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Recommended if you like: Com Truise, Toro Y Moi, Tycho, Tourist. British Columbia producer Jamison Isaak didn’t anticipate an adulthood of globe-trotting songcraft, but teenage exposure to iconic French house music videos cast a spell on him that still holds: “I knew then this is what I wanted to do'’ Catalyzed by synthetic sights and sounds from oceans away, he patiently taught himself primitive software and recording programs, reverse engineering the heady, swooning horizons of the dance music that had permanently bewitched him. A decade later, having amassed an expansive discography of soft-focus synth pop and romantic electronic a crisscrossing the planet many times in the process the subtext of his project’s journey rings clear: “Teen Daze is dream fulfillment'’ Enter Interior. An ode to electric futures glimpsed in ecstatic heights, from bedrooms to big rooms, it’s an album of first loves refracted through prisms of wisdom, wounds, and wonder. Filter house and flashing lights; soft acid and vaporous neon; bumping clubs in spiral towers: “Like what the teenagers in Akira might be listening to'’ Collaborative cameos by multi-instrumentalist Joseph Shabason (on sublime fantasia opener “Last Time In This Place”) and vocalist Cecile Believe (on the glitch-glamorous anthem “2AM (Real Love)”) evocatively expand the record’s palette but otherwise Interior is Izaak’s love letter to his own artistic awakening, to the paradigm shifts inherent in youthful discovery and remote dreaming — your world exploded, your life forever changed. Years of devotion and divergence have honed his craft radically; tracks like “Nite Rune “Nowhere and“Translation”are among the most supreme bangers in the entire Teen Daze canon, a delirious fusion of textural finesse and emotional transcendence. It’s music of skylines, escape, and sensual energy, forever cresting through nights that never end.

Acclaimed L.A. rapper Blu has left an indelible mark on the hip-hop landscape, crafting an impressive catalog instilled with the essence of the vibrant city he calls home. Now, the gifted lyricist is back with the new album "The Color Blu(e)". Among Blu’s most conceptual projects to date, "The Color Blu(e)" is an artistic thesis statement, celebrating and reflecting on a remarkable creative journey. The word “Blue” is featured in every song title, and “Blue” is also weaved into each of the album’s soundscapes. “This album is the ultimate cartoon series about myself,” Blu explains. “The Color Blu(e) is the cool breeze. Another day in the life of being Blu.” While he typically works with a single producer on each project, Blu recruited Sirplus, J57, and longtime collaborator Exile to shape the album’s sonic texture. An unapologetically personal collection with no features, "The Color Blu(e)" is packed with intricate wordplay and dynamic production, reaffirming the unique talent of the artist known as Blu

The Bristol-based composer and producer FFT signs to Numbers for Disturb Roqe and an album to follow in 2022.

Disturb Roqe is out on vinyl & digital on December 3rd, 2021. The EP presents three meticulous, spacious tracks that channel bass-heavy tendencies, with whirring details that showcase masterly sound design in a controlled yet aggressive delivery.

Josh Thompson has released music dispersed across a number of labels, including The Trilogy Tapes, Low End Activist’s Bruk Records, his own Super Hexagon imprint and more. Through transmitting under a series of obscurant aliases, he composed and created while leading a nomadic life between houses, cities, occupations and attractions.

His body of work demonstrates an impressive, evolving artistry, exploring harmonic and textural sounds underlined by a powerful devotion to computer-based production. It’s a focus captured by his artist name FFT, short for Fast Fourier Transform, a process by which signals can be converted from temporal or spatial to frequency domains, or in the other direction.

Returnal sees Daniel Lopatin fine tune his craft for creation of deep atmospheres and texture even further.
"Returnal" is the fourth album from Daniel Lopatin's Oneohtrix Point Never project, after "Betrayed In The Octagon" (Deception Island, 2007), "Zones Without People" (Arbor, 2009) and "Russian Mind" (No Fun, 2009). All 3 albums being superbly compiled on the "Rifts" double CD (No Fun, 2009). It sees Lopatin fine tune his craft for creation of deep atmospheres and texture even further. Starting off with the mind blowing triptych of "Nil Admiari / Describing Bodies / Stress Waves", which fires off into a noise / rhythm excess before entering a zone of relative calm building to the melancholy of the final part. This sets the tone perfectly for the albums title track, a stunning out of this world ballad featuring Lopatin's near desperate vocal delivery, ending what could be seen as one of his most chilling and thought provoking sides to date. The atmosphere is slightly lifted as the darkened sun comes up over the ruins on "Pelham Island Road" and "Where Does Time Go", with the album closing with edgy broken beats and fourth world possible landscapes of "Preyouandi", which fades into the distance with echoes of the "Returnal" chorus, closing the loop. What's burnt into memory here is Lopatin's love affair with the long, slow path back home... the cycle... the hypnotic sector... the ghost in the machine... and whether people are making dance music or hip hop or space head music or metal, the ouroboros is present in every sector - as it was in Bach's study, and in the elephant songs of the Ituri forests. Available on CD in digipack and LP in gatefold cover.

Polish production legends Catz ‘n Dogz journey to Club Sweat to drop a double A-side ready to set the rave-craving animals out of their cage, releasing ‘Rendezvous / Nasty’. The duo have creatively crafted a double A-side oozing floor-to-floor elixir, to skillfully entice underground cavern connoisseurs. As those punters find their way to their dancefloor destination they are met with the aptly named ‘Rendezvous’ a tech-house heater that couples deep stomping kickdrums, with underlying techno textures for an insatiable groove that is augmented by the deep yet sensual melodies of R&B vocalist Raymoane.

The pace is turned up a notch on the flip-side, with stank-face inducing textures apropos for the title of ‘Nasty’, a tune that layers the hypnotic and conspicuous vocals of Kiddy Smile over a bounce-loaded bassline with underlying rhythmic drums and sirens to evoke a bustling party atmosphere.

Radio Support: Danny Howard (BBC Radio1), Ben Malone (Kiss FM), TCTS (Kiss FM)

DJ Support: Riva Starr, Todd Terry, Roger Sanchez, severino panzetta, Pirupa, boys noize, Eli Escobar, Tocadisco, Hifi Sean, Tommie Sunshine, Nhan Solo, Kolombo / Olivier Grégoire, Tough Love, Anna Lunoe, Kryder, Lorenzo Borgatti, Funkerman, Pat Lok, Lucati, Martin Ikin, Cut Snake, GAWP, Utah Saints, Vanilla Ace, Das Kapital, Tommy Trash, Sam Divine, Cassimm, Hector Romero.

In 1958 the painter Isson Tanaka (22 July 1908 – 11 September 1977) moved to Amami Ōshima, an island in the Ryukyus. There, in self-chosen isolation, he committed himself exclusively to his art until his sudden passing in 1977. In 2018 Seiha Kurosawa, Kanako Azuma and Hideki Umezawa visited Amami Ōshima to create a video installation about Tanaka’s insular life. The work, entitled “Dokkyaku” (tr. The Lone Visitor), shifts between the texture and materiality of Tanaka’s paintings in relation to the natural world of Amami Ōshima and its people. The video invites viewers to understand—poetically—the artist’s sensitivity to nature and the expressivity of his works.

During his stay on Amami Ōshima, Hideki Umezawa recorded a lot of natural sounds to recreate a sort of simulated ecology of Tanaka’s mind – or: of the painter’s mind. On this long playing record these recordings are blended with electronically generated sounds. Next, Andrew Pekler, who has never actually visited Amami Ōshima, upon hearing Umezawa’s field recordings creates - in the spirit of Isson Tanaka - a complementary dreamscape of the island’s phenomena. Of what could be.

This is a work that doubts between site specific and creative imagination. With sounds echoing between the anecdotic and the imaginary. It is a sensitive and highly stylized interpretation of a world that Isson Tanaka had also carefully studied. A painter at work; a way of seeing. So, after Christophe Piette’s ‘Six Tableaux de Quelpaert’, released by Edições CN in 2019, we again moore an island in the nautical footsteps of a painter. While Piette drew a story through – among other things - recording dialogues at his island home, at the restaurant table, et al. Pekler and Umezawa paint their pictures in a more musical fashion. Where natural sounds evaporate into electronic clouds of imagination.

