Shuta Yasukochi is an artist from the Saitama prefecture in Japan.
'In full Bloom' is Shuta's first outing on Vaknar, it sees the artist readapt the nature themed formula found in previous works, both sonically and in name, while expanding on the thematic by presenting the album in a story like arc, slowly unfolding throughout the duration of the album.
In Full Bloom is most aptly experienced in its entirety, revealing the albums mediative like properties as the listener is slowly enveloped in Shuta's graciously rippling compositions; glimmering chimes and faint strings quietly protrude through layers of serene, reflective ambiance.
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Limited pressings of analog techno and electronic music .
The project highlights the personal outlook of Gaffarel’s underground sound.
known as Gaffy on his previous singular productions, percussive DJ sets and stupendous live acts, this imprint is a new platform for the Parisian artist to introduce his solo work, collaborations and remixes.
He has skillfully blended forthcoming EP’s with a mix of complex mental grooves, meticulous frequencies, conspicuous themes and textures, capturing a musical universe with remarkable knowledge.
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For COS_MOS's next trick they serve up a special 12” that features a brand new single from M>O>S super group R-A-G, also known as MaSpaventi, Aroy Dee and G-String. It comes backed with a re-release of one of the key tracks of the previously released Crystal Maze album on aDepth Audio. A fierce and full 45rpm re-cut of 'Dr Claw' that has been a secret weapon of Aroy Dee for many years. It's a raw cosmic adventure, with warm solar winds blowing over prickly drums. Twisted bass and knotted pads wrap round the groove as a detuned lead synth heads into a Legowelt-ish future. 'Larry Venom', stirs things up with a deconstructed, off kilter mix of beeps and drones with marching drums adding to the feeling that this is a robot party in meltdown. This is a brilliantly left of centre EP of intergalactic house.
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Companion 45 to the forthcoming unreleased LP of L.A soul singer, composer and producer LaRombé. We transferred all of larombes tapes in Holywood and pulled sa ton of Amazing track starting with this the original full-length masters of Modern Soul Grail 'You're The Best' (Running an extra one and a half mins) flipped with a previously unreleased track 'Train Of Thought. You know the score, 6k for an OG.
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Strangelove’s latest release turns left somewhere near the edge of the Atlantic, with Electricidade Estética” documenting a vibrant window into the musical landscape of 1980’s counter-culture Portugal. Compiling early un-issued works, DWART’s organic Ash-Ra Balearics meld with spikey Iberian electronics, coalescing around the floating beauty of ‘Mate’, reissued for the first time on vinyl. With emergent music technologies of the era enthusiastically adopted by Lisbon’s avante-garde, there was a collective desire by DWART and their contemporaries to push existing sonic boundaries;- Post new wave sounds melded with distinctive local sensibilities. Vítor Rua & Jorge Lima Barreto of the legendary Telectu (whom Antoñio currently tours with) were regular collaborators while composer/ guitarist Nuno Rebelo and guitarist/singer Bernardo Devlin feature throughout. Antoñio & Manuela Duarte’s search for an artistic language melded a continuing curiosity with aural and physical dualities: experimental pop integrated with performance art, mathematics sound-tracked on canvas, organic found sounds at ease alongside synthetic drum machines. The 9 songs found here document the early emergence of their own ‘Electricidade Estética’ (Big shouts to Invisible Cities & Steele Bonus- early champions of ‘Mate’) Vital Sales Points: Follow up to the labels previous releases - Frank Harris & Maria Marquez ‘Echoes’ and previous Portuguese release Lena d’Água ?- Jardim Zoológico
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Extracting a rich sense of emotion from an evolving analogue set-up, Hammer follows up his previous FMB outings Dahlia and C-Space with a similar tone and sound palette as he lays out a new EP with 3 tracks that capture the Feel My Bicep sound perfectly, striking the balance between delicate melody and power with aplomb. This EP follows what has been a heavy 2019 gig schedule, with stand out sets at many top festivals and clubs such as Glastonbury, Panorama Bar and Parklife, along with both an Australian and Indian tour under his belt. The lead track ‘Parabola’ manifested as a slow burning percussive experiment that, as Hammer explains, ‘quickly got fired up by an extra 10bpm for the dance floor effect, turning itself into an acid led epic’ and as a consequence accidentally becoming the A1 at the same time. ‘Parabola’ is followed by ‘Panoptic’ and ‘Entropy’; all three track names inspired by his recent love for physics podcasts. He describes how ‘they are based around types of curvatures and levels of order that, in my head, are the visualisation of the 3 tracks inside workings; the engine room of the time machine.’ All three tracks were created with Hammer’s much loved Yamaha CS1-X, ‘a spaceship in its own right’, he explains. ‘A Xoxbox and a Roland SH-2 did the rest of the hard work. Time to enter the twilight zone with this one’! Bicep continue to add substance to what has now become a distinctive and singular label with this new 12" courtesy of their long term friend and blog contributor Hammer. With their previous offering from James Shinra still in many roving record bags and with a release catalogue full until the end of the year, the development of the label has reached a certain zenith and here - as head strong and highly effective as ever - Hammer makes a welcome return to the label with another batch of machine-driven dance tracks.After 12 years of promoting parties in Glasgow, The Hammer Hits goes on tour inviting guests such as Sally C, Jennifer Cardini and fellow FMB signee Cromby across the UK, Ireland and Berlin.
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Vibrations is the second album released by American free jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler's quartet featuring Don Cherry, Gary Peacock and Sonny Murray. The album was recorded in Copenhagen in September of 1964. Originally issued by the Freedom label, it also been released under an alternate title, Ghosts. Previously out of print for decades, the recordings were remastered for an audiophile-grade pressing on 180gram vinyl at Pallas in Germany.
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Sometimes you know it’s coming, sometimes it’s unexpected, but the time to hang your boots will always come. It’s better when you have total control, even better if you end up on a high (or on a low). After seven years of sonic interferences, calibrating the soundscape of field recordings and helping to recreate the old sounds of today, Gonzo is retiring from music. It’s a goodbye, yeah, and a well-crafted one.
But “Ruído(s)” doesn’t sound like an intentional one. You won’t listen to it on any of the thirteen tracks that scavenge for a solution in the space between ambient music and field recordings. You won’t feel it in the intense connection between human and natural sounds and how sometimes everything oscillates in opposite states of mind. You won’t even read it in the intense, but subtle, humor present in some of the pieces. You won’t, because it’s not an intentional goodbye. You only know it is, because you’re reading this.
What is it then? It’s a celebration of random sound. How can you experience something scholastic and, simultaneously, deeply hilarious? Just think about the amazing triad formed by “A Fuga dos Grilos”, “Degredado(s)” and “Cantiga Parva”. First, you’re blessed with six minutes that build up on the idea that sound can be an intense religious experience, echoes going back and forth to create a fantastic Boiler Room feeling (one populated with raving Gonzos doing dabs in front of the camera) that eventually ends up with a cinematic touch: someone saying the title of the song out loud. One second after we are into the Flying Lizards world, with two songs that shake any pretentious seriousness of the previous track.
