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With Dispersion, Loom & Thread return to the volatile architecture of the expanded piano trio - and quietly fracture it from within.

Daniel Klein (drums), Tobias Fröhlich (double bass) and Tom Schneider (keys, sampler) remain the sole agents on stage and in the final recording. The triangle holds. And yet, the field has expanded. For their second studio album, the trio fed their improvisations with the timbral signatures of guest saxophone and vibraphone players - not just as additional voices to be featured, but also as material to be absorbed, atomized and redistributed. The result is not augmentation but thorough refraction.

Where the debut album explored the recursive labyrinth of Schneider's live sampling of his own piano, Dispersion introduces an external grain into the feedback system. Breath and metal. Reed turbulence and struck resonance. The trio sampled extended improvisations by saxophone and vibes players: Victor Fox, Asger Nissen, Volker Heuken, and L&T's own Daniel Klein; dissected their attacks, overtones and decay curves, and integrated these fragments into the trio's internal circuitry. What emerges is a play of presences without bodies - instrumental ghosts circulating through the dense weave of rhythm and keys.

At first, one might hear the familiar relational tension: Klein's polyrhythmic elasticity interlocking with Fröhlich's tensile double bass figurations, Schneider poised at the hinge between tonal field and percussive impulse. But soon, the surface splinters - again. A vibraphone shimmer appears, yet no mallets are visible. A reed multiphonic surges through the texture, bending space between bass and drums. These events are neither quotations nor overlays; they are redistributed energies, dispersed across the trio's grammar. A digital multidimensional interplay ensues.

If the first album unfolded as a two-tiered game - live phrase and sampled reflection - Dispersion adds a further axis. The sampled materials from other improvisers are stripped of their erstwhile two-way interaction and reconstituted as malleable particles. Signifier detached from origin, resonance detached from gesture. The trio navigates a constantly shifting topology in which acoustic memory and electronic manipulation are indistinguishable.

Crucially, the album never abandons the physical urgency of three musicians reacting in real time. The additional timbral layers do not thicken the texture into opacity; rather, they introduce stark points and arrows of diffraction. Density opens into prismatic clarity. Lines splinter and regroup. What seems like a quartet or quintet collapses back into three bodies negotiating an expanded field.

Dispersion is not about addition but about distribution - of agency, of timbre, of temporal perspective. It is an album in which the trio setting becomes a site of multiplicity without surrendering its immediacy. A dissolution not only of the divide between present experience and memory, but between inside and outside, self and other.

Three musicians. Countless vectors. A music that fractures in order to cohere.

CREDITS:
Tom Schneider: piano & sampler
Tobi Fröhlich: double bass
Daniel Klein: drums & percussion

sample sources:
Victor Fox: tenor saxophone
Asger Nissen: alto saxophone
Volker Heuken: vibes
Daniel Klein: vibes

Recorded by Martin Dressler at Bauer Studios, Ludwigsburg.
Mixed & mastered by Martin Ruch.
Artwork by Viet Hoa Le.

SELF-iSH is a quick but intensely dramatic concept album with dark psychedelic themes and nonstop experimental energy. Will Wood and the Tapeworms quickly grabbed attention in the punk scene following "Everything is a Lot" due to Wood's unique writing and refusal to break character even backstage and the band's dangerously high-energy shows. Face paint, confetti, and on-stage violence became the project's calling card, making SELF-iSH's dark and intense drama an inevitable direction for Wood. Mere months after the debut, producer Kevin Antreassian offered Wood a deal on his follow-up but only had a narrow time window, so Wood improvised. Bringing together a new lineup and with the help of guitarist Mike Bottiglieri, Wood wove scraps of discarded or unfinished songs together and created a tight yet abstract psychedelic concept album with the intent of taking every risk and trying every off-kilter idea he had. SELF-iSH began its highly conceptual production process during the holiday season in 2015, and the studio became littered with notepads, graphic charts, and teeth. The result was a manic little album featuring screaming, theremin, kazoo, power drills, the sound of breaking furniture, and an almost heavy-metal twist on Wood's off-kilter vision. By the time the album was finished, the piano was bloody, and the studio was wrecked. The album became what Wood described as the "bastard child" of his discography. Will Wood's early career can be primarily defined by his experimental vocal delivery, honky-tonk piano smashing, and darkly edgy songwriting. While his stylings have matured and taken on a more precise approach, his refusal to conform to expectations and constant shifts in the genre have continued to be hallmarks of his songwriting and production. In his "Will Wood and the Tapeworms" releases (Everything Is A Lot in 2015, SELF-iSH in 2016), audiences can see the first glimpses into what would eventually become his signature style, presented in a uniquely raw and chaotic state of potential.

The AMTK+ series on Amotik's self-titled imprint gives room for friends and admired artists to present their futuristic take on techno. For the fifth edition, Italian producer D-Leria joins the team and presents two highly effective, booming techno trips. The first track, 'Filterbank' sets the tone with its punching kick-drums mangled in between buzzing bass lines. His second track, 'Let It Be' shows a rare side from D-Leria where he uses mesmerising vocal chops to create an immersive, driving techno tool. On the flip side, Argentinian artist Translate comes in with some excellent bleepy hypnotism on 'Notation', followed by the darker, pulsating 'Shifted Communication'.

Brighton four-piece Lime Garden return with their self-reckoning second album 'Maybe Not Tonight' So Young Records (the record label launched by So Young Magazine).

'Maybe Not Tonight' unfolds as a full night out, charting the pleasures and perils of partying and impulsive decisions.

Vocalist and guitarist Chloe Howard says: “The album is about a night out, from start to finish. As the night progresses, you’re having a great time, until your ex walks in with someone else. You hate the way you look but rather than going home, you press the big red button and get even more drunk. Eventually, you take yourself home full of melancholy, chaos and anger.”

Following their critically acclaimed 2024 debut 'One More Thing', which captured the raw live energy that earned them slots at festivals including Glastonbury and Green Man, Maybe Not Tonight sees Lime Garden expand their signature “wonk-pop” sound upwards and outwards. The result is their most intoxicating and luminous material to date.

2024 marked the 50th anniversary of Cymande’s ‘Promised Heights’, a record that closed out an historic three album run of seminal early 1970s Afro-soul that also included their 1972 self-titled debut and 1973’s ‘Second Time Round’

Promised Heights’ solidified Cymande’s place in music history and contains some of their most- beloved and often-sampled tracks such as ‘Brothers On The Slide’.

As children of the Windrush Generation, Cymande were part of the first wave of innovators and originators of the fledgling Black British music scene.

Taking influences from their Guyanese and Jamaican roots, the band fused reggae basslines, Afro-tinged Nyabinghi percussion, psychedelic rock touches, and American style funk instrumentation into a unique sound they dubbed as ‘Nyah-rock’.

‘Promised Heights’ was recorded following the band’s US tour with Al Green, which had firmly planted Cymande in the ears of an adoring American audience.

UILTY RAZORS, BONA FIDE PUNKS.



Writings on the topic that go off in all directions, mind-numbing lectures given by academics, and testimonies, most of them heavily doctored, from those who “lived through that era”: so many people today fantasize about the early days of punk in our country… This blessed moment when no one had yet thought of flaunting a ridiculous green mohawk, taking Sid Vicious as a hero, or – even worse – making the so-called alternative scene both festive and boorish. There was no such thing in 1976 or 1977, when it wasn’t easy to get hold of the first 45s by the Pistols or the Clash. Few people were aware of what was happening on the fringes of the fringes at the time. Malcolm McLaren was virtually unknown, and having short hair made you seem strange. Who knew then that rock music, which had taken a very bad turn since the early 1970s, would once again become an essential element of liberation? That, thanks to short and fast songs, it would once again rediscover that primitive, social side that was so hated by older generations? Who knew that, besides a few loners who read the music press (it was even better if they read it in English) and frequented the right record stores? Many of these formed bands, because it was impossible to do otherwise. We quickly went from listening to the Velvet Underground to trying to play the Stooges’ intros. It’s a somewhat collective story, even though there weren’t many people to start it.
The Guilty Razors were among those who took part in this initial upheaval in Paris. They were far from being the worst. They had something special and even released a single that was well above the national average. They also had enough songs to fill an album, the one you’re holding. In everyone’s opinion, they were definitely not among the punk impostors that followed in their wake. They were, at least, genuine and credible.

Guilty Razors, Parisian punk band (1975-1978). To understand something about their somewhat linear but very energetic sound, we might need to talk about the context in which it was born and, more broadly, recall the boredom (a theme that would become capital in punk songs) coupled with the desire to blow everything off, which were the basis for the formation of bands playing a rejuvenated rock music ; about the passion for a few records by the Kinks or the early Who, by the Stooges, by the Velvet mostly, which set you apart from the crowd.
And of course, we should remember this new wave, which was promoted by a few articles in the specialized press and some cutting-edge record stores, coming from New York or London, whose small but powerful influence could be felt in Paris and in a handful of isolated places in the provinces, lulled to sleep by so many appalling things, from Tangerine Dream to President Giscard d’Estaing...
In 1975-76, French music was, as almost always, in a sorry state ; it was still dominated by Johnny Hallyday and Sylvie Vartan. Local rock music was also rather bleak, apart from Bijou and Little Bob who tried to revive this small scene with poorly sound-engineered gigs played to almost no one.
In the working class suburbs at the time, it was mainly hard rock music played to 11 that helped people forget about their gruelling shifts at the factory. Here and there, on the outskirts of major cities, you still could find a few rockers with sideburns wearing black armbands since the death of Gene Vincent, but it wasn’t a proper mass movement, just a source of real danger to anyone they came across who wasn't like them. In August 1976, a festival unlike any other took place in Mont-de-Marsan – the First European Punk Festival as the poster said – with almost as many people on stage as in the audience. Yet, on that day, a quasi historical event happened, when, under the blazing afternoon sun, a band of unknowns called The Damned made an unprecedented noise in the arena, reminiscent of the chaotic Stooges in their early adolescence. They were the first genuine punk band to perform in our country: from then on, anything was possible, almost anything seemed permissible.

