quête:rom

"Oscillation associations

This album is titled Os. When I look at the shape of these two letters, O and S, I realize that they are a rotation and an oscillation.

Os is Dutch for Ox. An ox is a castrated male bull. The primary benefit of castrating bull calves is to temper their tempers, making it easier and cheaper for people to handle them. Os is also an abbreviation of oscillation, -cillation being castrated off. Oscillation means a movement back and forth in a regular rhythm, like breathing, push-ups, tides, swinging or sound. For this album Lyckle was not dealing with oxes or bulls, but with oscillations, guiding them through synths, handling their tempers. If I look at the etymology of oscillation, I learn that it stems from the term Oscilla, which were ancient disks depicting a face or animal on each side. Oscilla is a diminutive of os and means ‘little face’. They were hung in trees during religious feasts honoring various deities, as well as being thought of as purifying the air as they swung in the wind.

The wind chime with its little sunny face, smiling on the cover of this record was hanging in the windowsill of Lyckle’s studio, behind his back, where the wind would make it jingle, averting the Evil Eye according to apotropaic magic. In ancient Rome, wind chimes named Tintinnabulum were decorated with a phallus, which was also seen as a good luck charm. Phallic charm also appeared as objects of jewelry such as pendants and finger rings. It has been suggested that some types of phallic pendants were designed to point outwards in the direction of travel in order to face any potential danger or bad luck, nullifying it before it could affect the wearer.

When I take the record itself out of the sleeve, I see that there are two phalluses carved into the surface of the vinyl, like little ornaments. When you start playing the record, they start chasing each other, going round and round. They point in all directions of the room, but are never able to point at each other. Finally, I am told that it is recommended to listen to this record with the window open, allowing sounds from outside to blend in with the music. "

- Bernice Nauta

Following the highly acclaimed volumes I and II, dig further into the Wamono sound - the cream of the Japanese jazz, funk, soul, rare groove and disco music developed throughout the years since the end of the sixties in Japan!

-Fully licensed Nippon Columbia and Victor Japan masters available for the first time outside of Japan, featuring rarities from Hitomi Tohyama, Jadoes, Yumi Sato, Tetsuo Sakurai and more!

- Tracks selection by Japanese super diggers and Wamono specialists DJ Yoshizawa Dynamite and Chintam

- Mastered and cut at Timmion Cutting Lab

- Artwork by Yoxxx (Tokyo)

- 180g heavy vinyl pressing, reverse board jacket

Active as a professional DJ in Japan since the late eighties, DJ Yoshizawa Dynamite is also a renowned remixer, compiler and producer. An avid record collector and an expert of the Wamono style, Yoshizawa published the Wamono A to Z records guide book in 2015 which instantly sold-out. The book unveiled a myriad of beautiful and rare records from a highly prolific, but still then unknown, Japanese groove scene.

After many years working as a record buyer for several stores, DJ Chintam opened his own Blow Up shop in 2018 in Tokyo's Shibuya district. A member of the Dayjam Crew and a specialist of soul, funk, rare groove and disco music, Chintam is also an expert of the home-brewed Wamono grooves. He supervised and wrote the Wamono A to Z records guide book together with Yoshizawa.

For this third chapter of the acclaimed Wamono series, Yoshizawa and Chintam unheart some of the best and rarest light mellow funk tunes and disco boogie bangers produced in Japan between 1978 and 1988. Put the needle on the record, turn up the volume and dig right now into the Wamono sound - the cream of the Japanese jazz, funk, soul, rare groove and disco music developed throughout the years since the end of the sixties in Japan!

