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After 11 years of existence, Gratitude Trio releases on September 2nd, 2022 its 4th album " Birth" on the remarkable Belgian label W.E.R.F. RECORDS in partnership with Mercury and Collectif Koa from Montpellier, France.

Protagonists Jeroen Van Herzeele (sax, analog synths), Alfred Vilayleck (electric bass, fx) and Louis Favre (drums, fx) worked for more than a year on this new album, continuing to develop the musical framework of the previous album: a blend of sensitivity and groove, contemplative vocals and raging solos.

Mixing acoustic and electronic sounds, the compositions of reflecting realities that inhabit them: to let oneself be touched by the beauty and the dark sides of life, to be amazed by nature, to accept what we cannot change, to create bonds, to commit ourselves to fulfill ourselves.

Music that is both sophisticated and organic, with an energy and boldness that characterize them.

Gratitude Trio is a Belgian/French band based in Brussels known for their strength and sensitivity that open people's hearts. The music of this power trio is tinged with spacy sounds, African rhythms, sexy grooves, endless trances, sensitive ballads, crazy free jazz, and a large dose of unpredictability. Gratitude exists since 2010 and has performed in prestigious venues in Europe. Their two first albums «Gratitude» and «alive» released in 2012 and 2015 under the label El Negocito Records have been very well received by the critics and the enthusiastic audience. The 3rd album «Gratitude III» was released in April 2018: new sound, new approach, but same soul. Gratitude Trio impressed! Indeed, voices and EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument) enrich the sound palette while the musicians have developed a new way to create together.

The brand new 4th album "Birth" is an absolute masterpiece, a synthesis of a decade of adventurous musical explorations.

Coloured Vinyl

"Belle" ist eine Art "Die Schöne und das Biest" für Anime-Fans und die Generation TikTok. Die introvertierte Suzu meldet sich auf der Online-Plattform U an und wird mit ihrem Avatar Belle unerwartet ein international gefeierter Popstar. Nachdem ein mysteriöses Biest eine ihrer Shows störte und niemand das Biest besiegen oder einfangen konnte, macht es sich Belle selbst zur Aufgabe, das Geheimnis hinter dem Biest zu lösen, zu dem sie sich unerwartet stark hingezogen fühlt. Der moderne Anime-Film mit schnellen Sprüngen zwischen der realen und der virtuellen Welt wird von einem Soundtrack getragen, bei dem zeitgemäßer Pop, starke Balladen und beeindruckende Instrumentalwerke tief mit der Handlung verwoben sind.

New pressing on double coloured vinyl, (Disc one White & Disc two Pink), Gatefold sleeve, DL card. René Laloux’s celebrated 1973 sci-fi animation ‘La Planète Sauvage (Fantastic Planet)’, is overhauled with a re-imagined soundtrack by electronic modernists Stealing Sheep and legendary sound innovators The Radiophonic Workshop. This exclusive release is part of Fire Records’ re-imagined score series. “No institution has had a greater impact on the development of electronic music than the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.” The Vinyl Factory. It’s a real pre-Avatar conundrum that Stealing Sheep, with the help of Bob Earland, Dick Mills and Roger Limb from the Radiophonic Workshop, unravel. Creating an ethereal excursion that’s narrated by Roger Limb; like a futuristic Martin Denny, or Dr Who gone ambient techno, with a hint of Forbidden Planet 50 years on. It’s an analogue swirl set in an off-world paradise; a field recording from the future. This is a creative, generation-spanning, union brought together to score this unique cult film. A must for fans of psyche electronica and Stealing Sheep’s formidable ‘Big Wows’ album. “Stealing Sheep devour a broad range of styles, incorporating everything from the dark dance-pop of Grace Jones to the experimentations of Radiophonic Workshop pioneer Delia Derbyshire and John Carpenter soundtracks.” The Guardian // ‘La Planète Sauvage’ is a thing of ambient beauty punctuated with electronic earworms that switches from intensely ominous to otherworldly dream like moments. Track listing: Side A A1 Opening Credits A2 The Chase A3 Saved/Captured A4 The Bracelet A5 Council of Draags pt.I A6 Terr & Tiwa A7 The Knowledge pt.I Side B B1 The Fight B2 The Knowledge pt. II B3 The Initiation B4 Escape B5 The Big Tree B6 The Ritual B7 The Duel Side C C1 Theft/Zarek C2 The Bird C3 The Free Oms C4 The Purge C5 The Journey to Ygam C6 Council of Draags pt.II Side D D1 The City of Free Oms D2 Robot Attack D3 The Fantastic Planet D4 The Final Battle D5 Terr D6 End Credits

The fifth full-length studio album from Vermont quartet Twiddle, Every Last Leaf is a bold exploration of the cyclical nature of life.

Propelled by constant evolution in its 18 years touring, the band —Mihali Savoulidis vocals, guitar, Ryan Dempsey keys, organ, synth, Brook Jordan [drums], and Zdenek Gubb [bass], welcomes a musical rebirth, leaning heavily on enigmatically stoic songwriting in lieu of the affably saccharine. Longtime listeners can expect an elevated presentation of Twiddle’s trademark sound, delicately orbiting the worlds of funk, jazz, rock, reggae, and bluegrass.

“Every Last Leaf is a metaphor for life,” Mihali explains. “When a leaf falls to the ground, something will grow from it. Everything is part of this grand circle. In the music, we’re exploring all of life’s sides—from the sad and angry to the proud and happy.”

In the end, Twiddle have creatively found their way on Every Last Leaf.

“When you listen to this, I hope you experience the beauty we did,” Mihali leaves off. “If you feel anything at all, mission accomplished. There are a lot of moments on this album that tie up the elements of life. It’s real.”

Compilation of singles recorded for Glass Records. Pressed on Yellow vinyl with orange & black splatter. Includes printed inner sleeve with posters and postcards
Religious Overdose formed in 1979 and alongside the likes of PIL, Joy Division and Bauhaus helped forge the sound that became to be known as post-punk. In just 2 years their experimental songs were pushing boundaries. From the hypnotizing drum machine led debut “25 minutes” and the krautrock influenced “I said go” to the synth infused new wave of “Blow The Back Off” and their final single. The sprawling 7 minute “The Girl With The Disappearing Head” This is a celebration of the much underrated and important Religious Overdose.
Formed in Barby (near Rugby) in 1979, original vocalist left, ALEX NOVAK joined in 1980, producing three singles for GLASS RECORDS. Initially used a rhythm generator then replaced by drummer PETE BROWNJOHN. Played with WHERES LISSE / FALL / EYELESS IN GAZA / TRANCE / MYSTERY GUESTS / BAUHAUS / DANCE CHAPTER / SKI PATROL /ENGLISH SUBTITLES / ATTRITION / THEATRE OF HATE... the last gig was in Northampton 1982, recorded and released as a tape by ADVENTURES IN REALITY label and fanzine from Coventry.
The Cast
ALEX NOVAK Vox before ISAWS after TEMPEST / ATTRITION now VENUS FLY TRAP , RICHARD FORMBY Guitar after JAZZ BUTCHER / IN EMBRACE / SPECTRUM, DAVE HYNES Keyboards, ADY TILLEY Bass before WHERES LISSE, PETE BROWNJOHN Drums before ISAWS , ALARIC NEVILLE Guitar, FILIPE FIGUERA Bass

Bobby Oroza puts his desire for the profound on wax with his sophomore album Get On The Otherside. Musically, he has updated the formula we were introduced to on the first record. But lyrically, songs are bravely rooted in the more complicated, ubiquitous inner tangles of life like self-examination and coming to terms with the vastness of the human experience. With Coronavirus bringing the world to a halt, Bobby-a father and husband-had to do something. No tours to play or studio time to fill, Bobby found himself back in the construction yard, doing blue-collar work to provide for his family. "I was super grateful for the work-a lot of my colleagues didn't have an option like that," Bobby admits. More than a few personal hardships forced him to acknowledge and work through some brutal truths. And what came of it? Well, for one, this new record Get On The Otherside which pretty well describes what Bobby's been through: He had to demolish his ego, his old ways of thinking, and his tried approaches to anchor into a refreshed perspective with new understandings. As Bobby tells it, "I had to do some real self-searching, come to terms with what was wrong, and how much of it I was responsible for." So how does this translate to the new album? Moments of clarity as to where the real value in life lies on "I Got Love," encouraging numbers like the title track "The Otherside", and declarations of self actualization on "My Place, My Time." Even the more straightforward love songs are outside the box lyrically like "Sweet Agony" and "Loving Body." If you have never had the pleasure of catching one of Bobby's live shows you may have no idea that he is a maverick on the guitar. He lets us in on a little of that on "Passing Things" with a solo that possesses the same restrained and space that his lyrics do. As we'd expect, the songwriting still has that raw, direct edge to it. But an evolution has taken place. There are new points of view on familiar territory which in Bobby's words "For me to love, I needed to take a bigger view of love. One with less ego and more empathy" really hold true. The result is a record with Bobby's new found humility on full display and a message of encouragement to anyone who is struggling and can't see a way out. It still may be hard to nail down and define Bobby and his sound. He's no one thing more than the other. But what he's showing us now, on Get On The Otherside, is that we can also label him a soulful, philosophical optimist. Someone who can say a lot with a little, and who wants us all to know that it's us that has to do the hard lifting to truly live a life in love-both with the world and with yourself.

