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Alice Taylor was a popular session singer who sang background vocals for several local Philly groups including The Delfonics during the height of the Philly Soul boom of the early to mid-1970’s.

In 1974 Alice under the auspice of producer Emanuel ‘Manny’ Campbell Jr and fellow Philadelphian musician/composer Charles R. Bowen entered the famed Sound Room Studios in Upper Dardy PA, to record a session of her own. This session yielded two songs. The more commercial pop soul orientated “(I’m In Love With A) Rock ‘n’ Roll Singin’ Superstar”. A song which took influences from other popular songs of the time that mentioned one’s love for Rock ‘n’ Roll singers and taking road trips to L.A (Los Angeles) in an attempt to cash in. Although the elongated song title may at first be a tad off-putting the recording showcases Alice’s vocal talents to the full and in itself is a very good record. The second song “Sounds Ridiculous” is based around the theme of a girl falling in love with a guy who spends most of his time daydreaming rather than getting a regular 9-5 job. An excellent record that should find favour with 70’s/crossover soul fans alike.



Manny Campbell Jr used some of Philadelphia’s finest musicians on Alice’s session, notably session drummer Earl Young, reputedly the first exponent of the hi-hat cymbal a style of drumming used extensively throughout the disco period. Young had honed his skills during the 1960’s with his band The Volcanos, recording sessions for the Arctic and Harthon Record Labels. The Volcanos later became The Moods before morphing into The Trammps who Young recorded on his Golden Fleece Label with the group recording several further disco hits for Buddah Records prior to their worldwide hit “Disco Inferno” for Atlantic Records. Young’s strumming can be found on many other Philadelphia International, Sal Soul and MFSB recordings. The string and horn arrangements on the session were provided by another MFSB (Mother Father Sister Brother) pool of musician’s member, Don Renaldo.



“I’m In Love With A) Rock ’n’ Roll Superstar/Sounds Ridiculous” came out in November of 1975 as an initial pressing run of 500 copies for promotional use which sadly were not of the best quality with some background noise being present in the introduction on both sides of the single, a possible detrimental factor in the release gaining any significant airplay. It’s was the second and final release on Emandolynn Music’s short lived, Stage-Art label. The first release being another of Manny Campbell’s acts The Nu-Rons & Co “Disco Hustle/Can’t Do Enough Girl” (Stage-Art 1001). Sadly, Alice Taylor passed away sometime during the 1980’s. Soul Junction through its ongoing relationship with Emandolynn Music have taken the opportunity to license these now very sort after Alice Taylor songs, which have been remastered to remove the aforementioned sound problems present on the original release. Which are now presented to you as a 3 track EP which also includes a previously unissued alternative mix of “(I’m In Love With A) Rock ’n’ Roll Singin’ Superstar, a recent master tape discovery.

Imaginative re-workings and improvisations by Andrew Tuttle of the late great Michael Chapman's unfinished instrumental album. Sonic explorations that bridge the Southern and Northern Hemisphere via the Caribbean, remote Northumberland and sub-tropical Australia. Navigating calm seas and turbulent waters of ambient corals, new-age pirates, waves of lapping banjos and drifting eroding guitars.
When Michael Chapman passed away in September of 2021, at the age of 80, he did so – as he spent much of his life – as both a pioneer and a legend. A veteran of the British blues/folk/jazz scene, Chapman emerged in 1966 and continued working throughout his life, always pushing the boundaries of his creations while collaborating with a slew of similarly heralded musicians along the way: Bert Jansch, Mick Ronson, Elton John, Thurston Moore, Steve Gunn; to name just a smattering of those he worked alongside over the years.
It's the latter of those – Brooklyn guitarist and songwriter Steve Gunn – who Chapman flourished alongside in recent years, the two collaborating on 50 and True North, two of Chapman’s final and finest records. It was through that friendship that Chapman’s music found Andrew Tuttle, the Brisbane-based multi-instrumentalist who has toured Australia several times alongside Gunn.
In the aftermath of Chapman’s passing, his partner Andru discovered Tuttle’s Fleeting Adventure LP, describing it as “one of the albums that kept me sane during that first brutal winter on my own.” The pair met in Australia shortly after, and before Andru had even made it back home to the north of England, Tuttle had begun working on the recordings she shared with him at that time. Those recordings were part of a project Chapman was working on at the time of his death, called Another Fish – what would have been a companion piece to his previously-released LP, simply called Fish.
Though Chapman had spent time in his local studio playing all the guitars, layering the different sounds and effects, he’d always intended to do much more work on the songs, however fate had its way and he never got to ribbon-bow those ideas and bring the album to its conclusion.
Though there was little intention in terms of how to finalise the project, Tuttle spent valuable time with those recordings. What materialised, eventually - with time, care, and diligent attention - is a two-disc set Another Tide, Another Fish, something both unusual and completely distinctive. The first disc, Another Tide is centred around Tuttle’s own work, which shaped all seven of Michael’s songs and ideas into new songs of their own, and the second disc which simply incorporates the recordings that Michael left behind.
“On all of the tracks I also ‘played along’ on banjo to the originals several times until I learned an approximation,” Tuttle continues. “This ended up resulting in a ‘hybrid’, where some works are easily identifiable to those who know Michael’s originals, and some took that inspiration to head altogether elsewhere. Each of the tracks, even where not obvious, does have at the very least a trace element sample of the original recordings so that it’s a true collaboration.”
What we’re left with is indeed a hybrid: part remix album, part cover album, both a solo work and a collaboration, of sorts. Inspired by Chapman’s original ideas and with new track titles directly referencing the numbered but otherwise untitled source material, Tuttle adds his own flashes of colours throughout, including editing, sampling, MIDI transposing and signal processing that twists these songs into beautiful new shapes. Perhaps Tuttle’s greatest achievement here then is that Another Tide sounds so effortlessly free of all this context.
Whether you know Michael’s, Andrew’s or even Andru’s story or not, these recordings will bristle with enchantment and intrigue, worlds are built, and while some thrive and grow, others fizzle out in a burst of light, such is the way. “It's been a long, long road but we got there and I think it's been more than worth it,” Andru says in the record’s liner notes. “I really hope you think the journey was worth it too.”
Guitars and effects by Michael Chapman recorded by Alex Warnes at Phoenix Studio, Brampton, Cumbria, 2017 Banjo, effects and edits by Andrew Tuttle at Bella Vista, Brisbane / Meanjin, 2023-2024

"Moon Mirror, Nada Surf’s new record, has everything fans love and expect from them. Bittersweet anthems that begin quiet but explode into soaring harmonies? Check. Songs that are play-on-repeat heart punches? Check. Songs that are poetic and thought-provoking while also being absolute belt-at-the-top-of-your-voice-with-the-windows-down masterpieces? Check. It’s all here.

For the past 30 years, Nada Surf has had the same core lineup: Matthew Caws, Daniel Lorca, and Ira Elliot. Moon Mirror, their first for New West Records, was produced by the band and Ian Laughton at Rockfield Studios in Wales. For the recording, Matthew, Daniel, and Ira were joined by their friend and longtime keyboard player Louie Lino.

Moon Mirror is a thrilling and moving leap forward for Nada Surf. The songs on the album are true to the human experience—as meaningful and mysterious and sometimes absurd as it is. There’s love, yes, but also grief, deep loneliness, doubt, wonder, and hope. These are not the songs of a band in their 20s. There is hard-won wisdom here, and hard-won belief in possibility—the kind that comes from falling down and getting back up."

Brighton (UK) punks THE BAR STOOL PREACHERS have announced their new EP 'Below The Static', which features reimagined versions of songs from the bands 2022 album 'Above The Static'. The EP is out 13th September 2024 via Pure Noise Records. Speaking about the new EP the band said, "For this release, we really wanted to highlight how good the songwriting was. We were stoked with how well the album went down but we really wanted to expose some of the more vulnerable elements and fuck with the format a bit. To hear such strong fxmale vocals, and having heavy guitar riffs on cellos/violins etc. really got us excited about these songs again. Some of the versions are stripped right back to just a voice and one instrument. It's the band like you've never heard it before, and really breathes a different life into the songs."

This album takes you back to Colombia of the 50s and 60s. In those days, the tropical music of the Caribbean and Pacific coasts took over the country's mainland music scene by storm. One of the key figures during this period was Edmundo Arias. Together with Lucho Bermúdez and Pacho Galán, Arias is seen as one of the ‘big three’ composers of Colombian tropical music.

He was a rather introverted person who avoided being in the spotlight at all cost, leading to his work being less known than his contemporaries. With this album we hope to highlight the amazing legacy Edmundo Arias has left us. Think of big bands with sharp dressed musicians playing the finest cumbias, porros and other tropical sounds in fancy ballrooms on a hot evening in Medellin or Bogota.

