Поиск:poetry

Fust--the lyrical powerhouse Southern rock band from Durham, North Carolina--announce their new album Big Ugly, out March 7th on Dear Life Records, the record label that launched the careers of MJ Lenderman and Florry and that has become a haven for contemporary songwriters. Big Ugly arrives after the release of 2024's Songs of the Rail--"one of the best alt-country compilations_in a long, long time" (Paste) -- and 2023's standout Genevieve, which unassumingly introduced new listeners to Fust's unmistakable blend of "small-town poetry" (Mojo) with a familiar yet probing "country-tinged folk-rock" (KEXP) that made it "one of the most fun rock records of the year" (Pitchfork). Genevieve was their studio debut, recorded with producer Alex Farrar (Manning Fireworks, Rat Saw God, Tomorrow's Fire) in Asheville, North Carolina. The reception was far better than the band expected, stirring them to immediately start working on Big Ugly, their second collaboration with Farrar. Recorded over ten days in June of 2024, Big Ugly is the explosive sound of Fust uncovering a freedom within their sincere form of loose and fried guitar rock, realizing more than ever before an intimacy within bigness. The members -- Aaron Dowdy, Avery Sullivan, Frank Meadows, John Wallace, Justin Morris, Libby Rodenbough, Oliver Child-Lanning--weave their voices alongside guests like Merce Lemon, Dave Hartley (The War on Drugs), and John James Tourville (The Deslondes) to form a music that sounds like a conversation between old friends. And that's exactly what it is. At its heart, Big Ugly is a story cycle, following tough-skinned characters who seem to inhabit a shared and fictional small town--Big Ugly--that in reality gets its name from a lowly populated and unincorporated area in southern West Virginia around where Dowdy's family has deep roots. The album cover_a mural from the Big Ugly Community Center just off the Big Ugly Creek--was painted by locals for a 2004 play performed by the children that interpreted their elders' stories. In a way, Fust's Big Ugly does something similar as it takes the same area as its backdrop and reimagines a life depicted in the mural between the bars, gas stations, general stores, and double-wides. Throughout the album, we join the characters in finding history and meaning in the banal theater of their own private jerkwater.The songs on Big Ugly are hearteningly varied, moving from beer-fisted radio country to elegiac drones to deconstructed ballads. Songs like "Spangled" take up the theme of past traumas and present desensitizations colliding, of the small and cosmic coinciding in the life of a heedless protagonist. "Bleached" finds the soul-searching narrator recalling the feeling of inner vacancy in their childhood: thoughtless, speechless, herded around like cattle in backseats. And "Mountain Language" laments the poverties of Southern life at the same time that it promotes a higher poverty, a country utopia that's just out of grasp, where we could live if we could only "make it up the mountain again." The mystical hermeticism and the dime-store everyday are two sides of every insignificant thing in the town of Big Ugly.

Green vinyl repress, standard single sleeve printed inner. 'The Time Has Come' is an absolute master class on words and guitar twisting into one another - the poetry goes beyond simple observation into deeply personal and profound lore. A timeless document of sweet and haunting melodies. My favorite record of all time.' Ryley Walker. // "I've never written songs, regularly, because I never considered myself a songwriter. I've only ever really considered myself a ballad singer, which is what is most important to me. The stories... the ancient nature of the situations and the human condition. And obviously, it's changed so much over the centuries that those songs have been sung, but it always retains that essence of something that's universal... to humanity, and I've always wanted to touch that. I think I wanted to understand people; I think I wanted to understand myself. It's a way of finding the truth. I felt I belonged to that music." Anne Briggs // Offering some of her first original compositions, 'The Time Has Come' was a break from tradition in more ways than one for Anne Briggs. Where previous recordings displayed the unaccompanied melodies of her voice, this album - originally released by CBS in 1971 - brings additional instrumentation in the form of guitar and bouzouki. The result is that her vocals are not submerged, but heightened - the plucked strings providing the perfect foil for her crystalline inflection. 'The Time Has Come' is a mix of Anne's own songs alongside some notable covers (Lal Waterson, Steve Ashley, Stan Ellison, Henry McCulloch). All are graced with the quietly self-assured elegance of Anne's playing, with sounds ranging from the breezy 'Clea Caught A Rabbit' to the terrible beauty of 'Wishing Well' - each song typifying the bouzouki or guitar style. To say that Anne was an accomplished picker is to do her something of an disservice - the intricacy of her finger-work rivals - and more often than not eclipses - any number of her contemporaries.

