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Domenico Crisci has been releasing music for more than ten years, starting with famous labels such as L.I.E.S. and its sub-label Russian Torrent in the US, or Opal Tapes and its sub-label Black Opal in the UK, which really established his career, followed by vinyls on Semantica and Jealous God, but since 2016 he has started his own label Summa Cum Laude, where he has released Collin Stange, Sour and Lowfreq77 records next to his own music.

Born Under Another Sun is a four-song EP that has turned out to be a very unpolished, pulsating, tight and raw material, with a more stripped down sound compared to Domenico's well-known early sound. He continues to not overly overdone, operating with few sounds and eschewing all the nowadays boringly mindless, fashionable overly noisy industrial hammering. As he has done throughout his respectable full career run, on this vinyl he has managed to remain self-identical throughout and has delivered another proper techno record from his hands!

Nothing compares to Lewis Taylor and nobody crafts a "B-Side" quite like him. Indeed, his long deleted B-Sides are the stuff of legend. So, gathered together for the first time on one slice of wax, we present The Damn Rest: an album's worth of B-Sides from the era of the 1996 Lewis Taylor ("Damn") album. More off-the-wall and abstract than the album proper, these rare, underheard tracks burst with Lewis's uncompromising genius. A lot more experimental, the music is still drop dead beautiful. The Damn Rest is the essential bridge between Lewis Taylor and Lewis II.

Lewis Taylor's self-titled masterpiece from 1996 was to be originally called Damn. You can see the word right there on the from cover. However, concerns over distribution in the US scuppered this desired title. When thinking about what to call this collection of essential B-Sides from the era of that first album, we thought The Damn Rest would be appropriate. But these tracks aren't simply throwaways or outtakes, as Lewis himself states: "each little group were recorded specifically for the release of each 'single'." These B-Sides were simply the next thing to happen after self-titled, and before Lewis II. In other words, you need this!

The collection opens with "Asleep When You Come", the A2 on the original "Lucky" 12". It's a slow-mo string-drenched soul offering, cast in cinematic soft-focus with a vocal performance from the heavens set against wonky, shuffling drums and delicate instrumental flourishes. Beautiful. Also from the "Lucky" single, "You Got Me Thinking" may actually be Lewis' funkiest moment and is definitely one of our favourites, a great, gently psychedelic funky club track, that's for sure. Next, the gorgeous, meandering "I Dream The Better Dream" is just sheer, metronomic bliss, with shades of Stevie Wonder. Just ask D’Angelo, who included the track on his Feverish Phantasmagoria show for Sonos. Not only a celebrity-fan-favourite, it's Lewis's, too: "My favourite has always been this track. In my fantasy it’s what early Soft Machine would’ve sounded like if Marvin Gaye was their lead singer."

As we move to the B-sides from the "Whoever" single, the first to feature is "Pie In The Electric Sky / If I Lay Down". It's a brilliantly sprawling classic. A head-nod funk workout in two parts; part psychedelic heavy soul jam, part breezy Marvin-esque near-instrumental of the deeply lush variety. It needs to be heard to be believed. Astonishing! Flip over for "Waves", a shimmering, dramatic, sweeping string-led fan favourite. The climax of the song is just too stunning for words. It's followed by the deep wyrd-soul of "Trip So Heavy" the final, dizzying track from the "Whoever" single and another celestial funk delight featuring strings, organ, twisted bass and heavy drums. From the "Bittersweet" 12", "A Little Bit Tasty" is a building, schizophrenic soul-jazz epic that starts out with Lewis performing a call and (distant) response with himself over a gentle mid-90s drum loop before snatches of heavy, crunching metal guitars blast apart the otherwise neat song structure. Ultimately, it's unarguable that The Damn Rest is worth it for the inclusion of the jaw-dropping "Lewis III" alone. A dazzlingly lush and stunningly sophisticated prog/soul hybrid that owes as much to "Pet Sounds" as "What's Going On" with arrangements that grow and unfold in layers. Just sparkling.

A compilation like this feels like one of those promo-only rarities they used to give out to a select few back in the good old days, so when it came to the artwork it only made sense to follow what Cally Callomon (head of Island’s art department) had done for the singles and promos back in the 90s. He even did us some fresh scribbles of “The Damn Rest” to match his handwriting that’s all over the first album and its singles. We hope you like it as much as the music contained within. Simon Francis’s vinyl mastering ensures these classic recordings sound as great as they deserve to. The record has been cut by Cicely Balston at Air Studios and pressed at Record Industry. We've lost Prince. We still have Lewis.

Lewis Taylor's legendary magnum opus: The Lost Album. "Now you're talking. That's my favourite LT album. Unlike all of the others, there isn't anything about it that embarrasses me." Straight from the genius's mouth. What can we say about this? Well, it's the most requested record ever at Be With Towers. The Lost Album was the intended follow-up to his first album but Island rejected it for fear of "confusing" the marketplace and its conception of Lewis as a soul artist. Their loss. It's a breezy sunset masterpiece.

The genesis of this incredible record needs unpicking a bit. Lewis stopped promoting the first album after a year and went home to record a completely different record that was the most un-R&B album you could probably ever hear: "I pushed in such an extreme direction the other way with what eventually became The Lost Album. It was a knee-jerk reaction to a perceived ‘trapped in R&B’ feeling I was going through at the time. Some people around me were in favour of it and others weren’t. In the end I think I lost confidence in it and did Lewis II instead." We did at least get Lewis II, which is a remarkable album, and he kept Island happy...for a bit. Not long after, Lewis was dropped. And what was to become The Lost Album could've been...er...lost. Forever.

Thankfully, however, Lewis and longtime partner Sabina Smyth revisited those scrapped demo tracks in 2003. They decided to re-arrange, re-record and then self-release them. So it was that the brand new version of The Lost Album finally dropped in late 2004. It's sheer perfection, and we don't say that lightly. The Lost Album was a fully 50/50 collaboration between Lewis and Smyth. As well as production, Sabina did a lot more writing on it, from the melody to "Listen Here" to the chord sequence for "Let's Hope Nobody Finds Us." Thankfully, Sabina is credited this time around.

No, it's not straight up "soul music" in the vein of his previous work. Yet, in its perfectly formed suite of one dozen songs, The Lost Album is dripping in soul. It's so warm, so effervescent and so alive with possibilities. It features deep, fresh imprints on well-loved, accessible sounds. It's a proper 70s style double album. Just one listen and the musical influences on The Lost Album are fairly self-explanatory, as Lewis recently told us, but it's always nice to hear that, in case we were in any doubt, he was definitely channeling Love, Yes, Brian Wilson, CSN, Laura Nyro and, of course, Todd Rundgren. The influences don't end there: "I’m particularly fond of my bass playing on that album, there’s a lot of Chris Squire going on which is cool."

Deep orchestral opener "Lost" is a sublime, harp-laced, string drenched gem, a cinematic, melancholic Axelrod-esque mini-epic that simply beguiles. Written by Smyth, it evokes Donny Hathaway's celestial "I Love The Lord, He Heard My Cry" from Extensions Of A Man. The only problem is the brief 90 seconds running time. It segues into the classic Brian Wilson-meets-power-pop-rock splendour of "Listen Here" which, with its outstanding extended harp-licked beatless intro, sounds like the younger cousin to Boston's "More Than A Feeling". We then drift into the ringing guitars of classic 70s rock anthem "Hide Your Heart Away". It's Lewis's personal favourite, "especially the multi-tracked guitar solo – I was listening to Boston at the time, which was fun." A-ha!

A new version of the heart-stopping, shoulda-been-a-massive-pop-hit "Send Me An Angel" opens Side B before the arrival of, in Lewis's completely correct words, "the clear standout, "Leader of the Band"; the perfect distillation of everything that album was trying to achieve." Soaring, piano-led Rundgren-esque power pop that makes the hairs on the back of your next stand on end. Truly, otherworldly. This is pure pop for now (and then) people. The simple jangly brilliance meets experimental prog-rock of "Yeah" sounds like simultaneously like prime CSNY and late 90s Radiohead (if they'd had a slightly more accessible bent and could write better tunes).

Oh, you wish The Beach Boys had continued writing amazing songs beyond Holland? Well, allow us to point you in the direction of the downlifting stunner "Please Help Me If You Can" and the warm textures and brilliant atmospherics of goosebump-inducer "Let’s Hope Nobody Finds Us". Words can't really describe the sheer beauty of these songs. So we'll stop trying. Just listen. Listen, listen, listen. Closing out this remarkable side of music, the accidentally Balearic "New Morning" should be blasting out at every sunrise set in Ibiza, this summer and forevermore.

