Search:sta’an

We kick off 2013 in style with an Ep from Kiiroy. It´s always exciting for us to be introduced to a new artist. Especially when we are blown away by their Music. For his debut on Cellaa Music Kirroy brings a bouncing track which is perfect for all floors. Please help this new label get off to the best of starts by listening well and leaving considered and constructive feedback. Thank you.

30 years old Kiiroy is using freaky instruments and concrete sounds, our lovely boy, always keepin his distinctive funky´n´groovy attitude. Deep, fresh and seductively satisfying, this tune was designed for the discerning Dancer.

A bumper remix is lead by Stefano Libelle who bring a trademark deep house tune with a weighty, warped bassline and euphoric break. Here he strips the original to it´s essential parts. The super dry kickdrum and percussion in combination with the dark bassline together create Stefano´s own deep-house vision.

deutsch:
Wir starten mit einer EP von Kiiroy stylisch ins Jahr 2013. Für uns war es schon immer aufregend, neue Künstler vorzustellen, ganz besonders, wenn uns ihre Musik umhaut. Für sein Debüt auf Cellaa Music präsentiert Kiiroy einen bouncigen Track, den man auf jeden Floor einsetzen kann. Wir bitten euch, unser neues Label bei seinem Start zu unterstützen, indem ihr euch den Track genau anhört und uns Vorschläge und konstruktive Kritik zukommen lasst. Vielen Dank!

Der 30-jährige Kiiroy verwendet eine freaky Instrumentierung und harte Sounds. Unser Liebling, der stets bei seinem bezeichnenden, funkigen und groovigen Stil bleibt. Die Melodie ist deep, frisch und verführerisch und somit ideal für den anspruchsvollen Zuhörer.

Stefano Libelle liefert mit seinem Remix ein schönes Deephouse-Stück ab. Mit einer deepen, verschrobenen Bassline und euphorischen Breaks reduziert er das Original aufs Wesentliche. Die supertrockene Kickdrum und die Percussion in Verbindung mit der dunklen Bassline sind die Zutaten von Stefanos ganz eigener Deephouse-Vision.

the tale of the mythic pentaki mountain has been engraved on a two-sided circular piece of wax. the north face of the peak is steep, abrasive, and has been the subject of many legends in the region. it is said that whoever would manage to climb it would find a plateau, leading to a place called "the single source of truth". considered as the ultimate goal by both psychedelic gurus and database optimization corporations, and as an ideal retirement destination for a couple of lost souls in search for coherence and objectivity, the source diffuses endless loops of haunted voices, apparently sampled from a discarded call center, running low on power, encouraging listeners to shorten cycles, deliver requests and improve user experience. it is also said that anyone climbing from the south side would never reach the summit or find his way to the plateau, and would always end up on a lower altitude than where he started. this topographical anomaly is probably the reason why the south face of the pentaki has always been favorited by locals, with its sunny weather and its luxurious vegetation flourishing along the soft downward slope, leading to a slow and peaceful end.

For release #5, Resista welcome another new face to the family; ex-Detroit resident and seasoned techno producer North Lake, who delivers two tracks that are quite a departure from the label's recent output. Starting life as a cacophony of string chords, 'Journey To The Centre of the Sun' gradually appears from this hazy mist, slowly picking up pace and blossoming into a cinematic, house-not-house epic and gently working its way around repeated 'to the centre' chants.
On the flip 'Insomnia' is the complete antithesis to it's a-side counterpart from the off. Opting for a dancefloor friendly tempo, North Lake crafts a moody and bass-heavy symphony of organic loops, subtle percussive samples, that will pull you in for the entire six and a half minutes.

DKMNTL letting out the celebration 12"s like fireworks ..this time it's the turn of Hundred20 (MCDE & Praterei team up!) and one of our personal favorites, Hunee turning in two awesome tracks...TIP!
Hundred20 - Minke Whale Congregation
Aka Felix Bergleiter and Danilo Plessow (Motor City Drum Ensemble). Analogue Chicago sounds for this one, resulting in a cut-the-crap-and-get-on-the-floorand-dance record. Pure bliss.

Hunee - The Lowest Animal Rising star Hunee digging up some oldschool sounds for his The Lowest Animal.
Nine-o-nine action and a string-laden climax do the job properly here. The 7.38 minutes are gone before you know it.

repressed now !!!!

Mentalics debut EP on his own imprint after his great Desperado EP on Microtonal which was remixed by Gabriel Ananda & Dominik Eulberg. Trippy and freaky techno with neverending build-up´s and some great glitching beats. Early support by Gabriel Ananda, Konrad Black, Xpansul, Jennifer Cardini, Mark Henning, Alland Byallo, Oliver Ho, Frankie, Perc, Jeff Samuel, Jamie Stevens, Terje Bakke, stephan bodzin, ...!!

start of the miditonal sub-label for reduced techno music - supported by gabriel ananda, troy pierce, paco osuna, dominik eulberg, ivan smagghe, holgi star, remute (denis karimani), renato figoli, tim xavier, perc, blood & tears, nudisco, chris fortier, joseph capriati, da fresh, david keno, xpansul and many many more !!!

Here at Tuff Kong Records we really like to push our boundaries and explore different sounds, we're passionate with music at 360° and so are these guys we have decided to bring to your attention. Dumbo Station is a nu-jazz ensemble out of Roma, Italy that we've met during a live jam with legendary MC Danno of historical roman hip-hop group Colle Der Fomento. They immediately caught our attention and after listening to this masterpiece we decided to collaborate with them and Roman jazz imprint AlfaMusic to release their debut full-length "Tirana Cafè" on limited edition vinyl. The 11 songs featured on their first studio effort will take you on a trip through different soundscapes with the quartet as your guide, joined by Italian talents the such as vocalist Davide Shorty as well as Maurizio Giammarco's sax and Elvio Ghigliordini's flute. These young fellas have managed to merge nu-jazz with soul, funk and modern sounds creating a true masterpiece.

Between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s, musicians across the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten created music that crossed stylistic boundaries, forming a close-knit network shaped by common histories and identities, while rarely receiving wider recognition.

From the psychedelic funk of local stars Sugar Ice Tea and Cryptus Confession to the Latin influences of visiting musicians like Puerto Rican star Mon Rivera via Surinamese-influenced soul and the garage rock of Los Honda, the islands nourished a huge array of styles and talent.

Antiyano Progresivo unfolds against the backdrop of a rapidly transforming Caribbean. During the twentieth century, oil industries, migration and tourism reshaped the islands, creating unparalleled cultural exchange while deepening social divisions. African, Latin American, North American and European musical traditions intertwined with local forms, producing a rich and distinctive musical landscape. Tambú, tumba, calypso and Caribbean dance music coexisted alongside soul, funk, psychedelic rock, reggae, Latin music and American and British pop. Musicians moved fluidly between these styles, developing sounds that were unmistakably local while remaining connected to wider currents across the Caribbean and beyond.

The period also coincided with growing movements for cultural and political self-determination. Events such as Curaçao's Trinta di Mei uprising in 1969, the emergence of Black Power movements and increasing calls for greater autonomy fostered renewed pride in African heritage, local languages and cultural expression. These ideas resonated through music, inspiring artists to challenge conventions and create work that reflected changing identities.

Nach dem durchschlagenden Erfolg ihres selbstbetitelten Debüts legt „Rise and Shine“ die Messlatte noch höher – mit prägnanterem Songwriting, furchtloser Musikalität und jenem Feuerwerk auf den sechs Saiten, das zum Markenzeichen der Band geworden ist. Es ist ein Album, das die Tradition des Lone Star ehrt, ohne sich von ihr einengen zu lassen. Hätte das texanische Gitarrenspiel eine definitive DNA, würde sie dem gemeinsamen Werdegang von Moore, Moeller und Dayton sehr ähnlich sehen. Seit mehr als drei Jahrzehnten hat jeder von ihnen seinen eigenen Weg durch Blues, Rock, Country und Americana beschritten. Moore brachte schwebende, gefühlvolle Psychedelia zurück in den Blues; Moeller bereicherte die Austin-Szene mit messerscharfem Funk und wildem Saitenbending; und Dayton injizierte Punkrock-Adrenalin in das Herz des Outlaw-Country. Insgesamt haben sie sich zu einer der spannendsten Gitarrenbands entwickelt, die Texas seit Jahren hervorgebracht hat. Seit der Veröffentlichung ihres Debüts haben sich die Texas Headhunters mit ihrer furchtlosen Mischung aus Blues, Rock, Country-Soul und Roots-Musik breite Anerkennung verdient. SiriusXM spielte gleichzeitig drei Songs der Band in den Sendungen „Outlaw Country“, „Bluesville“ und „Little Steven’s Underground Garage“, wo sie zudem die begehrte Auszeichnung „Coolest Song in the World“ erhielten. Auch die Kritiker zeigten sich begeistert. „Guitar World“ und „Guitar Player“ lobten das Trio als „Triple-Guitar-Threat“, das „die Lone-Star-Tradition am Leben erhält“, während „No Depression“ ihre Liebe zum „rauen Barroom-Blues“ feierte. „Goldmine“ bezeichnete sie als „das Original“, The Alternate Root erklärte: „Kein Füllmaterial, nur Riffs“, American Blues Scene lobte ihre „Vollgas-Rückkehr zu den Wurzeln“, und Blues Rock Review fasste es einfach zusammen: „Jedes einzelne Mitglied ist ein meisterhafter Musiker, aber als Trio sind sie außergewöhnlich.“ Mit „Rise and Shine“ beweisen die Texas Headhunters, dass authentische texanische Gitarrenmusik immer noch am besten laut, locker und kompromisslos lebendig serviert wird. Formate: - CD im Mini-Gatefold Sleeve inkl. bedruckter Innenhülle - Yellow Rose Vinyl inkl. bedruckter Innenhülle