Recorded in 1958, this album showcases Chet Baker’s undeniable charm as both a singer and trumpeter, embodying the essence of cool jazz. Accompanied by an elegant trio featuring Kenny Drew on piano, George Morrow on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums, Baker revisits standards with disarming grace. His soft, melancholic voice shines on tracks like “Do It the Hard Way” and “Everything Happens to Me,” where each note feels suspended in time. His airy trumpet subtly converses with Drew’s piano, creating moments of pure musical poetry. A must-listen for fans of intimate and refined jazz.

The industrial treasure chest of Laurent Petitgand & Thierry Mérigout Geins’t Naït unit gets a third and final archival jag, playing to a spectrum of styles from misfit tape cut-ups to sludgy grooves and trampling sidewinds of the filthiest, sickest calibre.

The three volumes mining the Geins’t Naït Archive have parsed some 40 years of work for the most potent industrial blatz, culminating in some of the gnarliest and richest tackle on this final volume. As also highlighted on releases via Vladimir Ivkovic’s Offen Music label, it’s hard to fully surmise Geins’t Naït’s oeuvre, but you kinda know it when it hits. It’s industrial, or more specifically post-industrial, in the classic sense of everything after Throbbing Gristle and their famous label; buzzing with atonality and often heavily rhythm-driven, but not necessarily built for the club. In some senses, it's adjacent to freakier ‘floors in a way shared by the likes of Bourbonese Qualk or Din A Testbild, likeminded miscreants who emerged in TG’s shadow during the ‘80s.

‘Archives 3/3’ opens with a particularly Gallic slant on the paradigm in ‘Michel’, and shells a slew of thee crankiest gear that shares a certain tone and thrust toward trippy abstraction with Anne Gillis. ‘Abstrac 2’ finds them speaking in ogreish tongues on an uncanny waltz, before dialling up the pomp with near-EBM levels of muscularity and fanfare on ‘Poiro’, and unleashing reverse-looped heck like a La Peste joint in ‘GN is Good For You’. The keening pulse and nose attack of ‘Rappel’ reminds us of CHBB, and the evil slug of ‘Hate’ feels summoned from Parisian catacombs, whilst ‘Wladimir’ stands out for its phosphorous synth burn and prototypical Él-G poetry, leaving ‘Base Cour’ to souse the senses in distortion and barnyard squabble.

Sanam is a free-rock post-folk sextet consisting of Sandy Chamoun, Antonio Hajj Moussa, Farah Kaddour, Anthony Sahyoun, Pascal Semerdjian and Marwan Tohme. The group first formed as part of a performance with Hans Joachim Irmler from the legendary German experimental group Faust, at the Irtijal music festival. Their music and performances are akin to a ritual, a marriage and an exorcism of traditional Egyptian song/Arabic poetry and improvised rock, free jazz and noise. They recorded their first albumAykathani Malakonin a traditional house in the village of Saqi Reshmaya, which was then mixed by Radwan Ghazi Mounmeh (Jersualem In My Heart).

2025 Repress
Anenon's tenor saxophone breathes an emotive contemplation on loss, meshed with sustained piano and field recordings. 'Moons Melt Milk Light' is a hyper-personal statement contained in a visceral beauty.

LA native Anenon returns with a highly anticipated new album 'Moons Melt Milk Light' on Tonal Union, bearing his most personal, expressive, and arresting works to date. Anenon is the ongoing solo studio and live project of Brian Allen Simon, whom since 2010 has released multiple albums and EPs to critical acclaim, including the highly revered 'Tongue' (2018) and 'Petrol' (2016).

'Moons Melt Milk Light' is direct, efficient, and unwavering in its immediacy. Anenon departs from the electronics of previous works, and embarks on a reductive, almost entirely acoustic approach consisting of piano, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, and field recordings. All of the music was improvised with everything recorded as either a first or second take with no edits. Any layering happened fast and in the moment, and yet the sonic architecture of the whole feels both planned and refined.

"I feel a kinetic and messy honesty that doesn't exist in any of the other music I've ever made. There is also a sense of being settled, of calm. There is no faking it here."

Montreal-based rock band Le Nombre, active from 2002 to 2009, released three albums filled with raw poetry and relentless riffs and rhythms. Scénario Catastrophe was produced by Ian Blurton (Tricky Woo, The Weakerthans) and recorded in Toronto. Released in 2004, it marked the band’s peak both musically and lyrically. This record enabled them to tour Europe, the United States, and Canada, where they opened for The New York Dolls at Festival d’été de Québec. Praised by the press both here and abroad, the album, now offered with a remastered sound, will be available on vinyl for the first time in February 2025, twenty years after its original release.

