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Homer Steinweiss has an incredibly storied career in music that started when he was just a teenager. He's drummed for nearly every "retro soul" group that mattered and his distinctive stickwork helped blend the raw-but-receptive soul sound back into the mainstream via the likes of Amy Winehouse & Sharon Jones. He's now one of the most in demand drummers in the world, playing with Jonas Brothers, Clairo, Solange, Adele, and Bruno Mars to name a few. With his debut solo release Ensatina, Homer is stepping to the forefront as both musician and producer. His new record is a re­ection of who he is now and a testament to how struggle often brings about a needed change. In 2020 Homer had to reckon with considerable emotional turbulence; at the same time that his band Holy Hive broke up, a personal relationship of 20+ years fell apart putting Homer in an uncertain place mentally. The fallout was signi‑cant enough for him to seek professional help. "I was going through these super manic highs and then very depressive lows," Homer describes. "And being in all that, it's just so tough to imagine that the other side is there, that it'll be ok." But, with time, professional help, and support from friends and family, Homer made it through and has been forever changed. This album is a product of that period of his life. The ‑rst song from these sessions, "Now That It's Over" perfectly sums up Homer's triumph through those tough times. It's a song of changing perspective and contemplation with haunting vocals from Hether and Flikka. "Paul (Castelluzzo_ aka, Hether), as a friend, saw me through these highs and lows," Homer points out. "I only had the one line, 'Now that it's over, I'm alright,' but he felt that lyric so much that he wrote all these sections and lyrics and basically completed the song. It was like he was writing to me." Hether also features on album standouts "Deep Sea", a modern love song, "Start Select", a juxtaposition of inspiration and melancholy, and "Forever and Ever and Ever and Ever" which is an incredible contemporary take on the B side soul ballad. Homer uses his innate gift for bringing seemingly opposing energies together on "Racecar Driver", pairing the vocals of Hether & long time friend and collaborator KIRBY to make a genre challenging banger. KIRBY also graces the album opener "Rollin'", an airy, warm-weather invoking song that her raspy voice perfectly compliments. He puts his drumming front and center on "So Get Up!", a bottom heavy infectious track that MINOVA's vocals turn into an instant hit that is sure to smash speakers. On "Wishing Well" & "Hide It Behind the Light I'm Shining Through" Homer is joined by girl named GOLDEN, who's unique voice effortlessly ‑nds the pocket in each tune. The man on trumpet, and fellow Big Crown label mate Dave Guy, puts his incomparable playing on the album closer "Goldie" which Homer says is the part of the movie where the credits roll. Making this album was a refuge for Homer and it put him back on track. Ensatina is a glimpse into the different energies and in­uences that make Homer tick. To say he was always much more than a drummer would be an understatement, and this ‑rst solo offering is just the beginning of his next chapter.

Homer Steinweiss has an incredibly storied career in music that started when he was just a teenager. He's drummed for nearly every "retro soul" group that mattered and his distinctive stickwork helped blend the raw-but-receptive soul sound back into the mainstream via the likes of Amy Winehouse & Sharon Jones. He's now one of the most in demand drummers in the world, playing with Jonas Brothers, Clairo, Solange, Adele, and Bruno Mars to name a few. With his debut solo release Ensatina, Homer is stepping to the forefront as both musician and producer. His new record is a re­ection of who he is now and a testament to how struggle often brings about a needed change. In 2020 Homer had to reckon with considerable emotional turbulence; at the same time that his band Holy Hive broke up, a personal relationship of 20+ years fell apart putting Homer in an uncertain place mentally. The fallout was signi‑cant enough for him to seek professional help. "I was going through these super manic highs and then very depressive lows," Homer describes. "And being in all that, it's just so tough to imagine that the other side is there, that it'll be ok." But, with time, professional help, and support from friends and family, Homer made it through and has been forever changed. This album is a product of that period of his life. The ‑rst song from these sessions, "Now That It's Over" perfectly sums up Homer's triumph through those tough times. It's a song of changing perspective and contemplation with haunting vocals from Hether and Flikka. "Paul (Castelluzzo_ aka, Hether), as a friend, saw me through these highs and lows," Homer points out. "I only had the one line, 'Now that it's over, I'm alright,' but he felt that lyric so much that he wrote all these sections and lyrics and basically completed the song. It was like he was writing to me." Hether also features on album standouts "Deep Sea", a modern love song, "Start Select", a juxtaposition of inspiration and melancholy, and "Forever and Ever and Ever and Ever" which is an incredible contemporary take on the B side soul ballad. Homer uses his innate gift for bringing seemingly opposing energies together on "Racecar Driver", pairing the vocals of Hether & long time friend and collaborator KIRBY to make a genre challenging banger. KIRBY also graces the album opener "Rollin'", an airy, warm-weather invoking song that her raspy voice perfectly compliments. He puts his drumming front and center on "So Get Up!", a bottom heavy infectious track that MINOVA's vocals turn into an instant hit that is sure to smash speakers. On "Wishing Well" & "Hide It Behind the Light I'm Shining Through" Homer is joined by girl named GOLDEN, who's unique voice effortlessly ‑nds the pocket in each tune. The man on trumpet, and fellow Big Crown label mate Dave Guy, puts his incomparable playing on the album closer "Goldie" which Homer says is the part of the movie where the credits roll. Making this album was a refuge for Homer and it put him back on track. Ensatina is a glimpse into the different energies and in­uences that make Homer tick. To say he was always much more than a drummer would be an understatement, and this ‑rst solo offering is just the beginning of his next chapter.

Sechzehn Jahre sind zwar vergangen, seit Isaac Hayes im Alter von nur 65 Jahren viel zu früh verstarb, aber er bleibt einer der beliebtesten und kultigsten Singer/Songwriter/Arrangeure in der Geschichte der Soul-Musik. Die Alben, die Hayes für Stax' Enterprise-Label produzierte, bleiben der Maßstab in Sachen "Symphonic Soul" und klingen auch heute noch genauso atemberaubend brillant wie damals, als sie neu veröffentlicht wurden. Hayes gehörte nicht nur zu einer kleinen Gruppe von Künstlern, die das Wachstum des Soul-Album-Marktes ('Hot Buttered Soul') vorangetrieben haben, sondern war auch ein durchweg erfolgreicher Single-Künstler, der zwischen 1969 und 1976 sechzehn aufeinanderfolgende Singles in den R&B-Charts platzierte - die meisten davon schafften es auch in die Pop-Szene. Die größten Hits wurden bereits früher in Anthologien zusammengestellt, aber 'Hot Buttered Singles' ist die Compilation, die die A- und B-Seiten aller 45er von Hayes aus der "Yellow Stax"-Ära in chronologischer Reihenfolge und in ihren Original-Singleversionen präsentiert. Einige davon sind zuvor noch nie auf CD erschienen. Viele dieser famosen Soul-Tracks gehören zu seinen beliebtesten Aufnahmen, die auch das Soul- und Pop-Radio revolutionierten, darunter das mit Wah-Wah-Intro befeuerte 'Theme From Shaft', 'The Look Of Love', 'Never Can Say Goodbye', 'Walk On By' oder 'By The Time I Get To Phoenix' aus der Feder von Jimmy Webb.
Ausführlich kommentiert und schön illustriert im Booklet und auf CD sowie Doppelvinyl erhältlich!
Die Fortsetzung der Isaac Hayes' Single-Geschichte bis 1977 mit allen frühen Singles auf Ikes eigenem HBS-Label erscheint 2025.

"Join the Kyle Shepherd Trio on 'A Song More Sweetly Played' as they explore, collaborate and improvise on the ‘songs we like to play’. The album’s title is a dedication to the celebrated South African artist William Kentridge, with whom Shepherd collaborated on a joint-work “Waiting for Sybil” that has toured world-wide. In addition to ten Shepherd originals, perhaps most unexpected is the inclusion of an exquisite reading of Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrop’ and a deconstructed take of Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believing’, a favourite rock anthem that Shepherd describes as a ‘guilty pleasure’.

