California-based couple Allie Schulz and Alex Pasternak are Florecer, a producer and vocalist combo who draw on the energy that having their daughters gave them. 'Babies' and 'energy giving' are not often heard in the same sentence together, given the demands newly born small people often have on parents' time and sleep, but judging by these sounds, this pair have been fully inspired. The title cut is tropical and dub and kosmiche all collide into an undulating rhythm that's bright and demanding of your attention. Coyote dubs it into a more smooth affair and then 'What I Knew' rides world dub with steel drums. 'Running Behind' slows to a deep, soft plod with whimsical vocals this time, and Chris Coco turns up the reverb for a lovely, sleepy dub of his own.
21 Bum Salute is the fifth album from Sydney experimental psych-noise-pop duo Party Dozen. The work of Kirsty Tickle (saxophone, vocals) and Jonathan Boulet (drums, loops, production), 21 Bum Salute finds the critically-acclaimed, semi-improvised duo feeling liberated - from their peers, their worries, and what the nell they're supposed to sound like now.
Emerging in 2017 from the warehouses of the Sydney experimental noise-rock scene, Party Dozen arrive at the release of their fifth album, 21 Bum Salute, in peak form. Over the course of four, increasingly perverse albums of psych-tinged rock peppered with pop noise and bursts of doom in equal measure, they've transformed from gleeful noise-makers producing DIY albums from a tiny room in Marrickville, NSW, to globe-hopping, critically-adored favourites - producing DIY albums from a tiny room in Marrickville.
As well as tours with Amyl and the Sniffers, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Tropical F*ckstorm, Algiers and more, Party Dozen had Nick Cave appear on 2022 single Macca The Mutt', collabed with New York rapper billy woods, performed an incendiary live set on KEXP, signed international deals, firstly with Temporary Residence LTD (Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky,
Along the way Party Dozen self-released their first two albums, The Living Man (2017) and Pray For Party Dozen (2020), struck a chord internationally with album The Real Work (2022), which sent them on tours of Europe, North America, Japan, China and New Zealand, while fourth LP, Crime in Australia (2024), an ode to Aussie noir that leaned beyond rock into moodier moments, repeated it.
Party Dozen recorded, mixed and mastered 21 Bum Salute completely themselves, over a three month span. Inspired by spooky "old recordings" as well as the primal impulses of acts like ESG and Bikini Kill, 21 Bum Salute - named after a peculiar, larrikin ritual in Australia's arid Northern Territory - condenses consecutive years of jam sessions, loops and improvisations into just over half an hour's worth of fizzing, strutting, striking sonics from the fringes.
21 Bum Salute is the fifth album from Sydney experimental psych-noise-pop duo Party Dozen. The work of Kirsty Tickle (saxophone, vocals) and Jonathan Boulet (drums, loops, production), 21 Bum Salute finds the critically-acclaimed, semi-improvised duo feeling liberated - from their peers, their worries, and what the nell they're supposed to sound like now.
Emerging in 2017 from the warehouses of the Sydney experimental noise-rock scene, Party Dozen arrive at the release of their fifth album, 21 Bum Salute, in peak form. Over the course of four, increasingly perverse albums of psych-tinged rock peppered with pop noise and bursts of doom in equal measure, they've transformed from gleeful noise-makers producing DIY albums from a tiny room in Marrickville, NSW, to globe-hopping, critically-adored favourites - producing DIY albums from a tiny room in Marrickville.
As well as tours with Amyl and the Sniffers, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Tropical F*ckstorm, Algiers and more, Party Dozen had Nick Cave appear on 2022 single Macca The Mutt', collabed with New York rapper billy woods, performed an incendiary live set on KEXP, signed international deals, firstly with Temporary Residence LTD (Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky,
Along the way Party Dozen self-released their first two albums, The Living Man (2017) and Pray For Party Dozen (2020), struck a chord internationally with album The Real Work (2022), which sent them on tours of Europe, North America, Japan, China and New Zealand, while fourth LP, Crime in Australia (2024), an ode to Aussie noir that leaned beyond rock into moodier moments, repeated it.
Party Dozen recorded, mixed and mastered 21 Bum Salute completely themselves, over a three month span. Inspired by spooky "old recordings" as well as the primal impulses of acts like ESG and Bikini Kill, 21 Bum Salute - named after a peculiar, larrikin ritual in Australia's arid Northern Territory - condenses consecutive years of jam sessions, loops and improvisations into just over half an hour's worth of fizzing, strutting, striking sonics from the fringes.
Packaging: 2 x Gold-On-Clear Splatter Vinyl, 5mm spine sleeve, 2 x printer inner sleeve, marketing sticker
SHORT BIOG & KEY POINTS
" Goldie's 1995 debut Timeless is often described as one of the greatest dance music albums of all time. As one of the founders of Metalheadz, one of the most influential drum and bass labels, Goldie helped shape the sound of a generation, and a genre that has spanned over 3 decades.
" "Listening to Timeless is like taking an adventure. If the limits of music are the limits of society, then Timeless is going to create new worlds. It's a record that travels from darkness to light across electronic oceans, across streetsoul, ambience and jazz."
" London Records celebrate 30 years of Timeless with limited edition vinyl formats, re-imagining the original white sleeve and putting the album on double vinyl for the first time since '96, with new liner notes from Tim Carr. Remastered audio.
Almost four decades in the making, Dave Seaman’s very first artist album ‘Mirrorball Sleaze’ has finally been completed and will arrive on Selador on November 6th. Featuring a heady mix of both new and old recordings, all created, revised and / or re-purposed especially for this project, this assemblage represents the best of Dave’s sprawling oeuvre, joining the dots between the some of his most celebrated past glories right up to the present day, where he remains on the frontline of electronic club music. A culmination of a life lived and breathed in the trenches of acid house.
This limited vinyl edition will feature all 11 tracks especially segued together, split into two flowing listening pieces across sides A and B. After a long and storied vocation in music, his own artist album was the one itch Dave has long wanted to scratch. And now, at long last, it has arrived - a sultry, shimmering beauty, by turns deep and euphoric. A career milestone.
Almost four decades in the making, Dave Seaman’s very first artist album ‘Mirrorball Sleaze’ has finally been completed and will arrive on Selador on November 6th. Featuring a heady mix of both new and old recordings, all created, revised and / or re-purposed especially for this project, this assemblage represents the best of Dave’s sprawling oeuvre, joining the dots between the some of his most celebrated past glories right up to the present day, where he remains on the frontline of electronic club music. A culmination of a life lived and breathed in the trenches of acid house.
This limited vinyl edition will feature all 11 tracks especially segued together, split into two flowing listening pieces across sides A and B. After a long and storied vocation in music, his own artist album was the one itch Dave has long wanted to scratch. And now, at long last, it has arrived - a sultry, shimmering beauty, by turns deep and euphoric. A career milestone.
