Search:slow

SUMMER OF SEVENTEEN are MONIKA KHOT (NORDRA, ZEN MOTHER), WILLIAM FOWLER COLLINS, DANIEL MENCHE, FAITH COLOCCIA (MAMIFFER), and AARON TURNER. (SUMAC, SPLIT CRANIUM).

Wildfires plagued Washington state during the summer of 2017, their smoke drifting westward toward the Seattle area and toxifying the air. Shortly before that trauma, MONIKA KHOT, WILLIAM FOWLER COLLINS, DANIEL MENCHE, FAITH COLOCCIA, and AARON TURNER had gathered at the latter two musicians' House Of Low Culture studio on idyllic Vashon Island with revered producer RANDALL DUNN. There they cut eight songs that capture the makeshift band's feelings of what COLOCCIA calls "a kind of doomsday lurking in the background." It's as if these highly attuned players had a premonition.

"Summer Of Seventeen" -which was edited and arranged by MONIKA KHOT, who records apocalyptic music solo as NORDRA and plays in the avant-rock band ZEN MOTHER—is a nuanced admixture of these musicians' sounds and a culmination of all of their previous collaborations. COLOCCIA and TURNER have created eldritch folk and chamber rock for over a decade in MAMIFFER while engaging in various solo and group projects that explore their profound spirituality in sound. MENCHE has been a fixture on the abstract composition scene for 31 years and COLLINS is a savvy explorer of drone and ambient forms. Their ephemeral summit meeting has yielded a masterwork for the ages.

A heaven/hell and beauty/beastliness dichotomy pervades the album—as if a titanic struggle was transpiring in that small studio. The fearsome trumpet fanfare that starts "Chorus Of The Innocents" heralds a baleful fate. With a subliminal industrial rhythm bristling beneath the eerie exhalations, the song submerges us in a slow-motion maelstrom, a horror-film facsimile of MILES DAVIS' "Bitches Brew". "Perceived Slight" threads death-metal screams through a stark, suspenseful atmosphere, with austere glints of guitar and beats like fists on a casket lid intensifying the dread.

Angelic chants and celestial drones perfume the air in several of the songs on "Summer Of Seventeen", countered with muted blast beats, serrated hums, jagged glitches, simulacra of grinding gears and lightning. It's as if no good deed goes unpunished. "Spirits Of Redeemer" could be an elegy for the human race while "Cultural Orphan" sounds like a symphony for a malfunctioning factory. The album ends with "Theatre Needs An Audience," a harrowing ballad somewhere between EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN and MERZBOW; it's a savage rent in the space-time continuum.

"Thinking about this record now," COLOCCIA recalls, "it seems like we were all sort of anticipating something like this current pandemic happening, although we were thinking about it as fire in the hands of man (literal fire, and also gunfire) that would overturn the normal running of things and reveal the current false beliefs systems holding up most of America."

That grave aura infiltrates "Summer Of Seventeen", However, a hopefulness bubbles beneath the foreboding architecture of sound and noise summoned here. The bunker is the new penthouse.

