quête:plan b recording

For fans of Duster, LSD and The Search for God, The Microphones. Double LP (NO BOOKS!) First official physical copy of fan-made compilation of alternate tracks and demos from cult phenomenon album Deathconsciousness. Freshly remastered. With the broader adoption of the internet around the turn of the century, how people would engage with and discover underground music would change forever. As a result of the new digital era, DIY was now worldwide, and no band embraced this new frontier better than Have A Nice Life. Formed in 2000 by duo Dan Barrett and Tim Macuga, the Middletown, CT-based pair would, throughout the 00s, self-release and share a number of demos and home recordings via early social media channels as well as establish its in-house label ENEMIES LIST HOME RECORDINGS. These first steps set in motion Have A Nice Life’s rise to renown as an icon of underground music in the internet age, culminating with the release of its pivotal 2008 debut album, Deathconsciousness. Through word of mouth and online discussion, Deathconsciousness became subject to viral praise thanks to its synthesis of bleak post-punk, lo-fi shoegaze, and carpets of hypnotic drone music. Eventually, this humble self-released project would attain the status of a post-internet cult classic, amassing Have A Nice Life a fervent online following that the band would interact with in kind. In an effort to thank and continue to engage with Have A Nice Life’s internet cult following, Barrett and Macuga would regularly share links to old demos, works in progress, and outtakes from the recording of Deathconsciousness. Over time, a group of fans would compile these demos into an unofficial release. Dubbed Voids, this fan-made compilation several alternate takes of tracks from Deathconsciousness, as well as a handful of early versions of songs that would appear on Have A Nice Life’s two following albums, The Unnatural World and Sea of Worry. While undeniably reminiscent of their final album version counterparts, the earlier versions of these tracks each feel distinct in a way that makes the moody, decidedly lo-fi aura of Voids an essential slice of the Have A Nice Life discography. Hungry for more from the enigmatic duo, fans swarmed around this compilation, accompanied by loud calls for it to receive a physical release. Seeing that demand and with the band’s blessing, a pair of fan-made tape pressings of Voids would be released via Music Ruins Lives, a DIY label run by Have A Nice Life superfan Thom Wasluck, also known for his band Planning for Burial. Between both instances of the tape swiftly selling out and the compilation’s long absence from streaming services, Voids has historically been an elusive release to track down, only available in the obscurest corners of the internet or physically on the secondary market at eye-wateringly high prices.
Over a decade since its initial, unofficial release in 2011, The Flenser is proud to reissue Have A Nice Life’s Voids for the first time ever in an official capacity in physical form. Originally released digitally in early 2023 and freshly remastered for the occasion, this reissue of the beloved compilation will receive its first-ever wide release on physical formats (CD/LP/Cassette). This release also marks the first time fan-favorite tracks from Voids “Sisyphus”, “I’m Doctor House”, and “Human Error” will be available on vinyl and CD. Like a symbolic passing of the torch, the physical versions of the 2023 Voids reissue come with a foreword essay written by Wasluck, the previous custodian of Voids during the Music Ruins Lives days.

Strawberry Wind, produced by Richard Swift (Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats, Foxygen, The Shins) not only delivers on a promise to create an honest album for kids and parents but it represents what Baylin calls the “beautiful divide,” of juggling family life with her creative life, a difficult task by any measure. “The divide in me is easy to feel because I invest 100% of myself into my family and often the creative gets put to the side,” she explained, “so when I decided to begin writing for this album it just poured out of me.” Now singer / songwriter Jessie Baylin shares that creative outpouring on her debut children’s album, ‘Strawberry Wind’. Throughout the album, Baylin doesn’t hold back on telling it like it is. Weaving through lyrical themes of dream life, supermoons and summertime vibes are some gentle doses of reality. “I don’t want to lie to my kids. Life is hard sometimes and you need to find a way to deal with it... there will always be things in life you can’t control. But, you can dream of a better world and make your own refuge,” says Baylin, who is mom to 4-year-old Violet and is expecting her second child with her husband. Baylin, who’s released four critically-acclaimed albums over the years, says the seed was planted for this album after recording a cover of Harry Nilsson’s He Needs Me from the kids’ film Popeye. “The song has a childlike sense, but the message is very deep. It’s magical, it’s dark, and it hit all the right notes. I wanted to do an album that feels like that” she says. “Since becoming a mother, I found myself being around the house a lot and I started gravitating to these wonderful albums I remembered from my own childhood - The Beatles, Harry Nilsson’s The Point!, John Lennon, Roger Miller’s Robin Hood and Carole King’s Really Rosie." The magic of those iconic 1970s records she mentions is that they’re all grounded in solid songwriting and were never dumbed down for the audience. “Those records felt very honest and that was my mission here. I also wanted it to feel magical and remind people of the child inside of all of us that is filled with a sense of wonder and pure joy and hope.”

Around this time, he watched singer Robert Soeterboek perform live with Bodine, his former early- eighties heavy metal band. "His vocals truly impressed me, a rarity!" Lucassen recalls. "He had the charisma and power of singers like David Coverdale and Robert Plant. Discovering that we really got along personally, we decided to collaborate on some songs, just for fun." "We started writing songs together and found a natural flow, leading to a wealth of ideas," remembers Soeterboek.

"Our friendship grew as we spent more time together, and I remember that there were lots of shenanigans and laughter." The album encapsulates a glorious treasure trove of 11 original songs with a loving 70s and 80s nod. It's a blistering romp through the good time rolling rocker of "Let It Ride", the Beatles- esque "Doctor Robert's Medicine Show," the bluesy groove of "Annie Moore," the chugging glam stomp of "High-Speed Chase" to the 80s metal of "Ice on Fire", whilst "The Preacher" would fit on a number of Arjen's back catalogue records. The bonus disc features all the demos and some more newly recorded tracks.

