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Eine neue Sammlung von Liedern, persönlich ausgewählt vom weltgrößten ”klassischen Künstler” - Ludovico Einaudi - aus mehr als 25 Jahren Musikschaffen.

Dieses neu gemasterte Doppelalbum erkundet Musik aus dem gesamten Katalog von Einaudi und bringt verborgene Edelsteine aus über 9 Alben ans Tageslicht. Es enthält Tracks aus seinen zahlreichen Kooperationsprojekten wie Taranta, Diaro Mali & Cloudland, die Soloalben Eden Roc, I Giorni & Una Mattina, Live-Auftritte aus Berlin & La Scala, Mailand, eine Gesangsversion seines beliebtesten Titels Nuvole Bianche, mehrere Titel, die nie vollständig veröffentlicht wurden, und einen bisher unveröffentlichten Titel.

You have to know how to move away from the rich, strong and noisy streets, if you want to discover another Havana. A Havana far from the tourist circuits and preconceived images. A Havana where one discovers bucolic, but hard and stripped too after slow journeys in the crowded buses, a Havana with which Al Quetz maintains a passionate history since more than fourteen years.
Installed in one of those neighborhoods that can only be reached by going deeper into the alleys, from the open window of the studio comes the sound of banging drums and thumping bass. The sound reaches the streets on which the day rises.
The place wakes up in a growing tumult, with some rare engines coughing, conversations under the windows, songs of the street vendors , an urban ballet sets up as the sun darts its rays.
Far from the musical clichés with percussions and horns, Cuba is an island bombarded with influences that one discovers.
An island which vibrated for the jazz, the soul, the psychedelic rock , from the waves coming from the Caribbean to those of the bulky neighboring ogre.
A musical flowering as varied as abundant that the glorious post-revolutionary label Areito has on thousands of recordings,
and that Al Quetz has designated as the sole source of his samples to compose Habanologia.
From the ambiences that punctuate the local daily life caught by his samplers, he let the melancholy infiltrate his hip hop beats, the nostalgia melting in the depths of his grooves. Nostalgia in the Cuban air, even during moments of intense laughter, which never totally disappears.
Habanologia restores these moments when the song of the birds has extinguished those of the cars. Where, sitting on a doorstep, we comment on the life of the neighborhood, we watch the women's swaying at eye level. The whole day if necessary, the coffee at one peso, after a certain hour, which leaves its place to the Planchao rum. Wandering through its streets where a chance encounter can itself bring others and lead to the essence of the habanera life. From Regla, after a short trip on the bus-boat that crosses the bay, savor the end of the day, observe the capital from afar, let the nocturnal insects ensure some arrangements and drift towards mysterious horizons, bringing to the contemplation of the place and the moment.
A flute, a keyboard, percussions or a voice. Al Quetz also invited his friends from the island or elsewhere to decorate his productions with their live touch. To share with him this Havana for which he covered his tracks, mixed times and distorted space-time to make it timeless.
To write with Habanalogia, a declaration of love to the Cuban capital, to make Havana, His Havana.

Another disco production from the genius mind of the great arranger and bass-player Pino Presti now rediscovered by Best Record Italy.This captivating disco boogie did not go unnoticed by the Emergency Records of Sergio Cossa, who immediately gave it to the crowd of the U.S. clubs in the 1979, but for some reasons the B-side saw only the "mono" version rather than the outstanding "disco version" by the beloved New York DJ Tee Scott. Now, after 37 years we can finally appreciate it fully restored from the original master tapes by co-producer Marco Salvatori.

Originally released in 1971. "What's Going On is not only Marvin Gaye's masterpiece, it's the most important and passionate record to come out of soul music, delivered by one of its finest voices, a man finally free to speak his mind and so move from R&B sex symbol to true recording artist. With What's Going On, Gaye meditated on what had happened to the American dream of the past -- as it related to urban decay, environmental woes, military turbulence, police brutality, unemployment, and poverty. These feelings had been bubbling up between 1967 and 1970, during which he felt increasingly caged by Motown's behind-the-times hit machine and restrained from expressing himself seriously through his music. Finally, late in 1970, Gaye decided to record a song that the Four Tops' Obie Benson had brought him, 'What's Going On.' When Berry Gordy decided not to issue the single, deeming it uncommercial, Gaye refused to record any more material until he relented. Confirmed by its tremendous commercial success in January 1971, he recorded the rest of the album over ten days in March, and Motown released it in late May. Besides cementing Marvin Gaye as one of the most important artists in pop music, What's Going On was far and away the best full-length to issue from the singles-dominated Motown factory, and arguably the best soul album of all time." John Bush, AllMusic

Weighty Ways strongly believe that every now and then the Universe aligns a series of elements that leads to the uprising of a unique talent. Enter the Room 'Alfredo Romero', alias of Alfie Aukett, Music Extraordinaire hailing from West London. Alfredo Romero is the byproduct of where a philosophical understanding of the sonic landscape meets all its capabilities. With little regard for the restraints of traditional music theory and drawing influences from improvisational genres such as Jazz (which Alfie studied to a molecular level at Leeds University) makes for a superior musical tapestry woven by a man far beyond his years.

Alfie's quest for musical enlightenment started at a very young age as a Chorister and experimented with a plethora of musical instruments. This profound musical understanding is evident in "Retrain Station", a four track EP born from the ashes of a desolate 2020. A collection of seamlessly flowing production with tones drawn from the musical nuances of Jazz, Blues and Classical through to the ever evolving face of the electronic music scene from both sides of the pond.

Strong on all flavours from Jungle to Jazz. A magnificent EP from a truly special individual.

blue vinyl

Subjoi has a long history with Shall Not Fade, an early addition to the Lost Palms series which now hits its 48th release. The Adelaide-based producer had two stunning EPs on the label in 2020, displaying his signature blends of eclectic dance music styles.

Compared to last year's Bias, Steadfast EP is a more understated affair, leaving space for Subjoi's production skill to shine. The title track pairs piano melodies and subtle breakbeat for an emotive sound easing into "Count It Off", where slow pads give way to a beat that takes influence from UK garage and jungle. By coupling this high-energy style with sombre chords, Subjoi makes a uniquely melancholy club track.

Yearning vocals and synth stabs build complexity in "Rapids", a forward late night number. The closing track keeps the
haunting atmosphere of the rest of the records, fading out as subtly as it began with an organic sound palette contrasting the stuttering 2-step beat.

"First Noel is a Christmas album including 25 of the greatest classics as well as three exclusive new tracks I composed especially for the very first Christmas of my son, and in honor of my grandma Odette's last one, past year. The Christmas memories I have are full of wonderful moments, so I insisted on recording this album staying true to the magic of these instants.

First thing, I surrounded myself with 3 great friends of mine and long-time collaborators: François Delporte (guitar), Frank Woeste (piano) and Sofi Jeannin (choirmaster). Sofi has selected 8 singers with celestial, sublime voices. We recorded in two magical places: the studio of my friend Armand Amar - where I had the chance to work on my first albums (Babel Studios in Montreuil) - and the Church of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre. The latter being the most ancient church in Paris - only a few meters away from the Notre-Dame Cathedral - has always been at the center of significant moments in our family history in France. My father was a sacristan there in the '60s. It is in the sacristy that he elaborated and worked on his trumpeter career. My aunt Hind - whom I loved - also a pianist, and my beloved grandmother, Odette, both had their funeral in this church. It is also in this same church that I got engaged and married… So many milestones.

After recording many albums, I felt it was the right time for me to share my versions of those great Christmas classics, by giving them a much less childish dimension and a more musical, also spiritual one, but still preserving their subtle and necessary fragility, specific of children's music or of those great classics renowned and sang all over the world. I was hoping that First Noel would not be yet "another" Christmas album, with Frank Sinatra-like crooners and Hollywood-style arrangements. Instead, a simple, humble, instrumental album, in the original meaning, without lyrics, allowing the melody to be at the center of it all. Soothing music to dream, to reunite us, regardless of our mother tongue, our age, our culture and more importantly regardless of our religion.

That is how Odette viewed things, and this is also the way I wish Nael and Lily, my children, would listen to the world."