-Dave Segal, April 2020

On December 26th, 2018, Emily Cross received an excited email from a friend: Brian Eno was talking about her band on BBC radio. “At first I didn’t think it was real,” she admits. But then she heard a recording: Eno was praising ‘Black Willow’ from Loma’s self-titled debut. He said he’d had it on repeat.
At the time, a second Loma album seemed unlikely. The band began as a serendipitous collaboration between Cross, the multi-talented musician and recording engineer Dan Duszynski and Shearwater frontman Jonathan Meiburg, who wanted to play a supporting role after years at the microphone. They’d capped a gruelling tour
with a standout performance on a packed beach at Sub Pop’s SPF 30 festival, in which Cross leapt into the crowd and then into the sea, while the band carried on from the stage - an emotional peak that also felt like a natural ending. “It was the biggest audience we’d ever had,” she says. “We thought, why not stop here?” Following the tour, Cross went to rural Mexico to work on visual art and a solo record, while Meiburg began a new Shearwater effort. But after a few months apart
(and Eno’s encouraging words), the trio changed their minds and reconvened at Duszynski’s home in rural Texas, where they began to develop songs that would become ‘Don’t Shy Away’. Loma writes by consensus and, though Cross is always the singer, she, Duszynski and Meiburg often trade instruments. Meiburg compares their process to using an Ouija Board and says the songs revealed themselves slowly, over many months. “Each of us is a very strong flavor,” he says, “but in Loma, nobody wears the crown, so we have to trust each other - and we end up in places none of us would have gone on our own. I think we all wanted to experience that again.” The album that emerged is gently spectacular - a vivid work whose light touch belies
its timely themes of solitude, impermanence and finding light in deep darkness. “Stuck / beneath / a rock,” Cross begins, as if noticing her predicament for the first time. Then she adds: “I begin to see / the beauty in it.” A series of guests contributed to the absorbing soundscapes of ‘Don’t Shy Away’, including touring members Emily Lee (piano, violin) and Matt Schuessler (bass), Flock of Dimes/Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner and a surprisingly bass-heavy horn section.
And then there’s Brian Eno. Loma invited him to participate in the mantra-like ‘Homing’, which concludes the album and sent him stems to interact with in any way he liked. He never spoke directly with the band but his completed mix arrived via email late one night, without warning and they gathered to listen in the converted bedroom Duszynski uses as a control room. “I was a little worried,” says Cross.
“What if we didn’t like it?” But it was all they’d hoped for: minimal but enveloping, friendly but enigmatic, as much Loma as Eno - a perfect ending to an album about finding a new home inside an old one. “I am somewhere that you know,” Cross sings, above a chorus of her bandmates’ blended voices. “I am right behind your eyes.”
First LP pressing on dark green vinyl.

Having studied the complicated art of dreaming on Live At The Robert Johnson earlier this year, DC Salas returns with another remarkable clutch of cosmic excursions. Linking up with long-standing Parisian chic beat connaisseurs Slowciety, it's time for Salas to show us a little 'Exquisite Chaos'…
Presentation (long version)
The clue is in the title; 'Exquisite Chaos' is smooth, classy, hi-definition piece of intergalactic drama. Sweeping synths, rocket-fuelled kicks and a bassline that could circumnavigate the universe many times over without needing to refuel, it's a classic DC Salas trip, the likes of which we've soaked up on labels such as Correspondant, Nein, BPitch and beyond.

It's backed up by the poignantly titled 'Undivided'. A call for unity, it's rattled with acid and sinewy synth lines all thrusting upwards with the positivity we missed for so long this year. Finally 'Forgotten Memories' if a full-on march into a neon unknown. Complete with flying flurries of breakbeats and rasping acid missives, it wraps up Salas's chaos theory exquisitely…. And it's backed by a remix from Roman Flügel.

Ensuring the EP climaxes with a fitting bang Flügel divides 'Undivided' into three movements, each one more bulldozing than the last. Supercharged with venomous acid and neck-snap breakbeats, it's Flügel at his most chaotic. And Slowciety at their most exquisite. We wouldn't expect anything less from DC Salas.

Beyonce's sixth album Lemonade (when life serves you lemons, make lemonade) is an album that follows a clear story, the discovery of your partner cheating, the anger which is followed by her leaving him, reconciling, and ending with the beginning of a fresh start together. The music has a very Southern Blues feel to it overall (harking back to Beyonce's childhood and the roots of her parents), but also has a couple of the Beyonce-standard piano lead slower numbers, and a few feisty hip-hop leaning grooves that are a bit similar to the BEYONCE era tracks. Telling such a painful and personal story through the songs gives Beyonce's vocals amazing depth and power, from her vulnerability in Pray You Catch Me, the anger in Don't Hurt Yourself, defiance in Sorry, the sadness behind Sandcastles, acceptance in Freedom, to the hope tinged delivery of All Night - Lemonade delivers it all.

