Cerca:soft rock

Originally released in 1978, City To City was Gerry Rafferty’s second solo album and first release since his departure from Stealers Wheel. The album was a top 10 hit across the globe, including #1 in the US, going Platinum in the process. The album is masterclass in soft rock, featuring arguably the most famous saxophone riff in music with Baker Street, alongside the recent viral hit Right Down The Line.

"Island Time" is the latest album from Joel Sarakula and his first since relocating to The Canary Islands at the height of the pandemic. From his home in the UK he accepted an invitation to perform a special concert Alfredo Kraus Auditorium in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria in November 2020 not realising it would change his life.

"Island Time" is a collection of songs covering themes such as island life, city life, loneliness and romantic love and our relationship with nature.

Stylistically covering soft-rock, soul, disco and reggae, "Island Time" and its first single "Tragic" is broad in scope but ultimately a cohesive record, with the production focusing on a small group of musicians featuring Phil Martin (Dawn Patrol, Martin & Garp) on drums and Xav Clarke on guitar and bass. Building on his previous records "Love Club" and "Companionship", Sarakula expands his palette with a broader use of synthesizers and drum machines and makes stylistically adventurous choices such as the AOR samba of "Dinosaur" and the 70s-cod reggae inspired title track "Island Time", a tribute to escape and re-invention. Sarakula sings "Don't bother me I'm on island time, don't bother my mind once again." For any overworked and over-connected city-dweller, this plea for isolation in a tropical island is a beautiful fantasy.

"Island Time" will be released on Jan 20th, 2023 with Sarakula bringing some tropical sunshine to the freezing European winter in January and February with performances already confirmed in The Netherlands and Germany.

The original creators of Psychobilly Music, The Meteors began as a reaction against soft neo-rockabilly music of the late 70’s rock revival era. Since then the loud, sneering lovers of horror, perversion and death have released a few dozen records and are still going strong, 40 years into their career of evil. Svart Records are hellishly excited to bring you an official reissue of The Meteors’ 2007 album Hymns For The Hellbound. Long out of print on physical formats, this authorised reissue comes with a secret bonus track, all pressed on pitch black or blood-dripping red vinyl and wrapped in a gatefold jacket.

The original creators of Psychobilly Music, The Meteors began as a reaction against soft neo-rockabilly music of the late 70’s rock revival era. Since then the loud, sneering lovers of horror, perversion and death have released a few dozen records and are still going strong, 40 years into their career of evil. Svart Records are overwhelmed with psychotic joy to present an official reissue of The Meteors’ 2003 album Psychobilly. Long out of print on physical formats, this authorised reissue comes with a secret bonus track, all pressed on pitch black or poisonous green vinyl and wrapped in a gatefold jacket.

The Outer Edge is very proud to release another quite sensational release. Here are the official reworks of Hans Hass' proto-AOR / cloud rock hymn "Welche Farbe hat der Wind" (which translates to "What color is the wind").

The main producer for this release was Marian Tone (of Key Elements), who reworked the track almost from scratch. He re-recorded the drums, the bassline, and some chords while keeping Hass's original vocal layer. The distinctive guitar playing by co-composer Gabor Kristof sparkles throughout. The result is exactly what we had hoped and asked for: a DJ-friendly version of this überclassic track.

The idea for this rework project came to mind when label owner DJ Scientist got word from Tobias Kirmayer of Tramp Records that "Welche Farbe hat der Wind" would be officially re-released for the first time on his compilation series "Praise Poems" as well as on a single reissue. Scientist immediately asked if he could make an edit with louder drums to make the track more playable in a DJ set. However, as the masters of the Tramp reissues had already been submitted to the pressing plant, he was granted permission to re-license the track and rework it for his own label instead.

Hence, the reworks feature Scientist's "vintage drums" mix, which has the drums mixed louder, plus drums added at the quite psychedelic and experimental last third, with a few other sound adjustments made.

But it was up to Berlin-based DJ and music producer Marian Tone to put the icing on the cake and rework and enhance the song further with his own version. With fellow Key Elements bandmember Steffen Kieslich, he completely re-recorded the drums. Then it was up to Doron Segal to replay the bass and the keys. What we get is the classic sound of "Welche Farbe hat der Wind" - just updated and fresher.

For the first time ever, the track is also available as an instrumental version. Here, the great original guitar playing keeps the song going and going, and makes it perfectly clear that this tune, which originally came out on the schlager album "Reise in eine glückliche Zukunft" in 1974, is pretty damn funky!

It has been difficult to put "Welche Farbe hat der Wind" into a genre box, But it has been described as "rare groove","psychedelic schlager", and even "proto-AOR". For facility, Scientist has coined the new term "cloud rock" to describe this particular style of soft but groovy music. The name cloud rock bears a conspicuous reference to the krautrock genre as well. More tracks in a similar vein will be heard soon in a DJ mix under the same name.