Spirale were an Italian quintet from Rome, consisting of Gaetano Delfini (wind instruments, vocals, percussion), Giancarlo Maurino (saxophone, flute, percussion), Corrado Nofri (piano, marimba, mbira, siren, Jew’s harp), Giuseppe Caporello (contrabass, guitar, percussion) and Giampaolo Ascolese (drums) who released a single eponymous album in 1974. This is a release known mostly by Italian progressive rock lovers, since its sound can be easily associated
to the jazz-rock delivered by the way more popular Napoli Centrale and Perigeo - but also to the ‘fundamentals’ Dedalus, Arti & Mestieri, Uno, or even the lesser known Bauhaus for instance. But playing this
kind of music and trying to release an album in the first half of the ’70s in Italy was also incredibly hard and courageous: Spirale, in fact, was one of the many bands that lived a very short life, before splitting up and disappear forever. Spirale was originally released on the International King record label, thanks to Mario Schiano, a free-jazz
saxophonist who discovered the band, and producer Toni Cosenza, who included the album in the ‘King JazzLine’ series. Consisting of just four tracks, most of which taken by the 13-minute long “Cabral, Anno 1” and the marvellous 17-minute “Peperoncino (Cose vecchie, cose nuove)”, Spirale is an incredibly balanced and flowing record that sounds still fresh and inspired even today, and it’s a shame that it has remained hidden and overlooked for such a long time. Moreover, it is characterized by that undescribable and particular Mediterranean flavour that only Italian musicians were able to obtain. This beautiful album is of course immensely rare in its original edition, and is now finally reissued on Dialogo record label in a faithful restored version that will finally satisfy any collectors who have waited for
years for this beauty to see the light again!

Christmas in the Islands — Shaggy
This quintessential reggae Christmas themed collection puts a Caribbean twist on traditional Christmas cheer. Multiple Grammy Award-winning global reggae/dancehall & pop music icon Shaggy returns with a new holiday album, Christmas in the Islands

After the successful ‘Dawn of the Dead’ live soundtrack performance in 2017 and subsequent live LP release by Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin, Svart Records are proud to present another foray into the world of classic Italian horror soundtracks.
This time, Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin were invited to Finland to perform a Dario Argento two movie set, opening with a live accompaniment to Profondo Rosso and finishing the night with a striking rendition Suspiria. Recorded on May 19th 2019 and mixed and mastered by Claudio Simonetti himself in his studio in Rome, Svart are proud to release limited vinyl editions of the Live Soundtrack Experience.
These exclusive jewels come wrapped in gatefold jackets with sumptuous new artwork by the master Eric Adrian Lee, including new lobby card designs of shots from the performance as taken by the photographer Marco Manzi. Both LPs are available on limited black and even more limited red vinyl. Get closer to the creepy mystique and jarring horror of this quintessential Simonetti’s Goblin soundtrack, live and in the flesh!

After the successful ‘Dawn of the Dead’ live soundtrack performance in 2017 and subsequent live LP release by Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin, Svart Records are proud to present another foray into the world of classic Italian horror soundtracks.
This time, Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin were invited to Finland to perform a Dario Argento two movie set, opening with a live accompaniment to Profondo Rosso and finishing the night with a striking rendition Suspiria. Recorded on May 19th 2019 and mixed and mastered by Claudio Simonetti himself in his studio in Rome, Svart are proud to release limited vinyl editions of the Live Soundtrack Experience.
These exclusive jewels come wrapped in gatefold jackets with sumptuous new artwork by the master Eric Adrian Lee, including new lobby card designs of shots from the performance as taken by the photographer Marco Manzi. Both LPs are available on limited black and even more limited red vinyl. Get closer to the creepy mystique and jarring horror of this quintessential Simonetti’s Goblin soundtrack, live and in the flesh!

Mixed Colored Vinyl

The London label continues to innovate with their biggest release to date.

10 tracks – 10 incredible artists adding to their string of solid releases by new and established art-ists.

Setting fire to the rage of acceptance.
–
Sublime Creatures, defiant of society’s cages, its definitions of power, beauty and status. A higher stance above bitter re-sentment. A pro-active community of thin- kers. A patch-work of empowered souls, ideas and experiences.

Directly related to one of the sentences in our manifesto, Sublime Creatures is a call to our most powerful selves.
–
The name of the label itself is about us working on bettering ourselves and being united in all our differences. “Reptile” is about our relationship with the reptilian brain and our efforts to understand what truly means to be human (tools to perfect your instinct), becoming aware of our-selves and the others around us. “House of” is a direct allusion to the “house and ball culture” movements in NYC in the early 80s.

The sense of a real family of strangers coming together around a shared sense of purpose.

