Search:rösh

Vice Squad are a UK Punk Rock band who’s first single releases included the classic ‘Last Rockers’ 7” in 1981. This was followed by the landmark albums ‘No Cause For Concern’ in the same year and ‘Stand Strong Stand Proud’ in 1982 which were both released on EMI. Since then Vice Squad have delivered short sharp songs with incisive political lyrics and a dash of humour spat out over a thunderous rhythm and machine gun Rock ’n’ Roll guitars. Their latest releases are the EPs 'Born In A War' and 'Ignored To Death V2' taken from the forthcoming album ‘Battle of Britain’ set for release on their own Last Rockers label in May 2020. The band have become 100% DIY since forming Last Rockers Records in 2009. In keeping with the DIY ethic the previous albums were recorded in the band’s own ‘Sci Fidelity’ studio South London and the new album ‘Battle of Britain’ continues this with the band maintaining full artistic control with the benefit of global distribution via Cargo. Their last album ‘ Cardboard Country’ was launched on the back of a very successful Pledge campaign raising funds for the Shelter homeless charity in line with the album title which was inspired by 'Cardboard City', the name given to the settlement of homeless people living in cardboard boxes near London's Waterloo station. Vice Squad is fronted by raucous voiced singer/guitarist Beki Bondage who was famed for being a teenage champion of Animal rights long before the current popularity of veganism. Vice squad’s song ’Humane’ was one of the first ever Animal Rights songs. Beki has been featured on the front cover of a number of influential music tabloids such at Melody Maker, NME, Sounds, Record Mirror and Smash Hits. After a hiatus, Beki formed a new version of Vice Squad in 1997 featuring longstanding members of her post VS outfit The Bombshells and they have released several quality albums of powerful punk songs that have been very well received across the world. Vice Squad are considered one of the most influential punk rock bands of all time, paving the way for other female Punk and Rock singers and influencing male performers such as Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame who was introduced to Vice Squad via his sister’s record collection. The first rule of Punk is there are no rules and Vice Squad ably illustrate this with ‘Battle of Britain’. Written, Recorded and Mixed by Beki Bond and Paul Rooney in their home studio. The 13 track album opens with the blistering ‘Ruination’ which cuts through the bullshit of small time promoters and blaggers with consummate swagger and melody while ‘I Dare To Breathe’ is an amphetamine driven anthem to paranoia. ‘When You Were 17’ is almost-tender and tells of first tattoos and under age booze whilst the more chilling ‘Ignored To Death’ rails against isolation and homelessness. The explosive ‘Born In A War’ rages along like a missile ravaging a third world country and warns ‘See how they treat refugees? That’s how they’ll treat you and me’. Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’ reworked with a pulsating industrial bass segues into title track, 'Battle Of Britain' where Beki's vocals soar like a Spitfire over the crunching de-tuned riff and spit fury over the hypocrisy of putting war memorials before people. The dystopian ‘Poverty Face’ hits you with the opening line ‘Disinheriting the meek, slyly killing off the weak’ and is counter balanced by the more upbeat ‘How The Other Half Lives’. ‘No Evil’ is a relentless attack on the normalisation of the suffering and death of billions of animals for the meat industry. Battle of Britain's hard hitting collection of anger and riffage pulls no punches in covering topics from austerity and factory farming to the pernicious influence of the Mainstream Media - ‘Led by lies lambs to the slaughter, tax exiles say who you vote for’. Brexit, fake patriotism and cognitive dissonance all get a good kicking too. The penultimate track, 'You Can’t Fool All Of The People' mixes baritone guitar with violin and Celtic rhythms climaxing in an epic James Bondesque heavy guitar/orchestral blend and breaks every rule in the Punk Police hand book whilst pleading for unity against a rigged political system. ‘Pulling Teeth’ with its ominous riff and hilariously frustrated lyrics ‘Dithering jibbering solid as jam, is it fair I’m both the woman and the man’ closes the album in manic style

Exclusive Fronk-en-steen Green Vinyl! Original London Cast Recording - Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein Presenting the original London cast recording of Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein on Vinyl LP! Legendary filmmaker and comedian Mel Brooks brings his classic monster musical comedy Young Frankenstein to life on stage in a musical collaboration with Tony-award winning Broadway director and choreographer Susan Stroman. Recorded live in London's West End. Grandson of the infamous Victor Frankenstein, Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced 'Fronk-en-steen') (Hadley Fraser) inherits a castle in Transylvania leading him to fulfill his grandfather's legacy by bringing a corpse (Nic Greenshields) back to life. With help and hindrance from hunchback henchman Igor (Ross Noble), buxom assistant Inga (Summer Strallen) and needy fiance Elizabeth (Dianne Pilkington), his experiment yields madcap success and monstrous consequences. After opening on Broadway in November of 2007 the show ran until 2009. A revised version of the show opened in London's West End in October of 2017 to mostly positive reviews. ABC was set to air Young Frankenstein Live last October and delayed it due to COVID-19 restrictions. The show has been rescheduled to air October 2021 on ABC. Mastered and mixed at Abbey Road Studios. This is the first LP release of music from either of the Young Frankenstein live shows.

10th Year Anniversary Reissue on Silver Colored Vinyl, Deluxe mirror board jacket, includes CD insert of Oscillate Wisely (2021), with expanded liner notes by Eric Harvey. Bonus Video + Audio of Live recordings included in Digital Download. Recommended If You Like: Pedro The Lion, The Sea and Cake, David Bazan, Major Murphy, Kurt Vonnegut & Guided by Voices. For ten years now, I’ve understood “Oscillate Wisely” as a play on the Smiths’ instrumental “Oscillate Wildly”--itself, of course, a pun on Morrissey’s muse, Oscar Wilde. This is not to say that anything about Mike Adams and his band reminds me of the Smiths (especially­Morrissey), as much as the idea that rock bands like Mike Adams At His Honest Weight take shape more or less as a thesaurus of past ideas--winking at them, borrowing them like a library book, checking them out from across the room, cloning them. But the best stuff is more ineffable, far more than just cut-and-paste. There’s a weird grandeur to Adams' music, starting with that fully formed, geekily majestic 2011 debut LP Oscillate Wisely, that I don’t hear in anything else, before or since. A sense that Adams is guiding his listeners toward a cosmic joke so personal, so inscrutable, so funny (“funny”), if you give him your attention. It's in his blood, I think. He's not Oscar Wilde, but a uniquely Midwestern type of deeply sincere romantic and dyed-in-the-wool goofball cast from the mold of Hoosier icons like Letterman and Vonnegut. He doesn’t want to believe in anything, he didn’t create this body, he­loves­a parade.­ It’s all in fun, but it gets so personal. Onstage, Adams is gregarious and playfully self-effacing, a college town denizen telescoping backwards to the brief early 90s moment when “college rock” entered the corporate suite, and performers forced to become showmen retreated to the comfort of their native tongue: irony.­And­Oscillate Wisely­has demonstrated for a decade that earnestness and sarcasm are as intricately bound in rock and roll's­lingua franca­as hang-ups and chill hangs. I’ve never heard any musician summon everything I love about being from Indiana so perfectly. And I’m­fucking­old. Eric Harvey.

It’s likely that Dave East was both ready and willing to lock in for a full-length Harry Fraud produced album well before he heard Fraud’s work with Jim Jones (The Fraud Department) and Benny the Butcher (The Plugs I Met 2). But it’s just as likely that the synergy and flawless execution of those projects couldn’t have hurt East’s inclination. Fraud shows up for East on HOFFA the same way he did for Jones and Benny, finding a sturdy balance between moody synth lines, obscure rock samples, and ’90s-hip-hop drum patterns to act as an idyllic backdrop for East’s hand-to-hand street-life memories, basketball references, and straight-faced acknowledgment of the way drugs have affected his own family. Fellow barsmiths Jim Jones, G Herbo, Benny the Butcher, and Curren$y round out the features, but longtime Dave East fans might be most excited to hear a new verse from Kiing Shooter, the Queens-hailing Dave East associate who passed away in 2020 following complications from COVID-19.

The classic debut LP by Dub Narcotic Sound System, originally released on K Records and unavailable on vinyl for 25 years. The oddball indie-funk collective Dub Narcotic Sound System was spearheaded by vocalist Calvin Johnson, the former frontman of the legendary Beat Happening as well as the founder of the famed K Records label. Named in honor of Johnson's own Olympia, WA-based basement studio Dub Narcotic, the project was begun in 1994 with a rapid-fire series of funk-, rap-, and reggae-influenced singles including "Bite," "Fuck Shit Up," "Booty Run," and "Shake-a-Puddin'"; from the outset Johnson was the group's sole constant member, although over the course of subsequent releases, including the EPs Industrial Breakdown, Ridin' Shotgun, and Ship to Shore, the revolving lineup grew to include Olympia scenesters like Lois Maffeo as well as Larry Butler, Todd Ranslow, and Brian Weber, all three members of the hip-hop unit Dead Presidents. The first Dub Narcotic Sound System full-length, Rhythm Record, Vol. One: Echoes From the Scene Control Room, appeared in 1995; later efforts included 1996's Boot Party and 1998's Out of Your Mind. Sideways Soul, a collaboration with Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, followed in 1999. Trouser Press wrote that "when not delving deep into the usual sorts of ambient studio trickery, the songs hit a '60s R&B stride, bathing in the stoned soul picnic ambience with uplifting spirit."

Luigi Grasso rubbed shoulders, when he was twenty, in New York. He then fed on all those artistic possibilities that thrive in the big apple, and bit into it with full teeth, with fierce greed. Jazz was already flowing in his veins, and he was going to enrich this impetuous river of multiple confluences, which he discovered in the prolix underground of the city universe. Meetings, musicians, friends, artists, approaches, differences, additions, mergers, the Italian had found his America for the best and for the sake of it. In words and music. As in Greenwich Village, where he would find a refuge nest in 2O14. In the heart of Manhattan between Soho, Broadway, Chelsea, Hudson. This once bohemian neighborhood, where trees thrive at the foot of red brick buildings, is more often called "the village". Here the young saxophonist from the south of Italy will pose his audacity and his appetite. He will quickly fraternize with the best, in this refuge for artists where gospel, rock, rap, soul and, above all, reign supreme, reign in gospel, rock, rap, soul.

A swiss army knife of an album, Zander Hulme's Windbound shifts effortlessly between beautiful, sweeping piano melodies, energetic calls to adventure, and the occasional throat singing for good measure.

Featuring watercolor inspired jacket and inner sleeve artwork by Jennifer A. Reuter, this release is a whirlwind of color packed into a single square foot. Presented in two variants, "Seashore" Blue Marble and "Cloudy Skies" White in Clear Marble.

