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Alien Tropical: the perfect title for the second album by Servicio Al Cliente (Customer Service), the project of Colombian-born, Berlin-resident Juliana Martinez. If you were cannily seduced by the debut self-titled Servicio Al Cliente album, from way back in 2021, the wait for a follow-up has felt long, but Alien Tropical was worth the wait. Indeed, it feels like the perfect way for Michael Mayer’s Imara imprint to introduce itself to the new year: an album full of play and spirit, verve and sparkle, rich with pop spirit and with one eye smartly cocked toward the dancefloor.

That first Servicio Al Cliente album was a smart statement of intent, and a wonderful, unexpected turn from Martinez, who’d already been through plenty: being expelled from private music lessons,
training in law, joining a group named Las Palabras Correctas. 2021’s Servicio Al Cliente landed on the turntables of anyone with discerning radar (Ada included “Romántico” on her Connecting The Dots mix for Kompakt, for example). With Alien Tropical, Martinez works the sensual sway of her music even harder, building six luscious songs that twist chant-like repetitions into hypnotic mantras, each song the perfect confluence of melody and mystery.

When asked about Alien Tropical, Martinez pieces together fragments of memory: winter explorations, long road trips, navigating the highways and the heart. “I had been driving a lot at the time on the highway,” she recalls. “I depended on music I played in the car to manage my emotions and my thoughts on those long drives. Everything felt strange and unfamiliar on the highway, and I realised music was so psychological and my only tool to influence my feelings between highways and new places.”

So, the music becomes the narrative for where the body and the heart wants to go. That might explain the gentle yearning in Alien Tropical, and its eternal hypnotic, its sense of forever forward-motion, as though the music is flickering like the highway strip reflected in the rear-view mirror. But there’s also the skyward movement of the melodies, the way their loveliness lifts these six songs up through the clouds, like the helium balloons on the cover. From the sensual swelt

Jadu Heart’s Wanderflower and Ezra’s Garden reissued together on vinyl for the first time.

Since their 2016 debut EP, Wanderflower, Jadu Heart has been slowly building a catalog of electro-pop, R&B, and psychedelic bops. The UK-based duo, consisting of Alex Headford and Diva Jeffery, now has roughly 30 songs that are a collective myriad of immersive soundscapes.

Jadu Heart's Wanderflower was a project released as part of a school project at The British and Irish Modern Music Institute in 2016. Diva described the project as a "story of two characters - Dina and Faro - who get cursed in a temple and every song in Wanderflower corresponds to a different chapter in their story." Their tutor sent the EP to Mura Masa who immediately took a liking to the duo and made them an opening act for his album release show. They were subsequently signed to his label and given the same manager.

The couple's sophomore EP, Ezra's Garden, is a continuation of Jadu Heart's now-signature DIY, psych-funk sound inspired by Jai Paul. The tracks are accompanied by a visual component on Youtube, as Spotify hadn't quite explored the necessity of visualizers yet. After the fantastical characters were introduced in Jadu Heart's first EP, the second EP explores the relationship between Dina and Faro when they are whisked out of the cursed temple and stumble upon a friend who takes them to a machine that shoots them through the galaxy.

This is the debut release from Laguna Seca, a new project from Porto based Mike Jefford. It foreshadows a new body of work, steeped in 70s nostalgia, refracted though sounds that could belong to krautrock, disco, electronica, noisy alt rock and everything in between. Mike has previously recorded as Positive Centre releasing textural, experimental techno on such labels as Stroboscopic Artefacts, SNTS and Leyla. (seek out if you you’re a fan of Vatican Shadow or the ghostlier wing of Black Dog)

After mastering his forthcoming 2026 debut album ‘O Tempo’, Mike Jefford caught a second wind of inspiration. In just seven frantic days he recorded the heap of tracks that formed the basis of 'Live from Müsli Mountain’. It soon became clear that these tracks foreshadowed the album perfectly and the EP was born.

Named after the California raceway, this project fuses 1970s recording techniques, modern electronics and psychedelic retrofuturism, it’s a pyramid of sonic adventure that will be explored deeper on the album next year.

Active for 40 years, Nurse with wound is one of the projects of Steven Stapleton, materialized in a very wide range of hysterical noise over sound collages and cut ups, abstract music, soothing drones and surreal sound paintings, and more rhythmical and mechanical pieces, always inspired by Dadaism and Futurism, Krautrock, jazz improvisation, surrealism, never losing his main goal, that is having fun and enjoying himself.He has had many collaborators, a recurrent one in the 80s and 90’s being Current 93’s David Tibet, another noticeable one still at work with him is Andrew Liles.The main line of this unpredictable sound builder is hectic and uncompromised, his point of view is that everything is possible and applies it to himself. As a youngster he wanted to be an artist so decided he was one . He is not a musician, and says he has no interest in becoming one. Surprisingly, (or not!), the love of his life is building sculptures out of recycled and reclaimed materials, building things with anything, even junk. And sounds, we are a witness to it.With these very strange juxtapositions of styles and manners, female rap music and 50s and 60s lounge music having a special top priority in Steven’s tastes, and a creativity that has no bounds no taboos, with a taste of novelty every time, Nurse with wound will no doubt continue to surprise people listening to his works, and himself, as he wants to keep it fresh every time, mostly for him.

Official reissue. New remastering vinyl of the 1979 LP by Colin Potter + "silver edition" Gatefold cover + complete NWW list on Gatefold inner.


Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella is the debut album by British experimental unusual and absurd music group Nurse With Wound, released on their own United Dairies label in 1979. An unusual record which blends noise and jamming.

The album's equally unusual title is a quote from the surreal, poetic novel Les Chants de Maldoror by Uruguayan-born French author Isidore-Lucien Ducasse, written under the pseudonym Comte de Lautréamont.It has been included in the "100 Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening)" by TheWire in 1998, and is one of the records that have had a lasting impact on avant-garde, experimental and psychedelic music.It was on this record that the famous "NWW list" appeared for the first time, featuring dozens of names of musicians and groups who had influenced Nurse With Wound - a list that now serves as a treasure map for many collectors of the genre and fans of outsider music. It's been replicated here in the innersleeve of the gatefold.

Killer Groove Records proudly presents the debut 45 by Italian cinematic funk trio Atabasca. A syncopated journey where funk, psychedelia, and cinematic groove merge into a timeless narrative suspended between rhythm and vision.


"Cacopoulos" and "Kundela Mawedi" mark the birth of Atabasca's sonic universe: the first two singles from the upcoming self-titled debut album,which will be released on March 27 in limited-edition LP, CD digipack, and digital formats.

On the A-side, "Cacopoulos" is an impetuous, visionary ride that fuses the power of instrumental groove with the evocative imagery of library music and Italian golden-age soundtracks. From the first beat, listeners are drawn into a dry, dusty landscape driven by a primal drum groove and the acid twang of a guitar that evokes the spirit of classic Westerns. Indeed, "Cacopoulos" pays homage to I Quattro dell'Ave Maria (Ace High) and to the legendary Eli Wallach, the sly outlaw who turns deception into revenge, a subtle yet powerful nod that ties the trio's sound to imagery steeped in dust, dreams, and redemption.


On the flip side, the sound of an old lap steel guitar evokes the gentle waves of the sea, opening the doors to "Kundela Mawedi", a dreamy track with exotic tones and heavenly atmospheres. The sonic journey unfolds through hypnotic rhythms and echoes of ancient cultures, where ethereal voices and warm, entrancing bass lines intertwine with psychedelic riffs and evocative guitar melodies, merging into a soundscape rich in warmth and mystery. The chorus, with its unexpected choral chant, adds a spark of magic. An elegant twist that gently stirs the dreamlike mood and transports the listener into a new sonic dimension, steeped in mysticism and tribal vibrations. "Kundela Mawedi" is more than just a song: it's a sensory experience, a musical ritual where tradition meets psychedelia, sand meets sea, and the soul dances upon the waves of time.


Recorded in a single take, the session captures the raw energy and natural atmosphere of the performance. Artistic production was handled by the trio alongside Andrea Fabrizii (digger, musician, producer, and catalogue curator for CAM Sugar), while Riccardo Ricci mastered the tracks at Velvet Room Mastering Studio in Brighton.


A killer double-sider, blending psychedelic and funk moods with percussive, jazzy textures. A must-have gem for every groove-loving DJ.


Like a desert blooming within the evergreen forests of the planet's far north, a unique, alien, disruptive environment: this is the vision behind Atabasca, the project of Luca Mongia (guitars, lap steel, keyboards, vocals), Paolo Mazziotti (bass, keyboards, vocals), and Valerio Pompei (drums, percussion, vocals). Individually active for over twenty years on both national and international scenes, the three musicians came together in 2023 to create a project that merges experience, experimentation, and creative freedom. Their music is imaginative and at times dreamlike, blending the classic concept of the instrumental trio with the worlds of film scoring and sound design.


Atabasca's sound moves through jazz-funk, world, and cinematic territories, weaving together afrobeat, desert, and psychedelic influences into a personal and timeless language. Each piece is a scene; each sound, a fragment of a world, a journey between reality and imagination where groove, texture, and organic timbre merge into a singular sonic ecosystem: a perpetually shifting balance that generates new inner landscapes.


Fans of Khruangbin, Surprise Chef, and instrumental psych-funk, take note!

Although they emerged from Melbourne bayside outer suburbs onto the local live scene with their fresh and spirited indie-rock update of the garage-beat sounds of The Easybeats, Kinks and early Beatles only a year or so ago, Gnome actually started out as a bedroom solo project for teenaged singer/songwriter/ guitarist Jay Millar a few years back. Jay, playing everything himself, started recording and releasing a steady succession of material - quite a few albums' worth - on his own Goblin Records label via Bandcamp. Realizing he needed a band to start playing out, Jay approached some like minded players from Frankston's rehearsal hub Singing Bird, and with Jay on lead vocals and lead guitar, Ned Capp on guitar, Olly Katsianis on bass, and Ethan Robins on drums, Gnome became a band.