Hideki Umezawa (b.1986, Gunma) is Japanese artist / composer. He won 1st prize at Luc Ferrari’s international competition – Presque Rien Prize 2015 (France), and the Contemporary Computer Music Concert 2015 (Japan). “Dokkyaku” was originally created for "Fukami – Une plongée dans l'esthétique japonaise", an exhibition at Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild in Paris, France as part of ‘Japanismes 2018’.

Andrew Pekler (b. 1973, Samarkand) works with techniques of digital sampling and analog synthesis to re– contextualize found sounds and archival musical materials. In addition to numerous album releases, Pekler has also produced a number of video, installation and web-based works, as well as music for theater, dance, and film.

On the heels of his breakout year, Swiss indie rocker Sam Himself - New Yorker by choice, ‘Fondue Western’ baritone by trade - prepares to release his debut album, Power Ballads (October 8th). The Brooklyn-based songwriter, performer and multi-instrumentalist has been sounding the bell for his first LP with a number of singles.
This full-length debut follows last year’s acclaimed Slow Drugs EP, the artist’s third which earned him the Swiss National Broadcasting Service’s Best Talent Award in 2020 and a nomination in 2021 for a Swiss Music Award, the most prestigious national prize of its kind in Sam’s home country.
Power Ballads marks the latest collaboration between Sam and his longtime producer, mixing engineer Daniel Schlett (The War On Drugs; Iggy Pop), as well as mastering legend Greg Calbi (Bruce Springsteen; David Bowie). Sam plays most of the instruments on Power Ballads himself, with producer Schlett adding sounds, textures and of course his singular mixing style (as heard recently e.g. on Iggy Pop's cover of The Velvet Underground's European Son).
Sam Himself is set to tour in support of his debut album well into the spring of next year, with some 30+ European dates in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and beyond (US-dates in planning).

Tete Mbambisa has performed and recorded with many of the giants of South African Jazz (Bazil ‘Manenberg’ Coetzee, Johnny Dyani, Dick Khoza, Duku Makasi, Gideon Nxumalo, Dudu Pukwana, etc...), and is one of the very few South African jazz musicians that can claim to have played with the three jazz generations of the last fifty years. His work as a pianist, vocalist, composer and arranger is a landmark on South African jazz history.

After a recording hiatus, Mbambisa returned in 1974 with an octet album, 'Tete's Big Sound' released on a newly formed label, As Shams or The Sun, established by South African record store owner and independent producer Rashid Vally. 'Tet's Big Sound' included tracks like 'Unity' and the 'Black Heroes Lamentation', now considered a classic in the South African jazz underground. The sound that Mbambisa carved in this period was wholly acoustic, and is a style that now is often loosely labelled spiritual jazz, a sound that alludes to deep African textures and rhythms balanced with clear nods to American hard bop and modal jazz, sometimes edging toward free improvisation in echoes of John Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders.

Bria is an intimate and incisive labour of love from multi-instrumentalists Bria Salmena
and Duncan Hay Jennings. Catapulted by a deep sense of dread and confusion in the
depths of 2020, Salmena decided to forgo writing her own music. “I wanted to listen for
what might reflect my life back to me,” she says, “six tracks that could be my mirror.” The
result is a pointillistic knockout of a release that weaves a landscape both luscious and a
little rogue; showing us exactly what good songs can do.
 Bria’s internal turbulence seemed to mirror last year’s external instability. When Jennings
and back-up singer Jaime McCuaig moved to The Outside Inn, a hobby farm in Hockley
Hills, Ontario, Bria soon joined. The farm’s living-room-turned-studio proved an ideal
setting for the long-time friends to compile a record of handpicked country covers. They
went searching for songs that could speak to our everyday loneliness, outside and in.
‘Cuntry Covers’ houses it all: well-worn favourites and lesser-known gems.
 The record opens with ‘Green Rocky Road’, as performed by Greenwich Village legend
Karen Dalton. Jennings’ twangy guitar carries Bria’s original inflection and richly textured
vocals, complete with dreamy overlay. ‘Dreaming My Dreams With You’, a rendition of the
Waylon Jennings hit, is followed by John Cale’s ‘Buffalo Ballet’, a lyrical journey through
Abilene, Texas, the endpoint of the Chisholm Trail.
 Engineered and mixed by Duncan Hay Jennings, each song brings desire and sexuality
front and centre, with all the swagger you’d expect – and more. Bria hopes the record will
be understood as a small contribution to the subversion of a genre with deep patriarchal
roots. Mistress Mary’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Love Ya Now’, from the 1969 album ‘Housewife’,
served as the original inspiration. “It was the first song Duncan and I worked on,” Bria
notes. “It definitely set the tone for the other tracks we picked.”
 Bria’s voice - described as wavering between “sultry and howitzer” - shines on ‘Fruits Of
My Labour’, written and performed by country great, Lucinda Williams. The Walker
Brothers’ ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’ is a harmonic (and hypnotic) standout. A
musical explorer who moves fluidly between styles, Bria doesn’t consider herself a
country artist: “I feel as though I’m a visitor here, paying respect to a style that has
informed a part of my musical identity. Country music, as much as any other art form,
should be an arena for representation, expression and provocation. I have a ton of
reverence for artists who came before me and challenged the primarily whiteheterosexual status quo.”
 Salmena and Jennings have toured for years as members of Toronto four-piece FRIGS,
whose 2018 debut ‘Basic Behaviour’ was long-listed for the Polaris Music Prize. Making a
mark in diverse genres from country to punk, both play as permanent members of Orville
Peck’s band.
 ‘Cuntry Covers’ was recorded on the territories of the Anishnaabe, the Haudenosaunee,
the Wendat and the Mississaugas of the Credit. The release also features contributions
from FRIGS drummer Kris Bowering and vocals by Ali Jennings.
 LP pressed on opaque breeze blue vinyl.

Bria is an intimate and incisive labour of love from multi-instrumentalists Bria Salmena
and Duncan Hay Jennings. Catapulted by a deep sense of dread and confusion in the
depths of 2020, Salmena decided to forgo writing her own music. “I wanted to listen for
what might reflect my life back to me,” she says, “six tracks that could be my mirror.” The
result is a pointillistic knockout of a release that weaves a landscape both luscious and a
little rogue; showing us exactly what good songs can do.
 Bria’s internal turbulence seemed to mirror last year’s external instability. When Jennings
and back-up singer Jaime McCuaig moved to The Outside Inn, a hobby farm in Hockley
Hills, Ontario, Bria soon joined. The farm’s living-room-turned-studio proved an ideal
setting for the long-time friends to compile a record of handpicked country covers. They
went searching for songs that could speak to our everyday loneliness, outside and in.
‘Cuntry Covers’ houses it all: well-worn favourites and lesser-known gems.
 The record opens with ‘Green Rocky Road’, as performed by Greenwich Village legend
Karen Dalton. Jennings’ twangy guitar carries Bria’s original inflection and richly textured
vocals, complete with dreamy overlay. ‘Dreaming My Dreams With You’, a rendition of the
Waylon Jennings hit, is followed by John Cale’s ‘Buffalo Ballet’, a lyrical journey through
Abilene, Texas, the endpoint of the Chisholm Trail.
 Engineered and mixed by Duncan Hay Jennings, each song brings desire and sexuality
front and centre, with all the swagger you’d expect – and more. Bria hopes the record will
be understood as a small contribution to the subversion of a genre with deep patriarchal
roots. Mistress Mary’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Love Ya Now’, from the 1969 album ‘Housewife’,
served as the original inspiration. “It was the first song Duncan and I worked on,” Bria
notes. “It definitely set the tone for the other tracks we picked.”
 Bria’s voice - described as wavering between “sultry and howitzer” - shines on ‘Fruits Of
My Labour’, written and performed by country great, Lucinda Williams. The Walker
Brothers’ ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’ is a harmonic (and hypnotic) standout. A
musical explorer who moves fluidly between styles, Bria doesn’t consider herself a
country artist: “I feel as though I’m a visitor here, paying respect to a style that has
informed a part of my musical identity. Country music, as much as any other art form,
should be an arena for representation, expression and provocation. I have a ton of
reverence for artists who came before me and challenged the primarily whiteheterosexual status quo.”
 Salmena and Jennings have toured for years as members of Toronto four-piece FRIGS,
whose 2018 debut ‘Basic Behaviour’ was long-listed for the Polaris Music Prize. Making a
mark in diverse genres from country to punk, both play as permanent members of Orville
Peck’s band.
 ‘Cuntry Covers’ was recorded on the territories of the Anishnaabe, the Haudenosaunee,
the Wendat and the Mississaugas of the Credit. The release also features contributions
from FRIGS drummer Kris Bowering and vocals by Ali Jennings.
 LP pressed on opaque breeze blue vinyl.

