Buscar:paper nation

Ten years ago, Adolph Robert Thornton Jr. planted his flag. Released on February 19, 2016, King of Memphis wasn't just a debut studio album; it was a bold declaration of independence and a flawless blueprint for self-made success. To celebrate a decade of this foundational Southern rap masterpiece, Paper Route Empire is honoring Young Dolph’s legacy with a series of exclusive, limited-edition 10th Anniversary vinyl variants.

Before King of Memphis, Dolph had already built a massive underground following through a relentless run of mixtapes. But this official debut elevated him from a local hero to a national powerhouse.

By bypassing the major label system and releasing the project entirely through his own Paper Route Empire (PRE), Dolph proved that undeniable talent, relentless hustle, and business savvy were all you needed to take the crown. The album peaked in the Top 50 of the Billboard 200, an incredible feat for a fiercely independent artist at the time, and cemented his status as a CEO who called his own shots.

King of Memphis is all killer, no filler. Over 11 tracks, Dolph's signature slow-flow delivery and larger-than-life charisma glide over heavy-hitting, trap-defining production from a legendary lineup of producers, including Mike WiLL Made-It, Zaytoven, TM88, and Cassius Jay.

With zero guest features, the project relies entirely on Dolph’s magnetic presence. From the motivational hustler's anthem "Get Paid" to the menacing confidence of "Let Me See It" and "Royalty," the album plays like a victory lap for a self-made king.

30 years as a full-time touring nightclub DJ sounds like one hell of a career, and for Kenny Summit it's as much of a milestone as it is a turning point. Having shared the stage with greats such as David Byrne, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, George Michael, Kylie Minogue and Prince over the years, Kenny took that influence and inspiration and decided it was time for him to get behind the mic too.

‘Burnin’ is a song written, produced and performed by Kenny Summit that speaks on a desire that's been burning inside of him for three decades. Across those 30 years he’s made many an influential friend too, three of which come on board to remix ‘Burnin’ - the late great Paul Johnson, D&B icon DJ Aphrodite and Brooklyn legend DJ Spinna.

"I caught the fever for house in 1990 and by 1992 I was booked for my first DJ gig at New Jersey's famed Zanzibar nightclub where house legend Tony Humphries held court on a weekly basis. Something changed that night, a fire started and its been building, growing inside of me and now it's time to put paper to pen and write my own songs."

Clearly influenced by the artists Kenny's worked with over the years, ‘Burnin’ is a culmination of one man's journey through dance music; from the Nile Rogers-ish 70s guitar riff to the whining Steely Dan-like keys, to the lush strings and synth pop stabs that would make Moroder blush, the track itself is masterfully produced and punctuated with Kenny's unique uplifting vocals, sang in a manner as if David Byrne and Boz Scaggs were put together and yet still very uniquely Kenny Summit.

Up on remix duties the late great Paul Johnson, Chicago's shining star, serves up a dark, very much after house vibe, that still keeps that trademark Paul Johnson sound. Drum & Bass icon DJ Aphrodite applies his unique sound to ‘Burnin’ with a stellar remix the D&B community has been patiently waiting over three years for. And finally, long-time friend, Brooklyn's DJ Spinna steps up, who after hearing the track commented 'this needs a dope DUB! Leave it to me, imma hook you up bruh!'. The Discoelectric Dub does not disappoint.

Igor Tamerlan is a stranger in his own land. Born in 1954 the Hague and spent most formative years in Paris, Igor suddenly had the urge to relocate to Bali in 1986. “I want to settle in Indonesia and marry a local girl,” he told his sister shortly before flying out.

His next journey would be as audacious as his time in the Fifth Republic. Born from a prominent Indonesian expatriate family in Paris with ties to Indonesia’s first prime minister Sutan Sjahrir, Igor earned a degree in architecture at Ecole nationale supe´rieure d’architecture de Paris-La Villette.

He could have been a brilliant architect or a political scientist (he was accepted to Sciences Po), but his passion for music distracted him from his academic works. He was after all named after Russian composer Igor Stravinsky.

During his brief stint at Sciences Po, Igor spent most of times hanging out at recording studios and rub shoulders with the likes of singer-songwriter Jean-Jacques Goldman and Michel Polnaref. He had a brief encounter with The Rolling Stones at the Cha^teau de Thoiry studio in the early 1970s.