‘The inclusion of the Massive Attack and Journey tunes – that’s something out of character to me,’
observes Shepherd. The selection rests well within the grand jazz tradition of repurposing popular songs as vehicles for improvisation, thought, and pleasure. ‘It just came down to playing some tunes that we like and we can flow with, so that we can be inspired and express ourselves in a very natural organic way,’ he says. ‘We walked away from the from the studio feeling like – you know, we actually really enjoyed playing this record! I felt less attached to any sort of predetermined concepts except that we would play some music that I wrote that we like – a selection of things that we like to play. It felt like a bit of a tonic – every musician gets a chance to breathe through the music, and the music just flows and moves as organically as we could make it.’

To hear one of South Africa’s foremost pianists play with intention, freedom and enjoyment, in the tradition and beyond it, is above all a gift to the listener, and Matsuli Music is proud to be able to share the Trio’s first album in a decade, A Dance More Sweetly Played.

Kyle Shepherd is one of South Africa’s leading jazz, film and theatre music composers and pianists of his generation, internationally recognised for his distinctive compositional style and performances. He was the Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year for Jazz in 2014 and the UNISA piano competition winner in 2019, and has performed in 28 countries around the world, including 11 concert tours to Japan."

The Kyle Shepherd Trio: Kyle Shepherd (Piano), Shane Cooper (Double Bass) and Jonno Sweetman (Drums).
All Compositions by Kyle Shepherd except “Teardrop” by Massive Attack and “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey.
Recorded May 2024 at Sunset Studios, Cape Town
Recording Engineer - Jürgen von Wechmar
Mixed by Martin Ruch.
Mastering by Frank Merritt.
Artwork and Design by English Designed and produced with support from the Baxter Theatre, Cape Town.

Ava Mendoza has never made an album quite as personal as her second solo full-length, The Circular Train. Through her decades of collaborations with Nels Cline, Carla Bozulich, William Parker, Fred Frith, Matana Roberts, and Mick Barr—plus years leading her power trio Unnatural Ways and playing in Bill Orcutt’s quartet—the guitarist’s name has become synonymous with virtuoso technique, raw passion, and visceral resonance, a player pushing the edges of the guitar’s possibilities. Along the way, from 2007 to 2023, Mendoza was writing these slow-burning, incandescent songs. The Circular Train is comprised solely of her single-tracked guitar playing and, on two songs, her corporeal singing. Her first solo LP of original material since relocating from California to New York City a decade ago, much of The Circular Train was honed amid pandemic years that clarified the virtues of slowing down. This expressive avant-rock is a definitive introduction to one of the most uncompromising and inquisitive visions in creative music. Mendoza’s thrilling melange of free jazz, blues, noise, classical training, and blazing experimental rock’n’roll all coheres with ecstatic feedback, with picking and solos that crest with shimmer. Sometimes she sounds like a one-woman Sonic Youth with guttural and poised vocals that equally evoke Patti Smith and blues greats like Jessie Mae Hemphill. Conceptually, The Circular Train is presented as a psychogeographical train ride through certain of Mendoza’s musical homelands. The songs draw on ancestral and recent familial memories, notably of her parents’ roots in mining towns—in her father’s home country of Bolivia and mother’s hometown of Butte, Montana, each country with its own history of colonialism, racism, forced labor, the eradication of culture and the subsequent excavation of it. These adventurous songs were composed in cars and planes, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, in Los Angeles and upstate New York—which is to say in motion. “Ride to Cerro Rico,” named for the mountain and silver mine at the center of Potosi, Bolivia, was inspired by Mendoza’s great grandmother’s life there in a Quechua mining family. “Dust From the Mines” drew from that history as well as Mendoza’s familial lineage of miners in Montana, building up to stunning swaths of shredded iridescence. “Pink River Dolphins” was inspired by a visit to the Amazon rainforest, swimming with dolphins alongside her father—the pink bufeos that inhabit both Bolivia and Columbia—and the song is dedicated to the memory of Mendoza’s late friend, the Colombian-American trumpeter jaimie branch. They shared a fascination with those intelligent and agile creatures who often communicate by echolocation. “Make a sound, it comes back around,” Mendoza sings, and later, “Echo, echo/The answer in a sound,” evoking what branch knew well: through music we navigate life. The Circular Train contains one cover, “Irene, Goodnight,” composed by Gussie Lord Davis and popularized by Leadbelly; Mendoza has been performing it for over 20 years. Almost as deeply embedded in her repertoire is the penultimate track, “The Shadow Song.” “Treat your shadow kind and it might treat you good,” Mendoza sings on this song that she’s been reworking for over a decade, an emblem of devotion. “Treat your shadow kind and it might treat you right,” she repeats, becoming a blues mantra. What is a shadow self if not one’s secret world, which, once laid bare, awaits an echo, a return?

2024 repress


The immobile odyssey. For a long time before the success of Nôze led him to discover the rest of the world, Ezechiel Pailhès remained a prophet in: his country. For a long time as well, he worked on creating what became his first solo album, waiting for the right moment when he could no longer contain all the melodies that populate this 14-leg epic. A voyage in a free world, where creation knows no formal constraints, where everything mutates according to the determined inspiration of the moment. Transforming the original pieces without knowing in advance how they will end up, disguising the instruments so that they are mistaken for others, nothing frightens this intrepid sailor whose ship is nevertheless securely moored at home, Ezechiel composes and plays at home in Paris. Sole master on board, the tinkerer illusionist prepares his piano with mechanic's tools (scotch tape, rubber, percussion, wooden claves adrift over the strings), obtaining instruments that do not sound where we expect them. This adventure is, he says, a fiction he wants to believe in.The result is equal to the creator and his character.14 captivating melodies like siren songs, sometimes dressed in a simple lala or lyrics by David Lafore, 14 ports of call offering a sweetness that is at times extremely melancholy, 14 pieces whose implacable refrains take root the first time you listen to them.

Detroit native Jackie Wilson aka "Mr. Excitement," left jump blues and R&B group The Dominoes in 1957 to pursue a solo career. The following year he released this, his debut LP, a rollicking collection of orchestrated pop R&B of the highest caliber. Including the hit "Reet Petite," half the songs on this LP were written by Berry Gordy, Jr. nearly two years before he founded Motown, which was partially funded by songwriting royalties Gordy earned writing hits for Wilson. A fine debut from one of the great soul and R&B singers of the late '50s/early '60s, a man who counted among his fans and followers no less than James Brown, Michael Jackson, and The King himself, Elvis Presley.

‘BRAT’, Charli XCX’s sixth studio album, will be released on Friday 7th June and is available for pre-order now on Vinyl and CD with the full tracklist available.

‘BRAT’ is the eagerly awaited follow up to 2022’s ‘CRASH’, which reached number 1 on the UK’s official album chart, and promises to be an exhilarating club record built around high art references and social commentary.

Avant-pop and electronic superstar Charli XCX has become an iconic figure in the arts, having

helped expand the landscape of popular music over the last decade by seamlessly traversing the underground and mainstream with her artistic output. Over the course of a trailblazing career, the multi-hyphenate creative has earned critical acclaim for her innovative style and

entrepreneurial spirit and seen her forward-thinking approach reshape pop culture in the process.

Her lasting impact was cemented last year when Charli was honoured with the Visionary Award at the annual Ivor Novellos in London, while she also received the Powerhouse Award at Billboard’s Women In Music ceremony in Los Angeles in March.

Liquor Talkin’ is the debut studio album from Texas-based country artist Don Louis. Born in Irving and raised on a 12-acre farm in Commerce, Texas, Don Louis learned the meaning of work early on. He grew up tending to livestock, singing along to George Strait and Al Green, and playing football. Done was an All-District defensive end for Commerce High School and played on scholarship at Ouachita Baptist and Southern Arkansas. He performed well at NFL combines, but an injury in 2020 changed everything and Don son found himself chasing his other childhood dream - being a professional singer. Don’s mix of Country, Rock, and Rhythm and Blues has been winning over loyal fans from the start. He’s shared the stage with acts such as Dylan Wheeler, and Don’s personality and gritty voice have also earned him a healthy following on Spotify and social media. Ask Don how he’s doing and he’ll often reply, "I'm blessed and highly favored!” That attitude says it all.