Marian Tone's rework, as well as the corresponding instrumental version, will be released on a limited 7" single with a full-color picture sleeve. The digital release will feature the DJ Scientist re-mix plus an alternative version that puts more focus on the re-recorded bassline. In any case, this is an essential item for any music lover as well as the ideal contribution to your ultimate "cloud rock" DJ set!

Debut album by Dutch producer w1b0, who passed away in August, to be released in November on U-TRAX.

Wibo Lammerts' sudden death on August 15thshocked the worldwide electro community, and also left the record label, that had been working on the debut album with the artist known as w1b0 for the past two years, dumbfounded and in grief.

Wibo had jokingly always called his upcoming debut album 'his legacy', which now sadly has become a painful truth. With the support of Wibo's family, U-TRAX is now doing the only thing that doesn't feel totally wrong: proceed as planned, and release 'When Humans Ruled The Earth' on November 11.

W1b0 made quite a name for himself with heavy electro tracks that he released on labels like Bass Agenda, Hilltown Disco and Discos Antónicos. Standing at 202 meters, and combined with a cheerful character, most people remember him as the gentle giant of electro.
For this album, Wibo wanted to steer away from the dark and heavy electro he mostly made until then. The idea of having a platform to create delicate electronic music in different styles, and make it a showcase of his versatility, was very appealing to him. And that is where he and U-TRAX found each other.

The full-length album (over 75 minutes on cd and digital) comes after 'The Pilex Program EP', released in October, that featured a remix by Detroit's Ectomorph of 'Pilex Driver' and saw 'Program Yourself To Feel' remixed by a well-known Dutch producer that recently created the new 'techno alias' Human Form.
As usual with U-TRAX, the album comes in three different editions, with the 11-track double vinyl version containing the Ectomorph and Human Form remixes. The CD and digital version boast original versions only, plus four additional tracks: 'Alternate Reality Interface', 'Mixed Matter Fluctator', 'Synthetic', and 'In There'. The cassette version more or less has the same track list as the CD/digi version, but has both aforementioned remixes and a bonus track in the incredibly hypnotizing 'I Wanted You', a track that unfortunately couldn't be on the CD and vinyl versions.

Buyers of the physical releases get treated on superior quality products, another trademark of U-TRAX. The vinyl edition boasts over one hour of music, on two 180 grams, green vinyl discs, in a black & white & neon green gatefold sleeve. The eye-catching artwork is created by Utrecht artist Leffe Goldstein, known amongst others for his psychedelic beer can designs for Utrecht brewery Maximus. Wibo, being the beer lover he was, had zero doubts about having Leffe Goldstein do the cover for his album. The CD has a total playing time of 75 minutes and comes in a beautiful 6-panel digipack, while the cassette will have full-color on-body print and comes in a plastic-free Maltese cross fold-up sleeve.

Buyers of the physical releases get treated on superior quality products, another trademark of U-TRAX. The vinyl edition boasts over one hour of music, on two 180 grams, green vinyl discs, in a black & white & neon green gatefold sleeve. The eye-catching artwork is created by Utrecht artist Leffe Goldstein, known amongst others for his psychedelic beer can designs for Utrecht brewery Maximus. Wibo, being the beer lover he was, had zero doubts about having Leffe Goldstein do the cover for his album. The CD has a total playing time of 75 minutes and comes in a beautiful 6-panel digipack, while the cassette will have full-color on-body print and comes in a plastic-free Maltese cross fold-up sleeve.

Opener 'Acid Whip' is one of the oldest compositions on this album, in which a dark 303 bassline hums over layers of spacey strings. Wibo named it after the legendary Whip It party in Amsterdam's De Melkweg. 'Alternate Reality Interface' then presents bouncy rhythms toying around with all sorts of analog (bass) synthesizers, before we go really deep with the epic ambient techno track 'Wandering Souls'.
Then things get a little lighter spirited: 'Mixed Matter Fluctator' is an electro track that builds on sounds created by Matt Buggins. It has very strong Detroit influences, the city Wibo loved so much and that he made a pilgrimage to with a group of friends that called themselves 'The Techno Tourists'. The tempo goes up a notch in 'Program Yourself To Feel', that halfway opens up in wide science fiction strings that evoke memories of Star Wars, the movie series that Wibo was a great fan of, and that was the source of many of his tracks' names. The Human Form remix opens the vinyl edition of this album and is a downright belter of a track.

