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One of the UK’s most exciting breakout stars of the past decade, Rebecca Lucy Taylor AKA Self Esteem emerged from cult favourite status to mainstream hero following the huge success of her empowering, truth-telling 2021 single ‘I Do This All The Time’. The song resonated intensely as a perfect example of Taylor’s affectionately termed ‘trojan horse’ or ‘salad and chips’ approach, fearlessly packing important, emotive messages into witty, resonant pop music.

Self Esteem’s wildly acclaimed second album Prioritise Pleasure quickly followed, tackling the hypocrisies and joys found in her experiences of modern day womanhood across dating, friendship, comparison culture, self love, women’s safety and sexual assault and much more. Prioritise Pleasure received Mercury Prize, BRIT Award, Sky Arts and NME Award nominations, was crowned The Guardian and Sunday Times Culture’s Album of the Year, and ‘I Do This All The Time’ was also named The Guardian’s #1 song of 2021.

Quite the opposite of an overnight success, Taylor spent a decade as one half of indie duo Slow Club before adopting the pop star persona she’d always dreamed of. She released her first Self Esteem album Compliments Please in 2019, featuring fan favourite singles ‘The Best’, ‘Girl Crush’ and more.

Gathering a passionate and vast legion of fans ever since, Taylor has appeared on The Graham Norton Show, Celebrity Gogglebox, Friday Night Live & Taskmaster, performed three times on Jools Holland including the NYE Hootenanny, graced the covers of magazines from Grazia to NME to Sunday Times Style, and is one of a handful of artists to have been playlisted across BBC Radio 1, 2 and 6 Music simultaneously.

Having reached new heights of acclaim, Taylor continued to grow, diversify, and create in 2024. Branching out into the world of acting, Taylor starred in a regular role in the Sky series SMOTHERED before completing a run playing Sally Bowles in the multiple Olivier Award-winning production of 'Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club' in London's West End. Starring alongside Jake Shears (Scissor Sisters) as Emcee, the pair’s time on stage was extended due to popular demand and showcased the sheer range of talent in Taylor’s repertoire. Last year’s releases ‘Big Man’ and ‘Love Second Music First’ followed a collaboration with Becky Hill on her song ‘True Colours’.

Deutschland, deine Städte. Der Schauplatz aller Songs und Erzählungen des Berliner Duos Die Anteile ist klar umrissen: Sie interessieren sich für die dunklen Ränder, für Ecken, in denen lange niemand mehr gekehrt hat. Holzvertäfelte Eckkneipen, asphaltierte Garagenhöfe, aber auch mitten in die Scheinwerfer blicken sie, die ihr Licht werfen auf alles, was einmal subversiv und anders war. "Pelzwerk", das nun bei Tapete Records erscheinende Debütalbum der Anteile, wurde geschrieben in einem feuchten Berliner Kellerraum. Einige Meter unter der Erde erblickte eine Vielzahl an Figuren das Licht, die auch einem düsteren Varietétheater entstammen könnten: Nazi-Erben, die dem Sheriff hinterher reiten, Sammler, die Vergangenheiten in Vitrinen ausstellen und Zirkusdirektoren im Gewand von Bürgermeistern sind im "Pelzwerk" beschäftigt. Dabei sind Die Anteile keine Kinder von Traurigkeit: Das Debütalbum ist umspült von quirligen Synthielines, überschwänglichen Gitarrenriffs und liebevoll garniert mit allerlei Sounds aus dem Krautrock-Zauberkasten. "Ich beherrsche wenig / aber du würdest mir auch schon reichen", singen sie auf dem Titeltrack. Bass und Drum Machine zielen auf die Beine, die Stimme - mal als Sprechgesang, mal oddly elegant - auf den Kopf. Hinterher ist man immer schlauer - "Und ich wurde aufgeklärt / vernünftig ist was sich rentiert" - oder zumindest nass geschwitzt. "Pelzwerk" vereint viele Genres in sich. Ist es EBM, ist es IDM oder - Gott bewahre! - NNDW? Ein begeisterter Konzertbesucher beschrieb Die Anteile einmal als "freundliche DAF". Doch eigentlich sind Die Anteile auch dafür zu verspielt. Statt mit Diktatoren tanzen sie eher im 4-eck, packen den Vocoder aus und halten die tanzende Menge mit knarzigen Basslines in Schach. Die Anteile sind im Nebenberuf Gärtner:innen. Ungeachtet der heimischen Witterungsbedingungen pflanzen sie munter verschiedenste musikalische Gewächse an. Prominent im Rundbeet wurzeln die japanischen Elektropioniere von Yellow Magic Orchestra in der selben Erde wie Proto-Industrialisten der Marke Crash Course in Science und Pyrolator. Am Gartenzaun treiben Post Punk-Bands wie Talking Heads und Magazine Blüten, während im Nachbarbeet gerade neu mit Electroclash gedüngt wird. Reichlich Grünzeug also, sodass jeden Tag ein frischer Wildblumensalat den Weg aufs Die-Anteile-Buffet findet.

" Pickled Eggs and Sherbet is the sole album by English electronic group All Seeing I - the production trio of Dean Honer, Jason Buckle and Richard Barrett (aka DJ Parrot).

" Part of the late nineties big beat / trip hop scene, it brought together many disparate threads of the Sheffield's music scene past (and then) present including contributions from the likes of cabaret crooner Tony Christie, Human League frontman Phil Oakey and Pulp's Jarvis Cocker.

" Lead single "The Beat Goes On" which had a huge viral moment on TikTok and social media in 2022, becoming one of the most widely used 'Sounds' in recent years accruing 2.4 billion views and 162k creations.

" The follow up 'Walk Like A Panther' peaked at #10 in the UK Singles Chart. Featuring vocals from Tony Christie, it became his first hit single in 25 years.

" London Records have remastered & re-issued the cult-classic album :
1. for the very first time on vinyl ! As collector Red & Yellow Double LP.
2. with an expanded and remastered 2CD edition to boot, including rare b-sides from lost CD singles, new mixes from DJ Parrot and more.

Annie A, the one-off collaborative project between Félicia Atkinson, Time is Away, Christina Petrie and Maxine Funke, arrives on A Colourful Storm with an inquisitive, exploratory composition evoking questions of inconstancy and reconciliation, vastness and finitude and the sometimes cruel deception of human perception. Who will conduct our dreams if we never wake?

It is a geographically diverse yet like-minded ensemble whose seeds were sown during an A Colourful Storm show in London, where time on stage was shared by Atkinson, Time is Away and Petrie. Atkinson had previously found solace in Time is Away's Ballads (ACOLOUR041), Funke's Seance (ACOLOUR035) and particularly the voice of poet Petrie, whose delivery drifts from a wide-eyed stream of consciousness to crystalline sensory expression. It is the perfect accompaniment to Atkinson's hushed tones, spoken sensitively like a mother to a resting child.

Atkinson's evocative sonic landscapes are formed from keyboard, voice and organic materials collected from life on the dramatic coast of Normandy, as well as field recordings from places far and wide. She breathes life into liminal spaces, the sound of wind, whispers and the distant clatter of rocks conjuring visions of places both beautiful and eerily familiar. Time is Away delicately arranges the field of sounds, their weaving and layering likened to the assembly of an Anni Albers textile. The spirit of Albers guides the piece, Petrie's recounting of her loom and thread a symbol of her endurance, vitality and seeking wonder in intricacies. The piece also features an exclusive concluding track by Maxine Funke, whose meditation on vulnerability confronts and surrenders herself to the enchanting natural world.