It makes sense that the four+1 members of Guilty Razors, who initially amplified acoustic guitars with crappy tape recorder microphones, would adopt punk music (pronounced paink in French) naturally and instinctively, since it combines liberating noise with speed of execution and – crucially – a very healthy sense of rebellion (the protesters of May 1968 proclaimed, and it was even a slogan, that they weren’t against old people, but against what had made them grow old. In the mid-1970s, it seemed normal and obvious that old people should now ALSO be targeted!!!).
At the time, the desire to fight back, and break down authority and apathy, was either red or black, often taking the form of leafleting, tumultuous general assemblies in the schoolyard, and massive or shabby demonstrations, most of the time overflowing with an exciting vitality that sometimes turned into fights with the riot police. Indeed, soon after the end of the Vietnam War and following Pinochet’s coup in Chile, all over France, Trotskyist and anarcho-libertarian fervour was firmly entrenched among parts of the educated youth population, who were equally rebellious and troublemakers whenever they had the chance. It should also be noted that when the single "Anarchy in the UK" was first heard, even though not many of us had access to it, both the title and its explosive sound immediately resonated with some of those troublemakers crying out for ANARCHY!!! Meanwhile, the left-wing majority still equated punks with reckless young neo-Nazis. Of course, the widely circulated photos in the mainstream press of Siouxsie Sioux with her swastikas didn’t necessarily help to win over the theorists of the Great Revolution. It took Joe Strummer to introduce The Clash as an anti-racist, anti-fascist and anti-ignorance band for the rejection of old-school revolutionaries to fade a little.

The Lycée Jean-Baptiste Say at Porte d’Auteuil, despite being located in the very posh and very exclusive 16th arrondissement of Paris, didn’t escape these "committed" upheavals, which doubled as the perfect outlet for the less timid members of this generation.
“Back then, politics were fun,” says Tristam Nada, who studied there and went on to become Guilty Razors’ frontman. “Jean-Baptiste was the leftist high-school in the neighbourhood. When the far right guys from the GUD came down there, the Communist League guys from elsewhere helped us fight them off.”
Anything that could challenge authority was fair game and of course, strikes for just about any reason would lead to increasingly frequent truancy (with a definitive farewell to education that would soon follow). Tristam Nada spent his 10th and 11th unfinished grades with José Perez, who had come from Spain, where his father, a janitor, had been sentenced to death by Franco. “José steered my tastes towards solid acts such as The Who. Like most teenagers, I had previously absorbed just about everything that came my way, from Yes to Led Zeppelin to Genesis. I was exploring… And then one day, he told me that he and his brother Carlos wanted to start a rock band.” The Perez brothers already played guitar. “Of course, they were Spanish!”, jokes their singer. “Then, somewhat reluctantly, José took up the bass and we were soon joined by Jano – who called himself Jano Homicid – who took up the rhythm guitar.” Several drummers would later join this core of not easily intimidated young guys who didn’t let adversity get the better of them.

The first rehearsals of the newly named Guilty Razors took place in the bedroom of a Perez aunt. There, the three rookies tried to cover a few standards, songs that often were an integral part of their lives. During a first, short gig, in front of a bewildered audience of tough old-school rockers, they launched into a clunky version of the Velvet Underground's “Heroin”. Challenge or recklessness? A bit of both, probably… And then, step by step, their limited repertoire expanded as they decided to write their own songs, sung in a not always very accurate or academic English, but who cared about proper grammar or the right vocabulary, since what truly mattered was to make the words sound as good as possible while playing very, very fast music? And spitting out those words in a language that left no doubt as to what it conveyed mattered as well.
Trying their hand a the kind of rock music disliked by most of the neighbourhood, making noise, being fiercely provocative: they still belonged to a tiny clique who, at this very moment, had chosen to impose this difference. And there were very few places in France or elsewhere, where one could witness the first stirrings of something that wasn’t a trend yet, let alone a movement.

In the provinces, in late 1976 or early 1977, there couldn’t be more than thirty record stores that were a bit more discerning than average, where you could hear this new kind of short-haired rock music called “punk”. The old clientele, who previously had no problem coming in to buy the latest McCartney or Aerosmith LP, now felt a little less comfortable there…
In Paris, these enlightened places were quite rare and often located nex to what would become the Forum des Halles, a big shopping mall. Between three aging sex workers, a couple of second-hand clothes shops, sellers of hippie paraphernalia and small fashion designers, the good word was loudly spread in two pioneering places – propagators of what was still only a new underground movement. Historically, the first one was the Open Market, a kind of poorly, but tastefully stocked cave. Speakers blasted out the sound of sixties garage bands from the Nuggets compilation (a crucial reference for José Perez) or the badly dressed English kids of Eddie and the Hot Rods. This black-painted den was opened a few years earlier by Marc Zermati, a character who wasn’t always in a sunny disposition, but always quite radical in his (good) choices and his opinions. He founded the independent label Skydog and was one of the promoters of the Mont-de-Marsan punk festivals. Not far from there was Harry Cover, another store more in tune with the new New York scene, which was amply covered in the house fanzine, Rock News (even though it was in it that the photos of the Sex Pistols were first published in France).
It was a favorite hang-out of the Perez brothers and Tristam Nada, as the latter explained. “It’s at Harry Cover’s that we first heard the Pistols and Clash’s 45s, and after that, we decided to start writing our first songs. If they could do it, so could we!”
The sonic shocks that were “Anarchy in the UK”, “White Riot” or the Buzzcocks’s EP, “Spiral Scratch” – which Guilty Razors' sound is reminiscent of – were soon to be amplified by an unparalleled visual shock. In April 1977, right after the release of their first LP, The Clash performed at the Palais des Glaces in Paris, during a punk night organised by Marc Zermati. For many who were there, it was the gig of a lifetime…
Of course, Guilty Razors and Tristam were in the audience: “That concert was fabulous… We Parisian punks were almost all dressed in black and white, with white shirts, skinny leather ties, bikers jackets or light jackets, etc. The Clash, on the other hand, wore colourful clothes. Well, the next day, at the Gibus, you’d spot everyone who had been at this concert, but they weren’t wearing anything black, they were all wearing colours.”

It makes sense to mention the Gibus club, as Guilty Razors often played there (sometimes in front of a hostile audience). It was also the only place in Paris that regularly scheduled new Parisian or Anglo-Saxon acts, such as Generation X, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Slits, and Johnny Thunders who would become a kind of messed-up mascot for the venue. A little later, in 1978, the Rose Bonbon – formerly the Nashville – also attracted nightly owls in search of electric thrills… In 1977, the iconic but not necessarily excellent Asphalt Jungle often played at the Gibus, sometimes sharing the bill with Metal Urbain, the only band whose aura would later transcend the French borders (“I saw them as the French Sex Pistols,” said Geoff Travis, head of their British label Rough Trade). Already established in this small scene, Metal Urbain helped the young and restless Guilty Razors who had just arrived. Guitarist for Metal Urbain Hermann Schwartz remembers it: “They were younger than us, we were a bit like their mentors even if it’s too strong a word… At least they were credible. We thought they were good, and they had good songs which reminded of the Buzzcocks that I liked a lot. But at some point, they started hanging out with the Hells Angels. That’s when we stopped following them.”

The break-up was mutual, since, Guilty Razors, for their part, were shocked when they saw a fringe element of the audience at Metal Urbain concerts who repeatedly shouted “Sieg Heil” and gave Nazi salutes. These provocations, even still minor (the bulk of the skinhead crowd would later make their presence felt during concerts), weren’t really to the liking of the Perez brothers, whose anti-fascist convictions were firmly rooted. Some things are non-negotiable.
A few months earlier (in July 1978), Guilty Razors had nevertheless opened very successfully for Metal Urbain at the Bus Palladium, a more traditonally old-school rock night-club. But, as was sometimes the case back then, the night turned into a mass brawl when suburban rockers came to “beat up punks”.

Back then, Parisian nights weren’t always sweet and serene.

So, after opening as best as they could for The Jam (their sound having been ruined by the PA system), our local heroes were – once again – met outside by a horde of greasers out to get them. “Thankfully,” says Tristam, “we were with our roadies, motorless bikers who acted as a protective barrier. We were chased in the neighbouring streets and the whole thing ended in front of a bar, with the owner coming out with a rifle…”
Although Tristam and the Perez brothers narrowly escaped various, potentially bloody, incidents, they weren’t completely innocent of wrongdoing either. They still find amusing their mugging of two strangers in the street for example (“We were broke and we simply wanted to buy tickets for the Heartbreakers concert that night,” says Tristam). It so happened that their victims were two key figures in the rock business at the time: radio presenter Alain Manneval and music publisher Philippe Constantin. They filed a complaint and sought monetary compensation, but somehow the band’s manager, the skilful but very controversial Alexis, managed to get the complaint withdrawn and Guilty Razors ended up signing with Constantin with a substantial advance.

