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140g Black vinyl LP – Printed inner sleeve – Sealed plastic sleeve

In Trux We Pux is an editorial project organized by the Porto based label and collective Favela Discos. Focusing on the city’s thriving experimental and improvised music scene, it sets out to portrait in a series of four volumes some of the characteristic sounds and collaborative practices that have been in development in Porto during the last few years.

In Trux We Pux 02 contains the first of Favela Discos’ collective pieces to be published, and it was chosen to represent a long series of site-specic pieces developed by the collective since its formation. Most of the time these pieces remain lost in time or in the label’s archives.

Desilusão Óptica is an audiovisual piece developed for the festival Serralves em Festa 2017 and was recorded between the concert and rehearsals. The piece is influenced by the book Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks, and tries to explore the notion of auditory hallucination, in this case based on the idea of a phantom sound unconnected to its object.

Starting quietly with a single flute note, Desilusão Óptica slowly grows fuller but more uncomfortable as the pitch rises gradually in a hypnotic effect. The sound we hear is a mix of the sound produced live, its manipulation and repetition, thus the piece exists between the time when it happens, its immediate repetition and ghosts of past sounds.

The flute, delayed and sampled, embodies both the sounds it produces and memories of past sounds, creating a confusion between objecto and sound. The sound is produced by an object but is at the same time separated from it, like in Mulholland Drive when we watch a singer emotionally dedicated to a performance and whose voice keeps on singing even when her body collapses.

Like in Dub Music, the musicians are divided into two groups: those who play, in this case divided by winds, percussion and electric guitars, and the dub master / sound manipulators who launch samples of previous recordings and manipulate the sound that is produced live, through loopers and delay pedals.

Following on from the success of 2018’s epic triple album The Saving Of Cadan, Cornwall’s space/psych/folk-rock/post-punk cross-pollinators HANTERHIR are back with a new studio album. After more than a decade, …Cadan finally found the band breaking out of their Redruth bolthole, playing a major headline show at London’s Kernow In The City festival in March 2020, just before lockdown. As with many others, this enforced break from gigging encouraged the band to get creative and the new album was soon progressing…Its Cornish title Nyns Eus Denvydth Bys Trest roughly translates as ‘There is no-one to trust’ – “Writing and recording the album was done over the backdrop of Brexit, a falling apart relationship and then Covid lockdowns,” explains singer, guitarist, and songwriter Ben Harris. “With all the wacky things that have come out of people’s mouths over the past few years I think the title pretty much sums everything up.” A massive labour of love for Ben, …Cadan was a sprawling concept based on Cornish legend, which required him to write within a theme. The creation of this album has therefore been a breath of fresh air, a more organic experience allowing him to write from a more personal and immediate perspective. Displaying elements of Hawkwind’s sturm und drang spacerock and Psychedelic Furs’ sax-driven post-punk squall, opener ‘Always On’ finds the septet celebrating themselves: “We play so many gigs with so many other bands and one thing that strikes me about us is that we're always ready, we don't spend hours soundchecking, just point us in the direction of a stage and we'll play there. “‘Honeybees’ is us singing to the people that it's possibly time to stop voting for the same political parties and following the same failed systems,” he continues. “As far as I can see nothing's got better over the past year, or ten years or whatever, things just get slowly worse and people accept it. ”The song ‘Yeah’, which fuses Steeleye Span folk-rock melody and Sonic Youth chaos with spiralling psych guitar, has backing vocals which translate as “I am the same as you”, which Ben thinks is very important: “We're all the same and no-one is more important that anyone else”. Recorded at MHRCC, The Chapel and VIP Lounge by Peasy and Dare Mason; produced by Peasy and mastered by Anders Petersen at Ghost Sounds, Stockholm.

Ted K. Kaczynski is notorious for both tragically murdering three people (and wounding an additional 23) via bombs sent in the mail and for his numerous writings on the evils of technology he composed during his primitive residency in the woods of Montana. Film director Tony Stone's choice to have the renowned electronic artist Blanck Mass score the film is somewhat ironic and creates an obvious tension perfect for the controversial and complex subject matter. 2020 saw the first Blanck Mass movie score, for the soundtrack to Nick Rowland's acclaimed cinematic debut Calm with Horses. This expansion into new areas of melodic composition and textural exploration won Blanck Mass many new fans, with the BBC's acknowledged number one film buff Mark Kermode proclaiming the work the soundtrack of the year. In 2021, Blanck Mass won the prestigious Ivor Novello Award for Best Original Film Score and has firmly established himself at the forefront of the latest wave of experimental soundscape wizards. Recording during lockdown at his studio in Edinburgh, Scotland, Blanck Mass's Ben Power was in the perfect setting for a musical piece intended to capture the isolation central to Kaczynski's story. Power was also working with a director in a time zone 10 hours behind and thus many sessions required working in the middle of the night, which added a fitting intensity to the composition process. He said of the project "I wanted it to feel like an `epic'" and drew on the legends Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone for inspiration in encapsulating the energy of the perceived good vs. evil. The gentle madness of sound achieved is exquisite and slowly builds in intensity and desperation as the score moves along. Power is able to perfectly capture the complexity, the terror and the deep emotionality of the film while presenting an often breathtakingly beautiful and always masterful album that stands on its own as a work of art. For Fans of Tim Hecker, Oneohtrix Point Never, DJ Shadow, Coil, Arca, Andy Stott, Fuck Buttons.

Two years may seem like a very short stop gap between original release and reissue, but when the music comes at this kind of grade who's complaining? Much like his contemporaries such as Fred P and DJ Qu, Patrice Scott's take on deeper-than-deep house conjure up ambient fantasies coloured with twinkling synth lines and slowly exhaled pads. It's not all fuzzed-out bliss though, as "2000 Black" sneaks a warm and snarling bassline amidst the soothing elements around it. "Mind Rhythms" especially shines with its combination of heavy groove and intricate melodies bubbling away under the surface.

More Late 70s/early 80s Westcoast Yachtpop you can almost dance to!
Buoyed by the incredible love felt for TSTD Vol. 1 in summer 2014, Berlin's renowned pop archaeologist, that master musical excavator DJ Super-markt, has leapt straight back into the soft-top and been out digging for the lost gems you'll find here on Volume 2. This is another perfect collection of missing-in-action, late-70s/early-80s smooth, singer/songwriter, AOR-paced, yacht-based pop and blue-eyed soul. Every song brims over with that West Coast sunshine, and for Volume 2 we've dug even deeper into obscure corners of LA, London, even Cologne, to create an even more potent soundtrack to that lost world that's somehow always with us. So join us on another sunset trip as we soundtrack summer 2015 in the company of these lost luminaries. Bask in every detail of that glorious over-production, and recall an era when the music industry had the time, money and sheer musical talent to make everything BIG. Pay no mind to the cynics, the cooler-than-thou-erati, or the buzz kills of the sincerity police. These are big tunes that deserve to be hits, even if it's taken 40 years to get there, driving slowly up that winding California coast road in the wonderful warm summer air.

On their first official collaboration, Japanese noise pioneer Masami Akita aka Merzbow and Australian sound sculptor Lawrence English present a harrowing, surrealist portrait of nocturnal industrial activity, spawned by field recordings made in a sprawling factory complex seven hours north of English's home in Brisbane. He characterizes the area as "uneasy and unsettling," awash in the sickly glow of smelters and refinement machinery, somehow not of this world - a liminal quality vividly captured in Andrei Tarkovsky's sprawling purgatorial opus, Stalker, to which the title alludes. Akita, too, described early drafts of Eternal Stalker as feeling "like the soundtrack to a dystopian science fiction opera." A mood of mechanical dread and ruined futures permeates each of the album's seven potent compositions. Opener "The Long Dream" sets the stage with steady rain on sheet metal, punctured by thunder and metallic echoes, reverberating to the rafters in a collapsing warehouse. Quickly the tempest rises. "A Gate Of Light" and "Magnetic Traps" both convulse in churning furies of electric demolition and rattling chains, roaring and relentless. "The Visit" and "Black Thicket" operate more at a distance, surveying the topography of steam, rust, and liquid metal from above, their flickers of violence swallowed by blankets of darkness. This is noise at its most elemental and unknowable: brooding, bristling, and opaque, stalking forbidden peripheries of chaos and creation. Discussing Akita's music, English refers to its "intense substrata that is purely psychedelic; it consumes and confounds." The seasick swells of friction and fracture subsume the listener, forcing an auditory surrender: "this saturation of the senses can be a euphoria." Proof comes halfway through "The Golden Sphere," when the howling mayhem subtly recedes, revealing an eerie siren drone hovering in the void, like the resonance of a dead star galaxies away. Slowly a seething, venomous wall of volume returns, shredding the signal until its frequencies fray, whipping away into the eye of the storm. The combined effect merges obliteration and liberation, rapture and ravagement; it's the sound of dissolution as resolution, uprooted and unmoored, finally freed from form.

On their first official collaboration, Japanese noise pioneer Masami Akita aka Merzbow and Australian sound sculptor Lawrence English present a harrowing, surrealist portrait of nocturnal industrial activity, spawned by field recordings made in a sprawling factory complex seven hours north of English's home in Brisbane. He characterizes the area as "uneasy and unsettling," awash in the sickly glow of smelters and refinement machinery, somehow not of this world - a liminal quality vividly captured in Andrei Tarkovsky's sprawling purgatorial opus, Stalker, to which the title alludes. Akita, too, described early drafts of Eternal Stalker as feeling "like the soundtrack to a dystopian science fiction opera." A mood of mechanical dread and ruined futures permeates each of the album's seven potent compositions. Opener "The Long Dream" sets the stage with steady rain on sheet metal, punctured by thunder and metallic echoes, reverberating to the rafters in a collapsing warehouse. Quickly the tempest rises. "A Gate Of Light" and "Magnetic Traps" both convulse in churning furies of electric demolition and rattling chains, roaring and relentless. "The Visit" and "Black Thicket" operate more at a distance, surveying the topography of steam, rust, and liquid metal from above, their flickers of violence swallowed by blankets of darkness. This is noise at its most elemental and unknowable: brooding, bristling, and opaque, stalking forbidden peripheries of chaos and creation. Discussing Akita's music, English refers to its "intense substrata that is purely psychedelic; it consumes and confounds." The seasick swells of friction and fracture subsume the listener, forcing an auditory surrender: "this saturation of the senses can be a euphoria." Proof comes halfway through "The Golden Sphere," when the howling mayhem subtly recedes, revealing an eerie siren drone hovering in the void, like the resonance of a dead star galaxies away. Slowly a seething, venomous wall of volume returns, shredding the signal until its frequencies fray, whipping away into the eye of the storm. The combined effect merges obliteration and liberation, rapture and ravagement; it's the sound of dissolution as resolution, uprooted and unmoored, finally freed from form.

Joona Toivanen Trio makes their We Jazz Records debut with their new album "Both Only", out 25 Feb 2022. A landmark work for the long standing group, the album showcases a new sound for the band, trekking deep into new ideas for an acoustic jazz piano trio. Since their formation as teenagers in mid-1990's, the trio of pianist Joona Toivanen, bassist Tapani Toivanen and drummer Olavi Louhivuori (of Superposition, Ilmiliekki Quartet and Linda Fredriksson "Juniper") has developed their remarkably coherent band sound step by step, touring the world over. Nowadays, the trio is geographically split between Gothenburg, Sweden (Joona), Copenhagen, Denmark (Tapani), and Helsinki, Finland (Olavi), but the unit has never sounded so together as one, and as adventurous as on "Both Only".

"Both Only" by Joona Toivanen Trio is a cocoon, a welcoming shelter of sound that opens up naturally for the listener to inhabit. The album is moody and introspective, even dark at times, but by the time you get to the closing track, "This and This", you'll likely notice something hopeful brewing up. This is not music dealing with nostalgia or a world lost. Instead, it's a body of work with delicate dynamics, taking a minute just to listen and to look inwards to learn something, to move forward.

The first single "Enlightened" is perhaps the most traditional piece on the album, yet it flows like a vessel beyond genre, conveying a mood, a feeling and an idea. Listen to how the piano, bass and drums discuss, how the groove moves with the instruments having their clear roles but also supporting each other and documenting a musical aging process exactly as that of a quality bottle of red wine. As a song like "Direction" proves, the melody is there all the way, yet there is nothing obvious about how it's carried by the trio. Things remain surprising, fresh and moving at all times. "Except For" keeps its intensity, while nearly erupting into a full on 4-to-the-floor banger. Nearly! The key here is how the energy sustains itself, building the intensity within the music.

"Both Only" is a powerful statement from a band ready to renew itself time and again, and one willing to do it slowly, outside of the hype. This process makes the impact enduring, nuanced and lovely.

WJLP37 Joona Toivanen Trio "Both Only" is available on vinyl as a black vinyl edition and as a LP+7" bundle also including WJ0716 "Except For (7" Edit)" / "Keyboard Study No. 2".

“More excellent poetic soundscapes from We Jazz! Love the flow through the tracks here – textural pieces moving into more rhythmic jazz abstractions. Beautifully recorded too.”
Quinton Scott — Worldwide FM

“Following on from the excellent Linda Fredriksson album We Jazz extend the journey with this innovative Joona Toivanen Trio set.”
Paul Bradshaw — Straight No Chaser

“You’ll look in vain here for extravagant splashes of color or bright swathes of sound, but what you will discover are a finely-chiselled set of compositions that make the most of the trio’s limited palette: flint-sharp melodies hewn from the ice, crisp and crackling rhythms.”
Cal Gibson — Ban Ban Ton Ton

“Incredible album from Joona Toivanen Trio and a strong start to the new year from We Jazz.”
Kerem Gokmen — Dubmission

“Encapsulating a new movement in jazz.”
Jay Scarlett — Sounds Supreme

“Interesting listen on the shortest day of the year. They have a very definite and saturated style.”
John Chacona — All About Jazz

“Airplayed the track”
Tom Ravenscroft — BBC6 Music

“Jazz album of the year released already in February?”
Ralf Sandell — Hufvudstadsbladet

“★★★★★”
Iida Simes — Voima Magazine

Apt E returns with a pair of lengthy kraut transmissions from Seattle-based electronic outfit, Tape.

A - Escape Your Shape wades through swampy guitars and modulated jitters before entering a boundless collage of stretchy, acid-bound funk wahs and spacy rhythms launched toward the horizon. Along the way, shifting shapes, dancing chords and washed out motifs swirl around until they’re released into the ether, only to elegantly reenter orbit before dematerializing once more. The jam rebounds one final time, wringing out the final traces of euphoria, landing gently after the nearly 12 minute long trip.

B - Flip Your Trip hits the ground running; relentless drums take off in tandem with deep analog modulations as higher frequencies slowly creep onto the canvas. Frenzied electronics emerge from underneath blankets of delay while sweeping atmospherics expand and contract with the heavy tides of guitar and droning bass. The vortex erodes to a sticky whirl before drifting back to the surface, entering and exiting a mosaic of cosmic passages until finally being abducted by an arpeggio vacuum and fully melting down after 14 flipped-out minutes.