Liner notes:

Edmundo Dante Arias Valencia was born in Tuluá, Valle del Cauca, on the 5th of November 1925. He came from a family of musicians. His father, Joaquín Arias Cardoza was a band leader and composer who taught his children to play music. Arias learned to play many instruments such as the guitar, bass, bandola (pear shaped string instrument related to the mandolin), tiple (12 string guitar), clarinet and saxophone. He proved to be a very talented musician and together with his father and his older brother Ricaurte he formed the ‘Trio Arias’. The family lived in different cities across Colombia depending on where they found work. When his father died unexpectedly in 1948, Edmundo and Ricaurte had to support their family working as musicians. In 1951, Arias decided to move to Medellín, in those days the heart of the Colombian music industry and the city where the most important record companies and the best musicians were based. It didn’t take long before Arias made a name for himself as a musician, composer, arranger and band leader for Colombia’s leading labels at the time; Zeida, Ondina, Silver and Sonolux. For the latter, he would eventually become the artistic director. Over the years, he wrote hundreds of songs, recorded many albums with his own orchestras or with the Orquesta Sonolux and collaborated with a countless number of musicians, often uncredited.

Together with Lucho Bermúdez and Pacho Galán, Edmundo Arias is seen as one of the ‘big three’ composers of the tropical music of Colombia. But despite the fact that Arias was renowned, very little is known about his personal life. He was a humble man who preferred to work in the background and avoided being in the spotlight at all cost. He declined interviews and kept away from public life. On some live performances of the orchestra that carried his name, Arias asked one of his musicians to pretend to be him, so that he wouldn’t have to come on stage. You might think that Arias was shy or anti-social, but this was not the case. Most people he worked with described him as a very jovial, good humoured person and enjoyed working with him.

His invisibility in public life belied how present he was behind the scenes. If he wasn’t working on his own productions, he was regularly collaborating with other musicians. Arias had his hand in the work of many of his colleagues and was a mentor for young artists. Some even say that in those days all the musicians in Medellín had worked with Arias in one way or the other. He had a strict working regime: composing, arranging and recording at night while sleeping during the day. He was also very productive. The story goes that on one occasion, he wrote arrangements for a 16 piece band in just a few minutes while the band was recording another song. His hard work and productiveness resulted in hundreds of compositions and many records that carry his name.

Edmundo Arias’ career ran over 6 decades until his death on the 29th of January 1993. Over the years, he left us a huge legacy. The songs on this record are a selection of his work during the 50s and 60s. Many see this period as the absolute highlight of his career. We picked out the songs we consider to be the most outstanding recordings from this period. The title of this compilation Guepa Je! is Colombian slang often used in cumbia to express joy or to celebrate. A free translation would result into something like ‘yeah’, ’let’s go’ or ‘groovy’. I guess this title says enough. Enjoy the music. Guepa Je!

Robyn Hitchcock is a rock’n’roll surrealist. Born in London on March 3rd, 1953 he describes his songs as “pictures you can listen to”. As much a child of Dali, De Chirico, and JG Ballard as of his 1960s musical heroes, he is a master of the absurd, reveling in the beauty of the unexpected. His first publicly visible band The Soft Boys (1976 - 81) has remained an influential art-rock touchstone for generations of musicians. “I just want to be an obscure cult fringe,” he told the NME in 1978; the NME didn’t believe him, but he’s been true to his ambition. Without ever breaking the surface of pop culture Hitchcock has floated at a tangent to the mainstream for nearly 5 decades. His songs have been performed by REM, The Replacements, Neko Case, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Lou Barlow, Grant Lee Phillips, Sparklehorse, and Suzanne Vega with the Grateful Dead among others. A confirmed outsider, he nonetheless has devoted listeners around the world who attend his concerts, and also tune into the online streaming shows Robyn seasonally does with his wife, the singer Emma Swift. In 1996 he was the subject of Jonathan Demme’s in-concert film, ‘Storefront Hitchcock’. Robyn Hitchcock came of age in the 1960s when he attended Winchester College, an eccentric hothouse boarding school in the south of England. This is the subject of “1967”, which is both a memoir and an album, due for release in June this year. The memoir is a book “1967: How I Got There And Why I Never Left”, describing how the music of Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and others drastically transformed the direction of his life when he left home for this strange new world. The companion record album “1967: Vacations In The Past” is a selection of the (mostly) hit songs of that year, re-recorded acoustically by Robyn with the help of some friends in Cambridge, San Francisco, and Sydney. He is currently preparing new material to release in 2025. “I like to keep busy”, he says: “We have all eternity to not exist”.

Im Jahr 2023 wurden BIG BIG TRAIN vom Publikum in ganz Großbritannien und Europa begeistert aufgenommen und krönten ihre Tournee mit zwei triumphalen Auftritten in der Londoner Cadogan Hall. "A Flare On The Lens" zeigt die komplette Show der Band in der Cadogan Hall vom zweiten ihrer beiden Auftritte im vergangenen Jahr und enthält außerdem sieben Songs, die nur am ersten Abend gespielt wurden. Der Blu-ray-Film dauert etwa 3 Stunden und enthält nicht weniger als 17 Songs plus ein Akustik-Medley mit 3 Liedern, darunter Favoriten aus dem Backkatalog wie "East Coast Racer", "Hedgerow", "Folklore", "Judas Unrepentant", "Curator Of Butterflies" und "Victorian Brickwork", die instrumentale Live-Tour de Force "Apollo" und die zukünftigen Klassiker "Love Is The Light" und "Oblivion". Die beiden letztgenannten Songs sind auf dem hochgelobten Studioalbum "The Likes Of Us" zu hören, das im März dieses Jahres veröffentlicht wurde. "A Flare On The Lens" ist der Beweis dafür, dass BIG BIG TRAIN auf dem Weg nach oben sind und sich als eine der überzeugendsten Live-Bands der Rockmusikszene etabliert haben. Erhältlich als limitiertes 3CD+Blu-ray Digipak im Schuber (die Blu-ray enthält 5.1 Surround Sound & High Resolution Stereo Mixes) sowie als Gatefold 180g 2LP Edition (mit einer Auswahl von 10 Tracks aus dem Live-Set), sowie als Digitales Album.

Farbiges Vinyl-Doppelalbum-Set mit Etching/Gravur auf der D-Seite.

Nur sehr wenige Bands schaffen es, Jahrzehnte zu überdauern, aber bei denen, die es schaffen, ist es oft einfach, sich niederzulassen und es sich ein wenig zu bequem zu machen. Allerdings gibt es nichts Bequemes an „Devourer“, dem explosiven neuen Album von Cursive. Die kultige Band aus Omaha hat in den letzten 30 Jahren eine kühne Diskografie geschaffen, die sich sowohl durch ihren kathartischen Sound als auch durch ihre gewichtigen, herausfordernden lyrischen Themen auszeichnet. Ihr 10. Album „Devourer“ ist so kühn wie eh und je Es steckt voller intensiver und prägnanter Songs, die untermauern, warum Cursive so einflussreich und beständig waren - und dass sie auch heute noch genauso vital sind. In den Jahren seit ihrer Gründung 1995 haben sich Cursive zu einer der wichtigsten Gruppen entwickelt, die Ende der 90er/Anfang der 00er Jahre entstanden sind, als die Grenzen zwischen Indie-Rock und Post-Hardcore zu etwas völlig Neuem zu verschwimmen begannen. Alben wie „Domestica“ (2000) und „The Ugly Organ“ (2003) wurden zu wichtigen Prüfsteinen, deren Widerhall auch heute noch in neuen Bands zu hören ist. „Devourer“ untersucht die bodenlose Fähigkeit der Menschheit zum Konsum durch eine Reihe von Songs, die wie Vignetten wirken, angetrieben durch den nie endenden Appetit von Frontmann Tim Kasher, sowohl Kunst aufzunehmen als auch zu schaffen. „Ich bin besessen davon, die Künste zu konsumieren“, erklärt er. „Musik, Film, Literatur. Ich habe erkannt, dass ich all diese Kunstformen verschlinge und dann wiederum meine eigenen Versionen dieser Dinge erschaffe und sie in die Welt hinausspucke. Das ist positiv, man ist Teil eines Ökosystems. Aber der Begriff 'Verschlinger' kann auch etwas Unheimliches, Unheilvolles verkörpern.“ Die Fans erwarten von Cursive mittlerweile solch brisante Themen, aber „Devourer“ setzt einen neuen Standard. Während die Musik von Cursive nicht bequemer geworden ist, wird sie vielleicht in eine Welt entlassen, die zumindest ein bisschen mehr nach ihrem Bild geformt ist. „Devourer“ klingt dringend und frisch, das Werk einer Band, die immer noch experimentiert und nach neuen kreativen Höhen strebt. Auf dem Album-Highlight „Consumers“ klagt der Protagonist: "I saw our future and I want to go back." Aber Cursive bewegen sich nur vorwärts.