They also signed with Polydor and the label released in 1978 their only three-track 45, featuring “I Don't Wanna be A Rich”, “Hurts and Noises” and “Provocate” (songs that exuded perpetual rebellion and an unquenchable desire for “class” confrontation). It was a very good record, but due to a lack of promotion (radio stations didn’t play French artists singing in English), it didn’t sell very well. Only 800 copies were allegedly sold and the rest of the stock was pulped… Initially, the three tracks were to be included on a LP that never came to be, since they were dropped by Polydor (“Let’s say we sometimes caused a ruckus in their offices!” laughs Tristam.) In order to perfect the long-awaited LP, the band recorded demos of other tracks. There was a cover of Pink Floyd's “Lucifer Sam” from the Syd Barrett era – proof of an enduring love for the sixties’ greats –, “Wake Up” a hangover tale and “Bad Heart” about the Baader-Meinhof gang, whose actions had a profound impact on the era and on a generation seeking extreme dissent... On the album you’re now discovering, you can also hear five previously unreleased tracks recorded a bit later during an extended and freezing stay in Madrid, in a makeshift studio with the invaluable help of a drummer also acting as sound engineer. He was both an enthusiastic old hippie and a proper whizz at sound engineering. Here too, certain influences from the fifties and sixties (Link Wray, the Troggs) are more than obvious in the band’s music.

Shortly after a final stormy and rather barbaric (on the audience’s side) “Punk night” at the Olympia in June 1978, Tristam left the band ; his bandmates continued without him for a short while.

But like most pioneering punk bands of the era, Guilty Razors eventually split up for good after three years (besides once in Spain, they’d only played in Paris). The reason for ceasing business activities were more or less the same for everyone: there were no venues outside one’s small circuit to play this kind of rock music, which was still frightening, unknown, or of little interest to most people. The chances of recording an LP were virtually null, since major labels were only signing unoriginal but reassuring sub-Téléphone clones, and the smaller ones were only interested in progressive rock or French chanson for youth clubs. And what about self-production? No one in our small safety-pinned world had thought about it yet. There wasn’t enough money to embark on that sort of venture anyway.

So yes, the early days of punk in France were truly No Future!

Xylitol, aka producer and DJ Catherine Backhouse, shifts up the refinement and musical breadth for her second album Blumenfantasie, the follow-up to her Planet Mu debut Anemones.
With Blumenfantasie, Xylitol wanted “to make space and for the music to float and propel at once”, finding routes through the pointillistic figures, cascading synths and the meditative stillness of kosmische musik and bolder breakbeat programming. She reaches this delicate balance through careful subtraction, hoping “to convey a sense of intimacy and sadness but without sentimentality” which she manages with a feel and sound that's raw and intuitive.

Blumenfantasie rolls through detailed jungle workouts that flutter and bleep, through beatless ambience, taking a rare dip below 160 bpm for the elegiac Mirjana, the album’s most explicit nod to Krautrock with a drum break chopped up from Amon Duul II’s anthemic ‘Archangel’s Thunderbird’, through to Halo, a bare bones grime rhythm that calls to mind the missing link between industrial pioneers Nurse With Wound and Wiley's Eskibeat.

Catherine cast her net to draw in experimental audiovisual duo Sculpture and Reading based post-rock band The Leaf Library as collaborators, pulling the former’s whirling eddies of musique concrète into a slice of sublime aquatic jungle, and the latter’s radiophonic folksong into a dark and disorientating breakbeat workout equally indebted to Source Direct as to Broadcast.
Blumenfantasie moves with a confident, self-effacing fluidity which has been informed by DJ Bunnyhausen’s more regular DJ gigs. She speculates ‘if this album feels more cohesive than its predecessor it's likely because I've been DJing a lot more, with Worthing Techno Militia, with central and eastern european electronica collective Slav to the Rhythm, as well as being part of Italo Disco crew Flex. Moving between these zones seemed to open up hidden pathways between the disparate musical trajectories they represent.'
While Anemones contrasted the rough and the delicate, its successor is an album built for the head, hips and heart, with painterly sounds and a sense of intimacy that encourages deep listening while keeping its eyes on the strobelight and its feet on the dancefloor.

Twice Grammy-nominated, Mercury Prize and BRIT Award-winning artist Arlo Parks announces her new album, Ambiguous Desire, due April 3rd via Transgressive Records.



Ambiguous Desire is Parks at her most confident and experimental, supplanting live band sessions for modular synths, ableton plugins and samplers that channel the frenetic, vibrant spaces she was immersed in, all while spotlighting the acclaimed poetry and lyricism she’s beloved for.



Reflecting on the making of the record, Parks shares, "I danced more than ever as I made this record, I made more friends than ever too, found myself in the weird underbelly of New York juke nights, unleashed, laughed and laughed and laughed. This record has desire at its centre. Desire is a life force, it’s a wanting, a yearning, a momentum - we are all alive because there is something or someone we want - desire is an engine. But it is also mysterious, tangled, random, enlightening and HUMAN."



Parks crafted the album with producer Baird (Brockhampton, Kevin Abstract). Their process unfolded between NYC’s vibrant, community-rooted nightlife and long, introspective days spent in Baird’s downtown loft. The result is Parks’ most vulnerable, self-affirming, and euphoric work to date.

Die zweifach Grammy-nominierte, mit dem Mercury Prize und BRIT Award ausgezeichnete Künstlerin Arlo Parks kündigt ihr neues Album „Ambiguous Desire“ an, das am 3. April über Transgressive Records erscheinen wird.



„Ambiguous Desire“ zeigt Parks von ihrer selbstbewusstesten und experimentellsten Seite. Live-Band-Sessions wurden durch modulare Synthesizer, Ableton-Plugins und Sampler ersetzt, die die frenetischen, pulsierenden Räume widerspiegeln, in denen sie sich bewegte, während gleichzeitig ihre gefeierte Poesie und Lyrik, für die sie so geliebt wird, im Vordergrund stehen.



Über die Entstehung des Albums sagt Parks: „Ich habe während der Arbeit an diesem Album mehr getanzt als je zuvor, ich habe mehr Freunde gefunden als je zuvor, ich habe mich in den seltsamen Untergrund der New Yorker Juke-Nächte begeben, mich gehen lassen, gelacht und gelacht und gelacht. Dieses Album dreht sich um das Thema Begehren. Sehnsucht ist eine Lebenskraft, sie ist ein Verlangen, eine Dynamik – wir alle leben, weil es etwas oder jemanden gibt, den wir wollen – Sehnsucht ist ein Motor. Aber sie ist auch geheimnisvoll, verworren, zufällig, erleuchtend und MENSCHLICH.“



Parks hat das Album zusammen mit dem Produzenten Baird (Brockhampton, Kevin Abstract) produziert. Der Entstehungsprozess fand zwischen dem pulsierenden, gemeinschaftsorientierten Nachtleben von NYC und langen, introspektiven Tagen in Bairds Loft in der Innenstadt statt. Das Ergebnis ist Parks' bisher verletzlichstes, selbstbewusstestes und euphorischstes Werk.

Twice Grammy-nominated, Mercury Prize and BRIT Award-winning artist Arlo Parks announces her new album, Ambiguous Desire, due April 3rd via Transgressive Records.



Ambiguous Desire is Parks at her most confident and experimental, supplanting live band sessions for modular synths, ableton plugins and samplers that channel the frenetic, vibrant spaces she was immersed in, all while spotlighting the acclaimed poetry and lyricism she’s beloved for.



Reflecting on the making of the record, Parks shares, "I danced more than ever as I made this record, I made more friends than ever too, found myself in the weird underbelly of New York juke nights, unleashed, laughed and laughed and laughed. This record has desire at its centre. Desire is a life force, it’s a wanting, a yearning, a momentum - we are all alive because there is something or someone we want - desire is an engine. But it is also mysterious, tangled, random, enlightening and HUMAN."



Parks crafted the album with producer Baird (Brockhampton, Kevin Abstract). Their process unfolded between NYC’s vibrant, community-rooted nightlife and long, introspective days spent in Baird’s downtown loft. The result is Parks’ most vulnerable, self-affirming, and euphoric work to date.

Die zweifach Grammy-nominierte, mit dem Mercury Prize und BRIT Award ausgezeichnete Künstlerin Arlo Parks kündigt ihr neues Album „Ambiguous Desire“ an, das am 3. April über Transgressive Records erscheinen wird.



„Ambiguous Desire“ zeigt Parks von ihrer selbstbewusstesten und experimentellsten Seite. Live-Band-Sessions wurden durch modulare Synthesizer, Ableton-Plugins und Sampler ersetzt, die die frenetischen, pulsierenden Räume widerspiegeln, in denen sie sich bewegte, während gleichzeitig ihre gefeierte Poesie und Lyrik, für die sie so geliebt wird, im Vordergrund stehen.



Über die Entstehung des Albums sagt Parks: „Ich habe während der Arbeit an diesem Album mehr getanzt als je zuvor, ich habe mehr Freunde gefunden als je zuvor, ich habe mich in den seltsamen Untergrund der New Yorker Juke-Nächte begeben, mich gehen lassen, gelacht und gelacht und gelacht. Dieses Album dreht sich um das Thema Begehren. Sehnsucht ist eine Lebenskraft, sie ist ein Verlangen, eine Dynamik – wir alle leben, weil es etwas oder jemanden gibt, den wir wollen – Sehnsucht ist ein Motor. Aber sie ist auch geheimnisvoll, verworren, zufällig, erleuchtend und MENSCHLICH.“



Parks hat das Album zusammen mit dem Produzenten Baird (Brockhampton, Kevin Abstract) produziert. Der Entstehungsprozess fand zwischen dem pulsierenden, gemeinschaftsorientierten Nachtleben von NYC und langen, introspektiven Tagen in Bairds Loft in der Innenstadt statt. Das Ergebnis ist Parks' bisher verletzlichstes, selbstbewusstestes und euphorischstes Werk.