Is it serious or not? It is. But it doesn’t have to be. In “Ruído(s)” Gonzo recounts pop/electronic history through field recordings and weird-soft beats. More than compiling his seven-year history, Gonzo is more worried to understand where he’s leaving his ideas, Caretaker style. Speaking of Caretaker, Leyland Kirby should think about reviving Caretaker and do a whole album around “Brilhante Cortejo”: it’s haunted ballroom in a ‘cracked’ nutshell.
As the album progresses and the need to revisit it grows, it becomes clearer(?) that “Ruído(s)” is more than an artist self-indulging on his work – in a very good manner. It’s also a condensed catalog of Portuguese music and its sounds, a circular trip down the memory lane of a forgotten country and its landscape. “Ruído(s)” is a goodbye to a country and its traditions. It does it without sulking but with the most respectful loud laugh - the Gonzo way.
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Secretsundaze welcomes Eliphino to the gala relaunch of their imprint for a thoroughly satisfying mini album of contemplative jacking and dulcet breakbeats.
Eliphino's most recent 'Realistic Sex EP' on the hotly tipped Meda Fury label boasts thunderous breaks, 303s and serious sub-bass pressure which has gained praise from tastemakers such as Jon K, Carista, Josey Rebelle, Moxie and Gilles Peterson.Having flexed with this darker edged EP after a long lay-off from releasing, while sharpening his skills and reconnecting with his musical inspiration, Eliphino is now ready to really cut loose with 'Breaking Up Is Hard' - a statement longplayer that dreamily investigates the dusty spaces between house, breakbeat, ambient, hardcore and acid. Tom This album came about as way of focussing my energy in the wake of a significant break up. I tried to experiment with melody and texture to convey some of the range of emotions that come with such a testing time. That being said, the B-side bangers are more dedicated to abandon and forgetting your worries.
Hailing originally from the Leeds, but with time spent in both London and Berlin, 'Breaking Up Is Hard' lands somewhere between the Hessle Audio crew, Joy O and Selected Ambient Works era Aphex.
Having previously released heaters for Brownswood and Hoya Hoya over the years, Eliphino stepping up for the debut artist LP on the reactivated Secretsundaze label feels like a natural fit as James Priestley explains:
""We've collectively had a connection and friendship with Tom that goes back several years and in fact it was receiving this work as demos that really spurred and inspired us into getting the label rolling again. It feels totally right to be working with him on this and for this mini-LP to herald the relaunch of the label as it moves towards a more artist led as opposed to EP driven approach.
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For its 50th release, Black Truffle presents the 9th album from one of the label’s core ensembles, the power trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke and Oren Ambarchi. Drawn from a November 2015 performance at Tokyo’s now-defunct SuperDeluxe, the record’s opening piece drops us immediately into the maelstrom, abruptly cutting into an extended episode of Ambarchi’s pummelling drums, O’Rourke’s fuzzed-out 6 string bass and Haino’s roaring guitar and electronics. Eventually settling into a hypnotic bass and drum groove over which Haino unleashes some almost Ray Russell-eque skittering atonal screech, these opening 13 minutes act as a potent reminder of the trio’s power. Alongside showcasing the steady development of a unique language for the guitar-bass-drums power trio, the group’s succession of releases over the last decade has demonstrated a constant experimentation with new instruments, which continues here with O’Rourke use of Hammond organ (played at the same time as his roaming, sometimes knotty basslines). On the album’s second piece, the organ plays a key role, furnishing a harmonically rich shimmer over O’Rourke’s angular 6 string bass chords, Haino’s distant, chirping electronics and Ambarchi’s crisp cymbal work; arriving somewhere halfway between Albert Marcoeur and Terje Rypdal, this piece is undoubtedly a highlight in the trio’s catalogue so far. Sides two and three are given over to slow-burning, multi-part epics that range from spacious reflection to furious tumult. Where the trio’s previous 2LP set (This Dazzling, Genuine “Difference” Now Where Shall It Go?, 2017) was primarily instrumental in focus, here we find Haino’s voice taking the spotlight on the expansive third side, intoning, wailing and exhorting in Japanese and English over a backdrop that moves from hushed bass and organ atmospherics to rolling toms and cymbal crashes before arriving at an ecstatic finale of searing guitar, tumbling drums and reverb-saturated bass. The fourth side returns to the hypnotic grooves of the opening piece, fixing on an relentless riff and riding it into oblivion under Haino’s roaming psychedelic soloing and jagged chordal slashes.
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Celebrating the 50th release on the Nonplus label, Instra:mental return with their sophomore album Timelines. A long awaited record that finally uncovers the unreleased gems of the legendary Autonomic Podcast series. This eleven track album features five, previously vinyl only cuts, with another six unreleased tracks from the vault. This is an album that will feel nostalgic to some but new to others. Classics like Photograph and Pacific Heights transport the listener back to a time where Instra:mental started to blur the boundaries in a pool of multiple genres, allowing artists to dip their toes with creative freedom. This release is mainly rooted in 170bpm (with the exception of “More Than”) but effortlessly feels like its spanning multiple tempos. With the techno infused Encke Gap to the slow pulsings of Deep Night. Timelines represents the embodiment of the Autonomic “Drum & Bass” movement, a slice of time that sounds modern despite being more than a decade in existence. Timelines is a collectors piece that will sit happily in your physical or digital collection, an essential record that highlights the golden era of Instra:mental’s illustrious career.
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The 11th edition of ( djebali ) presents is here, and it features a number of new and forward-thinking artists 3 beautifull tracks delivered by the guy from Madrid, Alvaro Medina ! It comes as usual with a remix of the previous artist on the label : Lose Endz
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Deliquent Delivery’s third EP titled U comes from Dublin based label head Stephen Mahoney, who contributed two tracks to the label’s last split EP.
Mahoney’s vision for Delinquent Delivery is visible on this release, showcasing his talents which range beyond A&R and delving into production. U features five untitled tracks, contrasting thumping dancefloor driven techno with spacey atmospheric ambient tones. With over twenty years experience as a DJ, Mahoney’s ear for precise, engaging rhythms and melancholic tones can be heard throughout U.
A1 sets the tone of U. A thumping kick lays the foundation for the track, with gritty, cutting melodies juxtaposed with polished, pensive tones. Rhythmic structure is a large component of Mahoney’s signature sound, with cleverly placed hats and snares audible on A1. A strong link to the sounds of Detroit sounds of the ’90s is audible here, synonymous with Zenker Brothers et. all.
A2 continues down the path previously set out, with another dance floor directed track. More subtle than previously heard, Mahoney drives the track with a glossy lead, only to break the track up and juxtapose it with a gritty, murky underlying melody. A2 also focuses heavily on rhythmic structure, with well-placed spacing allowing energy to be retracted and reintegrated with more tenacity.