Stemming from a great legacy of poetry, Quintal de Clorofila was a duo from the south of Brazil composed by two musician brothers, Dimitri and Negendre Arbo, who turned their dad's poetry into music. In the album O Mistério dos Quintais, the two brothers presented a Brazilian Hippie Folk full of psychedelic touches a times with flanger effects, reverb and synthesizers, a times totally raw with medieval melodies, flutes and strings. The record goes with the original artwork, insert with lyrics plus unreleased photos including the one of the debut album O Mistério dos Quintais featuring the bird (a canary) that sang on stage with its own microphone. O Mistério dos Quintais was released originally in 1983 via a some sort of crowdfunding, before the term itself and even the existence of internet. Supporters who invested in the project had their names in the acknowledgements on the first edition insert. Given the fact that it was released independently, the purity and innocence of the Arbo brothers came to light and set them free to grace the listeners with sounds of nature, mysticism, influences from the Peru Andes and even some madness such as taking the family's bird (that was used to singing along with the brothers at their rehearsals at home) to then record in the studio. When the record was ready, the band realized that the record RPM was wrong. The songs were a bit faster, slightly 1/2 a pitch higher. However, it was too late, nothing else could've been done. Because they were a small band, the manufacturing plant refused to repress the records and they had to endure this. Almost 40 years later, Fatiado Discos present the first version of O Mistério dos Quintais in its original rotation speed, the right one.

Rising UK duo Mia Mendi returns for their second outing on Watergate Records with the retro-tinged Robosynapse EP.

The label debut of Mia Mendi was a notable 2021 highlight for the Oberbaumbrücke imprint. Titled 'Ubi’, the EP was a collaboration with Thomas Gandey and demonstrated their full-bodied dancefloor approach, injecting their unique sound signature into a modern progressive house palette.

‘Robosynapse’ is no less exciting (or fun). The title track is a plump nu wave houser, driven by soaring retro synths, a gutsy electro bassline and an 80s guitar solo. ‘Simulated Reality’ buzzes and hums, seven minutes of emotional electro and crispy drumlines, before handing the baton to ‘Cyborg String’, which continues the dreamy throwdown.

Alan Dixon makes his first contribution to Watergate Records and re-fashions ‘Robosynapse’ into a glistening cosmic-tinged beast, amplifying the focus on the guitar lead. Fresh off her label debut with the excellent ‘Mind Control’ EP, Henri Bergmann makes a welcome return to re-work ‘Simulated Reality’ into a powerful melodic gem, heightening the focus on the synths. An added bonus to the pack, Musumeci delivers a supreme chugging re-work of ‘Ubi’. Game on!

Slave To Society is the new solo project of Andrew Bowen (Ex AnD / Shadows)
Dystopian concepts and themes help build the intense sound and vision of the project. Known for exploring the extremities of the hardcore sound, tempo unrelated this is about the amalgamation of industrial and
experimental noise music, mixed with cinematic atmospheres, technoid rhythms, mechanical breaks and raw low frequency distortion. Releasing music with PRSPCT, Bank NYC, Murder Channel, Cyberspeak, Pure Hate Trax and many more. Think for ourselves, create and move outside the realm of ordinary submission.

Don’t be a Slave to Society!
Written Produced and Recorded by Andrew Bowen
Mastered and cut by Dietrich Schoenemann
Published by BANK Records NYC Ltd

Strapping Young Lad was a Canadian extreme metal band formed by Devin Townsend in Vancouver in 1994. The band started as a one-man studio project; Devin Townsend played most of the instruments on the 1995 debut album, Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing. By 1997, he had recruited permanent members; this line-up, which consisted of Townsend on vocals and guitar, Jed Simon on guitar, Byron Stroud on bass, and Gene Hoglan on drums, lasted until the band's dissolution. Strapping Young Lad's music was characterized by the use of polyrhythmic guitar riffing and drumming, blast beats and wall of sound production. band leader Devin Townsend was also noted for his eccentric appearance and on-stage behaviour, which greatly contributed to the band's intense live performances. The band gained critical success and a growing underground fan base from their 1997 album City. After a hiatus between 1999 and 2002, the band released three more albums, reaching their commercial peak with the 2006 effort, The New Black. Townsend disbanded Strapping Young Lad in May 2007, announcing his decision to retreat from public view while continuing to record solo albums. Listenable has been delighted to reissue All Strapping Young Lad Legendary studio albums on De Luxe Limited Edition Vinyls. A brand new vinyl master has been made for each album. This is the last one of the series and what an incredible debut album , Sheer Madness ! Grab it now !.Strapping Young Lad was a Canadian extreme metal band formed by Devin Townsend in Vancouver in 1994. The band started as a one-man studio project; Devin Townsend played most of the instruments on the 1995 debut album, Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing. By 1997, he had recruited permanent members; this line-up, which consisted of Townsend on vocals and guitar, Jed Simon on guitar, Byron Stroud on bass, and Gene Hoglan on drums, lasted until the band's dissolution. Strapping Young Lad's music was characterized by the use of polyrhythmic guitar riffing and drumming, blast beats and wall of sound production. band leader Devin Townsend was also noted for his eccentric appearance and on-stage behaviour, which greatly contributed to the band's intense live performances.

The third release from Night Dreamer’s essential “Direct-to-Disc” sessions sees an incredible meeting between legendary US saxophonist Gary Bartz and leading UK spiritual jazz ensemble, Maisha, featuring two Bartz classics and three brand new joint songs written by both Bartz & Maisha in close collaboration.

Having cut his teeth playing with the likes of Charles Mingus, Max Roach, Art Blakey and finally in 1970, Miles Davis at the peak of his electric period, Gary Bartz became a leading figure of the early-to-mid 70s spiritual jazz movement, releasing a string of ground-breaking albums on legendary NYC jazz label Prestige Records with his NTU Troop, featuring classics such as “Celestial Blues”, “Uhuru Dance” and “I’ve Known Rivers”, before collaborating on Blue Note Records with the Mizell Brothers on the anthemic jazz funk of “Music Is My Sanctuary”. An oeuvre much loved by soul jazzers and hip hop fans alike.

Led by drummer Jake Long, Maisha have been central to the UK’s jazz explosion, and have fast become the UK’s most exciting and in-demand young spiritual jazz ensemble, from steller shows at Jazz re:freshed, Total Refreshment Centre & Church of Sound and supporting the Sun Ra Arkestra, to releasing their critically acclaimed debut LP, ​“There Is A Place” ​on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings in 2018. Theirs is an organic & explosive sound that blends influences from afrobeat and broken beat to Persian music, with a deep love and understanding of jazz, particularly the heritage of spiritual jazz led by titans such as Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane and of course, Gary Bartz.

Which makes this collaboration even more special. Bartz was first invited to share a stage with Maisha by Gilles Peterson to headline the inaugural We Out Here festival. Their chemistry was rich and instantaneous, certainly a two-way street, with the young musicians reinvigorating the legend’s performance and wowing the intergenerational festival audience. A European tour followed, including a London Jazz Festival highlight at the Royal Festival Hall, celebrating the 50th anniversary of his album “Another Earth”, originally featuring fellow legends, Pharoah Sanders, Charles Tolliver, Stanley Cowell, and John Coltrane’s own bassist, Reggie Workman.


Now the relationship has evolved into a special straight-to-disc recording for Night Dreamer Records, that captures the vitality of their collaboration. Whilst Bartz and Maisha reinvent classic Bartz compositions “Uhuru Sasa” and “Dr Follows Dance”, extending the pieces into long piece improvised grooves, their recording session gave birth to three brand new joint compositions, written the very same day. These include the propulsive “Leta’s Dance” that magically combines the Bartz’ soulful musical lyricism with Maisha’s African-jazz influences, and the organic jazz

funk of “Harlem to Haarlem”, featuring a hot solo from guest trumpeter Axel Kaner-Lidstrom of Cykada & Levitation Orchestra fame.

Like previous Night Dreamer efforts from afrobeat star Seun Kuti & Egypt 80, and the beautiful collaboration between Brazilian stars Seu Jorge & Rogê, the album was recorded in Haarlem’s Artone Studio, a stones throw from Amsterdam, in just one-take, straight-to-disc, avoiding post-production embellishments and retaining the purity of the performance lost in modern recording techniques.

This record really is an event, in and of itself, a meeting of talents, minds, generations and zeitgeist moments, captured in a unique and pure manner. The music does not disappoint, as Maisha have been inspired to reach new heights whilst we find Bartz truly reinvigorated, and both artists in tune to the spirit of the other.

Recorded direct-to-disc @ Artone Studio, Haarlem, The Netherlands on Tuesday 29th Wednesday 30th October 2019

Belgian composer Otto Lindholm presents his new LP titled FortyTwo, releasing in early June on Totalism with support from Phantom Limb. Consisting of two complementary entities of equal duration (21 minutes), the album really is one. Together, the two longform pieces are like two sides of one coin, like the two motions of a rocking chair; forwards and backwards. The first piece titled “Reg” explores the simplicity of the stroke with veiled, beautiful melodies, while the second called “The Donkey Theory”, built on an octatonic scale, delves into deeper, more atmospheric zones.

FortyTwo is intentional in its duration, as Lindholm tries to question our relationship with time itself. Extending and expanding the natural sounds of the double bass and expertly arranging and layering them, he is able to toy with time, refocusing the experience on the act of listening itself. The results are rich tapestries of voluptuous tones, deeply felt emotions and elongated melodic motifs which are completely enveloping, almost overwhelming. As the Brussels-based composer and double bassist's focus shifts from instrumental performance to composition, he delves deeper into the world of drone music influenced by contemporary classical composition.

Otto Lindholm is a composer and double-bassist based in Brussels. He has released music on Icarus Records, Gizeh Records, Houndstooth, Aurora Borealis Recordings, Bedouin Records, Midira Records, 7k!, Takuroku and other labels. His new LP, FortyTwo, is due to be released in 2022 on Totalism with the support of Phantom Limb. He is a keen collaborator, working alongside many artists such as Ross Tones aka Throwing Snow, Aidan Baker, string quintet BOW, Jean D.L., P.Maze, and others.

Limited to: 300 copies.

Lera Lynn blurs the boundaries between genres, carving out a sound inspired by art-pop, indie-folk and the outer edges of American roots music. She’s a singer. She’s a songwriter. She’s a road warrior. She’s a multi-instrumentalist and producer. She’s a mother.