Limited Picture Vinyl

Fierce electro by Human Rebellion on their first release! A heavy 6 track picture disc Mini album that hits hard and relentless. Dark atmospheres and raw heavy beats that topped with cold and percussive basslines, hypnotic arpeggios, sci-fi textures straight out of their modular and analog synths. Essential stuff for those who like powerful and energetic 90's electro-techno rotted in the early 90's. Beautiful debut release from Belgium!

Interiors, the title of this new release from Ultramarine, may have a topical resonance for many listeners who have found themselves in involuntary confinement during the past year, but the five tracks on this EP were actually recorded in 2011, and they represent a significant opening out of the duo's evolving musical perspective.

Ian Cooper and Paul Hammond, who had become friends while growing up together in the Essex countryside, formed Ultramarine in 1989. Throughout the 90s their distinctive music, an enticing blending of acoustic with electronic instruments, secured a loyal following and won critical acclaim. Then, throughout the whole of the next decade, Ultramarine lay dormant. Interiors documents their reawakening, with Cooper and Hammond exploring approaches to music-making made possible by recently developed software, designed specifically with live performance in mind.

Four of the five tracks to be heard here were issued digitally last year. But as Paul Hammond has pointed out, "with Ultramarine the whole point is to create an artefact, so the form and the look of the finished product is central." That's an outlook shared passionately by Simon Lewin's label Blackford Hill, and the music now available on this vinyl record is appropriately enhanced with cover art by printmaker Katherine Jones. Her imagery matches the music neatly in its nuanced interplay of solidity and shadow, line and colour, geometric form and organic growth.

Ultramarine returned refreshed in October 2011, bursting back into public awareness with "Find A Way," issued as a 7" single on their own label, Real Soon. Clive Bell, writing in The Wire, extolled its engaging mix of electronic beats with cool vocals and tropical percussion. More generally Bell embraced Ultramarine's thoughtful hybrid electronica as "music you could enjoy at home without feeling your intelligence was being scorned, or that if you were not physically in a club, you were wasting your time."

On Interiors, the roots of that slinky single are laid bare on the purely instrumental track "Find A Way Back." Its two distinct parts stretch out the beats and flaunt those tropical flourishes, shuffling and flexing, vibrant and heady, languid and sultry. This is techno filtered through the fabric of magic realism, an exotically spiced concoction, chilled and ready to be savoured at home.

With the diagrammatic clarity of its punchy thrust and spooling loops "Even When" distils the essence of Cooper and Hammond's way of working with their musical material: layering and shaping, nurturing textures, plaiting rhythms and juggling accents. The cumulative impact is almost sculptural in its physical immediacy and looming presence. In contrast, on "By Return" the duo skew the outcome, projecting a selection of limber figures into dub's auditory hall of mirrors. They are clearly revelling in the reverb, relishing the recoil and decay.

Interiors ultimately opens out onto "Decoy Point (Version)." With its ozone saturated ambience, this closing track evokes marshland and mudflat soundscapes, seabird mews, maritime signals and tidal wash. Cooper and Hammond feel deep attachment to the Essex landscape and, in particular, to the local history and physical features of the Blackwater estuary. Blackford Hill provides an accommodating home for Ultramarine's ongoing project Blackwaterside, which has featured to date a 7" vinyl record plus 28-page booklet, and a photo film with soundtrack. Now, delving into the Ultramarine archive, this welcome incarnation of Interiors offers a fascinating glimpse of the duo finding their bearings, at a vital stage along the way.

Jeff Parker's Forfolks - a new album of solo guitar works - was recorded by Graeme Gibson at Sholo Studio in Altadena, California (aka Jeff's house) over two days in June 2021. It includes interpretations of Thelonious Monk's "Ugly Beauty" and the standard "My Ideal," plus six original compositions including "Four Folks," "La Jetée" (a tune he recorded with Tortoise in 1998), and four totally new loop-driven, stratiform works that marry melodic improvisation with electronic textures. "It's a particular thing to hear Jeff play solo," writes veteran Chicago musician and longtime Parker collaborator Matthew Lux in his liner notes for Forfolks. "He is an unusually selfless improviser, oftentimes laying out and highlighting the contributions of his band mates... On this recording, however, he is by himself, joined only by his own ideas, looped or frozen, to flesh out the music he's creating in his mind. Hearing him craft entire sound worlds on these eight selections gives us an opportunity to really see how Parker orders sound." Forfolks follows Parker's critically acclaimed 2020 record Suite for Max Brown, which Pitchfork called an "effortlessly detailed album, full of tradition and experimentation that spans generations ... It lives at the vanguard of new jazz music." The album went on to debut at No. 1 on Billboard's Current Contemporary Jazz Chart.

‘Expressions of Interest’ is the debut album from Melbourne/Naarm post-punk group screensaver.

Sonically, the 10 track album is rich and detailed, and pays homage to its era of inspiration (late 70s-mid 80s post-punk and new wave) with gripping vocals, dissonant guitar, melodic basslines, washes of synths and motorik drumming. Engineered by Julian Cue alongside band member Chris Stephenson and recorded over multiple studio sessions between 2020-2021

The album opens with the ominously titled ‘Body Parts’, an immediately arresting song that showcases the bands penchant for blending classic post-punk elements, leaning into a sound somewhere between the Banshees and Protomartyr.

Maynard doubles down on these themes in the frenetic second track, ‘No Movement’. Guttural organ tones swim under overdriven guitar, jagged and intense. Additional textures and sound effects are used percussively to embellish the dynamics, creating a feverish atmosphere with some Martin Hannett like flourishes.

The album takes a surprising turn into electronic driven krautrock on track three with 'Buy, Sell, Trade' - a rollicking piece of danceable ephemera, dominated by swirling synth sounds and punctuated with electronics reminiscent of Sparks/Moroder collaborations. Chris Stephenson's masterful guitar work begins with Greg Sage-esque determination before a crescendo into a lush Frippertronics outro.

'MEDS' transports us back to the foundation established on 'Body Parts', a gothy piece, full of tribal toms and dirge-y synths. Industrial punk rock nearly swallowed whole by the keys in the middle and slowly building back to complimentary guitar and vocal hooks.

It's from this point in the album that the band let's their other influences rise to the surface, as they explore touches of EDM on 'Static State' - a brutal, death-disco style track, Krystal Maynard's lead synth and gloomy vocal complimenting the pounding drums and dub-esque bass line culminating in a track worthy of the dancefloor.


Opening side two we have 'Skin', beginning with a solid and simple backbeat, James Beck’s post-punk percussion provides a steady and minimal framework for the rest of the band to colour in with great depth and detail. Giles Fielke’s bass guitar wobbles brilliantly leading the verse melody, whilst Chris Stephenson’s guitar drives the chorus that folds neatly in on itself.

In ‘Attention Economy’, Krystal Maynard is flexible with her lyrical style, and knows how and when to lend her voice to the greater backdrop of the composition. ‘Attention Economy’ has an almost Kraftwerkian structure - repetitious, but engaging with its constant tom driven beat, lush synth lines and minimal bass tones.

Just when you thought things had slowed down, screensaver ramp things right back up again with ‘Overnight Low’ - a no holds barred thumper. Giles Fielke underpins the hard-edged sound with his bassline, keeping things smooth and tight. It brings to mind a hybrid of PiL’s ‘Annalisa’ and Wire’s ‘Two People In a Room.’

