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‘Of Process and Progression’ is a perfectly balanced combination of hip-hop, jazz, and soul from longtime collaborators Tall Black Guy & Ozay Moore, who continue to push themselves creatively after a collective more than 30 years in the game. On each and every track on this LP, the duo beautifully blend Golden Era boom-bap with modern sounds to deliver something altogether timeless and inspiring. There’s just so much to love about ‘OPAP,’ an easy candidate for one of the year’s best releases, regardless of genre. Both TBG and Ozay have been on a tear these past few years with their respective careers, but it’s safe to say they’re reaching a new peak together with this release.

Paz en La Tierra is a result of a search by the Meridian Brothers & Conjunto Media Luna of the heart of something that can be called a 'power format' of Colombian Caribbean music; Accordion , Guacharaca, Caja, Congas, Electric bass, and vocals.

Departing from this idea, and casually working with the music of a documentary on the famous singer Diomedes Diaz, Iván Medellín (accordionist of Conjunto media luna), and Eblis Álvarez from the Meridian Brothers, embarked on a new work building a sound exclusively on the traditional format, searching for several spaces between the lines in the universe of accordion in Colombian music.

The duo departed from the basic: the line of vallenato, the most famous in the country but not the only one, the line of sabanero music more of the lands of Sucre and Córdoba inclined towards cumbia, bullerengue, son vallenato among other airs fed the group's ideas. The Barranquilla center deserves a separate mention, due to its cosmopolitan approach, using all kinds of influences, from the Caribbean islands to ancient rhythms or even modern rock and funk, also used as an inspiration for this record.

In the process, new ways of melody appeared and new ways of expression emerged. Although the rhythms used in the record are rooted in the traditional, the duo glitched those rhythms turning them into new directions in the style, using exclusively the past references to transmute the sound into something that looks inside a parallel future.

Using several theatrical situations, alterations in musical structures, and slight deformations of the traditional harmony (a tonal center and its dominant) the result of "Paz en la Tierra" is enigmatic and charming, and at the same time directed towards the dance floor keeping the past alive and flourishing the essence of the tradition.

4 Reworked & Reimagined tracks from Motherhood and a cover of Deftone’s “Teenager”. Clear w/ Blue Glitter Colored Cassette Shell, with full pull-out J-Card artwork. Recommended If You Like : Bjork’s Live Box, The Deftones Cate Le Bon. Montreal’s No Joy—since 2009, a noisy four-piece shoegaze band, from 2015 onward, the sonic experiments of founding member and principal vocalist Jasamine White-Gluz has rejected convention, opting to find cohesion in vast, bold, indiscernible structures. In the beginning, the group excavated melodious riffs from squalling guitars, now, White-Gluz approaches songwriting with abstract meticulousness, no longer tethered to her six-string instrument. In 2018, it was the modular electronica of No Joy / Sonic Boom, an EP collaboration with Spaceman 3’s Pete Kember. In 2020, her first full-length as a soloist and No Joy’s first album in five years, Motherhood, her guitar returned for a genre-agnostic, maximalist treatise on aging. Fertility, family, death, birth, her voice heard loud in the mix, White-Gluz became a commanding force among the many-splendored sounds of trip-hop, trance, nu-metal, dance rock, and, of course, shoegaze, delivered through banjo, vibraphone, scrap metal, slap bass, even kitchen appliances. Who knew chaos could have such lucidity? Now, White-Gluz’s ever-expansive evolution has brought forth Can My Daughter See Me From Heaven, an EP reanimation of five songs from Motherhood, transformed by new orchestral instrumentalists: an opera singer, a cellist, a harpist, French horn musician. These songs, recorded entirely remotely, are not a correction. They are a spring rebirth—an opportunity to grow those tracks, similar to the transformation they would’ve undergone live, on stage. “Songs take on a new life when I’m on tour. These songs didn’t get that chance. I still had more to say with them,” White-Gluz explains. “I probably never would’ve been like ‘let’s get a bunch of classically trained players together,’ if it wasn’t for covid-19 canceling tours. This EP was an opportunity to do something that wasn’t obvious. It’s a bedroom recording, but it doesn’t sound like we recorded this in our bedrooms. I wanted to do something that sounded bigger than Motherhood did, and Motherhood was recorded before covid.” Where many musicians used last year’s disaster to look inward, releasing solitary, insular albums, No Joy did the opposite: “It was more, ‘Let’s try everything!’ Give me something to look at!”