Esteemed US musician Mike Viola is bringing his new album Rock Of Boston to our shores with a handful of shows in November, forming a special pick-up band with members of The Zutons and The La’s for the tour. Mike Viola is a producer, musician, songwriter and singer best known for his work with Panic! at the Disco, Andrew Bird, Dawes, Ryan Adams and Jenny Lewis. However his solo career stands on its own, starting with a number of acclaimed records as the leader of New York based cult favourite Candy Butchers and 8 critically adored solo records. His original music has been featured on soundtracks for movies such as That Thing You Do!, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Get Him to the Greek. Rock Of Boston was recorded over the winter of 2023 on 8 track ½” tape at Barebones, Viola’s home studio in Los Angeles. Once again joined by his friends Jake Sinclair (Weezer, Sia, Panic! at the Disco) on bass and Brendon Urie (Panic! At The Disco) on drums. For UK shows Mike has roped in Sean Payne (The Zutons) and Jay Lewis (The La's, Cast) to join Jake Sinclair and himself on the road. Viola says, “I’m always writing songs, or pieces of songs, or riffs. My writing process changes every song, so I never get trapped in a method. I let the song lead me. While I was on a world tour playing guitar for Panic at The Disco, I wrote the bulk of this record on the bus between soundcheck and showtime. On the days off, I’d find a recording studio wherever we were and I’d book studio time to sneak away to lay down a few ideas. When the tour finished, Jake and Brendon came home to LA and we never stopped playing music together. We just switched from touring with Panic! to recording Rock Of Boston pretty seamlessly without a break. Maybe that’s why the riffs seem bigger on this record, we had spent all those months in hockey arenas around the world playing big music.”

“Bull” marks the sound of a band hitting its stride. We were tight from regular touring and sitting on improved confidence from the experience. Two songwriters with a foothold on and a clearer vision of who they were as blooming writers. The band was able to harness all of the hope and promise into a clear leap forward artistically and sonically.

Crypt of the Wizard is proud to present With Hope or Without, a new mini-LP from Riders of Rohan, available now on vinyl and digital formats.

The singing Rohirrim hath returned on their continued quest through the nooks and crannies of Middle Earth to tell more tales of love, longing and derring-do. This time our heroes even hark back to an era far beyond the Third Age and the War of the Ring on occasion, delving into territory lesser known to the fairweather Tolkienistas. That is not to say we won’t run into some friendly faces. Indeed one familiar friend is well-met wandering free out on the borderlands in Ranger Song yearning for yesteryear, and for lost love with a great destiny ahead of him.

Re-mastered from the original Mono Master Tapes. Limited repress 1000 copies.

180 gr vinyl pressed by Pallas in Germany.

Deluxe high-gloss flipback album jacket.

Essay written by Brian Priestley.

Double insert using an original photo by JP Leloir from the concert.

Artwork by Jean-Louis Duralek.

Each record has been visually checked to prevent defects.

A never-before released Art Blakey 1965 live recordings.

First official release with the full permission and cooperation of the Art Blakey Estate & INA (Institut National de l’Audiovisuel).

Art Blakey, Live in ’65 boasts an exceptional one-hour concert from Paris in 1965. This performance showcases one of the few undocumented Blakey bands, the New Jazzmen, featuring Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Jaki Byard on piano, Reggie Workman on bass, Nathan Davis on sax, and, of course, Blakey on drums.
Freddie Hubbard’s incendiary playing on “Blue Moon” and the blistering 24-minute version of his own “Crisis” shows that he was one of the most innovative trumpeters in jazz history.

On this live session, the audiences seem to have been enthusiastic and appreciative. “Everywhere we’d go people would say, This is the best Jazz Messengers we’ve heard!”, according to Davis. “And because of the way Jaki would play and Reggie would go, it was like a semi-freedom thing – with Messengers heads, you know, but when we got to soloing…! And Blakey was ridin’ and floatin’ the time…but he would always be loose enough to follow, to keep it going. He’s one helluva musician.”

Recorded at Palais de la Mutualité, Paris, France, November 3, 1965.

Freddie Hubbard (Trumpet)
Nathan Davis (Tenor saxophone)
Jacki Byard (Piano)
Reggie Workman (Bass)
Art Blakey (Drums)

12” paddling pool blue vinyl, is an edition of 500. CD Digifile. Following the runaway success of their critically acclaimed 2021 second album Contender, the question for fast-rising London four-piece Fightmilk was always going to be “what next?” With a tight indie-pop sound that defined their early recordings, the answer was obvious to a band who seem hellbent on the notion of evolve or die… The band originally formed in 2015 in a Brixton pub garden by Lily and Alex, who had both, separately, just been dumped and thought being in an angry punk band would cheer them up. Then they found Nick and Healey to hold the rhythm down and make them sound good. With three albums under their belt, they’ve perfected their chaotic, melodic brand of joy and rage-filled pop with full-throated yelling and sparkling guitar riffs as their trademark. They’ve graduated from angsty whippersnappers in their mid-twenties to overgrown teenage 30-somethings with mild ongoing back and shoulder pain. Their previous 2 albums Not With That Attitude (2018) & Contender (2021) marked them out as an ambitious and rising prospect, and now on their forthcoming new album No Souvenirs the band eschew their former Britpop ties and edge further into DIY punk and heavier rock influences to reveal a leaner, meaner, more abrasive side to their cathartic lo-fi anthems. Whilst collectively diving into their passion for Jimmy Eat World, frontwoman Lily Rae made a conscious decision to strengthen her “big loud yell” with influence from Alicia Bognanno (Bully), Nat Foster (Press Club), and Missy Dabice (Mannequin Pussy). “My voice is the biggest it’s ever been and I’m constantly thrilled when people are surprised at how loud I am, considering I’m so small in stature,” she grins. “Lyrically I always look to Bruce Springsteen for inspiration but I also really enjoyed the angsty candour of Sour by Olivia Rodrigo, and Kacey Musgraves’ impeccable one-liners.” There are a few genre experiments on the record—Yo La Tengo in ‘Paddling Pool’, ‘Canines’ is part The Strokes and part Neu!, and ‘Back From Tour’ was heavily influenced by long term friends Johnny Foreigner. “You could probably make a case for ‘Inferno’ having a bit of Counting Crows to it, but we were never writing to emulate,” explains guitarist Alex. “The references and touchstones just happened along the way. As far as we’re concerned, they just sound like Fightmilk - and that’s a really nice place to be nearly a decade in.” “That said, we’ve also been REALLY picky with the songs that made it onto the album - there’s probably an-other album’s worth of songs that didn’t feel right, even if we loved them. We got really good at finding the “magic thing” in each song that made it work.” Spilling over with candid lyrics about death, doomed love, and dog bites, framed by endless punk energy and the kind of full-throated riff-rock that sounds just at home in a giant stadium as it does in a sticky-floored toilet bar, No Souvenirs is a triumphant return from the band, who are equally enthused by the album. “I only realised after we put the songs together how personal to me this album was,” explains Lily. “Not just because I’m writing about extremely specific sitcom episodes in my life (getting fired from bridesmaid duty, being bitten on the arse by a dog, being relentlessly asked when I’m going to have kids), but because whilst we were making it, I turned 30. It’s a significant age for women, especially in music, because aside from being something called a ‘geriatric millennial’, there’s an unspoken rule that there’s a cut-off point for you to have ‘made it’ and after that you have to settle down and be normal.” For Lily, writing for the album also aligned with the 10th anniversary of the death of a close friend, with the resulting track ‘No Souvenirs’ lending its title to the album as a whole. “It had taken me that long to write about it in a way I felt ok with. But I realised that I couldn’t have written it before,” she explains. “I needed that distance, and that maturity, to be able to articulate those feelings. It feels to me now like the album is about scorched earth, moving on, taking nothing with you for the next ‘thing’ - and realising that getting older is a privilege.” Bringing a huge amount of energy and joy with them whenever and wherever they hit a stage, interacting with the audience is a vital part of the Fightmilk live experience. “Without people singing and dancing at us we wouldn’t have gigs at all, so we want everyone to get involved!” says Lily of the band’s future tour plans

Disrupt Records makes its return to the Jungle world with the first of several releases planned for 2023. Kicking off the new year is a killer 4 track EP from Lithuania's hardware don: IJO!