12 Inch Lovers - Celebrating 15 Years of Vinyl Culture!
Belgian vinyl-only event concept 12 Inch Lovers celebrates its 15th anniversary with two new additions to its established sampler series. Now entering its seventh year, the series reflects the music and atmosphere of the events, combining dancefloor favourites with carefully selected discoveries.
Samplers 13 & 14 bring together sought-after classics, hard-to-find gems and selected tracks and versions making their vinyl debut. Each volume features nine full-length tracks across two 12-inch records, making both releases essential additions for DJs and collectors alike.
Sampler 13 includes Sorry I Am Late by Kollektiv Turmstrasse, Marea (We've Lost Dancing) by Fred again.. & The Blessed Madonna, and Lifetimes by Slam feat. Tyrone Palmer. Further highlights include Tocadisco's Morumbi and the Martijn ten Velden Remix of Guitarra G.
Sampler 14 features Dreams by Deep Dish feat. Stevie Nicks, All That Matters by Kölsch feat. Troels Abrahamsen, and the NiCe7 Remix of It's Yours by Jon Cutler feat. E-Man. Belgian favourites Decoy & Roy with Inner Life and The Mackenzie with Higher In The Sky add to the selection.
Rooted in 15 years of vinyl-only events, these two compilations capture the distinctive sound of 12 Inch Lovers, offering lasting appeal for long-time fans, record collectors and DJs looking to bring proven classics back to the dancefloor.
Nothing But (Future) Classix, Straight From Vinyl!
Sampler 13 opens with Kollektiv Turmstrasse - Sorry I Am Late, the club track many will recognise from Solomun's legendary Boiler Room set in Tulum. Its unmistakable bassline sets the mood straight away. Next comes Skape D'Jear - Everything In You (Dedicated Clubba Mix), a
lesser-known house gem making its first appearance on vinyl.
Side B features Karmon feat. Terry Shand - Take My Hand, a melodic house track with a strong vocal performance that remains hard to find on vinyl. Tocadisco - Morumbi then takes things up a notch. With its driving percussion, this is a record that has blasted through the speakers of countless Belgian clubs and beyond.
Side C brings Fred again.. x The Blessed Madonna - Marea (We've Lost Dancing). A track about missing the shared experience of dancing, it became closely linked to the return to the dancefloor for many. Next, we head to Berlin with Kotai - Sucker DJ (Marcin "Highfish" Kozlowski Remix), a distinctive club classic that still holds its own. Daddy's Groove & Little Nancy - It's Not Right, But It's Okay closes this side with a groovy reworking of Whitney Houston's well-known song, now available on vinyl for the first time.
Side D captures the spirit of Ibiza with G Club presents Banda Sonora - Guitarra G (Martijn ten Velden Remix). Its recognisable guitar lines and gradual build make this a track to lose yourself in. This remix makes its vinyl debut here. Closing the sampler is Slam feat. Tyrone Palmer -
Lifetimes. Palmer's distinctive voice and the Scottish duo's outstanding production make this a record that still hits home after all these years.
Nine tracks across two 12-inch records, each in its full-length version. Much-loved classics, lesser-known gems and tracks making their vinyl debut. Selected with the same love for music that has driven 12 Inch Lovers' events for 15 years.
„Zarro“ war die erste Studioaufnahme des verstorbenen jamaikanischen Sängers Wayne Smith, der 1985 mit „Under Mi Sleng Teng“ zur Stimme der digitalen Revolution des Dancehall werden sollte. Diese Aufnahme aus dem Jahr 1980 für den Produzenten Prince Jammy, der auch „Sleng Teng“ produzierte, verwendet denselben Begleittrack wie Lacksley Castells „What A Great Day“, das ebenfalls auf 7-Zoll-Single (VPGS7107) erhältlich ist. Smiths Version wurde vor dieser 7-Zoll-45er-Single noch nie veröffentlicht und war nur gelegentlich auf Jammys Soundsystem in Jamaika zu hören. Der „Zarro“, auf den er sich bezieht, ist der TV-Selbstjustizler Zorro, ein maskierter Popkultur-Held aus den Disney-Western der 1950er und 60er Jahre, den Smith aus den „Spätabendfilmen“ zitiert. Neben dieser ersten Aufnahme und dem bekannteren „Under Mi Sleng Teng“ nahm Smith auch herausragende, aber wenig bekannte LPs für Jammy auf, darunter „Youthman Skanking“ aus dem Jahr 1982 (VPGSRL7098) und „Smoker Super“ aus dem Jahr 1985 (VP4269).
Twenty-five years after its original release, Markus Guentner's debut album In Moll returns in a special anniversary reissue on Black Knoll Editions, reaffirming its place as one of the defining ambient recordings of the early 21st century.
Released in 2001 during the formative years of Kompakt's influential Pop Ambient series, In Moll emerged from a period of rapid transformation in electronic music. New technologies, expanding digital networks, and shifting creative possibilities allowed artists to imagine entirely new sonic worlds. Amid this fertile landscape, Guentner's music stood apart. Combining delicate melodic fragments, slow-moving harmonies, and a remarkable sense of spatial depth, In Moll introduced a distinct artistic voice whose impact can still be felt a quarter-century later.
The album arrived shortly after Guentner's contributions to the inaugural Pop Ambient compilation, including the now-beloved "Regensburg 1," named after his Bavarian hometown. Those early recordings immediately captured the attention of Kompakt founders Michael Mayer and Wolfgang Voigt. Recalling his first encounter with the music, Mayer describes listening to a demo CDR with Voigt while wandering through Cologne late into the night, replaying the tracks for hours. "We knew that we had found something outrageously beautiful and we wanted the whole world to listen."
Across its running time, In Moll unfolds like a series of dreamlike landscapes, inviting the listener into a world that feels both familiar and strangely other. Bells, hisses, distant textures, and slow-moving bass tones drift through vast expanses of atmosphere while luminous synthesizer washes seem to blur the horizon in a fine digital mist. The album's transportive qualities are matched by a remarkable sense of compositional discipline. Every gesture feels deliberate, every texture carefully placed. Balancing warmth and melancholy with restraint, Guentner created a body of work that rewards both close listening and complete surrender.
Reflecting on the album twenty-five years later, Wolfgang Voigt describes Guentner as "one of the first, but also one of the most important ambient artists" associated with Kompakt, calling his music "an integral, timeless part of the long history of pop ambient." Music critic and former Pitchfork Editor-in-Chief Mark Richardson, who reviewed In Moll upon its original release, similarly noted that the album "marked the arrival of an important new voice," and today regards it as "one of the finest ambient releases of the decade."
