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What If It Works’ first release, minimum wage maximum joy arrives by way of newcomer 11:68PM. Produced in Berlin in the winter of 2020 and mixed & mastered at the newly minted Brewery Studios, minimum wage maximum joy’s five tracks are precision-tooled for the club, showcasing 11:68PM’s veneration for UK-leaning house and techno.

11:68PM’s moniker, as well as the EP title minimum wage maximum joy draws on the artist’s experience of balancing the grind of the 9-5 with dreams of realizing his creative vision. The skittish breaks on “Bluff Mind State” and “Sway”’s glitchy “Call Mohandes Dub” reveal this state of mind, while “Vertical Mobility” reveals a playful side with its irresistible acid bassline and soaring synths.

In 11:68PM’s words: “Writing the record in the evenings in my bedroom on one of the loudest streets of Neukölln, after I had clocked out from work, I found myself in the ever-present struggle of being artistically active while making ends meet. In making this EP, I decided to prioritize my own desires and not wait for some hypothetical moment to pursue this project that might never arrive.”

Visually, this is underscored by Philipp Pess’ striking artwork, depicting the gaunt face of a man whose tired eyes hint at a lifetime spent in front of a screen.

With minimum wage maximum joy, 11:68PM offers a compelling glimpse into a new generation of Berlin’s left-of-centre club producers.

This release is a special one; a moment where the two halves of the Mr Bongo record label unite, our heritage re-issues and our contemporary artists roster.

Minoru Muraoka’s 'The Positive and the Negative’ is a firm favourite at Mr Bongo. It sees a master of the shakuhachi, a traditional bamboo Japanese flute, flex his prodigious skill resulting in a unique mix of breakbeat jazz and Japanese folkloric music. 'The Positive and the Negative’ featured on the 1970 'Bamboo’ album, which Mr Bongo reissued in 2019. Heralded by DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, Egon, and many others. The record’s cult status had us thinking how could we pay further homage to a sublime track such as this. The opportunity came to us in an email from Melbourne’s Surprise Chef with a link to the fabulous reinterpretation of the track which they had just recorded.

"Minoru Muraoka’s ‘Bamboo’ LP has long been a fixture in our record bags, mostly for the killer shakuhachi funk cut The Positive and The Negative. The record is possibly our favourite from Mr Bongo’s extensive catalogue of reissues, and certainly the most influential to Surprise Chef; The Positive and the Negative’s cinematic atmosphere paired with the wonky drum feels and dramatic performance makes it a near-perfect amalgamation of what we try to capture on Surprise Chef records. We’ve borrowed an element or two from the tune over the last few albums (such as the percussion on ‘The Limp’), so it felt right to go head first into reinterpreting the entire track for ourselves. We recorded the tune in Karate Boogaloo’s attic studio with our man Henry Jenkins at the controls and Hudson Whitlock on percussion. We spent an entire day trying to get the take; we felt such a deep responsibility to capture the intensity of the original, we must have done 20 or 30 takes before we were finally happy. We stuck a fork in it late into the night, satisfied that we’d had our best crack at paying homage to a masterpiece by the great Minoru Muraoka.” - Surprise Chef

Forged in their signature sound, "The Chef" have made 'The Positive and the Negative' their own whilst simultaneously treating the original with utmost respect. The shakuhachi and koto have been replaced by synths and guitars, but the breakbeat psychedelic vein flows richly through both instruments

The 7" vinyl format was the right fit for this release, so the original Minoru Muraoka recording which clocks in over nine minutes has been edited into a 7” version to accompany Surprise Chef’s new take.

A year after its first edition, the Open Space series returns in order to keep exploring what ambient music might mean nowadays.

A breadth of fresh artists, some new to the label and others renowned for their more dance-centric works, the compilation aims to give each individual artist their creative freedom to explore the space.

Techno producers such as Arthur Robert or label head Len Faki himself keep the beats present but this time focus on evoking states of introspection rather than the shuffle of dancefloors.
On the other end of the spectrum, we find seasoned multi-instrumentalist Laraaji, who has been crafting deeply meditative soundscapes since the 80’s. Using the special opportunity, the label reaches outside its usual sphere, inviting artists like the modular synth expert Jeremy Wentorth or Jimmy LaValle’s band project The Album Leaf. All while still featuring some well known veteran producers the likes of John Beltran or Exos.

No matter their respective scene or background, all artists are using their unique approach to display something deeply emotive. Be it the warm, expansive electro of Future Beat Alliance or a bubbly cosmic arpride by Hamburg Duo Can Love Be Synth.

Truly living up to its name, the Open Space series aims to open up possibilities for artists to freely pursue their creativity in a completely undefined area, a space for exploration and connection.

With a little patience and a lot of finesse, Jakobin & Domino cooked up a fine new five track House EP for Luv Shack Records.

The eponymous opener "Lost Memories" effortlessly blends jazzy rhodes and emotive string samples with a funky percussive track and a stomping four to the floor beat.

"Hypnotica" delivers what the title suggests; haunting arpeggios go hand in hand with eerie 7 chords and hushed vocal samples, albeit with a jacking groove laying the foundation.

On "Molecules", Jakobin & Domino evoke classic Chicago house vibes with a shuffling beat, a funky synth bass and uplifting chord stabs to boot.

The arguably most classic J&D sounding track on the EP is "Needed", a hard hitting joint that blends a sombre piano chord progression with dreamy acid lines, evoking major dub house feelings.

"Unbogeba" is a laid back slice of deep house that nicely wraps up the EP, with a lingering afro vocal sample and super lush organ chords, it's the perfect track for hazy afterhours.

What is techno if not a powerful conduit for energy? The movement of a sequence, the surge of an effects rush, the respondent reaction in every individual dancer and the moving mass of the crowd as a whole. Whether the frequencies transmit directly into the brain through the intimacy of a headphone reverie, reverberate through the architecture of a space or fill the formless void of the open air, techno’s potency to initiate and stimulate energetic events is profound. This is something Pfirter understands intimately, having spent more than 15 years exploring ways of manipulating the energy on a dancefloor.

Of course, energy is not just about volume and aggression. Tonality, spatial processing and composition can have just as profound an effect as the thump of the kick drum. On his new album Altered States, Pfirter proves that point by zeroing in on the cerebral, psychedelic elements of his craft across 10 incisive tracks. The Argentine producer consciously approached his second album (following 2019’s The Empty Space) with a minimal mindset, using a very focused set of drum machines and synths to achieve a consistency across the record. Captured over a short burst of creativity, it’s the sound of an artist pushing a limited array of tools as far as possible. Despite this concise palette, it’s not an album that repeats itself, but rather an extended trip that flows from one detailed, textured immersion to the next.