Every once in a while, a band emerges ready to take on the world. Sweden's own Knights Of The Realm bring the thunder and deliver the goods (pun intended). From the first note of the intro, to the last on the outro, they deliver their own lovingly crafted blend of classic 80's metal. Knights Of The Real is many years of heavy metal experience combined into a pure vicious heavy metal machine. Larry "The Hammer" Shield (Lars Sköld) has toured the globe and recorded with legendary band Tiamat for as long as he can remember, and is without a shadow of a doubt the band's backbone. Megalomagnus (Magnus Henriksson) has been making history with his band Eclipse since the end of the 90's and is a bonafide guitar hero, who's both capable of some heavy duty riffage as well as delivering gorgeous melodies. Mean Machine (Marcus Von Boisman) has been working in the shadows of metal for many years, and played with Swedish bands Windupdeads and Stormen. And as far as the Mean Machine goes, well, the name says it all! He delivers the soaring rock vocals we all love, with attitude and feeling. The love for classic heavy metal is the driving force behind this band. The aim from the beginning was to write heavy metal hits that should, or could, have been on the albums they grew up listening to. When the songwriting process began, it was like opening Pandora's box. The overall feeling was that those songs were calling out to be written and to be played, and the band's collective ideas, dreams and experiences merged into something new, something that can hopefully lure a new generation of rockers into that metal club we all love. Knights of the Realm is a Swedish heavy metal band, and their aim is to spread their music to as many metal heads as possible, all the while having a blast doing it. They are getting ready to go on a crusade, and to take their true place on the metal throne as Knights Of The Realm.

anthéne, one of ambient drone’s most recognised names, presents ‘maritime’. A shift from his usual expansive, time-stretching soundscapes, maritime is something altogether more grounded, more present. It signals the call of the open ocean, of its vast possibilities and terrors, as a similitude for the night.

In both, one faces the peace, the limitlessness, the reverence, and the promise, while at the same time the uncertain, the uncontrollable, the danger and the fear of the unknown. In such a way, maritime is presented in two parts: Side A demonstrates the beauty and inspiration of ocean views and night time explorations, while Side B addresses the vulnerable nature of vast, boundless experience.
An artist with an astounding workrate, Brad Deschamps has worked with such artists as Ian Hawgood, James McDermid, Andrew Tasselmyer and Fossil Hunting Collective (as Still Harbours), and releases the likes of Hakobune, Moss Covered Technology and Forest Management on his own Polar Seas Recordings.
His patient style is clear throughout the album, shimmering guitar tones overlaying with warmth and stability, yet the addition of more troubled melodies and subtle vocal parts make for something far more poignant. The duality of awe and terror, of the two primary elements of the sublime, channel through as one in one of anthéne’s most thoughtful offerings to date.

Marco Shuttle's third album, Cobalt Desert Oasis, features a varied collection of music recorded across a two year period. Often traveling to remote destinations, Marco would come back to Berlin with field recordings, images, and other inspirations to process in his studio and turn into sound.

The theme of the journey turns into a something more abstract than a travel diary, where environmental sounds blend in with modular synthesis, drum machines, effects and analog oscillators resulting in a cinematic listening experience where psychedelia, ritualism, and mysticism weave together in a sort of alien soundscape - that as the title of the album suggests, is reminiscent of a parallel utopian world.

The album is rich in complex rhythmics, and more than in any of his previous work, has strong acoustic elements. Amongst other percussion instruments, Marco used the Tombak, a traditional Persian hand drum capable of reaching a very wide range of frequencies - from deep round subby toms, to high pitched sharp rimshots, throughout the record.

Marco Shuttle is certainly not new to these sort of elements, but in Cobalt Desert Oasis he brings the environmental element of his sound into the forefront in a way that takes the listener into a hazy expanse where it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the machine elements from the natural - and where the music almost becomes a visual experience, which relates to Marco's own photography used throughout the cover and insert images.