Early in 2025, the last solo Jay recordings released under the Gnome name caused something of an international underground sensation when the Bandcamp only I Like It EP - four songs of kranked up Kinks-style mono riffage - was posted by a Spanish garage-punk YouTube page and quickly clocked up over 50,000 views.



At the same time, the band quickly began gaining attention on the thriving Frankston scene and around Melbourne. They started breaking out, sharing bills with the likes of Drunk Mums, Skegss, Split System, The Prize, The Unknowns, Cosmic Psychos, Hockey Dad, Guitar Wolf, The 5.6.7.8's, The Breadmakers, Loose Lips, fellow Frankstoners/Singing Bird alumni The Belair Lip Bombs, and, on a quick trip to Sydney, Cammy Cautious & The Wrestlers.

And now, finally, we have The Gnomes' debut album. Twelve killer tracks that combine the best of the '60s with the best of today. Twelve killer tracks that show off assertive and accomplished songwriting, singing and playing and an explosive and authentic swinging group sound. Twelve killers slices of raw rock'n'roll running the gamut from the savage Rhythm & Blues of "Play With You" and “Better With You” to the vibrant beat pop of "I'll Be There" and "I'm Not The One", with forays into the heavy reverb psych of "Stung", the Cavern/Star Club stylings of "Flippin' Stomp" and the first flyte jangle of "Time Will Tell" along the way. There’s more of course, including a new version of that Kinks-style kranker “I Like It” for good measure.

Frankston’s Fab Four are taking their sound to the world. Join them for the ride!

Delve into the quirky and psych-tinged world of Brazilian pianist, composer and multi-instrumentalist Mauricio Fleury.

With more than a hint to Brazilian jazz greats like Azymuth, Deodato and CTI Records in their prime, Revoada is a groove based jazz-framed record, primed with other transitory musical vignettes which touches on Turkish psych and soul-jazz born out of the 70's film soundtrack genre.

Revoada is a 6 track album and storyboard of Mauricio's migration and travels through Brazil's geographical oddities , its rural and urban enclaves. Recorded in Brazil, it's the result of numerous treks through funky flea markets, soaking up old vinyls and vintage cultural artefacts combined with a new life led in Berlin since 2022.

Mauricio, as well as a founding member of Bixiga 70 (google Brazilian Afrobeat pioneers), a band he fronted for over 12 years, is also an in-demand collaborator and musician who as a pianist, guitarist and even percussionist has shared stages and studios with the likes of Brazilian greats including Gal Costa, Emicida, Lucas Santtana, João Donato and Liniker.

In 2007 he had a life-changing experience meeting Tony Allen, at the Red Bull Music Academy. After hanging out, chatting music and life, Tony insisted to Mauricio to participate with Tony in a jam with blacktronica and soulful house music pioneers Ron Trent, Theo Parrish and Steve Spacek. Mauricio sums it up, "From that moment on, I was never afraid to collaborate musically with anyone, no matter who's playing. It also brought me to researching the connection between Brazilian music and Afrobeat which is something that still means the world to me".

Another unforgettable session Mauricio undertook happened alongside João Donato and Marcos Valle, playing Donato's classic album Quem É Quem, live, a record seen as a blueprint for second generation bossa nova. Mauricio has worked with Gal Costa on two albums, Estratosférica Ao Vivo and her last studio album A Pele do Futuro. Fabio Sá and Vitor Cabral (bassist and drummer on Revoada) were playing with Gal at her last concerts, including in Berlin in 2022 before she passed.

In contemporary music, Mauricio was part of Toy Selectah and Mexican Institute of Sound's Compass project. He's worked with Colombia's Los Pirañas and has even recorded a mysterious and unreleased album with Quantic.

Revoada shows signature traces of Thelonious Monk, Ramsey Lewis' swinging soul sound, Deodato's drama, and styles from further afield, spreading into Turkish psych and Ethiopian jazz, when the time is right. Each track, led always by Mauricio playing multiple instruments with a choice selection of guests and core members on bass and drums, highlights Fleury's meticulous approach to finding the right timbre, utilising his arsenal of organs and effects pedals to set the mood, taking the listener to a specific place or memory that has shaped him.

A vinyl DJ for over 25 years and someone who is immersed in digger and collector's culture, Mauricio places a lot of emphasis on the importance of the complimentary relationship between two artforms (DJ and composer/producer) in the sense of having a broad repertoire of musical knowledge, references and perhaps predictably, being a Brazilian, understanding the connection between rhythms. This is an impressive debut album that struts itself right into the runout groove.

Few producers have had the same seismic impact on techno and rave music as Joey Beltram. Hailing from Queens, New York, Beltram was a key architect of the early '90s rave explosion and responsible for some of the most influential electronic records of the era - and it was Belgium’s R&S Records that gave many of these tracks their first home.

Originally compiled and released by R&S in 1996, Classics brings together the core of Beltram’s groundbreaking early output - namely the Beltram Vol. 1 (1990) and Beltram Vol. 2 (1991) EPs, alongside the legendary Second Phase productions ‘Mentasm’ and ‘Mind To Mind’ (1991), plus a selection of aliases and collaborative work from the same period, including tracks under Mental Mayhem, Open Mind, and Disorder.

Now remastered and reissued as a 2LP set for 2025, Classics is available on vinyl for the first time since 2006, offering a long overdue opportunity to own these timeless cuts in their purest form. Across the 13 tracks, you'll hear the sheer force and innovation that made Beltram a household name in underground techno.

Integral to this collection are ‘Jazz 303’ and ‘Psycho Bass,’ co-produced with Norwegian techno innovator Per Martinsen (aka The Alien), which stand out for their experimental, forward-facing sound - highlighting a futuristic edge even within Beltram’s already pioneering catalogue. Elsewhere, his Second Phase project with Mundo Muzique delivers the seminal ‘Mentasm’ and ‘Mind To Mind,’ two foundational tracks that introduced the infamous “hoover” sound to dancefloors worldwide. Rounding out the set are deeper cuts under his aliases Mental Mayhem, Disorder, and Open Mind, capturing the breadth of Beltram’s restless creativity and technical command during his peak R&S years.
Classics’ by Joey Beltram is available on R&S Records from 25th July 2025.

Rooted in electronic music yet fueled with organic sounds of nature and acoustic instruments, Late Present explores sonic landscapes beyond Mirlaqi’s signature dance moves. Journeying between jazzy hip-hop, psychedelic downtempo and colorful ambient, the twelve-piece work aims at a thorough and sincere representation of the Swiss artist’s musical soul. With simple themes such as love and loss as well as a poetic approach to the inexorable coming of our end, the double LP is a reflection on the unicity of consciousness.

As always with Mirlaqi, talented and caring friends bring their energy and craft to the project. Antoine “Favi” Favennec’s sense of melody adds another level of emotion to Passager de la Terre, Velvet Love and Riddimer. Thomas “Nips” Abbet’s soft as silk trumpet sound delves deeper in the jazzy horizon of Caucasian Tree and Inter Lux. Augustin “Gus” Von Arx’s various percussion turns the heat up on Prendre le Soleil. Finally, Tim Spoerli’s uncompromised trumpet experience overwhelms Prendre le Soleil in glitters.

On the vocal level, Mirlaqi explores various dimensions of expression through spoken words and processed singing, as well as French and English vocals. In Passager de la Terre, Velvet Love and Prendre le Soleil, he receives passionate support from Alice Moeschinger and her touching yet strong crystalline voice.

Once again, fainek’s graphic and conceptual talent turns sound into vision with style. A true masterclass of artistic depth combined with visual clarity.

A multi-layered project to be savoured over and over again.

Naive Melodies is a bold and visionary tribute to the music of Talking Heads, reinterpreted through the lens of Black musical innovation. Curated by Drew McFadden — the creative mind behind BBE’s acclaimed Modern Love (David Bowie tribute album) — this new collection dives deep into the Afro-diasporic rhythms and experimental soul roots that helped shape Talking Heads’ unmistakable New Wave sound. Inspired by artists like Fela Kuti, Parliament, and Al Green — whose influences loomed large in the band’s rhythmic DNA — Naive Melodies shines a light on the Black music traditions that underpinned their artistry. Far from a conventional tribute, Naive Melodies reframes the band’s catalog through the voices and visions of a new generation of genre-defying artists. These interpretations illuminate the foundational grooves and sonic textures that fueled Talking Heads’ rhythm-forward aesthetic, bringing them full circle with authenticity. “With Naive Melodies, I wanted to spotlight the deep and often overlooked influence of Black music on the sound of Talking Heads, drawing from the rhythmic foundations of Afro-diasporic traditions, soul, gospel, Latin, and spiritual jazz. This project is a chance to reimagine Talking Heads’ legacy through the lens of the very innovations that helped shape it, bringing those influences to the forefront through the voices of today’s most forward-thinking artists.” — Drew McFadden The album features a globally minded lineup, including Liv.e, Bilal, Rogê, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Aja Monet, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Theo Croker, Kenny Dope, Rosie Lowe, Pachyman, W.I.T.C.H., and more — spanning Afrobeat, jazz, soul, funk, gospel, dub, electronica, orchestral, and Latin styles. It reflects not only the boundary-pushing ethos of Talking Heads, but also the influence of Black music as a cultural force that helped shape it. This is not just a tribute album — it’s a recontextualization. A cultural conversation. A rhythmic reawakening.