The dense, febrile waves of hard-oscillating ripples in ‘A Future In Chaos’ and the sparkling, off-key chimes adorning ‘Yearn’ all speak to Pfirter’s gift for extravagant, surrealist expression within his tracks. ‘Altered States’, by way of contrast, succeeds in its absolute immediacy – a piledriving statement of bleep-driven intent. ‘Boiler’ and ‘Convergence’ land somewhere in between, coiling around kinked rhythmic incantations which still push forwards with precision while offering a different angle from which to approach the dancefloor. Cementing the idea of the whole album as a listening experience, Altered States is bookended by ‘Venus’ and ‘Dissolution’, two minimal exercises in drone-oriented mood setting.

Pfirter understands the role of his music, and his own instincts as a performing artist. It’s crafted to be captivating for DJs as much as the attentive listener. Spanning linear rhythms and broken beats, moments of calm and writhing intensity, Altered States offers a multitude of energetic possibilities in the mix or as a standalone piece of music. Ultimately, it’s a masterful return from a leading light of the contemporary techno scene.

This is MindTrip!

The third instalment on O’Flynn’s club label Hundred Flowers is a collaboration between Spooky - J (Nihiloxica) and Ekhe.

Two high speed and energetic bangers in their rawest form, these are club weapons that can be used to spice up any set.

A distillation of dance floor energy, the record is the result of a live improvised performance over New Year’s Eve 2019/20.

Spooky - J: "We both enjoy jamming together and not planning too much ahead of time, so naturally it makes sense to improvise at live shows. It also leaves space for the music to go off on a tangent depending on what the crowd or we are feeling.”

Ekhe: “Live improv becomes a real antidote for my concerns about preparing music. Instead, you’re creating something in the moment, directly corresponding with the energy around you, which in turn is influenced by your sound. Getting caught up in that is unlike anything else."

Spooky - J is currently on tour with Nihiloxica and the pair have a gig planned for this NYE in Amsterdam.

It’s time to get high and live life (safely).

C.Z. debuts on LA's Evar Records with the uncompromising Heat Index EP.

The Los Angeles-based producer, beatmaker and DJ sets a course through IDM, techno, jungle and trance to deliver five frenetic, emotionally-charged dancefloor cuts.

Over the course of an intensely productive career, Colby Zinser (aka C.Z.) has made music spanning genres like pop, rap, hardcore and jungle. As well as releasing music as C.Z., he's operated multiple aliases, including the prolific Ice Underlord. Drawing from a longstanding fascination with breaks, trance and the IDM of artists like Warp Records' Clark, he's developed his own rich and eclectic style of club music - a sound that crystalized on his 2020 debut album Hyperfocus.

C.Z. emerged from 2020 armed with a mass of new dancefloor tracks, freshly inspired to make club music a central focus, after years of smuggling techno, trance and breaks elements into the rap beats he was making for others. As he explains: 'It's great to come back to music and just make what I love, I don't want to be someone else's secret weapon, I want to be my own.' Heat Index refuses to toe a line, steering skillfully through genres and setting a tone that oscillates between club-fuelled euphoria, heartbreak and the looming threat of planetary crisis.

Opener 'Midnight' rattles along at a breathless 160 BPM, transporting you to a breakdown in the middle of a pounding hard trance set. Within a minute the rushing neon trance synths collide with huge, sub destroying kicks. The title track 'Heat Index' follows, with brooding pads bolted onto a tight breakbeat, leaving space open for the razor sharp, searching synth line.

Moving rapidly through the gears, 'Hurricane' is an aptly titled exercise in precision programmed classic jungle breaks, carried forward by bubbling earworm melodies. 'Retrograde' shifts the focus again - a pitch-black, dark, fast and seething techno track ripe for warehouses and dungeons, before 'Radial Lens', a melodic, anthemic set-closer built on a muscular, downtempo break.

C.Z.'s first appearance on Evar Records, the LA label founded in 2020 by Trickfinger and Aura T-09, follows a series of hard-hitting releases from Speed Dealer Moms, Limewax and Kilbourne, all artists who like C.Z., are able to traverse twisted electronica, club music and pure abstraction with ease. 'I want to help encourage a more open electronic music space, less pretentious, and encompassing all genres.' C.Z. says. 'It's an important goal of mine, and one the label shares.' Heat Index is a wide-ranging EP from a versatile producer, and a celebration of unfettered expression, for minds and dancefloors free from inhibition or genre restriction.

Survival depends on evolution. As conditions change and tides turn, we must change with them in order to stay one step ahead of the coming challenges. It’s clear that Fit For An Autopsy have embraced that mantra as they continue to perpetually evolve with each subsequent body of work. Not just blurring, but eradicating the lines between technical metal virtuosity, death metal menace, hardcore intensity, melodic insidiousness, and abstract approaches, the New Jersey band embody an uncompromising vision of their own.

The six-piece—Joseph Badolato vocals, Patrick Sheridan guitar, Timothy Howley guitar, Will Putney [guitar], Peter Blue Spinazola [bass], and Josean Orta Martinez [drums]—perfect this approach on their sixth full-length offering, Oh What The Future Holds [Nuclear Blast Records].

Fit For An Autopsy have never stopped moving forward though. Following their caustic 2011 debut The Process of Human Extermination, the group quietly carved out a place among extreme metal’s modern vanguard with their second LP Hellbound. Revolver cited 2015’s Absolute Hope Absolute Hell among “15 Essential Deathcore Albums.” And In the wake of The Great Collapse two years later, the band had truly created their own space in the realm of what could be described as “post-deathcore”. This ascent reached another level on the 2019 opus The Sea of Tragic Beasts. Widespread praise from the fans and press alike is all but too common for their refreshing approach to modern aggressive music both on record and in concert.

When the Global Pandemic changed everyone’s tour plans, Fit For An Autopsy dove into writing in spring 2020 and made the most of their time off the road.
“We had no real timeline, so we didn’t feel much pressure,” says Putney. “Once we realized touring wasn’t opening up, we decided to have fun with the process. I got to spend more time than I usually do on records. We definitely took some of the songs into new places because of that. It’s our longest album. We composed more than we ever have and it was a rewarding feeling to put real work into all these ideas.”

