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Originally released on a Partial 10” in 2019, `Mediation’ became a hit on the underground roots and dub sound system scene with regular plays from the late Jah Shaka, amongst others.

This 12” reissue features the original vocal and dub cut, but also contains two previously unreleased dubplate cuts.

Hailing from Limerick, Ireland, Eva Keyes has a very bright and distinctive voice with an undeniable hint of Sinead O’ Connor and Dolores O’Riordan.

Produced by Dublin-based Dan Taliras.

In 2000 and 2001 the original version of 6TH GATE raged over mainland Europe hitting top 10 in a dozen countries and becoming platinum and gold in Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Greece, Poland,….

In 2023 the track got 2 make-overs by Reinier Zonneveld and Quintino.

2 years on, 2025, the track gets the commercial make-over it deserves.

On the vinyl, besides the new 2025 remix, also the very sought-after ORIGINAL MIX and the, never-on-vinyl-before released QUINTINO Remix

Remix by Erik Hubo, the original producer/author of the 2023 worldwide clubhit METRO (Mau P/Kevin De Vries)

Armin Van Buuren absolutely loves the track and it made it’s debut on Armin’s show A State Of Trance on November 7th. Since A State of Trance has a 3 week exclusive, no other DJ-feedback for the moment.

Hardanger is a collaboration by Mariska Baars (aka Soccer Committee), Niki Jansen, and Rutger Zuydervelt (aka Machinefabriek). The title refers to the instrument played by Jansen, the Hardanger fiddle. It’s a fresh addition to the established musical chemistry from regular collaborators Baars and Zuydervelt.

The music on Hardanger started with improvisations by Niki Jansen, guided by Mariska Baars, who responded with vocal and guitar recordings. Rutger Zuydervelt used this material as the building blocks for the two long-form pieces found on the album. These tracks are like two sides of the same coin, one a collage-like electro-acoustic piece, the other more drawn-out and contemplative.

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Mariska Baars is probably better known as soccer Committee, creating an experimental blend of ambient rooted in folk music, with minimal arrangements. She has been releasing albums since 2005. In addition to her solo output she is part of improvisation ensemble Piiptsjilling and Fean (Laaps, 2020) and has worked on several duo albums with Rutger Zuydervelt. On other occasions she collaborated with a.o. Annelies Monseré, Wouter van Veldhoven, Peter Broderick and Greg Haines.

Niki Jansen is a violinist who plays both the regular and a hardanger fiddle.She specializes in folk music, especially old Dutch folk music. She plays in various ensembles like Twee violen en een bas (with Jos Koning and Willem Raadsveld), and country quartet Daisy Chain. In addition to music, she also works as a sustainability advisor for governments and institutions and manages a food forest in a cooperative.

Rutger Zuydervelt is perhaps better known as Machinefabriek, the alias under which he releases music since 2004. The stream of releases since is vast, many of them collaborations (with Peter Broderick, Gareth Davis, Chantal Acda, Dirk Serries, and many many more). He regularly works with Mariska Baars, with whom he also plays in Piiptsjilling and Fean (Laaps, 2020). Zuydervelt is an avid composer of scores for film and dance performances, and also works as a graphic designer.