Bill MacKay and Drag City are delirious with pride to announce the discovery of a new territory: Locust Land, a record which seeks to reflect the nerve-shredding consciousness run amok in our world today - and somehow allay it with sound. Bill"s music is a visceral crackling where it meets the air, and Locust Land can"t help but reflect its era more than any other in his discography. It"s been five years since the release of Fountain Fire - but in the interim, Bill has barely stopped moving, collaborating with artists across the spectrum, including cellist Katinka Kleijn, banjo player Nathan Bowles and keyboardist Cooper Crain. He"s also contributed to recordings by Steve Gunn, Ryley Walker, Bill Callahan & Bonnie Prince Billy (Blind Date Party), and Black Duck (on their self-titled record featuring Douglas McCombs and Charles Rumback). Forget five years - how"d he even get Locust Land squeezed out of his temporal lobes? Bill"s sense of music as art is constantly modulating - lifting off from where it is found and naturally migrating to some other place. Sometimes, that"s elsewhere - others, it"s simply to be found deeper inside the starting point. And so, the action of moving on informs the landscape of Locust Land. This manifests in several different ways. A restless energy and urgency is repeatedly felt - in the driving momentum of "Keeping in Time," "Glow Drift," and "When I Was Here" - while a dogged persistence radiates from the tone colors and percussion of "Oh, Pearl." Mating a dirge-like desolation with sparkling guitars, "Radiator" adds darkness and depth. The sense of searching, displacement and longing in vocal tracks "Keeping in Time," "Half of You," and "When I Was Here" speak literally to the tumult of current vibrations. Within the arrangements, there"s also departure from previous norms - in addition to the brilliant guitar work for which he is known, Bill plays a variety of keyboards, from piano to organ to synth, extending his music with the available voicings, while enriching the sound field without abandoning his signature brevity. For fans of his singing, and following in the recent tradition of Fountain Fire as well as his collaboration with Nathan Bowles, Keys, Locust Land expresses with an increased vocal presence - and heightened engagement, with Bill"s words and melodies drawing us closer. Also different: on his previous solo recordings, Bill played every sound. Here, he has invited other illustrious Chicagoans to join him: Sam Wagster (The Father Costume, Mute Duo) plays bass on three songs, two of which feature the percussion playing of Mikel Patrick Avery (Natural Information Society, Jeff Parker, etc.). Additionally, Janet Beveridge Bean (Eleventh Dream Day, Freakwater) adds otherworldly vocal textures to the elegiac "Neil"s Field." Whether played alone or with companions, this music projects the strength of a universal collective. Even with a piece that might earlier have passed for blissful pastorale, Bill displays some declamatory motives. The reverie which opens the album, "Phantasmic Fairy," embodies both transcendent and desperate moods, with Bill"s ineffable slide guitar playing afloat, with organs and synths, in a dream state suffused with a sense of foreboding - a requiem, perhaps for the days of unencumbered bandwidth? On the other side of the album, the strength to continue to hope appears in the lifting melodicism/exoticism of the album-closing title track, leaving the listener with the sense of having achieved a hard-won space - a place of personal contemplation and dissent, one that everyone on the planet deserves to visit every single day on earth. With cover art also by Bill MacKay (the third of his albums on Drag City to feature his work), Locust Land stands as a thoroughly personal statement from Bill to everyone everywhere.

Bill MacKay and Drag City are delirious with pride to announce the discovery of a new territory: Locust Land, a record which seeks to reflect the nerve-shredding consciousness run amok in our world today - and somehow allay it with sound. Bill"s music is a visceral crackling where it meets the air, and Locust Land can"t help but reflect its era more than any other in his discography. It"s been five years since the release of Fountain Fire - but in the interim, Bill has barely stopped moving, collaborating with artists across the spectrum, including cellist Katinka Kleijn, banjo player Nathan Bowles and keyboardist Cooper Crain. He"s also contributed to recordings by Steve Gunn, Ryley Walker, Bill Callahan & Bonnie Prince Billy (Blind Date Party), and Black Duck (on their self-titled record featuring Douglas McCombs and Charles Rumback). Forget five years - how"d he even get Locust Land squeezed out of his temporal lobes? Bill"s sense of music as art is constantly modulating - lifting off from where it is found and naturally migrating to some other place. Sometimes, that"s elsewhere - others, it"s simply to be found deeper inside the starting point. And so, the action of moving on informs the landscape of Locust Land. This manifests in several different ways. A restless energy and urgency is repeatedly felt - in the driving momentum of "Keeping in Time," "Glow Drift," and "When I Was Here" - while a dogged persistence radiates from the tone colors and percussion of "Oh, Pearl." Mating a dirge-like desolation with sparkling guitars, "Radiator" adds darkness and depth. The sense of searching, displacement and longing in vocal tracks "Keeping in Time," "Half of You," and "When I Was Here" speak literally to the tumult of current vibrations. Within the arrangements, there"s also departure from previous norms - in addition to the brilliant guitar work for which he is known, Bill plays a variety of keyboards, from piano to organ to synth, extending his music with the available voicings, while enriching the sound field without abandoning his signature brevity. For fans of his singing, and following in the recent tradition of Fountain Fire as well as his collaboration with Nathan Bowles, Keys, Locust Land expresses with an increased vocal presence - and heightened engagement, with Bill"s words and melodies drawing us closer. Also different: on his previous solo recordings, Bill played every sound. Here, he has invited other illustrious Chicagoans to join him: Sam Wagster (The Father Costume, Mute Duo) plays bass on three songs, two of which feature the percussion playing of Mikel Patrick Avery (Natural Information Society, Jeff Parker, etc.). Additionally, Janet Beveridge Bean (Eleventh Dream Day, Freakwater) adds otherworldly vocal textures to the elegiac "Neil"s Field." Whether played alone or with companions, this music projects the strength of a universal collective. Even with a piece that might earlier have passed for blissful pastorale, Bill displays some declamatory motives. The reverie which opens the album, "Phantasmic Fairy," embodies both transcendent and desperate moods, with Bill"s ineffable slide guitar playing afloat, with organs and synths, in a dream state suffused with a sense of foreboding - a requiem, perhaps for the days of unencumbered bandwidth? On the other side of the album, the strength to continue to hope appears in the lifting melodicism/exoticism of the album-closing title track, leaving the listener with the sense of having achieved a hard-won space - a place of personal contemplation and dissent, one that everyone on the planet deserves to visit every single day on earth. With cover art also by Bill MacKay (the third of his albums on Drag City to feature his work), Locust Land stands as a thoroughly personal statement from Bill to everyone everywhere.

