Here is the debut, self-titled album from a.s.o., singer/songwriter Alia Seror-O'Neill, and producer Lewie Day. 'a.s.o.' is a thematic consolidation of the previous three singles and an impressive artistic progression. Day and Seror-O'Neill show they've mastered the format of the radio-friendly pop song and found how to subvert it completely. Across eleven songs, they have built a rich and compelling body of work.
We know where we are now, emotionally complex, trip-hop torch songs for club freaks. But the palette has broadened to encompass ethereal dream pop à la Cocteau Twins, slow- burning AOR-soul, and dubwise stylings. As a result, 'a.s.o.' is a satisfyingly coherent listen but never a musical monoculture. Variously there are nods toward Julee Cruise, Fleetwood Mac, and the uneasy listening of Portishead. It's an album that wears its influences lightly, is never weighed down by them, and always sure of its own identity.
It's anchored by Alia's unique voice. Her words speak of restraint and release, taking us from the elegiac to the euphoric. This elegantly crafted, perfect pop music sounds like it has had enough of your shit. And Day's music is the perfect foil; deep, slightly menacing, restrained, and powerful. The album has a cinematic texture, as with David Lynch; the seemingly familiar becomes uncanny and strange the closer we look. a.s.o. take our emotions for a joyride before leaving us floating in space.
'a.s.o.' is a journey; by its end, we all are changed
Trentemøller's new untitled album explodes with the force of a supernova before dissolving into swooning vocals. Across 10 songs, maximalist guitar-noise blowouts collide with some of the most bruising shoegaze you'll hear this year. "The noisy got noisier, the dreamy got dreamier," says Trentemøller. "I was ruthless this time."
Opener "Swerve", recorded with Vienna-based singer Sakura, crashes into searing walls of sound - a stark contrast to 2024's haunting Dreamweaver. The album's radically intuitive energy persists on the anthemic "Visceral" and the industrial fuzz of "Your Love Walks Alone", featuring Sune Rose Wagner of the Raveonettes. "Coyote" deconstructs synths into feedback and brutal guitars, while "To Mist" and "Halved" (featuring Midwife) offer nocturnal respite - nugaze ambience reduced to fractals of fragile beauty. For the first time in Trentemøller's history, vocals appear on every track - contributors include Sakura, German-British singer Anika, Midwife, Tan Cologne, Sune Rose Wagner, Jonas Bjerre of Mew, and Danish singer-songwriter Emma Acs, among others. "I knew early on exactly who I wanted. We never met in the studio; everything was exchanged remotely. I'm pretty shy, and it gave the vocalists the privacy to really open up," he explains. Songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and mixer - Trentemøller did it all himself. "I don't follow trends or think in algorithms." The reward: playing the album live, start to finish, for the very first time on the upcoming live tour.
Trentemøller's new untitled album explodes with the force of a supernova before dissolving into swooning vocals. Across 10 songs, maximalist guitar-noise blowouts collide with some of the most bruising shoegaze you'll hear this year. "The noisy got noisier, the dreamy got dreamier," says Trentemøller. "I was ruthless this time."
Opener "Swerve", recorded with Vienna-based singer Sakura, crashes into searing walls of sound - a stark contrast to 2024's haunting Dreamweaver. The album's radically intuitive energy persists on the anthemic "Visceral" and the industrial fuzz of "Your Love Walks Alone", featuring Sune Rose Wagner of the Raveonettes. "Coyote" deconstructs synths into feedback and brutal guitars, while "To Mist" and "Halved" (featuring Midwife) offer nocturnal respite - nugaze ambience reduced to fractals of fragile beauty. For the first time in Trentemøller's history, vocals appear on every track - contributors include Sakura, German-British singer Anika, Midwife, Tan Cologne, Sune Rose Wagner, Jonas Bjerre of Mew, and Danish singer-songwriter Emma Acs, among others. "I knew early on exactly who I wanted. We never met in the studio; everything was exchanged remotely. I'm pretty shy, and it gave the vocalists the privacy to really open up," he explains. Songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and mixer - Trentemøller did it all himself. "I don't follow trends or think in algorithms." The reward: playing the album live, start to finish, for the very first time on the upcoming live tour.
After a stellar debut on the No Guestlist label Blay steps back into the light with an ambitious new record Wave Formations. This record finds Blay pushing further into the space where afro-centric jazz and deep house collide, weaving together synth heavy production with organic rhythms and live instrumentation.
From its opening moments its title track ‘Wave Formations’ holds you captive. From field recordings blurring into a dreamy atmosphere, taking you on a 9-minute spiritual journey across the cosmos.
Its counterpart ‘Rhythm Of Love’ is equally dreamy; A reverb-soaked vocal track with live-band-like energy shape-shifts around its steady and forward pushing rhythm before unwinding into a meandering, melancholic piano outro.
On the flipside, ‘New Teacher’ is an invitation to dance — call-and-response synth phrases on top of driving percussive polyrhythms. What starts off simple and stripped down transforms into a full-on celebration; a boisterous rush of sonic afrofuturism that tries to reach the sun.
Keeping the joyful spirit high, the record closes off with the festive and playful ‘Faith In Us’. This highlife and afro funk inspired record reimagines band members feeding off of one another, switching from recognisable motifs to energetic solos pushing each other further into the light.
Originally released in 2005 on Playhouse, isolée's second album we are monster received widespread critical acclaim and was featured in numerous year-end lists, including Pitchfork's Best Albums of 2005, where it is praised for breathing "so carefree, years from now crits might accuse it of sounding timeless-- maybe even of being so." (Nick Sylvester in his Pitchfork review in 2005)
While closely associated with the minimal and microhouse movement of the mid-2000s, the sound on we are monster resists categorization; its musical vocabulary is too expansive to be confined to a single genre. Tracks such as schrapnell, mädchen mit hase, my hi-matic and enrico avoid many of the production conventions that define its period, allowing the record to retain a freshness that continues to resonate with listeners and music producers alike.
We are monster proved to be significant in more ways than one. Alongside its musical legacy, the album introduced the first record sleeve by Stefan Marx, whose artwork would become a familiar presence across countless releases on influential labels like Smallville or Mule Musiq, but also fashion labels like Comme des Garçons and many art galleries in the years that followed.
This anniversary edition revisits an album whose influence extends well beyond its original context!
Originally released in 2005 on Playhouse, isolée's second album we are monster received widespread critical acclaim and was featured in numerous year-end lists, including Pitchfork's Best Albums of 2005, where it is praised for breathing "so carefree, years from now crits might accuse it of sounding timeless-- maybe even of being so." (Nick Sylvester in his Pitchfork review in 2005)
While closely associated with the minimal and microhouse movement of the mid-2000s, the sound on we are monster resists categorization; its musical vocabulary is too expansive to be confined to a single genre. Tracks such as schrapnell, mädchen mit hase, my hi-matic and enrico avoid many of the production conventions that define its period, allowing the record to retain a freshness that continues to resonate with listeners and music producers alike.
We are monster proved to be significant in more ways than one. Alongside its musical legacy, the album introduced the first record sleeve by Stefan Marx, whose artwork would become a familiar presence across countless releases on influential labels like Smallville or Mule Musiq, but also fashion labels like Comme des Garçons and many art galleries in the years that followed.
This anniversary edition revisits an album whose influence extends well beyond its original context!
Following her acclaimed 2024 debut Rocky Top Ballads, Fine expands her world on Jazz Dreams, arriving in a fluid, surreal, and expansive place. Over the past sixteen months, the album has gradually taken shape in public. Early versions of songs appeared in live performances, while demos and alternate iterations surfaced through Fine's NTS residency, alongside the release of the singles "I Could," "Run," "Moment," and "Portal."
Self-produced, recorded and mixed by Fine, the album’s thirteen songs unfold as a collage of scenes, stories, and musical ideas stitched together with a logic reminiscent of a dream. At the center of it all is melody. Fine's intricate vocal melodies act as the connective tissue between the album's shifting scenes and moods, guiding the listener through its emotional terrain.