Dark Star Safari is a musical entity comprised of Jan Bang, Erik Honoré, Eivind Aarset, Samuel Rohrer and John Derek Bishop. Their second fulllength offering Walk Through Lightly is the first to feature all five musicians together in the studio from the outset, making for a more organic refinement upon their already established methodology: gradually sculpting distinct songs out of collective improvisations, or using the raw material from initial recordings as the basis for more carefully articulated compositions. The final mix is one that invites few stylistic comparisons to other musical peers, and in fact few comparisons to existing genres. Though this second offering from the project is frosted over with a Scandinavian sense of spatiality and
melancholy, it’s best listened to without considering any origin points, geographic or otherwise: from the opening moments of “Walk Through Lightly,” listeners will feel as if teleported directly into the middle of an enigmatic film-in-progress.
The album opener immediately and successfully sets the table for what is to follow. The electronic and acoustic instrumentation is pensive, but not passive, with restrained scrapes and stridulations in the background combining with backwards-looped passages and perlescent or granulated sound effects to better emphasize the carefully arranged latticework of guitar, percussion, strings, and bass. In some places, such as on “Father’s Day” and “Measured Response,” the silences or breaths between passages are pronounced enough to be an instrument in their own right (and an elegant confirmation of the fact that silence is also a conveyor of information). This nuanced production, which wisely opts for intimacy instead of relying on overdone "instant atmosphere generators" like lengthy reverb, provides just enough tension to contrast with the sense of elevation provided by Bang’s vocal contributions: smoky, evanescent, and impressionistic recitations offering not snapshots of specific events, but rather complete emotional environments for the listener to hover through and explore.
Within these environments, the lyrical imagery focuses upon coming to grips with sudden transformations on both micro and macro levels (the opening “this was a perfect place / till we lost our way” from “Patria” or the foreboding “Poems that explore / Their silence / Crush their violence / Now their time ends” from “Measured Response.”) It focuses as well upon coming to thresholds or crossings, be they physical crossroads or internal states of mind, or both (see especially the striking turns of phrase from “Murmuration.”) With such things in mind, it’s only natural that there would be consideration of dreaming as well, and indeed four different titles on the LP make different reference to a dream or dream state, seemingly valuing dreams as part of the continuum of consciousness rather than something totally cut off from waking experience.
Given the sense of foreboding, anticipation, and even unease that these kinds of subjects often bring with them, the spare and un-hurried music is all the more intriguing, especially when the eponymous finale arrives and the percolating sound bed seems to hint at a coming resolution, but then leaves the listener with more questions than answers. By competently fusing a mature, economical approach to sincerely romantic lyrical themes, Walk Through Lightly is a rare accomplishment.

Events currently taking place throughout the world only serve to stoke a fire under the likes of Pillow Queens, who find themselves continually inspired by a Dublin that is no stranger to fighting social injustice. Street artists, fashion designers, musicians, film makers and more comprise a scene which routinely champions queerness and marginalized groups, and engages with and activates young people in response to the likes of the city’s ongoing housing and mental health crises. Pillow Queens’ songs of togetherness and unity ring out louder than ever before.

In their short lifespan as a band they've released two demo EPs, performed on a successful string of UK & Irish dates & festival appearances, had playlisting from BBC 6 Music, and found themselves opening for the likes of American Football and Pussy Riot, as well as stadium performances opening for IDLES and Future Islands.

With all this under their belt, the band began working with Mercury Prize nominated producer Tommy McLaughlin for their single 'Gay Girls' – which received a nomination for the RTE Choice Music Prize song of the year, as well as International pickup from NPR’s World Cafe and KEXP. The song also found its way into the heart of actor Cillian Murphy and his BBC6 mixtape show.

2019 saw Pillow Queens venture into mainland Europe, as they lit up the Eurosonic festival and completed a string of tour dates opening for Soak. The tour was a messy and joyous affair captured beautifully in the DIY video for the bands summer single 'HowDoILook'.

In Waiting is Pillow Queens’ debut album, the result of four years of brotherly love in a sisterly unit from Ireland’s most urgent, yearning, rock band. Crafted from our lives, and honed in a studio in rural Donegal in the northwest of Ireland, this is a record by queens in waiting and kings in the making. It’s an album about love; self-love, queer love, the anxiety-inducing fault lines of romantic love, and the love for a city and a country that simultaneously has your back and is on your back.

Digitmovies proudly presents on LP another musical jewel by Ennio Morricone from the TV movie broadcasted by Italian Rai Television in 1978 "Il prigioniero" (aka "The Prisoner”). Ennio Morricone has composed an extremely serious score which reflects the whole sentimental and dramatic side of the historic atmosphere, in which the protagonist is immersed. The author varies the main theme with different orchestrations: the romantic, but nostalgic "L'estate è finita" for flute, harpsichord and orchestra, reprised with harpsichord chromatism and with harpsichord and orchestra. The second motif "I due prigionieri" is introduced by the solo flutes in an almost experimental context, later accompanied by cellos and basses and then reprised as a background to psychological suspense with brass, piano and vibes and with fascinating variations. This painful atmosphere is broken up by "source music" which re-creates the sound of that era, like the Sicilian folk song for voice and guitar "Si l'ammuri" and the romantic old- fashioned romantic tune for male voice, piano and guitar "Dove sei amore".