In Todmorden, the oddly-named market border town in West Yorkshire with a habit for embracing the weird and wonderful, a burst of sunshine is a precious thing. Through the thick of Winter, through every season in fact, the town’s folk are used to the wind and rain, fog and mist. As much a part of the town as the trademark deep valley it sits in, here the lay of the land invites the weather in, just as it does the many musicians, artists, and unique characters that have come to call the place home over the centuries.
Bridget Hayden is one such soul who found a home among these hills. The experimental musician, who invites the ghosts in for the classic folk songs that make up her stunning new album, knows only too well about such weather, how rare and treasured the breaks from it are. Her favourite thing to do in the valley, she says, is “to make the most of every tiny minute of sunshine.”
Such aspirations nearly derailed the recording of Cold Blows the Rain, her new eight-song collection released via the Todmorden- based label Basin Rock. Having hired the town’s Oddfellow’s Hall to record these new songs in the late summer of 2022, Hayden says the weather was so good she ended up basking in every second of it, only moving inside to begin recording when the sun was setting, working deep into the night to make up the time.
There’s a good chance, however, that it had to be this way. The songs that make up Cold Blows the Rain are not made for the sunlight. They come, instead, wrapped in mist and coated with drizzle, those elements shaping the album as much as the voice and the instruments held within, as real but ambiguous as the ghosts that linger in the shadows. The sound of the dark valley floor.
Mostly centred around meditative and experimental improvisation, Bridget’s work to-date has seen her spend more than two decades recording and performing on the underground music scene. She’s also toured internationally both as a solo artist and as part of bands such as Schisms and The Telescopes, while working on various side-projects with the likes of Folklore Tapes.
For all of this sonic exploration, so much of her work has been formed around elements of traditional folk aesthetics and, over time, she began to piece together a collection of reinterpreted traditional songs that she absorbed as a child from her mother: through The Dubliners and Muddy Waters, to Bessie Smith and The Leadbelly Songbook. Harvesting her love for Nina Simone, Karen Dalton, Margaret Barry, and more, Bridget takes these traditional songs and transforms them into something uniquely evocative
"It goes back to the womb,” Bridget says of that connection. “I would not call it a memory as it is so deep within my blood and bones. My mum was the source, she sang all the time, as part of life. So it was a very lulling and natural introduction. It seemed common to hear her singing – unbeknownst to her – in time with a raindrop dripping at the window,” Bridget continues. “I’ve always wanted to do a folk record as I love these songs so much. It comes much more naturally to me to sing other people’s words, especially when they’re as beautiful as these old verses.”
Underpinned by waves of analogue reverb, and led by Bridget’s stirring and weather-beaten voice, the songs on Cold Blows the Rain drift and crawl like low heavy clouds on flat-top hills, shaped by the land. The backdrop is equally as arresting, all subtle gloom cast in shadow, a gentle but pronounced swirling of textures, crafted from harmonium and violin courtesy of The Apparitions (Sam Mcloughlin and Dan Bridgewood-Hill).
“The weather speaks the most eloquently about human loss,” Bridget says, articulating such sentiments. “It’s good to feel enveloped by something so much vaster than ourselves. The rain and the tears all become one.”

Moshe Fisher-Rozenberg returns to Altin Village & Mine with his second album as Memory Pearl. »Cosmic-Astral« reimagines a music programme used by psychotherapists in the 1970s in combination with LSD. While the original album was designed to take the listener on a cosmic journey of personal discovery through classical music, Fisher-Rozenberg draws on the sounds of electronic instruments and a collage-like approach: he converted the scores of the original pieces by Richard Strauss, Alexander Scriabin, and others into MIDI files, manipulated those into entirely new shapes and sounds using a variety of techniques, while also combining them with improvisational input from artists such as Sam Prekop, Joseph Shabason, Moritz Fasbender, Alec O’Hanley, Bram Gielen, and Brandon Valdivia.

Besides his work as a multi-instrumentalist, producer and collaborator of bands such as Alvvays as well as a member of the group Absolutely Free, Fisher-Rozenberg is also a registered psychotherapist and certified music therapist. »Cosmic-Astral« is hence marked by his expertise in both fields while also displaying the conceptual rigour and aesthetic playfulness that had already been in full effect on his Memory Pearl debut, 2021’s »Music for 7 Paintings« for Altin Village & Mine. Aiming to create his own version of the »Cosmic-Astral« programme, but making it more »delicate and tender,« as he puts it, Fisher-Rozenberg combines the ethereal with the terrestrial, abstraction and concretion, synthesization and the organic across these nine tracks.

As a whole, the resulting album is quite literally trippy. »Each piece is meant to bring the listener deeper into their journey,« explains the Toronto-based artist. »You can think of it in terms of space travel, with each tune taking you further out of yourself and deeper into a cosmic realm.« Think about »Cosmic Astral« as a map through which you can find your way towards sonic healing.

