Buscar:sec

Turkish-born sound designer Işık Kural embraces the joys of improvisation on his second full-length album. The twelve short tracks of ‘in february’ were all composed on the fly, based around loops of unconventional recordings - short piano phrases, humming synths and field recordings - and moulded into beautiful ruminations on the passing of time.

Håvard Nordberg Funderud - guitar and 12-string guitar Lauritz Heitmann Skeidsvoll - saxophone Martin Heggli Mellem - drums Karl Erik Hornsdalsveen - double bass Henriette Eilertsen - flute Back in 2020, Kafé Hærverk, Oslo's live hotspot for a wide range of jazz and experimental music invited Master Oogway to do monthly concerts from August to December, bringing along a guest for each occasion. Two had to be moved to 2021 due to Covid restrictions, but the other three were recorded for possible use later. Initially we thought about doing a "best of" from all of the recordings, but after further listening it soon dawned on us that the concert with Henriette was nothing less than magical. To make room for the 45 minute vinyl edition, we had to drop one of the five pieces that were played on the night, and also make two minor edits. Other than that, this is what was played, there are no overdubs or cosmetic treatments. The album was brilliantly mixed in Athletic Sound by Dag Erik Johansen. Henriette Eilertsen (28) is part of the fertile and exciting environment around the Motvind label, and a member of Billy Meier and Andreas Roysum Ensemble. She released her solo debut "Poems For Flute" on Motvind in 2021.Håvard Nordberg Funderud (28) finished his bachelor at the Norwegian Academy of Music in 2018 and also studied in Gothenburg and Copenhagen. He is involved in several projects, Master Oogway being his priority. Lauritz Lyster Skeidsvoll (28) and Karl Erik Horndalsveen (27) are both educated from the same academy in Oslo as Håvard, while Martin Heggli Mellem (25) is educated from the jazz program at NTNU in Trondheim."Happy Village" is Master Oogway's third album, their second on Rune Grammofon. The music on the previous outing two years ago ("Earth And Other Worlds") was all written by Håvard, while the music on "Happy Village" is written by Karl Erik, one track co-written with Håvard. "Happy Village" finds the band in a more lyrical and exuberant mood than before, in no small part due to Henriette's beautiful contributions.

Badaboombap is like Terminator, the first one is good but the second one is even better ! Badaboombap is that type of record you find in a box in the basement, along with old memories. The good old rap record that we were missing. French beatmaker James Digger produced this follow-up while meeting American, Quebec and South African artists. There are guests from the golden age but also from the new generation of boombap. The cover picture was taken by Philippe Hamon, the great photographer of 90's rap. Featuring Masta Ace, Tedji & Helmé, Dooz Kawa, 4-Ize, Souffrance & Cenza, Melly-Me, Punchline, Rockin' Squat, Mad Squablz, Passi, Gennessee and Bonbec.

Reissue of The White Stripes second album (originally released in June 2000), which found the band recording in the comfortable confines of Jack White's Third Man Studios, then housed on the ground floor of his house in Southwest Detroit. The on point covers of Son House and Blind Willie McTell pair wonderfully with both the minimal downtempo somber numbers and the maximum energy explosions of unadulterated power. A 13 track album pressed on 180gm black vinyl and housed in a tip on sleeve. Both releases will have promo/marketing activity.

U. Srinivas is to Indian classical music what Yehudi Menuhin is to Western classical music. Like Menuhin, U. Srinivas was a child prodigy. He started to play the mandolin, a little-known instrument in India, when he was only six years old. At the time, the mandolin was an alien instrument in South Indian classical music, but Srinivas learned to play Carnatic ragas on the mandolin with so much ease and dexterity that his name was synonymous in India with the mandolin and he became popularly known as ‘Mandolin Srinivas’. Even Europeans are surprised that such magical music can originate from an instrument which is normally a rather inconspicuous member of a Western orchestra. Like fellow Indian musician Shiv Kumar with the santoor, Srinivas has revived and raised an unknown instrument and given it a respectable status in classical music. It was in August 1992, while on tour with WOMAD, that Srinivas recorded this album of traditional music during the second Real World Recording Week in a candlelit studio. U Srinivas passed away in September 2014.