A3 takes U to a different space with an ambient excursion. Mahoney here showcases that he is capable of creating lush, captivating soundscapes which transport the listener to a place of tranquillity. Dark, harrowing undertones are balanced with ethereal swells, maintaining the aura of the record established.
B1 moves back to the dancefloor, with a thumping kick and jagged, piercing tones. Mahoney’s versatility as a producer is evident here, as B1 moves in the same vein as the A-side of U but is completely different in style. Prime-time dance-floor material, this track drives forward with ferocity and grace, cleverly being broken up with sparkling synth tones only to hit back harder than before.
B2 closes out U. A bouncy kick drum sets the tone, with atmospheric, dark swells creating an engaging sonic tapestry. Sparse, delicately placed lustrous tones take the lead, with airy swells contributing to form a wonderful balance of light and darkness. Mahoney’s focus on precision within rhythmic structure is again noticeable here, with rhythmic elements forming their own melodies throughout B2.
U is Stephen Mahoney’s first full release on Delinquent Delivery and captivates the essence of his vision as a producer entirely. Versatile, engaging and polished, U contains five tracks which all compliment one another wonderfully. U is a record which is as useful in a DJ’s record bag as it is for home listening.
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Hailing from Cardiff, Elmono has previously released on Cold Recordings, launching the label with it’s first release and following up with a twisted take on Swamp 81 style UK bass 4/4 music. His debut on Tectonic shows off a different flavour altogether, combining all the classic elements of old school UK rave music - and giving them a fresh twist. Tempos run around 128-130bpm while the mood captures the essence of 92-94, as hardcore mutated into jungle.
We kick off with ‘Cooper’s Dream’ which filters upward from a muted position, dropping into a jungle-tech format, building up to a strange melodic bass line as we are taken further and further into the void of Cooper’s hallucinogenic dream space!
‘For The Future’ begins with a short, gentle intro before dropping wildly out of the blue into a tearing bass drop that will rip apart the walls of any dance. Harking back to the old school ways, the track develops with sample snippets and ‘ardcore synth stabs.
Flip then for ‘Endorfiend’ which runs with the theme of jungle/hardcore ingredients, reworked for 2019. Swooping bass hits and melodic chimes leave one foot in 1992 and the other in the here and now.
‘Shermi Paradox’ closes up the EP with splashing drum breaks, dissonant chords and synths, spinning acid like elements alongside Detroit-esque bass patterns.
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* The original sister label to Ram Records from the old Ram HQ studio in Essex, Liftin Spirit Records now celebrates it’s 25th year with a special ‘RELOADED’ limited vinyl series of remastered classics, alongside rare and previously unreleased tracks since the beginning in1992.
* DATs from artists such as Andy C, Ant Miles, Shimon, Joint Venture, Flatliner, Interrogator and Red One have been located in the archives. Also from the Ram & Liftin HQ came tracks for the Deep Seven label in 1993 and all these rare DAT masters have been located and now re-cut by Simon, the original Ram & Liftin vinyl masterer at ‘The Exchange’. Initially, Deep Seven remasters will present on a printed white label and unreleased tracks will have a black label.
* The year is 1994 and the awesome combination of Flatliner & Ant Miles gave life to the infamous tracks ‘The Big Bang’ / ‘No Boundaries’. Release no 9 on RAM records tore up sound systems at every Rave in the country. A follow up was on the cards and ‘Flatline’ was born. Put to one side to make way for the Big Bang/No Boundaries remixes, somehow it never resurfaced again... until now!
* A similar story evolved for the A side ‘Just Stop’. A track made in the latter part of 1995, Flatliner comes with yet another amen monster, but this time taking things on more of a rolling Drum & Bass vibe. A golden nugget to own on vinyl for any true Jungle/Drum & Bass fan.
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"Crosstalk" is a collaborative effort between Theomatic's artists - a sort of a peer reinterpretation of each other's works. First on the A-side is Acos Coolkas' "Skyline", from their first-ever single on Theomatic, released in 2005, receiving a sonic facelift from An-2. This is followed by An-2's remix of D-Pulse's first track from their latest full-length album, "Gratitude", which first appeared as a mystery track on An-2's 2018 SoundCloud mix, now seeing the light of the day by popular demand, and is not to be missed. On the flipside D-Pulse deliver a two-part remix of An-2's "The Gift" - previously only available digitally. These two stunning pieces, filled with ethereal soundscapes, will delight any discerning Balearic-sound connoisseur. Rounding things off is Acos Coolkas' remix of An-2's seminal
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The french and fresh production team Mochi Men (Young Pulse & ATN) is back on wax, releasing their 2nd official remix on Mochi Records ! After making a great impression with their previous and
sold out release (the deep house – UK jazz funk remix of Resolution 88’s "Taking Off), they return with a monster nu disco boogie nugget, remixing “Boys and Girls” from the famous french latin funk sensation, Setenta ! With a strong reputation since their first hit “Funky Tumbao”, followed by 4 LP's, a collaboration (on record and on stage) with Nuyorican legend Joe Bataan and even a remix
by Kenny Dope Gonzalez (Masters At Work), the Parisalseros of Setenta entrust their latest hit to the Mochi Men funky rascals.
The result is a heavy boogie bounce of a real party jam, that hits hard on the dancefloor
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This record contains: filters, singing, Polish railways samples, the right touch of big beat and melodies & it can help you clean the air of the club.
Solpara is an agile performer, both in sense of the nature of his live acts, background and tour schedule. Brutaż is also about nimbleness and acrobatics so it was only logical for their paths to cross. Both are connected with record dealing (Record Loft, Berlin and Halcyon, NY, respectively) and both are emotional and undergoing changes.
Contrary to his previous endeavours (incl. on Nicolas Jaar's Other People), Solpara's release does not quite want you to relax, it's fast and slow, it's emotional and rackety, it's fire and water. This Lebanese-American raconteur seem to have a similar goal to Polish complainers of Brutaż - records are not meant to wreak havoc, their purpose is to refresh the perimeter. Woda różana stands for "rose water" - it's about scent, touch & flavour.
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In support of their forthcoming Bob Moog documentary Electronic Voyager, Waveshaper Media have produced a compilation LP of Moog recordings from the 1960s. The first compilation of its kind, Electronic Voyages: Early Moog recordings 1964-1969 contains tracks by Robert Arthur Moog, Herbert Deutsch, Joel Chadabe, Lothar and the Hand People, Intersystems, Ruth White, Max Brand, and Paul Earls. All of these tracks, released here on vinyl in an edition of 1000 copies, have been scarcely heard and difficult to track down, with all but three of them previously unreleased on vinyl.