The album's influence continues to extend far beyond its original audience. For many listeners, In Moll served as an entry point into a new understanding of what ambient music could be. Black Knoll boss Rafael Anton Irisarri first encountered the album shortly after its release in 2001. "It immediately opened a door to a world of music I didn't know existed," he recalls. "At a time when I was still discovering my own creative voice, Markus showed me entirely new possibilities for what electronic music could communicate." Simply put, "The Sight Below would not have existed without In Moll paving the way."
Far from a historical curiosity, In Moll continues to feel strikingly contemporary. What once sounded futuristic now feels timeless, its patient pacing, attention to detail, and sense of wonder remaining entirely intact. The album's enduring power lies not only in its influence, but in the curiosity it continues to inspire, inviting listeners to step inside its world and lose themselves within it.
To mark its twenty-fifth anniversary, Black Knoll Editions presents the most complete edition of In Moll to date. Newly remastered in full analog by Rafael Anton Irisarri, this expanded release pairs the original album with a newly reworked interpretation by Markus Guentner himself, revisiting the material through the lens of twenty-five years of artistic development. The anniversary edition also features a new visual presentation designed by Guentner, offering a visual counterpart to the album's continued evolution. Together, these recordings and visuals celebrate both the enduring legacy of In Moll and its ability to reveal new dimensions twenty-five years later.
This 25th Anniversary Edition on Black Knoll Editions celebrates a recording whose quiet impact has only grown with time, preserving a work that remains as evocative, singular, and essential today as it was in 2001.
Twenty-five years after its original release, Markus Guentner's debut album In Moll returns in a special anniversary reissue on Black Knoll Editions, reaffirming its place as one of the defining ambient recordings of the early 21st century.
Released in 2001 during the formative years of Kompakt's influential Pop Ambient series, In Moll emerged from a period of rapid transformation in electronic music. New technologies, expanding digital networks, and shifting creative possibilities allowed artists to imagine entirely new sonic worlds. Amid this fertile landscape, Guentner's music stood apart. Combining delicate melodic fragments, slow-moving harmonies, and a remarkable sense of spatial depth, In Moll introduced a distinct artistic voice whose impact can still be felt a quarter-century later.
The album arrived shortly after Guentner's contributions to the inaugural Pop Ambient compilation, including the now-beloved "Regensburg 1," named after his Bavarian hometown. Those early recordings immediately captured the attention of Kompakt founders Michael Mayer and Wolfgang Voigt. Recalling his first encounter with the music, Mayer describes listening to a demo CDR with Voigt while wandering through Cologne late into the night, replaying the tracks for hours. "We knew that we had found something outrageously beautiful and we wanted the whole world to listen."
Across its running time, In Moll unfolds like a series of dreamlike landscapes, inviting the listener into a world that feels both familiar and strangely other. Bells, hisses, distant textures, and slow-moving bass tones drift through vast expanses of atmosphere while luminous synthesizer washes seem to blur the horizon in a fine digital mist. The album's transportive qualities are matched by a remarkable sense of compositional discipline. Every gesture feels deliberate, every texture carefully placed. Balancing warmth and melancholy with restraint, Guentner created a body of work that rewards both close listening and complete surrender.
Reflecting on the album twenty-five years later, Wolfgang Voigt describes Guentner as "one of the first, but also one of the most important ambient artists" associated with Kompakt, calling his music "an integral, timeless part of the long history of pop ambient." Music critic and former Pitchfork Editor-in-Chief Mark Richardson, who reviewed In Moll upon its original release, similarly noted that the album "marked the arrival of an important new voice," and today regards it as "one of the finest ambient releases of the decade."
The album's influence continues to extend far beyond its original audience. For many listeners, In Moll served as an entry point into a new understanding of what ambient music could be. Black Knoll boss Rafael Anton Irisarri first encountered the album shortly after its release in 2001. "It immediately opened a door to a world of music I didn't know existed," he recalls. "At a time when I was still discovering my own creative voice, Markus showed me entirely new possibilities for what electronic music could communicate." Simply put, "The Sight Below would not have existed without In Moll paving the way."
Far from a historical curiosity, In Moll continues to feel strikingly contemporary. What once sounded futuristic now feels timeless, its patient pacing, attention to detail, and sense of wonder remaining entirely intact. The album's enduring power lies not only in its influence, but in the curiosity it continues to inspire, inviting listeners to step inside its world and lose themselves within it.
To mark its twenty-fifth anniversary, Black Knoll Editions presents the most complete edition of In Moll to date. Newly remastered in full analog by Rafael Anton Irisarri, this expanded release pairs the original album with a newly reworked interpretation by Markus Guentner himself, revisiting the material through the lens of twenty-five years of artistic development. The anniversary edition also features a new visual presentation designed by Guentner, offering a visual counterpart to the album's continued evolution. Together, these recordings and visuals celebrate both the enduring legacy of In Moll and its ability to reveal new dimensions twenty-five years later.
This 25th Anniversary Edition on Black Knoll Editions celebrates a recording whose quiet impact has only grown with time, preserving a work that remains as evocative, singular, and essential today as it was in 2001.
Mexican producer/musician MONSIEUR VAN PRATT returns to our TSTD shores with his second two track Edit trip into the world of Mexican obscure, super rare Coverversions.
His first 7 Inch (with an amazing Edit of a Cover of Bobby Caldwell's "What You Won't Do For Love") has been the most repressed and highest selling Issue in our long ongoing TSTD EDIT Vinyl series.
For the upcoming 7 inch he delivers two brandnew fun reworks:
Side A is a slow disco edit of a super rare Mexican late 70s cover version of Bill Withers' classic love song "Just The Two Of Us".
Side B is a midtempo Rework of a Mexican cover of "Upside Down" by Diana Ross w/ Nile Rogers
Alek Lee and vocalist Margeeah come together for a boutique 7″ pressing limited to 200 copies, featuring two tracks blending soul, reggae, disco and dub. Lee, whose catalogue includes releases on Antinote and Isle of Jura, brings his background in slower, dub oriented productions to a collaboration built around Margeeah’s vocals and live instrumentation. The sound sits somewhere between Massive Attack’s Blue Lines and Grace Jones.
Margeeah comes from the Israelite community, whose musical history includes The Soul Messengers. Her debut album, Looking for Love, was recorded in 1983 with Kingdom Sounds, originally issued as a private press LP and reissued by Frederiksberg Records in 2025. Its musicians included Abshalom Ben Shlomo, associated with Sun Ra. Her vocal style spans soul, jazz, funk and reggae, with reference points including Roberta Flack and Doug & Jean Carn.
For this release, Lee records his own live drums and percussion for the first time, alongside his signature smoky melodica lines. The production develops the reggae elements of Margeeah’s singing, combining bass driven arrangements with live rhythms, spacious guitar lines and dubby approach.
On the A side, “The Music Inside”, Margeeah effortlessly projects Lee’s lyrics about optimism and the desire for inner and outer freedom. Built around a recurring vocal refrain, the track places her voice over a rooted reggae arrangement.