The final side opens with the vaguely Beatlesey "Say I Love You". It's just classic, soaring pop-rock songwriting and should strictly be canonical. It's that good. The sassy, Stonesy swagger of "See My Way" injects enough rock'n'roll attitude to compensate for the rest of record's peace-loving, AOR sun-dappled vibe whilst album closer, "One More Mystery", emerging out of the rubble of the previous track, comes on initially like a Baroque-Pop George Harrison before piling crunching drums and screeching guitar solos atop the dreamy harmonies til close.

When asked what it means to have these records available on vinyl for the first time, Lewis is in no doubt: "It’s great and it’s really nice to be able to offer fans a different listening experience. There’s a whole other dimension with vinyl that taps into that whole nostalgia thing, well for me anyway. Something about the physical aspect of pulling it out of the sleeve and putting it on, it does tend to make you feel like you’re more engaged."

Lewis was adamant that he wanted all new artwork for The Lost Album vinyl sleeve and his brief was just the sort of classic tropical-beach-at-sunset you’d want to see on the front of a record that sounds like this. On the finished sleeve, the beach at sunset is just where we start out, before heading up through the painterly clouds and heading out into the stars. And yes, the lettering is a definite subtle nod to all those in-between-period Beach Boys bootlegs we all love. Simon Francis's sensitive mastering combines with Cicely Balston's precise cut for Alchemy at AIR Studios so the album sounds appropriately outstanding. The immaculate Record Industry double LP pressing will ensure this previously lost masterpiece stays forever found.

First Ever Vinyl Reissue (released in collaboration with the Numero Group)

180g BLACK vinyl limited to 500 copies (w/obi strip). Non-Returnable.

Little is known about the mythical band ‘Heart-Soul & Inspiration’ and their band leader, L.A. drummer and producer Vince Howard…The crooning Howard got his start in 1957 on Herb Newman’s Era label where he released a bunch of excellent Doo Wop, Funk & Soul singles. Over the ensuing decade Howard slowly began piecing together his “Orchestra” consisting of bassist Jimmy Soul, guitarist Ron Carr, and pianist John True.

Howard’s Heart-Soul & Inspiration Orchestra cut their self-titled (and only) album in 1974 for John Spriggs’ Los Angeles-based Viscojon concern under the watchful eye of R&B godfather Johnny Otis.

The result was the birth of an astonishing piece of art filled with playful sexy moans, climaxing grooves and soulful hooks. One of the many highlights on the album (and clocking in at an epic eleven minutes), Vince Howard’s “I’m Gonna Love You More” is a tantric reimagining of Barry White’s 1973 sexually charged classic. Where White was content delivering a subtle and syrupy innuendo, Howard transformed the break-heavy track into a meandering funk workout.

Sadly, after their Barry White/Isaac Hayes facsimile LP failed to gain traction, the group released their final recordings—“Funk on Down” b/w “Fallen Angel”—for Viscojon in 1975 which became a hit among prominent DJ’s in the nightclub circuit. This ushered in the end for Howard’s Heart-Soul & Inspiration project.

Heart-Soul & Inspiration was a true example of a bright light burning out way too quickly. Thankfully we are left with the unique (and very rare) document that is their self-titled album. Almost impossible to get ahold of…a well-deserved reissue has been long overdue. This is an album that deserves a prominent place in every serious Funk & Soul enthusiast’s record collection!

Wild Creatures is a career retrospective album containing twenty-three of Neko Case’s most impactful tracks from her discography and will now be available on a double vinyl.

With a career spanning over twenty years, she has famously collaborated with The New Pornographers and Case/Lang/Veirs in addition to releasing many critically acclaimed solo albums, including ‘Fox Confessor Brings The Flood’, ‘Middle Cyclone’ and most recently 2018’s ‘Hell-On’.

The vinyl configuration is a 2LP on eco mix with printed innersleeves in a gatefold jacket.

'Chaos For The Fly', das Solo-Debütalbum des Fontaines D.C. Sängers, erscheint am 30. Juni via Partisan Records.

Das gesamte Album, jeden einzelnen Teil, von den Chord Progressions bis hin zu den String Arrangements, so Chatten, konnte er mit einem Mal hören. Bei einem windgepeitschten Nachtspaziergang entlang des Stoney Beach, dreißig Meilen nördlich von Dublin. Er arbeitete die Songs mit der Gitarre aus und nahm erste Demos auf, ganz alleine. 'Chaos For The Fly' handelt von Isolation und Verletzlichkeit. Vom Verlust des Glaubens an die Menschheit. Und an sich selbst. Die Songs haben meist einen dunklen Unterton und strahlen doch eine berauschende Stärke aus. Chatten verarbeitet auf dem Album schmerzliche Emotionen, Geschichten aus seinem Leben und verpackt sie auf eindrucksvolle Art und Weise in seine bisher wohl poetischsten Texte.

Koproduziert hat wie auch schon die Alben seiner Band der langjährige Fontaines D.C. Produzent Dan Carey.

FÜR FANS VON: Manowar, Queensryche, Kamelot, Savatage, Running Wild, Vicious Rumors.

In einer Zeit, in der kulturelle Innovationen so stark wie nie zuvor in den Hintergrund gedrängt werden und viele außergewöhnliche Musikformen der Versuchung des kommerziell lukrativeren Mainstreams erliegen, sind Virgin Steele der hell scheinende Silberstreif am Himmel. Seit mehr als 40 Jahren hält Mastermind David DeFeis mit seinem exzellenten Songwriting und seiner charismatischen Stimme eine der ideenreichsten Bands des
Power Metal-Genres auf Kurs. Gleichzeitig hat DeFeis nie aufgehört, sich als Komponist, Musiker und Produzent weiterzuentwickeln und seinen symphonisch gefärbten Sound mit spannenden neuen Einflüssen zu aktualisieren. Dies ist ihm mit Klassikern wie ‚Invictus‘ (1998), ‚The House Of Atreus I & II‘ (1999/2000) oder ‚Visions Of Eden‘ (2006) bereits mehrfach gelungen. Auf dem aktuellen Album ‚The Passion Of Dionysus‘ setzt DeFeis seiner unbändigen Kreativität nun die Krone auf. Mit brillanter Handschrift manövriert er das Werk durch ein packendes Gleichnis über Kontrolle und Freiheit und sorgt acht Jahre nach dem umjubelten Studio-Opus ‚Nocturnes Of Hellfire & Damnation‘ (2015) für einen weiteren Höhepunkt der Virgin
Steele-Karriere. Veröffentlicht wird ‚The Passion Of Dionysus‘ am 30. Juni 2023 über Steamhammer/SPV als Digi-CD (inklusive Poster), als
Gatefold-Doppel-LP und in digitaler Form. Bereits vorab werden Virgin Steele drei Singles auskoppeln.

FOR FANS OF: AC/DC, GUNS N`ROSES.

AC/DC sind eine der erfolgreichsten, bekanntesten und beliebtesten Heavy-Rock-Bands der Welt. Doch was machten die einzelnen Musiker früher?

In welchen Bands spielten die Aussie-Rocker vor der Gründung von AC/DC? The Music Roots Of AC/DC blickt zurück in die 60er und 70er Jahre.

Diese limitierte 10" Schallplatte beinhaltet Songs und Interviews von Bon Scott, Angus Young etc. vor dem Start der Rock-Gruppe AC/DC.

Going past musical genres and instead straight towards something more elemental - Selvhenter’s music creates a strikingly direct, physical experience of sound composed of polyrhythms, acoustic and electric melodies, heavy music and improvised beauty.

Since forming in Copenhagen in 2010, drummers Jaleh Negari and Anja Jacobsen, saxophonist Sonja LaBianca and trombonist Maria Bertel have forged a unique approach to making music that starts with their instrumental setup: two drummers that interlock as frequently as they go their own way, a trombone put through a bass amplifier loud enough to rattle your chest and a saxophone put through a range of effects so that it often sounds unrecognisable. Selvhenter work within their own idiom, drawing from the individual players’ personalities and interests to make a highly collective music, where all four musicians are absorbed into a total sound where an improvised free jazz approach collides with experimental electronic music and avant-garde noise/post-punk sonorities.

Their new LP Mesmerizer - which marks their first physical album release in nearly a decade and their debut on the French label Hands in the Dark - carries forward this process of exploration, deploying original and complex patterns of rhythm through various percussive instruments and finely textured horns and synths. The attention to sonic details is also almost pushed to an extreme on this new offering, making the open auditory adventure suggested by the title of the album all the more captivating. These creative developments have brilliantly kept Selvhenter’s music alive to new uncharted moods and possibilities, while at the same time strengthening their core elements: a propulsive, dense and often ecstatic music.

Marc Richter aka Black To Comm released his debut record 20 years ago. In 2023 he is still busy releasing music under various disguises and is currently signed to the Thrill Jockey label. To celebrate this anniversary his own Cellule 75 label is re-releasing some classic out-of-print vinyl albums that originally came out on the defunct Type and De Stijl labels. The LP will feature a full-colour printed inner sleeve exclusive to this edition.