Emmanuel Mario returns to Karaoke Kalk with his third album under his Astrobal moniker for the Berlin-based imprint. »L’uomo e la natura« (»Man and Nature«) sees the prolific drummer and producer, who has worked with artists such as Laetitia Sadier and label mate Pink Shabab, take a different musical route than before. The French electronic music composer pays homage to the spirit of library music while also making concessions to different strains of pop and even classical music. With only two of the ten songs putting words to the music, »L’uomo e la natura« is a masterful exercise in the evocation of atmospheres: expressing much while saying very little outright—show, don’t tell.

The album was born out of a desire to push the envelope. »I wanted to make music that was both pop and ambitious in its chord progressions as well as surprising in its construction,« explains the Paris-based artist. Taking inspiration from library music artists such as Alessandro Alessandroni or Bruno Nicolai as well as the more cosmic strains of electronic instrumental music, he strove »to create a soundtrack that would immediately bring to mind outer space.« The first of the three singles released ahead of the full album, »L’abeille pourpre,« captures this spirit with funky rhythms and an overjoyed interplay of different melodies, all tied together by wordless yet terminally catchy vocals.

The second single, »Miami 2064,« traverses through many different moods in its six-minute run-time: Starting off as neo-noir synth-wave piece, it then proceeds to pay its dues to the masters of the cosmic music tradition such as Tangerine Dream or, of course, Jean-Michel Jarre before slowly descending back to Earth with guitars and dreamy synthetic vocals, playfully punctuated by a plethora of wistful melodies. It is the perfect encapsulation of the open-ended approach Mario follows throughout the entire album, taking full creative licence in regards to songwriting and arrangements. »I wanted to surprise myself,« he shrugs. He succeeded.

»L’uomo e la natura« rewards multiple listens not only emotionally, but also intellectually. »I also wanted to talk about politics and ecology, because it’s impossible not to,« Mario notes. Some of the track titles express this more openly than others and the two title tracks sung by Mario and Nina Savary use French and Italian lyrics, respectively. However, as a whole the album leaves things open to interpretation. Does »The End of Capitalism« sound elegiac or triumphant? And what do you actually make of this musical vision of the Floridian metropolis, whose mere existence is threatened by climate change already today, four decades from now? Mario doesn’t necessarily answer these questions—he doesn’t tell, he shows.

Volume 1 of this expertly curated project of 90s Italian House - put together by Don Carlos.

If Paradise was half as nice… by Fabio De Luca.

Googling “paradise house”, the first results to pop up are an endless list of European b&b’s with whitewashed lime façades, all of them promising “…an unmatched travel experience a few steps from the sea”. Next, a little further down, are the institutional websites of a few select semi-luxury retirement homes (no photos shown, but lots of stock images of smiling nurses with reassuring looks). To find the “paradise house” we’re after, we have to scroll even further down. Much further down.

It feels like yesterday, and at the same time it seems like a million years ago. The Eighties had just ended, and it was still unclear what to expect from the Nineties. Mobile phones that were not the size of a briefcase and did not cost as much as a car? A frightening economic crisis? The guitar-rock revival?! Certainly, the best place to observe that moment of transition was the dancefloor. Truly epochal transformations were happening there. From America, within a short distance one from the other, two revolutionary new musical styles had arrived: the first one sounded a bit like an “on a budget” version of the best Seventies disco-music – Philly sound made with a set of piano-bar keyboards! – the other was even more sparse, futuristic and extraterrestrial. It was a music with a quite distinct “physical” component, which at the same time, to be fully grasped, seemed to call for the knotty theories of certain French post-modern philosophers: Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Paul Virilio... Both those genres – we would learn shortly after – were born in the black communities of Chicago and Detroit, although listening to those vinyl 12” (often wrapped in generic white covers, and with little indication in the label) you could not easily guess whether behind them there was a black boy from somewhere in the Usa, or a girl from Berlin, or a pale kid from a Cornish coastal town.

Quickly, similar sounds began to show up from all corners of Europe. A thousand variations of the same intuition: leaner, less lean, happier, slightly less intoxicated, more broken, slower, faster, much faster... Boom! From the dancefloors – the London ones at least, whose chronicles we eagerly read every month in the pages of The Face and i-D – came tales of a new generation of clubbers who had completely stopped “dressing up” to go dancing; of hot tempered hooligans bursting into tears and hugging everyone under the strobe lights as the notes of Strings of Life rose up through the fumes of dry ice (certain “smiling” pills were also involved, sure). At this point, however, we must move on to Switzerland.