Hey Mercedes, formed from members of Chicago's emo band Braid, included Bob Nanna, Todd Bell, Mark Dawursk, and Damon Atkinson. They debuted with a self-titled EP (Polyvinyl Records) in 2000 and followed up with extensive touring and two full-length albums: Everynight Fire Works (Vagrant Records) in 2001 and Loses Control (Vagrant Records) in 2003 along with two more EP's: The Weekend EP (Vagrant Records) in 2002 and Unorchestrated (Grand Theft Autumn) in 2004. Dawursk left at the end of 2001 and was replaced by Mike Shumaker. After 359 shows and several releases, the band disbanded in April 2005.They played a reunion show in 2007 and celebrated the 15th anniversary of Everynight Fire Works in 2016 with a remastered re-release and select live performances. In 2025, the band made their live comeback at Las Vegas's second annual Best Friends Forever Festival and will continue to play more shows in 2026. In March 2026, Polyvinyl Records will reissue the complete Hey Mercedes catalog. With several EPs and albums currently out of print, this release will provide Hey Mercedes fans with the opportunity to obtain every Hey Mercedes title on vinyl.

Hey Mercedes, formed from members of Chicago's emo band Braid, included Bob Nanna, Todd Bell, Mark Dawursk, and Damon Atkinson. They debuted with a self-titled EP (Polyvinyl Records) in 2000 and followed up with extensive touring and two full-length albums: Everynight Fire Works (Vagrant Records) in 2001 and Loses Control (Vagrant Records) in 2003 along with two more EP's: The Weekend EP (Vagrant Records) in 2002 and Unorchestrated (Grand Theft Autumn) in 2004. Dawursk left at the end of 2001 and was replaced by Mike Shumaker. After 359 shows and several releases, the band disbanded in April 2005.They played a reunion show in 2007 and celebrated the 15th anniversary of Everynight Fire Works in 2016 with a remastered re-release and select live performances. In 2025, the band made their live comeback at Las Vegas's second annual Best Friends Forever Festival and will continue to play more shows in 2026. In March 2026, Polyvinyl Records will reissue the complete Hey Mercedes catalog. With several EPs and albums currently out of print, this release will provide Hey Mercedes fans with the opportunity to obtain every Hey Mercedes title on vinyl. LP FORMAT DETAILS: Clear blue vinyl with download card in a gatefold jacket.

Hey Mercedes, formed from members of Chicago's emo band Braid, included Bob Nanna, Todd Bell, Mark Dawursk, and Damon Atkinson. They debuted with a self-titled EP (Polyvinyl Records) in 2000 and followed up with extensive touring and two full-length albums: Everynight Fire Works (Vagrant Records) in 2001 and Loses Control (Vagrant Records) in 2003 along with two more EP's: The Weekend EP (Vagrant Records) in 2002 and Unorchestrated (Grand Theft Autumn) in 2004. Dawursk left at the end of 2001 and was replaced by Mike Shumaker. After 359 shows and several releases, the band disbanded in April 2005. They played a reunion show in 2007 and celebrated the 15th anniversary of Everynight Fire Works in 2016 with a remastered re-release and select live performances. In 2025, the band made their live comeback at Las Vegas's second annual Best Friends Forever Festival and will continue to play more shows in 2026. In March 2026, Polyvinyl Records will reissue the complete Hey Mercedes catalog. With several EPs and albums currently out of print, this release will provide Hey Mercedes fans with the opportunity to obtain every Hey Mercedes title on vinyl.

Hagridden' is the second full-length from Scottish sisters Bratakus. Fiercely political and unapologetic, the duo made up of siblings Brèagha Cuinn (guitar and vocals) and Onnagh Cuinn (bass and vocals) deliver ten songs that combine garage rock and feminist punk with the same deft poise as forerunners The Distillers, The Donnas, Bikini Kill and X-Ray Spex.
In 2019, a BBC news report called Bratakus "the UK's most remote punk band". Formed in 2015 outside a small whiskey village called Tomintoul in the Scottish Highlands, the sisters (then 14 and 8 years old) have maintained a DIY ethos in everything they've done. Recording at home, self-releasing music, booking their own tours and with no drummer available locally, the duo turned their limitation into a statement, performing live with a drum machine and cementing their reputation as an uncompromising force within the punk scene.
'Hagridden' marks a new beginning for the two sisters, introducing real drums to the recording process (including a guest appearance from Chris Dangerous of Swedish rock band The Hives) plus a more focused approach to songwriting. The message and music are just as loud, but the execution is now deadlier than ever.

A Profound Non-Event, the debut album by Sydney-based three piece Daily Toll, comprises 11 songs traversing three years of forged friendships, collaborative experimentation and a shared love of growing through words and song.

Those attuned to the ever-vibrant Australian underground may already be well familiar with Daily Toll, their consistent live presence since their inception in 2021 embroidered by a handful of (mostly) home-recorded, (mostly) digital self-releases that have steadily accumulated an appreciative following. Initially the project of self taught musician, poet & artist Kata Szász-Komlós(they/them) and Jasper Craig-Adams(he/him), and expended to a three piece with the more recent addition of friend Tom Stephens(he/him), Daily Toll represents the union of three unique creative dispositions, of relationships blooming through the push and pull of creative practice. Mapping the band’s existence through their recorded output is to bear witness to the flux of three people learning to respond to one another and gently ossify into a collective vision that at once calls to mind folk song intimacy, post-punk dynamics and the artful poeticism of an adjacent Flying Nun legacy.

If those earlier recordings reflect a band imagining themselves into being in real time, A Profound Non-Event observes a clear shift in both conviction and approach. Recorded in just three days with Alex Bennett at the purely analogue Sound Recordings studio in Castlemaine and holing up at night in the century old cottage situated beside the studio, sheltering from the late-June wind and rain within walls littered with instruments and microphones, lighting fires to stay warm. Kata describes the experience as defined by “candle light and creative camaraderie”, an idyllic account of a collection of songs that glide with an undeniably warm, easy charm, evidenced in particular in the record’s second half as the tone turns increasingly introspective, the very sound of a cold evening’s drift into night. When contrasted with the moody swirl and sing-song bounce of the opening trio of tracks, there’s clear evidence of a band not simply in the process of becoming, but committed to finding their truth in that process.
Still, if Daily Toll display a reluctance to be wholly defined, then album centerpiece ‘Killincs‘ (positioned in the middle for a reason) might just be their Rosetta Stone. A verbose rumination on unsettled feelings of isolation and longing, exploring the challenges in making peace with one's decisions amidst the uncertainty of an often harsh world and the realisation that some things remain best unresolved - “I have the keys still, but I’ve buried the path”.

Mahjong Room is the second album Cameron Lew released under the artist name Ginger Root which explores his coming of age and discovery of his own signature sound; self coined as Aggressive Elevator Soul. Self Produced and Performed, this album marked the beginning of Ginger Roots' rise in popularity outside of his Huntington Beach hometown. Lew was still in film school at the time of recording and releasing Mahjong Room. His attention was equally focused on the music videos that were made for singles `Two Step', `Call it Home', `Jeanie', `Mahjong Room', and `Ohio'. Becoming a signature of Ginger Root releases, the video treatments of songs were humor-filled and directed and produced by Lew himself. Catching the attention of other touring indie acts Ginger Root spent most of the fall of 2018 on tour with artists Khrunagbin, Duran Jones & The Indications, The Marias, and Omar Apollo.

FUMU christens the promising new label Return To Zero (RTZ) with »Funeral Rites on Planet Saturn«, the surrendering sophomore album from Nigerian artist, self-described »negro-producer«, hedonist, and iconoclast LINTD. With production collaboration from Porter Brook and features from Samrai (Swing Ting), Porter Brook, Sam Scott Francis (GOMID), Rizmi, and Imani Jendai.

LINTD’s work emerges as a call and response between the tender, dynamic sounds of Black music across history and the surreal reality of contemporary, vulnerable Black life – a haunting dialogue. These themes are catalysed in the Black Impossible LP Trilogy, reclaiming Black utopia through sound technologies via »Smooch Soundsystem Live at The White Hotel« for Second Born (Kop-Z, Porter Brook), and »DOGTOOTH. And Other Such Tales of the Macabre« on The White Hotel’s HEAD II outlet.

While earlier works engaged with the mania, joy, and paranoia of this impossible experience, »Funeral Rites on Planet Saturn« arrives at a soulful conclusion, allowing grief to tell a truer story. In the vein of Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane, and Octavia Butler, LINTD introduces the speculative planet Saturn as a site where impossible Black being across the world can come and rest: a site for liberation and emancipation.

»This one is an act of care towards myself, and hopefully others like me. I have proven everything I want to prove this year; this one is my elixir from all the lonely grief, a place of rest.«

YONAKA return with their turbo-charged second studio album, Until You’re Satisfied. Self-recorded with band member Alex Crosby at the production helm, alongside a little help from Dimitri Tikovoï (Placebo, The Libertines), the Brighton rock-trio come together as a unified force over 13 tracks. Until You’re Satisfied is a joyful reclamation of themselves, wrestled from the brink and shaped into their truest form yet. “Fragile in places and a circus in others”.

Luciano Cilio was born in Naples, Italy, in 1950. He studied music and architecture and, in the late '60s, collaborated with local artist Alan Sorrenti, American expat Shawn Phillips and various avant-garde theater groups. A virtuoso guitarist and self-taught composer, Cilio released only one LP before his untimely death at the age of 33.

Dialoghi Del Presente (1977) is a work like no other, one that sounds both ancient and ahead of its time. Produced by Renato Marengo, it features a series of muted tableaux for strings, woodwinds, guitar, chorus, piano and percussion. Cilio carves out a space where subtle, repetitive phrases yield – almost imperceptibly – to breathtaking silence.