Bypassing the Moog synthesizer’s backseat appearance on key pop recordings by the likes of the Beatles, the Doors, and the Beach Boys, Electronic Voyages aims to highlight the diverse approach of 1960s musicians and composers who adopted the Moog as their primary instrument; these recordings all feature the Moog synthesizer front and centre. Beginning with an “audio letter” (The Abominatron) from Bob Moog to his musician-muse Herbert Deutsch, demonstrating some of the first Moog synthesizer prototype’s capabilities, Electronic Voyages veers from avant-garde and electronic soundscapes, to psychedelic madness and summer-of-love pop. In the 1960s, the Moog synthesizer was a new, groundbreaking instrument, and its use was completely uncharted territory. The pioneering use of the Moog on all of these recordings sounds fresh today - you can sense the wide-eyed exploratory delight unfolding, and the disparate results range from endearingly naive (Lothar and the Hand People, Paul Earls) to downright eerie (Ruth White, Intersystems).
The musicians and composers behind these Electronic Voyages may have been among the first to adopt Moog synthesizers, but the fact that they so readily found within them expressivity, heart, and a means to translate their wondrous sense of discovery, speaks far more to Bob Moog’s visionary invention and enduring legacy.
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Welcome to our 2nd EP of Original tracks from 12tree's new label, Hot Piroski. The label is a boisterous mix of Space Disco, Deep Funk edits and Balearic Beats. The Previous EPs saw support from Radio 1 Essential Mix, Pete Herbert, Ursula 1000, Phil Mison, Justin Rushmore, Dan McKie, DNS beats, Primavera sound and more ...
A side: 'In the Sun' - featuring soulful vocals from Katty Heath over a Deep disco re-edit that morphs into a deep house-tinged groover.
On the flip: 'Magic Dust' - poolside blissed out beats on a vapour wave tip. 'Guitar Solaar' - soul-tinged groover with a wiff of Marvin Gaye.
All tracks Produced and recorded by 12Tree at his studio in Barcelona.
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After years of mythology, misinterpretation and procrastination Nurse With Wound’s Steven Stapleton finally chooses Finders Keepers Records as the ideal collaborators to release “the right tracks” from his uber-legendary psych/prog/punk peculiarity shopping list known as The Nurse With Wound List, commencing with a French specific Volume One of this authentically titled Strain Crack Break series. Featuring some Finders Keepers’ regulars amongst galactic Gallic rarities (previously presumed to be imaginary red herrings) this deluxe double vinyl dossier demystifies some of the essential French feee jazz and Parisian prog inclusions from the alphabetical “dedication” inventory as printed the anti-bands 1979 industrial milestone debut.
When Steven Stapleton, Heman Pathak and John Fothergill’s anti-band Nurse With Wound decided to include an alphabetical dedication to all their favourite bands on the back of their inaugural LP the notion of creating a future record dealers’ trophy list couldn’t have been further from their minds. By adding a list of untravelled European mythical musicians and noise makers to their own debut release of unchartered industrial art rock they were merely providing a suggestive support system of existing potential likeminded bands, establishing safety in numbers should anyone require sonic subtitles for Nurse With Wound’s own mutant musical language. Luckily for them, the record landed in record shops in the midst of 1979’s memorable summer of abject apathy and its sound became a hit amongst disillusioned agit-pop pickers and artsy post-punks, thus playing a key role in the bourgeoning “Industrial” genre that ensued. On the most part, however, the list , like most instruction manuals, remained unreadable, syntactic and suspiciously sarcastic... As potential “real musicians” Nurse WIth Wound became an Industrial music fan’s household name, but in contrast many of the names on The Nurse With Wound List were considered to be imaginary musicians, made-up bands or booby traps for hacks and smart-arses. It took a while for the rest of the record collecting community to catch on or finally catch u
Since then, many of the rare, obscure and unpronounceable genre-free records on The Nurse With Wound List have slowly found their own feet and stumbled in to the homes of open-minded outernational vinyl junkies, D’s and sample hungry producers, self-propelled and judged on their own merit, mostly without consultation of the enigmatic NWW map. But, to the inspective competitive collector’s chagrin, one resounding fact recurs, NWW got there first! Via vinyl vacations, on cheap flights and Interrail tickets, buying bargain bin LPs on a shoestring while oblivious to the pending pension worthy price tags after their 40 year vintage, Stapleton and Fothergill, even if you’ve never heard of them, were at the bottom of the pit before “digging” became paydirt. And NOW at huge international record fairs that occur in massive exhibition halls (or within the confines of your one-touch palm pilot) amongst jive talk acronyms such as SS, PP, BIN, DNAP and BCWHES the coded letters NWW have begun to appear on stickers in the corner of original copies of the same premium progressive records accompanied by a customary 50% price hike to titillate/coerce the initiated as dealers extort the taught. Like “psych” “PINA” or “Krautrock” did before, “NWW” has become a buzzword and in the passed decades since its first publication The List has been mythologised, misunderstood and misconstrued. It’s also been overlooked, overestimated and under-appreciated in equal measures, but with a growing interest it has also come to represent a maligned genre in itself, something that all members of the original line-up would have deemed sacrilegious. Bolstered by the subtitle “Categories strain, crack and sometimes break, under their burden,” all bands on the inventory (many chosen on the strength of just one track alone) were chosen for their genre-defying qualities... A check-list for the unchart
Forty years after Nurse With Wound’s first record, Finders Keepers Records, in close collaboration with Steve Stapleton remind fans of THIS kind of “lost” music, that there once existed a feint path which was worn away decades before major label pop property developers built over this psychedelic underground. As long-running fans and liberators of some of the same records, arriving at the same axis from different-but-the-same planets, Finders Keepers and Nurse WIth Wound finally sing from the same hymn sheet resulting in a collaborative attempt to officially, authentically and legally compile the best tracks from the list, succeeding where many overzealous nerds have deferred (or simply, got the wrong end of the stick). Naturally our lavish metallic gatefold double vinyl compendium would only scratch the surface of this DIY dossier of elongated punk-prog peculiarities hence out decision to release volume one in a series which, in accordance with Steve’s wishes, focusses exclusively on individual tracks of French origin, the country that unsurprisingly hosted the highest content of bands on the list. Comprising of musique concrète, free jazz, Rock In Opposition, Zeuhl School space rock, macabre ballet music, lo-fi sci-fi, and classic horror literature inspired prog, this first volume of the series entitled Strain Crack And Break throws us in at the deep end, where the Seine meets the in-sane, introducing the space cadets that found Mars in Marseilles.
Like the Swedish flat-pack record shelves that attempt to house the vast amounts of vintage vinyl that goes into a multi-volume compilation like this, its time to prepare your own musical penchants and preconceived ideas about DIY music and hear them slowly strain, crack and b
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The UK's future Art Rock Stars build on recent successes with new album 'Dissolution'. The highly anticipated second record to feature the King Crimson / Porcupine Tree drummer Gavin Harrison
The CD edition of 'Dissolution' is presented in Sleevepac packaging complete with a 24-page booklet, while the single LP edition of 'Dissolution' is pressed to audiophile 180g vinyl and features a 4-page booklet. The blu-ray edition of
'Dissolution' includes a 16-page booklet of additional artwork and features the album plus bonus music in a 24/96 DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround sound mix and 24/96 hi-res stereo audio. It is presented in Amaray packaging.