A space is often described by its dimensions. The height of the ceiling, the expanse between walls. Division into functional elements of varying density follows. We have ideas of how such dimensions should be balanced to work well for sound — the classical concert hall, a Northward mastering room.

It’s tempting to try and use this idea of space to understand Space the group (Lisa Ullén, Elsa Bergman, Anna Lund). To calculate their cartesian co-ordinates: dynamics that run from whisper soft to punishing, shaking force; Ullén’s piano running the full expanse of the frequency spectrum; the mix of sudden, surprising and suggested variations in density (the space) that generates their musical structures.

But (a) space is a social phenomenon where meaning is accumulated and possibilities created by and through a constantly shifting set of social relations and their histories and entanglement inside and beyond the physical structures of a room or building. Reduced to its raw dimensions, Cafe OTO shouldn’t sound good: the low ceiling, the hollow void underneath the stage-not-stage, the hard glass windows out onto the street. But OTO as a social space — for gathering close to listen; the serious pursuit of a convivial good time (its productive mythology that an OTO audience is both up for it but also expects more); and then the idea of all that has happened before and what will come; that this is also part of ‘the music’ and changes what sounds to the point that none of those cartesian co-ordinates matter.**

It’s less of shock that Space sound good. Lisa Ullén is easily the most singular pianist in Sweden right now and Elsa and Anna’s ability to reroute in realtime reaffirms just how well they function as a group. The trio might have got their shit together holding down the rhythm section for the first incarnation of Anna Högberg Attack — but much like Högberg’s ongoing pursuit of artistic renewal, the trio avoid being shackled to any ideas about what a piano trio should be and there is something that happens (happened) in that room, on that night, with those people that made for something beyond just good.

It’s a gift that the sound of every concert at OTO gets recorded. A choice handful of these transcend their decoupling from that social space and radiate the room’s attendant energies. This record is one of them.

** See Jack Halberstam in Fred Moten & Stefano Harney, The Undercommons (2013): “…we must refuse the idea that music happens only when the musician enters and picks up an instrument; music is also the anticipation of the performance and the noises of appreciation it generates and the speaking that happens through and around it, making it and loving it, being in it while listening."

Bill & Gloria Gaither feiern gemeinsam mit ihren Homecoming Friends die Weihnachtszeit. Mit dabei sind zahlreiche Größen der Gospel-Szene, darunter Gaither Vocal Band, Lynda Randle, Jake Hess, The Isaacs und David Phelps. Die Sammlung vereint zeitlose Weihnachts- und Gospelklassiker wie „O Holy Night“, „White Christmas“ und „Mary, Did You Know?“.

Come Back Down, the new album by Nashville experimental-pop duo Total Wife, was born from the edge of sleep. When composer and producer Luna Kupper would begin to fall asleep during late-night mixing sessions, the songs would follow her into the halfway place between dream and lucidity. Like Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks, she'd wake with a new perspective on the puzzle she was piecing together. "I'm a psychological mixer - I'm trying to think of how someone's experiencing the sound, versus getting stuck in trying to make all these different tones and using all this gear to make something sound a certain way," Kupper says. And like a spiral from waking life into dream, the songs on Come Back Down are endlessly self-referential, building whole universes from a single point. Kupper sold all of her synths to make rent before she started working on the album, and so every inorganic sound is instead built from samples of the band's own work. A guitar on one song may be reprocessed and used as a synth on the next, while everywhere on the album vocal samples are taken from a single unreleased cover of Elliott Smith's 'Between the Bars.' In tribute to this process, the album was almost named The Julia Set after the mathematical equation which feeds into itself again and again, creating beautiful fractal images. The intention was to create something complex but accessible; experimental, yet precise and without abstraction. In her lyrics, too, lyricist and vocalist Ash Richter is as straightforward as she's ever been. She drew on her experience of pandemic isolation to write about connection and disconnection, using her lyrics as a tool for the communication that was missing in everyday life. On the soaring, shoegazey track 'peaches,' a storm that forced the cancellation of a recording session became a metaphor for emotional distance. 'still asleep' chronicles Richter's euphoria after Total Wife's first tour, and watches it begin to curdle into paranoia. "Thank the full moon, my heart is overflowing," she sings, before: "Is there such a thing as too happy?" The experience of isolation was prompting Richter to think back to her childhood, a time marked for her by solitude and natural play - climbing trees, making mud pies, getting lost in the woods. On tracks like 'in my head' and 'second spring,' she uses the imagery of nature to recall that time and forge a connection with her lonely inner child. "I feel connected with transcendentalist writing and magical realism - trying to convey things in a concrete way, but with that element of psychology and mystery," she says. Richter and Kupper, friends from high school, formed Total Wife in 2016, relocating from Boston to Nashville in 2020. Both are visual artists as well as musicians, which they incorporate into their work with Total Wife via layered and purposeful visuals. A DIY streak underpins everything that they do - from handling their own artwork and music videos to recording their own music, releasing tapes through their label Ivy Eat Home, and hosting house shows in the basement they've christened Ryman 2. In Nashville they've settled into a weirdo scene living under the record industry's floorboards, a hive of collaborative and creative energy that has made them excited to call the city home. They also assembled a live band for the first time shortly after moving to Nashville, consisting of Ryan Bigelow, Sean Booz and Billy Campbell - injecting their creative process with a jolt of spontaneity and aliveness that has fed back into Come Back Down.

Come Back Down, the new album by Nashville experimental-pop duo Total Wife, was born from the edge of sleep. When composer and producer Luna Kupper would begin to fall asleep during late-night mixing sessions, the songs would follow her into the halfway place between dream and lucidity. Like Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks, she'd wake with a new perspective on the puzzle she was piecing together. "I'm a psychological mixer - I'm trying to think of how someone's experiencing the sound, versus getting stuck in trying to make all these different tones and using all this gear to make something sound a certain way," Kupper says. And like a spiral from waking life into dream, the songs on Come Back Down are endlessly self-referential, building whole universes from a single point. Kupper sold all of her synths to make rent before she started working on the album, and so every inorganic sound is instead built from samples of the band's own work. A guitar on one song may be reprocessed and used as a synth on the next, while everywhere on the album vocal samples are taken from a single unreleased cover of Elliott Smith's 'Between the Bars.' In tribute to this process, the album was almost named The Julia Set after the mathematical equation which feeds into itself again and again, creating beautiful fractal images. The intention was to create something complex but accessible; experimental, yet precise and without abstraction. In her lyrics, too, lyricist and vocalist Ash Richter is as straightforward as she's ever been. She drew on her experience of pandemic isolation to write about connection and disconnection, using her lyrics as a tool for the communication that was missing in everyday life. On the soaring, shoegazey track 'peaches,' a storm that forced the cancellation of a recording session became a metaphor for emotional distance. 'still asleep' chronicles Richter's euphoria after Total Wife's first tour, and watches it begin to curdle into paranoia. "Thank the full moon, my heart is overflowing," she sings, before: "Is there such a thing as too happy?" The experience of isolation was prompting Richter to think back to her childhood, a time marked for her by solitude and natural play - climbing trees, making mud pies, getting lost in the woods. On tracks like 'in my head' and 'second spring,' she uses the imagery of nature to recall that time and forge a connection with her lonely inner child. "I feel connected with transcendentalist writing and magical realism - trying to convey things in a concrete way, but with that element of psychology and mystery," she says. Richter and Kupper, friends from high school, formed Total Wife in 2016, relocating from Boston to Nashville in 2020. Both are visual artists as well as musicians, which they incorporate into their work with Total Wife via layered and purposeful visuals. A DIY streak underpins everything that they do - from handling their own artwork and music videos to recording their own music, releasing tapes through their label Ivy Eat Home, and hosting house shows in the basement they've christened Ryman 2. In Nashville they've settled into a weirdo scene living under the record industry's floorboards, a hive of collaborative and creative energy that has made them excited to call the city home. They also assembled a live band for the first time shortly after moving to Nashville, consisting of Ryan Bigelow, Sean Booz and Billy Campbell - injecting their creative process with a jolt of spontaneity and aliveness that has fed back into Come Back Down.

