Cerca:room 10

For Fans Of…Aretha Franklin, Betty Davis, Lyn Collins, Sharon Jones, Ann Peebles. Pink vinyl 45 is limited and for Indies only. 1000 copies Barbara Howard's On The Rise is more than just another rare soul LP. It's a love story. It's a dream. It was an attempt to break through. And although Barbara certainly never became a star, one song did become a staple in rare soul and funk DJ sets, keeping interest in Barbara Howard just under the surface. And as fate would have it in 2016, a sealed copy of the LP would find its way into Plaid Room Records in Loveland, OH and kick start the revival of her story and her music. In 1968, as an outgrowth of a community movement and talent search program called "Operation Step-Up", Steven Reece wanted to take his community movement to the next level. This is when the idea of founding an independent label came to mind. The idea was to self-produce quality records and through successful sales attempt to land major label distribution. Steve identified Barbara Howard as the talent and set to producing her record. The idea was to produce an LP with a variety of tracks that could be marketed to a variety of radio formats and markets (gospel, pop, soul, jazz, etc.). And while the record fizzled shortly after its release, Steve and Barbara ended up getting married shortly afterwards making this possibly the most romantic production of a record is soul music history. "I Don't Want Your Love" is the only track they produced that was NOT featured on the LP, so we're proud to get this deep funk banger back into the world at large!

Having broken a decade's silence with 2016's 'System', LA-based electronic musician Joseph Fraioli, a.k.a. Datach’i, returns this summer with his eighth album 'Bones'.
Released on Venetian Snares' Timesig imprint, 'Bones' features 12 tracks of mind expanding electronica, once again recorded on his custom-built Eurorack modular system. Much like its predecessor, 'Bones' manages to make the most of the possibilities modular systems offer, whilst avoiding their many pitfalls that can often turn such music into little more than a dry academic exercise. Indeed 'Bones' is a remarkably intimate album, written and recorded in the time following his father's death, and reflects this intense period of personal change in Joseph's life.

"Creating this music was a therapy of sorts," Joseph recalls. "It was almost like a close friend being there for me, and it's something that I hope others can perhaps utilize in the same way."

The connection to his father is something that is reflected not just in the emotional intensity of 'Bones', but in the actual production itself. "My father and I were very close," he explains. "Whilst he was sick with cancer I bought him a guitar as he wanted to learn how to play, just to have something to do while he was getting treated. After he passed away my mother gave me the guitar to have as a sort of memory of him. I had the idea to record some sounds and music on the guitar and load it onto granular sample players on the modular synth so I could make new music from those sounds as a sort of tribute to my dad. You can hear some of those sounds on a few of the tracks here like 'Arrivals', 'Motion in the Living Room' and 'Undimension'."

The resulting album grapples with the intensity of these emotions. But for all their weight, tracks like 'Saugerties Road', ‘Rockledge 3A’ and ‘Antumalal’ transform that heaviness into something warm and comforting whilst the aforementioned 'Arrivals' or ‘Wand’ ultimately achieve some kind of escape velocity and soar. Even though 'Bones' is about endings and finding closure, it also looks forward to new beginnings.

"It was something very much on my mind throughout recording this album," he relates, "ends being beginnings and beginnings being the end. Cycles of time and how time works, it's all reflected throughout the album right down to how the tracks are ordered."

Ranging from blissful ambience and guileless, starry eyed melodies, to intricate claustrophobic rhythms that forever sound close to collapsing in on themselves before expanding into bold new patterns, 'Bones' is the work of a producer who, twenty years on from his debut, continues to push the boundaries of electronic music.

Venezuela born, Barcelona based Cardopusher's career goes back over 12 years- the proverbial 10,000 hours to master a skill long fulfilled. His forthcoming LP "New Cult Fear" on Boysnoize Records proves it through disciplined, focused craftsmanship. It's the type of no-frills production that deceives the amateur listener with it's simplicity, while the seasoned listener knows that the simpler the elements, the harder it is to make a track that moves the dancefloor. Moving dancefloors it does, although there's few smiles to be had. This is music for dark rooms, for Nitzer Ebb's famous pairing of "muscle and hate." This is being electrocuted by a broken TB-303- only you find the feeling erotic, your exclamations recorded on a haunted reel-to-reel. And it's never sounded so good.

Ten releases in, and STILL far better than the rest

In a more raucous mood, it seems Bitter End have pre-empted the summer of debauchery ahead of us by unleashing their Sweetest exorcism yet...
ITCHICRICKITCH is the tweaking weirdo in the corner, the unsettling presence that invariably unites the room in the simplistic joy of judgement free release.

'PRINCESS' appeared on the flipside of a frankly far more regal diva originally on GALL005, here she's the smudged mascara version, much stroppier and not due home 'til way after sunrise.


As always, limited and LOUD

“Every time I play Cour T.’s “Black Magic” the room changes. The entire vibe of the party goes from hands in the air to grinding, sexual energy. This track has arcane properties on the dance floor. I wish I had 10 tracks with this vibe because nothing else sounds like it and when I play it, I always wish I could keep the vibe for longer.

Selfishly, I asked our label manager to hold back this track for 6 extra months just so I could have it all to myself. That’s how much I’m into it. For all the DJs complaining about how everything sounds the same right now, take a risk and drop this one in your sets.”

-VonStroke

Vor 20 Jahren startete Chloé Thévenin ihre Karriere mit Mixer und
Plattenspieler, bereits 1999 zählte sie zur Speerspitze der Pariser
Techno-Szene. Seitdem kennt man Chloé als technisch versierte und
groovig agierende DJ mit Vorliebe für Deep House und Minimal. In der
französischen Kapitale sind besonders die Batofar-Residency und PulpNächte im Rex in Erinnerung geblieben. Ihre Skills präsentierte sie einem
größeren Publikum auf Mix-CDs wie "I Hate Dancing" (2004) oder "Live
At Robert Johnson" (2008). Hinzu kamen regelmäßig eigene
Produktionen, die sie auf über einem Dutzend 12_ÇÖ_ÇÖes
veröffentlichte. Daneben brachte Chloé mit "The Waiting Room" (2007)
und "One In Other" (2010) auch zwei Großformate heraus. Dass es bis
zur Fertigstellung ihres dritten Langspielers sieben Jahre gedauert hat,
erklärt sich für Chloé durch die Wechselfälle des Lebens. Aufgrund
spannender Kollaborationsarbeiten und verschiedener
Kompositionsaufträge für Filme und Installationen blieb ihr zu wenig Zeit
für die Albumproduktion. Außerdem gründete sie mit Lumière Noire ein
eigenes Label, auf dem "Endless Revisions" als eines der ersten Werke
erscheint. Dieses gleicht einem elektroakustischen Soundabenteuer und
hat mit Tanzmusik nichts am Hut. Zwar mäandern immer mal wieder
satte Beats durch die Tracks, aber eben nur als ein Element unter vielen
anderen. Ein Album für den kontemplativen Hörgenuss

Dailysession Sublabel

Alien Transistor and Tokyo-based label Afterhours release a vinyl-version of tenniscoats' masterpiece "music exists". It consists of 4 LPs, which will be released over the year, full of intimate, wonderful, psychedelic folk-music. With the fourth LP, there will be a strictly limited box available, either for putting in your already purchased other 3 records, or as the whole glorious 4-LP-package.

Tenniscoats have devoted followers allover the world, but their releases were always hard to find outside of Japan. Except for their album "Tokinouta", which saw a very limited run on vinyl, and the seminal "Two Sunsets", their collaboration with the Pastels (and a small handfull of 7"s ), there were never any vinyl-releases, and also the CDs were hard to get for any-one, who doesn't speak or read japanese.

So, this is the chance to dive deep into the beautiful, unique world of the tenniscoats and their opus magnum "music exists".

The Tenniscoats are a duo that have enjoyed a long career in the music scene of their home country of Japan. They have collaborated with unique artists from different backgrounds (Tape, Pastels, Pastacas and Jad Fair), while maintaining their own laid back approach and sound. Their songs are built primarily from guitar and vocals with lyrical themes focusing on everyday life. It could be their expansion on simplicity that has captivated music lovers of all ages throughout their existence.