Montreal-based rock band Le Nombre, active from 2002 to 2009, released three albums filled with raw poetry and relentless riffs and rhythms. Scénario Catastrophe was produced by Ian Blurton (Tricky Woo, The Weakerthans) and recorded in Toronto. Released in 2004, it marked the band’s peak both musically and lyrically. This record enabled them to tour Europe, the United States, and Canada, where they opened for The New York Dolls at Festival d’été de Québec. Praised by the press both here and abroad, the album, now offered with a remastered sound, will be available on vinyl for the first time in February 2025, twenty years after its original release.

Loyle Carner will release his highly anticipated sophomore record, 'Not Waving, But Drowning' on 19 April via AMF Records.

'Not Waving, But Drowning' follows Loyle's BRIT (Best Male, Best Newcomer) and Mercury Prize nominated, top 20 debut 'Yesterday's Gone'. The bedrock of honest and raw sentimentality that you heard on 'Yesterday's Gone' left an inextinguishable mark on music in general and UK Hip Hop in particular, standing out as an ageless, bulletproof debut.

'Not Waving, But Drowning', Loyle's new album, gives yet more evidence - as if it were needed - of his razor-sharp flow and his unique storytelling ability. Yes, he can rap, but he allies that with the sensitivity of a poet, the observational skills of a novelist, and warmth of your best friend. The album opens with 'Dear Jean', a letter to his mother in which he's telling her that he has found the love of his life, 'a woman from the skies', and he's moving out.

It goes without saying that Loyle's music is hard to categorise, but what is even more impressive is that for someone who grew up listening to Mos Def, Biggie Smalls, Roots Manuva, and Wu Tang Clan, he doesn't sound like any of them. Although he might from time to time give lyrical nods to them, he's no imitator.

Loyle loves cooking. There are two tracks on this album named after chefs. The British-Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi, and the now deceased Italian chef Antonio Carluccio. 'Ottolenghi' the first single from the album was featured on the BBC Radio 1 B-list, BBC 6 Music A-list and has already been streamed over 5 million times.

Loyle refers to real life for everything, the title of 'Yesterday's Gone' came from a song of his step father, the title of his new album 'Not Waving, But Drowning' comes from a poem by his grandfather, which in turn came from a Stevie Smith poem. What you hear on the track 'Krispy' is real. He is pouring his heart out to his best friend Rebel Kleff after their relationship went downhill, he invites him on the track to say his piece but he doesn't turn up, so we get a flugel solo instead.

Loyle also has his own personal black consciousness movement. When he refers to his 'fathers' in the track 'Looking Back' he really is referring to two fathers. His biological father, a black man who he knows, but knows very little of, and his step father, a poet and musician who happens to be a white man but died a sudden unexpected death from epilepsy (SUDEP). With no real emotional ties to his biological father, but a deep connection with a deceased step-father, where does a young child turn He succinctly captures many of the great, unspoken, cultural and historical paradoxes of multicultural Britain on 'Looking Back'.

An album like this is hard to find. It is for those who like their Hip Hop to have soul, and their soul to have spirit. This is because it works on so many levels, but it is reflecting the personality of its creator. There are a host of collaborators here, Jorja Smith, Rebel Kleff, Kiko Bun, Kwes, Jordan Rakei, Sampha, Tom Misch and more, but none are overpowering. They blend righteously into place.
Loyle is not bitter with people who have let him down, or a society that lets so many down, but the combination of anger and love he has gives his voice the perfect blend of strength and vulnerability. This might be a coming of age album, but it's also a coming of ageless album. Loyle's 2019 Spring tour - which includes London's Roundhouse - sold out within 20 minutes of being on sale.

Not Waving, But Drowning



A rapper that raps about family is hard to find. The boys in the 'hood' tend not to be that interested in how much a 'brother' loves his mother, or how much he misses his dad, or even how much he misses his best friend. The boys in the 'hood' tend to be obsessed with the size of their cars, girls, bank accounts, and other personal 'possessions'. Loyle Carner's Mercury and BRIT Prize nominated debut 'Yesterday's Gone' (Released 2017), made it clear that he wasn't that kind of rapper. In fact, every time I talk to him about his work we talk about the world, and we tended to confuse ourselves by calling his work rap, poems, or songs, sometimes in the same sentence. They are in truth all of these things.



Here's some poetry.



Honestly I need them.

I hate them but I grieve them

I think I've finally found the reason

Trust

Like the fire needs the air.

I won't burn unless you're there.





'Not Waving, But Drowning', Loyle's forthcoming new album, gives us yet more evidence, (if it were needed), that he still has what rappers call, flow, but he hasn't lost any of his story telling qualities. Yes, the boy can rap, but a rapper with the sensitivity of a true poet, the observational skills of a novelist, and warmth of your best friend. The album opens with 'Dear Jean', a letter to his mother in which he's telling her that he has found the love of his life, (a woman from the skies), and he's moving out. He really loves the woman from the skies, but he still loves his mum, and so he reassures her that there is no competition, and tells her that 'She's not behind me or behind you, but beside we and beside two', his words. Or to put it another way, moving out without moving out. My words.