De Kloe: their name is as hard to explain as the music they channel from a total oddball universe. Rumour has it a wormhole sits hidden between the beer crates and a broken dartboard in the basement of the DPG Media building in Antwerp. Leon Jespers, Elian Van den Eynde and Midas Heuvinck stepped through and came back with De Kloe’s first full-length album.

Needless to say, De Kloe operates in the cracks - splicing obscure samples, fractured lyrics, jagged basslines, and serrated guitar riffs into something volatile and alive. Club rhythms pulse underneath, but nothing stays in place for long. Tracks mutate, structures dissolve, and both live and on record the band leans into instinct over control.

After the singles ‘Our House’ & ‘The Fish’ the trio finally presents their debut album ‘Vanity Fair’: more extravaganza tunes you didn’t know you need it, but soon will be addicted to.

A place where pop music collides with dubbed out samplemania, short sharp no wave riffs, sun-gazing psychedelica, 90’s indie sleaze, post everything vibes and endless sonic fun & happiness.

Some people would say Vanity Fair is a musical exploration of glossy machinery, the dacay of celebrity and a secret wink to John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress where
everything is on display and nothing is quite what it seems.

Other will say ‘Vanity Fair’ is a splendid record with 12 marvelous songs you just have to listen to and buy it because your life will only gets better from then on.

We believe both of them.

Credits
All songs written and produced by De Kloe
Elian Van den Eynde: guitar
Leon Jespers: electronica & keyboard
Midas Heuvinck: bass

Guest musicians
Kiara Govaert & Nina Brügger: vocals
Kiara Govaert: ocarina
Co-production and mixing by Martijn De Bondt
Recording by Simon Beeckaert
Mastering by Gert Van Hoof
Graphic design and layout cover by Leon Jespers

Common Primitives is the second collaborative album between Andy Bell (Ride guitarist, Oasis bassist) and Essex-based harp and synth duo Masal. It’s a stunning, meditative collection which veers from kosmische to astral jazz by way of Turkish folk tunes and all the way back again.


Their first outing, 2023’s acclaimed Tidal Love Numbers, consisted of four lengthy and almost ambient tracks and is included here on vinyl for the first time as part of a two-record set with the new album. By contrast, the seven tracks that make up Common Primitives are almost concise, but also a lot more layered and complex.


“We tend to work from initial, free-jammed ideas, building form and arrangement from there,” explains Masal’s Al Johnson. “Above all, we believe you should go where the vibe takes you.”


For Andy, that vibe was very much jazz legend Pharoah Sanders’ classic 1977 album Pharoah, which was reissued a few years ago.


“It puts me into a hypnotic state,” he explains. “That’s why I worked with more guitar loops on this record. The Tisziji Muñoz part on ‘Harvest Time’ has had me in a vice-like grip for the last three years and it arrives here via the Vini Reilly filter.”


For Özlem Simsek, there is nostalgia, too, and she even adds vocals as well as her heavenly harp to the opening track, ‘After Kâtibim’, based on a traditional Turkish folk song she had sung as a child growing up in Istanbul.


From there, the album takes us on a real journey, with the apt, impressionistic titles added by Andy once it had all been pieced together. There’s the beautiful, elegant ‘I Swear We Are Infinite’; the atmospheric ‘Yuzuki Fighting Spirit’ and the beatific ‘Soap And Water’. ‘Tower Of Babylon’ was named after the novelette by Ted Chiang, its structured creation reflecting that in the story; first single ‘The Morning Of The Trip’ finds Andy playing his guitar “as if it was a waterfall”. The journey ends with ‘Rudi’s Dream – The Third Bardo’, the trio accelerating onto the autobahn for a krautrock crescendo inspired by their studio’s resident cat.

Common Primitives is the second collaborative album between Andy Bell (Ride guitarist, Oasis bassist) and Essex-based harp and synth duo Masal. It’s a stunning, meditative collection which veers from kosmische to astral jazz by way of Turkish folk tunes and all the way back again.


Their first outing, 2023’s acclaimed Tidal Love Numbers, consisted of four lengthy and almost ambient tracks and is included here on vinyl for the first time as part of a two-record set with the new album. By contrast, the seven tracks that make up Common Primitives are almost concise, but also a lot more layered and complex.


“We tend to work from initial, free-jammed ideas, building form and arrangement from there,” explains Masal’s Al Johnson. “Above all, we believe you should go where the vibe takes you.”


For Andy, that vibe was very much jazz legend Pharoah Sanders’ classic 1977 album Pharoah, which was reissued a few years ago.


“It puts me into a hypnotic state,” he explains. “That’s why I worked with more guitar loops on this record. The Tisziji Muñoz part on ‘Harvest Time’ has had me in a vice-like grip for the last three years and it arrives here via the Vini Reilly filter.”


For Özlem Simsek, there is nostalgia, too, and she even adds vocals as well as her heavenly harp to the opening track, ‘After Kâtibim’, based on a traditional Turkish folk song she had sung as a child growing up in Istanbul.


From there, the album takes us on a real journey, with the apt, impressionistic titles added by Andy once it had all been pieced together. There’s the beautiful, elegant ‘I Swear We Are Infinite’; the atmospheric ‘Yuzuki Fighting Spirit’ and the beatific ‘Soap And Water’. ‘Tower Of Babylon’ was named after the novelette by Ted Chiang, its structured creation reflecting that in the story; first single ‘The Morning Of The Trip’ finds Andy playing his guitar “as if it was a waterfall”. The journey ends with ‘Rudi’s Dream – The Third Bardo’, the trio accelerating onto the autobahn for a krautrock crescendo inspired by their studio’s resident cat.

Robert Nasveld (*1955 Utrecht) studied piano at the Utrecht Conservatory with Polo de Haas, Sas Bunge and Herman Uhlhorn, composition with Joep Straesser, and electronic music with Ton Bruynèl. After completing his piano studies, Robert Nasveld specialised in 20th-century repertoire, with a particular focus on Dutch, Russian and American music. He achieved international fame as a pianist for his interpretations of the works of the American composer George Crumb, which led to invitations to perform at various events, including the Warsaw Autumn Festival (1990). His connection with George Crumb also enabled him to produce a seven-hour live broadcast of Crumb's music for VPRO radio in 1986 and a television program with the composer. Nasveld recorded the complete works for one piano by George Crumb, which was released by the Attacca label in 1991. He has given concerts in Europe, Russia, and the United States.

Nasveld was also a member of the Orgella Quartet, founded in 1976 (with Margaret Krill, Polo de Haas, and Niek de Vente), Piano Kwadraat, and the Netherlands Pianists Quartet (with Marian Bolt, Corien van den Berg, and Niek de Vente). These ensembles specialised in performing music for two eight-handed pianos. He also collaborated with several vocalists, including Claron McFadden, Marjanne Kweksilber, and Liesbeth List (tour 1983/'84). Due to multiple sclerosis, he retired from performing in 1998.

From 1988 to 2021 Robert Nasveld worked for Dutch national radio (NOS/NPS/NTR) as a program producer for NPO Klassiek. Until 2004, he was editor of Supplement, which received the Silver Reiss Microphone in 1996, the highest award for a radio program, for its adventurous and innovative programming. Robert Nasveld also programmed concept evenings at Muziekcentrum Vredenburg, featuring contemporary music performed by soloists, ensembles, and the broadcasting orchestras for NOS/NPS. From 2019 until his retirement in 2021, he presented a series of podcasts for NTR/NPO Radio 4 about electronic music pioneers. The three compositions on this LP are the only tape pieces recorded by Nasveld. They were created at Ton Bruynèl’s studio at the Utrecht Conservatory and the Institute for Sonology in Utrecht.

Five years after establishing himself as one of the UK's most distinctive selectors, Bloom marks the beginning of a new chapter for Yung Singh. More than a debut EP, it introduces EKTA his own label and creative world, built around the Panjabi concept of unity and the belief that dance music can be a meeting point for cultures, histories and new ideas.

Rather than treating heritage as something to preserve behind glass, Bloom places it at the centre of contemporary club music. Drawing inspiration from Panjabi folk traditions, Indian classical rhythms and centuries-old musical practices, Singh reimagines these influences through a modern electronic framework without reducing them to nostalgia or tokenism. The visual identity mirrors this philosophy, taking cues from Phulkari embroidery "flower work" passed down through his own family and connecting those traditions with the idea of growth, renewal and the arrival of a new creative season.