In one sense, it's easy for artists-songwriters, specifically-to express their feelings in their work. After all, that's what the lyrics are for! But it's much harder to convey emotional energy in how you play, slash at the guitar, and the structure of the music itself. That's precisely why Girl and Girl's Sub Pop debut, Call A Doctor, feels like such a vital, electrifying shock to the senses. Not since the early work of Car Seat Headrest or Conor Oberst's widescreen emotional brutality as Bright Eyes has indie rock managed to come across as this intimate and grandiose, as the Australian quartet led by Kai James lay a lifetime's worth of woes-mental health, the human race's planned obsolescence if you've been living on this cursed rock you know what we're getting at-across a canvas of indie rock that feels both timeless and in-the-moment. An audacious and aggressively tuneful blast of a record, Call A Doctor is an unforgettable first bow from Girl and Girl, whose origins lie in James and guitarist Jayden Williams jamming in his mother's garage in the afternoon after school. One afternoon, James' Aunty Liss headed down to their practice space after walking her dog and asked if she could sit in on drums. "It sounded really great," James recalls. "We begged her to stay, and she said, 'I'll stay until you find another drummer.' We wore her down, and she eventually became a permanent member." After bassist Fraser Bell joined to round things out, Girl and Girl hit the road and began to make a name for themselves beyond the Australian bush, eventually signing to Sub Pop off the strength of word of mouth. Call A Doctor came together quickly soon after, largely recorded in marathon sessions in a two-story industrial complex over the course of two weeks. "That added to the intensity of the album," James says about the frenzied creative process overseen by producer Burke Reid. "I can hear the stress in the record, which is good because that's what it's about-being tense, tied up, and in your own head." Call A Doctor's eleven songs-spanning sweeping guitar epics and wry acoustic shuffles to spiky punk maneuvers and the type of raw, adoringly unvarnished indie-pop associated with legendary PacNW label K Records-are literally plucked from James' personal history, as he reworked older recordings with newer lyrics reflecting his past struggles as well as new anxieties that emerged prior to the album's recording. "I've struggled with mental health for a lot of my life," he explains, "and I went through a particularly difficult patch when we were making the album; the band had started to get some attention, and I felt an enormous amount of pressure to live up to it." "This record is about an individual who's too far in their head, trying to get out," James continues while discussing Call A Doctor's overall outlook-specifically the snapshot it offers of its creator. But even though this record deals with uneasy topics we all know well from within ourselves, it's important to emphasize how teeming with life Girl and Girl's music is. There's a brazen, bold sense of humor to this stuff, an undeniable brightness to the darkness that makes it impossible not to be drawn in as a listener. Feeling down never sounded so goddamn good.

BANGER MAKE MY BODY SHAKE MAKE THE SPEAKERS SHAKE

It was two and a half years ago when a conversation took place between Sal Carmona and Dj Producer Jovonn Armstrong; talks of which planted a seed in Sal Carmona's ear, which years later would manifest what was once a dream into a reality. No stranger, nor a newcomer in the world of dance music, Sal's experience in the club scene goes way back to the days when his sisters, to whom he credits for helping shape the person he is today, took him to Dave Mancuso's The Loft. An experience that he recalls being nothing short of magical. It was a spiritual encounter that immediately took over thus steering him towards the direction of clubs such as The Paradise Garage, Bentley's, Underground, Red Parrot, Latin Quarters, Roseland, Studio 54, just to name a few. Years later, Sal decided to take on the role, of which he became quite successful at, of promoting his own events in New York City; throwing regular parties at venues such as Park Circle & USA roller skating rinks, Red Parrot, The Palladium, The Copacabana and many others, soon becoming one of the premier go to promoters in NYC. Taking a long and well-deserved hiatus from the club scene, in 2012 Sal decided to make his return back to what he loves. It was around this time that he began thinking what it would be like to venture into creating his very own record label. Envisioning his first release being a bona fide House Music Album, one that would include some of his favorite producers. Not one to let dreams drift into the ether, while recollecting on that conversation with Jovan way back, Sal set out to make that vision manifest into a reality and thus emerged this dope compilation titled Banger "Make My Body Shake" "Make the Speakers Shake"

A great idea which brings together an interesting mix that includes highly sought out and respected veteran producers in the scene, such as Timmy Regisford, Ron Trent, Dj Jovonn, and Joe Claussell. Alongside with up and coming DJ producers who are garnering their own adulation of fans, in the likes of Vick Lavender, Mark Francis, Conway Kasey, and DJ Punch. With valuable directional contributions from friend Joe Claussell, this, to say the least, has become far more than just a seriously dope compilation that consists of a unique coming together of serious dance music. More than the aforementioned, Sal Carmona has manifested a dream into a game changing music scripture that is one of a kind, especially in this day and age where it seems where things are thrown together hoping for something to stick. On the contrary, this is well planned and thought out dopeness at A higher level consisting of all new house music that hasn't been brought together like this in a very long time and probably not for a while afterwards.

In one sense, it’s easy for artists—songwriters, specifically—to express their feelings in their work. After all, that’s what the lyrics are for! But it’s much harder to convey emotional energy in how you play, slash at the guitar, and the structure of the music itself. That’s precisely why Girl and Girl’s Sub Pop debut, Call A Doctor, feels like such a vital, electrifying shock to the senses. Not since the early work of Car Seat Headrest or Conor Oberst’s widescreen emotional brutality as Bright Eyes has indie rock managed to come across as this intimate and grandiose, as the Australian quartet led by Kai James lay a lifetime’s worth of woes—mental health, the human race’s planned obsolescence if you’ve been living on this cursed rock you know what we’re getting at—across a canvas of indie rock that feels both timeless and in-the-moment.

An audacious and aggressively tuneful blast of a record, Call A Doctor is an unforgettable first bow from Girl and Girl, whose origins lie in James and guitarist Jayden Williams jamming in his mother’s garage in the afternoon after school. One afternoon, James’ Aunty Liss headed down to their practice space after walking her dog and asked if she could sit in on drums. “It sounded really great,” James recalls. “We begged her to stay, and she said, ‘I’ll stay until you find another drummer.’ We wore her down, and she eventually became a permanent member.”