It goes without saying that Loyle's music is hard to categorise, but what is even more impressive is that for someone who grew up listening to Mos Def, Biggie Smalls, Roots Manuva, and Wu Tang Clan, he doesn't sound like any of them. Although he might from time to time give lyrical nods to them, he's no imitator. He says finding his own voice was something he always found easy. Although young, (in terms of a musical career), he has confidence in his own words and his own voice, and has never been tempted to sound like he's been hanging out in the USA, or rolling in 'Grime' on the mean streets of East London. And so when it comes to the creative process he doesn't simply find a beat to jump on and ride. Beats are important, but they are tenderly layered with samples, keyboards, or live drums, all imaginatively assembled for the laying on of words. Some tracks start with the idea, some with poetry, and some with a verse from a singer or some other melodic inspiration, but there is no formula.



Here's some poetry.



Don't hold any memories of us

Rather hold you everyday until the memories are dust

Yo we only caught the train

Cos you know I hate the bus





A prolific reader, who has dyslexia is hard to find. Add ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) to that and life should become even more difficult. To deal with your difficulties you devise coping strategies, which can differ from person to person. Loyle loves cooking. There are two tracks on this album named after chefs. The British-Israeli chef Ottolenghi, and the now deceased Italian chef Antonio Carluccio. Loyle describes himself as 'weird' because he is happy to read a cookbook as if he was reading a novel or a book of poetry. He has opened a cookery school for young adults not just because he loves food and wants to make more of it, but because it is one of the few things that can focus the ADHD mind. And when it comes to his other love, football, his approach is the same. Focus. He wanted to be a striker he says, up front scoring goals, but found his best position was in midfield because he was able to focus, check options, and see passes ahead of time, providing passes for other players just when they needed them. He says, 'You don't grow out of ADHD, you grow into it.' Loyle is also working with Levi's® on their music project where he is mentoring young musicians over a six month period, culminating at Liverpool Sound City festival.



More poetry.



When the going is tough

I wait till it falls on deaf ears

Hearsay

Without the boundaries of love



He also said, 'Ask most people and they will say that they love their mothers, but most are not going to rap about her'. On his first album Loyle's mum Jean wrote about the 'scribble of a boy' that growing up would take things apart to see how they worked. On this album she speaks with pride about a man who has found his place in the world.



Yes, poetry.



I'm still looking for the answers

Trying to find the right questions

Still waiting for my fathers

But can't break them in to sections



This poetry is serious. Loyle has his own personal black consciousness movement. He told me that he always felt safe at home, and being the darkest one in the family never meant a thing, but then when he had to face the outside world he felt hostility. It shook him up. Now he had to start asking questions, but what were the questions. This is serious. When he refers to his 'fathers' in the verse above taken from the track 'Looking Back' he really is referring to two fathers. His biological father, a black man who he knows, but knows very little of, and his step father, a poet and musician who happens to be a white man but died a sudden unexpected death from epilepsy (SUDEP). So to whom would a young black (or mixed race) kid turn He succinctly captures many of the great, unspoken, cultural and historical paradoxes of multicultural Britain when he says, 'My great grandfather could of owned my other one.' We are a people descended from enslaved people on one hand, and enslavers on the other, something we are still struggling to come to terms with, and this can be apparent in one family. A big book could have told you that, but here we get it in one line on the track, Looking Back.





Loyle refers to real life for everything. The album is peppered with captured moments that he records on his phone. These moments can range from conversations with taxi drivers, to capturing the moment when England scores a goal in the world cup. The title of 'Yesterday's Gone' came from a song of his step father, the title of his new album 'Not Waving but Drowning' comes from a poem by his grandfather, which in turn came from a Stevie Smith poem. What you hear on the track 'Krispy' is real. He is pouring his heart out to his best friend after their relationship went downhill, he invites him on the track to say his piece but he doesn't turn up, so we get a flugel solo instead. Yes people, this is real.



An album like this is hard to find. It is for those who like their Hip Hop to have soul, and their soul to have spirit, this is an album for those who have, (I'm sorry, I'm going to say it), emotional intelligence. This is because it works on so many levels, but it is reflecting the personality of its creator. There are a host of collaborators here, Jorja Smith, Rebel Kleff, Kiko Bun, Jordan Rakei, Sampha, Tom Misch and more, but none are overpowering. They blend righteously into place. Loyle is not bitter with people who have let him down, or the society that has let him down, but the combination of anger and love he has gives his voice the perfect blend of strength and vulnerability. This might be a coming of age album, but it's also a coming of ageless album. His first album worked, and this second album is a continuation of that work. Not creating a form, but being formless, as someone like Bruce Lee once said.

