Search:persist

An emotional transmission wrought with the persistence of existence. Anasisana returns to Noir Age for his third release with the label. For Self Exploration, the Tunisian artist is focused here on existential alchemy; processing grief, encountering the unknown, and (possibly) experiencing growth through his simplistic and downtrodden approach to sound composition.

Anasisana constructs a plaintive sonic trajectory; leading in with harsher passages before settling into the restrained yet powerful ambient approach that we have come to love about Anas’ work. A skeletal, leftfield grunge deconstruction, echoing the corridors of HTRK’s darkest secrets crossed with the perpetual bliss of Isorinne, Canadian Rifles, or the warped dementia of The Caretaker.

A palindrome hypnotic.

Anasisana’s music has been published by labels such as Vaagner, Casement Exchange, Perfect Aesthetics, Trust Collective & Amulet of Tears.

Limited edition cassette with Rispgraph cover and newsprint insert.

Fresh off of their 2020 offering Adult Themes, El Michels Affair is back with a new full-length release. Titled Yeti Season, this newest album has everything we've come to expect from EMA's patented cinematic style of instrumental soul music. Where Adult Themes inspired a soundtrack to an imaginary film, Yeti Season brings us to a different place in time_with new inspirations. Taken with Turkish-styled funk and an almost Mumbai-esque take on soul, El Michels Affair offers us a different kind of drama and imagination with Yeti Season. If you've been following along, this shouldn't be viewed as too far a departure for El Michels Affair. The first single off of Yeti Season showed their hand back in 2018. A double-sided banger, that release brought the musical textures to the fore that dominate this record. The first song, titled "Unathi," is fully realized with the beautifully haunting-yet-hopeful vocals of Piya Malik, formally of 79.5_another Big Crown artist. Singing in Hindi, Piya's ethereal voice is telling us to work and strive together toward progress. Even if you don't understand her language, you can still hear the urgency of purpose, creating a lasting vibe that sits on top of it all. Leon Michels explains that Piya had a vital influence on this record: "When Piya started singing in Hindi, she had a different voice, a different tone. I knew we had to do something together." And so Piya appears on three other songs on Yeti Season: "Zaharila," "Murkit Gem," and "Dhuaan." Each providing particular signatures to the album. "Zaharila" is a building and changing love song punctuated by blaring trumpets, driving drums, and Piya's pleading lyrics. While the more upbeat "Murkit Gem" opens with a fuzzed out, Wu-Tang-esque baseline that buoys Piya's stylings. The psychedelic guitar and Piya's changing tones and textures singing about an all-consuming love are what pushed "Dhuaan" on to the second single from Yeti Season. There is also a vocal appearance from Shannon Wise of The Shacks, yet another Big Crown artist. Her song called "Sha Na Na," lies more in the familiar EMA vein: melodic, hypnotic, soulfully visual. But between Shannon's airy singing, the jumpy baseline, moody vibes, the active drum lines, it sounds like a pensive walk home after a strangely dramatic night. So what is Yeti Season? It could be more of a feeling than an actual place or time of year. It's a heavy album_as evidenced by the signature musicianship and dramatic vocal expressions. But it's also a hopeful record, with phrasings, textures, and chord changes that hint at something better_or fuller_coming our way. You hear it in songs like "Ala Vida," with its stabby, pulsing chords laying a bedrock for EMA's bright, atmospheric horn lines. Or even in "Fazed Out," which leaves you with a feeling of determination, a striving for resolution even though the driving, march-like song structure should accompany some conquering army. This persistence has to come from the fact that Leon Michels and company finished this record during the lockdown. It was a tough and troublesome time. But look at what has come of it: Yeti Season_a record of high and heavy drama, but also one of hope and promise. It may take a year like 2020 behind us to find hope in a winter big footed creature like a Yeti, but that's where we are.

Mit "Folklore" vertiefen 16 Horsepower ihre unverwechselbare, düster-spirituelle Interpretation amerikanischer und osteuropäischer Traditionals. Das Album verbindet eigene Kompositionen mit radikal neu gedeuteten Klassikern, die die Band in rituelle, minimalistische und zugleich kraftvoll aufgeladene Klanglandschaften überführt. Instrumente wie Banjo, Cello, Hurdy-Gurdy und Bandoneon schaffen ein archaisches Fundament, das den intensiven, eindringlichen Gesang von David Eugene Edwards trägt. "Folklore" zählt zu den atmosphärisch dichtesten und charakteristischsten Werken der Band - dunkel, entrückt und hypnotisch. Ein Album, das die Grenzen zwischen Tradition, Mythos und moderner Alternativkultur auf eindrucksvolle Weise auflöst.

Bruno Silva returns under his Ondness moniker for his most personal album yet.

Recorded as an homage, a reference map, and a temporal slippage back to a transformative period of Bruno Silva's life, I Can Only Put So Much Into a Song conjures the threshold between his shoegaze-leaning teen years and a young adulthood defined by profound sonic landmarks: Iran’s The Moon Boys (whose cover serves as a key influence), The Microphones’ It Was Hot, We Stayed In The Water, Fennesz’s Endless Summer, and the communal, tape- hiss maelstrom of the New Weird America underground—all underscored by a persistent Black Metal tension.

Taking its title from a lyric in Farrah Abraham’s masterpiece My Teenage Dream Ended, this new humble offering from Ondness drifts into the memory of song as half-remembered recollections, as if beamed from a recurring "now" of unfulfilled possibilities.

A live recording of “Las Canciones”; a visceral celebration of the persistence of popular anonymous song based on the work of legendary socialist poet Federico García Lorca, a Granada born literary pioneer. Featuring songs from his 1931 collection of mysteriously beautiful flamenco tunes. A poetically rich collection created by Foster and Herrero for their acoustic band, formed while living in the Grenadine Sierra. “Foster’s vocals, met by husband Herrero’s frantic and raw gypsy-band orchestration, demonstrates the sense of urgency in the music’s message well and carries ‘Anda Jaleo’ to an elevated state.” The Line Of Best Fit... “The alt-folk fixture returns to more traditional material.” Pitchfork.

Fresh from the critically embraced full-length LP/CD, Downward Staircase now arrives in a special remix release - answering the persistent calls from supporters of Joaquin "Joe" Claussell who have been demanding a 12" single. The wait is over.

Downward Staircase is an Afro-Jazz House composition crafted in a way only Joaquin himself can manifest. Layered with masterful percussion from a host of renowned players, the groove is both infectious and deeply rooted. The rhythm section drives with purpose, creating the perfect foundation for the stunning piano work of Joaquin's longtime production partner and favored pianist. The result is a powerful Afro-dance journey - spiritual, percussive, and built to ignite dance floors wherever it's played.

But that's not all.

Also featured on this EP is another Joaquin Joe Claussell remix titled Kwelo, featuring Afro-dance originator Mr. Jephte Guillaume. A collaboration rich in heritage and forward motion, it further expands the sonic landscape of this release.

This project has been over a year in the making - a true labor of dedication and persistence. We're incredibly excited for its release, and we know our loyal following shares that excitement. In many ways, it was your continued support that helped bring this record into existence.

Don't sleep.
.
Enjoy the Journey

The self-titled debut from French outfit PRISONER arrives as a raw, hypnotic burst of modern garage rock—less a traditional song-based album and more a mood piece built from repetition, texture, and atmosphere. Released on Wicked Cool Records, the record leans into a stripped-down philosophy: riffs first, everything else second. Unlike many garage releases, Prisoner is largely instrumental, with vocals used sparingly— often as distant, almost incidental elements rather than the focal point. This gives the album a cinematic, drifting quality. Tracks like “Je ne retiendrai que toi” and “Il nous faudrait une bonne guerre” feel less like songs and more like evolving soundscapes, driven by cyclical guitar figures, motorik rhythms, and a persistent, almost trance-like momentum. The result is hypnotic rather than explosive: music that pulls you inward instead of shouting at you

In a world currently defined by unrest, uncertainty, and cultural fracture, acclaimed saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Isaiah Collier returns with Joy, a 5-track EP that reframes one of humanity’s most nuanced emotions both as a devotional grounding and political act.

Collier’s deeply personal compositions present joy as an act that isn’t rooted in escapism or abstraction, but rather, as something hard-won rooted in lived experience, shaped by transformation, and sustained through connection. Throughout the album’s five compositions, Collier positions joy as a guiding light during challenging times, an expression of challenging yourself to utilize your gifts, an affirmation of love and discovery, and as an affirmative source of reassurance.

“We are in a paradoxical time, where so much is being revealed to us,” Collier shares. “Everything feels political from every scope… our collective hearts feel the heaviness in the air. Yet I say to you all—don’t despair. For right now, the most political thing we can do is share joy.”