After bassist Fraser Bell joined to round things out, Girl and Girl hit the road and began to make a name for themselves beyond the Australian bush, eventually signing to Sub Pop off the strength of word of mouth. Call A Doctor came together quickly soon after, largely recorded in marathon sessions in a two-story industrial complex over the course of two weeks. “That added to the intensity of the album,” James says about the frenzied creative process overseen by producer Burke Reid. “I can hear the stress in the record, which is good because that’s what it’s about—being tense, tied up, and in your own head.”

Call A Doctor’s eleven songs—spanning sweeping guitar epics and wry acoustic shuffles to spiky punk maneuvers and the type of raw, adoringly unvarnished indie-pop associated with legendary PacNW label K Records—are literally plucked from James’ personal history, as he reworked older recordings with newer lyrics reflecting his past struggles as well as new anxieties that emerged prior to the album’s recording. “I’ve struggled with mental health for a lot of my life,” he explains, “and I went through a particularly difficult patch when we were making the album; the band had started to get some attention, and I felt an enormous amount of pressure to live up to it.”

Far from the sound of collapsing under pressure, Call A Doctor finds James and Co. stepping up with their entire collective chest. This is a record that’s so out-and-out alive that you nearly feel like you’re in the same room with Girl and Girl as you listen to it; lead single “Hello” practically bursts through the speakers, amplified by Aunty Liss’ unbelievable stickhandling duties. “‘Hello’ is all about romanticizing your own misery. Letting those deep, dark, dirty thoughts take over. Understanding that even if you could pull yourself out, you wouldn’t because the constant stress and worry is far too familiar and comfortable.”

“Mother” pogos on a spiky groove that’s reminiscent of the geographically close New Zealanders who make up the legendary Flying Nun label, while “Oh Boy” draws from the Shins’ own jangly sound, injected with James’ wonderfully nervy vocals. Then there’s Call A Doctor’s sorta-centerpiece “Maple Jean and the Anthropocene,” a five-minute epic offering a new perspective on climate change and the notion of what it means, in a personal sense, to suffer: “I live in the bushland, and I was driving home one night and hit and killed a wallaby with my car,” James recalls while discussing the song’s lyrical inspiration. “My first thought was, ‘What is the universe trying to tell me?’ No remorse, no guilt, just total self-centeredness. Which was like, Woah, you fucking psychopath! This wallaby wasn’t put on this earth to send you a message. That’s what the song is about, our egocentric species - thinking you’re the main character and that everything that happens is somehow about you.”

“This record is about an individual who’s too far in their head, trying to get out,” James continues while discussing Call A Doctor’s overall outlook—specifically the snapshot it offers of its creator. But even though this record deals with uneasy topics we all know well from within ourselves, it’s important to emphasize how teeming with life Girl and Girl’s music is. There’s a brazen, bold sense of humor to this stuff, an undeniable brightness to the darkness that makes it impossible not to be drawn in as a listener. Feeling down never sounded so goddamn good.

"Everything's been fucked since David Bowie died or they started up the Hadron Collider" say The Janitors. This feeling is epitomised in the title of their riveting new album: An Error Has Occurred. Marking over two decades of activity for the Swedish psych-rockers, the recording is informed by heartbreak and loss as well as the dismal state of the entire planet. For The Janitors, these two polarities intertwine constantly: "What's personal is political and vice versa." To channel their frustration and anger, the band revived certain songs they'd shelved during the pandemic when working on the acclaimed Noisolation Sessions. They added others, written since, that suited the mood of sticking a middle finger up to the oppressive world around us. Whereas previous recordings were often layered up gradually, this time the full band (Henric Herlenius, Jonas Eriksson, Anders Thorell and Wilhelm Tengdahl) rehearsed intensely together before laying down everything live, over two days and nights, in a converted missionary church. The songs on Side A have the menace of Melvins, the swagger of The Stooges and the cosmic heft of The Heads. These are the more simply constructed and poppier pieces... or so the band believe. (One friend of theirs did consider this "delusional".) 'In A Bliss' acts as the album's radiant centrepiece. A palette-cleansing love song which recalls The Jesus And Mary Chain at their most starry eyed, it finds The Janitors searching for solace and strength in straightforward companionship. After this come the dronier numbers, drawn out with soundscapes and textures influenced by The Velvet Underground's sonic experiments and the equally immersive atmospheres of electronic acts like Massive Attack. Hence, 'Operator' swings threateningly like a space-rock Swans, while the approach on 'Farewell Spacegirl' is jazzier and more meditative. "It can be hard to muster up some, or even any, positive energy at this point in time," says Henric. "We are eternally grateful to have the creative output that this constellation gives us. Neither me or Jonas would probably be here, or be the same people we are, if it wasn't for The Janitors. We'll leave you with a quote from an old anarchist: 'Every society gets the criminals it deserves.'"

SIHR: sonic manifesto by a post-anything quartet feat. multi-instrumentalists from the Mediterranean inland Sea. New folklore for a devastated planet, including Frédéric D. Oberland (Oiseaux-Tempête), Grégory Dargent (H), Tony Elieh (Karkhana) & Wassim Halal (Polyphème).

After a few concerts/screenings improvised as a duo in Cairo and Beirut, as well as for the Rencontres d’Arles, the Lille photography center and the Belgian magazine Halogénure, Dargent and Oberland have teamed up with mavericks Elieh and Halal for a puzzling cross-border manifesto. The first sonic moves of this eclectic quartet, made in a bunker studio somewhere between Paris and Berlin, urgently took the form of a quest, that of a neo-folklore for troubled times, a music seeping with many kinds of atavism and experimenting in all directions. A fertile no-man’s-land where trance and contem- plation, jazz and electronica, acoustics and electricity would merge in a stimulating mystical magma.

From the possible emergence of a Babelian language to the shared desire to rediscover music as a ceremonial act, this encounter took place over three days of improvised sound bacchanalia, the phases of which were all recorded by Benoit Bel (Zombie Zombie, Thurston Moore Group, Oi- seaux-Tempête). A hallucinated and generous testimony, SIHR is a synergy of many different worlds and many different possibilities, the sonic vision of a present conjugated in a hybrid tense and exalted by too many tangos danced on the glowing ashes of our days.

