Buscar:otherwise

ACHTUNG !! Another weighty missive from the desk of Herr Campbell, otherwise known as Consulate - Perth’s preeminent breakbeat bureaucrat, currently stationed in Melbourne, Australia.

Smelling like leather and tasting like metal, the “Assassino” EP features four full-excursion incantations for all the midwinter ravers -- solstice steppers enhanced with dubwise technique and enchanted with ancient foreboding…

Careful what you conjure when the needle hits this platter.

Paul Wise aka Placid is the driving force behind ‘We’re Going Deep’ – a thriving online community and record label that’s showing no signs of slowing down as we start the new year. Born out of a lifelong affair with the many shades of electronic rhythm and an obsession for collecting records that first started in 1988.

As a label owner, his mission couldn’t be clearer: releasing new music for heads - old and new. Fresh cuts aimed squarely at the dance floor, your front room or even just the headphones! Rather than staying too hung up on the past, he’s very much focused on serving up the best in new Acid, Electro, Techno, Deep House along with the odd slice of Downtempo goodness.

Sticking to the trusted format of 4 different producers, all serving up high grade electronic explorations, WGD 006 launches with another stellar line up. Headed up by the foreboding sounds of Versalife with “Omikron” on A1, spacious atmospherics and half-step beat usher in a gnarled bassline that simply won’t let go. As delicately placed melodic touches light up an otherwise pitch black soundscape and open up the spaces in between, it’s a superb reminder of the Dutchman’s majestic talent. Accompanied with an outing from Belgium’s rising talent Mariska Neerman, snappy percussion and machine pulses greet you from the off on A2 “Twin”, evolving into a fully emotive and uplifting ride. Leading with layered synths, Neerman demonstrates her sparkling knowhow for drenching you in heart warming pads and strings that harmoniously sing.

Written under his Analogue-1 alias, head to B1 for the legendary sounds of James Zeiter shimmering through on “Counterpoint”. A subtle and stripped back 4/4 trip into the lighter side of acid inspired grooves that shuffles out into the unknown: tweaking all the way as the intensity build. Powerful stuff at the right moment, do not underestimate the alchemy at work here. Last but not least, newcomer Morthen Kiang leaves us on a punchy 909 driven martian inspired work out, that fully summons the vibe of our Red Planet friends. A perfect ending note packed full of machine oscillations and cosmic waves.

After their celestial Arcturian Corridors opened proceedings on Quindi, London-based brothers Clive and Mark Ives are back with a new record. When Woo first began recording at home in the early 70s, Clive and Mark were the embodiment of furtive genius. Since re-emerging in 2013, they've released scores of albums, collaborated with Seahawks, and have now struck up a productive relationship with Quindi.

On Paradise In Pimlico, you're hearing a very different sound to the one gently creaked out on early classics like Into The Heart Of Love. This is fulsome, contemporary production rich in detail and artful sound design, but crucially, Clive and Mark's gorgeously melodic approach remains open and inquisitive, even with the sheen and shimmer of modern studio techniques.

Woo sound more confident than ever in their composition, too. The crystalline, fragile tones of 'Cadenza D'Innocenza' glide through key changes that spell out an engrossing narrative, while the cascading melodies on 'Moment To Moment' pirouette across the space between notes with masterful poise. 'Paradise In Pimlico' is an illustrious suite of orchestral composition played out with the lightest touch, framed by the slightest of synthesized fauna and topped off with tender sax and flute. Album closer 'In Case Love Fails' takes on a subtly cinematic urgency with its undercurrents of walking bass and the strike of the string section (synthetic or otherwise).

There's space for markedly new approaches, too. The rhythm section on 'The Motorik Mirror' clunks and pops with a tactile, high-definition quality which teeters between electronic sculpture and clockwork, organic machination. The deft, lightly-brushed drums coursing through 'Even More Notes' see Clive and Mark step into a different mood, celebrating the beat as another fluid, tonally-rich texture in the mix and adding a smoky, jazzy hue to the Woo repertoire.

It's far from a drum-focused exercise though. At every turn, you're confronted with aching beauty and timbral surprises. If there's one constant throughout Paradise In Pimlico, it's the omnipresent chimes. These twinkling drops of light scattered throughout are something of a hallmark of Woo, ensuring the lilting, lullaby-like magic of their music persists whichever direction they head in.