"Glossolalia" ist das dritte Solo-Album von Dale Crover, dem weltbekannten Schlagzeuger der Melvins, Nirvana und Redd Kross sowie Sänger und Gitarrist von Altamont. Das von Crover und Toshi Kasai produzierte Werk strotzt nur so vor Nuggets-Garagenrock, Proto-Metal-Riffs und herrlich verschwommenem Psych-Pop. Die erste Single des 11-Song-Albums ist "Doug Yuletide". Der Track ist einer von zwei "Glossolalia"-Songs, bei denen Crover mit dem Gitarristen Dan Southwick zusammenarbeitet, seinem langjährigen Freund und Altamont-Bandkollegen. Aber Southwick ist nicht der einzige Freund, der auf Glossolalia zu hören ist: Kim Thayil von Soundgarden (Leadgitarre bei "I Quit" und "Rings"), Ty Segall (Leadgitarre bei "Spoiled Daisies" und "I Waited Forever"), Rob Crow von Pinback ("Don't Worry About It", "Rings" und "I Waited Forever") und Tom Waits' ungelenkes, in Zungen gesprochenes Intro beim Titelstück. "Glossolalia" ist Crovers bisher fokussiertestes Statement als Solokünstler. In seiner Gesamtheit zeigt das neue Album, dass Crover, so wie die Melvins in ihrem vierten Jahrzehnt weiter wachsen und sich entwickeln, auch als Solokünstler neue Schritte unternimmt. Inmitten des inspirierten Geplappers von Waits, des glorreichen Schredderns von Segall und Thayil und vielem mehr, sticht vor allem die Robustheit von Crovers Vision hervor. Diese Platte zeigt, dass seine Gesamtästhetik genauso stark wie sein legendärer Schlagzeugdonner ist. ENGAs he began plotting his new solo album, Dale Crover _ world-renowned drummer for the Melvins, Nirvana and Redd Kross, and singer-guitarist for Altamont _ realized that, unlike with his prior two full-lengths, he was starting from scratch. "I didn't have any songs," he says, "so I just went on this writing spree." The result is Glossolalia, Crover's third LP under his own name and arguably his most focused statement yet as a solo artist: 11 catchy yet eccentric tracks that move from Nuggets-y garage rock to crafty proto-metal riffage and gorgeously hazy psych-pop, touching on everything from a bad teenage trip to the charms of the late, great Jane Birkin, and featuring input by illustrious guests including Ty Segall, Soundgarden's Kim Thayil and none other than Tom Waits. What stands out across the record is the sturdiness of Crover's vision. He's modest about his ambitions _ "It's just kind of like extra credit," he says, about having a solo outlet apart from his main band _ but as this record shows, his overall aesthetic hits just as hard as his legendary drum thunder.

Das revolutionäre Album der Hardrock-Supergruppe, mit Scott Weiland von den Stone Temple Pilots und Slash, Duff McKagan und Matt Sorum von Guns N' Roses sowie Dave Kushner von Wasted Youth, ist ein Meilenstein. Die erweiterte Ausgabe auf schwarzem Doppelvinyl präsentiert sich mit einem alternativen Cover und einer um sechs Songs ergänzten Trackliste, darunter B-Seiten, Akustikversionen und beeindruckende Coverversionen von Songs von Nirvana, Cheap Trick und Pink Floyd.

Eine Sammlung für M. Ward-Fans jeden Jahrgangs. "For Beginners: The Best Of M. Ward" versammelt 14 Tracks aus seiner gesamten Merge Records Discografie, einschließlich des neu aufgenommenen Songs "Cry". "For Beginners" ist sowohl eine Fibel und ein Mixtape mit Lieblingsstücken. Die Reihenfolge der Songs ist so ausgetüftelt, dass ihnen neues Leben eingehaucht wird. Beginnend mit "Chinese Translation" und "Poison Cup" vom 2006 erschienenen Album "Post-War", zeigt "For Beginners", wie Ward sein Können im Studio ausbaut. Seine einzigartige Coverversion von David Bowies "Let's Dance", aus dem 2003er Album "Transfiguration of Vincent", geht über in das überschwängliche "Never Had Nobody Like You" vom 2009er Album "Hold Time". Anstatt einer sauberen Entwicklungslinie, die ein chronologisches Arrangement suggeriert, ist das, was "For Beginners" zusammenhält, ist Wards tadelloses Können als Songwriter, das im Fokus bleibt während sich sein Sound von Low-Fi-Heimaufnahmen zu elektrischen, radiotauglichen Stompern und wieder zurück bewegt. Pünktlich zum 35-jährigen Jubiläum von Merge Records wird dieses Album eines der beliebtesten Künstler des Labels veröffentlicht und enthält mit dem Song "Cry" die erste neue M. Ward Aufnahme auf Merge seit 2018. "Cry" ist eine reduzierte Coverversion des Godley & Creme Pop-Klassikers, aufgenommen mit dem Folk Bitch Trio aus Melbourne, Australien. M. Ward über "Cry": ""Cry" wurde in einem tasmanischen Museum für moderne Kunst namens MONA aufgenommen. Ich saß am Ende eines langen Flurs, nur wenige Meter entfernt von Anselm Kiefers Skulptur eines 20 Fuß hohen Stapel von Bleibüchern, und links und rechts von mir, um ein einziges Mikrofon herum, saß das Folk Bitch Trio; wir probten und nahmen "Cry" in etwa 30 Minuten auf. Es ist mir ein Vergnügen, diesen Song zu einer Sammlung meiner schönsten Erinnerungen an das Musikmachen hinzuzufügen." Der Song ist der perfekte Schlussstein für eine Sammlung dieser Art und fasst Wards Stärke als Musiker zusammen: der Reichtum, den er in spärlichen Aufnahmen erreicht, sein Talent für Zusammenarbeit und seine Fähigkeit, die Seele eines akribisch ausgearbeiteten Popsongs zu durchschauen. Ein Mittel, um auf die Zukunft seiner eigenen Arbeit zu blicken, aber auch ein Rückblick auf seine Vergangenheit.

Hollow Coves, The Brisbane folk duo—Ryan Henderson and Matt Carins—carry light within an eloquent, engaging, and entrancing take on indie folk, as evidenced by the five songs that comprise their EP Blessings. The majority of the songs on Blessings were written during the Covid-19 lockdown and recorded and self-produced at the band’s newly built home studio on Australia’s Gold Coast. Hollow Coves’ music, including “Blessings” from this EP, has been used in over one million TikTok videos, charted in the Top 20 for Most Used on Instagram Reels, and garnered over 200 million views on YouTube. As a result, the band has been streamed over one billion times across DSPs and grown a dedicated global audience which has translated to their touring across continents. Earlier this year Hollow Coves played some of their biggest rooms ever all across Europe, North America and Australia/New Zealand in 2024 - including venues of 1,000+ in many cities across the US and Canada. The band has an on-going collaboration with the National Park Foundation. As proud supporters, Hollow Coves will donate $1 from every ticket sold on their 2024 North American Summer Tour to the Foundation in an effort to preserve our natural world. Their goal is to champion the importance of our national park system’s landscapes, ecosystems, and historical sites.

"Allegra Krieger’s ""Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine"", her second full-length album with Double Double Whammy, is a collection of 12 songs that pick at the fragile membrane between life and death.

Krieger’s previous album, ""I Keep My Feet on the Fragile Plane"", hewed more closely to the domestic spaces of city and mind. Rolling Stone regarded the album as “ten songs of heady philosophical meanderings packed with emotional dynamite,” and likened her “finely phrased lyrics” to those of “Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and David Berman.” Krieger’s existential meditations remain on ""Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine"", however her meandering melodies have taken on a stronger sense of direction. She narrates candidly and assertively; the full-band arrangements never overpower, only offer a robust platform on which Krieger’s voice reaches new heights.

The full band brings a heightened sense of drama to the album’s arrangements, which contrasts the quieter approach of Krieger’s previous LP. There are noisy interludes, jazz-inflected discursions, impactful stops and starts, and occasional spaces for Krieger to stretch out her impressive vocal range (most prominently at the dazzling climax of album stand out “Came”). In ""Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine"", Krieger invites us to a place where transfiguration is not only possible but actively happening. From this place, the beautiful and the banal and the terrible are all laid out before us. And Krieger asks us not to look away. Instead, she invites us to stare down the beautiful and terrible in the world, and to realize that sometimes the only way out is through."