Throughout Jazz Dreams, Fine continues to make the mysterious feel intimate and human. The songs do not search for answers or destinations. They embrace intuition, allowing memory, longing, possibility, and imagination to stir together into something new. Like a jazz improvisation, the album follows instinct wherever it leads, transforming emotional fragments into a real dream.
Following her acclaimed 2024 debut Rocky Top Ballads, Fine expands her world on Jazz Dreams, arriving in a fluid, surreal, and expansive place. Over the past sixteen months, the album has gradually taken shape in public. Early versions of songs appeared in live performances, while demos and alternate iterations surfaced through Fine's NTS residency, alongside the release of the singles "I Could," "Run," "Moment," and "Portal."
Self-produced, recorded and mixed by Fine, the album’s thirteen songs unfold as a collage of scenes, stories, and musical ideas stitched together with a logic reminiscent of a dream. At the center of it all is melody. Fine's intricate vocal melodies act as the connective tissue between the album's shifting scenes and moods, guiding the listener through its emotional terrain.
Throughout Jazz Dreams, Fine continues to make the mysterious feel intimate and human. The songs do not search for answers or destinations. They embrace intuition, allowing memory, longing, possibility, and imagination to stir together into something new. Like a jazz improvisation, the album follows instinct wherever it leads, transforming emotional fragments into a real dream.
Mit ihrem Solodebut "No Human Tongue Can Tell" gelingt Radie Peat eine eindrucksvolle Auseinandersetzung mit der Essenz der Folk Music. Die Sangerin von Lankum zahlt zu den pragenden Stimmen der sogenannten "Irish Green Wave" und verbindet auf diesem Album ihre außergewohnliche Kontra-Alt-Stimme mit tiefem Respekt fur die irische Gesangstradition. Als Interpretin und Multiinstrumentalistin haucht sie uberlieferten Liedern neues Leben ein und macht sie fur die Gegenwart relevant. Die ausgewahlten Songs erzahlen von Liebe, Verrat, ungewollter Schwangerschaft, Gewalt, Verlust und Widerstandskraft. In Stucken wie "The Moon and Stars" oder "Willow Garden" ruckt Peat weibliche Perspektiven in den Mittelpunkt und verleiht historischen Erzahlungen neue emotionale Kraft. Ihre prazise Stimmfuhrung, vielschichtigen Harmonien und sparsam eingesetzten Arrangements schaffen einen Raum, in dem individuelle Erfahrungen zu universellen Geschichten werden. Zugleich versteht Peat Folk als generationsubergreifenden Speicher menschlicher Erinnerung. Die Lieder tragen Spuren zahlloser Leben in sich, und genau diese Verbindung macht sie zeitlos. Atmospharische Stucke wie "Luisne", das melancholische "Same Old Man" oder das historische "Dark Horse on the Wind" zeigen ihre Fahigkeit, Tradition, Geschichte und personliche Interpretation miteinander zu verweben. Ein weiterer Hohepunkt ist "Still I Love Him", das die Ambivalenz von Liebe und Leid beleuchtet und aus einer Geschichte emotionaler Abhangigkeit eine Erzahlung uber Starke und Selbstbestimmung macht. Auch "Bonnie Boy" und das abschließende Triptychon "Cailin Deas" kreisen um weibliche Autonomie, gesellschaftliche Erwartungen und den Wert personlicher Freiheit. So entsteht ein Album, das archaisch und zeitgenossisch zugleich wirkt. Mit großer Empathie, musikalischer Raffinesse und kunstlerischer Eigenstandigkeit macht Radie Peat die Stimmen vergangener Generationen horbar und schafft eine Sammlung von Liedern, die Trost, Erkenntnis und Verbundenheit vermitteln. "No Human Tongue Can Tell" ist damit weit mehr als eine Bewahrung von Tradition: Es ist deren lebendige Weiterentwicklung.
Mit ihrem Solodebut "No Human Tongue Can Tell" gelingt Radie Peat eine eindrucksvolle Auseinandersetzung mit der Essenz der Folk Music. Die Sangerin von Lankum zahlt zu den pragenden Stimmen der sogenannten "Irish Green Wave" und verbindet auf diesem Album ihre außergewohnliche Kontra-Alt-Stimme mit tiefem Respekt fur die irische Gesangstradition. Als Interpretin und Multiinstrumentalistin haucht sie uberlieferten Liedern neues Leben ein und macht sie fur die Gegenwart relevant. Die ausgewahlten Songs erzahlen von Liebe, Verrat, ungewollter Schwangerschaft, Gewalt, Verlust und Widerstandskraft. In Stucken wie "The Moon and Stars" oder "Willow Garden" ruckt Peat weibliche Perspektiven in den Mittelpunkt und verleiht historischen Erzahlungen neue emotionale Kraft. Ihre prazise Stimmfuhrung, vielschichtigen Harmonien und sparsam eingesetzten Arrangements schaffen einen Raum, in dem individuelle Erfahrungen zu universellen Geschichten werden. Zugleich versteht Peat Folk als generationsubergreifenden Speicher menschlicher Erinnerung. Die Lieder tragen Spuren zahlloser Leben in sich, und genau diese Verbindung macht sie zeitlos. Atmospharische Stucke wie "Luisne", das melancholische "Same Old Man" oder das historische "Dark Horse on the Wind" zeigen ihre Fahigkeit, Tradition, Geschichte und personliche Interpretation miteinander zu verweben. Ein weiterer Hohepunkt ist "Still I Love Him", das die Ambivalenz von Liebe und Leid beleuchtet und aus einer Geschichte emotionaler Abhangigkeit eine Erzahlung uber Starke und Selbstbestimmung macht. Auch "Bonnie Boy" und das abschließende Triptychon "Cailin Deas" kreisen um weibliche Autonomie, gesellschaftliche Erwartungen und den Wert personlicher Freiheit. So entsteht ein Album, das archaisch und zeitgenossisch zugleich wirkt. Mit großer Empathie, musikalischer Raffinesse und kunstlerischer Eigenstandigkeit macht Radie Peat die Stimmen vergangener Generationen horbar und schafft eine Sammlung von Liedern, die Trost, Erkenntnis und Verbundenheit vermitteln. "No Human Tongue Can Tell" ist damit weit mehr als eine Bewahrung von Tradition: Es ist deren lebendige Weiterentwicklung.
Nearly three decades after first forging one of underground hip-hop's most enduring creative partnerships, Aesop Rock and Blockhead reunite for Trouble Mountain, a new full-length meditation on escape, survival, and the strange terrain of everyday life. Inspired by the nostalgic promise of Poconos resort commercials that blanketed New York airwaves during their childhoods, the album imagines a fictional getaway where the search for reinvention proves just as disorienting as the reality left behind. Arriving as Aesop Rock's 13th studio album, Trouble Mountain finds his writing as inventive as ever—transforming family history, work, memory, and the absurd mechanics of modern life into vivid, deeply human reflections. Blockhead's production is equally vital, pairing the duo's unmistakable chemistry with lean, evolving soundscapes that feel both familiar and newly exploratory.
Together, they revisit the themes that have connected their work since Labor Days: labor, alienation, and the enduring hope that there's somewhere else we'd rather be. Rather than offering an escape, Trouble Mountain asks why we're always searching for one—delivering one of the duo's most imaginative and resonant collaborations to date.
Nearly three decades after first forging one of underground hip-hop's most enduring creative partnerships, Aesop Rock and Blockhead reunite for Trouble Mountain, a new full-length meditation on escape, survival, and the strange terrain of everyday life. Inspired by the nostalgic promise of Poconos resort commercials that blanketed New York airwaves during their childhoods, the album imagines a fictional getaway where the search for reinvention proves just as disorienting as the reality left behind. Arriving as Aesop Rock's 13th studio album, Trouble Mountain finds his writing as inventive as ever—transforming family history, work, memory, and the absurd mechanics of modern life into vivid, deeply human reflections. Blockhead's production is equally vital, pairing the duo's unmistakable chemistry with lean, evolving soundscapes that feel both familiar and newly exploratory.