Flashback to 2008. Barack Obama is in charge of the US, China is hosting the Summer Olympics and Amy Winehouse's 'Back To Black' is ruling the charts. In Belgium - more specifically in Aalst - four friends of friends decide to make music together. A year or so later, Intergalactic Lovers achieves its first successes and in 2011, with 'Greetings and Salutations', the band records its first album. The press is wildly enthusiastic, the gigs are piling up, the train is rolling...

13 years and two more successful albums ('Little Heavy Burdens' (2014) and 'Exhale' (2017)) later, singer Lara Chedraoui, guitarist Maarten Huygens, bassist Raf De Mey and drummer Brendan Corbey know each other like the back of their hands as they have navigated many waters together, both professionally and privately. The unbreakable foursome is ready to start the next chapter in the career of Intergalactic Lovers. "We kept a low profile the last two years" Brendan admits, "but we always have to disappear for a while after a tour. From the stage and from each other. Otherwise, you couldn't keep doing this for 13 years alongside a job, a family..."

Mental tribe weapon... as usual a diving sound in a diabolik precision... DJ friendly to death !

C-L-A-S-S-I-C library breaks and beats set of heavy drums and louche funk.

One of two Be With forays into the archives of revered British library institution Conroy, we present one of our favourites on the label - the super in-demand Dramatic Tempi / Larry Robbins Background Rhythms, originally released in 1975. Rare and sought-after for many years now, this is one of those cult library LPs that rarely turns up on even the deepest dig.

As a single LP, Dramatic Tempi / Larry Robbins Background Rhythms is two distinctly different collections of music. The first side, Dramatic Tempi, is made up of four tracks each from Sammy Burdson and Klaus Weiss.

Sammy Burdson was one of the many, many aliases of the mighty Austrian composer, arranger and conductor, Gerhard Narholz. Founder of adored library label Sonoton in 1965, and a classically trained composer, his work runs from easy listening through pop, jazz and electronic, to avant-garde.

About as cult as it gets when it comes to library music legends (German or otherwise) Klaus Weiss produced essential records on German library labels Coloursound, Selected Sound and Sonoton, as well as making two essential entries in the Conroy catalogue. Having started his career at the age of 16 as a jazz drummer, the Klaus Weiss trademark electronic sound is unsurprisingly built on top of sometimes funky, sometimes frenetic, but always hard-hitting drums.

The second side is both titled and also credited to Larry Robbins Background Rhythms. We have to admit to being stumped as to who Larry was, but we don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to assume it might well be yet another incarnation of Gerhard Narholz’s.

First up from Dramatic Tempi are the phased, gargantuan hip-hop beats of Sammy Burdson’s impeccable “Pop Waves”. This is otherworldly funk on a whole new level. Hearing is believing. The magnificently titled “Cyclodrom” is up next, a beast of booming bass and wah wah guitars over frenetic funk drums. “Devils Drive” is dramatic, blaxploitation street funk with rolling, pounding drums. “Crime Ways” is an acid-squelch, slow-pace neck-snapper.

Klaus Weiss starts by askings us “Is It Hip” and we can only answer “yes it is!” to the clean, skipping drums, booming bass and proto-hip-hop bells, layered beneath laconic and melodic guitar shredding. This is just horizontal soul perfection. “The Camp”, propelled by jazzy guitar à la Joe Pass over fast drum and conga breaks, gives way to the dark guitars and cymbal crashes of “Tomorrow”. It sounds like an early New Order jam session. Closing out a pretty startling side of library greatness, “Rhythm Trip” presents early stuttering funk before easin' on in to a jazzy, soulful groove; all breezy guitar and warm keys. Lush.

Larry Robbins Background Rhythms is a lighter, poppier affair, but it’s not without its drum-heavy bangers. “Vox Pop” and “Pop Phase” each have clean, open-ish drum breaks, ripe for sampling or more daring DJ sets. “Pop Twang” is a short and sweet beat-heavy number that gives way to the fantastically out-there “Canned Pop”. We‘d love to know if this was ever actually licensed for something! The final seven tracks are a set of 1-to-2 minute “Percussion Takes”. All compelling, and all equally useful for any number of production needs. Get sampling.