Multi-instrumentalist & photographer, Frédéric D. Oberland has been leading the Oiseaux-Tempête collective for over ten years, lying somewhere between avant-rock and free jazz, repetitive music and electronics. Founding member of the bands FOUDRE! and Le Réveil des Tropiques, he’s also perfor- ming solo and composing soundtracks for cinema and installation art. Since 2018, Oberland co-cu- rates the NAHAL Recordings imprint alongside producer Mondkopf.

Electric guitarist, oud player, composer and photographer, Grégory Dargent cultivates his musical schizophrenia and identity through improvised music, trance music, jazz, hijacked maqam, repeti- tive music, pop, electro-acoustic installations and French chanson. From L’Hijâz’Car to Babx, from Berber singer Houria Aïchi to Rachid Taha, from Trio H to Sirventés enragés, from music for images to contemporary choreography, from the most acoustic of ouds to the most nuclear of guitars, he conducts, accompanies, composes, deciphers, questions, delves, makes mistakes, bounces back, ar- ranges, orchestrates and tirelessly shares his creative passions.

Tony Elieh is one of the pioneers of experimental music in Lebanon. A founding member of the first post-rock group of post-war Lebanon, The Scrambled Eggs, he has since developed his unique elec- tric bass skills in various groups and styles of music including collaborating with in groups such as Karkhana, Calamita and Wormholes Electric. Relocated in Berlin in recent years, he has performed a solo set of heavily processed bass generated sounds.

Is Wassim Halal only a darbuka player? Maybe !? But what about his music, compositions, ideas. You can find him with Polyphème playing and co-composing popular-contemporary music with Gamelan Puspawarna, or next to the french bagpiper Erwan Keravec, with the Bey.Ler.Bey trio (w/ Laurent Clouet & Florian Demonsant) working on an improvised-balkan-already-improvised-music, with per- formers and drawers Benjamin Efrati and Diego Verastegui, with Gregory Dargent and Anil Eraslan in H, creating a new pedal generating »Random taksim«, composing his own »Poème Symphonique pour 100 youyou« or composing pieces for ensembles.

Chelsea Wolfe has always been a conduit for a powerful energy, and while she has demonstrated a capacity to channel that somber beauty into a variety of forms, her gift as a songwriter is never more apparent than when she strips her songs down to a few key components. As a result, her solemn majesty and ominous elegance are more potent than ever on Birth of Violence.

There is a core element to Chelsea Wolfe’s music—a kind of urgent spin on America’s desolation blues—that’s existed throughout the entirety of her career. At the center, there has always been Wolfe’s woeful longing and beguiling gravity, though the framework for compositions has continuously evolved based on whatever resources were available. Her austere beginnings were gradually bolstered by electronics and filled out with full-band arrangements. The music became increasingly dense and more centered around live performances. Her latest album, Birth of Violence, is a return to the reclusive nature of her earlier recordings

“I’ve been in a state of constant motion for the past eight years or so; touring, moving, playing new stages, exploring new places and meeting new people—an incredible time of learning and growing as a musician and performer,” Wolfe says of the era leading up to Birth of Violence. “But after awhile, I was beginning to lose a part of myself. I needed to take some time away from the road to get my head straight, to learn to take better care of myself, and to write and record as much as I can while I have ‘Mercury in my hands,’ as a wise friend put it.“ Birth of Violence is the result of this step out of the limelight. The songs stem from humble beginnings—little more than Wolfe’s voice and her Taylor acoustic guitar. Her longtime musical collaborator Ben Chisholm recorded the songs on a makeshift studio and helped fill them out with his modern production treatments and the occasional auxiliary flourish from ongoing contributors Jess Gowrie (drums) and Ezra Buchla (viola).

The album opens with “The Mother Road,” a harrowing ode to Route 66 that immediately addresses Wolfe’s metaphoric white line fever. It explains the nature of the record—the impact of countless miles and perpetual exhaustion—and the desire to find the road back home, back to one’s roots. Songs like “Deranged for Rock & Roll” and “Highway” offers parallel examinations on the trials and tribulations of her journeys while the ghostly “When Anger Turns to Honey” serves as a rebuttal to self-appointed judges.

While the record touches upon tradition, it also exists in the present, addressing modern tragedies such as school shootings in the minor-key lullaby “Little Grave” and the poisoning of the planet on the dark wind-swept ballad “Erde.” But the record is at its most poignant when Wolfe withdraws into her own world of enigmatic and elusive autobiography. Much like Alan Ginsberg’s hallucinatory long-form poem Howl, the tracks “Dirt Universe” and “Birth of Violence” weave together specific references from her past into an esoteric overview of the state of mankind. Though the lyrical minutiae remain secret, the overall power of the language and delivery is bound to haunt the listener with both its grace and tension.

“These songs came to me in a whirlwind and I knew I needed to record them soon, and also really needed a break from the road,” Wolfe says. “I’ve spent the past few years looking for the feeling of home; looking for places that felt like home. The result of that humble approach yields Wolfe’s most devastating work to date.

European Headline tour confirming now for 2020. UK/EU Publicity handled by Lauren Barley at Rarely Unable. Immense support from Press, including coverage with NPR, Pitchfork, FADER, Vice, Revolver, Decibel, Under The Radar.

With 'Stone Flute', the free-improvising duo's third studio album proper, Galecstasy returns to the universe of synthesizers to deliver an aural odyssey, conjuring the ancient tones of a forgotten world.
The album was entirely conceived and recorded in, and around, the majestic landscapes of Joshua Tree National Park in the magnificent high desert of southern California. From atop the mountain, the two sonic surveyors were witness to a 360 degree view of the stars at night. From above, the giant rocks looked like immense wise faces looking up at the sky, or even huge bodies resting on the Earth and looking up at space. It was during this time that Galecstasy started a ritual that ended up being called the “Moon Cruise”. This would involve waiting for the full moon to rise and then driving into the national park after dark. They would turn off the headlights of the car and drive slowly through the alien landscape lit up by the moon. Boulder fields took on the shape of temples; faces carved into the rocks everywhere they looked; giant heads with smiles or haunting expressions; and the knowledge that people had been living, dancing, and making music here for thousands of years. It was during these enchanting escapades that 'Stone Flute' was conceived.
In the mountain-top recording studio, the band were utilizing every potential space to tap into the best vibrations the land had to offer. Where the mic was placed: Perhaps a giant boulder once stood, or an ancient tree. One could feel the different energies of every room. The fireplace in the living room was built of giant lava rocks for the music to swirl around. Sounds would spill and climb around the house.

