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Aspen is very proud to introduce ‘Non Sonett’ by the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble. This ensemble is a pioneering Norwegian chamber group whose work on ECM and Hubro has redefined the boundaries between jazz, contemporary composition and folk music.Across seven albums, the ensemble has developed a highly distinctive l anguage built on restraint, timbral nuance and collective interplay, placing it among the most influential European ensembles of the 21st century.

Bringing together some of the finest musicians in Norway, the ensemble draws on a rare collective sensitivity, where each player contributes to a deeply integrated and texturally rich sound world.

With Non Sonett, the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble opens a new chapter that grows directly out of recent years of work in more solitary and cross-disciplinary contexts. In this period, Wallumrød has developed material for solo performance as well as for dance, allowing ideas to take shape in more fluid and exploratory formats. Some of this material now finds its way into the ensemble, where it is met by the possibilities offered by instrumentation, collective playing, and the distinct voices of the musicians. At the same time, older pieces—originating in entirely different settings— re-emerge here in new forms, reshaped by the ensemble context.

A defining aspect of Non Sonett is the way many of the pieces function less as fully determined compositions and more as open frameworks: starting points, suggestions, or “springboards” for music. These structures invite response rather than prescribe outcome, relying on the ensemble’s inherent sensitivity and capacity to realize and transform the material in performance. The result is music that feels both precise and fluid, shaped in equal measure by composition and by the interpretative presence of the players.

Central to this album is a continued deepening of Wallumrød’s long-standing interest in ambiguity and in dissolving boundaries between different musical elements and expressive worlds. By placing contrasting materials and associations side by side—sometimes subtly, sometimes more overtly—the music opens up spaces where meanings remain fluid and interconnected. On Non Sonett, this approach is taken a step further, allowing these juxtapositions to play an even more active role in shaping the music’s character and flow.

This approach connects closely with the ensemble’s broader artistic trajectory. Over time, the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble has developed a language that is immediately recognizable—marked by reduction, clarity and a deep attention to sonic detail. While each release has its own character, the underlying aesthetic remains consistent: a focus on the inner life of sound itself. Rather than foregrounding gesture or virtuosity, the music draws the listener toward the smallest elements, where meaning emerges gradually through texture, spacing and timbre.

The listening experience becomes one of concentration and proximity, where each sound carries weight, and the accumulation of detail forms a larger whole. References may be sensed—to early polyphonic music, Norwegian folk traditions, or more recent experimental practices—but these are absorbed into a singular musical language that resists categorization.

As with the ensemble’s recent work, Non Sonett also continues the integration of electronics as a fundamental part of the sound world. Each musician engages with electronic elements alongside their acoustic instruments, creating a layered and dynamic sonic environment. At times, this leads into extended, exploratory passages reminiscent of analogue musique concrète; at others, electronics operate almost imperceptibly, subtly altering and extending the acoustic textures in real time.

When Harry met Barney it was a match made in heaven - that's Hary Balk and Barney Duke' Browner. The Duke had worked with Harry since the early sixties on other labels inlcuding American Arts where he wrote Walk On InTo My Heart' for Bobbie Smith. But he really hit his stride at Impact alongside Harry and John Rhys. Eventually the three would make the move to Motown but not before the Duke struck paydirt with his Northern Soul anthem Crying Over You' featured here in its orginal coupling, vocal/instrumental. It was the instrumental that first commanded the dance floor back in the days of the Golden Torch, but today the vocal is king. Whatever your preference we know you'll enjoy our offering couretsy of Harry Balk himself... the first legal reissue in years!

SALES POINTS:
All time Northern Soul Classic - Two fabulous sides
TV advertised and featured in the film Northern Soul

LAURA GREENE, from Cleveland, Ohio, has enjoyed a long and successful career in the entertainment industry. She started out as stage actress before becoming a singer in the lucrative TV and radio jingle business. She has also modelled for many press campaigns and regularly appeared on TV chat shows. In 1968 she had a role in the film For Love Of Ivy with Sidney Poitier and a year later co-starred in the satire Putney Swope directed by Robert Downey Sr. It seems fitting that her 1967 non-hit 'Moonlight Music And You' finally found commercial success in 2003 when featured on a KFC TV advert. PEGGY MARCH was born Margaret Annemarie Battavio in 1948 and, although having a prolific recording career, is rememberred mainly for her million-selling 'I Will Follow Him'. Here we feature her Northern Soul waxing for RCA in 1968 that packed the dance floor at Wigan Casino a decade later!