In Switzerland, in the quiet and diligent town of Lugano, between the 1980s and 1990s there was a club called “Morandi”. Its hot night was on Wednesdays, when the audience also came from Milan, Como, Varese and Zurich. Legend goes that, one night, none less than Prince and Sheila E were spotted hiding among the sofas, on a day-off of the Italian dates of the Nude Tour… The Wednesday resident and superstar was an Italian dj with an exotic name: Don Carlos. The soundtrack he devised was a mixture of Chicago, Detroit, the most progressive R&B and certain forgotten classics of old disco music: practically, what the Paradise Garage in New York might have sounded like had it not closed in 1987. In between, Don Carlos also managed to squeeze in some tracks he had worked on in his studio on Lago Maggiore. One in particular: a track that was rather slow compared to the BPM in fashion at the time, but which was a perfect bridge between house and R&B. The title was Alone: Don Carlos would explain years later that it had to be intended both in the English meaning of “by itself” and like the Italian word meaning “halo”. That wasn’t the only double entendre about the song, anyway. Its own very deep nature was, indeed, double. On the one hand, Alone was built around an angelic keyboard pattern and a romantic piano riff that took you straight to heaven; on the other, it showcased enough electronic squelches (plus a sax part that sounded like it had been dissolved by acid rain) to pigeonhole the tune into the “junk modernity” section, aka the hallmark of all the most innovative sounds of the time: music that sounded like it was hand-crafted from the scraps of glittering overground pop.

No one knows who was the first to call it “paradise house”, nor when it happened. Alternative definitions on the same topic one happened to hear included “ambient house”, “dream house”, “Mediterranean progressive”… but of course none were as good (and alluring) as “paradise house”. What is certain is that such inclination for sounds that were in equal measure angelic and neurotic, romantic and unaffective, quickly became the trademark of the second generation of Italian house. Music that seemed shyly equidistant from all the rhythmic and electronic revolutions that had happened up to that moment (“Music perfectly adept at going nowhere slowly” as noted by English journalist Craig McLean in a legendary field report for Blah Blah Blah magazine). Music that to a inattentive ear might have sounded as anonymous as a snapshot of a random group of passers-by at 10AM in the centre of any major city, but perfectly described the (slow) awakening in the real world after the universal love binge of the so-called Second Summer of Love.

For a brief but unforgettable season, in Italy “paradise house” was the official soundtrack of interminable weekends spent inside the car, darting from one club to another, cutting the peninsula from North to centre, from East to West coast in pursuit of the latest after-hours disco, trading kilometres per hour with beats per minute: practically, a new New Year’s Eve every Friday and Saturday night. This too was no small transformation, as well as a shock for an adult Italy that was encountering for the first time – thanks to its sons and daughters – the wild side of industrial modernity. The clubbers of the so-called “fuoriorario” scene were the balls gone mad in the pinball machine most feared by newspapers, magazines and TV pundits. What they did each and every weekend, apart from going crazy to the sound of the current white labels, was linking distant geographical points and non-places (thank you Marc Augé!) – old dance halls, farmhouses and business centres – transformed for one night into house music heaven. As Marco D’Eramo wrote in his 1995 essay on Chicago, Il maiale e il grattacielo: “Four-wheeled capitalism distorts our age-old image of the city, it allows the suburbs to be connected to each other, whereas before they were connected only by the centre (…) It makes possible a metropolitan area without a metropolis, without a city centre, without downtown. The periphery is no longer a periphery of any centre, but is self-centred”.

“Paradise house” perfectly understood all of this and turned it into a sort of cyber-blues that didn’t even need words, and unexpectedly brought back a drop of melancholic (post?)-humanity within a world that by then – as we would wholly realise in the decades to come – was fully inhuman and heartless. A world where we were all alone, and surrounded by a sinister yellowish halo, like a neon at the end of its life cycle. But, for one night at least, happy.