Together, they revisit the themes that have connected their work since Labor Days: labor, alienation, and the enduring hope that there's somewhere else we'd rather be. Rather than offering an escape, Trouble Mountain asks why we're always searching for one—delivering one of the duo's most imaginative and resonant collaborations to date.
Chef’s Kiss Radio Vol. 1: Ibiza versammelt zehn handverlesene Tracks auf einer stilvollen 12"-Compilation von Spaghetti Moretti Records. Mit Beiträgen von Mia Moretti, Myd, Kapote & ALOT, Radio Slave, Heidi Lawden, Cesária Évora, Uffie und weiteren Künstler:innen verbindet die Sammlung House, elektronische Sounds und unverwechselbares Ibiza-Feeling.
Entstanden aus der Chef's Kiss Radio-Residency im Nocturna Ibiza, vereint das Album exklusive Originale und hochkarätige Remixe zu einem perfekten Soundtrack für endlose Sommertage und lange Nächte. Die limitierte Vinyl-Edition macht diese Veröffentlichung zugleich zu einem attraktiven Sammlerstück für DJs, Vinyl-Fans und Liebhaber moderner Clubmusik.
Mohammad Syfkhan is back with his second album for Nyahh Records. This collection of new recordings marks a hug milestone in Mohammad’s career as it’s the first album that features all original compositions. And with a full band! We had the great help of Syrian Cellist and composer Naseem Alatrash to help with the string arrangements. The resulting record is a beautiful journey into a timeless Middle Eastern and North African sound akin to the likes of Fairuz or Umm Kulthum with a fast Kurdish Dabke tempo.
I Love You Ireland is an incredibly personal album for Mohammad. The title alone, much like his debut ‘I Am Kurdish’ is as personal as it it’s political. To express such love for a place in music is saying, thank you for making me and family feel safe. Thank you for taking us in. A stand out track titled ‘Ah Yu Donia’ is Mohammad’s first real public moment of grieving for the loss of his son at the murderous hands of Isis. In this song he asks God why he was taken. Trying to figure the sense in the actions of fundamentalists. The strings sections are sad, but not morbid. Acting like a release or companion to the horrific reality of losing a child.
‘Al Huriya’ is Mohammad’s first attempt at using an Irish rhythm known as a Reel, as appose to his usual Middle Eastern rhythms. Again, this is a beautiful way for Mohammad to give thanks to all the musicians and supportive people his has met in Ireland since 2011.
WHO IS MOHAMMAD SYFKHAN
Mohammad Syfkhan is a Kurdish/Syrian Singer and Bouzouki player. He began
playing music in 1980 while he was in college studying nursing. When he got
his degree in 1983, Mohammad moved to the city of Raqqa, Syria where he
began working as a professional singer and started his own band, The Al-Rabie
Band which played concerts, parties, weddings and festivals all over Syria. The
Al-Rabie Band were a much sought-after group. Their live sets included Kurdish, Arabic, Turkish and some Western songs as well as Mohammad’s own original material.
Mohammad continued to play with his band while also working as a surgical
nurse until the war broke out in 2011. This unfortunately brought tragedy to
Mohammad’s family when one of his sons was killed by Isis thus threatening
the lives of the rest of his family. His family had no choice but to leave their
home and seek safety in Europe. Three of Mohammad’s sons were resettled in
Germany while Mohammad, his young daughter and wife were taken in by
Ireland. Mohammad has spoken at length of his confusion and despair with
fundamentalists and how their message is a far cry from the teachings of love
and understanding that he considers the true message of Islam.
Portugal-based percussionist Gabriel Ferrandini spent years honing his skills in various free jazz ensembles, where he demonstrated his absorption of the styles of pioneering rhythm liberators like Sunny Murray and Milford Graves while forging his own energetic and agile sound. During this time, Ferrandini performed with everyone from Evan Parker and Alexander von Schlippenbach to Thurston Moore and Dirty Beaches' Alex Zhang Hungtai. At some point, the percussionist grew restless and began taking a more compositional approach, using his drums as primary sources from which to produce spectral tones and timbres via electronic manipulation.
In Ferrandini's hands, cymbals become generative instruments with endless reverb tails and choir samples are distilled into vapor. With its subtle evocations of light and color and meticulous editing, Romance suggests an almost cinematic scale. The strings and grainy synthesizer of "Crying Game" lend an air of giallo dread to the deep sub-bass rumbles; "Afters Lisboa" processes cymbal crashes through a Leslie speaker to create a siren-like Doppler effect; "Fallen Angels," one of the few tracks to feature Ferrandini's mostly untreated percussion work, stacks layers of reverb effects of varying lengths (an old Autechre trick) to add friction and give the spatialized sounds a dissociative quality. Album highlight "Cova da Vaporwave" utilizes creative sidechaining, warbly VHS-like tones and drums amplified through a Fender Twin to gather apocalyptic momentum.
Romance is a formidable artistic statement, establishing Ferrandini as one of the most vital composers on the contemporary avant-garde music scene. He is influenced by Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo, whose passionate yet dissonant chromatic approach can be detected throughout the album's seven uncanny tracks.
Peach Discs sends their last record of 2026 to the pressing plant in the form of G-Zip's wigg(l)ed-out, tech'd-up, but very much tuned-in "The Mystic Dog" EP.
A new house-focused alias from Stephen Howe – who you may remember from his excellent "Mimesis" EP for Joe Delon's Welt Discos, or his abso-fucking-lutely everywhere remix of Oklou – the G-Zip sound sits in the centre of the Venn diagram between London's tech-house pump and the blissed/blessed relief of deep house.
Hats from early grime instrumentals, interviews in club smoking areas, compilation skit tracks, video essays and jazz interludes – "The Mystic Dog" EP is built from a library of samples that extend far beyond house, tracing a deeply personal line through Stephen's influences and inspirations both past and present. Meticulously sequenced synth lines sit atop tightly woven Digitakt grooves, all mangled together through FX boxes and the Mackie desk that sits at the heart of his Berlin studio.
The EP sets out its stall with "Juiced (Monomania Mix)." Written after Stephen's first visit to Open Ground and inspired by a standout set from Fumiya Tanaka, it pairs stomping, techy drums and phat bass with a restless collage of mono synth patches that donk, squiggle and gurgle throughout.
"Missing Track" leans into contrast as a staccato bassline rubs up against the tighter than tight percussion, before skyscraping synths enter the picture to respond to the rhythm section's call. Flipping the record puts us back into banger territory with "Talking About Drums", as the tuned percussion and heavier-than-heavy subs nail the track to the dancefloor. Until the halfway point that is, when post-dubstep-indebted synths briefly arc across the stereo field – a glistening glow-up amidst the locked-in groove.
Closer "Mystic Dog" showcases Stephen's knack for idiosyncratic melody, as a wonky modular sequence twists and turns across the track while smack-in-the-face drums offer a bashy counterpoint. A classic B2 track if ever there was one, and wicked way to round off the EP.
(Oh, and there's a cheeky alternative mix of "Juiced" as a digi bonus for the hip-house heads).
Dajusch brings his distinctive sound to Backspin Records with 'Oracle', a five-track EP that showcases his instinct for powerful grooves, deep low end and carefully selected synth work, rounded out by a remix from Dutch techno veteran Sterac. Another strong addition to Regal's Backspin Records, this EP balances Dajusch's musical sensibility with his feel for high impact club music, keeping the focus firmly on club functionality.
Opening with 'Boxer', Dajusch immediately strips things down to their essential elements. A buzzing deep bassline provides the foundation while a repeated vocal hook becomes the central motif, surrounded entirely by percussion including a punchy kick, heavy toms and crisp hats. 'Narrow' introduces a saw wave synth that functions simultaneously as bassline and lead, gradually building tension through repetition and a slowly opening filter before a droning pad leads into the return of the drums. Closing the A-side, 'Reeses Piece' is built around a wide gliding Reese bass moving across di?erent notes. A heavy breakbeat, clean claps and hats provide the framework while a high-pitched vocal brings a distinct 90s rave energy, with swinging toms adding movement to an already groovy production.