Seit 2017 war Donnelly viel auf Tour. Während eines kalten Winters in Westaustralien, kehrte sie im Juni 2018 zurück nach Hause, um ihr Debüt aufzunehmen. Um das Album noch weiter zu verfeinern, rekrutierte sie eine komplette Band bestehend aus ihren besten Freunden - die Bassistin Jennifer Aslett, den Schlagzeuger Talya Valenti und den Gitarristen George Foster - und arbeitete mit dem Produzenten Dean Tuza zusammen, der die Songs auf abenteuerliche Art und Weise unterstützt, ohne ihnen dabei etwas von der Intimität und Herzlichkeit zu nehmen. "Beware of the Dogs" ist von einem sarkastischem Augenzwinkern und vollem Herzen durchzogen, auf dem Stella Donnelly in 13 lebenserhaltenden Liedern die Kraft beweist, für sich selbst, ihre Freunde und ihre Rechte einzustehen.Ihr Debüt ist ein Porträt, in dem sie sich Donnelly als Künstlerin zeigt, die ihre Stimme vollkommen beherrscht und ihren einladenden Charme und ihren messerscharfen Witz in authentisch rohen Songs einsetzen kann.

Aufgewachsen zwischen Wales und den Vororten von Western Australia, wo sie aktuell zu Hause ist, begann die Sangeskarriere von Stella Donnelly damit, dass sie in ihrer australischen Schulband Songs von Green Day zum Besten gab, sich dann aber Richtung Jazz und zeitgenössischer Musik orientierte, als sie an der West Australian Academy Of Performing Arts studierte. Auf ihrer klar im Singer/Songwriter Indie Folk Genre angesiedelten Debüt-EP ,Thrush Metal" präsentiert Donnelly brutal ehrliche und geistreiche Beobachtungen ihrer Mitmenschen, die hier als wunderschöne Gedichte mit ausgefeilten Pointen daherkommen. Donnelly liefert einen Einblick in die Welt, in der wir leben und wie es ist, als Frau des 21. Jahrhunderts zwischen Trump, Tinder und der dritten Feminismus-Welle zu existieren.

'All That's Been Lost' is the debut album from Glasgow based singersongwriter Steve Grozier.The album's title, chosen before the pandemic, has turned out to be strangely prophetic
Recorded at 'The Ranch', home studio of friend, producer and bandmate, Roscoe Wilson.Grozier was all set to record before being abruptly halted by lockdown.

When it was safe to continue, the dynamic of the recording process had changed dramatically. Given the size of the studio, the musicians playing on the record all had to record their parts separately or remotely.
Despite the constraints, 'All That's Been Lost' is a fully realised piece of work. The themes of loss, darkness and emotional pain find parallels in the work of Phosphorescent or Richmond Fontaine.
'Sam, I Know You Tried' is a dark, layered rocker, featuring excellent guitar work from producer and multi- instrumentalist Roscoe Wilson. It was written in response to losing a close friend. 'Blue and Gold' and 'When the Darkness Comes' are Grozier at his best,his effortless vocal sitting in contrast to the heart-breaking lyrics. The beautiful 'I Miss My Friend' is dedicated to Neal Casal and is a touching tribute to one of Grozier's heroes.

The two singles taken from the album, 'Memories' and 'Power in the Light', showcase Grozier's range as a songwriter. On 'Memories' we find Grozier coming to terms with ageing and the pain and beauty in doing that with someone you love, but at the same time aware of all that has been lost along the way. It features some intricate dobro work from Nathan Golub (Mandolin Orange, Mountain Goats). On the second single 'Power in the Light', Grozier is at his most hopeful. He sings,"I'm strong in the fight, there's grief and anger, but there's power in the light". Grozier says that light is "whatever you need it to be or wherever you find the strength to go on. To keep trying"
.Ultimately, this is the underlying theme of 'All That's Been Lost'. Hope.

Take cover: there’s a storm coming !