And here's some poetry from mum.



We talked long in to the darkest hours

Until we saw the burnished sky

And our eyes stung

As our words blurred and became thoughts

As we were silenced by the dawn

We clung to each other like sailors in a storm

Max Richter, der gefeierte Komponist, der dafür bekannt ist, traditionelle Orchestrierung nahtlos mit modernen elektronischen Elementen zu verbinden, bereitet sich darauf vor, sein mit Spannung erwartetes Album
zu veröffentlichen. Dieses Album markiert eine bedeutende Entwicklung in Richters musikalischem Werdegang, da er sich intensiver mit Themen wie Optimismus und der Polarität des Lebens und menschlicher
Emotionen auseinandersetzt, begleitet von einer tieferen Erkundung elektronischer Klänge und Feldaufnahmen.
Mit seiner jahrzehntelangen Karriere und prägenden Projekten wie SLEEP oder Vivaldi Recomposed kann
Max Richters Einfluss auf Musik und Kultur gar nicht hoch genug eingeschätzt werden. Seine unvergleichliche Fähigkeit, tiefgreifende menschliche Erfahrungen in musikalische Kompositionen zu übersetzen, hat
ihm weltweit eine treue Anhängerschaft eingebracht.
Seither begeisterte Max Richter weltweit ein Millionenpublikum und berührte damit nicht nur bewährte
Kenner, sondern auch völlig neue Generationen von Hörern, sei es in Filmen wie Ad Astra, oder Serien, wie
zuletzt in den Netflix-Erfolgsformaten Bridgerton oder The Crown.

2023 was a whirlwind year for Oracle Sisters. The trio—Julia Johansen, Chris Willatt, and Lewis Lazar—followed the release of their debut album Hydranism with a globe-spanning tour that captivated fans and critics alike. From the highways between Knoxville and Nashville to sold-out clubs in rain-soaked Seattle, and festival stages across the UK, they logged countless hours on the road. Their journey was a tapestry of exhaustion and exhilaration, falling apart, brawls and disputes, love and acceptance. By the year’s end, just two days before Christmas, they found themselves in Tokyo, reflecting on the fleeting nature of time and the fragments of inspiration gathered along the way. It was there the seeds for their next album, Divinations, began to sprout. Composing as a true trio for the first time, Oracle Sisters pieced together sketches formed during stolen moments on tour. These fragments coalesced into Divinations, an album shaped by the band’s nomadic existence. The recording sessions spanned cozy Parisian studios, a barn in northern France, and the storied Valentine Studios in Los Angeles. Their creative process embraced experimentation—swapping primary instruments, playing with toy drum machines, and crafting melodies on quirky tools like the OP-1 and a baby Casio keyboard. This spirit of discovery lent the album a sense of spontaneity and wonder. At its core, Divinations channels mysticism and timeless storytelling. The band’s songwriting draws on diverse influences, from the surrealist poetry of Baudelaire and Rimbaud to the introspective philosophies of Carl Jung. Musically, echoes of Talking Heads, Air, and Leonard Cohen resonate throughout the album and tracks like “Riverside” delve into existential questions— “How far are you going? Is it more than money can buy?” Elsewhere on the album “Marseille,” born in the city that gave the song its name, kicks off as a trance with lyrics that play between the sincere and desperate self-help affirmations, we give ourselves while trying to find a bridge between our individual lives and a universal feeling. Lead-single “Alouette” is Oracle Sisters at their most direct; propelled by a driving bassline and exuberant strings, the track summons the sound of 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s rock n roll as they sing about “getting out of dodge, finding a pirate ship and sailing home.” Inspired by the book Caliban and the Witch, “Blue Left Hand” is a lyrical tapestry weaving together history, philosophy, and cultural critique. The lyrics, “It’s in the harbor of every page / It’s in the corner of the playwright’s stage / And every player and every fake / And every witch that we burned at the stake,” reflect on the forces that shaped the capitalist society we know today. Across Divinations’ 11 tracks it’s not only geographic boundaries that were crossed but also the boundaries of time and circumstance. While their work may not consciously reflect specific worldly events, they seek to embrace the universal and offer a space for healing. “Good music would make sense to a farmer in 17th century France as it would to a pastry chef in Slovenia in the 21st century,” shares Lazar. “It’s not written for any temporal powers that be. It’s about expressing our common humanity and taking it from there.” This intuitive approach fuels Oracle Sisters creative process - whether composing in a frozen French farmhouse or performing live with an ever-expanding lineup of collaborators, the band remains committed to exploring the unknown. Through Divinations, they hope to leave listeners feeling transcendent, levitating on waves of intuition and discovery.