On the flip side, the title track 'Oracle' shifts the focus towards melody, with Detroit-influenced synth work taking centre stage. A classy melodic motive is complemented by heavily processed vocals transformed into euphoric, drone-like elements, adding another dimension without losing the track's directness. 'Strings' closes the original material with a hefty saturated kick while string synths carry the main theme. Drums straight out of a classic drumcomputer and warm chords build into a more expansive breakdown before returning to the groove. Closing the EP, Sterac's remix of 'Narrow' takes the original saw synth motive into a more hypnotic direction, playing with its pitch and arrangement while reducing the percussion and pushing an already deeper kick further into the mix, giving the synth work more space to breathe.
With 'Oracle', Dajusch delivers a focused statement rooted in classic Techno while remaining connected to a modern sound. Another strong addition to Regal's Backspin Records, this EP balances Dajusch's musical sensibility with his feel for high impact club music', reinforcing the label's dedication to forward-thinking techno with a clear respect for where techno came from.
Born in West Palm Beach, Florida, to a mother of Indian and Congolese heritage and a father of Slovak and Belgian descent, Siân grew up between Belgium and New York before finally letting her travelling wings come to rest in Paris. What could have become a story of fragmentation instead became a source of creative strength. Singer, songwriter, composer and photographer, Siân has always turned borders into bridges.
She first honed her voice in the jazz clubs of Paris and New York, performing alongside renowned artists such as Richard Bona, Jon Batiste and Mike Stern. Yet her path has always extended far beyond the stage. For nearly a decade, she led cultural initiatives with women and children living through exile, violence and poverty across India and Southern Africa, weaving together music, photography and artistic transmission as tools for dialogue and empowerment.
The true turning point came when she discovered the kamele ngoni, the West African harp whose ethereal sound seemed to echo something long buried within her. The instrument became her musical alter ego—the invisible thread binding together her many inheritances. Guided by Malian master Abou Diarra, Siân embarked on an inward journey towards her African roots. Yet this return to her origins was never an act of retreat into identity. Instead, it gave rise to a body of work that remains profoundly open to the world, where Africa enters into conversation with jazz, folk, soul, alternative pop and the rhythms of Brazil.
Along the way, she has crossed paths with remarkable artists including Rogê, Chico César, Fatoumata Diawara, Lokua Kanza, Flavia Coelho, Thomas de Pourquery and Philippe Baden Powell. On stage and in the studio, Siân continues to shape a musical universe that refuses labels. Like artists such as Björk, Joni Mitchell and Laura Mvula, she moves forward as an explorer, guided not by genre but by intuition.
Today, Siân stands as one of the most distinctive voices of the new Francophone music scene an artist capable of uniting musical sophistication with emotional power, introspection with collective celebration, depth with an irresistible urge to dance.
Animal — The New Album
With Animal, produced by British musician Tom Excell (Nubiyan Twist, Africa Express...), Siân delivers her most intimate and assured work to date. Every song feels like a shedding of skin, a quiet metamorphosis, exploring self-acceptance, femininity, the freedom to be oneself, cultural heritage, and the reconciliation of one's own imperfections.
From Stereotype, a fearless manifesto against the expectations imposed on women, to the title track Animal, an anthem celebrating the beauty of imperfection ("I've turned my cracks into a crown"), the album gives a voice to everyone who refuses to fit into predefined boxes. In Terre, je danse sur toi, featuring Fatoumata Diawara, Siân pays tribute to Mother Earth and to the roots that unite us all. Oh! Congo, recorded with Lokua Kanza, reconciles her cultural heritage with an ancestral homeland that feels both distant and intimately familiar. En équilibre, with Flavia Coelho, embraces the exhilaration of risk and the courage to leap, while Put a Mask and I Could Kill confront hidden wounds and the invisible violences that quietly shape who we become.
In ADé, Siân addresses Adenomyosis as though speaking to an unwanted housemate. "My body is your battlefield," she sings, giving voice to an intimate shadow lodged deep within herself. This bittersweet lullaby transforms a pain so often left unspoken into an act of profound tenderness towards oneself.
The album also holds a rare treasure: Reste tel(le), an unpublished text by Pierre Barouh, the founder of the Saravah label. Never before set to music or performed, this elusive poem of free love finds new life through Siân's voice, becoming a dialogue across time between two artists united by the same devotion to freedom, métissage and openness to the world.
Driven by Tom Excell's vibrant Afro-pop pulse, the spiritual breath of the kamele ngoni, organic arrangements and deeply personal songwriting, Animal is an album of liberation. It invites us to lay down our masks, embrace our contradictions and reconnect with the free, instinctive and powerful animal that lies dormant within us all. More than a collection of songs, it is a radiant manifesto for the richness of identity, the passing on of memory, and reconciliation with oneself.
Animal is not simply the title of an album, it is a declaration of independence. An invitation to live fully, unapologetically, and without instructions.
A citizen of the world, travelling freely between continents, languages and memories, Siân Pottok delivers with Animal her most personal, and perhaps her most universal work to date: an album that reminds us that our fragilities, our roots and our differences are, beyond doubt, our greatest strength.
— Christophe Tison
**BenArt Ensemble ft. Baptiste Herbin** unveil a distinctive debut album at the crossroads of jazz, world music and groove. Led by bassist and producer Ben Artuphel, this eight-piece ensemble brings together musicians from diverse backgrounds and with a wide range of influences: Baptiste Herbin (saxophones), Amina Mezaache (flute), Céline Bonacina (baritone saxophone), Ben Artuphel (bass), Antoine Banville (drums), Alexis Bajot-Nercessian (keyboards), Laurent Avenard-Kohler (guitar) and Nils Wekstein (percussion).
Born from a musical encounter in 2023, the band has developed a unique sound in which intricate bop-inspired writing meets 1970s funk, Afro and Creole rhythms, and the vibrant energy of samba. The album features 13 original compositions, the result of a deeply collaborative process and an exceptional musical chemistry between the eight musicians.
At the heart of the project, saxophonist **Baptiste Herbin** brings his virtuosic playing and extensive international experience. Nominated for the Victoires du Jazz in 2013 for his debut album *Brother Stoon*, he went on to receive the Django Reinhardt Prize and was named Musician of the Year by the Académie du Jazz in 2019. He has released four albums under his own name and has appeared on around fifty recordings alongside some of the leading figures in jazz.
With its finely crafted arrangements, rich melodies and irresistibly groove-driven rhythm section, **BenArt Ensemble ft. Baptiste Herbin** delivers a vibrant and generous take on jazz, where each musician's individual voice shines through while serving the collective. Balancing heritage and modernity, this album is an invitation to dance, dream and travel.
'Carnaval De Luz' is the exhilarating 16th studio album from U2, 12 melodically rich new songs from one of the most celebrated & enduring bands of all time. Acknowledged as one of the best live acts in the world, U2 has sales of over 175m & won numerous awards, incl. 22 Grammys. Set for release in the year Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton & Larry Mullen Jr. will mark 50 years together in U2, 'Carnaval De Luz' includes lead tracks 'Street of Dreams', 'Silencio' and the extraordinary 'Torn (ft. Dolly Parton)'.
Recorded Things reaches its 50th release with a new vinyl record by label owner Oliver Rosemann.
Rosemann works with tightly reduced structures, obsessive sequences and small, continuous mutations, balancing scientific precision with physical pressure. Tension develops through layering, subtraction and detail rather than obvious gestures, giving the tracks a focused, almost architectural sense of movement.
Terence Fixmer reworks the material through his own vocabulary of dark machine funk, EBM tension and controlled industrial pressure.
For catalogue number 50, the collaboration brings together two individual artistic languages with a shared sense of restraint, intensity and structural clarity.
Rather than looking back, the release marks the milestone with a clear statement of where Recorded Things stands now.
Returning to Discrepant after 2023's 'Atheitsaregods', Humboldt County, California's most mystical entity continues to reshape its own patented processes of lysergic invocations on 'Squall Lines'.