Texas born, Nashville resident Lera Lynn is just as comfortable creating an album entirely by herself, as she is collaborating with her heroes. In 2018, she worked with T Bone Burnett and Rosanne Cash on tracks that were not only picked up by the TV show True Detective, but Lynn was cast as a recurring character who performs in a dive bar frequented by the main characters.

However, nothing could have prepared Lynn for the lessons learned during motherhood. She welcomed her first son during the early months of the pandemic and began writing down her insights, chronicling this newfound experience of shifting priorities, strange endings, and new beginnings. Inside, she was battling postpartum depression. Outside, a bigger picture began taking shape: a feeling of interconnectedness, of cyclic renewal, of the knowledge that every beginning is an end and every end is a beginning. Those realizations coalesced into Something More Than Love, a record filled with synthesizers, lush soundscapes, the pop-noire punch of Lynn's voice, and the most dynamic melodies of her career.

Inspired by the cyclical patterns that shape our place in the world, Something More Than Love was co-produced and largely performed by Lynn and her partner, Todd Lombardo (Kacey Musgraves/Donovan Woods/Kathleen Edwards). They'd met years earlier, not long after Lynn relocated to Nashville from her college town (and musical launchpad) of Athens, Georgia. "My first time ever co-writing a song was in Nashville with Todd," she says of the ACM-nominated multi-instrumentalist. The two became fast friends and, eventually, partners; their creative chemistry giving way to romance and a growing family. That partnership reached a new milestone in 2021, with the newfound parents sharpening their creative instincts and expanding their palette for Lynn's sixth album.

"A lot of people were making records during the pandemic," Lynn notes, "and all they had was time. But it was the opposite experience for us. We created this whole record while still in the fog of early parenthood, and we didn't have the luxury of waiting for lightning to strike. We had to be focused and intentional."

Striking a balance between intimate self-reflection and universal insight, Something More Than Love poses big questions over even bigger-sounding music, with tempos and layered arrangements that find Lynn at her most dynamic. Illusion opens the album with spacey synthesizers before snapping into a taut, 1980s-influenced groove, combing reverb and rhythm into a song that swoons one minute and struts the next. I'm Your Kamikaze — a deconstructed burst of indie garage-rock, heavy on melody and percussive pulse — unfolds like a salute to self-sacrifice, with Lynn dedicating her own existence to ensuring her child's flourishing. What Is This Body? finds her reassessing her ideas of physical identity and womanhood, while the album's gorgeous title track makes room for slow-burn strings and a meteoric chorus.

Together, those songs turn Lera Lynn's experience with absolute surrender — surrendering oneself to the trials and triumphs of motherhood — into a universal record about the experiences that bind us together. This isn't just Lynn's story. It's the story of a life cycle that repeats itself over and over, every termination point becoming a starting line, every death matched by a rebirth, every edge giving way to the circular slope of the ouroboros.

CHICAMACOMICO is a record about loss. Over a six-month span at the end of 2019/beginning of 2020, I lost my grandmother, my mother and watched as the world fell into a 2+ year pandemic that decimated businesses, relationships and dreams. This is a record about dealing with those losses. My hope is these songs serve a salve for anyone else experiencing loss. A reminder that you are not the only one that lost a friend this year, or a parent, or a loved one. There's a special kind of hope that comes from that realization. I am not alone. I wrote this record in the February 2020 on the northern coast of Hatteras Island in a small beach town called Rodanthe. In the summer, this area is an extremely popular vacation destination packed with tourists, but in the winter, it was a desolate ghost town. The perfect backdrop for the record I was trying to write. Over the course of two weeks these songs would take shape and come to life, and it quickly became obvious that the overall theme would be dark. During my stay I realized that the town used to be named Chicamacomico until the locals changed it in the name of ease and progress. In that moment, I knew I had the name of my record. We enlisted Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Nathaniel Ratliffe, Waxahatchee) to produce the record and traveled to Sonic Ranch, a world-renowned recording complex tucked in the middle of a 1,700-acre pecan orchard, in the Texas border town of Tornillo. Over the course of ten days, we watched these songs go from simple folk ruminations into fully formed band arrangements. In my sixteen-year career I have never been prouder of a set of songs, lyrically or stylistically. The songs have weight, but they aren’t weighed down. It’s a sad record, that makes you feel good. It's a culmination of nearly two decades of work. Chicamacomico sounds like nothing we've ever done yet it sits comfortably amongst the rest of our catalog. My records are chronological observations and I feel like this record perfectly represents the highs and lows of the last few years. Themes: Loss, Death, Darkness, Suicide, Divorce, Losing A Child, Losing A Parent, Losing A Spouse, Addiction, Recovery

Collins Dictionary Example sentence: „Other ocular signs include involuntary rhythmic movement of the eyeball.“ Someone in the editorial department wasn‘t paying attention and involuntarily spoke a deeply buried truth: The movement from the eye to rhythm and from there to sound is sometimes a small, puny one.

Now Infuso Giallo provides the proof at the same time and implements his live show for last year‘s debut album „Ocular Soda“ as an audio-visual show, as intertwined senses. Visible sound, audible images. Such ideas only last when they are put to the test and scrutinised by several experts.

The duo Globus, which consists of 2/5 of the post-hardcore band PTTRNS, examines the synth hook of the second part of the double-opener „Every Waking Hour Pt.2“ by playing it, varying it, letting it sway.

In contrast, Anatolian Weapons from Athens can‘t help but immerse the ambient, Soft Machine-production-like first minutes of „Every Waking Hour Pt.1“ in a sinister black light. Staggering into a basement club filled with nocturnal shadow people and indulge in carousing. Cautiously at first, then more and more determinedly.

From Hamburg and Berlin, the „Mole Gaze“ gets a special treatment. The trio Love-Songs drags the number off to Hamburg harbour, packs it onto a steamer, deep into the bow and lets it operate the sonar there. Conrad Schnitzler would have been delighted.
Infuso Giallo, meanwhile, realises that there is nothing more boring than standing still, so he revamps „Hello World“ and gives it a rear spoiler that keeps this number in lane even at club speed.
Speaking of „keeping in lane“: Niklas Wandt, the magician, doesn‘t even try such tricks. He simply throws an acid bolt on the closer „Ocular Soda“ and waits to see what happens. Alongside breakbeats from nowhere, Albert Hoffmann himself appears on a bicycle.
„Ocular Soda Remixes“ is the first tape on the Kame House label, so there‘s only one thing to do: open your eyes and listen!

Come for the leopard, stay for the stone cold jams. Yet another thrilling, funky-prog jazzy-rock fusion beauty from Ian Carr’s Nucleus. Originally released on Vertigo in 1975, Alleycat was never re-pressed so those original copies are now very tricky to score. Like all the Nucleus records, it’s aged ridiculously well and this Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press.

Genius trumpeter and visionary composer Ian Carr was one of the most respected British musicians of his era. He was a true pioneer and saw the potential in fusing the worlds of jazz with rock, just as Miles Davis and The Tony Williams Lifetime did in the US. In late 1969, following the demise of the Rendell-Carr quintet, and tiring of British jazz, Carr assembled the legendary Nucleus. Regarding music as a continuous process, Nucleus refused to “recognise rigid boundaries” and worked on delivering what they saw as a “total musical experience”. We can get behind that.

Under bandleader Carr, Nucleus existed as a fluid line-up of inventive, skilled musicians. This constant evolution and revolution was all part of the continuous musical exploration and discovery that took jazz to new levels. And the music has stayed relevant. To steal a line from a recent review of our re-issue of Roots, when it comes to anything Nucleus “it’s basically already hip-hop”.

Alleycat was the last Nucleus album recorded for the Vertigo label. Released in 1975, it was again meticulously produced by Jon Hiseman and is every bit as sinuous as anything else the group had recorded. As far as riff-laden accidental cop-funk goes, there’s so much energy coursing through the music that at times it sounds like a live recording. It’s pretty unbeatable.

Uptempo opener “Phaideaux Corner” is a funk-flavoured opus with a groove that simply swaggers. This trademark Roger Sutton piece benefits from Trevor Tomkins’s percussive expertise and some excellent sax and keyboard soloing. Check out Geoff Castle on squelchy, stabbing Moog duties. Ian Carr’s elegantly laidback title track is a lengthy suite of magisterial themes. Typically complex, it still gets you hooked and is just riddled with the funk. Carr builds up his initially “straight” trumpet solo with later use of echo to mesmeric effect. And there’s some excellent wah-wah guitar shredding by Ken Shaw too. Nice.

The second side opens with the killer “Splat” and finds Nucleus really ripping it up. A fat, funky bass guitar riff introduces us to the track and stays with us until the end. The often mangled bass groove is pushed along by rattling drums and percussion, dropping out for some restful moments of spacey calm, and along the way picking up some lengthy keyboard noodling by Castle. So so good.

The cool “You Can’t Be Sure” is a gentle jam with Shaw on 12-string acoustic guitar, together with Carr’s muted trumpet and some marvellous fretless work from Sutton for extra colour. The album closes with Bob Bertles’ galloping “Nosegay”, written perhaps as a response to some of the faster Mahavishnu Orchestra pieces. It’s an example of well crafted jazz-rock that doesn’t compromise any of its jazziness, yet it still very definitely rocks.

This Be With re-issue of Alleycat has been re-mastered from the original Vertigo master tapes, Simon Francis’ mastering working together with Pete Norman’s cut to weave their usual magic with these wonderful recordings. The cool AF cover - that leopard was just a cat before he heard Nucleus, you know - has been restored as the finishing touch to this long overdue re-issue.

