowledge of tradition and casting an eye towards the future.

About that future. Garland already had one foot out the door during the Milestones sessions to the extent Davis spells him on "Sid's Ahead." Jones would stick around for a bit longer but soon plot his exit. History proves Davis navigated the changes with visionary aplomb. Yet the chemistry, excitement, and beauty the sextet achieves on Milestones cannot be overstated. This reissue helps put the album in proper perspective – and presents the music the fidelity it deserves.

Miles Davis' A Tribute to Jack Johnson is the best jazz-rock record ever made. Equally inspired by the leader's desire to assemble the "greatest rock and roll band you have ever heard,” his adoration of Johnson, and Black Power politics, Davis created a hard-hitting set that surges with excitement, intensity, majesty, and power. Bridging the electric fusion he'd pursued on earlier efforts with a funkier, dirtier rhythmic approach, Davis zeroes in on concepts of spontaneity, freedom, and identity seldom achieved in the studio — and just as infrequently accepted by the mainstream.

Sourced from the original analog master tapes, pressed on MoFi SuperVinyl, and housed in a Stoughton jacket, Mobile Fidelity's 180g LP reissue brings it all to fore with startling realism. Benefitting from SuperVinyl’s nearly inaudible noise floor, superb groove definition, and clean, ultra-quiet surfaces, this 180g LP showcases everything — from the bold tonality of the headliner's white-hot trumpet solos to the decay of crashing cymbals, carry of wiry guitar notes, and echoes of the studio — in reference fashion.

Bristling with exuberance, Davis' high-register passages explode with authority and commanding presence. Around him, a barrage of urgent backbeats, knifing riffs, and supple bass lines emerge amidst black backgrounds. One of the most prominent differences long-time fans will notice is how much more aggressive, immediate, and vibrant the music sounds, with those aspects central to the composer's original desires.

Utilizing wah-wah and distortion, the go-to instrumentalist of the performances— guitarist John McLaughlin — attacks with a nasty edge, slashing style, and vicious streak that allows A Tribute to Jack Johnson< cross the until-then-impenetrable divide between rock and jazz. Davis puts both feet in the former camp and erases any gap. The stories of the record’s creation are nearly as legendary as the sounds within: Two sessions, multiple jams, different sets of musicians (several uncredited), and near-miraculous production perfectionism that made it all appear cohesive.

The least-well-known masterpiece of Davis' career, the 1971 record — seamlessly assembled and spliced together by producer Teo Macero — was a victim of limited record-label promotion. Audiences also didn’t immediately know what to make of its original cover art — faithfully replicated here. In addition, the powers that be at Columbia Records were directing the public’s attention to Miles at Fillmore, a completely different kind of album guided by two keyboardists. A Tribute to Jack Johnson practically lives in a different universe, one from the future. To many listeners who did manage to hear it — among them critic/musician Robert Quine, Stooges leader Iggy Pop, and renowned critic Robert Christgau — it surpassed everything that came before.

Indeed, Davis treated it as a personal manifesto: An opportunity to salute the Black championship boxer admired for his threatening image to the establishment and impeccable taste in clothes, cars, women and music. Davis explains in the liner notes his affinity for Johnson — a stance mirrored by the defiant music, which hits with a prize fighter's force and reflects the graceful elegance with which a pugilist navigates the ring — and closes the album with a Johnson quote read by Brock Peters.

Inspired not only by Johnson but by Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone, Davis changed his approach and his band. He surrounds himself with a cadre of musicians in their 20s and, in the case of bassist Michael Henderson, a 19-year-old fresh from touring with Stevie Wonder. Henderson gives Davis what he requested: boogie-based grooves that don’t lose shape or direction. Soprano saxophonist Steve Grossman, drummer Billy Cobham, and organist Herbie Hancock adhere to a similar aesthetic that prizes brazenness, innovation, and energy.

In that vein, during a portion of “Yesternow,” Davis segues into a separate performance (which became known in its entirety as “Willie Nelson”) played by guitarists McLaughlin and Sonny Sharrock, bass clarinetist Bernie Maupin, keyboardist Chick Corea, bassist Dave Holland, and drummer Jack DeJohnette. Dig it!

Talking with jazz scholar Bill Milkowski — who himself noted how McLaughlin’s unrestrained style, decibel-forward volumes, and rapid-fire power chords engendered himself to the rock crowd at the same time that his harmonics and syncopation still definitely made him a jazz player — guitarist Henry Kaiser summed up part of the appeal of A Tribute to Jack Johnson as well as anyone, saying: “It’s a jazz record that way way more open than other jazz records at the time, but still not free jazz. McLaughlin’s rhythm guitar playing on ‘Right Off’ — the use of different chords in a rock shuffle than what anybody had used before — was revolutionary.”

And to think that’s just one aspect of a record that contains multitudes. “Never let them forget it.” Indeed.

Some artists embrace their success by repeating the steps that originally granted them fame. Billy Joel did the opposite, refusing to be contained by prescribed approaches or constrained by a given label. The follow-up to the breakthrough The Stranger, 52nd Street further expands on its predecessor's bold production techniques and inventive arrangements, incorporating more sophisticated textures as well as reflecting a jazz edge gleaned from New York City's thriving club scene.

A key piece of Mobile Fidelity's Billy Joel catalogue restoration series, 52nd Street is here sourced from the original master tapes and pressed on 45RPM 180g LP at RTI. The wider and deeper grooves – as well as the meticulous mastering – yield resplendent dynamics, broad soundstages, three-dimensional perspectives, and tonal balances absent from prior editions. This is how you want to experience the 1978 LP that captured the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

Teaming again with producer Phil Ramone, Joel capitalizes on his momentum, churning out another direct-sounding affair replete with captivating melodic devices, showmanship accents, and penetrating lyrics. The singer's concision and focus is evident via the tune's lengths, with only "Until the Night" breaking the six-minute mark. Hit singles "Big Shot" and "My Life" rattle forth with an urgency and intensity that Joel had not previously demonstrated, the combination of passionate deliveries, snide overtones, and insistent grooves setting the table for what follows.

Broadening his palette, and drawing from New York's thriving jazz club scene and the city's late-70s grit, Joel splashes Latin and jazz colours on several pieces, employing veterans such as Dave Grusin and Freddie Hubbard to contribute along with a cast that includes a team of background vocalists and horn players. Everything is tastefully appointed, and yet the vocalist's trademark Broadway gaze and knack for the grand gesture coincide with the straight-ahead swagger.

52nd Street is one of the main reasons why Joel has always been championed for consistency. Everything here, from the production to the stand-up songs, helped redefine mainstream pop-rock. Decades later, it's finally available in fidelity that nears that of the Columbia Records' master tapes produced right on 52nd Street.

Ultra rare modern soul/rare groove scorcher "It'll All Come Around" on the A side with funky cinematic soul from Love Unlimited Orchestra on the B. Only 250 copies made.

Punk pioneers Crass continue their vinyl reissue series, re-pressing their limited releases by adjacent artists through Crass Records, in association with One Little Independent. The series, including over twenty bands and solo artists recorded at the legendary Southern Studios and produced by Penny Rimbaud, continues with two more historic pieces from the Crass Records catalogue; ‘Barbed Wire Halo’ by Annie Anxiety and ‘Neu Smell’ by Flux of Pink Indians.