For nearly two decades, four-time GRAMMY® Award-winning multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, producer, arranger, and songwriter Michael League has been an innovative force in modern music, whose grass-roots approach to the industry has made an imprint across multiple continents and genres. Known best as the leader of the instrumental ensemble Snarky Puppy, League has performed thousands of shows, released dozens of studio and live albums, and garnered accolades from the New York Times, Downbeat, Jazz Times, and Rolling Stone, among many others. The busy artist is also a founding member of the GRAMMY®-nominated supergroup Bokanté and oversees GroundUP Music—a fiercely independent label which he established in 2012. As a versatile producer and songwriter, League has collaborated with a broad spectrum of artists, including David Crosby, Esperanza Spaulding, Kirk Franklin, Joe Walsh, Daedelus, and Terence Blanchard. Throughout his many ventures, however, League has always felt most comfortable within a collaborative setting, whether he’s bringing musicians together from across the globe, planning the latest edition of the GroundUP Music Festival, or writing one-on-one with a partner. While the notion of a solo record first took shape in 2015, League’s demanding schedule always prevented him from pursuing it in earnest. And then, in March 2020, the world went into lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic. With tours canceled, studios shuttered, and projects on hold indefinitely, League finally had the time to make this record—titled So Many Me. Yet, lyrically and musically, his first solo album was a very different project—and process—than what he had initially envisioned five years earlier.

Duane Pitre returns to Imprec with Omniscient Voices, an articulate, intense and emotionally resonant set of five pieces for justly tuned piano and electronics.

Omniscient Voices is a uniquely distinct work that follows Pitre's trilogy of releases which culminated with 2015’s Bayou Electric and included the critically acclaimed Feel Free (2012) and Bridges (2013) albums. Where those albums were rooted in long form pieces, Omniscient Voices is a collection of shorter pieces, offering more harmonic variety than previous works, with a unique sound and feel that is still unmistakably the work of Duane Pitre.

In 2019, after a five year period where Pitre did not focus on outward facing music, but instead on his own personal practice, a small idea in the form of a question came to him: would the combination of his latest computer- and electronic-based experiments, used in conjunction with justly tuned piano, produce interesting results; simply put, would it “work”? Concurrently, Pitre was studying a handful of Morton Feldman scores for their focus on tonal clusters, reading a book on Arvo Pärt’s life and work, and contemplating the pulse-based rhythms of Steve Reich and Phillip Glass.

In 2020, with no intention of making a new album, the composer tried to answer this question. The results would spawn five pieces that would become Omniscient Voices. On this new work, Pitre finds himself giving equal priority to both piano and electronics, utilizing his Max/MSP-based generative network to real-time convert precomposed piano motifs, into data, which is then used to communicate with two polyphonic, microtonal hardware synthesizers whose patches Pitre authored; this process generates the electronic component of the album. Pitre also utilizes controlled improvisation to interact with the piano-reactive electronics in a spontaneous and inspired manner, going back and forth between these two pianistic approaches. In all, this approach creates a “musical feedback loop” of sorts.

Despite Omniscient Voices being the culmination of 15 years of hard work and inspiration, this beautiful album somehow materialized in a natural, intuitive and effortless way (like any artist's best work.)

Artist's statement: “When making the pieces that would become Omniscient Voices, I often viewed the piano as human action, a single note becoming a single gesture that has the potential to change the electronic environment, the electronics becoming the environment surrounding that human in the natural world, who then has the power to change their actions based on their surroundings. All actions have consequences. The interconnectedness of everything. Single actions making waves of change.”

RIYL: Arvo Pärt, Morton Feldman, Steve Reich, Phillip Glass
Mastered and cut by Golden and pressed at RTI for maximum fidelity.

Canadian rock trio The Tea Party is releasing a brand-new CD Deluxe Edition and Remastered Vinyl Edition of their iconic first album “The Tea Party” on December 10, 2021 through UMC. These new editions are coming 30 years since the album’s initial “indie” release and includes remixed and remastered audio by Stuart Chatwood, updated images and liner notes. The Deluxe Edition will be available on 2CD plus an eAlbum, the Remastered Edition is available on 2LP pressed on 180g red vinyl. For fans of the band, “The Tea Party” has remained a collectible album since its release in 1991. It was originally recorded as a demo which the band submitted to several record companies. However, the band was not signed to any recording contract and decided to release the album independently. The album production is relatively lo-fi, and the band re-recorded several of the songs for their follow-up “Splendor Solis.” Only 3,500 copies of the album were made, some of which were cassettes, making the recording a collectible to fans.

On March 13, 2020, Yumi Zouma's highly anticipated album, Truth or Consequences, was released. One day prior, the band played their first show of a fully sold-out US tour, at Washington, DC's DC9. This was also the day the Word Health Organization declared COVID-19 an official pandemic, resulting in the band cancelling the entire tour and flying back to Europe the next day - the day of their album's release.

"So after returning home and spending a few numb weeks adjusting to this strange new way of life, April came, the reality set in, and we quickly started to miss that feeling of exploring our new songs by night," the band says. "Writing new music around them, we took the songs of Truth or Consequences and found ourselves a new way of re-contextualising them safely, amidst the tragedy and fear going on in the world outside our windows – and the Alternate Versions were born. We encouraged each other to be bold, fearless, and to experiment like we would on stage – but from the comfort of our own bedrooms, living rooms and hallways.

Russian Roulette is the seventh studio album by German heavy metal band Accept. The album was originally released in 1986 and the last album to feature Udo Dirkschneider as lead vocalist until his return in 1992. The recordings are darker and heaver in sound than the commercial-sounding predecessor Metal Heart. The band stated that with this album they were going back to their unpolished sound and therefore produced the album themselves.

Accept was originally assembled by former vocalist Udo Dirkschneider, guitarist Wolf Hoffmann and bassist Peter Baltes. Their beginnings can be traced back to the late ‘60s. The band played an important role in the development of speed and thrash metal, being part of the German heavy metal scene, which emerged in the early to mid-80s.

Russian Roulette is available on black vinyl and includes an insert.

Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s 2002 album Jamaican E.T. marked his ‘comeback’. The extra-terrestrial is back with some groovy reggae which creates a bridge between dub, roots and hip hop. But in the end it never ventures to far away from the traditional reggae. The album continues in showing his fascination with aliens, drugs and religion. His own voice is often multi-layered and contrasting with each other. In 2003, the album won a Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album.

Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry was a pioneer in the 1970s development of dub music and worked together with artists such as Bob Marley and the Wailers, The Clash and The Beastie Boys. Up until his passing, Perry was active in producing and performing his music.

Jamaican E.T. is available on black vinyl.

Imagine deserted volcanic wasteland, freezing winds and the all-embracing darkness of the longest winters on this planet: The obvious inspiration for rather vicious and somber tunes for lonely evening hours that the biggest part of Iceland’s heavy music scene is known for. Who would even dare to think of tales about brave warriors and mystical creatures coming from such an island? Power metal seemed like a fairytale until 2017 when Reykjavík based sextet POWER PALADIN (originally founded as PALADIN) rose in quest of carrying out their uplifting tunes and finally proving everyone wrong. On an island known for its musical doom and gloom, they are the midnight sun. “Iceland has such a great representation of extreme metal. We didn’t feel we had much to add to that scene so why shouldn’t we do the complete opposite?” the band recall their origins. A truly wise decision! Their first live performances and demo releases were of such good reception that they were booked for Iceland’s main underground festivals, Eistnaflug and Norðanpaunk, and subsequently played at one of the country’s biggest music events, Iceland Airwaves, in 2019. Highly praised as a “standout” act by The Reykjavík Grapevine, POWER PALADIN kept crafting material at Windfyre Studios, composing their 9-track strong debut album titled »With The Magic Of Windfyre Steel«. The opus is a historical landmark for both the group and Atomic Fire Records, being the label’s first full-length release since its recent founding. “We actually started to write some of these tunes in the very beginning of our band history and captured them over the course of about two years at various places: at Ingi’s bedroom, at Atli and Bjarni’s workplace, at a cabin outside Reykjavik etc.”, POWER PALADIN say about their approach to songwriting and recording. And while self-producing such a splendid album has been no easy quest, it almost reads like a part from Joseph Campbell’s »The Hero’s Journey«:“So we went through a whole lot of trials, but that’s why we’re even happier and prouder of this record now!” Mixed by Haukur Hannes at Mastertape Studios (AUÐN, DYNFARI etc.) and mastered by Frank de Jong at Hal5 Studio (BLEEDING GODS etc.),
” they explain. The group’s love for fantasy games and books from authors such as Brandon Sanderson and Joe Abercrombie doesn’t remain unnoticed either: James Child (Astral Clock Tower Studios) translated that inspiration into the album’s adventurous artwork. »With The Magic Of Windfyre Steel« gets the listener's attention immediately. Air guitar-provoking lead single 'Kraven The Hunter‘, a track that’s frequently been aired via Iceland’s radio stations prior to the album’s release, peaking at position #1 of X-977’s chart, sets the right tone for this 51-minute venturesome ride. A ride that ranges from songs in the vein of the opening track like 'Creatures Of The Night' to rather aggressive bangers such as the second single 'Righteous Fury' and 'Ride The Distant Storm'. In the end, critics might say that “only a ballad is missing” to deliver all ingredients for a great heavy metal album. But does a power metal saga whose first chapter has just been written need one at all? Well, we will find out in chapter 2...

Imagine deserted volcanic wasteland, freezing winds and the all-embracing darkness of the longest winters on this planet: The obvious inspiration for rather vicious and somber tunes for lonely evening hours that the biggest part of Iceland’s heavy music scene is known for. Who would even dare to think of tales about brave warriors and mystical creatures coming from such an island? Power metal seemed like a fairytale until 2017 when Reykjavík based sextet POWER PALADIN (originally founded as PALADIN) rose in quest of carrying out their uplifting tunes and finally proving everyone wrong. On an island known for its musical doom and gloom, they are the midnight sun. “Iceland has such a great representation of extreme metal. We didn’t feel we had much to add to that scene so why shouldn’t we do the complete opposite?” the band recall their origins. A truly wise decision! Their first live performances and demo releases were of such good reception that they were booked for Iceland’s main underground festivals, Eistnaflug and Norðanpaunk, and subsequently played at one of the country’s biggest music events, Iceland Airwaves, in 2019. Highly praised as a “standout” act by The Reykjavík Grapevine, POWER PALADIN kept crafting material at Windfyre Studios, composing their 9-track strong debut album titled »With The Magic Of Windfyre Steel«. The opus is a historical landmark for both the group and Atomic Fire Records, being the label’s first full-length release since its recent founding. “We actually started to write some of these tunes in the very beginning of our band history and captured them over the course of about two years at various places: at Ingi’s bedroom, at Atli and Bjarni’s workplace, at a cabin outside Reykjavik etc.”, POWER PALADIN say about their approach to songwriting and recording. And while self-producing such a splendid album has been no easy quest, it almost reads like a part from Joseph Campbell’s »The Hero’s Journey«:“So we went through a whole lot of trials, but that’s why we’re even happier and prouder of this record now!” Mixed by Haukur Hannes at Mastertape Studios (AUÐN, DYNFARI etc.) and mastered by Frank de Jong at Hal5 Studio (BLEEDING GODS etc.),
” they explain. The group’s love for fantasy games and books from authors such as Brandon Sanderson and Joe Abercrombie doesn’t remain unnoticed either: James Child (Astral Clock Tower Studios) translated that inspiration into the album’s adventurous artwork. »With The Magic Of Windfyre Steel« gets the listener's attention immediately. Air guitar-provoking lead single 'Kraven The Hunter‘, a track that’s frequently been aired via Iceland’s radio stations prior to the album’s release, peaking at position #1 of X-977’s chart, sets the right tone for this 51-minute venturesome ride. A ride that ranges from songs in the vein of the opening track like 'Creatures Of The Night' to rather aggressive bangers such as the second single 'Righteous Fury' and 'Ride The Distant Storm'. In the end, critics might say that “only a ballad is missing” to deliver all ingredients for a great heavy metal album. But does a power metal saga whose first chapter has just been written need one at all? Well, we will find out in chapter 2...