Back in the day, when he was the drummer for Poni Hoax, Vincent Taeger would sing in French whatever came to his mind backstage after concerts, just for fun, to amuse his friend the late Nicolas Ker. Since then, time has flown by, undoubtedly bringing its share of ups and downs. Nonetheless, today, this artist with a long career is finally releasing his debut album as a singer, OK Crooner. It's indeed an album for a singer, but also one for a musician. For this part, Taeger doesn't come alone; he brings along the Jazz Kamasutra, a sexy sextet that knows how to play everything and will later accompany him on stage. To get to this point, Vincent Taeger had to stop playing around with big names like Air, Damon Albarn, Justice, Lenny Kravitz, Skepta, Tony Allen, Oumou Sangaré, Jeff Mills, Archie Shepp, Sampa the Great, Andrea Laszlo de Simone... More than half of the major artists with whom he once collaborated, contributing to their albums or simply laying down a drum, bass, or any other heavy instrument line. Before OK Crooner, he also transformed into Tiger Tigre. This roaring alias was used for a first solo album, instrumental and so deep that one might have thought the ghost of François de Roubaix had taken shape. But that was before, before this exceptional musician decided to dive into the vast ocean of French variety to give a sequel, a culmination to this project. During COVID, Vincent Taeger started frantically listening to Souchon, Chamfort, Gotainer, and Christophe. Inspired by his elders, while not renouncing his attachment to the meticulous arrangements reminiscent of Alain Goraguer's soundtracks, he picked up a pen to jot down snippets of songs to accompany his increasingly sophisticated compositions. And the worst part is that he enjoyed it! Coming from rap, he has a knack for punchlines. Throughout the album, he delivers just as many harsh or soft words as good ones, alternating between risqué humor, Gaulish wit, and poetry. Partially recorded at Studio Ferber, but mainly at home with his partner, known by the alias La Plongée, who co-produced the album for the occasion, OK Crooner is a key album in Vincent Taeger's discography. Besides being the one where he finally unveils his voice to the public, without pretense as it is prominently featured and minimally, if at all, retouched, Taeger also offers music that suits him perfectly. Sharp yet accessible, jazz, pop, baroque, classical, modern, and resolutely marked by Tony Allen's legacy, which he daringly mixes with Beethoven in the Fifth Symphony. His alter ego, Vincent Taurelle, with whom he has produced many albums, took care of mixing this one.

Free jazz poetry by a spry, 85 year old Joe McPhee, adapting his renowned improvised practice to words - juxtaposed with Mats Gustafson’s sparing brass and electric gestures. It’s an utterly timeless and transfixing salvo, another shiny notch for Smalltown Supersound’s Le Jazz Non Series.

As a common ligature to the OG free jazz scene of ‘60s NYC, with formative binds to its European offshoots and the experimental avant garde, Joe McPhee is a true force of nature who has represented jazz at its freest over a remarkable lifetime. In duo with Swedish free jazz and noise standard bearer Mats Gustafson, he upends expectations with an astonishingly vivid and upfront example of his enduring contribution to freely improvised music. In 11 parts he variously reflects on everything from the neon sleaze and scuzz of NYC to contemporary US politicians and laugh out loud imitations of his previous sparring partners such as Peter Brötzmann, with a head-slapping immediacy that leaves you reeling, spellbound.

McPhee’s flow of rare, organic cadence, ranging from urgent to contemplative and dreamlike, is blessed with a unique turn-of-phrase that surely mirrors his decades of instrumental work. Gustafsson, meanwhile, dextrously takes up the mantle with a multi-instrumental spectrum of sounds, leaving McPhee unbound and able to float and sting on the mic. There’s obvious wisdom in his perceptively penetrative observations, as derived from a rich cultural life well spent, but also a playful naivety and levity in his ability to veer from almost melodic speech to explosive aggression and a knowing, bathetic wit. It’s perhaps hard to believe that McPhee only started incorporating and performing spoken word in his work in the past ten years, a half century since his declaration of “What Time Is It‽” announced his arrival on a legendary debut ‘Nation Time’ (1971), ushering in one of free jazz’s most singular characters in the process.