They follow records from the likes of Captain Sensible, Omega Tribe, Honey Bane, Jane Gregory, Lack of Knowledge, Sleeping Dogs, Rudimentary Peni and Zounds. First released on 7” vinyl, limiting the sound, the new series has been remastered for 12” by Alex Gordon at Abbey Road Studios, allowing them to be heard as never before. This, plus enlarged replicas of the original covers, brings new gusto to their already radical sound.

New York City musical maverick and performance artist Annie Anxiety, aka Little Annie aka Annie Bandez, began her illustrious career (including work with Adrian Sherwood, Coil, Current 93, and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry) with Crass. They released her first solo single, 1981’s ‘Barbed Wire Halo’ alongside ‘Cyanide Tears’, an extraordinarily prescient piece of jagged electronics, samples, and skeletal rhythms, led by Annie’s nightmarish vocals.

She tells us; “When creating this single with Penny I hadn’t heard the word ‘avant-guard’ nor could I spell it – I only got explained ‘concretism’ via an interview I did in Berlin regarding some of my work three years ago – My father was a printer so I grew up with sound of printing press and subway train beats and always heard melodies and cross rhythms within those beats – I was just making dance music / disco tunes to my mind and Pen heard those same tunes I was hearing – my first recording, in retrospect I guess, was pretty ‘out there’ at its release, but to us it was dance floor for a club yet to be invented- one day”.

Penny Rimbaud expands; “Annie Anxiety is a total enigma, a passionate voice in the wilderness of consensual reason. Dada in instinct, Monroe in affection, Rambo in inflection, Annie rams it home with divine thunder. An instigator and innovator, she’s the bonkers angel of Yonkers, NYC. With no time to spare, Annie takes to the road with complete conviction, overtaking Kerouac halfway down 5th Avenue. Catch her if you can”.

For a few years Leo Robinson was the sort of hidden secret you sometimes come across in local music scenes. First in Manchester and now in Glasgow, he’d pop up regularly on DIY bills or as local support to a touring act, quietly blowing them off stage with his rich baritone vocal and homespun lo-fi tales of folklore and animism. With The Temple – his debut on PRAH Recordings – he looks set to cross over from being a cult concern.

“There's a spectrum within the album between fully mythologising or symbolising my lived experience, and just stating it in very matter of fact terms - that push and pull between the need to abstract and the need to break through the abstraction and have an honest moment with oneself” he explains. “This is one of the themes of the album as well as part of the process. The aim was to take all these anecdotal or symbolic elements and merge them into one narrative and one world, in a way that you can find your way through the record as if it were a landscape or language with its own logic.”

The record takes on a pastoral, slightly baroque nature that Robinson partly attributes to a friend screening a lot of ‘70s BBC material in his book shop that they used to hang out at. There are also elements of jazz, flickering to life in “The Spring”’s piano-led finale and coda.

Thematically, Robinson likens it to a Jungian ‘Hero's Journey’, his voice possessing a character who goes through several defined stages of consciousness. From conception and the beginning of an earthly life, the first half of the album recognises the development of the protagonist’s narrative and identity, before “The Pink Light”’s freeform departure from the hitherto more song-based suite devastatingly shatters this. The second half of the album then sees the protagonist witness “the uncontainable” water; learning that true divinity lies not in the individual self or lofty notions of gods and temples, but in the unremarkable nettles, insects and dogs on the roadside riverbank - referenced on tracks “The Cormorant” and “The Spring”.

Although now residing north of the border, The Temple was written while Robinson was finding his feet in Manchester, having moved there to go to art school as a teenager (as a visual artist, he has exhibited at the Tiwani Contemporary in London and Cardiff’s Chapter Arts Centre). As a result, many of the tracks bear out the shadows of his experiences in the northern city – at their most visible and explicit on the beautifully fragile storytelling of “The Pavement”. Written the day after the Manchester Arena Bombings, it recalls Robinson waking up to go to work on a hot summer’s day to discover that his street had been blocked off for terrorism investigations; it then progresses through the rest of his day, amidst the grimly surreal aftermath of the previous night.

Having written the chords, melodies and lyrics to the album, Robinson fleshed out the tunes by scoring out parts for the additional instrumentation, but it was only when a friend sent a demo to PRAH that he was able to fund its full recording. Guitars, vocals, piano and French Horn (the latter recorded by Lauren Reeve-Rawlings) were put down at Green Door Studios in Glasgow. Microphones were placed around the room and the sound of the musicians stepping on creaky floorboards and opening creaky doors were left audible to further the record’s live feel. The harpsichord heard on “The Serpent”, meanwhile, came from University of Glasgow lecturer David McGuinness. Strings were then recorded at PRAH Studios by Francesca Ter-Berg and Raven Bush, the Social Singing Choir adding their choral vocals to “Temple II”.

The result is an album that feels both luscious and yet intimately raw; as grand as Richard Dawson at his most panoramic but containing the rough edges and skeletal looseness of a Calvin Johnson work. At times Robinson lyrically moves towards the surreal, but ultimately this is a record grounded in reality; a true showcase of Robinson’s skill as a lyricist and songwriter.

Nothing But Thieves werden am 15. März die Deluxe-LP-Version ihres Albums "Dead Club City" veröffentlichen, das bei seiner Veröffentlichung in England die Spitze der Charts erreichte! Darauf zu finden sind ihre neue Single "Oh No: He Said What", zwei weitere unveröffentlichte Songs sowie Akustikversionen von "Overcome" und "Tomorrow Is Closed". Die Band wird am 19. Februar 2024 in Zürich (The Hall) live zu sehen sein.

Redrum Recordz and Fremdtunes present:
Maj Rachel - 'My Shadow Was a Nun'
With her debut "My Shadow Was a Nun", Maj Rachel creates anamalgam of soul, musique concrete, sound design experimentsand classical. She employs objects as percussion, fieldrecordings, piano, guitar, synths, violin and effects incompositions that are rich in color and contrast. Her music isabstract, paradoxical, full of emotion. At times, her voicesubmerges into a tumultuous sea of reverb and distortion, onlyto emerge in soft, bittersweet melodies. She sounds dark andeerie. She sounds romantic and whimsical. In short, it's apowerful debut album that engages the mind, heart, and gut.
This is what Maj herself says about "My Shadow Was a Nun":
"So sensitive yet so immune. Light beams shine through millionsof holes. The sun makes the black thick wall seem light grey.The light pulls apart to colors. Love feels painful yet beautiful.You are around even though you're not. A brain doesn't like tothink it's alone. Arranged sound into personal stories, all self-recorded. Because sound creates deep emotion."

Footballhead is a Chicago-based alternative rock band headed by singer/ songwriter Ryan Nolen - At its heart, the band is a vessel to toil forward through internal and external insecurity It also serves the unrelenting spirit of new- millennium Midwestern youth, with MTV and skatepark dreams in the core of their memories. By blending pop structures with alt and emo sounds, Footballhead channels the frantic, dramatic, and anthemic to map the pressure points of existence. It's outcast music, revitalized in search of a modern, blissful awakening. Nolen was a skate kid from the western Chicago suburbs; the one who only kicked it with older neighborhood kids. The punkish attitude of late-90s and earlyaughts alt- rock galvanized Nolen, from the infectiously fun music down to the fashion.