[a] a1 L'estate È Finita [Versione Singolo Lato A]
[b] a2 I Due Prigionieri [Versione Singolo Lato B]

[d] a4 I Due Prigionieri [Versione 2]
[e] a5 L'estate È Finita [Versione 2]

[g] b1 L'estate È Finita [Versione 3]
[h] b2 I Due Prigionieri [Versione 3]
[i] b3 Dove Sei Amore [Versione Vocal]
[j] b4 I Due Prigionieri [Versione 5]
[k] b5 L'estate È Finita [Versione 5]

Natalie Imbruglia returns with her brand new album Firebird later this year, kicking off with the first single 'Build It Better' in June. The single marks the first new music from Natalie in almost a decade after choosing to remain out of the limelight following her monumental success in the nineties and early noughties, accumulating 5 x UK Top 10 singles, 10 x UK Top 40 singles, 1 x UK #1 album, 3 UK Top 10 albums, 2 BRIT Awards, 8 ARIA Awards, 3 Grammy Award nominations and much more. The forthcoming new album was written and recorded between the UK, the US and her homeland of Australia, co-written with the likes of Albert Hammond Jr of The Strokes, Romeo Stodart of The Magic Numbers, KT Tunstall, Eg White (Adele, Dua Lipa, Sam Smith), Luke Fitton (Little Mix, Girls Aloud), Fiona Bevan (One Direction, Ed Sheeran), Rachel Furner (Little Mix, Jason Derulo, Craig David) and more, and produced by Natalie and My Riot with additional production from Albert Hammond Jr, Gus Oberg and Romeo Stodart.

Songs Of Loss and Separation, the sprawling second album from TIMES OF GRACE is insistent in its bluesiness, bleeding distortion and emotion, weaving effortlessly between pensive, heavy, midtempo rock riffs and atmosphere. The band's sophomore effort and first since 2011 channels a haunting romanticism and deep spiritual yearning that collide in beautiful melancholy. The vocal interplay of Adam Dutkiewicz and Jesse Leach makes for a rich, dense, and enthralling concoction, powering through various trips through dark nights of the soul and mind-expanding excursions into the wild.

“Impressions / I Am Thousands” is the new release from Berlin-based electronic producer and multi-instrumentalist sUb_modU, aka the brainchild of Italian Romeo Sandri. Both songs form part of the jazz musician’s debut album ‘Descent To The Centre’, a record that is an autobiographical and existentialist account of oneself, blending the electric/psychedelic spectrum of jazz with house, avant-garde and ambient leanings.

Following on from “Pidgin Synths EP”, a releases that entangled a homage to afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti with synth-heavy original material, sUb_modU has amassed an impressive list of tastemaker support through his unique reinterpations, from the likes of Gilles Peterson (BBC 6Music), Ross Allen (NTS) and Virgil Abloh (Off White). Alongside the release of his debut album is a special edition, double A side single, 7” featuring an exclusive 45 Centre Edit of the iconic “Expensive Shit” paired with a sUb_modu original “RAM Generation”.

"This is another one that went down a storm” – Ross Allen (NTS), Best of 2020
“"Quite a lot of people have been asking me about that Fela Kuti cover…”
– Gilles Peterson (BBC 6Music)
“A killer electronic-filled reinterpretation” – Twistedsoul
With further support from Virgil Abloh (Off White), TRENCH & DJ Mag

TOTAL turns 21 this year, and Kompakt’s venerable compilation series couldn’t have asked for a more auspicious coming-of-age collection. If TOTAL 20 was consolidation against the odds, the Kompakt crew producing for a dreamt-of dancefloor in an uncertain future, then TOTAL 21 feels abuzz and alive with possibilities. Significantly, it’s the first TOTAL in some time that’s streamlined down to a single disc; this makes TOTAL 21 even punchier than usual, a joyous, reflective, and always thrilling 75-minute audio scan of the world according to Kompakt.