Conjuring a vast array of sound sources, both organic and electronic, from vocals, violins or flutes to synths and pedals, the duo of Brian Pyle and Merrick McKinlay conveys a carefully sequenced and ritualistic aural tapestry from ancient futures. The synth beam and out of reach field recordings at the beginning of 'Sin Idioma' unfolding a dirge-like procession of drums and bells, flowing into the cave-like ambience of 'Nightshade', populated by echoes of unidentified origin, bleeding seamlessly through a foggy half-light drone into the fractured melodies and creeping voices of the pummelling 'No Chance'.
The B side sequencing from 'Squall Line' to closer 'Totality', drifting from faraway war cries, dissonant strings and crumbling percussion through post- apocalyptic landscapes, hazy pads and murky atmospherics to a final glimmer of processed flutes. A revelation. End time visions for the unquiet spirit.
What makes a life well lived? Career, home, savings, family: these are the milestones that make adulthood legible as success. Friendship, meanwhile, is often treated as something that either endures or doesn’t, more a matter of luck than a relationship requiring its own devotion, maintenance, and care. When really, as the world becomes more isolated and artificial by the day, friendships may be the most important thing a person ever builds.
“A lot of times in life I feel like a late bloomer, like I'm still trying to get my shit together in a way that other people have already figured out,” says Chastity Belt drummer/vocalist Gretchen Grimm. “But then I reflect on my adulthood, and my top priority has largely been my friends, which I do not regret at all.” That priority feels like the guiding principle on the band’s sixth album, All My Friends. Not that they set out to make an album about friendship—during mixing the band's longtime collaborator and engineer, Samur Khouja, pointed out that a lot of the songs referenced the subject. Which makes a lot of sense.
Julia Shapiro (guitar/vocals), Lydia Lund (guitar/vocals), Hunter Truscott (bass/vocals), and Grimm have been making music together for 15 years. Friendship has sustained the Chastity Belt project as its members have grown alongside one another, both as people and as musicians. Across a resonant catalog, they’ve moved from the raucous wit of their early records toward the lush, introspective moods they’ve refined on each album since via trademark intertwining guitars, meticulous rhythms, and double exposure of melancholy and optimism.
All My Friends comprises songs recorded across multiple years, time zones, and studios, including Seahorse Sound in LA, Way Out in Woodinville, and a centuries-old house on the Greek island of Hydra. The oldest track dates back to around 2018; the newest were finished within the past year. These days, the band spans three cities (Los Angeles, Seattle, and Chicago); less writing/rehearsal time means songs are often worked out in the studio, relying on the spontaneity and instinct that comes from knowing one another so well. The result is rawer and less polished than their last couple of records, closer in spirit to the band’s roots.
Irish techno producer, Kerrie, returns to Tresor Records on the 24th of October 2025 with her second EP for the label. Entitled Echoes Of The Live Wire, this collection captures the beauty and essence of live performance; a moment in time never to be repeated.
This fixing of time is also given a different meaning as the EP explores the ways in which intense moments in our lives, both joyful and painful, are crystallised into memory, both beautiful and haunting, lingering long after they've passed.
Layered meanings are employed throughout as Kerrie explores this idea: Live Wire draws connections between circuit boards and the human nervous system, whilst also toying with multiple meanings of the word “live”.
Echoes Of channels classic Detroit techno influences, resonating with the distant hum of memories that refuse to fade, while Moment To Memory is a beatless, floating piece which slowly builds to an ecstatic crescendo.
Digital bonus tracks Recircuit and Reclaim add further depth to the core metaphor: the former a driving, minimal yet building techno work-out, and the latter a cathartic and emotionally open track that delivers intensity with vulnerability.
Echoes Of The Live Wire reflects on memory as a complex, dual-sided force where joy and pain coexist with equal weight. Her creative process becomes a form of meditation and emotional processing, using machines to process, reflect, and let go. The result is a body of work that loops back on itself, telling a story of fleeting moments and their lasting emotional imprints.
Sentimental Ultra marks DJ HEARTSTRING’s debut proper on Steel City Dance Discs, and their first album project, releasing November 13th 2026. Starting life as a mixtape before a happy accident or two took it down a different path, the 15-track album finds the pair chasing not just peak-time euphoria and what they can conjure in a club setting, but everything around it, too. The befores and the afters. The soft and the supercharged. What life felt like when they were young. Featuring collaborations with SWIM, Spriitzz, BAUGRUPPE90, Sam Gellaitry, Saidah, DMA’S, KennyHoopla, Monk, 3NDLES5, David Jackson and secret act, they fold formative years influences such as indie rock, rap, ambient and breakbeat into their sought-after sound, and balance them with contemporary-coded ideas.
This blend of worlds is at the crux of the album’s concept visually as well. Sentimental Ultra is an exploration blurring the lines of hard and soft, taking inspiration from subculture communities around football hooliganism and skateboarding. The cover is shot by iconic British photographer Ewen Spencer, renowned for his work around Skins, The Streets and more. The collaboration has seen DJ HEARTSTRING land features in Numero Berlin, Notion Mag and other cross-cultural editorial platforms ahead of the album announcement.
To date, the project has already received various milestones across international radio, including Arielle Free’s Big Whopper for third single ‘Another Year Alone’ and DJ HEARTSTRING landing a coveted BBC R1 Residency in November. Adding to this is the slew of digital looks and accolades for DJ HEARTSTRING’s set recordings including their closing set at Soenda Festival earlier this year which is on 115k views since being published in May 2026, their Melbourne Boiler Room published in 2025 with +1 million views and their Belfast Boiler Room published in 2023 with +1.1 million views.
Since DJ HEARTSTRING’s 2021 debut, when they rollicked through the club door with their Destiny of the Moment and Eternal Euphoria EPs, alongside a slew of self-released, pop-and-R&B-indebted edits, DJ HEARTSTRING have followed their hearts and won over legions more with an emotional dance music style that’s fast become synonymous with their name.
There’ve been big releases such as 2025’s You Are The Sun, I Am The Sky EP, and buzzy collaborations with fellow synapse-igniters like SWIM, Narciss, southstar and S.C.D.D.’s KETTAMA. The past few years have also seen remixes for Charli XCX and Sam Smith, Romy, Sugababes and Empire of the Sun, sets everywhere from Berghain to London’s 3000-capacity Roundhouse, their own Teenage Dream parties and a must-listen contribution to the BBC Radio 1’s Essential Mix series, which showcased just some of the sonic inspirations behind their signature, like Eurodance and trance, plus heaps of DJ HEARTSTRING material.
And now, Sentimental Ultra arrives off the back of DJ HEARTSTRING’s busiest summer to date with landmark festival plays at Awakenings in the Netherlands, Lost Village and Maiden Voyage in the UK, We Love Green in France, Lost Paradise in Belgium, Movement Festival in Detroit and Arc Festival in Chicago. Hot off the heels of their festival run, the Berlin duo show no signs of slowing down with a 3-date Australia tour at the end of September whereby they sold a cumulative 15,500 tickets across Melbourne, Sydney and Perth shows, all on presales. In addition to some pop-up in key markets around album release including Ireland, Scotland, Berlin and London, the Sentimental Ultra official tour also encompasses a European hard ticket run including Belfast’s Telegraph Building (2,000 cap), Brussels’ Braindance (2,000 cap), Paris Phantom (3,400) and DJ HEARTSTRING’s biggest London show to date - Brixton Academy (5,000) - an apt follow-up after selling out Magazine (4,000 cap) weeks in advance in February 2026.
There’s plenty still in store, and plenty of places to catch them throughout the rest of what’s set to be a landmark year. Shows from Miami to Manchester (for the sold-out KETTAMA presents Steel City Dance Discs WHP takeover) to Dublin’s District X, a hometown Teenage Dreams event and 2 colossal ADE headlines at Dockyard and Sugar Factory - with more plans bubbling behind the scenes. DJ HEARTSTRING season is well and truly upon us.