A teenage relocation to Palm Springs, CA coincided with Nolen inundating himself with all the music he could: Warped Tour, 411 videos, Limewire, and the like. The Footballhead ethos comes from this comfort zone of pop impulses and raucous energy, carried by a DIY spirit that grants Nolen the autonomy to facilitate honesty and reflection. Joined by Adam Siska, snow ellet, Liam Burns, and Robbie Kuntz, Footballhead crafts supercharged rock songs like brief, open secrets. However weathered one is from their struggles and mistakes, this music offers unbridled fun as a reprieve, and salves for the shaken. These are your old friends inviting you in to commiserate, elevate, and believe.

HJirok is a mythical figure, conceived as a fictional character by Iranian-born Kurdish singer and artist Hani Mojahedy. Together with versatile music producer And Toma of Mouse On Mars, she combined a variety of sounds collected during their joint travels to Iraqi Kurdistan and elsewhere with heavily processed recordings of Sufi drum rhythms and setar melodies. The result is a driving, dubbed-out, and deeply intricate soundscape that perfectly sets the stage for Mojahedy's extended, unconventional vocal techniques and polyglot lyrics. Both informed by tradition and rigorously forward-looking, »Hjirok« (with a lowercase J) is at once a profoundly personal album and a universal utopian promise. As a ghost from the past, HJirok draws on Mojtahedy's memories to mould a new future out of them.

The foundation for »Hjirok« was laid in the city of Erbil in the Kurdish part of Iraq. During one of their stays in the region, Mojahedy and Toma recorded the three percussionists Hadi Alizadeh, Jawad Salkhordeh and Serdar Saydan as well as setar player Ali Choolaei from Motahedy's backing band while they were playingthe rhythms and notes that she had grown up with in the house of her grandfather in the Iranian city of Sanandaj. Her memories of that place revolve around hypnotic Sufi music, dervishes in deep trance, and ecstatic singing. Much like this music seemed to open a portal to other dimensions, the inhabitants of the house lived in a sort of alternative reality: It provided them with a hideaway from political circumstances. Following the Iranian revolution in 1979, a Kurdish rebellion ensued but was met with the utmost brutality by the new regime, which resulted in the death of thousands.

It is no coincidence that the music on »Hirok« would draw on rhythmic patterns that were passed on from one generation to the next for hundreds of years. »The project is rooted in the figures of the Sufi dervishes and thus a culture that precedes today's political, social, cultural, and religious systems,« explains Mohtahedy. »The Sufi sound travelled around the entire world. I like to think of it as a dialogue between peoples-one based on the rhythms of the drums and the sound of their voices.« Toma adds that by electronically transforming the recordings and enriching them with field recordings from both rural and urban spaces, they were able to use the stories told by the drums and the setar to create an entirely new narrative.

The story told by these eight pieces is hence a deeply personal, but also inherently political one. Moitahedy herself left Iran in 2004 and relocated to Berlin in 2010. Having continued to use her art as a platform to tirelessly advocate for the rights of the Kurdish people and women under oppressive regimes, she has not been allowed to return to her country of origin ever since. »Hani is singing for equality and there are people who are afraid of that-her femininity, her strength.« Toma says. Much like earlier Hirok sound installations addressed human-made climate change and other systemic ills, also »Hjirok« can hardly be disconnected from far-reaching struggles for liberation and equality.

This is also true on a thematic and even linguistic level. »The lyrics are about a promise,« Mojahedy says, citing Kurdish writer Ebdulla Pesêw as an inspiration. »At their core, these are about that day on which violence and fear become a thing of the past; what they tell you is ot not give up, to keep hoping,« she adds. The promise embedded in them is an emancipatory one. These contents are mirrored on a linguistic level: The lyrics were written in both Kurdish and Farsi, blurring the lines between the two languages and thus, Kurdish and Persian cultures.

Mojahedy, or rather HJirok, conveys these philosophical themes with elegance. Herversatile vocal performance is only loosely basedo n established styles. »Of course everything started with traditional rhythms, but we kept pushing things further and further, so Idid the same with my voice,« Mojahedy explains. »There were no boundaries.« The same can be said of the field recordings that she and Toma used. Whether it's conversations between members of the Pesmerge, the Kurdish armed forces, having a chat in meadow full of bunnies or the humming and buzzing of metropolises like Tehran: »Hirok« paints a sonic picture that is quite literally autopian one; that of a non-place in which different soundscapes, cultures and ways of life coexist peacefully.

What the album conjures up from Mojahedy's memory is not only a very specific place during a unique time in history as experienced by a single person. It is also ametaphorical home open to anyone who wishes to enter - promise of a better, more egalitarian future for everyone. Hence, HJirok will bring it on tour, presenting the material as an audio-visual live show that makes use of the photo and video material that Mojahedy and Toma have collected during their travels through Kurdistan.ja

Starting his career with appearances on BBC Radio 1 and signing with Elton Johns label as a teenager, Maldwyn Pope's presence in music has been rich and productive from an early age eventually leading to working with people like Cliff Richards, Art Garfunkel and Bonnie Taylor. However, his presence in Italo-Disco has been quite scarce, but completely on point. "Altered State" is a masterpiece amongst enthusiasts and collectors of dancefloor sleaze and downtempo wellness. Heavy rock influence meets Rimini with this one off experiment from the seasoned multi instrumentalist. Original instrumental remix done by none other than Alessandro Novaga, the entity responsible behind one of Ron Hardy's favorite DJ tools (Faces Drums). B-side features an 11 minute excursion into a completely new altered state of dubby delayed trance, for special cosmic holes only. Re-issued with new full artwork.

