Search:rhythm on the loose

‘Social Graces’ is the debut album from Australian
post-punk outfit Loose Fit. Made up of Kaylene Miller,
Anna Langdon, Max edgar and Richard Martin.
 Kaylene and Anna met in fashion school and instantly
bonded through their love of experimental music.
 After toying with lo-fi bedroom recordings, the pair
recruited Max edgar on guitar and Richard Martin on
bass and started making some actual noise.
 Kaylene is also behind the cult knitwear brand WAHWAH Australia, with items worn by Noel Fielding,
Courtney Barnett and Kim Gordon.
 The band’s rhythm-heavy sound contains echoes of
UK post-punk titans such as PiL and A Certain Ratio.
 “Their post-punk indebted sound is barbed, wiry, and
overwhelmingly infectious.” - Clash
 “This is music to truly let loose to” - So Young
Magazine
 “If you thought they were going to make a quiet
entrance, you thought wrong.” - DIY
 “Loose Fit have ever been producers of the most
kinetic percussive tracks that have a restless and
visceral energy about them.” - Backseat Mafia
 For fans of Shopping, The Slits, Delta 5, Dry Cleaning,
Amyl & The Sniffers, Sonic Youth, A Certain Ratio

Emerging DJ and producer Yemi brings the soulful groovers to the Time Is Now white label series.

Having already received support from the likes of UKG mainstays Sammy Virji, Conducta and Smokey Bubblin' B during his relatively youthful career, Yemi is certainly an artist to watch. For justification, look no further than the vibrant, uplifting 6-track EP which combines luscious vocals and blissful piano chords to create a sound which is at once nostalgic and fiercely forward-facing.

Its two opening tracks get things off to a buoyant start, with a bouncing 4x4 rhythm and the syrup-smooth vocals of emerging artist and long-time friend, Bria Keely. Pair these with rattling bongos on "Never Let You Go" and the gleeful trumpets of "Smooth Talkin" and you have two tracks which make it impossible to keep still.

"My Heart" welcomes a change in mood with a loose two-step swing and moody vocals: a track made for the feels. But before you get too self-indulgent, the deep bass grooves of "Soul Food" bring the energy right back and "Tension"'s euphoric piano chords leave things on an ecstatic high.

It was certainly unpredictable that a legendary jazz drummer would record one of spiritual disco's most revered songs twenty-three years into his career, but that's exactly what happened when Idris Muhammad laid down the epic "Could Heaven Ever Be Like This" in 1977. Hailing from New Orleans, Muhammad always had more than a touch of funk to his rhythms, and by the late '70s his collaborations with master engineer Rudy Van Gelder on recordings for the CTI and Kudu labels had gelled perfectly with the reigning jazz-funk sound of the day. Arranger Dave Matthews (famously part of the James Brown stable) collaborated with lyricist and former Long Island record store clerk Tony Sarafino on writing the song, which on the original recording unfolds over a nearly 9-minute build. Appearing at the crest of the disco movement, "Could Heaven Ever Be Like This" was an immediate hit with David Mancuso and the attendees of his loft parties, quickly spreading to other venues and even making a small climb up the Billboard R&B charts. For this new issue on Most Excellent Unlimited, Danny Krivit, whose own career as a dancefloor orchestrator from the DJ booth has paralleled the timeframe of the song's existence, has replaced the original loose introduction with a mix-friendly steady groove that maintains the unstoppable pulse of the song while maintaining the cathartic mid-song break and giving the track potential for even more momentum.

Another percussionist is responsible for our flip side track, "Magic's in the Air." Vince Montana was not only an in-house arranger and producer for Philadelphia International and other Philly soul labels, but was an accomplished vibraphone player. His talents are on display and doubly emphasized by Mr. K in this overlooked cut from Ronnie Walker, a falsetto singer who draws a rather strong comparison to the best songs of fellow Philadelphians Blue Magic with this uptempo, subtly synthy 1975 track. Never having appeared on a 12-inch, and indeed never having appeared even on a full-length album, Krivit's edit is the first extended mix of "Magic's in the Air" to date. Alongside "Could Heaven Ever Be Like This," itself notoriously difficult to find in 12-inch form, this latest from MEU's long running series with Mr. K is a bonafide must-have for the discerning DJ.

The new record by Eric Chenaux is his most immaculate and pristine. Say Laura perfectly incarnates the counter-intuitive interplay of instrument and voice that Chenaux has been revealing and revelling in throughout the past decade: his gently unhinged juxtaposition of resplendently smooth, seductively assured singing and puckish, frazzled, thoroughly destabilized guitar could come from no other musician. The five wandering, wondering ballads on Say Laura bring Chenaux's semi-improvised but keenly intentional songwriting to its fullest, clearest, warmest and coolest articulation; uncompromising and generous, hyper-specific and loose, spartan and luxurious, elemental and ornate. Say Laura might as well be a jazz record_certainly as much as his previously acclaimed albums Slowly Paradise and Skullsplitter tread that genre-adjacent territory_though it also features moments and melodies that come as close to pop flirtation as Chenaux is likely to get. But above all, Say Laura breathes like no other Chenaux album. Voice and guitar are inscribed with elemental clarity in a wondrously open, symbiotic sonic space. His pure tenor croon glides through a crisp, reverberant ether while his fried guitar careens dizzily and giddily, every gesture and timbre captured in unflinching detail by engineer Cyril Harrison. Chenaux has also made his most minimal, controlled, regulated and rhythmic record.

"Rock and metal music have always been a haven for those who have bigger stories to tell; who have grander emotions to convey. For more than thirty years, Finnish figureheads Amorphis have done their best to carve their very own niche in heartfelt yet aggressive, melancholic yet soothing tunes. On “Halo”, their staggering fourteenth studio effort, the Fins underline their trailblazing status as one of the most original, culturally relevant and rewarding acts ever to emerge from the land of the thousand lakes. In the past, mythology and legend took the role of today’s pop culture: Stories and a set of values uniting us by giving us a voice and a tapestry on which we can find each other and identify with something. By weaving the tales of Finnish national epos “Kalevala” into their songs and interpreting them in a timeless way, Amorphis combine the role of ancient minstrels and luminaries of the modern world, honouring tradition without getting stuck in the past. The vibrant, lively, and touching beauty that is “Halo” highlights their musical and storytelling mastership on a once again soaring level: It’s a progressive, melodic, and quintessentially melancholic heavy metal masterwork plucked from the fickle void of inspiration by original guitarists Esa Holopainen and Tomi Koivusaari, bassist Olli-Pekka Laine, drummer Jan Rechberger, longtime keyboardist Santeri Kallio and vocalist Tomi Joutsen, the band’s long-standing lyrical consciousness Pekka Kainulainen and a selected group of world class audio professionals led by
renowned Swedish producer Jens Bogren. Considering the band’s prolonged journey in the forefront of innovative metal music, it’s difficult to grasp how Amorphis manages to raise the proverbial bar time and time again, presenting a more than worthy finale to the trilogy begun with 2015’s “Under the Red Cloud” followed by 2018’s “Queen of Time.” “It really is a great feeling that we can still produce very decent music as a band,” says Holopainen, a founding member of the band. “Perhaps a certain kind of self-criticism and long experience culminate in these latest albums.” To the songwriter himself, “Halo” sounds both familiar and different. “It is thoroughly recognizable Amorphis from beginning to end but the general atmosphere is a little bit heavier and more progressive and also organic compared to its predecessor,” he elaborates. Tomi Joutsen, the man with vocal cords capable of unleashing colossal, bear-like growls as well as singing soothing, mesmerising lullabies, adds, “To me, ‘Halo’ sounds a little more stripped down compared to ‘Queen Of Time’ and ‘Under The Red Cloud.’ However, don’t get me wrong: when a certain song needs to sound big, then it sounds very big.” He’s right, of course: By stripping down some of the arrangements, the monumental moments become even more monumental. That’s of course also thanks to producing renaissance man Jens Bogren who harvested the thirteen final tracks from a batch of thirty songs Amorphis offered him. “Jens is very demanding, but I really like to work with him,” says Holopainen. “He takes care of the whole project from start to finish, and he allows the musician to focus on just playing. I may not be able to thank Jens enough. Everything we’ve done together has been really great, and this co-operation has carried Amorphis significantly forward.” Indeed. Setting off with the stormy grandeur of opener “Northwards,” Amorphis take us on an epic journey through the lands of the north, their rich cultural and historical heritage and musical traditions. This is not only an album for fans or metal connoisseurs. It’s a must for every imaginative mind out there with a soft spot for cinematic soundscapes, triumphant melodies and breathtaking dynamics measuring the borderlands of light and dark. However, no Amorphis album would be complete without the imaginative and poetic storytelling of renowned lyricist and “Kalevala” expert Pekka Kainulainen. “From day one, Pekka has always been an enthusiastic and prolific lyricist for Amorphis,” says Joutsen. “It is a slow process of translating archaic Finnish poetry into English and adapting it our progressive rhythms. Fortunately, Pekka does everything on time and with great care.” Since 2007’s “Silent Waters,” Kainulainen has been navigating the mythological waters of his homeland with great skill and respect. For “Halo,” he outdid himself once again. “‘Halo’ is a loose themed record filled with adventurous tales about the mythical North tens of thousands of years ago,” he explains. “The lyrics tell of an ancient time when man wandered to these abandoned boreal frontiers after the ice age. While describing the revival of a seminal culture in a world of new opportunities, I also try to reach the sempiternal forces of the human mind.” Thirty-one years after their inception, with uncounted global tours under their belt and fourteen albums deep in their career, Amorphis still proves to be the musical fountain of youth, an extraordinary band constantly reinventing itself without abandoning its mystical roots. With “Halo”, they deliver an astonishing album that deserves to be played everywhere, transcending the realms of metal and rock by its sheer profoundness and musicality."