Roman Norfleet aus Portland (Cosmic Tones Research Trio, MerKaBa Brotherhood) und die Be Present Art Group setzen ihren unglaublichen Schaffensschub an spiritueller, befreiender Musik fort. Saxophon, Keyboard, Elektronik, eine kraftvolle Rhythmusgruppe und eindringlicher Gesang treiben Songs wie die erste Single ,Headed On To Freedom" voran - wirbelnde Klangreisen für Fans von Pharoah Sanders, dem Art Ensemble of Chicago und dem Sun Ra Arkestra. ,The Remembering" ist ein klangliches Trankopfer für diejenigen, die vor uns da waren. Ausgehend von der Geschichte der schwarzen Amerikaner, revolutionärem Denken und dem ungebrochenen Geist des Widerstands verwebt die Musik Anklänge an die Persönlichkeiten, Bewegungen und Ideen, die Generationen geprägt haben. Sie ehrt die Vergangenheit und trägt ihren Geist gleichzeitig in die Gegenwart.
Where other bands seem to be hellbent on pushing an energy of exhilaration, London’s premiere grief peddler’s SECRECY seem to be more interested in reminding us all what deep shit we are in. Their debut recorded outing captures the morbid and grandiose power of their successful string of London shows, refining the message to a promising and bewildering first release. Taking compositional cues from THE EXECUTE, SOUTHERN DEATH CULT, and THE CHAMELEONS, the room filling instrumentals carry a bleak and punishing prophecy of moral turmoil and hysteria, opting to drive the notion of post punk off a cliff through force of will alone. The sound is crisp and wide without giving up the austerity necessary to carry the prophetic sense of dire urgency in the vocals, driving and marching drums and bass lines carrying almost danceable guitar parts to climax. Soaring guitars over driving drums push the corpus to blistering movement, restrained by lyrics about fucking and dying, an Eros/Thanatos act delivered with a refreshing lack of irony or sarcasm. Lyrical influences from RIMBAUD and BAUDELAIRE abound, veering from the brink of poetry back down to primitive taunts and cries.
DJ, model, artist and selector Yuka Mizuhara steps forward with her standout 12-inch release 'Moon Dust' on Rush Hour. For her debut release, she joins forces with producers Benedek and Mickey de Grand IV (Psychic Mirrors), delivering a vibrant boogie and city pop-influenced transmission that bridges contemporary rhythm with classic, sun-drenched grooves.
Having spent formative years immersed in the underground music scene in Tokyo, with extended stays in Los Angeles and London, Mizuhara channels a rich blend of influences into her work. Known widely for her encyclopedic all-vinyl DJ sets, her residency on NTS Radio (Wave Flower), and high-profile collaborations with legends like Haruomi Hosono, Yukihiro Takahashi and Towa Tei, her musical output reflects a deep appreciation for groove, melody, and rhythm, carrying the torch of foundational Japanese techno-pop, experimental, and dance music forward.
On Moon Dust, Benedek returns fully to his signature West Coast boogie roots, laying down rolling, intricate synth basslines and melty chord progressions that form the heavy-grooving backbone of the record. Around this foundation, Mickey de Grand IV and Yuka Mizuhara write and weave extraordinarily catchy, endearing vocal melodies and hook-laden arrangements. Across its three distinct mixes, the track radiates Yuka's cute spirit—evoking a bubbly, high-spirited aesthetic reminiscent of classic 80’s RAH Band productions while blending sophisticated electronic arrangement with warm, organic dance floor vitality.
Fully stepping into her own as a recording artist following recent debut performances at major festivals like RDC and Rally, Yuka Mizuhara invites listeners into a romantic, synth-laden world built on pure groove and creative freedom.
For over three decades, Berlin-based DJ, producer, and curator Marcel Dettmann has remained a central force in electronic music, continuously pushing the boundaries of the craft. Deeply rooted in early influences ranging from post-punk and industrial to synth-pop, his dynamic DJ sets and expansive discography, including seminal releases on Ostgut Ton and Dekmantel, effortlessly weave together raw techno, Chicago house, electro, and avant-garde soundscapes.
Far beyond club booths and releases on his own imprints, MDR and Bad Manners, Dettmann’s multidisciplinary ethos has led him into artistic territories spanning gallery soundscapes, ballet compositions, and cinematic film scores. This relentless creative curiosity defines a career built at the intersection of dancefloor functionality, collaborative experimentation, and perpetual sonic evolution.
Dettmann introduced My Own Shadow last year, a project where music, visual art, and photography converged in two EPs, Approaching (2025) and Faultline (2026) prior to the release of the full album this coming Autumn. More than just a name, this project lets sound, image, and vision blend organically, reflecting his intuitive process of deconstruction, resonance, and emotional discovery.
Speaking about the project Marcel says “My Own Shadow wasn’t born from a big concept. I simply liked the idea of working under another name and started following it. Different things I was doing - music, photography, visual work - slowly began to connect.
It happened quite naturally. My Own Shadow is me - just seen from another perspective.” Neither an alter ego nor a departure, My Own Shadow: Album is an intimate reflection of the artist; a transient, ever-shifting form that dances with the light and subtly reshapes its contours to reveal new depths.
My Own Shadow: Album is built with textural minimalism through rhythm, tension and release, embarking on a path through the recollections and experience of the dancefloor. This space remains the ultimate proving ground where history, instinct, and transcendence collide, guiding Dettmann through his musical interests.
My Own Shadow - Album is driven by rhythm, texture, space and tension. Across tracks such as ‘Gravitational Scar’ and ‘Resolution Vector’, these elements are constantly reshaped, connecting Dettmann’s past with a sound that remains firmly in motion.
Dame-Music celebrates its 55th release with Second State Of Reality EP, a special reissue of two acclaimed Bloody Mary tracks, “Reality One (Acid Mix)” and “Reality Three (909 Mix)”, alongside a brand new remix by techno legend Chris Liebing, one of the genre’s most influential and enduring artists.
For the A-side, Bloody Mary invited Liebing to reinterpret “Reality One (Acid Mix)”. A long-time supporter of his work, she wanted to hear her track through his distinctive sonic approach. The result is a heavy, driving techno remix, pushing the original’s acid energy into darker and harder territory.
The B-side returns to Bloody Mary’s hardware roots, with crunchy TR-909 drums, crisp highs and mind-melting 303 sequences across two raw, hypnotic cuts.
A special reissue celebrating the 55th release on Dame-Music, bringing Bloody Mary’s acclaimed hardware productions back together with a fresh Chris Liebing interpretation.
This November, Brownswood Recordings will release Mek Do & Mend, the debut album from self-taught producer, multi-instrumentalist, composer and artist Wonky Logic. Although his name may not yet be familiar to everyone, Wonky Logic (AKA Dwayne Kilvington) has spent the past two decades quietly becoming one of the UK's most respected musical collaborators. His career has moved comfortably between London's jazz, electronic and contemporary music scenes, performing and recording with artists including Nala Sinephro, Yussef Dayes, Nightmares On Wax, Shabaka Hutchings and Emma-Jean Thackray. Alongside his work as a producer and composer, he's been musical director for projects with Eddie Chacon, John Carroll Kirby and I.G Culture's LCSM, scored the feature documentary Zandra With A Zed, contributed music to A24's The Smashing Machine, and continues to lead music workshops with young people, refugees and people experiencing incarceration.
Far more than a collection of compositions, Mek Do & Mend is a deeply personal reflection on the people, places and experiences that have shaped Kilvington throughout his life. It's the story of growing up on a Leeds council estate, where music became both a creative outlet and a way of understanding the world. Making music often meant working with whatever was available: a second-hand keyboard, a makeshift studio desk or ageing equipment that simply had to last a little longer. The title itself came from a conversation with his mother, capturing the resourcefulness that defined his upbringing and continued into the making of the album itself, which was written and produced to a tight deadline around touring, family life and Kilvington's work as a musician and educator.