‘Reich’s music expands from minimalist austerity to more full-bodied passages and back again. Reminiscent of his earliest work, it is very beautiful.’ – Financial Times

‘The music has tender energy, and an undercurrent of melancholy. Its droning tones sometimes seem to be pulling apart – like taffy, or like Richter’s stretching spaghetti stripes of color.’ – New York Times

Nonesuch Records releases the first recording of Steve Reich’s Reich/Richter, performed by Ensemble intercontemporain and conducted by George Jackson. The composition was originally written to be performed with German visual artist Gerhard Richter and Corinna Belz’s film Moving Picture (946-3).

Reich describes Richter’s book Patterns, which served as source material for the film: “It starts with one of his abstract paintings from the ’90s. He scanned a photo of the painting into a computer and then cut the scan in half and took each half, cut that in half and two of the four quarters he reversed into mirror images. He then repeated this process of ‘divide, mirror, repeat’ from half to quarter, eighth, sixteenth, thirty-second, all the way up to 4096th. The net effect is to go from an abstract painting to a series of gradually smaller anthropomorphic ‘creatures’ (since the mirroring produces bilateral symmetry) to still smaller very fine stripes.

“Belz described the film in terms of ‘pixels’. It begins with two-‘pixel’ stripes and the music begins with a two-sixteenth note oscillating pattern. When the film moves to four ‘pixels’, the music moves to a four-sixteenth note pattern, then to eight, and sixteen,” the composer continues. “After that, I began introducing longer note values – initially eighth notes, and later to quarter notes. By the middle of the film, when the images move from 512 to 1064 pixels, the music really slows to dotted half notes. Finally, as the ‘pixel’ count begins to diminish, the music moves back into more rapid eighths and then ending with the most intense rapid sixteenth movement.”

After more than one hundred performances of Reich/Richter at The Shed in New York in 2019, it was performed in London at the Barbican by the Britten Sinfonia conducted by Colin Currie and then in Paris at the Philharmonie, where this recording was made. The Austrian ensemble Windkraft Tirol, led by Kasper de Roo, will perform Reich/Richter on September 8 at Szentrum, Silbersaal in Schwaz, and the LA Phil New Music Group, led by Brad Lubman, performs the piece, accompanied by Richter and Belz’s film, at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on April 1, 2023.

Nonesuch has recorded every new piece of music by Steve Reich since 1985, beginning with The Desert Music and continuing through 2018’s Pulse/Quartet, resulting in twenty-two albums and the two box sets Phases in 2006 and Works: 1965-1995 in 1997. The label will put out a collection of his complete works in 2023.

Reich released a book last month, Conversations, that includes dialogues with past collaborators, fellow composers, musicians, and visual artists who have been influenced by his work, including: David Lang, Brian Eno, Richard Serra, Michael Gordon, Michael Tilson Thomas, Russell Hartenberger, Robert Hurwitz, Stephen Sondheim, Jonny Greenwood, David Harrington, Elizabeth Lim-Dutton, David Robertson, Micaela Haslam, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Julia Wolfe, Nico Muhly, Beryl Korot, Colin Currie, and Brad Lubman. Booklist said in its review, ‘Iconoclastic American composer Steve Reich is singular in his own right, and when he is in conversation with other equally iconoclastic composers, conductors, sculptors, musicians, percussionists, and video artists, sparks not only fly, they sparkle. Reich and his colleagues conduct lovely give-and-takes during which they share stories, creative approaches, and viewpoints. Reich's Conversations is the best kind of eavesdropping.’

Steve Reich has been called ‘America’s greatest living composer’ (Village Voice), ‘the most original musical thinker of our time’ (New Yorker), and ‘among the great composers of the century’ (New York Times). His music has influenced composers and mainstream musicians all over the world. Music for 18 Musicians and Different Trains have earned him two Grammy Awards, and in 2009, his Double Sextet won the Pulitzer Prize. Reich’s documentary video opera works – The Cave and Three Tales, done in collaboration with video artist Beryl Korot – have been performed on four continents. His recent work Quartet, for percussionist Colin Currie, sold out two consecutive concerts at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London shortly after tens of thousands at the Glastonbury Festival heard Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead) perform Electric Counterpoint followed by the London Sinfonietta performing his Music for 18 Musicians.

In 2012, Reich was awarded the Gold Medal in Music by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has additionally received the Praemium Imperiale in Tokyo, the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm, the BBVA Award in Madrid, and the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale. He has been named Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Royal College of Music in London, The Juilliard School, and the Liszt Academy in Budapest, among others. ‘There’s just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history and Steve Reich is one of them’, states the Guardian.

Pierre Boulez founded the Ensemble intercontemporain in 1976 with the support of Michel Guy (who was France’s Minister of Culture at the time) and the collaboration of Nicholas Snowman. The Ensemble’s thirty-one soloists share a passion for twentieth and twenty-first century music. Under the artistic direction of Matthias Pintscher, the musicians work in close collaboration with composers, exploring instrumental techniques and developing projects that interweave music, dance, theater, film, video and visual arts. In collaboration with IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique), the Ensemble intercontemporain is also active in the field of synthetic sound generation. New pieces are commissioned and performed on a regular basis. Resident of the Cité de la musique – Philharmonie de Paris, the Ensemble performs and records in France and abroad, taking part in major festivals worldwide.

George Jackson, winner of the 2015 Aspen Conducting Prize, came to attention after stepping in at short notice with Orchestre de Paris, where he stepped in for Daniel Harding. Recent highlights include leading Ensemble intercontemporain at Festival Romaeuropa, the Rainy Days Festival in Luxembourg, and Festival D’Automne in Paris, as well as conducting the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra of Opéra de Rouen and the world premiere of Tscho Theissing’s Genia with Theater an der Wien. His varied operatic experience includes performances at Opera North, Hamburg State Opera and Opera Holland Park, as well as conducting a new production of Hänsel und Gretel at Grange Park Opera.

New Zealand drum & bass titans The Upbeats have galvanized the global turbulence and turmoil during COVID to create their most explorative and emotionally heavy album to date "Not Forever". Featuring the likes of Fat Freddys Drop frontman Joe Dukie, Jordan Dennis, Levine Lale, Sylvee, Syrene Favero and US MC don Armanni Reign, "Not Forever" is unlike anything the duo has released before. Written in a different way, approached from another perspective, created with a newfound love for the creative process and the scene at large; It's a whole new side to the duo who have continually pushed themselves and their sound into the unknown...

Tripped has been producing hard Industrial electronic music for over 17 years. Releasing a ton of quality EPs and 12" records ranging from full force terror to slow industrial techno. Always pushing forward perfecting his unique signature sound no matter what style or BPM range.

Now after 17 years we are super excited to be able to present his first ever full length album, on PRSPCT recordings.

Unboxed by Tripped is a 3 x 12" vinyl album consisting of 13 tracks that take the listener on one giant musical journey passing all corners of the Tripped galaxy.

From experimental noisy industrial tracks like "Pain" & "909". To speeding up the pace on a track like "Fartbox" while throwing in some heavy pounding schranz on "Shinyuku Heat".

Bringing back the oldschool vibes on "Misfits" together with ISR legend Lenny Dee and than going full force hardcore/breakcore war mode on "Kapsalon".

This album just keeps the listener moving, never a dull moment, pure adrenaline & excitement.

Here at PRSPCT we gave Unboxed by Tripped a 5 star rating on Yelp. It's simply that F-ing good!

Now go buy the record or spend the rest of your life full of regret.. Trust us.. You don't want that..

Repress 22.11.22 !

A STUNNING RHYTHMIC FUSION OF LATIN AND JAZZ WITH A UNIQUE SPIRITUAL PULSE.

If ever a record called be called a lost masterpiece then this record more than deserves that epithet. First released on an obscure French label in the 1970's it might have sunk further into obscurity and left no trace of it's passing but somehow a handful of copies turned up in various Jazz shops in London where it was snapped up by DJ Paul Murphy who was then playing to the embryonic jazz dance scene, based at the very first Jazz Room club: The Horseshoe in London's Tottenham Court Road, a decaying, seedy, sticky carpeted old West End ballroom that had seen better days. This and a select few records in a similar vein were being played to an appreciative audience who demanded tough raw percussive rhythms overlaid with some furious jazzy soloing and whenever this record hit the turntable it left even the most demanding groover sated.

It's a really fantastic collection from this barely known reedman and his excellent band which also features a guest appearance by American Legend Horace Parlan who is best known for his Afro-Cuban session "Headin' South" on Blue Note Records.

Superbly produced by drummer Peter Schmidlin, who has conjured up a spiritual modal mixdown of Afro-Cuban & Jazz extended percussive workouts that are uncompromising in their groove and which manage to sound both timeless and modern. The record is being re-released with the original striking artwork, guaranteed to be a talking point.

2LP Gatefold (featuring liner notes). Limited Edition. Artwork by Meeuw.

A collection of personal recordings made on various synthesisers between 1989 and 2017, by Telesoniek Atelier. Huge Tip on this one!

Early feedback:

"Fascinating improvs. I loved 'Gruesse'. " Suzanne Ciani (Atmospheric)

"Beautiful music with real subtlety and depth” Anthony Child (Surgeon, Transcendence Orchestra)

"Lovely, pure synth music." Mark Pritchard (Warp Records)

"Chateuroux is mighty... A proper zoner. Flung on earth." John T. Gast

"This is a great release by Telesoniek Atelier - a musician unknown to me before now. I've been thoroughly enjoying playing this double vinyl release since i got it. Both discs are filled with amazing music that moves between abstract electronic experiments to melodic, DMT bent sounding, classical contemporary music and futuristic soundtracks from non-existing Sci Fi movies you'll wish you could see. It time-warps you from here to there then freezes the moment. It all sounds like its been taken straight from the ancient room .. you know, that one where the spirits of the great teachers live. This is very focused, unpretentious and highly emotive music . A wonderful and dreamy sound garden coming from what I imagine to be a beautiful mind . These discs will be camping out on my turntables for a while."
Tako Reyenga (Music From Memory)

"A deep sense of the symphonic permeates this record. While synthesizers form the basis of its sound, Hans Kulk shapes their timbre into uncanny acoustics and weaves them together like an orchestra. Just when you think you have understood what is happening, another layer reveals itself. Yet it keeps a floating sense of lightness throughout. A truly rewarding listening experience."
Hainbach

CoviDub is not just a Dub album, but an album that historically tracks and records the unprecedented events of 2020 to 2022 when the world was shut down, when many countries became islands and many islands became isolated planets!!
Reflecting an era where false news eclipse real news, a time when social media is more effective than the official media. Yet within these serious times racism still prevails and present day Rasta fails to fulfill Marcus dreams of Black unity.
This is an album for folks who think out of the box. Let’s take the piss out of the hypocrites!!

