Search:son of sam

A limited vinyl pressing of the sixth album from the classic L.A. punk ska band! On purple blast vinyl!

Right from the start when you hear Feldmann’s voice sing "Everyday is just the same" before the guitars, bass, and drums kick in on opening track "One More Time," you instantly know that Goldfinger are back as good as ever. The elements of desire, passion, and punk in those 5 words instantly tell you that Hello Destiny is going to be different to Disconnection Notice. The songs on the album go from strength to strength. From the slightly heavier song of "Handjobs For Jesus," to the upbeat Ska of "Get Up," to the sweet heartfelt acoustics of the bonus track "Julian," this is an album that will be up there with the best of the Goldfinger records. Like having sex for the first time, it will be remembered.

Everything, the debut album from Chicago quartet Bnny, may as well be a field recording taken from the lone country of grief. Written in sessions that span several years by singer Jess Viscius as she processed the death of her partner, the album is a chronicle of love at its most complex and loss at its most persistent. In the same vein as Sky Blue Sky-era Wilco or the harrowing vulnerability of Tomberlin or Helena Deland, Viscius’ songwriting is evocative and intentional. A longstanding member of the Windy City music scene, the album was produced by Dehd’s Jason Balla, and the sparse arrangements pick apart complicated truths while feeling both timeless and transcendent. Everything is out in September on Fire Talk (Dehd, Deeper, Mamalarky).

This record is 20 years in the making. It features two songs by one Makode Linde, legendary visual artist and musician, dear friend of (and frequent cover designer for) Studio Barnhus, the wonderfully weird dance label from Stockholm, the city Makode once called home, before moving to Berlin around the same time work started on these two songs.
On Never Getting Over Me, Makode sings an age-old song of lost love and persistent passion over a zany, sunsoaked riddim, while Professional Help is a piece of bossa nova perfection, its protagonist lamenting his old flame's refusal of therapy over a graceful, flute-driven instrumental.
Exquisite songwriting and glowing lo-fi charm will have these propel straight to your heart, taking up residency in that sacred place reserved for the sweetest pop songs only.

Recorded as part of the same daydreaming puzzle as Unwishing Well, Still Clouds at Noon brings out the slowcore/sadcore elements that drift through The Reds, Pinks & Purples’ melancholy catalog. Donaldson names '90s hometown San Francisco acts such as American Music Club and the more obscure Timco as pivotal to his guitar playing and development as a songwriter, both of which shine bright here. The slower tempo ballads on Still Clouds… often culminate in heavy fuzz drenched codas and showcase the more abstract poetic side of Donaldson’s lyricism. There’s an inherent pop-sensibility always at work though, with ear-worm melodies appearing over intoxicating circular riffs. Formerly a Bandcamp only digital release, this white vinyl version is remastered and adds two unreleased tracks, one featuring Mark Monnone from Australian pop-legends The Lucksmiths on bass

Joe Ely präsentiert sein erstes Road-Album Driven to Drive, dreiundzwanzig Alben und mehrere Millionen Meilen nachdem er zum ersten Mal auf die
Reise ging. Die Sammlung von Songs über und inspiriert von motorisierten Reisen wurde von Ely zusammengestellt, der Mitte der 1970er Jahre wie
ein wirbelnder Tornado über die flachen Ebenen des Llano Estacado in Westtexas fegte und eine legendäre Band anführte, die zu sehr Rock für
Country und zu sehr Country für Rock war. Der wilde, offene Honky-Tonk-Roadhouse-Sound der Joe Ely Band bescherte ihrer Heimatstadt Lubbock
den ersten Musikhelden seit Buddy Holly.
Das Projekt setzt sich aus Aufnahmen zusammen, die über mehrere Jahrzehnte hinweg in den Spur Studios, seinem Heimstudio außerhalb von Austin,
gemacht wurden. Unterstützt wird er dabei von den Musikern/Nachbarn Joel Guzman am Akkordeon, dem Keyboarder Bill Guinn, dem Sänger Eddie
Beethoven und dem Geiger Richard Bowden. Letztes Jahr im The Zone in Dripping Springs, Texas, fügte Jeff Plankenhorn seine Gitarre zu drei Stücken
hinzu und der Tontechniker Pat Manske, der Driven to Drive gemastert hat, steuerte das Schlagzeug bei.
Die Bewegung in diesen Liedern wird auf viele Arten erfasst: Autos, sechzehnrädrige Lastwagen, Motorräder, Greyhound-Busse. Es gibt
Pedal-to-the-Metal-Hymnen, die auf einem geraden, zweispurigen schwarzen Asphaltstreifen dahingleiten; ein träges Mäandern auf dem Gulf Blues
Highway; eine Geschichte über die Flucht auf der Interstate; Geschichten darüber, wie man von hier nach dort kommt, und Lieder darüber, wie man
überhaupt nirgendwo hingeht. The Lord of the Highway is calling. Joe Ely möchte Sie auf eine Reise mitnehmen.

Comes with insert and download coupon.

Imagine a Latin remake of Back to the Future. The mad scientist is Arsenio Rodriguez (the godfather of salsa) and the young student who travels through time with him is Eblis Alvarez (Meridian Brothers). This album can only be described as the perfect soundtrack for that movie that never was.

After the massive buzz generated by his first solo album, Mentallogenic, Alex Figueira got back in the studio to work in a more collective fashion this time, carefully assembling the second album of his largest project to date, Conjunto Papa Upa; a team of 6 musicians, spanning 3 generations of some of the best talent in the Latin and avant-garde scenes.

In an era where tropical music is dominated by purely electronic and rhythmically uniform sounds, the ten songs encompassed in “Fruta Madura” (“Ripe Fruit”) wander through the most diverse tempos, rhythms, and motifs effortlessly. A real breath of fresh air that gracefully incorporates soul, funk, jazz, psychedelia, and electronics into a solid tropical, irresistibly polyrhythmic foundation, without ever succumbing to the many genre clichés.

The distinctive production and catchy songwriting of Figueira shine in a very distinctive light on this second full-length. Living up to his reputation (Miles Cleret, founder of Soundway Records, called him “one of the scene's truly authentic and eccentric producers”), he takes the opportunity to show he’s not afraid to keep walking his own path.

Taking the band for a wild ride through the traditions of Africa, America, and the Caribbean; contrasting them with a ridiculously wide plethora of vintage, contemporary, and futuristic sounds, and pivoting on the exuberant musicality displayed by his musicians; the result leaves no doubt: this album is destined to be considered a future classic of the exciting tropical psychedelic music of the 21st century.

Addressing the most diverse themes in this new collection of songs, things take on a much more mature tone, as the title clearly suggests.

The opening track “El segundo es más sabroso” (“The second one is tastier”) sets the tone in the most assertive way imaginable, with the band boldly declaring, through multiple metaphorical references (laid upon a crazy mix of Dominican merengue, Detroit techno, classic and free jazz, dub, and electro), that the bar will be set higher with this second album.

The remaining compositions touch upon the most diverse subjects, with a fair dose of humor, sarcasm, and postmodern “magic realism”. “El Algoritmo” (The Algorithm) is a parranda-cumbia hybrid (for lack of a specific term) about the omnipresence of technology in our lives. The sophisticated Latin soul of the titling track “Fruta Madura” makes a case for the beauty of the maturity process. Some key philosophical teachings of Marcus Aurelius (the role of causality, the impositions of “the logos” and the importance of self-control) get a twisted cumbia treatment on “Reos del Deseo” (Prisoners of Desire). “No le pongas Coca-Cola” (“Don’t put Coca Cola in it”) shows us the most satirical side of the band, accusing those who mix Coca Cola with Rum of committing "sacrilege", on a powerful base of Dem Bow (the grandfather of Reggaeton), intertwined with touches of soul, salsa, and Cuban comparsa.

"Háblame Claro" (“Talk to me clearly”) is a story of heartbreak that evokes in its first part the spirit of the erotic salsa of the 80s (a subgenre deeply despised by purists), and after an unexpected samba interlude, leads to the hardest salsa of the 70s (a subgenre adored by purists), to end up in the surprising form of pure Afro-Cuban ceremonial music.

“Tu mamá tenía razón” ("Your Mom Was Right") is an attempt to exalt the spirit of the Latin American soap opera in the key of “acid bachata”, to recount a real-life case, witnessed by the band on countless occasions: the partying woman who arrives at the show accompanied by her bitter husband, who obviously does not like to dance. A very cheeky song to talk about the very serious and pertinent topic of female empowerment.

“La misma vaina” (“The same thing”) with its indescribable blend of bantú, candomblé, and Mozambique rhythms with abstract synthesizers, is an ode to adventure in favor of the aversion to taking risks and seeking predictability.

“Amigas picadas” (“Salty friends”) is another humorous song recounting another real-life case witnessed by the band on countless occasions: a love encounter sabotaged by the girlfriend's friends, who all happen to fancy the same guy. A jazzy take on the ancient Dominican rhythm of pambiche (grandfather of merengue), with generous psychedelic touches, resembling the classy late 60s releases of Guadeloupe's legendary producer / label owner Henri Debs.