Jon Porras draws a staggering array of atmospheres out of even the simplest instrumentation. Across his work as one-half of psych-drone duo Barn Owl and his solo releases, Porras welds monoliths and ether into propulsive music that is deeply felt. Arroyo, named for the Spanish word for "stream" in a nod to Porras' heritage as a first generation Colombian?Japanese American, drifts gently from one tributary to the next in unhurried contemplation and euphoria. The portentous weight and abrasive textures of Porras' previous work give way to the trickle of richly detailed acoustic instruments slipping in and out of the fold. On Arroyo, Jon Porras evokes a distinct sense of resplendent anticipation and calm with a fathomless flow and softly gorgeous colors. For Porras, Arroyo became a rumination on simplicity and simple truths, a work of complete immersion and continuous motion where separate elements coalesce into an ever-changing whole. Porras spent the year leading up to 2020 living nomadically across Europe where he was able to soak in a deep appreciation for the effortless beauty of overgrown gardens, the basic principles of classical architecture and a more transient sensibility. The album was written and recorded in a time of even more change for Porras: after the birth of his daughter. Like a stream's steady glide across bedrock that waxes and wanes with each gradual turn, the music of Arroyo exhibits a transportive stillness. The compositions take on a light, gaseous buoyancy as discreet drones swell with measured fluctuations and ripples of piano rest atop the surface. Arroyo borrows harmonic concepts from modal jazz to create a unique sense of ease and endlessness. Each of the four pieces on the album centers around a single suspended chord, a chord most commonly associated with devotional music which embodies a space between harmonic tension and resolution. Porras embellishes that liminality with arrangements that feel less like distinguishable layers of instruments and more like one undulating nebula of sound. In the past decade of Porras' solo work, his music has grown increasingly engaged with elaborate synth textures and detailed processing. With Arroyo, Porras consciously takes a step back from those more intricate compositions and focuses on more organic, unadorned textures and places each sound with the same precision. Stark piano and guitar patiently hover over modest currents of Hammond organ and Yamaha DX7 with the sustain of each chord and phrase acting as a natural guide to the album's subtle rhythm. The four pieces that comprise Arroyo each encompass their own idyllic channel, slowly weaving their way in and out of the album's elegant stir. Porras' reflections on simplified elements take shape in gorgeous arrangements that impart clarity amidst a tranquil mist. Arroyo is an album that unearths splendor in a unified feeling of space, serenity in perpetual renewal

Single includes download. “Virginia Wing are not from the sedate school of dream-pop escapism…a hazy subversion of the traditional monochrome evocations of post-punk, a photo negative of an established form.” - The Quietus // “South London three-piece ally buzz and drone with sweetness and light” Guardian – New Band Of The Week // "A piece of noir-pop majesty that consistently pushes its own boundaries and frequently shatters the listeners’ sense of expectation" Loud and Quiet // "They possess a rare ability to dive deep beneath the skin.. a ghostly mix that flirts hard and fast with the avant garde while retaining a sly pop lustre" Mojo 4* // Following the 2015 release of their acclaimed debut album ‘Measures Of Joy’ on Fire Records, Camberwell based outfit Virginia Wing return with a striking new single. ‘Rhonda’, released for Record Store Day on 12” vinyl with a disco cut sleeve featuring artwork from longtime collaborator Florian Brooks. Recorded at Hackney-based Holy Mountain Studios with Misha Hering, ‘Rhonda’ sees the band expand the deep and varied sonic palette displayed on their debut ‘Measures Of Joy’. Featuring guest musician Koichi Yamanoha of Grimm Grimm, the single unfolds slowly as meditative incantations give way to a sprawling piece of experimental pop for the dance floor. The ambitious A-side flirts with disco beats and draws influence from a variety of schools of contemporary dance music whilst still remaining, at heart, a pop song. This is pop music with texture, depth and nuance; a daring and progressive piece. The B-side includes two new tracks: ‘Sisterly Love’ and ‘Daughter Of The Mind’ which further hint at the deviations we can expect on their second LP. Field recordings, ambient mediations and rhythmic experimentation abound; the new material sees Virginia Wing refining and reworking the sound conjured on their debut, a masterful workout.

Recorded back in 1999, 'Half a Dove in New York, Half a Dove in Buenos Aires' is the recorded debut of a NetCast improv between deep listening pioneer Pauline Oliveros and Argentinian free music trio Reynols >> a fascinating early example of the internet’s capacity to foster remote creativity in-the-moment that deploys the slowest electronics, accordion, voice, trombone and computer sounds on a next level ritual drone incantation recorded in another era, but made for our time.

As the story goes, Oliveros first met Reynols in the mid ‘90s at a Deep Listening workshop she held in their home city, Buenos Aires, where they impressed her with an improvised brass serenade. Years later, in 1999, they met again via NetCast - a series of very early online live improvisations - to explore the Internet’s potential for collaborations between artists thousands of miles apart. Finally mixed down in 2021 and mastered by Helge Sten (aka Deathprod) after marinating in the archive for 22 years, the album resonates with the late, great Oliveros’ legendary work in exploring alternate tunings, spatial dynamics and methods of intuitive performance - a remarkable slab of omnidirectional drone bearing traces of Miguel Tomasin's vox and Oliveros’ just-intoned accordion embedded in its cosmic roil.

Broadcasting from fabled record shop The Thing in NYC, with Oliveros (Accordion) joined by Jennifer McCoy (ICR), Kevin McCoy (Computer processing), and Monique Buzzarté (Trombone), and Reynols revolving Miguel Tomasin (Electronics, subliminal voice & Alclorse drums), Rob Conlazo electronics, leather gloves & e-gtr), and Anla Courtis (electronics, rubber foot & e-gtr) and dialling-in from Florida 943 in Buenos Aires, the results are an incredibly absorbing and consistently surprising testament to vanguard, experimental spirits prizing the internet’s nascent, unprecedented ability to connect minds and art across continents, language barriers, and modalities.

The album's first side, titled 'Micro Macro Wind Dance', puts Oliveros' accordion under a microscope, enhancing it with lower case rumble and noise from Reynolds' arsenal. Shifting glacially over 22-minutes, Oliveros plays subtly and slowly at first, letting the accordion breathe in-and-out like a sleeping mythical beast, before she transitions to fluttering bird-like phrases by the end of the side.

'Astral Netcast Pigeon' expands the dissonant drones to widescreen, submerging Oliveros' trills and drones beneath layers of dirt and grit. It's time-altering music that dissasembles yr head before you've completely worked out what's happening >> basically the perfect mid-point between Oliveros' deep listening practices and Reynols' wildly inspirational free-noise-drone freakouts.

With some of the best DJs and selectors there is a certain mysterious sound or underlying feeling which unites the music they play, regardless of genre, year or tempo Luke Una is a master of telling a story through music and this compilation is a perfect example of his musical alchemy in action. Featuring tracks from Yusef Lateef, Airto Moreira, Crooked Man, Henri Texier and many more, it is a collection of new, old, rare and under-discovered music from around the world, all united by Luke under the banner of "E-Soul Cultura".It's best described by Luke himself, who writes: "As the 5AM city sleeps and the strobe lights are slowly turned off, we gather on the wrong side of town in a transcendental journey alone together. We are the late night disenfranchised holding on in various after parties, flats, lofts, random kitchens and basements into the outer cosmos with É Soul Cultura.

Music from exotic tear jerkers, Afro- spiritual jazz, cosmic Brazilian celestial grooves, machine street soul, dark horses, lost B- sides, £1 bargain- bin bombs, hidden gems, late night Italo dubbing, deep velvet N.Y.C garage, bass buggin sonic futurism, wrong speed 33BPM pitched up +8 new beat, majestic sunset strings, sweet vocals from heaven, no half steppin jazz dancing in outer- space and odd numbers. Yes… magical moments, together, holding on in witness protection suburban cul- de- sacs and Castle Court flats. Cosmic É high, 3000ft above the city getting evangelical to murky, wonky timeless beautiful music. This thing of ours dreaming of better days. Fail we may, sail we must, the sun will come up again."

RIYL: Guided by Voices, Pavement, The Clean, XTC, Flying Nun. The title of The Stroppies' newest LP, Levity, serves as a creative statement of intent and an acknowledgment of the dichotomy between the music they have made and the conditions in which they were produced. For a group that started over an initial idea to "create open ended music, quickly and haphazardly”, the logistical challenges of creating their second album in the midst of a pandemic, in a city that endured the longest lockdown in the world, created a need to redefine process. Levity, The Stroppies strongest creative statement to date, is the result of this new approach to creative process. Playful yet focused, but broader in scope and experimentation than previous efforts, the ten songs that comprise Levity continue the band's exploration of the pop song as both foil for experimentation and conduit for personal reflection. Whereas the group's debut LP Whoosh! demonstrated their ability to craft clean, concise jangle pop, Levity takes a different route by utilizing a darker pallet of sounds to create its impressionistic whole. Fuzz and distortion are employed to add weight to songs built on tape loops and Motorik drum patterns. Warbling synthesisers and modulated keys add new moods and dimensions to The Stroppies unique brand of pop classicism. Thematically, the band continues their exploration of the personal refracted through the lens of the absurd, though this time around the music feels a few shades darker, a somewhat inevitable consequence of the collective trauma of the past 24 months. While the narrative around the 'lockdown record' is increasingly commonplace, there are unavoidable realities involved in making creative decisions under such circumstances that can't be overlooked, especially for a band that thrives on collaboration. "The restrictions around COVID really informed the way we made the record', says Angus Lord, the band's co-founder and guitarist. "It meant that there was a lot less opportunity to meet and build ideas collaboratively, which is how we’ve worked in the past. Instead, ideas were developed in isolation, then shared digitally, developing slowly over correspondence and only bearing fruit when we were able to be in a room together. I think this had a big effect on the songwriting and execution.” This process even extended to the studio, where The Stroppies found a kindred spirit in John Lee of Phaedra Studios, who mixed the record in isolation, somehow managing to synthesise the band's pop sensibilities with their penchant for studio experimentation. Furthermore, the addition of new member Zoe Monk, known for playing in a diverse array of Melbourne acts (Eggy, Thibault, The Opals) contributed both synthesiser experimentation and rock solid rhythm guitar, a huge addition to the band's developing sound, an infectious combination of the off-kilter 90s US underground, British artpunk ala Wire and a more than generous love of classic Pop songwriting. The Stroppies have managed to craft a record of weight and substance. Through Levity the Stroppies have, at least temporarily, found their feet amongst the chaos

Limited 300 180g white vinyl LPs with printed inner Discobag and digital download.

500 CDs in gatefold digifile sleeve.

Each drum controls a virtual musical instrument (synthesizers, samplers, arpeggiators, etc.) within Ableton Live music software that, in combination with a custom step sequencer developed with MaxforLive app, allows Davide to perform real melodies/electronic orchestration without the use of any backing track. 100% live. In addition to that, he also uses a microphone set up in the middle of the drumkit to capture the dynamics of the acoustic drums and translate them through an 'envelope follower' into electronic parts in several ways. About ‘Perceive Reality’: Opener Belief bursts the record into life, as skittering arpeggios spin across a vast open plain of pad synths, before the ground splits beneath it with thrashing drums. On Conceived, Davide creates a simultaneously dark and euphoric wall of crystallised sound, a cacophony of pounding drum hits and icy electronic stabs, with an intensity that continues into Collide. With its shuddering, cut-out reverbed synth pads split in two by crashing cymbals and snares, the song spins itself into a transformative cycling trance, before slowly fading and washing away into silence, only to be broken by Conjectures’ sudden cymbal slams and transfixed toms that roll like thunder into a frenzy, before their final lightning strike. On Subjective, arpeggios twist around beating kick drums and toms, quickly scaling to a furious yet tightly wound sequence that envelops the listener, before Relief, where the album finally takes the shape of a huge wave of calm, glimmering hope and reflection. About the concept behind this latest album, Davide says, “Perceive Reality is a vivid exhortation to deepen the relationship with reality, avoiding simple and often illusory visions. In a historical context that fosters the proliferation of dual information and visions, individuals are increasingly exposed to the danger of perceiving less the complexity of events, thus losing the training to express complex and articulated opinions, the result of a reflection, whether individual or collective. Without having the presumption of resolving epochal issues, the project alerts to the fact that univocal answers do not exist and that only by developing a path of knowledge and giving ourselves the opportunity to examine things in depth, can we enter into the relationship with the existing.” Press highlights so far: Video premiere on Rumore.IT (Italy).

RIYL: Guided by Voices, Pavement, The Clean, XTC, Flying Nun. The title of The Stroppies' newest LP, Levity, serves as a creative statement of intent and an acknowledgment of the dichotomy between the music they have made and the conditions in which they were produced. Levity, The Stroppies strongest creative statement to date, is the result of this new approach to creative process. Playful yet focused, but broader in scope and experimentation than previous efforts, the ten songs that comprise Levity continue the band's exploration of the pop song as both foil for experimentation and conduit for personal reflection. Whereas the group's debut LP Whoosh! demonstrated their ability to craft clean, concise jangle pop, Levity takes a different route by utilizing a darker pallet of sounds to create its impressionistic whole. Fuzz and distortion are employed to add weight to songs built on tape loops and Motorik drum patterns. Warbling synthesisers and modulated keys add new moods and dimensions to The Stroppies unique brand of pop classicism. Thematically, the band continues their exploration of the personal refracted through the lens of the absurd, though this time around the music feels a few shades darker, a somewhat inevitable consequence of the collective trauma of the past 24 months. While the narrative around the 'lockdown record' is increasingly commonplace, there are unavoidable realities involved in making creative decisions under such circumstances that can't be overlooked, especially for a band that thrives on collaboration. "The restrictions around COVID really informed the way we made the record', says Angus Lord, the band's co-founder and guitarist. "It meant that there was a lot less opportunity to meet and build ideas collaboratively, which is how we've worked in the past. Instead, ideas were developed in isolation, then shared digitally, developing slowly over correspondence and only bearing fruit when we were able to be in a room together. I think this had a big effect on the songwriting and execution." This process even extended to the studio, where The Stroppies found a kindred spirit in John Lee of Phaedra Studios, who mixed the record in isolation, somehow managing to synthesise the band's pop sensibilities with their penchant for studio experimentation. Furthermore, the addition of new member Zoe Monk, known for playing in a diverse array of Melbourne acts (Eggy, Thibault, The Opals) contributed both synthesiser experimentation and rock solid rhythm guitar, a huge addition to the band's developing sound, an infectious combination of the off-kilter 90s US underground, British artpunk ala Wire and a more than generous love of classic Pop songwriting. The Stroppies have managed to craft a record of weight and substance. Through Levity the Stroppies have, at least temporarily, found their feet amongst the chaos.

Back in 2017, Moderat announced that they’d be taking an extended break following a final concert in front of 17.000 people in their hometown of Berlin. And now they return. MORE D4TA, the group’s fourth album, arrives more than six years after its predecessor (2016’s III). Created largely during a time when touring (and most traveling) was off the table, MORE D4TA is an album that wrestles with feelings of isolation and information overload—issues that have become particularly pronounced over the past two years. The ten songs on MORE D4TA are rooted in collaboration, but long before any of its tracks were laid down, Moderat spent months hanging out and getting musically reacquainted, indulging in extended bouts of experimentation and slowly fleshing out ideas as they dove into modular composition, field recordings and other sonic oddities.
But no matter how far the band ventures into music’s outer realms, they always wind up back in their own unique soundworld, a place where emotive pop and fluttering electronic soundscapes walk hand in hand. Many of its lyrics are rooted in Ring’s frequent trips to Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie museum (often with his infant daughter in tow), where he’d seek refuge in the great paintings of the past while worrying about the future.
What they make isn’t necessarily dance music, but it is something that shines brightest in the dark of night, the group’s rich melodies and Ring’s ethereal vocals emitting a warm, almost bioluminescent glow. After spending the better part of two decades making music together, they’ve carved out a sound and aesthetic that are all their own, and MORE D4TA showcases a group that’s creatively recharged and fully dedicated to its craft.

Deluxe Edition / LP+Poster

Back in 2017, Moderat announced that they’d be taking an extended break following a final concert in front of 17.000 people in their hometown of Berlin. And now they return. MORE D4TA, the group’s fourth album, arrives more than six years after its predecessor (2016’s III). Created largely during a time when touring (and most traveling) was off the table, MORE D4TA is an album that wrestles with feelings of isolation and information overload—issues that have become particularly pronounced over the past two years. The ten songs on MORE D4TA are rooted in collaboration, but long before any of its tracks were laid down, Moderat spent months hanging out and getting musically reacquainted, indulging in extended bouts of experimentation and slowly fleshing out ideas as they dove into modular composition, field recordings and other sonic oddities.
But no matter how far the band ventures into music’s outer realms, they always wind up back in their own unique soundworld, a place where emotive pop and fluttering electronic soundscapes walk hand in hand. Many of its lyrics are rooted in Ring’s frequent trips to Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie museum (often with his infant daughter in tow), where he’d seek refuge in the great paintings of the past while worrying about the future.
What they make isn’t necessarily dance music, but it is something that shines brightest in the dark of night, the group’s rich melodies and Ring’s ethereal vocals emitting a warm, almost bioluminescent glow. After spending the better part of two decades making music together, they’ve carved out a sound and aesthetic that are all their own, and MORE D4TA showcases a group that’s creatively recharged and fully dedicated to its craft.