The hour-long film is composed of the music videos for every song strung together to form the visual story of the potential destruction of a relationship, the journey of emotions and self-discovery the wronged party goes through, and finding forgiveness. Beyonce did the 'visual' concept for the deluxe edition of B'Day and for BEYONCE, but Lemonade is heads and shoulders above them - the videos here aren't about Beyonce looking pretty, rather adding to the emotive tale of the songs.

- 12 TRACKS
- HEAVYWEIGHT VINYL
- FULL COLOR LABELS + PICTURE SLEEVE

The specially designed game and accompanying music video pertains to the overall theme of the EP, which shows an absurd society obsessed with social media descending into a dystopian world. It is a paranoid graphic vision, set in Brussels, Strapontin’s hometown, that puts you in control of a role playing game as you march round the city collecting social points with scant regard for others.

Besides being a dancer, performer and on-and-off “Madame pipi”, French-born, Brussels-based Strapontin is also a DJ and producer who mixes up slow and rough techno with thrilling soundtracks and groove driven disco. He has released on Nein and I’m Single amongst others and marks this 10th Hard Fist release in fine style.

Opening up the EP is ‘Nervous Days’, a gallivanting techno-disco groove with rugged loops and jumbled percussion that sounds like a rampage through a cityscape, as per the video. Then comes ‘But The Nice One!’, a stomping and rough and ready ride on lumpy drums and bass that is dark but playful. The quality continues on ‘Miss Mickey the Dumbs’, with some brilliantly heavy and reverberating drums making you jerk your body while sci-fi effects float and drift about up top.

Blindetonation label regular and esteemed modern disco man Thomass Jackson remixes ‘But The Nice One!’ In his capable hands it becomes a melon twisting workout with spangled synth lines, psyched-out synths and percolating drums that are finished with a vulnerable and eerie vocal. Last of all is a Damon Jee remix of ‘Miss Mickey the Dumbs’, His music can be heard on the underground’s most sought-after labels including Roam, Hafendisko, Suara and Sincopat to name just a few. His version is a more direct affair, with searching laser synths and a hypnotic space-techno vibe that carries you off to the stars at increasingly high speeds.

This is a fittingly brilliant EP from the vital Strapontin on ever-excellent Hard Fist.

When Yiğit Bülbül knocked on our door and put his debut album on the table, Fever took our hearts in a storm. The Turkish born, London based musician and producer knows how to craft his own contemporary avant-garde pop projections with a rich musical heritage shining through from the 1980s and 90s. His style erupts into silly, absurd moments of synth blurps, percussive extravaganza and psyched horns, It’s always colourful and trippy, but in a light way. It’s exactly what we want to release in a year of distress. The album is framed by two contemplative tracks, which are reminiscent of Holger Czukay’s oeuvre. The saxophone in the opening track "The Heath" undulates like an introvert leading voice in a meditation. The long and meticulously crafted ambient outro "Txalaparta" features a spoken word sample by the Basque folk musician Txomin Artola from 1978. The four tracks at the heart of the album are beat driven, percussion-heavy, loaded with synths and random horn samples. "Alo?" sounds like Snakefinger tries to get on a Skype call with Serge Gainsbourg. "Cacti All Over My Head" could well be a Ween instrumental with long arching synth lines over a slowed down bossa nova beat. Fever is a frivolous album which bursts with exalted charm and guest musicians. This is not another greetings-from-the-lockdown album, but with the obvious reference in the title it’s almost a tongue-in-cheek name about creative obsessions of our times. It's the debut album by the multi-instrumentalist Y Bülbül who has learned his trade working with various interesting artists and bands in London in the past 10 years. He is also a passionate crate digger and DJ. His own radio show is unerringly titled "Bülbül's Gemüsement Park", which airs on Netil Radio, a community broadcasting station in Hackney. Bonus fact, Bülbül is the Turkish name for a brown-eared passerine bird, one that's into singing.

Multi Natural is a new example of Christina’s organic chamber music. We enter nine composed chambers. Nine rooms to inhabit, constructed out of elements that are slowly fusing. The album is a string of semi constant metamorphosis. A gesture appears, is elaborated upon—or is halted and replaced by a new gesture. Multi Natural has multi focal points, quite dissimilar to Christina’s other works that tend to have a more linear path.