Before you can catch your breath, we have ‘Regular Hours’ - another industrial track, and perhaps the sister song to ‘Static State’ heard earlier on side one. Seething electronic drum samples cut through an abyss of growling synths, Giles Fielke hanging up the bass temporarily to accompany Krystal Maynard on synth duties.

The album closes with the fittingly titled ‘Soft Landing’, literally bringing the listener back down...softly. The song is heavy on atmos, and resembles the aesthetics previously encountered on ‘Attention Economy’ a few tracks earlier.

‘Expressions of Interest” was recorded at various locations across Melbourne, with a handful of songs being captured before the start of the Covid pandemic in January 2020. With the recording timeline being drastically altered, the band shifted focus to work on what would become their first single ‘Strange Anxiety’, throughout the first months of the Melbourne 2020 lockdown.

Bill Thompson is a sound artist and composer. His work is concerned with various aspects of perception and embodied presence. Using found objects, field recordings, repurposed electronics and digital media, his installations encourage active attention to each moment. He applies this same strategy within his compositions which often include sustained tones, densely layered textures and indeterminate or improvised structures.

Although trained as a guitarist, Thompson has worked primarily with live electronics for 20 years. In 2016, he returned to guitar (by Moog) combined with miscellaneous tabletop devices, found objects, flashing lights and the occasional vibrator.

His work has been released on Ash International, Burning Harpsichord Records, Mikroton Records, State Sanctioned Records, and/Oar, Autumn Leaves, Phonography and several compilations. Notable recent performances and installations include the Venice Biennal (2020/21), Pauline Oliveros Tribute (Café Oto 2018), Intraspect Concert 2018, Edinburgh Fringe (2016-2018), NAWR 2017, Sonic Atlas 2017, Organ Reframed 2016 (Installation), What Remains Festival 2016, Sound Festival 2016.

"Black Earth Tongue" is based on material composed when working on the project Mushroom! with the contemporary dance group In the Making for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2016. Track titles are taken from (mis)translations of Japanese or Latin names for various fungi.

‘The Centre is Everywhere’ is our first album. We created it in rather extraordinary circumstances, at a time when we were all slowly sinking into the banal dystopia of a pandemic-stricken world. Our lives, it felt, had slowed to a crawl. Normally we’re fuelled by our audiences, but touring was off the menu. So, we made this record. For us, it was personal.

In such an uncertain time, we wanted to play music that we loved. We ended up with a set of work written over a 120-year period – weightless and transcendent new music alongside Schoenberg’s anguished fin de siècle storytelling.

Edmund Finnis’ work in particular (the titular ‘The Centre is Everywhere’) is important to us. He’s a friend and a colleague, and it’s been a profound experience for us to live with this piece, to tour it, and to make the first ever recording. Somehow in the writing of it, Edmund seems to have prefigured the lack of certainty that has been one of the defining characteristics of this period. His music spins freely through time and space, wraithlike and beautiful.

Whilst recording both ‘Company’ by Philip Glass and ‘Transfigured Night’ by Arnold Schoenberg, we found ourselves drawn to a pervading sense of wildness and nature. The hypnotic rise and fall of the rhythms and textures in Glass’ quartet (presented here in an arrangement for string orchestra) feel quite separate to industrial, man-made structures and forms. Like Edmund’s work, these short movements feel out of time and cyclical, like eternally repeating tides or moon-phases.

Schoenberg’s masterpiece for string sextet opens on a moonlit forest scene, two lovers venturing through a bare, cold grove. We’ve tried to create a recording that paints the violent contrasts of this piece as vividly as possible, from the claustrophobic confessions that open the work through to the gleaming sound world of the second half. As the piece closes, our wooden, earthbound instruments seem to have been transmuted by the glamour and glow of Schoenberg’s music. We finish amongst the stars.

Headline performance at this summer's BBC Proms at the royal Albert Hall

LP + 3xCD + booklet !

The Doors found their mojo (and Mr. Mojo Risin’) in November 1970 as they recorded L.A. Woman over six days at the Workshop, the band’s rehearsal space on Santa Monica Boulevard. A success both critically and commercially, the album was certified double-platinum and contains some of the band’s most enduring music, including the Top 20 hit “Love Her Madly,” “Riders On The Storm,” and the title track.
To commemorate the album’s 50-year anniversary, Rhino keeps on risin’ with a 3-CD/1-LP set that will be available on December 3rd. L.A. WOMAN: 50TH ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION includes the original album newly remastered by The Doors’ longtime engineer and mixer Bruce Botnick, two bonus discs of unreleased studio outtakes, and the stereo mix of the original album on 180-gram virgin vinyl.
For this new collection, the original album has been expanded with more than two hours of unreleased recordings taken from the sessions for L.A. Woman, allowing the listener to experience the progression of each song as it developed in the studio. An early demo for “Hyacinth House” recorded at Robby Krieger’s home studio in 1969 is also included.
The outtakes feature Jim Morrison, John Densmore, Robby Krieger, and Ray Manzarek working in the studio with two additional musicians. The first was rhythm guitarist Marc Benno, who worked with Leon Russell in The Asylum Choir. The other was bassist Jerry Scheff, who was a member of Elvis Presley’s TCB band.

After Janko Nilovic and Harlem Pop Trotters, Underdog Records has now reissued Martial Solal - Locomotion in a colored vinyl edition. This grooviest French jazz-funk and avant-garde album features Henri Texier and Bernard Lubat, and was originally released in 1974 on the PSI label. A masterpiece!

Maenad Veyl returns to his namesake label along with The Sarcasm Ensemble for the new album, 'Comfort in Misery'. Made up of ten compositions exploring sparse beats, cinematic textures and mind altering experimentations, this is an offering of thought provoking pieces which perhaps make the perfect accompaniment to the modern world. As the name implies, 'Comfort in Misery' seeks to find ways of dealing with perpetual shifts and agonizing circumstances.
The opener, 'Weak & Weary', acts an almost rude awakening, while simultaneously cleansing the palette for the forthcoming journey. 'Harsh Whispers' quickly takes hold and feels like a fragmented dream you may or may not remember while then moving to the more minous, 'Life Expectancy'. From the sparkling tones of 'Deep Ruby' to the uncomfortable bliss of 'Always Worse', the project touches on the most known yet unknown of moods, emotions and states of being.
Winding down with 'Irreconcilable Differences' before concluding with the satisfying chaos of 'Shred', 'Comfort in Misery' cannot be pinpointed or married to any one sound or status. While tackling a seeming insurmountable subject, Veyl & The Sarcasm Ensemble provide a perfect solution for the everlasting pain.
Or do they?

Bill Evans catapulted to the top of the jazz world in June 1961 after reeling off three straight masterpiece sessions at New York's Village Vanguard with his trio. Yet the emotional highs came to a screeching halt shortly thereafter when bassist Scott LaFaro died in a car accident. Devastated, Evans refrained from playing for nearly a year. If not for an inspirational collaboration of tremendous creative outpouring, one wonders what fate may have befallen Evans. Undercurrent, the outcome of two studio sessions with guitarist Jim Hall, is that project.

Mastered on Mobile Fidelity's world-renowned mastering system and pressed at RTI, this Silver Label LP edition bursts forth with brilliant textures, you-are-there realism, and extraordinary tonalities. No other version outside of this analogue copy brings you face-to-face with these two jazz giants' sonic communion, a kind of spiritual musical summit on which Evans' deft keyboard touches and Hall's reliably subtle phrasings seamlessly mesh and wonderfully dance, the compositions streaked with natural instrumental decay, full-frequency extensions, and poignant emotionalism that, on this LP, you can feel.

While Evans managed to sit down for a few one-off takes between LaFaro's passing and these April-May 1962 dates, he largely remained on hiatus and abstained from recording. Whether it owes to the intimate pairing, he and Hall's brotherly chemistry, or the exquisite selection of program material, the results consistently come across as the equivalent of a private meditation - such is the level of introspective depth and quietly shaded interplay throughout. For Evans, the duet clearly functions as therapy, a healing episode in which his partner patiently lays back, shadowing moves and suggesting others, neither musician interested in the spotlight but each striving for (and achieving) transcendent beauty.