In early 2021, Fit For An Autopsy congregated in-person at Putney’s Graphic Nature Audio and recorded Oh What The Future Holds. Now, they introduce the album with the single “Far From Heaven.” Swirling as a perfect storm, airy guitar cuts through a pummeling percussive groove as melodic vocals slip into a guttural groan offset by neck-snapping riffs and powerful dynamics.
“The world we exist in is clearly “far from heaven”. Institutions are exploited, and people are taken advantage of. There’s a power struggle between those in control and those who aren’t. This is a fairly literal reflection on the world today.”

In the end, Fit For An Autopsy haven’t just personally evolved on Oh What The Future Holds; they’ve brought heavy music with them.

For Fans Of. Lee Fields, Durand Jones & The Indications, Kelly Finnigan, Bobby Oroza Thee Sinseers are the premier band in Southern California's souldies scene and their new single "What's His Name" represents what's the come from the future-household-name Joey Quinones mind. He produces, writes, and plays nearly everything you hear on recordings of Thee Sinseers. So enjoy this sweet slice of soul from Joey and co. It certainly won't be the last time you hear his name!

After years spent living on opposite sides of the Atlantic world events threw Laura Mary Carter and Steven Ansell of Blood Red Shoes back together into what has become the must fruitful era of their 17 years together.

“It’s been a loooong time since we both lived in the same city”, explains Steven. “I mean we actually wrote this album in LA at Laura’s place, then came to the UK to record it…and then everything went nuts”.

Realising very quickly that they wouldn’t be able to release the album or tour until the world returned to some kind of normality, the band found their energies quickly spilled over into other projects. Laura-Mary started a podcast, Never Meet Your Idols, with her best friend in LA, interviewing everyone from Zack Snyder to Mark Lanegan to CHVRCHES. It is now about to start its third season. Steven started applying his love of electronic music by writing and producing other alternative artists like Circe, ARXX, Aiko and XCerts, racking up millions of streams in the process.

Having worked together on Laura–Mary’s forthcoming solo mini album Town Called Nothing and restless from the lack of touring, the duo started jamming out in rehearsal rooms, which led to the light-speed writing, recording and release of the impossibly-titled Ø EP in the summer of 2021. Which concludes what the band call an “off year”.

And that brings us back to GHOST ON TAPE. It appears that like David Lynch’s The Lost Highway, nothing is linear in the world of Blood Red Shoes. Written and recorded before their most recent EP, GHOSTS ON TAPE is a huge jump into new terrain for the band. Musically and emotionally their most mature work, it is a complex, imaginative, and very gothic development on their sound. Musically, it leaves almost no trace of their former selves.

After their first album “Vertigo” (2018), the Paris-based musicians making up BLOW are back with the indie-pop album “Shake the Disease”. Produced by Crayon, this surprising new chapter is a collec- tion of purer, more organic sounds with a somewhat 70’s/80’s tilt. A return to basics, one that doesn’t turn its back on reality.

The changes are radical as the need was strong to surprise people including themselves, to think outside the box. They went for radical changes: a new method of song writing, a new musical genre, a new way of working, ... But the group’s fans should be reassured: even if the electronics have given way to a more rock-inspired sound, and the chords are a bit richer, and even if the bass, the driving element of each song, is stronger than ever, “Shake the Disease” is pure BLOW.

In terms of the lyrics, a common thread appears: duality. Without ever giving way to schizophrenia, this duality of “what I’d like to be” versus “what I really am” stands at the center of the chessboard. Legitimate and healthy questions give rise to life changes that almost all of us ask ourselves when en- tering into our thirties, just like the members of BLOW. Coming to terms with all this mentally without losing our instincts or our spontaneity, is the guiding idea behind this second album.
Coming back strong, BLOW started dropping uplifting single and live session «Full Delight» and more recently «One Life», both supported in France and abroad by Greenroom, Tsugi radio, The Inde-pendent, Ones to Watch, Hotmix, Brain, Vanyaland, Kulturnews, Laut.de, DetektorFM...
This third extract is «Shake The Disease», a laid back single coming along with a COLORS session including breathtaking performances from Quentin (singer of BLOW) and the only featuring of the album, praised female songwriter and singer Anna Majidson from French duo HAUTE (also featured on COLORS a few years back).

Step Down is the definitive noir soundtrack for the end of the age of disinformation. What better way to usher it out than with this heavily blaxploitation influenced funk anthem. Let huge horns, fuzz guitar, harpsichord, and funky flute be your guide. The B-side, La Fachada, pays homage to a San Diego late night favorite with a beautifully dreamy mandolin driven tune. That floaty feeling you get with a belly full of tacos, Tecate, and their staple slow roasted pinto beans. Maybe a few hits of your favorite California grown recreational cannabis too. Wait... what were we talking about...

“Mekons fght off the darkness with stout hearts and great songs on
Exquisite…Recorded remotely during the pandemic, the eternally enduring
post-punk crew’s latest is a fne addition to their enormous catalog…
We’re living through history; it’s a blessing to have Mekons along for the
ride
”– Rolling Stone
Hunkered down and unable to record together, in 2020 the MEKONS created a
glorious digital chain letter of an album. Exquisite is a sprawling manifesto of
connection and defance that deftly slides through fddle tunes, digi-dub, freside
ballads and urgent rock & roll. And that’s just side A.
The original recording plan was to have been the whole-band-in-a-room session in
Valencia, Spain. When the pandemic rendered that impossible the process took a
sharp swerve. The album credits describe it this way: "Exquisite was recorded in
lockdown on mobile phones, broken cassette recorders, clay tablets & other
ancient technologies in Aptos, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York & Devon.
"
This legendary group from Leeds, have written contemporary music history for
the last 40 years as radical innovators of both frst generation punk and insurgent
roots music, and Exquisite is another powerful vector of that legacy.

Step Down is the definitive noir soundtrack for the end of the age of disinformation. What better way to usher it out than with this heavily blaxploitation influenced funk anthem. Let huge horns, fuzz guitar, harpsichord, and funky flute be your guide. The B-side, La Fachada, pays homage to a San Diego late night favorite with a beautifully dreamy mandolin driven tune. That floaty feeling you get with a belly full of tacos, Tecate, and their staple slow roasted pinto beans. Maybe a few hits of your favorite California grown recreational cannabis too. Wait... what were we talking about...

Undertones, the first collaborative album between Lo-Fi producers Glimlip and Yasper, contains 20 tracks that combine influences from Jazz, Funk and Soul with Instrumental Hip-Hop. By involving schooled jazz musicians in their project, this album captures the classy creativity of live recordings resulting in a tremendously rich and refined sound.

