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Waxwork Records in partnership with Back Lot Music is honored to release NOPE Original Motion Picture Soundtrack by Michael Abels. Oscarr winner Jordan Peele disrupted and redefined modern horror with Get Out and then Us, he reimagines the summer movie with a new pop nightmare: the expansive horror epic, Nope. The film reunites Peele with Oscarr winner Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out, Judas and the Black Messiah), who is joined by Keke Palmer and Oscarr nominee Steven Yeun as residents in a lonely gulch of inland California who bear witness to an uncanny and chilling discovery. NOPE marks Abels' third feature film score with director Jordan Peele, having previously scored Peele's GET OUT and US. The album also features songs from the film, including a new version of Corey Hart's classic "Sunglasses at Night (Jean Jacket Mix)", Dionne Warwick's "Walk on By", The Lost Generation's "This is the Lost Generation", Exuma's "Exuma, the Obeah Man", and a never-before-released gem by a young Jodie Foster, "La Vie C'est Chouette" from the 1977 film MOI, FLEUR BLEUE. "NOPE is my most ambitious score to date," says Abels. "There are elements from the genres of sci-fi, action, horror, and westerns, but always through the tonal palette of Jordan Peele's unique vision. The lines between source music and score are blurred, as a good part of the score seems to be playing at the theme park, which is a key location in the story. The score is at times terrifying, yet also invokes the sense of awe and wonder that the characters feel as they realize what they are seeing. The film eventually becomes a grand adventure, and so the music expands into the larger-than-life scale we expect of a summer blockbuster." He goes on to say, "it was a joy to compose a score that encompassed such a broad range of genres and emotions, and I'm thrilled to have audiences experience all of them through this album." "Michael is one the most exciting composers working today - he has this amazing ability to create new sounds which was important for this film," Jordan Peele says. "He's able to play in the familiar and in the unfamiliar at the same time, so that helps give every film its own character, and he has an incredible mastery of so many different music genres." Abels is known for his genre-defying scores for the Jordan Peele films GET OUT and US, for which Abels won a World Soundtrack Award, the Jerry Goldsmith Award, a Critics Choice nomination, and multiple critics' awards. The hip-hop influenced score for US was short-listed for an Academy Awardr and was named "Score of the Decade" by The Wrap. Abels is also co-founder of the Composers Diversity Collective, an advocacy group to increase visibility of composers of color in film, gaming and streaming media. Waxwork Records is thrilled to present the official NOPE deluxe double LP soundtrack album. The package comes complete with 180-gram colored vinyl, quality packaging, original artwork by Ethan Mesa, heavyweight gatefold jacket with matte coating, a multi-page 12" x 12" booklet, liner notes, & more!

"Matasuna Records" musical journey takes the listener this time to "Panama" - a country in Central America, which offers a rich and breath-taking variety of musical treasures. In a first reissue, two songs from the legendary "Loyola Records" label were selected, both released in 1969: one by "Camilo Azuquita" and one by the group "Panama Brass". Two super-rare tunes that fetch crazy prices, if you're lucky enough to find a copy at all. Available for the first time as an official remastered reissue on 7inch vinyl - the song by Panama Brass even makes its 7inch premiere. Don't sleep on it!

The A-side features the killer boogaloo tune "Borombon" by "Camilo Azuquita". Its take of the song composed by "Javier Vasquez" is undoubtedly the best version of this song. The striking piano, driving bass and rich horns are fueled by percussive accompaniment and especially by Azuquita's powerful voice. A terrific song that has also recently gained new notoriety in movies and series - such as "Better Call Saul".

The B-side features the instrumental Latin Jazz/Guaracha tune "Con La Mano En La Biblia" by "Panama Brass" - an orchestra led by the excellent organist "Cristobal Munoz Jr." and consisting of Panama's best musicians. A no less energetic and furious song composed by "G. Garcias". The musicians of the orchestra combine a great musicality and diversity in the song, delivering a special delicacy.

"Camilo Luis Argumédez" is a singer and composer born in "Colon (Panama)" on February 18th 1945. He became world famous under his stage name Camilo Azuquita. He began his career at a young age, when he participated in various competitions organized by local radio stations. He left Panama for the first time for an engagement in "Lima (Peru)" - the prelude tocountlesstrips.

After returning to Panama, another engagement in 1966 took him to "Puerto Rico", where he also recorded music. Due to a tour he was involved in, he ended up in "New York City" where he made new & fruitful acquaintances with other artists that resulted in some more recordings.

In 1968 he returned again to Puerto Rico, where he joined a band to record an album. In the following years, tours and concerts followed, as well as an engagement in a club where he musically accompanied many stars of Latin American music.

Between 1972 and 1976 he spent four years in "Los Angeles", where he performed in night clubs, recorded two albums and toured California with his own band "Melao". In LA, through a brother of the "Fania" boss, he got a contract with "Vaya Records", a subsidiary of the Fania label, which brought him back to New York City in 1976. There he joined the band "Tipica'73" and their two following albums brought him much success.

A tour led him to "Paris", where he met the journalist "Pierre Goldman". A proposed project became reality two years later: Azuquita opened the first Parisian Salsa Club. As this became a complete success and the audience filled the club on each of the evenings, a first engagement of one month was extended to several years. In France, he performed at the world-famous "Olympia Theater "or played at the "Old Bourget airport", opening for a live concert by reggae legend "Bob Marley" in front of 75,000 people. From France, he traveled throughout Europe, where the performances in front of European audiences brought him enormous prestige.

From 1985 to 1987, "Azuquita y su Melao" toured extensively in "California", where he signed a 1-year contract at "Club Candilejas" in "Hollywood" in 1988. In the following decades, he recorded many more albums - in NYC, Cali (Colombia), France or Havana (Cuba), among others. In addition, he was still very active on tours, festivals and concerts around the globe. An extremely remarkable artist, whose activity has brought him to the top.

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"Panama Brass" was an orchestra directed and orchestrated by the excellent organist "Cristobal Munoz Jr." The orchestra consisted of one of the best musicians of Panama at that time. Munoz was an exclusive artist of "Loyola Records" at the time and was considered a promising or up-and-coming conductor. That this album could be realized at all had only been possible thanks to Hubert J. Pretto. Pretto, then Assistant Vice President & General Manager of "Coca Cola Panama" arranged the funds necessary for the realization of this album and supported the campaign to promote music culture in Panama. This album would remain the only one released by this group.

Svart Records proudly presents: Finnish prog-psych quintet Sammal sheds skin and changes into a power trio, new album announced Sammal have since their 2013 debut cemented their reputation as one of the leaders of the Fenno-Ugrian neoprogressive and psychedelic scene and also raised some waves internationally, performing at the well-respected Roadburn Festival in 2015 and garnering a series of raving reviews around the world of psychedelia and progressive rock fandom, such as “Truly amazing and otherworldy music” or “Earnest, vibrant music specked with impressive nuance”. A few years have passed since the successful Suuliekki album, and since then two of their five members have left the fold. Guitarist and songwriter Jura Salmi decided, however, that Sammal must continue in some form or another. “During the spring of 2020 I would spend time alone recording new demos with the guitar. The remaining three Sammal members had already decided that if the band was to continue, we would not seek another keyboard player.I had bought a guitar pedal that can simulate keyboard sounds and it opened a new world to me. I realized we can perform fine as a power trio without a bass or a keyboard player”, comments Jura Salmi. “Sammal has always been a melting pot of all music we like. If in the past we used to be heavily into bands lke Camel, Dungen and Opeth, when working on this album we’d liste to everything from Bo Hansson and Iron Butterfly to Type O Negative and Whitesnake”, laughs Salmi and continues, “We’d also pick the language of a song’s lyrics based on what we felt would fit the mood of the song. This album has songs in Finnish, Swedish and English.” Sammal’s unexpected prog-psych-boogie epic Aika laulaa will be released on November 18th on all platforms as well as on CD and LP.

Svart Records proudly presents: Finnish prog-psych quintet Sammal sheds skin and changes into a power trio, new album announced Sammal have since their 2013 debut cemented their reputation as one of the leaders of the Fenno-Ugrian neoprogressive and psychedelic scene and also raised some waves internationally, performing at the well-respected Roadburn Festival in 2015 and garnering a series of raving reviews around the world of psychedelia and progressive rock fandom, such as “Truly amazing and otherworldy music” or “Earnest, vibrant music specked with impressive nuance”. A few years have passed since the successful Suuliekki album, and since then two of their five members have left the fold. Guitarist and songwriter Jura Salmi decided, however, that Sammal must continue in some form or another. “During the spring of 2020 I would spend time alone recording new demos with the guitar. The remaining three Sammal members had already decided that if the band was to continue, we would not seek another keyboard player.I had bought a guitar pedal that can simulate keyboard sounds and it opened a new world to me. I realized we can perform fine as a power trio without a bass or a keyboard player”, comments Jura Salmi. “Sammal has always been a melting pot of all music we like. If in the past we used to be heavily into bands lke Camel, Dungen and Opeth, when working on this album we’d liste to everything from Bo Hansson and Iron Butterfly to Type O Negative and Whitesnake”, laughs Salmi and continues, “We’d also pick the language of a song’s lyrics based on what we felt would fit the mood of the song. This album has songs in Finnish, Swedish and English.” Sammal’s unexpected prog-psych-boogie epic Aika laulaa will be released on November 18th on all platforms as well as on CD and LP.