Nach wichtigen Stationen bei Silver Jews und Lambchop hat William Tyler eine Reihe von neugierigen Alben veröffentlicht, die seine ländliche Herkunft und seine Begeisterung für klassische Musik mit seiner Experimentierfreudigkeit und Feldaufnahmen verbinden. Seine produktive Enklave der Instrumentalmusik hat nicht nur neue Klänge hervorgebracht, sondern auch kritische neue Stimmen. Kein anderer amerikanischer Sologitarrist dieses Jahrhunderts hat diese fruchtbare Szene so beeinflusst wie er. Und auf dem brillanten, erfrischenden "Time Indefinite", Tylers erstem Soloalbum seit fünf Jahren, betritt er endlich den immer größer werdenden Raum, den er mit geschaffen hat. Die Gitarre ist der Ausgangspunkt für ein Album, das nicht nur Tyler, sondern auch die Möglichkeiten eines ganzen Bereichs neu überdenken lässt. Ein Strudel aus Lärm und Harmonie, Geistern und Träumen, Angst und Hoffnung - es ist nicht nur eine großartige Gitarrenplatte. Es ist ein atemberaubendes Album eines großen Gitarristen, ein Meisterwerk unserer kollektiv ängstlichen Zeit. Anfang 2020, als die Welt am Rande ungeahnter Unruhen stand, verließ Tyler LA und zog nach Nashville, wo er die meiste Zeit seines Lebens gelebt hatte. Der größte Teil seines Equipments und alle seine Platten blieben zurück, in Erwartung einer vermeintlich schnellen Rückkehr. Das war natürlich nicht der Fall. Während Tyler also mit den Depressionen, den Nerven und den Fragen dieser unendlich angespannten Zeit zu kämpfen hatte, begann er, Ideen mit seinem Telefon und einem Kassettendeck aufzunehmen, wobei er sich mit den Verzerrungen, die diese Geräte mit sich bringen, abfand. Tyler sprach mit Kieran Hebden darüber, eine gemeinsame Platte zu machen, und einige dieser Stücke fühlten sich wie Testfälle an. Als diese Zusammenarbeit in andere Richtungen ging, entdeckte Tyler andere Klänge. Er bat seinen langjährigen Freund, den Produzenten Jake Davis, ihm dabei zu helfen, die Songs zusammenzufügen, und entschied sich dafür, das Rauschen und Wackeln zu akzeptieren und ungewollt eine Platte zu machen, die diese Zeiten und die heutige Zeit widerspiegelt - unruhig, beschädigt, ehrlich. Eine Wippe aus Kampf und Überleben definiert diese Songs, eine Landkarte der Angst und des Glaubens und der Pfade, die sie verbinden. "Dies ist eine Platte über Geisteskrankheiten", wird Tyler ohne Scham sagen, so offen im Leben und in der Sprache, wie er es auf den Aufnahmen ist. "Es ist Musik darüber, den Verstand zu verlieren, aber nicht zu wollen, über den Versuch, zurückzukommen." Das braucht er nicht zu sagen; man spürt es, erkennt es vielleicht aus eigener Erfahrung. Tylers Alben sind ein Nest aus nicht-musikalischen Einflüssen, denn er pendelt zwischen Spiritualität und Philosophie und beschwört die Landschaften der amerikanischen Vorstellungskraft. "Time Indefinite" ist nicht anders, vor allem in der Art und Weise, wie es die sehr persönlichen Filme von Ross McElwee beschwört. Mitte der 80er Jahre begann er, einen Film über Shermans Marsch durch den Süden zu drehen, der sich jedoch zu einer verworrenen Geschichte über Familie, Verlust und das, was wir tun, wenn unsere besten Instinkte sich den schlimmsten Dingen ergeben, die wir uns vorstellen können, entwickelte. Das Album ist eine Anspielung auf diese Idee, auf das unerbittliche Drängen der Zeit und unseren Platz in ihr, unter ihr und neben ihr. Es ist keine große Offenbarung, dass das Leben, das wir führen, die Arbeit prägt, die wir machen, ob wir das nun beabsichtigen oder nicht. In diesen Liedern kann man Tyler hören, wie er laut mit eingehenden Dämonen ringt: Sucht, mittleres Alter, Einsamkeit, Neurosen. Alle unsere Kämpfe sind unterschiedlich, aber wir sind uns darin einig, dass wir sie haben. Dies ist der Soundtrack, den Tyler geschaffen hat.

Nach wichtigen Stationen bei Silver Jews und Lambchop hat William Tyler eine Reihe von neugierigen Alben veröffentlicht, die seine ländliche Herkunft und seine Begeisterung für klassische Musik mit seiner Experimentierfreudigkeit und Feldaufnahmen verbinden. Seine produktive Enklave der Instrumentalmusik hat nicht nur neue Klänge hervorgebracht, sondern auch kritische neue Stimmen. Kein anderer amerikanischer Sologitarrist dieses Jahrhunderts hat diese fruchtbare Szene so beeinflusst wie er. Und auf dem brillanten, erfrischenden "Time Indefinite", Tylers erstem Soloalbum seit fünf Jahren, betritt er endlich den immer größer werdenden Raum, den er mit geschaffen hat. Die Gitarre ist der Ausgangspunkt für ein Album, das nicht nur Tyler, sondern auch die Möglichkeiten eines ganzen Bereichs neu überdenken lässt. Ein Strudel aus Lärm und Harmonie, Geistern und Träumen, Angst und Hoffnung - es ist nicht nur eine großartige Gitarrenplatte. Es ist ein atemberaubendes Album eines großen Gitarristen, ein Meisterwerk unserer kollektiv ängstlichen Zeit. Anfang 2020, als die Welt am Rande ungeahnter Unruhen stand, verließ Tyler LA und zog nach Nashville, wo er die meiste Zeit seines Lebens gelebt hatte. Der größte Teil seines Equipments und alle seine Platten blieben zurück, in Erwartung einer vermeintlich schnellen Rückkehr. Das war natürlich nicht der Fall. Während Tyler also mit den Depressionen, den Nerven und den Fragen dieser unendlich angespannten Zeit zu kämpfen hatte, begann er, Ideen mit seinem Telefon und einem Kassettendeck aufzunehmen, wobei er sich mit den Verzerrungen, die diese Geräte mit sich bringen, abfand. Tyler sprach mit Kieran Hebden darüber, eine gemeinsame Platte zu machen, und einige dieser Stücke fühlten sich wie Testfälle an. Als diese Zusammenarbeit in andere Richtungen ging, entdeckte Tyler andere Klänge. Er bat seinen langjährigen Freund, den Produzenten Jake Davis, ihm dabei zu helfen, die Songs zusammenzufügen, und entschied sich dafür, das Rauschen und Wackeln zu akzeptieren und ungewollt eine Platte zu machen, die diese Zeiten und die heutige Zeit widerspiegelt - unruhig, beschädigt, ehrlich. Eine Wippe aus Kampf und Überleben definiert diese Songs, eine Landkarte der Angst und des Glaubens und der Pfade, die sie verbinden. "Dies ist eine Platte über Geisteskrankheiten", wird Tyler ohne Scham sagen, so offen im Leben und in der Sprache, wie er es auf den Aufnahmen ist. "Es ist Musik darüber, den Verstand zu verlieren, aber nicht zu wollen, über den Versuch, zurückzukommen." Das braucht er nicht zu sagen; man spürt es, erkennt es vielleicht aus eigener Erfahrung. Tylers Alben sind ein Nest aus nicht-musikalischen Einflüssen, denn er pendelt zwischen Spiritualität und Philosophie und beschwört die Landschaften der amerikanischen Vorstellungskraft. "Time Indefinite" ist nicht anders, vor allem in der Art und Weise, wie es die sehr persönlichen Filme von Ross McElwee beschwört. Mitte der 80er Jahre begann er, einen Film über Shermans Marsch durch den Süden zu drehen, der sich jedoch zu einer verworrenen Geschichte über Familie, Verlust und das, was wir tun, wenn unsere besten Instinkte sich den schlimmsten Dingen ergeben, die wir uns vorstellen können, entwickelte. Das Album ist eine Anspielung auf diese Idee, auf das unerbittliche Drängen der Zeit und unseren Platz in ihr, unter ihr und neben ihr. Es ist keine große Offenbarung, dass das Leben, das wir führen, die Arbeit prägt, die wir machen, ob wir das nun beabsichtigen oder nicht. In diesen Liedern kann man Tyler hören, wie er laut mit eingehenden Dämonen ringt: Sucht, mittleres Alter, Einsamkeit, Neurosen. Alle unsere Kämpfe sind unterschiedlich, aber wir sind uns darin einig, dass wir sie haben. Dies ist der Soundtrack, den Tyler geschaffen hat.

Babez For Breakfast is the fifth studio album by the Finnish rock band Lordi. For this album, the band worked with million-selling hard rock and metal producer and mixer Michael Wagener (Metallica, Megadeth, Alice Cooper). The album also features guest appearances by none other than Bruce Kulick (KISS) and Mark Slaughter (Slaughter). The album entered the album charts in Finland, Greece, and Germany. Babez For Breakfast is available as a limited edition of 666 individually numbered copies on blood pink & red marbled vinyl and comes with a sticker sheet and a 4-page booklet.