While the aforementioned collaborations produced bold and sensitive experiences and results, it has taken Tenniscoats five years to release an entire studio album of their own. The wait has not been in vain, as four discs will be released consecutively beginning with 'Music Exists - disc 1'. Music Exists saw a previously limited release on the Tenniscoats' own majikick label.

'We started recording around January of 2013 with just the two of us in our 10 tatami-room in Tokyo we were using as a private studio. Arrangements were produced without computers by overdubbing on an analog console with mixing assistance provided by Saya. As we sent selected songs to be mastered by Yasushi Utsunomia, we were able to see the tracks grown into a full length album.'

What turned into a huge 4 disc project began in earnest three years ago. Tenniscoats wrote and recorded themselves using an analog console, a microphone, and what few instruments they had. As the project developed, they were surprised to find that they had amassed several albums' worth of material.

'We tried throwing up the ideas we had in the beginning and not put too much of our strength into playing in order to develop the ideas of each song. Utsunomia, who did the mastering was the first person to ever hear the material for this album outside of the band. We sent songs to him carefully choosing an order that we felt would not make him bored. Thanks to his distinctive way of mastering, we were inspired to go further and further into the process.'

2016 marks the Tenniscoats' 20th anniversary together. You could consider 'Music Exists' as a sort of compilation of material stemming from these years spent together. With their unique combination of melodies, unexaggerated arrangements, and detailed mastering, Alien Transistor are extremely delighted to make this recording available to the public!

On Vinyl One BLKMUSIC 004.1 The A side features Making Ends Meet (Changing Room One), which is an original breakbeat version by Craig Richards that comes with with a twisted remix by Birmingham's Subb-an & Adam Shelton on the B side.

* Five years have passed since the first release of Nowadays Records.Launched with Fakear's signature (seen on Ninja Tune), the label founded by oOgo and Chomsky from La Fine Equipe has seen the growth of many projects such as Clément Bazin, Everydayz, Phazz (who produced for Travis Porter, did remixes for Soulection, Interscope and Mad Decent), Leska, Jumo and many others, all of them carried by the irreplaceable quartet of La Fine Equipe.

Five years during which Nowadays Records released 75 EPs and LPs, toured in and outside of France, and generated several hundred millions stream plays.With its heart in the right place, its eyes on the emerging scene and its ears open on the world, Nowadays built itself a singular and racy identity through the time. Fed by inspirations like Stone Throw, Ninja Tune or Warp, the label places itself as an ambassador of a fast growing scene, defending it through its shows, releases, and events like the two Boiler Room shows in Paris and London.Without sticking itself to a musical gender, Nowadays keeps on widening its horizons by working with foreign artists and mixing the inspirations through its releases, driven by its sound and visual trademarks and aesthetics.

In order to celebrate those five years spent defending as many projects as musical crushes they had, and to thank its community made of more than 150 000 followers around the world, Nowadays unveils the 'Nowadays V', double album with a digital and physical release on November 30th.Through this compilation, Nowadays gathers on one side the tracks that marked its history and, on the other side, unreleased tracks that sometimes lead to collaborations such as the one between Clément Bazin and Leska, or the one between Fakear and La Fine Equipe.

As Metronomy work on their forthcoming sixth album, they take a moment to reflect on the 10th anniversary of their breakthrough album 'Nights Out'. Metronomy's Joseph Mount has delved into the archives for 'Nights Out: 10th Anniversary Edition' which will be released on February 8th on Because Music.

It features the original critically acclaimed album alongside a second LP which expands upon Mount's vision with a set of unreleased demos, rarities and b-sides - many of which make their first appearance on vinyl. Two of the highlights come with alternative versions which have become staples of the Metronomy live set: a bedtime dub version of 'Holiday' which takes it into a darker, glitchier direction, and a French-language version of 'Heartbreaker'.

Mount's Francophile leanings are also explored in Breakbot's remix of 'A Thing For Me', which contrasts French touch vibes with Mount's distinctly English-accented vocals. Previously issued on an exclusive Rough Trade bonus disc, 'Over' is an instrumental of cinematic scale, while the disc closes with four previously unreleased demos including the leftfield minimalism of 'Das Booty'.

Although Metronomy's 2006's debut album 'Pip Paine (Pay The £5000 You Owe)' was discovered by those in the know, it was 'Nights Out' that captured the imagination of a much wider audience. Mount achieved the seemingly impossible: he highlighted both the joyous atmosphere of a big night out and a taste of the resultant comedown in a set that playfully veered towards being a concept album.

About Nights Out Joseph Mount says: 'Oscar reminded me the other day how I said to him on completing Radio Ladio 'I think I've just written my first number 1'. I hadn't. We also reminisced about the day we borrowed the Honda Insight for the album artwork: I found the owner on an enthusiast chat room, we gave his daughter two Kate Nash tickets and a meet and greet with Kate in exchange for a few shots with the vehicle... simpler times. Shout out to Myspace.'

Metronomy's most recent album 'Summer 08' was released in 2016 to widespread critical acclaim. DIY described it as a 'pure-pop odyssey' and NME concluded, 'Mount has done it again. He could write music about the impact of Brexit on the UK's trade with China and make it sound amazing. He's that good.'

Metronomy bring 2018 to a close when they play Edinburgh's Hogmanay Street Party on December 31st. The 65,000 capacity show is headlined by Franz Ferdinand and completed by Free Love.

'Sometimes it's hard to say how you feel,' says songwriter-vocalist
Jade Vincent. 'These songs are vulnerable stories for me to tell -
they're things I couldn't say out loud. But I found that I could sing
them. And then I closed my eyes when they would listen.'
Listening to Vincent's songs were her partner - producer/composer
Keefus Ciancia - and DJ and producer/composer David Holmes.
Together, Vincent, Ciancia and Holmes make up Unloved, the musical
project that evolved out of a late-night Hollywood bar in 2015,
releasing a stunning debut album the following spring and this year
crafting the soundtrack to Phoebe Waller-Bridge's acclaimed new
series 'Killing Eve'.
Introduced to Ciancia through soundtrack work, Holmes found
himself invited to DJ one night and to curate other nights at the
Rotary Room. To invite Holmes to DJ is to unleash a kind of whirling
dervish of musical enthusiasm but through those nights the trio
discovered a shared love for 60s girl groups and French pop and film
noir soundtracks, Brigitte Fontaine, Shuggie Otis, George 'Shadow'
Morton, Bruno Nicolai, Lee Hazlewood and Jack Nitzsche, along with
a tremendous desire to work together.
Their debut EP - 'Guilty Of Love' - and the full-length, self-titled
album that followed in the spring of 2016, offered a quite remarkable
thing: a sound at once hauled out of the silty depths of the past and
simultaneously wholly modern. There was the soft hiss of a lo-fidelity
recording - the murky crackle of sample, beats and half-remembered,
long-lost favourite tunes. However, much of the songs' success
belonged to Vincent's sublime voice and lyrics, both possessed of an
aching, rich-smoked tone of loss and love.
Unloved's second album, 'Heartbreak', is about love. The album plays
out each song like a vignette of nothing but love. The songs that rose
up were in some ways surprising, but also felt insistent. 'They're real
feelings and real experiences that I had the guts to finally say, but
always ambiguous, this is very important to me,' she explains, 'and
always about love, one way or another.'
LP pressed on red coloured vinyl with digital download code.

Ken Oath slip on their moon shoes for a joint venture with Freda & Jackson, pressing up four cuts that will have you slipping the surly bonds of earth and dancing in the skies. Loaded with basslines heavier than a neutron star and well-chopped breaks, produced with a dubwise ear for space, this is some of the duo's finest material yet 'Kendama' is the heaviest cut here, a deep psychedelic outing that's swathed in an foggy haze. Abstracted digi-flutes and koto plucks are paired with a skull-boring bassline and exacting breakbeat dissection, adding some levity to the leaden heaviness of the track's bass-weight. 'Cubone' slows but retains the hallucinatory haze that coils around all these trackers. Thudding bass anchors the floating drones and glitches, while percussion snakes through the track, building, like smoke slowly filling a room. The steady build is transportive, to the point where you hear the final echo tail trailing out into silence, and wonder how that all time dissipated Flipping over the record, 'Platform 22' is where you'll find the two of them at their loosest. Submerged vibraphone melodies and swirling voices play over a bassline that sounds like its descending the stairs, boisterous and half-drunk, to culminate in an orgiastic percussion frenzy at the end. Spacious and dubwise, 'Noggin' is a tellingly heady closer. Samples are set adrift across the track as they are dubbed-out and dissolved into smears of sound. There's a buoyancy to the whole piece, a pleasant weightlessness that keeps you floating after the final notes fade out. One time for ya mind.