Finalised while touring Panjab during Basant, the festival celebrating the arrival of spring, Bloom became both a personal and artistic statement: the first release on a label intended not to represent one culture alone, but to create space for many. As Singh explains:

"EKTA as a name really sums up what I love about music and arts in general: unity and oneness. I want the label to be a sonic universe where artists bring their specific heritage into a modern club framework. It's about merging diverse folk traditions to treat these sounds not as relics, but as the future of dance music."

Across three tracks, Bloom presents different perspectives of that vision. 'NUG46' transforms field recordings captured in New Zealand into a meditative piece built around hypnotic tabla and razor-sharp jungle rhythms. 'Situationz' pays tribute to legendary Panjabi artist Sukshinder Shinda through the driving "Shinda Break", recontextualising a rhythm instantly recognisable to generations of listeners into a high-energy club weapon. Closing the record, 'Tabla Trouble' leans fully into organic instrumentation, layering classical percussion, strings, flutes and vocals into a composition that defines the open-ended musical language of EKTA.

Bloom is not simply the first release on a new label. It is the foundation of a wider vision one that looks to the past not for comfort, but for inspiration, using tradition as a catalyst for imagining the future of dance music.

"Life Is Beautiful Again" is the debut album of Nadine El Roubi, a Sudanese-born, New York-based singer, rapper, songwriter, and multidisciplinary artist.
The album is the culmination of music created over the last three to four years. While the album can be categorized as primarily neo-soul, its true genre remains fluid — shaped by influences in hip-hop, neo-soul,and indie music.

Both melancholic and powerful, introspective and self-assured, Life Is Beautiful Again explores personal and external chaos, womanhood, belonging, and the determination to maintain faith through struggle. Thematically, it marks a shift from her previous work. Where earlier releases were overtly political, defiant, and outward-facing, this album turns inward. It is softer, more reflective, and rooted in the belief that vulnerability can be its own form of strength.

Written and recorded over three years across four cities, the album carries the imprint of many different versions of a Sudanese woman navigating change, loss, love, ambition, and growth, these songs became a way of making sense of the world.
At its core, the album’s message is simple: even through the ugliest of times, life will always become beautiful again.

Leading the charge was a young band from West London called Pressure Point, whose debut single Mellow Moods caused a real stir on its release in 1985. The Stan Getz-inspired bossa nova was released initially on Viceroy Records, and immediately punched well above its weight, thanks to the considerable talents of producer Steve James, vocalist Lydia Gayle and some of London's leading session musicians: saxophonists Jamie Talbot and Ian Trimmer, trumpeter Steve Sidwell and his brother, trombonist Neil, and keyboard player Simon Etchells. It quickly became Capital Radio's 'People's Choice', winning praise on air from the likes of Kid Creole himself - August Darnell - and went on to be re-released by Bellaphon in Germany and by Gilles Peterson's HardBack Records. It is widely viewed as a rare groove classic, with copies changing hands for hefty sums in the following decades. London- based Pressure Point's core members were Matthew Best, Anthony 'Hugo' Longden and Sean Maher, who went on to work with Soul Legend Miss PP Arnold to complete 'Dreaming', a now legendary and as yet unreleased 1989 album

he Congos possess what all bands look for, that unique distinctive sound that draws the listener in. Alongside the great songs, lead singer Cedric Myton's singing, phasing and falsetto voice makes that just the case.
The Congos were formed by Cedric Myton (b. 1947, St Catherine, Jamaica) around the mid-Seventies when the
Rasta message was central to the reggae sound coming out of Kingston, Jamaica. But he had started out in the
Rocksteady era, when he formed the vocal group 'Tartans', taking lead vocal duties alongside Devon Russell, Prince Lincoln Thompson and Lindbergh Lewis.They cut 'Dance All Night' (1967) and 'Coming On Strong' (1968). The line-Up became The Royal Rasses and from this Cedric moved on to form the Congos on meeting Roydel Johnson, who had previously sang with Ras Michael and the Sons of Negas. Cedric's Rasta roots were firmly in place when he went to work with producer Lee Perry to cut the seminal album 'Heart Of The Congos' at Perry's just built, Black Ark Studios in 1977. Cedric Myton has carried on the mantle, cutting a set of tunes with the help of his good friend Mr Brent Dowe, who had previously sang lead vocals with the Melodians.This is the Dub set to the vocal album released on the Kingston
Sounds label called 'The Congos Feast'(KS008).With such strong songs, rhythms and vocals it always had the chemistry for a great dub set. Hope you agree and enjoy the dub excursion...

Environments are sticky, they stick to whatever happens within them. They can’t help it. And neither can you.

Land of the Few and Far Between / Songs for St. Michel is a collection of musical ‘figures’ written and recorded in 2022 and 2023 using a method Lyckle and Kim call the ‘snelkookpan’, translated as the pressure cooker. The ’snelkookpan’ in essence is trying to write and live-record as many musical figures in a given timeframe in a specific place. For ‘Land of the Few and Far Between’ this was an afternoon and evening in an exhibition Kim had curated about collecting and memory in The Hague. For ‘Songs of St. Michel’ this was 6 days in the basement of an art institution in Maastricht where they were joined by Otto de Jong on guitar. The figures are usually worked out by ear, sometimes improvised, sometimes written down, but often they are simply remembered and soon after recording forgotten. For ‘Land of the Few and Far Between’ they recorded ten figures. For ‘Songs for St. Michel’ fifteen. Of each a selection of five ended up on this seven inch.

F. van Abeelen (one of whom’s drawings is pictured on the sleeve of this seven inch and of whom 750 drawings were part of the exhibition mentioned above) was forced as a boy to hide in a basement for years. Only a small window gave access to the outside world. That sliver was his reality. After these years in hiding he began drawing his sliver of reality obsessively. Daily series of similar drawings that he would meticulously catalogue in an organizer. We never met F. Our friend who discovered the drawings in a closet of psychiatric nursing home Dorestad never met F. We only recorded ten musical figures next to 750 drawings by F.

St. Michel is a house that stands on the outskirts of Maastricht. It is built on the floodplains of the river Maas and living there you see the river change daily. It is a river fed by rain. No rain means a low river. Rain means a river that sometimes comes frighteningly close to flooding. Which it sometimes does. Due to the ebb and flow of the Maas, stuff is deposited in the boggy areas that are its floodplains. A shoe, a CD, a drone, some wood.

Places impress themselves onto what you are doing. You become an unwitting prop in the place’s story.

The first ‘snelkookpan’ happened in 2017 in the water-basin of one of the earliest concrete structures in the Netherlands; a bunker that was part of Amsterdam’s defensive line, built around the 1890’s. Something that used to house water was now empty. For three days Kim and Lyckle recorded improvised music there, which is still alive on a hard drive somewhere. In 2020 they recorded ‘the third of May’ at an old pumping station in Den Helder; an eleven part piece of auditory historical-horror which was released by South of North in 2024. Since 2023 Lyckle and Kim have mainly recorded live shows. With a Clarinet, kawai K1, Ipad, organelle, samplers and a variety of instruments curated for their minimal size or odd sound they’ve made chains of brief and improvised mini compositions inspired by browsing environments (digital and otherwise).

Land of the Few and Far Between / Songs for St. Michel adds to this growing collection of recordings for environments that are somehow sticky.

Mit A Kind Wave präsentiert Kid Francescoli sein bislang persönlichstes und klanglich vielseitigstes Album. Als zusammenhängende emotionale Reise erzählt das Werk von Liebe, Heimatgefühl, unvergesslichen Sommern, Fernweh und Heilung.

Zwischen Pop, Bossa Nova, Dance und cineastischen Klangwelten entstehen atmosphärische Songs, bereichert durch die Mitwirkung von Andréa, DEMIGOD und Samantha Alma Real. Begleitet von einer europäischen Tournee mit über 50 Konzerten unterstreicht A Kind Wave eindrucksvoll die künstlerische Reife des französischen Musikers.