“Vinimos a hablar” (“We came to talk”) takes sarcasm to the highest level, to ridicule the absurdity (also experienced by the band firsthand) seen in live music venues where people pay a ticket to go and have conversations that could be carried out much better on any bar, where no band is playing. The music alternates between a delicate melody with loose, sparse percussion and a full-on, pumping Angolan semba, with a techno kick drum included; bringing things to an apotheotic grooving finale, where the peculiar swing of Venezuelan calypso from the Callao region is thrown on top of all the precedent elements; closing the album in the most uplifting, “end of the carnival parade” feel.

The artwork is a delicate and impactful oil painting by Colombian artist Kevin Simón Mancera, who has collaborated many times with the label before (“Maracas, tambourines and other hellish things” tape and the Lola’s Dice LP).

What the experts are saying:

“Alex (Figueira) dove into this work with a brutal cohesion between lyrics and synths. Timbre poetry, sound poetry (you name it). And that, superimposed on his always impeccable percussive base, confirms the title of “avant-garde visionary of our beautiful Latin music”".
EBLIS ALVAREZ (MERIDIAN BROTHERS)
“Papa Upa's infectious quirkiness is a balm against boredom. A mature album, but without an expiration date”.
GLADYS PALMERA

“Here there is a lot of strength, drum, cadence and psychedelia, lost dance rhythms, united in an intercontinental Latin/African/and Caribbean journey, a unique winning combination that we could consider the new “Ritmo Figueira”.
DISCODELIC

Conjunto Papa Upa are: 



Alex Figueira - Timbales, percussion, vocals. 

Gerardo Rosales - Congas, percussion, vocals. 

Ramón Mendeville - Bongos, percussion, vocals. 

Randy Winterdal - Bass.

Andrew Moreno - Guitar.

Nico Chientarolli - Organ, piano, synths.



All songs written by Alex Figueira. 

Arranged and performed by Conjunto Papa Upa. 

Recorded, produced, mixed and mastered by Alex Figueira at Heat Too Hot, Amsterdam.


Strut present the first definitive retrospective of an icon of 1970s and ‘80s soul, jazz and disco, Patrice Rushen, covering her peerless 6-year career with Elektra / Asylum from 1978 to 1984. Joining Elektra after three albums with jazz label Prestige, Patrice had shown prodigious talent at an early age and had first broken through after winning a competition to perform at the Monterrey Jazz Festival of 1972. By the time of the recordings on this collection, she had become a prolific and in-demand session musician and arranger on the West coast, appearing on over 80 recordings for other artists. She joined the Elektra / Asylum roster in 1978 as they launched a pop / jazz division alongside visionaries like Donald Byrd and Grover Washington, Jr. “The idea was to create music that was good for commercial radio / R&B,” Patrice explains. “We were all making sophisticated dance music, essentially.”

Drawing on some of the leading musicians in L.A. like saxophonist Gerald Albright, drummer “Ndugu” Chancler and bassman Freddie Washington and keeping an open minded approach from her training in classical, jazz and soundtrack scores, Patrice’s music was a different, more intricate proposition to many of the soul artists of the time. “L.A. musicians were not so locked into tradition,” she continues. “None of us were accustomed to limitation and the record label left us to take our own direction.”

Early classics like ‘Music Of The Earth’ and ‘Let’s Sing A Song Of Love’ were among Patrice’s first as a lead vocalist before her ‘Pizzazz’ album landed in 1979, featuring the unique disco of ‘Haven’t You Heard’ and one of her greatest ballads, ‘Settle For My Love’. “Although ballads make you feel more vulnerable as an artist because they are often personal, I think listeners relate to that sincerity,” she reflects. By now, Patrice’s records were supremely arranged and produced as her confidence as an all-round writer, producer, arranger and performer grew. Slick dancefloor anthem ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ and the ‘Posh’ album in 1980 led to her landmark album ‘Straight From The Heart’ two years later. Receiving little support from her label, Patrice and her production team personally funded a promo campaign for the first single from it, ‘Forget Me Nots’. It went on to peak at no. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the album was later Grammy-nominated, while the track became a timeless anthem and popular sample, inspiring Will Smith’s theme for the film ‘Men In Black’ and George Michael’s ‘Fastlove’.

Patrice’s final album for Elektra, ‘Now’ kept the bar high with sparse, synth-led songs including ‘Feel So Real’ and ‘To Each His Own’. It concluded a golden era creatively for Patrice which remains revered by soul and disco aficionados the world over.

‘Remind Me’ features all of Patrice Rushen’s chart singles, 12” versions and popular sample sources on one album for the first time. Formats included a 3LP set and 1CD fully remastered by The Carvery from the original tapes. Both formats include an exclusive new interview with Patrice Rushen and rare photos.

• First definitive Patrice Rushen compilation released on vinyl since the ‘80s
• Includes all of her chart hits, DJ favourites and sample sources
• Official release featuring full interview with Patrice Rushen about her career and music • Features rare photos from her personal collection + some of the photographers she has worked with during her career
• Fully remastered by The Carvery from the original ¼” tapes
• Start of full Patrice Rushen reissue programme from her Elektra era

Strut introduces a pioneering new compilation 'A Dancefloor In Ndola,' curated by revered East African DJ, Kampire. This release marks an evolution in Strut's approach to compilations, showcasing emerging DJ talent from across the world and embracing an innovative approach to musical discovery from the next wave of selectors. Forging her reputation through memorable sets for the Nyege Nyege Festival in Uganda over the last decade, Kampire now tours worldwide and is celebrated for her brilliantly curated sets spanning the full range of African music styles from the ‘70s and ‘80s to the present day.

Although born in Kenya to Ugandan parents, Kampire spent her formative years in Ndola, Zambia. ‘A Dancefloor In Ndola’ is inspired by artists and songs that formed part of her soundtrack during that time. “It is important for me to continually reference Africa’s own musical history,” she explains. “At 17, I didn’t pick up on my Dad’s music but now I love and collect those records. I’m constantly referencing them in my music sets today. I love that feeling of shared nostalgia where people recognise a song they haven’t heard in a long time. It is a touchstone for me when I’m playing.”

The compilation flows through different East African and South African genres from Congolese rumba and soukous to 1980s township bubblegum and the rich guitar-led sounds of Zambian kalindula. “There are styles of music on the compilation which are often considered unsophisticated from rural areas. I and other contemporary African artists and DJs draw inspiration from them; it is part of what makes us ourselves.” Kampire also shines the spotlight on many incredible women in African music from the ‘80s, including Congolese legends like Pembey Sheiro, Feza Shamamba and Princesse Mansia M’bila to V-Mash and Di Groovy Girls from South Africa.

‘A Dancefloor In Ndola’ is released on 2LP and CD and features exclusive new edits by Kampire alongside personal liner notes tracing her links to the music. Cover artwork montage is by Canon Rumanzi and vinyl restoration / mastering by The Carvery
Debut compilation by one of East Africa’s leading new generation DJs, Kampire.
Mix of African classics and rarities spanning 1970s – 1990s from Congolese soukous, South African bubblegum and Zambian kalindula.
Shining the spotlight on women in African music Pembey Sheiro, Feza Shamamba and Princesse Mandisa M’bila.
Exclusive cover artwork collage by Canon Rumanzi.
Worldwide DJ dates supporting release during Summer and Autumn 2024.

Two tracks from Chicago’s mighty Salem Travelers, from their brief time on the Chess subsidiary Checker in 1968. The A-side, ‘Tell It Like It Is’, goes for around £45 on seven, its follow up, an previously unheralded classic from the same year. Both tracks are a unique funky take on gospel.

‘Tell It Like It Is’ is filled with wah wah guitar chops and some excellent lead breaks that spice up the conga-adorned upbeat; a heady song grasping for the truth.

‘Give Me Liberty Or Death’ is slightly slower, with a Motown-styled backbeat behind a fist pumping anthem that reels in its churchy roots and some great vocal interplay, a message song filled with emotion.

Two fantastic tunes from a transient ever-changing group who, in the 1960s and 1970s, were known for soulful harmonies and glass-shattering lead singing. Typical of their repertoire of songs that provided social commentary on the troubles of the world from the war in Vietnam, drugs, violence, prejudice, civil rights and child delinquency.

In 1995, schoolmates Elin Almered and Johan Duncanson started a band which they named after a gas-station-turned-radio-repair-shop called "Radioavdelningen" (Swedish for The Radio Department). In 2001, the Radio Dept. sent recordings to music magazine Sonic, receiving a positive review and being featured on the free CD sampler that came with the magazine. Labrador Records heard them on the disc and signed them to their label. The band"s debut album Lesser Matters (2003) was well received by the music press, scoring 10 out of 10 in the NME. NME would rank Lesser Matters ninth on their list of the 50 best albums of 2004. The album received an 84/100 (Universal acclaim) on Metacritic from a total of five reviews.