Baiser Mortel is the soundtrack of a performance commissioned by the Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection, performed in Paris in October 2021. PAN presents Baiser Mortel, the original soundtrack to the acclaimed theatrical performance of the same name. Staged at the Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection over four days last October, the original production - collaboratively realized by composer and director Low Jack, composer and rapper Lala &ce, choreographer Cecilia Bengolea with costumes designed by Marine Serre and Oriana Bekka as creative director and co- director of the performance - merged ballet and urban folklore; sound art and soap opera. A modern-day danse macabre, Baiser Mortel (trans. "The Kiss of Death") cast Lala &ce in the title role. Unfolding over thirteen songs, the musical narrative follows Death as she navigates the realm of the living, and the encounters - desire, romance, spiritual awakening, and adventure - which validate the human experience. "I brought in people who are close to me personally and musically in order to tell a story that speaks to humanity," Lala &ce says in a video uploaded to Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection's YouTube channel. Performers Jäde, Rad Cartier, BabySolo33, and Le Diouck joined Lala &ce on stage and in the booth at La Place - Centre Culturel Hip Hop in Paris, where the official soundtrack was recorded. A sonic representation of the musical's themes, Baiser Mortel the album - produced by Low Jack and written by Lala &ce with artwork by Pierre Debusschere - moves through the distorted strings of its opening track, "Goûter" and gathers sonic and lyrical intensity on each successive song. "Lune," the melancholically autotuned midpoint of the album, marks the beginning of the musical's second act and sets the tone for its tragic resolution. Mechanical sounds mix with sonic influences spanning the Global South throughout the album, honoring both Low Jack and Lala &ce's musical heritage and influences, while developing a new musical lexicon that defies comparison. As a theatrical production, Baiser Mortel represents a departure for both artists. A veteran of Parisian subculture, Low Jack's collaboration with Lala &ce represents a new model of artistic mentorship based not on age but on experience, with each artist leaving a distinct signature on the work.

In 2009, following the death of Jhonn Balance four years earlier, This Immortal Coil's "The Dark Age Of Love" appeared as a tribute to the superb work of the British band Coil over two decades.Formed by musicians from all walks of life, the album was praised by critics but also, and most importantly, by Peter Christopherson himself! 13 years have passed and this passion for the band has never wavered. Following the death of Peter Christopherson in 2010 on the one hand, and meetings with musicians such as David Chalmin or Massimo Pupillo from Zü who in turn wanted to pay tribute to this gigantic band, on the other hand, Stéphane Grégoire's desire to make a new opus took shape in 2017 with a first recording of the title "Where Are You". Just like the first one, more than 5 years will be necessary to realize this new album so that it is at the height of Coil's genius. The Ici d'Ailleurs team is very proud to unveil This Immortal Coil's second album 'The World Ended A Long Time Ago'.That will be available on December 09, 2022 in several formats that will be revealed very soon. The artists this time are Coil lovers but without the album being a "lovers" cover, that would be the opposite of Coil's image. Many, many thanks to Shannon Wright, David Chalmin, Matt Elliott, Christine Ott, Aho Ssan, Gaspar Claus, Aidan Baker, Ulver (Kristoffer Rygg, Ole Alexander Halstensgard, Stian Westerhus), Massimo Pupillo, Mattia Cipolli, Elisa Bognetti, Stefano Michelotti, Francesco Bolognini, Marton Csokas, Ivan Chiossone and Eric Aldéa who make this project a reality.

In 2009, following the death of Jhonn Balance four years earlier, This Immortal Coil's "The Dark Age Of Love" appeared as a tribute to the superb work of the British band Coil over two decades.Formed by musicians from all walks of life, the album was praised by critics but also, and most importantly, by Peter Christopherson himself! 13 years have passed and this passion for the band has never wavered. Following the death of Peter Christopherson in 2010 on the one hand, and meetings with musicians such as David Chalmin or Massimo Pupillo from Zü who in turn wanted to pay tribute to this gigantic band, on the other hand, Stéphane Grégoire's desire to make a new opus took shape in 2017 with a first recording of the title "Where Are You". Just like the first one, more than 5 years will be necessary to realize this new album so that it is at the height of Coil's genius. The Ici d'Ailleurs team is very proud to unveil This Immortal Coil's second album 'The World Ended A Long Time Ago'.That will be available on December 09, 2022 in several formats that will be revealed very soon. The artists this time are Coil lovers but without the album being a "lovers" cover, that would be the opposite of Coil's image. Many, many thanks to Shannon Wright, David Chalmin, Matt Elliott, Christine Ott, Aho Ssan, Gaspar Claus, Aidan Baker, Ulver (Kristoffer Rygg, Ole Alexander Halstensgard, Stian Westerhus), Massimo Pupillo, Mattia Cipolli, Elisa Bognetti, Stefano Michelotti, Francesco Bolognini, Marton Csokas, Ivan Chiossone and Eric Aldéa who make this project a reality.

100% GALCHER was by all accounts a game-changer when it landed in 2013 as an hour of original music from a relatively unknown producer ushered in by the beloved mix series Blowing Up The Workshop. Galcher Lustwerk's signature sound — a smoky stream-of-consciousness baritone shadow-boxing with beats, informed by funk, rap, rhythm, and blues — felt like an epiphany, impossibly hypnotic and complete. Resident Advisor writes, "100% GALCHER laid out a louche, lysergic and resolutely black take on deep house." Pitchfork remembers the music's immediate impact: "It's the sort of gem you felt inclined to pass around” — and by year-end list time, word-of-mouth intensified. It was Resident Advisor and Juno's mix of the year, and earned a top-ten placement in FACT Magazine's albums list, as well as Philip Sherburne's personal rundown for Spin." Since then, select songs from 100% GALCHER have seen small-run pressings, while the album has lived primarily on SoundCloud and YouTube as a low-key cult legend. The gateway into Lustwerk's now well-established catalog, known for its reliability as a late-night listen and its prophetic vision for the near future of underground dance music. RA would later name it a mix of the decade, citing its influence and imagination: “Original in every sense — unknown, unheard and unbelievably good.” In late 2022, marking ten years since he first recorded the material, Lustwerk returns to Ghostly International to release 100% GALCHER as a remastered limited-edition double LP.

Lustwerk is a product of the Midwest. Growing up in Cleveland, he'd tape over his parents’ cassettes and spend hours at his family computer recording loops and designing artwork for the jewel cases of burned CDs. In high school, he turned to Ableton Live and absorbed every electronic music magazine he could find at the local Borders Books store. In excerpts from the 100% GALCHER liner notes, Lustwerk looks back: "My dad drove me to this shop on the westside Bent Crayon, where I would get anything the blogs told you to get + whatever the clerk recommended. CDs stayed in their packaging, there was always an overflow of vinyl stacked on the floor. I was too shy to listen to anything before buying."

As a college student at RISD, he played in noise bands, plugged into Providence's DIY scene via Myspace, and started DJing weeknights at bars downtown. There he connected with Young Male and DJ Richard, who would go on to found White Material Records and offer their third release to Galcher Lustwerk, an alias realized via CAPTCHA test, a perfect artifact of its internet age. By 2012, Lustwerk had drifted to New York City and settled into a graphic design job, quickly growing disenfranchised by office culture. "Some days I felt like a token, other days I felt invisible." At night, he and his friends were carving out their own space

MILK GREY VINYL

100% GALCHER was by all accounts a game-changer when it landed in 2013 as an hour of original music from a relatively unknown producer ushered in by the beloved mix series Blowing Up The Workshop. Galcher Lustwerk's signature sound _ a smoky stream-of-consciousness baritone shadow-boxing with beats, informed by funk, rap, rhythm, and blues _ felt like an epiphany, impossibly hypnotic and complete. Resident Advisor writes, "100% GALCHER laid out a louche, lysergic and resolutely black take on deep house." Pitchfork remembers the music's immediate impact: "It's the sort of gem you felt inclined to pass around" _ and by year-end list time, word-of-mouth intensified. It was Resident Advisor and Juno's mix of the year, and earned a top-ten placement in FACT Magazine's albums list, as well as Philip Sherburne's personal rundown for Spin." Since then, select songs from 100% GALCHER have seen small-run pressings, while the album has lived primarily on SoundCloud and YouTube as a low-key cult legend. The gateway into Lustwerk's now well-established catalog, known for its reliability as a late-night listen and its prophetic vision for the near future of underground dance music. RA would later name it a mix of the decade, citing its influence and imagination: "Original in every sense _ unknown, unheard and unbelievably good." In late 2022, marking ten years since he first recorded the material, Lustwerk returns to Ghostly International to release 100% GALCHER as a remastered limited-edition double LP. Lustwerk is a product of the Midwest. Growing up in Cleveland, he'd tape over his parents' cassettes and spend hours at his family computer recording loops and designing artwork for the jewel cases of burned CDs. In high school, he turned to Ableton Live and absorbed every electronic music magazine he could find at the local Borders Books store. As a college student at RISD, he played in noise bands, plugged into Providence's DIY scene via Myspace, and started DJing weeknights at bars downtown. There he connected with Young Male and DJ Richard, who would go on to found White Material Records and offer their third release to Galcher Lustwerk, an alias realized via CAPTCHA test, a perfect artifact of its internet age. By 2012, Lustwerk had drifted to New York City and settled into a graphic design job, quickly growing disenfranchised by office culture. "Some days I felt like a token, other days I felt invisible." At night, he and his friends were carving out their own space, throwing parties in small basements, office buildings, and off-beat karaoke bars in Manhattan, influenced by series such as Mr. Sunday in Gowanus and The Bunker at Public Assembly. The lifestyle started to bleed into Lustwerk's musical vision. He remembers the night it clicked in Providence, partying and listening to tunes with Morgan Louis and Alvin Aronson. He went back to New York and pieced together his bedroom setup: a Dave Smith Tempest drum machine, a Waldorf Blofeld synthesizer, and a TEAC cassette recorder. Early snippets went straight to SoundCloud, where Lustwerk tested the crowd. Comments and messages offered instant feedback. One DM proved to be the greenlight: from Matthew Kent, an invitation to his burgeoning mix series Blowing Up The Workshop. 100% GALCHER traveled fast and far. A phenomenon he could only enjoy for a short period before discovering that nearly all the masters of the tracks got wiped by water damage to his computer. "The only copies were now on the 192kbs mp3 mix I sent Matt." Until now, after Lustwerk revived the lost tracks and handed them to Josh Bonati for remastering. "The original mix was never mastered so I hope older fans can find something new here." Hearing the enhanced set for the first time delineated by tracklist reveals this was a proper album all along. Sly synth interludes (all titled "Stem") clear the air for raspy house anthems like "Fifty" and "Parlay," the set's original breakout. Themes present across Lustwerk's catalog first materialize in this iconic run _ the link between the meditative state of Midwest driving and the solitary comedowns of nightlife. Lust- werk, the narrator, is an elusive character, a secret agent of the club, embodied by the hooks: "One minute I'm on / next minute I'm gone," he reminds us on cult-favor- ite "Put On." These narcotic, one-line refrains stick with you; look no further than the original YouTube upload of "Kaint" to know that fans can't let these phrases go. While recorded alone, 100% GALCHER was a collective moment. A decade later, Lustwerk sees the legacy as shared: "Making music can be an alienating experience, especially for DJs who travel a lot, it's all super isolating. It's easy to express lone- liness in the music itself, but when it comes down to getting things done, putting music out, you def should go on that journey w other people, friends, or maybe just a group of people online, build things with your friends then they can build to help you."

