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Keith Fullerton Whitman brings his 3-part Generators series for Japan’s NAKID label to a close with a third and final instalment that ravishes the senses with hybrid analogue/digital systems tekkerz.

Hazing into a solemn start of floating organ and slurred drums, the first part fizzes into action with pranging irregularities, tentatively allowing the system to voice varying pitches and nimble rhythms that resemble balletic footwork plies as much as classically-trained instrumentalist flurries. It’s deeply trance-inducing, meditative gear that over the course of 25 minutes slowly gains momentium and complexity, first adding robust arps to complicate the structure, treading the finest line of chaos and discipline. In time, those arps turn themselves into a rhythm track, landing somewhere between Whitman's earliest junglist works as Hrvatski and a sort of plucked rhythmic minimalism that reminds us of Mark Fell’s Sensate Focus, gliding on natural, brownian motion and flux of texture, punctuated by what sound likes a plucking of a drum machine from the inside-out.

In part 2 the mood pools and diffracts in slow-fast meter, bristling ruptures of atonality that send limbs flailing one way and then another, adding subs for a dimensional shift that’s rhythmically fractured but always grounded at the low registers. The wavy embroidery of Whitman's machines trigger each other in endlessly fascinating forms of gyring workshop ballistics and dub reverberations.

A special bonus piece ‘Meakusma (Generators, Soundcheck)’ is the most curious of the lot, with a lone clarinet heard in the air, perhaps a serendipitous inclusion form someone else’s soundcheck, lending an enchanting depth perception to his frolicking bleeps.


[a] 1 | MEAKUSMA [Generators] (190606) Part 1
[b] 2 | MEAKUSMA [Generators, Redactions] (190606) Part 2
[c] 3 | MEAKUSMA [Generators, Soundcheck] (190606)

Perc returns to Perc Trax with 'Dirt', one of his most raw and uncompromising works to date. Across three versions of the track, one remixed in collaboration with rising US star EAS, Perc fuses together dry looped techno with caustic industrial sounds and just a splash of rave euphoria.

Opening up the release is the original mix of 'Dirt' layering searing top end percussion over cropped breakbeats before dropping unexpectedly to an unmistakable classic piano riff. The riff has been completely replayed and reproduced rather than sampled and provides the kind of sudden jolt that Perc's productions are famous for.

On the B-side Perc teams up with Los Angeles DJ and producer EAS who returns to the label for the first time since his devastating remix of Perc's own 'Dumpster' in early 2021. Perc provides the beats and EAS serves up the 303 lines, as the hedonism of the original mix's piano drop is swapped for a screw faced slice of warehouse acid.

Rounding off the release is Perc's own 'Crowd Mix' which focuses on the beats with additional layers of percussion and atmospheric crowd samples filling the space taken by the piano hook and acid lines of the first two mixes.

'Dirt' will be released as a hand-stamped white label release in a stickered black paper sleeve. The release was mastered by regular Perc Trax mastering engineer Matt Colton at Metropolis studios with Adult Art Club handling visual presentation and design.

Known for her time as vocalist in Fairport Convention and respected
globally , Sandy Denny left a beguiling, ever-evolving body of work - Kate
Bush was to namecheck her in song, and Denny's influence can be heard
in generations of singer-songwriters
After leaving Fairport Convention in late 1969, Sandy Denny formed Fotheringay
with husband Trevor Lucas. After one UK Top 20 LP in summer 1970, the band
split while recording a follow up, leaving Denny free to make her first solo album.
A beguiling mixture of covers and originals, The North Star Grass Man And The
Ravens is one of THE essential British folk-rock albums. From the dreamlike Late
November to the plaintive Next Time Around to her reading of the traditional
standard Blackwaterside, the album is a near perfect capture of the talent on the
scene at that juncture: including Richard Thompson's unmistakable guitar playing,
John Wood's production and Harry Robinson's string arrangements. Released in
September 1971, its reputation has understandably grown exponentially over the
years. Out of print on LP for a number of years, this re-issue faithfully replicates
the original 1971 Island Records UK release with gatefold sleeve and is pressed
onto high quality 180g vinyl

Now available on vinyl, Heartmind is Cass McCombs' biggest album in
years, garnering the best reviews of his career to date
UNCUT ALBUM OF THE MONTH - "One of the most impressive bodies of work of
the century so far."
MOJO ALBUM OF THE MONTH - "On a mission to find out where the heart and
mind intersect.....there is real emotional impact here."
Songs like "Karaoke" are a god-level burst of powerpop perfection, as fetching as
anything Cass has ever cut: Cass triangulates a perch of his very own out among
The Go-Betweens, The dB's, and The Cure,and vibrates there, a beacon. And then,
of course, there is the song's playful if painful lyrical conceit — the lover who is
making all the sacred motions of commitment but whose feelings may be no
more deep or real than someone simply reading the lyrics for "Vision of Love" or
"Stand by Your Man" from some crowded bar's TV screen.
Cass recorded these songs in multiple sessions on both coasts, in Brooklyn and
Burbank. The great Shahzad Ismaily not only cut the staggering "Unproud
Warrior" and four others here but also played lots of bass. Buddy Ross tracked
"New Earth," a paean of post- humanity renewal with several sharp wisecracks.
Ariel Rechtshaid — now a dozen years into his collaboration with Cass, which
began with 2009's Catacombs—captured Cass' scintillating guitars on "Belong to
Heaven," a thoughtful consideration of what we all lose when we lose an old
friend to the inevitable end. The steadfast Rob Schnapf (who previously produced
McCombs' ANTI- debut, Mangy Love) mixed and merged it all. Wynonna Judd
(yes, that one) offers harmonies, while her beau Cactus Moser provides some lap
steel. Joe Russo, Kassa Overall, Danielle Haim, Nestor Gomez are featured on the
album, too.

Over 25 years after their buoyant & breezy electro-acoustic debut busted
language barriers showing that French language music could build a buzz
on all sides of the Atlantic, Autour de Lucie's debut finally gets the vinyl
treatment! Pressed on Dark Red color vinyl
..
Tracks: L’accord parfait / La ballade du déserteur / Le ciels de traîne / Le
tournesol / Island / Comme si de rien n’était / Au large déjà / Ce que l’on tait / Les
anomalies / Marie (ceux qui ne rêvent pas aux étoiles) / Les brouillons

Kinetika Bloco's 'Legacy' now on limited-edition vinyl with 6-panel poster
of the cover artwork
'Legacy' celebrates the 21st anniversary of the carnival group of the same name,
which was founded by Mat Fox in South London. Usually around 100 strong, this
scaled-down group of Kinetika alumni led by Mat's son Ruben Fox revisit some of
the Bloco's iconic pieces on this landmark recording and features saxophonist
Nubya Garcia, pianist Reuben James and trumpeters Mark Kavuma, Claude
Deppa and Ife Ogunjobi.
They revisit some of the Bloco's iconic pieces on this landmark recording. What is
effectively a big band with guitar, Hammond B3 and a four-piece rhythm section
of Brazilian surdos (bass drums), bells and snare drums, their sound is
refreshingly new, enthralling, and vibrant.
George Clinton: "Don't ever stop grooving like that, you (Kinetika Bloco) own the
world."
Press quotes:
"Kinetika Bloco has created a unique new British carnival sound, drawing its
influences from the Caribbean, Brazil, Africa and New Orleans." - Jazzwise
"Kinetika Bloco are a phenomenon - over the last twenty years the percussion and
horn heavy collective have evolved their own irresistible version of carnival music,
drawing on the many traditions of the Black Atlantic, while acting as a hothouse
for talent development for generations of young London musicians." - Jazzviews
"The group sounds like a British carnival for today, drawing on a Caribbean,
Brazilian, African and New Orleanian influence. Legacy celebrates Kinetika Bloco's
21st anniversary." - Jazz Journal
Kinetika Bloco were featured in the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Pageant, as seen on
TV by millions.