French label Aldente presents their new soul tropical single. On flute, you'll find Jazzamar from the Brazilian Electronic Jazz Nu Tropic associated with french beatmaker Lord Funk under the name Tropical Combo.

The A side entitled "Jungle Fever" talks by himself, a warm time in the African forest we are between "An Elephant Called Slowly" and "The Chackachas".

The B side "Incredible Bongo Flute" is an uptempo track as a tribute to the classic "Apache" with hot bongos, congas & flute. Put the needle on the record and this soul tune will make you think about the pressure on a cypher with B.Boys. Join the battle and make a break!

Intimacy is manifested in every moment of Radiator, the debut album from Philadelphia’s Sadurn. This feeling of closeness, of being able to lend your every sense to one’s confessions of internal conflict, is due in large part to the circumstances under which this album was created.

Much of the world fell apart in 2020, but Sadurn tucked themselves away in a Pocono’s cabin, creating and recording what would become their first full-length. Within the confines of their close quarters, passing animals as the only auditory witness to a make- shift recording studio created by moving furniture, Sadurn created an album that will break your heart and then slowly piece it back together.

»Tides« marked a radical change in direction for Arovane. After Uwe Zahn had made a name for himself with cutting-edge IDM rhythms and slick ambient textures on a slew of releases, his sophomore album saw the prolific producer opt for a sample-based approach that resulted in a more organic sound and laid-back downbeat grooves. Having reissued Arovane’s seminal »Atol-Scrap« as a double LP in 2021, the Berlin-based Keplar label now makes »Tides« available on vinyl for the first time since its original release in 2000 through the legendary City Centre Offices. The new version has been remastered by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering and comes with a brand new cover artwork. It shines a new light on a release for which Zahn quite literally ventured into previously unknown territory — »Tides« is an album that emits a timeless, quiet calm and nonetheless stays constantly in motion.

»The idea for the album came to me after a vacation in France«, says Zahn. Inspired by the landscape, especially the coastline and the sea, he made field recordings throughout his trip that were also used on the record, giving it its sensual feel. The foundation of the album however, the loose yet gripping grooves at the heart of every track, result from Zahn working extensively with samples. »I wanted to make use of drum sounds and small excerpts from old jazz vinyl records«, he explains. He maintained the unique sound signatures and rhythmic flutter of the source material while building intricate beats with them. Most of the material was culled from the record collection of Christian Kleine, whose spontaneous guitar improvisations over the first musical sketches were recorded and edited by Zahn and can be heard on four tracks. Also employing the occasional cembalo or spinet sound, he worked with a hardware sequencer and a delay to integrate the different, discrete elements into nine tracks that feel both dense and light at once.

What’s astonishing still 22 years later is how spacious »Tides« sounds. This is due to the fact that Zahn not only paid close attention to the sonic idiosyncrasies of his source material, but also to what happened in between those sounds. »Mark Hollis’s solo album was a huge inspiration at that time«, says Zahn. »What I find fascinating about it until this day is how silence and the subtle hiss of the mixing boards were being used on that record.« Silence was also an important stylistic element on »Tides« and adds greatly to the overall atmosphere of an album that with the appropriately named »Theme« immediately sets the mood with intricate spinet melodies: Zahn opens a door for his listeners and invites them to follow him to see a specific part of the world through his very own lens.

As a whole, the album mirrors Zahn’s trip that took him along the steep cliffs on a foggy day (»Seaside«), to an abandoned house in which he found old maps (»A Secret«), along the coastline during a long car ride (»Deauville«), to a sleepy village and the slowly moving sea (»Tides«) and finally back home to his native Germany where he started reflecting upon his experiences, ultimately deciding to translate them into music (»Epilogue«). »Whenever I listen to this album now, the images and memories it evokes are incredibly vivid and vibrant«, he says. It’s not hard to see — or rather hear — why. »Tides« may have been a deeply personal project, but it effortlessly evokes universal feelings by (re-)building an entire world in the course of only a few pieces of music.

It’s been more than a year since our last release on Suction Records, and we’re excited to be back with the introduction of a new artist to the label’s roster. In fact, this split 12” serves as an introduction to both Useless Idea, and Seven Nights Alone, two aliases from the same Italian artist and producer, Cesare Bignotti. The split also serves as a taster for two forthcoming Suction Records full-length LPs, coming soon from both aliases.

Useless Idea, with previous under-the-radar cassette album releases on WéMè Records (2018’s “Acid Hologram”) and EVES Music (2020’s “Xa Peh”), has been quietly recording his own brand of inventive, playful, and melodic IDM/braindance for more than 20 years. We’ve been slowly compiling Useless Idea’s debut vinyl full-length for several years now, and the resulting “Glitch In The Colors” will be released later this year on 2LP vinyl, covering the span of his 20+ years of recording. From “Glitch…” we’ve included standout cut “Mello Tron” alongside two tracks that are exclusive to this split 12”.

Seven Nights Alone is a more recent alias, and outside of 1 track released on a compilation, this marks the new alias’ debut release. There is an undeniable Boards Of Canada influence here, but this is a unique and sophisticated take on BOC’s woozy and melancholy electronica. Both “Soft Where” (a menacing, futuristic instrumental hip hop killer) and “Walkman” (like a BoC “Campfire Headphase” outtake but on an optimistic tip) are taken from Seven Nights Alone’s debut 2LP vinyl full-length “Another Place”, to be released on Suction Records in 2023, alongside a 3rd track that’s exclusive to this split 12”.



Vinyl is limited to 200 copies, and comes with a Bandcamp download card.

We've always done things our own way and without any outside pressure,” says Paul Isherwood of The Soundcarriers. “Making music like this keeps things fresh, you always lose something and gain something as you go along but I think of it as just another chapter.”

There have been many chapters in the life of the band to date and each one is defined by the singular approach and style of the group. Since forming in 2007 the band - comprised of Isherwood, Adam Cann, Dorian Conway and Leonore Wheatley - have released three albums that position them as a distinct and unique force in British music. Eschewing fads and trends that come and go, they have instead focused on honing their own sonic world that glides between woozy psychedelia, immersive grooves, subtle pop and rich, enveloping soundscapes. They’ve consistently moved at their own pace and on their own terms and on their fourth album, Wilds, they return after seven years since their last. “The sessions started in a cottage in the wilds so there's a literal meaning,” Isherwood says of the title. “But figuratively we've pretty much been in the wild for the last few years as far as a lot of people are concerned.”

The recording was staggered over a few different locations, from cottages to primary schools, before finishing in an art gallery. “The beauty of recording in non-studio studios is you have the time for the unexpected to happen,” says Isherwood. “Which is really what keeps you coming back for more.” As a result of the timeframe of the album, it’s one that has changed and grown a lot over the years. “The record has been through a lot of stages,” says Isherwood. “It's almost been circular. We started off wanting to do an album of more shorter, concise tracks and then sort of sidestepped into some more spacey ambient ideas so in a way the album is kind of a synthesis of the two phases, overall carrying on with many of the themes and influences of the first three but with a more focused approach.”

The opening ‘Waves’ leaps out the gate with an infectious hook kissed by a touch of French pop before leaping into a devilishly catchy chorus and into a mini prog-like flute breakdown. It sets the tone for an album that is rich in adventure and unpredictability that manages to balance experimentation with accessibility. ‘At The Time’ is almost unrelenting in its grinding charge, managing to create a groove that cracks and pulses at the same time, ‘Wilds’ is a gorgeously floating piece of music that skips along with strutting bass as Wheatley’s vocals merge melody with texture magically. The closing ‘Happens Too Soon gently stirs to life with an almost pastoral folk air to it, as it slowly builds into swirling psych pop rich in texture before reaching a rousing crescendo. “I feel this album sums up a lot of our influences,” says Isherwood. “There’s a strong folk influence in the sense of the actual songwriting but musically we wanted to create songs that were like those rare oddities you find on a bizarre charity shop record. A collection of "one offs" capturing a moment rather than trying to make a hit song.”

This sense of it being an album of unique songs is clearly apparent throughout but it also maintains a natural flow and cohesion. This is something that stems from the band’s approach to songwriting for the record. “A lot of the tracks started with a feel or groove,” says Isherwood. “Then building it into a more concise arranged piece. We were conscious that we didn't want the recording to sound too over-polished so although a lot of the tracks were quite painstaking in how they evolved we wanted the actual recording to be quite raw and not be reliant on cutting things up or overly editing things. We wanted it to sound natural rather than perfect.”

The Magic Mixture were a London based , psychedelic band comprising Terry Thomas (guitar/vocals), Melvyn Hacker (bass), Jack Collins (drums) and Stan Curtis (organ) .

The 60’s were productive years, though if one explores these years, you’ll find that most of the bands that rose during those heady days had some real talent, some sincere visions, and a burning desire to shape a bit of the music scene with their sonic atmospheres.

The magic found within these highly prized and rare grooves shows they did pulsate with the moment, This Is The Magic Mixture, should certainly be considered an essential part of the garage psych movement that flowered during 1968.

A cold wind blows while a disembodied drum marches in distance, diving slowly into an orchestra warm-up that ends with a bang: Marmo Music welcomes back Massimo Pegoraro, aka Modus, this time with a special tape release that carries genuinely shaped musical fantasies by the enigmatic electronic music composer and DJ from Genova. Each tune brings a new shade of his polychrome musical universe. He wrote a library music leaning ode to Moondog, recalls forgotten WW1 battles with longing choirs’ chanting along a minimal droning dream house Cello tone, and drops a melancholic fairytale that pits footage of kids laughing at a street market against Fellini-Score spinet melodies. Three of 14 mesmerizing, profoundly written pieces of music, that tell multi-layered contes with Synth reverberations, jazz ambiances, experimental Brit pop sonics, and a sundry range of field recordings. Together they build an enthralling story arc, that displays the open-minded spheres of the broad musical cosmos of Modus. To open the doors to his universe extensive, he additionally wrote some author’s notes for each single composition, that evoke vibrant images on his inspirations and their sounding outcome. Check the spell below while listening to intensely produced explorer music, that brings you obscure ideas from afar who express all the many subtle spirits of Modus.

Linda Fredriksson (they/them) shares their debut solo album "Juniper" on We Jazz Records, 29 Oct 2021. Linda (of Mopo and Superposition) has been working on the compositions heard on the album for several years, composing them mostly on guitar, keys and by singing. Only later have they been arranged for the band heard on the album, including Fredriksson on saxes and various instruments, Tuomo Prättälä (of ilmiliekki Quartet) on rhodes, moog and piano, Minna Koivisto on modular synth, moog and OP, Olavi Louhivuori (of Superposition) on drums, and Mikael Saastamoinen (of OK:KO and Superposition) on bass, plus featuring the Swedish artist Matti Bye on piano.

At heart, "Juniper" is a "singer-songwriter album", performed by an instrumental jazz band. The end result is unique, personal, and as Linda themself puts it "quiet and introspective". The first single from the album is "Neon Light and the sky was trans", "a song from the shining streets – the beginning of something new", featuring field recordings of rain falling down behind the window of Linda's Helsinki working space.

It's a fitting introduction to an album full on wonders and carefully crafted secrets ready to be discovered. "Juniper" is a world unto itself, and Fredriksson describes the process as one of isolation and of learning slowly to do new things. After the demo stage, the songs were taken to the full band, but what's on the record often stays true to the minimal nature of the early demos. Linda credits their co-producer Minna Koivisto as a key ally in the process of maintaining the demo sessions' fragile beauty on the actual finished record.

With regards to instrumentation, those who have heard Linda Fredriksson in Mopo and Superposition are likely to be surprised by their credit listing including not only alto and baritone saxophones, plus bass clarinet, but also guitar, Rhythmic8 synths, ambience recordings and drum programming. Linda describes the way of finding new sounds through their beloved old guitar as follows: "It's an old acoustic guitar that has been hit by a car and is literally full of holes, but that makes the sound just perfect for this album and you can hear the instrument on 'Pinetree song' and 'Lempilauluni' (Finnish for 'My Loved Song')."

In fact, Linda began their music-making with guitar and vocals, and the debut of the hole-filled vintage acoustic guitar makes perfect sense here, while also describing the album's immediate sound perhaps better than any other individual instrument used. The influence list for the album name checks the likes of Feist, Neil Young, Susanne Sundfør, Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Eric Dolphy and Fever Ray, yet the number one inspiration for Fredriksson prior to making the album was "Carrie and Lowell", the 2017 album by Sufjan Stevens. Different as the albums are in terms of instrumentation and general scope, it's fascinating to draw parallels between them by listening to the quietness and immediacy of the music. "Nana – Tepalle" also relates to the world of "Carrie and Lowell" in being a dedication to a lost family member, Linda's grandmother (she is featured in the digital single artwork).

Throughout the album, Linda plays their saxophones in a way that is serving music first and foremost. The musician's ego, so often at the forefront in jazz, takes a backseat, and the songs themselves remain. Linda thinks as a composer, utilising their instrument where and how necessary, not presenting "chops". "It's sometimes hard to play simple," they say, "but I tried to follow my instinct about what the songs need. The mood rules here, any solos or improvisations happen around that at all times."

"Juniper" can still be heard as a jazz album, but perhaps one reminding that the word doesn't need to mean any one thing in particular. At its best, jazz music is highly personal and "of the moment", both true on "Juniper". The album has been made in two different studios, three homes, two summer cottages and four working spaces. It was recorded with professional studio equipment but also with an iPhone and on a basic built-in laptop speaker. With that, "Juniper" stands as a remarkable musical diary of a creative musician and composer during the early 2020's.

Somewhere between a fever dream and dancefloor. Between the sinister rhythms of the depths and gasping for breath barely above the surface. Stilness, covered with waves of dub and slowly emerging, yet full-fledged harmonies. Mazewski's sophomore record on Warsaw's Brutaż is about something profoundly human and oh how that feature mutates! This EP is dedicated to all the people struggling with addictions and those who help them to see their inner light.

Mastered and cut by Tim Xavier at Manmade Mastering

Design and cover by Aleksandra Grünholz (Studio Chaotyczne)

Good things come to those who wait. The album 'The Children of Scorpio' by Project Gemini aka Paul Osborne is a result of his steeped 30-year musical journey that’s seen him dig deep, study his record collection and re-emerge to fine-tune his craft.

A cinematic musical journey that plays out like a long-lost soundtrack (think cult B-movies of the 60s and 70s); 'The Children of Scorpio’ was formed from Paul's love of a myriad of genres; from European library music, acid folk, psych-funk, vintage soundtracks and the contemporary breaks scene. The album draws on iconic classics such as the masterful cinematic funk of Lalo Schifrin's 'Dirty Harry', Ennio Morricone's 'Vergogna Schifosi’ and Luis Bacalov’s 'The Summertime Killer’, to name but a few. You can also hear the folk sounds of Mark Fry's iconic 'Dreaming With Alice', the Britsh folk-jazz of The Pentangle and the David Axelrod-produced 'Release Of An Oath' by The Electric Prunes, woven into the cultural tapestry of this gem. The influence of these vintage productions of the 60s and 70s is evident; however, it could be argued that there’s also echoes of the funkier psychedelic moments of bands such as The Stones Roses and The Charlatans, alongside contemporaries such as The Heliocentrics and Little Barrie, thus giving the album a broader crossover potential beyond the world of crate digging and vintage soundtracks.

A bass player and musician since the age of 16, the arrival of his first child in 2010 saw Paul move away from live performance and retreat to his home studio, recording a wealth of music that was destined to never be heard. One of the first tunes to be made was a demo entitled ‘The Children Of Scorpio’, inspired by his long-time obsession with Lalo Schifrin’s soundtrack to violent Clint Eastwood cop classic 'Dirty Harry'. Recorded for fun, the track was fated to sit in the archives untouched. However, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, connections to a wealth of inspirational musicians and labels would re-ignite Paul's musical fire and give him the impetus to develop his slept-on ideas into something more concrete. Firstly resulting in releasing two limited 7'' records on Delights Records and now the long-player for Mr Bongo.