First compiled as a double CD in 2002, Moon's Milk (in Four Phases) is a suite of four EPs that Coil released seasonally via their in-house Eskaton imprint across 1998. The line-up for these sessions were John Balance, Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson, Drew McDowall, and William Breeze. Recorded primarily at their home studio in Chiswick, London on the eve of a permanent relocation to the small seaside town of Weston-Super-Mare, the collection has long loomed as a pivotal and pinnacle work in the group's discography, but has never been officially reissued, or repressed on vinyl. Time has only ripened its tapestry of regal strangeness. Arranged sequentially in tribute to the equinoxes and solstices, Moon's Milk captures Coil at a revelatory crossroads, leaning deeper into improvisation, spontaneity, and sound design. "Moon's Milk or Under an Unquiet Skull" initiates the proceedings on Spring Equinox, a two-part netherworld organ séance woven from vocal drones, cathedral keys, seasick strings, and opiated undertow. From there, Summer Solstice skews lighter but no less incantational, with Balance embracing his voice-as-instrument across lucid dream torch songs ("Bee Stings"), purgatorial spoken word ("Glowworms/Waveforms"), sultry chamber pieces ("Summer Substructures"), and falsetto ravings ("A Warning From The Sun (For Fritz)"). Autumn Equinox exudes more of a pensive and twilit mood, from the Rose McDowall-sung folk ballad "Rosa Decidua" ("I hear your voice sing near to me / I've put away the poisoned chalice (for now) / And lie down amongst the flowerbeds") to hall-of-lords hallucination "The Auto-Asphyxiating Hierophant" to the liminal string-plucked classic "Amethyst Deceivers," featuring excellent alien guitar by Breeze layered with Balance's oft-quoted couplet: "Pay your respects to the vultures / For they are your future." The album's final chapter, Winter Solstice, is its most swooning, remote, and ceremonial. Opener "A White Rainbow" stirs strings, layered choral vocals, and shivering rhythm into an imploding burial hymn. "North" oscillates bleakly, a ghost in the machine murmuring opaque prophecy ("This black dog has no owner / This black dog has no odour"), while "Magnetic North" is its inverse, a guided meditation of gently flickering software and surreal chakra poetics ("Red rose filling the skull / Yellow cube in the lower pelvis / Silver moon crescent below the navel"). The suite fades to grey with a traditional English carol ("Christmas Is Now Drawing Near"), rendered like an executioner's song by Rose McDowall's doomed, beautiful voice. The Dais box set includes the entirety of the rare Moon's Milk Bonus Disc CD-R / 2019 Threshold Archives Copal CD, which includes three collaborations with Thighpaulsandra. This material is as rich and intoxicating as the previous four phases, ranging from electro-acoustic singing bowl rituals ("Copal") to dissonant electronic recitations of visionary Angus MacLise poetry ("The Coppice Meat") to ominous classical melancholia ("Bankside"). Once again, Coil confirm the vastness of their confounding, infinite alchemy, explored and refined across decades of experimentation - both sonic and bodily. From postindustrial to post-everything, theirs is an art untethered, in the wilds of its own design.

For the 15th anniversary of this timeless classic, !K7 Records are re-issuing Tosca’s seminal album ‘No Hassle’ in an audiophile 3LP format.

Multi-instrumentalists Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber have been friends since their Vienna schooldays. Richard later became half of the globally acclaimed DJ-producer duo Kruder and Dorfmeister, while Rupert worked in piano composition and sound-art installation. ‘No Hassle’ is Tosca’s fifth studio album.

A luxurious tapestry of analogue and digital sounds, submerged samples and live instruments, it evolves and expands into an hour-long ambient symphony. The title reflects not only the duo’s laidback approach to making music but their whole philosophy of life.

‘No Hassle’ is all about contemplation and concentration. While recent Tosca releases like J.A.C. (2005) and the remix collection Souvenirs (2006) were a move towards classic song structures and club-friendly grooves, their latest is a much more introspective journey into inner space.

- Bananarama celebrate over 40 years at the top with the release of 'Glorious - The Ultimate Collection'. With 40 tracks selected by Sara and Keren themselves, the double CD album revisits every decade of the band's career, with hits including Cruel Summer, Venus, Love in the First Degree, Only Your Love, Preacher Man, Move in My Direction and more, along with two new singles, Feel The Love (released October 18) and Supernova.
- The 1LP edition features 16 tracks : singles + new remixes of classic hits and "Feel the Love" & "Supernova "for the first time on vinyl.
- Bananarama are THE original girl group. They're featured in Guinness World of Records for the most internationally charted hits by an all female band, with in excess of 30+ million sales worldwide.

VINYL (* versions on vinyl for the first time )

6-track EP compilation with Terada's work for the Ape Escape games, tip!

Outside of the international house underground, where his early ‘90s works for the Far East Recording label he co-founded with Shinichiro Yokota are rightly celebrated as bona-fide classics, Soichi Terada is best-known for his work composing music for video games. Yet until now, few of his productions for video games have been released outside of Japan, especially on vinyl.

Apes In The Net, a six-track EP featuring music composed for the popular PlayStation 1 series Ape Escape, sets the record straight. It not only showcases Terada’s quality as a composer and producer, but also his versatility. Like much of Terada’s work on the Ape Escape series, the tracks featured don’t explore deep, New York and New Jersey influenced house sounds, but rather his lesser-celebrated love of jungle and drum & bass – a sound he fully explored on 1996 album Sumo Jungle.

“The producer of the Ape Escape games heard that and got in touch,” Soichi remembers. “They asked me to make the soundtrack, and then work on the music for the sequels after that. I used to love making music with AKAI hardware samplers, synthesisers, and computers, so I played and recorded the tracks using almost the same methods as I did when I made house music. Using breakbeats and audio samples with a sampler was the most useful way to make the soundtracks.”

The six tracks on show, which were originally recorded in the ‘90s but reconstructed and remastered for Japan-only CD and digital releases over a decade ago, mix elements of Terada’s familiar deep house style – think warming chords and pads, memorable melodies, and emotive musical motifs – with blistering D&B breakbeats, 16-bit synth sounds, electronic bleeps and undeniably weighty basslines. They’ve stood the test of time and arguably sound just as fresh now as they did at the turn of the millennium.

For proof, check the soaring, spellbinding ‘Spectors Castle’, where uplifting lead lines and sumptuous chords dance atop punchy beats and growling bass, the jazzy and saucer-eyed rush of ‘Mount Amazing’ (all twinkling piano motifs, alien synth sounds, squelchy bass and skittish drums) and the intergalactic, liquid D&B excellence of ‘Time Station’, whose whistling melodies and stargazing chords are undeniably alluring.

There are plenty of other delights to be found across the EP, too, from the bustling, race-to-the-finish breathlessness of D&B/bleep techno fusion workout ‘Spectors Factory In’, and the rumbling sub-bass, creepy pads and suspenseful melodies of ‘Haunted House’, to the bombastic, all-out-assault on the senses that is ‘Coaster’, the set’s most “purist” jungle workout – albeit one that also doffs a cap to the pulsating world of big room techno.

Apes In The Net, then, celebrates Soichi Terada’s mastery as a video games composer and early Japanese junglist. Props are well and truly overdue.

2024 Repress

80'S timeless funk boogie classic from the Netherlands, comes here as a special remastered limited edition containing the full extended version of 9:56 called Peter Frost Remix available only on the original Album plus the unreleased Faze Action Dub mix on the flip.

The Trip is the first solo album by N'Zeng, better known as Sébastien Blanchon. It has to be said that he hid behind his (hollow) nose to sniff out the right projects (ex Le Peuple de l'Herbe, member of Entourloop). His nose is hollow, but not for the trumpet, and yet it's with this instrument that he started out. And he reinvents it, giving it a subtle place on this musical road trip we call The Trip.
A journey open to all, with no tolls and no filters, apart from the cinematic filter of this lover of original soundtracks and trip hop. Beautiful images flash before our eyes, and in our ears, the smooth voice of Charlotte Savary (Wax Tailor). An album, a very good trip for lovers of Portishead, Gorillaz, and well-felt scratches in the form of controlled skids.
He's making a name for himself as N'Zeng, with his smooth arrangements.

N'Zeng's father played trumpet with his grandfather in the Feurs brass band in the Loire department. When he arrived in Saint Etienne, young Sébastien started out with a cornet à pistons at the Conservatoire. His teacher at the time, Marcel Heyte, had won a prize in Paris at the same time as a certain Maurice André.