The British library label with those instantly recognisable “orangey-red” sleeves, Conroy began releasing production music in 1965. A sub-label of Berry Music Co, its catalogue typified the library industry’s strange mixture of tradition and experimentation from the start. Conroy’s early releases included work by big band stalwarts like Eddie Warner as well as early electronic recordings by the likes of Belgian experimental pioneer Arséne Souffriau. With Berry Music Co working as a distribution partner to the German library label Sonoton, it was through the Conroy that a great deal of German library music found its way into the UK market.

Conroy stopped putting out new music in the 1980s, but its history and its catalogue offer an excellent window into the trends and eccentricities of a highly unique industry at the height of its international appeal.

This re-issue of Dramatic Tempi / Larry Robbins Background Rhythms has been mastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis from audio from the original tapes. Richard Robinson has handled reproducing the iconic, hypnotic original Conroy sleeve. Essential.

The second Be With foray into the archives of revered German library institution Selected Sound is one of our favourites, Sound Inventions from Klaus Weiss Rhythm And Sounds, originally released in 1979.

From the notoriously strong mind of Niagara drummer / library-funk overlord Klaus Weiss, Sound Inventions is loaded with tripped out studio funk-freakery, mad samples and swaggering abstract funk grooves. From dramatic deep disco with dark Italo/Moroder leanings to heavy German funk breaks, this is absolutely sensational. Absolute synth-and-string-drenched magic.

Born in 1942 in Gevelsberg, Germany, Klaus Weiss began his career as a jazz drummer at sixteen (with a group called the Jazzopators) before working with the internationally successful 60s groups the Klaus Doldinger Quartet and the Erwin Lehn Big Band. In 1965 he formed his own trio, the first of many groups to bear his name, and as his renown as a bandleader grew over the next decade it naturally lead to working in production music.

About as cult as it gets when it comes to library music legends (German or otherwise), he produced essential records on German library labels Coloursound, Selected Sound and Sonoton, as well as making two essential entries in the Conroy catalogue. Collections of music in the trademark Klaus Weiss sound of electronics unsurprisingly built on top of sometimes funky, sometimes frenetic, but always hard-hitting drums.

Sound Inventions is one of those library records with a hefty track list, 22 in total, but they’re all pretty stunning. That’s not something you can often say and picking out the highlights is almost impossible. If pushed, we’d steer you towards the tough teutonic funk of “Drumcrazy”, the by turns juddering and sweeping majesty of the title track “Sound Inventions”, the aquatic serenity of “Glide”, the elegant strut of “Greenwich Street”, the muted, eerie cosmic-funk of “Air Space”, the squelchy acid-clavs of “Rhythm Function”, the calming, melodic “Waves”, the stuttering proto-Timbaland sensation that is “Rainbows” and the percussive funk-fuelled workout of “A Few Cuts”. Phew. Heavy indeed!

Founded in the late 60s by German composer and musician Klaus Netzle, Selected Sound began as a production music company specialising in jazz, orchestral and electronic recordings. You can’t miss those early LPs in their iconic glossy metallic copper sleeves with minimal German typography. Serious, classy stuff.

This re-issue of Sound Inventions has been mastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis from audio from the original tapes. Richard Robinson has handled reproducing the glossy metallic (iconic) original Selected Sound sleeve. Essential.

Operating on the outer rim of the drum & bass scene for over a decade, Blocks & Escher have been designing intelligent and forward-thinking electronic dance across a multitude of releases for labels such as Metalheadz, Digital Soundboy and their own Narratives Music. Their first release of 2022, ‘Shot In The Dark’ EP, pulls together four outstanding cuts of shadowy breaks and abstract electronica.

Otherwise known as Phillip Smith and Will Hansen, Blocks & Escher distilled their sound into the critically acclaimed 2018 album ‘Something Blue’. Released on Goldie’s Metalheadz imprint, the long player displayed a confident maturity of sound, and a more than capable accomplishment of pulling the visionary sounds of drum & bass into a new era.

The industrial breaks and hoover bass of ‘Shot In The Dark’ anchor a wave of cinematic synth sweeps, fashioning an arresting opening track on this accomplished EP. The ingenious beats continue to unfurl across ‘Abyss’ and ‘This One’, as brooding atmospherics wash over in waves. The finale of ‘Dance Girl’ ramps up the BPMs and beat complexity, as a breathless assault of rhythm and sound captivates and rewards in abundance.