Imagine deserted volcanic wasteland, freezing winds and the all-embracing darkness of the longest winters on this planet: The obvious inspiration for rather vicious and somber tunes for lonely evening hours that the biggest part of Iceland’s heavy music scene is known for. Who would even dare to think of tales about brave warriors and mystical creatures coming from such an island? Power metal seemed like a fairytale until 2017 when Reykjavík based sextet POWER PALADIN (originally founded as PALADIN) rose in quest of carrying out their uplifting tunes and finally proving everyone wrong. On an island known for its musical doom and gloom, they are the midnight sun. “Iceland has such a great representation of extreme metal. We didn’t feel we had much to add to that scene so why shouldn’t we do the complete opposite?” the band recall their origins. A truly wise decision! Their first live performances and demo releases were of such good reception that they were booked for Iceland’s main underground festivals, Eistnaflug and Norðanpaunk, and subsequently played at one of the country’s biggest music events, Iceland Airwaves, in 2019. Highly praised as a “standout” act by The Reykjavík Grapevine, POWER PALADIN kept crafting material at Windfyre Studios, composing their 9-track strong debut album titled »With The Magic Of Windfyre Steel«. The opus is a historical landmark for both the group and Atomic Fire Records, being the label’s first full-length release since its recent founding. “We actually started to write some of these tunes in the very beginning of our band history and captured them over the course of about two years at various places: at Ingi’s bedroom, at Atli and Bjarni’s workplace, at a cabin outside Reykjavik etc.”, POWER PALADIN say about their approach to songwriting and recording. And while self-producing such a splendid album has been no easy quest, it almost reads like a part from Joseph Campbell’s »The Hero’s Journey«:“So we went through a whole lot of trials, but that’s why we’re even happier and prouder of this record now!” Mixed by Haukur Hannes at Mastertape Studios (AUÐN, DYNFARI etc.) and mastered by Frank de Jong at Hal5 Studio (BLEEDING GODS etc.),
” they explain. The group’s love for fantasy games and books from authors such as Brandon Sanderson and Joe Abercrombie doesn’t remain unnoticed either: James Child (Astral Clock Tower Studios) translated that inspiration into the album’s adventurous artwork. »With The Magic Of Windfyre Steel« gets the listener's attention immediately. Air guitar-provoking lead single 'Kraven The Hunter‘, a track that’s frequently been aired via Iceland’s radio stations prior to the album’s release, peaking at position #1 of X-977’s chart, sets the right tone for this 51-minute venturesome ride. A ride that ranges from songs in the vein of the opening track like 'Creatures Of The Night' to rather aggressive bangers such as the second single 'Righteous Fury' and 'Ride The Distant Storm'. In the end, critics might say that “only a ballad is missing” to deliver all ingredients for a great heavy metal album. But does a power metal saga whose first chapter has just been written need one at all? Well, we will find out in chapter 2...

Canadian Deathcore pioneers DESPISED ICON celebrate their 20th anniversary in 2022, so it’s about time to re-discover the beginnings of the band! The group’s debut album “Consumed By Your Poison” (2002) and their sophomore album “The Healing Process” (2005) are now available again via Century Media Records, both on limited coloured 180g vinyl with new vinyl mastering as well as a bonus CD and also as Jewelcase CD with selected additional bonus tracks from the band’s 2008 DVD-show. “Consumed By Your Poison” is actually available for the first time ever on vinyl and “The Healing Process” comes with alternate, previously unreleased mix/mastering Yannick St-Amand. Deathcore at its very best!

The solo project of Malmö songwriter Katja Nielsen, of acclaimed punk
combo Arre! Arre!, is finally ready to unleash her debut LP 'Violent
Tendencies', a ten-track deep dive into the stories of female murderers
Expertly produced, Violent Tendencies, takes its cues from '60s garage rock and
girl groups rather than the eighties infused goth pop of her early EP's, looking
outward rather than inward for a rollercoaster that veers between a glut of
different genres, themes and lyrical ideas, although still scored through with
Nielsen's sharp ear for melody. Pressed on black vinyl.

For fans of Tall Heights, Sufjan Stevens, & Indie Folk! Steadily building their artistic style and audience for the past seven years, New Jersey based alternative folk band Cold Weather Company carries a diverse sound, rich with harmonies and instrumental builds. The band combines the various writing approaches and influences of its three members, Brian Curry, Jeff Petescia, and Steve Shimchick, to create unique arrangements with intricate layering. Over the past few years, the band has earned over eight million cross-platform digital streams and supported acts such as Tall Heights, Jamestown Revival, and Juke Ross. On their fourth full-length album, Coalescence, Cold Weather Company continues to expand their acoustic-forward, alternative folk sound into new territory. With delicate additions of synths and electronic instruments, as well as a broadened palette of horns, percussion, strings, and harmonies, "Coalescence" explores each song down to its smallest sonic niche. Conceptually, the album revolves around growth by highlighting our capacity to better ourselves and our connections through introspection and reflection. Often occurring cyclically, especially in nature, the idea of growth also inspired the release process for the album which will be split into three parts, each representing a different conceptual facet. "With their spot on songwriting and boisterous melodies, Cold Weather Company is set to follow in the alt-folk leaning sounds of Avett Brothers, Ben Howard George Ezra

Im Mai 2020 erschien das Doppelalbum Figures der legendären belgischen Band Aksak Maboul. Nun folgen gleich zwei Alben mit Remixen, Coverversionen und neuen Versionen von fünfzehn ganz unterschiedlichen Musiker*innen auf Vinyl (jeweils streng auf 500 Exemplare limitiert). Betitelt sind sie Redrawn Figures 1 und Redrawn Figures 2. Mit von der Partie sind u.a. The Notwist, Cate Le Bon, Felix Kubin, Tolouse Low Trax und Matias Aguayo. Zu ihren Versionen kommen vier weitere von Aksak Maboul-Gründer Marc Hollander selbst. Wie im Albumtitel bereits anklingt, bat Aksak Maboul die Musiker*innen, sich nicht nur die Musik, sondern auch das von Véronique Vincent gestaltete Artwork von Figures vorzunehmen. Die daraus resultierenden sechzehn Bearbeitungen zieren das Cover von Redrawn Figures 1. Das Cover von Redrawn Figures 2 wiederum stammt vom französischen Maler Hervé Di Rosa, einem der Mitbegründer der "Figuration Libre"-Bewegung.

Das Live-Doppelalbum "Glitter & Doom" entstand auf der gleichnamigen ausverkauften und hochgelobten Tour, die den kalifornischen Songwriter 2008 durch die USA und Europa führte. Die erste CD soll wie ein einziges Konzert klingen, obwohl die 17 Songs in zehn verschiedenen Städten aufgenommen wurden. Die zweite CD heißt "Tom Tales" und ist eine Zusammenstellung von Zwischenbemerkungen und Bühnenansprachen, mit denen sich Waits während des Klavier-Sets mit dem Publikum austauscht. Die Themen reichen dabei von Insektenritualen bis zum letzten Atemzug von Henry Ford. Musikalisch zeigt sich Waits auf "Glitter & Doom" in seiner ganzen eklektizistischen Herrlichkeit und wechselt nahtlos von einem Charakter zum anderen: Jahrmarktschreier, Prediger, Country-Sänger, Soul-Liedermacher und Geschichtenerzähler. Unterstützt wird Waits von einer fünfköpfigen Band, die das Waits'sche Repertoire um einige neue Perspektiven erweitert.

Massachusetts hardcore band Defeater have announced their new self-titled album. Defeater will be released May 10 on Epitaph. This is Defeater's fifth full-length release and their first in 4 years. The first new single, "Mothers' Sons" features blistering guitars that take the song into something chaotic and beautiful. Defeater was produced with Will Yip (Quicksand, La Dispute, Blacklisted, Ms. Lauryn Hill) whose enthusiasm and talent pushed the songs to their fullest potential. Defeater showcases the band at their most devastating and sonically arresting to date. It is as pummeling as it is atmospheric. Yet it's been a long journey to where the band is now. Years of touring took their toll on the friends that make up the current lineup of Derek Archambault (vocals), Jake Woodruff (guitar), Adam Crowe (guitar), Mike Poulin (bass) and Joe Longobardi (drums). Health, substance abuse issues, and ejecting a longtime member had made a touring hiatus necessary. After a few months at home, working and decompressing, the fire to write a new record caught everyone in a major way. The result of time off and the band's renewed energy, Defeater has created their most organic batch of songs yet. And in Defeater fashion, the instrumentation is complimented by a narrative approach. Archambault explores his own "Glass family" (an homage to the J.D. Salinger characters) from new perspectives.

Sie können auf eine treue, langjährig erspielte Gefolgschaft zählen und sind aus dem Metalcore-Bereich längst nicht mehr wegzudenken: Die seit 2003 aktiven Abräumer aus dem australischen Byron Bay veröffentlichen mit "Reverence" ihr sechstes Studioalbum und damit den Nachfolger zum umjubelten Langspieler "Ire" von 2015. Der setzte die Messlatte für kommende Aufnahmen ziemlich hoch, doch die fünf Brachialrocker aus Down Under meisterten die Hürde mit links. Ganz nach dem Motto: Wer Wind sät, wird Sturm ernten. In den Worten von Frontmann Winston McCall stellt sich das so dar: "'Reverence' ist das ehrlichste und persönlichste Album, das wir je erschaffen haben. Es wurde durch Schmerz, Opfer und Überzeugung geboren, mit dem ultimativen Ziel vor Augen, nicht nur das auszudehnen, wofür Parkway Drive musikalisch stehen, sondern auch, wer wir als Menschen sind." Kurz: Auf den zehn Stücken herrscht Nackenhaare-Aufstellgarantie! Genrekonventionen spielen dabei eine untergeordnete Rolle.