Within this album lives a composer who is not afraid to let the content take over. In this, obviously composed work, there is still a large space for all those sounds to act freely. It is almost like Christina is waiting for the music to compose itself. This technique speaks of respect and trust for the listener, since it gives thelistener freedom to personally connect the lines.

When you put the needle on this record, everything turns to stone. The music flows and nurtures. Sounds that come from various realities—molded into a mutual understanding. With each spin, new events catch the ears. Like looking at alandscape, perceiving new details close and far with every gaze.

When Christina warps both time and space for you, it comes to you as a gift.

Hell Yeah call upon their merry crew of grown up groove makers to revisit key tracks from Quiroga's widely acclaimed Passages album, with Whodamanny, Jazz N Palms, A Vision of Panorama and My Friend Dario all stepping up.

The original album was noted as Piccadilly Records' Best Balearic Album of 2019 and a year on is still providing solace for us in these strange times. First to add his own spin to it is Periodica associate Whodamanny from Naples, whose magical take on 'Martinica Feelings' made it onto the excellent recent Buena Onda compilation, which is out now. It is a big hearted vocal reinterpretation filled with stomping kicks and twisted synths that bring the funk next to withering sci-fi effects and happy piano chords.

Then, up steps man of the moment Jazz N Palms, a resident at the cult Ibiza venue Pikes and regular at London's Ronnie Scotts. He has recently started his own self titled label and here offers a mad Latin jazz take on 'Africa Addio' that brims with energy and sunshines. The busy percussion will make you move your ass and the whole thing has a sexy 70s vibe.

Saint Petersbourg's very own balearic legend A Vision of Panorama is hailed as the king of the modern balearic sound thanks to EPs on labels like Omena. He takes care of 'The Zoist' with sentimental melodies and sunset grooves to die for. His arching pads speak to the soul and melt the heart.

Last of all, Hell Yeah's very own discovery My Friend Dario (who soon has an EP coming on NuNorthern Soul, recently remixed Calm and Gallo) tackles 'Chiaia Sunset'. The result is a laidback and cathartic track that slowly unfolds on tumbling drums and wooden hits as synths leave vapour trails high up in the clear blue sky above.

These are four more high class remixes that will keep the summer vibes alive long into Autumn.

The much sought after debut album from Manchester's Liam Frost & The Slowdown Family is back by popular demand.

Includes the singles "The Mourners of St Paul's" and "The City Is At Standstill“

Pressed on 180g translucent blue vinyl.

Recently featured on Tim Burgess’s Twitter Listening Party

Released originally in 2006, Liam Frost is described by Guy Garvey as "the UK’s answer to Bright Eyes".

"Young, fun and riotously talented, Liam Frost And The Slowdown Family are a free-wheeling 21st century folk carnival" -- NME

East London record shop World of Echo debuts on the other side of the counter with a reissue of Two Wishes, the solitary 12" by Anglo-German collective, Mutabor!. Seemingly lost to time, Mutabor! were first brought to World of Echo's attention when drummer/singer, Gary Asquith, played at the shop's first birthday celebrations while promoting one of his other bands, Rema Rema. And so the story goes...

Mutabor! emerged wraith-like from the monochromatic grit of Berlin's art punk underground late in 1981 when Asquith left London to set up temporary residence in the city following a chance meeting with Malaria's Bettina Koster backstage at a Birthday Party gig at the Lyceum earlier that year. Beguiled by the possibilities of collaboration, musical and otherwise, he was soon to make his own contributions to what was an already fecund scene. Partnering with Koster, and Gudrun Gut and Manon Duursma also of Malaria!, Mutabor! were publicly birthed via an impromptu performance at punk rock polestar the Risiko. Asquith found himself playing percussion in what would be a first, while the rest of the band ossified in front of him in typically idealistic post-punk democracy. Little documentation of the performance survives beyond that which exists in the memories of those playing - that itself shaky enough - though there was clearly sufficient encouragement for them to commit to a recording session.