Nonesuch Records releases Let X=X, by Laurie Anderson with Sexmob. This triple-LP/double-CD set was recorded live during a 2023 tour by Anderson and the jazz band Sexmob – Steven Bernstein and Briggan Krauss on brass, Kenny Wollesen on percussion, Douglas Wieselman on winds and guitar, and Tony Scherr on bass. Its cover and interior packaging feature paintings by Anderson. The album features 23 songs, including many favourites from throughout Anderson’s career, performed in new arrangements – plus one by Lou Reed and Metallica, ‘Junior Dad’. Anderson and Sexmob play more US and international dates this spring and summer (details below).

The New York Times said Anderson and Sexmob’s concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) ‘wasn’t a historical recreation of past recordings; Sexmob’s sound is a beefier one than on Anderson’s albums. With musicians who can double on electric guitar and bass clarinet, its members offered a rich range of textural variation throughout the evening.’

Laurie Anderson is one of America’s most renowned – and daring – creative pioneers. Her work, which encompasses music, visual art, poetry, film, and photography, has challenged and delighted audiences around the world for more than 40 years. In a recent 60 Minutes profile, Anderson Cooper said she ‘is a pioneer of the avant-garde, but... that doesn’t begin to describe what she creates... It’s experienced by audiences who come to see her perform: singing, telling stories, and playing strange violins of her own invention... she blends the beautiful and the bizarre, challenging audiences with homilies and humor. She blurs boundaries across music, theater, dance, and film.’ The Washington Post has said she ‘doesn’t just tell stories; she draws out every word with a kind of physical pleasure, tasting its flavor as she probes the everyday mysteries of life.’

Anderson released her first album with Nonesuch Records, the critically lauded Life on a String, in 2001. Her subsequent releases on the label include Live in New York (2002); Homeland (2010); the soundtrack to her acclaimed film Heart of a Dog (2015); and her Grammy-winning collaboration with Kronos Quartet, Landfall (2018). Nonesuch released a re-mastered edition of Big Science in 2007 for its 25th anniversary, followed by a vinyl LP re-issue in 2021; the album includes Anderson’s beloved, surprise hit, song, ‘O Superman’, which also is featured on Let X=X. Her recent Nonesuch release was 2024’s Amelia, about renowned female aviator Amelia Earhart’s tragic last flight.

Anderson’s virtual-reality film La Camera Insabbiata, with Hsin-Chien Huang, won the 2017 Venice Film Festival Award for Best VR Experience, and, in 2018, Skira Rizzoli published her book All the Things I Lost in the Flood: Essays on Pictures, Language and Code, the most comprehensive collection of her artwork to date. Recent exhibitions and installations of Anderson’s work include Habeas Corpus at New York’s Park Avenue Armory; her largest exhibition to date, The Weather, at Washington, DC’s Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art; and Looking into a Mirror Sideways at Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, which was her largest European exhibition to date.

Laurie Anderson was awarded the 2024 Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication, along with Christopher Nolan and David Attenborough, and the International Astronomical Union named a minor planet in her honour: Asteroid 270588, Laurieanderson. That same year, she was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Lily Was Here is the soundtrack album to the 1989 Dutch drama film of the same name (original Dutch title: De Kassière, The Cashier), released in 1989 and produced and largely written by British musician David A. Stewart, known as one half of the pop duo Eurythmics.

The most notable element of the soundtrack is its title track, an instrumental duet pairing Stewart’s guitar work with saxophone performances by Candy Dulfer. The track was released as a single and achieved chart success in multiple countries, including reaching #1 in the Netherlands for five weeks, number six on the UK Singles Chart and number eleven on the US Billboard Hot 100.

In addition to original compositions, the album includes a newly recorded version of the Eurythmics’ 1984 song “Here Comes the Rain Again,” featuring vocals by Annie Lennox. It also features vocals by Virginia Astley on "Second Chance"

The soundtrack of Lily Was Here is available as a limited edition on red vinyl.

