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This solid jackin' house EP feat. PAKA PROJECT is packed with groove and a summer-ready vibe. Crafted with DJs in mind, perfect for layering, cutting basslines, and blending.. Cool brass elements, soulful textures, and hints of blues-style vocal samples woven throughout. Full pic sleeve.

W.R.F. was formed in 2015 by Nina and late studio partner Andrew Weatherall to help wrangle the vast output recorded together beyond his solo releases.
Spotlighting nine tracks from the Apparently Solo series of EPs recorded between 2016- 2019 and released on Bandcamp in 2023, this lustrous time capsule marks the culmination of Walsh and Weatherall’s creative relationship born after they clicked at London’s earliest acid house clubs, becoming partners then managers of their Sabres Of Paradise/Sabrettes labels before taking different paths by the late '90s.
An accomplished musician, Nina had learned the art of studio technology by the time they reunited and started working together in 2012. Created at her Facility 4 Studio situated in the dangerous, gang-ridden no man’s land between Streatham and Mitcham, Anamchara captures the super-prolific creative stretch starting in 2015 that produced Weatherall’s Convenanza and Qualia solo sets, W.R.F.’s The Phoenix Suburb (And Other Stories) plus a whole lot more. According to Nina, Andrew envisioned the spectacular ‘Borderland’ as natural successor to ‘Smokebelch’, his most revered track. When it came to his remix, Nina enlisted renowned viola virtuoso Sarah Sarhandi and composed new harmonies with Pachelbel’s Canon in D Minor in mind.
The set also catches the breakthrough period when, through Nina’s careful coaxing, Andrew started using the computer system she’d set up to better express his musical visions by arranging the elements, grooves and melodies she sent him. Still considered the UK’s greatest DJ-producer, Andrew’s arrangements were inspired by his club-igniting sets. “This allowed me to mix the colours for his palette whilst he was painting the picture,” says Nina. Anamchara straddles the gamut of musical styles explored by W.R.F. at this time, from slower paced psychedelic “drug chug” outings ‘We Two’. ‘Heat To Meat Ratio’, ‘Hidden Watchers Part 1’ to banging acid house and techno sometimes inspired by the violence outside the studio door, including ‘SCHLAP’, ‘Crack-Ed’ and churning acid juggernaut ‘Yacidik’ (“After much dangling of the acid carrot, Andrew took a bite and, after one familiar raised eyebrow, never looked back,” says Nina).
Many tracks fly elements from the enormous sonic library Nina inherited from late partner Erick Legrand that she called The Akashic Library of Sound. Marking Andrew’s 2016 admission into the vault, ‘Rattly Old Puffin’ boasts Erick’s psychedelic guitar and tumbling drum loop Weatherall would run with, including on ‘Borderland’. “Erick was like our third member,” says Nina.
Bringing down the curtain, ‘Alma’’s exquisitely poignant melody that unfolds over thirteen time-stopping minutes was composed by Nina while navigating Erick’s birth and departure date anniversaries to accompany Andrew’s reading from Gordon Burn’s 1991 same-named novel at 2018’s Durham Literary Festival. Burn’s novel imagines early 60s popstrel Alma Cogan, who succumbed to cancer in 1966 surviving to reflect on fame. “Now it just makes me think of Erick. And every time I hear those well-placed cymbal crashes I can only think of the Captain himself.”
A beautiful grand finale for this astonishing selection of pure gold from the vaults.
Kris Needs / 2026

Church Andrews and Matt Davies return with Tilt, a pinpoint collection of skewed microtonal and discordant compositions for percussion and digital synth.

Tones ascend but don’t resolve, rhythms loop, collapse and reassemble, patterns wriggle with geometric precision, sounds tilt, the edges fray.

Kinetic, elastic, wonky without being obtuse, Church Andrews (aka Kirk Barley) and Matt Davies new LP Tilt is the culmination of six years of creative collaboration, refining and redrawing the relationship between Davies’ virtuoso percussive practice and Barley’s off-kilter synthesis.

Where their 2024 release Yucca, took rhythmic cues from the Fibonacci sequence, Tilt explores a more intuitive approach, returning the duo to a minimal sound interrogating the interplay of chance and control, system and body, freedom and mechanisation. Featuring prepared guitar, finely resonant muted percussion and a crisp palette of digital synths, it draws on the pair's long-standing interest in alternate time signatures.

Here, a tripped-up 11/8 beat gives ‘Yokai’ a disorientating quality, threading unusual paths through the playful, mysterious 5-note Hirajoshi scale - a pentatonic scale from Japan hinted at in the track’s playful reference to a supernatural spirit in the country’s folklore.

Using a simple on-off system between drum and synth to trigger a Shepard tone - an auditory illusion of a sound that ascends or descends in pitch without actually changing - ‘Shepherd’ revels in the stripped-back simplicity of its sonic palette, where the nuance lies in what Barley calls “subtleties in the timbre of the sounds” as they dialogue with Davies’ warped loops.

It’s these finely tuned melodic drum tones and an eerily abstracted prepared guitar that give ‘Debris’ its uncanny feel, yet never feeling overly controlled. Like the album’s meticulous, graphic artwork, Tilt seeks the shifting ground between the physical and the digital, as acoustic tones are tweaked and disambiguated into new and unexpected forms.

Tilt represents Church Andrews and Matt Davies’ ongoing collaboration in its purest form - a hyper-defined evocation of gravitational potential in their live sound.

Now into its sixth year, NuNorthern Soul’s Summer Selections series has become a popular annual fixture. Like its predecessors, 2026’s edition showcases a variety of Balearic dancefloor workouts, sensual soundscapes and tracks tailor-made for poolside sun-down sets.

As usual, Summer Selections Six is a vinyl-first affair, offering wax enthusiasts a chance to cop killer cuts set to feature on a swathe of forthcoming NuNorthern soul releases – including some that would otherwise be unavailable on physical formats.

