Cerca:out of city

‘Hive Mind Records are here to help you through the winter months with this generous helping of Wet Tuna with their signature deeply fried rural psychedelia.

Matt Valentine (MV) and Pat Gubler (PG Six) have been jamming together since the mid '90s, floating around in the US psych-folk scene, playing together in Tower Recordings and separately with influential underground crews Woods, The Golden Road, Garcia Peoples and The Weeping Bong Band. Both MV and PG Six have been prolific with their solo work and over the years they've recorded for labels such as Ecstatic Peace, Drag City, Woodsist, 3 Lobed, and Crash Symbols and we are very happy to be joining such esteemed company.

On these recordings, made during the first months of the COVID lockdowns in the forests of the Vermont wilderness, MV and PG Six handle the guitars and synths but they're joined by fellow forest freaks S. Freyer Esq, Jim Bliss, Coot Moon and Carson 'Smokehound' Arnold on bass and drums. Brought to you in their patented mind-expanding SPECTRASOUND, Eau'd To A Fake Bookie Volumes 1 & 2 delivers an irresistible gumbo of deep, cosmic psychedelia, primitive drum-machine grooves and woozy country-funk jams. These 6 songs are cover versions of artists as diverse as The Blackbyrds, Michael Hurley and Jimmy Cliff, but stretched out over 4 sides, the album is entirely Wet Tuna - loose, free-flowing and lots of fun!’

The progressive metal band Queensrÿche broke into the mainstream with their acclaimed 1988 album Operation: Mindcrime. The album featured the first charting hits of the band, “Eyes of a Stranger” and “I Don’t Believe in Love”. Operation: Mindcrime was certified Platinum by the RIAA not long after its release. The album follows the story of Nikki, a drug addict who becomes disillusioned with the corrupt society of his time and reluctantly becomes involved with a revolutionary group as an assassin of political leaders.

Its sequel, Operation: Mindcrime II was released in 2006 and contained the singles “I’m American” and “The Hands”. It picked up the story where the original left off, with Nikki out of prison and seeking revenge for the killing of his beloved former prostitute turned nun, Sister Mary.
In support of the album, the band went on tour and performed the two albums in their entirety for three consecutive nights in October 2006 at The Moore Theatre in Seattle.

For the very first time, the live album Mindcrime At The Moore is now available on vinyl. The 4LP set is available as a limited edition of 3500 individually numbered copies on translucent red, solid white & black marbled vinyl and contains an insert.

In the vast musical archive that is Roman Flügel’s discography, Ro70 holds a special place. Written, performed and produced between January and July 1995, it is his debut album as a full-fledged solo artist. Enquired and inspired by a certain David Moufang from Heidelberg, who used to share a classroom with Jörn Elling Wuttke at the SAE Institute and revealed himself to be an Acid Jesus fan and also of the Roman IV 12“ project, it seemed like a good fit for his (and Jonas Grossmann’s) Source Records label.
In the days before file sharing that meant going back and forth with various DATs in his mom’s Volkswagen Polo Fox for actual listening sessions between Darmstadt and Heidelberg. The time was as special and idiosyncratic one as was the sound of Source Records and of course Ro 70 itself. While the rave-olution was ready to eat its kids with the commercial outlook of former underground phenomena looked bright and the scene’s prophecy seemed grim, enterprises like Source and artist like Roman Flügel were defying any competition out of those corners with their own means.
Listening back to the ten tracks of Ro 70, it proves them, their taste and artistic vision right. Probably still being put into the ambient, downtempo, electronica or chill out sections of most record shops, this music could have been made, relished and cherished anytime between 1995 and now. Made in Roman’s home studio in his parent’s house or in the Klangfabrik studio in Egelsbach, this was made for before or after the rave – or for people who din’t want to have to do anything with it at all. His signature is all over it. Well balanced soundscapes with an almost uncanny presence and clarity. Bittersweet symphonies that doesn’t seem to be in an inferior position to modern classical or electronic studies.
It is also a very personal testament to a time in the artists’s life that was ready to get caught in the maelstrom of the oscillating techno city called Frankfurt am Main and its halcyon days between the Delirium record shop, Sven Väth’s marathon sets, the early days of the label triumvirate Playhouse, Klang & Ongaku. In a musical journal without lyrics, those memories will have to stay pantomimic and private. All for the better, that we can at least still listen to them.