That ethos is made clear in the opening title track and lead single “Joy.” A pulsing rhythmic motif anchors the melody with a sense of both searching and certainty. Collier conceived the piece around 3 years ago reflecting on a time where many people in his life were experiencing loss of family and friends and experiencing profound life transitions. “Everything just felt like it was falling apart with no aim in sight,” he reflects. “Yet, there is a light at the end of it all.”

As he played the chords with a sense of urgency, he could feel the vibration of yellow in the piece. That initial triplet motif serves as the guiding light on the piano and the only word Collier could hear was Joy. In addition to Collier at the helm singing and playing piano and tenor sax on the track, it features an expansive 11-piece ensemble with a full horn and string section allowing Collier’s propensity for composition and arrangement to shine with an eclectic sonic palette.

“Landscape of Dreams” finds Collier serendipitously leaning into utilizing his gifts as a multi-instrumentalist. While he had a sketch of the piece going into the studio, a traffic delay caused musicians to be late arriving at the studio. Never one to waste time in the studio environment, Collier stepped into new creative territory and took up the challenge of executing playing all instruments himself as an act of trust and experimentation. “I’ve never done this before, and so it was a leap of faith for me,” he asserts. “I always dream of doing stuff like this, and being part of the small percentage of people who can do it like Prince, Steve Lacy, Frank Zappa, and Stevie Wonder. The end result finds Collier immersed in a hypnotic soundscape playing layered flutes, drums, Metatron, Wurlitzer, and auxiliary percussion.

Another layer of joy is revealed in “Where I’m Loved” that serves as a love letter and leaning into the process of stepping into the willingness to explore life and love with a partner. On the intimate meditation of vulnerability and connection, Collier's vocal prowess is on full display, exerting effortless falsetto reminiscent of D’Angelo over soulful Wurlitzer and guitar as he crosses over into more R&B-inspired realms. “I believe everyone deserves this feeling or to honor the memories of it. Furthermore, I believe you should also go where you’re celebrated and not tolerated.”

“When the Dust Settles” captures the electricity of live collaboration and Collier further steps out of being confined to any specific genre. He had just gotten a microKORG keyboard from co-producer Sonny Daze and was exploring the vast array of sounds on the instrument. Collier plays synth bass on the microKORG joined by the electrifying improvisation of Cole Runge on guitar and the combustible rhythm of his brother Jeremiah Collier on drums with additional post-production work from Sonny Daze.

The album’s final track “God’s By Your Side” reflects on perseverance and artistic legacy, directly inspired from the passing of D’Angelo, whose life’s work was a huge part of Collier’s childhood growing up in the late 90s and early 00s. With gospel flavor and direct influence both from D’Angelo’s vocal and instrumental arrangements, the track speaks to resilience and persistence in the face of obstacles—an affirmation of source and reassurance. “And what’s better than having God by your side, right?” asserts Collier.

Joy is a through-and-through expression of the arc of joy in its truest form. Joy transcends fleeting happiness and is conscious gratitude shaped by taking chances, leaning into your gifts, fostering community, and lived experiences.

“Joy is partially happiness,” Collier explains. “But to me it means happily being grateful for family, friends, lovers, teachers, and good times. These are the things that anchor us.”

The release of Joy comes off the heels of significant momentum for Collier, whose work continues to garner accolades and resonate across cultural spheres. He was featured on the cover of DownBeat’s April 2025 issue, where he was named “The Next Sax Giant,” and profiled on NPR’s Jazz Night in America for his ambitious 13-movement interdisciplinary suite The Story of 400 Years, that traces 400 years of Black American History. He released two full-length albums in 2024 with The World Is on Fire highlighted in The New York Times’ Fall Arts Preview and The Almighty named among the publication’s Best Jazz Albums of the year.

Beyond performance and recoding, Collier’s influence is recognized in broader cultural and intellectual spaces as he was the recipient of the Jazz Journalists Association’s 2025 Up and Coming Artist of the Year Award, the 2024 Chicagoan of the Year in Jazz, and was named a Steve Jobs Archive Fellow joining an elite cohort of the next generation of artistic visionaries through a yearlong program.

In addition to the release of Joy, Collier is touring his “Collier Plays Coltrane” program throughout 2026 in honor of John Coltrane’s centennial. Rather than presenting Coltrane’s expansive catalog as repertory, Collier approaches this music as something living, reshaping it in real-time with a sense of space and improvisational dialog reflecting both reverence to the past and present times.

2026 Repress

With Moving Pressure 02, Rene Wise allows us to dip into a psychedelic undercurrent, yet maintaining a very grounded mentality. Its an effortlessly rolling type of minimalism, but lets be clear; its a type of minimalistic spirit backed up by a rich, kaleidoscopic sound design. MP02 is an immersive batch of mystical dance floor journeys which, in four steps, navigates the realms of gaseous sound design to more subaquatic dynamics, working with a palette of serpentine rhythms that pull us into his distinctive, subtly hypnotic world.

A1 Silo Cybin opens the release with the artists unmistakable kick drum pattern, the heartbeat of his sound. Theres a trippy, swampy energy here, enhanced by robotic vocals and broken claps that weave polyrhythms into the track. The minimalist core pulses with playful energy, while detailed textural elements softly emerge like a waves bubbling foam. Up next we have Complicated, which offers a more minimalist composition, yet injected with rich rhythmic structures. Small circular modulations swirl in the background, filling the air with a delicate yet persistent energy, while his signature vocal snippets further enhance the groove. On the B side, Rough Escorts taps into a brighter psychedelic dimension, conjuring the ethos and trademark of Moving Pressure as a whole. Listen closely a fine connection to Wises previous work on MP01 shines through, maintaining the sonic coherence of the project while pushing further into a lush space. B2 Bleep Police, dives into dystopian bleep territory. Here, the artist strips techno down to its essence, intertwining bleeps with percussion into a hyper rhythmic whole.

A living organism composed of intricately layered sonic structures. A variegated interplay of texture and rhythm. Multi dimensional sound. Welcome to Moving Pressure 02.

There’s a new sound shaking up the Upper East Side — and it’s not related to Serena this time.

It’s ‘gg’, the new track from Lolina.

We've all heard the rumors of L performing this one around the globe for months, & some of the lucky ones got the chance to catch it live... but now the wait appears to be over for the general public. There are officially plans to release the studio version of ‘gg’, and it's safe to say the track is scandalous. Meeting same time, same place to get to the bottom of it all. Confusion lingers, yet everything stays comfortably in strife. It all keeps moving.

Who is the city even for now? What’s our own involvement in the distress? That’s one secret I’ll never tell!

Why is it that L must use song to persist in this city that never sleeps? Have fables fallen so out of fashion that princesses have to do everything themselves now?

Well... according to some tips we received this doesn't seem to be the case. L has enlisted help from some very exciting sonic connoisseurs, resulting in remixes stronger than a knight in shining armor could ever provide.

So let's check out this track list, shall we?

A-Side
gg (Extended Version)
gg (NEW YORK Remix)

B-Side
gg (Arca Remix)

Sounds like the perfect soundtrack for eating a yogurt cup on the steps of the MET to me.

We seriously doubt you'll be able to ignore this release.
Run the credits, roll the dice.

xo xo
GOSSIP GIRL

Press release by Kaitlin Simotics
Mastering and additional mixing by Amir Shoat
Artwork by Lolina
Vinyl design by Termite Lounge

Originally released in 2008. Although this album invites aesthetic comparisons to works by the likes of Philip Jeck, William Basinski, and Janek Schaefer – draped as it is in an obfuscating, soupy crackle – there’s a very specific conceptual agenda at work here.

Part of the success of »Persistent Repetition of Phrases« comes from the attention it pays to the function of »the loop«, not only as a narrative ordering system in modern music, but as a means by which the brain itself recalls and interprets information; it’s as old as recorded sound itself, but in this context the repetition of small shards of auditory information becomes an elegy to fading memory and the worn-out synapses of old age. The track titles offer signposts through Kirby’s labyrinth of faulty remembrances, pointing their way towards the peculiarities dictating the manner by which the mind stores and attempts to recover information: »Lacunar Amnesia« references a condition that leaves a specific event absent from the sufferer’s memory, and Kirby’s music sounds suitably stuck on a prelude to something that never happens.