To begin, is It Balearic? label regulars and Rotation Sound System crew members Wrekin’ Havoc turn their attention to NuNorthern Soul favourite B.J Smith’s 2014 cover of Outkast’s ‘Prototype’. Their take, which will be featured on a forthcoming collection of reworks of Smith’s NNS material, places the long-serving producer’s beautiful, beguiling vocals atop lo-fi 80s electro beats, moody pads, squelchy synth sounds and far-sighted electronics.

Up next is label newcomer Sasha Foam, a fast-rising Lisbon-based DJ/producer whose Memoria EP is set to land digitally soon. ‘Curios’, his contribution to Summer Selections Six, is a propulsive and ear-catching affair, with joyful synth melodies, rushing piano riffs and cheerful TB-202 style acid tweaks rising above a crunchy, drum-machine driven mid-tempo groove.

Rounding off side A is ‘Call To Wind’, a rootsy, warming and sun-baked slab of Balearic dub gorgeousness from Strictly Dub Records founder Saimon AKA Roots Artefact. The track, which marks his first new material since last year’s NuNorthern Soul debut Different Perspective, is one of the many highlights set to be featured on the Estonian’s forthcoming Rocking Boat EP.

Turn to the flipside and you’ll find three more inspired, immersive treats. Dan Dub Lounge, Muzka and Simon Sheldon being their Visions of Light project back to NuNorthern Soul with the borderline genius ‘ReBorn Slippy’, an exotic, intoxicating and sitar-laden slow-motion instrumental cover of the Underworld favourite taken from their soon-come collection of ‘mild pitch’ takes of dance and electronic classics.

To complete another stellar Summer Selections 12-inch label founder Phil Cooper platforms two recent additions to the roster. First is Potteries-based producer Andrew Wright AKA Lonely Deckchair. Wright offers up ‘Adaflo’ from his forthcoming debut album. Atmospheric and magical, ‘Adaflo’ is a simmering, slowly unfurling fusion of poignant pianos, minimalist beats, shuffling bass and tumble-down chords.

Then there’s Aussie artist Perth Lewis, whose first two self-released albums (Moments In Time and Distance Between) were recently reissued by NuNorthern Soul. The Sydney-based producer is set to release a new EP, Cherry Moon, soon, and ‘Monolith’ is taken from that collection. Deep, dubby and beguiling, it sees Lewis pepper a head-nodding, effects-laden beat with spacey sonics, cascading piano motifs and some seriously sparkling synths.




[d] B1: Visions of Light -

Moondata’s little-known sole single, 1984’s decidedly Balearic, jazz-funk/boogie fusion gem ‘Let The Moonshine In’, is a very important record to the Rotation Sound System crew. It has become a familiar favourite at their annual Rotation Garden Party micro-festival and formed the centrepiece of their first compilation, summer 2025’s superb Everything You’re About To Hear Is True Volume 1. It’s increasingly rare these days for an artist from the 80s to still have their master tapes but even rarer still for them to have the multitrack tapes too. This is something of the holy grail when it comes to licensing old music so when it happens the opportunity to remix and create new versions needs to be grabbed with both hands.

The original record, a genuine rarity beloved of synth-loving crate-diggers, had an unusual gestation. Originally recorded in demo form by musician Jean-Marie Gogniat, it was turned into a finished single by a group of German musicians with a little help from lyricist and vocalist Joe Mwenda, and a crew of backing vocalists whose number included a locally based American singer – a pre-fame Jennifer Rush. Fittingly, the pre-vocal instrumental mix, which has sat unreleased since 1984, is included as a bonus track on the digital edition of this new remix package. The Rotation Sound System crew’s mixes, headed up by long-serving producer Dean Meredith, sprinkle 21st century magic across Gogniat’s one-off masterpiece while retaining core elements of the original and offering nods aplenty to club-focused sounds of the 1980s. They are, in effect, the versions the track deserved – but never got – back in the mid 1980s.

To begin, Meredith reunites with long-time production partner Andrew Meecham for the pair’s first remix as Chicken Lips in three years – a typically sparse and spaced-out ‘Malfunction Dub’ with delay-laden synths, vocals and guitar snippets sit over a sparse post-electro beat and bass guitar. Meredith then joins forces with fellow Rotation Sound System member Ben Shenton for takes under their two bestknown aliases. First, they don the T-Kutt guise for some dubbed out, funky bass guitar-propelled boogie-meets-proto house action that rocks out a killer, Clavinet-expanded groove while spinning in talkbox and backing vocals.

The pair then re-emerge as Mind Fair, famed for their releases on Golf Channel Recordings and their own Rogue Cat Sounds, and deliver a warmer, deeper and more organic-sounding take that’s as languid and tactile as it is warm and saucereyed. To round off the vinyl version of the EP, Rotation Sound System’s other core members – Rob J, Rich Hall and Stuart Robinson – don the now-familiar Wrekin Havoc guise and re-invent the track as a raw, analogue-rich shuffle through 1980s electro – all squelchy synth-bass, stabbing, cut-up vocal samples, chiming synth melodies and echoing beats. The expanded digital download edition of the EP contains a trio of additional bonus rubs. Alongside instrumental versions of the T-Kutt and Mind Fair mixes, we also get a full vocal T-Kutt rework that adds back in Joe Mwenda’s beautifully delivered verses. These additional DJ tools round off a beautifully rendered set of re-imaginations of a genuine cult classic. Gogniat, the man who started it all way back in the summer of 1984, certainly approves.

Very limited numbers, orders will need to be confirmed.

For his new album, Irreparable Parables, Andrew Wasylyk felt a strong desire to write a set of songs featuring an element hitherto rare in his work: the human voice. Equally strong was the conviction that he did not want to sing them himself.

The Scottish multi-instrumentalist and composer set about assembling a group of guest singers, sending out the songs to wherever they were in the world. The vocals were recorded remotely and then, like migrating birds, winged their way back to Scotland. The result is an album of great beauty which, perhaps preeminently in Wasylyk’s work, expresses the vulnerability and resilience of the human spirit.