'Dissolution' is the highly anticipated follow-up album to 2016's 'Your Wilderness' and is the band's second album to feature King Crimson and Porcupine Tree drummer Gavin Harrison, spurring The Pineapple Thief on as leaders of Europe's
experimental rock domain. Their efforts on 'Your Wilderness' produced 4m+ album streams, a #7 in the UK Independent Charts and two extensive headline European tours culminating at London's Islington Assembly Hall where the
concert was recorded for the live release 'Where We Stood'. The new material establishes The Pineapple Thief's intent to elevate themselves to new heights, with a desire to develop their songwriting and technical
capabilities, and with artwork created by iconic design agency Stylorouge, whose previous work includes Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Blur and British film Trainspotting. The album concept tells of the often dark consequences of living in
a society in which everything is played out on a public stage, a theme paralleled in the cover art, which was created by 'glitching' the original photographs. Songwriter Bruce Soord explains 'In a time when we are supposed to be bound
closer together than ever, I have never felt so apart from the world. We are living through a revolution and right now I am not sure it's a good one. Lyrically this is the most vivid I have been.'
The band recorded Dissolution independently across the UK, including at Gavin's 'Bourne Place' studio in London and Bruce's 'Soord Studios' in Somerset, sharing their ideas via instant messaging. The mixing was handled by Soord and
Harrison, and mastering by the band's keyboardist Steve Kitch. The penultimate song 'White Mist' also features experimental guitarist David Torn (David Bowie) providing a bedding of abstract, off-kilter sounds.
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Factory Benelux is proud to present a deluxe 5 disc vinyl box set edition of Always Now, the debut album by cult Factory Records group Section 25, produced by legendary sonic architect Martin Hannett and sleeved by Peter Saville.
All tracks are newly re-mastered from the original quarter-inch tapes. The first 1000 copies of the box set are pressed in coloured vinyl: disc 1 (black); disc 2 (clear); disc 3 (yellow); disc 4 (red); disc 5 (silver). The outer case in printed in PMS 123 with spot varnish.
The 16 page booklet features unseen images by noted photographer Philippe Carly and texts by founder members Larry and Vin Cassidy. Also included is the first ever interview with guitarist Paul Wiggin, whose sudden departure in late 1981 saw Tony Wilson try (and fail) to recruit pre-Smiths teenager Johnny Marr as replacement.
Recorded as a trio at Pink Floyd’s Britannia Row studio in London in January 1981, Always Now combined austere post-punk rhythm and noise with elements of Can, Krautrock and modern psychedelia. Key tracks include Friendly Fires, Dirty Disco and New Horizon, along with C.P. (a collaboration with Hannett) and Hit (extensively sampled by Kanye West for the track F.M.L. on his 2016 album The Life of Pablo).
Disc 2 gathers together several non-album singles from 1980 and 1981, including Charnel Ground, Je Veux Ton Amour and debut EP Girls Don’t Count – the latter produced by mentors Rob Gretton and Ian Curtis (of Joy Division).
Disc 3 offers a complete live show professionally recorded at Groningen (Netherlands) on 26 October 1980, as part of a Factory package tour.
Disc 4 is part-improvised second studio album The Key of Dreams, recorded and produced by the band themselves a few months after Always Now, and released by Factory Benelux in June 1982.
Disc 5 consists of further experimental material recorded in 1981 and self-released on a cassette called Illuminus Illumina. This final disc closes with an extended (and previously unreleased) live encore jam recorded with all four members of New Order at Reading University on 8 May 1981.
“One of the best albums Britain's second city has unleashed” (Uncut);
“In 1980 their bass-driven mantras were thoughtlessly dismissed as second-rate Joy Division, but hindsight judges them more kindly. The wind-dried skeins of their blasted guitar harmonics and skimped electronics gauntly cling to the songs’ skeletal frames. With telltale titles like Babies in the Bardo their Buddhist interests hang heavy over these early stirrings. But, combining a bass-led drone with a characteristic groaning vocal, Charnel Ground succinctly pins down Section 25's pre-disco appeal” (The Wire)
incl. Download Code
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Should you find yourself taking a Thames-side stroll in the shadow of the City of London, keep an eye out for the headphone-clad figure of Ilan Pdahtzur. While be-suited bankers and frustrated office workers scurry home to their families, Ilan can frequently be found casting admiring glances towards the blinking lights of towering skyscrapers while filling his ears with the synthesizer-driven sounds of lesser-known 1980s dance music.
Ilan, an avid but little-known record collector best known for sharing the artwork of obscure and under-appreciated early-to-mid ’80s club cuts on his popular Instagram feed, has been digging for vibrant, kaleidoscopic records since his teens. Now, thanks to Spacetalk, he’s been given a chance to offer a glimpse into his neon-lit nocturnal musical world.
The result is Night City Life, a killer collection of 1980s synthesizer songs inspired by Ilan’s admiration for the glow of London’s late night skyline. Over the course of 13 essential tunes, Ilan escorts us on a vibrant sprint through rare Italo-disco, steamy South African synth-boogie, fizzing American freestyle, oddball Austrian electrofunk and so much more.
There are naturally a fair few sought-after cuts present, but also a fine selection of under-appreciated gems that for one reason or other have been all but ignored since they were released three and a half decades ago. In fact, some selections are so obscure that barely any information exists about them online.
Check for example Preludio’s “Mysterious Nights”, an evocative fusion of slow electronic grooves, dreamy chords and twinkling piano motifs previously buried on a lesser-known album of unremarkable German synth-pop, or the dollar-bin brilliance of Fragile’s sweet synth-pop gem “We’ve Got Tonight, Boy”, a cut that Ilan says is capable of “wrapping itself like tendrils around your soul”. He’s not wrong.
At the other end of the scale you’ll find the ultra-rare Italo-disco breeziness of Friend of Mine’s incredible “Just Your Pride” and Mac & Monica’s soulful 1986 South African synth-boogie cut “You’re So Good To Me”, copies of which regularly change hands for hundreds of pounds online. Ilan originally reached out to the men behind the record last year to tell them how one of their other forgotten gems had been played on a Boiler Room session; naturally, they were thrilled.
There’s plenty to admire elsewhere on the compilation, too, from the waves of analogue synths, bubbly melodies and bobbing beats of the instrumental dub version of Brian Tatcher’s “Hot Love” – a cold-war era cut inspired by the idea of love blossoming in the midst of a nuclear meltdown – to the Bobby Orlando-esque freestyle bustle of Janelle’s “Don’t Be Shy (Dub)” and the sparkling post-boogie brilliance of Jarmaz’s “Night City Life (Disco Remix)”, a track Ilan has listened to countless times while admiring the midnight skyline of his home city.