His father took lessons in orchestral conducting, accompanying the offspring's budding musical career, which included a course at the Festival de Cuivre in Monastier-sur-Gazeille, where he met the soloists of the Radio France orchestra. A new awareness, a new confidence: off to Lyon, not for a soccer derby, but to "beef up his game". In 1997, he was awarded a gold medal for trumpet by a unanimous jury at the Conservatoire National de Lyon.

Lyon, capital of the Gauls, was the starting point for N'Zeng, who went on to become a member of the group Le Peuple de l'Herbe. 15 years later, with several successful records to his credit, a concert in 2003 at the Transmusicales with Beth Gibbons (Portishead), and a Victoire de la Musique award, it was time for N'Zeng to move on to other things.

Arrival in the City of Light, the place where dreams come true. Nzeng's dreams are not only sonic, but also visual, for Sébastien is not only a friendly presence and a talented musician, but also a cinephile. His knowledge of music theory, acquired during his years at the conservatory, enables him to tackle music for pictures.

He created a soundtrack for the cult film Alien - The 8th Passenger, and worked with musician Rone (collaborating with Baxter Dury) and his bandmates from Le Peuple de l'Herbe, composing 2 tracks for the soundtrack of Virginie Despentes's hard-hitting film "Baise-moi". On the album "Hollywood Hustlers", with the group "Mustang Force", he pays tribute to the soundtracks of Lalo Shiffrin, Ennio Morricone... The album is also well received by the critics. He conducts the arrangements and orchestrations for the Degiheuga Orchestra, and composes the original music for the Hôtel Bellevue dance show, another success!

2019 sees the birth of "The Trip" project. On this record, no masks, but a female voice, that of Charlotte Savary (Wax Taylor), laid on a carpet of strings. With this musical voyage, trip hop takes pride of place, with a balance between the body of the instruments and the mechanics of beatmaking.

There's no getting off track on this well-balanced record, with its silky orchestrations. N'Zeng accompanies us elegantly, with his trusty trumpet as GPS, here used subtly. The album cover is a photograph taken by Sébastien Blanchon's mother, in 1973, a year when Saint Etienne was about to become French champion for the 7th time.

Étrange Hiver (Strange Winter) is UK songwriter, Tom McRae's 9th studio album. An exquisite collection of original duets with renowned French artists, such as Keren Ann, Chien Noir, Alex Beaupain, Clou and more. McRae decided to collaborate on these 11 new songs with various artists as a way of acknowledging his deep love of French music, and deepen his relationship with mainland Europe, following Britain’s disastrous decision to leave the EU. Tom’s debut album went Gold in France in 2001, selling over 60,000 copies, and he has divided his time between Paris and Wiltshire since 2021. Says Tom: “I grew up being intrigued by classic French songs. Before streaming services made all music readily available, only the huge crossover pop songs made it across the channel, but while my friends were listening to Vanessa Paradis, I was listening to Serge Gainsbourg. It seemed exotic, adventurous, and to be from another planet, let alone a country only 21 miles away from my own.” During Covid, McRae released a single with his Belgian friend, Wannes Cappelle, a reworking of one of Tom’s songs in English and West Vlaams, as well as an album of duets with a Welsh artist, Lowri Evans. Both projects sparking his interest in collaboration with other artists. “It’s not been a great time to be British since 2016”, says McRae. “We’ve become politically, economically and culturally isolated since Brexit - and I want to show that I feel more of a European than simply just an English person.” “But mostly this album, Étrange Hiver, is about beautiful songs, some in English, some in French. Sung as duets with friends (some established artists, as well as some new or undiscovered voices) and creating 11 little emotional moments in a crazy world. Some cinematic, some more intimate and personal, all of the songs addressing the important things in life: love, loss, political populism, impending climate collapse… written at a time when it feels as if the world may never escape from this long, strange winter.“ Artists duetting on this album with Tom include: Keren Ann, Chien Noir, Clou, Alex Beaupain, Rose, Naya, Vanille, Helena Noguerra, Alma Forrer, Aïtone, Julien Brocal, and now more are lining up to sing with Tom on a volume 2

Susana Baron Supervielle was born in Buenos Aires in 1910, but she lived in Brazil most of her life. Creation with electroacoustic means represented one more step in her search for renewal and a new articulation of her triple cultural horizon articulated between São Paulo, Buenos Aires and Paris. The results open a new dimension in the interstices of the sound montage. Susana had been a follower of Pierre Schaffer and his peers in the Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète from Paris since they began in the early 1950s.


Baron Superveille’s catalogue of works, as selected by the artist herself, shows nine compositions for magnetic tape. With one exception (1977’s Continuo variante), the pieces are in the personal archives of the composer filed in the Archivo del Instituto Nacional de Musicología “Carlos Vega”, in Buenos Aires, which depends on the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Argentina. This edition on Wah Wah Records is a coproduction with the Instituto Nacional de Musicología “Carlos Vega” and recovers all the available electroacoustic works composed between 1974 and 1980. While most of the collected works premiered in both Buenos Aires and São Paulo on dates close to those of their composition, there are not any previous known releases of these recordings, so this LP is not only an exception, but also a novelty.

DELUXE CLEAR VINYL EDITION

Marking 40 years of The Jesus And Mary Chain, "Glasgow Eyes" was recorded at Mogwai"s Castle of Doom studio in Glasgow, where Jim and William continued the creative process that resulted in their previous album, 2017"s "Damage and Joy", becoming their highest charting album in over twenty years. What emerged is a record that finds one of the UK"s most influential groups embracing a productive second chapter, their maelstrom of melody, feedback and controlled chaos now informed more audibly by their love for Suicide and Kraftwerk and a fresh appreciation of the less disciplined attitudes found in jazz. "Glasgow Eyes" not only extends The Jesus and Mary Chain"s story, but feels simultaneously like a return to roots. From the incendiary "Psychocandy" debut and its classic "Just Like Honey" onwards, the Reid brothers steadily became the misfits who made good without compromise.

RED VINYL EDITION

Marking 40 years of The Jesus And Mary Chain, "Glasgow Eyes" was recorded at Mogwai"s Castle of Doom studio in Glasgow, where Jim and William continued the creative process that resulted in their previous album, 2017"s "Damage and Joy", becoming their highest charting album in over twenty years. What emerged is a record that finds one of the UK"s most influential groups embracing a productive second chapter, their maelstrom of melody, feedback and controlled chaos now informed more audibly by their love for Suicide and Kraftwerk and a fresh appreciation of the less disciplined attitudes found in jazz. "Glasgow Eyes" not only extends The Jesus and Mary Chain"s story, but feels simultaneously like a return to roots. From the incendiary "Psychocandy" debut and its classic "Just Like Honey" onwards, the Reid brothers steadily became the misfits who made good without compromise.