With its lyrical thunderbolts, lightning-flash fretwork and ground-shaking grooves, Black Wind Howlin’ is a record to blow your roof off – and Samantha Fish is stood at the eye of the hurricane. Released on September 20th through Ruf Records, Black Wind Howlin’ flips a finger at the cliché of the ‘difficult second album’, firing off 12 classic tracks that chart Samantha’s evolution as songwriter, gunslinger
and lyricist. While lesser artists work to a template or settle into a pigeonhole, Samantha shifts her shape across the Black Wind Howlin’ tracklisting. She can be brutally rocking on cuts like the tourbus snapshot of Miles To Go (“Twelve hours to Reno/ten hours til the next show”), the swaggering Sucker Born (“Vegas left me weary, LA bled me dry/skating on fumes as I crossed the Nevada line…”) and the
venomous Go To Hell (“Oh, this ain’t my first rodeo/You hit yourself a dead end/ Your voodoo eyes, ain’t gonna cast a spell/ So you can go to hell!”). And yet, elsewhere, backed by the versatile production of Royal Southern Brotherhood guitarist and longtime collaborator Mike Zito, you’ll find Samantha shifting gears to the aching slide- guitar balladry of Over You (“Echoing words, said I’d never make it on my own…”) and the redemptive country strum Last September (“Don’t
remember the curves of my face/Can’t feel the warmth in my embrace/Well I’m here to remind you…”). She might stop off for a gritty cover of Howlin’ Wolf’s.
Who’s Been Talkin’, and co- wrote Go To Hell with Zito, but all other tracks are Samantha’s self-penned originals, and it’s a mix to keep listeners on their toes. “I wanted this record to have a modern rocking sound,” she explains of the lightfooted vibe. “I also wanted it to have elements of Americana, country and roots.”
Therefore she had support from a first- call band that included Royal Southern Brotherhood rhythm section Yonrico Scott (drums) and Charlie Wooton (bass), back- up guitar and vocals from Zito, plus guest appearances from Johnny Sansone (harmonica), Bo Thomas (fiddle on Last September) and Paul Thorn (vocals on Go To Hell). So here it is. Harder, darker, bolder and better than even its revered predecessor (Runaway), this is the sound of an artist on the brink of the huge-time with both hands on the wheel.

In the summer of 1981, The Fall embarked on their second American tour, criss-crossing the States over a two-month period. Featuring the dual guitar of Marc Riley and Craig Scanlon and rhythm section of Stephen Hanley and Karl Burns, A Part Of America Therein, 1981 would document this fabled journey with crucial performances that show the band evolve from noisemaking lout cultists into true post-punk legends.

"From the riot-torn streets of Manchester, England to the scenic sewers of Chicago ..." as the album opens unforgettably with a nameless promoter introducing The Fall, who proceed to tear into a hypnotic take on "The N.W.R.A." stretched into a near stare-down that is wholly different than the studio version on Grotesque. The LP highlights Mark E. Smith's incomparable bite, heard most notably on the adlibbed vitriol of "Totally Wired," where not even the costumed punks were safe from a proper dressing down.

A Part Of America Therein, 1981 proves once again that The Fall's constant rally against complacency was a top-down directive and intrinsic to their wonderful and frightening sound.

Liner notes by Brian Turner.

Rare early Soft Machine cuts from 1963 -1970, featuring Robert Wyatt,
Kevin Ayers, Mike Ratledge, Hugh Hopper, Daevid Allen and others no
released on red vinyl

Promotion across social media platformsAdvertising in Record Collector and Shindig

Shed Seven 'See Youse At The Barras' is now available on 140 gram red vinyl

Includes: Going For Gold, Disco Down, She Left Me On Friday, On Standby, GettingBetter and Exclusive Interview Recorded & Filmed at Barrowland, Glasgow, 3rdDecember 2002.

Personnel:
Rick Witter – Vocals
Tom Gladwin – Bass
Joe Johnson – Guitar
Alan Leach – Drums
Fraser Smith - Keyboards