Norman Westberg (guitar), Giridhar Udupa (ghatam, konnakol, khanjira, percussion) and Jacek Mazurkiewicz (double bass, electronics)An extraordinary meeting of three artists from three different musical worlds and three different continents. Norman Westberg (ex-Swans) and Jacek Mazurkiewicz have already released one album together "First Man In The Moon" in 2021 (published by the Swiss label Hallow Ground).In the new project, they are accompanied by Giridhar Udupa, an Indian master of ghatam (a clay percussion instrument that looks like a jug). The album will feature 3 long trance compositions, referring to ambient, krautrock, free jazz and Indian music.Jacek Mazurkiewicz describes the creation of this album as follows:"I met Norman Westberg while supporting the Swans tour in Poland as 3FoNIA. A few years later, during Norman's tour with Gira, we recorded a duet.The trio session took place similarly to the previous duet session during Norman's solo concert in Warsaw on the Swans tour.Recorded with Adam Toczko, a quick meeting on a day off from work.I invited Giridhar Udupa to the trio, whom I had met earlier during the period when I co-founded the band Limboski. I once invited Wacek Zimpel to play a few concerts with Giridhar. Wacek later created Saagara and I was wondering about some unusual musical context in which I would find myself with Giridhar. I was looking for an interesting sound configuration, but also a cultural one, with a different approach to creating music. I got the impression that for both Norman and Giridhar it was a fairly fresh meeting, not obvious. And on the other hand, ordinary - everyone did their own thing."Detroit guitarist Norman Westberg moved to New York in 1980 and became a part of the experimental music scene that was experiencing its golden age. Westberg himself became a permanent fixture when he joined the iconic avant-rock band Swans in 1983, and was the only member other than frontman Michael Gira to play with them for most of the band's run, both until their 1997 disbandment and his return in 2010. Westberg has also been involved with other legendary New York noise-rock acts, including Jim Thirlwell's Foetus and the post-Swans Heroine Sheiks, in which he played with Cows frontman Shannon Selberg; and in 2014, he joined the noise-rock supergroup Hidden Rifles, whose members included Mike Watt of Minutemen and Mark Shippy of U.S. Maple. Westberg's solo compositions, most often for solo guitar and a set of effects, draw on drone and post-minimalism, bringing to mind dark ambient passages from Swans albums.Giridhar Udupa is an extremely valued teacher and world-renowned artist, an Indian master of ghatam (a clay percussion instrument that looks like a jug). He was born into a family with long musical traditions. He began learning to play at the age of four, guided by his father. At the age of twelve, he already had his first performances behind him. He currently gives concerts alongside the greatest masters. He has received many prestigious awards. He performs in the USA, Spain, Canada, France, Switzerland, Germany, Oman and Kuwait. Giridhar Udupa is a member of the band of the Indian vocalist Bombay Jayashri, nominated for an Oscar for the best song for the film Life of Pi. He is one of the founders of the Layatharanga band. He also plays virtuoso other traditional instruments of South India, such as mridangam and kanjira, and is excellent at using the konnakol technique (a type of rhythmic vocalization).For three decades, the artist has been a global ambassador and icon of Carnatic music. He is the founder of The Udupa Foundation, a charity organization established in 2015 to promote Indian music, performing arts and culture. He has participated in recording dozens of albums. He is also well-known in our country thanks to his cooperation with Polish performers, which resulted in excellent artistic effects, such as the famous Indialucia - Michał Czachowski's group / project or the Saagara formation, led by Wacław Zimpel. Udupa also played on the album Lechoechoplexita, released by Leszek Hefi Wiśniewski, and on the album of the band Layatharanga, released in our country.Jacek Mazurkiewicz is interested in music in the broad sense. He puts his sounds together based on emotional impressions and pulse. Combining acoustics with electronics, he is constantly looking for a new sound. Solo as 3FoNIA, in a duet with Mikołaj Trzaska or Tomek Dąbrowski, the JMB trio with Wojtek Jachna and Jacek Buhl, in the Modular String Trio quartet, the Afrobeat quintet Faso Tamala are just some of his musical incarnations. With Patryk Zakrocki, as part of an audio mission, he massaged hundreds of pairs of ears in the Inner Ear Massage Office. He also deals with sound design, composing and producing music for films and theatre performances. He collaborated with many Polish and foreign artists.

"Released in 2011, Revelator is the debut studio album by the Tedeschi Trucks Band, a powerhouse blues-rock ensemble led by Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks. The album blends blues, rock, soul, and jazz, showcasing the band's rich, full-bodied sound. Standout tracks like ""Midnight in Harlem,"" ""Come See About Me,"" and ""Bound for Glory"" highlight Tedeschi’s soulful vocals and Trucks’ masterful slide guitar work. Produced by Jim Scott and Derek Trucks, Revelator received critical acclaim for its organic musicianship, heartfelt songwriting, and dynamic arrangements. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Blues Album in 2012, solidifying the band’s reputation as one of the finest acts in contemporary blues and rock. For fans of blues-infused rock with deep soul influences, Revelator is an essential listen, capturing the magic of a band that seamlessly blends technical brilliance with emotional depth. Revelator is available as a limited edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on red coloured vinyl."

UK - the last of the great British progressive-rock bands of the 70s featuring legendary musicians Eddie Jobson, John Wetton and Terry Bozzio. “Danger Money” hit the Billboard Top 50 album chart in 1979 and is now regarded as one of the classic progressive albums of all time. Fully remastered and repackaged for this special limited-edition release. Marbleized Colored Vinyl. All remastered by Eddie Jobson

Following nearly 20 years of working together as a trio, and numerous cross-collaborations in different configuration between them, Ideologic Organ presents Placelessness, the debut full-length by Chris Abrahams, Oren Ambarchi, and Robbie Avenaim, comprising two long-form works at juncture of ambient music, minimalism, rigorous experimentalism and improvisation, and machine music. Having carved distinct pathways across a diverse number of musical idioms for decades, Chris Abrahams, Oren Ambarchi, and Robbie Avenaim are each, respectively, among the most noteworthy and groundbreaking figures to have emerged from Australia's thriving experimental music scene. Ambarchi and Avenaim first encountered Abrahams when seeing the Necks - the project that has served as the primary vehicle for his singular approach to the piano since its founding in 1987 - together during the late 1980s, not long after having met in Sydney's underground music community. The pair's collaborations date back more than 35 years, criss-crossing Ambarchi's pioneering solo and ensemble work for guitar and Avenaim's visionary efforts for SARPS (Semi Automated Robotic Percussion System), robotic and kinetic extensions to his drum kit. In 2004, fate brought the three together in a trio performance at the What Is Music? Festival, the annual touring showcase of experimental music founded and run by Ambarchi and Avenaim between 1994-2012. For the nearly two decades since, Abrahams, Ambarchi, and Avenaim have intermittently reformed in exclusively live contexts, in Australia and abroad, cultivating and refining the fertile ground first tilled in that early meeting. Placelessness is the first album to present this remarkable trio's efforts in recorded form. Placelessness is the joining of three highly individualised streams, working in perfect harmony; the point at which friendship, mutual respect, and decades of creative exploration produce a singular spectrum of sound. Featuring Abrahams on piano, Ambarchi on guitar, and Avenaim on drums, the album's two sides draw on each artist's enduring dedication to long-form composition. Its two pieces, Placelessness I and Placelessness II, initially began as a single, 40 minute work, before being divided and reworked into distinct, complimentary gestures for the corresponding sides of the LP. Beginning with restrained clusters of reverberant piano tones, Placelessness I progresses at an almost glacial pace, with Abrahams' interventions increasing met by sparse responses, darting within vast ambiences, on guitar and percussion by Ambarchi and Avenaim. Remarkably conversational within its convergences of tonal, rhythmic, and textural abstraction, over the work's duration a progressive sense of tension unfurls and contracts, refusing release, as each of the ensemble's members contribute to an increasingly tangled sense of density at its resolve.While an entirely autonomous work, Placelessness II rapidly realises a distillation of the energy hinted at across the length of its predecessor. Following a luring passage of harmonious calm, Abrahams' launches into shimmering lines of repeating arpeggios, complimented at each escalation of tempo by Avenaim's machine gun fire percussion work and Ambarchi's masterful delivery of tonality and texture, as the trio collectively generate dense sheets of pointillistic ambience within which individual identity is almost lost, before slowly unspooling into unexpected abstractions and dissonances that deftly intervene with the work's inner logic and calm. What could easily be termed a maximalist take on Minimalism, Placelessness is a masterstroke of contemporary, real time composition, that blurs the boundaries between ambient music, experimentalism, free improvisation, and machine music. Drawing on Chris Abrahams, Oren Ambarchi, and Robbie Avenaim's decades of respective solo and collaborative practice, and the culmination of nearly twenty years of working together as a trio, it's two durational pieces - Placelessness I and Placelessness II - take form with a startling sense of effortlessness and grace, neither shying away from explicit beauty or rigorously tension within their forms

Compiled by Bob Stanley to document the acid folk scene, “Gather In The Mushrooms” was first issued in 2004 on Sanctuary as a CD-only release; it proved popular enough for a sequel entitled “Early Morning Hush” two years later.