Robert Sotelo is a mercurial melodist building a resplendent world of pristine DIY pop from the ground up. The Glasgow-based artist’s songs are meticulously crafted, patchworked together with eclectic arrangements and ardent vocal performances. Each of his albums to date has been accompanied by a growth-spurt, 2017’s debut ‘Cusp’ was packed with miniature psych overtures, whilst 2018’s 'Botanical' was more keyboard-minded and playful with a near-absurdist palette of sound. ‘Infinite Sprawling’ came out towards the end of 2019 and surprised with songs pulled together like a wakeful stretch, brisk with a lightness of touch. This was neatly followed by ‘Leap & Bounce’ melding a sparse synth-pop minimalism to an emotional undertow.
This November Upset The Rhythm will release Robert Sotelo’s vivid new album ‘Celebrant’. ‘Celebrant’ was intended to be and still is to some extent a joyous wedding album (Sotelo is recently married), but in his own words “the pandemic and the death of my aunt Carmen intersected with the original concept so the album is darker than intended in places.” More cinematic and measured than prior albums, Sotelo expounds that “it is purposefully a bigger sounding attempt at my keyboard songs and I felt more ambitious about it in general.” That’s certainly reflected in these twelve sophisticated loops of song, all curiously affecting and catchy, sprinkled with Sotelo’s offbeat musings and keenly accurate observations. Guitars are rarely employed on this record with Sotelo recruiting Iain Mccall, Ross Blake, Celia Morgan and David Maxwell to contribute brass, woodwind, spoken word and acoustic drums respectively. All of these additions blend well with the album’s synthetic core, softening and subtly shaping its pop-first nature into something more nuanced, vulnerable and human.
‘Celebrant’ is a plucky synth-centric collection of unbridled songs at times surefooted at others threatened by disconnect, skilfully steered by Sotelo with typical classy touch. ‘Dear Resident’ is divinely metronomic, ‘Behaviour’ luxuriates in pitching a silken saxophone into a frenzied drum-off. ‘The Currency Is Love’ swaggers with 80s vibes aplenty: “all the globe is listening as a system of concern” sings Sotelo in clipped manner, enjoying the placement of each word in each song precisely, however seemingly stumbled upon and surreal their selection might seem. Other highlights include title track ‘The Celebrant’ with its lush environ of droning keys, swooning woodwind and baroque reverie, and ‘This Is My House’ a woozy, maze-like triumph of melody. ‘Influencer’ is similarly masterful with melancholic strains of synth, sax and voice: “extract the data from the fruit straight off the tree, conducive testing proves it’s not reality, create a substitute to simulate the tide, with rich efficiency the differences can hide.” The song itself a cipher for an ill-imagined future we might be living in already.
With ‘Celebrant’ Robert Sotelo has made an album that sounds as big as its heart and imagination, true depth of feeling, true depth of connection. It’s an ornate album, complex and thoughtful, a fitting tribute to a wedding in unsettled times. What a treat that we’ve all been invited to the reception.

IMPORTANT NOTE: UNFORTUNATELY THE SIDES ARE REVERSED ON THE VINYL, I.E. THE A-SIDE IS THE B-SIDE AND VICE VERSA. WITH THE PURCHASE OF THE VINYL OR THE CD YOU WILL GET THE SINGLE MP3 FILES AS WELL AS A CONTINOUS MIX VIA E-MAIL.

With the cover artwork for Pop Ambient 2022, longtime KOMPAKT graphic artist Veronika Unland has once again outdone herself. Following the almost baroque, blood-red and jet-black, extremely physical sculptures of Pop Ambient 2021, which emerged from a dark, floral sea like bodies erect for dancing, the front of 2022 is adorned with a pastel-white form, intertwined, folded many times and crisscrossed with delicate shading, which seems to float on a pale pink background; soft, gentle waves woven from Venetian colors that leave the viewer puzzled: Is it a flower, a coral, a mollusk?

Again, the current edition of the tradition-steeped compilation series curated by Wolfgang Voigt is about the persistent and ever-necessary definition of beauty, of reduction, of electronic music of heavy lightness and light heaviness, of ambient's eternal promise of a state of physical and acoustic weightlessness and Pop's of redemption. And about the question why a never arbitrary combination of soundscape, drones, samples and loops, put together in a certain way, can create this feeling of warmth, depth and space, - something three-dimensional, where the imagination feels at home as a fish in the water or a bird in the sky. A key aesthetic stimulus that sends all the senses into a slow glide and drift, after which your synapses feel like they've been bathed in essential oil. Next to Soul, Ambient is probably the most effective musical healing plant of mankind.