On Dreams ’24 / ’25, Scottish composer Bill Wells turns his nocturnal imagination into a sequence of delicate musical miniatures. The album brings together 24 short pieces, most of them under two minutes, unfolding in just under half an hour like a quietly drifting dream diary.

The album is split into two parts. On the Dreams 2024 side, Norman Blake lends his voice to Wells’ dream-born melodies. Blake, best known as a founding member of Teenage Fanclub, recorded the songs with Wells in a single afternoon at his home, capturing their fragile immediacy in direct and unadorned performances.

For Dreams 2025, Aby Vulliamy — one of Yorkshire’s best kept musical secrets — takes over vocal duties. In mid 2025, Wells sent her a batch of demos; Vulliamy recorded them at home and sent them back to him. The result is a second chapter that feels more introspective, intimate and gently surreal.

The songs themselves are born directly from dreams. Wells wakes from the dream, records it on his mobile and later shapes it into a brief, lyrical composition. One piece, Mackenzie’s Return, was inspired by a dream in which Elvis Costello marched through the streets of a suburban town complaining that he had run out of song ideas, a detail that perfectly captures the album’s blend of humour, strangeness and quiet melancholy.

Dreams ’24 / ’25 is not a collection of fully formed pop songs, but rather a series of fleeting emotional snapshots: soft voices, simple motifs, and melodies that appear and vanish before they can fully settle. It is an album that rewards close listening, inviting the listener into a private, half-lit space somewhere between memory and imagination.

The album is accompanied by a striking cover artwork by Annabel Wright.

„A Love for Strangers“ ist eine völlige Neuerfindung für Nick Murphy. Sein erstes Album als Chet Faker
seit vier Jahren erweitert seinen etablierten Sound in aufregende neue Richtungen. Mit mondbeschienenen
Saxophonen, die an legendäre Acts wie Prefab Sprout und The Blue Nile erinnern, sowie dem üppigen,
Breakbeat-lastigen Pop von David Grays Klassiker „White Ladder“. In diesen zwölf Songs sinniert Murphy
über Liebeskummer und Unsicherheit im großen Maßstab – er stellt Fragen darüber, wie wir miteinander
umgehen, untersucht, wie wir dabei scheitern, und vermittelt das notwendige Gefühl der Hoffnung, wenn
es darum geht, unsere Beziehungen zur Welt um uns herum zu reparieren.

To celebrate the 20-year anniversary of our label Jamaican Recordings and to mark the sad one year passing of the musical maestro reggae producer Bunny `Striker’ Lee, we have pulled together a brand new collection of some great Bunny Lee rhythms.

Our label started way back with initial meetings with Bunny Lee and a promise to keep his music available, out on the streets. He will be sorely missed but will live on through his extraordinary musical legacy and we hope to add to this by including this release to the stable of an unbeatable catalogue.

Legendary record producer Bunny `Striker’ Lee’s vast selection of rhythms were ever present at any Sound Clash or Dance worth talking about in the early to mid-1970’s.
Where the version found on the b-side of a single or special dub cut on acetates, would be played to win over the people and conquer the dance. Bunny Lee was the undisputed rhythm master and on this special release he is also the MC telling the crowd how it is and that any rival sound system should watch out as he has the rhythms that can reign supreme. The band cutting these timeless rhythms were a group of top Jamaican musicians Bunny had put together called The Aggrovators.

The Aggrovators were a group of reggae musicians that usually featured Carlton `Santa’ Davis on drums playing alongside Robbie Shakespeare on bass, with other musicians added like Earl `Chinna’ Smith on guitar and Tommy McCook and Vin Gordon and Lennox Brown added for horn arrangements. Keyboards and organ duties normally fell
to musicians Ansel Collins and Bernard ‘Touter’ Harvey. The band was named after singer Eddie Grant had repeated the phrase to Bunny Lee on one of his many trips to England, that such and such artist was giving him `Aggro’. This was a term used in England in the 1970’s by the Skinhead followers of reggae music. A term shortened
from the word `Aggrovation’, meaning trouble, fighting or making the situation worse. Bunny Lee was so taken with this term that on returning to Jamaica, not only did he name his group of musicians the `Aggrovators’ but he also named his record shop situated at 101 Orange Street `Agro Records’.