Tramhaus aus Rotterdam wurden nach der Veröffentlichung ihres Debütalbums "The First Exit" (2024) und zahlreichen Shows in ganz Europa (und weit darüber hinaus!) bereits als "DIE holländische Post-Punk-Sensation" beschrieben und wahrgenommen. Im Oktober 2026 erscheint das neue Album "Blister" bei Siluh Records. Die Band bewegt sich seit ihrer Gründung 2020 zwischen treibendem Post-Hardcore und Indierock-/Shoegaze-Anleihen, garniert mit einem Schuss kalkulierter Dissonanz. Dabei verorten sich Tramhaus, über die musikalischen Einflüsse hinaus, explizit als Teil einer organisch gewachsenen, internationalen Szene, eines Netzwerks aus unabhängigen Agenturen, Labels und Veranstaltern mit deren Hilfe die Band nach der Veröffentlichung ihres Debütalbums innerhalb ein, zwei Jahren zum Szene-Tipp und must-see avancierte. Kraftvoll, laut und selbstbewusst gewinnt Blister bei wiederholtem Hören an Format. Das Album besticht durch eine neue Eleganz sowie spürbarem Raumgefühl und enormer Wucht. Dies rührt zum Teil aus einer gewachsenen, detailierteren Produktion her, die auch die vielen Zwischentöne einfängt. Die schwindelerregende Natur des fast zweijährigen, ununterbrochenen Reisens spiegelt sich im Titel des ungeduldigen Eröffnungsstücks "Plovdiv" wider (ein Ort, an dem sie übrigens tatsächlich gespielt haben): Ein Glam-artiger Stampf-Rhythmus und eine federnde Basslinie treiben eine Reihe bedrohlicher Gitarrenriffs voran - Elemente, die allesamt jenen Sound widerspiegeln, mit dem Tramhaus in letzter Zeit die Konzertbühnen in Schutt und Asche gelegt haben. Auch weitere Stücke wie "Rat Race" und "I Was Never Alone" klingen ganz ähnlich. Die langsameren Titel des Albums offenbaren bisweilen eine ,rockistische" Erhabenheit, die sie zuvor lediglich angedeutet hatten: vielleicht im Stil der Pixies oder der späten Nirvana (man höre und staune!) - oder, an anderer Stelle als leises Flüstern, das an Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds erinnert. "Overachiever, Big Believer" und "Sly (Like Ever)" zeichnen sich durch eine beißende, knurrende Grundstimmung sowie geduldig ausgearbeitete Melodielinien aus - Eigenschaften, die im Jahr 1991 zweifellos hervorragend ins musikalische Zeitbild gepasst hätten. An anderer Stelle besticht "Solace" mit seinem offenen Akkordanschlag durch eine lässige Attitüde, die direkt einem Stück der Saints oder der Bad Seeds entstammen könnte. Das Beste wird sich für den Schluss aufgehoben: Bei "Swarm" bricht nach einem monolithischen, an die frühen Pere Ubu erinnernden Bass-Grollen ein grandioses, Sabbath-artiges Riff über den Hörer herein. Es ist ein hymnisches, transzendentes Stück, das in früheren Zeiten ein garantierter Hit gewesen wäre - eine Single, die Teenager auf der ganzen Welt dazu animiert hätte, ihre Air-Guitar-Künste vor Mamas Schlafzimmerspiegel zu perfektionieren. Also, das zweite Album der genau richtig neben dem Mainstream verorteten Postpunk-Niederländer*innen nicht verpassen!

Tramhaus aus Rotterdam wurden nach der Veröffentlichung ihres Debütalbums "The First Exit" (2024) und zahlreichen Shows in ganz Europa (und weit darüber hinaus!) bereits als "DIE holländische Post-Punk-Sensation" beschrieben und wahrgenommen. Im Oktober 2026 erscheint das neue Album "Blister" bei Siluh Records. Die Band bewegt sich seit ihrer Gründung 2020 zwischen treibendem Post-Hardcore und Indierock-/Shoegaze-Anleihen, garniert mit einem Schuss kalkulierter Dissonanz. Dabei verorten sich Tramhaus, über die musikalischen Einflüsse hinaus, explizit als Teil einer organisch gewachsenen, internationalen Szene, eines Netzwerks aus unabhängigen Agenturen, Labels und Veranstaltern mit deren Hilfe die Band nach der Veröffentlichung ihres Debütalbums innerhalb ein, zwei Jahren zum Szene-Tipp und must-see avancierte. Kraftvoll, laut und selbstbewusst gewinnt Blister bei wiederholtem Hören an Format. Das Album besticht durch eine neue Eleganz sowie spürbarem Raumgefühl und enormer Wucht. Dies rührt zum Teil aus einer gewachsenen, detailierteren Produktion her, die auch die vielen Zwischentöne einfängt. Die schwindelerregende Natur des fast zweijährigen, ununterbrochenen Reisens spiegelt sich im Titel des ungeduldigen Eröffnungsstücks "Plovdiv" wider (ein Ort, an dem sie übrigens tatsächlich gespielt haben): Ein Glam-artiger Stampf-Rhythmus und eine federnde Basslinie treiben eine Reihe bedrohlicher Gitarrenriffs voran - Elemente, die allesamt jenen Sound widerspiegeln, mit dem Tramhaus in letzter Zeit die Konzertbühnen in Schutt und Asche gelegt haben. Auch weitere Stücke wie "Rat Race" und "I Was Never Alone" klingen ganz ähnlich. Die langsameren Titel des Albums offenbaren bisweilen eine ,rockistische" Erhabenheit, die sie zuvor lediglich angedeutet hatten: vielleicht im Stil der Pixies oder der späten Nirvana (man höre und staune!) - oder, an anderer Stelle als leises Flüstern, das an Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds erinnert. "Overachiever, Big Believer" und "Sly (Like Ever)" zeichnen sich durch eine beißende, knurrende Grundstimmung sowie geduldig ausgearbeitete Melodielinien aus - Eigenschaften, die im Jahr 1991 zweifellos hervorragend ins musikalische Zeitbild gepasst hätten. An anderer Stelle besticht "Solace" mit seinem offenen Akkordanschlag durch eine lässige Attitüde, die direkt einem Stück der Saints oder der Bad Seeds entstammen könnte. Das Beste wird sich für den Schluss aufgehoben: Bei "Swarm" bricht nach einem monolithischen, an die frühen Pere Ubu erinnernden Bass-Grollen ein grandioses, Sabbath-artiges Riff über den Hörer herein. Es ist ein hymnisches, transzendentes Stück, das in früheren Zeiten ein garantierter Hit gewesen wäre - eine Single, die Teenager auf der ganzen Welt dazu animiert hätte, ihre Air-Guitar-Künste vor Mamas Schlafzimmerspiegel zu perfektionieren. Also, das zweite Album der genau richtig neben dem Mainstream verorteten Postpunk-Niederländer*innen nicht verpassen! Dieses frisch grüne Vinyl ist limitiert (100 Stück weltweit)!

Tramhaus aus Rotterdam wurden nach der Veröffentlichung ihres Debütalbums "The First Exit" (2024) und zahlreichen Shows in ganz Europa (und weit darüber hinaus!) bereits als "DIE holländische Post-Punk-Sensation" beschrieben und wahrgenommen. Im Oktober 2026 erscheint das neue Album "Blister" bei Siluh Records. Die Band bewegt sich seit ihrer Gründung 2020 zwischen treibendem Post-Hardcore und Indierock-/Shoegaze-Anleihen, garniert mit einem Schuss kalkulierter Dissonanz. Dabei verorten sich Tramhaus, über die musikalischen Einflüsse hinaus, explizit als Teil einer organisch gewachsenen, internationalen Szene, eines Netzwerks aus unabhängigen Agenturen, Labels und Veranstaltern mit deren Hilfe die Band nach der Veröffentlichung ihres Debütalbums innerhalb ein, zwei Jahren zum Szene-Tipp und must-see avancierte. Kraftvoll, laut und selbstbewusst gewinnt Blister bei wiederholtem Hören an Format. Das Album besticht durch eine neue Eleganz sowie spürbarem Raumgefühl und enormer Wucht. Dies rührt zum Teil aus einer gewachsenen, detailierteren Produktion her, die auch die vielen Zwischentöne einfängt. Die schwindelerregende Natur des fast zweijährigen, ununterbrochenen Reisens spiegelt sich im Titel des ungeduldigen Eröffnungsstücks "Plovdiv" wider (ein Ort, an dem sie übrigens tatsächlich gespielt haben): Ein Glam-artiger Stampf-Rhythmus und eine federnde Basslinie treiben eine Reihe bedrohlicher Gitarrenriffs voran - Elemente, die allesamt jenen Sound widerspiegeln, mit dem Tramhaus in letzter Zeit die Konzertbühnen in Schutt und Asche gelegt haben. Auch weitere Stücke wie "Rat Race" und "I Was Never Alone" klingen ganz ähnlich. Die langsameren Titel des Albums offenbaren bisweilen eine ,rockistische" Erhabenheit, die sie zuvor lediglich angedeutet hatten: vielleicht im Stil der Pixies oder der späten Nirvana (man höre und staune!) - oder, an anderer Stelle als leises Flüstern, das an Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds erinnert. "Overachiever, Big Believer" und "Sly (Like Ever)" zeichnen sich durch eine beißende, knurrende Grundstimmung sowie geduldig ausgearbeitete Melodielinien aus - Eigenschaften, die im Jahr 1991 zweifellos hervorragend ins musikalische Zeitbild gepasst hätten. An anderer Stelle besticht "Solace" mit seinem offenen Akkordanschlag durch eine lässige Attitüde, die direkt einem Stück der Saints oder der Bad Seeds entstammen könnte. Das Beste wird sich für den Schluss aufgehoben: Bei "Swarm" bricht nach einem monolithischen, an die frühen Pere Ubu erinnernden Bass-Grollen ein grandioses, Sabbath-artiges Riff über den Hörer herein. Es ist ein hymnisches, transzendentes Stück, das in früheren Zeiten ein garantierter Hit gewesen wäre - eine Single, die Teenager auf der ganzen Welt dazu animiert hätte, ihre Air-Guitar-Künste vor Mamas Schlafzimmerspiegel zu perfektionieren. Also, das zweite Album der genau richtig neben dem Mainstream verorteten Postpunk-Niederländer*innen nicht verpassen! Dieses frisch grüne Vinyl ist limitiert (100 Stück weltweit)!