IJO AKA 300 degrees is a veteran producer who's musical output has spanned broadly across the electronic spectrum over the last 30 years. In recent times he has concentrated on the sounds that he says changed his life in the mid 90's: Hardcore Jungle - made the old school way using analogue hardware equipment!

With releases on Amenology and Straight Up Breakbeat he has already began to make waves in the scene. This EP is created using his trusty Akai S1000 sampler and cements his status as one of the producers to watch in 2023, bringing you two tracks of lo fi modern Jungle filled with chopped up breakbeats, effects manipulation, haunting melodies and atmospheric vocal samples.

This release is in true Disrupt style backed with remixes from two certified OG's and absolute legends of the modern Jungle movement.

First up is one of Jungle's pioneers - Equinox! His label Scientific Wax has become the benchmark for hard edge drum work and beat manipulation. Equinox brings us a remix that might surprise a few in its subtlety, starting of on a mellow tip it grows into a monster, full of the intricate drum edits and breakbeat destruction we expect, a beautiful melody and hard hitting beats.

On the flipside we have the Lo Fi don and Green Bay Wax head honcho - Kid Lib! Bringing the fire with an absolute banger featuring dancefloor destroying amens juxtaposed with lush pads, perfectly crafted breakdowns and killer drops.

Recital presents a newly unearthed recording of an interview between Sun Ra and composer Charlie Morrow recorded at his New York studio in 1989. This voice-only recording develops more like a kaleidoscopic sermon than any standard interview.

Charlie Morrow recalls:
My 1989 Summer Solstice Celebration featured Sun Ra and his Arkestra. On March 29, 1989, ahead of this historical performance, Sun Ra came to New York to plan the performance and do an interview with me in the Charles Morrow Associates studio. There were members of the Sun Ra Arkestra, some of my team, and a photographer present. Once in the sound studio, Sun Ra wanted to record the discussion. What he says is so much more than anyone expected. I pushed record on the tape recorder, which quietly took it all in.

What Sun Ra recorded is a breathtaking expression of his feelings and strong convictions, illustrated with personal memories and stories. My few questions to him about the upcoming Solstice and about the sun and his thoughts about a dawn event triggered his mind. He launched into a nonstop journey of ricocheting stories and concepts, climaxing when I started jamming with Sun Ra on conch horn. Our duo drives to a climactic peak with explosive conch breath sounds giving line-by-line affirmations to Sun Ra’s points.

The 1989 Summer Solstice event brought together Sun Ra and his constellation of musicians and fans with my large-scale gatherings and work with the New Wilderness Foundation. Here in 2023 and beyond, the events live again. Sean McCann of Recital was drawn to Sun Ra’s words, which inspired the production of this edition. Sun Ra’s words seem to have an even greater resonance in present time. Ra is calling out the turbulence of the bad actions of the righteous and the good actions that an evil man, as he dubs himself, can perform, all the time believing that music has the possibility to bring all humans to a better place.

Charlie Morrow, 2023 / Helsinki, Finland

One-time pressing of 425 copies, includes 12-page booklet with rare photos and full transcription of interview, 24”x18” poster of Sun Ra 1989 Solstice performance photograph

The wait is over! Delgado, the ten-track collaboration album by Flee Lord & Roc Marciano is now available on vinyl with bonus tracks from the delxue digital version! Originally released in August of 2021, Delgado was produced entirely by Roc Marciano, with the veteran artist / producer providing a blend of versatile beats for the Lord Mobb General to spit his patented street raps over. With features from long time collaborators such as Conway the Machine, Ransom, Stove God Cooks and DJ Boogieman, Delgado received both commercial and critical acclaim and now this fan favorite is available on wax! HotNewHipHop had this to say about the album: “On this one, Flee is in absolute beast mode, bodying each instrumental that Marci serves up with fire and fury. At this point, it’s going to be hard to deny Flee a spot at the best current lyricist table, especially after he delivers inspired performances on ‘This What Ya Want?’ and the minimalist ‘First Kill’.”

Belén Natalí, Argentinian artist based in Barcelona and known for her extensive international career in the field of reggae and sound system culture, starts a new project where she navigates organically in pop/lo-fi rhythms with R&B reminiscences and jazz without forgetting his nods to Jamaican music. Her EP Jacarandà (Say it Loud Records & Costa Futuro, 2023) is quite a declaration of intent that features the collaborations of Ferran Palau and Santa Salut on two of the cuts. Belén, inaugurates a new stage in her musical career with musicians and producers such as Genis Trani or Hoss Benitez and Enric Peinado from the groove combo Big Menu.

In a world of division, BEÃTFÓØT’s delayed second album is as an invitation to unite at a utopian celebration of life. Originally scheduled for release in October 2023 but postponed due to the ongoing Israel/Palestine war, the intrinsically-political ‘TOO CUTE’ has taken on more prominence than the Tel Aviv duo of Udi Naor and Adi Bronicki could have imagined.
“It's more urgent than ever for us to share this now, even though the album has been ready for a while,” says producer Naor. “BEÃTFÓØT are against any war, and believe that people should talk and not use violence - never,” he adds vehemently. “We feel the pain of Palestinians and Israeli loss of life, and are devastated by it. We hope the war will be finished soon and that peace and prosperity will come soon for both sides.”
While both Naor and vocalist Bronicki have been active in protests, charity work and community efforts over the past year - explicitly against the current government in Israel - such values of peace, acceptance, coexistence, inclusiveness and anti-hate from all sides are further instilled in the songs that form ‘TOO CUTE’.
“We're really trying to highlight that there are people here working tirelessly for a brighter future for our ill kids and our neighbour’s kids,” adds Naor, who is also co-founder of techno duo Red Axes. Having had to flee the country with his family, it’s through music that Naor and Bronicki have found hope.
In light of such conflict, the multi-layered yet sonically-bonkers record also enables escapism, which is needed more now than ever. Following their self-titled 2021 debut (released on DJ Tennis’ label Life and Death), ‘TOO CUTE’ is a refreshingly-ridiculous dark-rave rollercoaster which careers between hard-dance, big-beat, post-punk, techno, hyperpop, country and everything in between.
Things blast off at breakneck speed with the chaotic title track’s hyperpop snares, instantly-catchy lyrics (which feel ominously striking considering the war) and a stadium-ready chorus that erupts into rolling breakbeats, punishing EDM and even a nod to The Bloodhound Gang’s ‘The Magic Touch’. Somehow, we’re just three minutes into the record.
The tongue-in-cheek ‘HEART OF LEAD (TAKE IT OFF)’ still bangs despite its silliness, like if Kero Kero Bonito got in the studio with will.i.am. Later, ‘LEO’S SONG (THE SOCIAL MEDIA GUY)’s wittily satirical one-liners - “I just wanna get high with AI” - come thick and fast amid a barrage of glitches and guitars. ‘SUKC MY DIKC !!!’, meanwhile, pairs flute with pulsing hardstyle beats.
While their first record’s experimental explosion captured the pure carnage and energy of the BEÃTFÓØT universe in a conceptual fashion (though remaining polished in its own way), album two is primed to connect with a bigger audience thanks to its pop melodies, structures and songwriting.