"The living room was just a beautiful tangle of synthesizers and plants. It was an inspiring place to make great records. We channeled the music of the boulders buoyed by the energy shooting up from the fault lines. The good feelings emanated from the studio, it had become our own temple and the birthplace of 'Stone Flute'."

With 'Stone Flute', the free-improvising duo's third studio album proper, Galecstasy returns to the universe of synthesizers to deliver an aural odyssey, conjuring the ancient tones of a forgotten world.
The album was entirely conceived and recorded in, and around, the majestic landscapes of Joshua Tree National Park in the magnificent high desert of southern California. From atop the mountain, the two sonic surveyors were witness to a 360 degree view of the stars at night. From above, the giant rocks looked like immense wise faces looking up at the sky, or even huge bodies resting on the Earth and looking up at space. It was during this time that Galecstasy started a ritual that ended up being called the “Moon Cruise”. This would involve waiting for the full moon to rise and then driving into the national park after dark. They would turn off the headlights of the car and drive slowly through the alien landscape lit up by the moon. Boulder fields took on the shape of temples; faces carved into the rocks everywhere they looked; giant heads with smiles or haunting expressions; and the knowledge that people had been living, dancing, and making music here for thousands of years. It was during these enchanting escapades that 'Stone Flute' was conceived.
In the mountain-top recording studio, the band were utilizing every potential space to tap into the best vibrations the land had to offer. Where the mic was placed: Perhaps a giant boulder once stood, or an ancient tree. One could feel the different energies of every room. The fireplace in the living room was built of giant lava rocks for the music to swirl around. Sounds would spill and climb around the house.

"The living room was just a beautiful tangle of synthesizers and plants. It was an inspiring place to make great records. We channeled the music of the boulders buoyed by the energy shooting up from the fault lines. The good feelings emanated from the studio, it had become our own temple and the birthplace of 'Stone Flute'."

Church Andrews and Matt Davies weave intricate patterns from Fibonacci sequences on new mini-album, Yucca.

Producer and composer Church Andrews (aka Kirk Barley) and drummer Matt Davies return to explore the outer limits of rhythm on a six-track suite that is at once angular and fluid, natural and systematic. Drawn to the restrictions of working solely with one synth and live drums, the pair found creativity in limitation, developing a compositional dialogue between the sonic timbres of Kirk’s productions and Matt’s percussive practice.

Evoking the primitive yet complex form of the plant from which it takes its name, Yucca features tracks that are built around rhythmic ratios of the Fibonacci sequence. Mirroring spiral patterns exhibited in nature, each track evolves like a cellular structure of its own, from the livewire syntax of ‘Chirp’ and the deconstructed ebb and flow of ‘Ferns’, to the mini-album’s title track, where crisp grooves flit between modulated electronics like fireflies.

“I’ve always been inspired by music that is complex without sounding complex,” Matt explains. He maintains a sense of bounce amid the intricate phrasing and cites drummers Roy Haynes and his grandson Marcus Gilmore as inspirations, alongside sabar drummers from Senegal and Mridangam drumming of South India.

With a shared background in hip-hop and the swung beats of J Dilla and Flying Lotus, Kirk Barley and Matt Davies were also inspired by the minimalism of Terry Riley and the sparse palette of dub techno.

Written and recorded in Lewisham in the spring and summer of 2023, Yucca follows the release of Axis in 2022, with the duo having also performed at festivals such as Rewire and Waking Life, and recorded live sessions for FACT magazine and Worldwide FM.

The third release on Yorkshire-based Odda Recordings, following Kirk Barley’s Marionette and Flaer’s Preludes, Yucca confirms the label’s reputation for championing music on the unstable ground between the organic and the synthetic.

Accompanied by James Dewar on soulful vocal and bass duty and Reg Isidore underpinning their psychedelic blues sound with masterful drumming. Producer and former Procul Harum bandmate Matthew Fisher and Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick take on control room duties to help bring this stunning collection of songs together.

50 years later, these new mixes were overseen by Robin and include extended versions of the original album, newly mixed from the original master tapes. Cut at half-speed especially for this release, the album sounds better than ever. On the second disc, you can hear the trio amid a US tour supporting the album Live at The Record Plant, Sausalitoin May 1974available in its entirety for the first time and newly remastered from the original master tapes - the recording sounds as exhilarating as it would have for those in the room.

Bridge of Sighs (50th Anniversary Edition)- Newly mixed and remastered from the original tapes, cut at half- speed, pressed on 180g vinyl, and housed in a deluxe gatefold sleeve with testimonials and rare photograph.

Bridge Of Sighs by Robin Trower, released 17 May 2024, includes the following tracks: "In This Place ", "Too Rolling Stoned ", "Lady Love ", "Twice Removed from Yesterday " and more.

repress !

Following acclaimed singles from Powell, Blood Music, Shit & Shine and Prostitutes, the next release from Diagonal is a landmark. It marks both the London label's first full-length album release, and the return of abrasive and furiously funky hip-hop deconstructionists Death Comet Crew, one of the most quietly influential underground acts to emerge from the creative melting pot of 1980s New York.

