In April 1963, The Beatles stepped into a formal lunchtime ceremony at EMI Studios, where they were honoured with their first silver disc, for Please Please Me. This event, attended by EMI staff and the press, was likely recorded for Radio Luxembourg’s Friday Spectacular. Just one month later, the raw energy of Beatlemania exploded at the Walthamstow Granada. The 9-minute newsreel from this show is a time capsule of wild, full-throated screaming—a stark contrast to the relaxed EMI ceremony.
Fast-forward to 1964 and we feature TV performances from Shindig & Blackpool Night Out plus a Tyne Tees TV Interview where the interviewer tried—and failed—to pin down the band’s voting intentions on 15th October 1964, the day of the UK General Election. Whether you’re a longtime fan or a newcomer, these performances offer a unique lens into the group’s early years.
Mohammad Syfkhan is back with his second album for Nyahh Records. This collection of new recordings marks a hug milestone in Mohammad’s career as it’s the first album that features all original compositions. And with a full band! We had the great help of Syrian Cellist and composer Naseem Alatrash to help with the string arrangements. The resulting record is a beautiful journey into a timeless Middle Eastern and North African sound akin to the likes of Fairuz or Umm Kulthum with a fast Kurdish Dabke tempo.
I Love You Ireland is an incredibly personal album for Mohammad. The title alone, much like his debut ‘I Am Kurdish’ is as personal as it it’s political. To express such love for a place in music is saying, thank you for making me and family feel safe. Thank you for taking us in. A stand out track titled ‘Ah Yu Donia’ is Mohammad’s first real public moment of grieving for the loss of his son at the murderous hands of Isis. In this song he asks God why he was taken. Trying to figure the sense in the actions of fundamentalists. The strings sections are sad, but not morbid. Acting like a release or companion to the horrific reality of losing a child.
‘Al Huriya’ is Mohammad’s first attempt at using an Irish rhythm known as a Reel, as appose to his usual Middle Eastern rhythms. Again, this is a beautiful way for Mohammad to give thanks to all the musicians and supportive people his has met in Ireland since 2011.
WHO IS MOHAMMAD SYFKHAN
Mohammad Syfkhan is a Kurdish/Syrian Singer and Bouzouki player. He began
playing music in 1980 while he was in college studying nursing. When he got
his degree in 1983, Mohammad moved to the city of Raqqa, Syria where he
began working as a professional singer and started his own band, The Al-Rabie
Band which played concerts, parties, weddings and festivals all over Syria. The
Al-Rabie Band were a much sought-after group. Their live sets included Kurdish, Arabic, Turkish and some Western songs as well as Mohammad’s own original material.
Mohammad continued to play with his band while also working as a surgical
nurse until the war broke out in 2011. This unfortunately brought tragedy to
Mohammad’s family when one of his sons was killed by Isis thus threatening
the lives of the rest of his family. His family had no choice but to leave their
home and seek safety in Europe. Three of Mohammad’s sons were resettled in
Germany while Mohammad, his young daughter and wife were taken in by
Ireland. Mohammad has spoken at length of his confusion and despair with
fundamentalists and how their message is a far cry from the teachings of love
and understanding that he considers the true message of Islam.
This album features most of The Searchers’ early hits, along with a selection of album cuts and B-sides—which really come to life in these live recordings. The standout tracks are the ones they never recorded in the studio. What’d I Say was previously released from their 1963 Hamburg Star-Club recordings, but this live version captures even more energy. The album also features radio performances that were never studio recordings, including Memphis, Tennessee, Red Sails In The Sunset, and Let The Four Winds Blow. So, put this record on, sit back and relive the heyday of one of the UK’s finest and most enduring bands: Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you The Searchers!
Sleeve notes by Peter Checksfield
There's Something Going On is the second studio album by Babybird, originally released in 1998.
The album is almost unrelentingly dark and mysterious, in much the same manner as his earlier lo-fi productions. Indeed, two of the tracks here, "You Will Always Love Me" and "There's Something Going On," were recorded straight to four-track. Jones' voice echoes out of lyrical valleys. "Take Me Back" is a horrific tale of an obsessive relationship, with lyrics about eyeballs scratched with rusty nails and a creepy chant of "dead, dead, dead" ad infinitum. It's a conceit that starts with the very first track, "Bad Old Man," where Jones sings of wife-beaters and a drowning in a duck pond. Musically, the album is more of a lean toward the baroque than Ugly Beautiful. One might describe it as stark, disturbed chamber pop. Beautiful melodies appear quite majestically out of Jones' psychological studies. "It's Not Funny Anymore" is bittersweet and touching, with Jones reaching for the album's emotional core over weeping, organic keyboards.
"There's Something Going On" is the tender conclusion, suggesting that Jones knows there's a better way of life than obsession and self-torture. There's Something Going On is definitely Baby Bird's most subtle album, and it's a fascinating listen from start to finish.
There's Something Going On is available as a limited numbered edition of 750 copies on turquoise vinyl and contains an insert.
Sentimental Ultra marks DJ HEARTSTRING’s debut proper on Steel City Dance Discs, and their first album project, releasing November 13th 2026. Starting life as a mixtape before a happy accident or two took it down a different path, the 15-track album finds the pair chasing not just peak-time euphoria and what they can conjure in a club setting, but everything around it, too. The befores and the afters. The soft and the supercharged. What life felt like when they were young. Featuring collaborations with SWIM, Spriitzz, BAUGRUPPE90, Sam Gellaitry, Saidah, DMA’S, KennyHoopla, Monk, 3NDLES5, David Jackson and secret act, they fold formative years influences such as indie rock, rap, ambient and breakbeat into their sought-after sound, and balance them with contemporary-coded ideas.
This blend of worlds is at the crux of the album’s concept visually as well. Sentimental Ultra is an exploration blurring the lines of hard and soft, taking inspiration from subculture communities around football hooliganism and skateboarding. The cover is shot by iconic British photographer Ewen Spencer, renowned for his work around Skins, The Streets and more. The collaboration has seen DJ HEARTSTRING land features in Numero Berlin, Notion Mag and other cross-cultural editorial platforms ahead of the album announcement.
To date, the project has already received various milestones across international radio, including Arielle Free’s Big Whopper for third single ‘Another Year Alone’ and DJ HEARTSTRING landing a coveted BBC R1 Residency in November. Adding to this is the slew of digital looks and accolades for DJ HEARTSTRING’s set recordings including their closing set at Soenda Festival earlier this year which is on 115k views since being published in May 2026, their Melbourne Boiler Room published in 2025 with +1 million views and their Belfast Boiler Room published in 2023 with +1.1 million views.
Since DJ HEARTSTRING’s 2021 debut, when they rollicked through the club door with their Destiny of the Moment and Eternal Euphoria EPs, alongside a slew of self-released, pop-and-R&B-indebted edits, DJ HEARTSTRING have followed their hearts and won over legions more with an emotional dance music style that’s fast become synonymous with their name.
There’ve been big releases such as 2025’s You Are The Sun, I Am The Sky EP, and buzzy collaborations with fellow synapse-igniters like SWIM, Narciss, southstar and S.C.D.D.’s KETTAMA. The past few years have also seen remixes for Charli XCX and Sam Smith, Romy, Sugababes and Empire of the Sun, sets everywhere from Berghain to London’s 3000-capacity Roundhouse, their own Teenage Dream parties and a must-listen contribution to the BBC Radio 1’s Essential Mix series, which showcased just some of the sonic inspirations behind their signature, like Eurodance and trance, plus heaps of DJ HEARTSTRING material.