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Manchester songwriter Ryan Kennedy returns with his fourth album "The Unforgiving Current". Recorded in and around Tokyo hotel rooms, apartments and studios, the album is a badly lit stroll through Tokyo's winding streets, stopping in only the most questionable bars. Despite its seemingly overpopulated centres, there is often a strange isolation. This Isolation would be the fuel behind "the Unforgiving Current".
After moving to Tokyo early 2018 Kennedy began work on the album. Amidst language and work issues his rosey outlook soon dimmed and what follows is Kennedy's exploration and loneliness in this foreign land. Previous musical similarities may be unearthed but what runs through this record is a vein of (dare I say) mature introspection which sets it apart from previous works.
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SOUL/DISCO/FUNK SINGLE HERE FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER ON ANY FORMAT!
FROM THE INDEPENDENT UK LABEL SIX NINE RECORDS Ltd, BASED IN NEWCASTLE
UPON TYNE, JIMMY STERLING OUT OF MOTOR CITY IS HERE WITH TWO FANTASTIC
SONGS! ON THE A-SIDE A BRAND NEW TUNE CALLED “IF YOU WERE ME, WHAT WOULD
YOU DO? (T-GROOVE REMIX)” IS FOUND, WHILST THE FLIP HOLDS A PREVIOUSLY
UNISSUED SONG RECORDED IN THE 1980S – “I BELIEVE IN LOVE”. DEFINITELY
NOT TO BE MISSED AS IT IS A LIMITED UK PRESS WITH SMALL HOLE AND FULL
COLOUR PRINTED PICTURE COVER!
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Following on from solo releases on New York Trax, Natural Sciences and Midnight Shift, we're very happy to welcome Brenecki to Earwiggle. Previously recording as Boris Noiz, Boris Brenecki and also as one half of Ontal, the hugely talented New York-based producer serves up a stunning selection of wild acid, techno and electro for our 26th release. Brenecki's penchant for deep atmospheres, loose rhythms and intense frequency-tweaking, are perhaps best exemplified on title track "Revitalize", which in our view is a standout track of 2019. Comes on clear silver vinyl in a smart-look reverse board sleeve, with design coming courtesy of the irrepressible Jonny Costello (Adult Art Club).
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Untameable Anatolian feline fuzzy folk funk finally uncaged. A spontaneous Turkish-Norwegian-Dutch expedition, where seafaring jazz cats entangled with fugitive roadies and Tee-Set mods, makes the story of Durul Gence’s highly anticipated/ill-fated Asia Minor Mission group the stuff of lost-rock legend and remains one of Turkish music’s great “what ifs?” The black cat is finally out of the bag...
Having forged a celebrity status as one of Turkey’s premier percussionists and bandleaders, Durul Gence assembled the underground fusion group known as Asia Minor Mission (AMM) in early 1972 (with Irfan Sumer, Oguz Durukan and Ugur Dikmen) while trying to escape the constant daze of paparazzi camera flashes that followed him across Turkey. During a far-fetched post-gig brainstorm the group pondered relocating to Norway (based on fact that none of them had ever visited the country) when a local seaman who claimed to have recording studio connections in Oslo overheard them. Enlisting the roadie services of a streetwise Istanbul taxi driver friend on the run from the police AMM took the plunge, accepting the sailor’s offer of passage on his next sailing.
In these new idyllic surroundings, the same region that played host to fellow Turkish percussionist Okay Temiz, Durul found the peace he desired discovering a muse in Norway’s welcoming creative climate. Much like Barıs Manço and Mogollar in France, Cem Karaca and Gökçen Kaynatan in Germany, Gence’s relationship with Norway rekindled a passion for composition in ways he couldn’t have imagined in his homeland, opening doors thought previously unreachable. As a potential prodigal son for Anadolu pop Durul joined a wider pop-cultural diaspora alongside electronic pioneer Ilhan Mimaroglu, Tülay German (aka Tuly Sand) Kardasllar’s “Alex” Wiska (collaborator with Krautrockers Can) and Maffy Falay from the band Sevda.
Despite a blooming fan base and original repertoire the Nordic dream was not to be and after two years without a studio session, AMM called it quits during a tour of Holland after which Durukan and Dikmen went home to join Cem Karaca’s band Dervisan - Dikmen’s keyboards feature on Finders Keepers releases by Turkish singer Selda (FKR011). Retreating to the city of Delft to ponder his next move, Durul met Peter Tetteroo, former vocalist from successful Dutch psych-pop combo Tee-Set, who also found himself in a lonely boat after the demise of his long-running group. As an AMM fan, Tetteroo suggested they record two Gence penned AMM demos for Dutch Philips signed exotic songbird Sasi Naz at Peter’s home studio. A session was hastily arranged and a talented, yet unconfirmed, guitarist was enlisted. Durul maintains it was the work of Ferry Lever from Tee-Set/After Tea, something Ferry has denied, and with Tetteroo having died in 2002 the question remains. Upon entering the humble studio Durul stumbled upon a skeletal drum kit. Lacking hi-hat, toms or even a snare he cobbled together a bongo and a tambourine and set to work. Together, under the watchful eye of Tetteroo, the pair jammed stripped back versions of the AMM live staples Black Cat and Boo Song, with an added freak factor otherwise missing from their jazzier approach. Laid down in just 30 minutes, with Gence’s accomplished guide vocals and fuzzy overdubs, the rudimentary but professional recordings never made it to Philips execs and the tapes returned to Turkey under Durul’s arm as one of only two documented AMM recordings (the other being a live performance in Oslo’s Hennie-Onstad Art Centre in May 1973).
Unintended for commercial release, curiouser and curiouser, Finders Keepers proudly present these previously unheard tracks sourced directly from original tapes, which stand as a testament to the inimitable talent of Gence and the only studio document of the mythical AMM Turk jazz funk troubadours, representing a pop-psych Hollandaise holiday postcard which has taken five decades to be delivered. 45 revolutions later... The cat’s got the cream.
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There can't be too many truly unknown golden era rap records left in 2019, but this is about
as close as it gets. Without a Discogs entry and as far as we can tell only one copy ever sold
online ($800!), 'Poetry' is a rarity in the truest sense. That is despite it being featured on a
recent DJ Shadow mix, which you would have thought would turn up some copies, but
instead left many collectors scratching their heads as to the identity of this previously
unheard track.
Not only is it incredibly rare, it's incredibly dope too! A Josh Davis co-sign always helps
but throw a dope guitar riff, 'Funky Drummer', 'Numbers' and 'Nautilus' (for the remix) into
the mix and you can't really go wrong. We still can't figure out which mix we like best so
you can decide that for yourselves.
S.W.A.T. were from Wichita, Kansas, of all places and have a whole album worth of
unreleased material from back in the days so there's a possibility we'll see more from them
in the future, but until then enjoy the masterpiece that is 'Poetry'!
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2019 marks the year that Music for Freaks has officially been running for over 20 whole years. Two decades of topsy turvy, downright Freakish behaviour. How the hell did that happen?