This new edition of “Gather In The Mushrooms” contains the cream of both long-deleted compilations with a few additions – COB, Roy Harper, Fotheringay – that weren’t available to Sanctuary at the time. Though they aren’t traditional, these songs have an authenticity of their own, an autumnal atmosphere and a naivety which proved influential in the 00s neo-folk boom (Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Alasdair Roberts, Tuung et al) but impossible to replicate. For many of these acts at the end of the 60s, folk music and the hippy world that surrounded them was a way of life, a way of opting out from the Vietnam war, Angry Brigade and three-day-week early 70s. Anne Briggs lived in a caravan in Suffolk, Shelagh McDonald lived in a tent, Vashti Bunyan eschewed electricity; they weren’t part-timers. Listening to “Gather In The Mushrooms”, we are transported to a time when no one used the term post-modernist.

It may not have resonated with dyed-in-the wool political folkies, but over five decades later this music sounds very evocative of an England of yore – not necessarily one of poachers and pedlars, but one of long-haired youths in tie-dye T-shirts, bikers and hippies, acoustic guitars played in white stone cottages. Groups such as Stone Angel, Midwinter and Oberon made primitive, privately recorded folk albums; today they sound as distant and mystical as the field recordings of Alan Lomax. The sincerity and folk knowledge of a group like Forest becomes irrelevant once you hear something as eerie and evocative as ‘Graveyard’. Home-made, homely, warm as soup or chilling as a hoar frost, this is music of innocence and rare beauty.

Lean back on the beat. Inhale, exhale. A new voice from an old soul. Kick drum rolls deep with Fender Rhodes. Charlotte Day Wilson sparking up a blunt, skateboarding at midnight with Brittany from Alabama Shakes. Jazzy intonation on a funky tip. Utterly confident in its own sense of time. Just in time. 

You may not have heard of GC O'Connor before, but ask any working musician in Sydney and they know her name. A stalwart of the scene, multi-instrumentalist and composer O'Connor has been putting in the work for years, quietly dropping gems as she readies her debut EP, a self-described 'bedroom soundtrack'. Soul Lament is the kind of assured, accomplished record we delight in putting out into the world. It's representative of a fertile scene in Australian music that deserves celebrating. 

Includes an individually-numbered, specially-designed obi strip.

Award-winning singer Candice Night returns with a new solo album (and first for earMUSIC), “Sea Glass.”

Continuing a career as a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, composer and lyricist, perhaps most famously as musical alchemist and voice of Blackmore’s Night, “Sea Glass” finds Candice at a new plateau in her life and music.

THE ALBUM
Inspired by a lifetime of challenging musical adventures as well as the magic and demands of everyday life and family, Candice has crafted an album that observes life through a prism of experiences, much like looking through a kaleidoscope of sea glass colors with their own special glow.

The album draws from rock influences on tracks such as first single‘ Angel and Jezebel’ and ‘Unsung Hero (She’ll Never Tell)’ and thematically touches on themes of loss and love (‘The Last Goodbye’) as well as the bond between parents and children and their wishes and dreams for the future (‘Promise Me’).

Inspired by Candice’s lifelong passion for collecting sea glass – finding treasure that has been transformed by time and tides – the images reflect the randomness of those discoveries and how they all assemble into a whole life’s experience.

MARKETING AND PROMOTION
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New album from multi-instrumentalist and voice behind chart-topping Blackmore’s Night with a fanbase built over a quarter century
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Album announcement and first single “Angel and Jezebel” January 2025
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Album release preceded by 3 singles and videos
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Continuous online marketing and social media campaign from album announcement through release

Spacemen 3 began assembling their third album, 1988's Playing With Fire, at perhaps the freest, most confident point in their career. Recording began with the band road-tested and rugged, even amidst the functional volatility that famously motivated their course. The sessions' first offering came in the form of "Revolution," a single of heroic Stooges-devotion and the most commercially successful release the group had to date. High expectations for the album were soon exceeded, as Playing With Fire would become Spacemen 3's crowning studio achievement and cement their rightful place on the vanguard of otherworldly rock 'n' roll.

An exquisite mix of stuttering tremolo guitars and wistful melodies, Playing With Fire sheds any trappings of revisionism and furnishes a nuanced grade of psychedelia. Epic entries like "Suicide" (named after the notorious NYC band) and the mesmeric "How Does It Feel?" catch Spacemen 3 at their celestial apex, the very point where their collective writing, performance and production would crest and wondrously splinter.

Includes download card and new insert with liner notes by Marc Masters.

(10x12" box set, limited to 1000 copies, with premium finishing, uniquely numbered, incl. 10 records in individually printed sleeves, a booklet detailing the club's history & exclusive stickers) Boccaccio has secured its place among legendary venueslike Paradise Garage in New York and The Hacçinda in Manchester. Its bold fusion of emerging electronic genres such as New Beat, Acid, House, and Techno was way ahead of its time, drawing music lovers and clubbers from across Belgium and beyond.



Belgian label Music Man Records presents Boccaccio Life 1987-1993, a new compilation offering a fresh perspective on the legacy of the iconic Belgian club Boccaccio - often associated with the short-lived New Beat movement. The 40-track compilation highlights the raw and futuristic early house and techno sounds that were heard in the pioneering club.

Located in rural Destelbergen (Belgium), just a stone's throw from Ghent, Boccaccio has secured its place among legendary venues like Paradise Garage in New York and The Hacçinda in Manchester. Its bold fusion of emerging electronic genres such as New Beat, Acid, House, and Techno was way ahead of its time, drawing music lovers and clubbers from across Belgium and beyond. Sundays at Boccaccio were unlike anywhere else-offering sounds you couldn't hear anywhere else.

Boccaccio Life 1987-1993 is carefully curated by resident DJ Olivier Pieters and club regular Stefaan Vandenberghe, standing as the ultimate testament to a club that was more than just a venue. For those who experienced it, it was a community - a way of life. Hence the club's full name: Boccaccio Life.

This compilation stands as a testament to an innovative time in electronic music, capturing the raw, futuristic sounds of early house and techno. It sheds light on another side of Boccaccio, one that goes far beyond the short-lived New Beat scene. A carefully curated selection of 40 tracks, resonating with those who were there by offering familiar classics, while also reaching a new generation-those who never experienced it firsthand.

With tracks from Blake Baxter, Virgo, Frankie Knuckles, Tyree, and A Guy Called Gerald, the unmistakable influence of black American pioneers is clear-the originators of the firstanalog house and techno sounds. On the other hand, UK sound innovators such as The Orb and LFO bring both sharp textures and rough breakbeats to the table.

Club staple tracks include dreamy excursions from Roger Sanchez under his Egotrip moniker, the relentless basement house of Circus Bells by Robert Armani on Dance Mania, an uplifting take on a hip-house cut from The D.O.C. (Portrait of A Masterpiece in the CJ Ed-Did-It Mix), a timeless remix of UK Formation's Age of Chance from 1994, and an alternate take on The Tape by Boccaccio club regular and Belgian producer Frank De Wulf, taken from his B-Sides project.

While not always the obvious hits, these tracks have gracefully withstood the test of time, and were exclusive to Sundays at Boccaccio. Now, they are finally available to experience together in one collection, offering a timeless snapshot of a unique era.

An Introduction To Syd Barrett, is a reissue of the 2010 collection that brought together for the first time the tracks of Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett on one compilation.

David Gilmour, who originally worked on Syd Barrett's two solo albums, as co-producer of The Madcap Laughs and as producer of Barrett, was the executive producer for the album. Damon Iddins and Andy Jackson at Astoria Studios remixed five tracks including ‘Octopus’, ‘She Took A Long Cool Look’, ‘Dominoes’ and ‘Here I Go’, with David Gilmour adding bass guitar to the last track. Pink Floyd's ‘Matilda Mother’ also received a fresh 2010 Mix.

The album features the original 24-page booklet and graphics plus all lyrics, and was designed including the cover art by long time Pink Floyd associate the late Storm Thorgerson and his estimable studio.

Born in Cambridge in 1946, Roger Keith 'Syd' Barrett was the primary songwriter, guitarist and original lead vocalist in the first incarnation of Pink Floyd. He formed the band in the mid-1960s with drummer Nick Mason, bassist Roger Waters and keyboard-player Richard Wright. With their groundbreaking, semi-improvised sets at the legendary UFO Club in London's Tottenham Court Road, they became the prime movers of British psychedelia.

Barrett wrote the warped pop vignettes ‘Arnold Layne’ and ‘See Emily Play’, the group's two hit singles from 1967, as well as 'Apples And Oranges', and the lion's share of the material – the dreamy ‘Matilda Mother’, ‘Chapter 24’ and the whimsical ‘Bike’ – on their debut album The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. Recorded at EMI's famed Abbey Road Studios while the Beatles were making Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Pink Floyd's first album has proved an enduring classic, referenced by everyone from David Bowie to Spiritualized via The Damned.