Les Disques du Crepuscule presents Signals Into Space, a brand new studio album by acclaimed electronic duo Ultramarine. SIS is their seventh album, having debuted on Crepuscule back in 1990.
The new long player was conceived by Ian Cooper and Paul Hammond over a three year period and features four songs co-written with North American musician Anna Domino, a firm favourite of the group since her leftfield pop releases on Crepuscule and Factory in the 1980s. 'For this project we wanted to do something more ambitious and perhaps more accessible than our last album in 2013,' explains Paul. 'We were keen to start collaborating with other musicians again, as well as develop our method of performance-based writing and recording, which is partly improvised.'
 Signals Into Space also features contributions from saxophonist Iain Ballamy (ECM, Food, Loose Tubes) and percussionist & vibraphone player Ric Elsworth. It was recorded and mixed in London with Andy Ramsay (Stereolab) and mastered by Noel Summerville.
 'To some extent Signals Into Space is an escapist record,' reveals Ian. 'Our rehearsal space is a small windowless room on an industrial estate in Essex. Possibly as a result we ended up with a collection of visually suggestive tracks, conjuring mental images of cities, deserts and tropical islands, which gradually came into focus as Anna's lyrical ideas developed. So while the music might have been conceived in a closed space it's imbued with a positive spirit - looking outwards, seeking contact.'
 Cover art by Studio Heretic. Available on CD, digital and vinyl LP (vinyl format includes a free digital copy on MP3).

RIYL HIDDEN CAMERAS/ARTHUR RUSSELL

Since his recording debut as Choir Boy in 2016, Adam Klopp mined a sound swirls 1980s synth noir with captivating, cinematic songs sweeping with pensive sorrow and glowing hope. As a former member of the Mormon faith, Klopp spent his youth both in the pews of his place of worship, but also churning through DIY punk venues, before leaving the sect in the thick of a mission in Tahiti.

The duality of faith and fiction are central to the lush explorations on his debut album Passive With Desire. Recorded at Studio Studio Dada, the album's tracks permuted as bedroom sketches, awash with camp, the sting of loss, and allusions to halcyon days of nocturnal, electronic driven pop. Retaining elements of Klopp's original demos, Passive With Desire was recorded with a full band and polished with trumpet, strings, as well as archival samples calling back to Klopp's hazy youth.

Engineered by Klopp, Bret Meisenbach, and Stephen Cope, Passive With Desire is the entry point to Choir Boy's world of emotive wit, novella kissed lyricism, and bouncy, synth-forward takes on traditional song writing bound by the universal themes of loss, desire, evolution, and exploration.

Now available for the first time in wide release, Passive With Desire is a proper introduction to Klopp's unique storytelling, orated by his full, rangeful vocals. The expanded CD version comes with a 12-page lyric booklet, and combines the album with seven bonus tracks, including the Sunday Light EP and tracks from the limited Part Time Punks cassette. The repackaged LP edition comes in a sturdy matte jacket with matte Eurosleeve insert with lyrics. The first pressing comes in limited editions of 100 on Clear/Black/Red Splatter, 400 on Metallic Red, and standard black vinyl.

Key Selling Points:
- Expanded CD version comes with a 12-page lyric booklet, and combines the album with seven bonus tracks, including the Sunday Light EP and tracks from the limited Part Time Punks cassette.- LP edition comes in a sturdy matte jacket with matte Eurosleeve insert with lyrics. - LP comes with download- Reissue of debut album

'String Figures Remixes' is a series of remixes released on December 14th 2018 following the previous-ly highly acclaimed LP String Figures by Zoe Mc Pherson. (Watch her Boiler Room live show)

Remixers for this EP include Ben Vince (Hessle Audio co release w/ Joy Orbison & Where To Now solo album where collaborators include Mica Levi & Rupert Clervaux), N1L (Opal Tapes & UIQ), Hester-1, Bartellow (ESP Institute, Public Possession) & Sukitoa o Namau (First Terrace Recordings).

The EP is pressed on transparent vinyl & comes along with transparent sleeve.

When asked why Zoe chose each artist for her remix album she writes:

Ben Vince is my mate since he opened for my release in London last April and he was really excited about making a remix. Which I think is even nicer is that he only remixed and did not play saxophone. He actually properly very much remixed all the elements, all recognisable, which is a delight to listen to when you know all the parts seperately. The only thing he did is making it a UK club banger track !!!! :)


N1L is a friend whom I admire totally for his capacities of producing incredibly wicked tracks in no time. He's got 10 000 collabs going on ( abit like Ben). I don't know how he does it, but damn his remix is also one of these that are a delight to listen to when the samples are re organised in a very cool way which is his own.


Hester -1 is also a friend, violinist and producer from Antwerp. She is a nerd, her style and projects are developing, we jammed together, and I wanted her to be on the original album, so now she is in the remixes and made a very dark piece and now I'm thinking she should meet N1L :)


Bartellow is also a friend, behind SVS, and he was the first one to make a remix in 1 hour on a flight I think actually even before the album came out!!!! He had already made a proper groovy banger, as he always does, with his style.


Sukitoa O Namau I've been chatting with since a while, she's an incredibly inspiring artist, releasing on First Terrace records, she used to be a dancer and is an explorer of sound and of many things. She basically fucked up my track, by changing the rythms into no rythms and purifying it very much which reveals other things. Only keeping rough elements of it and I think it's absolutely brilliant.

[A] A1 | Sabotage Story (Ben Vince's Perculator Mix) 2) The Gate

Boum Boum Boum! 25 years of KOMPAKT. When a record label still thrives after a quarter of a century thanks to a focus of what was expected to be a short lived music phenomenon called TECHNO, then it stands to prove two things; that it techno has taken its place amongst serious, multilayered musical genres like rock'n'roll, pop and folk music. And that KOMPAKT has never been only for techno, but KOMPAKT stands as a broad-minded, genre-defying entity that has set out to cross-pollinate all kinds of musical inventions within the realm of electronic music. Through its course, KOMPAKT has sent 'Around The World', all kinds of sub-genres, concept series and crossover adventures based on the non- negotiable 4/4 beat. And back again.

Without a doubt, the 100% kickdrum-free POP AMBIENT series is the most endearing and enduring concept that I have had the pleasure to curate. From the start, I felt there was a strong need to add a certain pop- elegance - ensouled by discourse as much as hedonism - to a sound that was recognized as 'Chill Out' music that could be heard in seedy techno club back rooms and forgotten festival areas. Over the years, I like to imagine that POP AMBIENT has crystallized into a highly recognizable trademark sound and a multi-facetted musical universe of its own.

So once again, I had the pleasure to put together this year's edition by plowing through an ocean of sonic jewelry that had been submitted from all over the world by new and old friends. The task was clear: for this special edition, I must create a homogenous listening experience that would both appeal to our trusting followers, to continue our tradition while integrating new micro facets , variations and influences from neighboring musical universes as possible. Obligatory while being innovative. Conspirative while being cosmopolitan. Albeit the headline 'Ambient' might sound a little too humble for a compilation that encompasses aspects of neo classic, atonal music and the most beautiful aural kitsch imaginable, it still helps as a necessary means of orientation in the best possible sense. Same goes for another dear tradition: Veronika Unland's abstract-floral cover design that keeps on pleasing our sore eyes year after year.

Although each and every POP AMBIENT edition doesn't shy away from diving into the relevant question of 'What is contemporary discourse music' - in the end it all boils down to that elevated moment where all theory dissolves into ambient air, into a higher state of cosmic bliss. POP AMBIENT is sacral music for non-believers.