100% GALCHER was by all accounts a game-changer when it landed in 2013 as an hour of original music from a relatively unknown producer ushered in by the beloved mix series Blowing Up The Workshop. Galcher Lustwerk's signature sound — a smoky stream-of-consciousness baritone shadow-boxing with beats, informed by funk, rap, rhythm, and blues — felt like an epiphany, impossibly hypnotic and complete. Resident Advisor writes, "100% GALCHER laid out a louche, lysergic and resolutely black take on deep house." Pitchfork remembers the music's immediate impact: "It's the sort of gem you felt inclined to pass around” — and by year-end list time, word-of-mouth intensified. It was Resident Advisor and Juno's mix of the year, and earned a top-ten placement in FACT Magazine's albums list, as well as Philip Sherburne's personal rundown for Spin." Since then, select songs from 100% GALCHER have seen small-run pressings, while the album has lived primarily on SoundCloud and YouTube as a low-key cult legend. The gateway into Lustwerk's now well-established catalog, known for its reliability as a late-night listen and its prophetic vision for the near future of underground dance music. RA would later name it a mix of the decade, citing its influence and imagination: “Original in every sense — unknown, unheard and unbelievably good.” In late 2022, marking ten years since he first recorded the material, Lustwerk returns to Ghostly International to release 100% GALCHER as a remastered limited-edition double LP.

Lustwerk is a product of the Midwest. Growing up in Cleveland, he'd tape over his parents’ cassettes and spend hours at his family computer recording loops and designing artwork for the jewel cases of burned CDs. In high school, he turned to Ableton Live and absorbed every electronic music magazine he could find at the local Borders Books store. In excerpts from the 100% GALCHER liner notes, Lustwerk looks back: "My dad drove me to this shop on the westside Bent Crayon, where I would get anything the blogs told you to get + whatever the clerk recommended. CDs stayed in their packaging, there was always an overflow of vinyl stacked on the floor. I was too shy to listen to anything before buying."

As a college student at RISD, he played in noise bands, plugged into Providence's DIY scene via Myspace, and started DJing weeknights at bars downtown. There he connected with Young Male and DJ Richard, who would go on to found White Material Records and offer their third release to Galcher Lustwerk, an alias realized via CAPTCHA test, a perfect artifact of its internet age. By 2012, Lustwerk had drifted to New York City and settled into a graphic design job, quickly growing disenfranchised by office culture. "Some days I felt like a token, other days I felt invisible." At night, he and his friends were carving out their own space

White Lung are back! This winter brings their fifth and final,
chaotic, bold and hook-driven album, ‘Premonition’. It’s a
whirlwind of driving drums, intricate guitar work, and noholds-barred lyrics about motherhood, pregnancy, and
growth. The themes are deeper. The interplay between
guitarist Kenneth William and drummer Anne-Marie
Vassiliou is more complex, the sound more cohesive.
During an unintentional five year hiatus, White Lung
managed to grow up without settling down, and the trio
has emerged out of its transformative period with raw, feral
energy.
When the members convened in their hometown of
Vancouver in 2017 to begin work with long-time producer
Jesse Gander on their fifth album, they had no idea what
kind of changes were in store for them. Frontwoman Mish
Barber-Way was in the studio preparing to record vocals -
when she realized she was pregnant with her first child. A
pandemic followed, then another baby, then the series of
massive societal meltdowns that we’ve all come to call
“everything that’s been going on.”
‘Premonition’ is about birth and rebirth. It’s about leaving
behind nihilism while refusing to give up the freedom that it
offers. It’s about raging against the world while still finding
space within it for hope and love.
CD into printed inner wallet into outer wallet and 8-page
folded poster booklet.
LP includes 24” x 36” poster.
Press - Reviews in MOJO, Loud & Quiet, Uncut. Features in
Stereoboard, Upset, NME, DIY, The Line of Best Fit, Our Culture,
CMU, Yahoo, The Guardian, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, The FADER,
SPIN, Stereogum, Consequence, Brooklyn Vegan, Alt Press,
Exclaim!, Treblezine, Femmusic, Ultimate Guitar, Broadway World,
Northern Transmissions.
Radio - BBC 6 Music.

After two years as a band, the up-and-coming folk-rock band, Gangar
finally releases their first EP! Gangar combines folk music with jazz,
metal, and rock in the most natural way
They find old traditional tunes in folk music archives and arrange them with
inspiration from bands such as Hoven Droven, AC/ DC and Meshuggah.
"Norwegian folk rock has been down and out ever since Gate was cool. Finally,
someone has done something about it! Nice, cool and fun, Gangar has
everything. If they don't make you happy, you are an angry person" – Tuva
Syvertsen
"Tre Danser" refers to the three tunes on the EP and to Gangar's signature dance,
"The Tree Dance", where you lock your legs, lift your arms, and sway like a tree
with the wind.
The three tunes show the broad musical spectrum in Gangar's repertoire, from
the heavily arranged heavy metal composition "Fjellets melodi", after Ola Loseth
(Rindal, More og Romsdal, 1897-1978), to a tune rocking like a merciless freight
train, "Reinlender fra Aseral", after Gunnar Austegard (Aseral, Vest- Agder,
1884-1973). "Gammel vals fra Rindalen" consists of a beautiful and sweet melody
in contrast to a hard and mean riff, meaning that you have to listen very carefully
to realize that it is a waltz.
Front person and fiddle player Mattias Thedens grew up in a folk music family,
having played Norwegian and American folk music since he was 9 years old.
Saxophonist Oskar Lindberget is firmly planted in jazz tradition, despite his young
age he has contributed to no less than 18 recordings. Guitarist Richard Max has a
background as a drummer and hardcore fan of prog metal, he's the cause of the
syncopated rhythms and guitar riffs with heavy distortion. Drummer Henrik
Dullum grew up with rock music, first time exposed to folk music when he moved
to the big city Oslo from Trondheim. Bassist Jonas Thrana Jensen has a basis in
popular music and rock, finding Gangar to peek his interest to explore the folk
music traditions.
"To headbang to three different traditional tunes, is something I never thought I
would do" – bassist Jonas Thrana Jensen
Mattias Thedens: fiddle, Hardanger fiddle; Oskar Lindberget: saxophone; Richard
Max: electric guitar; Henrik Dullum: drums; Jonas Thrana Jensen: electric bass
Produced by folk rock legend and fiddle player in Hoven Droven: Kjell- Erik
Eriksson

2022 Repress

Originally released in 2005, 'Insen' is the second collaboration album between Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto and the second installment of V.I.R.U.S.'s five albums series.

Remastered in 2021 in collaboration with Calyx Studio, the album's recordings are accompanied by an unreleased composition titled 'Barco.' Initially composed for Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto's 2005 'Insen' tour, the audio material used in this piece is based on the subtle sounds of Barco projectors, whose tonalities served as a ground for the artists' live improvisation. ?
In 'Insen', Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto explore the potential for interaction and tension between electronic and acoustic instrumentation. Across eight compositions, the echoes of the cascading piano combine, collide, and dissolve with the tapestry of digital breakages in sheer vibrancy. This relationship lies at the album's core. It subtly continues Vrioon's calm melancholia, becoming a vessel for all the emotions and memories nourished by the listener. As you hear the opening, lonesome notes of 'Aurora,' you realize that the pair have once again conceded an ambition to embed elaborate disciplines into an archetypal sound of soul-searching beauty.

. It's 2021 and Vancouver’s Bootlicker are back with their first full length. Experimenting with various lineups and sounds since 2017, these 14 original tracks flesh out their most realized expression. Following four EP’s and two demos, their self-titled debut stays true to the noise cultivated in the previous offerings. That raw, blown-out production countered with clean guitar sound and Internationally-informed take on a UK82 delivery remains. Everything that made the band what they were on their previous output is polished into a ball of fire that will not be contained. Their mid-tempo, menacing posture of tracks like "Herd The Sheep" and "State Of Fever" give way to the D-beat totality of "Master" or "Two Faced" proving there are still ideas in the tank. There won’t be much left but scorched earth by the time it comes to rest. FFO: Mau Maus, Discharge, SSD. Every copy of this LP comes with 16 page zine-style lyric insert full of illustrations by band member and visual artist Athena.