Built from material spanning more than fifteen years, Mek Do & Mend brings together some of Wonky Logic's earliest compositions alongside brand new pieces written during the making of the record itself. Childhood ideas sit alongside music conceived only months before recording, creating an album that draws together a lifetime of writing rather than documenting a single moment. Running throughout are voice notes from family members, teachers, friends, mentors and collaborators—not simply as interludes, but as a reminder that no creative life is ever self-made. Rather than telling his own story outright, Kilvington invites listeners to discover him through the people who've shaped him: an aunt remembering him playing in church as a child, lifelong friends recalling early experiments making beats together, fellow musicians from different stages of his career and his mother describing him in her own words. Together they reveal the invisible network of relationships, philosophies, communities and experiences behind the music. "The album exists somewhere between being a biography and an autobiography," says Dwayne. "The biography is in the voice notes and how other people see me. The autobiography is in the music."
That same philosophy extends to the musicians who appear on the record. Every contributor has played a meaningful role in Wonky Logic's life beyond the studio. Long-time collaborator Luke Wynter, Steam Down drummer Benji Appiah, partner Vanessa Rani, Jonathan Enser, Joe Bristow, Brother Portrait and Nubiya Imani all feature not simply because of their musicianship, but because they form part of the album's story.
Across its fourteen tracks, Mek Do & Mend moves effortlessly between dynamic jazz arrangements, pulsating broken rhythms, delicate, twinkling piano passages, interstellar synth textures and elegant brass lines. Album opener and first single 'Strange Attractor' begins with a shimmering introduction before unfolding into an exhilarating surge of rhythm and momentum. Named after the mathematical concept of the same name, it serves as the conceptual point of origin for the album. Written when Kilvington was just seventeen, the composition reflects the idea that even the most unpredictable lives are guided by hidden patterns that often only become visible with time. Second single 'A Thousand Hands' features the unmistakable vocal tones of Brother Portrait, whose cerebral lyricism drifts over a low-slung, constantly shifting groove as woozy synth lines ebb and flow overhead. At its heart, the track celebrates the family, friends, mentors and collaborators whose often unseen influence shapes who we become, echoing the album's belief that every achievement is, in some way, a collective one. LP focus track 'BAME (Beyond All Marginalised Expectations)' is a lush, spiralling composition, brimming with both emotion and resolve. Reclaiming an acronym long imposed on racialised communities in the UK, the piece transforms it into a statement of possibility rather than limitation: a defiant rejection of stereotypes and a refusal to let identity be defined by other people's expectations.
The album itself only exists because other people believed in it. Isabel Gracefield made the RAK sessions possible, Rick David brought the record together with his characteristically thoughtful mix, and Gilles Peterson committed to releasing it on Brownswood before hearing any of the music. Away from the stage, Kilvington works with the charity Finding Rhythms, writing and producing original records with people experiencing incarceration, while also leading workshops with Arts Train and Dovetail Orchestra.
Recorded live in a single day in Studio One at RAK, Mek Do & Mend was mixed by Rick David through an analogue Cadac console before being mastered by Stuart Hawkes at Metropolis. The aim wasn't nostalgia or audiophile perfection, but to create a record people could return to throughout their lives, discovering something new with each listen.
As Dwayne puts it: "I don't want this body of work to be reduced to a jazz record. It's more like a novel about life told through music."
Following the critically acclaimed Fantômes… Futurs, praised by FIP, France Inter, Radio Nova, ARTE and International jazz press, double bassist and composer Kham Meslien returns with Vévés électriques, a deeply immersive second album where memory, landscape and improvisation merge into a singular sonic journey. Joined by Laurent Bardainne, Roger Raspail, Naïssam Jalal and David Neerman, Meslien expands the intimate language of his double bass with subtle loops and organic textures, weaving together echoes of Iceland, the Caribbean and imagined territories. Blending spiritual jazz, contemporary classical influences and ambient soundscapes, Vévés électriques is an invitation to drift beyond geography and into a profoundly personal exploration of emotion, identity and freedom.
Set upon an oil-smooth sea, an immense range of directions opens up before Kham Meslien for “Vévés Électriques”, his second album after “Fantômes… Futurs.”
With only his double bass and bow as vessel and sextant, a distant journey nevertheless begins to take shape. Vibrations and the striking of strings against wood quickly trace lines and winding paths across the surface of the water—so many routes to follow before leaving them behind, allowing the outward journey to become an inward voyage as well.
After an improvisation intended to shed light on the course ahead, isolated lands came into view: the shores of Iceland, the lands of the far north, places cut off from the rest of the world by vast expanses of water. Islands battered by a harsh climate that can only be endured by drawing warmth from deep within oneself.
Then the Caribbean arc appeared. The archipelago, a setting for joyful and unsettling experiences, takes Kham back to a childhood from which the passing years have carried him away. Rather than following the conventional channel of the music of these places, the West Indies emerge through memories whose colors are still vivid.
Through the morning mist, Roger Raspail’s percussion locks into the same frequencies of the groove. Double bass and struck skins then become companions on a road that intersects with Laurent Bardainne’s saxophone. Carrying a dreamlike message, David Neerman’s vibraphone also joins the narrative to write a few chapters of its own, while others are enchanted by the flute and voice of Naïssam Jalal, or struck by the metaphorical rhymes of rapper Rocé.
On the surface, through the themes along which the pieces navigate, landscapes slowly reveal themselves and change shape as the shore draws nearer or recedes. Straying from the marked course and allowing oneself to drift, breaking free from pure acoustic sound by adding loops first played live and then sampled, allows Kham to explore the depths. The depths of the ocean, as well as those of his soul. To enter a world of improvisation that reveals itself even as he explores it. Examined up close, feelings become shells to pick up and hold to one’s ear, so that they can be felt intensely until they take material form.
This sea, which had appeared peaceful, became the stage for a succession of stories and images, which then accumulated to give birth to a larger narrative.
Mercury Prize-shortlisted, MOBO Award-winning drummer, composer and producer Moses Boyd returns with his first album in six years. Since the release of his critically acclaimed album, Dark Matter, Boyd has continued to push at the boundaries of contemporary jazz. Songs For Sinners is a deeply personal body of work that explores the push and pull of faith as something profoundly human – a force capable of comforting, dividing, unsettling and restoring in equal measure. Across an ambitious, vocal-led collection that fuses gospel, jazz, soundsystem culture, Caribbean rhythms, 808s and soaring choir harmonies, Boyd expands the language of contemporary jazz into something entirely his own. It’s a record that draws from the church he grew up in, the London soundsystem culture that shaped him, and the freedom of improvisation, asking what sacred music can sound like when it’s no longer confined by convention.
Mercury Prize-shortlisted, MOBO Award-winning drummer, composer and producer Moses Boyd returns with his first album in six years. Since the release of his critically acclaimed album, Dark Matter, Boyd has continued to push at the boundaries of contemporary jazz. Songs For Sinners is a deeply personal body of work that explores the push and pull of faith as something profoundly human – a force capable of comforting, dividing, unsettling and restoring in equal measure. Across an ambitious, vocal-led collection that fuses gospel, jazz, soundsystem culture, Caribbean rhythms, 808s and soaring choir harmonies, Boyd expands the language of contemporary jazz into something entirely his own. It’s a record that draws from the church he grew up in, the London soundsystem culture that shaped him, and the freedom of improvisation, asking what sacred music can sound like when it’s no longer confined by convention.
Land of Talk is still here. That wasn’t always a guarantee. Over the multi-faceted twenty year history of their project, Lizzie Powell has drifted from and back to music, always interrogating their role as an artist. In the time since 2023’s Performances, they found themselves utterly worn down by the vicissitudes of the music industry and wracked with worry around their aging parents. Yet the music didn’t stop: Powell heard songs in traffic and in birds chirping, in their downstairs neighbor’s daily prayers and in the babble of children on the street. Melodies slowly cohered over time. “Life can become so unbearable, and music is where I go to metabolize it,” they explain. “I know the music was the only thing that was going to help me.” Soon Powell reemerged with the sixth Land of Talk album, LASTS.