Later that winter, the four booked time at Music Lab, the studio operated by Harris Johns, for what would ultimately be their only studio visit. Two songs were laid to tape, and soon after a photoshoot was to take place at Koster's flat, resulting in a handful of images that, along with the music, comprise the sum total evidence of the band's existence. 1001 Nights and Treats both found their way to Peter Kent, a co-founder of 4AD who had recently left the label with the ambition of starting his own imprint. Entitled Two Wishes, the two track 12" was to be the first and only release on Loaded. It seems that Mutabor! were to represent a series of firsts and lasts, a trend that continues now as they open the World of Echo imprint.

It's fitting to think of Mutabor! in these prescient terms given how they sounded. Berlin at that time shared a spiritual axis with New York, the conceptual & aesthetic discordance of no wave and a nascent off-beat dance culture underpinning much of the respective creative activity. There are shared signifiers, but even in that context, Two Wishes sounds oddly out of step, moving to its own unusual rhythm. 1001 Nights stutters along on a tribal beat that seems to run independent of skronking sax, spidery guitar lines and deadpan vocal incantations, the ghosts of two songs meeting in some kind of incompatible voodoo union. On the reverse, Treats slows down and dims the lights further, as Asquith sardonically recites desirous threats as an increasingly malevolent sax and guitar grinds behind him. No surprise the darkness within the music given the parent bands and the backdrop of a crepuscular early 80s Berlin, though there remains a complex compositional element to these songs that suggests a broader spectrum of emotion - desire, romance, and ultimately, infinite possibility.

Recut and mastered, Two Wishes is now presented with the original front cover artwork alongside additional imagery, including a 16 page booklet, all culled from Asquith's own archive. A brief bolt of energy at a crucial juncture in music history, Mutabor!'s story is emblematic of the mutli-verse of post-punk and the creativity its ideology necessitated.

Claptrap label boss returns with a four-track release ‘Big Pharma’.
Following on from this years releases by Longhair and Dr Valentines Claptrap are back with Vanity Project’s new release ‘Big Pharma’. Vanity Project has been managing Claptrap with his partner in crime Dr Valentines since their first 12" release in 2017 and dropped his first full release, a self titled EP in 2018. Since then he’s been DJing & performing live shows around the UK and has most recently dropped the City Elastic EP on London’s Midnight People.
Big Pharma features four spaced out original house cuts ready for the dance floor. A1, 'Letters and Numbers’ opens the EP with a driving groove, tight drums and rubbery synths. A2 the title track ‘Big Pharma’ brings a hint of acid alongside a deeper thumping house groove. B1 Grow Slow, kicks off the second side with a mellow down tempo sizzler, prime for those outdoor coastal parties. The final track Index brings the EP to a close with swirling euphoric synth lines and a dance floor moving stomp.

Geistform, also known as Raffael Espinosa, is the producer behind Pi Electronics record number 10.

After almost three decades of music making, he delivers a 5 track-EP fusing influences from techno, electro and '90s IDM. Four of the tracks can be found in the vinyl edition, while the 5th is a Bandcamp digital exclusive. Listen now to Geistform's multifaceted characteristic production style: from breakbeat informed dark percussion and his unique 'radioactive' riffs, to his very own Detroit techno drive, dressed in rhythmic noise aesthetics. PI10.5 is a slower burner with emphasis in the chaos brought by its distorted baseline themes - to be found only on the Pi Electronics Bandcamp page.

Between Christmas 2000 and New Year 2001 producers Ekkehard Ehlers and Stephan Mathieu recorded an album of warm, soft, delicately crackling electronic music in the space of that week. It was christened with the ambivalent title "Heroin" and was released on CD via the label Brombron in 2001 and later in 2003 re-issued on Kit Clayton's Orthlorng Musork on double-LP with remixes the pair had commissioned as expansions.

17 years later Heroin sees its first vinyl release to include all 13 tracks from the original CD track-list on this LP + 12“ set. The centerpiece "Herz" finally receives its long deserved vinyl treatment (side C, at 45rpm) and on the flip side Thomas Brinkmann contributes a mirror in a magnificent remix of that very piece on side D.