Remastered 15 year Anniversary edition of Jenny
Lewis’s first solo album from 2006. The album
comes with all-new gatefold packaging featuring
never-before-seen photos by Autumn de Wilde.
 Known and loved by many as the frontwoman of
Rilo Kiley, Jenny’s vocal and songwriting gifts have
continued to blossom at a rapid rate since that
band’s first album in 2000. This may be her solo
debut but there’s nothing virginal about it.
 The album was lovingly crafted together during
short spurts of recording activity in the San
Fernando valley, Portland, Oregon and Lincoln,
Nebraska - due to the shared production duties of
celebrated finger-picking guitar prodigy M. Ward
and Nebraska’s resident production genius Mike
Mogis.
 The magnificent backing vocals come courtesy of
gospel singers Chandra and Leigh Watson (the
Watson Twins). Talented friends were roped in
between tours and recording sessions and standout track a cover of the Travelling Wilbury’s ‘handle
with care’ - with its phenomenal sing-a-long
crescendo features vocals shared equally by
Jenny, M. Ward, Conor Oberst and Ben Gibbard.

Former Orange Juice member David McClymont may have been less
noticeable than some of his former band mates over the years but that
doesn't mean he hasn't been busy - He has self-released a number of
albums and eps from his new home in Melbourne
Some months ago Stephen (The Pastels) and Ian (LNFG) were discussing how
good it would be to pull the music together on vinyl and we are delighted to
announce that David agreed. He has been working closely with Stephen to curate
a double album's worth of music and Past Night From Glasgow will be releasing
this album in early 2022.

Copenhagen based label Escho release “Escho 15 år: Burgers for my new life” - an extensive compilation of exclusive material for their 15th anniversary (2005-2020). The compilation gathers music by all the currently active artists of Escho - both Danish and international - 27 artists in total. Contributing artists for the compilation are (in alphabetical order): Anders P Jensen, August Rosenbaum, Astrid Sonne, Baby In Vain, BishBusch, The Bleeder Group, Bona Fide, Collider, Dane TS Hawk, Eric Copeland, Excepter, First Hate, Gullo Gullo, Homies, iB101, Iceage, Joanne Robertson, Kh Marie, Liss, Puyain Sanati, Small White Man, Smerz, Søren Kjærgaard, Thulebasen, Varnrable, Yangze and Ydegirl. About Escho and the compilation: The Escho sound was born 15 years ago in small apartments around Enghave Plads, a slightly run-down square at the west end of Vesterbro, Copenhagen, past the kebab shops and the porno shops and the drunks. A few years earlier, as teenagers, several members of the Escho crew had made extremely strange, crisp metal in a very popular band. Escho was a promoter and booking agent as much as it was a label in the early days. They put on small shows to foster and hype the local scene and they brought important performers from all over the world to Copenhagen for the first time. Black Dice, Gang Gang Dance, White Magic, Excepter, Hype Williams, Boredoms, Charles Hayward, they rippled through Copenhagen after they came. Eric Copeland stayed for months. Lorenzo Senni, now well known as a vanguard dance producer, brought his high-school hardcore band to Copenhagen. Escho found and asked these artists to play. And Escho played their humble part in giving sound back to the world. Iceage, Posh Isolation and the Mayhem scene went global. Escho is a lot about being in Denmark, what that sounds like, and projecting it for anyone to hear. Across its releases, Escho’s aesthetic has allowed for the amateurish and the obsessive, the soft and the hard. Escho is about the power of shared experimental experience. Escho has been going for such a long time that the kids who started it are now twice as old as they were when they came up with the name, the idea, the desire to start something. Much younger people, generations younger, work at the label. The world has transformed since then. Escho was born in a period of time where alternative and underground music existed on a private, separate plane to mass culture, and it now finds itself in a time where mass culture and the underground are porous. Tribalism and niche knowledge has been blended by the internet, erasing the border between mainstream and underground modes. Alternative thinking takes many forms now, and new artists continue to expand and interpret the sound of Escho, carrying with them the same curiosity that lit the first Escho sparks 15 years ago. As a whole, this compilation — it is important to note — is jagged in form and tone. It is not even close to a conventional scene compilation, where the sound of a clan flows together. This record doesn’t flow like that. And this, fittingly, makes this anniversary album a ‘classic’ Escho release, because conventions about form and presentation are thrown out the window and new conventions proposed. It is a reminder that Escho quietly remains an ongoing art project as much as anything else. More than its form and tone, however, this compilation is jagged because it is a document of today. It is not final, or conclusive in any way, because the contours of contemporary music are boundless. It’s jagged because Escho has been to a million shows, and put on a million shows, and still loves going to shows. It is a picture of pluralism, discovery and openness. It makes a case for having ears, and making art, and propagating this so that successive generations of young people do it too. This is exactly as it was in the beginning






















[v] 22 First Hate – Vampire Boy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [2020 Demo]

Zeitgeber is a project that sees Lucy and Speedy J exploring roots and limits. The duo have both indulged their experimental sides from time to time. Perhaps most notably Speedy J with his mid-'90s run on Novamute, and Lucy on his 2011 full-length for Stroboscopic Artefacts. But Zeitgeber is something more, with two artists pushing each other to go further. SA018 is a single that gives only a slight hint as to what is to come in the shape of a complete LP. 'Body Out' is floor-ready techno with a twist. The textures that lie beneath feel like they're just as important (if not more), slithering and twittering away in constant dialogue with the just-slightly-off-the-grid beat. 'Body In' is the inverse of the A-side, a slow-moving chorus of indescribable ambience. As a precursor to the forthcoming album, it's a perfect taster of the uncompromising sounds yet to be heard. - Zeitgeber is a new project run by Lucy (Stroboscopic Artefacts' label head) and Speedy J (Electric Deluxe's boss). ' - 'Body Out Body In' is the Single that precedes Zeitgeber upcoming Album.

The third release for Stroboscopic Artefacts in 2014, SA22 is the new cut from Italian producer Chevel. 'One Month Off' is an EP built around the abstract themes of construction, starting with demolition and ending on perspective. Opening track 'One Month Off' combines a warm thump with skittering percussion. Ragged cymbals build pressure. As the track continues to strut, through insistence as much as confidence, it gives out. 'The Wall', next up, is perhaps misleadingly a more unsettled affair. There is little linear impetus, a panoply of syncopated beats and foreign noises from the undergrowth. This is a wall of multitudinous surface, a front concealing the unsettled and unsure within. 'Cave Dwellings' is a more organic construct, building from the traditional basics of a kick drum and hi hat. Like the opening number this is a confident piece, but the Caves resonate with greater darkness and menace. The kick squelches at the bottom, the snare drips; glistening echoes bound through the chamber. 'Marker Shop' is fourth up, uniting disparate urges and glorious moods. The beat is uncomfortable, and repeatedly gives way. The record closes on 'Viewpoint', a piece of warmer perspective. It is not, however, a calm scene: in many ways this is a view of something more unsettled than what has come before. It is both jungular and industrial, an uncompromising marriage of nature and noise. Chevel lands, then, on SA, with a discussion of construction and constructs.