Oscillating between discordant reflections on life as a touring musician, set to Gustafsson’s skronk and culminating in a snort-worthy imitation of Peter Brötzmann’s gruff German accent, on ‘Short Pieces’ or the glowering growl and noise exhortations of ‘Guitar’, he evokes a more sweetly consonant calm in ‘When I Grow Up’ and eerie threat of ‘The Dreams Book’, and viscerality of ‘Disco Death’, where Gustafson’s tonal versatility comes into hugely mutable play, whilst McPhee’s extraordinary, unaffected voice is a constant. It’s perhaps McPhee’s balance of cool measuredness and wellspring of barbed energies that allows us, at least, to get the most out of this one; not stifling with mannered or manicured enunciation that can trigger certain icks; keeping close to the nature of spoken word in a way that avoids cliche and becomes inherently critical of it within his purposeful, non-hesitant clarity and unflinching approach.

Beaten To Death’s brutal and innovative sound is somewhat melodic, in a strange way, and that’s why their sound is often called ‘melodic grindcore’; an oxymoronic definition, some might even say a moronic definition, but still the definition that best applies to this Norwegian quintet’s music. Beaten To Death consists of members from Insense, Tsjuder, The Cumshots, Gothminister and She Said Destroy and have won fans over globally for their energetic, strangely melodic and innovative approach to grindcore. With their combination of hysterical blast beats, meaty grooves, double guitar twang attack, asshole-of-god-earthquake bass and tongue in cheek lyrical approach to the shittiness of life, Beaten To Death have dug out their very own little niche in the music world. Their new sixth album “Sunrise Over Rigor Mortis” was recorded and mixed by Tommy Hjelm, and the amazing artwork is once again by William Hay. Since their last album from 2021, all the band members have aged horribly, and this is also the theme of the album. The positive thing about getting closer to the grave, is that profound grindcore poetry comes much easier than when the member were still carefree youngster, frolicking in the Norwegian forests…

From the fierce and murky depths of Mexico, Hierophany's Tenebrario is cast from the unending waves of Ain. This piece is a hymn, a chant of Death and Shadow. As the candles dim at the altar of God, the presence of the Apostate grows and envelops the Flesh of Humanity.
To build a Temple. To sacrifice a lamb. To understand the pulsating flesh and its mortality. Such is the aim of the poetry contained within.

2025 marks a new dawn for Hierophany ushering in a sound that is fierce, malevolent, dark and atmospheric - "Tenebrario" is released via Serpent Sun Records, it is time to enter the darkness and succumb to Tenebrario…

’之 / OF is a word that can be used as a preposition to express the relationship between a part and a whole. It is an unfinished tone, a broken sentence, a start and a whole. It is sustainable, full of potentials and longings.’’

London based performance and sound artist Li Yilei shared an experience familiar to many migrants during the past year of COVID-19 chaos. With their UK visa set to expire, and family back in China, Li made a last-minute dash to return to their nation of birth. Able to board one of the last few flights to China during the initial turmoil of the coronavirus outbreak, Li made it back to Shanghai for a two-week stint in a quarantine hotel.

Though Li had already begun creating OF, the reality of the pandemic began to seep into the recordings. Each of the 12 tracks is a study in horology, using metaphorical sound transcriptions and atmospheric extractions to focus on the temporal relationship between experience and surroundings. Li’s awareness of their own understanding of time became increasingly heightened during quarantine and the emotional involvement found within these new realities informed many of the sounds created.

‘’I tried to portray each song as a short, scattered poem - a moment that I captured to represent each hour.’’

Composed using analogue synthesisers, vocal samples, field recordings and string instruments such as the violin and guqin, Li indulges in moments of grief, panic, healing, cessation, melancholy, vastness, hope, joy and emptiness as they explore the acoustic relations between humans and the many forces of nature.

The art of the Song Dynasty, with its ancient traditions of poetry and timekeeping, were also great sources of inspiration for the album - whilst paintings from the period, specifically those of flowers and birds, are common themes throughout the tracks. Indeed, it is within the vastness of time that the album artwork comes to relevance. The eighth emperor of the Song Dynasty, Huizong, was a revered artist and a scene from his work ‘Finches and Bamboo’ adorns the album cover.

Lucy Sissy Miller is a French/British singer-songwriter, performer and artist based in Paris. On her latest release for Mêtron Records, Pre Country, she renders her own personal take on country music, an ambient and airy ode to her love of Americana. Across 16 tracks, Miller recollects about love-like friendships, breakups, mermaids and missing girl mysteries - the album acting as a movie-like homage to girlhood and desire.

“With this album I really enjoyed blurring the lines between fiction and reality, a bit like what movies are able to do to us. I hide a little bit of personal truth behind each song.”

Influenced by the tones of Laurie Anderson and Imogen Heap, as well as the imagery found in Twin Peaks and Paris, Texas, Pre Country is a rich and explorative record that mixes a wide range of sonic sources. Though very much rooted in folk music, Pre Country is laced with layers of autotune, bringing an other worldly and haunted presence to the work.