And now, Sentimental Ultra arrives off the back of DJ HEARTSTRING’s busiest summer to date with landmark festival plays at Awakenings in the Netherlands, Lost Village and Maiden Voyage in the UK, We Love Green in France, Lost Paradise in Belgium, Movement Festival in Detroit and Arc Festival in Chicago. Hot off the heels of their festival run, the Berlin duo show no signs of slowing down with a 3-date Australia tour at the end of September whereby they sold a cumulative 15,500 tickets across Melbourne, Sydney and Perth shows, all on presales. In addition to some pop-up in key markets around album release including Ireland, Scotland, Berlin and London, the Sentimental Ultra official tour also encompasses a European hard ticket run including Belfast’s Telegraph Building (2,000 cap), Brussels’ Braindance (2,000 cap), Paris Phantom (3,400) and DJ HEARTSTRING’s biggest London show to date - Brixton Academy (5,000) - an apt follow-up after selling out Magazine (4,000 cap) weeks in advance in February 2026.
There’s plenty still in store, and plenty of places to catch them throughout the rest of what’s set to be a landmark year. Shows from Miami to Manchester (for the sold-out KETTAMA presents Steel City Dance Discs WHP takeover) to Dublin’s District X, a hometown Teenage Dreams event and 2 colossal ADE headlines at Dockyard and Sugar Factory - with more plans bubbling behind the scenes. DJ HEARTSTRING season is well and truly upon us.
California’s beloved Brainstory returns with a new EP celebrating the end of an era. Shoebox Days is an homage to the time spent and the recordings made at their now defunct Long Beach studio, aptly named Shoebox. As the name suggests, the space was tiny and stuffed with gear. While charming, it was riddled with constraints. But, as has been proven time and time again, great art often comes from difficult circumstances, and this new 7 song EP is further proof. The first track, “The Watchers,” opens with an earworm horn melody that immediately pulls you in. The crunchy drums and G Funk bass tones put a bop on it, lush orchestration weaves in and out and sets a mellow vibe. “Blend,” one of only two vocal tracks on the EP, is a California sunshine soaked love song walking the lines of psych rock ballad and B side soul. ”Twin Kitchen” leans you right back into your seat, with Eric Hagstrom’s in-the-pocket drumming carrying the tune.
“Home Alone” is singer Kevin Martin’s ever so relatable tribute to time by himself, time by today’s standards as “disconnected,” but in reality, much more connected… The fellas let some of the jazz background take front stage on “Lone Traveler,” starting out with an air tight groove, and letting loose over it as the track progresses. “Gravity Hill” named after the famed California oddity begins the ending of the EP as Brainstory takes it deep and brings us with them. “Necessary Loss” serves as the closer to this gorgeous journey.
California’s beloved Brainstory returns with a new EP celebrating the end of an era. Shoebox Days is an homage to the time spent and the recordings made at their now defunct Long Beach studio, aptly named Shoebox. As the name suggests, the space was tiny and stuffed with gear. While charming, it was riddled with constraints. But, as has been proven time and time again, great art often comes from difficult circumstances, and this new 7 song EP is further proof. The first track, “The Watchers,” opens with an earworm horn melody that immediately pulls you in.
The crunchy drums and G Funk bass tones put a bop on it, lush orchestration weaves in and out and sets a mellow vibe. “Blend,” one of only two vocal tracks on the EP, is a California sunshine soaked love song walking the lines of psych rock ballad and B side soul. ”Twin Kitchen” leans you right back into your seat, with Eric Hagstrom’s in-the-pocket drumming carrying the tune. “Home Alone” is singer Kevin Martin’s ever so relatable tribute to time by himself, time by today’s standards as “disconnected,” but in reality, much more connected… The fellas let some of the jazz background take front stage on “Lone Traveler,” starting out with an air tight groove, and letting loose over it as the track progresses. “Gravity Hill” named after the famed California oddity begins the ending of the EP as Brainstory takes it deep and brings us with them. “Necessary Loss” serves as the closer to this gorgeous journey.
After a stellar debut on the No Guestlist label Blay steps back into the light with an ambitious new record Wave Formations. This record finds Blay pushing further into the space where afro-centric jazz and deep house collide, weaving together synth heavy production with organic rhythms and live instrumentation.
From its opening moments its title track ‘Wave Formations’ holds you captive. From field recordings blurring into a dreamy atmosphere, taking you on a 9-minute spiritual journey across the cosmos.
Its counterpart ‘Rhythm Of Love’ is equally dreamy; A reverb-soaked vocal track with live-band-like energy shape-shifts around its steady and forward pushing rhythm before unwinding into a meandering, melancholic piano outro.
On the flipside, ‘New Teacher’ is an invitation to dance — call-and-response synth phrases on top of driving percussive polyrhythms. What starts off simple and stripped down transforms into a full-on celebration; a boisterous rush of sonic afrofuturism that tries to reach the sun.
Keeping the joyful spirit high, the record closes off with the festive and playful ‘Faith In Us’. This highlife and afro funk inspired record reimagines band members feeding off of one another, switching from recognisable motifs to energetic solos pushing each other further into the light.
Was genau ist Folk Soul? Es handelt sich nicht um den zeitgenössischen Roots-Rock oder die Country-nahen Balladen, die du wahrscheinlich kennst. Folk Soul steht direkt vor - wenn nicht sogar direkt neben - der schwarzen Musikszene der Mitte bis Ende der 60er bis in die frühen 70er Jahre. Während Spiritual Soul das Ethos der afroamerikanischen Befreiungsbewegung und den breiteren Kampf seiner Zeit verkörpert, beschäftigte sich Folk Soul mit der Analyse, Klassifizierung und regelrechten Ablehnung des Status quo - und stellte sich den komplexen, starren Machtkämpfen jener Zeit durch minimalistische, klassisch geprägte und zukunftsweisende Ansätze im Songwriting. Diese LP besiegt den Faschismus.
Was genau ist Folk Soul? Es handelt sich nicht um den zeitgenössischen Roots-Rock oder die Country-nahen Balladen, die du wahrscheinlich kennst. Folk Soul steht direkt vor - wenn nicht sogar direkt neben - der schwarzen Musikszene der Mitte bis Ende der 60er bis in die frühen 70er Jahre. Während Spiritual Soul das Ethos der afroamerikanischen Befreiungsbewegung und den breiteren Kampf seiner Zeit verkörpert, beschäftigte sich Folk Soul mit der Analyse, Klassifizierung und regelrechten Ablehnung des Status quo - und stellte sich den komplexen, starren Machtkämpfen jener Zeit durch minimalistische, klassisch geprägte und zukunftsweisende Ansätze im Songwriting. Diese LP besiegt den Faschismus.
In January of 2004 recording commenced on Loretta Lynn's 42nd solo album. This particular album was poised from the start to be a unique and standalone installment in a long well established, unbelievable, legendary, career already spanning five decades due to the role of producer going to none other than a 28 year old Jack White. White, a long time admirer of Lynn's work, leapt at the chance to conduct this musical experimentation of blended styles and see what fruits the two very separate but cosmically intertwined approaches to writing, playing, and producing music could yield.
The album would go on to win the 2005 Grammy Award for "Country Album Of The Year", with the albums second single "Portland, Oregon" winning "Best Country Collaboration With Vocals". A litany of other accolades were to follow and the record firmly cemented itself in the annals of Country music history as the most successful crossover album of Lorettas historic career. Twenty-two years later, we're still celebrating it.
Third Man Records is proud to announce Van Lear Rose reissued and expanded. Now including the additional track "Just to Have You Back", previously only available to members of The Vault vinyl subscription series, rounding out the already impeccable tracklist. This LP is available in both a standard black and limited edition orange (while supplies last) colorways as well as CD.
In January of 2004 recording commenced on Loretta Lynn's 42nd solo album. This particular album was poised from the start to be a unique and standalone installment in a long well established, unbelievable, legendary, career already spanning five decades due to the role of producer going to none other than a 28 year old Jack White. White, a long time admirer of Lynn's work, leapt at the chance to conduct this musical experimentation of blended styles and see what fruits the two very separate but cosmically intertwined approaches to writing, playing, and producing music could yield.