Transparent Red Single Colour Vinyl Edition! YEAR OF NO LIGHT`s lengthy, sprawling compositions of towering walls of guitars and sombre synths irradiate a sense of dire solemnity and spiritual gravity, and couldn't be a more fitting soundtrack for such grim medieval scenarios. But there is also the element of absolution, regeneration, elevation, transcendence in the face of death. Consolamentum is dense, rich and lush and yet somehow feels starved and deprived. With debut album Nord (2006) and sophomore release Ausserwelt (2010), the band made themselves a name in the European avant-metal scene. Extensive tours of Europe, North America and Russia in 2013 and 2014, including two appearances at Roadburn festival, Hellfest and a spectacular performance in a 17th Century fortress in the Carpathian mountains introduced them to a broader and quickly growing international audience. The cinematic scope of their music implies that YEAR OF NO LIGHT are a group of artists that pay a great deal of attention to their visual representation, from the classy album artworks and merch designs to the carefully designed lighting design of their live show. With their seminal 3rd album Tocsin, released in 2013, YEAR OF NO LIGHT reached the peak of their career thus far - a logical decision that Consolamentum was made with the same team again: recorded and mixed by Cyrille Gachet at Cryogene in Begles / Bordeaux, mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side. "We wanted this album to sound as organic and analog as possible", comments the band. "All tracks were recorded live. The goal was to have the most natural, warm and clean takes possible, to give volume to the dynamics of the songs. We aimed to have a production with a singular personality." Consolamentum is huge, poignant, frightening, sublime, smothering and cathartic - and, much like its predecessor, "audacious, memorable and supremely confident." (Decibel magazine).

2021 Repress features 140g Gold Vinyl and a Velour Sleeve. LP in tip-on jacket with purple velvet and gold foil stamping. In 1975, Brooklyn transplant Pepe Willie booked time at Cookhouse Recording Studios in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to demo five original compositions. Without roots in the Twin Cities' insular scene, Willie had no fixed backing group to help realize the arrangements he and vocalists Marcy Ingvoldstad and Kristie Lazenberry had been rehearsing. Willie organized a young cast of backing musicians for the session, among them his wife's cousin: a 16-year-old guitar prodigy named Prince Rogers Nelson. Known colloquially as "The Cookhouse 5" these recordings showcase Prince's instantly recognizable guitar playing, seasoning to perfection 94 East's short-but-sweet songbook. A crucial document concerning the origins of the Minneapolis Sound, the B-side boasts instrumental versions of each infectious tune, providing an even greater vantage point from which to admire the Purple One's expressive playing style, already evident in his teenage years.

Not just a super-rare set of dreamy soul jazz but also a neat piece of independent label history: JSR were a Jersey-based imprint with an open source attitude to their business, allowing ambitious young musicians their first break contract-free (albeit with limited pressings) In 1980 Coleman took them up on the offer, played most of the instruments himself and even designed the artwork: Taking Care Of Business is quite a literal title. It's literally brilliant, too; just check the Shuggy style vocal leans on "Due Consideration" or the swooning Roy Ayers style vibraphone magic of "Sweet Bird" and you'll see exactly what we mean. Stunning.

Wendell Harrison was born in Detroit in 1942 where he began formal jazz studies for piano, clarinet and tenor saxophone. At 14, while still in high school, Harrison started performing & recording professionally with artists such as Marvin Gaye, Grant Green, Sun Ra, Hank Crawford … and many others.
In 1971, Harrison began teaching music at Metro Arts (a multi-arts complex for youth) where he also connected with Marcus Belgrave, Harold McKinney and Phil Ranelin…soon after they formed the (now legendary) Afro-centric TRIBE record label and artist collective. TRIBE used the Metro Arts complex as a vehicle to convey a growing black political consciousness. Wendell Harrison also published the very popular TRIBE magazine, a publication dedicated to local and national social and political issues, as well as featuring artistic contributions such as poetry and visual pieces.
In 1978 Harrison and McKinney co-founded REBIRTH, a non-profit jazz performance and education organization, in which many notable jazz artists have participated. Around the same time Wendell Harrison also created the WENHA record label and publishing company, which released many of his (now classic) recordings as well as those of other artists, such as Phil Ranelin, Doug Hammond and Reggie Fields (The Real ShooBeeDoo).
In the early 1990s, Wendell Harrison was awarded the title of “Jazz Master” by Arts Midwest. This distinction led Harrison to collaborate with fellow honorees and gave him the chance to tour throughout the United States, Middle East and Africa. Even to this day Wendell Harrison's recordings for the TRIBE, WENHA and REBIRTH labels have a large worldwide fanbase.
It is on WENHA that Harrison released the opus: DREAMS OF A LOVE SUPREME (1980), which we are presenting you today.
DREAMS OF A LOVE SUPREME is a monster album that features an all-star line-up that includes Phil Ranelin (Freddie Hubbard, Solomon Burke, Mulatu Astakte) on trombone, Harold McKinney (Tribe) on Keyboards and Roy Brooks (Yusef Lateef, Chet Baker, Mingus) on percussion. Although you can hear the 80ies creeping in with a smoother sound, more synths, and disco/R&B vocals… this remains a very spiritual (and soulful) jazz record. The record’s an irresistible blend of soul jazz combined with funky electric instrumentation…a groovy sound which is very much of its time, yet overtly timeless and as relevant today as it was back when it was initially released.
Tidal Waves Music now proudly presents the first ever vinyl reissue of ‘Dreams of A Love Supreme’ since its release in 1980. This official reissue is now available as a deluxe 180g vinyl edition (limited to 500 copies) and comes with an unreleased bonus track.

The Music Lovers collection bring you a cool selection of Rockesteady anthems, get ready to party!

Billy Bragg has been a fearless recording artist, tireless live performer and peerless political campaigner for over 30 years. Among the former Saturday boy’s albums are his punk-charged debut Life’s a Riot With Spy Vs Spy, the more love-infused Workers Playtime, pop classic Don’t Try This At Home, the Queen’s Golden Jubilee-timed treatise on national identity England, Half-English, and his stripped-down tenth, Tooth & Nail, his most successful since the early 90s. The intervening three decades have been marked by a number one hit single, having a street named after him, being the subject of a South Bank Show, appearing onstage at Wembley Stadium, curating Left Field at Glastonbury, sharing spotted dick with a Cabinet minister in the House of Commons cafeteria, being mentioned in Bob Dylan’s memoir and meeting the Queen. At their best, Billy’s songs present ‘the perfect Venn diagram between the political and the personal’ (the Guardian). Billy Bragg added best-selling author/musicologist to his CV with the success of his acclaimed 2017 book ‘Roots, Radicals & Rockers – How Skiffle Changed The World’. Billy Bragg will release a new single ‘I Will Be Your Shield’ on 14th July 2021. Taken from his forthcoming 10th studio album ‘The Million Things That Never Happened’, ‘I Will Be Your Shield’ is a beautiful love song and is the beating heart of his new record.

The latest thrilling incarnation of master rock'n'roll storyteller Tex Perkins (The Cruel Sea, Beasts of Bourbon, Thug, Tex Deadly and the Dum Dums, Tex, Don et Charlie.) and the Fat Rubber Band began with a rare vinyl copy of Link Wray's Beans and Fatback album, recorded in 1971. Perkins and his respected musician, songwriter, producer and bandmate Matt Walker share a mutual admiration of the American electric guitar innovator, whose iconic power chords in his signature 50s rock'n'roll instrumentals, had a profound influence on the evolution of rock guitar. The Fat Rubber Band is borned with this rare vinyl, the pair have enjoyed countless musical conversations over the decade while hanging out backstage and on the road. Walker offered the debut album's opening track, the wide-screen drama of "Pay The Devil's Due". Perkins responded with the plaintive blues of "My Philosophy". Walker replied with the album's fuzz driven debut single "Danger Has Been Kind" and Perkins countered with the glacially-paced, intimate "Poor Simple Minded Fool". The pair road-tested their works in progress as a duo before enlisting bassist Steve Hadley, drummer Roger Bergodaz and Evan Richards on percussion to complete the Fat Rubber Band line-up to record the album's ten tracks at Walker's Stovepipe Studios in Victoria's Dandenong Ranges. "At Matt's studio - you open the door to the studio and nature floods in," Perkins says. "We wanted it to sound rural, to feel the dirt and the grass and the leaves." Even after all these decades, when you think you know that gravelly baritone inside out, Perkins finds new emotional tones in the service of the Fat Rubber Band's songs vivid narratives, with their characters wrestling, but sometimes dancing, with the tougher, darker qualities of the human condition. This is truly existential blues. Bubbling underneath those upfront vocals and raw harmonies are intricately entwined guitar conversations and unexpected percussive flourishes. "Another aspect that we wanted was for the sound to be sometimes a collision and sometimes a marriage of acoustic and electric instruments. We wanted that tension between mandolins and bouzoukis meeting fuzz guitars." "We also considered percussion to be a vital element of the sound we were going for; we noticed in the recordings we loved from the 50s and 60s that often the tambourine hit, or the maracas, or whatever percussion, was right up there in the mix, right next to the vocal," Perkins says.

After the international success of Thunderbirds, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson turned their attention to a deadly threat from Mars. Seeking revenge for an attack on their home planet,

the Mysterons plot to use their powers to bring Earth to its knees.

Across 32 episodes broadcast during 1967 – 1968, the series is remarkable for moving away from the more caricatured puppets of previous shows –

they have more realistic body proportions and the storylines are much more violent and darker in tone. Something reflected in the music which has a

more militaristic feel to it although, as always, composer Gray offers up occasional lighter tracks to break up the mood.

The opening narration of each episode sums it up –

"The Mysterons: sworn enemies of Earth. Possessing the ability to recreate an exact likeness of an object or person. But first, they must destroy...

Leading the fight, one man fate has made indestructible. His name: Captain Scarlet."

The Captain Scarlet LP will be sixth album in the series which includes UFO, Supercar, Thunderbirds, Fireball XL5 and Space: 1999.

The third release on U-TRAX in 1993 was also a third debut, this time by Natasja Hagemeier and Jeroen Brandjes. Early in their career, they used several artist names, but became most commonly known as The Connection Machine. With their debut mini-album The Dream Tec Album they more or less described their style: dreamy techno. It became an instant Dutch techno classic and U-TRAX is proud and delighted to offer a fully remastered re-release, including three never before released bonus tracks (one of which is digital-only).

Natasja and Jeroen resided in Utrecht back in the 90s. In 1991 they assembled all their ideas and recorded the track "24 Hours" with DJ Paradize. Soon after this experience, they started to buy their own gear, all strictly MIDI (which wasn't too obvious in those days). In their early recording years, they had three producer-names (Syndrome, The Connection Machine and Bitch&Bites), that were all collected under the The Utroid Machine Missions umbrella, which was used for their debut on U-TRAX.

All tracks on The Dream Tec Album are The Connection Machine's earliest works, from the 1991/1992 years.

"An Overflow of the Mind" is a beautiful, dreamy track with almost divine sounds and strange voice-samples that serves perfectly as an introduction to their entire repertoire.

Their first production was "24 Hours", and what a brilliant one it is! A well-known jazz-musician talks about a "24 hour party going on", on top of a sinister and trancey rug, woven of sampled sounds from pioneers in electronic music and nailed down to the floor with a deep pounding bassdrum. At the time they made this track, 141 bpm was unbelievably fast...