“It’s an album about memories and how we stitch up these moments, making them movie-like to make sense of these experiences.”

The record was crafted with notes from journals, poetry, voice memos, transformed and collected sounds and here it carries the many layers of desire, loss and fear that Miller wanted to convey in the songs, communicating an unsteady, explosion of feeling whilst remaining delicate and personal.

Up The Bracket arrived like a raging bull in a tired post-Britpop china shop and introduced the world to The Libertines, a new gang of London bohemians, whose ragged tunes, red military tunics, opiated poetry and "live now pay never" lifestyle came to define the millennial angst of the early noughties. At the heart of the band is the blood bond bromance between the ramshackle Music Hall Jagger/Richards, Peter Doherty and Carl Barat, ably assisted by the rock solid rhythm twins John Hassall and Gary Powell. Any bookie worth his salt would have given you short odds on this quartet surviving more than a month or two, given the teetering on the brink lifestyle they chose to lead, but here we are two decades later and our Byronic heroes, though older and wiser, are still fighting the good fight and making music every bit as vital as their debut. The belief, talent and fervour that Doherty spoke of in their earliest manifesto has stood them in good stead. Up The Bracket, justly considered one of the greatest albums of the noughties, was originally released on October 21st 2002 by Rough Trade Records. The album, a heady stew of indie rock, skiffle, blues, dub and English bucolic pop, was a huge shot in the arm to a largely redundant music scene and helped to inspire the rebirth of guitar music, going on to influence countless artists who followed in its wake. Up The Bracket, which was produced by Mick Jones of The Clash, takes you on a wondrously poetic journey into the band"s mythical world and their fevered dreams of Albion, a land of squalid glamour, liberty, equality, fraternity, gin palaces and chip shops. Quite simply Pete, Carl, Gary and John created a hugely compelling timeless British rock"n"roll classic debut as relevant now as it was upon its release.

Ocean Moon - alias of producer Jon Tye (MLO).

In addition to running the long-standing label Lo Recordings, Tye has recorded under various names and been involved in numerous projects over the past three decades. Keen fans of the label may also notice that this isn't Tye's first collaboration with MFM; his work during the 1990's as part of UK ambient group MLO captured our attention years ago, leading to the release of their retrospective album 'Oumuamua' in 2021.

Releasing archival work alongside new material from an artist has been a fundamental aspect of Music From Memory's identity since we began the label, and is something that continues to bring us immense joy. With Jon continuing to produce work under a wide range of names to this day, the short step to releasing this new work was organic and natural. Working under the name Ocean Moon Jon carries echoes of his work with MLO into the modern day, weaving an ambient electronic music that radiates gentle positivity.

The title 'Ways To The Deep Meadow' is inspired by the poem 'Universal Solar Calendar' written by poet, mystic, shaman, and visionary Angus Maclise. Maclise began as the percussionist in an early iteration of La Monte Young's Theatre Of Eternal Music and later played with the Velvet Underground before moving to Nepal, where he wrote and published an impressive collection of poetry and music.

Side one of the album was created at a time when Tye had been exploring ideas around artificial intelligence, delving into books such as 'The Physics Of Immortality' by Frank J. Tippler, 'Novacene' by James Lovelock, and '12 Bytes' by Jeanette Winterson, seeking an alternative to the prevalent, negative views of AI. He was also inspired by the Buddhist perspective of AI as an integral part of consciousness evolution, as evidenced by the creation of a Buddhist robot that preaches in the Kodaiji Temple in Kyoto.

Side two consists of two long-form pieces, one composed for Janine Rook's 'Made In Dreams' exhibition and the other for Vix Hill Ryder's 'Wild Edges' film. For 'Made In Dreams', text from the exhibition catalogue was processed via the Holly Herndon Holly + app to create an environment that is simultaneously otherworldly and warm.

As with much of Jon's work, this music seeks to nurture an optimistic outlook in the listener, something he achieves here with subtlety and a truly delicate touch. The immersive ambient music of 'Ways To The Deep Meadow' reaches out to the listener like gentle trails of light, offering it's spells,invocations and enchantments to all who choose to listen.

'Ways To The Deep Meadow' will be released on 31st January 2025 on LP as well as digitally. Sleeve art and design by Michael Willis.

An outstanding contribution from turkey to contemporary New Wave. Introverted Poetry with delicate voice and unconventional vocals. A halcyon band sound with calm but compelling arrangements. Nilipek. already created a huge scene in Turkey since 2015. Now it's time for the international audience to discover her. Not psychedelic but a deeply psychological album. A great minimalism of Alternative Pop that may melt to every heart.

Limited 250 Copy, Splatter LP with Poster in Gatefold Sleeve with OBI.