Next is a somewhat experimental intermezzo named 'Synthetic'. Erratic beats and pounding bassdrums get accompanied by very subtle eerie-sounding strings, before melancholic synthesizers and piano chords take over. This is an excellent prelude to the epic 'Hologram Computing', a track that is one of our favorites. It slowly and softly builds and builds, before a pounding bassdrum breaks loose and a hypnotic arpeggio takes you to higher planes.
Not ready to letting the listener relax, w1bo then serves 'Beilstein Reference', which again presents his trademark cocktail of down-to-earth electro rhythms and catchy melodies, covered in all sort of little sounds and noises, giving the song a lot of energy. What follows is 'Hit me', a track loosely based on a song by Dutch indie rock band Mr. Joe Abe. Wibo met the band's singer on a camping site while being on holidays and the two decided Wibo should do a remix of one of their songs. Nothing was left of the original except the vocals, and the result is a remarkable cheerful, poppy electro song.

'Anticipated Input' is one of the more recent tracks Wibo made for this album, combining electro, acid and, yes: epic strings. But not all is peace and quiet on this album, as 'Pilex Driver' shows. This is w1b0 going experimental in a danceable fashion: Industrial sounds make the track sound like we're passing a construction site that is playing loud electro music. On the vinyl version of this album, Ectomorph totally decomposed the original and made it into a mysterious, almost subdued, and totally brilliant electro track that sees a main role for the retro Roland CR drum machines sounds.

TFHats, Wibo's fellow member of the Transhumanism collective, added lyrics to 'Cartesian Coordinates'. His vocals add a pleasant New Wave flavor to this song, that has breaks that remarkably reminds one of Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. What follows is the most personal track on this album. 'Fornan' is a song that Wibo made for his wife Nanette, and was added as the last piece of the puzzle that creating an album is. The warm Detroit techno atmosphere in this electro song couldn't be a more beautiful tribute to his love, and mother of their two young boys.
The album then takes a surprising detour through a 1980s landscape with 'In There', that features the Joy Division-esque vocals of another one of Wibo's friends, indicated only as Vincent. The super slow and gloomy track is a treat for anyone that loved the darker side of New Wave. The album has a worthy closer in the sensitive, yet playful 'Schlegel Diagram'.








h 08: Hit Me (w1b0's Slugfest Assault Dub) feat. Mr Joe Abe

2022 Repress

Jamaican love songs always came across as heartfelt poetry whether they conveyed a broken heart, unrequited love or even the message ‘it’s all over don’t bother to come back’ anecdotes. But whatever the mood the singers of these songs were so good and versatile that putting such
subject matter over in a few verses was always so moving and believable.
 
Jamaican love songs were a constant in the ever evolving sounds and
journey’s that reggae music took us on, from ska to rocksteady to the early reggae sounds of the late 1960’s early 1970’s. We have complied a great selection of songs that all deal with that timeless subject matter. Max Romeo’s heartfelt ‘Sometimes’ opens our set in fine style, known more for his roots singing this song proves what a great singer he is. The Melodians a great Jamaican vocal group are featured here with ‘Best Girl’. The Sensations provide us with our title track ‘Born To Love You ‘and the theme for this compilation a great rocksteady tune with fantastic harmonies. Alton Ellis gives us the soulful ‘Room Full Of Tears’. Ken Boothe
provides us with his rendition of Dennis Brown’s ‘Money In My Pocket’  the ode that money cannot buy you everything. Cornell Campbell sings one of his most overlooked classic songs with his prideful `She Wears My Ring’. The great singer of love songs  himself  Mr John Holt tells us that we should all `Reconsider’, before giving up on love and a great lost singer Monty Morris gives us two great examples of how to find love in `Do It My Way’ and `Magic Moments’.
A great selection delivered as only Jamaica can do with style and feeling…….

Hope you enjoy the set …greetings from Jamaica… love songs for all…

Matthew Doty didn't set out to write a solo album. His first batch of weightless and brightly lit material under the name Deserta began to take shape in 2017. Shortly after finding out he was going to be a father, Doty started working on a batch of songs inspired by the joy and the unknown of the world he was about to enter. That inspiration is the sonic and emotional backbone of debut album Black Aura My Sun.

Like a hot air balloon headed straight for the stratosphere, Deserta reveals yet another side of the songwriting Doty has spent decades refining. As experimental as it is enthralling, Black Aura My Sun applies the vapor-trailed production values and sublime dynamics of Doty's previous group projects (including post-rock band Saxon Shore and the synth-laced post-punk of Midnight Faces) to a shoegaze-y sound that splits the difference between Slowdive and Sigur Rós.

Doty began finding his own musical voice in the early '00s with the sky-piercing efforts of Saxon Shore. While it was initially a collaboration with Josh Tillman (a.k.a. Father John Misty), Doty was Saxon Shore's only consistent member over the course of five acclaimed records. His responsibility spilled over into everything from booking shows to the songs themselves. He was never completely alone in his pursuit of post-rock perfection, however, so Deserta is very much a new endeavor: a trial-by-fire that was written, recorded, and mixed in total solitude.