Whereas many electronic producers aim at being the most prolific in their genre, or the most extreme, Lucy and Rrose have wisely chosen to be the most consistently curiosity-provoking representatives of their craft.


Whereas many electronic producers aim at being the most prolific in their genre, or the most extreme, Lucy and Rrose have wisely chosen to be the most consistently curiosity-provoking representatives of their craft. Their decision to team up as a production duo for the newest Stroboscopic Artefacts EP may have seemed inevitable, given their shared responsibility for shifting techno's focus towards the facilitation of profound psycho-acoustic effects. And yet, even those who saw this coming will still be in for a wild ride.

Lucy's skill as a studio technician - displayed capably over his trilogy of full-length albums - has always been enhanced by his skill as a storyteller and as an artist with reverence towards myths and the pull of the unknown. This sonic personality is a perfect complement to the scientific severity of Rrose, for whom the electronic pulse beat and subsonic massage permit entry to a febrile psychic landscape whose contents are never entirely what the individual listener might expect or be prepared for.

As with both of the artists' solo offerings, these recordings feel as much like the branching off point for new creative acts rather than as objects to be passively enjoyed. As such, the opening "Chloroform" is a somewhat ironic title for a piece that is anything but anesthetic: at high volumes, its monstrous low-end surge and prickly, scintillating sonic ephemera are very likely to bring attention to otherwise imperceptible phenomena. "Peeling" continues in this style with a more urgent tempo, developing its own cascade of sensory impressions from seemingly unstable deep-bass loops, injections of intentional surface noise, and pitch-shifted / harmonizer-effected phantom phrases.

"Stained Glass," maybe the most straight-ahead piece on the record, is still a potent distortion of the mundane primed with shivering bell tones, tamed feedback and hints of speaker cones fraying. The climactic "Foil Gardens" is an elegant study in harmonics whose time-dissolving ability nods to the works of composers like Charlemagne Palestine or Eliane Radigue, without being a pure homage to either. The undertow of distortion beneath the glistening tone waves, in particular, provides a distinct update to the legacy of so-called
tonal 'minimalism'.

The end result here is a record that feels uncannily lifelike: an organism that always seems on the verge of a heuristic breakthrough, and whose full potential may not even be known by its creators.

Words by Thomas Bey William Bailey

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.

Dinah Washington has been cited as “the most popular black female recording artist of the 1950s”. The jazz vocalist passed away in December 1963 at the age of 39. Just a few months after, in February 1964, Aretha Franklin released her fifth studio album Unforgettable - A Tribute to Dinah Washington. Aretha never personally met Dinah, but she was a good friend of Aretha’s father. Washington always had a major influence of the blossoming style of Aretha. Several covers are, to this day, considered as some of her greatest hits due to Franklin’s timeless voice.

The album was recorded at New York’s Columbia Studios. The recordings were made with the assistance of a small and sympathetic accompanying group for which producer Bob Mersey supplied minimal written guidance.

On January 14th, 2022, Elvis Costello and The Imposters release, ‘The Boy Named If,’ a new album of urgent, immediate songs with bright melodies, guitar solos that sting and a quick step to the rhythm. Costello tell us, ”The full title of this record is 'The Boy Named If (And Other Children’s Stories).’ ‘IF,’ is a nickname for your imaginary friend; your secret self, the one who knows everything you deny, the one you blame for the shattered crockery and the hearts you break, even your own." Produced by Sebastian Krys & Elvis Costello - the album is a collection of thirteen snapshots, “That take us from the last days of a bewildered boyhood to that mortifying moment when you are told to stop acting like a child - which for most men (and perhaps a few gals too) can be any time in the next fifty years," as Costello put it.

Akira Ifukube Returns! It's 1996 AD and Toho decide to freeze their Godzilla franchise, so what better way to go out with than a nuclear meltdown, which happens in GODZILLA VS. DESTOROYAH. Directed by Takao Okawara, the epic kaiju flick has Godzilla deadlier than ever before, with the absorption of uranium sending the temperature of his nuclear reactor heart soaring, which will ignite Earth's atmosphere and kill everybody when it explodes. Oh, and there's also another kaiju on the loose, the prehistoric mutation Destoroyah. It never rains but it pours!

Returning to score GODZILLA VS. DESTOROYAH was Akira Ifukube, the man who created the Big G's sound in 1954. Fittingly, for his final film, he got to lay Godzilla to rest once again, but first brought back several of his older pieces for the mayhem, including the original Godzilla theme, with another repurposed for the amazing new Super-X3. Destoroyah also receives a terrifying theme with powerful brass, but even his strength isn't enough for Godzilla's awesome force. But with that comes the death of the Big G, and Ifukube composes a beautiful requiem for his final scene. The king is dead. Long live the king! (Charlie Brigden)

Composed by Akira Ifukube
Artwork by Wes Benscoter
Manufactured in Czech Republic

In the afterglow of her acclaimed 2020 album Silver Ladders (a year-end favorite of NPR, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and others), Los Angeles-based harpist Mary Lattimore returns with a culminating counterpart release, Collected Pieces: 2015-2020. The limited-edition LP features new and previously unreleased material, Bandcamp-only singles, and other obscurities alongside standouts from her 2017
tape Collected Pieces. Beyond the vinyl compendium, an expanded tracklist on the cassette/digital version brings more of Lattimore’s archives together for the first time. Lattimore has described the process of arranging these releases as akin to “opening a box filled with memories,” and here that box continues to populate, accessible for both the artist and fans. Evocative material separated by years, framed as a portrait of an instrumental storyteller who rarely pauses, recording and often sharing music as soon as it strikes

Soundtrack from Academy Award-nominated actor Ethan Hawke’s 2001 film Songs written by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy with the score performed by Tweedy and Glenn Kotche Featuring two previously unissued bonus tracks and available on CD and (for the first time) Vinyl. Includes performances by Wilco, Billy Bragg, Robert Sean Leonard, “Little” Jimmy Scott, and more Packaging features new liner notes from Ethan Hawke, Glenn Kotche, and a conversation between Jeff Tweedy and Grammy®-winning set producer Cheryl Pawelski “It was pivotal for me. There was a burst of creativity that continues to this day because I took the last remaining guardrails off of what I’d been willing to allow myself to do.” –Jeff Tweedy The same year of his Oscar®-nominated performance in Training Day, Ethan Hawke made his full-length film directorial debut with Chelsea Walls (starring Kris Kristofferson, Uma Thurman, Vincent D’Onofrio, Robert Sean Leonard, and more). A fan of Wilco, Hawke approached Jeff Tweedy about scoring the film, and Tweedy agreed. Around this time, Tweedy had collaborated with musician and producer Jim O’Rourke (Sonic Youth, Stereolab) for a special live performance. As fate would have it, O’Rourke had been working with Glenn Kotche, and O’Rourke introducing Tweedy to Kotche would lay the groundwork for the trio’s work together on the debut album by their band, Loose Fur. Tweedy also asked Kotche to work with him on an improvised soundtrack to the movie he had agreed to score.