As Jim O'Rourke writes, "These recordings sound as if they were to please no one but himself; they feel self-contained, introspective, and determined ... You can feel in the music a sort of necessity that can be rarely found, like in This Heat's debut or Nick Drake's Pink Moon."

While each subsequent "quadro" grows slightly more abstract, Cilio draws the listener into an expansive, pastoral soundscape. The closing piece, "Interludio," begins with a plaintive guitar, which is joined by haunting strings and woodwinds before concluding, poignantly, as the album began, with Cilio and his guitar, alone once more.

Superior Viaduct's edition reproduces the original sleeve design. Recommended for fans of Johann Johannsson, Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden, Arvo Part and Popol Vuh.

The dreamy harmonising of Everything But The Girl. The propulsive urgency of The Strokes. The lilting folk-pop of The Coral. The introspective songcraft of Belle and Sebastian. The bittersweet, lyrical side-eyes of The Beautiful South. Vona Vella have all these elements and so many more, all weaving together to form a contemporary sound both gossamer delicate and fiercely robust. Since their eponymous debut album in 2023 (released on Strap Originals, Pete Doherty’s label), the seed of their signature sound – wistful indie-pop harmonies, exquisitely blended male/female vocals – has not so much grown as erupted through the dream-pop meadow into a towering, flowering beanstalk.

Today, with their second album Carnival, the former indie-pop duo have spectacularly evolved into a dynamic five-piece band, with key musical contributions from the musicians they’ve so successfully toured with over the last two years, drummer Jake Bott (who they’ve known since they were 17), bassist Claud J Melton (who they found on TikTok through a search for a female bassist), and guitarist Dexter Howell (a friend of a friend). As a five-piece, their innate pop sensibilities are now newly bolstered by a confident, thrilling propulsion, izzy and Dan, still the main songwriters and vocalists, are thrilled with the sound, where the possibilities are endless. Vona Vella may be names after two flowers, but there’s nothing twee happening here.

2026 Repress

DJ Quik is a giant of West Coast hip-hop. With his fourth album Rhythm-Al-Ism he created his masterpiece, a perfect hip-hop album. As Quik explains, “the name Rhythm-Al-Ism alone tells you what I was doing. I was mixing up rhythms. I was meshing R&B with hip-hop and jazz. And a little bit of comedy”. It’s absolutely sensational and as with a lot of mid-90s albums those original vinyl copies are now rare so here’s the Be With re-issue.

A preternaturally gifted producer/rapper, DJ Quik has produced scores of LA gangsta rap classics. He’s released platinum and gold records of his own, as well as helped craft them for the likes of Tupac, Snoop Dogg, and Dr Dre. Quik has always been quirkier and more interesting than his gangsta rap peers, both musically and lyrically. An old-school funk producer at heart, he’s also incredibly nice on the mic. His raps often deal in boasts, jokes and good times but also cover his beefs, his trials and his trauma. Partying and pain, all mixed up. DJing and producing hype beat tapes from age 14, Quik’s tracks blended the languid funk and rubbery synths of Zapp and George Clinton with a gangsta aesthetic, creating a more danceable foil to Compton’s more typical nihilistic hedonism. Ultimately, his records sound custom engineered to drift out over sun-soaked barbecues.

Released in 1998 on Profile, Rhythm-Al-Ism was the closest Quik ever got to making a commercial splash. “You’z A Ganxta” and “Hand in Hand” made radio waves across the country and the less radio-friendly tracks like “Medley For A ‘V’” were bumping out of car stereos. Combining his soulful, jazzy P-Funk/G-Funk beats with his effortlessly smooth flow, Rhythm-Al-Ism was the quintessential West Coast Party. Squelchy synths, bouncy bass, monstrously knocking drums and freaky keys - this is peaking acidic party-rap, straight out the gate. Music for gliding, for skating, for time with your people and your poison. Sunshine. No cares. BBQs. Heavy smoke in the air. Dripping with wit and good humour. A real swing to the vibe.

The album opens with Quik setting out his mission statement with “Rhythm-Al-Ism (Intro)”, telling us what this is all about before the self-explanatory “We Still Party” rocks the spot. It’s definitely all about the party here, complete with Quik’s signature head-nod/body-moving beat. Next up, the undeniable laidback funk and dripping swing of groove-laden “So Many Wayz”. This positively slaps.

Then we get to the three huge singles. The R&B-tinged radio-friendly minor-hit “Hand In Hand” closes the first side only for the flip to get straight into the rolling and scratching of bleepy computer-funk banger “Down, Down, Down” (featuring a particularly nice use of Howard Johnson’s epochal “So Fine”). The effortlessly smooth, flute and guitar-laced “You’z A Ganxta” completes the trio. Next up the fast-paced, vocoder-enhanced, woulda-beena-global-hit “I Useta Know Her”. This coulda (shoulda) been a single too. Head-nod funk workout “No Doubt”, with its ace sample of Prince's “Sexy Dancer”, closes out the second side.

“Speed” races out the gate on the second disc, sampling Edwin Birdsong’s “Rapper Dapper Snapper” in a harder, better, faster, stronger way than those daft Parisian punks. Amphetamine-swift raps over soaring, string-drenched b-boy beats. A total anthem. Up next, the staggering, near 8-minute laconic, lounge-y sax-rap of “Whateva U Do” cools things down and smooths things out with its flute wrapping around a sample of Smokey Robinson’s “So In Love” and some oh-so-classy lounge-piano tinkling. And speaking of smooth, things don’t get much smoother than the blissfully melodic glider-anthem “Thinkin’ ’Bout U” riding that ace flip of SWV’s “Use Your Heart”. Exceptional.

The exquisite funky-flute-slapper “Medley for a ‘V’ (The P***Y Medley)” opens the fourth and final side, with star turns from Snoop Dogg and a typically suave Nate Dogg. It’s followed by the supremely skanked-out “Bombudd II”, a beautifully sweet reggae-fuelled ode to the herb. “Get 2Getha Again” is slick funk. Stunning.

This 2022 Be With double LP re-issue has been mastered for vinyl by Simon Francis, cut by Pete Norman and pressed at Record Industry. Unusual for the time, Rhythm-Al-Ism was originally pressed as a double and we’ve reproduced the original LA vibe picture sleeve and insert to match.

As that original front cover says, this is “over 70 minutes of commercial free music” and it’s absolutely perfect from start to finish. There are no stand-out tracks here. It’s all gold.
: Rhythm-al-ism (2LP)

Hotel Lux announce their second album 'The Bitter Cup', which will be released October 31st. News of the album comes alongside the outlining of an extensive UK winter tour and new single, Costermonger. The band's 2023 debut album Hands Across The Creek won an abundance of press support, from the likes of: Dork, The Guardian, Mojo, Uncut, DIY L&Q, Clash, So Young, NME. BBC 6 Music playlists were also achieved. Recent single Another One Gone marked the start of new chapter for the band, after talking time to rediscover their identities, both as musicians and as a bunch of mates heading into their late twenties.

On new single, Hotel Lux say: "Costermonger is a musical translation of a BBC documentary detailing the rise and the fall of Deptford Market, High Street and the surrounding housing. The title itself refers to a Cockney word for a market trader. Sadly, the subject matter of the lyrics are as relevant now as they would’ve been back in ‘67 when Lewisham council first started pulling down the council housing.

On ‘The Bitter Cup’, Hotel Lux took it upon themselves to self-produce. “Something that felt completely natural, but also entirely necessary” Recorded at Big Jelly Studios, the band had enough confidence to lead on carving their own sound for this new record. Written completely collaboratively, and recorded live to replicate the emotional intensity of their live shows, this new record finds the band at their most vulnerable, while, also, at their most confident.

Malena Zavala is an Argentinian-born, London-based artist, producer, and filmmaker, known for crafting ethereal, genre-blending music that navigates the space between her Latin heritage and her British upbringing. With the forthcoming album If This Life Could Start Again set for release on 30 January 2026 on Paraná Records, Zavala presents her most intimate, cohesive, and accomplished work to date, marking a significant evolution in her artistic journey.
With her new album, Malena creates an atmospheric dream pop world, weaving singer-songwriter intimacy with synth pop, Argentine folk, indiepop, rock and experimental music, threaded together by her blissful vocals and dreamy guitar work. Gorgeously warm and vivid, If This Life Could Start Again charts the journey from pain to acceptance, mapping out the non-linear nature of healing through a sonic landscape. Each song embodies a distinct emotion within that journey, from grief and chaos to feeling lost, seeking refuge, finding confidence, and finally acceptance and letting go. Drawing on her Argentinian roots, Malena uses the Andes mountains as both a visual and thematic anchor – the difficult climb towards higher ground becomes a metaphor for healing, whilst being lost at rock bottom reflects the darkest moments of the journey. 
Completely composed and performed by Malena herself, the album was recorded in Girona’s L’Empordà countryside in Spain with producer Luke Smith. As a professional producer and audio engineer, this was Malena’s first time relinquishing production control – an intimate creative shift that allowed their shared vision to shape the album’s rich, enveloping sound. 
However, Zavala’s career to date has been a testament to self-sufficient artistry. Her critically acclaimed debut, Aliso (2018), was written, recorded, and produced alone in her parents’ garage, which honed her dreamy bedroom pop sound. The album, praised by The Guardian for its “gently warped and beguilingly melancholy guitar pop,” ****, immediately catapulted her from DIY beginnings to prestigious stages, supporting acts like Lord Huron at London’s Roundhouse and Men I Trust at Village Underground and subsequently continuing on their UK/EU tours. Later with standout performances at Latitude, Green Man, and All Points East. Her consistent radio support from key influencers including BBC Radio 6 Music, BBC Radio 1's Huw Stephens, and Steve Lamacq has solidified her presence on the airwaves.
Her second album, La Yarará (2020), saw Zavala delve deeper into her roots, exploring Latin traditions like Cumbia and Bolero. This exploration of identity continues powerfully on the new album, but with a newfound lyrical depth and sonic confidence. The new album, If This Life Could Start Again, is a raw and transformative eight-track journey that maps the emotional landscape of healing. Written after a period of personal upheaval, the album traverses themes of grief, hereditary trauma, and self-discovery. The record’s narrative is structured like a mountain ascent. A challenging climb through varied emotional terrain, posing the central question: “Will you join the journey?” Sonically, this journey mirrors the non-linear path to acceptance, evolving from acoustic folk and synth-pop to funk-infused rhythms and rock anthems.
As a formidable live performer, Zavala has built a robust touring profile across the UK and Europe. She will embark on an extensive tour in February and March 2026 to support the album, with dates spanning major cities from London and Glasgow to Berlin, Paris, and Barcelona.
With If This Life Could Start Again, Malena Zavala fully realizes her artistic vision as a self-taught producer to an autonomous artist commanding her career through Paraná Records whilst reflecting the vast landscapes of her heritage and affirming her place as a compelling and evolving voice in contemporary music.