Deserta expands and contracts, with chords that drift like clouds, drums that drag and dissipate, and hooks that hang in the air for what feels like forever. That doesn't mean Black Aura My Sun is a subtle or soft record. It actually whips up quite a racket and is particularly heavy when piped through a pair of headphones.

Deserta is Doty's main creative outlet right now and a one-way ticket to another dimension entirely.

Bristolian power-improv duo Run Logan Run continue their link-up with Worm Discs and producer Riaan Vosloo on Nature Will Take Care Of You – a monumental slab of contemporary energy music that draws on the heavy soul of David Axelrod and the fiery commitment of Archie Shepp. Working with an expanded line-up that includes singer Annie Gardiner (daughter of the late guitarist Ricky Gardiner, who played and collaborated with Iggy Pop and David Bowie) plus a string quartet and a brass section, saxophonist Andrew Neil Hayes and drummer Matt Brown have once again steered Run Logan Run in a dramatic new direction. Churning, future-forwards and emotionally tuned in, Nature Will Take Care Of You reaches out towards propulsive rock and psychedelic soul, while keeping one foot in the radical jazz-not-jazz of Bristol’s ever fertile improv scene.

The core of Run Logan Run’s sound is the dynamic conjunction of Matt Brown’s agile and powerful drums with Andrew Hayes’ looping, pedal-treated sax motifs. No matter how the duo augment and enhance their music, the kernel of their art has always been the spiralling energies generated by this essential musical relationship. Explorations of repetition, dissolution and dervish-like disorientation remain a central part of their project, with Brown weaving a tight rhythmic armature for Hayes’ unshackled journeys into sound. But though they began within Bristol’s improvised music scene, their vision has been increasingly structured and expansive, and the arrival of producer and bassist Riaan Vosloo (Nostalgia 77) for 2021’s For a Brief Moment We Could Smell The Flowers allowed to them move outwards to explore pulsing, cinematic synth-scapes. Vosloo is behind the boards again on Nature Will Take Care of You – and the duo’s vision has broadened a step further.

After a rollercoaster two years promoting his last offering King Of Clubs in the middle of a global pandemic, alt-rock legend Jamie Lenman returns with the most intimate, most ambitious and most accessible album of his career. Recorded at The Chapel studios in Chichester over January and February this year with producer Mark Roberts, The Atheist is eleven tracks of guitar driven indie-pop, each laden with enough hooks to catch Moby Dick. With themes ranging from toxic friendships to socio economics to the religious topics inherent in the title, Lenman eschews the aggressive approach of previous records for a more melodic mood. “I’ve had a few of these songs kicking around for years, just waiting for the right album,” says Lenman. “Some of them were written for my first solo project Muscle Memory, some of them were even written whilst I was still in my band, but they were all too pretty. After twenty years of hard edges, particularly the ugly overtones of my last record, it was a relief to mellow out and just revel in the pure joyfulness of the thing.” From the huge earworm of Talk Hard to the stadium-sized chorus of Lena (Don’t Leave Me), the sheer catchiness of the material is undeniable, and was proven when Lenman took his new-look three-piece band to this year’s Download and played a set of entirely unheard tracks. The capacity crowd erupted into spontaneous sing-alongs despite never having heard a single note before, resulting in one of the surprise highlights of the weekend. Combined with dazzling artwork from renowned Washington Post/Wall St Journal illustrator Michael Parkin, Lenman will be unleashing his new softer side on an eager public later this year, alongside a string of live shows and the third iteration of his own mini-festival, Lenmania.

John Scofield's first guitar-solo-recording ever gives a résumé of all the
influences and idioms he has cultivated over his career in performances
on guitar, accompanied by his own rhythmic pulse and chordal backing
using a loop machine
Besides jazz, John is known to have always also had a soft spot for the rock and
roll and country music he grew up with, revealed here in unencumbered renditions
of Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" and Hank Williams' "You Win Again". Between
elegant and personal readings of standards, like "It Could Happen To You", the
traditional "Danny Boy" and Keith Jarret's "Coral", Scofield presents his own
timeless compositions - some new, others known.
For the guitarist, it's all about "the way you get the sound out of the string and
what you do with it after you attack it."
John Scofield: electric guitar and looper
Press:
"Scofield is as fiery as ever, plugged in and using loops to give himself a
background groove on some of his gritty originals or putting a punkish spin on
romantic ballads." - **** The Times
"This isn't an album to listen to in a hurry; but if you were pressed for time, the last
two tracks alone would give you a sense of Scofield's extraordinary range. The
bebop- heavy Trance De Jour is antic, angular, questing. But then we close with
You Win Again, a Hank Williams cover, serene as a sunset over the prairie." - ****
The Daily Telegraph
"Here he has distilled his decades in this crazy business into a baker's dozen of
songs that may appear modest in ambition - only one track runs to more than five
minutes, several run to barely three - yet is mighty in impact...This album needed
no other title. This is John Scofield." - **** Jazzwise
"(8/10) The result offers an intimate insight to Sco's skills as both guitarist and
arranger. It's a late-night album - quiet, introspective and really quite beautiful, too,
with Sco's musical soul laid bare before us." - Guitarist