Hakushi Hasegawa sind ein Musikerinnen aus Tokio, Japan, und die ersten japanische Künstler, welche beim Label Brainfeeder unter Vertrag stehen. Im Einklang mit dem Ethos von Brainfeeder, seit der Gründung des Labels im Jahr 2008 Künstler zu suchen, die außerhalb der Genregrenzen agieren, ist Hakushis Musik schwer zu kategorisieren, da they sich zwischen mehreren Genres bewegen: Alternative, Elektronik, Jazz, Pop/J-Pop. Manchmal ist sie hübsch, manchmal ist sie sehr intensiv und rasant. They veröffentlichen seit 2018 und haben sich in Japan mit einer Reihe von wunderbar wilden Veröffentlichungen bereits einen Namen gemacht und begonnen, international eine Kultanhängerschaft aufzubauen. Zu den bisherigen Kollabos gehören Kid Fresino, yuigot, TOKYO SKA PARADISE ORCHESTRA, Yukichikasaku/men und Eye from Boredoms. "Somoku Hodo" war Hakushis Debütveröffentlichung im Jahr 2018 als Teenager, mit den Fan-Favoriten 'Somoku' und 'Doku' - ein hyperspeed Junglist-Jazz-Workout, der frühes Squarepusher-Material positiv langweilig klingen lässt. Ihr Debütalbum "Air Ni Ni" folgte ein Jahr später im Jahr 2019 und festigte ihren Ruf als eine der aufregendsten und abenteuerlichsten Künstlerinnen Japans. Hakushi traten im Mai 2020 auf dem von Porter Robinson moderierten Online-Festival "Secret Sky" auf (4 Millionen Zuschauer) und zierten im September 2020 das Cover der einflussreichen Musikzeitschrift "MUSIC MAGAZINE".

DOODSESKADER (Dutch for “Death Squad”) is a merging of the minds of Tim De Gieter (Amenra, Much Luv Studio) and Sigfried Burroughs (Kapitan Korsakov, Paard).

Throughout their three years of existence, DOODSESKADER has been relentlessly pushing the envelope of what it means to be a “heavy” band. From the grunge-infused sludge on their EP “MMXX : Year Zero” to the punishing blend of hiphop and hardcore of their debut album “Year One” and the sonic onslaught of relentless rapping on standalone singles such as “FLF” and “Still Haven’t Killed Myself”, they’re breaking free of any form of categorization.



The duo has been compared to genre-defying trailblazers such as Ghostemane, Show Me The Body, and Ho99o9, however, they clearly bring their own sonic palette to the table.

The red thread in all of this has been their brutally honest and introspective lyrics. Far from your run-of-the mill type of band, DOODSESKADER uses their instrumentation as a sonic backdrop for the emotion and message they try to convey; their music serves as a mirror for life itself. Sometimes brutal, sometimes fragile, sometimes energizing, but always unexpected.



Now, on March 8th, with the arrival of their sophomore album “Year Two”, DOODSESKADER takes things up another couple of notches. From silky-soft “Pastel Prison” to the absolute carnage of “The Sheer Horror Of The Human Condition”, this record is a testament to both their creativity and their will to leave their mark on this world. It’s a trip in every sense of the word, tapping into even more genres such as R&B, techno, hardcore punk, and moody ballads reminiscent of the 90s, all blended seamlessly in their musical vocabulary and making for a sonic journey unlike anything you’ve heard before.

Where their last record “Year One” saw the duo struggling with their inner demons both past and present, “Year Two” is an undeniable display of progress; not only introspectively, but also musically. De Gieter and Burroughs sound outright bloodthirsty, ready to take on anyone in their way. Tracks like “Bone Pipe” or “I Ask With My Mouth, I’ll Take With My Fist” paint a vivid picture of the band’s will to plot their own their path through this world, while at the same time slowly coming to terms with their pasts on tracks like “Peine” or “People Have Poisoned My Mind To A Point Where I Can No Longer Function”. “Year Two” undeniably sees DOODSESKADER’s promise fulfilled: it’s both a complete teardown of genres and boundaries, a sonic wrecking ball wielded by two people trying to get better.

Live, DOODSESKADER proves to be an absolute must see, translating into their sold out AB-release and a sleuth shows over Europe playing with acts such as Brutus and Amenra and on the stages of festivals such as Hellfest (FR), Mystic Fest (PL), Lokerse Feesten (BE), Fluff Fest (CZ) and much more.

"Secret Treaties is the third studio album by American rock band Blue Öyster Cult, released in 197It features the same band members and production team as their previous album Tyranny & Mutation, but also the only BÖC album that does not feature a track with lead vocals sung by guitarist Donald ""Buck Dharma"" Roeser. Lyrics to the lead-off track ""Career of Evil"" were written by future punk poet Patti Smith, a longtime contributor to the band (and, at the time, girlfriend of BÖC keyboardist and rhythm guitarist Allen Lanier). The album spent 14 weeks in the US album charts, peaking at No. 5It was certified Gold by the RIAA. In 1975, a poll of readers of the British magazine Melody Maker voted Secret Treaties the ""Top Rock Album of All Time"". In 2010, Rhapsody called it one of the all-time best ""proto-metal"" albums. Secret Treaties is available on black vinyl and includes an insert."

Secret Treaties by Blue Oyster Cult, released 8 March 2024, includes the following tracks: "Dominance and Submission", "Cagey Cretins", "Flaming Telepaths" and more.

This version of Secret Treaties comes as a 1xLP. This release comes with (a) Insert(s).

The ever poignant yet exceedingly elusive Chorg Dorgon speaks on the new album by Charles Moothart, entitled Black Holes Don’t Choke: “For the sake of clarity, and its clarity that we seek, Charles has been a pillar of our musical experience since he began playing eons ago in the various projects and countless albums he has contributed to. Charles is a musician who has been constantly on the road for years playing in Ty Segall’s Freedom Band and Fuzz. When there has been a rare time away from those engagements especially in the post-pandemic scramble to catch up world of gigs and tours, he has been spending all of his time in his laboratory figuring out how to synthesize all of the info he has collected and musical ideas he has developed in the past few years since the last CFM record and subsequent shows for this new solo work. Just before the pandemic started, he was out playing solo shows in a project that revolved around an MPC sampler, just to give an example as to the wideness of his explorations. His result is Black Holes Don’t Choke. Love songs for the apocalypse. A prayer toward optimism amid chaos. A plea toward nature. The themes on this album are the themes of today. Charles appeals for us to visualize evolution. And with a signature, the music sounds exactly as you want it to. It sounds like Charles Moothart’s music only more evolved and with greater focus and direction. With greater textural dynamic and more sonic variation and realization, but never sacrificing the insane riff that he is clearly the master of. He gets to the point on this record. He is presenting a voice you can understand and rely on as you make your own journey into it. Create your own meanings. The record now belongs to the world. Because we all start a thought as that which is beginning-less and endless and at some certain point it becomes its own thought, takes it owns shape and becomes itself, separate from the thinker, separate from the observer. alive in the ether!”