The album would go on to win the 2005 Grammy Award for "Country Album Of The Year", with the albums second single "Portland, Oregon" winning "Best Country Collaboration With Vocals". A litany of other accolades were to follow and the record firmly cemented itself in the annals of Country music history as the most successful crossover album of Lorettas historic career. Twenty-two years later, we're still celebrating it.
Third Man Records is proud to announce Van Lear Rose reissued and expanded. Now including the additional track "Just to Have You Back", previously only available to members of The Vault vinyl subscription series, rounding out the already impeccable tracklist. This LP is available in both a standard black and limited edition orange (while supplies last) colorways as well as CD.
Tekamolo is the anonymous project of a renowned musician who chose to hide their identity and leave the listener alone with the music. Their debut, best tunes for your answering machine, was an album of absolute solitude: minimalist electronic songs that felt like messages from an unknown caller, perhaps destined never to be heard. On Friends to Keep Silence With, solitude gives way to dialogue for the first time.
The album was made in close collaboration with drummer and composer Elizabad Volkova, a current member of Mirage, one of Russia's best-known pop groups, and the electroacoustic project INDEX III, which has collaborated with acclaimed contemporary composer Vladimir Martynov and violinist Tatiana Grindenko, a key figure in Russia's experimental classical scene. Before making the record, Volkova and Tekamolo barely knew each other. They'd only crossed paths on Instagram, and Tekamolo had never even seen her play live, only on video. They met in Berlin, where Tekamolo lives, and decided to try making something together, with no stylistic framework, no references, and no idea of what the result should be. To their own surprise, it worked almost immediately. Despite barely knowing each other, they found a shared musical language that felt completely natural. Those first sessions became the starting point for an album Tekamolo would continue working on over the following year.
The new album expands Tekamolo's retro-futurist world of altered voices, fragments of memory and free-form electronics into something more spacious and physical. Rhythm becomes a voice of its own: Volkova's live drums do not simply accompany the music, but enter into a constant dialogue with it. The result exists somewhere between groove and ambient, movement and stillness, melancholy and warmth.
Trentemøller's new untitled album explodes with the force of a supernova before dissolving into swooning vocals. Across 10 songs, maximalist guitar-noise blowouts collide with some of the most bruising shoegaze you'll hear this year. "The noisy got noisier, the dreamy got dreamier," says Trentemøller. "I was ruthless this time."
Opener "Swerve", recorded with Vienna-based singer Sakura, crashes into searing walls of sound - a stark contrast to 2024's haunting Dreamweaver. The album's radically intuitive energy persists on the anthemic "Visceral" and the industrial fuzz of "Your Love Walks Alone", featuring Sune Rose Wagner of the Raveonettes. "Coyote" deconstructs synths into feedback and brutal guitars, while "To Mist" and "Halved" (featuring Midwife) offer nocturnal respite - nugaze ambience reduced to fractals of fragile beauty. For the first time in Trentemøller's history, vocals appear on every track - contributors include Sakura, German-British singer Anika, Midwife, Tan Cologne, Sune Rose Wagner, Jonas Bjerre of Mew, and Danish singer-songwriter Emma Acs, among others. "I knew early on exactly who I wanted. We never met in the studio; everything was exchanged remotely. I'm pretty shy, and it gave the vocalists the privacy to really open up," he explains. Songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and mixer - Trentemøller did it all himself. "I don't follow trends or think in algorithms." The reward: playing the album live, start to finish, for the very first time on the upcoming live tour.
Trentemøller's new untitled album explodes with the force of a supernova before dissolving into swooning vocals. Across 10 songs, maximalist guitar-noise blowouts collide with some of the most bruising shoegaze you'll hear this year. "The noisy got noisier, the dreamy got dreamier," says Trentemøller. "I was ruthless this time."
Opener "Swerve", recorded with Vienna-based singer Sakura, crashes into searing walls of sound - a stark contrast to 2024's haunting Dreamweaver. The album's radically intuitive energy persists on the anthemic "Visceral" and the industrial fuzz of "Your Love Walks Alone", featuring Sune Rose Wagner of the Raveonettes. "Coyote" deconstructs synths into feedback and brutal guitars, while "To Mist" and "Halved" (featuring Midwife) offer nocturnal respite - nugaze ambience reduced to fractals of fragile beauty. For the first time in Trentemøller's history, vocals appear on every track - contributors include Sakura, German-British singer Anika, Midwife, Tan Cologne, Sune Rose Wagner, Jonas Bjerre of Mew, and Danish singer-songwriter Emma Acs, among others. "I knew early on exactly who I wanted. We never met in the studio; everything was exchanged remotely. I'm pretty shy, and it gave the vocalists the privacy to really open up," he explains. Songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and mixer - Trentemøller did it all himself. "I don't follow trends or think in algorithms." The reward: playing the album live, start to finish, for the very first time on the upcoming live tour.
Das letzte der ,All-Home-Recordings-Alben" von THE MOUNTAIN GOATS und das einzige, auf das diese Behauptung wirklich zutrifft: ,All Hail West Texas" wurde ursprünglich als eigenständige CD beim inzwischen leider nicht mehr existierenden Label Emperor Jones veröffentlicht. Das ist etwa ein Jahrzehnt her. Die Songs wurden ursprünglich von den Kassetten, auf denen sie aufgenommen worden waren, bei Tiny Telephone von Alex Newport - der auch bei Fudge Tunnel spielte - auf 1/2-Zoll-Spulen übertragen. John war total begeistert, als ihm klar wurde, dass seine Bänder von dem Typen von Fudge Tunnel abgemischt wurden. Remastered von diesen Bändern, zusammen mit sieben wiederentdeckten Songs von den beiden erhaltenen Kassetten aus jener Zeit, gilt ,All Hail West Texas" als Höhepunkt der Heimstudio-Ära der Mountain Goats - einer Zeit, die man gerne als ,die Zeit, als John Darnielle seinen Vierspur-Recorder hatte" bezeichnet, obwohl John eigentlich gar keinen Vierspur-Recorder benutzt hat. Er benutzte das Kondensatormikrofon einer Panasonic-Boombox, und es gab keine Overdubs.
Originally released on cd in 2017 on Rope a dope and Sounds of Crenshaw, this landmark project now receives a strictly limited audiophile vinyl edition. This release marks the debut of Terrace Martin’s all-star collective, featuring Robert Glasper, Kamasi Washington, Chachi a.k.a. Problem and more, a defining statement of modern Los Angeles jazz, hip-hop and soul.
Ezra Feinberg's third album Soft Power sees the composer-guitarist enlist an impressive array of fellow musicians including Mary Lattimore, David Moore (Bing & Ruth), Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Robbie Lee and share the life affirming lead single 'Future Sand'.
Defined by its abundance of melodies, repeating figures and ecstatic improvisations, Soft Power exudes an enlightened and transformative spirit to empower the listener. Feinberg, a practising psychoanalyst and former founding member of the San Francisco psychedelic collective Citay (Dead Oceans / Important Records) resides in the artistic enclave of upstate New York's Hudson River valley. Initial recordings emerged in the late summer of 2020, before added synthesis with collaborator John Thayer (Arp, Sunwatchers) during early 2021. Soft Power follows previous albums 'Recumbent Speech' (2020) and 'Pentimento and Others' (2018).
Feinberg artfully transcends the listener to an enriched place, his compositions distinguished by the deep humanity that lies at their core, plugging the listener into a state of wide eyed being, open and alive. Soft Power then is Ezra's own mantra but also one of power giving - a colourful catharsis translated into music.
Feinberg's music always speaks to the listener, but Soft Power, in whispering, speaks loudest.