Wolfgang Voigt Cologne, October 2018

Bum Bum Bum. 25 Jahre KOMPAKT. Wenn ein Musiklabel, das seine inhaltliche Ausrichtung im Wesentlichen auf den anfangs als schnelllebig und vor allem kurzlebig apostrophierten - hype' Techno setzt, nach 25 Jahren in jeder Beziehung immer noch voll im Saft steht, dann zeigt das zwei Dinge: Das erstens mittlerweile jeder bemerkt haben du¨rfte, dass Techno eben kein kurzftristiger hype ist, sondern vielmehr ein vielschichtiges, ernstzunehmendes Genre, das sich ebenso wie Rock'n'Roll oder Schlager fest in der Musikgeschichte etabliert hat.

Und zweitens, dass KOMPAKT nie nur ein reines Technolabel war und ist, sondern ein nach vielen Seiten aufgeschlossenes Experimentierfeld, das sich von Anfang an der Grenzu¨berschreitung und dem musikalischen Erfindungsreichtum verschrieben hat. U¨ber die Jahre wurden unter dem KOMPAKT-Signet etliche Subgenres, Konzeptreihen und Crossoverwagnisse auf Basis der unverhandelbaren geraden Bassdrum - around the world' und wieder zuru¨ck geschickt.

Eine der wohl scho¨nsten und nachhaltigsten Konzeptreihen du¨rfte wohl die bassdrumfreie POP AMBIENT-Serie sein, die ich als KOMPAKT-- Altvorderer' nach wie vor die ja¨hrliche Freude habe, zu kompilieren. Dabei hat sich u¨ber die Jahre aus dem anfa¨nglichen Bedu¨rfnis der seit den fru¨hen 90er Jahren in den sogenannten - Chilloutrooms ' grossra¨umiger Technoclubs, - Lounges' und - Muzakkneipen' entstandenen - Entspannungsmusik' etwas entgegenzusetzen, eine eher von Pop-Eleganz, Diskurs und Hedonismus beseelte, eigene Spielart ambienter Musik, eine vielschichtige programmatische Musik mit hohem Widererkennungswert entwickelt.

So hatte ich auch im Jubila¨umsjahr einmal mehr die Qual der Wahl, aus den aus aller Welt kommenden, grossartigen Klangpreziosen guter alter sowie neuer Freunde die subjektiv besten zu einem homogenen Ho¨rerlebnis zusammenzufu¨hren. Dabei ist mir immer sehr wichtig, einerseits den Erwartungen der treuen Ho¨rerschaft im Bezug auf Traditionsverpflichtung gerecht zu werden und andererseits auch immer mo¨glichst viele Mikrofacetten, Varianten und Einflu¨sse angrenzender Stile und Universen aufzugreifen. Innovativ und verbindlich. Konspirativ und weltoffen. Auch wenn der U¨berbegriff Ambient, fu¨r eine Kompilation die sowohl Aspekte von Neuer Klassik, Atonalita¨t und Kunstmusik mit den allerscho¨nsten Seelenkitschklangwelten zu vereinen sucht, zu eng gefasst ist, so hilft er doch bei der notwendigen Orientierung im besten Sinne. Ebenso wie die Tradition gewordenen, wunderscho¨n abstrakt-floralen Kunstblumenwelten der von Veronika Unland gestalteten Cover, die ein ums andere Jahr auch die Augen in Verzu¨ckung versetzten.

Auch wenn jede Kompilation sich aufs Neue an den relevanten Fragen zeitgema¨sser Diskursmusik abarbeitet, so ist der erhabene Moment am Ende doch der, in dem sich alles zu Gunsten eines - ho¨heren, kosmischen' Ho¨rerlebnisses, im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes in ambiente Luft auflo¨st.

POP AMBIENT ist die sakrale Musik der Ungla¨ubigen.

Wolfgang Voigt / September 2018

Play It Say It welcome New York artist David Berrie for a first EP on the label and one that offers three dynamite pieces of punchy, high impact and inventive house music.

Raised amongst the diverse culture of NYC's nightlife, Berrie started sneaking into clubs as a youngster and since then has risen through the ranks to have now played iconic rooms like Output NY and DC-10 Ibiza. Fusing his musical history with other genres to create his own, unique style of house and techno, David has taken his passion to the studio and served up essential tunes on Hot Creation and Cuttin' Headz.

Opening the account is 'Revolution', seven superbly programmed minutes of slick and involving house beats and knotted bass. It's a restless, body shaking track to make the floor move with futuristic synths fleshing it out and bringing a vital sense of machine soul.

The equally compelling 'JB Loop' is another dynamic bit of electronic house music. Rubbery drums bobble and bounce about with wild computer sounds and infectious bass all ramping up the energy levels and making for a standout track.
Last but not least, 'Rear End' is a supple, intricately designed track with slippery synths, spinning hi hats and bass surges all wrapping around each other to make for real minimal funk. It's a track that oozes Detroit vibes and cannot fail to sweep up the floor.

These are three characterful and masterfully produced cuts of high-class dancing music.

Matthew Dear's Black City Can't Be Found On Any Map. It's A Composite, An Imaginary Metropolis Peopled By Desperate Cases, Lovelorn Souls, And Amoral Motives. Like Most Literary Gothams, Black City Is A Place To Love And Hate, As Seedy As A Nightclub's Back Room And As Seductive As The Promise Of Power. Matthew Dear, The Musician, May Live In New York City, But The Matthew Dear Of Black City Inhabits A Sound-world Unlike Any Other: A Monument To The Shadowy Side Of Urban Life That Bumps And Creaks, Shudders And Wakes Up Screaming In The Middle Of The Night. Black City Is Matthew Dear's Third Album On Ghostly International, And It's His Darkest And Most Engrossing Work To Date.

From The rst Notes Of Album Opener "honey", It's Clear That The Love-obsessed Matthew Dear Of 2007's Asa Breed Has Given Way To A More Existentially Paranoid Entity, As Creeping Tempos Dominate, Cavernous Atmospherics Envelop The Listener, And Strange Distortions Crackle On The Horizon. In Black City, Nothing Is At It Seems: Leadoff Single "little People (black City)" Is A Nine-and-a-half Minute Disco odyssey, subverting its gleaming electronic lead with eerily giddy backing vocals and cryptic, ominous lyrics ("a frozen wasted heart / has died", "love me like a clown"); "You Put a Smell on Me" is a sordid sex romp set to hysterically chattering percussion and a serrated synth line that will set your teeth on edge; "More Surgery" at rst recalls the barely-there Krautrock of Harmonia in its burbling minimalism, until Dear's chanted chorus of "Alter genetics / to make my body glow / I need more surgery / there's so much more to know" sends the track hurtling into a dystopian future.

And yet, for all the foreboding moods on Black City, it's the album's sweeter moments that illustrate Matthew Dear's growing maturity as a songwriter. "Slowdance" is a futuristic lullaby in which Dear articulates a lover's helplessness ("I can't be the one to tell you everything's wrong") over breathy, Arthur Russell-esque cello swishes; the album-closing "Gem" is an achingly simple, reverb-drenched piano ballad that ends with a long, slow fade. Even in Matthew Dear's Black City, there is hope.

'Jump Trax' is another essential piece of early Chicago house music crafted by the legendary Duane Thamm JR back in 1984. Fusing together a myriad of influences including early 80's Euro pop, Italo Disco and HI NRG, Thamm JR was responsible for helping create and influence the burgeoning House sound that would emanate from the city all throughout the second half of the 1980's. Not only were these sounds new and fresh, they were experimental too, 'Jump Trax' sees the BPM's gradually shift throughout the duration of the tracks seamlessly giving the more adventurous DJ's out there more ammunition and room to experiment with styles and BPM's. A truly visionary approach to production and all recorded and mixed within Chicago's city limits by Thamm JR at his Reel To Reel Studio located in Villa Park, Illinois. 'Jump Trax' continues to be as influential today as it was back in '84, with many top DJ's still citing the record as a 'go to', powerful indeed.

Chicago's Still Music are proud to present this fully legit, remastered and repressed piece of Chicago house history. A truly pivotal record now made available again for 2018. Essential sound for those who love the real deal - snoozing not advised, OG copies of this monster are hard to come by!