The B side, “Can You Feel It?”, moves seductively towards a slower disc-dub sound. Bass and drums provide the foundation, with the percussion developing from a restrained groove into a fuller live kit arrangement. Melodica and guitar weave around Margeeah’s lead vocal and the hypnotizing title phrase.
Following their self-proclaimed LP trilogy (2020-2024), Straw Man Army returns with a new songwriting experiment in the form of True North; a collection of 11 songs written for acoustic instruments over three 72 hour sessions at a cabin, isolated in the woods north of NYC. The result is a concept album in practice as opposed to subject alone. Attuned to both the spiritual and political dimensions of seeking refuge in our times, it asks what exactly we mean by “peace” in this era of increasing violence, incarceration, and skepticism towards a future worth living. Does it feel like relaxation, does it tend towards silence? Is it the cooling of our collective rage? Not here. On True North, peace is a spiritual contradiction; a chimera incorporating our innermost desires and the brutality of the world that surrounds us. The album’s central character is a “sleepwalker” trudging through the waking nightmares that have defined daily life since the release of 2024’s Earthworks. Because True North is music that dreams. Sonically, the band toys with the aesthetics of psychedelia, folk, and kosmiche music for contrast, creating a still pool into which their deepest anxieties ripple and flow and flower into ever darker shapes. And while the musical palette plays on tropes of peace—lush piano instrumentals, fingerpicking guitars, gong, vocal harmony—the subject remains steeped in environmental collapse, death, mental breakdown, and the rejection of our most closely held myths. The clash of these forces is the engine that turns the musical wheel. True North is the sound of music mourning a future that never took place and a bout of anticipatory grief for something that’s only just begun…
Shaka from Switzerland has always been someone on our radar and after receiving a test pressing of his release on Seasons Limited of the track Smoky Club the question was asked to do something to suit Ten Lovers Music and he has delivered. Drafting in Michael Berry on additional keys and Martin Cappi on flute, From West To South is as at home on the dancefloor as it is nodding along to at home.
Onto side AA and Takahiro Fuchigami from Japan delivers 3 superb broken beat gems, Rhythm Section, Sliding Window and Sparkling Fate are all very different but musically perfect to our ears.
feeble little horse is naturally delighted to present their third full-length LP, bitknot. The album was written, arranged, produced, and recorded by Sebastian Kinsler, Lydia Slocum, and Jake Kelley across their respective homes in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A spirited investigation into the unnatural space created between human nature and a culture of convenience, a synthesis of dirt and digital, bitknot by feeble little horse creates a language wherein one can re-imbue a sanctity of interdependence away from consumptive “self-suciency” and materialism. Slocum’s meandering introspection playfully harmonizes against Kinsler’s hooks, walls of noise, a supercharged car battery’s worth of synths and samples dropped in the ocean of their guitar-driven songwriting framework.
Forty years of cassette releases, pressed for the first time on vinyl
First of two instalments exploring the previously unreleased sonic archives of one of Poland’s most enigmatic
living artists - with its first volume focused on his deep listening practice and spiritual reverie (recorded 1990–2013)
The last time Andrzej Dudek-Dürer took a banknote bearing the face of the Polish anarchist Jarosław Dąbrowski from his pocket to trade it for a pair of shoes was in 1969. He bought them for 120zł - the equivalent of 100€ today - and never replaced them since then. Only rebuilt them, year after year, drawing a needle and thread through the leather each time it split, closing one wound before the next one opened. It became a ritual of precision, stitching a record of another year into their soles.
That same year, in Wrocław, he arrived at a conclusion that would recalibrate everything that followed. Convinced he was the reincarnation of Albrecht Dürer, he adopted the surname Dudek-Dürer, stopped cutting his hair and began wearing the same garments every day. It was the first ritual of many, though he wouldn't have called it that yet. Look closely enough, over the decades, and it is always the same gesture, returning in different material: hair growing in a single unbroken strand, a needle drawing thread through leather, sitar strings pulled taut across a neck he built with his own hands and magnetic tape spooling forward inside the cassette boxes stacked against his walls.
None of this began in a vacuum. Dudek-Dürer emerged from the Wrocław neo-avant-garde, in a Polish art world where an exhibition could be cancelled overnight by the stroke of a censor's pen. In 1973, his exhibition Auto-crucifixion was shut down by the state, and for a time he found himself blocked from exhibiting his own art at all - the one force in his life that ever came close to cutting the thread.
He seemed to experience it differently. In 1974, after long, patient research into sitar craftsmanship, he built his first prototype with his brother, a knowledgeable luthier. In 1978, in a smoked-out jazz club, he took his first steps into sound recording with the unreleased album Jazz From Underground with his first band. By 1979, recognition started to travel further than he could.
Turning toward Far-Eastern philosophy, meditation and the idea of reincarnation was another language of freedom for him. It was a way of claiming an inner territory the state could not reach, a border it could not close. Mail Art served a parallel function, reaching further out: in a country that restricted travel and expression, sending and receiving art through the postal system became an act of quiet rebellion.
The body, in his understanding, is only an envelope readied for constant transformation. From this came Metaphysical Telepathy: during the years he could not leave Poland, he treated that confinement as a rehearsal room, sending his mind out ahead on the same thread his body would later follow. Living Sculpture grew from the same root with performances of stillness beside static art objects, until the boundary between the object and the man beside it simply dissolved. Camera Meditation extended the same instinct into photography: a shutter click flattening three dimensions into two so that a single instant could be held forever. Inspired by the pioneers of self-portrait photography like Robert Cornelius, he used it to document time itself, and kept explaining to me: "You know. This is not about vanity. This is about observing time passing.”
The isolation did not end suddenly. It ended the way his own philosophy had already predicted it would, from the inside first. Mail Art quietly solved the problem politics couldn't. Correspondence built during years of confinement slowly worked its way through doors the state itself had kept locked. Contacts made through folded paper and stamps became invitations. Ultimately, invitations became passports.
In 1983 he made his first trip outside Poland, to Germany, in search of the audio technology he couldn’t get his hands on before. In 1985, he was invited by the Indian embassy in Poland to give a sitar concert on an instrument he had spent a decade patiently stringing together - half sitar, half tanpura, built from patience and determination. After the collapse of the People's Republic of Poland, the travels kept unspooling: South Korea, then Mexico, then Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan and the United States - each stop leaving behind its own small knot of tape, tied off and carried home.
In the decades since, recognition arrived at the same unhurried pace: he conducted workshops at UC Berkeley, served as vice-president for artistic affairs of the Union of Polish Art Photographers and the Union of Polish Visual Artists between 2010 and 2014 and received the Bronze Medal for Merit to Culture - Gloria Artis. His visual work gradually entered collections including the National Museums of Warsaw, the Stedelijk Museum, Tate Modern, MoMA and the Venice Biennale. His musical practice, by contrast, never found that kind of room - left to circulate quietly, sharing his cassette tapes directly, waiting for someone willing to follow it further.