Bathed in gusts of crackle, the piece gets stuck on what might be a start of something, but we never get to hear what. Many of the pieces refer to different ways the memory might find itself caught in a holding pattern: »Von Restorff Effect«, »Rosy Retrospection«, and the title track itself are all suggestive of reliving a single event or point in time – here, both music and memory are united by the notion of »glitch«, whereby a fault or fissure causes the replaying of the same pocket of data over and over again, but what distinguishes Kirby from so many other musicians operating within the field of loops and broken recordings is the unnerving, ghostly sentimentality that courses through this process. »Long Term (remote)« is particularly explicit in its reaching back through the first half of the 20th century, exhuming snatches of music hall romance, now warped into a sinister new form by the erosions of time. It’s like watching John Carpenter’s »The Fog« only to find that instead of vengeful phantoms emerging from the mist, it’s The Glenn Miller Band. Which is infinitely more disturbing. More eerie still is the detachment from authorship endemic to this sound – at no point do you really sense the presence of a composer’s hand; this album just... is. A remarkable thing that only seems to have improved with age (which is either highly appropriate or highly inappropriate, I can’t quite decide which), »Persistent Repetition of Phrases« is an even better fit on vinyl, a medium which itself wears and fades just as the memory does.

Originally self-released in 2023, Stella Kola, the debut album from Beverly Ketch (Jow Jow, Weeping Bong Band) and Robert Thomas (Sunburned Hand of the Man, Dalthom), now returns in a renewed edition—bringing wider attention to a record that already felt like a quietly essential artifact from the moment it first appeared.

Given the pair’s respective roots—and the presence of collaborators drawn from across the Northeast experimental underground—one might expect “a brutal blast of acid swirl.” Instead, what emerges is something far more unexpected. The album is “steeped, not in noise and dissonance, but in the fragrant, captivating folk of Linda Perhacs, Judee Sill, Karen Dalton, and Bridget St John.”

From the opening moments, especially on “Rosa,” the record reveals its core sensibility: “a ballad that digs deep into the psychedelic-folk tradition until it takes root in a freshly sporous permaculture.” What follows is a set of songs that feel both carefully assembled and organically grown—delicate structures held together by a wide circle of contributing musicians, including Wednesday Knudsen (flute), P.G. Six (harp, guitars, keys), Gary War (synth), Jen Gellineau (viola, violin), Willie Lane, L. Gray, and others.

Rather than functioning as studio additions, these collaborators form a genuine collective presence. “The family affair feeds into the album’s charms,” and the feeling is unmistakably communal. Like many of the ‘60s folk records it echoes, Stella Kola carries “the feeling of community and camaraderie” at its core, shaping a warmth that runs through the entire release.

The album’s emotional palette leans toward a quiet, persistent melancholy: “the best records from that era also carried with them an inherent sadness and Stella Kola’s songs wash over the listener with a beautiful woe.” Its sound edges into the terrain of Fairport Convention and Pentangle, with references to “Beggar’s, Kings, Dark Damsels, and Tarot,” yet never settles into revivalism. Instead, Ketch and Thomas extend the tradition outward, refracting it through their own distinctly American, underground language.

As one early description of the album notes, “the masterful restraint of ‘Rosa’ and the rest of Stella Kola’s shimmering debut evokes Anne Briggs, C.O.B., Pentangle and similar ancestors that knew the best way to honor traditions was to widen the heritage even further.”

Even among a prolific and unpredictable network of underground musicians, Stella Kola stands apart. “It’s early in the year, but it’s hard to see an album, especially a debut, capturing the heart as hard as this one.” With its return in reissue form, the album reasserts itself not just as a hidden gem, but as an essential document of contemporary folk experimentation—an intimate, collective work that continues to unfold with time.

Recorded and mixed by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in Chicago, the album captures Zu at their most raw and explosive -- where avant-jazz energy collides with the weight of experimental rock. Igneo (2002) by Zu is the band's debut studio album and marks the starting point of their distinctive sonic identity. Even at this early stage, many of the elements that would define their later work are already clearly present. The album emerges from a context deeply rooted in experimentation and exploration. Compared to their subsequent releases, the sound here feels more open and less tightly structured, with a stronger emphasis on improvisation and real- time interaction between the musicians. The trio--baritone sax, electric bass, and drums--develops a language that blends free jazz, noise, post- hardcore, and touches of contemporary composition.

Listening to Igneo, you can sense a balance between raw energy and expressive freedom. The baritone sax shifts between abrasive bursts and more spacious, stretched- out passages, while the bass moves from repetitive grooves into fragmented lines. The drums, in turn, alternate between tight rhythmic frameworks and looser, more fluid playing. There's a constant negotiation between control and release. Unlike the band's later, more disciplined records, the structures here feel more fluid and unpredictable. The tracks don't follow conventional forms; instead, they evolve like living organisms, marked by sudden changes, contrasting sections, and a persistent sense of instability. This gives the album a dynamic, almost volatile character. The title Igneo-- suggesting something fiery and primal-- captures the essence of the record quite well. The music feels warm, raw, and in continuous motion, as if it were constantly on the verge of erupting.

Recorded and mixed by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in Chicago, the album captures Zu at their most raw and explosive -- where avant-jazz energy collides with the weight of experimental rock. Igneo (2002) by Zu is the band's debut studio album and marks the starting point of their distinctive sonic identity. Even at this early stage, many of the elements that would define their later work are already clearly present. The album emerges from a context deeply rooted in experimentation and exploration. Compared to their subsequent releases, the sound here feels more open and less tightly structured, with a stronger emphasis on improvisation and real- time interaction between the musicians. The trio--baritone sax, electric bass, and drums--develops a language that blends free jazz, noise, post- hardcore, and touches of contemporary composition.

Listening to Igneo, you can sense a balance between raw energy and expressive freedom. The baritone sax shifts between abrasive bursts and more spacious, stretched- out passages, while the bass moves from repetitive grooves into fragmented lines. The drums, in turn, alternate between tight rhythmic frameworks and looser, more fluid playing. There's a constant negotiation between control and release. Unlike the band's later, more disciplined records, the structures here feel more fluid and unpredictable. The tracks don't follow conventional forms; instead, they evolve like living organisms, marked by sudden changes, contrasting sections, and a persistent sense of instability. This gives the album a dynamic, almost volatile character. The title Igneo-- suggesting something fiery and primal-- captures the essence of the record quite well. The music feels warm, raw, and in continuous motion, as if it were constantly on the verge of erupting.

The fourth instalment in the Hutson Sevens 7‑inch series finds Home of the Good Groove Records taking a slight detour away from the vaults of unreleased material this time, but back to a pivotal moment in LeRoy Hutson’s creative journey.

Fear not: more unheard gems are on the horizon. But for this chapter, the label rewinds to 1994, a year that marked a meaningful renaissance for the soul legend.

After years of legal battles and persistence, Hutson finally reclaimed partial ownership of his catalogue in 1989 — a hard‑won victory that opened the door to a new era. Though celebrated as a musician, composer, lyricist and performer, the world of publishing was uncharted territory for the musical legend. By 1994, Hutson stepped confidently into that new chapter, signing his first licensing agreement with a Japanese label and publisher.

From that landmark agreement come two recordings now making their debut on 7‑inch vinyl, presented with the care and reverence they deserve.

The A‑side brings us “Lucky Fellow (’94 Mix)”, a track with a storied lineage. First recorded by Maurice Jackson in 1971, it became one of Hutson’s signature moments when he released it on his 1975 album Hutson — a version that remains a fan favourite to this day.

Nearly two decades later, Hutson returned to the studio to revisit the song once more, applying his unmistakable production finesse to craft a fresh, radiant mix. Initially released in Japan on Lucky Fellow: The Best Vol. 2 and then later resurfacing on a Deepbeats Hutson compilation album in 1997.

Now, for the first time, this ’94 version arrives on 7‑inch vinyl — a lovingly curated snapshot of Hutson’s evolution, and a reminder of just how timeless his artistry remains.

Hutson’s “Lucky Fellow” gets a striking reimagining here, trading the warmth of the original for a brighter, crisp production, lifting the melody into sharper focus. While the added vocal riffs don’t just embellish the track — they give it a fresh, expressive identity.

Think of “Lucky Fellow (94 Mix)” as the cool cousin who shows up uninvited and immediately steals the spotlight. It tightens the groove, brightens the melody, and sprinkles in a handful of sly vocal riffs that flip the familiar tune into something delightful and freshly polished.


The flip side of this release digs a little deeper into Hutson’s 1994 chapter, bringing the track “Reality” to the 7‑inch format for the very first time — a moment many collectors and soul devotees have been waiting on.

Originally recorded in 1982, the track spent twelve quiet years on the shelf before finally surfacing on a 1994 P‑Vine CD Hutson compilation. It reappeared twice again on CD throughout the following years and made its first vinyl appearance on a Deepbeats Hutson compilation in 1998.

Nearly two decades later, in 2017, French record label Saph Records reintroduced the track to a new wave of listeners as part of its Unreleased Boogie Tracks 12‑inch series, cementing somewhat of a cult status among Hutson boogie fans.