In tackling standards such as Rodgers and Hart's "My Funny Valentine" and the Broadway classic "Darn That Dream," as well as the Hall original "Romain," the pair traverses complex harmonies with the astute elegance of a figure skater. At times, Evans and Hall go for broke on a hard-swinging romps, yet it's their implied melancholy and drifting, softly struck melodic refrains on waltzes and ballads that bestows Undercurrent with a nuanced romanticism and whispered atmosphere befitting the record's title.

Indeed, even the album's cover - an iconic photograph by Toni Frissell - exhibits the surreal, almost-hallucinogenic properties of the fare contained within.

Sleigh Bells’ sixth album Texis is the sound of the duo letting go of all hang-ups and inhibitions and allowing themselves to embrace making the sort of loud, colorful, genre-melting music only they could make. “We stopped worrying about whether or not we’re in or out of our comfort zone, or if we were being repetitive or formulaic,” says guitarist and composer Derek Miller. “In the past we were pretty obsessed with tearing up the rule book and starting from scratch for every record as a means to do something new or different,” he says. “For Texis we didn’t worry about any of that stuff, we just pushed the first domino and hoped that something exciting and inspiring would happen.”

The vanguard of the Polish psychedelic heavy rock scene returns
with a brand new album! Continuing to defy expectations and
challenge what it means to be a “stoner” band, Weedpecker have
crafted a new masterpiece. After several fundamental lineup
changes in the past years, fans of
Weedpecker were left wondering
what might become of the band’s
newest incarnation. “III”, their
last outing from 2018, was the
final one with longtime bandmates
Bartek Dobry, Robert Kulakowski
and Grzegorz Pawlowski (the first
of whom is remaining founding
member Piotr Dobry’s brother).
In 2019, the band gave a very brief
glimpse into their new lineup featuring
members of Dopelord, Major
Kong and Belzebong while on
a short tour. The most surprising
change was the switch from dual
guitars to a full-time keyboardist.
So much for history, where does
this take us to now with the new
album?
“IV” is a deep, vividly textured IV” is a deep, vividly textured psychedelic
rock record with tons of
layers begging to be picked apart
upon multiple spins. Beginning
with the driving opener “No Heartbeat
Collective”, the song immediately
beings new elements into
the mix. Etherial keys and twisting
guitar lines meld in harmony,
giving way to chunky riffs. Moving
forward, “IV” continues to surprise
with mellow psychedelic gems
reminiscent of early Tame Impala,
blistering Oh Sees-esque rock
bursts and of course the trademark
melodic heavy riffage.
Former co-lead guitarist Bartek
has teamed up with the band
in the position of engineer and
producer, while also lending his
arrangement skills. This combination
of new input and experimentation
has led to the most radical
Weedpecker record thus far, a
killer album which will doubtless
make a late entry for 2021’s album
of the year.
Available on 180gr. transparent
yellow LP including download card
and on CD.

repressed !

Biogen's a different kind of musician, always travelling the road less trodden. All law's broken - no chords, no build-ups and no traditional drum patterns. Instead Biogen offers listener's fragmented shredding's, constant irritations, glitches, imbalance—and enough creative ideas to supply a whole battalion of electronic musicians. His works are full of contrast. Occasionally soft and mellow - like a cloud in trousers - Biogen would call that 'sofa-trance'. Other times the music's harsh and uncompromising with uncomfortable, irrational beats and glitches - 'Weird-core' - a vast uncharted territory. Some might be tempted to connect the contrast and contradictions in his music to his long battle with manic-depressive disorder. But the disparity in his music is its strength, confounding and delighting the listener.
It's five years since Biogen passed away, but his influence is keenly felt among Icelandic electronic musicians. In the early '90s, Sigurbjörn 'Bjössi' .orgrímsson was a pioneer of the modern electronic scene as a member of the old skool hardcore band Ajax, who for a short time counted Goldie as vocalist, and cemented his reputation for pushing the limits under his Biogen pseudonym. His musical creations weren't made to serve the past or the present, but the future.
Each release and concert offered something different. Concerts were supposed to be challenging and engaging. His releases were not easy to come by and often he'd sell his music on Laugavegur - to unsuspecting tourists intrigued by his Viking-like appearance or mesmerised by his big blue eyes. He was a friend and a mentor to many; in 1995 he was a founding member of Thule Records, and in 2007 one of the leading forces in the Weird-core movement, a group of artists focusing on the unconventional. He'd encourage young artists to release their music into the cosmos - to make mistakes and learn from them - and that wouldn't be done while sitting in a basement. Many have memories of their first gig, watching a tall and comforting figure hovering above everyone else in the crowd. That was him, and it happened rarely that he wasn't there.
A fair amount of tracks on 'Halogen Continues' are previously unreleased, or self-released in very small amounts. The music moves from 'Irrelevant Information' where Biogen illuminates on 'Stabastab" a mysterious international institute he dreamt up, originally on the 'Mutilyn' LP that he handmade and sold himself. It was an anti-LP, a non-linear album of drones, crackles and weirdness. 'Bliss' is from the 1996 double CD compilation entitled "Icelandic Dance Sampler' that he helped compile. '303 Ambient' one of the recent works of the "Weird-core" era - also a regular event showcasing abstract electronica. He was the front man of the movement; regularly performing in Reykjavik with shows included lots of break-beats and 303's.
His creativity and freedom from tradition have seen Biogen gathering appreciation as an artist with the passing of time, and are hand in hand with the concept of . The artwork by Tombo is inspired by the idea of eternity and reverence after death. Nina compiled the tracks much like other album journeys on - 'I was in the car driving in the middle of nowhere in Iceland when I heard Biogen's music for the first time. Dramatic weather conditions outside probably influenced that instant emotional connection that I had with his music. Later navigating through a large archive of his recordings it took me some time until the album took form. I picked the most idiosyncratic cuts that show his creative approach most brightly. Some of them are short cuts ending obnoxiously with a lot of temper and others gorgeous atmospheric narratives - so deep and haunting that it feels like they are not familiar with a notion of time and dissolve slowly into the eternity. It's been an honour and felt exciting to have complied his work, a responsibility I feel keenly, and I hope he would like his music together in this album.'
Biogen's friend the Icelandic musician Ruxpin (Jonas Gudmundsson) who has worked to collect together Biogen's musical legacy through his DAT recordings and hard drives, and kindly granted Nina access to the files, provided much of the text for the press release. Following the album release of 'Halogen Continues', a further album of Biogen's ambient and experimental works will be released on GALAXIID later this year.

UK label Wisdom Teeth returns with its third long-form offering - Sculpturegardening: a new LP by Mexico City-based artist and producer, Tristan Arp. Incorporating elements of ambient, glitch, microhouse and downtempo, it’s an otherworldly record populated by knotty modular textures, blossoming floral melodies, tight pointillist rhythms and glossy acoustic instrumentation. The record was born from a process of “collaborating with machines”: using modular synthesisers to generate probabilistic melodies and rhythms, with the artist taking on the role of sculptor and curator. Throughout, the boundaries between the organic and digital are playfully blurred: we hear synthesisers played by guitars; emotive and distinctly human melodies generated by modular circuits; digital percussion drummed by hand; and live cello processed with a digital finish. The results sometimes recall Roman Flügel at his most colourful, or Benge’s meandering synth workouts, and even at times echo the dubbed-out cello experiments of Arthur Russell.But really sculpturegardening occupies a sonic world of its own, born from a unique web of happy accidents and incidental arrangements. The record’s bright colours and subtle rhythms make it a fitting follow-up to K-LONE’s 2020 LP Cape Cira and Facta’s 2021 LP Blush, and place it neatly alongside the work of label mates Duckett, Benoit B, Steevio and Iglew.
“With sculpturegardening, my concept was to approach music like gardening. I collaborated with machines inspired by the way a gardener collaborates with the earth. A gardener creates the conditions for the plants to come to life and develop on their own. In a similar way, I created a set of conditions and probabilities for the music to make itself. Who is making the music here? “A sculpture garden to me can be a really beautiful environment of balance between randomness and order––between nature and human interaction. Things that are either extremely organized or completely random tend to not resonate with us. On the other hand, something very interesting happens when a balance between the randomness and organization is struck. I invented this verb sculpturegardening to represent creating with the aim of this balance, and the with the aim of building a world in which each piece is a zone, or a sculpture in a garden.” The record will be twinned with a physical iteration - a sound installation at an exhibition curated by Tristan Arp titled Nada Se Pierde; Todo Se Transforma. The show opens on 9th October in Mexico City at Avant.dev. The physical sculpture garden will be a collaboration with Mexican sculptor Pablo Arellano. The sound installation will centre around a 4-channel audio system that gives voice to different sculptures and allows visitors to create a mix of the sounds depending on their position in the garden.