Barrett contributed ‘Jugband Blues’ to A Saucerful Of Secrets, the band's follow-up, but his behaviour became increasingly erratic and he left in April 1968, a few months after the addition to the group of his Cambridge friend David Gilmour on guitar and vocals.

Syd Barrett's first solo album, The Madcap Laughs, was a long time coming but made the Top 40 on its release in January 1970. Barrett followed in November that year, and contains tracks such as ‘Baby Lemonade’ and ‘Gigolo Aunt’ that provided the names for two cult US groups in the 80s and 90s.

Over the last four decades, Syd Barrett has become the ultimate rock enigma. In 1975, he paid an eerie visit to his former band mates at Abbey Road while they were recording ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, the centrepiece of the Wish You Were Here album he had inspired. He never entered a studio again. In 2001, he was the subject of a BBC Omnibus documentary.

He died in July 2006 but his legacy lives on in the music of R.E.M., Robyn Hitchcock, Julian Cope, Spiritualized, Blur and countless other groups. Earlier this year, Faber and Faber published Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head, an exhaustive biography by long-time fan Rob Chapman.

An Introduction To Syd Barrett provides a handy overview of this visionary talent, this madcap genius whose star shone brightly yet burnt out all too quickly.

T?t 41 is the latest record by modular synthesist and Berghain resident JakoJako (Sibel Koçer), marking her album debut for Mute.

Recorded during a trip to Vietnam and bookended by field recordings from T?t Lunar New Year celebrations, the album is illuminated by references to Koçer's heritage. The melodic palette breaks away from traditional Western scales, drawing instead from the tonal intricacies of the Vietnamese language, inspired by overheard conversations. The album and track titles further honour the vibrant T?t festivities, shrines, and landmarks she encountered during her travels.

This album is, in many ways, a distillation of ideas she has been exploring for years. Tapping into a deep understanding of machine-based music, crafted with a minimalist setup consisting of a Eurorack and Waldorf Iridium Core, T?t 41 reflects on notions of rebirth, and the pursuit of a sonic core. From this simplicity emerge some of her most expansive, unworldly compositions to date.

T?t 41 is available on vinyl in a limited run of just 500 copies worldwide.

1000 pressed. Classic Black vinyl, DL card. Toy Balloon receives its long overdue debut vinyl pressing, featuring new artwork. Caught somewhere between traditional folk and Jansch's penchant for the blues, 'Toy Balloon', from 1998, was the elder statesman of British folk's 20th studio album. Featuring a host of fantastic solo performances along with a brace of bigger sounding moments with a band including former Dire Straits' Pick Withers on drums and the legendary Pee Wee Ellis on sax, the mainly self-penned opus also boasts a hypnotic cover of the standard 'She Moves Through The Fair' and an evocative reading of Jackson C Frank's 'Carnival'.

The Ibex Band, with Giovanni Rico and Selam Woldemariam at the creative helm, provided the musical backbone for legends like Aster Aweke, Girma Beyene, Tilahun Gessesse, Mulatu Astatke, and Mahmoud Ahmed, including the iconic album Ere Mela Mela, shaping modern Ethiopian music as we know it today. This 1976 album (Ge’ez Year 1968) played a pivotal role in that legacy and has now resurfaced to set the record straight.

There’s a tendency to talk about the seventies as a golden age of Ethiopian music. There are good reasons for that, and just as good reasons against it. However, the notion of a golden past privileges the role of Western explorers and suggests that the pinnacle of Ethiopia’s musical culture is something only a foreigner can appreciate and unearth. It downplays the complexities of Ethiopia’s culture and history, creating an artificial divide between then and now. And it underestimates the constantly evolving sound that has followed.

The legendary musical outfit The Ibex Band, later metamorphosed into The Roha Band, has played a central role in defining the sound of many of the greatest stars on the music scene of Ethiopia from the mid-seventies onwards–but their golden output has never really waned. The story of the origins of the band that provided the musical backbone for greats such as Aster Aweke, Girma Beyene, Tilahun Gessesse, backing the solo career of group member Mahmoud Ahmed as well as backing Mulatu Astatke and many others has yet to be properly told.

Two misconceptions plague the image of Ethiopian music, one is that the music is pure because it is, by some notion, unexploited, the other is that it is all traditional. To begin with, a combination of political changes between the late sixties and the mid-nineties created an environment where only the most dedicated and skilled musicians struggled on and pursued a musical career against fierce odds. The whole Ibex Band, with Giovanni Rico and Selam “Selamino” Seyoum Woldermarian at the creative helm, are arguably the origo of the vibrant scene in the mid-seventies, and the said pair are foremost responsible for not only navigating the band through troubled times, but also modernizing the 6/8 chickchicka rhythm to a contemporary form. Giovanni laid the rhythmic foundation with heavy looped basslines that reinvented traditional melodies as dance music, and with Selamino’s innovative guitar work they influenced scores of musicians from Abegaz Kibrework Shiota to Henock Temesgen. Even Giovanni’s Fender bass and Selamino’s Gibson guitar inspired younger musicians in their choice of instruments. Not only in choice of instruments but also in sound–even as the digital revolution hit Ethiopian music, a lot of popular music still took its cue from the masters from Ibex and Roha.

Ibex emerged out of the ashes of the sixties group the Soul Echos band, adding Giovanni and Selamino to their ranks and taking their cues from a slew of influences, such as Motown and The Beatles, fused with traditional music. A tighter-knit unit than most bands at the time – Ibex has remained six to seven members throughout their whole career, compared to many bands that were as large as fifteen or sixteen men strong when Ibex set out. Their playing has been viciously focused, economical yet heavy. Just a year before the recording sessions of the album in your hands, Giovanni and Selamino made a contribution to the popular musical lexicon of Ethiopia that was simply defining the popular sound: their arrangement and recording of bandmate Mahmoud Ahmed’s solo effort and real commercial breakthrough tune and eponymous album, Ere Mela Mela, from 1975.

Selamino has never limited himself to being an adroit lead guitarist, but has always been a scholar of history, and as such he has probably contributed as much to modern Ethiopian music with his guitar playing and compositions as with a deepened understanding of modern or contemporary – Zemenawi – Ethiopian music. Selamino’s contributions serve as a metaphor for those of the whole band, at one and the same time creating and defining a new, danceable and updated sound anchored in Giovanni’s bass, whilst also elevating the broader scene through their support for others on the scene and on top of that, increasing the understanding of the music.

There is an understandable desire to romanticize the musical heyday Ibex and Roha were at the forefront of, because so much of the output is sorrowfully hard to come by. Ibex creativity was nothing short of ridiculously fierce compared to many of their Western contemporaries. Based on their sheer recorded output alone they could have usurped the title “hardest working in show business” from James Brown, recording more than 250 albums or 2500 songs in the seventies and eighties. Some only surface as cassettes today, others were never given full LP release, and some are simply impossible to find today. In the light of that, it’s nothing short of a miracle that the recording Stereo Instrumental Music from 1976 (Ge’ez Year 1968) has resurfaced. Unearthed in perfect condition on a chrome cassette, this is musical history comes alive–to set the future straight. Stereo Instrumental Music was recorded in collaboration with Karl-Gustav Lundgren, a Swedish national working for the Radio Voice of the Gospel. It took two sessions at the Ras Hotel ballroom in Addis Ababa. The Ibex Band was the first band in Ethiopia to employ a four-track recorder for their recording (the first available in the country, lent by Karl-Gustav). Later the same week, Giovanni and Selamino realized that, lengthwise, the recorded material fell short of what they wished for, so they recorded four more tracks in one more session on a single-track recorder. The Ras Hotel and Ghion Hotel, where the Ibex Band held musical residencies were to Ethiopia in general and Addis Ababa in particular what Motown was to the USA and Detroit a few years earlier – a hotbed of musical creativity and showmanship.

The most astonishing thing about Ethiopian music of the last half century is how tradition and modernity are intertwined. Because of this feature, it’s kind of hard to tell when there ever was or when we are in a “golden age”. So much of music from the past has been criminally neglected, but because of the hardships in the past, it would be an oversimplification to say that said past was a golden age. Probably, the golden age is what we are approaching, because for the first time both the past and future are accessible, and the monumental contributions from before can lay a firm foundation for a thriving music scene today. The Ibex Band stands firmly in the past, present and the future. That, if anything, is golden.