Deluxe audiophile 2LP pressing of 'Bucharest 1994', the first joint
performance of Romanian-German jazz pianist Eugen Cicero and
Romanian bassist Decebal Badila, a congenial duo that worked together
successfully until Cicero's early death in 1997
Eugen Cicero - critics reverently called him the man with the "golden hands". For
over 30 years, his name stood for pianistic virtuosity, phenomenal sense of
rhythm and imaginative ingenuity. He masterfully connected works from the
Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods with sophisticated harmonic sequences
from jazz and an infectious rhythm - no one who had attempted such symbioses
before him achieved a similarly inspired and technically accomplished result.
With 'Bucharest 1994', In+Out Records now presents a very special live event by
this man who has created something unique in his mediation between classical
music and jazz standards. This is the first concert with exceptional bassist
Decebal Badila, which laid under lock and key for 28 years. Already at a young
age, Badila adored the music of his older compatriot and was already very
familiar with Cicero's repertoire before their first meeting, which can impressively
be heard on the recordings.
'Bucharest 1994' contains both entertaining, technically demanding and
documentarily indispensable material from the early work of a rising virtuoso
musician and the late work of an exceptional artist whom the jazz world lost far
too early.

In+Out Records releases Italian vocalist Roberta Gambarini's 2006 debut
album - for the first time on vinyl in a limited audiophile signature edition
She is backed by two rhythm sections, consisting of bass players John Clayton
and Chuck Berghofer, drummers Willie Jones III and Joe La Barbera and pianists
Tamir Hendelman and Gerald Clayton. Saxophonist James Moody guests on two
numbers and even contributes some inspired scatting. This album is a real
masterpiece that was recorded live on tape over two afternoons in L. A.

Following up on the Rock Sound and Kerrang! Radio supported album
'Amorphous', Icon For Hire introduced 'The Reckoning', with the bruising
single 'Ready For Combat'
Described by Rock Sound as "a bold and belligerent piece of hard rock chaos", the
track, alongside its high-powered music video, perfectly depict the harder-edged
sound and aesthetic of the upcoming album, in the band's own words; "grittier,
louder, larger". Talking about the album Icon For Hire say; "'The Reckoning' isn't
just about exploring all the dark and heavy pieces of ourselves, it's about
embracing and accepting those pieces, and using them as weapons against the
gatekeepers that hold us back, even when those gatekeepers are our own selfimposed limitations." Featuring collaborations with Keith Wallen of Breaking
Benjamin and mixing by Joe Rickard of In Flames and Red, the album boasts
Ariel's fiercest vocals to date, and Shawn's signature in-your-face guitar style.
Since forming in 2007, Icon For Hire - composed of singer Ariel Bloomer and
guitarist Shawn Jump - have quietly amassed a legion of fans. With 250 millions
global streams to date and nearly 1 million followers across social platforms,
Icon For Hire are no longer the sleeping giants of the modern rock scene. Having
sold over 120,000 albums to date through their completely independent set up,
they are one of the most successful direct to fans stories. Continuing to build
their legacy on their own terms, unapologetically forcing all to take note that they
aren't going anywhere any time soon, with 'The Reckoning' Icon For Hire are
embracing their self funded freedom.
Featuring collaborations with Keith Wallen (Breaking Benjamin) & mixed by Joe
Rickard (previously of In Flames & Red).
144M YouTube streams / 410K subscribers.
725K+ followers across social channels.

ACCLAIMED ALBUM FROM NORWEGIAN POST-PROGRESSIVE ART
ROCKERS BACK ON VINYL
Formed in Oslo in 1996 by childhood friends Jon-Arne Vilbo & Thomas Andersen
along with Jan-Henrik Ohme (later joined by Mikael Kromer, Robert R Johansen &
Kristian Torp), Gazpacho have honed their unique sound over a string of critically
acclaimed albums & numerous tours, including several with long-time supporters
Marillion.Albums & tours, the internet & word- of- mouth praise that has greeted
them, have helped the band build a substantial international fan base. While still
an independent band, they were contacted by producer Steve Lyon (Depeche
Mode, The Cure, Paradise Lost, Reamonn, etc). This ended up as a collaboration
on one of the tracks featured on the album, 'Substitute for Murder'.
'When Earth Lets Go', originally released in 2004 has the band joined by drummer
Robert Johansen & sees them take the step from being a "studio band" to a "live
band". 'When Earth Lets Go' is seen by many as a rougher edged album than
'Bravo', a direction Gazpacho wanted to take without repeating themselves.
'When Earth Lets Go' is now available for the first time on single LP via Kscope.
"Norway's best kept Prog secret" CLASSIC PROG ROCK (UK)

LP Tracks: Snowman / Put It On The Air / Souvenir / Steal Yourself / Dingler's
Horses / 117 / Beach House / Substitute For Murder / When Earth Lets Go

ACCLAIMED ALBUM FROM NORWEGIAN POST-PROGRESSIVE ART
ROCKERS BACK ON VINYL
Formed in Oslo in 1996 by childhood friends Jon-Arne Vilbo & Thomas Andersen
along with Jan-Henrik Ohme (later joined by Mikael Kromer, Robert R Johansen &
Kristian Torp), Gazpacho have honed their unique sound over a string of critically
acclaimed albums & numerous tours, including several with long-time supporters
Marillion.Albums & tours, the internet & word- of- mouth praise that has greeted
them, have helped the band build a substantial international fan base. While still
an independent band, they were contacted by producer Steve Lyon (Depeche
Mode, The Cure, Paradise Lost, Reamonn, etc). This ended up as a collaboration
on one of the tracks featured on the album, 'Substitute for Murder'.
'When Earth Lets Go', originally released in 2004 has the band joined by drummer
Robert Johansen & sees them take the step from being a "studio band" to a "live
band". 'When Earth Lets Go' is seen by many as a rougher edged album than
'Bravo', a direction Gazpacho wanted to take without repeating themselves.
'When Earth Lets Go' is now available for the first time on single LP via Kscope.
"Norway's best kept Prog secret" CLASSIC PROG ROCK (UK)

LP2 Tracks: Intro (00:46) / Snowman (04:26) / Put It On Air (05:10) / Souvenir
(03:37) / Steal Yourself (03:52) / 117 (06:23) / Beach House (05:07) / Substitute
For Murder (06:10) / Dinglers Horses (04:19) / When Earth Lets Go (04:49) /
Etching