We have compiled some great tracks recorded by this fantastic group of musicians. With the added extra magic of Mr Bunny Lee calling it out as only he can on the microphone.
Yes Run Sound Boy Run the version master is here…Respect

On his fourth solo album, and debut work for Nick Klein's Psychic Liberation imprint, Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø presents »Faint Light Blackens«, a negotiation between the atomized instrumentation of the solo trombone is pushed towards a full range wall of sound over the concise sprawl of seven distinct acts on two sides of a vinyl record.

The seven acts that make up the album were developed specifically for recording within Emanuel Vigeland’s »Tomba Emmanuelle«. The fresco within the mausoleum anchors themes of existential weight, ripe with weighted imagery of love, birth, and death. The solemn space is a cavernous acoustic terrain wherein reverberant reverie makes it almost impossible to speak aloud, let alone sing through horn and electronics. This chamber's expanse is baked into the compositional directions employed on »Faint Light Blackens«.

Experientially, the record was produced in a long form performance gesture, with no overdubs. While edited to fit the record format, no additional post production coloring took place. Here Nørstebø shines as an instrumentalist, wherein the symbiosis of the site specific architecture and his sound sources are synced. At once musing and brooding, the gamut of emotive sonic landscapes is at play for a fully dynamic listening experience. The territory in Nørstebø’s vocabulary through interplay with the mausoleum is not vaulted , unlike Vigeland’s urn’ed ashes. On »Faint Light Blackens«, the spirit takes bound beyond the cavern and reanimates the listeners stereo alters for a holistic listening experience of perfectly challenging electroacoustic endeavors.

Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø – acoustic & amplified trombone, monotron, feedback, sound files.
Recorded by Espen Reinertsen October 10. and 11. 2023 in Tomba Emmanuelle, Oslo Norway.
Cover Photos and mix by Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø
Mastered by Helge Sten (Deathprod) at Audio Virus Lab

A wild animal with a kraut pop instinct, Chaton Laveur prowls the depths of minimalism in search of light, intoxicating melodies to make his prey. Raw and authentic, the duo always opts for the shortest route, lined with repetitive rhythms, analogue sounds and soft voices in French, which also reveal a darker side. After more than 70 dates in France, Germany, Benelux, and the UK, Chaton Laveur returns in early 2026 with a second album, Labyrinthe, a record for fans of kraut/pop sounds and intense emotions.

A wild animal with a kraut pop instinct, Chaton Laveur prowls the depths of minimalism in search of light, intoxicating melodies to make his prey. Raw and authentic, the duo always opts for the shortest route, lined with repetitive rhythms, analogue sounds and soft voices in French, which also reveal a darker side. After more than 70 dates in France, Germany, Benelux, and the UK, Chaton Laveur returns in early 2026 with a second album, Labyrinthe, a record for fans of kraut/pop sounds and intense emotions.

USA Hardcore/Punk Geschichte! M.I.A. wurden 1980 in Las Vegas gegründet, zogen 1981 nach Orange County und begannen im berüchtigten Cuckoo's Nest zusammen mit Fear, Shattered Faith, T.S.OL. u.a. Shows zu spieln. Ende '81 gingen sie in ein lokales Tonstudio in Costa Mesa und nahmen an einem Nachmittag neun Songs auf, bis ihnen das Geld ausging - 300 Dollar gut angelegt! Eine Kassette wurde rasch kopiert und herumgereicht. Eine Kopie der Kassette wurde KevinSeconds bei einem Gig mit 7 Seconds in Reno gegeben. Kevin gab sie an Tim Yohannan von Maximum Rocknroll weiter. Schließlich gelangte sie in die Hände von Felix Alanis von Smoke Seven und Greg Shaw von Bomp. Mitte 1982 waren M.I.A. dann auf drei Vinyl-Veröffentlichungen vertreten: "Tell Me Why" auf der Compilation American Youth Report von Bomp, "New Left" auf Maximum Rocknroll Presents: Not So Quiet On the Western Front von Alternative Tentacles und acht der neun Tracks landeten auf der berüchtigten Split-LP mit Last Rites auf Smoke Seven. Alle 9 Tracks des ersten Tapes sind hier versammelt, zum ersten Mal richtig abgemischt. Der Begin von M.I.A. (US) und gleichzeitig das letzte Lapitel der Moder City Records-Reissue-Reihe zur Band. « ...In one corner is M.I.A., a band originally from Las Vegas, the champions of punk's positive side. They've managed to fuse a super tight thrash sound with enlightened attitudes_"I Hate Hippies" is obviously meant as a satire with a moral, and the results are absolutely stunning. » _Jeff Bale's 1982 review of the Last Rites for...-Split-LP in Maximum Rocknroll #2 2.Auflage, Cover Metallic Blue, Vinyl Dirty Turquoise, plus 24seitigem Booklet.