Ehlers and Mathieu were both highly prolific solo artists during the period 2000-2004, and in just two years after the initial release of "Heroin" each had produced over half a dozen new solo recordings: among them the serial masterpiece Ehlers' "Plays" (Cornelius Cardew, Hurbert Fichte, John Cassavetes, Albert Ayler, Robert Johnson) released as 5 stunning LPs in a series on Staubgold, while Mathieu's 'Full Swing Edits' spread over five 10" records plus his album 'FrequencyLib' on Mille Plateaux, 'Die Entdeckung des Wetters' on Lucky Kitchen and ‘The Sad Mac’ on Atsushi Sasaki’s Headz label were greeted to critical acclaim.

Both artists were expanding their conceptual sonic approaches in the glow of developing laptop technologies which would to these times in 2020 seem quite primitive, but these two in that period used the state-of-the-art to aid and abet their conceptual visions, while at times the duo used unorthodox experimentation - yet always had a distinctively melodic and musical form at its heart and soul.

Ehlers can be seen as a conceptualist, as a meta-musician who interrogates the mediums and methods of sound production - reflecting on the conditions and possibilities of improvisation (e.g. "Plays Albert Ayler") and exploits ideas of mutation and distortion of popular aesthetics played out within a ghostly form of divine pop beauty in his project März.

Mathieu, originally a drummer and co-founder of what has come to be known as the Berlin 'Echtzeitmusik' scene. His approach could be similarly described as working a critical analyst and researcher: Subtly and precisely working in the realm of processing as a method of intervening in melodious/harmonic analog sound sources.

Ehlers and Mathieu may not think too much about their singular productions and publications outcomes, but instead concentrate on the process and musical personality that characterizes their gesture- style itself stays in the background - and they usher a music from small minimal sound sources coaching a patient music of slow intervention - much like a refraction of light than a concrete painting or a blurred photograph - beatus accident.

And indeed, "Heroin" is an album that embraces the happy accident being made up of reduced, often very catchy and very direct micro hooks which seem laser-guided into a space accepting obvious melodic beauty in what feels like an observation of musics unfolding and revealing it's DNA, embed with for a kind of yearning for innocence and naiveté - as if Satie were on the jukebox in "The Crying of Lot 49". Not to say the music is "reduced", but rather: 'restricted' and born from acceptance of limitations, and the artists allowing the sounds to just "be.." with some incremental degrees of coercion.

The album not only sounds like that of 2 producers who are both dreamers and scientists, but that Ehlers and Mathieu chose to work with these means in a dialogue together to reduce pop music to its musical/tonal core, it is not Pop music anymore, rather a ghostly pointilistic itteration of song. "Heroin" is located at this transition, around that point at which tracks, that were or could have become pop compositions, irrevocably slip into a static harmonic nirvana. We are invited to follow the arch of Heroin in a slow-motion morphine musical haze.

Heroin sounded timeless when originally released and proof is that it remains so, one wishes that Ehlers and Mathieu would convene again for a week, a month or an entire year to continue this process of slow rumination, picking affectionately over the sounds they both love - and then maybe when everything is condensed, evaporated they would write more songs with those sonic refractive elements that remain.

Following up on their debut LP Kick Drunk Love for Marcel Vogel’s Intimate Friends imprint a few years back, we are proud to present the next installment in the sporadic KAMM legacy: Cookie Policies.

Far more sonically rich and musically adventurous than its predecessor, Cookie Policies sees the band make bold strides into new territories where classically hardwired categories such as jazz, indie rock, and electronica melt into one another with immaculate, timeless ease.

The band members’ positions are more clear cut as well this round, with Marc David Barrite (aka Dave Aju, who also did one of his coveted mix engineering jobs on the LP) on prominent lead vocals in many of the pieces, Alland Byallo on trumpet, Kenneth Scott on synth bass, and Marc Smith adding guitar sections while the others shared the arranging and programming duties. This makes for a deeper continuation of the otherworldly combination of their known individual production styles, as well as a musical whole truly greater than the sum of its parts.