Cut during the sessions for Hutson’s Paradise era, “Reality” carries the unmistakable sheen of early‑’80s soul — a buoyant, melodic groove wrapped in Huston’s recognisable warmth.
Now freshly remastered in 2026 by UK’s Phil Ward, the track gains an added depth and clarity that enhances its rhythmic glide without losing its vintage charm.
It’s a notable moment in Hutson’s catalogue and a killer selection to finally receive the 7‑inch treatment — a long‑overdue spotlight for a track that has spent far too long in the 7-inch shadows.

On her second album, Sawt El Doumouh (The Sound of Tears), Beirut-based Sandy Chamoun summons flickers of light from sadness. Influences from the Arabic tradition of Tarab – one of the first styles Chamoun learnt to sing – and polyphonic Cantu are reinterpreted and reimagined through her voice and electronics, synths from her SANAM and Ghadr bandmate Anthony Sayhoun, and live percussion from Ali Hout.
Marked by its times, the record isn’t what Chamoun had planned. “I wrote the lyrics between October 2023 and September 2025,” she explains. “The plan was to write about nature, since the album’s concept was inspired by Cantu, a tenor Sardinian ritual that celebrates humanity’s victory over nature. I intended to visit several places and regions in Lebanon and write a track for each, but after the genocide and the war in Lebanon, everything changed.”
“I chose the title because many mornings during this period I woke up crying silently. I remember a dark story from school: a teacher yelled at a small boy while he was crying and told him to cry without making any sound. I feel we are still living in that condition in the region — forced to die or suffer without making any noise.”
Sawt El Doumouh is a gorgeous refusal to be silent. It opens with a booming drum. Over keening autotune Chamoun’s pure voice cuts through, burying the despair to illuminate rays of hope. On “Ward W Shok” a shuffling swing gives way to a righteous organ interlude. The title track sees a choir of Chamoun’s vocals lull and lap. Drums arrive and indignation stirs, what’s mournful begins to stride.
Chamoun’s tracks are as beautiful as they are defiant. Why write songs in the face of horror? Perhaps because music can hold onto something better. By turning to song, Chamoun catches the hopeful glints and sparks that persist and strive outside the terror. In SANAM and Ghadr she often borrows lyrics from Arabic writers through the centuries, listening to what their words say in the present while reminding us the world can and has been different to how it is now. Solo she writes her own words, and the way her songs alternately soar and sigh evokes hopeful pluralities and suggestions of other, kinder realities. Even hearing someone cry is a connection to humanity.
It’s a possibility conveyed in the album’s most jubilant moments. “Shahed” is an incandescent dance of percussion and levitating synths. “I wrote it after I saw a photo of a small boy on a horse on the beach in Gaza,” Chamoun recalls. “I imagined a fantasy where the boy lives in the water and watches the terrifying reality on the shore, trying to bring water to put out the fire. Shahed is the witness who lives far from the shore, enjoying the water and trying to help. You can hear this duality: the percussion is desert-like, while the vocals and synths evoke the feeling of water.”
Although it comes from darkness, in Chamoun’s music we can hear faith in something beyond it.

A defining transmission in the history of Skylax Records. Originally released across different moments of the Skylax catalogue, these recordings are now assembled as the final chapter of the Skylax House Explosion series — a project exploring the architecture, memory and survival mechanisms embedded within house music culture. The record opens with Move D’s “Outer Rim 64”, originally released in 2018 as part of the Skylax House Explosion narrative. Suspended between motion and distance, the track establishes the conceptual perimeter of this final chapter — a space where rhythm no longer functions only as propulsion, but as orientation. Here the listener stands at the outer edge of the dancefloor’s architecture, where structure persists even as its original social conditions begin to disappear. The sequence continues with Hardrock Striker’s “Motorik Life (DJ Sprinkles Dub)”, originally released in 2011. Rather than operating as a conventional remix, the Dub reinforces the motorik continuum of the original composition, transforming repetition into endurance. DJ Sprinkles preserves the infrastructural skeleton of the dancefloor — its capacity to sustain bodies through duration alone, without narrative resolution or emotional release. The record culminates with “Motorik Life (DJ Sprinkles Mountain Of Despair Remix)”, one of the most politically explicit works ever associated with Skylax Records. Through the relentless repetition of the phrase “mountain of despair,” Terre Thaemlitz dismantles the traditional function of dance music, transforming remix culture into structural critique. Referencing Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous metaphor, the remix removes the promise of redemption and leaves only the architecture of struggle. The dancefloor is no longer presented as escape, but as a temporary condition of survival. Together these recordings reveal house music’s true function: not to resolve despair, but to create temporary conditions in which bodies can continue to exist despite it.

AFTER THE DANCEFLOOR

you cannot preserve a dancefloor
by archiving its sound
because the dancefloor was never sound

it was bodies
finding temporary protection
inside systems designed to erase them

house music was never a genre
it was a survival strategy

when the lights disappeared
the structures remained
and so did we

Maybe it was inevitable that Vilhelm Bromander and Fredrik Rasten would find each other. A symbiotic musical alliance of suggestive combinatory magic that stretches back to the interstitial two day space that separates their dates of birth and manifests here as the movement between ‘perfect’ or ‘just’ intonation and the ragged, psychoactive energy of the slippages from and towards that togetherness that render otherwise simple patterns or generally understood repetitions as wildly other and alive.

Astral Twins shares ‘twin’ works by each composer. The patiently unfolding real time retuning of Fredrik Rasten’s guitars on the a-side’s Sojourns and Vilhelm Bromander’s quickened steps and spry looping melodies on the flip’s Partially Dancing.

Both artists have history of going deep into the aesthetic and acoustic impact of intonation (how you think about what is ‘in tune’). Where their first LP (...for some reason that escapes us, 2019, Differ Records) shared a gorgeous set of sustained tone colour fields, this time they lean more explicitly into the folk music traditions of Scandinavia and further afield, whilst echoing the zoned minimalist atmosphere of Arthur Russell’s classic Instrumentals.

Recorded up close and in real time at Fylkingen’s soon-to-be-abandoned temporary location in Stockholm’s southern suburb of Bredäng, Astral Twins sings with the possibility that one plus one can equal more than two.

Fredrik Rasten:
 Sojourns explores the live retuning of guitar and double bass in a sequence of just intonation harmonies. A guitar ostinato runs throughout the piece where the retuning becomes an integral part of the composition. The slow pace reveals every detail in the transition from one harmonic arpeggio to another — how interfering waves emerge and disappear as the tonal interactions settle in electric clarity. The double bass shadows the guitar's process and comments with occasional pizzicato tones and register jumps, at times providing a low foundation for the sound and sometimes soaring together with the guitar. This is music that is deeply listening; experimental and at the same time humbly inviting many kinds of being with sound.

Vilhelm Bromander: 
As the title suggests, this song has a partially dancing character. The title also has a double meaning with reference to the partials and harmonics that dance together. The basic idea was to write music in just intonation that instead of being drone-based is reminiscent of a lightly dancing folk music, where the joyous feeling of just being in the music — “musicking" — is allowed to lead the way.

The double bass plays repeated overtone double stops in an open harmonic progression with subtle modulations that is inspired in equal parts by Steve Lacy's persistent repetition of phrases as east-asian khaen music. The guitars and mandolin have a freer role, with plucked retuned strings that enhance the bass's modulations and provide forward movement. The music invites to both melodic and spectral listening, suddenly halting so that other focal points can reveal themselves. For example, a chord sequence suddenly transitions to a more spectral part where Fredrik is playing a bowed guitar with a chain, several plucking guitars, voices, and pitch pipes. I wanted to make something ‘orchestral’ with just two people and no overdubs: a dance of overtones and open resonant strings, where we seamlessly take turns standing in the foreground.

Persistence of Sound releases a new work by Brunhild Ferrari called »L’oreille Voleuse« (The Thieving Ear). The LP features an extraordinary live reinterpretation by Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O’Rourke, recorded in October 2025 in Paris.

»No, without listening at doors, the ear captures noises here and there and unexpected sounds without choice, but remains attentive to the messages of each one picked up over the years. It gathers surprises and impressions, bringing them together in a simple mix. In waking up these ear memories again, which were mostly recorded on magnetic tapes, I am very happy about the collaboration of Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O'Rourke in playing on this mix tape.« Brunhild Ferrari

Eiko Ishibashi is a Japanese composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist who has developed a unique body of work blending experimental pop, improvisation, and film music. Her work, praised for its expressive intensity and sensitivity to sonic textures, has led her to collaborate with numerous musicians on the international scene, including Jim O'Rourke, with whom she forms a long-standing duo. She is also the composer of several film scores, notably for the films of Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car, Evil Does Not Exist), which have helped to bring her work to a wider audience beyond experimental music circles.

Jim O'Rourke is an American composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, and has been a major figure in experimental and independent music since the 1990s. His work spans rock, improvised music, electronic music, and contemporary music. A former member of Sonic Youth and a collaborator with Wilco, Gastr del Sol, and Merce Cunningham, he has released numerous solo albums and film scores. Based in Japan since the early 2000s, he continues to pursue a rich and multifaceted musical practice, where formal rigor and freedom of invention coexist.