LAVENDER Coloured Vinyl. Recommended If You Like: Cocteau Twins, Julee Cruise, Antena, Young Marble Giants, The Pastels, Mazzy Star, Norma Tanega. A cinematic ocean of sound. EERIE WANDA's Marina Tadic draws you into her inner worlds on these 11 new songs produced by Kramer (Galaxie 500, Unrest, Ween, Daniel Johnston.). On Internal Radio, the new album by Eerie Wanda, visual artist and musician Marina Tadic welcomes you to her inner world. Guided by intuition, Tadic's songs use haunting, ethereal space, growing whole universes from the seeds of ideas. Internal Radio documents Tadic becoming the artist she wants to be, working through some things, and even exorcizing a few demons. The result is the most realized Eerie Wanda album yet, building on the project's guitar pop past for a more experimental, other worldly, serious grown-up affair that ventures into sensitive, motional territory. "Pet Town is delightfully airy; a set of songs that have drifted in on a breeze from some strange and foreign landscape you won't find on any map.” Gold Flake Paint // “Tadic’s melody here is part of that Brian Wilson lineage … she sets those notes adrift with a casually graceful minimalism… It evokes a pleasant stroll through a city at the moment when night begins to fall on a daydream.” Stereogum // Tracks: 1 Sail To The Silver Sun 2 NOWx1000 3 Long Time 4 On Heaven 5 Confess 6 Nightwalk 7 Someone's In My House 8 Sister Take My Hand 9 Birds Aren't Real 10 Puzzled 11 Bon Voyage

Self-recorded indie experimentalist from the Pacific Northwest. For fans of Grouper, The Microphones, Unwound’s Leaves Turn Inside You. Features Madeline Johnston (Midwife), Alex Kent (Sprain), Lula Asplund, a chamber ensemble and more. In 2019, Drowse’s Kyle Bates set out to produce a self-recorded new album. Marked by moving across state lines, long-distance relationships, and deaths in the family, the following years proved to be metamorphic. Now, three years later, he’s emerged with Wane Into It, continuing a distinctly Pacific Northwestern tradition of self-recording indie experimentalists (Grouper, The Microphones, Unwound’s Leaves Turn Inside You). One of the most impactful moments came during the looming passing of a family member. With death expected, the choice was made to conduct a bizarre “living-wake” gathering—with the soon-to-be1deceased in attendance. Shortly after, Bates found himself disturbed, preoccupied with the abstraction of memory. The experience led him to reassess the tool one uses to curate our selective memories: the internet. The internet, which creeped into even more aspects of life during the pandemic, serves as our self-made digital link to the past. Its uncaring presence layered over humbling thoughts of death and his own childhood memories of the Oregon Coast as he worked on Wane Into It; life’s hyperreal texture sank into the recordings as he felt his body age and wane. Big sounds were captured in bedrooms, hallways, practice spaces, forests, and on highways throughout West Coast vibraphones chime over black metal guitars, a mellotron drones under degraded samples, violins splinter against granular field recordings. In the process of documenting these aural moments Bates completed an MFA at Mills College, coloring the album with shades of avant electronic and minimalist composition (Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Maryanne Amacher, Sarah Davachi etc…). To realize this scope Drowse collaborated with Madeline Johnston (Midwife), Alex Kent (Sprain), Lula Asplund, a chamber ensemble and more. Bates’s songwriting and production have never been more lucid; sounds flicker as he sings with fragile intensity. The record, Drowse’s third for The Flenser, impressionistically distills loss, distance, mystery, prescription drugs, the preservation of memory via recording, and ambient anxiety through its titular act: to Wane Into It, to disappear awaiting the next moon phase, water returning to sea before reemerging as a wave. Track Listing: 1. Untrue In Headphones 2. Mystery Pt. 2 3. (Ashes Over The Pacific Northwest) 4. Wane Into It 5. Telepresence 6. Gabapentin 7. Blue Light Glow 8. Three Faces (Cyanoacrylate) 9. Ten Year Hangover / Deconstructed Mystery

Self-recorded indie experimentalist from the Pacific Northwest. For fans of Grouper, The Microphones, Unwound’s Leaves Turn Inside You. Features Madeline Johnston (Midwife), Alex Kent (Sprain), Lula Asplund, a chamber ensemble and more. In 2019, Drowse’s Kyle Bates set out to produce a self-recorded new album. Marked by moving across state lines, long-distance relationships, and deaths in the family, the following years proved to be metamorphic. Now, three years later, he’s emerged with Wane Into It, continuing a distinctly Pacific Northwestern tradition of self-recording indie experimentalists (Grouper, The Microphones, Unwound’s Leaves Turn Inside You). One of the most impactful moments came during the looming passing of a family member. With death expected, the choice was made to conduct a bizarre “living-wake” gathering—with the soon-to-be1deceased in attendance. Shortly after, Bates found himself disturbed, preoccupied with the abstraction of memory. The experience led him to reassess the tool one uses to curate our selective memories: the internet. The internet, which creeped into even more aspects of life during the pandemic, serves as our self-made digital link to the past. Its uncaring presence layered over humbling thoughts of death and his own childhood memories of the Oregon Coast as he worked on Wane Into It; life’s hyperreal texture sank into the recordings as he felt his body age and wane. Big sounds were captured in bedrooms, hallways, practice spaces, forests, and on highways throughout West Coast vibraphones chime over black metal guitars, a mellotron drones under degraded samples, violins splinter against granular field recordings. In the process of documenting these aural moments Bates completed an MFA at Mills College, coloring the album with shades of avant electronic and minimalist composition (Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Maryanne Amacher, Sarah Davachi etc…). To realize this scope Drowse collaborated with Madeline Johnston (Midwife), Alex Kent (Sprain), Lula Asplund, a chamber ensemble and more. Bates’s songwriting and production have never been more lucid; sounds flicker as he sings with fragile intensity. The record, Drowse’s third for The Flenser, impressionistically distills loss, distance, mystery, prescription drugs, the preservation of memory via recording, and ambient anxiety through its titular act: to Wane Into It, to disappear awaiting the next moon phase, water returning to sea before reemerging as a wave. Track Listing: 1. Untrue In Headphones 2. Mystery Pt. 2 3. (Ashes Over The Pacific Northwest) 4. Wane Into It 5. Telepresence 6. Gabapentin 7. Blue Light Glow 8. Three Faces (Cyanoacrylate) 9. Ten Year Hangover / Deconstructed Mystery

** INITIAL 400 LPs CONTAIN A BONUS 7" OF A RARE XMAS SOUL 45! **

** THE 4th VOLUME OF RARE & HIP-SHAKING SEASONAL GROOVES!! **

Dear Santa, we just loved "Santa's Funk & Soul Christmas Party," Volumes 1-3 TRLP-9013, TRLP-9027, TRLP-9050, and we have really tried to be good this year! Please bring us a whole 'nother album's worth of rare and obscure Christmas-themed funk and soul!

When the third volume of "Santa's Funk & Soul Christmas Party" was released in 2015, everybody involved was certain that it would be the final one. For years, the curators had been looking for "Christmas Rare Grooves" until they finally realized there was nothing left to discover that would justify a fourth volume. Sure, it would have been an easy task to dig through the catalogues of major labels to come up with 40 minutes of more-or-less trivial Christmas soul music. But who on earth would want that kind of album? Since the foundation of Tramp Records in 2003, the label has gained a high reputation as one of the very few German reissue labels of obscure funk, soul, and jazz music. 99% of the songs originate from 7" singles, the small and handy standard-format of the 1960s, which, like Santa's sleigh magically circling the planet on Christmas Eve, spins at forty-five revolutions per minute on the turntable.

So, what can you expect from this, the fourth volume of a series which had ostensibly been completed with only three volumes? After some seven years of digging across the world wide web with open ears and eyes, never tiring of the hundreds of (mainly) shitty songs, hoping to find that kind of monster soul or funk track that constituted the hallmark of the previous volumes, the compilers slowly and surprisingly began to see a fourth volume taking shape. Finally, after more than two thousand days, a complete album's worth of quality tunes had been discovered and secured for release.

"Santa's Funk & Soul Christmas Party Vol. 4" contains a highly diverse selection of obscure Christmas songs. For example, take Bey Ireland's garage-mod-rocker "All I Want For Christmas Is A Go-Go Girl," is something to get you go-going around the tree! Do you prefer mirror-balls to tinsel? Check out Bill Deal with Pure Pleasure. Too fast? How about the dazzling-melancholic "I Won't Be Home For Christmas"? Do you prefer rap music while you wrap presents? Then your choice is going to be Hot & Sassy. Old-School-Hip Hop at its best. Every single song has a compelling reason to be included in this extraordinary selection. Not least is the opening track by Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. Their contribution represents the soul sound of the 21st century. Charming soul music with sociocritical lyrics, something you rarely find in the current musical landscape.

Even though the selected tracks that the two compilers and their worker elves proudly present on "Santa's Funk & Soul Christmas Party Vol. 4" are unbelievable, they are very real and will be the surprise gift from Santa this season that can be enjoyed year-round! It took seven years to complete, but believe us when we say it was well worth the wait. Merry Christmas, everybody!

Key selling points:

- initial 400 LPs contain a BONUS 7" of a ULTRA-RARE Christmas soul 45

- ALL but one song appear on CD, Vinyl LP and digital for the very first-time

- the vinyl LP comes with a full album download code

- fold-out CD-booklet and gatefold LP come with liner notes and label scans

Zopelar arrives on Tartelet with Charme - an album of effervescent machine funk harking back to a golden era of Brazilian party music, releasing October 21st.

The era of interest for Sao Paulo’s Pedro Zopelar begins in the 1980s in Rio de Janeiro, when a particular phenomenon caught on at suburban parties which became known as Charme. “Charme was like a mix of slow boogie, RnB and new jack swing,” explains Zopelar. “DJ Corello started calling ‘charme’ the moment of the party when he played slow grooves and felt that the people started dancing differently, with sexier synchronized moves. Some years later, charme evolved from an awaited moment of a night to a whole movement of parties just playing that kind of music. On this record I tried to make something that brings this emotional feeling to my music in a modern way.”

Much like the original genre-not-genre he drew inspiration from, Zopelar’s approach across his latest LP spans different moods and tempos. There’s blissful, sultry mystery lingering around ‘Clara’ and ‘Do You Feel?’ while OSAGIE lends some chops to the exquisite, Rompler-powered synth funk of ‘Chain Net’. The lead singles ‘Shibuya’, ‘Charme’ and ‘Passado’ all tap into varying shades of deep house, from slinky City Pop-tinted loungers to peak-time dance pop and Larry Heard-influenced flavours, with the constant being Zopelar’s immaculate production and the unbridled warmth of his compositions.