"Evilish Cosmos" is all about a very sad and personal emotion, so everything we say about it will be absolutely wrong. Just listen to the meandering piano line, distorted voice samples - and feel it.

The first bonus track on this release is "Recognized Pain", which was intended to be part of the original The Dream Tec Album. It had appeared on the Phuture Classical Section C cassette in 1993, on the famous Drome Tapes label that formed the roots of U-TRAX. It truly is an amazing track: pure sonic terror with haunting rhythms, psychedelic synth lines and shards of voice samples that make the listener feel slightly uncomfortable.

"X_Manray" is many electronic music lover's favorite track. It is sooo deep that it is hard not to get hypnotized by it. Warm strings are coupled with deep beats that show up and disappear every now and then. Could serve perfectly to start off any DJ's set, as long as she or he has the guts.

Though "Braindrain" is probably the most danceable track on this album, it is carefully designed to tease the listener. Everything in this track drops in too late and every tone, melody or loop last exactly a few bars too long. Designed as a DJ-teaser and so it is.

The second bonus track, "Cafe d'Anvers", is another previously unreleased work, of which unfortunately no master recording was saved. All that is left, as far as we know, was an old VHS Hifi tape from the U-TRAX Archives. And that is where this bonus track was taken from. Mastering engineer Thee J Johanz managed to restore the quality of the recording somewhat, while at the same time maintaining its dark, clubby sound, a tribute to the famous club of the track's name in Antwerp, Belgium.

"Dream Affected Dream" is one of the most recent productions on this album. It was recorded with CNN playing live on top of it. At this exact moment, CNN was having an interview with David Koresh, the leader of the infamous Branch Davidians sect from Waco, Texas, while they were under siege by an armed police force. Natasja and Jeroen were just ready to record Dream Affected Dream, and spontaneously decided to mix in the audio from CNN. Not very long after that, the cult members set fire to themselves. A very strange and oddly funky track, that also serves as a time-document.

The final track is another bonus track. Like Cafe d'Anvers, "Voight-Kampff" is taken from on old U-TRAX VHS Hifi tape and masterfully mastered into a lovely relaxed dreamtech piece. Very suitable to start the Sunday after a long night of clubbing. This track is available for free to buyers of the complete digital album only.

Original release date: July 1993.

The sixth release on Phoq U Phonogrammen, the sordid and rash U-TRAX sublabel, may be from its least known artist, but it is our personal favorite Phoq U release. The style can perhaps best be described as acid funk. Though the drums and bass lines generally are rather tight, all tracks have these quirky synth lines that give them a rather funky, dark 'cyborg feel'.
Lynx is Reyer Caderius van Veen - and he didn't chose that name himself. Reyer is from Groningen, the mayor city in the most northern region of The Netherlands. It's a vibrant student town, with lots of music going on.

In the 90s, Reyer participated in a techno-foundation, together with Thee J. Johanz (Ballyhoo Records) and Johan Sagel, who released a 12" as Jo-I on U-TRAX in 1995. Together with Johan, Reyer also formed a band called L.A.P. 01 (Live Acid Performance), which released a 12", a 10" and a remix on Jan Liefhebber's Highland Beats and a track on Ballyhoo Records (BALL 100).
Harsh starts off with some terribly hard and high tones, that sound like a nuclear plant is going to melt down. The ferocious bassdrum and grunting acid bass line add to the uncomfortable mood.
What makes us really happy is Sex On Jupiter. It's a rushed track that completely opens up around the 1:20 mark with a desolate, yet funky sawtooth 303 bassline.

On the flipside, Changes brings a nice pumping rhythm combined with a rolling bassline with all sorts of disturbing sounds on top.
The EP closes off with another highlight of darkness: Dark Mission. The track has a lovely flow, but really starts to space you out as soon as a hoarse sounding pulsating synth spreads it wings across the deliciously bubbling 303.
To be short: this is an uncomfortable record, and we love it!

Original release date: August 1996.

Drummer/producer Teppo "Teddy Rok" Mäkynen shares two unreleased cuts by his alias The Stance Brothers on We Jazz Records. The 7" color vinyl single goes by the title "Commercial Music", as both tracks are originally commissioned for promotional purposess. The tough-as-nails A-sider "Hard Deal" is an old-school Stance groover made for the Finnish clothing brand Samuji's men's Spring/Summer collection 2015. Stance fans will recognice the signature Teddy Rok groove which cooks and rocks, and displays nice depth as well. The drum break is pure fire like only Teppo can deliver. "Dwayne's Shuffle", known to local Finnish jazz aficionadoes as the opening theme of the popular Yle Radio 1 "Jazzklubi" show is slightly more mellow offering, yet the full swing and intensity is right there in the pocket. The crunchy guitar and minimalist vibraphone melodies carry the tune way beyond your average radio show jingle into a full existence of its own.

"Commercial Music" by The Stance Brothers is released by We Jazz Records on color 7" vinyl single, delivered with heat-pressed old school labels and a stylish plain brown sleeve.

A limited edition clear vinyl pressing for Vol. 1 of DINTE's critically acclaimed collection of pirate radio adverts & idents, taken from recordings of London stations between 1984 & 1993.

Spiralling through the space-time continuum, Alberta Balsam's debut EP amalgamates clipped breakbeat with lithe IDM and sawtooth electro. Inspired by the visionary author Ursula K. Le Guin, the vinyl is presented by Dekmantel Records together with a transcendental sci-fi narrative. Printed on a poster-inlay designed by British artist Alex Morgan, the story tells of a quest for survival on a planet ravaged by ecological collapse.

In a bid to rescue all lifeforms from impending destruction, a lone holobot frantically consults her neurobiological interface. Humans can no longer subsist on Earth: waterways are contaminated, and the unbreathable atmosphere has taken on a toxic purple, almost holographic hue. Faced with environmental apocalypse, she turns skyward, to take root among the stars. With nods to the utopian futurism, attunement to nature and alien visions of pioneering electronic artists such as Drexciya and Delia Derbyshire, Alberta transmutes a synergy that's entirely her own. Higher Dreams journeys elsewhere on a passage that's equal parts intergalactic and introspective, questioning how, on the brink of the abyss, we can find hope.

Blasting off the A-side with 'Atuan Tombs' – a reference to Le Guin's masterful Tales From Earthsea series – a cyborg voice narrates plundering through the skeletal remains of an urban landscape. Hollowed out kick-drums thunder in 'Cascade;' glitched-out beats that shatter into incandescent, intricate melodies. On the B-side, the titular track crescendos, it’s biblical vocals conveying the gravitas of an approaching dystopia. Yet Higher Dreams is far from doom-inducing – the EP closes off with ‘Suspended in the Manifold,' the vibrant Roland TR-808 rhythm fuelled by the colossal power of a solar flare.

Renowned for her live hardware-based sets, Alberta flexes her immeasurable skill as a tech-savvy producer adept at constructing danceable, yet simultaneously lush and expansive interludes. Having trained as an epidemiologist, the theme of care reverberates through her music. Crucially, she regards dance as medicine – a primordial remedy to sustain our interconnected existence.

Now Available On Cassette Tape! Music By Madlib Arranged By Kieran Hebden. Gil Evans to Miles Davis…. Holger Czukay to the ensemble known as Can….Jean Claude Vannier to Serge Gainsbourg on Histoire de Melody Nelson. That’s the only way to explain the specificity of Four Tet and Madlib’s collaboration, in this special album that showcases a two-decade long friendship that has resulted in an album that follows Madlib’s classics like Quasimoto’s The Unseen, Madvillainy and his Pinata and Bandana albums with Freddie Gibbs. “A few months ago I completed work on an album with my friend Madlib that we’d been making for the last few years. He is always making loads of music in all sorts of styles and I was listening to some of his new beats and studio sessions when I had the idea that it would be great to hear some of these ideas made into a Madlib solo album. Not made into beats for vocalists to use but instead arranged into tracks that could all flow together in an album designed to be listened to start to finish. I put this concept to him when we were hanging out eating some nice food one day and we decided to work on this together with him sending me tracks, loops, ideas and experiments that I would arrange, edit, manipulate and combine. I was sent hundreds of pieces of music over a couple of years stretch and during that time I put together this album with all the parts that fitted with my vision.” - Kieran Hebden AKA Four Tet

As debut on his own label Hyperjazz Records, with 'The Great Oxidation EP', electro-shaman Khalab comes back to his natural habitat: the dance floor. With these three instrumental tracks, the visionary artist aims to drive the listener on a backward journey, down to rediscover the most ancestral human rite: to dance. A return to the origin in a radical way to reach a brighter future, but also a bridge for another world - a new space where meet new life forms and uncover new feelings and new consciousness. To embellish this EP, the presence of two very special collaborations.

His music evolution is a seamless journey – from the most ancestral tribes to the unexplored cosmos; from the black jungle to the skyscrapers; from the remotest subconscious to the furthest and real projection of future Africa. His wide-reaching musical tastes can be heard regularly on his monthly Worldwide FM show, Love from Rome. Already working on a new record ready in 2022, Khalab pulls out of his laboratory the first experiment with this EP.

Mauro Pawlowski is what one might call 'rock royalty'. He has been of the key figures in the Belgian contemporary music scene ever since he started his career as frontman of notorious cult band Evil Superstars in 1992. The insatiable Mauro was a dEUS member for years but he was also the driving force behind countless other musical projects and alter egos. He had a hand in over 100 records and counting.

Mauro is now releasing a new solo pop album called 'Eternal Sunday Drive' under his own name via Unday Records, something a generation of music lovers has been yearning for the last decade.