It took months before I could find a way to reach Andrzej Dudek-Dürer - his presence online is very close to nonexistent. Surprisingly, LinkedIn turned out to be the only door still open, a faintly absurd irony given everything else about him. I packed the strict minimum for a three-day trip and an empty notebook and made my way to Wrocław. His headquarters sits in the neighbourhood of Grabyszyn: a two-storey pre-war house that has belonged to his family for generations. The man who opened the door was long-haired, long-bearded, in his trademark leather shoes and patched jeans. We sat in his living room, in front of a computer where decades of recordings sat organised in cryptically named files, surrounded by books and objects that had arrived one layer at a time, leaving room for only two chairs in the middle. His shoes sat by the door, rebuilt so many times they had become their own quiet sculpture. Cassette tapes filled boxes against the walls, almost unlabelled, each one a spool of thread holding decades of sound that had never once been asked for, until now.
I listened for hours: meditating in front of strangers on the porch of a Seoul temple until the tourists stopped taking photos and simply waited with him; a stand-off with border guards at the US–Mexico crossing over an instrument they couldn't identify and didn't trust; a session with the Stockhausen family that he still, decades later, describes like it happened last week. All of it interrupted, occasionally, by the smell of soup boiling and fresh bread warming on the ceramic stove. After two days, it felt like being handed the end of a very long thread and asked, gently, to keep following it. I left with a USB drive holding his full discography, signed with his unmistakable signature.
Astral Meditations From A Living Statue is a length of that thread, drawn out from the boxes stacked against his walls - recordings gathered from different rooms, different countries, different decades. This first record breathes slowly: incense-thick, meditative, built for stillness. A cutting-edge séance in outer space where machines learn how to dream.
It begins with the neo-classical improvisations of Andrzej, space-delayed, recorded at Klub Muzyki i Literatury in Wrocław in 2002. 'When..So' opens the curtains with a deep-rooted meditation accompanied by slow-decaying piano figures illuminated by a candle-lit spirit gathering.
Los Angeles, 1990: a dormant villa, a grand piano, the voice of Bonnie Barnett. 'Exception' is captured in a single room, in a single afternoon - voice and keys circling each other, neither one leading, until the silence between the notes starts to feel like the instrument.
'The Meta...' and 'Tired Of...', recorded at Studio Morandi in Ponte Nossa, Italy, in 1992, settle into a sitar drone built entirely from patience - overtones stacking and beating against each other, strung by a man who never once set foot in India. 'Mastery Of...' follows, recorded the same year at Studio Suski in Łomianki, pushing that same hum further still, until pitch dissolves into a spectral reverie. 'Transcendental Sound', from 2000, closes the first record in a slow bath of celestial frequency - better heard beside the shores of the Odra river.
More than fifty years after deciding that a life could become an artwork, Andrzej Dudek-Dürer continues to inhabit that decision. His shoes keep wearing thin against the earth's crust. His hair keeps growing, one strand at a time. His cassette tapes keep spooling in the dark of their boxes.
Now the thread finds its last shape: a single unbroken groove, spiralling inward from the outer edge to the label at the centre. Never cut - the way nothing else in his life ever was. Drop the needle and it will find that groove and follow it, the same way a needle once followed leather, once followed a border it couldn't cross, once followed string into an instrument that didn't exist until he built it. This record is the other end of a thread that has been travelling for fifty years. For the length of both sides, it rests here, in your hands. This is a timeless proof that the Lord of the New Age was never lost."
With the “Extrasensory” EP, Slices Of Life welcomes one of the most versatile producers in the UK minimal house scene. Since 2003, Tom Ellis has been creating funk- and jazz-inspired house and techno, distinguished by his keen sense of organic rhythm. His extensive discography spans labels such as Logistic/Telegraph, Minibar, Wisdomteeth, KANN, Banoffee Pies, Onysia, among many others. Beyond his solo work, he is also the mastermind behind the electronic jazz ensemble Soulstatejazz.
The four tracks on “Extrasensory" distill this wealth of musical experience into diversely textured minimal house productions. Precisely placed drums and percussion, and rolling grooves form the foundation - clearly shaped by Ellis’s background as a drummer, percussionist, and bass player.
All the tracks share a warm, organic atmosphere, oscillating between lightness and relentless drive. The title track, "Extrasensory", blends almost pop-like melodies with shimmering vocals. "Bring Forth" takes us into deeper, dubby, and driving territories, while "Be The Moment" reveals a playful and melancholic side. Finally, "Vividly" immerses us in a dense, dreamy, yet pulsating sonic world.
Futurismo präsentiert das legendäre Debütalbum "Only Theatre Of Pain" (1982) der Gothic-Legenden Christian Death in neuen limitierten Deluxe-Formaten - remastert und erweitert um frühe Demos und rarem Material, samt Poster. "Only Theatre Of Pain" gilt als Meisterwerk und Ursprung des Deathrock - ein wegweisendes Epos von unheiliger Kraft und tiefschwarzer Emotionalität. Obwohl seine Wurzeln im Punk liegen – die Ursprünge der Christian Death-Originalbesetzung liegen in der Früh-1980er Hardcore-Explosion in Südkalifornien –, kann die Bedeutung dieses Werks für die nachfolgende Musiklandschaft nicht hoch genug eingeschätzt werden. Wie ein Adrenalinstoß ins Herz der Finsternis entspringt diese ungezügelte und geheimnisvolle Aufnahme bis heute jeder Kategorisierung. Mit dem visionären Rozz Williams (damals noch Teenager) sowie Punk-Legende Rikk Agnew (Adolescents), James McGearty und George Belanger präsentiert "Only Theatre Of Pain" eine musikalische Erkundung, geprägt von psychosexueller Lyrik und einem tiefen Glaubenskampf, aufgenommen innerhalb weniger Tage mit Produzentenlegende Thom Wilson. Klanglich und visuell seiner Zeit voraus, ist dieses Stück sakrilegischer US-Punk ein absolutes Muss für alle, die sich für Gothic begeistern, für Fans von The Misfits, Bauhaus und The Cramps.
A torrent of brilliance released from the fingertips. The art of the piano trio by a giant of arrangement.
In 1968, Norio Maeda, the genius arranger once described as being able to “write different scores with his right and left hands at the same time,” welcomed his close musical allies Takeshi Inomata and Tatsuro Takimoto and took on the piano head-on in his first piano trio work as a pianist. This album brings together the refined melodies of the new mainstream style that led the jazz scene at the time, experimental elements using prepared piano, and even a strikingly inventive recording approach in which as many as seven microphones were placed inside the piano. With the outstanding structural power of a composer and arranger and the sharp instincts of a performer woven together at a high level, this is an important work that deserves to be engraved in the history of Japanese jazz.