So, what better time to delve deep into the labels vaults again and uncover more of its hidden treasures. Back in 2015, we approached some of today's most discerning producers, those who truly "get" the label's ethos from old, to let them loose on tracks old and new. It brought to the fore the "Freaks - Let's Do It Again" series of releases and we're super chuffed to bring you the 3rd in the series to kick off the label's 20th anniversary celebrations; a new collaboration with likeminded artists and we think you'll agree it's another testament to the divergent & insouciant house music that has always been the beating heart of this label.
First up, we welcome back the Chilean anti-hero Ricardo Villalobos.
When we sent Ricardo the parts to the Freaks album, "The Man Who Lived Underground" a few years ago, he sent back 5 interpretations which blew our collective minds. This is the 3rd of his journeys. Edited by head Freak, Justin Harris, it delivers a tripped out, discordant tech mix of the Freaks track, 'He's Angry' and is a wonderfully warped and highly hypnotic jam, that drives deep down into the subconscious.
The 20th anniversary wouldn't feel right without some brand spanking new music from Freaks themselves.
This track was properly hidden in the Freaks DAT vaults from the 1990's and Justin & Luke have dusted it off, mixed it down and "Unbeknown To Us" will finally see the light of day. It's safe to say Freaks have always had a timeless feel to their music and this track, despite being 20 years old as an original production, is no exception.
Next up, The Martinez Brothers make their MFF debut and to say we're chuffed to be releasing this one after 3 years of it being in the vault, is a huge understatement. There's nothing but good vibes, cranked to eleven, on this cut and the brothers have cooked up a true rip snorting tech house remix of "Time", that will charm the roof off any self-respecting club or festival tent.
And last but by no means least, fellow previous collaborators on Let's Do It Again, Part 1, Gerd Jansen and Phillip Lauer, aka Tuff City Kids, have graced us with another superb remix of a firm Freaks favourite from back in the day, "Turning Orange". The duo have whipped up an excellent stripped 808, electro-hop mix with low slung electro beats, minor key atmospherics and nostalgic 80s vocal pitch-shifts. Villalobos, Martinez Brothers, Tuff City Kidz and Freaks all on the same record? This is the type of house music madness that dreams are made of.
A fitting start to the celebrations - we reckon you'll agree!
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Two Jah Warrior / Peter Broggs classics never before seen on vinyl.
Hail Him backed with a heavy previously unreleased dubplate mix.
Backed with Rastaman A Trod It In A Babylon a rootsy steppa backed with a tasty dub!
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The Fall is the fourth studio album by British virtual band Gorillaz. The album was officially announced on 20 December 2010 as a holiday gift to fans. The Fall was first released on 25 December 2010 to stream for free on the Gorillaz website, only available as a download for paying members of the band's Sub-Division club, a premium access campaign the band ran throughout 2010. The album features fewer guest artists than previous Gorillaz albums; collaborators include Mick Jones and Paul Simonon of The Clash and Bobby Womack.
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Light of the Fearless, Hybrid's fifth artist album, brings together UK-based, Mike and Charlotte's passion for combining emotionally powered cinematic pieces with astute, intricate and intelligent electronic production. This long-awaited work is firmly based on the foundation of the principles and standards set by previous albums but here there's a clear development and evolution. Never wanting to write the same album twice, Mike and Charlotte have taken another step forward and have created a cinematic, electronic album with songs that stylistically borrow from their childhood soundtracks of soul, funk & hip-hop.
With songs have been inspired by not only events in their own lives but also by movements such as the Heads Together campaign, March for Our Lives 2018 and the Women's March of 2017. The album provides a positive and confident stance on moving forward through adversity and regaining empowerment. This is "The Light Of The Fearless". This inspiration certainly hasn't led to an album encumbered by political statements, but instead gives all the summery buoyancy you'd want to hear at your next festival.
Since their last album in 2010 the band have not only expanded their ever growing body of film score work (Fast and Furious 8, Interlude In Prague, Hercules, Dead in Tombstone, Take Down, Luther, X-men, Deja Vu ) but also saw the departure of band member, Chris Healings in 2015. The cinematic ethos is deep throughout the album with The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra performing on eight tracks. Unsurprisingly, the album as a whole works almost as a kind of score, and it's intriguing to be guided through the plot from the outset in the album's first track "We Are Fearless" through to the final track on the album. The expansive and unique cover of Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down". Hybrid certainly haven't lost their flair for combining cinematic soundscapes, electronics and breakbeats.
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The Four M Company, previously unreleased Modern Soul, & Boogie Funk recorded in 1979 at Paul Serrano's P.S. Studio in Chicago. This 6 song LP carries lush vocal harmonies with syncopated synthesizers, driving funk bass and brass elegantly crafted together into masterful arrangements. Band members in these recordings are David & Wendel Sudduth (The Eight Minutes, Perception Records), Terri Johnson, Paul Ramey & Duane Faulkner. Produced & Arranged by Vince Willis. After The Eight Minutes, David formed The Four M Company in High School. His brother Wendel joined and they played every prom every year from 1974-1978 on the north and Northwest side of Chicago. Approximately 35 members have played with The Four M Company at one point in time. Cut direct to lacquer for vinyl replication at 45 rpm from the original Master Tape. Limited Hand-Stamped Wax (500 copies).
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TV Victor was one of the first artists of Tresor Records where he became legendary with several of his ambient and trance productions including Trance Garden 1-3 and Trancecology Chapter 1. In 1989, he launched his first solo project: Moondance - The Magic Sound of the Moon, where he lay foundations for later explorations with experimental sounds fused with pop elements and anticipated an ambient excursion to be had in the future.
In the following decades TV Victor created impressive solo works that traversed between ambient and trance, he collaborated with artists like Moritz v. Oswald, Max Loderbauer, Ari Benjamin Meyers, Paul Browse and Tobias Freud. Contrary to common mainstream tendencies he created a very unique interpretation of both genres. In recent years Victor has concentrated on creating experimental and abstract sonic spaces for escaping reality, spaces that live through the imagination of the listener. Each piece, a segment of a larger musical movement; stands alone to create new sonic continuums. Otherworldy music that is in its own sphere.
30 years after the release of Moondance and 50 years after the first landing, Lullabies For Insomniacs revisit TV Victor's musical roots with 'Back To The Moon'. The previously unreleased works were carefully selected from his vaults and restored by Berlin based engineer Brett Olke (B Ashra), the album offers a glimpse into the future by creating a soundtrack for mankind's settlement of beyond in a conceivable hereafter.
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Available on vinyl for the first time in 40 years, Outernational Sounds proudly presents a cornerstone document from the Los Angeles jazz underground, Flight 17 – the first appearance on record of the legendary Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, led by their founder and mastermind, Horace Tapscott.
"The Arkestra would allow the creativity in the community to come together, would allow people to recognize each other as one people and ask, “Now what can we do to make this community better? What can we do for this community together?”...That’s how the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra – the Ark – began, with the knowledge that we wanted to preserve the black arts in the community."