Ghost Among The Crew documents the group's return to studio operations for the first time since the 80s, as well as their first ever full-length studio album. It's a remarkable trip: a consolidation of their early feral disassemblies of hip-hop and electro, but also broader in scope, chewing up and spitting out fragments of soul, jazz fusion, punk and industrial music.
Death Comet Crew were founded in New York City in 1983 by Stuart Argabright, a founder member of post-punk/industrial mavericks Ike Yard and the mind behind Dominatrix and later Black Rain. Their sound, then as now, was a singular proposition: urban in mood, exploratory, often compellingly danceable, yet confrontational. It emerged from the interweaving talents of the group's varied members: guitarist Michael Diekmann (of Ike Yard), bassist Shinichi Shimokawa (later of Black Rain) and Nick Taylor aka DJ High Priest, frequently joined by the late, great hip hop artist and graffiti writer Rammellzee. Having recorded two studio EPs - 1985's At The Marble Bar (featuring Rammellzee) and its follow-up Mystic Eyes - the group disbanded barely a year after forming. They left behind a reputation for their incendiary live performances, several recordings from which were gathered on crucial 2004 compilation This Is Riphop.
The musical climate that first birthed Death Comet Crew was one of fertile cross-pollination of styles. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the seeds of modern day urban musics - hip hop, punk and post-punk, no wave - were taking root in the streets of recession-struck New York City. Argabright recalls dancing at the downtown Mudd Club around 1980 to a bold mixture of styles, with DJs cutting from synth-pop and post-punk to funk, soul and early hip-hop: Bowie and James Brown next to Run DMC, Ultravox and Gary Numan. Indeed, the names of his New York contemporaries operating around the same time - the likes of Liquid Liquid, Run DMC, Afrika Bambaataa, Arthur Russell, ESG, Swans, Sonic Youth, Bill Laswell and more - have since been inscribed in modern music history.
With previous projects Dominatrix and Ike Yard having recently become inactive, in 1984 Argabright formed Death Comet Crew as a means of exploring new sonic avenues. He'd been experimenting with tape, recording and procesing the sounds of his surrounding environment and dialogue from films and TV. Joined by Shimokawa, Diekmann and Taylor, and using drum machines, turntables, spidery guitar and bass, the group assembled a scrambled collage of rhythms and sampled voices. Their live performances were, in Argabright's words, "aurally violent, sharp-edged, downright lacerating", hacking gleefully away at hip hop and electro's rhythmic frameworks. Rammellzee joined the group to vocal 1985 debut EP At The Marble Bar; his MC turn on highlight 'Exterior Street' is all the more remarkable for having been entirely freestyled in the studio. When Death Comet Crew reformed in 2003 for a string of live shows, he continued as an active member of the group, touring and working with them during the recording of Ghost Among The Crew, until he sadly passed away in 2010.
After reforming, Death Comet Crew began writing and recording new material. Now, following on from their just-released Galacticoast 12" through Citinite, Ghost Among The Crew - its title a homage to Rammellzee - hones the group's abrasive early experimentations while tripping into bold and astrally minded new territory. Alongside the core quartet of Argabright, Diekmann, Shimokawa and Taylor are new voices, including Rapscallion (a friend of Rammellzee's), Jessica 6/Hercules & Love Affair singer Nomi Ruiz, and Carolyn 'Honeychild' Coleman. Its eight tracks are steeped in the impulsive spirit of electric Miles and the deep space romances of Sun Ra, and possessed of an enigmatic yet undeniable pop edge. But equally they're pricked with urban paranoia and dread, traits that have long been hallmarks of Argabright's musical projects.
'Me Czar Of The Magyars' opens the album in a twist of tension like the turning of a ratchet. Its taut electroid shudder is paired with machine gunned cymbal hits and a voice telling of "wormwood and opium dens" - the sound of being teleported from everyday city streets into the astral plane, where every sensory input is heightened and the promise of danger or pleasure lurks unseen around every corner. Later, Coleman's lyrics pay tribute to Rammellzee on the sci-fi funk of 'Deep Space Woman'. 'Let The Clubs Ring' melts lounge bar organs and frazzled guitar into freakishly unstable shapes, while 'Drag Racing' matches its title, rocketing along frantically atop clattering drums. 'Moons On Titan's Seas' is halfway interlude pause for rest, like an exotic cocktail in a bar orbiting some as-yet-undiscovered new world. These varied strands are somehow all summarised in album closer 'Ignition Spark', which sets Ruiz's vocals alongside Taylor's and Argabright's. The zone the trio inhabit in this final track exists in perpetual push-pull between contemplation, memory, intrigue and violence, a decisive opening of a new chapter in Death Comet Crew's history.

As with all Diagonal releases, the initial vinyl pressing will be packaged in unique, specially designed artwork.

This live album is a recording of the last live performance by Drumwolf (Toru)'s with the band. The concert was held at W.W.W.X. in Shibuya on March 11th, 2023 and includes 13 of the songs that they played at this gig.

It is the last memorial live performance for Toru, the bedrock of Guitarwolf for many years and will be permanently etched on vinyl. This is a must record that fans need to get hold of, as it is the live recording of the band's latest performance featuring many of their classic songs.

Guitar Wolf have been expanding their horizons of their activities in recent years, including an appearance at the Shimane Jet festival, and they hope you can appreciate the pure joy of their universal rock 'n' roll vibes on vinyl that might be too hot for the whole world to handle!

And as a bonus item, you can stream the full live performance of this monumental concert of Guitarwolf in its entirety as well! It was directed by Tetsuro Takeuchi who has previously worked on Guitarwolf's music videos for many years.

This video of their live performance was edited full of tension and speed and it truly displays how much Guitarwolf deserves the title of Japan's number one rock 'n' roll band. This fact can also be relived by seeing this video included in this deluxe edition.

Guitarwolf
Members:
Seiji (Guitarwolf): Lead Vocals, Guitar
GOTZ (Basswolf): Bass, Vocals
Shingo (Drumwolf): Drum Note: Joined the band in 2022

Real-life rock 'n'roll super heroes that rock fans all over Japan continue to admire.
While creating numerous legendary myths in the 1990s, being unique beyond comparison, they continue to consistently blare out their spontaneity to the present day,

The band's unusually extreme and bombastic sound amplifies the embryonic impulses of rock 'n' roll, while Seiji's lyrics mix words that evoke the 'universe' and the 'Showa era' with his own unique sense of humor. In their relentless pursuit of a style that has remained unchanged since the band's formation, the music that the three members who don their entire bodies in black leather play, emits power that transcends time and space. While doing so, they continue to gain enthusiastic fans from all over the world.

Formed in 1987, the original members, Seiji and Billy (bass, vocals) and Toru who joined the band later, started their musical activities together and released their debut album "Wolf Rock" in 1993 from the Memphis-based Goner Records. Later, they signed to Matador Records, one of the leading indie labels in the USA. They also made their major label debut in 1997 with the album, "Wolf Planet" on Ki/oon Records/ Sony Music in Japan.

They have released 12 albums to date. The band has also continued to tour energetically around the world, not only in Japan but also in the US, EU countries, Australia and South America. Billy suddenly passed away in 2005. After having two mighty support casts, U.G. and Hikaru, GOTZ (Gotz) joined the band in 2018 as the new bass wolf. Also, Toru who had been with the band as drum wolf for many years left in 2022 and the band is now more energetically active with their new drum wolf, Shingo.