Stand High Records presents SH008: a brand spanking new 12” with two exclusive “discomix” cuts of Stand High Patrol's last two singles “Same Justice” and “Working Man”. Both tracks have a special link, they were made around the same time period and are of similar nature. These tunes share that special groove and sweetness reminiscent of the Dubadub Musketeerz’s rocksteady productions.

On these two discomix versions, Pupajim’s vocal parts are followed by Merry's trumpets, Mac Gyver then takes things into his own hands and dubs out the riddim! Time stretches and reveals the subtlety of the mix made at Kerwax's studio. Stand High Patrol exploits the riddims without restraint by offering each member of the crew the space to express their skills and inspirations. These two stunning discomix versions are the result of a real collective effort. They were built for Djs, soundsystems and for all those willing to dive into an eight-minute sonic journey!

Three years after the platinum Effet Miroir (Mirror Effect), Zaz is about to release her fifth album. A record she began making during the spring 2020 lockdown.

After a frenzied decade of sold-out concerts, awards and prestigious collaborations (Quincy Jones, Charles Aznavour), it was after her last world tour which ended in the United States that Zaz refocused herself. For this album, recorded between Provence (Southern France), Brussels and Amsterdam’s area, Zaz worked with Dutch producer REYN (Vanessa Paradis, Stephan Eicher, Benjamin Biolay, Gaëtan Roussel…). “Imagine a world in tune with you”, advises Zaz in the first single. “When you see the state the world is in, it saddens me. What are we going to leave for our children?", asks the artist, who has always held deeply ingrained questions of education and environment. “It's sad, scary. But ‘Imagine’ is a song of hope", she explains, putting things into perspective.

Orange Vinyl

Casey Spillman returns to LOCUS with his four-track ‘Summer Dreaming’ EP.

A favourite amongst the FUSE family and an artist who embodies the label’s sound and mentality throughout his productions and sets, London’s Casey Spillman continues to grow and evolve as one of the hottest talents within the capital. After his ‘Bit More Raggo’ EP on LOCUS in 2020 provided four heavy slabs of dancefloor ammunition for the likes of Skream, Samuel Deep and Varhat, he returns to close October with a quartet of fresh cuts across his ‘Summer Dreaming’ EP.

‘Get Upper’ sees Spillman opt for a powerful combination of warping bass licks, infectious vocals and sturdy kicks, while ‘I Know’ offers up a restless bass-heavy shuffle beneath dubby textures as moody harmonies contrast against evolving leads. The B-Side houses title track ‘Summer Dreaming’, delivering swinging percussion beneath glitchy electronics and trippy atmospherics, before closing with an ode to FUSE’s original home of 93 Feet East across ‘Good Morning Ninety Free’ – a classy cut weaving dusty deep chords amongst taut drums and sweeping synths.

‘SON’ was recorded in London and Freetown between 2019-21. Inspired by the pair’s shared love of choral music, it began as an experiment to explore playing with the voice in more creative ways, using layered vocals as an instrument following piano harmony, arrangement and sampling.

The project started in London with the title track and became a story about a world in which we hide our true ‘colours’ in order to fit in. A mother tells her son that he needs to fit in to survive before realising that she is following the same tropes passed on to her as a child. Following this realisation she encourages her son to protect his dreams and not to listen to anybody telling him he can’t be whatever he chooses.

Rosie joined Duval for a week in Freetown in February 2020 where they wrote the rest of the project, bringing friends Daniel Koroma, Kandeh Bangura, Valentine Coker, Chino Greene and Tom Herbert in for musical contributions;

“We were interested in bringing our surroundings into the recordings; leaving doors open, recording in different spaces and locations, inviting the listener to experience the life that was going on around us whilst capturing the process”.

Full-colour inner sleeve
Illustrations by Duval Timothy
Insert of a specially commission Julianknxx poem
Shrink-wrapped

Restless Heart will be available as a double-LP Deluxe Edition pressed on 180-gram silver vinyl which features the newly remixed album that’s closer to the sound Coverdale initially intended for his new solo release and features and features the singles “Too Many Tears” and “Don’t Fade Away.”

LIMITED RED VINYL.

“I think my music provides space for me to say the things I can’t always say in real life.” says Virginia native songwriter and multi-media artist Corrinne James. “That’s what I love about songwriting—There’s room in music for all of the conversations that can’t exist in reality.”

While studying New Media and Cinematography at the University of Virginia, James created a secret Bandcamp under the alias Naomi Alligator, and began uploading her intimate home recordings online. Inspired by the sparse and confessional qualities of Liz Phair’s early portastudio recordings, James decided to create her own musical journal to share and process personal anecdotes.

Her modern folk production and poetic songwriting links the sounds of classic folk artists like Joan Baez and Steeleye Span to a 21st century context. James wrestles with guilt, purpose, and jealousy through vivid narratives in the songs that make up her vast self-releases. This fall, five years since her first upload and over a dozen releases later, James will share her new four-track EP, Concession Stand Girl, while making her debut on Carpark.

On the title track for Concession Stand Girl that opens the EP, James sings the inner monologue of an unappreciated ticket-taker at a high school football game. James plucks a sparkly banjo and sings details of the concession stand girl’s relationship to each of the spectators who must go through her to enter the game. “Although seemingly insignificant, the concession stand girl must interact with each spectator as they enter the football game. Despite being unable to physically see the game, inside of her head she narrates her relationship to the people at the game.” The track “Anywhere Else” sits in contrast to the rest of the EP, being the only song where James plays guitar instead of banjo.

The last song written for the EP, “Anywhere Else” describes the tense emotions that come from comparing yourself to others in the eyes of your partner. “The protagonist is convincing herself, as well as her partner, that she could leave at any moment. She doesn’t want to be taken for granted anymore.” “Big Blue World” is a touching closer to the EP, where James sings about finding her way back to the place that feels most like home. James examines the fleeting nature of ambition and asks what really creates the feeling of contentment. Describing the song’s lyrics James says, “You can achieve everything you want, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like anything compared to just feeling at home and feeling who you are deep down.”

Diving into the archives of Alter Ego - the Italian experimental ensemble of Manuel Zurria, Paolo Ravaglia, Aldo Campagnari, Francesco Dillon, Oscar Pizzo, and Eugenio Vatta - Die Schachtel is thrilled to present Microwaves, a never before released body of recordings of works composed by Atli Ingólfsson, Giovanni Verrando, Yan Maresz, and Riccardo Nova, made with Pan Sonic (Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen) in 2005. Resting at the outer reaches of avant-garde chamber and electronic music, the LP’s blistering structures, tones, and textures - plowing forward with frenetic energy - remain radical and ahead of their time, more than 15 years after they were first laid to tape.

A modular chamber ensemble with a pointedly anti-academic approach to music, over the course of its activities - running roughly between 1990 and 2010 - Alter Ego developed a devoted following among some of the most forward thinking voices in experimental music, all the while collaborating widely with artists spanning a vast range of practices and disciplines, including Robin Rimbaud, Philip Jeck, Matmos, Gavin Bryars, Andrew Hooker, William Basinski, David Moss, Alvin Curran, Terry Riley, and near countless number of others.

Alter Ego’s diverse activities can be understood as interventions with the disposition toward formality within contemporary chamber music, often pairing themselves with artists working well beyond their own context as a means to develop highly original interpretations of a specific composer’s work. In 2004, this process led them to instigate a collaboration Pan Sonic, the Finnish duo of Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen, pioneers of a remarkably distinct form of rhythmic, experimental electronic music, and regarded by many as one of the most visionary and irreverent projects working in the field during the '90s and 2000s.

Initially conceived with Fausto Romitelli in 2004 before being sidelined by the composer’s untimely passing the following year, Microwaves acts, in part, a remembrance in sound, featuring four works by some of his closest friends, the composers Atli Ingólfsson, Giovanni Verrando, Yan Maresz, and Riccardo Nova. Each composition, Ingólfsson’s Snap, Verrando’s Harmonic Domains #3, Maresz’s Link, and Nova’s Thirteen13x8@Terror Generating Deity, have roots in a pallet of samples and fragments drawn by each composer from existing works by Pan Sonic. Upon completion, these compositions then entered into a collaborative process between Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen (Pan Sonic) and Alter Ego (Manuel Zurria, Paolo Ravaglia, Aldo Campagnari, Francesco Dillon, Oscar Pizzo, and Eugenio Vatta), and were performed collectively by both groups during an extensive tour that year.