The set starts off with “Bird Call”, whose opening ode to Morricone ok corral-meets-samurai showdown riffs flow into a loose and drifting psychedelic boom bap blip, building until a glorious change-up of key and energy brings the track to its peak and deconstructed back down. “Rachel, the Largest Bullfrog” then takes things in a sweeter, slightly more traditionally-structured direction where dusty indie-folk ballad vibes intersect with an array of twisted cosmic tones, bits of computer keyboard percussion, and deep rolling sub bass. “Buckle Down” then moves things back away from acoustic restraints into a beautiful synth-laden musing on potential regret, with an ultra-potent horn section from Byallo vs a nasty stacked Roland SH-101 finish.

“CCBPGC” cools things off for a few minutes with an ambient field recording slice-and-dice motif, which slowly but surely evolves into a slinking jazz noir groove from another dimension. The more traditional song structures return on the lovely “La Luna”, where Barrite’s pen and soulful voice take to nautical longing themes over apropos waves of sonic textures. The ebb and flow of the verse/chorus sections eventually rise and give way to an absolutely gorgeous denouement. “Shleem” then takes us into pure unadulterated soaring sci-fi soundtrack ambient blast-off bliss, while the epic closing track “The Soft Glow of Electric Sex” gives a hearty nod to early masters of sprawling psychedelic jam sessions, from Pink Floyd and Can to In A Silent Way-era Miles and Liquid Liquid, while bringing it clearly into futurist millennia. The gradual evolution of the piece into its grand finale is the stuff we true music-lovers live and die for. We hope you enjoy the ride as much as we do.

Gorillaz started the year with Episode 1 - ‘Momentary Bliss ft. slowthai and Slaves’ - of Song Machine, a whole new concept from one of the most innovative bands around. Now, six episodes in, Noodle, 2D, Murdoc and Russel have visited Morocco and Paris, London and Lake Como, as well as travelling all the way to the moon, and Gorillaz is ready to bring you the full collection titled Song Machine: Season One - Strange Timez, out on 23rd October 2020.

Song Machine is the ongoing and ever-evolving process which has seen Gorillaz joined by an expanding roster of collaborators captured live in Kong Studios and beyond. The result is an expansive collection of tracks embracing a myriad of sounds, styles, genres and attitudes from a breath-taking line-up of guest artists including Beck, Elton John, Fatoumata Diawara, Georgia, Kano, Leee John, Octavian, Peter Hook, Robert Smith, Roxani Arias, ScHoolboy Q, Slaves, Slowthai, St Vincent and 6LACK.
To date the project has seen over 100million streams on all tracks already and the band’s biggest period of sustained growth across both listenership and fanbase growth. All this before the album has even been announced!

Virtual band Gorillaz is singer 2D, bassist Murdoc Niccals, guitarist Noodle and drummer Russel Hobbs. Created by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, their acclaimed eponymous debut album was released in 2001. The BRIT and Grammy Award winning band’s subsequent albums are Demon Days (2005), Plastic Beach (2010), The Fall (2011), Humanz (2017) and The Now Now (2018). A truly global phenomenon, Gorillaz have achieved success in entirely ground-breaking ways, touring the world from San Diego to Syria, winning numerous awards including the coveted Jim Henson Creativity Honor.

The band are recognised by The Guinness Book Of World Records as the planet’s Most Successful Virtual Act.

2 x 180g Black 12” vinyl
20 page hardcover 12” art book
Song Machine Season One Deluxe CD
Download card for the full deluxe album
3 x 12” art prints
1 x 12” label copy sheet











j 10. Désolé (feat. Fatoumata Diawara) Extended Version










j 10. Désolé (feat. Fatoumata Diawara) Extended Version

Five years after his critically acclaimed debut album Throwback, Glenn Astro returns with his deeply personal album Homespun.