Assisting in the recording of the record were several close friends that have helped spark Paul's musical creativity along the way, including well-renowned guitarist and Little Barrie frontman Barrie Cadogan (who contributes killer six-string guitar to four tracks), Delights Records head-honcho Markey Funk (who adds spooked out keyboards to ‘Path Through The Forest’), Kid Victrola, the chief songwriter and guitarist with French psych girl group Gloria who added wild 12-string to ‘Scorpio’s Garden’, Haifa-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Shuzin who brings the heat behind the drum kit, and Paul Isherwood, co-founder of Nottingham’s The Soundcarriers, who mixed the album on his wealth of vintage gear.

We are delighted to be releasing this slowly-brewed timeless classic that manages to achieve that rare feat of keeping one foot firmly in the past whilst still sounding totally contemporary.

The previously unrecorded Drone Mass was described by its composer, the late Jóhann Jóhannsson, as “a contemporary oratorio”. Written for voices, string quartet and electronics, it was commissioned and premiered by the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, aka ACME, who toured and recorded with Jóhannsson for almost ten years. Now they have made the world premiere recording of this richly atmospheric work, in collaboration with Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble Theatre of Voices, conducted by Paul Hillier, also a multiple Grammy Award-winner. The members of both ACME and Theatre of Voices worked closely with the composer many times, both in the studio and in multiple live performances and tours, before his untimely death. Drone Mass is an extraordinary, mysterious accomplishment which at times bears comparison with the meditative minimalism of composers such as Arvo Pärt or Henryk Górecki. Beginning with strings and voices, but slowly integrating Joìhannsson’s electronic techniques into its landscape, the work represents what the Icelandic composer called “a distillation of a lot of influences and obsessions”.

ltd edition box set, 4xlp + poster & dl card. rewriting the history of music, pere ubu continue to confound convention and shift personnel. the next box set in fire records’ reissue series, ‘nuke the whales’ houses 4 lps originally released between 2006 and 2014 – ‘why i luv women’, ‘carnival of souls’, ‘lady of shanghai’ and ‘long live pere ubu!’. ‘nuke the whales,’ is a nod of respect to a couple in cleveland who would daub such messages over the big news stations’ advertising boards. “very few bands display such dedication to constant self-reinvention as pere ubu” the quietus // all four albums have been remixed and remastered by original pere ubu member david thomas. ‘why i luv women’, originally released on glitterhouse in 2006, gains its first vinyl release. "spews 11 tunes of arcane lyrics and dense music” shrieked the cleveland gazaette. it’s joined by ‘long live pere ubu’ a soundtrack to a musical adaptation of the play. “skronking, squalling rhythms and melodic snippets undulating round a pulsating soundscape." record collector // and ‘lady from shanghai’, their fire debut for fire in 2013. originally released on the 35th anniversary of the group's debut, ‘the modern dance’, a latter day re-evaluation of the unprompted dance genre. and its follow up ‘carnival of souls’, a haunting “underscore’ to a tale of alienation, it “combines metallic percussion, spare guitars and david thomas' muttered vocals into something rustic and rickety, yet threatening at a moment's notice.”

Tindersticks neues Album "PAST IMPERFECT The Best of Tindersticks '92-'21'" erscheint am 25. März 2022 über City Slang. Die Band feiert ihr dreißigjähriges Bestehen und präsentiert auf dem Album gesammelte Werke aus ihrer umfassenden Geschichte. Außerdem wird die Band in diesem Frühjahr auf eine ausgedehnte Europatournee gehen, mit unter anderem Terminen in Berlin, München und Hamburg.

"Both Sides of the Blade", ist der einzige bisher unveröffentlichte Song auf "Past Imperfect" und ist ein zärtliches Stück, das für Claire Denis' kommenden Film "Avec amour et acharnament" mit Juliette Binoche in der Hauptrolle geschrieben wurde und am 12. Februar 2022 bei den Berliner Filmfestspielen Premiere feiert.

Als Meister des intimen und ausladenden Stimmungsgesangs haben die Tindersticks über drei Jahrzehnte hinweg ihre eigenen Wege beschritten und haben bei ihren düsteren und weitreichenden Erkundungen des Herzens stets auf Trends verzichtet. "PAST IMPERFECT The Best of Tindersticks '92-'21" zeichnet die 30-jährige Reise der Band in einer unvergleichlichen Chronologie mit 20 Titeln nach. “Each step a story", wie Tindersticks-Frontmann Stuart Staples bei "How He Entered" sagt. Und jeder Song eine neue Wendung in dieser Geschichte

'Dwell Time' focuses on the moments in between. Expanding on Satie's Furniture Music, which explores the role of music as a backdrop, Dwell Time explores the moments in between active and passive listening. A sound that maintains a unique balance of properties can start as an active relationship that slowly dissolves into the background and accompanies a listener over its course. The Dwell Time signal remains completely analog, utilizing homemade tape samples and hardware synthesizers to encourage the listener to move between the different states of listening. Produced by Rafael Anton Irisarri and Mastered by Taylor Deupree.

Night Songs is the latest record from awakened souls, the Los Angeles based husband and wife duo- James and Cynthia Bernard (marine eyes). In the Spring of 2021, they found a good night's rest was more important than ever to help them through pandemic days of schooling kids from home and balancing work and life. After going on an evening walk, James and Cynthia would write in their bedroom studio and test the evening's songs out for sleep. Even prior to being together, they both loved searching for just the right album to calm their minds at the end of the day. Night Songs is their combined version of a sleepy evening record, exploring slowly evolving loop-based ambient primarily using bass guitar and vocal textures. The tracks which ultimately made it on the album helped them relax enough to go to a place where thoughts fade.

Night Songs is the latest record from awakened souls, the Los Angeles based husband and wife duo- James and Cynthia Bernard (marine eyes). In the Spring of 2021, they found a good night's rest was more important than ever to help them through pandemic days of schooling kids from home and balancing work and life. After going on an evening walk, James and Cynthia would write in their bedroom studio and test the evening's songs out for sleep. Even prior to being together, they both loved searching for just the right album to calm their minds at the end of the day. Night Songs is their combined version of a sleepy evening record, exploring slowly evolving loop-based ambient primarily using bass guitar and vocal textures. The tracks which ultimately made it on the album helped them relax enough to go to a place where thoughts fade.

This is Lost Soul Enterprises big 15th release on wax, a tidy compilation of off-kilter dance floor cuts and misfit synthpunk anthems.

Side A commences with the gothic, neon-soaked Miami bass of ALONZO's "Cruising with Pap," featuring sinister verses delivered by a shadowy syrupsipping secret guest vocalist. Up next is bucking bronco NICK KLEIN's slow-mo industrial headbanger "Posture Test. The sonic equivalent of a sweat-soaked concrete floor, it lurches along at its own mechanical pace amid the metallic hiss and howl. Lastly, wild synth lines and ethereal dubbed-out samples dart in and out over a tough, punchy rhythmic foundation in NAEEM's "TLX," an android's sci-fi electro vision gone haywire.

On the B side, HEIDI SABERTOOTH's "Was It You" launches us deep into chugging acidic territory, combining enigmatic spoken vocals and a psychedelic, slowly evolving SH-101 line over a persuasive groove. Like a slap in the face after that comes raucous synth-punk powerhouse SSPS with "Paradise Lozt," raw as fuck, chanting a litany of dystopian tales atop pumping drums and a wash of demented organ-like synth stabs. Finally we close with the short but powerful "New Vape City" by the nomadic DOUCE ANGOISSE - an absolute earworm, a doleful coldwave ballad whose lush production plays perfect counterpoint to the icy, deadpan sentiments within.

When we first heard from recent Kompakt signing Emma Kollmorgen, with 2021’s “You Are The”, she was hymning the complexity of romance: “Love is scary as fuck!”, she said. On her debut EP, “1243”, she’s built on that intensity and offered up a five-track suite of night-vision electronic pop, bristling with a stealthy sensuality. It’s a cinematic collection, building from the brooding “Escape”, through the drifting, tactile pulses of “Taciturn”, the gritty, bustling noises that run underneath the smoke-signal torch-song of “All The Wild Animals”, and the closing, tear-stained melancholy of “Home”. “You Are The” reappears here as well, settling in perfectly amongst new friends.

It’s a completely assured first EP from an artist who’s been slowly and steadily building her own sonic world. From her early days, when she busied herself by learning guitar and joining bands, Kollmorgen always had a vision of doing something “more independent”, to allow her to find her own sound and write her own songs. A brief creative alliance with the Berlin DJ duo Dole & Kom led to some recordings and live performances. All the while, Kollmorgen was carefully shaping her production and sound designing skills with Ableton Live, and exploring distinctive musical terrain in collaboration with co-producer and multi-instrumentalist Paul Seidel (The Ocean Collective, Fern, Nightmarer). She joined the Kompakt family after a recommendation by Patrice Baumel, who also remixed her debut single with typical flair.

On “1243”, though, Kollmorgen fully inhabits her songs, gifting each of them with a sweet, subtle sway, her vocal and lyrical openheartedness balancing the bluer hues of her production. Each song is confident and poised, Kollmorgen relying on cross-thatched patterns of texture as a web to support her melodies: “I like patterns,” she says, “they give me something to hold onto, something stable in an unstable world.” The songs feel as though they’re grappling with moments of revelation and experience in Kollmorgen’s world, which makes sense, given her approach to music: “I never had a diary,” she reflects, “so writing songs is my way of expressing and dealing with life.” On 1243, you’ll catch some glimpses of life lived, made sonorous through songs beautifully sung.

Als wir das erste Mal von Emma Kollmorgen hörten, nachdem sie sich KOMPAKT angeschlossen hatte, besang sie mit "You Are The" (2021) die Komplexität von Romantik: "Liebe ist verdammt beängstigend!". Auf ihrer Debüt-EP "1243" baut sie auf dieser Intensität auf und präsentiert uns eine fünf Tracks umfassende Suite von elektronischem Pop mit ausgeprägtem Nachtsicht-Faktor, die vor verborgener Sinnlichkeit nur so strotzt. Ein geradezu cineastischer Spannungsbogen, der sich vom grüblerischen "Escape" über die treibenden, taktilen Impulse von "Taciturn", die düsteren, umtriebigen Geräusche, die den Rauchzeichen sendenden torch song "All The Wild Animals" untermalen, und die abschließende, tränenreiche Melancholie von "Home" aufbaut. Auch "You Are The" taucht hier wieder auf und fügt sich perfekt in die neue Gesellschaft ein.

Eine überzeugende erste EP von einer Künstlerin, die sich langsam und stetig ihre eigene Klangwelt aufgebaut hat. Seit ihren Anfängen, als sie Gitarre lernte und in Bands spielte, hatte Kollmorgen immer die Vision, etwas "Unabhängiges" zu machen, um ihren eigenen Sound zu finden und ihre eigenen Songs zu schreiben. Eine kurze kreative Allianz mit dem Berliner DJ-Duo Dole & Kom führte zu einigen Aufnahmen und Live-Auftritten. Währenddessen feilte Kollmorgen an ihren Produktions- und Sounddesign-Skills und erkundete gemeinsam mit dem Co-Produzenten und Multi-Instrumentalisten Paul Seidel (The Ocean Collective, Fern, Nightmarer) ihr eigenes musikalisches Terrain. Zur KOMPAKT Label-Familie kam sie auf Empfehlung von Patrice Baumel, der auch ihre Debütsingle remixte.

Auf "1243" lebt Kollmorgen ihre Songs voll und ganz aus und verleiht jedem von ihnen einen süßen, subtilen Twist, der ihre stimmliche und textliche Offenheit mit den melancholischen Tönen der Musik in Balance hält. Voller Selbstbewusstsein und Ausgeglichenheit verlässt sie sich auf durcheinander laufende Texturen und Pattern, die ihre Melodik unterstützen: "Ich mag Pattern", sagt sie, "sie geben mir etwas, woran ich mich festhalten kann, etwas Stabiles in einer instabilen Welt."

Die Songs fühlen sich an, als würden sie sich mit realen Momenten der Offenbarung und mit Erfahrungen aus Kollmorgens Lebenswelt auseinandersetzen, was angesichts ihrer Herangehensweise an Musik durchaus Sinn ergibt: "Ich hatte nie ein Tagebuch", erzählt sie, "also ist das Schreiben von Songs meine Art, mich auszudrücken und mit dem Leben umzugehen." Auf "1243" gibt sie uns einige Einblicke in dieses gelebte Leben, das durch wunderschön gesungene Lieder zum Klingen gebracht wird.

The instrumental Bruges based trio VENTILATEUR released a promising self-titled EP in 2019. Slowly, plans were forged to record a first full album. The corona pandemic caused those plans to be pushed back, but it provided more time and focus for the music to grow. In April 2021, they finally "went into the studio" to record their debut album. The choice was made not to crawl into a classical studio, but to loft for a week in a country house in a small town in Zeeuws Vlaanderen: Hoofdplaat. It became the title of their first full album.
For this record the band went in search of the most unadulterated and pure form of themselves. The result is minimalistic and stylized compositions that radiate inner peace. Simple but catchy guitar lines, refined bass parts and purified drum grooves are the main ingredients of this cinematic and melancholic album.
Their infectious blend of jazz, post-rock and instrumental soul produces a unique and compelling sound reminiscent of groups like Khruangbin and closer to home Dans Dans.
The album is recorded and produced by Jeff Claeys, who has produced albums by Millionaire, The Van Jets, Isolde Lasoen and others, and who will also produce the new record by Zwangere Guy.

Back on vinyl for the first time in 5 years on translucent orange with green splatter. Download code included. Beyond the 4th Door, delivered an album not unlike Eternal Tapestry's epic live shows. Containing stretches of melodic guitar improvisations, dark brooding songs slowly build and expand to allow in layers of light. The album was created by recording more that two hours of material in their home studio, mostly live, and hand picking the elements that became these 5 tracks. There is a free and open nature to their structure creating a spacious environment for the listener to explore. Harkening back to the early 70's experimental rock that inspired them, such as Popol Vuh, Cluster and Träd Gräs och Stenar, Beyond the 4th Door is an album meant to be listened to in its entirety. Available on limited edition vinyl again, after the original 2011 release and 2016 re-press sold out within months of their respective releases. Eternal Tapestry are in every way musicians of the now. Extremely active in the new underground of cassettes and CD-Rs, releasing limited edition carefully designed albums on the premier purveyors of the counterculture.

Zach Condon, der Kopf hinter Beirut, veröffentlicht mit Artifacts eine Doppel-LP mit Musik, die die Entwicklung von Beirut nachzeichnet - von den ersten Versuchen des 14-jährigen Condon, die Musik, die er in seinem Kopf hörte, zum Leben zu erwecken, bis hin zu dem voll entwickelten Beirut, das wir heute kennen. Artifacts begann ganz bescheiden mit der Zusammenstellung einiger früher Beirut-EPs für eine richtige physische Veröffentlichung. Wie Condon jedoch in den exzellenten Liner Notes des Albums erklärt, verwandelte das Wiedersehen mit alten Aufnahmen durch neue Ohren ein einfaches Re-Issue-Projekt in etwas viel Expansiveres. "Als die Entscheidung fiel, diese Sammlung neu zu veröffentlichen, habe ich mich dabei ertappt, wie ich meine Festplatten durchwühlte, um etwas Zusätzliches zu finden, das ich der Compilation hinzufügen konnte. Was mit ein paar zusätzlichen, unveröffentlichten Tracks aus meinen prägenden Jahren begann, wuchs schnell zu einer ganzen Reihe zusätzlicher Musik aus meiner Vergangenheit heran, und zu einem größeren Projekt, bei dem ich alles, was ich fand, remixte und remasterte." ENG Retrospective of rarities and b-sides spanning the entirety of Beirut's catalog. 17 of the 26 songs on Artifacts have not been previously released.Artifacts began humbly as a means of compiling a few early Beirut EPs for a proper physical release. However, as Zach Condon explains in album's excellent liner notes, reconnecting with old recordings through fresh ears turned a simple re-issue project into something much more expansive.