As with every instalment of TOTAL, there’s a deft balancing here of Kompakt regulars and new blood. Of the latter, there’s a first appearance by KOLLMORGEN, remixed by PATRICE BÄUMEL into an astral torch song; Amsterdam’s NICKY ELISABETH, offering up ROMAN FLÜGEL’s pulsating, arpeggiated remix of “Celeste”; and CAPTAIN MUSTACHE swoops down into view, PLAY PAUL in tow, with the dream-like electro lift-off that is “Everything”. JONATHAN KASPAR also drops by with a new track, “Von Draussen”, a stealthy and lethal floor-hugger with prowling bass.

Elsewhere, there’s the lead track to MICHAEL MAYER’s astonishing recent EP, “Brainwave Technology”, which not-so-gently spears the tech-futurist babble of AI, transhumanism and posthumanism, soundtracked by one of Mayer’s typically lush, glimmering soundscapes. JOHN TEJADA reaches back to the heyday of glitch and dub techno with the gorgeous “Spectral Progressions”, while the brothers VOIGT & VOIGT, on “Nicht Mein Job”, seem reinvigorated by the interwoven patterns and funky minimalism of the Profan days. Not to be outdone, JÜRGEN PAAPE kicks TOTAL 21 with “La Guittara Romantica”, a chiming and lilting lullaby for woozy late-night reflection.

Throughout, it feels as though Kompakt are taking a moment to both breathe in the dust of the past and look forward to a bright future. Perhaps that’s why, on “Fasson”, SASCHA FUNKE seems so confident, with pinprick melodies bouncing around a hall of audio mirrors, or why THE BIONAUT returns with “Blue Sky Motor Lodge”, a song so moistly melancholy, so enduringly lovely, it’ll make you weep tears of joy. ROBAG WRUHME gets a little delirious on the ticking, twisting “No”, and then GUI BORATTO mops everything up with the bubbling, bumping glam-stomp “Wake Up”.

That’s not all – spring for the digital and/or vinyl edition and you’ll get a new cut, “Happy”, from MICHAEL MAYER, and MARC ROMBOY & C.A.R.’s “I Am A Dancer”. But however you choose to play it, now TOTAL’s turned 21, it’s your duty to throw it the celebration to end all celebrations. Let the party begin, and don’t forget to bring a party favor…

Welcome aboard! We're about to slide into the wide musical landscapes of True Flavas Band. Please take place on your seat, enjoy the smell of a cup of Douchka black tea , close your eyes, the train's door is shutting then the locomotive pulls the heavyweight transSiberian slowly.
The Journey starts to reach the "Polar Circle" and its deep soaring atmosphere, snowy forest and the steppes' flatness. Now You recognize, that it's all about immersive laidback
funk. The band breaks with the white screen view blowing up at the wagon's window, crosses some more urban ensembles with the uptempo "Take It Straight", the intriguing "Estonia" and "Ghlmly". The expression touches climax offering a view from the mountain's
top in "4Hero" and "Double Trouble" with transversal dynamic and flight sensations. The four musicians offer nights full of stars and aurora borealis moments in tracks like "Gamekeeper" and "Jazz'N'Bass". At the end "Countryside" brings us into a gradual rise of leftfield ambience sustained by Krautrock guitars and Gregorian like chants, hypnotic.
With this first LP on Stereophonk, True Flavas Band show ten beautiful, fine and wellmatured pieces. Strong of a rich musical experience and influences, the quartet from SaintPetersburg composed by Roma (drums), Danik (keyboards and electronics), Dima (bass) and Alexey (guitar) have evolved since 2005 to achieve a perfect combination. TrueFlavas performed with artists such as Tricky, Dj Vadim, Dj Krush, Theo Parrish, Badbadnotgood, Gaslampkiller, Fatima, Themselves, Jimi Tenor... and toured all over Russia.

Wunderhorse announces a debut single, Teal. It is streaming now via Yala! Records.

Wunderhorse is the alias of British musician Jacob Slater. Jacob fronted The Dead Pretties, a London band who arrived in a haze of hedonism and hype, bowing out before the dust had time to settle. Blink and you’d have missed them.

This new project arrives no less frenetically. Teal is a feral, romantic, visceral, chaotic and enchanting cacophony of sound that contradicts itself with each sleight of hand and change of chord. A rare, raw and assured talent, Teal is an urgent fever-dream of a number, tumbling downhill with the brakes off. Belligerent and unblinking. Arthouse indie-rock, but without the connotations. It’s one of those.