África Brasil is a 1976 release by Brazilian artist Jorge Ben. It was Ben's 14th studio album and a milestone in his career with a switch to electric guitar and funk music leaks. For África Brasil Ben reworked three of his earlier compositions: "A Princesa e o Plebeu" from Sacundin Ben Samba, "Taj Mahal" from Ben, and "Zumbi" from A Tábua de Esmeralda. The album's opening track "Ponta de Lança Africano (Umbabarauma)", a song about an African football striker, became a well known soccer-associated track and it was later included on David Byrne's 1989 compilation Brazil Classics Beleza Tropical, prompting rotation of a video for the track on VH-1

This album was a self imposed ambitious project for us. Something to kick in the creative flow. The last few years, having been a challenging time in general, felt like a good time for a pivot. The last two albums were so guitar and keyboard centric, I wanted a weird and fun set of parameters for us to work with. I demo’d everything at home on cassette 4 track (harkening back to simpler times) using drum loops, and just had at it 'til I had a pile of “songs”. Tom and I chose one sound each using synths and created a range of 3 octaves of that sample, then loaded them into Roland SPD-SX samplers and learned the transcribed songs using drum sticks. The idea was to change the way we wrote and to have 4 people along the front of the stage essentially playing percussion. So no guitar, no keys. As we were recording I kept thinking how the sounds, when paired up, sounded a bit like brass. So, we added a saxophone horn section to round out the horniness of the sound with a bit of reedy bell tones. Thanks to Cansfis Foote & Brad Caulkins on tenor and Baritone saxophones :) Sort of a Dexy’s Midnight Runners meets Von LMO meets The Flesh Eaters meets the Screamers kinda punk junk. Poppy and hooky, heavy at times.. Sort of vacuous and maybe a bit sci-fi in sound. Boneheaded in riff and heady in lyrics. Recorded at Stu-Stu-Studio by me on 8 track 1/4” tape . So pretty hot and raw. Lots to write about today. A lot of these lyrics were taken from things people said in passing about taking on life right now that stuck with me. Things that made me reflect. Things that made me laugh. Things that made me WTF. Some folks are kind, genuine & give you love and energy. Some are greedy manipulative ghouls who hang off your veins. You must be strong, composed and take care of yourself. Be self aware and check your mind for cracks. Learn to relax and be well. There are moments of beauty and redemption. Its not all bad news and there’s always hope. People continue to surprise me one way or another. Anyhow, Hope you enjoy and good luck out there. — John Dwyer

White w/ Red Splatter Vinyl. For their third album As You Please, Citizen is looking inward. Pairing up again with longtime producer Will Yip, the band presents twelve songs that fuse aspects of their entire catalog into one neoteric whole. While the cathartic melancholy of their debut Youth and the jarring intensity of 2015's Everybody is Going to Heaven are both present, the most welcome addition to Citizen's arsenal on As You Please is the range of auxiliary instrumentation and sonic experimentation on the album. This is most notable on "In the Middle of it All," where vocalist Mat Kerekes is sampled singing the song title in a modulated, haunting chorus that echoes throughout the song. The addition of organs and unconventional drum effects on songs like "You Are A Star" and "Medicine" create shifting emphases on tension and frailty, while the huge choruses of songs like opener "Jet" and "I Forgive No One" are reminders that while Citizen dove headfirst into uncharted territory with their new album, the band is still as good as ever at writing emotionally-charged anthems. As You Please presents Citizen's vision at the most focused it has ever been - it is delicately crafted to provoke at every moment.

Crack Cloud has always been something beyond a rock band: both profound and grand, vaporous and elusive. The first iteration of Crack Cloud was formed nearly a decade ago as a proxy-rehab outlet on the fringes of Calgary. Over time, two EPs and accompanying visual pieces were produced out of the residence known as Red Mile. By 2017, several members had relocated to Vancouver, working out of harm reduction centers and low-barrier shelters. Sobriety, self-reformation and the idealism of their work further formed an ethos for Crack Cloud. It was during these years that the band produced their astounding 2020 album Pain Olympics. At once, their vision became expansive, cinematic. Now, Red Mile is a bit of a homecoming. Members have returned to Calgary. But Calgary/home has become a liminal space, a place of flux. After a decade of personal and collective growth, what does home even mean? Red Mile is, for them, something like samsara: a return and a rebirth. Red Mile's sound breathes expansive energy into the circuitous, street bound sonics of Crack Cloud's prior material. Fizzling synths intertwine with chiming pianos. Songs layer like Russian nesting dolls; one may find a Ramones chorus set within a desolate Western prog soundtrack only to watch it erupt into a joyous anthem. Real-ass guitars _ alternately lilting, scuzzy and soaring _ ring out across wide sun-bleached spaces. In 2024, the cumulative effect is (in rock instrumentation terms) naturalistic. Any whiff of embalmed nostalgia is absent. Even the close of the album - a winding, almost Jerry Garcia guitar noodle that leads us out of Red Mile - is delivered without sentimentality. Principal songwriter Zach Choy's lyrics are cutting but merciful, with a sharp self-awareness that never slides into self-satisfaction. Crack Cloud as artists are critical _ and ultimately as forgiving _ of themselves as they are the melting world around them. The songs balance an easy charm and cathartic power: affirming life without denying death. Recorded predominantly between the outskirts of Joshua Tree California, and Calgary, Alberta, this record is informed by a bittersweet mélange of old and new. The sprawling, novelistic structures of their previous albums are condensed and sharpened, while maintaining their refusal to delve into superficiality. Through playful melodies and elliptical guitar soliloquy, they deliver a final product of exceptional depth and distinctly unprecious warmth. Crack Cloud have produced a mature, vital work that interrogates the platitudes of the rock-n-roll lifestyle, but ultimately exalts its sacredness. Red Mile's de facto thesis statement "The Medium" is itself a rock song meditation: an ode to the form and its practitioners. This genre that _ typical, repeatable, corporatized as it can be _ somehow still has the power to help us live through life. We see the dusty sentiment of "I love rock and roll" exhumed, taken apart, and stitched back together. It's a song guided by faith _ if the medium helps us proclaim our love today, it's worth protecting from derision tomorrow. We live in an era where music seems to love hitting its head against the wall. Crack Cloud's Red Mile is the sound _ the feeling! _ of the bricks giving way.

Crack Cloud has always been something beyond a rock band: both profound and grand, vaporous and elusive. The first iteration of Crack Cloud was formed nearly a decade ago as a proxy-rehab outlet on the fringes of Calgary. Over time, two EPs and accompanying visual pieces were produced out of the residence known as Red Mile. By 2017, several members had relocated to Vancouver, working out of harm reduction centers and low-barrier shelters. Sobriety, self-reformation and the idealism of their work further formed an ethos for Crack Cloud. It was during these years that the band produced their astounding 2020 album Pain Olympics. At once, their vision became expansive, cinematic. Now, Red Mile is a bit of a homecoming. Members have returned to Calgary. But Calgary/home has become a liminal space, a place of flux. After a decade of personal and collective growth, what does home even mean? Red Mile is, for them, something like samsara: a return and a rebirth. Red Mile's sound breathes expansive energy into the circuitous, street bound sonics of Crack Cloud's prior material. Fizzling synths intertwine with chiming pianos. Songs layer like Russian nesting dolls; one may find a Ramones chorus set within a desolate Western prog soundtrack only to watch it erupt into a joyous anthem. Real-ass guitars _ alternately lilting, scuzzy and soaring _ ring out across wide sun-bleached spaces. In 2024, the cumulative effect is (in rock instrumentation terms) naturalistic. Any whiff of embalmed nostalgia is absent. Even the close of the album - a winding, almost Jerry Garcia guitar noodle that leads us out of Red Mile - is delivered without sentimentality. Principal songwriter Zach Choy's lyrics are cutting but merciful, with a sharp self-awareness that never slides into self-satisfaction. Crack Cloud as artists are critical _ and ultimately as forgiving _ of themselves as they are the melting world around them. The songs balance an easy charm and cathartic power: affirming life without denying death. Recorded predominantly between the outskirts of Joshua Tree California, and Calgary, Alberta, this record is informed by a bittersweet mélange of old and new. The sprawling, novelistic structures of their previous albums are condensed and sharpened, while maintaining their refusal to delve into superficiality. Through playful melodies and elliptical guitar soliloquy, they deliver a final product of exceptional depth and distinctly unprecious warmth. Crack Cloud have produced a mature, vital work that interrogates the platitudes of the rock-n-roll lifestyle, but ultimately exalts its sacredness. Red Mile's de facto thesis statement "The Medium" is itself a rock song meditation: an ode to the form and its practitioners. This genre that _ typical, repeatable, corporatized as it can be _ somehow still has the power to help us live through life. We see the dusty sentiment of "I love rock and roll" exhumed, taken apart, and stitched back together. It's a song guided by faith _ if the medium helps us proclaim our love today, it's worth protecting from derision tomorrow. We live in an era where music seems to love hitting its head against the wall. Crack Cloud's Red Mile is the sound _ the feeling! _ of the bricks giving way.

Ben Reed has worked with Frank Ocean, David Byrne, Sampha and many others, but his own music is unpredictable, passionate and tinged with melancholy and has drawn comparisons to the so-called Canterbury sound of Progressive rock.


‘Bandaged’ is much more in the singer/songwriter vein than Ben's previous releases, albeit tinged with an undeniable British proggy-ness. The richness of melody and harmonic vocabulary remains, and the influence of jazz is still detectable, this time via more concise song forms.


Past review comparisons to the Canterbury sound aren't too far wide of the mark here, especially as Jimmy Hastings (Caravan, Hatfield & the North) is present on two of the songs.


Throughout the album there is a detectable combination of sentimentality and melancholy combined with playfulness and a dark sense of humour making ‘Bandaged’ one of the most interesting and innovative new albums of its genre in 2023.