Distinct and free-standing, while operating as a seamless whole, the four works encountered across the album’s two sides - built from the sounds of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, electronics, and further treatments - present an engrossing intersection between electronic and acoustic sound that diverges from most standing conceptions of electroacoustic music. Each composer’s carefully rendered structures rise and fall within the startling, conversant interplay between the two groups, finding perfect balance - between the frenetic and restrained - in what can only be regarded as one of the most striking and singularly unique expressions of contemporary chamber music realized during the 2000s.

Vast in scope, visionary in concept and artistry, and sonically engrossing, Die Schachtel is thrilled to present these never before heard recordings from the archives of Alter Ego. Microwaves is available on black vinyl, in a limited edition of 350 copies.

Diving into the archives of Alter Ego - the experimental ensemble of Manuel Zurria, Paolo Ravaglia, Aldo Campagnari, Francesco Dillon, Oscar Pizzo, Fulvia Ricevuto, and Eugenio Vatta - Die Schachtel is thrilled to present Pranam - A(Round) Giacinto Scelsi, a never before released body of recordings interpreting the works of the legendary Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi, made with Matmos (Martin Schmidt and Drew Daniel) in 2005. Resting at the outer reaches of avant-garde chamber and electronic music - moving at a glacial pace of tightly wound energy - Pranam’s two sides radically rethink the terms electroacoustic music in ways that still feel radically ahead of their time, more than 15 years after they were first laid to tape.

A modular chamber ensemble with a pointedly anti-academic approach to music, over the course of its activities - running roughly between 1990 and 2010 - Alter Ego developed a devoted following among some of the most forward thinking voices in experimental music, all the while collaborating widely with artists spanning a vast range of practices and disciplines, including Robin Rimbaud, Philip Jeck, Pan Sonic, Matmos, Gavin Bryars, Andrew Hooker, William Basinski, David Moss, Alvin Curran, Terry Riley, and near countless number of others.

Alter Ego’s diverse activities can be understood as interventions with the disposition toward formality within contemporary chamber music, often pairing themselves with artists working well beyond their own context as a means to develop highly original interpretations of a specific composer’s work. In 2005, this process led them to invite Matmos, the American duo of Drew Daniel, Martin Schmidt - acclaimed for a body of visionary albums at the vanguard of electronic process and sampling - to collaborate on a series of interpretations of works by the legendary Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi.

Realized in collaboration with The Fondazione Isabella Scelsi, which holds Giacinto Scelsi’s archives, and performed at the Festival Roma Europa and the Festival Aeterforum during May of 2005, the album’s four works - Estratti dal Quartetto per archi n.3 (1963), Ko-Lho (1966), Riti: I Funerali di Carlo Magno A.D. 814 (1976), Aitsi (1974) - shift the boundaries of 20th Century chamber music toward markedly new and contemporary terms, incorporating everything from the sounds of the Revox tape machine that Scelsi used to record his own improvisations and processed electronics, to the plastic trumpets used by fans during football matches.

From intertwining, shifting lone-tones that render startling resonances and dissonances, to passages guided by a vast pallet of electronics and flurries of acoustic sounds, joined as a single ensemble, across the two sides of Pranam, Alter Ego and Matmos infuse these four works by Scelsi with humor and playfulness, while retaining all the urgency and rigour with which they were initially composed.

Delicate and meditative, while tightly wound and brooding, Pranam brings the works of Giacinto Scelsi to life in ways that almost no group ever has. Riveting and immersive from start to finish, Die Schachtel is thrilled to present these never before heard recordings from the archives of Alter Ego. Pranam is available on black vinyl, in a limited edition of 350 copies.

In divided times, the power of music is undeniable. When that music is ferociously original and defiantly uplifting, the impact is even greater. Formed in Paris, December 2014, by Dublin-born singer/guitarist Gary Kelly and Parisian guitarist Steven Andre, MOLYBARON have swiftly become one of the most talked-about bands in the modern metal scene. With a sound that encompasses everything from state-of-the-art tech-grooves and anthemic metal to multi-layered atmospherics and giant, muscular hard rock riffs beyond, the band’s eccentric flair always sets them apart from the rest. From the infectious aggression and giant hooks of opener “Animals”, to the thunderous denouement of crushing closer “Ordinary Madness”, The Mutiny once again affirms MOLYBARON’s idiosyncratic identity and irresistible charms. As Metal Hammer UK put it: “Diverse and satisfying, The Mutiny is a banger!” The album was also declared Album of the Month in Rock Hard magazine. Kelly’s songwriting has hit new heights of ingenuity, and the ensemble performances of comrades Steven Andre (guitar), Sebastien de Saint-Angel (bass) and Camille Greneron (drums) are never less than precise, potent and bursting with personality. Right now, these fearless artisans are in a field of one, evoking the visionary fervour of bands like System Of A Down, Muse, Pain Of Salvation and Rush, while never sounding remotely like any of them. The Mutiny will be re-released by InsideOut Music/ Sony Music Entertainment and is available as 180g black Vinyl + 2page Insert, Ltd. CD Digipak and Digital Album.

Marking the triumphant return of live music to London's West End - Andrew Lloyd Webber has brought together an 81-piece orchestra to record new alum Andrew Lloyd Webber: Symphonic Suites from three of his best-loved musicals. This recording is the first live performance to take place at the newly refurbished Theatre Royal Drury Lane, following Lloyd Webber's LW Theatres' 2-year, £60m total restoration. The Symphonic Suites album, which will be released in September 2021, is a recording of three newly-orchestrated suites from Evita, Phantom of the Opera and Sunset Boulevard, specially selected from Lloyd Webber's repertoire of award-winning musicals.

As the title suggests, the album consists of reworked versions of previously released Nat King Cole classics, with a few key elements:  5 newly recorded duets with John Legend, Calum Scott, Kristen Chenoweth, Gloria Estefan, and Johnny Mathis. Nat’s vocals have been extracted and restored from the original recordings on all tracks, with new arrangements and recordings for the orchestral accompaniments on all tracks.

Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records are at long last ecstatic to bring to you for your listening pleasure “Nudity - Is God’s Creation” 2xLP . A retrospective release of recordings dating from 2005 to 2010 of orgasmic interstellar mayhem . Reissued and for the first time available domestically in the USA

In 2004, a commune named NUDITY, formed by four travellers from the astral plane, appeared in Olympia, Washington. The founding members were Dave HARVEY (guitar) and Jon Quitty QUITTNER (bass - though Josh Haynes of the mighty guitar fuzz scorchers Feral Ohms plays bass on the majority of the tracks featured here), both of whom were former guitarists of Tight Bros From Way Back When and Eryn ROSS (drums) from Growling, A couple of self-distributed Cdrs and a 12” on Discourage were a visual akin to coloured liquid sloshing around on a transparency machine and were a pure drip feed for psych /kraut and Jap Rock fiends around the world as Julian Cope and Terrascope raved about them. Alas for whatever reason no full length LP arrived from the original line up - something that at last has been rectified as now all these tracks have been brought together (along with some unreleased gems and a couple of live bonus download tracks). The sonic ear candy contained within the 4 sides of vinyl presented here go From Detroit fuzz blazing face melters to acid trippin' head swirling raga’s via The Flower Travelin’ Band and Hawkwind. Nudity were the masters and for those that missed out the first time this double album was released - Don't make the same mistake a second time.