Fleeting configurations of piano, wind, strings, synthetics, and field recordings, inspired by the Greek isles.
Previous albums adored by the likes of The Quietus, Exclaim, Drowned In Sound, etc.
For fans of Angelo Badalamenti & David Lynch soundtracks, Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, and Global Communication.
While on the island of Syros in the Aegean Sea for a film festival performance, Christina Vantzou experienced what she characterized as “a moment of focus”—a specific vision for the sprawl of raw recordings she’d been amassing for her fifth album. Upon relocating to the Cycladic island of Ano Koufonisi, she situated herself outside at a patio table with a laptop and headphones, taking brief breaks to swim, and began the “reductive process” of shaving and shaping the source material into uneasy but lyrical movements, alternately austere and adorned with strange inflections: glottal groaning, cavernous water, glittering eddies of modular synth, languorous silences. Mixing the pieces herself without outsourcing to an engineer compounded the intimacy and autobiographical dimension of the music; she refers to No5 as “almost like a first album.”
Drawing on sessions staged in February 2020, Vantzou’s editing instincts emphasize process and isolation, spotlighting resonance and restraint, liquidity and long tails. Fleeting configurations of piano, wind, strings, synthetics, and field recordings, these are spaces as much as compositions, surreal grottos of shifting light, suffused with a sense of invisible divinity. Although seventeen musicians appear on the record, the proceedings feel minimalist and malleable, sculpted from interstitial moments and oblique synchronicities. The definition of a composer as “one who joins things” is here both plumbed and proven; Vantzou describes No5 as “a letting go,” a place of “soft borders,” unfixed and undefinable.

Dressed in a powder blue suit with the frilly shirt to match, DJ Yoda invites you to be his +1 for ‘Prom Nite’, his new album promising retro Americana full of daydreaming reverie, international megastar guests, trip hop acknowledging the likes of Morcheeba and Nightmares on Wax, and the turntable extraordinaire’s bread and butter of cuts, beats and rhymes.

Certainly no stranger to retro sounds having famously peppered his DJ and AV sets with the unexpected the world over, and his ‘How to Cut n Paste’ mix series going all the way back to the 30s, Yoda’s harp-laden puppy love vibe spreads from the sweet and mellow sound of 2019’s ‘Home Cooking’, an album described as ‘boundary-breaking’ by Mojo upon slotting nicely into the UK’s blooming jazz canon. Think deliciously harmonised doo-wop murmuring ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’ with an eye for dreamboats en route to Makeout Point – on ‘My Energy’, Eva Lazarus takes the form of an earth angel, with Yoda on jukebox cut-ups, taking it back to starry-eyed, clean cut days of wonder (or more recently, Little Mix’s ‘Love Me Like You’).

Beginning enigmatically with the assistance of Hollywood A-lister (and former next-door neighbour) Lily James, ‘Breathe’ demonstrate Yoda’s continued evolution as a musician (not to mention shrewd decision maker), with James’ vocal confidence - a little Lana del Rey to her breathiness - returning on the velvet-smooth ‘Airplane Mode’. It’s a smartly executed soundclash accentuated by LA rapper Choosey, the star of the album’s straightest hip-hop shooter ‘Harder I Rock’. Homeboy Sandman adds some kick to the prom punch with typical wordplay sent down ‘Coconut Grove’, and Liam Bailey is perfectly cast for the darkly cinematic sway of ‘Don’t Even Try It’.

On an album of many talking points, the LP’s crowning glory is opening single ‘Feel Like Home’: featuring the vocal comforts of the House Gospel Choir, it’s your go–to pick-me-up when the chips are down, targeting the hairs on the backs of necks like a softer focus version of Jamie xx’s ‘Loud Places’. Extended into an alternative, equally uplifting form by Beardyman’s ‘Don’t Mean Thing’, summer festival season already has its homecoming anthem.

With tongues wagging, the twists and turns step away from Heartbreak Ridge when O Love tucks into the mouthwatering shopping list funk of ‘Way Home’; and ‘Lesson 1956’, featuring Jamie Cullum and DJ Woody, jauntily pays homage to classic Cut Chemist alchemy, Yoda’s celebrated turntable tomfoolery back in full effect and extending the flavours found in ‘Home Cooking’.