Behind the aural test tubes, the who's who of Pop Ambient is once again at work, led for the first time by the highly trafficked Californian duo Blank Gloss, whose debut album "Melt" this year was certified by The Guardian as nothing less than "heartaching beauty". Yui Onodera's "Chrome" as well as "Kari", a cooperation of Markus Guentner and Joachim Spieth, could also be imagined in the score of Denis Villeneuve's new film version of DUNE - however, colleague Hans Zimmer managed that quite well without the three. After such wonderful and stylish contributions by Reich & Würden, Triola and Thomas Fehlmann, the ear then lingers a bit longer on the ghostly "Weiht" by Morgen Wurde feat. Maria Estrella, a track like a temple of sound, a deep electronic immersion in a Japanese onsen. In this sea of unnameable time you could sink forever, but with the tracks of Andrew Thomas, Thore Pfeiffer and Max Würden & Pepo Galán the journey slowly comes to an end.

Mit dem Cover-Artwork für Pop Ambient 2022 hat sich die langjährige KOMPAKT-Grafikerin Veronika Unland einmal mehr selbst übertroffen. Nach den geradezu barocken, in blutrot und tiefschwarz gehaltenen, äußerst physischen Formationen von Pop Ambient 2021, die wie zum Tanz aufgerichtete Körper aus einem dunklen, floralen Meer auftauchten, ziert die Vorderseite von 2022 eine pastell-weiße Skulptur, in sich verschlungen, vielfach gefaltet und von zarten Schattierungen durchzogen, die auf einem blass-rosa Hintergrund zu schweben scheint; weiche, sanfte Wellen aus venezianischen Farben gewebt, die dem Betrachter Rätsel aufgeben: Ist es eine Blüte, eine Koralle, eine Molluske?

Natürlich geht es auch in der aktuellen Ausgabe der traditionsreichen, von Wolfgang Voigt kuratierten Compilation-Reihe um die beharrliche und immer wieder notwendige Definition von Schönheit, von Reduktion, um elektronische Musik von schwerer Leichtigkeit und leichter Schwere, vom ewigen Versprechen des Ambient auf einen Zustand körperlicher und akustischer Schwerelosigkeit und dem von Pop auf Erlösung. Und um die Frage, warum eine nie beliebige Kombination aus Klangfläche, Drones, Samples und Loops, auf eine bestimmte Art zusammengefügt, dieses Gefühl von Wärme, Tiefe und Raum entstehen lassen kann, - etwas dreidimensionales, in dem die Fantasie sich so zuhause fühlt wie ein Fisch im Wasser oder ein Vogel in der Luft. Ein ästhetischer Schlüsselreiz, der alle Sinne in ein langsames Gleiten und Driften versetzt, wonach sich deine Synapsen wieder anfühlen, als habe man sie in ätherischem Öl gebadet. Neben Soul ist Ambient die wahrscheinlich wirksamste musikalische Heilpflanze der Menschheit.

Hinter den auralen Reagenzgläsern hantiert einmal mehr das Who-is-Who der kompaktschen Pop Ambient-Riege, erstmals angeführt vom hoch gehandelten kalifornischen Duo Blank Gloss, deren diesjähriges Debüt-Album “Melt” der englische Guardian nichts weniger als “herzergreifende Schönheit” bescheinigte. Yui Onodera’s “Chrome” sowie “Kari”, eine Kooperation von Markus Guentner und Joachim Spieth, könnte man sich auch gut im Score von Denis Villeneuve’s Neuverfilmung von DUNE vorstellen, - das hat der Kollege Hans Zimmer allerdings auch ohne die drei ganz gut hinbekommen. Nach so wundervollen wie stilsicheren Beiträgen von Reich & Würden, Triola und Thomas Fehlmann verharrt das Ohr dann etwas länger beim geisterhaften “Weiht” von Morgen Wurde feat. Maria Estrella-Weiht, ein Track wie ein Tempel aus Klang, ein tiefes elektronisches Eintauchen in einen japanischen Onsen. In diesem Meer aus unnennbarer Zeit könnte man ewig versinken, doch mit den Tracks von Andrew Thomas, Thore Pfeiffer und Max Würden & Pepo Galán geht die Reise langsam zu Ende.

Clear Vinyl

Perc returns to Perc Trax with an EP designed to capture the energy and chaos of rave without relying on the same classic sounds that have been in constant use since the early 90's. 'Greed Dance' is Perc's first full EP in 14 months, following 'Fire In Negative' on Perc Trax back in September 2020. Since then Perc has pushed through lockdown with an intense production regime resulting in tracks being signed to Lebendig, Possession, RAW and Rote Sonne, as well as this EP for Perc Trax.