So 2020 was going to be the year of Van Weezer -- the big riffs rock album Weezer made as an homage to the metal bands they loved growing up -- until, thanks to the global pandemic, it suddenly wasn't. The entire time, however, Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo was busy at the piano, writing a very different album that referenced another vital musical touchstone of his youth: The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds.



Throughout the summer of Covid-19, he and the band -- along with a 38 piece orchestra -- chipped away at masked recording sessions until the record was complete. The result is an album called OK Human -- a cheeky nod to Radiohead's technophobic future-trip OK Computer, but sounding nothing at all like that record. Taking the listener bit by bit through parts of Cuomo's every day, it's a Technicolor symphonic spree that meditates on how over-and-under-connected we all are, particularly in a year where we can see each other with greater ease, but actually can't physically be near each other at all.





OK Human is also packed to the brim with some of the best, most personal songs Cuomo has written in the last decade, all of which shine brighter and bolder with splashes of string and horn arrangements courtesy of album producer Jake Sinclair and arranger Rob Mathes. It's hard to imagine any other band who came up in the alt haze of the 90s creating a simply perfect orchestral pop album, but that is exactly what Weezer's done; OK Human is a testament to the excellent, enduring melodies Cuomo has written since Weezer's inception, and the ones he continues to write today.

Back in stock due to popular demand, the 23rd release in our signature Brazil 45’s series served up a double header of classics from Sonia Santos and João Donato.

First up, 'Poema Ritmico Do Malandro (Balanço Do Crioulo)' is a beautiful track from the instantly recognisable Sonia Santos. A song that drifts from classic to psychedelic samba, laden with strings, horns and crowd noise. First released on 7” by Copacabana in 1971, but never on an album, originals fetch up to £100 per copy. A different version of this song also appears on the truly excellent Zito Righi Alucinolandia LP.

On the B side, 'Cala Boca Menino' is taken from João Donato’s much sought after and requested Quem É Quem LP. Quirky percussion, bubbling keys, horns and a hypnotic vocal. Donato is a hugely prolific force in Brazilian music and worked with the likes of including Tom Jobim, Astrud Gilberto, Cal Tjader, Dom Um Romao and Gilberto Gil amongst others. ‘Cala Boca Menino’ was released on a 7” in 1973 in Brazil, but is very difficult to find at a reasonable price and in good condition these days.

Attention space cadets!
Following last year's much lauded Kaliyuga Express debut 'Warriors & Masters', Nolla (Finnish psych/space rockers) & Mike Vest (Maximalist guitar guru, Bong, Blown Out, Drunk In Hell, Artifacts & Uranium, Modoki, Tomoyuki Trio, Mienakunaru etc) combine their visions once again and explore dark futuristic mindscapes.
They set their sights to the looming eons and gaze through an occult lens. Inspired by classic space rock, driving hypnotic krautrock and bleak synth soundscapes.
The ground was laid in improvised Nolla sessions and further ascended with gloomy prophecies and lyrical explorations by Ilkka and Otto. With Ohto’s assertive drums and Teemu's solid guitars the canvas was set for Mike to paint his transcendent multilayered guitars.
Bleak and overbearing sights are explored, but the future holds a speck of hope if you are prepared to embrace the darkness.
For fans of: Hawkwind, Can, Sun Dial, Bevis Frond, Space Rock, Krautrock etc.
Otto Juutilainen - Vocals, Synth, Lyrics, Mix, Mastering, Ilkka Vekka - Bass, Electronics, Lyrics, Art, Mike Vest - Guitar, Teemu Vilmunen - Guitar, Ohto Pallas - Drums
Recorded in Finland & the United Kingdom Winter/Spring 2024

Metal Church’s 4th album is often cited as their best. Breaking through in the-mid eighties within a blossoming Thrash Metal scene, these guys from Seattle stuck to their guns while other bands were polishing their sound to meet popular demand. The Human Factor (1991) excels in chugging riffs, melodic breaks, pulsing beats and furious vocals - a true Thrash classic. The lyrics stand out in their substance: singer Mike Howe tackles political and social subjects on “Date with Poverty”, “Flee From Reality” and “The Final Word”.