“I like it when music builds itself up in an organic fashion,” says Duncan Marquiss. “When it just seems to emerge and almost writes itself.”
This natural, intuitive and free flowing approach is evident all across the debut solo album from the multi-disciplinary artist. From tender yet sweeping acoustic moments to experimental electronic guitar manipulations, the album feels like a ceaselessly sprawling exploration of texture and tone. Despite veering into what sounds like electronic ambient soundscapes, the entire album is rooted in the guitars. “I enjoy trying to stretch the guitar as an instrument,” says Marquiss. “That reflects my playing style, always trying to make the guitar sound different, or create non-guitar like sounds.”
Marrying earthy, textural acoustic instrumentals that feel rooted in open landscapes, with those that capture the pulse and hum of a populated metropolis (Marquiss resides in Glasgow). The album was recorded in Aberdeenshire in Marquiss’ parents' garage. “Apart from the wind and the swallows nesting in the eaves there’s not many distractions around,” he says. This is a solo record that goes right to the very essence of Marquiss as an artist. The expansive yet intimate sounds he’s created here stem from the same peaceful isolation of where it all began.
There’s a cosmic touch tracing back to 1970s Germany (Michael Rother solo, Cluster, Harmonia, Popul Vuh soundtracks) that infiltrates much of the album, alongside some of its more pastoral textures, with Marquiss citing a wide range of listening habits. These include Bruce Langhorne's The Hired Hand, Jim O Rouke's Bad Timing, Arthur Russell and Laurie Spiegel.
Despite containing no lyrics, the album feels rooted in narrative and development. As the album unfolds the acoustic guitar becomes more prominent over the electric, almost as if nature is slowly taking back and growing over abandoned human-made structures. A record that, despite being experimental in tone and essence, retains a very human and natural touch throughout.

As a confluence of ideas and methods, WILD ROCKET endeavour to interpret the subtle signals of the universe - the interplanetary vibrations - and present them as brash manifestations of sound. Scientists and Shaman alike have endeavoured to interpret the universal whispers, to elucidate meaning from the measurable and the sensible. It is known that to measure and interpret is to alter and colour those signals and this is what drives the development of WILD ROCKET's sound and interpretation.
FORMLESS ABYSS showcases the band's unflinching pummelling style, drifting from repetitive blows to unhinged swirls of din yet always remaining innately infectious and perhaps surprisingly danceable. The record is presented as a continuous piece in three parts.
The title track A FORMLESS ABYSS appears here for the first time in recorded form – a behemoth of a tune which builds around a drone, joined by dual drums and minimal bass locked into a repetitive groove. A groove that is slowly expanded via multiple guitars and synthesis. Vocals eventually join at just the right moment imploring the listener to “leave your criticisms down” and realise “we're all equal now” in the formless abyss or the place between worlds where our earthly preoccupation with human differences are meaningless. We're all in it together, whether we realise it or not.
The second track INTERPLANETARY VIBRATIONS may seem familiar to some in a simpler form. The expanded line up and extended development of the core theme brings a new interpretation and experience that is more than worthwhile. The track's vocals juxtapose the hybrid Germanic language of English with the ancient native Irish language of Gaeilge. Both used to promote meaning and interpretation of the interplanetary vibrations felt by all. The track features large dynamic shifts and changes of pace as the message that “it's time to leave” propagated by the Earth itself becomes more frantic and more desperate. The track culminates in a wash of smashed gongs and distorted guitars, leaving the listener to interpret the message for themselves. Should we leave, to protect ourselves or the Earth itself?
The final track FUTURE ECHOES is a doom/kraut juggernaut coming in at just under twenty minutes. Only one question is asked and none answered, are we doomed to repeat the mistakes of previous civilisations over and over, or can we find the cracks of light that echo through and show us a new way forward? We're left in a swirling formless abyss to consider who we are and where we're headed. Will we ever reach the cosmic truth? Or will we be continuously mocked by the cosmic trout?
WILD ROCKET have proven themselves on the live circuit, playing with such visionaries as Ufomammut, Slomatics, Earth, Boris, The Cosmic Dead and old school rock legends Girlschool. One of the heaviest bands to emerge from the melting pot of talent in the Irish music scene, WILD ROCKET's reputation precedes them wherever they travel and audiences and venues alike are left to piece themselves together in the discombobulation.

The new record by Eric Chenaux is his most immaculate and pristine. Say Laura perfectly incarnates the counter-intuitive interplay of instrument and voice that Chenaux has been revealing and revelling in throughout the past decade: his gently unhinged juxtaposition of resplendently smooth, seductively assured singing and puckish, frazzled, thoroughly destabilized guitar could come from no other musician. The five wandering, wondering ballads on Say Laura bring Chenaux's semi-improvised but keenly intentional songwriting to its fullest, clearest, warmest and coolest articulation; uncompromising and generous, hyper-specific and loose, spartan and luxurious, elemental and ornate. Say Laura might as well be a jazz record_certainly as much as his previously acclaimed albums Slowly Paradise and Skullsplitter tread that genre-adjacent territory_though it also features moments and melodies that come as close to pop flirtation as Chenaux is likely to get. But above all, Say Laura breathes like no other Chenaux album. Voice and guitar are inscribed with elemental clarity in a wondrously open, symbiotic sonic space. His pure tenor croon glides through a crisp, reverberant ether while his fried guitar careens dizzily and giddily, every gesture and timbre captured in unflinching detail by engineer Cyril Harrison. Chenaux has also made his most minimal, controlled, regulated and rhythmic record.

Breaking News! DJs Pareja and Matias Aguayo have joined to form the dance project MDM Factory!

Modern transcendental Techno music for those who know, and those who want to learn!

In a turmoil of events nightlife would change forever, and confined to their respective places - A flat in Buenos Aires and a house in the jungle Diego Irasusta, Mariano Caloso and Matias Aguayo joined forces to create new communication on distance via music.

Taking all their dance floor knowledge and dreaming of sound systems and togetherness in a better future, DJs Pareja & Aguayo put their minds, bodies and souls to work on this stunning EP that will please the forward thinking underground freaks as well as the big room techno pros.

Let’s dive into this divine mess of glorious dance floor jams from the future...

A1. Curvas Peligrosas

With the first track it becomes clear what this is all about: Wobbly metamorphous sounds from outer space jamming with stomping and bass driven techno beats of tomorrow, a new kind of rave, hypnotic and seductive, utterly strange but wonderfully catchy and contagious in a good sense, harsh shuffled hiatus and alternating kick drums, a relentless bassline and sophisticated electronic sounds in a a permanent evolution resembling and invoking altered states of consciousness.


A2. Love Boat

This new rave anthem seems like a classic you haven’t heard about. Muscle memories from dancefloor days trigger your body as you listen on your headphones, awaiting the chance to play it out soon, hopefully, as the dance floors slowly reopen. Alternating between parts of kickdrum, clap and snare awesomeness, and the mangled rave signals that slowly morph into a more concrete melody reminiscent of ancient dreams of the future, this track has it all for the club kids of today.

B1. La Vida Loca
The title track is a tech banger that will please those who dig Kenny Larkin, Claude Young, The Surgeon, Dave Clark or any other star in the nocturnal sky of Techno Techno, as well as the lovers of DJs Pareja’s classic Cómeme Clubbangers, or the more Techno side of Mr. Aguayo. Definitely has the potential to become a huge hit if enough djs that don’t rely on algorithms get their hands on it


B2. Las Llaves

The closer is hyper modern tech funk at its best. Percussive greatness as you can find it on many Cómeme releases is triggered in a different way, “sabroso” rhythms that are played in the light and purposeful way of an elegant jazz drummer, pave the way for an always evolving psychedelic lead synth sound, that will be a useful tool for the dj who knows when to keep the groove, prolonging those magic times between the risings...

THE ELECTRONIC VISIONARIES RETURN WITH THEIR NEW STUDIO
ALBUM
.On their new album 'Raum', Tangerine Dream develop the concept of its
precursor EP (Probe 6—8) further
Composed & produced with full access to Edgar Froese's Cubase arrangements
(& Otari Tape Archive with recordings from 1977-2013), Thorsten Quaeschning,
Hoshiko Yamane & Paul Frick deliver late-night real time compositions combined
with classic studio productions, sequencer driven haunting soundscapes
alternate with anthemic warm synthesizers.
Composed in a time of social distancing & cancelled shows, the tracks cannot
exactly be recreated (or will at least need significant re-instrumentation for a live
performance). With the 17-minute 'In 256 Zeichen', they lay the fundament of this
record. 'Continuum', with its repetitive sequence & broken beat shows glimpses of
acid sounds & increasing choral atmospheres. 'You Are Always On Time' is built
on PPG wavetable sounds & eerie field recordings. The title track 'Raum' makes a
nod towards the early live studio performances like 'Zeit' & 'Phaedra' - the melody
accompanied by a chorus- like Roland Jupiter 8 part. An ambient rave Moog
Minitaur sequence highlights the final peak, till the violin slowly transports the
listener out. A heavy Moog bass marks the beginning & the end of this 15-minute
piece.
'Raum' is the band's second studio album after the passing of the founder Edgar
Froese in 2015. With deep respect for the sound of the previous five decades, this
record continues in the ever-evolving pathway of Tangerine Dream.
The band will be supporting the release of 'Raum' with live shows in 2022, starting
with an extensive headline tour of the UK in March. 'Raum' will be released as a 7
track CD presented in a digipak with a 12-page booklet

Bev Lee Harling returns with her first solo recording in almost a decade. She won the hearts and musical minds of DJs across the board with her 2012 debut LP, Barefoot In Your Kitchen, which BBC 6Music's Gilles Peterson made his Album of the Week. Now the gifted singer, violinist and composer returns with twelve beautiful pieces of music that tell a very personal story of the years since.

Having swapped the busy streets of North London for the calmer shores of Hastings in Sussex to bring up her young family, it's fair to say that Bev's priorities might have changed somewhat over the past few years, but the music was never far away. Her new environment, and musical family (including multi-talented partner and album co-producer Frank Moon) added plenty of fresh inspiration to her recordings, and we're very excited to share her new album, entitled Little Anchor, with you this Autumn.

The album is in some senses a travelogue, a 9 year journey of a creative womannavigating the landscape of parenting. Each song is a snapshot taken at a differentlocation in time, in a world where finding balance between creative freedom and motherhood is still a struggle, from the uplifting and euphoric Beautiful Life, to the heavy and harassed Only Got A Minute.

Between the unexpected joys of parenting, grappleswith mental health and feelings of inadequacy, and fighting for every second ofcreative time while slowly accepting a life very different to the one that existedbefore, this unedited family album emerged bursting with quirky childhoodmemories, dark musings and celebrations of musical passion and legacy.

Each song carries breakthrough personal moments in rebuilding strength as an artist, as a person, as a parent. Even down to a very emotional moment with Ray Davies of The Kinks, during a songwriting retreat, where album closer This Violin String, a deeply personal ode to her recently departed mum, was written…

"Everyone turned up writing on guitars and piano and I just had my battered old violin. I felt totally out of touch with my former confident musical self and had zero confidence in what I was doing after an intense period of car crash parenting. I wrote it, performed it on the same day and then sobbed my guts out in front of a bunch of total strangers (sorry Ray!). Something shifted for me in the act of being quite so vulnerable though and I found my mojo again in writing solo with my violin."

The personal nature of this record is self-evident, it bursts through every note and word in each song. We're very excited to be able to share such a special album,afresh foray into the always unpredictable, experimental and playful world of Bev Lee Harling.

Rosales follow-up their debut for the Archives label 'Still, Tomorrow' with 'Woven Songs'. Written between 2019 and 2020 (prior to their debut album) this collaboration between Ian Hawgood and Brad Deschamps is a joint release on Home Normal and Polar Seas Recordings, featuring stunning artwork by Laura Kay Keeling. This new long-form work was sourced from guitar and synth loops and processed by Space Echo, cassette and reel-to-reel for decayed textures. The result is music that develops carefully, only to slowly fragment in the whir of the analog machines, all culminating in the dynamic penultimate piece 'matter'. 'Woven Songs' is available on limited LP and digital.

'Dwell Time' focuses on the moments in between. Expanding on Satie's Furniture Music, which explores the role of music as a backdrop, Dwell Time explores the moments in between active and passive listening. A sound that maintains a unique balance of properties can start as an active relationship that slowly dissolves into the background and accompanies a listener over its course. The Dwell Time signal remains completely analog, utilizing homemade tape samples and hardware synthesizers to encourage the listener to move between the different states of listening. Produced by Rafael Anton Irisarri and Mastered by Taylor Deupree.

Midlake are a relatively small indie band, so the
level of ambition they display on ‘The Trials of Van
Occupanther’ is to be commended. From the
opening track, ‘Roscoe’, with its laconic lyrics and
slowly building chorus, they manage to recreate
perfectly the sound of 1980s Fleetwood Mac, a band
not known for thinking small.
 And though the rest of the album doesn’t quite reach
the heady heights of this opener, it’s not for a lack of
trying (particularly on ‘Head Home’). The remainder
of ‘The Trials of Van Occupanther’ is considerably
more downbeat, with distant flutes complementing
the vocal harmonies of songs like ‘Bandits’ and
‘Branches’.
 Where Midlake particularly excel, though, is when,
like Grandaddy before them, they draw their
inspiration from the classic rock that they seem to
love so much, adapting and modernising it. So in
addition to the anthemic ‘Roscoe’, they evoke the
Gram Parsons-era Byrds or even The Band on ‘Van
Occupanther’ and the road-ready ‘It Covers the
Hillsides’.
 ‘The Trials of Van Occupanther’ is an album that's
steeped in musical history yet possessing an identity
all its own.
 Released on 180g gold vinyl to celebrate a new
Midlake album for 2022 and also the 15th
anniversary of ‘The Trials of Van Occupanther’ last
year.
 Digital download code included.

Johnossi’s seventh album ’Mad Gone Wild’ is a pulse-pounding psychodrama and intimate portrait of a man slipping into insanity. For guitarist/vocalist John Engelbert and drummer Ossi Bonde, the making of the album involved tapping into their own interior lives while pushing into the furthest reaches of their imagination; “We wanted to explore the dangers of living in your head too much, and ask questions like: ‘Is there an exact point where you go from sane to insane? What is that point? And aren’t we all insane in one way or another?’”

JOHNOSSI HISTORY

Singer/guitarist John Engelbert and drummer Ossi Bonde formed Johnossi in their native Stockholm, Sweden, in 2004. After only three shows they landed their first record deal and with the release of their self titled debut album they instantly became one of the most influential contemporary acts in Sweden, winning a Swedish Grammy Award and a huge fanbase with their explosive live shows.

Johnossi have toured extensively through out their career mainly in Scandinavia / Europe but also in the US and Japan, both headlining and as support to other acts like The Hives, Green Day, Lykke Li and The Soundtrack of Our Lives.

Jessy Lanza has always made music that perfectly suits the mood - whether it's the heads-down trance of the dancefloor or that hazy, post-club bliss. It's no surprise for an artist that takes electronic music's most intoxicating sensibilities and effortlessly reimagines them as experimental pop and R&B. The Canadian singer, producer and DJ from Hamilton, Ontario, has trodden an inspiring path which led to 2013's boldly minimalist debut Pull My Hair Back, released on revered UK label Hyperdub. Gorgeously complex follow-ups Oh No - shortlisted for Canada's prestigious Polaris Prize - and 2020's All the Time crowned her as a singular talent in the left-of-pop sphere. It's with this genre-bending approach that Jessy Lanza presents her entry for the DJ-Kicks series - a sprawling, club-indebted odyssey that draws you in closer and closer with each listen. Recorded this summer, the mix is an incisive snapshot of her emotional landscape during the past 18 months. In 2020, with nothing but a van, a few personal belongings and her musical gear, Lanza and her partner relocated from New York City to the Bay Area to ride out the pandemic. A change of scenery, buoyed by the slower pace of their new home, gave her a fresh perspective during a worldwide screeching halt. Jessy Lanza's DJ-Kicks mix also arrives as a divine stroke of timing. As the world slowly starts to re-open, it's a portal into the ecstatic energy of the dancefloor; an emblem of genuine healing - both personal and communal - that transports listeners to a state of pure euphoria.

clear w/ black smoke vinyl

It would be easy to say that Molly Nilsson needs no introduction, but These Things Take Time is an introduction. Originally self-released in 2008 on a limited CDR run with hand-folded sleeve, Nilsson's debut album has slowly taken over the hearts of many. In 2014 this modern classic of autonomous, DIY pop and punk-as-you-like attitude is presented on vinyl for the first time in a beautiful edition featuring unreleased bonus tracks across two discs, an exclusive screen printed A2 poster and new sleeve notes from the artist.