Diagonal celebrates 13 years in business via a 4 x 12" run featuring label stalwarts and influential collaborators. This is LP3, the second in the series. Like LP 1 & 2 before it, this 12" comes with a coloured, elastic H band. All four LPs will be accompanied by these meaning customers can combine the records and complete their own 4 x 12" set!

Jim O' Rourke leads the line on plate 3 with 'ror bypass', a gripping, mediative blend of modular enhanced percussion and field recordings. Kae Tempest and Powell unite to offer up uneasy, restless poetry. Simon Pomery, an early label regular via his Blood Music project, delivers 12 minutes of epic psychedelic immersion and Sote closes out proceedings with "Ataraxy", an extreme computer music masterclass.

Crypt of the Wizard is proud to present Ginger Wizard - The Curious Flora and Fauna of the Ancient World on vinyl and digital formats.
About ten years ago in a record store in Prague, the Ginger Wizard discovered a copy of Bo Hansson’s Lord of the Rings LP. Although initially unfamiliar with the record, the reference to Tolkien’s masterwork and the incredible cover art drew him in and, rather fittingly, sent him off on a journey of discovery that would reshape his creative trajectory.
Years later while working in cassette tape manufacturing, Ginger Wizard noticed that most fantasy-inspired music fell into two camps: metal and dungeon synth. With little interest in the former, but intrigued by the latter, he began writing a few songs imagining a beautifully packaged and tactile cassette tape. However, dungeon synth he soon realized was “the most boring music to make”.
So began the Ginger Wizard’s own mythological discography. In 2022 came The Feast for the Dead King and Other Musical Themes recorded at home in a cold kitchen, is conversely an album full of warmth drawn from sheer exploration. A year later Can I Choose My Own Psychopompos? was recorded for the legendary Stoned to Death label - a 7” séance of semi-improvised noise and melody featuring allies from the Ginger Wizard’s live backing band The Peter Jacksons. The following year with Bathysburg Tales, a new approach was needed in order to keep the project interesting. Drawing inspiration from Popol Vuh and the inclusion of vocals lent by Protomartyr’s Joe Casey and Jakob Battick, a new more cinematic sound began to emerge.
Now, we present The Curious Flora and Fauna of the Ancient World marking a step into something stranger while still channeling the spirit of Bo Hansson. The new album rejects swords and sorcery for the mythology of the natural world “the ancient stuff,” he explains in the record’s insert, “has a similar taste for me as fantasy.” These songs bloom, creep, and shimmer like forgotten plants under distant suns while rooted in something real and organic. Inspired by the myths of nature rather than heroic quests, it’s an album that feels alive, equal parts archaeological dig and psychedelic garden.
Currently at work on a soundtrack for an imagined 1970s fantasy film in collaboration with The Peter Jacksons, the Ginger Wizard continues to expand his strange universe while The Curious Flora and Fauna of the Ancient World serves as a new map to somewhere ancient, beautiful, and unknown.

First EP from a new project formed in 2023 by Allan Crockford (The Galileo 7, The Prisoners,The James Taylor Quartet etc) and Ian Button (Papernut Cambridge, Swansea Sound, Death In Vegas etc)

Both writers bring their influences to the four songs here, with dual lead vocals and a mix of Medway psych, horror- garage, and kitchen sink new- wave pop vignettes. There's paranoia and psychosis, a cautionary tale about gullibility, and a love song straight out of 1978...

Recorded in Rochester and Folkestone, and released jointly on Button's Gare du Nord and Crockford's Fool's Paradise labels, this 7" is the first to be pressed on the new bioplastic compound Evo-vinyl.

Alvorada is Montanha’s first long play: an ambient-leaning work, nocturnal in mood yet touched by electricity, tracing a journey from waking activity into dream logic. Recorded mostly in the late hours of the evening with windows open to the city, letting its air and sounds influence the music, it sometimes reached the early moments of sunrise. The title, meaning “dawn,” reflects both the liminal hours of its making and the band’s own renewal. These tracks are closer to drawings than songs: narratives written between instruments, moments of tension and release, fragments of memory and dream. The tracklist follows this nocturnal voyage with the patience of Eno, the disquiet of Uematsu, and the madness of Miles Davis’ Decoy, oscillating between streets and sleep, routine and reverie.

Montanha was formed in 2010 by André Azevedo, Nuno Oliveira, João Sarnadas, and Tito Silva, bonding over architecture school all-nighters on videogame soundtracks (Age of Empires, Super Mario). They began as a psychedelic rock combo and in 2013 released their self-titled EP which introduced a raw, improvised energy. But the album that was meant to follow was abandoned as the band entered hiatus. The four members turned their creative drive towards co-founding Favela Discos, where experimentation with media and form reshaped their ideas of music, and developed their taste, their way of playing, and a more personal sound that was more open and disconnected from a defined genre.

By 2017, Montanha had returned to the studio with new experience, no longer a rock band in the traditional sense but a project devoted to improvisation and electronic soundscapes. An ever gentrifying city forced them to abandon acoustic drums, and they embraced electronic beats instead, and became mobile; one guitar dissolved into full synths, leaving the other to converse with bass. Improvisation remained their compass. In improvisation there are no mistakes, only missed opportunities. Montanha found their opportunity in the routine of the studio to break routines of pop and experimental. The result is a body of nearly fifty hours of recordings, sculpted into an album.

Alvorada is not only Montanha’s first LP but also the dawn of their new phase. Improvised yet carefully sculpted, the record expands the territory of the song into nonlinear narratives, letting the language of night, dream, and city seep into its form.

back in 2020, a collaborative project came out with a collection of psychedelic dub tracks that explored acid fields through low-pressure beats and choral vocals. it quickly became a favourite from hivern discs. we're now excited to be sharing a rare set of remixes from Shackleton, reworking three tracks from the original album. expect a dubby flow, faster rhythms and echoing layers. original artwork by juns castella artwork design by arp_rpm mastered by Beau Thomas distributed via Clone

This is the first new Andy Boay album since 2013’s In The Light. I recorded it in January 2024 to a Yamaha MT8X 8-track cassette recorder in my room at the New York Center for Creativity & Dance in the East Village of Manhattan.

I mixed it in June 2024 with Joe Santarpia and Roberto Pagano at the Idiot Room in San Francisco. The three songs on Side A (“HBM,” “If I Ever Come Off,” and “You’re In The Air Now”) were initially arranged over several live performances using a multi-track looper. When I then sat down to track them to my tape machine, I meticulously sang and played out all repeating parts, layering and ping-pong-bouncing each doubled take to another tape-track. In this way I hoped to maintain the hypnotic quality of the looped parts while keeping them organic, singular, and fleeting. Side B is a triptych of more carefully arranged pop songs: a tremolo & mod-delay elegy to youth called “Careless,” bookended by two variations on the same theme — the stark, mellotron prayer of “One & One” and the lonesome after-hours funk of “I Want More”. The line “You took that walk for the two of us” has a dual meaning. In 2011, my friend Spencer Gilley took a long walk through Montreal while listening to demos I’d recorded.

He described the experience to me as magical, ecstatic, inspiring. His encouragement from that moment still echoes every time I sit down to write or record. Less than a year later, I met Florida musician Thomas Fekete. We formed a deep, brief friendship that lasted until his death in 2016. Thom entered my life during a chaotic time and helped me find direction and courage. He took me on a tour that shifted the course of my life. We bonded over surviving cancer as young men, Florida’s noise scene, and the strange lives we led as touring guitarists (he in Surfer Blood, me in Mac DeMarco’s band). Thom could always warmly anticipate all of my joy, humor, and curiosity—and all of my pain, anxiety, and fear. In this way, it felt like he was also taking that walk for the two of us—gently guiding me down a path he had already traveled. Andy Boay (Andy White) began playing and recording music as a teen in Orlando during the early 2000s, exploring noise, psych, and pop in bands and solo projects.

He has played in the duo Tonstartssbandht with his brother Edwin since 2007. He spent six years playing guitar in the touring band for Mac DeMarco. Andy Boay’s music taps the euphoric and the sorrowful, both onstage amongst friends and strangers, and tracking alone at his 8-track in the studio. These days he lives and works in the East Village neighborhood of New York City.

2024 Repress.

Chicha Libre’s debut album, Sonido Amazonico is finally available on vinyl in Europe. The double album contains all original tracks first published as a CD back in 2008. The vinyl edition is comprised of 3 sides of music, and a fourth side with an etching of iconic Venezuelan saint Jose Gregorio.

Chicha, Peruvian psychedelic cumbia, was first popularized outside of Peru by a compilation released by Chicha Libre's own Olivier Conan and entitled "The Roots of Chicha." The music proved popular around the world, being championed by people such as Elijah Wood, Matt Groening, Alex Kapranos and director Almadovar.

The Brooklyn band Chicha Libre started out as a tribute to Peruvian pioneers but quickly evolved into an original project which MTV has called “one of the world's preeminent Tropical Psychedelic band”. Indeed, while they remain true to their Chicha roots, Chicha Libre's quickly took a more psychedelic turn drawing from its members' alternative background.

Made up of Mexican, Venezuelan, French and American the band used surf guitar, organ sounds and Latin percussion to play a mixture of borrowed and homegrown sounds – but its music remains a freeform reinvention, not an exercise in nostalgic duplication.

The re-release coincides with the release of a new EP “Tequila y Aguardiente”, in collaboration with Son Rompe Pera and La Sonora Mazuren.

Cosmic Voodoo is an immersive musical experience that combines the best of cosmic disco with the pulsating energy of contemporary electronica. Through alternating synthesizers and acoustic instruments, this project presents an irresistible arsenal of sound.

This is the second volume of four that will create a unique graphic work created by the famous Aldo Drudi.