Philadelphia based quintet, Grayscale, continue to break away from their punk roots & establish themselves firmly in pop leaning alternative rock with their third Fearless Records offering. After racking up 50 million streams and receiving praise from Forbes, Alternative Press, Billboard, and more, the quintet have opened up themselves and their sound throughout these 11 tracks. For Grayscale, Umbra is the end of the beginning. All previous records served as stepping stones accumulating and shaping the band's course and leading them down an artistic and aesthetic path to this point. Umbra is more of a feeling than a concept; it is an energy. It is all the things we keep underneath or to ourselves. It is the cold feeling of internal conflict, the bargaining, and the wickedness that exists within a space otherwise covered in light. The sounds don't necessarily match the stories; the energy doesn’t always match the intent. It's not about the light or the dark. It's about the light and the dark

Whereas many electronic producers aim at being the most prolific in their genre, or the most extreme, Lucy and Rrose have wisely chosen to be the most consistently curiosity-provoking representatives of their craft.


Whereas many electronic producers aim at being the most prolific in their genre, or the most extreme, Lucy and Rrose have wisely chosen to be the most consistently curiosity-provoking representatives of their craft. Their decision to team up as a production duo for the newest Stroboscopic Artefacts EP may have seemed inevitable, given their shared responsibility for shifting techno's focus towards the facilitation of profound psycho-acoustic effects. And yet, even those who saw this coming will still be in for a wild ride.

Lucy's skill as a studio technician - displayed capably over his trilogy of full-length albums - has always been enhanced by his skill as a storyteller and as an artist with reverence towards myths and the pull of the unknown. This sonic personality is a perfect complement to the scientific severity of Rrose, for whom the electronic pulse beat and subsonic massage permit entry to a febrile psychic landscape whose contents are never entirely what the individual listener might expect or be prepared for.

As with both of the artists' solo offerings, these recordings feel as much like the branching off point for new creative acts rather than as objects to be passively enjoyed. As such, the opening "Chloroform" is a somewhat ironic title for a piece that is anything but anesthetic: at high volumes, its monstrous low-end surge and prickly, scintillating sonic ephemera are very likely to bring attention to otherwise imperceptible phenomena. "Peeling" continues in this style with a more urgent tempo, developing its own cascade of sensory impressions from seemingly unstable deep-bass loops, injections of intentional surface noise, and pitch-shifted / harmonizer-effected phantom phrases.

"Stained Glass," maybe the most straight-ahead piece on the record, is still a potent distortion of the mundane primed with shivering bell tones, tamed feedback and hints of speaker cones fraying. The climactic "Foil Gardens" is an elegant study in harmonics whose time-dissolving ability nods to the works of composers like Charlemagne Palestine or Eliane Radigue, without being a pure homage to either. The undertow of distortion beneath the glistening tone waves, in particular, provides a distinct update to the legacy of so-called
tonal 'minimalism'.

The end result here is a record that feels uncannily lifelike: an organism that always seems on the verge of a heuristic breakthrough, and whose full potential may not even be known by its creators.

Words by Thomas Bey William Bailey

Chìsake Algonquin: to chant; to conjure; to cast a spell; this generally involves a shake-house, or shaking tent, in which the conjurer goes into a trance; the conjurer then has an out-of-body experience, going into the future to predict coming events, or into the past; as well as going into any locality in the universe to seek out someone or something generally practiced for ancestral divination.

The unaccompanied flute pieces within this album are adaptations of Anishinaabeg shaking tent chants. The Anishinaabeg also known as Anishinaabe are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples that reside in areas now called Canada and the United States. They include the Odawa, Saulteaux, Ojibwe (including Mississaugas), Potawatomi, Oji-Cree and Algonquin peoples. The word Anishinaabeg translates to "people from whence lowered". The Anishinaabeg origin myths describe their people originating by divine breath.

The shaking tent or conjuring lodge was the setting for a divinatory rite performed by specially trained shamans otherwise known as Chìsakewininì. During the shaking tent ceremony the Chìsakewininì would construct a special cylindrical framework typically of birch or spruce uprights planted in the ground with respective wood hoops to bind it together. This created a tensile structure of which birch bark, deer skin, or cloth was used as a covering. Rattles of caribou and deer hooves, or cups of lead shot, were tied to the frame. The floor was usually softened with freshly cut spruce boughs. The vertical axis of the shaking tent represents the realm of mediating beings, while the horizontal axis the earth or world of humans. The Chìsakewininì would enter the shaking tent at night and once inside would not be visible from onlookers. The singing of chants and drumming would summon the Chìsakewininì's spirit helpers, whose arrival was signified by animal cries and erratic tent shaking. During this transcendent state, the Chìsakewininì could dispatch these spirit helpers or Manidò to distant regions to answer questions from the onlookers about the most auspicious places to hunt, the well-being of a distant relative, and what would happen in the future.