Much of ‘TOO CUTE’ was written while the duo toured Europe for the first time, with rough sketches of tracks created in the moment during their incendiary live shows, and then recorded in planes and cars.
If their first record was a case of testing the vibes, album two is more assured and confident within their sonic world. “In the first album, we stepped into the club, metaphorically, and started making eye contact with everyone to figure out the energy,” Bronicki says. “But, this time round, I already had an idea of the story that I wanted to tell to these random people.”
And what is that story? “Radical silliness, or radical fun – that’s the essence of BEÃTFÓØT,” Naor confirms. “What we really want to do is goof around and have fun, and that brings out something very profound and honest,” he explains. A sense of nostalgic freedom is also at the album’s core, thanks to the removal of adult predetermined social constructs that decide how people should behave or look. “There’s a very honest and positive energy in holding onto your childlike wonder and trying to explore that with others,” Bronicki suggests, adding that “the adult world can be so wrong and angering”.
She feels this relates to both the album’s lyrics and the artistic state of mind that the duo always work to: “the goal is to feed a really thought-out and profound idea, but through a playful spoon,” she says. With this in mind, the recurring theme of ‘TOO CUTE’ stems from the duo’s “radical and lived experience of existing in a place that holds a lot of guilt and fear – because death is so imminent and prevalent in a very confronting way”. This is clearly represented on ‘FOOTYLICIOU$’, on which Bronicki screams “someone’s gonna die tonight!” before emphatically shouting “NOT ME!”
The album title is BEÃTFÓØT’s response to that: “We want to be a celebration of life, and that applies to all lives, of all backgrounds, including animals… that’s our guiding light,” Bronicki says.
“We create in the context of living in a country where the current government’s anti-democratic measures are limiting who is included in the celebration of life. Because different people are always being pushed out and excluded: whether it’s queers, Palestinians or people from different religions.”
BEÃTFÓØT - who have found a home among the LGBTQIA+ community - are fighting back against oppression. “We want everybody to come to the party and celebrate life together,” says Naor, setting out his and Bronicki’s mission… “and our goal is to widen that party as wide as it can go.”




c MANIAC ft. Princess Rani

e WHERE HAVE I BEEN ALL MY LIFE ft. Bugle Boy



c MANIAC ft. Princess Rani

[e] WHERE HAVE I BEEN ALL MY LIFE [ft. Bugle Boy]



[c] MANIAC [ft. Princess Rani]

[e] WHERE HAVE I BEEN ALL MY LIFE [ft. Bugle Boy]

Louis De Roo already knows a thing or two about what life can throw at a person, yet this young Belgian songwriter is still very much on the threshold of a promising international musical career. Fall 2024 sees the release of his debut album ‘Troubled Waters’ as Isaac Roux. His debut and breakthrough single White Rose (which is not on the album) became an alternative hit in Belgium and the Netherlands, with follow-up singles Colours and Autumn Love opening doors in Germany (radioeins), France (Radio Néo) and Austria (FM4) and to trendy streaming playlists. Roux’s combination of warm indie folk and alternative rock works even better on stage, never failing to leave a crowd open-mouthed, like during a live session on German national radio (Deutschlandfunk Kultur). Impressing crowds at the Rock Werchter and Pukkelpop festivals in his home country, he did the same in the Netherlands and Germany (playing Reeperbahn three times), and supporting Dotan on his European tour in places like London, Paris and Vienna. Every song, and the album as a whole, gives the listener a glimpse into the life of De Roo, who hasn’t always had it easy, hoping that his music can give people in similar situations something to hold on to. “To win, to lose, to dream and to hope, they’re just some of the things that have shaped me into the person that I am today”, De Roo says. “And through my stories I hope to provide a little bit of a moral compass for people who, like me, haven’t always been treated nicely by life.”

Before you ancients out there turn your heads and scoff at the premise of a twenty-something rock-and-roll goofball calling himself an old-anything, consider this: Mac DeMarco has spent the better part of his time thus far writing, recording, and releasing an album of his own music pretty much every calendar flip. This Old Dog makes for his fifth in just over half a decade_bringing the total to 3 LPs and 2 EPs. According to the DMV, DeMarco is 26. But in working-dog years, ol' Mac here could easily qualify for social security. To stay gold, turns out all he needed was some new tricks. It was a little space_in time, location, and method_that inspired DeMarco while making the record. Moving from his isolated Queens home to a house in Los Angeles helped give the somewhat transient Canada-native a base, and a few more months on his calendar to create did their job as well. Arriving in California with a grip of demos he'd written in New York, he realized after a few months of setting up his new shop_complete with a few new toys_that the gap was giving him perspective (insert tooth joke here). Right off the bat, from the pops and clicks of the CR-78 drum machine and acoustic strums on the album-opening "My Old Man," the synth-drenched beauty of the second track, "This Old Dog," it's clear that DeMarco's bag is filled with new tricks indeed. This Old Dog is rooted more in a synth-base than any of his previous releases, but he is careful not to let that tactic overshadow the other instruments and overall "unplugged" mood of the work: "This is my acoustic album, but it's not really an acoustic album at all. That's just what it feels like, mostly," says DeMarco. Despite the changes considered during the creation of This Old Dog, Mac DeMarco's mid-twenties masterpiece, it's clear that the engine that motors him is in no danger of slowing down.

“For fans old and new, they can expect to be reintroduced to some raw, authentic, classic Detroit Hip-Hop from beginning to end.”-Phat Kat on the Deluxe Edition re-release of “Carte Blanche”.

Phat Kat’s phenomenal sophomore solo LP, “Carte Blanche”, first released in ’07 via Look Records, is the sound of Detroit. It’s gritty, soulful, and raw, three key ingredients in bringing the blue-collar city’s vibe to life in music form. It’s also a modern classic that is getting the deluxe edition re-release it deserves, Below System Records is adding two rare bonus tracks produced by late Detroit legend, J Dilla.

Anyone familiar with Kat or Dilla’s work knows the two shared a special bond. In fact, Dilla would often go to the gruff-voiced emcee whenever he was looking to create a particularly tough track. This friendship led to them forming the group 1st Down, and this re-release’s two bonus cuts, “World Premiere” and “It Don’t Get No Liver Than This (feat. La Peace),” which were recording in 1996 and ’97, respectively. Despite 1st Down never taking off due to label issues, Kat and Dilla remained close and recorded a number of underground classics. Those include several joints off “Carte Blanche”, such as the stirring “Don’t Nobody Care About Us”, “Game Time”, and the Elzhi-featured “Cold Steel”. It’s actually that last track that Kat picks as his favorite cut off the record.

“If I gotta choose one, it would have to be ‘Cold Steel’ because it makes you wanna wild out as soon as the beat drops”, he says, adding that this was the first time he got to choose a Dilla beat to rap over. “He would never let me rock over beat tape beats-he use to say ‘Nah Kat, just write to them cause I’m gonna make all ya shit from scratch.’ ”

The album also boasts collaborations with other Detroit rap heavy-hitters, such as Black Milk, Guilty Simpson, Nick Speed, and T3 & Young RJ (of Slum Village). With Kat as their host, they were able to not only capture the sound of the Motor city in 2007 (when the album was originally released), but also cement its place in the greater canon of hip-hop as we know it today.

Zum ersten Mal auf Vinyl erscheint diese beeindruckende Sammlung von Sessions, die Dusty zwischen 1962
und 1970 für die BBC aufgenommen hat und die ursprünglich 2007 auf CD veröffentlicht wurde.
Die 22 Tracks sind die Session-Aufnahmen, die überlebt haben (die BBC nahm in der Vergangenheit
aus Kostengründen viele Sessions auf) und in guter Klangqualität erhalten geblieben sind. Das Set enthält
drei Titel, die im Juli 1962 als Teil von The Springfields in einem anderen, folkigeren Stil aufgenommen
wurden als ihre späteren Aufnahmen.
Zu den Highlights gehört eine Auswahl ihrer stets makellosen Coverversionen, darunter Stevie Wonders Uptight (Everything’s Alright), The Rascals’ Good Lovin’, Jackie Wilsons R&B-Stomper Higher and Higher
(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) und der Bee Gees-Klassiker To Love Somebody. Zu den anderen Titeln
gehören BBC-Interpretationen einiger ihrer größten Hits - Wishin’ and Hopin’, Little by Little, You Don’t
Have to Say You Love Me, Son of a Preacher Man und I Just Don’t Know What to with Myself.
Die 2 LPs sind am 8. November auf allen Plattformen erhältlich.

2024 Repress

Re-mastered from the original Mono Master Tapes. Limited repress 1000 copies.

180 gr vinyl pressed by Pallas in Germany.

Deluxe high-gloss flipback album jacket.

Essay written by Brian Priestley.

Double insert using an original photo by JP Leloir from the concert.

Artwork by Jean-Louis Duralek.

Each record has been visually checked to prevent defects.

A never-before released Art Blakey 1965 live recordings.

First official release with the full permission and cooperation of the Art Blakey Estate & INA (Institut National de l’Audiovisuel).

Art Blakey, Live in ’65 boasts an exceptional one-hour concert from Paris in 1965. This performance showcases one of the few undocumented Blakey bands, the New Jazzmen, featuring Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Jaki Byard on piano, Reggie Workman on bass, Nathan Davis on sax, and, of course, Blakey on drums.
Freddie Hubbard’s incendiary playing on “Blue Moon” and the blistering 24-minute version of his own “Crisis” shows that he was one of the most innovative trumpeters in jazz history.