Two years after their first major release on Nice Guys, the band Marcoca returns with a new full-length album Cosmic Blunder. It originated out of the urge to merge new psychedelic sounds with elements of funk, jazz and surf rock, while keeping the stuff that worked on the first record in place. The result is a reverb soaked ride through songs that cover the ups and downs of life and all the questions that come along with it. While some of the songs had been previously arranged, some instrumental parts developed during the recording process in order to preserve the natural flow of the music.

Inspired by their travels around the warm beaches of our beautiful planet, the eight tracks of this long-player help the listener walk through a colorful Californian dream. The husky voice of the singer Marco Rinke invites us to an auditory journey to the 70s. This LP proves to be a real cathartic experience for the ears and the mind.

Cosmic Blunder, the eponymous track of this release, embodies the soul of the whole album, influenced by psychedelic and surf rock. With its groovy elements and symphonic guitars, the four musicians succeed to elevate one’s mind to spheres of beauty and inner peace. Overall, this LP turns out to be a real cathartic experience for the ears and the mind that wants to erase the physical self in favour of the mind.

El Absurdo comes as the first Release of Colombian label Disidencia Records.

An EP made up of 100% synthesiser sounds that navigates through the realms of Electro, Techno, EBM and Breaks.
These genres get all tied up in this 4 track instalment with brief Spanish lyrics that question some of the reality of South-American society.

For genre-bending band Whiskey Myers, 2019’s self-titled and self-produced album offered a watershed moment. With Rolling Stone raving that the “irresistible” album was “the record the band was poised to make” while declaring them “the new torch bearers for Southern music” in a story titled “How Whiskey Myers Won Over Mick Jagger and Made the Album of Their Career;” Billboard and No Depression naming the album to best-of-the-year lists; 41,000 first week album sales; and the project debuting atop both the Country and Americana album charts (as well as at No. 2 on the Rock charts, behind only a re-release of The Beatles’ Abbey Road), the band celebrated mainstream success a decade in the making. Now, after spending 21 days isolated at the 2,300-acre Sonic Ranch studio deep in the heart of their native Texas, just miles from the U.S./Mexico border, the Gold-certified renegades have doubled down on what they do best: sharing honest truths with no-holds-barred instrumentation, letting the self-produced music speak for itself. Yet with Tornillo, named for the border town that is home to the pecan orchard-filled recording complex and set for release on July 29 via their own Wiggy Thump Records with distribution by Thirty Tigers, the six-piece band has taken their solid decade-plus foundation and pushed themself to further explore new sonic landscapes. “It’s going to have a little bit different sound,” lead singer Cody Cannon shared recently with Outsider. “It’s still Whiskey Myers at its core, but it’s kind of fresh… We did a lot of bass and horns on this one, which is something we’ve always wanted to do. Just being fans of all that old music and Motown stuff, and a lot of the stuff coming out of Muscle Shoals, old rock and roll. “We’re going to bend genre even more, I think, with this new record,” he continued. “It’s all over the place. But that’s fun, right? I hate the whole ‘Put it in a box. You gotta be this.’ … That’s not art to me. I love the idea of just doing, really, whatever you feel. It comes out a certain way because that’s just how it comes out. Whiskey Myers never really tried to be a certain way. It’s just how we are. So I think that’s really the whole thing about music, or the beauty about music; it’s just that freedom to create.” Tornillo as a whole does exactly that, drawing as much inspiration from Nirvana as from Waylon Jennings – even adding the legendary McCrary Sisters’ gospel influence to the project on background vocals. With Cannon leading the way on songwriting, the album also features writes from lead guitarist John Jeffers and fellow bandmembers Jamey Gleaves and Tony Kent, as well as rising singer/songwriter Aaron Raitiere (Anderson East, Oak Ridge Boys, A Star is Born).

WRWTFWW Records is very happy to announce the official vinyl reissue of the highly sought-after Haruomi Hosono-produced Interior self-titled debut, originally released in 1982 on legendary label Yen Records. The LP comes in a heavy 350gsm sleeve.

Interior is Daisuke Hinata, Eiki Nonaka, Mitsuru Sawamura, and Tsukasa Betto. Their classic 1982 debut, produced by Yellow Magic Orchestra's Haruomi Hosono, is one of a kind - a very rare breed of feel-good ambient music blending instrumental synth-pop, soft electronic minimalism, and cozy sound design in the most heartwarming ways. It evokes the intimate pleasures of daydreaming in a hotel lobby, holding hands in a museum, or napping by the pool. It depicts the urban landscape as a caring environment, where simplicity and repetition is mind soothing and smile inducing.

Interior takes you into an alternate reality, where nostalgic modernism makes the present time feel like the fondest memories.

The unique sound of Interior caught the attention of William Ackerman and Anne Robinson who re-released the album in 1985 on their famed label Windham Hill Records (with a slightly different tracklisting) and then proceeded to put out their follow-up, Design, in 1987. After that, members of the group continued their careers separately, Daisuke Hinata notably recording an overlooked but absolutely amazing solo album, Tarzanland, in 1988.

“Rob wanted the world of The Northman to feel harsh and uncomfortable, and for everything to feel like it was caked in mud and dry blood, so it was crucial for the score to mirror that.” Composers Robin Carolan (Tri-Angle Records) and Sebastian Gainsborough (Vessel) were given a task of epic proportions when director Rob Eggers (The VVitch, The Lighthouse) asked them to create the score for his ambitious and highly anticipated new film The Northman, releasing on April 22nd. They needed to make a score that both honored the immense research that had gone into the authenticity of this Viking era period piece and complimented the cinematic maximalism of the film for a modern audience. The artists stretched themselves to the depths of their creativity and the resulting album is a gorgeous sonic tableaux that places the listener right in the center of the film.

While arranging the score the composers consulted musician and ethnographer Poul Høxbro for inspiration and insight into the history of Viking music. Having backgrounds in left field electronic music, Robin and Sebastian felt liberated by the constraint of using a small selection of musical tools for this piece. “Electronic music has almost limitless potential when it comes to making sounds and that’s obviously an incredible thing, but you can also go down the wormhole and get lost in it sometimes. There’s no risk of that happening when you only have a few primary instruments to draw upon.” Robin remarked.

They utilized traditional instruments such as the tagelharpa, langspil, kravik lyre, and säckpip to build the cinematic world of The Northman but they also took creative freedoms in adding instruments likes drums, which some academics believe wouldn’t have played a big part in Viking musical culture, simply due to the lack of archaeological evidence of actual drums. “One of the pieces we wrote was intended to emulate the sound of a bullroarer; an ancient instrument used in sacred rituals or in battle to intimidate enemies. It makes a really disorienting roaring vibrato sound and low frequencies capable of traveling insane distances.” Robin says when asked about one of the more unique aspects of the score. Everyone involved put so much effort into both their research and their creativity and this richness is evident in every track. The album as a whole is a cinematic masterpiece of sound and ambiance, both gorgeous and disturbing, like the film it so beautifully accompanies.

“Rob wanted the world of The Northman to feel harsh and uncomfortable, and for everything to feel like it was caked in mud and dry blood, so it was crucial for the score to mirror that.” Composers Robin Carolan (Tri-Angle Records) and Sebastian Gainsborough (Vessel) were given a task of epic proportions when director Rob Eggers (The VVitch, The Lighthouse) asked them to create the score for his ambitious and highly anticipated new film The Northman, releasing on April 22nd. They needed to make a score that both honored the immense research that had gone into the authenticity of this Viking era period piece and complimented the cinematic maximalism of the film for a modern audience. The artists stretched themselves to the depths of their creativity and the resulting album is a gorgeous sonic tableaux that places the listener right in the center of the film.

While arranging the score the composers consulted musician and ethnographer Poul Høxbro for inspiration and insight into the history of Viking music. Having backgrounds in left field electronic music, Robin and Sebastian felt liberated by the constraint of using a small selection of musical tools for this piece. “Electronic music has almost limitless potential when it comes to making sounds and that’s obviously an incredible thing, but you can also go down the wormhole and get lost in it sometimes. There’s no risk of that happening when you only have a few primary instruments to draw upon.” Robin remarked.

They utilized traditional instruments such as the tagelharpa, langspil, kravik lyre, and säckpip to build the cinematic world of The Northman but they also took creative freedoms in adding instruments likes drums, which some academics believe wouldn’t have played a big part in Viking musical culture, simply due to the lack of archaeological evidence of actual drums. “One of the pieces we wrote was intended to emulate the sound of a bullroarer; an ancient instrument used in sacred rituals or in battle to intimidate enemies. It makes a really disorienting roaring vibrato sound and low frequencies capable of traveling insane distances.” Robin says when asked about one of the more unique aspects of the score. Everyone involved put so much effort into both their research and their creativity and this richness is evident in every track. The album as a whole is a cinematic masterpiece of sound and ambiance, both gorgeous and disturbing, like the film it so beautifully accompanies.