For fans of - The Meters, War, New Mastersounds, Jungle Fire. Mestizo Beat's first 45 release with All-Town Sound. An upbeat and eclectic blend of early 70s funk and soul. We are very excited to welcome Mestizo Beat to the All-Town family! MB incorporates a diverse mix of sub-genres within the Funk and Soul spectrum. They have released a string of 45s with labels like Colemine, F-Spot, Common Good, and now ATS! We couldn't decide which tunes should be assigned the A and B sides, so we left them unmarked, for you to decide. "Poppin Off" catches your attention right from the start with some Metersesque organ and guitar interplay. It settles into the groove and this is a feel good Southern Funk influenced burner. A 4 piece horn section comprised of members of Sure Fire Soul Ensemble mixed with Jungle Fire's Steve Haney on percussion, round out this recording. On the flip side is "City Of The Body Bag" which would have you believe you were hanging out somewhere in South East Los Angeles in 1973. This tune takes heavy influence from the band "War" and is destined to be another Latin Funk struttin' classic.

For fans of - The Meters, War, New Mastersounds, Jungle Fire. Mestizo Beat's first 45 release with All-Town Sound. An upbeat and eclectic blend of early 70s funk and soul. We are very excited to welcome Mestizo Beat to the All-Town family! MB incorporates a diverse mix of sub-genres within the Funk and Soul spectrum. They have released a string of 45s with labels like Colemine, F-Spot, Common Good, and now ATS! We couldn't decide which tunes should be assigned the A and B sides, so we left them unmarked, for you to decide. "Poppin Off" catches your attention right from the start with some Metersesque organ and guitar interplay. It settles into the groove and this is a feel good Southern Funk influenced burner. A 4 piece horn section comprised of members of Sure Fire Soul Ensemble mixed with Jungle Fire's Steve Haney on percussion, round out this recording. On the flip side is "City Of The Body Bag" which would have you believe you were hanging out somewhere in South East Los Angeles in 1973. This tune takes heavy influence from the band "War" and is destined to be another Latin Funk struttin' classic.

7" Black Vinyl limited to 1000 copies.

Teenagehood, brotherhood and a genuine love for alternative music has united THE GOA EXPRESS from the off. Hailing from the industrial town of Burnley and adopted by the Manchester culture carriers, their teenage years can be viewed as something of a hedonistic pilgrimage into the underbelly of suburban rock and roll- their first gig having been 3 songs blasted out their mates garage, the next on top of a local vintage shop where the floor nearly caved in: “when there’s fuck all, you make do with what you got”. The intensity of this friendship has resulted in the occasional bust up along the way, yet it only adds to the burning chemistry that the band offer on record and on stage. Together, brothers James Douglas Clarke (Guitar + Vocals) and Joe Clarke (Keys), along with Joey Stein (Lead Guitar), Naham Muzaffar (Bass) and Sam Launder (Drums) all contribute to a fuzzy wall of diverse sound, becoming harder to pin down with their constantly evolving, psych-umbrella’d, rock and roll. What sets THE GOA EXPRESS apart from other musicians who sit comfortably within scenes is that their identity as a band has been growing organically long before the 5 of them decided to pick up instruments and teach themselves art of killing time. Their genuine joy in the everyday; their attitude and antics seem to hark back to the glory days of the NME- if they talk about a night out, you want to be there because these lads ooze charm and wreak havoc. This purist, old school approach to creating music through unified experiences and stimulated good times is married with the plain fact that they are very much young people of this generation, and while they see its flaws its hyperreality, its sheep-like tendencies, they still understand the importance in the immediacy of pop music: of a banging riff, or a glorious chorus and how effective this can truly be, and they want everyone along for the ride. With influences ranging from Spacemen 3 and The Brian Jonestown Massacre to French existentialism, from Beat Literature to long hours working at the Bookies to the journey into the sunrise on the night bus home, it is their ability to be all these things at once which makes THE GOA EXPRESS a guitar band for the 21st Century. Nothing is ever a compromise because they are so unapologetically themselves in everything they do- proud Northerners with a DIY foundation that aren’t afraid to look into the often dim future and see themselves shining brightly in it, unforgiving and unpretentious. So far, the band have released 3 singles with great success. The first: ‘Be My Friend’, produced by Ross Orton right next Sheffield’s famous ‘City Sauna’ brothel, presents itself to us as a cheeky, snarling pop song, holding undertones of raw cynicism laden with psychedelic sunshine. Ross Orton’s studio was also right next door to where the band recorded their last single ‘The Day’ with Nathan Saoudi of Fat White Family at ‘Champ Zone.’ Both these producers have been able to give these instant pop classics a grittier feel, capturing the essence of the unfettered lifestyle the band were living at the time that they were able to capture themselves in the music video for ‘Be My Friend’. After signing with Ra-Ra Rok, (WU-LU/Bingo Fury) the band released anthemic summer hit ‘Second Time’, that went straight to the 6 music B-List before quickly heading up to the A-List 2 for 2 weeks. This was followed by the release of its B-Side ‘Overpass’ that almost immediately caught the eyes and ears of BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders, who had the band on his ‘Next Wave’ Segment. Closing the year that saw them play to 1000 strong crowds at festivals like Latitude & End of the Road, the band headlined their biggest headline show to date at Manchester’s Gorilla. Its fair to say that this really is only the beginning.