Vessel Recordings Group is a new label from the United States and kicks off with Natural Rhythm aka the duo of Thomas White and Pete Williams. They have been working since the 90s on their own brand of house and as this EP shows it is stylish, rooted in tradition but full of contemporary designs. 'Jillybean' is raw, stripped back and perfect for backrooms. 'The Chase' is a slamming cut that pushes on with classic vocal samples twisted into something new, and great swing. 'Son Of Orange' is another lo-fi, high-class house sound with real weight and machine soul and 'Pocket Ops' closes out with dubby techno energy. A fantastic, no-frills EP to get this label underway.

“An Electric Storm” is the most renowned work of UK collective White Noise, an English experimental electronic music band consisting of virtuoso knob twiddlers and tape splicers. Although not very succes- sful on its initial release, the album is now considered an important and influential album in the develop- ment of electronic music. But beyond its historical importance, the harmonic progressions, among other things, are by no means taken for granted, and refer a lot to the Baroque and to classical composition in general. This album was obviously a labour of love, taking a whole year to complete seven amazing songs before sampling technology, synthesizers and digital equipment were readily available. There’s also chaotic humour at play on the feverish “Here Come the Fleas,” which contains more edits in its two minutes than the whole of Sgt. Pepper’s. Yet it’s the retro-futurist textures that still grab the ear most.

FFO: Melvins, Big Business, Torche, Karp, Lightning Bolt, Red Fang. Super limited vinyl, first press is transparent-y orange. Based in Sheffield, POHL is a stunning and brutal noise rock duo, featuring former Hey Colossus axeman Will Pearce on guitar/vocals, and drummer Dr Linda Westman of Toronto-based death metal two-piece, Old Hope. This July the band releases their debut album Mysteries; a sonic tome which draws as much from MF Doom as it does doom metal. It’s a swirling, cosmic onslaught of heavy motorik riffs and offhand musings about everything and nothing in equal measure. New single ‘The Whale’ summons the glorious thunder pop of Torche, the pithy lyricism of Karp and the DIY derring-do ethos of Guided by Voices. As guitarist/vocalist Will Pearce explains: “I suppose you could say that Mysteries is an album about grief. How we live with grief, and how we overcome it. When you’re trapped in the belly of the beast, and all seems lost - how do you come back from that? All I can say is that sometimes you eat the whale, and sometimes the whale eats you." Pearce, who played with Hey Colossus on their 2019 album Four Bibles and 2020’s Dances/Curses is thrilled to be teaming up once more with former bandmates Joe Thompson and Chris Summerlin and their Wrong Speed Records imprint. Recorded at the band’s own Cool World studio and mixed by serial collaborator and producer Wayne Adams, Mysteries is many things, often all at the same time. Veering from biblical allusions to fragmented Burroughsian cut-ups, it is at once mystical, profane, sacred, and scatological. Profoundly stupid, perhaps? Or just stupidly profound… either way, Mysteries demands your attention

The Brazilian composer, pianist and producer, Mário Castro Neves and his group, Samba S. A.'s self-titled album from 1967 is oozing with class. It possesses that archetypal 60's bossa nova, jazz, samba sound. We’d place it up there with Sergio Mendes at his finest, Tambo Trio or Milton Banana. It’s a breezy ride that touches on easy listening at times, but it holds it together with a cool swagger. Biba and Thaís Do Amaral's vocals are on point, with a relaxed delivery that compliments the tracks with the sublime beauty à la vocal groups such as Quarteto Em Cy, who Biba also sang with, as well as with Antonio Adolfo's e A Brazuca. Also appearing on the record is bassist extraordinaire, Novelli who worked with Milton Nascimento, Nelson Angelo E Joyce, Airto, and many of the greats of Brazilian music of the time.

The album has long been a favourite with DJs and collectors over the years, with songs selected for compilations by Gilles Peterson and Nicola Conte. One of the centrepieces of the album, 'Candomblé’, has been sampled by Cut Chemist on his track 'Povo De Santo'. The song 'Naña' is punchy and light with dancefloor-jazz appeal. The gloriously catchy 'Vem Balançar' is a brilliant bossa shuffler. A superb listen throughout, the album sticks to a framework but delivers in spades.

Though released on the major-label RCA Victor, original copies are elusive, sought-after items with a price tag to match. For this reissue, we have opted for the Mono master, mirroring the original 1967 Brazilian pressing. Instantly familiar, the album has a welcoming feeling of nostalgia and is something that stays with you from the first listen.

LOS ANGELES—To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the celebrated Talking Heads and Jonathan Demme’s concert film Stop Making Sense, the set will be re-released as a 2LP and 2CD/Blu-ray set this summer.

Released last year, the sold-out Deluxe Edition of the soundtrack will return as a 2-LP black vinyl on Rhino and 2-LP crystal clear vinyl at retail. Both variants feature a 12-page booklet with liner notes from all four band members –Tina Weymouth, David Byrne, Chris Frantz, and Jerry Harrison—and band photos. The 2CD/Blu-ray version includes the entire 28-page booklet from last year’s Deluxe Edition and a Dolby Atmos mix of the complete concert, mixed by Jerry Harrison and E.T. Thorngren, who also mixed the original release. Both will be available on July 26. Pre-order now.

The band appeared together for a sold-out screening and Q&A last night at the Pantages Theater, the same theater at which Stop Making Sense was recorded. They were joined by Blondshell, who performed “Thank You For Sending Me an Angel.” Another special screening with the band will occur in Brooklyn at the King’s Theater on June 13, with the Q&A hosted by Questlove and The Linda Linda’s performing “Found a Job.” The two events cap off a banner year of celebrations for what many consider to be the best concert film of all time.

The inspiration for Stop Making Sense came when director Jonathan Demme saw Talking Heads perform during the band’s 1983 tour for Speaking in Tongues. Afterward, he approached them with the idea of making the show into a concert film. They agreed and worked together over the next few months to finalize the details. Ultimately, Demme filmed three shows at Hollywood’s Pantages Theater in December 1983 to create Stop Making Sense.

The concert film presents a retrospective of the band up to that point, with a performance that weaves together songs from all six of its studio albums. The show progresses methodically, opening with Byrne onstage performing “Psycho Killer” alone with a drum machine. After each song, he’s joined by a new band member until Weymouth, Frantz, and Harrison are all on stage with him. The group continues to grow throughout the concert as members of the stellar touring band are added: keyboardist Bernie Worrell, percussionist Steve Scales, guitarist Alex Weir, and backup singers Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt.

The band performs 18 songs in Stop Making Sense, including its recent single at the time, “Burning Down The House.” That summer, the song was in heavy rotation on radio and MTV, helping the song become the band’s first top 10 hit in America. It was, however, a different song from Speaking in Tongues that was destined to deliver one of the film’s signature moments. Talking Heads would perform “Girlfriend Is Better” wearing the now iconic, oversized suit inspired by costumes worn in traditional Japanese theater. For good measure, a picture of David Byrne in the suit also graces the album cover.

Stop Making Sense focuses mainly on music by Talking Heads but does include a few songs recorded outside the band: “Genius Of Love” by Tom Tom Club, “What A Day That Was” and “Big Business” from Byrne’s 1981 album, The Catherine Wheel. Limited edition vinyl versions of both of these albums, along with Harrison’s The Red And The Black, were released for this year’s Record Store Day.

When it arrived in September 1984, Stop Making Sense was an artistic and commercial triumph. The film had people dancing in theatre aisles, and the soundtrack sold over two million copies. Just last year, the Library of Congress added Stop Making Sense to the National Film Registry in recognition of its cultural, historical, and aesthetic significance.

Weymouth praises Demme as a collaborator: “…Jonathan was a very enthusiastic, highly adaptive, and imaginative guy who was just as good a listener as he was a talker and collaborator. From the get-go you just got the impression he was as flexible as he was disciplined. Being team players, that boded well for a great relationship and a great film!”

Harrison says the film still holds up today: “To me, Stop Making Sense has remained relevant because the staging and lighting techniques could have been created in a much earlier time period. For example, Vari-Lights, lights with motors to re-aim them, had just come into vogue. Had we used them, there would have been a timestamp on the film, and it eventually would have felt dated...The absence of interviews, combined with the elegant and timeless lighting, created a film that can be watched over and over.”

Byrne says it’s interesting that this album was – for many people – an introduction to Talking Heads. “We had done a live album before this, but coupled with the film, and with the improved mixes and sound quality, this record reached a whole new audience. As often happens, the songs got an added energy when we performed them live and were inspired by having an audience. In many ways, these versions are more exciting than the studio recordings, so maybe that’s why a lot of folks discovered us via this record.”

Frantz recalls the sheer joy surrounding the entire Stop Making Sense experience. “I’m talking about real, conscious, transcendent joy… I’m talking about what the Southern gospel people call ‘getting happy,’ which means ‘to be filled with the Spirit.’ That is what happened to us onstage every night, and from my seat behind the drums, I recognized that this was happening to the audience too. Joy was visible in front of me and all around me every night.”