Written and produced by Daniele Baldelli, undisputed master of cosmic-disco, and Mattia “Matta” Dallara, sound explorer and producer of Cosmic Temple, this EP is a journey that evokes dreamy and nostalgic atmospheres, perfectly in line with disco roots.

The tracks unfold between enveloping grooves, spacey synthesizers and rhythms that pay homage to the 1980s, generating a sound that is both classic and innovative. An electronic tribal ritual, a dancing spell that can transport the listener to a parallel universe full of psychedelic sounds and magnetic beats.

Ideal for those who like to lose themselves in the depths of sound and be guided by vibrations that oscillate between past and future.

Final LP of a productive year for Feral Child is an absolute cracker. The latest of a long line of superb full lengths from Stephen James Buckley's incendiary Polypores project. This one is arguably his most adventurous outing to date, the undeniably psychedelic “Hungry Vortex”. Four extended pieces exploring polyrhythmic fixations and cosmic jazz-prog freak-outs. Percussion-heavy opener ‘The Body Is The Spaceship’ is a fine example of the sort of seamless organic growth we tend to see in Polypores’ music, with slewed synth blips and rolling polyrhythms gradually twisting into unrecognisable strands of melody and unconventional groove before your very ears.

The prog-heavy ‘Wizards!’ sees Buckley’s trademarked playful use of time-signature changes, providing such a wealth of emotional and stylistic variance and immeasurable enjoyment without changing key once (honestly, who needs keys). It’s brilliantly evocative too and could indeed perfectly soundtrack a mushroom-trip wizard march. As we flip the record over, the flutey flourishes and minimalist clicks of the title track draw the listener into a trancelike state, repeated movements spiralling like myriad creatures crawling over a candy-coloured horizon, echoing forth into an inviting sonic oblivion. It’s ostensibly electronic, yet somehow more natural organism than machine, with little concern for the grid, or indeed, the rules. Finally, we end on something a little more subdued - the reassuring classicism of the beautiful ‘Void High’, with washes of warm noise and wobbly delay lines whirring and twinkling away, closing the record with an experience that is undeniably emotional, spiritual and as always, uniquely Polypores. This is a wonderful record with which to close the year out, it comes in a magnificent, spot varnished Jake Blanchard sleeve. A superb record released as a one time only vinyl pressing.

Oh No helped shape the texture of modern independent hip-hop, introducing the world to his turbulent lyricism with the 2004 Stones Throw classic The Disrupt before establishing himself as one of the world’s most dynamic beat architects. Ranging from soulful to sinister, hypnotic to chaotic, Dr. No’s psychedelic production has become a vital force in hip-hop, bringing the best out of artists like Mos Def, Action Bronson, Prodigy, Murs, Dilated Peoples, Danny Brown, Elzhi, Your Old Droog, and more. The California native has also released several acclaimed sample-themed instrumental collections, mining Mediterranean psyche funk, the work of jazz icon Roy Ayers, Italian library music, rare Ethiopian grooves, and more. Now, Oh No is back with Nodega, his first vocal album in more than a decade. Conceptualized as a corner store where microphone assassins stop through to lay down their street tales, the project finds Oh No cooking up a fresh batch of wild creations as the drama unfolds. While contributing a handful of memorable verses himself, Oh No mostly focuses on crafting soundscapes for a staggering array of guests, including Logic, Ghostface Killah, Talib Kweli, Tha God Fahim, Alchemist, Guilty Simpson, Blu, Crimeapple, Rah Digga, Esoteric, Vic Spencer, Wildchild, Big Twins, and more. “I work with some of the most dangerous emcees in the game,” he explains. “I wanted the album to be like a hip-hop play, with all these different geniuses showing how they steal the scenes.” This concept is brought to life by music Oh No describes as a “cinematic landscape ranging from dark stabbing pianos to melodic jazz interludes, raw gutter loops to funk grit, dirty synths to nighttime thrills.” A visceral experience elevated by immense collective talent, Nodega is a compelling one-stop shop for Oh No’s expansive artistry.

Pat Orburn serves up a wicked nine-track offering for Cassette Blair — a project built from pure resourcefulness and raw imagination. His vocals glide over synth-driven textures crafted from all around, including a battered Yamaha psr 175 keyboard that his flatmate rescued off the street. Pat leans into the beauty of imperfection, shaping found sounds through analog tools, tape warmth, and gritty modulation.

“good” marks the second release on Cassette Blair — a label founded by Gavsborg, dedicated to uplifting his extended global family of artists. True to its mission, the record feels communal, handmade, and deeply personal: a celebration of creativity that thrives outside of traditional studios, born instead from curiosity, friendship, and the joy of sound exploration.

“Good news. Good it’s out, good of Gav to help, all round completely good!"

- Pat Orburn

Digi- Cover art & Design by Pat Orburn (London, UK)

Cassette- Cover art & Design by Gavsborg, Sherice Bromfield & Pat Orburn (Kingston Jamaica & London, UK).

Mixed by Pat Orburn (London, UK).

Mastered by Mario “Syantis” Lawerence (Kingston, Jamaica).

The stunning debut album by Peki Momés is back in store after selling out the first edition in a few weeks! This 2nd pressing has a different label design. Featuring twelve outstanding original tunes. Turkish psychedelic, global disco and outernational!

Peki Momés is a Turkish artist living in Germany - who only started to record music by accident in 2024. Blessed with style and intuition rather than formal education, her fresh and uncompromisingly authentic approach to music took hearts and ears by storm.

Ever since her debut 45 on Mocambo Records, Peki Momés has become a little sensation in and outside the organic groove scene: turntablist DJ Koco played doubles of "Göc Mevsimi" in his set, Iggy Pop announced "Rüya" on his "Iggy Confidential" show on BBC and the second vinyl single surprised everyone with a mesmerizing cover of Marco Valle's much loved "Estrelar" in the turkish language. Both records sold out quickly and are in the bags of tastemakers like Coco Maria.

Peki Momés' music is an eclectic mix of sounds from the global underground, tastefully crafted by producer Dustin Braun and a troupe of ridiculously talented jazz musicians. Dirty disco, fuzzy funk, anatolian rare grooves, experimental synth, library music and japanese city pop all blend naturally with her distinct vocals to create a unique ethereal outernational sound that is all her own.

Once dubbed as 'turkish discodelic', Peki's songs have a dreamlike, enchanted and psychedelic quality and instantly take the listener on a journey. In a poetic way, she approaches topics like "dreams and a naive fear of losing or not fulfilling them" or expresses "worries about our weary world and call for solidarity from all" - always with an outlook of hope. You do not have to speak turkish to understand - the message is transported by a universal language.

With her debut album, Peki Momés is now telling her full story. Displaying a young Peki on the cover, the artwork hints at the freshness and enthusiasm of the project. We should consider ourselves lucky that Peki chose to disrespect rules in favor of self-empowerment and made this wonderful longplayer that you never knew you needed.

Evolving from a solo-project of Christian Wilson Larsen to a dynasty including members of Serena Maneesh, Le Corbeau, Mindy Misty, Burning Motherfuckers, Next Life, Far From Tellus and Deathcrush, - Izakaya Heartbeat is seemingly a constellation in flux - complimentary to their psychedelic soundscape. "A pounding, drone infested body of work, "enter-rainbow lake" touches similar places that vintage black angels or even some of the more smacked out sonic youth soundscapes. Enveloping and immersive from the outset, the fusion of psychedelic dynamics with hardhitting musicianship is lethal." - Rough Trade (UK)

Evolving from a solo-project of Christian Wilson Larsen to a dynasty including members of Serena Maneesh, Le Corbeau, Mindy Misty, Burning Motherfuckers, Next Life, Far From Tellus and Deathcrush, - Izakaya Heartbeat is seemingly a constellation in flux - complimentary to their psychedelic soundscape. Three available albums in our catalog and more on the horizon. "They do a sort of driving early/mid 90s alt rock thing, mentioning Sonic Youth, MBV, Trumans Water, Unwound, Can, Mudhoney and 100 other bands you know as influences. Their guitar sound is definitely Thurston/Lee, but unlike SY, they have members who can headbang their impressively long locks when locating a locked noise-rock groove." - Stereogum

With Processing Music, Dutch composer and electronic musician Casimir Geelhoed offers a compelling meditation on sound transformation as a metaphor for psychological and emotional processing. Operating at the intersection of overstimulation, introspection and fragility, the album unfolds as a deeply immersive and personal exploration — one that invites the listener to inhabit a space of their own projection, memory and reflection.

Rather than imposing a fixed compositional structure, Processing Music follows a bottom-up approach, allowing form to emerge organically from the interaction of sonic materials. Digital signal processing is not used here as a mere technical tool, but as a poetic device: transformation as narrative, delay as memory, distortion as tension. Through slowly eroding loops, gently collapsing textures and shifting layers of timbre and space, Geelhoed crafts a delicate sound world that is charged with friction.

What may at first seem abstract gradually reveals an emotional core. The album evokes the suspended time of a largo, the layering of memory like an excavation, the psychological tension of perceived spatial expansion. These are not literal themes, but associative keys to a music that operates in a distinctly human sonic language.

Emerging from a series of live performances, Processing Music retains a performative sensibility: the music breathes, transforms, and invites attention to nuance. It slowly unfolds a landscape shaped by the subtle interplay between structure and dissolution.

Casimir Geelhoed has presented performances and installations at festivals such as CTM, Sonic Acts, Rewire, Fiber, SPATIAL, and Aural Spaces. He studied computer science, composition, music technology, and sonology in Amsterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht.

Two years after making their bow via a fine contribution to the Claremont Editions 3 compilation, Nuremberg’s Neumayer Station are ready to drop their debut full-length excursion, the mesmerising and immersive Crossings.