Originally started at Christmas last year, lead track 'Greed Dance' started life as an anger fueled full vocal track aimed squarely at the hypocrisy of certain sections of the dance music industry, but over time has been stripped down to a tight rhythm track with sparse vocal elements reflecting a change of mood as the UK's clubs and events were finally allowed to open again this summer.

B1 ' Resistor' takes a similar approach as previous Perc release 'Toxic NRG', looking to squeeze maximum dance floor drama out of a small group of continually tweaked sounds. Finally B2 track '240 Volts' layers rapid fire organ arpeggios over a rock solid kick & bass foundation to create something fresh for both Perc and techno in general.

'Greed Dance' will be released on limited edition cola bottle green 12" vinyl, packaged in a full colour double-sided sleeve designed by regular Perc Trax design crew Adult Art Club. The EP was written & produced by Perc at his home studio and mixed down by Perc at MAP Studios in London. The EP was
mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis, London

Purple Vinyl

"In this album I was trying to explore the idea of pop music on PCP. PCP has fantastic lore around it and I think the most fascinating thing about it is that it seems as if many people have had these experiences where they took PCP, it presented them with an alternative reality, and they accepted it without question. It's as if that umbilical cord of knowing that you're high is cut, and the person taking it is fully immersed in the trip. Not only that but from some of the accounts, the alternate reality seems quite twisted and perverse. There are reports of people disemboweling and eating each other, or deciding that the best course of action is self-mutilation or castration, and then emerging from the trip still convinced it was the right choice. Or even the accounts of people gaining superhuman strength and fighting off 5 or 6 cops at once. It seems like there's something quite dark on the other side of that door. So for this album I tried to write what I imagine the pop music of that alternate reality might sound like. What would happen to the sugary sweet, wet dream, corporate sponsored top 40 hits, if we dipped 'em in angel dust and got "wet". What would happen if we slopped all of those fun summer hits into the meat grinder of the PCP reality tunnel, and just pushed them through. I like to imagine an intersection under an overpass in a cyberpunk dystopian future. It's midnight and you can see the neon's from the storefronts on the other side through the thick smog. A modded AE86 Corolla pulls a left turn and you can hear the music pounding from the sound system as the rubber peels underneath it. As it's drifting through the intersection, smoke pouring out of the tiny gap at the top of the tinted windows, the music pours out of the car like a thick syrup, engulfing us as we stand frozen for a moment as they pass. This is what they were playing."

There is something magical about the synergy of the voices of a couple; they gel, they interweave, they lift each other. Remember classic duets sung by partners over the years; so much is said, more than just words.

'Warm You' is the collaboration between Mandaworld (aka Amanda Hicks) and partner Matthew Tavares (aka Matty of BADBADNOTGOOD fame). It is a song about your lover getting out of bed in the middle of the night because they can't sleep and you telling them to come back to where it’s warm and safe and they’re loved.

It was written in their Montreal apartment a few months after they moved in. Matty described the writing process "We just spontaneously decided to make music, and the idea came out pretty much immediately. I laid down some guitar and then Amanda played the synth line over it and I edited the guitar so the timing was more interesting. We worked on it for a few days getting the chorus and the verses to feel right and, for the most part, everything fell into place super intuitively. Amanda wrote the lyrics."

This heartfelt, dream-pop song, with a mellow shoe-gaze sensibility, lets the pair trade verses whilst the instrumentation builds to a crescendo and the duo's voices finally combine. Lush, passionate and personal, a beautiful song, rich in evocative memories.

On the ‘B-side’, Mandaworld takes centre stage. 'Spoonfeed' is a spacey synth bass-led ambient ballad with smokey hazy vocals, calming like a bubble bath. Produced with a timeless quality, the song leaves you with a sense of tranquility and a feeling of being submerged underwater.

Like all the best music this 7" is deeply personal, yet these are universal themes that are relatable to any listener as they recognise their own experiences within the mood of the songs.