2024 Reissue

Dark Entries celebrates its 15th anniversary by returning to where it all started, our initial darkest entry: Eleven Pond’s masterpiece Bas Relief, an ultra-obscure album from 1986 that would become a definitive dark pop holy grail. Eleven Pond was James Tabbi (vocals, acoustic guitar), Jeff Gallea (drum machine, synthesizer, vocals), Jack Schaeffer (guitar) and Dan Brumley (synthesizer, samples, vocoder, melodica). They met in Rochester, NY, while attending art school, brought together by their shared love of 4AD and Factory Records. Taking cues from acts like Joy Division, Fad Gadget, and For Against, Eleven Pond’s infectious basslines, churning guitar riffs, and atmospheric synths will charm all fans of moody music. But what really makes Bas Relief shine is the timeless songwriting on classics like “Tear and Cinnamon”, “Portugal”, and the anthemic “Watching Trees.”

With only 500 copies in it’s initial release, Bas Relief resurfaces with a fresh remaster that corrects a pitch shift from previous reissues. Each copy is housed in a screen printed jacket, like the 1986 edition, and includes a lyric sheet, two postcards and a bookmark. Bas Relief is a true lost relic of the cold 80’s and an essential piece Dark Entries history.

Italian producer Toto Chiavetta returns to Mind Against's HABITAT with a spellbinding new single titled "My Eyes Are Failing". Off his new EP of the same name, the song is a haunting journey where crunchy textures and hypnotic melodies come together with the refrain, "I think my eyes are failing, but I feel my lungs inhaling," to envelop listeners in a dark, atmospheric soundscape. Featuring the mesmerizing Thom Yorke-esque vocals of Trenton, the new track showcases Chiavetta's mastery over immersive, emotionally-charged electronic music.

Bolstered by b-side single “The Sacred Space” and a club-ready alternative version from Toto himself, plus remix from Echonomist, the new EP rounds out to create a defining statement from Chiavetta. With a growing list of supporters that include industry heavyweights like Âme, Sasha, John Digweed, and Camelphat, to name a few, and previous releases on Innervisions and Diynamic, Toto Chiavetta is poised to make a big impact with this landmark release on HABITAT.

Pleasure Planet’s kaleidoscopic debut album has been a long time coming, but good things come to those who wait. Developed over years of late-night studio improvisations, ‘Pleasure Planet’ is an affectionate and colorful patchwork of the New York City-based trio’s knotted influences that’s suspended between the rave and the chill-out room, weaving glistening pads and chunky basslines into vocal earworms and warm, saturated rhythmic cycles. Bandmates Andrew Potter, Kim Ann Foxman and Brian Hersey enter into a lysergic dialog with their discrete personal musical histories, drawing inspiration from vintage EBM, ambient music and heady early ’90s West Coast rave sounds and launching these classic elements into a transcendent new sonic universe.

Celebrated DJ and producer Foxman was a lead singer of Hercules and Love Affair when she first ran into DC rave veteran Potter, and the two rapidly realized their musical interests overlapped. So when Potter was recording with his studiomate Hersey, a NYC underground club scene mainstay, and they needed to bring in a vocalist, the choice was simple. Working together was a refreshing, freeing experience for the three seasoned artists, and the more they experimented, the closer they became; Foxman ended up moving into the studio, and Pleasure Planet was manifested into existence. “We’re like family,” says Potter. “We’re always on the same page – we couldn’t make this music solo.”

For Foxman, the open-ended jam sessions provided her with a chance to try something new, a few steps from the dancefloor-forward DJ tracks she’s best known for producing. And as the trio pooled their adolescent rave memories, reflecting on them with more mature ears, they began to develop the signature sound that was first heard on the Throne Of Blood-released ‘Animals’ 12″. Pleasure Planet aren’t trying to re-capture the past, but suggest a poetic contemplation that layers their recollections and musical obsessions into a hypnotic sci-fi dream. Harnessing a self-described “Aladdin’s cave” of analog and digital gear that help galvanize the timeline, they bridge the gap between avant-pop and icy bleep techno, curving suggestive words through lattices of tightly-engineered electronics.

On ‘Endless’, Foxman’s voice is echoed into a glistening haze that hovers around ethereal pads and tense, electroid pulses. Slow-moving and evocative, it’s a track that capture the open endedness of post-rave euphoria, touching the afterparty but moving far beyond the material world. She’s more recognizable on ‘Alien’, the album’s most upfront track, singing in a glassy, upper-register coo over urgent bass bumps, taut guitars and florid electronic atmospheres. “Are you an alien, or are you an angel?” she asks, fractalizing the borders between genres. And the band’s sense of cosmic togetherness bubbles to the surface on ‘Saved by the Bells’, a meditative after-hours experiment that diminishes the pulsing beats for a moment to bring out a spectrum of interconnected, serpentine melodies.

Modular bleeps and echoing percussion anchor the swooning ‘Planet Love’, one of Pleasure Planet’s most recent compositions and one of the album’s most outwardly psychedelic cuts, while the urgent and anthemic ‘Go With Madness’ steps back towards the main stage, evaporating Foxman’s memorable calls into a thumping procession of analog drums and squelchy, acidic bass tweaks. But they save the best for last, tugging at the heartstrings with ‘Remember (In Dreams)’, a giddy spiral of blipping synth arpeggios and haunting, reverberated chorals. It’s the perfect way to conclude an album that cryptically gestures towards the vulnerability of friendship, celebrating the shared experiences that result in some of the most meaningful memories of all.

Next up in Mr Bongo's Groove Merchant Records reissue series, sees an outing for a much-loved and heavily sampled funk/soul/blues album by Junior Parker. Originally issued under the title The Outside Man on Capitol Records in 1970 with an alternative cover, this reissue replicates the Groove Merchant release titled Love Ain't Nothin' But A Business Goin' On featuring the car cover released in 1971.

The Mississippi-born, Memphis-based blues singer, harmonica player and songwriter Junior Parker (aka Little Junior Parker) had a stellar career in music. Since the early 1950s he released records on labels such as Duke, Mercury, United Artists Records and more. Sadly though, Parker died at the young age of 39 during surgery on November 18, 1971.

Originally released under the alternate title a year before his untimely death, Love Ain't Nothin' But a Business Goin' On is drenched in Parker’s trademark buttery vocals and soulful grooves, swaggering between smokey blues, raw funk outings and orchestrated soul ballads (with sublime arrangements by Horace Ott).

The album also features three Beatles cover versions in the form of ‘Taxman’, ‘Lady Madonna’ and ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. For 'Taxman', Parker completely reinterprets the song taking into a New Orleans funk realm, a sample of which was used as the main hook line on Cypress Hill's classic 'I Wanna Get High'. Elsewhere, 'Tomorrow Never Knows' is flipped into a tripped-out, psychedelic soul-swamp blues ballad, whilst 'Lady Madonna' is given a funky blues makeover.

As shown with Cypress Hill’s use of ‘Taxman’, since the ‘70s Parker’s legacy has been immortalised for future generations through the deep well of samples that his music has become a source of. Tracks from Love Ain't Nothin' But a Business Goin' On have been sampled by some of the biggest names out there, such as A Tribe Called Quest, DJ Shadow and De La Soul.

A seriously smooth album oozing with soul and emotion from a Blues Hall of Fame inductee, Junior Parker’s Love Ain't Nothin' But A Business Goin' On is a superb example of the early ‘70s crossover funk/soul sound.

A song is a song until it isn't, until it's pushed to its limits and beyond to become harder, faster and more dissonant. The music on Oneida's 17th full-length album, Expensive Air, all started as tightly structured, melodic rock songs _ very much in line with the non-stop bangers of Success from 2022 _ but along the way, they changed. Bobby Matador sketched the structures of these songs from his home base in Boston, then sent the demos to Oneida's New York contingent: Kid Millions, Hanoi Jane, Shahin Motia and Barry London. "We were working out the songs in New York without Bobby. We would start out riding the riffs, and then Shahin and Jane would add wild, out-of-tune licks," said Kid Millions. "It seemed so perfect." Oneida has long straddled gray-area boundaries between the NYC punk/psych/rock world and the art/experimental world, playing at gritty rock clubs and elevated cultural institutions, including the Guggenheim, MoMA PS1, ICA London, MassMOCA and the Knoxville Museum of Art. The band has been known for extended live improvisational performances, collaborating onstage with Mike Watt, members of Flaming Lips, Portishead, Boredoms, Yo La Tengo, Dead C, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and many others. Oneida's members juggle a wide variety of other music projects. Drummer Kid Millions has played with Spiritualized, Royal Trux and Boredoms and releases solo compositions under his own name and as Man Forever. Shahin Motia founded noise - punk's Ex-Models and currently plays in Knyfe Hits. Kid and Fat Bobby perform and release music as People of the North, and Bobby's outside projects New Pope and Nurse & Soldier each released new albums in 2023. Oneida's previous album, Success, came after a four-year hiatus, unleashing the band's pent up creative energy in a set of catchy, accessible, nearly poppy songs. Song structure remained important in the run up towards Expensive Air, but so was the instinctual, improvisatory interplay that has always been a part of Oneida's process. The band had been playing live together for two years, sharpening its attack and pushing its songs to go harder, faster and wilder. Oneida recorded Expensive Air in three sessions scattered across 2023, convening at Colin Marston's Menegroth The Thousand Caves studio in Woodhaven, Queens, whenever they had a few songs ready. Marston and the band mixed the album in February 2024 at Menegroth. The new album expands on what Oneida achieved with Success, but also pushes past it, laying down irresistible song structures then blowing them to psychedelic bits. "I found myself thinking about this record as a darker, looser, louder, counterpart to Success," Bobby explains. "Both records charge forward from the jump and mix the elliptical with the blunt, and longing with self-mockery. But Success is like laughing in a car gunning carelessly through an ice storm, and Expensive Air is how you laugh at yourself as the car spins into the ditch, or a tree. Same trip, but a little closer to the bone."