Advertising in Classic Pop and Record Collector

Previous album released on Dead Oceans. Previous album was a collaboration with Brian Eno. Past press coverage from Pitchfork, SPIN, The Guardian, Drowned in Sound, Dusted, The Quietus, and many more. Since the release of his last album 2017’s Finding Shore, a collaboration with Brian Eno pianist and singer-songwriter Tom Rogerson’s life has undergone a number of dramatic transformations. While writing his new album Retreat to Bliss, Rogerson had a child, lost a parent, and received his own diagnosis of a rare form of blood cancer. The new decade brought him from Berlin to the Suffolk of his childhood, composing profound pieces of minimal songwriting in the church next to his parents’ home. Rogerson studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music under mentors like Harrison Birtwistle, and he made his live debut as an improvising pianist in 2002, before releasing an improvised record with Reid Anderson (Bad Plus) and Mike Lewis (Happy Apple, Bon Iver) in 2004. He formed the band Three Trapped Tigers in 2007, expertly blending elements of electronic, jazz and noise rock into a cohesive whole. The band earned a reputation for innovative live shows and went on to perform and collaborate with artists like Brian Eno, Deftones, and the Dillinger Escape Plan. It was working with Eno, another Suffolk native, that eventually led Rogerson back to his roots and back to a place where he could write Retreat to Bliss, his solo debut album. “All my life, the piano has been my constant companion, my confessor, my best friend, and my worst enemy,” Rogerson explains. “I’ve always written music on and for the piano, but it felt too personal, too private to release.” Indeed, listening to Retreat to Bliss feels almost like eavesdropping, as though you’re crouched in the belfry of a Suffolk church, bearing witness to a form of musical bloodletting. For the first time in his noteworthy career, Rogerson has combined masterful piano playing and subtle electronics with the texture of his own voice, an attempt to express deeply private emotions that were difficult to articulate using instrumental music alone. “The last few years have brought some struggle, some joy, and a lot of change. My response has been to retreat to what I trust the most: the piano, my voice, and the landscape I grew up in. That’s how the album got its title, and how I came to be ready finally to release a solo record.” The eleven tracks that make up Retreat to Bliss were recorded by Leo Abrahams (Brian Eno, David Byrne, Grace Jones) over the course of just a few days, a process that emphasized spontaneity and the artist’s own commitment to improvisation. Secular yet devotional, intensely personal yet profound, the experience of listening to Retreat to Bliss seems to evade characterization. It’s physical and emotional, a glimpse into the mind of an artist who has chosen exposure over withdrawal, who uses his command of the piano to chart an unflinching path forward, never looking back. UK press campaign by Someone Great. Press Quotes "A meeting of minds that is full of rewarding surprises, challenging and surprising one another, and their listeners, with music that feels alive and wondrous…” Pitchfork // "Both mournful and dazzlingly optimistic, a taste of the conflict found so ofen in nature and reflected so elegantly across the course of the record.” The Line of Best Fit // "Many avant-garde instrumental albums exist to craf a mood; Rogerson and Eno merge these moods, sounds and themes together efortlessly and radiantly on Finding Shore” Exclaim // Track List 01 Descent 02 Oath 03 Buried Deep 04 Toumani 05 Drone Finder part 2 06 Chant 07 Rapture 1 08 Open Out Span Wide View 09 A Clearing 10 Retreat To 11 Coda

Reissue of 2018 debut on 2 colour vinyl, black & milky clear. Note includes members of Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. More than anything else, Oh Boy is a celebration of teenage fandom and friendship. Each song is “about” something else, of course: a betrayal, a breakup, new love, parenthood. The usual stuff. And we’re hardly teenagers. Yet somehow Massage feels like the kind of band you were in back in high school. We were friends first. We all had other lives. We started playing music almost by accident. (Michael wanted to learn drums; Alex wanted to relearn guitar after playing bass in the Pains of Being Pure at Heart; Andrew and David invited themselves to their second practice.) We made a playlist of songs we loved hundreds of them long before we recorded anything: the Feelies, the Go-Betweens, East River Pipe, the Lemonheads, the Breeders, Flying Nun, Sarah Records. Alex and Andrew started writing songs the way kids do to sound like their heroes. No matter how we tried, though, the songs half Alex’s, half Andrew’s came out sounding like “Massage”: scrappy, catchy, minimalist, and sincere, with Gabi’s harmonies elevating each track. Every Monday after practice, we went to Jay’s Bar for beers and poutine. There was no point to any of this. We were just having fun. Then one day we realized we were a band. Oh Boy is our attempt to capture this easy alchemy on tape the strange magic of a bunch of amateurs coming together, finding their own wavelength, and making something out of nothing. We couldn’t have asked for a better partner in crime than our pal Jason Quever of Papercuts, who recorded us on random weekends over the course of two years. We hope the result sounds as loose, low-key, idiosyncratic, and ultimately indelible as the bands that inspired us — the ones you already know, and the ones that are still just teenagers goofing off in some suburban garage.