H- side is etched
The American cable-television industry exploded in the 1980s, pushing broadcasts of diverse programming and emissions of low-laying cultures into homes. Community stations piggybacked on the digital developments of the time, extending their existence through telephony and broadcast a iliates. For those growing up in this time, in locations such as New York City, the localized communications beamed into their homes exposed them to an impressionable array of disparate sounds and visions.
Move into the 1990s and New York was filled to the brim of emergent cultures drawing from this ebullition of communication. From Rammellzee’s shapeshifting to the late Judy Russell and Frank and Karen Mendez’s Nu Groove imprint fusing reggae, poetry and house, nascent ideas emanated from the city walls, from within stores such as Sonic Groove store and on VHS releases such as Stakker’s The Evil Acid Baron Show, a legendary technicolor psychedelic trip along the wildest frontiers of acid house. As scenes expanded and identities developed, such individuals weather the events of the visceral now, expressing themselves right into an unpredictable future.
Function’s long career has seen him uncover a vast range of sonic identities, a mainstay through house, techno and industrial with collaborations with the likes of Regis, Damon Wild alongside his highly influential Infrastructure imprint. With influences deeply tied to pop art, rave and gay scenes, and early memories of block-parties emitting Kraftwerk and Strafe, he found himself seeking out the undercover illegal nights of the 90s on a quest of sexual unearthing, mixing the ever-yearning escapology mission of disco with the influential DJ sets of Jeff Mills.
For his new album Existenz, he marks a clear step away from the corporeal techno of his recent releases. Pivoting around themes of religion, sexuality, trauma and healing, it is a work expansive and celebratory, a clear liberation from a deeply internalized past. Formed from a collection of recordings made in a period from late 2016 to mid 2019, Existenz takes the form of a creative outburst in reaction to a number of traumas - recent, childhood and throughout Function’s life. Life partner Stefanie Parnow assisted the production process in its entirety, providing inspiration, spiritual healing and featuring vocal contributions.
Cosmic synths soar and swoop in ‘Pleasure Discipline’ through towering stacks of rhythm that stutter and creak to a halt before rebooting, a firm robotic response to human intervention. ‘Zahlensender’ reflects a spatial tetris of urban life, as digitalization set within an XYZ matrix confronts the sprawling city. Constant arpeggiated meditations echo synaptic transmissions, e ecting a dissolution of boundaries. ’The Approach’ recalls the unification of the self, a state of delirium non-subjective and smooth, as all connections and functions give way to simple intensities of feeling, crossing the threshold into spirituality. ’Golden Dawn’, featuring Stefanie Parnow, marks a further elevation of dubbed-out euphoria, as once more positive rays emerge. His ode to the effortless short-trip urban navigation 'Kurzstrecke' finds Function in motion, upfront and bold, snapshots of conversation and flickers of light. 'Ertrinken' finds metallic bass jabs swamping snipped synthetic voices, with hidden stores of emotion set as a nod to the history of vocoders as a tool for encrypted military communication. House icon Robert Owens features on 'Growth Cycle' and 'Be', entrenching a celebratory atmosphere over Function's clubwise leanings. Closing track 'Downtown 161' reflects the unmistakeable filtered and squashed interjections of television, and sampled dance vocals - a sound for the curious, dreamers and dancers.
With Existenz, Function reveals an essential body of work, spread over 4LP - thought experiments on the role of identity and spirituality after a lifetime of upheaval and trauma. Leading up until the release date, Function will undertake an album promo tour with select dates - A/V shows at Berlin Atonal and Rural festival in Japan, and three dates as part of his Bassiani residency.

"Of the records Ayler made during 1964, the LP New York Eye and Ear Control...is probably the most important link between the epoch-making collective improvisation Free Jazz by the Ornette Coleman double quartet, and John Coltrane's Ascension. Apart from that, it is—in my opinion—one of Ayler's very best recordings. New York Eye and Ear Control owes a large part of its success to the contrasting temperaments of the three musicians used by Albert Ayler in addition to his trio, namely, trumpeter Don Cherry, trombonist Roswell Rudd and alto saxophonist John Tchicai. Don Cherry improvises in broad melodic lines or places sharply accented staccato passages. Roswell Rudd interposes fragmentary flourishes in the highest register, or growl sounds and glissandos in the manner of the old tailgate trombonists. John Tchicai presents the polarity of a slightly 'cool,' linear style and offers motivic linkage by insistently repeating melodic patterns. All three inspire Albert Ayler to a breadth of expression which is too often missing in his improvisations with smaller groups. There is less limitation to his sound-span playing, more contrast, more punch and rhythmic accentuation, and with quick response Ayler takes motives from Cherry, Rudd and Tchicai, transforms them
into his own musical idiom, and in turn gives a new direction to the flow of ideas." - Free Jazz by Ekkehard Jost

"The music is fiery but with enough colorful moments to hold one's interest throughout." - Scott Yanow, All Music Guide

"...a valuable window into the music's early history as well as what might have happened outside record dates, more than one is usually privy to." - Clifford Allen, AllAboutJazz

Marshall McLuhan’s famous edict ‘the medium is the message’ has never been more apt than with regard to modern remix culture. Although the idea of the remix goes way back to the Jamaican dub pioneers and New York disco remixers of the 1970s, the form didn’t truly come into its own until the acid house explosion of the 1980s, when remixers’ credentials often subsumed — and sometimes surpassed — the original source material. Some, among them our lost friend Andrew Weatherall, used remixing as a springboard into multiple other directions, and became auteurs in their own right.

Forged in the white-hot heat of post-acid house Britain, these Heavenly remixes are perfectly weighted with respect and irreverence, the remixer in each case carefully chosen to add heft to the song (as on Al Breadwinner’s dubwise reworking of Mattiel’s ’Guns of Brixton’— the pairing more a game of chess than a best-of-three arm wrestle).

Although Heavenly was founded in the wake of huge upheavals in electronic music, it was still imbued with its own curious parallel life. I’ve always thought of Heavenly as one of the UK’s alt-pop labels; a place where brilliant pop bands live and record, if the general public would only realise. Some of them have ended up in the real, actual charts (Saint Etienne, Doves), but that’s missing the point about Heavenly, who are, like Factory and Fast Product before them, pop music’s conscience.

There is no sense of order to this compilation and we make no apologies. It’s the Heavenly way. Think of it as a present from Loki, the Norse god of mischief. You’ll find a smattering of older tracks: album openers Saint Etienne are taken on a Poseidon Adventure with Underworld, who inject ‘Cool Kids of Death’ with typically manic energy. Elsewhere, ’90s Brum duo Mother add dancefloor pzazz to Espiritu’s innate glamour on an all-funked-up reworking of ‘Los Americanos’, and Mark Lusardi’s remix of Moonflowers’ ‘Get Higher’ is an early Heavenly classic.

On ‘Terracotta Warrior’, a perfect, psyched-out, Mancunian union is created betwixt Jimi Goodwin and Andy Votel, whilst Goodwin cohort Simon Aldred, in his Cherry Ghost guise, receives a proper Tamla-Motowning from Richard Norris (aka Time & Space Machine) on an inspired cover of Cece Peniston’s glam-house hit, ‘Finally’.

There are several of Heavenly’s current darlings here too. One of the most exciting young British prospects, Yorkshire’s Working Men’s Club, effectively remix themselves, as Minsky Rock — WMC’s Syd Minsky-Sargeant and producer Ross Orton — cleave ‘X’ into a riotous industrial racket. Jagwar Ma’s Jono Ma takes the Kraftwerkian leitmotif on ‘Automatic’ and drives the Australian jazz-funkers Mildlife down an electro-convulsive psychedelic tunnel (thankfully no-one was harmed during the making of this remix); Sheffield’s DJ Parrot and Jarvis Cocker deliver one of the outstanding remixes of 2018, turning Baxter Dury’s ‘Miami’ into a lovelorn minor opera; and, making its first appearance on vinyl, David Holmes’ Unloved project is taken on a panoramic Welsh waltz thanks to Gwenno.


There may well be no rhyme, nor reason, to how these compilations have been put together, beyond the fact that they are assembled with love, an innate understanding of the power of great pop music, and a skilled marriage of song and remixer — but does one really need anything more than that for an album to make sense? I’d suggest not.

A Beautiful Revolution Pt. 2 was created with hope and inspiration in mind. The spirit of the album was meant to emulate what a greater day would sound and feel like. We were in the midst of some tough political and socially challenging times. There was still hurt, anger and pain lingering, so I was thinking, “what is the next step in this revolution?” I thought about what being still in these times had brought me and that was a peace beyond understanding, a greater love for self, a closer connection with God, and more appreciation for my family, friends and the simple things in life. I wanted to write about that and create music that embodied that. What does a new day, a brighter day feel like being told through an emcee and some gifted musicians? How could this music be an example of the beautiful aspects of revolution that include joy, self-love, compassion, dreams, peace and good times? As a piece of art, I believe we took it to different places musically only to come back to the original intention. To bring joy to people’s hearts, fun to their lives and smiles to their souls. ABR2. Love Common RADIO: 6Music A List, Album Of The Week on 6Music, support across BBC R1, 1XTRA, Radio 2, 6Music. PRESS: Features in Huck, New Cue, DIY, Daily Star, The Guardian, Line Of Best Fit, MOKO, Clash, NME and more… “If ‘…Pt 1’ felt like a look at the progress we made last year, then this follow up stares down the road ahead – not with trepidation, but with boundless optimism” – DIY **** ‘A Beautiful Revolution, Pt. 2’ is the soundtrack to a new revolt. It’s about unity in the face of adversity and bringing awareness to the Black struggle. But at its core it’s a celebration of Black pride that sees Common in full swing as a champion of peace, love and freedom.” - NME “This is Common’s most hopeful album in years” – The Independent “A late career high” - Clash

It is with great joy that we present the Mr Bongo edition of Marcos Valle's 1983 self-titled masterpiece. A pure vintage that features the ultimate Brazilian-boogie cult-classic ‘Estrelar’ and iconic 80s cover art that sees a gloriously sun-drenched Marcos dressed in a pink v-neck t-shirt surrounded by a generous selection of deadly-looking neon cocktails.

The album was produced by the legendary Lincoln Olivetti and Marcos' brother Paulo Sérgio Valle. It showcases a real who's who of Brazilian music at the time, with stellar performances from vocalists and musicians such as Rosana, Serginho Do Trombone, Robson Jorge and Oberdan Magalhães to name but a few. This was Marcos’ second album, after having moved back to Brazil from his time living in Los Angeles, and that US influence is evident through its prominent boogie, soul and funk sounds. It also features collaborations with the US singer-songwriter, composer, pianist, keyboardist, and record producer, Leon Ware, who co-penned three tracks including 'Estrelar'. To complete the album there are tracks such as 'Fogo Do Sol', which is pure AOR / Balaeric vibes, and tracks that are more MPB and pop-inspired, making a well-balanced track list for both home-listening pleasure and dancefloor business.

What could we do to give one of Marcos' most celebrated albums the treatment it deserved and produce the most definitive re-issue possible? The answer was to enlist the services of Miles Showell, Abbey Road Studios Mastering and lacquer-cutting engineer and all-around audio-magician, to cut a special half-speed master edition. Miles had previously worked his half-speed magic on our Arthur Verocai album re-issue, and once again we are totally blown away by the richness which Miles has brought out in his mastering technique. He has enhanced the listening experience and taken this wonderful album to another level.

To celebrate the release we have pressed up several vinyl versions; both standard master, and Miles' half-speed mastering editions on Black vinyl, alongside special limited edition Rose and Mint-Green coloured vinyl variants that were inspired by the audacious-looking cocktails on the cover - sheer 80s excess!

Kiwi Jr. are a phenomenal rock and / or punk and / or indie rock (whichever you like more) band from Canada, made up of Jeremy Gaudet (mic, guitar), Brohan Moore (drums), Mike Walker (bass) and Brian Murphy (guitar). ‘Cooler Returns’ is their second album and their first for Sub Pop.
Despite being a snapshot of the pandemic-infused beginnings of this decade, ‘Cooler Returns’ is truly a whole lot of fun. For fans of indie pop from down under and things that are smart / exuberant / catchy all at once.
‘Cooler Returns’ was produced by Kiwi Jr., mixed and engineered by Graham Walsh (METZ, Bully) in Toronto and mastered by Phillip Shaw Bova at Bova Labs in Ottawa, Ontario.