But Igor’s musical education and his occidental eyes appeared to be ill-suited for Indonesia. His first record, titled Langkah Pertama (First Step) on the mainstream label Musica was met with a shrug and was a commercial dud. An experimental record blending the influence of Spanish motifs, Francophile production and a whiff of hip hop and ska was seen by critics as being too alien. His sarcasm-laden lyrics and his biting critique of excessive materialism among the upper tier of Indonesia’s nouveau riche in the album was met with confusion from the audience. He was just too far ahead of his time.

He left the label Musica – or may had been dropped – soon after Langkah Pertama and decided to go independent. He then relocated to Bali and set up a state-of-the-art recording studio in Sanur, across the street from Southeast Asia’s first boutique hotel where luminaries like Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Sting, Yoko Ono and Ringo Starr stayed for their holiday.

From the studio, Igor recording everything from the sounds waterfalls, geckos, minibuses to motorized rickshaw and mix them with hip hop, jazz, electronica, dub and Balinese gamelan. A visionary, Igor was the first musician to use MIDI, which started to be available globally in the early 1980s.

On paper, songs like “Bali Vanilli” should not work, a mish mash of disparate elements mentioned above, sung in three languages, Balinese, English and Bahasa Indonesia while tackling the subject of overtourism. The song was also the first to introduce rap to an unsuspecting audience. But for some strange reason “Bali Vanilli” became a sensation and overnight Igor became household name. And in 1987, long before overtourism was an issue, Igor broached the subject to a national audience in Indonesia on the possible destruction of nature and culture from tourism.

Ever an iconoclast, Igor decided to step out of the limelight following the success of “Bali Vanilli” and in early 1990s he relocated to Indonesia’s cultural capital, Yogyakarta. Here, he worked on some more experimental music while juggling as music video director. He passed away in 2018 at the age of 64.

The 10 songs in this compilation, Bali Vanilli: Experimental Pop from Paradise Island (1987-1991), are some of Igor’s best works, music that would have gone into obscurity had it not been for the diligent work of film director Alfred Pasifico Ginting, who managed to track down some of the master tapes while researching on a documentary on the musician.

These recordings have never before been released outside of Indonesia. Igor would have been proud with this reissue project.

We Jazz Records kicks off their new series of archival 7" releases with Esa Pethman "In Belgium 1967" released 23 September 2022. The two-tracker is licensed from the Belgian VRT radio archives and both of the pieces are previously unreleased. Finnish jazz legend Pethman, heard here on alto flute and tenor sax, joins forces with European jazz greats such as Heinz Bigler, Uffe Karskov and Jean Fanis. This is a small but valuable piece of unheard European jazz history from the early heyday of modern jazz. The physical release is a quality "inside-out"-styled EP with 3mm spine and small center hole on the 45rpm vinyl.

An excerpt from the liner notes by Mikko Mattlar:

"Esa Pethman (b. 1938) was one of the key figures of modern Finnish jazz in the 1960s. His album The Modern Sound Of Finland was the first Finnish modern jazz album and his composition "The Flame" a true modern Fenno-jazz evergreen.

Pethman was born in Kuusankoski, 135 kilometres from Helsinki in the Kymenlaakso area. The jazz scene was active even though it was an area of rural landscapes and paper mills. Pethman discovered jazz when he heard a Charlie Parker record being played at a local music shop in the late 1940s. Following Parker, bebop became his favourite style of jazz.

Young Pethman played flute and saxophone in local bands who accompanied schlager singers. They played tangos and waltzes for dancers, but usually started a typical dance event with an hour of jazz. In 1959 Pethman moved to Helsinki to study music at the Sibelius Academy. Back then it was a strictly classical music academy, but Pethman later described the studies as crucial for his development and career. He quickly made his way to studio sessions and into the best orchestras in Helsinki.

As a student of composition, Pethman also began writing his own music. "The Flame" was a melody he just got on his mind one night, and he decided to write it down. The catchy composition was released as a 7" single in 1964, a year before Pethman's debut album. Both records stand as benchmarks for modern Finnish jazz. The album consisted entirely of Pethman's compositions, not versions of jazz standards like a lot of the Finnish jazz released until then.

In the mid 1960s, Finnish jazz was also taking its first international steps. Pethman's quintet took part in the first Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland in June 1967. At the Montreux jazz band competition, the quintet came in fourth of the twelve contestants. Despite not winning the competition, the band got an honourable mention, and Pethman was now recognized outside Finland.