"Rock and metal music have always been a haven for those who have bigger stories to tell; who have grander emotions to convey. For more than thirty years, Finnish figureheads Amorphis have done their best to carve their very own niche in heartfelt yet aggressive, melancholic yet soothing tunes. On “Halo”, their staggering fourteenth studio effort, the Fins underline their trailblazing status as one of the most original, culturally relevant and rewarding acts ever to emerge from the land of the thousand lakes. In the past, mythology and legend took the role of today’s pop culture: Stories and a set of values uniting us by giving us a voice and a tapestry on which we can find each other and identify with something. By weaving the tales of Finnish national epos “Kalevala” into their songs and interpreting them in a timeless way, Amorphis combine the role of ancient minstrels and luminaries of the modern world, honouring tradition without getting stuck in the past. The vibrant, lively, and touching beauty that is “Halo” highlights their musical and storytelling mastership on a once again soaring level: It’s a progressive, melodic, and quintessentially melancholic heavy metal masterwork plucked from the fickle void of inspiration by original guitarists Esa Holopainen and Tomi Koivusaari, bassist Olli-Pekka Laine, drummer Jan Rechberger, longtime keyboardist Santeri Kallio and vocalist Tomi Joutsen, the band’s long-standing lyrical consciousness Pekka Kainulainen and a selected group of world class audio professionals led by
renowned Swedish producer Jens Bogren. Considering the band’s prolonged journey in the forefront of innovative metal music, it’s difficult to grasp how Amorphis manages to raise the proverbial bar time and time again, presenting a more than worthy finale to the trilogy begun with 2015’s “Under the Red Cloud” followed by 2018’s “Queen of Time.” “It really is a great feeling that we can still produce very decent music as a band,” says Holopainen, a founding member of the band. “Perhaps a certain kind of self-criticism and long experience culminate in these latest albums.” To the songwriter himself, “Halo” sounds both familiar and different. “It is thoroughly recognizable Amorphis from beginning to end but the general atmosphere is a little bit heavier and more progressive and also organic compared to its predecessor,” he elaborates. Tomi Joutsen, the man with vocal cords capable of unleashing colossal, bear-like growls as well as singing soothing, mesmerising lullabies, adds, “To me, ‘Halo’ sounds a little more stripped down compared to ‘Queen Of Time’ and ‘Under The Red Cloud.’ However, don’t get me wrong: when a certain song needs to sound big, then it sounds very big.” He’s right, of course: By stripping down some of the arrangements, the monumental moments become even more monumental. That’s of course also thanks to producing renaissance man Jens Bogren who harvested the thirteen final tracks from a batch of thirty songs Amorphis offered him. “Jens is very demanding, but I really like to work with him,” says Holopainen. “He takes care of the whole project from start to finish, and he allows the musician to focus on just playing. I may not be able to thank Jens enough. Everything we’ve done together has been really great, and this co-operation has carried Amorphis significantly forward.” Indeed. Setting off with the stormy grandeur of opener “Northwards,” Amorphis take us on an epic journey through the lands of the north, their rich cultural and historical heritage and musical traditions. This is not only an album for fans or metal connoisseurs. It’s a must for every imaginative mind out there with a soft spot for cinematic soundscapes, triumphant melodies and breathtaking dynamics measuring the borderlands of light and dark. However, no Amorphis album would be complete without the imaginative and poetic storytelling of renowned lyricist and “Kalevala” expert Pekka Kainulainen. “From day one, Pekka has always been an enthusiastic and prolific lyricist for Amorphis,” says Joutsen. “It is a slow process of translating archaic Finnish poetry into English and adapting it our progressive rhythms. Fortunately, Pekka does everything on time and with great care.” Since 2007’s “Silent Waters,” Kainulainen has been navigating the mythological waters of his homeland with great skill and respect. For “Halo,” he outdid himself once again. “‘Halo’ is a loose themed record filled with adventurous tales about the mythical North tens of thousands of years ago,” he explains. “The lyrics tell of an ancient time when man wandered to these abandoned boreal frontiers after the ice age. While describing the revival of a seminal culture in a world of new opportunities, I also try to reach the sempiternal forces of the human mind.” Thirty-one years after their inception, with uncounted global tours under their belt and fourteen albums deep in their career, Amorphis still proves to be the musical fountain of youth, an extraordinary band constantly reinventing itself without abandoning its mystical roots. With “Halo”, they deliver an astonishing album that deserves to be played everywhere, transcending the realms of metal and rock by its sheer profoundness and musicality."

London-based record label Wisdom Teeth kicks off 2021 with something close to home: Blush - the playful, dynamic debut LP by label co-founder, Facta. Recorded unusually quickly over a short stint in early 2020, the record is the product of a period of refreshed and unfussy creativity. It’s an innovative and distinctly contemporary album that moves a good few steps beyond the artist’s work to date - loosely rooted in UK dance music but taking added influence from ambient, modern classical, dreampop, Balearic, folk music and beyond. The result is a lush, ornate record populated by aqueous pads, bleeping arps, wandering melodies and sparse broken rhythms; acoustic instruments that play out alongside FM synths, all processed with a pristine UV sheen inherited from modern pop music. The record opens with ‘Sistine (Plucks)’ - a crystalline synth piece with a stumbling, shifting metre revolving around an odd-ended MIDI harp loop, coloured through with washed-out pads and snatches of found sound. This breezy mood follows through to ‘On Deck’, where an FM vibraphone rings out on top of woozy, warping chords and a subby soca groove. Moving forward the record moves cohesively through a range of shifting moods and hues. The machine jazz of ‘Brushes’ is tense and coiled, with nods towards Burnt Friedman, Photek and Eli Keszler. ‘Iso Stream’ sees a rich, colourful sprawl of arpeggiated synths and dissociated vocal chops unspool slowly to form pooling, lowlit melodies. Title track ‘Blush’ is a forlorn Autonomic love song built from clicks-n-cuts - like dBridge & Instra:mental reduced and reinterpreted by SND. Throughout, bold, broad melodies take centre stage, and the tracks build like compositions rather than loops or club tools. There are echoes of the dancefloor - particularly in the slo-mo bruk of ‘Verge’ and the glacial subs underpinning ‘Diving Birds’ (a collaboration with friend and Trilogy Tapes regular Parris) - however the end results find us somewhere far off. ‘Blush’ is the second long-form release to come from Wisdom Teeth following K-LONE’s 2020 debut album, ‘Cape Cira’, which was widely ranked as one the best LPs of 2020.

Originally released in 2005 on Cooper's Hipshot Cd-r label, and reissued here for the first time on vinyl, Spirit Songs deserves to be regarded as a true rediscovered gem, remixed and remastered by Mike Copper himself!

Spirit Songs comes as a highly organic form of Ambient-Folk-Blues with Cooper reordering material to create an immersive listening experience. A stream of cut-up lyrics inspired by Thomas Pynchon's writing slide across multiple electronic layers and masterfully fingerpicked acoustic guitars combining into a moving tide. This is deeply inspired music from a unique artist: Mike Cooper the so called "icon of post-everything music” a true sound explorer constantly pushing the boundaries of genres and styles, Folk, Blues, Free Improv, Exotica, Ambient, Electronica...

"Spirit Songs.. a glorious marriage of all three of Cooper's previous musical strategies; creating a stunning hybrid. The album contains 10 songs performed on finger-picked acoustic and electric lap steel guitar,
often looped and treated in real time, with Cooper singing lyrics in a quietly meandering, semi-improvisatory manner that recalls a more polished Jandek. The style of songwriting is immediately recognizable as blues, but an intuitive, idiosyncratic form of folk-blues, with Cooper narrating laments over matters personal and global, gentle universalisms that double as political messages. All of this occurs over a loose rhythmic framework provided by various noisy loops, with cracks, scratches and pops, echoes and distortions skipping out from every refrain. It's a gentle cacophony with subtle undercurrents of beauty and sadness, effortlessly nostalgic but still very rooted in the now. I think that Mike Cooper can genuinely call this style his own; I've never heard anything remotely like it, and it works beautifully, highlighting both song and singer, as well as the happy accidents resulting from the intersection of structure and chaos."- Pitchfork Review.

Brand new music from Warpaint's jennylee (Jenny Lee Lindburg). Newtopia is the first release of a series of singles, culminating in full album to come on RSD 2022.

Feeling is at the core of jennylee’s music. Having spent the past decade defining the grove that allows Warpaint the luxury to drift between genres and eras, jennylee’s solo record proved more loose, open, and driven by the rhythm of the heart.

Critically acclaimed LA quartet Warpaint have been confounding expectation since the band’s inception in 2004. Releasing their third album ‘Heads Up’ to rave reviews in 2016, Warpaint remain on top of their game; cementing themselves as one of the bands of a generation.

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

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

"Brand new music from Warpaint's jennylee (Jenny Lee Lindburg). Newtopia is the first release of a series of singles, culminating in full album to come on RSD 2022.
Feeling is at the core of jennylee’s music. Having spent the past decade defining the grove that allows Warpaint the luxury to drift between genres and eras, jennylee’s solo record proved more loose, open, and driven by the rhythm of the heart. Critically acclaimed LA quartet Warpaint have been confounding expectation since the band’s inception in 2004. Releasing their third album ‘Heads Up’ to rave reviews in 2016, Warpaint remain on top of their game; cementing themselves as one of the bands of a generation."

"If you look at the band photo on Make Me Sick’s insert, you’ll see people from pretty much all the best and most popular hardcore punk bands in Pittsburgh for the past few years. These people know how to make great hardcore punk, and Make Me Sick is White Stains doing just that. While White Stains isn’t as as blistering as Loose Nukes or as brutally intense as Blood Pressure, that’s only because they’ve taken a different tack here, channeling the snotty, punky hardcore of bands like the Circle Jerks, Sick Pleasure, and Chronic Sick. Of those bands, Circle Jerks is the most apt comparison given how White Stains’ snottiness comes along with so much catchiness and rhythmic density. And like Group Sex, the drum parts are almost catchier than the riffs here… I need to be careful listening to this while driving because these songs might make steering seem less important than air drumming" (Daniel Lupton)

BERTIE MARSHALL is a writer/ performer. He is also an acclaimed memoirist, most well known for his book ‘Berlin Bromley’ (2006) about his transformation from Bertie, an anxious, androgynous, depressed teenager, into Berlin, a teenager who would reject suburban values and become a founding member of punk’s ‘Bromley Contingent’, alongside Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin and Billy Idol.

October 29th sees Upset The Rhythm release ‘Exhibit’ by Bertie Marshall, collecting for the first time his songs and spoken word tracks from this fertile period of the 80s-90s.

He’s currently working on ‘Looking: Backwards To Go Forwards’, picking up from where ‘Berlin Bromley’ left off. His other books include the debut novel ‘Psychoboys’ (1997), ‘Nowhere Slow’ (2014), ‘From Sleepwalking to Sleepwalking’ (2016), ‘Wild - re write’ (2017), ‘The Peeler’ (2018) and ‘Pete’s Underpants’ (2019). In 2015 the British Library purchased his writing archive.