The brainchild of drummer-turned-producer Michael Kargel, a musician with a bulging CV that includes stints in various German indie-pop and rockabilly bands, Crossings was co-produced and mixed by Frank Mollena (best known to Claremont 56 fans as the man behind the Fürsattl and Bambi Davidson projects), with additional contributions by Alexander Sticht and an impressive roll call of guest musicians plucked from Nuremberg’s vibrant musical underground.

Recorded at different points over the last three years, the eight tracks showcased on Neumayer Station’s inspired debut album draw influence from the hypnotism of classic German ‘kosmische’ recordings, the freewheeling and stoned headiness of CAN, and the gently unfurling beauty of sun soaked Balearica. Kargel, Mollena and their collaborators set the tone with opener ‘Unterführung’, where Sticht’s layered and sonically hazy vocalisations rise above space-rock guitar motifs, droning analogue synth sounds, languid bass and slow-motion drum breaks. With effects aplenty and all manner of melodic electronic flourishes, it’s a deeply psychedelic and mind-expanding affair.

‘Nalut’ follows, with Kargel’s own atmospheric howls and whistles cannily combining with sun-bright tropical guitars, echoing chords and delay-laden saxophone solos riding the dub-flecked, low-slung groove. The collective’s Balearic influences are explored in more sonic detail on ‘A Gentle Flow’, a shuffling and soft-focus affair marked out by emotive piano & jazz guitar, brushed percussion, sunrise-ready synths and pleasingly stretched-out electronic textures. Neumayer Station return to this drifting, morning-fresh and eyes-closed sound later in the LP, via the wonderous ‘Von der Morgenröte’.

The heady influence of spaced-out dub production techniques comes to the fore on ‘Bassrutscher’, an Alexander Sticht co-production rich in Americana-influenced guitar textures, metronomic dub bass, rim-shot heavy drums, mazy organ and orange-hued sundown sounds. It ushers in the more up-tempo shuffle of ‘Zielgerade’, an inner space, out-of-mind affair whose driving but loose-limbed groove provides a platform for exotic, droning and otherworldly guitar, sax and synth sounds. As with all great albums, Crossings gently builds towards a triumphant and memorable conclusion. The spacey Balearic/kosmische crossover of ‘Feeling Forst’, where darting intergalactic synth sounds rub shoulders with gentle acoustic guitars in a hallucinatory soundscape, tees up closing cut ‘Crossings’, the krautrock-rooted, sax-sporting slab of enveloping late-night beauty that first introduced listeners to Neumayer Station back in 2023. It’s a fitting conclusion to a staggeringly good debut album.

First Word Records are very proud to bring you 'Ghouls', the 6th studio album from Bastien Keb.

Through the reflective and introspective multi-mood journey of its 19-tracks, this album spans psychedelic-chamber-funk, warped anti-ballads, cinematic instrumentals, Ethio-jazz & ethereal ambience.

Part soundtrack, part beat-tape, part memoir, this is a dreamlike soundscape sewn together from half-forgotten memories & late night breakdowns.

Entirely sample-free, this album is full to the brim with musical experimentation, with Keb's compulsion to make all the individual pieces of music independently; combining strings, harps, saxophones, theremins, clarinets, flutes and trumpets.

He signals to the fuzzy, nostalgic nebulous of mid '90s skate videos, as well as harking back to the scores & moods of movies like The French Connection, Taxi Driver, The Warriors and La Haine. There are whispers of sounds in the air from jazz clubs, street preachers & Turkish restaurants.

Keb describes the sonic experience of this album simply as this… "You're half awake, and half asleep, but you're warm…"

For this 19-track opus, Keb is joined extensively by Malik Ameer Crumpler; a poet, composer, editor and professor based in Paris, who's been involved in numerous albums while writing for various forms of experimental media.

A multi-instrumentalist originally from the Midlands, Bastien Keb (aka Sebastian Jones) previously released his highly-acclaimed album '22.02.85' on First Word back in 2017; this new album being a very welcome return to the Worldwide Award-winning UK independent label.

His music has been widely supported across BBC Radio in the past by DJs including Gilles Peterson, Huey Morgan, Huw Stephens, Jamie Cullum, Lauren Laverne, Mary Anne Hobbs, Nemone and Tom Ravenscroft. This is in addition to glowing press reviews from the likes of Pitchfork, The Guardian and The Line Of Best Fit.

He's built up a steady fanbase through his extensive catalogue over the years, with material for labels like Def Pressé, Gearbox, One-Handed Music and most recently for Shabaka Hutchings' Native Rebel Recordings imprint, on a collaborative project with South London's Confucius MC (Speakers Corner Quartet).

Keb concludes "this record is for anyone feeling lost in a world that seems to have lost itself without knowing it. It's for the people who know that the world is missing the beauty of the lights in the distance, whilst being distracted by new shoes and flashy phones..."

'Ghouls' is due to be released on vinyl & digital worldwide, November 14th 2025.

Monolith 45 series I

A new chapter emerges within Organic Signs.Conceived as a vessel dedicated to a single frequency, Monolith 45 is born to trace the lineage of progressive trance — that tribal, hypnotic, and ceremonial sound that carved its path during the early 2000s, and which today we reclaim with reverence.

Each release stands as a stone marker along this continuum: timeless signals that resonate equally with memory and vision. As with the broader work of Organic Signs, this new line will follow a dual path: rescuing forgotten gems from the past while also curating new music that embodies the same spirit.

Monolith 45 becomes the place where past and present intertwine, shaping a narrative that honors tradition while opening new doors for exploration.

The first monolith in the series carries with it two totems of the genre:
On the A-side, Magnetrixx – Intraferences, originally released in the year 2000 on the legendary Tatsu Records. Behind this moniker stands Stefan Lewin, not only a key architect of the progressive trance sound but also the mind behind ACL (Audiophile Circuits League), one of the most special modular synthesizer brands..

His work bridges eras: from shaping the trancefloor at the turn of the millennium to designing instruments that define modern electronic creation.On the B-side, Ticon – Lo Mi Hi, a track that saw the light in 2001 on Digital Structures, one of the most influential labels of that era.

Ticon are nothing short of mythical within this universe — pioneers whose sound blurred borders between deep grooves, psychedelic textures, and progressive structures, leaving an indelible mark that still resonates with dancers and producers worldwide.

With Monolith 45, we seek not only to preserve these transmissions but to project them into the present: to reawaken a sound that was always more than music, a tribal pulse, a ritual language that invited bodies and minds into collective trance.
This is our homage, our offering, and our way of extending the path forward.

Embrace The Abandon is the new project by THE MON, the solo vision of Urlo, vocalist, bassist, and founding member of the Italian heavy-psych veterans Ufomammut.

Structured in two complementary chapters — Songs of Abandon (November 7th, 2025) and Songs of Embrace (March 6th, 2026) — the project tells a journey of duality: loss and surrender on one side, acceptance and rebirth on the other.
The first chapter, Songs of Abandon, is perhaps the most intimate and vulnerable work Urlo has ever created.
Born in a moment of solitude and personal darkness, the album originated from a radical exercise: writing one song a day, for nine consecutive days, using only acoustic guitar and voice.
A collection of stripped-down, emotionally raw ballads. Rooted in acoustic textures and intimate songwriting, these songs explore loss, vulnerability, and the quiet spaces left behind — a personal exorcism of what could have been but never was.
Later, these sketches were shaped into fully realized tracks, with lyrics and subtle layers of sound — not to overwhelm, but to underline the fragile, raw atmosphere that pervades them. The result is a stripped-down, emotionally charged collection that embodies an inner search: the power of music as a tool to face abandonment, to dig into oneself, and ultimately to glimpse the possibility of an embrace.
With Embrace The Abandon, THE MON reaffirms itself as one of the most personal and uncompromising projects.
It is a body of work that fuses vulnerability and strength, speaking directly to the listener with sincerity, leading them through shadow towards light.
An intimate yet powerful sound experience, intertwining the minimalism of acoustic folk with the dark, visionary tension that has always defined Urlo’s artistic path.

Although they emerged from Melbourne bayside outer suburbs onto the local live scene with their fresh and spirited indie-rock update of the garage-beat sounds of The Easybeats, Kinks and early Beatles only a year or so ago, Gnome actually started out as a bedroom solo project for teenaged singer/songwriter/ guitarist Jay Millar a few years back. Jay, playing everything himself, started recording and releasing a steady succession of material - quite a few albums' worth - on his own Goblin Records label via Bandcamp. Realizing he needed a band to start playing out, Jay approached some like minded players from Frankston's rehearsal hub Singing Bird, and with Jay on lead vocals and lead guitar, Ned Capp on guitar, Olly Katsianis on bass, and Ethan Robins on drums, Gnome became a band.

Early in 2025, the last solo Jay recordings released under the Gnome name caused something of an international underground sensation when the Bandcamp only I Like It EP - four songs of kranked up Kinks-style mono riffage - was posted by a Spanish garage-punk YouTube page and quickly clocked up over 50,000 views.



At the same time, the band quickly began gaining attention on the thriving Frankston scene and around Melbourne. They started breaking out, sharing bills with the likes of Drunk Mums, Skegss, Split System, The Prize, The Unknowns, Cosmic Psychos, Hockey Dad, Guitar Wolf, The 5.6.7.8's, The Breadmakers, Loose Lips, fellow Frankstoners/Singing Bird alumni The Belair Lip Bombs, and, on a quick trip to Sydney, Cammy Cautious & The Wrestlers.