Romantic proto-acid written and composed by a young Ukrainian student Maxim Shubski in 2010 on a cold winter day in East Germany and subsequently released later same year as a limited run of 100 vinyl copies under “Andreuccio Torelli” moniker. This release was accompanied by a fake story about the lost & found master tapes by an unknown Italian producer from the 80’s. The story is still available as a PDF on the label’s website. Since the original vinyl stampers are long lost, Baran Records has made a new limited 7″ vinyl reissue featuring artwork by Pavel Golubovski from the “Elektroherd” band and careful mastering by Dunkeltier aka DJ Sneaker from Dresden/Berlin at Tail Out Mastering studio.

Composer duo Kaae & Batz release hazy electronica single and announces new album L.U.S.H on vinyl. Kaae & Batz, the duo behind the Netflix series Bordertown’s score, is ready with a new album. The first single “Into the Void” is released 15th September, while the album L.U.S.H lands 29th October both digitally and on vinyl on Copenhagen- based record label StereoRoyal.

The album is a collection of reflective and melancholic cinematic tracks with clear references to jazz and neo-classicism where organic elements merge with electronic textures and emotional vocal samples. The album is teased with the first single “Into the Void (Part 1)” – a dark and hazy dystopia accompanied by beautiful piano chords. The album came to life on a 14-day trip to Istanbul and the majority of the tracks, including the first single “Into the Void”, are created entirely from samples and programming.

Kaae & Batz has previously released two albums, Basement Tales (2015) and Mosaic (2019), as well as composed scores for several international film productions which have garnered attention and critical acclaim in the industry. The story about childhood friends Kaspar Kaae (CODY) and Brian Batz (Sleep Party People) dates back to their teenage years in Bornholm where they were both born and raised. They went to high school together, cultivated their shared interest in music, and played together in bands. These years became the cornerstone of their friendship and musical collaboration.

With L.U.S.H, Kaae & Batz shines a light on Danish electronica. The album is released 29th October on a limited-edition LP (180g) and on all streaming platforms.

A sublime techno reissue from the vaults of one of London's leading electronic labels of the last 25 years, remastered and re-presented for 2022!

Originally released in 1994 on Mr.C's cult UK house and techno label Plink-Plonk and composed and performed by Laggy Panteli and Zeno Messis (aka Megalon) in their London studio, 'Pandora's Box' is a truly unique record. Sleek, futuristic, fathoms deep and wholly original, the music contained on these 2 discs sounds as modern and as vital as it did on it's arrival all of those years ago.

Exploring a deeper vein of electronic music, Megalon craft their own sonic landscapes that are undoubtedly inspired by all forms of cerebral electronic music. Ambient, Detroit techno, electro, European electronics and of course the duo's experiences in London's early acid house and rave scene all filter through their lens to bring something brand new to the table. The arrangement, sound design and mix on the album is outstanding, lending a totally visionary and modern feel to the tracks that continues to echo today.

'Pandora's Box' is a record that has existed within the shadows for many years, with a hardcore cult following. The kind of record that one might hear deep into the early hours, at the hands of a seasoned selector or an 'insider' who has the knowledge. It is redolent of a time when innovation, ideas and imagination trumped the run of the mill and the homogenous, which goes a long way in explaining what makes this record so exciting some 25+ years later.

A totally essential mid 90's UK techno and electronic classic, as much a treat for the mind as for the body.

Reissued in full conjunction with the artists and remastered by Curvepusher from DAT and original source materials. Redesigned by Atelier Superplus and distributed worldwide by Above Board distribution, 2022.

Venezuela’s Confidential Recipe drops ‘The Bridge EP’ on Radio Slave’s Rekids this December.

Following two stand-out EPs on the techno-focussed Rekids Special Projects throughout 2021, the Venezuelan-born, Bogota-based Confidential Recipe readies his debut appearance on parent-label Rekids. With three killer originals, including a collaboration with Manao and accompanied by a remix from Gene Richards Jr, the EP solidifies Confidential Recipe’s growing vitality in the South American techno scene and beyond.

‘Dance’ leads the ‘The Bridge EP’, with commanding vocals, organ licks and knocking drums preceding a dramatic tempo change in the breakdown. Fresh off the back of releases Truncate’s WRKTRX, Gene Richards Jr flips ‘Dance’ into a funk-laden techno pumper, with the vocals sliced and manipulated around fresh dub techno inspired chords.

On the flip, ‘Come (Dub Mix)’ kicks off the B side, marrying shimmering pads, razor-sharp kicks, and trance-inducing low end for a deep and rolling cut. Rounding out the EP is ‘Come (Breaks Mix)’ produced in collaboration with Berlin-based Manao, and sees the duo add dense breakbeats, rave stabs, and heaving
sub hits over elements of the original for a rowdy affair.

The fourth and final instalment of Hospital Records' popular VA EP series is upon us 'Future Symptoms Vol. 4' rounds off the 2021 release streak with four fresh cuts with some of the most exciting acts emerging to the forefront of drum & bass.

This time around expect a full spectrum showcase from Dutta, Viridity, Son, Hallow and xia - the sounds of the next generation. Rounding off the final edition of their widely loved Future Symptoms EP series,

Hospital Records have proudly shone a light on and nurtured some of the scene's most prosperous talents. With an array of artists throughout the series spanning the likes of Mozey, Winslow, Disrupta, Nia Archives, Stay-C, Mr Joseph and imo-Lu, keep an eye out for what Hospital have got in store for 2022...

It’s incredibly easy to get a remix wrong — as the back catalogues of far too many major labels, whose slapdash commissioning of the latest hot remixer half-guarantees an unsympathetic mangling of the song, can attest. At their best, remixes can make you look at an artist as though positioned from a different angle or using a different camera; sometimes hearing a song in a different context gives it a completely new meaning. “So you take a piece of a vocal…blah” says master remixer David Morales. “That’s a remix? That represents the artist? That doesn’t represent the artist, it represents you.” In the hands of the insensitive a remix is like chucking a song into the washing machine for a 100 extra spins.

In the hands of a master, things are a little more complex. Heavenly was all but founded on the art of the remix; our departed friend Andrew Weatherall remixed the first ever release, and the label has built up an immense catalogue in the intervening years that demonstrates all that is good about the art form.

Assembled on this compilation are twelve sterling examples of the remix, from Hanspeter Lindstrøm’s reading of Doves’ ‘Jetstream’, which turns their glistening pop into Lieutenant Pigeon meets Italo-disco (in a good way), to Andy Votel’s gentle folk-funk version of Halo Maud’s délicieuse ‘Des Bras’. We delve deep into the vaults for Saint Etienne’s ‘Filthy’, Monkey Mafia turning it into a rump-shaking groove perfectly suited to Q-Tee’s rap, while more recently, Flying Mojito Bros, purveyors of Tex-Mex house groove, reimagine Katy J. Pearson as a lonesome Lone Star lover.

Though not purposely themed, beyond being judiciously chosen as the catalogue’s finest gems, there’s a tiny hint of psychedelia about this set that is hard to ignore. Firstly, there are the acid contributions from Gabe Gurnsey, who knows his way around a coruscating bassline, and from Graham Massey, whose impeccable credentials in 808 State are brought to bear on ‘Valleys’, by young turks Working Men’s Club (acid house being modern psychedelia, whether the rock press approves or not).

Jono Ma, meanwhile, flips Night Beats’ amazing ‘Sunday Mourning’ into ‘Warm Leatherette’ on benzos, creating a disorienting glimpse of a dystopian Sunday that most definitely doesn’t include a genteel read of the papers and a nice cup of tea. On the other side of the miasma is Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve’s redemptive re-interpretation of M. Craft’s ‘Chemical Trails’, which, alongside Boy Azooga’s ‘Face Behind Her Cigarette’ (Mikey Young remix), Gwenno’s ‘Chwlydro’ (R. Seiliog remix) and and Katy J. Pearson’s ‘Take Back The Radio’ (Flying Mojito Bros Refrito Dub), is issued on vinyl for the very first time.


This dozen tracks — each one curated, remixed and delivered with love (and a teensy bit of impertinence) — is just a glimpse into the catalogue of one the UK’s finest indie labels.

In the alternative reality in which I’d prefer to exist, this what Top of the Pops might sound like; or, at the very least, the jukebox in the Korova Milk Bar. Pop disruption at its best.

Joanne Shaw Taylor is a British blues rock singer/guitarist who was
discovered by Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics at the age of 16
She has released 7 albums. Her new album, The Blues Album, was recorded by
Joe Bonamassa & Josh Smith for Keeping The Blues Alive Records.
Born in the Black Country Joanne has spent a decade releasing increasingly
successful albums and touring the world. Along the way, she has won over fans
from Joe Bonamassa to Stevie Wonder to Annie Lennox. A decade ago, Joanne
moved to Detroit as her career in the States was developing. Joanne has
recorded for RUF, Sony and Silvertone with Reckless Heart and Wild both charting
in the top 20 in the UK.

Scottish DJ Ewan McVicar is tipped for big things, having found support in the likes of Annie Mac and Fatboy Slim. After a stellar year crowned with a release on the hallowed Nervous Records, he makes his debut on Shall Not Fade's "Basement Tracks" series with five explosive earworms.

Amnocairn EP collects the most classic sounds from the dancefloor and melts them together, styles blending throughout songs to keep listeners on their toes and dancing. The title track is a sweeping marriage of insistent house piano and washy dub techno synths, leading into the sugary, hardcore "1001 Freestyle" that calls back to early Lone tracks. Then one for the after hours crew, "Ha Mez", a syncopated 303 techno roller.

McVicar keeps the party atmosphere close across the B-side, flexing laser-cut synth arps with a dark, big-room edge on "Stu Boy", before crowning the EP with a gorgeous sun soaked party number "See U Thru My Eyes", jazzy inflected house with a 90s aesthetic. This EP has something for everyone, bringing together eclectic influences into a smooth festival-ready record.

Joanne Shaw Taylor is a British blues rock singer/guitarist who was
discovered by Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics at the age of 16
She has released 7 albums. Her new album, The Blues Album, was recorded by
Joe Bonamassa & Josh Smith for Keeping The Blues Alive Records.
Born in the Black Country Joanne has spent a decade releasing increasingly
successful albums and touring the world. Along the way, she has won over fans
from Joe Bonamassa to Stevie Wonder to Annie Lennox. A decade ago, Joanne
moved to Detroit as her career in the States was developing. Joanne has
recorded for RUF, Sony and Silvertone with Reckless Heart and Wild both charting
in the top 20 in the UK.

Pioneering rock 'n' roll singer-songwriter Dion delivers yet another power
collection of timeless blues with Stomping Ground
This is the follow up to his universally acclaimed 2020 Keeping The Blues Alive
Records debut, Blues With Friends. Dion has yet again enlisted the music world's
most iconic and talented stars to bring his blues to life. Peter Frampton, Eric
Clapton, Keb' Mo', Joe Bonamassa, Patti Scialfa & Bruce Springsteen, and more
join Dion on this year's most heartfelt release! 1. Take It Back Feat. Joe
Bonamassa.