From 1980-83, Bertie was the frontman for post-punk boundary-pushers Behaviour Red - they released one single (favourably played by John Peel), did a mini-tour and broke up. At various times Behaviour Red featured Noel Blanden of Normil Hawaiians and fine artist Nicola Tyson. Their sound was characterised by looseness and freedom, boasting at times tribal drumming, streams of vocals, dazed guitars and feedback. Bertie continued sketching out atmospheric compositions afterwards too, walking a tightrope between bewildered pop and gothic folk. Central to everything is Bertie’s commanding voice; heartfelt, impassioned and masterfully leading you through the story.

Bertie became interested in spoken word and performance poetry in the 90s, which then led him into writing and performing in his own plays and devised theatre pieces. He did regular readings and performances in NYC and began writing books inspired by the visceral talents of Acker & Burroughs. Having lived in Berlin, San Francisco, and Brittany, Bertie now lives in London.

A-side inside and B-side outside: this single is very loosely influenced by the collective experience of the long wait to be released; adding to the already exhausted canon of cultural covid artefacts. Cheeks is centred around the sub-bass of an old Italian organ and the honking sax of Iain McCall, telling the tale of a squashed individual. The over zealous approach to layers hopefully adds to the feeling of claustrophobia and mundane delirium.
If Cheeks is the wind up, Mild Weather is the release. An ode to the modern desire of one week in the sun, accepting that prize and returning back to the slog. Jayne’s beautiful vocal provides the centre-point to a casio led symphony, with acoustic and electronic drums fighting for attention throughout. As is the current norm, these tracks were written and recorded remotely and in a couple of sessions in Edinburgh at the beginning of 2021.

"Free Jazz " - Ornette Coleman (as); Eric Dolphy (b-cl); Don Cherry, Freddie Hubbard (tp); Charlie Haden, Scott LaFaro (b); Billy Higgins, Ed Blackwell (dr)

The term 'free jazz' was already inexistence – but it had a quite different meaning, namely jazz without paying for an entrance ticket. The album "Free Jazz", however, was intended to lend its name to a quite different style of jazz. 'Free' playing – now this meant that no one was bound to conventions, you could let your imagination run loose. Free jazz gave one the chance to find new rules for every new composition. And it was to be the greatest boost to innovation in the world of jazz. Ornette Coleman’s album from December 1960 stands at the beginning of the free jazz era like a massive portal. Coleman thought big: he brought two quartets into the studio at the same time, both with two wind instruments and no piano, and let them play together for 36 minutes without a break – a collective improvisation. There aren’t any precise themes, although short, fanfare-like motifs do exist in which the winds come together. A continuousdense rhythmic beat underlies the music almost throughout – and the pulse is felt rather than heard. One musician after the other comes into the foreground to improvise, almost like at a jam session. First Coleman, then Dolphy, then the two trumpeters. The other winds, however, never remain silent, then make comments and support one another continually – the energy level is immense the whole time (it was cold in the studio ...). Only when it is the turn of the bass and drum players do the winds remain silent for about eleven minutes. This album is not only a historic caesura, but a truly great experience over andover again.

This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head. More information under pure-analogue

All royalties and mechanical rights have been paid.

Recording: December 1961 in A&RStudios, New York City, by Tom Dowd

Production: Nesuhi Ertegun

The forthcoming latest edition of the popular compilation series featuring long-lost vintage 60s-70s proto-metal and stoner rock singles, Brown Acid: The Thirteenth Trip will be available on Halloween 2021. Check out the first single "Run Run", released in 1970 by Montreal hard rockers Max is available to hear & share via Metal Injection HERE. (And, direct YouTube and Bandcamp)

The Brown Acid series is curated by L.A. label RidingEasy Records and retailer/label Permanent Records. Read interviews with the series curators via Paste Magazine HERE and LA Weekly HERE.

About The Thirteenth Trip:

Max, from Montreal, QC — originally known as Dawn, before Tony Orlando & Dawn forced a name change — kick things off with “Run Run” from their lone 1970 single. It’s a hard-hitting rocker with scale climbing crunching guitars and powerful Bonham-esque drumming. Sadly, the band didn’t last long due to poor management and various other factors, so this is the only surviving document according to guitarist Gerry Markman. And what a document it is, paired with the A-side “The Flying Dutchman.”

You might remember Ralph Williams and the Wright Brothers from their track “Never Again” on Brown Acid: The Tenth Trip. Here they make their return to the series with the A-side of their 1972 Hour Glass Records 45, which sounds like Blue Cheer mangling Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman” (that’s right, several years before Van Halen actually did so.) Alas, Ralph and these Wright Brothers soon disappeared from terrestrial airspace.

“Feelin’ Dead” is extremely heavy blues from this also extremely rare 1974 single by Detroit, MI’s Master Danse, which was only released as a promo 45. Think Led Zeppelin’s “Since I’ve Been Loving You” and you’re on the right track. A little dose of Hendrix acid blues and a heartfelt groove, and you’ll wonder why this single never even made it to official release. The unavoidable tell in the lyric, “help me get this damn thing out of my arm” hints at the post-Vietnam heroin epidemic as a potential clue why we never heard more from Master Danse.

Folks, Gary Del Vecchio is “Buzzin’” hard on this one, and from what sounds like an in-studio party of yelps and chatter at the start of the song, it seems that the whole band was in on the festivities. The funky blues riff, reminiscent of Led Zeppelin’s “Heartbreaker” and rollicking rhythmic changes certainly keep the buzz a rollin’.The recording is technically credited as Gary Del Vecchio with Max, though not the same band as the one that kicks off this Trip.

John Kitko’s 1973 heavy psychedelic rager “Indecision” is the only recording known to exist by the mysterious artist. The Twin Record Productions release features a different artist, Tom Poff on the B-side, which is truly a shame, considering the smoldering ashes Kitko leaves of the turntable by song’s end. It starts out more like a late 60s Acid Rock jam before leaping into a blazing double-time gallop, whipped into a frenzy by wailing, neck-pickup guitar squeals and Kitko’s barely audible howls.

Tampa, FL’s Bacchus made their Brown Acid debut way back on the very first Trip with “Carry My Load.” This 1972 B-side, “Hope” is a huge sounding swinging rocker replete with roadhouse piano bolstering the chunky riffs and confident vocals. After relocating to Southern California a few years later, the band morphed into Fortress, an 80s melodic metal act whose Hands In The Till album of Pomp Rock on Atlantic Records still draws chatter today.

Orchid’s “Go Big Red” is perhaps the most garage-y sounding offering here, with loose rhythms and straightforward stop-and-start riffing. Nonetheless, the stomping energy and fried-amp guitar tone make this one a charming skull thwack. The band’s 1973 single on American records, backed with a cover of Johnny Russell and Voni Morrison’s “Act Naturally” (popularized by Buck Owens and the Buckaroos) is their only release, so the world never did see this Orchid fully blossom.

By the title alone of Dry Ice’s “Don’t Munkey with the Funky Skunky” you know you’re in for a good time. The 1974 barnstormer seems aimed to the novelty tunes crowd, with its kooky lyrics and silly-voiced spoken catchphrase break, “peeyew, you’ll be sorry if you do.” But, the Ohio band’s maniacal drumming, crunching guitars and, of course, drug euphemistic lyrics make it a shoo-in for the Brown Acid series of erudite rock’n’roll.

Good Humore’s swaggering 1976 rocker “Detroit” is a slick and smooth paen to the Motor City. It most likely doesn’t predate “Detroit Rock City” by Kiss, also released in 1976, and it has more rock’n’roll swing, but it could fit comfortably alongside the era’s arena anthems. Not much else is known about the one-off release on P.V. Records, but songwriter Mike Moats is noted to also have been a recording engineer in later years and this well produced track sounds like a labor of love.

The forthcoming latest edition of the popular compilation series featuring long-lost vintage 60s-70s proto-metal and stoner rock singles, Brown Acid: The Thirteenth Trip will be available on Halloween 2021. Check out the first single "Run Run", released in 1970 by Montreal hard rockers Max is available to hear & share via Metal Injection HERE. (And, direct YouTube and Bandcamp)

The Brown Acid series is curated by L.A. label RidingEasy Records and retailer/label Permanent Records. Read interviews with the series curators via Paste Magazine HERE and LA Weekly HERE.

About The Thirteenth Trip:

Max, from Montreal, QC — originally known as Dawn, before Tony Orlando & Dawn forced a name change — kick things off with “Run Run” from their lone 1970 single. It’s a hard-hitting rocker with scale climbing crunching guitars and powerful Bonham-esque drumming. Sadly, the band didn’t last long due to poor management and various other factors, so this is the only surviving document according to guitarist Gerry Markman. And what a document it is, paired with the A-side “The Flying Dutchman.”

You might remember Ralph Williams and the Wright Brothers from their track “Never Again” on Brown Acid: The Tenth Trip. Here they make their return to the series with the A-side of their 1972 Hour Glass Records 45, which sounds like Blue Cheer mangling Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman” (that’s right, several years before Van Halen actually did so.) Alas, Ralph and these Wright Brothers soon disappeared from terrestrial airspace.

“Feelin’ Dead” is extremely heavy blues from this also extremely rare 1974 single by Detroit, MI’s Master Danse, which was only released as a promo 45. Think Led Zeppelin’s “Since I’ve Been Loving You” and you’re on the right track. A little dose of Hendrix acid blues and a heartfelt groove, and you’ll wonder why this single never even made it to official release. The unavoidable tell in the lyric, “help me get this damn thing out of my arm” hints at the post-Vietnam heroin epidemic as a potential clue why we never heard more from Master Danse.

Folks, Gary Del Vecchio is “Buzzin’” hard on this one, and from what sounds like an in-studio party of yelps and chatter at the start of the song, it seems that the whole band was in on the festivities. The funky blues riff, reminiscent of Led Zeppelin’s “Heartbreaker” and rollicking rhythmic changes certainly keep the buzz a rollin’.The recording is technically credited as Gary Del Vecchio with Max, though not the same band as the one that kicks off this Trip.

John Kitko’s 1973 heavy psychedelic rager “Indecision” is the only recording known to exist by the mysterious artist. The Twin Record Productions release features a different artist, Tom Poff on the B-side, which is truly a shame, considering the smoldering ashes Kitko leaves of the turntable by song’s end. It starts out more like a late 60s Acid Rock jam before leaping into a blazing double-time gallop, whipped into a frenzy by wailing, neck-pickup guitar squeals and Kitko’s barely audible howls.