A year and a half has passed since Slovak-Hungarian artist Adela Mede self-released her debut album ‘Szabadság’. Its liner notes described it as “a navigation”, a search through “the personal, familial, cultural, folkloric and geographic of her past and present.” Her second album, ‘Ne Lépj a Virágra’ no longer searches; here, she puts down roots and delves deeper into the earthy reality of her home, Central Europe. Mede sings in three languages with newfound conviction and grace – this is an album of profound faith and confidence in the potential of this fertile soil.

Composed and recorded during the last 18 months in Bratislava, Slovakia – a city where three countries meet, where the East and the West collide – 'Ne Lépj a Virárga' translates to “don't step on the flower”. Its themes – budding potential, recognizing the beauty in the ordinary, solidarity, turning despair into hope – emerged through Mede's wholehearted involvement with her community, teaching singing to both children and adults, and various grassroots volunteering initiatives. It features collaborations with local artists, Mede's singing students, as well as fellow Eastern European contemporary artists Martyna Basta and Wojciech Rusin.

Adela Mede embellishes carefully crafted songs with minimalist and folklore influences, but also embraces more experimental approaches. The result is a collection of quite varied yet consistent pieces which highlight Mede's proficiency as a singer, arranger, producer and improviser. It is a grounded, confident next step for the Bratislava-based artist. Whether her vocals are naked, heavily processed, warped and reversed, or looped and layered; whether the production is sparse and minimalist or overwhelming and swampy; none of that changes the fact that the gentle tentativeness of her debut is gone. This is “Central European music”, at its most striking and meaningful: patient, determined, embracing both complexity and possibility.

One guitar, a self-made stand-up drum kit, and preaching vocals are all they need to sound like a bulldozer! A decade after their glorious and successful debut album "Earthquake", the talented duo hit the studio again with full power and recorded 10 self- composed hits at fabulous studio Teepdek. After their sensational 7"- rock'n'roll- anthem "Meatball", which is also included on the 10", "Pepper & Salt" continues in fine style, sounding like a brilliant mix of THE TRASHMEN, READYMEN, BUNKER HILL, ELVIS and ROY ORBISON. With "Pepper and Salt", THE SENSATIONAL SECOND COUSINS truly have a sensational record to offer!

Temple Balls, the high-octane hard rock band from Finland, is back with a brand-new self-titled album. Over the past few years, the band has kept busy both in the studio and on the road, solidifying their reputation as one of the most exciting live acts in the genre. Having opened for legendary acts such as Sonata Arctica, Queen, Deep Purple, and Uriah Heep, Temple Balls have proven they can command any stage—whether it’s a massive festival or an intimate club. Their live shows are explosive, turning skeptics into die-hard fans with their raw energy and undeniable charisma. The journey began with their official debut single, “Hell and Feelin’ Fine,” released in September 2016, which gained heavy rotation on Finnish Radio Rock. Their debut album, recorded in May 2016 at Karma Sound Studios in Thailand, was released on February 24, 2017. Produced by Tobias Lindell (Europe, Mustasch, H.E.A.T.), the album marked the band’s bold entrance into the international rock scene. In the fall of 2017, Temple Balls embarked on a sold-out Finnish tour with Battle Beast, made their live debut in Japan, and completed a five-day tour across Ukraine. Their popularity soared in Japan, where readers of the country’s biggest rock magazine Burrn! voted them the “Second Brightest Hope,” and they were named “Newcomer of the Year” on Masa Ito’s Rock TV. Their sophomore effort, Untamed, released on March 8, 2019, received rave reviews from major music outlets including Soundi and Burrn!. A European tour alongside Sonata Arctica further cemented their reputation as a world-class live band. Their third album, Pyromide, marked their debut with Frontiers Records and was a melodic hard rock tour de force produced by Jona Tee (H.E.A.T.), packed with powerful riffs, massive hooks, and arena-sized choruses. In May 2022, Temple Balls toured Europe with Swedish melodic metal giants H.E.A.T., followed by a busy summer festival season across Finland. The lead single from their fourth album, Strike Like a Cobra, was released in March 2022 to widespread acclaim. That same year, they completed work on their next full-length, Avalanche, released in fall 2023, featuring the single “No Reason,” which dropped globally on June 22. Now, with their new self-titled album, Temple Balls continue the sonic evolution started with Avalanche, delivering an even more personal and refined sound.

Threewave is the complete synth trilogy from 36 and it unites three releases into a single, evolving statement shaped over five years. Spanning the Wave Variations, Symmetry Systems and Reality Engine releases, the project is rooted in self-imposed limitations and a carefully refined melodic palette that gave rise to a suite of interconnected transmissions. Minimalist sketches give way to warm, AI-era-inspired nostalgia, but always grounded by a distinctly human sensibility. Melancholic keys and glowing atmospheres balance precision with emotion before expanding into themes of perception, artificial intelligence and imagined realities. Together, these works make for a defining chapter in 36's partnership with the legendary Past Inside the Present.

Alien Tropical: the perfect title for the second album by Servicio Al Cliente (Customer Service), the project of Colombian-born, Berlin-resident Juliana Martinez. If you were cannily seduced by the debut self-titled Servicio Al Cliente album, from way back in 2021, the wait for a follow-up has felt long, but Alien Tropical was worth the wait. Indeed, it feels like the perfect way for Michael Mayer’s Imara imprint to introduce itself to the new year: an album full of play and spirit, verve and sparkle, rich with pop spirit and with one eye smartly cocked toward the dancefloor.

That first Servicio Al Cliente album was a smart statement of intent, and a wonderful, unexpected turn from Martinez, who’d already been through plenty: being expelled from private music lessons,
training in law, joining a group named Las Palabras Correctas. 2021’s Servicio Al Cliente landed on the turntables of anyone with discerning radar (Ada included “Romántico” on her Connecting The Dots mix for Kompakt, for example). With Alien Tropical, Martinez works the sensual sway of her music even harder, building six luscious songs that twist chant-like repetitions into hypnotic mantras, each song the perfect confluence of melody and mystery.

When asked about Alien Tropical, Martinez pieces together fragments of memory: winter explorations, long road trips, navigating the highways and the heart. “I had been driving a lot at the time on the highway,” she recalls. “I depended on music I played in the car to manage my emotions and my thoughts on those long drives. Everything felt strange and unfamiliar on the highway, and I realised music was so psychological and my only tool to influence my feelings between highways and new places.”

So, the music becomes the narrative for where the body and the heart wants to go. That might explain the gentle yearning in Alien Tropical, and its eternal hypnotic, its sense of forever forward-motion, as though the music is flickering like the highway strip reflected in the rear-view mirror. But there’s also the skyward movement of the melodies, the way their loveliness lifts these six songs up through the clouds, like the helium balloons on the cover. From the sensual swelt

Rising from Warsaw’s underground, Infernal Flame conjure a bleak and uncompromising vision on their debut full-length The Grave. Originally self-released digitally on February 13, 2025, the album now sees its first physical incarnation through Apostasy Records - soon available on CD, vinyl and cassette. Across nine tracks, the Polish quartet fuse the weight of cavernous death metal with the scorched atmosphere of black metal, forging a sound that feels both raw and deliberate - a ritual equal parts feral energy and fatal precision. From the slow-grinding opener “Dreadead” through the tar-soaked menace of “Cauldron of Black Tar,” the feverish descent of the title track and the final farewell of “Godbye,” The Grave unfolds like a single, unbroken passage through dread and decay. Formed in 2024 and operating deliberately outside the label system, Infernal Flame channel a rehearsal-room immediacy that recalls the early second-wave spirit while carving out a distinctly modern darkness. Still largely unreviewed and shrouded in underground obscurity, The Grave stands as an intense and authentic statement - from a band intent on burning their own path through Poland’s black/death scene.

Gothenburg trio Dark Horse present their new album "Listen", released by We Jazz Records on 13 November. The band, comprising of John Holmström (piano), Alfred Lorinius (bass) and Mårten Magnefors (drums) recorded their second album in a remote cabin by the ocean in Norway, owned by Holmström's family. The natural sound of the album owes a lot to the relaxed surroundings and the result is some high degree of improvised music turning into collective composition as the music unfolds.

The album recording took place at a very active spot in the trio's calendar, following extensive touring in Europe, Japan and their native country Sweden. The two days of improvising were edited down to highlights that easily fill an album's worth of quality listening and reveal what playing live brought to the three musicians: A natural ability to react to ideas, build on them and form coherent, compositional tracks on the spot. A task much easier said than done.