The detailed history of Stereo Instrumental Music is in many ways unique. To begin with, it couldn’t have been recorded earlier (there were no four-track recorders available) and it really couldn’t have been recorded afterwards either, at least not in the years directly following, because of the toll the musical scene took from the unfavorable political climate that followed when the nascent Derg regime and rival groups tried to assert themselves, the musical equipment lent from The Voice of Gospel Radio simply disappeared from Ethiopia when the radio station folded in 1977. Karl-Gustav Lundgren,
the Swedish foreign national who assisted during the recording, worked with the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus at the time, recalls how they only had about fifteen minutes to get the microphones in place for the recording as to not alert neither the management at Ras Hotel nor the authorities and most importantly, to complete the recording before the curfew came into effect at midnight. In leaping to the opportunity to use previously unavailable equipment to push their sound forward and improvising to meet the logistical challenges, the Ibex Band displayed the very avant-gardism and adaptability that explains their longevity as a band through the years. The recording of Stereo Instrumental Music is from a given time in history, but it sounds as beyond time.
Much of the energy that burst out of the scene that Stereo Instrumental Music came out of dissipated or got sidetracked during the societal changes Ethiopia went through in the 1970s and 80s. Whilst leaders might have professed to be revolutionary, the work ethic of the Ibex Band can truly be described as that. They never called it quits, but adapted, toured extensively abroad in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, and found ways to work even in the face of the curfew that curtailed a lot of musical life. They even played major arenas in the nineteen eighties, despite said curfew and restrictions. The whole extent of their legacy has never been told, but their music speaks louder than words, so therefore… tune in to the Ibex Band’s Stereo Instrumental Music.

For their second album 'The Foel Tower', Quade holed up in an old stone barn in the cradle of a Welsh mountain valley.
The valley was a stark and windswept backdrop with little daylight, as the band would huddle around crackling fires each evening. “There was very much a feeling of being on the complete fringes of society,” the band says. “The last vestiges of settlement before the unrelenting barren moors that loomed over us.”
It was an environment that would shape the band – a Bristol four piece made up of Barney Matthews, Leo Fini, Matt Griffiths and Tom Connolly – and the record they have made. It’s an album that is as dreamy as it is melancholic, and as quiet and tender as it is forceful and potent – gliding across genres like winds blowing over those wide-spanning Welsh hills – to arrive at something the band half-jokingly, yet somewhat accurately, describe as “doomer sad boy, ambient-dub, folk, experimental post-rock.”

Quade is a band but it’s also a very close-knit group that have been friends since childhood who use this musical vehicle for interpersonal explorations and connections. “We’ve individually experienced a lot of difficulty over the last several years and Quade has represented a space to shelter from these,” the band says. “This means we often communicate extensively with each other about the issues affecting us individually and collectively. These conversations and concerns are central to The Foel Tower.”

In many ways, the making of this record – or any Quade record – goes way deeper than the simple writing, construction and recording of music. It is a profoundly deep and meaningful experience. “A key theme of the album relates to why we connect with specific places in the way that we do,” the group says. “We often remove ourselves to isolated valleys, sheltered from some of the painful personal struggles that we have experienced as a band. These become spaces in which we collectively purge ourselves of some of these difficulties hoping to make Quade a physical and emotional place of solace. This album celebrates these places that we’ve been able to retreat to and recuperate.”

It is a deep, dense record that is stuffed with musical, cinematic and literary influences – from Ursula La Guin and Cormac MacCarthy through to RS Thomas and Yeats – but despite the heavy, introspective and anxious nature of some of the material, it is also a record that is remarkably deft, agile and considered.

Made with producer Jack Ogborne and mixer Larry ‘Bruce’ McCarthy, there is a pleasing duality to the final sound of the record. One that feels fragile and intimate but also powerful and forceful, as introspective as it is expansive, and a record that is as detailed and textured as it is wide open and spacious.

The album title also pays homage to the place that shaped it so greatly. Within this remote Welsh valley stands the Foel Tower, a stone structure filled with valves and cylinders that can raise and lower the level of the reservoir to draw off water. Which it can then send as far as 70 miles to Birmingham. However, in the late 1800s this land was occupied by local farmers and families in the hundreds until the British Government acquired the land, cleared the valleys, and promptly displaced them in order to begin serving the vastly expanding industrial English city. The band dug into the history and politics of this and wove it into the themes they were already thinking about, using what the Foel Tower stands for as something of a contemporary metaphor. “This tension was something that we wanted to explore without the haughty judgement of our more metropolitan lifestyles,” they say. “And to explore how this specifically relates to ourselves: how can we envisage a genuinely ecological future for ourselves – one that is accessible, affordable and in harmony with endangered rural practices.”

What makes The Foel Tower such an incredible record is that it feels born of a time, place and situation that only existed in that very moment. It’s a snapshot of those 10 days spent in rural Wales and all the feelings and anxieties the band were experiencing at that specific time, magically caught on tape. “The album very much feels tied to this valley for us and the conversations and experiences we shared there,” they say. “It brings up a great deal of poignancy for us, an emblem of some fleeting respite from the strains we all have to experience. But there’s also deep sadness knowing how transient these moments are – in fact, there’s just a great deal of sadness in this album. But it’s also a record that while personal, resigned, and emotionally burdened, is ultimately hopeful.”

Unreleased Miami boogie and deep soul from the vault of Teddy Studstill. Mixed and mastered from the original session tapes recorded in the early eighties. Terrestrial Funk ties back to their first release with this Miami magic. Teddy Studstill, an unsung hero of South Florida who played guitar on Lang Cook's 'She's Hot With 2,000 Watts' unearths these timeless tunes he wrote four decades ago. Accompanied by Miami legends Luke Jasmin on the keys and vocalist Harris Mazyck. We're grateful Teddy has brought these tracks to light and now the world can finally indulge in their delight. *comes with double sided insert poster*

Kennedy Mann, indie singer-songwriter and lead singer of dream-pop band Highnoon, is a rising artist from the Philly DIY scene, in which she has become memorable for her poignant lyricism, tender vocals, and sharp melodic skill. Combining the analog sounds of dream pop, indie folk, and slowcore, Kennedy Mann's compositions strike you in the heart and linger like a bittersweet memory. Kennedy's journey as a songwriter began with the debut of Highnoon's first album Semi Sweet, a project consisting of self-written pop-rock tunes. As Kennedy continued to write, she quickly gathered a collection of demos that felt too intimate and singular for the traditional rock band format - a world of music she kept to herself like a secret. Kennedy finally launched her solo project in 2023 as a way to bring some of her most personal musical ideas to life. A prolific songwriter and creative force, she began performing her original acoustic demos on TikTok, quickly building a small devoted following around her vocals and songwriting. Through TikTok, Kennedy began to build her own music community, befriending fellow songwriters Kai Warrior, Tofusmell, and Leith Ross along the way. In recent months, Kennedy Mann embarked on the European leg of Leith Ross' first headline tour, allowing her the opportunity to bring her idiosyncratic talents to the world stage. In July of 2023, she released her debut solo single ?Crooked," a charming Kimya Dawson-inspired slowcore track that finds Kennedy pining over her partner's ?ugliest? and most undesirable traits.

“Egypt’s “official” popular music throughout much of the 20th Century was a complex form of art song steeped in tradition, well-loved by the middle and upper classes, and even accommodating to certain non-Arabic influences. It was highly structured by professional musicians working an established industry centered in the capitol, Cairo. However, far from the bustling cosmopolitan center of Cairo, north and northwest, in towns like Tanta and Alexandria and extending across the Saharan Desert to the Libyan border, dozens of fully marginalized artists were developing a raw, hybrid shaabi/al-musiqa al-shabiya style of music, supported by smaller upstart, independent labels, including the short-lived but deeply resonant Bourini Records. Launched in the late 1960s in Benghazi, Libya, Astuanat al-Bourini اسطوانات البوريني (Bourini Records) published some 40 to 50 titles from 1968 to 1975. Bourini released 7-inch 45 RPM singles by 15 artists, all but one of them Egyptian, igniting brief careers for Alexandrian singer Sheikh Amin Abdel Qader and the blind Bedouin legend Abu Bakr Abdel Aziz (aka Abu Abab). The tracks compiled here comprise a full range of styles covered by the label, while highlighting some of its most gobsmacking moments, from Basis Rahouma’s beastly transformation into a growling and barking man-lion by the end of “Yana Alla Nafsa Masouda,” to Reem Kamal’s hopeful-if-bitter handclapping party pivot “Baed Al Yas Yjini,” which descends into an almost Velvet Underground outro-groove of nihilistic dissonance. All the tracks on this compilation were laid down in stark divergence from the mainstream Egyptian popular music topography of heightened emotions buoyed by lush arrangements. The contrast is most evident in Mahmoud al-Sandidi’s “Ana Mish Hafwatak,” wherein his voice weaves heavily but deftly through a constant accordion drone, and Abu Abab’s “Al Bint al Libya,” a sparse, slow-burning lament with minimal percussion, violin, and Abab’s nephew Hamed Abdel Muna'im Mursi on lyre. Whereas the Egyptian mainstream was aspirational, attempting to reflect Egyptian culture at its most refined, the performances captured by Bourini were manifestations of everyday life lived by the mostly otherwise ignored masses. More than half century old, this music has lost none of its urgency, presence, or relevance. We hear these artists as if they’d just joined us in our living room, and not on a stage decades ago surrounded by tens of thousands of long-forgotten acolytes.