The eye of the storm: welcome to Tornado Wallace's debut album! The accumulation of about four years of work, with tracks written in Berlin and Melbourne, 'Lonely Planet' is nothing like you may have expected from the Australian expat. No stranger to fans and followers of ESP Institute, Beats in Space and Music From Memory's sister Label Second Circle, Tornado Wallace's strain of releases so far merged functionality with a musical playfulness that led him to find himself as one of the producer's behind José Padilla's International Feel album. Here, he leaves the needs of the dance floor behind in order to create a magical mystery tour de trance into his and our inner jungle. How about some references New Age sounds meet new wave melodies, Grace Jones runs into the Dire Straits at Compass Point, while a Korg Mini Pops and a Roland CR78 make amends for Sly & Robbie's absence, Michael Mann pictures Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', Robert Rauschenberg tries his luck at naturalism and an imagined Wally Badarou echoes through all of it. Sandwiched between the title track and the yearning beauty of the album's final point 'Healing Feeling', you get all of that as well as collaborations with and contributions of NO ZU, David Hischfelder and the voice of Sui Zhen on 'Today', who would easily make Anna Domino take her proverbial hat off. Tornado Wallace created an album that supersedes the requirements and expectations of a debut. Like a lost Island Records or a never released Made to Measure album, 'Lonely Planet' soundtracks notions and ideas that recall the nostalgic future in the past as much as it looks ahead.
Ramjac Corporation, aka Paul Chivers, emerged from the UK's late-'80s rave underground, performing live at parties like Sunrise, Energy, Back to the Future, Fun-da-Mental and Synergy. Building tracks with an Atari computer and an E-MU 12-bit sampler, turning severe technical limitations into raw, elastic club music, 88-92: It is What it Was gathers music born in bedrooms then tested in front of crowds at warehouse raves, while the culture was still inventing itself without boundaries, completelyfree.
Ramjac was the original artist on Irdial Discs, following label founder Akin Fernandez's Aqua Regia, and introduced Lee Purkis' In Sync and Neuropolitique to the label, shaping the singular catalogue of that extraordinary imprint alongside Luke Slater's Morganistic, Thee J Johanz and Anthony Manning.
That legacy is now revisited by Musique Pour La Danse, with the release of a limited edition vinyl and digital edition featuring extended liner notes by Nick Halkes of XL Recordings, Positiva and Kicks Like A Mule fame, who witnessed the early Ramjac period first-hand. The release is illustrated by Grant Fulton, who created the visual identity for The Shamen's Synergy events and Orbital albums.
This album presents music written exclusively between 1988-92 and forms the foundation of Ramjac Corporation's ongoing live performances. Restored from the original floppy discs, the recordings preserve the uniquerelationship between early digital technology, sampling culture and live improvisation that defines the Ramjac approach.
Mixed for release for the first time by Trevor Lancaster-Smith, whose 90s engineering work encompassed Leftfield, Faithless and Roni Size, the album brings these compositions into sharp focus while preserving the character of the original instruments and performances. Not just a historical document, 88-92: It is What it Was is a living body of work: music created then, realised now, and continuing to surprise and evolve.
Faitiche presents the debut solo album by cellist, sound artist, and composer Topu Lyo: “quiet scenes from tokyo” brings together sixteen miniatures for solo cello and tape echo that oscillate between abstracts drones and rhythmic pizzicato sketches – all recorded at Topu’s Tokyo apartment. The constant traffic noise from a nearby highway has become an accompanying soundtrack for his compositions and can be heard on the recordings. Topu’s playing is marked by a distinctive idiom oriented more towards abstract electronic studio effects than classical technique.
The artist spoke to Jan Jelinek about his work:
JJ: A solo cello album may seem like an odd fit for a label that has to date released only music that is electronic in the broadest sense. But I think “quiet scenes from tokyo” complements the Faitiche repertoire exceptionally well. Its sixteen miniatures showcase the cello in all its complexity: the bowed passages sometimes recall a tape feedback drone; the pizzicato playing conjures up the percussion recordings of Moondog; and the abstract textures might be mistaken for the product of a granular sampler rather than rapid finger work on the cello. I’m constantly surprised by just how rich and varied this album is – without ever losing the charm of its sketch-like quality. Could you say a few words about the making of your album – first of all, from a rather technical perspective: what production tools did you use, and why?
TL: My production tools were very sparse. Just a solo cello and my Roland 301 Space Echo, which I only used at the end, running everything through it during mixing, tape only. After years of working with electronics, pedals, and synthesizers, moving to Tokyo pushed me toward minimizing my setup. But my aesthetics shifted too, toward simplicity. I wanted to strip everything back to just the acoustic cello and see how far I could push it — replicating some of my favorite electronic effects through extended technique: slow portamento, LFOs, filters, detune, noise. I’d also been listening to a cassette of ocean sounds for years. When I moved to Tokyo I was horrified to find myself living directly across from a freeway. Eventually the freeway started sounding almost identical to the ocean — and that ended up playing a prominent part in the recording.
JJ: That’s super interesting: mimicking electronic production as a compositional idea for the cello! You say the sound of the freeway is crucial to the album: I, too, tend to interpret steady traffic noise as a positive soundscape – do we hear the freeway on the album? I can also hear other field recordings, for example on “a street car with announcements”. Can you say a bit about how these field recordings influence your playing?
TL: Yes, you can hear the freeway on the album! The freeway is most prominent in “old trees in lonely spring”, “yuyake koyake”, and “the moon” (you can clearly hear individual cars). When I first began recording I had my balcony door shut tightly, but after a while I began leaning into the highway sound and slowly opening the door little by little to control the amount of noise. “streetcar with announcements” was a moment I was recording and a car passed by making announcements in the background. I loved how it sounded! Same thing with “yuyake koyake”, and later I realized that every day at 5pm the same song plays to mark sunset, telling children it’s time to go home. Having this bedrock of sound puts less pressure on me to put music on top or to play more notes.
JJ: It’s astonishing how much this differs from what I’d imagined: I’d been picturing peaceful landscape recordings, but had never thought of a freeway. Which goes to show how open to interpretation traffic noises are. So the room by the freeway had a major influence on the album – how are you going to perform it live?
TL: The contrast between the freeway and the beautiful landscape in my head couldn’t have been starker. I too was imagining a beautiful landscape in which to create the album, but somehow it still worked out. I've been going back and forth a lot on live shows and I think the most honest way is to have it the most stripped down. I was thinking of using traffic samples etc., but I think the duet really comes from the background sounds from every unique venue/environment. So as it stands, I’ll just be doing acoustic solo cello.