"We're a non-conceptual basement band all the way", laughs pianist Holmström. "We have been moving from free form music into collective composition and this is our pinnacle recording with that idea thus far. We just set out to play as honestly as possible and this is what followed."

A testament to the power of a fixed band unit developing over time, "Listen" comes across as a work by a group constantly keeping its nose to the wind when it comes to developing their music. The long-form opener "Allas Favorit" is a monumental piece building and releasing tension along its 12+ minute length. First single "Brutet Groove" assumes a fascinating, almost mechanic-sounding swing while assembling and reassembling the pieces of the puzzle, and the closing track "Fjäll-låten" gives us something of an ever-shifting sonic landscape in glorious colors, much akin to its name ("Mountain Song" in Swedish).

"That one Fjäll-låten includes some of the best musical moments of my life so far" confirms bassist Alfred Lorinius. "It's actually an edit of a 20-minute improvised sequence, and it has the real feeling of the band coming together and doing something new and fresh in the moment. I feel it's something you can revisit as many times as you like and there's always something to find in there."

Dark Horse formed in 2012 after Lorinius joined Holmström and drummer Mårten Magnefors to complete the group. Things quickly started taking shape musically from there on, but the group took their time in honing their craft with a method they now refer to as "tryout development". Their self-titled debut album appeared in 2015 and the current We Jazz album "Listen" marks the first internationally distributed release for the trio.The roots of Dark Horse lay firmly in the buzzing creative music scene of Gothenburg, Sweden, where the members have close ties with local establishments such as the legendary venue BrÖtz, and the city's vast scene of highly-regarded musicians.

In brief, "Listen" presents Dark Horse gloriously putting into use their musical philosophy what they describe "improvising as composing together".

"Listen" by Dark Horse is released by Helsinki's We Jazz Records on 13 November 2020 on vinyl and digitally. The vinyl comes in a heavy duty tip-on sleeve and the album design features the painting "Overwhelming Structure" by the Helsinki-based visual artist Maija Lassila.

British singer-songwriter Lucy Kitt unveils her highly anticipated second album, Telling Me, a deeply personal collection that shifts focus from introspection to storytelling, capturing the lives and struggles of those closest to her. Drawing from her love of 70’s Laurel Canyon folk, 90’s indie rock, and country music, Kitt crafts narratives that blend her own experiences with compassionate observations of loved ones. Based on a raw acoustic “three chords and the truth” style of songwriting that ripples throughout, the album expands with full-band arrangements that give a huge range and richness to the sound.

Though influenced by American musical traditions, the Essex-native maintains her distinctive voice and authenticity, ensuring the music remains unmistakably her own. Following her 2018 debut Stand By, this new record represents a more mature approach to songwriting, written during her early 30s and completed in the 2021 lockdown – a storybook of songs capturing that moment in time.

Musically, Telling Me showcases Kitt's stripped-down acoustic foundations, while incorporating fuller arrangements that blend her love of Nick Drake, Bob Dylan, Gram Parsons, Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez, with music she loved as a teenager such as The Lemonheads and Veruca Salt. The album features collaborations with an impressive roster of musicians, including Jay Starkey on drums, Nashville-based pedal steel virtuoso Spencer Cullum, Treetop Flyer’s Sam Beer and longtime collaborator Pat Kenneally on drums and piano.

Recorded between 2021-2023 at London's Lightship 95 studio at Trinity Buoy Wharf, the album was co-produced and engineered by Dave Holmes, with some musicians contributing remotely from Nashville and London.

Kitt's commitment to authenticity extends to every aspect of the album, from the down-to-earth, home-based album artwork which represents her life right now as a musician and a working mum, with all the wonderful chaos that comes along with it. Also her decision to maintain her natural accent throughout her vocals. "I have always retained my authentic self in my songs," she explains. "Always singing with my own accent, despite the influences of all the bands and artists over the years."

Kitt has been songwriting and performing for over 20 years, starting in a riot grrl band in her teens in her hometown of Romford, Essex, before evolving into the thoughtful folk storyteller she is today. A semi-finalist at the BBC Young Folk Awards in the early 2000s, she has performed at major festivals including Glastonbury and Cambridge Folk Festival, building a reputation for intimate, lyrically-focused performances.

Telling Me is a resplendent collection of songs, capturing the human experience with great empathy, honesty and musical sophistication that has become Lucy Kitt's signature.

Originally released in 1994, GVSB’s second full-length release for Touch and Go Records, Cruise Yourself, is characterized by catch vocal lines wrapped in a sonic double-bass low end. Guitars filter in and out of songs driven by heavy powerhouse groove drumming. There is noise, there is melody. “Tucked In” churns, “Kill the Sexplayer” pounds relentlessly, “(I) Don’t Got A Place” glides, and “Psychic Know-How” blows your head off… but you regain it immediately in the ominous groove of “Explicitly Yours.”

Originally released in 1994, GVSB’s second full-length release for Touch and Go Records, Cruise Yourself, is characterized by catch vocal lines wrapped in a sonic double-bass low end. Guitars filter in and out of songs driven by heavy powerhouse groove drumming. There is noise, there is melody. “Tucked In” churns, “Kill the Sexplayer” pounds relentlessly, “(I) Don’t Got A Place” glides, and “Psychic Know-How” blows your head off… but you regain it immediately in the ominous groove of “Explicitly Yours.”

For its 25th anniversary, Cocoon Recordings returns to its roots with an elaborate vinyl LP box set, marking the first part of a two-volume anniversary project. 25 Years Cocoon Recordings – Volume
One brings together exclusive contributions from international artists who have defined the sound and diversity of the label over the past two decades, complemented by fresh talents who are helping to shape its future.
Over the span of 25 years, Cocoon Recordings has created a catalog that now comprises hundreds of releases, 12-inches, albums, mix CDs, and iconic compilation box sets, always bridging past, present, and future. While firmly rooted in techno and house, the label has also provided space for electronica,
ambient, and other evolving genres.
25 Years Cocoon Recordings – Volume One is more than just a compilation. It is both a homage to the label’s history and a glimpse into what lies ahead. With exclusive tracks that embody the Cocoon sound in all its depth and complexity, this release marks a milestone in the legacy of one of electronic
music’s most influential labels, arguably the strongest compilation in Cocoon’s history. To mark this special occasion, Sven Väth’s label presents the first of two carefully curated volumes, uniting 15 exclusive tracks from international artists in celebration of nearly three decades of Cocoon
Recordings. The luxurious 5x12" box set features a spectral-reflective foil finish and includes contributions from renowned names such as Butch, Robag Wruhme, Josh Wink, Guy J, and Dino Lenny, alongside longtime companions of the label including Extrawelt, Harvey McKay, Johannes
Volk, and Raxon. New discoveries of recent years, Jonathan Kaspar and Riccardo De Polo, enrich the release in their own distinctive ways. The compilation is completed by the unmistakable talents of Damiano von Erckert, Fedele, and ja:ck, who provide the perfect conclusion to the first of two parts.
This release sets the stage for what's next: a daring diptych where musical voices emerge, shining with originality and passion, carrying the spirit forward. The story is just beginning. Something special is on the horizon. One can only wonder which artists will shine on the second chapter.

First Word Records are proud to bring you 'Penny Ballads', a 5-track EP from Royce Wood Junior. Royce Wood Junior is a Grammy & Mercury Award-nominated musician, songwriter and record producer from London, currently based in Brighton. As a multi-instrumentalist, he's collaborated with a litany of brilliant artists over the years, such as Jamie Woon, Nao, Disclosure, Jessie Ware, Olivia Dean, Joy Crookes, Jamie Lidell and Jordan Rakei, additionally to touring with the likes of the legendary Thomas Dolby. He's released two acclaimed solo albums to date ('The Ashen Tang' in 2015, and 'No Two Blue Ticks' in 2021). 'Penny Ballads' demonstrates RWJ's varied talents, with a collection of alternative soul compositions, each one as unique as the next. It includes the first two singles, the Poplife-Prince era flavoured 'Go Get Your Money', and the double-time future funk adrenaline shot, 'Clean Up', along with three previously-unreleased tracks. 'Beretta' is low-slung soul funk, beginning with quirky squelchy synths, before the soulful lead vocal of feature artist Lucey Way breezes in to melt everyone's hearts. 'Things' sweeps in next, an infectiously soulful midtempo heavy soul bop, with an instant earwork of a hook, like a modern-day Steely Dan / Doobie Brothers, complete with a head-nodding string section to end the track. The collection concludes on a more melancholy downtempo tip with 'Rolling'; an almost-folktronic anthem, with a key refrain that wouldn't be out of place on a 70's Stevie piece. RWJ (aka Jim Wood) says of this project… "Back in the 17 and 1800's Troubadours and minstrels would go from Tavern to Tavern selling Penny Ballads, single sheets of music and lyrics written quickly and frivolously to make a quick buck.. It strikes me that we're in a similar phase in the way we value music in 2025. An old Penny Ballad was cheap and dog-eared, ink-smudged, sung aloud by firelight, Now songs live in the digital ether, dissolved in the air, a ghostly breath paid in micro cents. The new era of Penny Balladry is here, and weird. This EP is a snapshot of my writing over a two year period. Focussed on minimal recording styles, one mic on the drums, generally first or second takes on parts and vocals, I wanted the music to feel like small moments with lyrics that talk about the weird nuances of being alive as a latter stage human on the cusp of the Ai revolution. Culturally so evolved, but physiologically still just a bunch of mammals walking about with primitive fears and needs. Just trying to reconcile it all moment to moment…" Previous support for Royce's music has included Radio 1's Future Sounds, BBC 6 Music's New Music Fix, Annie Mac, Clara Amfo, Jo Whiley (BBC Radio 2), Mary Anne Hobbs, Jamz Supernova, Tom Robinson, Huw Stephens (BBC 6 Music), Zane Lowe and MistaJam. There have been sessions previously for the likes of Red Bull and press from Huck, Line of Best Fit, Clash, Aesthetica & DIY magazine. Entirely self-written and self-produced, this EP gives a solid taste of RWJ's talents. A deeply funky diverse set of music from an immensely talented individual. 'Penny Ballads' is due to be released on vinyl & digital, 24th October 2025. The vinyl version also includes an exclusive additional mix of the first single 'Go Get Your Money'. TRACKLIST: 01: Clean Up (EP Mix) 02: Go Get Your Money 03: Beretta (feat. Lucey Way) 04: Things 05: Rolling 06: Go Get Your Money (B-Sharp Mix) Deconstructed Mixes