Es gibt Bands, die machen nach drei Akkorden und einer popeligen Orgelmelodie Feierabend. Es gibt aber auch Bands, die schleifen am Sound, schrauben am Text, polieren die Solos auf Hochglanz und überschreiten das Tempolimit nur an den dafür geeigneten Stellen. Bands, die den Popsong an allen Ecken und Enden abklopfen, bis sie perfekte Schmuckstücke mit dem Gütesiegel "Zeitlos!" herausbekommen haben. Eine amerikanische Band aus dem fernen Wien: Pretty Pleas (Daniel Smith - vocals/guitars, George Clavicle - bass, B.B. Kong - drums) zeigen, dass es neben exzellentem Handwerk und Spaß am Experiment auch die richtigen Einflüsse braucht, um einen authentischen, individuellen Sound zu schaffen, der gleichzeitig großer Pop und tougher Alternative Rock ist. Die Quadratur des Kreises? Vielleicht. Aber war gute Musik war nicht schon immer Alles und noch etwas mehr? Unterstützung beim Modellieren des idealen Sounds fanden Pretty Pleas im Multiinstrumentalisten Paolo Tornitore, der vor allem für die großartigen Arrangements verantwortlich zeichnet, sowie in der fabelhaften Keyboarderin Jasmin Nagl, die einigen Songs das perfekte Sahnehäubchen aus herrlich dahingroovendem Orgelsound aufsetzte. Daniel Smith: "The record is an intriguing blend of power pop, glam rock, new wave, and psychedelia influences." Diesen gelungenen und sehr tanzbaren Mix aus Atmosphäre, Beat und Klang bezeichnet die Band passenderweise als Moody Art Pop. Das Debutalbum "In Circles And Lines" ist das beste Beispiel für diese elegante Soundbeschreibung. Der Opener "Moving Forward" liefert den ZuhörerInnen die atemberaubende Frische, die wir von den frühen Roxy Music kennen. Mit "Broke" wird sofort auf dem gleichen Niveau nachgelegt. Und obwohl die markante Stimme von Daniel Smith eine andere Liga bespielt - das flamboyante Wesen eines Brian Ferry liegt da gar nicht weit entfernt. Aber auch die mitreißende Melancholie eines Stuart A. Staples (Tindersticks) ist Smith keineswegs unbekannt. "The band delves into universal themes such as loss, heartbreak, alienation, as well as the throes of new found love.", erklärt Daniel Smith die Themenwelt der Songs. Damit der Sound von "In Circles And Lines" kompakt und groovy bleibt wie ein Hit von The Sweet, setzt der glasklare Klang der Gitarre die Markierungen in Richtung Power Pop. Aber auch der Orgelsound, der den Garagenpunk der 60s und die britischen Ravebands der 1990er in Erinnerung ruft ("Ghosts"), feiert den Enthusiasmus für funkelnde Melodien - Moody Art Pop it definitely is. "In Circles and Lines" offers a deep dive into the ways we interact with each other in romance, life, and every facet of human relationships - a contemplative exploration of love's many forms and the inevitable heartbreak that often follows." (Daniel Smith)

Spectres have been stirring in the shadows for years now. Dark eyes watching from pallid faces. Siren songs calling to lost souls. In the blackest corners of the UK underground, a name whispered relentlessly amongst the faithful, first with curiosity, then soul-shuddering awe: Zetra.

Zetra is also the title of their striking debut LP. Ten tracks whose indefinable blend of shimmering shoegaze and pulsating goth-metal work deep beneath the skin, it is a masterclass in intimate dark romanticism and sweeping elemental beauty. It could be seen as a reaction to the geography of a strange new world, but also to the jagged topography of the human psyche itself. Is it a manifesto? A roadmap? A riddle waiting to be solved? Profound pleasure lies in peeling back its many layers.

Travelling alone, armed only with synths, guitar and drum-machine to compose, The Wanderers’ music could sound skeletal. Instead its early metallic bones have been fleshed-out with the electronic new-wave of Gary Numan and Pet Shop Boys and dreamy, droning guitars that hark to heroes like Slowdive and Sonic Youth as well as dark contemporaries Deafheaven and Alcest. As harsh as the truths with which they deal may be, these songs deliver beguiling brilliance.

Acolytes to spread the word of Zetra aren’t hard to find. British ‘contemporaries’ like Burner and Wallowing, Celestial Sanctuary and Employed To Serve have been dementedly singing their praises as far back as they can remember. Tours with the heavyweight likes of Creeper and Godflesh, VV and SKYND have taken their once-subterranean sounds into the spotlight. Unto Others’ Gabriel Franco (‘Moonfall’), Svalbard’s Serena Cherry (‘Starfall’) and Sólveig Matthildur Kristjánsdóttir from Iceland’s Kælan Mikla (‘Shatter The Mountain’) even crop up amongst these recordings, dissolving into the cult of Zetra themselves. But none are as important as the legions of fans Zetra are yet to reach with a dark gospel still unpicking all manner of psychological knots and existential truths.

Yon Loader is a New Zealand recording project developed over distance and led by James Stuteley (Carb on Carb). Made in numerous sessions in various locations, the project weaves together many elements and talents of Aotearoa indie rock. Stuteley composed the core of the songs before fleshing them out with help from a cast of rotating collaborators and key engineer and producer Harry Lilley. These collaborators (including members of Recitals, Welcomer, For Everest, Model Home, Fouler, First Move, and Bad Friend) build Stuteley’s straightforward, candid compositions into an album of weighty, intricate rock songs with melancholic, diaristic emo-punk energy. Interweaving guitar and cello draws on the epic without going into excess. Slipping between thoughtful guitar passages and poignant interludes to expansive uplifting blowouts of repeated vocals and waves of cymbals, Yon Loader's debut album draws you in and holds you tightly.

Repress! Before he developed into a star composer and arranger, Tom Scott was an ambitious 19 year-old saxophonist looking for his big break in 1967. The opportunity came when legendary jazz label Impulse paired Scott with 9-piece vocal group The California Dreamers and allowed the young musician to take the helm as a band leader, with The Honeysuckle Breeze as the spectacular result. This rare and long out-of-print album features Scott leading a stellar lineup of sessions players—Bill Plummer (sitar), Glen Campbell (guitar) and Carol Kaye (bass) among them—through warm, smooth versions of songs by The Beatles (“She’s Leaving Home”), Donovan (“Mellow Yellow”), Joan Baez (“North”) and Jefferson Airplane (“Today”), which many will recognize from it’s sampling in the Pete Rock & CL Smooth classic “T.R.O.Y.” Resurrected, refurbished and remastered by the talented folks at Get On Down, Scott’s debut record sparkles with a high quality digital audio transfer from the original master tapes and is packaged in a gatefold paste-on case with a dust sleeve and obi strip. Don’t let this “Breeze” pass you by.

By 1963, great Latin American artists such as Lucho Gatica, Felipe Pirela, Bienvenido Granda, Leo Marini, Benny Moré, Tito Rodríguez, Toña La Negra, Blanca Rosa Gil and the so- called queen of boleros, Olga Guillot, had enriched the musical landscape, giving personality to the bolero. That year, in the midst of a new panorama, a bolero star was born from the depths of Venezuelan radio: Estelita Del Llano. “Sensual”, her debut album, is one of the greatest gems of the genre, with arrangements and orchestration by Porfi Jiménez. The backing of the Porfi Jiménez Orchestra and his arrangements made “Sensual” one of the most successful albums of its time. The selection of the twelve songs on the album was also a success. Although the years of the bolero's greatest splendor seemed to have passed, the bolero continued to spread throughout Latin America. The great success of “Sensual” lay in the arrangements and the choice of boleros with elements of the cha-cha-cha, another genre that was enjoying great popularity.

Die große Antilopen Gang hat zwei (!) neue Alben im Kasten. Pünktlich zum fünfzehnten Bandjubiläum legen Danger Dan, Koljah und Panik Panzer nicht nur ihre sechste gemeinsame HipHop-Platte, sondern zugleich auch ihr längst überfälliges Punkrock-Debüt vor. Beide Alben ergeben zusammen die Doppel-LP »ALLES MUSS REPARIERT WERDEN« und bündeln mit Nachdruck, was im Antilopen-Kosmos seit jeher Hand in Hand geht. »ALLES MUSS REPARIERT WERDEN« ist kein schnödes Crossover-Experiment, sondern das erste Hälfte-Rap-Hälfte-Punk-Doppelalbum der Musikgeschichte. Und: Das Punk-Album enthält keine Interpretationen alter Lieder, sondern ausschließlich neue Songs, auf denen auch nicht gerappt, sondern gesungen oder geschrien wird. Ein Meilenstein! »ALLES MUSS REPARIERT WERDEN« erscheint am 13. September 2024 auf dem bandeigenen Label Antilopen Geldwäsche.

Nach zwölf Jahren reich an Instrumental-Alben (von zwei Solo-Piano-Platten über Kammermusik bis hin zu gemeinsamen Alben mit Boys Noize, Jarvis Cocker und Plastikman und sogar einem Weihnachts-Bestseller) hat Chilly Gonzales sich eine Menge von der Seele zu schreiben. Die Notizbücher, die seit dem 2011 erschienenen orchestralen Rap-Opus 'The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzales' leer blieben, füllten sich seit Anfang 2022 wieder mit Worten, nachdem Gonzo ein langes Jahrzehnt der Psychoanalyse beendet hatte. Ein Zufall? Wohl kaum. Hinter all den Wortspielen und dem Namedropping (u.a. Ron Jeremy, Marie Kondo, Dschingis Khan und Philip Glass) offenbaren die Songs, die es auf das neue Album 'Gonzo' geschafft haben, eine anhaltende Spannung zwischen Überzeugung und Bekenntnis, Wahn und Selbsterkenntnis und schließlich Dankbarkeit. Auch das Spannungsfeld zwischen Kreativität und Kommerz ist für Gonzo ein Thema, das ihn schon lange beschäftigt. Ist dies wirklich ein Rap-Album? Instrumentalstücke wie das strawinsky-eske 'Fidelio' oder das tränenreiche 'Eau de Cologne' erinnern den Hörer an Gonzos selbsterklärte Rolle als 'musical genius', während sich die Worte und Reime der vorangegangenen Strophen im Ohr festsetzen.
Rotes 180g-Vinyl mit einem Einleger mit Artwork auf der einen Seite und einer Kurzgeschichte (auf Englisch) von Christian Kracht auf der anderen Seite

Nach sechs Jahren melden sich Snow Patrol nun mit einem neuen Studioalbum „Forest Is The Path“ zurück.
Inspiriert von Selbstbeobachtung, Selbstreflexion und geprägt von einem wesentlichen Bausteinden Erinnerungen an die Liebe – schrieb Sänger Gary gemeinsam mit seiner Band zwölf neue Songs.
Produziert wurde das Album von Fraser T Smith (Adele/Dave/Stormzy), gemeinsam mit der Band.
„Forest Is The Path“ erscheint am 13. September und ist ab sofort vorbestellbar als Jewel CD, Hardback
Book CD und als Standard Black 2LP.
Die Hardback Book CD enthält zusätzliche Bilder von Gary sowie handgeschriebene Texte.