[m] 13. Finale (Extended) [Bonus Track]
[n] 14. Promising [Bonus Track]

The soundtrack to the movie The United Way. The United Way is the legendary story of ‘The Red Devils’ – Manchester United. From their humblest of beginnings in England’s Industrial North at the turn of the 20th Century, Manchester United gifted working men, women and children alike, the poor and the struggling, a new Dream – a winning Dream of hope, beauty and ambition. Here is a family club which pulled itself, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the horrific Munich air disaster to become champions of European football, committing to a stunning, relentlessly attacking style and elevating working class boys to the status of gods: Charlton, Best, Cantona, Beckham and Ronaldo. Such is the mythical aura of the club, that its stadium is universally known as “The Theatre of Dreams”. Now, with over 650 million supporters around the world, 73m Facebook fans, 18m Twitter followers and 1.8m shirts sold per season, Manchester United are the most celebrated, widely supported sports club in the world. Presented by the peerless Eric Cantona and featuring stunning archive and never seen before footage, “The United Way” celebrates the birth and growth of a global phenomenon – a unifying club for the people, by the people. The whole film is set to a score by George Fenton - one of the UK’s most successful composers, writing scores for over 100 films and dozens of plays and TV programmes. He has been recognised with numerous awards: 5 Oscar nominations, multiple Ivor Novello, BAFTA, Golden Globe, Emmy and BMI awards, a Classical Brit, The Nina Rota Award at Venice and a World Soundtrack Lifetime Achievement Award from Film Fest Gent.

Released on Ruf Records in 2021, Pizza Man Blues is a snapshot of the
moment those certainties were snatched away
The Blues Boy of Matthews’ 2006 debut album has been around the block, and
the genre-crossing songs he now recounts on Pizza Man Blues are written from a
place of hard- won maturity. “This last year, we’ve all had to adapt to
circumstances,” refects Matthews. “I’ve been forced off the road, but I’ve tried to
keep the engine alive, keep earning, not lose my passion. I’ve done so many jobs,
like pizza and fower delivery driver, tree surgeon assistant, volunteering for the
NHS. These songs are all about the experiences I’ve had.”The opening charge of
Mayday would make Motörhead’s Lemmy nod approval, serving a feral fuzz lick
and a speaker-ratting chorus that asks the big questions. From the bruised organ
lines of Can’t Keep Us Apart to the thrilling torn-up guitar tone and Stax-worthy
brass on Anti-Social Media, these are songs that defy genre at every turn. “I just
wanted a ‘Krissy Matthews’ vibe,” he shrugs. “This album was the result.” But as
the indelible chorus of Grateful fades – ‘You’ve got to be grateful for what you’ve
got/ even if it ain’t a whole lot’ – it’s that sentiment that resonates. “Being a
professional world touring musician, in a pandemic, with a girlfriend in another
country, during Brexit, is not ideal,” Matthews considers. “But I’ve still found lots
of things to be grateful for and I’m a very lucky man. The only way to get through
hard times is to focus on the good times…”

From its earliest utterances, experimental music has been particularly disposed to transnational and cross-cultural collaboration. Seeking the answer for a fundamental problem - how to transcend the boundaries of difference, distance, and time - it presents a means to find common ground and communicate through the elemental form of sound. Over the last 5 years, this precisely what the duo of Félicia Atkinson & Jefre Cantu-Ledesma has achieved, intertwining sublime sonorities across the geographic expanses between their respective homes in France and the United States. Their third album for Shelter Press, ‘Un hiver en plein été’ (‘A winter in the middle of summer’) - the first to have been largely recorded by Atkinson and Cantu-Ledesma together in the same space - distills a mesmerizing pallet of acoustic and electronic sources into an open discourse of radically poetic forms, offering glimpses of warmth and intimacy waiting in the post-covid world to come.

Both veteran experimentalists with celebrated bodies of solo work behind them - each traversing the challenges of electroacoustic practice in their own singular ways - prior to their first recorded outing in 2016, Félicia Atkinson and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma had only crossed paths in person once, initially meeting in San Fransisco during 2009. The mutual bond formed during that brief encounter flowered into their first LP, ‘Comme Un Seul Narcisse’, followed two years later by 2018’s ‘Limpid As The Solitudes’. Both recorded remotely - sending files back and forth, fortified by conversations on a vast range of subjects - these two albums were guided by impassioned conceptual nods to Guy Debord, Baudelaire, Brion Gysin and Sylvia Plath, while seeking resolutions for the challenges and unique possibilities that working at a distance provoked.

Where the triumphs of its predecessors rose from the bridging of disparate moments and divergent spaces, ‘Un hiver en plein été’ culminates as a celebration of closeness, a result of Atkinson and Cantu-Ledesma working together in the studio, responsively in real time, for the first time. Recorded in Brooklyn during August of 2019 - a handful of months before the pandemic would impose chasmic distances across the globe - its six discrete works, carefully crafted and finalized over the ensuing year, evolve seamlessly across the album’s two sides, weaving a sprawling tapestry of sonority, within which both artists retaining their own voices and visions, while drawing each other towards uncharted ground.

Atkinson likens the recording of ‘Un hiver en plein été’ to have been akin to “a playground”, each artist “hungry for each sound, a bit like the rush in the Louvre in Godard’s Bande à part”, to which Cantu-Ledesma adds that the process seemed to have had “a mind of its own”, with both “along for the ride”. This organic sense of entropy and enthusiasm - a joyous exploration of the unknown - guides the momentum of the album’s evolving arc, as unfolding chasms of ambient space ripple with humanity, life, and fleeting glimpses of the actions that led to its material core.