Terrascope gushed about Nudity - "This is seriously fucking good; one of those quite literally extra-ordinary LPs that come along every once in a while which you just know instinctively are going to be dug out and played, sniffed and caressed for years"

In the afterglow of her acclaimed 2020 album Silver Ladders, Los Angeles-based harpist Mary Lattimore returns with a culminating counterpart release, Collected Pieces: 2015- 2020. The limited-edition LP features new and previously unreleased material, Bandcamp-only singles, and other obscurities alongside standouts from her 2017 tape Collected Pieces. Beyond the vinyl compendium, an expanded tracklist on the cassette/digital version brings more of Lattimore's archives together for the first time. Lattimore has described the process of arranging these releases as akin to "opening a box filled with memories," and here that box continues to populate, accessible for both the artist and fans. Evocative material separated by years, framed as a portrait of an instrumental storyteller who rarely pauses, recording and often sharing music as soon as it strikes her. Seemingly in constant forward motion for the last five years since her Ghostly debut, Lattimore glances back for a breath, inviting new chances to live in these fleeting moments and emotions; all the beauty, sorrow, sunshine, and darkness housed within. Opening the cassette version is "Mary, You Were Wrong," which mirrors an author's bout with a broken heart. "It's about how you have to keep on going even if you make some mistakes," she says. The bittersweet refrain cycles throughout, a little brighter every time, slowly, like the way time tends to heal. Unreleased track "Sleeping Deer" came together during Lattimore's artist residency on a cattle ranch in Wyoming. She remembers, "a small deer whose mother I think had been run over by a car would hang out in the yard. I called him Lollipop and would leave vegetable scraps out." Lollipop returned daily to eat, rest, and wait for more. The music this vision inspired is patient and droning, with light plucks giving way to deeper, vibrating tones, permeating with a sense of anticipation. Next is a newer single, "We Wave From Our Boats," which she improvised after walking her neighborhood during the early days of lockdown in 2020, and shared on her Bandcamp. "I would just wave at neighbors I didn't know in a gesture of solidarity and it reminded me of how you're compelled to wave at people on the other boat when you're on a boat yourself, or on a bridge or something. The pull to wave feels very innate and natural." The heart of the track is a somber loop, over top which Lattimore's synth notes ruminate, each a gentle shimmer of optimism in the most anxious and absurd of days. Also recorded in 2020, "What The Living Do" is inspired by Marie Howe's poem of the same name, which reflects on loss through an appreciation for the mundane messiness of being human. The echoed, slow-marching track has a distant feel to it, as if the listener is outside of it, watching life play out as a film. "Princess Nicotine (1909)" scores actual footage, a dream sequence Lattimore imagined for J. Stuart Blackton's surreal silent film Princess Nicotine; or, the Smoke Fairy. She adopted the same approach for "Polly of the Circus," explaining it was the name of one of the old silent films discovered in permafrost in the Yukon featured in the documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time, "the only copy that survived and it kind of warped in the aging process." A trove of pieces are collected here, most recorded in the moment, just Lattimore and her Lyon and Healy Concert Grand Harp, contact mics, and pedals. Like her most affecting work, these songs showcase Lattimore's gifts as an observer, able to shape her craft around emotional frequencies and scenes. Her power as a musician is rooted in how she sees the world: in vivid detail, profoundly empathic, with deep gratitude for nature and nuance.

After a trilogy of spectacular explorations of relentlessly driving rhythms – Sagittarian Domain (2012), Quixotism (2014) and Hubris (2016) – Simian Angel finds Oren Ambarchi renewing his focus on his singular approach to the electric guitar, returning in part to the spacious canvases of classic releases like Grapes from the Estate while also following his muse down previously unexplored byways. Reflecting Ambarchi's profound love of Brazilian music – an aspect of his omnivorous musical appetite not immediately apparent in his own work until now – Simian Angel features the remarkable percussive talents of the legendary Cyro Baptista, a key part of the Downtown scene who has collaborated with everyone from John Zorn and Derek Bailey to Robert Palmer and Herbie Hancock. Like the music of Nana Vasconcelos and Airto Moreira, Simian Angel places Baptista's dexterous and rhythmically nuanced handling of traditional Brazilian percussion instruments into an unexpected musical context. On the first side, 'Palm Sugar Candy', Baptista's spare and halting rhythms wind their way through a landscape of gliding electronic tones, gently rising up and momentarily subsiding until the piece's final minutes leave Ambarchi's guitar unaccompanied. While the rich, swirling harmonics of Ambarchi's guitar performance are familiar to listeners from his previous recordings, the subtly wavering, synthetic guitar tone we hear is quite new, coming across at times like an abstracted, splayed-out take on the 80s guitar-synth work of Pat Metheny or Bill Frisell. Equally new is the harmonic complexity of Ambarchi's playing, which leaves behind the minimalist simplicity of much of his previous work for a constantly-shifting play between lush consonance and uneasy dissonance. Beginning with a beautiful passage of unaccompanied percussion dominated by the berimbau, the side-long title piece carries on the first side's exploration of subtle, non-linear dynamic arcs, taking the form of a gently episodic suite, in which distinctive moments, like a lyrical passage of guitar-triggered piano, unexpectedly arise from intervals of drifting tones like dream images suddenly cohering. In the piece's second half, the piano tones becomes increasingly more clipped and synthetic, scattering themselves into aleatoric melodies that call to mind an imaginary collaboration between Albert Marcoeur and David Behrman, grounded all the while by the pulse of Baptista's percussion. Subtle yet complex, fleeting yet emotionally affecting, Simian Angel is an essential chapter in Ambarchi's restlessly exploratory oeuvre. --- Oren Ambarchi - guitars & whatnot Cyro Baptista - percussion & voice Recorded by Randall Dunn, Joerg Hiller, Iuri Oriente and Oren Ambarchi. Edited by Joerg Hiller and Oren Ambarchi at Choose Studios, Berlin. Mixed by Joe Talia and Oren Ambarchi at Good Mixture, Tokyo. Cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin. Executive Producers: Konrad Sprenger & Dick Wolf. Photography by Traianos Pakioufakis. Design by Lasse Marhaug.

The legendary session from members of The Outsiders, The Sound and Honolulu Mountain Daffodils. released for the very first time.
Overseen by Adrian Janes and remastered by Nick Robbins with sleeve design and artwork by Bi Marshall.
PRESSED ON ‘SPECIAL’ COLOUR VINYL.
In December 1978 Pete Williams, later to achieve cult infamy as Lord Sulaco of the Honolulu Mountain Daffodils, decided to realise a notion which he’d long kicked around with some of his musician friends. This was to record some original songs for which he - who had never been in a studio in his life – would provide the lyrics and sing. These friends were the Outsiders, at that time consisting of Adrian Borland (guitar, vocals), Graham Bailey (bass) and Adrian Janes (drums), plus an increasingly regular guest player in Bi Marshall (clarinet). (A year later, Janes having left, the Outsiders became the Sound.)
With no prior preparation other than Williams writing a set of lyrics (reputedly all based on newspaper stories), he then hired Elephant Studio in London for a day’s session. This was engineered by Nick Robbins, later to produce The Sound among others, but at that point at the very start of his career. This was no bad thing, since he was as open to the bizarre working methods of the Crazies (named after the George Romero sci-fi horror film) as they were innocent of their strangeness:improvise a song during one run-through, record it, and then move on to the next one, each to be created in the same way.
This extremely efficient method left enough studio time after recording six songs for the rest to head off for something to eat, while Williams scribbled lyrics for a final composition, ‘When We’re Dead’, which was recorded upon their return.
The surviving members (Bailey, Marshall and Janes) all recall this as one of the most enjoyable and relaxed sessions they were ever part of. The same experimental freedom and warped humour can also be heard in the albums Williams and Borland made as the Honolulu Mountain Daffodils a decade later.
Cassette copies of the resulting album were produced for all concerned, and it seems that there was an idea of making it more widely available in this format, but this was never to occur. It is only now that, with the original tape rediscovered, that the Crazies’ ‘A Simple Vision’, mastered by Nick Robbins, can at last be perceived by the wider world.

The Wicker Man soundtrack has achieved huge cult status over the years, it has certainly proved to be a major influence on neofolk and psychedelic folk artists ever since the film first appeared in cinemas in 1973.

The soundtrack’s songs were performed by the band Magnet. The band was assembled by musician Gary Carpenter (the film's associate musical director) to perform songs composed by

New York songwriter Paul Giovanni. Giovanni had always planned to release the songs recorded for his soundtrack, firmly believing them to be worthy of existing as an album in their own right.

Of course, this never happened, mostly due to the film’s troubled past, and consequently all of the existing soundtrack albums that have been previously released have included extra incidental music from the film.