Meatbodies’ latest undertaking and borderline lost album, Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom, is their most varied and realized work to date. It’s a melodic, hook-filled rock epic in which frontman and lead guitarist Chad Ubovich faces the trials of sobriety, redemption, reinvention while literally learning to walk and play again. Resurrection not only accompanies the record, but its production as well, Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom examines themes surrounding love and loss, escapism, defeatism, hedonism, psychedelics and much more. By 2017, Ubovich had reached a crossroads. After years of increasingly insane shows playing to heaving crowds with an everevolving and rotating door of personnel, fatigue had taken its toll and he realized another change was on the horizon. Retreating to the seedy Los Angeles underbelly—in search of meaning and a reset—he escaped into that world, ignoring his own well being, trying to forget his successes. It was at this point that Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom began to take shape—a project built by a man searching for new beginnings and his own sense of self. After sobering up, sessions began with longtime collaborator Dylan Fujioka. However, due to discrepancies with the studio, tensions were high and the plug was pulled. And as the world took a back seat, so did the idea of Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom. Not wanting to sit still at home, Ubovich began to comb through his previous demos, and, with that, 333 was born, the now de facto third Meatbodies album. Yet Flora was never far from Ubovich’s mind. When restrictions started to lift, Ubovich headed to Gold Diggers Sound in Los Angeles, backed by engineer Ed McEntee and a team of colleagues and friends, and completed the final act to the album. It recalls the searing Blue Cheer-meets-Iggy Pop-with-psychedelia that permeated previous releases, but adds new elements of shoegaze, classic alternative, Britpop, drone, and hints of country. Simultaneously an ode to ’80s LA punk and the rise of indie / alternative music in the U.K., it plays like a radio station broadcasting from the void.

"Something happened on No. The early EPs from Baltimore’s Tomato Flower were pretty, dreamy psychedelia. Warm to the touch, like looking up at the trees on a cloudless day. On No, the four-piece’s debut album, those trees, that cloudless sky, have become haunted, thorny, stormy. It takes Tomato Flower from buttoned-up, almost technically formalist psych pop to something more urgent, raw, emotionally immediate. No is messier, more expansive, and through all of its chaos, the band’s most rigorous artistic statement to date.

No is the band’s first effort made entirely in person, the first thing tracked in a studio instead of in a bedroom. It is a highly collaborative record written and recorded by everyone, partially made live. It is very much the byproduct of a band that has done some serious touring, following a coast-to-coast tour with Animal Collective in the summer of 2022.

Lead single “Destroyer,” has Jamison Murphy practically screaming over angular guitars, oscillating in a sonic space somewhere between the prettiness of Broadcast and the sludge of Jesus Lizard. It also presents an early entry point to one of No’s major conceptual underpinnings: that of the breakup between Murphy and fellow co-lead vocalist and guitarist Austyn Wohlers, which occurred during the composition of the album.

It wouldn’t be fair to just call No a break up album. It’s far more complicated with that. No is a record about negation: I will not do this, you cannot tell me what to do, we are not living in a utopia, don’t be delusional. No embraces a kind of brutal realism, a confrontation of life that only happens when you wizen up a little bit. All of it is a brutal delight, a departure from the past, a nod to a startling present."

"Seasoned Greetings" (DR008) marks the inception of the DE RIO split-release vinyl series. Collaborating in this inaugural installment are resident artist Plastique01 and Ukrainian techno luminary Stanislav Tolkachev. Originating from an encounter in Florence, where the duo not only shared the stage but also exchanged personal narratives, the EP delves into their unique interpretations of the techno genre. The result is a mesmerizing collection of four tracks, characterized by hypnotic melodies, unconventional sequences, detuned synthlines, and the pulsating rhythm of raw drums. The collaboration encapsulates the essence of their artistic synergy, promising a sonic journey that captivates and transcends boundaries.

On “The Adventures of Jefferson Keyes” , Cool Million member Frank Ryle goes solo, delivering a sumptuous debut album chock full of slick, Disco and Boogie influenced Soul and Jazz-Funk. He’s drawn on his bulging contacts book, roping in singers and musicians from Germany, Denmark, the UK and U.S.A. These include Soul man Kenny Thomas, Danish singer Gregers (who guests on the impeccable boogie jam “Busy Dreamin”) and Incognito member Sulene Fleming, whose confident vocals seemingly soar over the rich, organic Disco-Funk grooves of one of many album highlights “Lift Your Head Up” . These headline contributions are backed up by sensational playing and deft production of the one and only Boogie-Funk mastermind Rob Hardt, making “The Adventures of Jefferson Keyes” a revivalist Disco-Boogie treat.

Despite ‘Hindsight Is 50/50’ being the third album from Ghost Woman in 18 months, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Evan Uschenko believes that this is the first album that “finally captures the true nature of the band”.

The album was recorded mostly live in three days at the analogue Kerwax studios in Brittany, France by Christophe Chavanon (The Good Damn). Uschenko states that “the first two albums were never meant to be albums: they are like pages from diaries that have long since been burned. With the introduction of Ille van Dessel as co-writer/drummer, the project feels like it has a direction”.

There is a confidence and assurance that feels built upon the 2022 eponymous debut and the follow-up ‘Anne, If’, which was only released in January 2023. This urgency to progress and keep moving forward is reflected by the band: “We prefer to keep busy. But we’re lazy too. We still feel like we could be doing a lot more.” Overall, there is a darker, denser feel compared to previous releases, but the sound and vibe of this album is more akin to what the project was supposed to be when it started in 2016, finally realising Ghost Woman’s creative vision.

This collection assembles the range of sources that Robert Johnson heard and learned from including songs from his mentor Son House and from other Delta performers and from sources that show aspects of the musical world in which he lived. His tastes ranged far and wide and he had a gift for absorbing sounds of all kinds, including from tin pan alley to hillbilly songs. He was a brilliant creative musician who managed a stunningly effective fusion of his Delta roots and the smoother approach of the then prominent contemporary blues artists. As with any genius in any field he was able to produce great work only because he was standing on the shoulders of previous great artists. This collection provides an introduction to a number of them and gives a sense of how Johnson adapted and combined their styles. It presents music that can still excite and inspire us today just as it did to Robert Johnson back in the first golden age of the blues.

This is an absolute mythical hardcore legend of a release. Originally put out in 1993 on Dance Force Records, a record label run out of Norfolk by Les Howlett, a former bouncer for many London raves. But it was his son, Danny, who made the tracks in the backroom of the record shop – at the young age of just 15!

The tracks were never mastered and when doing a deal with Vinyl Fanatiks Danny wanted the tracks remade and finally mixed down – so we put him in touch with Ellis Dee and between them and us, we sourced all the original samples and the EP was remade, with the mixdown that he always wanted!

Originally released on yellow vinyl on Vinyl Fanatiks in 2019 it quickly sold out on the website and no copies ever made it to distribution – until now!

Only 140 have been pressed on 180g pink marbled vinyl.

Digging back into the Vinyl Fanatiks catalogue, we travel back to 2019. One of the most popular groups that we release on Vinyl Fanatiks – Mad Dog – which is comprised of Dave Wallace from Aquasky and Shaun O’Hara from Aurora. The repress of this EP was funded by a Kickstarter campaign and each copy was hand stamped and numbered. Due to its popularity, this never went into distribution back then.