Again maximising the experience and enjoyment gained from recording live instruments and prioritising songs over beats, Yoda continues to progress with a mixture of risk-taking, elite musicianship, nostalgia brought bang up to date, and ultimately, good clean fun capable of stirring your soul, making ‘Prom Nite’ a date to remember.

Magpie artwork supplied by London’s ENDLESS, whose signature style has tagged Liberty and Lagerfeld as but two high profile clients, Yoda again maximises the experience and enjoyment gained from recording live instruments and prioritising songs over beats. His continued progress mixes risk-taking, elite musicianship, nostalgia brought bang up to date, and ultimately, good clean fun capable of stirring your soul, making ‘Prom Nite’ a date to remember.

Featured 7” Vinyl singles:
Feel Like Home (feat. The House Gospel Choir)/ Don’t Mean A Thing (feat. Beardyman)
My Energy (feat. Eva Lazarus)/Lesson 1956 (feat. Jamie Cullum & DJ Woody)

The origins of Cos date back to the second half of the sixties when Daniel Schell joined forces with Jean-Paul Musette, Pascale Son and Robert Pernet to form Classroom. When Classroom split, Daniel Schell and Pascale Son moved ahead and formed Cos together with Charles Loos, Alain Goutier and Bob Dartsch. They produced an experimental jazz rock sound linked to the influences above mentioned, but without being mere copycats since they always managed to keep to their own personality.



Postaeolian Train RobberyI is an obscure classic from the 1970's Belgian jazzy prog scene that has become a much sought after piece in the collector's market since it was originally released in 1974. Highly inspired by both the UK's Canterbury scene and the Zeuhl sound, the debut album by Cos has been compared to the likes of Soft Machine, Gong, Hatfield & The North, National Health, Gilgamesh, Egg, Placebo, Magma or Zao, with Pascale Son's unique wordless vocals and nonsense syllables singing in a voice that some sources have compared to Flora Purim's.The album was released on the small obscure label Plus, and has arised interest not only among prog-rock psych-heads and jazz experimentalists, but also among those looking for breaks and bits to sample.



The Wah Wah reissue comes housed in a beautiful reproduction of the original gatefold sleeve, featuring a 4-page image booklet and an insert with photos and liner notes. Mastered from the original tapes. We did the first official LP reissue with its original sleeve of this album some time ago and it sold out so soon that many of you has been asking for a reprint since - here is another 500 copies, again licensed from and with the collaboration of Daniel Schell.



Comes with a reproduction of killer original poster.

There's a certain winking resignation to the title of Nick Lowe's At My
Age, as if it were designed to be spoken with a soft, knowing sigh
Now in his late fifties, Lowe is hardly running away from his advancing years --
quite the contrary, the singer/songwriter is comfortable in his skin and his years.
Certainly, he's comfortable in his music, since At My Age marks the fourth time
that he's mined the intimate, well-worn country-rock vibe of The Impossible Bird,
and if at this point it no longer is a revelation, it's hardly lost its appeal, either. Part
of that lies in Lowe's ever-potent charm, and to overlook an album as exquisitely
crafted as At My Age is to be a fool, because nobody does this kind of relaxed
Americana as well as Lowe, who is still writing songs that stand proudly
alongside his previous classics. For instance, there's "I Trained Her to Love Me," a
song as wickedly witty and bitterly self- loathing as "Cruel to Be Kind" or "The
Beast in Me," a tune that's balanced by the wry new-love anthem "Hope for Us All,"
which has its share of gently funny lines but is nevertheless a ringing, sincere
endorsement of love, worthy of the man who wrote "(What's So Funny 'Bout)
Peace, Love and Understanding?" And that's always been one of Lowe's greatest
gifts, that he is possessed with rare humor but also a big heart, which is what
gives his music great resonance. This 15th anniversary edition of At My Age is
pressed on silver vinyl and limited to 2,500 copies worldwide. This marks the first
time this long- out- of- print classic has ever been available on color
vinyl.Packaging; LP jacket; silver vinyl

'Mysticisms' prides itself on finding the groove, but with a nod (and wink) to discerning ears. However, sometimes it's right to just let it all out and go route one. Berlin based producer Daniel Scholz aka (DJ) Leinad was all about the dancefloor, releasing a series of simple but highly effective EPs of cut up, looped house music that summed up that late 90s Chicago-NYC-London-Paris influenced bombs.

The jack that house built the "heroes" with the "touch" Souvenirs embodies Leinad's sound. Moving from high-school DJ, to computer programmer to professional producer, DJ and soundtrack artist, remixing for the likes of Yellow and Peter Gabriel's Real World, moving from early classic mid-90s German techno and trance releases on to his 'Leinad' moniker (Daniel spelt backwards), the series of releases on JXP can now go for dizzing sums. In Souvenirs, taken from the Disco Part's III EP, Mysticisms found the source - elastic bass, filtered loops, watertight kick and twisted disco'n' strings, all cut back and forth 'for the party' to abandon.