Molly Nilsson's first recordings under her own name have grown in stature to occupy a prominent positioning in the global pop underground despite initially only being available on CDr. Though Nilsson's songwriting prowess and commandeering of other genres has grown since 2008, her unique voice is seen in raw form on These Things Take Time. Many of the themes she would develop later were inked first here: the romance of loneliness on The Lonely,' Whisky Sour,' Hey Moon!', the folly and intoxication of youth seen in Joyride,' Poisoned Candy' and dogged self-reliance as on The Diamond Song' or Wounds Itch When They Heal.' Also included here are unreleased recordings from the same period that were left off the original release, a further window into a turbulent, exciting time for an artist just discovering her power to touch and communicate with the listener.

Joseph Carvell returns to Karaoke Kalk with his sophomore album under the Pink Shabab moniker. »Never Stopped Loving You« was for the most part written between Spring and late Summer 2020 in his Camberwell home and like his 2019 debut »Ema by the Sea« recorded in the South of France together with Emmanuel Mario, better known as Astrobal. It’s a record informed by feelings of nostalgia, love, longing, romance and loss and, much like his previous album, displays Carvell's knack for making introversion sound extroverted. As a bassist, his approach to songwriting is both rhythmic and melodic, making the resulting music just as visceral as it is emotive. Much like the record’s title can be understood as both a lament or an expression of joyful dedication, the music on »Never Stopped Loving You« is profoundly ambiguous.

»I was lucky with the timing for this record,« says Carvell and at first that may sound counterintuitive: managing to play only one show in Zurich in early 2020, he had to cancel his planned European tour and go back to the United Kingdom, which soon went into lockdown. He made the best out of the situation, recording electric and upright bass for Nick Krgovich, Daniel O’Sullivan and Zooey’s new records while also working on tracks and demos by himself. »The world seemed to have stopped and I had more time to think about the past and find the best grooves, the suitable keyboard touches and the right words,« says Carvell. Everything came together slowly before he boarded a train to France with his keyboard: »The pace of life completely dropped and between takes Ema and I were going swimming and taking walks,« he says of the sessions.

»Never Stopped Loving You« is notably more electronic than its predecessor, but also full of the small melodic and harmonic details that made »Ema by the Sea« such an outstanding record. »I was listening to more 1990s dance and house music and 1980s pop and also a healthy amount of ambient music,« explains Carvell. These influences are clearly audible on songs like the Chicago House-esque beats of »Show Your Love« or »Why Did I Leave You that Morning«, the skittish rhythms on »Let Go« and the near-Balearic »San Junipero«. Especially the latter makes it clear that Carvell spent much time devoting himself to movies and TV shows, but also incorporated more piano sounds in his songs—he learnt the instrument by playing along to classic Beatles and Beach Boys songs.

Despite being more upbeat on a rhythmic level than before, Carvell’s use of texture and his peculiar voice add another note to the music. Even an anthemic song like »Run Away«, his first composition to follow a classic verse/chorus structure, is profoundly ambivalent, both overjoyed and deeply melancholic. By the same token however, even a torch song like »You Stepped Out of My Life« is enormously consoling. This, after all, has always been Carvell’s strength: creating music that will cheer you up when you’re down while also injecting a sense of futility into every moment of euphoria. It never shone more brightly than on »Never Stopped Loving You.«

"Laurel Hell" ist ein Soundtrack zur Transformation. Eine Landkarte für den Ort, an dem Verletzlichkeit und Widerstandsfähigkeit, Trauer und Freude, Fehler und Transzendenz in unserer Menschlichkeit Platz finden und als würdig angesehen werden können - um letztendlich anerkannt und geliebt zu werden. "I accept it all," verspricht MITSKI. "I forgive it all." Auf "Laurel Hell" festigt MITSKI ihren Ruf als Künstlerin, die die Kraft besitzt, unsere wildesten und zwiespältigsten Erfahrungen in ein heilendes Elixier zu verwandeln. "I wrote what I needed to hear. As I've always done." Nach der Veröffentlichung von "Be The Cowboy", einem der meistgelobten Alben des Jahres 2018, das von Outlets wie Pitchfork (u.a.) zum Album des Jahres gekürt wurde, stieg MITSKI vom Kultliebling zum Indie-Star auf. Mit spürbaren Folgen: Die Schinderei des Tourlebens und die Fallstricke die mit der erhöhten Sichtbarkeit einhergingen, beeinflussten ihre Musik ebenso wie ihren Geist, die sich in der ersten Single "Working For The Knife" niederschlägt. Ein Song, wie ein Prüfstein für das Gesamtgefühl von "Laurel Hell": "I start the day lying and end with the truth / That I'm dying for the knife." "Be The Cowboy" wurde von weiblicher Stärke und Trotz angetrieben, lebte jedoch von seinem Spiel mit Masken. Wie der Berglorbeer bzw. die "laurel hell", nach dem das neue Album benannt ist, kann die öffentliche Wahrnehmung, wie das berauschende Prisma des Internets, eine verlockende Fassade bieten, hinter der sich eine tödliche Falle verbirgt. Die sich immer enger zieht, je mehr man sich anstrengt. "I got to a point, where I just knew that if I kept going this way, I would numb myself to completion." Erschöpft von diesem verzerrten Spiegel und unserer Sucht nach falschen Binaritäten, begann MITSKI, Songs zu schreiben, die die Masken abstreifen und die komplexen und oft widersprüchlichen Realitäten dahinter offenbaren. MITSKI dazu: "I needed love songs about real relationships that are not power struggles to be won or lost. I needed songs that could help me forgive both others and myself. I make mistakes all the time. I don't want to put on a front where I'm a role model, but I'm also not a bad person. I needed to create this space mostly for myself where I sat in that gray area." Die daraus entstanden Songs verkörpern genau diesen Raum. Wie die zweite Single des Albums, "The Only Heartbreaker", die gemeinsam mit Dan Wilson geschrieben wurde und der erste Song dieser Art in ihrer Diskografie ist. "The Only Heartbreaker" verbindet treibenden 80er-Pop mit einem trügerisch einfachen Text, dessen aufrichtiger Refrain ins Ironische kippt, sobald dieser "the person always messing up in the relationship, the designated Bad Guy who gets the blame," beschreibt und sich zugleich fragt, ob "the reason you're always the one making mistakes is because you're the only one trying." MITSKI schrieb viele Songs für "Laurel Hell" während und teilweise vor 2018. Das Album wurde allerdings erst im Mai 2021 final abgemischt. Es ist die längste Zeitspanne, die MITSKI jemals für ein Album gebraucht hat und für die Musikerin inmitten einer radikal veränderten Welt endete. MITSKI nahm "Laurel Hell" mit ihrem langjährigen Produzenten Patrick Hyland in der Zeit der Isolation während der Pandemie auf, als einige der Songs "slowly took on new forms and meanings, like seed to flower." Das Album als Ganzes entwickelte sich "to be more uptempo and dance-y. I needed to create something that was also a pep talk" erklärt MITSKI. Die Spannung, die zwischen ihren raffinierten, aber wehmütigen Texten und dem sprudelnden Pop-Sound der 1980er Jahre entsteht, ist eine dringend benötigte Infusion in Zeiten wie diesen und das Werk einer reifen wie unwiderstehlichen Künstlerin, die auch zu fröhlich ansteckenden Dance-Beats immer noch etwas Profundes beizutragen hat.

"Laurel Hell" ist ein Soundtrack zur Transformation. Eine Landkarte für den Ort, an dem Verletzlichkeit und Widerstandsfähigkeit, Trauer und Freude, Fehler und Transzendenz in unserer Menschlichkeit Platz finden und als würdig angesehen werden können - um letztendlich anerkannt und geliebt zu werden. "I accept it all," verspricht MITSKI. "I forgive it all." Auf "Laurel Hell" festigt MITSKI ihren Ruf als Künstlerin, die die Kraft besitzt, unsere wildesten und zwiespältigsten Erfahrungen in ein heilendes Elixier zu verwandeln. "I wrote what I needed to hear. As I've always done." Nach der Veröffentlichung von "Be The Cowboy", einem der meistgelobten Alben des Jahres 2018, das von Outlets wie Pitchfork (u.a.) zum Album des Jahres gekürt wurde, stieg MITSKI vom Kultliebling zum Indie-Star auf. Mit spürbaren Folgen: Die Schinderei des Tourlebens und die Fallstricke die mit der erhöhten Sichtbarkeit einhergingen, beeinflussten ihre Musik ebenso wie ihren Geist, die sich in der ersten Single "Working For The Knife" niederschlägt. Ein Song, wie ein Prüfstein für das Gesamtgefühl von "Laurel Hell": "I start the day lying and end with the truth / That I'm dying for the knife." "Be The Cowboy" wurde von weiblicher Stärke und Trotz angetrieben, lebte jedoch von seinem Spiel mit Masken. Wie der Berglorbeer bzw. die "laurel hell", nach dem das neue Album benannt ist, kann die öffentliche Wahrnehmung, wie das berauschende Prisma des Internets, eine verlockende Fassade bieten, hinter der sich eine tödliche Falle verbirgt. Die sich immer enger zieht, je mehr man sich anstrengt. "I got to a point, where I just knew that if I kept going this way, I would numb myself to completion." Erschöpft von diesem verzerrten Spiegel und unserer Sucht nach falschen Binaritäten, begann MITSKI, Songs zu schreiben, die die Masken abstreifen und die komplexen und oft widersprüchlichen Realitäten dahinter offenbaren. MITSKI dazu: "I needed love songs about real relationships that are not power struggles to be won or lost. I needed songs that could help me forgive both others and myself. I make mistakes all the time. I don't want to put on a front where I'm a role model, but I'm also not a bad person. I needed to create this space mostly for myself where I sat in that gray area." Die daraus entstanden Songs verkörpern genau diesen Raum. Wie die zweite Single des Albums, "The Only Heartbreaker", die gemeinsam mit Dan Wilson geschrieben wurde und der erste Song dieser Art in ihrer Diskografie ist. "The Only Heartbreaker" verbindet treibenden 80er-Pop mit einem trügerisch einfachen Text, dessen aufrichtiger Refrain ins Ironische kippt, sobald dieser "the person always messing up in the relationship, the designated Bad Guy who gets the blame," beschreibt und sich zugleich fragt, ob "the reason you're always the one making mistakes is because you're the only one trying." MITSKI schrieb viele Songs für "Laurel Hell" während und teilweise vor 2018. Das Album wurde allerdings erst im Mai 2021 final abgemischt. Es ist die längste Zeitspanne, die MITSKI jemals für ein Album gebraucht hat und für die Musikerin inmitten einer radikal veränderten Welt endete. MITSKI nahm "Laurel Hell" mit ihrem langjährigen Produzenten Patrick Hyland in der Zeit der Isolation während der Pandemie auf, als einige der Songs "slowly took on new forms and meanings, like seed to flower." Das Album als Ganzes entwickelte sich "to be more uptempo and dance-y. I needed to create something that was also a pep talk" erklärt MITSKI. Die Spannung, die zwischen ihren raffinierten, aber wehmütigen Texten und dem sprudelnden Pop-Sound der 1980er Jahre entsteht, ist eine dringend benötigte Infusion in Zeiten wie diesen und das Werk einer reifen wie unwiderstehlichen Künstlerin, die auch zu fröhlich ansteckenden Dance-Beats immer noch etwas Profundes beizutragen hat.

"Laurel Hell" ist ein Soundtrack zur Transformation. Eine Landkarte für den Ort, an dem Verletzlichkeit und Widerstandsfähigkeit, Trauer und Freude, Fehler und Transzendenz in unserer Menschlichkeit Platz finden und als würdig angesehen werden können - um letztendlich anerkannt und geliebt zu werden. "I accept it all," verspricht MITSKI. "I forgive it all." Auf "Laurel Hell" festigt MITSKI ihren Ruf als Künstlerin, die die Kraft besitzt, unsere wildesten und zwiespältigsten Erfahrungen in ein heilendes Elixier zu verwandeln. "I wrote what I needed to hear. As I've always done." Nach der Veröffentlichung von "Be The Cowboy", einem der meistgelobten Alben des Jahres 2018, das von Outlets wie Pitchfork (u.a.) zum Album des Jahres gekürt wurde, stieg MITSKI vom Kultliebling zum Indie-Star auf. Mit spürbaren Folgen: Die Schinderei des Tourlebens und die Fallstricke die mit der erhöhten Sichtbarkeit einhergingen, beeinflussten ihre Musik ebenso wie ihren Geist, die sich in der ersten Single "Working For The Knife" niederschlägt. Ein Song, wie ein Prüfstein für das Gesamtgefühl von "Laurel Hell": "I start the day lying and end with the truth / That I'm dying for the knife." "Be The Cowboy" wurde von weiblicher Stärke und Trotz angetrieben, lebte jedoch von seinem Spiel mit Masken. Wie der Berglorbeer bzw. die "laurel hell", nach dem das neue Album benannt ist, kann die öffentliche Wahrnehmung, wie das berauschende Prisma des Internets, eine verlockende Fassade bieten, hinter der sich eine tödliche Falle verbirgt. Die sich immer enger zieht, je mehr man sich anstrengt. "I got to a point, where I just knew that if I kept going this way, I would numb myself to completion." Erschöpft von diesem verzerrten Spiegel und unserer Sucht nach falschen Binaritäten, begann MITSKI, Songs zu schreiben, die die Masken abstreifen und die komplexen und oft widersprüchlichen Realitäten dahinter offenbaren. MITSKI dazu: "I needed love songs about real relationships that are not power struggles to be won or lost. I needed songs that could help me forgive both others and myself. I make mistakes all the time. I don't want to put on a front where I'm a role model, but I'm also not a bad person. I needed to create this space mostly for myself where I sat in that gray area." Die daraus entstanden Songs verkörpern genau diesen Raum. Wie die zweite Single des Albums, "The Only Heartbreaker", die gemeinsam mit Dan Wilson geschrieben wurde und der erste Song dieser Art in ihrer Diskografie ist. "The Only Heartbreaker" verbindet treibenden 80er-Pop mit einem trügerisch einfachen Text, dessen aufrichtiger Refrain ins Ironische kippt, sobald dieser "the person always messing up in the relationship, the designated Bad Guy who gets the blame," beschreibt und sich zugleich fragt, ob "the reason you're always the one making mistakes is because you're the only one trying." MITSKI schrieb viele Songs für "Laurel Hell" während und teilweise vor 2018. Das Album wurde allerdings erst im Mai 2021 final abgemischt. Es ist die längste Zeitspanne, die MITSKI jemals für ein Album gebraucht hat und für die Musikerin inmitten einer radikal veränderten Welt endete. MITSKI nahm "Laurel Hell" mit ihrem langjährigen Produzenten Patrick Hyland in der Zeit der Isolation während der Pandemie auf, als einige der Songs "slowly took on new forms and meanings, like seed to flower." Das Album als Ganzes entwickelte sich "to be more uptempo and dance-y. I needed to create something that was also a pep talk" erklärt MITSKI. Die Spannung, die zwischen ihren raffinierten, aber wehmütigen Texten und dem sprudelnden Pop-Sound der 1980er Jahre entsteht, ist eine dringend benötigte Infusion in Zeiten wie diesen und das Werk einer reifen wie unwiderstehlichen Künstlerin, die auch zu fröhlich ansteckenden Dance-Beats immer noch etwas Profundes beizutragen hat.

Summer at Land’s End is not an interlude or tangent for The Reds, Pinks & Purples but rather a perfect fourth movement following the albums Anxiety Art, You Might Be Happy Someday, and Uncommon Weather. As with these self-recorded records (the primary work of songwriter Glenn Donaldson), the songs on Summer at Land’s End were crafted slowly and then drawn together to make a unified statement. But here, and more than before, Summer at Land’s End combines Donaldson’s rueful pop sensibility with a parallel musical universe, one composed of pictures, dreams, and feelings without words. Even if the underlying theme of this collection is one of conflict or unhappiness, the vision of the music presents an escape to a new world, always fading in and out of sight.