In a world hurtling towards new frontiers of horror on a daily basis, there’s precious little time for pause. For the self respecting artist, the only reasonable solution is psychic warfare. Such is the terrain of Petbrick on the titanic and transformative Liminal. Here on their second album the duo of Wayne Adams (Big Lad/Johnny Broke) and Iggor Cavalera (Sepultura/Cavalera Conspiracy/Soulwax) lays waste to all or any constrictions in its path, Blending a vast sonic landscape with a relentless compunction to break the pain barrier, Liminal is a dizzying exercise in overdrive which can take in industrial abrasions, pulverising rhythmic drive, acid-damaged freakery, cinematic tension and balladic gravitas in disarmingly coherent fashion. Other heads and personalities also came on board to add richness and intrigue to the onslaught - “I believe we got an amazing team of collaborators - from old school friends like Neurosis’ Steve Von Tilll and Converge’s Jacob Bannon to new school artists like Paula Rebbeledo from Rakta and New York doom rappers Lord Goat and Truck Jewelz” notes Iggor. This is an album birthed in difficult times and expressly engaged with raging against the dying of the light. As Iggor puts it “Liminal is an insane mirror of what being isolated feels like - madness through noise experimentations” An alchemical vision fit to both elevate the spirit and destroy everything in its path, ‘Liminal’ is the sound of Petbrick blasting their way through the boundaries of a fresh hell. Tracks: 01. Primer 02. Arboria 03. Pigeon Kick 04. Raijin 05. Lysergic Aura (Feat. Lord Goat & Truck Jewelz) 06. Damballa 07. Ayan 08. Grind You Dull (Feat. Jake Bannon) 09. Chemical Returns 10. Distorted Peace (Feat. Paula Rebellato) 11. Reckoning (Feat. Steve Von Till

In Memory of Chris Broderick of the Singing Loins, who passed away earlier this year. We proudly present a vinyl reissue of this Medway folk classic! A re-issue of one of our favourite early releases and a rather overlooked classic album, a one off collaboration between Billy Childish and legendary Medway folkies The Singing Loins. This was recorded in 1993 when Billy was in Thee Headcoats and The Singing Loins were in their first incarnation. The Singing Loins formed in late 1990, a two piece band playing “Authentic raw folk from the Medway Delta”. They were Chris Broderick on vocals/stick and Chris ‘Arfur’ Allen on guitar. They had recorded two classic albums before this both of which were released on Billy’s own Hangman records. The album features a few Childish classics reworked including ‘You Make Me Die’ and ‘Every Bit Of Me’ as well as 4 tracks written by Billy & The Loins especially for this album. TRACKLISTING 1. The Bitter Cup 2. Pocahontas Was Her Name 3. The Hanged Man's Dance 4. You Make Me Die 5. I Don't Like The Man That I Am 6. The Double Axe 7. At The Bridge 8. Every Bit Of Me 9. Somebody Else 10. The Ferry Man (Zeebrugge) 11. One Day You Die 12. Brimfull of Hate 13. Dragging Through This 14. One More Bottle to Drink

This is a limited edition pressing of 500, 140-gram, black vinyl records in deluxe tip-on “old style” jackets. Exquisitely printed on textured, water color paper. Digital download included. Be Earth Now comprises forty minutes of potent poetic recitation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows from their seminal translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Book of Hours. Channeled in a spiritual fervor in 1899, The Books of Hours remains a profound and highly prescient body of work. Rilke’s poems illuminate paths of embodied mysticism, passionately express ecological grief, and reveal the exquisite expanses of the human heart. The Book of Hours, and now Be Earth Now, offer a poetic map for navigating the heartbreak, rage, and soaring love that so many of us feel in these ecologically urgent and socially emergent times. Rilke’s poems surge with passion and pain for a world that was already teetering toward peril at the turn of the last century, due to the rapid industrialization of Europe, and humankind’s increasing alienation from nature. This work flowed through Rilke in a torrent with sometimes as many as five or six poems arriving in a single day, each self-complete and with no need for later revision. While truly mystical poetry, Rilke’s musings on spirituality overtly critique fundamentalism and organized religion. Instead, Rilke extolls what he finds sacred in the mundane and conjures a sense of wonder for both the more-than-human-world and simply for existence itself. So, who better to give voice to these mystic treasures than Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows? Not only because of their enchanted translations, but also because these women are unquestionably two of our righteous elders. Macy and Barrows have worked diligently for many decades, through art, activism, education, psychology, and spiritual practice, to bring some balance back to this world. The same world that Rilke pleaded with his God to sustain for “just a few more hours,” so that we might have time to mend our relationship with the natural world, to cherish and connect with what is good and real, and to possibly even learn to “be earth now.” A1 Anita Barrows Recites Selections from Rainer Maria Rilke's 'The Book of Hours' B1 Joanna Macy Recites Selections from Rainer Maria Rilke's 'The Book of Hours'

Archival reissue of the garage-psych Zamrock masterpiece (1975). PRESSED ON OPAQUE ORANGE VINYL. “...face melting psych-funk garage madness..." MTV // “Four Stars!" MOJO // This landmark recording from Now-Again’s comprehensive overview of Zambia’s premier garage-, psych-, prog-, funk-,afro-rock ensemble WITCH, We Intend To Cause Havoc! Is now available in a never before seen color variant. The audio is nigh-perfect – restored and remastered from the original master tapes. WITCH’s musical arc is contained to a five year span and, in retrospect, is a logical one. The band’s third album, Lazy Bones!!, is the band’s masterpiece - a dark, brooding psychedelic opus that makes equal use of wah-wah and fuzz guitars, that relies as heavily on the stomping feel of hard rock as it does the syncopation of funk.

Utrecht’s Banji return with news of their record,
‘Freshcakes’, via PIAS Recordings.
‘Freshcakes’ is filled to the brim with Banji
goodness, with a whopping thirteen tracks.
With support from Line of Best Fit and The
Independent (Track Of The Week), and features in
CLASH, DORK and more, Banji are making their
mark with this new record, pressed to light blue
vinyl.
Talking about ‘Freshcakes’, vocalist Morris Brandt
says: “Banji’s songwriting has always reflected my
surroundings and environment. Big themes of this
album are struggling with adulthood, self-worth
and self-esteem, mental health and frustrations,
addiction, and finding your own self-discipline and
maturity over time. The lyrics that flowed out of me
throughout the making of ‘Freshcakes’ tend to be
built around introverted thoughts, personal social
situations, and subjects that I find difficult to
dissect.”

Today Chicago-based percussionist, composer and producer Makaya McCraven announces the details of his new album In These Times, which is set for release on September 23rd via International Anthem / Nonesuch / XL Recordings. The first offering from the new album is a song tiled "Seventh String," which encapsulates the various musical dimensions present on McCraven's new album, a career-defining body of work that is a remarkable new peak for the already-soaring McCraven. In These Times is a collection of polytemporal compositions inspired as much by broader cultural struggles as McCraven's personal experience as a product of a multinational, working class musician community. It's the recording that he's been trying to create for 7+ years, as it's been consistently in process in the background while he's put forth a prolific run of releases including: In The Moment (2015), Highly Rare (2017), Where We Come From (2018), Universal Beings (2018), We're New Again (2020), Universal Beings E&F Sides (2020), and Deciphering the Message (2021). With contributions from over a dozen musicians and creative partners from his tight-knit circle of collaborators - including Jeff Parker, Junius Paul, Brandee Younger, Joel Ross, and Marquis Hill - the music was recorded in five different studios and four live performance spaces while McCraven engaged in extensive post-production work at home. Featuring orchestral, large ensemble arrangements interwoven with the signature "organic beat music" sound that's become his signature, the album is an evolution and a milestone for McCraven, the producer. But moreover, it's the strongest and clearest statement we've yet to hear from McCraven, the composer. Profiled in the New York Times, Vice, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, the Guardian, and NPR, among other publications, Makaya and the music he makes today is what Passion of Weiss explains, "is part of a necessary conversation about the next evolution of the Black improvised music known colloquially as 'jazz.' He's found the threads connecting the past with the present, and is either wrapping them with new colors and textures, or he's plucking them gleefully like the strings of a grand instrument." McCraven, who has been aptly called a "cultural synthesizer" and "beat scientist," has a unique gift for collapsing space, destroying borders and blending past, present, and future into poly-textural arrangements of post-genre, jazz-rooted 21st century folk music. In These Times encompasses his artistic ethos, his experiences, identity and lineage, while pushing his music to new heights.