In December 1967 Pethman travelled to Brussels. His visit was organised by the national Finnish broadcasting company Yleisradio and their jazz program producer Matti Konttinen. Konttinen was supposed to go to Brussels with Pethman, but the musician ended up traveling alone.

In the Decca recording studios Pethman played two songs. He recorded a version of his most famous composition "The Flame", where he played the alto flute and was accompanied by Belgian musicians. On Swiss saxophonist Heinz Bigler's composition "Like Steel", Pethman played the tenor saxophone. The band was now more international, consisting of Bigler, the Italian Francesco Santucci, the Dane Uffe Karskov, a Belgian rhythm section and Pethman. After 55 years, Pethman still remembers Bigler's remarkable skills as a saxophonist.

The two-day visit included the recording session, a dinner and a concert. Pethman and the other non-Belgian musicians came to Brussels mainly to play at a jazz concert organised by the European Broadcasting Union EBU. They played at the studio first, and the concert was held the following day. Pethman and all the other soloists played as members of an international big band. The studio and live session were produced by the Belgian Radio and Television jazz section leader Elias Gistelinck."

LIAM GALLAGHER „AS YOU WERE” LIMITIERTE AUFLAGE ALS ZOETROPE-VINYL VERÖFFENTLICHUNGSDATUM: 18. OKTOBER Anlässlich des National Album Day am 18. Oktober wird „As You Were” als limitierte Sonderauflage auf Zoetrope-Vinyl mit brandneuem, maßgeschneidertem Artwork und Packaging veröffentlicht. „As You Were“ wurde ursprünglich am 6. Oktober 2017 veröffentlicht. Das Album war ein kritischer und kommerzieller Erfolg, debütierte auf Platz eins in Großbritannien, verkaufte sich besser als alle anderen Alben der britischen Top-10-Charts zusammen und erreichte in der ersten Woche Goldstatus. Seitdem wurde es in Großbritannien mit Platin ausgezeichnet. Enthält die Singles „Wall of Glass“, „For What It's Worth“ und „Greedy Soul“. TRACKLIST Seite A 1 Wall of Glass 2 Bold 3 Greedy Soul 4 Paper Crown 5 For What It's Worth 6 When I'm in Need Seite B 1 You Better Run 2 I Get By 3 Chinatown 4 Come Back to Me 5 Universal Gleam 6 I've All I Need

Mayssa Jallad is a Beirut-based bilingual singer-songwriter, architectural researcher and teacher. Her work deals with the highly personal as well as the political, as with her first solo album "Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels", which explores the histories of urban battles that occurred before she was born, during the Lebanese Civil War, through a collaborative musical and architectural lens. "(Marjaa) is, as one might expect, a sombre affair largely comprised of Jallad's delicate vocals backed by acoustic guitar and ethereal synthesizer. Elsewhere, co-composer and producer Fadi Tabbal adds the crackle of distant artillery and a ghostly wind between the high-rise blocks." - Daniel Spicer, Songlines, April 2023 "Historical trauma, strings, drones, metallophones and buzuks wrap around powerful stories and gossamer vocals on Lebanese singer's tender, intimate debut. With shades of Nico, Jarboe and Elizabeth Fraser, '80s' 4AD fans will rejoice." - Andy Cowan, MOJO `Marjaa_' (tr. `reference') combined Mayssa Jallad's two main vocations: music and urban research/architectural history. The album was co-written with Fadi Tabbal and based on Mayssa's Historic Preservation master's thesis (`Beirut's Civil War Hotel District: Preserving the World's First High-Rise Urban Battlefield'). The thesis examined a 5-month conflict that took place within Beirut's skyscraper-laden luxury hotel district of Minet El Husn near the start of the Lebanese Civil War. Addressing a post-war generation who have never been taught this difficult history, `Marjaa_' was an attempt to process trauma, and "a call to protest for the renewal, rather than the recycling of the political class that once destroyed the country and holds us, to this day, hostage of its violence". In 2013, Mayssa founded indie-pop band Safar with guitarist Elie Abdelnour, releasing debut album In Transit with Lebanese indie label Ruptured in 2017, and follow-up EP Studies of an Unknown Lover in 2019. Both albums were produced by Lebanese producer Fadi Tabbal at Tunefork Studios in Beirut. Mayssa's most recent multi-genre collaborations include "Madina min Baeed" (2022) with electronic musician/producer Khaled Allaf; "Bi Kheir" and "Fil Aatma" (2022) with indie supergroup Baada Ab (Dani Shukri, Ezra Tenenbaum and Omaya Malaeb), released by Thawra records and Found Sound Nation. Next is the Versions version of Marjaa, which sees Civilistjävel! (aka Swedish producer Tomas Bodén) apply a stripped, dub methodology to Mayssa's original rich stems, refracting the Arabic source through the hazy prism of Northern European electronica. 140gsm vinyl, jacket printed on 20pt board with aqueous gloss coating, with a 3.5mm spine and a black paper inner dust sleeve.