'Bound to shake your walls and rattle your windows' Max Reinhardt, BBC RADIO 3 "The first bit of evidence that Elizabeth Bernholz's next album Pastoral - due out in September - could be her best to date". THE QUIETUS "Will likely be one of the year's very best records.' CLASH 'What species is this What century' Forged in a rural idyll in Middle-England, the new album Pastoral, by Gazelle Twin, exhumes England's rotten past, and shines a torch over its ever-darkening present. Told through a troupe of multi-gender voices, in vernaculars old and new; from the shrill echo of folksong to tabloid-tinged jaunts, the artist aka Elizabeth Bernholz, presents the notion that 'there is horror in every idyll, and danger lurking beyond the 'quaint' '. The village square - once host to centuries of public torture - becomes a floral framed postcard, dolled-up for the Summer Fête. A sunny, afternoon walk over the hills unsettles a cloud of angry flies feeding from unidentifiable remains. Bigoted vitriol gently murmurs amidst tearoom chatter, as the neatly framed pastoral picture dissolves into a solemn ennui. Four years in the making, amidst life-changing events, including a move far out of the city, Pastoral will be the first major release by the artist since her widely acclaimed LP UNFLESH (2014, Anti-Ghost Moon Ray) and is seamlessly on-theme, together with Bernholz's J.G. Ballard-inspired A/V show 'Kingdom Come' (soundtrack released November 2017, Anti-Ghost Moon Ray) - a fascism-infused hellscape, this time set in deepest Old England. As its sole creator, Gazelle Twin 'The Composer, Musician and Producer' has crafted an album overflowing with a frenzy of traditional and contemporary musical tropes; from early music instrumentation - the harpsichord and the humble recorder, fed through myriad electronics - to the compelling, ritualistic application of found sample-looping. Beyond Bernholz's signature choral-infusions, here reverberating like a warped Sunday Service, there are even shades of '90s house and the once-thriving rural rave scene, albeit recalled as a watery, second-hand memory. In its consummation it is an album that feels pan-century, even pan-species. Set against a verdant backdrop of hedgerows and steeples, Gazelle Twin 'The Artist and Performer', constructs an eccentric and commanding visual embodiment of all-of-the-above - a costume fit for a court Jester of the 21st Century. The colours of Neo-Nationalism. Coke cans, and DANGER. 'It' (not 'she') hints at folkloric traditions with a footy mascot twist. The 'Ye Olde' and 'The Everyman' of the English cliché. Brandishing a sneer and a hobby horse. A riddle and a recorder. A jeer and a square dance in red, Adidas Gazelle's, and a mad, fixed GRIN - first glimpsed in the single, 'Hobby Horse' (22 June, Anti-Ghost Moon Ray). A deranged, absurd reflection of deranged and absurd times.

'Bound to shake your walls and rattle your windows' Max Reinhardt, BBC RADIO 3 "The first bit of evidence that Elizabeth Bernholz's next album Pastoral - due out in September - could be her best to date". THE QUIETUS "Will likely be one of the year's very best records.' CLASH 'What species is this What century' Forged in a rural idyll in Middle-England, the new album Pastoral, by Gazelle Twin, exhumes England's rotten past, and shines a torch over its ever-darkening present. Told through a troupe of multi-gender voices, in vernaculars old and new; from the shrill echo of folksong to tabloid-tinged jaunts, the artist aka Elizabeth Bernholz, presents the notion that 'there is horror in every idyll, and danger lurking beyond the 'quaint' '. The village square - once host to centuries of public torture - becomes a floral framed postcard, dolled-up for the Summer Fête. A sunny, afternoon walk over the hills unsettles a cloud of angry flies feeding from unidentifiable remains. Bigoted vitriol gently murmurs amidst tearoom chatter, as the neatly framed pastoral picture dissolves into a solemn ennui. Four years in the making, amidst life-changing events, including a move far out of the city, Pastoral will be the first major release by the artist since her widely acclaimed LP UNFLESH (2014, Anti-Ghost Moon Ray) and is seamlessly on-theme, together with Bernholz's J.G. Ballard-inspired A/V show 'Kingdom Come' (soundtrack released November 2017, Anti-Ghost Moon Ray) - a fascism-infused hellscape, this time set in deepest Old England. As its sole creator, Gazelle Twin 'The Composer, Musician and Producer' has crafted an album overflowing with a frenzy of traditional and contemporary musical tropes; from early music instrumentation - the harpsichord and the humble recorder, fed through myriad electronics - to the compelling, ritualistic application of found sample-looping. Beyond Bernholz's signature choral-infusions, here reverberating like a warped Sunday Service, there are even shades of '90s house and the once-thriving rural rave scene, albeit recalled as a watery, second-hand memory. In its consummation it is an album that feels pan-century, even pan-species. Set against a verdant backdrop of hedgerows and steeples, Gazelle Twin 'The Artist and Performer', constructs an eccentric and commanding visual embodiment of all-of-the-above - a costume fit for a court Jester of the 21st Century. The colours of Neo-Nationalism. Coke cans, and DANGER. 'It' (not 'she') hints at folkloric traditions with a footy mascot twist. The 'Ye Olde' and 'The Everyman' of the English cliché. Brandishing a sneer and a hobby horse. A riddle and a recorder. A jeer and a square dance in red, Adidas Gazelle's, and a mad, fixed GRIN - first glimpsed in the single, 'Hobby Horse' (22 June, Anti-Ghost Moon Ray). A deranged, absurd reflection of deranged and absurd times.

The Mesmerizing Second Album In The Southern Lord Trilogy From Wolves In The Throne Room.  Transcending The Limitations Of Black Metal To Be Reborn As An Entity Entirely Unto Themselves.

SEPT 2016. The Moog Sound Lab's first trip out for a live session at Café Oto's project & café rooms. Jimi Tenor, finnish futurist, shako & Warp Records confederate, jazzed, funked, far-ra'd out. Tony Allen - original drummer to Fela Kuti - Godfather of the Afro-Beat.

These two titans of the beat strange -fed & watered through the mighty Moog Sound Lab via a prototype future sound

systems drum trigger unit built & operated by UK moog minder engineer Mr Finlay Shakespeare. New sound universes emerge, collide.

Explosions & implosions make sonic debris. Cosmic dancers prepare to be run ragged by a feral 'tronic funk that brings to mind early 'D.A.F.

Adel Akram presents the 'Time and Place' EP due 10th of August on his own
'When Are We Now ' imprint, a newly launched platform for music and sonic
arts. With a background in shaping landscapes and creating permacultural
environments, Adel became a multidimensional and interdisciplinary artist
creating visuals whilst exploring waveforms and rooms. As well as providing
visuals for Herrensauna and AnnaMelina's and Varg's Flora project at atonal
Festival last year, his music appears in the upcoming movie M/M by Drew
Lint.

Now, as former founder of the Bremen based label ZCKR Records, Adel contin-
ues the idea of a label as an archive to document his surrounding and the
process of examination with different media, arts and questions about our
current position in time.

The first release excerpts entries from his personal audio log, recorded
during the last two years and reveals his keen but dreamy and vibrant access
to sound.

Depeche Mode - Speak & Spell 12" Single Box

Depeche Mode realized the format's potential and embraced the power of 12" vinyl and the avenues of innovation it opened up. The 12" single allowed the band to explore new sonic possibilities while the physical beauty of the packaging gave Depeche Mode room to develop a sophisticated and commanding visual aesthetic. Depeche Mode used their singles discography as a means of offering left field remixes and other delights for their fans.
Each box set in the series will contain the singles from each Depeche Mode album on audiophile-quality 12' vinyl, with audio remastered from the original tapes and cut at the legendary Abbey Road Studios. The artwork for the exterior of each of the new box sets draws on street art iconography inspired by the original releases, while the vinyl sleeves themselves feature the original vinyl single artwork.
Speak & Spell | The 12' Singles contains a facsimile reproduction of the rare Flexi Disc 'Sometimes I Wish I Was Dead' b/w 'King of the Flies' (the Fad Gadget track as on the original release); Dreaming Of Me 12': 'Dreaming of Me' b/w 'Ice Machine'; New Life 12': 'New Life (Remix)' b/w 'Shout! (Rio Mix)'; Just Can't Get Enough 12': 'Just Can't Get Enough (Schizo Mix)' b/w 'Any Second Now (Altered)'; original single poster reproduction; download card.