Continuing the Latin-rooted theme of the album, the artworkconception of Charme was realized by multidisciplinary artist and curator Ode, showcasing a popular style of street paintings made by anonymous artists throughout Latin America. It’s not about graffiti-culture but a popular solution utilized by small restaurants, bars and other establishments to use their own walls for commercial purposes, hiring artists to paint food and drink menus or other information about their products.

With an emotional sincerity stemming from his move to reconnect with the Brazilian dimension of his creative background, Charme arrives as Zopelar’s heartfelt celebration of life and music, of sentimental moments shared and good times enjoyed.

Widely-loved electronic maestro Gigi Masin returns with ‘Vahinè' – a mini album of beautiful and distinct music that is unmistakably his, sounding better than ever.

Masin always pours his heart into composing, but here it takes on a potent new level of heavy emotion – as it’s a tribute to his late wife, who sadly passed away last year.

“There is a Tahitian dance called ‘Aparima’. It consists of graceful, sinuous and fascinating movements, which tell you stories and legends about love or tradition. The ‘Vahinè' are now dancing, the Tahitian females, with smiles and gestures that could be symbolic or descriptive but are always gentle, harmonious, charming. I was watching this documentary, it was almost 4 in the morning, but I couldn't sleep; I was in front of the television for hours, my wife had passed away the day before, and I was watching hands and arms swaying.

I told myself that maybe it’s so, at the end of the road it’s possible to realize dreams, and I’m sure that she is finally able to dance like never before, and is able to move without any impediment, with no suffering, free to make all the movements that she couldn't make for so long, turning to me with a smile and a wink. So, in the clouds, you will discover and see an extraordinary 'Vahinè', because she will move and dance and smile until the end of time.”
Gigi Masin

A future-retro dreamscape where stripes of early evening sun pour through partially closed venetian blinds; kalimba, piano and steel pans meet on the incredibly evocative ‘Marilene (Somewhere in Texas)’.

The Balearic/Italo house heart of ‘Barumini’ throbs throughout a celestial epiphany, whilst ‘Shadye’ is a sun blinded ambient mirage where angelic voices and electric guitar intertwine, before more heavenly music ensues on the trance-like ‘Malvina’.

A heart-wrenchingly beautiful evocation of transitioning to the other side, ‘Valerie Crossing’ is Gigi’s compelling and inspirational take on death, with a vivid evocation of something spiritual, existential and metaphysical. His exemplary approach shows decease not as a cause for despair, but a philosophical and poetic exploration of where souls go, when they leave their earthly bodies.

Masin closes with ‘Vahinè' – a twitchy, levitational piece of sublime deep techno, which transmits high strength vibrations of powerful emotions. On both this track, and the album of the same name, there’ s no pseudo intellectual ambient posturing with cod academic angles tagged on; This is music of real substance, coming from a real place. It’s saturated with feelings, but turns mourning into affecting art, and even a beacon of hope.

Issued by Leo Fegin's visionary record label in 1993, this refreshed and revised reissue collection of Hungarian composer Tibor Szemző's chamber pieces with spoken text – composed at 1980s for the legendary GROUP 180 – is unlike anything else of its kind.

No one has survived life. Everyone has died from it so far. Man must realize that He is responsible for His own life and fate and must insist upon this responsibility beyond all limits. And since Man has dissociated Himself from the sphere of irrationality, He has no way of getting in touch with death, or of establishing control over it. How we achieve the final result is merely of secondary importance. If the vision is clear to everyone, there is no need at all to look back. In a time of complete mental disturbance, only one chance remains to us: crystal-clear thinking. This leads us back to total mental disturbance, which everyone has died from so far. (Pavel Havliček – Miklós Erdély – Tibor Hajas)

Text and Music | Language and Speech | Sound and Music

The common basis of the three works by Tibor Szemző heard on this album is the inalienable relationship to text – as an a priori principle. Text and music: the formal attributes of significance, intentions, and levels of meaning inherent in verbal communication as it is transformed into audible code. Language and speech: the structural level of communication, where it becomes purposeful expression, acoustic statements of variable modality. Vocalization as sublimation. Sound and music: By becoming an auditory signal, communication is deprived of its sense and reduced to musical articulation and abstraction.

Skullbase Fracture: Shards of reality – senseless, disconnected fragments of recorded “living speech” – simultaneously disintegrate and merge to create meaning through the musical process, while it is degraded and stylized to represent a single layer of the ambient noise one would hear in a hospitality setting.

Optimistic Lecture: The theses – like a practical, everyday user’s manual to cognitive tendencies and aims as they apply to the entirety of existence – convey their meaning through simplified rhythmic speech, galvanized into commands. As a counterpoint to recited prayers, they comprise a uniform soundscape.

The Sex Appeal of Death: The head-on simplicity of communication creates such extremely reductive musical interrelations that they cannibalize themselves in a necessary and inevitable fashion. And, in this manner, the text as well

Iris DeMent released Infamous Angel in 1992 - Nearly 30 years later, the
album remains among the most singular and fully realized singersongwriter debuts since the invention of that category in the early '70s
The abiding strengths of the album are especially impressive ' even a bit startling '
because 1992 is not a moment usually associated with her intimate brand of
acoustic country music. In country history, the year 1992 is most immediately
affiliated with Garth Brooks, whose album, The Chase, topped both the country
and pop album charts that year, and with Billy Ray Cyrus' 'Achy Breaky Heart,'
which fueled a line dance craze. Squeezed into a playlist alongside such hits,
DeMent's doleful, hushed 'Our Town' would've sounded as if it were being
broadcast from another planet. 'People call me country,' she told journalist Ben
Thompson while on tour in Britain a couple years later. 'But country doesn't call
me country.' Let's call her country. The genre is always more expansive than what
radio stations program. It happened Infamous Angel is close kin to a different
sort of country music that was just then having a moment: specifically, country
singer- songwriters, focusing on personal, but universal, loss and hope and
favoring small acoustic combos. It may have been out of step with the
mainstream, but Infamous Angel arrived right on time

Wellington, New Zealand four-piece Hans Pucket writes nervy but effortlessly danceable rock songs about feeling bad. Their second full-length album, No Drama, which is out November 4th via Carpark Records, gleefully captures the all-too-common twenty-something anxieties of talking too much and then being unable to find the right words to say. When frontman Oliver Devlin sings, “I’m surfing a constant wave of alarm” on the title track, it’s a compass for the other nine tracks. This is inviting and relatable music for people who, despite their best efforts, feel uncomfortable about themselves, the state of the world, and their place in it.

Both lyrically and sonically, No Drama is a departure for Hans Pucket from their 2018 debut Eczema. “I realized I didn’t want to write any more real heartbreak songs,” says Oliver Devlin. “We were and still are a live band. We're still trying to make music that’s catchy and people can dance to, but also really interesting to us: songs about growing up and finding how you exist in the world.” Songs like “My Brain Is a Vacant Space” with its blistering guitars and ebullient hooks hone in on the feeling that you have nothing to offer while “Bankrupt,” a fuzzed-out punk track, boasts lines like “I don’t know if I’ll always feel like / I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

Recorded with the band’s good friend and former tour mate Jonathan Pearce of The Beths at his Auckland studio, No Drama is full of big leaps, immaculate arrangements, and a ton of immediate grooves. “We were very ambitious when we first started recording this,” says bassist Callum Devlin. “Intentionally we left heaps of space in the track so we could add strings and horns. Because we were very measured and quite deliberate with the parts we had. It was a really fun process filling in the gaps.”

No Drama came together over several years and during its creation, the band added multi-instrumentalist Callum Passels, who provided all the horn arrangements on the LP. With Pearce producing, his other Beths bandmates like Benjamin Sinclair added string arrangements while singer Elizabeth Stokes provided backing vocals.

Overall it’s a remarkably eclectic record where the smooth pop of a track like “Kiss the Moon” can coexist perfectly with the Abbey Road freakout of “Some Good News.” “We didn’t want to be afraid of our 15-year-old self's influences,” says Oliver Devlin.” We really wanted to make an album that teenage us would just be amazed by.”

The result is Hans Pucket’s most sparkling and confident collection yet. While it’s danceable and fun, it’s also a thoughtful exploration of anxiety, a call for empathy in a turbulent time, and a relatable reminder that it’s hard to figure things out.

Tape

Wellington, New Zealand four-piece Hans Pucket writes nervy but effortlessly danceable rock songs about feeling bad. Their second full-length album, No Drama, which is out November 4th via Carpark Records, gleefully captures the all-too-common twenty-something anxieties of talking too much and then being unable to find the right words to say. When frontman Oliver Devlin sings, “I’m surfing a constant wave of alarm” on the title track, it’s a compass for the other nine tracks. This is inviting and relatable music for people who, despite their best efforts, feel uncomfortable about themselves, the state of the world, and their place in it.

Both lyrically and sonically, No Drama is a departure for Hans Pucket from their 2018 debut Eczema. “I realized I didn’t want to write any more real heartbreak songs,” says Oliver Devlin. “We were and still are a live band. We're still trying to make music that’s catchy and people can dance to, but also really interesting to us: songs about growing up and finding how you exist in the world.” Songs like “My Brain Is a Vacant Space” with its blistering guitars and ebullient hooks hone in on the feeling that you have nothing to offer while “Bankrupt,” a fuzzed-out punk track, boasts lines like “I don’t know if I’ll always feel like / I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

Recorded with the band’s good friend and former tour mate Jonathan Pearce of The Beths at his Auckland studio, No Drama is full of big leaps, immaculate arrangements, and a ton of immediate grooves. “We were very ambitious when we first started recording this,” says bassist Callum Devlin. “Intentionally we left heaps of space in the track so we could add strings and horns. Because we were very measured and quite deliberate with the parts we had. It was a really fun process filling in the gaps.”

No Drama came together over several years and during its creation, the band added multi-instrumentalist Callum Passels, who provided all the horn arrangements on the LP. With Pearce producing, his other Beths bandmates like Benjamin Sinclair added string arrangements while singer Elizabeth Stokes provided backing vocals.