New Zealand's Marlon Williams has quite simply got one of the most extraordinary, effortlessly distinctive voices of his generation-a fact well known to fans of his first, self-titled solo album, and his captivating live shows. An otherworldly instrument with an affecting vibrato, it's a voice that's earned repeated comparisons to the great Roy Orbison, and even briefly had Williams, in his youth, consider a career in classical singing, before realizing his temperament was more Stratocaster than Stradivarius. But it's the art of songwriting that has bedeviled the artist, and into which he has grown exponentially on his second album, Make Way For Love, out in February of 2018. It's Marlon Williams like you've never heard him before-exploring new musical terrain and revealing himself in an unprecedented way, in the wake of a fractured relationship. In early December, Williams and his longtime girlfriend, musician Aldous (Hannah) Harding, broke up. While personally wrenching, the split seemed to open the floodgates for Williams as a writer. "_I wrote about fifteen songs in a month," he recalls. Sure enough, while Make Way For Love draws on Williams' own story, in remarkably universal terms it captures the vagaries of relationships that we've all been through: he bliss (opener "Come To Me"); ache ("Love Is a Terrible Thing"); nagging questions ("Can I Call You"); and bitterness ("The Fire Of Love", whose lyrics Williams says he "agonized over" more than any). And there's "Nobody Gets What They Want Anymore", a duet with Harding, recorded after the two broke up, with Williams directing Harding's recording via a late-night long distance phone call. "We finally got to talk it out," he adds. "We still love each other very much."If "breakup record" is a trope-and certainly it is-then Marlon Williams has done it proud. Like the best of the lot, Make Way For Love doesn't shy away from heartbreak, but rather stares it in the face, and mines beauty from it.

The female-led discodelic soul band Say She She, named as a silent nod to NileRodgers (C'est chi-chi!: It's Chic!"), release their sophomore album `Silver' on theheels of an epic break-out year that grows brighter by the day. The three strong voices of Piya Malik (El Michels Affair staple feature, and formerbacking singer for Chicano Batman), Sabrina Mileo Cunningham and Nya GazelleBrown front the band. This harmonizing trio was formed in a classic New York taleof friends that met by following the music: the downtown dancefloors, through theLower East Side floorboards and up to the rooftops of Harlem. `Silver' was entirely written and recorded live to tape at Killion Sound studio inNorth Hollywood earlier this year and produced by Sergio Rios (of Orgone). Whilethese analog recording techniques help root Say She She's sound in a bedrock oftonal warmth that only tape can achieve, it is also their process of cutting the trackin the moment and capturing the magic of communal creativity that has seen theirsound described as "a glorious overload of joyful elation and spiritualelevation" (MOJO) and "infused with the wonky post-disco spirit of early'80s NYC" (The Guardian). Silver, the element, is known as the metal of self-confidence and the mirror of thesoul. With that, the 16-song double-LP projects not only their growth in writingwith confidence, but also reflects a deeper exploration into their punk-chic, femme-forward sensibility. Ultimately, `Silver' oozes with quirk and adventure and embraces themultifaceted nature of what it means to be a modern femme. The She She'sfully embrace their role as beauticians, actively reminding people of the inherentbeauty in the world. They skillfully employ double entendres and humor toencourage open dialogue and fearlessly address important matters that demandattention.

Vanishing Twin is songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist Cathy Lucas, drummer Valentina Magaletti, bassist Susumu Mukai, synth/guitar player Phil MFU and visual artist/film maker Elliott Arndt on flute and percussion; and on this album they have made their first artistic statement for the ages.

Some of its great power comes from liberation. The album was produced by Lucas in a number of non-standard, non-studio settings. 'KRK (At Home In Strange Places)' summons up the spirit of Sun Ra's Lanquidity and Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio was simply recorded on an iPhone during a live set which crackled with psychic connectivity on the Croatian island of Krk.
The magical Morricone-esque lounge of 'You Are Not an Island', the blissed-out Jean-Claude Vannier style arrangement of 'Invisible World' and burbling sci fi funk ode to a 1972 cult French animation, 'Plane`te Sauvage', were all recorded in nighttime sessions in an abandoned mill in Sudbury. The only two outsiders to work on the recording were '6th member' and engineer Syd Kemp and trusted friend Malcolm Catto, band leader of the spiritual jazz/future funk outfit The Heliocentrics, who mixed seven of the tracks (with Lucas taking care of the other three).

Vanishing Twin formed in 2015 - their first LP, Choose Your Own Adventure, which came out on Soundway in 2016; followed by the darker, more abstract, mostly instrumental Dream By Numbers EP in 2017. The band explored their more experimental tendencies on the Magic And Machines tape released by Blank Editions in 2018, an improvised session recorded in the dead of night, offering a glimpse into their practice of deep listening, near band telepathy, and ritually improvised sound making. These sessions formed the basis of The Age Of Immunology.

It was the summer of 1996 in London. Rat Scabies had his studio 'The Arch' underneath Kew Bridge, in which various projects were recorded. At some point, Rat (The Damned), Derwood Andrews (Generation X) and Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols) drifted in to rehearse and write songs to record an album. Pretty soon they were ready to start recording, but they didn't have a singer. They called upon an old friend Gary Twinn (20 Flight Rockers), who flew in on the red eye from Los Angeles and immediately started recording. It may have been a good idea to give Gary time to get over the jet lag, and write some more songs. But Gary's lyrics were working well and it was sounding so good they started laying down the tracks. A day or so later, Martin Lee Stephenson, a young hot mixer came down to the Arches and mixed the seven tracks that were recorded. The plan was to do a few more songs and have a finished album. Gary went back to the west coast and started booking shows. It was all looking good, and it was fun. Then Glen called to say the Pistols had offered him to reform with a world tour called Filthy Lucre, and he'd be doing that for the next six months at least. So, Dead Horse was truly dead, and the whole idea was abandoned. These tapes have been on the shelf for almost 30 years. These tapes are being released in the interest of music history, and the fact that they were never quite finished shouldn't matter to anyone. The quality of the people involved shines through.