Edwyn Collins ist zurück mit seinem 10. Soloalbum "Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation" und Reflektionen über den Zustand der Welt. Das 11-Track-Werk auf dem eigenen Label AED Records wurde in Edwyns Clashnarrow Studio in Helmsdale im Nordosten Schottlands aufgenommen und von ihm zusammen mit Sean Read und Jake Hutton produziert. "Knowledge", Albumopener und erste Single, wird von einem Video begleitet, das zwischen Weihnachten und Neujahr in Edwyns Heimatdorf Helmsdale gedreht wurde. Regie führte Delbert Anthonio Wright, ein talentierter junger Filmemacher, den Edwyn seit seiner Kindheit kennt.

The Complete Film Music Composed by Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe - 2xLP 180 Gram Colored Vinyl - Old-Style Tip-On Gatefold Jackets with Satin Coating and a Built-In Booklet Page - Composer Liner Notes - 12 Page Art Gallery Exhibit Catalogue // In partnership with Universal Pictures, Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) and Monkeypaw Productions, Waxwork Records is thrilled to present CANDYMAN Original Motion Picture Soundtrack by Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe. Directed by Nia DaCosta (next year's The Marvels) from a screenplay by Oscarr winner Jordan Peele, Win Rosenfeld and DaCosta, Candyman, currently in theaters nationwide, is a fresh take on the blood-chilling urban legend and a contemporary incarnation of the 1992 cult horror classic. About Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe: Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe (b.1975) is an artist, curator and composer who works primarily with, but not limited to, voice and modular synthesizer for sound in the realm of spontaneous music. Along with analog video synthesis works, he has brought forth an A/V proposal that has been a focus of live performance and installation / exhibition. The marriage of synthesis and the voice has allowed for a heightened physicality in the way of ecstatic music, both in a live setting and recorded. The sensitivity of analogue modular synthesis echoes the organic nature of vocal expression, which in this case is meant to put forth a trancelike state. Lowe's works on paper tend towards human relations to the natural/magical world and the repetition of motifs. The deluxe 2xLP vinyl release features 180-gram colored vinyl, old-style tip-on gatefold jackets with satin coating and a built-in booklet page, liner notes by composer Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, a 12-page art gallery exhibition catalogue, artwork by Sherwin Ovid and Julian Williams and puppetry art by Manual Cinema.

LP, 2024 Repress - half speed mastering
"The 50 best IDM albums of all time"
Pitchfork

"A liquidy headbox of aural shapes, whose forms hardly change yet seem to encompass infinite viscosity within them, like rainbow pools of oil on water"
Wire

"Before IDM became a nation of Aphex and Autechre cosplayers, the genre was less defined by aesthetics than by a shared ideology. Here was a loosely connected axis of post-rave kids, united by little more than a shared willingness to subvert the tools of their techno idols and create sounds that hadn't previously been imagined. No record of the era better embodies this find-a-machine-and-freak-it ethos than Islets in Pink Polypropylene, the otherworldly debut by British producer Anthony Manning."
Pitchfork

"It’s refreshing to hear an all-electronic album that sounds so organic yet so totally alien."
Fact

"One of the UK’s first post-rave ambient records proper; sharing much more in common with Autechre’s Amber or AFX’s Selected Ambient Works Vol. II - which were both released in that same year - than anything else before or around it."
Boomkat

For fans of avant everything innovative and experimental music.




About The Album>>>>

The whole album was composed and realized on the Roland R8 drum machine. It followed the same process as the Elastic Variations pieces, with the major addition of many, many hours of editing.

Each piece was composed as a series of patterns, of varying lengths ( 5,6,7 bars long ). The stock R8 sounds were embellished with one of several ROM sound library cards ( mostly the Dance card, number 10 ).

These patterns were created by tapping out a rhythm, then, in real time, using the Pitch slider as the pattern looped, to create improvised melodies for each of the pattern's voices.