Set for release on June 23 via Asylum Records, x (multiply) is the hugely anticipated new album by Ed Sheeran.
It follows his critically acclaimed and hugely successful 2011 debut +; an album that was certified 6 times platinum in the UK alone and has achieved worldwide sales of over 4 million copies to date. It also saw Ed asthe recipient of various awards for the record, including 2 Brits, an Ivor Novello and multiple Grammy nominations.
Never an artist to stand still, Ed recorded x at various locations around the globe (all the while drawing on experiences and influences encountered on his over three years of unrelenting touring) with such luminary producers as Rick Rubin (Eminem, Jay-Z, Red Hot Chilli Peppers), Pharrell Williams (Daft Punk, Robin Thicke, N.E.R.D), Benny Blanco (Rhianna, Wiz Khalifa) and Jeff Bhasker (Alicia Keys, Jay-Z) adding new flavours to the classy work of key collaborators Johnny McDaid (Snow Patrol) and Jake Gosling (who produced +). xhas the musical ingredients to make it one of the most important global releases of this year.
The new set showcases the exponential growth (both vocally and musically) of an incredible artist, who at 23 exhibits the poise of a seasoned veteran. The songs for x came together whilst touring + and, in the same way as the latter was a snapshot of his life and relationship to-date, x charts his loves and life since. Only 'One', the perfect album opener and first song written for the record (in 2011 whilst on tour in Australia) looks back to that time and is the link between the two records. With 'One' under his belt, almost before he noticed he was writing, Ed had ten new songs and counting.
The breath-taking album-closer 'Afire Love' was written about his grandfather who passed away last Christmas. 'Always the hero of the family - such a cool guy - he'd been suffering with Alzheimer's for some time and I actually started writing that song two weeks before he passed away," Ed says. "I was thinking 'What if' and then he did...' Then there is the timeless ballad 'Photograph' written in May 2012 in a hotel room in Kansas whilst on tour with Snow Patrol. McDaid had a piano loop playing on his laptop while Ed was making a Lego X-wing Fighter to give to a charity auction. He just started singing as he put the pieces together and the song grew from there. 'Don't' started life as a riff on his phone and grew into another of x's massive moments. The deluxe version of the album also includes the original song, 'I See Fire', which Ed wrote, produced and recorded for the second Hobbit movie. This was after Academy award-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson personally commissioned him. With no promotion besides 3 tweets from his personal twitter account, it reached #2 on the UK iTunes chart.
However it's the Pharrell-produced lead single 'Sing', due out in the UK on June 1, that's pushing the envelope for Ed. #Sing was the number one trend on twitter globally ahead of launch with the track immediately tearing up airwaves nationwide including a 7-week add to Radio 1 and an unprecedented addition straight to the Super Hit list at Capital FM and Kiss Network. The audio upload on YouTube was Ed's biggest ever video launch, clocking 650k views in its first 24 hours. Already i-tunes Top 5 in 15 different countries (number 3 in the US), Top 20 in 36 countries and with all chart positions climbing, 'Sing' is well on the way to being a global smash.
On the back of 'Sing's' launch, x reached No.7 in the UK iTunes chart on pre-order alone with that success mirrored internationally with No.1 positions in the US and Canada, Top 5 in New Zealand, Sweden, Australia and Top 10 in 20 countries.
'I'm really proud of my new album and can't wait for people to hear it.' Ed says. 'It's definitely my best work.'

Look we're five records deep and yes, we aren't sure which tune is on which side... But luckily, this release is as high concept as Speed 2: Cruise Control. On one side you will find 'AD', which samples an inspiring speech given by the heroic Angela Davis at Southbank in 2017. Listen to her wisdom as you play this in your front room at 7am to people who suddenly can't quite look at their hands properly. The other side "PAS" greets you with warnings of atomic explosions over a riotous jam between a Yamaha CS-10 and a sturdy analogue 808 clone. If you have a pressing need for air raid sirens, this is for you. We hope you like this West Friends Release. There will be more..

New album from Anthony Ferraro aka Astronauts, etc, who for most of his music career, served as Toro y Moi's keyboardist, with this album 'Living In Symbol' being his debut solo record.

Sonically, the album weaves its influences into an alien drapery. 'The Border' introduces Latin psychedelia to a groove à la David Axelrod, setting the stage for a vocal performance that manages to be equal parts Lee Hazlewood and HAL 9000. On 'The Room', a Borgesian story gets dressed up in an eerily graceful string arrangement reminiscent of Les Baxter. And 'Who I Talk To' nods to George Harrison in a soft rocking arrangement that supports Ferraro's ghostly croon.
Living In Symbol Is An Ode To Ambiguity, The Future, And Saying 'so Long' To The Known. A Member Of The Last Generation To Experience Life Before Total Interconnectedness, Anthony Ferraro (digitally Known As Tony Peppers) Aims To Be A Bridge Between Two Very Different Realities.

The Spirit Of Change Is Especially Pronounced In California's Bay Area, Where Technologies Dawn And Disruption Is The Noblest Goal. Critics And Advocates Of All Stripes Write Columns And Fill Talk Radio Hours With Their Analyses Of The Times. Ferraro Is A Funny Case: A Sometimes Luddite With A Romantic Streak, He Would Probably Be A Doomsayer If It Weren't For His Being Situated In The Middle Of It All. As It Happens, He Ended Up Writing A Generative Music Algorithm That Sold On Auction At The Smithsonian For $5,000.

His Take On Tomorrow Is Nonjudgmental, Meditative, Imaginative. It Keeps Away From Unqualified Hope Or Outright Alarmism, Choosing Instead To Embrace The Indeterminacy As Food For Dreaming.

Ferraro's Friendship With Chaz Bear, Who Co-produced The Album, Began Modestly Enough: Bear Walked Into The Coffee Shop Where Ferraro Worked While Attending Uc Berkeley. The Two Became Friends, And When Ferraro Graduated The Following Summer, He Signed On As Touring Keyboardist For Toro Y Moi. Musical Bonds Were Forged Over The Next Few Years, And The Pair Began Collaborating On What Would Become Living In Symbol.

Living In Symbol Is A Series Of Rooms, A Choose-your-own-tomorrow Story. Step In And Peer Through Its Open Doors.

After arriving at the reference number 10 of their particular catalog, NX1 returns to their self-titled label starting a new series called 'Utter'. Conceived as an archive of their own material, 'Utter' will now be where many of their works came out with 4 cuts on each EP, making room for the wide range of compositions that characterizes them.

Another amazing release is delivered by the guys behind Suburban Avenue: Asymptote.

90' inspired, "Too Blind To See" is the perfect fusion between elements of the old school, and new sonorities.

A1 "Pistis" is a dark-gothic-ambient intro;
A2 "Donít Believe the Hype" is an effective, acidic, 1990's school Dj Techno tool.
A3 "Doxa"" is a driving and pulsating trip, with increasing tension.

On the B side,

both B1 "Too blind To See" and B2 "No Truth" are two fine dark and big room Techno tracks, ready for the dancefloor.

B3 'Sirens Song' is a glitched and spaced out outro.

Banoffee Pies Records drop their third Beats release 'Samba Del Sol' with Clifford Brown & Jeen Bassa Ft. Ella Mae Sueref - The album is influenced by Carnival and Latin sounds with Hip Hop drums and Soul roots - meeting in middle ground as an expression of the production duos upbringing, John's heritage in Mauritius and Cliffords childhood in South America. Partnered with Ellas Spanish language fluency and soft Badhu acclaimed voice as previously heard on the single 'Stop Rewind' credited by the like of Gilles Peterson and Mr. Scruff.

The tracks were recorded on Garageband by Clifford Brown and Jeen Bassa with 2 Karaoke Microphones, mixed in Bath and later buried on a hard drive for over 6 years never to be heard again. Sliding into the forgotten darkness of lost tracks and rediscovered in 2017. The production, originally just an instrumental, was then found and reignited, revamped with a vocal insert from the wonderful Ella Mae Sueref.