The Human Factor is available as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on translucent red coloured vinyl.

Young Croatian cellists Luka Sulic and Stjepan Hauser, together known as 2CELLOS, have achieved sensational success by taking the cello to a new level. Their playing style has broken down the boundaries between different genres of music, from classical and film music to Pop and Rock. 2CELLOS have no limits when it comes to performing live and are equally as impressive when playing Bach and Vivaldi as they are when rocking out AC/DC. Their debut album is a thrilling collection of chart-topping rock and pop songs performed in their signature style.

2CELLOS rose to fame in 2011 when their version of Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” took the world by storm. The YouTube video became a massive viral sensation leading to a record deal with Sony Masterworks and an invitation to join Sir Elton John on his worldwide tour. The song charted at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 Digital Songs Chart and landed the 2CELLOS’ debut album in the Top 100.

In addition to many sold out solo tours (US, Japan, Europe) and collaborations with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Queens of the Stone Age and George Michael, the duo have also appeared on major TV shows such as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Bachelor and many others. Together with the Chinese classical superstar pianist Lang Lang, they appeared at the CCTV New Year’s Gala for more than 1 billion viewers.

2CELLOS features the duo’s renditions of popular songs such as “Use Somebody”, “Smooth Criminal”, “Fragile”, “Hurt”, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and more. It is released as a 10th anniversary edition of 1500 numbered copies on white coloured vinyl. It is housed in a heavyweight jacket with soft touch laminate and includes an insert.

From the off, Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory is sonically different from Van Etten's previous work. Writing and recording in total collaboration with her band for the first time, Van Etten finds the freedom that comes by letting go. The result of that liberation is an exhilarating new dimension of sound and songwriting. The themes are timeless, classic Sharon - life and living, love and being loved - but the sounds are new, wholly realized and sharp as glass. Reflecting on this new artistic frame of mind, Van Etten muses, "Sometimes it's exciting, sometimes it's scary, sometimes you feel stuck. It's like every day feels a little different - just being at peace with whatever you're feeling and whoever you are and how you relate to people in that moment. If I can just keep a sense of openness while knowing that my feelings change every day, that is all I can do right now. That and try to be the best person I can be while letting other people be who they are and not taking it personally and just being. I'm not there, but I'm trying to be there every day." Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory is a quantum leap in that direction. - Lol Tolhurst

Awareness Edition: Amber Galaxy Vinyl. From the off, Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory is sonically different from Van Etten's previous work. Writing and recording in total collaboration with her band for the first time, Van Etten finds the freedom that comes by letting go. The result of that liberation is an exhilarating new dimension of sound and songwriting. The themes are timeless, classic Sharon - life and living, love and being loved - but the sounds are new, wholly realized and sharp as glass. Reflecting on this new artistic frame of mind, Van Etten muses, "Sometimes it's exciting, sometimes it's scary, sometimes you feel stuck. It's like every day feels a little different - just being at peace with whatever you're feeling and whoever you are and how you relate to people in that moment. If I can just keep a sense of openness while knowing that my feelings change every day, that is all I can do right now. That and try to be the best person I can be while letting other people be who they are and not taking it personally and just being. I'm not there, but I'm trying to be there every day." Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory is a quantum leap in that direction. - Lol Tolhurst

Awareness Edition: Amber Galaxy Vinyl + Laptop Sticker. From the off, Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory is sonically different from Van Etten's previous work. Writing and recording in total collaboration with her band for the first time, Van Etten finds the freedom that comes by letting go. The result of that liberation is an exhilarating new dimension of sound and songwriting. The themes are timeless, classic Sharon - life and living, love and being loved - but the sounds are new, wholly realized and sharp as glass. Reflecting on this new artistic frame of mind, Van Etten muses, "Sometimes it's exciting, sometimes it's scary, sometimes you feel stuck. It's like every day feels a little different - just being at peace with whatever you're feeling and whoever you are and how you relate to people in that moment. If I can just keep a sense of openness while knowing that my feelings change every day, that is all I can do right now. That and try to be the best person I can be while letting other people be who they are and not taking it personally and just being. I'm not there, but I'm trying to be there every day." Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory is a quantum leap in that direction. - Lol Tolhurst