"Much like everyday life, I wanted to convey these very plain, simple, tranquil, nearly quotidian aspects, but each piece contains this arc in which that form expands, is broken out of, so what starts out like a painting of flowers in a seaside motel turns into a riot of color and sound, or you feel slipped into a dream that feels like it could go on forever"
What's Left is the new album by Tom Henry, releasing November 20th, 2026 on Royal Oakie Records. Where his debut album Songs to Sing and Dance To leaned into big dreams, What's Left is a record about what remains once the dust settles, delivered with the wit and charm of a young rocker in his prime. The familiar influences are still there — Paul McCartney and Big Star loom large (though there's a little more Third/Sister Lovers this time around), but now the songs are lush and polished, with new sounds creeping in around Henry’s trademark power pop hooks. On a handful of tracks you can even hear strains of Syd Barrett influenced acid-folk alongside psychedelic rock that recalls The Brian Jonestown Massacre or The Beatles at their most lysergic.
Produced in collaboration with David Glasebrook (Patti Smith, Peter Case, Sugar Candy Mountain), and engineered by Glasebrook and Stephen Shirk, the album was tracked across two cities at Shirk Studios in Chicago, IL and The Garden Shed in Oakland, CA, where Glasebrook also handled mixing and mastering. The record's cross-continental origins reflect the movements of Tom’s own life over the past half decade, which found him departing his native Chicago for Los Angeles before returning home four years later, and lend the album its distinctive sound of Midwestern grit mixed with California sunshine across all twelve tracks.
Opener "Someone I Need" sets the tone: an old-fashioned, up-beat rocker built for a roadside diner jukebox somewhere out along the backroads of your mind — it's crunchy tape tones and horn arrangement lending warmth to the song as the narrator asks for a dance and beckons the listener along for the ride. By "It's Not Meant to Be," the record turns inward, wrestling with the exhaustion of trying to find love in the modern age — especially for someone who wears their heart on their sleeve and often comes to find their suitor's wardrobe doesn't have room. "Silverlake Song," reminiscent of early Donovan, kicks off with otherworldly sitar — a wry postcard from the west, tracing how the shimmering promise of L.A.'s Silver Lake enchants, bargains with, and ultimately tries to ruin the starry-eyed dreamer — and very nearly succeeds.
In addition to Tom–who sang and played guitar, bass, and keys–the album features musical contributions from co-producer David Glasebrook, Brian Daley, Joe Daley, Finn Swingley, Lewis Patzner, and labelmates Graham Patzner, Charles Lloyd, and Simon Beins. Liner notes come courtesy of Ian F. Svenonius, who — in the guise of one Johnny Sincere of Integrated Star Management Ltd. — recounts his company's failed attempt to sell Tom Henry a gimmick: a space suit, a coal miner's neckerchief, a lounge pianist's dead-eyed shades. Tom turned them all down. As Svenonius tells it, when reminded that every story's been told and every gimmick's been used, that all that's left is to admire the photographs of what's gone before, Tom simply shrugged: rock 'n' roll is an eternal spring, and if this is what's left, that's just fine with him — it's what he likes to do.
Acid Pauli's new album "Mystic Meltdown" is hypnotic mystery, textural mastery, all hurtling through your system at peak velocity, unrelenting yet full of mischief and spirit.
The first full-length Acid Pauli album since 2020's MOD, here the artist, Martin Gretschmann, who you might also remember from Console and The Notwist, reaches out to collaborators, unearths new sounds through travel and then brings it all together with one long, sweeping breath - an album to take in as a whole, to ride its compulsive energy to the end and then back to the start, over and over again.
While the album's been brewing for some time, "It took months and months to find the coherency and the story that this album is telling," Gretschmann recalls, "Arranging the pacing, feeling how the tracks come together into one album", it reads as effortless. It draws from Gretschmann's various musical languages, from the techno, house and ambient of Acid Pauli, even reaching back to the electronica of Console, but it places them in new contexts, at new speeds and in rich, giddy contrasts. Mystic Meltdown feels like endless pleasure, unflagging energy.
It's also an album rich with multiplicity. There are many voices that visit us at the Mystic Meltdown, from Hani Mojtahedy's Kurdish vocal on "Goman (Remix)", through to Lhasa de Sela's "Con Toda Palabra" in Spanish. A sample of Kingdom Molongi's voices opens the title track and returns on "Mystic Feedback" - this feels like a particularly profound connection, given the inspiration that Gretschmann has gleaned from the musical community surrounding the Nyege Nyege Tapes label and organisation over the years. He's also appeared at one of their festivals, by all accounts a revelatory experience.
Sometimes Gretschmann reaches back yet further. "Yes, Caroline" hints at an abstract relationship with the Beach Boys' pop masterpiece, Pet Sounds. Yet the way he draws these various influences into his own music always displays more than a touch of transmutation. Releasing the album on his own label All Is Acid which has recently been undertaking a reissue program of some of Acid Pauli's earlier works, "Mystic Meltdown" feels like a complete expression for Gretschmann; from beginning to end, from creation to reflection. "Building up, going into different spheres and emotions," Gretschmann concludes. "Working through some darker shades, trying to find light. Pouring in to get through."
Lex Walton (née Alex) is an American songwriter, actress, prose poet, and filmmaker whose work is unflinchingly confessional, and whose live performances are filled with ecstatic masochism and flailing. In addition to her catalog of a dozen or so mostly home-recorded albums, EPs, and singles, she has recorded collaborations with Devi McCallion (Black Dresses, Girls Rituals), Geese, and Ezra Furman, written the pop music manifesto The Sound Rocker's Prayer, and starred in Louise Weard's five-hour epic film Castration Movie Anthology II: The Best Of Both Worlds.
ULTIMATE LOVE FOREVER is Lex’s unwavering, iconoclastic Sub Pop debut. Some of the tracks already have fans and the music press heated up, so we’ll let the critics do the talking! PASTE: “Walton’s wiggly, anxious power pop wades through pages of dead links and forum threads to get to its incendiary hooks... anachronistic collage of Edwardian portrait artists, country greats, and noise rock heroes… a roadside altar… with its lo-fi hissing and tongue-twisting one-liners.” The Quietus: "For fans of early Jonathan Richman, NYC gutter punks Dollhouse, or staring at the fluorescent lights of the Walgreens ceiling on your third day withdrawing from psych meds, barely able to parse the words ‘Medicaid coverage has lapsed’ as a pharmacist misgenders you. And also, later Jonathan Richman."
ULTIMATE LOVE FOREVER was written by Lex Walton, produced by Lex and Dan Boeckner, recorded, mixed, and mastered by Ben Greenberg at Thump and Circular Ruin in Williamsburg, with assistant engineer Alice Cohen. ULTIMATE LOVE FOREVER features appearances from Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs), Emerson Borakove, Alice Cohen, Brendan Dunphy, Emily Green (Geese), Greenberg (Uniform, The Men), Scotty Malcolm, Sarah Neufeld (Arcade Fire), and Sam Revaz (Geese).
The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk was an American single-seat, subsonic, twin-engined attack aircraft and is a fitting name for this EP, which is equally low-key, menacing and devastating from RAN. Influences from Loefah, Youngsta and Boddika abound in these stark and dark dub soundscapes, which drip with dank warehouse vibes, ride on booming low ends that melt into an inky night and come with precision-engineered percussion. 'GBU-10 (External Guidance)' is a late-night search across a deserted city, 'JDAM (Signal Without Light)' has a more sub-aquatic feel and rolls more fluidly, while 'GBU-27 (BLU-109 Core)' is ominous, with ghosts of dubstep and broken beat lurking round every corner. Fantastically immersive and meticulously executed, not least because the EP was mastered by the great Transition Studios in South East London (early support from Carrier).
Limited Edition 2026 Black Vinyl Repress.
Up in Flames is Dan Snaith's second album, originally released under the Manitoba moniker on March 31, 2003 .
Made with the same modest home setup as its predecessor, it nonetheless sounds like a different artist entirely - a kaleidoscopic rush of sun-bright melodies, tumbling percussion, and psychedelic pop that traded the hushed intimacy of Start Breaking My Heart for something warmer, bigger, and more joyfully overstuffed, encompassing 1960s psychedelia, Madchaster swagger and shoegaze swoon.