Tampa, FL’s Bacchus made their Brown Acid debut way back on the very first Trip with “Carry My Load.” This 1972 B-side, “Hope” is a huge sounding swinging rocker replete with roadhouse piano bolstering the chunky riffs and confident vocals. After relocating to Southern California a few years later, the band morphed into Fortress, an 80s melodic metal act whose Hands In The Till album of Pomp Rock on Atlantic Records still draws chatter today.

Orchid’s “Go Big Red” is perhaps the most garage-y sounding offering here, with loose rhythms and straightforward stop-and-start riffing. Nonetheless, the stomping energy and fried-amp guitar tone make this one a charming skull thwack. The band’s 1973 single on American records, backed with a cover of Johnny Russell and Voni Morrison’s “Act Naturally” (popularized by Buck Owens and the Buckaroos) is their only release, so the world never did see this Orchid fully blossom.

By the title alone of Dry Ice’s “Don’t Munkey with the Funky Skunky” you know you’re in for a good time. The 1974 barnstormer seems aimed to the novelty tunes crowd, with its kooky lyrics and silly-voiced spoken catchphrase break, “peeyew, you’ll be sorry if you do.” But, the Ohio band’s maniacal drumming, crunching guitars and, of course, drug euphemistic lyrics make it a shoo-in for the Brown Acid series of erudite rock’n’roll.

Good Humore’s swaggering 1976 rocker “Detroit” is a slick and smooth paen to the Motor City. It most likely doesn’t predate “Detroit Rock City” by Kiss, also released in 1976, and it has more rock’n’roll swing, but it could fit comfortably alongside the era’s arena anthems. Not much else is known about the one-off release on P.V. Records, but songwriter Mike Moats is noted to also have been a recording engineer in later years and this well produced track sounds like a labor of love.

Over the past decade or so, Chris Forsyth has produced a series of perennially year-end list haunting studio albums of expansive art-rock, from 2013’s Solar Motel to 2019’s All TimePresent , in the process becoming one of the leading lights of the so-called “indie jam” scene, musicians combining omnivorous influences with post-Dead sprawl.

These critically lauded albums have established Forsyth as one of today’s most unique and acclaimed guitar player/composers - a forward thinking classicist synthesizing cinematic expansiveness with a pithy lyricism and rhythmic directness that makes even his 20-minute workouts feel as clear, direct, and memorable as a 4-minute song.

Pitchfork has called his music “a near-perfect balance between 70s rock tradition and present day experimentation,” NPR Music named Forsyth “one of rock’s most lyrical guitar improvisors,” and the New York Times calls him “a scrappy and mystical historian… His music humanizes the element of control in rock classicism (and) turns it into a woolly but disciplined ritual.”

But the studio records are just the tip of the iceberg.

You see, in a live setting Forsyth’s music is never really finished.

He hasn’t had a fixed band in years and plays with a rotating cast of characters. Regulars in Forsyth’s bands have included bassists Doug McCombs (Tortoise) and Peter Kerlin (Sunwatchers), and drummer Ryan Jewell (Ryley Walker, too many others to mention), among others - basically, whoever is available for the given gig or tour.

These are not groups that rehearse, exactly. Operating more like a jazz band, Forsyth and his players treat the songs as frameworks that remain identifieable but morph based on who’s playing them, like weather to a landscape.

Embracing this flux has become a cornerstone of Forsyth’s live sets, rendering every performance special and thereby catching the attention of tapers from his home base in Philly to New York City, Chicago, and Minneapolis. In fact, most of his live performances over the last few years are recorded and posted on the Live Music Archive site.

But the taper recordings, though many are high quality and full of character, are not professionally recorded and mixed multi-tracks.

Which brings us to Peoples Motel Band , the new live LP culled from a set that Forsyth played with NY-based group Garcia Peoples as his band, and is self-releasing on his own Algorithm Free label in a limited pressing of 500 copies.

Recorded September 14, 2019 before a packed and enthusiastic hometown crowd at Johnny Brenda’s in Philadelphia, Peoples Motel Band catches Forsyth and Garcia Peoples (plus ubiquitous drummer Ryan Jewell) re-imagining songs from Forsyth’s last couple studio albums with improvisatory flair.

Forsyth and Garcia Peoples played a number of 2019 shows together, beginning with a semi-legendary jam set at Nublu in NYC in March, through a couple dates on Forsyth’s month-long weekly residency at Nublu in September and concluding with a five-date tour of the Northeast in December. The chemistry between the players is tangible.

As is often the case with Forsyth shows, the gloves come off quickly and the players attack the material - much of it so well-manicured and cleanly produced in the studio - like a bunch of racoons let loose in a Philadelphia pretzel factory.

Recorded and mixed with clarity by Forsyth’s longtime studio collaborator, engineer/producer Jeff Zeigler, the record puts the listener right in the sweaty club, highlighted by an incredible side-long take of the chooglin’ title track from 2017’s Dreaming in The Non-Dream LP (note multiple climaxes eliciting wild shouts and ecstatic screams from the assembled).

This is not the new Chris Forsyth album, exactly, but then again, it kinda is because whenever he sits down to play, something new comes out.

This summer, Saft welcomes Dubbyman after a three-year hiatus from releasing music. He serves up a gorgeous new EP in the SAFTX series that features a remix from Detroit mainstay FIT Siegel.

Dubbyman is a master of the deep. As a DJ and producer, he explores warm and heady soundscapes that are rooted in house and techno but decorated with much more. His musical synths and compelling rhythms have resulted in countless vital EPs on labels like Ferrispark, Soul People Music and the Deep Explorer label he co-runs. Now, after a break, he is back and in brilliant form.

Opener 'En La Ciudad' is an effortlessly loose and languid house track. The hip-swinging claps and funk bass riffs bring a sunset vibe, with wordless vocals from Carlito Brigante Rojo and dreamy pads really soothing the soul. Remixing is legendary FIT Sound label head, FXHE associate and pillar of the Motor City scene FIT Siegel. His famously no-nonsense approach results in a track here that is laced up with smoky soul. The dusty beats roll deep, the twisted synth work brings light and lush pads soften the whole groove with a real sense of heart.

"Up Again" strikes another perfectly seductive pose with its jazzy keys, soulful vocals, and rough-edged beats that make you want to dance. It's a tune packed with feelings and irresistible funk, and is sure to be the soundtrack to many outdoor parties this summer. The Deep Explorer Mix is a little more direct, with dynamic house drums, sunkissed motifs and warm pads taking you straight to the Mediterranean. Last of all, "Tropic" featuring Arturo Sanchidrian on bass is a downtempo classic, with beachy vibes, gently breaking synth waves and soft-focus melodies sinking you deep into a
reverie.

This is an EP of life-affirming, heart-warming house sounds that take you to a better place.

- Dritter Teil in LITAs hochgelobter Country Funk Serie! - Mit Dolly Parton, J.J. Cale, Conway Twitty, Larry Jon Wilson und Billy Swan, unter vielen anderen - Inklusive eines bisher unveröffentlichten Tracks von Tony Joe White - Alle Tracks neu gemastert - Neues Original-Artwork des renommierten Künstlers J. William Myers (der für Robert Altmans "Nashville", Waylon Jennings und Willie Nelsons "Waylon & Willie"-Album und die LP-Cover für die Charlie Daniels Band verantwortlich zeichnet) // Im Sommer 2012 wehte ein neuer Sound aus der staubigen Wüste herein. Es war ein Sound, der schwer zu fassen war, schwer zu kodifizieren; ein Sound, der sich wie ein wildes Pferd dem Zugriff entzog. Aber dies war kein Trend, keine Eintagsfliege, keine Vermischung von Stilen. Dieser Sound reichte Jahrzehnte zurück, in die zweite Hälfte der 1960er und frühen 1970er Jahre, als abenteuerlustige Künstler begannen, Country-Harmonien mit dem Hochgefühl des Gospels, dem sexuellen Schub des Blues und einem Hauch von Großstadt-Härte zu vermischen. Dies war ein neuer Sound mit einem einfachen Namen: Country Funk. Country Funk 1969-1975, erstmals 2012 veröffentlicht, brachte eine disparate Gruppe von Künstlern zusammen, die durch das einfache Gefühl ihrer Songs verbunden waren. Country Funk ist abwechselnd verspielt und melancholisch, slow jammin' und booty-shakin'. Es ist ein Sound, der sich sowohl im Studio als auch in der Bar durchsetzt, wie die auf Volume I vertretenen Künstler beweisen: Johnny Adams, Mac Davis, Dale Hawkins, Tony Joe White, Bobbie Gentry, Larry Jon Wilson, und viele andere. Nur zwei Jahre später wurde Volume I mit einer neuen Sammlung von Songs für Country Funk 1967-1974 (LITA 116, 2014) fortgesetzt. Volume II ließ nicht locker und bot alles, was man an Loose Talking und Lap-Steel Twangin' vertragen konnte. Schwergewichte wie Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton und J.J. Cale teilen sich die Barhocker mit den weniger bekannten Stimmen von Bill Wilson, Donnie Fritts und Thomas Jefferson Kaye. Mit Country Funk Volume III 1975-1982 wird noch mehr Funk aus dem Kofferraum geholt. Diesmal sind die Jeans enger, die Haare größer und die Discokugel dreht sich zu einem Country-Synthie-Beat. Produziert und zusammengestellt von Jason Morgan (DJ/Sammler aus der Bay Area) und Patrick McCarthy (Co-Produzent/Compiler von Volume I & II), enthält die Trackliste neben den Stammgästen Dolly Parton, J.J. Cale, Larry Jon Wilson und Tony Joe White (dessen Track hier zum ersten Mal veröffentlicht wird) auch neue Gesichter wie Steven Soles, Gary & Sandy, Conway Twitty, Travis Wammack, Billy Swan, Rob Galbraith, Brian Hyland und viele mehr. Als die 1970er Jahre abebbten und sich die 1980er Jahre näherten, erweiterte sich die Palette des Country-Funks um Disco-Beats, schwere Moog-Synthesizer-Bässe und Clavinet. Volume III zeigt Künstler, die sich weiterhin gegen traditionelle Country-Tropen und -Produktionen wehren, während sie modernen Soul, Disco und verkorksten 80er-Jahre-Synthie-Pop in sich aufnehmen. Dies ist der wahre Soundtrack des Urban Cowboys. Aufsatteln, Partner.