For listeners who may not be familiar with Donaldson’s corner of San Francisco––the Richmond district––or the current wave of hazy, melodic DIY pop groups performing in the city, Summer at Land’s End pulls in images and scenes that feel like a collision of the mundane and the sublime of this present landscape. But settings such as these are the backdrop for personal narratives, expressed as a struggle with love, with companionship and the conflicts of home. With this record, The Reds, Pinks & Purples give less focus to the vanities of a subculture and more to the challenge of connecting with someone, to the ordinary goals of being human and finding harmony with others.

This deliberate saturation in drama and ambiance, along with some of Donaldson’s best songwriting to date, is what gives Summer at Land’s End its special class in the project’s discography. Of the album’s cinematic mood, Donaldson refers to films like Summer of ‘42 and the influence of the classic 4AD catalogue of the 1990s. This style informs much of Donaldson’s prior and current ventures of course (The Ivytree, Vacant Gardens, and a dozen projects in between) but now The Reds, Pinks & Purples have taken the mantle, embracing this instinct for instrumental or dreamier modes of pop songwriting. It’s a pleasure to experience Summer at Land’s End, as this record finds a thrilling balance between songs and sounds, instruments and voices, and the ironic twin poles of art and life.

Tagliabue’s cosmic music is a transcendental journey through introspection and imagination. The latter has no limits, when stimulated by sounds that slowly shade and snake deeply in the listener’s conscious.

With “Ambiente Sonoro” the Milan based DJ and producer now introduces his debut mini-album. The concept is inspired by the Italian library music of the 70s from Daniela Casa, Egisto Macchi and Piero Umiliani, characterized by the extensive use of electronic, experimental and psychedelic sounds. It is arranged and produced in a contemporary way, alternating dark ambient, tribalistic sounds mixed with abstract electronic and IDM influences from artists such as Biosphere, Higher Intelligence Agency, Global Communication or Coil.

His experience as a music selector and his previous works anticipate the character of this concept album. A record that cannot be placed in a specific genre.

Ancestral rhythms, post-industrial waves, apocalyptic chants and drones, suggest a mental projection into a new planetary system consisting of six bodies with different landscapes kept in orbit by a cosmic sound perturbation. A dreamy state of emotional, protracted and reflective abandonment.

Early support: Vladimir Ivkovic, Cosmo Vitelli, Alexis Le-Tan, Tolouse Lowtrax, Odopt, Ransom Note, Whypeopledance

Life is slowly but surely returning to “normal”. From festivals to clubs,
many countries have begun to allow cultural events to take place with an audience again. It feels great - if occasionally still unfamiliar - to
rediscover and experience the way we used to live, love and party.
Janefondas’ new release “French love” is the perfect dancefloor weapon for this year’s summer season. This disco-house tune is driven by optimistic, uplifting vibes and funky guitar riffs. Strings full of desire and a touch of melancholy put smiles on faces whenever and wherever it gets played. Fortunea Records is proud to contribute this little treasure to the summer season of 2021.

"Ode To David”, the B-side track, rolls out darker vibes. It´s a thrilling
house tune that combines raw, crunchy disco-loop filter madness and
acid elements that let you forget the sorrow of the past.
Have fun this summer, be respectful, and stay safe.
Yours truly, Fortunea Records team.

This Release is limited to 300 vinyl copies.
Strictly no repress!

Dimi Angelis' 10th release on his ANGLS label is an exercise in weaponised minimalism
- four highly machined tools, rich with subliminal and subversive frequencies.

"The Web of Fear" opens with assertive and persistent percussion complemented by an enveloping low-end that slowly builds tension across the track's length. "Burlesque" follows with a militant, broken rhythm pattern that is progressively interrupted by dissonant and metallic stabs. Both tracks are free of frills - the few elements at play here are used to their full effect to create standout tools, perfect for layering.

"Imaginary Voyage" veers into minimalist sci-fi territory, perhaps the most introspective track on the EP. It presents a sparse groove decorated by FM tones that come and go like passing comets. "Polemics" closes the story with aggressive character - machine-driven, bitcrushed loops driven to the point o destruction, against the ebb and flow of a continuously modulated low-end. All bite, no bark.

»Infuso Giallo aka Philipp Carbotta originally hails from rural Western Germany, first cut his teeth in the music scene of nearby Cologne and conducts a host of activities in Berlin for a couple of years now – co-running the label Kame House, designing graphics and producing and playing leftfield electronic music. His debut LP Ocular Soda presents an intersection of these activities – self-released, self-designed and of course self-produced. Even before the first synth chords and reverse atmospheres of the two-part opener 'Every Waking Hour' tickle the ear, it is the eye that is drawn to the bright, cut-out style cover art – itself made up of two eyes on the front and what seem to be their rough shapes or discarded counterparts on the back.
To stay within that metaphor, Infuso Giallo's music is indeed of a reflective and calm nature, taking cues from Berlin School, library and New Age musics from roughly the 1970s to the 1990s – steadily repeating and slowly evolving ostinatos, lush digital pads, quirky filtered toplines and electronic percussion that mostly eschews four-four monotony in favor of much more subtle syncopations. Balearic bomb 'The Big Rip' with its big drums and acid bass turns the energy level up a notch while retaining the somnambulistic, lingering quality that makes Ocular Soda such a coherent listening experience – music on the sheath of waking and dreaming, both worlds and their inherent logics freely bleeding into each other. There are moments of great expanse, such as in 'Mole Gaze' – I couldn't help but see myself hovering somewhere in mid-air while the music unfolds as if on a great deserted plane below me. Maybe this is what it sounds like once the mole leaves his tunnels and takes in the sound of the world overground. 'Hello World', indeed, in its multitude of information to eye and ear, in its gently overwhelming quality. The title track 'Ocular Soda' closes the proceedings with a whimsical nod to 1970s botany-centered library music, its brooding chord sequence and sweet lead lines gradually fading in the distance. A fitting ending to an impressive LP of highly evocative, at times sombre and at times blissfully naive pieces that leave me yearning for more.«

Written, recorded & produced by Infuso Giallo in 2020 & 2021 in Berlin. Mixed by Philipp Janzen & Sebastian Blume at Dumbo Studios, Cologne. Mastered by Sam Irl in Vienna. Design by Infuso Giallo.

repressed !

Strong contender for dance record of the year- Red Rack'em's incredibly wonderful and fantastically wonky, Disco Banger, was rereleased on Classic this year.
After a few months of slowly embedding itself in people subconscious, it returns with new mixes.
First up in the marvellously talented KiNK - Strahil is no stranger to Classic, having made a stamp on the label many years ago with his remix 3rd Face. He's gone from strength to strength with his productions which have been accompanied by his glorious live performances. Kink goes in, heads down with some proper techno Wonk. This is indeed a beast.
On the flip Luke Solomon joins forces with Bristol's very own Eats Everything and Lord Leopard, creating a Bristol 'Circle of Three.' The Luke Eats Leopard edit adds a slight bit of conformity to the drums and the arrangement, without taking out too much of the Wonk but taking it ever so slightly into 'house ' territory.
Overall this is a monstrously Wonky package - and just in time for Xmas too.

The third entry in Lucy's trio of adventurous full-lengths is visually introduced by artwork of a pearl-bearing shell, designed by Stroboscopic Artefacts' resident visual artist (and Lucy's brother) Ignazio Mortellaro. This drops a subtle hint as to the nature of its contents: just as a pearl slowly forms within its enclosing body in response to organic challenges, Lucy's work is also a kind of crystallization of memory and experience into an artifact of great value.

Listeners to this album will be struck immediately by how different it sounds from past Lucy productions, while still retaining the feel of relentless questing that defined his previous two solo LPs Wordplay for Working Bees and Churches, Schools, and Guns (or, as Lucy himself defines the feeling, the equal valuation of precision and exploration'). Initially feeling like Lucy is guiding his listeners on a slow and slightly apprehensive down-river trip through the Amazon, or some similarly thriving but as-of-yet undiscovered terrain, the album is enriched by several layers of ambience and by the wordless, improvisational (yet still somehow narrative) vocals and flute of Jon Jacobs. Without a doubt, it's an album with an initiatory' atmosphere that listeners should commit themselves to hearing in one sitting, with as little interruption as possible. However, unlike many initiatory rites, this is no arduous ordeal at all: great care has gone into connecting each chapter of the album with the same silver thread of entrancing story-telling. On standout pieces like She-Wolf Night Mourning,' electronic arpeggiation and persistent synthetic flutters perfectly merge with the unique tone colors of resonant acoustic percussion and pensive woodwind. Elsewhere, pieces like A Selfless Act' reconcile technoid pulses with melancholic, yet intoxicating echoes of Mediterranean musical traditions.

Interestingly, many of the tracks on Self-Mythology refer to old legends and well-known fairytales (e.g. the opening track which references Baba Yaga's magical hut), or to more broadly defined states of consciousness ( Samsara,' which features an especially strong, sustained choral interplay between glassy synth sequences and earthy flute sonorities). This is where the album is truly unique and relevant in its ambition. The interplay between the graphic design, the vocal and flute performances of Jacobs, and the sound design chosen by Lucy aims to be an intimate audio autobiography of its creators while also referring back to the stories that have shaped human destiny for millennia. This work is a meditation upon the reciprocity between personal hopes and fears and collective dreams and nightmares, an exploration of the endless interplay between the universal and the deeply individual. It is the tale of that uncanny process by which our own conscious experience draws from the pool of archetypal information, while also contributing to it.

Hot on the heels of his preliminary EP on Stroboscopic Artefacts, Embryo, which paved the way to the present album, and two years after the landing of his 2016-released inaugural LP, Montagne Trasparenti, Mannequin helmsman Alessandro Adriani returns with his highly anticipated full-length debut for SA, Morphic Dreams. Throughout eleven cuts painstakingly executed but lacking not an iota of the fresh, spontaneous oomph that made his sound stand out of the crowd of techno producers to have emerged over the past decade, Adriani lays the foundations to a suspended sound imaginarium, governed by its own rules and principles of gravity. Revolving around the notions of sublimation and quest for inner balance, Morphic Dreams is comprised of four distinct sequences, conceived and designed as reflections of four mental states, each of them linked to the four alchemical elements i.e. Water, Earth, Air and Fire here represented by the A, B, C and D-sides. Fluid and enveloping, the A-side bathes the listener in some zero-G uterine vortex, pitching and rolling from the slo-burning exotic sensuality and tribal spell of The Tropical Year to the trunk-bending, arpeggiated fast-track pulse of Storm Trees, through Raindances feverish electro swing. Entering a further abrasive, minerally rich phase, the B-side unleashes Adrianis dark side with optimum conviction. Deeply anchored in earthly materiality, this new evolution stage starts off to the frantic Italo bass of Dissolving Images, rushing headlong into a kaleidoscopic maelstrom of fractured reflections and nasty Giallo-like ambience. The delirious body stretch sequence then rather abruptly swerves onto a calmer flux with Dust/Mist, a much enticingly hip-swaying collaboration with Simon Crab, ex-member of the seminal 80s UK industrial-experimental band Bourbonese Qualk, before Casting The Runes engulfs us into a tormented world of swollen eeriness and disquieting esoterism. Back to a widescreen showcase of droney distortions, nasty acid swashes and other quirky drum programming, Hors De Combat opens a new chapter, shortly followed by the playful bass intricacies and modular jeu-de-piste of Invisible Seekers, featuring Avian affiliate and longtime friend Shawn OSullivan. A further mind-expanding piece, C-side closer Crow deploys its blackened wings wide and high as a chaos of martial percussions and liquefying synths slivers crash past the red-hot skyline. A fluttering melodic interlude, Things About To Disappear blazes a clean trail for Make Words Split And Crack to flourish, slowly but surely blooming into a nonstop grandiose twelve minute-shy finale geared up with the stirring cacophonic force of a Ligetian symphony and something of an epic-scale Kubrickian soundtrack.

Brooklyn based drummer/producer Jason Nazary (of Anteloper) makes his We Jazz Records debut with "Spring Collection", released on 25 June. The album sees Nazary crafting some deliciously sparkly solo cuts plus working long disctance with choice collaborators Jaimie Branch, David Leon, Ramon Landolt, Matt Mitchell, Grey McMurray and Michael Coleman. This is essentially a collection of home recordings and the whole operation has an infectious feeling of immediacy to it. The result is improv adjacent electronic music, with modern production aesthetics transposed over spontaneous compositions.

Jason writes:

"With Spring Collection, my aim was to capture the spirit of spontaneity & collaboration lost in the absence of live music. Like most everyone else last spring, I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands and with all my work cancelled, and with an indefinite lockdown in effect, it became immediately apparent that most of my time – save a walk or two a day around the neighborhood – would be spent in the tiny one bedroom apartment I share with my wife and two cats.

What kind of music does one make during lockdown? I would begin my days with a cup of coffee and all the cables of my modest little modular set up in my lap, slowly discovering new sound worlds as I connected one cable after another – these became the beginnings for the pieces in Spring Collection. With these unformed sketches, I would record an improvisation, an exploration of sonics: a small kit of bells, shakers, pans, pots; their resonance captured in fine detail with ultra sensitive microphones. These became, in effect, a conversation first with myself, but later one I knew I had to open up, make social. In the desire not to diminish my collaborative impulses, I felt compelled to involve some of my favorite musicians in the process alongside me."

"Spring Collection" is released by We Jazz Records on 25 June on vinyl (neon orange & black vinyl editions), tape and digital formats. The vinyl edition comes with a booklet including original artwork and poetry by Todd Colby.

London-based record label Wisdom Teeth kicks off 2021 with something close to home: Blush - the playful, dynamic debut LP by label co-founder, Facta. Recorded unusually quickly over a short stint in early 2020, the record is the product of a period of refreshed and unfussy creativity. It’s an innovative and distinctly contemporary album that moves a good few steps beyond the artist’s work to date - loosely rooted in UK dance music but taking added influence from ambient, modern classical, dreampop, Balearic, folk music and beyond. The result is a lush, ornate record populated by aqueous pads, bleeping arps, wandering melodies and sparse broken rhythms; acoustic instruments that play out alongside FM synths, all processed with a pristine UV sheen inherited from modern pop music. The record opens with ‘Sistine (Plucks)’ - a crystalline synth piece with a stumbling, shifting metre revolving around an odd-ended MIDI harp loop, coloured through with washed-out pads and snatches of found sound. This breezy mood follows through to ‘On Deck’, where an FM vibraphone rings out on top of woozy, warping chords and a subby soca groove. Moving forward the record moves cohesively through a range of shifting moods and hues. The machine jazz of ‘Brushes’ is tense and coiled, with nods towards Burnt Friedman, Photek and Eli Keszler. ‘Iso Stream’ sees a rich, colourful sprawl of arpeggiated synths and dissociated vocal chops unspool slowly to form pooling, lowlit melodies. Title track ‘Blush’ is a forlorn Autonomic love song built from clicks-n-cuts - like dBridge & Instra:mental reduced and reinterpreted by SND. Throughout, bold, broad melodies take centre stage, and the tracks build like compositions rather than loops or club tools. There are echoes of the dancefloor - particularly in the slo-mo bruk of ‘Verge’ and the glacial subs underpinning ‘Diving Birds’ (a collaboration with friend and Trilogy Tapes regular Parris) - however the end results find us somewhere far off. ‘Blush’ is the second long-form release to come from Wisdom Teeth following K-LONE’s 2020 debut album, ‘Cape Cira’, which was widely ranked as one the best LPs of 2020.

We each have our own idea of what it means to live through a period filled with perpetual dread, a slowly burning world, and overwhelming darkness. In the case of Portrayal of Guilt, their tortuous afterlife comes with grief, loss, masochism, suffering, and pain.

On CHRISTFUCKER, their second full-length of 2021, Portrayal of Guilt plunges headfirst into unfathomable depths, creating a work of art that’s powerfully unsettling. “We think of it partially in the sense of scoring a horror movie,” guitarist/vocalist Matt King says. “We wanted to create an atmosphere of anxiety and fear.”

We each have our own idea of what it means to live through a period filled with perpetual dread, a slowly burning world, and overwhelming darkness. In the case of Portrayal of Guilt, their tortuous afterlife comes with grief, loss, masochism, suffering, and pain.

On CHRISTFUCKER, their second full-length of 2021, Portrayal of Guilt plunges headfirst into unfathomable depths, creating a work of art that’s powerfully unsettling. “We think of it partially in the sense of scoring a horror movie,” guitarist/vocalist Matt King says. “We wanted to create an atmosphere of anxiety and fear.”