In 2009 the Type Recordings label run by John Twells had just released seminal records by Grouper, Jóhann Jóhannsson and Yellow Swans when they signed Richter and put out his breakthrough Alphabet 1968 album. The LP sold out within two weeks, receiving a glowing full-page review in The Wire Magazine by the late Mark Fisher (later reprinted in his book Ghosts Of My Life), was selected for Boomkat's Top 10 releases of the year (alongside debut albums by Leyland Kirby, Demdike Stare and Oneohtrix Point Never) and was greeted with universal praise in the underground blog network as well as established magazines such as The New Yorker and Pitchfork.

The music itself played with the notion of nostalgia without being nostalgic itself. It's the sound of half-remembered dreams, a surreal distorted vision of the past, an aural polaroid of long forgotten musics, a ghostly voice from a non-existent era.

From the original Type one-sheet:
"The mission statement for Alphabet 1968 was to write an album of "songs" for want of a better word. Short tracks which represented genre points, the milestones which stuck in Richter's mind when he thought back to his favorite records. What we arrive at is a breathtaking 10-track album which, over the course of 45 minutes, explores world music, techno, noise, avant-garde, ambient music and even exotica. Each track is linked with a loose thread of radio static or environmental sound, dragging you through the album, as if tuning in to a stray broadcast or a particularly adventurous mix. Richter has pieced the album together from hours of recordings made at his studio with home made gamelan, small instruments and loops gathered from a collection of ancient vinyl and 78 records. The scope of the album is admirable, but ignoring this, it is simply a shockingly arresting collection of experimental oddities, with references ranging from Moondog to Basic Channel by way of Bernard Herrmann. It's not hard to fall in love with Alphabet 1968, far harder would be to place exactly where the record should fit into your collection."

Mark Fisher in The Wire:
"But what if we were to take Richter's provocation seriously - what would a song without a singer be like? What would it be like, that is to say, if objects themselves could sing? It’s a question that connects fairy tales with cybernetics, and listening to Alphabet 1968, I’m reminded of a filmic space in which magic and mechanism meet: JF Sebastian’s apartment in Blade Runner. The tracks on the LP are crafted with the same minute attention to detail that the genetic designer and toymaker brought to his miniature automata, with their bizarre mixture of the clockwork and the computerised, the antique and the ultramodern, the playful and the sinister. Richter’s musical pieces have been built from similarly heterogeneous materials - record crackle, shortwave radio, glockenspiels, all manner of samples, mostly of acoustic instruments. ….. JF Sebastian's apartment was itself an update of older spaces in which science and sorcery co-existed: the workshops of ETA Hoffmann's inventor-magicians, or of Pinocchio's creator, Geppetto. I think, too, of Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's astonishing 1886 tale The Future Eve in which Edison, using the expertise he has recently acquired from inventing the phonograph, sets himself the task of constructing an artificial woman. But if there are songs here, they are sung by the gramophone and other recording and playback machines. Richter so successfully effaces himself as author that it is as if he has snuck into a room and recorded the objects as they played (to) themselves. Rather than simply automating his music, as in the case of Pierre Bastien and his mechanical machines, Richter makes us feel that he has merely recorded the unlife of objects. ….. Indeed, the impression of things winding down is persistent on Alphabet 1968. Entropy has not been excluded from Richter's enchanted soundworld. It feels as if the magic is always about to wear off, that the enchanted objects will slip back into the inanimate again at any moment."

Amy Dabbs and Athlete Whippet deliver a perfectly crafted journey through house music with 'Into You' on Aus Music.
The duo's different yet wholly complementary musical backgrounds - Amy Dabbs bringing her extensive experience as a DJ & electronic music producer, and Athlete Whippet with his background as an instrumentalist & live band musician - have created a winning combination on Into You EP. The product of which is an intricately composed, highly musical suite of tracks produced to perfection for the dancefloor.
Having met for the first time at Cinthie's Elevate store in early 2021 for her DJ Kicks launch party, the compilation featuring one of Dabbs' earlier tracks, Amy Dabbs & Athlete Whippet stayed in touch, which culminated in the decision to start working together in the studio in their shared hometown of Berlin.
Amy Dabbs has released a string of lauded 12"s since her 2020 debut, including her latest highly acclaimed EP on Shall Not Fade, in addition to collaborating with Coco Bryce, launching her own imprint Dabbs Traxx last year, and featuring regularly on BBC Radio1 Dance.
Athlete Whippet, headed up by Robin Braum, have delivered a myriad of esteemed releases across Toy Tonics, Rhythm Section and Tartelet, which have earned heavy support from Pete Tong, Jamz Supernova and Tom Ravenscroft, to name a few.
Teaming up for the first time here, Amy Dabbs & Robin Braum deliver a fiery three-tracker for Will Saul's Aus Music, covering a variety of moods across the versatile EP. Kicking off the A-side is 'Deep In Your Love', with swirling pads and emotive strings tangling around a tear-jerking vocal refrain, which make for a highly moving opener. A2, 'Into You' continues the emotional journey with lively percussion, subby basslines, and sensuous vocal samples overlaid with luscious analogue chords played out on the Juno 106. On the flip, 'Milkshake' closes out proceedings with a glorious blend of anthemic hands-in-the-air piano riffs and deep acid grooves. This track is a surefire summer hit, set to ignite airwaves and the dancefloor in equal measure.

A wild and funky collection of Afro grooves that was ahead of its time in 1977 and has become a collector’s item in recent years, especially due to the growing international interest in Colombian picó sound system culture. Fruko and his studio bands Wganda Kenya and Kammpala Grupo treat us to a diverse set of African and Caribbean styles, laced with crazy synths, psychedelic guitar and infectious pan-African polyrhythms. By the time Discos Fuentes released the album “Wganda Kenya Kammpala Grupo” in 1977, Wganda Kenya’s discography was expanding with many 45 singles and appearances in various artists collections. The group’s 1975 debut record “África 5.000” was a full length LP in the U.S. and a various artists compilation in Colombia, which was followed by the self-titled long player the following year. However, Kammpala Grupo, which shared the album’s title and was credited to three songs on the record, had never appeared before, yet was basically the same studio group as Wganda Kenya. Most likely the creation of this short-lived studio band was just a ploy by the label to make it seem like there were more groups playing the type of exotic afro tracks favored by the picotero DJs of Colombia’s Caribbean coast (especially in Barranquilla and Cartagena). 1974 Discos Fuentes’ management had sent musician, band leader and producer Julio Ernesto “Fruko” Estrada to the coast on an A&R mission to discover what people were dancing to in the verbenas (communal open air neighborhood parties) run by the owners of picó sound systems (decorated mobile DJ rigs). Always game for an adventure, Fruko was tasked with bringing some popular examples of these esoteric, hard-to-find African, French and Dutch Antillean records back to Medellín to serve as inspiration (or to outright copy) so that the label could enter into the growing regional market and spread its popularity to the interior of Colombia and other Latin American countries via its own studio creation, Wganda Kenya. Fuentes was always returning to exploit the rich African-rooted culture of the coast as it had with the cumbia and other regional genres before, so in a way it was not surprising that they were attuned to this particular niche phenomenon from a marginalized sector of the population. The most popular genres with the champeta dancers in the 70’s and 80’s were styles like Congolese rumba, highlife, afrobeat, juju, mbaqanga and soukous as well as the music of Haiti, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Curaçao and Dominica, all of which were fiercely guarded by the DJs who had managed to acquire them often through extreme means of travel, barter and intense digging. The record kicks off with the joyful ‘El Gallo Africano’ which features exquisite interplay between Sepúlveda’s highlife style guitar and an authentic-sounding African style saxophone, perhaps played by Carlos Piña. In reality it was ‘Go Call Police Chief’ by prolific Nigerian highlife guitarist Chief Oliver Sunday Akanite, aka Oliver De Coque. Next up is Kammpala Grupo’s ‘La Yuca Rayá’ (‘Grated Yuca’), written by Isaac Villanueva in a style he termed son haitiano which sounds much more like Zimbabwe Shona mbira music. Wganda Kenya’s ‘Caimito’ (star apple, a type of tropical fruit), on the other hand, is actually a cover of a relatively well-known Haitian merengue song. Kammpala Grupo then takes us from the French Antilles to the multi-cultural discotheques of Paris, where a cover version of Black Soul’s Afro-boogie anthem ‘Black Soul Music’ is retooled and renamed ‘King Kong’, perhaps in a nod to the 1976 remake of the monster flick of the same name. Side two introduces us to the infectious merengue rebita of Angola via ‘La riphyta’ with “Paparí”, aka Mariano Sepúlveda, doing the vocals and faithfully replicating the Angolan guitar style. ‘La Trompeta Loca’ (‘The Crazy Trumpet’), probably the nuttiest track on the album, is an ingenious cover of ‘Ye Gbawa Oo Baba (Tribute To Nigeria)’ by Joe Mensah of Ghana. As with all their covers of African tunes, this rendition tightens up the original with some pop sheen, more consistent drumming and higher production values, remaking it into a powerful slow-burning dance floor filler. This is followed by one of the most powerfully original songs to come out of the entire Wganda Kenya project, Mike Char’s reggae anthem ‘El Nativo’ with Joe Arroyo on vocals. The record ends on a more authentically Caribbean sounding note with the instrumental ‘El testamento’, a cheerful islands banger with bright brass, syncopated calypso beats and chunky cuatro guitar (or ukulele). The original was in the mento genre and titled ‘Sweet meat’, written and recorded by Jamaican trumpeter Bobby Ellis. First time reissue. 180g vinyl.