Searows—aka Pacific Northwest singer-songwriter and guitarist Alec Duckart—is pleased to announce his new album Death in the Business of Whaling, set for release on Friday 23rd January 2026 via Last Recordings On Earth. Though Death in the Business of Whaling arrives as Searows’ second album, it’s the product of many firsts, including his first time recording outside the creative cocoon of his bedroom. His 2022 debut Guard Dog was written, recorded and self-produced in Duckart’s Portland home and independently released with little expectation as to how it would be received. The music soon found a passionate audience that were already sharing snippets of Duckart’s music via communities on TikTok and received co-signs from prominent artists such as Ethel Cain and Gracie Abrams, both of whom he went on to support on tour.

MidnightRoba is the solo project of vocalist, songwriter and producer Roba El-Essawy. The voice of Attica Blues (Mo Wax 1997, Sony 2000), Raise A Symphony is MidnightRoba's second solo album. Her first album, Golden Seams, very much rooted in jazz, received support, airplay and features from DJs such as Gilles Peterson (BBC Radio 6), Tony Minvielle and China Moses (Jazz FM), Robert Elms (BBC London Live) and Kevin Le Gendre on J to Z (BBC Radio 3). Single releases from this second album have been played by Gilles Peterson (WorldWideFM & BBC Radio 6), Kate Hutchinson (Soho Radio), Marshmello (NTS), Rob Luis (Tru Thoughts), Kev Beadle, Patrick Steele, DJ Amazon, and more.

'Raise A Symphony' is music of our time. A 15-track electronic offering, it comments on topics ranging from colonialism to complicity of silence; from compromised politicians to the power of protest and gratitude to those on the frontlines of change; from displacement and sea migration to the desire to protect our loved ones and the need for kindness; to have faith in the future and the importance of searching for joy in the meantime. The self-produced album 'Raise A Symphony' sees contributions from Saul Williams, Deschanel Gordon, Michael King and Tony Kofi, amongst others. The album title takes it's name from Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Dream' speech where King calls for the nation to rise to gather together and form a 'beautiful symphony of brotherhood'.

"..in Raise A Symphony, Midnight Roba has transmuted talent into something more powerful, where bridges built from her exquisite, unique harmonies, soaring songs and percussive productions allow competing emotions to co-exist and feed into each other. This album itself is a form of community; voices in unison, reaching outwards and offering restoration and upliftment throughout this remarkable work of love and fury." Emma Warren



a 01: Joy (Reprise) [feat. Deschanel Gordon]

James Brown wants to know one thing before he and his band begin Sex Machine. “Can I get into the thing, really?,” he asks. His cohorts enthusiastically respond in the affirmative. And for the next hour and change, Mr. Dynamite gets into it and more, turning in a sweat-soaked, feet-moving, hip-swiveling, emotion-purging, in-the-red, drop-everything-you’re-doing-and-dance performance for the ages. Ranked by Rolling Stone among the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, the sweeping 1970 effort towers as a testament to Brown’s inimitable legacy as well as the peak powers of his voice, vibrancy, and bands.

Sourced from the original master tapes, pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing, and housed in a Stoughton gatefold jacket, Mobile Fidelity’s numbered-edition 180g 33RPM 2LP set presents Sex Machine in audiophile sound for the first time. It explodes with the energy the lightning-strike music demands. Dynamic, immediate, present, airy: Everything from the brassiness and fluidity of the horns to the snap and decay of the snare to the swell and carry of the organ comes across in full-range perspective.

Then there’s Brown’s superhuman singing, which here emerges with a purity, naturalism, and transparency that ensure you feel everything. Screeching, shouting, pleading, moaning, preaching, stinging, commanding, testifying, crooning, humming: The Godfather of Soul contributes one of the finest vocal performances known to man. This definitive 55th anniversary reissue of Brown’s monster funk statement further exhibits a combination of clarity, solidity, separation, and imaging that helps bring to light what he and his crack ensembles committed to tape. Both in the studio and on the stage.

Just how lifelike does this reissue sound? Senior Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab engineer Krieg Wunderlich, who handled the remaster, notes: “There were some artifacts that sounded a bit like mistracking. But they turned out to be breath blasts on the vocal microphone. That is part of history. JB was workin' hard, and breathin' hard. And there was an edit the timing of that was truly strange. Again, a part of history.”

Originally marketed as a live album, Sex Machine contains six songs recorded in the studio and later overdubbed with canned crowd noise and reverberation. Save for “Low Down Popcorn,” the tracks on the latter half stem from a phenomenal performance captured in October 1969 at Bell Auditorium in Brown’s adopted hometown of Augusta, GA. The special relationship between the singer, the audience, and the location is palpable.

As the 1960s gave way to a new decade, Brown experienced immense success and dealt with unexpected change. Soul Brother Number One soon expanded his idea for an official live album captured in Augusta when the ensemble that backed him on that date morphed into the original version of the world-famous J.B.’s just months after the show. The virtuosic abilities, sticky chemistry, and rhythm-forward nature of the J.B.’s prompted him to book a one-off session in Cincinnati, OH, on a late July night.

Anchored by brothers William “Bootsy” Collins and Phelps “Catfish” Collins, the group — as well as two different drummers — laid down a nearly 11-minute rendition of “Get Up I Feel Like Being Like a Sex Machine” and a thrilling medley of “Bewildered,” “I Got the Feeling,” and “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose.” A pair of then-recent studio singles cut in separate locations in 1969, “Brother Rapp” and “Low Down Popcorn,” each featuring his prior group, took care of the second LP worth of material that complements the originally planned live set.

Complicated? Somewhat. Unusual? Definitely. But just as he elevated the expectations for all present and future R&B artists, Brown not only makes it all work. He makes it positively electrifying.

“Get Up I Feel Like Being Like a Sex Machine” is alone deserving of a dissertation on the art of funk music, seeing it moves up and down akin to an oil derrick, witnesses Brown unleashing a trademark series of grunts, squeaks, and “good god” asides, and glides to a hypnotic groove that won’t quit. Or look to the syncopated rhythms of “Brother Rapp (Part I and Part II),” one of multiple pieces here that signify the point where Brown began viewing every instrument as a percussive tool. Brown closes the three-song medley with his new band with a skedaddling “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose,” which provides jolts on the order of sticking your finger into a socket.

Not that the actual live material falls short in any way. Setting an insistent tempo for the vitality that follows, “I Don’t Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing” positions Brown as a role model, leader, and self-sufficient entrepreneur. All simmer and boil, the short and sweet “Licking Stick” dares you to keep pace. The floating, almost comforting “Spinning Wheel” spotlights the instrumental prowess of Maceo Parker and company, and functions as a seamless segue into the tender, horn-saluted “If I Ruled the World.”

And Brown and his mates still aren’t done. Just try to resist the one-two closing punch of “I Can’t Stand Myself (When You Touch Me)” and “Mother Popcorn.” Mercy.

Ain’t it funky? Sure ‘nuff.

The FOX GOD has decreed a new prophecy: for the very first time in BABYMETAL history, the band’s four iconic albums—BABYMETAL, METAL RESISTANCE, METAL GALAXY, and THE OTHER ONE—will be unleashed as limited edition splatter vinyl.

From the explosive birth of kawaii metal to the cosmic journey across galaxies and the restoration of THE OTHER ONE, these four albums have carved the path of the Metalverse. Each one is a chapter in BABYMETAL’s legend—now reborn in a form unlike anything ever released before.

Splatter vinyl is new territory for BABYMETAL. Each pressing radiates with bursts of chaotic color, echoing the energy and intensity of the music itself. They are not just vinyl records, but sacred artifacts—collector’s editions destined for the chosen disciples of the FOX GOD. Once these limited runs vanish, their true form will never return.

This is more than a release; it is a celebration of the entire BABYMETAL saga. From the self-titled album that started the global revolution, to the second chapter declaring our Resistance, to the interdimensional odyssey of METAL GALAXY, and the rebirth told through THE OTHER ONE—every disc is infused with Kitsune Power.
The FOX GOD commands: seize this moment, honor the prophecy, and claim your relic before it disappears into legend.

Prepare your turntables. Summon your spirit. The Splatter Vinyl Apocalypse has begun.

Selfish Machines, the second album by Pierce the Veil, explores themes of love, longing, and self-awareness through a blend of post-hardcore energy and melodic intricacy. The album features standout tracks like "Caraphernelia," which includes guest vocals by Jeremy McKinnon of A Day to Remember, and "Bulletproof Love," a fan favorite known for its dynamic instrumentation and heartfelt lyrics.Produced by Mike Green (Paramore, All Time Low), this record showcases the band’s technical skill and ability to balance intensity with softer, emotive moments. With its layered arrangements and polished sound, Selfish Machines offers a thoughtful take on the complexities of human emotion.