David Lovato’s first outing as LOVA, the superb Gypsophilia EP, was one of NuNorthern Soul’s most lauded and cherished releases of 2021 – a gorgeous collection of emotive, sun-soaked sounds from the mind of a producer who got his chance on the imprint after handing a USB of tracks to Phil Cooper at Hostal La Torre in the summer of 2020.

Now, the EP returns for 2022 in expanded form, with a trio of fresh, mood-enhancing remixes joining the three original tracks featured on last year’s release. It’s those – ‘Cecilia’, Lovato’s glistening, emotionally resonant musical tribute to his baby daughter, mid-tempo nu-disco gem ‘Echoes of Memories’ and the stunning, sunset-inspired ‘Esperanza’ - that form the first half of the EP, with a trio of reworks following in hot pursuit.

Long-time friends of the label Leo Mas and Fabrice, an Italian duo famed for their brilliant Balearic reworks whose individual and collective histories stretch right back to the late 1980s (Mas, for example, was one of the resident DJs at legendary White Isle venue Amnesia at the back end of that decade). Given this shared Balearic history, it’s fitting that they step up first and give their spin on ‘Cecilia’. Making the most of Lovato’s stunning, reverb-drenched guitar licks, dreamy chords and atmospheric pads, the pair delivers a shuffling, club-ready interpretation underpinned by a locked-in dub disco groove. It’s a fine take on a track brimming with positivity and joy.

Hear & Now, an Italian duo best known for delivering a trio of brilliant albums on Claremont 56, give their interpretation of ‘Echoes of Memories’. Beginning with a mixture of quietly colourful chords, enveloping sonic textures and hazy guitar motifs, the mix gently builds as it progresses, with the pair introducing a pitched-down house groove, chiming electronic melodies and alluring elements from Lovato’s original version. Like much of Hear & Now’s work, it sits somewhere be-tween Balearica, slow-motion electronic disco and the Rimini-friendly dream house sound that marked out Italian club cuts at the turn of the ‘90s.

To close out the EP, rising star Danilo Braca – an Italian producer based in New York City who began DJing in his home country way back in 1996 – gently leads ‘Esperanza’ towards the dancefloor. Braca is a member of production duo Synth & Soda, whose 2020 remix of DJ Harvey presents Locussolus track ‘Berghain’ was selected by the man himself as the winner of an online competition. On this solo revision, Braca wraps a punchy, Latin-tinged house beat in cascading melodic motifs, bubbly synthesizer arpeggio lines, rising and falling electronics and pads so sumptuous you might want to marry them. Simultaneously morning fresh and sunset-ready, Braca has delivered a classic-sounding chunk of Balearic nu-disco/deep house fu-sion.

Gypsophilia Remixed is the latest volume in NuNorthern Soul’s Myths of Ibiza series of EPs, which all feature specially commissioned artwork from illustrator Emily McGuinness. This time round, McGuinness’s distinctive artwork depicts Tanit, the ‘protector goddess’ of Ibiza. A warrior deity of dance, fertility, creation and destruction, her spirit is said to watch over the island’s West Coast, particularly the area around Atlantic and the mysterious Es Vedra rock.

"The whole point of this record was to share every emotion that I feel," sagt THE SOFT MOON aka Luis Vasquez. "No two songs are the same. It's about existing in the world as a human being and experiencing many emotions and experiences throughout life." Daher auch der Titel "Exister", ein Album, das von den ekstatischen Freuden und lähmenden Tiefen des Lebens handelt und davon, dass das Durchhalten und die Existenz manchmal alles ist, was wir haben. Der Grund, warum das Album für Vasquez so persönlich ist, liegt darin, dass sich sein Leben während der Entstehung des Albums stark verändert hat. Er verließ Berlin, sein langjähriges Zuhause, und zog in den Joshua Tree, um während des Lockdowns musikalisch und persönlich etwas Freiraum zu finden. Es fühlt sich wie eine Art musikalischer Neustart für Vasquez an. Das Cover des Albums zeigt ein Foto von Vasquez als Kind und steht stellvertretend für eine Platte, bei der es darum ging, sich wieder mit seinem jüngeren Ich zu verbinden, wobei eine Mutter-Sohn-Beziehung im Mittelpunkt des Albums steht. "It's my child self that you hear all over it," sagt er. "I was reminiscing and hurting a lot during the writing process. This is possibly my most vulnerable record yet." Doch trotz des Schmerzes, der Wut, der Verletzlichkeit und des Schmerzes, die im Kern dieser Platte zu finden sind, gibt es auch ein tiefes Gefühl von Hoffnung und Schönheit. Auf dem abschließenden Titel-Song "Exister" scheint das Album einen Ort des Friedens und des Trostes zu erreichen und endet mit einem ruhigen, nachdenklichen und ergreifenden Moment, der ein Gefühl des Optimismus nach einer Zeit des Umbruchs einfängt.

Mighty Eye Records is proud to present the first single off its debut release, the self-titled full length album by 10th Street. Comprised of some of the best NYC musicians to grace the music scene in the past 20 plus years, this ode to late ‘70s disco, funk and bogie is sure to be a future classic!

Recorded at Soul Fire Studios (Williamsburg, Brooklyn) over the course of two years, more than twenty musicians were involved in the making of this album, boasting members of El Michels Affair, Lee Fields & The Expressions, The Dap-Kings, Antibalas and more.

“Hot Tonight” is a tight and sexy mid-tempo groover, driven by sultry female vocals from Terri Walker, Katt Rockell, Camille Sledge and a string arrangement by Leon Michels. B-side can seamlessly be mixed into the A-side for a five minute total play time. Get your doubles today!

Cristi Cons lands with his debut on Adam's Bite, serving up two pristine cuts of electronic wizardry. The label has previously meddled in strong 90ies aesthetics, delivering starry-eyed homages to days long gone. With the eternal wunderkind at the controls, things get kicked up another notch: following efforts from his peers, he's unearthing, deconstructing, and reassembling some of Frankfurt's halcyon days' most essential sonics.

Drop the needle on the A side to access „Black Swan”, a contemporary house burner perfectly imagining the early trance experiments heard in the dark womb of dance music history. Sprawling across the flipside, „Ahead of the Curve” finds Cristi Cons exploring the psychedelic side of this sound, revealing delicate details to lose your mind in – and a playful bassline keeping bodies earthbound and flowing. Zipping and zapping from Goa to Mainlandia via Bucharest, there's plenty to fall in love with here. Over and over again.

Over the 15 years since Loren Connors' Airs was first published, it has drawn a thick circle of fans. Gently recorded to cassette tape in 1999, (with wonderfully subtle multi-tracking). Airs is comprised of a series of brief electronic guitar poems. Intimately composed with the patience and purposeful hesitation we have reverently come to expect from Connors. Lyrical melodies recur in different forms throughout the LP, as shifting figures in a dream. Shadowy and sunken, the tone evokes an overcast landscape. The album feels singular; woven along as one flowing piece

AM006 is by Berlin's ML, titled 'Life always breaks your heart'. Two 30-minute pieces were written, constructed, collaged and fixed together by himself. It's an important story, so there's a copy from ML below and also ours was written by Bokeh Version Industrial to do it justice.