And now, finally, we have The Gnomes' debut album. Twelve killer tracks that combine the best of the '60s with the best of today. Twelve killer tracks that show off assertive and accomplished songwriting, singing and playing and an explosive and authentic swinging group sound. Twelve killers slices of raw rock'n'roll running the gamut from the savage Rhythm & Blues of "Play With You" and “Better With You” to the vibrant beat pop of "I'll Be There" and "I'm Not The One", with forays into the heavy reverb psych of "Stung", the Cavern/Star Club stylings of "Flippin' Stomp" and the first flyte jangle of "Time Will Tell" along the way. There’s more of course, including a new version of that Kinks-style kranker “I Like It” for good measure.

Frankston’s Fab Four are taking their sound to the world. Join them for the ride!

Holy Sons is the largely solo project of Emil Amos (Grails, Om, Lilacs & Champagne). Puritan Themes is his 17th album and his 4th for Thrill Jockey Records and a tentpole album in his wide-ranging output, including myriad private press LPs, collections of oddities, and conceptual series". Puritan Themes" relaxed vibes are influenced by the laid-back west coast rock sound of mid-period Fleetwood Mac, blended with a dose of psych distortion and imbued with the breeziness and ease of yacht rock. Puritan Themes is a record that knowingly, barely fits into the modern world. When mixing the record in Chicago, everyday Amos skated through Douglass Park listening to podcasts about the inner workings of The Band, listened to 70"s AM radio while washing dishes and went to sleep at night to early Bee Gees interviews. The earliest concept of the record was based around the track "Chain Gang" which was an imaginary take on if Cat Stevens had smoked a ton of salvia and taken a much darker route within that world of dense, story-telling/message-based songwriting. The track "Raw & Disfigured" borrows its name from the last Thrill Jockey Holy Sons record, in a referential move that"s stolen from the way Led Zeppelin separated the track "Houses of the Holy" from the record of the same name (once again harkening back to 70"s lore).

Heavyweight Dub album by Alien Trackers, a new project by cosmic trumpet specialist Pablo Volt (STA) and Jahtari space ship mechanic disrupt, landing right in the sweet spot between soulful Black Ark-warmth, digital Firehouse dancehall hitters and Jahtarian Dub psychedelics.

A lazy day at a beach, in a galaxy far, far away... Feel the sand between your tentacles and splash in the emerald acid sea. Snorkel with plasma squids and shock eels. Marvel at the double suns during the magic twilight cycle and bask in their glorious gamma rays. Gaze into the depths of the local Vortex...

Coming on alien-green vinyl, with hand drawn art by David 8000 Farris, additional bass & guitars from Dubsworth, and an all four thumbs up-rating, 'Dubs from Vortex Beach' is landing in your orbit right now!
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Emily A. Sprague's Cloud Time traces an audio-spiritual journey through time and place, recorded across a long-awaited debut tour of Japan in the fall of 2024. Compiled from environmental improvisations captured in and for the moment, material at once welcoming, responsive, and inimitable, the album distills a voyage guided by psychic wayfaring, unbound presence, and activating performance for a reciprocal exchange with space, listener, and each fully engaged instant. The Japanese tour documented on Cloud Time held an almost mythic significance for Sprague, taking on properties of her own sonic white whale. After many near-departures and dropped plans to play in the country, "the empty spaces of cancelled trips and forgotten music turned into strange little misty spirits that I felt followed by," she says. "When I began preparing for the tour, I couldn't shake a sense that the invitation to Japan was more about opening myself up to this new place instead of bringing something into it tightly under my control. Improvisation has always been such a pillar in my music practice, and I really wanted to meet the country, spaces and people through that process." To amplify these intuitive whispers on-stage, Sprague reimagined her time-tested live rig, designed to be as free from error as possible, as a looser, more flexible set up that would allow her to interface with what was essentially a blank sonic canvas every night. Each performance became a collaboration between environment and instinct, Sprague processing the events, energies, and emotions informing the evening through her new sound ecosystem, and projecting an entirely present and unique version of herself to each open-eared and hearted crowd. "It was very much more than just an act of playing for me, but a total experience of time and place," she says. The seven long-form pieces that plot the course of Cloud Time, excerpted from over eight hours of recordings archived on the artist's on-stage recorder and generously shared on the album with no additional mixing and only minimal editing, invite listeners to become still in these deep-rooted moments of presence as the album moves from city to city, venue to venue. Cloud Time chronicles material recorded at each tour stop, Sprague selecting and sequencing the album around mood-based storytelling more so than linear chronology. "I tried to make the whole album flow in the way that any one of the complete live performances did," she explains, "while also keeping the spirit of the whole thing as a journey." The result is equal parts travelog, love letter, and impressionistic collage channeled from the potent ferment of a now encased in the glowing amber of memory. Intrinsically inspired by kankyo ongaku, an environmental music philosophy, known both in and widely outside of Japan that tunes into the similarly expansive ethos as Pauline Oliveros' deep listening practice and posits the listener as composer, Cloud Time is ambient music that seems to be listening right back, grounded in heartfelt synthesized frequencies that abundantly hold and heal. Pieces like "Nagoya," "Tokyo 1," and the ten minute "Matsumoto" in particular hum with the atomic resonance of gently tended landscapes, offering space for tuning way in and dropping far out from perspectives that stifle and bind. Cloud Time is an invitation to embrace each moment as both fleeting and eternal, floating by with nothing to grasp onto and absolutely everything to gain. The exercise in acceptance and letting go that Sprague practiced throughout the tour deeply impacted her understanding of self as both a guest and venerable performer. "The process of loving wherever I am, being present and focusing on a clear channel of communication for mind and emotion, rooted so deeply in respect for the space, those within it, and myself, ended up being profoundly healing," she says. "My vision and hope is that this album can be released as a gift back to anyone who either was or wasn't there. A cloud time of life passing by."

STANDFIRST Titanic, the project spearheaded by Mabe Fratti and Hector Tosta (aka I. la Católica), return with a sumptuous and life-affirming new album.



In her sensational 1929 biography Tiger Woman, dancer and socialite Betty May claimed her ‘coster’s eye’ meant she liked to wear as many colours as possible. “Colours to me are like children to a loving mother. Each is my favourite, yet I can never bring myself to deny the others by preferring one.” May’s bold and inclusive strategy is one that manages to transfer itself, almost a century later, to Hagen, the new record by Titanic.


Many will know Titanic as the Mexico City-based brainchild of cellist and singer Mabe Fratti and multiinstrumentalist Hector Tosta who is now operating under the pseudonym, I. la Católica, (taken, rather unusually, from the name of the street the pair live on). With Hagen, and their previous release, Vidrio, (2023), the pair are creating a distinctive signature sound in modern alternative pop music. Nobody else sounds quite like them. Both records have an open hearted nature and simple, winning melodies that play off against a taste for drama, spectacular orchestration and a feeling of otherworldly mystery. Hagen is the more ambitious, sometimes more mystical effort. From the opening handclaps of ‘Lágrima del Sol’, (a wonderfully uptempo playground chant translating as a tear from the sun but, surely, not referencing the brand of pineapple wine?), the record dances its way through various mid-to-late-eighties inspirations, lush and widescreen passages of melancholy and vertiginous contrasts.


Mystery is often found in the simple but slightly odd song titles. English translations of various track titles give, ‘you swallowed the gum’, ‘leak’, ‘a tear from the sun’, ‘raising the trophy’ ‘digging dimensions’, ‘the owner’, ‘the decapitated hen’ and ‘the trap is exposed’. All denote striking images, metaphysical hints and emotional cues or simple, even childlike actions. Though Fratti and Tosta don’t reveal its provenance, the album’s title could even be a crafty play on words: the listener would be forgiven in thinking the moments of brash contrast and eyebrow raising theatricalism in the music constitute a musical nod to German punk chanteuse, Nina Hagen.


On Hagen, singer and cellist Mabe Fratti once again displays her brilliant knack of speaking to us directly. There is never the suspicion of her playing to the gallery, and the directness of many of the lyrics don’t allow it. Parallel to this, Fratti has an almost magical ability to give Hector Tosta’s melodies, and her and Tosta’s lyrics ones imbued with an insight and meaning that feels otherworldly. Tosta admitted it was “pretty wild to hear Mabe take the interpretations to a different place” and the listener can pick up on the delight Fratti takes in (literally) adding a voice to the many narratives.


Two examples can be shown here: ‘Gotera’ (Leak) uses harsh slashes of cello and tough, gunfire-like guitars and drums and multiple vocal lines that could be acting as a Greek chorus. They play off brilliantly against Fratti’s soft, slightly baleful vocal take that delivers lyrics such as: ‘nobody knows where the leak is / but I know where it is / they fight in front of the door and / nobody can go in’. With ‘La Gallina Degollada’ the somewhat blithe melody melody line, sung with what could be sarcastic brio by Fratti, plays against an itchting rhythm and rasping guitar part. The punch comes when you see that the song is about a chicken that has been decapitated and read lyrics such as: ‘I already saw it, it moved, the decapitated chicken’ / ‘could it be that I'm broken’ and ‘Two people hurt each other by thinking that they no longer agree’/ ‘Hours pass and the chicken represents what scares me’.


There may be death and fights to deal with, but there is also a quality of chirpy self-reliance about Hagen that is a key part of its nature. Like Betty May and her colourful outfits, Hagen’s sound often revels in its own sense of richness. Throughout, the record delivers vaulting string sections or glutinous guitar squeals that could, like the powerful, driving ‘Escarbo Dimensiones’ (Digging Dimensions) have come directly from a glossy 1980s TV series. Fratti sees this “glam sound” developed by Tosta on the aforementioned track and ‘Te Tragaste el Chicle’ (You Swallowed The Gum), as moments that were truly “revealing” for the album as a whole during its making.