Long awaited second album from UK indie rock band Don't Worry! Since their inception in 2014, Don’t Worry have earned themselves a loyal following, releasing their debut album Who Cares Anyway? back in 2018. The band, helmed by co-lead singers Ronan Van Kehoe and Samuel Watson, write about everything from the mundanities of life to the relatively profound delivering a relatable commentary on modern day life. The band cite a diverse range of influences for their new record, combining the vocal harmonies of classic pop groups like The Beach Boys and The Beatles, the guitar stylings of US indie heroes Built To Spill and Pavement with the energy and quintessential ‘Britishness’ of acts like The Streets, The Cribs and Blur. Remorseless Swing was recorded in Spring 2021 at No Luck Audio, Exeter, a studio run by drummer Tom Gilbert. Now eight years into their journey together, Don’t Worry are showing no signs of slowing down and are very much looking forward to taking their explosive new album on the road in Spring 2022.

Iiro Rantala plays the piano with “emotional magnetism and musical intelligence.”

He has a “virtuosic prowess as an improviser capable of enormous idiomatic and emotional range.” This praise from the American magazine Downbeat’s review of the Finnish pianist’s third studio-recorded solo album for ACT, ‘My Finnish Calendar’ (2019), sums up the astonishing variety which people who know his playing well might almost start to take for granted.

The citation for the 2016 JTI Jazz Prize in Trier also does well to define the way audiences take him to their heart: “Rantala can sweep listeners off their feet, he can be clown and magician, charmer and virtuoso, maverick and humorist.”

This is the emotional and stylistic versatility which Ranta-la brings to the live solo recital. It is a form he is drawn to strongly; there can be very few pianists who have explored the art of solo playing quite as intensively and consistently as Rantala. A typical recital will contain, among other things, pieces from his previous solo albums for ACT - ‘Lost Heroes’, ‘My Working Class Hero’ and ‘My Finnish Calendar’. As he explains, “I like the form of the solo recital because of the freedom and responsibility I have. Freedom comes from the fact of being alone on stage and responsibility from the fact that I can’t really rely on anything, except myself.”

‘Potsdam’, recorded live in concert at Nikolaisaal in Potsdam on 27 November 2021 is, however, the first time that one of Rantala’s many live solo recitals has been released as an album by ACT. It is a very fine exposition indeed of the contrast and the continuity of which he is capable, not just in the shape of the recital as a whole, but also within individual tunes. After a beautiful and welcoming ‘Twentytwentyone’, Rantala launches into ‘Time for Rag’, which sounds like the accompaniment for a madcap Buster Keaton film. The central section of John Lennon’s ‘Woman’ is quite clearly inspired by the driving R&B style of Richard Tee, a pianist whom Rantala particularly admires, but this leads masterfully into an ending which is at first wistful and calm, but then troubled by the Finn leaning into the piano and creating a dark and discomforting mood by plucking a low string.

There is a beautiful inevitability about the final two tunes on the album. The exuberance and brashness which inflect Bernstein’s ‘Candide’ overture right from the first fanfare are irresistible. Rantala follows this, by way of complete contrast, with ‘Somewhere’ from ‘West Side Story’. Potsdam was recorded the day after the passing of Stephen Sondheim. Rantala explains how deeply this affected
him: “Sondheim was magical. As a writer and composer. ‘West Side Story’ is one of the greatest achievements of mankind. And he was so young, when he wrote all those lines: ‘Say it loud and there’s music playing. Say it soft and it’s almost like praying, Maria’.

Symphony X founder and mastermind MICHAEL ROMEO returns with a bang! On his 3rd solo album, "War Of The Worlds, Pt. 2", and debut for InsideOut Music/Sony Music Entertainment, MICHAEL ROMEO delivers nothing short of amazing Progressive Rock/Metal. While the previous album, "War Of The Worlds, Pt. 1", already gave a good taste of the things to come MICHAEL ROMEO has refined his work down to the finest detail on his new masterpiece. Once more he was supported by the same incredibly tight rhythm-section, John "JD" DeServio (bass / Black Label Society) and John Macaluso (drums, Yngwie Malmsteen, Ark, James LaBrie). The orchestration on the album is second to none and MICHAEL ROMEO’s finest riffs underline his technical skills while the arrangements underline his overall genius. "War Of The Worlds, Pt. 2" is available as: Gatefold 180g 2LP, Ltd. 2CD version coming in an eco-friendly 6-panel Pocket Pac with a 16-page CD-Booklet (CD 2 features the instrumental version of the album), Digital Album.