Chris Imler likes to play drums standing up. He‘s the dandy with the killer offbeat, or, as one major German newspaper once put it, the "Grand Seigneur of the Berlin Underground". He has been making his mark on countless Berlin musical affairs since long before the fall of the Wall, with The Golden Showers, Peaches, Oum Shatt, Driver &Driver, Die Türen, Jens Friebe, to name but a few. He has also been perfoming across Europe as a solo artist for the past decade.

In "Operation Schönheit" (German for "Operation Beauty"), he has recorded his most, well, beautiful album to date. But Benedikt Frey's warm production subverts its own beauty with a multitude of clanking and ingling synth sounds, making the work very much about the cosmetic surgery it performs on itself. It's all in the tradition of the more experimental and electronic side of post-punk in which Imler and his unique groove are rooted. It doesn't take insider knowledge of Berlin's post-punk underground to realise that that Imler groove consists of rhythm that sings, vocals that dance and a look that fits, as illustrated by "Disappoint Me", his latest video: https://youtu.be/YeVJ75ljjB8

Elsewhere - such as in "Movies" - the rhythm sings, less electronically reduced, into the acoustics of an old, high-ceilinged Berlin apartment; metal clatters, a zither trembles and Imler plays with the metronome. Sometimes he moves ahead of time, sometimes trails behind it. He always manages to be in his very own groove, which carries everything along. And this is precisely the essence of the Imler rhythm, which lends itself to being applied to the very rhythm of life: Stretch and compress your time and loop it according to your own groove! Optimise nothing but feel everything! And dance to it! Even when contemplating everyday information overload, as Imler's high-speed mumbling suggests in the hectic yet smooth opening track "Temperature".

But being the ultimate night owl he is, Imler manages to make even the odd bout of paranoia seem like a good thing: like some kind of krauty, groovy B-horror-soundtrack-inflected high-pressure environment, "Whip Me" is a cross between Conrad Schnitzler and Bauhaus. In the title track, whose lyrics were written together with Jens Friebe, he intones: "You want to be something greater / You break your leg / When it heals again / You break it again" and sounds like the most gleeful fatalist you can imagine. Because in his city, one can still lose oneself better than anywhere else - a night easily becomes a whole universe that can be traversed, marvelled at and played with, and one might find one's old self again only when hearing "church bells" and "small birds singing". At least that's how Imler illustrates it in "Emptiness full of stars", and it seems likely that those "stars" are the human companions of the Berlin night in question.

And so once again Imler becomes Berlin's most important cultural ambassador: that scene of the eternally, and somehow successfully, failing creatures of the night, once the envy of the international postmodern bohème, has, despite many claims to the contrary, not been completely "optimised away", and its attitude to life is perfectly summed up in Imler's groove. And, of course, his look. "Schau Hin" (German for "Look!"), he sings in the track of the same name, masterfully dubbed out with the help of Melbourne's Leo James.

Quite right! Look - and listen.

Yours, Johannes von Weizsäcker (The Chap)

Collaborating once again with legendary composer Yuzo Koshiro, Data Discs is thrilled to present one of the most revered and timeless soundtracks of the 16bit era: The Revenge of Shinobi. Composed in 1989, the music for the Mega Drive game (known as The Super Shinobi in Japan) blended Western dance music with Japanese overtones, to create something truly unlike anything else before. The soundtrack was Koshiro's first commissioned work for SEGA and served as a forerunner to his seminal Streets of Rage trilogy, where the concepts and styles he founded with Shinobi would be expanded upon to astonishing effect. Koshiro's work on The Revenge of Shinobi remains a testament to the ingenuity of early game composers who, when given enough creative freedom, found the means of drawing new and unexpected sounds from extremely limited hardware.