Hallucinated Brazilian poetry read by text to voice engines, supernatural thrillers ripped from Youtube, the clang of cutlery and distant canteen conversation, that noise wire fencing makes when you rake it with a stick, crickets chirping over odd dance emotions, a sample you think your recognise but can’t name…..

The trivial is cosmically important, the cosmically important is trivial. ‘It’s about the product’ - all of life’s a sample. You contain universes.

Alice in Wonderland, late night sessions with kosmische guitar legends, ethnographic chants from an unknown land, “There’s no monopoly of knowledge / there’s no monopoly of power”: forecasts from global political trends, China will be important they say, someone’s whistling a tune that doesn’t exist, I’m thinking of times long before I was born . . .

Growing naturally like a beautiful montage from his field recordings (a rich library of personal psychoacoustic details) and his 150 Session on NTS, ML's Life Always Breaks Your Heart is mixtape-concrète:

Gamelan of the soul, Bio-Curry-Wurst in Kreuzberg, zither overlays the booms of the squatter’s homegrade grenades…

Mark Leckey vs. Alvin Curran, Gustav Flaubert vs Cabaret Voltaire, free association flashbacks with the timestamps mixed up, with added bass guitar, OP-1, Ableton, distinguishing the ‘real’ instruments becomes unimportant….they’re absorbed by memory foam….

No country, no flag – outernational without a cause!

There is no purpose, there is only reverie.

ML -

"A useless ruin, things are falling apart, even in our deepest, we long for harmony. A hypothetical path, for obscure reasons, fades into transparency. The mediocrity of Western culture, sicken by P.R., life offers a chance, a place for enthusiasm. The texture of the world, them can read it in your eyes. In the heart of schizo-culture, distance, suddenly shortened, forms characters as symbols. Deafen by mass media, embittered by unsettled chemistry, the willing body, forever in transition. The pre-invented existence, owned by language, creates a passage towards chaos. Paragraphs of currents, amplify the feelings, while silence leaks into the new luxury of time. Gentrification of sentiments, beneath our palms, all these memoirs. A modern consciousness, stretching over years in narcissistic differentiation. In touch with another human spirit, blowing backwards, beneath dark waters. We put our hands on your body, onto a new landscape, employed by metaphysical mutations. At the edge of the cosmos, prairies and mountains hide the truth in tactical silence. Apparently so, a number of months ago, above our head, a landscape of journals. Mystical content, statistically insignificant. A new patio, them crawled through the walls."

This is about remembering our humanity, which perhaps we lost a little bit over the last couple of years - maybe we can get a bit of it back in the dark, under some strobe lights." There's a considered and conscientious edge to every record that comes from the studio of Graeme Shepherd, a.k.a. Grum. Strip away the club exterior and you will find a nuanced, sometimes provocative, message that asks us to challenge our outlook on the world. 'Unreality', Grum's fourth studio album, is his most reflective work to date, putting human connection in the digital age under the microscope. "Based near Glasgow, Scotland where I had to spend a lot of time by myself. I watched, alone, as world events unfolded and I think that has funnelled itself into the music somewhat." The visceral nature of Graeme's work has been present since his debut LP 'Heartbeats'. A feel good, get up and dance record championed by Annie Mac and Pete Tong in the early 2010s, Grum was a product of the blog era, riding the heights of Hype Machine with his synth heavy sound.

Energy and inspiration come from the Gwoka. From these hands which, when they are not a raised fist, pound the drums, proud of their roots and of their Guadeloupean identity.
This is where Celia Wa comes from, from all that she inherited by spending her childhood between the West Indies and France.

The first years of her life were spent discovering the musical soul of the island, letting the seven gwoka rhythms seep into her until they became an integral part of her. The following years were spent discovering reggae, salsa, jazz and the omnipresent hip hop. Music whose original source was close to her, but to which she only opened up after having travelled thousands of kilometres.

After two self-produced EPs, Wastral is the sum of these inspirations and influences. Born in the acoustic, it is under the modern and futuristic production of Victor Vagh (producer of Flavia Coelo) that the seven tracks were revealed and then sublimated. Dissipated in the vaporous arrangements, softened under the effect of the synthetic layers, the organic was meticulously covered with an electro varnish disturbed by the echoes and reverbs of the dub. Celia Wa's soaring, twirling flute grazes or stirring the groove, her lyrics reviving the memory of her island. In Creole or in English, they tell the story in the present tense without forgetting the past. A past full of the sounds of struggles, of clashing chains and cracking whips, marks that have disappeared from bodies but remain deeply rooted in families and history. New feminine signature at Heavenly Sweetness, Celia Wa draws with Wastral the map of an avant-garde stellar journey in which the musical star of Guadeloupe shines the brightest.

Right On Time - Trojan Rock Steady is the 2nd part of the exclusive Music On Vinyl’s Trojan compilation series, which celebrates the best works from the legendary reggae label Trojan Records. It was compiled by Laurence Cane-Honeysett, who also wrote the linernotes. Some of Trojan’s finest are featured on this compilation; as there are The Gladiators, The Melodians, The Gladiators, Ken Boothe a.o.

Impressive reissue of sound designers and masters of field recordings Ultra-Red! These unique sounding tracks were first released on the legendary Fatcat 20 years ago and kept as secret weapons of DJs like Ricardo Villalobos, Craig Richards and Miss Kittin over the years. Here we have the two long, uncut versions that were never released before!


Limited copies!!

Toronto-based musician and producer David Psutka aka ACT! (fka Egyptrixx / Anamai / Ceramic TL) will release his latest project ‘Strange Bounty / About Life’ for his own Halocline Trance imprint.

‘Strange Bounty / About Life’ is Psutka’s debut album proper as ACT! following the release of the “sonic mixtape” ‘Universalist’ in 2018 and the augmented reality soundtrack ‘Grey Matter AR’ in 2021; a series of Snapchat filters created by artist Karen Vanderborght and soundtracked by ACT! which explored the poetic and existential potential of AR and social media.

The new album represents a refinement of aesthetic and compositional ideas that exist across Psutka’s various projects and collaborations. It is a bold blend of new psychedelia braided with ecstatic groove. It’s a collage of physical sound, composition and freeform electronics that is simultaneously original, bold, and balmy whilst retaining a certain timeless familiarity and the obvious, indelible hallmarks of Psutka’s creative vision.

“‘Strange Bounty / About Life’ is in some ways my most refined record. The previous period of solo material was quite experimental and spontaneous, whereas this was written slowly and with more intentionality, and as a result, feels very clarified. Robin Dann of Bernice, and Alanna Stuart of Bonjay both contributed lovely vocal work to the record and it was written and performed primarily on guitar. I think it is fair to call this an 'experimental guitar record'.” David Psutka (ACT!)

On opener ‘Oblivion Shuffle’ synths trickle and squelch beneath vintage arcade bleeps, an off-kilter rhythm and mournful vocals. The palette of faintly dystopian electronics, unnerving ambience and scorched, wonky rhythmic pulses reoccur across the album on tracks like ‘Separation Code Is Togetherness Meta’, ’50 Million Motives For Making’, ‘Peace Javelin Heaven Bound’ and ‘Street Racer’.

Elsewhere on the record the guitar is more obviously prominent, and its presence allows the thematic subtleties of ACT’s music to flourish. It becomes clear after numerous listens that there is a push and pull at play across the whole project; one of optimism vs existentialism, of anxiety vs hope - a consistent theme of Psutka’s back catalogue. The track titles themselves even begin to reveal juxtaposition contained within and a deeper inspection of the lyrics reveals more.