The new album from the original founding member of Kool & the Gang -- 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees! Drummer George “Funky” Brown, along with Robert “Kool” Bell on bass, his brother Ronald Bell on tenor and lead vocalist James "J.T." Taylor, was one of the main songwriters in their pop/R&B band Kool & The Gang, whose classic hits like “Jungle Boogie,” “Hollywood Swinging,” “Celebration,” “Get Down on It” and “Joanna” made for a novel and immensely successful pop-funk groove in the 1970s and ‘80s. Such songs have been featured in films (“Jungle Boogie” was in Pulp Fiction while “Summer Madness” appeared in Rocky) and have been sampled countless times by artists including DJ Kool, Mase, Too Short, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Boogie Down Productions, Brand Nubian, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Nas, N.W.A., Kris Kross and Jermaine Dupri. Aside from being crowned 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees, Brown, with Kool & the Gang, has been inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame--and there’s a street in Jersey City named in the band's honor. The Grammy-winning group has received the Soul Train Legend Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Nilüfer Yanya veröffentlichr ihr neues Album ‘My Method Actor’ auf Ninja Tune!

Während sie am neuen Album schrieb, zog sich Nilüfer mit ihrer kreativen Partnerin Wilma Archer (Sudan Archives/ Celeste) ins Studio zurück. Sie war ein Jahr lang mit ihrem zweiten Album „PAINLESS“ auf Tournee und befand sich in einer Phase des Übergangs, zwischen Alben, zwischen Plattenfirmen und zwischen Wohnorten. „My Method Actor“ hat viel mit der Idee zu tun, von einem Lebensabschnitt in einen anderen zu wechseln. Die Samen für „My Method Actor“ wurden Anfang 2023 gepflanzt, aber erst im Frühjahr desselben Jahres begannen die ersten Triebe zu sprießen. Als die Songs zu entstehen begannen, zogen sich Yanya und Archer von der Welt zurück. „Dies ist in dieser Hinsicht das intensivste Album.“, sagt Yanya. „Weil es nur wir beide waren. Wir haben niemanden sonst in diese Blase gelassen.“ Sie schrieben und nahmen in kleinen Sessions auf, verteilt über London, Wales und Eastbourne. Die Atmosphäre des Albums spiegelt diesen Kokon kreativer Energie wider: Es umhüllt die Hörenden mit cineastischen Schwüngen und wirkt gleichzeitig intim, indem es ihn in die kleine Welt einlädt, die sie geschaffen haben, und seine Geheimnisse preisgibt.

Nilüfers vorheriges Album, „PAINLESS“, wurde durchweg als eines der herausragendsten Alben des Jahres 2022 gefeiert, mit glühenden Kritiken von The Guardian (Album der Woche), The Sunday Times, Crack Magazine, NME und anderen. Das Album enthält die herausragenden Tracks, „anotherlife“, „stabilise“ und „midnight sun“, die Nilüfer in der „Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon“ performte. Nilüfer trat auch in „Late Night with Stephen Colbert“, „Later with Jools Holland“ und in der Tiny Desk-Konzertreihe von NPR auf.

Sie hat Adele, The xx und Mitski auf ihrer Tournee begleitet, war Headlinende im Londoner Shepherd's Bush Empire und hat Shows in ganz Europa, Australien, Japan und den USA ausverkauft. Yanya wurde auch von Sampha, King Krule und Little Dragon geremixt und hat mit Bombay Bicycle Club und Liss zusammengearbeitet.

"Wir waren hier" heißt das neue Studioalbum von der Gruppe Die Nerven. Es ist das sechste Album des Trios. Die neuen Songs haben Kevin Kuhn, Julian Knoth und Max Rieger in einer vierwöchigen Session in einem ehemaligen Sterne-Restaurant am Stuttgarter Schlossplatz mit Blick auf die Oper aufgenommen. Und so nah wie auf "Wir waren hier" sind Die Nerven noch auf keinem Studioalbum der Aura ihrer Live-Auftritte gekommen - der musikalischen Spontaneität ihres Zusammenspiels auf der Bühne, dem Stop-and-Go ihrer Improvisationen, der Lust an der gegenseitigen Überraschung, und schließlich: der kollektiven Entäußerung in die Katharsis. Ihre Musik ist immer noch zornig, laut, dramatisch, vielleicht könnte man auch sagen: nihilistisch. Aber es handelt sich um einen reiferen Nihilismus, als man ihn von den Nerven bislang kannte. In ihrer Musik fliegt man immer noch über Halden voll Schrott, über dürre Heiden, wüste Länder und öde Städte. Aber es schillern nun auch schöne Klangtupfer über der Szene wie von den letzten Sonnenstrahlen vor einer ewigen Nacht oder von einem bunt schillernden Ölfilm auf einer verdreckten See.

"Wir waren hier" heißt das neue Studioalbum von der Gruppe Die Nerven. Es ist das sechste Album des Trios. Die neuen Songs haben Kevin Kuhn, Julian Knoth und Max Rieger in einer vierwöchigen Session in einem ehemaligen Sterne-Restaurant am Stuttgarter Schlossplatz mit Blick auf die Oper aufgenommen. Und so nah wie auf "Wir waren hier" sind Die Nerven noch auf keinem Studioalbum der Aura ihrer Live-Auftritte gekommen - der musikalischen Spontaneität ihres Zusammenspiels auf der Bühne, dem Stop-and-Go ihrer Improvisationen, der Lust an der gegenseitigen Überraschung, und schließlich: der kollektiven Entäußerung in die Katharsis. Ihre Musik ist immer noch zornig, laut, dramatisch, vielleicht könnte man auch sagen: nihilistisch. Aber es handelt sich um einen reiferen Nihilismus, als man ihn von den Nerven bislang kannte. In ihrer Musik fliegt man immer noch über Halden voll Schrott, über dürre Heiden, wüste Länder und öde Städte. Aber es schillern nun auch schöne Klangtupfer über der Szene wie von den letzten Sonnenstrahlen vor einer ewigen Nacht oder von einem bunt schillernden Ölfilm auf einer verdreckten See.

Futurismo proudly present a celebration of the Paisley Underground scene with TWISTED DREAM MACHINE The Paisley Underground / California’s Psychedelic Renaissance: 1982-1986, the next volume in their Altered Vision compilation series.

This collection draws from the neo psychedelic movement that took hold in California during the early to mid 80’s, one that melded the psychedelia, country, garage rock, avant-garde and pop of the 60’s with the DIY ethos of the then burgeoning punk scene, a hypnotic amalgamation of sound that came in staunch contrast to the blown out sonic excesses of the time.

Twisted Dream Machine takes you on a trip from the city to the desert, as the kaleidoscope of noise drifts from the The Dream Syndicate’s Velvet Underground inspired take on Crazy Horse and The Three O’Clock’s chiming baroque powerpop, to Rain Parade’s dreamy Beatlesesque melodies and the Bangles hook-laden Love inspired pop. Also featured are the wondrous sounds of Green On Red, The Long Ryder’s, Game Theory, True West, Thin White Rope and others highly worth your attention. If you are not familiar with some of the bands here, you will surely question how that is possible. The Paisley Underground, if anything, encapsulated a certain musical mindset, an outlook where the past and the future would collide in the moment. This thread would bond the bands, yet each honed it’s own sound in a twisted incarnation of the seeds planted two decades earlier. Whilst the ‘scene’ did remain contained, its influence did in fact spread throughout mainstream culture as the Bangles stuck a chord into the heart of MTV, whilst Prince took inspiration from the movement in his own songwriting and the naming of Paisley Park, as well as signing The Three O’Clock to his label and writing one of the Bangles biggest hits.

As you listen to the tracks on Twisted Dream Machine you will be reminded that there is still music left to discover and inspire, this compilation is aimed to hopefully delight longtime fans, as well as ignite a passion for those new to the bands. The Paisley Underground was the sound of neo psychedelic rock, it was subterranean pop...in

the classic sense, it was alternative rock before the term existed, a distillation of the fundamentals present at the dawn of rock ‘n’ roll, with a twist. The bands of the Paisley Underground may have been writing out of their own time, but as you listen to them in today’s context these songs should be heard as landmarks, rather than throwbacks. After all, nothing this good should stay underground. This 2xLP comes on limited edition coloured vinyl, it is housed in a gloss laminated outer sleeve with colour inner sleeves and contains a large fold-out poster with unseen photos and liner notes by Lisa Fancher of Frontier. Also available on CD with Gloss laminated Sleeve and Fold Out Poster.