The rough version of each piece was built by stitching the patterns together as a song, listening to each addition over and over, to make sure the melodies flowed into each other in a vaguely coherent manner.

Once this initial rough structure was in place I set about fine tuning every single note.

The R8 doesn't allow you to assign a pitch to a note in the conventional sense. It's not possible to assign a pitch of Middle C to the first note of the first bar. Instead, it assigns a numerical value to a note's pitch, between -4800 and +4800 ( I think those numbers are correct - that little screen is seared into my memory ).

If you restrict all notes within a piece to a multiple of, say, 400, you therefore create the possibility of a sort of scale. For multiples of 400, you have a total number of 24 permissable notes. However, most of the percussive sounds, when pitch shifted, only sounded 'good' over a reduced range.

The first editing step was to go through the entire piece, and change every note's pitch to its nearest multiple of 400.

The second step was to draw out the entire piece on graph paper, the Y axis being pitch, X being time. This drawing gave me a visual sense of a melody's flow. It was easy to see too many notes clustering around too tight a pitch range for instance, or a single note straying way down into the lower register while all others at that point in the melody were in the upper.

Once these first 'clearing-up' edits were complete I could set about re-writing elements that didn't sound right melodically. Often this meant stripping out whole chunks of superfluous notes, to reveal a cleaner melody line, then shifting its shape slightly. If the flow of the line of dots on the graph 'looked' balanced and sweetly sinuous, then often it sounded so.

This entire process took many weeks per piece. Weeks of doing almost nothing else. Listening. Re-drawing. Re-writing. Listening. Round and round and round. When I could hear the whole thing in my head, from beginning to end, and nothing seemed to jar ( too excessively ), I knew it was done, time to move on.

I imagine it's very similar to the process of stop animation. Your days are filled with painfully tiny incremental changes that seem to be getting nowhere. Then, slowly, a shape, narrative, starts to appear. Then, all of a sudden, somehow, it's done.

When all the pieces were complete the R8 was taken into Irdial's studio where some simple effects were added, each voice recorded individually for clarity onto 8-track tape and mastered onto an ex-BBC half-inch tape deck.

Then I slept. And vowed never to do it again.

*****

And the title ?

Soon after finishing the pieces I happened to read a magazine article about Christo's "Surrounded Islands" installation with the music playing in the background.

There was something about a particular cluster of words within a random sentence that seemed pleasing and somehow appropriate.

"Islets in Pink Polypropylene" seemed to make as much sense as anything else.

Worst Case Scenario started out in 1994 with Justin Trosper and Brandt Sandeno from Unwound as another of the many bands they formed together. That summer was a little slow for Unwound’s hoped-for tour schedule so they decided to start another hardcore-influenced band while working day jobs. As they began practicing in the basement of the Olympia punk house “Lucky 7”, long time friend and roommate Chris Jordan jumped in as the vocalist. Sandeno soon recruited his college friend, Scott Larsen, that had recently moved from Minneapolis. They quickly wrote about an album’s worth of songs and recorded them with Tim Green at the Red House for a “demo tape” that Tobi Vail released on her tape label, Bumpidee. 1995 saw another Tim Green recording with 7-inch records on Lookout Records and Troubleman. This LP contains all of the forementioned material. In 1996 they recorded a full length record with “Seasick” Steve Wold in Olympia for Vermiform which resulted in the self-titled vinyl LP and The Complete Works of Worst Case Scenario CD collection a year later. WCS played a few random shows, mostly in Olympia, with friends’ touring bands from 1994-96 and set up a national tour for the summer of ’97. Shortly before the tour Jordan was injured in a random accident and then Larsen broke his wrist in a work accident, rendering the band unable to embark on the tour. To cap it off, the one sheet of paper that had all the venues’ contacts for the tour was destroyed in a laundry related incident and the band was unable to properly cancel the tour. Apropos to their name. They disbanded amicably later that year with members moving away from town and taking on more demanding tour and work schedules.

Gemma Blackshaw is a scholar, writer and curator currently Senior Tutor for research at the Royal College of Art. She has curated major exhibitions for galleries and museums in London (National Gallery; Wellcome Collection and Vienna (Leopold Museum; Wien Museum).
This is her debut album.