‘Lotto’ and ‘Rebuild Your Body’ and title track, ‘Strange Bounty / About Life’ all feature slick classic soul hooks, silky vocals and smooth Balearic guitar licks over the idiosyncratic beats and distinctive electronic instrumentation. A perfect melding of the two seemingly disparate stylistic directions on the album. A real testament to the refinement promised by Psutka on this project.

In addition to ACT!, Psutka has released music with numerous projects including Anamai, Egyptrixx and Ceramic TL, he has collaborated widely with artists such as Junior Boys, Ipek Gorgun, and Kuedo as well as Jessy Lanza (2016) and an official remix for Massive Attack’s ‘Hymn of the Big Wheel (2012). The contributions on this album, from Robin Dann and Alanna Stuart, reflect the deeply collaborative nature of the Halocline Trance label and the Toronto creative scene more broadly.

Many of Psutka’s releases have received critical acclaim from media outlets such as Pitchfork, Exclaim, The Quietus and Resident Advisor. As a live performer, he has toured extensively including performing at Sonar Festival, Roskilde, Mutek, MOMA PS1 Warm-UP and CTM Festival. He’s also presented sound installations at various institutions such as Galeria Civica Commune di Modena, and Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO).

In 2015, Psutka launched Halocline Trance as a home for his various sound projects, events and collaborations. Now a creative collective and label, it has grown to include a diverse array of artists including Casey MQ, Xuan Ye, Myst Milano, Colin Fisher and others. The label is described as “genre-agnostic” and conceptually open, supporting work across a wide spectrum of creative fields including soundtrack recording, AR design and traditional artist albums. Their impeccable roster also includes, theorist/improviser Eldritch Priest, and AR/VR artist Karen Vanderborght. In recent years, Halocline Trance has established itself as a platform that facilitates many of Canada’s most exciting creative music projects. Many of the releases have received critical acclaim from outlets including Pitchfork, Exclaim, Bandcamp and Resident Advisor.

Noodles Groove chronicle has releases going back to the 90's and is recongised as one of UK garage music most influential producers, his recent works is a collaboration with follower producer Dubchild. The duo also work under the alias"nu agenda"creating their own style of hybrid house, and have support from various stations such as Rinse fm, 1xtra, SWU, NTS, Mode, Worldwide radio and Reprezent. Lets now get to "selector selection vol.1" out on DPR recordings label owned by Noodles Groove chronicles we have three tracks "helikopter" "your turn" "my thing" all individual but weighty. The volume series is all about what you may have missed or slighty over looked.Talior made so you'll never miss a good track and it's been selected for your listening pleasure.

The good thing about techno is that you can reach the most diverse states. The possibilities are almost endless, the machines multifaceted and the imagination knows no boundaries. Just this joy
of experimenting with melodies and equipment is one of the specialties of Berk Offset aka Echowolf, which he brings to bear again in his latest release on Snork Enterprises "Dreieinigkeit".

Weird rhythms and twisted sounds develop in the end to a harmonic overall state.

The three new tracks, which all run under the title "Zustand" (the German word for “state” or “condition”) only with different numbering, are complemented by a brilliant rework by Headless
Horsemann. In full honor of his name, he enhances the wonderfully weird techno tunes with a mysterious ambient style that not only sounds but also feels like a mighty acoustic shadow.

Taken from Dilla's 2001 BBE Music debut solo album Welcome 2 Detroit, 'Big Booty Express' gets the remix treatment from German duo Âme, Parisian Pépé Bradock and London's Coda Deep. Alongside the OG version these new productions add up to a six track exploration of Dilla's tribute to Detroit's melding of the Motor City's Black music heritage with Kraftwerk's experimental Euroelectro. Contributing two mixes to the EP, Parisian producer Pépé Bradock AKA Julien Auger first forays into music were after learning guitar as a 14 year old and playing with various Jazz-Funk bands. At this time he also started DJing with Hip-Hop bands and turning his hand to producing their tracks. As the 90s progressed he also discovered Techno and House music. His musical influences range from Jazz to Dub Reggae and he has remixed for Blaze, Cassius and Alex Gopher among others. Also providing a remix of Big Booty Express is the German production duo of Frank Wiedemann and Kristian Beyer who work together under the name of Âme. After first meeting in Kristian's record shop in their home town of Karlsruhe and bonding over a shared love of Chicago House and Detroit Techno the pair started working together and producing records for Sonar Kollektiv in 2003. The final two remixes on the Big Booty Express EP and only included on the digital package come from the Londoner Coda Deep. Influenced by avant-garde Electronica, Nu Wave and African Tribal sounds, he is a DJ and producer playing deep and melodic Tech and Techno and will also be known to music fans for his 2019 BBE release 'The Running of the Bulls'. This EP of remixes sits very well alongside the catalogue of J Dilla releases on BBE Music and adds to the rich heritage of innovative beat making and music production that we can associate with Dilla and those he worked with.

From 2008 comes 'Keys, Strings, Tambourines' - Kenny Larkin's fourth full length LP.

Yet another advanced, singular and funked out techno milestone that bears all of Larkin's idiosyncratic stylings and melodic touches. Once more he shows us how it's done, sounding like nothing you've heard from him previously, 'Keys, Strings, Tambourines' is a truly adventurous record that defies categorisation today. Quietly influencing producers and DJs since its release, it points to where techno can go and what it can be and is a truly and criminally overlooked modern Detroit techno classic. This is an essential purchase for all electronic machine-funk aficionados worldwide. This special expanded edition boasts a slightly reshuffled track order and some additional cuts that were only available on singles at the time, now giving the world 3 solid slabs of futurist techno sonics for the believers! Essential music from the motor city.

'Keys, Strings, Tambourines' has been legitimately reissued for 2022 on Kenny’s own Art Of Dance imprint. Remastered from DAT tapes and original sources by Curve Pusher. Artwork redesigned by Atelier Superplus.

The Blackploid resurgence of recent years continues to gather steam. After laying dormant for some time, Martin Matiske's project roared back into life in 2021 with a pair of EPs for Central Processing Unit. It doesn't look like he'll be taking his foot off the gas any time soon - not only does the new Blackploid collectionPlanetary Sciencecomplete Matiske's hat-trick for the Sheffield label, but it also serves as a prelude to the full-length album which Blackploid will deliver on CPU in 2023.

If that LP is as good as the tracks we get here, then it's safe to say that we're on to a winner. This EP contains a quartet of top-tier machine-funk productions, the kind of crisp post-Drexciya joints we've come to know and love Blackploid for. Each track onPlanetary Sciencemakes good on the record's title by delivering club tackle flecked with FX which sound distinctly like spaceships blasting off into the cosmos.

There is also progression acrossPlanetary Science. While it still aims for the dancefloor,Planetary Scienceis a somewhat more textured listen than eitherStrange StarsorCosmic Traveler, Blackploid's previous CPU drops. Most notable is the increased use of synth pads, with Matiske draping chord progressions over all of these tracks in order to give his music a newfound depth.

Blackploid's subtle evolution is clear from the opening track. 'Dimension Unknown' may begin with a precision-engineered groove reminiscent of an early Legowelt joint, but things soon soften with the introduction of some rich keyboard chords. A few well-chosen bleeps and bloops flit in and out of the mix, but whereas some would use these to scuff up the track further here they are warm and playful.