What else? The thud and thump of ‘La Trampa Sale’ (The Trap is Exposed), and its sudden change of tempo and mood betrays a monstrously ambitious piece of music, the players almost greedily creating the sounds. Other moments are heart wrenching: ‘Libra’ ends on a poppy chord switch that cleverly ramps up the emotion inherent in the music’s notation. You could almost imagine a teenager in a bedroom forty years ago, rewinding the track over and over on a small, cheap cassette player, unable to get enough of that sugarsweet switch. Elsewhere, Oneohtrix Point Never adds stardust and an unearthly sense of space on the changeable, slightly moody meditation, ‘Pájaro de Fuego’ (Firebird). The record ends with ‘Alzando el Trofeo’ (Lifting the Trophy), a track that could soundtrack a state wedding, what with its beautiful cascading piano parts, a sugary vocal and short triumphal guitar riffs that add a rich patina to the overall sound. Fratti: “When I doubled those vocals on ‘Alzando el Trofeo’ I felt there was an epiphany happening, right at that moment.”


Making a good record is a team game. Tosta and Fratti recall seeing Randall from Circular Ruin Studios in NYC “tweak the drums in ‘Libra’ to make that amazing effect of the gated reverb”, or the shaping of ‘Gotera’, “when (recording engineer) Nate Salon added some synths to the track.” Drummer Eli Keszler, “an amazing and versatile player” had the songs down pat in a couple of days” and, according to Tosta, Oneohtrix Point Never “just came to one of the sessions and we hung out, and after all the recordings he and Nate were together in some studio and out of nowhere they sent us some beautiful tracks for ‘Pájaro de Fuego’! Fratti concurs. “He decided that he wanted to record because he was listening to the record (Nate works closely with him) and he really liked it! It was a total honour, indeed!”


Bedazzled by the playing, the skyscraping ambition in the arrangements and the giddy moments of contrast thrown up by Hagen, we could allow ourselves a brief moment of flippancy and state that Titanic’s new record is Yacht Rock meets Aeschylus, full-on. It’s also worth speculating that, in this hyper-sensitive, intemperate age, Titanic’s music has the power, however fleetingly, to heal hurts. Hagen is a brilliant showcase for a fresh and enriching form of pop music: displaying a magpie eye for what glints and plundering what has gone before.


Like Vidrio, Hagen was partially and additionally recorded at Fratti and Tosta’s house, aka Tinho Studios in Mexico City, as well as Golden Girl Studios & Circular Ruin Studios in New York City. Mixing was done by Santiago Parra in Pedro y el Lobo Studios, Mexico City and mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studios, New York City. The recording engineer was Nate Salon.


Hagen featured Mabe Fratti on cello, vocals & backing vocals, I. la Católica on guitar, keyboards, prepared piano, bass & backing vocals, drums by Eli Keszler and synths in ‘Pájaro de Fuego’ from Daniel Lopatin and Nate Salon.


All compositions on Hagen are written by I. la Católica, except ‘Escarbo Dimensiones’ & ‘Pájaro de Fuego’, which were composed by I. la Católica and Mabe Fratti. The record was produced by I. la Católica and co-produced by Nate Salon & Mabe Fratti. And all lyrics are by I. la Católica except ‘Escarbo Dimensiones’, ‘Gotera’, ‘Gallina degollada’ & ‘Pájaro de Fuego’, which were written by I. la Católica & Mabe Fratti.

STANDFIRST Titanic, the project spearheaded by Mabe Fratti and Hector Tosta (aka I. la Católica), return with a sumptuous and life-affirming new album.



In her sensational 1929 biography Tiger Woman, dancer and socialite Betty May claimed her ‘coster’s eye’ meant she liked to wear as many colours as possible. “Colours to me are like children to a loving mother. Each is my favourite, yet I can never bring myself to deny the others by preferring one.” May’s bold and inclusive strategy is one that manages to transfer itself, almost a century later, to Hagen, the new record by Titanic.


Many will know Titanic as the Mexico City-based brainchild of cellist and singer Mabe Fratti and multiinstrumentalist Hector Tosta who is now operating under the pseudonym, I. la Católica, (taken, rather unusually, from the name of the street the pair live on). With Hagen, and their previous release, Vidrio, (2023), the pair are creating a distinctive signature sound in modern alternative pop music. Nobody else sounds quite like them. Both records have an open hearted nature and simple, winning melodies that play off against a taste for drama, spectacular orchestration and a feeling of otherworldly mystery. Hagen is the more ambitious, sometimes more mystical effort. From the opening handclaps of ‘Lágrima del Sol’, (a wonderfully uptempo playground chant translating as a tear from the sun but, surely, not referencing the brand of pineapple wine?), the record dances its way through various mid-to-late-eighties inspirations, lush and widescreen passages of melancholy and vertiginous contrasts.


Mystery is often found in the simple but slightly odd song titles. English translations of various track titles give, ‘you swallowed the gum’, ‘leak’, ‘a tear from the sun’, ‘raising the trophy’ ‘digging dimensions’, ‘the owner’, ‘the decapitated hen’ and ‘the trap is exposed’. All denote striking images, metaphysical hints and emotional cues or simple, even childlike actions. Though Fratti and Tosta don’t reveal its provenance, the album’s title could even be a crafty play on words: the listener would be forgiven in thinking the moments of brash contrast and eyebrow raising theatricalism in the music constitute a musical nod to German punk chanteuse, Nina Hagen.


On Hagen, singer and cellist Mabe Fratti once again displays her brilliant knack of speaking to us directly. There is never the suspicion of her playing to the gallery, and the directness of many of the lyrics don’t allow it. Parallel to this, Fratti has an almost magical ability to give Hector Tosta’s melodies, and her and Tosta’s lyrics ones imbued with an insight and meaning that feels otherworldly. Tosta admitted it was “pretty wild to hear Mabe take the interpretations to a different place” and the listener can pick up on the delight Fratti takes in (literally) adding a voice to the many narratives.


Two examples can be shown here: ‘Gotera’ (Leak) uses harsh slashes of cello and tough, gunfire-like guitars and drums and multiple vocal lines that could be acting as a Greek chorus. They play off brilliantly against Fratti’s soft, slightly baleful vocal take that delivers lyrics such as: ‘nobody knows where the leak is / but I know where it is / they fight in front of the door and / nobody can go in’. With ‘La Gallina Degollada’ the somewhat blithe melody melody line, sung with what could be sarcastic brio by Fratti, plays against an itchting rhythm and rasping guitar part. The punch comes when you see that the song is about a chicken that has been decapitated and read lyrics such as: ‘I already saw it, it moved, the decapitated chicken’ / ‘could it be that I'm broken’ and ‘Two people hurt each other by thinking that they no longer agree’/ ‘Hours pass and the chicken represents what scares me’.


There may be death and fights to deal with, but there is also a quality of chirpy self-reliance about Hagen that is a key part of its nature. Like Betty May and her colourful outfits, Hagen’s sound often revels in its own sense of richness. Throughout, the record delivers vaulting string sections or glutinous guitar squeals that could, like the powerful, driving ‘Escarbo Dimensiones’ (Digging Dimensions) have come directly from a glossy 1980s TV series. Fratti sees this “glam sound” developed by Tosta on the aforementioned track and ‘Te Tragaste el Chicle’ (You Swallowed The Gum), as moments that were truly “revealing” for the album as a whole during its making.


What else? The thud and thump of ‘La Trampa Sale’ (The Trap is Exposed), and its sudden change of tempo and mood betrays a monstrously ambitious piece of music, the players almost greedily creating the sounds. Other moments are heart wrenching: ‘Libra’ ends on a poppy chord switch that cleverly ramps up the emotion inherent in the music’s notation. You could almost imagine a teenager in a bedroom forty years ago, rewinding the track over and over on a small, cheap cassette player, unable to get enough of that sugarsweet switch. Elsewhere, Oneohtrix Point Never adds stardust and an unearthly sense of space on the changeable, slightly moody meditation, ‘Pájaro de Fuego’ (Firebird). The record ends with ‘Alzando el Trofeo’ (Lifting the Trophy), a track that could soundtrack a state wedding, what with its beautiful cascading piano parts, a sugary vocal and short triumphal guitar riffs that add a rich patina to the overall sound. Fratti: “When I doubled those vocals on ‘Alzando el Trofeo’ I felt there was an epiphany happening, right at that moment.”


Making a good record is a team game. Tosta and Fratti recall seeing Randall from Circular Ruin Studios in NYC “tweak the drums in ‘Libra’ to make that amazing effect of the gated reverb”, or the shaping of ‘Gotera’, “when (recording engineer) Nate Salon added some synths to the track.” Drummer Eli Keszler, “an amazing and versatile player” had the songs down pat in a couple of days” and, according to Tosta, Oneohtrix Point Never “just came to one of the sessions and we hung out, and after all the recordings he and Nate were together in some studio and out of nowhere they sent us some beautiful tracks for ‘Pájaro de Fuego’! Fratti concurs. “He decided that he wanted to record because he was listening to the record (Nate works closely with him) and he really liked it! It was a total honour, indeed!”


Bedazzled by the playing, the skyscraping ambition in the arrangements and the giddy moments of contrast thrown up by Hagen, we could allow ourselves a brief moment of flippancy and state that Titanic’s new record is Yacht Rock meets Aeschylus, full-on. It’s also worth speculating that, in this hyper-sensitive, intemperate age, Titanic’s music has the power, however fleetingly, to heal hurts. Hagen is a brilliant showcase for a fresh and enriching form of pop music: displaying a magpie eye for what glints and plundering what has gone before.


Like Vidrio, Hagen was partially and additionally recorded at Fratti and Tosta’s house, aka Tinho Studios in Mexico City, as well as Golden Girl Studios & Circular Ruin Studios in New York City. Mixing was done by Santiago Parra in Pedro y el Lobo Studios, Mexico City and mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studios, New York City. The recording engineer was Nate Salon.