Who Will You Love is the debut collaborative album from The Dengie Hundred with Gemma Blackshaw. In 2023, The Dengie Hundred co-produced with Japan Blues two albums for Demdike Stare’s DDS label, and released the solo album Tube on London’s Sagome imprint; their solo debut Brackenbank appeared on Ethbo in 2022, when they also contributed to World of Echo’s Thorn Valley compilation. Here, they collaborate with Gemma Blackshaw on an album of smudged dream pop.

Gemma’s vocals were recorded from home at night on an old iPhone. Who Will You Love surfaces dark, desiring songs on the passion and exhaustion of looking after others. Emerging in simple rounds that expand with layers of field recordings, synths and drum machines, the songs include lullabies for baby boys and men, enchantments of wary lovers and spells of protection for a daughter.

Moving between her children and her lover, the mother sings of the demands of daily intimacy (play with me, carry me, sing to me…) that echo through adult relationships too.

Who Will You Love was mastered by Carim Clasmann, and mastered and cut for vinyl by Stefan Betke (aka Pole). Artist Alexis-Soul-Gray gifted Screen Memory of 2022, a painting on found paper, for the artwork. Mark Thomson designed the sleev

The Morning Papers Have Given Us the Vapours was made with the black watch bandmates and producers/engineers Rob Campanella (Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Tyde, The Warlocks) and Andy Creighton (The World Record, Parson Red Heads). Ben Eshbach, formerly of The Sugarplastic, arranged the strings. Kesha Rose guests on lead vocals on the second single, Oh Do Shut Up. And the great Lindsay Murray once again lends her beautiful backing vox to a number of tracks.

the black watch songwriter/frontman John Andrew Fredrick wrote the ten songs on this, his Los Angeles-based band's latest album, entirely unselfconsciously, with no set goal in mind other than to revel in the joy of songwriting, and, eventually, the luxury of recording his music with his more-than-accomplished band. The Morning Papers Have Given Us the Vapours, produced separately and together by Rob Campanella and Andy Creighton evinces the black watch's often stunning ability to, as Andy Gill once observed in The Independent, "find chaos in the calm, melody in the miasma."

Fredrick, who has also published four comedic novels and a book on the early films of Wes Anderson, jovially describes himself as "a recovering Anglophile--one who'll never, one hopes, fully recover." From his home studio in the Angeleno Heights district of L.A., he waxes eloquent about how being branded, as it were, as a too-ardent lover of British music, film, and literature has left him as bemused as has the tag "prolific" that is often affixed to reviews of his work.

"I just don't think it's all that interesting to note that we've made so many records. Looked at one way, it's a sort of deflection from talking about the timbre if not the quality of the individual songs. Though I know it can be intimidating for fans who've just discovered us--a sort of 'My goodness, where do I start with this band that has put out LPs since 1988?' I get it. I do. I picture someone standing at our slot at a bin at a record store becoming overwhelmed at the prospect of picking the 'wrong' title. And then walking away and not picking up anything from us!" Fredrick laughs. "What can you do indeed?"

He started his career as a songwriter as a result of an American Football injury that left him bedridden in the home he grew up in in Santa Barbara, California. The year The Beatles immortal double-album came out at Christmastime he broke his leg so badly that he had to be home-schooled for an entire year. His parents, ex-teachers themselves, refused to let him watch telly for more than an hour a day. He propped a Silvertone acoustic on top of the massive cast that screamed all the way up to his thigh from his toes, and began to write little melodies and lyrics that, doubtless, did not in the least mask his love for the Fabs, The White Album in especial.

And he read and read and read--histories of the American Revolution and Civil War, mostly, and as many Dickens novels as his mum and dad could bring him. "That year," Fredrick observes, "surely made me who I am today. Proof that intensely unfortunate-seeming events can prove most fortunate. As a sport-mad kid, it made me absolutely mental that I was exiled from the activities I loved most and the school teams I played on. What a blessing undisguised that injury was! Not that I'd like to experience anything like it ever again, mind you."

Fredrick can even recall a few of the melodies he wrote as boy ("Utterly trite, of course, completely jejune"); and in a way, The Morning Papers Have Given Us the Vapours showcases a kind of get-back-to-where-you-once-belonged sensibility. "I didn't intend, this time, to make an album per se. I write both songs and fiction in order to find out what happens, to find out what I might want to say," he notes. "Rob often asks me what a particular song is about; and I often reply that I either don't know, or would prefer that others say. Same thing goes for when people ask me where they should start with our discography. I never know what to say. Our LP from 2011, Led Zeppelin Five (remastered in 2021 for its tenth anniversary), has been our best seller, I think--but that may be because some stoned Zepheads thought their gods had perhaps put out a record they'd missed!"