If this all sounds exciting that’s because it is. Teal is one of those tunes that has a rare ability to define the very moment in which its heard and forever associate itself with the memories long after. Time-stamped yet timeless. If there’s any justice, it’ll soon be played out live in sticky basement rooms up and down the country, limbs everywhere, sweat dripping from the walls. An absolute mess, but what a beautiful one.

There will be more from Wunderhorse, but for now this is Teal. Play it again, but play it louder.

one hand on the steering wheel the other sewing a garden is the name of the second album by Canadian songwriter Alexandra Levy, publicly known by the moniker Ada Lea. On one hand, it’s a collection of walking-paced, cathartic pop/folk songs, on the other it’s a

book of heart-twisting, rear-view stories of city life. Ada Lea has followed up the creative, indie-rock songcraft of her debut what we say in private with surprising arrangements and new perspectives. The album is set in Montreal and each song exists as a dot on a personal history map of the city where Levy grew up. Due on September 24th from Saddle Creek and Next Door Records in Canada, the physical record will be released alongside a map of song locations and a songbook with chords and lyrics, inspired by Levy’s love of real book standards.

Levy penned and demoed this batch of songs in an artist residency in Banff, Alberta. After sorting and editing she made her way to Los Angeles to record with producer/engineer Marshall Vore (Phoebe Bridgers) who had previously worked on 2020’s woman, here E.P. After a long walk to the studio each morning, Levy spent her session days diving into the arrangements, playfully letting everything fall in place with complete trust for her collaborators. She notes “Marshall’s expertise and experience with drumming and songwriting was the perfect blend for what the songs needed. He was able to support me in a harmonic, lyrical, and rhythmic sense.” Other contributors that left a notable fingerprint on the soundscape include drummer Tasy Hudson, guitarist Harrison Whitford (of Phoebe Bridgers band), and mixing engineer Burke Reid (Courtney Barnett). Many songs came together with a blend of studio tracks and elements from the pre-recorded demos.

The resulting sounds range from classic, soft-rock beauty to intimate finger-picked folk passages and night-drive art-pop. And the textures are frequently surprising due to the collage of lo-fi and hi-fi sounds that tastefully decorate the album without ever clouding the heart-center of the song. Tracks like “damn” and “oranges” feel timeless with their AM gold groove and 70’s studio sheen, while songs like “my love 4 u is real '', “salt spring” and “can’t stop me from dying” sound completely modern in their use of electronics, sound effects, and pitched vocals. In their subtle, sonic variety, all of the album’s songs flow together with ease into one big, romantic dream for Levy’s silken vocals to float above.

Inspired by personal experience, daydreams, and Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, the lyrics of one hand... center storytelling on a bigger scale. The experience and emotions of a year are communicated through Levy’s vignettes of city life. Her prose is centered in its setting of the St Denis area of Montreal as it draws up memories from local haunts like Fameux, La Rockette, and Quai des Brumes in rearview reverie. Levy creates a balance through the album’s year by splitting her songs evenly into four seasons. Opening track “damn”, as a song of winter, kicks off the narrative with the events of a cursed New Year’s Eve party. Immediately this timeline becomes jumbled into a Proustian haziness. The listener is then led through the heat-stricken, brain fog of Summer song, “can’t stop me from dying” and then into the autumnal romanticism of “oranges” before returning back to New Year’s on “partner,” which Levy describes as “a woozy late-night taxi blues reflection on moments when timing can be so right, yet so wrong…”. These collected stories as a whole chart the unavoidable growth that comes with experience. “All is forgiven in time. All is forgotten in time. And when the music stopped, I heard an answer” (from “my love 4 u is real”).

Whether to consider these songs fiction or memoir remains unknown. On one hand, Levy says “Why would I try to write a story that’s not my own? What good would that do?” but on the other hand, she is quick to note the ways that language fails to describe reality, and how difficult this makes it to tell an actually true story. The poetic misuse of the word “sewing” in the album’s title serves as a nod to the limitations words provide. What does it mean to sew the garden? And how can we appreciate its carefully knit blooms when the rearview mirror is so full of car exhaust?

one hand on the steering wheel the other sewing a garden is the name of the second album by Canadian songwriter Alexandra Levy, publicly known by the moniker Ada Lea. On one hand, it’s a collection of walking-paced, cathartic pop/folk songs, on the other it’s a

book of heart-twisting, rear-view stories of city life. Ada Lea has followed up the creative, indie-rock songcraft of her debut what we say in private with surprising arrangements and new perspectives. The album is set in Montreal and each song exists as a dot on a personal history map of the city where Levy grew up. Due on September 24th from Saddle Creek and Next Door Records in Canada, the physical record will be released alongside a map of song locations and a songbook with chords and lyrics, inspired by Levy’s love of real book standards.