So, this edition is the final word in the long history of this influential soundtrack, the songs recorded with Paul Giovanni by Magnet are presented here as an album,

just as Giovanni himself intended. This definitive version of The Wicker Man has only previously been available as a special edition released in 2013 to celebrate the

40th Anniversary of the release of the film. For that release Silva Screen commissioned artist Richey Beckett to create a brand new image for the cover of a one-off pressing on vinyl,

and that edition is long sold out and has become sought after.

This newly put together Silva Screen release features new artwork, extended notes, a gatefold sleeve and is pressed on yellow vinyl.

Black Country Communion the rock supergroup comprised of vocalist/bassist Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple Black Sabbath, Trapeze), drummer Jason Bonham (Led Zeppelin, Foreigner), Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater, Billy Idol, Alice Cooper) and blues rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa.

Their fourth album, aptly titled "BCCIV" was originally released by Mascot Records in Europe in 2017. Just like its three predecessors, "BCCIV" was produced by Kevin Shirley, the band's unofficial 'fifth member'. Three Black Country Communion albums will be re-issued as part of the Black Country Communion Glow In The Dark Vinyl Series: On September 24, "Black Country Communion" and "2", and on October 22, 2021 their latest studio album "BCCIV".

The 10 songs on BCCIV will appeal to all fans of high quality hard rock, also those that admire singers of distinction. Hughes is not known as The Voice of Rock for nothing. In terms of content, 'BCCIV' expands upon the progression that took place between the first three albums. With an abundance of heavy riffs, undeniable hooks, melodic flair and infectious choruses, BCCIV is a spectacular album that gets bigger and bolder with repeated spins. Black Country Communion initially came to fruition when Kevin Shirley saw Glenn Hughes and Joe Bonamassa join forces on stage in Los Angeles in November 2009 for an explosive performance at Guitar Center’s King of the Blues event. Shirley then recruited powerhouse drummer Jason Bonham and keyboardist Derek Sherinian. The band is named after the industrial area in the British Midlands where both Hughes and Bonham were born and raised.

Belched from Hell’s depths into the rustic charms of the Witch County, Suffolk thirty long and disturbing years ago, CRADLE OF FILTH are undisputed giants of the heavy metal realm. Imperious purveyors of a perennially unique strain of dark, dastardly and wilfully extreme metal, with deep roots in the worlds of gothic horror and occult curiosity, the band led by Dani Filth has weathered three decades of tumult and trial, earning a formidable reputation as both a singular creative force and one of the most riotously entertaining live bands the metal world has ever produced.
From primitive early works like 1992 debut »The Principle Of Evil Made Flesh« to more expansive and theatrical classics like ‘Cruelty And The Beast’ and ‘Midian’, CRADLE OF FILTH defied trends and constructed their own idiosyncratic world of foul grandeur, becoming one of the UK’s most notable metal bands in the process. Since then, they have traversed the world countless times, hoovering up plaudits and praise from an ever-expanding international fan base. Resolutely prolific, the band’s catalogue has grown in depth and stature all the while, irrespective of line-up changes or the whims of the faithful.
In more recent times, CRADLE OF FILTH have hit an unmistakable hot streak of creativity and urgency. As a new line-up coalesced around the creation of 2015’s »Hammer Of The Witches«, fresh impetus propelled the band to new heights, as the revitalised crew became more in demand around the world than ever before. 2017’s ‘Cryptoriana - The Seductiveness Of Decay’ repeated the trick with even more explosive flamboyance. Until a global pandemic brought the music industry to a jarring halt, CRADLE OF FILTH were almost permanently on the road and absolutely fucking flying. As a result, it should surprise no one that the band’s brand new album, ‘Existence Is Futile’, is yet another monumental and electrifying journey through the dark.
Buoyed by these recent triumphs, CRADLE OF FILTH recorded »Existence Is Futile« during 2020, piecing the record together in isolation, at Grindstone Studios in Suffolk with studio guru Scott Atkins (Devilment/Benediction/Vader). Although instantly recognisable as the work of these veteran blackhearts, the thirteenth CRADLE OF FILTH album is a wholly different beast from its immediate predecessors. Pitch-black, perverse and at times absurdly brutal and extreme, it hangs together with mesmerising fluidity. It is also absolutely rammed with giant, rousing melodies and moments of jaw-dropping invention. No one could mistake the venomously catchy likes of ‘How Many Tears To Nurture A Rose?’ or monstrous ballad ‘Discourse Between A Man And His Soul’ for anything other than CRADLE OF FILTH, of course, but ‘Existence Is Futile’ confirms that the band’s exploratory instincts remain as sharp as ever.
Underpinned by its huge and disarmingly organic production, »Existence Is Futile« is plainly the darkest and most unsettling album CRADLE OF FILTH have made in a while. Eschewing the band’s trademark twisted storytelling in favour of horrified glimpses into the mortal void and ruminations on the inevitable destruction of life on Earth, its poignancy and relevance to the cluster of nightmares facing humanity in 2021 is impossible to ignore, even if Dani Filth insists, not unreasonably, that he didn’t anticipate a global pandemic when the news songs were being written.
With the best possible timing, CRADLE OF FILTH were already due to make a new album during those long, lonely months of lockdown in 2020. Having grabbed the opportunity with both hands, Dani avows that unavoidable isolation from the rest of the world was the best possible incentive to get the job done, while also adding plenty of eerie atmosphere to the whole experience.
Sonically speaking, ‘Existence Is Futile’ is easily the most powerful and dramatic record CRADLE OF FILTH have ever made: it’s the sound of band’s enviable onstage chemistry spilling over into the studio, propelling each member of the band to new levels of intensity. Combined with the expected labyrinthine arrangements and moments of spellbinding bombast, ‘Existence Is Futile’ may be the most vivid representation of the CRADLE OF FILTH experience yet.
Also, diehard fans will be thrilled to learn that horror icon Doug 'Pinhead' Bradley makes a welcome return to the CRADLE fold, lending his dulcet tones to the epic ‘Suffer Our Dominion’, and to one of the forthcoming new record’s bonus tracks, as Dani explains.
“There are also two bonus tracks in addition to the album, one of which is the culmination to the ‘Her Ghost In The Fog’ trilogy, which began on »Midian«.
For this we had little hesitation in enlisting our friend and actor Doug Bradley to reprise his narrative role. Doug lives in Pittsburgh, which he refers to ‘The Pit’, thus we directed his narrative over Skype from his local studio. He adopts this almost David Attenborough-ish role on ‘Suffer Our Dominion’, which is possibly the most politically astute song we’ve written of late. As a band we usually shy from branching into politics, but it’s something that needed spouting. The fact we’re fucking our ecology up and desperately need to address the situation pronto…”
So, if we’re all going to perish in the fire of our own stupidity, we might as well have a suitably deranged and destructive soundtrack to do it by.
A bewitching, fearless nosedive into the abyss, the band's thirteenth studio album confirms the ferocious efficacy of CRADLE OF FILTH in 2021. Bold, brave, wildly imaginative and heavy as hell, the band’s latest runaway train-ride through the flames is the perfect album for these most imperfect of times. As Dani concludes, “Be like the virus! Mutate and survive!”