Continue As Amery is the debut album by Montreal-based artist Amery. Formerly recording under the moniker Alpen Glow, Continue As Amery sees the songwriter step out into a bold, colourful world full of pop hooks, snagging feelings of abandon and the mornings after. Amery Sandford began releasing as Alpen Glow in 2020 after years playing in punk groups in Newfoundland and as half of Montreal pop duo Born At Midnite (Arbutus). Recorded in Montreal by David Carriere (TOPS, Marci), Patrick Holland, and Kristian North, Continue As Amery is a blast of melodic joie de vivre. On her debut Sandford brings her punk and DIY credentials into sharp focus on 8 perfect pop odes to city living, making mistakes and figuring it out as you go along. Suffuse with powerful imagery and an almost uncanny talent at spinning out hooks brimming with humour and spirit, Amery’s soundworld is informed by friendship, experience and by her day job as a renowned illustrator and visual artist. Beginning Alpen Glow in a spirit of fun and now shedding the alias, Amery’s ready to hotwire the nite. Each song is rich with story. Mountain FM, named for the radio station in Sandford’s home town in the mountains of Alberta, launches into a tale of speeding, blasting the radio too loud, the giddy burning of rubber with no care in the world to slow you down. Featuring live band members Sarah Harris, Jack Bielli, and Frank Climenhage, the singer bristles to get out of her stifling hometown while lamenting the wide eyed adventurer who left for the big city. On Hotwire The Nite, Amery is out on the town, with imagery loaded with the night’s promise. Amery sings “Black candle / Dripping intel / Dagger hanging by an emerald handle / Holy roller that I just can’t have without my hand on an old flame,” diving in and out of fantasy and desire over a pulsating banger. Moments like these feel like a thesis on aural pleasure, with the production sleek and silky playfulness persisting throughout. Spirit Is Broken is a pep talk the artist is giving herself in the mirror. Only Amery could write something so joyous and harmonically glorious while singing about low ebbs. Every line shines with humour, the chorus starting with an exasperated “oh my god, alright” and the refrain nailing the bittersweet feeling of enjoying feeling down. It’s a mood continued on slow groover Ennui, a melter striking out at being stuck; same parties, same faces, daring to dream beyond. As an illustrator and visual artist, Sandford’s images detail dancing instrument-clad animals, party scenes that nod to historical image making heavy hitters like Hieronymus Bosch and Ludwig Bemelmans. On Miracles, Amery deals in bold pop production and her yearning to escape into fantasy, given wings by Korgs and drum machines. On Rocker Blues, originally by French artist FR David, Amery brings the heavy with synth-guitar and an undeniable chorus. C9 is in some ways the album’s centrepiece, a mid tempo funk jam and duet with Montreal stalwart Fireball Kid, it’s the party just out of reach on the horizon. The thing about Cloud 9 is that on the comedown you might get a hella lot of rain. The world Amery builds is intoxicating, rich and most importantly open for anyone to fall into. To be continued…

The 2019 released "Caligula" took the vision of Kristin Hayter's vessel to the next level of grandeur, her purging and vengeful audial vision went beyond anything preceding it and reached an unparalleled sonic plane within her oeuvre. Succeeding her self-released 2017 "All Bitches Die" opus, "CALIGULA" saw Hayter design an ambitious work, displaying the full force of her talent as a vocalist, composer, and storyteller. Vast in scope and multivalent in its influences, with delivery nothing short of demonic, "CALIGULA" is an outsider's opera; magnificent, hideous, and raw. Eschewing and disavowing genre altogether, Hayter built her own world. Here she fully embodied the moniker Lingua Ignota, from the German mystic Hildegard of Bingen, meaning "unknown language" _ this music has no home, any precedent or comparison could only be uneasily given, and there is nothing else like it in our contemporary realm. Whilst "CALIGULA" is unapologetically personal and critically self-aware, there are broader themes explored; the decadence, corruption, depravity and senseless violence of emperor Caligula is well documented and yet still permeates today. Brimming with references and sly jabs, Hayter's sardonic commentary on abuse of power and invalidation is deftly woven. Working closely with Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Hayter stripped away much of the industrial and electronic elements of her previous work, approaching instead the corporeal intensity and intimate menace of her notorious live performances, achieved with unconventional recording techniques and sound sources, as well as a full arsenal of live instrumentation and collaborators including harsh noise master Sam McKinlay (THE RITA), visceral drummer Lee Buford (The Body) and frenetic percussionist Ted Byrnes (Cackle Car, Wood & Metal), with guest vocals from Dylan Walker (Full of Hell), Mike Berdan (Uniform), and Noraa Kaplan (Visibilities). "CALIGULA" is a massive work, a multi-layered epic that gives voice and space to that which has been silenced and cut out.

7A Records are proud to present our deluxe reissue of Mungo Jerry’s Electronically Tested. Released on July 19th, the album has been remastered and expanded with four bonus tracks and features extensive liner notes including Ray Dorset’s own recollections.

Electronically Tested, Mungo Jerry’s second album, was first released in March 1971. Even the title clued in listeners that this was no ordinary record. As Ray Dorset reveals, “I came up with the name of the album. Durex used to have ‘electronically tested’ written on their packets. I thought that was quite the talking point, if people in the know said, ‘That’s the same name as on the packet of condoms!’ It was taboo to mention stuff like that.” Electronically Tested offered hints of the familiar via its inclusion of the UK #1 Hits “In the Summertime” and “Baby Jump,” but elsewhere, the album was pure, eclectic Mungo Jerry. Every side of Dorset’s talents as a singer, songwriter, and musician came to the fore on Electronically Tested, with his bandmates John Godfrey, Paul King, and Colin Earl–as well as producer Murray– joining him to create a joyful noise: “It’s got a lot of tracks that could have been singles in their own right. It was good for me to be able to play all that kind of stuff”. Mungo Jerry’s singular sound has been described as rock, folk, blues, country, good-time music, jug band music, pub rock, and gypsy rock–and that’s just a partial list. One can hear all of those elements in the disparate, timeless songs that form Electronically Tested. How would Mungo himself describe it? “It’s kind of rocky stuff. It’s got social commentary. It’s got all sorts of influences in there. It’s really best to say it’s Mungo Jerry music.” Electronically Tested originally peaked at # 14 on the U.K. Albums Chart the week of April 14, 1971.

Glasgow septet The Joy Hotel are announcing their debut album Ceremony with the release of its lead single, the surging and rapturous 'Jeremiah'. It’s a song that grapples with the idea of approaching unknowns, and how conflicting attitudes illicit different responses to the same situation. More directly, it’s about staring death in the face and choosing how to come to terms with it.

Newly signed to SO Recordings and with a debut album proper in hand, The Joy Hotel have become a word-of-mouth success story in the Scottish DIY scene, and have since taken their live show across the UK and Europe, playing festivals including Hidden Door, Doune the Rabbit Hole, Connect, TRNSMT, Twisterella, Latitude, Sound City and The Great Escape.

The band spent eleven days at Rockfield, the legendary studio in Monmouth, Wales, recording live-to-tape. When they left, they had a sound. It is often contradictory, in that it combines the songwriting sensibilities of pop and country with arrangements reminiscent of the psychedelic scene of the 60s, six-part vocal harmonies with elements of noise rock, beautiful balladry with a sense of humour, and a cinematic quality. The result of those eleven days is debut album Ceremony, a record that searches for the profound in the seemingly routine, and reaches out with arms wide open to wring celebration out of each moment.

Ceremony will be accompanied by a short film documenting the creation of the album called ‘Come The Ringing Bell’.

A1 - Wireframe
Label stalwart Aural Imbalance returns to Spatial with the dreamy Wireframe, opening with a sea of beautiful ambient padwork which ushers in a sumptuous, brisk Circles break pattern to the forefront. A myriad of light touch samples & effects twist and twirl over the composition with a fantastic 808 bassline that complements the show-stealing breaks, completing another exquisite collage of atmospheric bliss.
A2 - Hollow Sun
Another fine exploration in atmospheric serenity, Hollow Sun opens with light hats and high-pass filtered breaks which develop into a thick, weighty slice of breakbeat bliss. Like a gentle breeze on a warm summer night, the tapestry of airy melodies beckon the listener into a realm of sonic wonder, the breaks, bass and effects crafting the kind of inimitable soft yet danceable atmosphere Aural Imbalance has truly mastered in his Spatial guise.