The duality of "man" is a subject that has been explored in art for centuries, from writings of the Bible to Descartes, all the way up to filmmakers like Lynch, Cronenberg, & Carpenter. Who is your "true self" & what do they want? With their sixth studio album "Wish Defense" (again for longtime home Trouble In Mind Records), Chicago trio FACS take a good, long look in the mirror to face themselves. The return of original member Jonathan Van Herik - who stepped away from the group just before their debut album "Negative Houses" was released in 2018 - replacing longtime bassist Alianna Kalaba brings renewed vigor & a marked angularity from the band's more recent output. The songs still hit hard, but the approach is sideways - the roles have changed since Van Herik's original tenure & his previous time with Case & powerhouse drummer Noah Leger in Disappears; now on bass, Van Herik was originally the group's guitar player and features on the debut, while current guitarist Brian Case played bass. This role reversal has helped the band's dynamic, offering up a different musical perspective than before, now revisiting the trio's long-going collaboration with some distance and time. Case notes that the lyrics on "Wish Defense" revolve around doppelgängers or "doubles", tackling the idea of facing yourself and observing your ideas and motivations. Look no further than the album's title track; "Enter the mirror / Double walker / An intimate / Wish defense / Is it real? / You beside me / The detail / Terrifying / Abject self / Your grief / A public / Performance". Case lays out the entire album's theme in one stanza; Are your actions & emotions your true self? Or are they a performative aspect of that "other" person you put forward? Case says that ultimately the sentiment is "_don't let the bastards get you down, there's something beyond this moment, like hope - but not in the naive belief that ultimately people are good". "Wish Defense"s artwork is also a subtle reference to "Negative Houses"' art, returning to that album's black & white starkness & minimalism. The album's checkerboards everywhere are offset reflections of themselves, mirrored with the album's lyrics printed front & center on the cover. Everything is out in the open. A final note; "Wish Defense" is the last album engineered by Steve Albini. Two days were recorded at Electrical Audio in early May of 2024 before Steve's untimely passing, with renowned engineer & friend Sanford Parker stepping in to finish the session 24 hours later, tracking the last bits of vocals and overdubs. Longtime collaborator John Congleton mixed the album as Albini would have; in Electrical Audio's A room, off the tape, using Albini's notes about the session.

The duality of "man" is a subject that has been explored in art for centuries, from writings of the Bible to Descartes, all the way up to filmmakers like Lynch, Cronenberg, & Carpenter. Who is your "true self" & what do they want? With their sixth studio album "Wish Defense" (again for longtime home Trouble In Mind Records), Chicago trio FACS take a good, long look in the mirror to face themselves. The return of original member Jonathan Van Herik - who stepped away from the group just before their debut album "Negative Houses" was released in 2018 - replacing longtime bassist Alianna Kalaba brings renewed vigor & a marked angularity from the band's more recent output. The songs still hit hard, but the approach is sideways - the roles have changed since Van Herik's original tenure & his previous time with Case & powerhouse drummer Noah Leger in Disappears; now on bass, Van Herik was originally the group's guitar player and features on the debut, while current guitarist Brian Case played bass. This role reversal has helped the band's dynamic, offering up a different musical perspective than before, now revisiting the trio's long-going collaboration with some distance and time. Case notes that the lyrics on "Wish Defense" revolve around doppelgängers or "doubles", tackling the idea of facing yourself and observing your ideas and motivations. Look no further than the album's title track; "Enter the mirror / Double walker / An intimate / Wish defense / Is it real? / You beside me / The detail / Terrifying / Abject self / Your grief / A public / Performance". Case lays out the entire album's theme in one stanza; Are your actions & emotions your true self? Or are they a performative aspect of that "other" person you put forward? Case says that ultimately the sentiment is "_don't let the bastards get you down, there's something beyond this moment, like hope - but not in the naive belief that ultimately people are good". "Wish Defense"s artwork is also a subtle reference to "Negative Houses"' art, returning to that album's black & white starkness & minimalism. The album's checkerboards everywhere are offset reflections of themselves, mirrored with the album's lyrics printed front & center on the cover. Everything is out in the open. A final note; "Wish Defense" is the last album engineered by Steve Albini. Two days were recorded at Electrical Audio in early May of 2024 before Steve's untimely passing, with renowned engineer & friend Sanford Parker stepping in to finish the session 24 hours later, tracking the last bits of vocals and overdubs. Longtime collaborator John Congleton mixed the album as Albini would have; in Electrical Audio's A room, off the tape, using Albini's notes about the session.