Finnish Death Doom spearhead Kuolemanlaakso, starring vocalist Mikko Kotamäki, are about to release their first album in eight years. The new album Kuusumu was produced by V. Santura, who also took responsibility for producing the band’s previous records. In addition to his studio works, Santura is known as the guitarist of Triptykon and Dark Fortress. Kuusumu is the band’s fourth full-length album, and it will be out in 2022 via Svart Records. “The recording pause got unnecessarily long, but there’s no rush in doom. It was great to get back to work with the folks and catch up with some good friends as well. Kuusumu’s keyboards were played by Aleksi Munter (Swallow the Sun, Insomnium, Ghost Brigade) and Lotta Ruutiainen (Luna Kills) performed female vocals on the album. In my opinion we took many steps forward on Kuusumu”, guitarist-songwriter Laakso says. Kuusumu's texts are loosely based on the sudden global cooling that began in 535, leading to a 10-year winter, loss of crops, mass deaths of cattle and other animals, and famine. Climate change was most likely caused by massive volcanic eruptions, the fog of which darkened the sun for one and a half years, causing intolerable cold. Moreover, the plague pandemic that began in the Byzantine Empire in 541 swept across Europe, killing tens of millions of people during the climate crisis. “Our previous releases are autumn albums, so this time we decided to make a winter album. I came across the literature about those catastrophic events by chance, and got thoroughly inspired - especially by contemporary stories. It wasn’t long until the album material was there already. It’s spine-chilling to think that deadly climate change and a pandemic also raged 1,500 years ago when medicine, information flow and living conditions were in their infancy. There was no knowledge about electricity, for example. People imagined that the gods are angry and the darkness is eternal. One way or another, the power of nature should still not be underestimated,” says the band's artistic director Laakso. On Kuusumu, Kuolemanlaakso stretch their artistic boundaries even further. The album contains the familiar slow heaviness, but also more epic, faster and more polished material. The first single Katkeruuden malja, featuring Lotta Ruutiainen, represents the catchier and lighter side of the album. “Katkeruuden malja draws its inspiration from grief and misery. Musically it trips almost in the landscapes of Tribulation, but with longing, Kalevala-infused and, in my opinion, very Finnish melodies. Regarding singing, Kotamäki introduces new winds, and Lotta's parts really top it all off. The music video is like a visual extension of the cover art and the album’s lyrical themes, ” Laakso comments. The previous Kuolemanlaakso record Tulijoutsen (2014), reached the 10th place on Finland's official album list and was selected as one of the best records of the year on Soundi, Rumba, Kaaoszine and Imperiumi, among others.

The LP ‘All Welcome on Planet Ree-Vo’ due for release on 29th July could only really have been made in one city steeped as it is in Bristol’s decades of less conventional hip hop and bass music. Tweaked and fine tuned during the summer of 2020 the record punches with a mix of red eyed paranoia to a playful future funk.
The album was all recorded, produced and mixed by Andy at Christchurch Studios, Bristol (home of Mezzanine era Massive Attack) with all vocals written and performed by T. Relly.
During 2021 the first two singles from the LP were released. The first was the juggernaut that is ‘Groove With It’. T. Relly growling out polemic against the relentless cacophony spun by Andy Spaceland, The brutality of the bass and horns is temporarily smoothed with Relly’s soulful, swaggering placation of ‘Turn your speakers on/ Till ya speakers blown baby/ If you’re feeling strong baby/ We can keep it going baby’.
This was followed in April by the 12” release of Combat featuring a thumping remix by Surgeon (Tresor Records) and an extended electro remix by Ree-Vo themselves.
2022 began with the limited red 7” release of remixes by NØISE and Batbirds with stunning original artwork by Shepard Fairey who came to the project via mutual friend Joe Cassidy (Butterfly Child). The release was announced on OBEY’s website
‘Spacebox’ which will be the last single to be released in time with the album is their hookiest, a party throwing chorus spinning tipsy visitors around the intergalactic control booth of mission control.
“Lift off, blast off, shirt off, dance off! Naked in the dancehall SPACE BOX!” is the beamed mantra, Relly transmitting to all occupants of the galaxy.
“We wanted to make a hedonistic and colourful dancehall track, a bold response to the suppressive circumstances of the last two years”.
About Ree-Vo:
T. Relly​ is pure Bristol hip-hop royalty – known in the community variously for his links to all of the city’s major club nights, his passion and support for the most disadvantaged (through his work with the youth and prison leavers), through to compering stages at St Paul’s Carnival and his seminal 2018 LP with DJ Rogue ‘Let Them Know’. He collaborates with many crews including Innalife and Killer Crab Men.
Andy Spaceland​ (AKA Andy Jenks) got involved in Bristol bass music as soon as he moved to the city with Static Sound System​ and a collaborative 12” with Rudy Tambala (​AR Kane​) as Sugarboat Vs Sufi, before his band ​Alpha​ were signed to ​Massive Attack​’s label Melankolic, whilst he also became one of their tour DJ’s. His CV of collaborations range from ​Smith and Mighty​ to Madonna. He has released music on Dj Die’s label, Gutterfunk as White Bully and he is also currently releasing music with US producer ​Butch Vig​ in the band ​5 Billion in Diamonds​, whilst working on new tracks with ​Mark Stewart (The Pop Group) including remixes by Adrian Sherwood. His signature sound can also be heard on this remix for ​Elizabeth Fraser​ -

The LP ‘All Welcome on Planet Ree-Vo’ due for release on 29th July could only really have been made in one city steeped as it is in Bristol’s decades of less conventional hip hop and bass music. Tweaked and fine tuned during the summer of 2020 the record punches with a mix of red eyed paranoia to a playful future funk.
The album was all recorded, produced and mixed by Andy at Christchurch Studios, Bristol (home of Mezzanine era Massive Attack) with all vocals written and performed by T. Relly.
During 2021 the first two singles from the LP were released. The first was the juggernaut that is ‘Groove With It’. T. Relly growling out polemic against the relentless cacophony spun by Andy Spaceland, The brutality of the bass and horns is temporarily smoothed with Relly’s soulful, swaggering placation of ‘Turn your speakers on/ Till ya speakers blown baby/ If you’re feeling strong baby/ We can keep it going baby’.
This was followed in April by the 12” release of Combat featuring a thumping remix by Surgeon (Tresor Records) and an extended electro remix by Ree-Vo themselves.
2022 began with the limited red 7” release of remixes by NØISE and Batbirds with stunning original artwork by Shepard Fairey who came to the project via mutual friend Joe Cassidy (Butterfly Child). The release was announced on OBEY’s website
‘Spacebox’ which will be the last single to be released in time with the album is their hookiest, a party throwing chorus spinning tipsy visitors around the intergalactic control booth of mission control.
“Lift off, blast off, shirt off, dance off! Naked in the dancehall SPACE BOX!” is the beamed mantra, Relly transmitting to all occupants of the galaxy.
“We wanted to make a hedonistic and colourful dancehall track, a bold response to the suppressive circumstances of the last two years”.
About Ree-Vo:
T. Relly​ is pure Bristol hip-hop royalty – known in the community variously for his links to all of the city’s major club nights, his passion and support for the most disadvantaged (through his work with the youth and prison leavers), through to compering stages at St Paul’s Carnival and his seminal 2018 LP with DJ Rogue ‘Let Them Know’. He collaborates with many crews including Innalife and Killer Crab Men.
Andy Spaceland​ (AKA Andy Jenks) got involved in Bristol bass music as soon as he moved to the city with Static Sound System​ and a collaborative 12” with Rudy Tambala (​AR Kane​) as Sugarboat Vs Sufi, before his band ​Alpha​ were signed to ​Massive Attack​’s label Melankolic, whilst he also became one of their tour DJ’s. His CV of collaborations range from ​Smith and Mighty​ to Madonna. He has released music on Dj Die’s label, Gutterfunk as White Bully and he is also currently releasing music with US producer ​Butch Vig​ in the band ​5 Billion in Diamonds​, whilst working on new tracks with ​Mark Stewart (The Pop Group) including remixes by Adrian Sherwood. His signature sound can also be heard on this remix for ​Elizabeth Fraser​ -

Recorded under a loft bed in the guest bedroom of his Nashville home, Michael Ruth aka Rich Ruth’s “I Survived, It’s Over” starts in a humble space. And while many contemporary music projects are produced in such an environment, “I Survived, It’s Over” sets itself apart in its transformative properties as well as its transparency. What we have here is honest sound exploration, session musician-level instrumentation, and a true love for nature run through the fingers of a dude who can channel some acute and undeniable magic. This music goes deep. "I conceived much of this record amidst the quiet and tumult of 2020 in my neighborhood that had recently been ravaged by a tornado," Ruth recalls, "I spent most of my days working on these pieces between bicycle rides - watching the beautiful Tennessee ecosystem flourish in Shelby Park, listening to Keith Jarrett’s The Koln Concert and John Coltrane’s Ascension." Underneath the swell of the strings and the shredding of the guitars, this record has hard working, rustbelt, drum-heavy roots all over it (which makes sense as Ruth hails from outside of Toledo, the album was mixed by John McEntire from Chicago band Tortoise). Many of the flutes, saxophones, pedal steel, and other instruments were recorded remotely because we live in the future, but this only adds to the collage of sampled and sample-able material that Rich Ruth has to offer. The organic relationships between the artist and other musicians on the album is evident even in the compilation style sampling that needs to occur in putting such a project together. "Working on this music is a daily meditation," says Ruth. "I constantly experiment with sound until it reflects the way I am feeling and attempt to sculpt something meaningful from it. Through years of being a touring musician, it is a constant inspiration and privilege to collaborate with the individuals that graced this record with their voices." And those relationships pay off, because “I Survived, It’s Over” is a sonic meal. It’s rich (no pun intended) with massive instrumentation that’s usually reserved for more symphonic delights. But at the same time it’s simple and leaves space to breathe–space you didn’t know you needed. In his own words; "I Survived, It’s Over is a meditation on healing, confronting trauma, surrendering, and finding peace. I wanted to encapsulate the tranquility and disarray found within this process." Ruth’s heart and the peace that his presence produces is all over this album. And despite his midwestern humility and willingness to brush off any praise, he’s put together something really special that carries its own weight. It's the kind of record that only comes around every once in a while and it's worthy of all the head-bobs, acclaim, and celebratory potlucks that Mike and the gang have coming their way. “I Survived, It’s Over” is a record you should buy for your friend, your foe, and yourself. It’ll sit perfectly on your shelf between Alice Coltrane and Hiroshi Yoshimura.