Overall it’s a remarkably eclectic record where the smooth pop of a track like “Kiss the Moon” can coexist perfectly with the Abbey Road freakout of “Some Good News.” “We didn’t want to be afraid of our 15-year-old self's influences,” says Oliver Devlin.” We really wanted to make an album that teenage us would just be amazed by.”

The result is Hans Pucket’s most sparkling and confident collection yet. While it’s danceable and fun, it’s also a thoughtful exploration of anxiety, a call for empathy in a turbulent time, and a relatable reminder that it’s hard to figure things out.

The Microphones, Bon Iver, Lomelda, Vegyn, Hovvdy, Dijon. “Lemon Cream” vinyl is for Indies Only. Follow up to 2019’s critically acclaimed ‘bunny’. Sam Hall’s new album as ghost orchard, ‘rainbow music’, is a collage of patience and meditation. It’s filled with nuances as quietly imperceptible as the seasons, or the profound movement of time, where one day looking back you realize your whole spirit has shifted. Where 2019’s critically revered ‘bunny’ was a love letter to a romantic relationship, ‘rainbow music’ documents the culmination of Hall’s first personal experience with loss in several forms. At the end of 2020, his longterm childhood pet passed away, and with it the last continuing threads of familiarity between being a kid and adulthood. Still based in the Grand Rapids, Michigan town he’d grown up in, the static ease of familiar living seemed to be coming apart at the seams, as friends moved on to bigger cities, relationships shapeshifted and in a short period of time, another kitten he’d adopted passed away prematurely, leaving Hall to question the trajectory in which he himself was headed. Like “songs in the key of life,” the title ‘rainbow music’ refers to the myriad of colors and qualities within Hall that are refracted throughout. It’s a symbolization of hope and the aftermath, the flickering light at the end of the tunnel (or “when a rainbow shows up after a big storm”). “Wish I could have fun anymore,” Hall ruminates on “dancing”, as well as confessing he “wish he made more upbeat bangers.” But reality packs more of a punch, and this collection of songs sees him finally be at peace with the current state of affairs. Relatable to anyone who has contemplated what it means to settle down, or even just catch your breath in an era where anguish is commonplace, the release of ‘rainbow music’ is a happy ending in its own right, a marker of survival that remains close to the bone. // Ghost Orchard’s “bunny” is a blushing, beatific beat. - The FADER // Fluttering and transportive, a swirl of beats and plucky guitar and strings that feels like a cocoon. - Stereogum // Hip-hop inflected, stream-of-consciousness confessionals that’ll have you swooning in the lazy summer sunlight. – Paste // Track listing: 01. Rest 02. Jessamine 03. Cursive 04. Maisy 05. Cut 06. soot 07. memory storage 08. Dancing 09. bruise 10. sweet song 11. comfort (rainbow)

The Microphones, Bon Iver, Lomelda, Vegyn, Hovvdy, Dijon. “Lemon Cream” vinyl is for Indies Only. Follow up to 2019’s critically acclaimed ‘bunny’. Sam Hall’s new album as ghost orchard, ‘rainbow music’, is a collage of patience and meditation. It’s filled with nuances as quietly imperceptible as the seasons, or the profound movement of time, where one day looking back you realize your whole spirit has shifted. Where 2019’s critically revered ‘bunny’ was a love letter to a romantic relationship, ‘rainbow music’ documents the culmination of Hall’s first personal experience with loss in several forms. At the end of 2020, his longterm childhood pet passed away, and with it the last continuing threads of familiarity between being a kid and adulthood. Still based in the Grand Rapids, Michigan town he’d grown up in, the static ease of familiar living seemed to be coming apart at the seams, as friends moved on to bigger cities, relationships shapeshifted and in a short period of time, another kitten he’d adopted passed away prematurely, leaving Hall to question the trajectory in which he himself was headed. Like “songs in the key of life,” the title ‘rainbow music’ refers to the myriad of colors and qualities within Hall that are refracted throughout. It’s a symbolization of hope and the aftermath, the flickering light at the end of the tunnel (or “when a rainbow shows up after a big storm”). “Wish I could have fun anymore,” Hall ruminates on “dancing”, as well as confessing he “wish he made more upbeat bangers.” But reality packs more of a punch, and this collection of songs sees him finally be at peace with the current state of affairs. Relatable to anyone who has contemplated what it means to settle down, or even just catch your breath in an era where anguish is commonplace, the release of ‘rainbow music’ is a happy ending in its own right, a marker of survival that remains close to the bone. // Ghost Orchard’s “bunny” is a blushing, beatific beat. - The FADER // Fluttering and transportive, a swirl of beats and plucky guitar and strings that feels like a cocoon. - Stereogum // Hip-hop inflected, stream-of-consciousness confessionals that’ll have you swooning in the lazy summer sunlight. – Paste // Track listing: 01. Rest 02. Jessamine 03. Cursive 04. Maisy 05. Cut 06. soot 07. memory storage 08. Dancing 09. bruise 10. sweet song 11. comfort (rainbow)

The Microphones, Bon Iver, Lomelda, Vegyn, Hovvdy, Dijon. “Lemon Cream” vinyl is for Indies Only. Follow up to 2019’s critically acclaimed ‘bunny’. Sam Hall’s new album as ghost orchard, ‘rainbow music’, is a collage of patience and meditation. It’s filled with nuances as quietly imperceptible as the seasons, or the profound movement of time, where one day looking back you realize your whole spirit has shifted. Where 2019’s critically revered ‘bunny’ was a love letter to a romantic relationship, ‘rainbow music’ documents the culmination of Hall’s first personal experience with loss in several forms. At the end of 2020, his longterm childhood pet passed away, and with it the last continuing threads of familiarity between being a kid and adulthood. Still based in the Grand Rapids, Michigan town he’d grown up in, the static ease of familiar living seemed to be coming apart at the seams, as friends moved on to bigger cities, relationships shapeshifted and in a short period of time, another kitten he’d adopted passed away prematurely, leaving Hall to question the trajectory in which he himself was headed. Like “songs in the key of life,” the title ‘rainbow music’ refers to the myriad of colors and qualities within Hall that are refracted throughout. It’s a symbolization of hope and the aftermath, the flickering light at the end of the tunnel (or “when a rainbow shows up after a big storm”). “Wish I could have fun anymore,” Hall ruminates on “dancing”, as well as confessing he “wish he made more upbeat bangers.” But reality packs more of a punch, and this collection of songs sees him finally be at peace with the current state of affairs. Relatable to anyone who has contemplated what it means to settle down, or even just catch your breath in an era where anguish is commonplace, the release of ‘rainbow music’ is a happy ending in its own right, a marker of survival that remains close to the bone. // Ghost Orchard’s “bunny” is a blushing, beatific beat. - The FADER // Fluttering and transportive, a swirl of beats and plucky guitar and strings that feels like a cocoon. - Stereogum // Hip-hop inflected, stream-of-consciousness confessionals that’ll have you swooning in the lazy summer sunlight. – Paste // Track listing: 01. Rest 02. Jessamine 03. Cursive 04. Maisy 05. Cut 06. soot 07. memory storage 08. Dancing 09. bruise 10. sweet song 11. comfort (rainbow)

The first new album in over a decade from world-renowned singer-songwriter, Nina Nastasia. Produced by Steve Albini. Riderless Horse is my first solo record, and it’s the first record my former partner, Kennan Gudjonsson, didn’t produce. I haven’t made an album since 2010. I decided to stop pursuing music several years after my sixth record, Outlaster, because of unhappiness, overwhelming chaos, mental illness, and my tragically dysfunctional relationship with Kennan. Creating music had always been a positive outlet during difficult times, but eventually it became a source of absolute misery. Riderless Horse documents the grief, but it also marks moments of empowerment and a real happiness in discovering my own capability. Steve Albini produced this record with me, and Greg Norman assisted. It was exactly the right environment to work on this record. We all had meals together, cried, laughed, and told stories. It was perfect. It made me realize how much I love writing, playing and recording music. Terrible things happen. These were some terrible things. So, what to do – learn something valuable, connect with people, move the fuck out of that apartment, remember the humor, find the humour, tell the truth, and make a record. I made a record.

Reggie B returns with his much awaited NBN release "Tinky's Jam.” This is his first full length album since “Soulofunkaquarian” released with INnatesounds. The album was most definitely worth the wait. It takes the listener through a personal and musical journey inspired by the birth of his son, who he affectionately calls “Tinky,” and the connection they share. Tinky was a major part of this album, oftentimes found in the studio during the conceptions of many of the songs. This album is unlike any other record released by the Kansas born producer, multi instrumentalist, singer and arranger. After the birth of his son, he was inspired and encouraged to get back into the musical game by the head of NBN, Onra. "Tinky's Jam" is something of a family affair with friends and old collaborators playing their part.

Born into a musical family to parents who were two sides of the same coin, a father who was one of the most renowned drummers in Topeka, Kansas funk and jazz fusion scenes and a mother who was one of the most prominent gospel singers in the city. The apple didn't fall far from the tree and Reggie has spent his life performing and playing with a healthy slew of releases.

This album is the result of countless days in the studio which yielded scores of a dozen slabs of head nodding funk.

Mostly instrumental and showcasing Reggie's many styles from the heavy bounce of "Futuristic Slow", to the George Clinton nod on "P For Life", and the crafted soul of "Gone Fishing" with Dominique Sanders to the cool street jazz feel of "Realize" with Donald Hates's sax adding flare as well as the beat of "Nose Dive" providing the nod factor for the heads.

Closing out the LP ``Tinky's Dance" - a raw soulful jam that lies somewhere between Prince and Larry Heard - for Reggie "the whole project felt like a gift to me and my baby boy Tinky! I wanted to let him know he’s always in my heart and soul and I love my Tinky man infinitely! It’s a children's album for the elevated child like Tinky!”