Images Of Goo is what Munich sound bricolageurs Leo Hopfinger aka LeRoy (head of Das Hobos, H, Spiritual Emojis and others) and Cico Beck aka Joasihno (active member of The Notwist, Aloa Input, Spirit Fest and others) call their first musical dialogue in album format.

It is equally a dialogue with the elements of their sonic repertoire of echo variations and sonic shadows from the percussive instrument box. In their sum, a Wunderkammer of a panaudic, which can be approached and departed in six tracks per side.

There we pass a fuzzy factory flow music of sound tiles and find ourselves in the next station in a game of pot banging and gong shower with firecrackers and other sound explosions. Tinpan tinkertoy and sparkler warehouse become an offbeat downbeat of sound loops, and already we imagine ourselves amid the hammering and pounding of a magic sound forge at the center of the earth, which may be the center of a distant galaxy.

On side two, we enter a dripstone cave boogaloo ("Let's start tripping") and it drips candle wax from a vocoder space-age melody, emoting and coagulating into a Morse-coding cumbia chant. Wax music this is - music that grows out of itself, even if by the means of tape and collage.

At the end there is a music snake, which, having become snake music itself, disappears in front of our ears with a swing. And maybe this is the beginning ...

Byard Lancaster was a composer/multi-instrumentalist born in Philadelphia in 1942. He started playing alto saxophone at an early age and later took up flute and bass clarinet. While attending Berklee College of Music, Lancaster and pianist Dave Burrell organized late-night jam sessions with fellow students and touring musicians. In 1965, he moved to New York and quickly became part of the city's burgeoning scene – playing with jazz luminaries such as Archie Shepp, Sunny Murray, Bill Dixon and Marzette Watts.

It's Not Up To Us, Lancaster's 1968 debut as a leader, was originally released on Vortex, a subsidiary of Atlantic responsible for first albums by Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett and Sonny Sharrock. Featuring guitarist Sharrock (another Berklee alum), It's Not Up To Us is true fire music – fusing elements of free jazz, soul/R&B and traditional folk song.

On the opening title track, Lancaster's luminous flute draws the listener in, while bassist Jerome Hunter grounds the tune with a simple descending theme over Keno Speller and Eric Gravatt's syncopated rhythms. "John's Children," a reference to the group's status as post-Coltrane players, showcases the modal strumming of Sharrock's steady drones as Lancaster cries into the void. After repeated listens, Lancaster's original compositions become visceral aural memories ingrained in the ear, while the standards ("Misty" and "Over The Rainbow") sound the most avant-garde pieces on the album.

This first-time vinyl reissue is recommended for fans of Albert Ayler, Don Cherry and Pharoah Sanders.

Blue Lake is the musical moniker of American born, Copenhagen based multidisciplinary artist and musician Jason Dungan, who signs to the Tonal Union imprint for the release of his new longform album ‘Sun Arcs’. It follows 2022’s release ‘Stikling’, earning a nomination for ‘Album of the Year’ at the Danish Music Awards plus warm praise from The Hum blog and musicians and DJs alike including Jack Rollo (Time is Away/NTS) and Carla dal Forno. A self taught player, Dungan began freely experimenting with self-built multi-string instruments, preferring to build his own hybrid 48-string zither and working in the realms of left-field ambient music, off kilter folk and improvised acoustic minimalism.

The starting point of ‘Sun Arcs’ saw Jason travel for a week alone to Andersabo, a cabin set in the idyllic Swedish woods just outside of Unnaryd, known also as the music project, festival and residency space which has been run by Dungan since 2016, hosting artists like Sofie Birch, Johan Carøe and Ellen Arkbro. Whilst writing 1-2 pieces per day, a conscious decision was made to leave behind everyday distractions and shut out the outside world to instead focus on the natural passage of time as Dungan recalls: “My only sense of time came from these daily walks out in the woods with my dog, and an awareness of the sun’s path as it moved across the sky each day.”

The album’s immersive world unfolds with the opener ‘Dallas’, an ode to his home state and a musical synthesis of these two disparate spaces (Texas and Denmark), the touchstones of Dungan’s life. A folk-esque single acoustic builds to a flowing arrangement of clarinets, organ and cello drones coupled with percussion. ‘Green-Yellow Field’ chimes in as the first of two solo oriented zither recordings twinned with the dreamlike title track ‘Sun Arcs’, both densely rich as cascading and overlapping harmonic tones resound. ‘Bloom’ emerges with a krautrock psyche before an eruption of cello drones, slide guitar and free-ranging zither playing, ushering in the anticipation of spring. With half of the recordings conceived in Andersabo, Jason returned to Copenhagen to form the album's centre piece ‘Rain Cycle’ which features a tempered Roland drum machine alongside shifting zither improvisations. ‘Writing’ explores the shimmering harp-like qualities of sweeping playing figurations with Dungan mapping out adjusted tuning “zones” on the zither for unconventional but creatively liberating effects. ‘Fur’ captures the feeling of openness and the momentum of time, seeing Dungan perform waves of solo clarinet, often in one takes and embellished with textural drones, a zither solo, and layers of guitar. ‘Wavelength’ the album's closer is fondly inspired by the film works of Michael Snow and Don Cherry’s seminal live album ‘Blue Lake’ (1974), as it builds out from a drone-generated zither chord and features an alto recorder solo. Dungan found a deep connection to Cherry’s stripped back performance ethos, focusing on the core beauty of minimal instrumentation creating a genre-less meeting between folk and jazz. A dialogue is formed between the solo and the bandlike performances, interlinked in a geographical duality with all finding a sense of commonplace as musical sketches of visited landscapes. The bountiful instrumentation ebbs and flows as further layers emerge with Dungan constructing his material much like an artist would, recording and reviewing, adding and subtracting.

Musically it portrays a form of double life led by an American-identifying person living in Scandinavia, and a new found presence in Denmark, seeking out underdeveloped marshlands and barren stretches of beach adrift from other rhythms and distractions. Highlighting their individual and potent importance Dungan concludes: “Both places feel like “me”, I think on some level the music is always some kind of self-portrait.” ‘Sun Arcs’ depicts the intricate balance of nature’s cycles and the paths outlined by the seasons, from a winter dormancy to a warm sun drenched scene. The album scales new glorying heights and further defines Dungan’s musical narrative, inhabiting a unique space in left-field, improvised and experimental music, borning his most accomplished compositions to date. A singular and visionary expression, drawing on an array of instruments and sound worlds with a renewed sense of joy and discovery.

The album's rich tapestry was mixed by Jeff Zeigler (Laraaji, Mary Lattimore, Kurt Vile /Steve Gunn) and mastered by Stephan Mathieu (Kali Malone, KMRU, Félicia Atkinson).

When Chet Baker lit up the West-Coast scene during the 1950s, he became a Jazz idol who
appealed to a younger generation and impressed even the most acerbic critics. He jammed
alongside Tenor Sax stars Vido Musso and Stan Getz, and joined Alto Sax legend Charlie
Parker on various West-Coast gigs. Hailed as the Prince of Cool, Chet caused a sensation
when his mellifluous Trumpet tones were first heard blending with Gerry Mulligan's deep
toned Baritone Saxophone in the famous Mulligan Quartet . It was in 1952 when they joined
forces on tunes like Walking Shoes and Line For Lyons. It wasn't long before they departed
ways with Chet establishing his own Quartet that launched a recording career blessed by
the plethora of performances gathered on this triple LP set. He plays his distinctive style of
trumpet along with presenting Chet the singer. Our collection opens with Let's Get Lost and
My Funny Valentine before advancing to include I Fall In Love Too Easy, The Thrill Is Gone,
That Old Feeling and Chetty's Lullaby. So, let's get lost in the eternally cool world of Chet
Baker.

ReRelease des 2022er Albums auf schwarzem Vinyl
CRO liebt das kreative Chaos und den Kosmos, der daraus entstehen kann. Wer einen Blick auf das Œuvre des 32-Jährigen in den letzten Wochen, Monaten und Jahren wirft, dem wird nicht entgehen, dass
die eine Berufsbezeichnung „Musiker“ für CRO längst zu kurz greift. Jeder „Rahmen“ – für CRO zu klein.