In association with DJ Amir’s 180 Proof Records, BBE Music continues its exploration of rare gems from the Strata Records catalogue, with previously unreleased Sam Sanders album ‘Mirror Mirror’. A collector’s dream come true, this is musical treasure is so rare that the recordings on this album have never before seen a proper release and even the cover art had to be created from scratch. An almost unbelievable fact, given that it ranks as one of the strongest releases in the already air-tight era of Strata’s Detroit. Although he’s been compared to John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Joe Henderson, saxophonist Sam Sanders stands out as one of the most unique phenomena to come from the Motor City. Sanders’ approach to life was so 'out there' that one might say his relative obscurity was a personal choice. Sanders caught glimpses of fame early on performing with several internationally known acts and subsequently, he also learned a bit about what the Record Industry’s primary goals were. Realizing that he did not share them, Sanders chose instead to walk his own path. This drive for artistic freedom turned out to be a double-edged sword: while it allowed Sanders to produce some of the most electric jazz, funk, and soul to come from Detroit, it also meant that most of his recordings were never widely released, if they were released at all. Drawing on his experience with Motown acts like Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson, Sanders incorporated a fresh soul sound into recordings that would have otherwise been categorised as jazz. As such, 'Mirror Mirror' moves seamlessly between spirit and style: The album starts on the street with “Inner City Player,” a superfly breakdown of a Detroit hustler’s life, before moving into distinctly abstract territory with the melancholy “Face At My Window.” The experience is held together by a no-nonsense rhythm section featuring the aggressive drumming of Jimmy Allen and the intensely focused bass playing of Ed Pickens. Perhaps the most straightforward jazz song on the album, “Lover’s Gain” showcases Sanders at his freewheelin’ best. And if there was to be any doubt that 'Mirror Mirror' can get funky as hell, look no further than the wah-wah guitar and early synth sounds of “Funk’ed Up,” easily the greasiest cut on the album. 'Mirror Mirror' is remastered from the original reel to reel master tapes.

Mikael Åkerfeldt, mastermind of Swedish band Opeth, has recorded the original score for the new Netflix series Clark, directed by renowned film-maker Jonas Åkerlund. Clark is the incredible story behind Sweden’s most notorious gangster Clark Olofsson, whose infamous crimes gave rise to the term “Stockholm syndrome.” The score for this 6-part series will be released as a Standard CD Jewelcase & Gatefold 180g 2LP vinyl via InsideOutMusic/Milan Records.

Joining the dots between Brazilian musical culture and the sonic melting pot that is New York City, Saidera are a trio on the rise. They’ve already released a pair of critically acclaimed, carnival-ready singles on Brooklyn’s Let’s Play House label and are now ready to make their debut on Leng Records.

The band’s roots can be traced back to a trip that Lemonade band member Alex Pasternak made to Brazil in 2014. While DJing at a house party in the bohemian Rio de Janeiro neighbourhood of Sta Teresa, Pasternak was left gobsmacked when a mysterious local singer/sambista Vadinho Freire, grabbed the mic and started freestyling lyrics and melodies over his set. Realising their instinctive musical connection, Pasternak and Freire decided to work together on some music, with New Yorker Le Chev joining them to complete the Saidera trio.

Now based in Rio and California, the group’s sun-soaked sound – which they describe as “samba disco-Afro melody” – is a cross-cultural stew in which infectious Brazilian percussion, colourful synth sounds, glistening guitars and celebratory vocals combine to create magical, life-affirming musical moments.

‘Luzes Da Cidade’, their first outing on Leng, encapsulates all that’s good about the Saidera sound and the trio’s approach to music. The song is about identity and connection and in its original form is languid, loved-up and joyous, with acoustic and electric guitars, Portuguese vocals and Korey Riker’s gently breezy flute solos rising above a squelchy synth bassline and energetic, sweat-soaked samba drums.

The song’s main mix comes accompanied by a wonderful instrumental pass featuring more extensive solos by Riker, and Saidera’s own remix of ‘Luzes Da Cidade’ – an extra-percussive, breakbeat-tinged fusion of hazy deep house, energetic samba and sunset-ready synth-disco that will delight DJs and dancers alike.

To round off the EP, Saidera has delivered a brand new “Uprockin Dub” of debut single ‘Deixa Tudo Fluir’, this time with female vocals from Irina Bertolucci taking the lead. Brilliantly kaleidoscopic sonically, with dub delay-laden vocals, guitars and flutes, it’s a superb, life-affirming Balearic reggae interpretation of a now familiar favourite. If you’re not singing along with the chorus after your first listen, we’d be very surprised.

Dritte Auflage, blutrotes Vinyl. In Zusammenarbeit mit dem britischen Entwickler-Studio Kaizen Game Works veröffentlicht das Kölner Soundtrack-Label Black Screen Records im Frühjahr 2021 Barry "Epoch" Toppings funkigen "City-Pop meets Vaporwave"-Soundtrack zu dem von der internationalen Gaming-Presse gefeierten Open World Adventure Game Paradise Killer auf Vinyl. Barrys Toppings Soundtrack erscheint auf limitiertem 180g blutrotem Vinyl und kommt in einem von 80er Animes & City Pop-Alben inspirierten Artwork der deutschen Designerin Mizucat. Zudem enthält das Vinyl ein gefaltetes A2 Poster und einen Download Code. Die Sounds des Paradieses. Die Musik eines kosmischen Traums. Tracks einer anderen Realität. Das Tempo eines Verbrechens, dass alle Verbrechen beendet. Der Beat von lange verlorenen außerirdischen Göttern. Die Playlist des "Investigation Freaks". Lass dich von der Musik ins Paradies führen. Fühle die glühend heiße Sonne auf deiner Haut. Rieche unerträglich heißen Beton. Genieße den süßen Geschmack von Verbrechen, begangen, auf einer tropischen Insel in einer alternativen Realität. Erinnerst du dich daran, wie wir am Strand getanzt haben? Neben den paradiesischen Straßen? Du hast mir dieses Mix-Tape auf dem Dach deines Apartments gemacht. Wir haben den Mond angestarrt. Du sagtest, du würdest den Mond töten. Ich glaubte dir nicht. Wie falsch ich doch lag.

Tinges of Americana stand side-by-side with the ghosts of Eastern
European fiddle tunes and ancient a cappella ballad singing, melding into
an unusually accessible dark-folk sound on Mama's Broke 'Narrow Line',
now available on vinyl
Canadian folk duo Mama's Broke has spent the past seven years in a nearconstant state of transience, pounding the transatlantic tour trail. They've brought
their dark, fiery folk- without- borders sound to major festivals and DIY punk
houses alike, absorbing traditions from their maritime home in Eastern Canada,
all the way to Ireland and Indonesia along the way. Nowhere is the duo's art-inmotion approach more apparent than on their long- awaited sophomore record
'Narrow Line'; it's the sound of nowhere in particular, yet woven with a rich
synthesis of influences that knows no borders. The eleven songs on 'Narrow Line'
burrow deeply, with close harmony duets, commanding vocals, and poignant
contemplations on cycles of life, including birth and death. A careful listen of
'Narrow Line' invokes an ephemeral sense of place—whether real or imagined—
inviting us to take comfort in the infinite possibilities of life, whether or not we
ever choose to settle down.