On 2020, the first full length album recorded at the infamous Chateau d’Herouville in France since its closure in 1985, Starr explores a year which none of us will soon forget.
Starr says of the album “I feel like this is us at our most blunt, I certainly haven’t felt very poetic this last year.
I’ve been writing about what is right in front of me and have chosen to eschew beauty for the raw reality of what has been happening in NYC this year.”
2020 is a genre hopping, time traveling whirlwind with heavy depth and impeccable range which is set very firmly in the surreal and manic time we are living in. The music and lyrics found within equal the surreal with the subtly psychedelic, the manic with a frantic talent.

About Brion Starr:
To qualify Brion Starr as a rock artist would be missing the point, an auteur in the deepest sense, the singer/songwriter makes records which stitch together familiar sounds from each generation past back to the dawn of popular music without ever crossing the fine line of retro-nostalgia, it sounds new while also accessing memories of something from your past that never actually happened, some band you’ve heard before that never actually existed or perhaps did on some alternate timeline.
Starr continues the complex derivation through the ages which was started on previous albums Global Identity (2018) and Rope Memories (2019) like a time traveler sent back to serenade us into a trance, once fallen under the spell of these melodies, hooks, and lyrics you become helpless, they embed themselves in your mind until you find yourself humming the tunes and wondering how you got here.

Rising singer-songwriter Roxanne de Bastion announces the release of her cathartic second album ‘You & Me, We Are The Same’. The ten songs were written by Roxanne, then recorded and produced with Bernard Butler, during the two-year period Roxanne was losing her father. However, ‘You & Me, We Are The Same’ is not a sad album. It has moments of euphoria, of fun, of falling in love, as well as falling apart, because as Roxanne explains “all those things still happen, even in our darkest chapters.”

As producer Bernard Butler explains “Roxanne sings great modern pop songs about being Roxanne in 2019. I really enjoyed making this album, I think we created something emotional and special.”

Rising singer-songwriter Roxanne de Bastion announces the release of her cathartic second album ‘You & Me, We Are The Same’. The ten songs were written by Roxanne, then recorded and produced with Bernard Butler, during the two-year period Roxanne was losing her father. However, ‘You & Me, We Are The Same’ is not a sad album. It has moments of euphoria, of fun, of falling in love, as well as falling apart, because as Roxanne explains “all those things still happen, even in our darkest chapters.”

As producer Bernard Butler explains “Roxanne sings great modern pop songs about being Roxanne in 2019. I really enjoyed making this album, I think we created something emotional and special.”

A Paean to Wilson is still arguably Vini Reilly and the Durutti Column's most important and consistent piece of work since the demise of the original and seminal Factory Records in the early 1990's. On this release we have the ‘F4 Heaven Sent’ tracks released on vinyl for the first time. They first appeared in 2005 via Wilson's project F4, as being the fourth version of Factory Records. Originally it was download-only release, Heaven Sent (It Was Called Digital, It Was Heaven Sent). A six track CD of personal dedications by Vini ironically the last piece is titled Anthony. Originally this was commissioned for the MIF (Manchester International Festival) where it was premiered in July 2009. Vin had already composed pieces for Tony to listen to whilst he was ill in hospital and it was from here that the project developed. This release belatedly coincides with the new Paul Morley Biography ‘Manchester with Love: The Life and Opinions of Tony ...’Ever critical of Vini's voice, but ever a fierce champion of his talent, the late Tony Wilson would surely appreciate this instrumental tribute by The Durutti Column. ‘Near the beginning of the final night of the Durutti Column's 70-minute international festival tribute to Tony Wilson, A Paean to Wilson, guitarist Vini Reilly announced that he wouldn't be singing: "So you won't have to put up with my awful voice and schoolboy lyrics." If Wilson was with us, he would have chuckled. The Granada presenter-turned-Factory Records boss spent years urging his first signing to stop singing, and concentrate on the virtuosity that led Red Hot Chili Pepper John Frusciante to call Reilly "the greatest guitarist in the world". Two years after his death, Wilson got his way, one of many lovely touches in a very personal, emotional and often warmly funny musical tribute. Wilson signed Joy Division and Happy Mondays, yet never gave up on this cult band he adored, working with them even after his legendary label went bankrupt. A complex man, Wilson was an academic thinker who revelled in Steve Coogan's affectionate, Alan Partridge-style send-up of him. And this tribute was no different. At one point, Reilly known for melancholy launched into something resembling an Irish jig. "Tony loved to laugh," he explained. "He loved absurdities." After the humour came exquisitely mournful music. With Reilly and drummer Bruce Mitchell augmented by bass, keyboard, violin, electric piano, drum machine and trumpet, the band's beautiful pieces reflected Wilson's love of rock and classical. Reilly's plangent guitar work showed grief's emotional spectrum, from sadness to overdriven anger. As in life, Wilson had the last word, his recorded voice expounding thoughts on socialism with an eerie echo. Silence followed as Manchester pondered the loss of one of its truly larger-than-life characters. Then everybody cheered.' Dave Simpson The Guardian 20/7/09