Snaith was later forced to change his artist name after a well-documented lawsuit, and Up in Flames stands as the final album released under the Manitoba name - a high point to go out on. The record was met with widespread critical acclaim, and has since been recognized by Pitchfork as one of the standout albums of the 2000s. It remains, by most accounts, one of Snaith's finest and most beloved records.
Balaise was the original title of Vers le Nord’s debut album. In French slang, balaise means something in between badass and flamboyant. The word keeps popping up throughout the record, like a teenager’s graffiti scrawled on a bus shelter after a few drinks. Balaise robots. Balaise ghosts lurking in the shadows. Balaise is the barfly who fantasies about becoming a street vigilante. In many ways, Matthieu Pellerin's new solo project is entirely contained within that word: a gigantic piece one man against the world cobbled together, a monument shaped by hand using layers of synthesizers sounding like cathedral organs cast in concrete.
Stitching this type of freak together took time. Five years, or what sounds like forever in an age obsessed with career trajectories and content strategies. But for Matthieu Pellerin, it was never about career plans or taking the easy road. Or he would have dug up the rotting corpse of Oi Boys, his now-defunct band, whose brief existence and explosive popularity once united sullen skinheads, gothic street punks, and old school punks alike. Or he would have fully embraced the Metz scene, now that the Great International Triple Alliance of the East (Noir Boy George, The Dreams, The Feeling Of Love...) and rising solo acts like Tune Zitoune, Josy Bazar, Fantôme Josepha, and Tony Gerrano have somehow transformed this sprawling open-air heroin camp into an unlikely capital of cool. But Vers le Nord doesn't point East, and it is as a lone rider that Matthieu Pellerin can fully reveal his songwriting scope.
With Le Seul Élément, his first solo project, the Lorraine native had already shown a rare gift for crafting worlds. Picture vast sonic masses stretching like industrial zones, noise-filled fog pierced by pale neon lights and landscapes caught somewhere between the gnarliest dive bar and a doomsday bunker. And slipping through the soul-crushing slowness and fractured blackened atmospheres, one could perceive a throwback to his years plotting in black metal-tinged Loth and Bishop.
Vers le Nord populates those landscapes that once were rough sketches. Damaged characters reign supreme, with a plethora of exquisite mutts brought to life, rather than outcasts committed to the cause. Where Nuits Blanches —his new supergroup featuring members of Rixe, Lion's Law, Headbussa and La Femme— pulls no punches with raw confessions, Pellerin switches gear for tales of robot apocalypses, vagrants and fam-seeking school shooters, delivered with William Sheller-esque rhymes and striking images. Yet even within fiction, he manages to create something deeply intimate, almost defining, showing very little effort: he is a natural. All in all, à l’aise (at ease). Songs resonate deeply with the listener, perhaps because of Pellerin’s odd way or always addressing someone without ever really naming them, a floating, obsessive and inescapable “you” calling us out.
Despite all of the darkness, Vers le Nord stirs deep emotions. There is something of Type O Negative or Anna von Hausswolff in its constant collision of the ludicrous and the epic gothic, its bleak romanticism that never tells a sordid tale. While the vocals remain rooted in a distinctly French punk lineage—think No Class, La Souris Déglinguée and OG Bérurier Noir—the reactor core is hidden somewhere else. Oneohtrix Point Never feels like a closer relative with his ultra-emotional music made of cold synths and disembodied anthems, swallowing and regurgitating forty years of icy, contemplative new wave across ten songs. It comes as no surprise that Lila Ehjä and Aimable, two rising specialists in lowering the temperature below seasonal norms, appear on “Enterrez-moi bordel” (“Bury Me, for fuck's sake”), a grandiose, spectral and magnificently arrogant finale. And in the end, Vers le Nord starts where the original idea was hiding all along: somewhere amid the ruins, definitely balaise and yet somehow, completely à l'aise.
Delinquent Habits is the self-titled debut album of the Chicano hip-hop group that was formed in Los Angeles in 1991. As a group they got widespread attention with their, both melodic and hardcore, Latin-tinged rap. For the album they got help from Sen Dog, known from the very popular hip hop group Cypress Hill. He was the executive producer and also made a guest appearance on "Underground Connection".
The group was one of the biggest breakthrough acts of 1996. It started with the single "Tres Delinquentes" that attracted much attention and sold over one million copies. The album followed quickly and was equally successful by reaching the Billboard Top 200. The genre gained a new classic!
Delinquent Habits is available as a 30th anniversary edition of 2000 individually numbered copies on blue and white vinyl.
Half a century after its original release, legendary Lebanese musician and singer Marcel Khalife—renowned oud player and global icon of both music and activism—returns with a new recording. On this album, he reinterprets four of the five tracks from his debut, Promises of the Storm. A bold defiance of time and history.
Why revisit the same album, 50 years later? The reasons are many, but one stands above the rest: history itself seems to be repeating. The narrative unfolds once more in the same dire circumstances as half a century ago, as if time has folded in on itself, returning everything to its starting point. The urgency, the necessity—it all remains, pressing and inescapable. We must begin again.
In 1976, a young Marcel Khalife found himself exiled in Paris, fleeing the Lebanese Civil War and his family’s Christian village, where his progressive, left-wing ideas had placed him under a kind of house arrest. He was one of the few to openly and unwaveringly champion the Palestinian cause. The situation quickly became untenable, especially since, just a month before the war began in March 1975, Khalife—fresh out of the conservatory—had given his first public concert to great acclaim. Then, everything collapsed. What does one do when trapped at home? Read books, play the oud, and turn those readings into songs. In his family’s de facto prison, Khalife began setting the poetry of the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish to music. These songs, born of confinement, he carried with him into exile, driving to Paris where a producer offered him the chance to record an album. Naturally, the tracks were the ones he had been improvising at home from Darwish’s poems. The album’s title, Promises of the Storm, echoed the war that was just beginning. Khalife recalls that the album became a hit after a concert at the Fête de l’Huma, where 500 copies were sold in a single day. “Everything started there, and it never stopped,” he remembers. He would meet Mahmoud Darwish shortly after, at a dinner organized by mutual friends. From that moment, a deep friendship blossomed between the two men.
With Darwish’s words and Khalife’s music, the songs of Promises of the Storm are imbued with a powerful evocative force—melancholy, tenderness, and poetic resistance in the face of violence. The album catapulted Khalife to international stardom, leading to endless tours and recordings, yet he never abandoned his commitments.
Now, 50 years later, Promises of the Storm returns in a fresh recording, because history is repeating itself. After the Israeli bombings in Lebanon at the end of 2024, Khalife, who was on tour, found himself stranded in Paris. He remembered a recurring request from his son, musician Bachar Mar-Khalife, who had often urged him to re-record his now-classic debut album. One morning, oud in hand, Marcel knocked on his son’s door and said, “Shall we? I’m ready to record.”
These new versions are stripped down, raw, and intimate—just the solitary strings of the oud. Khalife sings as never before, his voice no longer marked by the fragility of youth but imbued with something deeper, freer, unshackled. It soars high yet resonates low, always clear, as if to escape sadness, to evoke love and violence, desire and exile. In just four songs, Khalife encapsulates a lifetime, and a philosophy of life. Rita tells of a love of Darwish’s, with the haunting line (translated from Arabic): “Between Rita’s eyes and mine, a rifle.” Oummi invokes the figure of the mother as a metaphor for the lost land. Promises of the Storm is a meditation on revolution, the hope for change, the melancholy of defeat, and the power of thought. Passport captures, through poetry, the feeling of being stateless—a citizen of everywhere and nowhere.
Time has only strengthened these texts and this music. History never repeats itself without a valid, indispensable reason for the present. That reason is fully contained in Marcel Khalife’s new interpretations, which have never sounded so clear, so right, so essential.