"DEFIANT is an atude. Music that reacts, challenges the rules, and burns with creave fire.
Inspired by the renowned internaonal series The Mood Mosaic, this collecon captures the
most provocave side of jazz: the heat of hard bop, the risk of the avant-garde, spiritual
excursions, and fearless experimentaon.
Every track dares, every voice communicates something authenc: no safety nets, no surrender.
Defiant Jazz is for listeners who don't follow the path, but collect the music that rewrites it."

In recent years, Midge Ure has spent his time playing live and not has time to fully immerse himself in the studios creating music To that end A Man of Two Worlds is his first album of new material in 12 years. Well worth the wait, the album is a formidable collection of outstanding music, divided into two clear parts.

The first half, World One: Music, consists of eight instrumental pieces, while the second half, World Two: Songs, features eight vocal songs. This concept was partly inspired by the time Midge spent during lockdown listening to instrumental music whilst presenting THE SPACE on Scala Radio. Hearing music that rarely finds a home on mainstream radio, he set about making something without lyrics, where the melodies had to speak for themselves. The eight vocal songs which form the second part of the album, came to Midge as the world reopened. A more divided world, in many ways a much harder and less empathetic one. Sharing an atmosphere with the preceding instrumentals, these songs are incredibly sparse and meditative, and whilst they are subtle, with some songs dealing with the frailty of the human condition, underlying many songs reflect Midge's concerns for the discord infecting world today.

‘White Series #4’ marks the debut EP of Marc Feldmann and Dominik André as a producer duo. The record opens with ‘Natural Oscillation’
, a hypnotic techno piece where flowing percussion meets subtle trance influences. ‘A Breeze of Mistral’ builds on this energy with layered repetition and a deep pulse that unfolds gradually, drawing the listener further in. On the flip side, Audrey Danza reinterprets Natural Oscillation with a direct, dancefloor-focused approach. She sharpens the groove, raises the tempo, and pushes the track forward with her signature, driving drums and a tightly locked kick, transforming the original’s hypnotic flow into a no-frills cut. The EP slows the pace with ‘Discernible Rhythms’, a reflective, 80s-influenced synth chugger that adds warmth and restraint to the record. Released as a hand-stamped white label on Subject To Restrictions Discs, White Series #4 reflects and continues the label’s contribution to the more understated forms of electronic club music.

Some tracks don’t age, they just wait for the right dancefloor to hit again.

Originally released in 1985, Main Attraction by Toronto-based duo Yoh-Yo is one of those high-energy sleepers that quietly tore through clubs while never fully crossing into the mainstream canon. Produced by maestro Allan Coelho (Tapps, Click) and driven by the instantly recognizable vocal of Carlos Borges, it’s a pure shot of mid-80s Hi-NRG euphoria. Tight, glossy, and unapologetically emotional.

Fast forward to now, and Vintage Pleasure Boutique digs deep into the archives of Boulevard Records to deliver the ultimate collector’s package, bringing together all six officially released versions from the original 1985–86 pressings across Europe, Canada and Mexico. But this isn’t just a reissue, it’s a full-spectrum reconstruction of a club weapon.

From the Original Version, still hitting with that raw, uplifting drive, to the Sandy St. Alban Version, adding a slightly different vocal flavor for the heads who know, each cut reveals another angle of this underground anthem. The Instrumental and Hi-NRG Dub Version strip things down into pure mixing tools: extended grooves, pulsating basslines and synth hooks that lock dancers into a trance. The Remix pushes things further into peak-time territory, while the real gem for DJs lands on the B-side: the long-sought Hot Tracks Extended Edit by Gregg Denewith — originally exclusive to the US market and finally resurfacing in proper, playable quality. A true secret weapon for selectors who like their sets with a touch of authentic 80s heat.