The more confrontational stance of following cut 'Magnetron' makes it a yin to 'Dimension Unknown's yang. Blackploid works with similar tools here - machine-gun beat programming, chords playing off boinging bass - but there is a tension and buzz to the track which isn't apparent on its predecessor. The synths have a slight Eighties deep space thriller vibe about them, and the FX cut through the mix with more bite.

'Magnetron's energy carries through to 'Wire', the first track on thePlanetary ScienceB-side. Here a big, brutish bassline takes centre stage from the off, a chunk squarewave equal-parts Dopplereffekt and early Eskibeat. Around this swirls a queasy brew of synthesised tones, with the component parts all arranged in order to channel 'Magnetron's sense of unease.

Planetary Sciencecloses out with 'Neurotransmitter'. On this cut, Blackploid returns somewhat to where we started off, finding a midpoint between 'Dimension Unknown's more spacious feel and the livewire flavour of 'Magnetron' and 'Wire'. Tension remains, particularly when Matiske serves up one of the EP's snakiest basslines, but there's also a deftness to the synth pads here which makes 'Neurotransmitter' a little softer around the edges.

Blackploid limbers up for a forthcoming full-length on Central Processing Unit withPlanetary Science, an EP of stargazing electro joints that quietly expand the project's sonic world.

RIYL:Drexciya, Dopplereffekt, DMX Krew, I-F, Annie Hall

Deep-listening organ piece from Malaysia-born, Berlin-based composer Rishin Singh, performed by Martin Sturm on the Lizst organ in Thuringia, Germany. RIYL: Kali Malone, Anna von-Hausswolff - "An endless and captivating exploration of one organ's timbres and tones. Both whispered and shouted, large and small, close and far, Singh's work is both unsettling and a balm, and has invited me to reconsider pitch, consonance, dissonance, tension and release." – Clarice Jensen, artistic director of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) In the 1850s the influential composer Franz Liszt, who was living in Weimar, Germany at the time, carried out, with the famous cantor Alexander Wilhelm Gottschalg, a series of “ländlichen Orgelexperimente” (rural organ experiments) in Thuringia – investigating various instruments and their capabilities for contemporary music. They eventually settled on the organ in Denstedt because of its high quality. Many years later, award-winning organist Martin Sturm would invite the Berlin-based composer Rishin Singh to repeat these “ländlichen Orgelexperimente” with him and they again chose the organ at Denstedt, now named in honour of Liszt, as the best instrument – the most flexible and expressive – to perform and record Singh's music for organ. mewl infans is a contemporary classical piece that invites modern listeners to ponder the enduring pull of an instrument that was first conceived more than 2,000 years ago and has, in recent years, been rediscovered by a new generation of composers and listeners. Throughout the larger architecture of the four movements, melodic motifs return over and over, fractured by noise, fragmented by carefully calibrated alternate tunings, dissolving into thin air, and generating drones which then transform into new melodic variations. Over the 44 minutes of the piece the organist at times attempts to exert complete control over the instrument, and at other times relinquishes all control entirely. Conceptually rigorous and emotionally charged, mewl infans rewards deep listening and patience. At times conjuring a sense of doom, at other times suspense, pastoral drift, or aquatic submersion, the album is a universe of tiny details comprised of noise and air, of the journey each tone takes from birth to expiration. HIGHLIGHTS: – Singh has been commissioned by the GRAMMY-nominated JACK Quartet. Premiere in NYC Spring 2023 – Collaborations between Singh and Sturm are ongoing: Sturm will premiere Singh’s concerto for organ, timpani, and string orchestra later this year – Sturm is the youngest professor of organ in German history – The debut album from Singh‘s ensemble Leider, A Fog Like Liars Loving, was released by Beacon Sound in May of 2021 Bios: Martin Sturm, born 1992 in South Germany, in an International award-winning organist (ION, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Festival St Albans, Haarlem, Bavarian Culture Prize, and Keck-Köppe Foundation). He performs regularly as an interpreter and organ improviser at festivals, churches, and concert halls around the world. In 2019 he was appointed Professor for Organ and Organ Improvisation at the University of Music “Franz Liszt” in Weimar (Germany), after teaching at the Universities of Music in Würzburg and Leipzig. Rishin Singh (b. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) is a composer and trombonist living in Berlin. He has been commissioned to compose for the JACK Quartet (US), Piano+ (US), Claire Edwardes (AUS), DNK Ensemble (NL), Prof. Martin Sturm (DE), the Amsterdam Wandelweiser Festival (NL), Quiet Music Ensemble (IE), and others. Upcoming premieres include “every day” a concerto for organ, timpani, and string orchestra (Martin Sturm, Thuringia, 2022), and “melancholy objects” a string quartet (the JACK Quartet, New York, Spring 2023). He is currently working on his first chamber opera and is the composer and lyricist for the art song ensemble Leider.

Grey Marbled Vinyl

Clear water hits the surface of a grainy ball. The stream slowly dissolves and flows down the spherical structure until it finally drops on a candle. The flame extinguishes; fragile streaks of smoke ascend until they hit the rough surface of the colossal globe again.
The cover art to Marble Arch, the second long-player of Vienna- and Berlin-based artists Oberst & Buchner, depicts masterly the dramatic juxtapositions the musicians have always been reflecting in their musical outcome.
The massive density of a giant sound wall is contrasted by spacious openness. Fragile sonic details are sparkling out of colossal pitch-black clouds. The songs are filled with gentle warmth and cold roughness, bright digital clarity and deep analogue crackle, ranging in style from pulsating dark-disco over classic pop to experimental ambient.
The duo's two-week artist residency in a 250-year-old house, located in the mystic landscape of the Bavarian woods set this specific mood for the 10-track album which became a mixture of electronic synthesis, organic instrumentals and field recordings. Heavy-weight basslines in combination with bitter-sweet orchestral instrumentation and the minutiae of precise percussion recordings and drum programming are the characteristics that formed the sound of Marble Arch.
Oberst & Buchner's way to deal with tension is in how they compose their song structures as extreme arcs of suspense in a near classical manner. Their intense dynamic arrangements always alternate between rise and explosion or implosion and fall. This way the compositions pick up the motive of creation and destruction throughout the long-player in the same way as the cover-art.
Taken together, all these fragments form the duo`s signature cinematic articulation of dramatic slowed down club music and moments of surprise.

BIO
Oberst & Buchner are two friends and musicians living in Vienna and Berlin. They look back on a mutual musical journey that is as rich in variety as it is more then 15 years long. For one thing, countless high-energy DJ sets in clubs and at festivals all over Europe in recent years have earned them a reputation as a dynamic duo infernale. At the same time, their own productions draw from the full palette of moods and emotions.
Boiled down to the very essence, there's one common denominator running through the duo's musical works: colossally massive elements are masterfully set against a shimmering backdrop of incredibly detailed layers. Each so full of subtle suspense that they feel like the first raindrops before a monstrous thunderstorm. You can literally hear the calm before the storm in every break they build up, then feel the force of the wind in your face when it hits you.
Ranging from pulsating electronica over slow organic sounds derived from both nature and acoustic instruments to deep dance pop ballads, their songs are full of suspense and packed with drama. In their productions, the two friends conjure up soundscapes that are extremely dense and at the same time infinitely open and spacious. Within this framework, they play with stark contrasts of antithetic elements: repetition and improvisation, functionality and emotions, emptiness and overload, clarity and crackling.