The Revenge of Shinobi is presented as a 180g bone coloured LP, cut at 45rpm and packaged in a 425gsm outer sleeve, with heavyweight inner sleeve and double-sided lithographic print, featuring original artwork sourced from the SEGA archives in Japan. The release also includes exclusive liner notes written by Koshiro himself.

Sweden's The Vertex were, along with The Moderns, one of the country's first mod-revival bands
Smalltown teens with big time dreams, they spat out mod/punk/pop stompers in the early 80's, before gradually digging themselves deeper into the psychedelic sounds of the 60's and then closing business in 1987. But their legacy and legend has grown ever since. With singles like "Tonight The Sky Will Be Ours" and "John", the band regularly appears on compilations and today their releases are highly
sought after collectibles all around the globe. For the first time a retrospective with The Vertex is now being presented, including previously unreleased material.

Rudolf Abramov hit all Optimo Music's buttons at once. Drums, energy, songs, instrumentals, super production, Post Punk echoing, dance floor destroying, home listening friendly, and completely unique.

Who are they and what are they about? Read on...

Rudolf Abramov is a duo based in Berlin. They seem to open a door to unexpected musical encounters. It's an almost impossible task to sum up their sound in a comprehensible way, but in their own words their music is 'a response to a seemingly endless conflict about disgust, acceptance and love.' Since the duo likes to invite other musicians and fellow humans to add to their pieces, this often creates another layer to their unexpected musical encounters.

"Losing Perspective" is the result of a journey that began with a week-long recording session outside the city. Back in Berlin the skeletons of the track gradually grew in flesh, experience and emotion, describing this time in a vibrant and ever-changing city; a city where the faded colours sometimes seem more appealing than the unifying glow of the new.

In order to preserve for ourselves the conflicting colours in their fantastic disharmony, we have therefore watched the pieces change rather than moving them in a particular direction. The result is a number of tracks with different facets that derive from different moods and voices, indulging in diversity.

At the end of this process, we look back at this colourful collage and connect our own very personal history with it and both resolve in harmony. When asking the cat from our studio’s courtyard for example, she said that "Losing Perspective" was about stray tomcats who have lost their old home port to a newfangled establishment wandering randomly through the days in search of songbirds, distraction and rest. And we feel like she kinda has a point there.

First Word Records is very proud to welcome back Don Leisure, with a brand new 25-track album 'Shaboo Strikes Back'.

Five years have passed since the first 'Shaboo' album was released. A collection of beats and pieces that documented the road trip of Don's youth - hip hop music interspersed with Asian radio station jingles of old, dedicated to Bollywood actor, Nasser 'Shaboo' Bharwani - Don Leisure's late uncle.

This album was heralded as "the best album of its kind since J Dilla's 'Donuts'" and deemed "unmissable" by the folks at Piccadilly Records. It also had strong support from BBC 6 Music's Tom Ravenscroft ("very, very good this indeed"), Huey Morgan ("my beat of the week"), Worldwide FM's Lefto ("defo down with this"), Rob Da Bank ("this is wicked") and the likes of Mathieu Schreyer (KCRW, LA), Alex Ruder (KEXP, Seattle), Kid Fonque (5FM, South Africa), Om Unit, Jon1st, Mr Thing, Rob Luis (Tru Thoughts), Dom Servini (Wah Wah 45s), Tim Parker (NTS) and tons more from across the globe.

Don Leisure is a DJ and producer based in Cardiff, Wales, sometimes known as one half of Darkhouse Family, along with Earl Jeffers. He's been a prolific beat-maker for many years, releasing under a variety of monikers for labels such as Metalheadz, International Anthem, Fat City, Izwid, Earnest Endeavours and Group BraCil. His most recent release was a remix for Gruff Rhys, which was released on Rough Trade.

In 2020 he was nominated for the Welsh Music Prize for his 'Steel Zakusi' project, and has dropped several releases for First Word, including the acclaimed 2019 'Halal Cool J' album and various Darkhouse Family projects, including collabs with artists as diverse as Charlotte Church, Om'Mas Keith and Children of Zeus's Tyler Daley, additionally to remixes from DJ Spinna and label-mate, Kaidi Tatham. As a DJ he has provided mixes for BBC 6 Music, NTS, Rinse FM, Solid Steel and Boxout FM in India, as well as performing at The Jazz Cafe, Fabric and on Boiler Room.