- Transparentes Vinyl mit roten und blauen Schlieren - Dritter Teil in LITAs hochgelobter Country Funk Serie! - Mit Dolly Parton, J.J. Cale, Conway Twitty, Larry Jon Wilson und Billy Swan, unter vielen anderen - Inklusive eines bisher unveröffentlichten Tracks von Tony Joe White - Alle Tracks neu gemastert - Neues Original-Artwork des renommierten Künstlers J. William Myers (der für Robert Altmans "Nashville", Waylon Jennings und Willie Nelsons "Waylon & Willie"-Album und die LP-Cover für die Charlie Daniels Band verantwortlich zeichnet) // Im Sommer 2012 wehte ein neuer Sound aus der staubigen Wüste herein. Es war ein Sound, der schwer zu fassen war, schwer zu kodifizieren; ein Sound, der sich wie ein wildes Pferd dem Zugriff entzog. Aber dies war kein Trend, keine Eintagsfliege, keine Vermischung von Stilen. Dieser Sound reichte Jahrzehnte zurück, in die zweite Hälfte der 1960er und frühen 1970er Jahre, als abenteuerlustige Künstler begannen, Country-Harmonien mit dem Hochgefühl des Gospels, dem sexuellen Schub des Blues und einem Hauch von Großstadt-Härte zu vermischen. Dies war ein neuer Sound mit einem einfachen Namen: Country Funk. Country Funk 1969-1975, erstmals 2012 veröffentlicht, brachte eine disparate Gruppe von Künstlern zusammen, die durch das einfache Gefühl ihrer Songs verbunden waren. Country Funk ist abwechselnd verspielt und melancholisch, slow jammin' und booty-shakin'. Es ist ein Sound, der sich sowohl im Studio als auch in der Bar durchsetzt, wie die auf Volume I vertretenen Künstler beweisen: Johnny Adams, Mac Davis, Dale Hawkins, Tony Joe White, Bobbie Gentry, Larry Jon Wilson, und viele andere. Nur zwei Jahre später wurde Volume I mit einer neuen Sammlung von Songs für Country Funk 1967-1974 (LITA 116, 2014) fortgesetzt. Volume II ließ nicht locker und bot alles, was man an Loose Talking und Lap-Steel Twangin' vertragen konnte. Schwergewichte wie Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton und J.J. Cale teilen sich die Barhocker mit den weniger bekannten Stimmen von Bill Wilson, Donnie Fritts und Thomas Jefferson Kaye. Mit Country Funk Volume III 1975-1982 wird noch mehr Funk aus dem Kofferraum geholt. Diesmal sind die Jeans enger, die Haare größer und die Discokugel dreht sich zu einem Country-Synthie-Beat. Produziert und zusammengestellt von Jason Morgan (DJ/Sammler aus der Bay Area) und Patrick McCarthy (Co-Produzent/Compiler von Volume I & II), enthält die Trackliste neben den Stammgästen Dolly Parton, J.J. Cale, Larry Jon Wilson und Tony Joe White (dessen Track hier zum ersten Mal veröffentlicht wird) auch neue Gesichter wie Steven Soles, Gary & Sandy, Conway Twitty, Travis Wammack, Billy Swan, Rob Galbraith, Brian Hyland und viele mehr. Als die 1970er Jahre abebbten und sich die 1980er Jahre näherten, erweiterte sich die Palette des Country-Funks um Disco-Beats, schwere Moog-Synthesizer-Bässe und Clavinet. Volume III zeigt Künstler, die sich weiterhin gegen traditionelle Country-Tropen und -Produktionen wehren, während sie modernen Soul, Disco und verkorksten 80er-Jahre-Synthie-Pop in sich aufnehmen. Dies ist der wahre Soundtrack des Urban Cowboys. Aufsatteln, Partner.

Working his mellow magic on the Growing Bin, Sorcerer entertains your inner child with eight tracks of instrumental west coast pop suitable for dancing, dreaming and surfing a wave or two.
While Basso sat in a Teutonic treehouse, feeding his head with the sounds of the woodland, Dan Judd danced on the sands of San Francisco's Baker Beach. Stretching between them, like the world's longest tin can radio, was the Dream Chimney. This legendary forum, run by Ryan Bishop, better known as The Beat Broker, helped to launch a thousand labels, and the Growing Bin is one of them - all hail the Chim!
Here, Dan, naturally mystic in his Sorcerer guise, satisfies all our sensory needs with a Kinder Surprise of sweet melodies, coastal cool and playful rhythms inspired by his children's earliest responses to music. Following his feelings and avoiding overthinking, he creates open, enticing and accessible cuts; each living and breathing that mellow magic you only get on the West Coast.
'Kids World' kicks into gear with the spheric bass of '2000 Studio', a bouncy embodiment of that spacious San Francisco sound. There's a nod to nu disco but the dreamy dubiness takes the track much deeper, especially as those surf guitars start to detune in the summer heat. The breezy fretwork continues on 'Disco Drums', topping a wriggling groove tailor made for the terrace. Shades of rave refract through a healing crystal at the midpoint, encouraging al fresco dancing from sunrise to sunset. The A3 sees Sorcerer get into the groove of 'Bahia Brothers', rolling that rubberised B-line out of his own Paradise Garage before putting the top down for the carefree Balearic pop of 'Spray Paint.'
The B-side glides into being via the night dubbing grooves of 'Fire Feel', a reverb laden journey though glassy tones, off beat perx and gorgeous chord progressions. Next up, the new wave inspired 'Crunchy' translates Sheffield's daring synth pop into a wide eyed blast of psychedelic house, boosting our mana ahead of the loose limbed and light footed 'First Wave'. Ringing guitars reference Ghanaian highlife, shimmering in the heat haze as Dan funks up the drum kit ready for the broken beat and blissed out energy of sundowning set closer 'Escape Route'.

Repress

Tiga's drops BUGATTI. Another irresistible one-liner on the dance-floor that can't be missed or forgotten.

So much sex and attitude, so few elements. A staccato kick-snare rhythm, a robo-funk synth line, a futuristic pad, a detuned ride, a cheeky vocal hook and a one-note acid line that brings it all together. That's it. All you need if you know what you're doing and have an experienced pair of Canadian Electro-godfather balls intact. Tiga has made a career out of being catchy: from Sunglasses to Mind Dimension, from Plush to Pleasure From the Bass, from You Gonna Want Me to Let's Go Dancing. How does he do it

It's his ability to drop a clever turn of phrase that separates him from the pack, but the strength and character of his production choices keep things clear of kitsch and make him a perennially hot-tipped cool-commodity everywhere from the great American EDM stage to the hallowed-haus of Panorama's deep underground credibility. His career is like a Veyron - stable AND insane.

So listen to it, get it stuck in your head. This track is crazy dope, it doesn't sound like anyone else, and it's the most hip-hop thing all you house DJs are likely to fit into your sets this weekend so go on, get loose and take it for a ride.

This is what Tiga had to say about the Vinyl-Only remixes 12" :

For this, my most personal record, i hand selected remixers of the highest order. Cliff Lothar, absolute legend, and current king of the enigma groove, delivers an absolute masterpiece. It's seriously a 10 on 10, and I never say that. Vinyl only bitches. Perth Drug Legend, somebody else who I kinda know and yet totally don't know (or I guess I just thought I knew) slams the 'gatti with raw tribal funk: again suitable for a warehouse or a particularly forward-thinking car dealership. Rebolledo, one of the few men i actually trust, comes in with a slightly electrofied extended party mix. God I'm happy. Full disclosure: there were a few people who did remixes that were rejected. I will reveal their names publicly in good time. Good day. T.

New wave dancefloor instrumentalists Snazzback release stunning secondalbum on new label from Bristol's cultural instigators, Worm Disco Club. Bristolseven-piece Snazzback bring the sound of reopened dancefloors, of communalrelease, and of the joyful sound of dancing outside in the sunshine to live music.Their second album 'In The Place' overflows with deep grooves and loose,lolloping rhythms that tease and play, sometimes languid and carefree, othertimes energy spiralling upwards - and taking the listener with them, each andevery time. Their music is soaked in great black american dancefloor music,whether that's the sound we call 'jazz' or hip hop. They also bring other flavours- interlocking Afro-Latin rhythms, electronica and hypnotic rock, all marinated inBristol's long musical histories.

In Post-Heretic Dracula X Chronicles II the Dracula figure functions as a part fictive and part autobiographical metaphor. Dracula mirrors certain systematic (therefore also internal) conditionings and attributes in its whole ambivalent fluctuations. This character represents the complex relationships of a loving/living person in a neo-liberal capitalist system while oscillating between melancholia & rage, facing the preservation or loss of his love and standing in an alienated position towards the ruling order. The eleven featured compositions and their respective song names (both of them are riddled with references) playfully touch on conflicts between love, life and system-critique, without being too upfront about the subject-matter.

Nicola Kazimir (*28.05.1990 in Zürich, Schweiz)

A DJ, producer, musician, artist, space-owner, record label owner and party organizer, Nicola Kazimir works freely across platforms and communities. For Kazimir, these numerous positions are not static, and they can actfluidly and reciprocally as a whole, or as separate entities. His artistic and acoustic productions are mostly based on topics that include the institutionalization of techno, copyright, dividualism and the human perception of repetitive rhythm patterns mixed with aesthetic codes of b-movie horror movies or occultism. He is one of the founders and still part of the labels Les Points/ Gentrified Underground / Infoline and the offspace Mikro Zürich. Other projects include a supporting role in the organization of Zentralwäscherei Zürich and being part of the Clubbüro-team at Rote Fabrik.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce the first-ever vinyl reissue of Remko Scha’s Guitar Mural 1 featuring The Machines, originally published as a rare cassette edition by Taal Beeld Geluid in 1982. A computational linguist by profession, Scha played an important role in the development of sound, installation, and digital art in the Netherlands from the late 1970s onward, co-founding the performance and exhibition space Het Appolohuis in Eindhoven in 1980. Alongside Paul Panhuysen and Jan Van Riet, Scha was a founding member of the radical improvisation group The Maciunas Ensemble, though he is best known for his work with mechanised electric guitars, documented on the legendary 1982 LP Machine Guitars.

Guitar Mural 1 documents an installation of Scha’s mechanical guitar ensemble The Machines held at a Groningen gallery space in 1982. Five electric guitars hang from the wall, their strings sounded by rotating rubber strings and a sabre saw controlled by a mechanical apparatus, as well as four ropes criss-crossing the five instruments on the wall. Once the mechanism was set up, Scha’s only intervention was to vary the speed at which it operated. Where Machine Guitars presents short excerpts clearly distinguished by rhythmic and timbral variation, here we are confronted with four enormous side-long slabs of percussive string attack and the resulting clouds of harmonics. Variation is minimal across the duration of each side, making for a sculptural listening experience, as if we are patiently examining each facet of a static object. But significant variety exists between the four sides, each of which shows off a different facet of what The Machines were capable of. The first two excerpts feature open strings sounded at rapid tempos, dissolving the percussive attack into a continuous stream of sound reminiscent of Charlemagne Palestine’s ‘strumming’ technique. On the third side, the strings are partly muted and the tempo slightly lowered, resulting in layers of relentlessly chugging rhythm somewhere between an ensemble of hand drums and an early Velvet Underground bootleg. On the fourth side, havoc breaks loose in percussive waves of asynchronous repetition that bring Scha’s sound world close to that of another pioneer experiment in musical mechanisation, the Solar Music of Joe Jones.