Jade Hairpins waste no time fulfilling their second album's titular demand. From its harmony-drenched opening note to its baroque-anthemic conclusion, Get Me the Good Stuff is positively loaded with musical ideas, an absurdist buffet of sound and aesthetic that comes with one hell of a floorshow as the Hairpins stack those ideas higher and higher, almost daring them to crash to the floor. Instead, those elements - punksploitation, power pop, baggy, funk, and Italo disco are just some touchstones - are not only held aloft, they defy gravity and convention. These pyrotechnics are, in true Jade Hairpins fashion, something of a sleight of hand. While the music swaggers and gallops, Get Me the Good Stuff grapples with anxiety and self-doubt, obfuscating pain and alienation with sparkling wit and some straight-up ravers. Get Me the Good Stuff opens with one of those, "Let It Be Me," in which Jonah Falco shouts lyrics about being alone with one's shortcomings against guitars, synths, and harmonized vocals that are on the verge of closing in. The song is just over 90 seconds long, hitting with the gnarled-barb ferocity of punk and the gleeful insanity of theatrical art rock. It is, in other words, overwhelming. Or it would be if Jade Hairpins - Jonah Falco and Mike Haliechuk - weren't remarkably nimble in their ability to bring unity to sounds by placing them in competition against each other. When those sounds are adjacent, like the glam and disco that saturate "Drifting Superstition," the thrill of those universes colliding in the heat of an absolutely filthy clavichord line turns its lyrics, about the habit of solving personal problems by ignoring them, into a winner's anthem on the order of Bowie or Hot Chocolate. Get Me the Good Stuff arcs towards unequivocal joy as Falco, Jade Hairpins' primary lyricist, breaks these cycles and attempts to run away with his dreams. The arc is roughly analogous to how the album came to fruition. Four years removed from Harmony Avenue, an album of material that proved too strong to be contained within the narrative universe of Fucked Up's Dose Your Dreams, Jade Hairpins have gelled as a live act - with Tamsin M. Leach and Jack Goldstein centering them on stage - and planted their flag in the UK punk scene in which Falco has embedded himself. Working out new material live, Falco noticed that crowds were digging into his unfinished lyrics, and the album tightened around the anxieties of being in the spotlight, of being worthy of attention. At times, those songs are eager to please, like the album's title track in which a winking self-deprecation rubs up against the self-congratulatory bombast of Freddie Mercury, Falco simultaneously turning heads as a shooting star and a burning car. Elsewhere, as in "Better Here Than in Love," Jade Hairpins pitch themselves towards creating gorgeous soundscapes that exist nowhere else, channeling postpunk through the glimmering haze of '80s Japanese electronic music. Theatrical and personal, absurd and true-to-life, playful and serious, Get Me the Good Stuff is album of tremendous personal and artistic growth that signposts towards dozens of potential futures to come. It's not only worth the attention, it continuously rewards it.

WE ARE WINTER'S BLUE AND RADIANT CHILDREN (WAWBARC) is the new quartet of Mat Ball (BIG|BRAVE), Efrim Manuel Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mt. Zion), and Jonathan Downs and Patch (both Ada). On "NO MORE APOCALYPSE FATHER" they present six modal lullabies drenched in seared distortion, slathered across striding electronic pulses. Ball and Menuck began creating music in and for the bleakest moments of Montréal winters: "We're honoring that idea of winter, when you come inside and your house is warm, a place that only exists because of how cold it is outside," says Menuck. They later recruited Downs and Patch to flesh out their initial ideas. Menuck met them in 2015 when recording Ada's final album at Montréal's Hotel2Tango _ where they reconvened to make this record. "NO MORE APOCALYPSE FATHER" is an album about witnessing bleakness from a place of safety. Carrying newfound descriptive depth, thanks to the quartet's open-ended songs freeing him from writing in meter, Menuck likens his lyrics to photorealism. On opener `Rats and Roses' he sings of an unnamed city struck by an unknown cataclysm, but the details are local: specifically, his neighbors inadvertently poisoning birds when tackling a rat infestation. It's backed by blown out synths and guitars reaching a soaring crescendo. "Seeing things from a distance and not being able to intervene happens a lot on the record," Menuck explains. "If you're a feeling and thinking person, that's just part of the human condition. We watch horror unfolding from afar, unable to do anything concrete to change it." A powerless witness, able to describe but not intervene. `Dangling Blanket From A Balcony (White Phosphorous)' references Michael Jackson holding his child over a hotel balcony in 2002_the bizarre media spectacle still lodged in Menuck's psyche. This and the album's closing track also elegize white phosphorous, a technology of war designed to light up battlefields but capable of inflicting horrific burns on those it touches. Illumination and horror in one, here underpinning scenes picturesque and terrifying. "The last song `(Goodnight) White Phosphorous' is deliberately like a lullaby," says Menuck. "Written from the viewpoint of watching white phosphorous falling outside your window." Scorched and tarnished and laden with harrowing imagery, "NO MORE APOCALYPSE FATHER" is also a record bathed in light: the bewilderment of hopeful spirits witnessing despair, watching a blizzard of distress unfold outside from a place of relative shelter and comfort. You could call that emotional ambivalence, maybe numbness. But those words are too passive for the weight of conflicted feeling resonating through the album. "I never know how I feel on an overcast day when the sun is still bright despite the grayness and the light is very flat. The colours become more saturated, and you see a single flower, say a morning glory, whose colour is so vibrant beneath the gray, I don't know if that's a lovely sensation or a terrible sensation. It's both," says Menuck.

Marcin ist ein weltweites Phänomen und der Gitarrist der Gen Z. Sein Debütalbum "Dragon in Harmony" ist eine Demonstration seines selbst-entwickelten, atemberaubend virtuosen Stils, Gitarre zu spielen in 14 genre-übergreifenden Titeln. Bei TikTok, Youtube und Instagram begeistert Marcin Millionen Follower mit seinem unnachahmlichen Stil, die Gitarre mit beiden Händen am Griffbrett zu spielen. Er zerlegt Klassiker aus Rock, Hip-Hop oder Klassik in "real time" in ihre Einzelteile und türmt diese zu neuen Gitarren-Arrangements auf, wobei er die Akkorde, Melodien und eine handtrommelartige Percussion gleichzeitig spielt. Ein musikalisches Spektakel als One-Man-Show. Auch Kritiker vom "Rolling Stone", "Billboard", "Premier Guitar" oder "Guitar World" preisen Marcin als "einen der talentiertesten Gitarristen seiner Generation". Mit all seinen Erfahrungen aus den letzten Jahren hat Marcin sein Album "Dragon in Harmony" konzipiert. Er möchte ein Publikum weit jenseits der Gitarren-Fans erreichen und erklärt selbstbewusst: "Mein Statement an die Gitarrenpuristen ist: Ja, ihr habt recht. Die Gitarre ist tot. Macht weiter so wie bisher. Mein Ziel war es aber schon immer, ein breites Publikum zu begeistern." Zusammen mit Producer Dan Book (Blink-182, Shania Twain, Britney Spears) verbindet Marcin auf "Dragon in Harmony" eine genreübergreifende Sammlung von Originalkompositionen und Covern zu einem harmonischen Ganzen. Songs von Justin Timberlake ("Cry Me A River"), Sade ("Smooth Operator") und Nirvana ("Heart-Shaped Box") fügen sich schlüssig an Kompositionen von Mozart (Requiem), Debussy ("Claire de Lune") oder Miles Davis/Bill Evans ("Nardis"). Der Alternative-Radio-taugliche Titel "When The Light Goes", für den Marcin den Sänger Portugal.The Man (bekannt für seinen Hit "Feel It Still") eingeladen hat, und "Allergies" mit Sängerin Delaney Bailey, bilden weitere stimmige Farbakzente auf dem Album. "Ich wurde im Jahr 2000, dem Jahr des Drachen, geboren und veröffentliche mein Debüt im Jahr 2024, ebenfalls ein Jahr des Drachen. Der Drache ist ein feuriges, mythisches Wesen, ungezähmt und chaotisch. Aber er steht ebenso für Harmonie. In den letzten Jahren habe ich viele unterschiedliche Dinge ausprobiert, die scheinbar nicht zusammenpassen. Mit meinem Album mache ich jetzt eine künstlerische Aussage, die kohärent ist. The dragon is in harmony." erläutert Marcin seine Album-Idee. Mit Ichika Nito ("I Don't Write About Girls") und Tim Henson von der Band Polyphia ("Classical Dragon") sind zwei weitere junge Gitarren-Heroes für jeweils einen Titel als Duett-Partner zu hören.