Private Mexican lounge that still burns long after the cruise ship disembarks. Armed with a single nylon string guitar , a toy chest of rudimentary percussion, and the emotional microtones of the Spanish tongue, Alejandro Bravo’s lone LP blends bossanova, samba, and the Brill Building into a horny margarita for the tourist class. Recorded at home in Acapulco in 1971, Bravo’s self-released LP slaps and thrills with its taps and trills. Pair with a pregnancy test for best results.
Lucio M makes his label debut with this brilliant 4 slicer of modern day atmospheric drum & bass. Pulling from the scene's learning tree while also adding to it. A Flicker Of Light channels the golden era of atmospherics DNA with authenticity and fervor.
Limited repress of mu tate's sought after LP on soft lilac vinyl!
Utter (in collaboration with 3XL) presents mu tate's second album 'they're with you always', featuring Joshua Inyang (Space Afrika), Nikolay Kozlov, Desirèe Monique, Igor Dyachenko and Mathilde.
Housed in a high-gloss sleeve artworked by Lucas Dupuy and Art Crime. Mastered by Ike Zwanikken then transferred and cut by Anne Taegert at D&M.
"Thank Goodness brings together an overdubbed ‘chamber band’ of bass guitar, viola, piano, harpsichord, voice and drums. Made on my own in London and Ireland between 2023-26 as a slow channelling inward of a lot of social energy.”
Seán Being is a committed figure at the sharp edges of Irish music, including being the key instigator of the band Princ€ss, touring bass player with Maria Somerville, and a long-time affiliate of Dublin label wherethetimegoes. Their various collaborations include contributions to live and recorded projects with the likes of Spellcaster, Nashpaints, Florian TM Zeizig, Jennifer Moore, Olan Monk, Dylan Kerr, Asa Nisi Masa, Life is Beautiful, Polido, Adriana João and Usof.
Not always in the business of ‘popular music’, Seán also has Gregorian Chant and car horn performances in their repertoire.
Aspects of all of this activity have made their way, directly or otherwise, into this first full-length album.
In a cultural landscape trending toward mindless diversion, Your Old Droog has defied the odds, building a thriving career through musical depth and captivating songwriting. In pursuit of hip-hop immortality, the Brooklyn artist engages listeners with inventive metaphors, genuine reflections, and sophisticated rhyme architecture. Now, Your Old Droog is back with his tenth full length album, Bread & Butter. Recalling his humble immigrant family stretching caviar across slices of bread shortly after arriving from Ukraine, YOD has crafted a testament to making the best of any situation. This philosophy runs throughout Bread & Butter, as Droog chronicles the turbulence of rap success, ruminates on youthful memories, and dismisses unworthy challengers with clever precision. The project’s rich sonic texture is shaped by beats from Flying Lotus, Conductor Williams, Ohbliv, and more, while hip-hop luminaries Evidence, Oddisee, and Masta Ace make memorable appearances, along with South African star A-Reece and acclaimed singer Georgia Anne Muldrow. Grounded in resilience, perspective, and self-determination, Bread & Butter is an inspired statement from a truly distinct talent. Transforming personal history into universal truth, the album reaffirms Your Old Droog's place among the most thoughtful and compelling voices in modern hip hop.
On November 6th, Asthmatic Kitty Records will release Worst Christmas Ever!, a single-LP collection that distills Sufjan Stevens’ expansive holiday catalog—drawn from the box sets Songs for Christmas and Silver & Gold—into one definitive collection. The album pairs fifteen favorites, selected from more than one hundred Christmas recordings, with the newly released original song "On This Christmas (It Only Gets Better)," Sufjan's first new Christmas song in nearly fifteen years.
Available on LP, CD, and cassette, Worst Christmas Ever! is the perfect introduction for new listeners and an essential addition for longtime Sufjan Christmas devotees.
"Part of what makes Sufjan Stevens' contributions to the Christmas canon so enduring and remarkable is that they're almost overpoweringly effort-intensive. He views the holidays as a labor of love—worthy of creativity and care, hard work and an ocean of ideas."
— NPR
"9 EPs and 100 recordings later, Stevens has undoubtedly accepted his reputation as a Bing Crosby for the thirtysomething NPR listener."
— Consequence of Sound
On November 6th, Asthmatic Kitty Records will release Worst Christmas Ever!, a single-LP collection that distills Sufjan Stevens’ expansive holiday catalog—drawn from the box sets Songs for Christmas and Silver & Gold—into one definitive collection. The album pairs fifteen favorites, selected from more than one hundred Christmas recordings, with the newly released original song "On This Christmas (It Only Gets Better)," Sufjan's first new Christmas song in nearly fifteen years.
Available on LP, CD, and cassette, Worst Christmas Ever! is the perfect introduction for new listeners and an essential addition for longtime Sufjan Christmas devotees.
"Part of what makes Sufjan Stevens' contributions to the Christmas canon so enduring and remarkable is that they're almost overpoweringly effort-intensive. He views the holidays as a labor of love—worthy of creativity and care, hard work and an ocean of ideas."
— NPR
"9 EPs and 100 recordings later, Stevens has undoubtedly accepted his reputation as a Bing Crosby for the thirtysomething NPR listener."
— Consequence of Sound
Devotional and visceral, patient and euphoric, a poem, a hymnal. Shygirl calls Swallow! a reintroduction. Her 2022 debut Nymph announced an artist fluent in sonic languages: slippery club structures, toothy pop hooks, juicy production—music that invites you to come closer, pay attention, keep up. That magnetism took her from the electronic underground to the foreground of contemporary pop. She’s collaborated with producers Sega Bodega and Mura Masa, Charli xcx, Arca, SOPHIE, fka twigs, and Björk, and performed on stages across the globe. Swallow! is a new kind of rapturous indie songwriting, woven through the electronica she came from, recorded with Karma Kid and Casey MQ. It is the scripture of the cult of falling in love—radiant, clear-eyed, all-encompassing, divine transformation. “I want people to remember how big the world is even when you feel so small and singular,” she says. “Swallow! is the soundtrack to that experience. “This record is my message in a bottle. Let’s see who picks it up.”
A haunting, cinematic journey into a village that exists beyond time and place, Requiem For A Village is Steven Wilson’s most intimate and imaginative work yet. Blending dark folk, rock and electronica, the album unfolds as a continuous 54-minute “film for the ears,” populated by strange archetypes and eerie folklore. The album is narrated by David Tennant and written with Andy Partridge (XTC).
A haunting, cinematic journey into a village that exists beyond time and place, Requiem For A Village is Steven Wilson’s most intimate and imaginative work yet. Blending dark folk, rock and electronica, the album unfolds as a continuous 54-minute “film for the ears,” populated by strange archetypes and eerie folklore. The album is narrated by David Tennant and written with Andy Partridge (XTC).