Belched from Hell’s depths into the rustic charms of the Witch County, Suffolk thirty long and disturbing years ago, CRADLE OF FILTH are undisputed giants of the heavy metal realm. Imperious purveyors of a perennially unique strain of dark, dastardly and wilfully extreme metal, with deep roots in the worlds of gothic horror and occult curiosity, the band led by Dani Filth has weathered three decades of tumult and trial, earning a formidable reputation as both a singular creative force and one of the most riotously entertaining live bands the metal world has ever produced.
From primitive early works like 1992 debut »The Principle Of Evil Made Flesh« to more expansive and theatrical classics like ‘Cruelty And The Beast’ and ‘Midian’, CRADLE OF FILTH defied trends and constructed their own idiosyncratic world of foul grandeur, becoming one of the UK’s most notable metal bands in the process. Since then, they have traversed the world countless times, hoovering up plaudits and praise from an ever-expanding international fan base. Resolutely prolific, the band’s catalogue has grown in depth and stature all the while, irrespective of line-up changes or the whims of the faithful.
In more recent times, CRADLE OF FILTH have hit an unmistakable hot streak of creativity and urgency. As a new line-up coalesced around the creation of 2015’s »Hammer Of The Witches«, fresh impetus propelled the band to new heights, as the revitalised crew became more in demand around the world than ever before. 2017’s ‘Cryptoriana - The Seductiveness Of Decay’ repeated the trick with even more explosive flamboyance. Until a global pandemic brought the music industry to a jarring halt, CRADLE OF FILTH were almost permanently on the road and absolutely fucking flying. As a result, it should surprise no one that the band’s brand new album, ‘Existence Is Futile’, is yet another monumental and electrifying journey through the dark.
Buoyed by these recent triumphs, CRADLE OF FILTH recorded »Existence Is Futile« during 2020, piecing the record together in isolation, at Grindstone Studios in Suffolk with studio guru Scott Atkins (Devilment/Benediction/Vader). Although instantly recognisable as the work of these veteran blackhearts, the thirteenth CRADLE OF FILTH album is a wholly different beast from its immediate predecessors. Pitch-black, perverse and at times absurdly brutal and extreme, it hangs together with mesmerising fluidity. It is also absolutely rammed with giant, rousing melodies and moments of jaw-dropping invention. No one could mistake the venomously catchy likes of ‘How Many Tears To Nurture A Rose?’ or monstrous ballad ‘Discourse Between A Man And His Soul’ for anything other than CRADLE OF FILTH, of course, but ‘Existence Is Futile’ confirms that the band’s exploratory instincts remain as sharp as ever.
Underpinned by its huge and disarmingly organic production, »Existence Is Futile« is plainly the darkest and most unsettling album CRADLE OF FILTH have made in a while. Eschewing the band’s trademark twisted storytelling in favour of horrified glimpses into the mortal void and ruminations on the inevitable destruction of life on Earth, its poignancy and relevance to the cluster of nightmares facing humanity in 2021 is impossible to ignore, even if Dani Filth insists, not unreasonably, that he didn’t anticipate a global pandemic when the news songs were being written.
With the best possible timing, CRADLE OF FILTH were already due to make a new album during those long, lonely months of lockdown in 2020. Having grabbed the opportunity with both hands, Dani avows that unavoidable isolation from the rest of the world was the best possible incentive to get the job done, while also adding plenty of eerie atmosphere to the whole experience.
Sonically speaking, ‘Existence Is Futile’ is easily the most powerful and dramatic record CRADLE OF FILTH have ever made: it’s the sound of band’s enviable onstage chemistry spilling over into the studio, propelling each member of the band to new levels of intensity. Combined with the expected labyrinthine arrangements and moments of spellbinding bombast, ‘Existence Is Futile’ may be the most vivid representation of the CRADLE OF FILTH experience yet.
Also, diehard fans will be thrilled to learn that horror icon Doug 'Pinhead' Bradley makes a welcome return to the CRADLE fold, lending his dulcet tones to the epic ‘Suffer Our Dominion’, and to one of the forthcoming new record’s bonus tracks, as Dani explains.
“There are also two bonus tracks in addition to the album, one of which is the culmination to the ‘Her Ghost In The Fog’ trilogy, which began on »Midian«.
For this we had little hesitation in enlisting our friend and actor Doug Bradley to reprise his narrative role. Doug lives in Pittsburgh, which he refers to ‘The Pit’, thus we directed his narrative over Skype from his local studio. He adopts this almost David Attenborough-ish role on ‘Suffer Our Dominion’, which is possibly the most politically astute song we’ve written of late. As a band we usually shy from branching into politics, but it’s something that needed spouting. The fact we’re fucking our ecology up and desperately need to address the situation pronto…”
So, if we’re all going to perish in the fire of our own stupidity, we might as well have a suitably deranged and destructive soundtrack to do it by.
A bewitching, fearless nosedive into the abyss, the band's thirteenth studio album confirms the ferocious efficacy of CRADLE OF FILTH in 2021. Bold, brave, wildly imaginative and heavy as hell, the band’s latest runaway train-ride through the flames is the perfect album for these most imperfect of times. As Dani concludes, “Be like the virus! Mutate and survive!”

A month before the pandemic hit Norway – and the rest of the world for that sake – Darling west released their fourth album, «We’ll Never Know Unless We Try». They managed to get through two or three shows before everything was canceled, and the country went into lockdown. It may sound a bit counterintuitive to records a live album while in lockdown, but that is exactly what Darling West decided to do. When Norway partly opened during the fall of 2020, the band recorded their gigs at Parkteatret in Oslo and at Folken in Stavanger, and these recordings make out the songs on «Live 2020». Even though the gigs were played at venues with restricted capacity, it’s nice to see that they can reach bigger a bigger audience with this recording. «Live 2020» consists of songs from Darling West’s entire catalogue, and you can almost hear that they’ve been longing to play live on a stage. It had been six months since they’d been in front of an audience when these recordings were made, and the energy in the rooms were very special. This record is a document of this.

Einen schönen Fang hat das Chicagoer Label Trouble In Mind vor Kurzem mit DUMMY gemacht: Das Quintett aus Los Angeles verblüfft auf seinem Debüt ,Mandatory Enjoyment" mit einem derart ausgereiften Noise-Pop-Entwurf, das man kaum glauben mag, dass es sich hier um ein Erstlingswerk handelt. Nach gerade einmal zwei veröffentlichten EPs aus dem letzten Jahr, haben DUMMY ihren mit einem wundervollen Groove ausgestatteten Sound auf ,Mandatory Enjoyment" sichtlich gefunden und bis zur Perfektion destilliert. Das spielfreudige Debüt kombiniert geschickt Einflüsse aus Krautrock, Dream-Pop, Ambient, Psychedelic und Shoegaze zu einem Soundgebräu, das sowohl avantgardistisch als auch immer noch genug im Pop verwurzelt ist. Songs wie "Daffodils" und "Fissured Ceramics" zeichnen sich durch unerbittlich treibende Energie und reichlich psychedelischen Lärm aus. An anderer Stelle gleicht Dummy die Aggression mit meditativen Synthesizerlandschaften aus, die sich auf Sounddesign und Studioexperimente konzentrieren, wie bei dem motorischen "X-Static Blanket". Das Herzstück "H.V.A.C." und der letzte Track des Albums, "Atonal Poem", versuchen schließlich, diese beiden Pole miteinander zu verbinden und bieten mehrteilige Reisen durch unbekanntes Klangterritorium. Im Gegensatz zu der glückseligen Instrumentierung untersuchen Dummys sardonische Texte die Last des modernen Lebens, den Konsumismus, den Zusammenbruch der Umwelt, die Entfremdung und andere Ängste, die aus dem Leben in diesem absurden Moment der Geschichte entstehen. Innenarchitektur, Meeresverschmutzung, die Psychologie kommerzieller Architektur und Atomtests sind Themen, die aufgegriffen werden. Die rastlose Kreativität von Dummy treibt die Band immer weiter voran, sie fordern sich selbst ständig heraus und treiben ihren Sound in aufregende und erheiternde Bereiche. Dies ist - wie der Albumtitel schon sagt - "Mandatory Enjoyment". ENG Los Angeles band Dummy refuses to slow down. After releasing two cassette EP's in 2020 (on Popwig and Born Yesterday respectively), Dummy's debut full-length album arrives via Chicago's Trouble in Mind Records. Employing pummeling guitars and celestial ambience within the same breath, the band folds a myriad of reference points into their drone-pop style. Influence from '60s melodicism and '90s UK noise pop can be found woven in with inspiration from spiritual jazz, Japanese new age, and Italian minimalism. Dummy dodges the brooding, dark, dramatic tropes of contemporary "artistic" music often found in punk, experimental, and electronic, instead insisting on joyous and euphoric sonic palettes. They refuse to be artistically stagnant, continuously shifting their approach to writing across 12 tracks. Shaped by performances around Los Angeles in 2019, songs like "Daffodils" and "Fissured Ceramics" feature relentless driving energy and ample psychedelic noise. Elsewhere, Dummy counterbalances the aggression with meditative synthscapes focused on sound design and studio experimentation, like on the motorik "X-Static Blanket". Finally, centerpiece "H.V.A.C." and the album's final track, "Atonal Poem", seek to synthesize these two poles, offering multi-part journeys through uncharted sonic territory. In contrast to blissed-out instrumentation, Dummy's sardonic lyricism examines "the burden of modern life, consumerism, environmental collapse, alienation, and other anxieties born out of living in this absurd moment in history". Interior design, marine pollution, the psychology of commercial architecture, and nuclear testing are all featured subjects. Dummy's restless creativity keeps them moving ever-forward, continuously challenging themselves and pushing their sound into exciting and exhilarating places. This is - as the album title suggests - "Mandatory Enjoyment".