Persistence of Sound was founded in 2019 by Iain Chambers (Langham Research Centre, Rubbish Music). The label explores the world of electroacoustic music, contemporary global field recordings, and the unclassifiable music spanning these genres.

The aptly named "Momentum" is the label's first EP from Decoder, who recently released an album to wide acclaim on Planet X. Spread across 6 tracks, the EP is drenched in psychedelia as it effortlessly moves through different moods and aesthetics to take dancers through the night.

"Flowing" begins the EP with stripped-back percussion and moody atmospherics, transporting the listener into a trance. "Photon" takes a nostalgic trip back to the 90s, featuring a 909 workout that's heavily processed with intensifying effects.

"Strawbs" presents what might be the most captivating track of the EP, characterized by its rolling, hands-in-the-air vibe that persists throughout the song. To conclude the vinyl, "Dyslexic" is intricate and enigmatic in all thedelightful ways. Mallets intermittently appear and disappear as the 909 maintains a steady rhythm. "Dyslexics untie!"

Sélection naturelle is the fourth studio album by the French rapper Nessbeal, released on CD in the fall of 2011. A self-professed fan of National Geographic, he named the record "Natural Selection" after developing a fascination for the evolutionary idea that only the strongest survive.

This ferocious attitude to life is present throughout the whole record, with Nessbeal presenting us with 14 serious tunes about persisting in the urban jungle such as "Je Suis Un Salaud", "Force Et Honneur", and "Là Où Les Vents Nous Mènent".

Sélection naturelle is available as a 15th anniversary edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on silver vinyl, and includes a 12-page booklet.

There’s a song on There’s A Whole World Out There, the second album by Canadian four-piece Arm’s Length, called “Palinopsia”. Derived from the Greek for “again” (palin) and “seeing” (opsia), it’s a visual phenomenon marked by the persistent image of something that’s no longer actually there. Singer and lyricist Allen Steinberg wrote the song wrote about “pure devotion or love towards someone that may no longer be a part of your life”, but it also applies to the record as a whole.

Because throughout this album’s 12 songs, Steinberg wrestles a with the part of life that’s been and gone. Yet there’s a noticeable difference between the person who wrote this record compared to the one who wrote Arm’s Length’s 2022 debut, Never Before Seen, Never Again Found. “This record speaks more to my life at the moment than the past,” he explains, “even though there’s still a good amount of past on it. But it’s how I’m dealing with it now, as opposed to being enveloped in it—there’s more a sense of being on the other side of it, of seeing it with hindsight. The tone has shifted a little. I’m probably just a bit more mature, as my frontal lobe is developing as we speak.” Produced by Anton DeLost—who worked with the band on Never Before Seen, Never Again Found and 2021’s EP, Everything Nice—There’s A Whole World Out There does indeed expand Arm’s Length’s horizons in accordance with Steinberg’s developing frontal lobe, presenting him as more self-reflective contemplative than he was before. He wrote the parts for all the instruments, as well as the vast majority of the lyrics, alone in his room, and then brought those initial sketches, recorded as voice memos, to drummer Jeff Whyte, who added percussion to Steinberg’s song skeletons. While the majority of the creative process was in Steinberg’s hands, it was only when these songs were recorded as a full band with Jeremy Whyte, who played bass on the record, and Ben Greenblatt that their full potential was realized. The result is that the feelings driving these songs burst and bloom with full force, building on the incredible foundations set by the band’s previous recorded output.

Lone Ark and The 18th Parallel join forces again! After the critically acclaimed debut ‘Showcase Vol. 1’ (2021), the two spearheads of the European roots reggae scene return with a powerful statement: ‘Man Kill Man’, the first single from the upcoming album ‘Showcase Vol. 2’.

Recorded on 2” tape between Geneva, Switzerland and Cueto, Spain, this new project is another masterpiece of production. It dives deep into the roots sound and playing of the mid 70s reggae with heavyweight drums and bass, razor-sharp rhythm section, and sophisticated flute and vocals arrangements.

Roberto Sánchez, the voice behind Lone Ark, sings about ongoing wars in the world justified by religious beliefs. In today’s climate, where such conflicts persist across the globe, speaking out about this issue is both crucial and deeply relevant. ‘Peace Version’ on the flip is a dub full of message mixed by the man himself, Lone Ark.

Mit "Folklore" vertiefen 16 Horsepower ihre unverwechselbare, düster-spirituelle Interpretation amerikanischer und osteuropäischer Traditionals. Das Album verbindet eigene Songs mit radikal neu gedeuteten Klassikern, die die Band in rituelle, minimalistische und zugleich kraftvoll aufgeladene Klanglandschaften verwandelt. Banjo, Cello, Hurdy-Gurdy und Bandoneon bilden ein archaisches Fundament, das David Eugene Edwards" intensiven Gesang eindrucksvoll trägt. Die Oxblood Vinyl Edition bringt diesen Meilenstein in besonderer Form zurück - passend zur Reunion-Tour 2026, bei der die Band erstmals seit zwei Jahrzehnten in ihrer Originalbesetzung auf europäischen Bühnen steht. Folklore bleibt eines der charakteristischsten und atmosphärisch dichtesten Werke der Band: dunkel, entrückt, hypnotisch - ein Album, das die Grenzen zwischen Tradition, Mythos und moderner Alternativkultur auflöst.

Fresh from the critically embraced full-length LP/CD, Downward Staircase now arrives in a special remix release - answering the persistent calls from supporters of Joaquin "Joe" Claussell who have been demanding a 12" single. The wait is over.

Downward Staircase is an Afro-Jazz House composition crafted in a way only Joaquin himself can manifest. Layered with masterful percussion from a host of renowned players, the groove is both infectious and deeply rooted. The rhythm section drives with purpose, creating the perfect foundation for the stunning piano work of Joaquin's longtime production partner and favored pianist. The result is a powerful Afro-dance journey - spiritual, percussive, and built to ignite dance floors wherever it's played.

But that's not all.

Also featured on this EP is another Joaquin Joe Claussell remix titled Kwelo, featuring Afro-dance originator Mr. Jephte Guillaume. A collaboration rich in heritage and forward motion, it further expands the sonic landscape of this release.

This project has been over a year in the making - a true labor of dedication and persistence. We're incredibly excited for its release, and we know our loyal following shares that excitement. In many ways, it was your continued support that helped bring this record into existence.

Don't sleep.
.
Enjoy the Journey

Repress

The Collaboration - Having toured together over the years, Lattimore and Barwick now join forces to co-write and record this full-length album. Their creative synergy brings together harp, voice, and analog synths in a deeply emotional, immersive sound journey. The album was recorded at the Philharmonie de Paris with co-producer Trevor Spencer (Fleet Foxes, Beach House). This album continues a unique series of collaborations between the label and the Musée de la Musique, featuring historical instruments in contemporary composition. Since 2017, InFiné and the Philharmonie de Paris have co-developed a series of albums designed to highlight the extraordinary instrument collection of the Musée de la Musique. Following the albums InBach by Arandel (2020) and Saturn 63 by Seb Martel (2022), this third release is a meeting of two iconic contemporary ambient voices: Mary Lattimore and Julianna Barwick. The project offers the artists full access to the museum’s playable instruments for recording, sound conservation, and creative reinterpretation.



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Tragic Magic brings together Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore, two of contemporary ambient, experimental and electronic music’s most celebrated composers, for a unique collaboration at the Philharmonie de Paris, with extraordinary access to the Musée de la Musique’s instrument collection, in partnership with the French label InFiné. The album features seven immersive, evocative compositions guided by the human spirit – intimate, grounded in friendship, both earthly and cosmic – and part of a greater continuum, reflecting the solace and transformative power of artistry across generations.

Co-produced by Trevor Spencer (Fleet Foxes, Beach House), Tragic Magic was created in just nine days, a testament to the “musical telepathy” that has developed between Barwick and Lattimore over years of touring and friendship. Arriving in Paris from Los Angeles shortly after the 2025 wildfires, their sessions combined improvisation with the emotions and experiences they carried, in a setting both inspiring and deeply supportive. Lattimore selected harps tracing the instrument’s evolution from 1728 to 1873, while Barwick chose several iconic analog synthesizers, including the Roland JUPITER and Sequential Circuits PROPHET-5. In freeform dialogue between voice and instrument, they create a meditation on tragedy, wonder, and the restorative power of shared experience.