'Shaboo Strikes Back' is a much-awaited sequel to the 2017 smash, and again features a modest 25 tracks. Psychedelic fuzzy samples and phat beats aplenty, Don Leisure once again takes us on a far-out trip across soundscapes. A real tapestry of flavours, from jazz to reggae, and from the soulful to the spiritual, this time round he's invited a few special guests to join him on his travels - most notably Welsh legend Gruff Rhys provides the vocals on 'Neon Drizzle (Hotel Shaboo)', whilst acclaimed multi-instrumentalist Angel Bat Dawid and Jazzman-signed harpist Amanda Whiting lend their talents to 'All Praises Due'. There is even a special cameo appearance from his young daughter, (aka Shaboo's great-niece!), Naima, on 'Naima's Dream'.

Once again, this is a journey into sound.

'Shaboo Strikes Back' is released on vinyl & digital by First Word Records, March 2022.

Dedicated to Nasser 'Shaboo' Bharwan
























x 24: Neon Drizzle (Hotel Shaboo) feat. Gruff Rhys

Dutch producer returns to Boogie Angst for instrumental sophomore LP

Rotterdam, The Netherlands - Boogie Angst proudly presents Music Ruined My Life, the brand new instrumental LP from Rotterdam-based artist and producer Moods.

Dropping in the wake of front runner singles 'Talk About It,' and 'Music Saved My Life',' the Dutchman's notorious fusion of soul, R&B, and alternative influences takes a whole new dynamic courtesy of his first fully live recorded offering.

Recorded live in the city of Leiden during the peak of the pandemic alongside a full band, the LP taps effortlessly into the balance of soulful and jazz-inspired undertones that have hallmarked the project since breakthrough single 'Love Is Real.' A tastemaker favorite and label staple, the LP shows a more intricate and uncaged spin on the Moods sound, which has been consistently hailed by tastemakers globally and sampled by the likes of Logic.

The supple guitar plucks and resonating brass of 'Deeper Water' sets the LP in motion, building towards the funkier and perkier swells of album cuts such as 'Ecstacy' and 'Push Pull.' Capped by 'Return To 4ever,' a sultry and deeply atmospheric fusion of jazz and contemporary soul sounds, the eight-track endeavour shows that for all his streaming and collaborative success, the rich musicianship of the Moods project has not waivered.

"There really wasn't a huge concept or target for this record, it was more about tapping into the pure joy of making and creating music," he explains. "The pandemic was such a weird time, there was a lot of uncertainty in all aspects of life. So it almost felt like the perfect time to try something new. Having the band together in one room was a real rush, I liked how the record came together and how each artist brought their own energy to the project.

"I enjoy working with vocals, and I think the vocalists I have worked with on projects so far have been amazing. But when you take that element out and focus more on the instrumentation and arrangement, it's a really different experience, and that's something I really enjoyed for Music Ruined My Life.

Moods garnered more than 30m+ streams globally for debut LP Zoom Out, and has continued to leap from strength-to-strength courtesy of his soulful take on the boundaries between electronic and contemporary R&B.

At the beginning of the eighties reggae music became increasingly in tune with what was happening in Kingston’s dance halls… probably more so than at any time since the sound system operators had started to make their own shuffle and boogie recordings in the late fifties. The international audience and the critics were too busy looking for a new Bob Marley to appreciate what was happening downtown and failed to acknowledge that this was a return to the real, raw roots of the music. Brash, confident, young record producers who were totally in tune with the youth audience stepped forward and seized the moment…

Oswald ‘Ossie’ Thomas began his apprenticeship in the music business at the age of fourteen and served his time as a record salesman for Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee and Winston ‘Niney The Observer’ Holness before moving on to Miss Sonia Pottinger’s Tip Top Records.

“I ended up working in three record stores on Orange Street from 1976 to 1981… Yeah man! Me deh ‘pon me bicycle till I buy my motorcycle! Them days records were coming out left, right and centre… every day!” Ossie Thomas

It was during his time with Miss Pottinger that Ossie began to produce records for himself and in 1979 Ossie and Phillip Morgan began the Black Solidarity label based deep in the Kingston ghetto on Delamere Avenue. Phillip initially inspired Ossie to start the label and soon Triston Palma, Phillip Frazer and “a youth named Gary Robertson” joined in although Gary later left for Canada.