Presented as a limited edition 2LP set in a deluxe gatefold sleeve accompanied by stunning visual documentation of the original installation, remastered audio and new liner notes from Alan Licht and Van Lagestein, Guitar Mural 1 is an exhilarating document occupying a unique space between kinetic sculpture, hardcore minimalism and rock & roll.

Incredible Bongo Band was formed by MGM A&R Michael Viner in 1972 to record the soundtrack to a now virtually anonymous B-Movie entitled 'The Thing With Two Heads'. "The IBB" transformed from a loose studio collective to an instrumental pop covers consortium, interpreting classics of the day in their inimitable percussive fashion. Viner recorded them at MGM studios during downtime, assembling line-ups from whichever musicians were available at the time, leading to a unique blend of multi-talented musicians that included Jim Gordon, King Errisson, Jerry Scheff, and Perry Botkin Jr. The full bands' line-up is shrouded in mystery, but their legacy is undeniable. They spawned cult-classic records that would become a goldmine for hip hop breaks and attain sampling immortality.

'Apache', which was written and made famous by the British band The Shadows, is legendary in the worlds of dance music and hip hop. It was a staple for DJs such as Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash as they invented their world-shaking take on the art of DJing at the Bronx block parties of the ‘70s. Over the years it has become a hip hop and breakers anthem and is revered as 'the break' of all time (at least in the top three) with the rhythms of this LP even helping to coin the term 'breakbeat'.

“Bongo Rock” is significant, for being one of the musical cornerstones of rap ... it is certainly one of the most sampled LP’s in history, if not the most sampled. Almost every history-minded hip-hop DJ has a copy, and the first few bars of “Apache,” can send crowds into overdrive.” According to Kool Herc, the stylistic pioneer many people consider to be the father of hip-hop music, the Bongo’s “Apache” is “the national anthem of hip-hop.” NY Times.

Sampled over 600 times, including... Nas, Beastie Boys, Moby, Mick Jagger, Kanye West, Sugarhill Gang, Jay-Z, Aphex Twin, DJ Shadow, Massive Attack, Ultramagnetic MC’s, Unkle, LL Cool J, 2 Live Crew, 4 Hero, Fatboy Slim, to name a few…

The real story of “The IBB” is far greater than the recordings themselves and ultimately shows how a distinctly powerful musical performance can get the recognition it deserves, no matter how anonymous its origins.

Strut present the definitive edition of a 1977 classic, Plunky & Oneness OfJuju's 'Make A Change' album featuring the international hit 'Every WayBut Loose' and five previously unheard studio takes. Recorded at Omega studios in Maryland, the album marked a transition forthe band with lead vocalist Jackie Eka-Ete recording her last sessions withPlunky and Virtania Tillery taking over lead vocal duties. "'Make A Change'was always designed as a slightly more commercial entry in our discography," says Plunky. "We approached the sessions in the same way that we had approached all of our music since the early '70s. We played extended jams because we would always find something within those explorations. The songs had enough organic qualities to be considered R&B and enough rhythm to be Afro funk." After catching fire in Washington DC clubs through local record pools, the dancefloor favourite 'Every Way But Loose' famously became an anthem for Larry Levan at New York's Paradise Garage, kick-starting international success for the track. Other album cuts like funk workout 'Higher' and the wistful stepper 'Always Have To Say Goodbye' have remained staples among soulful DJs worldwide. "The songs and lyrics on this album have come back around full circle," continues Plunky. "With songs like '(Family Tree) Make A Change' and 'Every Way But Loose', we don't have tochange one word for them to be relevant all these years later. The positive messages are universal and timeless." This definitive edition of 'Make A Change' features the full original album alongside five previously unheard studio takes, all remastered by TheCarvery from the original tapes. Bonus tracks include extended studio versions of 'Every Way But Loose' and 'Always Have To Say Goodbye'and a previously unheard version of 'Time'. Package features brand newliner notes by bandleader Plunky Branch.

London-based record label Wisdom Teeth kicks off 2021 with something close to home: Blush - the playful, dynamic debut LP by label co-founder, Facta. Recorded unusually quickly over a short stint in early 2020, the record is the product of a period of refreshed and unfussy creativity. It’s an innovative and distinctly contemporary album that moves a good few steps beyond the artist’s work to date - loosely rooted in UK dance music but taking added influence from ambient, modern classical, dreampop, Balearic, folk music and beyond. The result is a lush, ornate record populated by aqueous pads, bleeping arps, wandering melodies and sparse broken rhythms; acoustic instruments that play out alongside FM synths, all processed with a pristine UV sheen inherited from modern pop music. The record opens with ‘Sistine (Plucks)’ - a crystalline synth piece with a stumbling, shifting metre revolving around an odd-ended MIDI harp loop, coloured through with washed-out pads and snatches of found sound. This breezy mood follows through to ‘On Deck’, where an FM vibraphone rings out on top of woozy, warping chords and a subby soca groove. Moving forward the record moves cohesively through a range of shifting moods and hues. The machine jazz of ‘Brushes’ is tense and coiled, with nods towards Burnt Friedman, Photek and Eli Keszler. ‘Iso Stream’ sees a rich, colourful sprawl of arpeggiated synths and dissociated vocal chops unspool slowly to form pooling, lowlit melodies. Title track ‘Blush’ is a forlorn Autonomic love song built from clicks-n-cuts - like dBridge & Instra:mental reduced and reinterpreted by SND. Throughout, bold, broad melodies take centre stage, and the tracks build like compositions rather than loops or club tools. There are echoes of the dancefloor - particularly in the slo-mo bruk of ‘Verge’ and the glacial subs underpinning ‘Diving Birds’ (a collaboration with friend and Trilogy Tapes regular Parris) - however the end results find us somewhere far off. ‘Blush’ is the second long-form release to come from Wisdom Teeth following K-LONE’s 2020 debut album, ‘Cape Cira’, which was widely ranked as one the best LPs of 2020.

Afrikan Sciences carry the torch and grant the sight. This is his second offering for the ESP Institute. On the A side, 'The New Dun Language' shows us the meaning of loose. Literally everything about this masterpiece takes its time and operates in its own space, rhythms work together but stand apart, timbres inherently laidback are made aggressively present, like the diffused attack of a shaker that’s shook with such purpose it’s no longer granular but razor sharp. The soundstage drops all around you like percussion shrapnel, splitting your attention every which way, while the string lines remind you that no matter how deep inside your head you’ve gone, there is always a nearby exit to the comforts of familiarity.

Flip the record over, however, and the track 'In His Convenient Way' will even further discombobulate your sense of self. Do you have dreams you’re on a merry-go-round and with each revolution you try to hop off, but you can’t? Each time you cycle around, the tension grows and grows? Well, this is like that, menacing but not dark, a demented odyssey through an impossibly thick swamp where you swear the trees are whispering to you but can’t quite understand their language, yet still you manage to communicate. As the time passes, and you near end of the track, the impenetrable veil slowly lifts and you realize you’ve been in control all along. These two songs will two songs will help to contemplate, heal and transcend.

With 'BREAKOUT', Echoes of Zoo push their adrenaline fueled jazz sounds to thrilling new levels. Rarely did one single word capture an entire musical atmosphere this accurately: the gates of the cages fell open and won't ever be shut again. 'BREAKOUT' celebrates breaking loose and is constantly

seeking for unexpected and exciting encounters - both culturally and musically. Infused with an eclectic range of western, oriental and African influences, Echoes of Zoo let their psychedelic and energetic jazz roam the streets in all freedom - much like an animal that has just stepped out of his cage and looks you straight in the eye. Meeting is direct, barriers are gone, the adrenaline and energy are rushing high. The band takes a deep dive into the musical melting pots which the world's biggest cities are today:

Balkan ornaments meet Brazilian rhythms

Gipsy scales meet fuzz guitars

Beninese grooves meet Turkish makam

Bass guitars meet Sufi rhythms

Rage riffs meet Kurdish trance

Indian raga meets western guitars

Romanian drums meet swing riffs

Tallava meets drum 'n bass

...

Echoes of Zoo are profoundly inspired by the endless variety of animals and musical genres. Join them on their trip through the city in all diversity, victory and freedom. BREAKOUT.

Echoes of Zoo is a band with a unique sound, under the high tension of Middle Eastern rock music with the striking complexity of West African percussion and a few Dub flavors, all in the service of psychedelic jazz played with a punk attitude. For this project, Nathan Daems (sax) is accompanied by Bart Vervaeck (electric guitar), Lieven Van Pee (electric bass) & Falk Schrauwen (drums), musicians you probably know from other projects they are part of such as Black Flower, De Beren Gieren, Sylvie Kreusch or Compro Oro.

After releasing a first self-produced EP - 'First Provocations' - in January 2019, the group was well received by both the audience and professionals in the sector. Supported and followed by some pioneering organisations and festivals, Echoes of Zoo has already been invited to Brussels Jazz Festival, BRDCST Festival (AB), Brosella Festival (carte blanche guesting Pantelis Stoikos), Leuven Jazz Festival, Amok Festival (KAAP), Recyclart, ...