Crafted from deconstructed melodic elements and drifting long-tones - laden with subtle nods to Indian classical ragas and free jazz - searching patterns of speech, textural elements captured within the studio and the outside world, and searching tonal and percussive interventions, ‘Un hiver en plein été’ coheres as a multi-faceted series of electroacoustic dialogues; nesting conversations between two artists working at the juncture of abstraction and narration, field recording and harmony, and the philosophical and phenomenological, in search for the meaning of friendship, and its manifestation in pure sound.

In 2020 Brooklyn's Holy Hive introduced us all to something we didn't know we needed. Homer Steinweiss' thickly pocketed drumming paired with Paul Spring's floaty falsetto vocal produces a sound that's like a salve. It's been dubbed Folk Soul and Holy Hive not only expertly overlay the more apparent musical aspects of folk and soul-but they also draw from the more profound: being able to pull traditions from the past and make them their own. When Homer wasn't playing drums for Lady Gaga or Adele or Bruno Mars, he'd produce Paul's solo folk records. Along with original bassist and frequent collaborator Joe Harrison, these sessions proved to be Holy Hive's foundation. And their fi rst record, Float Back to You, expertly combined what each musician does best: Paul's heady, reflective approach to folk with Homer's universal classic soul sound. With their new record released on Big Crown, Holy Hive's beautifully simple-and-sparse Folk Soul sound is back-but updated. With new influences and the challenge of creating and capturing music during a global pandemic, this new self-titled album, is more personal, more reflective. They describe three distinct phases when piecing together Holy Hive: this first stage was pre-pandemic in California while traveling as a group, then-like the rest of us-they were separated, creating together but apart, and lastly an explosion of output once they reunited in New York. There is a natural but subtle evolution for Holy Hive on this record. Homer and Paul drew from new and maybe more obscure-yet-honest influences. It's still very much Folk Soul-how could it not be. But, like all artists, they've taken in what they've made and how they've made it, only to push it into new places. We know of Holy Hive's ability to lyrically convey the abstract and complex in poetic and palatable ways. But where the first record was soulfully silver-tongued with chill songs about love and affection, Holy Hive widens the lens with these novel influences, reflecting the points both Homer and Paul are in their own lives.

LTD. CLEAR PINK & BLUE SPLATTER VINYL

In 2020 Brooklyn's Holy Hive introduced us all to something we didn't know we needed. Homer Steinweiss' thickly pocketed drumming paired with Paul Spring's floaty falsetto vocal produces a sound that's like a salve. It's been dubbed Folk Soul and Holy Hive not only expertly overlay the more apparent musical aspects of folk and soul-but they also draw from the more profound: being able to pull traditions from the past and make them their own. When Homer wasn't playing drums for Lady Gaga or Adele or Bruno Mars, he'd produce Paul's solo folk records. Along with original bassist and frequent collaborator Joe Harrison, these sessions proved to be Holy Hive's foundation. And their fi rst record, Float Back to You, expertly combined what each musician does best: Paul's heady, reflective approach to folk with Homer's universal classic soul sound. With their new record released on Big Crown, Holy Hive's beautifully simple-and-sparse Folk Soul sound is back-but updated. With new influences and the challenge of creating and capturing music during a global pandemic, this new self-titled album, is more personal, more reflective. They describe three distinct phases when piecing together Holy Hive: this first stage was pre-pandemic in California while traveling as a group, then-like the rest of us-they were separated, creating together but apart, and lastly an explosion of output once they reunited in New York. There is a natural but subtle evolution for Holy Hive on this record. Homer and Paul drew from new and maybe more obscure-yet-honest influences. It's still very much Folk Soul-how could it not be. But, like all artists, they've taken in what they've made and how they've made it, only to push it into new places. We know of Holy Hive's ability to lyrically convey the abstract and complex in poetic and palatable ways. But where the first record was soulfully silver-tongued with chill songs about love and affection, Holy Hive widens the lens with these novel influences, reflecting the points both Homer and Paul are in their own lives.

The ambient / cross-genres label Concentric Records launches its first solo release as a special edition LP written and composed by the celebrated and influential techno / experimental producer Tobias. It is the first strictly-ambient solo album of Berlin's Tobias. aka Tobias Freund.

Entitled Hall Ov Fame, the 42min. full length album is a rare ambient journey into a sonic world that is full of narrative and cinematic imagination, blurring boundaries between perceived and staged reality, past and future memory.

“I have movies in my head” describes Tobias Freund the source that inspired his new album to fill it with a fantastic life of its very own. Consequently, each of the eight tracks represents a scene out of a fictitious short film, some of them with a claustrophobic and tense atmosphere while others appear light and hopeful on the screen of imagination. What they have in common is an adventurous spirit that is inherent in and played out by three main characters: repetitive electronic and acoustic patterns, voices from far away and field recordings of obscured origin. All the episodes combined introduce this “Hall Ov Fame” as a psyche-cinematic event which resonates with “ambience in its natural shades” to evoke the whole range of sensations that make a proper, suspenseful mind movie.

Tobias. (Freund) is long established as an influential artist and has - since the early 1990s - been working as a professional producer, sound engineer, label owner and strictly live musician. The Berghain resident constantly keeps exploring the vast synth-driven Techno, Experimental and Ambient territories on journeys in-between genres, both as a live act and on his countless releases.
Besides his early solo projects (such as Pink Elln, Metazone or Phobia) he’s also been collaborating with Dandy Jack (as Sieg Über Die Sonne), Ricardo Villalobos (as Odd Machine), Max Loderbauer (as NSI.), Valentina Berthelon (as Recent Arts) and AtomTM to only name a few. With his vast experience, diverse output and interests, Tobias. doesn’t tire to actively push against existing boundaries and explore new areas of electronic music. By this he stands in a long tradition of electronic music, scrutinizing the self while reaching out towards the unknown, approaching sound with an appetite for the new, in the tradition of true innovators.

Hall Ov Fame follows a compilation in three parts that introduced Concentric Records’ roster and exploratory sonic realm over the past year and half, featuring unique and wide-ranging works by (in order of appearance) Pole, Daniela Huerta feat. Cornelia Thonhauser, Samuel Rohrer, Vladislav Delay, Jake Muir, Hotel Neon, Soundwalk Collective, Etapp Kyle, Tragic Selector (Daisuke Tadokoro & Terre Thaemlitz), Kareem Lotfy, Christina Vantzou, Jana Winderen, Echium, Max Loderbauer, William Selman, Petre Inspirescu, Supply, The Waves, HOLOVR, ASWA.