Released on gold vinyl, ‘The Coincidentalist’ and ‘Dust Bowl’ are two discs of Howe Gelb filled with randomness and happenstance, a typical treasure trove spanning all genres from alt country to Cohen-esque grandeur. They traverse, unflinchingly, his chameleon-like repertoire. This deluxe re-issue includes ‘Dust Bowl’ on vinyl for the very first time, with the records housed in a gatefold sleeve featuring updated artwork and liner notes. ‘The Coincidentalist’, originally released in 2013, features a raft of friends and collaborators including Bonnie Prince Billy, Andrew Bird, M. Ward, Steve Shelley, and Jason Lytle of Grandaddy with John Parrish on mixing duties. Ever the focal point of Giant Sand and Gelb releases, the Arizona Desert serves as a key inspiration for the record, animating the barren landscape with stories of those that have navigated them. Praise for the release was not short, with AllMusic proclaiming that it’s “one of Gelb's most realized efforts; despite its relaxed, airy presentation, it's musically and lyrically provocative, as poetic, strange, and mysterious as the desert itself." The accompanying collection ‘Dust Bowl’ is a personal sketchbook of songs, a more stripped back set than it’s counterpart. Featuring everything from the country blues of ‘Porch Banjo’ and ‘John Deere’, to off-kilter piano ballads like ‘The Old Overrated’ and ‘Reality Or Not’ and the deconstructed desert pop on ‘Forever And A Day’ and the fragile ‘Man On A String’. ‘Dust Bowl’ is an insider’s view of Howe’s songwriting craft, a unique insight into the man himself. “‘Dust Bowl’ was primarily for fans that have followed me for a while. ‘The Coincidentalist’ is for the friends of the fans.” Howe told Under The Radar. While Nightlife magazine reported that; “Without warning, the Giant Sand frontman and polymorphous countryman dropped this compilation of house recordings via Bandcamp… At a time when so much harmless, soulless folk resonates, Howe Gelb is a mandatory point of reference for any fan of the genre.”

Well known as the Deep’a half of Deep’a & Biri, and a huge influential source of energy and innovation in Tel Aviv’s house and techno community, Yaron Amor goes solo for the very first time with an incredibly personal project. Introducing Zeena…
“The decision about the solo project was made during a visit to Morocco, in the main city square of Marrakesh I came across an improvised jam of 20 drummers from all over the country, the crazy rhythms they played together spontaneously amazed me and made me realize that the perfect beat I've been looking for, for so many years, was under my nose. In Arabic and Moroccan music that was constantly played in the house where I grew up…”
Home is where the soul is… Zeena translates to beauty in Moroccan and this label exists wholly to celebrate and push cutting edge Arab electronic music. It starts here with Yaron’s first solo EP. The result of an inspired creative series of recordings with drummers and musicians from Israel, Algiers, Morocco, and Berlin, across three tracks we’re taken on a beautiful excursion of emotions, tension and introspective places.
“I tried to merge together influences from the world of techno which I have been active in for almost 20 years along with the rhythms of Arabic music while paying respect to each of the genres.”
From the tension and powerful emotion of ‘The Pain Body’ (a mesmerising kick-less tableaux that would work perfectly for an intro or mid-set game-changer) to the powerful synth-laced Detroitian drive and thump of title track ‘Zeena’ via the wild rolling toms of ‘Omipresence’, this is Yaron Amor as we’ve never heard him before… Raw, honest, direct and totally at home. The middle east has played a huge role in so many inspirations, influences and sample sources since the very start of electronic music. Now its time to bring that to the fore and celebrate it on a whole new level. Zeena is that level. Stay tuned…

NNAMDÏ has never been able to stay in one place. The Chicago
multi-instrumentalist and songwriter set a blistering pace in 2020
with his critically acclaimed genre-fusing LP, ‘Brat’, a punk EP,
‘Black Plight’, and ‘Krazy Karl’, a full-length tribute to Looney
Tunes composer Carl Stalling. Add in his role as co-owner of label
Sooper Records, as well as recent tours with Wilco, SleaterKinney and black midi, and it’s an overwhelming schedule.
 However, his latest album, ‘Please Have A Seat’, is the result of a
much needed pause. “I realized I never take time to just sit and
take in where I’m at,” says NNAMDÏ. “It’s just nice to not be on
‘Go, Go, Go!’ mode, and re-evaluate where I wanted to go
musically.” This period of reflection allowed him to take stock of his
life and his relationships. “I wanted to be present,” he says. “Each
song came from a moment of clarity.” ‘Please Have A Seat’ serves
as an invitation to listen. It’s a request to sit down, be present, and
take in a moment. With this quiet introspection, NNAMDÏ found
inspiration in silence and nuance.
 While making the record, he decided to stretch the limits of his pop
songwriting: every track had to be hummable. Though he’s written
earworms throughout his career from playing in bands in
Chicago’s DIY community or releasing goofy raps as Nnamdi’s
Sooper Dooper Secret Side Project, here, his shapeshifting hooks
are undeniable. Each of the album’s fourteen songs, which
NNAMDÏ wrote, produced, and performed entirely himself, are
relentlessly re-playable, careening into unexpected and
disorienting places. With NNAMDÏ’s singular vision, ‘Please Have
A Seat’ is yet another leap from Chicago’s hardest working
musician. By taking a minute to sit down and catch his breath, he
re-emerged with the most ambitious, accessible, and nuanced
work of his career.
 Coloured vinyl LP format pressed on Walnut Brown vinyl.

TNT is the third full length studio album released by Tortoise in 1998 1998 : Tortoise"s third studio album TNT is released. In and out of print over the past decade we are happy to finally give everyone what they have been asking for - TNT on vinyl again! Pressed on high quality virgin vinyl, the two LPs are packaged in a deluxe old-style tip?on gatefold jacket fully replicating the original artwork and includes a download coupon for the first time! Tortoise"s third full-length release, TNT, was written and recorded during a 10-month interval in 1997. This longer-than-usual writing/production schedule was purposefully undertaken by the group in the hopes of crafting an expansive, diverse, yet thematically coherent offering. TNT builds upon the spare, instrumental framework of the group"s first, self-titled album, and the extended edits, melodic adventures, and klangfarben of the subsequent full-length release, Millions Now Living Will Never Die. Further to this, Tortoise"s interest in the possibilities offered by the remixing of tracks was realized within the actual production of TNT; individual elements, sections, or sometimes whole compositions mutate within the album"s shifting framework. These techniques were suitably realized thanks in part to the use of non-linear digital recording and editing methods, the first example of such work for the group

RAW SPACE" is rooted in chaos and chance, sensuality and intensity - it's an album that's able to sound alarmingly freeform and tightly controlled simultaneously. Already established as a genre-disrupting DJ, and even dubbed "demon of the Nile" by Ugandan politicians after an exuberant performance at Nyege Nyege festival in September 2019, Kampala-based sonic hypnotist Authentically Plastic brings a digger's literacy, an activist's intent, and an artist's playfulness to their jagged debut album. As both a DJ and a producer, Authentically Plastic is drawn to the idea of chance as a creative tool - to push against the idea of the all-knowing genius, and approach artistry instead as a facilitator, unraveling parallel mismatched rhythmic events. Their musical process is to start with chaos, then attempt to mold those fleshy structures into polyrhythmic mutations, pulling influence from East Africa's innovative musical landscape and augmenting it with an exploratory sense of surrealism. On opening track 'Aesthetic Terrorism', rough-hewn industrial rhythms chug mechanically against course, dissonant synth blasts and acidic arpeggios. There's a faint sparkle of Detroit's chrome-plated Afro-futurism, but bathed in neon light, reflecting Africa's contemporary electronic revolution. Authentically Plastic's productions have a sense of thematic coherence, but their myriad influences are torched into cinders, leaving inverse impressions and ghost rhythms: the tuned overdriven clatter of 'Anti-Fun' echoes Ugandan kadodi modes, yet simultaneously mirrors the rugged out-zone grit of Container or Speaker Music; standout centerpiece 'Buul Okyelo' meanwhile is as rhythmically cross-eyed as Slikback or Nazar, but juxtaposes kinetic dancefloor thumps with chaotic microtonal ritual cycles. Writing "RAW SPACE", Authentically Plastic found themselves fascinated by sonic flatness. They realized that in Western art, there's an obsession with depth of field that carries into music, robbing it of intensity. The album is an example of the power that can be reclaimed when you let go of depth, letting sounds rub together carnally and spawn something fresh and unexpected.

When IANNIS XENAKIS (1922-2001), who had fought against the occupation as part of the communist Resistance, moved to Paris in 1947 it was the start of a highly creative and impressive career. XENAKIS not only studied composition with MESSIAEN and became one of the most innovative composers of the 20thcentury, he also worked as assistant to LE CORBUSIER and realized a.o. the Philips Pavilion for the World Exhibition in Brussels 1958. His compositions often are based on mathematical principles (in 1966 he founded the CEMAMu - Centre d'Etudes de Mathematique et Automatique Musicales), which give his music an unprecedented aesthetic and "shocking otherness" (The Guardian). The most famous works of XENAKIS, who won the Polar Music Prize (considered the unofficial Nobel Prize for music) in 1999, are his compositions for orchestra Metastasis, Pithoprakta and Terretektorh (where the 88 musicians are spread within the audience) and the electroacoustic compositions Persepolis (to be re-released later on as part of the PERIHEL series), Concret PH, Bohor and La Legende d'Eer where XENAKIS integrated his stochastic synthesis sounds for the first time. As legendary as this piece itself is the impenetrable thicket of versions and stories around La Legende d'Eer - it exists in different releases, wrong sample rates, digitized backwards ..., this now is a new version, using the 8-track-version that XENAKIS himself presented at Darmstädter Ferienkurse in august 1978. As the automatic spatialization is lost, this became the only original version of this composition and is presented here (mixed down to stereo by MARTIN WURMNEST who tried to preserve the spatial movements as perceptible as possible - mastered by RASHAD BECKER at D&M) for the very first time. La Legende d'Eer not only became a milestone of electroacoustic music but is also an important reference for noise and industrial musicians up to the present day!

After "La Légende d'Eer" in 2016, the PERIHEL series presents one of the milestones of electroacoustic music: IANNIS XENAKIS' mindblowing 54-minutes oeuvre "Persepolis", mixed from the original 8 track tapes by MARTIN WURMNEST and mastered / cut by RASHAD BECKER.