Miles Davis Kind of Blue meets Analogue Productions' UHQR, the pinnacle of high-quality vinyl!
Best-selling album in jazz history; mastered from the original master tapes by Bernie Grundman
Pressed at Quality Record Pressings using Clarity Vinyl® on a manual Finebilt press
Purest possible pressing and most visually stunning presentation and packaging!
Dream team of Davis, Adderley, Coltrane, Evans, Kelly, Chambers, Cobb make history.

Legends have a way of sticking around. If there was ever an album awaiting a high-fidelity, custom-pressed vinyl treatment of the level you now hold in your hands, it is Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. The top-selling jazz album of all time, it has been lauded, entered into "Best Of" lists and Halls of Fame, and universally acknowledged as a landmark recording — a five-track masterpiece of melancholy mood and melody.

It continues to be one of the most listened-to and studied recordings of all time, a required primer for many young musicians, and one of the most transcendent pieces of music ever recorded. Davis played trumpet sublime with his ensemble sextet featuring pianist Bill Evans, drummer Jimmy Cobb, bassist Paul Chambers, and saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley with Wyton Kelly playing piano on "Freddy the Freeloader."

Now Analogue Productions, together with Quality Record Pressings, is putting Kind of Blue where it belongs: the Ultra High Quality Record (UHQR) pressed on Clarity Vinyl on a manual Finebilt press with attention paid to every single detail of every single record.

The 200-gram records will feature the same flat profile that helped to make the original UHQR so desirable. From the lead-in groove to the run-out groove, there is no pitch to the profile, allowing the customer's stylus to play truly perpendicular to the grooves from edge to center. Clarity Vinyl allows for the purest possible pressing and the most visually stunning presentation. Every UHQR will be hand inspected upon pressing completion, and only the truly flawless will be allowed to go to market. Each UHQR will be packaged in a deluxe box and will include a booklet detailing the entire process of making a UHQR along with a hand-signed certificate of inspection. This will be a truly deluxe, collectible product.

Kind of Blue is more than Miles Davis's most enduring recording, it's a testament to Miles' experimental approach, drastically simplifying modern jazz by returning to melody unlike the chord complexity more often heard at the time. "The music has gotten thick," Davis complained in a 1958 interview for The Jazz Review. "... There will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them." Kind of Blue is, in a sense, all melody — and atmosphere.

None of the musicians had played any of the tunes before heading into the first of two recording sessions in early spring of 1959. In fact Miles had written out the settings for most of them only a few hours before the session. Miles also stuck to his old recording procedure of having virtually no rehearsal and only one take for each tune.

Miles remained proud of the album, performing at least two of its tracks — "So What" and "All Blues" — for years after, until his musical path took him in a different direction.

History was on the side of Kind of Blue; it was born in 1959, at the peak of the golden age of high-fidelity, featuring innovations in studio equipment (magnetic tape, high-quality condenser microphones), matched by advancements in home audio reproduction (long-player records — LPs; high-end turntables, and other stereo components). Kind of Blue also benefited from Miles' being signed to the leading major record company of the day — Columbia Records, a part of the CBS media conglomerate. Columbia had the means and wisdom to invest in cutting edge recording technology, and their own professional recording studio.

A minor audio complication with Kind of Blue has been addressed with this UHQR edition. The motor on the studio's 3-track master recorder was running slowly the day of the album's first session. This speed issue affected the album's first three tracks, "So What," "Freddie Freeloader" and "Blue in Green," making them a barely perceptible quarter-tone sharp. Before now, it was only addressed in 1995 for the Classic Records edition and by Columbia Records — or their latter-day parent, Sony Music — on a CD reissue in the late '90s.

Sixty years have passed; this LP bridges that time span in the best way possible, struck from the master reel of Kind of Blue, free of speed issues and replete with all the instrumental detail, sonic environment and minimal noise. As we set out to make our UHQR series the world's best-sounding vinyl records, we have also used Clarity Vinyl, which is free of any carbon black pigment which might introduce surface noise. All-in-all this edition of Kind of Blue meets the highest audiophile standards and offers the truest sound for the most enjoyment.

The second release in January to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Frank de Groodts career as a recording artist is a re-press of his legendary Sonar Bases 4 10 double 12 . Exactly 21 years ago, in January 1997, Frank elevated to electro stardom with this astonishing combination of dark electronica and electro beats.

Frank at the time lived just outside the city of Amersfoort, which is where he was born and lives again these days, some 30 minutes northwest of Utrecht. His first ever release in January 1994 was a techno EP on U-TRAX, as Pieces of a Pensive State of Mind. Later that year, he released his first 12"-es on Djax records as The Optic Crux, and he continued to keep making up artists names in the following 25 years, like Fastgraph and The Operator. He is also one half of the live outfit Random XS (together with DJ Zero One), collaborated with Arno Peeters (a.k.a. Spasms) as Urban Electro and with Detroit's Dennis Richardson as Ultradyne. And that s not even all of his alter egos.

The sound of these eight unique tracks called for a new moniker back in the nineties: Sonar Base (ironically misspelled on the original release as Sonar Bass). All track on this re-press have been remastered for maximum impact. The double vinyl goodness kicks off with Earth Probe, that very subtly creeps towards us, before it kicks in with a rather obese bassdrum. As if Frank wanted to ease his listeners into his then new sound, this track basically is in techno/acid style, but has the slower tempo that characterizes the rest of the electro tracks of this release.

Immediately following, is the unrivaled beauty of Welcome To Sonar Base #4, a track that slowly builds up before it takes us on a deep space journey at two thirds. The 11 minute Sonar Base #5 has been a DJ favorite for 21 years, reaching out to both electro and techno lovers, while Sonar Base #6 is the type of ultra-pure electro that really puts your woofers to the test.

Arrival At Dwell Probe is another one of our favorites, with superfine beats, desolate voice samples and deep and moody synths. Very musical, truly a top piece that will leave you totally unprepared for Blunted. This track has the rolling type of hiphop-style beats that mix well with LL Cool J's Mama Said Knock You Out, but of course has the space-station atmosphere that makes it unmistakably a Sonar Base track.

The fast pace and merciless beats of Intergalactic Anecdote rush us to the finale: Sonar Base #10, a worthy closing track, with deep bassdrum patterns and melancholic strings that also please fans of broken beats. It stops and goes and keeps demanding your attention, making you wanting to go back again to the first track disc and start your Sonar Base trip all over again.

Reissue of Elizio De Buzios's "Tamanquiro". Remastered and pressed on 45 RPM!

Sitting a good 90-minute drive away from Rio de Janeiro’s crowded beaches and packed tourist hot-spots, Campo Grande is not a neighbourhood that attracts travellers from around the World. Traditionally it is home to the city’s lower middle-class, whose aspirations of moving up the social ladder were played out in a suburb that has always been solidly working-class.

Campo Grande is home to Elizio De Buzios, a Brazilian musician who started playing music in the late 1970s and early 1980s. De Buzios began as a drummer, before learning to play guitar and starting to compose and sing his own music. When he turned 18, De Buzios joined a local band formed by some of his friends and other like-minded local musicians: Sol da Terra. The band mostly played samba in neighbourhood bars and small venues around Camp Grande, but De Buzios was interested in more than just samba. While he naturally admired great samba composers such as Cartola and Beth Carvalho, his musical pass went far beyond Brazil’s national music. He also loved MPB and bossa-nova and at home he listed to Joäo Bosco, Milton Nascimento, Luis Melodia, Tom Jobim, and many bossa-nova singers.

In 1980 De Buzios was noticed by a local representative of international major label Polygram, who gave him the opportunity to record two songs. He was excited, so started searching for inspiration for the songs he would eventually lay down. He found that inspiration close to home while passing a neighbourhood shop which made and sold clogs. After noticing a display of then fashionable Portuguese clogs outside the store, De Buzios popped inside to talk to the owner. It turned out that he was a tamanqueiro – as clog-makers are traditionally called in his native Portugal – and was as passionate about music as he was about the footwear he made. Thus inspired, De Buzios returned home to work more on the lyrics and music.

The next day, he headed into the studio to record the song, with Vale Ribeiro, who later went on to produce tracks for Marcos Valle, behind the desk. With Ribeiro’s assistance, De Buzios managed to record two songs in one day: ‘Tamanqueiro’ and ‘Sou Um Louco’, a ballad with English lyrics blended into the mostly Portuguese text. From the start, it was clear that ‘Tamanqueiro’ would be the single’s A-side. Incredibly catchy and funky, with some subtle disco elements, the song remained distinctively Brazilian thanks to the use of the cuíca. Listening back all these years on, De Buzios’ lyrics seem almost spontaneous, carry the track forward, and make it almost impossible not to sing along. Its infectiousness and funkiness made it an instant hit with the first few people to hear it.

When it was released, responses to the song were enthusiastic, even if it never became the Brazil-wide smash it should have been. It resonated well in the local clubs and on the radio, but unfortunately the marketing was handled by an inexperienced Polygram employee who failed to adequately promote the track. As a result, the record sank without trace and De Buzios’ dreams of stardom evaporated. Having just started a family, he realized he could not live off the uncertainty of being a musician. Instead, he got a job at city hall as a civil servant, a role he continued until his retirement a few years ago. ‘Tamanqueiro’ and ‘Sou Um Louco’ remain the only two songs he ever recorded.

In the early 2000s, with the rise of diggers’ culture, ‘Tamanqueiro’ slowly surfaced again. It became a sought after, hard to find seven-inch single, finding its way onto the airwaves once more and into the ears of a new generation of listeners. Some started appreciating the song so much that it was referred to as the “best-Jorge-Ben-song-Jorge-Ben-never-recorded”. And they are right: ‘Tamanqueiro’ does have that Jorge Ben-straight-forwardness. It’s a completely honest song that’s almost impossible not to fall in love with. Thanks to this remastered reissue on Rush Hour, De Buzios may now get the props his sole record so richly deserves.

Now for the good news: De Buzios is still singing in local bars and clubs in and around Campo Grande. He is surprised, but also incredibly proud, that the record he had almost forgotten about is appreciated so much by a group of music lovers he didn’t even know existed. But above all, he is happy that more than 40 years after the recording session, the record lives on – not only on this re-release, but also in his weekend sets in the bars of Campo Grande.

Lee Gamble completes his ‘Flush Real Pharynx 2019-2021’ album cycle with ‘A Million Pieces Of You’, the third EP of a triptych written in a time when the subjective experience of overload came to a halt, giving way to an overbearing sense of loss, burnout and a desperate need for hope. These seven tracks feel more reflective, more human than the two preceeding EPs; the serpentine dopplers and seductive supercar engines of ‘In A Paraventral Scale’, and imploding motion sculptures of ‘Exhaust’. A deepfake of Lee’s voice appears from the chaotic slow-mo crash of ‘Balloon Lossy’, timidly telling of “garbled… good news”. The uncanny spectre of deep fakes, AI and deep learning models give way to the melancholic loneliness of the solo piano in ‘Empty Middle Seat’. Then glimmering, golden pads on ‘Hyperpassive’ slowly crawl into the hopeful, bright arpeggiations of ‘Balloon Copy’. ‘A Million Pieces Of You’ is a ride through a part-synthetic, part-modelled, part-imitation, part-taught, part-human, part1hopeful, part-reflective and paradoxically affirmative space – an involuntarily fitting finale to an album originally conceived in a world different to the one we now inhabit.

Brooklyn based drummer/producer Jason Nazary (of Anteloper) makes his We Jazz Records debut with "Spring Collection", released on 25 June. The album sees Nazary crafting some deliciously sparkly solo cuts plus working long disctance with choice collaborators Jaimie Branch, David Leon, Ramon Landolt, Matt Mitchell, Grey McMurray and Michael Coleman. This is essentially a collection of home recordings and the whole operation has an infectious feeling of immediacy to it. The result is improv adjacent electronic music, with modern production aesthetics transposed over spontaneous compositions.

Jason writes:

"With Spring Collection, my aim was to capture the spirit of spontaneity & collaboration lost in the absence of live music. Like most everyone else last spring, I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands and with all my work cancelled, and with an indefinite lockdown in effect, it became immediately apparent that most of my time – save a walk or two a day around the neighborhood – would be spent in the tiny one bedroom apartment I share with my wife and two cats.

What kind of music does one make during lockdown? I would begin my days with a cup of coffee and all the cables of my modest little modular set up in my lap, slowly discovering new sound worlds as I connected one cable after another – these became the beginnings for the pieces in Spring Collection. With these unformed sketches, I would record an improvisation, an exploration of sonics: a small kit of bells, shakers, pans, pots; their resonance captured in fine detail with ultra sensitive microphones. These became, in effect, a conversation first with myself, but later one I knew I had to open up, make social. In the desire not to diminish my collaborative impulses, I felt compelled to involve some of my favorite musicians in the process alongside me."

"Spring Collection" is released by We Jazz Records on 25 June on vinyl (neon orange & black vinyl editions), tape and digital formats. The vinyl edition comes with a booklet including original artwork and poetry by Todd Colby.

Brooklyn based drummer/producer Jason Nazary (of Anteloper) makes his We Jazz Records debut with "Spring Collection", released on 25 June. The album sees Nazary crafting some deliciously sparkly solo cuts plus working long disctance with choice collaborators Jaimie Branch, David Leon, Ramon Landolt, Matt Mitchell, Grey McMurray and Michael Coleman. This is essentially a collection of home recordings and the whole operation has an infectious feeling of immediacy to it. The result is improv adjacent electronic music, with modern production aesthetics transposed over spontaneous compositions.

Jason writes:

"With Spring Collection, my aim was to capture the spirit of spontaneity & collaboration lost in the absence of live music. Like most everyone else last spring, I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands and with all my work cancelled, and with an indefinite lockdown in effect, it became immediately apparent that most of my time – save a walk or two a day around the neighborhood – would be spent in the tiny one bedroom apartment I share with my wife and two cats.

What kind of music does one make during lockdown? I would begin my days with a cup of coffee and all the cables of my modest little modular set up in my lap, slowly discovering new sound worlds as I connected one cable after another – these became the beginnings for the pieces in Spring Collection. With these unformed sketches, I would record an improvisation, an exploration of sonics: a small kit of bells, shakers, pans, pots; their resonance captured in fine detail with ultra sensitive microphones. These became, in effect, a conversation first with myself, but later one I knew I had to open up, make social. In the desire not to diminish my collaborative impulses, I felt compelled to involve some of my favorite musicians in the process alongside me."

"Spring Collection" is released by We Jazz Records on 25 June on vinyl (neon orange & black vinyl editions), tape and digital formats. The vinyl edition comes with a booklet including original artwork and poetry by Todd Colby.

Long-time musical pen pals and partners David Madson (aka Odd Nosdam) and Markus Acher (aka Rayon) re-establish the connection between Weilheim, Germany and Berkeley, California for the first time since 2011, when US alt hip-hop innovators Themselves and German indie electrifiers The Notwist teamed up to form 13 & God. Nosdam & Rayon return with a heavy-hitting collaborative EP “From Nowhere to North”.

Based on a shared love for “obscure albums and 60s/70s melancholy psychedelia,” they started working remotely in 2017, ultimately deciding to release four collaborative tracks that feature Madson’s beats, samples, and production, with Acher adding vocals, guitars, more samples, and various instrumental layers.

Psychedelic pop melodies sail over steady beats on the opener “From Nowhere to North” – a track that perfectly sets the tone for the whole EP. Elsewhere, fuzzy lights over the “Desert” and more reassuring beatscapes serve as compass to stay the course, while “Bow and Arrow” feels fairly mesmerizing: fast-moving layers, moving up and down, floating over the Atlantic, northward bound. Closing out the EP is “Colours / Heavy Load”, an epic 10-minute finale: after the raw and gritty lo-fi acoustic intro, the first part comes with a grainy guitar tune that soon leads to a vast plateau; once up there, things feel surprisingly serene and soothing – like the last warm rays of October light slowly fading as we move further north.

Both huge fans of Bristol’s late 90s DIY/post-rock scene (e.g. Flying Saucer Attack, Crescent, Third Eye Foundation, Movietone), Odd Nosdam & Rayon are happy to present their new EP with an artwork created by Movietone’s Kate Wright.