Six singers appear on the record, represented by six songbirds illustrated on the sleeve by Clay Pipe Music’s Frances Castle. The cuckoo is a nod to Belle and Sebastian’s 2004 single ‘I’m A Cuckoo’, that band’s Stuart Murdoch being the first voice you hear on the new album. When the vocal for ‘Private Symphony #2’ arrived, says Wasylyk, “it was everything that I was looking for and more. But this is Stuart Murdoch. Of course he’s going to make something incredibly beautiful and thoughtful.”

The song lyrics were, for the most part, written by the singers. The music is Wasylyk’s creation. He navigates a sound world that lies somewhere beyond the borders of classical and jazz, ambient and abstract. It is difficult to describe, but easy to understand, which is to say to feel. That is the way Wasylyk’s work is experienced: as a feeling. It takes you back to childhood, perhaps, to feelings of comfort and safety, or to memories of walks at sunrise and sunset, or to the way a shadow falls on a particular field in a particular place at a particular time in your life. This is consoling music. That is why, though pretty, it is not merely pretty. These are songs to shore up the soul.

Wasylyk writes in a room, in his native Dundee, full of “half broken” instruments. He picks these up, plays a little, seeking an idea, a feeling, a door that lies ajar. The musical palette of Irreparable Parables includes brass and woodwind, a six-piece string section, guitar, bass, drums, vibraphone, Mellotron, Fender Rhodes, tape loops, synthesisers and percussion. The strings were arranged by the cellist Pete Harvey, a long-term collaborator.

Among the other guest vocalists are Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals, Saya Ueno from Japan’s Tenniscoats and Peter Brewis from Field Music. Wasylyk himself takes the lead vocal on the title track, though a throat infection and touch of pitch-shifting have altered his singing in a way that even he, having fallen out of love with his own voice, finds acceptable.

The heart of the record can, arguably, be found in two tracks, ‘Love Is A Life That Lasts Forever’ and ‘Spectators In The Absence of God’, sung respectively by Molly Linen and Kathryn Joseph. The former, bright with trumpets, was inspired by the writing of Derek Jarman. “I was feeling deeply upset about the world and wanted to try and write some- thing that was obviously hopeful,” Wasylyk says.

‘Spectators …’ offers an emotional counterpoint. It is an “apocalyptic hymn” that seems to grapple with watching human suffering from afar, too distant to be at physical risk, but experiencing the psychological wounding, and feelings of helplessness, even complicity, that come with constant awareness of other people’s pain. “Kathryn’s a pal, I love her dearly, and she’s a brilliant artist who really feels what she writes,” Wasylyk says. “The cracked tenderness of her voice is spellbinding.”

The album closes with an instrumental piece, ‘Soul Enters The Ocean Sun Climbs Out Of The Sea’, all piano and strings, that offers a sense of resolution and ascension. A good moment, too, for Wasylyk to reflect upon the artistic companionship that he enjoyed while making this record – the songbirds that answered his call: “These humans are incredible at what they do. I’m deeply grateful and feel so lucky. It blows my mind.”

Ira James' Vessel Recordings keeps flying the flag for serious underground sounds with this new selection of remixes of 'Interlude.' Nonfiction goes first and keeps it deep with a chunky, heavyweight house bubbler with the most subtle synths adding colour and neat stabs lighting it up. DJ Sneak's Nitty Gritty Rub is a classic roller from the House Gangster, raw and undercooked and with serious heft in the kicks. Hector Moralez gets more upright with a warped, fleshy bassline and razor sharp hi-hats, then Andrew Macari's Kick Down The Wall mix is a final raw as you like house weapon that demands you get physical.

Mood II Swing are bona fide legends of early house who fomented their own uniquely raw, dark, but soulful and swinging sound. They have got a ton of classics to their name, one of which is 1996's 'Do It My Way', which now gets reworked by a selection of talented house peers on Ira James' Vessel Recordings. The opening Andrew Macari mix keeps it deep and loopy with many original motifs left in place. The Do It Sneaks Way mix leans into the trackiness of the drums, then Joshua Iz turns up the dubby low end for a gliding groove with garage-y percussion. Nonfiction strips away some of the swing and goes for a big, driving wall of drums and Natural Rhythm offers the most playful take with wobbly synths and plenty of air in the drums.

Fresh Hold Releases presents Helen Ripley-Marshall's mysterious Australian ambient electronic album "Green Chaos", reissued for the first time on vinyl LP. Originally released in 1988 on Sydney based private press label Freefall, "Green Chaos" marks the sole release from Ripley-Marshall.

In the late 80's Ripley-Marshall lived a Bohemian lifestyle in inner city Sydney; "surrounded by musicians, actors and artists, there was an amazing creative experimental vibe going on". While playing in new wave/art rock band "D Face" she began Green Chaos as a personal project to counteract the creative friction sometimes experienced within a group dynamic, heavily inspired by Arnold Frolows' "Ambience" radio show on Australia's Triple J and particularly the music of Tangerine Dream, Harold Budd and Brian Eno.

Initially a solitary endeavour, once she decided to record in a studio Green Chaos morphed into a somewhat collaborative, improvisational project with other musicians invited into the studio to improvise and add their own interpretations and ideas, additional layers and dimensions, resulting in a work that combines a clear influence from the electronic repetition of the Berlin school with a meandering, futuristic lyricism. Although influenced by the long form sonic journeys of artists like Tangerine Dream, Ripley-Marshall's background in art rock and new wave brings a more concise approach, each song a self-contained universe that says only what is necessary in the arrangement.

After completing a sound engineering course Ripley-Marshall recorded the album at Sydney's Exeter House Studio over several months alongside studio engineer Andrew Knight, met through a fellow member of D Face. Knight ran Freefall, a private press recording label releasing folk and bluegrass music, which had Green Chaos as its sole ambient release. Ripley-Marshall self distributed the album to local inner city record stores and dropped a copy to Triple J, where it became a regular staple of Arnold Frolows' show.