LASTS is full of double meanings — both resilience and finality, acting as a noun and a verb. Though LASTS is haunted by crises including climate collapse, political upheaval, and genocide, the mangitude of global turmoil led Powell towards smaller, humane depictions of suffering and grief. As both their parents became ill, Powell reflected on the last time a person might walk, might talk to a loved one. Yet watching their parents near the other side of life’s arc also made Powell consider all they had survived across their own decades on this earth, their new songs channeling both gratitude and rage. LASTS became a phrase, honoring Land of Talk’s circuitous route and all Powell’s reckoned with through the years. “I think of this record as a love letter to life,” they say.
The end result is an album both lean and winding, allowing Powell’s words and melodies to take centerstage, uncrowded in visceral, shot-no-chaser arrangements. LASTS jumps right in with “Broken Tongue,” a wiry track built on thrumming electric guitar and ghostly synths as Powell rails against the lack of justice for victims of abuse. The trio’s interplay is readily evident in “Saffron” and “4:44,” two earworm songs that also allow themselves to unspool into extended instrumental codas. Early in the record, there are seething tracks like “Dogs” — “Just your basic instinct / Even dogs know better,” Powell growls in the chorus, before the song quiets into a plaintive plea of “Leave us alone now” — and later there are more vulnerable, wandering moments. In “Projections” and “Cedars,” Powell ventures deep into their head, inviting their co-conspirators and listeners alike to follow the songs wherever they meander.
Hailing straight from Quebec City, Canada, GET THE SHOT is a hardcore band formed in 2009. With their strong work ethic, they quickly established themselves as one of the flag bearers of the Quebec hardcore and metal scene.
Their powerful music incorporates elements of thrash, death metal, and hardcore, creating an intense and brutal sound that captivates fans of the genre. Inspired by iconic bands such as Hatebreed, Obituary, and Slayer, GET THE SHOT has developed a unique style of extreme music.
With an impressive discography including albums such as "Perdition" (2012), "No Peace In Hell" (2014), "Infinite Punishment" (2017), and their latest album "Merciless Destruction" (2022), nominated for a JUNO award, GET THE SHOT has built a solid reputation with impactful tracks and explosive live performances.
“CRUCIFIXION DEPICTION”, marks a shift in attitude and resolve for the band. While celebrating the addition of a new vocalist and the comeback of the original guitar player, the latest EP sees the band undergo a transformation into a new persona and exploring a more visceral sound, while sticking to its hardcore roots.
After more than 700 concerts on three continents, including some on the biggest international stages such as Wacken, Hellfest, FEQ and Resurrection Fest, the six members remain committed to the core values of authenticity, integrity, and equality at the heart of the hardcore movement, while addressing with disillusioned realism the flaws of an era defined by blind individualism.
Hailing straight from Quebec City, Canada, GET THE SHOT is a hardcore band formed in 2009. With their strong work ethic, they quickly established themselves as one of the flag bearers of the Quebec hardcore and metal scene.
Their powerful music incorporates elements of thrash, death metal, and hardcore, creating an intense and brutal sound that captivates fans of the genre. Inspired by iconic bands such as Hatebreed, Obituary, and Slayer, GET THE SHOT has developed a unique style of extreme music.
With an impressive discography including albums such as "Perdition" (2012), "No Peace In Hell" (2014), "Infinite Punishment" (2017), and their latest album "Merciless Destruction" (2022), nominated for a JUNO award, GET THE SHOT has built a solid reputation with impactful tracks and explosive live performances.
“CRUCIFIXION DEPICTION”, marks a shift in attitude and resolve for the band. While celebrating the addition of a new vocalist and the comeback of the original guitar player, the latest EP sees the band undergo a transformation into a new persona and exploring a more visceral sound, while sticking to its hardcore roots.
After more than 700 concerts on three continents, including some on the biggest international stages such as Wacken, Hellfest, FEQ and Resurrection Fest, the six members remain committed to the core values of authenticity, integrity, and equality at the heart of the hardcore movement, while addressing with disillusioned realism the flaws of an era defined by blind individualism.
With “Homura”, Sable Hills take everything they have built over the years and push it into new territory.
Since winning the Metal Battle at Wacken Open Air in 2022 as the first Japanese band in the competition’s history to claim the grand prize, Sable Hills have continued to make their mark on the international metal scene. The victory led to a deal with Germany’s renowned label Arising Empire, followed by their global debut with their third album “Odyssey” in 2024. In 2025, their single “Namu”, incorporating traditional Buddhist chanting, became a global viral hit, surpassing 3 million streams on Spotify and 5.4 million views on YouTube, while live clips posted to Instagram and TikTok collectively exceeded 30 million views.
Rooted in the band’s signature blend of metalcore and melodic death metal, “Homura” expands that foundation with distinctly Japanese elements, from traditional instruments and melodies to the use of Japanese language and Buddhist chants. The result is an album that feels both unmistakably Sable Hills and unlike anything they have created before.
The title “Homura” comes from an old Japanese word meaning “flame.” It represents the intensity and aggression at the heart of metal, reimagined through a distinctly Japanese aesthetic. Throughout the album, heaviness and melody collide with the atmosphere and beauty of traditional Japan, creating a sound that is both fierce and deeply rooted in the band’s identity.
With its fusion of crushing riffs, melodic death metal intensity, traditional Japanese instrumentation, and powerful vocal performances, “Homura” marks a new chapter for Sable Hills, embracing their roots, building on their international rise, and setting the band on a path they have never taken before.
With “Homura”, Sable Hills take everything they have built over the years and push it into new territory.
Since winning the Metal Battle at Wacken Open Air in 2022 as the first Japanese band in the competition’s history to claim the grand prize, Sable Hills have continued to make their mark on the international metal scene. The victory led to a deal with Germany’s renowned label Arising Empire, followed by their global debut with their third album “Odyssey” in 2024. In 2025, their single “Namu”, incorporating traditional Buddhist chanting, became a global viral hit, surpassing 3 million streams on Spotify and 5.4 million views on YouTube, while live clips posted to Instagram and TikTok collectively exceeded 30 million views.
Rooted in the band’s signature blend of metalcore and melodic death metal, “Homura” expands that foundation with distinctly Japanese elements, from traditional instruments and melodies to the use of Japanese language and Buddhist chants. The result is an album that feels both unmistakably Sable Hills and unlike anything they have created before.
The title “Homura” comes from an old Japanese word meaning “flame.” It represents the intensity and aggression at the heart of metal, reimagined through a distinctly Japanese aesthetic. Throughout the album, heaviness and melody collide with the atmosphere and beauty of traditional Japan, creating a sound that is both fierce and deeply rooted in the band’s identity.
With its fusion of crushing riffs, melodic death metal intensity, traditional Japanese instrumentation, and powerful vocal performances, “Homura” marks a new chapter for Sable Hills, embracing their roots, building on their international rise, and setting the band on a path they have never taken before.
Leather-jacket krautrock? Indeed. Welcome to the world of Carrboro NC's Object Hours. These generous saviors consist of three Triangle scene lifers who all worship the riff but imagine what happens if the riff fell into the middle of your favorite CAN LP. Yes, it lives up to the hype.
"Solved By Walking" was recorded in the winter of 2025 at Betty's in the Chapel Hill woods, these are mighty rock slabs ready for all seasons. Rock believers have felt the ripples and knew the day was coming. Object Hours is a band that fits right in on stage alongside acts as varied as Kim Gordon and Tropical Fuck Storm, bringing the house down in these and similar moments. These are songs that groove, peel paint, sandblast, inspire unconscious movement, make your head bob - frequently all at the same time. These are the jams inspired by the time that you heard "Fun House" coming out of that dude's car with the windows down in the middle of the summer, the ones inspired by the kids who own 3 copies of "Daydream Nation," the ones who listen to the last 1:30 of Wire's "Too Late" over and over. This is the band that has a timer on stage so they don't keep each song playing for days on end, the band whose Bandcamp bio succinctly summarizes their approach thusly: "We try to keep songs under 25 minutes for your sake." Every word here should be inspiration for you to *want* and *need* to hear this record and every word here is true. Just you wait.
Real heads know and the rest of the heads are getting ready to find out. Get ready for Object Hours' "Solved By Walking".