The duo, often joined by Spencer, also explored the city, sharing meals and visiting museums and landmarks, each encounter leaving an impression on their next session. The experience allowed them to work intimately with rare instruments, blending their personal sensibilities with centuries of history, resulting in music that honors the past while remaining a deeply authentic expression of the present.
Throughout Tragic Magic, Barwick and Lattimore find something beyond themselves: a sense that while everything may not be okay, beauty persists. Their approach – transforming life into music, observing, feeling, and creating – continues a lineage of creative expression and visionary invention, embodied in the very instruments they employed for this project.

Following his ‘You Are the Music’ EP for Euphoric State, and the reissue of the underground classic ‘Voices’ by Jewellery, David Inglesfield returns with a second EP by PersistentRain – and the first release on his own label, Precipitation.

‘All Time Is One’ is a meditation on the passing – yet continuity – of time, whether across multiple decades, or just in the transition from one day to another.

Opening track ‘Farewell’ brings disparate voices and sounds from the past back to life in an intense, transcendent journey, all driven by a pulsating bassline.

‘The Night Is Done’ features a solid beat and lush array of synths, with the vocal by Bristolian Christine Hulbert the icing on the cake.

On ‘This Place (Displace)’, Inglesfield, a Londoner from birth, but recently moved to South Wales, turns to consider a corner of his beloved native city, where a once-legendary musical theatre was swept away, to become a makeshift car park in the 1960s, then the site of a brutalist block in the 1970s, now torn down yet again. ‘The first place we’re going to stop at … seems to be NOWHERE!’

‘I Remember’ closes the EP, with fragments of Fender Rhodes and strings fluttering like memories over a moody, minimal sub-bass and insistent kick.

Caterina Barbieri & Bendik Giske's At Source resounds music as wellspring, that which is essential and unknowable, and yet utterly primary. It finds two acclaimed composer-musicians building a world together in self-contained collaboration between analogue synthesis and an extended approach to the saxophone that conjures its own universe of sound. It is at once intimate and cosmic, drawing on the challenges and possibilities of their artistic exchange, tearing down technique to access all the expansive possibilities of their sonic meeting point.



At Source is a document of the world of sound to be conjured when two artists strive for something together, discovering the expansions and limitations of performance by bodies and machines. It is not an exercise in assimilation, but in productive exchange and creative confrontation. It does not draw on outside energies or influences, but grapples with what there is to find in their respective playing. "It also reflects how natural the collaboration was," says Barbieri, "a meeting at the source which was spontaneous, graceful and natural".



Barbieri and Giske first met and were enthralled by one another's performances at Kunsthaus Glarus in 2019, a meeting that spurred conversations on the power of transitions as a compositional force. Giske later contributed a rework of Fantas for Fantas Variations (Editions Mego, 2021), an ambitious undertaking to rescore Barbieri’s work for his saxophone and voice, a challenge Giske had started undertaking two years prior as an ongoing practice of transcription. “The request came as a proof of aligned ideas”, says Giske.



Their new collaborative project then started during an artistic residency in Milan’s ICA in 2021, by invitation of swiss artist and curator Jan Vorisek, as the world was emerging from lockdown. This meeting, and the preceding closure of sites for cultural exchange, made their work together 'feel like springtime' says Barbieri. Giske, who was on the brink of releasing his sophomore album, Cracks, then joined Barbieri's light-years tour, which functioned as an inaugural incarnation of her newborn label and platform through a series of multi-artist curated shows with appearances of Lyra Pramuk, Nkisi, MFO, among other artists.



Through the tour, they continued to develop material live, and this release, laid down in the studio, is true to that ever-evolving process of creation, where live feedback stays essential to the vitality of this collaborative effort. The tracks are each named with two evocative words that contain the two poles of their sound. Theirs is both abstract and cosmic, in the synth as machine undermined by Barbieri's naturalistic playing, and in Giske's continuous exploration of the symbiosis between his instrument, voice, and body. These binaries, of body and machine, posed various challenges, notably in how the stepped patterns Barbieri uses were near-impossible to translate for Giske's body to perform, and other times where mathematical resolutions were needed to sync their playing. Explains Giske: "It forced me to go to the core of what I am and what I have to offer”. Barbieri says that it "explores the liminality between the machine and the human, and the vulnerability in this process".



At Source is testament to two divergent practices finding a whole cosmos in which to convene; music is crystalised and made utterly enveloping through the focused and critical work of two musicians working at their peak. The versions here are, temptingly, "just one of many versions" of this abundant source material Giske explains. Like the best collaborations, At Source is more than the sum of its parts – bringing more to the feast than the simple combination of two musicians, promising versions upon versions of the exquisite material captured here.

In a most original impetus this album traverses forty years of Italian new wave and singer-songwriter tradition. As in the desert where Infesta’s urge is to walk, we are ambushed by the most intense thermal and sonic difference.

It is from here that this important journey we mustn’t miss begins. It leads us eight thousand meters deep in the blue abyss. Not quite enough to come out the other side and, as a kite, bestow all the heights that I will reach. These depths are nevertheless necessary to adjust our eyes to the darkness that lives within us, as a machine to burst our hearts to which we can’t and won't be accomplices.

Machine against machine. The increasing pressure of the lashes of an incessant current, at times sweet and at times sour, on which all the courage is sung and yet is everywhere dispersed like thoughts on water and melodies to be lost at sea. Darkness persists: you said the world can be lived where all was taken. And it’s a crazy and estranging babbling that, stripped by a current, answers: never never never never, in no direction.

My companions, come back, the breaking point has been found, we sing together. Leaf after leaf the time has come: it is possible to destroy the Machine in a mad blinding light.

HYPER GAL are restless. Since 2019, Kansai’s minimalist duo has been in persistent, perpetual motion.

In January of 2024, SKiN GRAFT Records introduced HYPER GAL to western audiences, giving the previously self-released album “Pure” a worldwide release. It was followed by “After Image”; a new full-length record; in September of that same year. In short order HYPER GAL left Japan to embark on a month-long European tour, performing at festivals such as Left of the Dial in Rotterdam and Le Guess Who? in Utrecht.

Consisting of Koharu Ishida (vocals) and Kurumi Kadoya (drums), HYPER GAL craft a sound all their own, characterized by avant-garde rhythms, looping landscapes, and hypnotic vocals. Their music resists traditional genre boundaries to carve out a truly singular sonic space.

With their fourth album “Our Hyper”, HYPER GAL thrust their sound into a deeper, harder core. Songs unfold into surprising shapes, embracing shadowy turns emboldened by a heavier low-end, while unearthing sharp takes on Japan’s harsh noise roots. The drums have grown even more acrobatic and unorthodox, while the vocals take on new colors, shifting from mesmerizing repetition to melodic, pop-tinged expression.

The album’s artwork is no less adventurous and features masks created by contemporary artist Tokiyoshi Akina and photographed in the band’s own hands, signaling resistance to the performative dualities of social media and a commitment to authenticity.
Despite the lean, unadorned two-piece setup, HYPER GAL’s music attains an intense and unmistakable presence - an unwavering momentum driven by an unrelenting intent. “Our Hyper” is HYPER GAL amplified.

"With each release they appear as mirage sculptors, using simple tools (drums, keyboards, vocals) in craft of multi-genre spanning work which only becomes more captivating the simpler their execution becomes...”
– MYSTIFICATION

Pleasure, shame, and survival often arrive tangled together, indistinguishable in the moment. Camgirl, from Crippling Alcoholism, takes that entanglement as its starting point. Rather than separating desire from damage, the record allows them to coexist, tracing a path through obsession, performance, and persistence without offering clean resolution.
Camgirl is the 2025 breakthrough album from Boston’s Crippling Alcoholism, a record that frames pop immediacy against obsession, endurance, and collapse. Built from ear-wormy hooks and abrasive noise rock textures, the album smuggles grotesque and confrontational subject matter into songs that remain deliberately melodic. Pleasure and revulsion blend throughout, with choruses that linger even as the lyrics refuse comfort.

Released on September 12, 2025, Camgirl follows a loose narrative centered on a sex worker moving through cycles of exploitation and survival, treating intimacy as spectacle and visibility as threat. Songs flicker between desire and despair, confession and performance, flooded with artificial light. Despite its subject matter, the record resists nihilism. Its closing moments arrive quietly triumphant, not through escape or redemption, but through persistence itself.
Originally released on vinyl by Portrayal of Guilt Records, the first pressing of Camgirl sold out quickly. The Flenser reissue makes the album widely available for the first time, reaffirming it as a defining statement from a band operating at the intersection of pop form, noise, and lived experience.
Press Quotes

Camgirl proves that Crippling Alcoholism can evolve without losing their edge, and this record is a dark, irresistible bop. - Lambgoat
Elements of goth rock and melancholic vocals call back to loud rock while blending with an overall instrumental field brimming with energy. - Outside noise
Blurring the lines between outsider noise rock and dark glamorous synth-laden pop under a deceptively alluring glow… compulsively, squirmingly catchy. - The Progressive

Pleasure, shame, and survival often arrive tangled together, indistinguishable in the moment. Camgirl, from Crippling Alcoholism, takes that entanglement as its starting point. Rather than separating desire from damage, the record allows them to coexist, tracing a path through obsession, performance, and persistence without offering clean resolution.
Camgirl is the 2025 breakthrough album from Boston’s Crippling Alcoholism, a record that frames pop immediacy against obsession, endurance, and collapse. Built from ear-wormy hooks and abrasive noise rock textures, the album smuggles grotesque and confrontational subject matter into songs that remain deliberately melodic. Pleasure and revulsion blend throughout, with choruses that linger even as the lyrics refuse comfort.