Originally released in 1993 on Underdog Recordings out of Bournemouth, this was a big Bukem track from that time, played twice in his Dreamscape New Years Eve set as midnight struck! Created in the Avon Studios in Charminster, Bournemouth, where two thirds of Aquasky lived and Underdog Recordings was based. There was even a pirate radio being broadcast from the attic too! The House Of Rave as we all use to call it.

This studio was also responsible for the Fugitive releases, the early Moving Shadow Aquasky releases as well as the home of Stormtrooper Recordings – a UK Happy Hardcore label featuring The Rebel Alliance (which was also Dave and Shaun!) Who would know Bournemouth was responsible for so much of the UK’s dance history!

Only 140 have been pressed on 180g pink marbled vinyl.

Guitarist EARL HOOKER would undoubtedly have gone on to enjoy a major international career during the Blues/Rock era, had he been blessed with better health; but he suffered from Tuberculosis and sadly died in 1970, at the age of only forty. A cousin of John Lee Hooker, Earl was an exceptional slide player, known widely as “The guitarists’ guitarist”. He recorded few vocals as he was hindered by a stutter, to compensate, he concentrated on developing his playing technique. This compilation concentrates on his earliest recordings for a variety of record labels between 1953-62, several of which were not commercially released until after his death. This is the first time that this body of work has been thus compiled, and many of these sides are difficult to find elsewhere.

"Ride Hooker Ride 1953-1962" by Earl Hooker includes the following tracks: "ON THE HOOK", "MOVE ON DOWN THE LINE", "RAZORBACK", "BELIEVE I’LL SETTLE DOWN" and more.
This version comes on orange/black marbled vinyl.

One thing is certain about the idiosyncratic J. B. Lenoir, he was a true original. No one ever sounded quite like him and despite comparisons by some writers to Arthur Crudup his high pitched vocals were pretty much unique. Although J. B. Lenoir only had one hit in the US with “Mama Talk to Your Daughter” his influence over the British blues scene was immense. In fact John Mayall was a huge fan and he helped to get his 45s released in the UK. Rocking R&B and topical social commentary all thrown in the mix. This is Chicago blues with a twist. Let’s call it Chicago blues J.B. Lenoir style. Limited edition press on 140 gram colour blue/black marbled vinyl.

The founders of Cukor Bila Smert’ (Ukrainian: Цукор– Біла Смерть, English: Sugar – White Death) band were Svitlana Okhrimenko (a.k.a. Svitlana Nianio), Oleksandr Kohanovs’kyi, and Tamila Mazur, who studied at the Reinhold Glier Kyiv Academy of Music in 1984-1988. In the summer of 1988, they got acquainted with Eugene Taran, a young guitarist and artist. He joined the band and also became the ideologist of Sugar – White Death. Moreover, Eugene coined the name for the band: the irony towards the Yellow Press. The musicians gathered at Kohanovs’kyi’s house, where they spent their free time not only playing music but also listening to and discussing new records and thinking about the conception of their new project.



For two years, the band recorded a few home-made albums, such as “Rhododendrons Coral Aspides” in 1988 (which is considered lost), where Kostyantyn Dovzhenko took part as a guitarist and sound engineer. He also replaced Taran during the recording session because Eugene was passing an exam at that time. The band also recorded another album – “Lilies and Amaralises,” in 1989, which is also considered lost. Eugene remembers that the band made a lot of recordings but did not pay so much attention to them. Sugar – White Death played live occasionally but spent more time creating their own sound, which was named by Oleksii Dekhtyar (a founder of “Ivanov Down”) as a “sugar calypso sound.” At that time, the music was mostly created by Oleksandr Kohanovs’kyi, and the lyrics were written by Svitlana Okhrimenko and Eugene Taran.



In February 1990, a quartet came to the Scientists House Studio in Kyiv, where they had one studio session only, recorded by Valerii Papchenko. Musicians played live for about one take. This session was represented on the “Mannered Music” compilation by several blocks – “Venus with Long Neck,” “The New Sissies,” and “Rhododendrons Coral Aspides,” which was shortened to “Rhododendrons” on the cassette (two songs from which – “Summer Will Not Come” and “The Great Hen-Yuan’ River,” dedicated to Grigorii Khoroshylov, the sinologist from Kyiv). The compilation cover design was created by Eugene Taran. Later, this tape got to Vlodek Nakonechnyj, the founder of Koka Records, a young Polish label, who released “Mannered Music” on cassettes and made efforts to invite Sugar – White Death to play several gigs in Poland.



In November 1990, Sugar – White Death played their last gig as a quartet in Kharkiv. They were invited by Sergii Myasoyedov, who curated the art association “Nova Scena” (The New Scene). The band played selected tracks from the albums “The New Sissies” and “The Shellfishes in Gold Wrappers” (the last one is also considered lost). Due to Sergii Myasoyedov's efforts, the performance was documented: he saved a lot of photos and fragments of soundboard recordings on reel-to-reel tape.



Later, Oleksandr Kohanovs’kyi and Tamila Mazur left Sugar – White Death: Oleksandr founded his own project Pan Kifared, and Tamila became a bass player of Shake Hi-Fi (whose co-founder was Eugene Taran). Sugar became a duo of Svitlana and Eugene. They started to focus on their next work: “Antinoy Is Leaving” in late 1990.



In 1992, they were also invited by Sergii Myasoyedov for a studio session in Kharkiv, where due to the efforts of Oleksandr Vakulenko, Sugar recorded the new album called “All Secrets Of A Poem”. Some tracks from the work (“Dead Ceremony,” “Vienna Is Sleeping,” and “Untitled”) were released on their next and last album, “Selo” (“The Village”). The rest compositions were published as a part of the compilation for the first time.



In the autumn of 1992, the musicians went to Poland, where Vlodek Nakonechnyj, who wanted Sugar to come to a “real” studio, organized their last recording session. Although the journey’s beginning was unsuccessful (Eugene’s guitar was taken away by a customs officer when crossing the border), the musicians worked fast during the session at the Arek Was studio at Marki on an 8-track reel-to-reel machine. Boleslav Blazhchyk took part as a cellist, playing the parts created by Svitlana. The album was completed in three days – the musicians spent two days recording and one-day mixing, mostly done by Eugene Taran. In 1993, this work was released as “Selo” (“The Village”) album on cassette tapes by Koka Records (remastered by Tadeusz Sudnik). Later, Sugar – White Death was disbanded.



Credits:



Cukor Bila Smert’: Svitlana Okhrimenko (lyrics, keyboards, piano, vocals), Eugene Taran (lyrics, keyboards, guitar), Oleksandr Kohanovs’kyi (piano, A1-B2), Tamila Mazur (cello, A1-B2), Boleslaw Blaszczyk (cello, C5-D6)

Cover photo by Vlad Urazovs’kiy

Photo archive courtesy: Vlad Urazovs’kiy, Vlodek Nakonechnyj (Koka Records),

Oleh Yuhrinov, Sergii Myasoyedov

Audio archive courtesy: Vlodek Nakonechnyj (Koka Records), Guido Erfen,

Sergii Myasoyedov

Liner notes: Vlad Yakovlev

Compiled by Dmytro Nikolaienko, Dmytro Prutkin and Sasha Tsapenko

© ? Shukai / Cukor Bila Smert’

2024