Gut, er war schon immer ein Künstler, dessen Werk einzig Resultat eines ausgeprägten und grenzenlosen Freiheitsdrangsist.

Zwei Alben in weniger als zwei Jahren. Schwindelerregender kreativer Output. Ausverkaufte Tour vor über 140.000 Zuschauer:innen. Design, Ausstellungen, NFTs. Unglaubliche Taktung.

Und trotz all des Tempos immer wieder ein großes Thema bei CRO: Zeit! Bewusst Sein. Auf „TRIP“ und dem jetzt anstehenden Nachfolger „11:11“. Zwei Alben. Zwei musikalische „Gedankengemälde“ quasi. Introspektion. Nachdenken. Fühlen. Die eigene Position ausloten. Im Chaos dieser Welt und im eigenen. Die eigenen Pole finden. Vergegenwärtigen. Sich justieren, den Boden spüren. Den Punkt, von dem aus immer wieder Neubeginn startet, definieren: 11:11 Die Ziffer „1“, als Symbol für Neubeginn. Als Ausgangspunkt für neue Kreisläufe und Beziehungen. Zu anderen, zu sich selbst, zum Ganzen. Antennen auf Empfang. Das Dauerrauschen ausblenden. Auch
zwischenmenschlich.

Klaus Mäkelä brings the Orchestre de Paris to Decca Classics for a major new album of Stravinsky’s most iconic ballet scores. The album represents Mäkelä’s first recording with his French orchestra, which will be followed by a further Ballet Russes release in 2024 featuring Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Debussy’s Jeux and L’Apres midi d’une faune. Klaus Mäkelä has electrified the musicians and audiences of the Orchestre de Paris since the start of his Music Directorship in September 2021. One of the major projects of his second season at the Philharmonie de Paris was a traversal of Stravinsky’s pivotal ballet scores The Firebird and The Rite of Spring that proved anything but routine. The performances captured live on Decca’s new release carry the combination of intensity, intelligence and authority on which the young conductor is building his extraordinary career.

From Alehouse to Playhouse Bjarte Eike and his barnstorming Barokksolistene capture the vital spark of Restoration London’s entertainment scene with a captivating new recording for Rubicon Classics! The Playhouse Sessions will be released on 23 September 2022 to coincide with Barokksolistene’s concert double-bill at London’s Southbank Centre.

‘A smattering of Purcell, dances from Playford’s Dancing Master, shanties, reels and ballads succumb to a nine-piece ensemble drawing on Baroque, jazz and folk styles for a no holds barred hooley of riotous improvisatory give and take,’ (BBC Music Magazine review of The Alehouse Sessions, August 2019)

London’s musicians, pushed in the 1650s, to the margins of society by order of Oliver Cromwell, found room for new forms of entertainment in city-centre taverns and alehouses. They remained there long after the restoration of the monarchy, performing sets of dances, theatre songs and bawdy ballads to audiences glad to be free from Puritan constraints on pleasure.

Norwegian violinist Bjarte Eike and his Barokksolistene have restored the spirit and substance of those long-forgotten performances with their Alehouse Sessions, hailed by The Times as ‘irresistible’ and ‘fabulously unrestrained’ by The Guardian. Five years ago the Norwegian violinist and his band scored a best-selling album with The Alehouse Sessions on Rubicon Classics. They return to the label with another compelling collection of music and words of the kind on offer more than three centuries ago at Henry Purcell’s favourite Westminster watering holes. The Playhouse Sessions, set for release on Rubicon Classics on 23 September 2022, reflects the uplifting energy and engaging emotional contrasts of Barokksolistene’s Alehouse performances.

“The album contains a sort of inner narrative that runs through the recording,” says Bjarte Eike. “It has become like a play in its own right, with each track being a small tale within a larger story.” The recording’s tracklist includes Eike’s beguiling arrangements of music from Purcell’s semi-opera The Fairy Queen and his own original compositions on words from the play on which it is based, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; popular songs and ballads such as ‘The Irish Washerwoman’, ‘I often for my Jenny strove’ and ‘The Three Ravens’; tunes from Purcell’s welcome odes and stage shows, Come ye sons of art and Dido and Aeneas among them; the ‘Willow Song’ from Shakespeare’s Othello; Eike’s own voice in Puck’s monologue from Act 5 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and John Dowland’s sublime air ‘Can she excuse my wrongs’.

London’s theatres were closed at the start of the English Civil War in 1642 and remained shut until the Restoration. Alehouses offered redundant musicians, actors and dancers a place to scrape a precarious living and soon became their creative refuge. “Although a few surviving theatres reopened in 1660 with the return of Charles II, there was little money around to rebuild those that had been demolished,” observes Bjarte Eike. “And a generation of musicians had already found an audience in places like the Black Horse in Aldersgate Street. So popular were their alehouse sessions that Cromwell tried to abolish them! But they outlived him and became part of Restoration musical life.” The form of a Barokksolistene Alehouse, he adds, is like a creative room. “Within its framework I can frequently refurbish the show with new contents. The Playhouse project is likewise an extension of the ever-evolving Alehouse Sessions. Together they tell the story of music and theatre in London during Cromwell’s time and after the Restoration. Of course there’s an historical context to what we do. But there’s also the practical context – which is even more important to me – of connecting with a contemporary twenty-first century audience. An Alehouse / Playhouse performance is not something for the museum; it's about music made in the present moment, just as it was in the London alehouses of Purcell’s day -- with their playhouses annexed to the rear of the beer-drinking saloons. The encounter of musicians onstage and the audience in the hall is the real magic of it. We have to fuse the audience into the action of our performance!”

The Playhouse Sessions will be launched on Friday 23 September with a late-night concert at the Purcell Room and a post-concert Alehouse Session in the foyer of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Soprano Mary Bevan is set to join Eike and his Alehouse Boys for the first half of their Southbank Centre double-bill, offering unique interpretations of songs from Purcell shows and other hits from the late seventeenth-century London stage. “The Southbank Centre is a direct descendant of concerts given in the 1650s in the alehouses of London,” notes Eike. “These alehouses after all staged some of the world’s first public concerts. Later, after the Restoration, it became common for promoters to advertise alehouse concerts in the press and offer subscription tickets. Purcell and his fellow musicians were thus just as at home performing there as they were in the chambers of the royal court or in London’s new theatres.”

Bjarte Eike launched his Alehouse Sessions in company with like-minded musicians 15 years ago. The ensemble comprises a core of regular performers, all of whom have committed to memory a huge setlist of up to four hours of music. Typically they meet a day or so before a concert tour to share a meal and make music together; then next day, re-grouping thirty minutes before the show, they discover Eike’s select-menu for the evening. “That ensures that every show is fresh,” he notes. “I make sure we never repeat the same programme twice. It’s therefore essential to work with people who share my outlook and dare to adventure. We’re into a high-risk sport, with lots of traps and places where the unexpected appears - for good or for ill. And so the audience knows we’re vulnerable. But our skill is seen in how we re-act on the hoof to the unpredictable. That’s authenticity and honesty - and above all it’s a performance that’s genuine.”

Armed with a classical training and a background in folk music and improvisation, Bjarte Eike was drawn naturally to Early Music in all its stylistic variety. “I never really felt at home with only one genre,” he recalls. “Early Music allowed me to study profound, complicated compositions, but performing it has also opened up the chance of rebellion and uproar! Early music offers wide, multi-faceted areas of musical exploration for me. You find, for instance, links to different types of music wherever you look in seventeenth-century English repertoire. And I am fascinated by all these connections. They offer a foundation for the Alehouse Sessions and for all Barokksolistene performance more generally. Every member of the group plays, sings, dances and improvises without limitation. We’re all interested in the many different fields of being a stage performer and pushing hard at the ‘normal’ boundaries of what it means to be a classical musician.”

”FUNKY NOTHINGNES” von ”Frank Zappa”, besteht aus Studioaufnahmen von 1970 und ist im Grunde die Fortsetzung von ”THE HOT RATS SESSIONS”. Die Musik konzentriert sich stark auf instrumentales und bluesorientiertes Material und besteht fast ausnahmslos aus im Laufe der Zeit angesammelten bisher unveröffentlichten Songs. Verfügbar ab dem 30.06.2023 als 3CD-Album Set oder 2LP.