Present day remixes come from Lewie Day's 'Deep Dean' project, offering a wonderful example of an artist at work, a laid back groove, pushing all the right dancefloor buttons, all presented with respect to the past, but with acres of modern day swing; Mysticisms' own cohort Piers Harrison, side stepping his edit school as one of Soft Rocks, to produce a literal peak time acid banger; and to close the 'DJ' returns, Leinad offers a bumping 2022 remake to show he's still a teacher.

Guru The Mystery.

Talkbox is multidisciplinary artist Michael O’Mahony’s third album and his first for 33-33. It’s his most complete and cohesive music project to date, a culmination of ideas, happy accidents and compositions that have been cut up and re-arranged over many years. The album’s sonic signature is the Vocaloid software synthesizer – the titular ‘talkbox’ – famously by Japanese cartoon Hatsune Miku. O’Mahony became aware of Vocaloid in 2015 through the popular Nyan Cat meme, which em marketed ploys the software. Excited by the emotive potential and realism of Vocaloid’s voice synthesis, he began to imagine an album that combined its capabilities with italo disco- and UK garage-inflected sounds. As the version of Vocaloid O’Mahony had access to sang only in Japanese, O’Mahony relied on Google Translate to obtain the required characters to enter into the software. In early experiments with the software, the north Londoner translated BBC match reports from his beloved Arsenal FC. Eventually, he amassed a library of syllables and phonetic sounds, from which he created the melodies crystallised on the record. As far as we know, these vocal lines have no meaning in lyrical terms. O’Mahony works largely in an iterative way; song ideas are reworked over and over in different styles, sometimes over a period of years. Multiple versions of a song might appear on an album, each one with its own particular nuances in feeling. Music perhaps does not always flow out of O’Mahony, but emerges over time. O’Mahony’s album forms part of his wider project: an analysis of his subjectivity through art and psychotherapy. The music complements his writing and video work, which feature in his performances. He writes in chains of association, speculating on topics such as family dynamics, or the meaning of recurring dreams about a childhood game console. His video practice features footage of objects found in his parents’ house, such as his sister’s childhood My Little Pony toy and his retired psychiatrist father’s lecture tapes. The music, at once synthetic and heartfelt, imbues the writing and video work with a strange tenderness. Taken together, these various aspects of O’Mahony’s work form a meditation on the emotional attachments we make to consumer objects and the role of early life in character formation. Tracklist 1/Talkbox 2/More Succinct 3/Electricity 4/Not Giving Up 5/Dinosaur 6/Trumpet 7/Electricity (Rock Version) 8/Aliss 9/Be Good 10/Not Giving Up (Slow Version)

On a first, careless, listen, Stockholm four-piece Melby might seem like a
charming, fun little jangle-pop band - Pay a little more attention however,
and you'll find their waters run a lot deeper than that
The band have all the flash and sparkle of your favourite indie band, but add an
ability to touch moods and feelings with a meaning beyond most of their peers.
Their guitars, drums and synths rattle, roll and flicker around each other, all held
together by the soul-shiver in Wiezell's vocals, to make immaculate little guitarpop gems, equally dusted with sadness and sugar.Finding comfort in a sea of
uncertainty might be a good way to describe Looks Like A Map, the bands second
album. The record captures Melby at a moment where they're growing as people
and as a band, expanding the reach of their sonic horizons, and taking in deeper
and heavier themes, trying to find a home in an often-alienating world. The music
they made around that has a little touch of sorcery around it, sometimes soft as
smoke, sometimes woozy and dream-blurred, sometimes crashing and explosive.
But even through all that evolution, the heart and the soul have remained the
same, and Looks Like A Map still has that Melby-feeling, of a band who put all of
themselves into everything they make and their own blend of indie, psych, pop,
rock and folk. It's a new high for the band that have toured Scandinavia, Germany
and the UK and have played festivals such as Eurosonic, Reeperbahn and
By:Larm, and one that hints at even bigger things to come.

Originally released in 2014, 'For You The Wild' is Camilla Sparksss' first
studio album
Camilla Sparksss is an indie rock project carried by canadian- swiss singer
Barbara Lehnhoff. This LP is a ten- track dirty and distorted electronic storm
written without any rules, its central theme is the struggle between acting softly
and dancing like crazy. It's about life, wild life.

We are proud to present "I'm Always Right" by Imagination, an unreleased jazz rock LP from 1977. Comprised of five tracks with a playtime of roughly 30 minutes, you will hear one of the finest German late-70s rock-tinged electric jazz albums of the era. The recording is a delightful stand-out with unique compositions, aspiring solo work, and a soulful spirit throughout. Additionally, the album veritably glows with exceptional sound quality, as it has been remastered from original tapes that were cut more than four decades ago at the WDR Funkhaus, Cologne.