Suzanne Santo has never been afraid to blur the lines. A tireless creator, she's built her sound in the grey area between Americana, Southern-gothic soul, and forward-thinking rock & roll. It's a sound that nods to her past — a childhood spent in the Rust Belt; a decade logged as a member of the L.A.-based duo HoneyHoney; the acclaimed solo album, Ruby Red, that launched a new phase of her career in 2017; and the world tour that took her from Greece to Glastonbury as a member of Hozier's band — while still exploring new territory. With Yard Sale, Santo boldly moves forward, staking her claim once again as an Americana innovator. It's an album inspired by the past, written by an artist who's only interested in the here-and-now. And for Suzanne Santo, the here-and-now sounds pretty good. Yard Sale, her second release as a solo artist, finds Santo in transition. She began writing the album while touring the globe with Hozier — a gig that utilized her strengths not only as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, but as a road warrior, too. "We never stopped," she says of the year-long trek, which often found her pulling double-duty as Hozier's opening act and bandmate. "Looking back, I can recognize how much of a game-changer it was. It raised my musicianship to a new level. It truly reshaped my career." “Defiant” - American Songwriter “a bluesy ripper that gets its sizzle not just from her dynamic vocals but from a dirty, undulating guitar line from Gary Clark Jr” - Buzzbands “On “Fall For That,” she digs deep to sing about the push and pull between needing human connection and solitude, chaos and calm” - Buzzbands “bold storytelling and introspective reflection” - CMT “Catchy-as-hell” - Glide “she digs deep” - KCRW “Suzanne Santo is one of those musicians that come along every once in a blue moon.” - National Rock Review “Santo takes ownership and power back with crass and candor, introducing shameless, self aware dialogue that opens the door for conversation that leads to real healing.” - Paste "spunky" - Premier Guitar “Southern-gothic soul” - Rolling Stone Country “vivid musical portraits” - San Diego Union-Tribune

A mixture of a few well-chosen percussion elements, a
steady groove and cleverly constructed harmonies creates
Eddi Shkiper's clean, hypnotic yet positive signature sound
ubiquitous in the vast array of tracks he has released,
especially over the course of the last year. With "Le Reveur
EP", the ambitious Siberian-based artist takes us into a world
of bright and spiritual dreams. Roger Gerressen (Yoyaku,
Sushitec Records, Irenic) enhances the EP with his dub
rework of “Le Reveur”. The four-tracker is the second release
of the new Salin Records sub-label Salin Deep. Each record
sleeve is hand-printed by Daria Salin (limited edition of 300).

South London-based 8-piece band Don't Problem is proud to present their their new album ' Liminality' planned for October 2021.

Their first three singles 'King Kong' 'Whale' and 'CD's Lament' gathered very strong media support with coverage from the likes of Mary Anne Hobbs, Jamz Supernova, Tom Robinson, WorldWide FM, BBC London, Jazz FM, Soho Radio, Amazing Radio, Radio Nova, Fip and more.

With their new album, the combo challenges the common perception of a "covers" brass band, exclusively writing original material and adding electronics, synths & strings, a reflection of their wide encompassing interests. They introduce us to a very personal journey; the moment in time where a brass band affirms their love for club culture and delivers an album that travels from heavy funk to psychedelic jazz and UK dance music.

"As 8 people writing music together, sometimes it can take a while for a tune to fully take shape. This tune came into itself in the studio which gave us the space to explore the production, sonic possibilities and instrumentation. The opening section leads to a beautiful first-take flugelhorn solo driven by lush strings, pulsing horns and electronics before reaching its soaring conclusion. The title ‘Whale’ is in reference to the Whale emoji which we use as a way to express a greatness or joy for which words can't be found."

Don't Problem's debut 'DP EP' combined the heavy funk and raw psychedelic sound of brass and drums with ferocious grime-inspired improvisation to deliver original and fresh music, aimed squarely at the dance floor. The band is comprised of 8 musicians who've played with everyone from Tenderlonius, Emma Jean Thackray, Alfa Mist, Tom Misch and Ruby Rushton to Riot Jazz.