"Persepolis" is the longest electroacoustic composition by IANNIS XENAKIS (1922-2001) who ranks among the most influential 20th century avantgarde composers. Commissioned by the Persian Shah, the piece was part of a multimedia performance - XENAKIS' so-called "polytopes" - which premiered in 1971 in Shiraz-Persepolis (Iran) as a performance including light-tracks, laser beams, groups of children walking around with torches and 59 loudspeakers to project the music in an open-air situation. XENAKIS had realized "Persepolis" on 8-track analogue tape in the Studio Acusti in Paris and released a stereo reduction on vinyl in the famous Philips series "Prospective 21e Siècle" in 1972, adding the new subtitle "We bear the light of the earth", his most hymnal title ever.
Out of print for decades now, the LP became - especially the Japanese edition from 1974 - one of the most expensive collector's item of electroacoustic music. There were some later CD versions with different durations - too long due to a wrong sample rate, others shortened by 3 minutes due to other reasons. The PERIHEL series now presents a new version: mixed from the original (!) master 8 track tapes by longtime zeitkratzer sound engineer MARTIN WURMNEST and mastered by RASHAD BECKER at D&M, Berlin - the same experts who had already taken care of the 2016 KARLRECORDS release of "La Légende d'Eer", another milestone composition among the works of the Greek-French avant-garde composer.

The Light at the End of the Line is Ian’s first album of new material in 15 years, and is also her last solo studio recording – a “swan song,” she notes. The Light at the End of the Line bookends a kaleidoscopic catalog that began with her 1967 self-titled debut at age 15. The songs are intimate portraits of getting older but wiser (“I’m Still Standing”), of knowing when to stand up and not take any more shit (“Resist”), of celebrating life’s fleeting beauty (“Swannanoa”), of exalting in your true identity (“Perfect Little Girl”), of paying homage to a lifelong hero and her demons (“Nina,” as in Simone). The Light at the End of the Line feels like a victory lap for an artist who has nothing to lose and nothing left to prove. You hear that in the risks Ian took in both her lyrics and the inspired production choices. “I love this album,” Ian says. “There is an element of, ‘This is the absolute best I can do over the span of 58 years as a writer. This is what I’ve learned.’ And I realized that this album has an arc, and I’ve never really done anything like that before.”

The Older I Get, the Funnier I Was, which follows Thomas’ brilliant 2020 HBO special The Golden One and his Can't Believe You're Happy Here EP released earlier this year, surveys a range of emotion and offers a broad sonic palette, moving between pop punk, electro, and the obvious influence of the singer-songwriters he grew up listening to in early childhood. It conjures the ennui of Bright Eyes alongside the barefaced storytelling of John Prine, the overstuffed lists of Fred Thomas with the lackadaisical humor of Colleen Green, among many others.

Thomas attributes the dexterity of the record to Duterte, who recorded and engineered most of it in addition to serving up plenty of encouragement when Thomas got down on the process. “As a comic, I used to test out new songs during sets to see if the funny bits were hitting, but since I wrote this in isolation I ended up writing lyrics and worrying less about making jokes,” Thomas says. That said, the album’s plenty funny. Stand-out and lead single “Rigamarole” opens with a Thomas-voiced infomercial that recalls his oft-cited lookalike Jim Carrey as the Grinch, before launching into a buoyant pop song about being depressed.

Whitmer Thomas will admit that when he traveled home to small town Gulf Shores, Alabama to record his HBO stand-up special, The Golden One, he expected to be greeted as a returning hero, a conquering king, or at minimum, a guy with a moderately successful career as an entertainer in Los Angeles. “I expected a big welcome home, open arms, but when I went back I realized: nobody fucking knows me. Nobody remembers me,” Thomas says. “In the years I’d been performing that show, I’d been romanticizing my childhood in this mythologized place, but the visit made me see that I’m not really from there anymore.”

The sense of alienation compounded when Thomas recognized how few people in town remembered his mom, to whom The Golden One is dedicated and largely about. Thomas grew up watching her perform with her twin sister at the legendary Flora-Bama Lounge, where he set the special, and still counts her as one of his musical influences. His new album, The Older I Get, the Funnier I Was, isn’t overtly about his mom, her presence is deeply felt throughout. While in Gulf Shores, Thomas discovered dozens of her old recordings, all of which had been wrecked by Katrina, but upon returning to LA, Thomas paid “a fancy place in Hollywood” to fix the tapes and hired Melina Duterte (Jay Som, Bachelor, Routine) to mix them. The two struck up a collaborative friendship, and Thomas had the sound of his mom’s voice back. “I was listening to songs she recorded when she was about my age, just these heartfelt, sweet Americana songs,” he says. “I decided then that I wanted to lose the Ian Curtis voice I always sing with; I wanted to do what came naturally, because my mom always sounded like herself, even when she was singing some cheesy reggae song about, like, Jamaica.”

Thus he went into The Older I Get, the Funnier I Was knowing it was time to retire his darkwave persona, and leaning into his natural, chirpier voice, which he says sounds “like a 12-year-old’s.” It makes sense: much of the album chronicles what Thomas calls “being a kid and feeling like you have no control and overcompensating by being annoying.” “So much of the album is about witnessing drug and alcohol addiction as a kid and seeing what it does to people, but also realizing that there's nothing you can do about it,” Thomas says. It’s familiar territory (see: “Partied to Death”) but the methodology is different this time around; true to its title, The Older I Get, the Funnier I Was isn’t always looking for laughs. Thomas might’ve left his hometown behind, but his kid self is still tagging along, a Peter Pan shadow he can’t untether himself from. The first line he sings on The Older I Get, the Funnier I Was is: “There should be a room at every party where you can just sit and watch a movie.” Find a 12-year-old who wouldn’t say the same.

'Razen is the collective consciousness of core members Brecht Ameel and Kim Delcour, who since 2010 have realized themselves through virtuoistic and highly expressive improvisations with lesser-heard instruments. Experimenting with repetition of tones through controlled breathing and phrasing, Razen arrive at a synesthetic playground of auditory textures and colorful imagery.

The ensemble is carefully orchestrated for every occasion with the intent and desire to escape to environments unbeknownst to them, taking shelter in the fleeting ego-dissolving moments that arise, whether divine or disturbing. While the formula of instrumentation and like-minded peers may appear mundane on paper, it’s Brecht and Kim’s outlook and imagination beyond musical references that’s the immeasurable catalyst to their peculiar pursuits. Conversations about paintings, books, or films ultimately manifest themselves into live performances or album recordings - with the philosophy of embracing playfulness and exploration through the lens of a child’s eye.

Only six collaborators have been invited to their inner circle to date. This is mainly attributed to the rarity of finding spiritual counterparts that are seeking freedom outside the confines of written musical scores. Trading notes and rhythms for strokes and color, the band embodies emotive and meditative drones that demand a deep listening state. Joined by Will Guthrie and Paul Garriau, Razen venture into their vision of Arcadia through Regression, proudly presented by Marionette. On this album, Brecht Ameel turns to his trusty prepared harmonium and celesta, while Kim Delcour controls air and breath on various wind and reed instruments. Featuring Will Guthrie on tuned and melodic percussion (timpani, glockenspiel, marimba, vibraphone), the recordings have a distinct flow and fluid movement when compared to some of Razen’s previous works where rhythm is taking a backseat. Hurdy-gurdy specialist, Paul Garriau, plays accompanying melodies and drones on Moon, Aether and Nebula.

The album's earthly elements deal with survival, timelessness, and simplicity; such as the life affirming rewards of finding refuge and the wonders of observing the interstellar. The unearthly elements pitch this narrative into the realm of mythology and superstition, in the hopes of trying to understand our primeval universe and thrive in the unknown. Regression also addresses Razen’s fascination with inhospitable places and how to adapt to the sorrows that come with this sort of brutalism. The resulting destination is a mind and time bending zone - one that can be reached by riding sound waves that transcend the past, future, and present.'

Written and recorded in the midst of a dizzying stretch in which nearly everything about the way the band lived and worked was turned on its head, Motel Radio's "The Garden" is indeed a work of relentless hope. The songs are profoundly vulnerable here, and the performances are warm and breezy, calling to mind everything from Andy Shauf and Cass McCombs to Beck and Tame Impala with an easygoing demeanor that belies the deep emotional work underpinning them. Motel Radio generated early buzz in their adopted hometown of New Orleans on the strength of their 2015 debut EP, Days & Nights, which helped land them dates with the likes of Kurt Vile and Drive-By Truckers in addition to festival slots at Firefly, Jazz Fest, and more. The band followed it up with the similarly well-received Desert Surf Films in 2016 and their first full-length, Siesta Del Sol, in 2019, touring the country on a seemingly endless loop as they built up their devoted following one night at a time. Since then, the band had set a goal of becoming more self-sufficient and learning to record on their own, and when it came time to cut The Garden, they dove in headfirst, cutting half the collection in an old fishing camp south of New Orleans with the help of engineer Ross Farbe (Video Age, Esther Rose) and the other half fully remotely while engineering themselves. "There was this real creative freedom that came with working remotely and learning how to run the sessions on our own," explains co-lead singer Ian Wellman. "Synths, samples, beats, plug-ins; suddenly these whole new worlds of sound were at our fingertips and the possibilities were limitless." That creative liberation is easy to hear on The Garden, which opens with the mesmerizing "Wise." Like much of the album, it's a gentle meditation on finding joy and fulfillment, on spreading love and positivity. "I've gotta open my eyes," co-lead singer Winston Triolo sings over dreamy guitars and a hypnotic digital drum loop. "I only get one life, well now how can I live it wise?" The airy "Outta Sight" celebrates the simple pleasures of letting go and being present, while the washed-out "Sweet Daze" revels in the warmth of human connection, and propulsive "Happiness Pie" looks for ways to share the comfort and contentment that comes with self-acceptance. On The Garden, they've realized there's no sweeter garden than the one you grow yourself.