Hagen featured Mabe Fratti on cello, vocals & backing vocals, I. la Católica on guitar, keyboards, prepared piano, bass & backing vocals, drums by Eli Keszler and synths in ‘Pájaro de Fuego’ from Daniel Lopatin and Nate Salon.


All compositions on Hagen are written by I. la Católica, except ‘Escarbo Dimensiones’ & ‘Pájaro de Fuego’, which were composed by I. la Católica and Mabe Fratti. The record was produced by I. la Católica and co-produced by Nate Salon & Mabe Fratti. And all lyrics are by I. la Católica except ‘Escarbo Dimensiones’, ‘Gotera’, ‘Gallina degollada’ & ‘Pájaro de Fuego’, which were written by I. la Católica & Mabe Fratti.

From the crypts of Parisian funk obscurity comes the long-lost Halloween holy grail, Disco Frankenstein from Ice AKA Lafayette Afro Rock Band. A teasing album of horror-disco oddities originally released as a compilation—a misnomer cloaked in mystery, as the tracks themselves hail from the group’s playful experiments in the mid-to-late ’70s.
This album unearths a twisted treasure trove of grooves, originally scattered across obscure side-projects and international pressings, brought back to life by Strut on blood-soaked vinyl exclusively for Halloween 2025.
Originally released as a 1976 Japan-only compilation featuring the Lafayette Afro Rock Band under a plethora of pseudonyms—Sweet Exorcist, Captain Dax, Hot Blood, Krispie and Co., and more, the release was masterminded by producer Pierre Jaubert and led by bandleader Frank Abel with the funk-virtuosity of the Lafayette Afro-Rock Band group, the minds behind the much sampled ‘Soul Makossa’ and ‘Malik’ albums.
Disco Frankenstein represents the band at their most creative—layering wah-wah guitars, thunderous Afrobeat rhythms, and creepy-crawly synths into a funky stew of horror-disco gold. Tracks like “Dr. Beezar (Soul Frankenstein),” “Disco Vampire,” “Zeke the Zombie,” and “Igor’s Reggae” blur the line between Halloween novelty and dancefloor fire, conjured with full seriousness by studio wizards who knew how to raise the funk.
Resurrected by Strut Records and remastered by The Carvery, this compilation finally gets the deluxe treatment it deserves: pressed on limited blood-stained vinyl just in time for Halloween 2025.

Having worked together on his 2024 album Colours & Light, Project Gemini aka Paul Osborne joins forces once again with Wendy Martinez, French singer and composer, and also part of renowned psych-girl group Gloria on a new collaborative EP. Landing on Mr Bongo, ‘Time Stands Still / Le temps s'arrête’ is a sonic exploration that shows a shared love of the progressive music emanating out of France in the ‘60s and ‘70s and the celebrated film soundtrack composers of the time. A more melodic and romantic excursion than Paul’s previous recordings, this EP marries his richly textured, cinematic psych rock with Martinez’s captivating vocal presence.

A body of work born during the period Paul was finishing up his last LP Colours & Light, he penned an album’s worth of instrumental library-style music and had the idea of having Wendy add vocals and lyrics to a selection of them. The instrumental record got scrapped, but thankfully ‘Time Stands Still’ grew out of it.

Paul was a fan of Wendy’s work as both a solo artist and in the band Gloria, and her inclusion on the Project Gemini tracks ‘Entre chien et loup’ & ‘Extra Nuit’ showed a clear synergy to their musical approaches and sounds. For ‘Time Stands Still’ he sent over instrumental tracks one by one, with Wendy taking time to find melodies and French poetry she was happy with and returning her ideas from her home just outside of Lyon.

Drawing inspiration from French soundtrack composers such as François de Roubaix, Frances Lai and Michel Colombier, as well as French female artists including Léonie and Laurence Vanay, these productions are a contemporary love letter to this sound, not a homage. Mixing psych, folk, chanson, and French new wave, it’s music that pulls you in deeper, with groove, grit and passion at its core.

'Je n'ai plus peur' kicks things off with a sultry energy. It’s a psych-funk production drenched in attitude, swagger, and edge, which nods to the left-field side of Serge Gainsbourg’s music. Elsewhere, 'Âme contre âme' feels like the opener from a forgotten new-wave film, managing to be at both beautiful yet sinister and longing. 'The Crawler' could be incidental music from the same film, with Wendy using her voice as an instrument layering the backing track as Paul's bass takes centre stage. The ghostly spoken word of 'Ce qui est intact' echoes a funky version of what the Théâtre du Chêne Noir d'Avignon may have recorded.

A transportive journey ‘Time Stands Still’ is nostalgic yet new in the same smoke-filled breath. Fuzzed-up guitars and driving basslines meld with folk-leaning organs and mellotron vibrations to give that eerie, otherworldly edge. All of which are seasoned by the sensuous, layered vocal tones of Wendy Martinez, alongside crisp drums from Tony Coote and considered percussive touches by Paul Elliot.

LA-based producer Real Bad Man and Michigan rapper Willie the Kid release their new collaborative album, Midnight, via the producer’s own Real Bad Man Records label. The album, which marks the producer’s second collaborative project of the year following Dear Psilocybin with ZelooperZ, includes guest appearances from UK rapper Sonnyjim, New York’s Lord Sko and frequent RBM collaborator Boldy James, who will be releasing his own Real Bad Man-produced album in May.

The album came together naturally for the pair, letting each new song inform the identity of the project as a whole. Speaking about how they identified that central theme of the album, Willie says, “I think where Adam and I agreed upon is that the stand out records were all themes for the night, late night drive, after hours dinners, shopping, private rooftop hotel suites, it’s a thinking album, a cruising album preferably enjoyed at night…midnight””

Midnight marks the early stages of what’s shaping up to be a prolific run of collaborations for Real Bad Man in 2025. His second album of the year builds off of the momentum he sparked last month with his first full-length album with ZelooperZ, Dear Psilocybin, which The FADER called “clear-eyed and focused in its own fantastical way”. Working as a duo with the dynamic lyricism of Willie the Kid after the psychedelic sounds of Dear Psilocybin, Real Bad Man returns to the essential underground beatmaking that he first emerged onto the scene with through his On High Alert series. His crackling, lo-fi production pairs perfectly with Willie’s gritty delivery, laying a foundation for the longtime lyrical stylist who has worked alongside some of the genre’s modern heroes including Nas, Lil Wayne, The Alchemist, Roc Marciano, Curren$y and more.

Listen to Midnight above, see below for more details on Midnight and stay tuned for more from Real Bad Man coming soon

Emily A. Sprague's Cloud Time traces an audio-spiritual journey through time and place, recorded across a long-awaited debut tour of Japan in the fall of 2024. Compiled from environmental improvisations captured in and for the moment, material at once welcoming, responsive, and inimitable, the album distills a voyage guided by psychic wayfaring, unbound presence, and activating performance for a reciprocal exchange with space, listener, and each fully engaged instant. The Japanese tour documented on Cloud Time held an almost mythic significance for Sprague, taking on properties of her own sonic white whale. After many near-departures and dropped plans to play in the country, "the empty spaces of cancelled trips and forgotten music turned into strange little misty spirits that I felt followed by," she says. "When I began preparing for the tour, I couldn't shake a sense that the invitation to Japan was more about opening myself up to this new place instead of bringing something into it tightly under my control. Improvisation has always been such a pillar in my music practice, and I really wanted to meet the country, spaces and people through that process." To amplify these intuitive whispers on-stage, Sprague reimagined her time-tested live rig, designed to be as free from error as possible, as a looser, more flexible set up that would allow her to interface with what was essentially a blank sonic canvas every night. Each performance became a collaboration between environment and instinct, Sprague processing the events, energies, and emotions informing the evening through her new sound ecosystem, and projecting an entirely present and unique version of herself to each open-eared and hearted crowd. "It was very much more than just an act of playing for me, but a total experience of time and place," she says. The seven long-form pieces that plot the course of Cloud Time, excerpted from over eight hours of recordings archived on the artist's on-stage recorder and generously shared on the album with no additional mixing and only minimal editing, invite listeners to become still in these deep-rooted moments of presence as the album moves from city to city, venue to venue. Cloud Time chronicles material recorded at each tour stop, Sprague selecting and sequencing the album around mood-based storytelling more so than linear chronology. "I tried to make the whole album flow in the way that any one of the complete live performances did," she explains, "while also keeping the spirit of the whole thing as a journey." The result is equal parts travelog, love letter, and impressionistic collage channeled from the potent ferment of a now encased in the glowing amber of memory. Intrinsically inspired by kankyo ongaku, an environmental music philosophy, known both in and widely outside of Japan that tunes into the similarly expansive ethos as Pauline Oliveros' deep listening practice and posits the listener as composer, Cloud Time is ambient music that seems to be listening right back, grounded in heartfelt synthesized frequencies that abundantly hold and heal. Pieces like "Nagoya," "Tokyo 1," and the ten minute "Matsumoto" in particular hum with the atomic resonance of gently tended landscapes, offering space for tuning way in and dropping far out from perspectives that stifle and bind. Cloud Time is an invitation to embrace each moment as both fleeting and eternal, floating by with nothing to grasp onto and absolutely everything to gain. The exercise in acceptance and letting go that Sprague practiced throughout the tour deeply impacted her understanding of self as both a guest and venerable performer. "The process of loving wherever I am, being present and focusing on a clear channel of communication for mind and emotion, rooted so deeply in respect for the space, those within it, and myself, ended up being profoundly healing," she says. "My vision and hope is that this album can be released as a gift back to anyone who either was or wasn't there. A cloud time of life passing by." Emily A. Sprague's Cloud Time will be released Friday, October 10th in vinyl, Japanese import CD (via Plancha), and digital editions.