„Öd“ marks the long-awaited return of Institut für Feinmotorik - the Black Forest collective known for using eight prepared turntables to investigate acoustic micro-phenomena generated by everyday objects - with a new album and their first full-length release on Faitiche. It is also the return of their almost comical understatement as personal artistic principle: „making almost nothing out of almost nothing,“ compressed into the dots on an umlaut.

The Öd-nis, the wasteland, is a field that the collective has been ploughing in sound since their first release in 1997. Eight prepared turntables, four mixers, no records, six hands (give or take) merge into what they call the „Octogrammoticum“. A rotating organism of surfaces in friction, fed with the clutter from a drawer: rubber bands or tin foil, CDs, a discarded socket board. Under IFF's scrutinizing stylus, mundane almost-nothings get scratched open to reveal the acoustic density of negative space itself.

Last year’s „Adhesive Tape“ drew IFF closer together after an almost ten-year hiatus. An eponymous event series at Berlin's silent green set in motion what would become their most twistedly funky release since „Penetrans“ on Staubgold in 2002.

The only thing öd about „Öd" (meaning „barren" or „boring“ in German) may well be its title: layers of improvised play and randomized loops convolve around porous, dubby groove locks, tugging at each other in a call-and-response with howling static that cuts through bulbous ambient techno into a scrap-metal Dixieland phantasm. Stratified yet spacious, these sonic double exposures always hover on the verge of collapsing. What you think you hear might not be what you actually hear.

The album’s track titles resemble Conceptual Poetry, extending this psycho-phenomenological gesture into the realm of spoken language. Conceived by renowned poet Dagmara Kraus, they become word molecules - „stern,” „dies,” „lose“ - tilting delicately between German and English, constantly changing depending on the ear’s perspective and pointing back to the deeply unstable fabric connecting meaning and sound. Which also makes „Öd“ an unusual cross-disciplinary collaboration - at least in the field of electronic music.

PS: Since its beginnings in Bad Säckingen, IFF has always been more than the sum of its rotating parts, moving tirelessly between multimedia art, theory, solo projects and collaborations. With IFF Expanded, the collective now opens its eight-doored apparatus, inviting artists working with CDJs or samplers to join - an ambitious live format that loosens its former purity law while carrying forward a long-standing curatorial practice. The same thread also runs into the related event series Acephalic Headspace.

Institut für Feinmotorik (*1997), artist-group originating from Black Forest working in various fields. In musical context known for transforming turntables into instruments by removing the records and instead applying rubber bands, paper scraps, household materials – resulting in a vivid laboratory for the productive misuse of everyday objects. This approach is documented in record releases and performed live.

OTHELLO is the debut album by pianist and composer Orson Claeys. Bringing together influences from jazz, hip-hop, urban culture, and everyday life, the record offers the clearest portrait yet of an artist shaped as much by the worlds around him as by music itself.

The title refers to Claeys' full name, Orson Dwight Othello Claeys, and reflects the album's central concern:identity. Throughout the record, personal experiences, cultural influences, and artistic inspirations converge into a body of work that seeks to understand how an artist is formed, both within and beyond music. Musically, OTHELLO builds on jazz, strongly intertwined with hip-hop, contemporary culture, and ideas beyond traditional musical frameworks. For Claeys, music is not a fixed genre, but an open and evolving form of expression.

This broad perspective is evident in the album's carefully chosen collaborations. A track like "WHAT A NIGHT" first took shape during a studio session with indie-soul singer Sevens, whose harmonic ideas laid the foundation for the track. As the composition evolved, Claeys felt it called for a stronger hip-hop voice. Through a recommendation from Mixmonster Menno of STUFF., he was introduced to L.A. rapper IAMOMNI, whose contribution brought exactly the energy and perspective the track needed. The result unfolds like a late-night journey through Los Angeles, with IAMOMNI's contribution adding a sense of movement, character, and place.

Elsewhere on the album, "SPIRAL", featuring Belgo-Brazilian vocalist Helena Casella, grew out of a long-standing mutual admiration. Conceived as a meeting point between R&B and jazz, the composition balances the groove and emotional depth of the former with the improvisational spirit and spontaneity of the latter. The collaboration developed naturally from the outset, with Casella instinctively understanding the atmosphere Claeys envisioned while enriching the music with her own warmth and nuance.

A long-held ambition materializes on "SHADOWBOXING", where Claeys is joined by drummer, producer, and one of the key figures in contemporary Belgian jazz, Lander Gyselinck. Gyselinck's work, particularly his collaboration with Zwangere Guy on Pourriture Noble, was instrumental in showing Claeys how the language of hip-hop could coexist naturally with jazz, an idea that runs through OTHELLO. Drawing inspiration from boxing, the track is a musical equivalent of a fighter's walk towards the ring: focused, intense, and driven by the sense of anticipation that precedes stepping into the fight.

After this heightened intensity, the album gradually moves toward its closing statement. OUTRO / HANIN", featuring oud player Akram Ben Romdhane, a longtime collaborator whose playing forms a natural bridge between Claeys' previous work and the broader musical landscape explored across the album. The title references the Tunisian Arabic word hanin, meaning "nostalgia", a fitting conclusion to a work deeply concerned with memory, identity, and personal history.

Beyond music itself, OTHELLO is informed by a wider cultural landscape. Urban culture, with its visual language, creative independence, and sense of community, forms an important backdrop to the record. Sport also plays a significant role, particularly boxing and basketball, whose emphasis on discipline, focus, and resilience mirrors Claeys' own creative process. Rather than being treated as separate influences, these worlds coexist without hierarchy, reflecting an artistic vision that resists rigid boundaries and allows different disciplines, communities, and experiences to inform one another.

“I thought I knew you, but you are alien to me.”

Twelve years have passed since TWINS NATALIA’s debut album, “Destiny Room”, but Dave, Marc and Steve have never really stopped working on new ideas and projects, including the release of a mini-album from Marc’s solo project SHIBUYA STATION. This featured their first collaboration with Greek artist KRIISTAL ANN (also known from PARADOX OBSCUR), who provided the vocals for the track “Madness”. This led to Anna being invited by TWINS NATALIA to perform lead vocals on their cover version of KNOW’s “Knights of Pleasure”. The results were so pleasing that, from then on, Anna was persistently ’pestered’ to work on a TWINS NATALIA EP, which slowly morphed into a complete album entitled “I Died On Mars”. The album is a journey through electronic soundscapes and pure, dark ’80s minimal synth-pop, full of melancholia, haunting melodies, elaborate synth sound design and sequencing, ranging from neat to gnarly, and, of course, KRIISTAL ANN’s charismatic voice icing the cake.

“I Died On Mars” presents us with further surprises: TWINS NATALIA version of “The Dagger In Me” by ’80s Greek post-punk legends THE HANDS OF CAIN, as well as “A Different Hum” by PARADOX OBSCUR, a song that surely needs no further introduction. Anna has not shied away from specially re-recording the vocals for this version, while both versions have been given some distinctly Twins Natalia-specific additions and treatments. Furthermore, Anna has contributed her own composition “Find Me I A Fantasy”, so you’re in for a treat or two, for sure.

Mastering by Nikolas Haldoupis at SoundCave Studios Athens.

Graphic design by Steve Lippert with some original photography by Kriistal Ann.