These days Ripley-Marshall has moved away from music and is predominantly focused on visual art. "Green Chaos" stands as the only released product of her musical years, both a personal window into the vibrant experimental art scene of late 1980s Sydney and a deep, timeless anomaly of Australian electronic music.

THE SOUND OF SUMMER

Brand new tracks made from the Havana Sessions, recorded by Brian d'Souza aka Auntie Flo in downtown Havana around 2015.

'Havana City' is a joyous, summer anthem in the making, featuring Andrew Ashong on vocals and a host of Cuban musicians. Think Nuyorican Soul's classic 'I Am the Black Gold Of The Sun' with a Tony Allen-inspired drum beat, luscious string arrangements, triumphant horns and addictive keys - all given the space they deserve and fully justifying the 11.5 minutes run time.

The 2026 version of 'Die Bailando' re-invents the original minimal electro beat to a latin rhumba-influenced groover. Grammy-nominated singer Eric Alejandro aka Cimafunk's vocals are a huge highlight, now fused with new guitars from Ziggy Funk and drums from Ibibio Sound Machine's Jose Joyette.

Completing the package is a remastered version of 'Mother Theresa' - which has close to 2 million plays on Spotify but was never released on vinyl. Drift away to the sounds of the Malecon...

A State of Flo supports Earth Percent. 10% of the revenue generated from this release will be
paid to environmental charities.

Filmmaking and music-making share a common element of worldbuilding. Whole cloth, environments are raised in which a perspective can be placed; the viewer, the listener, is taken on a ride into the unknown for a time. Movie, the newest album by DMV-based duo Lifted, is like a film shot with microphones rather than cameras, using the pacing, spatialization, and semiotics of cinematic sound design to lead us through a surreal soundworld that draws as much from Foley artistry as dub, jazz, and electronic music. Musical elements and field recordings shift in and out of focus, collaged in spontaneous improvisation sessions on CDJs by the core duo of Andrew Field-Pickering (Max D, Dolo Percussion, Beautiful Swimmers) and Matt Papich (Co La, Ecstatic Sunshine). We may not see where we are, but our ears give us all the information we need.

We open on a pedal steel, played by More Eaze, but it’s been warped and slowed, gradually pitching upward until it's met by drums and electronics. Imagine the THX logo emerging onscreen. Movie is bookended by two related themes, “The Ice Chewers (Opening Credits), ” and “Midnight Snack (End Credits), ” giving the spatial experiments at the heart of the record form and focus. If there’s a broader narrative to latch onto, it’s in the transition moments, the juxtaposition of various field recordings that indicate movement of characters through space and life happening at its own pace. Tracks are defined by other thematic elements: a wandering piano in "Repossessed, " the drone of Duncan Moore’s bagpipe on “Melts Very Nasty, ” the delicate dance of Dustin Wong’s guitar over Jeremy Hyman’s drums on “Midnight Snack. ” Even with such an expansive ensemble cast, the focus remains squarely on the flow from one scene to the next.

Robert Altman’s use of sonic perspective shifting, as well as Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s intricate construction of environmental ambience and aural representations of the unknown, were both inspirational for Lifted’s focus on sound as a way to establish set and setting in film. We hear Altman especially in the way dialogue emerges and recedes: as Papich puts in a sandwich order, as Field-Pickering browses the grocery store. These techniques have been a part of the duo’s arsenal in Lifted and their own projects for years, but here, without the mandate to make something overtly musical, they are foregrounded and placed in crisp focus. Here is another way to listen to the world, to understand how time, place, and personality are communicated through sound as Lifted closes the gap between artforms. What you can’t see only drives the imagination to more brilliantly invent.

If – in some parallel universe (or perhaps a not-so-distant-future version of the one we’re already sentenced to living in) – the evil overloads of artificial intelligence were actually successful in their attempts to create convincingly enjoyable “original music,” more specifically tasked with wholly encapsulating my own personal tastes by data-chugging some cocktail of – oh, I don’t know – the posters on my wall, the records in my “most listened to” pile, the mixtapes I made for others, intensive physical scans of my auditory cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, heart strings, whatever else they have splayed out on their autopsy table with the intention of generating one all-encompassing “perfect band” based on the fruitful sum of their findings – that band, for me, would be (or would at least sound exactly like) the Tara Clerkin Trio. It is, quite simply, without exception, the music I wish to hear.

Formed in Bristol UK (where none of them are from yet all of whom are deeply engrained) in 2020, the Tara Clerkin Trio – as it somewhat democratically exists today, despite the singular authority implied by its name – consists of the titular Tara Clerkin, her partner Sunny Joe Paradisos, and Sunny’s brother, Patrick Benjamin. I’ll confess, I don’t know what their respective roles are within the operation and there’s only a very small part of me that cares to learn, as one of my favorite qualities in an objective listening experience is the mystery of who is playing what, which sounds are “authentic” versus synthesized, which chunks are performed “live” in a room together versus meticulously Frankenstein’ed from measure to measure, or how exactly the overall sound is so (seemingly) effortlessly achieved. Though, I suspect, if and when I do witness a live performance by this band at any point, my enjoyment of the music will not be lost in my better understanding of it.

With two extraordinary mini-albums – In Spring (2021) and On The Turning Ground (2023) – making a splash on London’s formidable World of Echo label in wake of their self-titled 2020 debut, this upcoming Somewhere Good LP is, in many ways, the band’s most realised work. In running their usual gauntlet of idiosyncratic (*an overused adjective for which here there is regrettably no sufficient alternative) approaches, Clerkin & co. colour in and outside of compositional lines over the course of 40+ celebratory minutes - never wallowing, despite inherently somber subject matters of self-defeat, disease, displacement, restlessness, gentrification - allowing their arrangements and improvisations ample space and time to situate, stretch out, breathe, cross-pollinate, and ultimately take deeper hold on the listener’s imagination – all while somehow sounding more like themselves than ever before.