'Dark Hands, Thunderbolts' is Devon punk-roots trail-blazers, Crazy Arm's fourth album for Xtra Mile Recordings, and comes cold on the calves of 2013's 'The Southern Wild'. A return to the rowdy guitars, epic choruses and Americana twang of their first two albums, this collection of songs finds the band in a reflective but no less indignant mood. Despite spending only three weeks in the studio, it took the band four years to complete. 1ST SINGLE: Brave Starts Here - 20th November 2020 The lead track from the album, 'Brave Starts Here', will be available to stream/download from 20th November (with an accompanying video from film-maker, Russell Cleave). Rigorously road-tested, 'Brave Starts Here' is a breathless ode to heartbreak, loneliness, ageing and self-determination, occupying that sweet spot between bluegrass and punk rock. It's also a tribute to their good friends and label-mates, Larry & His Flask. 2ND SINGLE: The Golden Hind - 11th December 2020 Second single to be lifted from the album and is an acerbic take on the band’s Brexit majority hometown. Punk rock riffola, Appalachian harmonies, syncopated rhythms and anthemic singalongs. 3RD SINGLE: Fear Up - 15th January 2021 The third single out before the album’s release ‘Fear Up’ betrays the band's oft-mentioned fondness for Ennio Morricone, Murder By Death and Constantines with a strong cinematic influence fused with their trademark riffs and choruses. FOCUS TRACK FOR ALBUM RELEASE: Blessed & Cursed - 29th January 2021

'Dark Hands, Thunderbolts' is Devon punk-roots trail-blazers, Crazy Arm's fourth album for Xtra Mile Recordings, and comes cold on the calves of 2013's 'The Southern Wild'. A return to the rowdy guitars, epic choruses and Americana twang of their first two albums, this collection of songs finds the band in a reflective but no less indignant mood. Despite spending only three weeks in the studio, it took the band four years to complete. 1ST SINGLE: Brave Starts Here - 20th November 2020 The lead track from the album, 'Brave Starts Here', will be available to stream/download from 20th November (with an accompanying video from film-maker, Russell Cleave). Rigorously road-tested, 'Brave Starts Here' is a breathless ode to heartbreak, loneliness, ageing and self-determination, occupying that sweet spot between bluegrass and punk rock. It's also a tribute to their good friends and label-mates, Larry & His Flask. 2ND SINGLE: The Golden Hind - 11th December 2020 Second single to be lifted from the album and is an acerbic take on the band’s Brexit majority hometown. Punk rock riffola, Appalachian harmonies, syncopated rhythms and anthemic singalongs. 3RD SINGLE: Fear Up - 15th January 2021 The third single out before the album’s release ‘Fear Up’ betrays the band's oft-mentioned fondness for Ennio Morricone, Murder By Death and Constantines with a strong cinematic influence fused with their trademark riffs and choruses. FOCUS TRACK FOR ALBUM RELEASE: Blessed & Cursed - 29th January 2021

Tape

After tapes on Steep Gloss and Cruel Nature, we are happy that Stuttgart-based collective Zebularin join the OM family with their new release “Hermetic Topography“.

The album, a product of weekly recording sessions between March and July 2020, just when the pandemic slowed a bit down, might be the closest approach to what communal experiences sounded throughout 2020. It‘s a bold design of how collective improvisation can work in the post-covid era.

The first minute of „Budenzauber“ sets the tone for the whole record. Synth waveforms get joined by a drumset, both settling into a vivid conversation between digital noise and analog free jazz, finding a shared rhythm for this journey.

Daniel Vujanic, known to some from his recordings with Höhlenmusk Ensemble, Ixtar or E Jugend and the driving force behind Zebularin, had this urge to layer electro-acoustic solo material, synths, prerecorded audio meditations, without bending the sounds into detailed harmonic structures, but to build up dense, morphing atmospheres. In came Daniel Kartmann, a combatant in many of Vujanic‘s musical endeavours, his percussions, wind instruments and some deep musical talk - from obscure black metal to brazilian psychedelica, from Scott Walker to Gustav Mahler. The duo laid down basic tracks, kept arrangements vague, creating a perfect environment for a range of other players and instruments to walk in: piano, woodwinds, electronics, ebowed guitars and a vibraphone. The resulting record is a tender, affectionate take on jazz and electroacoustic composition. One can hear the routine of the involved cast as well as the fun, deep listening and correspondence that took place; even though this album was not recorded live in big-band-style, musical ideas interlock on an intuitive level and complement each other.

Take „Peljuga“ as a perfect example, a loosened jazz improv reminding of The Notwist‘s more psychic enhanced moments, which blends into a conversation between a contact mic and heavily manipulated synths and turns into a minimalist piano composition, which melds into a climactic peak and is interrupted only to rise again. And as complex as this description sounds, as uplifting is the actual song. Or the album‘s last track, „Holmen“, which starts out as an underwater ambient piece and evolves pretty organically into cosmic power electronics.

Despite its name and the Heideggerian flair of some song titles, „Hermetic Topography“ is all but hermetic. It‘s rich in musical colours without melting into a quagmire of maximalist noise. It‘s sophisticated but never top-heavy. It might be one of your favourite tapes of 2021.

LTD. BLUE & PINK SWIRL VINYL

"Do you feel what I feel too?" Brijean Murphy floats the question at the start of Feelings, the full-length Ghostly International debut from Brijean, her collaborative project with Doug Stuart. Guided by a lush mix of charismatic keyboard chords, grooving bass lines, and radiant bongo-driven rhythms, the "Day Dreaming" lyric doubles as an invitation and a statement of intention. Brijean want you to move, physically, mentally, dimensionally; this is dance music for the mind, body, and soul. With Feelings, they've manifested a gentle collective space for respite, for self-reflection, for self-care, for uninhibited imagination and new possibilities. The album cultivates a specific vibe, a softness Murphy has come to call "romancing the psyche." Growing up in a family immersed in jazz, Latin and soul music, Murphy would become an accomplished DJ, session and live player in Oakland's diverse music scene and one of indie's most in-demand percussionists (Poolside, Toro Y Moi, U.S. Girls). In 2018, she began recording songs with multi-instrumentalist and producer Doug Stuart, who shares a background in jazz and pop in bands such as Bells Atlas, Meernaa, and Luke Temple. Following their first sessions, which resulted in the mini-album Walkie Talkie (released in 2019 on Native Cat Recordings), the duo continued freeform hangs in Oakland, inviting friends Chaz Bear, Tony Peppers, and Hamir Atwal. "We improvised on different feels for hours," says Murphy. "Nothing quite developed at first but we had seeds. We re-opened the sessions a couple months later, after returning from tours, and spent a month developing the songs in a little 400 square foot cottage." Aforementioned album opener "Day Dreaming" is a dynamic celebration of newness: the excitement in finding deeper understandings of yourself as you get to know someone, something, or somewhere new. "Wifi Beach" drops a pin in pure psych-pop exotica. With Atwal on drums, Stuart on bass, Peppers on keys, and Bear engineering, the group improvised the track's intro sequence based on the vision of a lavish 1970s pool party. Establishing the scene is a mid-frequency drum kit disco shuffle augmented by tight congas and timbale effect, as Murphy sings in spurts: "I want to be / Deep in love / I want to be / Say you love me too / I want to be / Honey." The stanzas cut between "reflective moments of wants and being overwhelmed by feelings of the present," she explains. "A lot of the `love songs' I write are to my psyche, self-reflections on how to encourage tender perspectives and make more time for the sweet stuff." Though there is a loose, dance-oriented motif throughout, the material gives way to somnolent turns. On "Ocean," Brijean's anodyne lyrics, reminiscent of Astrud Gilberto's airy croon, float atop a brushed drum pattern, sparkling rhodes lines, and pittering and softly funky woodblock bops. The opening line sets up the rest, "In this gentle space we lay" _ among the album's propensity for movement, tracks like "Ocean" stand out by leaning back for momentary sways of blissful introspection. Murphy calls the charming "Hey Boy" a "psychedelic guide _ the exploration of finding what feels good _ through sorrow, anxiety, apathy." This mentality applies to Feelings on the whole: in these nebulous and verdant worlds of hazy melodies, feathery hooks, and percussive details, the songs simply want us to feel alive. They radiate in wonderful abandon and with a sense of devotion to the self. RIYL: Stereolab, Astrud Gilberto, Air, Little Dragon, Broadcast, Khruangbin, Poolside.

Born in Newtownards, County Down, Northern Ireland, singer/songwriter/guitarist Ricky Warwick was cut from the cloth of a mill workers’ jacket. Raised on a diet of Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, Thin Lizzy, Stiff Little Fingers, Motown and everything in between. Saving his money from a newspaper round and a little help from his father, Ricky got his first electric guitar at age 13. “That cheap electric guitar changed my life....it saved me, it was more than just notes on a fretboard, it was the deepest breath of life I ever experienced.“ explains Warwick.
At age 14 Ricky and his family relocated to Strathaven, Scotland. It was here that Warwick fully immersed himself in the sonic seas of Rock n Roll. Writing and practicing every free moment he wasn’t working on his father’s farm, Ricky got a call to join acclaimed U.K. Punk/Folk band New Model Army as rhythm guitarist on their 1987 ‘Ghost Of Cain‘ World Tour. Following New Model Army, Ricky went on to form The Almighty in Glasgow who enjoyed ten top forty singles and four top twenty albums in the U.K. during the late 80’s/early 90’s, touring worldwide with such iconic bands as The Ramones, Motorhead, Megadeth and Iron Maiden.
In 2002, after relocating back to Ireland, Ricky recorded his first solo album ‘Tattoos & Alibis‘ in Joe Elliott of Def Leppard’s studio in Dublin with Joe also handling production duties. It marked a shift in direction “I realized that I didn’t need to yell over a wall of sound to make my point...less is more, stripped back instrumentation could achieve the same goal just as effectively. I learned so much making that record, primarily about myself”. Warwick would go on to release two more solo albums between 2002 -2010 and tour globally opening for the likes of Def Leppard, Cheap Trick, Bryan Adams and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
In January 2010 Ricky received a call from his old friend Scott Gorham who was spearheading a reformation of Ireland’s favourite sons Thin Lizzy and wanted Ricky to front the new line up. ”I was shocked, terrified, excited and extremely humbled when I got that call. Phil Lynott was my hero and Thin Lizzy were the soundtrack of my life. I realized that I could never hope or even dare to try and stand in Phil’s shoes. All I could do was try and stand beside them and sing his songs with as much heart, soul and passion possible. In late 2012, with a necessity to write and perform new material, out of respect for the Thin Lizzy name, Black Star Riders were born. Warwick is the frontman and main songwriter for the band and 2013 saw the release of Black Star Riders acclaimed debut album


‘All Hell Breaks Loose‘.