The chants were usually sung using vocables before, during, and after the Chìsakewininì entered the shaking tent. Like many other similar divination ceremonies, singular or collective, the opening chants begin lyrically. They gradually turn to more reductive abstract structures midway and then end in lyrical chants. This symbolizes the performer and listener leaving the external literal world, entering a more abstract state of mind, and then returning. Traditionally all songs were carved on birch bark for record-keeping with mnemonic pictographs or other marks for future use. Tally mark clustering, sometimes used for song-keeping throughout the Anishinaabeg, is used for this album's track titles and numerical sequence.

The album intro begins with the shaking of a necklace of otter penis bone, fish spine, bear teeth, elk teeth and deer hide, gifted from Algonquin Elder Ajawajawesi. It is meant to focus the listener's attention before the flute pieces begin. The warble or multi-phonic oscillation prevalent in the middle tracks traditionally represented the "throat rattling" vocalization of the tonic note or sometimes known as the horizon of which the melody floats off of. Due to the repetition of multi-phonic oscillation the performer will breathe erratically creating an altered state correlating with the Chìsakewininì ceremonial actions. All songs are repeated seven times to signify the seven sacred directions: east, south, west, north, above/sky, below/earth, and center.

*Limited edition of 200 copies, heavy weight vinyl, comes with poster* fmvee joins Queeste with who do u love?, an EP of fractious songs recorded over a tumultuous four-month period in Los Angeles. Having debuted in 2018 with a set of club contortions touching on jungle and 2-step, the US artist returns with a work of intense self-reflection. Lived experiences are transmuted into an amorphous bricolage of pummelling kicks, synthetic textures, and diaristic details, what they describe as an act of "remembrance." Working and living in LA, the "grind" alongside "aspirational partying," and the confrontation of depression during an intense relationship, informs the EP on levels both sonic and thematic. The slippery rhythm and melodic stabs of 'the way you see yourself' embodies a state of flux, also recalling the early experiments of the LA beat scene. Distant jazz drumming fills its peaceful coda before 'everythingUneverKnewUwanted' introduces an echo lifted directly from the artist's life: a trickling courtyard fountain. This first phase of the release finds resolution with 'thewayothersseeyou,' a conceptual mirror to its start, and one which carries a notable shift in tone; gleaming percussion has given way to ominous synths. Despite the EP's personal nature, collaboration is crucial. 'Seed Perfuming (LoLo v665)' is an fmvee original transformed into a cascading breakbeat by New York producer and engineer Loric Sih AKA LoLo, an ecstatic yet familiar form nestled amidst otherwise bruising encounters. 'sobbing' follows, a digital-age ballad of original lyrics exploring dependency: emotional, physical, and otherwise. It's a poignant conclusion to an appropriately hallucinogenic collection, an intoxicating chemistry of love and loneliness co

* taken from the digital version of bio-rhythm 3 and not included on the vinyl version of the album.

Network’s two groundbreaking bio-rhythm albums in 1990 were each accompanied by much loved 12” preview samplers of tracks from the iconic compilations.

For the third release - a mere 31 years after the first sets - Network have added a fresh twist. The sampler this time around contains 2 tracks from the bio-rhythm 3 vinyl release and 2 that will only be otherwise available on digital format.

It makes the sampler a must have for all electronica vinyl junkies.

Nexus 21 “Silicon”, a mainstay of the duo’s much acclaimed live sets, was recorded in 1991 but not released at the time. Memories are thin as it why such a gem was ignored but the most probable explanation is that the transformation of Nexus 21 into Altern 8 took attention away from the track. After being found in the tape vaults it has been remastered for the bio-rhythm 3 project.

It is joined on side A by the Octave One remix of 10th Planet “Strings Of Life” - which is not on the album vinyl. There is a proper labyrinthe story behind this remake of the Rhythim Is Rhythim classic of classics. Kool Kat, the predecessor to Network, arranged for Rhythim Is Rhythim to play live supporting Inner City at a London Town And Country Club concert in September 1989. The label recorded the show which featured Derrick May and his guest Carl Craig.