Delroy George Wilson (5 October 1948 – 6 March 1995) was a Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae singer. Wilson is often regarded as Jamaica's first child star, having first found success as a teenager. His youngest son, Karl "Konan" Wilson, has found success as part of British duo Krept and Konan. His voice matured as he left his teens, around the time of ska's transition to rocksteady and this period in the late 1960s produced many hits including one of the first rocksteady records, "Dancing Mood", "Jerk in Time" (with the Wailers), "Feel Good All Over", "I'm Not a King", "True Believer in Love", "Rain From the Skies", "Conquer Me" and "Riding for a Fall". "Won't You Come Home", a duet with Ken Boothe on a rhythm originally cut by The Conquerors for Sonia Pottinger has become one of the most-versioned Jamaican tracks ever. After leaving Studio One he recorded for other labels, with varying degrees of success, and set up his own short-lived W&C label. He enjoyed success with Bunny Lee in the late 1960s and early 1970s with tracks such as "This Old Heart of Mine", "Footsteps of Another Man", and "Better Must Come". His double A-side "It Hurts"/"Put Yourself in My Place" was a skinhead favourite and narrowly missed UK chart success. He recorded a version of "Run Run", a song he had originally recorded for Dodd, for maverick producer Keith Hudson. Wilson toured the UK and recorded for Trojan Records in 1970.

Léman Records proudly presents the swiss producer Mystic V on this new swiss imprint project curated by himslef, Leo Luscher and Wolff. Blessing us with a perfect summer 4 track EP titled "Ever Since That Day I Met You".

Delivering his signature sound between mellow grooves and deeper sounds, a good way to start your holiday season

Berlin-based artist Werner Soyeaux under his stage name Black Davil is a core part of the Berlin collective Ick Mach Welle. Schnall Schnall is his debut solo artist EP on Killekill, with own productions accompanied by collaborations with Bettina and DJ Normal 4, alongside remixes by Rhyw and Gesloten Cirkel.

The EP opens with the dark intro Alptraum, which Gesloten Cirkel transforms into an ill-tempered acid-electro monster. The title track Schnall Schnall provides a stark contrast to these, with bright overtones existing alongside deeply rooted sonic bedrock.

Rhyw adds a level of abstraction and futurism with his remix of this track, whilst retaining the dub-influenced vibe of the original.

Following on from this Geldschere is collaboration with Dusseldorf artist DJ Normal 4, with Black Davil contributing his own lyrics and voice, to create a track that could be fittingly described as "Acid Punk Rock"!

The final track on the release is a cheeky ode to the Ick Mach Welle family. Here the Davil's passion for Hardtekk, Gabber and similar rough styles of music become clear.

OVERVIEW:
Lip Filler is a project we’ve become so involved in that it’s basically completely taken over our lives. We’ve put every part of ourselves into the music that we write. It’s a projection of our living situation, how we’ve all changed as people over the past few years, and a reflection on the human aspect of us growing up in our flat together. What started out as a bunch of housemates pissing about in their living room getting noise complaints, has turned into something we are all so invested in and excited for.

When Belgian Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone in the mid-19th century, he could not have imagined what he had set in motion with his invention. Neither in classical music nor in military music did his new woodwind instrument find much appreciation. It was only long after his death that it became the most important instrument in jazz music via swinging big bands. It would probably have amazed Mr. Sax if he had been able to witness a young trio from Germany playing loudly against climate change and the lack of political consequences with two noisy saxophones and a drum set on a stage in front of the Reichstag in Berlin in front of more than 50,000 people jumping up and down during the climate strike in September 2021: BRASS RIOT.

The trio around Constantin von Estorff (Sax), Simon Sasse (Drums) and Carl Weiß (Sax) have been a band since their school days in Lüneburg. What started there as street music became a permanent and sought-after formation through the proximity to political initiatives, above all the Fridays-For-Future movement, and appearances at countless demonstrations. The band's name is slightly misleading, as "brass" in music refers to brass instruments such as the trumpet or tuba, even though most brass bands always include a saxophone. Moreover, the word "brass" means something in the German language, which in turn fits perfectly with this young, energetic trio: Fury.

On the heels of their debut album "Matschsafari" (2018), their second studio album "The Never Acting Story" is now released on Fun In The Church. The album title, in critical allusion to the world-famous fantasy book by Michael Ende, sums up well what the music of BRASS RIOT is about at its core: the possibility to get a noisy outlet for all the fury about the failed politics of the last decades and the frustrations and fears that go with it, and to free oneself from it for a moment. That this path has produced the wildest live music on this crisis-ridden planet is an irony of history - and certainly not the first time it has happened. It's no different in the jazz of Charlie Parker than in the songs of Patti Smith, the raps of Little Simz or the Afro-beat of Fela Kuti.

Musically, BRASS RIOT move more in the area of the melodic ska-pop of Madness, the fake jazz of the Lounge Lizards and contemporary rave brass ensembles like MEUTE between house music and electro beats. The fact that they have managed to politicize their sound so strongly over the years, despite all the party that goes with it, and without any song lyrics at all, is truly phenomenal.

Jabee's Am I Good Enough is the prolific OKC hip-hop artist’s most ambitious project to date. Several years in the making, Am I Good Enough compiles four EPs of brand-new music (22 tracks total), each recorded entirely with a different producer. The resulting four EPs each could stand alone as powerful individual works, but combine to make one of the most remarkable and compelling artistic statements of Jabee’s career. Am: produced by Derek Minor I: produced by Blu Good: produced by Conductor Williams Enough: produced by Havoc (of Mobb Deep). Am I Good Enough is available on 2xLP, housed in a gatefold jacket with inner sleeves showcasing each of the four EP’s individual covers.

Two of the Bronx’s most skillful emcees have paired up for one of the most promising collaborative albums of 2023. Appropriately titled, Gunz X Bars, the boogie down’s own Cory Gunz and David Bars have joined forces with Respect the Vision (RTV) under the watch of DITC Studios, the label and recording studio akin to one of hip-hop’s most revered crews, comprised of Lord Finesse, Diamond D, Big L, O.C. Fat Joe, Buckwild, Showbiz and A.G. And as you’d expect, the result is top tier lyricism over a soundscape that epitomizes the essence of New York hip-hop. For the past two plus decades, Cory Gunz has made his bones by proving his lyrical prowess time and time again. Son of rapper Peter Gunz (of the famed duo, Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz), it didn’t take long for his talents to be recognized by Lil Wayne, where he appears on his single, “6 Foot 7 Foot” off Tha Carter IV. Gunz also starred in his own befittingly-titled reality show, Son of a Gun (MTV) which documented his journey to fulfill his career in music. David Bars’ trajectory also started at a young age, where he made his name at high school talent shows and industry showcases throughout the city. Releasing his debut project Barcode in 2019, the quick-witted spitter found himself rapping alongside the legendary Fat Joe who appears on the single, “A Star is Born.” However the co-signs weren’t limited by Joey Crack, as the inimitable DJ Premier lent his boom-bap magic to the album cuts, “Beat the Odds” and “Just Like That.” Throughout the project’s eight tracks, Gunz and Bars prove themselves to be both lyrically and sonically compatible. Gunz’ staccato-type flow melds seamlessly with Bars’ smooth delivery. To boot, the production value throughout plays to the strengths of both emcees, with beats provided by So Special, Track Pros, Kofi Cooks and more. It’s no surprise that two of the BX’s most raw and uncut talents would eventually unite, and what better way to join forces than under the auspice of DITC Studios.

Debut Album Nottingham post-punks Do Nothing blend jerky, spidery rhythms with surreal, half-spoken vocals that recall the Fall 's Mark E. Smith . Do Nothing was formed in 2017 by four long-time school friends: frontman Chris Bailey, guitarist Kasper Sandstrøm, drummer Andy Harrison, and bassist Charlie Howarth. All had played in various acts around the city; the band got their start at the popular Maze Club. Bailey, whose father was a singer in an a cappella folk group, grew up listening to the sounds of Simon & Garfunkel , and his own biggest influence was Tom Waits . Initially attempting to copy big names like LCD Soundsystem (as heard on their first 7" single, "Gangs," released in 2019), they eventually became more confident about doing their own thing, and Bailey gave his stream-of-consciousness lyrics and outsider stage persona free rein. Associated with, but wary of, the then-popular post-punk revival, they made clear it was their intention to follow their own path. Their debut EP, Zero Dollar Bill, was released in 2020; another, Glueland, arrived the following year, with an album in the works.

New York City's loudest band A Place to Bury Strangers have had their intense live performance captured and immortalized directly to 12” wax. The post-punk legends are the 9th & latest entry in the Live at Levitation archival vinyl series. “Levitation 2021 was our second show as a new band and I felt so psyched to bring the new band members to such an epic festival. It was like a homecoming for me. Bob Mustachio was doing lights and playing with Ringo Deathstarr, Kikagaku Moyo & the Black Angels all on the same bill had me so rev’d up and excited. I knew it had to be an epic show. I remember right when we started I was flailing around so much like a freak on speed that I almost flung my guitar off the stage. By the time we got out into the crowd I thought I was gonna pass out. I remember we rented this PA speaker from Rock N Roll Rentals and for some reason they trusted us with this top of the line like $5000 12” monitor that we rolled around in the crowd while I was screaming at the top of my lungs. I love Levitation and Austin Psych Fest. They are always a UFO of a good time.” - Oliver Ackermann (APTBS)

Juli Giuliani is a prolific artist, since 2009 he started at a very young age in the hip-hop scene and since then he has been releasing music non stop. In 2017 he begins a new stage under the name of Juli Giuliani, delivering collaborations with artists such as Toteking, Dano, Jonas Sanche or Big Menu, performances at Sónar, and a tour of Latin America, where he consolidates the respect of the scene at the Ibero-American level. Giuliani is a different artist due to his versatility, warmth and closeness to the listener. His new ways of making rap, maintains the essence that so many yearn for without disconnecting from actuality and building a unique discourse and identity. This profile makes his musical proposal one of the most solid, ambitious and mature on the scene, ready to fill the new spaces that are opening up on the scene. His next LP, in collaboration with Mabreezee and Karmasound, will be released at the beginning of 2023 via Costa Futuro.