Here is the story of how label founder John Raincoatman became aware of these lost tapes:
"I first got in touch with members of Imagination from Düsseldorf (not to be confused with the UK disco band under the same name) in 2017 for licensing the track "Strawberry Wine" from their collectible "Shake It" album from 1980. A couple of months later, when I was speaking with Willi Hövelmann, the guitarist for Imagination, he told me about some recordings the band had made a couple of years before, when they had been invited to to the studio of the WDR, a major German broadcaster. A couple of weeks later, when Hövelmann finally sent me the files that he had requested from the WDR, I could not believe what I heard - not only that the songs were totally different from what I expected, but that they were also very very good! The music wasn't comparable to any other kind of fusion release that I knew of. These five songs were straight forward, tight and soulful electric jazz rock, a combination rarely heard from Germany from that time period."

How come Imagination - at that time a young newcomer band consisting of musicians between 19 and 22 years of age - was able to record at the well-equipped Funkhaus studio of German radio and television? Hövelmann explains: "The WDR got to know us from a newcomer band competition called "Pop am Rhein" (Pop at the Rhine) which was set up to support local bands and was promoted by several bigger newspapers. Imagination was one of the 5 contestants which were picked from 59 bands by a jury of music journalists and our band was invited to play a concert at the Philipshalle in front of about 3500 guests. Although a band called "Accept" won the contest (yes, the heavy metal band that gained international success in the following years!) and Imagination only made 3rd place, we were invited by music host and journalist Wolfgang Neumann to record in a professional studio."

Neumann's broadcasting show at the WDR was called "Rock Studio", and one of his special goals was to help push newcomer bands by giving them airplay. As a side note, Neumann actually compiled a series of three LPs on the Harvest label from 1979-1982, each of them featuring four bands. However, the earlier recordings of Imagination had only been used for broadcasting reasons, they were aired a couple of times but never made it to a vinyl or CD release.
So, on October 10th, 1977, it was time for the band to show up and prove themselves in the studio. The tracks were all recorded in one afternoon, mainly as one takes. In some cases flute, saxophone were overdubbed, as well as the vocals on "Love is Genesis", as Hövelmann remembers.

The first song, "Jazzgang" can probably be seen as Imagination's most characteristic composition out of their early period: heavy bass, saxophone leads and speedy solos by the band members. A genuine, rough, yet funky uptempo jazz rock tune. But it's "I'm Always Right", the second track on the album, that raises the bar as the key track of the release with its 10-minute length. The song starts with a great piano solo by Mario F. Demonte. In fact, "Demonte" was a pseudonym of Ratko Delorko, a classically trained piano virtuoso who is still active today as conductor, composer and performer. At that time, it was simply impossible for him to officially be part in a band like Imagination and hence the alias was invented. Anyway, the speedy intro leads to a very soulful mid-tempo jazz funk groove that offers space and time for the band members to perform a solo. First off is Uwe Ziss with sax and flute combined. The second solo belongs to Willi "Sultan" Hövelmann on electric guitar. For the furious ending the pace is set back to high speed. Delorko serves us with one of the most brilliant uptempo piano solos you may have heard in a while on a jazz record.

The next song stylistically stands out from the rest. "Biting My Time" incorporates a rhythm and blues feel with a 60s soul jazz attitude. The track was composed by Uwe Ziss who leads through the track with aspiring flute solos which feel like an easy summer breeze after the first two rock tinged tunes.

"Himalaya" sees Imagination move away from jazz quite a bit, rather approaching the psychedelic rock genre with a vibe reminiscent of the sound of the early 70s. Again starting with a piano solo by Ratko Delorko the pace is quickly at 150 bpm with the full band laying down an energetic jazz rock sound. Just after a little over one-and-a-half minutes there is a breakdown to a slower tempo with overdubbed mysterious vocals and psyche-y screams which may remind more of the legendary krautrock band Can than what is typically known as "jazz". The mood continues with tense saxophone and guitar solos, just to speed up again towards the end with furious drumming by Andreas Oelschläger.

"Love Is Genesis" concludes the release. It was composed and sung by former bassist Robert Schlickmann. Though most of the band members didn't really like the song at that time it still is a one-of-a-kind soft rock pop ballad which partly reminds of some of the vocal song tracks later to be found on the "Shake It" LP from 1980. The track manifested that Imagination were never really supposed to be solely an instrumental band.

We are now happy to have cleared the exclusive rights for this recording from the WDR and are proud to re-present this amazing collection of songs. It should appeal to fusion, jazz rock and jazz funk aficionados but also to late krautrock collectors. We are also certain that it will also please fans of the "Shake It" album, simply in terms of being such a bright and soulful debut with great music overall.