Of course, there are traceable influences herein, if one felt that such comparisons were necessary to properly examine and enjoy this music (they aren’t)… Being the big dumb American from the small boring town that I am, cornfed on ‘90s alternative radio with the enchantingly exotic sounds of Maxinquaye and Mezzanine emanating from my chunky tube television, I can’t help but to make a blatantly obvious reference to a “Bristol sound”, ie the whole trip-hop trip, the pastoral crooning over the suggestive urban grime of cracked electro/piano treatments, the digitally-yet-primitively reconstructed James Bond soundtrack string-beats, etc.. But the Tara Clerkin Trio is so infinitely much more than that. There are elements of avant-pop, modern classical, kraut-folk, audio verité, dare I say indie rock (and not of the beer guzzling, masturbatory fuzz-flex variety but perhaps more like a Trish Keenan-fronted Faust, Adrian Sherwood at the mixing desk of If You’re Feeling Sinister, or – in expanding on our alternate reality – a world in which High Llamas cut a full-length for Warp Records with Andrew Weatherall on coffee duty).

The hazy, unmappable skyline-mirage of droning harmonium, upright bass, peculiarly accentuated wind instruments, acoustic guitar, hushed yet literally mighty keys combine to hypnotizing effect. The band may make underlying nods to jazz, sure, but it’s not appropriation, it’s that they have the actual chops to build it out. Beneath the janky samples and oddball percussive embellishment lies actually great drumming. Beyond the manipulated vocal witchery and woefully reflective plain-spoke moments are Tara’s subtly inspired melodies, sung with what might honestly be the glue to the whole crazy equation. A calming consistency throughout the otherwise unpredictably dynamic, boldly intuitive, uniquely British exploration of this (their own) universe in song. – Ryan Davis (Chicago, February 2026)

the work of BIG|BRAVE is ever-expanding. The trio"s singular masterful sculpting of sonics into songcraft tucks layers of vulnerability into frenetic storms. in grief or in hope is an innovative vision of electro-acoustic sound and emotive storytelling, an endless bounty of overwhelming distortions and devastating beauty. The album marks a shift for BIG|BRAVE towards denser guitar-oriented compositions. With longtime touring bassist Liam Andrews (MY DISCO, Aicher) joining guitarist/vocalist Robin Wattie and guitarist Mathieu Ball in the studio for the first time, the pieces are keenly layered with a rich tapestry of harmonics and tonal intricacies. The trio"s instinctual progressions made more vivid through live recording, harnessing the gargantuan and storied sound of their performances. Wattie writes: "All that I could reflect on was grief and hope; death and life; cause and effect; shared experiences of being a human person." The tenth album for the ensemble, in grief or in hope pays homage to their past while looking into their future. Together the trio shift deliver emotional momentum that vividly describes the complex and deep feelings of struggle, pain, and transcendence. in grief or in hope transmits that sense of humanity with every gesture.

the work of BIG|BRAVE is ever-expanding. The trio"s singular masterful sculpting of sonics into songcraft tucks layers of vulnerability into frenetic storms. in grief or in hope is an innovative vision of electro-acoustic sound and emotive storytelling, an endless bounty of overwhelming distortions and devastating beauty. The album marks a shift for BIG|BRAVE towards denser guitar-oriented compositions. With longtime touring bassist Liam Andrews (MY DISCO, Aicher) joining guitarist/vocalist Robin Wattie and guitarist Mathieu Ball in the studio for the first time, the pieces are keenly layered with a rich tapestry of harmonics and tonal intricacies. The trio"s instinctual progressions made more vivid through live recording, harnessing the gargantuan and storied sound of their performances. Wattie writes: "All that I could reflect on was grief and hope; death and life; cause and effect; shared experiences of being a human person." The tenth album for the ensemble, in grief or in hope pays homage to their past while looking into their future. Together the trio shift deliver emotional momentum that vividly describes the complex and deep feelings of struggle, pain, and transcendence. in grief or in hope transmits that sense of humanity with every gesture.