Évariste is one of the rare specimens of artist-cum-scientists. Among his kind stand others like Pierre Schaeffer, a Polytechnique graduate (an engineer but also the father of musique concrète) and the eccentric Boby Lapointe (graduate of the École centrale and inventor of the Bibi-binaire system, patented in 1968). Évariste's songwriting, joyful and full of energy (albeit extremely critical), shrouds an original tragedy: born in 1943 among résistants, Joël Sternheimer (aka Évariste) grew up without a father, lost to Auschwitz. Although he makes little reference to Jewish culture in his music, his origins leave their mark: in 1974, he sings a Hebrew song on television. In 1966, the young Joël sports Princeton's colourful paraphernalia - that's because he's freshly returning from the US, where he was sent to pursue his research on "particle mass and the interpretation of observed regularities, such as the effects of a wave" (will understand who may). When he gets there the country's in the midst of the Vietnam War. With McNamara keen to find an alternative to the nuclear weapon and calling upon the country's biggest brains to undertake the task, there's a "fund shift" within the university - a diplomatic way to give notice to whoever may not be disposed to follow the government's scheme. Joël, who's under the supervision of a rebellious physician, is dismissed. He regardless keeps following the prestigious seminaries of the Institute for Advanced Study, chaired by Oppenheimer, inventor of the atomic bomb. Likely inspired by the hippie movement and music, Joël buys a guitar and starts playing in Washington Square - after all, Bob Dylan himself started there. He blithely skips Oppenheimer and receives a warm (though surprised) welcome from a crowd thoroughly unfamiliar with French. When the ageing physicist questions him about his decreasing attendance, Joël explains how drawn he is to music, and how he thinks it could help him in self-financing his research. Évariste recalls seeing the sickened man, his face torn by remorse, lighten up to his words and say: "What's keeping you - go for it! If I was still young that's exactly what I'd do." The student takes these words as a testimony from his professor - and it's enough to convince him . And so he takes the leap during the Christmas vacations he spends in Paris. A journalist friend he often sees around the Sorbonne introduces him to the artistic director of Disques AZ. The latter passes the tapes on to the label's boss, Lucien Morisse, also program manager on Europe N°1. Morisse is blown away - and signs him onto the label right away. Michel Colombier, arranger for Serge Gainsbourg and co-author of "Psyché Rock", with Pierre Henry, contributes some of his original ideas to the 7 inch "E=mc2": Évariste's preoccupation with the percussion sound on the track "Le calcul intégral" is that it goes "poom poom" and not "tock tock" - Colombier is aware of the issue and records Évariste's guitar like a percussion in an isolated booth. The organist Eddy Louis, who is to participate, in 1969, to the success of Claude Nougaro's "Paris mai", also appears on the record. It's 1966 and the Antoine phenomenon (signed on Vogue) storms through France. The two singers share similarities: Antoine is an engineer of the École centrale, gifted with a great originality in his song-writing. A godsend for the two labels who turn this resemblance into a commercial strategy, setting them out as rivals. To this day though, Évariste still denies what was little more than slushy tabloïd gossip. Success comes around swiftly and in 1967 Évariste launches into a second 7 inch, "Wo I nee", again arranged by Michel Colombier. Quantum mechanics fans finally get their anthem with "La Chasse Au Boson Intermédiaire" (or the "Intermediary Boson Pursuit"). To sum up what's a boson, say he's a close pal of the meson, photon and other gluons. A few months later, it's May 68 and everything's turned upside down. Évariste writes a series of songs inspired by the events, which he immediately submits to Lucien Morisse. When the man behind "Salut les copains", once married to Dalida, hears the song "La révolution" - a father and son dialogue - he can't take any more: AZ simply cannot release this. But there and then Lucien Morisse makes a gesture which will remain engraved in French music's history: sorry to be unable to officially stand by the singer, he encourages him to self-produce the record, but with his tacit support. He calls the pressing factory and asks they apply the same rate for Évariste as they would for AZ. The singer and his musicians use the same studio as for the previous record, all of them playing for free awaiting a return on investment. Évariste keeps singing at the Sorbonne with "Jussieu's gang" and "the young Renaud" he nicknames "le p'tit gavroche" (or "street urchin"). Renaud volunteers to type the lyrics of the song "La révolution" so that the chorus can be sung and recorded. A boy in the group is related to Wolinski and introduces them. The two get along so well that Wolinski ends up drawing the cover for the record "La révolution", for free. The self-released 7 inch "La révolution / La faute à Nanterre" is sold under the table and door-to-door for half the price of a standard record, on and around the boulevard Saint-Michel; and it runs out fast. In the end, there will be 6 releases of the record, and 25000 copies sold. When the theatre director Claude Confortès decides to adapt Wolinski's drawing series titled "Je ne veux pas mourir idiot" ("I don't want to die a fool"), he asks Évariste to write the original soundtrack. His friend, now cartoonist for Hara-Kiri Hebdo, often promotes him in accordance with a principle dear to him by virtue of which he gives a special place to his friends. Dominique Grange (writer of the song "Nous sommes les nouveaux partisans") soon joins the team. After 150 performances, Évariste leaves his place to Dominique Maurin (brother of Patrick Dewaere). Évariste composes the songs for Claude Confortès' next play, "Je ne pense qu'à ça" ("That's all I think about"), co-wrote with Wolinski in 1969. The comedians of the play record the songs on a 7 inch, with a cover signed, again, by Wolinski. In 1971, French television produces the documentary "Évariste et les 7 dimensions", but doesn't air it. Indeed, the scientific sub-comity of the programming comity (sic) censors the show. The given justification is that "Évariste dangerously mixed science with science-fiction, numerology and other non-scientific disciplines". The underlying motive might have been a will to censor the singer-mathematician's political discourse. In the documentary and among other things, Évariste discusses hierarchy, alienation and revolution. Half a century later the documentary remains invisible, though some excerpts resurfaced in 1992 in the cult show "L'oeil du cyclone", on Canal +. Though flourishing, Évariste's career is nearing its end. 1970 is the beginning of a decade in the course of which he is to make a decisive discovery in the musical and scientific domains. Following this breakthrough, he moves away from self-produced music and gaucho magazines to focus on science. He keeps Oppenheimer's encouraging words in mind, now freely pursuing his research thanks to the sales of his records. Joël realises that when decoding protein sequences, one finds musical sequences recognisable to humans. He names them "proteodies". If, when listening to a proteody, one responds by being so sensitive as to finding it beautiful, then it reveals a deficiency of the related protein - and this peculiar music may be the cure. We could trace back the music history in light of proteins lacking in a given artist, or within a public's majority. You always thought these hysterical groupies who'd throw their underwear with passion and faint in the pit had miraculously appeared because they had never heard anything as wonderful as the Beatles? Make no mistake! For Évariste, it all boils down to an intro's protein content. Indeed, the beginning of their first hit "Love Me Do" corresponds to dopamine, the neurotransmitter linked to compulsive buying. An intro like this could only unleash the fervour of groupies, victims of fashion and biology. Évariste's success is such that the income from his sales gives him the autonomy to which he had aspired when confiding to Oppenheimer. It made it possible for him to pursue his research without any institutional constraints. He now devotes himself to his proteodies, sat in the offices of the European University for Research, just around the corner from the Sorbonne he knew so well. Évariste is no more. Joël regained control of this strange and comical beast.

Surfacing from ethereal and dreamier planes, UK shoegaze and
dreampop act GRAYWAVE are one of the latest additions to the Church
Road Records roster
Following on from their 2021 debut EP proper, Planetary Shift, GRAYWAVE is set
to release their second extended play, Rebirth, on June 24.Formed in Birmingham,
UK in 2019 as a solo venture and creative outlet for Jess Webberley, GRAYWAVE
has already amassed a steady stream of singles and qualitative short form
releases - drip feeding fans a highly ambitious and modern take on dreampop and
shoegaze’s storied sonic spectrum. Returning in 2022, Rebirth is the most
revealing and entrancing look into GRAYWAVE’s evolution as an artist. Trading in
some of the lo- fi tendencies of her earlier output, Rebirth sees Webberley
embrace darker soundscapes and sonic weight across the release’s five
tracks.GRAYWAVE’s latest effort is a confident seizing of identity and assured
meeting point for the project’s initial potential and newfound blossoming. Opener,
Build, and Rebirth’s title track rattle with rhythmic unease and confrontation, as
Webberley’s voice drifts between somnolent hypnosis and arresting command.
Elsewhere, Closer and Exoplanet effortlessly tie together 90s influence in the vein
of Cocteau Twins and Drop Nineteens with a modern touch similar to US
contemporaries Citizen.Following their recent union with Church Road Records,
2022 will see GRAYWAVE continue to shine across the UK live circuit. Having
already sold out hometown shows, as well as getting through to the latter stages
of the Isle of Wight Festival’s ongoing musical showcase that offers a spot on the
festival’s New Blood stage, and performing with UK hardcore upstarts Cruelty.
Living up to its name, Rebirth is already proving to be a fruitful time of growth for
Webberley and GRAYWAVE’s creative self- actualisation - offering fans new and
old the most conceptually realised iteration of the project’s limitless avenues of
artistic promise yet.

High Focus Records are excited to share a new full length offering from prolific Brighton based producer Mr Slipz, this time with a fresh label signing, Australian rapper Nelson Dialect. A landmark release and signing for High Focus with Nelson being the first international signing on the label. UK listeners might have first heard Nelson collaborating with Verbz & Mr Slipz on the song ‘Hope’ from their acclaimed LP ‘Radio Waves’ released on High Focus in 2020. Nelson has a cult following in his own right in Australia, and previously released music on the legendary U.S label Fat Beats to great acclaim. Now teaming up with one of the most exciting and respected UK producers, Nelson & Mr Slipz deliver ‘Ever Since’. A statement piece by two artists with well over a decade spent on their craft which sounds as urgent and refreshing as if it were their first time releasing music. The album’s title is a reference to the endless quest for a timeless sound, reflecting the creative partnerships which spark from a seemingly forever existing thread of music. The two artists crossed paths whilst Nelson was on tour in Brighton, and a chance introduction to Slipz made this album a reality. As fate would have it, due to a cancellation of plans and changing of schedules during Nelson’s tour, the pair ended up in the studio for 8 days straight together which is when the bulk of the album was created. They each saw this as a cosmic alignment and thus played into the albums astrological artwork themes and overarching concept. Striving to capture the lightning in a bottle moment, what resulted musically on this album was an inspired surge of energy and intense creative output that is felt across the entire LP. Equal parts personal and lyrically dextrous, Nelson explores a multitude of concepts over the hard hitting drums and jazzy samples producer Mr Slipz is renowned for through his previous work with artists including Verbz, Kofi Stone, Vitamin G & Datkid among many more. The album features a slew of impressive guest verses including label mates Vitamin G & Verbz on the emphatic ‘Oxford Scholars’. Two legends Jehst & Confucius MC combine on ‘Smooth Ride’. Bronx pioneer & D.I.T.C legend A.G delivers a show stopping verse on ‘Trembling the Marrow’. There are hypnotic singing performances by Indira May on ‘First Date’ & ‘Open Book’ as well as Hiatus Kaiyote back up vocalist Jace XL on the soul stirring anthem “Figure Out What’s Right”. U.S rappers SickInTheHead & Cazeaux O.S.L.O round out the impressive guest list on the album with their inspired verses. Listeners caught their first glimpse of the duo with their debut single ‘Only Just Begun’. A whirlwind 3 verse tune showcasing the relentless wordplay and imagery Nelson is regarded for over a moody, hard hitting Slipz production. With a buzz already around what Nelson Dialect & Mr Slipz are brewing, the duo have just released their second single ‘Oxford Scholars’ featuring label mates Vitamin G & Verbz