The Soul Syndicate rehearsed in the Delamere Avenue area and Tony Chin gave Ossie a cut of a rhythm that he used for Triston Palma’s ‘A Class Girl’… the label’s inaugural release. The record was a sizeable success and paved the way for hit after hit after hit on Black Solidarity. Ossie worked with just about everybody who was anybody during this critical period of the music’s development including vocalists Robert Ffrench, Little John, Sugar Minott, Frankie Paul and most notably Triston Palma.

“But Delamere must be considered as a music street sheltering as it does such artists as Junior Byles, Don Angelo, Triston Palma, Phillip Frazer and producer Ossie of the Black Solidarity label…” Beth Lesser
And the man who had made his name in the business selling other people’s records now became one of the most important and influential record producers of the era.
With grateful thanks to: Paul Coote, Nick Hodgson & Hasse Huss

A masterful mix of timeless American soul with vintage 1970s African samples in a most rewarding way – musical traveler Eamon teams with production duo Likeminds for No Matter The Season, his second album for Now-Again. “I’ve been singing since I was a tike, promoters used to call me ‘the boy wonder’, but with this record it felt new, almost like I was singing every note as if my life depended on it,” says Eamon from his home in Southern California, a far cry from his native Staten Island, New York City. But you wouldn’t know his birthplace from the way he sings, especially on No Matter The Season, where Eamon put a new spin on vintage samples from the Now-Again catalog, crafting beats from various African rhythms such as Amanaz’s Zamrock, the Hygrades Nigerian funk, and Ayalew Mesfin’s Ethiopian tezetas. Shortly after the release of his last Now-Again project, Captive Thoughts, he began working with the production duo on two original compositions that appear on No Matter The Season. But as time went on, he came upon the idea of completing the album by sending the duo samples from the Now-Again catalog to work with. Which were expanded upon with a multitude of live instruments. “There was something special about combing through the African records at Now-Again,” Eamon reflects. “I had never heard the variety of funk and soul that existed in places like Lagos and Addis Ababa, it was like a history lesson in Rhythm & Blues. I was hearing the godfathers of the movement here in the US. I wanted to pay my respect to that lineage. Since singing in my father’s doo-wop group as a kid, I’ve always used music from the past to create and express something new in the present. But to be able to do that across continents and get back to the roots…that was really impactful for me.” Likeminds, helmed by Chris Soper and Jesse Singer, two East Coast transplants to LA who are as comfortable chopping up samples on an MPC as they are playing classic instruments, using vintage microphones, or recording to tape, offer up what could be described as a West Coast spin on the revivalist soul sound championed by Daptone Records. “For sure, the album is soaked in an old school feel, but to still tap into the depths of my soul today is always the end goal,” Eamon states. All but two tracks are based on Now-Again samples, using the classic rhythms as accompaniment to showcase Eamon’s emotional singing style that is still as honest and raw as when he was a 16, singing about heartbreak. The end result, No Matter the Season, is a celebration of the musical relationship between Africa and America and the thrilling soul music that relationship has spawned since the 60s and 70s. “My hope is people know that I’m not leaving anything on the table in this chapter of my career,” Eamon reflects. “Only thing I can do is pour my heart out on every single line. Even though I’m writing and screaming to the heavens about my joy, my pain, my love…these are songs for everyone, everywhere, anytime. You’re gonna walk away feeling something. This is why I titled the album No Matter The Season.”

Limited edition of 300 with stamped vinyl and risograph printed insert.

The first release of Séance Centre's "Speculative Ethnography” series is an EP of Burroughsinspired analog rhythm-scapes, conjured from the nocturnal Parisian imagination of Shelter (Alan Briand). 　

Recorded directly to cassette 4-track late at night in Briand’s apartment in Paris with a gathering of temperamental vintage gear, Le Sommeil Vertical captures a somnambulant journey into vibrant analog nether-regions. The hazy sonics harken back to ‘80s DIY cassette culture, but refracted through a prism of fourth world melodics and early IDM rhythm experiments.