Die Musik auf Horse Lords' "Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive!" wirkt zugleich unglaublich detailliert und zutiefst menschlich. Die zwölf versammelten Stücke sind vielschichtig, verflochten, tonal und rhythmisch komplex - moiré-artige Muster aus Interaktion und Verzahnung, die sich sowohl körperlich als auch geistig entfalten, voller klanglicher Gänge mit einem unausweichlichen Groove. Künstler sind nicht notwendigerweise Wissenschaftler, Logiker oder spirituelle Führer, doch durch ihr persönliches Verständnis von Ordnung und Erfahrung eröffnen sie einen unmittelbaren Zugang zu gesteigerten Zuständen von Materialität und Immaterialität. Horse Lords wurden 2010 in Baltimore gegründet; sie gingen aus einer anderen Gruppe namens Teeth Mountain hervor und starteten als Trio mit Gitarrist Owen Gardner, Bassist Max Eilbacher und Schlagzeuger Sam Haberman, bevor der Altsaxofonist Andrew Bernstein zum Kernensemble hinzustieß. Obwohl das Quartett aus einer fruchtbaren Noise- und Experimental-Rock-Szene hervorgegangen ist - einem legendären Umfeld für Künstler und Außenseiter, das viele einflussreiche Bands hervorgebracht hat (Lungfish, Matmos) - war ihr Ansatz über sechs Alben, zahlreiche Kollaborationen und als gefeierte Liveband weit vielseitiger, als es die punktierten Rhythmen instrumentaler elektrischer Rockmusik vermuten lassen. Für dieses Projekt wird die Band durch Bassklarinettistin Madison Greenstone, Posaunist Weston Olencki und - erstmals bei Horse Lords - durch Gesang von Nina Guo und Evelyn Saylor ergänzt. Der Entstehungsprozess von "D2BT2HA!" brachte geografische Hürden mit sich, da die vier Mitglieder seit 2021 in unterschiedlichen Städten leben. Nach sechzehn Jahren als funktionierende Band übersteigt ihre gemeinsame Sprache jedoch jeden Ort. Die aus Deutschland stammenden Gardner, Eilbacher und Bernstein trafen sich in Berlin für die Aufnahmen, während Haberman die Schlagzeugparts in Baltimore erarbeitete. Beim Hören würde man dies nicht unbedingt erkennen, und gemeinsames, räumlich getrenntes Arbeiten ist heutzutage ohnehin keine Seltenheit mehr. Die Band merkt an, dass "es wichtiger war, den Konzepten und Visionen der jeweils anderen zu vertrauen, als Abschnitte immer wieder zu spielen, um zu überprüfen, ob die Musik funktioniert - obwohl dieses Vertrauen nur durch sehr enges gemeinsames Arbeiten möglich wurde". Obwohl "D2BT2HA!" nicht im engeren Sinne eine Suite ist, beeinflusst und durchdringt sich die Musik in komplexen Verknüpfungen selbst. Horse Lords erklären: "Uns gefällt die Vorstellung von Kunst als Werkzeug zur Perspektivveränderung - dass man Ideen rotieren kann und sie aus einem anderen Blickpunkt sehen/hören/fühlen kann." Oder, wie es der Swami Satchidananda Saraswati zugeschriebene Satz ausdrückt: "Understanding is standing under where you are already standing." Das Eröffnungsstück ,Eureka 378-B" ist ein Arrangement von sakraler Harfenmusik aus dem 19. Jahrhundert, getragen vom Gesang von Guo und Saylor; seine Melodie entfaltet sich weit und setzt einen tonalen Startpunkt für vieles, was folgt. Dazu kommen die kurzen "Rotations", die Fragmente aus anderen Stücken isolieren. Offensichtlich tragen die Titel der Stücke einiges an Bedeutung, und "D2BT2HA!" bildet da keine Ausnahme - Transzendenz und Erhebung sind der Musik inhärent, und wenn jede Kunst politisch ist, so sind die Tendenzen von Horse Lords optimistisch und gemeinschaftsorientiert. Transformation und Neubetrachtung sind nicht nur kompositorische Strategien, sondern eine philosophische Haltung, was sich in Titeln wie ,A City Yet To Come", dem Titeltrack oder utopischen Bezügen zeigt. Wie sie selbst sagen: "Wir versuchen Musik zu machen, die den Status quo herausfordert und dem Hörer einen Weg zur Befreiung eröffnet. Das Studium und die Erforschung von Klang und Musik hat eine spirituelle und ekstatische Dimension, und wir haben große Ehrfurcht vor ihrer Wirkung auf den Einzelnen und die Welt." "D2BT2HA!" enthält unzählige klangliche und konzeptuelle Schichten, doch angesichts der unverkennbaren Kraft und Menschlichkeit der Musik ist der Prozess, sie zu entschlüsseln, begeisternd und zutiefst lohnend. Selten ist eine Platte, die einen so unmittelbar packt und zugleich bei jedem Hören vollkommen neu erscheint.

Die Musik auf Horse Lords' "Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive!" wirkt zugleich unglaublich detailliert und zutiefst menschlich. Die zwölf versammelten Stücke sind vielschichtig, verflochten, tonal und rhythmisch komplex - moiré-artige Muster aus Interaktion und Verzahnung, die sich sowohl körperlich als auch geistig entfalten, voller klanglicher Gänge mit einem unausweichlichen Groove. Künstler sind nicht notwendigerweise Wissenschaftler, Logiker oder spirituelle Führer, doch durch ihr persönliches Verständnis von Ordnung und Erfahrung eröffnen sie einen unmittelbaren Zugang zu gesteigerten Zuständen von Materialität und Immaterialität. Horse Lords wurden 2010 in Baltimore gegründet; sie gingen aus einer anderen Gruppe namens Teeth Mountain hervor und starteten als Trio mit Gitarrist Owen Gardner, Bassist Max Eilbacher und Schlagzeuger Sam Haberman, bevor der Altsaxofonist Andrew Bernstein zum Kernensemble hinzustieß. Obwohl das Quartett aus einer fruchtbaren Noise- und Experimental-Rock-Szene hervorgegangen ist - einem legendären Umfeld für Künstler und Außenseiter, das viele einflussreiche Bands hervorgebracht hat (Lungfish, Matmos) - war ihr Ansatz über sechs Alben, zahlreiche Kollaborationen und als gefeierte Liveband weit vielseitiger, als es die punktierten Rhythmen instrumentaler elektrischer Rockmusik vermuten lassen. Für dieses Projekt wird die Band durch Bassklarinettistin Madison Greenstone, Posaunist Weston Olencki und - erstmals bei Horse Lords - durch Gesang von Nina Guo und Evelyn Saylor ergänzt. Der Entstehungsprozess von "D2BT2HA!" brachte geografische Hürden mit sich, da die vier Mitglieder seit 2021 in unterschiedlichen Städten leben. Nach sechzehn Jahren als funktionierende Band übersteigt ihre gemeinsame Sprache jedoch jeden Ort. Die aus Deutschland stammenden Gardner, Eilbacher und Bernstein trafen sich in Berlin für die Aufnahmen, während Haberman die Schlagzeugparts in Baltimore erarbeitete. Beim Hören würde man dies nicht unbedingt erkennen, und gemeinsames, räumlich getrenntes Arbeiten ist heutzutage ohnehin keine Seltenheit mehr. Die Band merkt an, dass "es wichtiger war, den Konzepten und Visionen der jeweils anderen zu vertrauen, als Abschnitte immer wieder zu spielen, um zu überprüfen, ob die Musik funktioniert - obwohl dieses Vertrauen nur durch sehr enges gemeinsames Arbeiten möglich wurde". Obwohl "D2BT2HA!" nicht im engeren Sinne eine Suite ist, beeinflusst und durchdringt sich die Musik in komplexen Verknüpfungen selbst. Horse Lords erklären: "Uns gefällt die Vorstellung von Kunst als Werkzeug zur Perspektivveränderung - dass man Ideen rotieren kann und sie aus einem anderen Blickpunkt sehen/hören/fühlen kann." Oder, wie es der Swami Satchidananda Saraswati zugeschriebene Satz ausdrückt: "Understanding is standing under where you are already standing." Das Eröffnungsstück ,Eureka 378-B" ist ein Arrangement von sakraler Harfenmusik aus dem 19. Jahrhundert, getragen vom Gesang von Guo und Saylor; seine Melodie entfaltet sich weit und setzt einen tonalen Startpunkt für vieles, was folgt. Dazu kommen die kurzen "Rotations", die Fragmente aus anderen Stücken isolieren. Offensichtlich tragen die Titel der Stücke einiges an Bedeutung, und "D2BT2HA!" bildet da keine Ausnahme - Transzendenz und Erhebung sind der Musik inhärent, und wenn jede Kunst politisch ist, so sind die Tendenzen von Horse Lords optimistisch und gemeinschaftsorientiert. Transformation und Neubetrachtung sind nicht nur kompositorische Strategien, sondern eine philosophische Haltung, was sich in Titeln wie ,A City Yet To Come", dem Titeltrack oder utopischen Bezügen zeigt. Wie sie selbst sagen: "Wir versuchen Musik zu machen, die den Status quo herausfordert und dem Hörer einen Weg zur Befreiung eröffnet. Das Studium und die Erforschung von Klang und Musik hat eine spirituelle und ekstatische Dimension, und wir haben große Ehrfurcht vor ihrer Wirkung auf den Einzelnen und die Welt." "D2BT2HA!" enthält unzählige klangliche und konzeptuelle Schichten, doch angesichts der unverkennbaren Kraft und Menschlichkeit der Musik ist der Prozess, sie zu entschlüsseln, begeisternd und zutiefst lohnend. Selten ist eine Platte, die einen so unmittelbar packt und zugleich bei jedem Hören vollkommen neu erscheint.