New full-length from MINIATURa, following Geometria Prohibida (Keroxen, 2020). Espectral was recorded inside the iconic Keroxen oil tank in Tenerife — a brutalist chamber whose metallic resonance seeps into every track.
Motorik tension, post-punk restraint, shoegaze and darkwave undertow surface and dissolve throughout, but this is no genre exercise. The album feels lived-in and physical: drums hanging in open air, guitars stretching into steel-lined decay, moments of synthetic clarity torn open by abrasion. Propulsion and erosion move side by side.
There’s a rawness here that isn’t aesthetic — it’s architectural. The tank becomes a silent collaborator, shaping space as much as sound.
Lyrically, Espectral unfolds through elliptical micro-poetry, tracing life, love, death and social fracture in fragments rather than declarations. Nothing is fixed; everything hovers.
One of the strongest independent statements to emerge from the Canary Islands in recent years, Espectral finds MINIATURa operating on its own frequency — austere, immersive, and built to linger.

DINTE presents a collection of southern gospel sides from late 1940s to mid 1950s capturing the post-WWII departure from rural folk & shape-note singing traditions that had previously defined the music, to quartets and vocal harmony groups embracing of driving, uptempo boogie-woogie rhythms and spirituals borrowed from the black church. Meticulously transferred and restored from the original 78 RPM and transcription discs by collector James Zurek

EM Records is proud to present the first new album release in 25 years from Australia's Sheriff Lindo, dubmaster of the Southern Hemisphere.
His "Ten Dubs That Shook The World" EM1119CD/LP, released in 1988, has been growing in stature since its release, supported by its re-issue on EM Records, and in the meantime the Sheriff has been working steadily, deep-local style, honing his skills with the Australian sound systems Firehouse Sound and Earthlink Sound. The tracks on "Aftershock Dubs", recorded between 1990 and 2005, while never officially released, have been played as dub plates at sound system parties, proved movers, tested in the heat of action. Recorded at Lindo's 4/5 Studios, these specials were chosen by Japanese sound system savants Takuto Kuratani (Ruv Bytes) and Atsushi Muneshige (Touch the Sky/Corner Stone Music) from a cornucopia of goodness supplied by Sheriff Lindo, mastered by Kuratani for maximum impact. EM Records' first-ever Dancehall release is available on vinyl and CD, with two bonus tracks on the CD. One track features the vocals of Ras Roni; all tracks feature the experience-forged Dub sense of the Sheriff. More than a quarter-century of love, knowledge and soul-science has been distilled here. Don't miss it.

On Finding Home he's joined by three musicians with a similarly eclectically unfettered approach to music making, that embraces high-level complexity while maintaining a direct connection to the listener. Kaidi Akinnibi on tenor sax brings his distinctive, light-as-air tone and compatible range of experience across musical genres, while the rhythm team of Joe McLaren on bass and drummer Blake Cascoe provide a revelation in shifting texture and intensity, always driving the music to greater heights. Trumpeter Christos Stylianides brings his uniquely individual voice as a guest to enrich the ensemble. Finding Home is a powerfully characterful statement from a standout artist who's crafted his own voice, surrounded by a like-minded family of players. Each of the eight tunes has its own distinct personality, yet they all hang together as a continuous piece, establishing their own musical identity through Finn's tumbling, lyrical piano, Kaidi's nimble, breathy saxophone, and the endlessly flexible interactive grooves from bass and drums.

Southern Fried Records return with the second instalment of Refried & Tested, a three track EP built for peak time festival business. Bass heavy and attitude driven, this one brings together friends old and new for a run of dancefloor tracks that don't let up. It's Southern Fried doing what it does best - club ready energy with real personality behind it. Elado opens Refried & Tested 002 with 'Don't Stare' - a bass-heavy, attitude loaded cut built for the dancefloor. It's peak time energy with a real sense of swagger, setting the tone for the rest of the compilation. Jordan Peak takes on Elado's 'Don't Stare' and delivers a whopping remix, reworking the original into a festival ready peak time weapon. A standout moment on Refried & Tested 002. lau.ra teams up with Bag Raiders for 'back2back', bringing dance floor energy and attitude to Southern Fried's Refried & Tested 002 - a collaboration between friends old and new that delivers exactly where it counts. Van Damn closes out Refried & Tested 002 with 'Hit You', a bass driven cut that keeps the compilation's dancefloor energy running right to the last track.

World Of Echo are proud to announce the long-awaited reissue of the self-titled debut album by Bristol’s Movietone. Originally released in 1995 by Planet Records and reissued on CD in 2003 by The Pastels’ Geographic Music imprint, this is the first time Movietone has been reissued on vinyl. An expanded double-LP edition, it includes the extra tracks from the 2003 CD (their first two singles, and an unreleased demo of “Chance Is Her Opera”), and adds three more unearthed gems: demos of “Alkaline Eye” and “She Smiled Mandarine Like”, and an early take of “Late July”, recorded in a garden by Dave Pearce (Flying Saucer Attack) in 1993.

Taken together, this is the definitive collection of music from the first phase of one of Bristol’s most remarkable groups. Movietone was the cumulation of a series of events, explorations, and discoveries, starting at secondary school – the group’s core membership of Kate Wright, Rachel Brook, Matt Elliott and Matt Jones met at Cotham School in Bristol. As for many other groups, their early years were all about experimenting, and finding ways to ‘make do’, a DIY sensibility that would inform Movietone through their decade-long lifespan. From formative rehearsals in a shed in the garden of Brook’s family home, to recording early material to four-track in Redland Library, and on into the Whitehouse and Mr Grin’s studio sessions for their debut album, Movietone’s music fell together in a creatively unpredictable, yet conceptually rigorous manner.

By the time they released Movietone, they’d found a home with Bristol’s Planet, run by author Richard King and James Webster, who had both released their first two singles, “She Smiled Mandarine Like” and “Mono Valley”. There was other music happening around them in Bristol, too, from the Jones brothers’ avant-rock outfit Crescent (who were Movietone’s closest conspirators), through Elliott’s jungle/electronica project Third Eye Foundation, and Brook and Elliott’s membership of Flying Saucer Attack. A closely knit community, Movietone are the centre of this nestling architecture of groups. The vision in the music, mostly, belongs to Wright, but Movietone ran in democratic creative consort. Listening back to Movietone, you can hear this democracy in action through the wildness of the music, which is balanced by the poetics of Wright’s lyrics and melodies.

Full of half-captured memories and entangled abstractions, there’s an elliptical, ruminative quality to much of the writing here that shows the deep influence of the Beat Generation writers, along with a twilight environment captured in the songs that’s pure third-album Velvets, Galaxie 500, early Tindersticks, Codeine. Unpredictable interventions – the crashing glass in “Mono Valley”, the sudden explosions of “Orange Zero” point towards the noise blowouts of My Bloody Valentine, the unpredictability of Sonic Youth; Wright’s understated vocal cadence suggest a deep, embodied understanding of John Cage’s Indeterminacy.

Movietone would go on to make 3 fantastic albums for Domino: Night & Day (1997), The Blossom Filled Streets (2000) and The Sand & The Stars (2003) and their Peel Sessions were released earlier this year on Textile. Still held in high regard by artists like Steven R. Smith, and The Pastels, whose Stephen McRobbie once described them as “one of the great unknown English groups,” it’s an absolute thrill to listen to Movietone anew – still inspired, still seductive, still magic, still mysterious.