Marking a change in course from his first release on Tartelet Records, Glenn Astro is set to showcase his sophomore album Homespun, a testament to a visionary artist who has come into his own. Made up of ten tracks spanning 45 minutes, the record twists and turns between electronic meditations, soulful vocals by Ajnascnet, and futuristic electro, carving out a world of spacey eclecticism that is as nostalgic as it is experimental.

“This album is in all facets different from the first one, which was a deliberate decision. No vintage sounds and references, no sampling, combined with futuristic sound design and song structures.I tried to keep it as current and intuitive as possible,” he says.

Known for his chunky beats and fuzzy textures, Glenn Astro has released on labels such as Ninja Tune and Apollo, leaving a distinctive signature on everything he touches.

But Glenn Astro has quietly been crafting a new sound for himself. Sometimes taking detours – morphing into his dark alter ego and experimenting with artist collaborations.

The sound of Homespun is a culmination of several years of reflection and artistic development – however, the album itself was produced in less than three months. “I set myself an ultimatum to finish the album within three months. If I didn’t make it, I’d
have to rethink my career path and keep music as a hobby, he says.

On the introspective first single and album title track “Homespun,” Ajnascent’s vocals lend a sincerity to the melancholic production. “It’s about the regret of not taking chances and giving in too much, but also about taking responsibility and being honest with yourself. Homespun is a nod to nostalgia and a desire for simplicity and prudence, being equally the culprit and the cure,” elaborates Ajnascent.

On “The Yancey,” an homage to J Dilla, Glenn Astro paints his vision of contemporary dance music with shimmering melodies, deep ambient soundscapes, and advanced drum programming. “Moreira” and “Look at You” feel like spaced-out electronic funk hybrids, while “Taking Care of Business” goes back to the future with Glenn Astro’s take on jungle. Other tracks such as “Mezzanine,” “Slow Poke Flange,” and “Viktor’s Meditation” provide the finest dubby electronics.

Daniel Bortz, a staple among electronic music producers, returns with his new album "Stay". After "Patchwork Memories" on Suol from 2013, it's the second album for Berlin-born and Augsburg-rooted Daniel. From his early days of James Blake editing and riding the slow house wave, Daniel has perfected and diversived his production skills over the seven year course between the albums. His range spans euphoric techno, cinematic breakbeats, heart warming electronica and classic deep house, you can witness on his eps for Innervisions, Pastamusik (the infamous Bella Avgvsta trilogy) or even on the legendary DJ Kicks mix series from grandmaster Moodymann, who selected one of Bortz's tracks on his volume. After his three eps (one with his friend and long time collaborator Sascha Sibler and one under his DJ Hotel alias) on Permanent Vacation, Daniel takes the consequential step and releases his second full-length album with the Munich based label. With the 11 tracks on "Stay", Daniel Bortz evokes his teenage years and dreamwalks through his upbringing during the 90's. Musically he brings together what never should have been separated: House, Acid, Downbeat and Breakbeat all rooted in the sample aesthetic of Hip Hop, thereby capturing the full emotional spectrum of life and love. Music that came to stay.

Tumultuous beats immersed with obscure ritualistic soundscapes. ‘Descending Void’ is a 5-track EP on Voidance Records (Berlin), marking the versatile character of Llimbs’ project. The opening tracks, ‘Oblivion’ and ‘Mass’, boldly pronounce Llimbs’ more abrasive aspect, carved through rhythmic broken beats, ominous chanting and sharp industrial textures. The following three tracks have a more experimental approach, with Side B composed of noisy ambiences and slow heavy rhythms. Voidance Records will be releasing a set of marbled vinyls and an exclusive bonus track for the first 100 limited edition copies of this release.

Geins't Naït returns to Offen, this time he enlists Scanner (living experimental electronics legend , Robin Rimbaud) to join him in his land of loop. These two veterans have clocked up many combined decades of experimentation between them, and this their first jointly composed material, has the feel of wisdom at work. It's a huge pleasure for Offen Music to release this special record.

Tape / Cassette

George's sound is unique and unmatched in the electronic music industry. His tracks take you on a journey of groovy, melodic and harmonic sections.