Einen schönen Fang hat das Chicagoer Label Trouble In Mind vor Kurzem mit DUMMY gemacht: Das Quintett aus Los Angeles verblüfft auf seinem Debüt ,Mandatory Enjoyment" mit einem derart ausgereiften Noise-Pop-Entwurf, das man kaum glauben mag, dass es sich hier um ein Erstlingswerk handelt. Nach gerade einmal zwei veröffentlichten EPs aus dem letzten Jahr, haben DUMMY ihren mit einem wundervollen Groove ausgestatteten Sound auf ,Mandatory Enjoyment" sichtlich gefunden und bis zur Perfektion destilliert. Das spielfreudige Debüt kombiniert geschickt Einflüsse aus Krautrock, Dream-Pop, Ambient, Psychedelic und Shoegaze zu einem Soundgebräu, das sowohl avantgardistisch als auch immer noch genug im Pop verwurzelt ist. Songs wie "Daffodils" und "Fissured Ceramics" zeichnen sich durch unerbittlich treibende Energie und reichlich psychedelischen Lärm aus. An anderer Stelle gleicht Dummy die Aggression mit meditativen Synthesizerlandschaften aus, die sich auf Sounddesign und Studioexperimente konzentrieren, wie bei dem motorischen "X-Static Blanket". Das Herzstück "H.V.A.C." und der letzte Track des Albums, "Atonal Poem", versuchen schließlich, diese beiden Pole miteinander zu verbinden und bieten mehrteilige Reisen durch unbekanntes Klangterritorium. Im Gegensatz zu der glückseligen Instrumentierung untersuchen Dummys sardonische Texte die Last des modernen Lebens, den Konsumismus, den Zusammenbruch der Umwelt, die Entfremdung und andere Ängste, die aus dem Leben in diesem absurden Moment der Geschichte entstehen. Innenarchitektur, Meeresverschmutzung, die Psychologie kommerzieller Architektur und Atomtests sind Themen, die aufgegriffen werden. Die rastlose Kreativität von Dummy treibt die Band immer weiter voran, sie fordern sich selbst ständig heraus und treiben ihren Sound in aufregende und erheiternde Bereiche. Dies ist - wie der Albumtitel schon sagt - "Mandatory Enjoyment". ENG Los Angeles band Dummy refuses to slow down. After releasing two cassette EP's in 2020 (on Popwig and Born Yesterday respectively), Dummy's debut full-length album arrives via Chicago's Trouble in Mind Records. Employing pummeling guitars and celestial ambience within the same breath, the band folds a myriad of reference points into their drone-pop style. Influence from '60s melodicism and '90s UK noise pop can be found woven in with inspiration from spiritual jazz, Japanese new age, and Italian minimalism. Dummy dodges the brooding, dark, dramatic tropes of contemporary "artistic" music often found in punk, experimental, and electronic, instead insisting on joyous and euphoric sonic palettes. They refuse to be artistically stagnant, continuously shifting their approach to writing across 12 tracks. Shaped by performances around Los Angeles in 2019, songs like "Daffodils" and "Fissured Ceramics" feature relentless driving energy and ample psychedelic noise. Elsewhere, Dummy counterbalances the aggression with meditative synthscapes focused on sound design and studio experimentation, like on the motorik "X-Static Blanket". Finally, centerpiece "H.V.A.C." and the album's final track, "Atonal Poem", seek to synthesize these two poles, offering multi-part journeys through uncharted sonic territory. In contrast to blissed-out instrumentation, Dummy's sardonic lyricism examines "the burden of modern life, consumerism, environmental collapse, alienation, and other anxieties born out of living in this absurd moment in history". Interior design, marine pollution, the psychology of commercial architecture, and nuclear testing are all featured subjects. Dummy's restless creativity keeps them moving ever-forward, continuously challenging themselves and pushing their sound into exciting and exhilarating places. This is - as the album title suggests - "Mandatory Enjoyment".

This is the follow up to Kero Hero Bonito’s 7” ‘Flamingo’ release from November last year.


Kero Kero Bonito are a London-based experimental pop trio, comprised of bilingual Anglo-Japanese singer Sarah and producers Gus and Jamie. Having previously made college radio indie (Time 'n' Place, #1 NACC 2018) and viral Casio megahits ("Flamingo", "I'd Rather Sleep"), the six track Civilisation mini-album compiles the "lost world junk pop" of the band's Civilisation I and Civilisation II EPs.

Civilisation was inspired by the art pop lineage of artists like Kate Bush, David Sylvian and Peter Gabriel, with a sonic palette informed by Warp's Artificial Intelligence series, homemade New Age music and early digital synth experiments. It was created entirely with dusty old musical hardware and uses both ancient musical tropes (pentatonic scales, minimalist repetition) and contemporary songwriting techniques to summon an out-of-time atmosphere that spans the past, present and future simultaneously. The songs tackle widescreen themes like psychological warfare (on the mystical polyrhythmic funk of "Battle Lines"), ancient mythology (on the energetic, melancholy synth-pop of "The Princess and the Clock") and the resurrection of the dead (on "Well Rested", the record's 7-minute psychedelic house closer).

Schneider is a Freiburg based duo that tells those everyday stories everyone has already experienced.

Stories of desire and lost love, a confrontation with short-lived and powerful encounters. Their debut release Mitternacht is a two-track 7“. The name-giving A-side is about the desperate search for some love, accompanied by a distorted bassline, melancholic synths and echo-ringing church bells. The Bside culminates in howls of emotion. The perfect soundtrack for lonesome walks in restless morning hours.

Love Wash opens with “Across the Flats” and closes with its title track, both upbeat ballads that build from scorched drones into momentous sprawling pop songs that help ease in and out of the album, which features contributions from co-PC Worship collaborators (LEYA’s Adam Markiewicz on violin and NYC drum shredder Greg Fox).
The second and third tracks “Drive” and “Saints” carry the subtle intensity that opens the album, with unpredictable instrumentation, chord changes and arrangements. This vibe is revisited later in the album on “Dune House” and “Hidden Away”, all of which are sonically rich, unraveling, dark, introspective and powerfully optimistic.
The rest of Love Wash is comprised of catchy, borderline alt-country hits with a twisted Nashville tele vibe (“December Sun”, “New Thing” & “East Side Walk”), featuring pedal steel and vocal contributions from fellow Dougie Poole band members Tristan Shepherd and Francesca Caruso. Love Wash has a natural flow throughout, however the one real outlier is the well placed and hyper paced middle child of the album “Dredging Up Old Blues,” a schitzo-synth-pop Mountain Dew Rock jam that feels like buying trucker speed at a digital gas station in Middle-America.

Love Wash has echoes of a post-Beatles solo record, recorded in the Northwest in the mid-90s; transient in its influences yet tied together with the aesthetic of its approach. Sequenced like the best, most damaged early K / Kill Rock Stars records and driven by fingerpicked acoustic guitar, sweeping drones, euphoric synths, lush vocals and soaring Dead Man leads, Love Wash is a beautifully rich pop record at its core and an ambitious journey of an album that started as bedroom demos and evolved into a layered studio exploration.
-- Justin Frye (PC Worship

Repress

After getting used to eclectic sounds but always rooted in disco music, boogie with some proto-house drift, at the stroke of a dozen reissues, Omaggio delights us with a two tracks new-wave masterpiece, released in the mid-'80s on Color Record, seminal Flemish label, first and only recording of the Sound On Sound project. The original tracks "Macho" and "Depression" have been fully restored and come courtesy of Peter Gillis. Mr. Gillis is a highly regarded artist, sound engineer, composer and producer who has worked for some of the most important Belgian studios as well as an absolute pioneer of the Euro House scene, and a signatory of some of the greatest hits in this genre.