Despite being deadly serious about music-making, TBW's been known to either whimsically or perversely title their albums. Examples: Jiggery-Pokery (an allusion to John Lennon assessing George Martin's productions), After the Gold Room (a pun on the Neil Young classic plus a local eastside L.A. watering hole), Sugarplum Fairy, Sugarplum Fairy (echoing Lennon's famous count-off to A Day in the Life), Fromthing Somethat (a garbled spoonerism/lyric while doing a vocal), Brilliant Failures (the 2020 release that, along with Fromthing Somethat, was named Album of the Year by venerable indie rock magazine The Big Takeover), and the aforementioned LZ5.

For the new LP, the band recruited longtime friends and allies Ben Eshbach (the Emmy-Award-winning frontman of The Sugarplastic) and Lindsay Murray (Gretchens Wheel) to compose and arrange strings and sing heaps of lovely backing vocals, respectively.

And the result? A collection of songs that Fredrick, in his quite-but-not-quite self-deprecatory way, might call another set of brilliant failures. "Every song, every LP we do, is a failure of sorts--no matter how powerful or beautiful or pleasing-to-us it turns out," John concludes. "I have often said that my aim is to write songs as good as anything on The Beatles... and I will never achieve my goal. And thus I'll have to keep at it, keep trying. And chin-chin to that!"

And now your attention's been brought to a band (or you've heard of them or heard a track or two down the years) that has been pegged by The L.A. Weekly as "a national treasure" as well as "the most criminally-neglected indie pop group imaginable."

So here's to the prospect of that ostensible neglect becoming as much of a thing of the past as John Andrew Fredrick's year-long stint in bed.

Far Out Recordings proudly presents the new album from Brazilian guitarist and composer Fabiano do Nascimento: Mundo Solo.

Recorded at his home studio in Los Angeles (2020) the album is fundamentally the sound of a man alone with his instruments.

Utilizing a variety of guitars, including 6, 7 and 10 strings, Oktav guitar and electric baritone guitar, alongside a host of pedals and synthesizers, Fabiano tracked imagined landscapes with expressive, expansive improvisations, which tend toward the more ambient and atmospheric reaches of his recent output.

Adopting Hermeto Pascoal’s concept of Universal Music, a rejection of nationalistic tendencies in order to express all of one’s musical influences all at once, Fabiano avoided leaning too heavily on any particular musical language, without denying his own musical roots.

After studying classical piano as a child, the Rio de Janeiro native discovered the guitar aged 10. Studying under his late uncle, Lucio Nascimento, he eventually left Brazil for LA, where he soon became an in-demand player for his distinct and authentic sound. He has since released seven albums under his own name and collaborated with renowned Brazilian artists including Arthur Verocai and Airto Moreira, as well as experimental US saxophonist Sam Gendel.

Mundo Solo (Do Nascimento’s eighth), was recorded in one take per track, with occasional overdubs and a few appearances from collaborators and friends Julien Canthelm (drums on Etude 1), Ajurinã Zwarg, (percussion on CPMV) and Gabe Noel (Bass on Curumim).

Fabiano Do Nascimento’s consummate mastery of his instrument has afforded him a freedom of expression few can claim. Blending the emotional with the elemental, Mundo Solo is a stunning snapshot of solitude and the beauty which can blossom within it.

Mundo Solo will be released on vinyl LP, CD and digitally on the 24th November, via Far Out Recordings.

High Roller Records, silver vinyl, ltd 300, cardboard cover with pms silver print, insert printed on uncoated paper, poster, A5 photo card, Mastered for vinyl by Patrick W. Engel at TEMPLE OF DISHARMONY . Cutting by SST Germany on Neumann machines for optimal quality on all levels...

High Roller Records, black vinyl, ltd 200, cardboard cover with pms silver print, insert printed on uncoated paper, poster, A5 photo card, Mastered for vinyl by Patrick W. Engel at TEMPLE OF DISHARMONY . Cutting by SST Germany on Neumann machines for optimal quality on all levels.