Die große Antilopen Gang hat zwei (!) neue Alben im Kasten. Pünktlich zum fünfzehnten Bandjubiläum legen Danger Dan, Koljah und Panik Panzer nicht nur ihre sechste gemeinsame HipHop-Platte, sondern zugleich auch ihr längst überfälliges Punkrock-Debüt vor. Beide Alben ergeben zusammen die Doppel-LP »ALLES MUSS REPARIERT WERDEN« und bündeln mit Nachdruck, was im Antilopen-Kosmos seit jeher Hand in Hand geht. »ALLES MUSS REPARIERT WERDEN« ist kein schnödes Crossover-Experiment, sondern das erste Hälfte-Rap-Hälfte-Punk-Doppelalbum der Musikgeschichte. Und: Das Punk-Album enthält keine Interpretationen alter Lieder, sondern ausschließlich neue Songs, auf denen auch nicht gerappt, sondern gesungen oder geschrien wird. Ein Meilenstein! »ALLES MUSS REPARIERT WERDEN« erscheint am 13. September 2024 auf dem bandeigenen Label Antilopen Geldwäsche.

Das vierte Studioalbum von Robert Alfons alias TR/ST (fka Trust), Performance, taucht noch tiefer in das Synthie-Pop-Psychodrama ein, das das Projekt in über einem Jahrzehnt der Entwicklung erschaffen und schließlich perfektioniert hat. Aufgenommen in Los Angeles, brodeln die Songs vor Angst, Lust, Abrechnung und Hingabe, beleuchtet von der Lichtverschmutzung tausender Sackgassen. Alfons hat "Performance" zusammen mit dem vielseitigen Komponisten und Produzenten Nightfeelings aufgenommen und dabei eine dichte, rauchige Balance aus unheimlichen Synthesizern, Nebelmaschinen-Tiefbässen und einer gequälten, krächzenden Stimme geschaffen. Der Titel ist eine Anspielung auf die beiläufige Bemerkung eines Freundes über Alfons' intrinsisch performative Natur. Der Opener "Soon" schwillt mit hymnischer Elektronik zum Leben an, bevor er mit einer riesigen New-Wave-Hook die Tanzfläche stürmt, gespickt mit ätzenden Kiss-off-Texten ("Asleep I still say it aloud / Scared stiff it's all around / We never did call it off, now our organs dried / Scared stiff to stone, you liar"). Die Musik bewegt sich zwischen Schönheit und Bitterkeit, Hymne und Qual, dem Klang einer wuchtig gewordenen Melancholie. Auf einem Track nach dem anderen setzt Alfons Pop-Dynamik und grüblerische Produktionskunst wie eine Waffe ein und schraubt sich durch eine Reihe von Singles - "All At Once", "The Shore", "Dark Day", "Boys of LA". Überall ist ein Gefühl von emotionalem Aufruhr zu spüren, der sich in seltsame Höhen steigert, befleckt von Schuld und Geistern und der Erinnerung an diejenigen, denen Unrecht getan wurde und die immer noch nicht vergeben haben. Als eine Welt für sich ist Performance überzeugend, mitreißend und berauschend, an der Schwelle zwischen aufwühlend und verstörend. Alfons' Stimme ist der Anker im Sturm, er singt eine Collage aus Eindrücken und Bekenntnissen mit einer verschmierten, bewusstseinsverändernden Logik. Er ist sowohl Beobachter als auch Anstifter, Performer und Dramatiker, befreit von der Bühne und der Nacht: "Now we see the rotten mind / It's eye to eye and mysteries/ Sail your boat for shore / I sit by the window waiting for it."

Sam Shepherd alias Floating Points hat heute angekündigt, dass sein neues Album, „Cascade“, am 13. September 2024 via Ninja Tune erscheint.

„Cascade“ ist eine Eruption unvollendeter Angelegenheiten. Ende 2022 fand sich Shepherd, der dafür bekannt ist, so frei zwischen den Genres zu wechseln, wie es sein Künstlername andeutet, in der kalifornischen Wüste wieder, um an etwas Neuem zu arbeiten. „Mere Mortals“, seine erste Ballettmusik, die in Zusammenarbeit mit dem San Francisco Ballet entstand, sollte eine Kollision von Klang und Tanz sein, die die antike Parabel von Pandora durch das Prisma der Technologie erforscht. Auf „Promises“, seinem Vorgängeralbum, das 2021 veröffentlicht wurde, tauschte er seine typischen modularen Synthesizer-Teppiche und komplizierten Drum-Patterns gegen luftige Traumlandschaften aus, die er mit dem legendären Saxophonisten, Pharoah Sanders, und dem London Symphony Orchestra entwickelte. Diese Zusammenarbeit war so beliebt, dass eine Mercury Prize-Nominierung und ein ausverkauftes Konzert im Hollywood Bowl im September 2023 folgten. Zwischen diesen Projekten und einem bevorstehenden Anime-Score für Adult Swim, könnte es von außen betrachtet so aussehen, als ob Shepherd die Tanzfläche für immer verlassen würde. Aber während er tagsüber an seiner Ballettmusik schrieb, sehnte er sich nachts nach der schweißtreibenden Gemeinschaft einer Tanzfläche. Nach der pulsierenden Unbekümmertheit der elektronischen Musik. Im November 2019 veröffentlichte Shepherd sein von Kritiker:innen hochgelobtes zweites Studioalbum, „Crush“. „Cascade“ wurde als Nachfolger:in von „Crush“ konzipiert, um Album (und Publikum) die Möglichkeit zu geben, Floating Points noch einmal in seiner traditionellen Form auf einer Tanzfläche zu erleben: voller Buchla-Rhythmen, glitchenden Melodien, die einen Raum voller wogender Körper verzaubern. Die neun Songs dürfen bis zu acht Minuten am Stück schwelen und funken, was eine weitreichendere Erkundung von Sounds und Grooves als zuvor ermöglicht. Fast ein Jahrzehnt nach seinem vielbeachteten Debütalbum, „Elaenia“, hat der Komponist Wege gefunden, seine Experimente außerhalb der Clubmusik nahtlos in seine für die Tanzfläche konzipierte Musik einzubinden.

a A1. Vocoder Club Mix

Mutant is proud to present Academy Award-winning composer Michael Giacchino's latest album, Exotic Themes for the Silver Screen – Volume 1, featuring iconic scores from Giacchino's extensive portfolio rendered in the retro lounge style of Exotica from the 1950s.



“It's no secret that we at Mutant are huge fans of Michael Giacchino,” says Spencer Hickman, Co-Founder of Mutant. “We're excited to release a retrospective of his astonishing three decades as a composer. Rather than just curating a simple compilation of his previous works, Michael went back into the studio, rearranged and re-recorded every major theme from his career. These tracks have been recorded in an Easy Listening style inspired by such greats as Martin Denny and Les Baxter, creating not just a unique and incredible look back at some of the most beloved movie and television themes of the modern age, but also bringing a fresh, exciting take to the beautiful journey he has taken us all on with him. It feels like you are discovering these songs for the very first time: timeless, beautiful, and a joy to listen to. These newly recorded themes transport you to a far-off sunset, looking out at the ocean, complete with a cocktail in hand, providing a much-needed escape from the stress of modern times, and we can all agree that is something we all crave right now.”



Exotic Themes for the Silver Screen – Volume 1 spans nearly two decades of Michael Giacchino’s music, from his early video game scores to his television hits and blockbuster films. The album transforms these works through the lens of Exotica, replacing epic strings and thundering drums with vibraphones and marimbas.



“This album was inspired by the work of Arthur Lyman and Martin Denny,” says Giacchino. “What would they do with the Star Trek theme? Or video games like Medal of Honor? It was a way for me to play in that world I loved so much growing up. I thought it would be fun to create a fantasy world, where this album was recorded back in 1967 and then lost, only to resurface today.”

The album showcases Giacchino’s unerring talent for melody, stripping down grand symphonies to their essential elements while retaining their aesthetic and emotional core.



“So much was rooted in the big orchestral sound, so it was really about scaling it back. The real trick is figuring out the little fun hooks and things you can add along the way. There were no rules; I was up for anything. It was a way to re-engage with the material and be creative in a new way.”



Exotic Themes for the Silver Screen – Volume 1 includes an array of reinterpreted pieces from Michael Giacchino’s career. Highlights include ‘Primordial Forest’ from the 1997 video game The Lost World: Jurassic Park, ‘Life and Death’ from Lost, the theme from Ratatouille, ‘Roar!’ from Cloverfield, ‘Enterprising Young Men’ from Star Trek (2009), ‘A Man, A Plan, A Code, Dubai’ from Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, and a Super 8 suite.



Featuring package design by Luke Insect, and liner notes by Charlie Brigden.