Lo! Soul’ is the fifth solo album from Roddy Woomble, following on from
his acclaimed debut, ‘My Secret Is My Silence’ (2006), ‘The Impossible Song
& Other Songs’ (2011), ‘Listen To Keep’ (2013) and ‘The Deluder’ (2017).
The record sees Woomble continue his unique and restless trajectory, gently
stepping away from his previous acoustic/folk intentions in favour of a more
explorative light, prevalent on 2020’s ‘Everyday Sun’ EP, which featured largely
spoken word pieces over an ambient, mediative soundtrack.
Produced and mixed by collaborator and Idlewild bandmate Andrew Mitchell (aka Andrew Wasylyk), ‘Lo! Soul’ was recorded remotely between Roddy’s
home in the Hebrides and Andrew’s studio in Dundee throughout 2020 while
Scotland was locked-down.
Roddy explains: “Andrew describes moments of the album as ‘Dystopian-pop’
which I think is as good a description as any. Lockdown gave me the sense of
a collective melancholy, a shared remoteness and isolation - that has been a
guiding influence throughout all the songs. It is the most unusual record I have
made, and made in the most unusual way.”
Across his twenty-five year career, ‘Lo! Soul’ may well be Woomble’s most inventive, creative album to date. From undulating synths and ambient soundscapes in the abstract narratives of ‘Atlantic Photography’ and ‘Secret Show’,
the sun-tinged horns of ‘Architecture in LA’, a mellifluous Mellotron or perhaps
a piano chime. Here, the path is embedded with Roddy’s words delicately unearthing the known and never known.

Released via Sony CMG - heavy metal legends mark an incredible 50 year career with a brand new collection of 16 tracks including remastered studio recordings and 7 previously unreleased live cuts from the band’s archive. Restored and mixed by Tom Allom at La Cucina W8 and mastered by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road Studios. Available on CD and 2 LP gatefold heavyweight red vinyl (limited/allocated). Promo/marketing activity across all media outlets.

Featuring Anthony Green of Circa Survive, Adam Lazzara and John Nolan of Taking Back Sunday and additional percussion from Benjamin Homola of Grouplove, Fuckin Whatever is a fluid project born of longtime friendships and late nights on the road, but what it could grow to become is entirely unwritten. It all started on the 2016 Taste Of Chaos tour. After Green wrapped his opening set with Saosin each night, itching to play more music, he started setting up impromptu acoustic gigs in the parking lots after his set. One night, his restless energy led to an impromptu backstage jam session with Lazzara, Nolan, Homola, and others––except there were no instruments involved. Using just their voices and a stomp or two in lieu of percussion... before they even realized it, Fuckin Whatever was born. They decided to start recording these nightly jam sessions on their phones, and by the end of the tour, there were literally dozens of recordings. There are some as long as 17-minutes, some recorded in bathrooms, and even one in the legendary tunnel between the stage and sound booth at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. What they share in common is the camaraderie of the many talented voices (and sounds) involved. Fast forward to 2020––ugh. With a creative need to continue making and releasing music, Anthony approached the group about releasing some of those recordings. Feeling a similar restlessness, Nolan suggested they try making and recording something for real instead. "I'm Waiting On You" is what came next, and it's truly the spark that led to the rest of this EP coming together. There are zero instruments on Fuckin Whatever's self-titled debut. "It's pretty much 80% mouth noises and 20% Ben slapping things around the house," Lazzara explains. Those voices, however, are among some of the most recognizable in modern rock music, yet here they take on a new life. Call it a band, or a supergroup... it's Fuckin Whatever.

Norah Jones has been a steady voice of warmth and reassurance for nearly 20 years since her cozy 2002 debut album Come Away With Me became a familiar musical companion for millions of people around the world. Now the 9-time GRAMMY-winning singer, songwriter, and pianist has made her first-ever holiday album with I Dream Of Christmas, a delightful and comforting collection of timeless seasonal favorites and affecting new originals that explore the complicated emotions of our times and our hopes that this holiday season will be full of joy and togetherness. I Dream Of Christmas will be released October 15 on Blue Note Records and can be pre-ordered now on vinyl, CD, and digital download.

“I’ve always loved Christmas music but never had the inclination to make a holiday album until now,” Norah says. “Last year I found myself listening to James Brown’s Funky Christmas and Elvis’s Christmas Album on Sunday’s during lockdown for a sense of comfort. In January 2021, I started thinking about making a Christmas album of my own. It gave me something fun to work on and look forward to.”

The album’s opening track, Norah’s original “Christmas Calling (Jolly Jones)” is available to stream or download today. Over chiming piano chords, Norah expresses a deep desire for holiday cheer and companionship. “I wanna hear the music play / I wanna dance and laugh and sway / I wanna happy holiday for Christmas.”

“When I was trying to figure out which direction to take, the original songs started popping in my head,” Norah explains. “They were all about trying to find the joys of Christmas, catching that spark, that feeling of love and inclusion that I was longing for during the rest of the year. Then there are all the classics that have that special nostalgia that can hit you no matter who or where you are in life. It was hard to narrow down, but I picked favorite classics that I knew I could make my own.”

Among the album’s many pleasures are Norah’s playful reinvention of The Chipmunk’s “Christmas Don’t Be Late” by David Seville (aka Ross Bagdasarian), which is given a languid beat and swaggering horns. Other highlights include sublime versions of “White Christmas,” “Blue Christmas,” “Winter Wonderland,” and “Christmas Time Is Here.”

I Dream Of Christmas was produced by Leon Michels, and features an excellent cast of musicians including Brian Blade on drums, Tony Scherr and Nick Movshon on bass, Russ Pahl on pedal steel guitar, Marika Hughes on cello, Dave Guy on trumpet, Raymond Mason on trombone, and Michels on saxophone, flute, percussion, and more.

Norah Jones first emerged on the world stage with the February 2002 release of Come Away With Me, her self-described “moody little record” that introduced a singular new voice and grew into a global phenomenon, sweeping the 2003 GRAMMY Awards. Since then, Jones has become a nine-time GRAMMY-winner. She has sold 50 million albums and her songs have been streamed six billion times worldwide. She has released a series of critically acclaimed and commercially successful solo albums—Feels Like Home (2004), Not Too Late (2007), The Fall (2009), Little Broken Hearts (2012), Day Breaks (2016), Pick Me Up Off The Floor (2020), and her first-ever live album ‘Til We Meet Again (2021)—as well as albums with her collective bands The Little Willies, El Madmo, and Puss N Boots featuring Sasha Dobson and Catherine Popper who released their second LP Sister in 2020. The 2010 compilation …Featuring Norah Jones showcased her incredible versatility by collecting her collaborations with artists as diverse as Willie Nelson, Outkast, Herbie Hancock, and Foo Fighters. Since 2018 Jones has been releasing a series of singles including collaborations with artists and friends such as Mavis Staples, Jeff Tweedy, Thomas Bartlett, Tarriona Tank Ball, Rodrigo Amarante, and Brian Blade, some of which were compiled on the 2019 singles collection Begin Again.

River Lea (a division of Rough Trade) releases Fire Draw Near - an album of
Irish traditional songs and music from the archives, compiled by Ian Lynch
of Dublin band Lankum.
“This LP is a collection of 13 rare, strange and wonderful gems from the Irish
tradition. Recorded in various parts of the country over a period of over 60
years between 1947 and 2013.
They show us a strong, multi-faceted and vibrant musical tradition in the country; one that still exists in the present day. The settings are varied - bars, living rooms, campsites, recording studios - as are the backgrounds of those who
perform.
The music of the Travellers, who tended to the flame of tradition while the rest
of society began to lose interest is well-represented, as are styles ranging from
sean-n s singing in Connemara, Donegal fiddle-playing, uilleann piping from
Dublin and English language singing of ballads both bawdy and beautiful from
across Ireland.” - Ian Lynch.
Fire Draw Near - An Anthology of Traditional Irish Song and Music is the fifth
album to be released by River Lea, following records by Lisa O’Neill, Br ghde
Chaimbeul, Ye Vagabonds and John Francis Flynn.
Fire Draw Near is also a monthly podcast and radio show, hosted by Ian Lynch
which investigates Irish traditional music in all its myriad forms.