This release is a love letter to Hi-NRG, to analog excess, and to the global club network that kept these records alive long before algorithms caught up. For fans of neon-lit nostalgia, sweaty dancefloors and that unmistakable Italo-adjacent pulse. Main Attraction is exactly what the name promises. Pure energy. No compromise.

While self-proclaimed "garage and jackin' house" revivalist Marc Cotterell has developed his Plastik People label into a fine outlet blessed with an ever-growing family of artists, he still maintains a steady release schedule of his own. The British producer is naturally in good form on his latest Plastik People missive. Check first opener 'Take Your Time', where breezy piano stabs and deliciously soulful vocals ride a squelchy bassline and loose-limbed garage-house beats, before admiring the more "trad" soulful house flex of the gorgeous and lightly funky 'Mysterious Ex'. Over on side B, 'Feed The Soul' is a string-laden slab of revivalist New Jersey garage-house goodness which doffs a cap to the early 1990s, while 'This Life Living' re-casts Jill Scott r&b classic 'Golden' as a rolling soulful house delight.

Lady Jane Beach land on Slacker 85 with their lo-slung label debut, ‘Binman’. A short, sharp shot of minimal rhythm and rhyme, ‘Binman’ is the sound of the enigmatic London-based trio soundtracking their trips around the capital’s outer ringroads seeking adventure, trouble and corrupted drum machines. Blessed with loose, confident production and verses like glue, Slacker boss Seth Troxler doubles down on his support with a beefed-up, roadtested club edit.

An undisputed trailblazer of UK rave, Zed Bias fires up his studio for two contrasting takes on ‘Binman’, each capturing split sides of the soundsystem culture he helped define. Zed’s ‘Weighty Dub’ goes unapologetically raw, transitioning between skippy beats, heavy bass drops and a fusebox melody out of the darkness. From the basement straight through to the beach club, the ‘Nostalgia Mix’ makes good on its promise of misty-eyed reverie, recalling the first-wave of UKG domination with lush strings and steppin’ drums that still sound like a bright future.

From one generation to the next, fast-rising DJ and producer HalfPint is already familiar to dancers of Circoloco's famed Terrace and Garden. His take on ‘Binman’ finds a fresh frequency, converting the rhymes of the original into a precision-tooled tech house groove, primed for the summer season.

40 Thieves have been part of the Leng family since 2011 during which time they have released many quality singles and EPs as well as their sole full-length album, 2014’s epic The Sky Is Yours. Even so, double A-side ‘Love Is’/’Let Me Show You’ still marks their first release on Leng for almost three years.

In keeping with their signature sound, ‘Love Is’ is trippy, hallucinatory and gently mind-altering, with psychedelic guitar sounds, echoing percussion, and a heady lead vocal courtesy of crew member and Alona, all of which rides a chunky dub disco bassline and chugging mid-tempo beats. Richard Sen, a DJ and producer known for his love of dubbed-out sonics and pulsating grooves, delivers a typically spaced-out and otherworldly rework. Rooting his revision to the dancefloor via an undulating electronic bassline that throbs away restlessly throughout, Sen stretches out the track and emphasises its more trippy elements before introducing dreamier chords and heady vocals with a brilliant interpretation.

On ‘Let Me Show You’, 40 Thieves step things up to deep house tempo while remaining firmly rooted in 21st century San Francisco nu-disco with rich, dubby bass guitar, tactile piano chords, futurist synths and knowing nods to Patrick Cowley productions of the late 1970s and early ‘80s. The track is presented in two forms: the superb ‘Vocal Mix’, where Alona’s vocal rises above the groove and intoxicating electronics, and a genuinely radical and out-there dancefloor focused ‘Dub’. Pushing the track’s wilder and more out-there elements to the max via stripped-back arrangements and a smorgasbord of effects, 40 Thieves re-wire the cut as a heads-down psychedelic disco chugger topped off with wonderfully loved-up chords.