Mike Viola is a producer, musician, songwriter and singer. Viola may be best known for his work with Panic! at the Disco, Andrew Bird, Ryan Adams, Jenny Lewis and Mandy Moore, but his solo career stands on its own starting with a number of acclaimed records as the leader of New York based cult favourite Candy Butchers and 7 critically adored Mike Viola records. His original music has been featured on soundtracks for movies such as That Thing You Do!, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Get Him to the Greek. Decades into his career his music continues to resonate with and inspire new generations of musicians and music lovers. Viola is cranking out more music than ever including the fan favorites; “The American Egypt” from 2019 and “Godmuffin” from 2021. Paul McCarthy was recorded over the summer of 2022 on 1/2” tape at “Barebones”, Viola’s home studio in Los Angeles. Joined by his friends Jake Sinclair on bass and Brendon Urie on drums. Viola says, “I set out to make a sonic monster using the legs of James Gang Rides Again, the heart of Black Sabbath Paranoid, with my kid brain inside my greying middle aged head on top. I’ve hit a point in my life where instinct has taken the reins fully, logic now waits in the wings to sweep up the stage and pay the taxi fare home. This album is the result of committing to this path fully and laughing all the way.” Viola will support the album release with his first tour in over a decade with dates in Europe and the US in Winter/Spring 2023, and more dates to follow later in 2023.

Fourth release featuring Scott McCaughey (The Minus 5/Young Fresh Fellows), Steve Wynn (The Dream Syndicate), Peter Buck and Mike Mills (R.E.M.) and Linda Pitmon (Filthy Friends) Produced by Mitch Easter (R.E.M., Let’s Active) Featuring the singles “Journeyman” and the title track Available on CD, Digital, and as a double LP (with etched 4th side) On tour starting in August! In 2008 they busted out of the box and easily reached first with their Frozen Ropes And Dying Quails. The Baseball Project was on base and immediately posed a threat to go further. In 2011, they moved on to second with some wildness aptly called High And Inside. They were halfway home. Three years later in 2014, the quintet of Big Stars moved on down the line to the aptly titled 3rd, an epic double dip delight of craftsmanship and savvy. And there they stayed. For 9 long years at the hot corner, but we’re happy to say that The Baseball Project is finally coming home, scoring big and touching ‘em all with their fourth album Grand Salami Time!

Following hot in the footsteps of his debut HF release ‘Cocoa Butter’, ‘Off The Grid’ sees Renelle 893 team up with producer Bay29 on a body of work that offers an escape route from the monotonous every day; the duo taking us further and further off the beaten track, marrying moments of purest hedonism with stark reminders that the real world lies in wait, just after sunrise, with no pause button in sight.

Laying the foundations with summer anthem (and lead single) ’Spaghetti’, Renelle wrestles with the fleeting nature of youth, and his topsy turvy relationship with the finer things in life. The dynamic is both gritty and nostalgic as Renelle walks the fine line between Hollywood hedonism and slurry excess, his mood swinging between moments of invincibility and vulnerability, expertly scored by Bay29’s ethereal, bass dripping instrumentals.

Another SE London / Brighton hook up, one of many on the label in recent years, Renelle utilised his late night train rides to-and-from Bay29’s Brighton studio as an opportunity to refine the verses that make up the bones of the project.

Twelve-tracks; six vocal, six instrumental, ‘Off The Grid’ is the first in a series of new works from Renelle 893 & Bay29. A perfect scene-setter for what’s to come.

As Renelle 893 explains… “Off The Grid is about soul searching and figuring out what kind of adult I am looking to be, navigating a world filled with distractions that will do everything to numb the pain as life inevitably passes you by…”

The adequately titled ‘The Album To End All Alien Abductions’ sees UK stalwart
King Kashmere and producer/rapper extraordinaire Alecs DeLarge unite for a 24-
track ride through an epic space age boom bap odyssey.
“F**k with your boy Judas Ascariot, who came back swinging - whipping the
super chariot” declares a triumphant King Kashmere on the album opener ‘Angel
Strike’, proving he hasn’t lost a step since his last full length rap project,
#LP4080 dropped back in 2017.
Thematically Kash’s lyrics are routed in sci-fi and Jack Kirby era comic lore,
but on cuts such as ‘Old Earth’ (an ode to his Mother and coming of age on a
North London council estate and ‘House of Cards’ (an exploration of mental
health) the Iguana Man shows a rare glimpse into the man behind the freshly
pressed super suit.
Several cuts also see Alecs stepping from behind the boards to join Kashmere
on mic duties, a pairing best displayed on the dusty bubbler ‘Most Blunted’ in
which the duo trade verses in a puff puff pass of lyrical spliff boxing.

[a] 01 - Worldwide [Intro]







[i] 09 - Inside [Skit]

[k] 11 - £££ For Beats! [Skit]

[m] 13 - Blue [Instrumental]

[o] 15 - Hollywood Feat. Fliptrix [Skit]


[r] 18 - Virus World [Instrumental]





[x] 23 - Deepspace Slime [Outro]
[y] 24 - Old Earth [Remix]

In March 2022, EMPIRE assembled some of Africa's finest singers and songwriters, the musical equivalent of Ocean's Eleven, at a writing camp in San Francisco. The result is Where We Come From, Vol. 1, a 15-track compilation featuring Afrobeats royalty Wande Coal, Tiwa Savage and Olamide as well as Tanzanian duo Navy Kenzo, Cape Verde's June Freedom and a host of other stars across Nigeria and Ghana - KiDi, Fireboy DML, Kizz Daniel, Tolani and more. The sounds traverse East, West and South of the continent, incorporating drill, amapiano, trap and Afrobeats in fashioning an album that at once sandwiches luxury between lust and love while also being a flagpost to hedonism. The cover art, created by Nigerian artist Dricky Stickman, incorporates all 15 songs into the final product, illustrating unity, community and culture. “This project ‘Where We Come From, Vol. 1’ is a perfect example of music having no limitations,” Kareem Mobalaji, Regional Head West Africa said. “Yes we are from Africa, but we are truly determined to reach the entire world with our voice, which is music.”

If you are a death metal fan, GRACELESS shouldn’t need an introduction. Three full lengths and two split EPs have granted the Dutch ensemble a respectable reputation across the globe. Closer to home, the four piece has played countless live shows since their 2016 inception. The rock solid line up -unchanged since day one- has delivered ferocious, high energy live performances at Eindhoven Metal Meeting, Into the Grave, Party San Metal Open Air, Ruhrpott Metal Meeting, Stonehenge, SDF2021 and many more festivals and clubs. Joining forces with LISTENABLE RECORDS in 2023 is the next thundering milestone for GRACELESS. Tirelessly working on their fourth full-length, the next chapter for GRACELESS will be another step deeper into the abyss that started with Shadowlands (2018), via Where Vultures Know Your Name (2020), to Chants from Purgatory (2022). For fans of DEATH, ASPHYX, GORGUTS, BOLT THROWER, AMON AMARTH, BLOODBATH.

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**NEW 2018 ALBUM FROM KIKAGAKU MOYO**The shifting dimensions of Masana Temples, fourth album from psychedelic explorers Kikagaku Moyo,are informed by various experiences the band had with traveling through life together, ranging from the months spent on tour to making a pilgrimage to Lisbon to record the album with jazz musician Bruno Pernadas. The band sought out Pernadas both out of admiration for his music and in an intentional move to work with a producer who came from a wildly different background.

With Masana Temples, the band wanted to challenge their own concepts of what psychedelic music could be. Elements of both the attentive folk and wild-¬-eyed rocking sides of the band are still intact throughout, but they're sharper and more defined.
Kikagaku Moyo started in the summer of 2012 busking on the streets of Tokyo. Though the band started as a free music collective, it quickly evolved into a tight group of multi-¬-instrumentalists. Kikagaku Moyo call their sound psychedelic because it encompasses a broad spectrum of influence. Their music incorporates elements of classical Indian music, Krautrock, Traditional Folk, and 70s Rock. Most importantly their music is about freedom of the mind and body and building a bridge between the supernatural and the present. Improvisation is a key element to their sound.