Craig Bratley’s sophomore album, Return To Bass, has been a long-time gestating, with a whisky-like distill time in the musical barrels from whence this came. His debut was in 2014 and 12 years later here he is again, in the blink of a, er, Jurassic age. In that time, he’s gathered a good deal of experience, released several musically varied 12-inches, as well as having Andrew Weatherall remix a few of his efforts (not completely surprising, since The Guv’nor also played Craig’s music).

Bratley has spent the last few years honing his musical and technical skills which are evident on this album, as are his influences, which can be heard on his impressively consistent back catalogue, include Italo-disco, British electropop, acid house and a slowed down version of Chicago house that lends it a heroin crawl. Added to that, though, is the dub reggae sound championed by King Tubby, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and our own Dennis Bovell, which is much in evidence on this set.

It seems apposite, in the wake of the death of Sly Dunbar (and, less recently, his partner, Robbie Shakespeare) that Craig’s album is now appearing, since Bratley’s sound is imbued with a dub sensibility and the engine of the whole set is built around the thud that Sly & Robbie brought to their greatest productions; the song titles are clues: ‘Plasticine Dub’, ‘Return To Bass’ and ‘No In Between Dub’.

The LP Features standout vocals from Amy Douglas, Thomas Gandey, and Ola, plus funeral-march trumpet work by Tim Hutton.

2025 Reissue.



Münchenbuchsee, a suburb of Bern, Switzerland. Stephan Eicher is the youngest of three children. His father, a radio and TV repairman, is also a jazz violinist and a sound tinkerer in his spare time. In the family home's converted fallout shelter turned studio, Mr. Eicher experiments with homemade sequencers, tortures handcrafted drum machines, and abuses reel-to-reel tape recorders—all under the fascinated gaze of young Stephan.

The boy quickly develops a musical curiosity, exploring sound through various experiments and wanderings. Alongside his younger brother Martin, Stephan crafts audio plays on a homemade multi-track recorder (essentially several cassette decks hooked together!), which they write, record, add sound effects to, and perform for family and friends. Just a couple of nice kids, really...

Then comes 1972, and Lou Reed's Transformer album changes everything for the Eicher kids. For 13-year-old Stephan, it's a revelation—especially "Vicious", the opening track, which he plays on repeat for months. He convinces his father to buy him an electric guitar. Not stopping there, his father also builds him a tube amp using an old radio.

Then comes adolescence. A rough one. Stephan leaves home at 16 and moves to Zurich. With obvious artistic talent, he persuades his art teacher to help him get into F+F, a radical, alternative art school—despite his young age. Accepted, he starts learning video techniques, determined to become a filmmaker.

At F+F, Stephan organizes Dada-style happenings and concerts with a group of friends known as the Noise Boys. Among them: one of his teachers on bass, Veit Stauffer on drums (who would later found ReR/Recommended Records), his girlfriend Sacha on vocals, and Stephan on guitar. In one of their early performances, they release a remote-controlled mouse covered in dull razor blades into the audience to create panic and chaos. Keeping with this aggressive, confrontational spirit, they once played a concert while wearing headphones blasting Tristan and Isolde, trying to perform their own songs simultaneously—to maximize the cacophony. The goal was always the same: clear the room.

Their “songs,” if you can call them that, followed suit. Take "Hungeriges Afrika", for instance—performed entirely with power drills and some drum feedback.

To make ends meet, Stephan returns to Bern on weekends to work as a waiter at the Spex Club, the city’s main punk venue. On September 16, 1980, during a show by proto-electro group Starter, the police raid the club and arrest everyone. Stephan, who manages to avoid arrest, seizes the opportunity to “borrow” Starter’s gear left behind. He suddenly finds himself in possession of a Roland Promars synth, a Korg MS20, and a gorgeous CR78 drum machine, which he runs through a Big Muff distortion pedal to get that perfect gritty sound.

He then sets out to reinterpret some Noise Boys tracks, reworking them during impromptu sessions recorded on a dictaphone (yes, a dictaphone—now the lo-fi sound makes more sense, doesn’t it?). He ironically titles the resulting cassette "Stephan Eicher spielt Noise Boys" ("Stephan Eicher plays Noise Boys"). This gem features seven tracks, which are the ones reissued here.