Fast forward to 1995 and the tapes were handed over to Ashley Beedle to reconstruct and remix for a release on Network under Ashley’s 10th Plane moniker, . On to 2003 and Network’s Neil Rushton was running the suSU label where an attempt to record a vocal of Strings Of Life with none other than Shara Nelson on vocals was made using the 10th Planet parts. That never came to completion, but at the time Neil was working with Octave One and they conjured up this recreation, which has only ever been previously released as a track on a suSU compilation. FIRST TIME ON VINYL ANYWHERE FOR THIS AMAZING VERSION OF “STRINGS OF LIFE”.

“Neurosilence” - Doggy is previously unreleased recording by Birmingham’s Peter Duggal. His bleep classic “Labyrinthine” would have been totally at home on Kool Kat/Network and in recent months both label and artist have both been shaking their heads as to how it didn’t happen. The release of the stark “Neuroslince” finally sees an 0121 alliance bond together.

The 4th track “In The Presence Of Beauty” is taken from the digital release of bio-rhythm 3 and is a truly beautiful “Reprise” take on the version on the vinyl album.

Recommended if you like: Com Truise, Toro Y Moi, Tycho, Tourist. British Columbia producer Jamison Isaak didn’t anticipate an adulthood of globe-trotting songcraft, but teenage exposure to iconic French house music videos cast a spell on him that still holds: “I knew then this is what I wanted to do'’ Catalyzed by synthetic sights and sounds from oceans away, he patiently taught himself primitive software and recording programs, reverse engineering the heady, swooning horizons of the dance music that had permanently bewitched him. A decade later, having amassed an expansive discography of soft-focus synth pop and romantic electronic a crisscrossing the planet many times in the process the subtext of his project’s journey rings clear: “Teen Daze is dream fulfillment'’ Enter Interior. An ode to electric futures glimpsed in ecstatic heights, from bedrooms to big rooms, it’s an album of first loves refracted through prisms of wisdom, wounds, and wonder. Filter house and flashing lights; soft acid and vaporous neon; bumping clubs in spiral towers: “Like what the teenagers in Akira might be listening to'’ Collaborative cameos by multi-instrumentalist Joseph Shabason (on sublime fantasia opener “Last Time In This Place”) and vocalist Cecile Believe (on the glitch-glamorous anthem “2AM (Real Love)”) evocatively expand the record’s palette but otherwise Interior is Izaak’s love letter to his own artistic awakening, to the paradigm shifts inherent in youthful discovery and remote dreaming — your world exploded, your life forever changed. Years of devotion and divergence have honed his craft radically; tracks like “Nite Rune “Nowhere and“Translation”are among the most supreme bangers in the entire Teen Daze canon, a delirious fusion of textural finesse and emotional transcendence. It’s music of skylines, escape, and sensual energy, forever cresting through nights that never end.

New York United is an experimental group at the musical intersection of a classic New York avant-garde scene and forward-looking electronic production. Comprised of multi-instrumentalist and 577-cofounder Daniel Carter (Saxophone, Flute,Trumpet, Clarinet), electronic producer Tobias Wilner from Blue Foundation (Synthesizers, Percussion, Vocals, Piano, Guitar), Wu-Tang Clan bass playerDjibrilToure and 577’s Federico Ughi (Drums), their sound reflects their decades of collaboration. This second volume follows their celebrated debut, the eponymous New York United (2019), and matches its characteristically dreamlike effect, while maintaining a steady, rhythmic momentum. Like the first volume, this album was initially recorded in an improvised studio performance, and manipulated by Wilner in post-recording production, lending a uniquely ambient, electronic effect to otherwise spontaneous composition between musicians. Inescapably connected to its namesake city, the project is a testament to the transformative energy that sustains New York, dissolving individual boundaries into a collective sense of itself