Almost Like You Could ignites its art punk fire with Lucy Alexander proclaiming, “Everyone wants something to talk about / But not a minute to spare, so be brief.” Not surprising from a song that’s 1:54 (‘Higher’), but the raw honesty in her lyrics ring far after the music ends. Alexander, along with bandmate Luke Cartledge, place the propulsive power of their beliefs at the core of their debut full-length album, and their guiding motivation towards social justice is as fierce as it is welcoming. “Living as part of the queer community, and being queer myself, leads me towards supporting every person’s truth,” Alexander says. Scrounge’s songs skip to a fast beat, electrifying the entire album with a sense of empowerment. Their approach is OG punk: they make music for their peers and themselves. Only now, with a world of connections possible, they’re able to open arms wide for a far-reaching embrace. Alexander’s rich vocals give their sound its central force, anchoring the songs with confessional lines (“If this is the pinnacle, then I need a miracle/ Cause everyone’s laughing at me,” “There’s not much left/ this corpse I have to keep/ Above board.”). They sing about economic inequality, political corruption, environmental destruction, and collective change. “We’re inspired by those around us, and we write about what we care about. Art has always existed for us as a means of catharsis, a way of expressing something we might not be able to otherwise, and we hope our music can be that for other people too,” says Alexander. “I think I’ve actually written a filthy banger,” she states while re-listening to “Buzz/Cut”, a grunge-honoring hammer of a song that takes a journey from disappointment, to self-realization, to release. Alexander and Cartledge’s gratification in making an album they’re proud of mirrors the empowerment conveyed in their lyrics. A follow-up to debut mini-album Sugar, Daddy (Fierce Panda, 2022), Almost Like You Could came together over 18 months, in between “teaching, touring, graduation, and a wedding”, as Lucy explains, for the band always has a handful of shows coming up. It’s a strange outcome for a duo who first bonded over their mutual love of SOPHIE. “She radicalized the structure of sound, and revealed herself through it,” Cartledge explains. “That was a massive inspiration when we started playing together, stripping everything away to open up new possibilities as artists and as people." Having already toured Europe and the States, Scrounge is preparing to be on the road throughout 2025. In a world where the idea of true community is ephemeral, Lucy and Luke seek to foster it everywhere they play. And their belief in change is ultimately buoyed by hope. “I know that it’s never been this good,” they sing.

Mint Green Vinyl. Graham Jonson is drawn to the comforts of melody and noise. How the two conspire in tension, tonally and atonally, stirring up memory and mood. This quality animates the technicolor world of quickly, quickly, the psych-pop project that emanates from Kenton Sound, his basement studio in Portland, Oregon. "Everywhere your eye lands, there's another curio to marvel over," noted Pitchfork's Philip Sherburne when he visited Jonson's recording space for a Rising feature just after the release of his "strikingly original" 2021 debut LP, The Long and Short of It. Since then, Jonson formed a live band, released his Easy Listening EP in 2023, and navigated the up-and-downs of a young musician, the sustainability of tours and relationships. While shaped by personal bouts and fallouts, his highly-anticipated full-length follow-up finds Jonson making music that's universal, open-ended, and rewarding, like great songwriters can do. He set out to make a folk album but couldn't help coloring it in with noise; a confluence of lush instrumentation and unexpected sounds. Ambitious yet intimate, hi-fi yet homespun, the idiosyncratic songs on I Heard That Noise curve around the contours of everyday life with warmth, wit, and dissonance.

CHIME OBLIVION began out of the blue. David Barbarossa reached out to John Dwyer saying he was a fan of OSEES and he was invited to a show in London. The two hung out and hit it off, "then I rabbit holed on Bow wow wow too…," Dwyer recalls. "I reached out to David and suggested that we try and write some songs together... I flew David out, we met at my studio and spent five days writing basin drums ideas." The two got to know each other and had a lot of laughs. Dwyer then brought in Weasel Walter, knowing that he would be perfect "to add all that legitimate old-school weird proto-punk no wave guitar scratch to it, which of course he did masterfully." Next came Tom Dolas to play fuzzy marimba, and the fabulous H.L. Nelly, "as I knew her from a record I’d put out back in the day for a band called Naked Lights from Oakland. I knew that she could pull off the vocal style I had in mind." Together, the group created their debut self-titled album, due for release via Deathgod on April 18th. CHIME OBLIVION will be released as a 45 rpm 12" vinyl, CD & on digital. They're sharing the first taste of the album today, in the form of lead single, "NEIGHBORHOOD DOG." "For fans of Adam & the Ants, Bow Wow Wow, Crass, The Slits, and any other wierdo punk we fell in love with as youths." CHIME OBLIVION is due for release on April 18th via Deathgod.

CHIME OBLIVION began out of the blue. David Barbarossa reached out to John Dwyer saying he was a fan of OSEES and he was invited to a show in London. The two hung out and hit it off, "then I rabbit holed on Bow wow wow too…," Dwyer recalls. "I reached out to David and suggested that we try and write some songs together... I flew David out, we met at my studio and spent five days writing basin drums ideas." The two got to know each other and had a lot of laughs. Dwyer then brought in Weasel Walter, knowing that he would be perfect "to add all that legitimate old-school weird proto-punk no wave guitar scratch to it, which of course he did masterfully." Next came Tom Dolas to play fuzzy marimba, and the fabulous H.L. Nelly, "as I knew her from a record I’d put out back in the day for a band called Naked Lights from Oakland. I knew that she could pull off the vocal style I had in mind." Together, the group created their debut self-titled album, due for release via Deathgod on April 18th. CHIME OBLIVION will be released as a 45 rpm 12" vinyl, CD & on digital. They're sharing the first taste of the album today, in the form of lead single, "NEIGHBORHOOD DOG." "For fans of Adam & the Ants, Bow Wow Wow, Crass, The Slits, and any other wierdo punk we fell in love with as youths." CHIME OBLIVION is due for release on April 18th via Deathgod.

On ‘Cordial’, Ursula Sereghy traces the sensation of home; not as a place, but as something fleeting and deeply felt. Comfort appears in glimpses, nestled between moments of dissonance and unraveling structure. There is joy, but it carries the weight of absence, the quiet grief of realizing what was missing all along. A laughter that is both liberating and bittersweet.

Sereghy’s music moves with no fixed center, shedding hierarchies and opening itself to the unknown. Sounds unravel and reform: fragments of voices, reshaped textures, the shimmer of manipulated recordings all bending into semi-familiar contours. In this space, harmony is not a destination but an unfolding process, a web of shifting connections rather than rigid form.

Deeply drawn to natural processes, Sereghy’s music resonates with an elemental force: chemical reactions, unseen currents, the quiet logic of interconnection. Sound becomes a space where trust takes shape, where loss is acknowledged but never final, and where the act of feeling remains, above all, an act of survival. It is music in constant negotiation with itself - dismantling, reshaping, and reaching towards something vast, untethered and luminous.

Tony Holiday has been at the center of a Memphis soul blues revival anchored by a contingent of young, savvy, well-schooled musicians who have a "family-like" attitude and a strong belief in one another. Over the past couple of years, Holiday has been touring hard, taking spells in between to write and record with Producer Eric Corne in Memphis and Los Angeles. The result is Keep Your Head Up, an album that demonstrates an impressive command of styles, as Holiday leads his band fluidly through Texas, Chicago and hill country blues with plenty of Memphis soul and even a touch of Afrobeat. It features a nice array of special guests including Eddie 9V, Kevin Burt, Albert Castiglia and Laura Chavez, last year's Blues Music Award winner for 'Guitarist of the Year’ with Holiday shining throughout on vocals and harmonica.

A collaboration between US label Astral Spirits and Sweden’s Thanatosis Produktion, It could / If I marks the debut album from Stockholm-based duo Johan Jutterström (saxophone) and Alex Zethson (piano). Together, they reinterpret jazz standards and explore an eclectic mix of compositions by Leonard Cohen, Pet Shop Boys, John Lurie, and 19th-century composer Alexander Fesca.

Jutterström and Zethson’s musical partnership dates back to their teenage years, when they bonded over a love for jazz and the struggle to find their own voice within it. Their duo work has always been about navigating that tension—trying to capture jazz, failing, and finding another way forward. This album continues that pursuit, emphasizing not just what is played, but how it is played.

The record’s title reflects their approach: a process of reaching for something just out of grasp. Songs are deconstructed, rearranged, and treated like palimpsests—scrubbed clean and rewritten while allowing traces of the original to shine through. The result is a dynamic and deeply personal exploration of sound, filled with both reverence and reinvention.