On this live session, the audiences seem to have been enthusiastic and appreciative. “Everywhere we’d go people would say, This is the best Jazz Messengers we’ve heard!”, according to Davis. “And because of the way Jaki would play and Reggie would go, it was like a semi-freedom thing – with Messengers heads, you know, but when we got to soloing…! And Blakey was ridin’ and floatin’ the time…but he would always be loose enough to follow, to keep it going. He’s one helluva musician.”

Recorded at Palais de la Mutualité, Paris, France, November 3, 1965.

Freddie Hubbard (Trumpet)
Nathan Davis (Tenor saxophone)
Jacki Byard (Piano)
Reggie Workman (Bass)
Art Blakey (Drums)

"We could go so far as to say that it is the human condition to be grotesque, since the human animal is the one that does not fit in, the freak of nature who has no place in the natural order and is capable of re-combining nature's products into hideous new forms." So reckoned Mark Fisher in 'The Weird And The Eerie', which chronicled the means by which the uncanny can enter the everyday. Mwg Drwg, the second album from South Wales psychic seers Obey Cobra, is an album that dwells in exactly this kind of headspace, where the otherworldly meets the kitchen sink. Always a band who've sought out new dimensions to explore via their trademark warped post-punk, electronic and industrial influences, Obey Cobra have crafted surreal new shapes here. Taking influences as diverse as Diane Arbus, David Lynch and Sonic Youth, they balance out heaviosity and grace on the likes of the majestically discordant 'Ten Of Wands' Elsewhere, on the title track, the band sculpt a Jesus Lizard-esque rhythmic pulse, eerie vocal abstraction and the crepuscular downtempo atmosphere of Massive Attack's Mezzanine into a uniquely haunting dreamscape. Mwg Drwg is where the weird and eerie are amplified to intimidating proportions It's where grotesquely and beauty happily cohabit. It's an aural exorcism of William Friedkin proportions that demands your immediate attention.

Known for the monolithic force of their music and their inventive production techniques, The Body"s albums are benchmarks in the expansion and evolution of heavy music. Tightly packed with deceptively nuanced arrangements and exhilarating, challenging distortion, their compositions are possessed of an unmistakably singular sound. The Crying Out of Things is no exception; a culmination of all that The Body have done before, highlighting their mastery of dynamic and monumental music that pushes toward the unmistakable sound of oblivion The Body have produced a wealth of groundbreaking collaborations with the likes of Full of Hell, Thou, Uniform, BIG|BRAVE, OAA, and Dis Fig. The duo"s benchmark albums have, over the past 2 decades, changed the perceptions and directions of heavy music. The Crying Out of Things" embrace of noise is a comprehensive display of the multitude of expressions possible with abrasive sound, a skill that The Body have pioneered and refined. "I think for us the key to the way we use noise is, it"s not the only element," says Buford. "You"ve gotta really listen if you"re into noise. But it also has to have dynamics. Where, say, BIG|BRAVE (who have a similar ethos) expresses it in this more intellectual, minimalist way, The Body comes from an instinctual, maximalist way. We"re trying to cover it ALL." The Body stand alone in their ability to connect disparate influences and collaborators into a wholly original, potent and singular work. Alongside producer/engineer Seth Manchester, the duo"s voracious and omnivorous musical appetites have pushed the studio as an instrument into new avenues to conjure profound feelings from the music. The Crying Out of Things cements The Body"s place as a leader of heavy new music, their boundless creativity, their defining ability to convey anguish, created with a visceral clarity to devastating impact.

Known for the monolithic force of their music and their inventive production techniques, The Body"s albums are benchmarks in the expansion and evolution of heavy music. Tightly packed with deceptively nuanced arrangements and exhilarating, challenging distortion, their compositions are possessed of an unmistakably singular sound. The Crying Out of Things is no exception; a culmination of all that The Body have done before, highlighting their mastery of dynamic and monumental music that pushes toward the unmistakable sound of oblivion The Body have produced a wealth of groundbreaking collaborations with the likes of Full of Hell, Thou, Uniform, BIG|BRAVE, OAA, and Dis Fig. The duo"s benchmark albums have, over the past 2 decades, changed the perceptions and directions of heavy music. The Crying Out of Things" embrace of noise is a comprehensive display of the multitude of expressions possible with abrasive sound, a skill that The Body have pioneered and refined. "I think for us the key to the way we use noise is, it"s not the only element," says Buford. "You"ve gotta really listen if you"re into noise. But it also has to have dynamics. Where, say, BIG|BRAVE (who have a similar ethos) expresses it in this more intellectual, minimalist way, The Body comes from an instinctual, maximalist way. We"re trying to cover it ALL." The Body stand alone in their ability to connect disparate influences and collaborators into a wholly original, potent and singular work. Alongside producer/engineer Seth Manchester, the duo"s voracious and omnivorous musical appetites have pushed the studio as an instrument into new avenues to conjure profound feelings from the music. The Crying Out of Things cements The Body"s place as a leader of heavy new music, their boundless creativity, their defining ability to convey anguish, created with a visceral clarity to devastating impact.

The second of three albums Hartman recorded for Impulse (and following the classic Coltrane/Hartman masterpiece), Hartman’s voice is again on display at his best, including ‘Wee Small Hours of the Morning’, ‘Charade’, and ‘Sleepin’ Bee’. Hartman’s supporting cast is nearly as impressive as his voice, with Hank and Elvin Jones (piano/drums), and Milt Hinton (bass) as rhythm section. Kenny Burrell and Jim Hall contribute on guitar across the album and Illinois Jacquet (tenor) performs on five songs. This Verve By Request title is pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Third Man in Detroit.

Plastic Crimewave Syndicate returns with one collective foot in overdriven space-biker scuzz rock, but the other bigfoot kicking upward into new galaxies of synth punk, no-prog, and freek funk. Yes, dare we say it, the new PCWS LP, Tales From the Golden Skull, GROOVES--but from the perspective of the Japan n' Kraut/Eurorock undergrounds, coated in some nasty Windy City grime. Aided by the Chicago Cosmonaut Couriers Crew, ala famed renaissance man Mac Blackout (synths/horns/electronics), Przemyslaw Krys Drazek (trumpet) of longtime zone-jammers Drazek Fuscaldo/Mako Sica, Will MacLean on Moog keytar (!-- of local Silver vocoder-ed Apples lovin' treasures Protovulcan), plus the oldest-school synthlord Bil Vermette, who's been modulating since the 70s. We'll call Tales From the Golden Skull a near-concept lp (aren't they always?) that looks back at fallen friends and collaborators, and then into the unwritten golden future (as PCW himself hit the golden 50). The sonic journey dips into dark textural valleys, and chugging riffs rising to thee fiery heavens, as the thundering-but-subtle rhythm section of Jose "Beast but Best" Bernal and Rob "Dead Feathers" Rodak know when to crash and when to burn (one). Sir PCW lays down his trademark big muff-blastage and echo-cries, to channel the despair and feral bark of the mighty Vega/Hammill/Iggy/Dickie P/Haino/Mojo-Risin/Mizutani, but also knows when to shut up for some layered instrumental Embryo/Harvester/Fausty trance rock and dabbed/dubbed out "not-quite-shoegazin" calmness in the eye of the Ur-storm. This might be the most expansive, detailed yet furious PCWS LP yet, recorded at Rec Room studios with Eric Block, who has done all from a band with Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley to recorded Rhys Chatham 100+-peeps guitar orchestras. So strap the headphones on and absorb the tales of this spaced ritual-rock opus. Artwork - Steve Krakow