"You ever wonder what Keith Morris does at the end of the day? Does he maintain that wide-eyed stare, the one that pins audiences to the floor with its very intensity, while he’s putting on his pyjamas? Does he continue spitting venom from that heroically ragged throat of his while he’s making his cocoa? Does he lay his head on his pillow with the same righteous fury that launched thousands upon thousands of moshpits? Hey, I’m just wondering. Y’see, all that intensity and venom and fury… it has to go somewhere while he’s otherwise occupied with mundane tasks like taking off his socks or brushing his teeth, right? And listening to the thrilling racket conjured up by Vancouver’s Chain Whip, you’d be forgiven for thinking that they have somehow become vessels for that energy. I mean, they’re Morris’ spiritual successors - if their 2019 debut ‘14 Lashes’ wasn’t enough of a clue, then this six-song blast of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it brilliance should leave you in no doubt. This is hardcore punk as it was originally conceived, and it slays. ‘But who are Chain Whip?’ I hear you ask. Well, they’re a bunch of dudes from British Columbia who’ve also served time in bands like The Jolts, Fashionism and Corner Boys (among others). They’re the ones who are gonna have you slashing the seats at your local cinema, or taking potshots at lines of empty bottles on street corners, cuz they make you feel so damn tuff. OK, I’m just goofing around here - whereas Chain Whip are serious business. No, really. I dare you to listen to the Germs-go-nuclear b(‘)last of ‘Laguna Bleach’, or the garage-slop-at-200-mph rush of ‘Fresh Paint And Philanthropy’, and not want to launch a stink bomb into your teacher’s car. Or, failing that, to bring about the extinction of global capitalism. If that fails, you’ll just end up wearing out the grooves of this very fine six-song EP while bouncing between walls like the DRI logo guy if he wore jet heels and spring-loaded shoulder pads. Jeez, imagine Keith finishing the night shift and giving these guys a handover. As if they’d even need to be told. Look, Chain Whip are the best straight-up old-skool punk band you’ll hear today. You know what to do. Trust your instincts. Dance that two-step to hell with ‘em. This. Is. The. Shit." Will Fitzpatrick.

When hearing Anna Gréta at the piano, you become witness to an
astonishingly mature artist, with absolutely profound technique, a
complex understanding of style and harmony and an impressively
wide range of musical expression, who has made an extraordinarily
good name for herself in just a few years on the Scandinavian scene.
Over a period of two years, partly influenced by isolation, the twelve
compositions of ‘Nightjar in the Northern Sky’ emerged, for Anna
Gréta not only as a pianist but also as a singer.
 The album title ‘Nightjar in the Northern Sky’ sets the tone for the
world of the album: A metaphor for the Scandinavian expanse,
tranquility and the close connection between people and nature, a
theme that runs through the songs in many pictures. “Nature is just an
enormous force in life. It is so much bigger than most of the other
things that otherwise seem so significant to us. And it is, in its infinite
facets, perhaps the greatest inspiration for my music. A place where
the noise falls silent and you can feel and hear yourself again,” before
adding: “Recently I have been developing a passion for bird-watching
- something that I reflect on in the title track. When you observe
nature carefully you can experience or see something unique. Sort of
like searching for love. The nightjar is a bird that is rarely seen flying
across the sky in Sweden and has been observed in Iceland less than
five times. I feel that everyone is looking for something unique in their
lives. And that nature can offer that to the ones open to see it.”
 With each of the tracks on the album she creates little, self-contained
worlds that fit into a bigger picture. Light-footed, relaxed, reduced,
concentrated. An art that required a great deal of work and attention
to detail. Together with pop-experienced producer Albert
Finnbogason, Anna Gréta chose the perfect, hand-picked line-up and
sound for each of her extraordinarily refined - harmoniously and
rhythmically - compositions.
 Although always in a coherent framework, Anna took elements from a
very diverse range of musical styles, alternating between jazz
elements and influences from pop music to excerpts from classical
and folk. All these elements create a remarkably multi-layered album,
which at the same time tells a coherent, bigger story.
 CD in 4-page digipack with 12-page booklet.
 180g vinyl with digital download code

Repress

Chris Liberator's Maximum Minimum label returns with "PANIC VIRUS RED" EP featuring 2 slamming trax from Valencia's SEON, one classic track from the U.K.'s underground innovator TASSID, and a collaboration between Belgium's rising star JACIDOREX and French DJ supremo DAVID ASKO. Futuristic Acid Techno WITHOUT the 303 action, or simply smash-and-grab dancefloor underground techno? - you decide. Either way this is going to ignite underground parties, streamed, live or otherwise - with or without this fucking virus. DO NOT PANIC!