One of this year’s breakout success stories from the UK’s current thriving independent music scene,
critically acclaimed seven-piece Black Country, New Road present here their highly anticipated second
album ‘Ants From Up There’ via Ninja Tune.
 Debut album ‘For the first time’ was shortlisted for the 2021 Hyundai Mercury Prize. The band
performed ‘Track X’ live on BBC 4.
 ‘Ants From Up There’ was written in lockdown in the early part of 2021 when the band were unable to
go on tour as planned to support their album release. The result is a stunning collection of songs and a
move in direction to a more crossover, alternative sound beyond the experimental and ‘post-punk’
nature of their debut.
 New album expands on their unique concoction to create a singular sonic middle ground that traverses
classical minimalism, indie-folk, pop, alt rock and a distinct tone that is already unique to the band.
 Extensive global touring in 2022, including their biggest London show to date at the Roundhouse, full
UK and European Tour in April/ May. Sold out 2021 shows include Brighton, Liverpool, Manchester,
Birmingham, Glasgow, Bristol and Dublin and more.
 2021 festival dates include End Of The Road, Latitude, Fusion, Roskilde, Dour, Bol Festival, Pohoda,
Le Guess Who, Dour. In 2022 they’ll play Primavera Sound, Dour, Way Out West, Bad Bonn Kilbi, Bol
Festival.
 For fans of IDLES, Black Midi, Squid, Phoebe Bridgers, Jockstrap, Nick Cave, The National,
Radiohead.
 Deluxe 4LP 140g vinyl box set with bonus ‘Live from the Queen Elizabeth Hall’ double LP, black paper
inner sleeves, 4 art prints, lyric booklet and sticker.

Tape

The next issue in the on-going Mastermix series features a centerpiece of Frankfurt’s club history: Wild Pitch Club.

A predecessor to the esteemed Robert Johnson and a stepping stone for Panorama Bar’s very own nd_baumecker.

Founded by Playhouse masterminds Ata and the late Heiko M/S/O it was a Thursday club night that heavily featured house music as a prescription to the ongoing techno fever. Enamored with the US-American roots of it and all things deep, it not only presented the right records, but also their creators and protagonists. With a string of guest DJs from Robert Hood and Claude Young to Kerri Chandler and Theo Parrish as well as talent from the UK and Europe, it was one of the culture’s hubs at the time.

Here you have its testimony. Selected and mixed by Ata and nd_baumecker, it’s an authentic snapshot of the club’s vibe and spirit, spread over a collectable tape (download included) and a pleasant streaming version, it’s the full dosage. Like Roach Motel confessed: Wild Pitch, I love you.

"I begin our sixth album by exploring melodies that take me to the boundaries of my voice. I write myself into my highest highs and lowest lows. There is a precariousness in the outer limits of my range that demands vulnerability. As our demos take shape, I realize this will be our first album without any belting, the first time I can’t force my way through the notes," recalls Tennis' Alania Moore. "In the studio, Patrick compresses the shit out of my mic and I sing with the gentleness of breathing. In that softness, lyrics take shape. We want to write a big album—something suited for radio, but our songs don’t follow conventional pop structures. Instead of choruses with universal themes, I write with a specificity that is new to me, narrowing in on the smallest details of our lives. The more we try to broaden our scope, the more we turn inward." "We name the album Pollen. It is about small things with big consequences: a particle, a moment, a choice. It is me in a fragile state; sometimes inhabited freely, sometimes reacted against. It is striving to remain in a moment without slipping into dread. It is about the way I can be undone by a very small thing." Tennis is Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley. Pollen is their sixth album. The two met in the philosophy department at the University of Colorado in 2008 after dropping out of their respective music programs. In the years after graduating, they got involved in Denver’s DIY music scene. Through house shows, they were connected with Underwater Peoples and Firetalk. The band went blog-viral nearly overnight, landing them a record deal with Fat Possum and then Communion Records, but with shifting labels and new interests, Tennis chose an alternate path for their band and career. In 2016, Moore and Riley formed the label Mutually Detrimental and began self-releasing. Their newfound freedom allowed them to return to their sailboat to write their next full-length, this time in the Sea of Cortez. Yours Conditionally, released in 2017, became their most commercially successful album–charting at #4 on Billboard’s Independent list and in the top 100 highest selling vinyl releases that year. They played Coachella and opened for artists like The National, Father John Misty and The Shins–proving their DIY roots as a cornerstone to their sound and narrative. Their follow up Swimmer (2020), was recorded in their home studio with Moore and Riley producing and engineering. The pair brought their long-time touring member Steve Voss in for the second time to drum on record. The singles, Need Your Love and Runner, were Tennis’ most successful releases to date.