Written and Produced by Tobias Freund at Non Standard Studios, Berlin. Mastered by Tobias Freund. Lacquer Cut by Mike Grinser. Cover Image: TV Caption of Marcello Mastroianni in 'La Città delle Donne' by Federico Fellini, 1980. Artwork by Blackbirds Inc.

“I’m reeling, I’m restless,” sing Deep Throat Choir from the heart of their second album. That restlessness manifests in a set of tremendously abundant, original songs from the east London female and non-binary vocal collective, founded by Landshapes member Luisa Gerstein.

 Released via Bella Union, ‘In Order to Know You’ is a multi-layered assertion of freshly expansive range, driven by two core virtues: a sense of strength in unity and an open embrace of its singers’ personal experiences, shared through collective, supportive vocal expression.

 After 2017’s largely covers-based debut album, ‘Be OK’, the choir recognised the call to evolve. “Having been singing together for five-plus years, and having released an album of mostly covers, it felt like the logical next step to make our own music together,” says Gerstein. “This album is the alchemy of all the specific voices and players that make up the choir, and a collaborative process of writing and sharing music and ideas. Sonically, I wanted to move beyond just voices and percussion, to see what richness could be brought with acoustic instruments and electronics, and to transition from a choir that
does covers to a band with loads of vocalists.”

 ‘In Order to Know You’ heads towards its climax without seeming to touch the ground, from the title track’s devotional exhalation to the stealthy, smoky shimmer of ‘Unstitching’. Its lyrics drawn from a poem by Emma Cleave, the sublime ‘Field of Not Knowing’ closes the album in a vivid tapestry of folkgothic images (moon beams and pipistrelles) and serene-to-soaring arrangements, revelling in possibility: “It’s the place where I begin,” sing the choir.

 For Deep Throat Choir, the result is both an exquisite culmination of journeys taken so far and a lustrous, exquisite springboard for further adventures. Their travels began in 2013, when the collective took shape from a desire to strip music back to the basic elements of raw female voices and drums, united in a fashion that both honours and transmogrifies personal expression.

 A small group of four or five singers steadily expanded, with Zara Toppin’s drums providing a propulsive energy. Cathartic live shows and collaborations followed, ranging from team-ups with Peggy Sue, Stealing Sheep, Horse Meat Disco and Matthew E White, to performances at Green Man, Wilderness, the Southbank Centre’s WOW festival, London’s Scala and beyond. ‘Be OK’ provided a gutsy showcase for the band’s close, collective strengths, bolstered by weekly gatherings at a church in east London to blow
the roof off. A fruitful collaboration with techno-pop duo Simian Mobile Disco on the 2018 album ‘Murmurations’ followed: a testament to the choir’s alchemical abilities.

Parlophone Records/ISO Records are proud to announce TOY:BOX. The previously unreleased TOY album will be released on 7th January 2022, the day before David Bowie’s birthday. Available in six 10” vinyl versions, TOY:BOX is a special edition of the TOY album. The ‘capture the moment’ approach of the recording sessions are extended to the sleeve artwork designed by Bowie featuring a photo of him as a baby with a contemporary face. The package also contains a 16-page full-colour book featuring previously unseen photographs by Frank Ockenfels 3.

TOY was recorded following David's triumphant Glastonbury 2000 performance. Bowie entered the studio with his band, Mark Plati, Sterling Campbell, Gail Ann Dorsey, Earl Slick, Mike Garson, Holly Palmer and Emm Gryner, to record new interpretations of songs he’d first recorded from 1964-1971. David planned to record the album ‘old school’ with the band playing live, choose the best takes and then release it as soon as humanly possible in a remarkably prescient manner. Unfortunately, in 2001 the concept of the ‘surprise drop’ album release and the technology to support it were still quite a few years off, making it impossible to release TOY, as the album was now named, out to fans as instantly as David wanted. In the interim, David did what he did best; he moved on to something new, which began with a handful of new songs from the same sessions and ultimately became the album HEATHEN, released in 2002 and now acknowledged as one of his finest moments.

Coming soon!

Canadian rock trio The Tea Party is releasing a brand-new CD Deluxe Edition and Remastered Vinyl Edition of their iconic first album “The Tea Party” on December 10, 2021 through UMC. These new editions are coming 30 years since the album’s initial “indie” release and includes remixed and remastered audio by Stuart Chatwood, updated images and liner notes. The Deluxe Edition will be available on 2CD plus an eAlbum, the Remastered Edition is available on 2LP pressed on 180g red vinyl. For fans of the band, “The Tea Party” has remained a collectible album since its release in 1991. It was originally recorded as a demo which the band submitted to several record companies. However, the band was not signed to any recording contract and decided to release the album independently. The album production is relatively lo-fi, and the band re-recorded several of the songs for their follow-up “Splendor Solis.” Only 3,500 copies of the album were made, some of which were cassettes, making the recording a collectible to fans.

Who better to help you celebrate that most wonderful time of the year than holiday favorites Bad Religion? Tackling eight chestnuts in their classic punk rock style. From "White Christmas" with its nod to pioneers The Ramones, to the glorious choirboy intro to "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," Christmas Songs is the record you need to get your holiday household's toes tapping. Limited pressing - 1000 units worldwide, for the first time on green and yellow vinyl.

For nearly two decades, four-time GRAMMY® Award-winning multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, producer, arranger, and songwriter Michael League has been an innovative force in modern music, whose grass-roots approach to the industry has made an imprint across multiple continents and genres. Known best as the leader of the instrumental ensemble Snarky Puppy, League has performed thousands of shows, released dozens of studio and live albums, and garnered accolades from the New York Times, Downbeat, Jazz Times, and Rolling Stone, among many others. The busy artist is also a founding member of the GRAMMY®-nominated supergroup Bokanté and oversees GroundUP Music—a fiercely independent label which he established in 2012. As a versatile producer and songwriter, League has collaborated with a broad spectrum of artists, including David Crosby, Esperanza Spaulding, Kirk Franklin, Joe Walsh, Daedelus, and Terence Blanchard. Throughout his many ventures, however, League has always felt most comfortable within a collaborative setting, whether he’s bringing musicians together from across the globe, planning the latest edition of the GroundUP Music Festival, or writing one-on-one with a partner. While the notion of a solo record first took shape in 2015, League’s demanding schedule always prevented him from pursuing it in earnest. And then, in March 2020, the world went into lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic. With tours canceled, studios shuttered, and projects on hold indefinitely, League finally had the time to make this record—titled So Many Me. Yet, lyrically and musically, his first solo album was a very different project—and process—than what he had initially envisioned five years earlier.