Stix Records, a sub-label of Favorite Recordings, is back with Disco Reggae Vol. 7, continuing a series that goes back more than 20 years, to the success of The Dynamics’ acclaimed album Version Excursions.
Born in Jamaica, reggae has always shared deep roots with Soul, Funk, R&B and Pop. Over the decades, Jamaican musicians have mastered the art of reinterpreting iconic songs through their own unique musical language. With the Disco Reggae series, Stix Records celebrates this rich tradition, bringing together fresh reggae interpretations of timeless classics from across the musical spectrum.
For this seventh volume, Charles Maurice has once again carefully curated a selection packed with gems, featuring reinterpretations of tracks by Hall & Oates, Gloria Estefan, Crystal Waters, Patrice Rushen, Cameo, Joe Smooth, and many more.
Behind the controls, the usual crew of friends is back: Taggy Matcher, Mystic Jungle, Soul Sugar aka Booker Gee, and Mato. This time, they are joined by Dub Shepherds and Slowly from Japan, who each bring their own flavour to the collection with two killer covers.
The result is another feel-good journey through Disco, Funk and Reggae, made for dancing under the stars, cruising with the windows down, or simply vibing with friends.
Disco Reggae Vol. 7 is another chapter in Stix Records’ ongoing celebration of the timeless connection between Jamaican music, classic songs and the dancefloor.
Gilles Peterson has partnered with Jean-Paul “Bluey” Maunick to reinvigorate the loose, protean energy of the early-80s Brit-funk scene. STR4TA sees them mine new musical possibilities outof that shared formative era. On “Aspects”, they revisit that
important period and the spirit that guided it: self-taught, DIY vitality, and a raucous energy built on live performance. Bringing a fresh slant to a sound first developed by groups like Atmosfear, Hi-Tension, Light of the World and Freeez – with Maunick, it should be noted, also a member of the latter two bands – it’s the first material that Maunick and Peterson have released together in over a decade.
It’s an idea that had been in the works for a while, but which was encouraged by a surprising catalyst: the award acceptance speech by Tyler, the Creator at the 2020 Brit Awards, where he shouted out the influence of “British funk from the 80s”. It was an acknowledgement of the particular sound that Maunick and his peers had honed, where their US influences were reoriented through their own circumstances. “Like everybody else who plays music, we tried to emulate our heroes,” Maunick says. “But we didn’t have the tools, we hadn’t studied music: were all playing by ear, and we were coming off bits and pieces that we liked off certain records.” This record is guided by the same ethos. An array of musical touchpoints have fed into the album’s direct, no-frills entries: each track’s parts are cut back to the bare bone. In writing and recording the album, the pair of them would work together to strike upon the point of departure – more naive, less considered – that had produced that killer Brit-funk sound. Peterson would dig out records that showed particular flashes or moods as jumping off points, and Maunick would then work with collaborators to build new directions out of those prompts or suggestions.
It’s the latest chapter in a story that started with Peterson interviewing Maunick in his parents’ garden shed, the first interview that the former had ever conducted. Later, they would reconnect to put out a string of celebrated Incognito albums on Peterson’s pioneering, now-defunct Talkin’ Loud imprint. Now, linking up once more, they unpick an under-appreciated flashpoint in a vital musical lineage, one which each of them has been instrumental in shaping.
Det Gode Selskab continue their quest as they call on Berlin-based Italian artist Busso. An artist who continues to express himself through a multitude of vibes and sounds, fitting perfectly with the free-flowing DGS ethos. ‘Anna In The Jelly’ wanders between four different cuts, teasing animated deep house energy combined with stripped-back minimal flavours. A reflection of Busso’s versatile taste, he encapsulates four sure shots for your summertime record bag. A tale for the sun worshipping dreamers, soundtracking the warmer months.
Diving straight in with ‘Sexual Desire’, Busso delivers perky and playful peak-time action, with a clean-cut, feel-good energy from the word go. A vintage feel emerges through the vocals and crisp drums, working in sweet harmony. Slick hi-hats lead the way in ‘Don’t Be Afraid’ before you are confronted with a killer elasticated groove synonymous with the Italian’s sound. Beautiful chords appear at the midway point, spiralling into paradise.
The B-side kicks off with the title track, constructed in a distinct chunky manner. Squelchy mechanical tones manoeuvre around the mysterious drive of the track. Moody as it moves, it’s one for the darker nights on the road. Last but not least is ‘Red Print’, tightly packaged and incredibly detailed, with quirky obscurities flashing throughout. A steady motion perfectly sets the tone as you start to build the floor.
This record cements an exciting future for the label, as they look to continue elaborating on their catalogue, ever-evolving and expanding their width of sounds with one of the most exciting prospects currently in the German capital.
Die größten Hits des Freestyle-Stars Stevie B jetzt auf hochwertiger farbiger Vinyl-LP! Diese exklusive Edition vereint die bekanntesten Songs des Künstlers und bringt den unverwechselbaren Sound der 80er- und 90er-Jahre zurück auf den Plattenteller.
Mit dabei sind unter anderem die Klassiker:
Funky Melody
Dreaming of Love
Spring Love
sowie weitere unvergessliche Hits.
Ein Muss für Fans von Freestyle, Dance-Pop und Sammler außergewöhnlicher Vinyl-Ausgaben.
Hinweis: Vol. 2 mit weiteren Stevie-B-Klassikern erscheint demnächst!
Children of Zeus return with their third studio album ‘As The World Burns…’
Five years on from their highly-acclaimed sophomore album ‘Balance’, Manchester’s kings of hip hop soul, Tyler Daley and Konny Kon, bring us a brand new 16-track opus.
Sonically the duo continue their story where they left off; crafting an amalgamation of street soul, alternative r&b and boom bap hip hop, with a sprinkle of flavours taken from their original multi-genre pirate radio influences, and a dash of forward-thinking new sounds, ensuring all tracks are destined to become future classics.
The features are sparing but powerful, enlisting the talents of revered UK rapper Knucks (‘Before We Drown’), Colorado-native Young Old Soul (‘Dopamine’), MCR family K S R (‘Do You Want To Get High’, & Australian/Mauritian up & comer Anieszka (‘Water & Vibes’).
As with previous projects, this album is largely produced by the duo themselves, though there are guest productions from previous collaborators too, including Grammy Award-winner Beat Butcha, Grammy-nominated Teo, and broken beat pioneer K15, along with an assortment of new players making moves in the underground neo-soul & beats circuit.
Conceptually, this project continues on with the story to date. An eternal search for sunsets and soulfood, as a respite to the anxieties of the modern world; personally, professionally and globally. Assertive swagger is matched with brutal but sincere candidity. As ever, it encapsulates the rough with the smooth, with reflections on where they’ve been, where they’re at and where they’re headed. There’s no preaching to be found here; just an acceptance of things as they are, an embrace of the environment and people they were nurtured by, and a celebration of some of the finer things in life; slow jams, weed & rum, water & vibes. Raps for listeners, blunt heads, fly ladies and prisoners. All packaged together as another perfect sonic love letter to sound system culture. 50 minutes of big people music.
Since the release of their anthemic debut single ‘Still Standing’ a decade ago, to the subsequent EP ‘The Story So Far’, and their critically-lauded debut album ‘Travel Light’, the duo have received numerous accolades, including nominations for AIM Awards & Worldwide Awards both, along with tons of ‘Album of the Year’ nods care of Clash Magazine, Bandcamp, Complex, Wordplay and many more. This along with huge swathes of support from DJs, radio stations, press outlets, tastemakers, luminaries & fellow artists across the globe.
Children of Zeus have performed sessions for COLORS, Soulection (Apple Music), DJ AG, Boiler Room, BBC 6 Music and at the infamous Maida Vale studios for BBC 1Xtra as well as touring across Europe, Australia and South Africa. This is in addition to collaborating & touring with Mercury Award Winner’s Ezra Collective, including a Wembley Arena show. Other collaborations over the years have included Shy FX, Juls, Goldie, Black Milk, Kofi Stone and the late great Lenzman.