AA1 - Distant Stars
Mixing up the vibe with flowing keys and metallic undertones in the intro, heavy old-school breaks with a dense analogue kick drum seize the limelight as Aural Imbalance showcases an impressively subtle break editing skillset with Distant stars. While a knowing aura of elegance and grace build an ethereal soundscape with the padwork, the breaks playfully jostle in the mix towards a clean DJ-friendly outro. Sublime.
AA2 - Eclipse
Low-pass break filtering and an introspective, slightly tense atmosphere introduce Eclipse, before a real treat to the senses unfolds as heavy breakwork thunders hard into the mix with crisp snares and rolling drums. It's a symphony of light and shadow, of tension and release as Aural Imbalance continues to expand his incredible repertoire of sound on Spatial, rounding off another superb explorative EP
Words by Chris Hayes (Spatial / Red Mist)

2024 Restock

(180 gram pressing) A great 70s album by Os Novos Baianos - a wonderfully youthful group that was one of the bright spots in Brazilian music after the Tropicalia years. Titles include "Sorrir E Cantar Como Bahia", "Dagmar", "Vagabundo Nao E Facil", "Cosmos E Damiao", "Com Qualquer Dois Mil Reis", and "Os Pingo Da Chuva".

A great 70s album by Os Novos Baianos - a wonderfully youthful group that was one of the bright spots in Brazilian music after the Tropicalia years. The band had a style that mixed folksy percussion with honest personal songwriting, plus occasional touches of elements gleaned from the larger influences in Brazilian rock at the time. The album has a sound that's a lot more intimate than later work, with some especially great work on guitar and bandolim, and great production on the band's vocals. Titles include "Sorrir E Cantar Como Bahia", "Dagmar", "Vagabundo Nao E Facil", "Cosmos E Damiao", "Com Qualquer Dois Mil Reis", and "Os Pingo Da Chuva".

Das ist schon ein historischer Moment: Exile On Mainstream bringt erstmalig eine Wiederveröffentlichung einer Platte, die seit Jahren restlos ausverkauft ist und am 25. April 2008 nur auf CD erschien. Erstmalig auf Vinyl, remastered: Heavy Zooo von BEEHOOVER. Die Band schreibt dazu: "Endlich! Oft gewünscht, drüber nachgedacht und wieder verworfen. Aber jetzt, endlich, kann mit Hilfe unseres Lieblingslabels Heavy Zooo so kommen, wie wir uns das die letzten 15 Jahre gewünscht haben: auf Vinyl!" Ist es Metal? Ist es Stoner Rock? Ist es Jazz oder gar Avantgarde? Weißt du was? Vergiss doch einfach mal die ganzen Schubladen in deinem Kopf und beantworte folgende Frage: Wann hat das letzte Mal jemand versucht, die Melvins zu klassifizieren? Oder Primus? Siehst du! Ladies & Gentlemen - der Heavy Zooo öffnet seine Tore! Treten sie ein und bestaunen sie eine Sammlung der unglaublichsten Geschöpfe dieses Planeten. Schimären aus Groove und Intelligenz. Sounds, so vertraut und doch so neu. Nichts hier ist eindimensional. Nur mit Bass und Drums schaffen Beehoover die Quadratur des Kreises - verrückte Arrangements mit Arsch, die dir das Tanzbein zucken lassen, dich aber trotzdem große Augen machen lassen. Damit sind die Eckpfeiler gemauert, zwischen denen sich die Sounds einer der wohl außergewöhnlichsten deutschen Bands dieser Tage spannen. Eine Kategorisierung erscheint unmöglich, wenn auch Beehoover Einflüsse aus traditionellen Stilen miteinander verweben. Im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes - das Ergebnis ist ein Teppich aus Bass und Drums, aus emotionalen Ausbrüchen und psychotischer Melancholie. Claus-Peter Hamisch (Drums) und Ingmar Peterson (Bass) versuchen dabei konsequent herkömmliche Strukturen zu vermeiden und neue Wege zu gehen, ohne jedoch den Song aus dem Auge zu verlieren. Ihre Herangehensweise ist avantgardistisch, das Ergebnis aber trotzdem melodisch. Ihre Auseinandersetzung mit Sounds ist intelligent und Kopf-betont. Das Resultat hingegen geht direkt in den Bauch - eine Wirkung, die heute nicht viele Bands erzielen können. Die Presse schrieb im April 2008: Dieses Duo ist ein echter Geheimtipp! ... ein echtes Original! ... Einfach nur großartig! (Eclipsed) Ein erneut bärenstarkes Album! (Rock Hard) Amtlicher Irrendoom, nur mit Ballerbass und Drums fabriziert. Ein herrlicher, fachmännisch fröhlicher Krach. Funktioniert eins a, absolut nicht zu klassifizieren.(Intro) ... die schwäbische Antwort auf die Melvins ... brachial-tighte Riffmaschine unter Dampf ... fette Prog-Schwarte, nie affektiert oder klugscheißend, sondern immer mitreißend komplex. (VISIONS) _ eine Mischung aus der Verrücktheit und technischen Brillianz von Primus, dem feinsinnigen Humor und der Vielseitigkeit der Melvins, der Heaviness und Brachialität von Neurosis und der Rhythmik von Kyuss (METAL HAMMER) Beehoover sind sie der lebende Beweis dafür, dass ein Bass, ein Schlagzeug und ein gepflegter Testosteronüberhang ausreichen, um die Musikgeschichte auf Lightning Bolt, Led Zeppelin, Melvins und Unsane einzudampfen und dein Trommelfell inklusive allem was dahinter liegt in die ewigen Jagdgründe zu schicken. (VICE) _ Es grenzt an ein Wunder ... Heavy Zooo steht als untrüglicher Beweis dafür, dass musikalischer Minimalismus tatsächlich maximale Brachialität und Wirkung erzielen kann (Legacy)

Engelbert Humperdinck, der legendäre Schlagersänger, der für seine samtige Stimme und zeitlosen Balladen
bekannt ist, zieht mit der Wiederveröffentlichung von zwei seiner kultigsten Alben, ”A Man Without Love”
und ”Please Release Me”, zum ersten Mal auf farbigem Vinyl das Publikum weltweit in seinen Bann. Diese
Alben haben Humperdincks Status als einer der beliebtesten Entertainer aller Zeiten mit über 140 Millionen
verkauften Alben im Laufe seiner glanzvollen Karriere gefestigt.

Sony Music feiert das 25-jährige Jubiläum des legendären Soundtracks "Bodyguard" mit der Veröffentlichung von Whitney Houston - I Wish You Love: More From The Bodyguard am 17. November 2017. Die brandneue Whitney Houston Sammlung enthält eine großartige Auswahl von Live- und Studioaufnahmen - viele davon bisher unveröffentlicht oder bisher nicht erhältlich, welche die größten Erfolge der Künstlerin dokumentieren. Auf dem neuen Album I Wish You Love: More From The Bodyguard finden sich noch nie veröffentlichte Live-Aufnahmen von Whitneys berühmter "Bodyguard"-Tour (1993-1995), dazu noch nie gehörte Versionen der Musikstücke aus " Bodyguard", ein Remix von "I'm Every Woman", zusätzliche Grafiken und vieles mehr. Das Album wird als CD und digital veröffentlicht.Einige der Höhepunkte des Albums sind ein Alternative Mix von "I Will Always Love You" mit einem gesprochenen Intro von Whitney alias Rachel Marron, eine noch nie veröffentlichte Acapella-Version von "Jesus Loves Me" und eine Live-Aufnahme des nur selten gespielten "Run To You". Außerdem enthalten sind Film- und Live-Versionen von "I Will Always Love You", "I Have Nothing", "Queen of The Night".

TIPP! :)

For the latest Cognitiva release the label present the 4th release of their Point of View series which focuses on dance floor-oriented sounds, this time they invite the marvellously talented Dr. Sud to deliver a wondrous, jazz laden odyssey, which entices as much as it delights - with some expert remixes to boot….
Dr Sud is the main alias of Gregorio Marigliano, an Italian music maker who was raised in Berlin. Marigliano’s music revolves around the principles of Jazz-meets-Dance music, drawing up the rich tradition that has come before in bringing a high level of musicality and ingenuity within his tunes. Moving fluidly between rhythms and feels, as Dr Sud he captures the imagination with thought provoking and captivating sequences, striking a fine balance between depth and danceability. Harmonies and groove play a key part within his music, such as was highlighted on his 2023 EP ‘Heading South’, coming courtesy of the Q1E2 imprint. This record really highlighted his profound abilities and deep set affection for instrumentation but also mood and tone, and it left many waiting for his next release with baited breath.

‘Point of View 4’ continues forth with the supreme feels that permeated through ‘Heading South’, with the key movement onwards being the inclusion of some killer remixes from Gary Superfly, Broke One, Turbojazz and Reekee. Two original cuts, ‘Breakfast Sun’ and ‘Desert Wind’, lead Sides A and B respectively, and do much to help create a distinctive balance and bookend kind of feel to the record. ‘Breakfast Sun’ begins with a wondrous polyrhythm to get things going, a lone vocal sample thrown in for good measure, and before long we are joined by some delicate but hyper precise melodic features. The slow drawn out chords contrast superbly with the short sharp stabs, acting in accordance with the drums, with the first breakdown providing space for the keys to really flourish and take over. The breakout back into the core rhythm allows for a lead synth line to emerge, and provide those bountiful feels we were all yearning for. The remixes do much to add flavour and some diverse alternative perpectives on the original, with the Turbojazz/Broke One remix taking things in a house-y leaning direction, with the hats and kicks shifting the rhythmic perspective towards sun kissed horizons. The Gary Superfly remix however takes things into a much more cosmic space, with a punchy acid line weaving within the underbelly of the track, providing that late night dance feel for club land scenarios.