The duality of "man" is a subject that has been explored in art for centuries, from writings of the Bible to Descartes, all the way up to filmmakers like Lynch, Cronenberg, & Carpenter. Who is your "true self" & what do they want? With their sixth studio album "Wish Defense" (again for longtime home Trouble In Mind Records), Chicago trio FACS take a good, long look in the mirror to face themselves. The return of original member Jonathan Van Herik - who stepped away from the group just before their debut album "Negative Houses" was released in 2018 - replacing longtime bassist Alianna Kalaba brings renewed vigor & a marked angularity from the band's more recent output. The songs still hit hard, but the approach is sideways - the roles have changed since Van Herik's original tenure & his previous time with Case & powerhouse drummer Noah Leger in Disappears; now on bass, Van Herik was originally the group's guitar player and features on the debut, while current guitarist Brian Case played bass. This role reversal has helped the band's dynamic, offering up a different musical perspective than before, now revisiting the trio's long-going collaboration with some distance and time. Case notes that the lyrics on "Wish Defense" revolve around doppelgängers or "doubles", tackling the idea of facing yourself and observing your ideas and motivations. Look no further than the album's title track; "Enter the mirror / Double walker / An intimate / Wish defense / Is it real? / You beside me / The detail / Terrifying / Abject self / Your grief / A public / Performance". Case lays out the entire album's theme in one stanza; Are your actions & emotions your true self? Or are they a performative aspect of that "other" person you put forward? Case says that ultimately the sentiment is "_don't let the bastards get you down, there's something beyond this moment, like hope - but not in the naive belief that ultimately people are good". "Wish Defense"s artwork is also a subtle reference to "Negative Houses"' art, returning to that album's black & white starkness & minimalism. The album's checkerboards everywhere are offset reflections of themselves, mirrored with the album's lyrics printed front & center on the cover. Everything is out in the open. A final note; "Wish Defense" is the last album engineered by Steve Albini. Two days were recorded at Electrical Audio in early May of 2024 before Steve's untimely passing, with renowned engineer & friend Sanford Parker stepping in to finish the session 24 hours later, tracking the last bits of vocals and overdubs. Longtime collaborator John Congleton mixed the album as Albini would have; in Electrical Audio's A room, off the tape, using Albini's notes about the session.

Die 1987er Black Uhuru-Alben "Positive" und "Positive Dub" zählen zu den besten Arbeiten der legendären Reggae-Band und erscheinen nun kombiniert in remastered Qualität. Produziert von Steven Stanley, mit Sly & Robbie als Studiomusiker, war "Positive" das letzte Album mit Delroy "Junior" Reid on vocals. Beide Formate enthalten die vollständigen 16 Tracks, die LP ist auf schwarzem 180g Doppelvinyl im Gatefold gepresst.

- "At its best, Black Uhuru combines the persistent dance-inciting rhythms of pure reggae with substantial pop melodies and soulful vocals." - St. Petersburg Times

- "The sheer tunefulness the band has displayed in the past." - The Washington Post

- "Uplifting, yet realistic. It paints real, and often graphic, pictures of conflict in the Third World." - Ottawa Citizen

Collector, seeker and storyteller Charles Bals brings his curatorial finesse to Hamburg"s Bureau B with "Ambientale", a journey into otherworldly sounds from the years 1983 - 2000.

Drifting effortlessly between digital exoticism, mellow fusion, new age groove and library electronics, the pieces range from largely obscure to utterly un-google-able, and coalesce into a stunning soundtrack to tranquil seas, desert sand and starlit skies.

Cinematic & enigmatic, "Ambientale" is a stranger you"ve only just met but can"t stop thinking about.