Jawad Nawfal and Mazen El Sayed, better known by their stage names of MUNMA and EL RASS, met for the first time in Beirut, during the summer of 2011. A common friend told Jawad wonders about an MC who rapped and slammed in the classical Arabic language, as opposed to the vernacular Lebanese dialect. The two musicians met in a small café in Beirut’s Hamra neighborhood, spoke of music, argued about politics, and decided to collaborate at once. They began working on tracks the following day. A month later, they had already produced a dozen sketches, instrumental beds and accapella vocal tracks. These demos eventually landed in the hands of Ziad Nawfal and Fadi Tabbal, who set out to bring to life the duo’s first recorded album. “Kachf el Mahjoub” (the title is from a Sufi master-work penned some 900 years ago) was eventually released as a limited edition of 500 CD’s, during a launch event at then-budding alternative venue Metro al Madina in Hamra, on the 22nd of February 2012. These CDs went out of print in record time, as can be expected, and the album’s mythical status became reinforced over time – El Rass & Munma collaborated sporadically during the next ten years, but never fully grasped the level of musical intensity and explosive tension attained on this first outing. It has been a longstanding dream of ours, here at Ruptured, to produce a vinyl version of this album, and we are thrilled to say this moment has finally come. Artist ALI RAFEI’s original artworks have been painstakingly reproduced, the music has been dutifully remastered for vinyl by CEDRIK FERMONT, and the records were pressed by our friends at Mother Tongue in Verona. We added bonus track "Fi Kala'at Tarablus" to this 10th anniversary reissue for good measure – recorded during the same sessions that yielded “Kachf el Mahjoub”, it appears on the digital version of the album. “Kachf el Mahjoub” is a landmark album in Lebanon’s alternative music scene, and the MENA region’s hiphop and indie scenes writ large. At the time of their collaboration, El Sayed was a prolific writer and musician, at ease with a variety of instruments, notorious for his masterful flow in the classical Arabic language, with lyrics tackling both social and political sensitive subjects; Nawfal has previously released an impressive number of albums and EPs, exploring downtempo electronica and ambient dubstep, for a number of Lebanese and international labels. The collision of the former’s brazen, slammed vocals and the latter’s harsh beats works wonders on “Kachf el Mahjoub”, Munma’s sound-world perfectly fitting El Rass’s agitated discourse, alternating between broken beats, elaborate percussion, and ambient layers of synths. At times reminiscent of mutant hiphop outfit Shabazz Palaces, at others of the collaboration between dubstep producer Kode9 and the late vocalist The SpaceApe, this album is an uncanny meeting of Arabic hip-hop and electronica, an exceptional event in the realm of contemporary Lebanese alternative music.

This rare Brit Funk 12” was originally released in 1984 and is now officially reissued for the first time. Licensed from producer Lindel Lewis, the 12” was heavily influenced by US Boogie and Disco and there’s a Dub influence at play as Lindel was also producing a lot of reggae around this time, most famously ‘Night Over Egypt’ by Mystic Harmony.

The 12” includes a previously unreleased Dub Version of ‘I Need You’ and was produced on two Analogue classics, Lindel says “I used a Linn Drum for the drums and played all synth parts using a Roland 106. I’m a classically trained musician and also a sound engineer, I worked at Mark Angelo Recording Studios for 18 years and have produced a great many artists. Steve Jones real name is Steve Myers, but I didn’t like the surname so changed it to Jones which felt more soulful. The name The Fat Boys came about because of the big bellies of myself the flute player Mike Appoh, my trainee engineer at the time. Ray Carlass played the sax solo, they have both now sadly passed”.

This long overdue reissue revives a standout moment in Brit Funk history, making it an essential addition for fans of classic Boogie and Disco. A 140 gram pressing in 3mm spine disco sleeve with labels and sticker designed by Bradley Pinkerton.

"Cornish singer-songwriter set to release his debut album ‘Something To Say’. Produced with Will Hicks (Ed Sheeran) featuring contributions from the likes of Ash Soan on drums (Adele), Fred Abbott on guitar/keys (Noah And The Whale) and hitmaker & broadcaster David Grant on backing vocals, demonstrate the depth of The Gleeman’s musical musings and mark him out as a serious album artist.
With a plethora of press proclaiming his virtues, a rally of radio support including BBC Radio 2, BFBS, BBC Radio London, BBC Introducing, BBC Radio Cornwall, BBC Nan Gaidheal, Radio Caroline and play- listed twice on the UK’s fastest growing radio station Boom Radio, a Top Ten hit in the Music Week Commercial Pop Club Chart and with Live dates as a special guest of acclaimed artists Ian Prowse, Starsailor and Damien Dempsey, with songs that indeed have ‘Something To Say’, expect to hear, see and be inspired by more of The Gleeman."

Robert Glasper’s holiday album In December was released last year as an Apple Music exclusive. We’re now able offer it widely available to physical retail and all DSPs!



Is there anything to be done with carols like “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and “Joy to the World” that hasn’t been done in the past 300 years? If there is, Grammy-winning pianist, composer, and producer Robert Glasper is the kind of artist to do it. “I like covering songs that people know well,” Glasper tells Apple Music. “That’s what I’ve done throughout my whole career.” It’s true: As a jazz pianist, he’s obviously learned his way around making classics his own, whether they were written by Mongo Santamaría or Kurt Cobain. But, he says, “The biggest challenge in making a holiday album was trying to do it in a way that feels festive but at the same time feels real and not corny.”



He succeeds on both fronts on In December, his holiday album that mixes classic carols with a set of originals, and which was recorded in Spatial Audio. Part of what keeps it credible is the fact that Glasper’s hiphop/R&B/jazz fusion is done on a compositional level instead of just a cosmetic one (no collages of sampled sax solos and drum loops here). The covers reveal a lot about his musical worldview: Sung by Tony winner Cynthia Erivo (The Color Purple), “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” is turned into dark, airy neo-soul, while “Joy to the World”—sung by Alex Isley—feels like a Stevie Wonder ballad. But the originals reveal even more. “The intention for this album was less about Christmas songs and more about songs that feel good during the holidays,” Glasper says. “I stayed away from thinking too much about Christmas and its traditional lingo, and concentrated on real things people go through during the holiday season.”

Military Genius (aka songwriter/producer Bryce Cloghesy) today announced his new album Scarred for Life will be released November 1st, 2024 via Unheard of Hope. The follow-up to his atmospheric 2020 debut Deep Web, Scarred for Life is a genre-flexing mix of bass-heavy R&B, spaced dub, and jazz that is newly grounded within a more traditional rock framework and centered on lyricism. Lead single “Darkest Hour”–out now alongside a self-directed video filmed near his new desert home in Joshua Tree, California–reflects a head first journey into the unknown. "’Darkest Hour’ encapsulates the feeling of being swept away by time, into an endless night,” says Cloghesy. “There is a certain melancholy in leaving the past behind, dwelling on simpler, antiquated ways of life as we are pushed forward. This message is poignant on a personal level–becoming a father has led me to contemplate my own childhood, witnessing a purity of emotion prior to self-awareness. This applies to a broader collective consciousness too, as the march of progress fundamentally alters our shared experience. It's all about embracing the journey, stepping beyond the point of no return, and facing the future."

Military Genius (aka songwriter/producer Bryce Cloghesy) today announced his new album Scarred for Life will be released November 1st, 2024 via Unheard of Hope. The follow-up to his atmospheric 2020 debut Deep Web, Scarred for Life is a genre-flexing mix of bass-heavy R&B, spaced dub, and jazz that is newly grounded within a more traditional rock framework and centered on lyricism. Lead single “Darkest Hour”–out now alongside a self-directed video filmed near his new desert home in Joshua Tree, California–reflects a head first journey into the unknown. "’Darkest Hour’ encapsulates the feeling of being swept away by time, into an endless night,” says Cloghesy. “There is a certain melancholy in leaving the past behind, dwelling on simpler, antiquated ways of life as we are pushed forward. This message is poignant on a personal level–becoming a father has led me to contemplate my own childhood, witnessing a purity of emotion prior to self-awareness. This applies to a broader collective consciousness too, as the march of progress fundamentally alters our shared experience. It's all about embracing the journey, stepping beyond the point of no return, and facing the future."

Paul Kelly"s latest album, "Fever Longing Still", his first of new original material since 2018"s "Nature", delivers 12 additions to his superb catalogue of love songs spanning more than 40 years. "Hello Melancholy, Hello Joy", as one of the new songs says. The album"s title comes from a line in Sonnet 147 by Shakespeare, whose writing has thrilled and inspired Kelly ever since schooldays. With love as the topic, Kelly finds a way to keep replenishing the creative well. Even if it can take some time for a song to surface.