An origin story since time immemorial, this DIY garage
rock five piece came together in 2018 through the
traps of the Melbourne music scene. Bonding over a
shared love of tightly coiled riffs and a collective
musical ethos, Civic made a name for themselves
through the intensity of their live shows, which would
become local folklore.
 On ‘Future Forecast’, Civic pay homage to the
classics, but pivot on them with avant-charged edge.
It’s raw, searing guitars, pummelling rhythms, driving
bass and vocals that lock into and synergize with their
wall of sound. All of this is balanced by the raucous
and restrained weaving of melodies and textures, and
vocal variation which broadens their sound past any
one genre label.
 There’s the horn-fuelled drive of album opener
‘Radiant Eye’, the power pop-laden hook of ‘As Seen
On TV’, the emotively atmospheric and vocally
subdued ‘Sunday Best’, all culminating with closer
‘Come To Know’, before ending in a tightly wound
splay of feedback and groove.
 Coloured vinyl LP in custom inner sleeve. Includes
digital download

Recorded in a pool house surrounded by an evergreen oak tree forest just outside of Madrid; musician and composer Oliver Patrice Weder’s second artist album ‘The Pool Project’ combines textural and meditative sounds that touch on global influences from jazz, ambient and modern composition. In conjunction with the album, Spitfire Audio has released ‘The Pool Project’ sound library, inviting composers and producers to reimagine, recreate or completely pull apart Oliver’s sound world to facilitate their own vision. Capturing the unique acoustics of the pool house, the library is presented in Spitfire Audio's award-winning, easy-to-use plug-in and features a range of controls and effects. While ‘OPW’ was inspired by constant movement and travelling, ‘The Pool Project’ had quite a contrary motivation. Oliver explains “After making my debut album, it was clear for me that it was only the beginning of a long journey. I enjoy the process and idea of creating something deeply personal and connected to the situation I am in, a snapshot of time so to speak, so I had to start writing a second album sooner or later. I love change and find it very inspiring to creatively adapt to my surroundings and circumstances to see what comes out at the other end. I spent the lockdown time living in a countryside cottage just outside of Madrid, surrounded by holly oak trees. The combination of this and seeing my one year old daughter grow up, as well as expecting another baby boy, created a very unique and fruitful environment to draw inspiration from.” Confirmed press/radio: Future Music - Album review Electronic Sound - Album review Scala Radio -Ambient Track of the Week Scala Radio - Session Track/Interview Reviews: "Rich in beauty and emotion… one of the finest modern composers around" - 8/10, Future Music Mag "Sounds like a warm oasis of calm" - 8.5/10, Higher Plain Music Achievements: Recorded and toured across Europe with various bands including psychedelic rock band Time for T. Composed for the BBC. Lead composer at Spitfire Audio. In 2017, Oliver co-scored the feature film ‘The Haunted’ and made a vlog style series Inside the Score with Spitfire Audio, documenting the entire process — from meeting the director, to seeing the film shown at various international film festivals. Released OPW, a sample library and album, in 2019 with SA Recordings x Spitfire Audio. Interview with MusicTech.

BBE Music is excited to present the long awaited, eponymous debut album from the USA/UK partnership of JTronius and Maverick Quest, aka Sons of the Sun. Delivered remotely following a chance meeting on music-tech networking app ‘Brapp’, the ingenious pair sent files back and forth between Texas and South East London to manifest their shared vision for ‘Sons of the Sun’. Remarkably, the duo are still yet to meet in person. A respected solo artist knighted by Bootsy Collins as an official ‘funkateer,’ Berklee College graduate JTronius is an extravagant entertainer, entrepreneur and lifestyle brand. Self-dubbed The Guvna of the Galaxy, he brings his swaggy, soulful style to all his endeavours. He has shared stages with LL Cool J, The Roots, Talib Kweli, Pharrell, Busta Rhymes and Damian Marley and is an accomplished actor, appearing in a number of successful Hollywood feature films. Genre-blending record producer and multi-instrumentalist Maverick Quest grew up immersed in the aesthetic of hip hop. But in an environment where flipping loops from vinyl was standard, developing his musicianship to create his own sounds was radical, a move that paved the way for his signature sonic. He has previously performed with and produced for Guru, Grandmaster Flash, Ice T, Ibibio Sound Machine, Solo Rosa and Portico Quartet to name but a few, and is firmly rooted in the epicentre of the burgeoning South East London jazz movement. Sons of the Sun’s debut long player features a host of luminary guests and musicians from all over the globe, including guitarist Dai Miyazaki (Bilal, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Tye Tribbett), keyboard player and vocalist Matt Cusson (Christina Aguilera, Brian McKnight), singer Ayesha Brooks (The Voice, Season 6), saxophonist & flautist Jelani M. Brooks (Ghost Note, RC & The Gritz, Erykah Badu), Boston rapper Madame Cruz and Scottish horn collective The Brasscats, among many others. Mixed by Grammy-nominated Clinton “Ubiquity” McCreery and mastered at Grammy-awarded studio The Carvery, this album inks an impressive first chapter in the story of Sons of the Sun.

Since its creation in 2007, Hifiklub has led more than 150 collaborations which have allowed the Toulon trio to open its music to multiple artistic experiences revealing a constant desire for research and novelty. From unprecedented encounters to unique projects, Hifiklub has developed over the years a now substantial discography whose musical proposals range from pop to jazz through the most experimental sounds and even traditional music. One path, however, remained unexplored: contemporary music."Last Party On Earth" is organized around the association of three energies: contemporary composer Jean-Michel Bossini, singer Duke Garwood and the instrumental ensemble Hifiklub.

Surrounded by mysticism and darkness, the creation has cinematographic dimensions. It positions the listener in a depth and disposition of soul where the voice - and the poetry - of Duke Garwood is carried by Hifiklub and Jean-Michel Bossini around cold and tormented atmospheres. The album seduces by the detail of its sounds, its apparent tranquility and its intimate atmospheres thwarted by harsh flashes.

Mixed by Alain Johannes (Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures, Eleven), the album sees the exceptional participation of the string trio Anpapié (Alice Piérot, Fanny Paccoud and Elena Andreyev) who magnificently perform the score by Jean-Michel Bossini.

All songs performed by Hifiklub, Duke Garwood and trio Anpapié (conducted by Jean-Michel Bossini)

Pascal Abbatucci Julien – drums, percussion
Eléna Andreyev – cello
Jean-Loup Faurat – guitar
Duke Garwood - vocals, guitar
Régis Laugier – bass
Nico Morcillo – guitar
Alice Piérot – violin
Fanny Paccoud – alto

Collaboration is an essential ingredient to this open trio’s creative approach, forming a recurring theme in Hifiklub’s extensive discography and filmography. Based in Toulon, the hyperactive experimental rock band offer a diverse ever-evolving catalogue that now boasts over 150 artist collaborations since they started in 2006. Over the years they have formed as many fruitful artistic friendships allowing them to explore the endless possibilities of expression combining sound, image and text.