The tracks are titled after Burroughs’ Cities of the Red Night, and the book acts as a talisman for the album, setting sci-fi surrealism within expansive arid psychic landscapes. The trance-inducing terrain, mapped out in warm
1/4” tape, moves through phased backstreets, AFX-arrondissements, and dub municipalities. This ismusic on the nod, an elixir for the sleepwalking flaneur. Alan Briand has been with Séance Centre from the start, as designer and European emissary — a
wunderkind of many talents, we’ve always trusted his ears as well as his eyes. We’re pleased to release this mesmerizing EP as a limited edition pressing with risograph printed insert and designed for future archives

Hot Creations prepares to welcome in a milestone release this March, as Riton’s Gucci Soundsystem project makes its debut on the label with Fuck Me Right feat. DJ Funk & Vula. Made up of Grammy Award winning producer Riton and long-term friend Ben Rymer, the single features legendary Chicago house veteran DJ Funk and esteemed Basement Jaxx vocalist Vula.

The single begins with Vula’s enchanting vocals, the likes of which open into rapid kick-hat combos. A funky, guitar-like bassline swiftly complements proceedings, as 4x4 drum patterns march on to create that four-to-the-floor feel. It’s an outright party anthem - as to be expected from Jamie Jones’ flagship imprint - but one that retains a soulful underlying groove courtesy of DJ Funk and Vula’s signature contributions.

Riton is a globally-recognised artist in today’s music world. Crossing the bridge between contemporary pop and underground electronic music, the renowned British producer received a Grammy nomination in 2017 for one of the year’s biggest singles: Rinse & Repeat. He followed this up by winning a Grammy Award in 2019, for his production work on Silk City (Mark Ronson & Diplo) and Dua Lipa’s Electricity. Since then, Riton has continued to work with some of the industry’s most iconic talents, including Kylie Minogue, The Chemical Brothers and Gorgon City to name a few.

Ben Rymer has been a stalwart of London’s club scene for decades. One half of Gucci Soundsystem and formerly a part of The Fat Truckers, the likes of whom toured with Jarvis Cocker’s rock band Pulp, Ben’s club history boasts performances across some of the scene’s most respected night time venues, including Fabric, London and Space, Ibiza.

'Agua de Jamaica' is the first collaborative project between producer,
multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger Sly5thAve and pianist and composer Roberto Verástegui

Recorded during lockdown in Mexico, the LP is built from a passionate and comprehensive understanding of Jazz, a love of Hip Hop and Mexico City's evervibrant artistic culture, Latin flavours, and the African roots from which these sounds grew. At the heart of 'Agua de Jamaica' is the title track; the moment Sly5thAve and Roberto realised they had something to pursue. The pair originally met whilst
studying Jazz in Texas and began piecing together the release on Sly5thAve's first visit to Mexico, over a drink of Agua de Jamaica. Thought of by both Sly5thAve and Roberto as the fullest collaboration on the release, "Agua de Jamaica" considers the constant artistic and cultural exchange between the US and Mexico, despite the politically differences. It draws the listener in with looping Hip Hop groove intertwined with hypnotic vocals from local artist Silvana Estrada.
Having moved to Mexico City at the beginning of 2020, Sly5thAve stayed with Roberto and his wife Yuki during the first Covid-19 lockdown. This time allowed for the pair to build on their ideas and explorations of different sounds and places centred around Jazz. Continuing in the Jazz traditions, 'Agua de Jamaica' is littered with signature Sly5thAve interludes, weaved together like a symphony
using album outtakes; "it's my favourite thing about making a record – making a complete piece from start to finish".

The New Jersey songwriter might have started out banging on doors, gigging at New York City's blues clubs, and playing piano until her fingers bled. She is winning over the city one show at a time. But lately, the multi-instrumentalist has raced through career milestones at a rocket pace. There was her Blues Blast and
IBMA-nominated 2018 debut album, High and her international breakout on Ruf's 2022 Blues Caravan Revue. Resulting in the starburst of media acclaim, including Henry Yates of Classic Rock, NME and The Guardian, who saluted "a runaway talent you need to keep up with." Now with Ruf's release of the second album, On
My Way, Katie has found another gear. Whether slinging her trusty Gibson SG, hammering the keys, or hollering a storm, these ten original songs, co-written with bassist and slide- guitar maestro Antar Goodwin, announce her as an alchemist who creates gemstones from the base metals of American roots. Recorded at Brooklyn's Degraw Sound studio in May 2021, On My Way is the profoundly personal second album on which Katie gives you her beat-up heart. "A lot of these songs are about letting go," she considers. "And how scary, but ultimately liberating, it can be…."