Black Star Riders have now released four critically-acclaimed and commercially successful albums, the most recent being 2019’s ‘Another State Of Grace‘. They have achieved two U.K. top 15 albums and one U.K. top 10 album as well as mainstream radio play which includes claiming two “singles of the week” on BBC Radio 2.
Following 2016’s lauded ‘When Patsy Cline Was Crazy... And Guy Mitchell Sang The Blues’, Warwick is getting ready to unleash his 5th solo album in 2021. Titled ‘When Life Was Hard And Fast‘, it was recorded in Los Angeles and produced by Keith Nelson (ex-Buckcherry), who also co-wrote the majority of the songs on the record with Warwick. “Keith Nelson and I share a passion for good, honest, rock ‘n’ soul. Making the album with Keith who shares a similar outlook and work ethic as myself was a no brainer ....also the fact that he has a killer collection of vintage guitars contributed greatly”
“I wanted to create an album that had the simplistic melodies of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers charged with the electric hedonistic fury of Johnny Thunders And The Heartbreakers. Recording the album as live as possible with a full band was requisite to achieving the desired effect”. Xavier Muriel (Ex-Buckcherry) on drums and Robert Crane (Black Star Riders) on bass completed the core band and turned in stellar performances, giving the songs a real lease of life.
Also, once again, Warwick tapped some of his closest friends for guest appearances on the record, including Andy Taylor (Duran Duran & Power Station) Luke Morley (Thunder), Joe Elliott (Def Leppard), Dizzy Reed (Guns n Roses). Ricky also duets with his daughter Pepper on the song ‘Time Don’t Seem To Matter‘. “I can’t wait for people to hear this album and to hit the road touring it whether it’s with my band The Fighting Hearts or just myself and my acoustic - it will be amazing. I’m grateful that after 30 years of making records my appetite for writing and playing is the same as it was that day all those years ago when I got my first electric guitar”
For those intrigued by the album cover, it depicts a crash scene from the famous Ards TT Motor Car Race in County Down Northern Ireland. The race ran from 1928 until 1936 was watched by over 250,000 spectators annually. The embankment in the photograph that the spectators are on is actually a field belonging to Ricky’s Great Grandfather’s Farm, which he grew up on for the first fourteen years of his life.

Self-styled ‘house husband, record producer’, DMX Krew, continues his effortless stretch of releases that date back to the early 90s, with a new album for Hypercolour.

His deft melodies and mechanical, electro-tinged beats have made for some classic albums in his repertoire, from his incredible run of albums for Rephlex Records, up to 2020’s ’Ghost Bubbles’ long player for Terrestrial Funk. And so ‘Loose Gears’ marks DMX Krew’s fourth album for British stalwarts, Hypercolour, and fans will not be disappointed.

Armed with an arsenal of hardware, and a head full of futuristic visions, ‘Loose Gears’ collects eleven tracks of the customary quality we have come to expect from DMX Krew.

From the funk laden ‘Solar Transit’ to bleepy chugger ‘Dejected Ambient Twerp’, the vibrant synths and spongy rhythms of ‘Torpedo Tube’ to the beatless wiggle of ‘Xpansion 2’, there’s much in store to be savoured on ‘Loose Gears’, as DMX Krew serves up another fine selection of electronic goodies.

An exploratory record that dances across time and genre, guided by fidgety miniatures and jazz inflected collage. Throughout, the band pool together their instrumental chops, moving from fluid and serpentine R&B to meditative, minimalistic piano, evoking a contrast of virtuosity and self-surrender.

While constructed from the inspiration of soul, funk and film music, BÉE mediate those influences having first digested them through the productions of Madlib & the RZA.
A sticker on the sleeve tells us Self Help “combines jazz-funk and mysticism,” a signpost to where its musical and spiritual concerns align. The jazz-funk component translates to arresting hooks in sideways song forms: echoes of Gainsbourg spooled through Azymuth-style Brazilian jazz and punctuated by the whip and snap of Steely Dan. “The Sound Where My Head Was,” the instrumental centrepiece, exemplifies present-wave jazz but also ancient sounds, giving off the mothballed air of a Hiroshi Yoshimura record in a library-music archive.

Self Help’s mysticism emerges in broad and specific ways, denoting not only a search beyond cliché and intellect but also an inquiry into the beat, the spirit, the one will. This isn’t new territory for them: Turnbull—the artist formerly known as Slim Twig, who writes and performs with U.S. Girls and various other Toronto concerns—named the group’s Nature, Man & Woman EP after the Alan Watts book. Building these songs from his drafts over three weekends at Toronto’s Palace Sound studio, the ensemble was free to tap out of the city and into some other place, taking up residence in a collective mind maze. The album produces, in equal measure, familiar surprises and the surprisingly familiar. Intoxicated jazz riffs swerve left at phantom intersections. Rhythms cut loose and tie you in knots. But wired in to each song is a sense of gentle accumulation, making every featherlight flourish weigh a ton. U.S. Girls’ Meg Remy brings serenity to “Sing a Silent Gospel,” and wears its antic melodies lightly. The soul shimmer of “Unity (It’s Up to You)” lets the players pool their R&B chops into something fluid and serpentine while, on guest vocals, the musical performance artist James Baley issues urgent declaratives: “Water must pool, as a rule, before tasted/Or else the water is wasted.” The words throughout the record complement the ensemble music while riffing on the precarious nature of unity itself. Then, closer “Extinct Commune” finds Turnbull deserted at the piano, playing phrases of meditative minimalism taking after the composer Joanna Brouk.

For all the record’s reach, it is these contrasting quiet moments that bring Self Help’s communal spirit into focus. A note on personnel: Badge Époque Ensemble now has a seventh member in Karen Ng, the saxophonist and sometime collaborator of Do Make Say Think, Feist, and others. In BÉE, Ng joins Chris Bezant and Giosuè Rosati, her bandmates in the Andy Shauf live band, as well as U.S. Girls co-conspirators Turnbull and Ed Squires, and other Torontonian cross-pollinators listed below. Guest vocalists across Self Help include Meg Remy, who sings with Dorothea Paas on the opener, James Baley, and Toronto singer-songwriter Jennifer Castle on the remarkable “Just Space for Light.” Words by: Jazz Monroe

“The earth shall rise again...”
AMOR/LEMUR finds the Glasgow quartet AMOR in partnership with Norwegian improvising ensemble LEMUR to hopeful and ecstatic effect. Conceived before the onset of Covid 19 but finished during spring lockdown, their eponymous EP is the most loose, alive and elevated recording in AMOR’s catalog. AMOR/LEMUR takes the template of throbbing avant disco expanded upon on previous recordings for Night School and lifts it into new

territories, with new tonalities and unexpected turns on the journey. More than anything, the expanded, near- cinematic expression of human connectivity feels like a lightning new energy to grasp in the dark.

Following a revelatory concert in Glasgow in January 2020 wherein the two sets of musicians met and performed together for the first time, a recording session was arranged the following day, resulting in the most elevated permutation of AMOR’s art to date. Each track was built upon a rhythmic bedrock of percussion and drums performed by Paul Thomson and samples/synthesizer by Luke Fowler. Thomson used bamboo Javanese gamelan (most notably on For You) and scrap metal, as well as traditional percussion and drums while Fowler incorporated processed ambient field recordings recorded in enclosed acoustic spaces around Glasgow. Singer/pianist Richard Youngs contributes some of the most bright and mindful work of his career. Acoustic bass player Michael Francis Duch, whose lush playing as ever provides the elastic spine to each song, scored the string parts for LEMUR on piano at home in Norway. The addition of swelling strings and drones fills out the AMOR sound significantly, lending a sonorous tone to 8 minute, epic closer For You or an ascending melodic introduction to Stars Burst that feels like a new morning dawning on a world saved from certain death. With the circumstances of lockdown forcing the musicians to work differently, a thread of optimism and utopia grounded in the moment weaves through these tracks. Unravel reveals a spine tingling vocal from Youngs. It’s a song about the simultaneously grounding and ecstatic effect of love, feeling connected to others. It’s a simple message, “I’m finding myself in your smile, always unravels me” speaks of ego death, the dissipation of the material into a nirvana of pure energy, the power of surrender. This isn’t a quasi-religious message, this is the power of each other, a love song to connection in a temporary age of isolation. Stars Burst is a play on the inner and outer cosmos, with narrator Youngs exploring wonder to a pounding galloping rhythm and snake-charming synth. It’s an open dance, with the group locked in together for the wild ride. Fear is the centerpiece of the record, starting with drones and scraped overtones before swirling synth notes filter upwards to meet reverberating minor chords. Over 8 minutes of tight but loose playing, Youngs is the shaman instructing us to use Fear as a celebration of the moment, embrace it and jump into the unknown. The only way to overcome your fear is to feel it, use it as an energy. The use of the studio as an instrument throughout side 2 is particularly important, with the dubbing and mixing prowess of engineer Paul Savage (who mixed unattended due to lockdown restrictions) and tape manipulations performed by Jason Lescallet coming into play. For You closes out with a largely instrumental, evolving composition that uses many of the abstract and novel aspects of this permutation to aid the trance. It’s massive, an unfurling creature with unexpected tonalities and serious heft.

Terry Gross is an engrossing trio composed of guitarist Phil Manley (Trans Am), bassist Donny Newenhouse, and drummer Phil Becker. The trio are also connected as owners and engineers at Bay Area recording spot El Studio, where they began improvising together as a way to test the boundaries and gear of the studio. Their loose, organic chemistry burgeoned into a deep camaraderie and a sound both expansive and exacting. The three experienced musicians crafted their first fulllength album through the pure joy of playing together with no expectations. With the tapes rolling on their rehearsals, the band captures the exuberance of live performance and elevates those recordings through a deft use of the studio as their collective instrument. On their debut LP Soft Opening, Terry Gross channels their cosmic powers and considerable chops into a gleefully mesmerizing odyssey fit for an arena. Soft Opening took shape over the course of 2016-2019, with Terry Gross writing and refining their songs. "Space Voyage Mission" and "Worm Gear" parallel one another as sinuous jams that pulse with adamantine fervor. Each mountainous epic churns spellbinding repetition and simplicity into dizzying gallops that take hairpin turns into sinewy riffing and elysian vocal melodies. Phil Manley's guitar takes on a constellation of tones across "Space Voyage Mission" with drifting delays soaring over the Newenhouse and Becker's driving rhythm section which all succumb to frothing overdrives that spin the song into entirely new pastures. The hypnotic throb of "Worm Gear" grows all the more enchanting as Newenhouse and Becker add subtle shifts to the single-chord barrage. "Specificity (Or What Have You)" contrasts these two in its more traditionally pop-oriented structure while retaining its predecessors wide-eyed energy and delves further into the album's lightheartedyet-earnest take on sci-fi tropes from space and time travel to the singularity. As Terry Gross, Phil Manley, Donny Newenhouse, and Phil Becker are sonic scientists traversing the borderlands of rock. Soft Opening captures the simple joy of a no-holds-barred trio in stunning detail, transporting the listener into the splendor and freedom of rock.