Some of the artists that feature in Hifiklub’s kaleidoscopic discography: Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Alain Johannes (Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures, Eleven), Roddy Bottum (Faith no More, Imperial Teen), Matt Cameron (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden), The Legendary Tigerman, Jad Fair (Half Japanese), Iggor Cavalera (Sepultura, MixHell), Jean-Marc Montera, R. Stevie Moore, Mike Watt (Minutemen, The Stooges), Fatso Jetson, Nels Cline (Wilco), Scanner, Mike Cooper, Eugene Chadbourne…

LP+Buch

Limited Edition Deluxe Version comes with 50 page children's book inspired by the album. Written by Francine Prose and illustrated by Omar "El Oms" Juarez. The colored vinyl is red. Fresh off of their 2020 offering Adult Themes, El Michels Affair is back with a new full-length release. Titled Yeti Season, this newest album has everything we've come to expect from EMA's patented cinematic style of instrumental soul music. Where Adult Themes inspired a soundtrack to an imaginary film, Yeti Season brings us to a different place in time_with new inspirations. Taken with Turkish-styled funk and an almost Mumbai-esque take on soul, El Michels Affair offers us a different kind of drama and imagination with Yeti Season. If you've been following along, this shouldn't be viewed as too far a departure for El Michels Affair. The first single off of Yeti Season showed their hand back in 2018. A double-sided banger, that release brought the musical textures to the fore that dominate this record. The first song, titled "Unathi," is fully realized with the beautifully haunting-yet-hopeful vocals of Piya Malik, formally of 79.5_another Big Crown artist. Singing in Hindi, Piya's ethereal voice is telling us to work and strive together toward progress. Even if you don't understand her language, you can still hear the urgency of purpose, creating a lasting vibe that sits on top of it all. Leon Michels explains that Piya had a vital influence on this record: "When Piya started singing in Hindi, she had a different voice, a different tone. I knew we had to do something together." And so Piya appears on three other songs on Yeti Season: "Zaharila," "Murkit Gem," and "Dhuaan." Each providing particular signatures to the album. "Zaharila" is a building and changing love song punctuated by blaring trumpets, driving drums, and Piya's pleading lyrics. While the more upbeat "Murkit Gem" opens with a fuzzed out, Wu-Tang-esque baseline that buoys Piya's stylings. The psychedelic guitar and Piya's changing tones and textures singing about an all-consuming love are what pushed "Dhuaan" on to the second single from Yeti Season. There is also a vocal appearance from Shannon Wise of The Shacks, yet another Big Crown artist. Her song called "Sha Na Na," lies more in the familiar EMA vein: melodic, hypnotic, soulfully visual. But between Shannon's airy singing, the jumpy baseline, moody vibes, the active drum lines, it sounds like a pensive walk home after a strangely dramatic night. So what is Yeti Season? It could be more of a feeling than an actual place or time of year. It's a heavy album_as evidenced by the signature musicianship and dramatic vocal expressions. But it's also a hopeful record, with phrasings, textures, and chord changes that hint at something better_or fuller_coming our way. You hear it in songs like "Ala Vida," with its stabby, pulsing chords laying a bedrock for EMA's bright, atmospheric horn lines. Or even in "Fazed Out," which leaves you with a feeling of determination, a striving for resolution even though the driving, march-like song structure should accompany some conquering army. This persistence has to come from the fact that Leon Michels and company finished this record during the lockdown. It was a tough and troublesome time. But look at what has come of it: Yeti Season_a record of high and heavy drama, but also one of hope and promise. It may take a year like 2020 behind us to find hope in a winter big footed creature like a Yeti, but that's where we are.

In 1977, in the midst of a period of political turmoil and social unrest that went down in Italian history as "years of lead", screenwriter and director Massimo Pirri made a film no one else had the courage to make: Italia: ultimo atto? (Could It Happen Here?). Here, Pirri explores the controversial (and, in the 70s, very current) topic of left-wing armed struggle. He does so through a storyline that is almost prophetic: in the film, a mysterious ultra-leftwing armed group plans and executes the killing of the Ministry of the Interior; in 1978 Christian Democrat leader and former premier Aldo Moro was kidnapped and killed by the Marxist-Leninist Red Brigades).

The violence of Pirri's storyline is fully captured by the score composed by Lallo Gori, who uses obscure synths, analog keyboards, and dry-sounding acoustic drums to create an extremely tense and frenzied soundscape of electronic textures.

The result is an album that combines dark, haunting jazz-funk with ambient atmospheres and suspenseful electronic sounds, and which ends up sounding like an instrumental proto-hip hop record where Moog synths take the lead together with drums.

At the time, this must have seemed like a low-budget, ramshackle soundtrack – essentially, a B-movie soundtrack. Indeed, the extensive use of electronic sounds was meant to compensate for the lack of acoustic instruments, such as the bass or (alas!) brass, which were replaced by keyboards and MiniMoog synths. Today, however, Lallo Gori's odd and minimalistic style of arranging makes this score sound unexpected, avant-garde, and innovative. In short, modern and contemporary.

Previously unreleased in any format, all tracks have been remastered from the original master tapes.

Sharing his InBach album with the world in 2020 set events into motion that ultimately led to Arandel making second edition in the critically acclaimed, borderless project that unites rare instruments, musical reimanigation.

Arandel unites once again behind the musical phrases of the Leipzig composer specialists of ancient and modern instruments (Thomas Bloch), modern synthesizers and moogs, strings experts (Gaspar Claus), and the poetic spoken word of Myra Davies and Bridget St.John.

Textextext - (add your write up)

"There is a Bach for everyone" Arandel says, "and that discovery is what led me here, to InBach". Beneath the intricate history, the godlike adoration placed upon Bach, he was a playful musician, an eclectic one even. And so, a full year after the release of the first InBach record on InFiné, there is enough material to make a second one. "There is so much about Bach I didn't even know when making the first one - but after the release, people kept coming to me, telling me about certain pieces I should listen to or rework; songs that I had never even heard of."

The second InBach grew like a garden from the seeds of the first one - an eclectic journey through melodic fantasies, intricate sound design and a certain Pop silver lining. Some tracks were born out of Arandel's band performing on stage, experimenting with the songs live and composing them anew, like "Nos Contours", a new, French-lyrics version of Bodyline with Ornette, Arandel's stage partner.

InBach vol. 2 is a logical consequence then, of someone diving into a pool of music and history so large that it is being chronicled to this day. A substantial part of the instruments used on the lofty, eclectic album were recorded at the Musée de la Musique Paris: rare instruments like the *Erard square piano, ondioline, Zach's cello, Stroh violins*. They help shape the unique sound of Arandel's InBach project: sometimes _eerily familiar, always otherworldly and elusive.

In the vein of rare instruments, the first guest musician Arandel approached for InBach was Thomas Bloch, who lends his gift to four tracks over the two albums, playing the ondes Martenot, one of the first electronic musical instruments ever invented. Thomas has worked with many major artists in his career of ike of Radiohead, Gorillaz, Marianne Faithful, Tom Waits, Daft Punk.

The record travels *between styles, ideas and moods elegantly - it is a distinctly fun and personal album. Freeing himself from the weighty shackles of expectation surrounding the classical maestro, Arandel goes for the core of every Bach piece he tackles, making them his own. on "Octobre", based on Air On G-String, from Orchestral Suite No. 3 D-dur, BWV 1068, his nephew tells a dreamlike story of an ominous gang of children, literally blossoming in the mud. "Fabula" - featuring the French singer Scalde - based on the melancholic, Christian lament Meine Seele wartet auf den Herrn, becomes a grandiose, auto-tuned pop ballad on InBach vol. 2, featuring the virtuoso cello of fellow InFiné associate *Gaspar Claus*.

The use of spoken word is another new layer to InBach, and acts a lyrical thread carrying the listener through InBach vol.2: the closing track features Bridget St.John, John Peel-associated folk legend from the UK to offer to collaborate on a poem for this second volume, she replied to him with a line from André Gide : "You can't discover new land if you aren't willing to lose sight of every shore". A lovely way to sum up the InBach experience for both artist and listener.