Horace Tapscott
Horace Tapscott’s Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra (P.A.P.A.) was one of the most transformative, forward-thinking and straight-up heavy big bands to have played jazz in the 1960s and 1970s. Countless musicians passed through its ranks, and in Tapscott it was led by a musical visionary who should be ranked with the very greatest names in the music. If P.A.P.A. doesn’t have the interstellar rep of that other famous Arkestra, and if the name Tapscott doesn’t ring bells like Monk or Tyner, there’s a reason why: in an industry dominated by record labels, a band that doesn’t record doesn’t count. And the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra didn’t record for nearly twenty years. But recording success was never their concern – they weren’t about that.
First formed as the Underground Musicians Association in the early 1960s, Tapscott always wanted his group to be a community project. From their base in Watts, UGMA got down at the grassroots. They played for the people, organising fundraisers in parks and coffee houses, hosting teach-ins and workshops for young and old, and mixing it with radical theatre groups, firebrand poets, political radicals, Black separatists, community groups and churches. They lived communally, supporting each other and their people, and built an ark for the Black arts in the heart of the city. The group was renamed the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in 1971, and soon after they established a monthly residency at the Immanuel United Church of Christ which ran for over a decade, while still playing all over LA and beyond. But through all this, they never released a note of music.
It was the intervention of Tom Albach, a fan of Tapscott and the group, that finally got them on wax. Determined that their work should be documented, Albach founded Nimbus Records specifically to release the music of Tapscott, the Arkestra, and the individuals that comprised it. The first recording sessions in early 1978 yielded enough material for two albums, and the first release was Flight 17. From the surging avant-gardism of Herbie Baker’s title track to the laid- back summertime groove of Kamonta Lawrence Polk’s ‘Maui’, or Roberto Miranda’s uptempo Latin jam ‘Horacio’, Flight 17 showcased the radical voices of the Arkestra’s members. Led out by Tapscott’s hard-swinging piano, this is the first flight on wax of the West Coasts’ foundational community big band – energised, hip and together. Open up the gates and prepare for departure!
This edition of Flight 17 contains two tracks previously only available on the 1997 CD edition: ‘Coltrane Medley’ and ‘Village Dance’, recorded live at the Immanuel United Church of Christ. It is released as a limited vinyl-only edition on a 180g pressing by Pallas. Fully licensed from Nimbus West founder Tom Albach.
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Catching Flies’ music draws from a wide-ranging palette of influences including jazz, soul, hip-hop, house and electronica and has previously seen him handpicked by Bonobo to provide support on his World Tour. Over the past few years, his music has gathered the support of Gilles Peterson, Annie Mac, Lauren Laverne, Julie Adenuga & Huw Stephens, critical acclaim from the likes of iD Magazine, The Guardian, Dazed & Confused, and Nowness, and a growing fanbase which has seen him perform both Live and DJ sets across the UK, Europe, the USA and Asia. This has culminated in over 60,000,000 streams to date.
Catching Flies is set to release debut album ‘Silver Linings’ on 5th July 2019. Containing shades of house and jazz, to hip-hop and electronica, ‘Silver Linings’ is a melodic mesh of bright electronics and intricate rhythms. It’s a beautiful, moving record, with sounds that unmistakably come straight from the heart.
Producer, multi-instrumentalist and DJ George King began Catching Flies in late 2012, when he recorded and self released his first two EPs. With huge radio and press support around the world - including multiple #1’s on Hype Machine, BBC Radio support from Gilles Peterson, Mary Anne Hobbs, Lauren Laverne, Tom Ravenscroft, Nemone, Annie Mac, Huw Stephens; praise from i-D, Dazed, The Guardian, Complex, Notion, The Line Of Best Fit, Clash, Dummy and more - he’s since attracted millions of listeners.
Against his instincts he signed with a big management agency and got talking to a label: it almost derailed his career. He explains “What I'd found so inspiring originally was the total freedom to make a tune on my own terms and just decide to put it out the next week. There was a hunger that came with that, and a sense of achievement from being the driving force, but as soon as I tampered with that ecosystem, it wasn't as exciting anymore”.
Touring with electronic music giant Bonobo - who also included him on his BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix - allowed him to watch up close someone who had taken a slow and steady path from tiny clubs in Brighton to arenas worldwide, and see it was possible to do without any compromise. After being teased through a succession of warmly received singles this past year, and seven years on from that first EP recorded and released from his bedroom, his debut album ‘Silver Linings’ is now ready to be revealed.
“It's taken me a while because I didn't want to speak until I had something to say. I wanted to make something positive, hopeful and colourful...The world isn't in the best place at the moment, and the last thing it needs is another dark and moody electronic record. I wanted ‘Silver Linings’ to be a scrapbook of the last three years. It’s definitely eclectic, and it’s supposed to be. Over three years a lot changes, your perspectives change, your tastes change; and I wanted to celebrate that by picking tracks that meant the most to me. One of my favourite things about making music is that it takes me right back to where I made it - the keyboard I used, the chair I was sitting on, the room I was in. It kind of teleports you back to a certain point in your life. A bit like a diary entry.”
Recalling those moments brings back a range of memories: ‘Satisfied’ began by being tapped out on a £15 keyboard bought from Kentish Town Cash Converters, ‘Yǔ’ was made in the mountains of China during a few days off from touring, while an evening on Hampstead Heath inspired ‘Kite Hill Theme’. Also featuring on the album is ‘New Gods,’ a collaboration with London’s bright stars Jay Prince and Oscar Jerome and the beautiful and meditative ‘Opals,’ inspired by the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto.
Catching Flies is already looking to the future, closing the first chapter in an exciting and inspiring story, ‘Silver Linings’ is only the beginning.
“A few weeks after I finished the album, I moved out of my house I made all the music in, so it feels like the closing of one chapter and the beginning of another. I can’t wait to make the next one now.”
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This is the first in a series of remixes of tracks from Dubkasm’s acclaimed 2018 LP, Rastrumentals. The 10” opens with Alter Echo and Zam Zam/Khaliphonic label head E3, who have an impressive list of previous collaborators including Lee Perry, Pinch and The Bug. The Portland, Oregon duo have taken the driving roots energy of ‘Lei Áurea’ and used pounding drums, flurries of aggressive foley and veering synth attacks to flip it into an apocalyptic dancehall banger.
Side B comes courtesy of recent Bristol arrival Om Unit, a truly unique producer and DJ, headlining shows around the world, and collaborating with artists as diverse as Goldie, Joker, and Machinedrum. Always impossible to classify, his remix of LP opener ‘Eco do Jongo’, , dives deep into dub territory, its ethereal, stripped-back nyabinghi drumming, crystallised synths, and a slipstream of horns bringing Ras B’s righteous message to the fore
This release has been expertly mastered via 1/2” tape by Lewis at StarDelta, and is backed and distributed by Unearthed.
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