From the Broke ’n’ English / Hoodman-era, to the present day, Children of Zeus have been omnipresent in the fabric of British black music. Proud ambassadors of Manchester music, and of UK soul, it really is “Zeus to the world”.
Children of Zeus have been adorned with plenty of flowers over their career. The unbridled quality and poignance of the music and the message on display throughout this project will see the algorithmic needle move some more. It’s undoubtedly set to be a Zeus Summer. As the world burns…
Available on all digital platforms and physical formats, Friday September 4th 2026.
t 07: Do You Want To Get High? (feat. K S R ) - Children of Zeus03:26
t 07: Do You Want To Get High? (feat. K S R ) - Children of Zeus03:26
[t] 07: Do You Want To Get High? (feat. [ K S R ]) - Children of Zeus03:26
[t] 07: Do You Want To Get High? (feat. [ K S R ]) - Children of Zeus03:26
[g] B3 | Do You Want To Get High? (feat [ K S R ]) - Children of Zeus03:26
The latest in our series of Limited Edition 7x7" Soul Box Sets celebrates the work of Dave Hamilton.
Dave's musical career in Detroit stretched from the 40s into the 80s. He was involved in all black music styles during that period - blues, jazz, and gospel as well as soul music.
A talented songwriter, he wrote or contributed to ten of the fourteen compositions here and produced them all in his studios.
Though his released output was modest, considering the amount of recording he did, the gems in his tape vaults have been surprising and entertaining black music lovers since they were accessed by Ace in 1990.
That purchase came about due to Richard “Gilly” Gilbert’s detective work in discovering that a big covered-up Northern Soul spin at Wigan Casino was actually Dave’s production on “Little Ann” Bridgeforth. The ensuing years have seen soul tracks in all genres, issued on Kent and BGP and we are still discovering great tracks 36 years on. Witness ‘You Got Me Where You Want Me’ by Chico & Buddy, a fabulous funky number from around 1970 that would have been a soul fan’s favourite whenever it was issued; this is its first public appearance.
Funk crosses over to all dance scenes these days and even jazzier tracks like Dave’s own ‘Soul Suite’, a close relation of his coveted ‘Pisces Piece’ will pick up plays now it is on vinyl. Northern Soul lovers have been demanding J T Rhythm’s ‘I Love The Way You Walk’ on a seven, as have Motown connoisseurs with Rita DuShay’s original of ‘All I Need (Steal Away Tonight)’ as covered by Barbara McNair on her 1966 Motown LP.
Original copies exist of the Ravins ‘Your Love Is What I Want’ but unless you have several grand to spare on this fast and furious dancer, our audio-enhanced release is a great substitute; especially with the Kent 45 deleted.
OC Tolbert delivers a tough and menacing Clarence Reid song ‘Along Came A Woman’ which has huge dancefloor potential, like Dave’s own bluesy vocal on his similarly gritty, R&B composition ‘Take Care Of Your Own Business’.
Dave’s accomplishments into the 70s and 80s are admired by modern soul lovers and his ‘Ride The Disco Train’ by the Moderations, hit a perfect groove for progressive clubs of the genre. Both the Felecia Johnson and New Experience tracks thrive on the laid-back atmosphere Dave was able to conjure up in his home studios and the talented singers present his thoughtful songs with panache.
With enhanced audio for both of Little Ann’s uptempo and ballad classics ‘What Should I Do’ / ‘Deep Shadows’ this box set is irresistible as well as being a tribute to the unsung heroes of Detroit Soul music.
With Parallel Worlds, RFLX opens a new chapter for Eight of Cups Records, delivering a raw and focused statement built around tension and transformation.
“I wanted to avoid any form of release. With Parallel Worlds, tension becomes the language itself. I was drawn to this constant escalation, something that dissolves linear time and locks me into a different state of perception… where the drop never comes. And that’s exactly the point.”
“By removing resolution, I wanted to keep everything open: a space where perception expands and multiple realities can coexist. Parallel Worlds is not about choosing a direction, but about becoming aware that more than one is always there.”
A four-track immersive EP refusing the conventional payoff, Parallel Worlds unfolds as a continuous escalation, creating a suspended space where perception shifts and different realities begin to overlap.
The release features two original cuts alongside exclusive remixes by JOEY BELTRAM and AT-XYA.
Techno pioneer Joey Beltram strips the title track down to its raw essence, transforming it into a relentless dancefloor weapon driven by physical energy, hypnotic grooves and his unmistakable signature sound.
AT-XYA takes the opposite route, deconstructing and reshaping the original into an ethereal, cinematic journey for those fragile moments when night dissolves into morning and everything suddenly makes sense ;)
Completing the EP is Danxome, a deeper tribal-inspired cut reconnecting with the origin of the concept. In the Fon language, Danxomɛ means “in the belly of Dan”, the cosmic serpent and the origin of the world. Before parallel worlds, there was one.
Parallel Worlds started from a simple thought:
Every day, all versions of you exist. You just don’t see them all. You can stay the same, or you can shift.
HVS is truly pleased to welcome Cash Kru and Tweeleaf to the label. Two of the hardest working kids in Jungle/Hardcore IMO. With a ton of quality releases under their belts, they just had to get pressed up, because these tunes are absolutely phat!
Cash Kru runs the Asionyta label out of Belgium along with Expo, F.T.C Project & Tweeleaf. Super wicked label putting out digital releases as well as lathe cuts, disks and cassettes. She has loads of top tunes on there, and not strictly Jungle either! She also runs the Devil Dubs label putting out very very quality Jungle. I highly recommend checking both out if you want some gritty, ruthless Drum & Bass.
Tweeleaf out of Pennsylvania (funny enough the same small town the rest of my family is from) also has releases out on both labels as well as his own, Interim Records, focusing on digi singles from him, all currently being sold at “Name Your Own Price” which is insane considering every release is excellent.
These tracks were made with a combo of DAW and emulated Amiga (more info on the center label) and all four are just Heavy as hell. I've been playing them out live a ton and every track crushes the dance floor. Someone always demands the rewind on “Militant Jazz” which is funny because the buildup is so long, but by the time it drops everyone loses it!
A1. starts off the EP on a more mellow tip with a vibey Soul Pride, Think & Amen mashup from CK. The switch up into the 2nd half phased out Amen is so seamless, it's a great way to get the EP going.
A2. goes straight into the ruffness with a relentless amen tune mixed up with some mysterious/jazzy chords/vox all summed together in PT2.
B1. is a remix of a tune of mine that never came out, but CK asked for the stems and did an amazing job with it. I love her choppage on this! Super tight and snappy and hits all the right notes for a destructive tune.
B2. ends the EP with one of the nastiest tunes to come out anywhere this year if I may say so. That Lemon D amen is just crazy, and that S950 time stretch stutter is chef's kiss. But you be the judge!!
DJ Linus came up with the basic idea for You Are House Music while DJing. He provided the vocals himself and refined them through numerous tests during his DJ residency at Munich's Pacha club. The track is a tribute to the party people and became the secret anthem of Pacha during its six-month production period. The vocals seem to work...
A.O.D.S. - DJ Linus' self-created genre: Adults Oriented Disco Soul. He organizes parties and plays vinyl records from 1975-1985, covering everything from AOR to soul and disco.
Senium refers to DJ Linus's newfound love for the chillwave/retrowave genre, for which he has acquired a small new record collection.
DJ Linus spent a whole year working on the EP, including relentless testing and sound adjustments. DJ Linus: “I am very happy with the result—thank you!”
By the way: DJ Linus released his first records on Compose, Compost's 90s house label.
About DJ Linus
DJ Linus is one of the very first House DJs in Munich and in Germany. He started way back end of the 80s, early 90s.