More than the literal interpretation of being on a journey, the album's always changing sonic panorama reflects the spiritual connection of the band moving through this all together. Life for a traveling band is a series of constant metamorphoses, with languages, cultures, climates and vibes changing with each new town. The only constant for Kikagaku Moyo throughout their travels were the five band members always together moving through it all, but each of them taking everything in from very different perspectives. Inspecting the harmonies and disparities between these perspectives, the group reflects the emotional impact of their nomadic paths. The music is the product of time spent in motion and all of the bending mindsets that come with it.

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Montreal’s eclectic producer CFCF (aka Mike Silver) follows 2019’s effusive corporate jungle opus Liquid Colours with a kaleidoscopic capital-E Electronica album that takes a range of styles from his earliest formative listening years (1997-2000) and throws them in a blender. Elements of jungle, house, UK garage, trance, pop and post-grunge are blended to form a glossy picture of restless youth in an
identity crisis: memoryland.

Inspired as much by Sonic Youth and Smashing Pumpkins as the Chemical Brothers and Basement Jaxx; as much by films like Millennium Mambo, Demonlover, Morvern Callar, Safe and Perfect Blue as late 90’s Prada — CFCF jumps across genres as a means of portraying a breadth of overlapping milieus and identities in this hyperactive Y2K period-piece that both explores and criticizes our own nostalgic impulses. From the opening intro’s announcement of arrival to the final credits, it’s an album as film as RPG, with the listener as its protagonist.

Opener “welcome.WAV” functions as a start-up sound file for the journey ahead: from “Life is Perfecto”, a propulsive breakbeat-dreampop hybrid, to a grotesquely-remixed ultra-French-house version of previously released single “Self Service”, and the recursive, metaphysical garage of “After the After”. Two guest vocalists lend their talents: Montreal neo-shoegaze icons No Joy, fresh off their own genre-defying Y2K exploration Motherhood, laconically lists off advice for aspiring fashion ingenues with bite in the alt-rock-IDM “Model Castings”, while Kero Kero Bonito’s Sarah Bonito sweetly delivers the penultimate “Heaven”, grunge-pop paean to the myth of Icarus.

In CFCF’s words:
“I was feeling fatigued by an overabundance of ‘calming’, productivity-oriented music, and wanted to explore something angsty, messy, and dark, while also applying a pop sheen. I see a loose narrative across the album: your early 20’s, a new city, new people, new temptations and new traps. Losing your sense of self to the whims of your surroundings and trends in music and fashion; the wrong people, and trying to dig yourself out of that hole. There’s a hope of moving forward that glimmers in the last quarter of the album, but it’s out of reach and seems to come at a price. And then the looking back on it later with perspective; or the looking forward to it before with anticipation. As a kid I couldn’t wait to be in my 20’s; in my 30’s it’s bittersweet to look back. That’s the core of memoryland: the gulf between the fantasy, the reality, and the memory, and how we live inside each of those at different points.”

Three years after his last album ‘I Need Space’, Mounika. is back on his favorite playground: electronic music, which arouses his curiosity since his beginnings. He is now ready to unveil ‘Don't Look At Me’, a new opus that takes us, by other paths, to his unique universe. Recorded during the confinement in the intimacy of his home studio, the French artist reveals little by little another facet of his artistic personality, more raw and affirmed, without totally abandoning the cottony sounds already proposed on titles like ‘Cut My Hair’ (diamond single) or ‘Tender Love’ (gold single). We discover sensitive compositions, still inspired by his love for trip-hop, piano and artists who made his musical culture during his youth: Moby, Ratatat, Air or Bonobo. After all, a Mounika. album without a tribute to these figures is not really an album...

But something new was needed to distinguish this opus from the previous ones. From the very first tracks, we can clearly feel this need for exploration that has always guided the French producer. ‘BonXair’ or ‘Nomadics’ take us, for example, in a more straight electronic, more heady than usual. In the same spirit, the rhythms close to the deep house of a track like ‘See You Dancing In The Dark’ offer to the album a new direction, and yet is quite representative of the work undertaken by Mounika. these last years.

In this new record that will also satisfy the fans of the first hour (a sample loop well felt, as on ‘Little Love’ or ‘I Looked Into Her Eyes’, always makes its effect), the French artist has also opened to collaborations of choice. Mounika. works on the heart, and thus wished to welcome those who have particularly marked him during his more or less recent discoveries. The American artist Roland Faunte lends his voice to the effective ‘Little Love’, while Ural Thomas & The Pain (discovered notably on the series ‘It's Bruno’) takes care of the chorus of ‘I Looked Into Her Eyes’. The British rapper Lord Apex delivers a spellbinding performance on ‘Memories’.

Finally, if you listen carefully, you can even hear Mounika. singing on some tracks... like ‘20’ or ‘Don't Smoke’. Put together, these appearances perfectly complement the energy transcribed by Mounika. throughout ‘Don't Look At Me’.

And what could be better than an amazing graphic universe to open the doors of this album like no other? Meet Carl & TJ, two cartoonish characters created in collaboration with Berlin-based artist Joe Taylor, who take care of guiding the listener through this new adventure. One is dreamy and contemplative, the other asks himself a lot of questions... and between them, they form a colorful duet illustrating with tenderness the universal emotions that punctuate this third opus, and that Mounika. will notably defend in the first part of Wax Tailor's French tour starting next April.

The successive pianos composing the productions of ‘When In My Heart In Your Heart’ then ‘Outro’ come, at the end of the record, to conclude the setting in orbit proposed by this ‘Don't Look At Me’. One more step in the sensory journey that Mounika. is committed, from the intimacy of her room to the international success, to build relentlessly.

In the quiet surrounding the pandemic, Madeline Kenney made sonic sketches in the basement studio she shared with her then-partner. She arranged phrases that called her—the sharp knife of a synth cutting a path along a blooming arpeggio, drums stuttering firm and tight. Working this way, she amassed a collection of songs she had no particular aims for. Some formed her 2021 EP Summer Quarter, others languished.

But in 2022, Kenney’s partner left suddenly and without warning, plunging her into the solitary act of untangling what happened. In the wake of her ensuing depression, she revisited these songs and found in them something prescient. She’d already laid the foundation for A New Reality Mind.

That her relationship’s end came without warning is only half true, though. The warnings were in the feelings and fears that inspired Kenney’s critically-acclaimed third album, Sucker’s Lunch (2020), which was co-produced by Jenn Wasner (Flock of Dimes) and centered around the idea of flinging oneself freely into the seemingly-assured destruction of new love, come what may.

If sonically Sucker’s Lunch was letting yourself be pulled into the warm bath of a good story, A New Reality Mind reflects the harsh light of truth coming to break the spell. But as sobering as morning light can be, there’s brilliance to it, too. To see in the clarity of day is a gift. A revolution. Rather than reckoning with love lost, the songs on A New Reality Mind grapple with the self that chose to fall. “I guess I only needed to look twice / Reflected in my attitude, my constant compromise,” Kenney sings on “Red Emotion,” the musical landscape screeching and gasping around her observations of how she made herself small to keep the dream of love alive.

These notions of sight and vision pervade the record as Kenney stands before the infinity mirror of selves she’s been to preserve bonds in her life. On “I Drew a Line,” Kenney contends with the stories she’s told herself to keep plodding along, and the way those stories shape her perceived reality. She invokes John Berger’s Ways of Seeing—“Everything around the image is part of its meaning,” we hear him say. “Everything around it confirms and consolidates its meaning.” Here, Kenney isn’t interested in shaming herself for being carried away by the fantasies of the heart, but rather in investigating the unavoidably human propensity to do so. “I, like everyone else, am muddling through my most ordinary disaster of a life,” she acknowledges, a sentiment which reverberates through album opener “Plain Boring Disaster.” “I don’t need to start again,” she sings at the song’s close. “But I can change when it ends.” We may all be doomed to repetitive, ordinary heartbreaks, Kenney realizes, but at least we can cultivate a capacity to witness our missteps and build new realities for ourselves.

This is Kenney’s most expansive work, while also her most solitary. Produced and recorded alone in her basement, these songs are manifestations of what it feels like to be transformed by pain. Textures collide and collude; sonic ornaments emerge and dissipate capriciously; saxophones soar untamed, as on the 80s pop elegy to self-sacrifice, “Reality Mind”. These songs beg you to dance, then pull the rug out from under you once you’ve caught the beat, leaving you dizzy like the whiplash of love’s end.

But in the propulsive power of A New Reality Mind, there’s also acceptance, self-forgiveness, and a willingness to move forward into life, with all its ways of making a sucker of you. “That way of living, I’m over it,” Kenney declares of the habits that hold her back on “Superficial Conversation”. “I do not need to be reminded of what I did,” she assures, the song opening wide and beaming, like a smile expanding to taste a new breath of air.