The 10 track album demonstrates a flurry of drums, latin inspired sampling, and mesmerizing vocals from start to finish. For the music and the lovers. Living room jams made in smoke. Banoffee xx
In Loving memory of Anna Sueref.

'Bugs' is AUS label owner Will Saul's first solo EP in over 4 years and follows his inaugural release on new Aus compilation series, Inside Out. Here's Will on the A side.... 'Bugs' is inspired as much by dancing at Plastic People/Co-op to the Bugz In The Attic as is it is by Carl Craig's Innerzone Orchestra track Bugs In The Bass Bin. Hopefully I bring my own twist to these key influences...... 'The Map Room' tumbles with big, swinging drums as a fervid sense of tension burns throughout before Matt Karmill takes 'Bugs' off on a linear dubbed out excursion to complete the package....

7"

Melbourne/Geelong quartet School Damage began as a bedroom recording project for Carolyn Hawkins (Chook Race, Parsnip) and Jake Robertson (Ausmuteants, Frowning Clouds etc). They released a cassette for Moontown Records in 2013, then were joined by Jeff Raty on drums and Dani 'Damage' Hakim on bass.
Taking cues from pop outfits such as The Vaselines, The Particles and Young Marble Giants, School Damage's sound is defined by wobbly keyboards, weaving bass lines, and lyrical content focused on the vagaries of modern life.
Following on from last year's excellent debut album through Chapter, School Damage return with a new EP for Upset The Rhythm titled 'Sings... Four Songs About One Cat'. As titles go this one hits it on the head, School Damage tell the tale of a very independently-minded feline that they share their life with called Lumpy (also known as Scump). As Jake from the band explains, 'Lumpy is incredibly naughty, she's not very cuddly and she definitely plays by her own rules.  The songs here are a mix about us having anxiety as pet owners - whether she'll run away, or if we're suffocating her by our constant need of attention... and also about how much she enriches our lives.'
For a cat who spends much of her time scratching up record spines, it seems fitting that Lumpy will now grace the cover and sentiment of her very own 7'. Maybe she's just been making room all this time for as many copies as possible of her hit record.

Faitiche releases the album Improvisations And Edits, Tokyo 26.09.2001 on vinyl for the first time. For the original 2002 CD on Soup-Disk and Sub Rosa (Audiosphere), Jan Jelinek and the Japanese trio Computer Soup (Satoru Hori - trumpet, Osamu Okubo - toys & electronics, Kei Ikeda - toys & electronics) presented eight tracks all recorded one afternoon in the trio's living room in Tokyo. They are excerpts from a joint group improvisation that subsequently underwent rudimentary editing, on which Jelinek and Computer Soup worked separately.

Jelinek met the three musicians at his first concert in Japan in 2001, at Tokyo's Yellow club, where Computer Soup performed as the support act. Delighted by their free improvisation on pocket-sized electronic toys, trumpet and oscillators, he arranged to meet Hori, Okubo and Ikeda a few days later for a session at their apartment. The resulting three-hour recording, made on their living room floor, formed the basis for Improvisations and Edits. A few days later, Jelinek returned to Berlin. Over the following months, they separately chose passages from the recording that were then edited and assembled into an album.

Formed in Tokyo in 1996 as a quintet (including Shusaku Hariya and Daisuke Oishi), Computer Soup began by performing with acoustic instruments on the streets of Shibuya. Ikeda und Okubo soon switched instruments, and from then on the group's minimalistic but densely woven sound was defined by electronic toys, oscillators and Satoru Hori's trumpet. Their first album was released in 1997 on the Japanese label Soup Disk. Eight further releases followed.

From the reviews of Improvisations and Edits, Tokyo 26.09.2001 in 2003:

"The mind-blowing first track Straight Life is perhaps the best example of what the album has to offer. Jelinek's trademark smears and washes occupy the midrange, like ghosted images of Joe Zawinul's electric piano floating quietly in the wind. DSP jazz modes are set against a walking bassline (possibly computer generated) and a gently tooted trumpet complete with Harmon mute, a dead ringer for Miles Davis' Prestige-era ballads. The effect is something like a three-dimensional film, with different realities on each layer, images of what jazz was manage to interact with a real-time demonstration of all it could be."
pitchfork, 2003

"Improvisations and Edits is a warm and mellow Ambient release with beautiful glitch fragments, static noise bursts and real trumpet intersections. However, there are times where it is the exact opposite, mainly effect-laden, overdriven and bouncy with a lack of melodies and focus, so be aware of these specific tracks."
ambientexotica, 2003

"Often deliciously dreamy and hazy, Improvisations and Edits is like listening to an exceptional instrumental jazz performance while half-conscious or under some sort of chemical influence. Computerised blips and bleeps, loops and treatments and murky sonic skips curl up around desolate horn notes and scattered instrumental noises that culminate in elegant music."
exclaim.ca, 2003

Limited Edition Clear Vinyl

Includes 12' Vinyl and Deluxe CD album, 30 page hard back book

Now that I've been to Nashville,' Kylie Minogue says with audible affection, I understand. It's like some sort of musical ley-line...'

Golden, Kylie's fourteenth studio album, is the result of an intensive working trip to the home of Country music, a city whose influence lingered on long after the pop legend and her team returned to London to finish the record: We definitely brought a bit of Nashville back with us,' she states. The album is a vibrant hybrid, blending Kylie's familiar pop-dance sound with an unmistakeable Tennessee twang. It was Jamie Nelson, Kylie's long-serving A&R man, who first came up with the concept of incorporating a Country element' into Kylie's tried-and-trusted style. That idea sat there for a little while, with Minogue and her team initially unsure about how to bring it to life. Then, when Grammy-winning songwriter Amy Wadge's publisher suggested Kylie should come over to collaborate in Nashville, a city Kylie had previously never visited, something clicked. You know when you're so excited about something,' she recalls, that you repeat it an octave higher and double the decibels I was like that. 'Nashville! Yes! Of course I would!'. I hoped it would help the album to reveal itself. I thought 'If I don't get it in Nashville, I'm not going to get it anywhere.''

Kylie's Nashville trip involved working alongside two key writers, both with homes in the city. One was British-born songwriter Steve McEwan (whose credits include huge Country hits for Keith Urban, Kenny Chesney and Carrie Underwood), and the other was the aforementioned Amy Wadge, another Brit (best known for her mega-selling work with Ed Sheeran). It was then a truly international project: Golden was mainly created with African-German producer Sky Adams and a list of contributors including Jesse Frasure, Eg White, Jon Green, Biff Stannard, Samuel Dixon, Danny Shah and Lindsay Rimes, and there's a duet with English singer Jack Savoretti.

However, the album's agenda-setting lead single Dancing was, significantly, first demoed with Nathan Chapman, the man who guided Taylor Swift's transition from Country starlet to Pop megastar. If anyone knows how to mix those two genres, Chapman does. Nathan was the only actual Nashvillean I worked with. He's got a huge studio in his house, which is probably due to his success with Taylor... there's plenty of platinum discs of her, and others on his walls.' There's something of the spirit of Peggy Lee's Is That All There Is, of Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, even of Liza Minnelli's Cabaret about Dancing, a song which not only opens the album but sets out its stall, providing a microcosm of what is to come. You've got the lyrical edge, that Country feel, mixed with some sampling of the voice and electronic elements, so it does what it says on the label. And I love that it's called 'Dancing', it's immediately accessible and seemingly so obvious, but there's depth within the song.'

The experience of simply being in Nashville was an overwhelming one, before Kylie had even arrived. Once I knew I was going to Nashville, people talked about the place with such enthusiasm. They said without doubt I would love it and, I would come back with songs. They were sending lists of restaurants, coffee shops and bars. It really was a beautiful and genuine response and it felt like I was about to have a life changing experience and in a way, I did.' The reality came as something of a surprise, when she found a far more modern metropolis than the vintage one she'd envisaged. I thought it would be like New Orleans: little houses and bars, with music spilling out onto the street. It reminded me more of Melbourne: apartment blocks going up everywhere! The main strip, Broadway, where the honky tonk bars are, that's where the street was filled with music and it was just amazing.' Mainly, Minogue remembers the heat and humidity. It was 100 degrees. It was like it was raining with no rain.' She also relished the chance to wander around unrecognised, visit a few venerable music bars and soak in the atmosphere. I didn't get to the Grand Ole Opry or the music museums but I managed to go to a couple of the institutions there like The Bluebird Cafe and The Listening Room, and just by being there, through some kind of osmosis, you get this rejuvenated respect for The Song, and the writing of The Song. There's no hoo-hah around it. There's a singer-songwriter there, talking about the song and singing the song, to an audience who are there to listen. Although, I have to confess I was guilty of starting to clap too soon during a long pause at the end of one of the songs. The guy made a bit of a joke out of it and got a laugh from it, but I thought 'Of all people in the audience, no...''