From deep in the hard funk pocket, the Winston Brothers return to Colemine after four years with a second helping of sounds rooted in horn-heavy, 70s-style soul cinema, taking cues from the soundtrack work of Issac Hayes, Willie Hutch, Roy Ayers, and JJ Johnson. Helmed by multi-instrumentalist/producer Sebastian Nagel and longtime collaborator Lucas Kochbeck on drums, Sweets serves as a timely reminder of how Hamburg, Germany’s music scene helps shape and influence today’s soul sound.
Ultimately, bringing musicians like Kimo Eiserbeck (sax and flute) and Hans Stephan (trumpet), alongside some additional drum contributions by Max Whitefield (née Weissenfeldt), demonstrates the close-knit nature of these musicians. From influential bands like Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band to Angels of Libra and the Mighty Mocambos, Hamburg’s deep groove scene has sired its share of worthy soul and funk acolytes.
These musicians have shared stages and studios over the years, with various
configurations finding their way in the aforementioned bands. “We started as a school project… we were just kids,” Sebastian recalls. “It’s a family thing, and we really know each other well.” Sweets is more than just another addition to this scene’s collective musical canon; it is a vibrant dispatch from funk’s leading edge.
From deep in the hard funk pocket, the Winston Brothers return to Colemine after four years with a second helping of sounds rooted in horn-heavy, 70s-style soul cinema, taking cues from the soundtrack work of Issac Hayes, Willie Hutch, Roy Ayers, and JJ Johnson. Helmed by multi-instrumentalist/producer Sebastian Nagel and longtime collaborator Lucas Kochbeck on drums, Sweets serves as a timely reminder of how Hamburg, Germany’s music scene helps shape and influence today’s soul sound.
Ultimately, bringing musicians like Kimo Eiserbeck (sax and flute) and Hans Stephan (trumpet), alongside some additional drum contributions by Max Whitefield (née Weissenfeldt), demonstrates the close-knit nature of these musicians. From influential bands like Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band to Angels of Libra and the Mighty Mocambos, Hamburg’s deep groove scene has sired its share of worthy soul and funk acolytes.
These musicians have shared stages and studios over the years, with various
configurations finding their way in the aforementioned bands. “We started as a school project… we were just kids,” Sebastian recalls. “It’s a family thing, and we really know each other well.” Sweets is more than just another addition to this scene’s collective musical canon; it is a vibrant dispatch from funk’s leading edge.
,The River" ist das erste Hello Shark-Album von Lincoln Halloran seit zehn Jahren. Nach einer schwierigen Phase, geprägt von Alkoholabhängigkeit, Orientierungslosigkeit und dem Rückzug aus dem Musikleben, fand Halloran nach seiner Rückkehr nach Maine wieder zum Songwriting zurück. Musikalisch verbindet das Album reduzierte Singer-Songwriter-Klänge mit Slowcore-Elementen und erzählt in ruhigen, ehrlichen Songs von Verlust, Sehnsucht, Heilung und persönlicher Veränderung. Statt sich ausschließlich auf seine Genesung zu konzentrieren, blickt Halloran reflektiert auf die Vergangenheit und die Menschen in seinem Leben zurück. Mit seiner direkten, berührenden Sprache und den minimalistischen Arrangements zählt ,The River" zu den persönlichsten und reifsten Veröffentlichungen von Hello Shark.
A quiet intensity permeates Chantal Michelle’s music, like a veiled flame. Even at its most spare and delicate, an undulating tension unsettles the ear through wavering microtonal interference and uncanny spatial juxtaposition. She takes seriously the mandate of the composer to foster new relationships between various types of sounds, bringing together disparate field recordings, instrumental stems, and the sounds of circuitry in unheard configurations. Resolution is elusive, in its place a sense of oblong cyclicality and prickly uncertainty. When the veil is pulled back, we find more depth, more complexity, and more mystery.
Unit of Heart, Michelle’s second album of 2026, presents two interrelated pieces that highlight diverging compositional modes. Here she brings in two key collaborators: Patrick Shiroishi, who contributes flutes and saxophones throughout, and poet Funto Omojola, whose words and voice bookend the title composition. Both compositions unfold gradually, but where the album’s a-side “Sudden Oceans” presents a minimal tonal palette focused entirely on the subtle grain of wind instruments, “Unit of Heart” proceeds linearly, moving through passages of synthesizer, environmental recordings, and full-cheeked wails of saxophone. Both encourage a state of focused listening as the scope of the music deepens and widens.
“Sudden Oceans” allows the listener to hover in rippling currents of air, breath overlapping breath in a shimmering patchwork. All flutes and saxophones on the piece are played by Shiroishi, which are molded by Michelle into a pattern that resembles the flow of tidal waters, surging and receding moment to moment as the tonal density increases. Expansive and recursive, it reflects both the restorative awe and eerie disquiet of encountering the sublime. The first and last sounds we hear are the gentle rush of unmediated breath as Shiroishi connects and disconnects from his flute.
Michelle’s skill at presenting the familiar as preternatural comes to the fore on “Unit of Heart, ” one of her most ambitious works. Omojola’s voice begins with a melody that could be a lullaby, but as it’s bounced around the stereo field it takes on a haunted quality. Their poem, reprinted on the LP’s inner sleeve, hints at a similar type of transformation: “I mean this is where our mouth turns saliva into spears only a throat can recognize. ” Pads of downy synthesizer billow and are subsumed by a discordant ringing. The climactic section features atonal electronics and field recordings, first of water and then the evening call of insects, processed in such a way to transform them into pulsating bursts of noise. What we think we know about the world, what is elemental, can change with even the slightest adjustment of the lens.
Lower the drawbridge, raise the gates. Texas-based composer Graham Reynolds (A Scanner Darkly, Before Midnight, Hit Man) returns to the world of The Portcullis with a brand-new LP of music. This deluxe edition brings together the original album and The Portcullis Expansion Pack across two LPs, housed in a die-cut slipcase.
Following the original album’s release in May 2026, the Expansion Pack ventures deeper into a medieval world of knights and merchants, almoners and thieves. Percussive medieval textures, fretted guitars, brass fanfares, atmospheric strings and piano reshape dungeon synth into something vividly Reynolds’ own: an imagined soundtrack steeped in folklore, fantasy and adventure.
What began as an investigation into Reynolds’ family lineage, tracing his name back to Launceston Castle, has grown into a world extending beyond the record.
Released via Fire Records as part of the Weird Walk Record Cult, the deluxe edition arrives alongside an expanded dice game and a special Portcullis porter created with Skipton Brewing Company.
“One of the most unique and addictive albums of 2026 so far” - Loud and Quiet
“Of all the RPG-infused dungeon synth, medieval ambient records released this year, Graham Reynolds’ will be the finest.” - Loud And Quiet
“Ominous, stark environment that rumbles with sounds evocative of the natural world, in both its beauty and despair” - The New York Times
“A work of great scope, subtlety, and powerful suggestion. (…) Prepare yourself for an immersive experience, full of color and personality.” - Time Out