Both musicians have extensive backgrounds in jazz, improvisation, and experimental music. Zethson, a prolific pianist and composer, has worked with ensembles like Fire! Orchestra and Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, and plays keyboards in ensembles such as Vilhelm Bromander Unfolding Orchestra, Goran Kajfes Tropiques, Vathres, and Angles (current with the jazzopera The Death of Kalypso). Jutterström, a saxophonist with an artistic PhD, has performed internationally and runs the ensemble STHLM svaga, a band who have performed commissioned pieces by jazz legends such as Ron Carter, Archie Shepp and Roscoe Mitchell.

With It could / If I, the duo crafts an intricate, ever-shifting dialogue—an ongoing attempt to "stick jazz music," as they put it, constantly approaching, never quite arriving, and finding beauty in the pursuit.

Rhiannon Giddens reunites with her former Carolina Chocolate Drops bandmate Justin Robinson on What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow, an album of North Carolina fiddle and banjo music. Produced by Giddens and Joseph "joebass" DeJarnette, the album features Giddens on banjo and Robinson on fiddle, with the duo playing eighteen of their favourite North Carolina tunes: a mix of instrumentals and tunes with words.

Many were learned from their late mentor, the legendary North Carolina Piedmont musician Joe Thompson; one is from another musical hero, the late Etta Baker, from whom they also learned by listening to recordings of her playing. Giddens and Robinson recorded the album outdoors and on location at Thompson’s and Baker’s North Carolina homes, as well as the former plantation Mill Prong House. They were accompanied by the sounds of nature, including two different broods of cicadas, which had not emerged simultaneously since 1803, creating a true once-in-a-lifetime soundscape. The duo, along with four other string musicians including the multi-instrumentalist Dirk Powell, will embark on the Rhiannon Giddens & The Old-Time Revue North America tour in April.

“With the assaults on reality going on in the world today, we wanted to offer another kind of record, like walking back onto a gravel or dirt road while a stampede goes the other way,” Giddens says. “With the cicada choir, this record could’ve only happened at a certain time in the last 120 years. We doubled down on place, time, realness, and old-fashioned front porch music. It’s a reminder that another way exists, with music made for your community’s enjoyment and for dancing–not solely for commercial purposes.

“What is the role of music in our society?” she wonders. “How do we de-couple it from unfettered capitalism, where music is a product and musicians are incidental? How do we use the tools and system that we have been bequeathed in a way that reminds us of other ways of being?” Robinson adds, "Recording this album felt like being back in the saddle. Just this time Joe is not here, and his fiddle is under my chin. The album is about home, the cicadas, the storms, the music, and the people who make it feel like home."

Thompson was one of the last musicians of his era and his community to carry on the southern Black string band tradition. He played a crucial role in the lives of Giddens and Robinson, who, along with their Carolina Chocolate Drops bandmate Dom Flemons, spent their formative years learning from Thompson in traditional apprentice/mentor relationships. His influence has guided all of their artistic journeys as well as their mission to keep the legacy of the Black string band tradition alive.

In further tribute to Giddens’ North Carolina roots, What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow will arrive just a week before Biscuits & Banjos, the inaugural edition of her first festival, which highlights the deep roots and enduring legacy of Black music, art, and culture while fostering community and storytelling. The sold-out festival will feature a much-anticipated Carolina Chocolate Drops reunion, their first performance together in more than a decade.

The Delights formerly unissued recording “Listen To Me Girl” first made it’s vinyl debut during 2017 when released back to back with Tearra’s modern soul anthem “Just Loving You” (SJ1008). Having sold out very quickly this release now commands a price of £60.00 a copy. So, with demand still high we have decided to release “Listen To Me Girl” for a second time with the addition of two recently found unissued master tape tracks, which make their vinyl debut as part of this 3 track EP.

The Delights story began in the early 1960’s while as a children’s group from Chester PA. known as ‘The Twilights’ they began entering local talent shows which culminated in a performance at Philadelphia’s prestigious ‘Uptown Theatre’ during 1963. ‘The Twilights’ made their professional recording debut in 1964 for Weldon McDougal III, Johnny Stiles and Luther Randolph’s Harthon Production’s label with “It’s Been So Long/She Put Me Down” (TW-34). A second Twilights 45 came in 1967 “Shipwreck/For The First Time” (TW-35) which sold sufficiently well to be picked up for national distribution by Cameo Parkway. The group consisted of four male vocalists, brothers Kemp “Toppy” Hill, Ellis “Butch” Hill (the eldest) and Jaime “Peanut” Hill and their friend Raymond, plus lead singer and only female member Brandi ‘Peaches’ Wells (born Marquerite J. Pinder) who was only 9 years old when she sang on the group’s first Harthon 45, (Jaime Hill reputedly never featured on either of the two Harthon 45 recordings).

The Hill Brothers were cousins of Manny Campbell and it’s through this family connection that the group came to Emandolynn Productions initially as backing singers before being persuaded by Manny to drop their former performing name of ‘The Twilights’, to become ‘The Delights’. Under Manny and fellow Philadelphian Charles J. Bowen’s tutelage they recorded the delightful crossover dance track “Listen To Me Girl” during the months of July and August of 1968. Recent unearthed master tape finds from these early sessions have since yielded the featured “Come And Rejoice” an energetic subtle gospel influenced dance track which Manny wrote and produced on them in the hope of giving them a wider body of work and appeal as he shopped their demos around local record companies. The original backing track to “Listen To Me” is also featured on this release.

During the mid-1970’s ‘The Delights’ under the tutelage of respected Philly producer, arranger and songwriter Morris Bailey Jr recorded two 45 releases for the Jamie/Guyden distributed Phil-L.A Of Soul label “It’s As Simple As That/I’ve Got Enough Sense” (PH-374) and “Face The Music/Things Ain’t What They Used To Be” (PH-379). Brandi Wells had left the group prior to the Phil-L.A Of Soul releases to firstly join Major Harris’s backing singers ‘Brown Sugar’ before forming the group ‘Breeze’ who backed fellow WMOT label stable mates Billy Paul, Fat Larry & Philly Cream (a.k.a Ingram). Breeze later evolved into the group Slick who recorded the self-named album which produced the chart hits “Space Bass” and “Sexy Cream”. In 1981 Brandi recorded her first solo debut album ‘Watch Out’ which reached #37 on the Billboard R&B Chart, her second solo album entitled “20TH Century Fox” followed in 1985 for the Omni label. She recorded the Butch Ingram penned “I Love You” 12” single for Butch’s Society Hill records in 1992. Sadly, Brandi Wells passed away in 2003 at the age of 47.

Being one of the most popular albums in the history of the label,

Music Brokers is happy to announce the release of Jazz And Beatles in a limited-edition double LP.
The album features 24 stellar Beatles classics reinvented in jazz form that highlight the catalog of the biggest band of all time.
Gems such as “Yesterday”, “Here Comes The Sun”, “Revolu- tion” and “She Loves You” have new life with reworked versions
by many of the biggest names in the nu-jazz move- ment including Jazzystics,
Les Crossaders, The Cooltrane Quartet, Eve St. Jones and Apollinare Rossi. With stellar artwork and remastered sound,
this is another essential addition to your jazz-lounge music collection in vinyl format.

Priori’s hit EP Pareidolia gets a well deserved remix treatment. The relation between Priori and Midgar started early 2023 with the release of his Pareidolia EP, where a remix for Keplrr followed quickly the year after. Now, early 2025, a group of close friends and admired artists were invited to rework the Pareidolia’s originals. Midgar affiliate Forest Drive West uses the opportunity to present not one but two remixes.
Presenting one half-time 85 bpm twist of Hazard and another slowpaced murky techno groover. Originally from Montreal, Maara forms the Canadian connection and she turns Memory Palace into a beautiful bouncy dub-techno floater. Sound experimentalist Notte Infinita takes his turn on Pareidolia’s title track and creates some magnificent eyesclosed drum & bass hypnotism. At last, Amsterdam’s upsammy brings back the light with her iconic playful approach. She flips the steady groove of Glass Shards into a jumpy interplay of rhythms and joy

This landmark compilation has introduced generations of fans to the incredible history of the most storied band in music. For its 50th anniversary, the collection has been expanded with 12 additional tracks, including for the first time some of George Harrison’s earliest songs and some classic Beatles versions of R&B and rock ‘n’ roll hits that were so influential on the band.

The 3LP collection now contains 38 tracks, 30 of which have new mixes for 2023. The set’s 12 newly added tracks are collected on its 3rd LP. An insert contains new sleeve notes by journalist and author John Harris. For current fans and future generations alike, the new 1962 – 1966 collection is a joyous celebration of The Beatles’ timeless musical legacy.