Anadol and Marie Klock have teamed up for a joint album, La Grande Accumulation. They met two years ago at a festival in England crowded with violent seagulls and outsider musicians. Klock being prone to barking on stage and Anadol not laughing at jokes she doesn’t find funny, they straight away had the intuition that they would meet again. And so they did, a few months later, at Anadol’s studio in Istanbul.

Today, the two Pingipung artists present the fruit of this musical friendship. La Grande Accumulation was born out of the peculiar atmosphere of the studio neighbourhood in Büyükada, an island where thousands of cats run free and humans randomly destroy things during apocalyptic times when parts of Turkey had just been turned into dust by terrible earthquakes. The French lyrics are inspired by hours of conversations, the music is consequently drenched in absurdity, overflowing with a strong urge to live and enjoy. According to the LP sticker, this album has been certified “Best handshake of 2024”, and stickers never lie.

La Grande Accumulation brings together Marie Klock's mysterious metaphors and Anadol's intriguing radiophonic psych-pop. Stretching forms beyond common sense to see how long they can resist is probably their favourite game. The result are six highly imaginative tracks that challenge the sub-3-minutes standards of Spotify pop.

Gözen Atila aka Anadol is well known to the Pingipung audience, with three solo LPs on the label. Her music follows a kind of collage logic, she interweaves countless styles, combining field and studio recordings with obscure quotation marks here and there. "I hope no one will come and explain this music to me, because it's the most beautiful music there is", says Kristoffer Cornils about her solo album Felicita.

Marie Klock is a French writer and musician who produces songs oscillating between synthpop and neo-folk, full of anarchic humour and existential dread. Her recent solo LP on Pingipung was a captivating tribute to the recently deceased poet Damien Schultz entitled Damien est vivant.

Marie Klock delivers her lyrics in song or spoken word, stream-of-consciousness musings on strange human adventures, and her rich keyboard melodies culminate in a nonchalant dialogue with the bass trombone (La Reine des Bordels). In the opulent opening piece (La Grande Accumulation), a woman is cursed to take home everything she kicks in the street; a bit later, we stumble upon a ghoul hiding in the gutter (Sirop amer), Mona Lisa loses her teeth (Sonate au Jambon) and a warthog struggles to climb the stairs of a silver tower (Sabots triviaux).

La Grande Accumulation was mixed and mastered by Jonas Romann at Chaos Compressor Club in Hamburg and cut to vinyl by Kassian Troyer at D&M in Berlin. It's an audiophile LP that invites to focus on every detail in this heap of musical ideas.

SYML—Welsh for “simple”—makes music that taps into the instincts that drive us to places of sanctuary, whether that be a place or a person. Born and raised in Seattle, Brian Fennell studied piano and became a self-taught producer, programmer, and guitarist. This May marked the fifth anniversary of his self-titled debut album, which included the platinum-selling song “Where’s My Love” and the Gold Record fan favorite, “Girl,” and one year since his sophomore album, The Day My Father Died, which was recorded and produced with fellow Seattle-native Phil Ek (Band of Horses, Father John Misty, Fleet Foxes) and features Elbow’s Guy Garvey, Lucius, Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek, and Charlotte Lawrence. In the last year, he was also featured on Lana Del Rey’s song, “Paris, TX,” from her Grammy-nominated album Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, and realized several other notable collaborations including UK-electronic artist George Fitzgerald, Latin Grammy-nominated Colombian artist Elsa Y Elmar. In February 2024, he launched his imprint, FIN. Recordings, a new venture in collaboration with his label, Nettwerk Music Group, and management team, Good Harbor Music. Says Fennell about Infinity, “Sometimes, songs are wandering souls with no home, and it’s not until enough of them are written that the home is realized. I have a proud obsession with all things apocalyptic and the doom and wonder of an ever-expanding universe. This group of songs is an ode to the absurdity of human existence and my fondness for it. My inspirations were very cinematic ranging from big blaring soundscapes to more gentle, dusty settings like Ennio Morricone was so gifted in painting. I am fascinated by what humans are capable of, especially the stories we tell ourselves to explain our world and the space around it. Importantly, I am thankful for the creative space to make art without rules or expectation.

"Anywayawanna – The Best Of is a compilation album by The Beat Masters, a British producer trio who enjoyed considerable success in the late 80's/early 90's. As well as producing Yazz' smash hit ""Stand Up For Your Love Rights"" in 1988, they also landed several Top 20 hits under the Beatmasters moniker with a series of guest vocalists: The Cookie Crew (""Rok Da House""), Betty Boo (""Hey DJ / I Can't Dance (To That Music You're Playing)""), Merlin MC (""Who's in the House"") and P.P. Arnold (""Burn It Up""). These hits are all featured on this compilation album ""Anywayawanna – The Best Of The Beatmasters"". The Beatmasters went on to write, produce and remix for many other artists including Marc Almond, Pet Shop Boys, Blur, Roachford, Betty Boo, Naomi Campbell, Moby, Aswad, Eternal, Tina Turner, David Bowie, Depeche Mode, The Shamen and Girls Aloud. Anywayawanna – The Best Of is available on vinyl for the first time as a limited edition of 750 copies on orange coloured vinyl. The package contains an insert with extensive liner notes."

On How It Ends (?), slinky melodies snake through nocturnal atmospherics, drawing you into a world built on poetic, painterly lyricism. Night Crickets, a long-distance groove affair that materialized during the drawn-out days of lockdown, has emerged once again to soundtrack our waking dreams.

David J (Bauhaus, Love & Rockets), Victor DeLorenzo (Violent Femmes) and multi-instrumentalist Darwin Meiners spearhead a loose collective of like-minded creative souls whom, through sheer tenacity and a burning desire to collaborate and create, transcend the restrictions of space and time. Audio files shared from Los Angeles to Milwaukee, from London to the San Francisco Bay, and the ghosts of Candlestick Park shimmer through the fog, coalescing in a glorious ‘gesamtkunstwerk’ that draws from the past, the present and the imagined future.

Declaring Bauhaus, Love And Rockets, and Violent Femmes iconic, foundational bands in the history of alternative music would receive little pushback from those in the know. San Francisco born artist Darwin Meiners is a fan of all three. A chance meeting with David J grew into a friendship, and Darwin not only became a bandmate, but his manager. After reaching out to Victor DeLorenzo through e-mail, Darwin met the Violent Femmes drummer after their set at Coachella. Soon, after the three collaborated on Darwin’s 2014 release Souvenir.

As the pandemic took hold, Darwin was looking for a new project to occupy the lock down time and approached Victor, who was keen to proceed and suggested that David join as well. The musical trust established between these three was immediate and Night Crickets were born. Within weeks a global process was initiated between them, the recordings eventually forming the album, A Free Society.

Following that release, inspired by how well – and quickly – they all worked together, the trio kept up their collaboration. “We are each free to discover musical connections that could only exist in an ideal creative setting” explains Victor. “We are very lucky to have three musicians who write, sing and play various instruments in one trio… our egos seem to melt into one when we face musical decisions, so our expeditions are always filled with pure discovery, humor and drive!”

How It Ends (?) was crafted with the same collaborative spirit as A Free Society. Each member contributed contributed unique elements to spur their collective creativity—whether a drum pattern, a lyrical concept, or a musical idea—and together, they expanded these initial sparks into the finished work. True to their approach, much of what you hear was captured in the first take, reflecting a genuine, unfiltered moment.

The music on the How It Ends (?) is a true evolution of the debut album. It is deeper and darker. Having said that, the dark tone is alleviated by a healthy measure of the buoyant, bouncy and melodic. “Much of the new material is very psychedelic and the contrast between this heavy, dark psychedelia and the more uplifting pop elements puts me in mind of The Beatles’ ‘Revolver’ album to some degree,” tells David J. “The recording process for the new album was exactly the same as the first in that we all recorded remotely, taking turns to share files and reacting spontaneously to the previous track, overdubbing then passing on once again until we all felt that the track was done.”

“While we didn’t start with a specific theme, the album emerged as a contemplative exploration of endings” says Darwin. “It touches on the loss of individuals, the shifting of ideas, and the fragility of systems. Beneath this sense of darkness and finality, however, there are threads of beauty and glimpses of hope. We invite you to immerse yourself in the album and experience the journey we’ve embarked upon.”