Released on September 12, 2025, Camgirl follows a loose narrative centered on a sex worker moving through cycles of exploitation and survival, treating intimacy as spectacle and visibility as threat. Songs flicker between desire and despair, confession and performance, flooded with artificial light. Despite its subject matter, the record resists nihilism. Its closing moments arrive quietly triumphant, not through escape or redemption, but through persistence itself.
Originally released on vinyl by Portrayal of Guilt Records, the first pressing of Camgirl sold out quickly. The Flenser reissue makes the album widely available for the first time, reaffirming it as a defining statement from a band operating at the intersection of pop form, noise, and lived experience.
Press Quotes

Camgirl proves that Crippling Alcoholism can evolve without losing their edge, and this record is a dark, irresistible bop. - Lambgoat
Elements of goth rock and melancholic vocals call back to loud rock while blending with an overall instrumental field brimming with energy. - Outside noise
Blurring the lines between outsider noise rock and dark glamorous synth-laden pop under a deceptively alluring glow… compulsively, squirmingly catchy. - The Progressive

Pleasure, shame, and survival often arrive tangled together, indistinguishable in the moment. Camgirl, from Crippling Alcoholism, takes that entanglement as its starting point. Rather than separating desire from damage, the record allows them to coexist, tracing a path through obsession, performance, and persistence without offering clean resolution.
Camgirl is the 2025 breakthrough album from Boston’s Crippling Alcoholism, a record that frames pop immediacy against obsession, endurance, and collapse. Built from ear-wormy hooks and abrasive noise rock textures, the album smuggles grotesque and confrontational subject matter into songs that remain deliberately melodic. Pleasure and revulsion blend throughout, with choruses that linger even as the lyrics refuse comfort.

Released on September 12, 2025, Camgirl follows a loose narrative centered on a sex worker moving through cycles of exploitation and survival, treating intimacy as spectacle and visibility as threat. Songs flicker between desire and despair, confession and performance, flooded with artificial light. Despite its subject matter, the record resists nihilism. Its closing moments arrive quietly triumphant, not through escape or redemption, but through persistence itself.
Originally released on vinyl by Portrayal of Guilt Records, the first pressing of Camgirl sold out quickly. The Flenser reissue makes the album widely available for the first time, reaffirming it as a defining statement from a band operating at the intersection of pop form, noise, and lived experience.
Press Quotes

Camgirl proves that Crippling Alcoholism can evolve without losing their edge, and this record is a dark, irresistible bop. - Lambgoat
Elements of goth rock and melancholic vocals call back to loud rock while blending with an overall instrumental field brimming with energy. - Outside noise
Blurring the lines between outsider noise rock and dark glamorous synth-laden pop under a deceptively alluring glow… compulsively, squirmingly catchy. - The Progressive

Joshua Abrams" piece for two violas, harmonium and electronics - written in dialogue with Lisa Alvarado"s 2023 REDCAT exhibition - sonically considers her matrix of geographic, geologic and personal histories. On its own, the LP ensures that the exhibit"s expansive ambiance persists, via Alvarado"s graphics and the music"s mesmerizing stream of subtle sonics and polarities, spiraling in and out of change and recurrence on multiple planes.

Great Day is one of the very best albums on the Music De Wolfe label and certainly one of the most sought after library records, full stop. It's been sampled by such heavyweights as Madlib, LTJ Bukem, El-P and The Alchemist (among many others). You likely already know all this. If you don't, get to know. One listen through and the £350 asking price for a VG copy starts to all make sense...

Originally released in 1972, it's credited to Music De Wolfe legends Simon Haseley (real name Simon Park) and "Peter Reno" (a collaborative alias used by composers Clifford "Cliff" Twemlow and Peter Taylor) Confused? No matter. It's one of the most consistent libraries you'll ever hear, packed with heavy blaxploitation-esque drama-funk break themes.

It opens with the feel-good, breezy piano beat number "Little Big John" before switching up to modern sweeping orchestral with heavy drums on the warm, deeply emotive "Summer Friend". Total highlight "Hammerhead" is as heavy as you'd want, from a track so-titled. It's a driving, imposing, orchestral funk-rock monster, famously used by The High & Mighty for their classic "Dirty Decibels" and, also, it was used as the backing for Beyonce's ace "Woman Like Me".

Up next, "Crimson" is melodic, plaintive and moodily introspective; a soft, oboe-enhanced instrumental of delicate beauty. Again, ace beats and breaks abound. The expansive title track, "Great Day" is melodic and bold; a horn-fuelled, mid-tempo rhythmic workout which builds to rather big end. Rounding out this first side, "Hard Crust" ups the ante with thrilling wah-wah funk-rock, a dramatic, pounding and aggressive thriller. Killer!

Side B opens with the steady, stealthy crime-funk of "Highball" before segueing brilliantly into the Hammond-laced relentless flute-funk of the driving "Bora". The powerful wah-wah wonderful "Hold Back" is haunting orchestral funk-rock, sampled by Madlib, El-P, Rakim, Sean Price and The Alchemist. It's easy to see why. Swaggering and staggering.

The cop show funk of "Silver Thrust" is fast, purposeful and persistent. Is it a cover version of the godlike "Stepping Stones" from Johnny Harris's Movements album? Either way, with up-tempo drums, bongos and flute you're going to be thrusting all night. The dynamic "Convoy" is a brassy, organ-fuelled sports-soundtrack b-boy breaks monster. Super Bowl Soul! Essential. To close out this quite extraordinary set, the insistent "Barracuda" presents dramatic rock feels over a persistent funky flute beat. It was sampled by LTJ Bukem for his classic "Sunrain" from 2000.

The audio for Great Day has been meticulously remastered by Be With regular Simon Francis, ensuring this release sounds better than ever. Cicely Balston's expert skills have made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the records have been pressed to the highest possible standard at Record Industry in Holland. The original, iconic sleeve has been restored here at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to this long overdue re-issue.

A chance meeting in Mexico City set Points of Inaccessibility into motion. When Ibero-American composer Rafael Anton Irisarri crossed paths with Dutch media artist Jaco Schilp at MUTEK in 2024, a conversation about how technology shapes perception revealed an unexpected common ground. Schilp invited Irisarri to a spring 2025 residency at Uncloud, the Utrecht-based collective he co-founded, where Irisarri's sound began to take form amid an environment shaped by Schilp’s visual research.

The Uncloud studio was located inside the former Pieter Baan Centre, a forensic psychiatric prison where suspects of violent crimes were once confined. Its long history of silence and containment shaped the atmosphere in which the project developed. Within this setting, Irisarri coaxed long bowed-guitar tones through a network of pedals and looping systems. The raw gestures thickened into a vaporous and architectural field of sound. Schilp processed the material through a custom point-cloud software patch that produced images in continuous flux. The visuals flickered, dissolved and reformed like memories that resist coherence, functioning as a digital Rorschach that reflected the observer’s own perception.

Amid these spectral echoes, the project evolved into an examination of how the past persists within present signals. Memory endures as residue and interference, continually shaping perception even when its source has faded.

Schilp’s visual process required a continuous stream of sound in real time. Irisarri improvised throughout the residency, generating material that allowed the visuals to develop in parallel. Once back in his New York studio, he began shaping the recordings by carving pathways through the improvisations and mapping selected passages into MIDI. This process allowed him to build outward from the bowed-guitar material with minimal overdubs, adding Prophet 5 textures, Moog bass and strings that expanded the harmonic field while keeping the original performances at the center. To refine the structure, Abul Mogard provided editorial input, working with Irisarri’s stems to guide transitions and strengthen the overall pacing. The material, originally created under conditions of immediacy and constraint, evolved into a fully realized work through careful revision, patience and sustained reworking.

The title engages the geographic concept of the Poles of Inaccessibility, locations defined solely by their distance from all surrounding points. Irisarri adapts this idea to the conditions of digital life, where new forms of inaccessibility arise through the informational enclosures that structure perception. What appears to be a fully connected network often produces a deeper kind of separation, one shaped by the filtering logic of the systems that mediate experience. In this sense, the digital sphere mirrors its geographic counterpart. We inhabit spaces saturated with signals, yet the possibility of genuine contact becomes increasingly remote.