Linus is said to be a great influence to many a famous Tech House DJ today.
His solo album “Fantasmagorique“ was the first german House Music long player of its kind.
Linus was owner of two record shops and the famous “exun records“ label.
Nowadays he is resident at the incredible Pacha Munich – since 18 years now – and is running his current label “Sujet Musique” with great success since 2013.
Linus is also resident at the legendary “Palais Club” and the asian, high class restaurant “Izakaya“.
He works as a mastering engineer and as a lecturer for DJing and Producing @ Musicversity. DJ Linus won twice the Munich Night Life Award for best DJ “House/ Techno“ in 2013 and 2019.
DJ Quotes:
“Loving the sound of You Are...! Just the kind of percussive, bassline-led house I love to play out!” – Jimpster
“Very nice!” - Fred Everything
“Tune(s)! Big up Linus.” - Bill Brewster
“Nice funky stuff.” – youANDme
“YOU are house music ! :-):-)” - Acid Pauli
“Enjoying the original You Are House Music track. ” - Josh Wink
“Beautiful!” – Reznik
“Mega EP” – Sandrino
“Really like all the tracks on this EP, Linus has been always special about his production work. Will play the tracks out for sure” - Kiko Navarro
“What a beauty!“ - Phuncadelica
Links:
Aura Safari are taking it back to the source with new album Spaced Out Disco on Hell Yeah. The eight-track record is inspired by the iconic sound, feel and studio techniques of the original 1970s disco and was played entirely live with real instruments.
Aura Safari are Andrea Moretti, Lorenzo Lavoratori, Daniele Melloni and Nicholas Iammatteo, and they have been releasing EPs, LPs and remixes on this label since 2020. They have long been entrenched in the local scene of Perugia and are live specialists with a unique chemistry that allows them to translate funk, jazz, soul, disco and house into their own timeless and universal musical language.
Integral to the album is the live performance aspect. All the band members hooked up in the studio and played together, often laying down tunes in one take and then adding some post-production for a modern edge. Disco, dub, jazz-funk and instrumental grooves define the sounds while the creative use of classic delay, echo, spacey FX and dubbed out arrangements lead the record the same Jamaican character that inspired original dub-disco pioneers like Arthur Russell, the Compass Point Studio and labels like Prelude and West End.
'Starlove' opens with low-slung grooves and squelchy bass that twist you inside out before 'Spaced Out' shimmers with astral melodies and synths that rise like a rocket disappearing into the night sky. Funky claps and flashes of Dexter Wansel-inspired soul complete the picture, while 'Santa Barbara' eases the pace with a brain-bending dub workout full of weighty low-end and warm, sun-kissed chords. 'Cosmic Affair' lives up to its name, gliding through the galaxy on uplifting guitars and slinky drums, all wrapped in irresistible retro-futurist magic and lit by the moon.
'Disco Mirage' turns inward with simmering bass, dusty open hi-hats and hazy synth trails drifting through effervescent jazz keys that rise like champagne bubbles. 'Magik Space Dust' stretches towards the stars with soaring leads and knotted bass locked into an effortless groove.
Spaced Out Disco does exactly what it promises and plots a richly imagined journey that never stops looking towards the stars while keeping its feet firmly on the dancefloor.
Mehr als 50 Jahre dauerte die Karriere von David Bowie, dennoch war es ein Schock, als er Anfang des Jahres 2016 plötzlich verstarb. Der Musiker, Sänger und Produzent hinterlässt der Welt ein beeindruckendes Gesamtwerk mit 25 Soloalben und vielen weiteren Livealben, Kompilationen, Soundtracks und Gastauftritten. »Legacy (The Very Best Of David Bowie)« heißt der neue Best-of-Sampler, der jetzt noch einmal einen Blick auf die größten Hits seines Lebens wirft – von Klassikern bis hin zu seinen letzten Aufnahmen. Natürlich darf die Sammlung dabei auch nicht auf seine größten Hits verzichten, darunter »Let’s Dance«, »Space Oddity«, »Starman«, »Ziggy Stardust« und viele weitere. Mit »Lazarus« hat es auch ein Song von seinem letzten Album »Blackstar« auf die Kompilation geschafft. Zu den weiteren Highlights auf »Legacy (The Very Best Of David Bowie)« gehört unter anderem eine neue Version von »Live On Mars?«, die von Produzent Ken Scott gemixt wurde. 20 Songs haben es auf das Album geschafft.
Bill Withers was a modest, gentle, and yet towering musical figure responsible for some of the most important, universally known soul hits ever written. It’s no wonder that “Just the Two of Us” and “Ain’t No Sunshine” won him two Grammy awards and undoubtedly played a huge role in getting him inducted into both the Songwriters and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Naked & Warm is Withers' fifth studio album, released in 1976. A year earlier, the Sussex label—home to Bill's first four landmark albums—ceased operations. Withers then signed with the mighty Columbia Records, which would remain his home until the end of his recording career. While Naked & Warm retains Bill's unique, earthy approach to soul that made him Sussex's biggest star, it's clear that musically too, he was in transition; the first half of the album is full of synthesized jazz-funk vamps, while "City Of The Angels" is an almost 11 minutes long cosmic funk excursion combining biting Rhodes chords with swirling synth pads and Dorothy Ashby's spiritual harp work. All in all, Naked & Warm might be one of Bill's most underrated records, simply because his previous work for Sussex was just that impactful.
Naked & Warm is available as a 50th anniversary edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on blue vinyl and includes a 4-page booklet featuring lyrics and new liner notes written by Marcia Withers.
The evolution of Andreas Tilliander's moniker TM404 has reached its third stage. The first TM404 album was a heavily self-restricted concept album, live recorded with classic Roland machines. The subsequent album had a more playful vibe, shaped by Tilliander's extensive live touring. This third TM404 album on Kontra-Musik simply tells the story of what he's been up to since. The third part of a musical diary, initiated in 2013. The TM404 venture might have started out as a dreamy acid dub project, more suited for the chill-out than the main floor. But by popular demand Tillander found himself touring big clubs around the globe and the TM404 sound adapted organically. As a result, the album features tracks like Vactro and Rymdeko: fast paced acidic techno tracks in the same vein as classic Plus 8 releases, but with more space echo. Much more. But never fear, fans of the classic warm and bubbling TM404 sound. You'll certainly get yours as well. A substantial portion of this album was recorded in a studio flat in Berlin as part of an artist residency. For obvious reasons, Tilliander could only bring a small portion of his studio gear to this German sanctuary. As a consequence, this album has a more stripped down vibe than its predecessors, which creates more space for Tilliander's glowing melodies. The last track on the album, a loving homage to Kontra-Musik's label boss, is a sublime example. And for the Instagram generation, here's the short version: The album is called Syra. That translates to Acid. You're welcome.
Retro Addict Vinyl Collection - A new series is born.
Five years of parties. Countless memories. Now, the music lives on.
After five years of bringing legendary club sounds back to life, Retro Addict takes the next step: bringing the energy of the dancefloor straight to your record collection.
Introducing the Retro Addict Vinyl Collection: two double-vinyl editions curated byDJ Furax, celebrating retro classics, trance anthems and early rave sounds that defined a generation of clubbers.
The Red Edition features iconic tracks including Rave 93 and Stress, while the Blue Edition brings together dancefloor favourites such as The Jumper and Orgus 69. Two distinct collections, united by one shared passion: the timeless music that made club history.
Whether you're a longtime fan, a vinyl collector or simply want to relive the magic of the dancefloor, these releases are an invitation to rediscover the sounds that started it all.
The party goes on!
For the past five years, Retro Addict has brought the spirit of legendary club nights back to life, creating unforgettable events dedicated to the sounds that shaped an entire generation.
And this is only the beginning. The music continues, the memories live on, and the dancefloor is waiting.
Join us at our upcomingRetro Addict parties and keep the spirit alive.