Levy penned and demoed this batch of songs in an artist residency in Banff, Alberta. After sorting and editing she made her way to Los Angeles to record with producer/engineer Marshall Vore (Phoebe Bridgers) who had previously worked on 2020’s woman, here E.P. After a long walk to the studio each morning, Levy spent her session days diving into the arrangements, playfully letting everything fall in place with complete trust for her collaborators. She notes “Marshall’s expertise and experience with drumming and songwriting was the perfect blend for what the songs needed. He was able to support me in a harmonic, lyrical, and rhythmic sense.” Other contributors that left a notable fingerprint on the soundscape include drummer Tasy Hudson, guitarist Harrison Whitford (of Phoebe Bridgers band), and mixing engineer Burke Reid (Courtney Barnett). Many songs came together with a blend of studio tracks and elements from the pre-recorded demos.

The resulting sounds range from classic, soft-rock beauty to intimate finger-picked folk passages and night-drive art-pop. And the textures are frequently surprising due to the collage of lo-fi and hi-fi sounds that tastefully decorate the album without ever clouding the heart-center of the song. Tracks like “damn” and “oranges” feel timeless with their AM gold groove and 70’s studio sheen, while songs like “my love 4 u is real '', “salt spring” and “can’t stop me from dying” sound completely modern in their use of electronics, sound effects, and pitched vocals. In their subtle, sonic variety, all of the album’s songs flow together with ease into one big, romantic dream for Levy’s silken vocals to float above.

Inspired by personal experience, daydreams, and Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, the lyrics of one hand... center storytelling on a bigger scale. The experience and emotions of a year are communicated through Levy’s vignettes of city life. Her prose is centered in its setting of the St Denis area of Montreal as it draws up memories from local haunts like Fameux, La Rockette, and Quai des Brumes in rearview reverie. Levy creates a balance through the album’s year by splitting her songs evenly into four seasons. Opening track “damn”, as a song of winter, kicks off the narrative with the events of a cursed New Year’s Eve party. Immediately this timeline becomes jumbled into a Proustian haziness. The listener is then led through the heat-stricken, brain fog of Summer song, “can’t stop me from dying” and then into the autumnal romanticism of “oranges” before returning back to New Year’s on “partner,” which Levy describes as “a woozy late-night taxi blues reflection on moments when timing can be so right, yet so wrong…”. These collected stories as a whole chart the unavoidable growth that comes with experience. “All is forgiven in time. All is forgotten in time. And when the music stopped, I heard an answer” (from “my love 4 u is real”).

Whether to consider these songs fiction or memoir remains unknown. On one hand, Levy says “Why would I try to write a story that’s not my own? What good would that do?” but on the other hand, she is quick to note the ways that language fails to describe reality, and how difficult this makes it to tell an actually true story. The poetic misuse of the word “sewing” in the album’s title serves as a nod to the limitations words provide. What does it mean to sew the garden? And how can we appreciate its carefully knit blooms when the rearview mirror is so full of car exhaust?

It’s one thing to take the drone rock of your debut album in an entirely new direction but quite another when the result is an ambitious 30 track three-part album.  

But that’s what London collective Moderate Rebels have done on their biggest project to date, the opus ‘If You See Something That Doesn’t Look Right’. Fearless in their refusal to be pigeonholed, they touch on everything from driving rhythmic repetition, discordant guitar fuzz and hazy psychedelia, to late 60s-indebted folk and lilting melodic hooks, via twinkling piano ballads, drum machine rigidity and playful synth pop.

‘If You See Something That Doesn’t Look Right’ will be released in three ten track parts in 2021.

The album touches on the progressive works of Phil Spector, Fripp & Eno and Syd Barrett, the transcendental pop of Spiritualized, St Etienne and Stereolab, and the wry humour of 80s Pet Shop Boys. But it comes stamped with the group’s own inimitable identity.