Pink Vinyl
It is with great joy that we present the Mr Bongo edition of Marcos Valle's 1983 self-titled masterpiece. A pure vintage that features the ultimate Brazilian-boogie cult-classic ‘Estrelar’ and iconic 80s cover art that sees a gloriously sun-drenched Marcos dressed in a pink v-neck t-shirt surrounded by a generous selection of deadly-looking neon cocktails.

The album was produced by the legendary Lincoln Olivetti and Marcos' brother Paulo Sérgio Valle. It showcases a real who's who of Brazilian music at the time, with stellar performances from vocalists and musicians such as Rosana, Serginho Do Trombone, Robson Jorge and Oberdan Magalhães to name but a few. This was Marcos’ second album, after having moved back to Brazil from his time living in Los Angeles, and that US influence is evident through its prominent boogie, soul and funk sounds. It also features collaborations with the US singer-songwriter, composer, pianist, keyboardist, and record producer, Leon Ware, who co-penned three tracks including 'Estrelar'. To complete the album there are tracks such as 'Fogo Do Sol', which is pure AOR / Balaeric vibes, and tracks that are more MPB and pop-inspired, making a well-balanced track list for both home-listening pleasure and dancefloor business.

What could we do to give one of Marcos' most celebrated albums the treatment it deserved and produce the most definitive re-issue possible? The answer was to enlist the services of Miles Showell, Abbey Road Studios Mastering and lacquer-cutting engineer and all-around audio-magician, to cut a special half-speed master edition. Miles had previously worked his half-speed magic on our Arthur Verocai album re-issue, and once again we are totally blown away by the richness which Miles has brought out in his mastering technique. He has enhanced the listening experience and taken this wonderful album to another level.

To celebrate the release we have pressed up several vinyl versions; both standard master, and Miles' half-speed mastering editions on Black vinyl, alongside special limited edition Rose and Mint-Green coloured vinyl variants that were inspired by the audacious-looking cocktails on the cover - sheer 80s excess!

Proximity is a 12-track album of richly textured and 100% analog electronic music that will appeal to fans of Daniel Avery, Telefon Tel Aviv, Jon Hopkins or Rival Consoles.

Whilst this is the debut release from DEFSET - the producer has spent many years experimenting with electronic music & equipment and the album demonstrates a mastery in using modular synthesizers and outboard gear to create a pallet of evolving melodies over syncopated, glitched out rhythms - resulting in a deeply accomplished sonic blend of immersive techno and atmospheric electronic music.

A mind-melting remix from Panorama Bar and Ostgut Ton royalty Steffi is due to surface very soon, and the equally entrancing debut album is still available on double clear vinyl !

After being out of print for several years, Duval Timothy’s phenomenal ‘Brown Loop’ has finally been reissued. Recorded in New York in the winter months of 2016, this brand-new edition features a slightly adjusted track listing. The release date is 2nd of October 2020, which happens to be the multidisciplinary artist’s birthday. Duval has asked me to write a few words about his record.

I often find myself listening to Duval’s music when travelling. On an aeroplane for example, where the comforting piano pieces are set starkly against the sound of the world passing by, the constant engine humming, air conditioning running. Or when I’m walking through a city I’ve not been to before, the music blending into the continuous noise of cars and motorbikes, anchoring me when I find myself in unknown surroundings. Grounding me, one note at a time, in contrast to a city that does the exact opposite. Duval’s compositions bring a sense of comfort where there is detachment. It’s the soundtrack for an immigrant (such as myself), alienated from wherever he came, but someone who also doesn’t fully belong to the place he set off to.

I heard Duval describe the music of Brown Loop as ascending a mountain, and after you reached the top you come down to the other end. Through rhythmic repetitive patterns, the music builds. Within the pieces, melodies stray away from the theme, into unknown territories, but always find their way back to a comfortable home. Most elaborately this happens on my favourite piece, ​Hairs. The patterns and melodies on pieces such as ​Through The Night and (recently added to the vinyl version) ​G are stripped down to their very essence.

It is not just jazz, it’s pure hip hop, as the hooks are reminiscent of the shards of melancholy legends like Dilla, Pete Rock and Havoc used in their best work. In terms of repetition, the music is also very techno. And like in all good techno, the patterns (perhaps contrary to popular belief) ooze humanity and emotion. But most of all Duval’s Brown Loop is a very personal record. it takes courage to expose your inner self like that in the most minimal of compositions. But once you find the right notes, the right pattern, music is the most beautiful thing in the world.

Damage machine delivers a chanting speedcore industrial pearl.
Infamozz is here the more "normal" hardcore tune : an industrial banger.
Komprex goes extreme speedcore, hardish shaker !
The flip opens with a Qualkommando acid uncompromised style. Massive superb savage tune.
Infared is my fave... with a clear clean minimal speed hard HELP tune, travelling in a flashcore, full of life and surprising sequences. Big structure here !
Lawrencium goes even more extreme and success into doing an overspeed hardcore with a high definition... probably the best 400BPM vinyl release of the year !

You need to go hunt this down. They’re making incredible music!” Tony Minvielle – Jazz FM

Vertaal’s debut double LP, “Paradigm Shifting” was released earlier this year to wide acclaim from the international jazz community and sold out on initial pressings.

Featuring 4 singles including the atmospheric “Alcazar” and live favourite “Drop Off’, the album was subsequently re-pressed on limited edition black vinyl which is also at the point of selling out.

2020’s lock down and subsequent cancellation of the band’s tour schedule led to extended periods recording in their home studio, on a barge on the River Stort near Stansted Airport.

The duo, comprising keyboard player and producer Theo Howarth and drummer Ajit Gill recorded “live”

versions of some of the Paradigm Shifting album tracks for various radio shows, joined online by guest bassist Severin Bruhin, guitarist

Luca Gianassi, conga player Simon Todd and saxophonist Loren Hignall.

Some of those recordings have now been made available on a special limited edition cassette EP featuring 4 tracks live studio tracks

– three previously unreleased versions from the album “Paradigm Shifting”, “Drop Off”, “Paradigm Shifting” and “Alcazar” and a completely new track “NDY”

Designed to look a box of Swan Vesta matches, the tape itself is pink with an onbody sticker of a collection of pink-headed matches.

Rush-released for Christmas, The Lockdown Tapes will make a nice stocking filler for jazz aficionados!

Vertaal have been an increasingly notable presence in the nu-jazz scene over the past 3 years.
Tipped as “ones to watch for 2019” by Jazz Re:freshed, in 2021 Vertaal have played an exclusive pick of sold out shows at prestigious venues such as

Ronnie Scott’s, Pizza Express Soho and the Jazz Café, along with festival appearances at Standon Calling, High Tide Festival and Lost Village.

They have also supported the likes of Mark Guiliana (David Bowie), & Pete Ray Biggin (Level 42) Richard Spaven

and this year embarked on a tour of the UK’s record stores playing tracks from the album.

As current lead vocalist and co-songwriter of the hugely successful modern progressive metal band HAKEN, ROSS JENNINGS needs no introduction in some circles, having released 1 ep, 1 Live album and 6 full length studio albums of consistently high quality with the band, HAKEN have been climbing that mountain with grace and gusto, albeit on the fringe of mainstream rock and metal. In 2019 HAKEN won ‘Best UK Artist’ at the annual PROG awards, with their latest release ‘Virus’ reaching #2 in the UK rock charts and entering the US Billboard Hot 100 at #52.

On the back of this release ROSS JENNINGS set out to write, record and self-produce his debut solo effort ‘A SHADOW OF MY FUTURE SELF’ with an ambition to become a new household name and keep mainstream classic rock alive and well.

The Lauded Krautrocking, Global Groove Ensemble’s First Album On Maverick Producer Madlib’s Label. The late Christian Burchard, who founded the Embryo ensemble in 1969, loved the slogan Auf Auf, German for Up, Up, or Keep On Going. Anyone with anything more than a passing interest in the German Krautock scene of the 1970s and 1980s knows that Burchard followed that intent, all around the world, tirelessly seeking out new sounds and inspirations and creating a catalog of music unlike most anything else the world has ever heard. Madlib has often said Embryo is his favorite rock band. Of course the hip-hop-producer-with-the-deepest-musical-knowledge knows Embryo is more than just a rock band – but, for the purposes of these notes, let’s keep it simple. When Marja Burchard, Christan’s daughter, who grew up with Embryo and toured with them for years, took the reins of the ensemble after Christian’s death in 2018, she started recording what would become this album, over the course of two years, finishing it in the throes of the Covid pandemic in 2020. She approached Madlib and Egon, who had, years back, visited and jammed with Christian Burchard, and Embryo musicians Uve Mullrich, Roman Bunka and Jan Weissenfeldt, in a Bavarian wine cellar, with the idea to issue Auf Auf on Madlib Invazion. The reply was a resounding, definitive “yes.” So here is Marja’s take on the Embryo ethos, continuing with her father’s intrepid style, and leading the band in her own style. Auf Auf ranges from the deep, free-form jazz of “Alphorn Prayer” to modal music from Afghanistan on “Baran” to psychedelic-tinged jazz-rock of the title track Joining Marja are those like Embryo veterans Bunka, on oud and guitar, and Karl Hector and the Malcouns/Whitefield Brothers/Poets of Rhythm producer and guitarist Jan Weissenfeldt and others, including important players on the global scene from Afghanistan and Morocco

'There is a sense of mirth rising within me as I riddle these notes down. I'm here at the Cube Cinema in Bristol with John Stevens from Qu Junktions in the garden talking music, while Rhodri Karim whizzes through setting up gear for Matana Roberts and Kelly Jayne Jones. They are in situ for three days for another playthecube.

All the while I lounge back and time-travel back to Dec '17, picturing the times we all shared with the musicians you hear in these
recordings. To slow things down a wee touch is such a powerful gesture, it feels. Ali and Jamie Lindsay (from the Cube) where so gentle in setting up the framework for Tartine de Clous and Neil to
join in and and spend five epic days and nights with us. Showing old and new films, talking, singing tight together around a table and then en masse with the Bristol Sacred Harp group, everything weaved around the Microplexian complex. The ad hoc series playthecube is inspired by olden-day folks stopping by settlements to sing, jest and make love for a hazy period, as well as urban fairytale jazz residencies and the desire to jig up the connections that frizzle between The Cube's curious volunteer workforce, visiting artists and our audiences when you have a little more time on your hands.

Over the two nights, Tartine de Clous, Alasdair Roberts and Neil McDermott entertained plenty. The computer capturing the music at the back of the auditorium and the exquisitely placed hanging mics, like flowers at a fête, all added to the recording angel ritual. On the first evening every breath, every track and each chair inch mattered; they shuffled things round and, on the second evening, the suite of song swept the crowd and the musicians together into a fine fettle.

To have this album and to hear these songs is to taste the stews we ate, the stories we swapped, the technology we manipulated and the people we touched. The cubic circles rippled and we all loosed a little, and the way I figure it, you can hear it.'