Back in Zurich, he visits his friends Andrew Moore and Robert Vogel, who have a DIY cassette duplication setup. They make 25 copies of Stephan Eicher spielt Noise Boys for Stephan and his friends. Robert encourages him to visit Urs Steiger of Off Course Records and play him the tape.

Without much hope, Stephan shows up at Urs’s office. But Urs is instantly hooked and suggests releasing a 7” single. Due to space constraints, they reluctantly drop two of the seven tracks ("Hungeriges Afrika" and "One Second"). As for the musical score featured on the cover—it was randomly chosen and remains a mystery to this day. Calling all music theory nerds!

The 7-inch is pressed in 750 copies and released in the first week of December 1980—a date Stephan remembers well, as it’s the same week John Lennon was killed. Smartly, Urs sends a promo copy to François Murner, Switzerland’s answer to John Peel, who hosts a show on alternative station Sounds. Murner falls in love with the record and starts giving it airtime. To Stephan’s surprise, sales follow—and people actually seem interested in his music.

Even this modest underground success scares Stephan a bit. He stops making music for a year and moves to Bologna, where he works as a programmer at Radio Città, a feminist radio station.

Meanwhile, Stephan’s younger brother Martin, who’s also involved in the punk scene, joins the band Glueams as a singer and guitarist. Glueams, named after the fanzine run by two of its members (drummer Marco Repetto and bassist GT), eventually rebrands as Grauzone. Stephan is invited to their shows to project hacked Super 8 visuals live on stage.

Urs Steiger, now working on a compilation titled Swiss Wave – The Album, asks Grauzone to contribute alongside bands like Liliput, Jack and the Rippers, The Sick, and Ladyshave (Fall 1980).

For the album, Martin tasks Stephan with producing their recording sessions. Under Stephan's artistic direction, two tracks emerge: "Raum" and "Eisbär". During "Eisbär", Martin plays a minimalist bass line borrowed from post-punk band The Feelies (just an open string). Drummer Marco Repetto struggles to keep time. Later that evening, unhappy with the takes, Stephan builds a four-bar drum loop from a ¼-inch tape and uses it instead of the flawed original. He then adds bleepy synths and wind sounds to complete the track’s icy vibe before handing it over to Urs.

The Swiss Wave – The Album compilation is released quietly at first, but things snowball thanks to "Eisbär", which eventually becomes a smash hit—selling over 600,000 singles.

Meanwhile, Stephan plays in a rockabilly band called SMUV (named after Switzerland’s social security agency) and begins producing artists, including the debut album of Starter (1981), which includes a more pop-oriented version of "Minijupe".

By early 1982, Stephan starts spending time with the post-punk girl band Liliput (formerly Kleenex). They’re older than him, and he happily drives them around in his Renault Major, acting as their roadie.

By 1983, Grauzone—signed to the major label EMI, which turned out to be a misstep—is falling apart. Stephan begins to pivot toward a more mainstream pop sound with his debut solo album Les Chansons Bleues.

But that... is already another story.

Die Synthesistin und Komponistin Emily A. Sprague verbindet intuitive Klangstrukturen mit ausdrucksstarkem Songwriting und schafft so weitläufige Klangwelten, die unmittelbar und mitreißend sind. Nach ersten Experimenten mit Gitarre und Keyboard als Teenager gründete Sprague Anfang der 2010er Jahre die Indie-Band Florist, mit der sie ein treues Publikum gewann, bevor sie sich 2017 unter ihrem eigenen Namen auf Umwelt- und Ambient-Kompositionen verlegte. Zu ihren Veröffentlichungen zählen mehrere Alben aus beiden Projekten, zuletzt Florists ,Jellywish" und ,Cloud Time" aus dem Jahr 2025 sowie nun die EP ,Double Moon". ,Double Moon" zeichnet psychische und greifbare Landschaften als parallele Welten nach. Durch beschwörende Wiederholungen und durchscheinende Klangfluten ebnet Sprague einen initiatorischen Weg mit modularer Komplexität und lyrischer Weitsicht, untermalt von V Haddads transparenter Stimme. Mit instinktiver Präzision offenbart ,Double Moon" sensorische Weite durch viszerale, szenische Komposition. Geprägt von gepatchten Farbverläufen, frostigen Winkeln und warmen, melodischen Wellen dreht sich jeder Klang um den nächsten, taucht gleichzeitig auf und verschwindet wieder in einem fesselnden Klangbogen. Dieser Track bewegt sich in schillernder Subtilität - die Farbe der Nacht, die sich über den Himmel zieht und die Silhouetten beleuchtet, die sie erst möglich macht.Der mittlere Track, ,Dusk (How to Fly)", ist seinem Titel getreu ein subtiles und bewegendes Experiment, das den Ausklang des Tages heraufbeschwört, zusammen mit einem flüchtigen Anflug von Erhabenheit und der nahen Möglichkeit des Fliegens. Faszinierend in seiner nachdenklichen Drift und leuchtenden Bildsprache verschmilzt der Track sanft synthetisierte Fäden mit einem langsamen akustischen Rausch - eine Melodie, die in grenzenlose Richtungen treibt. Geleitet von Spragues unverwechselbarer Gesangskaskade und briefartigen Fäden webt sich eine beschwingte Sequenz mühelos von grundlegenden Erinnerungen zu einer weiten emotionalen Öffnung und fragt: Wie könnten wir auf andere Weise hier sein? Wie können wir überhaupt etwas fühlen?« ,Double Moon (Andras Dub)" verleiht Spragues Originalkomposition eine strahlende Note: Der australische Produzent Andrew Wilson, alias Andras und eine Hälfte von Wilson Tanner, verwandelt die Textur des Originaltracks durch tiefe, strahlende Rhythmen. Jeder Takt springt und zerstreut sich, um etwas völlig Neues zu erschaffen.