It's probably no coincidence, therefore, that every track on Golden is a Kylie co-write, making it arguably her most personal album to date. The end of 2016 was not a good time for me,' she says, referring to well-documented personal upheavals, so when I started working on the album in 2017, it was, in many ways, a great escape. Making this album was a kind of saviour. I'd been through some turmoil and was quite fragile when I started work on it, but being able to express myself in the studio made quick work of regaining my sense of self. Writing about various aspects of my life, the highs and lows, with a real sense of knowing and of truth. And irony. And joy!'

The songwriting process allowed Kylie to get a few things out of her system. Initially, she admits, it was cathartic, but it also wasn't very good. I think I was writing too literally. But I reached a point where I was writing about the bigger-picture, and that was a breakthrough. It made way for songs like Stop Me From Falling and One Last Kiss. It also meant I had enough distance to write an autobiographical song, like A Lifetime To Repair, with a certain amount of humour. The countdown in that song: 'Six-five-four-three, too many times...'. I don't know if that will be a single, but I can just imagine a girl with framed pictures of past boyfriends, and kind of going 'Oh god, when am I going to get this right'' When she listens back to Golden, Kylie can vividly hear the Nashville in it. It is, she'll agree, probably the first time that a Kylie album has sounded like the place it was made. You wouldn't normally relate my songs to the cities. Can't Get You Out Of My Head sounds more like Outer Space than London. But Shelby '68, for example, was written in London but it was done with Nashville in mind. It's about my Dad's car, and my brother recorded Dad driving it! I don't think I'd have written a number of the songs, including Shelby '68 and Radio On without having had that Nashville experience.'

The latter, she says, is about music being the one to save you.' Throwing herself into the making of the record, she says, crystallised that idea. If there's one love that will always be there for you, it's music. Well, it is for me, anyway.' That song, in particular, carries nostalgic echoes of the golden age of Country, as heard through Medium Wave transistors and tinny home stereos in the distant past. Like any child of the Seventies, Kylie had a basic grounding in Country music, mainly absorbed from older family members. My Step-Grandfather was born in Kentucky and though he lived most of his adult life in Australia, he never stopped listening to his beloved Country artists.' If there's any classic Country singer whose imprint can be heard on Golden, it's Dolly Parton.

Kylie saw Dolly live for the first time at the end of 2016, at the Hollywood Bowl. It was like seeing the light,' she beams. It was incredible. Everyone, whether they know it or not, is a Dolly Parton fan. When I was in Nashville, I did pick up a T-shirt that said 'What Would Dolly Do' Maybe that should be my mantra.' And, whether consciously or otherwise, there's a timbre and trill to Kylie's vocals on Radio On that is distinctly Parton-esque. My delivery is quite different on this album,' she says. A lot of things are 'sung' less. The first time I did that was with Where The Wild Roses Grow. On the day I met Nick Cave, when I recorded my vocals, he said 'Just sing it less. Talk it through, tell the story.' This album wasn't quite to that extreme, but a lot of the songs were done in fewer takes, to just capture the moment and keep imperfections that add to the song. I remember on my last album, a lot of producers were trying to take out literally every vibrato they heard. And that's not natural to my voice. I mean, I can make myself sound like a robot, but it's nice to sound like a human!' Working within the Country genre also gave Kylie permission to write in the Nashville vernacular. Because we were going there, I wasn't afraid to have lines like 'When he's fallen off the wagon we'd still dance to our favourite slow song', 'Ten sheets to the wind, I was all confused', 'I'll take the ride if it's your rodeo'. The challenge of bringing a Country element to the album made the process feel very fresh to me, kind of like starting over. I started to look at writing a different way, singing a different way.'

If ever Kylie lost confidence in the Country-Pop concept, and found herself pondering This is great, but back in the real world - my real world - how will this work', Jamie Nelson was there to badger her into sticking to the path. We found a way to make it a hybrid with what we'll call my 'usual' sound. It had to stay 'pop' enough to stay authentic to me, but country enough to be a new sound for this album. The closer we zoomed in, and the more we honed it, I knew Jamie was right. We sacrificed good songs that weren't right for this album, because we wanted it to be as cohesive as possible. The songs that were hitting the mark were these ones, so we decided to be strong, and that's how we wrapped up the album. What he said, that stuck with me, was that 'I'd hate to get to the end of this and really wish we'd gone for it.'' Having worked with Kylie for so long, Nelson was able to put this latest shift of direction into perspective. He said 'You've traditionally done it throughout your career. You had your PWL time, then you did a complete turn when you went to deConstruction, then another complete turn with Spinning Around, and R&B dance-pop, and then another turn with Can't Get You Out Of My Head, icy synth-pop, and this is another one.' He was right. It felt like the right time to have a change sonically. New label, new stories to tell, and a new decade almost upon me.'

Kylie Minogue will, it's scarcely believable, turn 50 this year. This looming milestone is partly behind the album's title, and title track. I had this line that I wanted to use: 'We're not young, we're not old, we're golden' because I'm asked so often about being my age in this industry. This year, I'll be 50. And I get it, I get the interest, but I don't know how to answer it. And that line, for my personal satisfaction, says it as succinctly as possible. We can't be anyone else, we can't be younger or older than we are, we can only be ourselves. We're golden. And the album title, Golden, reflects all of this. I liked the idea of everyone being golden, shining in their own way. The sun shines in daylight, the moon shines in darkness. Wherever we are in life, we are still golden.' One of the album's shiniest moments is Raining Glitter, an exuberant banger which ventures closest to Kylie's traditional dance-pop comfort zone. Eg White, who is one of the producers and writers and a great character, was talking about disco one day. I said 'I love disco, but you know the brief.' We needed to be going down the Country lane, so to speak. But we managed to bring them both together. When I wrote it, I was thinking about the Jacksons video for Can You Feel It where they're sprinkling glitter over everyone. And I think there's a Donna Summer record that's got that feel to it. I think that's my job: I basically leave a trail of glitter after every show I do anyway.'

Kylie is looking forward to the challenge of incorporating the Golden material into her live shows. Mixing these songs in with my existing catalogue is going to be fun. And it could be fun to do some of those songs with just a guitar. It'll make my acoustic set interesting...'Her incredibly loyal fans - to whom one Golden song, Sincerely Yours, is intended as a love letter' - will, she believes, have no problem with her latest stylistic shift. My audience have been with me on the journey, so I shouldn't be afraid that they won't come with me on this part. I've had fun with it, and I'm sure they will too.'

The time spent making Golden has, Kylie says, been a time of creative and personal renewal. I've met some amazing people, truly inspiring writers and musicians. My passion for music has never gone away, but it's got bigger and stronger.' And if there's an overriding theme to the record, it is one of acceptance. We're all human and it's OK to make mistakes, get it wrong, to want to run, to want to belong, to love, to dream. To be ourselves.'

I was able to both lose and find myself whilst making this album.'

8* Following recent excursions channeling the big room sound, Project Pablo returns with a sleeker, more refined EP for Technicolour.The resulting five tracks span upbeat opener 'Napoletana' - a rough and ready duet between a MFB 522 drum machine and Juno 106', through the swirling improvised piano loops of 'Last Day' - recorded in an hour just before he packed up his gear at the studio of fellow Montreal residents Braids and moved it all home, to the bumpy 2-step of 'Less and Less'. The Canadian producer has had a stream of quality releases via labels such as Clone's Royal Oak imprint, Spring Theory, Lone's Magicwire and most recently Ninja Tune's Technicolour imprint.