On the B Side, ‘Desert Wind’ kicks things off, and once again the drums here start us off in a winning space. The groove is so delicate, poised and perfected, and when the first breakdown arrives the chords come into view, and its glorious to say the least. This track focuses on a much more smooth melodic sequence, with a greater emphasis placed on the lead line, but its just as impactful and soulful as the EPs opener. Delicate waterfall style keys shift in and out of view, providing an overall picture of sonic beauty that we can get behind time and time again. To wrap things up, the Reekee remix of ‘Desert Wind’ comes into view, with this track again moving into dance floor realms with a swinging garage beat that feels unstoppable, shifting and moving between the lines with a joyous ease.

Dr Sud may be a producer to keep a keen eye on, with this latest EP certainly doing that sentiment a great level of justice. This EP provides not only two beautiful original cuts from the man himself, but some imaginative remixes that honour the originals and provide us with an record that will linger long in the memory. For home use, down by the rivera, or in the club, this one has the lot…..

Spätestens jetzt mit der Veröffentlichung ihres dritten Albums 'X's' stehen Cigarettes After Sex im Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit nicht nur als eine der herausragenden Indie-Bands der Gegenwart, sondern überhaupt als eine der weltweit erfolgreichsten Bands egal welchen Genres, deren oft unkonventioneller Weg zum Superstartum dazu beigetragen hat, die Definition von Erfolg für Künstler in der heutigen Zeit neu zu definieren.

In rohen, fantasievollen, manchmal schmutzigen Vignetten, die von hinreißenden, langsam vor sich hinschreitenden Popsongs untermalt werden, fängt Bandleader Greg Gonzalez alle Emotionen ein, die eine romantische Beziehung hervorruft. Doch während frühere Alben aus einem Sammelsurium von Beziehungen schöpften, konzentriert sich das dritte Album 'X's' auf eine einzige Beziehung, die sich über vier Jahre erstreckte. "Die Platte fühlt sich brutal an", gibt Gonzalez zu. "Ich könnte mich hinsetzen und mit jemandem über diesen Verlust reden, aber das würde nicht mal an der Oberfläche kratzen. Ich muss wirklich darüber schreiben, darüber singen, die Musik dazu haben, erst dann kann ich anfangen, es zu analysieren und daraus zu lernen. Oder ich erlebe es einfach noch einmal - auf eine gute Art und Weise.“

Gonzalez hält sich nach wie vor an die klassischen Strukturen des Popsongs, hat sich aber von den klanglichen Eckpfeilern der 50er und 60er Jahre entfernt und fühlt sich nun vom Slow Dance der 70er/80er Jahre angezogen. Auch wenn diese Veränderungen (in typischer Cigarettes-Manier) subtil sein mögen, so ist das Resultat doch eine andere Energie, eher vergleichbar mit Tränen, die sich in der Discokugel brechen, um ein starkes Bild zu bemühen.

Info: The soulful power of Asabi Goodman's vocals is finally on vinyl! Blunted Stylus ft. Asabi Goodman s' "Rhythm's Got Soul" has "groove and style" reminiscent of the back-to-back, wall-to-wall packed dancefloors of the fever-pitched disco era, steady spinning in at 115 BPM. The highly anticipated collaboration between the renowned singer/ songwriter Asabi Goodman, and producer/arranger Geoff Boardman A.K.A. Blunted Stylus brings authority and intrigue to the dance floor, with soul.... "Free your mind and the mirror ball will follow".

Side A "Rhythm's Got Soul bursts through the stratosphere 'all frequencies blazing!"

Treating the listener to pitched horns, filtered drums, those sultry Asabi vocals, reinforced by the everlasting bass from Andrew 'Bigfoot' Leslie.

Momentum steps up with the rhythm guitar of Dave VHS, accompanied with vamp keys and hectic percussion.

The SOULICITORS are the band on this release 'sitting in the groove', syncopated and loose after the MPC4000 sample treatment, a sort of new paradigm of band-samples soul-fusion exploration!



Side B "Rhythm's Hot" (Afro Instrumental) is a monster cut on the flip, a relentlessly persuasive percussion groove, well timed transitions spread smooth like butter, akin to Midnight Marauders chords, styled across 'A Taste Of Honey' bassline for example, on an Afrocentric trip building up to the disco-fever instrumental strut.



Asabi Goodman is an American born (Oklahoma), entertainer now calling Australia home, consistently performing in stage and screen productions, and touring with bands and Broadway musicals (Hairspray! The Musical, CHICAGO). Asabi's vocal ability effortlessly elevates from 'sweet and soulful' to 'commanding and powerful', all the while showing unmistakably that her passion for the audience, and respect for the song is at the heart of every performance.

Geoff Blunted is an Australian producer, avid record collector, and co-founder of the ground breaking sample-funk group the 'RESIN DOGS' (1996-2005) extensively touring and producing. From the early days in the 80's of cutting his teeth in mixtapes, and volunteering at community radio at 4ZZZ in 1988 (arguably the golden era of hip hop) hosting Australia's first dedicated Hip Hop show "Just2Def" that aired for 1 year. Four Jazz-funk sample albums under his belt, 'Rhythm's Got Soul' arrives cued-up ready! The track highlights Geoff's ability to blend his time proven sample ethic into a resonating dynamic disco experience.

LRK are excited to announce their next full album release LRKLP-08

'ALL I EVER WONDER' By Johnny Burgos

Available on LP/CD/DIGITAL

Singer, songwriter, and producer Johnny Burgos converges with veteran soul producer, Jeremy Page, (Kendra Morris, Czarface, MF Doom) to offer their first joint album together titled, 'All I Ever Wonder.' The album is a vividly vulnerable and honest effort by Burgos, lyrically and vocally, supported effortlessly by Page's masterful production. The pairing of the two seems meant to be, with a sound steeped in retro soul techniques, the album is equal parts novelty and nostalgia, equalling a timelessness that speaks to the humanity in all of us. All I Ever Wonder will be released on Vinyl, CD and all digital platforms on Friday, JUNE 28th, 2024 via UK-based Soul label LRK Records.

Johnny - "Jeremy and I have been ships passing in the night for years now. However, our first official collaboration was a 2021 remix of my song The Grey, which featured his long-time co-collaborator Kendra Morris. From the get-go, the musical chemistry was strong, so we took a shot at writing some original tunes. Since then, we've locked in on a creative groove and churned out a bunch of material. As we learned how to complement each other's musical strengths, the project took on more form and purpose, exploring heavier subject matter and expanding its range of genres. I'm pretty sure that's what makes this project so fun for us, and possibly what the early gatekeepers and listeners resonated with most. Neither of us expected such a reception to the music, which only made us more excited to hone in with more intention towards a goal. This also allowed me to bring more raw ideas to the table and have the confidence in Jeremy to hear the potential, then work his magic to extrapolate on my foundation. The teamwork in this effort was inspiring as we listened and referred to each other in every step of the process, and had a crew of killer musicians on deck for when we needed the extra feels on some joints.

We worked really hard on this record and hope it reconnects our listeners to being human in a visceral way. It's accessible, honest, and soulful because I wanted it to speak to anyone who still wants music to relate to. Music to help you through the valleys, to celebrate the peaks, and handle everything in between. It's a journey of the soul that explores ego, insecurity, love, loss, survival, enlightenment and trusting the process. It's truly 'All I Ever Wonder.' "

"All I Ever Wonder" will have its digital release through LRK Records on all platforms on Friday, JUNE 28th, 2024.

Johnny Burgos is a Brooklyn - born singer, songwriter, producer & engineer. His brand of future-soul embodies a raw uncompromising sound revealing beauty from pain, hope from despair, and the will to keep fighting. Especially influenced by his uncle and world-class percussionist, Andre Martinez, Johnny grew a fascination with the percussive rhythms of salsa and soul music, eventually manifesting into a devoted passion for Hip Hop production using an Akai MPC. With influences from Michael Jackson, OutKast, J Dilla, Lauryn Hill and D'Angelo, Johnny's music draws upon the core principles of R&B, while encompassing elements of Hip Hop, Funk, Pop, Salsa and Reggae.

Johnny has collaborated with DJ Skizz, for Mobb Deep & M.O.P., Marco Polo, Frans Mernick, Liza Colby (The Gold Setting) and led his band Bridge City Hustle, with whom he toured nationally.

As a solo artist Johnny debuted with back-to-back brand endorsements from French's Mustard and Samsung US, using them as a platform to launch his 2018 EP 'Love Through it All.' His debut album 'Gone Into The Grey' was released to critical acclaim in March of 2021 and has since been added to multiple editorial playlists by Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal, creating exponential growth. In 2022, Burgos' song 'Wild About You' was heard as the soundtrack to Neiman Marcus' "It's Your Moment" global streaming campaign. Johnny's currently amid promoting his latest album, The Tangent Tape, performing with his band The Butter, recording new collaborations and preparing his upcoming LP with Jeremy Page & LRK Records.

credits

releases June 28, 2024