Distilling order from a crushing whirlwind of chaos has been the stock in trade for Red Kite since the Norwegian jazz-rock supergroup joined forces in 2014. Apophenian Bliss, the much anticipated follow-up to the quartet’s powerhouse 2019 self titled debut references the tendency in the human brain to find patterns and connections even when none actually exist. While it may be a stretch to call Red Kite’s blistering alchemy of surging psychedelia, steamroller rock and fringe-dwelling jazz “benign,” it’s at least a far less harmful application of the term than the conspiracy theories warping minds across the globe.Still, corralling the heady pandemonium of heavy prog, free jazz, combustible fusion and avant-metal into a cohesive sound is one thing; bringing that music to life in the face of the real-world chaos of a global pandemic is something else entirely Musicians : Even Helte Hermansen – Baritone guitar Trond Frønes - Bass Bernt André Moen – Rhodes Torstein Lofthus – Drums and percussion For Fans Of: Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return To Forever

“I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve listened to Age of Exile in the past few weeks. I got a preview before it came out and on the first listen I was hooked. My first impression was that it sounded like Kaleidoscope (with whom Straw Man Army shares members), but it’s reaching toward something more like the song-oriented anarcho punk of Zounds and Crisis. I’ve been playing this record into the ground in the subsequent weeks, though, and there’s so much more to hear than a simple “this kinda sounds like this” comparison. One thing Straw Man Army shares with Kaleidoscope is a sense of rhythmic sophistication and inventiveness. We expect that a neo-anarcho band will have some interesting marching band snare patterns, but there’s so much more to the tracks on Age of Exile. Every song has a unique groove (or rather several of them, frequently overlapping), giving the album a sense of scope and breadth far beyond most contemporary punk records. And then there’s the sense of melody, which is equally sophisticated. While the interwoven rhythms make each song seem like a dense tapestry, the guitar melodies have a sense of sweetness and directness that makes Straw Man Army seem approachable and human. And then there are the lyrics, which I haven’t been able to dig into thoroughly, but are as dense, poetic, and vibrant as the music, focusing on how to live in the rubble of empire. Age of Exile is a striking album no matter which aspect of it you focus on, and it’s so distinctive and consuming that I can already tell it’s going to be a big part of the soundtrack to this part of my life.”

Born and raised in Seoul, Didi Han's passion for the arts began in high school.

During her time at university, where she majored in art and textile design, Didi worked as a designer. Didi Han first began blurring the lines between the arts of fashion and music after working as a music director for fashion shows and selecting music during fashion week. It wasn't long after that, that Didi went to DJ academy to learn how to DJ, inspired by a performance from Nicolas Jaar.

After her success as a member of the "Deluxe Seoul” collective, with whom she played at multiple popular venues across Korea, Didi Han was asked to perform for the world-famous Boiler Room platform on two separate occasions, and later toured across Europe and Asia. While active as a DJ, Didi Han discovered a desire to create her own music. Her 2019 release Forest gave her fans a glimpse of exciting production activities to come, featuring a low-fi texture and the sound of a flugelhorn.

Wake Up is the first project from Didi Han on french label Roche Musique. The 5 track EP was completed after the Seoul based-producer's trip to Bali in 2020. Inspiration from the sounds heard and the experiences had in the warm sunlight and emerald ocean, are what influenced the chill house tracks. Here, Didi Han introduces a mellow and melodic debut-EP which features a lots of percussion. Wake Up mixes elements of hip hop, jazz and house, and features collaborations with established artists such as Wansun Kim, Lydia Lee, Nelick and fellow Korean producer, L-like.

Already keen on Roche Musique musical identity, she quite naturally decided to release her first project under the French label.

“We first met in 2018 while Roche Musique was touring in South Korea, we instantly matched around our vision of the club scene : fresh, bold and spontaneous! In 3 years we had time to build a genuine relationship.”