Blood Smoke Vinyl. The Instrumental version of the underground classic El Michels Affair & Black Thought collaborative album Glorious Game When Leon Michels and El Michels Affair released their ­rst record, Sounding Out The City, in 2005, it was hard to guess what was next for Michels and his then-introduced, now-patented "cinematic soul" sound. Now, four EMA studio albums and scores of tribute and remix projects later_all while producing for some of the biggest names in the industry_Michels has trademarked his sound, with each project taking audiences somewhere new and pushing the boundaries of what he is known for. The man is a river, not a lake and this time he takes his golden touch into the realm of hip-hop laying down a musical bed for one of the greatest to ever rhyme into a microphone: Black Thought of The Roots crew. Releasing on Big Crown Records, the LP is called Glorious Game and it is a remarkable debut partnership in more ways than one. Michels provides his bottom-heavy, soul-tinged production for Black Thought who gives us some of the more personal and transparent verses we've ever heard from him. Michels and Black Thought have been in each other's orbit for a while now. The two ­rst met in the 2000s when Thought was ­rst getting familiar with the contemporary soul scene. "Out of that whole world, Menahan Street Band was probably my favorite," recalling the funk and soul group Michels was a founding member of back in 2007. Fast forward a few years and musicians from that collective_Dave Guy on trumpet and Ian Hendrickson-Smith on sax _are now full time players with The Roots. This connection eventually led Leon and Thought to doing a few fundraising events around NYC and Philly together. "Before long, Black Thought was coming around the studio and would jam with us from time to time," Michels explains. "Then, fast forward to 2020 and COVID lockdowns, he just hit me up out of the blue, wanting me to send him stuff to write to. We both were looking to stay busy." Being that Black Thought is the co-founder and emcee for, hands down, the best live-band group in hip-hop. Michels took a decidedly different approach to this project and instead of sending recorded tracks of live compositions, he pulled out the sampler and sampled himself and some records from his collection. "I'm a big fan of soul music," as if Michels has to remind us. "And part of hip-hop's appeal to me has always been the sample-based production" For Glorious Game, Michels would make wholly composed and recorded soul songs in his studio, sample himself, then chop and/or loop up his sounds and create instrumentals for Black Thought. On some tracks he took a more traditional hip-hop approach, starting from samples of other people's music but then adding live instrumentation on top. But for the most

Jade Hairpins waste no time fulfilling their second album's titular demand. From its harmony-drenched opening note to its baroque-anthemic conclusion, Get Me the Good Stuff is positively loaded with musical ideas, an absurdist buffet of sound and aesthetic that comes with one hell of a floorshow as the Hairpins stack those ideas higher and higher, almost daring them to crash to the floor. Instead, those elements_punksploitation, power pop, baggy, funk, and Italo disco are just some touchstones_are not only held aloft, they defy gravity and convention. These pyrotechnics are, in true Jade Hairpins fashion, something of a sleight of hand. While the music swaggers and gallops, Get Me the Good Stuff grapples with anxiety and self-doubt, obfuscating pain and alienation with sparkling wit and some straight-up ravers. Get Me the Good Stuff opens with one of those, "Let It Be Me," in which Jonah Falco shouts lyrics about being alone with one's shortcomings against guitars, synths, and harmonized vocals that are on the verge of closing in. The song is just over 90 seconds long, hitting with the gnarled-barb ferocity of punk and the gleeful insanity of theatrical art rock. It is, in other words, overwhelming. Or it would be if Jade Hairpins_Jonah Falco and Mike Haliechuk_weren't remarkably nimble in their ability to bring unity to sounds by placing them in competition against each other. When those sounds are adjacent, like the glam and disco that saturate "Drifting Superstition," the thrill of those universes colliding in the heat of an absolutely filthy clavichord line turns its lyrics, about the habit of solving personal problems by ignoring them, into a winner's anthem on the order of Bowie or Hot Chocolate. Get Me the Good Stuff arcs towards unequivocal joy as Falco, Jade Hairpins' primary lyricist, breaks these cycles and attempts to run away with his dreams. The arc is roughly analogous to how the album came to fruition. Four years removed from Harmony Avenue, an album of material that proved too strong to be contained within the narrative universe of Fucked Up's Dose Your Dreams, Jade Hairpins have gelled as a live act_with Tamsin M. Leach and Jack Goldstein centering them on stage_and planted their flag in the UK punk scene in which Falco has embedded himself. Working out new material live, Falco noticed that crowds were digging into his unfinished lyrics, and the album tightened around the anxieties of being in the spotlight, of being worthy of attention. At times, those songs are eager to please, like the album's title track in which a winking self-deprecation rubs up against the self-congratulatory bombast of Freddie Mercury, Falco simultaneously turning heads as a shooting star and a burning car. Elsewhere, as in "Better Here Than in Love," Jade Hairpins pitch themselves towards creating gorgeous soundscapes that exist nowhere else, channeling postpunk through the glimmering haze of '80s Japanese electronic music. Theatrical and personal, absurd and true-to-life, playful and serious, Get Me the Good Stuff is album of tremendous personal and artistic growth that signposts towards dozens of potential futures to come. It's not only worth the attention, it continuously rewards it.

On Chastity’s upcoming, self-titled fourth record, Williams decided to write a fully non-fiction work. Out Friday, September 13 2024 on Deathwish (US), Dine Alone (Canada), and Big Scary Monsters (UK/E) ‘Chastity’ is a 13-track record about the things that have always run through the band’s records—struggle, death, despair, redemption, darkness, and light—but this time, the songs ascend to new depths of intensity and desperation, new heights of resolution and power. “It’s really about the first nosedive that I did as a young person,” says Williams. “It’s a record about struggle, about the missing years. It’s also a thank you to some people in my life.” The record hurtles through melodic hardcore, shoegaze, and emo, all magnificently and enormously rendered thanks to slick work from John Paul Peters (Propagandhi, Comeback Kid), who engineered and mixed the record. Chastity’s first three full-length records—2018’s Death Lust, 2019’s Home Made Satan, and 2022’s Suffer Summer—formed a trilogy that defined a 4-year arc of the band’s contribution to outsider music. Each record was informed by Williams’ life, but each was also conceptual and interpretive, refracting his experiences through a level of remove. On the self-titled record there’s a beautiful and affirming ending to it’s closer, centered on the band’s first and enduring idea: life is less shitty if we live it together.

Mit ihrem neuen Album "Feeding The Machine" wollen MORDKAUL die Band mit 10 druckvollen Death Metal Tracks auf eine neue Ebene emporheben!

Um das Beste aus den einzelnen Songs herauszuholen und sie bestmöglich zu präsentieren, wurde "Feeding The Machine" in zwei Phasen aufgenommen. Die erste Hälfte des Albums wurde im Sommer 2022 im Project Zero Studio aufgenommen, die zweite Hälfte im Sommer 2023 in den legendären Galaxy Studios, während das Mixing und Mastering von Dan Swanö durchgeführt wurde.

Während "Dress Code: Blood" stark von den kultigen schwedischen Death-Metal-Bands der 90er Jahre inspiriert war, geht "Feeding The Machine" noch einen Schritt weiter. Mit breiteren Einflüssen von kultigen 90er-Death-Metal-Bands wie Morbid Angel und Death schlägt "Feeding The Machine" noch härter zu und zielt darauf ab, die Band auf ein neues Level zu katapultieren!

Expanding upon his critically acclaimed MAX comedy special of the same name, John Early’s long-awaited first comedy album Now More Than Ever features four brand new cover songs from John Early and The Lemon Squares, along with an exclusive, album-only set from Early’s beloved alter ego, Vicky with a ‘V.’ In the album's oddly stirring climax, Early delivers a sermon on the emptiness of millennial culture, pleading to the Brooklyn crowd, “We have to get serious! Before it’s too late! And our gravestones read: Because Cancer.” Now More Than Ever is Early’s sincere and abundant offering back to the culture of thoughtful critique, heartfelt music, and infectious joy, firmly cementing his place as the godfather of millennial alt-comedy.

Am 4. August dieses Jahres hätte Louis Armstrong seinen 123. Geburtstag gefeiert. Ist es nicht wonderful,
dass ein Musiker 53 Jahre nachdem er den Planteten Erde verlassen hat, mit seiner Musik noch immer
endlos viel Freude verbreitet? Auch im Zeitalter des Streamings werden seine Songs monatlich noch immer
in hohen zweistelligen Millionenzahlen gehört!
Für Freunde der guten alten LP und CD bringt Verve Records jetzt mit “Wonderful World: The Best
of Louis Armstrong” eine kultig-nostalgisch gestaltete Compilation heraus, die das „Best“ im Titel wirklich verdient! Neben dem globalen Mega-Hit “What A Wonderful World” sind zwölf weitere Louis-Perlen
vertreten, darunter “A Kiss To Build A Dream On,” ‘La Vie En Rose,” “Hello, Dolly!” und zwei Duette
mit Ella Fitzgerald, “Cheek To Cheek” und “Dream A Little Dream of Me”.

Die deutschen Swe-Death-Metal-Freaks DENOMINATION sind mit ihrem zweiten Album in Bestform zurück. Hört euch 'The Last Companion' an und schnuppert den authentisch, fauligen Gestank des skandinavischen Death Metals der frühen 90er. Sehr empfehlenswert für Fans von NIHILIST, CARNAGE, ENTOMBED, DISMEMBER etc.
DENOMINATION halten die Fahne des Boss HM-2 Buzzsaw-Gitarrensounds hoch und präsentieren auf ‚The Last Companion' 10 neue Songs (+Intros), die euch ordentlich das Knochenmark durchwirbeln werden.
Aufgenommen, gemixt und gemastert wurde dieses fiese Werk bei Mike Utah´s Audio Ranch, von Jörn Michutta (u.a. auch MORGOTH' "Ungod"). Das thematisch düster-moderig umgesetzte Cover- Artwork stammt aus der Feder bzw. Pinsel von Timon Kokott (u.a. auch EVOKED, ILLDISPOSED)