Norman Blake und Raymond McGinley machen seit 37 Jahren gemeinsam Musik bei Teenage Fanclub, und auch wenn manche Aspekte des Bandlebens mit der Zeit einfacher geworden sind, können ihnen die einfachsten Dinge immer noch einen Strich durch die Rechnung machen. Blake sagt dazu: "Es ist schwierig, wenn es darum geht, sich einen Namen für ein Album auszudenken. Vor allem, wenn man schon 12 davon gemacht hat." Der Titel ,Do Not Dare To Dream" leitet sich ab von Blakes ,I Do Not Dare To Dream", einem mitreißenden, hymnischen Song, der von klangvollen Akustikgitarren getragen und am Ende von einem Duell elektrischer Gitarren begleitet wird, die sich wie eine beruhigende Umarmung umeinander schlingen. Blake erklärt, dass der Titel jene Memes verspotten soll, die die Menschen dazu auffordern, zu träumen, was für ihn irgendwie lächerlich ist. "Ich glaube nicht, dass die Welt so funktioniert." Das 13. Album von Teenage Fanclub ist voller Songs, die ruhig und entschlossen sind und eine Bestandsaufnahme des angespannten Zustands der Welt vornehmen, ohne der Verzweiflung zu verfallen. Blakes warme, von Orgelklängen untermalte Midtempo-Ballade ,Day In The Sun" und Raymond McGinleys ,Over And Over" sprechen beide davon, wie jeder einen neuen Sinn im Leben finden kann, indem er sein Herz öffnet. "Wir können immer noch fröhlich und optimistisch sein, auch wenn die Lage nicht gerade rosig ist", sagt McGinley. Blake und McGinley werden auf ,Do Not Dare To Dream" von ihren Bandkollegen Euros Childs (Keyboards und Gesang), Francis Macdonald (Schlagzeug) und David McGowan (Bass) begleitet. Dieses Quintett spielt nun schon so lange zusammen, dass keiner der beiden Hauptsongwriter und Gitarristen von Teenage Fanclub das Bedürfnis verspürt, sich vor dem Gang ins Studio über ihre Songs den Kopf zu zerbrechen oder Arrangements auszuarbeiten. Sie warten lieber auf die Beiträge der übrigen Bandmitglieder. Die Aufnahmen fanden im Black Bay Studio in der Ortschaft Kirkibost auf der schottischen Insel Great Bernera in den Äußeren Hebriden statt. Wie langjährige Fans wahrscheinlich wissen, nimmt Teenage Fanclub jedes Album an einem neuen Ort auf, damit die einzigartige Atmosphäre dieses Ortes die Musik beeinflussen kann. Great Bernera war ihr bislang abgelegenster Aufnahmeort, was der Band half, sich auf die Arbeit zu konzentrieren, sie aber auch in einen Zustand der Ehrfurcht versetzte, da sie von der tosenden See und antiken Ruinen umgeben waren. Das Ergebnis ist eine Sammlung von Liedern, die von der richtigen Perspektive von Musikern durchdrungen ist, die schon eine Weile im Geschäft sind, aufgenommen an einem Ort, der schon noch länger existiert. Wie Blake es ausdrückt: ,Ich glaube, es läuft einfach so ab, dass man von einer Sache zur nächsten übergeht, und ehe man sich versieht, sind 30 Jahre vergangen." McGinley fügt hinzu: ,Ja, es ist schon eine ganze Weile her, seit wir mit dem angefangen haben, was wir tun, aber für uns kommt es uns vor, als wäre überhaupt keine Zeit vergangen. An dem Ort, an dem wir das Album aufgenommen haben, wurde schon vor Tausenden von Jahren gesungen. Das Leben ist kurz, aber die Musik ist ewig."

Norman Blake und Raymond McGinley machen seit 37 Jahren gemeinsam Musik bei Teenage Fanclub, und auch wenn manche Aspekte des Bandlebens mit der Zeit einfacher geworden sind, können ihnen die einfachsten Dinge immer noch einen Strich durch die Rechnung machen. Blake sagt dazu: "Es ist schwierig, wenn es darum geht, sich einen Namen für ein Album auszudenken. Vor allem, wenn man schon 12 davon gemacht hat." Der Titel ,Do Not Dare To Dream" leitet sich ab von Blakes ,I Do Not Dare To Dream", einem mitreißenden, hymnischen Song, der von klangvollen Akustikgitarren getragen und am Ende von einem Duell elektrischer Gitarren begleitet wird, die sich wie eine beruhigende Umarmung umeinander schlingen. Blake erklärt, dass der Titel jene Memes verspotten soll, die die Menschen dazu auffordern, zu träumen, was für ihn irgendwie lächerlich ist. "Ich glaube nicht, dass die Welt so funktioniert." Das 13. Album von Teenage Fanclub ist voller Songs, die ruhig und entschlossen sind und eine Bestandsaufnahme des angespannten Zustands der Welt vornehmen, ohne der Verzweiflung zu verfallen. Blakes warme, von Orgelklängen untermalte Midtempo-Ballade ,Day In The Sun" und Raymond McGinleys ,Over And Over" sprechen beide davon, wie jeder einen neuen Sinn im Leben finden kann, indem er sein Herz öffnet. "Wir können immer noch fröhlich und optimistisch sein, auch wenn die Lage nicht gerade rosig ist", sagt McGinley. Blake und McGinley werden auf ,Do Not Dare To Dream" von ihren Bandkollegen Euros Childs (Keyboards und Gesang), Francis Macdonald (Schlagzeug) und David McGowan (Bass) begleitet. Dieses Quintett spielt nun schon so lange zusammen, dass keiner der beiden Hauptsongwriter und Gitarristen von Teenage Fanclub das Bedürfnis verspürt, sich vor dem Gang ins Studio über ihre Songs den Kopf zu zerbrechen oder Arrangements auszuarbeiten. Sie warten lieber auf die Beiträge der übrigen Bandmitglieder. Die Aufnahmen fanden im Black Bay Studio in der Ortschaft Kirkibost auf der schottischen Insel Great Bernera in den Äußeren Hebriden statt. Wie langjährige Fans wahrscheinlich wissen, nimmt Teenage Fanclub jedes Album an einem neuen Ort auf, damit die einzigartige Atmosphäre dieses Ortes die Musik beeinflussen kann. Great Bernera war ihr bislang abgelegenster Aufnahmeort, was der Band half, sich auf die Arbeit zu konzentrieren, sie aber auch in einen Zustand der Ehrfurcht versetzte, da sie von der tosenden See und antiken Ruinen umgeben waren. Das Ergebnis ist eine Sammlung von Liedern, die von der richtigen Perspektive von Musikern durchdrungen ist, die schon eine Weile im Geschäft sind, aufgenommen an einem Ort, der schon noch länger existiert. Wie Blake es ausdrückt: ,Ich glaube, es läuft einfach so ab, dass man von einer Sache zur nächsten übergeht, und ehe man sich versieht, sind 30 Jahre vergangen." McGinley fügt hinzu: ,Ja, es ist schon eine ganze Weile her, seit wir mit dem angefangen haben, was wir tun, aber für uns kommt es uns vor, als wäre überhaupt keine Zeit vergangen. An dem Ort, an dem wir das Album aufgenommen haben, wurde schon vor Tausenden von Jahren gesungen. Das Leben ist kurz, aber die Musik ist ewig."

The title of Ghost Bridge, the East-Coast-spanning chamber ensemble Hour's fifth record, is less metaphorical than one might expect. Bandleader Michael Cormier- O'Leary repurposed it from an unrealized movie concept about a bridge that inexplicably starts disappearing. On the nearly-ten-minute title track of this richly imaginative suite of songs_written for a 13-piece ensemble that includes woodwinds, strings, and vibraphone as well as a rock rhythm section_Hour conjures up this central image with spectral string harmonics and free-time percussion gestures. While writing the keyboard pieces that became the takeoff point for the album, Cormier-O'Leary also found himself reflecting on the loss of loved ones or even his own mortality. The six kaleidoscopic instrumental pieces on Ghost Bridge, though, feel more cosmically inquisitive than straightforwardly elegiac, sketching a progression from existential doubt toward understanding and acceptance. Ghost Bridge forms a contrast with Hour's art-rock-informed, more improvisatory early releases, representing a step further into intricate chamber orchestration. Known for his work with Friendship, Wendy Eisenberg, and 2nd Grade, Phillybased multi-instrumentalist and Dear Life Records founder Cormier-O'Leary has made Hour a home for increasingly cinematic instrumental compositions since the mid-2010s. With dazzling production by Lucas Knapp, Ghost Bridge delivers plenty of the live ensemble's trademarks, especially cyclically developing guitar and keyboard melodies. However, even more than on Hour's last studio album, unconventional harmonies and sophisticated counterpoint take center stage here. These emotionally multifaceted compositions feel as rooted in contemporary classical and film soundtrack music as in indie rock. One of the most striking elements of Ghost Bridge is the more significant developmental role the orchestral instruments assume in each piece. Instead of underscoring Cormier-O'Leary's central hooks, there is a new mesmerizing level of detail to the group's conversational interactions and kinetic energy. "Centralia" is a stately and idiosyncratic fugue built from repeated and overlapping phrases, while Ghost Bridge's compositions are full of unexpected pivots in harmony that allow recurring melodic motifs to sound continually reshaded. On "Pearls," the chords modulate drastically around Cormier-O'Leary's inviting central melody in a way that emulates cuts in a film telling several parallel stories. There is an unsettled quality to the chords on Ghost Bridge, with Cormier- O'Leary's progressions avoiding firm grounding in either clearly sunny or melancholy tonalities. This mood is made more concrete by the record's sole vocal track, the jazz-inflected "Sky is Blue," featuring an uncannily gorgeous performance by Heeyoon Won. The song seems to be a communication from a person who has departed, offering consolation or perspective to someone left behind. Though its sonic palette is often tranquil, Ghost Bridge explores heartbreak, grief, anger, and helplessness in a distinct and pretense-free way. The project represents a bold step forward for Cormier-O'Leary as a composer and arranger, and on Ghost Bridge Hour reaches its most fully realized form to date, connecting soaring themes with an inventiveness that perfectly suits the searching nature of the subject matter.