DJ Spinna’s imprint Wonderwax returns in 2021 with a brand new installment from Paris-based producer Hugo LX – four new cuts for the club and beyond, showcasing a wide palette of silky textures, smoky synth patches and his signature drum samples. Ranging from house beats to future boogie, detouring through the broken beat path and other high tempo areas, transcenDance is a new step in the beatsmith discography, and a very personal homage to original dance music legacies.

Color Vinyl

'This is the story of a man, marked by an image from his
childhood.' Thus begins, with deceptive simplicity, Chris
Marker's La Jetée (1962). The film, by far Marker's bestknown
work, synthesizes many of the elusive filmmaker's
central preoccupations - time and memory, power and resistance,
the ephemerality and resilience of love - yet it also
undermines the very idea of film. Composed almost entirely
of still photographs, La Jetée quite literally pieces together
the tale of an unnamed, forsaken protagonist, drafted into a
series of time travel experiments in post-apocalyptic Paris.
While Marker creates some of the most hauntingly beautiful
imagery in cinema, what animates La Jetée's frozen
pictures is its sparse and unsettling soundscape. Whispers,
breaths and heartbeats offer an unnerving reminder of
bodily rhythms that, inside the film and out, will inevitably
cease. Fragments of symphonic music at once capture a
love affair and underscore the tragedy awaiting it. The poetic
momentum of the narrator's voice, our only guide: 'On
the tenth day, images begin to ooze, like confessions.'
Superior Viaduct is honored to present the first-time release
of the soundtrack from La Jetée. This vinyl album
features both French and English voiceover narrations,
along with organic textures and Trevor Duncan's impressionistic
score. More than half a century has passed since
La Jetée's theatrical release - now is the time to travel back
to the 'sudden roar' of this masterpiece in a completely
different light.

Deepfunk / soul super rarity flipped with one of the best deep soul sides ever recorded, the family had some great images so we opted for a picture sleeve on this one, 400 copies only. forget about finding an O.G. Researched by our man, Brian Sears

Papa Bear And His Cubs were the brainchild of Eddie Disnute Sr., aka Papa Bear. A native resident of Hampton, Arkansas. Eddie started his music career in gospel then transitioned into secular music after moving to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1963. While living in Milwaukee with his wife and children, Eddie played with a group called the Fenders but eventually decided to start a group of his own with his kids aptly named Papa Bear And His Cubs.

Eddie Sr., a naturally gifted musician, taught his children how to play music. Creativity is a part of the Disnute DNA and before long Eddie's cubs were perfecting chops of their own. Papa Bear And His Cubs started performing together around the late 1960s. Although a few memorable gigs came their way, Wisconsin proved to be too cold for the Disnutes so they made their way back to Hampton, Arkansas.

The family continued to perform in Arkansas then made another move to Houston, Texas where they hoped to break into the music scene down south. They lived there for nearly three years and even recorded at SugarHill Studios, yet nothing materialized and the recordings remain a mystery to this day. For their final move, the Disnutes returned home to Hampton after Eddie's wife Christine (aka Mother Goose) received word that her father was ill.

In 1975 the group recorded their only vinyl record at Sam Griffith's home recording studio in Camden, Arkansas. Disnute Sr. recalls it only taking "one night, and one take" for both "Sweetest Thing On This Side Of Heaven" and "You're So Fine" to be born. Both songs have an entrancing quality that is inescapable and will surely resonate with listeners for years to come.

The group continued to perform until the early 1980s, at which point the cubs were bears themselves, who decided to go their own separate ways. When thinking back to their prime days, one thing will always remain clear in Eddie Sr.'s memory, "we could play, all it took was a countdown of 1, 2 ,3, 4 and we're gone".

Haiku Salut, the acclaimed electronica trio from the Derbyshire Dales release their fifth album, ‘The Hill, The Light, The Ghost’ on Secret Name records on August 27th. Note the LP follows in November.

A beautiful study of ghosts and memory, the gestation of the record began when Haiku Salut’s Sophie Barkerwood was given a Tascam field recorder. “I carried it around with me in case anything interesting happened. I guess I wanted to capture little pieces of the world in the same way we all take photographs,” explains Sophie. “It wasn’t immediately apparent that we would begin to use these sounds as the architecture for an album but as our writing process evolved the textures of these memories became a bank of inspiration.”

“We then began actively searching for ghosts in the world and framing the songs around their qualities,” Sophie continues. “Gathering recordings, removing them from their context and building worlds around them. Capturing and preserving personal experiences, and evoking vivid spaces. You could say the record is a miniature exploration of sound in relation to memory. Each piece is intimately connected to a place in time.”

Musically, the album marries the expansive vision of their third album, ‘There Is No Elsewhere’, which celebrated identity and community, with the darker, more contemplative feel of their fourth album, the trio’s original soundtrack for Buster Keaton’s ‘The General’. Building on the lessons learned working on ‘The General’, ‘The Hill, The Light, The Ghost’ is a cohesive suite, nine songs that combine to tell a larger story – that of experience and memory, of precious moments and echoes of past lives.

An hour of finely crafted grooves where cosmic atmospheres meet late night bangers !

While on a break due to a certain pandemic, L’Eclair threw itself in the making of a new album. Until that point recording sessions were usually really short. Former albums were made in only a few days and recorded mostly live on tape. That changed as the band decided to do four recording sessions over nine months, hence allowing the group and its sound engineer/manager Benoit Erard to spend more time and energy on the production. With the ability to step back and reflect on the work in progress, L’Eclair had the occasion to take things a step above in terms of arrangements, compositions and structures. The result is an hour-long 12 tracks record, which is more diversified and concise than previous efforts.

Titled “Confusions”, the album shows L’Eclair’s obsession with groove in all its forms. It blends club vibes with psychedelic grooves, rhythmic trances and ambient comedowns while retaining a true coherence. Produced and organic, danceable and ethereal, spontaneous and cerebral, joyful and melancholic, “Confusions” is always on the fence between very different moods without ever wandering off. The band’s never fading influences are still there: you can hear hints of CAN, Piero Umiliani or Tangerine Dream here and there. But it’s melted with different universes, such as late 80s Madchester or Aphex Twin and Boards Of Canada’s textured worlds. There is also a strong Hip Hop feel with sampled-based tracks and non-binary beats that recall the likes of great producers like Madlib, MF DOOM, J Dilla or even Timbaland. The record also has its fair share of dub and house influences, which connect with the group’s attachment to the club vibe.

ILIO welcomes Frances 'Serious A'. A record exploring textures, space and time for the home and the floor... Rhythm is Strength - Limited to 150 copies. X

For its 20th anniversary, Keplar presents an absolute milestone in the history of IDM and ambient music for the first time in its definite form: »Together Is the New Alone« by Donnacha Costello was originally released on Mille Plateaux in 2001 as the second LP under the Irish producer’s given name and firmly established him as one of the leading artists in the field of forward-thinking electronic music after he had primarily made a name for himself with house and techno releases under the Jayrod moniker. This vinyl reissue with an entirely new artwork comprises all ten tracks originally only included on the CD version in their edited and final form in which they were last presented on the digital re-release under the name »Together,« remastered by Stephan Mathieu and self-published by Costello, in 2015.

Truly prescient artists rarely opt for introspective sounds, however that was the case when Costello set out to produce »Together Is the New Alone« during nightly session in his hometown Dublin between April and July in 2001, and it also explains the album’s enduring appeal and unwavering radiance twenty years on. While many of his contemporaries dedicated themselves to explore the musical zeitgeist and notions of the future in conceptual terms, Costello made them emotionally tangible, allowing his audience to feel their underlying ambiguity rather than just reflect on it. »Together Is the New Alone« is an album that wordlessly speaks of the paradoxical sense of social alienation and isolation expressed by its title and thus seems even more topical today than it did at the time of its release.

Working with elements from techno culture, glitch aesthetics, intricate IDM rhythms and lush ambient textures, Costello never once throughout the album adheres to tried and tested formulas and conventions, but holistically moulds complex compositions out of distinct and discrete parts. The result is a record that is at once easily accessible and deeply affecting, but also infinitely rich and stunningly sophisticated in musical terms. A personal record expressing a universal sentiment—a truly timeless statement that will reverberate for decades to come.

(Kristoffer Cornils)