Saib is the prolific producer and guitarist whose insatiable desire to create comes from his childhood: passionate about Bossa Nova, Japanese Anime Soundtracks, Jazz as well as old school Hip-Hop, he draws his inspiration from composers and musicians such as Yoko Kanno, Joe Pass and Nujabes. Bathing in the cosmopolitan culture of Casablanca, a melting pot at the crossroads of the two African and European continents. This diversity is a constant in his music, where groove and melody are skillfully mixed in a style inspired by the classic hip-hop productions of the 90s. Hip Hop beats form the backbone of Saib’s musical palette, as his style skips from Jazz flavors to lounge experiments and to upbeat four on the floor grooves ... and sometimes within a single track.

Saib’s hyper-productivity has allowed him to release, over the last five years, seven albums and more than a dozen EPs and singles, including releases on labels such as Chillhop Music, Cold Busted, Majestic Casual and Blue Note Records. Saib’s tracks are a regular fixture on Editorial Playlists including Spotify’s “Jazz Vibes” (2 million Likes) and “lofi beats” and have accumulated more than 500 million plays on streaming platforms.

Saib’s new LP, “Unwind” maintains the stupendous head-nodding grooviness that listeners have come to love from the young producer with a healthy added dose of Tropical and Lounge/Bossa-jazz influence. Album and single artwork done by star-Moroccan photographer Ismail Zaidy (IG: @l4artiste) who has seen his work featured in GQ Middle East, Art Basel, BASE Milano, Vogue Arabia, and has done partnerships with The Sims and Adobe. LP design work done by Jakarta label mainstay, Robert Winter. “Unwind” also includes features by Rotterdam’s ØDYSSEE and legendary Hip-Hop MC Masta Ace. Jakarta is ecstatic to share such a career-defining work, arriving digitally and physically September 16th, 2022.

The albums 1st single, “Mushroom Samba” arrives Wednesday, June 29th along with the vinyl pre-order announcement. The track is deliciously groovy, and is a perfect example of the kind of sunny, jubilant grooves to be encountered on the LP. Saib takes the lofi-expertise he’s become known for since his 2015 debut and brings a freshness to the beat-genre. The song is perfect for the onset of summer and will have you humming along to the brass refrain by the songs end.

2nd single, “Pennywise,” will be released July 13 and features legendary Hip-Hop MC Masta Ace on the album’s only vocal track. The track is a surefire splash of hip-hop that’s both nostalgic and forward-moving. Ace sounds as fresh as ever, flowing over a head-bobbing beat with lush, tropical guitar inflections. While the beat brings to mind sandy shores and sun rays, Ace’s two verses invoke skyscrapers and boomboxes, making “Pennywise” a perfect track for your summer hip-hop fix.

Saib’s 3rd single is the stunning, swirling, and utterly smooth “Cosmic Dust” with Rotterdam producer ØDYSSEE arriving August 10. Keeping with the tropical essence, the track comes and goes like waves on a beach. Soft sounds flow like water before the drums and bass wash in, building to a saxophone and piano heavy crescendo. Like the tide, the beat recedes and the track ends as gently as it began, leaving you wanting to hear it all again.

Single 4, the moody “Suave” arrives August 24 and is bossa nova at its core. What starts off with a familiar Brazilian groove quickly takes a hip-hop turn, with a smooth bass drop and crisp drums layered over bossa nova keystrokes. Warm / timeless saxophone punctuate the track, providing a mellow break between basslines and closing out the end. “Suave” is a sunny and soul-soothing fusion of bossa nova, jazz, and hip-hop, perfect for closing out the summer with.

“Unwind” is a project steeped in the beats that keep you moving and grooving but with a sonic and visual aesthetic palette that goes deeper and groovier than the surface level lo-fi artists that have proliferated in the last 5 years. Ranging from FloFilz and eevee imbued vibrations to Jonwayne-styled beats, Saib brings forth a sonic spa session that invokes a state of calm that leaves you an uplifting and energetic plateau. Dig it.

Clear Vinyl

"The making of this album first started as a recollection of music and sound design I've produced over the last couple of years for events and installations - interactive and immersive AV experiences. It was like creating a specific atmosphere for visitors where I'd take them into this sensorial but artificial experience within a very confined spatial domain. This is how the "Climats" concept emerged.

Longer ambient and generative pieces thus found their own space in my repertoire, allowing me to explore more in-depth, non-linear execution with soft, moody and padded textures. Eventually, all this freeform material became available so I could extract parts of it to build more club-centered and straightforward tracks, but nonetheless, the list grew and all this softer-edged, more introspective works were aggregating over time.

At the time of the lockdown, it felt very natural to get back to it and finalize it as a cohesive whole. It was a very healing and a smooth process to work on these. From isolation, I could open this window to thoughts where I made up my very own Science Fiction story while working on the music. I really wanted it to be a one-hour soundtrack experience that I'd listen at home or driving while my mind would travel across all those musical scapes. It was never a formalized script, but the music spoke for itself with themes of anticipation, collapse, utopia, the world as we know it, the near and far future...

Creating the album was quite a sporadic production process that stretched over several years but it all came together and made a lot of sense in the context of the title I chose : TERRAFORM. The narrative of the album simply unfolds from Dawn to Dusk, and the listener navigates through the different climates that each track embodies."

- TENEBRE

Tape

The third LP from the New Zealand quartet houses 12 jewels of tight, guitar-heavy songs that worm their way into your head, an incandescent collision of power-pop and skuzz. With Expert, The Beths wanted to make an album meant to be experienced live, for both the listeners and themselves. They wanted it to be fun -- to hear, to play -- in spite of the prickling anxiety throughout the lyrics, the fear of change and struggle to cope.

Most of Expert was recorded at guitarist Jonathan Pearce’s studio on Karangahape Road in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa (Auckland, New Zealand) -- and sometimes in the building's cavernous stairwell at 1am -- toward the end of 2021, until they were interrupted by a four-month national lockdown. They traded notes remotely for months, songwriting from afar and fleshing out the arrangements alone, the first time they’d written together in such a way. The following February, The Beths left the country for the first time in more than two years to tour across the US, and simultaneously finish mixing the album on the road. That latter half felt more collaborative, with everyone on-hand to trade notes in real time, until it all culminated in a chaotic three-day studio mad-dash in Los Angeles. There, Expert finally became the record they were hearing in their heads.

Expert is an extension of the same skuzzy palette the band has built across their catalog, pop hooks embedded in incisive indie rock. The album’s title track “Expert In A Dying Field” introduces the thesis for the record: “How does it feel to be an expert in a dying field? How do you know it’s over when you can’t let go?” Stokes asks. “Love is learned over time ‘til you’re an expert in a dying field.”

The rest is a capsule of The Beths’ most electrifying and exciting output, a sonic spectrum: “Your Side” is a forlorn and sincere love song, emotive; while “Silence is Golden,” with its propulsive drum line and stop-start staccato of a guitar line winding up and down, is one of the band’s sharpest and most driving. “When You Know You Know” skews a bit groovier, pure pop and a natural addition to the band’s live set. “Knees Deep” was written last minute, but yields one of the best guitar lines on Expert. There’s a certain chaos across the 12 tracks, the palpable joy of playing music with long-time friends colliding with the raw nerves of pain.

Stokes strings it all together through her singular songwriting lens, earnest and self-effacing, zeroing in on the granules of doubt and how they snowball. Did I do the wrong thing? Or did you? And are we still good people at the end of it? She isn’t interested in villains, but instead interested in just telling the story. That insecurity and thoughtfulness, translated into universality and understanding, has been the guiding light of The Beths’ output since 2016. In the face of pain, there’s no dwelling on internal anguish - instead, through The Beths’ musi