At its core, Points of Inaccessibility considers what can be understood as the new rituals of capitalist realism. Irisarri uses the term digital shamanism to describe the forms of simulated connection that organize contemporary life. These systems promise comfort through algorithms, influencers and AI interlocutors, yet they often reproduce the same conditions that generate loneliness in the first place. What appears as connection becomes the echo of connection, a sequence of gestures that imitate solidarity while withholding it. Like the geographic poles, these rituals are defined by distance. They pull us into environments where everything is illuminated, yet meaningful proximity becomes increasingly rare. In this sense, the work approaches a hauntology of the present, a reflection on futures that have stalled and intimacies that have been thinned by the algorithmic infrastructures that surround us.

This thematic tension unfolds across the album’s four movements. Faded Ghosts of Clouds introduces the work with textures that rise and dissipate in slow cycles, creating an atmosphere that resists clear definition. Breaking the Unison occupies a pivotal position in the sequence and focuses on the moment when the individual and the system fall out of alignment. Its shifting patterns trace the scattering of signals that once suggested connection, revealing the instability at the heart of contemporary perception. Signals from a Distant Afterglow forms the center of the album and features vocals by Karen Vogt, whose presence enters the sound field like a fragile transmission shaped by distance and delay. The closing piece, Memory Strands, follows motifs that appear, recede and briefly intersect before returning to quiet. Across these movements, the album outlines a landscape in which emergence and disappearance continually inform one another.

Listening to Points of Inaccessibility is an encounter with a sound field that is constantly in flux. Elements surface briefly, shift position and recede, creating a sense of motion that resists stable interpretation. The music moves between closeness and vastness, carrying traces of memory while withholding a clear point of resolution.

The album’s visual identity completes the project’s conceptual arc. In Mexico City, where Irisarri and Schilp first met, Daniel Castrejón transformed stills from Schilp’s point-cloud visuals into the cover image. The final artwork captures a single suspended frame of the digital material, a moment extracted from a field that is normally in constant motion. Its surface recalls the texture and abstraction found in the work of Catalan artist Antoni Tàpies, where material presence and erasure coexist within the same plane.

What emerges is a work that examines the tension between technological systems and human presence. Points of Inaccessibility asks whether connection is still possible within environments shaped by mediation and delay, or whether we have become isolated points within the very networks that promise proximity. What possibilities for relation persist within environments organized by algorithms and interruption? And how are we meant to understand presence when so much of it is constructed at a distance?

Points of Inaccessibility will be released on BioVinyl on February 6, 2026, with audiovisual performances planned throughout 2026.

Mastered by Stephan Mathieu
Artwork by Jaco Schilp
Design and layout by Daniel Castrejón
Artist photo by Iulia Alexandra Magheru.

Stoop Kid is the jangly indie rock project of Diest-born Jens Rubens. After Camp Careful (2021) and Mount Cope (2023), Stoop Kid returns with his third full-length album Office Overdue, a ten-song collection that captures the quiet fatigue, flickering humor, and
fragile hope of keeping it together in a world that won't slow down.

'Office Overdue' is a collection of songs Jens made at home in his modest home studio. For this album, he wanted to let go of pressure and expectations more than ever, and only work on music when he genuinely felt like it.No fancy studio, no producer, just walking upstairs and messing around. The result doesn't always sound perfectly polished: the drums are sometimes clumsily programmed and more than a few wrong notes made it onto the record. The guitars were allowed to hit a bit harder this time, with the '90s slacker vibes coming through more prominently. The result is a record that feels raw and honest, and above all, was made purely out of enthusiasm.

Office Overdue explores the attempt to keep functioning in everyday life while the world around us feels on the verge of collapse. The songs move between mental exhaustion and self-reflection, carried by a dry, sometimes bitter humour that helps lighten the weight. The album focuses on repetition and routine, and on the tension between wanting to care for others and being trapped inside one's own head. Themes of anxiety, guilt and dissociation recur throughout, but are always accompanied by small moments of connection, gentle resistance and acceptance. Office Overdue embraces the mess, the doubt and the false notes, without drawing grand conclusions. Not everything is resolved, but the persistence remains.

The Helsinki-based Bowman Trio return with their second LP on We Jazz Records on October 18. "Persistence" is a strong effort, showcasing the young trio's knack at creating dynamic, sparse and memorable music which carries well the term "loft jazz" occasionally attached to it. Here, drummer Sami Nummela, trumpeter Tomi Nikku and bassist Joonas Tuuri present 9 strong originals, 8 of which are penned by Nummela and one by Nikku.

On the course of the new album, Bowman Trio moves from the introspective, calm moments of "Badwater", "Mac Elliot" and "Mä en jaksa" to the full swing of "The Chase" and the solid grind of "Persistence". The album closing track "Sista sommardagen" ("The last day of summer" in Swedish) is a hauntingly beautiful, delicately breezy ballad. Two years in the making, the album is a testament to the album title and a fine example of a band taking time in developing their sound to perfection.

Bowman Trio debuted in 2016 with the group's first LP also being the first release on Helsinki's We Jazz Records, and since then their reputation has grown in Finland and beyond. The trio is known for making music which invites the listener in and takes it sweet time in unraveling its secrets. Their sound is somewhat dry, naturally relaxed and there's a lot of room for manoeuvre within it for all of the players. That being said, each of the musicians in the trio know how to play for their team, and the compositions move forward constantly and effortlessly. Bowman Trio makes music which always feels close to you, like you're right there in the room with the band. That's "loft jazz".

Ivan The Tolerable returns with Chromophobia, an expansive new double album and his fourth for Riot Season after ‘Water Music’ & ‘Vertigo’ (both 2024) and ‘An Orphan Form’ (2025)
Chromophobia carries with it a deep personal history. The earliest recording sessions date back to 2018 at the IDI in Middlesbrough, engineered by longtime collaborator Nigel Crooks over the course of three weekends. The material was left unfinished for years, shelved for reasons that accumulated and compounded - until the tragic passing of Crooks in 2023. His unfinished work lingered, and the desire to complete it became a mission.
“In the end, I finished this record for Nigel, above all else,” says Oli Heffernan (Ivan The Tolerable). “It always annoyed him that it never got done.”

To bring the album to completion, the original stems were passed to producer Hugh Major (formerly of Benefits) in early 2024. Across a year of meticulous experimentation - countless versions, radical reconstructions, entire songs torn down and rebuilt - the album transformed into something wholly new. The final collection spans 14 tracks, reimagined from the ground up yet still anchored to the spirit of the sessions that began it.
“It’s a very different beast from where it started,” Heffernan adds, “but I think Nigel would really like it - and be glad it was finally finished.”
Chromophobia stands as both a reinvention and a tribute: a document of persistence, creative overhaul, and the enduring impact of a lost collaborator.

Two years after their debut on Berlin-based Mannequin Records, Parisian duo Leroy Se Meurt returns with their second full-length album, Hier Pour Toujours. Far from any sense of nostalgia, this record offers no illusion of hope—history repeats itself, the future looks bleak, and their brand of electronic punk is the perfect soundtrack to it all.Drum machines dictate the pace while synths saturate the space, looping sequences grind relentlessly, and vocals lead this machine orchestra straight into the heart of the chaos. Drawing from their roots, Leroy Se Meurt pushes their fierce electronics further than ever—experimenting with bold slogans, spoken passages, and powerful sing-along choruses.The album opens with Pas Ma Croix, a commanding anthem built for the stage. It flows into Du Plafond à La Terre, driven by a monstrous electro beat and bassline, flirting with emotional vulnerability in its chorus before exploding into a synth solo. Alevlere Karşı once again taps into the duo’s EBM-meets-Turkish vocals signature style, hitting the mark with dancefloor precision.The title track, Hier Pour Toujours, closes side A with a more intimate, drumless moment—solemn but no less intense.That brief calm is shattered by Déviance, marking the return of guitars and an eruptive chorus brimming with raw energy. From there, the album launches into the furious Révolte Ardente, with its syncopated rhythm and vocals drenched in distortion, and continues with Pro Déclin, a stripped-down rhythmic skeleton carrying anti-growth mantras straight to the point. In a world clouded by confusion, the most direct messages often land the hardest.For a change of scenery, Fütürsüz dives into John Carpenter-esque territory—no drums, eerie night-streaked synths, and, for the first time in the band’s history, nearly clean vocals.Closing the record, Encore crawls at a BPM so slow it’s nearly in reverse. But what it lacks in speed, it makes up for in weight—a crushing incantation capable of toppling sound systems.With Hier Pour Toujours, Leroy Se Meurt isn’t offering optimism, but rather persistence. Nothing is settled yet—and perhaps, just perhaps—there’s still light at the end of the tunnel.